131: The Vow & Mounds with Nikki Mayard

out the wazoo. Everybody's got a pyramid, so uh. But first we're going to take a night call. Hi, Night Call. I have a prediction. I think that Katherine Oxenberg, the former Dallas actress and current Nexium mom warrior, is going to be asked as a real housewife of Beverly Hills. I just feels like she has the right category. I mean, she looks great, so I'm wondering if we will see

that in Thanks by well, great question. We are joined to answer this question by our friend Nicki Mayard, who is a writer for Adult Swims, Laser Wolf and Netflix Enter Galactic Nikki. Welcome, Hi, Hi, This question is great. Has this occurred to you at all? No, But I have a really weird relationship with the Real Housewives franchise. I really love it, but I don't over the last few years, I don't really watch TV as well anymore, but my whole timeline does so I know things without

having to watch. It's kind of like my relationship with Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Yes, I'm like, I watched enough seasons that now I can just watch other people talk about seasons. You can keep up by osmosis. It's a multi platform experience. I'm planning like a mega binge watch of like all of them if I can, like in the deep winter, in the deep Covid winter, when my brain is done. I got back into Beverly Hills recently. I had the same thought. So they're messy. I like them.

I'm trying to get into Potomac. Oh, Potomac is the best because I got into them last season because I was like, yes anything that's like a lot of black women are like fine. Potomac is amazing because they still let their real lives be plot lines on the show, where on on Beverly Hills, they like keep it. They have to have like fake plot lines for the show and then if something like something real did happen this season seemingly, which was a good season where Denise Richard's

uh may a sexy gay affair with Brandy Glanville. But the main reason I think Katherine Oxenberg couldn't be on Real house Lives of Beverly Hills that they all live in the valley now and Malibu and it's too far. She's just a real housewife of Malibua. But not to make this too much like the Californians, but getting from the from the West Valley to Malibu is actually not

a huge schlap. I mean, let's be honest. They are closer together than like Hollywood, and Malibu is like an hour and a half away from where I would watch The Real Housewives of Malibu if they wanted to do a second l a franchise. Wasn't Yolande At some point Yolanda was a Malibu and Yolanda is just like Catherine Oxenburg. Yeah, they're the same genre of women. I feel like Cather is also a royalty, right, so I'm imagining like she's

got that European kind of Genia favorite. I watched. I watched with the watched with the subtitles on, and when she's talking to her mom, it's just says princess, and you're like, oh, Princess, Nikki. I was going to ask you. We were talking before we started recording about whether or not we have been able to actually watch every episode of the VOW so far. Have you watched every episode? I've watched every episode. It's eight, right, the finality hasn't

happened yet, right, Yeah, I watched every episode. We're all in here on the VOWE, even though it is the pacing of the VOW is so incredibly slow. I am all in. I will say I'm not up to date, but I don't mind being spoiled because I think, as we'll discuss the dissemb like the the distribution of information that the VOW is is uh you know doing, is very manipulative. So I don't mind like being spoiled. Let's

talk about that. So on the most recent episode, episode eight, to spoil you, Emily, all of a sudden, they like revealed all the real stuff that they haven't been showing the entire show about Keith just being a straight up men's rights activists. Yeah, he's literally a living mentalist's disgusting. It's also just like I was kind d of saying that I liked the show even though it is edited, super weird and the information is laid out in a super strange way, Like they have never given us a

bio of Keith Ranieri. Even though we're eight episodes into the show. We don't know like what his childhood was like, which seems relevant for well, wasn't it he was a judo champion at age eleven or something. We hear what he tells people in next year hatched out of an egg and was immediately good at judo. That is his biography, long as you called it like, it's kind of like the Last Dance. Be similar to the Last Dance where it's like you're just it's like like it was birthed,

it was meant to be destined. That's that's like I feel like Keith Vaneery like became he was born with his barrel chest and rounded shoulders. No, it was like super It's just like the Last Dance because it's edited, the timeline makes no sense and they keep jumping around back in time, so you're like, wait, I thought we were up to this and then they're like, oh no, now we're back at the beginning of doss or whatever. It just is very confusing, but maybe that is to

emulate the feeling of being an occult. I don't know. The first time that I noticed this, it wasn't with anything so um, I don't know, Damnan or anything. It was just the omission of the fact that, um, yeah, Sarah Edmondson that she was married and was like married within Nexium and had a partner in Nexium and none

of that. Like we spent maybe two episodes with her before we learned that, which it's not like crucial information, but it really changes the way that you think of her within the organization, like being married to somebody within it, like at an all next cum ceremony. Like up until that point, it felt like, oh, she's just like trying out this thing and she's on an adventure and she's discovering herself. But it's like, no, this was like you were super installed at this point. It wasn't like and

you were, you know, opening centers and stuff. This person everybody making this documentary was so deep and nexing um is what you find out eventually. Yeah, Nikki, you had some good thoughts just about the cult in general. I think I think, like what so when I first started watching it, Okay, the first thing I didn't like was how they made it seem like Sarah and Mark wereth thing. And then they were like, oh wait, you guys were married to separate people, and I was like, why did

we started this way to go this way? I didn't need the weird fake relationship for an episode. And then they're like, we're just friends, and I was like, I questioned, Like that whole framing made me feel really weird. And then on top of that, like you're moving through it and you're like they're not really telling you where they come from either. So like with the bio, the lack of bio of Keith Reneering, you don't have a bio on any of these people, I don't know where they're from.

I don't know what if they're really I'm assuming all of them are rich. I just am because I'm looking around at their houses and I'm like, and their ability to travel and yeah, and it's like like it was nothing like everyone was like I went to all but I was like, you just packed up, like no questions asked. So I I'm like, there's a lot of like, um, it's yeah, it's like a very tight framework and I'm like addicted to it because of that, but also like

the hell are all of you? Yeah? I mean Mark, I feel like we get the most background on But it's also because I mean you can't really talk about Mark without talking about what the bleek doing now, so we you know, and then you're like, Okay, he has money because he is a filmmaker and had this, you know, a couple of pretty successful movies and the pre Q and on Zone. But yeah, like I but other than that, it's like, oh I was an actress. It's like I

don't know, like how does she have that? I mean, that's what I'm saying, Like where did you come from? Like are you like a trust fund person who needed something to do and went to l A and try to be an actress? Are you from the Midwest and you really worked your way over there? So that those things to me make a difference in how I'm understanding

how you came to uh executive success program? Yeah, you know what I mean, Like I have my ideas and also like I didn't feel the funny thing is in the beginning, I noticed that I didn't feel like anyone was particularly dumb, whereas like where I'm obsessed with cult stuff because I'm always like how and I always said how like I'm always how from the Keith perspective, always like how do you get people to just hang onto

your every word? And but when I thought about it, I was like, when they first started it, I was like, Okay, I get it. This is like a like one thousand of those self improvement classes, you know what I mean. And I and like I could see how they got into it like it was. I wasn't like, oh, this

is weird. You went out of your way and started dressing and alread and moved into some weird plane in Oregon, you know, Like I'm like, oh, this sounds like you were taking some classes to try to get yourself together. But like the Sashes, when we get to the Sashes,

nobody was like, is there a dweeb in charge? He was acting class Like we We talked on the podcast a few weeks ago about how the in the beginning, in the first two episodes or so, it really looked exactly like any kind of acting class or like a really intense writer's group, and so you can see how

it would appeal to people in the entertainment industry. But the sashes, it's true that when it's really the juxtaposition of the visuals, you know, of them wearing the sashes and them doing these strange presentations and stuff, and it's you juxtaposed that with what's supposedly the basis of this organization, and you're like, there's a really big disconnect here. You guys are acting pretty cuckoo, and they act like it's

nothing when they started calling him vanguard. But I'm like, that's the thing that made you susceptible to a cult. I need a little more background about who you are to help me understand why you heard the word vanguard and you weren't. Like. I think there's a group vibe thing though, and I think that's the thing that that I mean, that's the cult thing in general. But I think that's also something that a lot of these people shares that like they wanted to be, like in a club.

They wanted to And so it's like, if if everybody else is saying normal to Colus guy, Vanguard, it's normal to wear a sash like you want to be you want to be accepted by this club. And if you say, L O L what's the sash business, then you might not get to, you know, go to the volleyball. It feels like they really they lay it on pretty thick at the beginning to get rid of anybody who might know that this was a cult. Yeah. The people that

stay are all like a certain type of person. And I think I said the other day, like there's no black people in that car, that's right, and that is remarkable, like not even like one random like oh hey, you know, how did you end up here? There was one? There are people in the pictures there there are people in the classes, like there are people in the classes, but you can there's a really good one. There's one. There's

like two people. There's one lady that's in the classes, and it kind of seems like she's a part, but she's never shown again, so you can tell that, you know, if she is, it's like she's still in like worker B mode. And then there's a picture of a guy at one of the like they like show a picture and there's a black dude and he's literally made his eyes are like popping out of his head, like he's like looking at the person next to him like what deep.

But there is also there's the women. So there's the anonymous source, um, the Brooklyn and she was brought in by a black woman. She said yes and she and she was like specifically thrown by like oh and it was dass too. So it was like talking about the master slave thing and her being like really like this is what you're like. It's not even like but like as I really feel like like when she says she's in Brooklyn, I was like, yeah, this woman literally looked

at her. I was like, it's not even really like that, Like I can hear the voice. I was like, it's like my brother when he's like getting my mom, you know, Like I'm like, I know the voice, I know the voice that she used to get you to do this.

But also but also that like that I think, Um, when I say that, it's not to say, uh, like we're less susceptible to cults, is to say that, like this is clearly also speaks to the class of people that were in this group and how they like actively we're not really trying to let in people that didn't look like them, you know what I'm saying, Like the reason I love the vow. It's like my favorite genre of movie show anything, which is white people being horrible

to white people. It's like no one has to watch any trauma because everyone's just like I'll keeping it inside internal that's great, Like everyone here is privilege fantastic. That's why kath and Oxenburg belongs on the house as of Beverly Hills. That's like the peak of that genre. She's like, I gotta She's like, I gotta get my daughter arrested. I'm like, fascinating, fascinating, fascinating. Guy's exciting news. India Oxenburg.

She got out of next m I think also they got a season two I don't know if here, yeah, like season two of what. As soon as they got up to like this woman lives in Malibu in this beautiful palace and she was on a soap opera and she's like a white woman whose daughter is named India, I was like, I know these people totally. So this is like an aspect of the show that I want to get on that I don't think we've talked about before.

And it's sort of that like white people being horrible to each other genre, But it's also like there's something about the opening of the opening title sequence of the show that rubs me the wrong way, like souper like from day one. First of all, like I don't know why the filmmaking team who makes it are are referred to as the others, but it sounds that sounds culty already like and it's with like and it's without the

last e and it's it's the tumblers tumblers. Um. So there's this yeah, this thing of like Okay, there's already this sort of like new ag wo Wou collective, it's making this documentary. And then the opening is like these images of our main subjects like Bonnie and Mark and Sarah, like having these introspective walks and staring at the water, and it's very much like you know, like searching stock

photos for like troubled woman victim something like that. Uh, And it's all this like it feels like we're and I watched this show about these people who are purely

and specifically victims healing from this trauma. Like it's a very like healing from trauma like self help type imagery and vibe and that I think it should have been a red flag to me when I started watching this because it's so much more complicated than that, and I don't think the show is equipped to deal with that because they are getting their story from this very specific side UM that is just as culpable in many ways. You haven't even watched episode eight yet, right, So episode

eight I was I had to pacee. That was the one that actually like set because that one actually features like you get to see what the abuses, like what the actual problem with this cult was. And the thing that blew my mind when I watched UM episode eight was the lack of accountability. Like that was the point where I was like Mark, honestly like my Like, you know, there's a scene where there's a scene on the pier where Nippi basically is like what are you doing? Like

why are you trying to talk yourself? Because he's being like, we're good people. It was a good thing. And my theory is that Mark wants to be Keith like he's And I don't know how much he believes this because I don't know him and I'm not his therapist, so I'm not gonna conjecture too much on it, but it's like I believe that he wants to be Keith. He believes that there's a good way to be Keith, and I'm like, the fact that you even want to be this is already bad. But there's no way to make

wanting to be this person good. And I think, I mean, i'd be interested to see him have a mental breakdown from realizing that season two, that's what's going in season two, I know. But he like interrupts his wife at the end of episode eight, you know, she's her and Katherine are laughing about like, you know, they're just laughing at the absurdity of not one of them not saying anything about how absurd some of the rituals looked like she was sleeping in a dog bed or something, and he

just like fulies on the handle. And my favorite part is as he's doing it, Bonnie looks up at him. She goes, I'm fine, just so you know, I'm okay, And I'm like, that's that should have been the title sequence of the whole documentary. That's also very you know, it ties in with the whole society of Protectors and and Janess and how there's just this like rampant misogyny that we're just finding. I mean, it's we always kind of knew it was in there, but in episode eight

they really lay it there. And I think maybe Episode eight was also where they talked about the fact that Katherine Oxenberg had brought India into this organization. Hello. I mean the whole time, you're thinking that she's, as the caller put in a mom Warrior, where she's just been horrified by this the entire time, but she dragged her daughter into this and now is upset that India remains there.

You know, like when her mom stopped going, did she not check on India and say, Hey, I'm kind of cutting myself off from this because it feels something she and her mom went together for like two years. See, that's so fucked, Like like I don't know, I haven't gone to this part it, but like you can still lay out an interesting and complicated narrative that is surprising about how people get involved in an organization like this without withholding that degree of information like you're putting it

in episode eight. Yeah, it's crazy. I Mean somebody was saying, like, why did I watch eight hours of this stuff to get to this stuff? And I was like, well, that's how a cult works. They're like all the interesting info is gonna be a secret that will tell you At the end, I will say this is incredibly fucked up. But episode eight was like the first time that Keith Ranieri shows like real cult leader charisma that you understand

why people got in this cult. It's like they show all the Frank T. J. Mackie stuff that he does, which is like you understand suddenly, like oh, he's not just this like gentle fake youth pastor guy. His whole thing is like you know, the cock is king, like master the cunt stuff, which is like, okay, that is

a totally different thing than just like self improvement. You know, they set it up well because the episode before that, when the ladies talking about how he was playing, he was like pressing her pressure point and that's how he

got her to stop smoking. But then when she came out of the room, someone was like, you were in there for two and a half hours, and I was like, this man sent you into a few state what so you know, like and like, you know, it's so easy when you first see him on screen to be like like, I think you described it so well, Molly, You're like

this camp counselor. I'm like, yeah, like everyone feels like they know this dude, and like, if you have been through certain experiences in your life or have you learn certain things like that, he probably looks like a walking red flag to you. Not to say if he doesn't

that you're any better or less. Trauma works differently, but you know, it's like I'm looking at him and I'm like, you know, but you know that there has to be something like sure they look it to you, but you know that there has to be something that got all these people to believe in them. And you're watching episode eight and I think the most ridiculous part is when he is talking about with a level tin like like you made up these modules or whatever the hill right,

and he's like, you girls couldn't handle a tent. We just sexually shocking because when he when he jumps up and goes boom and then he has the woman go boo, and he's like, no, that doesn't scare me at all.

I would have pushed him in the face. We have to talk about this because Molly, you've been watching this investigation discovery series about Keith Nary, which gets into a lot of the stuff that the Vow has not gotten into, and a Daily Mail article about like the fact that he may or may not have literally killed at least a few women. He may have murdered like four women including um is her name, Pamela, who was referenced in the documentary, a longtime girlfriend of his who dies of cancer.

But she's not the only person who have died of cancer who dated Keith through neary Um. It's really yeah, do you know about this? Nikki? Uh? Molly gave me a little heads of about the four women. I didn't know how. I figured Pamela was one of them, but I didn't know how that they had all died, of how they had all died, and that they had all died of kids to two of them were presumed um suicides, and two of them had cancer. And then many other

women got sick when they were living with him. And so this documentary, which is called The Lost Women of Nexium, it raises the question of did he poison the women that lived with him with rat poison? Because they found traces of barrium and bismuth in a hair sample from one of the participants and they were like, You've got crazy heavy metals in your hair, what's going on? And then they also had Frank investigator Frank from the from the Vow. He weighed in on this as well. The

craziest one. I mean, the poisoning ones are obviously crazy, but the one that they sort of it's just one episode and it's also a very weird documentary. It involves our man Frank a lot. Oh yeah, who's a weird with the blog. I'm obsessed with Frank. I think Frank and Katherine got a little love Jones going on. I need to know. Yeah, there's something like this documentary has

also involves Frank. And then the person who told me about it also said that it's maybe like funded by Roger Stone because they were trying to make some sort of a connection between Nexium and like the Clinton body count thing. So it is possibly a little like you and on related, But it's the thing they start with is this woman who went to a retreat in Alaska, a Nexium retreat at a hotel and then was found killed with a gunshot wound at a lagoon with a

suicide note that said don't look for my body. Um. And she was married to her wife, is like in the documentary she usu married to this woman, but she possibly had an affair with Keith and then possibly got pregnant with his child and announced it at this Nexium retreat and then was like dragged out and then mysteriously

died like a day later. So all signs point to Keith. Well, it's not hard to even believe any of that, even without him having to be I mean, he's I mean, he mistreats women in his home and he like controls their diets and he causes them a lot of stress. So I'm like, even if you didn't kill them, like physically kill them spiritually, like there's no one no one living with you or no one living with you over

a long period of time, he's living healthily. And they get up to a part they play like an audio recording of Keith being like, I've had people killed, I could have you killed. I mean, I'm not surprised, literally like I've had people killed because of my beliefs. I'm not surprised because, first of all, how do they have so much footage of him? This is my other question I have from Mark Boo. You've got a lot of tea, Um,

where did you get it? All the tea? From? You got a lot of tea sounds like you were in that kitchen cooking. What's up? Like, like what you like vision goggles versions of him being like we're gonna get Like why is he so comfortable speaking on camera with you? Why do you have all this footage? I need a little more information, my friend. Like, that's the thing that really hooked me when he's trying to like you know,

that's that's the reason. I'm like, you really wanted to be him, because so much of what is interesting about this documentary is the access that you had. You keep replaying that clip when they went to see the Dali Lama and he's like and he's like Mark, Mark, Mark, you know, every every every clips like Mark, Mark, And I'm like, you know, okay, great you left, but you seem to be like really like removing yourself from a

lot of stuff that you saw in real time. Mark is like the most interesting person in the world to me because he's such a blank. He was in a different halt before Nexium that they haven't talked about, called Rantha, which is like way crazier than Nextium even Granta. Wait, what how do I not know about Rance? Okay? I saw Rantha for the first time at the UFO convention thing I went to last year at the at the

convention center, they had like a Randa booth. It's like this woman who's like, I'm the reincarnation of like an ancient spirit, multiple thousands year old being, and she like has a funny voice that she uses when she's speaking as Randtha. I mean, I would love to see a documentary about Rantha because that one even more is like you're you're really you're screening for people that are going

to be like, yes, this makes it makes sense. And it said actually even more about like more like you know, definitive things about Mark, the sente that he was into that he's so impressionable. It's just like he seems like that like what the bleep do we know? Too? Is just all people being like what if yourselves? How little spirits? And you're like, oh my god, you know, what if

what if they did? Everything he says about himself and the way he grew up, especially in the last episode where he's like, it was always a weird boy, because that's how you talk. It was always a weird boy. That's kind of an incredible and that in that accent. I'm not even gonna hold, y'all white people from South Africa. That accident really creasy out because I'm like, it's like, it's like, you sound like a colonizer in the film,

you know what I mean, what's happening? You sound like a villain um And he's just like yeah, you know. And and he's like, I was never I could never fit in and the boys they make fun of me. And I was like, you are severe. So here's my thing that I said about next hum from jump. I yelled this at the TV and then I tweeted it, and then I yelled at TV again and I was like,

this is so crazy. You'll spend so much money avoiding therapy, like this is a therapy avoidance club, Like it's just a bunch of broken people with no life plan, which is fine because maybe isn't a lifestyle. Therapy is like a thing that you commit to and it's boring and

it's right. Given this, y'all, given this more hours than you would need to give therapy, like therapy would be less intensive and less money and less money and just as intense, like you would feel all these because the other things for therapy, they're addicted to intense feelings so it's like a bunch of people who don't have any beliefs or any like real say on stuff, and they come into this program and Keith gives them intense feelings.

So they're all like, oh, it's working because I feel intensely like the woman who literally starts crying, and it's like I used to be bullied by boys in high school, like really crazy stuff, and I'm just realizing that they were going through the same thing. I'm like, that's insane, because you know what, I don't feel the same. I was like, you know, you know, that does not feel

like you're trauma. This sounds so mean, I have to say, but it's like, you know, you assume that a lot of people who get into cults are coming out of like traumatic life experiences, are like trying to like men some harm that's happened to them in the past, spent a lot of the next sm stuff just feels like, oh, you have nothing that you feel to find to you, like nothing has happened to you. Because there are two

types of people that joined cults. There are people that join cults that are severely traumatized, but the main like bank of cults is people who have no they're empty boards, do you know what I mean. They don't really have a sense of life, they don't really have a sense of self, they don't really have a sense of purpose. So because they're so white space white board, you can write anything on them. And they're like, I'm just so happy to be of use. I'm just happy to feel

of use. And that also that ties in with the with the constant texting and the tasks and all of that, because I think a lot of these people too it kind of lost their way in their careers and stuff like that, and they're basically given a job and their job is to self improve and they have someone they're accountable to, so all of a sudden and it it kind of calls back to Marks not Mark two Keith former business cb I, where he it's like a pyramid

scheme and you feel like you're an employee of self improvement, your way at the bottom. You're constantly being held accountable. And I think in a way that maybe plays into the guilt that some of these people have if their

acting careers had slowed down or something like that. And they want to be given like orders, they want to be given jobs, they want to be working working hard at something that's this ephemeral thing, or they're just like rich and privileged and have no direction in life and then someone comes in who's like, here's what you should do. I mean, that feels like the India thing like that to a t like that seems like she did with

her mom. She did it with her mom, who also was a rich, privileged person who really didn't have anything

to do. She just became an actress. And like I was talking about this, but on the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, Teddy Mellencamp, who's John Mellencamp's daughter, runs this thing that's like called an accountability coaching service that turned out to be like to me, it felt kind of similar to DOSS because it's like they're texting you all day to make sure you didn't eat, you know, to be like like show me a picture of your food.

Oh like take those carrots off there like too many calories and people pay for this time with the carrot. Let us have a carrot. My mom, My mom is one of these people. My mom has never joined a cult, but my mom is extremely susceptible and I mean I've had to watch her like try to improve her life through a lot of pyramid schemes and a lot of multi level marketing schemes, to the point where I had to like warn my brother because she was dragging him into it too. And my mom is the same thing.

Like my mom had no um my mom was no life goals. So like she was a teacher and then she moved here, and then she became a nanny, and then she became a mom, and then she like worked, you know, she immigrants to My mom has like a union job in a hospital that she's had for like forty years, so she has like tunts. She also it's like you know when she when she retires, she'll be taken care of. But it's like my mom. I used to watch her like latch on my mom to like

Primerica like all that stuff. Like Mom would just latch onto that stuff because she was just constantly trying to like self improve. And that's the thing. It's like, it's not just the thing about the thing about the cult. The thing about cult and the thing about this the valve that made me keep watching it. When I said that I was watching and I was like I didn't feel like anyone was particularly stupid, you know. In the beginning,

I was like, I don't feel like I'll dumb. And that's the thing that people forget about cults, Like it's not that they're looking for dumb people, They're looking for vulnerable people. And so when you we get so focused on this is something that happens to it's human right. We watched this stuff because we're fascinated by like I would never end up in a cult, or like how

do I make sure let me find out? It's like it's like the morbid way people always ask how someone die, so they do, you know, if it was some way they can avoid you know what I mean, And you do that and you're always like how do they do it? But the thing that the problem with that is that we're all trying to not be victimized, so then we

don't look at the villain. So the thing that I actually liked about episode eight, even though it was really hard for me to watch because it was so misogynist, it was like so diabolical, was that it was like, now you get to see that this is a manipulative person. These people aren't idiots, you know what I'm saying. Yes,

they didn't have a sense of purpose. Yes, they are privilege and they didn't know what they wanted to do with themselves, But that could happen to anybody, you know what I mean, That coul happened to anyone at any time. And this person is seeking, you know what I mean,

Like he's sniffing out people this way. So that's why I say, like hearing all these women harm themselves or died under durest, it's like, whether he did it or not, it's like they were this predator manipulated them, and that takes on a physical toll one way or another, you know what I mean, Like, even if you didn't fake or suicide, the fact that she's commits suicide right after doing all of that is because of you. It's literally because of you. Yeah, and episode nine We'll Be will

have aired by the time this comes out. But I think they're finally going to deal with the fact that, like the biggest nexium contingency that still exists in Mexico City, there's like an entire, an entire wing of nexium that they haven't talked about it all because they've just been focusing on these white people the whole time. And then at the very end. They're like, oh, also there's a whole Nexium thing in Mexico. So also it's a very

like aristocratic like it's similar. Yeah, it's like it's like seeking out rich people's like the son of a former president. Yeah, tons of It's a city of people who are like what am I going to do with my life? Sorry? I went there in February. Is the last thing I did before It was the last thing I did before quarantine. And I was walking around and as someone who survived like gentrified Brooklyn and like come to l A, I

was like, oh, I see Yeah. I was like, I'm having a good time, but I see why this city is the one yelping right. Yeah, Well it's a lot of like art, you know, people that were in the arts or want to be in the arts, and here's somebody telling you, I'm going to make your dreams come true. I'm going to make that project happen. That big documentary about nexium that what is it called, like carbon carbon

content or something. Mark's documentary that his biopick of Peth with the little cutie horrible cheap drawings of Keith are very that's the worst. Now we talked about that that's like my absolutely so oh yeah, uh well, Nikki, thank you so much for joining us to talk about the bow, one of my goals all season. And what's to get you on to talk about? I know? I was like, I've been talking to you. It's just you and me. It's just me and Molly on the timelin going for

the back, Nicky, before we let you go? Where can people find you on social media? I am Judd, Nikki, j ut n I k k I on every single thing anywhere. I don't have a website because I just don't. And you should watch Laser Wolf on Adult Swim or HBO Max. When is that coming? Uh? Season one is already out and on HBO Max just got to UK. I think it's going to be in Canada soon and season two is coming out in December. December, so I

got some good surprises for that lasor Wolf rules. Hey, Molly, Hey Chess, Hey there Emily, Hey guys, shall we take another night call? Let's do it? Hey guys, my name is Jason, and I am a mail carrier and an avid listener of your podcasts and I been thinking about something I could call you guys about. And it's occurred to me that maybe I should let everybody know to put their names in their mailbox before the election because ballots are coming out in the state that I live in.

I'm not going to state the state, but I'm in the Western States. Yeah, I just stopped that up. In terms of all the voting issues going on, it would be a good idea for people to make sure, especially if you live in an in an apartment building, put your name in your mailbox so you'll get your your ballot on time without any confusion. To help people get their ballots. Uh, there's a lot of things can go wrong in the mail We're not perfect, and that's that's

really all I wanted to say. I love your podcast. I don't know how many conspiracy theories to share anything, but I think we've got enough on our hands as it is. So help your mail mail carrier out this year and make sure you get your mail and put

your name in your mailbox. If you don't want to put it on your in a house where somebody can find out what your name is, put it in your locked mail box so your mailman can see who lives there and your mail will get delivered to be for a free to address and on time so you can all vote and get rid of the stipuniality. Thanks so much for your podcast. I am so glad that there is a postal worker who listens tonight call, at least one. It warms my heart so much. Thank you for calling.

I feel like I had this thought prior to getting this call. I think I was just like out, you know, watching my mailman do his rounds, and I was like, I wonder if there any any of them listen tonight call. This is great, This is just great. Um. Do you guys have your names on your mailboxes? Actually, when I first heard this call, when it was in our our mailbox, our virtual mailbox, I was like, oh, I definitely need

to do that. I still get a lot of mail for the previous residents of uh my house, and they are were, I don't know, big Trump supporters. So I always get very nervous when I bring in the mail that someone's going to be like, there goes tests with her big Trump mailer. Yeah, yeah, number one Trumpian. Ye, they got your numbers. But yeah, I'm definitely gonna put my name in my mailbox. And also I wanted to say that for anyone out there who wants to track

their ballot um. This is the first year I've tracked my ballot. I don't know if it was even available before this, But if you do vote by mail, you can go to I think it's ballot tracks and it makes you feel better just to see it go. I also signed up for that before I even got my ballot. I'm gonna do it, guys. I don't know should I vote in person or vote by mail. I was just going to vote in person, like, because I do you

have a mail ballot? Yeah, I have one. Well, they have those ballot boxes now that are like special ballot boxes, the real one one. But what I did last year was filled out my vote by mail ballot and then just turned it in in person. I've done. That's what I was thinking of doing, just so that I can see it. I don't know. I just wanted mine in.

They start counting the ballots as soon as they are received, and I just I And part of it is that I have such crushing anxiety, as I'm sure everybody does about this election, that I just wanted to know that I had done it, and then whatever happens in the next few you know weeks that it's it's been done and I know it's been counted. Um. But I mean, yeah, there's so much anxiety about all of this and uh

means going on the mailbox guys. Yeah, I always do it, just because I moved so much in general, like I move on an average of once a year, and so there's always I'm always getting other people's meals. I've gotten other people's ballots. This has happened to a lot of people. I've I got somebody else's ballot, and like I'm not I have to share what to do with it. Um. But yeah, I think like just you know, especially now, and also especially like I don't know when everything is

happening via mail because we're not going on. It's like I don't know. It's just smart, don't get your packages stolen, cetera. Yep, Yeah, it's nice for a mail carrier to sort of confirm that, like sometimes the mail has problems and be careful with your mail. So on a totally different topic, UM, I would like to thank all of our listeners for being so enthusiastic about pyramid Pal. This was a shockingly enthusiastic topic. UM. We now are going to be branching out a bit

from just pyramids to also mounds. This was mounds and ribs. I think, Emily coins, I just want to get into calling pyramids rits it, you know, outs the rits. Yeah, we got a bunch of interesting emails and calls about um these these these formations. So let's start with a call about some mounds, just to mix it up a little bit. And I call, um, so, I just calling about the pyramids of pyramids how from last week? Um so the first weird thing I'm actually related to Oaks Aints.

Uh My mom found this out about six months ago, and she's been doing a ton of genealogy in the last six months and found that out. And yeah, it turns out loves shady dealings other things. I wondered if you guys could talk about mounds. So there are pyramids, but also the mounds of North America are really cool to the Cokey Amounts are the ones in particular that I'm thinking about. They just kind of look like a

giant Dare mounds. But when you start to intereven and if you've ever been to them, they have a lot of experstens about this that they used to be really big pyramids and the mounds are kind of just the base and then above that they had these giant wooden structures or sort of workships, sacrifice rules, who knows, um. So anyway, I think that's right. I love mounds. How do you guys feel about mounds? Mounds freaked me out a lot. Mounds rule. I'm pretty freaked out by mounds.

Just the idea that I could not know it was. I mean, anything I might not recognize as being there, but is there is kind of scary to me. But they're fascinating. I actually was not familiar with the Cohokia Mounds UM. They're across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, and they're pretty ancient and they do just kind of look like hills and then you can see their stairs going up the hills. But they're fascinating. Yeah, it's super cool. The first mounds that I was familiar with, we're actually

natural mounds. These are in Washington State, but you wouldn't what. I just started laughing at the Mima Mounds UM, and they are they actually look much more unnatural than the Cokia mounds. They look like something that was put There's like a land work type thing. But they're apparently caused by maybe gophers. Nobody really quite knows why they form. But they just look like acne basically on the surface there. That's just like bumps um. It's very strange. But yeah,

they give me a weird feeling. It's like, it's like, what, what's the fear of small dots? But like the holes, Yeah, the hole sphere, it gives me that feeling. It's on a massive scale. It's kind of the opposite of the holes. But I guess it also is not the opposite of the holes because there's holes in the mounds. Yeah, Earth is so cool. It is so cool. And also we were talking about the fact that you know, pyramid pals. We could go on forever. But we're also very interested

in just strange, more end or mysterious dwellings. So if you have a weird building, mound thing that is inhabitable, please give us a night call about it at two, four oh four or six night. You can also text us at that number or email us at night call podcast at gmail. But we should also move on with more pyramids. We got we got more pyramids, We've got

more many pyramid emails. We got one from our listener of Alora, who is at A who works at the Center for Land Use Interpretation, which I don't know about. You big fan. Also very stoked that somebody from uh Center for Land Use Interpretation listens to the pod as stoked as I am at somebody who works for the U. S. Postal Service listens to the pun. I'm a big fan of Aurora. We should have her on sometime. Yes, Aurora, come on. The pod also does one of my favorite

Instagram series, which is Castles of Burbank. I believe cool. She takes pictures of Maybe it's just the l A, but it's like she pictures of a lot of buildings that are in the form of fake castles of all kinds. There's a really good fake castle by where I live that I should show you guys sometime. It's insane, but uh, this is this is a Veras email, She says. Uh. American pyramids have been an ongoing topic of personal interest and of interest at the Center for Landy's Interpretation where

I work. Here's a pyramid collection we've been working on over the years. We'll link to it in our shore notes. And a silly poster of some pyramids of the USA I put together for an art book fair a couple of years ago. One of my favorite American pyramids is the Center of the World and Museum of History and Granite at Felicity near the California and Arizona border along Highway eight. It's a truly special place, and you can get a taste of it through its website, which we

will also link to in the show notes. It's been a few years since I've been out there, but it seems to still be open to visitors, and I highly recommend stopping by if you're in the area. And then she also tells us about the four or steel Case slash Current Switch pyramid near Grand Rapids, and she says it's also especially curious. Built in is the corporate development center for the somewhat utopian office furniture slash design company Steelcase. In it was sold to Switch and adapted into a

massive data center. Unlike the Center of the World, this pyramid is not open to visitors, but you can check out the corporate video walk through here. I love the the phrase utopian office furniture slash design company utopian office furniture. I approve of the Steelcase brand. I've never heard it referred to as utopian, but I get it on like a gut level. My desk is a steelcase desk. I love. It's a good brand. We just love pyramids. Oh my god,

this the steelcase one. I want to start with that one, just because this is which is my favorite. From a esthetic position, it is. It looks the most like the Pyramids and Blade Runner of any of these that we've seen so far, because it's not a sheer glass side like the lux Or or like the Astrosenica pyramid. It's this. It's this sort of tiered thing, but it's not a ziggurat type structure. Is a pyramid that goes up, but at each what you can tell is like a floor

in it. It only looks like it's maybe five stories tall. It's not that tall, but it's a very broad pyramid and it looks very eighties, very space age, very star trek. It's so cool, it's perfect. It's beautiful. Um. I highly recommend people check it out. We will link to it

in the notes. Yeah. I mean, I think we just love retrofuturistic things, and like nothing is more retrofuturistic than the pyramids because the ancient Egyptian pyramids obviously still feel incredibly futuristic, and it feels like there's still stuff that is not you know, people we don't know about it.

It also feels like you know, and on one hand, it feels like a not it feels cool because it's not the most efficient use of space, Like it's not a box, which is endlessly you know, you can stack a zillion boxes next to each other and it's a city and and they all you know, can fit very tightly next to each other, and all the airspace is taken up. But then it's also like there's I mean, the Egyptians had to be onto something with the structure

of the pyramid, like that's why they're still standing. Like it's a very structurally sound form of architecture. It's just not like spatially efficient in the way that we're used to now. But that's why it feels like kind of special. I guess, yeah, fuck being spatially efficient. Who wants a box? That's what I mean. You know, maybe the geodesic dome is like the thing that is more spatially efficient, But it does just feel like there are so many ways

to make dwellings. Why do we just make this one kind of dwelling. I would love to live in a mound. I mean the dome is kind of the skeleton of a mound. You to live in a Hobbit house, what you Yeah? Yeah, for sure. I love natural houses and I think that just looking at ways people were dwelling, you know, in pre Columbia and America is very useful because it is not like we have done such a

great job with the land use, with the colonizing. It's just like, especially with climate change, it just feels like finding ways better more to build housing that's more in tune with nature, earth houses, stuff like that. You know, what the Steelcase pyramid made me think of is what if we could make bricks from our trash, you know, like recyclables and stuff like that and build pyramids that

look like the Steelcase pyramid wall E style. That's a great idea to build like a Watts tower style pyramid. I mean I spend so much time on Wikipedia on the like Outsider Architecture page and stuff like that. I'm American pyramids. There are so many cool things that people built with like no money, just out of trash and so much trash, and there I think There have been articles recently about how, you know, trash that's kind of like thoughtfully disposed of can kind of become part of

the environment in a non harmful way. But honestly, like you look at the steel case pyramid and tell me we couldn't We couldn't make a trash pyramid to live in that could be very efficient to you, guys, I have a crushed file cabinet here. That's our base, Like that's the base or that could be the top. And you know why it's crushed because I didn't get a steel case steelcase built to sponsors. Should we take another night email? Okay? This one comes from Jonathan high Night call.

This week's discussion of Astra Zeneca brought to mind New England's other great pyramid, the Apex Pyramid of Pawtucket, Rhode Island. The Apex Pyramid is a zigarat shaped former department store, visible right next Interstate just north of Providence. It was built in nineteen sixty nine and designed by Andrew Geller, who is best known as one of the designers of the model home in which Nixon and Kruschev's kitchen debate took place. The department store closed in the early two

thousands and the d m V moved in. I got my first license there. It's partially reopened as a store and as the subject of an intense preservation debate, namely whether it's a true landmark or an eyesore that should be replaced with a soccer stadium growing up here. I know multiple people who have had dreams about climbing it. As a former archaeologist, I can say that this is the best pyramid I visited. The second best is the Great Pyramid of Giza. Two things that foggle the mind

about it. That's great. Unlike other Egyptian monuments, the Great Pyramid is completely unadorned inside, no higher glyphs, no carvings. The king's chamber is just bare polished stone, with the four foot high base of a similarly undecorated granite sarcophagus off to the side. It's uniquely creepy. When I went, two middle aged American ladies were sitting on the floor and chanting in an attempt to commune with whatever was

responsible for this spooky vibes there. The pyramid is about two fifty one yards on each side, and it's only point oh five percent from being a perfect square less than four point five inches. I've also driven past the bass Pro Pyramid in Memphis with the friend I visited Egypt with. We've tried to complete our pyramid punch cards with a visit to Nicholas Cage's Pyramids Future Tomb in New Orleans, but we couldn't quite find it. So this Apex pyramid, this one looks much more like um a

seventies church. I'm going to say it has that vibe to me. I'm not as big of a fan's pyramid. I disguy speaks very very highly of it. Personally, I'd rather see the Great Pyramid of Pisa that was pyramid. But it does have kind of it looks like a pizza hut. Yeah, it kind of has that like the

roof of an old McDonald's type thing. I though, can understand wanting to climate because it looks like there are a lot of great places to sit because it's sure, you know, but it also looks like it Mike cave in if you sat on it, it looks kind of that's true, But looking at I was reminded of like that that kind of era of architecture, and I was like, how have I not mentioned Ki Arena in Seattle again coming in with the Washington State references here, that was

the basketball or it was where the it was where the Sonics played. And it is a weird thing because it's not exactly a pyramid, but it ends up looking like a pyramid. It's more like kind of a tent type structure um, but it's raised up so it doesn't go all the way to the ground. It's like there's a glass there's glass sides on it, and then this sort of tent roof that comes to a point in

the middle. Yeah. I mean I have a real soft spot for that kind of seventies and eighties, like brutalist futurism. I understand why other people might think it is ugly or you know, an I sore, But compared to like the horrible everything being glass style of now, oh yeah, I find it a much more. I mean, maybe it's just because that is our nostalgia for being younger, but no, I just find it it doesn't feel us those just glass and steel buildings, like the fucking Sofi Stadium that

is allegedly opening. But you know, covid Um is just like so blade runnery in a way. That's genuinely dystopian. It has no warmth to it whatsoever. It's all glass

and steel. These have like warmth to them to me. Yeah, I think the interesting thing would be to talk to kids who are, you know, going to games that structures like this, like the new like that kind of structure, like a new, shiny arena, and see how they feel about it, Because like, when I look at the Key Arena, I'm thinking about myself as like a child, like a young child, and like how it looks so cool and adventurous and like I wanted to like climb all over

it. It It looked like a fun, inviting structure, even though it's crazy looking. And I wonder if kids feel that way about this sort of noveaux architecture that like this glass and steel stuff that's so dumbinant now, Like, do does a kid look at the Sofi a d M and be like cool? I wanna I want to explore it. I don't think anybody looks at so Fi Stadium and

that's cool. Well yeah, but I mean I don't know, like I think that like you're saying, though, like I'm sure that when these these structures were contemporary, people were like what an ice or Yeah, I mean the thing that's interesting about so far is that it's like half built, so it does feel very like our ruins in progress half Star. Yeah. Or they did have the half death

Star on will Share for so long. You film museum that's opening that is literally in the shape of the death Star because it's a George Lucas museum, But like a lot of things, it's like they either ran out of funding or just you know, I couldn't finish it on schedule. So there was this half built death Star on will Share and Fairfax for years, and I liked that way more than the completed thing obviously. Yeah. It always made that part of Miracle Mile feel just like

a little stressful though. Yeah, I mean that is a stressful part. But yeah, I mean I think also we're coming to this point where people are like, should we preserve some of these buildings that are like these seventies and eighties buildings that people are very divided on esthetically. Um, they just knocked down Lacma here, which is a building that a lot of people like fifties building actually, but it was very glass bricky. It was it was it like I wasn't limestone. I mean, it was very sort

of ancient Egyptian ey. To me always, I felt like it had sort of a pyramid feel even though it wasn't a pyramid. And there's that great Japanese pavilion that was really like a spiral staircase building, like an upside down Guggenheim. Yeah, no, it's it's it's weird, like I think. Also the thing that's kind of throws me off about the newer like whatever our contemporary version is of these

pyramid buildings, I just call it like Apple store core. Sure, yeah, I guess a lot of it just feel is really cheap. To me, it feels really like flimsy um. A lot of condo buildings that are supposedly luxury buildings. I look at them, and especially like in l A, when places get like dirty really easily because it doesn't rain ever, uh, it just looks like it it can so easily turn into just looking really really crappy, and that's poor design. Like, well,

there's there's all that stuff. Now that's like what they built a million of in every city. You know, people call them like the gentrification blocks, but they're those those apartment buildings that look like a bunch of lego blocks. What they really look like to me, it's just like twee brutalism. Yeah, it's like brutalism. And then they'll be painted a fun color. There's a fun color on it, Like you know I'm saying, it's like then they get

dirty and it's just brutalism. I'm really excited for whatever happens after coronavirus, like if there are if we somehow adapt our architecture to reflect how this has changed everything, because I also think that a lot of these is kind of like luxury you know, condo buildings and luxury apartment buildings that spring up that are also uniform inside

they're all open floor plans. Um having them be all glass and steel really lends itself to these big open rooms with big high ceilings, and I think that's just not what anyone needs right now. And I think that we're going to have to adapt to assuming that you know, pandemics are because we've lived through it for the better part of a year and potentially could again, Like what

kind of architecture reflects being caught at home? You know, you know what I'm looking forward to is like, you know, how during the energy crisis in the seventies, Like, oh, there are a lot of structures that just don't have windows because they were an energy efficient. Like what if all of these glass buildings have to get greened and just get like covered up in bricks, like getting changed

in a shell and a candy shell. But if they have to get green and we just let like annihilation plants take over there, we go, Yeah, that would look cool. I'm very excited by the idea of, you know, more outdoor spaces being attached to units, like having there be

more of an outdoor zone inside of apartments. And I think that having bedrooms with built in work areas, even though that's probably awful for your emotional well being, it's you know, having everyone have a work area and envisioning like a two bedroom with three people in it or four people in it, where everyone has a space to work. Like I'm I'm excited by the idea that an end of an era is coming and like we have to get more creative. Now, well, that's like what the total

recall isolation tanks will be. Maybe we're dancing around the obvious here though, which is the night call pyramid? Oh yeah, I'm going glass bricks. Guys, I'm going brick bricks. I think I'm going trash bricks. That's what I'm saying. Okay, So clearly we combine all these ideas and what we do is make one out of like coke bottles or there's there's layers to it and we do chia seeds around them so they stuff grows on. Yeah, we need to have some sprouts in the mix. Just to wrap

up our Pyramid Pals segment for this week. We may have a real pyramid pal connection, uh with two night callers or night emailers. So the previous emailer sent us his email. Then I checked the email box and I noticed an almost identical email from Emily. Not Emily Oshida, but night caller Emily, and she was also talking about the Apex pyramid um. I won't read the entire email because it includes a lot of the information in Jonathan's,

but I will say that she did report. As a side note, I went to the bass Pro Shops pyramid back in the entire place was sensory overload, but you could also feel this vast empty dark space looming above you. It reminded me a lot of the blue by restaurant at Disneyland or the areas in Vegas with fake painted ceilings. I don't have many pictures, but I do remember playing a fake duck hunting game. Um, but I think that

maybe these two should be real Pyramid pal. Maybe this was the end of the road that we were always leading to. They were linked by the ziggurat. They were, so you guys should correspond. Maybe well, thank you everybody for your pyramid emails and calls. I jokingly created a segment called Pyramid Pals and you all delivered, So thank you so much. Um, and uh, you know, keep sendyone in also send another start. We can really don't want

to be pyramid specific. Any any strange structures that have an interesting story that you're into, give us a night call one to four oh four six night and share them with us. We love them obviously and we will see you all next week. You can follow us on social media if you're not already. We were on Twitter at night call Odd and Instagram at book at night called podcast. You can't subscribe to our podcast and rate

and review it on Apple podcast. We would really appreciate that helps people find our show, and you can join our Patreon at patreon dot com slash Nightcall, where you can get our fromous episodes, our newsletter, and a lot of other fun stuff. To check it out and we can see you next week. Goodbye Pyramid Pals, good Bye