My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 219 - Small Pillow To Scream In

Episode Date: April 23, 2020

Karen and Georgia cover PSA Flight 1771 and the Kent State massacre.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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And welcome to my favorite murder. The podcast you listen to sometimes. Right? That's Karen Kilgera. That's Georgia Hartstark. Hi, I haven't left the house in many days. Oh, I just left today. Oh, what's it like out there?

Start the two-week count today. Snow traffic. Yeah. Beautiful skies. Beautiful skies. Oh, listen, right before I came into the, my office to, because the one carpeted room in the house, I was sitting at the kitchen table and all of a sudden the whole living room smelled like jasmine.

Oh. Amazing. It was crazy. I mean, the air quality is so amazing in Los Angeles in ways it never has been before. Absolutely. It's so beautiful. I've been going on my patio every couple of days or every so often and just sitting in the sun and that has been like the highlight of my week is just that like 20 minutes of

sun. Oh, God. It's so nice. Oh my God, you should up that to 30 minutes if you like it that much. I should. Go ahead. Give yourself that gift. I miss the fucking world, which I never thought I'd say or feel.

I mean, it's the exact opposite of what you've been saying to me for the past two years. I'm like, I just want to be at home and get to stay with my cats and like now you get it. But I want it to be voluntary. You should have said that the first time. I know. Listen, when you're manifesting, you have to be really specific to the universe. Shit.

They'll just take you at your room. And then I also have to, the problem is that it's spring as well and there's this fucking bird and heat that's living in the tree outside of my house. It's not in heat. What do they get? It's trying to mate. Whatever. No.

And it will not. Yeah. It won't stop like trying to get like whistling and making all these bird sounds all fucking night. I have not been sleeping. Wow. Oh, wait. Hold on, Stephen.

It's eight o'clock. Everyone's losing their shit again. Oh, yeah. Let's see if we can hear it this time. You couldn't hear it last time, right? I've never heard this. Hold on. Hear that?

Yeah. A little something. Yeah. A little something in the background. I love that people do that. It's really nice. Let's try to play the Star Spangled Banner really loud on his phone the other night. So yeah, I haven't been sleeping well because of this fucking bird and you know, that's it.

I mean, that's kind of the like the thing that symbolizes or like the audio cue that it's like, oh, the morning like da, da, da, da, da, and the bird tweeting, but it's happening all night long. It's really eerie to hear a bird just tweet all fucking night. It definitely sounds like the beginning of the apocalypse. Well, yeah. It's off, right? But I had this morning I was on the phone with my dad in the kitchen and at the front

window, a kitchen window, something caught my eye and I look over and this gigantic grass hopper is climbing up to get onto the windowsill outside. But I'm telling you that the head of the grasshopper was like the size of a dime. Oh my God. Like it's the head alone caught my eye. Man, animals are taking back their fucking planet. They're coming back big time. This thing, I'm going to send you a picture of it.

I actually caught a picture as it was lifting its leg up to like get its, and it's, it looks like it's coming to fight me like through the window. It's huge that it would honestly, it was a grasshopper that was this big, like two inches long. It was insane. Oh my God. They're coming back. I heard in Yosemite, like the bears are having a fucking field day.

They're like, like running around in the streets and shit because there's not a bunch of fucking tourists there anymore. That's right. Yeah. They already aren't that afraid of tourists. You know what I mean? They're like kind of used to them. So now they're just like, what's, hello?

Like now we get to use this bench? Great. You know, I'm going to sit on this. I discovered this today too because I drank a ton of coffee today. And then right around five o'clock, I realized the last couple of times we've recorded because I've been like, oh, I don't know if I have it to give. And I don't, it's so hard to podcast alone and from home and not in the same room. I realized the missing ingredient has been coffee this entire time.

I just need like four solid, large venties of Starbucks and I can podcast through anything. This is going to be a five hour episode, everyone. I have so much to tell you, you're the first people I've talked to in three weeks. I just, when we were trying to set up, you, you hadn't come on the zoom yet, but I had to. Sorry. I just got back off because there was a man standing in front of the window waving. And so I was like, oh, hello, what's this?

And I, so he's waving and pointing and so I just go over to my, to the window in this room and open it up because I've taken all the screens off of it. I open it up and I'm leaning out the window and I'm like, hi, what's your name? Whatever. And he's kind of talking to me as a little bit of an accent. Is it a grasshopper? In a suit? Oh, it's an old man version of the grasshopper.

He had finally transformed into his final form. And he was like basically saying, I'm your neighbor. We haven't met yet, but he said, what's your name? And I said, my name's Karen. And then he went, you're so beautiful, you're so beautiful. And I swear to God, I almost burst into tears and I was like, I'm up. And I was like, first, I haven't put on makeup in so long. Like that is a blatant lie.

My roots are the gray roots make it look like I'm going bald, blah, blah, blah. But I realized it's cause I'm leaning halfway out a window, like Rapunzel, you know what I mean? And then I tricked him into saying that to me basically because I was like leaning out a window like, so what's your name? And you have like grasshoppers like flying into your hand and you're just, you know, fucking snow whiting it up. Then suddenly the grasshoppers on my shoulder and he's got a little top hat on.

Hey. Well, and then he, but he actually said, are you married? And I, and I went divorced and then, and I think then he felt bad. So he said, you're so beautiful in this great accent. It was hilarious. So now he lives with you. Yeah. So that's my new roommate.

I mean, these are the, we can only go over what's been happening and all of the things that have been happening have been direct either directly outside our door or inside the house or on the computer. I keep having these like zoom happy hour hangs with like, well, some of our friends will get together and want to have these happy hours and they're, I hate them and they're so awkward. And I ended up getting shit-faced because I'm so uncomfortable and nervous with them and Vince hates them too.

And I realized I was finally able to let him know what it's like for me at a regular in-person hang is how he feels on a zoom call, all awkward and weird and having to make weird conversation is my every interaction. So it's kind of like actually this moment that we shared where he finally got how uncomfortable I am in front of people. Now, do you have a delay or when you clap, other people clap a second later in real life? No. Like, that's basically your problem.

Oh, maybe that's why it's awkward on a delay. Everyone's deep behind you and it's so irritating. I don't want to stare at me. Oh, God. Do you have any news, any updates, any suggestions? Oh, you want to talk about TV stuff, stuff we've been watching? Sure. Sure.

Well, I'm really excited because the people who made Downton Abbey have a new series on epics. It's called Bel Gravia or Bel Gravia, perhaps I'm not sure, but it's so fucking good. The second episode was on Sunday night. And it like, so just for all the people, this is like, I don't know what version of this is. I don't know if it's Victorian England. It's early 1800s.

I'm not sure what the brackets are, but it's great outfits. It's all the great actors, all the like great British period piece actors that you've seen in a ton of stuff are in this, including Tasman Grieg, who actually is more of a comedy person She was on, did you ever see episodes that Matt LeBlanc series with the two British writers? She's the woman from that. But she was also on Friday night dinner, which is one of my favorites, Robert Popper's series that was so funny. She was the mom on Friday night dinner.

And she plays the lead person on this. And with Harriet Walker, I believe her name is, who is just the badass, is it Harriet Walker? I'm sorry, Harriet Walter, Harriet Walter. Anyway, if you like period pieces and you're into all that kind of stuff, I love Belgravia so far they've set up a real good. The drama is already in. We're like, there's none.

I love a soap opera from the Victorian age. That's how I want. I usually don't, but I loved Downton Abbey, especially the first season so much that it was surprising to me how into it I was. It's really well done. And it's like the interesting, like the dynamics are interesting because it's not, it's stuff that we're, we're not as used to, you know what I mean? The dynamics of having a, you know, a valet or a footman or a, you don't know what that's

like. Oh, how is it? Good times? Oh, it's so good. Oh my God. The politics of the footmen. But yeah, so if, if people are into that, I also was watching the Pickwick papers, which is a seventies BBC series based on the Dickens novel.

And it's so, it's like something they would bring in on a rainy day and make you watch in like British lit class when you, like against your will, but I found it so delightful. That's just, I guess that's like British accents are my background comfort sounds. You love it. You're going to move there one day, but retire, retire to the British countryside. Just get my own manor house and footmen. Yeah. That's right.

But then I'm also, I'm on the staff because that's really my roots. That's my, that's where my people are actually from. My grandmother was a maid for years. You can't stay out of the kitchen trying to help. I'm down there like, you should be doing it like this. Yeah. She's just like everyone else. She's so down to earth.

She's so down to earth. I've been watching, I've been watching a period piece too, but it's 1940s, which is like my favorite for like set design and clothing and stuff. So it's called, it's called the plot against America. I saw the promo for that. It's our friend and murderer, Zoe Kazan, who's so fucking talented and it's, it's a really good show. And then also randomly, Winona Ryder is like a 1940s New York Jew in it.

I hear she's great in it. Yeah. And then what's his name? Who's so incredible. John Turturro. It's just like a really good, quiet show. I feel like people would be really like, people should be screaming about it. Yeah.

I like it. Yeah. And then, I mean, that's it. I've just been waiting until five to start drinking and good, good. The little small steps. Yeah. Garage hangs and trying to keep it together at therapy yesterday on the phone, which is like getting good and deep.

Yeah. I was, I was talking to my therapist about, I was like, all these things we talk about, I then get off the phone and have all this time to think about and work on. Right. You know, I'm going to talk to you again very soon. Yeah. And it's not like I can be like, oh, sorry, I didn't watch that. I didn't read that article or whatever.

It's like, I'm, it's all I have to do is really think about some of this stuff and face it. Why not? My therapist gave me like a worksheet, like homework to be like with your negative thoughts. When you have them write down like where it came from. What are you thinking? Why? Why do you think this happened? And I did it.

I did one. And I'm like, not a homework person. Obviously, I barely graduated high school. But I wrote, I did one after last week, after the podcast of just like, how do I feel? And it helped. But then I got mad at myself for feeling those things. So that doesn't help. And then it also doesn't help that then you're judging it from that, like, coning all the

way out there. Yeah. Right. Give yourself a goddamn break. I'm going to. Yeah. My therapist gave me homework too. And it was like a, send a thank you note to yourself, this part of yourself.

And then I was just like, I'm pretty sure this is not going to happen. I know. She also told me to scream in a pillow and I'm like, that's embarrassing. What if it catches me screaming into a pillow better than screaming into his face? Come on. Pick one. You only have one. Pick one.

Get a pillow. Go into the garage. Make it. Part of garage hangs. Okay. Make it part of the fun. I have a white claw on one hand and a pillow over my face in the other. Maybe that's what you need for like social things when you finally do get to socialize

again. If you just have a small pillow to scream in, it's like, how are you? I know. I know. Have you seen the latest episode? Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry. One second.

Turn away. Yeah. Sorry. I'm back. Who's that girl? Who's that girl just carries a pillow around with her? I don't know. Don't worry about it.

Don't worry about it. I'm going to start doing that too. Yeah. Just be a trendsetter. Should we do some network news? Oh yeah. Okay. We're going to do some real quick, exactly right network updates for you.

Well, I mean, the big one is just that finally are the brand new weird news comedy show Bananas premiered this week. I always want to say today because that's real. Yeah. Tuesday. But it was Tuesday. But it was Tuesday. Yes.

Yeah. So please subscribe and listen to Bananas starring our friends, Scotty Landis and Kurt Braunweiler. They have the hilarious Kristen Shawl on this week and she's so delightful. Hilarious. Truly. Yeah. I mean, it's Louise Belcher's on their first podcast.

What more do you want as a selling point to listen to this? And also it's like the perfect escape, hilarious comedy people, people chatting, being chill, just talking about weird shit and laughing together. That's bomb for the soul. You got to do it. Yeah. After you listen to your whatever news podcast you listen to, why don't you hop on over to Bananas and soothe your soul a little bit.

Counterbalance that. Counter. Yeah. Always counterbalance. That's our, we're your therapist now and that's your homework. That's right. And then the per cast, our good friends, Steven and Sarah, have Yardley Smith as a guest this week, which I think is so rad from The Simpsons.

We have Lisa Simpson and we have Louise Belcher. Yeah. All the animated heroes. That's crazy. All of my animated superheroes. Yeah. Now, Yardley Smith is on for Small Town Dicks, right? Yes.

Is that what she promotes when she does stuff like that? Yes. Yeah. She's the co-host of Small Town Dicks. Yeah. Yeah. Which is an amazing podcast if you haven't listened. No, she was great.

And she has like a little sneak peek is that she basically built like a, has like a designer cat jungle gym that goes all the way up the stairs in her house. Amazing. And it's one of the most, the way she describes it is amazing. I mean, cause it's just great to listen to her voice anyway. But then. Oh my God. It was incredible.

So awesome. And she's even a part of anything we do or honor. In our world. Yeah. She's in our world. So nice booking, Steven. Yeah. She was the best.

All right. I think that's it for the network news, right? We're doing highlights now. So we don't have to walk everybody through every single thing. If you want more information about what's going on exactly right, you can go to our website, which I'm assuming is www.exactlyright.com. Or media. Exactly right.

Media. Who would know? It's exactly right. Media. .com. Yeah. Yes. Yes.

.edu. We're professionals. Take a look at our website. Have you ever seen the network website? It's fun. Good. Great. Thank you.

There's a video. We're doing videos now of the mini soads on our website, myfavoritemurder.com. So you can check those out if you want to see what we look like when we're talking. Looking for a better cooking routine? Meal planning, shopping, and prepping handled HelloFresh has you covered. HelloFresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. HelloFresh meals are convenient, seasonal, and delicious.

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it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye. What makes a person a murderer?

Are they born to kill or are they made to kill? I'm Candace DeLong and on my new podcast Killer Psyche Daily, I share a quick 10-minute rundown every weekday on the motivations and behaviors of the criminal masterminds, psychopaths, and cold-blooded killers you hear about in the news. I have decades of experience as a psychiatric nurse, FBI agent, and criminal profiler. On Killer Psyche Daily, I'll give you insight into cases like Ryan Grantham and the newly arrested Stockton Serial Killer. I'll also bring on expert guests to dive deeper into the details, share what it's like to

work with a behavioral assessment unit at Quantico, answer some killer trivia, and even host virtual Q&As where I'll answer your burning questions. Hey, Prime members, listen to the Amazon Music Exclusive Podcast, Killer Psyche Daily, in the Amazon Music app. Download the app today. All right. So you're first this week? Uh-huh.

Okay. But I won't drink too much of this very weird sweating vodka soda. I'm doing the crash of PSA Flight 1771. So this is December 7th, 1987. So we're at LAX, 48-year-old man named Ray Thompson, board flight PSA 1771 for San Francisco. He works in the LA office of U.S. Air, but he lives in Tiberon. He's a very high-level U.S. Air manager. That's North California, right?

Yeah. He's the super-rich city that's right above Sausalito, and Sausalito's the first city over the Golden Gate Bridge, so it's like the third city over the Golden Gate Bridge. Very exclusive, super fancy. And it's, I mean, he has the life. That's very cool. You live in LA, and then you just commute home on a flight and go to Tiberon, like awesome. Okay.

So that's his commuter flight. That's what he does to commute to work. So flight 1771 takes off from LAX at 3.31 p.m. Now this is the flight, not PSA, obviously, I usually do the Southwest version. It takes an hour. The flight time is a little over an hour, so you basically have enough time to get served a drink, finish the drink, and then hand the drink back, and you've landed. It's a dream come true.

So it's scheduled to land at San Francisco Airport at 4.43 p.m. But about halfway through the flight, air traffic control receives a distress call from First Officer James Nunn in the cockpit. They hear him say over the radio, quote, there's gunfire on board, we're going down. Holy shit. They hear a commotion, they hear a bunch of other stuff, then a really intense high-pitched screeching sound, and then silence. Two minutes later, 22,000 feet over a small town called Templeton, California, I've never

heard of it in my life. Never heard of it. Nope. You know where it is? It's in the mountain range that's basically San Luis Obispo is on the west side of it, and then all those vineyard-y towns are on the east side of it, in the valley part where all the wine is planted, and then all the wine has been planted in bottles on the ground and grows up.

San Ysidro? Uh-huh. No, that's fine. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Napa, all that shit. No, no, no. We're still down by San Luis Obispo. Paso Robles?

Thank you. Paso Robles? That's what I was trying to think of. Thank you, Steven. Vincent and I got married in San Luis Obispo and then went to Paso Robles for our honeymoon. Isn't it gorgeous? So this plane takes an almost vertical nosedive. It was going at a 70-degree angle downward, and it crashes into a rocky hillside in a

cow pasture miraculously. It was outside, just outside of town, thank God. The plane dove so fast it broke the sound barrier, and when it impacted, on impact, it was obliterated into millions of pieces, and it killed all 43 souls on board. So a CBS News helicopter was the first to spot the wreckage, and they alerted the authorities, and so there's this TV show, this TV show I'm about to talk about. It's called May Day, and it's about plane crashes. I don't know why anyone would watch it, but you should, I guess.

But also, of course, Murderpedia articles from the time, from 1987, from the LA Times, The Washington Post, AP News, and Time Magazine had an article about it. So they use video on that TV show May Day. It looks like it must be the video from the Sheriff's Department or something, because it's just like, it's basically a faraway full-screen shot where they're kind of scanning this field that goes up into like a foothill, and it looks like somebody has just thrown a bunch of pieces of paper everywhere. Just debris is only left.

And it's very small, very small debris. And the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office detective, Bill Womick, he's quoted in that video as saying about this crash site, quote, we saw nothing that resembled an airliner. We went on for hours before we heard the news reports of a missing airliner believing that we were dealing with a small airplane full of newspapers that had crashed. We saw no pieces of the aircraft that were larger than maybe a human hand. It did not look like a passenger aircraft. So when they finally found the crash site, they assumed that it was just like a small

plane, because everything was so tiny. And when you see this video, it's mind-boggling that it was like a full-size passenger airplane. So for the next two days, the investigative team digs through the rubble for evidence of what went wrong. So aside from the cockpit voice recorder, which all commercial planes have to record audio in case of emergency situations, they find two very important pieces of evidence. Evidence of a Smith & Wesson 44 magnum revolver with how do they find that? It's in the video too.

You see a guy with this, like a stick or a pen or something. Go like this. And it's not even the whole gun. It's just pieces, one, the piece of the gun with the trigger and the round part, just part of it. Cartridge, I was going to say cartridge, but essentially they find that it has six empty cartridge cases. They also find a note that was written on an air-sick bag that somehow managed to survive

the crash. And that note read, quote, Hi Ray, I think it's sort of ironical that we end up like this. I asked for some leniency for my family. Remember? Well, I got none and you'll get none. End quote. Oh my God.

Yeah. So investigators look at the gun fragments and they find, they end up finding near the trigger part, a fingertip that's stuck inside. No. Yeah. And then they fingerprint that fingertip and it identifies that the finger belongs to 35-year-old recently fired U.S. air employee, David Burke. Wow.

Yes. Because part of the thing about, and I'm sure lots of people have seen that like airplane crash sites, they go through and like put little flags next to each piece of debris because they're cat, like I think categorizing all of it or whatever. So although everything, they have to search this field and apparently I read somewhere, I don't know if it was verified, but they said that there was debris from this crash that was found eight miles away. Oh my God.

Because it crashed with such force that it was just like the way it went out. You wouldn't think that a passenger plane like that would get high enough to break the sound barrier when it crashed, which just shows how much force. Yes. Because I think... They don't go that high, right? 22,000 feet. I don't know.

But also, I think it's the what happened in it and the way it crashed because it didn't go back and forth. There was no pulling up at any point, yeah. It just went straight and nose dive down into the ground and exploded. Okay. Okay. So let's talk about this US Air Employee, David Burke. He was born in the UK.

His parents were Jamaican. They all, the family immigrates to Rochester, New York, where his father gets a job as a cab driver. So that's where he grows up with his brothers, his two brothers, who would later describe David as a generous person who, quote, always looks out for the well-being of the family. So David ends up getting a job working at US Air. US Air will eventually be absorbed into American Airlines in 2015. So that US Air was around for a pretty long time.

Yeah, I remember that. And PSA was like one of the branches of US Air, I guess. So David gets a job working for US Air in Rochester in 1972. And he works there for 14 years. But in 1986, he becomes a suspect in an alleged drug smuggling ring that brought cocaine from Jamaica to the US on US Air flights. He was never officially charged for that alleged involvement. But he ends up putting in a transfer to Los Angeles just to get out of town and get away

from the allegations. So he could have been completely innocent of that and just like it could have been profiling, could have been anything. But he was like, I'm going to get out of town. He also had a girlfriend who lived in the LA area named Jocelyn Camacho. And she also worked for US Air as a ticket agent. So the move allows David to be closer to her. He gets himself a three-bedroom condo in Long Beach and works out of Terminal 1 and LAX.

From that time, US Air acquires Pacific Southwest Airlines, which everyone calls PSA, which I spent my childhood watching commercials for. But now is non-existent and anyone younger than me has no idea what it is, just like everything else. OK, so by July of 1987, things are starting to sour for David at work. Two of his coworkers with less experience than him get promoted to supervisor positions over him in the customer service department. He feels he's been slighted because he's black, because these coworkers are white, and he

blames his boss Ray Thompson for that. In fact, he actually brings this complaint to the California State Department of Fair Employment and Housing that same month. But before the paperwork officially gets filed, he changes his mind and decides not to file a formal complaint. And that's the last the State Department hears about it. But I don't think that it's not like that means that that complaint is any less valid. I think it's like, you make that complaint and then what happens, you still let that

job. Right. The regulations weren't there or in place to not get in trouble for even reporting it, probably. Right, exactly. You're going to be a whistleblower, then you're just going to lose everything, whatever. For whatever reason, he changes his mind. Even on November 15th, 1987, a hidden camera catches David stealing $69 from flight cocktail

receipts. So Ray Thompson, David's supervisor, confronts him about it and tells him U.S. Air is considering filing a misdemeanor charge against him for it. Those charges are never filed, but four days later, on November 19th, 1987, Ray Thompson fires David Burke. So in the weeks following his termination, David's girlfriend notices that he's becoming moodier and more violent. On December 4th, 1987, David actually forces Jacqueline and her six-year-old daughter into

his car at gunpoint and drives them around for six hours. Oh my God. Neither are injured. Jacqueline does wind up filing a report of assault with the police. Then on December 7th, 1987, David visits Ray's office in Terminal 1 at LAX to beg him for his job back, and Ray refuses. He ushers David out of his office, telling him to have a nice day. And David fires back, I intend on having a very good day.

So after he leaves Ray's office, David goes down and buys a one-way ticket for PSA Flight 1771. It's set to leave that same day, December 7th, at 3.31, and he knows that this is the flight that Ray Thompson takes to go home. So even though he was fired, no one took his employee badge. So on his way to the gate, he just shows his credential to his former coworkers at the security gate, and they just let him go right through. They had not been notified.

They didn't know he had been fired, and they would have never suspected that he was hiding a 44 magnum on his person that he had borrowed from a now former coworker. They had no idea any of that was going on. And right before he boarded the flight, David called Jacqueline and leaves her a voicemail, and he says, quote, Jackie, this is David, on my way to San Francisco, Flight 1771. I love you. I really wish I could say more, but I do love you. So that's the message that she ends up getting at 9 o'clock that night, like five hours after

the crash. Whoa. Yeah. So basically, obviously, there's no survivors from this flight and from this crash. And investigators have to piece together all of the events of what may have taken place that day based on what they could hear on the voice recorder. So this is most of it is like conjecture, but it is pretty fascinating how much they can hear and like where the apparently where the microphones are in the cabin so they can

hear a lot of stuff. So basically, at some point, you know, during the flight, David takes that air sick bag that was in the seat pocket in front of him, writes the note to his boss who just fired him. Then he gets up from his seat. He drops that note onto Ray Thompson's lap and then goes into the bathroom. So basically, yeah, let's send him that message. And he not only that not only gives Ray time to read what the note says, it also gives

David time to get the gun ready. Oh, my God. So he comes out of the bathroom, walks up to Ray's seat, fires twice. The gunshots are heard on the audio recorder. And then at that point, first officer James Nunn calls radios air traffic control and reports that shots have been fired. So now they pick up the sound of the cockpit door opening and flight attendant Deborah Neal tells the pilot, Captain Greg Linda Mood, we have a problem.

And Captain Linda Mood says, what's the problem? Then another gunshot is heard. And that's David shooting Deborah in the back, followed by David Burke saying, I'm the problem. Oh, my God. Yeah. So then he fires two more times, presumably once at Captain Linda Mood and once at first officer Nunn. And they're both either killed or badly wounded.

And now there's this high pitched screeching sound, which they believe is caused by either one or more bullet holes in the windshield. I'm sure they don't call it a windshield on a plane, but that's when I get what you mean. Yeah. That sound begins to grow louder, indicating the plane's rapid descent. And then another gunshot is heard. Some people theorize it was David Burke killing himself. Others think it's more likely that that was for Captain Douglas Arthur, who was on board

as a passenger and he was PSA's chief pilot in Los Angeles. Oh, sure. He was just riding on that plane too. And they believe he probably approached the cockpit to try and help stop David and try to help the other pilots. Because the piece of David's finger was found lodged in the trigger guard, forensics experts think that means David was alive and holding the gun at the moment of impact. But it's all theory.

Either way, this gunshot is the last sound recorded on the CVR before the crash. So apparently from this clip from Mayday of the people that were at this site, there's one of the guys said, having been one of the investigators, said there was no seats. There was no fuselage. There was no tail of the plane. There was nothing that would indicate a plane was in this spot. That's how tiny all these pieces were. Crazy.

How crazy this. And then he said that they believe the G-Force that they were dropping at was like 5,000. I believe he said 5,000 Gs. So you'd hope that those people were unconscious by the time it happened. Yes. Okay, so the investigation afterwards, they start interviewing all the other employees, but they find no one else who had issues with Ray Thompson. All of them described him as firm but fair, which means he was probably a great boss.

He left behind his wife, Dorothy, who also worked in the airline industry as a flight attendant for American Airlines. So this plane crash, 43 people died, five flight crew members, 39 passengers, including David Burr. Among these passengers, this is kind of interesting, 53-year-old James Silla was the president of Chevron. And three other very high-level Chevron executives, Owen Murphy, Jocelyn Kemp, and Alan Swanson. And there was also three executives from Pack Bell on that flight, Pacific Bible, for people

who don't live in California. They were on board. And this actually, there was such a massive loss of high-level executives at both of these companies. It led to an industry standard change where company executives cannot fly together at the same time. I've always found that rule so interesting and dark and fucked up, but yeah, it came from this.

It's from this crash. That's crazy. Yeah. And then it made me think, as I was writing this up, I was just like at Chevron. It was like everyone at the top. So then it's like someone's weird assistant. It's like, now that guy's the president? Like who moved up to take those places?

Because that's five deep. You're down into like, assistant area, like who took over? Oh, man. They must have gotten someone from Exxon or whatever to come over. Two federal laws are also passed because of this with regards to airline worker policy. The first one was that anytime an airline worker is fired or leaves their job, they have to immediately hand over their security credentials. I mean, seems that makes sense.

And the second one is that no matter what, all airline employees, regardless of their position, are subject to the exact same security procedures as every other passenger on board if they are going to go on to a flight. Total sense. That makes super sense. So this is obviously, you know, pre-911, like it was such a different world. Yeah. Who knows if they would have even found the gun if they had been doing screenings because

it was so lax. Right? Yeah. Because I don't, it's a person at work. He worked at this company for 15 years. Like he was, everyone probably knew this guy, liked this guy, like, yeah, you know, yeah. So this is really, really tragic of the 43 souls who died, 26 of them, 23 passengers and three crew members, their remains could not be positively identified.

So they ended up having an inter-dominational mass graveside service in Osos, California. Another city I haven't heard of, but it's, that's right. It's basically down the mountain and kind of a little bit. Just closer to San Luis Obispo. And at that service, Rabbi A. Mannhoff, who was of congregation, Beth David in, in San Luis Obispo spoke, and he said, quote, Psalms and words of consolation cannot make sense of this senseless deed. Grief is a great teacher if we learn from those who loved.

Take that love and use it to make the world better. Yeah. And the episode of, oh, it's a Canadian documentary series. Mayday that details the events of this crash of Flight 1771. The episode is titled, I'm the problem. And that is the story of the tragedy of PSA Flight 1771. Fuck, that's dark. Great job.

Thank you. I'd never heard of that. And it was 86 in Los, originated in Los Angeles. That's 87. Yeah. I know. Isn't that weird? I'd never heard of it if I hadn't been collecting those weird news blurbs.

That's the only reason that I knew it is because it just came up on that website of like, here's the things that happened in 1987. But I didn't remember hearing it. And I don't remember the PSA crash in, in San Diego itself. No, no. And I'm from Orange County and I don't remember ever hearing about that. Yeah. That's bananas.

Yeah. Wow. Great job. Thank you. Thank you. Because I'm about to do the Kent State Massacre. Oh, shit. I mean, oh man.

Yeah. Like, now we cue the Neil Young. Yeah. Oh, hi. Oh. Okay. So this came about because I'm reading this book called Chaos. It's this big old book, it's by Tom O'Neill who's this incredible investigative journalist

and he spent 20 years researching this topic. And you and I don't usually aren't really into Charles Manson and the family stories. It's like boring and it's, it's just a horrible person and horrible people. But this one's about Charles Manson, the CIA and the secret history of the 60s. And like is basically like the helter-skelter theory is fucking bullshit. And maybe was Charles Manson like, you know, did the FBI put him up to this, to the murder? I mean, it's just really, really interesting and gives you this whole history of the counterculture and what went wrong.

I kind of like the fact that these days, I feel like, and a lot of people said this, I'm definitely not the first, but it's like conspiracy theorists are so justified now. Because like back then, if you'd say, oh, Manson was hired by the FBI or the CIA or whatever, you know, people would just be like, wow, you must be totally out of your mind. And now you hear that and you're like, obviously, like, right, well, now, because it's been so long and there's the freedom of information act. And now, you know, the people who, who could have been prosecuted are all dead. So other people are speaking or talking and, you know, there's just, I don't, it, it's,

it makes more sense to me than the helter-skelter theory. And it's an incredible book. I highly recommend it. Joe Rogan just had the author, Tom O'Neill on his podcast and it's just a fascinating person. So you found out about Tom O'Neill because you're, you're doing your usually Rogan head stuff. Yeah, you know it.

No, it's weird. I posted the book one day, the next day he was on the show. So I knew it first. No, I obviously didn't. Okay. And then, so then when I got an Instagram message from someone named Hi from Melissa saying you should do the Kent State Massacre, it was kind of perfect timing in the, you know, it goes all the way to the top, you know, brand.

So I got information, there's a from a brand now, that brand. Yeah. Um, I'm a, yeah, I'm an influencer and all the way to the top influencer. Sure. So this, uh, there's a documentary from PBS called the day the sixties dies. That's really great. There's an article from the Kent State University paper by Jerry Lewis and Thomas Hensley, a Britannica article, a bunch of history.com articles.

And then, um, James Renner, who's a friend of the podcast and is a really great true crime author. He has some cool information about it as well. And then, um, also some interviews from historian Howard Means. So in 1968, Nixon's elected to the presidency, partially on the promise of ending the increasingly unpopular Vietnam war. By the end of the sixties, there was this illusion that baby boomer generation, they were raised to believe stuff like the United States was just like, you know, uh, do your

part and to be proud of the USA. But that kind of have had fallen away, um, in the numbers, like a cultural revolution of the student anti-war movement. And this is, I mean, you think about it now and it's, it seems kind of normal, but that, that was the first generation who kind of went against what their parents wanted for them or forcing them to do and kind of were thinking for themselves for the very first time. And it was revolutionary.

And it also incensed a large amount, a large, um, it also incensed a large part of the population as well. Yeah. Because you think about it and most of people that lived in America were immigrants who had to come and like, and fend for themselves. And like if they survived to have second and third generations of their family, it's because they sacrificed all that storyline. And then all of a sudden, these kids were one or two generations away from that kind

of suffering. And they were like, yeah, we don't have to do that. We don't have to, we don't have to participate in this same thing that you guys did. We don't have to stand for the status quo. We don't have to be treated this way. We can have a voice. And I think from their parents' generation, which went through World War II and their, you know, grandparents through World War I, which is that you have to be so patriotic

and being anything other is you being a fucking communist, you know, it was like unheard of. Yeah. Because World War I and World War II, literally you would die if you didn't like get, join the war effort. If you didn't sacrifice, if you didn't do all those things, it really was, you know, it was real. Yeah. Definitely.

So by 1970, the Vietnam War split the country into two factions. Those that opposed the war, those that supported it, but even a large portion of those that opposed it are really critical of the student anti-war movement. And so in November 1969, the American public finds out all these things like about the May Lai massacre, which is the mass murder of over 400 unarmed South Vietnamese civilians by U.S. troops. And it leads to increased opposition about the war. And then there, a month later, there's a first draft lottery since World War II, which

fucking makes people lose their minds, I mean, fairly. That means people who were previously able to defer enrollment because of education are no longer exempt. So that stirs the student anti-war movement as well. You know, it's mostly blue collar middle-class students who are having to go fight in Vietnam. If you're rich, you're kind of exempt from it in a lot of ways. Yeah. Yeah.

And so these people are sick of seeing their childhood friends, their fellow students, their, you know, brothers being killed in a war that the majority of Americans believe getting involved in was a mistake. So they're fucking pissed and they're fighting it for their lives, it feels like. It's really a passionate movement. So in his first year of his presidency, it does seem that the American involvement in Vietnam is starting to wind down and that all changes on April 30th, 1970. Oh, by the way, May 4th is the 50-year anniversary of the Kent State Massacre.

So on April 30th, 1970, Nixon goes on TV and announces the U.S. is invading Cambodia. And in fact, the Secretary of Defense didn't even know this was happening until he went on TV and announced it, which just says so much about him. And so Cambodia had been neutral up until this point. And so invading this, you know, neutral territory is obviously an escalation of the war. It enrages the anti-war movement and college campuses around the country erupt in protests. And that sets the stage for the events that unfold at Kent State. So that's the history.

And then Kent State University is around 30 miles southeast of Cleveland, 15 miles from Akron. It's a small town in Ohio. In 1978, it has about 20,000 students and many are first-generation college students from working-class families. It's considered a somewhat conservative university as far as politics are concerned, but it does have a history of student protests and radicalization. So on Friday, May 1st, the day after Nixon's announcement, there's this widespread anger

about invading Cambodia, and Kent State holds some smaller protests and rallies that are peaceful. But that night, everyone goes to like the main drag in Kent, which is tiny, and goes to the bar. They start fucking drinking and anarchy breaks out. And the protesters start, you know, lightened fucking garbage cans on fire, they're in the middle of the street, the police respond and protesters throw rocks at them and bottles and eventually students and, you know, who the fuck knows, it could be people inciting

violence for a reason. They begin to break windows and loot stores and eventually there, more than a dozen people are arrested, the crowd's broken up with tear gas and the students go back to campus. You know, that's what happened in Ferguson. They would talk about that those Ferguson protests, they were trying to be peaceful, and all of a sudden there would be like, somebody would show up and they would throw something and it was like some white guy that no one knew, no one ever seen before. That's real.

A lot of people, Kent State and Ferguson have a lot of similarities and that's one of them. And the fact that, you know, national guardsmen with who are armed to the teeth for war are sent into civilian locations, you know, it's horrific. Which is no standard fair. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So the next night, Saturday, May 2nd, another protest march happens on the campus, thousands

of students join in and some people are protesting Cambodia and the Vietnam War and some people are just students watching what's going on. So that's just like a big gathering. When the students pass the campus ROTC building, ROTC is the Reserve Officers Training Corps. So when they pass that building, it's, that building is normally guarded by police because obviously for people protesting the Vietnam War, that's going to be a big hotbed. But when they get there, there's no, there's no guards there and eventually it's set on fire.

But over a thousand protesters are celebrating the building's destruction. Firefighters arrive as the firefighters try to contain the blaze, protesters are throwing rocks at them. They slash the hoses so they can't, you know, fight the fire. It burns to the ground. Kent Mayor Leroy Satchram declares a state of emergency and requests assistant from Ohio's governor. So James A. Rhodes is this fucking conservative staunch dude, he's campaigning for the Republican

nomination to run for the U.S. Senate. So he can't look soft on this, you know, he has to really, you know, come with force. He ends up dispatching the Ohio National Guard to the campus and surrounding town. He proclaimed that the protesters are the worst type of people in America and says, I think we're up against the strongest well-trained militant revolutionary group that has ever assembled in America. So he just needs to seem strong on, you know, protesters who are students who are throwing rocks.

Yeah. Who are 19 and 20 year old students terrified of going to Vietnam. Yeah. What he should have said is, you can't tell a boy from the girls and I don't like it. The dirty old hippies. It was a cultural revolution where people were like, I'm going to see what I want to be in every way that that sentence could mean something and the establishment was just like, holy shit, what the fuck is going on?

So the National Guard members arrive and they disperse the crowd with tear gas, that's on Saturday. And the next day by Sunday, May 3rd, nearly 1200 National Guardsmen occupy the Kent State campus. Wow. And what really should have happened was that the president of Kent State University or, you know, this conservative governor should have shut the school down at that point and, you know, canceled classes for the week or whatever until order was, you know, ordered.

Resumed. But thank you. But they didn't, they didn't do that. And so on Monday, May 4th, you know, because of a lot of students were just like normal middle class kids, they'd go home for the weekend. They weren't in town. So there wasn't a lot of the people who had, you know, done these demonstrations. So they didn't even know what was going on.

They get to school, they're going to classes, it's normal. So Monday morning, more rallies are scheduled, a crowd begins to gather, you know, and by noon, the entire commons area contains almost 3000 people, but it's estimated that only a fraction of them are actually like the core, hardcore demonstrators. And they're protesting at this point, the presence of the guard on campus. It's not even about Cambodia as much anymore. But there's a strong anti-war sentiment, of course. And another larger group of students are there cheering in support of those demonstrators.

They're not even, you know, part of the pack, but they're supporting them. And then an additional 1500 people are students just standing around the perimeter of the commons because class was still in session that day, just watching. So across the commons at the burned out ROTC building, there was about 100 Ohio National Guardsmen carrying lethal M1 military rifles. Initially, the rally's pretty peaceful. But before noon, Ohio National Guard General Robert Canterbury orders the demonstrators to disperse, essentially, you know, Kent State Police officers are there.

They're trying to get them to disperse. It doesn't work. Protesters start throwing rocks and yelling insults. And because it's a super windy day, oh, that's another thing, it was like a gorgeous day, one of the first ones of spring in the city. So it's just really eerie to have this going on then. But because there was some wind, the teargrass canisters they were lobbing weren't working. So it couldn't disperse the crowd.

The protesters, essentially, the protesters go up the steep hill and you can see all these incredible photos from the day. They go down this hill and the guardsmen follow and essentially get kind of blocked in by this gate that's surrounding a practice football field. So they retreat back up the hill. And as they arrive at the top of the hill and it's from, it just seems out of fucking nowhere, 28 of the guardsmen turn around back to the crowd. They're retreating.

They turn around back to the crowd and begin to fire their rifles and pistols. And there's photos of it. It's it's fucking eerie. Many guardsmen's fire into the air or the ground, but a small portion fired directly into the crowd. And the shooting lasts for 13 seconds, which seems quick, but that's a long fucking time. Right? It's, yeah, no, that's a long time.

That's a long time. Because one shot's a second. Right. Not even. Not even a second. Right. So and they're able to fire up 67 rounds in those 13 seconds because they have military, what's it called?

Because they have military grade weapons, eyewitness accounts from the students and faculty show that people thought that they were firecrackers, that they were shooting blanks, but instead four students are killed and nine others are wounded. One of them is paralyzed from the waist down. So 20 year old Jeff Miller, who had transferred to Kent State four months earlier, he shot directly into his mouth from he's 265 feet away. So that's not a threat to anyone. The bullet exits the back of his skull and he's killed instantly.

And he's the one in that like heart wrenching photo of the girl bending down and that's him. And she's screaming, right? That's right. I'll talk about her in a minute. Nearby, his friend and fellow activist, 19 year old honor student, Allison Kraus, she's shot three times in the back as they're trying to run away. The fatal shot enters through her left arm and travels to her chest, killing her.

Both those two students had been actively involved in the demonstration, but the other two fatalities both shot at a distance of about 390 feet away were bystanders on their way to class. 20 year old Sandy Shure, who was walking with one of her speech and hearing therapy students across the green is shot through the neck and dies of blood loss. And William Schroeder, who's 19 and attending Kent State on an ROTC scholarship, he's walking between classes when he's hit in the chest, the bullet enters his back and shatters a rib and he dies almost an hour later at a local hospital.

And so one of the National Guard, only one of them admits to actually aiming at a specific person. And that person's 18 year old demonstrator named Joseph Lewis, because as they pointed their guns at them, he flipped them off, not knowing obviously that there were actual bullets in the guns. He was the closest victim of the shooting. He was a full 60 feet away. So that was the closest person, which obviously is not a threat, right?

So that the argument that the National Guard was threatened, they were at least 60 feet to 390 feet away. That's not a threat. And also none of those people had weapons. So as much as you can talk about vibes or, you know, like a group of people or whatever, it just like that doesn't really hold up to people who are standing there with machine guns or whatever guns they had. Right.

And it's, I mean, the more reading I did, the less I wanted, you can't blame the National Guard completely either. They were put in this impossible situation that the people who are higher up than them should have handled. They shouldn't have even put in that situation. And they are also 19, 20 year old kids who don't have experience. So, you know, and they're, they do feel threatened because they don't have the proper training to know what to do in a situation like that.

Yeah. And they're, they're feeling, it's like, it only takes one, when there's one side with a bunch of guns and one without, like you see, you see it in action movies all the time or whatever, where it's like, hold, that hold your fire moment, where it takes one person to fire and then other people start because they think that's what you're doing. That's one fearful person who shoots the first or fucking, maybe there's one guy and there is absolutely a piece of shit and starts firing and the rest of them shoot as well. Yeah.

You know. And so. Sorry, just as a completely uneducated outsider who's read no books and only knows about this from watching, you know, USA in the 60s types of documentaries. Yeah. As much as the National Guard can say, and that's obviously what official statements usually sound like, that they feel threatened, they feel threatened that someone 60 feet away might run toward them, like no matter what, the students were unarmed.

Like there's no excuse. That's not, it just doesn't hold water. Anyway. It doesn't. No, you're absolutely right. It doesn't. That's not an excuse. Because as threatened as you feel, that's why you have the gun in your hand.

So you're actually can't feel too threatened for someone who doesn't also have a gun because they can't kill you and you can kill them. Right. They're not going to overpower you and take your gun. Yeah. It's just, yeah. But this guy, Joseph Lewis later says that he had been a relatively passive participant up until this point, but he sees the military threat violence against the students.

It pisses him off so much, the audacity. He personally had worked through high school to save enough money for one year of college and now these men are taking over his campus and he's so pissed off that he flips them off and this guardsman Larry Schaefer raises his M1 and shoots Joseph Lewis in the stomach. And after he falls, another guardsman shoots him in the leg while he's on the ground, but he survives. But it's just, it's, you know, people were shot in the back. People who were, people, it seems like people were targeted, the people who were actually

actively protesting, yeah, somehow got shot from 300 feet away. Clearly. Clearly. Yeah. Because the second shot, the guy flipping people off, you could maybe right off the first shot. Right. The second shot, what's the value of that, like, you shot someone in the stomach.

It's a body. Right. Like, totally. And that's a shoot to kill, too, if you shoot someone in the stomach. So in the chaos that follows the shooting, the guard returns to the commons and their full riot is threatening to break out. This hasn't fucking deescalated yet. But thank God the faculty marshals led by Glenn Frank, a geology professor, truly, I

mean, they're the heroes of that day. They successfully persuade students not to endanger their lives by taking on the guard because now all these students are fucking pissed and worked up, you know. They see their fellow students bleeding from the head. So I looked at my favorite murder email and Laura are, her mom was there that day and she wrote to us and said that her mom said, thank God for the professors who stepped in. She says, putting themselves in danger and to try to deescalate the situation, the guard was saying they would shoot again if everyone did not immediately get inside.

So the professors were out there with bull horns and you can hear the recordings of them yelling and they sound like they're about to fucking cry. And they're just shoving students into whatever building they could keep them out to keep them out of harm's way, like just trying to get them to disperse. And she says, my mom was ushered into a random dorm and assigned a random room with a few other girls in order to stay in the room until further notice. And then she says, once the whole shooting scene was cleared, they told all the students they had two hours to get their shit and leave campus indefinitely.

And then if you weren't gone within the allotted two hours, you would officially be under martial law. So then university president Robert White orders the university closed and it remains closed for six weeks. So photographs of the dead are distributed and all these powerful photos are distributed in newspapers all over the world. Newsweek reports that a story, an article headline, my God, they're killing us. And the cover features a photo of 14-year-old Runaway, Mary Ann Vacheco.

She's the one who's screaming in anguish, kneeling over Jeff Miller's dead body. The photograph was taken by Kent State photojournalism student John Filo. He wins a fucking Pulitzer Prize for that photo and it becomes the most like enduring image of Kent State and also of the Vietnam War, like one of the most lasting images of the protests. And the following weeks, over 400 colleges and high schools and four million students across the country lead strikes and demonstrations against the shooting and the Cambodia invasion. At the University of Wisconsin, Madison, a campus known for radicalism, there's 20 firebombings.

There's militant activism. I mean, people are just fucking losing their shit. People who weren't involved before, students are now just protesting this and a lot of the colleges are canceled for the rest of the year, etc. So Nixon and his administration's public reaction to the shootings are perceived as callous. Nixon says, quote, when dissent turns to violence, it invites tragedy, essentially don't dissent and there won't be fucking violence is what he's saying.

Right. No matter what's happening in your country, don't dissent or we get to kill you. Right. And then there's tragedy. So great job. You know, just five days after the shooting, 100,000 people demonstrate in Washington, DC. It's the size of the strike, which is pretty peaceful.

It stirs Nixon. So Nixon, I mean, God, watch this documentary, but he goes out to the Lincoln Memorial and meets with student protesters and acknowledges them as citizens and not bums, which he had called them before the shooting. And he kind of is like, I understand your concerns and kind of validates them, which is shocking. And on May 14th, in a much less publicized event, another on-campus shooting results in the deaths of two students and the wounding of 12 others.

It's at Jackson State University in Mississippi. This time, law enforcement officers fire more than 150 rounds in 30 seconds into a woman's dormitory. Wow. The students, because the students were protesting, they went in there, they shot 150 rounds in 30 seconds. Holy shit. Why haven't you heard about it?

It was a black university. That's right. Is that right? Yep. And the students who were killed were black. So of course, the event is largely ignored by the media, but it's also important to note that the surge in anti-war sentiment leads to a rise of pro-war supporters known as the silent majority.

These people who were the silent majority who were just kind of, you know, not super political living their lives, now they want to show support of the U.S. and they end up handing Nixon a landslide victory in the 1970 presidential election. Essentially it caused all these people who were somewhat conservative, but not totally. A lot of them were Democrats who weren't really interested in politics to rally to show their disdain. They were almost voting for Nixon to show their disdain for the anti-war movement, you know?

People who might not have even voted. So of course, there's all these investigatory commissions and court trials that follow that I won't get into, but they're trying to answer whether the National Guard was under sufficient threat to use force and they testify that they felt the need to discharge their weapons because they feared for their life. But there is a civil suit by the injured Kent State students and their families and a settlement was reached in 1979 and the National Guard of Ohio agreed to pay those injured in the events $675,000, which is like, I think, $5 million or something in today's money.

So November 1974, eight former guardsmen are acquitted of violating the civil rights of the students by a U.S. district court. So they're acquitted. Sounds like the silent majority was on that court. It does, doesn't it? The anti-war protests draw to an end when Nixon begins to withdraw the U.S. soldiers from Vietnam in 1973 basically ends the U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. But the Kent State shootings continue to reverberate through society and our culture because two

people who were at Kent State that day, two art students, Mark Mothersbaugh and Jerry Cassell, they react to their front, like they were friends with some of the people who were killed and they formed their band, Devo. Devo. Devo. The band's philosophy is that mankind has hit a wall in evolution and is now evolving in reverse, i.e. de-evolution. Devo.

Oh, is that really what that means? De-evolution. They couldn't have been more right. I mean, it's still crapening. Jerry Cassell of Devo has been quoted as saying, all I can tell you is that it completely and utterly changed my life. I was a white hippie boy and then I saw exit wounds from M1 rifles out of the backs of two people I knew.

I would not have started the idea of Devo unless this happened. And Chrissy Hind was also there, the pretenders. Are you serious? She went to school. Yeah, she was there that day as well. She went to school at Kent State. Whoa. And was friends with some of the murdered students, I know.

So every year since 1971, on the anniversary of the shooting, it's been commemorated with a candlelight procession around the campus and an all-night vigil at the sites where the students fell. And in January of 2017, the site of the shooting on Kent State campus is declared a national historic landmark. So this year on May 4th, it would have been the 50th anniversary of the shootings. They were going to have this whole speech and ceremonies and all this shit. And then COVID-19 came around, so it's not going to happen.

And some of the survivors were going to speak. And John Fitzgerald O'Hara says that the Kent State massacre became a source of public trauma and it came to symbolize the fracturing of the social body and the breakdown of democracy. And that is the murder of Jeffrey Miller, Allison Krause, William Schroeder, and Sandra Schur, a.k.a. the Kent State Massacre. Wow. How fucked up is that? How do we not know more about this?

It's like a paragraph in our history books in high school, and that's it. Well, I mean, I think, yeah, it is also the kind of thing where the 60s were such a bizarre time that when, I think, young people these days were so far away from it that it's all been boiled down to peace, love, and bell-bottom genes or whatever. When actually it was all, those were young people that were like, yeah, it shouldn't be like this. And you can't just ship us off. You can't just ship us off when half the people you're shipping off don't have voting rights.

Or you know what I mean? Yeah. That kind of shit like this stuff Muhammad Ali stood up for, I mean, it's just like people finally got to start saying, yeah, you don't just get to sacrifice me. Right. I got to have a say in my life, in my country's life, in the decisions that are being made that affect us specifically, not, you know, these people in the White House or their sons. It's fucking us that are going to war for this.

None of us. You know. Yeah. Doesn't affect their sons. No, exactly. I highly recommend reading this book, Chaos, if you want to know more about, I guess that's why I've had like a hard time this past couple of weeks is that, I mean, everything is fucked and nothing is real and we've been lied to for fucking decades and it's really shitty.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There's some Jackie Collins after this, where you can just have a little Harold Robbins, some dirty books. I'm going to start listening to bananas before bed because this isn't helping me. It's funny because you're right, it's like, this is the time where, oh, I have all this time, I can finally read these books.

I should read this like, I have the same feeling you do is I should know this and I should get into this. Yeah. And we should maybe in the fall, you know what I mean? We're in a bit of a hotspot time right now. It's like, I don't know of a chaos. It's like, I started watching the leftovers right as like they were talking about, you know, this great show, this whole thing starting and I was like, I don't think this is a good

idea for me. No. Terrible idea. You know what I've been falling asleep to at night? Station 11, you know that fucking post-apocalyptic story where there's a big flu called the Georgia flu that hits the, and just fucking decimates the world and now people live off the grid. No, I haven't heard of this at all. What channel?

It's one of, it's a book called Station 11 by. By a female writer? Yeah. Yes. Sorry. You've read it. I think you and I talked about it. I haven't read it.

Someone recommended it to me because they said it's like, it's like she predicted it happening in the book. She did. It came out years ago in 2015, it was, it's a gore or no. It came out in 2014. It's a gorgeous book, Station 11 by Emily St. John Mandel. I love it. It's not, it's not for the faint of heart right now, but buy it and put it on your bookshelf.

It's a fun Christmas book. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. Just time your shit out. It's one of my favorite books. Right. It's not a good listen.

Yeah, I hear it. I hear it's unbelievable. Honestly. It's incredible. Yeah. Read it. Wow. That was great.

I did not know they actually burned down the ROTC building, I hadn't, that wasn't anything that I knew. I mean, I don't, all I knew is the very basics of the amount of people that killed the fact that, that the National Guard just turned and started shooting at, at unarmed students. I mean, it's just like. The turned part really got to me too because you could have just kept walking. You were not being, you were not being, what's the word? Pursued.

Pursued. You were being, well. Threatened. They were, what's it called when you get into a corner? They weren't. Cornered. Sorry. They weren't, no, it's good to leave it.

They weren't being cornered. They could have kept walking. They were about to go over a hill. So the, you know, the canisters of tear gas that the protesters were throwing back at them wouldn't have hit, like, and they turned and started shooting. Because that comes in, that's like ego and pride. That's like, I'm sorry if I become a full on nuts, oh, Buddhist, but like it's, we have to solve the problems in ourselves so that we can solve the problems in the world.

Because that's how those things start is, is people with power, whether that means you have the gun or you're the, you know, you're the person that has the most money or you're the person with the voice. When those people can't relate anymore or don't want to relate as human beings to the people that they are, that are under them, that's when shit goes nuts. And it's like the idea that somebody in a campus, an open campus with tons of people, it's like whoever you were mad at, you knew for a fact. If you were trained with guns, you knew for a fact that shooting toward the person you

were mad at meant you were also shooting toward 20 people who were totally innocent and not involved. And you knew that as a fact and you did it anyway, because you were pissed because these people were, were insulting you and your lifestyle and what you've decided was important. Like it's all personal shit. It's, it's mishandled personal shit. God, I love when you drink coffee. That was great.

And you suddenly start to make sense. That was so good. I don't know. I don't know. I don't, that's all like it. I, because I don't, obviously I'm not, I don't know anything historical. I don't know how most things work, but, but we should, it's like, but I do understand human, human failure, cause we've all done it.

We've all done a thing where we take a thing personally that actually has nothing to do with us. And we inner, we interject ourselves incorrectly. And then we fuck it up. We become the wrench. We react. In the fucking wheel. Yes.

Yeah. And then we make it a thing that it doesn't need to be because we want that like we want right shit, it's righteous indignation or it's superiority, it's that kind of stuff that's deadly. It's deadly to us. It's deadly to other people. Sorry. Absolute power.

Yeah. Corrupts. Absolutely. Motherfucker. Oh, get it. You're fired. Also buy a divo album, everyone. They're fucking incredible.

My friend. Is yours a spire, Steven? I fired Steven on the show, on the show, and you didn't even care. You didn't even hear it. No, I don't give a shit. Steven. No, it's Steven. The best part about this is on this Zoom meeting, you guys, Steven's background is that cartoon

panel with the dog sitting at the table with the room on fire saying it's fine. This is fine. So Steven is sitting in a cartoon burning room and he just, when I said he was fired, he just dropped his hands, his face into his hands like, oh no. Not again. Don't take it, Steven. Fight the power. Fight the power.

We're the power. Steven's like, this is the 11th time you've fired me on air. Please stop it. Oh, hi, Elvis. All right. So should we do, let's fucking hooray this fuck out of this thing. We need it. Yeah.

All right. Okay. We're going to read you your fucking hurrays. If you want to contribute, I get them off of Instagram when people respond to our, like this week's episodes post. You get them off Twitter. We get them off Twitter, Instagram, and then of course in the fan cult, if you post them, Jay pulls them down off of that too.

So anyway, you feel like doing it, we will find them. Okay. My hashtag fucking hurray is that me and my boyfriend had our six month anniversary yesterday over FaceTime. Oh, this is from Kels C 95. And we each got drunk and chilled out for two and a half hours. For me, it's a big thing because he's only my second ever relationship. I'm 24 years old and my first relationship was incredibly emotionally manipulative and

abusive and left me with so much baggage that I've spent the last four years working through. But I feel like I'm finally learning to trust again. And I'm so happy with my boyfriend now fucking hurray for a healing and healthy relationship with a person who genuinely loves me messiness and all. Amen. That's awesome. Congratulations. Love that.

That's the dream right there. It is. Who likes this mess? Shout out to Vince. Oh, man. Shout out to Vince for me too. He loves me in his own way. That's lovely.

Let's see. This one's from Amanda. Her handle is abnormal, Amanda. Amen. I just saw that. Welcome, Amanda. This says a wonderful fucking hurray is my friend Simone who accidentally started a non-profit during this pandemic.

It's called Invisible Hands and it's a volunteer grocery delivery service for elderly and immunocompromised people who can't leave their homes in New York and New Jersey. She started it with a few friends just to help out and she now has all caps, thousands of volunteers servicing New York and New Jersey. She's been doing it 24 hours a day every day for the past month and the need her organization is filling in this area is truly incredible. Thanks for listening, SSDGM. Holy shit, Simone, you are a badass.

Chills and tears floating in my eyes. What's the helping hands? It's Invisible Hands. It's a non-profit and it clearly takes volunteers and it has thousands. That's the beautiful part. People want to help each other. People love each other. Do not buy into everything that gets shown on the news of people hating each other and

screaming at each other and fighting things. The majority of this country has coalesced in the most magnificent way and that doesn't get on the news because that doesn't scare anybody and it doesn't tick up ratings when you show a bunch of people going, yeah, thousands of people are volunteering for Invisible Hands. Man. It's so fucking true. It's so fucking true. It's so true.

So congratulations. That's incredible. That's so kick-ass. You guys are awesome. Invisible Hands. Incredible. Simone. This is from Jordan Thi.

T-H-I. Oh. I thought it was T-H-I-G-H. Hey. My fucking array. Hey, girl. My fucking array is that after a couple years of infertility struggles, I gave birth to our first baby.

I was worried to have a baby during this weird time for many reasons. That's the first thing I thought of is people who are pregnant right now. That's got to be rough. I'm sorry. But me, to shout out, the maternity nurses at Altman Hospital in Canton, Ohio. Hey. Hey, girls. Girls, you're doing it.

Big time. I know that this is an incredibly hard time to be in the healthcare industry, but they all made me and my husband feel so welcome and so well taken care of during a scary time of not only birth, but during a pandemic such as this. We will forever be grateful for their support, knowledge, courage, and encouragement to bring our little girl into the world and help us feel confident to take care of her. Say the name of the hospital again. It's Altman, A-U-L-T, Altman Hospital in Canton, Ohio.

A-U-L-T. M-A-N. Yeah, yeah. Sorry. Altman, yeah. Amazing job, everybody at Altman Hospital, a maternity ward, NICU, whatever, wherever you were. Thank you so much for showing up at work every day and putting your life on the line for everybody

else. We appreciate it. We really do, and how about those rad ass nurses that have started showing up at those protests to counter-protest, and they just show up with their arms crossed and scrubs and stand in the middle of it. It's one of the- No. Yeah.

Again, it's the kind of thing that you see little pictures of it here and there on the internet, but they should be covering that of just the healthcare workers that are going down to say, oh, actually, they did today, a bunch of healthcare workers stood in the Capitol, I can't remember if it was in front of the White House or where, and just read off names of healthcare workers who died because of coronavirus on the job, just reading them out loud. Because it's like, you think this is fake? You're trying to tell people this is fake?

Here's all the people who have died. Nobody's having a fucking blast during this time. And so we just, there's rules and regulations, and we need to just fucking sit back and let the people who are good at their jobs and who know what they're doing handle it and stop being little brats about, you know, like there was something about, forget, take that out. The lady with the roots? Yeah. And then the Tim Robinson, Tim Robinson was like, this is when I start buying my Halloween

decorations. What are you telling me? I'm not supposed to buy my Halloween decorations? I must have watched that fucking. I love him so much. He is so funny. What's his show called? We've been watching it lately.

Detroiters. No, no. The other one, he has one like a sketch show. Oh, I think you should leave. Yeah. That's what it's called. He's so Detroiters. He's my favorite thing.

Yeah. Both. Okay. All. Okay. Tim Robinson, let's just shout out to Tim Robinson as well. We'll lump him into the healthcare workers. That's not rude or disrespectful at all.

Hold please. Okay. Oh yeah, go. Check this shit out. This is from Katyn Karen with an I. 900 days ago, I was dope sick for the last time. 900 days ago, I could only focus on getting through the next second and then the next. But those seconds turned into minutes, turned into hours, turned into days, turned into months, turned into years.

My life didn't become perfect the moment I became sober. I've always been prone to depression and melancholy and I still am. But no matter what happens today, I know I won't steal, cheat or lie in order to get high. And at the end of each day, no matter how shitty, that is always a fucking hooray. 900 days sober. Oh my. Holy shit.

Congratulations. Every one of these are giving me chills. That is incredible. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. Yeah. And it's a whole new life. Congratulations, Katyn Karen.

Amazing. Good job. I'm just amazed. Yeah. It's really impressive. This is my last one. This is from ramblerose.co. I'm a watercolor artist and since being in quarantine, I have been painting greeting

cards, writing uplifting notes and sending them to nursing homes to be distributed amongst the elderly who are possibly the most lonely ones out there right now, often with no family or friends and definitely no one allowed to visit them. It might only be a small act, but it's bringing me joy to hopefully send a little joy to those older people who are so lonely. And it's a win-win because painting is therapeutic for me, bringing me a sense of accomplishment and joy to craft these cards and know that they are being put to use. We have to remember during this time that although being, quote, productive is wonderful,

we also have to be kind to ourselves and do all we can to handle our own emotions with care, whether that's laying on the couch for 10 hours or becoming the next Einstein. It's whatever makes you happy, calm, centered, and of course, sexy. Genius. That's incredible, isn't it? That's very lovely and beautiful. I love having a craft and like, use it, wait, oh, I forgot we're recording a podcast. I'm like, I wish I had a craft that I could send out to the world and make people happy.

Maybe if this involved a little more wool, you would see it as your craft. This is literally your craft. Oh, shit, just fucking running my stupid mouth, my stupid sailor mouth. Not too bad, you get to, too bad, can't be that stupid. Here's mine. And this is nuts because Avalon Monroe sent it to us and I just need to preface this one by saying, my friend and friend of the podcast, Guy Branham, months ago, recommended told text to me and was like, you have to watch the Bon Appetit cooking videos.

It's the Bon Appetit Test Kitchen YouTube channel. Okay. Stephen seems to like it. He's trying. I've literally been binging this for the last time. I was watching it before we recorded today. I'm obsessed. Oh my God, I have to watch it.

I'm completely obsessed now, here's, so, but, but, but I do want to preface this because the reason I picked this is because this just happened. Basically Guy asked me to start watching this six months ago. I can't ever do anything. Anyone tells me in Guiyama. So like three days ago, I was like, it was like, I'd gotten up at 5am, wandering in my house like a weird ghost. I was like, oh wait a second, I know it'll make me feel better.

I click onto this video. I just go on randomly and I'm like, that guy's cute. And I start watching Brad Leone, I assume you pronounce his name that way, explain how to make bruschetta, which is a food I'm obsessed with. Sure. He is my full on boyfriend. He is, he also made this amazing dish so quickly and easily and he's one of the most compelling people I've ever seen on TV, on YouTube.

It was, I was immediately hooked. I immediately text Guy and I'm like, I finally did it. I'm in. Guy then sends me an email, basically a syllabus saying, watch these videos in this order and then get back to me. Like send it to me. Like a full thing, I will for sure. And then he actually today tweeted about it saying I sent Karen this email and then I

sent it to this other Karen. What other Karen's need to know about the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen. And then I, as I'm scrolling through the fucking arrays, here's this one from Avalon Monroe. Hello, all. I've been struggling with insomnia even before this whole banter pandemic BS started. And now it's even worse. Considering I'm moving less and my sleep schedule is pretty much in the drain, I've been listening to a lot of MFM and I'm running out of episodes to binge and also watch videos from the Bon

Appétit Test Kitchen. I love, love, love all the videos and the series they make. It's super calming and relaxing and generally sends me right to sleep when I'm not glued to the screen as they temper chocolate, make stock or do general kitchen things. I feel like I'm living vicariously through them as they work up wonders of food and all of the chef's calm, happy demeanors help me feel a little bit better about the current situation. Thanks for being you and continuing to commit to the work you do.

I appreciate you supporting everyone in the community and local businesses. You guys really are helping a lot of us through this difficult time. With much love, SSTGM, Avalon Monroe in parentheses from Toronto. Oh, not the Avalon Monroe from Boston or, yeah. Isn't that crazy? That's beautiful. I have to watch it. You can go on to the Bon Appétit Test Kitchen YouTube channel, click on any video you start

to get to know, there's about six chefs that are in there telling you, here's our recipe, here's how we make it, here's, we make it easy, this, that, the other, it's in there the most. Every person that comes on screen, you want to be friends with them, you love hearing them talk. They're so, a cooking is such a mystery to me and watching Brad make this bruschetta, I was like, I'm going to make bruschetta. I literally was like, I'm making that tomorrow. I love it.

That's amazing. I have so many Roma tomatoes in my kitchen right now. Hopefully they don't go bad. Hopefully I do it. But it's just like, it feels like it's for a reason, like it's too, it's going to help something, you know what I mean? Yeah. Like I'm actually learning, but then you just adore the people.

I learned how to cook, I learned how to cook from watching people cook on TV. Yeah, right? Shout out Rachel Ray. Yeah. Yeah, you know all about that food channel stuff. That's second. That's right. I wanted to tell you.

I had a job. Speaking of Canada. Speaking of Canada. Your craft. That's right. That I didn't know I had. Speaking of Canada, we want to give a warm shout out to the murderinos and everyone in Nova Scotia for the tragedy that they're currently going through.

Yeah. There's a terrible shooting there. So we just, we've heard about it from a bunch of you guys, you listeners that are up there in Canada and particularly in Nova Scotia. So the Halifax Murderino Group, we just want to let you guys know we're thinking about you and you know, you're not alone. That's right. Thanks for listening everyone.

This has been a real long episode. Have you? Oh my God, again. Again, we've done it again. We're not busy and we know you aren't either. So shut up and take your two hour episode. Yeah. Thank you.

We're so hashtag blessed. Thank you guys for listening. Yeah. It's really nice to actually have something to mark time and look forward to doing and you know, and to be doing this with you. Thanks for, thanks for doing it with us, Steven. Thank you for everything. Oh, and happy birthday, Steven.

Oh, thank you. Thank you. Last week. It was last week. We didn't say it on the show last week because we're self-involved and we apologize. Like I took a day off and I watched Waterworld and took a nap. So it was very nice. Oh, that's right.

You were gone. Yeah. Yeah. I took it. I'm going to blame it on you. You were gone. So you get to have birthday wishes. Dang it.

Well, everyone. Happy birthday, Stevie. Please. Yeah. If you didn't already. And other than that, stay sexy. And don't get murdered. Goodbye.

Hold on. He's right here. Elvis. Nice. I just dropped the zoom. Elvis, do you want a cookie? There we go. That was perfect.

Good boy. Good boy. Okay. Great. Was I recording? I was.