October 7, 2021 • 47 mins
Multiple listeners in the entertainment industry write in about a looming, massive strike as TV/Film professionals fight for better working conditions. Another Conspiracy Realist asks whether a monopoly controls sunglasses. And here's a question -- if a UFO could travel intergalactic space, why would it need lights? All this and more in this week's Listener Mail.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named dot Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It's our favorite time of
the year, folks. We hope that this show finds you
(00:46):
well amid grand and perhaps creepy adventure as we barrel
forward into the future toward Halloween. Today, we are sharing
a number of stories that we feel are both amusing,
important and as always increasingly relevant. And they come from
(01:07):
the best part of the show, which is your fellow
conspiracy realist, Matt Noel. I'd like to kick us off
today if it's okay with you guys. Sounds great. Okay,
So a bit of background here before we get into
some of this correspondence. As you, as you may or
(01:28):
may not know, our team does this, does this on
a professional level like it is Weirdly enough, through a
series of amazing coincidences, coinkad inks we have we have
ended up working in podcast production, all of us for
(01:48):
a number of years. And this means that we are
in a way part of the entertainment industry. Now, make
no mistakes, folks, were not We're not bragging. We're not
big deals. Who's like the biggest deal in entertainment? And
like film and TV? Who's like the big When you
think a big deal, who do you think of? Is
(02:09):
like J. J. Abrahms, like Lord Michaels or um Oprah
Winfrey with that count the Lion from the Metro Goldwyn
Mayor opening title. Yeah, yeah, it's a big deal. He really,
he knows it too. No one is bigger than Adam Saidler,
except perhaps the characters he plays, such as the lunch Lady.
(02:31):
He's a man of a million voices. So I don't know, man,
I think he does about two. He's just he just
kind of yeah, I didn't say a million different voices.
I will say I would watch a whole movie about
the lunch Lady. That would be a delight. Yes you
say that now, So we have for our first piece
(02:55):
of listener correspondence. We're actually going to synthesize and summarize
the excellent letters, excellent and thorough letters we received from
two people working in the entertainment industry. When we say
entertainment industry, we're specifically talking about film, uh TV streaming,
(03:19):
that kind of stuff, the stuff that everybody ran to
amid the pandemic to escape the the at times emotionally
penurious existence of forced hermitage. So our first letter arrives
to us from the Duchess of shoulder fade. Shoulder fade
is all one word. I like that Nick David type
(03:42):
of hair do shoulder fade unclear? With the code name unclear.
The significance of the code name is unclear, But surely
the Duchess will right back to us with an explanation
if they see you so fit. So here we go.
The Duchess rites from within the bowels of this industry
(04:04):
and says, in part quote, as we speak, Hollywood fat
cats studio executives known by the abbreviation a MP t
P are actively trying to continue their exploitation of thousands
of hard working and highly trained artists who they abuse
every single day. The public who actively consumes the fruits
(04:25):
of our body and mind depleting labors needs to be
aware of how and at what cost their entertainment sausage
is made. If anyone is against unfair and unhealthy labor
practices and conditions, then they must support the IOTSY crew
members that are literally dying making contents. So you can
(04:45):
quote Netflix and Chill. So the the AMPTP that the
Duchess is referring here to is something called the Alliance
of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and IOTSY is a union.
It's stands for International Alliance of Theater and Stage Employees,
(05:07):
and as the Duchess explains, it represents all of the
people that work in theater and film and TV production
that are considered below the line. Below the lines an
important distinction. This is um in a way, it's it's
almost everybody on the other side of the camera, all
of the people who are making this vision, this story,
(05:31):
this experience possible. IOTSI, the Duchess says, does not represent actors, directors,
assistant directors, producers, or production assistants who pas, by the way,
probably get the the fuzziest end of the figurative lollipop. Here.
This division, this line that people refer to means that
(05:53):
people above the line, those actors, writers, directors, producers, tend
to be paid better, they tend to be treated better,
they tend to have superior working conditions. As the Duchess explains,
their information specifically pertains to the thirteen West Coast locals.
They make up the Motion Picture and Television Department of IOTSY.
(06:16):
They represent cinematographers, art directors, prop makers, makeup artist, costume designers, editors,
script supervisors, and many more. So here's what's going on.
There is a strike brewing. It's been brewing for some time,
and this is information that is not going to be
(06:36):
new to our many fellow listeners who work in this industry.
The people in the union, and the Duchess says, of course,
don't want to go on strike, but they're literally fighting
for their lives and asking not for an opulent but
only for a sustainable standard of living. Uh. They recommend
checking out the Instagram page i A Underscore Stories if
(07:01):
you would like to learn more about specific individuals experiences
shared anonymously, of course, for fear of reprisal from the industry,
and the Duchess goes on specifically to name a couple
of things we'd like to share with you, the things
that Yatzi is striving to make reality. And when you
(07:23):
hear these, if you're not familiar with the industry, it
will probably surprise you. Like the stuff that these folks
are fighting for, will will see it'll give you a
cold shower of a perspective. First, the idea of daily turnaround,
which means all union members, all locals, get a ten
(07:44):
hour guaranteed minimum before they have a turnaround. Secondly, they
want to stop working mission creep into working on the
weekends that what we can turn around. The industry term
for this is fratter day. As you can imagine, that
means a Friday shoot that eventually ends up being in
(08:05):
actuality is Saturday shoot. They also don't want to continue
the practice of what's called rolling lunches. A rolling lunches
where filmy never stops. Crew members rotate themselves out for
a break, and the Duchess says that the problem with
this is that in realistic terms, there's often not enough
crew to rotate out because everybody has a specific job.
(08:29):
It's not like everyone can do every job. Someone may
be a world class cinematographer, but they don't know the
first thing about hair and makeup, and they shouldn't have to.
But just a quick question just to clarify. So turn
around just refers to literally the time in between shifts,
like yes, otherwise it becomes like a double shift, like
that Faturday thing you're talking about, right, correct. And the
(08:52):
problem is exacerbated when you have someone who, say, works
one of those infamous Faturdays and then has very it
all turn around time before they have to be back
on set. And keep in mind, you know a lot
of these a lot of these professionals have to be
on location way before filming actually occurs. There is a
(09:13):
ton of work hours and hours and hours of work
that goes into a shoot before the rest like the
on camera folks arrived. Also, they want a living wage
for the lowest paid IOTSY members, some of whom barely
make above minimum wage or considered on call, which means
they work however many hours it takes and they only
(09:35):
get paid the same amount every week. Then they also
want overall wage increases, better funding for health and pension plans.
And here's the big one, improvements to what are called
new media wages and conditions. When read this part in
full so back six years ago, says the Duchess, when
(09:55):
streaming was new and people were waking web series. IATSY
added a side agreement to the basic agreement, allowed what
was at the time called new media that's your Netflix,
your Amazon, your Hulu, Crackle back in the day, to
have special contracts that essentially gave them a price break.
This was a new form of production. No one understood
it at the time. AATSI agreed to work for less
(10:17):
money in order to help the new platform make content
and be successful. The term new media is obsolete now
it's streaming. It's no longer new Amazon, Netflix, Peacock, Disney, HBO.
They're all studios who stream their content and they are
not struggling new media platforms. IATSI wishes to modify these contracts,
many of them at very low rates that exploit those
(10:39):
below the line workers. Streaming media as just as huge
budget as regular network TV, even larger in some cases.
They should no longer be able to pay those measly
new media rates. They're making millions off streaming, yet one
to continue getting these breaks. Well, now everything streaming, I
mean Warner Brothers are streaming every single movie on their
(11:00):
slate for the year in addition to putting it out
in theaters because of COVID. So, I mean, that is
the very definition of an industry exploiting essentially a loophole
or or a term that like they're talking about web
series like that, we're just put out on YouTube independently,
that's literally so that people making those could afford to
(11:20):
higher union crew. And now these big, massive companies are
totally exploiting that whole term that is that is painfully
um exploitative. Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's also you know,
it reminds me of the old observation that is, unfortunately
so often true power is rarely given, must often be taken.
(11:43):
So the Duchess goes on and we are we are
summarizing some of this, but goes on to explain real
world consequences of people who are laboring under these conditions.
Even before COVID. Of course, it's normal to have these long,
long work hours, going into a shoot at seven am
(12:04):
on a Friday, getting off at three am on Saturday
the next day. Uh, the Duchess notes crew members are
dying when they're driving home after working fifteen sur shifts
with minimal sleep and This clearly has an impact on
people's quality of life, their relationships outside of the job.
(12:27):
This is an unsustainable situation. Duchess, I want to thank
you for this thorough and objective look at the problems
that are occurring, what's leading to this strike. And I
believe we were in conversations off air. The union's vote
on the strike occurs between October one and October three,
(12:48):
so you're going to be hearing this after the voting
has occurred. Duchess ends with saying, I just want the
folks that consume and enjoy what we make to hear
our stories and to let the studios, which are literally
owned by giant tech companies now know they stand with Iotsy.
We're not Hollywood elite, the Duchess says, we're hard working
craft people that are literally dying making sitcoms. I'm not
(13:12):
sure how listeners can help, other than by canceling their
streaming memberships, commenting against a MPTP on articles about the situation,
maybe calling out studios on social media. So this is
Matt No, let's just a quick pause before we continue.
This is something I think that that we at all,
we and doc and and Mission control had heard about
(13:34):
brewing because Atlanta is a bit of an up and
coming town for film and TV production, would you agree?
I mean, I wouldn't even call it up and coming anymore.
It's sort of the place, you know, Ywood. They built,
uh Pinewood Studios where they shot all the originally James
Bond movies in London or in England, in the UK,
(13:55):
and they have the second only only second ever Pinewood
Studios is here and it Alanna or they shoot like
all the Marvel movies. I mean, it's become like home base.
So yeah, we all know people who or have dated
people perhaps or good dear friends with people who have
been subjected to these kind of conditions for for years. Um,
you both, I believe met The girl I dated for
(14:15):
a while who was an assistant director continues to be
um and it was hard to find time with her,
like to even hang. Our schedules were so weirdly misaligned,
and a lot of it was because of these turnarounds
where they were not existent. It felt like the rules
just didn't apply, you know. Um, even with the help
of of a union, it just seems like the cards
are definitely stacked against against these folks in a lot
(14:38):
of ways, especially like you said, Ben, the people who
um need maybe the most help, who were making the
least amount of money. I mean, she, thankfully was in
a pretty pretty fancy position. You know. That sets up
the ladder quite a bit. And maybe those people are like, okay,
all right, it's worth it. I'll deal with that, you know,
and then they take all their vacation in one big go.
But for folks that are just trying to get their
(14:59):
foot the door, I mean, they're absolutely being taken advantage of. Yeah,
I think comparing Atlanta in l A is very helpful here,
but it's also just a something that is happening in
every major city on the planet right now. The cost
of living is going up, but the raises, the standard
raises that are being seen across the board come nowhere
(15:21):
close to meeting the necessary amount of money increase just
to live in a city. So, you know, thankfully there
is this entity that is fighting back or on behalf
of you know, the iotsy members. It's just it stinks
to think that not everybody has something like that. Yeah, yeah,
(15:41):
that's a good point. And this this is interesting too
that you say this meant because multiple studies have found
that if if minimum wage did rise and step with
productivity for the past few decades, since like nineteen sixty eight,
the minimum wage would be over twenty war dollars or
over twenty five dollars. Today it just hasn't. It hasn't
(16:05):
risen wages having a very real way stagnated. And we
we want to give before we open up the whole conversation,
and we want to give a shout out to one
person we can mention by name, Agamemnon. Your name is awesome,
Thank you for writing in. Agamemnon is a retired IoTs
(16:25):
six nine five production sound mixer worked for almost fifty
years in the industry. Also wanted to bring the stewing
strike to our attention and more importantly, fellow conspiracy realist
to your attention. Uh. Before Agamemnon's part says that the
strike is on the way because the strike became a
(16:50):
possibility because that production group AMPTP was stonewalling ignoring the
request of iotsy Uh. And this ultimately, like you said, Matt,
this is what these kinds of organizations are explicitly designed
to do, to give collective bargaining power, to give voice
(17:13):
to people who are often voiceless or ignored. With that
in mind, I suggest that we talk just a little
bit more about what exactly is going on with the batsy,
what the what the future of this will be, what
the context should be. And you know, nol as you said, yeah,
(17:35):
we do know a lot of people who were in
production in one capacity or another. You know, these are
in fact in Atlanta. It would be I positive at
this point somewhat unusual not to know at least tangentially
a couple of people, and are big question here is
(17:55):
what does this mean for the future. Again, we are
operating under what more stuff you folks might call information asymmetry,
which means right now, if you're listening to this when
it comes out, you know some things that we do
not know yet. You probably know how the vote went,
whether or not a strike did come to pass. You
(18:18):
probably know whatever new volleys of the information war on
social media were made in the intervening time between when
we recorded this and when we published it. But one
thing that we can say for certain is that even
if a strike does not come to pass, the situation
appears largely unsustainable. And I think we can't forget what
(18:44):
a terrible situation people were already put in when productions
shut down during the pandemic, right, yeah, just having absolutely
no work. Well, and it makes sense then that they're
digging their heels in, you know, while on one out
on one side of their mouth, they're expressing solidarity, you know,
with their the amazing people that make the magic happen
(19:04):
and all of that. Uh and and so happy that
we're all back to work and we're all thinking of
we're thinking of you and all of this and have
done everything we can to make it safe for you
to come back to work. Out on the other side
of their mouth, they're absolutely capitalizing on the fact that
a lot of people are like, well, at least I
have a job. At least we're back to work. And
if you don't nip that in the bud right away,
(19:25):
that's just gonna become the status quo forever. You know. Um,
there's no question about it. I Mean, it's sort of
the equivalent of of maybe not giving certain benefits back
after the pandemic. It's like, oh, well, we're just we're
we're in the same boat as you. You know, production
was slowed and all of that, so we we were
waiting to see when when things come back to normal.
But I mean things are pretty much back to normal
(19:46):
at least in terms of like production and new content.
And we know nobody's gonna stop making content, so why
not just sort it all out and make sure everyone's
like on the same page. But do you guys, I
don't know I'm saying this, but and just to look
at both sides, do you think there's any validity to
this notion that, well, the grossers are still way down
and you know, fewer movies are going to be coming out, um,
(20:10):
and everything is now streaming first, as opposed to like
we when we could depend on big opening weekends. It
now constitutes a big opening weekend after COVID is far, far,
far less than what would have constituted a successful opening
weekend before COVID. And again, these are problems that have
been brewing way before. But I'm just wondering if maybe
the timing, you know, has something to do with COVID,
(20:31):
and if there is somewhere to meet in the middle
between the two parties. Yeah, this leads to one of
the some of the closing points I wanted to make
it right now, is the situation stands Uh, you are correct,
and uh in that the production side of this their
their argument from the Alliance Motion Picture and Television Producers
(20:55):
is that the overall industry is still very much in
recovery from COVID. They also they also state that they
had offered the union a plan for better wages, longer
rest periods, and more funding for pension and health plans.
But the thing is, people like the communications director for
(21:19):
Yazi uh jonas Loa speaking with MPR, don't agree that
AMPTP ever did that. The thing is, you know, you
could say, oh, there's some sort of like a um
exaggeration or emotional manipulation, but yes, the truth of the
matter is people are being overworked and they are driving
(21:40):
in dangerous conditions. Those are not fictitious stories. It's not
like that Hill and Nolton testimony that led to the
Gulf War. This is a story about things that actually happened. WHOA,
I walked down the street to throw that shape, but
I hope it landed. One more thing. I know we're
we're going along on this, but it's just really important
to a lot of people who have asked us to
(22:01):
share this story. Our own code named doc Holiday has
pointed out for anybody who wants to learn more wants
to take action. If you want to learn more, do
check out the Instagram page I A Underscore stories as
created by industry lighting technician named Ben Gottlieb, and you
(22:22):
can read a lot of accounts of the of the
consequences of this situation. But this is what Doc pointed out.
You can do more than just cancel the streaming service
if you would like. Um for the Duchess's suggestion, there
is also a petition making the rounds. All you have
(22:42):
to do is I think it's as simple as just
searching your inn at browser choice for iatsy petition I
A T S e UH. And you don't have to
be in the Union to sign this petition. It's just
a public show of s work. And of course, as
we mentioned in our earlier Strange News this week, there
(23:06):
is there is an open question regarding the actual effectiveness
of petitions and all I think it was you who
raised that point when Matt was telling us a little
bit about proposed deep sea mining. It was a meaning
to be cynical, but I appreciate the solidarity that allows
folks to express but I just don't know I've ever
seen a petition alone caused you know, a giant, powerful
(23:29):
entity to to make a change unless it benefited them.
Right and there there we see you know. Of course,
there's still questions about petitions, the use of petitions itself.
Maybe uh an interesting twist for a future episode spoiler alert.
But for now, this is the information we have. There
is much much more out there. If you're interested, we
(23:49):
encourage you, as always to learn more. If you are
hearing this and you yourself work in the industry, we
would also like to hear your story. We would like
to hear your opinions. Uh. And honestly at this point,
if you're listening now, uh, and you've got some of
that time off, then turn it off, go hang out
(24:11):
with your family, don't don't feel like you have to
hang out with us. Please rest up, Please be safe.
But if you do want to contact us, as always
one three three S T d W y t K
Conspiracy Diheart Radio dot com. We're gonna pause, take a
little break ourselves for word from our sponsors, and we
will be back with more news from you. Hello, welcome back.
(24:38):
I was gonna play this voicemail, but unfortunately the audio
broke up. A little bit comes from someone named Matt.
This person mentioned to us just a really interesting question
that I had never really pondered before. Why on Earth
would any unidentified aerial phenomena have lights? What is the
(25:01):
purpose of a light for a space faring craft that
can perhaps travel across galaxies? Uh? Why would they need
actual visible spectrum lights on their craft for landing? Same
reason airplanes need them. Airplanes don't need them to see,
they need them for visibility from other craft or, you know,
(25:23):
to communicate. Perhaps it's like how wearing the mask is
supposed to protect other people from an infunction, not protect you.
Got you, okay, I'll see that. The point it took
me down was that, well, if this craft has sufficient
technology to traverse those vast distances, wouldn't they have some
(25:43):
kind of technology to detect when there are other things
in range of them? Where exactly in space those things are?
Where it is in relation to a planet. Let's say
that it's going to land on or any other body, Like,
why would you need to project out with a visible
spectrum light where you are and to be able to
(26:04):
see where you're landing? Well? You know that, UM, I
guess our best place to start with that, Matt, would
be the idea of external lights on human made spacecraft, right.
I mean, it's not it's clearly not a fair comparison,
(26:25):
because any um, any extraterrestrial, manufactured or ultar dimensional, want
to get fun with it. Uh, manufactured craft would probably
have something to your point, that's far superior to the
detection capabilities of conventional lights. In the case of human beings,
(26:47):
the lights are needed to I first identify the vehicle, right,
but also to identify possible crevices on the craft. People
still need lights if they're doing e v A repairs
or something like that. You would need lights if you
want to get a slick photo op, etcetera. Because people
(27:09):
just unfortunately aren't super impressed with graphs of light that
is invisible to the human eye. Um. It is also
a great question because you know, I thought of this
years ago, and I can't remember if we ever talked
about it. But let's say you have one of the
crafts that science fiction writers have dreamed about for centuries,
(27:33):
a craft that can go faster than the speed of light.
It's not it's not doing a little like Wrinkle and
Time kind of teleportation it's not doing an event horizon
dropping a black hole kind of deal. It's just going
faster than light. Then wouldn't the equivalent, the space bound
equivalent of headlights be useless because you're going faster than
(27:57):
the light they produce. Can actually yeah, not not to
mention if if there's anything that, um that movie, uh
what is it? Arrival? Did? Um? It just goes to show.
So we have no frame of reference for like what
any alien species, how they communicate, how they perceive the world.
(28:19):
You know, we base everything around perception of the visible
light spectrum and like perceiving objects with our eyes. Who
knows if that's even the way their physiology works. You know,
it could all be with um, some form of telepathy,
or with any number of other ways like visible light.
You know, isn't necessarily something that's like that universal. I
(28:39):
mean it is obviously on our planet, but who the
hell knows what's what's going on anywhere else. So it's
a good point. I think it's interesting to think about, right,
I think makes sense what I'm saying, Like the the
idea that, like I think we we are basing everything
around our equipment, you know, as human beings, whereas there
could be others that maybe there's a whole another kind
of perception that we are not even aware of, in
(29:01):
the same way that we might not have any grasp
of the kinds of technologies that we're talking about. You know,
this is always what comes up. Hold on, hold on,
are you telling me and all the people listening to
this show that humans might have a tendency to be
disgustingly self centered? If you want, if you want to
(29:22):
describe that with if you want to put a tie
on that concept, so you can take it with you
to fancy, get your parties, just start using the phrase
and throw centric and throw trick as hell over here.
I know, I know, but you're not. I feel like
you were. We were about to say something. Yes, I
(29:42):
am going to say something because as a little spark
happened while I was thinking about this, and I've got
an answer for you about why there are lights on
U A P s that we snap here were we
we talked about this whole thing. The other the other
thing that we can kind italie in after this and
compare these two is that if it's a super secret
(30:04):
let's say, stealth aircraft of some kind that's being tested
Why on Earth would they not disable the lights. Why
would Lockheed and skunk Works not disable the lights when
it's functioning, right, at least over a certain part of
the U S or wherever it's functioning, just to maintain
that cover of darkness, lack of light. Um. The other
thing is, though, what if it's bioluminescence. Now Here's why
(30:30):
I think it's interesting. We just talked about drilling. We
just talked about drilling in the abyssle plane deep beneath
the oceans. Now, we talked about how there's so many
similarities between that realm and the realm in space. Right,
there's a little problem with a lack of you know,
oxygen or any other substance that a biological creature could breathe,
(30:52):
at least to our knowledge, to our understanding. But in
the abyssle plane, bioluminescence it there's so many reasons to
have it, not only for communication, being able to see.
I mean, this is everything you need as a creature
in the bottom of the sea. You can achieve a
ton of it through biolumin essence, including getting good call. Yeah,
(31:14):
and recently, just like um, very recently, I think the
news just hit today In fact, Uh, southeastern pocket gophers
here in Georgia turned out to be bioluminescence. There's a
lot more and no one knows why yet. No one
knows though, Is that like a tamagotchi? I know, I
(31:34):
hit you guys with a lot in one sentence. Yes,
there are things called pocket gophers and they glow and
no one knows why. Uh, they're in South Georgia and
a couple of other states. Um, no connection with extraterrestrials.
But this I love the point about biolumin essence, Matt.
That's my next speculation was going to be something like,
(31:56):
maybe the light is a side of that of whatever
power source is moving the thing. And those two answers
may not be, you know, mutually exclusive, right, It could
be both bioluminescence and a power source um or pocket
go fers. I don't know. I'm just I'm like you guys,
(32:17):
I'm like, I'm taking this in now. If it was
pocket badgers, it would be so much better. It would
be so much, so much more on brand. Also find squirrels,
want bats and platypuses are apparently bioluminescence. Oh my gosh,
we'll see that's incredible, and I'm done. Obviously, we're look,
we're this is a thought experience. We're speculating here. Um.
(32:38):
Sure it's a fun thing to do, but it's also
a way to expand the way we look at these things. Right, So,
perhaps there's something out there glowing up because it just
does it naturally and it's a living being, or I
love what you said, there's been Perhaps it's just a
Perhaps it's just an effect of whatever the power sources,
(33:00):
whatever energy source exists there. Or maybe there are no
extraterrestrial craft up there, but it feels less and less
likely every day when more and more weird stuff is happening.
I don't know. I'm just excited about that. And Matt,
I appreciate you sending us a voicemail. I do apologize you.
There's a small portion that I can make out until
(33:20):
it whatever occurs in there, there's some errors, So thank
you very much. Oh yes, thank you. And also, first off,
any Matt is typically a friend of the show. We're
very pro Matt here. Also, I just want to keep
on this for one moment. I know it's such a
Thing's correct myself where I was talking about biofluorescence, so
(33:42):
they're biofluorescent animals, and one unnamed scientists in a recent
article that released today, referred to the pocket gopher as
get this, a quote homely belligerent sausage. So let's hope
the aliens aren't. Aren't on that vibe, these homie belligerent sausages,
(34:06):
or keep getting into these metal things and driving along
painted lines. It's very strange. The guy who discovered this, JT.
Pin p y n n E Apologies of the mispronounced
your name, sir uh said that they've always described pocket
gophers as quote really angry russet potatoes. So again, let's
(34:28):
hope the aliens are cooler. It's such a good question, though,
like what why would you have lights? It's it's you know,
it's your point about anthrocentrism. What we perceive as lights,
if we're talking about a truly alien civilization, would almost
certainly not be for the same reason, right, Like they
(34:48):
might even have eyes, you need eyes for cans might
be weird to them. You know, where we're going, we
won't need us or hands or roads or hands or hats,
like just thinking that we're taking the gophers with us exactly.
Oh boy, Well, anyway, Hey, that was a quick one,
but just wanted to have that conversation with you, guys
(35:09):
if you have thoughts specifically on why you ap. Phenomena
is almost always light based, not always, but very often
a light based experience. Right to us the email conspiracy
at our heart radio dot com or one eight three
three std w y t K. We're gonna take a
quick break and we'll be back with more listener mail,
(35:37):
and we're back in today's final listener mail comes to
us from the Guy on the couch. He says, Hi, guys,
greetings from Sweden. First of all, big fan of your show.
You always bring interesting topics to the table and it
gets my old gray blob working. I guess he's referring
to his brain. Never heard of it for the old
gray blob, but that is charming and I love it
and I'm gonna use it from now on. The other day,
(35:59):
over a inner with some friends, the discussion regarding conspiracies
involving stuff like dental and car care came up. For example,
the possible scenarios of a dentist intentionally maybe drilling just
a bit too much to make you come back again. Anyways,
long story, short, we started to talk about bad site,
the possibilities to train your sight back to health once
it got bad, and if classes really are good for
you or is it all part of a bigger thing.
(36:21):
Here in Sweden, for example, the opticians have a subscription
program where you rent your glasses for a monthly fee.
You need to rent three pairs at least, and also
stuff like appointments and checkups are included. UH. This is
shown to be very lucrative for the companies and much
less so for the consumers. I'm sure this is not
exclusive to Sweden though. Anyway, awesome show. Keep up the
good work. Sincerely, yours the guy on the couch, Yes,
(36:44):
the guy on the couch with these nicknames such good,
such good ones. And then UM t g O T
c uh t g T t g O TC comes
back and sends us a couple of links and surprise, surprise,
eyes are old pals uh Lexotica come up, and then
(37:05):
several of these articles. We've been talking about doing a
full episode on this, so I thought maybe we could
do a little bit of a primer on um how
uh ellis or Lexotica because they used to be two companies.
And then Ellis or bought Lexotica for about twenty four
billion dollars. By the way, um Elisair was a French
(37:26):
company that's been around since the eighteen hundreds, UM and
just buying up companies as as they've gone. So it's
one of those legacy companies that has the benefit of
you know, time and uh and um generational wealth. They
take the long view. Lens Crafters, Sunglass, Hut, Target, Pearl Vision,
what else, what else? Ray Bad, but Oakley not only
(37:50):
exactly been you nailed it. Not only those have they
bought up over time, but also even like optical um
insurance companies. UM. So they really do have what one
might consider a pretty significant an Let's go, let's go
through a few more of these. Yeah, we've got product.
They make them for it. Rather, they don't own all
of these, but they make glasses from frames for Prada, Chanel, Dulcin, Gabana, Versacei, Burberry, Ralph, Lauren, Tiffany, Bulgari, Vogue, persul,
(38:20):
Uh Coach, d K and y Um and some of
these companies they own, some of them they just manufactured
for Lens Crafters. They own Oakley, they own I believe
Ray Band, They definitely own UM sunglasses. They own UM
Target optical pearl visions, Here's optical etcetera. They also, let's see,
they control apparently around eighty percent of the major brands
(38:44):
UM in the whole world. UM, it's uh the industry
at large. And this is an article from Forbes from
Wila ways back from this from UH, it's definitely changed.
We need to do some updates, so she will do
in the full episode. UM, but are in they controlled
something in the neighborhood of the major brands and at
(39:04):
that time the eyeglass industry was worth around twenty eight
billion dollars UM. There is another really cool article that's
more recent that came from Vox, where a couple of
former lens crafter executives walk through why it is that
a pair of glasses UM can get marked up by
(39:28):
nearly one thousand percent, meaning that you know, what you
pay for the privilege of having these glasses UH is
insanely more than what it costs to make them, which is,
you know how business works, but you know, when your
choices are so limited, then it starts to feel a
little a little weirder. And there certainly are disruptors to
this model like Warby Parker, and um, I believe any
(39:52):
optical is a really popular one, so you don't have
to pay these prices. Um. I don't think anyone is
saying that the kind of monopoly that this apears to
be is is completely disruptive. But if you want to
have those uh, those Dultcha and Gabana frames or those
ray bands, you know you're gonna you're gonna pay uh,
significantly more than you would for a pair of glasses
for Morby Parker that you can get for like, you know,
(40:13):
in the neighborhood of like thirty or fifty bucks. A
lot of this has to do with the fact that
um Luxotica is able to kind of set the pricing
um and the price floor uh for eyeglasses because they
own so many and you know, control so much of
the means of production for even companies that they don't own.
(40:34):
And there was a really cool little graphic that kind
of spelled this out on this Forbes article, and it
refers to the way that the government does limit price
to kind of match what's called marginal cost, but they
are able to set the price floor like just you know,
just close enough to meet that government regulation and guys.
(40:57):
In this Forbes article, um from it's a great article,
but I think we all agree there's this graph that's
sort of trying to describe how they're able to set
these prices, these price margins, and how government's um, you know,
regulation figures into that. But it looks more like a
cross section of a mountain and a geological survey or
(41:20):
something than it does like a readable GRAPHU. I don't know. Yeah,
there is a bit. Yeah, it's at raor shack level.
It reminds me a little bit. We know a lot
of solid work went into this, but just visually reminds
me a little bit of those p s a s
where they would dose spiders with different types of drugs
(41:40):
and they see what kind of webs they made. You know,
this looks this got a spider on a couple of
different drugs. Vibe a little bit of Family Circus maps
going around. You remember the comic strips where they would
just have one panel there's one of the kids from
Family Circus just walking around the neighborhood. It's got it's
got that. But what the argue meant here, what I
(42:01):
believe they're saying here is that it's really comment on
the relationship between a monopoly and government regulation of a monopoly.
So there are government regulated monopolies, just like Quebec's maple
syrup gang. I don't know why that sounds like a
cartoon to the maple syrup gang they get into the
(42:24):
apple dumpling game, but I believe that was that's why.
That's why borderline, the maple syrup thing when you're talking
about is borderline like a cartel. Right, Yeah, it's been
called it's been called at cartels. No, I completely agree,
And this is a complex issue and there's a lot
of interesting history that I think we're absolutely gonna keep
this a shorter one. Leonardo del Vecchio um At at
(42:44):
least at the time of this article back in was
the you know, living heir to this um Lexotica fortune
and this whole company, and he's the guy that founded
Lens Crafters Um. And there's a really great article that
I need to to finish reading all of in The
Guardian called The Spectacular Power of Big Lens, How one
(43:06):
giant company will dominate the way the whole world sees
um And that is from just a couple of years ago.
So I think that'll be a great resource for the
full episode. But there's a pretty incredible couple of sentences
that I just wanted to point out. And before we
we we closed for the day. On a shelf near
the door of the museum, I spotted a man who
(43:26):
sees far an official Luxotica biography of del Vecchio, which
was published in I expected the optical world to be
genteel and polite, and was taken aback. Whatever conversation has
turned to the personal charisma and menace of del Vicio
without Vecchio rather, um, he's the godfather, said Dean Butler,
who founded Lens Crafters in three. Del Vecchio bought it
(43:48):
in Excuse me, I misspoke earlier. He bought Lens Crafters
and five, just like they bought all these other properties
that we've been talking about. Here's the kicker. The godfather
to me is the guy. He runs it honest sleep.
He kind of rules by fear. Very few opticians would
even mention Delvecio's name, lending him a voldemort like aura
(44:08):
for fear of offending him. However unlikely that might be.
One talked about getting a horse's head in the bed
and concluded our interview by saying you can quote me
as long as it sounds like I am sucking del
Vecchio's So it was like leave that last part into right,
(44:32):
make sure all this to say, I want to know
more about this Delvecchio character and the history of the
family that led to this essential you know, um sunglasses, eyeglasses,
Cartel or they own your right, then it's this particular
type of resin that they used to make these glasses. Um.
That is like they own the patent on it. It's
(44:54):
a particular type of resin. Um, So let's do it.
I mean, this is like they're fast a stuff in here.
And I want to read this biography too, because again
it's the official biography, by the way, which probably is
going to paint him at a very positive light. Did
you see the official response at the end of the
Forbes article saying that I did. Look, we we love
(45:14):
what you're saying here. We get it. Yeah, we have
some awesome stuff. We make a lot of great things,
but we only manufactured around ten percent of all the
eyeglasses sold last year, so you know, we're not quite
a monopoly. And it's true. But if you go to
a glasses store to get your eyes checked, they're all
up in there. Oh yeah, oh yeah, So let's leave
(45:37):
it there for today. Um, thank you the t G
O C, the guy on the t G O t
C or the guy on the couch form shooting us
these links and um, we are going to explore this
in depth in an upcoming episode in the meantime, if
you want to take a cue from the guy on
the couch and uh, who else do we have today? Guys,
(46:00):
we also had the Duchess of shoulder fade, much more
famous than the mythological version, and ye, we'll want to
take a cue from all of them, your fellow conspiracy realists,
you can find us on the internet. We are in
all of the usual places of note, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
(46:21):
You can find us at the handle conspiracy stuff and
on Instagram or Conspiracy Stuff Show. And if that doesn't
quite a bag your badgers. You're not a fan of
sipping the social meats, never fear. You can contact us directly.
You can give us a colophone call. We're one eight
three three st d w y t K three minutes.
(46:43):
Those minutes are yours. Give yourself a cool nickname or moniker.
Let us know what's on your mind. Let us know
if we can use your voice and or message on
the air, perhaps most importantly, if your story needs more
than three minutes, if you have links, if you have
photographic evidence that you would like to share with us,
we would like to hear it in full. Never feel
(47:04):
like you have to edit yourself. Instead, pull up your
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(47:36):
is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of My Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Alexis code named dot Holiday Jackson. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. It's our favorite time of
the year, folks. We hope that this show finds you
(00:46):
well amid grand and perhaps creepy adventure as we barrel
forward into the future toward Halloween. Today, we are sharing
a number of stories that we feel are both amusing,
important and as always increasingly relevant. And they come from
(01:07):
the best part of the show, which is your fellow
conspiracy realist, Matt Noel. I'd like to kick us off
today if it's okay with you guys. Sounds great. Okay,
So a bit of background here before we get into
some of this correspondence. As you, as you may or
(01:28):
may not know, our team does this, does this on
a professional level like it is Weirdly enough, through a
series of amazing coincidences, coinkad inks we have we have
ended up working in podcast production, all of us for
(01:48):
a number of years. And this means that we are
in a way part of the entertainment industry. Now, make
no mistakes, folks, were not We're not bragging. We're not
big deals. Who's like the biggest deal in entertainment? And
like film and TV? Who's like the big When you
think a big deal, who do you think of? Is
(02:09):
like J. J. Abrahms, like Lord Michaels or um Oprah
Winfrey with that count the Lion from the Metro Goldwyn
Mayor opening title. Yeah, yeah, it's a big deal. He really,
he knows it too. No one is bigger than Adam Saidler,
except perhaps the characters he plays, such as the lunch Lady.
(02:31):
He's a man of a million voices. So I don't know, man,
I think he does about two. He's just he just
kind of yeah, I didn't say a million different voices.
I will say I would watch a whole movie about
the lunch Lady. That would be a delight. Yes you
say that now, So we have for our first piece
(02:55):
of listener correspondence. We're actually going to synthesize and summarize
the excellent letters, excellent and thorough letters we received from
two people working in the entertainment industry. When we say
entertainment industry, we're specifically talking about film, uh TV streaming,
(03:19):
that kind of stuff, the stuff that everybody ran to
amid the pandemic to escape the the at times emotionally
penurious existence of forced hermitage. So our first letter arrives
to us from the Duchess of shoulder fade. Shoulder fade
is all one word. I like that Nick David type
(03:42):
of hair do shoulder fade unclear? With the code name unclear.
The significance of the code name is unclear, But surely
the Duchess will right back to us with an explanation
if they see you so fit. So here we go.
The Duchess rites from within the bowels of this industry
(04:04):
and says, in part quote, as we speak, Hollywood fat
cats studio executives known by the abbreviation a MP t
P are actively trying to continue their exploitation of thousands
of hard working and highly trained artists who they abuse
every single day. The public who actively consumes the fruits
(04:25):
of our body and mind depleting labors needs to be
aware of how and at what cost their entertainment sausage
is made. If anyone is against unfair and unhealthy labor
practices and conditions, then they must support the IOTSY crew
members that are literally dying making contents. So you can
(04:45):
quote Netflix and Chill. So the the AMPTP that the
Duchess is referring here to is something called the Alliance
of Motion Picture and Television Producers, and IOTSY is a union.
It's stands for International Alliance of Theater and Stage Employees,
(05:07):
and as the Duchess explains, it represents all of the
people that work in theater and film and TV production
that are considered below the line. Below the lines an
important distinction. This is um in a way, it's it's
almost everybody on the other side of the camera, all
of the people who are making this vision, this story,
(05:31):
this experience possible. IOTSI, the Duchess says, does not represent actors, directors,
assistant directors, producers, or production assistants who pas, by the way,
probably get the the fuzziest end of the figurative lollipop. Here.
This division, this line that people refer to means that
(05:53):
people above the line, those actors, writers, directors, producers, tend
to be paid better, they tend to be treated better,
they tend to have superior working conditions. As the Duchess explains,
their information specifically pertains to the thirteen West Coast locals.
They make up the Motion Picture and Television Department of IOTSY.
(06:16):
They represent cinematographers, art directors, prop makers, makeup artist, costume designers, editors,
script supervisors, and many more. So here's what's going on.
There is a strike brewing. It's been brewing for some time,
and this is information that is not going to be
(06:36):
new to our many fellow listeners who work in this industry.
The people in the union, and the Duchess says, of course,
don't want to go on strike, but they're literally fighting
for their lives and asking not for an opulent but
only for a sustainable standard of living. Uh. They recommend
checking out the Instagram page i A Underscore Stories if
(07:01):
you would like to learn more about specific individuals experiences
shared anonymously, of course, for fear of reprisal from the industry,
and the Duchess goes on specifically to name a couple
of things we'd like to share with you, the things
that Yatzi is striving to make reality. And when you
(07:23):
hear these, if you're not familiar with the industry, it
will probably surprise you. Like the stuff that these folks
are fighting for, will will see it'll give you a
cold shower of a perspective. First, the idea of daily turnaround,
which means all union members, all locals, get a ten
(07:44):
hour guaranteed minimum before they have a turnaround. Secondly, they
want to stop working mission creep into working on the
weekends that what we can turn around. The industry term
for this is fratter day. As you can imagine, that
means a Friday shoot that eventually ends up being in
(08:05):
actuality is Saturday shoot. They also don't want to continue
the practice of what's called rolling lunches. A rolling lunches
where filmy never stops. Crew members rotate themselves out for
a break, and the Duchess says that the problem with
this is that in realistic terms, there's often not enough
crew to rotate out because everybody has a specific job.
(08:29):
It's not like everyone can do every job. Someone may
be a world class cinematographer, but they don't know the
first thing about hair and makeup, and they shouldn't have to.
But just a quick question just to clarify. So turn
around just refers to literally the time in between shifts,
like yes, otherwise it becomes like a double shift, like
that Faturday thing you're talking about, right, correct. And the
(08:52):
problem is exacerbated when you have someone who, say, works
one of those infamous Faturdays and then has very it
all turn around time before they have to be back
on set. And keep in mind, you know a lot
of these a lot of these professionals have to be
on location way before filming actually occurs. There is a
(09:13):
ton of work hours and hours and hours of work
that goes into a shoot before the rest like the
on camera folks arrived. Also, they want a living wage
for the lowest paid IOTSY members, some of whom barely
make above minimum wage or considered on call, which means
they work however many hours it takes and they only
(09:35):
get paid the same amount every week. Then they also
want overall wage increases, better funding for health and pension plans.
And here's the big one, improvements to what are called
new media wages and conditions. When read this part in
full so back six years ago, says the Duchess, when
(09:55):
streaming was new and people were waking web series. IATSY
added a side agreement to the basic agreement, allowed what
was at the time called new media that's your Netflix,
your Amazon, your Hulu, Crackle back in the day, to
have special contracts that essentially gave them a price break.
This was a new form of production. No one understood
it at the time. AATSI agreed to work for less
(10:17):
money in order to help the new platform make content
and be successful. The term new media is obsolete now
it's streaming. It's no longer new Amazon, Netflix, Peacock, Disney, HBO.
They're all studios who stream their content and they are
not struggling new media platforms. IATSI wishes to modify these contracts,
many of them at very low rates that exploit those
(10:39):
below the line workers. Streaming media as just as huge
budget as regular network TV, even larger in some cases.
They should no longer be able to pay those measly
new media rates. They're making millions off streaming, yet one
to continue getting these breaks. Well, now everything streaming, I
mean Warner Brothers are streaming every single movie on their
(11:00):
slate for the year in addition to putting it out
in theaters because of COVID. So, I mean, that is
the very definition of an industry exploiting essentially a loophole
or or a term that like they're talking about web
series like that, we're just put out on YouTube independently,
that's literally so that people making those could afford to
(11:20):
higher union crew. And now these big, massive companies are
totally exploiting that whole term that is that is painfully
um exploitative. Yeah, yeah, it is. And it's also you know,
it reminds me of the old observation that is, unfortunately
so often true power is rarely given, must often be taken.
(11:43):
So the Duchess goes on and we are we are
summarizing some of this, but goes on to explain real
world consequences of people who are laboring under these conditions.
Even before COVID. Of course, it's normal to have these long,
long work hours, going into a shoot at seven am
(12:04):
on a Friday, getting off at three am on Saturday
the next day. Uh, the Duchess notes crew members are
dying when they're driving home after working fifteen sur shifts
with minimal sleep and This clearly has an impact on
people's quality of life, their relationships outside of the job.
(12:27):
This is an unsustainable situation. Duchess, I want to thank
you for this thorough and objective look at the problems
that are occurring, what's leading to this strike. And I
believe we were in conversations off air. The union's vote
on the strike occurs between October one and October three,
(12:48):
so you're going to be hearing this after the voting
has occurred. Duchess ends with saying, I just want the
folks that consume and enjoy what we make to hear
our stories and to let the studios, which are literally
owned by giant tech companies now know they stand with Iotsy.
We're not Hollywood elite, the Duchess says, we're hard working
craft people that are literally dying making sitcoms. I'm not
(13:12):
sure how listeners can help, other than by canceling their
streaming memberships, commenting against a MPTP on articles about the situation,
maybe calling out studios on social media. So this is
Matt No, let's just a quick pause before we continue.
This is something I think that that we at all,
we and doc and and Mission control had heard about
(13:34):
brewing because Atlanta is a bit of an up and
coming town for film and TV production, would you agree?
I mean, I wouldn't even call it up and coming anymore.
It's sort of the place, you know, Ywood. They built,
uh Pinewood Studios where they shot all the originally James
Bond movies in London or in England, in the UK,
(13:55):
and they have the second only only second ever Pinewood
Studios is here and it Alanna or they shoot like
all the Marvel movies. I mean, it's become like home base.
So yeah, we all know people who or have dated
people perhaps or good dear friends with people who have
been subjected to these kind of conditions for for years. Um,
you both, I believe met The girl I dated for
(14:15):
a while who was an assistant director continues to be
um and it was hard to find time with her,
like to even hang. Our schedules were so weirdly misaligned,
and a lot of it was because of these turnarounds
where they were not existent. It felt like the rules
just didn't apply, you know. Um, even with the help
of of a union, it just seems like the cards
are definitely stacked against against these folks in a lot
(14:38):
of ways, especially like you said, Ben, the people who
um need maybe the most help, who were making the
least amount of money. I mean, she, thankfully was in
a pretty pretty fancy position. You know. That sets up
the ladder quite a bit. And maybe those people are like, okay,
all right, it's worth it. I'll deal with that, you know,
and then they take all their vacation in one big go.
But for folks that are just trying to get their
(14:59):
foot the door, I mean, they're absolutely being taken advantage of. Yeah,
I think comparing Atlanta in l A is very helpful here,
but it's also just a something that is happening in
every major city on the planet right now. The cost
of living is going up, but the raises, the standard
raises that are being seen across the board come nowhere
(15:21):
close to meeting the necessary amount of money increase just
to live in a city. So, you know, thankfully there
is this entity that is fighting back or on behalf
of you know, the iotsy members. It's just it stinks
to think that not everybody has something like that. Yeah, yeah,
(15:41):
that's a good point. And this this is interesting too
that you say this meant because multiple studies have found
that if if minimum wage did rise and step with
productivity for the past few decades, since like nineteen sixty eight,
the minimum wage would be over twenty war dollars or
over twenty five dollars. Today it just hasn't. It hasn't
(16:05):
risen wages having a very real way stagnated. And we
we want to give before we open up the whole conversation,
and we want to give a shout out to one
person we can mention by name, Agamemnon. Your name is awesome,
Thank you for writing in. Agamemnon is a retired IoTs
(16:25):
six nine five production sound mixer worked for almost fifty
years in the industry. Also wanted to bring the stewing
strike to our attention and more importantly, fellow conspiracy realist
to your attention. Uh. Before Agamemnon's part says that the
strike is on the way because the strike became a
(16:50):
possibility because that production group AMPTP was stonewalling ignoring the
request of iotsy Uh. And this ultimately, like you said, Matt,
this is what these kinds of organizations are explicitly designed
to do, to give collective bargaining power, to give voice
(17:13):
to people who are often voiceless or ignored. With that
in mind, I suggest that we talk just a little
bit more about what exactly is going on with the batsy,
what the what the future of this will be, what
the context should be. And you know, nol as you said, yeah,
(17:35):
we do know a lot of people who were in
production in one capacity or another. You know, these are
in fact in Atlanta. It would be I positive at
this point somewhat unusual not to know at least tangentially
a couple of people, and are big question here is
(17:55):
what does this mean for the future. Again, we are
operating under what more stuff you folks might call information asymmetry,
which means right now, if you're listening to this when
it comes out, you know some things that we do
not know yet. You probably know how the vote went,
whether or not a strike did come to pass. You
(18:18):
probably know whatever new volleys of the information war on
social media were made in the intervening time between when
we recorded this and when we published it. But one
thing that we can say for certain is that even
if a strike does not come to pass, the situation
appears largely unsustainable. And I think we can't forget what
(18:44):
a terrible situation people were already put in when productions
shut down during the pandemic, right, yeah, just having absolutely
no work. Well, and it makes sense then that they're
digging their heels in, you know, while on one out
on one side of their mouth, they're expressing solidarity, you know,
with their the amazing people that make the magic happen
(19:04):
and all of that. Uh and and so happy that
we're all back to work and we're all thinking of
we're thinking of you and all of this and have
done everything we can to make it safe for you
to come back to work. Out on the other side
of their mouth, they're absolutely capitalizing on the fact that
a lot of people are like, well, at least I
have a job. At least we're back to work. And
if you don't nip that in the bud right away,
(19:25):
that's just gonna become the status quo forever. You know. Um,
there's no question about it. I Mean, it's sort of
the equivalent of of maybe not giving certain benefits back
after the pandemic. It's like, oh, well, we're just we're
we're in the same boat as you. You know, production
was slowed and all of that, so we we were
waiting to see when when things come back to normal.
But I mean things are pretty much back to normal
(19:46):
at least in terms of like production and new content.
And we know nobody's gonna stop making content, so why
not just sort it all out and make sure everyone's
like on the same page. But do you guys, I
don't know I'm saying this, but and just to look
at both sides, do you think there's any validity to
this notion that, well, the grossers are still way down
and you know, fewer movies are going to be coming out, um,
(20:10):
and everything is now streaming first, as opposed to like
we when we could depend on big opening weekends. It
now constitutes a big opening weekend after COVID is far, far,
far less than what would have constituted a successful opening
weekend before COVID. And again, these are problems that have
been brewing way before. But I'm just wondering if maybe
the timing, you know, has something to do with COVID,
(20:31):
and if there is somewhere to meet in the middle
between the two parties. Yeah, this leads to one of
the some of the closing points I wanted to make
it right now, is the situation stands Uh, you are correct,
and uh in that the production side of this their
their argument from the Alliance Motion Picture and Television Producers
(20:55):
is that the overall industry is still very much in
recovery from COVID. They also they also state that they
had offered the union a plan for better wages, longer
rest periods, and more funding for pension and health plans.
But the thing is, people like the communications director for
(21:19):
Yazi uh jonas Loa speaking with MPR, don't agree that
AMPTP ever did that. The thing is, you know, you
could say, oh, there's some sort of like a um
exaggeration or emotional manipulation, but yes, the truth of the
matter is people are being overworked and they are driving
(21:40):
in dangerous conditions. Those are not fictitious stories. It's not
like that Hill and Nolton testimony that led to the
Gulf War. This is a story about things that actually happened. WHOA,
I walked down the street to throw that shape, but
I hope it landed. One more thing. I know we're
we're going along on this, but it's just really important
to a lot of people who have asked us to
(22:01):
share this story. Our own code named doc Holiday has
pointed out for anybody who wants to learn more wants
to take action. If you want to learn more, do
check out the Instagram page I A Underscore stories as
created by industry lighting technician named Ben Gottlieb, and you
(22:22):
can read a lot of accounts of the of the
consequences of this situation. But this is what Doc pointed out.
You can do more than just cancel the streaming service
if you would like. Um for the Duchess's suggestion, there
is also a petition making the rounds. All you have
(22:42):
to do is I think it's as simple as just
searching your inn at browser choice for iatsy petition I
A T S e UH. And you don't have to
be in the Union to sign this petition. It's just
a public show of s work. And of course, as
we mentioned in our earlier Strange News this week, there
(23:06):
is there is an open question regarding the actual effectiveness
of petitions and all I think it was you who
raised that point when Matt was telling us a little
bit about proposed deep sea mining. It was a meaning
to be cynical, but I appreciate the solidarity that allows
folks to express but I just don't know I've ever
seen a petition alone caused you know, a giant, powerful
(23:29):
entity to to make a change unless it benefited them.
Right and there there we see you know. Of course,
there's still questions about petitions, the use of petitions itself.
Maybe uh an interesting twist for a future episode spoiler alert.
But for now, this is the information we have. There
is much much more out there. If you're interested, we
(23:49):
encourage you, as always to learn more. If you are
hearing this and you yourself work in the industry, we
would also like to hear your story. We would like
to hear your opinions. Uh. And honestly at this point,
if you're listening now, uh, and you've got some of
that time off, then turn it off, go hang out
(24:11):
with your family, don't don't feel like you have to
hang out with us. Please rest up, Please be safe.
But if you do want to contact us, as always
one three three S T d W y t K
Conspiracy Diheart Radio dot com. We're gonna pause, take a
little break ourselves for word from our sponsors, and we
will be back with more news from you. Hello, welcome back.
(24:38):
I was gonna play this voicemail, but unfortunately the audio
broke up. A little bit comes from someone named Matt.
This person mentioned to us just a really interesting question
that I had never really pondered before. Why on Earth
would any unidentified aerial phenomena have lights? What is the
(25:01):
purpose of a light for a space faring craft that
can perhaps travel across galaxies? Uh? Why would they need
actual visible spectrum lights on their craft for landing? Same
reason airplanes need them. Airplanes don't need them to see,
they need them for visibility from other craft or, you know,
(25:23):
to communicate. Perhaps it's like how wearing the mask is
supposed to protect other people from an infunction, not protect you.
Got you, okay, I'll see that. The point it took
me down was that, well, if this craft has sufficient
technology to traverse those vast distances, wouldn't they have some
(25:43):
kind of technology to detect when there are other things
in range of them? Where exactly in space those things are?
Where it is in relation to a planet. Let's say
that it's going to land on or any other body, Like,
why would you need to project out with a visible
spectrum light where you are and to be able to
(26:04):
see where you're landing? Well? You know that, UM, I
guess our best place to start with that, Matt, would
be the idea of external lights on human made spacecraft, right.
I mean, it's not it's clearly not a fair comparison,
(26:25):
because any um, any extraterrestrial, manufactured or ultar dimensional, want
to get fun with it. Uh, manufactured craft would probably
have something to your point, that's far superior to the
detection capabilities of conventional lights. In the case of human beings,
(26:47):
the lights are needed to I first identify the vehicle, right,
but also to identify possible crevices on the craft. People
still need lights if they're doing e v A repairs
or something like that. You would need lights if you
want to get a slick photo op, etcetera. Because people
(27:09):
just unfortunately aren't super impressed with graphs of light that
is invisible to the human eye. Um. It is also
a great question because you know, I thought of this
years ago, and I can't remember if we ever talked
about it. But let's say you have one of the
crafts that science fiction writers have dreamed about for centuries,
(27:33):
a craft that can go faster than the speed of light.
It's not it's not doing a little like Wrinkle and
Time kind of teleportation it's not doing an event horizon
dropping a black hole kind of deal. It's just going
faster than light. Then wouldn't the equivalent, the space bound
equivalent of headlights be useless because you're going faster than
(27:57):
the light they produce. Can actually yeah, not not to
mention if if there's anything that, um that movie, uh
what is it? Arrival? Did? Um? It just goes to show.
So we have no frame of reference for like what
any alien species, how they communicate, how they perceive the world.
(28:19):
You know, we base everything around perception of the visible
light spectrum and like perceiving objects with our eyes. Who
knows if that's even the way their physiology works. You know,
it could all be with um, some form of telepathy,
or with any number of other ways like visible light.
You know, isn't necessarily something that's like that universal. I
(28:39):
mean it is obviously on our planet, but who the
hell knows what's what's going on anywhere else. So it's
a good point. I think it's interesting to think about, right,
I think makes sense what I'm saying, Like the the
idea that, like I think we we are basing everything
around our equipment, you know, as human beings, whereas there
could be others that maybe there's a whole another kind
of perception that we are not even aware of, in
(29:01):
the same way that we might not have any grasp
of the kinds of technologies that we're talking about. You know,
this is always what comes up. Hold on, hold on,
are you telling me and all the people listening to
this show that humans might have a tendency to be
disgustingly self centered? If you want, if you want to
(29:22):
describe that with if you want to put a tie
on that concept, so you can take it with you
to fancy, get your parties, just start using the phrase
and throw centric and throw trick as hell over here.
I know, I know, but you're not. I feel like
you were. We were about to say something. Yes, I
(29:42):
am going to say something because as a little spark
happened while I was thinking about this, and I've got
an answer for you about why there are lights on
U A P s that we snap here were we
we talked about this whole thing. The other the other
thing that we can kind italie in after this and
compare these two is that if it's a super secret
(30:04):
let's say, stealth aircraft of some kind that's being tested
Why on Earth would they not disable the lights. Why
would Lockheed and skunk Works not disable the lights when
it's functioning, right, at least over a certain part of
the U S or wherever it's functioning, just to maintain
that cover of darkness, lack of light. Um. The other
thing is, though, what if it's bioluminescence. Now Here's why
(30:30):
I think it's interesting. We just talked about drilling. We
just talked about drilling in the abyssle plane deep beneath
the oceans. Now, we talked about how there's so many
similarities between that realm and the realm in space. Right,
there's a little problem with a lack of you know,
oxygen or any other substance that a biological creature could breathe,
(30:52):
at least to our knowledge, to our understanding. But in
the abyssle plane, bioluminescence it there's so many reasons to
have it, not only for communication, being able to see.
I mean, this is everything you need as a creature
in the bottom of the sea. You can achieve a
ton of it through biolumin essence, including getting good call. Yeah,
(31:14):
and recently, just like um, very recently, I think the
news just hit today In fact, Uh, southeastern pocket gophers
here in Georgia turned out to be bioluminescence. There's a
lot more and no one knows why yet. No one
knows though, Is that like a tamagotchi? I know, I
(31:34):
hit you guys with a lot in one sentence. Yes,
there are things called pocket gophers and they glow and
no one knows why. Uh, they're in South Georgia and
a couple of other states. Um, no connection with extraterrestrials.
But this I love the point about biolumin essence, Matt.
That's my next speculation was going to be something like,
(31:56):
maybe the light is a side of that of whatever
power source is moving the thing. And those two answers
may not be, you know, mutually exclusive, right, It could
be both bioluminescence and a power source um or pocket
go fers. I don't know. I'm just I'm like you guys,
(32:17):
I'm like, I'm taking this in now. If it was
pocket badgers, it would be so much better. It would
be so much, so much more on brand. Also find squirrels,
want bats and platypuses are apparently bioluminescence. Oh my gosh,
we'll see that's incredible, and I'm done. Obviously, we're look,
we're this is a thought experience. We're speculating here. Um.
(32:38):
Sure it's a fun thing to do, but it's also
a way to expand the way we look at these things. Right, So,
perhaps there's something out there glowing up because it just
does it naturally and it's a living being, or I
love what you said, there's been Perhaps it's just a
Perhaps it's just an effect of whatever the power sources,
(33:00):
whatever energy source exists there. Or maybe there are no
extraterrestrial craft up there, but it feels less and less
likely every day when more and more weird stuff is happening.
I don't know. I'm just excited about that. And Matt,
I appreciate you sending us a voicemail. I do apologize you.
There's a small portion that I can make out until
(33:20):
it whatever occurs in there, there's some errors, So thank
you very much. Oh yes, thank you. And also, first off,
any Matt is typically a friend of the show. We're
very pro Matt here. Also, I just want to keep
on this for one moment. I know it's such a
Thing's correct myself where I was talking about biofluorescence, so
(33:42):
they're biofluorescent animals, and one unnamed scientists in a recent
article that released today, referred to the pocket gopher as
get this, a quote homely belligerent sausage. So let's hope
the aliens aren't. Aren't on that vibe, these homie belligerent sausages,
(34:06):
or keep getting into these metal things and driving along
painted lines. It's very strange. The guy who discovered this, JT.
Pin p y n n E Apologies of the mispronounced
your name, sir uh said that they've always described pocket
gophers as quote really angry russet potatoes. So again, let's
(34:28):
hope the aliens are cooler. It's such a good question, though,
like what why would you have lights? It's it's you know,
it's your point about anthrocentrism. What we perceive as lights,
if we're talking about a truly alien civilization, would almost
certainly not be for the same reason, right, Like they
(34:48):
might even have eyes, you need eyes for cans might
be weird to them. You know, where we're going, we
won't need us or hands or roads or hands or hats,
like just thinking that we're taking the gophers with us exactly.
Oh boy, Well, anyway, Hey, that was a quick one,
but just wanted to have that conversation with you, guys
(35:09):
if you have thoughts specifically on why you ap. Phenomena
is almost always light based, not always, but very often
a light based experience. Right to us the email conspiracy
at our heart radio dot com or one eight three
three std w y t K. We're gonna take a
quick break and we'll be back with more listener mail,
(35:37):
and we're back in today's final listener mail comes to
us from the Guy on the couch. He says, Hi, guys,
greetings from Sweden. First of all, big fan of your show.
You always bring interesting topics to the table and it
gets my old gray blob working. I guess he's referring
to his brain. Never heard of it for the old
gray blob, but that is charming and I love it
and I'm gonna use it from now on. The other day,
(35:59):
over a inner with some friends, the discussion regarding conspiracies
involving stuff like dental and car care came up. For example,
the possible scenarios of a dentist intentionally maybe drilling just
a bit too much to make you come back again. Anyways,
long story, short, we started to talk about bad site,
the possibilities to train your sight back to health once
it got bad, and if classes really are good for
you or is it all part of a bigger thing.
(36:21):
Here in Sweden, for example, the opticians have a subscription
program where you rent your glasses for a monthly fee.
You need to rent three pairs at least, and also
stuff like appointments and checkups are included. UH. This is
shown to be very lucrative for the companies and much
less so for the consumers. I'm sure this is not
exclusive to Sweden though. Anyway, awesome show. Keep up the
good work. Sincerely, yours the guy on the couch, Yes,
(36:44):
the guy on the couch with these nicknames such good,
such good ones. And then UM t g O T
c uh t g T t g O TC comes
back and sends us a couple of links and surprise, surprise,
eyes are old pals uh Lexotica come up, and then
(37:05):
several of these articles. We've been talking about doing a
full episode on this, so I thought maybe we could
do a little bit of a primer on um how
uh ellis or Lexotica because they used to be two companies.
And then Ellis or bought Lexotica for about twenty four
billion dollars. By the way, um Elisair was a French
(37:26):
company that's been around since the eighteen hundreds, UM and
just buying up companies as as they've gone. So it's
one of those legacy companies that has the benefit of
you know, time and uh and um generational wealth. They
take the long view. Lens Crafters, Sunglass, Hut, Target, Pearl Vision,
what else, what else? Ray Bad, but Oakley not only
(37:50):
exactly been you nailed it. Not only those have they
bought up over time, but also even like optical um
insurance companies. UM. So they really do have what one
might consider a pretty significant an Let's go, let's go
through a few more of these. Yeah, we've got product.
They make them for it. Rather, they don't own all
of these, but they make glasses from frames for Prada, Chanel, Dulcin, Gabana, Versacei, Burberry, Ralph, Lauren, Tiffany, Bulgari, Vogue, persul,
(38:20):
Uh Coach, d K and y Um and some of
these companies they own, some of them they just manufactured
for Lens Crafters. They own Oakley, they own I believe
Ray Band, They definitely own UM sunglasses. They own UM
Target optical pearl visions, Here's optical etcetera. They also, let's see,
they control apparently around eighty percent of the major brands
(38:44):
UM in the whole world. UM, it's uh the industry
at large. And this is an article from Forbes from
Wila ways back from this from UH, it's definitely changed.
We need to do some updates, so she will do
in the full episode. UM, but are in they controlled
something in the neighborhood of the major brands and at
(39:04):
that time the eyeglass industry was worth around twenty eight
billion dollars UM. There is another really cool article that's
more recent that came from Vox, where a couple of
former lens crafter executives walk through why it is that
a pair of glasses UM can get marked up by
(39:28):
nearly one thousand percent, meaning that you know, what you
pay for the privilege of having these glasses UH is
insanely more than what it costs to make them, which is,
you know how business works, but you know, when your
choices are so limited, then it starts to feel a
little a little weirder. And there certainly are disruptors to
this model like Warby Parker, and um, I believe any
(39:52):
optical is a really popular one, so you don't have
to pay these prices. Um. I don't think anyone is
saying that the kind of monopoly that this apears to
be is is completely disruptive. But if you want to
have those uh, those Dultcha and Gabana frames or those
ray bands, you know you're gonna you're gonna pay uh,
significantly more than you would for a pair of glasses
for Morby Parker that you can get for like, you know,
(40:13):
in the neighborhood of like thirty or fifty bucks. A
lot of this has to do with the fact that
um Luxotica is able to kind of set the pricing
um and the price floor uh for eyeglasses because they
own so many and you know, control so much of
the means of production for even companies that they don't own.
(40:34):
And there was a really cool little graphic that kind
of spelled this out on this Forbes article, and it
refers to the way that the government does limit price
to kind of match what's called marginal cost, but they
are able to set the price floor like just you know,
just close enough to meet that government regulation and guys.
(40:57):
In this Forbes article, um from it's a great article,
but I think we all agree there's this graph that's
sort of trying to describe how they're able to set
these prices, these price margins, and how government's um, you know,
regulation figures into that. But it looks more like a
cross section of a mountain and a geological survey or
(41:20):
something than it does like a readable GRAPHU. I don't know. Yeah,
there is a bit. Yeah, it's at raor shack level.
It reminds me a little bit. We know a lot
of solid work went into this, but just visually reminds
me a little bit of those p s a s
where they would dose spiders with different types of drugs
(41:40):
and they see what kind of webs they made. You know,
this looks this got a spider on a couple of
different drugs. Vibe a little bit of Family Circus maps
going around. You remember the comic strips where they would
just have one panel there's one of the kids from
Family Circus just walking around the neighborhood. It's got it's
got that. But what the argue meant here, what I
(42:01):
believe they're saying here is that it's really comment on
the relationship between a monopoly and government regulation of a monopoly.
So there are government regulated monopolies, just like Quebec's maple
syrup gang. I don't know why that sounds like a
cartoon to the maple syrup gang they get into the
(42:24):
apple dumpling game, but I believe that was that's why.
That's why borderline, the maple syrup thing when you're talking
about is borderline like a cartel. Right, Yeah, it's been
called it's been called at cartels. No, I completely agree,
And this is a complex issue and there's a lot
of interesting history that I think we're absolutely gonna keep
this a shorter one. Leonardo del Vecchio um At at
(42:44):
least at the time of this article back in was
the you know, living heir to this um Lexotica fortune
and this whole company, and he's the guy that founded
Lens Crafters Um. And there's a really great article that
I need to to finish reading all of in The
Guardian called The Spectacular Power of Big Lens, How one
(43:06):
giant company will dominate the way the whole world sees
um And that is from just a couple of years ago.
So I think that'll be a great resource for the
full episode. But there's a pretty incredible couple of sentences
that I just wanted to point out. And before we
we we closed for the day. On a shelf near
the door of the museum, I spotted a man who
(43:26):
sees far an official Luxotica biography of del Vecchio, which
was published in I expected the optical world to be
genteel and polite, and was taken aback. Whatever conversation has
turned to the personal charisma and menace of del Vicio
without Vecchio rather, um, he's the godfather, said Dean Butler,
who founded Lens Crafters in three. Del Vecchio bought it
(43:48):
in Excuse me, I misspoke earlier. He bought Lens Crafters
and five, just like they bought all these other properties
that we've been talking about. Here's the kicker. The godfather
to me is the guy. He runs it honest sleep.
He kind of rules by fear. Very few opticians would
even mention Delvecio's name, lending him a voldemort like aura
(44:08):
for fear of offending him. However unlikely that might be.
One talked about getting a horse's head in the bed
and concluded our interview by saying you can quote me
as long as it sounds like I am sucking del
Vecchio's So it was like leave that last part into right,
(44:32):
make sure all this to say, I want to know
more about this Delvecchio character and the history of the
family that led to this essential you know, um sunglasses, eyeglasses,
Cartel or they own your right, then it's this particular
type of resin that they used to make these glasses. Um.
That is like they own the patent on it. It's
(44:54):
a particular type of resin. Um, So let's do it.
I mean, this is like they're fast a stuff in here.
And I want to read this biography too, because again
it's the official biography, by the way, which probably is
going to paint him at a very positive light. Did
you see the official response at the end of the
Forbes article saying that I did. Look, we we love
(45:14):
what you're saying here. We get it. Yeah, we have
some awesome stuff. We make a lot of great things,
but we only manufactured around ten percent of all the
eyeglasses sold last year, so you know, we're not quite
a monopoly. And it's true. But if you go to
a glasses store to get your eyes checked, they're all
up in there. Oh yeah, oh yeah, So let's leave
(45:37):
it there for today. Um, thank you the t G
O C, the guy on the t G O t
C or the guy on the couch form shooting us
these links and um, we are going to explore this
in depth in an upcoming episode in the meantime, if
you want to take a cue from the guy on
the couch and uh, who else do we have today? Guys,
(46:00):
we also had the Duchess of shoulder fade, much more
famous than the mythological version, and ye, we'll want to
take a cue from all of them, your fellow conspiracy realists,
you can find us on the internet. We are in
all of the usual places of note, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
(46:21):
You can find us at the handle conspiracy stuff and
on Instagram or Conspiracy Stuff Show. And if that doesn't
quite a bag your badgers. You're not a fan of
sipping the social meats, never fear. You can contact us directly.
You can give us a colophone call. We're one eight
three three st d w y t K three minutes.
(46:43):
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Let us know what's on your mind. Let us know
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we would like to hear it in full. Never feel
(47:04):
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