97: The Night Boat

Magazine and the Ask Molly newsletter. She's also the author of three books, um and a longtime Internet writer, cool person all around, a long time legend legendary blogger. Welcome Heather, Hi, I'm so happy to be here. How they're going to talk to us today about the Love Boat for Spooky Romance February, Because what's spookier than love at sea? Trapped on a boat, what is spookier than anything at sea? There's no escape. But first we're going to take a

night call, actually a night email. Hey, night Call. I have had a couple night call relevant experiences recently. I am writing to share sleep. Podcasts are certainly one expansion of the podcast medium. But I was visiting my parents last week when my mom informed me of the existence of dog podcasts, which you put on for your dog

when you're gone. I'm not sure if there's more than one, but the one She the Dog uses features random British actors telling your dog it's a good dog and various as as well as dropping random quotes from historical figures that they follow up. I don't think they were talking about dogs, but I think it still applies. I told a dog owning friend this and she was like, oh, yeah, there's also dog TV now. So this is the decade

of dog media apparently. Hopefully the dogs will be inspired to create media of their own and ultimately save us all. Best Charlie Heller, Thank you, Charlie. Thanks Charlie, what a great night email. Did either of you guys listen to the dog's favorite sounds or something? It's not a dog, but it's favorite with a you. Um. It's funny because they Charlie linked, which we will link to an article in the Streets Times. It's like very British. It's like a a Singapore news site, so it was like very

British oriented. But I just thought that was funny. It is like Game of Thrones actors just saying like you're such a good boy, Like when you look at me like that, I'm just so happy. I just want the very best for you. I guess you just leave it on in your living room when you have to leave a dog alone. Because it's three hundred and some minutes. I did not listen to all minutes. Do you think people are listening to this that are not dogs? Um?

I can see I used for it. I mean it has an smr Q. Yeah, it's like very I I listened to I forget the name of the actress who was reading it, but it was very sup like it was in a very like low like I'm just I'm just speaking to you, like the the voice that you would use if you had the dog, like right in front of Dog Tamber. Yeah, Dogtamber, you're smells delicious. Have you been in your greeniece? Right? Is it like a fellow dog talking to you or is it a person?

I think it's just supposed to be like the best person you could leave your dog with is a British person who speaks to them calmingly, apprently. Yeah, I mean the dog media stuff and a dog TV that's not new like I remember there used to be I definitely remember cat Cat TV remember and cat vhs is. It was a lot of aquariums. Dog TV is the greatest

channel in the world. I don't know where it comes from, but my parents got it as like a preview for a few a week or two world, and my mom got obsessed with it, and then I also got obsessed with it because it was like programmed with shows. But the shows were like a center pete on the wall with lights on it, and then another show would be like birds in the park. So dogs and Stoner's have

a It was really good slow TV. It was, you know, and some of them were like from the point of view of a dog, just like a shot of like a dog running around the beach um. But the idea was you're supposed to leave it on for your dog when you left the house. That is what I would think a dog podcast would be like the It would be like more of a field recording. Yeah. No, I think it's not meant to be disorienting in that way.

It's not supposed to take you to another place as a dog like you stimulating and you don't want the dog. It's to play kate the dog. What if the dog is like a strange British man is in the house trying to me away from my true owners. I mean, it's probably good they have like both male and female voices on it, just so that you know you can if your dog responds better to two women, and you know you can hear a nice lady talking or whatever, which is definitely a thing. Do you have pets that

respond to media? My mom just sent me a picture that her cat, Satsky, has just discovered video, like has started responding to it for the first time. She had a YouTube video that's playing on our laptop on the bed, and like she showed me a picture of like the cat just like pulling at the screen, which was like, and she's kind of she's she's not young, Like she's like nine years old or something like that, and like this just feels like a late breaking thing for her

to be tuned into. She saw the monolith. Yeah, it's like suddenly, just like the fourth wall broke down. How they're deer dogs watch TV? They do I feel like dogs. I mean when I was younger, dogs they didn't My dogs did not see things on TV. But then my last set of dogs who are dead now God rest their souls a um, but they but I have two

replacement dogs, God bless them. One of them is definitely a dopple, like a recruited rescue doppelganger of the other dog, um, and the the other one was named Potas and she was really really aloof like president Yeah nice um. But but the new one is named fig and she's really needy, so it's sort of like um, but they look that. Yeah, I'm like the dog pervert that gets the dog that.

I mean, people do that, they get the same breed, right, But with rescue dogs actually have to like scour the internet, whereas my dog that looks like my other dog. Um. But but my both of my dogs now, one of them is kind of a Jack Russell choua and the other ones, I don't know something, but they look at animals when an animal appears on the TV. Yeah. I think there's something about like the movement of wildlife that

translates like even though it's out of context. And yeah, one of my cats definitely will pose at the screen when an animal appears. Actually a bird um which one draxxel. Yeah, but also yesterday I was watching a cat documentary and one of the cats at least definitely like perked up and started watching it. Was it for the cats? It was not, it was for me. Well, people just want to see themselves. I only got halfway representations. It was a cat documentary. I think it was called hashtag Me Out,

but it was just it was on Netflix. I think it was about the history of cat memes. So it started with like end cat and like it kind of was actually interesting. I did stop watching it halfway through, but the first half was like there was this pre gentrified Internet where cats got famous organically, like little bub then they were like and then there was a shift at a certain point where people were like I'm getting a cat to try and make it famous on the Internet. Um,

so that was fascinating. But there was like a person who's like the cat meme archivist at the Museum of the Moving Image. Wow, that's there, that's a title, I believe. So, yeah, that's fascinating that. I feel like they're doing the good work there. Yeah, they were like, this is the one thing that remains like a constant on the Internet is the animal memes. It's like the one thing everyone can agree is like a good thing on the Internet. There

aren't enough animal memes on Twitter lately. I feel like it's all just gloom and dim and there's I want more. Um. You see that owl that can run? No, I posted it today. I liked the robocat. He was a victim of frostbite, Siberians robotic legs. Yeah, that was That was a good animal meme. I have now eliminated all of the suggested topics from Twitter, so it's only weather in cats. Just very disorienting that I have to say. And also the cream doesn't necessarily rise to the top with the

cats that become popular on Twitter. I have to say, like, not to shame these cats, but not the best cats I've seen. And I'm not even that picky, but some of those cats are really low tire. It's true that, like I've seen that there has been a downturn in the quality of cat Like I feel like the most cat that you see now is the one that's sitting at the table opposite Taylor arm Strong in that name

of like the white cat, the white cat cat. There are some famous ones, but this documentary was also like no cat will ever be as famous again as a Little Bub, like universally famous like the two on the dog side, but also like Marnie and Little Bub, we're both like rescue pets with sort of like weird health conditions, which is also what made them like love of Balls.

You were like, oh, you genuinely just got like like the guy who does a Little Bub was just like no, I wasn't like trying to like, yeah, now that the rescues they're like scouring the rescues for fun faces. Yeah. I did an event with Marnie once where I interviewed her on a stage. I interviewed I interviewed her caretaker Shirley bra Hot, who is cool, and it was like I just was like asking her questions about Martie, like when did you get her? And you know, what does

she like to eat? Questions. But it was an audience of mostly kids. It was at the Echo Plex. It was like Beatlemania, Like the kids were just like go Like Marnie just walked around on the stage and the kids were like were they all trying to take pictures? And then she would like stick her tongue out and they'd freak out again and then should like flop over it was amazing. It's hilarious. The most fame I've ever

been around. Yeah. Um, it was a beautiful experience. You're all transformed, Beautiful experiences that transform everyone who passes through them. How there you came to talk to us about a little show called the Love Boat. Yes, I did. That's I'm here to speak of the Love Boat. We were going to do this anyway for Spooky Love February. But then also Fred Silverman just passed away. Who is this TV executive who's famous for green lighting, among other things,

the Love Boat. He is known for doing the Rural Purge where they canceled Green Acres and the Beverly Hillbillies, Uh to go after a more sophisticated audience. The Cruisers. Well, he he greenlight Love Boat and Charlie's Angels, so he, like, you know, it was responsible for this whole genre. But he also green like all in the Family and the Jeffersons and stuff like. He's a big figure in TV. So it's almost like there's actually a reason that we're

talking about the Love Boat. Amazing. We searched Tie and Love for a reason, and look, yes, you know what, there are so many times our powers are too strong. The Love Boat. Well, okay, so I was born in nineteen seventy. Someone recently told me, you really shouldn't tell people your age anymore. It's done. Yeah, like I said that to you. A woman said that to me in the public eye. She was like, no more, no more

speaking of your age, just forget your age. I was like, oh no, it's kind of fun to flip people out a little. I don't really get it. But the Love Boat in the seventies, okay, so it was on from seventy seven to nine, eight seven, those were the years that I was, uh, seven to seventeen. I did not watch it when I was seventeen. I think you'll find that reassuring. Um. But at the age of seven. Um,

I think Star Wars came out in seventy six. So Love Boat and Star Wars, I feel like, are sort of akin because the Love Boat was a show because they're both on ships. They have ships, they're they're both on yes, neither on land death star cruise ship similar. Um. But the Love Boat was a show where basically you had the rotating guests. Um it was. I guess that's called what is it called like a serial where they're rotating people in and out right and anthology because it

always is the same ship. Captain. Yeah, like you have the set characters kind of like Law and Order, right, Like, you have these rotating storylines and typically Okay, so the quintessential story is two people come to the love boat with It's a little bit like Fantasy Islands. Fantasy Island was on after the love boat, but to a couple comes and one of them is secretly dying, okay, but she doesn't want to tell her partner. They just keep Basically like almost every other scene is just a couple

on the deck of the love boat, clinking little champagne glasses. Um. It was sort of like an escapist luxury, you know, akin to Um, Dynasty, Dallas, Falcon's crest Um. It was sort of like the middle class vision of what luxury was. I feel like I didn't watch a lot of these shows, but they still completely shaped my idea of what is like luxury. Ye, Like, when I think of rich people,

I'm still like Dynasty. That is like how you should dress if you like crazy hair, um, flushed, strange, overly tanned faces, shoulder pads, um, low cut shit, I'm dressed like, wait, so who are the who are the main cast of the love boat is like the crew of the ship. The crew of the ship. So there's Gavin McLeod who was We wouldn't we know from such things as Tyler Moore show he was Murray, Um there is I didn't write down the other ones. There's the oh yeah Isaac, okay,

so I know the character names. Yeah there there weren't like, yeah, Isaac was a bartender. I went to camp with his son. You went to camp? Yeah, And so Isaac and Gopher or like the two goofy like, um, hey, let's have a party. Hey, check out the girls kind of guys on the Gophers like the I don't know, he's like

a lower down on the on the ship. Isaac is the bartender and he, you know, in the opening credits he's like, I mean, it's sort of like the opening credits that people spoof now on you know, Bachelor in Paradise, like shaking the shape he points, Hey, Bachelor in Paradise is totally a love boat rip off. Yeah, you're right exactly, And people there's a similar amount of melodrama. Um, there's the classic shot. At least four or five times per episode.

There's just a shot of tits or ass like asses walking like butt cheeks walking by in a bikini and then you know Gopher our Isaac are like, whoa, there's an ass right there. That's probably the first time you could do that on television because again I did read a lot about Fred Silverman and they were like he pioneered jiggle vision with shows like that and Charlie's Angels,

So jiggle visions just like check out the ass. Yeah, like shows that people thought were stupid, but lots of people watched because they had like t n A and they were very like comforting in their regularity. Yeah, it's like decorative TENA. Though it wasn't like plot driven. It was just like oh, in between scenes you might see a butt right and then like the end point is Baywatch, yes, but there's not driven ten there's a purpose to those

down the beach. Those asses have a goal. I mean, which what else doesn't have a even the assts of dog It all comes back, um, But there wasn't any dirtiness. Yeah, people like would sort of like talk about making love. I guess you know it was making love. It seems very soft rock. Yeah, yeah, soft porn software. I mean, it's like middle class romance. Like but see, you gotta put it in the context of like the movies of the time, like did you ever see Okay, what is

the name of that movie? The quintessential kind of like shitty eighties movie to me is this Michelle Pfeiffer and Mel Gibson fall in love. They I just remember this scene where they make love in a hot tub, yeah, Tequila Sunrise, and then they burst out of and it's like storing sacks and they burst out of the hot tub. Wo fucking and you're like, fucking, It's not like that one. I'm saying. There were a lot of like okay, so can we talk about love scenes? Have you guys ever

talked about just the existence scene? Yeah? The existence etic That was all yeah, all erotic thrillers. But from what era? From early yeah, nineties, I would say from from about the time probably right around there. Suddenly, okay to show that the nine and a half weeks era, Yeah, yeah, well I feel like the I just had this epiphany one day where I was like, what happened to sex scenes?

You know, like they used to be long but love but was sort of like worked around that with It was mostly really about the cheesiness of like, oh God, I just love you so good, You're just so It still had to be about love in order to pass standards, but the time was like a secret between the couples or some sort of like mortal. There was usually some stupid twist like I'm dying and I can't There was usually yeah, it was usually like I can't really tell.

It was not the era of let's process our emotions together on this deck with our champagne. It was more like, oh, I'm gonna go change into something more comfortable, you know, you know, like everything happened behind closed doors. Like but you know, you imagine I'm just having the most grueling, gruelingly dull missionary sex and their little terrible beds. People are repressed on the love boat. Um yeah, I mean you know, it was like they were all wearing lip gloss,

Like how hot could it get? I mean it seems, you know a lot of people get sea sick. Yeah, there wasn't. I feel like, there wasn't a lot of like realism. There was a lot of vomiting over the side. Um. The idea of having sex on a cruise ship. I've never been on a cruise ship or if I had sex on a cruise ship, obviously, but the idea yet see night call Um. But I'm confused if that's like an erotic thing. Those those little tin the beds very small, like the beds tend to be too smaller beds pushed

together kind of wire. You in the mile Long Club, no comments. Maybe that's why they were having a mile high club. Is in the air. It should be like like League submarine. It would be amazing. I went to the estate sale of Geraldine Saunders, who's the woman who wrote the book that The Love Boat was a spinoff of. You know, I got tipped about her estate sale. It was in Glendale, and it was just a really amazing Glendale estate sale of this woman who was like the

self made mogul who had written this book. She had like Thennis tried to be a celebrity astrologer. She was married to I think his name is Omar Star or something. She was married to another super famous astrologer, and they sort of pioneered like being celebrity astrologers. And then she

became the first female cruise director. She had this obsession with like I want to work on a cruise and be in charge, and she did, so they were like selling they Yeah, they had her cruise director jacket for sale. But she wrote this book about it called The Love Boat, about using astrology to like match make on the cruise.

Um the back of the book is amazing. I think I talked about it here once before because it's like this vivacious, volaptuous virgo from Glendale takes you on a romantic cruise and like, who knows what will happen on a ship, like people might find love on the love Boat. And then somebody bought it. The general taken an ip in turning it into a show, and she had a love boat lifesaver around her pool. Oh my god, the book club. Did she have artifacts other artifacts from the

actual show. No, it was more artifacts from her astrology career that they had and a million copies of The Love Boat. Which I was she already like wealthy just from being an astrologer before that or is that? Like it seems like she was just sort of a NonStop hustler, like she was a girl boss. She was like a model, and then she like just kept finding ways to sort of like try to get famous exactly like that. I feel like now she would have just done an astrology cruise,

done the wellness cruise. Well she had she invented this like alternate Uigi board that they had all these prints of that. I bought one up and put it up over I forget, but I'll send you a photo. It's totally weird. It's just like it's own thing. It's very a cult. Is it the alphabet or is it something else there. It's like it's its own kind of like wheel with like zodiac and then like maybe chakras and different parts of the parts of the body and sun

signs and stuff. It's very weird. Have you try to use it? No, I'm a little scared of it. But I didn't buy it and put it in my house, so not already now you have to use or last she was also her whole life story was super interesting. She was married to a guy who was like mysteriously murdered who I think he wrote the wild bunch um.

She was married to a bunch of interesting dudes. And then she also at her house had a million headshots of hot guys current day because she was like working on some projects and she had some other romance novels she'd written. So it was like all these romance novel looking guys, like contact sheets of them, like running on the Beach. Did she so she was a super horny gal. Yeah, she defined the horny nous of the seventies. Yeah, she

was a groundbreaking human totally. And this, like her house was amazing because it was like a dream like seventies party palace for like a self made like you know, lady. It was just totally Was she single when she died? No idea? And was it a was it a did? It seemed like a party house like at an active use. It seemed like a party house from the nineteen sixties, but like the early nineties. It felt more like my grandparents house than like a swing in like Austin Powers

Bachelorrette pad. But I don't know. It was just fascinating. How many times do you think she was married? Could you tell? Well, at least three. I think that's a very l a archetype. Yeah, like someone with a kind of obscure career that you're like, what what the hell what did you do? WHOA you didn't and you make a fortune and then you're just like I think I'll just funk a lot of guys. Yeah, and live in the hills of Glendale. This is exactly like me that woman.

For a while in the in the early two thousand's, I had a series of parties called fuck He's drunk Boat, and sometimes we get confused and call it drunk Boat. So the emphasis was either on fucking or getting drunk depending um. And people really responded to that name, and it was they were always good parties and people always got drunk and people I'm going to say that people always fucked. I didn't see it. So what you're saying is The Love Boat did inspire really classy corollary house

in like y to Carera debauchery. It was. Were there any episodes of The Love Boat that particularly stuck with you? For the one about Okay? So pretty much the experience of watching The Love Boat was just like, especially at age seven, was like who the fund is? That was like the primary feeling you had because Ernest Borg nine, you know who's that. It's like the people who are

too old for you to understand who they are. They were all on that show for me, and some of them were like, um, you know, borderline silent era because it's the seventies, right, so like they're still hanging around. David Hasselhoff, Gene Kelly, gene Kelly, Yes, yes, Betty White, Marie Osmond, Florence Henderson. I mean that's Brady Munch right, Carol Channing, Yeah, I think everybody's duke. You only have to do it for like a day or ever a day.

And I'm sure that the casting director was someone who just like you, just wanted to appease. Maybe that is a really smart idea. It feels like there aren't, like, are there any shows like that now that we're just I will say, actually, this is like I've gotten obsessed with Below Deck on Bravo, which is like a semi documentary real reality show. It's the work Boat. It's the work Boat. Well, it's a show about people who work, who live and work on a boat that's like a

luxury yacht. And then they have a different person on every week and they are sometimes like semi famous people, but they're like Bravo leparties, like Bravo famous people, so like the only people I knew who they were. One of them was the Queen of Versailles, the woman who there was a documentary about her building this insane house. Um, are they supposed to be themselves? Are they just show up and there are they just? Yeah, it's it's a

real show about like the chafts are always divas. It's fascinating because it's also like it's very unglamorous to work on the boat, but people spend so much money to go on the boat and if the weather is bad, there's just nothing they can do about it. It really conveys how actually cramped it is. Yeah, it's not a luxury version of like showing Yeah, it's not like, oh, and they live in a cool apartment on this boat. It's like no, they live in this dorm, have to

be undercover after hours. And so they kind of hate each other. Probably, yes, they're getting huge feuds. They hook up with each other a lot. Um, it's got it's better do they hook up? I mean that's kind of that's like that's the question. They hook up in the book up in a bunk bed. You make your just pick the Yeah, you just to college. But they all are like stressed out about it because they're like if we hook up them, we're trapped on a boat together afterwards.

And that almost always causes problems. I don't think there's been any like successful relationships to come out of it. On the show is the whole series one? Is there a different person every episode? Yeah, And there's three franchises now there's three branches of the below deck franchise. There's regular below deck, below deck med and which Mediterranean, And they just introduced another one that's like a smaller boats

below deck yacht or something. The smaller boat for me. Actually, they're all anchored around, like the captain is a really interesting sort of salty dog on all of them. Uh, isn't the same guy? Know, it's a guy on one on the main one, and then it's like this this woman on the other one. Um, and then the person who's like the head, like the director of the cruise or whatever. Uh, gets totally screwed by everybody else. Like everybody hates them because they're the person who has to

tell everyone to do their job all the time. But they're really interesting, both of the women on both of like both of that show. It's like you have to be such a specific type of person to be like, I want to spend my life on the sea away from everyone else. Yeah, it's like a rescue dog lady. Yeah, like rescue shelter ladies specific. Yeah, it's not just the rescue dogs, the rescue cats too. Yeah, it's like I

don't like your hat. You can't rescue this yet. One of the You definitely get the sense that they're like running from something, and then sometimes you like find out what it is. It's a great show. Me and Steven Soderberg agree it was. It was all over his things he watches list. It's so funny. But it's very popular obviously because there are three different Yeah, and it kind of another The vander Pump Rules cast is a little bit older and more settled. It delivers more of the

sort of like people hooking up and getting drunk. It's very chaotic. Was Love Boat was that shot on location ever at all? Or was it all on stages? Oh? Um? I think a lot of stages. Like I remember the balcony, you know, it was sort of like blue screen of ocean behind like that. But then they'd have like the we're going to Australia, you know, like stunt and then they'd actually go and they'd actually go and they'd be like, oh my god, it's Sydney Harbor. One of people walking

down a street like on location. Yeah, but we went there. The koala on their shoulder, a nice ass and some tight white pants. She's Australian. You're also I just really want to read that book now, like full of Boat. Yeah.

I wonder if it's anything like the show though, you know, if it's cheesy, it's just like I think it's also more about like astrology based matchmaking, which I'm so into, especially if you can't escape, because then you have to submit to the suggestion that you're preordained to be with this person who's also on the boat. It seems like fade automatically. Right. We're going to get right back into after this quick ad break. Welcome back tonight. Call Emily

has been beamed up temporarily. Uh, but we are still here with how they have Rulesqui, I'm still here talking about spooky Love. Today's Spooky Love main course. Uh. Two stories about two couples, the Culti couple, the Culti couples that will will the best kind put their way in your heart. So we're going to start off with listener Marit shared an article from Vice about a YouTube cult

that is a very nightcall story. Um, So there's this online spirituality school that's in scare quotes called Twin Flames Universe that was started by a pair of YouTubers named Jeff and Chiliah Um, also known as Enders. Show you a picture of them, how, Oh yeah, I'd like to see that as well, because she was like, are they polished looking? And I was like, no, no, they look just like New a G YouTubers. So they charge more than four thousand dollars a month um for access, or

maybe just four thousand dollars period. I guess you how it's kind of like you're you're choosing from a menu of services. Oh yes, okay, so yeah these people do that fit that fits for me. They look like they're they're basking in the warm glow of the look. They might sell you some mushrooms at a fish show or something, but they're selling you much more than that guy. It's not that we would ever go to fish shows. I would know. I would not sort of nerdy, little a

little nerdy for for a YouTube or not. I just look kind of on the Jesus or something. Um. So they have a menu of services that costs more than four thousand dollars a month um, it's new ag videos workshops something called mind alignment Therapy. Yes, the two day ascension workshop, during which which sounds exactly like our Patreon. By the way, a lot of this is formulated exactly like, well it all sounds just like our patriot does. Um,

but we're not cutting you off from your families. Well, so the goal that you go somewhere, No, this is I mean, I don't think so. From what I from Canada it said, I will read from the story. Yeah, twin Flames Universe, led by two glassy eyed Michigan YouTubers calling themselves Jeff and Chilea Virchell, a thirty year old single mom, bought tickets for a two day ascension workshop

in Canada. Yeah, so there's some of those marketing materials for the event promised participants would experience heaven on Earth. But it's also so the twin Flames thing is that they the YouTubers, are claiming that they will help you find your soul mate, your twin flame. But there's also like they also own the domain life purpose class dot com. Oh they beat us to it, so unfair dot net yeah dot org. Um, so the article features a couple of different people who have been involved with this group.

One of them is the single mom named Linna. So she became a community member. Um, there's kind of like an MLM element to this. You have to once you join, a lot of your time is volunteer work to spent recruiting other members, calling members and trying to sell them stuff. So she was looking for her twin flame, and she became convinced that it was this guy from her gym

who was married and not interested in her. But because the tactic they're they're like if you find them and you know, that's your twin flame, like, don't give up, you go for it. So she said she was surprised that she wasn't served a restraining order. She was like, I stalked this Yeah, she showed up about his work. Yeah, she would, and just be like you need to accept that we're twin flames. Yeah. Um. And was he what did he do? He just said no, he was like nothing,

I'm married. Um, but I think it would seem to me that if you're that deep in this call, you're giving off such a a vibe that probably hopefully makes people kind of sensitive to you know what I mean. Like he just sounded like he didn't want to go after her, but she kind of implied without stating directly. I think that other people in the cult had been

you know, people had been much firmer. The couple leading Twin Flames Universe openly called themselves the Master Christ and their associates are now attempting to start a tax exempt church based on their teachings. But they're they called the two of them called themselves the Master the Master Christ. It's technically the Master Christ, eternal ruler of all creation by God's loving hand. Oh my God, that's what it says on my business cards. So that's why I think

they might be my Twin Flames um. But also there were I guess people on Reddit started ex members started kind of talking about this, which may have led to, you know, the article being written in the first place. But they were really encouraged to disconnect from their families unless the family members gave them money that they would then give to the Twin Flames people. So parents, I think a lot of these people are in their twenties and thirties. It's a love cult. It's like, this is

super interesting. It says Twin Flames Universe conflates romance and enlightenment in disturbing ways. X members say achieving harmonious union with a twin flame was promoted as a cure all for life problems, while sickness or romantic failure was attributed to not aligning with God or the group. The mind alignment element, to me is the scariest. I mean stalking people's no good. How scarious aligned with what alignement well. Also, they claimed that they healed um stage four terminal breast

cancer with their mind alignment. They also claim to be able to help PTSD and seriously severe depression, which they clearly could not. So there have been stories about people not doing well after involved involvement with the There's a story about somebody committing suicide that they saw as it was because they used the cult for therapy instead of

getting real therapy. Yeah, and then they had to put disclaimers on their Facebook and say if you really are They did put a disclaimer being like if you're suicidal, called the suicide hotline, like don't ask us. They are still running this cult and say that they have done nothing wrong. Who um. Somebody tried to leave and they were like said, some really fucked up things and then they were like, we're just exposing you to the real world. This is what it's like if you leave Twin Flames

as long as you're not aligned your jerk. Did do they want to know? Do they pay four thousand a month? So okay, remember I lied about the four thousand dollars. So it's part two hundred a year I think package. But then there's get in but that's part of it. But they encourage you to like up sell to other members, so you can get that, but then you also might want to take like a bunch of course work that's you know, extra. So they said it can easily become

more than four thousand dollars. And I maybe it was a month, maybe not, but I didn't want to even if it's a year, that's scary. Some other cultus we've talked about where it's like essentially they're just like a for profit university offering classes in their own made up stuff. It reminds me of a forum. Yeah, did you guys do the forum at all? It was that kind of a partially, I think it's a California thing. There was something there was a controversy involving cafe gratitude doing it

being associated with Landmark Forum Landmark for um. Yeah, yeah, it's Warner. Wait a minute, I do think they get the name wrong. Werener a card or something like that at car Tool? I don't know, I gotta look it up. I did the forum when I was a kid. Really, it's the forum. It was that different from Landmark Forum, can you Well, let's explain in case people don't know

what the Landward for Him is view from inside. My experience with with it was that my mom had just gotten divorced and was kind of vulnerable and a friend of hers. You know. It's sort of like that middle age, um, new age kind of thing that was happening in the eighties, right, So, um, it's sort of like you, I don't know, divorces, middle age, UM,

the eighties. Uh, these things align, it's a mind aligned alignment. Um. But but basically, you go to this hotel, right, You're in like a hotel conference room, and this very authoritative person stands at the front of the room and you're you have to ask to use the bathroom. You're supposed to log all of your tile and all if you take to you know, you're not supposed to take anything you're supposed to be clean, and you have to ask

permission to get your asthma meds or whatever. Um. And then there's a lot of like I just remember and I think, I think you have to sign something says you'll never tell anyone about the technologies that you learn. You know how they always use ridiculous words for things like the special technology. It's like, you mean, what the refrigerator magnet poetry you did in front of the room that technology. Um. But basically the idea was sort of like you have to own everything that's happened to you.

You take responsibility for everything in your life, so you're not a victim, so you're not playing the blame game. And you're also just like as if I chose. So then I just remember someone standing up and saying I did not choose to get cancer. I'm not taking responsibility

for my cancer for them, and this guy was. You know, it's always like kind of like a authoritative, like ex military guy like gets in your face and it's like no, you know, it'll help you, and blah blah blah, and then then everyone cries and holds hands and and some people hate it and they're like this sucks, and there's they're like there's a little bit of fomenting of like rebellion within the I mean it's it's it's sort of like effective in some ways, Like you there are these

touching moments and you're in a group, and there's like you can be manipulated in a group. Yeah, I mean I just remember doing something where you stare at someone really close. That's like, um, that's an excellent thing supposedly to where you have to feel you know, you're just like silently feeling your connection with someone. So much of

this is just like acting class. It is what happens. Yeah, and everything feels like it should end and fucking but it never does know about a lot unless it does. I guess it does, but it does. Maybe what was your response? Did you like it? Um? I was kind of into psychology. I think I was maybe I feel like I might have been a freshman in college and I was sort of into like the fact that everyone was getting straight to the facts of their lives, like

the ship. Yeah, I mean, you're not around that that much at age, you know, nineteen, so it sort of refreshing that way. But it's also kind of creepy because you're like nineteen and you're in a room full of forty five year olds and they're like, tell me you know, and and like a forty five year old can hold eye contact with you for a long time, and when nineteen years stop it, you feel your awkwardness a lot

in that scenario. I don't know. I thought it was I thought it was kind of a cult, honestly, But it's sort of helped my mom a little, like she got something out of it, and it was it was almost like a vehicle for her to talk to me about her feelings and for me to talk about my feelings, and so that it was kind of like a door opened in a way. But but then we both kind of thought it was bullshit. Afterwards, You're like, we could have done this at home. Oh yeah, no. But see

that's the thing, that's why these things exist. It's like, if we did that at home, we just do it over a glass of wine on it given night. But that was not the that was not the context of the way. I was rich, they're weird, that would have been creepy. Are you kidding our house? Let's have a

real talk. But I think there's something really reassuring about being told what to do and being given rules and so in a way especially I think if if you're a single mom, like the you know person in the Vice article, was you just like when you feel out of control and like you need like a strong community. Sometimes having rules makes you feel as though your interaction is more authentic somehow, I think, But it also makes you feel fragile and vulnerable. I mean they only break

you down, right, you can't take a bathroom break. You're like a child that go to the bathroom taking your medicine away. Like that seems kind of there's something. There was a lot of aggression towards questioning, and it seems a little bit like we're testing your free will, right, your commitment to free will? Do is it still going? Isn't?

I just looked it up to see um apparently Panda Express training involves it because it's also likely so it has like a corporate l Yeah, because it's like people use it all the time for like corporate retreats. Really yeah, that is where it still thrives. That was the Cafe Gratitude thing. They sell it as like a program to companies being like so your employees can get to know

each other. Imagine working at Panda Express knowing like this is probably like one of many jobs like this in a line kind of thing, and having to bond with your coworkers that intensely and then being like peace, yeah, come up to the next I do think that is a lot of just all corporate retreats I think are weird in that way, Like anyone I know who's had to go on when it is like they, you know, put you in a hotel away from everybody else, and

then you have to do like trust falls. Even if it's not like hippie stuff anymore, it's still like these weird group bonding exercise. Well, escape rooms were popular for that purpose for a while, really corporate escape room because you have to it's all strategy and like how how are you under pressure? Right? How can you work in a team? This is why I work from home for the last went five years. Back home is the ultimate

escape room. We should do it. We've done up. We did a one day podcast was like really more like three hours of podcasting retreat and then we were like, look, it's just like we're podcasting and no one look at that. Learned so much you should have like stood in the parking lot and stared at each other really closely. I do an escape room with you guys, they wouldn't mind. I'm usually anti escape room. We should push ourselves to the limit, more like having to do during during fun.

Would you do a task on a cruise? Cruises sponsor? Nil? Just dropping another one? Do anything? Were sponsors? Right? Yeah? See on a boat with a goat? I don't even think. I'm trying to think if I've been on like a big boat of her, have you? Yeah? Maybe we should watching New England. How you had a love boat experience? No, I I've been on one cruise. I went on a short cruise to the Bahamas for spring break one year, and it was pretty cool. And when I got it like it was I think, No, I think it was

only like three hours. It was like Florida to um Newport or something. Wasn't that it wasn't. I mean, I don't know if I'm getting that distance right, if it

was three hours or six hours, but it was. We didn't spend the night, but there was a lounge, there was like a there was entertainment, and I think there might have been like slots and ship like yeah and super corn syrupy drinks, which is you know, I went on a boost cruise like this, but I don't remember if it was it was also in spring break, if it was in the Bahamas or in Florida. Um, but I got on had like three drinks like boom boom

boom and smartest Yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't know. I think they were hurricanes yeah and uh and then they started throwing up. Stop for the rest of that cruise. That's amazing. Wasn't rolling it? Oh? Yeah, are you do get seas? No? But I throw up from drinking. Um, we're not done talking about you. Guys have a more somber called to talk about, which is um, the most suspicious couple in the world. They're like Robert Durst level suspicious. Um and

it's but it's sad. So I have to do away with like the Jinks thing because that that was also sad. But we all can laugh at Robert dust now. But over at the cut. Amanda Arnold recently reported on Lorie Valo and Chad day Bell, the Idaho couple who have been getting a lot of media attention after valos two children went missing at some point and they were last seen in September. They still haven't been located as of

our recording right now. Um, the couple fled to Hawaii, I believe after they've been questioned by law enforcement about where their kids were and they were like, oh, they're in Arizona, the family member. Um, but they couldn't locate the kids, and then Lori and Chad fled to Hawaii. And so then people started kind of digging around in Lori and Chad's lives and they found out that they

were preppers. But that wasn't even the weirdest thing. It was they had like three other mysterious deaths connected to them, and they're like, you know, they're very serious proppers. So they laure at least believes that the end times is going to be like this coming July. You guys have any plans. Yeah, there are members of a group called Preparing a People m HM, which sounds like dinner thing. Yeah, this story delicious. It was really depressing. I knew it

was going to be. This is a story you wish you could talk about if it happened in the past. You were going to say you wish you could not have read. You wish you could not well, but you don't know yet what the still like. Maybe it's fine. So the children are missing, yeah, And but also there were murders associated with killed their own spouses allegedly allegedly one of them their spouse died. Okay, wait, I'll tell you.

So Valo's brother was named Alex Cox, and so he allegedly shot and killed Lori's ex husband in July when it was it was reported to be in self defense. Cox died of unknown causes five months later. So that's two suspicious. So Lorie's brother brother allegedly might have been involved in the murder of her ex. Yes. And then Lorie's brother shows up dead one of no one know why. And then two weeks before Chad and Laurie got married,

Chad's then wife died. Yeah, Tammy died of supposedly natural causes. But then in the wake of all of this stuff, they have exhumed the bodies of those two to see what really went on. But then also, and I interject with one odd odd thing about this Tammy. When she died, the authorities were interested in possibly doing an autopsy, but Chad said, no, I don't think that's necessary. And the

authorities said that's okay, Yeah, you're kidding. They were they were according to this, I read kind of I didn't read the cut article. I read like a list of facts that was on fast facts. You need to know. It was like kind of long, but it was just a garb. It wasn't like a well, it wasn't like a narrative. It was strange, but you really got the headlines that what what well? So then did you see

I think this was pretty recent. Um, I think it was reported by a Utah Fox affiliate said that Lorie's niece, whose name is Melanie Boudreau, did you see this? Okay? So Melanie Boudreau had apparently joined the Prepper community after Lorie joined, and there were some nine one one calls excuse me placed by her ex husband. So her ex her husband was like, I don't like that you're being involved in this crazy proper call. He took their kids and fled, and then he kept calling the police and

being like, someone just shot my window. I'm like convinced it's my crazy ex wife. So it's it's like spread into like other facets of the family. But he was at some point he said, I'm concerned that she's gonna harm our children. So all of that's very strange because like I don't know if that's connected to the end times, if it's like they're trying to spare their children from the wrath of God. Like it's so there's there you could just fall into, like the black hole of all

of this. Yeah. And also Lorie when she was married, got really into Chad's books about the end time, so he's a doomsday author, right. It has so much of this reminded me of the Staircase to Our Staircase person that happened in my hometown Durham, North Carolina, that I was obsessed with that case. It was I mean, it's amazing. Yeah, and that documentary is just so good yeah, because you

flip your mind back and forth. Yeah, although the slant of the documentary was messed up because if you followed it in the news and if you're from Durham, it was sort of like, yeah, this guy's for sure obviously did well. They were definitely on his side. But it's such a good documentary. Oh my god, it's so good.

Do you believe the owl theory? No? No, not no, no, no. I thought when when they discovered the first the first woman, right, who also fell down the stairs that he knew and he was the last person he did it, but he Yeah. It just makes you be like, oh, I guess I can't tell who's guilty from like listening to them talk, right, because you thought at first he wasn't guilty. Yeah, because he does because he seems so genuine. Well, it's it's a long time. I mean it's like four series. It's

it's long. And so you think that at some point, like with the Jinks, when eventually they crack, you would whom he would crack. But and then there was the whole like second season of that, right, I didn't. Actually it's good. I mean it's also like it is one of those cases where, uh, he probably did it, but also the cops sucked it up really bad. Yeah, and like didn't you know, case the crime scene correctly, and they had this blood spatter expert in the trial who

was then like stripped of his he was owners. Yeah, that guy turned out to be kind of a quack, because there is a lot of quackery in stuff like you know, forensic psychology, and there's like a lot of sort of pseudoscience. I feel like, uh with stuff like that where somebody can come in and be like, I'm the blood spatter expert. But I didn't like how the French documentarians we're sort of like putting these I mean they had a lot of shots of like the kind

of small town Durham. Yeah, you know, prosecutors who would say like now just like this, you know, and there, and it was like this was making a gay parn and that before he murdered, he is web and cool blood and you kind of had that like, oh god, like it's easy to watch that and you know, and then the documentary the filmmakers are like, oh, we don't

believe stupid, stupid red Knicks. Definitely that was true. Well, my boyfriend showed me the staircase because one of his best friends i think, went to again summer camp with one of the daughters who is on Michael's side. Yeah. I mean, that's what makes it hard to argue adopted daughters adopted by the first from pushed downstairs, and the

fact that they would side with him is interesting. Allegedly allegedly yeah, that they would side with him, Well yeah, but they didn't have you had that like, well, they didn't have a parent left because their parents, you know, he was their parents, and they loved him. People liked him in that neighborhood, and my mom was friends with a few people in the neighbor hill who were like, he was a nice and he seemed well. He wrote books about murdering and murders and how fun murders not

and how fun. I mean, the thing is, it's different when you read it in the paper and you're like a man who wrote books about murdering. It was looking at gay porn, and then he would I mean, you know, looking at gay porn, and then his wife discovered it, and then I mean they had a story around it and it was you know, of course it was like homophobic and there was it was like bad redneck take

on the whole thing. Yeah, but every time the information came out, like there are a bunch of points in that story where you're like, now he's gonna crack, and the right he just never he's like, well, I was looking at gay porn, so we we had an open marriage. Like who you know, you can't prove that's not true because she's dead now. Um, it kind of seems like he doesn't think that he's guilty, like he's a little

I think that's it. I think he's sumpressed. I think that might be true also, but yeah, he passes a lie detector test. Yeah, and I think he's a former marine or something like that, right, might I think he No, No, I think you're right because I if I recall he had some like PTSD kind of issues or he just had like a traumatic period of his life that he was kind of like, you know, yeah, there's a lot going on with it. It's just such a kid proclaimed to be in touch with documentary. Like a lot of

the other true crime documentaries don't have that impact. But like the reason that one's really good is because it really just like indicts the viewer. Yeah, you're watching this and you're like finding this guy charming and like he probably killed his wife and it's confusing and it's confusing, and you're also like taking documentary as fact, which is like it's also obviously super constructed. Yeah, and you're trusting the French never terrible idea. Um, well, Heather, thank you

so much for guessing. I loved it. Were big fans, and I'm sad that I didn't sing the love vote theme. Now is your time? Love exciting and new bored. We're expecting you love did It Do? That's important to this promises adventure for everyone the love did it Did It Do? Soon we'll be doing another I got that wrong. It's rex for adventure you mind on a new Roman. I was born to sing this song. It's so much like the Commander to me. You know you could just go

right romance. We may be putting knees on our mix, so if you subscribe to our Patreon at patreon dot com forward Slash Nightcall, you can have access to our mix and a bunch of other fun rewards. Um. Also, if you'd like to follow us on social media, we are in Call pod on Twitter, Nightcalled Podcast on Instagram and Facebook and Heather. Where should people find you want them to? Well to Cut New York Magazine, Ask Pauli. If you do a little search on ask Folly, all

my stuff will pop up. And I'm also on Twitter, but my name is very long h ever Leski, So who knows you'll never find me. That's doable. It's better for you if you don't find me. Well. Thanks again for joining us and we will be back next week. 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.