Speaker 1: Hello the Internet, and welcome to Season one, seventy six,
Speaker 1: Episode two of Len Guys to production of My Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: This is a podcast where we take a deep dive
Speaker 1: into America's share consciousness. It's Tuesday, March one. My name
Speaker 1: is Jack O'Brien a k A. Trip me once, shame
Speaker 1: on you trip me twice. I can't get tripped again.
Speaker 1: That is of Red George's reference to me claiming that
Speaker 1: I was untrippable. I believe last week. And I'll introduce
Speaker 1: my co host, and then I have a story that
Speaker 1: that happened to me that very night. I'm thrilled to
Speaker 1: be joined as always by my co host, Mr Miles Grass,
Speaker 1: Miles Gray, a K Horonomous Washed a k NBA All Star,
Speaker 1: Chris Washed a k A. Daniel wash of Washed two
Speaker 1: point oh or Washed point no or at Star washeda
Speaker 1: Baron Cohen a K A from the visionary director J. J.
Speaker 1: Abrams the hit TV show Wash. Shout out to Christie
Speaker 1: Alma Gucci May for you know. I guess he he
Speaker 1: cluded in he got glued into the fact that we
Speaker 1: were dealing with our where we where we stood on
Speaker 1: the time space, time continue and taste. I love when
Speaker 1: we give them just a little inch, a little like
Speaker 1: we're like, we're washed, and then there's like twenty fucking washed.
Speaker 1: It's true. We are old as fuck. We are also
Speaker 1: thrilled to be joined in our third seat by the brilliant,
Speaker 1: the talented Cerise Castle. Welcome. Hi, Hi, thanks for stopping by. Hey,
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on What's what's what's what's good
Speaker 1: in your part of town? You're in l A, right,
Speaker 1: I am in l A. Yes, Yeah, weather's okay, weather
Speaker 1: over there, little fold because it could always be warmer
Speaker 1: in my opinion, Yeah, what is it? Jack has a
Speaker 1: theory that it's the houses just not insulated properly. That's
Speaker 1: why when it's cold, all the houses stay cold here.
Speaker 1: I believe it. Yeah, I don't know. It just seems
Speaker 1: like it gets colder at higher temperatures here inside houses.
Speaker 1: Or are we just so you know, sensitive to things
Speaker 1: not being around seventy degrees that it's like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: I think something's wrong with this house. We're a population
Speaker 1: of people who moved for the most part, miles. I
Speaker 1: don't I don't wanna be an annoying local erasure of locals,
Speaker 1: but there's a lot of people here, who who moved
Speaker 1: here to pursue a world that is always seventy two degrees? Uh,
Speaker 1: so maybe that's maybe there's some sampling error there, But
Speaker 1: real quick, I did want to mention that I think
Speaker 1: the very day that we recorded the episode about how
Speaker 1: I am impossible to trip, that wasn't what the whole
Speaker 1: episode wasn't that sperience, but it was something that I
Speaker 1: absolutely bragged about for some reason. That night, I was
Speaker 1: walking downstairs grab my wife a snack that she could
Speaker 1: consume in our bed and get crumbs everywhere, and I
Speaker 1: slipped on the top step and uh, in such a
Speaker 1: cartoonish fashion that I threw my phone up in the
Speaker 1: air and it fell all the way down over the
Speaker 1: banister and shattered. So I was without a phone all weekend. Uh.
Speaker 1: And it was like literally like Mr Bean combined with
Speaker 1: the woman from that commercial about how iPhones new iPhones
Speaker 1: are unbreakable or whatever, but she only dropped it from
Speaker 1: like shoulder height down. I dropped it, Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: a whole story down, and you gave us some added
Speaker 1: hype I throwing it up first, Yeah I did. I
Speaker 1: did make that sound. And my wife said, you're so
Speaker 1: old as at when I accounted that to her. So
Speaker 1: it combines both a k S I'm washed as fucked
Speaker 1: and incredibly tripable easy to trip. I'm I might be
Speaker 1: one of the more easy to trip people in the world. Uh. Anyways, series,
Speaker 1: we're going to get to know you a little bit
Speaker 1: better in a moment. First, we're gonna tell our listeners
Speaker 1: a couple of the things we're talking about. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about that uh Cloak and Dagger club that was
Speaker 1: open in l A that was like basically, you know,
Speaker 1: used goth trappings and uh eyes, wide shut vibes too, cloak,
Speaker 1: what was essentially an old fashioned toxic rape culture. UM.
Speaker 1: So we'll talk about that. We'll talk about the police
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, how they treated one of the murder victims
Speaker 1: husbands compared to how they treated the murderer. Uh. And
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about series's peace a tradition of violence,
Speaker 1: the history of deputy gangs in the Los Angeles County
Speaker 1: Sheriff's Department, which is the first three parts of a
Speaker 1: thirteen part series came out Monday morning, uh, and mind
Speaker 1: blowing chips. So we're gonna talk about that. We're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about Spring break in Miami. We're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: that college scandal getting the obligatory streaming documentary. Uh, kind
Speaker 1: of a dramatic film like woven in There. Also real
Speaker 1: easy on the parents. Oh yeah, uh, and on the institutions.
Speaker 1: It's just like this guy what a what a huckster? Huh,
Speaker 1: but you kind of gotta kind of gotta appreciate his hustle. Anyways,
Speaker 1: we'll talk about all of that plenty more. But first three,
Speaker 1: we like to ask our guests, what is something from
Speaker 1: your search history that is revealing about who you are,
Speaker 1: what you're up to? Uh, that sort of thing. Oh god,
Speaker 1: I mean my search history is all just like deputy
Speaker 1: gang ship for a Google search, because I saw you
Speaker 1: like on your Twitter too, you have like all of
Speaker 1: as of now known affiliates, uh of within the l
Speaker 1: s D that are gang affiliated. And how what does
Speaker 1: a Google search like if you were trying to begin
Speaker 1: to do they just be like share deputy blah blah
Speaker 1: blah gang or what's sort of the methodology in like
Speaker 1: sort of doing that kind of research using Google and stuff? Yeah? Um,
Speaker 1: so generally when I use Google, um for that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, I have already identified a deputy, and I'm
Speaker 1: trying to find out, um, what they're up to in
Speaker 1: their current life. Probably the best one that I found
Speaker 1: is a man named Cliff Yates who was responsible for
Speaker 1: at least one death that we know of, a man
Speaker 1: who was beaten to death inside of Men's Central Jail.
Speaker 1: This guy is now trying to be an actor. So
Speaker 1: when you pull him up on Google Goal, you get
Speaker 1: his website, you get his head shots, you get his
Speaker 1: motivational YouTube channel. Um, you get books that he's written
Speaker 1: about becoming a vegan, and you also get the book
Speaker 1: that he's written about being a law enforcement officer for
Speaker 1: thirty five years, called Deputy. And that's where a book
Speaker 1: in which he describes police work as quote hunting for humans.
Speaker 1: I am on Cliff Yates dot com right now, uh
Speaker 1: and uh, I mean I think that also speaks to
Speaker 1: just the idea, even like in the first part of
Speaker 1: this series of Protected Class, what that even means to
Speaker 1: be a law enforcement and clearly like the after when
Speaker 1: you're out, even though the way you look back and
Speaker 1: describe your work with such arrogance or like the idea
Speaker 1: that there's no accountablit like, yeah, that was my job
Speaker 1: to haunt humans is do we know? Does he is
Speaker 1: he actually working as an actor? Um, he's put on
Speaker 1: a few comedy shows regular. Of course, it's some common
Speaker 1: fun that he's a regular at the comedy store. He was, yes.
Speaker 1: Oh shit, man, If anyone if annys like getting has
Speaker 1: witnessed the comedic stylings of Cliff Yates hit us up
Speaker 1: on social I'm curious. What is routine? Is what feeling
Speaker 1: very disconnected from any kind of reality most humans are living? Wow? Um,
Speaker 1: what is something you think is overrated? Hm? Hmmm, something
Speaker 1: I think is overrated? I would say tooth gems tooth
Speaker 1: jee like having to putting the little jewel like on
Speaker 1: the front of your tooth. Yeah, are you do? You
Speaker 1: know a lot of tooth gemmers. When I was um
Speaker 1: investigating um illegal COVID parties a few months ago, I
Speaker 1: was coming across a lot of tooth jummers And I've
Speaker 1: seen it blow up a lot um on social media,
Speaker 1: Like in quarantine, people wearing tooth gems. I just think
Speaker 1: they're like ugly. Personally, I'm big on wearing grills girls,
Speaker 1: but like gluing it to the tooth, I don't know
Speaker 1: something about that. It's just like I don't know too far.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't know what it is up teeth as
Speaker 1: a kid, so I had old school metal braces. I
Speaker 1: do not want to revisit fixing things to my teeth anymore,
Speaker 1: Like I want I want grills on my cannines, on
Speaker 1: my size or teeth. It's been a thing I've always
Speaker 1: wanted since I think method Man. Method Man had it
Speaker 1: in the Source I think Source magazine cover and he
Speaker 1: was like this, and I was like, yes, I'm in
Speaker 1: l A and I want to look like from New York,
Speaker 1: from Staten Island. But I knew that he had those
Speaker 1: before I even saw a picture of him, because because
Speaker 1: he was like off his grills. But yeah, that ship
Speaker 1: looks I would definitely picture, especially because there's so many
Speaker 1: different types of braces, and like a lot of them
Speaker 1: are like the glued on like little dots on the teeth.
Speaker 1: That's exactly That's what I would think tooth gems were.
Speaker 1: That's pretty much what they are. Sometimes they're like you
Speaker 1: can get like little logos. I've seeing people with like
Speaker 1: the Nike check that's weird. I don't I get to
Speaker 1: see again this is where I'm washed. I'm like, I
Speaker 1: remember what he used to be gold in not fucking logos,
Speaker 1: like on your fucking teeth, like the fuck. I also
Speaker 1: love the overlap of COVID party throwers and gemmers, and
Speaker 1: it's just a circle. It's just like, you know, I
Speaker 1: have a feeling it's if you've got tooth gems, chances
Speaker 1: are you're throwing or have been too many illegal COVID parties.
Speaker 1: Probably was this like sort of in that era when
Speaker 1: you were investigating it, like when the city was having
Speaker 1: like shut power off to like certain homes and things. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but from what I uncovered in my reporting, that was
Speaker 1: really only done a like, um probably like less than
Speaker 1: ten houses that games to my knowledge, um, and the
Speaker 1: city the last I checked, they hadn't prosecuted anyone for
Speaker 1: violating any of those rules. So, you know, so just
Speaker 1: a lot of hot air. Huh pretty much? What did
Speaker 1: you uh? Like? What what was the scene like? Was
Speaker 1: there anything that surprised you about the scene? Was? Was
Speaker 1: it all like I think my understanding was that it
Speaker 1: was all like TikTok houses and ship those were the
Speaker 1: people that were getting the shutdowns. Yeah, the parties, Um,
Speaker 1: it was a lot of the same people that you
Speaker 1: see at the underground parties outside of covid um unfortunately. Um,
Speaker 1: there were a lot of people that I spoke to
Speaker 1: in the scene that like, you know, had make it,
Speaker 1: had taken a public stance too, not party um while
Speaker 1: we were shut down. But you know a lot of
Speaker 1: the same people that you hear mutterings about for you know,
Speaker 1: bad behavior on other things are the same people throwing
Speaker 1: these events. So you know it's the same people that
Speaker 1: you would expect, right, Is there like sort of the
Speaker 1: same mechanisms within that scene like protecting these people or
Speaker 1: it's accepted or you know, like what is it that
Speaker 1: allows someone like that to sort of continually operate? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think the same things that allow people like that
Speaker 1: to operate in any other sam influence and whatever and
Speaker 1: proximity to that is enough for people to just sort
Speaker 1: of not rock the boat, I think. So. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: how wide spread was it, like you we heard about
Speaker 1: the ones that were shut down, was it pretty all?
Speaker 1: Was it kind of all over the place? Um? Most
Speaker 1: of the ones that I know about were never shut down. Um.
Speaker 1: And they still continue to operate to this day, and
Speaker 1: celebrities like go to them, like the game hosted and
Speaker 1: at one of these clubs last night, you know, so
Speaker 1: they operate pretty openly and no one really seems to
Speaker 1: care do anything about it. L A was I was
Speaker 1: listening to the radio this weekend, uh for the first
Speaker 1: time in years because my phone was broken. Uh, and
Speaker 1: the radio like had all these contests that were about
Speaker 1: like winning money because l A was opening back up
Speaker 1: and like this is like the opening back up weekend,
Speaker 1: so like, win your money so you can get back
Speaker 1: out there. Like it was just openly assumed that like,
Speaker 1: all right, guys, pandemic over, let's uh starter gun, let's
Speaker 1: let's all get back out there. It was pretty wild. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not helpful given given the situation that we're in in
Speaker 1: the world. But I now know all the words to
Speaker 1: driver's license, so that is good because that song is
Speaker 1: played every I think that song is one fourth of
Speaker 1: all songs that are played on one that ample. I
Speaker 1: was going to guess, what are you listening to? Like him? Right,
Speaker 1: because yeah, my kids like the pop music, so children
Speaker 1: is that a tale of a isn't I was my partner,
Speaker 1: her majesty, was explaining the lyrics of that song. She's like,
Speaker 1: it's the biggest song right now. I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: know what this is about, Like it's about real drama,
Speaker 1: Like I think this guy was with someone. I'm like,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't know. Is this like River? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a little like crimey River, But she like references
Speaker 1: a song he wrote about her, So I think that's
Speaker 1: like more there's like a little bit more explicitness about
Speaker 1: like who she's talking about. Uh, And then it's just
Speaker 1: catchy and I will sing for you guys during the
Speaker 1: commercial break. What is uh something you think is underrated?
Speaker 1: Deputy Games mm hmmm, say more. Yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's just pretty much it's been an open secret and
Speaker 1: Lot Angeles County for the past fifty years. Um, people
Speaker 1: in government from the local level all the way up
Speaker 1: until the federal level have known about it, um, dating
Speaker 1: back to at least the nineties. And you know, there
Speaker 1: haven't been any significant internal investigations or policy changes. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, if anything, police officers and law enforcement officials
Speaker 1: have seen their rights continually protected and beefed up. And
Speaker 1: you know, it's something that we really don't talk about
Speaker 1: as much as we should. I think I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people, um are sort of aware it functions
Speaker 1: like an open secret, right, we know about it, but
Speaker 1: it's not really something we like talk about or engage with.
Speaker 1: And I'm hoping that, you know, by writing this series
Speaker 1: and talking more to people about it, Um, it's something
Speaker 1: that we think about more and hopefully do some things
Speaker 1: to change because a lot of people have died. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's it's wild too because I remember my first
Speaker 1: thing growing up in l A. Was hearing about like
Speaker 1: the Bandidos gang and being like, what my cops are
Speaker 1: in gang? Like you know, there's like a younger kid
Speaker 1: that like and it was like a story for a second,
Speaker 1: and then I'm sure whatever screws they turn up from
Speaker 1: the sheriff's department, like on the news channels are just
Speaker 1: like okay, And then we talked about it once. Um.
Speaker 1: But then to actually, like, as time goes on and
Speaker 1: my awareness increases about this sort of trend and you
Speaker 1: actually see how organized it is, it really is sort
Speaker 1: of shocking to think, how do we let this exist
Speaker 1: at all? But I mean there are so many things
Speaker 1: that should know they should not be uh existing, or
Speaker 1: systems of oppression that exists, but they continue to. But yeah,
Speaker 1: really looking forward to talking more about that later on Yeah.
Speaker 1: There there's a person at one point in one of
Speaker 1: your first three articles that calls to report a I
Speaker 1: think they say, like a gang beating, and then like
Speaker 1: halfway through the call like realized that it's the police,
Speaker 1: And like, I just think that people when they picture
Speaker 1: this sort of thing that are like, well, it's like,
Speaker 1: like we've talked recently on the show about Den of Thieves,
Speaker 1: that Gerard Butler movie, And even though the movie is
Speaker 1: like these guys are real bad dudes, Uh, they're like
Speaker 1: doing it with some like code attached to it, and
Speaker 1: it's like a means to an end. And I just
Speaker 1: think like people, unless you've experienced it or read reporting
Speaker 1: like you're doing here, it's hard for people to fully
Speaker 1: conceive that, no, this is just this is just straight
Speaker 1: up like criminality and murder that is happening that people
Speaker 1: are getting away with, like because of institutional corruption, like
Speaker 1: that's all it is, or like the times you see
Speaker 1: it in media, it's like, well, they're the gangs have gangs,
Speaker 1: so yeah, maybe the police are kind of doing their
Speaker 1: thing to like also be a gang. Like that's such
Speaker 1: a fucked up presentation of it. But most of the
Speaker 1: most of the presentation of any kind of law enforcement
Speaker 1: is straight up propaganda anyway. But yeah, this that movie
Speaker 1: especially was one where it's like, I mean, like at
Speaker 1: least there's like camaraderie in this like cop gang that
Speaker 1: they're just violating the law, like they're also criminals. Huh yeah,
Speaker 1: s Gerard Butler. So it's an actual movie. Yeah, fire
Speaker 1: with fire. That seems to be like the the motto
Speaker 1: and that. Have you you've seen that movie series? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I have, yes, And you know in that movie they
Speaker 1: talk about actually one of the gangs that we write
Speaker 1: about or that I wrote about in this series on
Speaker 1: the Regulators. Mhm. Right, even then, like they're they're aware
Speaker 1: enough to know about it, but still just be like
Speaker 1: and then we'll call out a real gang but not
Speaker 1: have any sort of real commentary on it. And they
Speaker 1: have tattoos in the in the movie, Like I think
Speaker 1: they just like borrowed, they like fictionalized a gang, but
Speaker 1: it was like pulled from details of actual actual gangs
Speaker 1: and decided to make them the protagonists. All right, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break and we'll be right back. And
Speaker 1: we're back, and there is a l A Times report
Speaker 1: about Cloak and dagger Um, which was a sort of
Speaker 1: like gothy private club um that was in the back
Speaker 1: of a whistle, Yeah, a popular bar in Hollywood called
Speaker 1: Pig Hum Whistle. It was like intentionally cloaked in this
Speaker 1: this mystery and this like you know, they people got
Speaker 1: tattoos of a cloak and like there were initiation rituals
Speaker 1: and it was very uh like, if you hear somebody
Speaker 1: talking about it, then then you have to tell us
Speaker 1: so we can kick them out because nobody like air
Speaker 1: of secrecy. And then it just sounds like behind the
Speaker 1: scenes it was these two like fifty something uh, white
Speaker 1: dudes who were using it as an opportunity to like
Speaker 1: hit on the women who worked for them, uh and
Speaker 1: just enabling sexually abusive behavior by celebrities and just like
Speaker 1: by people who they wanted to be friends with. It
Speaker 1: seems like Thomas middle Ditch from Silicon Valley is implicated
Speaker 1: in this report for what sounds like, by all accounts,
Speaker 1: sexual assaulities, groping women without their consent. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it just seems like all of the kind of ship
Speaker 1: you would expect from a frat house, but because it
Speaker 1: was with an air of goth like they got away
Speaker 1: with it for years. Was it also just like I
Speaker 1: mean it sounds like just another play where wealthy people
Speaker 1: or money people could just go to do whatever they
Speaker 1: wanted to, uh, without you know, any interruption from people
Speaker 1: or control who was coming in and out to sort
Speaker 1: of perpetuate whatever was going on. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: DOCO have always had weird vibes, just always did. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I never went, but I have friends that
Speaker 1: went UM and I have friends that UM new people
Speaker 1: that worked there back before COVID. I mean, like it's
Speaker 1: it's sort of like perpendicular to the scene that I
Speaker 1: would go out and participate in. But you know, there
Speaker 1: were always whispers like that's a weird place, don't go there,
Speaker 1: rape vibes, right, So I wasn't surprised by that reporting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I mean just seeing like the like list of
Speaker 1: the people that go there, Like it truly was like
Speaker 1: a lot like Diplo with DJ there. You have Thomas
Speaker 1: middle just going there and it's just all people we
Speaker 1: know that how weird vibes stories circling around them, which
Speaker 1: is weird. How like it goes from people being like that,
Speaker 1: you know, the evolution of being able to call something
Speaker 1: for what it is because at first you hear things
Speaker 1: like oh that I hear he's creepy, middle ditches, weird
Speaker 1: or grasshole or things like that, and then over time
Speaker 1: then you have the reporting where we have this way
Speaker 1: of not knowing how to describe something for what it
Speaker 1: is sometimes and or rapey vibes and things like that,
Speaker 1: and then you come to and you're like, no, this
Speaker 1: place was enabling. Yeah there was actual sexual assault going
Speaker 1: right right. And I think when people say like weird vibes,
Speaker 1: like it's easy to be like, yeah, well, it's like
Speaker 1: people in cloaks, and you know, there's like all these
Speaker 1: rituals of course, you know, like mistake what the you know,
Speaker 1: assume assumed that. Okay, So that's the weird part, and
Speaker 1: the weird part is or the you know, problematic part
Speaker 1: is and credibly common, and it's the it's the thing
Speaker 1: you see in institutions all over the place that especially
Speaker 1: ones that are able to like you know, cultivate an
Speaker 1: air of exclusivity and secrecy. Like anytime that's happening, you've
Speaker 1: got to be extra extra worried, you know, from the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church to college fraternities too. Whatever it is, like, uh,
Speaker 1: corporations like on on corporate retreats, fucking pandex Press corporate
Speaker 1: retreat We just heard that somebody was abused during a
Speaker 1: corporate retreat, during like a team building exercise. So yeah,
Speaker 1: and then like the l A Times story like ties
Speaker 1: it to the reckoning for l A goth Um and
Speaker 1: Marilyn Manson, They're like, well, the figurehead of Los Angeles
Speaker 1: goth Marilyn Manson, is finally facing some consequences. But that
Speaker 1: that seems it's given him a lot of credit. And
Speaker 1: I think that this has been a long time coming
Speaker 1: thanks to the brave people who have decided to speak up.
Speaker 1: This is something that's been going on, Like there have
Speaker 1: been shitty people in the l AGAs scene for a
Speaker 1: long time. It's another one of those open secrets. And
Speaker 1: I'm happy that, um, the women and the other people
Speaker 1: that have been abused by these people are you know,
Speaker 1: feeling safe enough to talk about it. And I, you know,
Speaker 1: I always think that sunshine is the best medicine, so
Speaker 1: I'm hoping that just can fix fix that scene. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's let's talk about just another detail that's
Speaker 1: emerging from the mass murder in Atlanta last week. Um,
Speaker 1: the so we we've already discussed that. Um, the police
Speaker 1: were willing to you know, extend the empathy to the shooter,
Speaker 1: to talk about how he was having a bad day.
Speaker 1: Just a detail that came out over the weekend is
Speaker 1: that is the account of Mario Gonzalez, who was with
Speaker 1: his wife Delna Ashley you on, at a massage parlor.
Speaker 1: They got a babysitter for their infant daughter to you know,
Speaker 1: go do something together as a couple. They we're getting
Speaker 1: massages in separate rooms. He heard the shooting, but was
Speaker 1: you know, too afraid to leave his room. The police
Speaker 1: showed up and basically arrested him, kept him in cuffs
Speaker 1: in a patrol car for four hours. Uh, He's Mexican,
Speaker 1: thinks that that might have had something to do with it,
Speaker 1: And they wouldn't tell him what had happened to his
Speaker 1: wife until they got confirmation that he was her husband,
Speaker 1: at which point they told her that she had been killed. So,
Speaker 1: you know, not quite as concerned about him having a
Speaker 1: bad day or what what he was going through during
Speaker 1: during that process. Just I mean, just just all the
Speaker 1: energy even to coming from conservative media to obscure like
Speaker 1: what this was, um, and what the what you know,
Speaker 1: what ills of our country? This is actually exposing to
Speaker 1: just kind of pivot to well, it's not this, it's
Speaker 1: this other thing. And if it is that, who knows?
Speaker 1: In any way? What why don't we talk about sex addiction?
Speaker 1: But maybe not in a way that actually is going
Speaker 1: to address any kind of issue we have with maybe
Speaker 1: our this like puritanical culture that the United States has
Speaker 1: as well, where people are looking at their own sexuality
Speaker 1: is like this devant thing or and acting it out
Speaker 1: in problematic ways. Or if we're not going to call
Speaker 1: it a hate crime against Asian people, then what about
Speaker 1: is it against women? Is it sex workers? Are we
Speaker 1: then going to have a conversation about how we create
Speaker 1: a new way of communicating, of looking at people with
Speaker 1: more empathy, um in that sense, But no, it's just
Speaker 1: sort of let's just argue about the labels first, to
Speaker 1: not do anything substantive, and it's just it's just yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it happens every time, happens every single time. UM,
Speaker 1: And it's it's starting to feel you know, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it's already just it's just compounding a NonStop year of
Speaker 1: shitty events. You all right, let's talk, uh sis about
Speaker 1: about the piece you are reporting for knock l A.
Speaker 1: Is that uh you can you talk a little bit
Speaker 1: first of all about that publication and like how how
Speaker 1: the peace came came about? Yeah, definitely. UM. So knock
Speaker 1: l A is the journalism arm of a nonprofit here
Speaker 1: in l A called ground Game UM. And they do
Speaker 1: organizing around UM, you know, like voter registration, UM. They
Speaker 1: help people get the vaccine. UM. They did some mutual
Speaker 1: aid at the beginning of the pandemic and I believe
Speaker 1: that's still ongoing. So they're great. And they have this
Speaker 1: journalism outfit that is doing some really great work. As
Speaker 1: far as independent media in the Los Angeles UM landscape,
Speaker 1: there isn't too much of that, so they're a great addition.
Speaker 1: I reached out to them with a list that I
Speaker 1: had got my hands on through some public records actual
Speaker 1: requests UM. And it's a list that the County of
Speaker 1: Los Angeles keeps of litigation that they've been involved in
Speaker 1: where deputy gangs have been involved. And I went to
Speaker 1: knock and I said, hey, like this is UM. I
Speaker 1: think this list could turn into you know, a pretty
Speaker 1: big project, UM, and I'd love to work with you
Speaker 1: to use this to sort of create a history of
Speaker 1: what we know about deputy gangs in the Los Angeles
Speaker 1: County Sheriff's Department. And they said, yes, of course, let's
Speaker 1: get started. And they were really great, UM with helping
Speaker 1: me first of all, pay for everything. UM. Although all
Speaker 1: of this stuff is public record, you do have to
Speaker 1: pay for it, and that adds up very quickly. This
Speaker 1: series cost over three thousand dollars to just research. They
Speaker 1: were really great with providing me with some research assistance
Speaker 1: to get through quite literally tens of thousands of pages
Speaker 1: of documents UM in the past six months. And they
Speaker 1: gave me a great home for the website. And they
Speaker 1: are helping me build a database of all of the
Speaker 1: law enforcement officials that we have identified that have an
Speaker 1: affiliate with a deputy gang, which will be available for
Speaker 1: the public to use and it will be a living
Speaker 1: document that we will be updating for years to come.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. So, I mean, for I think a lot
Speaker 1: of people they've heard us talk about deputy gangs before
Speaker 1: on this show. We've referenced it, We've talked about like
Speaker 1: any time. Maybe it becomes a slight news story and
Speaker 1: then vanishes pretty quickly. We like to touch on it,
Speaker 1: but can you kind of just walk us through the
Speaker 1: evolution of the like the gangs within the Sheriff's department
Speaker 1: in Nelly County, Yeah, definitely. So the gangs in the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles County Sheriff's apartment have existed at least since
Speaker 1: the nineteen seventies, starting with a gang called the Little
Speaker 1: Devils that was based out of the East Los Angeles station.
Speaker 1: There was a huge event in the seventies called the
Speaker 1: Chicano Moratorium, which I'm sure you've talked about on this
Speaker 1: show as well, Um, which was a demonstration of about
Speaker 1: people in East Los Angeles, a heavy the Latin next area,
Speaker 1: demonstrating against the Vietnam War. And this event, it's alleged
Speaker 1: that Little Devils were a part of a group of
Speaker 1: deputies that brutalized people at this demonstration. Um, you know
Speaker 1: the photos from what happened that they are atrocious. A
Speaker 1: journalist was even killed by a deputy who shot a
Speaker 1: can of tear gas at him. His name was Ruben Salazar.
Speaker 1: So after that happened, a investigation was done, or I'll
Speaker 1: say investigation invitations. Yeah, so it was the chief was
Speaker 1: asked to identify members of the Little Devils and a
Speaker 1: list was made. But that's that's all that really happened
Speaker 1: with that, as far as we know, they were put
Speaker 1: on a list, and from that point, I mean, deputy
Speaker 1: gangs were pretty much allowed to flourish. Um. The sheriff
Speaker 1: at that time, Sherman Block, he said um that he
Speaker 1: thought gang members probably got a kick out of deputies
Speaker 1: being in a gang and flashing gang signs at them.
Speaker 1: At that time, we know of at least um, let's see,
Speaker 1: following the nineteen seventies, we know of probably four gangs
Speaker 1: that were functioning between the eighties and the nineties. Those
Speaker 1: are the Wayside Whities in the Wayside Honor Rancher Jail,
Speaker 1: the cave Men, which was sort of like a second
Speaker 1: generation of the Little Devils at the East Los Angeles Station.
Speaker 1: And there were the Linwood Vikings, which is probably the one,
Speaker 1: um we know the most about. They were based in
Speaker 1: the Linwood Station and they were identified as a white
Speaker 1: supremacist gang by a US federal judge. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: that didn't mean they were exclusively white. They had several
Speaker 1: um Latino and black members. Um, they're Viking tattoos. They
Speaker 1: would change the horns to signify their ethnic identity. And
Speaker 1: you know, they would just essentially go out and terrorize people.
Speaker 1: They would you know, hold families at gunpoint, um and
Speaker 1: execute unauthorized searches. They chased people and shot them. They
Speaker 1: murdered people. One investigator that I spoke to, he believes
Speaker 1: that a deputy is responsible for the murder of a
Speaker 1: client of his that he represented in a class action
Speaker 1: suit against the Sheriff's Department in the Linwood station that
Speaker 1: was called Darren Thomas versus Los Angeles that he was
Speaker 1: settled in the nineties. But that's how we got a
Speaker 1: lot of information about the vikings was as a results
Speaker 1: of that case. And in terms of like gangs, right,
Speaker 1: we use the term gang and a lot of people
Speaker 1: if you're thinking of a street gang, like they're involved
Speaker 1: in you know, drugs or whatever other kind of racket, racketeering,
Speaker 1: whatever kind of activities. First, what are the activities of
Speaker 1: like a sheriff's deputy gang, Like, what what are the
Speaker 1: act like what do we see them engage in that
Speaker 1: is sort of specific to these organized groups within the department. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say they functioned pretty much like a typical
Speaker 1: criminal street gang. The California penal code um there are
Speaker 1: a couple of signifiers that they look forward to categorize
Speaker 1: something as a street gang, one of which is a
Speaker 1: common hand sign, common tattoo. We've got that and engaged
Speaker 1: in crimes. We've seen deputy gangs engage in, you know, drugs.
Speaker 1: We've seen them engage in robberies. We've seen them engage in, yes,
Speaker 1: drive by shootings, assaults, murders, so, you know, rape much
Speaker 1: anything that a criminal streak gang does, the deputy gang does.
Speaker 1: They're just doing it in uniform right and using the
Speaker 1: authority of this state to justify the violence. And then
Speaker 1: it seems like every time that they are uh, somebody
Speaker 1: attempts to bring them to justice, and the police force
Speaker 1: of the city tries to like deal with the gangs.
Speaker 1: There's a pattern of it being so weak or so
Speaker 1: ineffectual the penalties that the gangs almost seem entitled to
Speaker 1: do more and do worse, like, at least so far
Speaker 1: in your reporting the part that I'm up to, it
Speaker 1: just seems like it's a pattern of them doing something unbelievably,
Speaker 1: you know, out in the open brutal racist They get
Speaker 1: brought up on that and there's either settlement, but there's
Speaker 1: never any criminal repercussions, and and that seems to make
Speaker 1: the gangs feel like, oh ship, we can we can
Speaker 1: do this and more. Oh yeah, in terms of like
Speaker 1: saying right, we have to bring things into the light
Speaker 1: of day, right to try and sanitize the situation. What
Speaker 1: are the current obstacles I mean, aside from you know,
Speaker 1: systemic white supremacy that allows these sort of structures to
Speaker 1: remain in place. Are what are the kinds of awareness
Speaker 1: that we can bring to the public to obviously create
Speaker 1: more public pressure or how do we how what is
Speaker 1: what is the way to remedy this based on what
Speaker 1: you've investigated? Yeah, um, well, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: groups that have been involved in this work for a
Speaker 1: long time, which longer than I've been investigating it. One
Speaker 1: in particular that um I would like to point people
Speaker 1: to is to check the SHAREFF Coalition. They work with
Speaker 1: the a c l U that has been monitoring deputy
Speaker 1: gangs for years um and they're organizing around a lot
Speaker 1: of things that could change these policies. Like one thing
Speaker 1: that I learned about that I didn't know about was
Speaker 1: the peace Officer's Bill of Rights, which is a law
Speaker 1: that exists in most states that gives UM law enforcement
Speaker 1: officers the right to know everything about an investing a
Speaker 1: criminal investigation that they are the subject of. They get
Speaker 1: to meet with a union representative and a lawyer and
Speaker 1: review all that before they talked to any investigators. The
Speaker 1: investigation has to be completed within a year or they
Speaker 1: cannot be charged. Um. And that's that's the case in
Speaker 1: most states. Um, So this isn't. This isn't that's not
Speaker 1: specifically just a Los Angeles problem. That's that's something that's
Speaker 1: happening all over the country. But yeah, it's it seems
Speaker 1: like this this is a problem, Like when you read
Speaker 1: about reporting of corruption and NYPD, like there's all sorts
Speaker 1: of well, it might not be like organized gangs with
Speaker 1: hand signals like that. It seems like there's a very
Speaker 1: common problem there. Yeah. I mean, it's just that it's
Speaker 1: impossible to bring them to criminal justice under the current system,
Speaker 1: and that of course they're going to feel entitled to
Speaker 1: continue to I think the first your first report is
Speaker 1: called the protected class um, which I think is fitting right.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, one other thing I'd want to mention is, UM,
Speaker 1: when we're looking at l A specifically about this. UM,
Speaker 1: another reason why you won't see a lot of these
Speaker 1: deputies charged in these shootings. UM it goes back to
Speaker 1: the district attorney. Right. The district attorney is the one
Speaker 1: who decides whether or not they'll be prosecuted. The district
Speaker 1: attorney and the sheriffs are now in the same union,
Speaker 1: I believe, so you know, there's a really symbiotic relationship there. UM.
Speaker 1: Oftentimes the police union, you know, they'll just straight up
Speaker 1: threatened the district attorneys. UM, and they'll say, you know,
Speaker 1: like if you're going to prosecute our guys, like, don't
Speaker 1: count on us to show up and testify when you have,
Speaker 1: you know, a high profile case, that type of thing.
Speaker 1: The union will really hold people hostage. So there are
Speaker 1: a lot of people involved in this, right Yeah. I
Speaker 1: mean even over the summer, like when even the city
Speaker 1: council here was even mulling over defunding the police department
Speaker 1: or law enforcement like the show of force to be
Speaker 1: like hey, we you know a very like very seemingly
Speaker 1: innocent being like hey, we're all here together. But when
Speaker 1: you see a group of people telling you, oh, man,
Speaker 1: like who's going to protect you? Who's going to protect you?
Speaker 1: And saying things like that to somebody who's possibly in
Speaker 1: a position to bring accountability, like, yeah, you see that
Speaker 1: there's many things at work that's a you know, propping
Speaker 1: them up. Who's going to protect you from us? Right? Essentially?
Speaker 1: For instance, yeah, the the Salads our story was wild, like, uh,
Speaker 1: that's kind of where you're reporting starts, and so he
Speaker 1: was a journalist who had been critical of law enforcement, right,
Speaker 1: and then he gets you know, shot and killed by
Speaker 1: a crowd controlled device, which is something we're still seeing
Speaker 1: to this day, like maiming people. Yeah. Yeah, that story
Speaker 1: was really hard for me, um to read because it's
Speaker 1: it's like kind of like looking in a mirror, right,
Speaker 1: like doing the same stuff now I've been shot um
Speaker 1: with less than lethal ammunitions by police. Um, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the same things are happening today, right, Like the work
Speaker 1: that you're doing is so important and something that to me,
Speaker 1: I would immediately begin to shy away from, like you know,
Speaker 1: just to be like the fear that I already have
Speaker 1: in innately of police. But then for you, like and
Speaker 1: the work that all people do activists around this, I
Speaker 1: think is really impressive because yeah, like there are examples
Speaker 1: of retaliation for those trying to bring them to account,
Speaker 1: and like reading that on top of the history of
Speaker 1: how these gangs operate, it's really just seems like a
Speaker 1: like a like just a daunting task, but one that,
Speaker 1: like you said, is absolutely necessary for people to become
Speaker 1: aware of it because the more it just operates in secrecy,
Speaker 1: then it's just gonna proliferate and flourish and we'll the
Speaker 1: next thing, you know, we're like, wow, how did this
Speaker 1: get here? Because we haven't brought the attention to it.
Speaker 1: So for that, like, yeah, very grateful for the work
Speaker 1: that you and many others do in that in that space,
Speaker 1: because it helps us to sort of understand really what's
Speaker 1: at stake in the city. The story about them, Um,
Speaker 1: I think it's a person in the community that they murdered,
Speaker 1: and then that when that man's child is like a teenager,
Speaker 1: they threatened the child basically too, saying like we we
Speaker 1: have our eye on you. Like it's like they're generationally
Speaker 1: like cruel and uh talia tory against just anyone who
Speaker 1: crosses them. Yeah, I was speaking to the family of Um,
Speaker 1: a family member of Anthony Vargas yesterday and that's a
Speaker 1: young man who was killed by the Los Angeles County
Speaker 1: Sheriff's apartment UM Bendito s gang. And she was telling
Speaker 1: me that, you know, the deputies will park outside of
Speaker 1: her house and talk to her nieces and nephews and
Speaker 1: threaten um Anthony's older brother. So you know this, like
Speaker 1: I said, that story that you were talking about, Jack,
Speaker 1: that happened thirty years ago, but these same tactics like
Speaker 1: that that that was going on this week. Unbelievable. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: hopefully we can have you back as the as more
Speaker 1: parts of the story are published. All right, let's take
Speaker 1: a quick break and we'll be right back, and we're back,
Speaker 1: and before we move on three. So I was just
Speaker 1: curious because I I think, you know, heading into uh,
Speaker 1: I guess, the my adult life. I assumed that the
Speaker 1: mainstream media was like doing was like good enough, you know, uh,
Speaker 1: sufficient to you know, fulfill the obligation of journalism and
Speaker 1: in our country, into our society, and that like you know,
Speaker 1: weeklies or alternative papers, all weeklies when I was becoming
Speaker 1: an adult, is what they were like. That that was
Speaker 1: you know, just additional stuff, but if it was like
Speaker 1: really important that the mainstream media would kind of report
Speaker 1: on it. So I was just curious to hear you
Speaker 1: talk about like how you made the decision to kind
Speaker 1: of go to publish this report through uh, you know,
Speaker 1: ground Game, as opposed to like l A Times with
Speaker 1: the New York Times, which seems like you should be
Speaker 1: reporting on this front page. Definitely, Um, And I'll just
Speaker 1: make a quick distinction of Knock is like technically separate
Speaker 1: from ground Game. They're they're friends, but technically separate. I Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I mean this is a story that I've wanted to
Speaker 1: do for years. And this is a story that you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of those organizations that you just shout it out,
Speaker 1: The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, this is
Speaker 1: something that they've known about for longer than I've been alive. Frankly, Um,
Speaker 1: there were articles that I read, um from papers like
Speaker 1: that where they would put in like two paragraphs about
Speaker 1: you know, these deputy gangs and then move on and
Speaker 1: forget about it. Frankly, it's just not something that they're
Speaker 1: interested in. I've worked in newsrooms in places like that,
Speaker 1: and I recently had a very public reckoning with one
Speaker 1: of them, Casey or w where I spoke about the
Speaker 1: racism that I faced. So, you know, frankly, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: this just isn't something that mainstream news rooms are interested in.
Speaker 1: One because it affects low income people of color, which
Speaker 1: they don't think is a community worth investing in or
Speaker 1: worth covering. UM. Secondly, a lot of mainstream organizations just
Speaker 1: like don't want to take this stuff seriously UM stories
Speaker 1: that go on in places like that. I can't tell
Speaker 1: you how many times I have pitched stories UM focusing
Speaker 1: in brown and black, low income communities that are passed
Speaker 1: over again and again and again. So this story didn't
Speaker 1: happen before because of systemic racism. And I chose to
Speaker 1: go with an independent news outlet because they were the
Speaker 1: ones that We're willing to spend money that they frankly
Speaker 1: didn't have, and time that people were volunteering their time
Speaker 1: to help me with us. They knew that it was
Speaker 1: something worth investing in. And frankly, I think that that's
Speaker 1: really where good reporting happens, because mainstream use rooms just
Speaker 1: frankly don't give a ship. They have their own agendas
Speaker 1: and it's just to be complicit in upholding the facto
Speaker 1: white supremacy or whatever, and any story that gets near
Speaker 1: something that would bring awareness that could precipitate some change,
Speaker 1: like is it worth it is? It's something we're interested in.
Speaker 1: Will people read it without actually thinking of, like fundamentally,
Speaker 1: how you're supposed to operate journalistic, like in terms of
Speaker 1: a journalist or an outlet to inform the public about
Speaker 1: what is happening where they live. And that's that advocation
Speaker 1: of responsibilities. Yeah, it's sucked up. And then we're left
Speaker 1: to having to a think of like where our news
Speaker 1: comes from, and I think most people aren't able to
Speaker 1: even think critically of where their news is coming from
Speaker 1: and how it's being presented and why it's being presented
Speaker 1: a certain way. Yeah, alright, Uh so we are gonna
Speaker 1: make that the very first link where people can read
Speaker 1: a traditional violence the history of Deputy Gangs in the
Speaker 1: Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in the foot notes. But um,
Speaker 1: and people need to check it out because it's frankly
Speaker 1: better than anything I've ever read in the New York
Speaker 1: Times or Los Angeles Times, And thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I've been rejected from both both of those newsrooms. UM
Speaker 1: uh yeah, so thank you for that compliment. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: what's so upsetting for us to to talk about like
Speaker 1: always what's in the news, and we're like, there's so
Speaker 1: many things that are in the news that are not
Speaker 1: in the news, you know what I mean. Um, And
Speaker 1: it takes like having to be like, Okay, well we're
Speaker 1: not going to count in fucking MSNBC. They're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about this ship. Um. So you know, people have to
Speaker 1: constantly look and remind ourselves about like truly like what
Speaker 1: what the news is trying to get people to think
Speaker 1: about their own world at times. Yeah, I try to
Speaker 1: actively avoid uh, MSNBC, CNN, New York Times, like just
Speaker 1: because I think that that is the sort of of
Speaker 1: mainstream narrative that our listeners probably encounter the most. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's incredibly biased. Let me say something else about the
Speaker 1: New York Times now that since we're airing them out.
Speaker 1: I once at a meeting with an editor at the
Speaker 1: New York Times, um for a story, and it was
Speaker 1: a story that had been covered before by a smaller outlet,
Speaker 1: and you know, I I went into the meeting saying,
Speaker 1: you know, this is this has been done by a
Speaker 1: smaller outlet. But you know, don't worry. I've got I've
Speaker 1: got another angle. It's different. And they said, huh, okay,
Speaker 1: so done, buy a smaller outlet. Hut. And I start
Speaker 1: panicking a little bit, you know, like, oh God, like
Speaker 1: they're going to kill my pitch. And she says, New
Speaker 1: York Times hasn't done. It hasn't happened yet. And that's
Speaker 1: that's truly the attitude that they have any and like,
Speaker 1: we see how many how many journalists do we see
Speaker 1: saying I wrote this story six months ago, and now
Speaker 1: The New York Times is running it like it's a
Speaker 1: brand new thing. That's that's their bread and butter. It's
Speaker 1: what they do that in normalizing Nazis. Yes, they're like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, this Nazi likes fucking I can't believe
Speaker 1: it's not butter spray? Would you believe it? Anyway? Alright,
Speaker 1: let's talk about spring Break, which was going off over
Speaker 1: the weekend in Miami on Miami Beach. The videos we're
Speaker 1: pretty wild, just a ton of kids doing I don't know.
Speaker 1: I I have a hard time putting myself in their
Speaker 1: position because I never had a full year of my uh,
Speaker 1: young life just swallowed by a pandemic. But I certainly
Speaker 1: understandable that they're, you know, wanting to get out there.
Speaker 1: I think it's just there's just so many elements too,
Speaker 1: Like one, you have Florida that's like, hey, baby, it's
Speaker 1: wide open down here, because Rhonda Santis is like being like,
Speaker 1: I don't we don't know about COVID. Really forget that
Speaker 1: we have the highest concentrations of the B seven variant
Speaker 1: in the state. But there's a lot of like there's
Speaker 1: just I've seen all so too. Um, just the vaccine
Speaker 1: rollout has definitely contributed for many people that begin like
Speaker 1: operating a new sort of headspace of perceived safety when
Speaker 1: I'm not quite sure there actually is. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's fantastic the vaccine is being rolled out, but not
Speaker 1: to the extent I see and hear people discuss like
Speaker 1: what they think the world is at the moment. So
Speaker 1: in the Mayor of Miami had to set a curfew
Speaker 1: from eight pm to six am for the next three weeks.
Speaker 1: Um just trying to just trying to discourage people on
Speaker 1: spring break from coming down there. But I think it's, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's tough. You've got a generation of kids who are
Speaker 1: like in their prime partying years, and I try and
Speaker 1: put myself in the mindset of an eighteen to twenty
Speaker 1: two year old person, and I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 1: if I kind of I'm fucking reckless. I don't know
Speaker 1: what you want to say. But we're adding layers of like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's responsibility to others in the community you're
Speaker 1: entering the party that isn't quite there. But yeah, just
Speaker 1: it's a just an overall, you know, trend, I think
Speaker 1: in general, not just Miami itself. Like I'm saying, like
Speaker 1: the vaccine rollout is as I see, it feels like
Speaker 1: a very yeah, like has this false sense of safety
Speaker 1: that a lot of people are just like immediately buying into,
Speaker 1: even when they themselves are like I'm not gonna get
Speaker 1: the vaccine yet though. But the the like the sound
Speaker 1: bites from some of the kids, they were just saying
Speaker 1: like we will not like I will not stop partying. Um.
Speaker 1: I think one of the quotes was we will continue
Speaker 1: to rage. So I mean, like, what do you how
Speaker 1: do you look at it, like in terms of seeing
Speaker 1: spring Breakers right now series and like the party scene
Speaker 1: you were covering, like the mentality is it? Is it nihilistic?
Speaker 1: Is it pure ignorance? Like how what what sort of
Speaker 1: like the fuel from from how you see it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the kids that I spoke to in the
Speaker 1: party saying they really didn't believe that COVID was dangerous, right. Um.
Speaker 1: A lot of them were telling me that they thought
Speaker 1: that the government was lying to them about, you know,
Speaker 1: how many people had died and the death rates and
Speaker 1: that stuff like that, and they sort of finished it
Speaker 1: off with, you know like, I you know, I'm young,
Speaker 1: I haven't gotten sick, and none of my friends have
Speaker 1: gotten sick. Um, so whatever. There, they really weren't um
Speaker 1: so much thinking about people around them and how it
Speaker 1: might affect them. Yeah. I really don't think they really
Speaker 1: care about others. Um, that was my takeaway. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I'm trying to think of like two year
Speaker 1: old person that actually does care about others at that stage. Um,
Speaker 1: So as you ship, like when you're coming into a
Speaker 1: world that's like societally reflecting back to you that no
Speaker 1: one gives a funk about you, So you know, like
Speaker 1: it's just that you know that I can totally see
Speaker 1: how that feeds the mentality of like nobody gives a
Speaker 1: funk about We don't live in the country where people
Speaker 1: give a funk about each other, So what the funk?
Speaker 1: Why are we now trying to give a funk about
Speaker 1: each other? Yeah? Yeah, And it's hard to like the
Speaker 1: this disease in particular when the people who are so
Speaker 1: who are UM more at risk are not the young
Speaker 1: people who are of like spring break partying age, like A.
Speaker 1: I think it's just even though it's should be simple
Speaker 1: to just be like, yeah, but you're killing old people.
Speaker 1: I feel like that that is a population that's uniquely
Speaker 1: ill suited to give a shit about that, unfortunately, and
Speaker 1: they're killing young people to write. I mean there was
Speaker 1: that I forgot that athlete that collapsed after having COVID,
Speaker 1: Like yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. And even now, like
Speaker 1: you even look at l A, like what overt of
Speaker 1: the people that are in the hospital coming from people
Speaker 1: under fifty although the deaths are happening for people over fifty,
Speaker 1: but right now people under fifty or a majority of
Speaker 1: the hospitalization. So like that. I remember early in the pandemic,
Speaker 1: everyone's like, it's an old people's disease, like the old UM.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I guess it's hard to like inform people
Speaker 1: when and you could get like long COVID too if
Speaker 1: you're young. That's that's the other I think that's even
Speaker 1: scarier than dying. YEA, Yeah, I feel like why didn't
Speaker 1: they do like a fucking you know, this is your
Speaker 1: brain on drugs type campaign about COVID, like you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, because everything I had to like seek
Speaker 1: out like medical like journal things that we're talking about
Speaker 1: purely like really what the long term effects could be
Speaker 1: that we're like I think touched on and like a
Speaker 1: sentence or two in a normal like a news article
Speaker 1: like online, But like, those are the moments that really
Speaker 1: had me very much concerned about my safety or what
Speaker 1: it meant to be careless about what I think, how
Speaker 1: contagious it is or isn't, because yeah, I mean we had,
Speaker 1: you know, one of our guy who flew in the
Speaker 1: pandemic to go back home to the UK because the
Speaker 1: borders were closing. She caught COVID on the flight, and
Speaker 1: she was talking about to this day. How you know
Speaker 1: she's she's in her early thirties, not like you know,
Speaker 1: no real health conditions, but still has like you know,
Speaker 1: the brain fog and moments of like real deep fatigue
Speaker 1: and things like that, and that's really something to consider.
Speaker 1: But I guess, you know, again, we all have different calculus.
Speaker 1: We're going into it with our own, you know, risk
Speaker 1: assessment models. Yeah. Um, all right, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: Netflix documentary about the college admission scandal. I don't know
Speaker 1: if uh you guys had a chance to watch that yet.
Speaker 1: I watched over the weekend. Is it a like a
Speaker 1: just feature length documentary documentary. The second I heard they
Speaker 1: weren't going in on everybody as hard as they could,
Speaker 1: I was like, this isn't the thing I want to see,
Speaker 1: Like I wanted to do that version of it. It
Speaker 1: basically focuses on the the white haired guy that you
Speaker 1: saw in all the articles, like the mug shots of him. Um,
Speaker 1: and to the point that they have Matthew Modine like
Speaker 1: dramatize a bunch of the conversations. They have transcripts for, um,
Speaker 1: just give Matthew Modein like a terrible haircut and they're like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that'll do. And the conversations like they edited them down,
Speaker 1: but it's you know, they're sort of boring, but they
Speaker 1: do give you a really good understanding of just like
Speaker 1: how rich people think about the world and how little
Speaker 1: they think about the ethics of what they're doing, or
Speaker 1: how it affects people who have been less, who have
Speaker 1: been given less than they have, Like that's just completely
Speaker 1: not a consideration, uh, for any of the people. It
Speaker 1: seems like during some of the conversations it's going to
Speaker 1: be and then they're like, look, I don't give a
Speaker 1: shit about the ethics here. I'm just worried, like what
Speaker 1: if people find out about this? Um, yeah that sounds right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean that's the way. That's the path
Speaker 1: to like ultra wealth is like I don't give a
Speaker 1: funk about the ethics, Like I can get it right
Speaker 1: and then fuck it. If there's accountability, I'll just fucking
Speaker 1: just say, fucking I'm rich. I don't I'm insulated from
Speaker 1: all this ship. Yeah. It's also was it really that
Speaker 1: jarring to hear how these people would talk? Because I
Speaker 1: feel like in a way you're like, yeah, of course, yeah,
Speaker 1: not jarring at all, not jarring at all, just more
Speaker 1: of like a a interesting collage of that where you're
Speaker 1: just like, man, these motherfucker's and like just little details
Speaker 1: of how they speak and like what they like. There
Speaker 1: are some conversations where one of the moms is like,
Speaker 1: you know, my older sister, yeah, or my older daughter,
Speaker 1: Like she doesn't give a shit about any like any
Speaker 1: of this, so she's not like worried at all. But
Speaker 1: my younger one is actually smart, and it's pretty brutal,
Speaker 1: like how just kind of distance, yeah, detachment as a
Speaker 1: parent to your own children as well. Like there's the
Speaker 1: older one that's kind of a weirdo loser, and then
Speaker 1: the younger one though that one's smart. I forget her name,
Speaker 1: But then because it's yeah, it's more important to them
Speaker 1: than it is to the kids obviously, and I think
Speaker 1: more important to them from a like appearance's perspective than
Speaker 1: it is to uh, like what what benefits they think
Speaker 1: they're the kids are getting. The big thing is that
Speaker 1: the university is kind of there. There's like one storyline
Speaker 1: where they look at the sailing coach from Stanford who
Speaker 1: never took any bribes, like directly they all went to
Speaker 1: I think the sailing program and the athletic department, and
Speaker 1: they kind of make the case that like Stanford was
Speaker 1: you know, complete us it and the whole thing. But
Speaker 1: it really is like I don't know, the the whole
Speaker 1: thing seems to be the the universities like these are
Speaker 1: all just people exploiting a wildly corrupt system where you know,
Speaker 1: if you give them enough money, like your kid gets
Speaker 1: in over somebody more deserving of an education than them,
Speaker 1: or of that spot than them, right, Yeah, and giving
Speaker 1: it to someone who isn't gonna then enter the world
Speaker 1: and use any of that knowledge. They'll just rest on
Speaker 1: the fact that they have wealth to rely on versus
Speaker 1: people who are trying to get educated for a promobility.
Speaker 1: And I think, yeah, just more of you know, as
Speaker 1: we talk about like wealthy kids and like how much
Speaker 1: the like their parents wealth enables like their lack of
Speaker 1: like evolution as an adult. And yeah, you get to
Speaker 1: this point it's like, yeah, you want to go to
Speaker 1: college or you might learn something, or do you want
Speaker 1: to go for appearances not something substantive because we're here
Speaker 1: in the optics economy, we're not here for actual comes,
Speaker 1: which I think goes across the board. I think for
Speaker 1: people who think like that and use their wealth for
Speaker 1: good or whatever the funk it is, it's just for appearances,
Speaker 1: is not about substantive change, and I love them. Yeah, alright.
Speaker 1: And lastly, just an update from a story that we
Speaker 1: I think had mentioned on one of the trending episodes
Speaker 1: last week that movie Pass had a website up that
Speaker 1: was a countdown to the movies starting again or some
Speaker 1: ship and it seemed like movie Pass was going to relaunch.
Speaker 1: That was a it was a prank. Movie Pas is dead.
Speaker 1: Uh and apparently like it was. It might have been
Speaker 1: part of a attempt to like kind of pump up
Speaker 1: their parent companies stock, which did temporarily blip up too
Speaker 1: near one sent to near one penny, so somebody might
Speaker 1: have made uh dozens on that one. Yeah, the timer
Speaker 1: hit zero yesterday. Uh. Nothing, nothing happened except when you
Speaker 1: go to the website, it downloads the text file to
Speaker 1: your computer. So don't go to the website. Uh, it's
Speaker 1: don't don't open whatever it is. One of the people
Speaker 1: who was tracking the story did open it and it
Speaker 1: just said, okay, sorry. This website was made with around
Speaker 1: twenty dollars with no purpose other than two full friends
Speaker 1: tweet out by a Twitter user who we have no
Speaker 1: affiliation with. The media media did pick it up and
Speaker 1: say official movie Pass website, which was completely fabricated by
Speaker 1: those journalists. So, um, you can say journalists at that journalists. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I looked at the U r L. It had the
Speaker 1: word movie pass in there, so yeah, thank you. Also,
Speaker 1: I went to Yale School of Journalism because my parents
Speaker 1: gave them seven exactly. Um, now I write blocks well series.
Speaker 1: It has been such a pleasure having you on TDZ.
Speaker 1: Where can people find you? Read you? Follow you? Yeah,
Speaker 1: you can find me um on Twitter and Instagram. Um,
Speaker 1: just by my name's Serres Castle Um. And I would
Speaker 1: love it if your listeners are so inclined to check
Speaker 1: out knock l a where my series A tradition of
Speaker 1: violence is living. And if they're so inclined, please shoot
Speaker 1: us a dollar or two on the knock Patreon because,
Speaker 1: like I said this, this research was really expensive and
Speaker 1: I'd like to keep doing it. Yeah, do that? Is
Speaker 1: there a tweeter some of the work of social media
Speaker 1: you've been enjoying, Oh, a work of social media that
Speaker 1: I've been enjoying. Yes, and I love that baby video,
Speaker 1: the video of the baby who sees a video of
Speaker 1: her self crying and it's just like, I like becomes
Speaker 1: like self aware sort of. Yes, Oh baby sees video
Speaker 1: of self crying. Oh, there's just download a file to
Speaker 1: your website here. No, yeah, I did a text file,
Speaker 1: but I just I just saw I just see a
Speaker 1: still image of this baby going like this, what's going on?
Speaker 1: But it looked like they fooled me with that. That
Speaker 1: that's still because it definitely looked like a baby being like,
Speaker 1: what the fuck is wrong with you? Me? Miles? Where
Speaker 1: can people find you? What the tweet you've been enjoying? Twitter, Instagram,
Speaker 1: Miles of Gray. Also the other podcast for twenty Day
Speaker 1: Fiance where we just kind of blow some steam off
Speaker 1: talk about that trash reality show content. Some tweets that
Speaker 1: I like. First one is from you know Another Value
Speaker 1: Local Molly Lambert at Molly Lambert is tweeting, well, I
Speaker 1: walked through the Echo Park thrift and everything was from
Speaker 1: the two thousands and one girl told her friend a
Speaker 1: skirt was quote so y two K so bury me
Speaker 1: at sea. I guess over all feeling the washedness come
Speaker 1: up from us. Another one uh from trash Jones at
Speaker 1: Jay Zucks, tweeting if you hear me telling the same
Speaker 1: story twice, just let it go. I only have like
Speaker 1: six memories and they all take turns, Welcome to podcasting,
Speaker 1: and finally at young thug w y n G t
Speaker 1: h g W tweets what wtf is quote burning c ds?
Speaker 1: I love it. I love it. I'm here. Um in
Speaker 1: my mind I was like, what are you talking about? Man?
Speaker 1: I was burning CDs in two thousand, man, nineteen years right? Okay?
Speaker 1: Especially just swapping playlist now on Spotify and ship yea.
Speaker 1: A couple of tweets I have been enjoying. Uh live
Speaker 1: p tweeted, baby, are you okay? You hardly responded to
Speaker 1: the Instagram story I posted for the sole purpose of
Speaker 1: getting a response from you, and h Calathia tweeted, has
Speaker 1: anyone noticed that you park in a driveway but cry
Speaker 1: in a Walgreens bathroom? Uh? You can find me on
Speaker 1: Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien, you can find us on
Speaker 1: Twitter at daily Zeykegeist. Were at the Daily Zekeeist on Instagram.
Speaker 1: We have a Facebook fan page and a website, Daily
Speaker 1: zygeist dot com, where we post our episodes. On our
Speaker 1: foot notes, y linkoff to the information that we talked
Speaker 1: about in today's episode, as well as a song that
Speaker 1: we recommend you go check out and enjoy. Vibes. Uh,
Speaker 1: specifically this track vibes is right by legendary dance hall
Speaker 1: reggae artist Barrington Leave Uh. This just has It's a
Speaker 1: track that, like for being reggae, You're expecting, like the
Speaker 1: rhythms to drop in, but it doesn't. And still Barrington
Speaker 1: Levy just scrooning with that voice of his and the
Speaker 1: vibes is right that the title does not deceive. And
Speaker 1: if you don't know Barrington Levy is, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe if you like shine from bad Boy into early
Speaker 1: two thousands, if you remember Sidney what Little Liz good
Speaker 1: Lie wha um, that was Barrington Levy. If not, you
Speaker 1: know what, this is a neworts for you to check out.
Speaker 1: So check that one out. I'm too young to know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about. The Daily is like ice production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit Yeah I Heart Radio, app, Apple Podcast or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows. That's gonna do it
Speaker 1: for this morning. We are back this afternoon to tell
Speaker 1: you what's trending and we'll talk to you all then
Speaker 1: Bye bye