It Could Happen Here - Jokes from the Atlanta Forest

Episode Date: May 26, 2023

Garrison presents a brand new comedy special, compiled out of all the jokes, bits, goofs, and gaffs from the Week of Action this past March.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadowbride. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into tech's elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech

brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audio books while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.

Hello, welcome to It Could Happen Here, I'm Garrison Davis. Recently, I just wrapped up a whole five episodes about the previous week of action to stop Cop City in Atlanta, Georgia. In a somewhat unsuccessful attempt to shorten the running time of those episodes, I had to cut out many of the funny bits, jokes, gaffes, goofs, bloopers, and related tomfoolery. But as demonstrated by the police's massive mobilization to shut down a cancelled comedy event in the woods on March 7th, the Wolani Forest and surrounding area of Atlanta are often home to manifestations of absurdist humor. There's been a lot of not great news recently. Well, there's kind of always a lot of not great news now that we live in an ever

expanding hyperreality, oversaturated with information, but I digress. I think it's just as important to not overlook the comedic, lighthearted side of things as it is to keep up with all of the doom and gloom that we usually platform on our show. So without further ado, I present to you... Jokes from the Atlanta Forest! Atlanta forest. Side note, I am now invoking Jester's privilege. Legally, everything we say

in this episode is a joke as a little heads up. Okay. This episode will probably make more sense if you listened to the four-part Week of Action series or the retrospective episode, but also I will do my best to pop in via this narration to help fill in any gaps so that listeners will not be completely lost if you've not listened to those other episodes.

Anyway, we shall start by tuning back into my conversation with Matt from the Atlanta Community Press Collective as we discuss the March 5th police raid of the South River Music Festival. the March 5th police raid of the South River Music Festival. Welcome to It Could Happen Here cast. I'm Garrison Davis. In World of Warcraft, you can shield bash. So please don't include that. There's been this effort from police and media to frame these arrests as like, these were arrests that happened at a crime scene. These arrests were people who were torching equipment, who were involved in all these actions, who were doing

domestic terrorism. But all the arrests that happened were at a music festival. They were in a completely different section of the forest. At a music festival, at the parking lot, even away from the music festival. And police surveillance may be good and they they may have been able to pick out an individual or two but for the most part like you had something like 200 people uh partake in this direct action and then disappear into the woods there's really no way to and of course most of them were wearing block of some form that There's really no way to... Much of that block, which has now been burnt and is no longer existing in the physical material realm. So there's no way to really tell who was there and other than allegedly having mud on your clothes.

Do you want to talk about what the warrants were and the oddity of how the warrants were formatted? were and the oddity of how the warrants were formatted. Once you started to listen to them, you notice this very repetitive nature of them. And so about halfway through, we get to a lawyer who straight up calls out the fact that these warrants seem like they were just copy-pasted. Like every single person. All the way down the line.

And one of the such claims... Mud. Mud. So I don't know how many festivals you've attended in your life, but I've been to a few, and they're never clean affairs. So it rained like one day before. The night before the festival started, there was a tornado warning in Atlanta. I forgot about that.

And there was rain, which makes, I don't know if the prosecutors know this, but when rain mixes with dirt, it creates something called, that we refer to as mud. My Doc Martens are still caked in mud. Future me cutting back in here for a sec so for the record i have since cleaned my doc martens but the mud was still on there for well over a month until i was forced to wash my shoes after i stepped in much much more mud while in the tillamook forest as I was failing to shoot a Kel-Tec, which yeah, that was probably my bad. These charges don't make any sense. There's no evidence these people committed any actual crimes, so they're just being charged with terrorism. This is like a nebulous concept. The judge said that the legal basis of these claims

will have to be decided on another day. Similarly, they said that in regards to actual evidence that these people charged did any crimes, she said that she had none of this evidence in front of her and that evidence is for another day. Absolutely, I think bonkers is an appropriate word. One of those kangaroo court moments. Really, my faith in the legal system was really solidified this day. There was also the threat of arrest for the New York Times reporter that happened. Forgot to mention that. So, you know, we'll leave that commentary by itself

they should have charged Sean Keenan with domestic terrorism sorry for making fun of noted trans ally the New York Times I promise it won't happen again wait wait no that's a lie there's at least two more New York Times jokes in this script

fuck I guess let's talk about Monday Monday so jokes in this script. Fuck. I guess let's talk about Monday. Monday, Monday. So, uh, Is it the editor? No, Danil. Danil? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. He's not gonna

hear any of this shit. Oh. The way these work is I transcribe them and then I copy and paste sections so they only move the section over. So when I, when I say, ask Garrison about. Okay. So it turns out that was a lie. Uh, Daniel did need to hear that. So sorry, Daniel, uh, full, full transparency. Most of those bleeps were me making horrible, horrible slurping noises into the microphone as Daniel can probably attest. So really, all of you should be thanking Daniel

for suffering through those to bleep them out. Daniel died for your sins. I mean content. Truly braver than the troops. Insert joke. Anyway, back to me from the past. So, let's talk about Monday. We'll talk about the clergy event

that happened in front of City Hall. So, City Council meeting. You work for the Atlanta Community Press Collective. You've covered a lot of City Council meetings in Atlanta before. This was my first time covering an Atlanta City Council meeting. Due to your wisdom in this field, I would like for you to discuss what happened at the city council meeting in relation to your years of experience in covering these meetings.

So city council meets every other week on Mondays. I cover several other committees, but the big one is always the city council meeting and over over the course of time there there's like a cast of characters that that you just begin to understand are going to appear either every week or or from time to time and um you you had the pleasure of actually getting to see a few of these and i was like there were we were there were a few of us uh media folks there and i i was actually really happy that like people got to experience this with me. Cause I usually have to do it by myself. Um, so you got to meet three of the characters.

You got to meet brother Hakeem. Um, you got to meet Rachel and you got to be your favorite chef doctor. So this is just somebody who everyone refers to as chef doctor. He is dressed up as what you can only describe as a chef doctor. Someone wearing half of a chef's outfit, half of a doctor's outfit. He had a Freemason pin on his shirt because of course he did. And I just like watched him for a while because like initially in the city council meeting, they were just like handing out awards to like the proclamation ceremonies,

the proclamations and awards to like various people, including like former city council meeting they were just like handing out awards to like the proclamation ceremonies the proclamations and awards to like various people including like former city council members like whatever um and then eventually public comment started and i guess let's let's talk about chef doctor so he well no so for for the entirety of the city council meeting, during the proclamations, in the back of the back of city council, there was this large red, like, heart, just sitting in the back. But it looked like Bob the Tomato from VeggieTales. It looked, that was exactly what I thought.

I like this heart, like, why is there this Bob the Tomato ass heart mascot just sitting in the back of city council? No one was inside the costume. It was just like the heart sitting there next to like another massive heart made up of like flowers. Um, so I was kind of confused for why that was there. Uh, there was like a pediatric surgeon that got like one of the awards.

I'm like, Oh, maybe the heart's there because of heart surgery or something. I don't know. No, no, no. That would make sense. You have to get out of that mindset for public comment for the most part. So then Chef Doctor gets 10 minutes of public comment. So we should explain that mechanism. Everyone who signs up for public comment gets two minutes.

You can award your time or give over your time to somebody else. So there were four other people who gave their time over to Chef Doctor to give him 10 minutes. And he used all 10 minutes. So what was Chef Doctor trying to get out of the city? Why was he giving public comment? Shout out to chef doctor okay like uh chef doctor wants to uh create a soul food museum uh in the west side of atlanta and and he's she's shown up a few times uh to kind of ask city council for money um and as far as i know

that has gone nowhere uh but that was what he is ostensibly there for today however uh beyond just the heart uh the dancing we haven't got there yet however beyond just the big red heart and like the paper mache flower heart he he brought a flautist a flautist so a flautist is someone who plays the flute if you are like an uncultured person who's listening to this. And he walked up to the microphone, and then for five minutes, he got a flautist to play a flute cover of Amazing Grace. Yes, but he had backing music from a laptop that just kind of appeared out of nowhere and played into the microphone. They played this funeral song as this now heart that's been brought to life

starts dancing. Starts dancing. So this person wearing like heart pajama pants changed into this heart costume at some point. I didn't see them change into this. I don't know how this happened. I must have missed it. It's city council magic.

Next will be Chef Dr. Kenneth Wilhoite. You'll have 10 minutes due to yielded time. Chef, let's go ahead and get started. My name is Chef Dr. Kenneth Wilhoite. I'm the president of the Soul Food Museum and the Soul Food University. We are celebrating our 20th anniversary. and our honorable mayor to get behind us and support us with donating a museum

space building and land with parking in the city of Atlanta for our tourists that come here to have a place to come and experience our hospitality agriculture service of Atlanta I'm going to say a quick prayer have a place to come and experience our hospitality agriculture

service of Atlanta. I'm going to say a quick prayer because I'm spirit led. I do things by spirit. I'm at that age you know it's not about me. It's about the spirit. Now we'll have a song that

was selected by the spirit of the ancestors. Not by me but by the spirit of the ancestors, not by me, but by the spirit of the ancestors. I asked God, I said, hey, God, what song should we introduce today? This is the one that was chosen. But this guy in the hard costume walks up and he starts kind of dancing to this flout music for five minutes. Talk about the dancing.

I don't think it was so much dancing as swaying with a little bit of hand motion along with the swaying. But I wasn't expecting it. I thought someone dosed me with hallucinogens. I did, actually. There were some strips of LSD. I put them in your water bottle when you weren't looking. This explains so much about what happened on Monday.

No, it would make much more sense if that's what happened. Unfortunately, Atlanta is a cartoon town, and that's not what happened. This was real life. So this flout cover of Amazing Grace played for five minutes, along with the dancing heart. And then we finally got to public comment for the reason we were there. For the reason for why we were there. Not only were we blessed with that stunning rendition of Amazing Grace, the flautist himself was briefly able to address the city council

before President Dave Shipman rudely, very, very rudely called time. Amazing Grace is such a song that means so much to the world. So that's it for now. Okay, thank you. Okay. Let's give it up. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire Thank you. Welcome.

I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you.

Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time. Listen to Nocturne Tales from the Shadows. As part of my Cultura podcast network. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley

into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep

getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com.

On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian.

Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami. Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well.

Listen to Chess Peace, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. quote unquote dancing to the music, that's actually rentable. You can rent that in Atlanta. So I have some really good ideas for the next week of action, since we can rent more bouncy castles and also that heart costume. I think there's a lot of potential, extremely funny things that could happen. Anyway, back to my conversation with Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective. There are a couple things to note about how city council public comment works.

City council doesn't tend to pay attention to them. Ostensibly, the only one who pays attention is city council president Doug Shipman because it is his job to call time and to call up the next person. But city councilors will step in and out of the room, get something to eat. During the 17 hours of public comment for Cop City, one of them held a press conference. It is weird how they're legally allowed to not pay attention. That is bizarre. You would think that if you allegedly work for the people,

you would pay attention. You have to actually listen to them? So amongst the city council, there are two in particular that I'm glad you got to see. There's Mary Norwood, who represents Buckhead. And then there is Dustin Hillis, who is the committee chair for the Public Safety Legal Administration Committee. So he's basically in charge of police here throwing molotov cocktails at officers and uh damaging millions of dollars of equipment and he gives off that vibe and neither one of them will pay attention they were they were on their phone from almost the entire time i was there um the the the buckhead woman gave off uh ontologically evil vibes like i i i i did not know like who she

was when i went to the city council but once i saw her i was like oh okay this person is like obviously evil right and i i asked people about it afterwards they're like oh yes that is a person that represents bucket i'm like okay yes okay of course of course, of course. Buckhead, of course, being the primarily white neighborhood in North Atlanta, that part of it wants to secede from the city. And that's a whole... Segregation. Yes. That is a whole other issue, but to kind of give context of what Buckhead is.

Red lining. That's not a question, that's just an observation. And so sitting directly next to her is Dustin Hillis, who is known for not paying attention ever. Except, except they did both pay attention after public comment when police gave their testimony on what happened the night previous. And then these two people were very engaged. We will hear more from Mary Norwood, ontologically evil, in a bit, but first I have to...

Stop! Jesus Christ! Fucking fuck. Jesus, my cats are just running amok. All right. We will hear more from Mary Norwood, ontologically evil, in a bit. But first, I have to include some of Councilman Antonio Lewis's response after Police Chief Darren

Sheerbaum gave his little presentation at City Council, because I don't think I've ever heard January 6th, the Atlanta Way, and Six Flags all get mentioned in the same sentence before. and six flags all get mentioned in the same sentence before. It looked like January 6th. I ain't never seen police run from a group of people. And so the only thing I could think about when I saw that video, I saw it on ATL Scoop. The video was all out there. I've been seeing it all over.

And when I saw the police officers run, I mean, I was a little nervous. When I saw the heat map, I saw 100 people. I saw it. I mean, like, that little nervous when I saw the heat map. I saw 100 people. I saw I saw it. I mean, like that ain't the Atlanta way. I mean, I ain't never seen. I'm just thinking about the at the same time at Six Flags, we had some young men that were fighting. Some of our teenagers fighting at Six Flags. They didn't run up on the police. They didn't run up on the police with Molotov, Molotov cocktails throwing to burn up stuff. What I will say, I thank you so much for last night for working.

I want to really commend the officers because y'all were under some immense pressure and to not see a gun fired back. Because when I see the firecrackers, I'm from Cleveland Avenue. If they throw firecrackers at me, I don't know those firecrackers. I've never seen that, so I appreciate APD for doing that. Truly, truly a stunning admission. Just, just perfect. So I had to listen to Atlanta Police Chief

Darren Shearbaum's testimony a few times for the five episodes that were released earlier this month. So I didn't really feel like fully listening through again to find any, you know, funny bits to put in this episode. So I just kind of like skimmed through while multitasking. And weirdly enough, I noticed that the chief said some pretty shocking things that I somehow just must have missed in my previous viewings.

So I will play those for you now. And I will warn you, it is pretty disturbing. Like all the subjects we put on air, their statements do not reflect our opinions or the official position held by whatever current company owns this podcast. So yeah, like I said, warning, these are shocking, but I will let the chief speak for himself. Take aggressive action against these officers. Move to the front gate. More accelerant conflict vitally hard upon them. Launch illegal and criminal attacks.

Attack members of law enforcement. Bring harm to our officers. These attacks are going to continue. Pretty, pretty shocking stuff coming from a police chief. Jesus. But that is only the tip of the iceberg, because to my surprise, after public comment was over and all the news cameras left after I left and everyone left the building, it turns out Darren Shearbaum gave a second testimony at the very end of the city council meeting that I just completely missed until now.

So I will warn you, it is kind of lewd in nature. So if you want to skip past lewd police conduct, just fast forward like a minute or two. But anyway, without further ado, here is the secret recently unearthed second testimony presented by Atlanta Police Chief Darren Shearbaum. President Shipman, members of the council, I'd like to brief you on events that transpired yesterday. I'm going to let the video play here while I walk through each of the situations. What you see here is our partners at the DeKalb County Police Department, the Sheriff of Fulton County, as well as the Georgia State Patrol. We're seeing changing out of the clothes that they were wearing. They're going to position themselves what appears to be an attempt to keep pursuing the officers. as well as the Georgia State Patrol, were seen changing out of the clothes that they were wearing.

They're going to position themselves when it appears to be an attempt to keep pursuing the officers. Notice as the officers see these, we had a rapid response from our partners as well as to change their clothing. Different groups were performing acts within the manner of their training and their discipline. At this time, our officers were repositioning themselves

inside of our partners. These officers had been stationary to ensure that they are being restrained. The officers are on city property and are positioning themselves and repositioning themselves. To be prepared to go back in, our officers are showing great restraint. They remained in a position. What you see here is a lieutenant that is discharging. We're very fortunate that that was the outcome. And I want to commend every man and woman on duty yesterday. As they stood in the gap to do their job, those officers entered our partners.

And what you see here, ladies and gentlemen, is as some of the individuals that had just previously entered into those officers, they start changing some of the individuals that had just previously entered into those officers they start changing back into the clothes that they were just wearing moments before just last night officers of this department as well as dekalb county to georgia state patrol and the sheriff's department moved in and i want to thank the men and women again of the atlanta police department the georgia state patrol the sheriff's department as well as the dekalb county police department for the professionalism that they demonstrated throughout the night and into the early hours of this morning. While many of us were asleep, they

continued to work through the night. I've never seen that, so I appreciate APD for doing that. I would have loved for every one of those very hysterical people that we've been sitting listening to for two or three hours to have seen an actual video of what really did happen. And there may be great reasons that the administration chose to do it this way, but our media is gone and all the people that needed to see this are gone. I'm glad that nobody was hurt and none of our employees were hurt yesterday. Nobody was hurt. And none of our employees were hurt yesterday. Oh, boy.

Woo. Well, that was certainly something. I did not want to know that much about what the APD and their partners get up to after hours. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled comedic japes. I know Sheerbaum was addressed with some questions by unicorn riot when he was trying to exit, uh, which he then did not, he, he have a very frustrated face and then denied answering and, and promptly left the building. Uh, well in the company of the, the New York times, uh, journalist. Oh, with, with, with a friend of the show, Sean Keenan.

So that was, that was, uh, that was most of Monday. Yeah, that is everything that happened on Monday. Monday evening, I went home to start working on an article. What did you do, Garrison? I went to the Purim in the woods. I got to share my memory of the VeggieTales

Esther story starring the Tickle Monsters. I got to bond with a few ex-evangelicals about that. So that was fine. Then there was an experimental noise show in the forest. And then you had a tragic neck injury on Monday night. So Tuesday, the group that we followed left out of the church and went to Norfolk Southern, which is one of the funders of APF and a friend of the environment in Ohio. When they finished reading the letter, all they asked was that the letter go to the CEO.

And they denied that. And all they had to do was accept it and move on. While people were inside, the security called NS police. And if you're wondering, you're like, you know, NS police, what is it? What could that be? That isn't a city in Atlanta. What could that be? That is the Norfolk Southern police who are legally allowed to arrest people. And we, we, thankfully we avoided going to a Norfolk Southern police jail, um, going to Norfolk Southern court, which certainly would have been a very legitimate court. I mean, it would have been almost as legitimate as the real court that the bail hearings happened at that same day. After successfully evading Norfolk Southern Jail, Matt and I headed downtown for a march that was accompanied by a cadre of over a hundred officers pinning this

crowd onto the sidewalk. We got a whole police car blocking the sidewalk, like a Georgia State University canine unit just blocking off the entire sidewalk next to a Fulton County sheriff's vehicle. I like that the cops are just also commanding the corporate media on where they could stand. And whatever boomer journalist is with whatever mainstream news outlet was very peered off at this cop for telling him to get on the sidewalk. The next day, a smaller crowd met up at the same spot and broke off into little subgroups to walk around downtown Atlanta and hand and hand out defend the forest leaflets so all the little subgroups kind of meet up um on uh on andrew young and peach tree uh right next to the hooters and the hard rock cafe um classic examples of atlantic food there was an atlanta SWAT vehicle parked outside of the hooters outside a fucking hard rock cafe so i can't i keep picking up this copyrighted music

but this big atlanta police SWAT vehicle parked on the block by the atlanta police foundation headquarters all right there's actually a pretty decent number of people gathered here for the flyering event today they're at the Peachtree and Young International Boulevard intersection, right across from the Hooters and the Hard Rock Cafe. There's a SWAT vehicle parked right behind us. There's about, I don't know, 20 to 30 officers stationed a little bit to our north. You know, normal police response to people handing out flyers. Just 50 officers and a SWAT team.

Lieutenant Neil Welch approaches the crowd and gives them a dispersal order. They cross the street, walk like a block north, past some of the cops that are guarding the Wells Fargo building. At this point, people chanted to the cops to, Quit your jobs! Quit your jobs! And one of the cops guarding the Wells Fargo says, that's actually a good idea. You can always quit your fucking job. That's actually a sound advice.

Yeah, already tried. And he's like, I tried to, and they wouldn't let me. But like, I don't like laughing, but that one got me that one got me the cop responded like not in like a glib tone like he was it was actually actually he wanted like like yeah that's actually yeah that's actually a good idea extremely funny moment while this is happening uh there's another group who comes in to the side of Peachtree Center Mall and enters the mall to find Mayor Andre Dickens. Andre Dickens is like the head of some kind of like board or something. Yeah. There are a couple of boards in Atlanta that stipulate the mayor is like the head of

the board. And this is one of them. And it meets in Pe petri center mall as one does so the mayor is having a meeting in the mall and his office space is you know sort of above the mall and so so uh three indigenous activists along with kamau franklin um arrive and um they find the mayor they enter the board meeting and they begin to read uh this letter from the Muskogee Nation out loud. Mayor Dickens, in true mayor fashion, bolts away from this, running through an exit door, which is then blocked by a guard, which I think that has its own set of legal issues. Essentially just ignoring them.

Over his shoulder, he calls out, I've got a copy of the letter and hides, just completely trying to escape what is not a good look for him. This is what we call a Ted Wheeler moment. Oh, mares. So as this happens, I think like Apex SWAT is deployed. So Apex and SWAT had been elsewhere and they were called back to their vehicles like right before this. And then the activists exit and almost like in this very comical moment after they get out and away, squads of these special units start rushing into the building. Of course, finding no one.

Charlie Chapman ass shit. Truly. OK, even a more future version of Garrison here. Apparently, I've been told by Danil that his name is Charlie Chaplin. I don't know. He's a pedophile, so whatever. Charlie, not Danil. Oh boy.

And I do want to say, I did try multiple times to take Matt to the Hard Rock Cafe or the Hooters, either one. And he refused my offer multiple times. Very, very rudely. So at some point when I'm back in Atlanta, I will have to gather a troop of femboys and head over to the Hooters.

Anyway, next was the Community Movement Builders Rally on the evening of Thursday, March 9th, which had fewer jokes that night, but there are a few embarrassing recording bloopers at the expense of my own ego, so

I will play those for your amusement, you absolute sick fox! A banner, take a sign. Yeah, we'll get started soon. It is kind of raining. We'll see how many people show up and how large the police response will be in comparison. Penis.

What could happen here? Well, it could happen here. A podcast by Robert Evans. We are at the site of the Martin Luther King Memorial. Did you see the two Sandy Springs police buses? I did see the Sandy Springs. I lived in Sandy Springs for a year, and that brought back some memories. But yes, two Sandy Springs police buses.

Sandy Springs, of course, being mostly outside of the perimeter. A good drive from here. That was good. That was good. All right. Poggers. Absolutely Poggers. The police has been stating...

Well, never mind. Cut that. What am I saying? Big puddle on the street demonstrating the city's commitment to infrastructure. That was a joke because the drain was plugged. I accidentally turned off my recording by tripping on some stairs. They're so close together. They're just sandwiched in. Got a New York Times reporter standing in the middle of the street.

Of course, the only person allowed to stand in the street is the one New York Times reporter. I would estimate almost about a kilometer, but I'm Canadian, so that's not very helpful to you U.S. listeners. The real outside agitators is Sandy Springs Police. Yeah, the police were ready to mass arrest the entire time. I don't know if you mentioned this, but I will. So in between the police line in front of the APF building and the protesters was essentially like a mixture of Copwatch

and National Lawyers Guild. And ACLU. and the protesters was essentially like a mixture of cop watch and national lawyers guild and aclu aclu because of course you had to have like both both legal observer factions uh just to make sure everybody's watching each other so aclu can watch nlg get arrested who can watch aclu get arrested it's turtles all the way down and legal observers all the way down. We go observers all the way down. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows. Presented by iHeart and Sonora.

An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. From ghastly encounters with shapeshifters to bone-chilling brushes with supernatural creatures. I know you. Take a trip and experience the horrors that have haunted Latin America since the beginning of time.

Listen to Nocturnal Tales from the Shadows as part of My Cultura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how Tex Elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search,

better offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season, I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to leading journalists in the field, and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse

and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge Thank you. better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. On Thanksgiving Day, 1999, a five-year-old boy floated alone in the ocean. He had lost his mother trying to reach Florida from Cuba. He looked like a little angel. I mean, he looked so fresh. And his name, Elian Gonzalez, will make headlines everywhere. Elian Gonzalez. Elian. Elian.

Elian. Elian. Elian. Elian Gonzalez. At the heart of the story is a young boy and the question of who he belongs with. His father in Cuba. Mr. Gonzalez wanted to go home and he wanted to take his son with him. Or his relatives in Miami.

Imagine that your mother died trying to get you to freedom. At the heart of it all is still this painful family separation. Something that as a Cuban, I know all too well. Listen to Chess Piece, the Elian Gonzalez story, as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Ho, ho, and we are back. That's great. All right.

That's great. All right. One of the stops on the tour of the Blanney Forest that Joe Perry was doing throughout the week was the area of the land swap between the former owner of Blackhall Studios, Ryan Millsap, and DeKalb County's Entrenchment Creek Park. So on one side, there's this beautiful forested park that Ryan Millsap wants to trade for. Then on the other side is this massive mound of dirt that he currently owns, which is right next to Boulder Crest Road. That's that huge, huge dirt field that you see. And what happened is while that swap was being orchestrated, Blackhall was bringing thousands and thousands and thousands of dump truck loads of dirt and just filling it up, filling it up, filling it up filling it up filling it up and somebody else is going to have to do the math but i don't know if you say like 15 acres of dirt that is 20 feet plus high how much dirt that is that's a lot it's not natural it's not something that's helping this flood prone. All that's going to run into here no matter how many silt fences you put up.

So that's what they're calling Michelle Obama Park. That's it. Exactly. Exactly right. Somebody needs to talk to Michelle and say, Nuh-uh, you need to take your name off of that one. I don't know who got away with that, but that's not it. By the way, you're seeing the

most picturesque side of that piece of land yeah you get to the top it's worse it's just it's just it's garbage well the thing and it is literally garbage because a lot of this stuff this dirt came from you know Ryan Millsap has he is he's not a movie mogul. He's a land baron. He's in real estate, and he's made billions of dollars in real estate. And so that dirt comes from other properties. He's digging up a place on Boulevard to put some apartments in. He's pulling dirt out of there.

That's what's coming in here. That's dirt coming from all these other construction sites you have. That is not top soil you can and i believe me i'm not saying i'm not making that up i've been over there i've walked and i've seen what's in there i've seen water heaters in there i've seen gutters in there i've seen pipes i've seen all kinds of crap it's trash it's a big trash mountain that's what they want to have be michelle obama park and that ain't going to happen. So, yeah. I just wanted you to kind of lay your eyes on what the county thought was a good idea

and what Blackhall thought. Of course, you know, it was a great idea for Ryan Millsap because the land that he acquired is worth way more, millions more. It's now worth millions more than when he made the swap. So he has made a lot of money on this swap and that's why he's angry that he can't get his hands on it yet. Nobody knows what he's going to do with it because the original agreement between him and the county was that he was going to build movie studios on that land. Well he can't now because he sold his rights to the movie

studios to a company that's now called Shadowbox box they're the ones that owns his previous studios so he can't have a rival company right across the street from them so he hasn't said and nobody knows exactly what he's gonna do with the property if he wins this court case and gets those 40 acres who knows it's's a mystery. So that's where that stands right now. Hopefully we win the lawsuit. If we do, he will have to foot the bill for repaving the path and redoing the parking lot and putting a new gazebo in. That's what the judge decreed. That's why they said we don't need a restraining order because All that is replaceable. So except for the trees that he tore down, you know, those are going to take another 75 years. But who's counting?

The fate of Michelle Obama Park is still up in the air as of time of recording. So, yeah, I'm excited, excited to visit that if the land swap gets passed. Almost done. We're going to briefly tap back into my conversation with Matt from the Atlantic Community Press Collective. And then, unfortunately, our jokes must come to an end. I think one thing that's been lost in all of this, too, is all of the lighthearted events that have continued to go on through the week.

And we have this youth rally, or there's the youth rally that's happening on Saturday. We're, of course, recording this beforehand. And, like, the joy of the movement that was represented in the bouncy castle rip, which was first pointed at, a rifle was pointed at. We haven't talked about the guns.

Talk about the guns in the bouncy castle. So one thing I think that... Fuck me. We didn't mention that... How can you forget about the guns in the bouncy castle? So when the police came running up onto the tarmac at RC Field where the bouncy castle was, of course, they had to point a rifle at the bouncy castle.

And if that doesn't show that police are not here to have fun and have joy, I don't know what is. I don't know if anyone was in it at the time. I don't think so. I think they were literally just pointing a gun at an empty bouncy castle, which they destroyed.

And I think we have to take a moment to, to mourn that. Did they destroy it or like deflate it? I think they destroyed it. Wasn't like a rental or something. Yes. So RIP bouncy house, uh,

you will be missed and all of the joy that you represented. Uh, my girlfriend's texting me. Cringe. Let me, let me, let me me let me check my my note in case garrison doesn't cut this ask about garrison's neck what what what'd you say ask about what garrison did friday fire burn tower saturday gresham park sunday monday noon tuesday all right all right okay i'm gonna just gonna look through my other notes app because i keep my notes in three different notes apps because i'm normal so one thing that's been notable um especially in how the police talk about the forest,

is they've begun using these militarized terms like the denial of operating area that we saw when Ryan Millsap was in court in DeKalb County. he said the GBI told him to clear the area to deny operating space. And the use of terrorism, there's some eerie parallels between the language that was used to describe insurgencies in countries that America is invading or the United States is invading. And a lot of that language, like the military equipment that was used there, has come home and is now being used against Americans engaged in these liberation struggles. I wonder where we've talked about that before.

I don't know. It could happen where? Speaking of, it is still happening. Last week, approximately 500 people came out to City Hall as the City Council is now in the process of voting to approve public funds for the Cop City Project. Nearly 300 people signed up for public comment, with hundreds more waiting in line. Public comment lasted seven hours, and during so, not a single person voiced support of using taxpayer money to fund the police training facility. to a minimum of $51 million, with the $30 million package awaiting final vote in city council, plus another at least $20 million chunk to be given to the Atlanta Police Foundation via a quote-unquote loan, which indicates that the Atlanta Police Foundation's private fundraising has not gone as well as they initially had hoped. For more on that, I'd recommend checking out the Press Collective's recent article from May 24th. And you can also donate to them to support their continued reporting of the happenings in Atlanta.

You can find us on Twitter at Atlanta underscore press. Our website is atlpresscollective.com. And you can find our Instagram at atl press collective uh we have partnered with open collective we are uh fiscally sponsored now by open the open collective foundation um in a way to uh transparently fundraise um in order to sustain our reporting um everything up until actually the week of action um we've everything that we have done up until the week of action was all unpaid and um it is our desire to to continue to grow with the movement and uh so we we're excited to find a partner in the open collective foundation that can uh continue that sort of horizontal open um organizing that that we have done internally. Okay, yeah, I think we're good.

I think we have it. Good job, team. Oh, shit, I wasn't recording. I'm kidding. Fuck you. Fuck you. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media,

visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow. Join me, Danny Trails, and step into the flames of right. An anthology podcast of modern day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America.

Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search. Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Hey, I'm Jacqueline Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture. Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network,

iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T, connecting changes everything.