96: Sex Lies & CD-Roms

brief robot conversations last week spot News. Um. First off, we have a follow up on what we were talking about last week. Does Wally have a gender? Is he male? Is Evie female? Um? I looked into this and I found Kate Brenstein's blog. She has a whole essay on this. I will quote from it. Yes, Eve is Eve Evie. Eve is pretty pertly streamlined. Eve's eyes literally sparkle and dance. Eve giggles for Heaven's sake. Eve is kick ass, strong and powerful. Eve is performing fem while e is rugged

and protective and shy and loyal. While he is is a sensitive little thing held together by sheer will and rubber bands. While he is performing butch I believe this is the definitive answer. Okay, I'm gonna say, I believe that robots can perform gender, right, they can perform gender, but they cannot have a gender exactly because the gender is robot. The gender is robot. Robot is is their

gender agreed? But wait, does that mean that? Okay, never mind, I'm not going to get into an even authority or discussion of gender podcasts. No, absolutely not. Um, yeah, no, they're they should. They should revel in their freedom from having to deal with this question at all. We should

let them have that. Um. We also got an interesting tip from listener Angela Um, who sent us an article This is a Very night Call article from Smithsonian Magazine about how in a Chinese restaurant in Pasadena called to Panda Deli put a pair of quote disco blasting robots to work as servers. The article goes on to say each Japanese built robot purportedly cost twenty THO dollars about

forty five THO dollars adjusted for inflation. But we're prone to dropping things and letting radio interference make them go a bit haywire when they work. They were a hit telling jokes and delivering food to customers who were assured that this would be the future of the restaurant business.

In the mid nineteen eighties, the robots gained some national press in typical News of the World, Fashion and so it was there's a blurb about how the robots were just so not technologically advanced that they would just kind of like switch between languages, like they would drop food all over the place. They wouldn't know what to do

when something was in their path. So it's a very short lived expect The police radios interfered with if they got too confused by commands, they would say, that's not my problem, which relatable, Yeah, totally, especially if he worked as a server was trying to radical as the robot service army. That's been a big theme on our show. Yes, I mean this feels very eighties and that like they have to like demarcate that it's a Japanese built robot,

but it's also what a Chinese Chinese restaurant. It does feel like also that first wave of eighties, like the robots are coming to take over jobs, which now we're back in again kind of. But it was just cute then and then it was just like shorthand for Japanese people too. Um, and now it's just actually, the robots are indeed coming for our jobs. They are. They're always

making service robots. They're never making like management class robots, but they're making journalism robots are What you don't know about this? What do you mean? Uh? Yeah, I don't you know about Like tons of blogs are just automated content. Now, No, I didn't know read one where you're like, who could this be written human? Yeah? I thought those were still written by a person, just badly. No, I think that

you can auto generate. I mean, like, have you ever this is like there's a moment in vander Pump Rules when Jack's goes to Vegas and sees a robot bartender and he's like, my job. Yeah, He's just like, I can make a better drink than the robot. Yeah. I mean, well, the content that the robot, the journalis and robots right now are generally is content that I have been paid to generate before but have not generated in some time.

But it is that kind of totally mindless, Like here's some of the top moments from this week's Kardashians episode, Like that kind of thing which I used to do, like I get, I used to get payment outsources. But I also think that there are some celebrity like info on celebrities where you can tell because at first you could think, okay, this could just be like run through Google Translate. But they have the same cadence as the

chat bots, so that's what makes it identifiable. Yeah, and like the same weird phrases that nobody actually uses and wouldn't probably pop up in what if they outsourced podcasting to bots? Oh they will know. Well, we're about to talk about Well, we will talk later in the episode about a particular kind of podcast that I think could very easily be outsourced to bot. I think you're right, But first let's talk about a cutie robot named Bali.

Bolly is the non threatening smart robot that was recently rolled out by Samsung. It is a service robot, and it's basically like a what are the robot vacuum cleaners? Like a roomba, but it looks like a tennis ball. It's a prototype. Still it looks like b B eight but it's only yeah, just one little ball. He doesn't have the head balancing on top, and they purposely tried to make it non threatening looking and it's going to

be affordably priced. Um, but it's terrifying. It's terrifying because it follows you around at a quote unquote safe distance or comfortable distance. Like it follows you. It looks like about three and a half feet behind you and it won't stop until you ask it to go away. Oh my god, it's like the one from the Miley episode of Black Mirrors. Yeah, this is sort of like it's sort of my dream of what I wanted in a robot. But I just wanted one that would play music for me.

That's all that I want. Like, you know, people like sometimes that's a radio, yeah, but like not if you're not in the car. You could bring a radio where you don't. You have like a little portable wind up radio. I have a portable wind up rate for emergency. It's not like a normal Yeah. That's an eighties earthquake kicks building. Yeah, yeah, because it's when when power doesn't work after there and the wind if work, because I probably I have one

that's probably from the eighties. It will work work in the case of an EMP of a what an e MP an electric magnetic Oh of course, of course, I think, well, the deal is the real thing we have to prepare. Obviously, it was like an n T like I think if you're a doctor of nose and throats, like, it should still work for you. It works the Electronic Music Project interesting where we are? You guys are not hipto a e MP like that's like that is a doomsday threat.

I don't think it's like the scenario in which all like it could come from a solar flare or something. All I was scared about was that it would take down the Internet, and which would probably for me personally only the positive that would be great, But it would take down everything that runs on electricity like nothing. They made a really bad show on ABC, I feel like five or six years ago that was about this, about like a total blackout. It's like a permanent blackout and

you can never have any power anymore. And it's just like, but then you're going to really want that wind up radio. Well that's what I'm asked, But it won't give you a radio. Wouldn't You might be able to pick up like like it, but if the power is off at the radio station, can they even know that? You would be anything but you know what it can do. That's cool as it makes like a really loud siren noise.

Well that's not related to anything else. No, I've definitely thought about the like the no technology apocalypse, um, because anytime I go somewhere that has no technology, like if you go up the Central Coast or something, and you're off the grid, even for like a night or two, it does make you realize how reliant all of us are on it to a degree that is unhealthy. I was just thinking about this. I was like, it's like

the world's most boring drug, electricity. Yeah, I just like what a what A like not that fun thing to be addicted to. It's like sugar. It's like you don't even think about how addicted yard sugar until you try to deliberately take it out of your day, and then you really withdraw hard. Like I'm drinking a ginger ale and looking across the table at a bag full of candy. Yeah. An, it's like a Halloween candy, Like a giant plastic bag filled with mini candy bars. Just how they keep us

podcast until the box get here. Exactly sugar in electricity, I'm I'm on the fence about Bali though I have to say I have to. I feel like I have to pronounce it. Balls, I thought to view because you were such a b B eight I know, and I want a little like that's what I want out of that. And there's like there's one with wings on it from an anime that people I want. I want. What I want is this Robots and Sailor Moon that TV Sailor Moon has called Luna pe. It's a cat head that

floats around. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the best. And she can like turn it, she can press a button on it and turn it into anything she wants it to be. That's what I want. Here's what it just is a companion. Oh it's just a friend. Yeah, just a babysitter because she's like a kid and she's like she's like on her own, So she has a robot, it says BOLLI would be like a baby monitor. That's

what their advertised. But also it said in the venture Beat article that covered this, it said that it could be used to spy on your kids to let you know if they're doing their homework, which made me really freaked out because I'm like, well, then you can be spying on your spouse. You can be like spying. It's terrible, but that's all technology, right, Yeah, but that's bad. I don't want a little tennis ball that's like creeping around. Well, it's so much more sinister because they made it look

tried to make it not look sinister. Well, here's what I think. I think we could still have these things, but they have to be like homebrew robots. What do you mean, like like we get someone who's not part of the surveillor state that it's kind of like open source your hit and then it's up to you. Yeah, you make it yourself. You have control of the network, so it's not going to be sending your data to some whore. You know. People could still hack it, probably, yeah,

but what would you use it for though? What would be It's like design it just to have a little friend to follow, a little just a buddy, I mean, because that's what I do. Like when I'm wandering around the house getting ready and I'm listening to podcasts or whatever, I'm just taking my phone in my hand with me, and if that was just floating behind my head and playing and following me around and playing my podcast, So I don't have to remember pick it up, or I

could like you both you could get well. I would say, my friend got the most amazing boom box from the swap meet in MacArthur Park. There's like this electronics store that faces the street had a lot of amazing boombox type things with microphones and amazing LED displays. And I've been really thinking like maybe this is the way I use my radio all the time. And I used to have a boombox that was like a kind of like early two thousands boom box that played CDs, which also

I had, and all the time. I was trying to find a DVD and video player a while ago, and I was like where can I find those? And everybody was like two thousand three? But somebody at a record store gave me one because they had one, So you can get one still at like you know best, but and they cost twenty It's incredible. Um. But I also like watching like a regular TV now because I'm like, it's not a camera, it's not tracking my location. That is relaxing in and of itself. Because you were watching

everything on a laptop for a while. I was like a very early adopter of oh my god, I was watching a Sex in the City episode of US Night or Samantha's Like, you can get a DVD delivered, It's fabulous, But yeah, I was like pirrating things when you could. First I was like, Oh, movies on the screen and I can just like search for any movie I've ever

wanted to see. Like that sounds great, But now I do feel like there's just like too much choice and also not enough, Like I never want to watch anything that's on any of the streaming platforms except maybe some weird like deep cuts on Hulu that I find. I still couldn't get you on board of the Kaminsky method so horrible. I'm just waiting for the next hit a Kamanski taking its time. I respect your commitment to the Kaminsky method. There's no way to do it seems so easy.

We're gonna take a quick break for an ad and when we come back, we're going to talk about a fun field trip and only went on. Welcome back to night Call, Molly. You went on a very special adventure this past week, um into the home of one of our faves. I got in the zone. Was it spiritual? The shrine? I went to the zone. Brittany the zone, the Britney Spears experience. Were you in the zone, was in the zone? I was alone in the zone and

never alone in the zone. I wasn't like fully that I was with a group, but I wish I had gone with you guys, because I realized halfway throughout it's like, oh, this is like you're supposed to do it with a friend, so you can take pictures of each other and like experience it with so black and that's the point of like all pop ups, it's just a thing to happen.

I was just like, you know, okay, time to enter the void alone like a psycho not you know, but then I needed people to help me take good pictures. I want a full guided tour of Britney. Yeah what so, so tell us what this is, why it is where it is. I was asked by my editor at the l A Times, Craig Bars, if I wanted to write about it, and I said, of course. Um, it is in a former km art across from the Grove. Yeah, in this amazing mini mall that has really not changed,

even though the grove has been across from it years now. Yeah, it's like the Brittany Museum is next to the Whig Store, which the Whole Foods though, yeah, but still like there's an Italian restaurant and it used to be really good type place. I don't know if it's the whole vibe is perfect for Brittany. The Zone um, and it is. Yeah. It's a pop up experience put on by a production

company in conjunction with like a merchandizing agency. So it's basically like a store to buy Brittany merchandise and then also ten rooms, each one themed after a different Britney Spears video with immersive experiences and a bracelet, a chip bracelet that you scan to make videos in different parts of it Brittain Chip Britney Land Yikes. A chip bracelet that says a zone on it. It was like an hour after I left the Zone that I was like, I have to get the bracelet off one tracking me.

Wait did you did you leave with it on? Yeah? Is it just a paper braceletter? You don't know, it's like, um, it's like a backstage. Yeah, it's on a it's on like a just a piece of fabric. But it's like the Coachella on the app. Yeah, it has a little chip in it, but then it's like was pulled too tight and I like went into a place to be like cut this off me right now. It was an anklet. But um, the zone is basically an escape room, but like foreign escape to the past. You know. Um, it's

definitely for people in their thirties. Yeah, um to be like, hey, remember twenty years ago, don't you wish it was still that a little bit instead of now? Remember when you had what you thought the future was going to be, like, yeah, it was the crazy video. Yeah remember the TRL the late nineties turn of the millennium projection of the future where everything was going to be like Vinyl oh final

body suits, everything in. Yeah, that was a good future and then it got dystopian in like a much worse and boringer way. Okay, but I would not look back on the music, particularly the music videos of Britney Spears and be like, ah, yes, I wish I could live there, that's what you think. But now the first okay, so the first room is hit me maybe one more time, and it's just like a classroom set. Um, did you

get costumes? No costumes. There are like some interactive lockers you you can write a note to Brittany and like leave it in a locker and when there's like a tiny basketball hoop and tiny pink basketballs, you can play basketball, um, just like in the video, and they show video on a giant screen. I mean there's a classroom set that just looks like a porn set, which obviously I was a big pan, but they just show the video on a giant screen. It's like it's an art installation of

that music video. It just it just makes you think about like where you were at these different moments in time a lot. It's a lot of like simula simula. Like you know, I've never been a big fan of pop up museums because they like take over spaces that should be turned into like homeless shelters, and then they're like the Fruit Museum, you know, like jump in a

pile of clementine. It's so crazy, see that. That's how the world where it just seems like a trick to give everyone the flu Like the wall listen into the history because I guess they were like invented by the Museum of ice Cream a couple of years ago, which that was more than a couple of years ago, according Museum of ice Cream is kind of really that's the article about it. But they invented the sprinkle pool, which

is the like the centerpiece of money experience. I was actually I was so disappointed when the first time I heard about the Museum of ice Cream, because I was like, I would actually like to go to like a historical museum. I mean just the idea of the selfie museum, you know, as a thing of like, oh, people are taking selfies in front of art, so let's just like cut out the middleman that is the art and just make it

places to take selfies in front of. However, the Brittany Museum is like fraught with a lot more meaning in a way that like it does feel like an art installation where you're like I'm thinking about a lot of stuff in this space ace and not just like taking selfies mindlessly, but like mindfully. Is it more or less spiritual than the helmet of Climp show? At the there is a spiritual component, which is that um so there's like different the other different rooms where like oops, I

did it again, a space room. There's a room is a stronger video that has metal chairs and like a weird like shutter. It's like her dancing on a chair. It's just her jump like like it's like a solo dance video, like a Janet Jackson like routine with a chair where she's like playing a chair all around. It's about her taking control of her womanhood. It's a great video, but it's also like a weird one to do a

room around. So it's just a black box with chairs in it, which is very like it's like so weird. It's like the rain room at Lacma or something. It did. They have one where you can get in an argument with Stephen Dorff, but they have Me against the Music where you can dance with like a Brittany impersonator who's

on the other side of a wall. She was not working the day we were there, and you get to be Madonna with the cane and that's when you scan the bracelet and it's like now a countdown and then it's like you do your dance. I saw Katie from the Under Pump Rolls did it um with the cane where you get to do it on the other side of the so stuff like that. And that was where there was like a swing with a fake autumn background, which um, I guess that's from me against the music video,

but it was a great photo, thank you. I thought it was a deep cut reference to my favorite Brittney song, Autumn Goodbye. There's like some easter eggs. Like the people who made it, I think, like Brittany genuinely they would have to write, yeah, well it's a marketing from those yeah, but it's also like they they said, right generation there also probably yeah exactly, and it has like a sense

of humor, like it's not it is strange. But the best part is the Blackout room, the Blackout phase, which was like when Brittany got fifty fifty and had sort of her personal low point to represent that just like that. Erec is also it's people's favorite album and it's the best album. It's a chapel and it's like there's no pictures of Brittany. You can't even really take a selfie

in it. But it's like sort of like a Romeo and Juliette bos Lerman like chapel to Brittany with like blackout stained glass windows and like this altar with just like the cover of Blackout like a neon rectangle and then just like led candles everywhere and like flowers and hearts. Um, and that was like where I had a spiritual expa Imagine,

did you forget you were in a formermart? Yes? I mean, And I was like I would stay in here all day, you know, if I weren't with a group and moving along, like, I would totally just hang out here forever because it's like great, it's a great space. And they said they've had requests already for people to get married in there.

I just liked the idea. I was like, Oh, it's grace like and it's like a secular space of worship for like someone that we love, but also like they don't have to be here for us to like worship them at this point, it's probably better for everyone if they're not. So who else was there when you were there? Like, did you see a good mix of ages and stuff?

Or was there pretty much everyone? It was a little people in their twenties and thirties, and um, there was a couple there who seemed to be having the most fun of anyone because they were like like one of them was like looking at this Brittany infinity mirror and everyone was like, what's this? And he was like our future bathroom and they also told the guide at the end that there's apparently like a gay sex club a few blocks away, also called the Zone. They were like, oh, yeah,

we heard that. They thought it was funny, like yeah, like they seemed to be having the best time, and they also were like take had a buddy to take photos of each other. And then there were some people with camera, people who were like YouTubers I imagine, and who were like coming with their own person filming them kind of dressed up from the thing. And then there was me reporting on this zone, lurking in the shadows

of the zone. Um, yeah, I had a really good time, and um, I know a lot of people who are going. So it's kind of weird when you think, when you were talking earlier about how the vision of the future from the kind of like you know, late nineties or mid nineties to late nineties, how everybody was so obsessed with thinking about the future, and now everyone is only

thinking about the past. It seems very dark. It is to be explored later, Yeah, I mean exactly, to be explored never very much like consciously like a respite from the darkness. Well, I mean that's what that's what's kind of interesting is when you have these pop up museums, there is this kind of inherent sinnis them, Yeah, you know, and I find them deeply creepy maybe, and and also just so shallow and so so kind of obviously not anything physical, you know. It's it's like a very two

dimensional opiate like yeah, I don't know. It's like everything is a respite. Yes, yes, we all need a respite. But what if all of culture is now a rescie? Yeah, but that's cool about the Brittany thing is that it's a commentary on that maybe I'm reaching. It feels like a commentary whether it means who are not because it's like a children's museum for adults. That's what they all are.

That's that's what they all are. But this is like about someone who's like in an arrested state of childhood in our cultural memory in many ways, and like there are no pictures of her now. It's very much like like take a journey through her life and like don't talk about what's going on right this moment because we just want to appreciate. But does also make you be like she has such a body of work that like she cant higher if she wants to, Like she shouldn't

have to make anything else. She doesn't get to decide, which is the horrible thing. Yeah, I mean I know they didn't use that. It's a pop up. It's not a museum. It's something using the word museum like a lot of places use it. It's an experience. It's an experience. Like. But the thing is that like, at some point, if there is a future, uh, there should be a Brittany Spears museum, um, like in her hometown or something that's

like a presidential library or something like that. And it's weird to think about that, like a presidential library obviously in Louisia where she is one. Yeah, I think there maybe is one in her hometown. That's kind of like like an ad hoc type like enthusiasm, Yeah, like local hero type thing. I mean, yeah, it's just like but like I would also just want there to be like an actually academic and like honest look at the life of Brittany and like what she represented and where she

sat in history and why she was significant. And you know, obviously lots of journalists and critics and stuff will write about her in that way, but like and have written about her in that way. But like when all museums are like experiences that are just like these sort of worshipful walks down nostalgia lane, it just feels like maybe that's all the only way we're going to be able to look back on the past is like with rose

colored glasses or something. I don't know, well, I mean, I think part of it is that it kind of also alludes to the fact that there's so much we don't know, you know, and that if there were an actual museum, there would have to be information about what's going on with her now, which is perplexing and not going to have challenging So instead they kind of serve you something to counteract this like other movement going on. Interesting. Yeah, it feels like, you know, again, this is the thing

I've had. I haven't had this conversation with many people, by the way, where it's like like we've stopped assuming that there is going to be a future because I'm just like, well, in the future, like maybe we will find out what's been going on this whole time, Like that will be uncovered in the way that like a lot of you know, like a bad example is like Michael Jackson or something where it's like somebody is so famous and obviously troubled and a lot of it is

shrouded mystery, and then like maybe after their death is when all of that stuff comes out. And not that I think that anything that dark is necessarily happening with Brittany, although something dark is definitely happening with her, but like we are not going to be in the position to know about that so long as like she's around. I feel like it's interesting that somebody can be so famous so she is, and there is so much that we

don't know about her. That's also why she's like the perfect star, because she's like Maryland, You're just like you can't really get away with that anymore you start out now, I feel like, but there's also something where it's like, yeah, you can't. They would love for someone to be as big of a star as Brittany and the way that

she was a star. And it also is like sort of a museum to dead technology because there's like magazine covers and like thing, you know, physical CDs as an ideas just it it's very nostalgic, but it made me feel things. So it's art is art, So speaking of spiritual experiences. I have a friend who recently clued me into the phenomenon known as sleep casts, which I did not know about. I'm sure a lot of our listeners

probably already know about this. UM The app Headspace has what are called sleep casts, and they're not a s MR and they're not super narrative, but there is a narrative component. They are forty five minute long podcasts intended to lull you to sleep. So on the headspace um website it's as similar to Bedtime story. Sleep cast take you on an audio guided tour of a dreamy environment, whether that's a California desert at night or a beautifully

tranquil lakeside lotch. Sleep casts vary in length from forty five to fifty five minutes. Each one begins with a wind down, which could be a meditation exercise or even a simple breathing technique, and then it's like followed by a narrated tour of a sleepy landscape, a sleepy landscape. So one of them is called Midnight Launderette and it gives you a tour of a nighttime laundromat. There's also cat Marina, which bustle in covering the sleep cast. It says,

it sounds exactly how the name suggests. It's a particularly unique highlight. Perfect if you're a fan of boats or a fan of cats, even better if you happen to be a lover of both. That's what That's what cat marinas. So I listened to like, I forget the name because they it was not like one of the most unique ones. It was available on YouTube. I don't have the headspace

app um, and I was strangely into it. And I guess they're remixed so that if I think, you know, they're always kind of like unpredictable, because apparently when something becomes predictable or you've done it before, you start anticipating in that creates anxiety and then you can't fall asleep. But I'm I'm kind of super into them, and I was like, maybe we should have a nightcall sleep cast. I feel like people are going to think we're doing

spawn right now. Cut Space advertises on a lot of podcasts. I know, if they want to advertise here, go ahead. I was going to make fun of your sleep casts, and then I listened to one and I was like, actually, can I say though that I would find personally to me, it would be stressful not to know what's happened already. That's what stops me from falling asleep most of the time.

Do you want to find out what happened? Like? I can't fall asleep like watching a law in order, because I'm like, I have to know who didn't kill it. But you have to know how the laundry comes out of the midnight launder because then once I know, it's relaxing to watch it, which is why I fall asleep.

To David Fincher's Zodiac, what they need to do is just have people come on and tell you about their dreams, because that is the most most Do you guys ever heard Dion McGregor have we ever talked about him on here? He's a guy who made these records in the late fifties or early sixties where he talked in his sleep, and he apparently was like sleeping on a friend's couch who was like, you don't have to pay me in exchange for if I can record you talking in your sleep.

And so it's like recordings, these long recordings of someone narrating their dream out loud. It's not relaxing because a lot of them are anxiety dreams. It's like now I'm in the balloon contest and I'm getting in the balloon. But they're super weird. I used to play them on my college radio show. Well, we should play them on college radio show next maybe next week we'll follow up that. My friend Mike got me into it. It's there's just like a couple of records of it, but it's one

of the all time great weird records. What is the most is the most boring thing people telling you about their dreams, or is one of them that's the most And it's really hard to put your finger on why, I guess because it has no buring on anything you actually need to care about. It's like not when somebody telling you a regular story about their life, where it's like and what happened next? And what did you think about it? What are you going to do about that?

It's like there's nothing, just like this thing happened and it wasn't real. Well, yeah, I feel like it's often like someone trying to explain like a run they did in a video game, right, and then I got the coins and then I didn't have the coins anymore. Weirdly, though, watching people do runs on video games is compelling, but should we start playing We were talking about maybe playing tatris on Twitch sometimes. I please, let's do this, please

you guys. I got the other day. I was like playing it at tattris and I was like, why is no one watching me? No one's here. It's so it's not real. I need everyone clapping for me. I take a clue shirt please. I've been practicing, Dr Mario. We are up to date on the games of oh No, because also now the next generation my son is has

started the Legend of Zelda. And but much like the difference between watching someone play the Legend of Zelda, which is a very beautiful game, when someone is telling you that they found an apple and a piece of fish and how they cooked the apple and the fish to regain their it's just like, wow, that's a sleep cast.

That is a sleep cast. There, I have to say, I find while I appreciate the idea and I love the absurdity of stuff like what is it Kitty Marina, Cat Marina, Cat Cat Marina, I am a little bit maybe I'm just a hyper paranoid mode because of what we're going to talk about in our next segment, but like, I do feel kind of weird about letting somebody into my head in that before I fall asleep. Yeah, it does feel like it could easily tilt over into it.

It also feels like to me, any streaming thing it could just like who knows what it goes to next? You know, like you can't that's why you can't fall asleep to YouTube. I like that this is going in a conspiracy direction though, too, because when I was listening to it, it starts off like describing this environment, but then it leads you through so breathing and relaxation exercises,

and it was occurring to me. I was like, what if you were listening to something like this and they were like, now take a deep breath and hold, hold, hold, and then people. I was like, there's my movie right there where it's like someone in meditation now just makes people die. But Bean like, don't don't breathe, don't break. SMR is going to be a horb It will be, it will, it will come out. We said it here. Copyright the copy right nightcall copyright if you say copyright,

it's coffee right w G A registration right now. No, I've had this idea. It's just like because you know, it's like frequencies, and you know they make you tinkle, and what if one made you tingle so much that your brain exploded. Such a good idea about a lot of these things is like the way to fall asleep is to have your phone be off. Well, isn't your phone obviously off when you're lying in bed trying to

go to sleep? Yeah, but not if you're playing Kenny Marina Cat Marine that well no, but I would like I put it on airplane motif. I'm thinking about it because I don't like it when it lights up in the middle. I plug mine in in a different room, so that's basically off. Yeah, well that's smart, um like to sometimes at least sometimes like doesn't a meditation app seems sort of counterproductive because like to keeping you plugged in, you shouldn't. You shouldn't need an app to meditate. You

should your brain as the app. Well, have you guys ever tried the breathing thing? That's like, I'm getting it wrong, So don't do this because you'll you'll probably die like I just suggested. But it's like a four three five kind of thing where you breathe you inhale for a certain number of counts, hold it for a certain number of counts exhale, and if you do it a certain number of times, Apparently most people can fall asleep after doing that. It didn't work for me, but I think

I was probably doing it wrong. No, but I've had a therapist like do something like that. I think it's like cognitive therapy. You do that to calm down. But I don't think cognitive therapy. I can never remember what it is. Right is well, we can have a whole other discussion. Um, this is weird but unrelated, but like I've been having a lot of vertigo recently and there's like this this feels very like also like could become

a horror movie. There's a series of maneuvers called vertigo, yeah, taken unfortunately vertigo to unrelated vertigo too cool and unrelated covert it. But there's a series of maneuvers you do if you have vertigo called the uply maneuvers. Oh I know about that, Yeah, And it's very it's very like the movements in UM a way. Like it's it's like this thing where you turn your head one way and

then you slam your head. You like fall backwards onto the bed really fast, and then you have to like do you turn over to the side, and then you quickly turn over to the other side. And I'm not on the mic because I'm trying to do it. But it's like it feels sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, and it feels like what if this is just a thing to put my brain in just the right position in my bread my head? That too hard? It too hard, afite too hard, so hard, I think anything that takes

your mind off things. Has anyone else ever had water port kind of soft water boarded for hiccups? Oh? Oh yeah, Well do you ever you drink up out of the wrong side of the cup? Up side? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, such like it's such a weird thing to do to yourself. Well, one thing that I was someone sometimes hold your pinky. You squeeze your pinky really hard until it's unbearable, and then they were like, it's better if you do it

to someone else. So for why someone have Piccups'd be like your pinky, Like, oh, we should like what are you doing? We should do a series on like Old wives tales? We should yeah, because yeah, because there's so many things that are just kind of pseudoscience that are just in the ether of like, we don't know how to stop the hiccups. Well, speaking about things we don't know, we should take a break and then come back with

a vintage story, mr Story. We are back. So we wanted to kick off our month of spooky love, unconventional love stories, strange romance kind of stuff by revisiting the Golden Suicides, which we all read the Vanity Fair feature by Nancy Joe's sales from two thousand seven. Nancy Joe,

Nancy Joe, do the whole thing. Um this is about Teresa Duncan and Jeremy Blake, a couple who both committed suicide within ten days of each other, uh, following some kind of they are very two different stories at play here, a kind of conjunct melt down that may or may

not have had something to do with scientology. Yeah, we briefly mentioned it when we were talking to our friend Lily Simonson about um back because of his recent scientology apostasy, which this is one of several sources that proves that what he said was not true, which was what he said was that I never said I was a scientologist and I never would have said that. Um, and in

this he is. UM. I don't I can't tell if this is something from another source that she's citing in it or something that she like she interviewed him for this story. I think I think he this was directly to Nancy Joe okay, because part of it is that they the couple was working with him and um, and he was in They allegedly said they were getting him out of the church, and he was like, no, that's never true. So, UM, that was sort of what we're minded of us of this story. Uh, it's one of

the most haunting. It's really upsetting. It's a very very upsetting feature. Um, it's a very upsetting story because they were both super talented on the rise. Um, beautiful, super in love, only had wonderful things to say about each other. And uh, this was like an all time Vanity Fair story. It really was. Um. Do you remember reading it when it first came out? Oh? Yeah, and I remember. I

mean speaking of spooky love. One of the things that they were known for was that they did the imagery for Paul Thomas Anderson's Punch Dunk Gloves and the cover of Becks Sea change. Yeah, so a couple of the the two of the best things to come out of the two thousands. Um, and that she was involved in making educational seed roles. Well, she was like this, she was kind of reinventing new media a little bit. Like

she just seemed very kind of forward thinking. She feels like, I mean, they don't mention it, but just because she was in New York in that time period and like working in tech, I just like I meant, they're like pseudo people, like people who are hanging out it we live in public totally. I was totally thinking that too. Yeah, like like the Douglas Copeland micro surf generation of people that made money on the first wave of tech, like trying to make tech into like, oh, bohemian things as

opposed to what it ended up. Right, Um, studo was very ahead of its time. Though. Yeah, I've been really compelled to rewatch that movie. It's an amazing movie. We Live in Public. I love it. Probably have we done one about it? I don't think we've mentioned it. I did a jack am about it. Actually. Last Valentine's Day, Johnny and I went on together to talk about We Live in Public because we thought that a couple doing

a morning show together every day. It was kind of we live in public key industry, watched dig same okay, wild. We should do like a late nineties or early two thousand's march. Maybe, oh yeah, let's do let's do time hopping spring and we'll just skip around fondom leap. We could do like Y two K or something. Yeah, but we should give some background in case anybody isn't familiar with, like the kind of trajectory of what happened. We should

run through this story. So in very vanity fair style, we're introduced to this couple who just seemed to have it all. They're gorgeous and brilliant, and Teresa is a she she designs. She's like, UM doing CD ROMs, educational CD ROMs, games, that kind of stuff. Jeremy is an artist. Um also has a blog Yes with the Staircase, Yes early yeah Um. And they meet kind of through the d C punk scene and then later hanging out in New York. So it's like very cool nine and these

hipster scenster type stuff. But things started to go wrong when they moved to l A and that was they were living in a venice bungalow, and they had a bunch of kind of also cool neighbors, and at some point it seemed as though they both got tremendously paranoid. UM people said that Theresa would be hanging out in

the alley kind of like hooting and hollering. They would um encounter their neighbors and say, like, we need you to take a loyalty oath to us and promise us that you won't join the Church of Scientology, and promise us you're not already in there. And these people wanted to work with Jeremy and Teresa because they were so exciting and like they were visionaries, so they just kind of went along with it. But then eventually this turned

into harassment. They said that, you know, they seemed like they were either very mentally ill or maybe on drugs, or they didn't, you know, know what was going on there, and they started with a lot of paranoia about Scientology, seemingly branching off from their involvement with Beck because Um Teresa had a film that she was trying to get made that she was trying to get back to be signed onto star in, and then he ended up back head out and it kind of made the entire project collapse,

or at least was one of the factors that made her film kind of stall out. And so I think she she was very discouraged by that. The way that the story goes is it like I feel like the film is sort of the thing that her getting involved in the film industry was sort of like one of the things that started to make everything go sideways. That

is also the point where sort of the narrative convergent diverges. Yeah, diverges were the narrative diverges into two like possible equal paths where either they were being stocked by a cult and they became incredibly paranoid and sort of lost her minds together, um or they had a serious drug problem. Well. Also, though what's interesting about Back had said, I didn't really know them that while I met them like one or two times, and they I guess I read the script eventually.

I was never in talks to be in it. But Teresa was publishing pictures I think on her blog of them all hanging out with them all hanging out on the beach, and which seemed to kind of go against what Back had said, And it could be I mean, it's totally reasonable that maybe back had been just trying to be nice and got the sense that they were kind of a little fringy, and the questions did they fall into scientology at some point and that's how they met? See,

this is how I understood this story. But when I first read it when it came out, I understood it as like they probably got involved to scientology and then tried to get out. Well, it's also it's an interesting complicated thing because one of the way scientology operates is that a lot of people are these sort of like pseudo bohemians, and especially at that time in that scene in l A, there were a lot of people that were scientologists, but also some people who weren't all making

art and doing stuff together. So it seems very likely that they got involved in the scene there. Yeah, and this is all like I mean, people have you know, there had been some real reporting about scientology at this point, but I think this, I would say, this is like well before scientology and like the abuses and all all of the real dirty laundry, Scientology was really out there for like public consumption or like it was commonplace knowledge.

That's also why I think so. She She claimed that she was being stalked by scientologists, the phone ord ring in the middle of the night, there were people hanging out outside her house. You know, there was a dead cat on the roof. And what's interesting is, I think at a certain point um there was a real kind

of like reversal of how people thought about scientology. For a while, it was there were kind of whispers about harassment and things like that, but only much later than their suicides was this kind of acknowledged as being something that the church actually does. So in a way, it kind of lends legitimacy to the idea that maybe she was being harassed. But if you're being harassed a little bit, it's also easy to see how if you're a little unstable,

you can start to see everything. It's also possible again that if they were being harassed, and maybe they were also smoking crystal meth, which is what some people alleged was going on, because they were like covering the windows, and they were drinking. He was drinking at work, she had She was drinking bottles of shampon. They possibly had addiction issues that could have been exacerbated by actually being stocked.

And then paranoia just makes you feel like whether you are being stocked or not, you're always feeling like you are. But I always thought that it was just drugs until right now, and the detail about the dead cat just made me rethink everything, right because that story just came out about um the guy from the Mars Volta who is married to one of Danny Masterson's accusers, said that

their dog was just poisoned. Yes, oh yeah, I feel like there have been a few poisonings killing stuff like because it wasn't their cat though I don't think it was, but it seems like that's a tactic, is poison I think maybe going clear or maybe on the Operation Clan Bake blog or something there there was a mention of something. I think it happened in St. Petersburg or at clear Water whatever. That it's like a thing that is definitely right.

And again it's like maybe if they signed up for some list or something like that doesn't mean that like Back was like, you know, send the hounds after them. Oh, I don't think Back had anything to do with it. I think that, but I think that Back maybe was friendlier with them than he later claimed. Yeah, it is also kind of like or was it just like Hollywood bullshit. Well, yeah,

that's the thing. It's funny that that you're more convinced it with Scientology this time around, because I was certainly convinced it with scientology when I first read it, and

that was like very chilling to me. I mean that was one of the first things I read where I was like, holy sh it, I'm never going to step set foot in a Scientology building, never get which not that I have changed my mind all about that, but I think reading it this time, so many of the patterns and like and stuff that happened, like the same back is going to be in your movie, which could be like stretched she in a truth, Like you met him once, you hung out once at a party, you

hung out a couple of times, and then you're like, he's gonna be my movie and just say that so you can try to get like, you know, hype going for your film and try to get it made like that.

All that all tracks is like a very common kind of delusion slash white lie you can tell to try to get yourself ahead, and feels like this very gen x thing of like they had this great success in New York and they were this golden couple in New York and then they moved to Los Angeles and they couldn't like replicate that cloud, so they just kind of like and she didn't succeed immediately at trying to get him film made because she was just like in or

just they were like, oh, everyone's beautiful and talented, so like get in line. But also she in the feature they mentioned that she had published an interview that she had with Um the Priest who was married to Nancy Joe Sales Frank Morales, and it was about MK Ultra and Operation Chaos and and kind of started off with real mind control things, but then she kind of segued and was like, what if Dick Cheney actually is Satan?

Like what if that's well, it's hard to It's hard to tell though, because it could be kind of a

like flip whatever this. Yeah, because I think that the track they go down, which seems to get kicked off by the scientology thing and then go into like documented but still like conspiracy theorist type material like mk Ultra that kind of thing, and then go into Alex Jones and nine eleven Truthers and stuff like that, that all feels like very prescient of like what it's like to be on the Internet now, except this is all like

pre social media really like in a real way. I mean, this is like they died in two thousand and seven. I think being online is a mental like a mental illness that people like we joked about internet addiction always, you know, like there was a diagnosis for internet addiction, but we all have it, right, the idea that we're all addicted to it in a way that is like cigarettes, where it's like not good for you. It's compulsive. The

more you do it, it makes you feel bad. But if you like stop doing it, you like freak out about doing it again, unless you stop for an extended period of time and then you stop needing it. Well, it also kind of breaks your ability to be able to infer what's sincere and what it performed. The irony poisoning, if from like Twitter, is just like one of the

most I've seen. That's more so than people losing their minds online from like for paranoid reasons, Like the irony poisoning is just like one of the reasons I can't

actually read Twitter that much anymore. It's really hard to like, I mean, once you start going down right like that path because I do also feel like I made fun of like all the Pizza Gate stuff obviously, but then like the Epstein stuff is like made a lot of people into Pizza Gate on the other side of the fence because there is a lot of crazy stuff about the government. Well. It's also some of the things with m the Duncan and Blake story that are interesting is

they do seem self aware. I mean, like, so Blake did the Winchester trilogy obviously about someone losing their mind, and in a way it's like so much of their entire story it's I don't want to say it felt performative, because obviously taking your life is not performative, but it was there dramatic people and dramatic, but the people it's just buying into like living this kind of life that you you feel is I mean, like we live in public where you feel like you're being like you're important

and you're putting out important work, and then you yourself are an important work and you're a target, right, But then you also are kind of tying it in with things like interviewing someone on your blog about conspiracy theories while you deeply believe in a conspiracy theory, but you're clearly kind of aware, like we're not really like but then you know, there's this weird blurred line where you can really easily understand how someone right, Like at what

point does obsession just like take over? You know, And a lot of high functioning people and smart people also

have mental illnesses and a lot of Yeah. I mean, I feel especially like if if you're a high functioning smart person and you have been told that you are a high functioning and smart person your entire life, then you are more inclined to think that you are can be let in on some kind of information that not everybody else's let it like you you are you are more well informed about something and gen x, there's like this performative thing of like, but also you can't show

how bad you want it. You have to like pretend to be too cool to well. I think, I mean, I think it made them mad. I think instead of making them feel humbled, it made them mad. And I think a lot of people do like come to Los Angeles with like a big expectation of like what will happen there and then are humbled by the reality. I think that's true about everywhere. I agree, But I mean I think they moved to New York and they moved into this like cool like artists spot whatever. Its five

thousand dollars a month. They weren't making money and like the mid odds it was. And I think when people are having success, it's like they do sometimes feel like, oh, we're like blessed, you know, we're especially important people. But those are the people also that think they get abducted by aliens, as we saw in communions, by at least driver a kind of like wanting to be exceptional that becomes a kind of like psychopathy. Yeah, did you guys find them to be a romantic couple at least before

things went south? Or well there's something romantic about like going crazy together? Yes? And they were so they seemed so completely committed to each other. They were together for twelve years. They obviously moved a bunch of times, their careers evolved, and they they only ever had wonderful things to say about each other. They seemed really creatively supportive.

They were each other's hype men. But maybe that was actually sort of what doomed them, because if they had had more outside influence, if they hadn't just had each other to be like, this is what's happening. You're right, maybe they were confirming each other's paranoia. Yeah, I mean, like there's that detail like the last night that uh,

like the last night that Teresa was alive. They were in Hollywood for a meeting with George Pelicanos because they were working on a an adaptation of a book of his. And then like they were last seen by the people that they were dinner with, like still holding hands while they were walking across the street back to their car. It's just like after like a Hollywood meeting, it's like a married couple and nearly and you like it's still just like holding hands all the time. I don't know,

it's like very it's like very um yeah. And then like ironically, like this did make their I p important to somebody, you know, And there was going to be a movie at one point written by Bretty Snellis, although it got Can you imagine I would be so mad if I if my life if it's a Bretty Snellis because yeah, no way, Yeah, I feel like it's possible. Yeah, I don't know, there's somebody with more empathy yet. Yeah, but it's also it is like we don't know that

much about them as interiors, which is what's interesting. It's like there's a lot of information about them. There's a lot of photos of them. She has an entire blog, and I definitely remember looking at her in the article and having that creepy failing of reading a dead person's blog, you know where you're like that so many people will get to enjoy now that everyone has a blog is a blog graveyard. But it is like that's one of those things where you're like should I be doing this?

Like this is bad? Yeah, Like I read the Cecil Hotel girls. Yeah, just was like this is making me feel gross. But also it gives them like this humanity if you're like, here's them alive person not just like I think it's not. I don't think that it's like a moral to read like obviously, like you put something down out on in a public form, and like you do that for a reason because you want people to read your words, I mean generally, and I think like

there is some something to be gained by. It's just sad because you're always like they feel alive and they're posting still. Well, there's also I mean, I don't know if I died under mysterious circumstances, I don't think there would be like clues on my tumbler. But what if you left a series of tapes sort of you know,

a treasure hunt? Uh yeah, yeah, Well, if you have any favorite tragic romances, weird romances, unusual romances, unusual romances, strange love triangle, yeah, we're gonna be talking about them all month long, so share your thoughts with us. You can send us an email at Night Called podcast at email dot com or give us a night call at one to four oh four six night. You can also follow us on social media. We are on Twitter at Nightcall pot and Instagram and Facebook at Nightcall Podcasts, and

you can join our Patreon. We're at patreon dot com slash Nightcall. You can join us there and get all sorts of fun stuff like our newsletter. Our bonus episodes are mixed tapes, so check it out and we'll be back next week. Thanks for listening with more Spooky Love. Nightcall is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,