Bittersweet Infamy - #114 - The Terrorist Heiress

Episode Date: January 12, 2025

Season five premiere! Josie tells Taylor about heiress turned abductee turned revolutionary Patricia Hearst, and her explosive odyssey with the militia that kidnapped her, the Symbionese Liberation Army. Plus: the tragic saga of the animal outlaws who became MAGA martyrs, Peanut the squirrel and Fred the raccoon.

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Ontario. Beautiful anonymous changes each week it defies genres and expectations for example our most recent episode, I talked to a woman who survived a murder attempt by her own son. But just the week before that, we just talked the whole time about Star Trek. We've had other recent episodes about sexting in languages that are not your first language,

or what it's like to get weight loss surgery. It's unpredictable, it's real, it's honest, it's raw. Get Beautiful Anonymous wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Bitter Sweet and Food. I'm Taylor Basso. And I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast, we share the stories that live on in infamy. The strange and the familiar. The tragic and the comic.

The bitter. And the sweet. We're booting 2024 out the door in 2025. We're staying alive. Josie, happy new year. Happy new year to you as well. And we're also booting season four out the door and season five, season five, not 25 yet, but we're still alive Happy season 5 joseph season 5 and we're not booting season 4. We're lovingly wrapping it in an archive That's the garbarator shoving it down To listen at

Chalizia go back and listen to our episode 113 the 12 days of infamy. It's our Christmas special. It's not really that Christmas themed. Go and give that a listen. It's jam packed full of good stuff. 12 good things. Yeah. 12 good things. We are jumping back into it after giving away the bittersweet mixtape for free. Our best deleted scenes over at coffee.

That's k-o-i-f-i.com slash bittersweetinfamy. We're back at it with the Bittersweet Film Club. That's an exclusive for monthly subscribers. And Josie, what movie are we doing on the Bittersweet Film Club? Just kick off 2025 in the right spirit. We are chatting intellectually and not on drugs about Battlefield Earth.

A sober and incredibly cerebral discussion about Battlefield Earth. A sober and incredibly cerebral discussion of Battlefield Earth, John Travolta, Scientology, Scientology Sci-Fi, Scientology Fiction, question mark. Hard hitting. This of course was a suggestion from our coffee subscriber, Dylan and Satchel. You too can tell us what we're, you can just come over. You can just come over to coffee

and tell us what you want us to watch and we will watch it over at coffee.com. Yeah, you just tell us what to watch and then we'll watch it. To kick off our new season, I figured I'd go back to what we know, what we test, what tests well, which is cute animal stories that are also kind of fucked up

and get violent in their ways. Okay, yeah, yeah. So Josie, to put my cards on the table, every bad thing you can think about a person, I think about Donald Trump. I do not think he has the qualifications to hold my dick while I piss, let alone run a country twice.

All right, all right, doggy. I would not let him get near any- Anyone's genitals for any reason. Your genitalia, but yeah, I understand the sentiment, totally, yeah. Unfortunately with his reelection, we're now in the position of being forced to confront someone I was content to pointedly ignore.

Next episode, number 115, you'll see me wrestle with this question in a more serious way. Today, I'm gonna be a little bit more flippant about the material because I think the subject of my minfamous demands it, although it's weirdly also drenched in pathos as these things are. Mm, yes, yes. Drenched in pathos, yes. Just like queso. A dip, an emulsion, a bechamel of pathos. A fondue, if you will.

August 24th, 2018. My 27th birthday, I believe, if I'm doing the math right now, as we've established, I sell the meme. But also, more inauspiciously, the date that Jojo the Capybara, who I was following on Instagram, died. Terrible birthday gift. Oh my god, I'm so sorry. It's okay, I think Josie, I think that Capybara is maybe not meant to be kept domestically in a larger bin setting, the Capybara. And I've become more thoughtful about the animal content that I I think that Cappy Bar is maybe not meant to be kept domestically in a large urban setting the Cappy Bar And I've become more thoughtful about the animal content that I can see in that regard The story kind of acts as evidence against that but whatever I Was flicking through because now all my Cappy Bar's are dead

I would have been following another Cappy Bar that had also died shortly before so I was like god damn all my Instagram Cappy Bar's are dead what the fuck am I gonna do so I started following a few I started following a wombat I suggest you refill in the roster. Diversify, yeah. Let's go. Diversify your portfolio, yes. Let's go with a heartier breed of rodent to follow here, right?

And among the accounts that I found, I found the account of a squirrel named Peanut, Peanut the squirrel. And the gimmick of this account was this squirrel who's quite young at the time, he's a little bitty guy. Go younger so that the survival is longer, but yeah. The Capybara's were cashing out after like two years, which is sad and depressing.

That's a blink, that's a blink of an eye, yeah. You're sitting at home with all those like little Capybara tutu influencer outlets, you pop in like, what now? I've got a little like echo hoodie that's meant to fit a Capybara with dwarfism, but she jumped off my couch and died or whatever. I don't know how I got to this, I'm sorry.

Anyway, Peanut's gimmick is he's jumping onto the glutes of a very buff guy and tight workout apparel. So he's got like a hot owner kind of thing, right? Yeah, yeah. And so presumably intrigued by this odd mix of thirst trap content and squirrel content, parentheses squantent. I clicked follow and for the past seven or so years,

Peanut the Squirrel has been a background character on my Instagram feed, always on the brink of getting purged upon the occasional deletion of accounts that do not spark joy, but surviving mostly through indifference. All this until late October 2024, when I noticed a series of unusual posts from the Peanut account. Specifically, the post that drew my attention featured an image of Peanut the Squirrel wearing a squirrel-sized cowboy hat.

Oh no. With a long caption that read in part, well, internet, you won. You took one of the most amazing animals away from you because of your selfishness. To the group of people who called the DEC, there's a special place in hell for you. Today at 10 a.m. Wednesday, October 30th, 2024.

Oh my God. The NY State DEC, which is the Department of Environmental Conservation, 2024. Oh my God. The NY State DC, which is the Department of Environmental Conservation, showed up to my house and took Peanut. He was taken to be euthanized. Gibbies. I'm in shock, disbelief, and disgusted to the people who did this.

Thank you for breaking apart a family and crushing any hopes of our nonprofit to survive. I'll never give up on this nonprofit or those who fell in love with Peanut. Thank you all, Mark Longo." Wow. I, uh, euthanized. That's intense. And nonprofit? We'll get there. There is a legitimate nonprofit

involved here, seemingly. It's like a animal rescue farm kind of thing. Okay. So it was upon seeing this message, and specifically upon seeing it juxtaposed next to you, again, a squirrel in a squirrel-sized cowboy hat. Correct. Yeah, it was at this point

that something trembled in my waters, the sense that tingles when I'm on the ground floor of something mega viral, although I could have never predicted the specific path it would take. Uh-oh. By Sunday, November 3rd, prime real estate in the American election calendar, Republican

vice presidential candidate JD Vance was asking the captive crowd of a North Carolina rally, is it really the case that the Democrats murdered the Elon Musk of squirrels? Oh my god. Oh my god. Everyone from Donald Trump Jr. to old Muskie himself had weighed in, decrying the squirter, parentheses squirrel murder, as a deep state conspiracy. And Kamala Harris, silent. Oh, her aides weren't following Peanut on Instagram.

No, no, they didn't have that spidey sense like I had that spidey sense. Josie. Yes? This is the sad saga of murdered mega martyrs, Peanut the Squirrel, and his non-celebrity sibling Fred the Raccoon. Okay, whoa. So Fred was also seized and euthanized by the state of New York, but because he wasn't

social media famous, he gets less attention. Every now and then you'll see someone speak up very defensively on behalf of poor forgotten Fred as a sort of bellwether of character, like if you don't place equal weight on the deaths of Fred and Peanut, you're a bad person kind of thing. The first thing that I wanna say is that I do genuinely empathize with both animals

as well as their owner here. Illegal arrangement or not, this must have been a very frightening and upsetting situation for everyone involved. I don't wanna make fun of this guy Mark Longo for grieving his animal. I would also be very distraught given his circumstances. Totally. It is, however, the great tragedy of both grief and fascism that these depressing subjects are

occasionally very funny due to the juxtaposition of the sacred and the absurd. A grown man's wail of grief contrasted with an image of a squirrel in a tiny cowboy hat, for example. The story of Peanut the Squirrel begins in 2017 when owner Mark Longo, this is kind of coming from him, this early Peanut stuff, so take it with whatever level of reliability you give this guy, Mark Longo. He initially sees the squirrel get orphaned in the middle of a busy Manhattan street. Peanut's mom is killed by traffic and Peanut is left injured and alone. Mark has a soft heart for animals, so he brings the little guy in to recover.

After eight months of rehab, he releases Peanut to the wild. Day and a half later, Peanut returns with a banged up tail. Longo is very upset to see his baby in a bad way. And of course he welcomes Peanut back indoors as a more or less a pet. Yeah, yeah. Mixed wisdom on keeping squirrels as pets.

Like there's no evidence that peanut ever became aggressive that I'm aware of up until a certain point that we'll talk about. But I don't think you're supposed to keep squirrels in captivity. Certainly in New York state, you need a license to do it. And that's kind of where we end up in this story. Longo starts posting peanut content to social media, and it fits like peanut butter and chocolate. He says one day we happened to post a video of peanut jumping to me.

So the exact same type that got me on the reels. Right. And it went viral. Then after that, he gained traction rather quickly. It just kind of snowballed. By the time of peanuts assassination, the account had over 500000 Instagram followers, as well as presences on TikTok and X. Those aren't the only platforms you can get your peanut itch scratched

in more ways than one. With absolutely no judgment, Longo also performed on OnlyFans as Peanut's dad, a perfect subscription-based gift for the nut lover in your life. Cute, that's, yeah. This was probably like a lot of fucking work to keep this content going, keep Peanut happy, dance mom kind of vibes.

The content farm is, I mean, you know all about the content farm because we do like such like research intensive and editing intensive content. We're able to release twice a month, more or less most of the time. And that's a that like inhibits our growth in a lot of ways, right? Like because people demand new, fresh, more constant. You need to have like three peanut clips a day at least, right? So. Yeah.

It's a finely tuned operation. And plus you're doing jerk off videos. Yeah. It is a lot. It's exhausting really. He claims that in a single month, he was able, like his best month, I'm assuming, he drew 800 grand from that OnlyFans.

I need to quit my job. Dude, you need to start jerking off with squirrels on the internet. Peggy's big feet.com. Exactly. Whoya.com. Dot org, really. To whoya.org. Too funny.

So proceeds from the OnlyFans as well as the profits from the Peanut account were invested into Peanuts Freedom Farm Animal Sanctuary, a ranch non-profit in Pine City, upstate New York where Mark moved with his wife and squirrel. Oh, okay. They claim that the sanctuary has rescued over 300 animals, which is all well and good, except that Mark and wife Daniela were apparently not licensed rehabilitators. Whoops. Oh, yeah.

This seems to have caught the eye of one or more legit local rehabilitators. Whoops. Oh yeah. This seems to have caught the eye of one or more legit local rehabilitators who dropped a dime on their new neighbors and brought their squanandigas, parentheses squirrelshanandigas. I hear it, yeah, I knew it, I knew it. To the attention of both the Chimung County Health Department and the New York Department

of Environmental Conservation and the DEC, there's plenty of evidence online in plain view to facilitate a warrant. You got eight videos of a squirrel eating egg-o-waffles on your counter, sir. So comes the tragic moment when Peanut is whisked away, Elyon-style, from the farm that bears his name. Oh no. Yeah, sad. Also seized is Fred, an injured raccoon whom Longo has been rehabilitating for the better part of five months with the intention to re-release him upon his recovery.

So Fred, I think, is collateral damage here. This was like a peanut raid, but they found Fred who was not famous there as well. And then like, where's Janet Reno? Where the fuck is Janet Reno is what I wanna know. This visit, apparently not a total surprise. Longo having been advised that he wouldn't be able to keep the animals a couple of days earlier,

but he argues that he was in the process of having Peanut certified as a teaching animal, presumably teaching kids how to make six figures on OnlyFans. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha. Sign me up, dog. In the real economy of the future, this is what you need to, do you want to program AI or do you want to sell your feed

on OnlyFans? Take your pick. Only two. We've narrowed it down. Training your job replacement to kill someone during a heart surgery by accident or feet picks. Let's be realistic. Oh, you want to be an artist?

You precious little thing. Paint your toenails, bitch. Mark Longo takes issue with the tactics of the relevant governmental agencies. He characterizes their behavior as traumatic and excessive. The authorities seize Peanut and Fred, each of whom allegedly bit one of the handlers during the seizure, which if so, I get it.

You evidently came to take and kill them. They may be responding to that energy. Yes, yes. Either way, it was allegedly the Chimam County Health Department that determined these animals needed to be tested for rabies. And the way you test an animal for rabies involves cutting off its head,

which sadly most often has the effect of killing them. They beheaded these animals? This isn't a Marie Antoinette situation. We euthanize them first, but then we do cut off their heads and look at their brains. And they were both found, I should say, to be negative for rabies. Oh, God. As you might imagine, Mark did not take the news of his beloved squirrel friend being decapitated in stride. Hence that emotional social media post lamenting Peanut's death and lashing out at unspecified wrongdoers on the internet for unspecified wrongdoings.

This started the first of a few attempts attempting to find out who called in the goddamn squirrel. A woman named Monica Keesler was accused and given the online mob death threat treatment until she was apparently able to prove it wasn't her. Meanwhile, DEC employees were given multiple days out of office as the bomb threats poured in. Bomb threats? They seized and decapitated this beloved internet squirrel. Yeah, bombs make sense. They underestimated the peanut army. They didn't know. Yeah.

They didn't know. They didn't know that they were dealing with a staunch woman in peanut. The outrage moved beyond just the crowd of beery fans of a cute animal content farm and, for some reason it specifically moved right. I'm not sure exactly when this became a Republican narrative as opposed to nonpartisan rodent based tragedy but it definitely caught a lot of traction with online repubs and in particular with Elon Musk who took a break from jerking off to his collection of Pepe the Frog hentai to post about Peanut 20 times in a single weekend to his account on X, which has 203 million followers. The meme pinned to the top, if they'll raid a house for a squirrel, they'll sure as shit

come after you. Oh my gosh. Oh, you know, it was just like a room full of like unpaid interns, just like Gremlins 2 style on what we can bring up, you know? Just like, what about this, what about this, what about this peanut, the squirrel in New York? All the worst people from Andrew Tate's chat room and shit, yeah. Yeah, oh no. And that seems to be the take that congealed on the right. The story of an authoritarian, democratic state more concerned with conducting raids on squirrels and eventually you than stopping the illegal immigrants

that are killing us in our beds, said Donald Trump Jr., a shitty clone of his deadbeat father, quote, "'Justice for Peanut. Our government will let in 16,000 rapists, they'll let in 13,000 murders, they'll let in 600,000 criminals across our border, but if someone has a pet squirrel without a permit,

they will go in there and kill the squirrel. That is the Democrat party. That's where they will go. That's their overreach. What the fucking hell? Oh my God. Soon social media was cluttered with subpar AI art of squirrels and gladiator outfits

marching on the White House. So much bad AI art, dude, holy shit. Oh no. So much bad AI art of this squirrel and other similar squirrels to represent the legion of, I guess, squirrels executed by the deep state, by Sleepy Joe. I just imagine like the AI for, you know, flowing in the wind.

There's gladiator outfits. I saw a lot of like army imagery. So like a platoon of squirrels was quite common. A lot of like, you know, that that like awful like angelic depiction of Donald Trump that you see in a lot of like rightward leaning are glorifying him. A lot of that, but also like peanut is and Fred is there and they've got like wings and they're like kind of guiding, you know? Oh God. Oh God. Whether it was the peanut voters, the Fred voters, or some combination of the two,

Donald Trump was reelected president of the United States. There are some that say it was Kamala's silence on this issue that ultimately cost her the throne. The throne? That's a... Some. Someone says, listen, I have to compete with this like very heroic AI generated squirrel imagery.

I see. Cut me a break. Squimetry. Elon Musk, having been given the nebulous task of government efficiency, is ironically quite well positioned to eliminate government agencies like departments of environmental conservation, at least at a federal level. Yeah, great. Jake Blumenkranz, a New York State Assemblyman from Long Island's 15th Assembly District,

has proposed a bill called Peanuts Law, amending state law to limit government animal seizures. I was going to say, what does Mark Longo think about all of this? Cause this would like add insult to injury, I would assume, unless he's into it. Our boy Mark Longo continues to post peanut content on Instagram the way they still drop newer remix Tupac content. Well, Longo hasn't verbally expressed

any particular politics I've seen other than being pro squirrel. He seems to be fanning the flames of conspiracy, telling News Nation, I was targeted. There's no doubt in my mind that this is a lot bigger than a squirrel and a raccoon. Oh.

Recently, I spotted him on the account closing up to UFC head honcho, Dana White, having been invited to a power slap event. Okay. He is also notably hawking a cryptocurrency called Justice for Peanut and Fred, which honestly great grift if you're entering the right wing space.

I wish them all the best. Well done. I hope that works out for you. Yeah. Long go. I'd like to end this infamous with a moment of silence for Peanut, Fred, and American democracy. Okay. Sorry, I didn't mean to laugh through that moment of silence.

We're still holding. That's a moment. Oh shit. Get ready for Las Vegas style action at Bet MGM, the king of online casinos! Enjoy casino games at your fingertips with the same Vegas strip excitement MGM is famous for when you play classics like MGM Grand Millions or popular games like Blackjack, Baccarat, and Roulette. With our ever-growing library of digital slot games, a large selection of online table games, and signature Bet MGM service, there's no better way to bring the excitement and ambiance

of Las Vegas home to you than with Bet MGM Casino. Download the Bet MGM Casino app today! BetMGM and GameSense remind you to play responsibly. BetMGM.com for Ts and Cs. 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. Bet MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Josie, how about that crispy new album art?

Taylor, she beautiful. She beautiful. That photography was by Luke Bentley. Thank you. 604 Podcast Network took that photo when we were in Vancouver together in July of 2023. It was just too cool to kind of leave on the shelf. Plus, apparently our faces get engagement, which I hate that shit. But if you want to look at us, let us dazzle you. It's a cute photo. We're cute. It's a cute photo. We are cute. There's ice cream. There's lighting. I just like the anonymity that a podcast provides, but I also love when people click on the thing

too. So let's try that. A little bit of column A, get you a little bit of column B. Exactly right. Josie, I can now take you out of baby bitch mode, which is what we call the small window in Zoom. I can bring you large because I can close my infamous window and just give you my full attention as you tell us the first

full length, the Maximus as Rui just called it today of season five. That's good Rui, thank you. I too have been thinking about our current world. I thought you might be. Yeah, it's kind of hard not to. And I've especially been thinking a lot about the Luigi Mangione case. Yes. Yes. Situation. Which happened when we were on our break. December 4th, an unidentified person rolled up on a New York City street and shot the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, and then quickly got on a city bike and rode away. For several days, the police had no idea who

did this, though they figured it was a targeted attack considering that only one person was shot at and the bullets themselves were like the casings were marked with what was it? Denied, defund, depose. Yes. Which is great iconography no matter what side of, much in the same way that I said that I fucking hate Donald Trump with that photo of him with his fists in the air was good. You must admit, deny, defundund Depose looks great on a bumper sticker. It's true. I think it was the title of a book about how the American healthcare system is

in shambles. Well, it is. Yeah. It totally is. Yeah. A few days later, he was spotted eating at a McDonald's in Pennsylvania, I believe. Dangerous. And was arrested with a manifesto in his bag and a ghost gun, a gun without a registration. It was very clear that he was, if not the shooter, then somehow involved in the December 4th shooting. It has since gone on to become a cultural icon, especially with younger people who feel

very disillusioned with a system where you are not ever going to be able to achieve what this CEO has achieved. The way he's achieved it is by doing things like hiring an AI algorithm with a high margin of error to reject and deny claims while he collects bajillion dollar bonuses is the perception, right? Yeah. And Mangione also suffered like a long-term health issue that wasn't being covered by his own health care. In the mystery biz, we call that motive.

Motive, motive, political motive. Yeah. And now he's become a little bit of a folk hero. Yeah, Rolling Stone cover boy type. Yeah, he's 26 years old. He went to UPenn. He's very handsome, like came from a pretty well-to-do family, private school, da da da. Central casting couldn't find a better hot vigilante.

That kind of divide, you were pinpointing how like a younger generation sees themselves in him or sees some logic in what he's done and are standing up or like refuting or questioning some of the takes that are a little bit more mainstream, maybe that are that, well, he's a terrorist. Murder is bad. To murder is bad. We can't go around shooting people in the fucking head in the middle of downtown Manhattan.

That's not an orderly society. Yes. I'm sympathetic to that take too, right? It's a convincing argument. But then the rebuttal to that is, okay, so why is it okay for a CEO or a president or whoever it is to kill a million people with the stroke of a pen,

but because he's not the one holding the gun and we don't know person by person who he's murdering, why is he allowed to get away with that? Why are the penalties so different for someone who kills a CEO versus a CEO who through inaction or through malintent kills a member of the working class or a poor person? Yeah, dog.

That's the questions, right? Preach, church. Yeah, no, exactly. If the president signs an $8 billion deal to ship arms to Israel that are going to be used to commit a genocide in Palestine, why do we celebrate that? These are the questions.

Yeah. So it's tough. It's a tough one. It's a tough one. Big bureaucracy can support all of these things that are ethically, morally just as bad. Then who are we to lay blame? What's one less CEO? But then you say, well, this person is, in addition to being a CEO, he has a family and like he is dear to them and da da da da da. And you have the conversation circularly and everybody feels heard

and everybody expresses what's on their heart and then we have a nice dinner together. Right, cause it's Christmas cause this all happened beginning of December. Great, thanks. Exactly. Exactly, you get it. This whole thing, and I think especially this kind of generational divide that's occurring,

because my story is not the Luigi Mian Gioni case, because I feel like that is very much still developing. Very much still unfolding and very much still under discussion. And I feel like a lot of social media, and especially a lot of like Elon Musk's particular idea of social media as town square comes from the idea that everybody is having the same big fucking conversation where everyone's just screaming their points across five million strangers from around the world and competing to have airtime. And I

just find that to be a worse than useless way to have a conversation. Exactly. Yeah, it is not productive at all in any way, shape, or form. Only productive to make you angry. So I'm going to wait until I have more facts on this fucking situation. But this whole situation reminded me of another case in American history where generationally the country was divided around support for a young person. Vietnam? Yes.

It's in the milieu. That is the era that we're talking about. Okay, okay, okay. But generations being divided on the actions of a young woman. And they were either her own independent actions that she cognitively made herself or... I think I have a glimpse. Perhaps she was under duress. Who do you think this is? What's your guess? I think this is heiress turned vigilante Patricia Hearst.

Amen, my brother. It's true. Turned sometime actress in John Waters films. It's true. Turned sometime actress in John Waters films. Yes, indeed. And also she appeared as my Halloween costume in high school the year after I went as Tonya Harding. You were always doing this podcast. Huh?

You just were recording yourself. From the day I was God damn bored. It's true. Perfect. This is a heavy hitter in the world about a truly infamous story and one I don't really entirely know all the ins and outs of. I mean, you do know the John Waters tidbit. That's pretty good. Well, that's only because I recently watched Serial Mom. I

think it was Serial Mom. Oh, good. Yeah. Or something of that ilk and she was in it. And I remember being like, what the fuck is Patty Hearst doing here? And then being like, Taylor, it's a John Waters movie. Of course, fucking Patty Hearst is here. Where else would she be? Who else is fucking hiring Patty Hearst to make a point but John Waters? I love it. I love it. There's a long story before we get to John Waters. Can't wait. So we are in the 1970s, early 1970s, in San Francisco, California, the Bay Area in general. San Francisco, Oakland, Hillsborough, Atherton. Cradle of the Hippie Movement.

Cradle of the Hippie Movement, which was like 60s, late 60s. And now we're moving into the 70s where the Vietnam draft is over, but there's the Vietnam war is still going on. There's still revolutionary inklings happening, but they've kind of soured, I guess. They've gotten a little bit more distressed. Things aren't happening as quickly. The peace movement isn't as strong, MLK has been shot.

Fuck that. Robert Kennedy got shot. Good thing is that his son is going to be in government soon. Oh, good thing, right? Good thing. That's good. It's good that that is happening. But the hopeful revolution of the 1960s has certainly dwindled.

We've gotten into an era of more disillusionment. Certainly the FBI is no longer seen as kind of upstanding, you know, the right stuff kind of men. They're seen as the potential assassinators of MLK. Yeah, narcs. Narcs. It's not a good look for them, but in the mid-70s in California, Ronald Reagan is the governor. We're in an era where the peace movement has kind of calcified a little bit, and there's a lot more liberation movements that are perhaps more violent, that are willing to construct

and detonate bombs. Deny, defend, depose. Right, yep. Same logic, defend, depose. Right, yep. Same logic, right? Yeah, yeah. Willing to stockpile weapons. There's a lot more kind of violence to the rhetoric now.

So at this time too, we also have a stanchion of American publishing history, which is the Hearst family. Now, George Hearst was an early prospector in the California gold rush. This is like 1800s. He makes a fortune, gets gold. He buys a lot of land with the gold. He makes more of a fortune.

He becomes a very, very wealthy man in early California. The best way to get rich is for someone four generations before you to have gotten rich and just dealt with the money well. Yeah. That's the American dream. That's the secret. That's the American dream. That's how Elon Musk got rich.

That's how Elon Musk got rich. That's how Donald Trump got rich. Okay. Elon Musk was diamonds in South Africa and Trump was the Yukon, was gold in the Yukon. There you go. Yeah, so go find yourself a great, great, great, great grandfather who has a lot of money. That's the trick.

Exactly, exactly. Go knock on some doors. Yeah, exactly. George Hearst marries a woman named Phoebe. They have one son, William Randolph Hearst, who's born in 1863. Now he is the Hearst marries a woman named Phoebe. They have one son, William Randolph Hearst, who's born in 1863. Now he is the Hearst that we know. He's kind of the namesake of it all.

The Conrad Hilton of the Hearsts. Yes, if you will. He went around buying newspapers all across the country, starting in California, but then in New York, Chicago, all the major centers. And of course, this is 1863, this is media. He holds the nuts of media in his palm. And that's a very powerful position to be even to this day, you look at someone like

Rupert Murdoch, right? And the massive media empire that guy has and how it can like, you can effectively control the facts about things, which is fucked. William Randolph's Hearst case, it is, he's pretty unequivocally attributed with getting the US involved in the Spanish-American war for the purpose of selling papers. He was like, this will drive news, this will be a good news cycle, let's do it.

War is economic, huh? So often war is economic. Almost exclusively. There's bombs to be sold. Yes. And this is the William Randolph Hearst that becomes the central character of the very famous American movie Citizen Kane. He becomes not just wealthy, but ridiculously wealthy. He builds this huge 100-room palace in San Simeon. You can see it from the beach. You look up and it's just this ginormous castle on a hill. He has this very ostentatious wealth.

Everybody knows his name. He marries and has five sons, one of whom is his namesake, who goes by Randy Hurst. He he's another William Randolph, but he's called Randy. That's a very like William Randolph as the father and Randy as the son. I'd write the characters in my Richie Rich Family succession drama that way. Yeah, slightly infantilizing for that third generation. Yeah, yeah. And then the third one just gets a name like Trey or something, you know what I mean? Right, yeah. Because it's number three. Exactly a name like Trey or something, you know what I mean? Right, yeah. Because it's number three.

Exactly. We're working. We're working in layers, folks. Here, there's layers. We're going to peel them, but by season two, there's going to be illegitimate children. You just wait. Randy Hurst, he marries a woman from Atlanta, a very devout Catholic woman named Catherine Campbell.

And they together have five daughters, the third of whom is Patricia Campbell Hurst, born in 1954. So this is a big cluttered family, huh? It's a very big cluttered family with a lot of money. And a patriarch kind of right at the top of the power structure. Whom everybody calls the chief. There you go. Yeah. He was the chief to all. Whom everybody calls the chief. And there you go. Yeah, he was the chief to all his editors and writers

across the newspapers. He was the chief to his five sons and all his grandchildren. Fuck. Oh man, no one did it better than the Wasps when it came to that, like, the type of parent that could just like fuck you up forever with a look.

I kind of respect that. Yeah, there's a lot of power in that. Yeah. The look that says maybe you're not getting the trust. You know what I mean? It's like a silent verbiage between the two of you. Well, and that's what's interesting about William Randolph Hearst is he did not trust a one of his five sons. So when it came to passing down the business, there was no discussion of succession. All of the family wealth was broken into trusts that were divided among the five sons. And in this very tight, Hearst foundation way, everything had a place to be and no one of those five sons was ever going to be making a business decision because the chief was not going to allow it.

But that's so fucked up to tell like, listen, I think you're all equally incompetent. Exactly. None of you is qualified to hold my dick while I piss. Basically. Exactly, yes. Yes, pretty much, yeah. And despite you working your entire life, and because I have refused to discuss this with you,

just silently hoping in the back of your head that whatever you wanted to happen would happen. If you wanted to get the business, maybe that was your aspiration. Maybe you hoped you could get that. Maybe you hoped that you had no part of the business. We'll never know because I didn't give you the fucking courtesy of having a conversation. And also you have to call me chief. Fuck it. Fuck. That's like how is the yes shit that gives me the shivers. I know it's it is. It's pretty intense. Yeah.

So this is the world that Patricia Campbell Hearst is born into. And she's kind of known as a rebellious daughter. Her mother is a very devout Catholic, very, you know, when you go into the city, you have to wear white gloves. Cover your shoulders in case you have to duck into a church. And Catherine Campbell, the mother, Catherine, is very much the bad cop. Randy Hurst, the dad, gets to play the good cop. He takes Patty and he calls her Patty even though she only really likes to be called Patricia. But because she likes her dad so much, this good cop dad, she'll allow him to call her

Patty. It's like a sweet thing, but no one else can call her Patty. Okay. And Randy can take Patty and they go duck hunting together. He teaches her how to shoot a gun. Sure. They have a very, very sentimental and very sweet father-daughter relationship. Of course, though, it's built on the exclusion of the mother because she's too fuddy-duddy

and, you know. There's always gotta be a fucking bad cop, huh? I don't like that shit. It's not great. But as a daughter, she's kind of meant to uphold the female line of things. And so Patricia is sent to all types of boarding schools across the nation. One of her final ones, because she repeatedly keeps getting kicked out for bad behavior. Okay. When we're talking bad behavior, what are we talking? Just like Shenandigas? It's mainly Shenandigas, yes, because it's never expulsion.

It's, well, we're afraid that Patricia is not invited back next year. She's just not a fit for the type of atmosphere we're attempting to uphold here at... Yes, yes, so-and-so, yes. She lands at a private school called Crystal Springs in Hillsboro, California, which is a very affluent community just south of San Francisco. And this is where her other sisters, some of her other sisters, are going as well because it's so close to home. And this is where she meets her math teacher, a young, handsome, and eligible young man. No, no, no, not for you. Not eligible for you, sweetie. Okay, let's graduate.

Steve Weed. You could be Patty Weed. You could. This two could be yours. Patty Hearst Weed. Yeah. I know, in the early 70s, what a boon, right? Very popular, right? To have your last name Weed. She is 17 when they meet and he is 23. S's slightly uncomfortable and perhaps of its time too,

right? We're gonna have a lot of moral fuck-uppery in this story to parse apart. Let's not linger here is maybe the vibe I'm getting. Yeah. So Randy and Catherine, Patricia's parents, aren't very keen on Steve Weed. For one, he flunked her younger sister out of a math class at Crystal Springs. That's way to fuck it up with the in-laws before you even got a foot in the door, you dumb idiot. Like there's a lot of like, is this the truth? Is this not? Was this coerced? Is this not? I think a flat truth that you can see through all of the research into the Piety Hurst story is that Steve Weed is a fucking asshole. Really?

Oh no. Oh no. Steve. He was not. He was just like, I think in trying to flunk Victoria Hurst, he was trying to say, I'm just as good as the Hursts. See, I have control over things too. Oh my God.

He's the guy from Hunchback of Notre Dame, the priest. You might be right, yes. Just enacting this psychosexual drama in his head and the other person maybe doesn't quite know he exists. Yes, yes, exactly. Got it, got it, got it. So they become an item, Patricia and Steve Weed, and He quits teaching and he decides he wants to study philosophy, get a PhD in philosophy at Berkeley. They move in together at Berkeley as he studies. She begins her college studies at Berkeley as well, which is slightly upsetting to her

mother because her mother really thinks she should go to Stanford because Stanford's just more prestigious. It's a better school. But Patricia doesn't want to please her mother. So Patricia and Steven Weed are living together outside Berkeley. There's an engagement, but it's this kind of soft engagement. He's like, if you want to, I don't know. Do you? Our promise ring era. Yeah. No, he gives her like a ring that's meant to be like a placeholder kind of thing. This is where the engagement ring will go.

And you know, this isn't so great for Patricia, but she's like, well, it's not my parents and that's good. And it's kind of pissing my parents off. So that's even better. Yeah, we love that. But in reality, she is living in an apartment in Berkeley with Steven Weed. And they have a pretty quiet life where she's studying and

he is studying but she's also doing all the cooking and cleaning and he's... She rebelled herself into a very boring life. Yes, exactly. She rebelled herself into kind of a subservient situation that she wasn't really interested in being in either where Steve and her former teacher loves to kind of lecture her and give her lessons. Let me tell you about decimals. All of that.

And you look out the window and you're like, oh, it's not that far a drop. Yeah. I bet I could do three floors. I'll just roll. She did say that she at the time was mildly suicidal. Well, I get it. I get it. Yeah. Yeah. I think she was feeling particularly trapped because Steve was supposed to be kind of her like liberation from her very tight-laced family, but he wasn't proving himself to be.

So at the same time, not too far away in the Bay Area, there's a man named Donald DeFries. He grew up in Los Angeles and he was arrested just a few years prior to this for mugging a tourist and stealing checkbooks and all that kind of stuff. He goes on trial, he refuses a lawyer, he represents himself and bungles the whole thing. Don't represent yourself in court if you can help it folks. That doesn't usually go well. No, it really doesn't. So he lands a conviction of five years to life. He really bungled it. He really bungled it, but this was also kind of, this is an insane sentence.

Five years to life? Was he cussing in the courtroom? What was that about? I think it was more emblematic of the justice system at the time. Thank God we fixed that. Oh yeah, right. So he gets himself into Vacaville prison, which is just east of the Bay Area. And this is a pretty big prison system. And it's the biggest one, there's San Quentin, but Vacaville is a little bit bigger in terms of its proximity to Berkeley.

bigger in terms of its proximity to Berkeley. So in the early 70s, there's this movement, kind of student protest movement involved, where a lot of students are traveling to prisons and interviewing inmates. They're understanding their stories. They're also bringing educational programs. So Vacaville had a specific program for black male inmates. DeFries

was black. And to be clear, that is inmates who are male and who are black, not inmates who are in for black male. Oh, thank you. Yes. No, I, no, I in this team. Exactly. Exactly. And so they have a program that's specifically for male black inmates, and it's meant to provide education and empowerment for these men. Students are arriving in this program to interview, to teach classes, to be part of this re-education programming.

Willie Wolf is such a student. He's an archaeology student who was taking an African American Studies class and he went to Vacaville to research for a term paper. He became part of this group, this troupe of students who would travel out there and talk with these prisoners. One such very charismatic, handsome, well-spoken prisoner was Donald DeFries, the man who was arrested in Los Angeles. So they kind of spark a friendship in Vacaville. And it's very clear that these young, predominantly middle-class, predominantly white Berkeley students are very interested in hearing the stories of black men. They're very eager for black leadership, because that's part of the revolutionary moment. That's what they're hearing is that we need to listen

to our black brothers. This is where the revolution will take us. This is where it's meant to go. There's a lot of deference and respect paid to DeFries such that when he breaks out of prison, he escapes. He lands in Oakland and Willy Wolf provides him a safe house. Willy Wolf, again, a white middle-class student, he's from the East Coast, he started studying archeology and then kind of got caught up in some philosophy. This is in a lot of ways what I sort of perceive to be some section of the right wing's nightmare

about like the woke college that indoctrinates you into like pro-black radicalism, you know what I mean? This story seems to give face to that fear, right? If Willy Wolf had stayed in his hometown, dot, dot, dot, you know. Yeah, but of course, they don't find, like, Willy Wolf is an example. He doesn't find that community and that influence in school. He finds it through people in school and activism,

but he eventually drops out. When you're plotting the revolution, it's hard to make it to your calc class. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. I've got to do how many paragraphs by midnight? No, no, no. No, no, no, no. I've got more important things to do. I've got leaflets to mimeograph. I've got subway stations to put sarin gas into the vents of, et cetera.

Willie Wolfe helps Donald DeFries find a safe home. And this apartment in Oakland is also inhabited by two women. One is named Patricia Soltysiuk, and she goes by the name Ms. Moon. In fact, she legally changed her name to Ms. Moon. M-I-Z-M-O-O-N, Ms. Moon. I'm so good with that. I'm so incredibly good with that.

It's pretty cute, yeah. Welcome to the podcast, Ms. Moon. We already had a Patricia anyway in the story, right? So you're helping us out, really. She gets this name from her ex-girlfriend, Camilla Hall, who is a poet from Minnesota and kind of writes about their beautiful love and refers to her as Ms. Moon. I don't date poets. Put that on a bumper sticker.

So Ms. Moon lives in this apartment that Donald DeFries comes to live in, as well as another woman, Nancy Perry Ling. And she is kind of part of this revolutionary movement in the Bay Area too. They enter this kind of love triangle situation where DeFries is kind of sleeping with both of them. They're all sleeping together. Drama, drama, drama, drama. Big drama, drama. DeFries, who I mentioned, he's this very handsome, very charismatic guy. He has learned all about these kind of liberation movements from his time in Vacaville and he's in it. He's on it. He's going to be a voice in this liberation. He is the poster boy of the revolution.

It's funny, the authoritarian route and the revolutionary route both attract narcissists. It's true. And so he, along with Ms. Moon and Nancy Perry Ling, they devise this army, which, like according to De Freese's logic, is going to be called the Symbionese Liberation Army. It's pulled from like symbiosis where things are like in concert and working together. That's his idea. The knees suggests an ethnicity though. Yes, that's, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little rough. I think this is a really good encapsulation of the way that De Fries and then the entirety of the Symbionese Liberation Army is built on this rhetoric

of like a stream of consciousness ideology. It's picking up from Marxist language and it has this very 70s like, man, fuck the pigs, man. Like we're getting ripped off by the man, the man, the man. There's a Black Panther sort of component to it that you can envision. Yes. Sort of like we're a community group kind of thing. Right. Yeah.

From symbionia. We're representing the symbionian concerns. Yes. But there's something like very untethered about the way that DeFries uses it and then the whole SLA uses it. They're kind of just like parroting a lot and it's not really... It's not very well formed. It's not very well formed. This is the kind of thing that I imagine I probably looked into once because I have the vague shape of it in my head. But I, and like I said, I really didn't

retain that much of it. And I think part of it was in a lot of ways I didn't quite get what this group was specifically getting at. You know what I mean? Yes. Yes. Let the mystery remain because they didn't know either. It just gets kind of concocted. But like a general militant left. Left? Yes. Left. Let's say left. We're saying left. A faction that is for revolutionary change. Are they anarchists? Who knows? Who knows, yeah. What is their mission statement? We're going to have a facilitator come in and do some workshops, but we can't get her on the books.

Right. So for right now, we're kind of just, everyone's just going from the heart. Mostly from the heart, exactly. In that same kind of liberatory methodology, they all have their own names that are no longer their quote. Well, for Donald DeFries, his slave name. So his name that he goes by is Sink or Sin Mtumbe, which is the name of the African chief who led the rebellion on the slave ship Amistad.

Right. Okay. So yeah, he's, you know, this strong black male figure. And again, that is a man who is black and not a blackmailer. Yes. Thank you. No worries. And he's leading this kind of ragtag group of young, white, middle-class kiddos. Who are now for probably the first time

because they are being educated at university, encountering concepts around things like anything ranging from white guilt to realizing their own privilege, to realizing that the way that the American system is built is like a pretty white supremacist, da da da da da. They're all doing their things. And then here comes this very charismatic guy who's like, no, like you say, who taps

into like an existing feeling that they already had toward wanting like black leadership or like listening to marginalized voices, whatever it is. And he's like, no, let me tell you about this, the symbionese thing that I'm thinking about. Yeah. That's sure. That could like, that's not weirder than church. Sure. You know what I mean? I want to be different from church. So let's do it. Yeah.

Exactly. Exactly. So the same Pyrenees Liberation Army consists of Sin or Donald DeFries, Patricia Ms. Moon Saltisic, Camilla Hall, her ex-girlfriend poet from Minnesota, Nancy Perry Ling, who is kind of orbiting the liberation movements in the Bay Area. There is a young actress, Angela Atwood, who was in kind of like the liberatory theater vibe kind of thing going on, right? Oh, those plays sucked, I bet you. Yeah.

They were quite bad. I bet sitting through one of those was fucking agony, but you had a friend in it, so you had to go. Yeah. And then her friend, Emily Harris, and her contiguous husband, Bill Harris. So they were a married couple, but they were like always fighting and always sleeping with other people and you know. It's just drama. It's just fucking-

Oh, it's just drama. It's just you can't have like drama like this among the ranks. It's not good for the army. No. I knew we shouldn't have brought back the draft in Symbionia. Yeah. They have a policy of sexual liberation. You have to fuck everyone all the time. It's comradely to fuck everybody all the time. Comradely is what it is.

Compulsory constant fucking. It's not sustainable. It's not. It's really not. No. The first action that the SLA enacts is pretty horrendous. Like to this point, I'm reading about the SLA and I'm like, okay, well, you know. We've all fucked in a pile who, like, come on.

Yeah, yeah. That's okay. You know, whatever. And then I hear about what they do as their first public outing. There is a superintendent of the school district in Oakland, and his name is Marcus Foster. He is from Philadelphia where he worked in the school district as well, and he got a job out here in Oakland because Oakland was having a lot of issues with student safety. The schools were not safe for students and they were really trying to work with the government, but also this liberal ideology that was floating around the Bay Area.

Marcus Foster, who's Black, he is working between a more conservative city government and the Black Panthers. The city government is saying, we need cops in our schools to protect students. The Black Panthers are like, no, cops aren't going to be safe for the students of Oakland who are primarily Black. We can't have that, but we need some type of safety. Marcus Foster, discussing with both sides, he finds a way to get security guards in the Oakland school system, security guards that the Black Panthers can sign off on and the conservative city government can sign off on. He's doing good work, conciliatory work for the benefit of his students and his district.

Not everybody loves him, but- But not everybody loves anybody, yeah. So, DeFries, in some liberatory logic, understands himself to be a contemporary of Marcus Foster. And he sees that it is Marcus Foster and him who are vying for the protection of the people in the Bay Area. Is this just like a power grab?

Like in what way does he see that they are in parody? Is this just more Symbionese? He ran it through the Symbionese filter. Yeah, it might be some grandstanding for his handful of followers. But it gets to the point where they stalk Marcus Foster after a school district meeting in a parking garage. He's with a colleague. Scary. Fuck. And they shoot him.

Jesus. He's killed. Yes. I feel like I remember this. Yes. Yeah. And the response is everyone is kind of terrified. An odd person to choose to kill. Yes, exactly. If you hadn't just explained to me the motive behind it, it would be a total head scratcher. Exactly, yeah. Like even the conservative government was outraged.

The Black Panthers even said, you know what? Oakland Police Department, you need to find who did this and put them in jail. This is they were like, we've always loved the Oakland PD. They were like, that's fucked up. Who did that? That is not OK. Yeah, that is messed up.

Yeah. And so I think that kind of gives you the scale of like, what the fuck? Why would you kill Marcus Foster? Yeah. The Symbionese Liberation Army releases a communique, and this takes the form of a letter. It's their Zodiac letter saying like, I did this. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's interesting because the Zodiac is happening around the same time in San Francisco. So there's just kind of some general paranoia and fear.

Get off the LSD San Francisco. It's a little intense. So, there's just kind of some general paranoia and fear. Fear! Yeah. Get off the LSD San Francisco. It's a little intense. Or take some more, I'm not sure. Yeah, right. So, the Sympionese Liberation Army comes online with the murder of Marcus Foster, and they take credit for it. They release this letter that is kind of the Marxist mumbo jumbo stream of

consciousness ideology. They go into hiding, and in kind of this rush of ideas, they decide that their next move, they need to kidnap Patty Hearst. They need an editor, dude. They need someone to be like, OK, but what are you fucking getting at? What is your thesis statement? No, exactly. Exactly. I'm like fucking at least half an hour into a story where you've been explaining these people and their motives to me step by step. And I still don't fucking get it.

No, no. Very confused. And it just gets like murkier and murkier and murkier. Jesus. Okay. February 4th, 1974. It's a Monday evening. Patricia Hearst has made dinner for Steve Weed. They are eating.

She has her cozy, like fuzzy bathrobe on and some blue fuzzy slippers on. They finished eating and now they're in the living room winding down when there's a knock at the door. It's a little strange because their apartment building, which is on a public street, she doesn't have security. It's not behind a security gate or whatever, but they don't have a door that faces the street. You have to walk through a little't have a door that faces the street. You kind of have to walk through a little bit of a complex to get to them.

The knock on the door is a little surprising. Steve goes to open it and there's a young woman out there and she says, I'm so sorry. I think I've hit your car. Patricia is a little peeved because she has this cute little roadster, whatever, fancy car. She's like, what? And the woman says, I'm so sorry, I think so. Do you mind if I come in and use your telephone?

And so Steve opens the door and behind this young woman comes DeFries, Willy Wolf, The crew, Bill Harris, The whole army. Yeah, it's not all of them that come in, but there's three who walk in. They've got big guns, they yell, where's the safe? Where's the safe?

And there is no safe. So Steve is like, here, take my wallet. This is all I have. And they don't take his wallet, but they pistol butt him. People are so bad at faking robberies, it's crazy. You'd think that the first thing you would do when you were faking a robbery is actually take something of value from the home, but nobody does that.

They just take things out of drawers and throw them around. It's dog shit. It's so dog shit, yeah. So they've grabbed Patty Hearst at this time. They're beating up Steve Weed, you know, and all of this cacophony. He's like, just take whatever you want, take whatever you want. And he means, you know, like, leave us alone, take whatever you want.

They took it literally, they took Patty. In the tussle, he gets free of them and he runs out the back door. He flees down the street, knocks on a neighbor's door and calls the police. In the meantime, Patty is dragged out of their apartment and a neighbor has heard this commotion and so he comes over and they pistol whip him, the SLA, and they take him as a kidnapped victim. They shove him in one of the three getaway cars they have. No good deed goes unpunished. It's so true. So Bill Harris has Patricia Hearst over his shoulder and she's frantic. She's putting up a fight.

She is one feisty little 19 year old and she's like, let go of me, let go of me, da da da da da da. He goes to the one car that they've designated for her and the back, you know, it's these old big metal cars. So the trunk is open and he goes to put her in it. And in that process, the trunk slams shut. And he has to actually put Patricia down and go and get the key from the driver and unlock the back.

Pain points. This is why we rehearse. Yeah. In that time, Patricia runs into the garage and tries to defend herself, but she's apprehended again and put in the back of this car with a blanket over her. They take off, there are three different cars, and they very slowly take off. It should be noted that they kind of slowly meander through the city of San Francisco with Patricia Hearst in the back under a blanket, and they make their way south to Daly City, part of the

big metropolitan area. But- They're really taking us on a tour here. Oh, oh, Bay area. It's so true. Yeah. You know, in the whole process, she's lost her slippers. I'm sure she has. Yeah. You know, in the whole process, she's lost her slippers. I'm sure she has.

Yeah. They go to a second location where they switch cars again. You know, they have this kind of- No, this is all good so far. Let me rephrase that. This is the only good thing so far. Yes. Yeah.

This is the only well thought out thing so far, is the switch in the cars. They again make their meandering way to Daily City and they get to a shabby little apartment and there's a small closet, just this tiny little walk-in thing. And there's kind of a mattress situation that's been shoved in there. And they put Patricia Hearst in there and she's been blindfolded this whole

time so she can't see her captors. And they shut the door and she is a prisoner of war. That is what she's told. She's a prisoner of war. Now the police have been notified, you know, on the way out the SLA was kind of spraying bullets at anybody who was like poking their head out of their door. And thankfully no one was injured. No concept of subtlety. No soft touch. Absolutely not. No. Randy and Katherine Hearst are notified. Of course, they're absolutely terrified.

Yeah. Their daughter who was just living, you know, a slightly rebellious but not crazy life has just been captured. The FBI get in touch with Randy Hurst and they start getting a task force together. Now they don't publicize the kidnapping because the FBI has asked Hearst, because Hearst has connections to every newspaper in the country, they've asked him if they could not do that just so that they could have some time to get their task force together. Before every fucking person in the world is calling in fake tips and demanding fake rewards and da da da da da, And they are obligated to investigate

each of those leads burning valuable time. Yes, exactly. Exactly. And in this process, the Hearsts who live in Hillsborough, which is just south of all this, you know, an affluent neighborhood south of San Francisco, and they live in, you know, this big house with a big circle drive and hedges, a very private kind of situation. They bring the FBI into the house. They set up a command center in the living room. No news comes in that night. It's a sleepless night, obviously for everybody. Then the next day, And then the next day, Randy publishes it in the paper. And because it's 1974, there is no instantaneous news cycle, right? Things have to take a day to get published.

So he releases the information Tuesday. It doesn't hit the papers until Wednesday. And DeFries and the SLA is like, what the heck? This capitalist bourgeoisie pig? What? We need our publicity. What's happening? WTH?

What the HE double hockey sticks is going on here? Patricia in this closet, she doesn't see her captors for the first few weeks that she's there. She is given rations of food and she's told that she is a bourgeoisie product of the rehearsed pigs and that she would be made an example of and do you know Marcus Foster? She says no. And they said Maria Antoinette didn't know anything that was happening to her until her head was cut off. The SLA sends out a communique in the form of a document. I'll read just a little bit of this. As you could probably guess, it doesn't make any goddamn sense whatsoever. Reading

the whole thing is kind of a waste of time. but you can get a sense of the tone that they're going for. The subject has a subject. It's called Prisoners of War and it has a warrant order, arrest and protective custody and if resistance, execution. The target, Patricia Campbell Hurst, daughter of Randall A. Hurst, corporate enemy of the people. The warrant is issued by the Court of the People. On the afore stated date, combat elements of the United Federated Forces of the Symbionese

Liberation Army armed with cyanide-loaded weapons served an arrest warrant upon Patricia Campbell Hurst. It is the order of this court that the subject be arrested by combat units and moved to a protective area of safety. It is the directive of this court that during this action only no civilian elements will be harmed if possible and that warning shots be given." And it goes on about, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Oh, they're very noble. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. Holy fucking shit.

They demand that all communications from this court, they refer to themselves as the people's court, the court of the people, must be published in full in all newspapers and all other forms of the media. Failure to do so will endanger the safety of the prisoner. And signed SLA, death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people. That's their little catchphrase. Death to the fascist insect that preys upon the life of the people. It's not, I'm loving it. Let's shrink that. Let's make it more memorable. Even like death

to the fascist insects. That's catchy. You can shorten that. Well, you would have noticed too that this actually doesn't give any type of ransom instructions. No, it doesn't do anything. It's not clear. It's not clear. Give you the space in the paper to do what. This is like a comp 101 nightmare. Okay? As a former comp 101 teacher, this is rough. This is your first paper out of the gate and it's just like, oh Jesus. So there's no mention of ransom. There's no real instruction on what to do. So the hearse and the FBI are kind of like, okay, well now we know who has her, but what do you want? Like what's going on?

And how do we ask you that? And how in the fuck do we ask you that? Yes, exactly. So in one way, it could be, I guess the silver lining is, okay, well, they don't really seem to have everything together. So maybe this is in our favor. But then on the other hand, that's also kind of terrifying because it's like, are they just crazy? Are they just going to shoot Patty and that's it?

On a whim. Right, on a whim. Right, on a whim. Are they so untethered to anything that like there is kind of no logic to this? Or is their lack of logic just ineffectual? Are they so disorganized that they're gonna let her get into the chemicals under the sink and die by accident that way? Or just stray bullet it or whatever.

Did they baby proof the corners in the flop house that they're hiding in? Yeah. Without any really clear directive, it goes on for a few days. Patty is in this closet. She's blindfolded or if her captors are in her presence and she's not blindfolded, they have masks on. So she can't see who they are, but she can hear their voices. And one thing that DeFries does decide to do is he kind of assigns three members of the SLA to watch her, to kind of babysit her. And part of that is also kind of educating her. So like brainwashing her.

It essentially, right? Yeah. One of her watchers is Willy Wolf, who kind of explains, you know, gives her readings and whatnot and explains the readings to her. And then after the fifth fucking day of this, she's like, but I'm still not clear what it is that you want. What are your politics? Yeah, the politics are that the hearse are bad and you're a hearst.

So you're bad. Yeah. So fuck you. Yeah, exactly. Angela Atwood, who is also one of her babysitters, she just kind of falls into girl talk with her. She's like, so my boyfriend, he's in prison, but he's really cute. You would love him. He's so nice. And she like does her hair. You've got to make time to gossip during the revolution. And so DeFries is also one of these like educators and he's much more kind of intense,

right? He takes attack that is a little more top down. A little more intense and also more vague. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. The vagueness and the confusion and all these different tones. Like Willy Wolf is kind of quiet and he's kind of like trying to do this educational thing. Angela is just like, you know, like braiding her hair, being like, oh, what do you think of this? Do you like this bandolier or this bandolier? You know, it's one of those things. And then DeFries is like really intense and like crush the bourgeoisie and that kind of thing.

And so through the vagueness and that confusion of tones, Patricia Hearst is kind of picking up on what's happening. And she is finding some comfort at least in Angela's friendship and Willie's kind of more softer calmer approach. So things aren't as high tension in those first few days. Oh, she's like, oh, this is just a bunch of like fucked up theater kids, cosplaying a cult slash militia.

Yeah, yeah, there's a little bit of that. But again, Patricia Hurst, she- Is herself a fucked up theater kid. She has a little bit of that. I mean, she's not educated in the student protest movement. She doesn't know a lot of this. So it is kind of new to her, you know, like reading Che Guevara's autobiography, you know, it's like, oh, okay, I didn't know this.

This is interesting. And she's curious and she does ask questions and she's trying to learn more. Part of that is that she's terrified and wants to just acquiesce, acquiesce, yes, I understand, yes, please tell me more, yes. But there's also this question too of like, is she curious for curiosity's sake as well? That kind of starts to come into play even quite early. DeFries thinks it's a good idea if they send another communique that is Patty Hearst recording herself talking.

OK, so she's alive. Yeah. And she gets to tell them whatever it is that, you know, pretty much what DeFries wants her to tell her parents. So this third communique, because the first is about the Marcus Foster killing, the second is the incoherent no demands. And then this third is Patty Hearst. And she starts it by saying, Mom, Dad, I'm okay. She describes how they're feeding her and they're keeping her alive. She got a few cuts and bruises. I'm bored shitless in a closet.

A little bit, yeah. There's one of them that braids my hair sometimes. Yeah. And she sounds somewhat timid, but you could tell that she's not reading a script. Does she sound like somewhat timid, but it's, you know, you could tell that it's, she's not reading a script. Does she sound like she's missing her thumbs? No. No, sounds like her thumbs are there. Sounds like her thumbs are there.

Yep. And when the hearse get this communique, they're so relieved. They're so glad to hear her voice. They issue their own communique of sorts in their circle driveway. They hold a series of these essentially like press conferences. Bougioisi pigs. I'm guessing nice house. It's a pretty nice house. Yeah. Yeah.

I would imagine it's a nice house. It's a nice house in a nice neighborhood. And of course, the press corps has set up a whole encampment in front of the house. And this is before the time of cell phones. So they have like nailed to the telephone poles phones that they can use to call their offices and run telephone wires too.

And I love that detail. Dude, that's old school. That's old school. I like it. That's very old school. Yeah. And of course the FBI is in the house. All the sisters have come home. Steve Weed has showed up at the house to the chagrin of the hearse, who never

really liked him anyway. Who's he? Didn't he get killed in the first act? What do we still do in here, Steve Weed? No, he just ran the fuck away. He said, take whatever you want. What a guy. Take her, take her. I don't even want her. He's a guy. Seaweed.

In an interview, he's asked if Weed would be willing to take Patricia's place as a hostage, and in his response in this interview, he says, quote, it depends on the circumstances. I wouldn't rule it out, end quote. What a night in Shining River, that's the man you marry. Yeah. Who are the hostage takers? Yeah.

Do I get to eat? Is it scrambled eggs or sunny side? Like what is? Can we spell on and off? Maybe I do weekends. Yeah. Of course, in response, Patricia's father privately, but still, he supposedly said that Weed was an egocentric pain in the ass. Steve. Yeah, yeah. But he's still floating around the house because he is technically a member of the family.

He's a good background character in this story. He really is. Yeah, he really is. Like an asshole. Say what you want about him, but he's a good minor character in this story. He really is, yeah. He really is. Like an asshole. Say what you want about him, but he's a good minor antagonist. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

So at this point, one of the members of the SLA, Bill Harris, he decides that they need to come up with some type of demand. They're all trying to like brainstorm this. Maybe you should have come up with that before the fucking kidnapping. How about that? And what they light on is Bill Harris's idea, which is they're going to demand that the hearsts feed the poor.

Okay. Right, kind of an interesting idea. Kind of interesting. Yeah, a good idea. Okay, I'm not gonna commit to good till I hear how it plays out, but kind of interesting. Yeah, a good idea. Kind of interesting. Okay. I'm not going to commit to Good Till I Hear How to Play, so kind of interesting. So the idea is that the hearsts will put in a big ton of money into essentially like a food pantry program that will feed anybody in the Bay Area who is on social assistance, on employment.

So this is kind of a good PR move now actually. Right. It's a very good PR move. Good job, Bill. Maybe you should be the president of Symbonia. Yeah, exactly. And so they make this demand and they actually did kind of think it out. They really like sat around the floor because there's no furniture. And they said, you know, like, what are the, like, where should this happen? Who do we want the hearse to work with? Who are like confirmed community partners that we want them to be working with?

You know, where will this happen? Who, you know, all of that stuff. They decide that, you know, the Black Panthers would be a good match. The Brothers of Islam are a good match. And they, you know, list out a few of these left-leaning community organizations. The Black Panthers don't want anything to do with SLA because they killed Marcus Foster.

Well, exactly. And also like your liability story. Yeah, no, exactly. Yeah, a. Yeah. A very good move on the Black Panthers part. But there's a few other organizations that also maybe aren't as political too. So they're like, okay, yeah, we'll help you feed the poor. That sounds great.

And Randy Hurst, Patricia's father, he kind of enacts his networks and he reaches out to a woman who runs a food pantry in Seattle. And he says, can you come and do this in two weeks? And she's like, what? Like $2 million worth of food distributed to the people of the Bay Area in two weeks. He's like, yes. And she's like, okay. So she comes down. The whole operation is called People in Need, P-I-N. They have a huge warehouse in a part of San Francisco called China Basin. And they start filling it with all this food. They're working with the community partners that they're designated to. And everything's kind of working. In the communique, they say, we want this by February

19th. And they also say like, or around that time, like, they're kind of unstable with that demand, that portion of the demand. We don't remember how many days, is this a leap year? I mean, what is that retroactive? Do we need to let's just take a breather everyone? Okay. Yeah, do what you can do, but make it quick. Yeah So people in need gets underway and it's February 22nd when they get stuff off the ground Of course, this has been publicized because this is connected to the patty hearse kidnapping all this stuff Yeah, and there's one because this is connected to the Patty Hearst kidnapping, all this stuff.

Yeah, yeah. And there's one food pantry station that goes a little berserk because people have been lining up since like 5 a.m. to get food. And it kind of goes off the rails because the people lining up, the crowd gets bigger and bigger and they block

the roads that and the trucks coming from China basin to bring food can't get in and then the groups the groups get even more unruly and then there's a riot god bless oh god bless god bless God bless. God bless. God bless. God bless. Miraculously, that is the only kind of mishap. The People in Need program goes on for about two to three weeks and they do a pretty damn good job.

They feed a lot of people. So this is a point for now the young folks who are looking at this see this good works. Yes. young folks who are looking at this see this good works. Yes, as you say, a PR move that was great. It makes the SLA, previous murderers of a superintendent, now they look like they're helping the people. You know, they're not asking for demands for themselves. They don't even have a chair and table. We've all murdered a superintendent.

Let's not be prudes. Yeah. What's one superintendent here? Whoops. Yeah. Oopsies. I killed a superintendent on Sunday. Exactly.

NBD. So, it's a really good PR move and it's even kind of angering the more conservative factions of California. In fact, Reagan is said to have been at a convention. Nancy, I don't like the SLA or gay people. Or anything really. Reagan was a guest speaker at a private luncheon of the Bull Elephants, which is like a group of Republicans.

Some fucking secret society, yeah. When asked, this wasn't on the record, but it was leaked later. When asked about the People in Need program, he said, quote, it's just too bad. We can't have an epidemic of botulism, end quote. Dude, Reagan would love if botulism killed all the poor people. Oh my God. It's pretty gross.

But that's the conservative line with all of this is they start to see that the hearse are capitulating to terrorists. They are letting the terrorists win. They're so weak and they're letting these liberals get away with whatever they want. Letting them implement public service food programs. These people didn't earn that food. They didn't work for it. Whose labor did you exploit to get that food?

Yeah. Nobody's. You don't deserve it. So the left is kind of like, this is great. Oh my gosh, yeah, the SLA is kind of, this is kind of cool. The conservatives are of course upset, da da da, but it's implicating the Hurston as well. And you would think that DeFries would be like, way to go, A plus.

It wasn't his idea. It wasn't his idea. It wasn't his idea. Because instead, his response is essentially, you only gave $2 million and that's a fraction of the Hearst Fork-tion. You need to give $4 million to really make this a good faith effort. Jesus Christ. Now, in very typical rich person fashion, Randy has a lot of social capital, has a lot of family money, but he does not have a lot of cash ready to go. He can access and ask his brothers.

He says, okay, well, I'll try and get more, but you have to understand, I don't have this cash flow. You really should have kidnapped my grandfather. Right, yeah. But then, of course, the SLA is just like, that's bourgeoisie bullshit. It's all, you know, of course, that's what the pigs say. Yeah, yeah. Also, four million is kind of a shitty ask too.

I'm just gonna say it. Go for it, like fucking go for it. These people have like a lot of money. In 1973 though, that's, that's, that's a lot. Uh, not for the Hearst family. That's true, that's true. Borshwazi pigs. Not for the Hearst family.

Yeah, fascist insects. Yeah. They're loaded. They're rolling in the dough. With DeFries kind of upset about it, they send out another communique, another recording of Patty Hearst. And this time she sounds a little bit like, a little bit more confident, I say. Oh, she got a third thumb. Oh, she got a third thumb. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And she's kind of saying, you know, that wasn't the best, Dad. I think you could have done better. And Mom, I've seen you on the news and... And your hair is thinning and your nails are shit. You really gotta take off that black dress. Oh, but so basically, actually, yes. Damn. That's ice cold. You really gotta take off that black dress. Oh, but so basically actually, yes, damn. That's ice cold.

She tells her mother to take off the black dress because Patty Hearst isn't dead. And if you project that I am dead, then the FBI is gonna come in here and kill everybody and I will die. That must've felt so good for her to be like, mother, you going out in that dress? You should go change.

Yeah, yeah. Cause you know that Patty heard that a lot. Oh, every day, every day. So, so good, so good. So they're starting to notice that Patricia is like, not only is she kind of asking questions, curious. She's getting a little saucy actually. She's getting a little saucy, actually. She's getting a little saucy with her mom.

She is totally written off Steve Weed. He is long gone. We knew that. We know that. But she's conveying that to her captors, to the other SLA members. She's saying like that fucking dickhole. I don't want anything to do with them. Steve Weed had a table in a refrigerator, but that's all I like about him more than you. Yeah, pretty much. And so the other SLA members are kind of like, she's fun.

Like she's a good time. She's cutting up. You invited her. I'm kind of into it, you know? This is nice. So DeFries gets it into his head that their next move needs to be that they are going to go back to San Francisco. They've been living in Daly City, which is just south, but they're going to move operations deeper into San Francisco because they can do a little bit more. I don't fucking know. Bad call. You want to be in some anonymous little outskirt. That's where you want to be. Well, instead they choose an apartment on Golden Gate Avenue, which is about three blocks down from the FBI headquarters. Jesus fucking Christ.

How hot does it in the neighborhood need? You don't need to be bumping into FBI agents when you go to get a taco. Right. What is this? What is this? What is this? This guy's terrible, dude. We need to upend. Let's look at some more egalitarian leadership models

because this guy sucks balls. He's not great. He's not a lot of foresight. He's playing one step behind in the chess game. You know what I mean? It's a little messy. So they move, they move their safe house. But before they do that, it's become clear to everybody that Patricia's kind of cool. We're all kind of into it. Maybe it would be okay if she took off her blindfold.

New girl, new girl, new girl. She takes off her blindfold. She sees all of their faces. Big step, that's a big step, that's a big step. She must have been so confused when that girl was like being super duper nice to her and like, oh, love you, no, no, no, no, no. And she's like, I can't see who you are.

Who, who, who, who? Who, who, who, who? Are you touching my shoulder? What's going on? According to Patty Hearst's autobiography, when she took off the blindfold, she saw all of them for the first time. She knew their names by their voices, but when she saw them- Now you've got to match their names.

It's like love is blind. And she says, you're all so beautiful. Wow. She was like, I didn't know you guys were hot. This changes a lot. Yeah. It kind of does, because up to that point, a story that has been told to Patricia again and again

is that when the FBI comes to liberate you, they will kill all of us. And most likely, they will kill you of us. And most likely they will kill you too. Like that's how the FBI works. They will come in here with guns blazing and they will shoot us all dead. They'll just shoot the whole place up. Yes.

So following that logic and the fact that she has seen everybody's faces and the fact that she's kind of cool, DeFries says, here you go. And he passes her her own shotgun. And he says, if the FBI pigs come, you'll need to protect yourself too. Wow. So, this is a huge shift in it all.

When they move apartments, it becomes clear that Patty will come out of the closet. She does not have to stay in the closet. She can have her own shotgun. Which again, to be clear, we mean the literal closet in this instance. Yes. Yes. So this is March 31st. She was abducted February 4th.

So this is inside of a month that she's been trapped in a closet and has been... That's how summer camp days work, right? They're more intense. Yeah. They're more intense. It's like you've known each other your whole lives, even though it's been really, really brief. And as she becomes a full-fledged member of the SLA, she too has to shed her old name.

She's no longer Patricia Hearst. Right. Capitalist bourgeoisie, bleach off the people. Right. Instead, she's named after Che Guevara's lover who fought alongside him in Bolivia. And she takes on the moniker Tanya. That's queen shit. That's okay. I get it. I get the appeal of a Patricia Hearst in that time. She's very iconic, right? Interesting psychology. I'm interested to learn more. So another rationale that DeFries had with inducting Patricia into the SLA as a full-fledged member was that, God damn, that publicity is gonna be so sweet. First, they fed all these needy people.

Then we flipped the costage on her family. Yes, yes, the bourgeoisie pig is now a revolutionary. I didn't understand the superintendent thing and still don't, but they're getting better at this. Yes, yes. And at this point, they've completely run out of money. They have absolutely nothing to live off of. So the idea becomes we have a new member. No one has found us yet. Let's go rob a bank. This is what we're going to do.

I have questions again. I was really following. I was like, yo, hype it. I was like, yay, hey, maybe I'm symbionese. Maybe we're all a little symbionese deep down. But no, now it's all symbionese to me again, if you understand what I'm saying. I do. The thing is, as we'll learn, there's money and publicity to be made in deliberately circulating the image of Patty Hearst with a gun? Yes. Yeah. So I get it from that perspective. But like, also, like robbing a bank is fun.

They seem like a romantic group, a bunch of ragtag adventurers. Let's go rob a bank. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. It kind of has that kind of milieu to it, I guess, as well. And your point about the photograph of Patty Hearst is important because they case a bank that they know has security cameras. This is 1973. We want to get caught doing this. Not all banks have this. But they do the rounds.

They do some reconnaissance on this bank. And they see that it has security cameras. And they know exactly where to place Patty Hearst so that she gets caught on camera with her shotgun. They find and arrive at this bank called Hibernia Bank. It's in the sunset area of San Francisco, so it's just a little bit south of the city, but still in the city itself. And they are all wearing disguises. DeFries is wearing kind of like the 70s floppy hat situation. It was a great time to rob a bank in a floppy hat.

It really was. You could blend into a crowd. Yeah. They get in there, you motherfuckers, lay on the ground, open the drawers, give us all your money. Classic bank robbery stuff. Lest we forget, Stockholm Syndrome started with a bank robbery. It is true, and it's just around this time too, that Stockholm Syndrome is happening, yeah.

Interesting, interesting. No, definitely bookmark that. So, Patricia's given kind of the speech that she's gonna say, where she says, I am Patricia Hearst, My name is Tanya now. Symbionese, symbionese, symbionese, symbionese. It's like when a wrestler changes their gimmick. They're like, let me explain to you my new motivations.

Yeah, it's exactly that. I did this because of you people. You all made me do this. I'm babyface Patty Hearst no more. Now I'm the heel Tanya. Da da da da da da da da. I love it. And she kind of gets nervous and doesn't finish her whole spiel, but that's okay because they

got the photo and they rob the bank, they have a series of getaway cars, they end up back at their hideout on Golden Gate Avenue. Three blocks away from the fence. Yeah. Somehow just switching your car three times is enough to evade. I've played Grand Theft Auto and the logic kind of holds the same there, so I get it. Right. Well, and another thing that the FBI claims as like why they could never get a foothold

in getting intel on where Patricia Hearst was or the SLA in total, is that the FBI was built on this J. Edgar Hoover model where you would have spies and you would get intelligence from narcs, essentially, from informants. But people who knew SLA, who knew Patricia Hearst or Tanya at this point, they were all, if not counterrevolutionaries themselves, at least sympathetic to the cause. Yeah, it's the Luigi Mangione thing. I wouldn't plug a CEO myself, but like, I get it. Yeah, yeah. If somebody comes knocking and says, hey, did you know Luigi in high school? You might be like, I'd be like, Luigi.

Yeah. And two, because the FBI is filled with all these like high and tight guys who have no understanding and no empathy for the counterculture. No, because they're the culture that they are counter of. Yes, exactly. It was like, I read somewhere that, you know, they had really good luck getting the little information they could from like the parents of the people they were pursuing, but they could never get like information from peers.

That generational split we were talking about. Yeah. And in our information age, that feels very quaint too. It's like, well, no, you would just know everything about them. TMZ would have it. Yeah, exactly. So after the Hibernia bank heist, they release another communique. And this time it is Tanya on the recording. Oh, fuck yeah.

It begins with her saying greetings to the people. Oh, Jesus Christ. This is Tanya. Yeah, yes. On April 15th, my comrades and I expropriated $10,660.02 from the Sunset branch of the Hibernia Bake. And apparently DeFries had told her to put the two cents in there just to throw off the pigs. But anyway.

Another banger from DeFries. Keep contributing, dude. That is the sort of the appeal of this character is like, greetings, my comrades, and I have expropriates. Like, that's very easy to get behind. There's a sort of bit of theater, right? There's a bit of camp. You'd be like, she's great.

Yeah. Tanya, I love that bitch. So. Yeah. It's like, it's very not surprising that later Patricia Hearst and John Waters are like besties. Oh, this makes perfect sense. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. She denounces Steve Weed.

Oh, good. That's more fun. I know she's really like. To clarify, I still want a divorce. And let me explain further why. She says, Steven has shown himself to be a sexist, ageist pig. Not that this is a sudden change from the way he always was, and merely became more blatant during this period when I was still a hostage. Cleared.

She says that the whole idea of her being brainwashed is silly. Girl, she's so funny. I'm obviously alive and well. As for being brainwashed, the idea is ridiculous to the point of being beyond belief. She's so extra. So extra. She's doing the most. Tanya does the most.

She concludes the communique by saying, To those people who still believe that I am brainwashed or dead, I see no reason to further defend my position. I am a good soldier in the people's army. Patria or muerte. Venacermos. So patriot or muerte is country or die? Yeah. And what's the last thing? Venacermos. So, Patriar or Muerte is country or die? Yeah.

And what's the last thing? Venacermos, which is we will we will win. We will be victorious. Damn. Yeah. She started speaking fucking Latin on him. She goes hard, dude. Yeah. Yeah. Go go, Patty. Yeah, I get it. I get it.

I get it. But like also like what Jivre? I know. Go bitch, I get it. I get it. I get it. But like also like what gibberish would absolutely gibberish. Go bitch give us nothing like times 20, right? I like that she's still taking cracks at Steve Weed. Yeah, I know. She is not done with him yet. That poor man is evidently not suffered enough. Nope. And after the bank heist, they snap a picture. And it's all of the team except for the photographer, who I believe is Ms. Moon. And after the bank heist, they snap a picture

and it's all of the team except for the photographer who I believe is Ms. Moon. And they're all like holding shotguns and machine guns. Tanya has her cute beret slash Patty Hearst, right? Yeah. And I should mention that's what she's wearing in the bank, in the security footage from the bank, and it becomes iconic. Her in this little beret with her little Tommy gun.

That's what I think of Patty Hearst. That's what I think of. And she's like, she is a slight woman. She's probably like 5'5", and being held captive in a closet made her drop a lot of weight. So as it would. She was a very thin person. But she, but she was feisty, right? From the get-go. Yeah, evidently.

Yeah. So insane. Yeah, so we see her with her captors, with her own weapon, and this is the communication that she's sending out. I don't think it even needs to be said, but public sentiment kind of shifts a little bit. Like, people are like, oh, we thought you were abducted and a kidnap-ee.

And okay, well now it's a little different, isn't it? I have a question actually. Based on your research, and if you don't actually have a clear answer for this, that's okay, because it's kind of a fine question. Did people when Patty released that thing, like, greetings, it is I, Tonya. I call her Tonya. Greetings, it's I, Tonya, and I am totally fine, and I wasn't brainwashed at all. No backsies. Did people take that as she's been brainwashed into saying she hasn't been brainwashed, or did people take it as like, been brainwashed into saying she has been brainwashed?

Or did people take it as like, oh, you were in on all of this from the jump? Public sentiment is pretty divided because there are some people who believe that she was involved in her own kidnapping and that this was all... Which I wouldn't blame them because if she's saying like, are you stupid that you think I was brainwashed? I think, well, okay, then the whole, then the kidnapping was staged and she was just always working with them. Yeah. Yeah. I think most notably her parents, they are always supporting her. Those communicates come out.

Oh, Randy. You know, she's dragging Catherine's dress and still they say anything that Patricia is saying is under duress. That is not our Patricia. But is it? But is it? That's the question. Because as she walks and talks like her, and it seems to be expressing maybe some latent opinions or thoughts

that just hadn't been given for him because she hadn't been handed a copy of Che Guevara's autobiography before. We're about to go a little deeper with this. But I think something to note too is we have mentioned the kind of sexual liberatory practices of the SLA. Bang, bang, gang. Yes. As a member of the SLA, Patricia is also being comradely when she's asked to... She's throwing that pussy in a circle. Yep.

She is sleeping with anybody who asks, that's a comradely thing to do. I hate that shit. I hate that. Leave me alone. Leave me the fuck alone. No means no. I definitely agree. And it comes up later.

We'll touch on it later, but I do want to plant the seed now because it does have impact to the trial. But she seems to have developed an earnest relationship with Willy Wolf. Enough that he gives her this little old neck monkey head necklace. He has one and she has one and they both wear them. JAYLEE These fucking people. STACEY And they're seen as kind of like a de facto couple, but of course in a sexual liberation where you don't have the stupid bourgeoisie. JAYLEE There's no monogamy. STACEY There's no monogamy. So they're not really a couple. But they're

a couple. But they sleep together and she sleeps with other people, he sleeps with other people. Yeah. The San Francisco treat, baby. Yeah. Yeah. After the bank heist, they have this money and DeFries is like, you know what? The Bay Area is too hot. We got to get out of here. We can't be here anymore. No shit. Yeah. Should have said that maybe a while ago. But he's like, we have the money. Let's go to LA. I know people in LA. We can make this happen. Go to Culver City, you know, like Lalo. Jesus. They have three different vehicles. So they kind of caravan down to LA and dividing people so that they could be in different parts of the caravan.

Patricia is separated from Willie, even though they're a de facto couple. No such thing as a couple. No, exactly. Monogamy for insects, fascist insects. Exactly. Patricia is put with Bill Harris and Emily Harris. No, exactly. Monogamy for insects. Yeah. Fascist insects. Exactly. Patricia is put with Bill Harris and Emily Harris. They're a cantankerous couple.

He's the one that wrote their first good plan. Yes. And he is really into DeFries. He thinks DeFries is the best thing since fucking sliced bread and he wishes he were DeFries. Oh my goodness. He's pretty insufferable, it seems. I think probably a lot of these people would be if you sat down and had a conversation with them.

So they all put on these ex-theater kid disguises. They get in these cars and they head down to LA. They don't take the five. They take alternative routes. And they find a house in Inglewood and it doesn't have any running water. And electricity goes in and out. It's not a great place. You just robbed a bank. You can afford a place with running water. OK, let's grow up here. Let's be grown ups. Let's pay our utilities. OK. Nope, not happening.

They live in an even shittier place now. Oh, good. And a few months go by at this house. They're laying low. And it's decided that they need to do some errands. They have to kind of re-up on some supplies. We need to go to the home hardware to get fertilizer for our homemade explosives. Yes, exactly. Like literally that? Yeah, pretty much. And also they need to go pay a parking ticket. That's responsible.

Yeah, it really is. That is. I agree with you on that until it becomes not responsible. No, get out of town. So they've been subdivided into these teams and Patricia's with Bill and Emily. And it's decided that perhaps this team should go and do this round of errands. And there's a little bit, Angela's kind of like, should we really send Patricia out? She's too hot. People are

going to recognize her. She's a fucking celebrity. And you're hostage, by the way, still, technically, I remind you. And Patricia says, no, I am a member of the SLA. I want to do my duty. I want to go and do this. You're not going to treat me any differently because I am no longer a bourgeoisie pig, fascism. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

Using their logic. Clock it. And you know who sucks? Steve Weed. Yeah. So there. Make drop. Let's go get some groceries.

So she's got a point. Tanga's got a point. Classic Tanya, go, Tanya, go. So they head out to pay their parking ticket, to buy some clothes. They are driving down Crenshaw Boulevard and they see Mel's Sporting Goods store. And they say, you know what, let's stop in here. So they pull over, they park, Patricia stays in the car and Bill and Emily go in because they need to buy something for DeFries. It's May 16th, 1974.

It's very ominous the way that you've slowed down time and given me a date here, Josie. Oh, isn't it? Isn't it? Isn't it, Jess? And Bill Harris, insufferable asshole, he sees a bandolier and he's like, that's kind of cool. I'm kind of into that. So he picks it up.

Your impulse control, William. And he puts it in his pocket. Stupid, silly, so unnecessary. So unnecessary. Yeah, he could have just bought it. It wouldn't have, you know what I mean? They'd robbed a bank. Yeah.

The cashier at Mel's sporting goods store is a, uh, is a young student who's majoring in police sciences, which I don't know what the fuck that is, but he wants to be a bourgeoisie bank. Yes, exactly. Exactly. He's the culture that you're counter. Yes, yes, exactly. And he sees Bill Harris take the bandolier, and he knows that it's not stealing until Bill leaves the premises. And so when Bill is on the way out the door, this young kid, he goes and he tackles him and they're outside the store and there's,

Emily comes up, there's a tussle. This young kid majoring in police sciences, he's super eager, he has a pair of handcuffs, he's saying, citizens arrest, da da da. He gets one of the handcuffs on Bill's wrist. Citizens arrest. Is this our first's arrest? We're still breaking, still breaking boundaries. Season five, baby. Always something new. I think I was starting with a first, starting with a first. Patricia is in the van.

She's reading a newspaper and she looks up and sees the commotion out in front of Mel's sporting goods. And she apparently instinctively picks up up, reaches for the gun. Yep. Reaches for the biggest gun that she can find out of their stash, which is a sub-machine gun. Jesus Christ. She opens fire across a busy boulevard, Crankshell's a really busy street, and the spray of bullets

Oh my God! does not hit anyone. Okay, good. Very lucky, I guess? Well, no, it's because she's a dipshit who reaches for a fucking sub-machine gun doesn't really have a specific idea of what she's gonna do with it.

Which makes her a great fit for this group honestly. Yeah, she fits right in so well. Bill and Emily book it across the street, they get in the van and they peel out of there as fast as they can. Holy cow, no doubt. They have learned as you have in your carjacking Grand Theft Auto lessons, that if you just switch your car a whole bunch, no one can find you.

The star rating goes down. The AI gets confused. The cops don't know which one is you. Yeah. So they ditch the van and they find a young family and they're like, get out of the car. I'm taking this. And apparently this young family in LA. That's not good for your star rating at all.

No, no, not at all. There's like a lawnmower in the back and the guy's like, can I just take the lawnmower? They let him take the lawnmower and then they take his car. That's good. The car breaks down. They go to another, another person. This is a clown show.

Mind you as well that the van that they went on their errands with, they had yet to complete the errand of paying the parking ticket. So in the van is their name and address on it. Oh Lord. Yes. Amateur hour. It's pretty rough. Amateur hour.

No Virgos in that career, I'll tell you that much. Jesus. Emily, pretty wisely, she sees a van on the street with a for sale sign. She goes up to the closest house, she knocks on the door and she says, are you selling that van? This young 19-year-old answer, this answers the door. His name is Tom Matthews and he says, I'm selling that van. Yeah. She says, can I take a test ride?

He's like, sure. let me grab the keys. Oh no, Tom. She says, can I pick up some of my friends and they wanna go around too? And he's like, yeah, sure, no big deal. Tom. Up walks Bill Harris with a machine gun and Patty Hearst with a cache of guns.

Nightmare. And they're like, we're in the SLA and we're taking your van. Nightmare. And he says, awesome. This is the coolest thing ever. That's like the perfect person for that to happen too then. Go Tom. He looks at Patricia and her, you know, red wig and freckles disguise and she's like, wait, wait, wait. The chick from the bank thing. And he's so thrilled. He's like, can I come with you guys? And they're like, sure. He's like, I have to be back by tomorrow morning because I have a baseball game. And it's

a really big one. And he's the first baseman. It's just a big deal and he's got to be back for that. And they're like, okay, yeah, sure, that's fine. This is very cute. It's pretty fucking cute. So he essentially like pals around with them. Oh, he gets to do a ride along. This is great. He essentially does a ride along. You'll be telling people about this for the rest of your life if you survive and aren't arrested. You might be telling yourself about this, depending how it goes. Yes.

And he's just like, you guys are so cool. Man, fuck the pigs. Totally. Yeah. And he starts chatting with Patricia Hearst. They're essentially the same age. He's just about to turn 20. Patricia turned 20 in her first month of being with the SLA.

And he's just like, man, tell me everything. Are you brainwashed? And she's like, no, man, I'm not brainwashed. This is my own volition. I'm totally into it. No one made me do anything. I wanted to be a part of the bank heist. We rehearsed it.

He asks her about the food giveaway and she said that her father just used that as a tax break, that it doesn't mean anything. That's brutal. He asks what happened at Mel's sporting goods store when she opened fire across a busy intersection. And she said, I saved my comrades. I was so proud when I saw them running across the street. Proud of what? Being able to have gotten them out of that situation?

Yeah, yeah. To being a soldier in the SLA. Of having sprayed a giant fucking gun into the air completely indiscriminately. Yes, yeah, exactly. Geez. So, at this point, there had been a plan with DeFries and the other SLA soldiers, comrades, and they had a meeting point if something were to go wrong like this, and it was a drive-in movie theater.

Bill Harris, Emily Harris, and Patricia, they decide and with their ride along, Tom Matthews, they head over to the drive-through. Local boy, Tom Matthews. Yeah. They're going to wait the whole night and make sure that they don't miss DeFries and the others for this meeting point, right? So they're kind of watching this movie, they're goofing off. Mind you, uh...

What's the movie? It's a two movie feature. Double Feets, you gotta get your bang for your buck at the drive-in. Yes. The first movie was The New Centurions, a drama about the LAPD, which... Sounds a little dry if thematically appropriate. Yeah, yeah. Matthews, though, later said that the comrades, the SLA army, cheered each time an officer

was shot in the movie. Dude, imagine getting to say that you watched a drive-in movie about the LAPD with the SLA and they cheered every time one of them got shot. A Hallmark moment, a memory that'll last a lifetime. The second movie of the double feature was Thomasine and Bushrod, an all black takeoff on Bonnie and Clyde. Okay. Yeah.

So that's also very apt. I know. To watch with a bunch of bank robbers. Yeah. That's very good. So Bill Harris still has one handcuff on his wrist, right? And he's gotten a hacksaw in some way, shape or form, and he's trying to go at it. And at a certain point, Tom Matthews is just like, you're going to fucking cut your arm

off. Give that to me. And he takes it. And he goes and he takes the handcuff off for him. Before he leaves, he asks if he could keep it as a souvenir. He loves it so much. That's fair. That's fair.

So this is all happening. They're having cutesy movie time, hang out with Tom Matthews. Adorable. Yeah, very wholesome stuff. Very wholesome stuff. Very wholesome stuff. DeFries and the others are back at the safe house of Inglewood and they notice that things are getting hot. They've heard through the news on the radio about the male sporting good and they're like, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.

So DeFries very quickly has to find another house for them to stay in. Right. Sun goes down. it's dark, he's driving around, they're just aimlessly driving, and it gets to be 2 AM, and he sees that there's this one house not that far from their safe house that still has the lights on.

He goes and he knocks and he says, ''We are the SLA and we need a place to hide.'' The people inside, they're playing dominoes, they're drunk, it's essentially a flop house and they say, whatever, come inside. They hold up in the second safe house and it's 51st Street. They think they're in the clear. They need to stash their cars somewhere though.

So DeFries asks one of the people in the Flophouse, like, hey, where can I put these cars y'all? And someone says, well, there's this alley way over here. You can just put it in there. Everybody puts their cars there. Which was a misstep on DeFries' part because this is where all like the stolen cars land and the police very well know about this dumping alley. That's what I thought from that.

Yeah. You got to take it to the spray shop to get the color change. That's another tip from GTA. Yeah. Oh, that's good. That's very good. Yeah. So the police bought this car.

They know that this house is kind of under suspicion for, you know, illegal activity. They kind of ask around in the neighborhood. But again, no one's really saying anything until this grandma comes up to them and she's got two kids in tow. And apparently she had just been at the 54th Street house because her these two kids, her grandkids were in that house with the SLA. Oh, she's not going to like that. She is not going to like that. She pulled them out of there and she went right up to those FBI policemen and said, I know exactly the house you're looking for. She grabbed them by the ear and said, you come with me. Yes, exactly. Exactly. She was probably brandishing a rolling pin and wearing like a nightgown and slippers, right come with me. Yes, exactly, exactly. She was probably brandishing a rolling pin

and wearing like a nightgown and slippers, right? Like it's probably textbook. Yeah, total textbook. Now the police know where the SLA is. They've never known that before. It's the FBI and the LAPD and the LAPD's newly created special unit, SWAT. As in SWAT team.

As the SWAT team, yeah. Now the FBI, LAPD, and SWAT are kind of do this weird, very common, I guess, in cop movies where it's like, no, this is my jurisdiction. No, this is mine. If anybody's got fire, God, it's LAPD. No, it's FBI. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Blah, blah, blah. This is also textbook. I came here from Quantico. Yeah.'s got fire, God, it's LAPD. No, it's FBI. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is also textbook. I came here from Quantico. Yeah. I got you, I got you. And so they finally get to a point where it's like, okay, LAPD and SWAT will start and then FBI will be back up if needed. And so they-

SWAT is squirrel SWAT? Yeah, exactly. There's a little L- L-M-I-T-S-E-S-A-T-E-R-A-Y-G-E-N-E-R-A-T-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E-N-E- And so the squad is squirrels. What? AI generated squirrels. What team? I saw a few of those. LAPD and SWAT has completely surrounded this tiny little house in Inglewood on 54th Street. Inside is the remaining members of the SLA. So it's the SLA S Patricia, Bill, and Emily Harris. Inside the house, it's DeFries, Willy Wolf,

essentially Patricia's boyfriend, Angela Atwood, the woman who was braiding her hair and telling her girl gossip, Ms. Moon, Camilla Hall, the Minnesotan poet, and Nancy Ling Perry. Ragtime group. The scale of the fucking attack that LAPD unleashed on that tiny house was in fucking Sane. Now they gave them multiple warnings. It was like 30 minutes of warnings to vacate the premises. If you put down your gums and come out now,

you will not be harmed. You will not be harmed. Come outside. But of course, all of the rhetoric from the SLA is like, we're going to go down. We're going to be proud mercenaries, proud martyrs for the SLA cause. The pigs will never take us alive. Down with the pigs. Fuck the man. Fascist insects. This fact really gets to me. They're in Inglewood, which is a predominantly black neighborhood, and

the LAPD is very aware that they are not liked in this neighborhood. They are relatively quick to unleash their firepower because they are worried that the neighborhood is going to turn against them. They're like, we got to make this fast because we're going to get the shit kicked out of us if we don't. Why would anyone be on the LAPD? Why would anyone do that? It's comical. It's insane. So according to subsequent investigations by the LAPD, the SWAT team fired more than 5,300 rounds of ammunition in a little more than an hour of fighting.

And the police used 83 tear gas canisters. Okay. Counterpoint. The one thing that they know about these people is that they have a machine gun. Oh, they are armed to the fucking hilt. The SLA always has guns on guns on guns on guns on them. Not to shock the podcasting ass if I come out pro LAPD, but I do kind of get it. Well, because apparently, you know, your point about the SLA, the number of rounds fired by

SLA can't be determined with any type of precision because they don't know how much they had and what was cast out. We didn't do inventory. It was probably between 2,000 and 3,000 rounds of ammunition. Eventually, this tiny house that is filled with tear gas, grenades at a certain point are being sent in. Of course, it catches fire. At one point, there's so much smoke billowing out of the house that the cops can't even see what's happening. They can't see if people are running out. All they know is that shots are still being fired from the house.

About, is that somewhere in the neighborhood of 7,800 rounds are being shot simultaneously. That's kind of all they got. So what they determined is that the SLA in all of their research had read somewhere that if you are under attack from the fascist insects, you should go under the house. They're not the burrowing type of insects. They can't follow you there. They're like cows. Their knees don't let them do stairs. It's true.

It's true. But that's how they were able to at least outlast the fire that was going on. But it did get to a certain point where the entire house burned. Every single member of the SLA who was in that house did not make it out alive. Wow. They went down in their blaze of glory, I guess. They went down in their blaze of glory. It was most likely a pretty excruciating death.

Some of them died of smoke inhalation and burns. Some of them did catch some of the SWAT and LAPD fire and were shot. DeFries died from a close range gunshot wound to the head. A.K.A. killed himself. They can't determine that specifically, but they think that may have happened. It wasn't a pretty way to go. But also, they did want to go in a blaze of glory. Right.

They died doing what they loved, spitting the pigs. Now, we're talking about a news era that's like, we're not to the 24 hour news cycle yet, right? But this incident is the very first time that live footage from the scene of a crime like this is being broadcast simultaneously to when it is happening. Simulcast, live simulcast. They have this very special technology that they called a mini cam that they were able

to do and it's the first time this has ever been done. Wow, what a landmark. The entire country is watching this tiny little yellow house in Inglewood, California just crumble to the ground in flames and bullets and nobody knows if Patricia Hearst is in that house or not. Let's get back to our main character of this drama because like RIP Willy Wolf obviously but like yeah what about how's Tanya doing? How is Tanya doing? But really how's Patricia Hearst doing? So Patricia, Bill and Emily have rented a motel room and they are watching this

simulcast happen. They're watching live their friends die this excruciating death. Of course they don't see you know there's so much smoke and da da da. They can infer from context. It is horrifying to them. Yes. They are the only surviving members of the SLA in an instant. And it's all because of fucking Bill Harris trying to shoplift a bandolier from Bell's sporting goods store. Idiot. Such a dumbass. Which he later good store. Idiot. Sucks your dumb ass. Which he later denies and denies and denies. He says he was not shoplifting.

He says that that, you know, infant pig just had it out for him and was trying to frisk him and blah, blah, blah. It's hard to admit when we're wrong sometimes, maybe. Surprisingly, or maybe not surprisingly, Patty Hearst still views herself as a member of SLA. She is still fighting for the revolution. She has watched her previous captors go down in a blaze of glory and she still says, Martyrs, like Peanut and Fred. She takes up the Peanut and Fred mantle.

The AI generator. In kind of actually a pretty similar mumbo jumbo nonsensical way, she writes another communique with Bill and Emily that is known as the eulogy communique in which she shares her sentiments about the attack. She writes and speaks into the recording. Greetings to the people. This is Tanya. I want to talk about the way I knew our six murdered comrades because the fascist pig media has, of course, been painting a typical distorted picture of these beautiful sisters and brothers. She speaks of Willy Wolf, whose code name is Kujo.

Kujo was the gentlest, most beautiful man I've ever known. Neither Kujo or I ever loved an individual the way we loved each other, probably because our relationship wasn't based on bourgeoisie fucked up values, attitudes, and goals. Our relationship's foundation was our commitment to the struggle and our love for the people. It's because of this that I feel strong

and determined to fight. Free Symbonia. She gives everybody their own little eulogy and she finishes with De Freeze in which she says on February 4th, the day of her kidnapping, Cinque Mutumbe De Freeze saved my life. In this communique, she also mentions the little necklace that she was given by Kujo and how the pigs probably have the little old neck monkey that Kujo wore around his neck. He gave me the same stone one night. So she's talking about all this. She renounces my class privilege, blah, blah, blah. While I have no death wish, I have never been afraid of death. For this reason, the brainwashing duress theory

of the pig hearths has always amused me. Life is very precious to me, but I have no delusions that going to prison will keep me alive. I would never choose to live the rest of my life surrounded by pigs like the hearths. Death to the fascist insects that preys upon the life of the people.

She goes hard, right? Yeah. Interestingly enough, in the transcription, the reference to the Olmec monkey face, it gets written down as Old Mick Monkey. O-L-D space, capital M, lowercase C, capital M monkey. Old Mick Monkey. Had a farm. Had a farm.

Had a farm. The idea is, I guess, that a lot of the stenographers were Irish American. I don't know. So she's essentially presented this opportunity to say, okay, I'm done, bye, peace, see you later. Instead, she fucking doubles down. Interesting.

Bill and Emily and her, they go back to the Bay Area. That's the only place they can think that would be a stronghold for them. And they link up with somebody who is sympathetic to the SLA cause. This woman named Kathy Solia. And she stages this kind of theatrical eulogy in a public park for the SLA members, including DeFries and as their leader and stuff. She's a friend of Angela Atwood's from theater. So it's this like very theatrical, you know. Yeah. Bill, Emily and Patricia get word of this and they link up with her and she says, I

got you. I know a guy who she knows is this sports writer who wants to write down their story. He's like, I want to help you tell your story. I want my 30 for 30. Exactly. This could really help me get established as a prestige sports writer. Yes. Yeah.

His name is Jack Scott. So Jack Scott comes to them and says, listen, I have access to a farmhouse in Pennsylvania. You should go there. You should lay low. It's across the country. No one's gonna suspect you. You'll be fine.

He has one condition though. He says absolutely no weapons, nothing. But that's their whole shtick. Well then what do we have left? The berets? Like come on. We don't even have furniture. The only way he ends up convincing them is that he explains that he comes from an Irish family and his mother was sympathetic to the IRA, the Irish Revolutionary Army. And he grew up in a household where IRA members would be hidden under his bed as the cops came around.

A family that believes that sometimes in an unjust society one must take matters into one's own hands. Exactly. Yes. That was the clincher. That was like, okay, we'll do this. This is a nice story about the kindness of strangers in a lot of a way. I know. Tom Matthews, who's like, wee, yeah. Take my van. The only upset informant

was the grandma, who I think was more than justified. No, she sounds fair. She has like a fair case here. Like as a geek, I wouldn't be stoked on that either. This is unsafe. Absolutely not. Yeah, no, no, no. My child could cut her hand. So this is kind of a small detail, but it feels important to me at least. Jack Scott offers to ferry them across the country. And for Patricia in particular, because she needs special attention, because she's the celebrity, he says, I'm going to get my parents to help us. They're going to drive with us. And we are going to pose as a married couple on a trip with the in-laws kind of

thing. Now, part of the thinking was his parents were the kind of clincher that would get them to do this. But also it was very clear to Bill and Emily and to Jack Scott that if Patricia simply walked away from this, everything would be a lot easier. Bill and Emily could just disappear. And the FBI would be none the wiser. And we wouldn't even have to pay that parking ticket. Yes, exactly. just disappear and the FBI would be none the wiser. And we wouldn't even have to pay that parking ticket. Yes, exactly.

It's the fact that Patricia Hearst, this famous heiress, is with them. But she has a cause. She's now, she's the president of Symbonia. Yes, yes. So she's not willing to just walk away from this. It would spit in the face of her Symbionese heritage. Exactly, exactly, yes. So she's not willing to just walk away from this. It would spit in the face of her Symbionese heritage. Exactly, exactly, yeah.

And Jack Scott's mother, his name is Lydia, she spends the entire week of cross-country travel talking with Patty and says, Patty, I've seen a lot of this. I've seen a lot of the world. Patty, you seem like you need a mom. I think you need to just go home. I think your parents are worried about you.

She really sits her down and says, I understand the struggle, but the struggle will go on. The struggle will go on and you can still support it. You can still use your voice. But in this instance, I think you need to walk away. Especially when you've just seen everyone that you're rolling with go down in like a fucking fireball. Just absolutely terrifying. Yeah. This is the time. This is your opportunity. There's a path that escalates things and there's a path that de-escalates things.

And I think unlike a lot of other people who Patricia was hearing from and certainly in the media and her own parents, I think she really listened to Lydia. I think she really saw her as a confidant. Because she's not one of the bourgeois pigs, she's like salt of the earth, right? Yeah, exactly. But even still, Patty, Tanya is resolute. She's not giving up. Yo Tanya.

Yeah. Todavia, yo, Tonio. Even to like, they're driving to Pennsylvania, even when they crossed into the Pennsylvania state line, apparently Lydia Scott was like, you don't have to do this, Patty. You don't have to do this. And Patricia was like, yes, I do. You know that every night that woman was like going to bed, like, what is a new angle that I can try tomorrow to talk this girl out of ruining her life while still being supportive?

So they get there and it's a summer of like laying low, there's no weapons. Bill wants to continue their like physical training even though they don't have their weapons to train with. He's like, we'll just use sticks and you'll run in the woods and everyone will be in really good shape for the revolution. And he's getting in all these fights with his wife. Always, the whole time. Because they're not monogamous, but when she goes and sleeps with somebody else, he gets really irate and like, yeah. Men, fucking men. Fucking goddamn men. And it's true because at this time, Patricia starts reading more feminist texts and she's

becoming more aware of a feminist mindset. More woke, some would say. Yes, it is true. And Bill is just getting more and more annoying and he's getting more uppity about not having weapons to the point that Jack Scott, who has not only ferried them across the country and provided them a place to stay, but he's been underwriting all of this with his own money. What a guy. He gets to the point where he's like, go, leave. I'm done. I'm done with you. I'm done with all of you. Because he's just like, this is stupid. You guys are stupid.

No, this is stupid. This is fucking stupid stupid. This is stupid. This is this is fucking stupid This is the B team granted Patty Hearst is a value player But these other two are fucking MOOC one and MOOC two. These are not even any of the big names These are like sub Angela members of the SLA I'm supposed to put it up with a list of demands from you. Exactly. Thing two, fuck off. I think that was exactly what happened.

That was like verbatim. They hoof it back to the Bay Area in San Francisco because that's where everything's happening. They don't even make it out east because they're disagreeable. No, they make it to Pennsylvania. They spend a summer there. They do. Okay, okay. But they don't make make it out east because they're disagreeable. They make it to Pennsylvania. They spend a summer there. They do. Okay. But they don't make it very long.

They're meant to stay out there longer, but it doesn't happen. But they have that gun itch. Yeah. So they head back to the Bay Area and they land in Sacramento and then they eventually weasel their way back to San Francisco, which is just like, why are you going back? Montana. Exactly.

But that's not where the revolution is happening. They've got to be fighting the Rev-o-vac-o-lation. The revolution is wherever you are, you dumb fuck. You're the revolutionary. Exactly. That's really beautifully put. I love that. They link up with Kathy Solia, the woman who gave the very theatrical eulogy for the Killed members.

Right, right. Maureen from Rent. Yes, I know her. And Patricia meets her brother, Steve Solia. Another Steve in her life. They're playing kind of this shell game of living in different apartments and it finally ends up that Patricia is living with Steve Solia in Sacramento at 625 Morse Street. He's a house painter. She is learning how to make bombs. Classic love story. Classic love story, really. She's reading up on more feminist texts. They get involved with other liberation kind of leftist violent groups.

She's involved. Her and Steve are involved with blowing up a police car in which nobody is hurt, but they do it. They- How romantic. Rob another bank. Sure. And that's somewhat successful, but not enough because they have to rob another bank. Sure. So they found this branch outside of Sacramento in a small town called Carmichael, California, the Crocker National Bank.

There's a few other people besides just Patricia and Steve, but they are involved in this third bank robbery. This one is very notable because before this ragtag group of revolutionaries enter the building. There is a middle-aged woman, Mirna Opushil, and she is holding a kind of like money counting machine as she enters the bank. She's there to drop a bank deposit from her church group, and she's married to a doctor. She has three kids. She lives in the small community and relatively conservative. She bakes the casseroles for the church outings, whatever. They open the door for her because her hands are full with this counting machine. She walks in. She says, thank you. And then they enter behind her and Bill Harris, who is there, yells, everybody down on the motherfucking ground.

Nobody say a word. Mirna is holding this big machine and she's kind of surprised because they just opened the door. She kind of hesitates. She's not quite sure what's going on. And Emily Harris, who was also there, sees this hesitation, hesitates herself, and her shotgun apparently misfires. There was something wrong with the safety, she claims later. And this poor bystander is shot at close range with a shotgun. She's bleeding out on the bank room floor. Oh no. They rob the bank. They get out of there. Idiots. She's taken to the hospital, but Mirna Opashol dies. How awful. It's really awful. It's like, it's amazing that nobody else has died like this before because they're just kind of like have these huge weapons and they're like brandishing them with no. The superintendent though is a person who really had nothing to do with

these people. Yeah. But caught their wrath. Exactly. Mirna even more so. She wasn't even a known entity, right? Yeah. They get back to their safe house. Patty Hearst was not in the bank, but she was in a getaway car. So she is considered accomplice in all of this. They are not remorseful about the killing of Mirna Operschel. They just say, well, she was the wife of a doctor. She was a bourgeoisie pig. She's collateral, whatever. These are not good revolutionary politics. They're unclear. You need a clear thesis statement.

So finally, our FBI boys are crew cut high and tight kids. They finally get the tip off that they need. And they hear about these house painters in San Francisco that might kind of match something. And you remember, Steve is a house painter. They finally they track the house painters. They get the address on Moore Street where Patty Hearst is living. It's September 18th, 1975.

So we have gone almost, what, 18 months? 17 months? Since the closet? Since the closet. We're 17 months PC post closet? Yes, 17 months post closet. Patricia has box dyed her hair red. As you do when you're on the lam.

In the city where you've committed crimes, whatever. Again, an organizer, a Virgo on the operation. Even if you don't believe in horoscopes, I just basically mean you need someone in here who's persnickety about the details. Yeah. These people have no approach to find details. It's exhausting. The FBI bust in to 625 Moore Street, freeze FBI. They see these two women who are there and they say, who are you? They don't even fucking know that Patty Hearst is there. And she says, I'm Patricia Hearst. She identifies herself. She knows that she's surrounded. And they say, both of you are coming with us, but now they finally have found Patricia Hearst. They say, both of you are coming with us, but now they finally have found Patricia Hearst. Before they leave, Patricia asks if she may change her pants before they go.

You remember from the very beginning, 18 months ago, she was told that this was going to be the most terrifying moment of her life when the FBI pigs come into the house and fill her with bullet holes, she just peed her pants. Oh, pee. That's fine. We can recover from pee. I just pee my pants right now. Everyone does. I've been sitting and piss the whole podcast. And to the FBI agent's credit, he does let her go change her pants. Okay. That's nice. Remarkable. Maybe these pigs aren't so bad.

Remarkable that it kind of took that long, given how a slip shot the whole operation was. But maybe it was just slip shot enough. They were so illogical, like, how could you follow their train of thinking? Right, right. There's no pattern to follow. I get that too. I would observe that Patty is actually, unlike most of the others here, I would say Patti is actually kind of well situated insofar as like she doesn't seem to have been directly responsible for any of the murders, right? Like, because she's not on site during that bank robbery where... She's in a getaway car. So there you go. So she's not there when that happens.

That's egregious. She wasn't on board when the superintendent shit happened. She's not really there for the shootout with the cops. The one time she shot off the machine gun, it didn't really hit anybody. So like when it actually comes down to it, she's just up for like thieving and like, oh, a little terrorism, whatever, right? A little casual domestic terrorism. Yeah. like, oh, a little terrorism, whatever, right? A little casual domestic terrorism, yeah. As she's put into the cop car,

there's another famous picture of her with her hands in the handcuffs, but she's giving the revolutionary salute, like the fist, and she's got this big grin on her face. It's all about the photograph. The photograph dictates the image, right? Well, and then anything that can be recorded, because when she's booked about the photograph. The photograph dictates the image, right? Well, and then anything that can be recorded because when she's booked at the jail, they ask her all the questions like, what is your name, height, weight, what's your occupation?

And she says, occupation. And they said, yes, what's your occupation? And apparently Patricia smiles and she says, urban gorilla. She's like, she's loving this. She's loving this shit. It needed to be like a self-impressed 20 year old too. You know what I mean? To really pull this off. To be like, I've got the facts, pig. Yeah, you'll never get me.

When you think you've got the answers, I change the questions. Yes. Yes. Dude, that's so it. Cause she gets into custody. And to her parents' credit, we had said this earlier, they were always by her side. They're like, whatever she's saying, that is not our Patty.

I'll change my dress, dear. Yes, yes. And she is immediately lawyered up with the top lawyers in the goddamn country. That honestly, more than any power at the disposal of the very wealthy, that I envy. Yes. To just know that like, whatever situation you're in, at the very least, you're gonna be lawyered up.

Yeah. Which means a lot. Yeah, yeah, you can kind of, you can go to sleep at night. So even though her parents are lawyering her up and she's not only, you know, no longer in the SLA, she's arrested, she still is, yeah, I'm changing the questions. I can start the revolution from inside a jail, pigs.

Yeah, yeah. She's writing letters to her one true love, Steve Solia, the house painter. I thought you were gonna say Steve Weed, I was about to laugh my ass off. No, Steve Solia, the house painter. I thought you were gonna say Steve Leed. I was about to laugh my ass off. No, Steve Leed is gone. All right, B.

And one of the letters kind of reflects the sentiment that she is still carrying. She writes to him, I love you so much. You know that. I'm glad for all the times my eyes went darting around all over your face. And for the times I told you I loved you. As long as we stay strong and free, those pigs can't fuck with us. They can imprison our bodies, but not our hearts and minds. I look forward to a lifetime of struggle. There will be a revolution

in America, spelled with three K's. And we'll be helping to make it." Damn. And will be helping to make it. So she not only is like full on in love with Steve, Solia, she is also like, fuck the pigs. America has three K's, salute, fist in the air, urban gorilla. Like more militant if anything. If anything, because this is, this is like the moment that she's also been training for, right? It's like when the pigs take you in, we don't crack. We're going down.

We're martyrs. We're like, you know, blah, blah, blah. And so she's like holding on to this, right? It's similar to stress. Stress, stress, stressful situations. It doesn't take too long for that to slowly kind of chip away though. Well, she's like 20. Like, what do you want?

She's presented with the option of like the revolution and Steve Salia. Or like a comfortable bed and we can just talk this out. Exactly. Because her family is showing up. They show up at the visiting hours in the prison where she's held. And they're like, sweetie, how are you? Here are some flowers. You look well. You maybe should eat some more. How are things? Uncle David says hi. Like her sisters come around. Her cousins come around. Have you considered coming back to church? Her mom shows up all

the time and she says, you know, the one true thing you need to know is that your ever-loving mama and papa will always be there for you no matter what. That's nice. Okay, so it seems like for, if nothing else, the hearse kind of handled this okay. And every time Patricia got on a communique, had any type of public announcement, there was some decrying of her mother in particular.

The Hurst Pigs. The Hurst Pigs. But her mother in particular, mom get out of that black dress. My mom's a racist. My mom doesn't understand. My mom's a bourgeoisie pig. My mom doesn't let me do this, do that. She had a difficult relationship with her mother. Yo mama so bourgeoisie, she reminds me of my mom, Catherine. Yeah. It's one of those. And to Catherine's credit, she keeps showing up.

She says, I love you. What do you need? Gives me Catherine. That's nice. Yeah. And so it's a slow morph from like, you know, death to the fascist insects that prey upon the people to she's like talking with her sister Anne and is like, I would really love some eyeliner.

Do you think you could give me some eyeliner? Cause it's just a lot of photographs being taken. She was so in some wild outs that she was having room spring eye. You know what I mean? Yeah. It was a room spring eye, you know what I mean? Yeah, it was a room spring situation. But now the public sentiment surrounding Patricia Hurst had changed somewhat and now she's on trial for robbery, for misuse of a firearm. The trial, she goes through two very high profile lawyers. One is kind of a countercultural lawyer that the Hearsts are like, never mind, he kind

of has this bad misstep. And they're like, scratch that, we'll get somebody else. And they get somebody that they really trust and they really like. And the trial goes through. And there are about four things that are kind of an issue for Patty Hearst. The first was the love affair with Willy Wolf, aka Cujo. And this is like, this line of questioning, I think was of the 70s and kind of weird, but I think it was, let's just say, the prosecution was interested in like-

They wanted to make her look like a slut. They wanted that because she was claiming that Willy Wolf and DeFries had sexually assaulted her. She was forced to have sex with them against her will. Okay. And that was kind of like, that was part of the brainwashing, right? It was like, I had to do things for my own safety. And one of them was like to sleep with these men. Okay. And there was a particular issue with Willy Wolf because she still had, when she was arrested.

That Olmec thing. Exactly. Yeah, if she was carrying around this like goodwill charm for a man that she despised, how does that make sense? Right, right. I don't know if that logic really holds up. We have complicated feelings for people even are rapists is what you're saying. Yes, exactly.

Sure, okay. But also I get in a system where everyone is sexually accountable to everyone all the time, it's extremely hard to parse notions of consent, right? Yeah, yeah. Which is why that doesn't work and you shouldn't do it by the way. There's a fucking spoiler for the end game on this one. Well, and that anybody who is kidnapped probably does not have any type of ability to give

consent to, right? Was she brainwashed? Was it Stockholm Syndrome? Yeah. Did she just like like the newsletter? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. That's at least how the jury saw it, is that You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. That's at least how the jury saw it, is that if she was holding on to the Olmec monkey, then she had at least some soft spot for Willy Wolf, which means that her insistence that she was sexually assaulted and that this was a coercive relationship doesn't hold water. And then they're like, if she's lying about that, what else is she lying about in terms

of this brainwashing situation? Two is the Mel's Sporting Goods store. What about it? That is when Bill Harris shoplifted the bandolier. And she shot the warning shots, quote unquote, into the air. They were not meant to be warning shots. They were just shot in the direction of the conflict,

right? Exactly. She was in that van with the keys. She had an opportunity. This was a very clear opportunity to leave the scene, to get herself out of that situation. OK. They also determined that picking up the sub machine gun and spraying bullets across Crenshaw Boulevard was behavior inconsistent

with being under duress. That was a very aggressive action that she claims to be instinctive, but the jury seemed to believe that it was too aggressive when she was given the opportunity to one, do nothing, or two, drive away. If you're brainwashed, I think that, I mean, I'm not an expert on brainwashing, but if you're brainwashed, I would think that like,

it makes you behave out of character and more in line with a different set of morals in general. Like you can still like act aggressively on behalf of your captors, right? Cause you think that they're, I mean, you see that dynamic with abused parents and children all the time, right? Yeah, yeah, that's true.

So that it's not that for me, it's just that like, I guess I don't call me jaded, but I, so she shot a machine gun in cross-cunched up Boulevard, so what? And hit no one. What are you going to do for that? A couple of years tops? Right. and cross crunch up all of our, so what? And hit no one. But what are you gonna do for that a couple years, Tops? Right.

Number three, in terms of being an issue for Patricia Hurst and her trial, was Tom Matthews. So Tom Matthews was the young baseball player who did make it to his game the next morning and won. Hey, we love to hear it. We love to hear it. It's pretty great. It's pretty good.

He got on the stand and he testified and he shared. Tom, say it ain't so. When he was talking to Patricia Hurst in the van. You gnar. She had said that she was a willing participant. She was proud of what she had done by opening fire across Crunchrenchabalivard at Mel's Sporting Goods store. He also described his whole interaction with these folks. He not only got in the van with them and felt safe enough to do that, but he, similar to Patricia Hearst, was in a car with them, quote unquote, kidnapped.

And could come and go. And could come and go. And got dropped off in time for his fucking game. Yeah, exactly. When he's on the stand, he was asked, if you offended them in any way, did you think you might be harmed? And he said, not really. And the prosecution asked, in other words,

you did not much care whether you got shot or not? No, I was more excited than I was scared. Were you excited with the idea of an interesting adventure? Yes, I was. In other words, you considered yourself fortunate to have been in that place and time. Yes, Tom says. Yeah. What are we acting like? No, no, no. Let's act like there was no danger to this fucking kid hanging out with the SLA. He just has poor judgment and a golden retriever personality. That doesn't mean he wasn't in danger.

With that logic though, if he's having a good time and he's having this adventure, how could it be that Patricia Hearst didn't have the same golden retriever experience? No, this is convoluted. This one doesn't hold water next. Okay. Okay. Next. Okay.

Because different people react to different situations differently in the same situation differently. Easy. Next. Number four is that Patricia Hearst repeatedly pled the fifth. Okay. Her lawyers were worried that by answering questions from the prosecution in regards to Mirna Opestel's murder at the bank in Carmichael, California, they were worried that any answers

that she gave... would incriminate her in a far worse charge, which is first degree murder. Yes, exactly. So she was instructed with any question that involved that. And rightly so. That's what that big team of lawyers, that big rich person team of lawyers, that's what they tell you to do. That's how they keep you out of the frying pan.

Yeah. But the problem with that though was for her lesser charges, the jury was like, she's obviously hiding something. So what is being hidden in here? She's not totally innocent. Okay, there's something going on. Those are the four things that weren't working against her. They felt that her relationship with Willy Wolf was earnest and that she was lying about it being coercive. They felt that

her behavior at Mel's Sporting Goods store was inconsistent with being under duress, as she claimed. Tom Matthews was presented with a similar situation and he was totally fine, golden retrievered it, and she pled the fifth. TG These are all very circumstantial. STACEY They're circumstantial, but the whole thing is kind of circumstantial, wouldn't you say? TG I guess I would say now that you mention it that way. Now that you reproached me with that tone, I suppose I would agree. ST agree. So what happens is the presiding judge dies right before the verdict is given. RIP. Up there with Peanut and Fred. We'll see in the afterlife.

So the presiding judge has died. So they have to put the case on ice for a little bit while they find a new judge who can read the hundreds and hundreds of pages of court documentation to understand what is going on. Then they reconvene. The jury gives their verdict and they say that Patricia Hearst is guilty. Which she is. Guilty is to one count of the indictment and guilty is to count two of the indictment. They're talking about the robbery and the… The discharge of the sub-machine gun.

Yes. Now it's up to this new judge, who's kind of new to everything, to determine what that means in terms of sentencing. So he does his research and he determines that she should get what he has researched as the average sentence for a bank robber in Northern California. Okay. Which is seven years. This is September 1976. Okay. So this is, it's happening all pretty fast considering. Life comes at you fast. Yeah, you get those high profile lawyers

and they get that done for you. They push that through. So she is allowed to go out on bail before her seven years start under the condition that she have around the clock security that the Hearst Foundation is responsible for providing. The state won't provide that. It has to be private security. They can afford it.

They hire a man named Bernie Shaw who was previously a police officer, and now he's going into bodyguard work. And they quickly fall in love. Bernie Shaw and Patricia Hearst. Bernie Shaw. She's so boy crazy. Bourgeoisie pig cop. Oh wow, yeah, I didn't even make that connection. So think about that like total 180. Not only is she, I mean, she's so boy crazy,

she will 180 and start, and not just date, she will marry a cop. You have to date in defiance of whatever your norm is. So if you're a poor little rich girl, then you have to date like a revigate revolutionary. And when you've been spending the past year with revolutionaries, you've got to date like an LAPD guy. Sounds kind of dangerous.

A mustachioed cop. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And he was specifically hired because he was married at the time that he was hired to be your bodyguard. He gets a divorce for her. They're so in love. Love wins. Love wins. So she goes in and does 24 months of her sentence. So she's sentenced to seven, but she only has to do two years. She serves her time. She gets out. Bernie Shaw and her get married. Patricia Hurst Shaw becomes her name. No longer Tanya. We go through phases. That Tanya gimmick stopped selling t-shirts. Now I'm Mrs. Shaw.

They have two children, two daughters, one of whom is named Lydia. And you'll remember the name Lydia maybe because Lydia was the mom that drove cross country with her to Pennsylvania. Right. The IRA sympathizer. That's nice. Who was trying to convince her to leave.

Listen, Bobby Sands was a good lad, but he should have stopped short of where he went at that conversation with her. Yeah. And so Patricia Hearst's daughter is named after this kind woman who was trying to lend her a helping hand and a sympathetic. You know, she wasn't this bourgeoisie,

but she also wasn't the domineering aristocracy of her upbringing. It was this beautiful middle. She was just a mom. She was just a mom. So you would think like, okay, all this is done. Patty Hearst doesn't want anything to do with any of this anymore, except the Jonestown massacre takes place in the late seventies. Jesus. Geez, you just opened up a whole new can of worms this close to the 11th hour. That's a whole new can of worms, but it's enough of a can of worms that the whole nation

is watching as a single man, quote unquote, brainwashes almost a thousand people into killing themselves. And so now the zeitgeist has changed a little bit into this idea that like people can be convinced to do things that they really shouldn't have done. Right. So, the Hearst family petition to outgoing president Jimmy Carter. Who just went out. RIP. Outgoing as of a couple days ago after fucking really, really making that auspice work for it, dudes.

I know, yeah. He was keeping that bed warm for a long time. He really was. So Carter in the last days of his presidency issues a commutation, which is lowering the severity of somebody's crimes. Right. I forgot that he did that. Of course my mom likes him.

Peanuts, you know, full circle. Absolutely. So it goes even further though, because Patricia doesn't want just a commutation. It's Bill Clinton who's the president and he decides it's 2000 and not just a commutation, but a full on pardon is issued for Patricia Hearst Shaw. Listen, Tanya, we've all fired off a machine gun. We've all done a little bit of bank robbery. Me and Hillary used to rob the bank to take Chelsea to McDonald's. Just standard American stuff. Standard American stuff. It's so true.

Oh no, if I've done a Clinton before, that was fun. That was nice. That was fresh. Hey, season five. Look at us. See new impressions, new impressions in season five. In 2013, Bernie Shaw, her husband, and they were married that long. He passed away from cancer, leaving Patricia and her two daughters. Patricia's still going strong in 2015, which, gosh, is now 10 years ago. Jesus Christ. She had her dog, Rocket, a performance Shih Tzu, shown in the Westminster Kennel Club, and Rocket

took best in the toy category. No one is just one thing. No one is just one thing. Sometimes you love dogs that much. Yeah. Wow. Makes you think. Perhaps in her greatest claim to fame, Patricia Hurst has appeared in a smattering of John

Waters films, including the cinematic masterpiece, Serial Mom. Folks, watch Serial Mom. Serial Mom is a riot. It's just Kathleen Turner calling her neighbors and being like, Pussy, pussy. It's really funny. It's really, really funny. It's really funny. It's really, really funny. And you will see Patricia Hearst play juror number eight

or something like that. She was, she was wearing white shoes after Labor Day. And that got her killed. The serial mom did not like that. Serial mom got her for that. And rightly so, rightly so. Apparently, John Waters and Patricia Hearst are quite good friends.

That makes sense. John Waters loves a camp artifact. Patricia Hearst is a camp artifact. Yes, and they both kind of come from this like highfalutin world, like, you know, this aristocracy, American aristocracy, and they've kind of like- Consciously rejected it. Consciously rejected it and turned it on its head a little bit.

Yeah. John Waters by being outwardly gay and making movies like Serial Mom where Kathleen Turner calls her neighbors and calls them pussies. Patricia Hearst gets killed in an elevator for wearing white after Labor Day. These kind of racy and raunchy films. And of course, Patricia Hearst, you just listened to the whole story. You've gone to this point. She did all of that. We don't need to explain her any further to you. Patricia Hearst and John Waters at the start of the pandemic, they did an interview, like a chat between the two of them for highfalutin publication town and country.

They were talking, nobody was doing anything because it was locked down and the pandemic. They were just talking about the pandemic and da-da-da. One of the things that they touched on was style and how the pandemic was ruining style for everybody. Everyone was just wearing sweatpants and not going anywhere. They were talking about Patricia Hearst's particular style, and John Waters says of her, quote, you weren't really a hippie looking chick, were you? Well, a little bit. You were a good girl, gone a little rebel, then gone wrongly accused, and back to the manner born with a little weariness and a tinged of troubled glamour.

That's how I would describe your style. Oh, like spot on. Yeah. Yeah. That's it. Exactly. Yeah. And Patricia Hurst, of course, says, oh, thank you. I like the tinge of troubled glamour. That is the fucking story of Patricia Campbell Hearst Shaw or Tanya. Tanya. I Tanya. Yeah. Another another great Halloween costume for yours truly. So what the question you kind of came in with was you led with Luigi. And so I asked you, did you come out of your research for this story with any further insights

on like, I guess, applying it to the more current lens of this case that's going on right now? I definitely think that Luigi seemed to have a little bit more of a focus. He wasn't talking the stream of consciousness ideology of the SLA. And I think that's going to work in his favor. He had his elevator pitch a little cleaner, huh? Yeah. Though it had to be a little cleaner because he did commit a murder. Yeah.

It was, you know, there was no, no weaseling out of that. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. I think what I did take away though is like what gets cemented into history. And what I mean by cemented into history is like the Wikipedia article, the kind of like the vibe, the like, oh, when you hear Patty Hearst, what do you think of? The distillation. It's always much flatter and much simpler.

Yes, than the actual convoluted nature of it all. Can you believe that? On the premiere of season five, we're still telling you this shit. Like, we haven't been saying it since day one. That's pretty true. But I mean, I don't know. With hindsight and the John Waters application, the veneer of John Waters, I'm like, yeah, go Patty Hearst. But at the time, I don't know what I would have thought. Like, especially the way that she got off in the end. What a journey. What a journey. What a world.

It's kind of like a James and the Giant Peach situation that we don't know how dramatically our world is gonna change day over day. Where like one day, you know, little James is sitting at home in his like shitty boring house with his shitty boring aunts and looking out and pondering this great adventure. And in the end he ends up like going on this giant peach

around the world and meeting all of these like crazy characters much in that same way, one day she's sitting there in her like shitty walkup with Steve Weed, with her fucking bowl of decomposing Wheaties just in it with a spoon in front of her. And it's not that nice, she's just, ha ha ha. And she has no idea that in 15 minutes, a bunch of like strangers are gonna storm in

and just rock her shit. And her life is gonna just dramatically change in every conceivable way. It's kinda inspirational weirdly. In a weird way. Who's gonna be knocking, what opportunity will be knocking at your door in 2025 Taylor Basso? What group of armed strangers is going to change your life? Discombobulated, unintelligible, armed strangers going to come in and shift things around for you.

But hot, all of them. Very, very good looking. Very good looking. Yeah, yeah. Thanks for listening. If you want more infamy, we've got plenty more episodes at bittersweetinfamy.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the podcast, shoot us a few bucks via our Ko-fi account at ko-fi.com forward slash bittersweetinfamy.

But no pressure, bittersweet Infamy is free, baby. You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing, leaving a review, following us on Instagram at Bitter Sweet Infamy, or just pass the podcast along to a friend who you think would dig it. Stay sweet! My sources for this episode's been famous included, Two weeks after Peanut the Squirrel's euthanasia, owner is seeking answers justice. By Greta Cross for USA Today November 13th, 2024. Social media users weigh in on Peanut the Squirrel being euthanized. This can't be real.

By Ajene Forbes in USA Today November 2nd, 2024. Grief Anger for Peanut the Squirrel's Owner After Animal's Death is a Morning in America clip that I watched on the NewsNation YouTube channel. Why is Elon Musk Obsessed with a Euthanized Pet Squirrel in the Independent by Mike Bedigan November 4th, 2024. It's Been Harrowing! Monica Keesler Speaks Out After DECEC records prove she did not report Peanut the Squirrel by Anasri Madhapa. November 11th, 2024 for Soap Central. I also looked at the Wikipedia article for Peanut the Squirrel.

The sources that I used for this episode include an article from Town and Country entitled John Waters and Patricia Hurst on COVID, the Met Gala and 30 Years of Friendship, written by Eric Mazza, published October 29th, 2020. I watched the film Patty Hurst from 1988, directed by Paul Schrader, based on Patty Hurst's autobiography entitled Patty Hearst, Her Own Story, which was written by Patricia Hearst and Alvin Mosco.

I listened to a short podcast series from CNN called Patty Has a Gun, The Life and Crimes of Patty Hearst. It aired January 2018 through March of that same year. It heavily featured Jeffrey Toobin's book, American Heiress, The Wild Saga of the Kidnapping, Crimes, and Trial of Patty Hearst. It was published 2016 and that's where the majority of my sources came from was that American Heiress book. I also looked at the Wikipedia for Luigi Mangione to start us off in the episode. A big shout out to all our season subscribers. You're still going strong in 2025 and we appreciate you so much. Thank you Lizzie D, Dylan the

person, Saksha the cat, Erica Jo Brown, Soph, Jonathan Mountain, and our newest member, Terry. Thank you guys so much. Remember, you can head over to coffee.com slash bittersweet infamy. That's K-O dash F-I dot com slash bittersweet infamy. Sign up as a subscriber as well. And it's there that as a subscriber, you can access the Bittersweet Film Club. We have our next episode upcoming with Battlefield Earth. Go check it out. Also on ko-fi.com, K-O-F-I.com,

there's a few extra goodies that are free for everybody, including the Bittersweet mixtape from Christmas. So super fun. Bittersweet Infamy is a proud member of the 604 Podcast Network. This episode was lovingly edited by Alex McCarthy with help from Alexi Johnson. The interstitial music you heard earlier is by Mitchell Collins and the song you're listening to now is Tea Street by Brian Steele.

Welcome to season five, everybody.