Luigi Mangione, Evil CEOs and Chronic Pain (with Kill Dick author Luke Goebel)

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
In the early hours of December fourth, United Healthcare CEO
Brian Thompson was shot outside a Hilton Hotel in Manhattan
by an unknown assailant. Video of the gunman fleeing the
scene showed him riding through Central Park and later taking
a taxi to a bus terminal that offers commuter services
to New Jersey and greyhound rates to Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington,

(00:25):
d C. Police come through the scene of the shooting
searching for clues.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
In evidence, player.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Released photos of a man wanted for questioning in connection
to Thompson's killing. The NYPD searched through Central Park looking
for the gunman's backpack. The suspect was recognized out of
McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 2 (00:47):
On December ninth, twenty.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Six year old Louis.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Jumangioni was arrested for a possession of an unlicensed firearms, forgery,
and providing false identification following a tip off to the police.
Mangioti was born to a courthouse building in Holidaysburg, Pennsylvania.

Speaker 4 (01:04):
The New York Police Department to confirm his arrest that day.

Speaker 5 (01:08):
At this time, he is believed to be our person
of interest in the brazen targeted murder of Brian Thompson,
CEO of United Healthcare last Wednesday in midtown Manhattan.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
Just hours after his arrest, Mangioni was charged with the
murder of Ron Thompson blod prosecutors in Manhattan.

Speaker 2 (01:28):
He class to.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Fight this extradition to New York to face murder charges.

Speaker 3 (01:32):
Hello, neighbors, lovers, friends, and anyone who's ever wanted at
the Ridge to be less of the metaphor and more
of an action. Call, grab your prescription refills if you
can still afford them, leave the gun, and take the cannoli.
Because today I'm joined by author, screenwriter, producer, publisher extraordinaire

(01:56):
Luke Gebel as we try and beIN a broader unrestanding
of the December fourth, twenty twenty four murder of United
Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the man accused of killing him.

Speaker 4 (02:10):
Luigi Mangioni.

Speaker 3 (02:11):
Will also be talking about Luke's upcoming novel, Kill Dick,
which I read in one sitting. It's seriously one of
the best books I've.

Speaker 4 (02:20):
Read in a very long time.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
It had everything from NYU dropouts called La rehabs, the
lingering opioid epidemic and the sterious string of overdoses that
might be murders, and the ever looming shadow of the
evil Richard Sackler or Dick, respectively.

Speaker 4 (02:40):
So yeah, like content.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Warning four, drugs, violence, and the lingering question when bad
people die, is it justice or just more violence?

Speaker 4 (02:54):
Hi?

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Hello, how is everyone doing? I hope you are doing well.
I hope you had a good night's sleep. I hope
that you're coping well enough with our current climate. And
if you're not, that's okay too. It's hard to be
okay right now. I'm happy that you're here right now.

(03:15):
I'm currently recording in a walk in closet, so if
the audio sounds different, we're gonna blame that. I also
have an insane headache right now, which kind of ties
into all of this. It's the same headache I've had
for the last twenty years, and it always comes back.

(03:35):
It's the result of a car accident that left me
with never ending neck pain, one of my best friends
with permanent brain damage, and another still addicted to the
opioids he was prescribed the morning after the crash. The
other four people who were buckled in properly seem to
be doing better, but those of us who were sitting

(03:55):
in the back of the suv where no seatbelts were available,
us not so much. This was two thousand and five
in Florida. They'd give you an oxy if you stubbed
your toe, so they really stocked us up when we
were in an suv that flipped over six times.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
But I digress.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
I'm very happy to have Luke here with me today
on the show. Hi Luke, thanks for joining us today.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
On Broad's Hey Daniela. Hi everyone.

Speaker 3 (04:26):
If you're not driving, I want you to do me
a favor and follow Luke on Instagram right now. His
handle is at Luke likes Glue. Right, That's what it is.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
Yeah, Luke likes clue.

Speaker 6 (04:40):
Do it.

Speaker 3 (04:40):
I'm gonna check. I'm going to check and make sure
you did it. I also need to ask him what
that even means. What does Luke likes glue mean.

Speaker 7 (04:48):
It was just the first thing that I thought of when,
like Instagram was just starting out. But I think it
kind of sort of makes it sound like I have glue.

Speaker 4 (04:55):
It does a little bit, but I didn't.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
I didn't want to assume, just like how it holds
things to today we're getting a broader understanding on glue sniffing.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
No, no, I'm kidding.

Speaker 3 (05:05):
Okay, before we get into your brilliant book, I want
to talk about our guy, Luigi Mangioni, a name that
is even more Italian than Daniellis Grima, and the December fourth,
twenty twenty four murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
That morning, Brian was shot outside of a Midtown Hilton

(05:27):
in Manhattan. Witnesses said the shooter didn't run, he calmly
rode away on a Green City bike.

Speaker 8 (05:33):
And after being shot in Midtown Manhattan. The shooting happened
near the Midtown Hilton. Thompson was not staying in the hotel,
but we've learned he was a New York for Investors
conference plise right now. They believe that shooting was targeted,
and our philipoff is here in studio with the latest
on this. Phil To hear about anyone being shot is
obviously unerving. But where this happened, yeah.

Speaker 9 (05:56):
Even for New York City, this is a brazen murder
that happen and in broad daylight just before seven o'clock
this morning. Police are telling us that Brian Thompson, as
you mentioned, who is the CEO of the insurance wing.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
I want to get that right.

Speaker 9 (06:10):
Insure, the health insurance wing of United Healthcare, was walking
up to the Hilton, which is if you're familiar with
New York City around the country, it's sixth Avenue between
fifty third and fifty fourth, very close.

Speaker 8 (06:22):
To Radio City, very close to the Christmas Tree that
everyone comes to see a tourist.

Speaker 9 (06:26):
That lighting is tonight too, so you know there's more
security in the area. This CEO was walking up. There
was an investors conference there in the Hilton. He was
not staying there, but he's just walking up there. And
a witness tells our affiliate WABC here in New York
City that they saw a man dressed in all black

(06:47):
with a black ski mask on waiting outside the Hilton
fired a gun several times, hit this fifty year old man,
Brian Thompson, in the chest and he was rushed to
the hospital later died at the hospital. Police are telling
us this looks to be a targeted attack. It was
very specific. They just don't know why he was targeted

(07:07):
in the investigation is starting. Meantime, that shooter ran off
down an alley and is still at large in New York.

Speaker 3 (07:12):
City, right edged into the bullets he left behind Deny, defend, depose.
This is a clip from news Station.

Speaker 10 (07:21):
It happens a lot in the movies, but in real life,
assassins rarely leave an intentional clue next to their victims,
much less a full on message. But the assassin who
opened fire on the healthcare CEO in New York yesterday
he did just that. According to the police sources, the
words deny, defend, and depose were written on the ammunition
that was found at the scene. We know that three

(07:43):
spent casings and three live rounds were recovered there, but
it's unclear which ones had the messages, and we don't
know whether the words were written on the bullets are
etched into the metal. But we do have some idea
of what those words mean. The phrase deny, defend, the
pose there's a striking resemblance to the free is delay, denied, defend,
which are three words that critics think big insurance companies

(08:05):
like the one this victim ran use as their playbook,
i e. Delay payments, deny the claims, the then the
delays and the denials. A highly critical book with that
title was released in twenty ten, and we contacted the
author this morning, but he declined to talk.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
To us about it.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
When pictures of the suspect showing only his beautiful upper
face to a woman he was flirting with at a
youth hostel surfaced on the internet, we realized that he also.

Speaker 4 (08:34):
Very well could be hot.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
Many did not want him to be caught, not just
because of his bone structure, but because of the entire system,
but he was caught allegedly. Five days later, police caught
the SEP suspect, Luigi Mangioni, not in some shadowy hideout,
but at a McDonald's in Altoona, Pennsylvania. Inside his bag

(08:57):
a three D printed pistol.

Speaker 4 (08:59):
Is not even real? Is that even a real thing?
It sounds fake to me. The whole thing sounds fake.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
Stacks of cash, fake ideas, and what prosecutors later called
a manifesto against the insurance industry. But this wasn't a
candlelight vigil outcry kind of death. It was a moment
of people sharing their addiction stories, their health care claim denials,
and their loved ones who died because of a system

(09:27):
that is so absolutely fucked. Luke do you remember this
day or I don't know if you're that actively online.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
Yeah, I do remember.

Speaker 7 (09:36):
And I was so shocked at how many people I
knew who were like rallying behind what he had done
and being like totally in favor of the execution or
allegedly done or are you gonna say allegedly every time?

Speaker 4 (09:51):
Yeah, I.

Speaker 3 (09:53):
Definitely was surprised at my own reaction as well, because
is normally I have like a pretty visceral reaction to.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Violence, like knowing that anyone even.

Speaker 3 (10:05):
If they're bad, like if they suffer, if they get shot,
like I expect myself to care, and I didn't care
at all, Like which makes me feel like bad to say,
but I didn't care at all. More so, I didn't
want the guy who did it to get caught, Like
the whole time, I didn't want him to get caught.

(10:26):
And then I had like some friends who were like,
you can't think like that. He was a real person,
but he was such a bad person.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
Do you do you think Luigi did it?

Speaker 2 (10:37):
Uh? The evidence points to yes.

Speaker 7 (10:41):
Maybe I'm a magic eight ball, I would think so,
But I mean, I just remember being with my then wife.

Speaker 2 (10:46):
With Tessa, and she was like this isn't cool.

Speaker 7 (10:50):
Like, why is everyone responding to this like it's the
best thing that's ever happened.

Speaker 3 (10:54):
I think the reason people were responding to it because
it was like the best thing that ever happened, is
because we see so little consequence of people who were
actually in power. You and I have been talking about
a lot about this lately, but it is so common
for people instead of turning against people who are in power,

(11:17):
they just turn on each other, Like we fight amongst
ourselves versus like targeting a healthcare CEO. We fight each
other in the comments, people send hate messages.

Speaker 4 (11:30):
So I think this is like.

Speaker 3 (11:32):
One of the few times where people felt like they
got what was he got what was coming to someone
got what was coming to them.

Speaker 7 (11:42):
Yeah, I think that we've got like since, you know,
especially since two thousand and one, when you know, the
FBI right after nine to eleven came out and said
that the largest terrorist threat to the United States was
from animal rights activists and like environmental activists, that earth
an alf was the biggest threat to the country, and

(12:03):
went about making laws that made it, you know, a
terrorist charge if you spoke or you know, protested the
farming industry or you know, animal cruelty through the you know.

Speaker 2 (12:16):
Food system of America.

Speaker 7 (12:17):
Like we kind of lost the ability to and the
movement of direct action in this country, so now people
are left kind of picking at each other.

Speaker 3 (12:27):
Right, definitely, and I spent I think especially like last
year was also a really good example with like the
college students protesting like at Columbia in the different schools
and stuff. And then it was like if you protest
to be anti war, it was like nineteen seventy Kent
stayed again, like we're going to have militarized police come in.

(12:51):
And I feel like whenever you take people's voices away
like that, it's people start running out of option of
who to blame and hate and everything. So I think
that's one of the reasons we got such a pro
Luigi response.

Speaker 4 (13:09):
Also, I think because he was like such a cute kid.
For the record, I.

Speaker 3 (13:14):
Don't think that Luigi did it, and I think this
is all anti Italian discrimination, no doubt.

Speaker 2 (13:19):
No doubt. I mean, you asked me, do I remember
when it happened?

Speaker 7 (13:24):
Resoundingly yes, because I had spent nine years writing a
manifesto of my own of sorts or a call to action,
this novel called Killed Dick, which blah blah comes out
March of twenty twenty six, and it was a way
that I.

Speaker 11 (13:41):
Could take action against the pharmaceutical industry because my brother,
my older brother, only brother, died of an oxy overdose
fourteen years ago and I got sober he died, and
a lot of the book was about kind of the
fact that we don't have direct action, and it's a
call to direct action.

Speaker 7 (13:59):
That ends with the spoiler alert decapitation of Richard Sickler
quote unquote who makes oxy, so when it actually happened,
like I describe it as like a hot female Louisgioni,
which is redundant, so just a female Louigianity, female Louigioni,
like lounging in Brentwood, who ends up a part of
this go ahead.

Speaker 4 (14:20):
No, it's just I think that that must have been
a surreal moment because when I.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Read your book, I already like the Luigi thing had
already happened, and then I went into it and knowing
you wrote it before that happened. There's just so many similarities,
like all the people underneath Dick, like Susie who should
we call her the protagonist.

Speaker 4 (14:44):
She's so our girl, Susie.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
The queen of everyone underneath the Dick.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
Who attended my alma Manor of New York University. We
love an NYU drop out here. So her dad is
a lawyer.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
For Dick, attorney to Richard Sickler.

Speaker 6 (15:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (15:01):
Yeah, so it kind of shows like how many people
are complicit and profit and become wealthy off.

Speaker 4 (15:09):
Of this system.

Speaker 3 (15:10):
But then also like the guilt that lingers with that,
or then realizing like people in your which is a
very real thing that happened with the opioid epidemic. I'm
sure that every single person listening knows either became addicted
to drugs themselves or knows someone who did, because it
was just that wide spread.

Speaker 7 (15:32):
Yeah, I mean, in the elevator pitch, I'm always saying,
like it's the female Luigi, the female God. I cannot
say that the female Luigi Mangioni. And I mean, yeah,
like she, like Luigi feels, I can't say what he feels,
but like she feels this sense that she has to
do something to fight the evils that you know, her
father directly contributes to and that she lives off of.

(15:52):
Every time she spends a dollar, and I think we're
all in that situation. Every dollar we spend goes to,
you know, the military defy complex, which I know we
don't like to talk about certain things.

Speaker 3 (16:04):
So it was also very personal for you though, because
of this stuff with your brother and having like experiences
with addiction yourself.

Speaker 7 (16:12):
Yeah, I mean it's sort of like in like the
Oedipus trilogy. You know, do you bury your brother or
if what happens if you can't, or like what if
you can't get revenge? Like if someone you know blows
up your family member, you can, you can go and
join the resistance, but when your family members are being
killed by the healthcare industry, you know.

Speaker 2 (16:35):
What do you do? How do you? How do you
seek revenge?

Speaker 7 (16:38):
And I chose to do that through art and through
like a rallying cry to remember what the demigod of
American capitalist is, right, capitalism is and how and to
like requestion, how do we how do we take action,
even if it's through art, just to leave a record
and to inspire others to you know, oppose what's unacceptable.

Speaker 3 (17:02):
I definitely definitely see that, and you must have done
like a ton of research from the.

Speaker 4 (17:07):
Book it's a very it's a very smart book. Like
I told you.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
When I was reading it, I texted you, I was like,
there are already like five words that.

Speaker 4 (17:15):
I don't know what they mean.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
But aside from that, just there are so many different
layers to it. Also, like it touches on like the
rehab industry and how even how predatory that can end
up being.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
No, I didn't have to do any research, just.

Speaker 4 (17:36):
Pulling for experiences.

Speaker 7 (17:40):
I'm kidding, yeah, I mean it took me a long
time to write.

Speaker 2 (17:44):
I wrote it four times over nine years, so there
was probably like ten thousand pages that became two hundred
and some to eighty.

Speaker 4 (17:55):
The whole rehab thing is really interesting for me.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
One of my best friend friends who died of an overdose.

Speaker 4 (18:02):
I talk about him. I've talked about him a lot
on the show.

Speaker 3 (18:05):
Ian was in rehab in Florida and he had gotten
clean and then he used and they ended up kicking
him out of rehab and then he died and it
was really traumatizing for me, Like he went from pills
and then he was shooting up and he just died
outside like a hotel with like a needle in his arm,

(18:25):
and it was like hours before anyone realized he was dead.
And I thought I knew so much about rehab, but
I had no idea that that was even a thing
that like they'll kick people out if they cause it was.

Speaker 4 (18:36):
It wasn't okay, it wasn't a rehab. I'm describing it wrong.

Speaker 3 (18:38):
It was like some more long term living, kind of
like a halfway house, I guess. And one of the
rules was you have to stay sober to be in it.
The whole rehab that you have in the book, which
isn't like a for it's like feels like like rehab
meets like scientology.

Speaker 4 (18:58):
But how did you get the idea for that whole thing?

Speaker 7 (19:01):
Well, someone that I was in rehab with in one
of my rehab stints, got got kicked out for huffing
gasoline out of a car in the parking lot, and
so I get what you're saying.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
I mean, luckily they didn't find my glue. But I
just was like, yeah, you know, I was looking at
like an LA.

Speaker 7 (19:20):
Novel and like what an LA novel needs to be,
And I think one thing that it needs is like,
you know, catastrophe, dystopia, weather wind and fire and cults.
So the rehab sort of became a mirror to this
other shadowy called organization, which was a reflection. I mean,

(19:40):
the book is set in twenty sixteen, so it was
also kind of like reflecting and looking at how we
conceptualize of corruption and power systems in terms of like
q noon and Pizzagate and these sort of things where
we become obsessed with this notion that there's some singular
organization or person behind everything that's wrong in the world

(20:02):
because we feel so disempowered death.

Speaker 3 (20:05):
That was a freaking surreal time twenty sixteen with the
all of that happening, and I feel like conspiracy theories
became the most main stream at that point, but then
like with some of them, there is like truth behind it,
like not pedophiles in the basement of like a pizza shop,

(20:28):
but they're more like in plain sight and everything. And
even like with with that, I think that there was
a lot of like misguided calls to action with people
between like that period and like the January sixth insurrection stuff.

Speaker 7 (20:47):
But yeah, there was the sense, right that if you
could just go after a certain powerful, rich, shadowy figure
and execute them or whatever, that you would remove the
cancer from the society or something, and part of what
I was focused on, and not all of it.

Speaker 2 (21:02):
A lot of it didn't end up in the in
the final.

Speaker 7 (21:04):
Book, but I went down the whole like QAnon rabbit hole,
as like a researcher and put together, you know. I
followed the Epstein story to Maxwell and Wexner as a
lot of people have since, and to the organization me
EGA and the Zionist you know, Think Tank, and and
then I realized like, oh, this is all just like

(21:26):
leading to anti Semitism. This is and I'm half Jewish,
and like this is just another form of blood libel.

Speaker 2 (21:32):
And then I thought, well, I mean this will all
be a legend as well.

Speaker 7 (21:35):
But like take Roger Stone plus Steve Bannon plus Donald Trump,
who was very very close friends with you know Epstein,
and it's like, oh, he just took a kernel of
truth that he was a part of and wound it
into a big ball of bullshit that is blood libel,
anti semitism, and and weaponized it with the help of
you know meta Facebook, ye Russian you know backers, And

(22:02):
it was perfect bait for you know, people who feel
disempowered because the system is disempowering, right, there's no way
to take direct action, there's no way to stop the evils,
so you know, point the finger.

Speaker 3 (22:12):
And I really do think that that's then when we
have years later, the whole Luigi thing happening, I think
that it was like the I kind of hadn't seen
that kind of unity in a long time, because it
was people that I knew, regardless of what their political
beliefs were, then kind of coming forward and either like

(22:36):
it was like a gigantic trauma bond in a lot
of ways, because I feel like so many people have
been burned by healthcare with like having claims denied, or
people becoming addicted or being denied insurance. And I know,
so I have a lot of listeners who are not
in the United States.

Speaker 4 (22:56):
And you will often gratulations right to me.

Speaker 3 (23:00):
So people will write to me and they'll be like, no, no,
it's better that you have to pay for your own
insurance and that you don't have like socialized medicine because
we have to wait, Like they'll say they have to
wait like two months for a doctor's appointment. But the
thing is is we still have to wait for two
months for a doctor's appointment, and then it puts us

(23:20):
into like crippling debt, Like we're we have the largest
medical debt of any country. Canada has a little bit now,
but the United States it's like eighty percent of bankruptcies
or for like I'm making this number up or for
because of like medical debt. It's just such an insane thing.

(23:43):
And I think that it was like one of the
darkest things that people could bond over, but it ended
up happening.

Speaker 2 (23:52):
There is a.

Speaker 12 (23:52):
Shocking new statistic about what causes most personal bankruptcies in
this nation. It has nothing to do with the stock
market job losses. Instead, medical bills are the reason. Nearly
two thirds of the time. Here's CBS News correspondent Hatti Kaufman.

Speaker 13 (24:08):
Medical bills from her breast cancer and his open heart
surgery nearly cost Mary McKernan and her husband Ron their home.

Speaker 4 (24:15):
I had breast cancer, had a triple bypass.

Speaker 13 (24:18):
The couples insure refuse to pay for many of the treatments.
Only ten percent of Ron's hospitalization was covered. Overwhelmed by bills,
they filed for bankruptcy.

Speaker 4 (24:28):
We owed about two hundred thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
At that point.

Speaker 13 (24:32):
The mccurnons are hardly alone. Families who fall into bankruptcy
often think they're covered, they have health insurance, but all
it takes is one catastrophic illness to push them over
the edge.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
And your book, like a lot of the characters, like
Susie and one of her former NYU professors, I think
they also bond over kind of like that same kind
of darkness of wanting to take action verse just bitching
about it.

Speaker 7 (25:02):
Yeah, I mean, the name kil Dick is sort of
a command, right, It's an a rallying cry for action,
which like blah blah talking point, but like I mean,
in a sense, it's like he gets her as a student,
as a freshman, and.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
She's already on pills.

Speaker 7 (25:17):
Her roommate overdoses and she starts taking her roommate's oxy
and so she's disaffected, she's stoned. She comes from this
background of privilege and guilt, and he is a relic
of the like growing up in the nineties in Portland,
Oregon and like venerating direct action Earth first, alf burning
ski lodges, you know, like liberating animals from laboratories. And

(25:40):
he's like, you know, basically skating by professing, by just
espousing his own kind of self serving ideological rhetoric, but
they do.

Speaker 2 (25:50):
Long for a better world.

Speaker 7 (25:52):
And there's this sort of twenty fifteen at that time
in the book sort of way in which the Democratic
Party is selling, you know, like we can't oppose K
Street or Wall Street, so we'll just make it about,
you know, privileging certain groups and having them turn on
each other and examine privilege, which is all valid and needed,

(26:13):
but it's not it's not something that can can be
in place of actual social policies and progression progressive like
you know, law, which is their which is their job
right is to help us.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
I think it was definitely like the peak of identity
politics and getting people to turn on each other over
small stuff like the whole like just on both sides too,
like the whole obsession with like trans people using bathrooms,
or just like getting people to fight over these really

(26:51):
small things while ignoring gigantic, bigger issues, Like it just
seems so easy to get people to fight over scraps
than for anyone to have any kind of unity over
the things that were actually.

Speaker 4 (27:10):
Like oppressing us.

Speaker 7 (27:12):
Yeah, which I mean I know that, like you care
about trans access to bathrooms and safety and like so
do I. It's just that that's should be the base,
like the most basic, yeah thing, that we have basic
protections for people, and that we care for one another,
and then and that you know, people have equal access
and equal opportunity, and then there needs to be like

(27:34):
a way that we are protected from like the evils
of capitalism, like like people shouldn't be captured from the
Philippines and forced to fish for our fish, you know,
as like as as in slave labor conditions like in
the documentarygos ships, or like they shouldn't be allowed to
fly flags of convenience or the Jamaican flag for shipping
out of all the countries in Europe and the United
States so that they can pay poor people a dollar

(27:56):
a day when they get kidnapped by pirates, they don't
pay them or get them free because it just makes.

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Their insurance go up. Or you know, you know healthcare claims.

Speaker 7 (28:05):
You know that they give ninety eight percent that they
pay ninety eight percent of their claims, but it's closer
to fifty percent that they refuse.

Speaker 2 (28:11):
It's somewhere in the high thirties, right, So it's just.

Speaker 7 (28:14):
Like everywhere you look, the opioid situation is well documented
at this point, right what the Sackler family has done
and the accountability that they faced is nothing compared to
the amount of cash that they stacked and the way
that the system, you know, permits it.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
So it's just like, yeah, there's nothing.

Speaker 7 (28:30):
I mean, I don't want to like get on a soapbox,
but we all know that the game is completely rigged.

Speaker 4 (28:37):
It's so it's so rigged.

Speaker 3 (28:38):
And it's been so hard for me over the last
couple of years, especially to realize, like because I used
to really truly believe and I feel like I was
late to the game on this, but I really believed
that there were still good people in politics, like that
there are people that I was voting for that really
did have like my best interest at heart. And then

(29:00):
to realize like how many people are just owned by
fucking like super packs and just literally bought, like their
seats are literally bought. For me, that's been a very
like hard pill to swallow literally even even still. But
I think I know a lot of people realized to

(29:21):
that beforehand, but that's.

Speaker 4 (29:24):
Been a hard one for me.

Speaker 3 (29:25):
And also like that no one really faced consequences for
like the height of the opioid epidemic.

Speaker 7 (29:32):
Yeah, and that the proportion of responsibility was so strange,
and that the.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
Sackler family, Purdue Pharma had to pay. I know that
it was like Johnson and Johnson had to pay five billion.
Johnson and Johnson provided most of the opioids, right, Like
then it was twenty six billion.

Speaker 7 (29:54):
That was the Wave one national opioid settlement and this
per do and the Sacklers ended up paying.

Speaker 2 (30:03):
I'll find that.

Speaker 7 (30:03):
Number at some point, I'll remember, but it was like
somewhere around like seven.

Speaker 4 (30:07):
Billion, but nobody want did anyone go to jail? That's insane?

Speaker 7 (30:11):
Right, They hit records, they falsified, they falsified reports.

Speaker 3 (30:16):
Go ahead, Yeah, there were hearings and stuff about everything,
but it was like a little a little too late out.

Speaker 14 (30:23):
To again a story before we brought to your forecast,
Purdue Pharma, Sackler's family reaching a seven point four billion
dollar opioid settlement. All fifty states, as well as District
Columbia and US territories have approved that seven point four
billion dollars settlement, which Purdue Forma make a maker of
Oxyconton over the company's improper marketing opioids and right now

(30:46):
on the show, we have Attorney General Jeff Jackson here.
Attorney General Jackson, thank you for your time.

Speaker 15 (30:53):
Thank you.

Speaker 14 (30:55):
So what led we're some of the key factors that
led to all fifty five Attorney generals agreeing to this
massive settlement here.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Well, it wasn't easy.

Speaker 16 (31:04):
This has been many years in the making, and it
gets back to the root the origin of the fentanyl crisis,
which was the prescription pill crisis, which was OxyContin. As
you said, basically, the Sacra family owned Purdue Pharma. Purdue
Pharma made oxycoonton and they lied to a bunch of
doctors and they told them that it wasn't addictive, so
doctors prescribed it like wild All.

Speaker 7 (31:25):
These people got addicted, and.

Speaker 16 (31:27):
It created this cycle of opioid addiction that has now
led to the fentanyl crisis. So we're losing about six
people a day in North Carolina to this crisis. It
was really important that these folks be held accountable, but
also that we get the money that we need to
help break the cycle of addiction.

Speaker 4 (31:43):
And just how.

Speaker 3 (31:44):
Long they went with saying that these pills weren't addicted
and the way that pills are pushed and you have
like these pharmaceutical reps that go to doctors and are
like here are like in Florida, when I was in
my late teens and early twenties, it was really really bad.

Speaker 4 (31:59):
They just had these places that.

Speaker 3 (32:00):
Were literally like pill mills where you could just go
and no matter what was wrong with you, you could
leave with a bottle of ninety pills. And you still
had doctors though that were like, this isn't addictive.

Speaker 4 (32:15):
Like I have so many friends who became addicted to.

Speaker 3 (32:17):
Stuff because of like really minor injuries. And I feel
like it's gotten better, but like a couple of years ago,
I literally burnt my hands taking something like because sometimes
I do not think. I took like a baking sheet
out of the oven, and then I forgot that the
baking sheet was hot and I touched it and I

(32:37):
burned myself. And I went to urgent care and the
doctor immediately was like, well, I'm gonna give you a
prescription for Vicoin, and I was like, dude, there's an
opioid epidemic, Like so I was.

Speaker 4 (32:52):
Surprised that that was still happening.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
But I do feel like I hear now from other
people who have chronic pain that it's much harder to
get medicare even if you actually need it.

Speaker 7 (33:05):
Yeah, it's become really difficult for me to get my valuums.

Speaker 4 (33:11):
We were talking earlier.

Speaker 3 (33:12):
Is okay if I talk about this, you can tell
me to cut it if not. But so we're both sober.
But you have a prescription for valium. I have a
prescription for kalanapin.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
But I think.

Speaker 2 (33:25):
That that it's not even California sober. It's like FDA sover.

Speaker 8 (33:29):
I know.

Speaker 3 (33:30):
But like I mean, and I also take Wellbutrin, which
is an antidepressant I got soft so but I think
like those things help me to actually stay sober, and
not because I don't take them to get high.

Speaker 4 (33:45):
Like I'm not like let's snort a.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
Kalanapin or like this is to help me come down
off coke. It's just like something I take as needed.

Speaker 6 (33:55):
Ye.

Speaker 4 (33:57):
No, I've actually never sniffed glue.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
You don't missing, so yeah, what kind.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
Of glue do you need to sniff to get it known? Okay,
we won't say that. We don't want to give anyone
any ideas, but.

Speaker 17 (34:07):
I mean, like some of the corruption I think that
we're talking about it, we should get back to Luigi maybe,
but like, like there was this guy Curtis right, And
this has been documented in the Empire of Pain, which
you know was a was a breakthrough piece of journalism.

Speaker 2 (34:21):
And you know there was this guy Curtis.

Speaker 7 (34:23):
Right and he was the director at the FDA who
oversaw the evaluation for of the pain medication oxy Cotton, right,
And he ended up being key to that statement that
you know it oxy reduces the risk of addiction. Uh huh, Like,
how can a drug that you become addicted to, that

(34:46):
you can use and crush and snort or inject or
smoke to get the same basic high as like heroin,
How can you say that that reduces the risk of
its own because possibility of making you.

Speaker 4 (34:59):
An add This is from PVS.

Speaker 6 (35:01):
One of the drugs at the center of the ongoing
opioid crisis is the prescription painkiller oxycon. The drugs manufacturer
for Due Farm, controlled by the wealthy Sackler family, began
selling oxycont in nineteen ninety six. Now there are new
revelations about how the company, and specifically family members, pushed
the marketing and sales of the drug.

Speaker 2 (35:20):
It is part of a case.

Speaker 6 (35:21):
The state of Massachusetts has brought against Purdue Pharma, alleging
the company and its executives misled prescribers and patients about
Oxyconton's dangers. This weekend, I spoke with Patrick Radd and Keith,
a staff writer for The New Yorker who's been covering
the Oxyconton story for years, about new details being revealed
in that case.

Speaker 18 (35:38):
Purdue Pharma has long told a story, which is essentially
that the Sackler family, which owns the company has a
real arms length relationship, is not actually all that involved,
and the Sacklers have developed this reputation as great patrons
of the arts and universities who never really have to
talk about the family business, which is the source of
all their wealth. What's fascinating about this filing in Massachusetts

(35:58):
is that you have hundreds of pages of documentation from
inside the company showing very very active involvement from multiple
members of the family who were members of the board,
but not members of the board, who are at some
distance members of the board. We're very, very actively directing
Purdue Pharma in pushing oxy conton, even after this epic
public health crisis that we're all experiencing.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
Now, give us an example well.

Speaker 18 (36:21):
So Richard Sackler, who's really the most active of these
various family members, who's the son of one of the
founders of the company, one of the three brothers who
originally took it over, would regularly be asking for sales reports.
He would be coaching people on how they should go
out and push oxy conton to doctors when you started
having people dying.

Speaker 3 (36:41):
I'm adding this in in post, so just no confusion
that the Richard Sickler from Luke's book is the same
as this Richard Sackler character overdoses.

Speaker 18 (36:51):
He is very involved in emails saying, look, the way
we're going to spin this is that it's about drug addicts.
These people are criminals. This is not our problem.

Speaker 2 (36:58):
I mean the victims. So I mean the vict absolutely.

Speaker 18 (37:00):
And he really comes across in email after email after
email in these various accounts as somebody who was almost
obsessed with the sales of the drug to a point
where you get to a stage just a few years
ago where sales of oxycontins start to level off and
there's not obvious reason for that, which is the doctors
have woken up to the fact that the drug is

(37:20):
killing people and opoids are killing people. We now have
two hundred thousand people who've died in opoid related deaths
in the last few decades, and so sales are leveling off,
and this clearly drives him nuts, and he's saying, you know,
we need to keep pushing. We want bigger doses of
the drug for longer periods of time, which is exactly
what anybody who's looking at this soberly will tell you
is a recipe for addiction, a dangerous state of affairs.

Speaker 6 (37:41):
And were their experts that they had that were doing
this kind of prescribing, well, they had.

Speaker 18 (37:46):
The part of the story of the Sackle family and
part of the reason that even though oxyconton is just
one of many opioids, it was really the one that
sparked the opioid crisis is that this is a company that,
when it first introduced the drug very consciously set out
to change the minds of the doctors up to that
point had been reluctant to prescribe strong mpuoys for pain
conditions that works for the end of life, palliative care,

(38:07):
cancer or treatment.

Speaker 6 (38:08):
I did even want this to be a prescription drug
at one point.

Speaker 18 (38:10):
Right, well, right, so you actually have a point where
they it was going to be a prescription drugs here,
but they were looking to expand internationally, and the Sacklers
start wondering, what could we have this be a non
control like aspirin. You walk into CDs and just bite
over the counter. And there's a back and forth in
these documents between Richard Sackler and the inventor of oxy content.
The inventor of the drug says, I think it would
be pretty dangerous. That would be a bad idea, And

(38:30):
Richard Sackler says, yeah, but what would it do to
our bottom line?

Speaker 2 (38:32):
What would it do in the number of sales we
could get?

Speaker 6 (38:34):
Give us a scale of how bad the crisis got,
how bad the prescription's got.

Speaker 18 (38:38):
Well, you get to a point where you have thousands
of people dying, really left and right, in various regions
across the United States. And it's actually the part what's
about it. Almost any American will know people. It doesn't
discriminate in terms of class.

Speaker 2 (38:55):
Race, geography.

Speaker 18 (38:57):
And part of what was striking me about this Massachusetts
filing is that you have all this internal documentation that
suggests that even in the face of this knowledge, the
Sackler family is still pushing and wondering, you know, how
can we get out there, how can we be selling more?
Wire sales slowing down, and so they they're fully aware
of the crisis. They're fully aware of the huge, i
mean just astonishing human toll.

Speaker 6 (39:17):
So these aren't emails from ten to fifteen years ago.
This is, you know, just in the last few years. No,
this is what was most striking. So in two thousand
and seven, Perdue Pharma actually pled guilty to criminal charges
of misbranding, essentially deceiving people about the dangers of the drug.

Speaker 18 (39:29):
Three executives played guilty. The company paid six hundred million
dollars fine. And one of the big interesting questions has been,
all right, well, if that was the turning point, was
that when they kind of got wise, was that when
they realized, oh boy, okay, we may have transgressed a
little bit in those early days, but now we know
what's going on, and we now have this documentation showing
that not just in two thousand and eight, two thousand
and nine, but in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, when the
country's reeling from this epidemic. Inside Perdue Pharma, they're still thinking,

(39:53):
how can we push this drug.

Speaker 6 (39:54):
There were also documents in here, or a should say
there were parts of the filing that included them trying
to have an influence on both academia and hospitals.

Speaker 2 (40:02):
How do they do this well?

Speaker 18 (40:03):
This has been part of the strategy for the company,
I should say, not just Purdue, but many companies.

Speaker 2 (40:07):
Pretty really has excelled at it. And the Sacklers have in.

Speaker 18 (40:10):
Terms of first of all, influencing doctors, right, so there's
all kinds of relationships they have with doctors. They realized
early on that a doctor is more likely to prescribe
a new drug if it's another doctor recommending it. I
thought it was It was almost like putting an athlete
on a box of wehaedi'es.

Speaker 10 (40:23):
Right.

Speaker 18 (40:23):
You listen to the people you trust, your peers. So
they started paying doctors. They funded research. So you get
this crazy situation in which you're a physician and I'm
a physician, and I come to you to tell you
about this new drug.

Speaker 2 (40:32):
I'm paid by the drug company. I show you a.

Speaker 18 (40:34):
Study that's been done about the drug, which was also
paid for by the drug company. We have this conversation
over an expensive steak dinner at a nice resort in Florida.

Speaker 2 (40:42):
We're all getting.

Speaker 18 (40:43):
Sent there by the drug company. One of the statistics
in this filing is that produce budget just for food
bought for physicians who perscribe opioids every year was nine
million dollars a year.

Speaker 4 (40:53):
All going to hell.

Speaker 2 (40:54):
That's a lot of nice stake dinners.

Speaker 6 (40:56):
What happens next, because if the company has been sued once,
what the AG is filing and the evidence that she's
laying out, what does that do to other lawsuits it
might be in play.

Speaker 18 (41:06):
There are dozens and dozens of lawsuits right now ongoing
across the country. More than half of the states in
the United States are suing per due FORMA, and.

Speaker 4 (41:13):
I think it ended up being all of them.

Speaker 3 (41:15):
We heard that in another clip, and they settled for
that seven point four billion. They lied in their studies
and they said it was about the way that it
was time released. Well, so instead of having to take
a vike it in every three hours you were supposed
to be able to take because they didn't take.

Speaker 2 (41:31):
Right assuming that no one ever abused a.

Speaker 3 (41:33):
Substance, assuming that no one develops a tolerance to drugs either,
So they would be like, you can take one pill
every twelve hours instead of having to take one pill
every four hours. But if you take oxies for a week,
your tolerance in week two is going to be nothing
like it was in week one.

Speaker 7 (41:53):
And if you crush it, snort it, smoke it, inject it,
it totally of her rides or you know, jumps over
the time release aspect of it, it works all at once.
So I mean this guy then left the FDA shortly
thereafter and was given a position making I think like
four times he's making like four hundred thousand dollars working

(42:14):
for Purdue Pharmaceuticals. Like he gave them what they asked
for and then very shortly after took an extremely lucrative
position at their company. Right, And it's like FDA trials
don't even happen at the FDA.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
You submit your own trials.

Speaker 7 (42:30):
That's something that's in kill Dick, right, because there's this
drug stock, this drug trial where Richard Sickler and Susie's
father like end up foisting a new drug upon this
this this secret society slash rehab that her old professor's running.
And and it's like the fact that you can do
your own drug trials and submit your own reports is

(42:53):
like the most corrupt thing I can imagine.

Speaker 3 (42:56):
I did an episode about that last month, about drug
trials and medical treatment trials and how they're always done
on the most vulnerable people in our populations, like from
the Tuskegee Airmen and giving them syphilis to like just

(43:18):
the military and all the stuff that is tested on
people in prisons, like Sarah Quill the antipsychotic like that
was mainly used at first with people in prisons to
see that. So like in the United States especially, we
have a history of if we're going to do those
kind of tests, these companies and if this is not

(43:41):
even like behind the government's back. A lot of times
this is funded by like the either funded by the FDA,
or even when it's not private, it's just like they
know about it. They're not like, oh no, you shouldn't
do that. They're like, that's cool, let us know how
it turns out.

Speaker 19 (43:59):
And well, it's like we have this you know, film
project with Waking Phoenix and Roneymara with Apple to make
an adaptation of Ingrid new Kirkipeda's book for the Animals,
and in making that, you know, in writing that script.

Speaker 2 (44:16):
Over the course of like a year collaborating with them.

Speaker 7 (44:18):
We watched so much footage of the type of animal
torture and needless animal torture, like they do it over
and over and over, do all these absolutely like unthinkable practices,
and you can go watch that footage. I mean, it's
like it's all online. And the fact that that's allowed
and the way that it's you know, the kind of
I guess we should this is too much for the podcast.

(44:39):
It's like it's a horrific and yet you know, all
these people have been protected, all of these institutions have
been protected.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
You know, the Shack seven went to jail.

Speaker 7 (44:49):
Nine to eleven created anti terrorist laws where you can't
report on this. I'm working with a guy who writes
nonfiction right now to try to make a series about
what's happening with the prolif of these kind of laws
that are now global. They're going to almost every nation
where like you can't take a photograph of what they're
doing to you know, the chickens at Tyson.

Speaker 3 (45:09):
The only time in my life I was ever vegan
was after going to a dinner with Joaquin Phoenix and
hearing him talk about this stuff. And this was in
like two thousand six or two thousand and seven, and
I had no idea that so much of that stuff happened.
And my parents were vegetarians when I was a kid,

(45:31):
but it was.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Like Italian vegetarians.

Speaker 3 (45:33):
That's one of the reasons they bonded is because they
both were like knock Catholic anymore. They both didn't eat meat.
I mean, they still ate fish, so they weren't like
true vegetarians. They were pescatarians, but an Italian not eating
like just eating fish. Refusing the gobbagole is basically, were
you ever vegan a vegetarian?

Speaker 8 (45:53):
Uh?

Speaker 7 (45:53):
Yeah, I've been on I mean during that whole project,
we were, And yeah, you.

Speaker 4 (45:58):
Kind of have to be. When it's not in your face,
it gets so much harder.

Speaker 2 (46:02):
Yeah, And it also just feels so hypocritical. And I mean,
I don't know I should be a vegan.

Speaker 7 (46:07):
I ideologically, you know, agree with everything I was. I
didn't eat meat for seven years when I was like
a skinny hippie with like you know, unintentional dreadlocks forming
and I carried my gladware everywhere, as we called it,
from the rainbow world, like you know, I wouldn't I

(46:27):
wouldn't take out.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
I wouldn't have to go containers. I had to carry
my own like tupperware, glass, tupperware everywhere like metal or what,
like my own silverware.

Speaker 7 (46:36):
I wouldn't buy. I wouldn't buy anything that came in plastic.
I mean, I've actually done that as an adult too
years where I just was like, I won't buy plastic.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
It's so out of control.

Speaker 7 (46:47):
And that's funny that you talked about wi king, because like,
I'm gonna try to somehow get that.

Speaker 2 (46:50):
To Luigi, which is basically like I saw the.

Speaker 7 (46:53):
Oscar speech for Joker where he talked about, you know, veganism,
and it was like contextually obviously in the wake of
like the Me Too movement and everything that was happening,
and he was like, don't you know, I'm all about
all of this, but don't forget right, all these other
sentient beings are being treated, like, you know, in horrific ways.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
And I was like, I have to meet him. I
have to know him.

Speaker 7 (47:15):
And two years later we were like in a project
or I don't know how many years, but it was
that sort of like sense of like, oh, we're in
a holographic, reflexive universe and anything that we I focus
on or manifest comes true, which is obviously like insane,
but it is sort of like this, how much responsibility
do we have?

Speaker 2 (47:31):
Right, like if we put.

Speaker 7 (47:32):
Our minds to it, if we care about living beings,
if we care about the system, like, can we change it?

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Can we manifest a different reality?

Speaker 7 (47:40):
And Luigi like was like, well, I can take a
shortcut on that, right, Like I'll go manifest, right, And I.

Speaker 3 (47:48):
Wish we knew more about Luigi and what really went down,
Like we know that he had a back surgery and
a back injury, and it doesn't seem like any of
his stuff was directly to nine because it seems like
he came from like a good amount of money. But
also it seems like there was some kind of breaking

(48:08):
point there, like he was a smart kid, he went
to like a good school, came from like a good family,
as we say, But I think that meaning rich, yeah, yeah,
like right, well well off like some What I mean
by that is somebody who has a lot of resources.
I would expect somebody to snap more when they don't,

(48:30):
So I think it's almost more admirable in a way.
Susie in your book is like that too, she's a
person of resources.

Speaker 4 (48:37):
She's not.

Speaker 7 (48:38):
Yeah, And maybe it's that they feel like if you
come from that kind of privilege power, I don't like
that you feel like I can make a change, Like
I'm entitled to direct.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
Action in a whole other way. Right, But didn't he
have like.

Speaker 7 (48:52):
A back surgery that went badly and then he lost
the ability to function sexually in terms of getting an
direction And there was this whole sort of drug bull that.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
I mean, I don't know how much of that is true, Like,
I don't know how much of that has been confirmed.
Like I know we've heard a lot of that. I'll
add some stuff in about this. I'll look this, I'll.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
Look this up.

Speaker 3 (49:10):
I'm looking it up and it's this is three hours ago,
so after Luke and I have recorded the episode from
Good Morning America.

Speaker 20 (49:18):
The man accused of murdering United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson
making legal moves today, Mangioni's defense team saying that the
men hadn't DA's off his violated health privacy laws when
they obtained the twenty seven year olds' medical records. They're
asking the judge to hold an evidentiary hearing on their
claim and that the DA coerced EDNA to hand over
confidential information the men hadn't. DA denies these claims, and
Mangioni is sent to be back in court next month,

(49:39):
facing the death penalty for the murder.

Speaker 21 (49:41):
In twenty twenty four, ow to a new development in
the case of the q CEO killer Luigi Mangioni, his
defense attorneys are accusing prosecutors of inappropriately reviewing private medical
records as he awaits trial in the murder of United
Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.

Speaker 22 (49:54):
Baby C's Eric Kctarski joins us now and Aaron. What
does Mangioni's team want to see come from this, Well,
they think there are a couple of different remedies, perhaps
to include dismissing the indictment in Manhattan altogether, because Manjioni's
defense attorneys say prosecutors committed a violation.

Speaker 15 (50:08):
So grave it could warrant the dismissal of charges or
the removal of prosecutors from the case. To executors say
they quid definitely the entire time in Mangioni deserves no relief.

Speaker 23 (50:21):
I would like to say that I was surprised, but honestly,
you know, when I first heard about this event happened,
I a lot of people, just like a lot of
people had concerns that this could be something, you know,
a hipman type situation.

Speaker 2 (50:32):
Or even an angry patient.

Speaker 23 (50:34):
And in our in our industry and spine surgery, or
in back pain in general, uh and in healthcare in general,
we face a lot.

Speaker 4 (50:42):
Of this one's talk in our business. I'm sorry, I'm
sorry care and there.

Speaker 23 (50:47):
Are things that we have to bounce through hoops that
we have to go through to get patients the right
care that they need. And so, you know, for someone
in chronic pain, it's a very frustrating condition that can
really change one's life. And I'm not you know, I'm
not surprised that, uh, that he had, he had challenges
in his life that led him, uh to where we're

(51:09):
you know, allegedly at today.

Speaker 2 (51:11):
My name is doctor Betsy.

Speaker 23 (51:12):
Grinch and I am a neurosurgeon outside of Atlanta. I
do primarily spine surgery. I've been in practice for eleven
years and I am also on social media at Lady
spine dot on most platforms.

Speaker 4 (51:25):
Fine is something that is your entire core of your body.

Speaker 23 (51:29):
You use it anytime you stand, move ben, twist anything,
and so to have pain in your dead center of
your of your body with every movement, and if you
have nerve type impingement pain, it can be you know,
ten out of ten and and for those of us
that think we know ten out of ten pain, unless
you've had an injury to your spine, you know what
that's like and it and it can be something that

(51:50):
happens just all of a sudden. You can be totally fine, athletic,
fit person and it can affect any one of us
with any any type of injury. Pain in general effects
are mental well being. You know how we go on
in our.

Speaker 4 (52:04):
Day to day life and function.

Speaker 23 (52:06):
If you're reminded of an injury in your body and
you live in pain, it can be something that really
rattles you. And any type of incident that happens can
be super frustrating.

Speaker 4 (52:16):
For Suny News Nation.

Speaker 10 (52:18):
Looks his IVY League degrees and family fortune movies.

Speaker 4 (52:21):
Starluck no problem.

Speaker 10 (52:23):
Landing a date or two or one thousand. He told
his roommate in Hawaii that he had no sex life
at all, and he blamed his bad back, posting an
X ray on Twitter showing some kind of a nasty
contraption screwed into his spine. He said the pain was
so intense weekly physical intimacy was impossible. His roommate said

(52:43):
he didn't even date, and it seems his lower vertebrae
are misaligned, not.

Speaker 4 (52:48):
Even like a girl on top. Situation only made it
worse for him.

Speaker 10 (52:51):
A Reddit user who's believed to beat Luigi Maggioni said
that he had surgery in twenty twenty three, which did
seem to help, but he also wrote this, my back
and hips locked up after the accident. Intermittent numbness has
become constant. I am terrified of the implications That Reddit
user also wrote that he was dealing with lime disease

(53:14):
and a condition called brain fog. Books on back pain
and spinal treatments are among those that Manchioni is known
to have read and even reviewed online.

Speaker 3 (53:24):
I'm joining by when his good reads his good Reads
leaked that was a whole thing.

Speaker 2 (53:30):
Well, I didn't, I didn't tell you this, but like
when it happened.

Speaker 7 (53:33):
I teamed up with some directors and two documentary filmmakers
and we started interviewing classmates of his and thinking about
doing a doc on Luigi, and then everybody jumped in
and we decided, like, we're not going to do that.
But we did have several like zoom conversations with former
classmates of his from high school, and they kind of

(53:54):
gave their perspective on what they thought was really going.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
On with Luigi.

Speaker 4 (53:58):
Ch Chronic pain will make you insane.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
Chronic pain is definitely definitely a hard, a hard, a
hard thing because it doesn't go away, So I can
see how that can also be really personal. It doesn't
make any sense to me, though, how he got caught
at a McDonald's with like just all evidence in his backpack,
like just every you think, I don't, I'm not, but

(54:25):
it like how could he have been pretty smart about
the other stuff and then just be like, well it's
five days later, let me put all the evidence in
my backpack. But then he also said he was innocent,
like after it happened, he claimed his innocence, So.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
And how could he have such a bad back and
he's backpacking and he looks so hot, like he's so fit, right,
Like how could anyone I'm just kidding, but like he does.

Speaker 4 (54:50):
Look I'm not kidding. He looks like he does. He
does look like he lifts, he lives a little bit,
but yeah, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (55:01):
It's it's like And why did the news just like
completely stop covering.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
It because they were told to, Like the New York
Times was told to stop printing pictures of him.

Speaker 4 (55:12):
Because we were all getting so fucking horny about it.

Speaker 3 (55:14):
Who told them that, like the government people, the the
the DA's off, you know, like the DA's office. Whoever,
like was the prosecutor, I think, like the FBI, yeah,
something else. Yeah, so because it was getting people so
worked up. But the thing is it wasn't because Luigi

(55:35):
was hot. Like to me, Luigi looks is like a
cute kid. Like to me, he looks like he's twenty
years old to me, because he is.

Speaker 4 (55:42):
He's young.

Speaker 3 (55:43):
But I think that just I do think that that
did something for like the internet, and even now in prison,
he's gotten letters from every continent. There's like a record,
his commissary is always full. He's well taken care of prison.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
Beautiful boy safe in there.

Speaker 4 (56:02):
Oh yeah yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
They like he gets like his like when he appeared
in court for the first time, he had like some
specific kind of fade in his hair and people were like, oh,
that means he's well taken care of.

Speaker 4 (56:15):
That means they groomed him this way.

Speaker 3 (56:17):
Specifically, he like his eyebrows were like more beautiful when
he appeared at trial than when he originally got arrested.
That was also a huge A huge part of discourse
was Luigi's eyebrows. Uh huh. Once again anti Italian discrimination
if you ask me. But when this happened, my mom

(56:37):
was like, this is so bad for Italians. And I
was like, this is the best thing that's happened. This
is the best thing that's happened to Italians since the Sopranos.
And she's like, no, this is bad for Italians and
I'm like no.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
People like let's lean in.

Speaker 3 (56:51):
Whenever anyone's like do you have family in the mafia,
I'm like why what did you hear?

Speaker 4 (56:56):
What did you hear?

Speaker 3 (56:59):
And like but like my mom's generation gets like much
more offended, Like.

Speaker 2 (57:04):
I mean, yeah, it's like, can somebody step up and
take action? Like who can we?

Speaker 4 (57:11):
Can we realize all those fuckers have been bought off too,
the mob. Yeah, now you're going.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
To be anti mafia on your pro Italian podcast. They're
coming for you.

Speaker 4 (57:22):
They would never. They would never, They would never. They
can't for reasons I can't disclose.

Speaker 3 (57:30):
Was it hard back to drugs and away from Luigi?
When I was reading your book, Okay, this is one
thing I had. It was so well written that I
seriously wanted to do drug Like I was not in
a way where I was actually going to do it,
but where I wanted to do drugs reading about drugs?

(57:53):
Did you was it hard for you to write it
at all? Or were you just removed enough that it
like is kind of repulsive.

Speaker 7 (58:00):
I my first drug was medically, I mean, aside from
like a glass of whiskey when I was eight, my
first high, My first drug was in a medical setting.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
I broke my femur snapped in half when I was twelve.

Speaker 4 (58:14):
By my male nanny, And I'm not on purpose.

Speaker 7 (58:19):
He did say I'm going to hurt you if you
throw one more snowball at my head, and I like,
he came at me.

Speaker 2 (58:24):
I tried to juke, and my leg went under and
we came over top of your femur. Is the big one,
the big big leg bone?

Speaker 4 (58:31):
Oh my god.

Speaker 7 (58:32):
Yeah, so that's like in half and then it was
a snow Dave oh my god, like an hour before
I got medical attention.

Speaker 2 (58:37):
And then I was on morphine. And so I was
on a morphine button for a week and I really
liked the way that that felt.

Speaker 7 (58:47):
And then I got out and I was on pain pills.
Luckily they didn't have oxy. Then it was like wike
it in and then that ran out, and I remember
just wanting to burn to death. And I'd never really
been like a suicidal or depressed kid, and I was
just like I went out of my body. And when
you were twelve, Yeah, and for some reason, like the
way that I thought, oh I should get out of

(59:07):
my body is like I should burn to death.

Speaker 2 (59:10):
And you know, looking back now, like, oh I was.

Speaker 7 (59:13):
I was addicted and I was going through withdraws and
then I just, you know, luckily my dad had bought
this like little microbrewery in Oregon back in nineteen maybe
three or whatever, and and so there was like cases
and cases and cases of beer in the house and
I just started drinking every day. And then I just
started smoking pot because it was, you know, the nineties
in Portland, and I was like off to the races, right.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
So writing it, I was like, well, I know what
it's I mean, it wasn't the last time I did,
you know, Heroin slash medical Heroin, and.

Speaker 7 (59:47):
Like I know those states, and luckily, like I was
the kind of person who wanted to get drunk and
like fight the system and fight everyone and like enact
my psychodramas from my own family of origin drama and
and dysfunction. But I mean, I understand what that feeling
is and I like it, and I like that I'm

(01:00:07):
not doing that, but I can. But writing it was
sort of like fun. I was like, oh, I can
just like slow down and call my nervous system by
entering this kind of drugged state, by creating it through
you know, writing through art.

Speaker 2 (01:00:20):
Sorry it made you want to get high?

Speaker 4 (01:00:22):
No, that's okay.

Speaker 3 (01:00:23):
I'm gonna pause this and just save it because it's
at forty six minutes and I'm gonna hit recording in. Okay,
But you said the first time you got drunk, you
had a glass of whiskey.

Speaker 4 (01:00:32):
Yeah, but you didn't want to be Like how did
that make you feel?

Speaker 7 (01:00:37):
I mean, you know, I had that like whole Like
you go to a like a recovery meeting twelve step
and everyone's like and then I was like I had
the feeling that I was always looking for my whole,
like I did have that moment I went to the bathroom,
I looked at myself in the mirror. I got a big, stupid,
you know, like eight year old, gawky white kid smile
and was like.

Speaker 2 (01:00:55):
Yes, I'm a sociopath now. But the next day I
didn't want.

Speaker 3 (01:00:59):
More, you know, I was like, oh, the first so
they gave us my mom's gonna the first time. I
don't know the first time I drank, because when I
was little, they would give us on Sundays, starting when
my mom's gonnaet upset.

Speaker 4 (01:01:12):
Sorry mom, this is not your fault. But when we
would have they would give us sprite.

Speaker 3 (01:01:17):
With wine in it and call it a wine cooler.
And I mean that's like had to have been starting
in kindergarten. And that's a generous, generous age estimate. But
I had no concept of getting drunk. I just remember
I would drink it and I would feel really warm
and really happy.

Speaker 4 (01:01:36):
And then the first time we got drunk.

Speaker 3 (01:01:40):
Me my cousin Dino, my cousin David, the one that
killed himself, and I talk about sometimes.

Speaker 4 (01:01:47):
David was like five Dino was ten, I was eight.

Speaker 3 (01:01:50):
It was my cousin Tanya's graduation, and everybody got us
fucking so drunk, like it was the Mike's hard lemonade
Jack Daniel Wine cooler thing, and we drank so much
and the next day we were all puking, and that
for me, I was like, I never want to feel.

Speaker 4 (01:02:09):
Like this again.

Speaker 3 (01:02:11):
So but I also had no concept of like being
able to put together that those things were even related
until like I started drinking in like eighth grade again.

Speaker 4 (01:02:25):
But I never liked drinking as much as I liked
like actually.

Speaker 3 (01:02:30):
Being high, because drinking, to me always felt like a
big thing, like you had to drink so much to
do things, and with like a pill or something, you
just swallowed one thing and just seemed, I don't know, easier,
doesn't seem No easier, is I think accurate enough to say?

Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
And less calories, yeah, I didn't want to go there,
but absolutely less less calories.

Speaker 7 (01:02:58):
Well yeah, I mean that's the thing about like when
I think Beckham about my brother, and you know, he
started his opioid use after surgery by being given oxy
like so many people. He died of an oxy overdose,
which I didn't want to even believe even though the
toxicology report was clear. I was like, well, it's because
he had sleep after me, or oh, it's because the

(01:03:18):
truth is he was like you know, way over, way way.

Speaker 2 (01:03:21):
Over the line with the amount of oxy in the system.

Speaker 7 (01:03:24):
But you know, essentially, I think he was treating a
nervous system disorder, like he was treating you know, severe anxiety.

Speaker 2 (01:03:33):
And I have severe anxiety.

Speaker 7 (01:03:34):
And I think a lot of people have real mental
health issues in this country because we live in a
dysfunctional right empire. It's it's Rome two point zero like things.
The amount just the amount that we've been able to
communicate on this podcast of what's wrong with the system,
and yet we can't do anything about it, right aside
from like this, from like making art. It's really frustrating,

(01:03:59):
right So, and I think that makes us, you know,
venerate someone like Luigi. But but when it happened, even
though I spent nine years, you know, like working on
a project that ends with someone doing exactly what he
did to the you know, head of a pharmaceutical slash,
you know, healthcare empire, Like.

Speaker 2 (01:04:18):
When it happened, I was like, I was sad.

Speaker 7 (01:04:20):
I was like, fuck, this is terrible, like and then
the more I watched it, I was like everyone was
like celebrating, but I'm like, this guy's young. Like first
of all, like, you know, the guy might have been
a bad guy, but like being executed in the street sucks.
And I can think of a lot worse people that
should be, you know, taken down if they're gonna be.

(01:04:40):
And then I'm like, Luigi's gonna be like in prison
for the rest of his life or executed because the
death penalty was created to keep people from killing the rich.

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
I feel like a bad person for not caring.

Speaker 2 (01:04:54):
I do.

Speaker 4 (01:04:55):
I don't know what has happened. No, I care about
Luigi's so much.

Speaker 3 (01:04:59):
I don't care about Brian Thompson, Johnson, whatever his name was.
I like feel bad if he suffered. I feel bad
for his family. But I just do not have it
in me.

Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
And I don't think I'm a sociopath. I really don't,
but I just like I just didn't have it in
me to care, like it just was.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Not happening, And I can I ask you something, yeah,
like how much do you think that?

Speaker 7 (01:05:28):
That is? Like one of the themes in my book,
right is like this concept philosophical theoretical concept of hyperreality. Right,
It's like, how much is it that we are so
inundated from like Sandy Hook to everything else to be like, Okay,
if someone's gonna freak, if someone's gonna like reject the
matrix and go against the system, like better that they
kill somebody who's got blood on their hands than to

(01:05:50):
just go shooting innocent children or something, right, Like, is
there some element of that?

Speaker 4 (01:05:54):
Absolutely? Absolutely? And this was already like very much into what.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
Was happening in Gaza, and I was having such a
hard time with that. So for me, like after seeing
all these kids carrying pieces of their parents around in
plastic bags, which like is not directly related to like
our healthcare system at all.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
So it's kind of I mean, isn't it just the
same lobbyist bullshit?

Speaker 4 (01:06:21):
Yeah, it's the.

Speaker 3 (01:06:21):
Same people getting rich off of human suffering across.

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
Lobby the world lobby lobbyism.

Speaker 7 (01:06:27):
Right, So there's the pro Israel lobby, there's the profile lobby,
Like right, for every congressman, the congress person.

Speaker 2 (01:06:37):
There's eight lobbyists. Isn't that what it is?

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
Like?

Speaker 7 (01:06:40):
You know, there's millions of dollars per person being spent
each year for each member of our elected government.

Speaker 2 (01:06:47):
Right, so it's like it is kind of the same thing.

Speaker 3 (01:06:50):
So this is this is also happening in a point
where I just have literally just felt insane with my
grief over Gaza.

Speaker 4 (01:06:58):
And I mean, like you mentioned Sandy Hook. When that happened,
that was really.

Speaker 3 (01:07:04):
Insane for me to process too, that this teenage boy
could just go to an elementary school and just shoot
a bunch of six year olds, like yeah, and just
just like the fucking disconnect that has to be happening
with all of that, Like it's not even like he

(01:07:24):
went to the high school he attended. Not that that
makes it any better, but it's easier to kind of
rationalize that and like try and put things together. But
just like when there's that kind of suffering, that's the
kind of stuff like I make myself ill over, like
it makes me feel so insane and so helpless, and

(01:07:44):
then nothing changes, like nothing has changed since Sandy Hook.

Speaker 4 (01:07:49):
And so when something like a CEO.

Speaker 3 (01:07:52):
Being killed and then or like when even when those
billionaires died in that submarine thing, like I felt bad
for the one who was like a teenager, but other
than that, I was like, there's something wrong with me
because I don't care at all, like I should care
about any human life, Like I feel that way, like

(01:08:13):
I should care about any human life even if and
I didn't care. I was like, I can't believe we're
wasting all these resources to try and find these people
that like when in some submersible.

Speaker 4 (01:08:26):
But I don't like that about myself.

Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
I don't like that these things have like taken away
those parts of my empathy, where like I don't care
when the Orcas destroyed the billionaire yachts, I didn't care
about that either. I was like, I don't care that
they're dead, And isn't that horrible though, to not care
if a person is dead, like that can't be good.

Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Okay, I thought, you're the person who always has and
I do.

Speaker 3 (01:08:52):
Believe that, Like that's the things I do really believe that,
And that's something that's so important to me, is trying
to really feel that way, like whether I'm driving in
traffic or walking down the street or but then there's
like also this amount of being desensitized that happens, like
if one of the people you caught off in traffic,
if you would have been like that guy's a billionaire

(01:09:14):
would have been like, well, give me a cans throw
at him.

Speaker 7 (01:09:18):
Then, Yeah, I was surprised that I had this reaction
that was like, oh, this is this is terrible. Like
I had literally been like advocating for it essentially right
in some way, being like, all right, we're fucked.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
There's no subculture anymore. We're all stuck to the glue
trap of like you know, the demigod of American late
stage cap was whatever I.

Speaker 7 (01:09:42):
I call it, Like like like we all know how
sick this whole thing is, right, and yet when the
thing that I'd been advocating for, like, hey, you know what,
you could take direct.

Speaker 2 (01:09:51):
Action by just like killing the worst of the worst.
Like when it happened, I was like, oh this is
so sad.

Speaker 4 (01:09:57):
Well why did it feel sad to you?

Speaker 7 (01:10:00):
Partly because I knew that this, you know, especially once
we found out who it was, you know, Lui who
was allegedly like I was like, this poor kid's life
is just you know, over and also like, you know,
as bad as United Healthcare is, as bad as Brian
Townsend is or whatever, like there's worse, right, and like,
but then I like wrestled with him was like, well,

(01:10:22):
you know, the French Revolution has to start somewhere, Like
somebody has to be held accountable, Like if people do this.

Speaker 2 (01:10:27):
If they break hyper reality by being like, you know,
let's take action, let's kill this guy.

Speaker 7 (01:10:32):
That's better than right a mass shooting where it's just
innocent people.

Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
So like I was, I was kind of in between.

Speaker 7 (01:10:40):
I was like, I can understand why people are in
favor of this, maybe I should be, but I'm also
like sad about this, this young life of the guy
who did it, and also like I don't know, there's
this part of me that just thinks it's wrong to
kill people.

Speaker 3 (01:10:55):
You know, I thought I had more of that than
I do, like a part of me that because stuff
like this made me realize, Like because it's not like
I want people to die. I didn't want him to die.
If Luigi asked me like, hey, should I do this,
I'd be like, no, man, you shouldn't do it. It's
not like I yeah, hard no, hard no. Because when

(01:11:15):
I'm looking at it in a moral way, in a
thinking way, and it hasn't happened, that's.

Speaker 4 (01:11:20):
How I feel.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
I don't think that there should be copycats, like right now,
talking from like my rational.

Speaker 4 (01:11:25):
Mind and everything.

Speaker 3 (01:11:27):
And it's not like I even felt like good, he
had it coming. I hope he suffered or anything like that.
I was actually very much hoping he didn't suffer. And
it was quick and everything. But what I'm saying what
scared me is that I did not care, like the
empathy that I normally should feel and have.

Speaker 4 (01:11:45):
I was just it would just wasn't.

Speaker 3 (01:11:47):
It wasn't there, like the empathy that I feel for
strangers and like talk to you about all the time.

Speaker 4 (01:11:53):
And like just I I did, it just was not coming.
And then, like I remember.

Speaker 3 (01:11:59):
Asking people, is there's something wrong with me for this reaction?
I will cry if someone gets killed in a movie
on TV.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
Like I have such a.

Speaker 3 (01:12:07):
Hard time with violence. I have a really really hard
time with it. It really upsets me to see it,
even when it's fictionalized. But then when these real life
scenarios started happening of bad people dying, I wasn't happy
about it, but I wasn't sad. I wasn't like you
where I was like, oh this is terrible. I was like,

(01:12:27):
well this is I was like, this is.

Speaker 4 (01:12:29):
Fucking nothing, This is just nothing.

Speaker 2 (01:12:31):
I didn't think this is terrible. I just thought, like,
oh shit, where do we go from here?

Speaker 7 (01:12:36):
And like will it actually make it like a real difference,
Like can this type of intervention intercession right like actually
change the nature of our system?

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
And like I have a hard time believing that it
actually can.

Speaker 4 (01:12:51):
I don't think that it has. I don't think it has. Unfortunately,
like nothing is changed within healthcare.

Speaker 7 (01:12:58):
Right except for they kept like sending me United Healthcare
kept sending me emails for like three months after offering
me like a free water pick or something.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
Did you get those free electric toothbrush offers?

Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
No, my god, I did get a lot of denials
for my eye surgery though, if anyone wants to send
me thirty thousand dollars right now. So I just actually
put in like my fourth appeal for that for like
a surgery. I need to make sure I don't go
completely blind. So I have that happening at the same

(01:13:30):
time in the background getting all of these like insurance
denials myself.

Speaker 2 (01:13:37):
And it's just like, oh, maybe that's why you were like, yeah,
I don't.

Speaker 7 (01:13:41):
Know, I don't know.

Speaker 4 (01:13:43):
But and I wasn't like yeah, get him.

Speaker 3 (01:13:46):
It was like I told you, like if Luigi was like, Hey,
this is my plan, this is what I'm gonna do.
I'd feel like, you're a smart young kid. I'm gonna
get you a really good acupuncturist.

Speaker 4 (01:13:58):
We're gonna take you to some really good doctors. Let's
use that trust fund money to try.

Speaker 3 (01:14:05):
And because this is another problem I have is I'm
still like a very big believer and that we can
make a change and there's like some right way to
do it, and if we get it across to enough people,
then we can make a positive change.

Speaker 4 (01:14:19):
And I don't know if that's even true.

Speaker 7 (01:14:22):
I mean, the more meetings that I have with book
to film agents and agents and production companies and everything.

Speaker 2 (01:14:27):
Else in that world, like, the more that it's just
like end in the literary world.

Speaker 7 (01:14:32):
I mean, I'm publishing this book with a strong thirty
year independent press called Red Head Press out of Pasadena
where I live, because the you know, Big four or
whatever won't even publish something like this, Like they're you
know what I mean, Like the most novels now are
like television shows, and when you pitch things to Hollywood,
they're like, well, people don't have an appetite for anything

(01:14:54):
dark or real, right, now.

Speaker 4 (01:14:55):
Like that probably what is things are getting worse.

Speaker 3 (01:14:57):
Pollywood is so fucking stupid right now. They don't want
to make anything new. They just want to reuse old
ip and like I.

Speaker 2 (01:15:03):
Want to escapism right, like that's the thing.

Speaker 7 (01:15:05):
And so it's like, I mean, how do you create
change in a system that you know is has perfected
money to this point right like where it is just
empire being empire.

Speaker 3 (01:15:16):
And they've got us so zoned out, like I sometimes
like now I can't even sit through like a movie,
Like I watched so many more television shows than I
don't think you watch nearly as much TV as I do.

Speaker 4 (01:15:29):
I've never heard your talk.

Speaker 2 (01:15:30):
I just got a TV for the first time since
I was seventeen. I've been watching anything I watch. I've
watched my leaft, which is so pathetic.

Speaker 4 (01:15:44):
I sleep with my fucking TV on.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
Yeah, that's bad, it's not good.

Speaker 4 (01:15:50):
That's what I started doing after my dog died, Like.

Speaker 3 (01:15:52):
I just like, which is just insane to be, Like, Okay,
let me replace the companionship of my favorite ever with
falling asleep to YouTube every night. But it's so like
when I wake up at night, I then don't feel
completely alone. Because there's some random person talking on my television.

Speaker 4 (01:16:13):
But you.

Speaker 3 (01:16:15):
I just re listened to episodes of Broads next Door
and I'm like, hey, Hi, I mean, but if.

Speaker 7 (01:16:22):
Someone would have executed, you know, Richard Sackler, would I
feel differently when there's five hundred thousand, uh you know,
dead from from oxy roughly the number you could throw
around right.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
Like, that's half a million fucking people And.

Speaker 3 (01:16:37):
We're not telling anyone that they should do that. I
don't do it's just to clarify, we're not telling anyone that.

Speaker 4 (01:16:42):
They should do that.

Speaker 7 (01:16:43):
But I mean what I feel differently, like like, is
it just a matter of like, you know, how many
how many people did this one CEO of United Healthcare,
like you know, directly lead to their to their death
and suffering death or suffering Like I mean probably.

Speaker 4 (01:16:59):
A lot, right, yeah, I think?

Speaker 7 (01:17:01):
But then like oil plastic, you know, like glyfe a
sate Monsanto, like how where do you like, like we
better get to work if we're gonna go after all
of them not.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
And it's just like it's not just the CEOs are
the ones that make the most money, but it's like
it takes a fucking.

Speaker 7 (01:17:21):
Right phole it's every asshole who works for Apple, who
works for fucking Apple, that can we say anything bad
things about Apple?

Speaker 15 (01:17:28):
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
Are they helping us in something?

Speaker 18 (01:17:30):
Like you know?

Speaker 7 (01:17:30):
Then then you know, well I had they paid me
to write that script. Like where does it fucking end?

Speaker 2 (01:17:38):
Right?

Speaker 7 (01:17:38):
Like, I mean, those kids are are being enslaved, like
we run an empire that's based on slavery, pollution, greed.

Speaker 3 (01:17:49):
Right, it's just and then it gets hard, Like I
didn't get a new phone from like twenty eighteen until
this summer, no longer twenty seventeen until this summer.

Speaker 4 (01:17:58):
Like I have like an iPhone ten and for like
until it just basically stopped working. And that was because I.

Speaker 3 (01:18:04):
Had no idea that the little the batteries in our
phones were from like fucking.

Speaker 4 (01:18:08):
Child slave labor. But like it's a drop in the bucket,
Like it's just like it makes me feel better.

Speaker 7 (01:18:16):
Every drop in the bucket hurts your soul. Yeah, it
makes you feel complicit, it.

Speaker 3 (01:18:21):
Does, it does, and it's really hard for me to
feel complicit, but I don't. I also don't want to
like completely lose my empathy and not care when people
die and are murdered. But it definitely made me realize
that I don't view like all deaths equally. What do
you mean, Like, when I'm talking about things, I'll say

(01:18:43):
I care about every human life and everybody matters and.

Speaker 2 (01:18:47):
All of that.

Speaker 3 (01:18:48):
But then I think that there are some people who
are bad people, and I don't think they matter as much.

Speaker 4 (01:18:52):
I think they're bad.

Speaker 7 (01:18:54):
Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is like I started
out with this book as like a sort of revenge
fantasy see and not a sort of a revenge fantasy.
And by the time I had finally finished like the
last revision of the last version, I was like, I
don't feel anger towards the Sacklers anymore like I should,
but I don't. Like it's that whole thing of like

(01:19:17):
you know Nietzsche, like be careful like hunting monsters, or
you become them.

Speaker 2 (01:19:22):
It's a paraphrase, right.

Speaker 7 (01:19:23):
And it's like, I don't know, just spending that much
time in that much like hate and then like you know,
looking at you know how it all is just an
emblem for the larger evil of our entire society, and
then being like, well, I choose to participate, right, And
then it's like, well, I don't I've become part of
the the thing I despise, right, Like as a child,

(01:19:45):
I was always like fuck the system, funck all of this,
you know, and that was part of me becoming an
addict and everything.

Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
But like, you know, I'm a part of it, Like
I live here, and I.

Speaker 3 (01:19:55):
Don't think that hating feels as good as we think
it will make us feel. Like I think it's just
kind of a displacing some other kind of feeling. I
know it's like that for me, Like I really that's
one of the reasons I really try not to hate anybody.
And I'm really big on like forgiveness, because I think
if we don't forgive other people, the person we end
up hurting the most is ourselves, Like I feel like

(01:20:18):
we poison ourselves with that. But then there are like
these examples where I just don't care. It's not like
I want harm to happen, but when it does, I'm
just like okay.

Speaker 7 (01:20:32):
But I mean, I think it's like part of it
is like having an actual process where you're doing something
to transform and transmute what's going on that is hate
and that is outrage, and that it's disempowerment, and you
actually do something to transform yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:20:47):
Like that's what art is right for me.

Speaker 7 (01:20:49):
It is like I'm kind of like what do I
want to what do I want to face and what
do I want to learn about myself through this project?
And then you do something, You make something that's a
gift hopefully to the world, gives us a consciousness shift
or whatever, and it's something it's at least an offering, right,
it's at least a way of like trying to oppose
and remember and have people remember that there's something wrong

(01:21:14):
that we're not just completely disconnected from other human beings
that every addict or addicted person or person who's using
like on the streets, you know, with somebody's kid, and
I don't know. Part of where this journey led me
was like now I've joined the Alano Club or Alano Club,
whatever you gonna call it, like here in Portland, and
like we're doing street outreach and you know, we're working

(01:21:37):
to make sure that part of that giant seven billion
dollar settlement goes to actual recovery instead of.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
Just to the cops, which is where it always ends
up going. Like so you know, it's like everybody's got
to do something.

Speaker 3 (01:21:50):
Direct action always makes me feel better too, Like like
with I've talked about Gaza in this episode, but like
someone I've been come really close to is the mother
of hindrajab with some and I talk to her every
every day, every single day.

Speaker 4 (01:22:07):
I try and send like messages back and forth with her.
And for me, one thing that's really helped me feel
less helpless with Gaza.

Speaker 3 (01:22:14):
Instead of just donating money to organizations and stuff, which
everyone should still do that's very important, is actually befriending
people on the ground who still have like cell phone
service and who are like accessible, who I can still
talk to because even though it's a drop in the bucket,
it's just a handful of people. It helps me feel

(01:22:37):
a bit more tethered and less insane and like, Okay,
I can make a difference for these people directly. So
I think like anything that anyone can do that is
direct action, even if we're not you know, like the
killing CEOs, like we can still do things that.

Speaker 2 (01:22:58):
Matter, right, I like just run up on them and
punch them.

Speaker 4 (01:23:03):
Yeah, it's okay to punch Nazis.

Speaker 2 (01:23:07):
No. I mean, I've got a guy that I talked
to on on Instagram, who's you know, who's in Kylstein and.

Speaker 7 (01:23:16):
I send money and I was holding like my niece
who's six months seven months today, shout out Delia and like,
yeah I was. I posted a photo of me holding her,
and he like DMed me and was like it's nice
that you can hold your you know, sister's baby, but

(01:23:37):
like our babies are being killed, and I was just
like fuck, Like part of me was like, don't say
that to me, like I'm holding this baby like this,
and then I was like, whoa.

Speaker 2 (01:23:45):
That's that's legit, Like that's real, right, Like yeah, do
say that to me? And yeah, I don't know. I
mean I do think that like part of.

Speaker 7 (01:23:55):
Being and part of like the book is looking at
a like being dehumanized by our obsession with media.

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
Is like we all watched the Luigian.

Speaker 7 (01:24:03):
It's almost like it's almost like watching Batman or something
like a Batman series. It's like all the people like yeah, yeah,
kil and it's like, well, okay, sure, but also like
that's this is real life.

Speaker 2 (01:24:13):
Do you know the difference anymore? Or is it all
just like spectacle. It's like this is a vigilante.

Speaker 3 (01:24:19):
One thing I haven't told you about in the book
when I was reading it is I got nervous that
they would kill Dick, Like even just hearing passages with him,
even though he was like clearly a bad person in it,
I was still like, well, maybe he'll become good and
he won't die, Like I still have like that kind
of like insane optimism that is so knock grounded in reality, Like, well,

(01:24:41):
maybe some scene's gonna happen where he'll talk to him
and he'll change his mind and he's.

Speaker 2 (01:24:48):
Kind of like funny at times.

Speaker 4 (01:24:50):
Yeah, that's the thing is like you made him humans.
You made him humans, Like he gets.

Speaker 24 (01:24:56):
That drawing from his like it was just great daughter,
and he's like they're talking about it and being like
she made this ridiculous drawing the swirls. Yeah, she's she's saying,
I haven't, I'm gonna have damnation, so we're taking.

Speaker 3 (01:25:17):
Her out of the will and then I haven't And
just reading like all of that, I'm like I ended
up feeling bad for him, Like the lunatic monster guy.

Speaker 7 (01:25:28):
The rich people are so absurd that it's almost like
you know, I mean there's this little part of it.
It's like I get it, like the company was failing
and he wanted to be like his forebears, like Mortimer.
He wanted to bring it back, and like how many
people gave him bad advice or bad lessons. But then
it's like at some point it's like, no, there's a
line like you know, and and we all have it

(01:25:50):
where like, you know, I get involved in projects where
I'm like I want to do that, and then enough
fred flags happen and I'm like, you know, no, I don't.

Speaker 2 (01:25:57):
Want to do that anymore. That's not for me, Like,
that's not and keep him with my morals and then
this guy obviously doesn't have that right.

Speaker 4 (01:26:05):
Did you feel better after he wrote the book? Was
it like cathartic to get to do it in the book?

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:26:13):
And one thing that happened in the in the writing
process was for like eight years, the brother because the
professor from n YU, Susie's professor who she's had kind
of an inappropriate affair with, you know, he's going and
looking for his twin brother who's on the streets of
la who's an addict. And when he in the original

(01:26:36):
versions one through three, he his brother dies and he
puts him in a freezer, which happens in this book.
Now in this version, there is a freezer in a body,
but it's not the brother, right, the brother stays alive.
And it was like for eight years I had my
brother on ice like emotionally, and for those eight years
I remembered like all the time I would dream that

(01:26:56):
I was with my brother and that he was like, dude,
you made a mistake. I'm still alive, but you guys
all got it wrong, and we like hang out the
whole dream. It was like that way that you can't
let something go, and then through writing it, I think
I did. And yeah, when when Dick gets his head
cut off, like fuck, yeah, that's great.

Speaker 4 (01:27:14):
I was shocked. I was shocked when it happens.

Speaker 2 (01:27:18):
So we also like don't see it no, just like
it's just like media. It's like it's just media.

Speaker 3 (01:27:24):
Yeah, it's just like a snippet of like the one
of the things that also happens that night.

Speaker 2 (01:27:29):
And we're like in such a The book is so
focused on kind of being in this post truth era.

Speaker 7 (01:27:34):
Even the book is a novelization written by a now
famous artist blue chip repped you know, gallery repped artist
Susie As you know, a few years later and and
you know, she's telling us the book and going between
first and third, and like she's serving us the kind
of candy of these like serial killings that are overdoses
that may or may not have been killings.

Speaker 2 (01:27:54):
That she may or may not have been involved.

Speaker 7 (01:27:56):
There's just a sort of like way in which it's
like mimicking media. And so when we get to the beheading,
it's like that's also just media, and it's sort of
like we.

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
Never know what's true or not true anymore.

Speaker 7 (01:28:07):
And that's sort of the thing like you're saying, like
you don't even believe that Luigi could possibly have done this.

Speaker 3 (01:28:12):
Right, So, I mean, I sincerely, I sincerely do have
those doubts. I wonder if he was like agreed to
be a fall guy for something I really don't know
to me the way he got caught and then him
saying he was, because it's like, okay, if you're going
to carry your manifesto around with you, and then why
wouldn't you say you were guilty?

Speaker 4 (01:28:32):
Why wouldn't you just completely own it?

Speaker 7 (01:28:33):
Why would your boyfriend who did it and he or
like some somebody else, right.

Speaker 3 (01:28:38):
Like Walui and they like to the evil version, right
Waluigi Wan GEONI so well, it's just.

Speaker 7 (01:28:51):
Like when Trump got allegedly shot, right, It's like no
one believes that that like right, It's like it was.

Speaker 2 (01:28:58):
That was so it was so it was teh photo
of Donald Trump's.

Speaker 4 (01:29:03):
It was that was so bizarre.

Speaker 3 (01:29:05):
That was just so bizarre, that whole thing right when
it when that happened, I was like, He's gonna win.

Speaker 4 (01:29:12):
This is like puts him that like martyr status.

Speaker 2 (01:29:15):
Now yeah, yeah, I mean.

Speaker 7 (01:29:18):
It is harder and harder to believe anything once you've
like dug into Operation paper Clip and you know, everything
else to be Courtney Loves backstory of her family.

Speaker 4 (01:29:33):
And careful, careful, now, hey, we will.

Speaker 2 (01:29:36):
Not project art choke you bring.

Speaker 4 (01:29:40):
Up Courtney Love.

Speaker 3 (01:29:41):
We might have we might have an incident, might have
an incident in this walking closet here.

Speaker 4 (01:29:47):
If Luke has never heard from again, you know what happened.

Speaker 7 (01:29:52):
I just would like to say that in this walking
closet is the electro Luxe vacuum cleaner that my grandmother
used from like the seventies on.

Speaker 2 (01:29:59):
There was a time when things lasted and they worked.

Speaker 3 (01:30:02):
No things are made to break, though, it's part of
the part of that's not a conspiracy theory.

Speaker 4 (01:30:08):
That's true.

Speaker 7 (01:30:09):
I mean, you know, for a long time painkillers worked,
and then suddenly oxy came around and everyone got addicted.

Speaker 3 (01:30:17):
No, people were addicted before that, and the oxy it's
were like post oxy.

Speaker 4 (01:30:23):
Now we're now in like the fence and all era.

Speaker 2 (01:30:26):
And then there's the new stuff. What's the new stuff.

Speaker 4 (01:30:28):
That's like for animals though, that people started using. Yeah,
oh you know, this is the thing one where everyone
is like bent over in half. I don't remember what it's.

Speaker 2 (01:30:40):
Called, but you will because it's going to get bigger
and bigger.

Speaker 3 (01:30:45):
See, it won't though, because it's something that I think
that's something that'll be contained to like extremely vulnerable populations.
I think one thing with oxy that happened is it
impacted everybody, Like it didn't matter you're at label. There's
certain drugs that do hit like marginalized communities worse than others,

(01:31:07):
but Oxy, I think it just really swept across the board.

Speaker 4 (01:31:11):
It didn't matter if.

Speaker 3 (01:31:12):
You were a millionaire or if you were living paycheck
to paycheck, Like the addiction just kind of hit the same.

Speaker 2 (01:31:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:31:22):
And I remember like certain comedians and certain like people
talking about like, you know the difference between like sort
of like, you know, finally it's white people who were dying,
like we had crack as an epidemic before, right, and
like that's valid, that's valid. And also that's the kind
of thinking that like doesn't.

Speaker 2 (01:31:40):
Look at the fact that it was the CIA then
and it was you know, the FDA now and it's.

Speaker 4 (01:31:47):
The same basic they're all in bed together.

Speaker 2 (01:31:51):
It's all one person.

Speaker 4 (01:31:53):
Yeah, all the man.

Speaker 2 (01:31:56):
Find that person.

Speaker 3 (01:32:01):
So any any final thoughts you'd like to leave our
broads next door audience with.

Speaker 4 (01:32:09):
We love you, Luigi, your beautiful boy. He did nothing wrong. Okay,
you did nothing wrong.

Speaker 3 (01:32:20):
I really, I really don't know how I feel, and
I hope he's physically not in pain.

Speaker 4 (01:32:26):
I feel I feel bad for Luigi. I don't have
a full understanding with what happened.

Speaker 2 (01:32:31):
There still anyone who's been to jail, Like, the beds
are not nice. No, he's got babs. This is not
feeling good. They're not going to execute him though, that's
the thing now for sure. Do we know that?

Speaker 4 (01:32:46):
No, but I I think that they're I think that
they're not going to It would be a mistake.

Speaker 7 (01:32:53):
Yeah, at this point, they've done a good job of
you know, brushing it under the ruck.

Speaker 2 (01:32:58):
They've done so many they did something many, We've done
so many horrible things since then.

Speaker 25 (01:33:03):
That, yeah, that that story has faded, which is you know,
part of the book as well, is the secret sidy
being like, you know, you just have enough bouncing balls
and no one can pay attention to anything, and like,
think how many horrible things have happened since then?

Speaker 4 (01:33:18):
A lot of horrible things. But I think that everyone listening,
I think that you'll really enjoy reading Kill Dick.

Speaker 3 (01:33:27):
It has a lot of different layers to it. It
comes out in March, but people people can pre order it.

Speaker 4 (01:33:32):
Now how did they do that?

Speaker 7 (01:33:35):
Oh they go on like red Hens website or they
just Google pre order.

Speaker 4 (01:33:42):
I'll put a link.

Speaker 3 (01:33:43):
I'll put a link in the episode description to pre
order if you're interested, and make sure to follow Luke.
You're on Instagram, You're on substack correct, Luke Legs Glue
of both And.

Speaker 2 (01:33:57):
We've got an interview series.

Speaker 4 (01:33:58):
Luke Legs Glue we talked to I did an interview.
I did one, so check check that out. Amazing, so amazing.

Speaker 3 (01:34:08):
Questions and I answered them so normally normally he's lying.
But you should read it anyway, stop it. Thank you
so much for coming on the show. We talked for
like two hours.

Speaker 4 (01:34:26):
We did we did good luck editing.

Speaker 3 (01:34:30):
So I'm just gonna leave it uncut, uncut, killed, Dick
killed Dick, uncut, the uncircumcised version. We're going old school
with this. We are bringing foreskin back. Shout out to
everyone listening with foreskin okay, And you can find me

(01:34:53):
as always at Broad's next Door on Everything or at
Daniella scream At. And I love reading your messages. I
love getting your emails. I love your corrections and when
you tell me I'm wrong about things, so.

Speaker 4 (01:35:11):
As always I know right. I love being told I'm wrong.
Everyone everyone knows that.

Speaker 3 (01:35:19):
But let us know, and let me know if you'd
like to have Luke on the show again, and what
you want to hear him, hear him.

Speaker 2 (01:35:26):
Talk about let us out of the closet.

Speaker 4 (01:35:29):
Yeah, we got to get out of this, this closet, this.

Speaker 3 (01:35:33):
Walk in closet, metaphorically, literally, figuratively.

Speaker 4 (01:35:39):
I love you very much, Thank you for listening. Goodbye,
say goodbye bye bye everyone.

Speaker 2 (01:35:46):
Bye.

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Episode Transcript

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.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal

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Luigi Mangione, Evil CEOs and Chronic Pain (with Kill Dick author Luke Goebel)

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