How To Destroy Everything - Episode 5: How to Destroy a Marriage

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

Wherein Danny and Darren try to answer a seminal question: How was it remotely possible that Danny's mom could have stayed with his dad for thirteen years? And how did she finally leave him? This episode takes a winding journey -- from Chicago to D.C. to St. Louis -- and ultimately to a better understanding of the marriage of Richard and Sandy Jacobs. Listen to HTDE on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. If you would like to support this podcast, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com/HowToDestroyEverything. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sandy. Dad? How did you know where to find me? You forgot Uncle Bert's a doctor here. How could you do this? Well, I... You know, it wasn't my idea. Richard held you at gunpoint and made you get a nose job?

Well, no, no. But, you know, he said he couldn't stand to look at my nose. Oh, besides, he got a nose job, too. I know. He's in 2312. Some honeymoon, Sandy. Yeah. Now, Uncle Bert said Richard wanted you to take prednisolone.

He said it would help, like I wouldn't get all bruised during surgery. Sandy! Prednisolone is dangerous. I didn't take it, Dad. Look, it's right here. How the hell did he even get that without a prescription? How does he do anything? He's Richard Jacobs. Well, listen. You sit tight and rest up.

Your uncle and I are going to go have a bit of a chat with that husband of yours. No, Dad. Please, please don't go do that. Sandy, you're going to have to learn to stand up for yourself in this marriage. I won't always be around to help you. I know. Besides, there was nothing wrong with your nose. I paid a lot of money for it.

A week after my wedding, I was reading a Harry Truman biography while drinking pina coladas in an infinity pool on a Caribbean island. But a week after my mom's wedding? Well, she was in New York getting her second nose job at the behest of her new husband. And that event would begin a 13-year marital odyssey. Adventure sentence? That would cover the first six years of my young life. Six years that, at least when it comes to my home life at the Royal Manor, I do not remember at all.

No birthday parties, no playing tag in the backyard, no nights curled up on the couch watching movies. Nada. But the truth is, my parents' entire marriage is a black box to me. Even now, after our last episode, when I finally came to a better understanding of why my mom married my dad, I still don't have a grasp of what their life together was really like, how she stayed with him for as long as she did, and how it all went wrong. Which is why I'm grateful that today, with the help of my best friend and co-host, Darren Gradsky, I'm hoping to find all of that out.

My name is Danny Jacobs, and this is How to Destroy Everything, a podcast about how one narcissist, my dad, destroyed his family, his neighborhood, and his community. This is episode five, How to Destroy a Marriage. So let's talk nose jobs, huh? Oh, God, please. Can we? Honestly, it's all I've ever really wanted to talk about. You and rhinoplasty?

Oh, yeah. Big fan. It's my dream. I wonder why. Well, I got a nose myself. You said it. I said I only intimated. You know, one of the little nuggets in that story that I find so interesting is that your dad also got a nose job.

Right. Right. It's like it takes the whole thing to a more interesting place than just like a typical misogynistic husband looking to manufacture a trophy wife kind of deal. Exactly. Like he didn't just transfer his insecurities to your mom. He himself had his own insecurities. And you know what? One thing I find super fascinating is that my dad getting a nose job conveys at least some sense that he had an awareness of how the world saw him. Some self-awareness, at least. Well, another is simple vanity. Oh, sure. I'm sure that was part of it, too. But beyond that, on a broader level, like hearing that story, it did throw me for a loop, I must say.

Like, I mean, just when I felt like I'd finally gotten to a place where I was starting to understand where my mom was coming from, here she is less than a week into her marriage, agreeing to go under the knife because he can't stand her nose, quote unquote, like what, what, what is that? No, it's madness. I mean, it's a very inauspicious and bizarre way to start a marriage. That's for sure. My thought was like, that's the beginning. Where do they go from there? Like, how the hell do you and your brother even get born in this situation?

How does this thing last for over a decade? Very interestingly, your grandfather had apparently already gotten your mother a nose job. I was about 16 and my dad came to me and he said, you know, like, I think it would be good if you got a nose job. Now I had a long nose, kind of like my mom and my brother has that nose and Danny does too. So I didn't think much about it. Yeah. Somehow he talked me into it. He said I'd be happier with it and it would be good for me or something. But I just, I just have to ask, like you're four days into your marriage, you fly to New York, you're having surgery that you don't want to please your husband. I mean, at that point, are you having second thoughts about your choice at all?

This just occurred to me. He had me do something else surgically. Okay. So when I was dating him, he said that I had bad skin from having pimples, which I didn't think I did. But he insisted that I do a skin, like a scraping or a skin peel or something. It was awful. I went into the hospital. They put me out. They put this stuff on my skin that made it peel all my skin and my face off. Oh, my God.

And then when it healed up, you know, it was like a new coat of skin there. So I didn't think I needed it. I mean, I hardly had pimples at all. How interesting that the two most important men in your life both suggested, demanded that you get a nose job yes i guess so that is weird maybe that's why i didn't think it was so weird for richard but the only thing is i thought it was weird that he thought i had my nose was bad when to me it was already done and he knew it he knew i already had a nose job

oh god i mean hearing that it's like actually your dad pushing for a nose job. Oh, God. I mean, hearing that, it's like actually your dad pushing for a nose job a couple of days after they got married. That's just like normal stuff for your mom, apparently. Yeah. I mean, I guess if we're keeping count, that's two nose jobs and a skin surgery so far, all pushed on her, by the way, by the men in her life. So it's like, no wonder she was insecure. No wonder she stuck it out with my dad for so long. Well, yes, yes, exactly. I think you're right. I think, first of all, low self-esteem,

that insecurity seems to be a defining trait of your mom's, particularly back then. But I also think another defining trait of hers, and I've noticed this all throughout her life, is her optimism. She, despite everything, has a pretty sunny disposition. She's someone who has been through clearly so very much, but I just feel like is constantly like, okay, well, let's make the best of it. Yeah. It's actually pretty darn impressive. It is. And look, I think

you have inherited a degree of that optimism as well, Danny Jacobs. I mean, look, listen to that, listen to that tone. Despite its sarcasm, I think beneath it, there is just a sense of, you know, I mean, look at what we do. We work in entertainment. Our lives are filled with constant rejection. And to endure that, it requires a certain degree of optimism. I think you should speak for yourself because one of the remarkable things about my entertainment career is I've actually never been rejected for anything. Sure thing, Danny. Back to your mom, though.

I think these two character traits, this kind of, you know, insecurity and optimism, let's keep those in mind as we traverse through the journey, the jungle that is your parents' marriage. Yeah, okay. And so that marriage starts in Chicago, USA. It is there that they first moved in together into my dad's apartment. And soon after, there is one event that happens, a pivotal event that I think ends up going a long way in terms of understanding everything that follows. Yeah. My dad gets arrested for the first time. And what he gets arrested for is stealing a whole bunch of telephones. Right. The physical, like, in-home telephones.

Yeah. Yeah, we didn't really understand that at all and got into it a little bit in a conversation with Danny's mom. Just a note about this interview. The audio quality here is not up to our usual standards because this conversation took place way back in June of 2017, when Danny and I first sat down with his mom to talk about her life with Richard, a time when this podcast was not yet even a glint in our eyes. What was the arrest for? The TV thing? No, that was in St. Louis, but in Chicago, he got arrested because he was stealing telephones. Now, telephones in those days, for Ma Bell, I guess that's what he

called it, that you could not buy telephones. You had to rent them from the telephone company. So he would take the phones and he called the phone company and order the phones. And they were business phones, with different lines you could use. And then he was planning to steal them, take them with him when he moved to Washington, DC.

So somebody turned him in. When we moved to Washington, DC, then he had this case that he had to keep coming back. And he had hired an attorney. At this time, I felt like I was kind of proud of him because I felt like he was taking responsibility for this case and not going to his parents. To pay for it. To pay for it and to get whatever they do to, you know, sympathy and everything.

So eventually they made a plea bargain on that and I can't really remember what it was. He didn't, he never, nobody ever found out at the Security Exchange Commission that he had a criminal case because he probably would have gotten fired. So he didn't go to jail obviously and it's not even clear whether or not that plea bargain resulted in a guilty plea of any kind. It could have been a misdemeanor in the end. That's right. Something that was not on his record.

But it's a mystery how he got exposed or who. Someone turned him in. Someone turned him in. And he didn't know who it was. And he never knew who it was. There were several things that happened in Chicago and that somebody was mad at him. And he never knew who it was. There were several things that happened in Chicago and that somebody was mad at him. And I never could figure it out.

Someone like trying to get revenge on him. Yes. One of the things that happened was when I moved up there, I had a brand new car, you know, a pretty new car, maybe a couple of years old. And somebody put something in the gas tank that caused the engine to just freeze up. And so we didn't know who did it, but we know somebody was, I mean, I just figured somebody was mad at him.

When we moved from Chicago to Washington, D.C., somebody called a bomb, called a threat to the moving company that there was a bomb in our moving stuff. Right. And they had to set the stuff out for three days, or for so many days, to let the bomb go off, I guess, before they could say, okay, this is a hoax, and we're just going to go ahead and unload the stuff. Right, right. So that happened, too. He became paranoid because of that. That's what I always thought.

He just got worse every time we moved. The situation where he was wanting his privacy. And he always called it that, his privacy. He called it his privacy. But I think it had something to do with that arrest that he had in Chicago. And then he got suspicious of everybody. Yeah. And I think that's interesting.

I mean, I think that's... There's a logic to that. It makes sense. Yeah. I can see how that could eat at him over time and introduce kind of a whole range of paranoid behaviors. Absolutely. And over time, you're right, because this was not an instantaneous thing. He did not go immediately from the guy that he was to the guy that you knew, you know, as a teenager. It was a gradual process. In fact, so the next phase of their marriage takes place in Washington, D.C. Your dad got a job at the Securities and Exchange Commission.

And according to your mom, when they went there, things were actually kind of good and normal. Yeah. I mean, and my mom saw D.C. as a fresh start. I think my dad did, too. He was excited about this job at the SEC. Yes. It was like the place that he was going to jumpstart his career. Yes. And so professionally, it was going well. Personally, they were going to movies together. My dad tried to get my mom into his passion for ham radio. Didn't she get her license, her ham radio license?

Yes. Although, although my mom did say this. Yeah, he and one of his friends. So I guess this is Chicago, but I don't remember one of them. He gave me a test, but I wasn't very good at it. But the guy, I think, cheated to make me pass because I wasn't very good at it. It was like a Morse code. Yeah, yeah.

Because you have to pass Morse code in order to get a handwritten list. And not only that, I had to learn this electronic stuff, which I really, I think it's like they gave me an open book test, which you're not supposed to do. Okay, so maybe they helped her cheat on the test. I mean, you know, fine. You've got to have a little bit of Richard Jacobs flair to it. You can't not. I mean, that tracks. But, like, look, here's my question for you.

Despite that cheating hiccup, your parents were living a normal, healthy life. Yeah, they definitely do not sound like the kind of couple through which a podcast is going to be created. For sure. But what I'm wondering is like, what is it like for you to process that if you had come along 10 years earlier, you would have entered a happy marriage? Yeah, it's a different world. It's a different universe. It's like, it's very hard for me to kind of see them and see them as the same human beings that I knew. Is that what it is? It is almost like on some level you can't even believe it.

Like you're like, that can't be true. And my dad, what it shows is that he was able to curb his most destructive impulses. Yes. But then. There's always a but then. Well, your dad gets fired. Yeah. From the SEC.

Yep. But right then, okay, in a kind of remarkable show of fortitude, my mom actually shocked me with what she did next. Sandy Jacobs? Here I am. Mr. York, we'll see you now. Okay, great. Mr. York, I have Sandy Jacobs for you.

Come on in, Mrs. Jacobs. Oh, thank you. I know this is not like a normal thing to do, but I hope it's not bad. I knew your name from Richard, so I was able to find your office. What can I do for you? I don't have all day. Sure, thank you. You're busy. Hello, I wanted to ask you if you would consider giving my husband his job back. I see. No, I know he looked at those things, those files he wasn't supposed to, but he didn't

mean it. See, he explained it all to me and it was an accident. But then once you've seen them and you can't exactly do anything about it, right? Like, you can't just take it back, right? So I was just wondering if maybe you could give him, like, a do-over? Did he send you to ask for this? Oh, no, no, not at all. This was my idea, to be honest. He's pretty depressed about losing his job. See, we just moved to Washington, and we're hoping to start a family in this job.

Well, it is a really good one. These files you say he accidentally looked at, they weren't just any ordinary files. They were marked secret. Do you know what that means? No, I... It means they require one of the highest security clearances in the United States.

Your husband does not have a security clearance. No, sure, I know that, but that's what I mean. It was a mistake. You know, he didn't mean to open up those files and... Let me tell you what your husband did. He went into a records room. I mean, he physically entered the room. He didn't just fall in by mistake. And then he lied. He said he had a security clearance that he does not possess, all so he could see some documents he wasn't allowed to look at. This is something the United States government takes extremely seriously. He was fired on the spot

with cause. You're lucky we're not going to turn him into the FBI. Oh. Now, if that's all, Mrs. Jacobs, I wish you a good day. Thank you for your time. One more thing, actually. Do you validate parking? A classified database. Yeah, yeah.

And I'm sure, like, let's just stop for a moment to talk about that. I'm sure there was no real important reason why he needed to access that classified database. Not from 30,000 feet, but I'm sure in the moment, he thought there was an important reason. I mean, who the fuck knows? But I mean, you know, he accessed a classified database. Yes, it's self-sabotage.

I mean, everything was going well. And he could not help himself. Yeah. I'm just trying to understand that the Sandy Jacobs that I know, that you listeners have listened to, that Sandy Jacobs marched herself into the Securities and Exchange Commission, found this man's office and asked for her husband's job back.

This man who was like a government official. Like a bureaucrat, a full-on bureaucrat. Yeah. There goes Sandy. It is hard for me to fathom. I also can't quite understand why my dad let her do that. That's a great question. First of all, it makes me just try to figure out what their dynamic was like in those days.

So your dad apparently was super down about this. Like, that's what your mom said, that he was really depressed about this because this job had been important to him. Right. And then she apparently is full of optimism and gumption and is believing that he did nothing wrong. And so she's like, I'm going to go and I'm going to handle this. And he says, OK. Right. And because the thing that happened is the thing that we would expect to happen, which is my mom's heroic dreams got crushed by the man. Another thing to think about with your mom was that she talked about how going

back to that arrest in Chicago, she was actually proud of your dad for how he was handling that on his own. Yeah. And what that meant was he wasn't relying on his parents back in St. Louis. And what that meant was he wasn't relying on his parents back in St. Louis. Your grandparents had very much taken care of things for him. And maybe enabled. And maybe enabled. And so now they're living in D.C., they've got this life, he's got this job, he's even dealing with that arrest on his own. They are independent. And she had a sense that this is good for him and good for us.

Yeah. And so maybe when the job went away, she had this like premonition, a fear of like, oh, what if that independence goes away? Yeah, that's right. And then what ended up happening? Well, my dad had trouble getting another job in D.C.

They decide to move back to St. Louis then. And your mom had an interesting take on that move. Were you worried at all? Yeah. You were about coming back to St. Louis? Yeah.

Why? What were you worried about? He would start depending on his parents and would do nothing. And the thing is, Sandy was pretty much right. Yeah. So Richard did get a job right when they moved to St. Louis, but it didn't last long. He got fired apparently in about six months, pissed somebody off. And then after that, he never really had another job. Yeah. Like he never worked for anybody as an

employee, I believe for the rest of his life. And in the short term, what that meant was he started his own law firm. Right. And from there he went on a wild, wild career journey, which we will get into in future episodes. But in terms of their marriage, this in St. Louis, this is when things really started to go bad. I can personally vouch for that. Still, at first, as per usual, Sandy tried to make a go of it. Yeah, unlike in D.C., though, things were pretty much weird from the start here in St. Louis. Like, my dad didn't want my mom to work, but then he also didn't give her enough money, apparently, to fill her gas tank.

Richard wasn't giving me any money. He would only give me money that he approved of what I spent it on, I guess. And so what I had to do was take stuff back that we bought from the grocery store so I could have some cash, you know, like if I wanted gas. He wouldn't give me money. So wait a second. stuff back that we bought from the grocery store so I could have some cash. You know, like if I wanted to get gas.

He wouldn't give me money. So you would actually go grocery shopping with him? No, no, I would go grocery shopping at one time. And then if we had a bunch of stuff, because he wouldn't give me any money when I needed it, he needed some money, I would have to return stuff. You would return stuff to the grocery store to get some cash. Yeah. Wow. Okay, what's mind-boggling to me about this is that despite that kind of vindictive, controlling behavior, the marriage still lasted for years.

You're really hung up on this. I can't say it without laughing. It seems so absurd. You would walk? You're saying you would walk at that point? I would walk. Yeah, I would walk, Darren. I mean, look, a way to understand this a little bit

can be illuminated ironically from a story that your mom told us about your dad's shoplifting problem. He stole some stuff from the hardware store. What did he steal? I don't know what the stuff was, but he came to me and he said, I stole this stuff. I don't know what to do with that. What? Wait, wait, wait. He said he had a bunch of nails or something. He was like, I stole this and I don't know what to do. It wasn't that great of a stuff. Whatever it was, it wasn't that much. I don't know.

So I said, let's just go back to the store. You can explain that you just took this by mistake. Yeah. And he did do it. We went back to the store. He did it. And then we left. And it was fine.

It was fine. He didn't know what to do. He wanted me to help him with this. With this problem. Yeah. He took this stuff. And I was fine. And it was fine. He didn't know what to do. He wanted me to help him with this. With this problem. Yeah. He took this stuff. You didn't say, did you ever say why did you steal this stuff? Well, I think I just thought he was crazy. I don't know. Wowie, wowie.

I mean, I want to zoom in on the last thing that your mom said right there. Yeah. That she actually had the thought back in the day that your dad was crazy. Because I think this could be an important way to understand why she stayed in the marriage so long. In the 80s and 90s,

when you and I grew up in St. Louis, Missouri, therapy, narcissistic personality disorder, mental illness, none of these things were talked about. Yeah, yeah, you're totally right. Therapy analysis, it was something that Woody Allen did in Woody Allen movies. Yes, exactly. Like that, yeah, the people on the coasts, not us.

Yeah. And yet your mom, you know, understandably recognized that something was going on with your dad. So I wonder if she was able to rationalize in a way staying with him because she didn't think that what he was doing was intentional. Man, I mean, yeah, that could very well be the case. And in fact, she had a specific idea about what he might have, not just that he was quote unquote crazy. Yes, you're right. That thing that we mentioned in the previous episode when he told my elementary school that he worked for the CIA. So apparently they called my mom and asked her about that. When I went in for that, when they called me in, they asked me if he

worked for the CIA. The school did? Yeah. Belle Reve? Yeah. And I said, no. And then they said, well, he told them. He said, if you need to call, here's the number for, you know, Washington DC. He said, if you need to call, here's the number for Washington, D.C. Dad gave? Dad gave a phone number, which was a number that connected to another number, and then it was an answering machine. He knew how to do connecting numbers. And then an address.

If somebody sent him a letter at that address, the people living there would never know know that if you send in your change of address just for that one person because that one person doesn't live there the change of address will could kick in and go to a different address you can get a DC address and then have it essentially and he used that like all the time in St. Louis, even in St. Louis. You know, going from one address to another. Like he had credit cards and whatever. They were all under different addresses.

Okay, hold on, hold on. I need to pause here to make sure that I understand what he was actually doing with this address thing because I'm not sure that I totally get it. Oh, with the forwarding address thing? Yeah, okay. So I think it's actually kind of genius. So here's my understanding of it. What he would do is he would file an official change of address form at a house where he did not live. So like a house in DC. Right. Some random person's house. And then he would have it forwarded, the mail forwarded to the place of his

choosing. It's one of his many PO boxes you've always talked about. So let's say that he filed a change of address at your house now, saying, oh, Richard Jacobs does not live here anymore. Even though he never lived here. He never lived there. Correct. Correct. But now he can give somebody your mailing address as his own. You know, it'll go to the post office and they will forward it along to whatever, you know, PO box he put on his change of address. It will never get to your house. You will be completely unaware of it. Oh man, I gotta say, I have to have some begrudging respect for the cleverness of it all. Yes, exactly. It is very, very smart. So at that point, I thought, when I was thinking he was crazy, I thought that he actually believed.

Sorry, one little, did you ask him about the CIA thing? Did you confront him and say, do you? I think he said it was because, I think I did, and what his excuse was, it was his privacy. He wanted his privacy, and he didn't want anybody knowing where he lived. That was his excuse for almost everything. He wanted nobody knowing where he lived. And this was a way that he could protect his privacy. Okay.

And that's all he said. He didn't say any weird stuff, you know. I mean, other weird stuff, you know. So anyway, you started to say that when you thought it was crazy. When I came up with that CIA stuff, I thought that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. Okay. So you thought he really believed that he worked for the CIA? Yes.

Yeah. Okay. And I didn't know what to do about that. But years later, I was working for an attorney and the counselor happened to call up. The counselor, who Richard interviewed with in our divorce story, the psychologist, happened to call up the attorney and then I recognized his name and I said to him, can I just ask you something? He said, you remember me? And he said, oh yeah. And I said, did Richard really believe that he worked for the CIA? Was he like a schizophrenic that he believed that and he said no he said his whole purpose was to like to defraud people you know it was to get away with something he didn't believe anything that that he was saying so after that i kind of had a different perspective on it that he really didn't believe that but i thought he believed it i think it's like it's just about winning about winning in that moment yeah

yeah it's true i keep coming back to that that arrest in Chicago when somebody turned a man and he never knew how it was. I mean, like, look at the lengths to which he is going to make sure that that can never happen again because nobody knows where he lives. The Royal Manor. I mean, all of it. It all kind of comes together. That was clearly a fulcrum point. But I also want to dig in a little more to this idea that my mom thought he was crazy. Yes.

Like she thought he believed the things he was telling people. Yes. And by the way, what a fascinating sort of coda to that, that years later, for her to have that fortuitous discussion with the psychiatrist who told her, no, he was manipulating people. Yeah. I mean, it was something that I feel like we probably could have discerned. Well, we, yes, but your mom believed she didn't know. She didn't.

That's the thing is that she was like, what if, you know, he actually thinks that this is real? I mean, she did think that. Yeah. I honestly think that is a part of why she stayed with them so long. Yeah. Yeah. Also, by the way, your mom believes everything.

So your dad could be very persuasive and he I'm sure was insistent. Sandy, whatever, this is the thing. This is what happened. And so she believed it. But boy, is that not a recipe for a healthy relationship to put it mildly. No, no, no, no. I don't know about your relationship, but neither my wife nor I believes the other to be, actually, I can't speak for my wife, but I don't believe that she's a paranoid schizophrenic and that's, you know, helpful in our marriage. And yet it is not hard to see how the, you know, because of that, this thing would fall apart, but it wasn't immediate. Yes. She thinks he's crazy, but it still took years for the marriage to fall apart. They still had another kid, Danny Jacobs.

Yep. I mean, you know, I think about that choice, like from your dad's perspective, I don't know, maybe he wanted somebody else on his side. Yeah. It's just like bolster his ranks. It's an ally. Yeah. But what about my mom? Like, I think it's kind of remarkable that she was like, I know what'll solve my husband's paranoid schizophrenia, another child. You know, whatever her motivations, your mom, once again, is trying to make the best of a situation,

and that is why you are here. Yeah, and it should come as no surprise that my birth was also a bit of a shit show. Oh, boy. Oh, it's really happening, Richard. It is really happening. Are you doing the breathing? Yeah, of course I'm doing the...

Are you eating? Yeah, I felt like my blood sugar was getting low, so I grabbed a Snickers from the treat drawer. I don't understand why you wanted to wait so long to go to the hospital. Sandy, please. You're hurting my ears with all the yelling. It'll be fine. Fine! Ah, Sandy, please. You're hurting my ears with all the yelling. It'll be fine.

Fine, fine, fine, Richard. I have been in labor for at least... What are you doing? Why are you turning into the hardware store? I just need to make one quick stop.

It'll be really quick, okay? But, Richard, I am having a baby. I am having our baby. Labor always takes longer than you think. It's an old wives' tale that it happens quickly. Look, this will just take a second, okay? Remember that package of nails that I bought the other week?

I don't care. Okay, they advertised $200 a pack and there were only $190. Very frustrating. I'm going to get a refund. Please, Richard. Please, can you just handle this on a different day? Look, we're right here. It's on the way. And because of your condition, I can park in the handicap spot. So win-win. Richard, please. Just keep breathing.

I'll be back in a jiff. Oh, could you reach down and hand me that bag? Okay, I'll get it myself. Wow. Oh, my God. That is... And you wound up being born in an elevator, right? Yeah, we didn't get to the hospital on time.

You were so late. We were so late that I was born in the elevator on the way up to the delivery room. Wow. Yeah. That is just an insane way to enter this world. I mean... I was raring to go, man. Apparently so.

I was like, let's get this party started. Yeah, you also were born disliking your father's errands, I think, from the start. Yeah, exactly. That's why. I mean, folks, we've finally entered the point of the story when Danny Jacobs has arrived. Yep. Everything's going to be good now. I've entered the chat.

Everything's going to be great. Everything's smooth sailing from here on out. I'm sorry to say that, in fact, that's not the case. It's shocking that I wasn't a unifier, but I wouldn't bring them together. No, you know, in fact, not to place blame on you, but I feel like we've had a bunch of moments leading up to this where the marriage is pretty good from here on. It's the kid's fault. It's always the kid's fault. But seriously, your childhood was so rife with conflict with your dad. It was.

Getting kicked out of, you know, basically everywhere. It's kind of a wonder that you had anywhere left to go in St. Louis. Seriously. Now, we've heard a ton of stories in all these various interviews about the shenanigans that your dad got himself into. Right. Let's take a trip back into your childhood. And see how it feels. back into your childhood and see how it feels.

We would all be out to dinner and dad would cause an argument with the place so bad that when I came back into the restaurant, they would say to me, is your husband coming? If he is, you can't come in. I mean, this kind of stuff happened all the time. What would he do? Like, oh, I don't know, Chuck E. Cheese or whatever those places were. He would try to eat in the area where you're not supposed to eat. And then when they told him that he couldn't eat there, he would argue with him so much that they would kick him out. You know, and then I couldn't go back unless I was without him.

Yeah, we went to some place and you could get, you know, grab some cherries and eat cherries while you were waiting for your table. And I remember and Rachel spit out the pit all over the floor. Okay. So, you know, at first I thought it was, you know, that's kind of cute. You know, one or two little pits ain't no big deal. Richard thought it was such a good idea. He went over and got a whole bunch of cherries and did exactly the same thing.

So by the time we were called in, I mean, the whole front area was just pits all over the floor on the entrance to the restaurant. You know, I had to walk away because I was so embarrassed. One time we were in the car and he was going to the bank and he wanted to deposit some money in the drive-through window. And we drove up and he drove in the wrong way. The opposite way.

The opposite way. And he was too lazy to turn around and go the other way. And they said, you need to not do it this way. You have to go back in. Isn't he not having to like reach across

and pass the receipt or something? I don't know. See, he maybe gave it to me. You know how these malls have like, you know, little candy stores, you know,

and if you want, they sell by the pound or the ounces or anything like that. And you know, on the scale, they put a little piece of paper down on the scale, okay, because they don't want the candy, obviously, just smack on the scale, you know. Sure, right. For health reasons, you know.

Richard did not want to be charged for that piece of tissue, okay, that little piece of tissue paper. He bought, like, two pieces of candy. I think it came to, like, 78 cents. And he said he wanted, like, 15 cents piece of tissue paper. He bought like two pieces of candy. I think it came to like 78 cents. And he said he wanted like 15 cents off for the paper, for the weight of the paper. Sure. Okay. Also, he would go into McDonald's and he would argue about he wanted the kid's meal a certain way.

I forgot what it was. And then if they didn't do it, then he would just sit there. The one I remember most. Oh, I remember times like that. You mean like he wants to have you. He would just like hold, he would like whatever he would want. And be like, I'm sorry, we can't do that. Like, whatever it is.

And he would argue with them. And we would just sit there in the drive-thru holding it up while people were behind us. People would come out and try to wait on the people behind them. Until they would give in. Yeah. Yeah, and it was really embarrassing. It's, it's kind of a lot to hear all of that at once like that. Yeah. I mean, the truth is we could go on and on because the stories are seemingly endless, but let's just do one more. You think we need one more? You think we need one more? Let's do one more.

One time we went to a Greek restaurant that's downtown, you know, and they have a Greek day. And you can go in and buy all this Greek food. We also had a ticket to go see The King and I. Yeah. And this was my favorite show. And I think it was maybe the last performance of Jorgen or something. So it was very important to me. So we brought all these desserts.

Excuse me, sir. You're actually going to need to throw that away. We do not allow any outside food or drink. So thank you. I'm sorry? Yes, that food we do not actually allow in the theater. So you're going to need to throw that away. Thank, thank you. I'm sorry? Yes, that food we do not actually allow in the theater, so you're going to need to throw that away. Thank you so much.

He wanted to bring all of these desserts into the box. From the Greek festival. So he argued with that. No, no, no. Look, I bought a ticket to this show, so I fail to see how it's your concern what I bring in with me. Sir, we have a strict policy against bringing in any outside food or drink.

If you'd like refreshments, we do offer an assorted array over at the snack bar right there. No, no, I don't want your refreshments. I want the baklava I purchased at the Greek Festival. And you're welcome to enjoy it outside the theater, or you can throw it away, but we can't let you bring it in to the

theater. Sir, I am a diabetic, and if my blood sugar gets low, I could go into diabetic shock and require an immediate infusion of sugar. I am not going to ask you again. This is the last time I'm going to... Well, I'm not going to answer again, okay? I am not in need of medical assistance now, but I cannot control my insulin. Sir, this is... I need a ready supply of sugar on hand at any moment, should the need arise. Now, if you're going to forbid that, you are putting my health at risk. I am a father of two, and I don't think that you want the burden of my death on your conscience should anything happen, do you?

And he was arguing with them. Okay, so I took the kids, and I just brought them down to our seats. So they don't see this. So they don't see it. That's how I tried to limit it. Richard finally came out, and he had a smile on his face. He said, I fooled them.

He put everything in his pockets. All that, and then he threw out the box and he had all those sticky desserts in his coat. In his coat pockets. Yeah. Oh,

it's just so good. And he's just chowed down on these mushed bottle of ice. That's right, they came out of his pocket. In his pocket. Yeah. Oh man.

Yeah. My God. The thought of, like, Yul Brynner up there on stage, you know, singing Shall We Dance while this dude is crinkling all these wrappers of Greek desserts that he's just eating straight out of his pocket. That's quite something. Yeah. I mean, honestly, I'm imagining my mom sitting there watching this show, this thing that was really important to her.

She was excited about this. Yeah. A bit of excitement in her life, which we've talked about is something she's after. And my dad just ruining it like he always did. That sucks. And then I think about, like, my God, like, I know the shame that I felt every day of my life. Right. I know the shame that I felt every day of my life. And I'm just thinking about what me as a three-year-old or a four-year-old or a five-year-old must have felt in that moment. Oh, God, that's awful.

The kind of shame that I was thinking about my kids at that age. What it must have been like for me and my brother to go through that. It's funny, but it's also really fucking terrible. It's kind of unfathomable, actually. Like, I just can't even wrap my mind around what a kid is thinking in that situation. And then there's your mom, right? I mean, we actually talked to her about what she was going through during this period. Like, are you sad at all?

Like, I guess I keep trying to understand emotionally where you're at. Because as you're telling me these things, it seems like if it were me— I was sad. The thing is, it took a long time before I felt like I had enough and wanted to leave. And that was basically when I was talking to my uncle. Would you like cry? No. No, I don't think I was crying over it.

Yeah, you were just sad generally yeah yeah and i bet i just kept thinking oh it's gonna get i guess i have to stay with this it's gonna get be okay you know and then it just got worse and worse and worse did you talk to him about your concerns and how you felt like things were not going well no he he felt like um i had to do what he wanted you know whenever i wanted to do like let's say i wanted to um have him drive when we would go out and he wanted me to always drive oh he would get mad and he would say he would try to get me lost by not saying go east and go west and i couldn't figure it out and then when i then finally he would get mad at me and say let's just go home you know wait a second wait a second. So you were going to go out and he wanted you to drive.

And you said, will you drive? And he said no. So then you drove. But then you're saying that he's mad. And the way that his anger came out was he would sabotage the drive. He wouldn't tell you where to go. So when he would get mad, it's not that he would yell and scream. It's that he would do

something yes yeah he would do something to sabotage it and then if i came up with i don't want to drive right away you know like we get in the car and i say i'm not driving because the last time i drove this this and this and this happened he would he would not take up the driving he would say okay then we're just not going. And then he would say to the kids, it's your mom's fault that we're not going. Wow. Wow. Do you remember that? No, I don't. But it's, I just, it's, it just doing that is so cruel. So cruel. Yeah. As a parent with two kids, the thought of me saying to my children. Sorry guys, no beach today. It's mom's fault, by the way. Mom's fault. Yeah, yeah.

So finally, after 13 years of marriage, let's talk about how your mom finally left your dad. Okay, so I decided that we were going to go to Kansas City. And the day the school was out, you know, that next day I just packed all the kids you guys at the end of the school year at the end of the school year and we drove to Kansas City which we do sometimes anyway so it didn't you probably didn't even notice and then I stayed there for a while how long well he found out he I left him a note and he found out so he was all upset and he

was and he called he said let's try to work it out let's try to work it out and so I said okay so we came back and we stayed in a in a motel that's somewhere around here that had good prices and and we stayed for about three weeks and and then he lied then when we went we stayed at a motel for three weeks. Yes. Man, I don't remember that. You and me and **** and we stayed in the motel. Now, if only the story had ended there. Your mom actually thought it was going to be easy.

And I thought, in my mind, I thought, you know, he is so insecure about people knowing where he lives and everything. That I don't think he'll actually go after me. my mind i thought you know he is so insecure about his people knowing where he lives and everything that i don't think he'll actually go after me he won't want any legal cases with me so he'll probably settle that's what i thought well my mom could not have been more wrong true story on the on the range of right to wrong it's pretty far on that spectrum. Because leaving my dad was the beginning of an entirely new chapter of utter horror for all of us. Yes. I mean, and we will get into that in a future episode. But first, Danny, I wanted to ask you something about your parents' marriage. Okay. Well, about marriage in general, maybe. So your mom and dad were married for 13 years. And you and your wife next year will be celebrating your 13th wedding anniversary.

True. Do you think about your marriage in any way as analogous to your parents? Do you think of those two things in tandem? Well, no. I don't think that I do. Well, no, I don't think that I do. You know, people say that a lot of parenthood is about having experiences in which you're sort of recalling back the nostalgia, the emotions of certain events from your childhood from the different, from the other side. Yes, exactly. I don't have any of that.

That's what I'm wondering. And I'm not trying to recreate any of that because that was all so painful and difficult. any of that because that was all so painful and difficult. So I think I'm very consciously trying to make it unanalogous, to kind of set it apart on a whole different track. In fact, if there's anything in my marriage or my life as a parent that is in any way remotely similar, it's like a red flag goes up. I'm like, wait a second, uh-oh, something's gone wrong here because this feels like my childhood. Why did you have children? Well, it's funny. When people ask me that, the way I would consciously respond is to say several things. Number one, I had children because I'm very interested in exploring the breadth of human experience,

and it feels like such a big part of the human experience to be a parent and have a child and I wanted to have that experience. I've heard you say that. Yeah. And I think that there's certainly some truth to that. It also just feels like an answer that you say to people. Yeah. About a lot of things. Well, I want to experience things. I'd like to experience falling off of a building when I'm 88. So I'm going to do that. I don't know. Did you just equate being a parent to falling off a building? You said it. You said it, sure. And I'm 88, so I'm going to do that. I don't know. Did you just equate being a parent to falling off a building? You said it. You said it, baby.

I mean, like, I don't know for sure. I think there is a – maybe what you're getting at and maybe what is true is that there's an element of – I don't know what I'm getting at. Well, what I'm thinking about is that there's an element of, like, are you trying to – am I trying to fix this? I might be getting at that. Or replay it in a more positive way. That's what I mean. Yes, that's what I'm getting at.

I mean, I'm stubborn. There's a part of me that's like, man, somehow not having kids because of my dad would be some kind of capitulation to him. Don't let the terrorist win. Yeah, and that like having kids and doing what we're doing in this podcast and trying to stop this generational trauma from passing on is the win.

Is like creating a next generation of children in my family who are unmoored by my dad's illness is the goal. I love that. Yeah good but back to the marriage right right right so so i mean look my parents marriage was so unlike mine like night and day night and a and day in a whole other universe right it's how i started this episode talking about what my wife and i were doing a week in compared to my parents. So it's comforting. It is comforting for me to know that the differences in how these two marriages began only widened as they went on. And that gives me, I got to say, like a great amount of peace.

So now, before we get into your mom and dad's story after she left him, I think we need to go back and talk through your dad's remarkable career. Yeah. We mentioned that once they moved to St. Louis, my dad never really had a legit job. But that, in some ways, opened his daily schedule up to get into all kinds of trouble. Yes, yes. Trouble that, on one hand, would bring him all the way to the United States Supreme Court, but, on the other hand, would see him arrested and facing criminal charges. That's right. And that's our next episode. Of How to Destroy Everything.

Darren. Darren. I know, I know. I just thought I'd try to sneak one more of those in there. You know, for old times' sake. Oh, hell. Why not? Okay, go for it. Wait, I thought I'd try to sneak one more of those in there. You know, for old times. Oh, hell. Why not? Okay, go for it. Wait, really? You think I should do it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Really? This could be the end? Do it, brother. End this puppy with a glorious bang. Okay, all right. Here we go. This has been another episode of How to Destroy... I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. That can't be the end. This is the end. I'm just kidding. That can't be the end. This is the end. How to Destroy Everything is written, directed, and created by Danny Jacobs and Darren Grodzki.

Executive produced by Michael Grant Terry and edited, sound designed, and music supervised by Dashiell Reinhart and Robert Grigsby Wilson. Grigsby? Grigsby? Grigsby Wilson. Great. Robert Grigsby Wilson. Grigsby? Grigsby? Grigsby Wilson. Great. Robert Grigsby Wilson. Original music by Jesse Terry. Starring in alphabetical order, Carolyn Jania,

Jonathan Kaplan, Kiel Kennedy, Kyle. It's Kyle. Kyle Kennedy, Tom Conkle. Emily Pendergast. Michael Strassner.

If you knew Richard Jacobs and have a story to tell, please reach out to us at IKnowRichardJacobs at gmail.com. Additionally, if you would like to support this podcast, please consider becoming a patron at www.patreon.com slash howtodestroyeverything. And of course, you can find us on Instagram and Twitter as well. How to Destroy Everything is available on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mom, you're a goddamn star. Sandy, can I tell you something? What? You crushed it. You're getting real good.

I'm getting better. Real good. Special shout out to Spotify Studios for hosting us in this beautiful studio space in downtown Los Angeles.