Bittersweet Infamy - #142 - Fact or Fiction: Disappearing Acts

Episode Date: April 26, 2026

April Fool's Fact or Fiction special! Josie tells Taylor three stories about people deciding to vanish: the masked wrestler who convinced everybody he died in the 1978 Jonestown massacre; the Japanese trend of jōhatsu (蒸発), or disappearing into thin air; and the literary legend who swapped limelight for... lightning? Two of these stories are true, and one is a lie. Guess along with Taylor and see if you can spot the sham!

Welcome to Bittersweet Invenu. I'm Taylor Basso. And I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast, we share the stories that live on and in me. The strange and the familiar. The tragic and the comic. The bitter. And the sweet.

April Fooligans, you bunch of hooligans. It's me. The Joker in the deck, Taylor, April Fool's Basso. And then April the Fool. I. Josie, parentheses, truth or jokesy. Mitchell. Reporting.

Report, please. What is your, what is the report? Please give me the numbers. One and 27. Okay. 39. Yeah. 17. Okay. Give us two more. We can make them lottery numbers. Oh, five and a hundred and nine.

What if it doesn't go up that high? Can you give them an alternative if it doesn't go up that high? 99. Damn. There you go, folks. You're welcome. Split the pot. Let me look at the analytics. Not that many ways. You got this. you do in Josephine? I'm good. At first I thought you said, how do you do it, Josephine? And I was really flattered. How do you do it? How do you do it? I'm going to ask people that for now. So how are you do it? I'm going to say, how do you do it? Well, I'll tell them how you do it because you may be wondering, how are they talk about April Fool's? It's probably mid to late April when you're

hearing this. Well, that's because April Fool's last all month on bittersweet infamy. And when we say, how do you do it? The answer is some of the stories are. true and some of the stories are lies. True. I mean, or is it a lie? It could be neither. I don't think we've ever done one where it could be neither because I don't quite... I feel like I have offered up. I don't quite know how that would work. I have offered up a neither and then just said, no, the shirt was yellow, not red. Right. Right. So that's what I've got to look forward to today is because I'm, you and me both, the audience, because I have to guess, I'll get to do it to her face to a smug little face, which one of these is the truth and which one of these is the lie.

You at home, you'll just have to do your best to play along from home. We recommend you don't Google them. We really recommend not Googling that because that's what we did to begin with. So you're just going to... That's how we got started on this. You know what I realized though, Taylor? We are in one year anniversary of Titanic April. What a great time that was, Josie. What was your favorite thing that you learned about the Titanic when we did Titanic April our suite of Titanic episodes one year ago. Oh gosh. There's a lot.

Oh, I loved learning the fact that James Cameron and Bill Paxton were in a submarine when 9-11 happened. And then they came up. Yes. They surfaced and learned about 9-11. That's what I learned about in Titanic April. In Canada, we have a very beloved series of one-minute-long TV segments called Canadian Heritage Moments.

And they're all just like, here's a can't. Canadian person who invented something, a scene of how they invented it. Here's how the Canadian flag happened as told by one of the people who designed the Canadian flag. You got to get that Canadian content up. You got to make sure you're hitting the percentages. I would argue that Bill Paxton and James Cameron emerging from the ruins of the Titanic to find out that 9-11 had occurred is like that for America. It's like an America, a moment in our heritage. Yeah, that's what unites us. That is. And then the last frame of the Canadian heritage moment is always like a zoom in and it'll be like, you know, Lizzie Trout became the first woman doctor in Halifax or whatever it is.

So that would just be like, James Cameron went on to direct the highest gross in film of all time. Avatar. You know what I mean? Some swelling, swelling strings. Something really beautiful about saying it in an Irish accent, too. Because that's who built Titanic. Well, there you go now. I got Titanic nerded up, nerded out, nerded out, nerded.

nerded in around, under, beneath, above all the prepositions. In and out and upside down and flip-flop, sloppy. Yeah, for the entirety of April. Yeah, I'm excited for our next special segment. You're just about to do one, aren't you? Oh, yeah. Like our next special segment is coming up. I know.

When we were putting together a Titanic April, we were like, wait, that means we're going to get rid of April fools. Are we sure we want to do that? But April 12th. But no one cared. Is the anniversary. And then nobody gave a shit. Yeah.

Nobody even mentioned it to us. So it was fine. But we care, damn it. And that's why you listen. You listen because we care. You listen because we're not AI gen. We're not robots. We're not, I think probably some of those riverside clips might involve AI at some point.

But we're not using generative AI creatively, God damn it. That's what I mean. That's what I mean to say. No. No. And we don't use it in our editing and we don't use it. And I don't, unless it's snuck in. I don't use it in my storywriting at all.

No, no. I mean, as you have pointed out, now almost like two years ago, it's getting harder and harder to Google things. Fuck that shit. And the classical sense of Google, because AI is... We're the fools. Inserting, it's dirty, dirty little nose. Little robot dick, it's little robot proboscis.

It's fucking slurping up all the... You know what? I don't want to go on a rant, but I'll say one thing. As a casual observation, entirely independent of judgment, I've noticed that people use AI to compensate for insecurities. So it's like, what is the thing that I'm most self-conscious about? AI can, you know. That's true.

There's no way out and self-improvement but through. Take it from me. I had to improve and still need to. It never ends. Why get a robot to do it? But I try every day, gosh darn it. Every day. You wake up, try a little hiatus.

Hopefully you don't have to try so hard in your last half of April because today's go on vague. Yeah, I am. I'm excited, assuming that everything goes off as it is intended to go off, and there are no, you know, spontaneous shortages of oil due to the Strait of Hormuz situation, etc, etc, etc. I'm going to be joining Rui and Rui's mom, Maribel in Peru. How fun. I've never been to South America. Nothing by.

Specifically, they've booked. to tour and invited me along, so I'm going to be doing kind of some of the, the big name stuff. Yeah. To do with Machu Picchu. Yeah. To do with seeing Lima, seeing Cusco, seeing Lake Titicaca. Oh, yeah. Pisco Sowers.

Piononos de Vitrina. I'm making it a goal to have a Piano while I'm there. Yes. So this is, to be clear, we've talked about Peru a couple of times on the show, I would say. Yeah. It seems like a really cool culture, really beautiful spots. And I'm excited to learn more. It's going to be fun.

I hope so. I'm going to be with Rui and Rui's mom. Yeah. So here's the things that I'm shitting it about. Number one, traveling with someone else and their parent, you're always like, okay, I don't want to get into a fight with their parent. I don't want to get into a fight with them in front of their parent. I want to handle myself correctly if those two bicker.

Because, you know, it's travel. You know, tempers, flare, attrition happens to the best of us, right? To the very best of us. Yeah. So I straight up had a convo with Rui. I was like, hey, what is the best way for me? to support you or conduct myself in this situation or this situation. Smart. So, uh-huh, uh-huh. See, I told you, I'm getting better every day. I'm learning shit from the old bad shit.

I'm learning new shit, better shit. Did AI teach you that? Fuck no. Okay. No, fuck no. You hear me AI? Yes. The answer is yes. Yeah. It hears you. Definitely. Always. Sorry, I didn't quite get that. The next thing that I'm shitting it about a little bit, plane travel, just a couple six-hour flights back to back. I'll be okay, but not, you know, not ideal. Further away, given that we're both on the, on the western coast, further away than I expect it, because I'm silly, I didn't expect it to take so long. I don't know why. Because you're heading east as well, right? Yeah, a bit east, yep. Yeah. Lima is two hours ahead of Vancouver time zone-wise.

It's almost like you're heading to... Well, yeah, it's my time zone. We'll be in the same time zone. We're going to be in the same time zone. Oh, look at us. Finally found a new thing to have in common. So sweet. I love that.

That's so sad. Listen to how sad. We are, oh, my God, we're going to be in the same time zone. We probably won't talk. But we'll know. And that'll be nice. But we'll know. That's just that we'll be looking at the same moon, won't we?

That's very nice. Yeah, yeah. And then the third thing that I'm shitting it about a little bit is the altitude. Oh, yeah. Uh-huh. I'm going to the Andes motherfuckers. And you're a sea level baby through and through. I'm a sea level baby.

And not only that, so just to give you like the, the, just to give you the quick and dirty of Peruvian topography. Well, the way that it is organized in this beautiful place, we got Lima's right down seaside, proper seaside, sea level. It's right on the water. Okay. Shrimp and, you know. Oh, oh, Cevice, to be. the band. Then, Gusco, which is the place, I would say it's the largest major city of many people on the way to

Machu Picchu. Okay. You go there, you're going up about 6,000 feet or so. In my head, this is about Mexico City, Denver, that kind of height. Yeah. The air's a little bit thinner, but you'll make it. Yeah. I'm also conscious that one of the Peruvian stories that we did was a story where a plane disintegrated over the Peruvian Amazon. So don't think that's escaped my notice. But also remember the story we did on the Emperor's New Groove. Fun. Fun. Fun for the whole family.

That's the one to really focus on. Maybe I'll run into David Spade. What's he doing politically these days? We still hang out with him? Hard to say. So Cusco is high enough that they say that when you get into town from Lima to Cusco, most people are, that you need to take a day, like an entire day, that you don't plan anything because you are going to need to get acclimatized.

You're going to need to feel out the new temperature and the new air pressure and the altitude and all that. There's bottles of oxygen, cocoa leaves, you know, do what you got to do. Okay, wow. And then from there, Machu Picchu is higher, but I want to, I want to soar even past Machu Picchu and talk to another landmark that we're scheduled to see, which is called Vinikunka. That's the height of Everest base camp. It's about, like, Vinikunka is 5,200 meters or 17,060 feet above sea level. What the-f? So I'm shitting it about like, I.

I'm worried that, like, you know how on hot ones you try to come in with some provado, but the hot, the Carolina Reaper Pepper humbles you? Yeah. You're like, I don't need that milk. This is the hot ones of altitude, and I need to come in with humility. You need to come in packing dairy. Give me, give me that llama milk. Yeah.

Armano, please. Yeah. Let me knock that shit back because I need it. This is spicy. This is some spicy and thin air. I will, of course, as I do, do a Peru story, naturally, have to. Peruse for a Peru story? A peruse, I have a particular story in mind because, like, you know, you like to visit the things that you're talking about.

Isn't that fun? Yeah. Just know that I'll be gone, so we're pre-taping these April episodes to a certain degree, and then I'll be gone until, like, very early May. Hopefully it should be seamless, but if things end up getting jumbled up in terms of the delivery of next episode, you'll know why. April showers, bring my flowers. You got it. Speaking of flowers, if you want to buy us a bouquet, you can subscribe. over at the Bitter Sweet Film Club at coffee.com, K-O-H-F-I-I-com slash bittersweet of me.

I love that as an option. It's like, buy us a coffee or buy some flowers. Cheer up the living room for us, you know? I love when they come in a vase and you get to keep the vase. That's lovely. It's like two for one. Yes. And vases are good like if an intruder comes in and you need to just bash them with something

that is like non-essential. A nice scook and vase. That's what you want. That you got free with a gift. Gosh. And it breaks apart into shards, which I'm not going to... You know what? We don't need to start inciting things.

No. Point being. But... Point being... Coffee.com. Coffee.com. Slash bittersweet infamy. Three bucks a month.

And you get access to a trove of bittersweet film club episodes. We've started doing video podcast. It's a lot of fun. We want you to come over and join us and play around in the space. And suggest movies for us to watch, right, Josie? We really... love to have suggestions from you all. It's so nice. Please do it. Even the bad suggestions, even the bad suggestions. Oh, those are good. There's no bad suggestions. There's no bad suggestions.

I mean, there's bad suggestions. I had to veto Rui for sex killer. That was the one thing. I was like, I won't do. This is like asking like, just do the puzzle from Hellraiser one more time for old times sake. No, we've contained the evil. We're not letting it back out of the box. I'm not fucking stupid. I'm not. This. is a sequel, bitch. I know what's happening. I'm not asking AI about this. I am not doing it. No. No. No. And if you want to, just, just for our new listeners, if you want to hear the whole literal blow by blow of me recapping sex killer, the lost and found vampire porno from Vancouver, that's episode like 54, I think. It's one of our Halloween episodes. It's, uh, it's fun for everyone but me, I think. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah.

Yeah. Fun for everyone but me. Which makes it even more fun for everyone else. You think about it that way. And what are we doing now? What are we just about to record? Oh, we are here in this April month. Does she know? Did she remember? We're going to watch Roar, starting Tippy Hedron and Melanie Griffith. Yes. I did blank out a little bit. I have to say. No, I saw it. No, no worries. I saw when you knew, too, your face changed. You need to, but when you get onto traitors, you can't be doing that. You see. I know. Okay. I know. I know. The cat jumped up, I got distracted. I thought we were talking about April Fool's.

We're just about to do deception game. I know. You got to get frosty, get frosty. Have a shot of vodka. What do you need to do here? Tighten up. And Roar is a movie that is notorious for a lot of reasons to do with its production, e.g.

This was like a little bit of a family affair passion project with Tippy and Melanie and the husband whose name I don't remember who I think is like the director-producer. Yeah, but they got divorced and the movie took so long that the divorce was finalized by the time that movie was released, right? Yeah. Exactly, exactly. And then also these are untrained wild animals who were like mauling people on sat. We'll go all into it. Mitchell does our special guest star, Mitchell Collins, Josie's husband, does a lot of really fun research for us and tells us the little backstories of them and does a great job with the video editing too. He's a researcher, you know? Taylor, are you ready for me to blow your mind? Before you do, before you fucking explode my cabesa like a right melon, just splattering fucking brain matter all over the fucking place. People screaming and crying. Would you explain the rules of the game that we play every April, except the last one, to our listeners?

So if any of you all have ever played the fabulous, wonderful game, two truths and a lot. lie, the setup is very similar. I have come this fateful day in April 2026 with three separate minfamist stories. Memfamai. And by mimfamai, I just mean like a shorter story. RIP, sign of the cross. RIP, we disappear further up our own ass every year

at the set pieces. We go, stop our explanation and one to fucking give an explanation of the one that is nested within it. Yes. Absolutely. So true. So true. You're here because. we care. Not because you

Yeah. Because we're far up our own ass, not a fucking robot's ass. How about that, Jeff Bezos? How about that, Sam Altman? What about it? Okay, so as part of our month of April gimmick, I bring three short stories

and I tell them to Taylor. And Taylor has to decide which of these three short stories that I have brought is a lie, is a falsehood, does not contain the entire truth. A fibroo. Now, it may contain some element of the truth, but it is not containing the entire truth. And I am aware that I have found this loophole and made it quite big, picked out of the gap a little bit.

A reputation. A reputation she has. I know that. I have, I've thought. about that as I put these stories together. But you can't argue with results. Your record is a hell of a lot better than mine. You saw my blank face of what movie rewikes. You can't. This false false modesty doesn't become the world champion, Josie. Chin out, chest out. Lie to me. Ow. Oh, shit. Oh, icy hot. Yeah, for sure. A little tiger bomb on that guy.

Okay. Let us begin. April's fact or fiction. April fools, two truths and a lie. Are you ready? I'm infamous. It's act. April fools, fact or fiction, two truths and a lie. Actually, better put bittersweet infamy at the front of it so people will know. So it's the bitter sweet infamy, April fools, factor fiction, two truths and a lie, minfamous.

But I'm going to start it with tapiral fools and truth or jokses. Present. Present. The bittersweet, yes, yes. Sure, sure, sure. Lay it on me now. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. I can't remember that whole thing. No, you got to try. No quitters. Welcome to presented by Tapril Fools and Truth or Jokesy Bittersweet Infamies April fact or fiction

colon two truths and a lie, Mymphomai. 70%. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's a passing grade. That's a passing grade. I got a little ride there.

We will not be holding you back this year. Yeah. Uh-uh. Mm-mm. We'll do it. Dees get degrees. That's what all my students say. Aren't you an educator?

Yes. And let me educate you on some stories now, Taylor. By the all means. We are discovering the true or false tales of the disappeared. What does it mean to be able to disappear off the things? of the year. Oh, I love it. Oh, that's fascinating. Yes, that's a, that is, uh, something I think about. Really? In terms of, like, how people do it? I think about it probably in the sadder way of people who are disappeared without their consent, you know? Yeah. Those kind of stories just often really haunt me.

Yeah. Conversely, I have been ringside for situations where somebody, like, faked their own death. Not ringside. Ringside's very much overselling it, but like Rose Ed on some, Like a very distant... Yeah. The nosebleeds. I've been on the nosebleeds on someone else's situation like that. It's a fascinating thing. Yeah.

And I couldn't, for my own personal well-being, did not dive into stories of folks who've been disappeared. Okay. Against their consent. I just can't. Because we're keeping April Fool's tasteful. We got to. We're keeping April.

Keeping at light. Because we can't be making jokes. We've got to keep it somewhat light. And again, I got caught out the last time because one of my stories was a little too serious, you know? So you got to, it's the traitors. It's all vibe shit, right? It's all vibe shit, yeah.

How do you know each other? How do you know this other person what they're going to bring to the floor here? You've listened, and listeners, you've listened to us for like 140 episodes. You know us as good as we know ourselves. If not better, my dogs. But yes, all tonight's stories have to do with the willing disappeared folks who choose to take themselves out of the game. But not like a weird death way, but like just disappear away. Okay.

Lay it on me. Okay. What do we got? Tonight's stories will just some catchy phrase. Rod Serling, is that you? I can't believe you. We got Rod Serling from the Twilight Zone to narrate our program. Acclaimed Ward Smith and smooth talker Rod Serling.

This is amazing. I can't believe we got him. Okay. Our first story, I'm going to take you to Huntsville, Alabama. The year, 1979, we have Marjorie Balasak. She's an older woman, and she is just confounded by the way the State Department is handling her case. And Taylor, Taperl, Fools. Yeah, that's me.

Yeah. You might be wondering, what could her case be? I'm sure you're about to tell me. She picked up a Life magazine not too long ago within this story, and she opened to a full spread of the Jones Town Massacre. Wow, okay. She looked at the photograph. They're printed in Life magazine, and you know they're big magazines. Big as life itself.

And she spotted there what she was convinced to be a photograph of her son's body alongside his wife. and their childs. Damn, that's upsetting. She told the press, quote, there is no doubt in my mind about that figure being the body of my son. He's lying with his dark, brownish, Auburn, curly head pointing toward the bottom of the picture, end quote. So this is what she was telling the Jonestown Task Force, led by the State Department. Mm-hmm.

And she insisted that she be able to see her son's body to identify him. Now, we all know, maybe, the Jonestown Massacre. It occurred in Guyana. Do you want to tell us a little bit about the Jonestown Massacre? I feel like it's... Hey, wait a minute. What? Sure, sure, but you got lucky that I knew it.

Well, of course you know it. Tell me a little bit about the Jonestown Massacre. My understanding of the Jonestown Massacre is that a charismatic American cult leader named Jim Jones started in the, I want to say the Bay Area of California, and he amassed a large following, with whom he then eventually moved to the jungles of Guyana in South America. Then when it came to bear that relatives of these people were getting concerned and requesting help from the government, a sitting senator went down to visit the situation to see what was happening, at which time Jim Jones commanded all of the members to,

drink poisoned flavor aid. Laura says it's Kool-Aid. I know it's flavor aid. See, I knew you knew. Yeah, fair enough. Fair enough. I don't know why I was fronting. Then there was a shootout at the airway strip that also killed the senator in question, the visiting American senator. See, I didn't know that. Damn. Why am I telling you your story? You tell me what is the, tell me more. Tell me more. Is that about right? Yeah. Is that about right? Yeah. Well, and part of the fallout from all of this massive dead Americans in a foreign country is that trying to identify their bodies before DNA testing was available was a massive undertaking. There were dental records, but for our girl, Marjorie Ballasock, none of the dental records matched her son, Jerry.

Still, she was convinced she had seen his photo in the Life magazine. And she said, just, I will, I will come to Bay Area. When you bring the bodies from McGeana, I will look at the 20 unidentified adult bodies and I can tell you and I can confirm without a shadow of a doubt that my son is part of that group. However, the rigmarole of all of this happening and crazy press of it, obviously it shocked the world, the bodies could not get out of Guyana fast enough and out of the Guyanese son to not These are rainforest conditions. These are rainforest conditions. Yes.

Do you ever get a cut in the rainforest? Like heels like that. Oh. So these bodies, by the time they got them back to Oakland, California, they were not in a state where they could be identified. Now, Marjorie was insistent. She said, no, no, no. I want you to look and see if there's a pin in any of the pelvices of these bodies. Because my boy, Jerry, was a professional wrestler.

And he as playing Mr. X in the 1970s injured himself on a motorcycle, and it ruined his professional wrestling career. And so I know for a fact that he has a pin in his pelvis because that changed the trajectory of his life. That's how he landed down and became part of a victim of the Jonestown Massacre. Okay. You're speaking my language now. I am taking notes as you're speaking, by the way. I hope that intimidates you. I've got like a detective notepad here that I'm referring to. I love it. Wait, is it a... Stina-grap? Like, does the paper go over the top? No. Okay. You know what? No, but just for you, after this one, since we're already mid-this one, I won't crack a new notebook. But I have a Moomin stenographer pad that I could use. I've been waiting to crack out.

Oh, ooh, Moomin's on the hunt. The State Department told Marjorie Balsack, listen, your son is not part of this. We know that your son is wanted and that he is on the lamb. And really, it is kind of confounding that you are so up in our business and being so insistent that it is his dead body that you saw in The Life magazine. Because we would think that if we told you no, it is most likely not, you'd be thanking us. And yet, you're getting pissed. That's good news. Yeah, this is good news. Why are you so pissed that your son is not a dead body? Yes, exactly. Exactly.

Well, she was pissed enough that when they refused to fly the body, whomever it would be, to Huntsville, Alabama, she went ahead and had a gravestone made for her son in the family plot. And it read his name, the years he was alive. And at the very bottom, quote, damn the State Department. You know, though? For real, kind of damn the State Department sometimes. Yeah, no, sometimes. You got to damn that State Department. department. Oh, fuck yeah. Now more than ever. Yeah. So Marjorie wasn't wrong in terms of her son's past. He was a professional

wrestler and he went by the name of Mr. X. Was he masked? He was a masked figure. There we go. Okay. Yes. And he was known as a jobber. Is this term familiar? Yes, yes. Very familiar, man. You may. You may. You may. Jomstown? Jobber? I'll keep it track. I've got a wide range, but I didn't know. I was unaware of your game, Josie Mitchell. Let me tell you. A jobber is a pro wrestler whose job, hence the name jober,

whose job it is to do the job is the term that they use. And that means you have to lose in a way to make another guy look really big and strong. So if you're the jobber, you don't look as good as the main guy. Usually you don't have titles and things. you just pop in and then someone kind of beats you up and boy do they look big and strong to the audience. That's kind of the gimmick. Especially when you're Jerry Balasak and you are 6'1 and 300 pounds. And we're in a mask.

Yeah. Big boy taking a dive. Whoever is beating him is looking real, real good. So he did suffer a motorcycle accident in 1977 where he fractured his hip. They did have to put a pin in his hip. And it was from that point on that he decided wrestling, I need to maybe cool it a little bit on that. I'm going to purchase a motorcycle. I don't know. Store.

What do they call this? A shop. It's a motorcycle shop. A dealership. A dealership. There we go. Going to sell motorcycles. That will be my business now.

Love the motorcycle. Even, it put a pin in my hip, but I still love it. Room. Room. Room. Right. Yes. Yeah.

Pretty quick into his experience as a motorcycle shop owner. He was writing some bad checks, some bad fat checks. Can't do that. Fat enough and in a foreign country to get parts from the Caribbean, that the FBI took a little bit of notice and decided, you know what? We got to get this guy. He was wanted, and it looked like he was probably going to serve 10 years if he were found. Yeah.

Once the feds are in your business, that's not good. Well, a woman, a Huntsville native by the name of Deborah Kindred, who Jerry was dating at the time. She said, fuck it. Let's run away. She was finalizing her divorce when Balasak and her broke into her second cousin's home, a man by the name of Ricky Allen Weta, and they stole his birth certificate,

his driver's license, and his social security card. And Jerry Ballasock was no more. He assumed the identity of Ricky Allen Weta. So, Deborah and now Ricky, as we shall call him, they are on the lamb. They flint around the Caribbean, they do a little bit of this, a little bit of that. They finally land in Washington State, which is a little interesting because what the how, why not a foreign country? Twin Peaks fans. Exactly.

Yeah, yeah. Love tall trees. Yeah. Ambient mists. Why not? Fresh air here. That Seattle suburb of Renton is just so nice. Can't keep away.

Notoriously, notoriously, the most beautiful part of the Pacific Northwest is Renton, Washington, for sure. Yeah. They lived there as the wedas. She had her son from her first marriage, but they had three more kids. And he even got a job at Boeing, which is headquartered in Seattle. He did get fired when HR figured out that his degree from the University of Cambridge in the UK was falsified. So, oopsie. Who among us? Who among us?

April fools, you know? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Notice how my graduation date was April 1st. Okay, that's on you. That's not on you. I left foreshadowing for you. That's on you.

That's literary. You're welcome. And it seemed as though no one was, besides that little issue with HR. Yeah. Snag. Snag, really. It really seemed like he was going to just be, this Weta guy for the rest of his life until 1989 when Ricky Weta was arrested and tried for attempted murder.

Real Ricky Weta or fake Ricky Weta? A man named Ricky Weta. Ah, okay. Oh, more to be revealed. More to be revealed. Details forthcoming, I hope. The attempted murder was a situation at Target practice, a shooting range on top. Tiger Mountain, which is in the state of Washington close by, and two business partners got into it, and one of them, a man named Ricky Wedda, shot at the other one. Missed him, but still shot a few rounds over at him.

Rounds is a lot. Shot a few bullets at him. Our listenership and the membership of the NRA have a lot of overlaps. We just want to really make sure that we get those terminologies. Exactly. Appropriate, you know? Keep it in line. In the ensuing trial, this man named Ricky.

Uwetta led the Fifth Amendment again and again to the point that it got a little silly here. He, it's in the court record that the lawyer cross-examining Ricky Weta, also known as John Doe, asked him simple questions like, where did you go to high school? And John Doe replies, I believe I got a GED in the state of Washington in 1979. To which the lawyer replies, when you were a teenager, did you a kid? attend high school, John Doe. I refuse to answer that question also, lawyer says, and you used to be a professional

wrestler, didn't you? Mr. Huetta, John Doe replies, and I also refuse to answer that question. Yeah. Okay, so two things here, two things. Number one, for our non-American listeners or those who don't have a grasp of the American legal system,

pleading the Fifth Amendment, tell us. Pleading the Fifth Amendment means that you do, you reserve your right, you have the right to not answer a question to not give information. It can be very helpful in certain situations. It can be kind of damning in other situations because it shows that you might have something to hide, but you also have the right to privacy. So if you do not want to share that information with the court, you are not legally required to. But there is some drawback to pleading the fifth.

Sure. If I may offer my perception that I am, will qualify by saying that I'm by no means a legal scholar. Well, bittersweet infamy law school. We are both proud graduates. We're not accredited, but we're not accredited and we can't tell, we have to stop telling people that we are accredited. The damn state department got in our business again. Damn the state department. My perception is that often the catch 22 when it comes to pleading the Fifth Amendment is that it is strategically advantageous, but optically it makes you look. reputational, it makes you look like you have something to hide because the specific idea is that you are not answering because your answer may in some way incriminate you of a crime.

And so when people don't answer something, it looks like they're not answering it because they have something to hide, which, to be fair, often is the case, but it is still like often the best thing for them to do strategically in that moment because to say anything would open up the opportunity for that thing, which is now on the record in court, to be analyzed and picked depart in ways that are not advantageous to them. Yeah. And as you point out some of those disadvantages of pleading the fifth, it should be known that the man named Ricky Wedda was sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempted murder

in the first degree. Right. But it should also be noted that at that time, at that trial, it was found that this man was not Ricky Wedda, but a man. named Jerry Balassock. Burr-Bah-Ber. Well, sure. Get in a novella, right?

Yeah. What a soap opera this has become. Truly, indeed. And it gets to be even more so because Balasak, long after his mother has created his tombstone in Huntsville, Alabama. Damn the State Department. He is in prison, and he, after 20 years, is released. He, what is that called?

He does his time. He's rehabilitated, gang, gang, gang. It's all good. He takes another bizarre turn, telenovela-esque, in his life. He's released in 2003, and he changes his name from Jerry Balasok, his god-given name, Huntsville, Alabama name. His mother gave him that. Well, he don't care. He shits right on it and changes his name to Harrison Raines Hanover.

Love it, alliterative. H.R.H, which is also His Royal Highness, so, like, kingly. Oh, damn, that's very good. Yeah, Hanover, too. too. That's, yeah, that's quite nice. Sounds fake. Sounds like a fake name for sure. Oh, yeah. But cool. Oh, yeah. But cool. Yeah. Yeah, if you're going to pick one, might as well. And you're following his release from prison, he is married to two different women.

And both of them file for protection orders against him, citing domestic abuse. Not fun. After these allegations, he moves to Nicaragua in 2012, where he is again in trouble. He is arrested and charged with crimes related to sexual assault. Not great. He is in prison in Nicaragua for this, and he suffers a heart attack while in prison in Granada, Nicaragua, due to how hot the prisons were, how un-air-conditioned, poorly ventilated. On his way to the hospital, he died. Even to this day, though, there is no confirmed death certificate.

There is no known location of his burial. We know that there is the damn the State Department tombstone in Huntsville. That's like a symbolic. Yes, that's symbolic. That was his death in Jonestown in the massacre. But. Right. Yeah.

Right. Death out of this Nicaraguan prison, there is no definitive proof. So we can only assume that Jerry Ballasak, aka Ricky Wedda, aka Harrison Rand's Hanover is in fact dead. Perhaps he's still here. Maybe he's listening to this podcast right now. You might be listening right now.

The end question mark. Very good. Very good. Very interesting. Very interesting stuff. Yeah. A little wrestle lore in there for you. Uh-huh.

That's a fun one. Jabber, jabber. Jabber, yeah. Yeah. I'm trying not to take the wrestling thing too. very much into account because that's, that could be a distraction. Yeah. In a lying story, just like, right herring.

Oh, this is, here's a little, some keys to jingle over Taylor and, you know, whatever. Very interesting. You know what? I'll tell you that my gut is telling me that that's true for a few reasons. Okay. Tell me why. Tell me why. The way I see it is that is not a story that's especially well suited to the half lie.

Just because there's so much kooky shit in there. that let's say part of it is real, then there's no real need to elaborate on that, like, really, unless, so then you go to, okay, is it all a lie? That doesn't sound right for a few reasons. Number one, it's all very involved. And I'm not calling you lazy, but doing three stories and one of them is this, you know what I mean? Right. And it's not true. It's just entirely whole cloth. I don't know that I buy that. I think that your taste level would not make you put things like domestic abuse and sexual assault and a story. if it wasn't true. Perhaps if we were doing this game privately, but not on the air. Oh. You think I'm so refined.

Why thank you? Which is not to say, like, you know what? On like a purely ethical grounds, I don't know if I would object to that in the sport of gamesmanship, but I don't think you would do it. Okay. I don't think you would do it. The wrestling stuff sounded true. Or did I sprinkle that in there just for you?

Is that the lie? You might have just taken a real wrestler and given him this fake story or something. But that name, the thing of the thing of that. the thing of like Mr. X, mass jobber, puts other guys over, gets disillusioned because he gets a pin in his hip, that's legit. Like, that's the story of every wrestler.

That makes perfect sense to me. It's the story of the movie, the wrestler, yeah. It's the story of maybe she just cribbed it from Aronofsky. What you can say? Hey, hey. Yeah, I would say also that I don't think you would use the Jonestown massacre for Soxen this way

if it wasn't true. Yeah, your story rung true. The details hanged to It's not so very crazy. There's just enough, like, extra the girlfriend character doesn't need to be there. She's real, probably. I think that's real. Okay, Taylor and his Moomin notebook.

You're going to love this. Check this bad boy. She gorgeous. It says, you are such a good friend to me, which is appropriate because you are such a good friend to me. Aw, that's why I'm lying to your face. That's great. It's got, like, clovers all over it.

It's clearly like a little bit of a St. Patrick's Day Spreegy kind of one. Yeah, a little lucky. This is your lucky notebook. And then it's just like a stenopad. Yep. So I will use this Moomin stenopad. God. Amazingly designed just off the jump here.

Yeah, I'll use this. I'll use this to make my notes, okay? Good. Let the fun begin. Now, that was story. number one. Please welcome to story number two. Rod Serling, everybody.

Round of applause for Rod Serling. Okay. Is she lying or is she just unprepared? I can't tell. This could all be a ploy though. She'd be a perfect traitor. Because she's always laughing. She's a weasily lass.

You know? So true. Okay. In Japan, there are certain moving companies that work just below the radar, not so low that it is unlawful, but they work in a way such that everything is above board, but they are dealing with disappearing people who want to be removed from the map. Something in their life has caused them to want to desire an entirely new existence. You woke up one day and you saw that your husband put milk in your coffee again and he knows your fucking lactose intolerant and you can't do it anymore.

You just can't do it anymore. One more fucking day of milk. Looking at this man. Yes. So true. Okay, interesting. Tell me more. There is a name for these people who willingly want to disappear from their lives. And they're called the Johatsu. In Japanese, this term actually means evaporation.

These people simply evaporate from society and condense elsewhere in their evaporation. Beautiful imagery. Wow. Yes. So the Johatsu are shrouded in mystery, as they must be, to start. a whole new life. But to do that, it takes a lot of help. It takes a lot of work. And so there are these companies called the Yonigaya. Yonigaya roughly translates to fly-by-night shops. You can also think of them as night movers. You engage them in their services and they help you to not only physically move the objects, move your home that you want to move, but they will...

Oh, wow. Yes. They will provide you with a new identity, a new home to move into, a whole new existence. The let me bring my piano with me. For a fee, the more stuff you want to bring. Well, nothing comes for free. Yeah. No, I assume.

I'm not a fucking idiot. I know, I know. But what a service. It truly. If it exists. If it exists. If it exists, what is, what a, if it exists, do you have their business card? Like I said, they are not, you know.

They don't advertise. They're not big on the advertisement. Yes, yes. Word of mouth. But there is one well-known and confirmed Yoni Gaya called Yonigaya T-S Corporation, T-S-C. The CEO is a woman by the name of Mijo Saita, and she herself. is a jojatsu. She has disappeared from another life into this life. So in Yonigaya, TSC, they help about 100 to 150 people a year vanish. They move them, evaporate them, disappear them, but a willing and

wanted disappearance. So to give you a sense of who is requesting and engaging the services of a corporation like Yonigaya T.S. Miho Saita shares a story of of course no names. Never. But she had a client whose son hadn't been sleeping.

And her husband, who worked at a pharmaceutical company, got into the habit of giving their son powerful sedatives to sleep. And the woman was very worried about her son and was worried that these doses would had the potential to turn into an overdose. And she felt strongly enough that she engaged Yonigaya TSC, Mijosa's company, and wanted to,

along with her son, disappear. Now, you might notice that there's kind of undertones of domestic situations. Yeah, yeah. It's more to this story, sounds like. Yes. Domestic violence is definitely one of the contributing factors of the folks who engage the Yonigaya. Yep. Get me out of here as safely as you can in a way that he can't find me. Yes, yes. Or I guess whoever can't find me, but I imagine often he.

Domestic violence is a common reason to engage the Yonigaya. Other factors include divorce or not getting a divorce, but rather just wanting to leave your spouse. In Japan, historically and currently, it is very difficult to get a divorce. The bureaucratic proceedings are involved and very, very, time-consuming and very expensive. And so some people decide that they'd rather become... Why not be a ghost? Exactly.

Yeah. Jo Hatsu. Exactly. Or some people who engage these services are folks who feel a very intense pressure to succeed and they have failed. So young adults who fail special and important exams or certification exams, that kind of thing. Yeah.

Yeah. The pressure of that. Yeah. And this includes businessmen, business women who feel like they're being crushed by their jobs. Yeah. Overworked to death, death by overworking. Jesus. Yeah.

Chronic gamblers who are trying to evade their debt collectors. Yeah. I mean, I get that. Yeah. Just, you know, make sure they pay you out front. Yes, exactly on that one. And that should be noted that the Yonigaya, they do background checks, they do their homework. they are not engaging people who are trying to run from the law.

That is not part of what they do. So this isn't a better call-s-all situation. Correct. Right. They are going to disappear you so that the police don't find you or whatever. Yeah, okay, okay. They will if, like, you know, the mob or the yakuza are looking for you. They'll help with that. Well, I hope so.

And one of the things that makes this section attractive option in Japan is that in Japan, getting someone's private information, getting their background information, any type of details that are personal to them is extremely hard to do in Japan. Privacy laws are very strict and ironclad. So... Sounds nice. This business... What's that like? This business can actually go through the process of evaporating somebody, of disappearing them. Because, for example, if you are married to... to somebody. Let's say we're married, Taylor.

Aren't we? Really? Yeah, we are. Our wedding anniversary was April 1st. Oh, the long prank. The long prank. Long game. I was wondering who that man you lived with was. Me too. Every morning when I look at him as he sleeps.

Oh, yeah. Imagine we were married. Neither of us could find out the other's banking information if we didn't have the others express permission and probably had to be in the room when the information was shared. Okay. So if you suddenly go missing or if I suddenly go missing, then you can't even look at where I just made a credit card payment. Like it's that kind of ironclad. Even when like you're legally bound to somebody, you still can't find that information. Which I would imagine makes the work of tracking people much more difficult.

And it makes the work of the Yonigaya that much, I don't want to say easier, but possible. Let's say possible. Because these are, you know, it's a lot of work. It's kind of like opting to go into a witness protection program, but you pay somebody to do this for you. Now, we talked about domestic violence. We talked about the pressure of shame. We talked about divorce. There are some Johatsu who simply just want to change their life.

They just want a new chapter. Maybe something didn't necessarily bad happen to them, but you know what? Fuck it. Do blondes really have more fun? Let me find out. You know? Yes. Yeah.

Yes. I've never gotten a piercing. What's that like? Let's see. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Now, it can cost anywhere between 50,000 yen to 300,000 yen, which translated into USD is about. $500 to $2,500 to engage these services. That's reasonable. That's cheap. I agree. I totally agree. That's very, I would charge more for that, frankly. Well, remember that the Japanese privacy laws make this possible.

And when you are moving, they do help you move. But that price point depends on how many possessions do you want to bring with you. So if you want to bring the piano, that might be more than $2,600. Yeah, but I'm saving so much on the bottom line that I can afford to ship my piano now. It's true. Yeah. Thanks, Johatsu, Inc. Yeah.

If you are johatsuing with children involved, which might be the case in some domestic situations, they will also create a new life, move in the night, your children's life as well. Now, that will cost you double because they're doing a whole new person. And the rate goes up for like screamers. Viters, kids who want to use your iPad, all of it. Yeah, exactly.

We're bumping that number liberally. Yeah. Now, there are opportunities to just do this on your own. You don't necessarily have to purchase the business deal with this. You don't get, you know, the package of the piano and the toddler kind of vibe. You can do it on your own. And there are a few published books,

including this guide, perfect vanishing, reset your life. Another title translates as the complete manual of disappearance. And the call line for that is, abandon your sad, pathetic reality. Holy shit. In translation, so maybe it's kinder in the Japanese. No, no.

You know what, though? Let's be clear with Shannon Doherty, right? I appreciate the honesty. Yeah. I'm not calling you because my life is good. Yeah, true. Right now. Okay.

It ain't great, honestly. Yeah, yeah. It's true. So the one thing to remember, though, and maybe why these prices are a little cheap, in order to properly disappear, even with Japan's tight privacy laws, typically the Yonigaya will place you in a district or a neighborhood that is pretty well known for being a no questions asked kind of situation. You want to work under the table?

You don't want to have to, you know, pay into the system to get this job. Okay. Not a problem. You have to live in, like, the pirate town from Waterworld. You know what I mean? So be it. Yes. Yeah.

It's a new life. Whatever. If you want your new life, yeah, that's what you're going to get. It's not, you know, we're going to give you a new life as a fabulous blonde influencer and you make all this money and da-da-da. You get a new, a new, brand-new life, but it is a modest one where nobody knows you and you stay out of the limelight completely. No, no, no, no, no.

This is, I assume this goes without, it's like, fucking, come on. Yes. But, you know, people, people give themselves away in weird ways, right? People, it's hard sometimes to run away. Can't run away from yourself. But if you're running away from debt collectors or a spouse, or a really bad job, or a horrible, oppressive sense of shame, a husband who pours milk,

into your coffee when the oat milk is right fucking there. Right there. It's like right fucking every morning. Within a hands reach. You don't know because you're looking at your phone. Glasses on. I know it's early, but get your contacts in. Wake up and do it.

I think you care more about fantasy football than you care about me. It shows by your use of lactose. Yeah. So Taylor, that is story number two. The evaporated, the Johatsu of Japan. And the night movers, the Yonigaya, who move them to their new identities. Okay. How are you feeling?

Let's check it. What does the Moomin pad say? Oh, we're in it now. Mumen Papa. We're in it now. That has the Ring of Truth to me as well. Oh, interesting. The only thing that jumped out to me is something that I, like, was immediately, like,

that sounds a little bit funny, is that there was a Johatsu Corporation with a CEO who was a Hotzu and was giving like public statements. It tripped me for the reason that you said at the end where I was like, you got disappeared, but you're giving public statements for the newspaper with a name attached. That's a little stupid, no. So that tripped me. So that's my one case against, let me look at my notes here. Did I have any other kind of cases against this one? I thought the rate was a bit affordable, but maybe, you know, God bless the Japanese economy, I guess. I don't know. Yeah, could be, could be. Since the pages are just like falling out. This is not a great product.

I would say that overall, some of the backstory that you gave, again, was sort of around domestic violence and abuse and things in a way that it doesn't seem super in character for you to use to add sauce to a story. I'm trying to think if there are any particular parts of the story that like usually when there's something bolted on, it can kind of stand out as a bit obvious, right? Yeah. There's not any one part of that story that stands. out is obviously bolted on to me. I don't think you would make yourself speak Japanese the whole time

if it wasn't true. Thank you. Yeah. That's hilarious. Or is it a lie? And I don't think you would, I don't, God bless you and maybe I'm wrong. I don't think you would take the time to like invent a Japanese concept. It doesn't seem like an inclination of yours. So if anything, the concept has to be true and maybe it's like the night movers specifically that are like a fib. But I'm inclined to believe what you've said. Okay. I'm inclined to, which means that number, which means I'm about to listen. If I'm right, I'm about to listen to a bunch of bullshit.

But if I'm wrong, then I still need to come in with like an open mind. Yeah. So that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to come in with an open mind. Ah, listeners at home, what do you think? Which is the truth? Which is the lie? Have we already heard the lie?

Or is it yet to come? Is it still in the deck? Josie. Story three. Another story of the willingly disappeared. Taylor, how familiar are you with the author, Pulitzer Prize winning American author, Dona Tart? Not at all. Oh, okay.

Sorry, did I just show my ass? Not at all, I'm sorry. I was hoping you could give the little background of fruition to start, but that's okay. You got lucky with like, what was it, pro wrestling, Jones Town? I've been putting in my laps. I got nothing on Donna Tart. That's okay. In my head it's tart with two T's at the end. Is that so?

Yes, it is actually. Okay. So I got that. I probably saw it on like a book cover once. Her story is an interesting one. And as you can probably guess by now, it includes a disappearance. Okay. Rod Serling, suck it. Now. Yeah, fuck you, Rod Sterling. Josie's better. Joe's low-key, Josie is better than Rod Sterling. All right. I read. I think the first Donna Tart. She only has three books.

And we'll talk more about only three books. And I read The Secret History when I was in China. I had a Kindle and I just like, I slurped it down. It was so good. She writes these huge tomes. And they're always involved like some type of mystery in some way, shape, or form. Sure. The Secret History, which came out in 1992, was her debut.

novel, it launched her into stardom, literary stardom, not enough that Taylor knows her, but enough that page six knows her. Come on, this is a fake lady. This is a fake woman. There's no Donna D'Art. Pulitzer Prize. They're all fake. This is bullshit.

You have a Kindle in China. What the fuck are you lying to me? Oh, this is good. To realize that there's only one T in her name, or there's like two T's in her name, not three, yeah. But again, I really want to stress open-minded. Right. I went to this with an open heart and not scrutinize it too closely until I've got the whole picture.

Yes. Good, good. So the secret history, it had an initial print of 75,000 copies and a lot. It was translated into 24 different languages. It took the literary scene by Storm. It's kind of a dark academia story about a group of eccentric classics students who are at a very, like a private liberal arts, very elite college on the East. Coast, and they decide to use their classical education and do kind of a Bacchanal celebration. And during this celebration, somebody dies.

Somebody's killed. And as a group of students together, they decide, no one will know about this. Correct? Until one of them says, wait, I don't know how I feel about that. This is the, uh, the I know what you did last summer gambit. Yeah, but on the, like a, like the campus novel of, I know what you did last summer. Yeah. Now they're worried that word will get out, and so another murder occurs.

They're like lays potato chips. You can't just have just one, you know? It's like cringles. Once you pop, you just can't stop. Once you pop, you can't stop. Yeah. It's true. So the secret history is loved by many, admired by all.

It's known for being this very long, involved kind of mystery murder situation, but it has elements of this like long form storytelling that feels kind of Dickensian in a way. And very character-based, very well-written, very lovingly written. It becomes a not just like, woo, a sensation, wow, 50 shades of gray. It becomes known for being a literary piece of work. Her next novel doesn't come out for another 10 years. So that was 1992. Her next novel, The Little Friend, which I haven't read, is another tome. It's another huge, long mystery. And it takes place in Alexandria, Mississippi. And it opens in the 1970s when a young nine-year-old boy is found murdered hanging from a tree in his family's backyard. So it is kind of pulling at the prejudice and racism. of the South in the 1970s or, you know, in the whole history of the South, but in this particular

moment in the 70s. And the story continues. It deepens when 12 years after this little boy is found, his younger sister starts to try and uncover his murder. So again, it's a murder mystery. And it has kind of like some illusion, some feelings of very classic literary masterpieces like this young girl character trying to solve her brother's murder feels very much like Scout Fanch in To Kill a Mockingbird and where it's set. So already, and not already, because this is like her second of three novels that she's ever written. Donna Tart is kind of cementing herself as an American voice of letters. Now, how in the world did she get to be this way? Let's talk a little bit about where she comes from.

She was born in 1963 in Braintree, Massachusetts. Oh. You know it. Yes, I do very well. Shouts to friend of the podcast, Gerard Coletta, who did our Tomom's shit episode. Oh, yeah. Braintree born and raised. Okay, Donna Tart.

So she grew up in a very bookish family. That feels like a euphemism. Call them nerds if you want to call them nerds. Well, this is the type of bookish they were. Her mother was known to read as she drove the car, to read novels as she drove the car. Dangerous, dangerous. Her great-grandparents and her grandparents were a very big part of her life, and her grandfather and her had a very special connection. And he loved kind of the classics.

He loved Charles Dickens, Thomas DeQuince, authors of the 19th century who were kind of tried and true voices of English letters. May I pop in with a take? It's my podcast. I think I shall. Take away. Dickens, you know, better than you might think if you haven't read Dickens. No, legit, legit. No, no, that's true.

It's true. Those plots, they really move along. They really go. They're good, soapy. They're very soapy. I think that's why I like them. There's a lot of, like, hidden air. This person's been pulling the strings the whole time.

And I think it's because a lot of them were, I think, I don't know how many and maybe all, were initially serialized. So it was like an episode. It's like how Netflix puts, you know, the real. juicy part of Love is Blind at the end of the episode, so you'll watch the next one. Uh-huh. That's how they would do with these sort of serialized things. So they move in an okay clip, and if you can kind of, like, get your head around the fact that they're, like, quite old and quite British, they're also, like, a scandaloso at times,

and I've always gone to bat, and to continue my tirade, I've always gone to bat for a Christmas carol, the story. Yeah. Beautiful, great Christmas story. It's good. Great Christmas story. It's good, yeah. Solid bones, great foundation.

rule of threes. Yes. It's good. It's good. Yeah, I think it's that kind of solid bones and that like clipping along pace of the plots and the kind of almost like telenovela style, but really grounded in the language too. That is the kind of comparison of Dickens and Donna Tart. That's where she's kind of known for.

Her voice is a 19th century voice versus like a 20th century. And maybe some of that comes from the fact that her start as a writer came about with kind some unfortunate circumstances that might resemble like a 19th century existence more than a 20th. So her story is that at the age of 14, she was at the local library when a homemade bomb went off in the library's basement. Now, it was homemade. It was very DIY. It didn't have a huge effect. It didn't, you know, the whole building didn't blow up. But it was enough of an explosion that the bookshelf that Donna Tart was sitting and reading under collapsed on top of her. The impact broke her right femur and her hip and it caused a severe concussion and she went on to suffer migraines

even after this well throughout her adolescence. And what they found out after the fact is that it was believed that a local veteran who suffered from severe mental illness exacerbated by PTSD, he was upset that newly inaugurated Jimmy Carter in 1977 had pardoned draft dodgers. He did not have a choice, he felt. So he was angered by this and the mental illness was not creating a good spot. He concocted these bombs and he planted them at the local post office and another local government office. But those other bombs did not detonate. This one did.

So for Dona Tar, there were no fatalities. there were other injuries, and Donna Tart was part of those injuries. And she spent her early high school years convalescing from the incident. And she spent a lot of her time in her adolescence at home, which gave her plenty of time to be writing. Again, she was in this very bookish family, so books were all around her. This was kind of the language. Nerds, nerds, yes, exactly. Put the book down. You're on the fucking highway.

Yeah. She had her first poem published at the age of 15. just a year after the incident. And she was so interested in writing that she ended up at Bennington College in Vermont, which is kind of a small liberal arts college, rather elite setting, not unlike the setting of the secret history.

The Bacchanal, yeah. And she studied there with writer Barry Hanna, and her work was noticed right away. People were like, whoa, shit, just be good. So when she graduated, she was very quickly set up with a renowned literary agent, a woman by the name of Amanda, in quotes, Binky, urban. B-I-N-K-Y, B-I-N-K-Y, B-I-N-K-Y, B-I-N-K-Y.

So you're putting, again, this is a distraction, Binky, or is it? You know what I mean? You either put that in there to sound fake because it's real, or you put that in there to sound fake because it's fake, and you want to sigh out me into thinking that it's real. I'm not stupid, Josie. I know you know, I know, I know. I never said you didn't.

It was in your eyes. I could see it in your eyes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Amen. Even through the Zoom call, even through the Riverside podcast app. Okay.

I could see it in your eyes. So Binky's clients included the likes of Tony Morrison and Cormac McCarthy, some big, like, again, letters, names of letters, that kind of idea. She was also teamed up with her longstanding. editor Theodora Millikan, who was another literary powerhouse and worked with authors and works with authors like Malcolm Gladwell, Stephanie Meyer, David Sedaris, and even David Foster Wallace. So this editor was influential on the publication Infinite Jest. Do you ever read that one? Nope.

When are you getting around to that? When are you going to finally pick it up? When am I going to finally pick up that big doorstop of a book? When an intruder enters my home. That's what I'll pick it up. Yeah. So Donna Tart's novels, they're typically these mysteries. They're typically very long, and they take her a very long time to write. So when she had the secret history put together, it was 1992, and Amanda Binky, Urban, did an almost unpleasure. precedented launch of this debut novel, such that there was so much anticipation and the novel did not let down. Donna has only, and we'll talk about this, will only write three novels. And Amanda Binky Urban is credited with so much of her success. Of course, not the writing itself.

That is, you know, the literary merit of that. But in terms of the business of book sales, the business of marketing books. Binky is really seen as like the lynchpin of Donna Tart. Because again, Donna Tart writes these huge books and it takes her so long to do it. So her final book, so Donna Tart's final book was the goldfinch, which is another tome, another long one. That's where I know her fucking name from is the goldfinch. That's where I know her fucking name from. Because do you know the movie? Is the goldfinch? Is that it?

I was just looking into the movie. And I thought, oh, this sounds kind of infamous. Yeah. Let's see. Let's see what you bring here. Okay. So the novel The Goldfinch, big long book, took her 10 years to write. It tells the story of Theo, a 13-year-old boy who is in a New York art museum when a terrorist bomb goes off.

Yes. So you'll kind of maybe hear some echoes of Donna Tart's own experience in her public library. I mean, again, different situations. She's a fiction writer. She can change things, of course. But this character, Theo, loses his mother and the terrorist bombing. But he escapes with this tiny, framed, Dutch master's painting called The Goldfinch. So he doesn't necessarily take it to steal it.

He's just kind of so much in the days and out of it, Mother's Day, you know, the trauma. Sometimes you walk out with the goldfinch, okay? It just happens. My mom just died. I get the fucking goldfinch. Yes, yeah. Haters. And it's his story of moving through life.

He holds on to the painting and he becomes an art restoration expert. He lives in Las Vegas for a while. He lives in Amsterdam. He's kind of this wild and very involved life that creates the... literary fiction. The novels plot. Yes, exactly. So this is Donna Tart's last book, her latest and her last. And I will note here as well that Donna Tart, in my research for this story, has fucking great style. She's like velvet blazer, cute loafers, tight bob, very manicured, but also just like dark aga- like pinstripe. Don't Google her folks at home. Right. It's

going to be tempting. Don't use Google. Clothbound books. You'd be like, I want to see those velvet lasers. No, no, no. Absolutely not. You'll have to save it for the end. These books, as we know, take her a very long time to write. And she has described the process of writing them as pretty torturous. Like bringing Frankenstein's monster to life. Sounds like she's really pushing them outside. I agree. Apparently, she writes them by hand and she makes color-coded nils.

notes and pencil. Donna Tarts. She staples, like, note cards that have revisions and additions. And then when those start to fall apart, she prints out a whole new draft and does the whole process again. So it's, like, years in the making of this very tedious and laborious process. And meanwhile, outside every, I'm sure every publisher except for this one who is, like, her right hand is, like, going, like, what the fuck is Donna Tarts thing? How many times are you going to need to go over the? those index cards, Donna.

Yeah, Binky's like, can we get you somebody in a transcription maybe? No? Yeah. No, no, no. Part of this process, it's very involved. And Donna is not a fan of the book tour. She thought her time was much more better spent writing these books than talking about them. This notebook is fucking awful.

You can't even turn. You can't even turn it. It's fucking rips. It's fucking. rips off when you flip it over. Don't, when you're going through Moomin Valley, don't go to the gift shop. Oh, I got this for like $2 at like a die-so. It ain't that deep.

Or maybe it was a gift. I don't remember the particulars. It's been around, it's like, like, 11 years old. It's just been sitting there. That's fair. But you said stenopad. So I switched from my like much better but not Moomin themed notebook to this stentopad, which is like just falling apart in my hands as I use it, honestly.

You got a number of those pages, baby, because they aren't going to stay in order. I ain't going to need these notes in probably about 30 minutes. That's true. Okay, that's fair. Yeah. Oh, go on, go on. Donald Tart takes her time. And part of that is that she is not out there on the circuit.

She has a home in Greenwich Village, or she had a home in Greenwich Village, and she has a home in Massachusetts, and she pretty much just stays away. So even before the Goldthanks won the Pulitzer Prize in 20, She was not known to give a lot of interviews. She was not known to, you know, have the chat with Oprah or anything like that. By literary stardom standards, recluse. Sure. When the Goldthanks came out, it was very well liked.

One obviously, Big Fat Award. But perhaps the even bigger award, Warner Brothers first snapped it up. And then Amazon was like, wait a second, we want this blockbuster, the Goldthanks. So Binky, her longtime agent, helped facilitate a deal with Amazon Studios such that Donna Tart made $3 million off of selling the rights. They'll buy a lot of index cards. Yeah, a lot of index cards. Maybe ones that don't fall apart, yeah. The movie is made and it comes out in 2019.

It's starring Nicole Kidman, Sarah Paulson, Jeffrey Wright, to name a few. And it is anticipated, it's this literary masterpiece at this point, folks are thinking, yeah, this movie's going to fucking rock. Totally tanks. It's a box office bomb. Estimate lost is $50 million. That's the loss that they put into it, right? What's the bomb? What bombed about it?

People say that the acting was good, but the plot and the narrative. It's a book not a movie We're not coming together Yes It's a book not a movie Exactly It's a literary book not a movie It's a weird little thing about a guy

With a painting and it sounds pretty formless And I think if I went to the theater I would fucking hate it It would be too long People would get nominated For Oscars but not win them This is a fucking bop dude You should really

I'm glad we got the record button on Red Light is glit. I'm not gleaming in my eyes. So thankful. Yeah. Just liquid gold. So the critics and the public fucking hated the movie. Who also hated the movie? Donna Tart. Yeah. Three Tart.

Apparently, Donna Tart hated the outcome, hated the final product. But she hated the entire process. She wasn't mandating that she be the one to write the screenplay, but she wanted a shot at writing the screenplay, and she wanted a producer credit. She wanted some type of say on the movie. Yeah. However, Binky, Amanda Binky Urban. Binky!

She got her the $3 million. She got Donna the $3 million, but she didn't get her the chance to write the screenplay, and she didn't get her a producer credit. Which, I don't know what you know about that, but as someone who, I guess, like, we would have been in writing school around the time the Goldfinch came up? Yeah. No? Yes, because it came out in like 2013, 2014. Yeah. Right. And at that time, we would also be learning about sort of the intermachinations of the industry. And I don't know how it is now, but at least at that time, the idea that the writer of

a novel would not actually have that much to do with the film adaptation was relatively common. Yeah. But I also think if you are like a big time writer, like Donna Tart, you could probably negotiate some of that, maybe. The negotiated it. The negotiated, Binky. Binky didn't. And it created an atmosphere, created a situation. I'm ripping Binky's fucking face out of all the photos. I got you. That's what Donna Tart does.

Binky had been her tried and true representative for three decades. She's credited with getting the secret history on the bookshelves. Congratulations. Thank you for your service. Here's a gold watch and a boot in the ass. Get out of here. Yeah. According to a publishing, Tart wasn't happy with the deal made for the movie. She wanted a shot to write it and that wasn't given to her.

Nor was she able to get a producer credit, which seemed ludicrous. So because of this broken trust, Donna Tart breaks ties with Binky Urban. I mean, this is a big upset in the literary world. It's kind of unprecedented considering their relationship. But not only that, Donna Tart says, I'm done with New York publishing. I'm done with this publishing business. You're Ernesto Vipers. She's been a long time recluse, and this just kind of cemented it even further. She's like, uh-uh.

It was taken away from her time with her index cards. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. So word on the street, insiders, friends have reported that Tart sold her Greenwich Village apartment, and she purchased a ranch in western New Mexico on the edge of, of Walter de Maria's famed land art work. It's called the Lightning Field.

Have you ever heard of the Lightning Field, Taylor? Yes, distantly I have. Is it ringing a... There's a clap of thunder in the distance. There's a clap of thunder, and specifically it's from around this same time, kind of grad school era. I think I heard about this.

It's ringing a distant bell, but I'd love for you to tell me more because I might be mistaken. Okay, because this was around the same time. Like, all of this kind of happened quickly. Yeah, yeah. The Lightning Field is... an installation in the desert in western New Mexico of large metal rods embedded in the ground

and spread out over a huge acreage. And there is a single residence in the center of the acreage where you are allowed to stay. It's not very big. But the idea is that you can book this ranch, this room, this home. Road trip. Oh, yeah. Bittersweet. Lightning feel.

Let's do it. And you watch the lightning come through. That's fucking sick. This artist, Walter Demaria, he did all the, you know, I'm sure it wasn't him. I'm sure it was his team of artists who do all his work for him because he's a big-time artist. But they calculated like this particular piece of land has a lot of storms coming through and a lot of lightning. And the way that the metal rods are embedded and the way they're spread out, it attracts lightning. And the residence is far enough away that there's no issues with, you know, exposure to lightning.

But that is, you know, that's kind of this Donald Judd, West Texas Marfa, West New Mexico land art movement situation. I understood all of that. Good, good. I need to use that line more often with you. Me and the West Texas Marfa landmark art scene, and Bray D. together. Choy. Choy. Totally. And while Donna Tart does not, like, she does not live in that residence that is part of the land art, she, like, leases land that's close by. So she's, like, has visual access to it. The Walter de Maria, you know, and the lightning fields, they do not say that Donna Tart lives there,

but they neither... I was going to say, confirm or not. You might be good, if you were going to say Donna Tart is living in the fucking lightning field, now it was going to be like, Josie, that was greedy. Yeah, no, no, no, no. Well, and that's part of it, too, is that this is all kind of rumored that this is where she is. It is not exactly confirmed because this is hearsay. She broke her ties with Binky. She's no longer publishing.

The last that was heard of Donna Tart, not as like an alive person. There's no concern about her, like, being disappeared. But she has reached a new level of recluse. will say. In 2022, she did give an interview with a magazine called The Queen's Reading Room, and she shared that she does not have plans to ever publish another book, at least not in the same way that she has. When pressed for details in the interview, and it's a very short interview, you can find it online after the system. Don't Google it. Don't Google it. Don't Google it. Resist the temptation. Hands free listening experience.

Yes, yes. Someone pressed for details. Tart was asked, like, are you going to use a pseudonym or are you going to self-publish? Is that why you mean? She said that her work would not be shared with the public during her lifetime. Okay. The interview continues on a little bit about her past, you know, publications and if she's, you know, wait, are you still, do you still consider yourself a writer? To which she replied, quote, I will always be a writer. Okay. Besides, wasn't it? Emerson, who talked about the great freedom of American life as the freedom not to participate in the life of the culture, the freedom to shut the door, to close the curtains. American heroes are almost always solitary figures in our literature, end quote. Can I tell you something? Yeah, you love Emerson. That goes without saying, Walden.

You didn't write. Wait, no. That's Thoreau. Walden. Wait, wait, is that true? Yeah, Thoreau. What did Emerson write? Oh, you know, a little of this.

I don't know. No, what did Emerson write? I'm going to Google it. I told everybody not. Okay, take God. Okay, fuck, thank you. We're fine. We're fine.

We're fine. It's all good, folks. It's all good. Neither of us knows, and it's not the point. We carry on. One of the things that I enjoyed most about going to the Yukon was there wasn't anybody fucking there. Yeah. And you didn't have to face whatever your opinion was of people lately.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I don't like people lately. You and Donna Tart, yes. Yeah, me and Donna Tart. Game recognized game, right? I recognize her impulsior. Yeah.

To move to the cabin inside the lightning field. Yes, yes, supposedly, yeah. No, and, I mean, she was always such a recluse that it kind of makes sense that she's like, I'm just going to dive a little bit deeper. Fuck it. See you later. I didn't really like the whole, I love to write, but the whole publishing thing, Not my deal.

Chow. I made three million on that last one, so I'll be okay. For sure, for sure. I can relate to that impulse too. I love writing, but the publishing thing. Yeah. I don't know. It didn't agree with me in some ways.

And so off we disappear. Yeas. Taylor? Yes. That was story number three. Very good. Three stories of willing disappearance. How are you feeling about story number three?

What's your take? what's your Moomin? What's your Moomin vibe? Besides falling fucking apart. Pick up all the individual pages to look at them. It's a mystery. Each one, ooh, ooh, ooh, which order do they go in? The things that could be potentially untrue in this story, the stuff about the bomb, potentially,

the stuff with Binky kind of pulls out. And I wonder if the fact of the Goldfinch being the bomb, being this thing that led to the following out with Binky, who I'm like, I'm not convinced on Binky's existence. Uh-huh. The stuff about the lightning field, again, feels very of a piece. I'm having all of these kind of like slumdog millionaire, usual suspects, flashbacks to like things that were like, this is like a newspaper article in the creative writing department.

Ah. Like maybe in a wall somewhere. Or like in some way I came across my desk. I associated with that time in my life. Yeah. And so part of me wonders if you've just like kind of like cobbled together a few infamous incidents and just attributed them to Don't. Like maybe, I don't think Donna Tart maybe really fell out with her publisher and disappeared

off the map in this way. But I don't know. Because again, what the fuck do I know about Donham Tart? I'm not paying attention. You know, she had three T's. You're good. I remembered her seeing her name written down. And I said, like, the cover of a book maybe.

And when you said the Goldfinch, I was like, oh, I know her from the Goldfinch, presumably. Because I don't think you had, I don't 100% know that that was the author of the goldfinch, but that would be like a hell of a lie to pull. That's a real risk. That was a big book. The Pulitzer Prize. Let me think. Let me think. So to recap. Yes, let's recap. Let's go back. Assemble the Moomin' notes.

Metaphorically, not physically. That would take too long. Let's just, you got this. Story number one. So story number one was the story of Mr. X, who had, that wasn't his government name. He was IDed by his mother as being a part of Jonestown Massacre. She wrote on his tombstone, damn, the State Department. Meanwhile, there was some sort of identity theft slash murder thing going on, which he eventually got 20 years for. He died doing what he loved, I remember, but I don't remember the exact context.

Do they help me out? He died of heat stroke in a Nicaragua prison. Doing what he loved. Okay. Part two was the Johatsu, story of the Johatsu and the night movers. Yes. The Japanese company that operates sort of just, you know, mushroom dispensary territory, let's say. Is it illegal?

We don't know. It was to say. Let's find out. Fuck around and find out. Yeah. That's what it is. It is kind of mushroomy. Mushrooms, like, grow in the night, you know, overnight.

I'm a writer like Donna Tart, Josie. I know my way around a comparison. I would say that the things that jump out there as potentially being off to me are the actual cost of the thing. The fact that there was like a Joe Hatsu CEO who had themselves been disappeared and spoke out publicly on it. That jumped out to me. And possibly the night movers. Possibly some of this is true. Some of this is not.

Yes. Yeah. And then of course we just heard all about. Story number three. It's been so... I was just writing about this in Moomanland. Donna Tart. DeTart.

We just heard about Donna Tart. Big T-A-R-T-T-T. She survived a bomb. A little one, no fatalities, which makes it sound faker, because I feel like that's like a fake story move. No fatalities, thank goodness. That'd be a downer.

Okay. Whereas usually when you leave the fatalities in, it's because there was no way around it. Yeah, fair. You know? Had to leave in there because it was true. She published the Goldfinch to much acclaim. She gets screwed over on the rights to the goldfinch,

And so she fires Binky and storms off to the lightning field or just next to it to live a life in lightning-ge peace, in lightning view. And when people come around to knock and be like, what are you going to do with your books? She's like, you'll see when I'm dead. She takes off on her broom. Yeah. Is that the vibe? Good note-taking. Very nice.

Thank you. Thank you. I didn't even consult my notes for a lot of that, honestly. You have three choices. Two of these are true. one of them is a lie. My instinct? Oh, I'm so, you know what?

Looking on hives over there, you okay? Let me remind you, Taylor, there's nothing on the line. No, no, there's nothing on the line. But Josie, unlike you, I enjoy this. Oh, oh. Hey, hey, I enjoy this. I'm having a good timeline straight to your vice. I just mean like the game of it.

Right. I like, like, like, you made three little artifacts for me to pick apart. Let me pick them apart. Pick them apart. Pick it that scab. Get in there. Take around. I think the Johatsu story is true.

You are correct. It is true. Okay. So the Johatsu is Joe Hats true? Jojatsu and the Yonigaya, the night mover companies. Fascinating. Yeah. Really interesting.

Yeah, that's CEO. That's Balsy. I know. Yeah. That was a time, a time article, an article in time. No one reads time anymore. It's not, it's not 1940s. I think that maybe that's it.

Yeah, yeah, that it's like, no one's really going to read this anyway, so. Yeah. You're going to talk about a magazine that's coasted on its fucking name Time magazine, which brings us down to Mr. X. Mr. X. Whose real name was? Jerry Balasock. Or Donna Tart.

Hmm. And both attached smartly. to something that is undeniably true. Because you've got on the one hand, you've got Jones Town Massacre, yes, this happened. On the other, you've got, I know that Donna Tart movie flopped, for example. I don't even want to call it the Donna Tart movie because she had nothing to do with it. Part of the problem was she had nothing to do with it, yeah. Yeah.

I think that some element of story number three, the Donna Tart story has been fabricated. I can't put my finger on what. I think it's either Binky or her move into the lightning field or both. Is this your final answer? Run it. So that means you think that the story of Jerry Balasak is true. I could have gone either way on this and in a different reality. I did choose Jerry Balasok, but today I'm going to do Donna Tart.

Is the liar Jerry Balassox is true? Taylor, Maxwell Basso. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. You are correct. Bing, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, qu, bark, bark, back, good. Oh, good. Oh, good.

Very good. Very good. Your best work ever. You're better, I was stumped. That's because you won. That's because you won. You say, you say kind things. Okay.

So I'll start with Jerry Balasak. This story is fucking true. That's demented shit. And I had to leave out more of the details just because it was like too long and like so kind of like widely cast. It would take so long to explain that like. That story had some fucking sprawl to it. Dept's son was on a reality show called Too Fat for 15. Oh, America the beautiful.

God bless us all. But he was a wrestler. That had the ring of the wrestling shit sounded real. There was a lot of masked jobber type guys with names like Executioner 1. Executioner 2, the black shadow. And it would be because, oh, you can put a mask on the guy and then just run him somewhere else with his mask off. And you can have him work twice in a night if you need. And he did get into forging bad checks big enough.

that he got flagged by the feds. He ran away to the Caribbean. He took on his wife's second cousin's name and identity. His mother really put up the good fight, really thought that he died at Jonestown. Damn the state government. Damn the state department. Yes.

Now, damn the state department. Damn the state department. Yeah. And fuck the state government while we're here. Yeah, yeah, might as well. We're in the graveyard after all. Yeah, all of that is true and more. There is even more there.

You can Google now. You can Google them. You're off the chain. You're off the chain. Watch up for that AI. So that leaves us with Donna. Which leaves our girl, Donna Tart. My suspicion is that it's Binky and the Lightning Fields.

What tell me more? Is it the bomb? What is it? I will tell you what is true. Donald Tart's an author. She writes these big fat books and they're very well literary life. She's got two T's. Well, technically she has three.

Three, one at the front, two at the back. when I say two teas, I'm talking about the caboose. We need the tea that pulls the whole thing along as well. Exactly. Her literary agent was Amanda Binky Urban. I'm sorry, Binky. I didn't mean it. I was Josie missed.

Josie had me all suspicious. I'm so sorry, Binky. Binky did represent Tony Morrison and Cormack McCarthy. I knew that. I keep up with that kind of shit, usually. I'm on the mailing list. You get the substack. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

I named kind of a false little name for her editor. Her editor is not who I said. Her editor is some guy. She did write the secret histories. All the fiction is true. All the fiction is actually the books. Right. The bomb did not happen.

In fact, our girl, Donna Tart, is not from Braintree. I'm so sorry. Wow. Gerard. Gerard. I apologize. Stolen Braintree, Valor. She is actually from a small

town in Mississippi. She's from deep in the motherfucking south. So her second book that takes place in Mississippi, that follows more of her childhood experience. Josie, can I tell you? Sorry, just to jump in real quick. Yeah. To compliment you. Even though it didn't break your way this time, your instinct to be like, who is a writer that Taylor will know vaguely by name, but not know any biographical information about it? And then you go, Donna Tart from the goldfinch killer read. You could have said anything about Donna Tart. I was hung up on how to spell it.

When I was like, do you know, what do you know about Don Tart? And you said like, oh, nothing. You can't rely on me. I was like. Hope must have sprung in your heart. I know, Taylor. Nobody does. Nobody knows anything about Donna Tart.

Truth be told, she is a bit of a recluse. She does take 10 years to write these books. and she does it mainly by herself, you know, with the crazy... The longhand? By longhand, with the note cards. Do you know, sick fuck? What a sick fuck. Even in the 70s, we had typewriters made.

Yeah. Well, I mean, her first book was published in 1992. She was born in 63, so... Oh, get a Macintosh. You know, a little square kind of tan Macintoshes that had, like, it's Carmen San Diego and I'm, get one of those. Get that. Yeah. Come on, Donna.

God. The little that we do know about her child. childhood comes from an article that was published shortly after the secret histories came out in 1992, probably because Binky did a big publicity push. This article, a memoir essentially, is entitled, Sleepy Town, Colan, a Southern Gothic childhood with Kodine. Good title. So the story that she tells there is that she was very close to her grandparents, in particular

her grandfather, and she was kind of a sickly girl growing up, and her grandfather would regularly give her a little concoction that he would make that would have black strap molasses and some horrible licorice flavored medicine that was supposed to have vitamins in it, along with a glass of whiskey at bedtime, and a regular massive dose of some red stuff. End quote. Later, she realized that red stuff was cough syrup with codeine in it. Fuck yeah. So she had a very like, I don't know.

Sedated childhood. A sedated childhood. Yes. A girl who is happy to just chill on the couch, folks. And write her poems and write her stories. She could stare at a ceiling fan for two, three hours. Yeah. So that is her like origin story rather than...

That's more fucked up than the bomb. I know, right? Yeah. With codeine. I know, yeah. My parents were like dosing me on lean everything, basically. Exactly. Okay, and now as we go further into the story,

she did. It is true that because of the fallout with the movie, the gold fangs... Which I knew to be just by sheer chance, I knew to be true. Yeah. And it was a big enough disaster that she cut ties with Binky. Fuck you, Binky. That is not her agent. Apparently, though, according to page 6, one of my sources, they cut ties amicably.

Neither of them has a negative thing to say about the other in the public record. I'll say it. Binky, you shit the bed. Yeah, maybe. Binky, we should have all been sleeping on golden beds in double-decker yachts, but you screwed the pooch. They screwed up my movie. And now everyone's like Donna Tart.

I don't know any bio information about her. One tier or two. You know? Three. It's three. And the end is three. So that is true. The whole Lightning Fields thing is totally made up.

I made that up. I put that in there. Which you clocked right away. You sniffed on that, yeah. No, because we were walking down the same fucking hallway probably and saw the same fucking article about the lightning fields that I did. Yeah. Yeah, or like even longer now, wow.

And I, yeah, I think it was like a time thing. And I was like, well, what do you do when you want to disappear? You want to like George O'Keefe into the desert. And it was just like, let's put it that way. Latest word from Donna Tart is this 2023 article that was published in the Queen's Reading Room, which you can Google. You can now Google, feel free. The shackles have been unlatched.

And in that brief interview, she said that she is at work on her next novel. I don't know who her literary agent is nowadays, but she's going to pump out something new. She's past the 10-year mark, so maybe this one will be even longer. We don't know. A lot of index cards this time around. So many, yeah. And they keep falling apart. I've got to rewrite them long.

She has $3 million worth of fucking index cards to make this novel. Good work if you can get it. Taylor, you did good work, and you got it. Thank you. times. How do you do it? I was, we're far enough into our friendship that I was able to read your, like, subtle clues there that, like, again, we've been in the same time zone from time to time, sleeping under the same moon. Very good, yeah, excellent, excellent stuff.

Really had me go and really had me stumped great picks all around. Happy April Fool's. Happy April Fool's next time I see you, I'll be back from Peru. Oh. We'll chat about that. Oh, my goodness. Have a little natter, have a little chinwag. Oh, our, er, er, er.

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 coffee account. At K-O-HifinFi.com forward slash bittersweet infamy. But no pressure. Bitter sweet, baby. You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing.

Leaving a review, following us on Instagram at Bitter Sweet Infamy. past the podcast along to a friend who you think would dig it. Stay sweet. The sources that I used in this week's episode include the Wikipedia page for Jerry Balasoth. I also read a mental floss article, How Conman Jerry Balasock pulled the ultimate disappearing act, written by Meg Van Hugin, published Mental Floss October 4th, 2016. I read the article from Time Magazine, do stressed out of, Japanese really staged elaborate disappearances on the trail of the Johatsu or evaporated people.

Written by Joseph Hinks, published May 2nd, 2017. I read an article in theworld.org. Japan's evaporated people have become an obsession for this French couple. Published April 13, 2017 by Alina Simone. I watched a quick YouTube video, the industry that helps you disappear. Inside Japan's Yonigaya, posted to YouTube July 31st, 2025 by Red Reaper. I read an article in The Southern Literary Review, a profile of Donna Tart, written by Cameron Williams posted January 10th, 2012.

I looked at an article in page 6, Donna Tart drops her agent, shocks literary community, written by Emily Smith and Ian Moore, published November 16th. 2017. I read an article in town and country why Donna Tart's The Secret History never became a movie written by Maris Kreisman published September 15th, 2017. An article in the Irish Independent interviewed the very, very private life of Miss Donna Tart. An interview with Edel Caffe published November 25th, 2013. And lastly, I read the Q&A with Donna Tart published in the Queen's Reading Room. That is in fact a true interview posted in 2023. If you would like to support the podcast, please consider becoming a monthly subscriber over at our coffee page. That is K-O-FI.com

slash bittersweet infamy. When you become a monthly subscriber, not only are you helping to support the podcast, but you get some extra little exclusives, including access to the Bittersweet Film Club, where we watch the movies you tell us to watch and then we talk about them. This month's episode is about Bonnie and Clyde from 1967. And then upcoming, 1981's Roar, starring Tippy Hedron and Melanie Griffith. When you become a monthly subscriber, you join the ranks of the elite, Terry, Jonathan, Lizzie D, Erica Joe, Sof, Dylan, and Satchel the Cat. Bitter Sweet Infantry is a proud member of the 604 podcast network. The interstitial music you heard earlier is by Mitchell Collins, and the song you are listening to now is T Street by Brian Steele.