DISGRACELAND - Bonus Episode: The Assassin's Ring, Air Force Brats, and Clear Demarcations

Episode Date: April 4, 2024

This week in the After Party, Jake talks trusting the government, the April Fool's DISGRACELAND episode on John Denver, and of course your emails, texts, DMS, and voicemails. If you could be any musician, who would you be? Drop a line at 617-906-6638, [e-mail], or on socials @disgracelandpod, and come join the After Party.To hear an extended version of the After Party with some insight into next week's episode on Kobe Bryant, a special "trailer" from that episode, and more from the DISGRACELAND community, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Hey, Discos, you can listen to an extended version of this after-party episode by becoming a member of Disgraceland All Access. Just go to disgracelandpod.com slash membership for more details and to sign up. Hey, guys, welcome to Disgraceland, which is brought to you by Double Elvis. This week, we have a classic episode on John Denver in your disgraceland feed. And for our All-Axcess members in our Patreon and Alvis.

Apple subscription feeds. We got episodes on Lane's Daily of Allison James and Hunter S. Thompson. So be sure to make sure you're all signed up for our all-access content either on Apple podcast or on Patreon so that you can hear those episodes. And over in our Musicland Stories feed, that's our fiction show for kids and families. We just dropped a brand new episode, episode five from our second season. So be sure to check that out when you're going on a ride with the kids or just hanging out at home, making dinner, whatever you're doing with your children. You're not going to want to miss that. All right, let's get into this bonus episode.

Hey, discos, need a little more disgrace land in your life? Just a touch to get you through? Yeah, me too. This is the podcast that comes after the podcast. Welcome to Disgraceland, the After Party. Welcome to the Disgraceland bonus episode, a little thing we like to call the after party. This is the show after the show,

the party after the party, the bridge to get you from one full episode of Disgraceland to the other, the backyard to dig into the dirt. On this episode, we are talking about our classic April Fool's episode on John Denver, the sources we used for this episode, which helped us uncover a crazy story about how the guy who sank, take me home, country roads may have taken a dark secret to his grave. Not really, but sort. And of course, your voicemails, texts, DMs, and more. And as always, a whole lot of rosy.

All right, discos, let's get it. November 22nd, 1963. September 27th, 1964. December 20th, 1991. What are all three of those dates have in common? If you answered the loss of American trust in its institutions, then ding, ding, ding, you are going to win a prize. November 22nd, 1963 was, of course, the date that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. September 27, 1964, was the date that the Warren Commission's report was made available to the public, where in a panel of seven public officials declared that the gunman, Lee Harvey Oswald, acted entirely

alone when he shot President Kennedy. And December 20th, 1991, was, of course, the date that Oliver Stone released his masterpiece, JFK, a film that presents New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison's theory on the assassination that directly refutes the Warren Commission's findings. The murder of the 35th President of the United States was captured on film, famously. And once the horrifying image of his death and a of... of his glamorous wife, scrambling over the back of their open-air linking Continental to gather bits of his exploding brains.

Once that incredible imagery faded, we were left able to further analyze the assassination in comparison with what our government was presenting as fact that one gunman was responsible for this awful event and that he was perched above the president when he shot his antiquated single-bolt action rifle and that even though he was positioned behind the president, His bullet entered the president's body from the front, forcing it, as Jerry Seinfeld said to America repeatedly on February 12, 1992, back into the left. A phrase also that the band Texas is the reason would later nail in song on their album, Do You Know Who You Are in 1996? By the time, most of us were either born or old enough to be consuming and understanding pop culture. It was a well-known fact that not only was Lee Harvey Oswald not the lone gunman,

but that our government lied to us about it with the Warren report, and that they continue to lie to us about the murder of what could have been our most transformative leader. And to take it even further, it's a likely fact that not only did our government lie to us about this event, they were likely responsible for it. Two of these three things, the government lying about JFK's killer, the government continuing to lie to us about JFK's killer, these are facts. The third thing, the government being responsible for the murder, that, as of yet, has not been irrefutably proven, but let's be real, even though we don't have

video proof of it like we do to dispute the lone gunman theory. The facts get us to about 90% certainty that the CIA worked with the mafia and likely other interested parties to successfully pull off an American coup d'etat. But at this point in my life, this is less interesting to me than the fact that the American government asked us to disbelieve our own eyes. Pay no attention to what you see in that footage of the president being killed. No, believe what we tell you instead. Many of us didn't, of course, see Oliver Stone and pretty much anyone born after the World War II generation, but almost all of us are compliant.

What are we going to do? Not trust the government is what we're going to do. They lied to us then. They lied to us about Vietnam and Cambodia afterward, and Iran-Contra and weapons of mass destruction, and they lied to us over and over again throughout the last three administrations. And it doesn't matter who our leaders are in the future. our government will continue to lie to us, and we will continue to not have faith in our biggest, most powerful institution.

That is old news. That's interesting, but it's not super interesting to me. I get it. What is very interesting to me, given my age and my generation, is that there ever was even a time at all when people did trust the government. That is kind of shocking to think of. Think of how cynical that is, by the way, that most people won't believe you if you tell them that between the years after World War II and before the Kennedy assassination, that America existed

in relative consensus and that the majority of Americans trusted their government as much, if not more, than any other institution. How cynical is it that I can't even really imagine that time? I can't even really fathom it. It's hard for me to believe. And we have the JFK assassination to thank for this lack of trust. And personally, this lack of trust is what makes it possible for some dickhead like me to tell you a story that is wildly unbelievable.

A story that musician John Denver was the most decorated sniper in American military history and that he was one of the other gunmen besides Oswald on that day in Dallas and 63. And that you guys believed that craziness, even though at the beginning of the episode,

I state right there that the episode you're about to hear is satire. yet still you believed it, still I got you, almost all of you, of course, and that this story, even when stripped of 90% of its context and boiled down into a 75-second reel on Instagram, that it still got people. Don't feel bad. I believe this unbelievable story, too, when I first heard it.

It's almost as if we've all been trained to not believe our own eyes, just like the government asked us to do with the Warren Commission. I'll be back in a flash. All right, you might be asking yourself, you know, why did I believe this story? Or you might be sitting there going, oh, we thought you made up this story about John Denver being a decorated sniper and an assassin in the JFK assassination. I'm going to give you a little background here on how this story came to be. What's true? What's not true?

The reason this story is actually believable in such a great April Fool's joke is that parts of the story. of it are legitimately true. Now, I heard the fact about, the part about him being the most decorated sniper in the history of the American military, that part of the story I did not make up. That was an old wives tale. I don't know where I heard it. I probably heard it at a party in high school or in college and sort of the pre-ubiquity of the internet era. And it was just one of those things that you couldn't disprove in the moment before, you know, cell phones and all that. But it, you know, it is out there. If you Google John Denver sniper, you will get returns that are, of course, not correct information.

It's just this wild conspiracy theory. It's meant to be a gag. It's not meant to be any sort of harmful thing. It's a fascinating, fascinating conspiracy story. It's one that is just, like I said, so unbelievable that it makes you want to kind of believe it. However, the reason that it's so unbelievable is that there are truth to John Denver's background that support this story. His father was in the Air Force. John Denver did grow up in Air Force, an Air Force brat. I believe his father was one of the first class of Air Force when the Air Force was established post-World War II. His father was one of the first airmen, I believe. I believe that to be true. I could be wrong. But like I said, that that part of the story is true. So I thought, okay, how do I research John Denver and how do I go into his past and how do I figure out, find other elements, true elements of his story that can help

support this incredible narrative that he was an assassin and not just an assassin in Vietnam, but perhaps an assassin in the JFK assassination. Because, again, to the truth of it, you know, there were multiple gunmen who shot at JFK. And there are, you know, E. Howard Hunt, who I mentioned in the story, is rumored to have been one of them. Although I don't necessarily believe that. I believe he was there that day, and there may in fact be images of him being arrested on that day. But I don't think he was actually one of the gunmen. He was a little bit below his page.

grade. So the question of who the gunmen were besides Oswald remains. And there's lots of different theories. There were Corsicans who were flown in by the mafia. But there's also the theory that they were military men, CIA. Well, that's a theory that I believe. I believe it was a mix. So, you know, why not John Denver? Anyways. And there's, so that is, you know, that part of it is true, too, from the JFK perspective, right? That there were these multiple snipers. I think you can't look at the the evidence of JFK's assassination, like I said earlier in the B block and walk away thinking that there was only one gunman. So if it's true that there were multiple, it stands to reason, I guess, in some fantastical alternate reality that John Denver was one of them. Now, there's other pieces.

Obviously, I tell the story of John Denver as a musician and his coming up and his coming up on the West Coast sort of folk scene, the difference between the folks scene and the West Coast, from the folks' scene in the East Coast, him coming up. up with David Crosby and the birds and that beef between John Denver and David Crosby, that actually happened. That was true. That was real. The bit about John Denver chain sawing his bed in half for his wife. That is true as well. That is something that I uncovered in my research of John Denver. And that just flies right in the face of who John Denver was. And if we were doing it, just a straight John Denver story, that unbelievable holy shit moment would definitely be part of it.

John Denver did actually die in a plane crash, his own plane. He did not allow himself to crash, to overcome his guilt and his shame, and to put an end to and all that. Of course, I made up and was part of the April Fool's joke. So, you know, some of the sources here that I used, going to get into these. It's been a long time. This episode came out. It was the second or third year of the show of the podcast. I can't remember. It came out a couple years ago. I think it came out in 2020, if memory serves. And I don't really have a lot of strong insight into these research sources here. I simply have the list. Let me see if anything jogs my memory as I read them. John Denver, okay, yeah, John Denver, the untold story of a Vietnam sniper by Loretta Spilt here.

This must be the article that I found on the internet that kind of makes the case that he was Vietnam sniper that is just, you know, false. Rocky Mountain high-priced home. That's where I got the details on John Denver's massive 7,000 square foot Aspen Mansion. Had to do a lot of research into how snipers actually work, because I don't understand any of that. Now, at the time that this episode came out, there was this time in modern American history where there are all these JFK documents that were set to be released. And Trump looked at when he was president, He looked at some of them, and he was like, nope, I'm not, I'm not releasing these. And I was like, ah, I can use that.

I can use that as part of the story. Again, using the truth to help tell the fantasy. I did a lot of research on CIA's, their kill squads. There was an article I read called the CIA's Worldwide Kill Squads by Roy Norton. You want to learn more about that Trump in the JFK assassination files. There was an article called Trump Holds Some JFK Assassination Files back, sets new three-year deadline. I'm sure we've passed that three-year deadline since then, and they still haven't been released. I did read a John Denver biography, and I don't have it listed here in my list of sources,

and I'm not sure which that was. Excuse me, I'm not sure what that was, which book that was. So just, you know, the thing that makes this John Denver thing so believable is who John Denver was as a character. He was this very docile, peaceful, just. kind of chill guy he wasn't quite a hippie but he was like a he was of the hippie generation someone that you know the hippies parents could get behind you know john denver too it's worth mentioning here uh you know we probably because he died and he didn't get to really maintain his own legacy and and uh and cultivate it we i think we've forgotten just how famous and popular he was he was literally one of like a handful, like top five most famous entertainers on the planet in the 1970s.

Like it was him, Sinatra, and Elvis. Maybe Barbara Streisand and I don't know, perhaps Robert Redford in the 70s. I'm trying to think of who would fill that fifth slot, but he was that big and just totally mainstream. TV special. huge albums year after year after year massive singles and i got to say i don't really like any of it i am not a john denver fan i know uh because of his his fame and his cultural impact that a lot of you are and that's cool um but just never spoke to me on any level um at all really uh i i just thought he was even as a kid watching him on the muppets i didn't think he was particularly interesting um But, you know, him as a sniper in Vietnam, I'm in. Anyways, he was huge. That's the point I'm trying

to make. Massive, wildly famous. And that was a point I wanted to make, and I'm not sure I really did. I wanted to get that across. It's hard for people who were younger to truly understand just how popular he was. But his vibe, his image was this real kind of like peaceful, pastful environment, pacifists, excuse me, environmentalists. And, you know, that's what makes it, makes the story so compelling that he was a sniper. Another interesting sidebar here is that the same rumor exists about Mr. Rogers.

He, too, was rumored to have been a sniper. The reason that he always wore those long-sleeved cardigans supposedly was to hide all his tattoos for the war. But, you know, that never happened, all right, clearly. perhaps again this is an April Fool's thing i we re-released it this year it's been a couple years since it first came out uh i got a bunch of you new listeners i'm thankful that you're here please forgive me uh it's probably also worth mentioning um that we've we've done another April fool's episode uh it's in the archive i'm not going to mention about what it is uh but it's there

and you might stumble upon it in the archive. And if you do, go easy on me. I'm just playing. Not everything has to be super serious and super dark, and I think you know that about me. 617-906-66-6638 to let me know either on voicemail or text what you thought of the John Denver episode or really just to catch up on anything.

617-906-66-36-3. I'm here for it. We asked a lot, I thought. The Van Halen episode last week prompted a lot of compelling questions. in the after-party bonus episode that we did on covers, best covers, covers that are better than the originals, best guitar players, all that. Let's check in with some of your answers

from last week's question. This one comes from the 7-3-2. Hey, Jake, Mark from New Jersey. Just listen to the Van Halen episode. Amazing as usual. It'd be better. Who sang the original? See you, man.

You know, as much as I love Tom Waits, Mark, and I really do, I really love Tom Waits. I think if I could be any musician of all time, it would be Tom Waits. That's a good question. We'll get back to that. But I agree with you. I think Springsteen's version is better.

And I think Tom Waits might even tell you that as well. It was certainly better for his bank account, that's for sure. All right, let's check out another voicemail here. This one from the 615 on the same subject. Hey, Jake. This is Robbie from the... 615. I am calling with probably the most obvious best cover song, right? The one that took over the original, it's got to be hurt. Johnny Cash's cover of hurt from Transversion. There's nothing

that compares, right? So much to where, you know, Trent's like, that's not my song anymore. That's Johnny's song. Take care, man. See ya. Yeah, 615. I agree with you. That's a great example. hurt by Johnny Cash. And, you know, we obviously have to credit Johnny Cash for the performance, but we got to credit Rick Rubin for producing that song. And I don't know how much he actually produced it other than suggesting it. But the vulnerability in Johnny Cash's voice at that point in his career, that point of his life, excuse me, when he sings that song, is just, it's overwhelming.

And it does something different to the composition. that just wasn't there when Trent Reznor performed it. It's really fantastic. 617-906-66-6638 to hit me up, guys, voicemail and text. You know, there was an interesting question that just got prompted there. We were talking about Tom Waits, and I used to be a musician. I don't really count myself as one anymore. I mean, I'll always make music on some level, but I'm not, I don't want to confuse what I do

with what other people do and do very, very, very well. So I used to think of like, God, if I could be any musician in the world, who would it be? And Tom Waits was always at the top of my list. I thought he was just, I thought he was like this, God, he's just so wholly unique and original. And talk about covers, right? And talk about making things your own.

Not that Tom Waits was this massive cover artist in any way. He wasn't. But he took American. He took country and blues and jazz and and early pop music and he took all of that and blended it into something completely his own and I just I just was I am I remain completely blown away by it that level of originality And yet it's still completely compelling and Listenable. It's not just you know unique to be unique or to be original. It's something that speaks on a universal level. And I always thought, God,

if I could be anyone, it would be Tom Waits. If I could be any musician, that is. Not that I want to be anyone else. I'm pretty happy being me. But the question remains, if you could be any musician, who would it be? 617-90666-6-638. We'll get back to that in a minute. I want to do a couple texts here as well. Again, on this covers issue, 248 writes in Thin' Thin'Lisie's cover of whiskey in the jar is more than a great cover in the vein of Hendricks's all along the watchtower, but a complete evolution of the very old folk song made famous by the Dubliners. Rick from the 248, I would have to agree. Great song, great, great, great song.

One of those songs, when I hear it, it's just in my head for about two weeks. Can't get it out. 646 writes in, hey, hope all is well with you and your family. Just listening to your podcast on John Denver, you mentioned Santo Traficante in New Orleans. Traficante was from Tampa. Carlos Marcello was in New Orleans. Many historians link, ah, many historians linked Marcello to the assassination of RFK and Dr. King. Go Nix.

Good call 646, my mistake, you're absolutely right. I mixed up those two gangsters. And I knew this, you know, it's the southern gangsters and I messed up the southern places of origin. I apologize. 818 writes in, Jake, your podcasts are in a word, cool. Just finished the Van Halen episode and I dug it. I wanted to touch on the

Steve McQueen episode. I was listening to the bonus episode of the Van Halen one. Someone mentioned Alain de Lant, who would be a great episode. And you said to send you a couple of titles to get you familiar with him. So here you go. Le Samurai 1967 and Farewell Friend, 1968, also starring

Charles Bronson. He was considered the French James Dean, cooler than cool and it's still around today. And I'm out. Mickey. Later, Mickey. Mickey. Thanks for the thanks for the recommendations. Ask and I shall receive. I appreciate that. All right, Jacqueline from the 602 writes in,

Hey, the Atari's cover of Don Henley's Boys of Summer is far superior to his original. Jacqueline, I don't know that I agree with that. I really love Boys of Summer. And I know that cover. It's good, but Superior, I don't know. I think you just like the Atari's better. Is that who that even is?

The Atari's? Why does that sound strange to me? 617-906-66-6-6-6-6-3-8 guys, all right, text, voicemail, let me know which musician. In the history of music, you can be any musician at all. Just one, who is it going to be 617-906-66-6-3-8 to let me know? I've got to take a break. I'll be right back. All right, we're back and listen up.

Listen. Listen up, listen. You're getting a cool surprise this week. With this one caveat, you've got to go sign up for disgrace and all access to fully partake in the fruits of this. surprise. As I mentioned at the top of the show, over in the disgrace land All Access membership club, that's our subscription version of the show. We have episodes that you may not have heard yet, episodes on Lane Staley of Allison Chains and Hunter S. Thompson, with more coming each month.

We also have bonus content, like the extended version of this bonus episode every week, this here after party. Okay, if you're an All Access member, you get a fuller, larger, extended version of this bonus episode. All right. You also get ad free listening. Okay. Now, here's a surprise. This is unusual.

We don't usually do this. We have a trailer that we're going to play for you right now on a specific episode that we're releasing. It's part of our icon series. We've never created a specific trailer for one episode before. But with this episode, this episode on Kobe Bryant, we took a massive swing, a massive creative swing. We did something completely unlike anything we've done before.

We smashed two different worlds together to tell Kobe's story in a really unique and exciting way. But don't worry, if you're not a disgrace in all-access member, you will hear the full episode next week along with everything else in our wide feed. If you want to get the dirt on what we got cooking, you'll get a little taste of what we have in store. But to hear this trailer, that's unlike any trailer we've ever produced, it's unlike anything we've ever produced. you've got to be an all-access member. You're going to hear the rest of this bonus episode.

Okay, shout out to Matt Bowden, by the way, our head of production for putting this together, crushed it. All you guys got to do, like I said, to hear this, go to disgracehandpod.com slash membership. And again, for just less than $5 a month, less if you sign up for the annual subscription. That's just a dollar a week, by the way.

You get to support the show. You also get, like I said, one full exclusive episode each month, Lane Staley, Hunter S. Thompson, Basquiat, Chris Cornell, Wayland Jennings. These are all the exclusive episodes, the weekly bonus content that we're pumping out here in after party. You're also going to get this Kobe trailer here in this after party in just a second. And, you know, it's just easiest clicking a button. It's simple. Okay,

sign up either via Apple Podcasts or Patreon. They both work the same way. But if you sign up on Patreon, you're going to get me in the chat every week in there talking with you guys about everything. Music, films, Kobe Bryant, John Denver, or Jay. A of K, whatever. I'm there. All right. What we're listening to, what we're watching, what we're doing this weekend, all this good stuff, okay? Check it out. Discraceandpod.com slash membership to become a member of Disgraceland All Access. I will be back in a flash. All right. Let's recap, shall we? Number one, there's more afterparty to listen to right now, along with an exclusive trailer for next week's brand new episode. All you got to do is go to disgracelampod.com slash membership and sign up

to become an all-access member. But if that ain't your bag, then number two. Right now in your feed, a classic episode on John Denver. Number three, coming tomorrow, a rewind episode on Selena. Number four, over in the Badlands feed, we have episodes from the archive on Patty Hurst and Pete Rose. Number five, next week in the disgrace land feed, a brand new episode on Kobe Bryant. Number six, my number is 617-90666638. Call me on the telephone or text me at number seven. Remember, no one cares about the music that you love more than you do, and well, that's a disgrace. And now for my moment of bliss, in honor of this week's episode on John Denver, me reading you, the Denver-Colarado phone book from 1968, one year before John dropped his first solo album. Barbaris, Louis, 3615 Mead, 455-95-95-95-90.

Barbara's Poultry, 466-7338. Barbara's Union, 477-38-33. Barbie Louise 343-39-38. Barbage, Clifford, 428-9-1-70. Barbie, Ernest, 233, 689. Barbier, Albury, 781-69-9-96. Barbierry-9, Gerald, Luce, 366-11-1-45. John, cheeseproof.

Talking and start mixing. Cut it!