Part Two: Tony Alamo: The Worst Preacher

Robert explains how Tony Alamo became a jacket maker to the stars, providing Michael Jackson, Dolly Parton and others with fashion via child labor. Also, lots of sex crimes.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Also media.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Oh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards. We're all doing
just so good. Uh, just so good. I'm talking about
Jesus grifters, and there Jesus grifting with one of my
very favorite people and guests, the great Samantha McVeigh. Samantha,

(00:26):
how are you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I am here, you're here.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Yes, you've just been talking about how how tired and
slightly broken we all are already this year.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Uh huh h yeah, but hey, we exist.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
We're still alive technically, you know, not in the ways
that matter, maybe, but like technically you know, yes, yeah,
just like well, actually not at all. Like Susan Alamo,
because she's just dead as hell. She is super fucking dead.

Speaker 3 (00:56):
You told me a few times that she is good
and dead. She is.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
She is real dead. Oh you are. I don't know
if you're ready for the amount of dead. This lady
is just the deadest, uh, Samantha, are you ready to
get back into it?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Let's go.

Speaker 2 (01:19):
So you're a cult leader and your wife, the Lamb
of God, has died, even though you both told everyone
on your TV show God would protect her from that
sort of pedestrian end because the world can't end unless
you're both alive, right, So what do you do when
she passes?

Speaker 1 (01:36):
On?

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Right?

Speaker 4 (01:37):
Put?

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, you put sunglasses on her.

Speaker 2 (01:43):
You did guess weekend at Bernie's, And that's what they do.
It's I you are correct, because basically what they do
is he has her embalmed, He brings her corpse home
and he late, yeah, yeah, he puts it on a
table and he's going to have his followers pray over
it for days on end. Right, that's the that's the plan.

Speaker 1 (02:04):
Here.

Speaker 3 (02:06):
Tell me she's in that white suit though, like she
Lea's in that suit.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
No, she's in her wedding dress. Does that make it worse?
Is that creepier or less creepy?

Speaker 3 (02:16):
That's just setting up for a haunting mm hmm, like unhaunted.

Speaker 2 (02:20):
Well, and the way it's described to me is he
had he ordered them to dress her corpse in its
wedding dress. So I don't think she came in that dress.
He just makes his followers put her in it. It's
not great.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Did he did he did like remarry her like renewed
vowels there too. I mean there's a lot that I'm I.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Think he was waiting for her to be resurrected to
do that.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
Right, Uh, you got to marry her for the fifth time, right.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
Yeah, he has the fourth or fifth time. Yeah. Now,
I will admit that the relationship dynamics of the Alamos
are a little bit murky to me, But my interpretation
is that while she was alive, Susan did a lot
of work to keep Tony on something that resembled an
even keel. He's still doing some sex crimes, right, but
a lot less than he will be once she dies.

(03:08):
Because she is she's exerting some control to limit his behavior, right,
And once she is gone, there is no one left
to keep this man in check, and he loses his
fucking mind. Like he goes from well not from zero,
he's at like fifty five, but he goes up to
like one hundred and twenty very quickly.

Speaker 3 (03:28):
I feel like he's just waiting for his moment though.
Is it one of those things like yeah, now I'm
doing this, this is it, this is my time, And
then it just becomes trauma.

Speaker 2 (03:37):
Yeah yeah for a lot of people. And it's going
to start with some dead body related trauma because yeah,
yeah it's gross. So he has Susan's body taken to
the cult's dining room, and his followers are ordered to
take shifts praying for her resurrection, so that there's people
praying for her to be resurrected twenty four hours a day.
Cult funds are used to engage in nearby florists to

(03:58):
deliver flowers every day, probably to deal with the smell.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Right, I was gonna ask about that, but you know, yeah, yeah, it's.

Speaker 2 (04:04):
Not great, Sam, it's not great. One remember later recalled
to a reporter, I believe one percent that she was
going to rise from the dead. On their local access
TV show, Tony gave daily sermons promising his wife would
be reborn any day now. It became a joke for
local radio DJs, who reported on this while repeatedly playing

(04:24):
wake Up Little Susie. That's some good DJ. That's some
good radio DJ shade.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
I mean, yeah, you can yourself.

Speaker 2 (04:40):
No, you can just see how you'd cut this together
though in like the HBO version of this story, you know,
do a little montage or something. Unfortunately, it also gets
very creepy, very fast, because one thing that Tony demands
is he wants the children in the cult. He makes
them cuddle with Susan's body at night. Yeah, I know

(05:01):
this is this is bad.

Speaker 3 (05:03):
What again, he's serial killers?

Speaker 2 (05:08):
Yeah? Those those kids went through it. We'll say that much, right.
One of them, Elijah Franco, weeks later said she smelled,
she was cold and really really hard. She was dead,
which I feel like we didn't need at the end there,
but yeah, it's just good to reinforce that to yourself
when you've been told for six months that she's alive.

Speaker 3 (05:29):
So was this doing an interview like, yeah, you're so
like you slept with a dead body? Tell us about
that experience you grew up with thom Sorry, yeah, no, Yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Think that that's basically what it was. Is like because
eventually there are court cases and eventually there's prosecution, and
a lot of these kids get out and then go
talk to the media about like because these are the
folks who were not they were true believers in that
they were kids raised in this cult. But they also
they're not converts. Right. If you grow up, you know,

(06:00):
in a different religion somewhere, and you convert to something
like this, you tend to stick with it for a
long time, whereas a lot of these kids raised in this,
like as soon as they can, Like, I'm getting the
fuck out of this place. The fuck is wrong with
these people and my parents Jesus. Yeah, so this goes on,

(06:21):
This whole corpse thing goes on for six months.

Speaker 3 (06:25):
Oh, I was waiting for six days.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
No no, no, like a like a wildly long time,
and the body was okay, no, no, no, it's not okay.
It's it's very, very gross. Greta Allendorff writes that every
day Susan remained dead, the children were beaten. So it's
even worse than just the things about this that are

(06:48):
obviously gross, because the kids are being physically punished for
not bringing this woman back from the dead. Good cult stuff.

Speaker 3 (06:56):
Yeah, the.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Dead lady.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
You know, I don't know what's supposed to happen.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
Well, she was supposed to come back to Tony.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Like like by the kids like laying on her.

Speaker 2 (07:09):
Oh, I think something like that. I think something like that.

Speaker 3 (07:14):
Oh, this is where I need adult supervision. What the hell?

Speaker 2 (07:17):
What the fuck right? No, this is we are now
in rarefied colt Air. We do a lot of cults,
but this is some of the cultiest cult stuff we've
ever culted on this podcast. Yeah, fascinating stuff, incredible work Tony. Eventually,
and this is you know, you got to give him
some credit for personal growth. He comes to accept that

(07:38):
his wife is dead, right you know, oh yeah, I
was joking. That's not great. I mean, I guess it is.
But you don't have to give breaks Amos conceding, So
he has his followers build an elaborate mausoleum for her,
which included a grave for him. So apparently at this
point he came to accept his own mortality. Now that

(07:59):
susan And was gone, he began to adapt other parts
of his life to this new reality, which ended with
him launching a new and shockingly successful business for the ministry.
You're not ready for wear this head, Samantha. I was
not ready for where this head. This is a unique
cult business, right. We talked about cult businesses a lot

(08:20):
on this show. Restaurants are common, right, bands are weirdly common.
You know, the Mansons tried to do that, right, you get,
I mean, Tony Alamo does kind of that version of things. Uh,
fucking David Koresh was a musician, you know, right. What's
weird is like launching through your cult an incredibly popular

(08:43):
fashion brand. That is beloved by the most famous people
on earth, which is what Tony does next. Yeah, yeah,
shocking stuff.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
He launches a clothing brand.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
He does he does high fashion too. It's extremely successful.
How successful. Yeah, it's Hollister. This is where Hollister comes from.
Tony Alamo invented Hollister. No, so the the answer like,
because Tony's got to ask himself, Hey, you know, as
a pedophile cult leader who has just been reminded of
his mortality, what's the next thing to do? And the answer,

(09:16):
obviously is forced children to labor for free manufacturing high
quality but dazzled denim vests and jackets for celebrities, which
is exactly what he does. They are These have like
in rhinestones and Swarovsky diamonds, like the La skyline on them,
or like Nashville. They are the tackiest fucking jackets that

(09:37):
have ever been made. I think some of them are
stone wars of them are clearly like black denim or leather.
Even they're not just denim, but there's a lot of denim. Yeah,
this is this is by now we're in the eighties, right, maybe.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
Dazzel, but Dazzle did their thing. Yeah, so this makes sense,
also is kind of horrifying. Yeah, who wore this?

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Oh? Everyone? So he designs each product himself and sells
them under the brand name Tony Alamo of Nashville. And
despite that name, their big market is in Hollywood, particularly
rich and famous people who wanted clothing that delivered a
little bit of Southern charm and credibility. Tony Alamo jackets
took off initially with the Grand Ole Opry set, but

(10:21):
in short order they become like the most desired fashion
item in the music industry. According to an article by
Lindy Fraser of The Chantel Clear, Alamo said he used
children when he realized their quote hands were the perfect
size to embellish the jackets with tiny rhinestones.

Speaker 3 (10:38):
Now why do they all say this?

Speaker 2 (10:41):
Given all of that, it might not surprise you to
hear that one of the brand's biggest fans was a
man famous for being responsible around small children. Have you
guessed who it is?

Speaker 3 (10:55):
No, I can't.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
Michael Jackson. That's right, baby, And in fact, if you
want the most famous touchstone, Michael Jackson wears a Tony
Alamo jacket on the cover of Bad That's a Tony
Alamo original. On the cover of Bad.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
There's so many things to this.

Speaker 2 (11:16):
Why Oh well, I think there's a couple of reasons why,
given some things that we've learned about Michael in the
intervening years. But it is when I realized it was
that he the jacket from Bad was a Tony Alamo
er blew my fucking mind.

Speaker 3 (11:35):
Yeah, that's gonna take me a minute.

Speaker 2 (11:37):
That's gonna take a second. Right.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
The fact that that means he had to have sold
so many more after the pot.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Oh yeah, yeah. Oh. These are a massive brand. These
are incredibly successful, and Michael is the most famous person
on earth at this point in like the fucking mid
early to mid eighties, so he is probably the most
famous person to wear a Tony Alamo original. But he's
got real competition. And I want to quote from an
article on the brand in the La Times. He makes

(12:05):
jackets for all the stars, said Shirley Blinner, a saleswoman
at Twist, a boutique on Melrose Avenue, where three Alamo
jackets were on sale last week for prices ranging from
three hundred and sixty dollars to six hundred and eighty dollars.
Blinner pointed to a display of photographs behind the cash
register of mister T, Mike Tyson, Hulk Cogan, and Dolly Parton,

(12:25):
all wearing what appeared to be a Lamo design jackets.

Speaker 3 (12:29):
I was waiting for her name, but by mister T
to cut off gene.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Mister T. Oh, oh my god, Samantha. I would not
be doing my job as the host of this podcast
if I did not show you the picture I have
of mister T wearing a Tony Alamo original standing next
to Tony Alamo himself. Hmmm, oh man, it is if

(12:52):
you're a big mister T fan like I am, a
harsh moment of the soul here look at them.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Look at the two of them together.

Speaker 2 (13:00):
That him, that's him. That's Tony.

Speaker 3 (13:04):
Off brand like country musicians, like he looks like Haggard,
Like the.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
Hell if Merle Haggard had let his drinking get even
more away from him, right, like, yeah, if Merle Haggard
had been doing his body weight in cocaine. Yeah. So
there's this picture. They're both wearing these just I gotta say,
hideous denim jackets like these are the Michael's you know,
the jacket from Bad looks good on Michael, you know,

(13:32):
like that's that's a that's a that's a look iconic.
I do not understand these denim jackets that mister T
and Tony are wearing.

Speaker 3 (13:40):
Here again, mister T, I remember him with a cut
off jean jacket, Like that's what I am picturing.

Speaker 4 (13:45):
When you say, mister it's like American. Yeah, no, it's
not a huge leap, right, And this is mister T
younger maybe certainly worst judgment. Let's all assume that modern
mister T wouldn't make this same mistake. But yeah, the
picture I've got, which will we'll put up that this

(14:05):
will probably be the background of one of the parts
of this episode. But it just says mister T pictured
here with pastor Tony Alamo. Both are wearing Tony Alamo
designer jackets, which are worn by thousands of actors, entertainers,
recording artists, sports figures, presidents, politicians, kings, queens, princes, princesses,
and others who are able to afford them. I don't
know which presidents wore the these. I haven't found that information,

(14:29):
but I can. I'm very curious.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Prince Charleston, Queen Elizabeth has one of these things. But
Queen Elizabeth had it because she would not buy a
jacket if she didn't know child labor had gone into it.

Speaker 3 (14:42):
You know, that was the question. How is it market
It was? It marketed as just a hands owned from
this church.

Speaker 2 (14:49):
It's marketed with that line. Their little hands can put
the ryanstones on best.

Speaker 3 (14:55):
The only way we could fit the tiny stones on
there above the.

Speaker 2 (14:58):
Tag we don't pay the children.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
They pay us by Yeah, they pay us with their labor,
you know, for with dead bodies.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
Yeah, well, and cuddling with dead bodies. Now. In addition
to jackets, Alamo's clothing line sold sharkskin boots, leopard skin jackets,
and sequin gowns, often including Swarovski crystals and diamonds as
a koutramas. To beyond that, his ministry expanded to control
a string of gas stations in the area around the
towns of Dire and Alma, Alabama. They ran a hog farm,

(15:31):
grocery stores, and a concert venue, as well as a
restaurant where a young Bill Clinton once watched Dolly Parton perform.
The number of famous people who are just like bit
parts in the fucking Tony Alamo story unreal.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
So did people not realize it was a cult. They
just assumed it was just a foundation and a children's
home or like a halfway house type of thing at
the at this point.

Speaker 2 (15:54):
At this point, there are some people who have left.
If you really wanted to look, you could find some
al legations, right, but there's no lawsuits yet, no one
like the the the There aren't any like major cases
about like the worst things. There's this is right around
the period of time where there are some lawsuits about them,
like not paying workers, but the the worst stuff hasn't

(16:18):
really come out yet. Sore that said, when it does,
they keep selling the jackets. So I'm not letting anyone
off the hook for the fucking jacket thing because they
keep being a popular product even when he's on the
run from the FBI as well done. Really yes, yes,
it's amazing stuff.

Speaker 3 (16:36):
It is still named then jacket Jacket Company, and people like, yeah,
I really need that. He's they're not gonna make it anymore.
I have to have one. It's a little bit of addition, Sam.

Speaker 2 (16:49):
He think about it this way, if if Osama bin
Laden had sewn had like been selling jinkos while he
was on the run, I would have wanted a pair
of those jinkos, the bin laden jinkosh my go.

Speaker 3 (17:01):
I mean, maybe you could resurrect him from the dead.
All you gotta do is cuddle him.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
That's right, that's right.

Speaker 3 (17:06):
I think we can write this work for you.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
I'm gonna have to go to the sea. In his
two thousand and five book My Life, Clinton described Tony
Alamo as Roy Orbison on speed, a description that doesn't
make a lot of sense to me, because we listened
to him and he's not a fast singing or speaking guy.
I don't know why he just yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Maybe he needs to speed, right. Oh no, that's what
he sounds like.

Speaker 2 (17:29):
Yeah, that's what he sounds like. And he kind of
sounds like a slower Johnny Cash to me, who also
sucks at singing. Anyway, I don't know why Bill describes
him this way.

Speaker 3 (17:39):
Maybe we heard him preach.

Speaker 2 (17:41):
I have heard him preach, and.

Speaker 3 (17:43):
So he's still that slow.

Speaker 2 (17:45):
He's faster, but he's not like a as somebody's watched
a lot of like preachers who are definitely coke feeds.
He's not like that fast right spirit. And I was
gonna say, maybe Bill Clinton doesn't know much about speed,
but Bill Clinton definitely knew a lot about speed. Young
Bill couldn't do it. Knew a little bit about speed.
I'll tell you that much right now.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
He knows a lot of things.

Speaker 2 (18:06):
Yeah, he knows a lot of things you shouldn't. So
Tony may not have been on speed, but he did
demand speed from his laborers, who, from early childhood on
were dosed with vitamins and massive amounts of caffeine in
order to meet tight labor deadlines. While he lounged by
the heart shaped pool he and Susan had purchased with
his new child brides. We'll get to that, his follower

(18:27):
slept in sleeping bags on the floor in crowded meeting rooms.
Workers owned five dollars a day. Shifts could last as
long as twenty hours. I think there were just twelve
to fifteen on average. But you know, when there's a
big when mister T needs a bunch of jackets, you know,
you make that shit happen.

Speaker 3 (18:44):
You gotta make it happen.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
You've got to make it.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
Calls, you got show coming come.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Yeah. So, within a few years of Susan passing, Tony
started seeking companionship, and while Susan had to begin been
like ten years older than him. Chris's experience that Susan's
daughter had been an early because again Tony rapes her, right,
and that was an when she's like fourteen or fifteen,
that was an early warning that Tony's preferences skewed much younger.

(19:10):
And he starts chaking taking child brides. I think he
starts with sixteen seventeen year olds, but like every year,
he'll go down a couple of years in terms of
like what's acceptable to him, right, and it's going to
get very young, right. An article for THHV two News
notes quote in an old radio program, Alama once said

(19:31):
that when women start their periods, then they are women.
According to God's word, they should be able to be
married at thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and in some cases if
they have menstruateed already at twelve years old. So like
capital P pedophile, we're talking.

Speaker 3 (19:47):
Yeah for sure, but you know, this does go along
the biblical ideals. And that's also why a lot of
the states in the US have not banned child Yeah. So,
and I'm sure Arkansas is probably one of those places.

Speaker 2 (20:04):
No. No, And in fact, were those explicitly legal to marry,
you know, fourteen year olds and.

Speaker 3 (20:09):
A lot of the twelve does the mama say, yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:12):
Younger than is allowed anywhere. But I don't actually want
to be quoted on that because I might be wrong.
But you're right, Like there is a biblical basis for
what Tony is saying. Right, He's able to cite passages
from the Bible in justification of the things he's doing. Now,
I will say, by the time he reaches his apex,
twelve is going to be old for him. But we're

(20:33):
getting there, Samantha. Let's distract ourselves with some ads first, though.
We're back. How you doing.

Speaker 3 (20:46):
I'm just, honestly, the problem I have is knowing that
this man, if he was under trial now, guarantee, he'd
be fine. Yeah, oh yeah, he would be so fine,
Like he would be probably be in office and or
an advisor at this point, Like that's just the level
he has gone that well, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
I think he could have people marching in the streets
with guns protecting him, for sure. I mean, he does
get that. It's just that it kind of pisses off
everyone around him because America's in a little bit of
a different place at this time. So as Tony gets older,
his beliefs on the proper age to marry a girl
get looser. He moves the age limit down to tin,

(21:31):
arguing that as long as a girl had started to menstruate,
the men around her didn't just have the right, but
a duty to marry her off quote and again, when
you say there's a biblical basis, here's his argument. God
impregnated Mary when she was about eleven years old. So
the government, idiots, the people that don't know the Bible,
what you're going to have to do is get a
hold of God. Now you're gonna have to get up

(21:53):
there and cuff him and send him to prisatory for
statutory rape. And yeah, if God fucked an eleven year old, yeah,
he's thousands speak of a power imbalance.

Speaker 3 (22:05):
He's also God, right right, there's well, I mean that's
the point.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
I know there's a lot of debate as to the
ages and stuff here.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
Yeah, but I mean, like in general, like he's also
a god obviously. Maybe he didn't resurrect his wife, maybe
he didn't for a plan to impregnate adolescence.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
And it's this whole thing like I I can remember
because I grew up you know, in and around evangelicals
in the post nine to eleven period constantly hearing about
how the fundamental evil of Islam was that it allowed
fourteen mom and married like a fourteen year old girl
a twelve year old girl, something like that. You know,
that's okay in this religion. That's part of like the
reason why it's But like you, if you you can

(22:49):
look at any religious text from that period and find
a justification for fucking a little kid, right, that's just
the reality, in part because of the time period in
which those things were written. Ultimately, my stance is that
outside of specifics of the faith that they claim to be,
people who want to fuck kids find a reason to
justify fucking kids, right, And.

Speaker 3 (23:11):
People who want to put those people on pedestals will
justify why this is okay? Sure exactly people for that
group of people.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Right, we met Gates. Matt, He's fine, he's great, exactly,
Matt Gates. We call this the Matt Gates coda. Right,
so right up for the splc continues. It's a theme
that Alamo keeps coming back to. In a radio show
Justice February twenty fourth, the preacher cited that the alleged
promiscuity of first graders as grounds for marrying them before
the illegal age of consent. I found out from people's

(23:40):
parents that their daughter having started having sex when she
was six years old and had sex every day of
her life, he said at one point, So right there,
by the time she's fifteen years old, she's had sex
thousands of times. I mean, this is just reality, the
alternate reality you have to like create for yourself to
exist within these things. And people have to listen to
him be talking about like year olds having sex thousands

(24:02):
of times and be like, yeah, that's how that's the
that's the way things work. I never seen a child,
but this seems accurate. Like, oh my god, I think
some of it is literally a lot of these people
will justify you see, like a kid, like look at
another kid of the opposite section. You're like, well, that's
basically sex, right, right, I don't know, I don't know

(24:25):
fully what, Like, there's a lot to dig into here,
but like, this is some of the most vile pedophile
justification stuff I've ever heard. And this is not like
a subject we cover, you know, sparingly on this show.
Because it turns out that like wherever you find the
worst people in a society, you'll find a lot of
them finding reasons to justify having sex with little kids. Right,

(24:48):
just a thing that keeps happening. It happens with Christians,
it happens on the left. It happens and every religion
and every political movement. It happens all the time with
conservative Christians. It's just a uh I I. It's these
people are predators, and predators are good at taking advantage
of power dynamics. Tony's a predator who wound up at

(25:10):
the head of a cult, and he understands how to
manipulate people. And as time goes on and he's kind
of freed further from any influence of his dead wife,
he gets more and more extreme with the things he's
willing to justify to his followers, and he keeps getting
away with it, so he keeps going further.

Speaker 3 (25:26):
Right. My question though, is that the wife wasn't necessarily
trying to protect the children as much as she was
jealous of the children she's with their daughter. Yeah, she
was like upset with the daughter for seducing her husband
at such an age.

Speaker 2 (25:39):
Give her credit.

Speaker 3 (25:40):
Yeah, you're right, But this is that conversation is that
no one really takes responsibility because they're just like, well,
he's the one bad character we didn't know better. But
the thing is, yeah you did, Yeah you did. You're
the parent or the people who are like, watch these
children grow up or haven't grown up. And then that's like, oh,
everything about this and the fact that this continues to

(26:02):
be a justifiable conversation, as if eventually someone will believe
me and I agree with me. Yeah, it works, they do.

Speaker 2 (26:12):
Yep, yep, yeah, and it works for him for way
too long. In nineteen ninety three, he releases a tract
titled the Polygamists, where he justifies his behavior by arguing
the Holy Scriptures proclaim polygamy to be righteous, and he's
doing a lot of what like the there's a chunk
of the Mormons, the FLDS Church very similar justifications for

(26:34):
polygamy and for fucking kids. You know that you find
between the two of them very similar to the kind
of stuff David Koresh is saying. Right, because David Koresh
is a friend of his, right, of course, of course,
of course these guys get along.

Speaker 3 (26:49):
Wait, I would think that because he would be older
than David Koresh. Right, I'm trying to geh. Oh, Yeah,
I think he's a bit he's maybe he was mentoring
this dude at this point.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
I think there's a bit of that going on. I
don't know how Koresh because obviously Koresh is no longer
able to give interviews, so I'm not sure one hundred
percent how David would have described what their relationship was.
But we'll talk about a little later how Tony describes it.
In a broadcast for his TV network, talking about polygamy,
Tony expounded, they're condemning polygamy when it's never condemned. God

(27:21):
never says no polygamist shall enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
But these bastards, these homosexual Vaticanites, they condone homosexuals, and
they condemn marriage and a man that would take care
of his They say, you're a polygamist that I married
too many wives will find out prove it. And even
if I was, there's no law in the Bible against it. Now,
as you may be noticing here, Tony saved much of

(27:41):
his hatred for gay people and the Catholic Church who
thought wear the same thing. And we're responsible for both Nazism, communism,
and pornography, all of it could be traced back to
the Vaticans, and while Tony didn't get along with the Catholics,
he could be open minded when it came to other
cult leaders. He was friends, particularly with David Koresh. Tony

(28:02):
told an interviewer that David was quote like a brother
to me. No, I don't know. Does that mean they
were really super frie Did he just see some value
because these guys are preaching similar things vis a VI
pedophilia and polygamy. I don't know. It's hard to say
precisely how much money came into the cult because Tony
was not a fan of paying taxes. I know you're

(28:24):
going to be shocked by that, right, the foundation and
again the church doesn't have to pay taxes because that's
how churches work, unfortunately, But like his massively successful business
is business selling denim vest to mister t has to
pay taxes?

Speaker 3 (28:39):
Does it it was under like the actual umbrella of
his cult that he still does.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
Yes, yes, because it's not I mean like it's an
actual like business, you know, like Tony's arguing it shouldn't
have to, but the irs will feel differently. We know
that from nineteen seventy to nineteen seventy six, the foundations
reported income went from forty six one thousand dollars a
year to one point three million dollars a year. And again,
this is nineteen seventies money. It is obvious under reporting

(29:07):
the Colt's numerous businesses and fleet of cadillacts would have
required much more than this and income to maintain. What
got Tony in trouble for the first time was the
Fair Laboral Standards Act. No matter how many Fire and
Brimstone speeches about how Tony gave, some number of his
followers left each year, and as they re entered the
real world, some of them caught on to the fact

(29:28):
that Tony had actually broken the law by not paying them.
Some of these people wound up talking to the government,
and in nineteen seventy six the Department of Labor sued
the Foundation for exploiting workers. It alleged that they'd been
made to work twelve to fifteen hours a day, six
to seven days a week without salary. Now that starts
in seventy six, but the case takes a decade to

(29:48):
wind to conclusion. Right, this is not a fast moving case,
and it reaches the Supreme Court this is the Supreme Court,
here's this case and rules nine to zero that workers,
even an cult, are entitled to minimum wage and overtime benefits,
which you would think, Oh, good, Tony's going to have
to pay everybody now he does not. He finds workarounds,

(30:11):
He delays payments as long as possible, and he orchestrates
ways to recoup the money. Now that he was paying
his workers a legal salary. What he would do is
every couple of weeks he would give everyone their paychecks
and then they would have a big to do of
everyone handing their paychecks back as donations to the church.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
Right tithing. Right, That's what I would.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
Say, exactly, one hundred percent tithes. Still, the case had
been as high profile as cases get, which drew the
attention of federal law enforcement. So at this point Tony
has gotten sued, He's lost his case. It takes ten
years for him to lose his case, but nothing really

(30:50):
changes about the way the colt actually operates its business.
In the early nineteen nineties, Tony and the Tony and
Susie Alamo Susan Alamo Foundation embarks on a bold new scam,
one that was surprisingly petty given the other businesses operated
by the cold but it gives you the level of
contempt that they have both for like Christian charity and

(31:12):
for the law. And I want to read a quote
from an article by NBC News. Peter and Georgiadas of Pittsburgh,
lawyer who sued Alamo on behalf of EX Followers in
the nineties, said ministry workers accepted donations of food near
its expiration dates, wiped off the dates, and resold the
items to grocers. It's plain, flat out fraud, the lawyer said.
Mary Koker, who helped X Followers contact federal agents, said

(31:35):
that the ministry has been selling outdated government donated food
since it moved to FUK in the nineteen nineties. So
part one of their businesses is taking food donations and
then operating a business to sell to grocery stores expired
foods that had been donated for free.

Speaker 3 (31:53):
I'm not gonna lie that's a hustle.

Speaker 2 (31:55):
That's a hustle, huz these people. You know, he's got
a lot of minds working for There's a lot of
dudes who's only thought every day is how can we
make more money for Tony Alamo? And they keep coming
up with ways.

Speaker 3 (32:06):
You know that is I would have never thought of that.
There's a reasonable grocery stores model. Yeah, but like grocery
stores actually buying from them, that's I guess at different times.
It's different times.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
It definitely was. In nineteen ninety one, the fence carried
out a raid on Alamo's HQ and Georgia Ridge. He
had enough warning that he was able to flee ahead
of the authorities, along with most of his valuable property.
The cops who raided his place found piles of bibles,
eighty two pews, fifteen hundred Alamo jackets, photos of Tony

(32:39):
with Larry Hackman, and dozens of mirrors, But they did
not find Susan's body. That's the mausoleum had been smashed open.

Speaker 3 (32:48):
Wait so wait her body's missing now?

Speaker 2 (32:51):
Oh yeah, yeah missing?

Speaker 3 (32:52):
Wait what what are we trying to resurrect? Our two
point zero was? It's like, no, what's happening.

Speaker 2 (32:59):
It's so much pettier than that. So Chris, Susan's daughter,
despite how much her mom had abused her, still loved
her mom and wanted to give her a proper burial.
And Tony hates this girl so once she sues him,
being like, you have to give me my mom's body.
He has his followers steal it away and store the

(33:21):
corpse in a storage unit to hide her. It would
take like seven years for Chris to win the right
to have her mom's body returned and reburied. Alama was
eventually ordered to pay one hundred thousand dollars in damages.
But like, that's it's just he's not even trying to
raise her from the dead. He's just trying to keep
her from being buried where her daughter can be a
part of it. Because he's a real piece of shit. Yeah,

(33:46):
very some reason.

Speaker 3 (33:46):
I feel like she would Susan would have enjoyed that
her daughter after death.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Also that yes, yes, Tony probably was following her wishes.
Tony spent the first half of the nineteen nineties on
a run from the law. The FBI put out wanted
posters for him, which stated Alamo is always accompanied by
bodyguards who have access to numerous weapons, to include M
fourteen rifles. He is known to be hostile to law

(34:12):
enforcement and is considered armed and dangerous. Now that's all true.
What's wild to me is while he is on the run,
his followers keep making jackets, and he keeps designing them.
He uses a fax machine to skin send sketches from
his Heidi Holes to different manufacturing facilities. He gains the.

Speaker 3 (34:33):
Way they fought, the parents are making their children still
make these jackets. Oh he's still the children.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Oh yeah, yeah, it's still primarily the children. Yes, And
he keeps giving interviews to journalists about the jackets. He
even visits his Hollywood storefront while he's on the run
from the FBI. He tells the La Times everything I
do is a work of art. I do the designs
wherever I'm at. And there's this this La Times article

(35:03):
that I'm going to be quoting from is amazing because
it's like he's talking to the people who are running
these shops selling these jackets, being like, but you know,
like he's on the run for a bunch of crimes, right,
Like kids have accused him of molesting them. He's on
the FBI's most wanted list. Why are you still selling
his jackets right and happening?

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Why? Oh my god.

Speaker 2 (35:26):
The La Times is reporting indicated that Alamo jackets continue
to be manufactured in California, New York, and primarily Arkansas.
No one working at any of these factories received any pay,
and apparently nothing meaningful had changed after that nineteen eighty
five ruling. Quote. One former member who left the cult
last year said working conditions at Alamo clothing shops have

(35:47):
changed little since the ruling. The former member, who asked
not to be identified, said he has seen young children
working in the shops with their parents. Workers were paid
only a five dollars a week stipend, plus room and
boarded in the Lamo commune, he said. Now the article
struck a bemused tone, veering from these store owners and
customers praising the artistry of the jackets. We felt differently

(36:08):
about rhyin Stones back then to former cult members describing
the labor conditions as that of an unpaid sweatshop that
primarily employed children. One question about this, Tony told a reporter,
the clothing is so groovy. Everyone wants it, no matter
what they think I am. No matter what, the superstars
are gonna want my jackets.

Speaker 3 (36:30):
First of all, the voice is fantastic. Did he take
all like hippie speak in order to like sell this?
After all?

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Oh, he comes out of that world, you know, I
think he is. At one point I think in the
late sixties he probably was trying his hand at being
a hippie. You know, he's in La around that time.

Speaker 3 (36:46):
I guess hippie and Jean Jacket Denham maybe they didn't
go hand in hand.

Speaker 2 (36:49):
I don't know sure he is in all. This whole
cult is shrapnel of the hippie movement, right the hippie
movement doesn't really change anything. A lot of people wind
up on the street and mentally damaged in the after
shocks of the anti war movement in the Summer of Love.
And you know, Tony is Tony and his initial cult
followers are those people. So being decent reporters, the La

(37:14):
Times Crew reached out to the FBI about the fact
that this guy, who's apparently one of their most wanted
seems to still be selling gen jackets in Hollywood. Quote.
FBI spokesman Jim Neilson said the bureau is continuing at
search for Alamo, but refuse to elaborate on the investigation. Now,
if you're thinking, boy, isn't the fact that this serial

(37:34):
child molester and child traffick are manufacturing expensive clothing for
the most famous people on Earth and giving interviews will
on the run from the FBI. Isn't that a hideous
indictment of our federal law enforcement agencies? And my answer
would be, oh man, they were up to so much
worse shit than this in the mid nineties. Bro, I
don't know what to tell you that this is actually

(37:57):
kind of low. Now, some of the money from jacket
sales was reinvested into the cult, primarily into the production
of vast numbers of flyers complaining that Tony was being
wrongfully targeted by the government on behalf of the Vatican.
His Christian soldiers, largely followers, braced out of his Sauga's compound,
trolled the streets of Hollywood and West LA putting leaflets

(38:17):
on the windshields of thousands of cars from that article.
The leaflet's rambling denunciations claimed that the District Attorney's Office,
the Internal Revenue Service, and the Department of Labour are
linked to a terrorist plot against the Alamo Church led
by Pope John Paul the Second. The leaflets have become
a common sight on Los Angeles streets, with titles such
as government subversion against Alamo and Tony Alamo My side

(38:39):
of the story. They have at various times appeared littered
along the sidewalk on Broadway and downtown Los Angeles, at
a county courthouse in Lancaster, and on the windshields of
cars at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles International Airport. The
leaflets bear the same sauga's phone number as glossy brochures
used by Alamo Designs to promote the sequin jackets. By

(39:00):
dialing the number of callers can learn how to obtain
more of Alamo's religious literature, or which Los Angeles area
stores carry Alamo's jackets. You can get it all propaganda
or the jacket. Michael Jackson, Warren Bad, same guy, what.

Speaker 3 (39:17):
A deal, what a deal, A good conversation, and jackets,
beaded jackets on beaded jackets.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yes, it's so funny how they would talk about rhinestones
like serious art, Like, oh my god, the rhinestones on
these are amazing.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
Are so good.

Speaker 2 (39:35):
What a special period of time that was for America.
Speaking of special our sponsors, all of them, beautiful, special
beat None of them are on the run from the FBI,
hiding in the mountains. You know, that's not any of
our sponsors, except for maybe that food box company that
just got caught with child labor stuff. Anyway, whatever, we'll

(39:56):
be back and we're back. So by this point, there
are numerous reports in the media that Tony was molesting children.
I hate coming back on a line like that, but
this is the story that it is, he argued on
his own TV program for polygamy and marriage of children

(40:18):
as young at twelve. Yet major stores, including Macy's and
Bullocks continued to sell his jackets until they were literally
hounded by the press. These La Times reporters even came
up with a photo of Tony shaking hands with Los
Angeles Mayor Tim Bradley, and the picture was taken while
Tony was on the FBI Most Wanted list. Wow, Bradley

(40:40):
told report. Bradley's spokesperson told reporters, I guess Alamo was
known for his sequin jackets something else at this point too. Man,
I don't know what very La mayor thing to do, though, Like, look,
famous people wear his stuff. I don't care what crimes
he's committing.

Speaker 3 (40:57):
Right, I mean, that's not like the Jaws moment. Yes,
pretend like no one's dead. No, pretend likely there's not
a giant shark attack. Were she gonna enjoy the summer.
Let's chill.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
I can't imagine the mayor from Jaws like arm in
arm with Tony Alamo very easy Now. While he evaded
law enforcement with almost comical ease, Tony continued to take
new brides. One of the oldest of them was a
seventeen year old girl named Yale, who was married to
another man in the colt and gave birth in nineteen
ninety three while on the run with Tony in his

(41:27):
inner circle. As soon as she finished giving birth, Tony
kicked her husband out of the colt. Yale had to
beg to have him reinstated, and Tony told her he
would on one cognition, she'd have to marry him. From
a write up by the SPLC, Alamo's five wives played
with her young daughter in another room as she pondered
her fate. It's like having a loaded gun to your head,

(41:48):
she says, now, refusing, Alamo meant, not only might you
get beat half to death, but you'll go to hell
on top of it. So pretty bleak, she says, Yes,
the thing that you would expect happens. It's as awful
as you would guess. It took Yale years to accept
that what happened was not consensual. But obviously she was

(42:11):
seventeen and he was sixty and the leader of her cult. Right,
So they're not married long and during their brief period
because he is free for about a year after marrying
her before he finally gets caught. And during that brief
period he marries a nine year old girl and a
ten year old girl. Here's how Yale described his grooming practice.

(42:33):
Every little girl starting to develop wants to feel beautiful,
and he was very good at making them feel that way.
He prayed on the fact that we were alienated from
our parents. They worked and worked, and some of us
hadn't seen our parents in a very long time.

Speaker 3 (42:46):
Yeah that makes sense.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Yeah, no, I was, I mean.

Speaker 3 (42:49):
To be fair in these cold situations, it doesn't matter
usually the parents, whether their present or not. They're somewhat
like complicit parts complicit again.

Speaker 2 (42:58):
I think a lot of these, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (43:01):
But then like separating them makes a lot of sense,
which it does happen in a lot of cults.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's pretty standard cult behavior, and I
mean it makes sense that that's how Tony works.

Speaker 3 (43:11):
So he was okay with other people having multi relationships too,
it wasn't just him or did he do all the marrying.

Speaker 2 (43:16):
Oh, it's he's doing all the marrying. Yeah. Yeah, some
people are allowed to be married. But as Yale's get like,
you can get forcibly separated by him if he doesn't,
if he gets jealous of your relationship. In nineteen ninety four,
the year after their marriage, Tony was finally arrested in
This is not going to surprise anyone, Florida, where he

(43:37):
had been living for most of the time he spent
on the run under a fake name. He was convicted
of tax fraud to the tune of nine million dollars
and sentenced to six years in prison. Again, it was
evidence by this point that he was practicing polygamy with children.
But a year or so before his arrest in February
of nineteen ninety three, the BATF and the FBI had
had a bloody standoff with Tony's friend David Carey and

(44:00):
his cold outside of Waco. The whole thing had ended
with several dead agents, many dead coltists, and dozens of
dead children. The disaster at Waco, which came right off
the heels of the bloody ATF standoff at Ruby Ridge
had galvanized the American religious right against what they saw
as federal overreach. The fact that the Feds had fucked
up hideously and made a very bad situation even worse

(44:22):
made all of this a lot more problematic, and the
FBI at all responded by pulling back from going after
figures like a Lamo, which is why I suspect no
one did the fairly minimal work necessary to charge him
over his polygamy and child molestation at this stage. In fact,
while he is in prison, he is allowed to have
visitation rights with his wives per the SPLC the children.

(44:47):
Yeah what Yeah. Although he was incarcerated during most of
their marriage, Alamo kept in touch through regular prison visits,
where Yale and other wives present at the time alleged
that he would fondle the younger girls as older wives
blocked the view of the prison security cameras. He allegedly
spoke to the girls in graphic terms about group sex

(45:08):
and whips, says Yale, who became terrified of him at
the time. Neale says she was still in awe of Alamo.
She worked eighteen hour days transcribing the tapes a Lama
would record for his followers, She says, editing out his
curse words. I would have killed for him. It would
have killed my child or anyone for him, even though
I hated him. Yale says, now I'd become his little demon,
finding sick joy and telling people horrible things on orders

(45:30):
from Tony. Oh oh boy, what cult dynamics, Like I
know two to zero one there the whole older wives
hiding what's happening. But also the fact that like, why
are you prison officials letting children come here?

Speaker 3 (45:53):
There's so many questions. I have so many questions, like rumors,
Like they already know they're these rumors, but then they
let them in. Yeah, this is completely normal.

Speaker 2 (46:04):
Yeah, I mean a big part of the Tony Alamos
story is that our legal system is set up to
enable certain kinds of cult leaders, even when they molest
children on a grand scale, because that's a lot easier
for all of the people who have the like these
government often these appointee jobs to just not upset the
apple cart and piss off, you know, certain segments of

(46:26):
the country by trying to stop the mass rape of children.
It's cool, right, I love it.

Speaker 3 (46:31):
The amount of like, first of all, just just from
what I remember working as a social worker for defacts.
Having a child sex abuse case literally costs a dude
six thousand dollars in probation. Yeah, that was, and that's
if we had proof dead to rights. Yeah, I mean,

(46:51):
like had to be forensic proof or the child had
to be able to explicitly tell in detail what it
happened to them. But that's the like it. You would
talk about the fact that it only costs a bit
of money if you want to do this. It's disgusting.

Speaker 2 (47:05):
And the vin diagram of guys who would like shoot
elected officials if those laws were changed to make the
punishments be more substantial, and guys who own kill your
local pedophile shirts is just a circle, right, the same guys,
the same base. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Absolutely.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Tony ultimately served four years of this sentence, leaving prison
in nineteen ninety eight and immediately booking it for the
town of Folk, Arkansas. Fouke. He repeated the same well
worn tactics that had helped him build an inviable role
of properties and businesses in two other Arkansas small towns
and in Hollywood up to this point. For nearly a decade,
Tony enjoyed wealth, instability, The town even honored him with

(47:45):
a certificate of appreciation in February two thousand and six
for deeds that he and his church did to aid
those in need in our community and for his Christian
love and kindness.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
And this is why I don't trust question.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
Yeah, I mean, this is why I have a lot
of trouble trusting anybody who runs a church.

Speaker 3 (48:05):
I'll say that much, right, Yeah, I mean I was
gonna say a lot of this is hand in hand
once again with the current church leaders today.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
It is, I will say, there's a difference in that
it's these local small town residents who are I assume
also evangelical Christians generally, who are some of the first
people to stand up to Tony. Because here's the thing
about pedophile cult leaders again, if you give them an inch,
they wind up setting up armed guards on public streets,

(48:35):
which is what an increasingly paranoid and elderly Tony did
later in two thousand and six. By this point, the
FEDS had started investigating him again, this time finally over
the child molestation and trafficking. Alamo responded by ordering his
armed guards to line the public street approaching his property.
It is an unfortunate but undeniable reality that when you

(48:55):
give a man a rifle and tell him to patrol
the street, regardless of his legal position, he'll start questioning
random strangers. This happened, and its seriously pissed off residents
who complained to the local government, and then the local
government did nothing because they were almost certainly being bribed
by the cult or were just scared of it, and
thus the government took no action until the abuses grew

(49:16):
too numerous to ignore, so residents had to take actions
into their own hands. One resident, Judy Fraser, a small
business owner in town, started looking into the dark and
documented history of Al Alamo ministries. She starts publishing stuff,
she starts organizing the accounts of former members, and she's
going to be like one of the most effective ground

(49:36):
level activists against Tony. Ex followers start going to the
media with increased frequency. One of them, a former school teacher,
claims Tony ordered her daughter, who suffered from epilepsy, beaten
while she was having a seizure because said seizures were
caused by the devil. Another Sue Balsley, told the SPLC
that her teenage boy was held in the air by

(49:57):
four men and beaten one hundred and forty times as
punishment for sending a lovel letter to a female classmate
his own age. And it just keeps getting worse from there.
There's the case of a girl, Cindy Joe Angelo, when
she was fifteen and married to someone else because again

(50:19):
not great dynamics outside of being married to Alamo in
this cult. Alamo calls her into his house and makes
her his wife in nineteen ninety five, which is when
she finds out that her eleven year old sister had
also been made a bride. Nicki Farr told the SPLC
report that she had fled Alamo's house in nineteen ninety
nine at age fifteen after three years of basically showing

(50:43):
up for those prison visits and being sexually harassed by Tony.
She didn't want to marry him once he got out,
and she escaped from the cult by crawling through ditches
and over barbed wire after he caught her making an
unauthorized phone call and knocked her out. Pretty bad stuff. Yeah, yeah,
I was.

Speaker 3 (51:03):
Was this a documentary at any point, because some of
these stories sound or ministry.

Speaker 2 (51:09):
It might have been a BBC documentary about this.

Speaker 3 (51:11):
I may have watched parts of it because some of
this sounds, especially like the town being like this is
getting weird to finally getting to that point familiar.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
We've crossed the line for small town.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
Right, like we would mind our business. But then when
you start doing this and like.

Speaker 2 (51:26):
Devalu on the streets, the girls fleeing barbed wire. Yeah, okay,
so from this point on the dam was broken. Reporting
in February of two thousand and seven linked to Lamo
to a warehouse of three thousand stolen mattresses owned by
two of his wives. I wouldn't bring this up because, like,
mattress theft not a huge crime, except these were temper

(51:49):
pedic mattresses from a lot of eight thousand that had
been donated by the company to victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Tony's men had wound up stealing them somehow and sold
an estimated four thousand of them for half a million dollars.
So like, you're stealing mattresses for Katrina victims.

Speaker 3 (52:07):
Well, there's so many level God, like, I want to
know this is like a fast and furious operation. Yeah, yeah,
Like there's a there's a package coming, there's a truck imaged.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Pretty so and furious. It's going to take a lot
of trucks to move eight thousand mattresses. God how they
didn't have mail order mattress technology like we do today.
Thank god you no, no, you could do it with
like those what were those, the Podcaster mattresses?

Speaker 3 (52:39):
Now they're at Costco.

Speaker 2 (52:40):
Yeah, now they're at Costco. Casper. You could do it
with Casper's. You can get eight thousand of those in
a couple of box jobs. So state and federal law
enforcement rated the Alamo compound in September of two thousand
and eight, charging him with child abuse, possession of child pornography,
sexual abuse, and trafficking. He was convicted on the testimony
of five women who claimed they'd been married to him
in secret ceremonies as miners. The youngest of these women

(53:03):
had been eight at the time. After decades of horrific crimes,
Tony Alama was convicted in two thousand and nine of
taking girls across state lines for the purpose of sex.
He was sentenced to the maximum one hundred and seventy
five years in prison. Now he ultimately serves only a
fraction of that because in May of twenty seventeen. He
dies at the age of eighty two, but he still

(53:24):
spends a decent bit of time in prison and he
dies there. So I guess that's as good as this
story was ever going to end.

Speaker 3 (53:31):
I want to know that the prisoner's cuddled him. Yeah,
I'm just kidding, do it?

Speaker 2 (53:36):
I know that? Like, yeah, did they try to bring
him back? I don't know. I hope he had a
bad time. I hope it was all bad from that
point on, because he didn't get nearly what I would
describe as a fair punishment, like nine years in prison
for what's really a dizzying array of crimes.

Speaker 3 (53:58):
Right, and the fact that he loved a majority Do
you have his adulthood in luxury and like infamy, people
respected his stuff. That's really disgusting. It makes me, yeah,
angry at the entire system, like the fact that people
are okay with this, Like I want to know, did
Michael Jackson obviously can't now, but like mister t die

(54:19):
pardon anybody ever talk about, you know, having a shame
in that or like renouncing any of those things? Did
they at least burn.

Speaker 2 (54:27):
I haven't run into it. I mean, what are you
gonna say, like Hey, you know this guy who so
you bought a jacket from turned out to suck. So like,
it's not like, you know, it's not like they were
like working together, you know, like it's not like Dolly
Parton was in business with him specifically she liked, she
did some shows at a venue he owned, She owned

(54:49):
a jacket. Like, I don't know where we lock that
in in terms of responsibility at a moral level.

Speaker 3 (54:55):
Right, I mean it's very least like acknowledging that the
victims existed, including the child labor, yeah, went into her work.

Speaker 2 (55:03):
Yeah, I mean I think it would have been good
to say something for all of these people who bought
Alamo jackets. But I'm not surprised they didn't.

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Of course not, they wouldn't. Yeah, I mean, we don't
know who the queens and kings and presidents are at
this point.

Speaker 2 (55:18):
No, yes, I do want to know. Yeah, I do
imagine the King of Saudi Arabia has a nice collection
of ryanstoned denim vests.

Speaker 3 (55:26):
I mean I feel like Bill Clinton probably had one, Yeah,
putting one of those on and playing his saxophone, Oh yeah,
on par.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, I wouldn't be shocked. I wouldn't be shocked, especially
since we know he was a fan. All right, yeah,
well that's the episode.

Speaker 3 (55:45):
I need to stage my computer. How do I do this?

Speaker 2 (55:48):
Just just burn it? Just burn your computer? Oh man,
good stuff? Well anything you want to push out there,
Samantha at the.

Speaker 3 (55:58):
End, you know, talk about stuff on stuff mom never
told you about how the world is awful and similar
to these bad people and hopefully solutions or at least
positive things. So if you want to come listen to us,
you can find me on Blue Sky McVeigh. Sam. I
do have Instagram and all that, but I'm rarely on there.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
Yeah, well, check out Sam McVay and check out Maybe
don't check out social media too much, but you'll if
you do find Sam on it. Above all, else, don't
buy a denim jacket. They're all made by cult.

Speaker 3 (56:33):
Leaders, especially if it's bedazzled.

Speaker 2 (56:36):
Yeah yeah, especially if it's bedazzled. Just avoid that for
your own soul's sake. All right, And that's the episode. Everybody,
We're done.

Speaker 1 (56:47):
Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool
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the Bastards is now available on YouTube, new episodes every
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(57:07):
slash at Behind the Bastards