June 22, 2021 • 36 mins
In the second episode of Truth Hounds, Anna and Kyle set out on a dangerous investigation. They seek to find out why some people are mean, while others aren't. They interview a famous (self-proclaimed) mean person, and embark on a ride-along as another mean person goes about their day. But: will this be too much? Will things get too mean?
For the inside sniff, follow @truthhounds on Instagram & @thetruthhounds on Twitter.
Hosted by Anna Seregina @cashmoneygranpa & Kyle Mizono @jylemizono.
Edited by Adam Wand @Adam_Wand.
Produced by Anna Hossnieh & Miles Gray.
Special thanks to Karen Kilgariff, Megan & Erewhon.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Truth Pounds, a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Anna and I've been unemployed for about a year now,
so I really have nothing going on. And I'm Kyle.
In middle school, I received the award most Enthusiastic to Learn,
So that makes me pretty special. And that is what
(00:21):
makes us the perfect investigative duo. We are two friends
who love each other very much. But what we love
even more is getting to the bottom of mysteries. All mysteries, sure,
but small mysteries specifically. Trust me, No mystery is too small. No, no, no,
Why don't you trust me when I tell you we
(00:42):
are ready to sniff around? We are the True Pounds.
M helloa, hey Kyle, Hey, hey, um it's it's Anna.
(01:03):
Oh hey hey, are you busy right now? Um? Well
I was actually just about to step out, but what's up. Well, um,
we need to talk. I'll be right there. Thank you
(01:27):
so much for meeting me here. Yeah, no problem. There
was a lot of traffic. Yeah, but I mean, I mean,
look at this, like the way that the sky hits
the water. It just you kind of can't tell where
one ends and the other one begins. It It's just
it's so beautiful out here. It really was beautiful. Honestly,
(01:53):
you should go over there right now, Kyle, Well, we
want them to finish listening to the podcast, right, yeah,
you're right. Anyway back to it. I brought you here
to talk because I had a feeling that you wanted
to talk to me about something. Yeah, something actually happened
(02:15):
the other day. I was walking down my street and
a butterfly fell on my nose. I'm sorry, a butterfly
fell on your nose? Oh, I mean landed on my
nose and then fluttered off. That sounds amazing. It was amazing.
It was beautiful. It was this amazing moment, and so
(02:36):
I had to tell someone around me, and I actually
tried to call you. You did, yeah, you didn't pick up. Oh,
I'm so sorry. It's fine. So I had to tell someone.
So I looked to my left and I see my
neighbor standing on his portion. So I go, did you
see that? Right? Okay? Yeah? No response? What? Yeah? He
(03:02):
doesn't respond, and so I think maybe he did didn't
hear me. He probably just didn't hear you. So I
asked again, did you see that butterfly that landed on
my nose? And f the law, okay, Yeah, And this
time he goes back into his house and shut the door.
It was so mean. I couldn't believe it. Kyle, I'm
(03:26):
so so sorry. Are you okay? And I had hurt
my feelings? That breaks my heart to hear. Why is
this man so mean to me? Why is anyone mean
to anyone? So I guess in essence, what you're asking is,
(03:51):
why are some people mean? Yeah? Episode two? Why are
some people mean? Our first instinct to crack this investigation
open was to talk to someone who identified as mean,
(04:13):
and if they were famous, that didn't hurt. We reached
out to a local celebrity and sat down for an interview.
We wanted this interview to be legit. I mean, like
Kyle said, we were dealing with the celebrity. We prepared
(04:34):
by studying a Charlie Rose interview meticulously, not that it mattered,
but it was with Edgier, and we noticed that Charlie
paused a lot and was very serious. We wrote our
best questions and sat down with the celebrity in question
via zoom. Of course, we'll let her introduce herself. Hi,
(04:58):
I'm Karen Kilgareth. If Karen, you are a multi hyphen
it incredible talent. You live in Studio City, which is
(05:18):
of course information that is readily available in your Wikipedia page.
How do you do it all? I guess I just
I get up early. I drink a lot of coffee,
A lot of coffee. Now for some tough questions. Okay,
(05:39):
I recall is talking a couple of months ago and
I said, I'm doing an episode about me, people to
which you applied, you should talk to me. I mean, Karen,
what is that? Kyle? You know that's just the truth.
I mean, it's something that I've known about myself for
(06:02):
a long time. It's a it's a truth that I,
UM feel they need to be accountable for. UM. I
grew up in the eighties, which was a very meantime
UM where bullying was encouraged. It was not just done
(06:22):
by other students, but by teachers and faculty, administration, maybe
even parents who ever felt like bullying. Any child could
do it legally and societally. That is incredible an inspiration.
(06:43):
Before we let you go, what's on deck for being me?
Any future projects? I have to say? You know, I'm
middle aged now and I have UM. I've put children's
mean toys away for the most part. You're an inspiration.
(07:08):
You really are. Thank you. Thank you both for being
such good listeners and such good interviewers. Wow. The interview
with Karen was really insightful into how to conduct an
interview as far as getting to the bottom of why
(07:31):
a person is mean, not so much. She just seemed
like a cool, independent, creative woman. You go girl. We
decided we needed to take a different approach this time.
We wanted to find an actual mean person. We wanted
to feel the sting of their wrath. We wanted to
dive in head first. We knew it would be scary,
(07:54):
but you know what, my friend, all the journalism is
So we came up with a plan. Let's find a
mean person and go to them. Let's watch them be mean. Hell,
maybe they'll even be mean to us. Maybe that way
we'd be able to get an insight into the psyche
of a mean person. This meant finding someone who was
(08:18):
confirmed to be mean both historically and currently. There's no
two ways about its sister, We went back to our
favorite social media platform, Instagram and put out a call
to action. Kyle made another cool graphic. Let me describe
it for you. Ellen Degenerous is staring off into space.
(08:41):
I think she just received an award or something. And
I don't say this lightly. She looks piste off and
let me take this one step further. She looks like
she just climbed out of hell to tell you to
fuck off. And like a true artist, Kyle drew flames
coming out of her hair. No disrespect, Mr. De Generous,
(09:01):
But we've all heard the stories underneath that very cool
and powerful graphic. We asked the following, is there someone
in your life who is really mean, the kind of
person who could really leave a mark, someone you see frequently,
like a barista, a bank teller, a neighbor on the porch.
(09:22):
We want to meet them. We need your help now
more than ever. Immediately the d m s came flooding in.
It was so overwhelming. It was like when you have
a leak and you put a bucket under it, but
then you look two ft over and there's a leak
over there too, And the only thing you have to
(09:45):
put under that is your favorite mug that you always
drink how cocoa from in the morning. Why am I
going to drink how cocoa out of a big spoon?
So to help us can solidate our leads. I set
up a tip line. It was so exciting. Now it
(10:07):
was official. I had some stuff going on that day,
so I let Kyle set up our greeting message. Excitedly,
she sent it over a true As much as I
(10:28):
loved what I was hearing, I couldn't really understand what
I was hearing. I told her to try again, and Kyle,
this time, be yourself. You've reached the truth. Hown tip line.
Make sure you don't leave anything out. Chow. There we go.
(10:49):
Now we were in business. Immediately the calls came flooding
in again. Hi, my name is Kat, and I have
a really mean person for you. Um. She's the lady
Christine that sold uh my car. She sold her youthed
(11:14):
card to me. Um, I rate her me okay um,
and she lives in Santa Monica. That's whoa our first lead.
We loved it, especially the callers mass skills. As a lead.
(11:35):
It wasn't very helpful. I mean, we were supposed to
save enough money to buy a car. Hope to God
that Christine even had another car to sell, and then
what try to get a ride to Santa Monica to
see Christine in person and see if she was mean. No,
I'm sorry, we have to move on. Next call Hi.
(11:58):
My name is Dan, and to just for Anon Kyle.
I have a mean person in my life and it's
a teller at a certain grocery store in a certain
kind of hit neighborhood in Los Angeles, and he's just
really short with me. He just stares at me, and
then I get anxious and nervous, so I try to
(12:19):
lighten the mood and make jokes and he doesn't even respond.
He just looks at me and stares at me, not
even a chuckle, and then just he says, all right,
here's your total, and he's just it's very uncomfortable. It
makes me not want to shop at this place. I
don't know if it's me. I don't know what's going on.
(12:40):
I don't know if he's depressed, but it's it sucks
and I don't like chopping at that grocery store because
of it. Okay, Dan mentioned that this grocery store attendant
might struggle with depression. I'm sorry, but we've all been there,
especially after the year that we've had. Plus, mental health
(13:03):
is so stigmatized in our society. No, thank you. Next
call hie. So you're listening for mean people. And every
morning I go for a walk who with my tinier
little dog, he's a toy poodle, and I'm like watching
(13:28):
nature and reading my Instagram. And one time I look
up and I see a lady. She's my neighbor. So
she's screaming in the full boy that every morning I'm
on her way. And then I'm completely rude. And then
another guy ran out and he started screaming that he
(13:52):
agrees with her. They told me that I have to
get out of their way. I think she's very unhappy person.
And for me, bye, what is this Bravo Original programming?
How am I supposed to keep up with all the characters.
There's you, a woman, a guy, a toy poodle, nature, Instagram. No,
(14:18):
we started to lose hope, but then we got our
dream lead. I know things are getting really good, but
we have to take a break for some ads, and
the ad break is over. So we got our dream lead.
(14:41):
Before we play it for you, we need to talk
to you, the listener. For legal reasons, we cannot reveal
some of the details of this lead. Trust me, we tried,
but we'll get to that later. That's why you'll hear
some of the details bleeped out, such as the clues
of the location and a physical description of the mean person. Hey,
(15:07):
I heard you're looking for mean people, and there's this
amazing it's a it's a great yogurt. That's the problem
is that it's such good yogurt. And it's right down
the street from my favorite sushi place, so I always
go down something and I would go in there and
I would get this delicious yogurt and they have like
(15:29):
some of my favorite candy. Though I'm like, why am
I being seven dollars? Okay, that's just that's the point,
either or not, like be there. I have never been more.
I don't. I don't know how to say that. They
like insult you personally every time you go in, and
it's like it hurts and you forget, you forget every time.
(15:50):
I've warned myself, and I've actually warned a friend and
I was like, hey, listen, just to warn you, and
my friend was like, you prepared me, but I was
could not be prepared for that. How do I describe
the meanness? Do you know if you've ever had a
shitty kitty box that has said like, what for you
thinking that's the film that you're greeted with, like are
(16:14):
you up? Fucking Kitty is on like everything. It's like
I just like can I get a spoop? And they're
like are you kidding me? And then they'll give me
the spoon. But it's like it was like, that's part
of your that's my story. Okay, this was great but terrifying.
(16:36):
We knew that this was the right lead, but were
we ready specifically Kyle. Was she prepared for such a
big fight. I mean, think about it, think about a
big fight. You don't just complancing into a boxing ring
off the street with a chi latte in a toe
bag and hope for the best. You just don't. You
(17:02):
need to train for this sort of thing with a
trainer who is scary. I knew just the person. Hey Megan, um,
I guess you think I'm mean or whatever. That is Megan.
You will meet her in a minute. See. I wanted
to put Kyle through the wringer. I called up a
(17:25):
close friend, someone I trusted but who had a bit
of lore around her. It was a bit of a risk,
but I assured Kyle that I had a secret weapon
in case Megan went off the rails. I arranged for
Kyle to go on a kind of ride along with Megan.
I would also be there, of course, but this was
really a crash course for Kyle to ultimately meet this
(17:47):
mean yogurt person. We would travel alongside Megan as she
went about her day and listen and learn. Megan agreed.
We picked us Saturday morning in the early spring, kissed
our families goodbye, got COVID tested, and met at make
It's Place. Hi. We met up with Megan on a
(18:12):
sunny Saturday in the East side of Los Angeles. You
could feel the nerves in the air. And not that
it was about that, but she was gorgeous, newly cut hair, stylish.
She seemed like an eight girl with a cool edge.
She had a gene sequa that not even Vogue Paris
could imitate. And let me tell you they've tried. We
(18:34):
got into our two thousand ten Hyundai Elantra Touring Edition
and put the keys into the ignition. So how did
you guys? How do you guys know each other? I
mean we met in SF, right, you're living there at
the time. Don't know why it's too cold? Hey, that
city has a lot of history like they filmed Misses
(18:57):
doutfire there anyway. But at some point we ended up
going to Portland together. Let'll tell you what, boy Trauma
bonded like crazy. No offense to the city of Portland.
It was just that on that particular trip we saw
(19:17):
some stuff we didn't like. She began to give us
a little tour of her neighborhood. They stopped doing the
by to get a discount on the cigarettes at that
seven eleven right there. So I don't really go there
that much very often. Huh. Right over there, that's a
(19:39):
store that just sells four shirts. I don't know how
they make it, but at least they pushed out of
Guatemalan woman to do it, you know what I mean. Huh.
I never thought about it that way. Pretty cool, Pretty
cool living in this neighborhood. How long have you lived
in this neighborhood? M five six years? Elder states want ruin.
(20:07):
Soon we reached our first destination, an organic supermarket called
air One. We were excited for what we were about
to hear. Probably something really mean about One is that,
you know, it's one of those places that The New
York Times wrote about as soon as the New York
Times writes about something it's hacked. She wasn't really being
(20:30):
mean yet, but I'm sure she would get to it.
I just saw a pregnant woman wearing no mask. Oh,
here we go. You might think that that might make
me mad, but that doesn't affect me. All I care
about his mind getting my nut. Um. Okay, it didn't
(20:54):
seem like air One was drawing out Megan's supposed meanness,
so I tried to give her another prompt, a different
neighborhood market, maybe Sprouts, to give her inspiration to get
her juices for only to be mean. Sprouts decent price
point okay, better than whole foods Um, I am mad
(21:16):
at it. I still think the price point is too high.
When I say decent, I mean I said decent relative
to you know, maybe someone like you who's not a
deal hound like me couch. That did kind of hurt.
I mean, I do love a good deal. I mean
I buy my Himily and cecil at Ross dress for less.
But it did seem like we were getting somewhere like
(21:40):
look at these guys right here right, completely unfussable. But
I bet you that their job quote unquote is like
writing longboards down hills on Instagram. Finally she was letting
it rip. He was like watching the most decorated Olympian
(22:03):
of all time, Michael Phelps take a lap around a pool.
Oh great, fourth dog. Yeah, why don't you walk that
in Big dog too? Were you looking at this fly,
Megan Fly? I don't like her cool lots. They every
fucking other year, they'll be telling you cool lots are back.
(22:24):
They're not. They're not, they never will be. It was
a beautiful sight. She was like a hawk over a kind,
but then she flew a little too close to home.
Because you don't bring a fucking animal into a place
of business, especially a place of business where food is
(22:44):
being Singer and soult. Okay, you bring an animal into
any place of business, that's a walk in liability. You
know how many episodes of the People's Court I've seen
in my life A lot whoa whoa whoa, Hey, lady,
I have a dog and he's my best friend. I
don't think it's irrational to get upset by the fact
(23:04):
that people are violating a lot bringing wild animals into
places of business. We couldn't get it on tape, but
Kyle's heart broke into a million pieces. She was upset
because Megan was talking about all dogs and that included
Kyle's dog. Ever since Kyle had adopted her dog during quarantine,
(23:30):
she had become a full on dog lover. I mean,
she had even started an Instagram account for her dog,
and she wrote captions as her dog. The captions would
say things like this is me on a walk, this
is me taking a nap. I just knew this was
(23:52):
gonna hurt Kyle in a deep, deep way. But honestly,
something else entirely worried me even more. I know it's
hard to imagine after what I just told you, but
there was something that Kyle loved even more than her dog.
It was the law. Kyle was so serious about the
(24:16):
law that every time she bought a cup of coffee,
she would proudly present her California state issued ID to
the barista. I would say, Kyle, you don't need to
show your idea to purchase a cup of coffee. Anyone
can do it. Literally, a baby can do it. But
(24:38):
that's how much she cared about the law. Needless to say,
I was worried. Kyle excused herself from the conversation with
Megan and walked away. I did what any good friend
would do. I sprinted after her at Olympian speed. I
(25:00):
can't help but feel like she's attacking me because I
have the doll and I when you know he was
a puppy, I would bring him around a lot. I
could see the pain behind Kyle's eyes. It was unbearable
and exactly what I had feared earlier. I had promised
(25:21):
Kyle that I had a secret weapon in case things
went a little off the rails, a last resort only
to be used in case of emergency. Can I tell
you something? Um? Huh? Can look at me? Yeah, you know,
I told you that we have a secret weapon just
in case she gets to me. The thing is I
(25:43):
used to be mean. I was shocked and listening back
to this piece of tape is not comfortable for me.
What Anna, Yeah, that's that's crazy. It was true. It
(26:05):
started in the ninth grade and continued on into my
early twenties. It impacted all parts of my life. In
my coffee shop job, I was the kind of mean
that people wrote yell previews about three to be exact,
all naming me by name, stating it was the worst
(26:28):
customer service experience they had ever had. One woman said,
I made her not want to leave the house. I'm
only telling you this because I know how to deal
with people like that. So if it gets out of
hand and it gets more personal, I'll stop there. Okay,
(26:51):
I know how that was really hard to hear. Well,
you know what, Kyle, it was really hard to share.
This was a new to Anna. I mean, I had
only ever known her to not be mean. She was
the kind of friend who would pick you up when
you fell into a deep sea of emotion. You know,
the kind of friend that sends you a single rose
(27:12):
in a big balloon. Just because finding this out about
Anna was like finding out that your dad in a
past life was Satan, the dark Lord or Behemoth. Once
the shock war off, I realized that knowing this new
information about Anna didn't actually mean I was losing my friend,
(27:36):
but more like I was gaining a very strong friend,
someone who had the power to protect me, a bodyguard friend.
And maybe there was something there. If Anna used to
be mean, maybe there was more to this mean thing
we were investigating. But more on that later, and now
(28:03):
an AD break. The ad break is over. We walked
back to Megan and moved on to the next location,
the Farmer's Market. We arrived at the marketplace, and boy
(28:24):
was a bustling. It was a real who's who of
what's what. The air smelled sweet with hints of tangerines
and earthy undertones of hummus. Ladies clad in Linnen waved
furiously to one another from competing kombucha stalls. The mood celebratory.
(28:47):
It was a visual feast for the eyes. I encouraged
Kyle to take a stab at being mean pun intended.
I wanted her to feel free to comment on that
guy sandals or talk about how that child was too
tall to be a child. Was that my landlord? We'll
never know. How did it go? Listen for yourselves, Kyle,
(29:10):
do you want to try the name something that sucks? Um?
I guess uh, you know, fuck both guys for wearing
um lighting baseball hats and trying to look him nearly
noticing that people were wearing baseball hats and then adding
(29:31):
the word fuck. That wasn't exactly what I meant when
I encouraged Kyle to be me. They had a valid
reason for doing so. Megan agreed, Now there weren't baseball
hats because it's sunny outside. Com back to the drawing board.
I scanned the market furiously, looking for anything that I
(29:53):
could be mean to. It just didn't feel right being
mean to someone. Maybe there was something. I spotted a
stand that was only selling honey. And let me tell you,
the quantity of honey sold was absurd. I'm talking piles
and piles of honey. I'm talking a small island, but
(30:14):
it was honey. I thought I could work with this.
Would you say, like, who needs all that? That was
pretty mean? I felt good about that. Well, the good
thing about honey actually kyles that never actually goes bad.
(30:35):
Do you really do need that much honey? I mean
those are large jars of honey, but they could theoretically
last to the rest of your life. Huh. I still
felt like there was something missing, and then I saw something.
It was a guy who was selling expensive vintage T shirts.
The one on display was a Harley Davidson shirt. I
(30:57):
had an idea. I pointed it out to Megan, So
you would say, funk that Harley david for sure? I
mean I would, yeah, because I'm pretty sure this son
of a bitch Pas writ in Madera, California or something.
He's selling it for forty and the person that buys it,
and where's it is going to be a fashion vic.
(31:20):
They don't even ride, dude, So they don't even ride.
It was at this moment that something clicked into place.
I began to realize where Megan was really coming from.
You're not like just mad at the shirt itself. You're
not just like fuck everything. It really is capitalism and
(31:41):
what's behind the shirt and what it means. So I
would say that, actually, we're learning that you're not really mean,
but there's things that bother you. You You kind of have
opinion about them. Wait a minute, backup, Kyle, are you
talking about capitalism? Yeah? I read a lot of fouquet. Uh.
I don't know if that joke really lands anyway. I
(32:04):
asked Megan if from her perspective, she actually isn't me,
but is in fact raging against the machine. And you're
kind of I mean, I would even go so far
as to say is raging against the machine if the
machine is I guess capital You're goddamn right, I am, Yeah, absolutely, man,
I mean I'm raging against the things that are worth
raging against. Okay, this was not at all what we
(32:27):
were expecting, Like I didn't want to scare Kyle earlier,
but I really thought she would be too delicate to
handle Megan. But instead, Megan's words really resonated with Kyle.
It was a beautiful sight. Before I knew it. Kyle
and Megan had their own things to talk about, like
(32:50):
cool lots. Remember Megan's whole cool lot thing. They're too low,
They're still not flattering. I was starting to understand Megan
and the things that made her tick. We may not
have been mirror images of each other, but we really
(33:10):
had a nice common ground. We went to our final destination,
the parking lot of a cent only store. We parked
our car, sat and talked the thing that separates only
from your average dollar store. It's not all just garbage
designed to be in a dollar store. Okay, some of
(33:31):
these are failed products. Some of these are things that
are about to expire, all right, regardless, it's all working
people stuff. You got that right, sister, Kyle. What are
you unionizing? And where is it directly across the street
(33:52):
from the farmer In case you didn't catch that, When
Megan says far more, she's talking about the farmer's market. Yeah,
we know dumb mass, Kyle. Sorry, I was having a
little fun. I love you. I love you too. Megan
(34:17):
concluded the Right Along with some beautiful perspective. If you
want to be mad at stuff, you're always going to
find stuff to be mad at. But sometimes right across
the street there's something that you can funk with. Because
remember the only parking lot that we were sitting in,
(34:38):
it's quite literally across the street from the farmer, which
means Farmer's Market. And I don't want to hear a
peep out of you, Kyle. My lips are sealed. If
I want to get mad, all I gotta do is
cross that street. But I don't feel like crossing that street.
I feel like going in that only and getting some cilantro.
(34:59):
What do you say, Bravo, Megan, Bravia. Oh sorry, Kyle
took Italian in college and she's been showing me a
thing or two in our spare time. The Right Along
was a complete success, except that it really wasn't. In
one way, it was incredibly eye opening to see that
Megan was such a multidimensional individual. But as far as
(35:23):
training Kyle to confront a certified mino, and by that
I mean mean person, not so much. I love knowing
what I knew now, and I loved Megan, you go girl,
but I didn't feel ready. I mean, what if I
got to the yogurt chop and the person was so
mean to me that I didn't know to say what?
(35:45):
Then I'm caught, barrassed and alone. We knew there was
only one option. I asked Kyle to meet me back
at the beach as soon as possible. Yeah, Hey, thank
you so much for meeting me here. Yeah, um, my
(36:08):
oil light turned on today. I think I've been driving
a lot back and forth to the beach, so I'm
so sorry. But I mean, if it helps, it's just
so beautiful here. But anyway, so I brought you here
to talk and um, who I wanted to tell you
is that this episode is actually a two parter what
(36:38):
to be continued. Sniff Sniff Truth Hounds is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. If you like this podcast,
please subscribe, rate, and review
Welcome to Truth Pounds, a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Anna and I've been unemployed for about a year now,
so I really have nothing going on. And I'm Kyle.
In middle school, I received the award most Enthusiastic to Learn,
So that makes me pretty special. And that is what
(00:21):
makes us the perfect investigative duo. We are two friends
who love each other very much. But what we love
even more is getting to the bottom of mysteries. All mysteries, sure,
but small mysteries specifically. Trust me, No mystery is too small. No, no, no,
Why don't you trust me when I tell you we
(00:42):
are ready to sniff around? We are the True Pounds.
M helloa, hey Kyle, Hey, hey, um it's it's Anna.
(01:03):
Oh hey hey, are you busy right now? Um? Well
I was actually just about to step out, but what's up. Well, um,
we need to talk. I'll be right there. Thank you
(01:27):
so much for meeting me here. Yeah, no problem. There
was a lot of traffic. Yeah, but I mean, I mean,
look at this, like the way that the sky hits
the water. It just you kind of can't tell where
one ends and the other one begins. It It's just
it's so beautiful out here. It really was beautiful. Honestly,
(01:53):
you should go over there right now, Kyle, Well, we
want them to finish listening to the podcast, right, yeah,
you're right. Anyway back to it. I brought you here
to talk because I had a feeling that you wanted
to talk to me about something. Yeah, something actually happened
(02:15):
the other day. I was walking down my street and
a butterfly fell on my nose. I'm sorry, a butterfly
fell on your nose? Oh, I mean landed on my
nose and then fluttered off. That sounds amazing. It was amazing.
It was beautiful. It was this amazing moment, and so
(02:36):
I had to tell someone around me, and I actually
tried to call you. You did, yeah, you didn't pick up. Oh,
I'm so sorry. It's fine. So I had to tell someone.
So I looked to my left and I see my
neighbor standing on his portion. So I go, did you
see that? Right? Okay? Yeah? No response? What? Yeah? He
(03:02):
doesn't respond, and so I think maybe he did didn't
hear me. He probably just didn't hear you. So I
asked again, did you see that butterfly that landed on
my nose? And f the law, okay, Yeah, And this
time he goes back into his house and shut the door.
It was so mean. I couldn't believe it. Kyle, I'm
(03:26):
so so sorry. Are you okay? And I had hurt
my feelings? That breaks my heart to hear. Why is
this man so mean to me? Why is anyone mean
to anyone? So I guess in essence, what you're asking is,
(03:51):
why are some people mean? Yeah? Episode two? Why are
some people mean? Our first instinct to crack this investigation
open was to talk to someone who identified as mean,
(04:13):
and if they were famous, that didn't hurt. We reached
out to a local celebrity and sat down for an interview.
We wanted this interview to be legit. I mean, like
Kyle said, we were dealing with the celebrity. We prepared
(04:34):
by studying a Charlie Rose interview meticulously, not that it mattered,
but it was with Edgier, and we noticed that Charlie
paused a lot and was very serious. We wrote our
best questions and sat down with the celebrity in question
via zoom. Of course, we'll let her introduce herself. Hi,
(04:58):
I'm Karen Kilgareth. If Karen, you are a multi hyphen
it incredible talent. You live in Studio City, which is
(05:18):
of course information that is readily available in your Wikipedia page.
How do you do it all? I guess I just
I get up early. I drink a lot of coffee,
A lot of coffee. Now for some tough questions. Okay,
(05:39):
I recall is talking a couple of months ago and
I said, I'm doing an episode about me, people to
which you applied, you should talk to me. I mean, Karen,
what is that? Kyle? You know that's just the truth.
I mean, it's something that I've known about myself for
(06:02):
a long time. It's a it's a truth that I,
UM feel they need to be accountable for. UM. I
grew up in the eighties, which was a very meantime
UM where bullying was encouraged. It was not just done
(06:22):
by other students, but by teachers and faculty, administration, maybe
even parents who ever felt like bullying. Any child could
do it legally and societally. That is incredible an inspiration.
(06:43):
Before we let you go, what's on deck for being me?
Any future projects? I have to say? You know, I'm
middle aged now and I have UM. I've put children's
mean toys away for the most part. You're an inspiration.
(07:08):
You really are. Thank you. Thank you both for being
such good listeners and such good interviewers. Wow. The interview
with Karen was really insightful into how to conduct an
interview as far as getting to the bottom of why
(07:31):
a person is mean, not so much. She just seemed
like a cool, independent, creative woman. You go girl. We
decided we needed to take a different approach this time.
We wanted to find an actual mean person. We wanted
to feel the sting of their wrath. We wanted to
dive in head first. We knew it would be scary,
(07:54):
but you know what, my friend, all the journalism is
So we came up with a plan. Let's find a
mean person and go to them. Let's watch them be mean. Hell,
maybe they'll even be mean to us. Maybe that way
we'd be able to get an insight into the psyche
of a mean person. This meant finding someone who was
(08:18):
confirmed to be mean both historically and currently. There's no
two ways about its sister, We went back to our
favorite social media platform, Instagram and put out a call
to action. Kyle made another cool graphic. Let me describe
it for you. Ellen Degenerous is staring off into space.
(08:41):
I think she just received an award or something. And
I don't say this lightly. She looks piste off and
let me take this one step further. She looks like
she just climbed out of hell to tell you to
fuck off. And like a true artist, Kyle drew flames
coming out of her hair. No disrespect, Mr. De Generous,
(09:01):
But we've all heard the stories underneath that very cool
and powerful graphic. We asked the following, is there someone
in your life who is really mean, the kind of
person who could really leave a mark, someone you see frequently,
like a barista, a bank teller, a neighbor on the porch.
(09:22):
We want to meet them. We need your help now
more than ever. Immediately the d m s came flooding in.
It was so overwhelming. It was like when you have
a leak and you put a bucket under it, but
then you look two ft over and there's a leak
over there too, And the only thing you have to
(09:45):
put under that is your favorite mug that you always
drink how cocoa from in the morning. Why am I
going to drink how cocoa out of a big spoon?
So to help us can solidate our leads. I set
up a tip line. It was so exciting. Now it
(10:07):
was official. I had some stuff going on that day,
so I let Kyle set up our greeting message. Excitedly,
she sent it over a true As much as I
(10:28):
loved what I was hearing, I couldn't really understand what
I was hearing. I told her to try again, and Kyle,
this time, be yourself. You've reached the truth. Hown tip line.
Make sure you don't leave anything out. Chow. There we go.
(10:49):
Now we were in business. Immediately the calls came flooding
in again. Hi, my name is Kat, and I have
a really mean person for you. Um. She's the lady
Christine that sold uh my car. She sold her youthed
(11:14):
card to me. Um, I rate her me okay um,
and she lives in Santa Monica. That's whoa our first lead.
We loved it, especially the callers mass skills. As a lead.
(11:35):
It wasn't very helpful. I mean, we were supposed to
save enough money to buy a car. Hope to God
that Christine even had another car to sell, and then
what try to get a ride to Santa Monica to
see Christine in person and see if she was mean. No,
I'm sorry, we have to move on. Next call Hi.
(11:58):
My name is Dan, and to just for Anon Kyle.
I have a mean person in my life and it's
a teller at a certain grocery store in a certain
kind of hit neighborhood in Los Angeles, and he's just
really short with me. He just stares at me, and
then I get anxious and nervous, so I try to
(12:19):
lighten the mood and make jokes and he doesn't even respond.
He just looks at me and stares at me, not
even a chuckle, and then just he says, all right,
here's your total, and he's just it's very uncomfortable. It
makes me not want to shop at this place. I
don't know if it's me. I don't know what's going on.
(12:40):
I don't know if he's depressed, but it's it sucks
and I don't like chopping at that grocery store because
of it. Okay, Dan mentioned that this grocery store attendant
might struggle with depression. I'm sorry, but we've all been there,
especially after the year that we've had. Plus, mental health
(13:03):
is so stigmatized in our society. No, thank you. Next
call hie. So you're listening for mean people. And every
morning I go for a walk who with my tinier
little dog, he's a toy poodle, and I'm like watching
(13:28):
nature and reading my Instagram. And one time I look
up and I see a lady. She's my neighbor. So
she's screaming in the full boy that every morning I'm
on her way. And then I'm completely rude. And then
another guy ran out and he started screaming that he
(13:52):
agrees with her. They told me that I have to
get out of their way. I think she's very unhappy person.
And for me, bye, what is this Bravo Original programming?
How am I supposed to keep up with all the characters.
There's you, a woman, a guy, a toy poodle, nature, Instagram. No,
(14:18):
we started to lose hope, but then we got our
dream lead. I know things are getting really good, but
we have to take a break for some ads, and
the ad break is over. So we got our dream lead.
(14:41):
Before we play it for you, we need to talk
to you, the listener. For legal reasons, we cannot reveal
some of the details of this lead. Trust me, we tried,
but we'll get to that later. That's why you'll hear
some of the details bleeped out, such as the clues
of the location and a physical description of the mean person. Hey,
(15:07):
I heard you're looking for mean people, and there's this
amazing it's a it's a great yogurt. That's the problem
is that it's such good yogurt. And it's right down
the street from my favorite sushi place, so I always
go down something and I would go in there and
I would get this delicious yogurt and they have like
(15:29):
some of my favorite candy. Though I'm like, why am
I being seven dollars? Okay, that's just that's the point,
either or not, like be there. I have never been more.
I don't. I don't know how to say that. They
like insult you personally every time you go in, and
it's like it hurts and you forget, you forget every time.
(15:50):
I've warned myself, and I've actually warned a friend and
I was like, hey, listen, just to warn you, and
my friend was like, you prepared me, but I was
could not be prepared for that. How do I describe
the meanness? Do you know if you've ever had a
shitty kitty box that has said like, what for you
thinking that's the film that you're greeted with, like are
(16:14):
you up? Fucking Kitty is on like everything. It's like
I just like can I get a spoop? And they're
like are you kidding me? And then they'll give me
the spoon. But it's like it was like, that's part
of your that's my story. Okay, this was great but terrifying.
(16:36):
We knew that this was the right lead, but were
we ready specifically Kyle. Was she prepared for such a
big fight. I mean, think about it, think about a
big fight. You don't just complancing into a boxing ring
off the street with a chi latte in a toe
bag and hope for the best. You just don't. You
(17:02):
need to train for this sort of thing with a
trainer who is scary. I knew just the person. Hey Megan, um,
I guess you think I'm mean or whatever. That is Megan.
You will meet her in a minute. See. I wanted
to put Kyle through the wringer. I called up a
(17:25):
close friend, someone I trusted but who had a bit
of lore around her. It was a bit of a risk,
but I assured Kyle that I had a secret weapon
in case Megan went off the rails. I arranged for
Kyle to go on a kind of ride along with Megan.
I would also be there, of course, but this was
really a crash course for Kyle to ultimately meet this
(17:47):
mean yogurt person. We would travel alongside Megan as she
went about her day and listen and learn. Megan agreed.
We picked us Saturday morning in the early spring, kissed
our families goodbye, got COVID tested, and met at make
It's Place. Hi. We met up with Megan on a
(18:12):
sunny Saturday in the East side of Los Angeles. You
could feel the nerves in the air. And not that
it was about that, but she was gorgeous, newly cut hair, stylish.
She seemed like an eight girl with a cool edge.
She had a gene sequa that not even Vogue Paris
could imitate. And let me tell you they've tried. We
(18:34):
got into our two thousand ten Hyundai Elantra Touring Edition
and put the keys into the ignition. So how did
you guys? How do you guys know each other? I
mean we met in SF, right, you're living there at
the time. Don't know why it's too cold? Hey, that
city has a lot of history like they filmed Misses
(18:57):
doutfire there anyway. But at some point we ended up
going to Portland together. Let'll tell you what, boy Trauma
bonded like crazy. No offense to the city of Portland.
It was just that on that particular trip we saw
(19:17):
some stuff we didn't like. She began to give us
a little tour of her neighborhood. They stopped doing the
by to get a discount on the cigarettes at that
seven eleven right there. So I don't really go there
that much very often. Huh. Right over there, that's a
(19:39):
store that just sells four shirts. I don't know how
they make it, but at least they pushed out of
Guatemalan woman to do it, you know what I mean. Huh.
I never thought about it that way. Pretty cool, Pretty
cool living in this neighborhood. How long have you lived
in this neighborhood? M five six years? Elder states want ruin.
(20:07):
Soon we reached our first destination, an organic supermarket called
air One. We were excited for what we were about
to hear. Probably something really mean about One is that,
you know, it's one of those places that The New
York Times wrote about as soon as the New York
Times writes about something it's hacked. She wasn't really being
(20:30):
mean yet, but I'm sure she would get to it.
I just saw a pregnant woman wearing no mask. Oh,
here we go. You might think that that might make
me mad, but that doesn't affect me. All I care
about his mind getting my nut. Um. Okay, it didn't
(20:54):
seem like air One was drawing out Megan's supposed meanness,
so I tried to give her another prompt, a different
neighborhood market, maybe Sprouts, to give her inspiration to get
her juices for only to be mean. Sprouts decent price
point okay, better than whole foods Um, I am mad
(21:16):
at it. I still think the price point is too high.
When I say decent, I mean I said decent relative
to you know, maybe someone like you who's not a
deal hound like me couch. That did kind of hurt.
I mean, I do love a good deal. I mean
I buy my Himily and cecil at Ross dress for less.
But it did seem like we were getting somewhere like
(21:40):
look at these guys right here right, completely unfussable. But
I bet you that their job quote unquote is like
writing longboards down hills on Instagram. Finally she was letting
it rip. He was like watching the most decorated Olympian
(22:03):
of all time, Michael Phelps take a lap around a pool.
Oh great, fourth dog. Yeah, why don't you walk that
in Big dog too? Were you looking at this fly,
Megan Fly? I don't like her cool lots. They every
fucking other year, they'll be telling you cool lots are back.
(22:24):
They're not. They're not, they never will be. It was
a beautiful sight. She was like a hawk over a kind,
but then she flew a little too close to home.
Because you don't bring a fucking animal into a place
of business, especially a place of business where food is
(22:44):
being Singer and soult. Okay, you bring an animal into
any place of business, that's a walk in liability. You
know how many episodes of the People's Court I've seen
in my life A lot whoa whoa whoa, Hey, lady,
I have a dog and he's my best friend. I
don't think it's irrational to get upset by the fact
(23:04):
that people are violating a lot bringing wild animals into
places of business. We couldn't get it on tape, but
Kyle's heart broke into a million pieces. She was upset
because Megan was talking about all dogs and that included
Kyle's dog. Ever since Kyle had adopted her dog during quarantine,
(23:30):
she had become a full on dog lover. I mean,
she had even started an Instagram account for her dog,
and she wrote captions as her dog. The captions would
say things like this is me on a walk, this
is me taking a nap. I just knew this was
(23:52):
gonna hurt Kyle in a deep, deep way. But honestly,
something else entirely worried me even more. I know it's
hard to imagine after what I just told you, but
there was something that Kyle loved even more than her dog.
It was the law. Kyle was so serious about the
(24:16):
law that every time she bought a cup of coffee,
she would proudly present her California state issued ID to
the barista. I would say, Kyle, you don't need to
show your idea to purchase a cup of coffee. Anyone
can do it. Literally, a baby can do it. But
(24:38):
that's how much she cared about the law. Needless to say,
I was worried. Kyle excused herself from the conversation with
Megan and walked away. I did what any good friend
would do. I sprinted after her at Olympian speed. I
(25:00):
can't help but feel like she's attacking me because I
have the doll and I when you know he was
a puppy, I would bring him around a lot. I
could see the pain behind Kyle's eyes. It was unbearable
and exactly what I had feared earlier. I had promised
(25:21):
Kyle that I had a secret weapon in case things
went a little off the rails, a last resort only
to be used in case of emergency. Can I tell
you something? Um? Huh? Can look at me? Yeah, you know,
I told you that we have a secret weapon just
in case she gets to me. The thing is I
(25:43):
used to be mean. I was shocked and listening back
to this piece of tape is not comfortable for me.
What Anna, Yeah, that's that's crazy. It was true. It
(26:05):
started in the ninth grade and continued on into my
early twenties. It impacted all parts of my life. In
my coffee shop job, I was the kind of mean
that people wrote yell previews about three to be exact,
all naming me by name, stating it was the worst
(26:28):
customer service experience they had ever had. One woman said,
I made her not want to leave the house. I'm
only telling you this because I know how to deal
with people like that. So if it gets out of
hand and it gets more personal, I'll stop there. Okay,
(26:51):
I know how that was really hard to hear. Well,
you know what, Kyle, it was really hard to share.
This was a new to Anna. I mean, I had
only ever known her to not be mean. She was
the kind of friend who would pick you up when
you fell into a deep sea of emotion. You know,
the kind of friend that sends you a single rose
(27:12):
in a big balloon. Just because finding this out about
Anna was like finding out that your dad in a
past life was Satan, the dark Lord or Behemoth. Once
the shock war off, I realized that knowing this new
information about Anna didn't actually mean I was losing my friend,
(27:36):
but more like I was gaining a very strong friend,
someone who had the power to protect me, a bodyguard friend.
And maybe there was something there. If Anna used to
be mean, maybe there was more to this mean thing
we were investigating. But more on that later, and now
(28:03):
an AD break. The ad break is over. We walked
back to Megan and moved on to the next location,
the Farmer's Market. We arrived at the marketplace, and boy
(28:24):
was a bustling. It was a real who's who of
what's what. The air smelled sweet with hints of tangerines
and earthy undertones of hummus. Ladies clad in Linnen waved
furiously to one another from competing kombucha stalls. The mood celebratory.
(28:47):
It was a visual feast for the eyes. I encouraged
Kyle to take a stab at being mean pun intended.
I wanted her to feel free to comment on that
guy sandals or talk about how that child was too
tall to be a child. Was that my landlord? We'll
never know. How did it go? Listen for yourselves, Kyle,
(29:10):
do you want to try the name something that sucks? Um?
I guess uh, you know, fuck both guys for wearing
um lighting baseball hats and trying to look him nearly
noticing that people were wearing baseball hats and then adding
(29:31):
the word fuck. That wasn't exactly what I meant when
I encouraged Kyle to be me. They had a valid
reason for doing so. Megan agreed, Now there weren't baseball
hats because it's sunny outside. Com back to the drawing board.
I scanned the market furiously, looking for anything that I
(29:53):
could be mean to. It just didn't feel right being
mean to someone. Maybe there was something. I spotted a
stand that was only selling honey. And let me tell you,
the quantity of honey sold was absurd. I'm talking piles
and piles of honey. I'm talking a small island, but
(30:14):
it was honey. I thought I could work with this.
Would you say, like, who needs all that? That was
pretty mean? I felt good about that. Well, the good
thing about honey actually kyles that never actually goes bad.
(30:35):
Do you really do need that much honey? I mean
those are large jars of honey, but they could theoretically
last to the rest of your life. Huh. I still
felt like there was something missing, and then I saw something.
It was a guy who was selling expensive vintage T shirts.
The one on display was a Harley Davidson shirt. I
(30:57):
had an idea. I pointed it out to Megan, So
you would say, funk that Harley david for sure? I
mean I would, yeah, because I'm pretty sure this son
of a bitch Pas writ in Madera, California or something.
He's selling it for forty and the person that buys it,
and where's it is going to be a fashion vic.
(31:20):
They don't even ride, dude, So they don't even ride.
It was at this moment that something clicked into place.
I began to realize where Megan was really coming from.
You're not like just mad at the shirt itself. You're
not just like fuck everything. It really is capitalism and
(31:41):
what's behind the shirt and what it means. So I
would say that, actually, we're learning that you're not really mean,
but there's things that bother you. You You kind of have
opinion about them. Wait a minute, backup, Kyle, are you
talking about capitalism? Yeah? I read a lot of fouquet. Uh.
I don't know if that joke really lands anyway. I
(32:04):
asked Megan if from her perspective, she actually isn't me,
but is in fact raging against the machine. And you're
kind of I mean, I would even go so far
as to say is raging against the machine if the
machine is I guess capital You're goddamn right, I am, Yeah, absolutely, man,
I mean I'm raging against the things that are worth
raging against. Okay, this was not at all what we
(32:27):
were expecting, Like I didn't want to scare Kyle earlier,
but I really thought she would be too delicate to
handle Megan. But instead, Megan's words really resonated with Kyle.
It was a beautiful sight. Before I knew it. Kyle
and Megan had their own things to talk about, like
(32:50):
cool lots. Remember Megan's whole cool lot thing. They're too low,
They're still not flattering. I was starting to understand Megan
and the things that made her tick. We may not
have been mirror images of each other, but we really
(33:10):
had a nice common ground. We went to our final destination,
the parking lot of a cent only store. We parked
our car, sat and talked the thing that separates only
from your average dollar store. It's not all just garbage
designed to be in a dollar store. Okay, some of
(33:31):
these are failed products. Some of these are things that
are about to expire, all right, regardless, it's all working
people stuff. You got that right, sister, Kyle. What are
you unionizing? And where is it directly across the street
(33:52):
from the farmer In case you didn't catch that, When
Megan says far more, she's talking about the farmer's market. Yeah,
we know dumb mass, Kyle. Sorry, I was having a
little fun. I love you. I love you too. Megan
(34:17):
concluded the Right Along with some beautiful perspective. If you
want to be mad at stuff, you're always going to
find stuff to be mad at. But sometimes right across
the street there's something that you can funk with. Because
remember the only parking lot that we were sitting in,
(34:38):
it's quite literally across the street from the farmer, which
means Farmer's Market. And I don't want to hear a
peep out of you, Kyle. My lips are sealed. If
I want to get mad, all I gotta do is
cross that street. But I don't feel like crossing that street.
I feel like going in that only and getting some cilantro.
(34:59):
What do you say, Bravo, Megan, Bravia. Oh sorry, Kyle
took Italian in college and she's been showing me a
thing or two in our spare time. The Right Along
was a complete success, except that it really wasn't. In
one way, it was incredibly eye opening to see that
Megan was such a multidimensional individual. But as far as
(35:23):
training Kyle to confront a certified mino, and by that
I mean mean person, not so much. I love knowing
what I knew now, and I loved Megan, you go girl,
but I didn't feel ready. I mean, what if I
got to the yogurt chop and the person was so
mean to me that I didn't know to say what?
(35:45):
Then I'm caught, barrassed and alone. We knew there was
only one option. I asked Kyle to meet me back
at the beach as soon as possible. Yeah, Hey, thank
you so much for meeting me here. Yeah, um, my
(36:08):
oil light turned on today. I think I've been driving
a lot back and forth to the beach, so I'm
so sorry. But I mean, if it helps, it's just
so beautiful here. But anyway, so I brought you here
to talk and um, who I wanted to tell you
is that this episode is actually a two parter what
(36:38):
to be continued. Sniff Sniff Truth Hounds is a production
of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows. If you like this podcast,
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