Beauty Queen

everything worked out. But you know, just when I thought it was going to be a nice, smooth day, bang, nope, God said, nope. Hey, just a minute, I got some interesting stuff to put you through today, to see how you get through it. Anyhow, weekends upon us. I guess a lot of you would decorate in the tree. When I was out of town in Vegas, the kids, uh said Dad, I want to put the tree up. All right, it's in the closet. They couldn't find it because they

didn't move the coats out of the way. You know, I can't get mad because I've been I'm the same way with a lot of things. I'm looking for something Where did you put the way I leave on? Where's my keys? Did you see my sneakers? It's we're all the same, we just don't look as hard as we could. So the kids put the tree up. I come home, trees up looking good. No lights are left on, the heat was off. You know. The kitchen was clean, just as I told them to leave it when I got back.

So I feel good. I got some lights and Christmas bulls. We got stuff in storage? Can I tell you I just get I don't want to. I don't want to go to storage. I already got a smaller unit that's only two hundred a month, not like the nine hundred dollars a month nott I was paying for all the bullshit. So I transferred three quarters of stuff from the expensive unit into the smaller unit. And that'll be great to not pay that nuts every month. But I don't feel

like going back there. I don't like storage. Just it's like going back to all memories, some of which are very bad, and or just I don't need the memory, Like why am I looking at roxy shoes when she was seven years old? What are we keeping these for? The other one? A little bit of a hoarder when it comes to keeping shit. I understand pictures certain outfits, but once you know there's not gonna be another baby, and once you know, you can't always think I'm gonna

give this outfit to my son's next child. All right, how many things are we gonna keep? You know what I mean? It's just too much. So when I go to storage, I get like, ugh, I don't like, I get and throw it out mode. I just do you know, I don't, I just you know, Like, we have an air mattress here. So when I first got here, before things were set up, I put an air mattress down, rocked out his mattress. So for a night I slept on air mattress. He slept on his mattress and the

air mattress. By the time I was waking up, I was like part of my body was on the wooden floor, you know what I mean, Like there was leaking air and through the night if you roll over, twist and turn. Basically I was sleeping on a bunch of plastic. So I said, I'm throwing this out. I don't want Okay, it's a leaky air mattress. I'm never gonna fix it. Things that I'm never gonna repair, one of which is a leaky air match. I wouldn't repair a leaky boat

right now. I'd get rid of that. Anyhow, I'm going a good move. I don't mean to dump all these problems on you people. Let's talk about something that's on the minds of a lot of people in America. This United Healthcare executive being shot in Manhattan. No one at this point really knows the motive. I know you guys put this on the podcast Obsess page, but I was blocked from that page until Thursday because of the picture I put up of Roxy and Rocco running around the

lawn in a bikini and a diaper. I was canceled from Facebook for a week, so I couldn't comment. But I will tell you the guy that killed Brian Thompson, this big CEO. Look, I'm not going to be shocked if this guy, you know, was somebody in his family was denied medical coverage, you know what I mean? Maybe somebody who there was no money coming in for coverage. They have to spend all their money. Maybe they went bankrupt because this company probably failed to cover a serious illness,

as many many healthcare companies do. I think there's I think the ratio is one in seven claims for treatment don't go through. Is that right? They fail to cover? That's that's that's terrible, that's really that's I mean, I mean, we've all been with people who are dying, and many of you have insurance, some don't. Some insurance's lapse at times. That's happened to me when I had Screen Actors Guild insurance. It's great insurance, it's it's wonderful, But you know Screen

Actors Guild. When it comes to insurance, you've got to make a certain amount of money each quarter of the year. And if you know, you didn't do a movie or so, and your residuals are getting smaller, if you don't meet the criteria amount of money for one quarter of a year, they'll dump your insurance. So you know, you're not really

thinking about it. That's why a lot of people that are in the business will contact friends and go, look, I just I don't care if you put me on the show for two days, I need my insurance coverage. It's gonna lapse. I'm gonna lose coverage. And a lot of older people get in movies like that because they need a favor. You can't asker that favor when you're thirty thirty five. It's a little ridiculous, but it happens. Insurance's laps and you get stuck with a big fucking bill.

And two hundred million Americans rely on private health insurance. But sometimes they become very, very seriously ill, and they're left with medical bills that are destroying them. They're not got any the best treatment. And I read someplace that people who have really really high medical bills. Forty percent of bankruptcies are due to extremely high medical bills. And you know, there are people out there who listen. They want to settle that squabble pretty quick. And you know

there there are There are six major insurance companies. Anthem Signa, United Health is one of the biggest. I think, I think it is the biggest. But these these companies have like trillions of dollars, you know, and and sometimes they well I don't to tell you, guys know what insurance companies can do. I'm sure you've had experience with them.

I'm not saying the killer was certainly okay with killing Thompson, but these healthcare companies, I could see people getting their anger up and doing something that they normally wouldn't do. But I'll tell you something right now, Obviously it wasn't a professional hit. The guy shot him in the back and the caf the gun malfunction. No, the guy was not a professional. He was an amateur hired to do this perhaps, or just somebody on his own who thought

I could skirt all these laws. I could find this guy. I know where is gonna be. He's getting deposed in this building at this hour. I'm gonna wait and shoot him first. I'm gonna go Starbuck and have a cup of coffee. What's really scary about the world right now? There are cameras everywhere. You're never ever gonna commit the perfect crime anymore. Just with people's ring doorbells in the suburbs,

it's impossible. People see everything. They're a camera everywhere. So thinking you can have a couple, I could have a latte before a murder is a bad idea either way. Here's what I feel. I'm telling you. I listened. I read what his wife said right after the murder, and you know, she was like, yeah, there were threats, there were definitely threats, but she didn't know nothing about it. And then she was like, I have to tend to my children. They just don't even know what happened. Yet

something's off with this, something's off with the wife. It's just it's my gut, it's my gut. I could be wrong. My gut tells me either the wife had something to do with the murder or she knew just tad just what a bad predicament her husband was in. I don't think this is like, oh, I had no idea, And I think she knows exactly what the threats were and who they came from. She does a lot more than what she's saying. But in my gut, I'm not saying she's the one who hired the hit man. It's possible

some way. In my gut, I feel she has some knowledge about this. We will see. Now let me clue you in on the airport drama from Vegas to bird Bank. First of all, I had a chaotic uber ride, right. I go down to the lower level of Aria, where I always going to get an uber. And for some reason, because casinos are so close together, they think if you're down at Aria, they'll go, oh, we're gonna pick you up at the whatever. The hotel is called Vrana of Rada. I forget vr something. I always see it at the

window and you go, no, I'm not at that. I'm not. You got a right to uber go No, I'm at Aria. Okay, are your main entrance? No, I'm at Aria lower level. That takes a while. Then it's like, oh, we're eight hundred feet away. Then we're two miles away, then areo point three miles away. Then it's like we're getting a new car. I don't I cancel the ride. But it's not canceling. I said, fuck it, I got time. I always get to the airport. I'll wait. Big black guy

shows up in a big black truck. All right, nice aj Yeah, man, Okay, I get in the car, throw the luggage down. I shut the door. The guy turns me and goes, okay, man, you didn't have to slam my door. I said, slam your door, bro, I didn't. I just shut the door. I'm sorry, No, man, you slammed it. Hey man, I'm listen. Let's not argue about this, bro. Look it's a big truck. I got a big car at home. I just shut the door. Man. Someone one time shut my door on the window came off the

track and busted. All right, you know what, you because of your job, you win, your door must open a hundred times a day. Maybe this isn't your line of work. You know what, Man, I'm pulling over. Do it? Please? Just let's just stop. Come on, you're in a bad mood. I'm gonna be Let's just come on. Let's just move on now. I'm telling you, man, all right, look, I'm not gonna fight bro the next red light. Telling you, man, if you know you gotta be careful, I said, look

to stop fucking lectric me about your car door. You're an uber driver. People are gonna close your car door one hundred times. You know what, man, I'll pull over. I'll go fuck yourself. Okay, pull over. Make sure you give me a bad review because I'm gonna rip your ass apart of my review. Boom boom, fuck you, fuck you amount of the car. Now. I'm in the middle of the strip in Las Vegas. An Asian guy in another black truck sees me. What happened? You need ride? Yeah,

I'm going to the airport. You're not uber? No, no, I take you? How much? Thirty dollars? All right? Uber was twenty two. Yeah, let's go. Nice guy, Nice Asian guy takes me to the airport. That's the yin and yang of life. Okay. I get to the airport, you know, I like the people watch. I get there an hour and a half earlier, watching people having a sandwich, and I see this big transgender things. He looks like a woman,

but it's a man, you know, big, big breast. But the guy's about three hundred and forty five pounds with a sweatsuit on, and he's carrying a white purse a handbag. Very delicately. I'm like, I look, the guys thinks he's a woman. Whatever the fuck. Okay, I see him pass Viena air put a few times. Now we're in the same area at the gate B twenty. I'm like, oh, this guy might be on my flight. Then you want up to fly and he is on my flight Southwest where you're rushing like cattle. Find a seat. So I

find my seat. I get a window seat, which I like. Suddenly I see him coming down the out walking sideways because he's very very heavy. He sees me, I don't know why. He stops and sits down on the aisle no one's in the middle of thank God, because he was shoot. So I was sitting there and meggan some

small talk. What have you. I gotta be honest, I always want to know if if God put a transgender person next to me, Well, that's just my feeling that, Okay, I'm gonna talk to this person and see what's going on and maybe I can learn something. You know, he's next to me for a reason. So we're talking about whatever stupid shit the weather, and I said to him, ask you a question, Yeah, and did you know you weren't in the right gender? What did you know your

agenda was an issue? He says, Is it that obvious? Said, I'm laughing. I know it's fine. I enjoy talking about it. I said, right, when did you know? He goes, I'll tell you the story. When I was about four or five years old, I saw my mother holding a beautiful white purse. I don't remember who the designer was, but I was like five years old and I knew I wanted a purse like my mom. I didn't want to play basketball or baseball, and I played those things when I was little. I just wanted to be a woman

with a beautiful white handbit. I'm like, wow, well that's I said. One of my bosses as a producer, knew he was gay when he was like four years old, sitting on the couch at his home in Oaklaw, or Nebraska. In Nebraska, his father was the mayor of some small town out there and you know, church going family, and

plumber came in to fix the kitchen sink. And when the plumber walked in with his overalls and his T shirt underneath, he saw my boss, who at this point was you know, five years old, four years old, and he just pinched his cheek like, hey, little boy, like a nice guy would do it. You can't do that shit anymore, but back then you could do it. And my boss told me that he knew at that moment he felt like he wanted that attention from a man and it was a sexual thing, even at that age.

He goes, oh, honey, I know. I was like, okay, listen, I god, I know you. I know you don't want to go through life like this. I know it's a hassle, yeah it is, but you know I want to be so I have a good conversation. Suddenly he goes, I smell exhaust what I smell it, I said, I don't smell it. What do you? I said, no, I have I don't have a great nose, but I don't. I goes no, No, I smell exhaust. I don't like this. All right, we'll see I don't smell. I think maybe

you're just worried about flying. I do have some anxiety. Okay, now, rate of fly. We're taxiing on the runway, picking up speed. This is when I take the crucifix on my neck and I do the I make the cross four times. I have to do it four times and kiss it, and then do it four more times because of forty four and then until the plane lifts off, I keep the cross holding in my teeth. It's ridiculous, I know, but so far I haven't died in the plane crash.

We're flying down the runway. I make the four cross, I make the eight crosses, and without instead of taking off or lifting off, the plane, the pilot hits the brakes I mean hard, like when you have to hold the seat in front of you and the luggage moves in the over overhead bins like crazy. Hit the brakes and the plane, you know, levels off and he goes, folks, there's your captain. We got to go back to the gate. We have a situation here in the cockpit. Something needs

to be looked at. We're gonna have to call maintenance, and well we'll be talking about in fifteen twenty minutes to see what's going on. Now. I'm petrified. And this guy, this tran he's going. I knew it. I knew it. There's an exhaust problem, said Jesus Christ. All right, let's stop talking about it. He goes, I'm getting off this plane. I said, they're not going to get you off the plane. But they did pull into the gate all right, and they had to have maintenance come on the plane, so

theoretically the guy could leave. I'm getting off. He gets up with his handbag. Was nice to chat with you. He does up the out sideways like he did before. He talks to this, do this whatever, whatever. They let him leave. I'm going. Should I leave? Oh? Fuck, I can't leave. I checked a bag. I never checked a bag.

Rarely do I check a bag, but I checked it because I had I bought three bottles of beautiful shower gel that the Aria has, and I love these shower jels and I'm like, the last time I bought them on my trip to Vegas, I took them on my personal luggage, and they took them at TSA and just threw them in the go garbage. I'm like, oh no, I said, why don't you keep me? Because I can't keep I lose my job. He goes, I got to check those candles too, I said, the candles are fine.

The candles. He goes, You know, if you want to keep these things, you should always pack a bag, you know, check a bag this time. I said, okay, I got three friggin shower gels that I love. I'll check the bag. It's only a forty five minute flight. It's not gonna get lost. I check it. All my shit's in there except my laptop. The laptop I put in my bag that I was holding as I walked up to the plane. But the headset and the microphone they're in the luggage.

I get the burdbank. Where's my luggage. Everybody's getting their shit and leaving that horrible feeling, you know, Oh, it's the worst feeling. But let me go back for a second. Before I finished the luggage talk, the guy gets off the plane and you know when I was at the airport earlier that day. I'm sitting down, I get a moment someone I flaw. You guys know that. I always feel like when you're in an airplane, you're closer to

Heaven than when you're just down here. You're at least thirty forty thousand feet closer to heaven, if there is such a thing. And I get very emotional thinking I'm close to people who are no longer hear who I miss, and I mean, I wake up during the morning of my flight and I get emotional. My eyes fill up. It's ridiculous. I know it's stupid, but that's me. And I'm at the airport, and you know, me and the girlfriend we talk. We're not together together, but we talk.

And there's something about not having someone you know is in really really deep love with you and not text them while you're at the airport. To me, the airport was always a place where you either you text your wife or your girlfriend or your kids, whatever you do. But outside of that, I'm looking going this really sucks. Like I'm getting on this plane. No one knows the flight number, no one knows the time I'm leaving. Blah,

blah blah. And it got me like, well, many people go, it's just a flight age, it's this freaking bus trip from Vegas to can You'll be fine. But now I'm getting sad, like I don't have anybody to text. I'm not trying to get some sympathy. I know it's ridiculous, but I text Rosalie. We started talk and I told her about the plane and I did text the Andrea and tell her, and I told my kids I might be late, blah blah blah. But I you know, I

just said, something feels off. And don't you think there's something about letting people know you're right when you land or here's the flight number. I'm on. I know, if your a husband or a wife, if you're married or a long term relationship, you always I would think, tell the person you love when you're leaving, what the number

of the flight is, when you're gonna arrive whatever. And you know, Joan Rivers once told me we had dinner at her apartment at the start of my career because, as I told you, she really got behind me and believed in me. And I told you she stopped this Thanksgiving dinner she had for a lot of people thirty years ago or so, and she told the people in the room, this kid, and she pointed to me, this kid's going places all of you. When he calls you, you take his call. He's going to be something. He's

going to take this city by storm. I mean, I couldn't believe I was even there hearing it, let alone living it. But she and I got really close after I went on a talk show because Linda Stacey, my boss, didn't want to do TV, and at the time journalists were doing hard copy, inside edition, all those shows Heraldo, you name it, Bill, O'Reilly. We did it. We got paid good money. It was five hundred bucks for a camera.

Could have walk in a guy with a light, someone holds a camera and a producer fifteen twenty minutes, you talk five hundred bucks. Boom. It was so easy. What a sid income that was for years because the nineties and the tabloid wars and then the stories and the scandals were just endless. Linda didn't want to do TV. I got the feeling having watched her do TV, because they do it in our newsroom. She didn't. She wasn't really good at it. She didn't seem she didn't seem real,

and I hate saying it because I love her. But Joan Rivers invited to do one of her gossip shows every Friday, and Linda turned her down. She said, you know what, I'm not gonna do. You do Joan. I go. Really, I'd not done TV. The only thing I've done on TV was that gambling show Football forecast in like eight, nineteen eighty eight, right, and now she's telling me go on Joan Rivers talk show and bring her three or

four items of gossip. She'll love you. And I knew, holy shit, this is Joan Rivers, this is Johnny Carson sometime fill in the host of the Tonight Show. Of course I'm gonna go. You bet your ass I'll go. So I do the show and during a commercial break, I had this picture of my three Yorkies when I lived in New York, and I knew she had a Yorkie. Cindy Adams had a Yorkie. I was a Yorkie nut

I knew that would make us close. I showed her a picture of my three Yorkis during the commercial and she went, oh my god, what beauty is You know? We just hit it all so she befriends me, and she kept using me every Friday on her Gossip Friday show.

So we bonded and we're at this dinner one night and she brings up her ex, her husband, Edgar, who died, who committed suicide because he felt it was his fault that Jones' career took a beating because she accepted the late night talk show on Fox, and Johnny Carson was offended, never had a back on his show, stopped talking to her. Real catty shit. But she told me that when Edgar killed himself out of what he felt he did to her career, she said, you know what I really missed.

Don't let anybody tell you you missed the sex. That's bullshit. I missed coming home and talking to my closest friend. I miss coming home from a dinner party and saying, can we talk about what that bitch was wearing? What she won with those heels? I mean, come on, and I'm sitting there going Joan Rivers just said to me, can we talk? And I'm here inside this luxurious apartment eating off of China Park. Have you It was surreal, but I understand what she meant. You live long enough

you go through a number of busted up romances. And suddenly I could completely understand what she meant by that, and she began to cry and I touched her back, and it was like an outer body thing. I can't believe. I've never seen her, and I'd sull of them. And I was a kid with my parents. It didn't make sense to me. But I'll tell you, Hollywood is filled with people who will step on you, who will kick you down the ladder, you know what I mean, if they have a chance to deny your dreams, they will.

But there are also many people in this town who extend the hand and pull you up the ladder. And Joan Rivers was you know, she was one of the ones who pulled me up, and I'll always love her for that. Anyhow, back to the plane, everything's good. Plane takes off and it lands fine. I was anxious, but it was all good. As I'm leaving the flight, the stewardess is saying bye bye, bye bye, and one of them looked like a little bit like Ariana Grande, not

really but almost. You know, she had glasses a little bit like Ariana. I walk by and I go Ariana Grande. I know you've heard that before. She says, I'll take it. I'll take it, thanks, AJ And I go wait, I said, you know me? How do you know me? I don't know you, she says, I listened to your show. Silly, I had no idea. She didn't say it in the whole flight. So strange fun. But oh, speaking of Ariana Grande, Oh my god, did you hear one of those horrifying

interviews she and Cynthia Arrivo are doing for Wicked. I can't look. I've already told you I'm over it, and I think more most of us are. We've seen the picture of how thin they are, and in Masha, these two women are from just a year or two ago. It's disgusting. They both look like they're in Auschwitz. I'm sorry not to bring up a horrible situation, but that's

what they look like. Apparently, Ariana Grande thinks all of the references to the word queer in The Wizard of Ours means that everybody loved the lgbt qia plus password wy fi whatever the fuck, No, it doesn't, asshole. I know you so intelligent, Arianna. But the book was written in nineteen hundred and back then queer meant strange, just like back then fags meant cigarettes. This woman is thirty one years old and has no idea the word queer

meant strange back then stupid. She's sitting there doing publicity with her friend, and the way she talks. Oh, it's such a queer world, and everybody loves queers. I love all my queer friends. She's just shut up, just shut up, just bending over backwards, loving all your queer friends. Why highlight them? I just people are trying to be so good and so perfectly politically correct and woke. When is she gonna wake up? This is the girl who licked the donut several years ago, and you know what, I

like her. She's funny, but she's an asshole. By the way. Frank Baum, who wrote The Wizard of Walls in nineteen hundred, you know he wrote thirteen sequels in nineteen years. You know how hard it is to write thirteen books in nineteen years. That's like, as soon as you finished one, you start the next one immediately. Jesus, But what an idiot. The last month or so, I know has shown America that celebrities do not have the answer to things. Stop

listening to them and believing what they say. Anyhow, luggage isn't there. I'm going. What you know, I was supposed to pick up Rocco from basketball. Now I can't do it. I text him, I call Southwest. Oh, it never left Las Vegas. They tell me it'll be there the last flight out. All right, not the worst news, you know. Burnbank Airport's a couple of miles away. Okay, I'll go tonight. But by the time eleven o'clock roll, I was tired. I fell asleep. I'm like, I'm not gonna go. I'll go,

you know, I'll go in the morning. I drove the Burnbank Airport this morning. I see the bag there, sitting alone in this office. It looked like an orphan. I took it. Everything was there nice. This doesn't even compare to when I wrote the first book, Fame Ain the Bitch. I was leaving. Where was I I think I was in California coming back home to New York. And in my luggage I had my laptop my manuscript. That's all

there was. The laptop had my book in it, and the manuscript that was printed out was in the laptop. There was no other way to have it. It was not a thumb drive because I'm an asshole. And the luggage got lost and it went to I think Hawaii. It was insane. It went to Florida. Finally it was sent back to Newark Airport about four days later, and I had everything there, but ugh, I don't ever want

to check a bag again. Anyhow. I saw Sean Hannity had Sylvestistlan on his show the other day, and he brought up the story about it when Sly broke up with Jennifer Flavian when they were dating back in nineteen ninety four with a FedEx letter and Handedy asked Fly who FedEx a breakup letter? And Sly said, a coward? Does you know? I'm glad he said that. He said, the most the most intensity of breakup you can get.

You can't even say you put it down in words because you don't have the guts to do it face to face. I'm glad that story came up, and I'm glad Sly said that because I'm the one who broke the story. Now, I remember fulling Jennifer Flavin's modeling agent at her agency, and he was cage. I said, listen, I forget his name. He said, listen, I know everything. I know why Slide did that. You want to, you know, you want Jennifer Flavian to know why, so it's not

a mystery. Have her call me. All right, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna say anything bad, but I'm gonna write the story. So wouldn't you rather have her talk to me? Because I'm writing this story either way. So he gets on the phone me and I have this conversation with her, and I felt good. I mean, whatever, you have a story that nobody else in the country has. It feels amazing. And how did I get the story? I got a lot of my stories because I was

fine immersing myself into celebrities lives. Once I got past those velvet ropes, then I really made it my point to get in those tight booths and bankheads and VIP rooms and all that shit. And you know, I would stay out till last call and last calls for four four thirty in the morning. I sat down with them, I dated them, I did drugs with them. I did that until they felt comfortable enough to tell me intimate

details about themselves and other people. See. Then suddenly I would come to them and say, listen, I heard someone's trying to do this thatt to you x y Z. What do you mean, Well, this is what's going around. I don't want to write it because I like you. I'm just saying it's gonna get written. But I have the story about let's just say you cheated on so and so. No way, Yeah, it's out there, bro, So

I don't know. You know, I'm not gonna write it, but maybe you can give me something else, on somebody else, and I'll have this story killed. Really yeah, just anything you know, like what anything, anything about a celebrity, whatever the fuck you know about so and so. Just tell me they're not gonna find that it's from you, and your story's gonna die with me, all right, okay. And that they would give me shit on other people, even their own friends. That's how dirty and sordid this business was,

and I think still is. But no one did it like I did it. Nobody. So I knew this because I hung out with Janis Dickinson a lot back then, and she was as wild, or I was as wild as her. Put it that way. She was a super model of the eighties. Well, I was just in college. So Janis was living it up, and you know, it's no surprise. She loved getting high, she loved having fun, and I took part in that with her. She and I had a lot of fun together. This is way

before all the crazy botox and facial procedures. Trust me. I also was good friends with her sister, Debbie, so I was good with both of them. But I was so con soon with getting the truth that I did some things that when I look back, oh my, I shud her. I really do. But you know, those are my war stories, and those are the scars on the

scars on my health, I guess. But I actually began to think about how I used to literally get excited, like not goosebumps, but almost that feeling whenever I knew I was onto a big story and I could nail it down. And once I knew there was no stopping me, forget it. The adrenaline now it was too much. I mean back then, you know, I remember being in bed with a really bad back after my first back surgery, and I'm not allowed to get up. I'm I'm in

bed rest. My wife at the time is crying in the bathtub because she doesn't want to abuse me any longer. And she's apparently in love with the English teach or the English teacher the next auto or in school, or falling for him. She's listening to the soundtrack of The Deer Hunter in the bathtub, crying. My mother's got cancer. I'm on my back, can't get up, and I got a I was out of my mind. Suddenly I'm watching TV. There's a plane crash. Alvianca out of Columbia crashes and

it's like forty five minutes away from my house. I get my car. Where you go and you can't leave bed. I gotta go to this plane crash. I had a Toyota Corolla and a Marsda RX seven. I took the Corolla because it was more comfortable. I fly was up in National County, up in the North North area. And as I get closer I've told you this before, I see, you know, images of a plane crash. As you get closer to the site. I couldn't get within maybe a mile of the actual crash. But as I'm getting closer,

you see things in trees, sweaters, suitcase parts. You could tell that this fucking plane was hitting trees and stuff and things have falling out of it. It was horrible. It was a horrible story, but I was there. I got to see it. And then I remember there was another story that blew my mind because I started to feel that I'm one of these people like now we call me Forrest Gump or whatever we call me, you know, like by life, I'm always around these things that occur.

I can connect the dots so easily between me and a scandal or somebody in scandal. And Linda Stacey was just like that. And one day there was a huge story and I forget where this took place, but somebody was sending letter bombs to people with nails and them and sharp pieces of glass, just awful, and a number of people, I think one or two died, but people

got injuries to their face and hands, severe injuries. And this story broke that this guy was doing this, and Linda said, oh my god, what I worked for him? When what? And she told me years ago she had some kind of job. He was involved in the call. She knew him, she worked with him, so she had the inside track to this guy's life and the story.

And we nailed it from from day one because Linda had that that thing about her that she could always tie herself into some bullshit like I can, and back then, I mean so many things in the nineties, Michael Jackson, Joey buttafuco Amy Fisher, long Al Lolita Menandez Brothers, Tanya Harding, kneecapping, Nancy Kerrigan, oh j Simpson, of course, Loreena bob At cutting off her husband's dick, Susan Smith drawtled her three kids, Rodney King, and there were just some smaller ones. Roseenn

Barr singing the National anthem was a big thing. Snead O'Connor ripping up the picture of the Pope on SNL. Julia Roberts leaving Keith for suddenly at the altar, Millie Vanilli's lip syncing, Marlon Brando's son convicted of man's laughter, Jerry Seinfeld dating a teenager, Woody Allen marrying sun yee peebe Herman jerks off in the theater, Diddy and j Low and the club shooting Ana the Cole Smith marries the old Man. Mike Tyson bites Evanda holy Fields, ear

you name it. It was the best time to be a gossip columnist. One of the biggest ones, John Benet Ramsey, who killed that little girl the Pedophile's Dream? What do I think? I watched the Netflix Dock last night. I was fall asleep with the goddamn remote in my hand, but I watched three episodes and I posted a picture yesterday on the podcast of Says page of my buddy Kevin Dornan, who I call gay Kevin called because he passed away a few years ago, entirely too young. But Kevin,

don't take this the wrong way. I've told you the past. We had a sixth sense of human together. We'd make pedophile jokes and just stlew stuff. You have to be there. But he would call me as John Benney. He was obsessed with this case, and he wrote a song about John Bay. He gave it to Richard Belzer to use it a comedy act because he was friends with Belzer. But I thought about Kevin so much last night watching this documentary. But I'm watching this and I'm like, wow,

I forgot about that. I forgot about this. There's so many things you just think you know, but you forget after all these years. But it's an interesting documentary or series because initially, just like the Cops in Boulder thought they penneded on the parents immediately, like detectives and investigators walked in. One even said I knew they killed their daughter, like they just had it. They figured they had it figured out, and because of that, they fed the media

all these angles. And the documentary is really about how the ram He's had to fight the media because the detectives and the cops in Boulder were giving the media bullshit stories. And every time you want to say, oh, the father has something to do with it, the mother did, you'll hear John Ramsey tell you the converse theory of what he really said and did that the cops ignored

or lied about. It's fascinating in that respect. You could see Patsy Ramsey obviously being on some kind of mood stabilaza. When she's talking to the camera after the daughter is kidnapped and found dead, she's on something. She sounds weird, but she says there's a killer out there, and that turned off people in Boulder, turned off her neighbors. None of her neighbors want to talk about it. People implicated the son, who was nine years old at the time.

How the hell could nine year old boy Taye Garott, you know, that that break a paintbrush and tie it on a rope and use it to choke a little girl and then smash her over the head with something heavy enough to cause an eight inch cracked in a skull. Of course, he was exonerated, but all these things happened, and initially back in the day when I covered this story, I thought, all right, parents had to have something to do with it. Maybe it was that Santa Claus guy.

One time I called a guy who played Santa Claus. He came to their home the year before, and that the day before she was found dead on the twenty sixth December, and I talked to him and he was describing to me the shrine he built of John Benney in his backyard. I said, Linda, this guy's the fucking killer. Why he's built the shrine to it. The way he's talking is so weird. Okay, they never got this guy either. Other people came to light over the years, different people, drifters,

people who had sexual assault cases across the country. Some people who did similar crimes. Broke into a house, kidnapped the girl, or at least jumped in the girl's bed, assaulted her sexually, and left that was happening here and there. But some of the most fascinating things about this about this story, you'll hear people say when John bday and when Patsy and John had copstare that next morning where they got the ransom note, which is a very weird note.

The note demands one hundred and eighteen thousand dollars, very strange. That's a strange amount. Why not one hundred? Why not two fifty? Why at one eighteen? Can you believe that was the amount of money he got for his bonus that year? One hundred eighteen thousand. That would make you think immediately this guy knew John Ramsey had worked, or he saw paperwork on his in his office desk that actually had the paperwork that showed the check, or at

least the receipt for the check. So who knows, but it's really creepy. Shit. What I find creepy is this ransom note looked like it could be Patsy's handwriting. It was deemed it wasn't a hand running. But what's interesting is it was on this yellow legal pant that the Ramseys had in their house, and the page above the Ramsom note. In other words, they started to write it, and then stopped, and the second page they wrote it.

The first ransom note began with mister and missus Ramsey, and then it stopped, and the next page was to John Ramsey, the father, explaining everything we have your daughter will kill her if you go to the cops, et cetera. But what I found the most weird is when they searched the house Christmas morning, nine ten o'clock, they don't find the girl's body. A day or two later, for some reason, the police detectives go, why don't you go back and search the house again and really look. They

show up the house. John Ramsey lets them in. We have stitched the whole house. We have to sitch again if we missed anything, and they missed the basement or what they call the train room, because that's where there was a train set another room. It was a very big house, which by the way, it still has not sold. No one has bought that house since nineteen ninety six. It's a beautiful home. Nobody wants a piece of it. So the next day they go down with John Ramsey.

He walks them straight downstairs, not looking left or right, goes right to this door where the training room is and there's a bunch of blankets and John Bunney's under the blanket dead. How if you're a police detected, do you not search the entire house? You don't look for a kid in the oven, the bathtub, every how, you just walk away. We checked, We checked at least five bedrooms. How do you not go to the basement and why

would John Ramsey walk right to that spot. Then there was the famous guy John Carr, who was on the phone with an investigator for years describing that he killed her. He feels awful about it. He's known John bin A for years. He could be somebody involved in the pageant business. But this guy eventually told people I killed her. He knew details that weren't really known to the general public.

This investigator is getting freaked out. The guy says he did it, but once again, after him getting arrested, et cetera, his DNA wasn't there either. There's no one whose DNA is there. But the whole basis of this documentary is nowadays we have more access to DNA than we did

in the nineties. There's this public genealogy base which points to relatives you have across the world that you can get you closer and closer to the DNA that was found there, because the only database they had back in ninety six, nobody in that database matched the DNA, No criminal matched it. So it's somebody who wasn't arrested yet, et cetera, and they still haven't found it. So now cops are saying they're getting closer to figuring out what happened.

My theory is, and it's kind of the same as I thought years ago, and I came away last night from fielding the same thing. The father the pageants. I think somebody involved in that business or that business, that that festivity of the pageant girls, the way she was dressed, the way she was made to look like a young woman with the lipstick and the hair, and the way she moved on stage. And there's one video where she's playing the saxophone and one woman is calling it how

sexual she was. This is a girl who was sexually abused because she's moving her she's playing the saxophone and bending up and bending down like most saxophone players do. That pissed me off. Then they said John Ramsey was going through his mail the next morning when detectician. He was going through his mail because he thought they might be more correspondence from the kidnappers. A lot of people

said things that were just wrong. I think there was somebody involved in this sort of beauty pageant slash pedophile thing, because there were people with these pageants that weren't husband and wife or parents of the girls in the show. They weren't relatives. They were just people who came to see the show. That's fucking weird. And I think the person who did this possibly knew John and Patsy and maybe there was like a little bit of a i'll

see your daughter, you see my daughter thing. I don't know. I don't think he's completely innocent. Patsy Ramsey gave me the creeps, and I just think it has to do with some sort of pedophile ring that this John Carr described, But again, he's not the killer. But what I wanted to say was, I mean, Jay Kevin would call me as John Benney so much that I just found one

of those old emails. It came after I wrote my second book, and I sent them the review from the company called Kirkus that reviews books when they first come out, and Kirkus gave me a great review, like stunning review, and many people told me that that's tremendous. Kirkus doesn't like anything. They never get this positive over a new book. Of course, Kevin, with his sixth sense of humor, had to compliment me, but then had to kick me on the ass in the way out. And you read the book.

The first chapter deals with me going to New Jersey with my mother and meeting my uncle Larry before he died, and he was being taken care of by an Indian man, a Native American who lived in the woods, who came to my uncle Larry because he sensed there was somebody

in the area that needed his help. And this Indian chief, we called him Chief I met him, would give him all these plant elictures and different things that the Native Americans used before antibiotics were evolved, like branches from this tree, leaves from this flower, roots of this plant, and he treated him naturally. It's very strange. But when we went there that night. The first chapter opens up with me and my mother going to Uncle Larry's house as he's

dying and his chief is there. That's the first part of the first chapter. Gay Kevin writes me back, I agree with the reviewers at Kirkus. They definitely gave it a two thumbs up, as they should. You know, good sleazy guinea fuck. In my book, I would have fucked the Indian chief and lived happily ever after. But I'm not your uncle, Larry. And then he goes on and on, but he says, congrats you bumm. By the way, John

Beney wants to talk to you. Here she is, and then he writes in her voice, and I don't have the voicemail anymore. But he used to call me is John Beney, And he wrote as John Beney high Aga. Your book was a tough slog to get through, but not as tough a time as I had in the basement with John Carr. He was my sometimes love. You know. We used to play sex games. He made me a

necklace to die for. If you see the documentary the way John Bennet was killed or strangled, this guy made a garat and twisted and those are normally used to make pressure and then release it. It's used in a lot of sexual audio asphyxiation kind of games. And he said on the documentary that this was their love game they played, and here he is having John Benet say he made me a necklace to die for because John Carr told her I brought you a necklace, and that

was the garat. It's disgusting, but that's Kevin. That's who we were back then, and I don't know. I just thought of him last night. I know that letter and the things we said are in bad taste, but sometimes the only way to get over something so disgusting is to try to find a laugh in there somehow, so you don't have to concentrate on just how awful human beings can be. But that's it. That was my very eventful exit from Las Vegas and my night watching the

Life and Death of John Benay Ramsey. I hope you enjoyed that. Now I've got to go put some lights on the Christmas tree and we'll hang the balls this weekend. Speaking of hanging bulls, I gotta go. I'm aj Benzon. I was your Daily Unfiltered podcast for December sixth, twenty four. You have a great weekend because it only a couple more till Christmas. Talk to Monday.