My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 221 - Symbolic Violins

Episode Date: May 7, 2020

Karen and Georgia cover the rescue of Baby Jessica and the deaths of Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen. 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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Welcome. Welcome to the whole time my favorite murder. The podcast. Exactly at the same time. Exactly. On exactly at the same time media. That's right. That's Karen Kilgera.

That's Georgia Hartstark. Hi, how are you? Coming at you from our individual homes as per. We're not protesting anything. No. We're staying home. You know why? Because it's just normal.

It's what you're supposed to do when you don't want to get a virus and give it to other people. The highly deadly virus, no one knows how it works. Stay home. Yeah. We're a mess. When you scream into the law enforcement faces, it turns out it doesn't help at all. It hinders some would say. Strong start.

We've done it again. There we go. I mean, let's just make this a fucking political podcast at this point. How do we talk about anything else? Oh, man. Well, it's kind of being shoved down our throats all the time. That's why we do this podcast so you can escape. This is the escape hatch from that reality into the one we've decided to create.

And you should absolutely be wary of the fact that the escape hatch of reality to make you feel better is a murder podcast. Yes. Please know, please read the post it note that we stuck on the escape hatch before we went through it first. And it says, beware all ye who enter your type of thing. It's two women talking. It's a murder podcast. What's podcast? It's one big God forbid.

So get ready. It's one big God forbid. That's the best. How are you doing with your stability and house and living in it? Well, I mean, all that's fine. I think yesterday was a breaking point for a lot of people. I was getting lots of texts like, hey, I'm freaking out. So tonight actually, technically, although in our reality, it's two nights away.

It's a full moon. And I think that has an effect on people, especially when you're indoors and you need to be indoors. So just, I don't know, I would say keep conscious of details like that that might be affecting you. What does it do? It turns into a werewolf? Every time there's a full moon in normal times, crime spikes like crazy, people get a little nut. So it's like kind of like mercury in retrograde. I think so.

Only the moon has much more of a true direct scientific. We're made of water. The moon affects the tides and our periods and all those things. Push, pull, there's all that. It's all happening. Extra pushed, extra pulled this week. Stay aware. So yeah, I think there was a little bit of that kind of, I had a couple, you know, we had a couple things we had to get done on the phone that felt like way bigger deals than they normally do.

I almost cried in a business meeting, Zoom, which was so, did you notice last week when I almost heard her crying? I was so embarrassed. I was just like, get it together. No. Yeah. Was that when it was just the four of us though? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. And I did, I thought, okay, I did notice it, but I thought it was something else so that I was just kind of like, Oh, that was getting my period. No, I remember I said, are you okay? Oh, yeah. Yeah. And you were like, yeah, yeah. And then I was like, oh, that's, I hope she didn't think that was me being mean.

Oh no. I was really doing it, but that's the weird part. This part is driving me crazy. It's very difficult. You and I have almost, I feel sometimes a like a psychic connection where I don't have to say a lot of stuff to you. Yes. I really don't feel the need to because I know that you're already there. I wish you wouldn't.

I mean, I do, I know I do a lot, but, and so it's, it's more difficult and it's very frustrating to me to have to podcast with you when there's like, say a delay or a thing. I don't get that the high of the connection. No, I mean, it's almost like we need to start recording our phone calls because those are so funny and fun. And like very, but then, yeah, then it would ruin that and it wouldn't make any sense anymore. I know. I know. It's just, it's just an odd like that part of the adjustment.

Those are the things I'm missing and feeling is like when people go like a human connection, but there really is that thing where it makes me feel like I am, when I feel I am connected to other people. Yeah. It's very important. It turns out. Yeah. It is. I almost cried the other night thinking of like hugging the first time I'm going to hug someone besides Vince and a cat or a cat.

It's going to be so emotional. I feel like, you know, it's just going to feel like, I feel like for the first, it's going to be like when World War II ended for the first fucking couple of weeks, everyone's just going to be, you know, basking in these experiences that they haven't been able to do in three years, hopefully. I think, I mean, yeah, really, when it actually ends, because people won't stop going out anyway. Right. And it ends up lasting for half a decade. Anyway.

Arresting black people and giving white people masks. Tickets. You know. Exactly. The total disparity of justice in this country. Anyway. Anywho. Anyhow.

We promised you this was an escape and we're, we're escaping you right to the front page of every newspaper that you've had to read this whole time. That's right. The perfect escape. I will say this. Here is how I am escaping. And I don't know why I found it so soothing. Scandinavian police procedurals, much like their furniture, are so beautiful.

And there's one, there's a couple I've been watching that I really binged. One is called the truth will out. Okay. And it's really well done, really well made. I think that one is on Netflix. Can't remember. Everything is either on Netflix or Amazon. That one is great and the characters are amazing.

So it turns into like, it's a cold case team that's kind of rag tag. Yeah. Love a rag tag group of anything. And but so well written, like so realistically wonderfully well written. And then this one I just started is called trapped and it's Icelandic. And the main guy is this huge, I mean, like, let's be honest, he's a bear. He's like a bear. He's huge and hairy and has a big beard and he's really gruff and he is small town Iceland

trying to solve these murders. And you're like, maybe I need to move to the town. For real. I'm going there the second quarantine has lifted and we're like, it's like, come on. It's really cool. But and they also, it's the thing where in the middle of a full on foreign procedural, everyone starts speaking English when they have to talk to other people. They'll just be speaking English with no accent where you're just like, man, that's cool.

You're like, I'm sorry, but thank you. Yes. I really appreciate it. Could never do it. I mean, I tried to start taking Icelandic language lessons, but how I would need the full five years. That's right. Oh God.

It's five by the time I get there. I'm saying, yeah, when this quarantine is lifted and then she gets, she gets to move there. What else do you want to? I keep seeing a title of a show that I drunkenly wrote down to, to recommend and laughing out loud. Like it's, it's like, I have like Atlanta's missing and murdered on HBO and Evan in the green river.

Like, and then just the middle of it is a show called Flipping 101 on HGTV that I am so obsessed with. It's so good. And it's just people redoing houses. It's this guy. He got it. It's this guy, Tarik. He had a, he got a divorce from his wife who they had a flipping show.

And so now he kind of gets this like short end of the stick show of having to deal with people who've never flipped houses before. Well, she's going off to like marry some dude in Orange County and live in this beautiful house. And I just feel for this guy so much, Tarik. Is that the, is that written into the show or it's just like, do you, or you just know that? You know, HGTV, like we do, even, you know, like, you know who, and he just, he seems

so, I feel so bad for him. Yeah. Well, you don't want to be in a famous couple and then break up. No. And then let's get the short end. Oh, well, I mean, how do you, yeah, I guess you're right. If you're, if you're like immediately marry a hot person, She married a hot person.

She got pregnant. She's so beautiful. They've moved in this huge, lovely house and they're like remodeling friends houses together. And he just isn't like Alhambra remodeling, like the saddest house to ever. He's got one of those really bad, like goatee. Yeah. He's grown out of a divorce goatee that's not working.

Oh my God, how many divorce goatees are out there? We've seen them or it's just like, I get it. You're changing it up. Trying to change something. You got it. Good luck. I get it. My divorce goatee is 50 pounds.

So guess what? No judgment. Everyone's your thing. Divorce goatee is different. It's all different. There's no judging. Comfort yourself however you can, whether it's horrible facial hair or non-stop mac and cheese.

Do your thing. Yeah. I mean, here's something that isn't really anything I recommend per se because it might not be interesting to anybody else, but sometimes at night, because I don't want to go anywhere and I don't want to introduce anything new into my household. So I'll just make myself like a quesadilla or something very basic with my basic culinary skills. But then I just read Postmates.

Like I'll just see what restaurants are still open in my neighborhood. It's one of my favorite hobbies. It really is where I'm like, I would get this and this and then I just like close it all. Shut it. Just shut it. Scrolling Postmates. I sometimes I open it and I'm like, ooh, what's new? Like what's new in my neighborhood?

Even though I'm not going to, I know all the restaurants in my neighborhood. I know most of them by heart and it was very scary and you can kind of, it's a real measuring stick Postmates because, you know, a week after the quarantine was announced, a ton of restaurants just went off entirely and then you're just like, oh no, I hope those come back and, you know, getting so worried. Then there's all those restaurants that got super creative and they're like, want us to send you a bunch of flour and bread and sugar. We care.

Totally. And there's like a biscuit window near one of the places near my house where they just like make different kinds of biscuit sandwiches and it's just like, just go up to the, yeah. Oh, I'm selling my house, moving into yours. Hello. So creative. Yeah. I love it.

That's a great idea. Yeah. All the pantry items and shit. I know. It's super cool. There's so many places. It's that thing too where I'm kind of, sometimes I'm scrolling going, what if I made something? Yeah.

It's like, you're not going to, but then it's, or what if I got a full Italian family dinner? Like what if I got just wall to wall carbs in here and then I'm like, close the window. Oh man. So Vince almost, Vince was doing like an order on Costco and he was like, I got this. I got that. I got, and then he said, I have, I got ravioli lasagna and I was like, hold up. What? So instead of the lasagna pasta sheets, it's just ravioli.

So it's like double timing. It's double the pleasure, double the fun. Front back, front back. These are the times we're living in. Everybody remember, get it, eat it. Eat ravioli lasagna. I mean, how do you not, how do you not turn to pasta in days like this? How do you not go, that's the solution?

All the rules are off here, which is fun and nice and kind of teaching me like a better way. You know, like just don't eat all the bread, but you can have bread, but you can have bread. Have really nice, nicely made bread and really enjoy it. Don't like beat yourself up while you're eating it. Totally. What I'm doing as a, as a small celebration for myself is using a very large cereal bowl. It's too big.

It's too smart. Have you done that where you're just like, this is easily three bowls of cereal, but let's see what happens. No, that I, how have I, I've eaten three bowls of cereal in a row, but I've never in my life thought to get a bigger bowl. Like that's somehow not allowed in my life. It shouldn't be normally, but now it is. No, it is.

No. I love it. You know, this has taught me two things about myself. One is that I'm not, I don't want to bake bread and I never want to bake bread and I have no fucking interest in baking bread, even though everyone's baking bread. How though? That whole thing of starting your, the wheat, there's sourdough starter and yeast and it's a lie.

It's just like, they call it a mother out of here and you have to put flour everywhere. It's like, and it tells you to make a mess. You touch it so much. You put it on this, you add more flour, keep rolling, flour, flour, and it's disgusting. Just stick your whole hand inside it. Make sure your hand gets all, gets all over it. That's right. All bread is 50% someone's palm sweat.

Oh God. Yeah. I'd rather, I'd rather not be mine, I guess. And also that puzzle, I have no interest in puzzles and I fucking tried. I got a puzzle of like my favorite photo of me and Vince, we're both taking swigs of beer on stage at the same time. So it's just like a can of PBR in both of our faces, got it, made as a puzzle, literally poured everything out and was like, I don't want to do this.

Now can I just give you a tiny bit of puzzle guidance to take or leave? Yes, please. I have no interest. Yes. When we do calls that are not zoom calls, that's all I'm doing, baby. Puzzle time. I need to, there's no, I should be into it. But I, however, yeah, you know, it also, it is sometimes, and you have to have this

experience maybe to really have it start feeling like it's paying off. But sometimes I just stare at the puzzle for a really long time and then I'll just pick up a piece and put it in immediate, like it feels like puzzle psychic ability. And that's what keeps me coming back for more, because suddenly I think I have this idea in my head. I'm good. Well, that is what's cool. I think across my mind that you can get better at puzzles.

It's not just like you're always going to suck as bad as you suck at puzzles. It's like your skills get better and better. Yeah. And it's a little, it's almost like, can you face, this reminds me of like the, I can do puzzles now because of, I think the fact that I'm middle-aged and like in a place in my life where I'm actively practicing like patience and things that I have never been able to even approach before. And it reminds me of like when I was in my late twenties on speed at like Buffalo Exchange

watching the girl that worked there go through someone's garbage bag filled with clothes. And she would take something out, look at it, and then fold it. And she just very slowly, where I was standing there going like, oh my God, if I had to do that, like I was flipping out, like how are you doing this and how are you doing it so calmly and why do you like it? And this is awful. Like Zen almost where she's just like, this is like origami or something where it's just right.

You have to make sense of it. Not on speed. Right. So it helps. Right. Oh, that's. Everything. Speaking of.

It took me 20 years to realize that birthdays. Do you want to talk about your birthday? Do you have, we can cut this out. Speaking of birthdays. I feel like everyone who's having a birthday and during this time now, we now will understand what it's like for kids who have their birthdays during the summer, which is why I have an idea to have a birthday blowout for everybody who has a quarantine birthday when the quarantine ends.

That's great. Everyone in the world. Well, I'll just. I mean, we'll see who I feel comfortable giving my address to, but for the most part, we'll have all the. Such a good idea. All the birthdays where we're going to get stuck indoors and we'll just have a kind of a.

Someone just pulled into my driveway. Oh no. They're only turning around. I pull out a rifle. I like the idea of like a party that might go all weekend long. Oh, yeah. You can stay here. You can get a room at the hotel on the street, but like, let's just do it.

Bring your dog and like blow it out. Hang out. Yeah. People bring their dogs. Build a dog park in the back. Yeah. You know, I get like, I get like disappointed in a visceral level when I find out there's not any pets at the party I'm going to, you know, yeah, that means there's no escape hatch

for you. That's right. That's right. Yeah. All right. I know. What else do you have? Oh, can I?

No, I just asked you a question. What? I'm going to let you answer it. No, go ahead. I don't think I have anything else. I just. Are you going to do a podcast? No, right?

Oh, yeah, I can go ahead. Do it. So you go first. Oh, that's what I was going to. I was going to recommend and I know I've recommended it before. But my favorite, um, one of my favorite podcasters who is a, I think a clinical psychologist and a Buddhist teacher, Tara Brock, she's doing a series now and it's called sheltering in love.

And it's all about dealing with the feelings of being in quarantine and the frustrations that come out of it and the, and the feelings that come up and kind of how to hang. And it's very, she's really good. Yeah. And I think she started it, you know, for three months, well, I guess seven weeks ago, seven years ago, talking about, she started it. When this happened. Um, who knows, there's now like five, there's like five or six, um, episodes of it and it's

just really helpful. Like I get up in the morning and as I'm doing, you know, the dishes are doing kind of things around the house, I stick it in and it's just a really nice level set. Okay, so if anyone's looking for, if anyone feels a little spinny or like my thoughts are taking over or I think this or I think that or whatever, you're targeting me right now. Yeah. I'm pointing in your face with my words.

Um, it's just re, I find it so helpful. Yeah. She's incredible. She's just one of the best. Speaking of, I finally started listening to unlocking us with Brené Brown and I, I, you know, I started and was like, I know everything she says and then of course I listened to the first few seconds of an episode and burst into tears, which doesn't fucking happen to me.

What's she talking about? Um, it was, let me see. Hold on one second. Oh, it was. Okay. So it was the episode Dr. Mark Brackett who does studies emotions and teaches us like how to feel and he said something that happened in his childhood and how hard it was as a kid to like understand what was going on, fucking started crying.

And then there's another episode that I really love called, um, that's just her talking. It's called, uh, it's just Brené on anxiety, calm and over under functioning. And it's just a 30 minute episode and you just like learn so much and everything makes sense. She started calling like your family that you were born into. She calls it your first family and that just calmed me in so many ways where it's like, that's not, that's not your chosen family. That is the first family that you were born into and then you get a move on from that

if you want. And I'm just like, I really stuck with me. And also your, the family that you are born into, your family, your first family or whatever you want to call it is also, I always compared my family to every family on TV and because I did that, um, did you think I was going to say every other family around? Yeah. Oh yeah. No, I was always doing it to TV.

No, that's, wow. Yeah. So then I would be like, I remember one time in like, you know, fourth grade when I was like, like trying to confront my mom about that fact she had a job and she wasn't waiting at home when I got home from school to give me cookies or whatever. And she like, like, you know, Mrs. Cunningham or whatever, like any TV mom. And she just literally, she's like, are you kidding me? Like it was like, it was like this thing of like, what are you talking about?

Like I have to work to pay for your stuff. You know, like that's not real. But I just, because that's the idea, you start getting these ideas in your head as a kid. And if no one, if no one interrupts and goes, yeah, that's not realistic, that's pretty much everybody's mom has to, you know, either work or the job of being at home is work. No one's sitting there with their hair done and a bunch of lipstick on going, honey, I mean, it's very rare, very rare. Yeah.

I did that with 90210 and relationships until I was like 20, where I was like, this is how relationships are supposed to be so dramatic and fucking tumultuous. And then I was like, oh, you're just modeling after Brendan and Dylan and Brenda. Brenda. Yeah. Yeah. It's. Shana Doherty, friend of the pod.

Shana Doherty. Love you, girl. Hi. Badass. Shana Doherty, my sister, we saw her at the Beverly Center the first time my sister came to visit me. I know I told you the story, but the first time my sister came to visit me when I moved to Los Angeles, we went to the Beverly Center and we were walking around and Shana Doherty

walked by and my sister's the only one who saw her. I didn't even see her. That's such a bummer. And my sister looked over at her and she gave my sister a huge smile. Like I think my sister had the like deer in the headlights, like holy shit, because it was prime 90210 era. And she gave my sister this huge, lovely smile, like super nice. And then she, my sister's like, oh my God, Shana Doherty, just smile at me.

I'm like, bullshit. That's cute. That's what sisters do. Sisters. Actually, that's the person I've been texting the most during this time and like connecting with the most, which is really nice. My sister? No, mine.

Although I did have, I did talk to your sister on text. Did you? She texts me and I, yeah, we text a little bit. My dad and your, and no, wait, your dad and my husband have text a little bit just to check in. That's the, that's the love of a lifetime. Definitely. I'm not surprised that my dad texts Vince because he asked me how Vince is.

I would say every other phone call where I'm just like, I mean, this is sexism, a, and then B, what the, like, just ask him yourself if you're so interested. Vince is a fucking lumberjack at this point. That beer, it's like the third person in our quarantine. It is majestic. I've asked him if I could put flowers in it and take a photo. It's like, I want to see a picture. Okay.

I'll send it to you. We can post it or I'll take the flowers in it. It's pretty special. Is it long? It's robust. Oh. Yeah. It's like going wide.

Yeah. And there's like all, it's like gray and there's red hair and there's whatever. I'm not, I don't need to talk about my husband's beard. Oh, speaking of, sounds like you like him. Just speaking of my dad. So apparently, I don't know if you've heard about this, but Britney Spears has a home gym and she made a video on Instagram a couple of days ago telling everybody that she left some candles burning in her home gym and well, basically she burned her home gym down.

What? Yes. I didn't hear that. Yeah. And so people have been tweeting me the video and going, what would Jim think of this? Oh yeah. And going like, we need to know Jim's response. So I actually called my dad and I'm like, dad, you're going to have to hang in there.

Now here's the problem. My dad lost one of his hearing aids somewhere during the quarantine. So he's still waiting for it to be mailed to him. So it takes a while to explain, so I go where I'm like, dad, do you remember the 90s pop star? It took a while, but then he's like, all right, okay. And then it gets mad at you because he's like, yeah, I know what you're talking about, but I've been explaining it to you.

Yeah. And it takes so long that he thinks I just want him to acknowledge that she exists and then he changes the subject where I'm like, no, there's a story, dad, dad, she, she left two candles burning and basically burned down her home gym. And I can't, this isn't something I can respond, explain to people on Twitter. So I figured I would save it till now because he went and had this loud Santa Claus laugh. I can't even do it. It sounds joyous.

It sounds joyous. Yes. He loved it. He thought it was hilarious where it's like, now that he's retired, the job is so far in the past. Right. He can, I think, be more lighthearted about, he thought it was the funniest thing he'd ever heard.

That seems really hard to do. Like I think like these days, candles are made in such a way where it's, unless you put it under a curtain, it's hard to light shit on fire with them. And we're going to get a bunch of messages telling me that's not fucking true and I totally agree. And I know. I mean, but I think there's in some ways, well, people are at least looking toward that a little bit more these days as candle makers, but clearly there's a large chunk of that

story that's missing on Britain's part that it's like, and like, so how many days did they burn? Like, what are you talking about that two candles brought down your home gym? Yeah. And who works out to candlelight is another question I have. You're on the elliptical, like, zipping wine with candles and some Richard Marks playing in the background. Cool.

Home gym. A romantic workout. Hey, home gym. That's your dad's podcast. Hey. What are you talking about? Oh, and then a basic, so I told, I explained to him that people were asking what he thought about that on Twitter.

And then he just went, I got fans. I got fans. Jim. Jim. Yeah. Home gym. Home gym. That's him during the quarantine.

Okay. Sorry. Oh, no, that was the best story I wish he had led with. That was incredible. I wish I wish it had been different. I know. Exactly right. Media.

That's our podcast network that we started and we have, of course, the new podcasts are bananas and I said no gifts with Bridger Weinerger, which was in Oprah. Oprah Magazine. Oprah. Guys, congratulations to Bridger. That is. Oprah picked you, Bridger. It's like his first month or two of podcasting and it's in Oprah already.

Yes. So very cool. We just found out before pressing record that if you go to like iTunes and search exactly right, all the podcasts that are on our network come up and then some so you can check out what's going on. Oh, Murder Squad. This week, Murder Squad, if you haven't heard it already, they get into the West Memphis three.

They got autopsy reports, Paul Holes digs into what the factual autopsy stuff is. Apparently it's amazing. I haven't listened to it yet. I can't wait. I can't wait. It's what I'm going to do tomorrow. Yeah. Billy actually texted me.

I was like, did you listen to it? I'm sorry. I haven't listened to it yet. I have my own podcast. I work on. I have some things to quarantine, but I can't. I can't wait. Apparently it's great and Paul is, you know, in his element.

Yeah. I love it. I can't wait. That's such a, that's such a case that I just can't. I can't not read or like, you know, look it up all the time and just, I hope it's solved one day. I know. It's, it's amazing.

And it's, it's so that documentary, man, I will never forget watching it. I watched it at Margaret Cho's house. Paradise Lost. Yep. Yeah. We watched it one night. John Travis was there. Abby Parker was there.

Me and Margaret. And it, we were like gripping the seats. Totally. We were just like, we were freaking out. It was amazing. It's insane. And there was recently an like two-part documentary called, The Forgotten West Memphis Three, which is about the, you know, meaning the three boys who were murdered, those three

West Memphis people. And it's, it's really good too. And I think the theory is right that the stepdad did it. Yeah. Yeah. But it would just be so nice to know for sure. Yeah. For sure.

Because there's been so many theories and you get, you get led down so many paths. It's like so many things seem possible in that, in that situation. Yeah. It's crazy. Oh, I have a really quick corrections corner. Yeah. I said in the mini so this week, this week, I pronounced a city wrong, shockingly. No.

Really? Yeah. Uh, New Hampshire town is pronounced Nashua, not Nashaw County or Nashua. Oh, okay. Nashua. Nashua. Sorry about that guys. New Hampshire?

Yes. I mean, we need a corrections corner for next week, so I might as well. We really do. This is called creating content. Uh, it's how you do it. Yeah. We took a class. We took a class in influencing.

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And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation, and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain. In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true

self to make everyone around her happy, and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Do you know what story I'm going to do this week? Tell me. I'm going to do the rescue of baby Jessica McClure. Shit.

Oh, going back to the 80s. Oh, good one. How have we not done that great one? Well, it's really out of the, it's well underlined, italicized. It's out of the normal true crime milieu, I would say. But I was, you know, we were talking about where I was like, we can just do what we would like to talk about. We don't have to be so, we don't have to adhere.

And then once I got into it, as always happens, once you start reading articles, there is an unbelievable article by a writer named Lisa Belkin that was written in 1995 for the New York Times, and it's called Death on the CNN Curve. And I recommend any, everybody read this article. It is an unbelievable expose about this time in the late 80s. So I guess CNN started in 1980. It didn't really start making money until 1985. So before that, it was just this kind of, it was almost like C-Span.

It was 24-hour news that no one watched. It was really boring and dull. And it was just for, I don't even know, I don't know what it was for. But then, you know, mid to late 80s, it started gaining a little bit of traction. And this baby Jessica story is one of the things that started kicking off the 24-hour news cycle. Disasters. People are just so interested in disasters.

Right. Understandably. But this was, yeah, I mean, we, if anyone relates, it's this team, this team, right here. But it's just fascinating because before this time, and it's so difficult for a lot of people who weren't around for this, and it's odd to even think about now, like, there's this time in the late 70s, early 80s, where nothing was branded. Like there wasn't stuff, brands of things sticking up all over. You didn't have, there wasn't that brand awareness.

It would just be like, if there was a calendar on the wall, it would just be a willow tree. You know what I mean? Yeah, people just had a brown couch, a brown plaid couch and shag carpeting. You buy your couch from Sears or JC Penney. Or it's just the couch that was there when you moved into the house. Like it was, there was this real brown, low-key aspect of life. Nothing was sexy. Nothing was being advertised toward any demographic.

It was all very, it was, it was like rich people. So it was like out of our eye shot. Yeah. Yeah. It was inspirational, like the Band of Soleil commercial, where it was like the lady diving into the pool. You'll never be here by Band of Soleil. Right.

I love that commercial anyway. So this is kind of about the time where the 24-hour news cycle began to take off. And then I think that's another reason why I was kind of went, oh, this would be good to talk about now. Because now we are in this world where we're so used to it and we're so used to just getting constant information and kind of being left to the mercy of the 24-hour news cycle, whether or not we're choosing to participate in it. It's a barrage.

Yeah. Well, you know, but I was going to say this because at the end of the episode before this, the live show that we posted two weeks ago, I did say something about the news is trying to scare you. And there was a couple reporters that tweeted at me like they were upset about it, which I was like, what I meant was the people who decide what goes on the news, because I was absolutely wrong to say that in terms of how many journalists are out there risking it all to tell important stories and get the facts.

And also, especially these days, there's so many feel-good stories and stories about people caring about each other and connecting with each other. So I did misspeak and I kind of used the language of the people who want to attack the media and I should have thought that through better. So I do apologize. Yeah. But I more meant the people who decide what we ingest as news, which is not, it goes way above all the people who are trying to report the news and keep us all informed.

It's the shareholders that decide what's allowed. It's the six billionaires that run it up, let it up, let it up, let it up, let it up. Fuck you. Okay. Excuse me. I just scared Elvis. Yes. You broke up with your boyfriend?

Yeah. We obviously, we wouldn't have a podcast if it weren't for these incredible journalists who do so much insane, wonderful work that we then, you know... Regurgitate. Condense and regurgitate and we are so grateful for that. And in my wildest dreams, I would be a journalist. I mean, truly and yeah, true crime, journalists, true crime writers, like yes, we would not be here without them.

So my apologies to anyone that was offended. Yeah. It's really up top before our stories give credits because we know it's so important. Yeah, entirely. So this, you know, story I'm about to tell you, I was going to tell you the version that I kind of experienced. And then I read Lisa Belkin's article, which was kind of about the full experience, not just what happened directly after the rescue, but then the effect that had and the effect

the fame had and the effect, the fact that the world could see this, the world could see what happened in Midland, Texas, this tiny little town, like, I mean, it's it and it at a time where it hadn't really happened that much. Yeah. Wow. This was one of the first times that it happened. It's really fascinating. So anyway, so it is October 14th, 1987.

I'm 17. My eyebrows are flourishing in a way. It looks like two huge black cattle pillars have crawled onto my forehead and made a home for themselves. I'm 18 year old Karen. I, what I wouldn't give it is like hanging out with just like carpool somewhere with her. Just have a chat.

Look, and she would have done it if you had some California coolers in the backseat. She would be down to clown. Yeah. Big hoop earrings, California coolers, 1987. Amazing. So, but now we're in Midland, Texas. We're not in Petaluma, California. We're in Midland, Texas.

And it's the morning of October 14th, 1987 and 18 year old Reba, her nickname is Sissy McClure. She's at her sister, Jamie's house at 3309 Tanner Drive in Midland. And Jamie has a daycare that she runs out of her home. And so Sissy's there with like five kids, one of whom is her 18 month old daughter Jessica. So they're out, all the kids are out in the backyard and Sissy's out there with them playing and then the phone rings. So she runs inside to grab it.

And while she's inside on the phone, she hears all the kids scream. So she runs back outside and all the kids are standing around a pipe that is three inches coming three inches up out of the ground and only eight inches in diameter. And her 18 month old daughter has fallen down this pipe. It's a mother's worst nightmare. And she's standing in it and freaking out, of course. She can hear her daughter, I believe she can hear her daughter crying. Oh, I will also say that there's a TV movie that was made in, I believe, 1990 starring

Patty Duke and Bo Bridges. It's called Everybody's Baby, the Jessica McClure story. So in that, the mother hears her crying, but I don't know if that's factual. That's just what happened in the TV movie. Okay. So I just, we don't know how deep it is yet. We'll find out. The well?

Yeah. We will. Okay. So she, of course, runs back in, calls the police, they're there in three minutes. And basically, they come to find out that this pipe is basically leading down to an abandoned well. So it's very deep. Just so you know.

Yeah. So the first police officer on the scene is 32 year old Bobby Joe Hall, BJ, is his nickname. Bobby Joe. Bobby Joe. Everybody got a nickname in Midland. Bobby Joe, BJ Hall, comes to the front door, Sissy gets there. She is, of course, out of her mind. She just keeps saying over and over, I can't let my baby die.

I got to get her out. So Officer Hall assures Sissy that they're going to save Jessica. He tries to look down this shaft to see her, but it's too dark. He can't see anything. He calls out her name a few times. There's no response at first. Then he can hear faint crying. So he, they know she's alive.

Oh my God. The paramedics show up at the same time as the police. So the paramedics are back there with them. They start pumping oxygen down into the opening. As more first responders arrive on the scene, someone comes up with an idea to lower a microphone that's attached to a flashlight down into the shaft so they can hear her. So they're calling out to her. They wait to hear her respond.

Then she, they hear her, you know, make sounds back and they can figure out from the length of the microphone that she's 22 feet down this well, way the fuck underground. So after that, they, a little while after that, they figure out a way to lower a video camera down into the well so they can see like how she's down there because they don't understand. And essentially they've lowered down, they get this kind of side view and she has fallen down so it's in the diameter is eight inch, eight inches of this pipe. How big is that?

What's that? Like eight inches is less than a foot. So it's like if 12 inches is a foot, I got like that. Yeah. It's like, it's basically like it's tiny, like it's a big, huge pipe, but tiny for a child to fall into. There's no, there's no wriggle room for her at all. Not at all.

And in fact, what they realized when the video goes down there is that she's stuck with her right leg up and pinned to the wall and her left leg down so she's kind of in the splits a little bit. Oh baby. Yes. I know. So the Midland fire and police departments, they work together, they come up with this plan and they're like, we have to dig a second shaft next to this well and then tunnel across

and then get in access and get her out that way. So the city of Midland gets a backhoe over there, they tear down the neighbor's fences. And that this is a funny thing too. So it's, it's a very, this neighborhood is very kind of like lower middle class, like the houses, the houses all look like my old house. It's just like a basic two bedroom house. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Yeah. Like all these houses are little square little houses. They went up in the 70s and they're, and they, yeah. And they're like with five foot fences in the backyard. So if you stood in your backyard, you could see into your neighbor's backyard like, Hey, what's up? It's not like a big tall eight foot fences is like that. So, but they're like, they have to come in and like knock people's fences down, get this

backhoe in there. They start to dig down two or three feet and then they hit basically bedrock, like really hard rock and they realize that they're going to need something with more power. It's not a backhoe isn't going to do it. So they bring it, luckily they're in Midland, Texas, which was like an oil town big time. So there's all kinds of like, um, you know, drilling for oil type of, uh, places. You know, everyone knows what we mean. We're from California.

Oil place, you know, they're everywhere and all the drill, like all, all they have. Yeah. All this heavy equipment is around town because of that, luckily. Texans know what we're talking about. They know and they relate and Hey, what's up, Texas? You've always supported us. Thank you. Okay.

It's called a rat hole rig, which they usually use to drill holes to sink telephone poles. So even, even using heavy machinery, it's takes hours. And basically if like as the hours pass, this backyard is starting to fill up with firemen, policemen, paramedics, volunteers, people who are hearing, there's a little girl trapped and people saying, okay, well I have this rig and I used to work at this, you know, like all these people that know no drilling and they're showing up to help. So the whole backyard is starting to fill up with people. And one of those people is 36 year old police detective, Andy Glaskock, and he is actually

going to spend the next 72 hours essentially laying on his belly on the ground next to this opening, calling down to Jessica and getting her to respond to him to make sure that she's still alive. He's like the, he's like the hostage negotiator, but, but in a pause, but in a sweet way. Yes. He's the baby, baby hostage and the hostage taker is the well. The baby down a well. The victim.

Yeah, whisperer. So he's a dad himself. So he's saying that like he's calling down, making her say stuff back to him. And so he's, he said after a while, he could tell what her mood was. So she would switch between angry huffs or pained whimpers or cooling. And they could, she would answer 80% of the time, but in the 20% when she wouldn't respond, of course, everyone would get super nervous. Then they would say, Oh, maybe she's sleeping or she's just really exhausted.

And then Andy would go yell down the pipe. What does a kitten go? How does a kitten go? And then she, they'd hear meow and so, right? Oh, and at one point kids can't not respond to what does whatever go. Yes. They're trained by 18 months. All American children are trained to tell you what every animal, whatever, every sound

every animal makes. At one point they're, they pause in the drilling and it's really quiet. And then they can all, because the microphone's down there, they can all hear her singing Winnie the Pooh, Winnie the Pooh to herself. She's comforting herself. She's comforting herself. And I'm editorializing here, but I imagine all those big strong Texan men lost their shit.

Absolutely. And in a very strong manly Texan way, cried or brushed a single tear off and then got mad and demanded that someone bring them coffee, awesome stuff. Okay. Now, October 14th, 1987 is actually a very big news day. So a US flag tanker is hit by a missile in Kuwait. First Lady Nancy Reagan is actually hospitalized for breast cancer and the Dow Jones drops more than a hundred points that day.

But none of those stories capture America's attention the way baby Jessica being stuck in the well does. And that's mainly due to the fact that CNN is covering it nonstop. I said this already a little bit beforehand, but it had been running for seven years at that point, but this is only the second time they or any station covered a story live around the clock. The first one was a year earlier when the space shuttle Challenger exploded. And this story was just as big, but in this way of that, it still had an inkling of hope.

So CNN has reporters live on the scene almost immediately and they keep their cameras like rolling on this backyard for this rescue mission nonstop the entire time. And everyone is glued to the TV, millions and millions and millions of Americans. Dude, seven-year-old Georgia was fucking watching for sure. Seventeen-year-old Karen was drinking in a field, but her heart was with the family. No, I saw it all. So other news networks pick up the story and this backyard becomes, it's a media frenzy. So one, as reporters show up, neighbors are letting news cameraman, like, because first

of all, the backyard fills up entirely, the Jamie's backyard fills up, then the neighbors are letting news cameraman into their backyards that are surrounding this backyard and they're sitting on ladders in neighbors' backyards with their cameras so they can get the shot above everything else. And then that becomes kind of the surrounding outline and so those spots are like coveted news spots because those are all the people that have the shot, you know what I mean? And it's like ringing it so all these guys are sitting up and then they need somebody to go down and like hold the ladder, it was all like jostling for space, it was like a

really big deal. Midlands local TV station, KMID TV, they start getting calls from all around the world for people asking for updates on Jessica's rescue mission. So the places that didn't have CNN or couldn't do it, people are just calling in, like hearing about it. Okay, so it takes the rescue team six hours to dig the first parallel shaft. Now it's nighttime, it's getting dark. The whole world is on the edge of their seats and everyone is just scared to death.

Will they get to her in time? Do we know who coined baby Jessica or it just kind of became the name of? I think it just became it. I don't know. I didn't find anything that said that, but it was me. I took her first sip of her first bars and James and then turned to her friend and said, I'm calling her baby. She's my baby.

Suddenly I have a Texan accent for no reason and also it's not really Texan. Okay, so here's what I love. The Midland Police Chief and the Midland Fire Chief both know they don't have enough experience for a rescue that's this important and this, you know, delicate and complicated. So they reach out to a man named David Lilly, who's a special investigator with the US Minds Safety and Health Administration in New Mexico. He's originally from West Virginia and he grew up in a family of minors. Also he has extensive experience and knowledge in underground recovery work.

So they fly David Lilly out to Midland and basically interview him on the spot and immediately realize he knows his stuff. He's the guy and now David Lilly is in charge of this rescue operation. So by the time he gets there, this parallel shaft has been dug 29 feet deep down. That's 30 inches wide and they're actually starting to dig a horizontal tunnel across to where they know Jessica is stuck. But then David realizes there's a problem with the tunnel's trajectory because they've made it so they're aiming right for where she is, but that would mean they would have

to break the wall in on her. And so he's like, no, no, no, we have to dig down even further and then tunnel across and up. So he reroutes them so basically the tunnel will connect two feet below where Jessica is stuck. So he also notices the dig team is using weak drill bits, which makes them have to stop and resharpen over and over and it takes up way too much time. So he gets them built drill bits made of tungsten carbide and they drill for longer so they

don't have to stop or do anything. And he would later explain his strategy saying, quote, our strategy was that we would drill a series of holes in a square about 24 inches across and 18 inches down. And the holes would be no more than two inches apart. And then we would take a 45 pound jackhammer also with a tungsten bit and hold it there to knock out the rock. And we were going about an inch an hour. It was terribly hard rock and it was slow going because you had to lie on down on your

stomach holding a 45 pound jackhammer in front of you. Holy shit. And then he says, but I've never seen more dedicated people. That quotes from people mag. So the next day is October 15th and the team finally reaches the wall of the well. But the rock around the well is even harder. So in order to drill through that, they have to use a high pressure water jet cutting. But finally, they do break through.

But the entryway they make is really small. There's a local roofing contractor named Ron Short. And he comes to volunteer to help because he was born without collar bones. And so he can basically fold in his shoulders and basically fit into cramped spaces. Yes. So he's there. And this is what the people of this spot into in like Midland, but all around. People show up and they're just like, there's a in this in Lisa Belkin's article that she

says, there's a contortionist that shows up from Dallas is like, what can I do? Oh my God. Like people are just like, we want to, we want to help. But they don't know how badly baby Jessica's hurt. And they know that moving her could potentially make it worse. So they finally decide that a Midland firefighter with paramedic training named Robert O'Donnell is should be the one that goes down into this shaft. So this is actually going to be a full quote from Lisa Belkin's article, Death on the CNN

Curve. Quote, at noon on the third day, the drillers stopped, the reporters clung to their ladders and everybody watched as O'Donnell with a mining light strapped to his head was lowered by a cable harness down the shaft. He was chosen because he was tall and thin, six feet, 145 pounds. He didn't mention he was also claustrophobic. He lay down on his back and wriggled headfirst through the cross tunnel with his arms out in front of him.

The air was wet and sticky and within moments he was bathed in sweat. It was like trying to slither through a tightly wrapped sleeping bag. He would tell reporters later. Can you imagine? No. He inched to the end of the tunnel until he could look up at the shaft that held Jessica. Only the first few feet were lined with the pipe that protruded up into the yard. The rest was raw rock wall.

One of Jessica's feet was dangling down toward Robert, but the other was out of sight, wedged near her head. So she was almost in a split. And this is his quote, Juicy, which is the parents nickname for Jessica, Juicy, I'm here to help you. Oh, I might cry. Sorry. He asked her to move her leg and she did, satisfied that she probably had no overwhelming

spinal injuries. He started to tug on her foot, but she didn't budge. She was wedged in too tight and he did not have enough room to maneuver. He cursed. He prayed. He became resigned to the fact that he would have to leave so that the diggers could widen the tunnel. Oh my God.

He promised her he would come back. Okay, so he has to go back through that tunnel that was so awful to go through without her. He comes up. He's really upset. There's some people, their doctors on the scene that are like, we think he's too upset to go back in, but he insisted that he was fine. They got like Vaseline and they made it a little wider. They got Vaseline.

And there was also just, you know, it's really interesting. I found this infographic that showed how narrow this crazy tunnel was at top and how it widened out. And they put a balloon under her so that she wouldn't fall further down the well. Yeah. Yeah. So like they came in, they put the balloon down there and then basically he went in, you know, it was widened out a little bit and they just basically put a little Vaseline.

He tugged on her. He pulled her and he got her and he pulled her back through the tunnel. So at 10, at 10 p.m. on October 16th, 1987, after 58 hours, two and a half days of being trapped. Oh, eight shells. Yeah. Eighteen-month old Jessica is pulled free by Robert O'Donnell and taken back across the tunnel to the parallel shaft where, so at the bottom of the shaft, that parallel

shaft that they dug, paramedic Steve Forbes is waiting there. He has a backboard, which is that thing they put like when you're a car accident or whatever. He has a little one for a little baby. He has a bunch of gauze. So he wraps her head, she's got big cut on her head and her arms and, you know, stuff wrong with her legs. So he basically does real rudimentary kind of head wrap. He sticks her on this backboard and they get onto this like plank and the two Forbes and

baby Jessica are carried 29 feet up and out of the shaft. And when they get to the top, and I swear to God, you all have to go and watch this. It's a 40-second clip on YouTube and it was, I was crying so hard when I was like, this is more than just this video, but it's so beautiful. When they get to the top, it's 10 o'clock at night. So it's all this, you know, it's nighttime, but then it's all these lights, like cleat lights that they put up. Yeah.

And by this point, you've got the reporters on their ladders, but it's like, it's like eight people deep. It's mostly men, it's mostly these rescue workers and these volunteers. And when they come up out of this well, there is cheering and applause. Like you would, I mean, these are seasoned reporters. These are like paramedics and firemen that have seen everything and people are going nuts. Oh my God.

The church bells across the town of Midland are ringing. And Jessica, even though she's covered in dirt, she's clearly dazed. Her mom is right there trying to get, you know, trying to get to her. She's alive. And at this point, all three TV networks, all three TV networks, because it's 1987, break into their regular pro growing to announce that baby Jessica has been rescued. Dan rather actually said, live from Midland, Texas, Jessica McClure is up. She's alive.

What a fighter. So good. Okay. So she's taken to the hospital, baby Jessica has taken to the hospital and just in the video, just, you know, there's a paramedic, basically Steve Forbes. So Robert O'Donnell is the one who got her out of the well, handed to Steve Forbes. Steve Forbes is the one who secured her and brought her up out of the shaft. And then Forbes handed Jessica to paramedic Bill McQueen.

And he's the one that you see walking her out very quickly out of that backyard into a waiting ambulance. She's rushed to a hospital. She's in the hospital for about, over a month, about 36 days. She's got a pretty bad wound on her forehead. And because her foot was above her head, the whole time the loss of circulation, she actually got gangrene and she had to am, they had to amputate one of her toes, which, but other than that, she's okay, which is pretty amazing.

Over the next few years, she has to have about six surgeries, but aside from a spore head scar and the toe, she's, she's totally fine. And her hospital bills are paid, she, all the doctors that worked on her donated their time and then her remaining hospital bills are paid by anonymous donors. And the entire world begins to send gifts and toys and cakes and all this stuff to Midland Texas for baby Jessica. She is totally inundated. Reagan and first late, the first lady called the McClure's, tell them that they watched

from Nancy's hospital room. She was supposed to go in for a biopsy and she said she wouldn't leave her hospital room until the baby came up. That's the quote from Nancy Reagan. I spit on the ground at that name, but still, but still we're all human beings doing our best. Sure. So are we?

Okay. I mean, are they? Will we? Or they? Did they? Sometimes. I mean, they're rescuers and when Jessica's fully recovered and out of the hospital, the McClure's guest on live with Regis and Kathy Lee, remember, they get to give their first

hand account of the story. Of course, baby Jessica is so charming and lively and everyone is in love with her. And of course, in 1989, they make the ABC television movie, Everybody's Baby, the rescue of Jessica McClure starring Patty Duke and Bo Bridges. But of course, as with all things like this, with sudden and huge worldwide fame, there's a dark side. The state of Texas files a negligence claim against Jessica's aunt, Jamie Moore, whose daycare center it was.

What? There's a mine pipe in your fucking yard. I know. That's the city. But it's pretty much what they have to do when if something happens to a kid, they have to do it. And apparently the person at that department where those claims are filed was like those people have suffered enough.

But Jamie Moore ended up closing her that daycare permanently, I mean, of course. So then the file, the charges were dropped, but both the pressure of worldwide and small town fame eventually gets to Jessica's parents, Sissy and Chip McClure. When they take $30,000 of the money that is given because people end up having to open like a trust account because people just keep giving money to baby Jessica. So they take $30,000 and buy at a three bedroom house on the edge of town, which is huge and way bigger than the house they already had. $30,000.

Can you imagine? $30,000. The town gossip is like they're spending all of Jessica's money. People start to go crazy because it's jealousy and all kinds of stuff. This is an amazing quote from Lisa Bilkin's article that it really warmed my heart. Not really. You'll see. We were over at Denny's one day, soon after it happened when she came in, says Maria Petronella,

who lives two doors down from the house with the well and was out front with a garden hose on a recent June morning trying to resuscitate her baked shriveled grass. There was a wait and she looked at the guy and says, just like that, do you know who I am? I'm Jessica's mother. I said to her, if it wasn't for a whole lot of other people, you wouldn't be anybody's mother. Oh, damn.

Oh, shit. Oh, shit. This is the kind of fucking small town pressure and the behavior change, the fucking status change. Hierarchy, celebrity. The financial change, the celebrity aspect. Everything goes nuts. Yeah.

It seems like it never works out great. Well, if everything changes overnight, I mean, how can it work out great? Yeah, look at us. You saw us at Denny's, we thought we're out of our minds cutting in front of people left and right. I got to get moon over my hammy and I got to get it before you. That's what makes it delicious. So Sissy and Chip McClure end up getting a divorce in 1990.

The pressure just gets to them, but worse than that, the fame and the pressure also affects the first responders who are there. So this is another big quote from Lisa Belkin's article from New York Times, quote, the attention heaped on the McClure's trickled down to the central players in the rescue. Andy Glasscock was seen in the Michael Jackson video Man in the Mirror. That's right. Remember? Yeah.

Included flashes of major news events. Forbes and O'Donnell each received a wall full of citations and plaques and O'Donnell was asked to serve as a judge for the G.I. Joe's search for real American heroes and attend the White House award ceremony for that program. Not only was he a guest when Oprah Winfrey brought her show to Midland, but he also sat next to her at the press conference beforehand. He was invited to speak at so many firefighter conventions around the country that he developed a slide presentation.

Forbes and O'Donnell and their wives were flown to Los Angeles to appear on the television program third degree, where a celebrity panel tries to guess what two seemingly unrelated individuals have in common. The panelists knew immediately who they were. Wow. Famous. Yeah. A four-foot-by-six-foot plaque was hung on the wall of the Midland Center, a bronze

rendition of the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo. Oh, so there was a news photographer from an Odessa newspaper who was one of the people up on one of those ladders, and when the baby got brought up, he snapped a photo that went on to win a Pulitzer. Holy shit. So like big stuff was happening for all of these people around there. Anyway, an area a few blocks away was renamed Volunteer Park at the actual site of the rescue. An iron plate was welded over the pipe with the inscription, for Jessica with love from

all of us. In an emotional ceremony, the rescuers, including O'Donnell, planted a red-bud seedling surrounded by a ring of lavender chrysanthemum over the refilled parallel shaft. Sounds beautiful. Yeah. So then, of course, Hollywood comes calling, and there's multiple offers for TV, for movies or TV movies, so the rescuers and the volunteers become divided into two warring factions, and they each accuse the other of only caring about the money while claiming that they're

the ones who care about the story being told. Right. Or they did the most important job work and whatever, yeah. So essentially, it's that first wave no one's experienced any of this before, and everybody gets, as I like to say, high on their own supply. So the one who seemed to suffer the most from this fame, and then it's an inevitable sudden withdrawal, was the fireman, Robert O'Donnell, who first pulled Jessica out of the well. When the phone stopped ringing, he became depressed and listless.

He then became addicted to painkillers, eventually his wife left him, he lost his job as a fireman, and then soon after the Oklahoma City bombing in April of 1995, clearly suffering from PTSD, he drove down a lone ranch road and shot himself in his truck. He left a note that said, no help from nobody but family. Oh, God. Just so tragic, and I didn't know anything about that part of the story until I read Lisa Belkin's article, and please go read this article. It's mind-blowing.

She spent a lot of time with him before he died. She spent time in Midland. She tells the story from the inside of watching this town like go through this amazing beautiful miraculous event, and then basically the fallout and how it affects people afterwards. It's really incredibly reported. PTSD is an ugly thing. Apparently, when he was watching, the rescuers go into the Oklahoma bomb site, and he said to, I think by that time he was living with his mother, things were very dark for him,

and he looked at his mother and said, those guys are going to need help. Just knowing and seeing, oh, this is what happened to us on an even bigger scale. But the upside and the kind of miraculous thing is baby Jessica herself turned out great. Oh, my God. So she goes on. She graduates from Greenwood High School in 2004. She gets a job working in a daycare center, and as she's working there, one of her coworkers introduces her to her brother, who becomes her husband.

They get married in 2006. They have two kids, little boy in 2007 and a little girl in 2009. And then what's my favorite part of the story, and so beautiful, people never stop donating to baby Jessica's trust fund, and she wasn't allowed to access it till her 25th birthday. And when she did, it had $800,000 in it. What? Are you fucking kidding me? Nope.

Nope. People from all over the world gave baby Jessica money for years and years and years. Can you imagine? Can you fucking imagine? So and also like, yeah, it's like basically, oh, my neighbor's waving hi. Hi. That's the guy that told me I was beautiful. Oh, hi.

We love you. I love him. Okay. So then other than a small scar on her forehead, and of course, not having, she only has nine toes, but other than that, Jessica doesn't remember falling. She doesn't remember being in the well. She doesn't remember being rescued. She doesn't feel traumatized by it.

She feels really lucky. And she says that the one amazing lesson that she learned from that whole experience, she'd told this to Time Magazine, if you look hard enough, there are so many good people in the world. Right? That's amazing. And that is the story of the rescue of baby Jessica McClure. Karen.

Now, can I just, here's a post script. And this is real. And I've told a bunch of people this, so, because at first I was like, I'm not going to tell this story on my podcast, because then someone's going to steal my idea. But all right, I think this is, I think I wrote this document, I would say 2009. Okay. And it was, I never wrote. This is something.

Okay. So this is this idea I got. I think it was like, I was probably unemployed, kind of just, you know, and I started thinking about the story, because of how amazing it was and how big it was at the time. So I started, I wrote up a document because I wanted to write a sitcom called, Oh Well, about adult baby Jessica being a total monster. Okay. So here's the idea.

And this was, I knew nothing about real baby Jessica. So real baby Jessica, if you hear this, I love that you're normal, cool, and you have $800,000. Everything about it, but my idea was, oh, because I think I heard this, I heard like in people or time or whatever that, that she had this huge trust fund. And in my mind, it was like, it's $7 million or whatever. So here's my document is sitcom called Oh Well, and it takes place in Midland, Texas. Baby Jessica has now grown up and lives in a mansion built over the well she fell into

when she was 18 months old. A trust was set up that day that the public made donations into, which has resulted in her living and behaving like a millionaire. She loves horses, everyone still calls her the baby. Her mansion is built over the well and she talks into it like a friend at night. She has a know it all butler, a scroungy family, the town worships her. She has flights of fancy from the trauma she suffered as a baby. So animals and creatures come to visit her from time to time, but she met first met,

well, she hallucinated them down in the well. Oh my God. She's treated like a holy relic in the town. People come from all over to see her and she's constantly being asked to do talk shows and parades and she's horribly jealous of any other child in peril on the news. Oh my God. So let's get that made. This is going to be my next big project.

It's called Oh Well. It is not based on fact, but I love the idea of someone like this that you're just going to take it, you're just going to be a rescued baby and then be like, now you're all my servants for the rest of your life. I hate that other famous baby. How dare that baby be rescued. I'm the rescued baby. Don't they know?

But she's like 39. I love it. That's my story. That's my story. That's my story. Great job. That was so awesome. I love that you did that.

What a great idea. Thank you. Disaster. I like the disaster story element of it, but it's a happy ending. Well, and like there's this tragic element to it that I think it's that again, that kind of thing. No one talks about stuff like that. So it's like, we all know the baby Jessica story and we all like a lot of us read about

like the trust fund where it's like, oh, that's kind of beautiful. But the Robert O'Donnell's role that he played and then the way like what a wonderful thing and how much it meant to him, obviously, but then the way the fame and the kind of like being in that spotlight and how it can affect you if you are, you know, of a certain makeup or you just like, obviously, no one in that town thought anything like that was going to happen. No. And then they weren't prepared for it and they didn't get, yeah, the attention needed

after. Yeah. That's sad. Are you going to tell me a story? I'm going to tell you a story. It's a little bit legendary, like yours. Yeah. This is the deaths of Sid Nancy.

No. Dude. How have we not done this? All the times we've done shows in New York and neither of us thought to do this. It's crazy. Me and my friend Laura Milligan, when we used to get drunk in the 90s, I think it was with Laura. I think we used to be sad.

Sad. Like doing that. Sad. It's the best. Sad. I remember the movie came out and Sid and Nancy came out in 1986 and I remember, I must have seen it, you know, in the 90s at some point, being like, this is the most romantic story ever.

And then now I'm studying it as an adult, I'm like, this is fucked up. It's so depressing. I remember hearing the quote where he was, Sid Visha said, like, sex is boring and stupid and I was like, oh no, am I perverted? I think it's great. I think it's great and exciting. No, no, you're fine. You're not the problem here.

I'm not on heroin. That's the, I think that's the key is the, finish the sentence. This is boring and stupid when you're on heroin. Right. So I got information from a website called History Collection, People Magazine, Mental Floss, Rolling Stone, a website, the website independent and there's, so there's two articles on the independent. One is written by Joe Summerlad and the other one, I swear, I looked so hard and could not

find who wrote it, but it was from like 93. So maybe they just didn't have it, but it might have been Joe Summerlad for all I know. A Daily Beast article, there's a documentary called Who Killed Nancy and then also Wikipedia. Karen, ready? Yes. Okay. This is Sex Pistols. As you know, they were an English punk rock band.

They formed in London in 1975 and they were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the UK. It was already going on in New York and the Sex Pistols were like the main thing going on in London and they're regarded as one of the most influential bands in the history of punk and music, popular music. The group originally consisted of John Leiden, aka Johnny Rotten. He was singing, Steve Jones was on guitar, Paul Cook on drums, and Glenn Matlock was the bassist.

But in early 1977, Glenn Matlock was kicked out of the band or he decided to leave because his mom hated how anti-crown the band wasn't like forced him to quit, which is really adorable and so he was in the name of all that's royal, get out of that band and just really quick, can we say if you haven't heard Jonesy's Duet Box, it's one of the best radio shows. Steve Jones has this radio show that is, has in driving in traffic in Los Angeles over the years I've lived here saved my life. It's an influential, it's so good, amazing.

So Glenn quit the band for mom and was replaced by Simon John Richie, aka Sid Vicious, even though Sid had no idea how to play bass. Okay. I really love that. Yeah. I really love and respect the fact that he would get on stage and kind of not know how to do it. No, it's great.

It's so punk rock. It was about that. Yeah. It is. It doesn't matter. Yeah. I'm going to call Sid Vicious from now on because it's easier. It was born on May 10th, 19, oh, that's, no, your birthday is the 11th.

That's right. 1957 in England and his father flakes out on his mom, her name is Anne, and his, then so she remarries the stepfather. Six months after their marriage, he dies of cancer. No. How sad is that? Like horrible. You got this second chance and that happens.

So Sid Vicious's mom raises him alone in East London and by all accounts, Sid's mother Anne was fucking very problematic. She was heavily involved in drugs as both a user and a trafficker. And when Sid was a toddler, his mom used him as a drug mule. She'd stuff his clothes with packages of hash and smuggle them from Spain to England. So lady. Not a good start. Not cool.

That's really not Marianne Cunningham. I thought my mom was bad. Right. My mom's amazing. She killed it. Sex pistol singer, Johnny Rotten said that once he was hanging out at Sid's house on Sid's birthday when they were like friends as young teens and Sid's mom gave him, said a bag of heroin as a birthday present.

And I think even for punk rockers, like Johnny Rotten was like, what the fuck? And then Sid was like, oh, she means well, she just knows that heroin relaxes me. So it's awful. God damn. Yeah. That's awful. Yeah. So Sid had first met Johnny Rotten in 1973.

There were both students at this technical college and their later teens. And they had been hanging out in this little burgeoning punk scene that was actually pretty small in London. And it originated in this little clothing shop called Sex that was run by Vivian Westwood. Yeah. Did you know that? Yeah. And there's an amazing documentary about Vivian Westwood.

If you haven't seen it, it is so. I have to watch it. I have to look up the title. It's amazing. She's so, she just, she did it in the face of everyone going, this is disgusting. And she would win these awards and everyone in the fashion industry would be mad because they'd all, they all wanted everything to look like those weird 90s plain suits. And she was up there.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And she was like, how about a kilt and a tank top? Yeah. Amazing. So truly amazing. I mean, the fact that they named their clothing store Sex just shows you like.

So cool. So it was Vivian Westwood along with Malcolm McLaren, who becomes a Sex Pistols manager and the clothing store specialized in clothing that define the look of the punk movement. So Johnny Rotten nicknames this kid Simon, his friend nicknames him Sid Vicious because Johnny Rotten's had a pet hamster named Sid that he named after Sid Barrett, the founder of Pink Floyd. And then one day the hamster bit Sid and they yelled about him being vicious. And so now his name is Sid Vicious.

Legendary. Kind of an innocent, yeah, innocent beginnings. Right. And actually, I didn't know this, but Sid Vicious was originally a drummer and he was the original drummer for Susie and the Banshees. Really? Yeah. So we actually could play an instrument.

It just wasn't the bass. Even more punk. Yeah. It turns out they're not interchangeable. So when the Sex Pistols needed a bass player, Johnny Rotten like didn't care that he couldn't play, he brought in his friend Sid Vicious in February of 1977. And Sid Vicious never really learns to play, but he had been a big fan of the Sex Pistols. He had been at every show.

And he, I think what mattered more for them was that great punk rock, fuck you style with the spiked black hair leather jacket. He wore a shirt that had a swastika on it as a, and he said it was like a political statement as a normalizing the swastika. But you know, it's England and like two decades past the bombing of your fucking town. No dude. No. No.

It doesn't matter what your intention. It doesn't matter what your intention is, it matters what the impact is. Exactly. As we've all learned. Right. So in their, on their debut album and only album, never mind the Bullocks, here's the Sex Pistols, Sid Vicious for the recording was in the hospital with Hepatitis. So he was only on one track, one song where he plays bass, but even that track has to

be dubbed over by Steve Jones. So despite the success of Never Mind the Bullocks, which is a great album, I bollocks bollocks. Is it bollocks? Is it an O? You're right. No. I feel like you're my teacher.

I just, I'm just, I'm clocking you. No, I like it. I'm trying to be punk and mispronounce things. Mom. Honey, it's bollocks. It's bollocks. Fuck you. It's bollocks.

Despite the success of Never Mind the Bullocks, the band never records another album and they break up after two and a half years of being a band, which is a fact that many people blame on Sid's new girlfriend, Nancy Spungen. Let's talk about Nancy. Sid. Sid. That's good. So Nancy Spungen is born in 1958 into an upper middle-class Jewish family, which I didn't

know, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a young girl, Nancy is super smart, but her mom describes her as a problem child. She has a lot of issues. She was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around her neck, which may have caused some injuries. She throws violent tantrums as a kid. She bullies her siblings. She threatens her babysitter with a pair of scissors, and she even attacks a psychiatrist

who is trying to treat her. So she's just really problematic. She's diagnosed with schizophrenia in her teens, though I don't know how accurate that is. That must be like the early 70s when those diagnoses, and I don't know who diagnosed her if it was an actual psychiatrist or her mom just thought that, so whatever. But she starts using drugs, as a lot of us do, and graduates early from boarding school at 16, and she moves out on her own.

And by 17, as in New York City, she arrives right as the New York punk scene is blowing up, and she makes money with part-time sex work. So she's totally enamored with the punk scene, and all the hot dudes and the bands, amen. Hell yeah. Yeah, you're 17. And she eventually becomes known as a groupie, and she follows bands like the New York Dolls and the Ramones, and it seems like she's just hanging out in that big, you know, CBGB era. So cool.

I mean, like, just the definition of cool. Exactly, like, she's there, she's in it. But even she is regarded as a loud and obnoxious and unlikeable, which I'd like to say is kind of the most punk rock thing you can fucking do. It really is. You know? So like, I feel like it's either that people have a problem with that, means you must be really over the top, or maybe they're just not punk rock enough.

But she's rejected by other groupies and accepted by the musicians, mainly for her ability to get heroin and supply heroin to them. So she follows the punk band, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers. They go to London for their tour there in 1977, but they tell her to get lost. I think their manager was like, this chick is problematic. She like, just anyone she's around becomes a fucking heroin addict. Which is like, I think they can do that on their own. And she ends up meeting the sex pistols instead.

So when 19 year old Sid Vicious and 18 year old Nancy Spungen meet, they're inseparable right away. They move in together really quickly. And in a Daily Beast article, Malcolm McLaren writes that Nancy teaches Sid all about, quote, sex and drugs and the lifestyle of a New York rocker. And some people think that Sid lost his virginity to Nancy, actually. Aw. Yeah, because he wasn't in.

He liked heroin more than sex, so who knows. It's stupid and boring. A whole lot of people blame Nancy for Sid's heroin addiction, but it seems like his mom might be the bigger issue and he was fine before Nancy came along with that. If he was getting it for his birthday, it's her fault. But I guess like heroin at that time in the London scene wasn't big and everyone blames Nancy who to bringing it over to then like introducing it to that scene. Wow.

I know. So in the documentary Who Killed Nancy, everyone talks about how Sid was like so smart and sweet and a goofy kid with a great sense of humor and it's like fun to be around. And he was this young, impressionable dude. But then they go on to tell these fucking stories about him and what an awful, violent person he was. But like they tell it lovingly, but he actually tortured and killed cats. There's multiple stories of him doing that.

He would go out looking for fights and go out to shows like looking for fights. He used his belt buckle or a bike chain as a weapon after he'd pick a fight with someone at one show. He threw a bottle at a girl and permanently blinded her in one eye. Jesus Christ. There are stories of him vomiting on groupies and getting into fights at shows and like swinging and swinging his base at like the audience trying to hit them on purpose. Fuck.

He's like, mommy, mommy, I'm so bad at you. Mommy, please love me. Mommy. Mommy. Yeah. I think one of those things purposely throwing up on people is so awful. I'd rather take a belt buckle to the cheeks and have some puke on me. There's a story.

Can I tell you that like, um, I think it was Joey Ramon went into a bathroom in London to shoot up with Sid Vicious and there was no water to mix the heroin with. And so Sid took the syringe and in a fucking toilet bowl full of puke got used that like absolutely. It was just like one upping everyone who was already trying to one up society. Fuck. Yeah. Luckily he never met Ozzy.

I remember like those behind the music stories where Ozzy was snorting lines of ants and stuff. Oh God. But he was friends with Lemmy, which is pretty cool. That is actually rad. So Johnny Rotten. RIP Lemmy. RIP.

Johnny Rotten's dad actually witnessed some of this insanity and stated that he felt that they were due to Vicious's insatiable need for attention. Never met by his mother because she was a drug addict. He said of Sid Vicious quote, if he was sitting here and no one was taking any notice of him, he'd cut his hand or something to attract attention. You'd have to take your mind off everything else and look at him. And he was like, he did cut himself a lot like pretty severely and just always seemed to like be the center of attention.

He sounds like a real fucking asshole and not a pleasant person at all, even though everyone's saying how lovely he is. And I think this whole Nancy Corrupted him thing is not legit at all, not saying she's a great person. Well, it's like he's, he's still an adult as bad as his childhood is, he's responsible for himself. Exactly. You know.

Yeah. Very like convenient. I mean, I know, especially if that, you know, the portrayal of her is accurate, which I, it seems like it is. Yeah. Chloe, what's her name? That's a web, I believe. Yes, Chloe Webb.

I love her so much. I love that role. But that, you know, the voice and the whole thing where she didn't give a fuck about any, she's like, she was, you know, the real deal. So I think it's very easy. Like when a woman like that comes along, a difficult woman, it's like that there, that's your scapegoat for every, everybody. Well, it's like she's part of that Yoko Ono and Courtney Love and her of like, you ruined

it. And it's like, they kind of ruined it themselves already. They ruined it. Right. They were, they were in there at those dudes. And actually, then you also factor in the many instances of domestic violence against Nancy by Sid. He beat her and left her with a broken nose and a torn ear, among other injuries.

I think it was Malcolm McLaren that said, quote, Sid chose Nancy every bit as much as she chose him. And in respect of their dangerous destructive codependency, he and Nancy were ideally suited. So you know, they kind of were perfect together in that way. Yeah. And everyone said that they, that she failed to avoid and he failed to avoid in her, that the other one needed Nancy took care of Sid in a lot of ways. And actually, if you, there's old video footage, if you go on YouTube and put in Sid and Nancy

interview, there's that interview from them in a bed where she's just trying to get Sid to fucking wake up. He's nodding off and talking to the end. I'm like, can I make you coffee? Do you need coffee? You know, right. Over the next few months, as the sex pistols become huge and they're all over the tabloids for their insane behavior and this anti-crown songs, Sid and Nancy are also like famous

and are all over the press for their heroin-fueled antics and the press labels spongion as nauseating Nancy. They love to do those stupid nicknames. They really do. They really do. Public displays a verbal abuse and this shocking behavior. And he does everything she wants without question. Once she said to him, push that groupie down the stairs and he pushed her down the stairs.

Jesus. So, things are going, like devil children. That's right. And the other members of the Sex Pistols, fuck, and hate Nancy so much that they ban her from their upcoming 1978 U.S. tour. And in fact, their manager had already tried to get Nancy kidnapped and sent back to New York City unsuccessfully. Yeah, their tour manager told People Magazine that Sid began to dislike everything except

for heroin and Nancy. But there was already a rift growing in the band between the manager and Johnny Rotten. So Sid Vicious's behavior only made things worse and it just seems like Nancy's presence in Sid's life sped up the demise of the band but wasn't the catalyst. It doesn't seem like Johnny Rotten was a fucking peach to work with either. Not at all, but at least he was trying to have a real band and take the success they were earning with their, the whole, you know, directive. It was a great idea and it was cool and it was like, and then it's just like someone

that's just like hell bent on ruining everything. Just tripping and falling over the entire thing and just making a mess. Just ruining it. So the Sex Pistols break up after their last U.S. performance in San Francisco in January 1988 and then Sid and Nancy go to New York City and move into the historic Hotel Chelsea in New York City. I said New York City. It's known for how it's like a historic landmark now.

I felt that in my chest. It was good, huh? I felt it in my chest and I felt it in your chest too. Through the wires, we go finally. Look, I'm channeling punk rock. So of course the Hotel Chelsea is famous, you know, fucking Bob Dylan and Mark Twain and Stanley. Everyone famous ever stayed there and Sid and Nancy move into room 100 and register as

Mr. and Mrs. John Simon Ritchie. So they continue their fucking crazy lifestyle, crazy drug abuse, partying, these raging arguments, domestic violence and all sorts of shady characters are coming in and out of their room and they are there for three months and it's just a chaotic time. So at this point, they've been together 21 months and on the night of October 11th, 1978, they throw a party and when at the party, as any good boyfriend slash host of the party does, Sid takes at least 30 tunel tablets, two and all tablets. Never heard of it.

He's a long barbiturate and he takes 30 of them. So he's attempting suicide at the party? He's just having a laugh. Okay. Yeah. And it knocks him out, obviously, so that sounds fun. And the following morning at 7.30, the hotel guests start to report the sound of a woman groaning from room 100.

And then at 10am, Sid calls down to the reception and tells them that he needs help and when staff gets up there, they find Nancy's lifeless body under the bathroom sink in the room and she has a single stab wound in her stomach. And so at just 20 years old, Nancy's spongion is dead. Wow. 20. They did all of that. It's crazy.

I didn't realize they'd only been together for two years. I always thought like having watched the movie, I thought it was years and years, that's crazy. So the staff at the hotel remember Sid being like, he was dazed, he was wandering the hall, he was wailing about how he had killed her. And during his initial interview, he confesses and says, I did it because I'm a dirty dog. So he confesses, but he's arrested and charged with second degree murder. But once he's arrested, he retracts his confession saying he was asleep at the time. And he woke up and found her dead.

And he said that maybe Nancy rolled over onto the knife when she was in bed and accidentally stabbed herself. Nope. Unlikely. Don't think so? Don't think so. Personally. No, no, no.

Personal opinion. No. So in the following days, Sid is released on $25,000 bail supplied by Virgin Records, which is the band's label, or it's his label at the time. And a little while later, his bail is revoked after he assaults Patti Smith's brother, Todd Smith, with a broken Heineken bottle in a bar because he was hitting on this dude, Todd's girlfriend. And so the guy, Todd comes up and is like, please don't hit on my girlfriend or whatever.

And he fucking hits him in the face with a bottle like slashes his face. So Sid Vicious is sent to Rikers to go through detoxification program and get clean. But unfortunately, that doesn't happen because while he's there, his mother and Beverly smuggles in her vagina drugs to Sid. Ugh. Lady. Lady. Lady.

So Sid's released after 55 days on $10,000 bail and he's, and so then his mom and some friends want to throw him a freedom party a couple days later. Yeah. So on February 1st, 1979, Sid and his friends and mom are having a party at the Greenwich Village apartment of Sid's new girlfriend, Michelle, and his mother and get some drugs for him for the evening. And Sid takes the drugs, but he thinks they're two, the heroin, but he thinks it's two weeks. So he asks another friend at the party to get him some more.

And his friend goes out and buys some heroin from people he's never bought heroin from before. So the heroin is 98% pure, which is not what you normally get on the street and is way too pure for human consumption. But Sid takes it and his friend takes them himself and almost overdoses and is like, be careful, this is really strong. But then when the party breaks up and his friend leaves him with Sid with his mother and the heroin and shortly after, it seems like Sid kind of sneaks some heroin and takes

more and in the morning, his mother goes to wake him up and finds him dead from an overdose. He is 21 years old and it's just four months after Nancy's death. Shit. I mean, yeah. 21. 21. And 20. Also.

Okay. Go ahead. No. Go ahead. It just, how come he had a girlfriend immediately after? I think they met at Riker's in like rehab or something. Jesus Christ. I met my first real boyfriend in rehab.

Aw. But not for heroin. Thank God. Well, also, I mean, that's kind of a good place in some ways, because I guess you're all sitting in a circle being super real and authentic. We did stop doing meth together, so nice, I guess it worked. But with Sid's death, the police closed the case on Nancy, on Nancy's death and no further investigation is ever done.

And over the years, people have debated about Nancy's murder and whether or not Sid actually killed her. And there's all these fucking theories in my estimation. And I think I kind of show this in the movie, you know, he gets, he's high, he gets annoyed with her, he stabs her, he goes back to sleep. That's probably what happened. But there is a possibility that he didn't kill her and because of the amount of drugs he was on, maybe he couldn't have woken up.

And there's other suspects, there's drug dealers, like in and out of the room the night before. And the police did say that they had been robbed of $1,500. So but that could have happened anyway. So yeah. But I mean, and people hated her enough to have her kidnapped to get away from them. I mean, like, it's not like she was like, you know, beloved by all, beloved by all, exactly. It's like, God, there must have been so many suspects. That's right.

But the police and the police discovered fingerprints belonging to six different people who had criminal records, but they never interviewed any of them. And none of the visitors from the night before were ever interviewed. The murder weapon had also been wiped down and cleaned. Oh. And no blood or fingerprints were found on it. So that's, that's a weird one, right? It sounds like the cops were like, two junkies killed each or like a junkie killed another

junkie. And it's like, we're not doing the paperwork. Right. But if he, yeah, if he had like in the middle of, you know, being passed out, stabbed her, I don't think he would have had the wherewithal to wipe or maybe he did it right before he called the cops. Seems unlikely. But yeah.

Yeah. Who knows? I mean. And then if she had done it, which a lot of people think that they did, why would she, how and why would she wipe it, wipe off the weapon that she stabbed herself? Yeah. It is true that she had done like a, you know, suicide attempt before just to get his attention. So it's not totally out of the realm of possibility.

And then there's also people who think that they had a suicide pack together. When after Sid's death, his mom found a handwritten note in Sid's leather jacket reading, we had a death pact and I have to keep my half of the bargain. Please bury me next to my baby. Bury me in my, my leather jacket, jeans, and motorcycle boots. Goodbye. Wow. So maybe he overdosed on purpose.

Who knows? And it's also possible that Nancy, yeah, killed herself on accident because she was, you know, she was also, they were both also known to self mutilate. And so after finding that note and contacts Nancy's parents and asked if Sid could be buried next to Nancy and they're like, hell no. First of all, she's being buried in a Jewish cemetery. Second of all, like we think he is part of the reason she's dead, you know, of course they were like, no, but Ann does climb over the fence of the cemetery and scatters some

of Sid's ashes on Nancy's grave. Wow. Wow. What a mother. She did it. She did it. She really did it. So the biopic Sid and Nancy from 1986, directed by, amazing, amazing, directed by Alex Cox who

did repo man. Did you know that? Yeah. I mean. Yeah. So it's Sid is played by Gary Oldman and Nancy's played by Chloe Webb and, and also, of course, musician Courtney Love was 22 when it came out and she was like, this is the, the role I'm fucking meant to play.

Unfortunately, she didn't get the role, but she does play a smaller part as one of Nancy's friends. Yeah. She's, I mean, she's a standout though. She is. That's the thing about Courtney Love. I remember watching that movie and it's like, oh no, what's happening here? Yeah.

Like you can't take your eyes off her. She never does anything half-assed. No, no. For sure. Yeah. She's the real deal. So Sid's mother Anne takes her own life in 1996 at 63 years old and the Guardian sums up the, that Sid and Nancy's tragedy as Romeo and Juliet with syringes.

And there is a poem that Sid wrote for Nancy that goes, you were my little baby girl and I knew all your fears, such joy to hold you in my arms and kiss away your tears. But now you're gone, there's only pain and nothing I can do and I don't want to live this life if I can't live for you. So there might have been actual like real love there between the two of them and finally having someone who understood the other. Yeah. But you can't add hair when into the mix.

Yeah. I mean, that's going to wreck it. Yeah. For sure. So, in the classic Lester Bangs legendary after Nancy's death said, quote, Sid and Nancy were possibly two of the most pathologically tortured humans on the face of the earth. And that is the deaths of Sid, Vicious and Nancy Spungen. Wow.

Amazing. Great job. Thank you. Sid! Sid! Everyone go watch Sid and Nancy. It's so good. Gary Oldman.

It's like Gary Oldman's like breakout role, right? Yeah. He's so good. He was in a, he was in a really good movie right before, I think before that it was British, that it was about a British playwright who was gay. Now I can't remember what that was called. It was so good. I read it today.

Yeah. I saw it today in one of the articles, but I can't remember what it was. It's the word dog in the title. I can't remember. Let's see. It's really good. Very 90s. And then Sid and Nancy, Sid's mom gave Gary Oldman when he went to talk to her, gave him

the actual chain and lock that Sid wore to wear in the movie, so that's the real one there. Oh, wow. Yeah. Oh. Yeah. It's kind of cool. Yeah.

God, that mom, man. What did you talk about? Yeah. She's the third most tortured soul on the planet. That's right. I mean, pathologically, whatever. Yeah. Like, God, it's just so unhealthy.

It's so unhealthy, and it's so like, oh, you didn't stand up. You had a chance. No. Little kid. Like, you didn't have a shot at a normal life. And you know what sucks is that the music, I think that a lot of people who had really shitty childhoods, they do go into music, and it is their escape. It is the, it is the release.

It's the thing that brings them somewhere else. Yeah. And he had the opportunity. Clearly, he could play instruments, he had a musical, like, you know, talent and, but fucking heroin, heroin ruins everything. And there is this idea, too, like if he had gone to Rikers and actually tried to get sober, maybe his life would have taken a total different, you know, trajectory and maybe Nancy's life. If, you know, if she had had a chance to go home and, you know, recover a little and get

real psychiatric help, then maybe her life could have been way different. I bet she would have been pretty fucking awesome. Yeah. But the thing that makes it so dark is like, he couldn't do that because his own mom was like sabotage. Exactly. That sucks. Yeah.

So much. Oh, I looked up the, that Vivian Westwood documentary is called Westwood, Colin, Punk, Icon, Activist. It's from Activist. It's from 2018. Cool. It's really mind-blowing because I, my hilarious friend Luke loves Vivian Westwood so much, and he basically made me watch that. And I didn't know, I knew about her, you know, very tangentially and kind of like her cool

style, but not details. Right. So, she really, she was a driving force of the actual style of that like late seventies. Which is such a huge part of it, can almost say that one wouldn't exist without the other in a way. Yeah. And they say, you know, like all those styles of like having safety pins or wearing like, you know, the clothes they wore, it was part of it was because of the, the, there was really

bad socioeconomic, it was like Thatcher's England at that time. And so they would have like the garbage men would go on strike and then, so there was just garbage piled in the streets. So when the teenagers would walk from like their house to a club there, and I can't remember this, if this might be in Sid Nancy or it might be in a documentary about that time, they would just pick up garbage bags and put them on. You know what I mean? Cause it was just like garbage was everywhere.

Yeah. People were poor. There were strikes all the time. There's a lot of labor issues. There was like, there was so much. Tension. Kind of a depression. Yeah.

Tension. There was like very much like class, class issues and that's why, you know, that, that whole thing of like God saved the queen and basically saying, fuck you royals. It took off because it was like, we're all down here in the muck and in literally in piles of garbage and you're in your, in your tower, like saying pay more taxes, you know, rough stuff. All right. Karen, I want to do fucking her raise.

Yes. I love it. I want to go first. Sure. This starts fucking hooray. Hey, I'm FM fam. During the COVID-19 quarantine, I've been feeling hopeless and helpless as I'm not an essential worker nor a healthcare worker and I'm horrible with a needle and thread.

I felt there was something more I could be doing to contribute to supporting our community during this time. My fucking hooray, my boyfriend and I took to walking around our community with trash bags and my old wagon, collecting litter from parks and roadsides. After just one weekend, we collected eight contractor trash bags filled to the brim. If I can't fight the virus directly, at least I can fight pollution. Thanks for all you do. Keep killing the game and stay healthy for all our sake, Shelby in Bucks County, Pennsylvania.

That's awesome, Shelby. That's fucking beautiful and important. It's important for your mental health and it's so cool that you found something to do but you're helping your community and that's fucking beautiful. It's really beautiful. This one is from orangulant, something, okay, hashtag fucking hooray. My fucking hooray is for the staff at St. Mary's Hospital in Decatur, Illinois. I went into their ER late Tuesday night with intense stomach pain and ended up needing

an emergency app and deck to me. Oh, this is scary. All the time. So scary. Oh, my God. Due to COVID-19, my husband was not allowed to be with me and I had to go through the whole thing alone. Every single nurse, doctor, and staff member was gentle, friendly, and comforting.

I had never had surgery before, so it was especially scary. Everything went well and I'm back home recovering. Oh, thank God. Oh, my God. How terrifying. So terrifying. I'm so glad that went well. Yeah.

What a bummer to be like. I really don't want to go to the hospital. I have to go to the hospital. Yeah. I have to go. Okay, this is from Blood Splatter Analyst, and it's Anna is in all caps, so I'm assuming this person's name is Anna. Hi.

My fucking hooray is that down on my street, a little girl is always on her porch and every day she does something special for people walking by. She has her violin practices out there, makes signs, yells out funny jokes, et cetera. She brings me joy every time I pass her and she loves when I say something back to her. Stay home and safe, but make sure you still interact with others somehow, Anna. That's so cute. That is very cute. We, Vince and I sit out front of our garage now in our lawn chairs and say hello to everyone

walking by and silently judge them if they're not wearing masks, but you know. So true. This is from Science of Myself, says my fucking hooray for the week. I work at a domestic violence shelter in central Texas and this week our staffed received a cookie delivery. It was from Brene Brown. What? And then there's a smiley face emoji, a cookie emoji, and a heart emoji.

How incredible. I didn't know this when I talked to Brene Brown at the top of the show. I hadn't read this yet. But what, that's the whole story? Yeah. They received a cookie delivery at their domestic violence shelter in central Texas and it was from Brene Brown. Fuck.

Yes, Brene Brown. I mean, just class act. Just doing it right. Class act. That's beautiful. Yeah. This one is from Ashley Ann. Ashley Ann.

Okay. I'm a first time mom and my two month old baby girl cannot sleep for more than 15 minutes by herself alone in the bedroom. She has to be sleeping right next to me or my husband or one of us has to hold her. She will sleep for hours this way. But this morning after I fed her, I put her back down in the bedroom for a nap and she slept for all caps two and a half hours alone. My husband and I were able to make ourselves breakfast and he worked on his laptop while

I enjoyed some me time with a cup of coffee and a few chapters of the stranger beside me. Hell yeah. Also, I only peaked in on her once to make sure she was still breathing, which is a major progress, which is major progress because I wanted to check in again like 80 more times, but I talked myself down. Baby steps. Literally. Fucking hooray for me and my baby girl, SSDGM Ashley Ann.

Good job, Ashley Ann. You know, my mom used to tell the story when she had my sister, her first baby, she would go in every 15 minutes with a mirror because she wanted to make sure Laura was still breathing. I bet it's just terrifying. How could you not? Totally. Okay, here's my last one. This is from Mushroom Beast.

My hashtag fucking hooray is that my mom, Linda, gave me a thumbs up yesterday. My mom had a stroke in February and it was the scariest day I've ever experienced. She was totally healthy, doesn't smoke, doesn't drink, and one Sunday morning she just had a stroke. She was paralyzed down her left side for a while and with intense physiotherapy, her movement is coming back and we kept joking that when she could give me a thumbs up, we'd celebrate. Well, yesterday I came downstairs and she was sitting grinning at me with her thumb up.

She's the strongest woman I know and she has just been so determined and focused in her recovery. It's a fucking hooray and thumbs up. Yes. Oh my God. It's crazy the little things you focus on and that matter once everything is real. Yeah, when you get that perspective of like, listen, this is the thing that it gives us a lot of stress and a lot of panicky feelings, but there is this advantage to looking at life

like that could happen to you or you could catch the cerebral disease or something that this is not, we are lucky every moment that we have with our health is a gift and we should treat ourselves like it's a gift and we should treat other people like it's a gift and we should all go out onto our symbolic porches with our symbolic violins and play them for other people and be nice to your neighbors and wave to people and like, get in the game while you still can. It's important. I love that.

It's so true. It's so true. I really hope that we come out of this whenever we come out of it a little kinder. Everyone is a little more easy on everyone else and a little kinder. Well, I think already a lot of us and it's only been about two months really of starting to appreciate the like other human beings and the potential connection and the connections that we have and the things that we miss and like that all those things like that the screen doesn't give it to you and like the internet does not give it to you and you can only really

get it from people in front of you and so, yeah, hopefully that's something that doesn't just immediately evaporate the second we're all like, woohoo, it's over. I can go go to a baseball game or whatever, yeah, for sure. And you know, thanks all of you for listening. Everyone is a people say such nice things to us online about, you know, continuing to do this podcast. For me, it's a gift to get to what it what a miracle that this, you know, that we get to do that and we have these people that care so much and listen and give a shit.

I mean, like, it's really nice. Yeah, it's really, really, it's really a gift. So thank you guys. Thank you. We're so incredibly lucky and grateful for you guys. Send your fucking array is just hashtag them and and we'll read them next week. Maybe. Yeah, big or small, whatever, whatever's going on with you, it's, it's very, it's, it's

very good for your mental health to keep a gratitude list. And so try to try to do it and try to try to find those moments so that you can fucking hooray along with us. And in the meantime, stay sexy and don't get murdered. Bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Yeah. Yeah.