January 22, 2024 • 56 mins
Furious family members, community and friends demand answers when three men are found dead in Kansas City days after watching a football game. AI creates a full special inspired by the works of legendary philosopher and stand-up comic George Carlin. Prompted by in-depth, disturbing journalism, the FBI begins investigating former Abercrombie and Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries for multiple sex crimes, including trafficking across international borders. All this and more in this week's strange news segment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noela.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We're joined as olders with our
super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are here that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. As you're listening, we are reaching
the end of January in twenty twenty four, coming off
(00:47):
a long weekend here in the United States, where every
company worth being a company does acknowledge, commemorate, and celebrate
Martin Luther King Day. Over the long weekend, a lot
of very bizarre things happened. A stand up comic was
(01:09):
brought back from the dead, the FBI is true story
investigating some decades worth of villainous actions by a fashion maven.
And something tragic and mysterious happened in Kansas City.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Finally, well really not in the tragic part, but just
something happening in Kansas City. I'm kidding. Kansas City is
a great town. I would like to go.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, this is something mysterious that occurred in tragic. On Sunday,
January seventh, several friends gathered at a home within the
Coves Subdivision in the northwest suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri,
to watch their home team, the Chiefs, play the Los
Angeles Chargers. The game was watched by four or more people,
(01:58):
we know that for sure, or more. That's important here
and the game that they watched was played at Sofi
Stadium in Inglewood, California. The Chiefs won thirteen to twelve. Now,
I'm the last person you'd ever want to ask any
information about football, but from the numbers, it appears to
have been a close, perhaps tense game. Could also be important.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Tell us more about football, Well I will, but.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I'm leaving little Easter eggs here that we can call
back to later. Bread crumbs, bread crumbs, there you go.
That's a thank you, Payne Lindsay for that. There was
only one touchdown made by the Chiefs in the first quarter.
The Chargers came back with several field goals and they
were leading the game twelve to ten in the fourth quarter,
but the winning field goal was made by the Chiefs
(02:42):
in the fourth quarter. It's one of those come back
from behind things. And by the way, they are currently
number one in the AFC West, whatever that means. Again,
I don't know if.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
You'd both sports common data.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
It's a good thing for the fans. You'll love to
see it. Also, also shout out to all our Australian listeners.
Got a message recently where someone asked me a similar question, Matt.
They were like, can you explain American football? And I
just said, tune in for halftime. It's a commercial written enterprise.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Can I say though, that the Chargers is clearly the
best name for a football team, the most descriptive name
for what that sport looks like. They got that one
on lock.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
So yeah, goo up there with gpsy concussions.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Enough again, guys, I don't know football, but I do
know true crime stories, and this is one of those.
After the game, guys, friends and family attempted to contact
three of the men present at that home in Kansas City.
There were text messages sent calls, messages sent out over
social media, and there was no response from all three
(03:48):
of these men for three days. So remember that's January seventh,
Sunday night when they're watching that game. On Tuesday, January ninth,
the fiance of one of the missing men to matters
into her own hands, drove to the home. She's banging
on the door, nobody is answering, so she goes around
to the back, through the backyard and to the basement
(04:09):
and she enters that. She forcefully enters the home. After
looking around, she discovers the body of one of the
friends dead on the back porch. Now, first of all,
that's horrifying. We don't have a lot of information. We'll
get to that later, but I'm just going to continue
telling you kind of what happened in order so then
(04:30):
we can start to really pick this thing apart.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
One question. So we say there's a fiance, and the
fiance checks in after three days.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
The fiance has been attempting to make contact. It was
known that the vehicles of all three men were still
parked there at this home. I'll say that. And finally,
after not being able to contact anyone in that home,
she decides, I'm just going to break in and see
what I can find. Like, I'm that scared, basically, right.
(05:05):
So then she immediately contacts the police at around ten
pm that night on January ninth, The police arrive, they
search the property, and they discover in the backyard the
bodies of the two other missing men. So three dead bodies,
same house. What the heck's going on? According to police,
(05:26):
there are no obvious signs of foul play immediately near
or around the crime scene, so like right near the
bodies or right around the bodies in the mediate area.
They were all outside. Now this is an important part.
They were outside the home. Okay, that's going to factor in.
As of today, Wednesday, January seventeenth, the causes of death
(05:47):
for all three men has not been released to the public.
According to police, they are awaiting medical examiner results. Again,
as of today, as we're recording, there's no information. And
I'll just say right now, I called one of the
local CBS affiliates there to make sure there was no
updates that haven't been published yet, no updates, nothing else
(06:07):
is known. Now let's go back in time. Here we
go Friday, January twelfth. That is when police first announce
to the public and to local news stations that they're
seeking a search warrant for the home. Right, those bodies
were found in the backyard of the home, but that
is not inside the home. So it's not like there's
probable cause I guess to go into the home and
(06:31):
look around, right to find possible evidence of a crime.
And if there's no at least according to the police,
if there's no signs of foul play, there's no reason
to do that, right unless new information was revealed at
some point between February ninth and the twelfth. Does that
make sense?
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Sure, they're also getting a ton of pressure from the
friends and family of these three missing men to look
inside that house to figure out what's going on. And
they also announced the names of the three men who
were found dead. So let's go ahead and say these names.
Clayton mcguiney. Mcguiney, I think is how you'd say that
McGee n y. He was thirty six years old. He
(07:10):
is the person who's fiance traveled to the house, broke
in and discovered the bodies. There's David Harrington who is
thirty seven years old, and Ricky Johnson who is thirty
eight years old, who was married and the father of
three children. Now here's the part in the story, Ben,
can we get an hwigc.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
According to several sources close to this story, friends and
family of the deceased. They are speaking out about the
situation and they's some weird stuff at play. They are saying,
the person who is currently renting that house, who is
still alive, was home while the friends watched the game,
while Clayton's fiance broke in, and while the police arrived.
(07:55):
So there was a human being that rents that house.
It was home the whole time. They're also saying that
this person was aware that those friends and family were
trying to contact the men and him, and avoided all
of that contact for three days, again until the police arrived.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I don't like it.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It doesn't sound good.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Right, No, no, sir.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
If anything, it means this person knows exactly what happened, right,
This one person, at least, if there weren't other people there,
knows exactly what happened.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
I mean, unless there is some sort of extenuating circumstance
compromising their lucidity. Right, unless they are unless they are,
like so many people in the Midwest, struggling with substance
issues or have some sort of mental condition. But the
(08:50):
I agree with you, Matt, the window of time there
is quite egregious it is.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
So let's jump to some writing by Chris Spargo from
Inside Edition. This was published on Monday, January fifteenth, to
get a little more information about what's being said in
those circumstances we're talking about there, Ben, there are several
friends who are posting on Facebook publicly about this, and
one of those friends is Kaylee Lettier. And this is
(09:16):
a fairly long quote, but I think this is important stuff.
We have to keep in mind. This is a claim.
This is not an official statement. This is from Kaylee quote.
This man was inside his home alive while my friends
were dead in his yard for lord knows how long
they were all hanging out, since after the game Sunday.
He knew people were looking for them. He read messages
(09:38):
of people searching for him. On Tuesday, my husband banged
on his door for twenty minutes. My friend banged on
his door and then busted a window and yelled and
announced her presence while she's inside, and still nothing from him.
Then the cops come ten minutes later and he comes
out nonchalant in his boxers with an empty wine glass
in hand. Again, we don't know if we cannot confirm
(10:02):
any of that. That is a statement from one person,
but again it does not sound good, right right. And
there's one more statement that we need to get from
someone named Jennifer Marquez, who was the mother of one
of the deceased, David Harrington. She says that this person
who was renting the home contacted some or at least
(10:23):
told some friends and family that all three of those
men went outside at some point and froze to death. Okay, well,
so you know we're talking Kansas City here. It's been
really cold lately, right in the beginning of this year.
So I went and checked the historical records for how
cold it was that evening on the seventh, all the
(10:45):
way to the ninth, and I would just say that
I found on January seventh, there was a high of
forty degrees fahrenheit and a low of thirty four degrees
fahrenheit thirty four or just two degrees above freezing. And
then when the police arrived on January ninth, the temperature
was dropping that evening and it had reached about twenty four
(11:05):
degrees fahrenheit when they arrived at the house. Precipitous, so
it was getting colder and colder. It wasn't snowing a lot,
but there was definitely a lot of the temperatures were
quite quite cold, right, so it is, but there is
potential that those guys were outside and their temperature dropped,
(11:26):
I guess, but it does. It feels highly unlikely to
me that that is the reason they would have frozen
to death.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Is not that the love pass exactly, No, I mean,
but you know, if they were intoxicated enough and perhaps
blacked out, but for all three of them to be
that incapacitated, I would say something else was at play
other than just alcohol. If that's the case, you know,
to be that unaware of your you know, rapidly dropping
(11:56):
body temperature.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, Again, we don't know if any substances were involved
with any of the people at that home that night.
The variation that could exist there could answer a lot
of questions.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Well, sure, poison perhaps would be the badger in the bag, right.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Or the bad poisonous one, or you know, if everybody
is on something and even the person we're talking about
who lived there was passed for that, Yeah, maybe he
didn't know and then he woke up and was scared.
That's one possibility. Sure's an infinite number of things that
could have gone down. It's now basically a waiting game
until the police released more information.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
No toxicology report yet, I.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Assume no, at least none that I have seen, none
that case TV five has seen, and Inside Edition isn't
reporting on it or any of the other local stations.
Just one last thing here. They have all attempted to
make contact with this person, all of the local affiliates,
and nobody has successfully spoken with him yet. It's unknown
(12:57):
if there's an attorney representing him or anything like that.
In his name has not been released by the police
or by any of these publications, which because he has
not been charged with any crime.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Well, I was going to ask, like, what is the
crime other than being a bad friend? Like I mean,
I imagine if you own property and someone dies, you know,
on your property. That's what insurance is for, you know,
if people needed untimely and their own faults or through
perhaps tripping over something. But I mean, you know, you're
(13:29):
allowed to pass out for three days. That's not against
the law. I'm saying for the guy that's remained in
that remained indoors, unless he has found to have done
something that's that that involves foul play. I don't think
there's anything to get him for. It's not negligence. They
already left his company. But I don't know. I'm asking, Well,
(13:50):
that's right, that's right, he's.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yes. So also another another person of interest, the POI
here would be the land and board, right, who.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Is probably yeah, depending on where they live.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Well, it's so crazy nowadays you could have somebody who
owns a bunch of property in one city and they
live all the way across the country.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Shout out blackrock Yep.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, that's that's really all the information I have. Oh,
according to neighbors, the person who is renting that house
moved in about six months before now this time, so
again has lived there for quite a while. Those friends
definitely knew this person, and they all gathered together. According
to all friends of family, they all were aware that
(14:34):
this was a night to watch football and it was
just a happy hanging out with friends thing.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
What we know is that this is an ongoing case.
As you outlined, Matt, there are new there are not
identities disclosed regarding suspects. It sounds like the city is
still waiting on further investigation. But we do know that
(15:00):
regardless of how things occurred. There are three children who
no longer have a father.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, the family of Ricky Johnson, one of the deceased,
the man who did have children, they made a GoFundMe
for his funeral services. So they're looking to raise six
thousand dollars and as of us recording this, they've raised
around forty one hundred dollars. So, you know, if anyone
has the means to make a donation to that, then
(15:27):
please do. I'm sure it would help out a ton.
Maybe that's the best thing we can do right now,
besides just keeping a lookout and just just finding answers.
I am personally interested to know what the heck happened,
because it's just it's something I want to avoid. Whatever
the heck happened, I don't want to do that, right,
So I guess just keep your ears to the ground,
(15:49):
let us know if you find anything, and yeah, we'll
be right back with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
And we have returned with another piece of strange news.
Been alluded to this in the opening, the idea of
bringing people back to life, not through necromancy, minds you,
not through some doc ritual. Well, I don't know. We
have talked about how certain prompts for AI can be
kind of compared to an incantation, because you got to
(16:24):
know the right words to say to feed these things
to make them make something that's interesting. The right prompts,
you know, the right things to learn the machine on.
And today we're talking about comedy. You know, comedy the
I don't know, and in many ways one of the
most human of art forms. I think. I think stand
(16:44):
up comedy in particular, at its best is sort of
a combination of like story telling and you know, calling
from one's own experience, and I think lived experience, to
me is what makes the best stand up comedy. There's
all kinds of different flavors of it, but that's the
stuff that usually does it for me.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
The great orators of our time.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Great orators, you know, can parlay those skills into being
good writers as well, often great performer. The timing of
delivering good stand up tends to translate really well to
screen acting, as we know, but George Carlin is widely
considered to be one of the greats in terms of
stand up comedy. There's actually an episode Ben and I
(17:26):
did on Ridiculous History with Wayne Fetterman who teaches stand
up comedy or the history of stand up comedy at
a university in California, and we talk about the dirty words,
George Carlin's dirty words. He does a whole bit on him.
These are the words you can't say on TV or
the radio. The guy's a legend, no question about it.
And he's also deceased. And one thing that comes into
(17:49):
play when dealing with legends, you know, the public and
people who are passionate about art and whatever the person represented,
they've got a stake in this kind of stuff. And
like we saw with the Tupac hologram, you know at
Coachella Lough those many years ago, sometimes these things can
rub people the wrong way, and for a good reason.
(18:11):
And that's what we're talking about today. A podcast that Matt,
you might be able to give a little more background
on it. I'm not I haven't listened to it, but
it is called dude z uh and it is the
inevitable integration of podcast T and AI and it's a
comedy podcast where an AI called dudez essentially, I guess
creates the topics for every episode or I don't know.
(18:35):
Matt can explain a little bit more about how the
AI is part of the show.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Well, I've only I've not watched entire episodes of Dudez.
I have seen it on social media clips quite often,
which I find to be hilarious most of the time
when it's it's these two hosts sometimes just doing impressions
that are so spot on it's insane. It just you know,
as a talk podcast. Then other times they are reac
(19:00):
acting to creations of this AI but that I believe
is also called Dudzi. Yeah, and the stuff I've seen
is just unhinged.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
It's like one of them is will Sasso, who is
famous from being on Matt I would you know, I
would say, is it's a very good uh comedian. It's
funny and also a really good impressionist, which is an
easy thing to do.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
So that's the Tom Hanks clips. Yes, those are I
think those are the ones that attained prominence because it
is clearly AI uh some arcade agglomeration, something like mid Journey,
something like chat GPT with some voice ripping uh. And
(19:42):
it's a since I already use the word ripping, it's
a ripping good.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Time, you know, wizard for one.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, that's one turns into a bus. It's it works
really well as a what if trailer.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, they're like teaser trailers for those new you know,
a movie and they're amazing. Anyway, that's at least my
knowledge coming in to this discussion.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
And those are clearly meant to be completely absurd, and
you know, like these movies that don't exist, that everyone
knows don't exist, and you know, one could argue that
their experiment with what they've done with the story it's
about that's making people upset. Making a new hour of
stand up from a deceased legendary comedian. One could argue
(20:31):
that there is some comedic merit in that, and then
it is sort of taking the piss out of AI
and sort of deflating it a little bit. But that
requires you having a little bit of control over the
spin and the way these things are perceived, and oftentimes
with reporting, people are going for grabby headlines and you
know stuff like you know, hack podcasters resurrect legendary comedian
(20:54):
through AI sort of like that Beatles song where they
took you know, John Lennon's vocal from a the demo
tape and then sort of like enhanced it and allowed
them to make a new song.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
With it.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
People were really upset about that before they even heard
the song, and then they heard the song and we're
just kind of irritated that it sucked. But it was
the ais fault. This wasn't a very good song. So
with this, it's an hour of new stand up. And
I don't think any of us have heard it, So
why don't we hear a little clip of it? Okay,
Ben sird it, Matt and I haven't heard it. Why
don't we hear a little clip of it and we
can all kind of react to in real time before
(21:25):
we bring down our hammered fists of judgment or not.
And by the way, it is called very pointedly George Carlin,
I'm glad I'm Dead twenty twenty four full special, and
you know it's labeled, you know, like a special from
George Carlin, just putting that out there.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
I like to start off with a heartfelt apology. I'm
sorry it took me so long to come out with
new material, but I do have a pretty good excuse.
I was dead, so technically it was my fault. If
you want to blame somebody, you're gonna have to blame God,
which we all know is not gonna happen. People are
(22:09):
always thanking God for the good stuff in their lives,
but somehow they conveniently forget that it's the same God
who does all the badge too, and he does a
lot of badge shit. You get a promotion, praise Jesus,
you get fired.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
God is testing me.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
You meet your soulmate. God brought us together. Your soulmate
dumps you. God is bringing me someone else. You survive
a tornado. I'm so blessed. Twenty other people do not.
God wanted them in heaven. It's all bullshit.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Okay, So looking at each of the three of us,
I think there's a little bit of active cringe going on. Well,
it's really kind of the point, do I do get that?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
But go ahead, Matt, Well, it's just an odd it's
an odd sensation to almost feel like you're hearing George
Carlin write jokes that you can tell feel like written jokes.
It's just they don't they don't have the I was
gonna say, soul. They don't have the thing behind them.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
He was also, in my opinion, and this is just
one entity talking is also a great orator, philosopher, and
truth teller who would have absolutely objected to this the
God jokes technically structurally though it makes sense, No, they
don't make sense. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Remember there was that other AI thing that was like
Seinfeld twenty four hour repeat or whatever, and it was
sort of a non sequiturs. But even that was the
thing about stuff like that is the Seinfeld thing. It
leaned into the absurdity of it. The whole point of
it was that it wasn't good. This one is just
close enough to a kind of cheap facsimile of the
real thing that it feels gross. And obviously the joke
(23:56):
of the whole thing is haha, I'm dead, you know. Okay, great,
that's really not funny objectively. But I bet you that
if I or any of the three of us were
like real students of Carlin and like had done deep
dives into all of his more than I believe a
dozen stand up specials, we'd hear snatches of what created
the jokes in this AI. We'd hear like the kind
(24:18):
of the bones of them, I think, you know. And
that's that's how I or machine learning works. It isn't
creating things out of whole cloth. It's sort of remixing
things that already exist.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Now you can hear it attempting to match his timings, right,
you know, it's not again, it's not quite there because
it's not a person reacting in real time to an
audience the way his specials were.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
It sounds like someone doing an impression of Carlin as
a voice actor, with jokes that he would have not
written because he would have done a better job, to
be honest. But also it reminds me, what's that old
Mitch Hedberg joke about he's on a movie set and
(25:02):
so he smoked fake weed with Willie Nelson and he
said that was a lot like the time I smoked
real weed with a guy who looked like Willy Nelson.
You know, like there's a it's an erosion of the
post truth environment, and I've got to be honest, Noel, Matt.
It's it's making me rethink the joke we made on
(25:24):
Instagram about AI coming for everyone.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Well yeah, no, yeah, for sure. And I think again,
what these guys got wrong in this presentation was a
messing with the legendary comedian. But that's and you know,
knowing that there are diehards that are going to come
for you. But maybe that's the point, you know, the
idea of killing your darlings or killing your idols or whatever,
(25:47):
that there's there's no nothing's off limits in comedy or whatever.
And it does seem again, those those Tom Hanks Wizard
videos are really funny, but no one would ever even
come close to mistaking those anything Tom Hanks actually participated in.
There's some other YouTubers and podcasts, YouTubers I guess more
specifically that use deep fakes to like put on the
(26:08):
face of a celebrity while they're doing the celebrities voice,
Like there's this one guy that does Gary Busey all
the time, and I think those are really funny and
use use of that technology. But also it's really clear
what you're looking at if you pay any attention. This
one and almost has the potential to like hurt some feelings, you.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Know, And so hold on, we didn't play the part
at the very beginning, as Jerry, it's a statement that
this is not George Carlin. This is dudeesy I am
this is an AI I am not. I am not
George Carlin. So like for me, people who are like
really upset about this, they're like outraged and hurt outside
(26:49):
of maybe the actual family of George Carlin. I feel
like that's performative because this is I have I have
to say that I feel it feels like I'm outraged
and I didn't even actually look into this thing deep enough,
right the guy here.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I listened to the whole special. You're right that that
disclaimer is explicit. It is quite clear, and it's at
the front of the special. However, counterpoint, we can make
the argument that many people who are hearing this are
going to be hearing clips of it rather than the
(27:24):
entirety of the thing, and those clips do not have
that sort of disclaimer. Now, as the idea of performative
upset goes, I totally get you on that. I think
you hit a really important point, which is that the
family is saying, why are you Why are you resurrecting
(27:46):
this guy and making a buck off of it? By
the way it is, it is monetized.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
That's a good point. That's actually a very valid point.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
That's what I was going to bring up. And I
think mainly I'm thinking about the family here. I'm not
really that concerned with Internet, you know, outrage mongers. But
Kelly Carlin, the daughter of the late comedian, had this
to say my statement regarding the AI generated George Carlin special.
My dad spent a lifetime perfecting his craft from his
very human life, brain and imagination. No machine will ever
(28:16):
replace his genius. These AI generated products are clever attempts,
she acknowledges. They're clever at trying to recreate a mind
that will never exist. Again, Let's let the artists work
speak for itself. Humans are so afraid of the void
that we can't let what has fallen into it stay there.
Here's an idea. How about we give some actual living
human comedians I listen to, but if you want to
(28:37):
listen to the genuine George Carlin, he has fourteen specials
that you can find anywhere, and.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
They're pretty good, by the way, folks, Sure, yeah, they're
all pretty great.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
He's one of the greats. And I think Kelly Carlin
really nailed it. And I do want to again not
completely throw the DUDESI folks under the bus. In the
Vice article that talks about this, Matthew Galt, who starts
the article by talking saying how he's a diehard George
Carlin fan and he found this egregiously not anything goes
(29:07):
so far as to say it was offensive. But he really
just said he said it cannot be unseen and he
just found it to be worse than you could possibly imagine,
is what he said. But again to your point from
the story, maybe you said that's off air, Matt, but
some of these things are meant to be bad. It
is the comedy of cringe, you know, that's a culture
that we that definitely exists in, like alternative comedy. But
(29:28):
Will Sasso, who we talked about and all I think
three of us have been fans of his stuff in
the past, had this to say on the actual podcast
where they talked about this before they did it as clips.
I guess, and that's the format of the show, and
then they published the whole thing. But he said beat
me here, I guess, So let's just say it beat myself.
I personally don't want to hear a freaking song I'm
gonna swear like my kid does, freaking Nirvana song that's
(29:50):
not written by Kurt Cobain and played by freaking Nirvana.
I don't give a shoot. I don't give a shoot.
It's not real. It doesn't matter. Anyone can do an
impression z is doing an impression. I don't think a
new comic has anything to worry about because we need
new voices. And that's essentially what Kelly Carlin said as well,
So that disclaimer is in there too. So I guess
(30:13):
I think this is a lot of outrage over nothing.
I just think they may be miscuted a little bit,
not really anticipating the reaction. But Mike, my question is
to you guys, is there anything off limits? Like where
does the line between satire and ripoff exist with this
kind of technology? And is it I don't know when
is it okay? When is it not okay? What are
(30:34):
the guidelines? What are the where are the guideposts?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
The guideline for good satire. Satire when it works, comes
from a place of respect, acknowledgment, and love. That's why
good satire works. That's why really really successful Saturday Night
live impressions that carry, that's why they often do well.
You know, if you see, for instance, if you see
(30:59):
the parody of Wes Anderson film as a horror movie,
it's coming from people clearly studied. They love Wes Anderson
and with Doodzi, you know, there's two storied comedians here,
students of their craft. They clearly, like anybody worth their salt,
as tremendous. They have tremendous respect for George Carlin. The
(31:22):
idea of whether or not something should be off limits,
it can be phrased as a complex question, but a
lot of that complex, like again to use the word
performative nuance around it, like, oh, it was a complicated issue.
What it's dodging is the idea of consent. Right. What
(31:46):
is off limits that to which one does not consent
being who is being paid homage here, paid tribute or
impersonated or mechanical turk here, it is a dead person
who cannot consent.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
States And they were not consulted to just just put
that out there. I think that might have been part
of the outrage. On that end, they probably wouldn't have
given permission. I just want to add one last thing, like, well,
weird al you know famously, Well he doesn't have to
get permission because of parody laws. He always does because
I think it's just the smart move pr wise. You
(32:24):
know so, I think famously Prince would never consent to
allowing him to do a parody of a print song,
which is pretty on brand for Prince yeah, but he
could have done it because the law allows him to
do that as far as I'm aware.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Well, he's also making records for Sony right, which is no,
it's no small deal there. So, like I imagine, Yankevick
wants to dot his eyes and cross his t's if guys,
doesn't it feel like if you want to get like
maximum promotion for something, maximum people talking about it, do
something shocking because people get so angry they just have
(32:57):
to post about it and give their opinion. That's a
exactly what this.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Is very good for, Duzzy excellent point.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Then, yeah, I mean, honestly, I was hearing about all
the crazy stuff that Elon Musk is up to. And
while it does sound like that guy's mega spiraling and
probably on drugs of varying varieties, you know, you got
to wonder when someone has that much, that many resources
at their disposal and there really is no quote unquote losing,
isn't the name of the game just to be as
(33:24):
infuriating as possible, just so you don't get bumped from
the headlines. I think some of what he's doing is that,
and it's calculating. I think some of the other stuff
that he's doing, isn't that? But you know we see
it all the time. There's no bad press quote unquote.
If if you don't care, the crazy thing is.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Think about how many people heard about this story and
didn't actually listen to the episode or watch the episode
of the podcast. So they watched a clip right or
they write a headline like it. But they know what
Dudzy is now and they didn't know what Dudez was
a little before.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Hell Devil's Advocate. They know who George Carr Roland is now.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Man.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
I mean a lot of kids, you know who are
following this kind of stuff probably not aware of the
work of George Carlin. You know, there's a cutoff for
like the types of entertainers that my kid and their
generation are aware of. You know, when music, the knowledge
goes pretty far back, but when it comes to like actors,
certain comedians, there would be a massive blind spot in
(34:22):
that generation for a guy like George Carlin. So you know,
you could argue that this is exposing people to George
Carlin's work as well.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, I didn't know this about the show. The creators
of The Dudzy Show have not revealed what company is
backing the show and the dudezy AI.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
That's correct.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
That's a wrinkle to me, a.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Little weird, like is it proprietary? Is it in service
to some you know what I mean? Like is it
training an AI for a company?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I think that's very very, very interesting and valliding to
bring up. And I wonder how long they're going to
milk that. I would argue that the story might cause
them to do a little damage control. I'll be interested
to see if maybe a reveal does come after the
backlash from this. But they definitely did what they set
out to do, which is to get some new listeners,
even if they're just hey listeners. But let's take a
(35:15):
quick break. We'll hear a word from our sponsor, which
is probably not an AI chat butt, and we'll be
back with one more piece of strange news.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Speaking of only reading the headlines, Boby, the world's oldest dog,
is being investigated for fraud. I sent this in a
group chat earlier because I love a good headline. Bobi
is being investigated, you know, obviously for claims about his age,
(35:49):
But in my head, guys, I love picturing the world's
oldest dog. Somehow, being like the subject of an investigation
for some street level crowd, like he's selling loose cigarettes
or he started MLM somewhere. Anyway, we've got we've got
a lot of headlines. We wanted to We wanted to
(36:12):
talk about something that we may have mentioned in years past,
which is now reaching a culminating point and hopefully bringing
justice to a great number of victims. Uh. You guys
remember Abercrombie and Fitch. You ever went into one of
those stores?
Speaker 5 (36:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Who wear Abercrombie and Fitch in the summer.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I bought my son and jacket from there not long ago.
I hope everything's okay.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Are those the pants that are like pre distressed? Wasn't
that their thing? Don't they do that? Or is that
American ego? I think it's maybe.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
That's every GA company.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, a lot of money. You save a lot of
money selling them pre distressed, right, because you can lower
your QA standards, your quality assurance, and then you can
sell for a higher markup. And shout out to codename
Doc Holliday for also mentioning that song you ellude to.
This is quite a pickle. This is a real bag
(37:04):
of badgers. There is a former CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch,
which I don't know about you all. I always sort
of associated it with the I would say, light jock,
light sporting demographic.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
It's a bro brand.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
The former CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, Mike Jeffries, is
facing a couple of different lawsuits now thanks to some
excellent investigative work by our friends across the pond at
the BBC. What I'd like to do is walk through
the story. For anybody wants more information on this, please
(37:43):
do check out the World of Secrets podcast Season one.
The Abercrombie guys and as you know, fellow conspiracy realists,
we don't blow smoke when we recommend podcasts that we
think you would enjoy. This is not in any way
an ad for the work of these journalists. This is
(38:04):
not even something that is in our corporate overlord network.
This is just good work and it matters, so it's
worth checking out. Here's what happened. So the BBC does
an investigation into longstanding allegations of things like sexual abuse,
(38:28):
sexual discrimination, even unto sex trafficking. This triggered the FBI
FBI agents specifically specializing in sex crimes and federal prosecutors
from the Eastern District of New York to look into
(38:48):
the allegations right now, Mike Jefferies and his partner is
a British national, are also facing a civil lawsuit. This
is much deeper water the allegations. Oh and the British
partner here is Matthew Smith. So let's go to the
BBC directly. Rihanna Croxford writes the following FBI investigate after
(39:12):
ex Abercrombie boss sex claims. So Jeffries and Smith Matthew
Smith are accused of exploiting young men for sexual activities
at events they hosted in their New York residencies. They
have multiple residencies in New York and then across the
(39:35):
world at very high end hotels. No less than eight
men as of January twenty twenty four have told the
British broadcasters that they went to these events they were
coerced into sexual activity. This occurred in places like London, Paris,
Marrakesh for more than a decade from two thousand and
(39:59):
nine to twenty f fifteen. That's why I know that
we touched on this, or at least talked about it
off air in the past. Over the course of our
careers on the show, and what the BBC found includes
stuff like event itineraries, flight tickets, a very a very
(40:19):
strange kind of middleman. I'd like to share with you
guys an image of someone involved in this trafficking scheme.
Are you ready? Oh yeah, okay, So I'm going to
share this. I want you guys to react to this
this and we'll tell you who it is. After you
see this picture. There we go, well, it's the guy,
(40:41):
not the dog.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
The guy dog. What's going on with that guy's nose?
Speaker 3 (40:47):
So he is missing his news?
Speaker 4 (40:49):
He has is as hard a time with the picture
because it looks like a blur. It's weird. I wasn't
being able.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Let's do anything right, right right? He has a he
has a what look to be a snake skin prosthetic
over his nose. I'm just saying, this almost looks like
central casting for a villain.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
Yes, it does. I was thinking of And initially he
looks kind of like Tommy why So from the room.
He just has this guy He's got a big lustrous
head of hair and the sunglasses and I don't know,
he just had that Tommy why So vibe.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
So that middle man is named James Jacobson. The investigators
at the BBC or the journalist tracked him down. He
denied any wrongdoing and he said, look, certain adult activities
may have occurred, but all of the people involved went
to those events with quote their eyes wide open. And
(41:47):
he also, I don't know his testimony or his statements.
It's a little bit muddied right now because when the
BBC went and contacted this guy, like knocked on his
door directly, he told them at the beginning, if you
keep me anonymous, let's make a deal and I'll tell
(42:08):
you everything. And the BBC said, no, we have to
tell the actual story. So good on you, folks. I
will pause here. I've got to ask. We've all heard
of Abercrombie and Fitch here in the US, but do
you guys remember these allegations or does this ring in
(42:28):
a distant bell?
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Yeah, this was. This hit the news a couple of
months ago. It just because, as you said, Ben, this
has been ongoing like for a while where information has
been coming out in little fits and starts. But it
does feel like this is at least this is the
most information we've ever seen in one place. Right, I'll
(42:51):
tell you.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
One thing that always struck me a little odd about
Abercrombie were their ad campaigns that often involved very young, hairless,
scantily clad boys. That is, it's always something that struck
me about that. I just it was a little different.
(43:12):
And I know that, you know, the homore eroticism and
things like that have always been big in fashion, like
Calvin Klein and you know, briefs and you know, all
that stuff, and it's totally a thing, you know, but
Abercrombie's always kind of had a little more of that
than some brands, that know, as you seeing. And I
wonder if that was a culture, you know, or if
(43:33):
some of these abuses involved models or anything like that
as well.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Think back to twenty eleven, twenty twelve, when the news
about the very strange corporate guide to the private flights
broke like that, gosh, I don't remember any of this, Yeah,
that was Let me put a link in the chat here.
Here's something from huffingting Post what we see here. What
we see here is that the under the auspice or
(44:01):
under the guidance of Mike Jeffries, the corporate jet became
sort of a playground for this sort of exploitation and
the rules about dress behavior nomenclature. They were very specific.
They were also skirting the line of what would be
(44:25):
considered legally required from an employer toward an employee, like
they were just on the side of criminal.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah. Basically, Oh, you want to be an abercrombian Fitch model,
then guess what. Here's here's the rules, as you said,
the rule book, and it's not it's probably not going
to be that fun for you.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
It's under Yeah, there's a weird line in here about
the flight attendance and making them respond to names that
weren't their own, very kind of domb kind of behavior.
It would and you know, much like I think we're
all a little weirded out by the Chick fil A
my pleasure response. I think it rubs everybody the wrong
(45:08):
way a little bit. This one has them saying things
like no problem, like you know, very short, what's the word,
kind of affirmative kind of sub you know, like I
am here to serve. So that's yeah, but it's weird
in this context.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
And I'm glad you mentioned the Chick fil A thing,
because I've brought that up on the past as well.
It's a weird flex. That Huffington Post article we mentioned
is by Alice Hines October eighteenth, twenty twelve, so this
story dates back much much further than the reporting that's
happening now. I'd like to, if it's okay, shout out
(45:48):
another great piece of journalism by Gloria Oledipo over at
The Guardian. This includes some some sobering quotes, and again
this may not be appropriate for all audiences. I'll read it.
Let's react. Quote. One man told the BBC that he
believed his drink had been spiked at an event after
(46:12):
Jeffries attempted to kiss him during a dance performance. The
man said that he fell asleep in a back room
and woke up to find a condom inside of him.
This is a quote. When I put things together, I
believe there is a very good possibility I was drugged
and raped. I'll probably never never know for sure the
(46:32):
answer to what happened. Most of the men who spoke
to the BBC said they felt degraded and harmed because
of their experience with Jeffreys and Smith. There was a
former model named Barrett Paul talking to the BBC. One
of the last quotes will give who says the following.
My feeling of being in that room was an animal.
(46:55):
I was not a human to any of these people.
I was a body. I was being presented someone to
do what they wanted with.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Yeah, and I want to just walk not walk back,
but just clarify that when I was talking about how
some of these ad campaigns struck me in a certain way.
You know, there was a time when when we were younger,
I guess, or even in the two thousands, where kind
of queer culture wasn't front and center as much as
it is today. And then I think it's it's wonderful
that it is, and there's much more of a voice
(47:26):
for that culture in public conversation and pop culture and
all of that. But there was a time where it
was sort of like less mainstream and much more underground,
and this kind of fashiony queer coding kind of stuff
didn't seem to me to be a positive thing necessarily
for the queer community. It was more of like a
(47:46):
subjugation of that and sort of using it as like
a fashion brand, iconic kind of thing for a campaign.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
Well. Also, Abercrombie has been accused in the past of
some pretty discriminatory and racist practices right this, Yeah, it's
a company that has had problems. I was looking in
deep to establish a timeline. I feel like there could
be a full episode here because folks need to know
(48:15):
stuff we could get into in a deeper dive, concerns
things like the Lex Wesner connection, which there is one,
by the way, troubling stuff. It could also involve questions
of why there was not more investigation earlier, because you guys,
(48:37):
Jeffries ran Abercrombie Fitch from nineteen ninety two to twenty fourteen,
So during that entirety of the time, these weird rules
on plane flights, the weird discrimination, the sexual quid pro
quo stuff that was happening the entire time. And right
(48:59):
now it's twenty twenty four, a decade later, and nothing
has been done. And it makes you think there are
a lot of similarities with some Epstein stuff here.
Speaker 4 (49:09):
I remember this guy now that I'm looking at photos
of him, he looks perma surprised. Let's put it that way.
No shade on anyone that gets procedures done with this
guy's head had quite a few and yeah, he's definitely
going for that. Like I'm youthful until I'm dead in
the ground kind of fountain of youth vibe, and that
(49:30):
can really do a number on people's Brenton psyche and
they really live that life. You know, we know this
from hell, from all kinds of stories in history and
in you know, fantasy and fiction. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
I don't want to. I never want to body shame
anybody for their appearance or how they present. But judging
on the behavior alone, the actions here, this is something
that feels like stuff they don't want you to to
know a long time in coming, and it makes me wonder.
You know, we have to be really careful not to
(50:06):
paint with two broad a brush and connect patterns or
recognized patterns where none exist. But the Wexner connection seems real.
This also reminds me of you know, I think that
was an excellent point about the dirty business of modeling
as an industry wherein that sort of abuse is simply tolerated.
(50:28):
It also makes me again, I just keep coming back
to it. You guys, why were there no investigations? You know,
it's like the It's like the Brian Singer question, remember
Brian Singer x men.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
Totally Yeah, I mean, powerful people can pull strings make
things go away.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
What did Singer do? I don't remember.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
He had these Hollywood Hills parties with, you know, taking
advantage of young starry eyed kids coming to Hollywood to
make a name for themselves. And there's a specific kid
that spoke, you know, testified to some really gnarly stuff
alleged never alleged, yes, correct, but what he spoke to,
if true, very gnarly. And you know Singer kind of
(51:12):
he sort of bounced back from that, but never really
Like often happens, you know, you take a hit, you disappear,
you're not really dealing with major consequences, but you kind
of don't get to keep being the person you used
to be. There is that, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Sure from far enough away, maybe that looks like a consequence.
Speaker 4 (51:30):
Now you're right, Ben right?
Speaker 3 (51:31):
I mean I feel you on this too. You know.
For anybody who is looking into this at home, after
you get done with the BBC stuff, do check out
the Wexner Jeffreys connection, and do also check out the
stories about Brian Singer and Kevin Spacey. This is true stuff.
They don't want you to know. If you are hearing
(51:52):
this and you have been affected by these sorts of
unclean activities, then there are resources available counseling, therapy and
hopefully closure and justice.
Speaker 4 (52:04):
Oh really quickly. It's not exactly an upnoe. It might
break your heart, Matt. You've probably heard about this, but
I meant to mention it at the end of the
Carlon bit. But apparently Wizards of the Coast have sheepishly
admitted to using AI in the design of their Magic
Cards series. And they initially denied it, And it's apparently
(52:25):
in a background image of something in their new series.
It's something about like a like a lovecrafty and manner
kind of situation. I remember what it's called.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
Wait, but wasn't it Okay, Well, what I had seen
is that they had made a promotional image. That's right.
Speaker 4 (52:41):
I don't think it was a card. You're right, I'm
under saying the case, keep me honest.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Just because just because Wizards has been so amazing at
supporting incredible artists, right, So it would break my heart
if they actually did that. But I can yeah, I
can imagine a promo image utilizing it for that, but
maybe not wanting to admit it. But they did admit it.
They did it.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Speaking of supporting folks, so I want to make sure
we get this on air. The resources we're mentioning are
things like the National Sexual Assault Hotline. Here in the
US it is eight hundred six five six four six
seven to three. There are so many other stories we
didn't get to. Eighty two percent of Americans can't afford
(53:22):
a new car. There is a Kentucky politician who is
going to fail, I think, to try to legalize getting
frisky with your cousin. The Paris Review has a fantastic
article out now about a creative writing group based in
the CIA with CIA operatives. It's called Invisible Ink. All
(53:45):
this and more.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
That was so good. By the way, did you read
that article? I did.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
But did you say getting risky or frisky with your risky.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Visit the long term? Genetically, it's risky activity. Shout out,
hat shout out. So we can't wait to hear from you,
folks in future episodes. We hope you are having wonderful
twenty twenty four. We'll be back later this week with
messages from you, with some deep dives into some strange
stuff they don't want you to know. In the meantime,
(54:20):
join us. We can't wait to hear from you.
Speaker 4 (54:22):
That's right. You can find us all over the internet.
We exist the handle conspiracy Stuff on YouTube, x FKA, Twitter,
and also Facebook where we have our Facebook group. Here's
where it gets crazy, where Ben, I think somebody posted
on that group a piece of comic book art fan fiction.
I get maybe it wasn't full fan fiction, but it
(54:43):
was definitely a page or so out of a comic
project that featured you and Matt and I as like
kind of a D and D party of some sort
on the road.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
I said it to you guys in a group chat.
We're gonna shout. We're gonna shout out our fellow conspiracy
realist on listener mail. We love that kind of stuff.
Though in the story we are halflings who help investigate
a case of poisoning slash murder?
Speaker 2 (55:10):
Are there more panels in now? Was trying to figure
out what was going on?
Speaker 3 (55:14):
Yet? I believe they are.
Speaker 4 (55:16):
Oh, I can't wait to read the rist And we
also exist the handle conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
And if you would like to engage a telephonic device
to share with us a story we have three minutes,
fresh baked waiting for you, just waiting for you. Specifically,
all you have to do is give us a ring
where we are one eight three three std WYTK, give
us a nickname that you've always wanted. Let us know
(55:44):
whether or not we can use your name and or
message on air. Most importantly, do not limit, do not
censor yourself. If you have ancillary links, if you have
video footage, if you have new leads, amazing stories we
would love to learn or about them. Just drop us
a good old fashioned line at our email address where we.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they Don't want
(56:28):
you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
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Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noela.
Speaker 3 (00:27):
They call me Ben. We're joined as olders with our
super producer Alexis code named Doc Holliday Jackson. Most importantly,
you are here that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. As you're listening, we are reaching
the end of January in twenty twenty four, coming off
(00:47):
a long weekend here in the United States, where every
company worth being a company does acknowledge, commemorate, and celebrate
Martin Luther King Day. Over the long weekend, a lot
of very bizarre things happened. A stand up comic was
(01:09):
brought back from the dead, the FBI is true story
investigating some decades worth of villainous actions by a fashion maven.
And something tragic and mysterious happened in Kansas City.
Speaker 4 (01:27):
Finally, well really not in the tragic part, but just
something happening in Kansas City. I'm kidding. Kansas City is
a great town. I would like to go.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, this is something mysterious that occurred in tragic. On Sunday,
January seventh, several friends gathered at a home within the
Coves Subdivision in the northwest suburbs of Kansas City, Missouri,
to watch their home team, the Chiefs, play the Los
Angeles Chargers. The game was watched by four or more people,
(01:58):
we know that for sure, or more. That's important here
and the game that they watched was played at Sofi
Stadium in Inglewood, California. The Chiefs won thirteen to twelve. Now,
I'm the last person you'd ever want to ask any
information about football, but from the numbers, it appears to
have been a close, perhaps tense game. Could also be important.
Speaker 4 (02:19):
Tell us more about football, Well I will, but.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
I'm leaving little Easter eggs here that we can call
back to later. Bread crumbs, bread crumbs, there you go.
That's a thank you, Payne Lindsay for that. There was
only one touchdown made by the Chiefs in the first quarter.
The Chargers came back with several field goals and they
were leading the game twelve to ten in the fourth quarter,
but the winning field goal was made by the Chiefs
(02:42):
in the fourth quarter. It's one of those come back
from behind things. And by the way, they are currently
number one in the AFC West, whatever that means. Again,
I don't know if.
Speaker 4 (02:53):
You'd both sports common data.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
It's a good thing for the fans. You'll love to
see it. Also, also shout out to all our Australian listeners.
Got a message recently where someone asked me a similar question, Matt.
They were like, can you explain American football? And I
just said, tune in for halftime. It's a commercial written enterprise.
Speaker 4 (03:15):
Can I say though, that the Chargers is clearly the
best name for a football team, the most descriptive name
for what that sport looks like. They got that one
on lock.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
So yeah, goo up there with gpsy concussions.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
Enough again, guys, I don't know football, but I do
know true crime stories, and this is one of those.
After the game, guys, friends and family attempted to contact
three of the men present at that home in Kansas City.
There were text messages sent calls, messages sent out over
social media, and there was no response from all three
(03:48):
of these men for three days. So remember that's January seventh,
Sunday night when they're watching that game. On Tuesday, January ninth,
the fiance of one of the missing men to matters
into her own hands, drove to the home. She's banging
on the door, nobody is answering, so she goes around
to the back, through the backyard and to the basement
(04:09):
and she enters that. She forcefully enters the home. After
looking around, she discovers the body of one of the
friends dead on the back porch. Now, first of all,
that's horrifying. We don't have a lot of information. We'll
get to that later, but I'm just going to continue
telling you kind of what happened in order so then
(04:30):
we can start to really pick this thing apart.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
One question. So we say there's a fiance, and the
fiance checks in after three days.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
The fiance has been attempting to make contact. It was
known that the vehicles of all three men were still
parked there at this home. I'll say that. And finally,
after not being able to contact anyone in that home,
she decides, I'm just going to break in and see
what I can find. Like, I'm that scared, basically, right.
(05:05):
So then she immediately contacts the police at around ten
pm that night on January ninth, The police arrive, they
search the property, and they discover in the backyard the
bodies of the two other missing men. So three dead bodies,
same house. What the heck's going on? According to police,
(05:26):
there are no obvious signs of foul play immediately near
or around the crime scene, so like right near the
bodies or right around the bodies in the mediate area.
They were all outside. Now this is an important part.
They were outside the home. Okay, that's going to factor in.
As of today, Wednesday, January seventeenth, the causes of death
(05:47):
for all three men has not been released to the public.
According to police, they are awaiting medical examiner results. Again,
as of today, as we're recording, there's no information. And
I'll just say right now, I called one of the
local CBS affiliates there to make sure there was no
updates that haven't been published yet, no updates, nothing else
(06:07):
is known. Now let's go back in time. Here we
go Friday, January twelfth. That is when police first announce
to the public and to local news stations that they're
seeking a search warrant for the home. Right, those bodies
were found in the backyard of the home, but that
is not inside the home. So it's not like there's
probable cause I guess to go into the home and
(06:31):
look around, right to find possible evidence of a crime.
And if there's no at least according to the police,
if there's no signs of foul play, there's no reason
to do that, right unless new information was revealed at
some point between February ninth and the twelfth. Does that
make sense?
Speaker 3 (06:47):
Sure?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Sure, they're also getting a ton of pressure from the
friends and family of these three missing men to look
inside that house to figure out what's going on. And
they also announced the names of the three men who
were found dead. So let's go ahead and say these names.
Clayton mcguiney. Mcguiney, I think is how you'd say that
McGee n y. He was thirty six years old. He
(07:10):
is the person who's fiance traveled to the house, broke
in and discovered the bodies. There's David Harrington who is
thirty seven years old, and Ricky Johnson who is thirty
eight years old, who was married and the father of
three children. Now here's the part in the story, Ben,
can we get an hwigc.
Speaker 3 (07:29):
Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
According to several sources close to this story, friends and
family of the deceased. They are speaking out about the
situation and they's some weird stuff at play. They are saying,
the person who is currently renting that house, who is
still alive, was home while the friends watched the game,
while Clayton's fiance broke in, and while the police arrived.
(07:55):
So there was a human being that rents that house.
It was home the whole time. They're also saying that
this person was aware that those friends and family were
trying to contact the men and him, and avoided all
of that contact for three days, again until the police arrived.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
I don't like it.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
It doesn't sound good.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
Right, No, no, sir.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
If anything, it means this person knows exactly what happened, right,
This one person, at least, if there weren't other people there,
knows exactly what happened.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
I mean, unless there is some sort of extenuating circumstance
compromising their lucidity. Right, unless they are unless they are,
like so many people in the Midwest, struggling with substance
issues or have some sort of mental condition. But the
(08:50):
I agree with you, Matt, the window of time there
is quite egregious it is.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
So let's jump to some writing by Chris Spargo from
Inside Edition. This was published on Monday, January fifteenth, to
get a little more information about what's being said in
those circumstances we're talking about there, Ben, there are several
friends who are posting on Facebook publicly about this, and
one of those friends is Kaylee Lettier. And this is
(09:16):
a fairly long quote, but I think this is important stuff.
We have to keep in mind. This is a claim.
This is not an official statement. This is from Kaylee quote.
This man was inside his home alive while my friends
were dead in his yard for lord knows how long
they were all hanging out, since after the game Sunday.
He knew people were looking for them. He read messages
(09:38):
of people searching for him. On Tuesday, my husband banged
on his door for twenty minutes. My friend banged on
his door and then busted a window and yelled and
announced her presence while she's inside, and still nothing from him.
Then the cops come ten minutes later and he comes
out nonchalant in his boxers with an empty wine glass
in hand. Again, we don't know if we cannot confirm
(10:02):
any of that. That is a statement from one person,
but again it does not sound good, right right. And
there's one more statement that we need to get from
someone named Jennifer Marquez, who was the mother of one
of the deceased, David Harrington. She says that this person
who was renting the home contacted some or at least
(10:23):
told some friends and family that all three of those
men went outside at some point and froze to death. Okay, well,
so you know we're talking Kansas City here. It's been
really cold lately, right in the beginning of this year.
So I went and checked the historical records for how
cold it was that evening on the seventh, all the
(10:45):
way to the ninth, and I would just say that
I found on January seventh, there was a high of
forty degrees fahrenheit and a low of thirty four degrees
fahrenheit thirty four or just two degrees above freezing. And
then when the police arrived on January ninth, the temperature
was dropping that evening and it had reached about twenty four
(11:05):
degrees fahrenheit when they arrived at the house. Precipitous, so
it was getting colder and colder. It wasn't snowing a lot,
but there was definitely a lot of the temperatures were
quite quite cold, right, so it is, but there is
potential that those guys were outside and their temperature dropped,
(11:26):
I guess, but it does. It feels highly unlikely to
me that that is the reason they would have frozen
to death.
Speaker 4 (11:34):
Is not that the love pass exactly, No, I mean,
but you know, if they were intoxicated enough and perhaps
blacked out, but for all three of them to be
that incapacitated, I would say something else was at play
other than just alcohol. If that's the case, you know,
to be that unaware of your you know, rapidly dropping
(11:56):
body temperature.
Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, Again, we don't know if any substances were involved
with any of the people at that home that night.
The variation that could exist there could answer a lot
of questions.
Speaker 3 (12:09):
Well, sure, poison perhaps would be the badger in the bag, right.
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Or the bad poisonous one, or you know, if everybody
is on something and even the person we're talking about
who lived there was passed for that, Yeah, maybe he
didn't know and then he woke up and was scared.
That's one possibility. Sure's an infinite number of things that
could have gone down. It's now basically a waiting game
until the police released more information.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
No toxicology report yet, I.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
Assume no, at least none that I have seen, none
that case TV five has seen, and Inside Edition isn't
reporting on it or any of the other local stations.
Just one last thing here. They have all attempted to
make contact with this person, all of the local affiliates,
and nobody has successfully spoken with him yet. It's unknown
(12:57):
if there's an attorney representing him or anything like that.
In his name has not been released by the police
or by any of these publications, which because he has
not been charged with any crime.
Speaker 4 (13:08):
Well, I was going to ask, like, what is the
crime other than being a bad friend? Like I mean,
I imagine if you own property and someone dies, you know,
on your property. That's what insurance is for, you know,
if people needed untimely and their own faults or through
perhaps tripping over something. But I mean, you know, you're
(13:29):
allowed to pass out for three days. That's not against
the law. I'm saying for the guy that's remained in
that remained indoors, unless he has found to have done
something that's that that involves foul play. I don't think
there's anything to get him for. It's not negligence. They
already left his company. But I don't know. I'm asking, Well,
(13:50):
that's right, that's right, he's.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
Yes. So also another another person of interest, the POI
here would be the land and board, right, who.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
Is probably yeah, depending on where they live.
Speaker 4 (14:04):
Right.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Well, it's so crazy nowadays you could have somebody who
owns a bunch of property in one city and they
live all the way across the country.
Speaker 3 (14:11):
Shout out blackrock Yep.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, that's that's really all the information I have. Oh,
according to neighbors, the person who is renting that house
moved in about six months before now this time, so
again has lived there for quite a while. Those friends
definitely knew this person, and they all gathered together. According
to all friends of family, they all were aware that
(14:34):
this was a night to watch football and it was
just a happy hanging out with friends thing.
Speaker 3 (14:39):
What we know is that this is an ongoing case.
As you outlined, Matt, there are new there are not
identities disclosed regarding suspects. It sounds like the city is
still waiting on further investigation. But we do know that
(15:00):
regardless of how things occurred. There are three children who
no longer have a father.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, the family of Ricky Johnson, one of the deceased,
the man who did have children, they made a GoFundMe
for his funeral services. So they're looking to raise six
thousand dollars and as of us recording this, they've raised
around forty one hundred dollars. So, you know, if anyone
has the means to make a donation to that, then
(15:27):
please do. I'm sure it would help out a ton.
Maybe that's the best thing we can do right now,
besides just keeping a lookout and just just finding answers.
I am personally interested to know what the heck happened,
because it's just it's something I want to avoid. Whatever
the heck happened, I don't want to do that, right,
So I guess just keep your ears to the ground,
(15:49):
let us know if you find anything, and yeah, we'll
be right back with more strange news.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
And we have returned with another piece of strange news.
Been alluded to this in the opening, the idea of
bringing people back to life, not through necromancy, minds you,
not through some doc ritual. Well, I don't know. We
have talked about how certain prompts for AI can be
kind of compared to an incantation, because you got to
(16:24):
know the right words to say to feed these things
to make them make something that's interesting. The right prompts,
you know, the right things to learn the machine on.
And today we're talking about comedy. You know, comedy the
I don't know, and in many ways one of the
most human of art forms. I think. I think stand
(16:44):
up comedy in particular, at its best is sort of
a combination of like story telling and you know, calling
from one's own experience, and I think lived experience, to
me is what makes the best stand up comedy. There's
all kinds of different flavors of it, but that's the
stuff that usually does it for me.
Speaker 3 (17:02):
The great orators of our time.
Speaker 4 (17:05):
Great orators, you know, can parlay those skills into being
good writers as well, often great performer. The timing of
delivering good stand up tends to translate really well to
screen acting, as we know, but George Carlin is widely
considered to be one of the greats in terms of
stand up comedy. There's actually an episode Ben and I
(17:26):
did on Ridiculous History with Wayne Fetterman who teaches stand
up comedy or the history of stand up comedy at
a university in California, and we talk about the dirty words,
George Carlin's dirty words. He does a whole bit on him.
These are the words you can't say on TV or
the radio. The guy's a legend, no question about it.
And he's also deceased. And one thing that comes into
(17:49):
play when dealing with legends, you know, the public and
people who are passionate about art and whatever the person represented,
they've got a stake in this kind of stuff. And
like we saw with the Tupac hologram, you know at
Coachella Lough those many years ago, sometimes these things can
rub people the wrong way, and for a good reason.
(18:11):
And that's what we're talking about today. A podcast that Matt,
you might be able to give a little more background
on it. I'm not I haven't listened to it, but
it is called dude z uh and it is the
inevitable integration of podcast T and AI and it's a
comedy podcast where an AI called dudez essentially, I guess
creates the topics for every episode or I don't know.
(18:35):
Matt can explain a little bit more about how the
AI is part of the show.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Well, I've only I've not watched entire episodes of Dudez.
I have seen it on social media clips quite often,
which I find to be hilarious most of the time
when it's it's these two hosts sometimes just doing impressions
that are so spot on it's insane. It just you know,
as a talk podcast. Then other times they are reac
(19:00):
acting to creations of this AI but that I believe
is also called Dudzi. Yeah, and the stuff I've seen
is just unhinged.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
It's like one of them is will Sasso, who is
famous from being on Matt I would you know, I
would say, is it's a very good uh comedian. It's
funny and also a really good impressionist, which is an
easy thing to do.
Speaker 3 (19:21):
So that's the Tom Hanks clips. Yes, those are I
think those are the ones that attained prominence because it
is clearly AI uh some arcade agglomeration, something like mid Journey,
something like chat GPT with some voice ripping uh. And
(19:42):
it's a since I already use the word ripping, it's
a ripping good.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Time, you know, wizard for one.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
Yeah, that's one turns into a bus. It's it works
really well as a what if trailer.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, they're like teaser trailers for those new you know,
a movie and they're amazing. Anyway, that's at least my
knowledge coming in to this discussion.
Speaker 4 (20:10):
And those are clearly meant to be completely absurd, and
you know, like these movies that don't exist, that everyone
knows don't exist, and you know, one could argue that
their experiment with what they've done with the story it's
about that's making people upset. Making a new hour of
stand up from a deceased legendary comedian. One could argue
(20:31):
that there is some comedic merit in that, and then
it is sort of taking the piss out of AI
and sort of deflating it a little bit. But that
requires you having a little bit of control over the
spin and the way these things are perceived, and oftentimes
with reporting, people are going for grabby headlines and you
know stuff like you know, hack podcasters resurrect legendary comedian
(20:54):
through AI sort of like that Beatles song where they
took you know, John Lennon's vocal from a the demo
tape and then sort of like enhanced it and allowed
them to make a new song.
Speaker 3 (21:04):
With it.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
People were really upset about that before they even heard
the song, and then they heard the song and we're
just kind of irritated that it sucked. But it was
the ais fault. This wasn't a very good song. So
with this, it's an hour of new stand up. And
I don't think any of us have heard it, So
why don't we hear a little clip of it? Okay,
Ben sird it, Matt and I haven't heard it. Why
don't we hear a little clip of it and we
can all kind of react to in real time before
(21:25):
we bring down our hammered fists of judgment or not.
And by the way, it is called very pointedly George Carlin,
I'm glad I'm Dead twenty twenty four full special, and
you know it's labeled, you know, like a special from
George Carlin, just putting that out there.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5 (21:47):
I like to start off with a heartfelt apology. I'm
sorry it took me so long to come out with
new material, but I do have a pretty good excuse.
I was dead, so technically it was my fault. If
you want to blame somebody, you're gonna have to blame God,
which we all know is not gonna happen. People are
(22:09):
always thanking God for the good stuff in their lives,
but somehow they conveniently forget that it's the same God
who does all the badge too, and he does a
lot of badge shit. You get a promotion, praise Jesus,
you get fired.
Speaker 4 (22:25):
God is testing me.
Speaker 5 (22:27):
You meet your soulmate. God brought us together. Your soulmate
dumps you. God is bringing me someone else. You survive
a tornado. I'm so blessed. Twenty other people do not.
God wanted them in heaven. It's all bullshit.
Speaker 4 (22:43):
Okay, So looking at each of the three of us,
I think there's a little bit of active cringe going on. Well,
it's really kind of the point, do I do get that?
Speaker 2 (22:53):
But go ahead, Matt, Well, it's just an odd it's
an odd sensation to almost feel like you're hearing George
Carlin write jokes that you can tell feel like written jokes.
It's just they don't they don't have the I was
gonna say, soul. They don't have the thing behind them.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
He was also, in my opinion, and this is just
one entity talking is also a great orator, philosopher, and
truth teller who would have absolutely objected to this the
God jokes technically structurally though it makes sense, No, they
don't make sense. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (23:32):
Remember there was that other AI thing that was like
Seinfeld twenty four hour repeat or whatever, and it was
sort of a non sequiturs. But even that was the
thing about stuff like that is the Seinfeld thing. It
leaned into the absurdity of it. The whole point of
it was that it wasn't good. This one is just
close enough to a kind of cheap facsimile of the
real thing that it feels gross. And obviously the joke
(23:56):
of the whole thing is haha, I'm dead, you know. Okay, great,
that's really not funny objectively. But I bet you that
if I or any of the three of us were
like real students of Carlin and like had done deep
dives into all of his more than I believe a
dozen stand up specials, we'd hear snatches of what created
the jokes in this AI. We'd hear like the kind
(24:18):
of the bones of them, I think, you know. And
that's that's how I or machine learning works. It isn't
creating things out of whole cloth. It's sort of remixing
things that already exist.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Now you can hear it attempting to match his timings, right,
you know, it's not again, it's not quite there because
it's not a person reacting in real time to an
audience the way his specials were.
Speaker 3 (24:41):
It sounds like someone doing an impression of Carlin as
a voice actor, with jokes that he would have not
written because he would have done a better job, to
be honest. But also it reminds me, what's that old
Mitch Hedberg joke about he's on a movie set and
(25:02):
so he smoked fake weed with Willie Nelson and he
said that was a lot like the time I smoked
real weed with a guy who looked like Willy Nelson.
You know, like there's a it's an erosion of the
post truth environment, and I've got to be honest, Noel, Matt.
It's it's making me rethink the joke we made on
(25:24):
Instagram about AI coming for everyone.
Speaker 4 (25:27):
Well yeah, no, yeah, for sure. And I think again,
what these guys got wrong in this presentation was a
messing with the legendary comedian. But that's and you know,
knowing that there are diehards that are going to come
for you. But maybe that's the point, you know, the
idea of killing your darlings or killing your idols or whatever,
(25:47):
that there's there's no nothing's off limits in comedy or whatever.
And it does seem again, those those Tom Hanks Wizard
videos are really funny, but no one would ever even
come close to mistaking those anything Tom Hanks actually participated in.
There's some other YouTubers and podcasts, YouTubers I guess more
specifically that use deep fakes to like put on the
(26:08):
face of a celebrity while they're doing the celebrities voice,
Like there's this one guy that does Gary Busey all
the time, and I think those are really funny and
use use of that technology. But also it's really clear
what you're looking at if you pay any attention. This
one and almost has the potential to like hurt some feelings, you.
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Know, And so hold on, we didn't play the part
at the very beginning, as Jerry, it's a statement that
this is not George Carlin. This is dudeesy I am
this is an AI I am not. I am not
George Carlin. So like for me, people who are like
really upset about this, they're like outraged and hurt outside
(26:49):
of maybe the actual family of George Carlin. I feel
like that's performative because this is I have I have
to say that I feel it feels like I'm outraged
and I didn't even actually look into this thing deep enough,
right the guy here.
Speaker 3 (27:04):
I listened to the whole special. You're right that that
disclaimer is explicit. It is quite clear, and it's at
the front of the special. However, counterpoint, we can make
the argument that many people who are hearing this are
going to be hearing clips of it rather than the
(27:24):
entirety of the thing, and those clips do not have
that sort of disclaimer. Now, as the idea of performative
upset goes, I totally get you on that. I think
you hit a really important point, which is that the
family is saying, why are you Why are you resurrecting
(27:46):
this guy and making a buck off of it? By
the way it is, it is monetized.
Speaker 2 (27:52):
That's a good point. That's actually a very valid point.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
That's what I was going to bring up. And I
think mainly I'm thinking about the family here. I'm not
really that concerned with Internet, you know, outrage mongers. But
Kelly Carlin, the daughter of the late comedian, had this
to say my statement regarding the AI generated George Carlin special.
My dad spent a lifetime perfecting his craft from his
very human life, brain and imagination. No machine will ever
(28:16):
replace his genius. These AI generated products are clever attempts,
she acknowledges. They're clever at trying to recreate a mind
that will never exist. Again, Let's let the artists work
speak for itself. Humans are so afraid of the void
that we can't let what has fallen into it stay there.
Here's an idea. How about we give some actual living
human comedians I listen to, but if you want to
(28:37):
listen to the genuine George Carlin, he has fourteen specials
that you can find anywhere, and.
Speaker 3 (28:42):
They're pretty good, by the way, folks, Sure, yeah, they're
all pretty great.
Speaker 4 (28:47):
He's one of the greats. And I think Kelly Carlin
really nailed it. And I do want to again not
completely throw the DUDESI folks under the bus. In the
Vice article that talks about this, Matthew Galt, who starts
the article by talking saying how he's a diehard George
Carlin fan and he found this egregiously not anything goes
(29:07):
so far as to say it was offensive. But he really
just said he said it cannot be unseen and he
just found it to be worse than you could possibly imagine,
is what he said. But again to your point from
the story, maybe you said that's off air, Matt, but
some of these things are meant to be bad. It
is the comedy of cringe, you know, that's a culture
that we that definitely exists in, like alternative comedy. But
(29:28):
Will Sasso, who we talked about and all I think
three of us have been fans of his stuff in
the past, had this to say on the actual podcast
where they talked about this before they did it as clips.
I guess, and that's the format of the show, and
then they published the whole thing. But he said beat
me here, I guess, So let's just say it beat myself.
I personally don't want to hear a freaking song I'm
gonna swear like my kid does, freaking Nirvana song that's
(29:50):
not written by Kurt Cobain and played by freaking Nirvana.
I don't give a shoot. I don't give a shoot.
It's not real. It doesn't matter. Anyone can do an
impression z is doing an impression. I don't think a
new comic has anything to worry about because we need
new voices. And that's essentially what Kelly Carlin said as well,
So that disclaimer is in there too. So I guess
(30:13):
I think this is a lot of outrage over nothing.
I just think they may be miscuted a little bit,
not really anticipating the reaction. But Mike, my question is
to you guys, is there anything off limits? Like where
does the line between satire and ripoff exist with this
kind of technology? And is it I don't know when
is it okay? When is it not okay? What are
(30:34):
the guidelines? What are the where are the guideposts?
Speaker 3 (30:36):
The guideline for good satire. Satire when it works, comes
from a place of respect, acknowledgment, and love. That's why
good satire works. That's why really really successful Saturday Night
live impressions that carry, that's why they often do well.
You know, if you see, for instance, if you see
(30:59):
the parody of Wes Anderson film as a horror movie,
it's coming from people clearly studied. They love Wes Anderson
and with Doodzi, you know, there's two storied comedians here,
students of their craft. They clearly, like anybody worth their salt,
as tremendous. They have tremendous respect for George Carlin. The
(31:22):
idea of whether or not something should be off limits,
it can be phrased as a complex question, but a
lot of that complex, like again to use the word
performative nuance around it, like, oh, it was a complicated issue.
What it's dodging is the idea of consent. Right. What
(31:46):
is off limits that to which one does not consent
being who is being paid homage here, paid tribute or
impersonated or mechanical turk here, it is a dead person
who cannot consent.
Speaker 4 (32:03):
States And they were not consulted to just just put
that out there. I think that might have been part
of the outrage. On that end, they probably wouldn't have
given permission. I just want to add one last thing, like, well,
weird al you know famously, Well he doesn't have to
get permission because of parody laws. He always does because
I think it's just the smart move pr wise. You
(32:24):
know so, I think famously Prince would never consent to
allowing him to do a parody of a print song,
which is pretty on brand for Prince yeah, but he
could have done it because the law allows him to
do that as far as I'm aware.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Well, he's also making records for Sony right, which is no,
it's no small deal there. So, like I imagine, Yankevick
wants to dot his eyes and cross his t's if guys,
doesn't it feel like if you want to get like
maximum promotion for something, maximum people talking about it, do
something shocking because people get so angry they just have
(32:57):
to post about it and give their opinion. That's a
exactly what this.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
Is very good for, Duzzy excellent point.
Speaker 4 (33:03):
Then, yeah, I mean, honestly, I was hearing about all
the crazy stuff that Elon Musk is up to. And
while it does sound like that guy's mega spiraling and
probably on drugs of varying varieties, you know, you got
to wonder when someone has that much, that many resources
at their disposal and there really is no quote unquote losing,
isn't the name of the game just to be as
(33:24):
infuriating as possible, just so you don't get bumped from
the headlines. I think some of what he's doing is that,
and it's calculating. I think some of the other stuff
that he's doing, isn't that? But you know we see
it all the time. There's no bad press quote unquote.
If if you don't care, the crazy thing is.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
Think about how many people heard about this story and
didn't actually listen to the episode or watch the episode
of the podcast. So they watched a clip right or
they write a headline like it. But they know what
Dudzy is now and they didn't know what Dudez was
a little before.
Speaker 4 (33:57):
Hell Devil's Advocate. They know who George Carr Roland is now.
Speaker 3 (34:01):
Man.
Speaker 4 (34:01):
I mean a lot of kids, you know who are
following this kind of stuff probably not aware of the
work of George Carlin. You know, there's a cutoff for
like the types of entertainers that my kid and their
generation are aware of. You know, when music, the knowledge
goes pretty far back, but when it comes to like actors,
certain comedians, there would be a massive blind spot in
(34:22):
that generation for a guy like George Carlin. So you know,
you could argue that this is exposing people to George
Carlin's work as well.
Speaker 2 (34:29):
Yeah, I didn't know this about the show. The creators
of The Dudzy Show have not revealed what company is
backing the show and the dudezy AI.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
That's correct.
Speaker 2 (34:42):
That's a wrinkle to me, a.
Speaker 4 (34:44):
Little weird, like is it proprietary? Is it in service
to some you know what I mean? Like is it
training an AI for a company?
Speaker 3 (34:54):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (34:54):
I think that's very very, very interesting and valliding to
bring up. And I wonder how long they're going to
milk that. I would argue that the story might cause
them to do a little damage control. I'll be interested
to see if maybe a reveal does come after the
backlash from this. But they definitely did what they set
out to do, which is to get some new listeners,
even if they're just hey listeners. But let's take a
(35:15):
quick break. We'll hear a word from our sponsor, which
is probably not an AI chat butt, and we'll be
back with one more piece of strange news.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
Speaking of only reading the headlines, Boby, the world's oldest dog,
is being investigated for fraud. I sent this in a
group chat earlier because I love a good headline. Bobi
is being investigated, you know, obviously for claims about his age,
(35:49):
But in my head, guys, I love picturing the world's
oldest dog. Somehow, being like the subject of an investigation
for some street level crowd, like he's selling loose cigarettes
or he started MLM somewhere. Anyway, we've got we've got
a lot of headlines. We wanted to We wanted to
(36:12):
talk about something that we may have mentioned in years past,
which is now reaching a culminating point and hopefully bringing
justice to a great number of victims. Uh. You guys
remember Abercrombie and Fitch. You ever went into one of
those stores?
Speaker 5 (36:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (36:29):
Who wear Abercrombie and Fitch in the summer.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I bought my son and jacket from there not long ago.
I hope everything's okay.
Speaker 4 (36:35):
Are those the pants that are like pre distressed? Wasn't
that their thing? Don't they do that? Or is that
American ego? I think it's maybe.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
That's every GA company.
Speaker 3 (36:43):
Yeah, a lot of money. You save a lot of
money selling them pre distressed, right, because you can lower
your QA standards, your quality assurance, and then you can
sell for a higher markup. And shout out to codename
Doc Holliday for also mentioning that song you ellude to.
This is quite a pickle. This is a real bag
(37:04):
of badgers. There is a former CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch,
which I don't know about you all. I always sort
of associated it with the I would say, light jock,
light sporting demographic.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
It's a bro brand.
Speaker 3 (37:21):
The former CEO of Abercrombie and Fitch, Mike Jeffries, is
facing a couple of different lawsuits now thanks to some
excellent investigative work by our friends across the pond at
the BBC. What I'd like to do is walk through
the story. For anybody wants more information on this, please
(37:43):
do check out the World of Secrets podcast Season one.
The Abercrombie guys and as you know, fellow conspiracy realists,
we don't blow smoke when we recommend podcasts that we
think you would enjoy. This is not in any way
an ad for the work of these journalists. This is
(38:04):
not even something that is in our corporate overlord network.
This is just good work and it matters, so it's
worth checking out. Here's what happened. So the BBC does
an investigation into longstanding allegations of things like sexual abuse,
(38:28):
sexual discrimination, even unto sex trafficking. This triggered the FBI
FBI agents specifically specializing in sex crimes and federal prosecutors
from the Eastern District of New York to look into
(38:48):
the allegations right now, Mike Jefferies and his partner is
a British national, are also facing a civil lawsuit. This
is much deeper water the allegations. Oh and the British
partner here is Matthew Smith. So let's go to the
BBC directly. Rihanna Croxford writes the following FBI investigate after
(39:12):
ex Abercrombie boss sex claims. So Jeffries and Smith Matthew
Smith are accused of exploiting young men for sexual activities
at events they hosted in their New York residencies. They
have multiple residencies in New York and then across the
(39:35):
world at very high end hotels. No less than eight
men as of January twenty twenty four have told the
British broadcasters that they went to these events they were
coerced into sexual activity. This occurred in places like London, Paris,
Marrakesh for more than a decade from two thousand and
(39:59):
nine to twenty f fifteen. That's why I know that
we touched on this, or at least talked about it
off air in the past. Over the course of our
careers on the show, and what the BBC found includes
stuff like event itineraries, flight tickets, a very a very
(40:19):
strange kind of middleman. I'd like to share with you
guys an image of someone involved in this trafficking scheme.
Are you ready? Oh yeah, okay, So I'm going to
share this. I want you guys to react to this
this and we'll tell you who it is. After you
see this picture. There we go, well, it's the guy,
(40:41):
not the dog.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
The guy dog. What's going on with that guy's nose?
Speaker 3 (40:47):
So he is missing his news?
Speaker 4 (40:49):
He has is as hard a time with the picture
because it looks like a blur. It's weird. I wasn't
being able.
Speaker 3 (40:55):
Let's do anything right, right right? He has a he
has a what look to be a snake skin prosthetic
over his nose. I'm just saying, this almost looks like
central casting for a villain.
Speaker 4 (41:09):
Yes, it does. I was thinking of And initially he
looks kind of like Tommy why So from the room.
He just has this guy He's got a big lustrous
head of hair and the sunglasses and I don't know,
he just had that Tommy why So vibe.
Speaker 3 (41:23):
So that middle man is named James Jacobson. The investigators
at the BBC or the journalist tracked him down. He
denied any wrongdoing and he said, look, certain adult activities
may have occurred, but all of the people involved went
to those events with quote their eyes wide open. And
(41:47):
he also, I don't know his testimony or his statements.
It's a little bit muddied right now because when the
BBC went and contacted this guy, like knocked on his
door directly, he told them at the beginning, if you
keep me anonymous, let's make a deal and I'll tell
(42:08):
you everything. And the BBC said, no, we have to
tell the actual story. So good on you, folks. I
will pause here. I've got to ask. We've all heard
of Abercrombie and Fitch here in the US, but do
you guys remember these allegations or does this ring in
(42:28):
a distant bell?
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Yeah, this was. This hit the news a couple of
months ago. It just because, as you said, Ben, this
has been ongoing like for a while where information has
been coming out in little fits and starts. But it
does feel like this is at least this is the
most information we've ever seen in one place. Right, I'll
(42:51):
tell you.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
One thing that always struck me a little odd about
Abercrombie were their ad campaigns that often involved very young, hairless,
scantily clad boys. That is, it's always something that struck
me about that. I just it was a little different.
(43:12):
And I know that, you know, the homore eroticism and
things like that have always been big in fashion, like
Calvin Klein and you know, briefs and you know, all
that stuff, and it's totally a thing, you know, but
Abercrombie's always kind of had a little more of that
than some brands, that know, as you seeing. And I
wonder if that was a culture, you know, or if
(43:33):
some of these abuses involved models or anything like that
as well.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Think back to twenty eleven, twenty twelve, when the news
about the very strange corporate guide to the private flights
broke like that, gosh, I don't remember any of this, Yeah,
that was Let me put a link in the chat here.
Here's something from huffingting Post what we see here. What
we see here is that the under the auspice or
(44:01):
under the guidance of Mike Jeffries, the corporate jet became
sort of a playground for this sort of exploitation and
the rules about dress behavior nomenclature. They were very specific.
They were also skirting the line of what would be
(44:25):
considered legally required from an employer toward an employee, like
they were just on the side of criminal.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Yeah. Basically, Oh, you want to be an abercrombian Fitch model,
then guess what. Here's here's the rules, as you said,
the rule book, and it's not it's probably not going
to be that fun for you.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
It's under Yeah, there's a weird line in here about
the flight attendance and making them respond to names that
weren't their own, very kind of domb kind of behavior.
It would and you know, much like I think we're
all a little weirded out by the Chick fil A
my pleasure response. I think it rubs everybody the wrong
(45:08):
way a little bit. This one has them saying things
like no problem, like you know, very short, what's the word,
kind of affirmative kind of sub you know, like I
am here to serve. So that's yeah, but it's weird
in this context.
Speaker 3 (45:25):
And I'm glad you mentioned the Chick fil A thing,
because I've brought that up on the past as well.
It's a weird flex. That Huffington Post article we mentioned
is by Alice Hines October eighteenth, twenty twelve, so this
story dates back much much further than the reporting that's
happening now. I'd like to, if it's okay, shout out
(45:48):
another great piece of journalism by Gloria Oledipo over at
The Guardian. This includes some some sobering quotes, and again
this may not be appropriate for all audiences. I'll read it.
Let's react. Quote. One man told the BBC that he
believed his drink had been spiked at an event after
(46:12):
Jeffries attempted to kiss him during a dance performance. The
man said that he fell asleep in a back room
and woke up to find a condom inside of him.
This is a quote. When I put things together, I
believe there is a very good possibility I was drugged
and raped. I'll probably never never know for sure the
(46:32):
answer to what happened. Most of the men who spoke
to the BBC said they felt degraded and harmed because
of their experience with Jeffreys and Smith. There was a
former model named Barrett Paul talking to the BBC. One
of the last quotes will give who says the following.
My feeling of being in that room was an animal.
(46:55):
I was not a human to any of these people.
I was a body. I was being presented someone to
do what they wanted with.
Speaker 4 (47:03):
Yeah, and I want to just walk not walk back,
but just clarify that when I was talking about how
some of these ad campaigns struck me in a certain way.
You know, there was a time when when we were younger,
I guess, or even in the two thousands, where kind
of queer culture wasn't front and center as much as
it is today. And then I think it's it's wonderful
that it is, and there's much more of a voice
(47:26):
for that culture in public conversation and pop culture and
all of that. But there was a time where it
was sort of like less mainstream and much more underground,
and this kind of fashiony queer coding kind of stuff
didn't seem to me to be a positive thing necessarily
for the queer community. It was more of like a
(47:46):
subjugation of that and sort of using it as like
a fashion brand, iconic kind of thing for a campaign.
Speaker 3 (47:53):
Well. Also, Abercrombie has been accused in the past of
some pretty discriminatory and racist practices right this, Yeah, it's
a company that has had problems. I was looking in
deep to establish a timeline. I feel like there could
be a full episode here because folks need to know
(48:15):
stuff we could get into in a deeper dive, concerns
things like the Lex Wesner connection, which there is one,
by the way, troubling stuff. It could also involve questions
of why there was not more investigation earlier, because you guys,
(48:37):
Jeffries ran Abercrombie Fitch from nineteen ninety two to twenty fourteen,
So during that entirety of the time, these weird rules
on plane flights, the weird discrimination, the sexual quid pro
quo stuff that was happening the entire time. And right
(48:59):
now it's twenty twenty four, a decade later, and nothing
has been done. And it makes you think there are
a lot of similarities with some Epstein stuff here.
Speaker 4 (49:09):
I remember this guy now that I'm looking at photos
of him, he looks perma surprised. Let's put it that way.
No shade on anyone that gets procedures done with this
guy's head had quite a few and yeah, he's definitely
going for that. Like I'm youthful until I'm dead in
the ground kind of fountain of youth vibe, and that
(49:30):
can really do a number on people's Brenton psyche and
they really live that life. You know, we know this
from hell, from all kinds of stories in history and
in you know, fantasy and fiction. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (49:44):
I don't want to. I never want to body shame
anybody for their appearance or how they present. But judging
on the behavior alone, the actions here, this is something
that feels like stuff they don't want you to to
know a long time in coming, and it makes me wonder.
You know, we have to be really careful not to
(50:06):
paint with two broad a brush and connect patterns or
recognized patterns where none exist. But the Wexner connection seems real.
This also reminds me of you know, I think that
was an excellent point about the dirty business of modeling
as an industry wherein that sort of abuse is simply tolerated.
(50:28):
It also makes me again, I just keep coming back
to it. You guys, why were there no investigations? You know,
it's like the It's like the Brian Singer question, remember
Brian Singer x men.
Speaker 4 (50:42):
Totally Yeah, I mean, powerful people can pull strings make
things go away.
Speaker 2 (50:46):
What did Singer do? I don't remember.
Speaker 4 (50:48):
He had these Hollywood Hills parties with, you know, taking
advantage of young starry eyed kids coming to Hollywood to
make a name for themselves. And there's a specific kid
that spoke, you know, testified to some really gnarly stuff
alleged never alleged, yes, correct, but what he spoke to,
if true, very gnarly. And you know Singer kind of
(51:12):
he sort of bounced back from that, but never really
Like often happens, you know, you take a hit, you disappear,
you're not really dealing with major consequences, but you kind
of don't get to keep being the person you used
to be. There is that, you know, I don't know.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
Sure from far enough away, maybe that looks like a consequence.
Speaker 4 (51:30):
Now you're right, Ben right?
Speaker 3 (51:31):
I mean I feel you on this too. You know.
For anybody who is looking into this at home, after
you get done with the BBC stuff, do check out
the Wexner Jeffreys connection, and do also check out the
stories about Brian Singer and Kevin Spacey. This is true stuff.
They don't want you to know. If you are hearing
(51:52):
this and you have been affected by these sorts of
unclean activities, then there are resources available counseling, therapy and
hopefully closure and justice.
Speaker 4 (52:04):
Oh really quickly. It's not exactly an upnoe. It might
break your heart, Matt. You've probably heard about this, but
I meant to mention it at the end of the
Carlon bit. But apparently Wizards of the Coast have sheepishly
admitted to using AI in the design of their Magic
Cards series. And they initially denied it, And it's apparently
(52:25):
in a background image of something in their new series.
It's something about like a like a lovecrafty and manner
kind of situation. I remember what it's called.
Speaker 2 (52:33):
Wait, but wasn't it Okay, Well, what I had seen
is that they had made a promotional image. That's right.
Speaker 4 (52:41):
I don't think it was a card. You're right, I'm
under saying the case, keep me honest.
Speaker 2 (52:44):
Just because just because Wizards has been so amazing at
supporting incredible artists, right, So it would break my heart
if they actually did that. But I can yeah, I
can imagine a promo image utilizing it for that, but
maybe not wanting to admit it. But they did admit it.
They did it.
Speaker 3 (53:02):
Speaking of supporting folks, so I want to make sure
we get this on air. The resources we're mentioning are
things like the National Sexual Assault Hotline. Here in the
US it is eight hundred six five six four six
seven to three. There are so many other stories we
didn't get to. Eighty two percent of Americans can't afford
(53:22):
a new car. There is a Kentucky politician who is
going to fail, I think, to try to legalize getting
frisky with your cousin. The Paris Review has a fantastic
article out now about a creative writing group based in
the CIA with CIA operatives. It's called Invisible Ink. All
(53:45):
this and more.
Speaker 2 (53:46):
That was so good. By the way, did you read
that article? I did.
Speaker 3 (53:49):
Yeah, it's so good.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
But did you say getting risky or frisky with your risky.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Visit the long term? Genetically, it's risky activity. Shout out,
hat shout out. So we can't wait to hear from you,
folks in future episodes. We hope you are having wonderful
twenty twenty four. We'll be back later this week with
messages from you, with some deep dives into some strange
stuff they don't want you to know. In the meantime,
(54:20):
join us. We can't wait to hear from you.
Speaker 4 (54:22):
That's right. You can find us all over the internet.
We exist the handle conspiracy Stuff on YouTube, x FKA, Twitter,
and also Facebook where we have our Facebook group. Here's
where it gets crazy, where Ben, I think somebody posted
on that group a piece of comic book art fan fiction.
I get maybe it wasn't full fan fiction, but it
(54:43):
was definitely a page or so out of a comic
project that featured you and Matt and I as like
kind of a D and D party of some sort
on the road.
Speaker 1 (54:54):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (54:54):
I said it to you guys in a group chat.
We're gonna shout. We're gonna shout out our fellow conspiracy
realist on listener mail. We love that kind of stuff.
Though in the story we are halflings who help investigate
a case of poisoning slash murder?
Speaker 2 (55:10):
Are there more panels in now? Was trying to figure
out what was going on?
Speaker 3 (55:14):
Yet? I believe they are.
Speaker 4 (55:16):
Oh, I can't wait to read the rist And we
also exist the handle conspiracy Stuff show on Instagram and TikTok.
Speaker 3 (55:23):
And if you would like to engage a telephonic device
to share with us a story we have three minutes,
fresh baked waiting for you, just waiting for you. Specifically,
all you have to do is give us a ring
where we are one eight three three std WYTK, give
us a nickname that you've always wanted. Let us know
(55:44):
whether or not we can use your name and or
message on air. Most importantly, do not limit, do not
censor yourself. If you have ancillary links, if you have
video footage, if you have new leads, amazing stories we
would love to learn or about them. Just drop us
a good old fashioned line at our email address where we.
Speaker 2 (56:05):
Are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com. Stuff they Don't want
(56:28):
you to know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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