116: The Fireworks Conspiracy Fireworks Spectacular!

sent in your your Bang Bang discourse. We're gonna get into it in the second half of the show. Before we do, let's take a night call about Drop City. Hi. Then Dennor Colorado and I was just listening to your latest episode and we're talking about biodome and Spaceship Earth, but also Buck Myster Cooler and um My I was listening to in my art CEO and my studio mate actually started one of the first artists commune in the country in the sixties based off of Buck Monster Pooler's

um like geodesic domes. What they did is they bought a piece of land in Trinidad, Colorado UM and they built a bunch of a bunch of geodesic domes in the middle of like this kind of a plot of lands um and they built it out of like just wood and like car tops that they bought for like penny. Um. It was super cool and I don't know if y'all would be interested in looking it up. It's filled drop

the City, Um. Yeah, it was like based off then they did a bunch of direct stuff those usually create shells um and most of them left Boulder after the hippies kind of stuck over drops in like the late sixties. Love the podcast all Right, Drop City, Drop City, USA. Did you guys know about Drop City already? I did know about Drop City because I read this TC Boil novel about it called Drop City. You also read that novel? I did you lent it to me? And I never

gave it back, and I said, go, Yeah. It came out in two thousand and three when we were in college, and they definitely read it. Um. And what I remember about the TC Boil novel is that a lot of it is about sort of the breakdown the things that didn't work great in Drop City, which, like a lot of communes, was the balance of labor between the genders. That's the big you know, the problems that communes have as we think about how to form the night Call commune.

Division of labor. Division of labor is a big one. They're super white for the most part, all these these communes. That was something I also noticed in the Spaceship Earth documentary. Again, they're all theater companies. Also, they were like, um, some of them are film students from the University of Kansas, which my mom was the film student at the University of Kansas. She missed the opportunity to go to Drop City like by a few years. So yeah, I want to say Drop City has a has a pretty good

reputation compared to some communes. Well because it ended so quickly, I think, right, it ended quickly, but it also didn't end like tragically. Yes, and I did you guys know why. I didn't know why it was called drops City. Didn't remember if this was addressed in the novel. But um, the four co founders, I think, when they were still students, started painting rocks and then they would drop them out of windows to see the reaction of people who were walking by, not to hit them, but just to be

like something fell out of the sky. Maybe don't use a rock if you're going to do that. Um. But they called them drop art or droppings, which was like a play on happenings but also works in its own funny way. Um. But yeah, they made these really cool looking domes. It's fun to look them up. And uh, I guess like, yeah, when the when there was like a festival there, uh, and it attracted a ton of people. One of one of the founders in particular was just like, oh,

this place is over and left. Um, and now I think it's it's pretty demolished. I think in the late nineties. Well, apparently it cost four hundred and fifty dollars for the land. That's the communit I can get behind. That's somebody else said it was seven hundred and fifty dollars and that they both agree that they paid money by selling some weed.

Of course one does. It's resourceful. There's also a really good documentary I'm definitely mentioned it before called Murder Mountain about Humble that basically starts with intentional communities and then leads to kind of terrifying meth amphetamine crime syndicate on a TV stuff. Murder Mountain was very depressing to me.

I mean, yeah, it starts off being like we're in Humble, We're gonna like grow some weed, and like, well, it shows how the weed growing industry is part of the reason that a lot of these communes started also because they were like, we need a farm where we can grow weed, and Humble was it was like they established the idea of doing that in Humble and then basically like drug runners got involved and took it over and

ran out the hippies. So wait, actually, what's the what is the Buckminster Fuller connection other than having the geodes syc domes, that's like the main one there were. It was like this comes up in Spaceship Earth too. It's basically like the whole Earth catalog was out. There were a bunch of these books out at the same time that were like how to live off the land, how to build your own house, um sustainably and cheaply, and the Buckminster Fuller domes became like the the easiest kind

of like way to do apes. Just love Buckminster Fuller. Um. Yeah, it was like they say here. It was also like John Cage, you know, they were all into conceptual living. I just like the name drop City. It reminds me of slab City. Also, these are like very good apocalyptic city names. But Drop City just sounds like a place, like a like a place for spies to just do

dead drops. Um, it's a very cool name for a commune. Yeah, they could have gone with Dropping City and I still would have been a fan this this whole thing though, it does it just the Colorado connection and our many hours or at least minutes that we've dedicated to Denver and the airport there, and I feel like there's been

a few different Colorado things. It makes me feel like eventually we should do some sort of ranking of the states by UM level of night call for sure, UM, because I actually think that Colorado would be up there. It's a it's a deceptively weird state. Uh, but I would be interested to see how how it shook out. Well, I think UM as our resident expert in like the weird, the weird Pacific Northwest and surrounding regions. What's Colorado the

Rockies call it? Yeah, it's a mountain states, mountain mountain time. I feel like people just don't know them about much about all those states because they're like the last ones well, yeah, I think I think it was on WHO Weekly where they ranked the time zones by who were them, and Mountain time was like the most definitive who of the time. So absolutely nobody knows. Question is mount what is mount like? What time is it now? In Mountain It's just one

hour ahead. One hour ahead Central is two hours, at Eastern is three hours. We should have opened this episode by saying that by putting us in mountain time, this is why it's a night call place. Night call exists in mountain time for sure. Well, yeah, this is a good lead into our another uh topic that Test and I wanted to talk about, which is another story about

a intentional organization that was published on Medium. Yes, so this was mediums one zero UM site, the arm of Medium that is called one zero published this really long and fascinating article about the Daylife Army, which I think was previously known as Temple, but it also could be pronounced Temple because one of the things that this cult does is it has reinvented language um to replace certain vowels with us and wise, and they call it English um, which makes for it makes for a fun read. A

lot of stories about cults. I got so far down along the line before I was like, maybe this is a bad idea. So it's based it's like anti racism, like you know, overthrowing the patriarchy capitalism is terrible. And yeah, so it follows this one guy named Matthew who was recruited into the cult when he was eighteen, and this cult started on weird Facebook with basically just ship posting. Yeah, it's a ship posting cult, and they like openly acknowledged

that they're a cult constantly. They're not like pretending not to be there. All of their stuff is tagged with like Jim Jones, People's temple and family, like like we're doing a performance art piece about cults that like happens to maybe also be a cult. Obviously they don't think it actually is a cult, or if they do, they're not admitting it. But it's run by two charismatic leaders. One of them is named whiz L otherwise known as Eban or Evan Carlson Um, and the other one is Yeah.

So this is the question. It's stylized capital K, lower case oh, capital A, so it's either co A or CoA And she's the sister of TV on the radio's Kit Malone and her other brother is also a DJ. Like she comes from a very high achieving family and she they both seem very charismatic. They're like they look very like hipster like there, Yeah, that's the thing is it's like it's a hipster cult, but like self consciously it's a hipster cult, but it's just sort of presented

as being like a hippie anti racist organization. So this is something is this current or like it's the kind of timeline that like when did it kind of started? Probably like when Trump got elected, So I think, well, I think it may have even been earlier. I don't know. There, I think it started around but that was when the guy who they follow in this story, Matthew, he got involved with it. He was involved with it for like five years, I think. So she so CoA was really

is a Jehovah's witness. And there's like a point in the end of the story where they talked to her brother cap alone and ask him for comment about like his sister being a call leader, and he's like, well, you know, we were raised in like a very oppressive religious atmosphere, and like sometimes people who have trauma from something like that like replicated in an attempt to like, you know, deal with it, but he was like I love my sister, and like, yeah, he seems super cool.

What's fucked up about it is that it's like it presents itself as like a black female supremacist like religion. At first, it's like, you know, we're here to like uplift black women, and like you should you know, white people, like just give us all your money to cleanse yourself

of your sins. But then there's also racist stuff about black women from whizz l, who is a white guy who is co as partner, so like it really feels like they're in an abusive relationship and he's manipulating her and they're both manipulating all these young people who get

into it because it sounds really good. It's that because they're basically promised that, you know, some Matthew had like an electronic music hobby that he wanted to you know, like make money off of, and they were like, oh, we can market and they seem so savvy because their ship posting and they're promising like drop City, you know, and they're saying like oh, it's a cult, but not really. It's like an artist collective and we're going to get some land and everyone's going to like make their art

and we're all gonna like end white supremacy. Does ship posting make people seem credible in your like, does that make it feel like you're like credibly um ironic about your intentions or like, what the deal? I think when they when they really started appealing to people, it was that they were so incredibly online. They seem to have a sense of humor about what they were doing, and they they point out in the article that weird Facebook was kind of blowing up at that point because it

was like the demise of tumbling weird Facebook. I don't know what weird Cato is real. It's real Molly, Molly and I am. Back when Molly was on Facebook, we were in a weird Facebook group that was like all about disgusting food and the tub chef. Yeah, tub Chef, which was super I mean, there's all of these weird top chefs could be a cult if it wanted to. Okay, one thing is I didn't realize about it is it's a parent. It's a play on top chefs. Yeah, sure,

but that's clear. It's it's just I think it's like food you would make in a bathtub, but it crunches way off. Though it started as that, but then in true weird Facebook fashion, it just evolved to be like any kind of weird food. There were weird food brackets

and you know, that went on and on. Like then my friend, my friend Anne, who was very involved in the founding of tub chef and like other uh weird Facebook groups, eventually like weird Facebook and tub Chef got invaded by norms and then it's like she didn't want to be part of it anymore because it got to learn trying to or just like people were doing things that weren't tub Chef. They were like posting food that wasn't actually weird, or just memes that have nothing to

do with the theme. There's also one called scrub Chef that's all stumped memes about I'm gonna I'm gonna throw out a hypothesis. I don't think the weird blank about the internet can be truly weird if you know the person who's involved with it in real life, Like I think it deludes the purity of the online experience if you actually if you're just friends with somebody and they're

doing a goroof online. I think it's different than like I stumbled across this weird thing on Facebook at three in the morning because i couldn't get to sleep, and now I'm subscribed to this thing called tub chef. And these are definitely like a group of artists. It's also

people affiliated with like everything is terrible. It's people who's like, it's like weird Midwest and their stall in trade is like replicating that weird finding something weird on the Internet or TV at three am, feeling um, which is the aesthetic of weird Internet. I guess, um, here's where the very basic by platform. But yes, anyway, go on, we'll

get to the really bad. Yeah. Yeah. So basically they promised people, you know, like if they promised them the basically like getting out of what's the pain matrix and

getting into the pleasure matrix. And the pleasure matrix is to shed all of the like terrible things about life and to shed your what you've like learned from your parents and from school that's kind of like you know, giving you the perception that the systems in place are good, and to enter the pleasure matrix, which also placed a big emphasis on masturbation and like sex, magic and stuff, and by doing that to become kind of enlightened and

then also to like live off the land. But they also had some weird abusive stuff even before things did get really bad. That's also another classic commune issue. Yes, I think that was also an issue at Drop City. Yes. Yeah, they made everyone like scrub the toy. They had like really exacting standards of cleanliness and like personal hygiene, and that extended to like dietary prescriptions for individual members like this one guy couldn't use ice cubes in his water.

He wasn't allowed anything sugary, but that was just for him. Wait, I feel like we zipped over the part where they actually did make a commune. Did that happen? They started? Okay, so they recruited online, and they recruited people who I guess you know, are lonely, you know, people looking for guidance on the internet. Um, and then they were saying

like here's this, like we're going to teach you. We're gonna un teach you everything that like you've learned, you know, sort of like Q and on, but like like seemingly like an online scene, but it's just unusual for that stuff to get into meat space. Well it was it was half and half for a while. A lot of people are only involved online. There's and there's a very small group of people who were involved in this at all, and it's at its peak it had only a few

dozen members and now I think there are five. Um. So it wasn't everyone living, cohabitating or anything. It was like a select few who decided to kind of take the leap. And they started by trying to like monetize internet advertising basically, which as we all know, is impossible, but what a what a cult for our times? We will not be growing weed, will be selling. So they would recruit people and be like, you have to post ads for Temple and recruit people for Temple, and that's

how you like pay off your debt to Temple. UM and giving Temple money is washing, is called washing. It's like you're washing yourself of the guilt you have for like being in this capitalist, white supremacist, misogynist society. So some people got so into it that then they were recruited to be like I R r L soldiers and join up with Temple in real life. And so they did get some property in Washington, but that was while

his parents house. Okay, so Whizzel. Also Whizzle is related to a guy who's in the band Earth, which is also interesting. It's a very like you know, indie rock adjacent cult. And his dad is like some famous objectivists, so he went to like the ain Rand school as a child. He was like raised by an objectivist, so his whole thing was like, fuck, my objectivist dad, I'm going to get into like collectivism, but like not really because he still wants to be in charge of everything.

And the washed money was buying like expensive cars, you know what I mean. The washed money was not going toward any kind of great right. It's kind of like wild wild countries, give up all your earthly possessions but also give them to us, um And so they kept trying to kind of get in like rich people, people who they thought were going to provide like a big windfall, you know who they could like. It's very Manson family too.

It was a lot of like call your parents and demand money because they taught you all of these stupid ideas in the first place, so they need to give money to you that then you can give to us because we're teaching we're giving you a real education. Yeah, And and the parents were like, no, I won't do that. Yeah. So there was like some guy, one of the guys

they talked to who they brought in. Um. He they were like expecting his parents to give all this money, and then when they didn't, they like essentially forced him into sex trafficking and started doing that with other members of the group as sort of their new plan to make money. We'll hold up with the way that they did that. First of all, they suggested that one of the members who identified as straight have sex with a man.

But the sex, the sex trafficking thing was because the members were forbidden from getting any kind of a job because that would be a capitalism. You know, you can't do that, that would be a capitalism. Interesting time, anyway, that would be a capitalism. Don't do a capitalism. But anyway, they were like, you can't have a job, but you need to pay five hundred dollars a month or whatever

to stay with us. So the people were basically they had to slightly kind of sneak out of the cabin and find a way to get money without having a job. So a lot of them were, you know, driving for ride shares, but it became hard to conceal these things. So that's why eventually they started doing escort work. Also because this was like you know, they had a lot of things of like the pearl divine or whatever, which is basically drinking jizz was a popular thing, one of

the big sacraments. Um, let's take a break for an ad and then we'll finish up the saga and come come into fireworks when we return. Welcome back. We were just discussing Temple a k Daylife Army, and we've gotten into some of the darker stuff with it. UM. But I think what what kind of needs to be clarified maybe a little bit is that nobody was really forced into sex trafficking, um, but they were given very few options to operate under the rules of this cult without

doing it. It's like extremely Manson family because that was a Manson family tactic. It's like a lot of cults tactic is like, you know, show of loyalty by being like do something you wouldn't normally do. Manson had all of the male members of the Manson family have sex with each other to like prove that, you know, they were free of ego or whatever, but it's totally to like demonstrate that you will do anything, you know, whatever it takes. So then they started using Grinder and Craigslist

and stuff. Not Craigslist, you can't do that anymore, but Tinder hook up sites to to to do dates and right, they wouldn't let them have any other jobs, and people were like secretly getting door dash jobs and and rideshare jobs. Yeah, and like the accommodations kept getting kind of less nice. Like at first they were at Whizzl's dad's house, and then they were at some other like nice airbnb's with the pool and stuff, and then they were in like a motel six, and then they were just like living

out of cars and camping. And at a certain point they added like a seven level thing to it that is very scientology, where it's like, you know, you're supposed to move up through the levels and like get rid of all your baggage, um, but nobody can actually move up to the top level except for them. So anyway, it kind of it resolves the article. Resolve of the

cult is not in any way kind of resolved. But the member who was being who was telling this story to medium, has since left and started an Instagram called pain Matrix where he out he has all these videos, um and pictures from when he was in the cult, and he kind of breaks it down. Several members have anti Temple instagrams now and tell us about the Instagram life of Temple. So I was trying to find Temple

stuff online. I looked on Instagram and found both followers and X followers, and they're like basically directly addressing all of the stuff in this article on their Instagram right now, sort of just like making fun of it. It's very

just like Internet e It's like everything's a troll. Like even the people who are out at it, they still think of it as being a troll or or they're being out of it, is a is a troll or no, like just that, like they respond to everything to criticism like trolls just you know, which is like the least helpful way to like understand what's going on with something, especially if you're like if there could be something serious like people being in danger with it. That's what I'm saying.

Like the guy like whizz L just posts like you know, his whole vibe is like they all dressed in white, and his whole thing is like looking like a creepy like you know, hipster cult leader guy um and he tags his photos with like you know yeah, like people's temple and stuff. Just like it's very It's that thing where it's like if I'm being self aware of how

fucked up it is, then like yeah, you know. There's a part also there's a quote I think it's from Ka in the piece where she says like any attention on the internet is good attention, yes, yeah, which really I mean again, she's also very charismatic and like, you know, you you understand how people got drawn into this and also how they got drawn to her because she presents herself as like, you know, a black feminist who is you know, gonna You're gonna teach people how to unlearn yeah,

bad things that they've learned. It's like the goals that they stayed are all good on on the page. But then all the members are like, they're not actually an anti racist organization. They're not like a feminist organization, and they target a lot of like trans kids, because they target people that are like vulnerable or have something you know that they like are dreaming of, like a transition that they're like We're going to help you achieve whatever

it is you want. And then there was a trans woman who was saying, like, but they wouldn't let me go to the hospital or get her hormones because they don't believe in hospitals. So they were like, but I think it bears mentioning that this sounds as though it did start from a kind from a good place, and also like we can do something good and kind of have a laugh and like try to market it in this new way. And then I think at some point um CoA started to tell people that she was communicating

with aliens. She was carrying a pendulum around that would allow her to like communicate with you know, the galaxy and like interpret those messages for followers and stuff. So it does kind of did she rename herself the General Lisimo? She did, or General CoA is now her Instagram name, but all that stuff too. I was like that would just work on New age people, like even better, you know, like if you say, like there's some esoteric system to this that you have to learn and you can only

learn it by like following us. So many people want that, they want to be told how to be better. And if you add an l O L onto it that then there's like less embarrassment factor because but we're all like fucking with you, Like there's something very sinister about that. I mean, I have to like to just broaden what this sounds like to something you know, more general or more cultural. It's happy now, Like I feel like I

always a vague sense of easiness. The more mimified stuff like eat the rich or guillotines for everybody like becomes a meme because then I feel like the actual intent or vision for the future that is like gestured at by that sort of statement that has now become ironic or just like a weird kind of half joke, gets

like kind of forgotten about or diluted in a way. Well, it's like a lot of things where it's like you can say anything you want online, and we're seeing a lot of like the blowback from that, you know, coming home now of just people when they first were like, Wow, I can really say anything online. Uh, no one's going

to stop me. That does lead to kind of like a dulling of if you're saying something really violent or crazy that it's supposed to just become normalized, or if you're saying something that's that is uh, you know good or could be you know, constructive if it was in earnest. You know, if you're talking about like a positive revolution for people, but you're doing it with the astra of like L O L at the end of it, then it's like very that But that feels very of its time,

Like that feels very now. Yeah, And you know, I think what makes this feel very sinister is sort of that they are hooking people in with this idea of anti racism. You know that of course, there are lots of like great anti racist organs that aren't cults that like might you know, radicalize you if you have like bad parents, who are you know, didn't teach you anything good?

It's just And I think also like, especially if this has started after Trump selection in twos sixteen, like that was a moment of genuine panic where a lot of people like, what the funk am I supposed to do with my life now? Like? How can I not be a part of a problem in a way that I think a lot of people are dealing with now. Also, and I think the younger you are, the less patients.

If you're in the middle of a kind of like national emergency moment like that, the less patients you have for people who are experienced with the organizing, who do the dumb boring work of like you know, bringing about social change, like you want the dramatic thing, you want to go out into the woods and burlap and like whatever, like start a commune like that has a lot of appeal.

It's very understandable. I mean, it's understandable for me, Like I know, I mean, I mean for sure, and I think we're seeing that now too, because it's like it's exciting to be at a protest and to be at an action, and it can be less exciting to be on like a two hour zoom call like going over how everything went and planning for the next thing. But that stuff does all have to be done, and like just being accountable these people, it's just kind of a bummer.

One girl who was in it still, I looked at her Instagram for a really long time. She had a real Manson girl vibe um and she posted like emails from her parents that were like we read another article about how you're in a sex trafficking cult. And she'll be like l o, l oh, my god, they understand my family and she's just but it was interesting because she kept being like, my parents are neoliberals, Like they're dirty, disgusting money, like should burn um, oh my gosh, which

some of these things. I was like, I understand. Yeah, I mean that's that's the thing. That's the reason that this article was so interesting was because normally, its cults, it's built on something that is less accessible as an idea than this one is. And yeah, there was a twenty sixteen Daily Dot article I think was the first

to bring this to people's attention. Um and yeah. At that point, the cult had existed for a couple of years, and that was the I think the first indication that a lot of the parents and relatives of people involved in this cult, we're like, oh, it's not just like they're spending a lot of time on line talking to their weird new friends. It's like this might actually be

dangerous to them. Yeah, and it does have some like Jonestown vibes for sure, because like one of the really insiduous things about Jonestown also was that it was like we're creating this new church for like racial equality, and so it was a white cult leader, you know, promising like racial equality and like that's what the purpose of this group is. We're starting like a new post racism commune,

and obviously that is not what happened with Jonestown. So yeah, I think it's just like, once you get people to listen to you, there's there's like a point where people naturally like stop questioning things themselves. Um. I saw somebody saying that about podcasters yesterday and what way. Um I thought it was funny actually because I was like, I've definitely noticed this a little bit. It was Sarah scorm

the comedian who I really like. Um, she was talking about people who have just replaced their own original thoughts with takes from podcasts and how that's like an entire type of person now, especially for politics, and I was like, yes,

she is right about that. Um yeah, I think nobody is immune to like hearing something catchy and like being like I also now think this especially now, and like, at least speaking for myself, most of my social interaction has been replaced with listening to podcasts and audio books. But like all of my human voice stuff is just like listening to other people's takes on podcasts, which I'm sure is like very damaging. Those are your friends, Emily and my new friends. They don't know who I am,

but I know who they are. Um, we're going to take a quick break and when we come back, we're going to get back into everybody's favorite conspiracy theory this fourth of July. Welcome back to Night Call. First off, we're going to take an email from Will from Okerville River. Hey, thanks for writing in, Will, Will write, I wonder what you make of the fireworks can RC theories that have begun circulating in the past few days. The uptick and

neighborhood fireworks was something I noticed gradually. It seemed at first to be an outgrowth of the A p M healthcare workers shoutouts, and then the shoutouts were replaced by explosions, and then the explosions went all through the night. Then I noticed that my friends all over the country we're hearing them. And today I'm seeing news stories along with social threads about random white men pulling up an unmarked black SUVs and handing out pro grade fireworks to kids.

And I saw a couple of photos of said SUVs, and also a weird New York Post story about a group of firefighters spotted setting off illegal fireworks in Brooklyn at midnight. For some reason, common sense tells me that this is just your typical neighborhood fireworks fun only on steroids because people are pent up on board and agro from quarantine. But this is the month in which we've seen the NYPDS dumb shake Shack poisoning lie picked up

by all the New York news networks. We've seen cops not accepted gineering into the ground on camera until us he tripped, and we've seen unidentified badgeless soldiers on patrol in DC. A week or so ago, I was reading a slate piece of out William Barr, which said, chaos is the point. Chaos keeps the cameras on Trump and Bar, Chaos puts the head of the federal law enforcement apparatus in a position to exert enormous power over the flow

of information. And of course that word chaos made my mind go somewhere super specific, namely the CIA's Operation Chaos in the sixties, whose basic mission, as with co Intel pro what's to turn communities and activist groups against each other and create an attitude of distrust and paranoia. Things feel weird outside, even though I've personally gotten used to all the random all night booms. If they were replaced by gunfire or tear guest canisters, I probably wouldn't even notice.

But since we're in a moment where some are calling to defund the police while others are imagining this means a world where gangs and murderers room free, it strikes me that neighborhoods filled with chaotic explosions aren't exactly helping the cause. As conspiracy theories go, this one is maybe silly, But on the other hand, it's so hard to discount any conspiracy theory when you can't trust any giant organization

that pretends to have the public interest in mind. Thank you, well, I want to just like confirm between the three of us and and maybe like among our audience in general. Um, fourth of July is uh is canceled this year? Right? Uh? You mean the purge? Yes? Yeah, I've been thinking about south Land Tales a lot for many reasons, but I just assume it's gonna be south Land Tales this fourth last year. I mean, yeah, who knows. I just feel like, one, you can't really go out anyway to kind of a

low point for America right now. Yeah, but that I mean I could see it being used as a good opportunity to like overturn some more statues and stuff like that. Yeah. Well, I would love it if people reclaimed the fourth of July by knocking the fourth of July itself over. I'm saying, like, mout Rushmore is the big one. We got to figure out the engineering there. Get some get some engineer, Like if you're a if you're a woman in Stem or a man in stem, let's figure out how to get

the amount Rushmore down. Yeah? Can I just can we just say fuck Mount Rushmore? Yeah? About Rushmore's they destroyed? Yeah, they destroyed a sacred, sacred mountain. It almost killed Carrie Grants. True, nothing good has ever come of Mount Rushmore. How could they destroy it? Though? Are they just going to blow it up? While you could like chop the faces, you

can give it a facelift. That seems so hard. What if you made it into know that it's probably too much work to make it into waterfalls so that the water is like streaming in front of their faces and eventually just erodes them. That That's what I'm thinking, That's what I'm saying. This is a job for engineers, not us, So I'm asking the engineer's sake. I think this is a job for land artists a k a us. Yeah, drop that too. I think Tash just came up with

a really good John Cage let water away. Yeah, yeah, it's the long term happening. The only problem with this idea is just getting a large body of water and somehow plopping it where we need it. Yeah, that's we're just dropping. We're dropping water. They've done, they've done more in in like Avengers movies. They can take right, We'll take the reclaimed water from the shutdown Splash Mountain. Oh yeah,

all that blue water. Yeah, that needs needs to be purified. Um. Anyway, So the that's about the beginning of end of our our our Fourth of July plans. I think it's a podcast. But in the meantime, a lot of people seem to have been getting a head start on Fourth of July, as I think per usual, especially in Los Angeles, there's about a month of firework ner random fireworks going off the four fourth of July, as people you know, acquire their illegal fireworks from very places and set them off

like we're kind of used to that here. I think like as far as fireworks goes, this is mostly a New York seems to mostly be a New York thing. Maybe that's because I mostly follow New York people. But at the same time, there have been more fireworks here than usual I think in Los Angeles. All right, everybody, let's put our tinfoil hats on, put our put our firework hats on. I just want, like, first impression, did you think? What did you think when you heard this conspiracy?

You don't want to say what the conspiracy is first for those people who maybe site some people who are the first to sort of bring it bring it in.

A Twitter user with the Twitter named Son of Baldwin was tweeting about it first, suggesting that it was a conspiracy involving the police, that maybe the police were giving out fireworks to uh young black kids, especially in New York, so that they could then have to like rush in and save the day or demonstrate what happens when there's no cops, is that nobody comes in to stop fireworks from being lit off. Um, some people think the cops

were just doing it themselves. And there's a video of a New York fire station where there just appears to be a huge creative fireworks going off in the front room in front of a yeah, just in front of a fire station. So a couple of people, we know, we're investigating it, the writer Charlotte Shane and um, a couple other people, and so far I haven't seen any conclusive evidence. So there a few of the things that kind of made the rounds. There was There was the

New York Freight Department photo. There was also a video, and I'm not sure I was trying to figure out which precinct it was. I think it was somewhere near Williamsburg where there was a bunch of fireworks going off and what looked like whatever the building was behind this precinct, and a bunch of cops were just sitting out front like not doing anything, like even though you know, the

fireworks were like literally behind them. So there was sort of like kind of furthering the idea that that they either don't care or they were putting it off themselves.

I mean, I think that the Son of Baldwin conspiracy, as laid out by that account, it's pretty um it covers a lot of bases in in the on the way that all the best conspiracy theories do because it's sort of like, well, even if it's not that, it's still that it's basically the thing like, Um, so you know, it could be that they are that protesters are putting

them off. That that that's like, you know, that's the first thing that a lot of people assumed that it was is that these are like kids and a lot of people who had been at protests earlier that day just like letting off steam, putting out, putting off fireworks like and that uh, that the police weren't doing anything about it because the more noise and chaos there was.

Then then that makes that group of people, those young people who are protesting into the bad guys who are not letting other people sleep, or they are directly supplying the fireworks to those people, in which case they are encouraging that behavior, or they're just straight up cutting out

the middleman and setting them off themselves. Um. And the end that, you know, it could be a mix of all of those things, and it would still serve the end purpose, which would be to keep the city uh sleepless and crazy feeling and to kind of foment this um kind of antipathy toward the protesters and and towards what people most I think, you know, mainstream non tinfoil hat wears just assumer kids and and and probably non

white kids. Uh So, I don't know. It feels like that that conspiracy theory like it it brand, It branches off in every direction and covers every base in a in a way that does make you feel like it's very possive. It was a great conspiracy theory because it couldn't be proved wrong or right instantly, so there was a lot of space for people to like, you know,

be Internet detectives about it. And that also kind of blurred the lines of like once it became a conspiracy theory, then were then it just sort of does become true in a way. Does that make sense? Because I saw somebody posted in Baltimore, and the writer pe Moscow has also been doing research on this um they post somebody posted in Baltimore. There was like a Craigslist post that was like got these shells, like these giant fireworkshells for

free for any BLM supporters. Like BLM supporters can get your free fireworks. I think that's fake though. I think that's like, I they're a lot of fake Craigslist ads. Lately, I feeling, well, okay, here's the thing too. Okay, So I initially was like, obviously I believe that like the cops plant evidence and would do something like this. It was more that the idea process behind it was so convoluted that I was like, it's so stupid that either means it has to be the cops or it's just

like Occam's Razor. And it's two weeks before the fourth of July, you know, because there are always a ton of fireworks in Los Angeles. It starts in like May sometimes, and it's definitely gotten more crazy every year, gotten more widespread across the city every year. And this year fireworks are insanely cheap and available everywhere because apparently fireworks companies who like this is their season didn't make their quota on anything because there like was no Memorial Day or

Easter or anything. So people are like giving away fireworks, and if you look, somebody's sent me like a like a Facebook link On Facebook. People are all posting that like things are for sale, and then they'll be holding up whatever the thing they said is for sale in front of a huge room full of fireworks. Yeah, it'll be like PlayStation Control or forty dollars, and then it's

in a warehouse full of fireworks. But I have to I have to jump in and say that we in l A. I think that I usually associate the summer fireworks a lot with baseball games because they've set them off at Dodger Stadium, and I think that I generally, you know, feel that they start in May and then they last way too long. There's even I was watching Under the Silver Lake again last night. Sorry, another conspiracy paranoid movie, but there are fireworks. How many times do

you really want to you? I think last night may have been like twelve. Oh my god, I know I'm under this. I don't know, Emily. It's your fault. You recommended we own it. I mean, it's really it's we own it. I mean I can't. I I have to like self identify as this. But please don't think of me this way. People listening to the just just to

read it. But there's even a moment in it where fireworks just start going off like crazy and they're like, whoa, it's late in the season for fireworks, which is like something that you hear so often of like it's a little early for fireworks, it's a little late for fireworks, but they never never stopped. But the difference between a Dodgers stadium. I used to live right next to Dodgers State, right, Like that's like a professional display happened all the time.

It was just like you can't have a dog if you live around there. It's just nearly I mean people do anyway, but like it's it's I think it's torturous if you do. But there's a difference between that and I think the random one off. That's what I'm saying. So this is my point is that we are all

being deprived of the professional fireworks. Normally there are those fireworks, and then there are all of the other people setting off their own fireworks roughly the same time, which is also a way of if you can't be at a game and you feel like doing something you probably shouldn't do because it could start a fire, upset someone's dog, but you're doing it anyway because you like to have fun, which fine, but I mean it was usually the way

of like celebrating that. Now there's nothing to celebrate, there's nowhere to congregate, there's no kind of sense of like that going on, So I I understand people's impulse to set off a ship ton of fireworks, like I get it. The main counter theory I've seen is like kids are board and fireworks are cheaper and more accessible than they've ever in history. If this a happening in like December or something, I think it would be way more unsettling.

The fact that it is two weeks to the fourth of July means it's all like do not you know, believably deniable. Okay, here's what I think. I think. I think it's different in different cities. And I didn't know that until I asked people to make me field recordings of the fireworks. And DJ Jubilee, excellent DJ in Front of Night Call sent a recording of the New York fireworks and they were totally different from the fireworks here. Totally didn't sound anything like the even the most fireworks

that we have here. It's sounded like somebody setting off professional grade fireworks. Uh. Continuously, also the way that sound works like there have been two or three times when somebody in my neighborhood was setting off fireworks in Brooklyn and the sound because you're in a cord or of buildings. If somebody's setting off fireworks in the middle of that, it's loud as fun and it's actually really really it's much more than like, oh, pop pop in the distance

and your dog grows a little bit. It sounds like there's like guns going off out last night. Last night, someone was setting them off less than a block for me, and it started this whole email chain between everyone who lives in my neighborhood trying to find out who had done it, and people started like accusing each other. But it it sounded it was so incredibly loud. But I, guys, I have to pause you because we have we got

some feedback on this. We have some calls and emails from listeners, and I think we should pause and take one so we can continue this. Okay, Um, Hi, I'm just calling to say that I am I feel pretty certain so I don't have concrete evidence that the cops are the ones letting off all these fireworks because the timing is very suspicious and it just seems too to be true that they're all happening with such frequency all over the country at the same time of night, every

single night. Um, and I think they're trying to scare us into wanting to keep them around unsuccessfully. So yeah, those are my thoughts. Wow, too bad for the cops, that we are like the Joker and chaos only feels us.

Um I I I mean, I think, I think, I don't know what I think still actually it is what I was gonna say, But I do think it's interesting, Like what Tests was saying, it has degenerated into people into like Shirley Jackson's the lottery of people being like Goody Tests lit the fireworks, and that feels like a pre uprising part of COVID that I'm not trying to

get back to at all. No way, there's uh, I mean, I think we cut this part out of Will's email, but um that he did mention the next door thing and I've been noticing this thing on next door nothing to do with fireworks. Other there's in plenty of fireworks discourse whenever I go on there. But um, when there is like a neighborhood disturbance, like a loud party at like a rental house or whatever, Um, there's a huge there's always a huge debate about like don't call the cops.

Don't call the cops, Like we don't like, let's not rely on the police anymore. And I feel like I feel like the same thing is happening with the fireworks, because and everybody was just like what do we do, Like, you know, the people who had normally rushed to call the cops about that sort of thing, or like, oh,

I don't know what to do now. So it's like creates this weird mirror like accountability or something around all that, right, because people are also like, well, I want to be excusing it if it's kids doing it, but if it really is the cops doing it, I don't want to be like, oh, it's cool, you know, because like fuck that.

I mean. I also like, I mean, before this became like I went into full till conspiracy land, I like, I, I guess what from the few times that the fire did go off when I was in in New York in Brooklyn, like it was, it was upsetting enough and

disturbing enough. And if I was having like, say, a really jangling nerve day, if my anxiety happened to be up there, like they would make me cry because they are they just you know, it's like where you break out into a cold sweat because of the disturbance of them. And so when I did see, like, you know, I posted this thing, somebody had made a sign in their

neighborhood that said like, please don't do this. Like it's just start like a very kind of like whatever, lame and dorky, but still like non law enforcement evolving way to like address your neighborhood and be like, hey, this isn't cool, like we can't sleep, our our dogs are really upset, and just like putting it out there and had it had it it got like spray painted over this like funk off or whatever. Get used to it

like that. That stuff does also make me feel crazy, no, I know, and I think, like it's not that I don't understand the people who are like my dog is upset, you know, it's giving me PTSD whatever. To me, it's like people trying to find something that you like definitely cannot find, you know, people who are like I want to call the manager of fireworks and be like stop it. You you know, it's like you have to just kind of like give yourself over to the fact that you

have no control over it whoever is in charge of it. UM. I did another podcast the other day that was based out of New York called grub Stakers, and I said, like, oh, are we going to hear the fireworks while we're recording? And like halfway through the recording, the fireworks started and it was insane. It was like Hannon going off. But but the thing that really strikes me about it is being so different from the l A ones is the

l A ones have this like chaotic random pattern. Some of them are big and loud, but like most of them are small and fizzily, and it just sounds random. It sounds just like one pop and then another way over there. It sounds like actual chaos. The thing in New York sounds coordinated because it's like flat. It's like boom boom, boom boom, just like like they have like a row of like rockets basically or whatever that they're setting off like. Well, then I saw something that Macy's.

I think this was real. Macy's announced their doing like a fireworks spectacular for the fourth July. They said, New York They're gonna light professional fireworks throughout the different boroughs of New York. No amaz this which also makes me think of that thirty Rock episode where they're like the nine eleven like tribute to fireworks. UM. I read an interesting piece on this in The Atlantic by Caitlin Tiffany, and she wrote, to some degree, our current circumstances are

likely to blame. In a paper, the sociologist Ted Gertzel found that belief in a conspiracy theory is strongly correlated with anomia or anomia or a feeling that social order is collapsing and the situation of the average person is getting worse. He also found a correlation between conspiracy belief and positive responses to the question thinking about the next twelve months, how likely do you think it is that

you will lose your job or be laid off? So I think, even though I know that here, I don't think that there's any kind of coordinated effort to drive people insane with fireworks in Los Angeles. From what I've been hearing in New York and in like more rural communities that are kind of experiencing this, it feels undeniable.

But at the same time, I think it can be compelling and kind of appealing to participate in things that have you know, I mean, I don't know if I were super bored and super depressed and like by myself in a in a small town, and I thought that like setting off some fireworks might be fun, and also like I don't know, maybe I can't imagine it, but it's like maybe play into something that's like a good version of this conspiracy, because there are so many different

ways to interpret it. Well. People have also pointed out it's like kids didn't get to graduate or have problems. And if I'm like, they're not going to get to go to college, they don't get to go to summer camp, Like what is the one thing they can do right now? Is like hang out and people are mad, and it's

also way of communicating with other people, you know. I mean we're you're trapped in your own little zone, but you do something that's powerful that people feel and people here, when otherwise you're kind of relegated to just like talking

to people on the computer. Right. I mean, there are people in my neighborhood who do like an official you know, not official, but like a neighborhood Fourth of July fireworks show every year who go and get like it's not surprising to me that amateurs could get like some you know, semi pro seeming stuff, especially because again like theme parks are closed, there's no concerts, Like maybe those people are selling the big giant fireworks on the black market because

they can right now, because there's no other use for them now. I always remember being in Vegas once and and being at a bar and like talking to some random dudes who were like on their way to like they were coming from somewhere in Nevada to just bring fireworks to l A. They were like, just bring in black markets for sure. And people have had so much free time to like go buy fireworks in places that

they're legal. Um, And people have said about New York too, that New Jersey I think legalized them not that long ago, so it's like it's not inconceivable you could get really good fireworks in New York. But there's something about the sort of like metronomic way that the New York fireworks

sound that does sound like it's like here. Is the thing that makes me um feel craziest about the New York ones, specifically the New York ones, is that I think the first wave, like when when I first started realizing that they were like becoming a difference for people and they were different, and people were kind of complaining about them and like or what's up with the fireworks?

Like very quickly, this narrative emerged mostly from like like white journalists that I follow that it was like it was racist to complain about the fireworks because it was like part of a Black Lives Matter celebration, but like, yeah, like it, and I was like, this seems weird and I'm only like right now, I'm mostly only saying this from white people. And then this big BuzzFeed investigation story

came out. It's like, um, like blaming the strife over and the conspiracy is about about the fireworks on white gentrifires. And then I'm like I'm fully like in chaos about then, because I'm like, oh, we're starting like this weird racial argument over fireworks in Brooklyn and like making a gentrification issue, even though like if you are a human and a half ears you cannot sleep because of fireworks, it is not.

It is not. And also if you're a human who likes reckless fun, I mean it's fireworks are the great equalizing totally. Fireworks are a gentrification issue for sure, especially oh yeah, especially I feel like in l A, the divides between people who like love fireworks and fireworks. No, Yeah, that's an age thing. I I kind of I refuse to believe that, because, like, there are are old people in any neighborhood who are not necessarily rich gentrifires who

don't like fireworks. Like, there's not that people who don't like fireworks. But kids, all kids love fireworks, That's not true. A lot of kids, I mean, especially a lot of kids who are like on the spectrum or whatever, really hate fireworks. And a lot of the most compelling arguments for not doing fireworks is that, you know, for veterans, for kids who are you know, neurodivirgin or whatever, they're

so incredibly traumatizing. I feel like firework response is a very personal and I don't really think it it follows along them though. It's totally a gentrification issue because it's like any time people that aren't white or like using public space in any way, people call the cops on them, like the cops on them, like called bullshit on this honest, Like, I see what you're saying that it's part of the

character of the neighborhood. I'm not saying like doing a military display of fireworks every night is the character of anyone's neighborhood, although like you said, with the Dodgers, it is actually something they do in Echo Park that's a corporate like, that's a national but it's also it's the people who a lot of the people who live around

the stadium are also. I mean, I think in l A like, it's something that people participate, whether they're at the stadium or not, because if you can see the fireworks far away coming from the stadium, it's something that you do to participate anything that's happening in a neighborhood that then white people move in and are like this needs to stop happening is part of gentrification and doing

the fireworks, But that's what's happening this year. And I do think that That's what I'm saying is like, I do think it's possible that there are racist people, such as the police or Proud Boys or whatever, doing fireworks to try and instigate racial tension and create arguments about stuff like this in order to again be like, see, here's why we need cops law in order you don't like things that happen without cops. I don't think it's like the c I A. You know, I don't think

it's like a federally coordinated program. But the theory I've heard that seems the most believable to me is the idea that this is like yeah, on message boards being like, what if we lit off fireworks all the time? You know, I don't think they foresaw the white liberals being like, no, we can't because of like white guilt about having gentrified these neighborhoods that we live in. You know. Again, it's like, I don't think it's having the intended effect because I

don't think anyone's turning on the protesters. You know. I think people are like annoyed about fireworks, but I don't think anyone's like, you know, like Black Lives Matter is doing these fireworks, and now I don't see their point of view, Like I think it's not going to convince anyone to come over to their side, which is why it seems But it's also entirely possible that it's just really bored people. It's possible. I mean, I cling to this guy's because I do. I've wanted to set off

some fireworks recently. I feel stressed out. When I was growing up, I feel like it was so normal to set off fireworks. Yeah, I don't think. I don't know if it was illegal or even restricted that I guess I wasn't illegal in Washington, so people just did it all the time. Like we would get a huge amount of fireworks and set them off like an abandoned lot. It was fun, it was great. I love fireworks, but like I know, I do know people who like burned themselves.

But it's still you know, you gotta take a couple of hits in life. Don't set off fire. We're not endorsing setting off fireworks, but it's really it's really fun set them off. I'm just like, I'm just like I think that the argument has gone to a real like galaxy brain level that I'm just like, I feel totally under That's what's fun about it. Was it evolved like

five times in the space of two hours. It's it's hard to find fun though in anything when you start talking about like the Proud Boys on message boards and stuff like that. And like I want to say again, like I totally think the cops stage things all the time. I think that they were responsible for lighting that cop car on fire at the Fairfax protest in l A. I personally believe in order to instigate chaos because that

was a peaceful protest. But even if it was like black block, you know, like if it was like Antifa, I still think they like left it there as like please somebody like this on fire. That's what I'm saying. It's like, I don't I still don't know what I think if some evidence comes out that that demonstrates that the cops have any you know, if they're a smoking gun, so to speak. What I think is crazy is how

condescending people on each side of it have been. That's the crazy because I'm like, these they're both viable, like believable things to me, and it's probably both, like we all think it's probably both. It's definitely some of it is just kids setting off fireworks, and then if that's being augmented, uh with you know. But also I've seen people be like there are just professional fireworks nuts who wait all year to go buy fireworks and give fireworks

shows like this. Our friend Dave Hill said he has like a brother in law or something who just is like, no, it's just fireworks, guys, I promise you this is it's true that there are fireworks. I mean it's like, yeah, like people with Christmas lights and stuff like that, who go absolutely bonkers over decorating their houses. I don't think that happens as much in New York, though. I'm just gonna say I think that I agree the New York thing is the most compelling argument for this being organized,

because we've all heard how that sounds. And I was saying, I think it's the ghost of George Plimpton, because he apparently was like a real big fireworks enthusiasts and would that was his rich guy interest was like fireworks shows, and then somebody was like, well he was in the CIA. I think that has to be the last word on fireworks. It has to be girls melting out of our noses

due to fireworks discourse. We've been totally destroyed. And that's right where they like, it's the point just to get people to stop talking about police killing of black people, which is like the point of most conspiracy seem to opus eight people have been pretty good at doing that on their own. We fall right into their trap, like making yeah, but that's the problems, Like the media wants a new news cycle every week, and it's like, no, we need to keep the focus on prosecuting killer cops.

That's the main issue. Amen. And when we prosecute some killer cops, we will light off all of the fucking fireworks, but not in New York and not in your dogs. We'll have to go to a big open field. Um, we'll go to Drop City. We'll go to Drop City. We'll we'll set them off from the dome. That actually sounds lovely, doesn't it. Yes, Yeah, okay, guys, I'm down. Well. I think that does it for this week. Thank you

so much for tuning in. Um. We will be back again next week and as always, we would love your stories, conspiracy, theories, thoughts. Give us a call to four oh four six Night Night Call Podcast at gmail dot com and you can also join us on our Patreon where patreon dot com slash Nightcall and you can support us at a number of subscription levels to get our news, let our bonus episodes,

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be back next week. See you all, s