Benjamen Walker's Theory of Everything - This Is Not A Drill (False Alarm! part i)

Episode Date: April 3, 2018

Our New ToE series on the battle between the real and the fake begins with a text alert sent out to everyone in Hawaii on a balmy Saturday morning. We also hear from the man who has written the text alert that will go out to all New Yorkers in the event of a real emergency. Photographer Stan Douglas shows us how to reconstruct a future that makes sense, and your host turns to fellow podcaster Jody Avirgan for advice on how to own the “real-ish” podcast genre. Plus the little boy who cried wolf meets the Emperor with no clothes!   Read our Medium page for details on the entire episode Illustration by Jordan Crane and new series logo by Val Dorito.

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Episodes every other week at neverpo.st and wherever you find pods. This installment is called This is Not a Drill. We decided to go to Hawaii because we just needed a break. This was our vacation to just hang out and chill by the beach. We would eat food, we would go to the beach, we would go to the pool, we would go eat food, we would go to the beach. Just a decision between the pool or the beach. We would eat food. We would go to the beach. We would go to the pool. We would go eat food. We would go to the beach. Just a decision between the pool or the beach. My friends Alex and Liza recently took a long needed vacation. They went to Hawaii to relax, log out, and unplug from the chaos, uncertainty, and precariousness of the current moment.

They should have gone somewhere else. So on January 13th, we wake up to the sun. And I look over at Eliza, and I make the joke, the cheesy joke we'd been saying to each other. And I say, what do you think the weather is going to be like? Uh, perfect. And at that moment, the phone goes. And then we look at our phones.

And I see my entire life flash before my eyes. It said ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek immediate shelter. And then this is the line that I got. This part is actually what threw me. The last sentence is, this is not a drill. And the very first thing that passed through my mind was what the fuck did he do?

I could imagine a scenario where somehow an insult from Kim Jong-un or from Donald Trump set something off in motion that led one of them to push a button and fire a missile. I absolutely thought that a missile was going to come and destroy us. And it enraged me. Like the emotion that coursed through my body, I'm not sure that I have ever felt anything like that. I ran through in my head um if i do survive this what like what do i do what what what do i have control over and the only thing i could think of that i had control over was what to wear and so i put on a pair of shorts a t-shirt and i put on the like most rugged

shoes that i had they're like sneakers i figured that was good for rubble. The logic that happens when you're in crisis is super weird. It was, well, bomb equals fire. Water puts out fire. Get in a bikini, jump in the water, done. When Liza came out in her bikini and me thinking, why is Liza in a bikini right now? We're about to be hit by a ballistic missile and you're wearing a bikini. I had visions of people just running into the ocean to try and avoid the hellfire that was about to befall us. The next thing I remember is hearing somebody

through the door outside of our room saying, like kind of yelling to someone down the hall saying, yeah, a missile is headed our way. Come on. And that somehow made it more real because it meant it went to like everybody's phone. We started checking Twitter and I found a tweet that said, this is not real. I've just contacted the State Department of Hawaii, and they say that it was a mistake. And then the alarms started going off on the television, the buzzer, like sort of the... And that voice comes through and says, get away from the window. If you can't take cover inside, then lay down in a ditch. And that voice comes through and says, get away from the window.

If you can't take cover inside, then lay down in a ditch. I just remember thinking, are you kidding me? There was a missile coming and you're saying lay down in a ditch? I feel like going back to the Cold War. Yeah. I mean, I didn't live through the Cold War, but I imagine that's what it was like. Me neither. The weirdest thing was that we opened the curtains and it was like nothing was happening. Everybody was walking around totally normal.

It was super weird. Then the hotel intercom comes on and it's just a kind of alarm sound. But the woman says, over the voice, we have contacted the Hawaii, I don't remember what, emergency department or government or something, and that was a false alarm. And so at almost the same time, the hotel authorities are telling us it's safe. The phone has given us this first message that says it's not a drill. The TV emergency broadcast is saying we have to take cover. Like, who do you believe? I don't, like, it broke my brain a little bit to think about this.

It didn't seem like it actually resolved itself for real until the phone message came. Like, the same thing that started the scare undid itself. And that was like 30, 40 minutes later. 40 minutes. That said, that was a false alarm. We're sorry. And so at that point, I felt pretty confident that it was over. And we made very big drinks and went to the pool.

The very fact that I didn't instantly think it was a false alarm, that something so absurd could possibly be real, did just make me recognize with a kind of new clarity that we are in crazy times. Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived with his parents in a village on a hill. His parents, like everyone in the village and the surrounding countryside, were poor sheep farmers. And so, when this little boy turned 10 years old, his parents presented him with a shepherd's crook and sent him up the mountain. Because that's how things work in this part of the world.

This little boy did not want to be a shepherd, though. He wanted to design streetwear. At night, he didn't count sheep. He counted models marching down catwalks decked out in his designs. Obviously, this little boy was bored, and he retreated into his imagination. Out from behind rocks and trees would jump wolf after wolf. Some of these wolves were from fairy tales, some were from nightmares, but all of them were feral, vicious creatures who would rush in and gobble up the sheep the village depended upon for food.

One day, this little boy's imagination got the best of him. He climbed to the top of the tallest tree and shouted towards the village, Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! His mother heard him, and she got all the other men and women of the village together and armed with assault rifles, chainsaws, and double-fired nunchucks,

they rushed up the mountain to save their herd. Everyone was extremely angry when they discovered it was a false alarm, especially his mother. For her, this was even worse than the time she caught her son modifying her undergarments with fringe. The little boy tried to turn the situation to his advantage. He explained to the village elders that what looked like an immature prank was in truth a test of the village's wolf preparedness system. And he, being the author of said successful test, obviously possessed skills and talents that

should be acknowledged and encouraged. But the village elders would have none of this. You know what happens next. The little boy is beaten with double-fired nunchucks. Unlit, of course, but still, he was forced to spend the night out on the mountain, alone, with no supper. Once upon a time, there was a little boy who lived in the city. His parents were rich, so when this little boy turned ten, they presented him with a singer-sewing machine.

This little boy is also into streetwear, but coming from a family of means, his passions are encouraged and indulged. One day, while buying a bolt of exotic fabric at the craft market, the cashier tells him about this tailor who is running for president. A tailor who supposedly makes the best clothes ever, clothes that only the best people can see. A tailor who supposedly makes the best clothes ever. Clothes that only the best people can see. A few weeks later, the little boy learns that this tailor, after winning election, has abolished the electoral system and proclaimed himself emperor. And then, a few weeks later, while constructing a jumper out of a water-repellent antimicrobial polycotton twill, he hears the sound of a military parade.

The Emperor is coming, down his street. The little boy throws open his windows and sees, with his own eyes, standing atop an M2 Bradley IFV tank, the Emperor, who's proudly thrusting his sagging belly and shriveled genitalia out for the crowd to see. Yes, the emperor is buck naked. But what you think happens next doesn't. Because just as this little boy opens up his mouth, our two stories merge, the narrative streams cross, and with a flash

and a bang, the little boy who shouts out that the emperor has no clothes disappears. And in his place, now leaning out the window, is the little boy who cried wolf. He's a bit discombobulated at first, but when he sees the orange bloated man striding a tank, instinct kicks in. He takes a deep breath and shouts, Wolf! Wolf! Wolf! Like I said, we all know how this story goes. The little boy shouts wolf until he's blue in the face. He shouts wolf until he can shout no more. But no one pays him any mind.

Well, except for the emperor who gives him a sly little wave and a big toothy smile. Because while it may look to us that the world's all mixed up, the emperor knows that he's got it made. He's got nothing to fear from a boy who cries wolf. And the other little boy? Well, obviously, he was transported to the mountaintop. And he came to with a start in the dark, dressed only in a shepherd's cloak and with nothing to eat. And not knowing anything of shepherding, nor familiar with hunger, this little boy laid down on the grass and closed his to eat. And not knowing anything of shepherding nor familiar with hunger,

this little boy laid down on the grass and closed his eyes tight and went to sleep with the hope that he'd wake in the light back in his room with the high ceilings, designer furniture, and singer sewing machine. But just as he dozes off, the big bad wolf rushes in and sets upon this little boy,

crushing his skull with his big sharp teeth. An appetizer for a feast. so I'm not sure if this is not a drill as standard across, you know, I guess the messaging community. But I, you know, when I was working on IND messaging, I've never had the characters. Elliot Calhoun is a CBRNE planner for New York City. That's Chemical, Biological, Radiological, nuclear, and explosives planner. If I met someone at a party, I would call myself a WMD planner. Elliot Calhoun is the guy who wrote the text alert that'll go out to all New Yorkers in the event of an emergency, like a nuclear attack. So the message I wrote is nuclear explosion

reported. Get inside, stay inside, and stay tuned to media. Elliot has spent years rewriting this message. Every time he pulls it up on his computer, he says, he tweaks it a little bit. The point of the message is to tell the public to take an action, and to get them to take that action, which is get inside and stay inside. Every version of it always included that. He'd like to include more detail in his message, but the current format for the wireless emergency alerts only gives the person distributing it 90 characters. And what that means is that you have to be very specific in the information that you put out, and you can only tell people certain things. If he had more characters,

he told me he'd go all out, for example. It would be very important for the public to know that by simply removing our layer of clothing, removing that dust from your body, you know, it can remove up to 90% of any radar activity. But you would want to make sure that you, when you remove the clothing, that you put it in one location away from where people will be. You know, ideally, if you have access to a plastic bag, you know, bag it, try to seal it, and again, put it away from in an area where people will be. Ideally, if you have access to a plastic bag, bag it, try to seal it, and again, put it away from an area where people will not be. I'm grateful Elliot took some time out to talk with me. Because now, if my phone ever orders me to take my clothes off

because a nuclear bomb just went off, I'll understand. My phone isn't mocking me during my final moments on Earth. It's just trying to help. Whenever we're messaging the public about anything, it doesn't have to be something this major. It can be smaller and routine. We always want to make sure that the public can trust

the message that is going out is legitimate. New York City's emergency messaging system has safeguards in place to prevent a false alarm from ever going out. But the fallout from Hawaii affects us all. We're worried about, you know, I guess, I'm not sure what we'd call it, but maybe warning fatigue. We're worried that over time people will, you know, want to turn off the feature or, you know, no longer sign up. Elliot Calhoun is one of the few people in the world for whom a false alarm is more terrifying than a real alarm. Perhaps this comes down to his technocratic devotion

to a system he's a part of. Or perhaps it's his technocratic faith that if we do what our phones tell us to do, we just might make it. Despite how terrible the event would be and a lot of the preconceived notions of what a nuclear explosion would look like from media and whatnot, for the majority of people impacted, it will be a survivable event. Okay, it says 1057, Wednesday, August 15th.

Emergency alert. Blackout throughout NYC. Remain indoors and do not drive. Did you actually look up their messages to get that right? Yeah, of course. Photographer Stan Douglas is famous for the meticulous research he puts into his historical reenactments. And in his latest project, a series

of photos called Scenes from the Blackout, there's an image called Solitaire. It depicts a woman trapped alone in an elevator. And if you look closely, you can see the emergency message Elliot Calhoun wrote on her iPhone. She's there. She can't go anywhere. It's hot. She's sweating. But luckily, she was just shopping, and she has some cars with her. She could play solitaire. She happened to get some baking supplies. So she's taken a shoelace and a can of Crisco and made a candle out of it so she can see to play cards. We actually did test this. I sort of looked online. So how can you make a candle? What can you use to do this? And actually it does work really well to make a candle out of Crisco and a shoelace. Last year, for his show about the London riots of 2011,

Stan Douglas chartered a helicopter to survey the land and take his own photos, which he then combined with photos from aerial news coverage of the riots so he could reconstruct his own specific moments. But this project required a new kind of research. Did you catch the date on that cell phone? Wednesday, August 15th, 2018. Yeah, these scenes from the blackout take place in the future. There are references to New York City blackouts of the past. For example, the one from 2003 took place on August 14th, but of course there were no iPhones in 2003. Other photos reference the blackout of 1977, like one called Loot.

This is an image from Borough Park in Brooklyn. Two men armed with baseball bats and guns stand in the middle of a street along with a riderless police horse. The only light comes from a fire and a garbage can. In the shadows, we can see a white woman carrying off two boxes of Huggies diapers. So instead of just talking about 2003 or 77, I can talk about them both by talking about the future. Isn't it even silly to use the term reconstructing the future? You're just creating. But the future has to make sense. But some of these photos don't make sense, at least to me. Like the one called Q. This one takes place inside a store being looted.

And the looters are all politely lined up, their arms filled with boxes of electronic equipment and clothing. They're all patiently waiting their turn to climb out of a broken window. After I shot, I thought, someone's going to tell me these aren't New York looters, these are Canadian looters. Stan Douglas is Canadian. He's also internationally recognized for his images, which force us to question reality and truth, not just within the medium of photography,

but also within the social, political, racial, and class contexts that underpin the scenes his photographs portray. A lot of his recent work also shows us the possibility of new truths, truths that emerge when something momentous happens, like a riot or a blackout. During the blackout of 2003 in Tompkins Square Park, near where I live, men ripped off their shirts and dragged barbecues into the park. There were new identities,

new ways of being, new ways of socializing. It was like everyone wanted to make the most of this rupture. And you could feel the disappointment when the lights came back on. Stan Douglas has a photo called Stranded that reminds me of this moment, even though there are no shirtless guys in it. In that photograph in Stranded, we have people there are no shirtless guys in it. In that photograph in Stranded, we have people who are sitting on the steps of the post office beside Penn Station. This is something I saw from doing research about the blackouts, where people would be stuck there, their trains weren't running,

so what do they do? They go outside, it's dark inside the station, probably too hot, so they go outside, and some just get to know strangers. I tried to ask Stan Douglas if setting his scenes from the blackout in the future had something to do with our present moment, now that we live in an age of fake news and alternative facts. Is it just no longer possible to reconstruct historical moments or compose photographic truths?

Is this maybe a way out for folks who are maybe a little squeamish about like dealing with both fact and fiction is just maybe to focus on the future? Is that perhaps like a safe space for as the culture at large freaks out about, you know, fact and fiction coming together? Obviously, the play of fiction that's happening so much in sort of social media is truly terrifying. But clearly, even though I am dealing with this fantasy space, dealing with the future, sometimes by making a fiction, you can be more accurate. You can be more complete in your story. You can actually be more truthful.

That's kind of a noncommittal answer. But then again, I could have done a better job asking the question. But I'm convinced the answer is there in his new photographs. Because like I said, this is Stan Douglas's first project set in the future. Well, yours truly is not going to start making podcasts about the future. But I definitely need to do something. Because when it comes to my relationship with the real and the fake and my practice, it's kind of a big mixed up mess.

Listen to what I'm getting from you, dear podcast listener. Thanks, man. This is Tricia. You know, I love your podcast. what I'm getting from you, dear podcast listener. Thanks, man. This is Tricia. You know, I love your podcast, but I have to tell you, it's fucking confusing me. I want to believe, but it just sets off my bullshit meter, all right?

I think it's... I'm super confused about this gay bashing film story. Does it actually exist? We already are dealing with that every day now in our fucking current government, and now you're going to put this shit down my ears on my precious tongue when i had to choose which goddamn podcast to listen to and half of it i can't even tell is fake or not i just don't think i can listen to this podcast anymore thank you you know i love you bye Yeah, it's kind of urgent that I figure this out. So over the course of this series, I'm going to seek help from some of my fellow podcasters.

Like my friend Jody Avergan. We used to work together at the radio station here in New York, and we were always scheming about a future that involved podcasts. Well, today, he's the host of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, and he's kind of pioneered this new genre of podcast I call live-ish. We wanted to record this because mostly, you know, if there is a shutdown, and there is because you're listening to this, I'm starting to confuse myself, we mostly wanted to add some of the context.

I'd like to pioneer a podcast genre of my own. I even have a name for it, Realish. And so I dropped in on Jody for advice. Great. We're rolling. Okay. First, I guess, you know, having sort of processed this thing I feel you've pulled off that I call Live-ish. So I have a problem too, sort of coming from the radio world into my world.

I've always just used both fiction and nonfiction. It's just been something I've done since the beginning as I started making things. And in 2018, Jody, no one wants that. But why does no one want that? Because I mean, I'm really curious to see how you've processed these last two years because like... No one wants it because i can't take anymore because it's like people are almost maybe too nervous and too frustrated and too fed up with sort of not knowing what's what they really are ready to they're ready to be told what is what so i mean man there's a lot that i that I want to ask in reaction to that. But one is, I mean, do you worry or do you anticipate a like swing back towards, you know,

real earnestness in reaction to this? I mean, is that what you're sort of getting at is making uncomfortable people want just like, well, first off, capital T truth, which has never existed, but also just like, I don't want you to play with my emotions. I feel too sort of pulled in every direction. I want you to just tell me kind of something I can hang on to. No, I think it's the first one. I think that people are really upset if they're told that something isn't true. But I feel that if I can figure this out, I can create something I call real-ish.

Okay. But isn't that what you've always been doing? Right. Cause I've always thought of the work that you have done as not an attempt to con someone or trick someone or, you know, kind of weaponize your truth to some sort of nefarious end or even just some sort of like known end. You want to explore by using all the things in your palette. That feels like a fundamental difference from the truth mixing that, you know, a lot of our politicians are doing and a lot of our media doing, which has a specific goal and often a sort of nefarious goal. So I'm just like, if one is, if we just assess the intent,

then maybe that's the solution. That's what's also frustrating is I feel like not only am I not getting away with it, but the people with bad intentions are getting away with it. So like, well, because you've never,

you don't, you've never had strong intentions, but if you kind of like decided to, to weaponize whatever your tools are to say like, I'm going to get away with this. Well, that's maybe what I need to do you just need to be a little more vicious

I think that's right what if you're right that that's the thing I need to basically say that it has to be about weaponizing my intent about what I want to do with creating my own reality I would say don't sweat intent

at some level you just have to trust that the people who are going to like your show are going to realize you have good intentions and the people who, this isn't for them, it's not for them. Yeah, I know. But what's the problem is that

our society is the them right now. Right, yes, yes. Because they're, you know, where they're being bombarded by this in a daily basis in ways they don't like, they're like the last thing they want is a podcast. It's like, you know, they feel doing the same thing, confusing them. Yeah.

So what you need is three minutes at the end of every show where you just very explicitly discuss all the lessons that people just learned. That's how this episode is going to end. Right, exactly. Okay, here's what's going on with this new series. There are a number of questions that I'm trying to figure out about our relationship with the real and the fake. Besides the urgent one of how the hell I fixed this podcast, I want to know if something about our relationship with truth has actually changed.

It's not like we haven't been here before. In the 1850s, America went nuts for the fake. Spiritualism, pseudoscience, people regularly got together in darkened rooms to talk with their dead relatives, Jesus Christ and Benjamin Franklin. And in the 1930s, the whole world went nuts for the fake. New theories about space ice, eugenics, and magic. Things got really dark. We're going to hear from some folks who have some pretty good ideas about what was going on during these moments in history. But what I really want to know is what's going on now.

What's the driving force behind our reality blues? This is why we're going to hear from a number of artists over the course of this series. Artists like Stan Douglas, who have a history and a relationship with the real and the fake. Because if anyone can cure these reality blues, it's artists. I've already got a bunch of great folks lined up, but if there's someone you'd like to hear from or someone you think I should look up, definitely drop me a line. I'm so easy to find.

bwalker at gmail dot com or just leave a comment on the show page at toe.prx.org. But hold tight. We're not finished yet. There still is the question of this episode. Where the hell do we go? Where do we seek shelter

now that all the alarm bells are ringing? I sent TOE's Andrew Calloway out to investigate a place in Bushwick, New York that just might offer salvation. Do we know what kind of bomb has dropped? Yeah, a nuclear bomb. But we're too far away to be demolished. Yeah, we're not demolished, but the radioactivity is blowing.

Aha, I see, I see. Okay, cool. When I learned from Elliot Calhoun that in a nuclear catastrophe, it's important to ditch the radioactive clothing, I immediately thought of this place a few blocks from my apartment called the House of Yes. It's a nightclub, but it's so much more. They have burlesque, fire performers, drag shows. It's a kink-friendly, sex-positive environment where all are welcome to come and party really hard. We have a shower actually over our stage. So it's like we have all this stuff to make have a shower actually over our stage.

So it's like we have all this stuff to make like a decontamination station. Anya is one of the founders of House of Yes and it turns out she's super into apocalyptic fiction. She's already been thinking a lot about how they would deal with a disaster. We have two EMTs on staff and the EMTs do normal EMT stuff but then they also have like crystals that you can like hold as you're like calming down any kind of emotional issues that will come.

We're very well equipped for the house of yes would keep people safe. All of the weapons we would keep on lockdown. We have two go go cages. You could fit like three people in there and have it still be safe. Oh, and we also have, like, look at this bag of condoms. Oh my God. And this whole box is also condoms. Oh my God.

And this is actually a whole two shelves of just condoms. But there's so much more to the House of Yes than protection. They've got everything we would need to rebuild a new and better society. Tons of costumes, tons of sewing materials. There's a bunch of signs that we could make. I think signage is really important in times of chaos. Something I learned at parties, you hang a sign, it just makes sense all of a sudden. You don't have a sign, it just devolves into madness.

So we have tons of signs and, you know, these like bins that you could organize people's stuff. Like everyone could have a bin of their own personal belongings that they know where it is and it's safe. And all these costumes that could be repurposed. I think that during the apocalypse, it's really important to kind of not let yourself go. You know, just be like, okay, now I'm covered in dirt, and who am I? And I just have to survive. I think it's important to feel pretty or look good. You know, maintain your humanity.

The only downside about this place is capacity. There's just not enough room for everyone. You know, we don't really believe in, like, exclusivity, but, like, you have to be, like, down for the cause, I think, to be a part of this. I am so down. You know, one of the last times I was there, I was asked to strip naked for the audience.

I was a little bit nervous, but the environment was so positive, I just did it. I felt totally comfortable, accepted, and appreciated. So the next time the alarm goes off, remember, duck, uncover, and head for the house of yes. You have been listening to Benjamin Walker's Theory of Everything. This installment is called This Is Not a Drill. This episode was produced by me, Benjamin Walker, and Andrew Calloway. And it featured Liza Stark and Alex Goldmark, Elliot Calhoun, Stan Douglas, Jody Avergan, and Anya Sapochnikova.

A lot of these folks have podcasts of their own. As I mentioned in the show, Jody Avergan is the host of the 538 Politics podcast. He also hosts and produces a number of other podcasts for ESPN, like 30 for 30, and that one is not just for sports people. Alex Goldmark is part of NPR's Planet Money, and you can hear Elliot Calhoun sometimes on NYC Emergency Management's podcast, Prep Talk. Special thanks to everyone who's been helping me with this new series, especially Mathilde Biot,

Cara Oler, Tricia Wong, and Julie Shapiro. The Theory of Everything is a proud founding member of Radiotopia, home to some of the world's best podcasts. You can find them all at radiotopia.fm.