April 19, 2022 • 55 mins
In the explosive fifth episode of season two, Anna and Kyle get a major break in the ongoing case surrounding the elusive Beep Macrame and his mysterious festival. However, things almost immediately take an unexpected turn. And the thing about this unexpected turn? This unexpected turn is going to cost them. It’s going to cost them a lot. Will Anna and Kyle go completely broke? Will they get to the bottom of anything … ever?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Truth Hounds, a production of My Heart Radio.
I'm Anna and I've been unemployed for two years now,
so i really have nothing going on. And I'm Kyle
and in middle school I received the ward most Enthusiastic
to Learn. So that makes me pretty special. And that
(00:22):
is what 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 are ready to
(00:44):
sniff around? We are the the truth Hounds. Previously on
Truth Hounds, Oh my, what is that? What is that? Deep?
Macromy the director of the festival, looked terrifying. We can
(01:06):
make something really sick and really spooky that also has
a social commentary that's for the good of you for long.
You know what, We're going to make the short in
four hours. Something you probably can't tell right here is
that I'm actually terrified. How did this happen? What happened?
(01:27):
What is this? Um? It is one pm um and
there's just been a break in the case, I got
an email, and um I told Anna about it. Let
me just get this my shirt. I'm trying to get
myself together. Um Anna's coming over in a few minutes,
(01:50):
so we can go over it. Oh my god. Episode five,
What is fear? And why can't I away hard for? Okay? Um,
(02:10):
I'm just getting to Kyle's. Ok Okay are you? Oh
my god? Oh, let's go. Okay. So it's so crazy meat,
(02:31):
So we have we got an email. So I just
wanted you to come over to your okay, okay, okay, okay,
Oh my god, okay, Oh my god, just perpetually running. Okay,
let me see okay, Okay, I haven't got it. I
wanted to get it. I don't see it in my embo.
(02:54):
Oh my okay, Oh my god, Oh my god, okay,
super oh my god. Read this entire email entire Okay,
there's tune to this email, but the words got it,
got it to comfirm you received and ready to entirely.
Failure to follow directions could result in a loss of
(03:16):
an official selection status. Wait does that mean wait? Wait
for receiving possible honorable mention? Okay, congratulations official? Oh my,
oh my god, oh my god. Wait virtual show? What wait? Wait? Wait,
(03:37):
your film is an official selection? Okay, virtual show taking
place this sympe Okay, wait one second? Okay, so attached
to this email as your official bullet Laurel. Be sure
to attach it to your poster and shared on social media,
tagging us. Okay, what's next? We needed the little copy
(04:00):
of your film, masap um. If your film is not
in English, please have English. I was up virtual screen
or submission deadline? Wait and then there's this Okay, wait,
let me see. We are currently organizing our virtual festival
this year. Do you have experience that the climate is
still not conducive for the types of live events we
(04:22):
tend to organize, which are usually balls to the wall.
We do make our virtual shows both memorable and valuable
to our filmmakers, and our main page does have sample
videos the virtual events we organized throughout the pandemic for reference. Ha. Wait,
but so the regular funds are balls to the wall. Yeah? Wait, wait,
(04:50):
so we got Okay, I just want to look at this.
Wait where does it wait? But why does it say
why does it say did you get your ticket? It?
Because if we got wait, but we got in, so
why when we probably know, we probably don't need to
get because if you got in, you probably you need
to reserve your virtual ticket online to participate in the festival.
(05:15):
We've been emailing you know that probably just means, like
you you reserve your spot online, just that you're you're
going to be attending. Like that probably doesn't mean then
what is that you must purchase a ticket to participate? Wait? Yes,
so even it says here, yes, even filmmakers need to
purchase a take to purchase a ticket to access the show.
(05:40):
I'm sorry for a virtue. So for a gig or
who got in, which is us, you have to purchase
a ticket to attend your own screening, which is online. Wait, Belower,
about how much does it take? Belower to available ticket?
Use the code for fifty okay off your ticket pages? Well,
(06:07):
how much is that fifty three dollars plush tags? So
for us to screen our short online is at least
fifty dollars. I mean, putting something on YouTube is for free.
(06:29):
I just and it's not even going to be balls
to the wall. Oh my god, I'm gonna I'm gonna
trun off the party. Yeah, so a lot just happened.
(06:52):
Let's just take a moment to talk about everything. Remember
that this whole investigation was about meeting this one trigging
yet terrifying man, Beat Macromy who happened to be in
charge of the festival. What initially drew us to him
was quite simple. He seemed to be super weird because
(07:19):
he was the director of this film festival. We decided
the most direct way to meet him would be to
infiltrate the festival. That meant making a movie, and making
a movie was no easy feat. In fact, it entailed
a lot. We had to hire a director, find a
(07:44):
screenwriter who understood our vision, fundraise for the eventual submission, fee,
pets and salad for the day of the shoe, work
with a reputable acting coach, higher actor, one of whom
was Anna's crush, and finally shooting edit the damn thing.
(08:08):
All of that had to happen in order for this
one moment to exist. But the thing about this moment,
it didn't even guarantee we would meet Bet Macromy. No,
it just got us here to the front door of
the festival. But now that we were at the front door,
(08:34):
he hardly felt celebrating because we just learned he would
still cost us a hundred dollars plus tax to step inside. Sure,
he offered us a discount on the tickets, but that
didn't matter because the principle of the matter, meeting Beat
(09:00):
back room and confronting our fear, it's beginning to cost
us a lot of money. In fact, we now faced
a question, is confronting your fear worth approximately three? Honestly,
I didn't know. Let's take an even further step back.
(09:25):
If this was a virtual event, would we even get
to meet Beat macromy We had done all of this
so we could face our fear, but how would we
be able to do that on a computer screen? I mean,
zoom is good, but it ain't that good. Discovering that
(09:51):
there was an admission fee for the filmmakers who were
accepted into the festival definitely left a sour taste in
our mouths. And as far are is, not getting to
meet Beat Macromay in person, that felt like a blow
to the investigation. It definitely meant that there was further
to go. Basically, our investigation wouldn't end after attending this festival,
(10:18):
but it would definitely answer some questions and assist us
in eventually getting there. There being meeting Beat Macromain in
the flesh. We were on the right path. It's just
that the path now looked a bit different. We had
no choice but to keep going. We were into deep
(10:42):
so we came up with another plan, fund raise and
additional fifty dollars to pay for our ticket to attend
the festival so we could see Beat Macromain on a
computer screen. For now. We did, but we have historically
(11:04):
done best. We put up a post on Instagram. I
typed up a lengthy letter appealing to my followers. It
was verbos, but it was from the heart. I don't
quite know how to say this, but our short film
Core is an official selection for the two thou Festival,
(11:31):
taking place virtually this year. It cost us a hundred
fifty dollars to submit, so needless to say, we were
very nervous to hear the outcome of the decision. We
couldn't have done this without our Indigo Go donors, because
of whom we were able to afford the submission, as
well as pizza and salad for the day of the shoot.
(11:51):
And a huge thank you to our talented Cask and
the only director brave enough to believe in us play
taking h now here comes the hard part. Moments after
we found out that we were selected, we were told
(12:12):
that on top of the hundred fifty dollar submission fee,
we have to pay to attend the screening. Even as
the film's creators, the cost to attend fifty three dollars.
This does not come easily, especially with the holidays around
the corner. We do not have time to fundraise, so
(12:34):
we instead asked that you ven Momie, and our goal
is to allow everyone who was involved a ticket. Please
donate what you can. Within minutes, we raised fifty three dollars,
(13:00):
which would grant us one ticket to attend the festival.
And keep in mind we had already spent a hundred
and fifty dollars to apply. I guess you can't put
a price tag on art, but just for the record,
if we did put a price tag on art, it
would read two hundred three dollars. This was a virtual event,
(13:26):
which came as a complete surprise to us. Remember we
had been anticipating booking flights, renting gowns and tuxedos, taking
a limo. The whole crew is there. We are passing
a bottle of champagne around. Everyone is taking a big gulp,
(13:48):
except for Kyle because she has some sparkling apple cider.
She's been sober for five years actually, But we talked
about it beforehand and it's not a big deal, and
she's super comfortable with us during king around her, and
she's cheers in us like she's also drinking champagne. But again,
I do assure you it is apple cider, And in
some ways I'm jealous because I think apple cider actually
(14:12):
tastes better than champagne. In fact, a lot of alcohol
tastes really bad, which brings to mind the question are
we just pretending anyway? To reiterate, this was a virtual event,
so we did have to scale back, but we still
(14:32):
wanted it to be fun and feel like a celebration,
so we invited a bunch of our friends over to
Anna's house, six of them to be exact. And before
you feel too bad for us, check this out. We
only purchased one admission ticket, and there would actually be
(14:53):
about eight of us technically attending the event, which means
one ticket it is fifty three dollars, So theoretically eight
tickets would equal four d four dollars, but we only
bought one, which means we technically saved three hundred and
(15:16):
seventy one dollars. So if anything, we won at last
the night was here, we would finally attend the festival
and get a glimpse of the mystery man himself. Beep
macromy Now again, we wouldn't actually be meeting him in person,
(15:41):
but we would be damn close to it. Oh my god,
they're here. Oh my god. Sorry, everybody, chocolates. If that
(16:05):
voice sounds familiar to you, decorative chocolates, it's because it is.
That's Megan, the mean person with whom we did a
right along in season one. But that doesn't affect me.
All I care about his mind getting my nuts. You
might be thinking to yourself, she doesn't actually sound that mean,
(16:28):
and she brought decorative chocolate. Correct a mundo. It turned
out that Megan was no longer mean, and all it
took was her finding love. Huh makes you think? So? Oh?
Rod's here? Also? Okay, let's see it's her friend Rod
(16:50):
from from before. Do you remember Perfect Day Rod from
the White Is Giving Back Feels So Good episode from
season one? He was here too, and he wanted to
celebrate our film. Our friends Claire and Nick came as well,
and everyone got settled in Anna's cozy living room. We
(17:10):
waited for our brave director Clay to arrive. We did
our best to make our guests feel very comfy. We
come on, Hi, how are you? How do you want
to tea or spend drift or one of four beers?
Four beers okay, maid a total of two dollars at
(17:33):
this point to be in this festival. So this is
kind of a big night for us. So we're expecting
this link to come any moment. Of course, we we
did get into the festival um and so now we
are waiting for a link to the festival. The Lord ceremony,
it's toasted by a man named Oh here it is,
Oh here it is? Do you want to Oh? I
(17:58):
didn't know it was going to start so soon. And
and our director, our brave director Clay is supposed to come,
although his eighteen minutes, so we st no, we won't
be watching our short. So that's that's I hope everybody's
on board with that play. Got there right in time.
(18:22):
Oh wow, let's starting. I know things are getting really good,
but we have to take a break for some ads.
(18:44):
And the ad break is over back to it. What
we saw next was um confusing to say the least.
O yes, let me be your eyes. What looked to
(19:17):
be just someone's basement appeared on the screen. Either our
or their internet connection was bad, we weren't sure who's.
Either way, the screen looked very pixelated. The audio quality
(19:39):
it was horrendous. It sounded like someone was holding their
iPhone in a different room hoping that we would be
able to hear it in this room. Honestly, it was
hard to tell what was what. In fact, at this
(20:00):
point it looked like someone just forgot to turn off
their web camera and now we had to look into
their weird room. In fact, if they hadn't framed the
shot with black curtains as though it were a stage,
we wouldn't have believed it was on purpose. I know,
(20:25):
Anna said let me be your eyes, but actually we
can't be your eyes because in that moment we had
no idea what the hell we were actually looking at.
(20:46):
We looked at this for about ten minutes. Nothing happened. Then,
just as we thought that maybe beat macromy himself had
forgotten about the festival altogether, there something appeared on the screen.
There was no doubt in my little mind it was him.
(21:12):
Kyle and I gripped each other's hands as we looked
at him. I wish you guys were there to stare
at the computer screen and hold hands with us, because
what we saw was almost indescribable. But I'll try. This
(21:40):
was beat Macromay. Remember the man who appeared so crooked
in his picture that he seemed to be almost diagonal.
The man whose contact lenses were so white it was
hard to tell if you're looking at death itself. The
man we knew very little about, except that he had
(22:03):
a very interesting potential roommate, and it was a doll.
This was him, all right, And this time he was
even scarier because this time he did not appear to
be crooked. No, this time he appeared to be very upright,
(22:30):
And that confirmed the scariest part of all. He was real.
Tonight it was clearly a special night for Beet macromy
(22:50):
because tonight he dawned a black cloak. This cloak was
all black, but his face was all white, devoid of
all proof of life. He moved unpredictably across the zoom screen,
as if his ancestors had been lizard. He slithered contorting
(23:16):
his body, paying homage to paganistic rituals that had come
before him. He was hypnotizing, and we watched him and
pointed silence, and then at last he opened his mouth,
for it was time to speak. Disclaimer, we cannot play
(23:44):
the audio of beat Macromy's real voice. Instead, a brave editor,
Adam has once again doctored the audio. It's time, It's
time for the show to begin. The next thing that
came out of Beep's mouth was really unexpected because it
(24:06):
was not worked. No, it was singing. Again. We cannot
play the original audio here, but we thought it was
important to preserve the spirit of what we heard because
our editor Adam refused to sing, stating that he was
an editor, not a singer. I Kyle did the honors.
(24:29):
I was on an a pirate ship and she was
all that cared. I was on an a pirate ship,
and she was all that cared. The singing was very interesting.
I wouldn't say it was scary, but that's just one
(24:49):
reporter's opinion. What's scary to me might not be scary
to someone else. I don't know their life anyways, beat
macrom I took a second from being terrifying to let
us all know that this was an award ceremony and
all the films accepted into the festival were in the
running to win awards in various categories. This was news
(25:13):
to us. There were categories. What were the categories? Scary
and more scary? The strange thing was when we took
a closer look at the programming, we realized there were
(25:35):
indeed many categories that spanned way beyond horror, drama, comedy,
sci fi, thriller, experimental documentary, and then this is very peculiar,
there was even a category for and I quote everything
(25:59):
in between. Um, not to be a total square, but
you call yourself a horror film festival, wouldn't you? And
again not to have my shirt buttoned all the way
up to the top or anything like that, But wouldn't
you only have horror films at your festival? But Anna,
(26:26):
it's okay, sure all those people representing all those categories
would be at the festival. And by that I do
mean this um zoom meeting. But we knew what we had,
and we knew we represented horror. So we opened a
second window on our computer screen and let the zoom meeting.
(26:47):
I mean the festival play in the background for a moment,
and went to the horror film section in the programming.
We excitedly scanned the names here, we're our peers, are contemporaries,
our brothers in horror, and our horror brothers. That's right, Kyle.
(27:15):
They were there too, I mean, people who were cut
from the same cloth as us, and soon we would
be standing with them, shoulder to shoulder, waiting to hear
the name of the winner, content to knowing we were
all winners for just being accepted into this festival and
(27:40):
being in the business of horror. But something happened. Our
name wasn't there. Wait, that couldn't be. We had made
a horror short film. We scrolled through the programming in
(28:01):
disbelief while the zoom meeting um, I mean festival continued
to play in the background, And finally there were our names.
We were in a category all right, in that category comedy.
(28:24):
What I don't understand. We did everything right. We both
ran backwards, both of us. That's never been done in
a horror thing to my knowledge. No, Kyle, I promise
you it was really scary. I can't even think about
(28:44):
it too much or or else. I won't be able
to fall asleep at night. It was really scary, I promise.
Let's just try to take this as a compliment. Beat
macromy himself thinks that we're so funny that you thought
our horror short was, you know, a comedy. But Anna,
(29:09):
I hate to tell you this, it was not funny,
not in the least. Um. But you know, you're you're
you're awesome. Um, you are beautiful in every single way.
(29:30):
Uch can stop that, I know what you're doing. Okay.
So we found out, much to our disbelief, that the
festival had categorized as a comedy. And you know what,
that was fine. Sometimes when you make art and you
(29:52):
put it out into the world, it ceases to be
in your control and the audience gets to decide it's meaning.
So we decided it was fine. Now we closed the
web browser and brought the zoom meeting. I'm so sorry,
(30:13):
I mean the festival to the foreground, hit enter full
screen mode and sat back in anticipation of the comedy category.
And now it's the award for the best Comedy Film. Stephanie,
(30:35):
where are you? What happened next was a bit jarring.
A woman stepped onto the screen beautiful, well dressed, seemingly
at odds with the otherwise scary atmosphere of the festival. Typically,
(30:57):
award ceremonies often have guest presenters m and in this
way the festival was no different. We listened for our
name to be called, sitting at the edge of our seats.
Would they call our name, meaning would our film be nominated?
(31:19):
We knew our film was good, but was it award worthy?
I don't know if there's a different area, and I
(31:49):
don't know what happened, but our name wasn't called. We
were devastated, but Clay, our brave director, assured us that
the nomination was probably on its way. I mean, there
(32:09):
would probably be another category for dark comedy, and our
name would certainly be there. I mean, Clay was right.
Our short film sat at the delicious intersection of comedy
and horror dark comedy. The dark comedy category just never came.
(32:38):
It was sort of like waiting at a train station
for your beloved to come back from war. You look,
and you look. John comes out and hugs his wife,
Dave comes out and hugs his kids. Robert comes out
and pets his dog. Steve in Tyler Morris, They all
(33:04):
come out. But where's Albert, you fault to your knees.
He's definitely dead and not coming back from war. The
wave of people around you washes away. You are left alone,
and the train conductor comes over and sternly taps you
on the shoulder. Ma'am, you have to get up. You're loitering,
(33:27):
you say, But but my Albert. What Albert, ma'am. I've
heard this to him before. He ain't coming back. This
is bullshit. I'm sorry for cursing. It's just informed that
(33:50):
we have a twelve year old fan. And to you,
I say, I'm sorry, but my heart isn't a million
pieces right now, and it's a little hard to think
about protecting you in this moment. But I know that
you are out there and I think you're awesome, and
just be honest with you, guys for a second. You
(34:17):
the listeners, the festival, it was bad, In fact, it
was awful. And this next word, it requires a bit
of a trigger warning you're about to hear. It might
(34:38):
sound like an accusation, but you know what, here it goes.
The fact of the matter is we spent three dollars
to receive a zoom link. So this festival. It seemed
like a bad deal. That was our editor Adam. Again,
(35:00):
there was a particular word we had to avoid, so
every time it gets mentioned, you will instead hear the
words bad deal. Let's be honest, you don't need to
be handled with kid gloves. The festival was a complete mess.
(35:23):
What the previous audio didn't properly exhibit was that this
was a poorly organized event. It was a live stream
of some guys basement via zoom. His internet connection was
extremely poor. He kept cutting out, to the point that
the other attendees virtually turned into a mob in the chat,
(35:46):
taping over and over that he needed to restart his
router again. The audio sounded like he was playing music
from an iPhone in another room. The ambiance was unperfect rational,
to say the least, it felt like at any minute,
beat mcarmy's roommate might open the door and yell at
(36:08):
him to keep it down and finally wash his dishes.
We were heartbroken. There were no two ways to say that. Frankly,
we were embarrassed. I mean, we had gathered our closest
(36:31):
friends to celebrate all of our hard work. I couldn't
help but feel like just leave my house, thinking to
themselves a fucking loser. To our twelve year old fan,
I see you, I hear you, and I want to
protect you from how cruel the world can be. But
(36:54):
honestly having a really hard time right now. We were
completely dumbfounded. Not only were we embarrassed, but we were lost,
Like how did we even get here? I mean, before
making the movie, before finding the website, I mean even
(37:17):
before the beach where we talked about who was afraid
of rats and who was afraid of roaches? What had
gotten us here? If I was being honest, I didn't
just find the festival website by myself. I had heard
about it from a friend, someone who had come to
me and said, you gotta check this out. We decided
(37:42):
that it just made sense to retrace our steps. Maybe
my friend would be able to shine some light on
what had just happened and what we should do next.
So we gave my friend Chris a call um, not
my crush Chris, my friend Chris, a different one, and
(38:14):
now an ad break. The ad break is over. My
name is Christopher Um, a director. One might say that's Chris.
(38:37):
Chris and I had met through some mutual friends. He
was an accomplished filmmaker and someone who you might say
was deep in the festival circuit and most important in
this moment. He was actually the person who had originally
shown me the festival website. He was the whole reason
(38:58):
that we knew about macromy which at this point I
sort of wish he had kept to himself. No offense.
I think it was just, um, you know, you get
emails for film festivals, cement our festival. The submission fee
(39:19):
is still like kind of exorbitant, um. Yeah, yeah, and
I think, um, this one was one of those ones.
But yeah, I looked at the website. You know, he
has something, you know, like just him himself. You know,
I don't. I was like, I wasn't. I wasn't particularly
interested in the film festival, but I was. He seemed character. Um.
(39:44):
So I think that's why I mentioned it to you.
After Chris told us how he had come to find
out about the festival, we shared what we had gone
through and caught him up to date. Well. So we
became so kind of transfixed on this person that we
decided that we would just make a movie to try
(40:07):
to get in, to try to meet him, and the
submission fee was a hundred fifty dollars. That's very excorted.
That's absurd. I mean, I don't even a hundred fifty dollars.
(40:27):
That just seems like you made that up. So we
fundraised for that, and then we got in. And then
he's he's in the same email where he said you
got in. He said, you also have to purchase a
ticket to attend the screening. And the ticket is fifty dollars.
It's actually fifty three dollars plus tax. Kris didn't mince
(40:52):
his words. And this next part what's really hard to hear. Yeah,
I mean this sounds like, you know, there was that
article and I think it's like the Hollywood Reporter about
kind of bad deal my film festivals. I'm sorry that,
you know, it sounds like kind of along those lines.
(41:16):
M hmm. That it was brutal to hear, but you
know what we needed to hear it the festival was
this a bad deal? And beep macromy was a we
(41:42):
had gotten. It's a bad deal. Hard We got off
the phone with Chris. Okay, um, this is a lot
to think about. Thank you so much, but thank you
so much for talking to us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry
about your bomber. I was so mad. In fact, I
(42:11):
was piste off. I should have seen this coming. How
did I let myself fall for this? I am a confident, smart,
beautiful woman. I mean, hello, I'm gorgeous. I should have known.
(42:33):
I should have protected Kyle. I mean there were signs
all along. The festival never listed a location. One festival
employee listed her high school g p A and her
bio beat Macroman didn't even capitalize his own last name.
(42:54):
They said a submission to the festival was a submission
to the way of the previously unfamiliar. Yeah, unfamiliar, bullshit.
I told Kyle, we are doing something about this. No
one bucks with us. I'm sorry, twelve year old fan,
(43:15):
but no one sucks with us. Wait wasn't there that
other festival, the one that reached out to us asking
to screen our shirt OKI means short play the audio
from that moment We got it Instagram message. It says
(43:39):
I'd love to screen your shirt at my festival. We
would love to screen your shirt. Yeah, And I wrote
back and I said, WHOA do you mean short? Good
to clarify we would love that, and he said, I
absolutely meant short. And then I said awesome sauce. Tell
us when your festival is we will give you our short. Okay, um? Yeah.
(44:03):
He reached out and I we transferred our shirt I
mean short to him, but we never heard back. Wait you,
we transferred the short and he downloaded the short and
then we never heard back. What did he do with
the short? Is he doing something weird with the short
at his house? Look? This guy identified himself as a listener,
(44:23):
and you know that I love our listeners, including him,
and my love for our listeners knows no bounds. But
how could you do this to us? Kyle? Open up
our Instagram and follow up on his DM. Get me
get mad? Crack Hi, just wondering about your festival and
(44:45):
if our shirt just joking our short will be screened.
We waited for an answer. What came next was honestly unbelievable. Hello, Hello,
so funny. I was just thinking about y'all. I listened
to episode one of season two while cleaning my screen
(45:06):
printing shop yesterday. War opened our shirts I mean shorts
program on December eleven. A great response. He had screened
our short on December eleven and had not even invited us.
Where were we I mean it? Was sort of like
(45:30):
someone throwing a birthday party for you, but forgetting to
invite you. This guy was literally a listener, one of
you guys. That meant he was a loved one, and
to have a loved one stab you in the back
like this and then tap you on the shoulder and
say turn around real quick and let me stab you
(45:52):
in the front. How you're walking around with quite a
few stabs. Yeah, I'm sorry, this one hurts. We knew
what we had to do. We were not going to
make the listener pay because he's a listener, and that
(46:14):
actually cancels itself out. We actually really appreciated his support
and he seemed really cool. But beat Macromy. He was
going to pay double. He would pay and then he
would pick up the other guy's tab. We were going
to scam beep Macromy. We were going to make him
(46:37):
pay for everything that he had put us through. Honestly,
I don't understand. I'm gonna walking because honestly, what okay?
Because the other guy's a listener, right let me um.
I was a little worried about Anna. I hadn't seen
(46:59):
her like this since she wanted to go skydiving for
you guys, the listeners. Honestly, this whole investigation was starting
to scare me. From a legal perspective, I needed advice,
legal advice, So I called up my family lawyer friend Paul.
If you tuned in last season, then you know this
(47:22):
is what we call a Paull call. Hello, is this Paul?
Oh my god, it's Kyle. Paul was a busy guy.
That's why I sound so excited to have finally gotten
(47:44):
him on the phone. Hey, how are you? I am
so sorry. I haven't run. We jumped right in. Okay,
So what is the legality of damming someone? Could you
get in trouble for scamming someone? Spanning? Oh? I said, scamming? Scamming? Yeah? Yeah,
(48:14):
I mean if you fraud somebody, you're committing your crime
depending upon the gail, the size of the amount of money,
and you to fraud somebody out of um, you know,
if it's a pod can be you know, bring in
larsity and a felony and you can go to jail
(48:34):
for several years. Okay. While I had Paul on the phone,
I had to ask him his official take on the
Beet Beet festival. You know that how is a bad
deal in all that's not fraud. Oh, that's not front.
That's just you know, buyer beware. As long as you
(48:56):
know and everything is in good faith, that just drips
out to be a flop. Yer mm hmm. Good to know.
If I knew Anna was here on this call, there
was one question she would have had to have Paul answer.
Would you say that I was bouncy as a child?
(49:17):
What I was bouncy as a child? Yes, well, bouncy
like a ball? Yeah. I heard everything I needed to hear.
We said our goodbyes. Well, have a good weekend, Paul.
I hope to see you soond Okay, bye, thank you.
(49:42):
Paul was right. Scamming Beef macromy could put us in
grave legal danger. I needed to tell this to Anna
before she did something that she might regret. Plus, technically,
the festival was not a bad deal. It was just
a shitty festival. Maybe I would just tell Anna about
(50:04):
that later. M m, well what about the investigation? Where
did that leave us? Did that mean we were done?
That was it? We love you guys, the listeners so much,
(50:30):
and we didn't want to lead you down a dark
alleyway and then leave you there with no answers. But
here we are ship. I called Anna and let her
know she should meet me at the beach to talk. Hi.
(51:00):
Oh my gosh, well thanks for meeting me. Of course,
I can't turn the tables on me, or is everything okay? Well, okay,
behind your back, I went to I called Paul, Paul
the lawyer, Yeah, my family lawyer friend. You gave him
a paull call. I gave him a pall call. Yeah,
(51:20):
wait without me? Yes, why did you do that? I
had to find out some stuff from him, and I
just felt like, you were so worked up. I just
felt like I needed to call him and I need
to tell you what he said. Yeah, it was really mad,
but I mean, we weren't coming here, and I was
worked up, and I just think we need to put
(51:41):
a stop to the investigation. What do you mean to
put a stop to the investiga. It's feeling like, based
on what Paul said, I feel like we could be
putting ourselves at risk to get our asses majorly sued.
And I don't want that. You think we can get sued, yes,
because you're talking about I mean, I can't say the word,
(52:03):
but you're talking about bad dealing someone that we think
bad dealed us. Yeah, of course I want a bad
deal them because they bad dealed us and I want
to make them pay. But we could we could be
put in jail. We we can't be put into No,
we can't be put in jail. We could get sued.
We could get put in jail. I have two hundred
(52:26):
dollars in my bank account. I can't deal with that.
I don't even have that. Wait, I'm sorry you gave
him a pall call. Did you ask the most important
question of all? Because you know I like to be
there when you make the poll call. Okay, yes, yes,
(52:49):
tell me what you asked him. I asked him. I said,
I said, my my podcast co host would like to
know if I was bouncy as a child. And he
said yes. He said good. No, it's not good. Okay,
so you gotta listen to me. For our own safety.
We have to put the investigation to arrest. And I
(53:11):
know I don't want to do this because we're so
we spent so much time on this, but I just
don't think it's safe. He really said you were bouncing
as a child. Yeah, are you lying? I'm not lying,
It just said he didn't seem as into it. This time,
which was really weird. He just actually acted like a
(53:32):
whole different person then the last time we talked to him.
But okay, oh, so we should put a full stop
to the investigation. Yeah, but what will we tell the listeners. Honestly,
(53:53):
I don't think we need I don't think we can
think about the listeners right now. We have to think
about ourselves. What do you say, What do you mean
we can't think about the list sitners. There's no show
if there's no listeners. Yeah, but there's no show if
we're in jail. So yeah, that's a really good point.
(54:13):
So yeah, okay, yeah, I thought that was a seal. Again, No,
it's wrong. M h m hm. To be continued later. Hey,
(54:49):
if you like The Truth Hounds, please subscribe to us
and leave us a five star review. Seriously, it would
really help us. And honestly, you've got to start earning
your keep around here. And as soon as you're done
earning your keep, follow us on Instagram at truth Hounds
and on Twitter at the truth Hounds to participate in
(55:11):
our investigations and see behind the scenes footage and bonus
juicy content. Truth Hounds is a production of I Heart Radio.
For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the I
heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Welcome to Truth Hounds, a production of My Heart Radio.
I'm Anna and I've been unemployed for two years now,
so i really have nothing going on. And I'm Kyle
and in middle school I received the ward most Enthusiastic
to Learn. So that makes me pretty special. And that
(00:22):
is what 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 are ready to
(00:44):
sniff around? We are the the truth Hounds. Previously on
Truth Hounds, Oh my, what is that? What is that? Deep?
Macromy the director of the festival, looked terrifying. We can
(01:06):
make something really sick and really spooky that also has
a social commentary that's for the good of you for long.
You know what, We're going to make the short in
four hours. Something you probably can't tell right here is
that I'm actually terrified. How did this happen? What happened?
(01:27):
What is this? Um? It is one pm um and
there's just been a break in the case, I got
an email, and um I told Anna about it. Let
me just get this my shirt. I'm trying to get
myself together. Um Anna's coming over in a few minutes,
(01:50):
so we can go over it. Oh my god. Episode five,
What is fear? And why can't I away hard for? Okay? Um,
(02:10):
I'm just getting to Kyle's. Ok Okay are you? Oh
my god? Oh, let's go. Okay. So it's so crazy meat,
(02:31):
So we have we got an email. So I just
wanted you to come over to your okay, okay, okay, okay,
Oh my god, okay, Oh my god, just perpetually running. Okay,
let me see okay, Okay, I haven't got it. I
wanted to get it. I don't see it in my embo.
(02:54):
Oh my okay, Oh my god, Oh my god, okay,
super oh my god. Read this entire email entire Okay,
there's tune to this email, but the words got it,
got it to comfirm you received and ready to entirely.
Failure to follow directions could result in a loss of
(03:16):
an official selection status. Wait does that mean wait? Wait
for receiving possible honorable mention? Okay, congratulations official? Oh my,
oh my god, oh my god. Wait virtual show? What wait? Wait? Wait,
(03:37):
your film is an official selection? Okay, virtual show taking
place this sympe Okay, wait one second? Okay, so attached
to this email as your official bullet Laurel. Be sure
to attach it to your poster and shared on social media,
tagging us. Okay, what's next? We needed the little copy
(04:00):
of your film, masap um. If your film is not
in English, please have English. I was up virtual screen
or submission deadline? Wait and then there's this Okay, wait,
let me see. We are currently organizing our virtual festival
this year. Do you have experience that the climate is
still not conducive for the types of live events we
(04:22):
tend to organize, which are usually balls to the wall.
We do make our virtual shows both memorable and valuable
to our filmmakers, and our main page does have sample
videos the virtual events we organized throughout the pandemic for reference. Ha. Wait,
but so the regular funds are balls to the wall. Yeah? Wait, wait,
(04:50):
so we got Okay, I just want to look at this.
Wait where does it wait? But why does it say
why does it say did you get your ticket? It?
Because if we got wait, but we got in, so
why when we probably know, we probably don't need to
get because if you got in, you probably you need
to reserve your virtual ticket online to participate in the festival.
(05:15):
We've been emailing you know that probably just means, like
you you reserve your spot online, just that you're you're
going to be attending. Like that probably doesn't mean then
what is that you must purchase a ticket to participate? Wait? Yes,
so even it says here, yes, even filmmakers need to
purchase a take to purchase a ticket to access the show.
(05:40):
I'm sorry for a virtue. So for a gig or
who got in, which is us, you have to purchase
a ticket to attend your own screening, which is online. Wait, Belower,
about how much does it take? Belower to available ticket?
Use the code for fifty okay off your ticket pages? Well,
(06:07):
how much is that fifty three dollars plush tags? So
for us to screen our short online is at least
fifty dollars. I mean, putting something on YouTube is for free.
(06:29):
I just and it's not even going to be balls
to the wall. Oh my god, I'm gonna I'm gonna
trun off the party. Yeah, so a lot just happened.
(06:52):
Let's just take a moment to talk about everything. Remember
that this whole investigation was about meeting this one trigging
yet terrifying man, Beat Macromy who happened to be in
charge of the festival. What initially drew us to him
was quite simple. He seemed to be super weird because
(07:19):
he was the director of this film festival. We decided
the most direct way to meet him would be to
infiltrate the festival. That meant making a movie, and making
a movie was no easy feat. In fact, it entailed
a lot. We had to hire a director, find a
(07:44):
screenwriter who understood our vision, fundraise for the eventual submission, fee,
pets and salad for the day of the shoe, work
with a reputable acting coach, higher actor, one of whom
was Anna's crush, and finally shooting edit the damn thing.
(08:08):
All of that had to happen in order for this
one moment to exist. But the thing about this moment,
it didn't even guarantee we would meet Bet Macromy. No,
it just got us here to the front door of
the festival. But now that we were at the front door,
(08:34):
he hardly felt celebrating because we just learned he would
still cost us a hundred dollars plus tax to step inside. Sure,
he offered us a discount on the tickets, but that
didn't matter because the principle of the matter, meeting Beat
(09:00):
back room and confronting our fear, it's beginning to cost
us a lot of money. In fact, we now faced
a question, is confronting your fear worth approximately three? Honestly,
I didn't know. Let's take an even further step back.
(09:25):
If this was a virtual event, would we even get
to meet Beat macromy We had done all of this
so we could face our fear, but how would we
be able to do that on a computer screen? I mean,
zoom is good, but it ain't that good. Discovering that
(09:51):
there was an admission fee for the filmmakers who were
accepted into the festival definitely left a sour taste in
our mouths. And as far are is, not getting to
meet Beat Macromay in person, that felt like a blow
to the investigation. It definitely meant that there was further
to go. Basically, our investigation wouldn't end after attending this festival,
(10:18):
but it would definitely answer some questions and assist us
in eventually getting there. There being meeting Beat Macromain in
the flesh. We were on the right path. It's just
that the path now looked a bit different. We had
no choice but to keep going. We were into deep
(10:42):
so we came up with another plan, fund raise and
additional fifty dollars to pay for our ticket to attend
the festival so we could see Beat Macromain on a
computer screen. For now. We did, but we have historically
(11:04):
done best. We put up a post on Instagram. I
typed up a lengthy letter appealing to my followers. It
was verbos, but it was from the heart. I don't
quite know how to say this, but our short film
Core is an official selection for the two thou Festival,
(11:31):
taking place virtually this year. It cost us a hundred
fifty dollars to submit, so needless to say, we were
very nervous to hear the outcome of the decision. We
couldn't have done this without our Indigo Go donors, because
of whom we were able to afford the submission, as
well as pizza and salad for the day of the shoot.
(11:51):
And a huge thank you to our talented Cask and
the only director brave enough to believe in us play
taking h now here comes the hard part. Moments after
we found out that we were selected, we were told
(12:12):
that on top of the hundred fifty dollar submission fee,
we have to pay to attend the screening. Even as
the film's creators, the cost to attend fifty three dollars.
This does not come easily, especially with the holidays around
the corner. We do not have time to fundraise, so
(12:34):
we instead asked that you ven Momie, and our goal
is to allow everyone who was involved a ticket. Please
donate what you can. Within minutes, we raised fifty three dollars,
(13:00):
which would grant us one ticket to attend the festival.
And keep in mind we had already spent a hundred
and fifty dollars to apply. I guess you can't put
a price tag on art, but just for the record,
if we did put a price tag on art, it
would read two hundred three dollars. This was a virtual event,
(13:26):
which came as a complete surprise to us. Remember we
had been anticipating booking flights, renting gowns and tuxedos, taking
a limo. The whole crew is there. We are passing
a bottle of champagne around. Everyone is taking a big gulp,
(13:48):
except for Kyle because she has some sparkling apple cider.
She's been sober for five years actually, But we talked
about it beforehand and it's not a big deal, and
she's super comfortable with us during king around her, and
she's cheers in us like she's also drinking champagne. But again,
I do assure you it is apple cider, And in
some ways I'm jealous because I think apple cider actually
(14:12):
tastes better than champagne. In fact, a lot of alcohol
tastes really bad, which brings to mind the question are
we just pretending anyway? To reiterate, this was a virtual event,
so we did have to scale back, but we still
(14:32):
wanted it to be fun and feel like a celebration,
so we invited a bunch of our friends over to
Anna's house, six of them to be exact. And before
you feel too bad for us, check this out. We
only purchased one admission ticket, and there would actually be
(14:53):
about eight of us technically attending the event, which means
one ticket it is fifty three dollars, So theoretically eight
tickets would equal four d four dollars, but we only
bought one, which means we technically saved three hundred and
(15:16):
seventy one dollars. So if anything, we won at last
the night was here, we would finally attend the festival
and get a glimpse of the mystery man himself. Beep
macromy Now again, we wouldn't actually be meeting him in person,
(15:41):
but we would be damn close to it. Oh my god,
they're here. Oh my god. Sorry, everybody, chocolates. If that
(16:05):
voice sounds familiar to you, decorative chocolates, it's because it is.
That's Megan, the mean person with whom we did a
right along in season one. But that doesn't affect me.
All I care about his mind getting my nuts. You
might be thinking to yourself, she doesn't actually sound that mean,
(16:28):
and she brought decorative chocolate. Correct a mundo. It turned
out that Megan was no longer mean, and all it
took was her finding love. Huh makes you think? So? Oh?
Rod's here? Also? Okay, let's see it's her friend Rod
(16:50):
from from before. Do you remember Perfect Day Rod from
the White Is Giving Back Feels So Good episode from
season one? He was here too, and he wanted to
celebrate our film. Our friends Claire and Nick came as well,
and everyone got settled in Anna's cozy living room. We
(17:10):
waited for our brave director Clay to arrive. We did
our best to make our guests feel very comfy. We
come on, Hi, how are you? How do you want
to tea or spend drift or one of four beers?
Four beers okay, maid a total of two dollars at
(17:33):
this point to be in this festival. So this is
kind of a big night for us. So we're expecting
this link to come any moment. Of course, we we
did get into the festival um and so now we
are waiting for a link to the festival. The Lord ceremony,
it's toasted by a man named Oh here it is,
Oh here it is? Do you want to Oh? I
(17:58):
didn't know it was going to start so soon. And
and our director, our brave director Clay is supposed to come,
although his eighteen minutes, so we st no, we won't
be watching our short. So that's that's I hope everybody's
on board with that play. Got there right in time.
(18:22):
Oh wow, let's starting. I know things are getting really good,
but we have to take a break for some ads.
(18:44):
And the ad break is over back to it. What
we saw next was um confusing to say the least.
O yes, let me be your eyes. What looked to
(19:17):
be just someone's basement appeared on the screen. Either our
or their internet connection was bad, we weren't sure who's.
Either way, the screen looked very pixelated. The audio quality
(19:39):
it was horrendous. It sounded like someone was holding their
iPhone in a different room hoping that we would be
able to hear it in this room. Honestly, it was
hard to tell what was what. In fact, at this
(20:00):
point it looked like someone just forgot to turn off
their web camera and now we had to look into
their weird room. In fact, if they hadn't framed the
shot with black curtains as though it were a stage,
we wouldn't have believed it was on purpose. I know,
(20:25):
Anna said let me be your eyes, but actually we
can't be your eyes because in that moment we had
no idea what the hell we were actually looking at.
(20:46):
We looked at this for about ten minutes. Nothing happened. Then,
just as we thought that maybe beat macromy himself had
forgotten about the festival altogether, there something appeared on the screen.
There was no doubt in my little mind it was him.
(21:12):
Kyle and I gripped each other's hands as we looked
at him. I wish you guys were there to stare
at the computer screen and hold hands with us, because
what we saw was almost indescribable. But I'll try. This
(21:40):
was beat Macromay. Remember the man who appeared so crooked
in his picture that he seemed to be almost diagonal.
The man whose contact lenses were so white it was
hard to tell if you're looking at death itself. The
man we knew very little about, except that he had
(22:03):
a very interesting potential roommate, and it was a doll.
This was him, all right, And this time he was
even scarier because this time he did not appear to
be crooked. No, this time he appeared to be very upright,
(22:30):
And that confirmed the scariest part of all. He was real.
Tonight it was clearly a special night for Beet macromy
(22:50):
because tonight he dawned a black cloak. This cloak was
all black, but his face was all white, devoid of
all proof of life. He moved unpredictably across the zoom screen,
as if his ancestors had been lizard. He slithered contorting
(23:16):
his body, paying homage to paganistic rituals that had come
before him. He was hypnotizing, and we watched him and
pointed silence, and then at last he opened his mouth,
for it was time to speak. Disclaimer, we cannot play
(23:44):
the audio of beat Macromy's real voice. Instead, a brave editor,
Adam has once again doctored the audio. It's time, It's
time for the show to begin. The next thing that
came out of Beep's mouth was really unexpected because it
(24:06):
was not worked. No, it was singing. Again. We cannot
play the original audio here, but we thought it was
important to preserve the spirit of what we heard because
our editor Adam refused to sing, stating that he was
an editor, not a singer. I Kyle did the honors.
(24:29):
I was on an a pirate ship and she was
all that cared. I was on an a pirate ship,
and she was all that cared. The singing was very interesting.
I wouldn't say it was scary, but that's just one
(24:49):
reporter's opinion. What's scary to me might not be scary
to someone else. I don't know their life anyways, beat
macrom I took a second from being terrifying to let
us all know that this was an award ceremony and
all the films accepted into the festival were in the
running to win awards in various categories. This was news
(25:13):
to us. There were categories. What were the categories? Scary
and more scary? The strange thing was when we took
a closer look at the programming, we realized there were
(25:35):
indeed many categories that spanned way beyond horror, drama, comedy,
sci fi, thriller, experimental documentary, and then this is very peculiar,
there was even a category for and I quote everything
(25:59):
in between. Um, not to be a total square, but
you call yourself a horror film festival, wouldn't you? And
again not to have my shirt buttoned all the way
up to the top or anything like that, But wouldn't
you only have horror films at your festival? But Anna,
(26:26):
it's okay, sure all those people representing all those categories
would be at the festival. And by that I do
mean this um zoom meeting. But we knew what we had,
and we knew we represented horror. So we opened a
second window on our computer screen and let the zoom meeting.
(26:47):
I mean the festival play in the background for a moment,
and went to the horror film section in the programming.
We excitedly scanned the names here, we're our peers, are contemporaries,
our brothers in horror, and our horror brothers. That's right, Kyle.
(27:15):
They were there too, I mean, people who were cut
from the same cloth as us, and soon we would
be standing with them, shoulder to shoulder, waiting to hear
the name of the winner, content to knowing we were
all winners for just being accepted into this festival and
(27:40):
being in the business of horror. But something happened. Our
name wasn't there. Wait, that couldn't be. We had made
a horror short film. We scrolled through the programming in
(28:01):
disbelief while the zoom meeting um, I mean festival continued
to play in the background, And finally there were our names.
We were in a category all right, in that category comedy.
(28:24):
What I don't understand. We did everything right. We both
ran backwards, both of us. That's never been done in
a horror thing to my knowledge. No, Kyle, I promise
you it was really scary. I can't even think about
(28:44):
it too much or or else. I won't be able
to fall asleep at night. It was really scary, I promise.
Let's just try to take this as a compliment. Beat
macromy himself thinks that we're so funny that you thought
our horror short was, you know, a comedy. But Anna,
(29:09):
I hate to tell you this, it was not funny,
not in the least. Um. But you know, you're you're
you're awesome. Um, you are beautiful in every single way.
(29:30):
Uch can stop that, I know what you're doing. Okay.
So we found out, much to our disbelief, that the
festival had categorized as a comedy. And you know what,
that was fine. Sometimes when you make art and you
(29:52):
put it out into the world, it ceases to be
in your control and the audience gets to decide it's meaning.
So we decided it was fine. Now we closed the
web browser and brought the zoom meeting. I'm so sorry,
(30:13):
I mean the festival to the foreground, hit enter full
screen mode and sat back in anticipation of the comedy category.
And now it's the award for the best Comedy Film. Stephanie,
(30:35):
where are you? What happened next was a bit jarring.
A woman stepped onto the screen beautiful, well dressed, seemingly
at odds with the otherwise scary atmosphere of the festival. Typically,
(30:57):
award ceremonies often have guest presenters m and in this
way the festival was no different. We listened for our
name to be called, sitting at the edge of our seats.
Would they call our name, meaning would our film be nominated?
(31:19):
We knew our film was good, but was it award worthy?
I don't know if there's a different area, and I
(31:49):
don't know what happened, but our name wasn't called. We
were devastated, but Clay, our brave director, assured us that
the nomination was probably on its way. I mean, there
(32:09):
would probably be another category for dark comedy, and our
name would certainly be there. I mean, Clay was right.
Our short film sat at the delicious intersection of comedy
and horror dark comedy. The dark comedy category just never came.
(32:38):
It was sort of like waiting at a train station
for your beloved to come back from war. You look,
and you look. John comes out and hugs his wife,
Dave comes out and hugs his kids. Robert comes out
and pets his dog. Steve in Tyler Morris, They all
(33:04):
come out. But where's Albert, you fault to your knees.
He's definitely dead and not coming back from war. The
wave of people around you washes away. You are left alone,
and the train conductor comes over and sternly taps you
on the shoulder. Ma'am, you have to get up. You're loitering,
(33:27):
you say, But but my Albert. What Albert, ma'am. I've
heard this to him before. He ain't coming back. This
is bullshit. I'm sorry for cursing. It's just informed that
(33:50):
we have a twelve year old fan. And to you,
I say, I'm sorry, but my heart isn't a million
pieces right now, and it's a little hard to think
about protecting you in this moment. But I know that
you are out there and I think you're awesome, and
just be honest with you, guys for a second. You
(34:17):
the listeners, the festival, it was bad, In fact, it
was awful. And this next word, it requires a bit
of a trigger warning you're about to hear. It might
(34:38):
sound like an accusation, but you know what, here it goes.
The fact of the matter is we spent three dollars
to receive a zoom link. So this festival. It seemed
like a bad deal. That was our editor Adam. Again,
(35:00):
there was a particular word we had to avoid, so
every time it gets mentioned, you will instead hear the
words bad deal. Let's be honest, you don't need to
be handled with kid gloves. The festival was a complete mess.
(35:23):
What the previous audio didn't properly exhibit was that this
was a poorly organized event. It was a live stream
of some guys basement via zoom. His internet connection was
extremely poor. He kept cutting out, to the point that
the other attendees virtually turned into a mob in the chat,
(35:46):
taping over and over that he needed to restart his
router again. The audio sounded like he was playing music
from an iPhone in another room. The ambiance was unperfect rational,
to say the least, it felt like at any minute,
beat mcarmy's roommate might open the door and yell at
(36:08):
him to keep it down and finally wash his dishes.
We were heartbroken. There were no two ways to say that. Frankly,
we were embarrassed. I mean, we had gathered our closest
(36:31):
friends to celebrate all of our hard work. I couldn't
help but feel like just leave my house, thinking to
themselves a fucking loser. To our twelve year old fan,
I see you, I hear you, and I want to
protect you from how cruel the world can be. But
(36:54):
honestly having a really hard time right now. We were
completely dumbfounded. Not only were we embarrassed, but we were lost,
Like how did we even get here? I mean, before
making the movie, before finding the website, I mean even
(37:17):
before the beach where we talked about who was afraid
of rats and who was afraid of roaches? What had
gotten us here? If I was being honest, I didn't
just find the festival website by myself. I had heard
about it from a friend, someone who had come to
me and said, you gotta check this out. We decided
(37:42):
that it just made sense to retrace our steps. Maybe
my friend would be able to shine some light on
what had just happened and what we should do next.
So we gave my friend Chris a call um, not
my crush Chris, my friend Chris, a different one, and
(38:14):
now an ad break. The ad break is over. My
name is Christopher Um, a director. One might say that's Chris.
(38:37):
Chris and I had met through some mutual friends. He
was an accomplished filmmaker and someone who you might say
was deep in the festival circuit and most important in
this moment. He was actually the person who had originally
shown me the festival website. He was the whole reason
(38:58):
that we knew about macromy which at this point I
sort of wish he had kept to himself. No offense.
I think it was just, um, you know, you get
emails for film festivals, cement our festival. The submission fee
(39:19):
is still like kind of exorbitant, um. Yeah, yeah, and
I think, um, this one was one of those ones.
But yeah, I looked at the website. You know, he
has something, you know, like just him himself. You know,
I don't. I was like, I wasn't. I wasn't particularly
interested in the film festival, but I was. He seemed character. Um.
(39:44):
So I think that's why I mentioned it to you.
After Chris told us how he had come to find
out about the festival, we shared what we had gone
through and caught him up to date. Well. So we
became so kind of transfixed on this person that we
decided that we would just make a movie to try
(40:07):
to get in, to try to meet him, and the
submission fee was a hundred fifty dollars. That's very excorted.
That's absurd. I mean, I don't even a hundred fifty dollars.
(40:27):
That just seems like you made that up. So we
fundraised for that, and then we got in. And then
he's he's in the same email where he said you
got in. He said, you also have to purchase a
ticket to attend the screening. And the ticket is fifty dollars.
It's actually fifty three dollars plus tax. Kris didn't mince
(40:52):
his words. And this next part what's really hard to hear. Yeah,
I mean this sounds like, you know, there was that
article and I think it's like the Hollywood Reporter about
kind of bad deal my film festivals. I'm sorry that,
you know, it sounds like kind of along those lines.
(41:16):
M hmm. That it was brutal to hear, but you
know what we needed to hear it the festival was
this a bad deal? And beep macromy was a we
(41:42):
had gotten. It's a bad deal. Hard We got off
the phone with Chris. Okay, um, this is a lot
to think about. Thank you so much, but thank you
so much for talking to us. Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry
about your bomber. I was so mad. In fact, I
(42:11):
was piste off. I should have seen this coming. How
did I let myself fall for this? I am a confident, smart,
beautiful woman. I mean, hello, I'm gorgeous. I should have known.
(42:33):
I should have protected Kyle. I mean there were signs
all along. The festival never listed a location. One festival
employee listed her high school g p A and her
bio beat Macroman didn't even capitalize his own last name.
(42:54):
They said a submission to the festival was a submission
to the way of the previously unfamiliar. Yeah, unfamiliar, bullshit.
I told Kyle, we are doing something about this. No
one bucks with us. I'm sorry, twelve year old fan,
(43:15):
but no one sucks with us. Wait wasn't there that
other festival, the one that reached out to us asking
to screen our shirt OKI means short play the audio
from that moment We got it Instagram message. It says
(43:39):
I'd love to screen your shirt at my festival. We
would love to screen your shirt. Yeah, And I wrote
back and I said, WHOA do you mean short? Good
to clarify we would love that, and he said, I
absolutely meant short. And then I said awesome sauce. Tell
us when your festival is we will give you our short. Okay, um? Yeah.
(44:03):
He reached out and I we transferred our shirt I
mean short to him, but we never heard back. Wait you,
we transferred the short and he downloaded the short and
then we never heard back. What did he do with
the short? Is he doing something weird with the short
at his house? Look? This guy identified himself as a listener,
(44:23):
and you know that I love our listeners, including him,
and my love for our listeners knows no bounds. But
how could you do this to us? Kyle? Open up
our Instagram and follow up on his DM. Get me
get mad? Crack Hi, just wondering about your festival and
(44:45):
if our shirt just joking our short will be screened.
We waited for an answer. What came next was honestly unbelievable. Hello, Hello,
so funny. I was just thinking about y'all. I listened
to episode one of season two while cleaning my screen
(45:06):
printing shop yesterday. War opened our shirts I mean shorts
program on December eleven. A great response. He had screened
our short on December eleven and had not even invited us.
Where were we I mean it? Was sort of like
(45:30):
someone throwing a birthday party for you, but forgetting to
invite you. This guy was literally a listener, one of
you guys. That meant he was a loved one, and
to have a loved one stab you in the back
like this and then tap you on the shoulder and
say turn around real quick and let me stab you
(45:52):
in the front. How you're walking around with quite a
few stabs. Yeah, I'm sorry, this one hurts. We knew
what we had to do. We were not going to
make the listener pay because he's a listener, and that
(46:14):
actually cancels itself out. We actually really appreciated his support
and he seemed really cool. But beat Macromy. He was
going to pay double. He would pay and then he
would pick up the other guy's tab. We were going
to scam beep Macromy. We were going to make him
(46:37):
pay for everything that he had put us through. Honestly,
I don't understand. I'm gonna walking because honestly, what okay?
Because the other guy's a listener, right let me um.
I was a little worried about Anna. I hadn't seen
(46:59):
her like this since she wanted to go skydiving for
you guys, the listeners. Honestly, this whole investigation was starting
to scare me. From a legal perspective, I needed advice,
legal advice, So I called up my family lawyer friend Paul.
If you tuned in last season, then you know this
(47:22):
is what we call a Paull call. Hello, is this Paul?
Oh my god, it's Kyle. Paul was a busy guy.
That's why I sound so excited to have finally gotten
(47:44):
him on the phone. Hey, how are you? I am
so sorry. I haven't run. We jumped right in. Okay,
So what is the legality of damming someone? Could you
get in trouble for scamming someone? Spanning? Oh? I said, scamming? Scamming? Yeah? Yeah,
(48:14):
I mean if you fraud somebody, you're committing your crime
depending upon the gail, the size of the amount of money,
and you to fraud somebody out of um, you know,
if it's a pod can be you know, bring in
larsity and a felony and you can go to jail
(48:34):
for several years. Okay. While I had Paul on the phone,
I had to ask him his official take on the
Beet Beet festival. You know that how is a bad
deal in all that's not fraud. Oh, that's not front.
That's just you know, buyer beware. As long as you
(48:56):
know and everything is in good faith, that just drips
out to be a flop. Yer mm hmm. Good to know.
If I knew Anna was here on this call, there
was one question she would have had to have Paul answer.
Would you say that I was bouncy as a child?
(49:17):
What I was bouncy as a child? Yes, well, bouncy
like a ball? Yeah. I heard everything I needed to hear.
We said our goodbyes. Well, have a good weekend, Paul.
I hope to see you soond Okay, bye, thank you.
(49:42):
Paul was right. Scamming Beef macromy could put us in
grave legal danger. I needed to tell this to Anna
before she did something that she might regret. Plus, technically,
the festival was not a bad deal. It was just
a shitty festival. Maybe I would just tell Anna about
(50:04):
that later. M m, well what about the investigation? Where
did that leave us? Did that mean we were done?
That was it? We love you guys, the listeners so much,
(50:30):
and we didn't want to lead you down a dark
alleyway and then leave you there with no answers. But
here we are ship. I called Anna and let her
know she should meet me at the beach to talk. Hi.
(51:00):
Oh my gosh, well thanks for meeting me. Of course,
I can't turn the tables on me, or is everything okay? Well, okay,
behind your back, I went to I called Paul, Paul
the lawyer, Yeah, my family lawyer friend. You gave him
a paull call. I gave him a pall call. Yeah,
(51:20):
wait without me? Yes, why did you do that? I
had to find out some stuff from him, and I
just felt like, you were so worked up. I just
felt like I needed to call him and I need
to tell you what he said. Yeah, it was really mad,
but I mean, we weren't coming here, and I was
worked up, and I just think we need to put
(51:41):
a stop to the investigation. What do you mean to
put a stop to the investiga. It's feeling like, based
on what Paul said, I feel like we could be
putting ourselves at risk to get our asses majorly sued.
And I don't want that. You think we can get sued, yes,
because you're talking about I mean, I can't say the word,
(52:03):
but you're talking about bad dealing someone that we think
bad dealed us. Yeah, of course I want a bad
deal them because they bad dealed us and I want
to make them pay. But we could we could be
put in jail. We we can't be put into No,
we can't be put in jail. We could get sued.
We could get put in jail. I have two hundred
(52:26):
dollars in my bank account. I can't deal with that.
I don't even have that. Wait, I'm sorry you gave
him a pall call. Did you ask the most important
question of all? Because you know I like to be
there when you make the poll call. Okay, yes, yes,
(52:49):
tell me what you asked him. I asked him. I said,
I said, my my podcast co host would like to
know if I was bouncy as a child. And he
said yes. He said good. No, it's not good. Okay,
so you gotta listen to me. For our own safety.
We have to put the investigation to arrest. And I
(53:11):
know I don't want to do this because we're so
we spent so much time on this, but I just
don't think it's safe. He really said you were bouncing
as a child. Yeah, are you lying? I'm not lying,
It just said he didn't seem as into it. This time,
which was really weird. He just actually acted like a
(53:32):
whole different person then the last time we talked to him.
But okay, oh, so we should put a full stop
to the investigation. Yeah, but what will we tell the listeners. Honestly,
(53:53):
I don't think we need I don't think we can
think about the listeners right now. We have to think
about ourselves. What do you say, What do you mean
we can't think about the list sitners. There's no show
if there's no listeners. Yeah, but there's no show if
we're in jail. So yeah, that's a really good point.
(54:13):
So yeah, okay, yeah, I thought that was a seal. Again, No,
it's wrong. M h m hm. To be continued later. Hey,
(54:49):
if you like The Truth Hounds, please subscribe to us
and leave us a five star review. Seriously, it would
really help us. And honestly, you've got to start earning
your keep around here. And as soon as you're done
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(55:11):
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