Episode 1626 - Jane Marie

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Look, you heard me say it before.

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Lock the gates!

All right, let's do this.

How are you, what the fuckers?

What the fuck, buddies?

What the fuck, Nicks?

What's happening?

I'm Mark Maron.

This is my podcast.

Welcome to it.

How's it going?

What's happening?

Are you all right?

I hope you're holding up.

I got nothing but worry, man.

I have nothing but worry in my head about all things.

And, you know, I'm very tired of this idea of Trump derangement syndrome.

Oh, you mean the normal rational reaction by caring people?

who are concerned about the future of democracy and the safety of themselves and and their loved ones and people that are at a profound disadvantage, that that concern and empathy and the panic ensuing from the situation is somehow mentally inappropriate.

Go fuck yourself if you think that.

Hold on to your brain.

It's not Trump derangement syndrome.

It's the normal reaction to the collapse of everything we know and understand.

And look, you know, you're up against people that really believe in this process.

But just know that your heart's in the right place.

Can you dig it?

Okay.

Durham, North Carolina.

I'll be at the Carolina Theater of Durham on Friday, March 21st.

Charlotte, North Carolina.

I'm at the Knight Theater on Saturday, March 22nd.

And I'll be in Charleston, South Carolina at the Charleston Music Hall on Sunday, March 23rd.

Then Skokie, Illinois, I'm coming to the North Shore Center for the Performing Arts on Friday, March 28th.

And Joliet, Illinois, I'm at the Rialto Square Theater on Saturday, March 29th.

Then I'm coming to Michigan, Toronto, Vermont, New Hampshire.

And tickets are now available for my special taping in Brooklyn, New York at the Bam Harvey Theater on May 10th.

Go to wtfpod.com/slash tour for all my dates and links to tickets.

Okay, do that.

Today I'm talking to Jane Marie.

Now,

I've known her for years.

She's a journalist and podcast creator.

She used used to work on This American Life, and then she launched her own podcast called The Dream.

The first season focused on pyramid schemes, and then she did seasons looking at the wellness industry and life coaches.

The Dream is now in its fourth season with new episodes weekly.

Ah, yes, the future of medicine.

The future of medicine, of

treatment, falls within the realms of the wellness industry.

Yoga teachers, life coaches, and guys with big ideas about what to eat.

That's the future of treatment.

Don't worry, you can beat a virus if you just kind of focus and breathe and come from your core.

Fight the virus from your core.

Yeah, do that in a downward dog.

Sure, man.

Just jack yourself up on vitamin A.

That'll knock out hundreds of years of scientific research into how to maintain health up against the environmental pollutants and the evolution of viral bodies.

Yeah, just

think your way out of it.

Take some vitamins, suckers.

Yeah, great, great

dealing with the shittiest Kennedy.

So yeah, I've been kind of obsessed with

this idea.

What do I fester about on a daily basis other than the future of the world?

But it's just sort of like this

notion

of comedians who fought for free speech and i'll say it again it it's always been free sometimes you get a little reaction but sometimes that's what you're looking for and if it's negative reaction that doesn't mean you can't say it

so after all this kind of you know kind of whining about censorship from the left quote unquote i mean what do we have you know you get these comics that compare themselves to lenny bruce that it's the same fight that lenny bruce was fighting and it really isn't you know he was definitely fighting for free speech, but a lot of the stuff that he would use in terms of, you know, stereotypes was to diminish the stereotypes.

That famous bit of him in front of an audience calling out all the different stereotypes of all the different people was not to marginalize them more, but to make people realize that there are, you know, names for all kinds of people and none of them have any meaning because we're all people.

It's sort of different than, you know, the idea of focusing focusing in on two or three stereotypes of marginal

or

minority groups just because you get a little kick at a say in it.

And it's just that I don't know how everything has been inverted, how

the idea of Lenny Bruce has been absorbed by exactly the people that he would have criticized, or the idea of comedy in terms of being aggressive, like Bill Hicks, has been appropriated by the people he would criticize, or people like Hunter S.

Thompson, or whatever.

The point is, the idea of speaking truth to power is exactly that.

You speak truth to power, even if there's a risk to it, in order to get that truth out there.

It seems we're entering a phase where

the sort of angle of free speech is to speak power to truth.

Because ideologically, so many of these people that are

yammering about free speech is their freedom to speak louder than those they are indicting with their free speech that they're insisting take a joke, even though the language marginalizes them even more.

And ideologically, there's a lot behind it in terms of wanting to quell their voices, to shut them up, to not give them a position.

The entire politics of this nation at this point in time through the attack on DEI is about diminishing the voices of those who may not have them in the public sphere.

So when you start calling them names because it feels good and that you feel free to do that in the particular room you're doing that in, all you're doing is insulating yourself in an ideology that is the current ideology of this country.

So in essence, you are speaking power to truth because you represent that ideology.

And there's really no courage in that, just divisiveness.

It's not inclusive because inclusiveness has been deemed bad by this administration and by the current political climate.

It's really about go fuck yourself, but wait, I'm just trying to shut the fuck up, take a joke.

It's something I fester about.

It's definitely something I fester about along with soy milk and

which boots I'm wearing or whether or not this belt is wrong.

Oh, there's always a lot going on in my mind.

And also, just why hasn't this person texted me back?

That's ongoing.

That is ongoing.

Hopefully that'll resolve itself soon without me spiraling into a panic about where that person is.

All right.

Well, that's where I'm at.

How you doing?

So look, Jane Marie.

Very interesting, interesting life, but also the work she's doing on The Dream is

great.

uh the dream podcast is now in its fourth season with new episodes weekly you can get it wherever you get podcasts and this is me uh talking to jay marie

you and i have hung out before at different times different points in your life yeah i know you kind of yeah i guess when i met you you were at this American Life.

Is that when it was?

Yeah.

And then I met you again when you had a studio.

Yep.

Here in like you were running a studio over there.

I have them here in Glendale.

I still have it.

Oh, you do?

At Water Glendale, yeah.

Yeah, in Atwater.

Yeah.

Yeah, I remember.

I still have that.

That's your place?

Yeah.

And do you produce shows out of there?

Yeah.

Lots of shows.

Really?

I've done

recently, I made Michelle Obama's book tour podcast.

won a bunch of awards for that.

I worked with the Royals.

We can get into that.

I did.

I'm I'm the only person.

There was like a recent article about them, and I was the only person that was like, they're fine.

Yeah.

Whatever.

Right.

And I, and it like went on the Daily Mail.

Yeah.

I was like, what's up with this lady?

Right.

Like, why did she not see all the problems?

And I was like, they're rich people who live in Montecito.

Like, what are you guys expecting?

Right.

They were perfectly nice.

She's very charming.

She's so gorgeous.

And you produced their show?

I produced, I was working there before they were figuring out what to do before they left Netflix.

He had so many good ideas.

You were working where?

At their house in Montecito.

Oh, so you went out there?

You were the one that they chose to sit there and shoot ideas at.

Well, they had another team, and then that team couldn't get anything done.

And then they were like, we need to bring in the big guns.

Yeah, and you were the big gun?

I was the big gun.

Yeah.

And you had a nice time out there in Montecito?

It was so sweet.

They're in love.

They're so hot for each other.

It's crazy.

Like, they, like, they're like, you know, when you see a couple next to each other and they're they're trying to be, like, composed?

Yeah.

Because there's a stranger in the room or whatever.

They're, like, slapping each other.

Stop it.

You know, like, oh, really?

Quit.

With the thing that you just did, don't touch my like that.

You know, it's a weird thing.

My, and I have no real sense of who they are other, you know, as people.

Mm-hmm.

But, uh, you know, and maybe it's just because I'm a man, but like from the beginning, I was like, that guy's in trouble.

From with her?

Yeah.

Oh, they're.

He's so, he is so into her.

Is he a sweet guy?

He's so sweet.

Oh, good.

He's so sweet.

He's flipping weird.

I mean, like, look.

Well, yeah, he's a, he's a prince.

Oh, I put my foot in my mouth once.

We were talking about some story ideas.

Yeah.

And

everything, every person that he wanted to talk to for this one show we were working, maybe going to work on.

Yeah.

Um,

they all had dead moms.

And I said, well, maybe it's because they all have dead moms.

And then i was like oops oh no i forgot you're also

someone with a dead mom he was totally gracious about it um

yeah he's very charming he's a complete weirdo who is you know who who is a prince and also who you know the monarchy believes that they were like anointed by god right so to grow up as a little

cute little boy with a dead mom

and then yeah be the most famous person or one of the three most famous people

yeah people are so fucking fascinated with them with the royals like it's like it was I was actually in England on you know after college or maybe after high school

for a month on some exchange program I was there for the Lady Die Charles wedding it was crazy

you're old the entire world

was crazy yeah I'm old I remember watching that wedding in a mall in Tokyo live on a bunch of people.

Why were you there?

How old were you?

Seven.

Okay.

What were you doing in Tokyo?

I think so.

At seven.

My dad's best friend lived there, and we went and visited the one time?

Or did you go there a lot?

I've been there a couple of times, but that was my first time.

So, and the Michelle Obama thing, what was that?

We went on a book tour and we recorded an episode in every city and put that out.

How'd that do?

It was wonderful.

Like great numbers.

We won a bunch of awards and stuff.

Oh, oh, but my most, okay, so I'm back doing The Dream again, which is like

a whole story.

Yeah.

That's my show.

But most recently before The Dream relaunched, we paired up with Bradley Cooper's production company, Leah Pictures.

And we had signed on to produce someone else's show and then they dropped out at the last minute.

But I was was like, we already signed the contract and I need money.

Yeah.

You know, so now I'm going to save this.

And I pulled this idea out of my ass and like they went for it.

Like he was like, yeah, that sounds great.

It is a non-narrated, fully like documentary style show where we feature one woman kind of audio diary style.

Okay.

Each episode.

So she kind of functions as the narrator?

That's it.

Yeah.

And it's like all kinds of weird ladies that I love.

And it's called Finally a Show About Women That Isn't Just a Thinly Veiled Aspirational Nightmare.

Yeah.

Oh, that's good.

It's a long title, but maybe you can make the, what do you call it, the letters just a.

I'm not worried about that.

I was just happy that they let us get away with it.

It's great.

And you recorded a bunch of those?

A bunch of those.

And they're out?

Yep.

Wow.

So you're a big mover and shaker in the podcast world.

I don't know how to do anything else, Mark.

That's not true.

I know how to do a lot of stuff.

But

this is what I feel.

Are you feeling

as far as podcasting goes i just i i i keep thinking like i feel like a um

harpsichord player

around the time pianos came out

i don't know

like

like i've spent 25 years honing the skill of

documentary yeah audio projects yeah and now everyone has these pianos and i'm like

so grateful anytime someone lets me still make my weird harpsichord music, you know?

Like, what do you mean piano?

Like,

you're still audio only, right?

Yeah.

So that's what we do too.

But Brendan and I.

I mean, I don't do like chat shows.

You know, like, I.

But also, we're not doing video.

I mean,

I think the bigger shift was to video.

Yeah.

That's the piano, not, not just the content, right?

Because there was a lot of podcasts around.

They came and went.

But now people putting together full television studios, that becomes, that's the thing.

And everyone can have one.

That's right.

Why did I learn the harpsichord?

This is like not an audience.

I don't know.

I think people, we've decided that people are kind of tiring of that and coming back to analog.

So I think we are OGs and also a little easier to deal with.

We are certainly OGs, yes.

But you started at where, like, how did you get here?

I mean, I listened to a good chunk of the dream, at least the first season, and the way you weave your life in and out of these stories about, you know, the first season was multi-level marketing, and then

we go into the supplement racket.

But through the course of these shows, you're able to kind of have an autobiographical personal engagement with the material and then also explore the material that is foundational to the world we live in now politically and in a corporate way.

And also what's interesting to me is I had read and talked to...

Kurt Anderson

about the book Fantasyland.

And the very nature of what you're exploring in the dream is literally foundational to the beginning of this country.

Right.

That the idea that a bunch of religious whack jobs came over here to escape tyranny and perhaps persecution and then just created this world of where they're tyrannizing and persecuting everyone?

Sure.

But also, but just the nature of preaching and snake oil is really the foundation of America.

It is.

And capitalism to some degree.

Well, it's like making a dollar at any cost.

I've interviewed.

for nothing.

I know.

I interviewed.

I remember in 2008, I did this piece with Adam Davidson for This American Life.

Yeah.

Right after the crash in 2008, we went down to Wall Street

and to this bar, Pound and Pence, I think was the name of it.

Yeah.

Anyway, like a douchey bar.

It's one of those bars where I walk in and I cannot tell the difference between any of the men there.

I was living in New York.

Yeah, I was living in New York at the time.

And I got into a screaming match with these guys who were bankers who'd just gotten bailed out and were like,

you're stupid if this whole thing like ruined your life in any way.

Like I figured out.

Mentally.

Just

like for dumb.

It's like the idea of Trump derangement syndrome.

If you're not trying to be a billionaire, you must be an idiot.

Right.

And the reason I still have a job, even though really the truth was they got bailed out.

Yeah.

But they say, they said to me, the reason I still have a job is because I'm smarter than you.

Like I learned the system.

I learned how to gain the system.

Well, that's the system.

It's all about, you know, winning means likes and money.

Yep.

Yeah.

And Ira Glass, my old boss, said to me, there was a story about our show in the

New York Times last year.

And he was like, I forget the exact quote, but it was something like, Jane has this real like.

axe to grind or something.

Like she feels like life is very unfair and that this country is very, like things are unfair.

Yeah.

But she's funny about it.

That's That's her saving grace.

She has a sense of humor about the answer.

He said that it was like he just feels, or she feels like the world's unjust.

And I was like, well, no shit.

But the argument.

Am I being manic right now?

Like, I feel like I'm all over the place.

That's okay.

Because I haven't seen you in so long.

And I'm just, we're like being those old friends.

Yeah, no, that's what we do here.

What about this?

What about this?

What about this?

Yeah.

Okay.

How's your kid?

Perfect.

Good.

I mean, literally.

And maybe I should write a book about how to make a perfect child because my child is perfect.

And you're okay with Julian?

No.

Okay.

He left.

I never want to shit talk

my daughter's father

because,

and I learned this when I was becoming a foster mom.

I have an adult foster daughter.

You do?

Yeah.

Yeah.

But when I was in training to do all of that in classes and stuff, like there's very little

a father especially can do to

make their child not want a connection.

Yeah.

You know, very little.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Like they can do the worst stuff you can imagine.

They're still it.

And the kid will still love it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Their father.

And I know that.

Yeah.

And I know, yeah, that, that, that, fostering a relationship between them is way healthier for her than me coming on some podcast and like trashing it.

Not some podcast.

Your podcast.

Yeah.

Hopefully I'm raising a kid who's smart enough to figure everyone out.

Yeah.

And also like.

And it's not my job to step in the middle of that, especially with someone who is her other closest relative.

Like this is half of her is this person.

And I want her to love him and know him.

And I want him to love her because that's very important for her health.

And the whole thing's kind of a kind of a crapshoot in terms of like, you know, once you, I guess, I don't have kids because I just didn't.

Because you're not stupid.

Yeah, kind of.

I mean, seriously, I don't recommend it.

Yeah, but they are their own people and they will work stuff out.

And I guess the trick is to make that struggle as easy as possible with the power that you can.

And also don't protect them from the harsh parts.

Like

self-confidence is built by like overcoming shittiness.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know?

So I can't.

That never worked for me.

Do you want me to try right now?

The overcoming shittiness, giving me confidence, never worked for me.

It just made me realize.

We could start today.

Made me realize that there's more shittiness coming.

But you can stand up to it enough to have a home yes i don't know how that all happened but i'm saying

you have a shelter you have jobs yes yes you have some yeah pets well how did you grow up whoa uh okay how did i grow up where do you want to start well i mean i listened to like the incentive or the

inspiration for doing this show this series um the dream was personal yeah But how did that happen?

So

my folks met when they were, my mom was in eighth grade and my dad was in ninth grade.

And she got elected to student council.

And moving into high school, she had to go over there and take a class from the student council in ninth grade.

And my mom was like a boobless dork, like really short hair, buck teeth, flat chested.

And this is where.

Nerd.

Michigan.

Yeah, in the middle of nowhere, like outside of Flint, Michigan in a rural area.

Small, small town.

And my.

dad was also on student council,

also a dork, but also like

became like the superlative king in senior year you know like smartest hottest yeah greatest athlete all of this stuff my mom blossomed also later but she wrote in her diary in eighth grade i'm gonna marry jeff

you know and they got married when she was 17.

okay and moved to ann arbor michigan where my dad played football for bow shembuckler

and then i was born a couple years later and he was like

this is the lore who knows if our parents are ever telling us?

You know what I mean?

No, you got to wait till they get dementia to fish out the truth.

Seriously.

It's coming soon.

Well, no, it's not actually because they're like not that old.

I'm doing a whole bit about that.

Are you?

The poetry of kind of trying to excavate, you know, what really happened.

Yeah, things are going awry lately with both my parents.

We're like, they've rewritten everything at the

same time.

So I think we're going to swing back.

Well, so the lore is that my mom got pregnant and she was working at a pizza place and my dad was playing football and just like going to school.

And then he

decided that if he was going to have a kid, he didn't want to go into the NFL and like have his knees broken and not be able to take care of me.

So then he went to his counselor and took a test.

Yeah.

And it said, bleep, bleep, blorp, you should be a dentist.

A dentist.

And then he became a dentist.

Wow.

But we lived in like subsidized housing and stuff that whole time.

So he was a rural dentist?

Yes.

He still is.

Yeah.

So

he was, I want to say like, I mean, they were children, but we lived in Ann Arbor until I was like seven or something.

And then we moved back to the country.

And he's got a practice there now.

He has a practice there now.

And he

doesn't really make money.

I mean, he makes money.

Why?

Because he's

a charitable guy.

He is.

Okay.

Yeah.

He does like the prison dentistry and he doesn't want people to be ripped off and he doesn't like yanking teeth but he also doesn't want to charge people for root canal you know like oh yeah he's a good guy he's a good guy yeah that's nice they're still together oh no

no no that's a whole other thing no no when i was so we lived there until i was 14 and then when around that time

um oh my god this is so no when i was 10 actually started uh my dad had like an emotional affair with my aunt with your aunt

your mom's sister stepsister stepsister

and then when he told my mom my mom was like oh oh that reminds me i was not a virgin when we got married okay so this is this is the deep lore yeah okay and then they were that was the one thing she had and then they were like then yeah and then both of them were like do we both have bipolar disorder like what's going on now because we're like 30 years old and like everything's going awry yeah um and so eventually my mom left and we moved back to ann arbor and she went to school there and then she started dating like this guy from a punk man that was like

close to my age And then my mom then had an affair with the court-appointed psychologist from my parents' divorce.

Well, smart people, interesting people.

Sure.

Yeah.

Then they got married.

To the psychologist.

Yeah.

And you're like, what, 16 or something?

Yeah.

Yeah.

No, I was, it was, it went on for five years with like his wife's barging into my mom's house and stuff.

Oh, like grabbing her husband.

Full drama.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of stuff.

But you know, I mean.

Do you have sisters, brothers?

I do.

I'm the oldest of obviously.

Of five now.

So there was me and my brother two years younger.

From your dad.

From my mom and dad.

Yeah.

And then my sister, eight years younger than me, from my mom and dad.

Huh.

And they were trying to keep it going.

They were.

And then

once the divorce happened, I have a couple steps from my mom's second marriage.

Yeah.

Who I love very much.

And then my dad.

Okay, so my dad is young.

And we had that kind of like father-daughter thing where we would go out and people would think we were on a date.

Sure.

How old is he?

He would be 66 or seven.

Wow.

Yeah.

Not much older than me.

How old are you?

61.

Yeah, you're okay.

In the zone.

But my dad was also like, even though he's a dentist and everything, he was also like a very early adopter of rap music.

And like, he liked going out to shows and surfing.

And, you know, like, he was a fun person.

And I was his fun playmate, you know, growing up.

Yeah.

Um,

and

but then when I became an adult and he wasn't remarried, it became like he would like show up at this American life sometimes because he lived in Michigan.

It was like a few hours away when we were in Chicago.

He'd show up and start hitting on Ira's wife.

Anyway, and call me all the time and I would have to say, like, get a life.

So then I was working on this story.

We were working on a story at the show about Russian brides

and

doing fact checking around like the legit Russian bride bride websites I sent one to him and I was like just get a move on here dude and he found a Russian bride come on they're still married so this was like 20 years ago

yeah really and she's younger than me wow she's also a dentist from Siberia

that's crazy I know this is all have you done this show no

Trying to save it for a book or something.

I don't know.

You know, I do get into this vibe sometimes with my family story because because it is really remarkable.

And I'm only telling you like 10% of the time.

But the interesting thing about this particular part of the story as opposed to the part that you explore in The Dream is that like this is a fairly, you know, irresponsible but relatively progressive story.

Sure.

You know, you're not submerged in some sort of, you know, grievance-ridden towny culture.

No.

I mean, these people seem like you know.

It's only recently that any one of them have ever started like looking at Fox News or something.

Like we don't, that's not the world that I'm friends.

It sounded like they were both like not unlike my parents of a different generation growing up with you.

Yep.

Because they were so young when they had us.

Which made me the parentified child.

Yeah, of course.

And also there's no boundaries.

There's no, you know, everything's a little bit different.

My mom borrowed my clothes for dates, you know.

Oh, really?

Yeah, like that kind of school.

And again, my dad, like, we hung out.

We went to raves in Detroit together.

That's just crazy.

It is crazy.

Well, until I got caught with cocaine and then he was like, maybe the rave thing isn't the first.

Yeah.

So is that how you rebelled?

You just got all fucked up and I actually moved out when I was 16

in Ann Arbor.

Because it was too, too boundaryless and fucked up.

I lived with my mom at the time and it was,

I really felt like I did have this thing

as a girl and like,

how do I say this?

I was definitely sexualized by

the men in my family, like not sexual, not assaulted or anything.

There was often like talk of, well, you're going to get knocked up, you know, like that kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah.

And at a certain point, that just like got to be so much that I felt like, well, if I'm being, if fingers are being pointed at me, meanwhile, I'm a straight A student, like I'm doing everything I possibly can to like

not screw up my life in that way.

I was just like, why do I have these people?

Like, why do I have bosses in my life who like come don't understand me at all?

Think I'm irresponsible.

Right.

I had a job since I was like 13.

Like, I didn't.

So, um, so yeah, I moved out at 16, but then I got into drugs, which was a blast,

but only for like a year.

Yeah.

Um, and I had to get rescued.

You did?

Yeah.

Bye.

By my dad.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

Which drugs?

Uh, mostly cocaine.

Yeah, yeah.

So you're, you're up a lot

running

Getting like staph infections is basically what was happening.

So not a great party.

Not a great party.

Letting older men like bick my head.

It was raving in Detroit in the early 90s.

So the dentist came to the rescue?

The dentist came to the rescue, took me home, said, I have three rules.

No boys overnight.

Call me every three days.

And I forget what the third one was.

Oh, no drugs in the house.

So you cleaned up a little bit?

I cleaned up a lot.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So how do you end up at this american life exactly yeah

i mean the lord no i'm kidding

no so i i um

i graduated high school through the mail

uh like a ged

i don't even know what it was exactly but it's legit you think

I still have nightmares about it.

Like, I'm not actually a high school graduate, you know, like I have those dreams of like, I have three more credits I have to do.

Yeah.

No, it was, um, there was this thing in the back of like teen magazines that was like, cut this thing out and send it in, and then we'll send you textbooks.

And then it was proctored by the local high school.

Uh-huh.

The tests.

Yeah.

So that's how I graduated.

And then I went to some local like community colleges.

And my dad and I opened a cafe in a weird rundown bank.

Okay.

Wow.

This is full life.

Yeah.

And then I moved to Chicago and went to school there.

And I was putting myself through school.

So I had like five jobs.

Like I I was working

at a bar and somehow got into the honors college.

Yeah.

Which is very weird and working there.

And then I started working at my college radio station.

And this was right when Pro Tools.

Okay, guys, listen, audience, this is where we're going to get real inside baseball.

The Pro Tools stuff.

Yeah.

Whoa.

Yeah, Pro Tools happened.

And I went to like a convention and met with the people for Pro Tools and was like, can we have a like a system for our school?

And they said, sure.

So I learned Pro Tools.

And then one day I was driving home from Chicago to Michigan and I heard this radio story about a guy who was

a tequila man.

Did you ever?

Is it one of Iris?

It's John Hodgman.

It's Hodgeman.

Okay, Tequila Man.

Yeah, he was like friends from college with this guy that became a tequila mascot

and like traveled around letting people like take shots off of his body and stuff.

And he was like hired by resorts to be like the tequila.

But this, I never heard this show before.

I knew a guy who was the dancing guy, but he didn't make a living at it.

He was just like a local character who would show up at punk shows and dance.

Good for everyone around him.

Yeah.

I don't know what happened to that guy.

It wasn't looking like it was going to go well.

What town?

He was here, but I think he was elsewhere too.

And I've seen it.

He ended up in Utah, I think.

I don't know what happened to him.

I'll text him after the show.

He's doing great.

See how Dancing Man is faring.

This was Tequila.

And I heard the story and I was like, is this pirate raid?

Like, I was excited actually because I was like, is this pirate raid?

Did I just like accidentally stumble upon pirate radio?

And my first thought was, I got to get to know these people.

Yeah.

And I didn't, nothing I was doing in college or work.

I was a bartender.

I was dating rappers.

I was studying history, getting good grades.

That was my life.

But I heard this story and I was like, I must look into this.

And then I listened all the way through the credits and it said it was this American life.

So the next day I went to school and got on the early internet and looked up the show and they had an internship.

Okay.

And I applied and then I didn't hear anything at all, which is fine because like, what was I expecting?

Sure.

But then it turned out the hiring manager like was late hiring a new intern and I lived right down the street.

Like I wasn't someone from like an Ivy League school that had to move or anything.

I was just, plus I was like older because I went to school late.

Yeah.

I was, I think, 24 or something.

It was Starley Kind.

She called me.

We stayed on the phone for an hour.

And then I was like, okay, so did you want me to come in for an interview?

And she was like, that was your interview.

And I was like, no, no, no.

I thought we were just talking.

And then.

And then she called me an hour later, her and Jonathan Goldstein, and they said, do you want to come be our intern?

And I said, yes.

And then,

and then I just hit it off with everybody.

I don't,

since then, Ira has said very complimentary things about my skills.

But like, I didn't go in there knowing anything about that world really, or, you know,

especially culturally the world.

Like, I, I don't, like, I,

again, as a high school dropout, I

opted out of understanding these sorts of things, but like the schools that everybody there went to or like the world, the townships.

It sounds like these aren't party people.

But they're also not

poor people.

Right.

And they're not rural people.

And they're not from the middle of nowhere in Michigan.

Like,

it was a bit of a culture shock for me to have, or like a learning curve, basically, to know what people were talking about when they're talking about graduate school or like going to journalism, like studying.

I just went in there with technical skills.

Like I can cut tape really fast.

Yeah.

Like really fucking fast.

Yeah.

The tops of the shows, like the beginning of the, of the shows, I used to cut those five minutes before air.

Wow.

Like Ira would record and I would mix it with the music like on the spot and we would go live on Fridays.

So that was thrilling.

Yeah, the live radio is thrilling.

It was so much fun.

Yeah.

But yeah, I just had like, oh, he says he paid me for my taste and that I was a really natural editor, which I took as an offense

when he first said it to me.

Like, oh, you're just like,

you're natural.

Like, you're not trained.

It's hard not to feel like you're being condescended to.

You know, I love him.

I think he's a genius.

But there is that moment sort of like, are you like.

Are you fucking with me?

Yeah.

My relationship with Ira, I mean, outside of the interview I did with him, but

seeing him socially here and there, my greatest accomplishment, one of them on the podcast, was to do a live show.

in Brooklyn at town at Union, no, which, what's the big place out there?

The Bell House.

The Bell House.

And on that panel, I had Artie Lang and Ira.

He loves Artie Lang.

Yeah.

To me, it was the greatest thing I had ever achieved.

He is.

Was bringing those two together.

Oh, my gosh.

I wish I would have been there.

Yeah.

No, he's like a, yeah, he's a Howard Stern freak.

Isn't that interesting?

Yeah.

So then, so eventually you just start producing segments.

Well, I was the intern.

Yeah.

And then I was the intern again

because they needed, because it happened again.

So I got to do two terms as an intern.

And then at the end of my internship, and I was like producing things, but mostly learning and following everyone around and working like 70, 80 hours a week and just staying until 11 o'clock at night and hope, keeping my fingers crossed that like Ira would order dinner, you know?

Yeah.

Cause it was just like a poor, they did, I will say they had a paid internship.

They still do.

Yeah.

That's the only reason I ever applied because I didn't have the money.

Yeah.

You know, to just not do anything else or to have an internship.

Like I'm not, I got to work.

Yeah, I don't know.

And I was still bartending

on the weekends, but, um, but I needed the, the cash.

So that was great

that I got like $2,000 dollars a month or something but i lived in chicago it was like 500 for my rent and i lived yeah um but i worked a lot of hours and

at the end of my internship ira was like all right kiddo he still calls me kiddo yeah what do you want to do and i was like i want to work here And he was like, I'm not hiring.

And I was like, you will be eventually.

And he was like, maybe not.

Why don't you want to go to like all things?

I could like put a word in for you on all these places.

And I was like, no, I'm fine.

I'll just hang out here.

Yeah.

So I kept bartending.

I kept volunteering at the studio.

Yeah.

Like at WBEZ at the radio station and doing some like

really sketchy actually stringer work.

You know, a stringer is like someone that goes out with a tape recorder to record something on the other end of a phone interview.

I did some stuff with like recently released

death row inmates and things like that in my car.

Right.

But eventually someone got pregnant and needed to go on maternity leave.

Yeah.

And you got in.

And I got snuck right in there.

But that's interesting.

So this whole arc of this is you, you know, you're getting an education in a specific type of journalism.

Yeah.

Yes, exactly.

And I love that type of journalism.

And it, I mean, I learned directly from the best person at it.

Yeah.

As far as like audio journalism goes, like I got very lucky that I sat right next to that person for 10 years.

Yeah.

You know, and he even told me when I was an intern, like at the very beginning, he said, like, if you want to learn how to do this stuff, you got to find the things that you like, like the people that you like who are doing this and just copy them until you figure out what your thing is.

Yeah.

I listen to my old pieces.

Oh my God.

I sound like

so bad,

so

inept.

My scripts are horrible.

I sound like I'm trying to be on this American life,

but I'm already working there.

Well, there is a tone to it.

Yeah, it's very flat.

Yeah.

Is that taught?

Yes.

Yeah.

I can teach it to you if you want to.

I think I can

manufacture it.

Yeah.

I think I can.

Well, you're doing 25% less mark right now.

Let's lock it down a little bit flatter.

Okay.

So what happens next?

I don't think you're thinking about what you're saying.

So can we start that one again?

Sure.

I want you to think about the words.

Okay.

Okay.

Oh.

Well, that's interesting.

So where do you go from there?

You're almost there.

But we know you're a funny person, so we have to inject a little bit of that, but keep it flat.

Okay, okay.

Okay.

Okay, so that's a great story.

But, I mean, what happens next?

Boom.

You're hired.

Where does the check?

No, I spent 10 years doing that with people.

But so all this kind of leads into, like, I mean, I think the dream is you really

doing it.

Yeah.

Like, this must be your, you know, your masterwork at this point, this series, in terms of the approach and how you absorbed it and then, you know, learned how to make it your own.

No, that type of journalism is awesome.

Yeah.

And that's what I want to do.

I want to just be myself.

without inserting myself in every single part of the story.

I also don't want to be navel-gazy all the time.

Like I want to be able to tell personal parts of the story without

engage people.

Yeah.

And engage people.

So what as a normal person because that's another thing that happens like in the you know audio documentary world is like people come in to tell stories and you're just like i cannot relate to this person at all like they that's when i just keep interjecting until i get them around to something that i can do

that's my style yeah it's not really an npr approach i like your style well thank you so what what drives you to do this thing what about this you know multi-level marketing scam that's the first season that we did i think no i know but that was the entry point yeah you made a decision yeah yeah do you telling me you had the full arc of all the seasons no no no no no no so i got a call from stitcher saying uh from laura mayer saying yeah we want to make a show about mlms and then i kept her on the phone forever and i was like

everyone i know what do you think compelled her to do that her just the thing we were all experiencing at that time of like facebook posts from our friends trying to sell stuff okay it was like a very yeah it was like 2017 2018.

um and so we just started talking about it and talking about it and i was like oh my grandma did it.

My great grandma did it.

I said, do you, are you sure I just should produce?

Like, can I, who's hosting this?

They were like, we don't know yet.

Yeah.

I was like, oh, I'm available to just talk about my family and myself and look into this.

And it was a fascinating world.

And then it, you know, opened the show up to this whole like grand scale institutional American style, you know,

trickery, essentially, right?

Is what the show is about.

But what's interesting about the arc, at at least of that first season, is like whether it was trickery or not,

there was a good side to it.

Oh, my God.

On a community level.

Yes.

Like my family is all involved.

I grew up going to Avon parties, Tapara parties.

Yeah.

Like

I still have one of my friends that was on the show who sells bags.

Yeah.

Although that company just shuttered and now she's selling.

I think she's selling diet shakes.

Anyway, like I went to a couple of her parties for the reporting and it was so fun.

And if I was was in Owasa still or Corana or like any of that part of Michigan,

I don't, maybe I would, I don't know that I wouldn't be doing something like selling makeup to my friends.

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: But the implications and the sort of foundation of the racket,

it's really like, you know,

this is the final turn.

of that particular American way of thinking with this presidency and fascism.

Like fascism in its most basic form is a huge grift.

It's this faux meritocracy that I have a big problem with

which is being sold to people by the people stealing the money from people who think this is a meritocracy.

Right.

You know, it's not.

It's like Donald Trump is definitely not the top 1% smartest or most capable person.

No, he likes making money for nothing.

He's running a parade.

It's like a giant protection round.

But he's telling you and everyone else, he's telling the whole world right now, like what this doge thing is.

No, just that we're our best and brightest.

We only want our best and brightest.

Yeah.

And they and whitest.

But if it weren't for what you were talking about in your book and also in the podcast, if it weren't for the evolution of this,

people might not have believed it.

But they've been believing this bullshit forever.

Yes.

Because it sounds great.

Of course, like Nate, you know, I watched an old clip in Nate's about why he voted for Trump.

Oh.

Basically.

Yeah.

You know, which was like, well, you know, he's talking about winning.

I want to win.

No, I mean, I do too.

I didn't vote for Trump, but

we all want to win.

Right.

And if the story is, which is the story of America, that like those who try hardest, you know, and keep your nose to the grindstone.

It's also so like the bootstrap thinking thing.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this, which I think is just one of the most racist.

ideas out there.

It came out after, it came like about after the Civil War.

Yeah.

Where it was just like a way for white people to tell black people that it's on them now.

And now it's like on everybody.

No, now it's on everybody.

Right.

But it was this idea of like, we let you, we let you go free.

Now it's all on you.

Right.

You know, there's no social safety nets and we're not going to help you do anything.

You got to just pick yourself up by your bootstraps.

Right.

Even though we didn't let you have any.

No boots.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And now it's literally everybody.

And there are, but there's been studies done.

We talked about this on the show

about like personality types when it comes to this sort of thing.

There are personalities who look at the potential of making money

on a pyramid scheme or something else.

And they see that's 0.1% of people and that's also just making money in America.

And they go,

oh, that sounds stupid.

I'm not, how would I ever, there's no chance.

And then there's other people that are like, well, if anyone can do it, it's me.

Right.

You know?

Interesting.

And sometimes they're selling nothing but an idea.

Yeah.

And so the second season was all about the health supplement.

Wellness and supplements and all of that.

Yeah.

Because again, this is

prophetic.

Yeah.

But it's very interesting, the mindset of it, that a person can easily turn on science and medicine because of suspicion and the amount of money it may cost and then just throw all of their belief into stuff that is proven to be useless or or not effective or just i it's i don't quite understand it though i take vitamins i get it on a fundamental level like why you wouldn't want to get vaccinated i'm not sure i quite understand it but i know myself like well i should be able to do that fight that on my own yeah we just did an episode about rfk jr yeah and his thoughts about vaccines and all that stuff for the dream yeah and we did for in the wellness season too we did an episode about this I can say just coming from like poor people,

I mean, healthcare is expensive.

Right.

And vitamins are also expensive, but not as expensive.

And also, you feel like you have more control over vitamins.

It's not like, what is this?

And the doc can't explain it to you.

Right.

Well, it's also there's no elitist person in the middle of you.

Vitamins.

Yeah.

And I'm not sure.

That's just your neighbor.

Exactly.

Of course.

But no, that really means a lot to people.

And even within my family, there's talk sometimes about my dad being like, hoity, because he has like a quote-unquote medical degree, like ethodist.

Oh, I see.

And so, you know, he thinks he knows everything, like that kind of thinking, which you hear from Trump and all of his buddies all the time like well what makes you so smart yeah um okay like right science studies like doing the scientific method whatever yeah um and we do we have let people down in the healthcare world a lot in this country in particular um and i i totally get the impulse to like want to find some alternative to you know, waiting in line at Cedars for some asshole to come in and tell you there's nothing that can be done.

Right.

And that we're not going to do the next test because you don't have the right insurance.

I can understand that

completely.

Where I get bothered is just that there is science out there.

Yeah, some things don't work.

Some things don't work.

And also some in some places, well, not me.

Some industries are not regulated at all.

Like there's no regulation on vitamins and supplements.

None.

Yeah.

There's no, you don't have to get anything tested by the FDA.

There doesn't have to be consistency between bottles.

And that and that type of pitch is the same as the MLM thing.

Exactly.

Like you can be your own boss.

You can set your own hours.

Why do you have this boss above you?

He thinks he knows everything.

Right.

We have a better way.

We have a shortcut.

Yeah.

We have a shortcut to money.

We have a shortcut to.

Right.

But they're also on the take

from the company that's making the product, right?

Sure.

They don't have a piece of that.

No.

It all tracks back up to these people that are doing nothing but you know, pulling money in from people who spend, what, maybe a month to six months in the company, maybe a year trying to buy money

of their own, of their own to do this thing that's not possible.

And an endless line of people behind them.

And one of the women that I interviewed described it as a,

and she, she's one of the higher-ups at one of these companies.

Yeah.

But she's like, well, we have a bathtub with the drain open.

We're just, people are going to filter through this thing really, really quickly.

And I'm like, oh, so you really aren't selling anything.

Like

it's just a numbers game.

The idea idea

of selling something.

Right.

Yeah.

How did that, how did Betsy DeVos get so huge?

I mean, so huge in what way?

Like, get appointed by people.

No, but I mean, like, how did Amley make so much fucking money?

Well, so they started their company without a product at all.

They were

vitamin salesmen.

They were a lot of different things.

They had like an airline and all this nonsense.

They were besties from high school that also would like charge people to

Van Van Andel and DeVos back in the back in the day in Grand Rapids.

But they worked for this vitamin company doing like door-to-door sales and then decided that they were going to start their own company like that, but they didn't have a product.

Yeah.

And so they built the whole framework for what Amway was going to look like in terms of

quote-unquote hiring and recruiting and all of that.

You can be a distributor.

Yeah.

And then they went and acquired a bar soap

company.

Right.

I think it was called Frisk or something like that.

So it's all hype.

It's all hype.

It's all

my God.

I remember some guy talked me into it, and I started.

Oh, wow.

No, when I was in high school.

Yeah, well, that's the other thing.

There's no rules.

Like, you don't have to have

an adult or have a degree or anything.

It's another high school student.

That's what's just so great about this opportunity, Mark.

Anyone can do it.

Sign up, you get this package, you get a few products, and I tried to sell two things, and it didn't work out, and I was out.

Yeah, did you do cutco after that?

No, I didn't do anything.

I'm not driven that way, but when you're in high school, the guy's like, Yeah, try it.

And I'm thought, like, all right.

And then you just like, if you don't have that kind of mindset, it's not gonna stick.

Yeah, I don't remember doing it.

I think I sold some cleaner to my friend's mom, and that was the end of it.

I talk about this in the book, I Fell for One Once.

It's not an MLM exactly, but it was an infomercial scam where they sold tapes or like

C Ds

and books about how to put Chinese manufactured tchotchkis in the back of magazines.

And I was like, that sounds like so much fun.

Yeah, I remember when I was in high school, there was a couple of moments where I'm like,

this is the way to do it.

Yeah.

But like, I didn't have the wherewithal.

I didn't have the ambition.

No.

I just thought, like, you know, let's do it.

And then somebody talked you out of it.

If you're smart, you're like, oh, yeah, that makes sense.

I'm not going to do it.

And also just like, if you're a business person, just make your own business.

Like, what?

Yeah, but like, you got to also find something you believe in.

I don't think that ambition is a point of view,

it is its own thing, and you can apply it to whatever.

But it seems like now it is sort of a point of view.

Yeah, like I am ambitious, I am empowered,

yeah, yeah, exactly.

No matter what, and it doesn't matter what it is, virtuous person, quote-unquote, person.

What was the third season about

life coaching?

Oh my god,

I'm sorry,

I apologize.

Oh my God.

Yeah, it was about life coaching.

But it's just so sad, man.

It's like so sad that like this idea of suckers is that we're all kind of half suckers.

Yeah.

And you have to be vigilant.

I married a man.

I know.

I actually married two.

Like I had all the hope in the world

about this thing that was clearly if I read it even one piece of paper about this.

About what?

Marriage?

To like a cis het, supposedly male, you know, like I, what was I think like that?

I did it twice.

I did it twice.

That's how hopeful I was at achieving a certain version of the American dream.

Yeah.

You know, sure.

Oopsie-daisy, but like we, this is our, our folklore.

Well, I always think of that, the scene at the end of Wolf of Wall Street when that guy comes back and, you know, Scorsese really focuses on that audience of people and they really played it well, that bunch of extras.

Yeah.

Just that sort of like, you know, tell us what we need to do

to be you

or to have what you have.

I feel like there's cracks forming most recently.

I mean, I've been complaining about the one presenters for years now, but I do feel like we're kind of seeing finally out loud.

these multi, multi, multi-billion and trillionaires

wealth hoarding in in a way that there's no shame at all left in it.

And like I said, and it becomes aspirational to all of you.

That's exactly that's what I was saying.

That there's people that earlier, there's been those studies about people, they look at that and go, I could be an Elon.

Right.

I could be a Jeff Bezos.

Like,

or I could be a loser who doesn't care about that sort of thing.

And again, when I've spoken to very wealthy people, they don't understand why I don't want to be a billionaire.

Yeah.

Like, there's no, they don't, they can't comprehend why I wouldn't want to hoard all of my neighbors' wealth.

And

I'm too lazy for that, first of all.

Like, I just want to be fine.

But I've just always wanted to be okay.

I just want to be fine.

And I want to be nice.

Yeah.

And I want to help people.

Yeah.

And I want to raise a normal person.

Oh, you're so woke.

That's what that was all about.

I do listen to almost exclusively like rap music, so I'm not that woke.

No, but I mean, that was the, that was, was that was the

weak point.

That was the Achilles heel of you know being able to render it all down to something that sounded bad.

Yeah.

But you know, because when you really, if you are a person that believes in liberal democracy or empathy or or helping people or that people who need help should get help, you know, those are decent things.

And somehow through the word of woke, it became an attack word.

Yeah.

It's kind of fucking amazing.

But it goes right into this sort of like, why wouldn't you want a billion dollars?

Yeah.

What's wrong with you?

What are you an idiot?

Like, and also that idea of wanting a billion dollars is like what this whole place was built on too, you know?

Yeah.

Like, and having it come through nepotism and

so what's a, what is the like, well, life coaching, it's just so hilarious in terms for me.

It's so funny.

That like, you know, like you can glean things from people, you know, that have a handle on things that you might not and just move through it.

So this was a point of, this was something I brought up early in that season was like, I want, if I'm going to have a life coach that isn't like a certified like

therapist or something or a doctor,

I want their life to be perfect.

Like I want it to be perfect.

Perfect to you.

To me, yeah.

I want it, but but that doesn't exist.

Yeah.

So yeah, I that season was was really interesting.

Because my brother, who, you know, is kind of moved through a lot of different jobs and is very sort of hyper self-aware and very sort of always has been kind of a searcher and you know really prone to to to systems that offer self-actualization but you know struggles and I remember there was a brief period there where he was like you know and he was just trying to keep his own fucking life together he's like I'm looking into getting into life coaching we did a whole episode about how many unemployed life coaches there are or like life coaches that have been recently fired from their jobs and they're like, you know what I'm going to do?

Teach other people how to get jobs.

Right.

Yeah.

Because it's a racket, you know, and even if they can't apply it to themselves, they can get a pitch going that is uplifting.

For them.

Yeah.

Too.

You know, it's valid, it's like validating for themselves.

Like it's like

I have purpose.

I have something.

But that might be the okay thing about it.

Yeah.

I guess.

That's what I could see in it when I was talking to people.

Like, yeah, it was affirming for the, for the life coach themselves to say, I have something to offer the world.

Because the world, the way it's set up, which we've been talking about, isn't being kind to very many people

or valuing their gifts.

Everything's getting

so distorted in terms of what we care about.

We don't care about science anymore.

Like as of this last month, there's no more science.

There's no more value in like, you know, having capable, intelligent people running the country.

There's no more value in taking care of one another.

And so it is a, I mean, becoming a life coach is a way to say, I have a gift to share with the world.

And that's what my great grandma did when she was selling avon like she felt like i'm um showing i'm i'm being part of my community and i'm like helping women feel good about themselves like and that's i think that's just as important as what the sucker is sure is getting out of it sure you know yeah well it's interesting that there you know in one of the seasons there was you know two kinds of they weren't necessarily suckers but people that came to a realization about what they were involved in yeah uh and one was sort of like yeah i got out and you know, oh, well, you know, fuck the suckers on some level.

You know, I don't do it anymore.

But it wasn't really empathetic.

And then there was the other guy that was like, oh, my God, what am I involved with?

Yeah.

So what's this new season about?

Anything I want.

Because I bought the show away from the giant corporations that were run by people who've never done anything in journalism or podcasting.

And so it's a new, it's a weekly now.

It's not seasonal.

Okay.

We're just, I'm doing interviews and reporting on whatever I feel like.

And what have some of that been?

Well, today's episode was about a case where a woman was,

a young woman was put on a suicide hold,

arrested and taken to a hospital for considering having an abortion.

That's happening.

Like thinking about having an abortion.

So who ratted her out?

Her former friends that she had been a

pro-life activist with when she was 15 years old.

Okay.

Called the, went to the courthouse, called the cops, got her arrested.

What state?

What state?

North Carolina.

I just finished producing a show about abortion called Outlawed.

That's all about like what abortion actually is and like why it's so wild that it's illegal because like it's not about birth control.

Yeah.

You know, that's a whole

racist, classist argument.

But like rich white ladies are always going to have abortions.

Right.

You know, of course.

Because they're going to have the doctor that tells them that their kid doesn't have a brain.

Right.

At six months pregnant.

Yeah.

Because they can afford that.

You know what I mean?

But that's the actual sequence of events that happens often.

But that's also another thing that's sort of the blind spot of people who are aspiring to be billionaires or whatever is that their conditions in their life are of a kind where

they don't have any entitlement at all.

Right.

They're just struggling.

And rich people are always going to be able to get whatever they need

somehow.

Well, because they deserve it.

Well, I mean.

That's what they, you know what I mean?

That's what they believe, though, is that they, you know,

why wouldn't they have the very best doctors?

They need to keep their kind alive.

Right.

Well, I get people.

No, I get that.

But I guess like I'm always sort of stuck on the

profound lack of empathy in any way for the people that they're taking advantage of.

I don't quite.

I don't get it either.

I can't make that leap to understand that part of the world.

I spoke about it today on this episode.

That's how I closed the episode.

I was just like, when you let your politics like completely impact and erase your morals, what are you even doing?

Like, why do you have an idea about who should be president?

If like at the end of the day, you don't care if children are getting hurt.

Right.

Like actual alive children, you know?

Well, I think what happens, the only, the only...

analogy I can have, I get is that like I know when I was doing morning radio that you know you get into a sort of manic brain and, you know, and you start churning out, you know, your version of talking points or your version of your beliefs, but there's a mania to it.

And I think because of technology and because of, you know, so many people creating content, that that mania, which is not what it does not possess empathy, really.

It's really just about, you know, intensity and getting out whatever your beliefs are, whether they're even actually yours.

But that zone of engagement makes no real room for other people.

Right.

You know, until, you know, until you have to talk with other people.

But so if you're living in that, if you're isolated and just churning that, that's coming in and that's going out,

you're literally putting some sort of wall between you and having actual human feelings.

Well, you're commodifying yourself.

Well, there's that.

But there's also a content creator or whatever.

Sure, but I'm just talking about that weird mania of opinion

that doesn't even, you know, is not thoughtful.

It's just sort of attack or intensity.

And if you live in that, how are you going to be a functioning human?

Got to go on TikTok and sell

one of those slicer things, the cheese grinder?

Sure, sure.

Those are the only things I almost buy.

Like bullshit

kitchen stuff.

It's like that would be a good thing just to clip on my faucet for the sponge.

For real.

Like the ideological thing, I don't get, but like, oh my God, so you can just squeeze the lemon without it.

But that is what folks are doing, you know?

And they're thinking my outrage and my

creating conflict all over the place is creating engagement.

Engagement is creating opportunities to make money.

I'm so not in that loop.

Oh, I thought you were going to say old.

No, I'm just not.

Like, I don't.

I don't feed on that stuff.

I've never been about money, which is my shortcoming, but also just

it worked out.

Yeah.

But it was never like my drive has never been to make money.

It's been to understand and communicate.

Same.

And I want to have a, I mean, I, and I don't mind having a job.

Like I don't mind having a job.

I like working.

I don't mind working if I want the, if I can find value in the work other than money, because that's not enough for me.

Well, that's why I like bartending.

I loved bartending.

Yeah.

I was really good at it.

You're with the people.

Yeah, I'm talking to people.

You're watching people like, you know, have a good time or destroy their lives.

You get to know what you're doing.

And then I show off how I can like do one thing with my foot and one thing with my you know like i performative yeah it was fun what are some of the other episodes this season so this season we also did uh just some follow-ups about the like former people that were on about mlms um folks who had been scammed um i'm talking to this woman dory tomorrow who she's like the best kind of maniac.

She believes that she's solved what Stonehenge was for.

Oh, sure.

And the Voynach manuscript.

I'm glad they're out there doing their own research.

I know.

Answer all the questions.

She's really smart, though.

I think she has a great idea.

Like

how I would sum up the research she's done.

And she's a lay person.

Like she's not a historian or anything or an archaeologist.

But I think she gives credit to like how smart people have been since people have been people.

Yeah.

Instead of being like, oh, it must have been hocus pocus and weird stuff.

She was like, no, I think it was a meat processing plant.

Right.

Literally.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And she has like drawings and everything of like, this is how it worked.

Yeah.

You know, interesting.

Yeah.

It's really good.

But so kind of, you know,

whatever I'm

just about.

But your curiosity is in the spectrum of revealing certain truths that are simple and

subversive somehow in a way.

Yeah.

Now.

Weirdly.

Yeah.

Like it's weird that they are at all.

They're only going to become more so.

I like talking about the, we live in a fantasy.

Yeah.

And I'm not talking about like online or something, but we live in this pretend world that we were all raised in.

Like I was raised to believe if I worked hard and put effort in and whatever, like my life would be okay.

I could maybe have a home that I own

or

a child who isn't fucked up.

Right.

Or, you know, and all it really took was my mindset, like me putting my mind towards something.

And the stories that are, I'm really drawn to are where that shows not to be true at all.

Like that the powers that be have a lot more influence on what happens to each and every one of us.

Yeah.

And I know the Stonehenge thing seems like an outlier, but I do think it's important to recognize like people have always been

smart and thoughtful and like trying to figure something out that will sustain either them or a community.

Exactly.

And so that interests me.

I do like, you know, I'm not.

The thing that I, I always have had an easier time saying what I'm not into.

Yeah.

And that's also an Ira thing.

He's like, if you can't figure out what you really want to do, you can totally, totally figure out what you don't want to do.

And I know that

I don't want to do true crime.

I don't want to talk exclusively about cults, although I have a few times.

And this season we did get into one of these AA cults.

Yeah.

Well, tell me about that one.

It's called Midtown.

Just it's kind of your typical sex cult, but the But it's an offshoot of AA.

We used to deal.

We had a reckon with one of those cults once when I was in New York, AA.

There was this infusion of Bay Area weirdos that were called, I call, I think they called them,

it was called, I can't remember, they had a name for it, but it was definitely a cult within the cult.

And generally, AA distances distances themselves from that shit pretty quickly

just by community reaction.

Yeah, by a bunch of normal people sitting in a room and being like, that's weird.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And that was kind of interesting.

Yeah.

That worked, that it worked like that.

It's like, you're not doing the thing.

That's how the internet used to work, and I miss it so much.

Like when I was a lady blogger, when I was working at the hairpin and Jezebel and stuff, like our internet community, like people talking in the comments and stuff, it wasn't so nasty.

Like, you know, it or contentious all the time.

People kind of sorted themselves out and kicked out the jerks.

Well, male trolls ruined the internet.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But we, you know, just engaging and being like,

we don't want to do that.

That still happens, I think, on Reddit threads and stuff.

Sometimes, yeah.

Where they're like, no, you're crazy.

And why are you posting this?

Yeah, yeah.

But no, but the cult thing, there are so many podcasts about cults now.

There are more podcasts about cults than there are cults.

Yeah, sure.

So I know I don't really want to do that full-time.

Right.

I really want to.

I mean, my goal really is to try to figure out

if I can make money doing a thing I'm good at.

Because I have been told my entire entire adult life that I cannot.

Mostly because of my vagina and my boobs.

Like we can't sell ads

on a podcast hosted by a woman.

Oh, really?

Not a good podcast.

But also, I imagine part of it was also being taught that

this type of work is a pipe dream.

Right.

And that there's more secure actions.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

And I don't have a safety net.

So like I don't get to take the risks that a lot of people in my industry do.

So, you know, when someone comes to me with a contract and it's like the lowest amount of money, I go, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have poor kid brain, you know?

Yeah, just like, absolutely.

You want to pay me half of what I'm worth?

That sounds great.

Yeah, yeah.

Can I work twice as much?

Something, yeah.

And I do that every time.

And so I have to get out of that habit.

But this new format for the show is really kind of an experiment of like, can I just be myself and use my skills and be good at mixing and editing and talking to people?

Yeah, and exploring these

ideas.

Yeah, yeah.

And the book, so this is basically based on the first three seasons.

No, it's the first season.

It's all

MLM.

This is kind of like a character study of the people that start and

promote MLMs.

So it's a lot about like what kind of a person

wants to.

I'm glad you brought it to me.

Yeah, you're going to like it, I think.

Yeah.

And then there's a lot of weird stuff about my life and childhood and everything.

A little memoir-ish.

A little bit here and there.

Because, you know, when you write a book, they're like, juzh it up with more Jane.

Yeah, yeah.

People want more Jane.

Yeah.

Are you sure?

I know.

Yeah.

I mean, some guy just made a documentary about me that took four years and it's premiering at Sundance.

I'm like,

how much of me do people really want?

Isn't that a weird thing?

I'm, this is like, this last like six months is the first time I've ever thought about that.

Yeah.

Because I didn't think I was part of the story really.

Yeah.

You know, or like the,

but that parasocial

desire,

I don't keep up with it enough to like understand that that's what's happening but the more people that listen to my show or read things I've done it it is happening like they really are feeling yeah it's a little scary sometimes it is scary depending on what your boundaries are like yeah I have pretty strict boundaries but I also

look I'm lonely yeah but yeah and there's also the part there's that part of you that's sort of like well they do kind of know me they do you know I mean I'm pretty sure the parts I told them and they were fine with that so I'll sure but I also get like so much hate and stuff, which is just funny.

The hate that chicks get on.

Oh, it's crazy, dude.

Her voice is so annoying.

It's crazy.

I can't stand her laugh.

It's crazy.

Why does she think she's so smart?

We had a comment board on WTF back in the day, and we took it down because any female guests would just get just garbage.

Yeah.

And it's like, again, it's one of those things like, I don't get it.

What is wrong with these dudes?

I don't like, I mean, you know, I can sort of.

They're they're nagging everyone in the world.

They think that that's how it works.

I guess, but there's also this disconnect, which is scary, that, you know, you know, most people don't get to fuck.

And even with dating apps.

Yeah.

But there's just this part of me where I can try to empathize or not necessarily empathize, but at least, you know, kind of because of my boundaryless nature,

engage with in almost a

symbiotic way, an immediately codependent way, enough to understand kind of where they're coming from.

Like I can understand a lot of what's going on today

because there's part of me that it speaks to and I manage that part.

Right.

Because that's the bad part.

Right.

And we all have those parts, but there are certain behaviors where I'm like, what's the problem?

RA's are so flat.

What the fuck is wrong with that person?

That person wrote that on purpose.

Yeah.

I mean, what is that?

I don't, I think it's, well, it is mostly men.

Yeah, I know.

I think I saw this one, because I have a daughter when she was little.

And this came actually out of the mouth of a couple of people you know.

Yeah.

When like my kid would get clocked in the head by a giant John Deere toy by a little boy.

Yeah.

And the dads would be like,

boys will be boys, you know, like that kind of thing.

Right.

Lots of boys will be boys stuff.

Yeah.

Today, like still.

Yeah.

Like a couple years ago, her, you know, no one would let her play soccer on the playground.

And she's not, like, wearing a dress already.

Like, you know, like, right, sure.

She's good at soccer.

Sure.

But it is a, it parents are like

still

doing that to these little ones.

I mean, they're like eight years old and they're being taught by their moms and dads that, like,

well, what are we going to do?

And they put their hands up, like, they're just probably going to rape somebody.

Yeah.

I mean, seriously.

That's where this is going.

And that was really the intention

of,

you know, DEI

was to solve some of these problems

on a societal level.

And now all that shit's gone.

But you're saying the word problems as if everyone agrees on what those problems are.

No, I know, I get it.

And we don't.

Some people.

No, some people really.

That's the problem.

Some people think that.

I had my girlfriend in high school, like my literal girlfriend in high school, her father wrote a book when we were in high school called The Natural History of Rape.

Like, you know see, it's just something that happens.

And yeah, and like to confront that at 16 years old, that like, this is what this person is actually really interested in is like, how does it just keep happening?

Yeah.

You know, and like, what can we do about it?

Nothing.

It's just nature.

Yeah.

And any initiatives like DEI to change any of that.

Or just civilization.

Civilization.

Right.

But civilization was also built on that sort of thing.

No, I get it.

Our quote-unquote civilization, right?

It was built on raping and pillaging.

Sure.

And God knows that's something we need to get back to because that's when things were great

again

all right well it was good talking to you

was it yes was it okay totally i don't go on shows very much no it's great okay don't you feel good i feel good okay i feel like i had fun all right

there you go that was great uh i want to mention again that new episodes of the dream are published weekly you can also listen to past seasons on all podcast platforms hang out for a minute

Hey, folks, two years ago, I talked with another podcaster who has a long-running and beloved show, Karina Longworth.

We talked about old Hollywood, new show business, and the forgotten history of entertainment.

When I think about what you're doing, and I know the podcast is popular,

but I wonder how much people know anymore or how much people care anymore.

I mean, that's what's crazy is that I'm only 42.

I mean, obviously that's older than a lot of people.

Right.

But it's like,

it feels like it was so present not that long ago to me.

And now it just feels like it's gone.

Isn't that weird?

Can you track that as a as an intellectual when that happened?

I'm actually kind of trying to do that right now because the season that I'm working on is about the 90s.

Yeah.

And so I'm really trying to figure out like, what is the end of this thing?

That you're involved in.

Yeah.

The romantic, seedy, but

glamorous world of Hollywood.

Yeah.

And it's, you know, I always, the tagline of the podcast is that it's Hollywood's first century, which could mean a lot of things based on like when you define the start of Hollywood.

When do you define it?

Around 1908.

With which film?

That's basically when they start making movies in the city of Hollywood.

Like over in like Echo Park.

Where was the Keystone?

That's like Los Felos.

Los Felos.

Yeah.

But, you know, then you could say that the Hollywood business of making feature films doesn't really start until around 1915.

But I've just kind of always thought of it as the 20th century.

And, you know, not.

So you're out of it.

You're out of the first, we're out of the first century by a few years.

I would say so.

Yeah.

That's episode 1421 with Karina Longworth of You Must Remember This.

You can listen to that for free on all podcast platforms.

To get every episode of WTF ad-free, sign up for WTF Plus.

Go to the link in the episode description or go to WTFPod.com and click on WTF Plus.

And a reminder before we go, this podcast is hosted by ACAST.

Here's some guitar like I play.

Okay.

Boomer lives, monkey and the fonda, cat angels everywhere.