How To Destroy Everything - Interregnum: How to Destroy a Name

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Wherein Danny and Darren dive into a treasure trove of old films and videos that Richard had made over the years, interview the actor who plays Richard about what it's like to play such an outsized character, and speak with Sandy about the ways this podcast have helped her reclaim her story.  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

Hey, we just wanted to pop in here to let you know that we're going to be taking two weeks off for the holidays, so there won't be new episodes coming out on Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve. However, we will be back in the new year with episode 10 and our regular releases every Tuesday starting on January 7th. Thank you again for your incredible support and we hope you have an amazing, restful, narcissist-free holiday season. Now on with the episode.

Hello everybody and welcome to How to Destroy Everything. Oh, that was a great intro, Darren. My name is, God, I hate you, Darren Grodzki. And for some reason, I'm doing a podcast with my best friend, Danny Jacobs. Yeah, yeah Danny. Who brings me some joy, a lot of frustration, and certainly a great deal of struggle.

Danny, how are you today? I'm doing well Darren. We should tell people what this podcast is. Well that's a good idea. It's about my narcissistic father, Richard Jacobs, who has passed away. Ah, yeah, in 2015, I believe. 2015. And this is about the kind of concentric circles of destruction that he wrought over the course of his life, both back then and also the ramifications for that in my present-day life.

And it's a real joy to be here. It is. It is. And it's a joyful topic and a joyful experience. Just joy. Now, one thing that I wanted to talk about at the start of this was that I recently got a hold of a treasure trove of films and videos. My dad had always been interested in photography and cameras and clearly because he technology yeah and he recorded people without their knowledge and he had these buckets of like literal like 16 millimeter films and video tapes vhs tapes were they in buckets they were in they were in actual buckets yeah and he had given them

to my brother who had proceeded then to do nothing with them for years and years. Understandably. So I went to visit him and his family, and I was like, all right, we're gonna handle this. And I had them all digitized. I'm talking like 50 hours of stuff. Oh my God. A crazy amount of stuff, okay?

And I wanna talk about some of the things that I've seen and some of the things that I've noticed in this. So you've watched all of these now? I have watched most of them. That's a lot of hours. Yes, I have watched most of them. There's still some that I haven't gotten to yet. Danny, your dedication to this podcast is impressive.

Appreciate that, Darden. I don't think I would sit through 50 hours of your father's. Well, so, okay, so there's two categories of stuff. There's stuff that he recorded when he was a kid. Oh, wow, okay. And. There's stuff that he recorded when he was a kid. Oh, wow. Okay. And then there's stuff that he recorded when I was a kid. All right? Okay, okay.

Let's talk about first the stuff that he recorded as a kid. First of all, it's incredible. Like he would oftentimes just set up a film camera, not to film anything in particular, but to like film my grandparents and him and my aunt just having a meal together over, like, 20 minutes. And you just sort of, like, it's this window, it's this time travel into the past.

He was a verite filmmaker in the 1950s. He was. And I know that, like, throughout his whole life, his relationship to filming things was a very contentious one for other people. Like, growing up, I remember, like, my grandparents would always get annoyed with him, like, stop filming us. Like, you know, he would take it too far. He would not know where the boundaries are or not care where the boundaries are, where

other people felt comfortable or uncomfortable. But the, like, strange gift of that has come back to me here because I'm getting these incredible glimpses into my grandparents when they were like my age that I've never seen before and hearing them and hearing how they talk. Oh, there's audio for these things in the 50s also? There's audio for a lot of it too.

So it is wild. We should share some of these with our patrons on Patreon. Yes, that's a great idea. We will put some of them up on our Patreon. That's at patreon.com slash how to destroy everything if you wanna become a member of our community over there. Okay, so now I wanna talk about the bucket of films from my own childhood.

And some of these are like, you know, a trip to Hawaii that they took with, that my family and I took when I was like three years old. And it's like an hour and a half cut together of different things. Okay. A couple of interesting things, by the way,

like my dad just was obsessed with everybody just turning to the camera and saying hi and waving. Wherever we were, he'd be like, okay, say hi, say hi to the camera. But my dad is narrating a lot of these too. But one thing that I realized was I'm watching this, it's like, I almost kind of got under the spell of the films because I'm like, you watch this

and you're like, oh my God, this is, what a lovely like family vacation this is. Idyllic Norman Rockwell. Normal people doing normal things and I had to sort of like remind myself like, wait a second, this is his version of events. Anything that he didn't want to be seen is not in here. And this isn't real, right?

It's like how today people on their own social media, they put forth the best version of themselves. This was like his version of his Instagram page. Right, and what's interesting is that he, you know, they say like the historians, you know, to the Victor, you know, writes the story or whatever. No, I think to the winner go to spoils and history is written by the winners. That's right. And my dad in a way is the winner here because he's the one that gets to tell these stories. And he got the spoils.

Then there's stuff that comes later. There's like one in particular I'm thinking of where my brother and I are in like my dad's kitchen. I'm probably like six. My brother is probably nine. And it's me and my brother and my dad. And we're just making dinner. It's lovely.

Now we want to season it. So the camera's just like on a tripod or something. It's on a tripod. And we're just like, he's showing us how to do. We're making Cornish hens, and we're showing us how to do these things. And it's like, lovely. And he'll tickle us. And you know, there's just like, yeah, regular family stuff.

And I watched this, and I was like, oh my god. Oh, this is why I loved him. He has this capacity for this goodness and this, this real, this being a real father. And then I mentioned it to my brother and my brother was like, oh, you know, that was all like staged, right? I was like, what? He was like, yeah, that was during the time in which like the divorce proceedings were underway and the custody battle was taking place

and my dad wanted to show the court what kind of father he was. Oh my God. And so he set up these little scenes, these little perfect Norman Rockwell scenes to kind of show that. And I was like, oh my God, there you go. He pulled it off though.

Like he clearly did a good enough job that you didn't see the artifice in it. Exactly. My brother said that he was really annoyed. He was like, I remember making those Cornish hens. And he was like, I was really annoyed and I didn't want to do it. But I was like six.

I was like, whatever, this is great. We're having fun. We're making dinner. This is good times. Wow, that's amazing. It's all this like forced fabricated moment. That's incredible. Yeah, so in kind of a microcosm,

it was a nutshell of like my own experience with my dad, which is just like, he manages through his charm and charisma to kind of reel you in. And you're like, oh yeah, this is great. This can be good, right, right, right. And then there's a revelation that you make that realizes- Nope. right, right, right. And then there's a revelation that you make that realizes-

Nope. Nope, just a facade. Let me ask you this, before you had that revelation, when you were watching it, were you feeling any sense of nostalgia for it? Oh yeah, yeah. Like you just were- It's more innocent.

I look at myself in those videos and I'm like, I didn't, I was, you know, I was six. I wasn't really fully aware of, I think I'm sure I was emotionally, but like, it was. You weren't yet the broken man that you now, that now sits before me. Okay, there's one more film that I wanna mention in specifics and that is the one of my Bar Mitzvah ceremony.

Oh, you have your Bar Mitzvah. I do. Oh, great. And one of the, And for attentive listeners, you will recall way back in episode six, we referenced it very briefly in the opening scenes of like my dad calling all the Hollywood bigwigs in one of the dimensions that we used some editing tricks and was able to kind of have me have a conversation with God.

Yes. And what that was was part of have me have a conversation with God. And what that was, was part of my Bar Mitzvah speech, anybody that's not Jewish out there, you make a speech in the synagogue for your Bar Mitzvah. My dad and I went to an editing studio. There were these movies called the Oh God movies starring George Burns from the 1970s and 80s. The first one co-starred John Denver and George Burns plays God and we basically took George Burns's dialogue moved a bunch of things around and added in my own dialogue and At my Bar Mitzvah we had my friend Josh Friedman who you'll hear from later in a later episode in this podcast

flipped the lights on and off in the back of the synagogue and we played a thunderclap as I said I always wondered what it would be like to talk to God and Then we played a thunder clap as I said I always wondered what it would be like to talk to God and then we played this tape. People are always praying to you. Do you listen? I can't talk hearing. I don't always listen. Then you don't care. Of course I care. I care plenty. What can I do? But you're God. Now I had a memory of that which was like oh I remember it being cool. I had a memory of that, which was like, oh, I remember it being cool.

I have a memory of that, too. And I remember, like, the rabbis were like, that was, oh my gosh, that was great. But I remembered it as a kid would remember it. I hadn't seen it since I got this treasure trove of films. So I watched it. And as I'm watching it, I'm like, oh, this is actually, like, profound.

Really? Like, I found it to be moving in a way that, as a kid, I couldn't conceive. I don't get into details. Then whatever happens to us? Happens. You mean there's no plan, no scheme to guide our destinies?

A lot of it is luck. The sound, even the sound of the recording, because it's in this huge space, has this kind of echo-y quality, and the lights are down, and everybody's quiet and listening to this really interesting conversation between a 13-year-old kid and George Burns as God.

Did you write this, your dialogue? Honestly, I don't remember. I'm sure it was a collaboration. Yes. And as I'm watching this, I'm like, oh my God, this is actually pretty incredible. Oh my god. And it was a recognition to me of like, you know, my dad, for the insanity, for all of the insanity, like he could pull off these miracles. Like this thing that

was like really amazing would not have happened. I'm fairly sure were it not for him. So I think that was a, I don't know, it was just a recognition of that, of that there can be these little positive nuggets, these really amazing little nuggets that come about by the fact that he was around. And as a reminder also that like I, like you had a vague memory of it and kind of an assumption that like this kid's Midwestern bar mitzvah in the nineties would be kind of lame. Yeah. You know, like if I went back and looked at it, but like it's a reminder that since I'm

sure you're right, that it was a collaboration with your dad, that your dad not only pulled stuff off, but like he was very smart. Yeah. I dare say talented in a way. Yeah, in a way. Yeah. And could elevate something like this to what I'm sure was probably the most interesting or impressive Bar Mitzvah,

you know, of that time or for a long time. Yeah, exactly. Among all of them, because the ambition of it, the aspiration of it, and then the execution of that ambition. And I would probably say that, like, I would not be honest if I didn't say that that experience or things like that probably inspired my own ambition. And I would probably say that, like, I would not be honest if I didn't say that that experience or things like that

probably inspired my own ambition. Yes. Creatively and just in the projects that I decided to take on and things like that. And a belief that you could actually achieve those ambitions because your dad did. Yeah. And I mean, I'll say, you know, like,

if my kids end up having bar mitzvahs, I don't think I would go to all that trouble to do that. It seems like a lot of energy that I don't have. Just give a speech, it'll be fine. Yeah, it'll be fine. But like your dad was willing to go the extra mile for you, for your bar mitzvah. Obviously it's your extension of him

and so on and so forth, but like it was your bar mitzvah, he spent a lot of time on that. And you're right that there's a real benefit to that. And now a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Mint Mobile. If there's one thing about Danny and I, it's that we love a great deal. But we are also, we are also not going to endure some kind of torturous gauntlet in order to get that great deal. It's got to be easy. Ultimately, I'm lazy. Absolutely.

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gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See MintMobile for details. unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. So all right, so that's that. And so now what we wanted to do is we've been really excited about this for a long time. So there is a fellow, an actor named Jonathan Kaplan. Jonathan C. Kaplan. Jonathan C. Kaplan. I know him as Johnny K. who I went to college with, and has been playing my dad, Richard Jacobs, in this entire podcast. And we thought it would be really cool and fun to bring him on, to talk to him about what that's been like.

So let's take a listen. It's a pleasure to talk with you as Johnny Kaplan and not as my father Richard Jacobs. Sure. And just to just to kind of talk you up for a second so you know people know that Mr. Jonathan C. Kaplan as he is preferred to be known professionally. That's right. Was nominated as a child for a Tony Award for falsettos, if I remember correctly. Is that right? That's correct.

That's correct. Yes. And so, yeah. So just to kind of set this all up, Johnny and I met when we were probably, you know, what, 18, 19 years old at school. And we were buddies. And we hung out.

We did plays together. I'm just curious, like, what do you remember about our friendship then, or me, or anything? I remember you as always being present. Like, you were always on. Like, Danny Jacobs, every time you were, I was involved in a production or any kind of like a simps thing with you, it was always like,

okay, this is gonna be a hit, because Danny Jacobs is just always there. He's always present. And simps, by the way, everybody is the Stanford improvisers. Yeah. Bringing a lot of energy, bringing a lot of energy. Too much energy perhaps. You bring in all the energy, yes.

Yeah, all the energy. But it was great because it was like, you know, you were the kind of, we could all be the straight man at whatever scene we were doing. Sure, sure. That's right. And when I asked you to do this podcast, I mean, what were your initial thoughts? Okay, now this is just because this is Kismet. I... When you called me to do this, do you remember where I was?

Wait, were you... No you remember where I was? Wait, were you? No. Okay. No. I was serving on a federal grand jury. Oh my God. Oh my God.

I don't think I knew that. So I literally had stepped out of the courtroom for like the lunch break. Oh my God. And I get a call from Danny Jacobs. He's like, hey, I wonder if you'd be interested in doing this. I'm doing this podcast about my dad. And you gave me a kind of brief description about what your dad was like.

And I was like, I have to do this. I have to do this. I just finished hearing detail after detail of this trial that I was listening to. And I was like, I have to do this. Because your descriptions were so familiar to me. That's all I'm going to say about that. It is something that I knew immediately. And I was like, yes, I will be involved however you to me. That's all I'm going to say about that. It is something that I knew immediately.

And I was like, yes, I will be involved however you need me. By the way, just as a quick aside off of that, had Danny ever mentioned his father to you before, like in your years at Stanford? Do you have any memories of him talking about Richard? You know, that's an interesting question. I do remember Danny talking about family, but not to the specifics that we are obviously addressing

in the podcast. I remember him discussing his hometown a lot. Mm-hmm. I remember him talking about, like, the house. Talking about his mom quite a bit. Not quite as much as dad, though. Just, I remember him speaking a lot about the place where he grew up.

Yeah. And so I'm curious, like, how you have approached this role of Richard Jacobs. Like, there's obviously, he's a character who's doing a lot of despicable things. And I just, I'm just, I would love to know what your thought process is to sort of get into that mindset.

Well, and this is the biggest, not problem, but the biggest kind of issue, I think, with describing characters, right? Is it, as a viewer, will judge the character and say, this is a negative thing that's happening, right? These are despicable things. But just like the killers on Law and Order, they're doing something that they feel needs to happen.

Right? They have a justifiable reason for why they need to do this thing. And they don't see themselves as evil. They don't see themselves as being like the bad guy. And I think with Richard, it's very much the same thing. I think I have found justifications for all the things that Richard has done. Yeah. Yeah. As, you know, one-sided as that is, and in a larger context,

like, might be despicable, but each one of the individual things, it's easy to not see the forest as a whole. You see the individual trees for being the battle that I have to fight today. Right. Yeah, that makes a ton of sense. So you said that you were able to find a justification

for everything he's done, but has there been anything, what was the hardest thing so far that you've recorded to find that justification for? It's interesting. The things for me that I found the most rewarding were the court documents. Because there were almost revelations in the individual interviews, the pieces of snippets

of conversations that happened in the courtroom. Really revelatory and made a lot of sense understanding the background for how Richard found himself then. I'd say that those were the most challenging, but also the most kind of revelatory. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. I guess another question I have is that,

I'm curious if having this experience playing my dad, has it changed your perception of me at all? That's an interesting question. It hasn't changed my perception of me at all? That's an interesting question. It hasn't changed my perception of you. I think that for me, I don't see you as any different, but I start to understand the motivations for why people react the way that they do, right? We growing up are sponges.

We absorb everything around us, and it's something I'm hyper aware with my kids to you know present the best position possible so that they don't fear things, they don't you know dislike things that are that they shouldn't dislike but it really does inform the relationships that we have later on. I noticed from my own experience with my parents it's I don't see you as different but I start to understand a lot more for your motivations. You know, you earlier talked about the sort of way into Richard as the way into any character

in terms of just finding a justification, being the hero of your story, you're not doing anything wrong in the moment. I feel like because you've done that now, you have a particularly unique access to, or insight into the psyche of Richard. And I guess I wonder what you, Johnny, make of him. I think what I make of him, again,

I don't want to put any negative aspect on Richard because do I approve of the actions that he's taken? Absolutely not. But do I understand where the motivations are? As an actor, a thousand percent. I think that what I understand Richard to be is someone that is constantly finding the need to prove himself on a daily basis. It's something that the struggle is in the conflict.

So the conflict is some, because I know people like this personally, who they wake up and they don't intend to fight with anyone, but the first person that they encounter, if a slight wrong has happened, then that's gonna be my objective for the day. Right, right. Again, it becomes habitual,

like this idea that you have to fight for everything. And I see Richard as very much being a part of that. Not the entirety of his, you know, person, but every day it's something different. I think that's right. I think that's exactly right, yeah. And now a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Quince. You know, Gradsky, I've got a couple of secret Santa parties coming up.

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Yes, absolutely. Because I think that the real love towards his children? Yes, absolutely. Because I think that the real love can exist in addition to the conflict. Because I think that the two work parallel. For someone like Richard who sees, this is my daily struggle, this is what I'm gonna prove myself with today. But I'm doing it in almost defense

of standing up for my family. And if my family, I end up turning on a partner, then my family is no longer including that, but I'm including my boys. It's like I'm doing this for the protection of the boys. So to me, yes, I am fully embracing that idea that I'm doing this, again, like the law and order serial killer.

It's like there's a reason why it has to be done. Yeah, I think that's the right move, by the way. The answer that the psychologist gave us was that my dad didn't love in the way that you and I love, in the way that most of us love. He loved in his own way, which was much more transactional or maybe as an extension of himself, or there were these other things that were involved. But whether or not that is how we would define love

is sort of a philosophical question. But, yeah. But I have to tell you, Danny, you know, as someone who wrestles with that myself, it is something that it's not any less than. Like, if someone is not able to express themselves in a way to tell you outright that like they love you and appreciate you. It doesn't mean that it's less than. I think it actually leads to fantastic art and a really

lifelong kind of journey figuring out how, what that means to you. You know, I've been listening to a lot of these like, fantastic singer-songwriters and their relationships to their fathers and how complicated it was. They create this beautiful music as a result and I'm like, maybe it was worth it.

Ah, ah, wow. Yeah, that is definitely a perspective. That's an artist's perspective for sure. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I hear you. It's like, how much do we value that art in the world? When Johnny Kay was describing his take on this love question, it got me thinking about,

when we talk to a professional, a psychologist, obviously we're gonna get a clinical perspective sort of from the outside looking in, someone examining Richard externally. But as an actor, you know, you kind of have to get internal. You have to be inside this person's psyche and seeing the world through their eyes, which is what Johnny Kay is doing.

And from that perspective, I think it's not only a smart choice as an actor to play the love, if you will, or to sort of believe that you love your kids. But I have to guess that if we could go back and ask your dad, even in a give him the truth serum, you know, like that he would believe that he loved you and your brother. Oh, you're right. 100%. That's an interesting way to put it.

And you felt love at times. Yeah. So there's this question of like, even if it isn't love in the sense that that we might love someone or be loved by someone, is it less than even in that context, you know, apart from the art that may be created, like is it still love? Mm hmm. Yeah, that's very interesting. That makes a ton of sense. What did you mean when you said

that it's something that you've been, you said it's something that I've been ideal with or I've been thinking about? Well, because, I mean, you know, from a personal perspective, you look at your own life and you think about how your parents expressed love and was it direct? Was it through action? Was it through working hard and not being there but delivering in a different kind of

way? What was the love that you personally experienced? And I think it's really important for everyone to do that, to realize that the efforts that parents make, if they are involved in your life, can express themselves in different ways. It's not going to be that Hallmark movie of you reconnecting with your dad, everything's hunky dory,

and you all hug and make up. Because it doesn't exist that way for everyone. So I think I'm constantly, again, like an artist, researching and analyzing exactly what that means to me and how I express my love to my kids. Was there any part of you that, when I asked you to do this, that hesitated because it's like a friend of yours,

you and I have known each other for decades and it's a friend of yours, dad, and it's like, I think if the situation reversed, I would hesitate because I would be worried about, I don't know, it seems like a lot of pressure. You know what I mean? Yeah, no, absolutely. And I think that there's definitely

that initial hesitation about, you know, but I think the real hesitation would come from the fact that if you're not actually giving this character any honesty, you know, if you're not giving this character a chance, then obviously it wouldn't come out very good. And I'd be like, I'm gonna really screw this up on the memory of your father, you know? And I don't wanna do that.

So every time that I get more pages from you guys, I'm seeing like, how can I make this as real as humanly possible? Because I wanna give honor to the memory of what had happened. And to me, that would be the only hesitation I would have. If you were to tell me that is complete nonsense and redo everything because I'm not believing a single thing you're saying, I'd be like, oh, that is my nightmare.

Not the beat to beat stuff. I'm like, thank you for opening my eye to that That's like, you know Choose your own adventure kind of thing. It's like you're you're you're like, absolutely. I'm gonna go down that path. Great Let's do it But the the if you were to tell me that everything that I was doing was false, that would be not my favorite. So Yeah, that makes sense that's sort of like the actors version of just not not wearing pants to school. Pretty much, yeah. Awesome, dude.

I'm so glad we got to do this and just sort of chat about the whole thing. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. I love you so much, buddy. I really do. This has been just a wild experience for me and scary. One of the things that has made it less so is that you are here doing this part that's playing my dad. This somebody that I know and have known for so long

and trust intimately has made it that much more possible for me to do this. So that's, I really just, I want to, I'm so grateful for you and for your participation in this. Well, thank you, Danny, I appreciate it. Okay. That was Johnny K. So now, we're gonna bring on my mom again. We actually, it's been a while on these interregnums

since we've heard from her. We talked to Dr. Josh two weeks ago, and so, yeah, we have a lot to talk about with Sandy. A lot to talk about, so let's bring on the one and only without further ado, Sandra Lynn Seafold. Jacobs. Oh, yeah, that's her maiden name.

Why did I do her maiden name? I don't know. Weird. Hope her music's playing right now. Yeah. Hi, Darren and Danny. How you doing? Hi, Sandy.

Hi. Hey, mom. How's it going? Fine. How's it going? Fine. How's it going with you? Sandy, thank you for hopping on the horn yet again. We wanted to talk to you today about last week's episode, episode 9, which I believe you've just

had a chance to listen to. Yes. It was very touching. Oh, interesting. How so? I just felt so sorry. I mean, I felt so sorry for Danny during that time. I mean, I knew what happened, but it was like very, very fast.

Are you talking about the kidnapping? Yes. It was very, very fast. And so it's like I wouldn't have time to react too much at the time it happened. It was like one, two, three, and it was over. You know? Right. Yeah. And this way, somebody laid it out, the witness, so that I could, so I heard every single part of it. And it was just so touching. Was it hard to hear?

Yes. Yeah, because it's like, it's like so overwhelming, all the stuff he did. Yeah. You know, thank goodness I didn't, you know, wasn't able to have all this stuff build up one thing after another, like I did in that list. I wrote down everything that happened in a short time. And if I had to concentrate on every single one of these things, I would have gone crazy. It's like my mind was able to handle it

because I was kind of not concentrating so much on each one. You were able to sort of compartmentalize them. You mean like, yeah. Yeah, yeah, hearing all of that at once, like from your journal, it is quite something. I mean, I can't remember if it was like a year and a half of your life that when you look at it now in total, it's daunting.

I can't even imagine how you dealt with it. And I guess you're saying how you dealt with it, which is that you were not really thinking about all of it at once. Right, I just took one day at a time. And now a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Beam. So Darren, I am not a great sleeper. It's been a, I don't know, a decade long journey

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That's shop B-E-A-M dot com slash destroy and use code DESTRO. That's shopbeam.com slash destroy and use code destroy for up to 40% off. Mom, did you have any reactions to the court stuff? Cause that obviously you were a part of. I know. The money part, I don't exactly remember the one thing that he was complaining about with the money, but I know the part about Sid and the money

was the fact that Sid gave Richard the money as a, he put it so that his income tax would reflect that he was paying Richard for selling his shopping center and this was like some kind of a payment for selling his shopping center. And so he could use that for his income tax. So Sid can save money on his income tax somehow. And so I don't know, it's like I remember that, that Richard spent all the money in one day, and what he said was he was paying off all the old bills that had built up over the years

that he needed money, that he wanted to pay off all these bills. But he never would say what they were, and all of a sudden, the money was gone like in one day. It was gone really fast or close to one day. I don't know, maybe it's a week. I don't remember for sure. And when the judge found out about that, he credited the money, that money to be, when he divided up the estate, the marital estate, he said that that money was Richard's part of the money, because this was equal to the house value.

Right. Oh, I saw that in the marital decree that you sent. It was like $149,000 or something like that. Yeah. And so that's how come I got Richard's house. Oh, so you were awarded the house and he was awarded this money that he had apparently spent all in one day. Oh, so you were awarded the house and he was awarded this money that he had apparently spent all in one day. Oh, yes.

Wait, and wait a second. I think this answers a mystery, Darren, that we've had, which is because we talked a lot about that money and how it would be possible that my dad could have spent, because he said I spent all that money on advertising. Remember that? I don't think I didn't know about that at all. But what I'm, like there was something in the court case that we talked about that was like,

my dad spent like $145,000 in like a day. It was something very similar to that amount. And Darren and I had hypothesized, wait, did he spend that money? But then he didn't get any legal clients from that. But what I think you're saying, mom, is that he actually gave that money as payment quote unquote to my grandfather. Yes. Yes. Is that what you're saying? Are you saying

that? Yes. No, that's what I'm saying. I thought you said that Sid gave it to Richard. No, no, it's both. Let's see if I can get it straight. Yeah, it was both. It was my dad. It was my grandfather gave it to my dad. Okay. And then my dad spent it, quote unquote, on advertising, but really gave it back to my grandfather. Yes. And what he did is he said he was paying off his his dad for all the money his dad spent on the kids. I see. It was basically a clever way. That's what you meant when you said it's a clever way for Sid

to avoid having to pay income taxes. To pay taxes, yeah. Yeah, I mean, God, okay, that, so that makes a ton of sense. Cause do you remember Darren, we had this whole discussion. We were like, how the hell did he spend all that money? How did he spend that money and not get any, yeah. He really screwed himself there

because that money that he did not receive then was his reward in the marital dispute, right? That's the judge was like, well, that counts towards your- That's right, and that's why I got the house. Because of that. But then ultimately, my grandparents bought the house from my mom, so he ended up getting it anyway.

The money is just swinging back and forth and back and forth so many times. It's hard to keep track. Wow, wow. That's really interesting. One question I have for you, Sandy, just like kind of generally, like in this podcast, obviously you've heard a lot of depictions

of things that happened in your life in which Danny and I know the gist of it, but we are, you know, sort of imagining the actual details. Here in this episode, we didn't imagine anything. You know, we literally had these transcripts. And so what was it like for you to kind of go back into that courtroom, you know, hearing your lawyer who, who by the way, was very good, I thought, I thought your lawyer did a really, really nice job. But like, you know, just hearing all of that verbatim

back to life. Well, I just, I don't know. I mean, the part that really got to me was this part about the kidnapping. The rest of it was like just his Richard shenanigans of how to get out of stuff. You know, it was just the same old stuff that he always did.

Yeah, I guess I just mean like for you, is there anything, it would be strange for me to hear parts of my life, you know, courtroom parts of my life. My own words. My own words performed on a podcast. Like, does it feel like time travel? Are you disassociated from it?

Like, do you remember it? Are you remembering the smells and the sights of the courtroom? What's the experience like for you to hear that? Okay, I guess I'm disassociatingating somewhat, but the only part I really remember is little Danny being on the stand and answering questions. Okay, I was so glad you brought that up because I was going to ask about that. And I know that we mentioned it here in the podcast maybe before or not, I can't remember. But I had that distinct memory of going onto the stand and being questioned.

But we do not have the court record of that testimony. Well, and, Dani, your memory is of being questioned by Richard. That is my memory as well. Is that... Yeah, he questioned you. You remember him? Yeah. He did.

But I don't remember what part of it you were... What is actually... What part of it? Yeah. You remember what part of it you were, what is actually what part of it. Yeah. You know, what part of the trial. The trial lasted three weeks. So I'm not sure what part of the trial that you testified, but I just remember that he questioned you up on the stand. Mom, what do you remember?

Do you remember any details of when I was on the stand being questioned by dad? No, not really. Sandy, did Richard question you, or were you only questioned by his attorney? No, he would go on and off with attorneys. Like sometimes he'd fire, he'd have one and he'd fire him and then he would do it himself for a while and then he would get another one.

And so he questioned me himself. Wow. I'm just sort of like scanning my body and sort of, cause I just shared the episode with you and I think I was nervous a little bit to share this episode with you. I don't know what, I'm trying to figure out exactly why. I mean, it definitely has to do with the kidnapping stuff. And I don't know, I mean, it's so, I mean, first of all, we should note the last time

that I cried on this podcast, you didn't think it was real. Did you think this was real? Yes, yes. Progress. But I also, I don't know, like it was harrowing for me. I guess it's a little bit of a protective instinct that I still have for you,

because I imagine that, I'm imagining if I went through that as a parent, it would be equally as traumatic for me as it was to the child. And I'm and I'm and I but I haven't heard you talk about it in that way as a trauma that affected you. And I'm wondering if you can talk about that. Yeah, it was it was equally harrowing to me. You know, I felt like, I felt like what can I do? What can I do to have avoided this? You know, I felt like, should I go back to

just letting him take over? You know, or go back to him? Maybe I shouldn't have even done this because, left Richard because this is what's happening. And I never had any idea that this would happen. So yeah, it's really harrowing for me to think about, especially when I heard that witness talking about actually what happened. It was, to me, it would happen so fast that I didn't have time to respond to each part of it, like she brought out.

Have you, mom, have you ever been emotional about that event? Probably at the time, but still, you know, I mean, I was yelling. I mean, I guess I was yelling to stop it. I sort of mean in the aftermath. I mean, like, I'm thinking about... I know. I know. I think what I'm doing is I blocked it out for many years. And I think I'm going to have... And it is horrific. And I feel like it's bad. It's getting to me now, but I feel like I can't do... I can't cry about it for some reason on the podcast, but I think I'm going to definitely talk about it with my counselor and I have

an appointment tomorrow. Yeah, listen, I don't think, I think it takes a real special person to be emotional with however many thousands of people are listening to this. So I don't blame you for it. We're not Barbara Walters here to... No. Yes, right. Exactly.

I was just curious. I was just curious because it feels like something that would be very like a real traumatic event But I yeah, so that's all breaking news coming in from bet 365 We're every nail biting overtime win breakaway pick six three point shot underdog win buzzer beater shootout walk off and Absolutely every play in between is walk-off, and absolutely every play in between is amazing. From football to basketball and hockey to baseball, whatever the moment, it's never ordinary at Bet365.

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One question I have, Sandy, is listening to it and sort of feeling the things you're feeling to revisit something we talked about in a previous episode. Are you feeling any anger towards Richard now? Like, are you given that? I'm angry at him, but it's because I pushed it away that I'm not angry, I still am not angry at him at the same level as I am against Richard's sister,

can't think of the name we used, and Sylvia. I'm still not to that level. I mean, it's almost like, didn't they know about this kind of stuff? And Sylvia, she should have a heart towards Danny, and didn't she know what was happening? But yet they didn't do anything to, you know, they just kind of let it all go. They didn't do anything, except Sid. Well, I don't know, Mom. I mean, I'm just going to push back on that a little bit.

OK. Again, they are Dad's parents. Like, imagine if I were behaving really terribly. Like, I imagine that you would feel very conflicted about what and how you could intervene if I was an adult who was making a lot of really bad choices. You would still feel a great deal of love for me. And it would be really difficult.

I think you are minimizing the difficulty of a parent and being a parent of somebody like that. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. I don't know. So that's kind of why I never really said anything to them and, you know, to Sylvia about anything, you know, because I just knew that I just, I just knew I had to be taken away from the situation

where I couldn't keep getting roped into them, you know, including said, but it, but it just, it's just so interesting to me that here we are. We're sort of like, we've gone way off topic in terms of this kidnapping is this traumatic event. And you are, but you're focusing in on my grandparents general behavior. You know what I'm saying? The question was if this, if you felt anger towards Richard, and he was kidnapping and then, yeah, it's true. It's interesting. Well, how come I'm not feeling that overwhelming anger against Richard?

I don't know why. I don't know. I don't, I don't look, I don't,, let me just say I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I think we all have the reactions that we have and I think we all deal with trauma differently too, just like grief. If I had to guess, Sandy, and I mean we covered this a little bit previously, it just seems to me that you've internalized the fact that he couldn't help himself, that he was mentally ill and was incapable. Yeah, but that's no excuse. That's no excuse for treating Danny this way.

Yes, I agree. His own son or anybody, but his own son. Right. So I don't know what's keeping me from being that angry with him. Yeah. Well, I don't know that, again, I don't think anger is the only way to process this kind of thing. Sadness feels appropriate to... I don't know. Look, I don't have the answers. Well, Danny, one thing. I just don't know how to... I mean, I just don't know. I'm sorry I put you through all this and I just don't know how to do anything about it, I guess. I'm just really sorry that I left Richard and put you all through this.

Oh, mom, listen, let me say something. You didn't put me through anything, okay? You cannot blame yourself for leaving dad and then that's victim blaming. You did exactly the right thing. You did exactly what you needed to do. Dad did this. Right, yeah, I know.

But I tend to don't think, I know he did it, but how, there was no way to stop dad. So the only way to stop him was to not leave you, leave him. Well, but that would have been terrible in its own way. Right, that's true. So the only way to stop him was to not leave you, leave him. Well, but that would have been terrible in its own way. Right, that's true. And you don't know what terrible things he would have done in that circumstance too.

That's true, that's true. So it has no answer. I honestly think it would have been worse. I think it would have been worse. I think that you got Danny and his brother out from under the complete control of Richard. And I think that though it wasn't great, they certainly had, it was a bumpy road,

but you know, I think it's better than if they had been left under his complete control and you also under his complete control. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So there's a few things that you, I think you had on the docket, mom.

And then I remember a few other questions that I had about some random stuff. So when I was going through this stuff with Richard, the way Richard used to call me Sandy was really mean. Well, Sandy, you know, just like in a mean way. And so I got to the point where I hated the name Sandy. And so, so I, when I went to the point where I hated the name Sandy. And so when I went to work, I told everybody that my name was Sandra, that's my legal name. And everybody at work, you know, like when I answer

the phone and talk to people, it's Sandra. And I did that for a long time, and I still do Sandra at work. But ever since this podcast started and I see the way people are treating me, you know, are very supportive of me and they're calling me Sandy, I feel like I've taken back the name. I feel like that's okay, this is my name, Sandy. And I don't have to be ashamed of it or worried about people not, you know, being mean or think about Richard being mean.

And, you know, so I have to put up with it. But it's not, right now, I feel like it's not the main thing. Right now, the main thing is all these people calling me Sandy and they're supportive is really helping me. So that's what I wanted to say. Oh, mom, that's amazing. That is incredible. I mean, cause what I was about to say before you said that, well, a few things.

Number one, like my dad even destroyed your name, right? Yes, yes. Or he your name, right? Yes, yes. Or he tried to, but this podcast, which I think this podcast is all about reclaiming our narratives, you and me in particular, and that feels like such a great, just such a great encapsulation of that. It also made me think about, you know,

I recently posted a picture on our Instagram of you and me, mom. And for a lot of people that listen to the podcast, it's the first time they've seen a picture from you. And I just wanna, when something sort of started happening on the comments that I wanna mention, I just wanna read a couple of them. I just love your podcast.

Mama Sandy, you are so brave to put yourself out there for Danny. God bless you guys. I love the vulnerabilities in this project. Thank you, Mama Sandy and Danny. Happy Thanksgiving, Sandy Mama. I've waited so long to put a face to the spirited voice that I hear that people started calling you Mama Sandy.

That makes me feel really good. And that makes me take back Sandy as my name instead of Sandra. It's amazing. Yeah, because I was one of the questions that I was going to ask you connected to that was like because you've been visiting me here in Los Angeles. And several times over the week that you've been here, we've been somebody's come up to you and said something about how they listen to the podcast. Yeah, that's what I mean. When I was starting to notice that,

the people were coming up and saying something to me and it made me feel really good. And it made me love my name again. That's amazing. I love that so much. Incredible. Okay, so Mom, you know that, and we've been talking about this in this episode, that we have these, I got this trove of films and videos from dad

that he had filmed from both your guys' early life together as well as my, you know, when I was a kid, there's a couple of moments of, if it's okay, I wanna ask you about. And I'm gonna show them to you. So Darren, I'm just gonna take my headphones off, run into my mom, where my mom is, and press play on something. So what I

want to start with, Mom, is a little clip from your wedding ceremony. Not the ceremony, your wedding party. And this is when you and Dad were having your first dance. Okay? Okay. All right. I'll be in that in a second. Okay. So I just wanted to show you that. And there's your parents. There's Papa and Nana. Yeah, I know. I see them, yeah.

There you are. Okay. Okay, so we've just watched your wedding video of dancing. Hold on. Okay. Okay, so Mom, what did you notice in that video that I just showed you? That was your first dance. I was crying. I was crying. Yeah, you were not only crying, I mean you were kind of hard crying.

Well, I was, what happened is that song, the wedding song that we had played, I was just so happy I was getting married and that song was so touching that I was crying. So those were happy tears? Yeah. That was happy crying? It was like crying. Yeah, I wasn't sad crying. I was like overwhelmed by the fact that I was getting married and Richard loved me and all that. But the funny thing, one funny thing that happened with that is to me that was an important part of my wedding,

that I was happy and crying, you know. And every single photo that Richard picked out for like my parents and for our wedding, well especially for our wedding album, he took that picture out. He didn't want it... The picture of you crying. Yes. It was in the pic... So he had the picture, when we divorced, he had the picture album of the wet, the big wedding album.

But I got the one of my that he sent to my mom and dad. And I have that picture in my album, but he took it out of his album. He didn't want it in there. Oh, interesting. He didn't like you crying in the wedding album. Yeah. Even though for you, that was like the epitome of the joy that you felt that day.

Yes, yes. Fascinating. Yeah, this has been great as always, Sandy. Oh, thank you. It's been great for me too. I feel good calling you Sandy now knowing that you're reclaiming that name. That's right, me too.

All right, mom. All right, so I guess we're done. Yeah, I think we're good. We're good for today. Oh, man. Sandy Jacobs, my mama. What a specimen. She's going on a real journey here, Danny.

She is. And it's inspiring and surprising to me. It is surprising. I mean, like, I was feeling emotional when she was talking about reclaiming her name and feeling so empowered. Yes. I mean, yes, it is surprising because this was not our intention to do this thing for your mom. So we're accidentally helping her through the go on a journey. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, so that's it for this

episode. So we want to remind you first that we will be taking two weeks off for the holidays. So whatever you celebrate, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New every week. And we'll leave you just with a little teaser for what you can expect on that day, episode 10 of How to Destroy Everything. Happy holidays. Well, I wanna say something to you, Mark, which is that, you know, I was a kid during all this and really unaware of a lot of it.

I mean, I was aware of a great deal of it, but not to the extent that I'm learning about from you. And I just want to tell you thank you for kind of being playing this role, for helping my mom when you didn't need to, for keeping my brother and I at the forefront of your thoughts. Your efforts have helped me, whether you are aware of it or not, become somebody who I hope is a contributing member of society. So I just want to say thanks. Well, I'll tell you, Danny, I was really pleased to hear that you were successful, your brother was successful, because frankly, I never thought you would be. I thought this was way too much baggage for kids to carry around with them through their

lives, you know? Special shout out to Spotify Studios for hosting us in this beautiful studio space in downtown Los Angeles.