The Daily Zeitgeist - Icon #17 - Lisa Frank: Trapper Keeper Trap God

Episode Date: April 6, 2026

In this edition of the Iconograph, Jack and Miles are joined by writer/director Chelsea Devantez to talk about the woman who exposed millions of children to their first little taste of what a ketamine-tinged LSD trip might look like: Lisa Frank! They'll explore her not-so-humble beginnings, her relationship with James Green AKA Jaime Verde, and why Lisa Frank Inc. was also known as 'The Rainbow Gulag'! WATCH: 11/28/98 CNN: Lisa Frank Company Marketing to Young GirlsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Because when you understand the system, you can start to build within it. Open your free I-Hard Radio app. Search Earn Your Leisure and listen now. Hello, the internet, and welcome to this spin-off episode of Dirty Lee-Ezygeist, which we're calling the iconograph. My name's Jack O'Brien. I'm one of the founders of Crack.com, and I'm joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. Hey, welcome. I'm Miles Gray.

I found a dollar on the street two days ago. Congratulations. Just to compare and contrast. I haven't really found it anything, but I felt like I wanted to use that word some kind of way. You found it. I founded a dollar on the street. And I found it a dollar on the street. So we're kind of like.

Amazing comedian, uh, political actor. Uh, a Michael Clayton fixer. Crisis actor for sure. Crisis actor. Uh, in our third seat, Miles, an Emmy nominated writer, comedian. Yes. Uh, director, host of the podcast, glamorous trash. She just wrote and directed a movie called Basic that.

seems to have a am I reading that 100% on rotten tomatoes? We're at 100 baby and please tell everyone call my ex-boyfriends tell them all that it happened in all of their fucking faces

it's Chelsea Devonthe Thrill thrilled thrilled to be here Holy shit thrilled to have you here for this episode where instead of looking at the Zykeyes through current events

on Monday mornings we look at the zeitgeist through the powerful pop cultural all right this is where I need you got I'm bringing you guys in early because I need your help here

yeah this is where I used to say icons are pop cultural horrockses the Harry Potter fans got upset because apparently that's not what a horror crux is

I thought it it was just like a powerful magical item that I could use as like a metaphor, but... Sure. And what did they say it was? I don't know. I couldn't pay attention to them

for beyond their objection. Yeah, I don't know anything about it, but I like the word. Maybe I shouldn't have used it having not... I read the first three books when they first came out. And I was like, yeah, okay. But I never got...

I don't think I got to the Horkrucks reading the first three books. But Harry Potter people are unforgiving about... certain things. Oh, it's like a soul of a wizard or some shit goes in there. It's trapped in a thing. Yeah.

I don't know, man. I don't know. Listen, until the Etsy witches weigh in, this means nothing to me. Infinity stones? The infinity stones? Yeah, stick to Marvel where you belong. Jack, or do a Star Wars one. Get that crowd round up.

Metachlorians? Pop culture, Khyber crystals. Oh, that sucks. For a sleet saber. I just like saying. Hort cruxes. I don't know. It's got a nice, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a to, it's a lot, um, to show us what the inside of an eight-year-old girl's brain would look like on a hero's dose of mushrooms. That's right, it's a Lisa episode. We're talking Lisa Frank.

The creator of a powerful aesthetic that defined the trapper keepers and folders and school supplies of my childhood. Could have given rise to its own Disneyland if the company had not turned into apparently the scariest place to work ever. Allegedly doing no small part to massive amounts of cocaine, as we'll get into. None of that is surprising in the aesthetic. It would be shocking if cocaine didn't get them. to that color scheme. I feel like it would be like one or the other. It's like there were no drugs and alcohol at all.

And that's what they're coming up with or it was completely debauched. I feel like it would be one extreme. They do protest quite a bit about the allegations of drug use. But there's some countervailing evidence, I will say, in the direction that there might have been some cocaine use going on behind the scenes. But Chelsea, you specifically chose Lisa Frank. What is your relationship to Lisa Frank? Well, you know, you would go and pick up your school supplies and the options were blue, red, and acid trip.

And I believe she started the maximalist in me because I said, I guess this is, you only got one option if you want to have fun. And that is to go balls to the fucking walls. All the way. And so, yeah, always knowing her. And then really, you know, they did a documentary where one of my, on the podcast, we talk about something called stepdad energy. Regardless of being a stepdad or not, something can always have stepdad. Dad Energy. Yeah.

And a stepdad emerges in the Lisa Frank story that really blew me away. And I've just kind of been obsessed with her ever since. Oh, her. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. A stepdad emerges in her story. Interesting.

Which I will be, I went on some deep dives on Instagram. That's where I got my research, Jack. And I'll be throwing in some tidbits depending on what you came to the table. I do not do Instagram research. So this is going to be so helpful. I made it to the bottom of her ex-husband and son's feeds. And so I can really say a lot.

I thought you were talking about her ex-husband with regards to the stepdad. Oh, I am. I am. I'm not calling her the stepdad. She is, I would say she's the dad. She's the stepdad. He's the stepdad. Okay. And then there is another candidate for stepdad energy, which is the enforcer from the company.

But, yeah, to your point, I just remember growing up. and girls generally had trapper keepers with like the wild dolphins flying out of waves, like winking at you in a magical emerald universe and boys had blue or red or at best. I do remember like one year I got the cartoon character on a generic basketball team. So they couldn't even like get like the Bulls, but like they had like because it was Jordan era, it was like red jersey you know right right right red jersey guy dunking but in a way where it's like

oh this artist has never even seen basketball be played before by the by the time I was getting the gendered like school supplies there was this thing called like no rules sports and it would be like an eagle fucking shredding a football or some shit or like a gorilla

like dunking a ball or a fucking whart hog like shredding up a fucking soccer ball and shit It's like, sucks. Yeah, yeah, it was just like, oh, it's too aggressive. No, it's terrible. And I, yeah, and I do think she reached new heights in terms of like trapper keeper art, school supply art that we've not seen. And like, there is an immense amount of care and artistry put into what she did in a way that I do find inspiring.

She gives me like Willy Wonka vibes a little bit. But it really also was the only option. Like, do you remember that era? Like, it was just, there was no one else in the market coming in with anything. And so it's really funny that the one option was out of its fucking mind. Like, you know, they didn't start with like sparkles or balloons. They were like, you can have a dolphin orgy or you can fuck off second grader. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah. But if this tiger and a unicorn had a baby. Yeah. It is. He's like, okay. She, like, herself, so there's a lot of people, I think people want to make her into Willy Wonka, so a lot of people are like, you actually, there's only two pictures of her on the internet. Like, she's like really, and that's not actually true. Like, you can find old news reports where she's being interviewed. She doesn't like to appear on camera now, but like, you can find her and like old interviews with her. She's, she kind of looks like if Amelia Bedelia was told to have a colorful personality. Like, she, she wears the crazy. colors and like patterns and are clashing and just you know she created a massive factory like the way that willie wonka's like chocolate factory is like the thing you would imagine like a child would imagine

a chocolate factory would be she created like a factory that on first blush like when you first go there this is what you want the lisa frank factory to look like it's like painted in these mat like all these like crazy colors. You can like see it when you're landing at the airport. It's like the only thing. It like jumps off the map. And the factory is eventually called the rainbow gulag because of how nightmarish of a place it is to

work. So the main sources that we used in this and this is a Meredith Danko joint. Thank you Meredith for your research on this. We drew heavily from the Jezabelle article I think it was called the Rainbow

Gulag and then the docu series. which I think was called glitter and greed. And then there's a bunch of, you know, time articles and stuff like that that we'll link off to in the footnotes. But we'll start off with Lisa Frank's background. She grew up in a suburb of Detroit, which it's important to get into the specifics here. It is the Bloomfield Hills suburb of Detroit, which is ranked the top five wealthiest cities in America with a population under 10. 10,000. Her father ran an automotive manufacturing company, which was founded by his fathers and uncles, which I at first assumed, oh, it's like kind of a small mom and pop shop. It's like,

you know, she grew up outside of Detroit. The factory that her uncles founded and that her dad ran was like publicly traded. It was the only company in the U.S. to make engine bearings for tanks in World War II. It was like a massive industrial concern. Like she grew up massive, massive wealthy. She went to this really prestigious high school in this area that is the same place that Mitt Romney and his wife met. So, okay, it's just a demon center. Yeah. And her dad was a collector of art. He was on the Detroit Institute of Art board and, you know, encouraged her art. She said that they, she was always a girly girl and a huge color. They were just like, here, take these coloring books and leave us alone.

You have too much energy. And she would just, you know, go nuts with the coloring books. She's kind of like a Batman villain whose theme is color. Like, just she's like, this, and this is her origin story, just having very successful parents who were like, here, go away from us, take these coloring books. You're colors. She just is like obsessed with colors. she eventually names her kids Hunter and Forest Green.

It's just... This is actually my favorite thing about her. Oh, because the last name of the husband... She marries a guy with the last name Green. Some would say so that. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't think she was attracted to anything else about him other than his last name is going to be sick for my children.

I love that she committed to Hunter and Forrest. It makes me very happy. I know. With a girl, what do we think they would have gone with? Oh. Kelly Emerald. Kelly Green? Oh, Kelly Green.

Perfect. Good pitch, Miles. No, I just, it's funny because I went to school with a girl named Kelly Green and she would always wear Kelly Green. It was a very interesting thing. It was 92. It's nice to have your identity handed to you. Yeah, yeah, exactly.

And have like a CMYK number or two assigned to it. I had to watch Jaws a hundred times so that I could have an identity in elementary school. The Shire's guy. Yeah. I just paste it in the in the chat, a picture of the cradle that she made for her kids. Oh my God. Give you a sense of like how pervasive her aesthetic is.

It's just everything. They had a massive McMansion that was like multicolored like this. Like it was just ever everywhere. Oh, she was really about that life. I had, I mean, I knew she was colorful, but like to put your baby in like a nightmare thunder dome like that that feels a little aggressive at least the interior house just you know filtered through the mind of somebody who is on LSD

yeah or like if Salvador dolly started doing coke in the 80s or something yeah yeah yeah she also I'm getting major C-World from her like don't you feel like she kind of held up the C-World universe even though it's not affiliated like she's always like dolphins are having fun performing for you like whales they're your friend and they just want to chill. They're not animal slaves. They're just loving it. Oh my gosh.

She also has an interesting relationship to popular culture in that, well, first, like, when she first starts out as we'll get to, she was just like, she would license famous characters and like put Betty Boop riding a unicorn and stuff like that, which would have been cool if she stuck with that. But then, like, as she, you know, becomes more savvy, she'll just, like, see that free will. is popular and be like, oh, we'll do an orca jumping out of the water like that because that's popular. And kids' brains will associate it with Free Willy. Yeah. That's smart as hell. She doesn't have.

She is a smart. She's a savvy capitalist, aka evil in a lot of ways. Yeah. But, you know, she has a twin engine private jet once this whole thing takes off. And it's, again, like crazy colors. like it's like multi-colored and has described her McMansion that she lived in at the height of her success as purple and yellow and hot pink and light green and orange. Purple and yellow and hot pink and orange. Yeah, she like has her own layer.

Yeah. Yeah. It's always like a nice sunset. Imagine your brain feeling calm in that color palette. Ah, I'm home. Like that is a twisted place to be. Like even when you're doing research on Lisa Frank, the articles, a lot of the articles are like written on pages.

Like I just pasted this into the like the Lisa Frank like information website is just like written in pink and purple and like has a panda bear like juggling globs of color like down below. It's just the whole, it's a very pervasive aesthetic. Yeah. I mean, do one thing and do it well. Yeah. Wait, did you see this? In my senior year of high school, I was a painter and I had an art.

show and I sold all of my paintings. Yeah, we're about to hit that. Lee Iacocca. So the next step in, so she is always a drawer, always an artist. She has an art show in high school. Her paintings sell out.

And Lee Ayacoka buys one of them. The like famous corporate you know, I think he was the head of Chrysler at the time. Yeah. Ford. Doesn't this just feel like your dad being like, hey everybody, come back. Come by Lisa's paintings. It does sound a little bit like a Girl Scout cookie sale.

Yeah. However, if so, he's a real shithead because he then uses this as an excuse to be like, and I'm never paying for anything else for you again because you can do this on your own. So she gets cut off. Or at least that's the version of her origin story that she tells is that from that point forward after she made $3,000 at the art show, her dad was like, you can't. Yeah, which back then was a lot of money. I believe none of this.

Yeah, that I don't believe a fucking second of this. Definitely a rich kid's story. No, really, I made it on my own. My parents didn't help me? I made $3,000, yeah, out the gate. I just posted a picture in the chat of like what her early work looks like.

Got get the fuck out of here. Future's Dirty Sprite 2 cover a little bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like purple clouds. That or like, like, like, George O'Keefe without knowing what she was trying to do. Yeah. When you're like, yeah, you just kind of...

No way her dad believed in her off of these paintings. There's no way he was like, you can make a living off of this. Go out into the world. Just get out of my house. See, Leia Eococca even bought one of your pieces. Or he was just like really cheap. And he was like, how do I justify cutting this little fucker off? $3,000 is an astronomical amount for a child, like child art painting.

in what, I'm presuming this was like the 70s, maybe, when she was in high school or some shit? Yeah, I think it was late 70s, early 80s. Yeah, late 70s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, good for you, man. You can put together a bunch of people that somehow $3,000 came in from your ink blocks. Yeah.

It is interesting that she starts. When she's a kid, she's making abstract, like adult-seeming art. And then as she becomes older and confident, like as an adult artist, her shit like looks... Found her voice. Yeah, it looks exactly like what a child would make. But she,

so she gets into Arizona and decides to go there for art school, which everybody in the articles was like a very prestigious art school. I did not realize Arizona was a prestigious art school. But she had to,

according to her again, support herself financially. And the way that she went about doing this is, again, very savvy capital. list. She's like, well, who can I exploit here? And she says, when I came out to Arizona, I met people who would go out to the Native American communities, and I would go out and I would trade for art or jewelry, or I would buy it. I would go back to Michigan, where I was from, or I'd go to California,

and I would sell what I had bought. So I was really working through college. But like, she's just like, you know, being a middle man, middle person for Native American artists and like upselling it. That is so brutal. Like my daddy's cut me off. I know I'll become an art dealer, colonialist. Right, exactly. Okay, how to extract wealth from the indigenous people. Yes, yes, here it is.

Here's a solution. Wow. Because I felt like a big thing like in the 80s too. Like when people are like, I've got these new Kachina dolls. You know what I mean? Exactly what she's talking about. Yeah, I fucking knew it. It was exactly.

She had her, she had her, she had her, finger on the pulse. She was like, we're going to do that. So I was really working through college is how she describes it. And then one day, okay, so this is where the like part, this part of her origin story,

I've seen it interpreted a couple different ways, but the way she tells the story is like, so I was working through college doing that, and then one day I met a guy who said, anything you draw, I can have made. So we started making things from my ideas. I also represented other people and sold their artwork,

and then we realized that I was the one with the commercial sense because if I said make a teddy bear or a unicorn, that was what was sold. So some people have interpreted that as she's like working, going out to these Native American artists and like selling their shit and then eventually being like, you want to know what's actually going to sell really well to the Native American artist? And be like,

what if you put a unicorn on that shit? And it started giving assignments to the Native American artist. But I couldn't find any confirmation of that. it might have just been a separate person who was then like working on assignment for her. It's also so John Mayer to be like, I'm an artist, but I also represent other artists. And you're like, this can't go well. Like, you can be an artist or you can be a manager, but like, why are we doing both? This doesn't seem like a good idea.

Yeah. She also eventually works with John. That's one of her recent collaborations. I think she handled the aesthetics for his like, Instagram talk show or something like that. Okay. Yeah, which we all remember and of course.

Pulled dearly in our hearts. She started a jewelry line called Sticky Fingers where she handmade pieces with like plastic fruit and a glue gun. She hired an assembly line of jewelry makers who worked out of her guest house and Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale's sold her artwork again. So to be clear, she's been on her own, making her own way, upselling stuff, but has a guest house? It has a guest house.

Yeah, it's from all the Kachina dolls. I'm flipping on the side. Right, yeah, yeah. And has connections with Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale's buyers. I went to high school with them. I'm sorry, you know. She probably did go with Neiman Marcus. No, it's one guy.

Yeah, Neiman Marcus. Yeah. She said, you read stuff about me. People think it was all influenced by drugs. You couldn't do what I did if I was on drugs. Okay. Yeah, you're on drugs. Yeah.

So she then starts making, she renames her company Lisa Frank, Inc. One of their popular products is an all-in-one box with a painting of a teddy bear on the front. And the eyes are star earrings. And you open the box and take out the earrings and the lid is a pin. And then inside the box is a necklace. And she does seem to have an inherent sense of what, little girls are going to like and she's always been like I'm kind of a little girl at heart and then people around her are like no it's like creepy she's like a little girl like she really it seems

like you are in the room with a grown up uh who has done a body switching movie wow and uh this is when she's like getting licensing agreements to use characters like felix the cat betty boop mighty mouse and pop eye in her works uh which i feel like that could be cool like could have been cool if she kept doing that instead of doing the like her original characters, which apparently there were 400 original characters. I was not familiar with the role in the Lisa Frank universe. In the Lisa Frank universe. And I think she really did try and launch them to become a Betty Boop or a Felix the cat.

And that just never worked. Her world has always existed so clearly, but her characters never took hold. Yeah, I didn't even realize that she was going to like be the next Disney. Yeah. Like she thought like, and this one's called Baby. baby chunky. Yeah, like there's one

names for each of her kids. And I can't remember what it is, but it's like, Hunter the Tiger Bowley explosion. Oh, right. Okay. Yeah. Oh, Lisa. I mean, it's funny like that she was licensing characters because if she

kept doing that, I could see her making the kind of shit rappers with a war in 2005, like when Iceberg was popping or like Fubu Platinum when it had like Mickey Mouse and shit. And she was like, no, I got the technical color, Betty Boop button up. There's a lot of ways that pop culture and. has intersected with her aesthetic in the years since she rose to power and fame. But there's just ample evidence that, like, the company can be very difficult to work with. Yeah, like, she could have been at Disneyland.

She actually could have been all those things, but how she was managing it, it blew up. blew up before it could happen. Yeah. So in 1982, when she is 25, Spencer's gifts. offered to place a $1 million order if she could convert her button designs into stickers. And so her company devises a way to print stickers that would maintain sharp, bright colors,

which was groundbreaking at the time. How do we explain Spencer's gifts to people who weren't around at the time? Oh, my God. A meme factory that were trinkets that your older brother fucking loved. Yeah. Yeah.

imagine tangible memes that you could buy and whatever was cool or popular or about to be at the time it's like if there was some like truly some meme trinket everyone had you go to Spencer's and they had it. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like if Spencer's existed now, does it still exist?

I don't want to be rude to Spencer's. But if Spencer's existed now and if it does, it probably is selling like into club we all fam on a keychain. Yes. Yeah, right now, there's one at the Glendale Galleria. Okay. Oh, wow. How am I to take a...

Because it's different now because now they have their logos like graffiti. And it's like, welcome to Spencer's. And it's just like phrase t-shirts. But it's like now it's like, that's where like, you know, Jen Alpha kids are like, got my deaf tones vintage quote unquote vintage shirt at Spencer's. They went and got edge on us. Yeah. They still got a nightmare before Christmas shit though.

They still stay true to that though. You know, like certain things. I feel like partially they got replaced by Hot Topic, but like not fully. But also Hot Topic was existing hand in hand with Spencer's for a moment. Like Hot Topic took itself seriously. And Spencer's was like, we have fun. Yeah, yeah. We have farts in a camp.

Yeah, you can get what be. Class Cloud is coming here. Yeah. Like aspiring Goth, like aspiring junior high goth hot topic. Yeah. Like prankish, you know, puckish shithead kid, Spencer's. That's right. So they see something in Lisa Frank.

She, like, they even create, like, they have their own ink colors that are like proprietary to them. They do like really put a lot of care into how they're making their products. And it takes off. Like from that one million dollar order, they start building this big, you know, company. They start out at this time in a, like, strip mall. And then pretty soon they're in a warehouse and pretty soon like more and more they like going business with Mead who's like making the trapper keepers and they just like build and build and soon they're fucking everywhere. One of the wildest details of like how they built this empire that I

couldn't fucking believe is that there's this CNN like report on Lisa Frank like at the height of her power and they would send staff into Tucson elementary schools to conduct focus group tests. They would like take school children and be like, which of these products do you like better? In, like, in school, I'm going to just put the link in there for you guys. I just want to show this one part,

which just seems so fucking crazy to me. This would be legal. Yeah, would you mind playing that? Top priority for both Green and Frank to keep little girls coming back for more so they don't make a move without first. consulting their finicky audience. Good morning, class.

Good morning. Thank you. My name is Carol, and I'm here today from Lisa Frank. Lisa Frank product testers can be found a day or two a week in any of Tucson's elementary school. A day or two a week. A group. ...are recruited as focus groups for upcoming projects. I just was testing Fabrice swatches with the middle school in elementary.

And I had 16 boards at one time, and we had them pick out. We were completely surprised the ones they picked out because we would not even, pick them. So that is Lisa Frank that we just got to hear from. You guys got to see. That's also her husband who we're about to meet. But just...

I love it. I love it because and even teachers now, like they're just paid so little. I remember in second grade every day if I came in and I was like, I'd like to put on a play. My teacher, Mrs. Sunberg, was like, take it over, babe. And for an hour every day, I'd be like, here's my play with my friends.

I think teachers must have been like, what a gift. Lisa Frank's coming by. I don't have to teach shit for an hour. Right. Yeah, the degree to which, like, it's only hazy in my memory, but like the way that like a candy bar sale or a magazine sale would just like, take over school for a month. It was just like, here's what you need to sell and like how, how, like,

what are your numbers looking like today? It's like crazy. And like here they're just being used as a fucking. focus group like multiple days a week? One to two days a week. Throughout the school year, someone is in a Tucson elementary school asking. These kids aren't being pulled out of class.

Like they are in a classroom. Yeah. They're like the emancipation proclamation. Shut up. Sorry, it's Carol from Lisa Frank. All right, come on in Carol. Yeah, yeah. We're just talking about some bullshit.

Go ahead. Go ahead. Go ahead. Okay, kids. Now the boys. Do you like cameoians? Like, what the fuck is this? I,

I'm from the Southwest and New Mexico. always rates quite low in education. And I'm going to go out on a limb and say, Arizona wasn't doing so well either. I just looked it up. Arizona ranked 51st in a survey regarding the quality of its public schools. Holy shit. Those the U.S. is comprised of 50 states.

It included Washington, D.C., thus making Arizona 51st. Wow. This is from Lehmanacademy.com. So, yeah, I think those Tucson school students didn't learn much. Man, and like, she's truly running that shit like a drug operation. Like in the wire, they were sending them out with testers for the fiends. You know what I mean? They're like, yo, just see how they're liking this new one.

And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's hot. Let's go with that. Fucking with the penguin, a Pegasus joint. Yeah, yeah. I'm Lori Siegel, a longtime tech journalist. And consider my new podcast, mostly human, your bridge to the future. Anyone can now be an entrepreneur. Anyone can build an app.

and it's very empowering. Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future, and we're going to break down what all of this innovation actually means for you. What I come to realize is that when people think that they're dating these AI companion, they're actually dating the companies that create this. We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history, and let's be honest, that can be messy. There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you.

But it's my belief that we should all benefit from this moment. Mostly Human will show you how. My goal is to give you the playbook, so you can benefit. The reason I say agency is because, like, if we can give power back to people, then I think that's probably the best thing we can do for your mental health. Listen to Mostly Human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. I'm Iris Palmer, and my new podcast is called Against All Od, and that's exactly what the show is about. doing whatever it takes to be thoughts.

Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Eva Longoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account, and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month,

and we all could not afford it. Like, I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him.

I was, hi, dad. And just when I said that, my mom comes out of him. kitchen. She says, I have some cookies and milk. This is a badass convict. Right. Just finished five years. I'm going to have cookies and milk at mom. Yeah. On the Sino Show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations about recovery, resilience, and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon Danny Trail, talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances. The entire season two is now available to binge, featuring powerful conversations with the guests like Tiffany Addish,

Johnny Knoxville, and more. I'm an alcoholic. And without this trouble, I'm going to die. Open your free I-Heart radio app. Search the Cito Show. And listen now. I feel like it was a little bit unbelievable until I really start making money. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast Eating While Broke is bringing real conversations. about money, growth, and building your future. This month, hear from top streamer, Zoe Spencer, and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum Pierre,

as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. If I'm outside with my parents and they're seeing all these people come up to me for pictures, it's like, what? Today now, obviously, it's like 100%. They believe everything. But at first, it was just like, you got to go get a real job. There's an economic component to community striving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they fail.

And what I mean by fell is they don't have money to pay for food. They cannot feed their kids. They do not have homes. Communities don't work unless there's money flowing through them. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. If the tester who's out in the classroom seemed nervous, we're about to find out why. I'm guessing after that interview, Lisa Frank was like, well, you're fired. She could be tough to work for.

But by the year 2020, Lisa Frank Inc. had generated $1 billion in sales. At the peak, they had, as I mentioned, a private jet. They also had a hot air balloon. And they did their own market research and were like some of the first people to be like, wow, girls ages 4 to 12 account for $15 billion in annual sales and influence $160 billion in household purchases. And so they really like helped move this market. They create this factory that really feels like it would be a good setting for like a

Wes Anderson heist film. Like it has this vault where like in the center of the factory is like every piece of art that they've ever created for Lisa Frank. Like from day one. And it's just this weird or it was at one point just like. a literal Willy Wonka factory. I just pasted one piece of art from the early days where it's just a bunch of junk food, like kind of...

As an astrological constellation. Yeah. It's like burgers, hot dogs, pizza, lollipops. But like, for some reason, if you'll notice, the hot dog is ejaculating mustard onto the hamburger bun. Yeah. The hamburgers are... Noise. She got a nice bun.

Yeah. Get those messages. to kids early. Yeah. So in 1982, James Green became Lisa Frank's first in-house

illustrator and designer. He is a talented airbrush artist. And you may notice that airbrushing kind of an unimportant part of how they make their work.

And eventually he helps them make the transition to computer graphics. They develop a proprietary ink formula. This is, where things start to go off the rail. So they get married in 1992. She is like kind of decides to stop being there on the day to day basis. And he kind of takes over as the head of the company.

But can we talk about their wedding footage for like a second? Yes. That is son of the funniest wedding footage. You watch it and you're like, oh my God, they're doomed. Like these two people do not want to be married to each other. Do not like each other at all. I would say, say they're, they walk down the aisle as enemies. And they're in the video being like, ha ha ha, ha, married this fucking bitch. Ha ha ha, you're the biggo bitch. Let's eat some cake.

She's like, oh, James, stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Stop it. Wait, she's yelling. Yes, but he's like, he's like so annoying and starvation and he's like trying to take over like it's his big day. And then she's like,

shut up. Wow. Shut up. And then like, laughs like uncomfortably. her wedding dress could have been more colorful. Way more colorful. But she's wearing a giant hat that has like a lot of different colors on it. And he's giving magician energy.

Like even though he's just the groom, the way he's like talking to cameras like, is this your card? Oh my God. And I think he's in a top hat, right? Like he's in like some weird suit. Yeah. He's definitely like got spats.

I think he's got tails. He's got his tails. So many claim that Lisa Frank Inc. was a bad place to work. Like, there's one interview with somebody just from Tucson. He's like, yeah, I moved to Tucson and there's like, the one ads

are dominated by Lisa Frank things, which I'm like, oh, cool. Like, what a cool company. Like, and everybody I talked to was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. Do not work there. That is the world's shittiest employer. It's just like known everywhere

that that's a bad place to work. Some of the things from people who worked there, Green, who became eventually the CEO of the company after marrying her and in the lead-up, like, as they were, like, solidifying their... It was almost in the pre-nup. She's like, I will marry you, but you're fucking running this shit, and I ain't working no more. He got 49% of the shares of the company.

She kept 51. Like, that was her wedding gift to him. Yeah. Thanks for the last name, babe. definitely feels like a business arrangement is being solidified more, more so than a wedding. Yeah. Yeah. It is also funny.

The video footage, like the people in the wedding even talk about how they like pull up in a horse-drawn carriage and the horse takes a massive shit. Like right as they're getting out of their room. I feel like that was like sort of appropriate for things to come. Wow. So Green would throw things, yell, swore, once flipped a table, overall created a culture of intimidation. This behavior was attested to by 16 individuals and sworn affidavits in a lawsuit against him. It is denied by him. He says, I don't have a temper.

I don't have a temper. I don't have a temper. Like you see this in the docu series, he like repeats it over and over again. And they're like, so you never flipped a table? He was like, I hope to God I did flip that table because it deserved to get flipped over a few times. Oh. I was like, oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.

We see you. Convincing. And here's where the step dead energy comes in. Yeah. The table at your factory where you're drawing kittens riding unicorns deserve to get flipped over. That's right. Yep. And what the fuck are you talking about?

Should have seen what that table was fucking saying. Yeah, exactly. Some other texture from people. So Lisa could be pretty mean to people. One person who worked there, I personally heard Lisa Frank scream at sales managers and threatened their lives if they fucked up a presentation. Oh, fuck, yeah.

Every day was so stressful and hearing Lisa's voice downstairs on a speakerphone made my blood run cold. People said of green, he really turned that place into a shit hole. the guy's kind of a dick. He will never take someone to the side if he has an issue with them.

Instead, he will scream and curse and belittle them in front of everyone. So standard bad boss shit, but then there's like some real Genesee qua, like some real next level shit. He wouldn't learn employees' names since they were like firing them every six months

and because he was an asshole. So instead he would give them nicknames of his own invention. He said, one former worker said, I had a friend there and she was not the most attractive girl, sort of portly. He used to refer to her as that guy, like within earshot of her. What the fuck? Holy shit, dude.

It was known that you couldn't wear heels if you worked for him. And the way he explained it was because, well, you can't walk fast enough to keep up with me if you're in heels. And in reality is just he's short. Yeah, that's right. And so he didn't want people looking taller than him. I was like, motherfucker. I know plenty of people could outwalk you at heels. Yeah.

Oh, wow. How tall was he? Do we know? Well, given that he had a top hat on at his wedding. He didn't allow heels. I'm going in at 5'4. He stayed in the carriage while they got married. Accusations include that management spied on employees.

And there's pretty good evidence for this, like based on someone in the docu series talks about how they got an email from one of their friends of the company being like, oh, James is coming down, great. And then they got called up to Rhonda's office.

Rhonda was like kind of his HR enforcer. And she was like, well, your little friend got fired. And the only reason you're not fired is because you didn't answer that email back. So like basically, openly being like, tracking and reading their emails. Yeah.

And at one point, Someone was like, I can tell you're reading my emails because like it says red next to the emails that I haven't opened. And they were like, oh, how do you make that like not show up though? How do I break into your house better without you knowing? Right. It's like the birth of the birth of what we all live with now. Right. He also had a company bulletin called Frankly speaking.

Lisa Frank, frankly speaking. Jesus Christ. Where they would talk about the company, but it just, it's amazing how much it reads like cult literature. I just, I have a direct quote from frankly speaking

that I want to read to you guys here. Being optimistic is simply a choice. Be positive. Negative people make positive people sick. No. If you want the relationship to make your career, allow this advice.

Be loyal. Bosses will forgive carelessness, stupidity, tardiness, and a temper tantrum, these can be corrected, but disloyalty is a true character flaw. You cannot and will not be trusted. Respect the boss's time and do not tread on his turf. He's the boss informed. The boss should be informed about what you are doing, where you are, whom you are talking to,

and why. These principles will serve you well. Know the fuck they will not. What the fuck was that? The temperature got hot real quick. Jones Town memos. Like, what? Don't tread on, what the fuck is even talking about?

Don't tread on him from Lisa Frank. Yes. This is from the desk of Lisa. Don't tread on the male boss. Lisa Frank Gadsden flag. When does the cocaine come into this? Because that feels very. I think it's just a river underneath everything.

Yeah, yeah. That feels very like, they're fucking after me, man. They're river underneath that's causing all of this. Yeah. This seems to have been, like people had cocaine suspicions kind of from the start. One of the quotes is that James and Rhonda were pretty big into Coke. There would be days when James would come down to the art department, super sweaty and super paranoid, and just like walking really fast back and forth through the design area.

And there was nothing to be stressed about. It was just a regular day. Dude, what are you? What are you doing? Just amongst all that fucking crazy art just like Fuck fuck Yeah

They're just trying to make the little penguin dry It is like The art is kind of trippy But it also is like Coki at the same time I feel like you know It's not a gentle art Yeah

Beyond maximalist It has a real sharpness to it It is not a like cozy place to be Yeah Somehow even like the round eyes feel like sharp to your point where they're like,

yeah, and everything I believe is outlined. He, I think his big contribution was like adding black outlines to a lot of things to also make everything seem super harsh and like pot more.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, coloring books, which, you know, go deep for her. Again, he's really good at denials

in the, in the docu series. They're like, so a lot of people said you were doing Coke at the office. He said, first of all, he loves to call it.

It's a woman who's doing the questioning in the docu-series. He loves to be like, what are you talking about? You have to be an idiot task, that quite. Like, he loves to give that stepdad energy back to them. You see, you don't want to be doing cocaine when you're in a business environment. What are you an idiot?

And then she's like, okay, so you never did cocaine. And he said, of course I did cocaine. He said, of course I did cocaine. He's just like, but I just didn't do it at the office. And I was like, uh-huh. Yeah, sure. Yeah, I did cocaine. Everybody was doing cocaine.

Yeah, we're talking about. The drug use had been going on for years. We saw Rhonda come to work from time to time, just totally fucked up. So Rhonda, it becomes like the James and Rhonda show. Rhonda is his right hand, like, HR person who in the docu-series is just like, I fired so many people. I can't even count how many people I fired. And they're like, you feel, how do you feel about that?

She's like, I don't, I don't, I don't, I. Oh, wow. Like, she's like, yeah. Yeah, like, her brain has been, like, blown out. It's wild. But she is in the, like, we mentioned the cult energy of that thing. She's like, there are certain people who are, are in this dog you series who feel like they are in a cult.

And she's one of them. She's questioned, she's like, I believe James is a genius, a true genius. I mean, how else could you possibly define a man who is an artistic genius, a business genius? Look at all the things that he built. And yeah, she's fully on board. She is essentially the hit man. They would like fire people work for like below market and, would be treated like shit

in the ways that we're describing but also like not paid well and then when they would be fired they would have their severance packages and stuff like that withheld until they had to sue to like get the packages like actually pay it out

but yeah so Rhonda comes to work we saw Rhonda come to work from time to time just totally fucked up one morning she couldn't even stand up straight and then there's a crazy story. So these are like kind of trickling in all over the place.

There's like one parenting forum where someone was talking about working at Lisa Frank, Inc. And somebody told the story about how James would send her with an unmarked box or a paper bag to meet someone at a gas station or a parking lot. And she was supposed to exchange her package for theirs and not look inside. and then he also had to buy his Viagra and his porn is an allegation. Yeah. So anonymous box drop-off exchanges for God knows what? Yeah. Oh, wow.

He wasn't buying porn in a box, though. That'd be funnier. We don't know what was inside that box. Yeah, exactly not because she knew she was buying the porn and the Viagra, but the box, the gas station box, he was like, we don't talk about what's inside the gas station. box. Jesus. Yeah. So.

That's a cool guy. Lisa, I don't think anybody ever talked about her behavior seeming particularly coke-fueled

at the office. However, there is a famous piece of art. There's like, so as mentioned, because this is like a real

Willy Wonka's chocolate factory of nightmares, they have every piece of art in a vault that you can like go in and like

look through in the office. And there's one, that is a note on the back of like a piece of art from one of Lisa Frank's friends to Lisa about how much fun quote she had free basing with Lisa and hoaring around New York

and he said I think we all Xeroxed to that one That is so funny Free basing and whoring around Hell yeah Oh what a time you know To be an artist in Ladies, New York.

That's so awesome. Yeah. See, now I'm like, now I want to know more about Lisa. I know. She's smart. She becomes mysterious. And then you want more of her.

But yeah, James becomes the front. Yeah. So James becomes the front. She's like mainly working from home, from the time they have kids in the mid-90s until September 2005, when Lisa files her divorce from James.

And, that just like throws everything. It's like a messy familial divorce, but on a like company wide scale, they come in. They're all like asking people. They're like, hey,

would you like if I started my own thing, like James is trying to get people to like go with him. He's like, you know that it's like my, like these are all my ideas, right? Like you know, I'm like she hasn't even been here. Like what do you?

I am Lisa Frank. Yeah. Oh, he says I am Lisa Frank so many times. It's his Instagram bio. Yeah, it's truly. He also has a. tattoo on his arm that says blame James.

And they're like, why do you have that? He's like, because what else am I going to like that's everybody. Everybody minds James. Yeah. Like during the course of his like run as the CEO, he made like tens of millions of dollars like having 49% of the like distribution. Like he has done so incredibly well for himself.

But also he's maniacal. And he just takes this company. And as much as he puts into it, he, he pisses all over it. Yes. Right. Yeah. Like this is where all the...

So Lisa kind of blames the divorce. She's like, you know, I was going to start a Disneyland and all these things. And then I went through a divorce. September 2005, Lisa files a suit against Green to oust him from her company. Then he countersues. And like his suit, like it, you know, they make claims of like this is, I was involved and this and I did like all all this.

He just doesn't seem like the person who has truth on his side. Like he claims that he created all of the characters and themes. It's just like that seems like you're a fucking liar. He tries to take credit for every single thing she ever did and say it was actually me. Yeah.

I'm just like, when you mentioned Chelsea, like his Instagram account, I just looked at it and it's like he's gone mentally. He's gone. I pulled it up because I was like, first off, and I don't know why this gets me, but he's got 3,000 followers. And it gets me because he's supposed to be the man behind Lisa Frank. And he has been shing tweeting her for a decade. Yeah. And he cannot get to 5K. And on February 19. Not for lack of trying. Not for lack of time. On February 19th, this year. So it's like this recent, it's like a month ago. He's like, here's something I will share on a personal note. See, Lisa. of Frank the person used to call me a control freak. And I remember once there was a woman of hers, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know what? I was the creator.

It was my vision. And then in all caps, nobody stood in the building again after I left. No more art. So yes, it was all about me. And yes, I was a control freak. But I knew that. That was intentional. It was the way I had to be.

Right. There's more. There's more paragraphs. And it's like, Miles are so good. Bro, you have been divorced for 20 years. Years. Rent, free. up in that brand.

Another one he just placed it. Let me just say this up front before I get started. There is a woman out there masquerading as Lisa Frank, the artist and the creator of the Lisa Frank brand.

See, the Lisa Frank company, the real one that you know and loved as a child, was built by me. I built the brand and created the artwork. See, I am the real creator of the Lisa Frank brand,

the real artist. Yeah. He posted that a little bit before Christmas last year. This is every post of his like, I did this, I did this.

And also I believe he lives in Mexico now, which is correct. And is a born again Christian. That's right. And he goes by J. He goes by Jaime Verde. I'm not joking. He got to, wait, what?

He has a t-shirt on that says Jaime Verde on. The, I just feel like he does. Yeah, he has a teard company. He's abusing. So one of the saddest things in the doggie series is that so that their sons are split, and Forrest, like, I think Forrest is the younger one.

He, he... It's a parent. Yeah, it's a parent trap situation. Each one takes a green. Forrest goes with Lisa and Hunter goes with James. And, like, I thought that the HR Rhonda was, like, fucking captured. Like, this dude is gone. Like, he is completely... The son.

The son is in a cult that is, like... A cult of one. Exactly. He's introduced and he's like, I just think like my mom didn't do shit. Like my dad did everything and like so why do you. And he never got credit. And he never got credit. But so you're like, okay, like it's clear that he's like just regurgitating the stuff that his dad has told him. Then he says like honestly, I think my dad's goat status, greatest artist of all time. I think he's the greatest artist of all time. I have his art tattooed on my arm. He thinks his dad is the great.

greatest artist of all time. You idiot. That said, this man can work in Instagram. Okay. We're like 150,000 followers and he became a pro baseball player by making baseball tic-toks. Yes. So I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. He became a pro baseball player.

In one year, I changed my life. Follow at 100 for comedy and a great story. And it's like, it's him becoming this like pro baseball. baseball player like as he like tweets about it. Wow. El Grinco loco is his baseball name. I mean. Not great.

It's not great. Not great. Yeah. Greenco loco. It's just all bad. Oh, he has another account called Pinché Greengo loco. Green go loco. Green go loco.

I mean, they love capitalism. Marketing runs in the DNA. Oh, and he's just like like doing Spanish language content. Yeah. Two. This one is crazy. Oh shit. The divorce does not go well for anyone.

No. The company is like at this time, everybody talks about the, like, one of the misconceptions I feel like I've seen in a lot of the coverage of this is like, people are like, and this is all happening as sales are like going down

and like the aesthetic is like going away and, you know, uh, naturally, it's just like falling off. I don't really, like, I think there would have been a way to keep building

with, like, this brand and, like, you know, her aesthetic sense and, like, you know, just artists. Like, there was a way to move this forward, but I think they just, like, kind of fucked themselves. Like, with just, like,

the internal strife. Like, I think they could have kept building. But the way, like, you just see from 1996 to 2004, the sales are just, like, going down, down, down. Slowly, slowly, slowly, and then very quickly.

I mean, there were aims to get to like some other escalation or like like another level of liquidity. They had plans for like

a Lisa Frank world like that would essentially be like Disneyland for Lisa Frank characters and like aesthetics and gear and you know there are plenty of people

so like the aftermath like you don't hear much from her in anything because she she'll like grant an interview here and there she won't appear in any docu series.

And, like, her only statement to the makers of this doggy series is, like, I've always loved art. Yada yada. Like, you know, just I let my art speak for itself. But, like, she does these collaborations with people that, like, always just go horribly. Like, she's, um, the Reebok

one, like, the big corporate ones, you're not going to hear, like, oh, it was a fucking nightmare. Uh, from the big corporations. You just see that, like, they did one run of shoes with Reebok. they sold out and then nothing else, you know, or they do align with Target and then it's over immediately. So the ones that you do actually hear from are,

like, there's this makeup brand that did a Kickstarter thing with her that was basically like Lisa Frank makeup sets, and they would like be sold in Trapper Keepers and things like that. Like an eyeshadow palette that looks like a Trapper. Yeah, an eyeshadow palette that looks like a little Lisa Frank. Trapper Keeper, it's like a cute idea. and they she's just like she makes one of them like take her and her son on a like really like all expenses trip to Greece and she's like yeah this is a business expense this is how big business is done and like basically like bankrupts them and then just drops them. They're a startup. They're a makeup startup who got her to license them the brand for one year, raise the money on Kickstarter and then she just never let them do anything with it. And all the people in Kickstarter were like, give us our money back.

They got mad at them and then she releases the product that they had designed together with a major established makeup brand like a year later. Oh wow. So really awesome. The exact same products too.

Like an eye shadow trapperkeeper. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So similar in the documentary. And then there's another like Instagram person who's an Instagram influencer who like has a room that is like rainbow

and, you know, it's like Lisa Frank coded, but like not, you know, explicitly. It's just a person who's like rainbows are like kind of my personality and like I love color. And Lisa Frank reaches out to them and is like, hey, like love this room. This is so cool. Love your aesthetic. And then like drops a collaboration with Hotels.com like a few months later that is like very clearly like designed off of that. And it's called like the Lisa Frank apartment. and it's like across the street from the other person's apartment.

It's like really weird fucked up stuff. Wow, treading on someone's territory. Yeah. But overall, you know, it does end in sort of like one of the darker stories other than like where her son ends up is like there's this one designer. Like people have an affinity for the brand. So like good artists will be like, yeah, I'd love to like come back. and like help Lisa. Oh, Lisa Frank's coming back.

Like every once in a while, they'll do like a post where they're like, we're back. And they have like two of the characters like waving from front of the factory. And people are like, oh, shit. Like, so they hire this one designer to come back and like help refresh the brand. And he shows up at the factory. And he's like, it is like Miss Havisham's place and great expectations. Like everything is like dusted over like the unicorn statue out front.

like the horn has literally fallen off his unicorn statue. He's like, goes in and he's like, it's just empty. There's like literal tumble weeds. It's a building that like clearly is used to have like 300 people working there and it's now like six people.

And she just like doesn't like anything that you do. Like she's just like, no, no, no. And like we'll be rate you and shit like that. He goes to a marketing, branding trade show a few years later. So he leaves there, goes to a marketing branding trade show in Vegas

and describes like being out on the floor where you've got like Marvel and you've got Disney. And there's like sort of the back off brand area. And he finds a booth that's just a printer page with like the Lisa Frank logo up, like taped to the wall. And like Lisa Frank herself just sitting at a fucking foldout table, just sitting there like trying to get,

get people to license the Lisa Frank brand. It's just like, it's like tar conducting the video game orchestra energy at the end of tar. Right. Right. It's just like, it just, you know, could have been something different. And like people are still trying here and there, but it does seem like it's just they kind of get in their own way.

Right. Oh. I wonder like her financial situation too, because she might not really be having like her back to the wall financially. She's just kind of like, I don't know. There's like like half-assed way of doing shit now.

Yeah, although it also doesn't seem like she was someone who would like save money. Like the fact that she had like a Lisa Frank jet, I don't think she made enough to sustain that. Just based on her aesthetic, restraint doesn't seem like it's. Restraint doesn't seem like the thing. And James seems like an absolute psychopath.

But if I were to give my gauge on the situation, it's that she's the big idea creator. She did start everything. She is the business mind. She did have the ideas for the drawings. He's the workhorse. He actually made the drawings, actually did the work. And she's like, that's good because I'm a rich kid.

I ain't going to do shit. So he did all the work for her, but then he mismanaged it. And she was like, fuck it. I just can't stay married to you. But she's never found that partner since who will be, I don't know, heavily abused on the rig to get her stuff done. Right. And so it just feels like she never met her next toxic partner in crime.

And so the brand. will kind of fizzle out and die forever. Yeah. Hey, unless somebody is out there listening, who can be that next toxic partner? Would you like to marry Lisa Frank? Can you take down an eight ball in an eight hour work day and are you, and you're handy with an airbrush? But what I love about this story is that usually you see a story like this gender switch.

Do you know where it's the guy being crazy big time evil and making the woman do all the work and then taking credit for it? And there's just something fun about seeing a woman be the evil mastermind. The guy tries to take credit. It doesn't work. And they're both just ride off in their evil carriage. Oh, you're Lisa Frank? For real?

Okay, James. It's actually Jaime Verde. I should go by Jaime now. It's just too close to Hyman, my guy. Like, what are we doing here? Heim and Verde. Green Hyman. Anything else that I missed not doing any Instagram research that you wanted to call out?

Chelsea. Oh, God. Well, the other son who went under her wing, he's fully private. He does seem like he's still under the Lisa Frank control. And Hunter is also under the James Green control, but it looks like freedom to him. And yeah, it is, I want a succession on the Lisa Frank family. That's what I think the true story is here. Not her brands, but like what happened with their family and everyone's named after a color.

God, it is really like when they were together even, like, I think it's Hunter, the one who is in Mexico with the dad was like, I never had a good birthday. Like, I never had a birthday that went well, which is just like, that's heartbreaking, man. Oh, it's for a kid to grow up and just be like, I was hoping every year, you know, maybe this will be the birthday. that's like everybody stays together and is happy and he's also giving like I have the child of multiple divorces and I remember the

first divorce like my mom's husband to be like your mom is just a dark light sorry to get personal hair but it really feels like that's what James did he's like and every birthday sucked because of your bitch mother who stole my artistry from my veins and left us to offend for ourselves in Mexico

like he's really he's really regurgitating the stories his dad told him in childhood, that's where it really felt extremely toxic. Like, I'm not even sure that's Hunter's perception of his own childhood. It's his dad's perception. Entire. Yeah, yeah.

Divorces can be really. Divorces in the 90s, no rules, man. Oh, no rules. You're now in a cult. The high of toxicity. No shame. Sorry, both of us are coming off some pretty gnarly coke habits, too. So we're like, couldn't be more.

or ill-equipped for this event. Parenting books don't exist for another 10 years. Nope, and I won't read them because it's going to say I fucked up at every corner. Just the ones that say that we should use primal screams? Exactly. Flip in a table. Optimism is a choice, idiot.

Yeah. Disloyalty will be punished by death. That one is so. Yeah. Talking to your, your art company. Like they weren't allowed to talk to each other.

They weren't allowed to talk to each other at the office. The artists were not allowed to talk to each other. Like no socializing? Or they're like, stay focused. No, whatever. Either way, you're not.

It's more like, we don't want you talking shit about us. That's exactly what Elizabeth Holmes did at the Toronto's company. Like, don't speak to each other. Oh, got it, got it. Because that'll create. They would pitch it as like,

because we want you guys focused on your work. But what it actually was was, what did she just say about me? Yeah. She asked if she was allowed to use the rest of it. Yeah. And stay siloed so you don't have collective power. Right. Right. Wow. But yeah, it's a wild story that gets a lot darker that I was expecting heading into this.

But Chelsea, I really appreciate you calling it out. I'm so thrilled to bring this rainbow from hell to your doorstep. Jesus Christ. Where can people find you, follow you, and check out your movie? Oh, you can listen to my podcast, Glamour's Trash, where we discuss mostly books and literature, but also, you know, we did dive in to Taylor Frankie Paul recently. So we go around, we get places. My film just premiered at South By, and so now we have, now I don't know where you can see it, but it's happening behind the scenes. And hopefully, I don't know, if you ever see a movie called Basic, go there and support women like me and Lisa Frank.

And not the 2012 Samuel Jackson Basic. Oh, no, not that one. No, this one starts late in Meester. Yeah. And Ashley Park. Ashley Park. Candy Muse. The great.

Yeah. Awesome. Thanks much for having me. Yeah. Thank you so much for doing it. Miles. Anything where people find you? Go support.

Basic. Go support Chelsea. Find it. Keep the perfect rating going. Come near you. Me. I'll be here. And shout out to Tracy Egan Morrissey, who wrote the Jezbel article Inside the Rainbow Gulag.

I didn't realize that was her. Yeah. Really good work. All right. I'll be right back with the notebook dump. Watch you all a minute. I'm Lori Siegel, a longtime tech journalist. And consider my new podcast, mostly human, your bridge to the future.

Anyone can now be an entrepreneur. Anyone can build an app. and it's very empowering. Each week, I'll speak to the people building that future, and we're going to break down what all of this innovation actually means for you. What I come to realize is that when people think that they're dating these AI companion, they're actually dating the companies that create this. We're experiencing one of the greatest tech accelerations in human history,

and let's be honest, that can be messy. There's no playbook for what to do when an AI model hallucinates a story about you. But it's my belief that we should all benefit from this moment. Mostly Human will show you how. My goal is to give you the playbook, so you can benefit. The reason I say agency is because, like, if we can give power back to people, then I think that's probably the best thing we can do for your mental health. Listen to Mostly Human on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

I'm Iris Palmer, and my new podcast is called Against All Od, and that's exactly what the show is about. doing whatever it takes to be thoughts. Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns. I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Eva Langoria. I think I had like $200 in my savings account and my mom goes, what are you going to do? And I was like, I'll figure it out. We got a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month and we all could not afford.

I was like, how am I going to make $100 a month? I'm opening up like I've never before. For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me. Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the My Cultura podcast network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I went and sat on the little ottoman in front of him. I said, hi, dad.

And just when I said that, my mom comes out. kitchen and she says, I have some cookies and milk. This is a badass convict. Right. Just finished five years. I'm going to have cookies and milk at them all. Yeah. On the Ceno Show podcast, each episode invites you into a raw, unfiltered conversations

about recovery, resilience, and redemption. On a recent episode, I sit down with actor, cultural icon Danny Trail to talk about addiction, transformation, and the power of second chances. the entire season two is now available to bench featuring powerful conversations with the guests like Tiffany Addish, Johnny Knoxville, and more. I'm an alcoholic.

And without this trouble, I'm going to die. Open your free I-Heart radio app. Search the Ceno Show. And listen now. This is Amy Roboc alongside T.J. Holmes from the Amy and T.J. podcast. And there is so much news, information, commentary coming at you all day

and from all over the place. What's fact, what's fake, and sometimes what the F. So let's cut the crap, okay? Follow the Amy and T.J. podcast, a one-stop news and pop culture shop to get you caught up and on with your day. And listen to Amy and T.J. on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. All right. That was our Lisa Frank conversation.

Thank you to Chelsea, Devontas. Don't forget to find her movie Basic. when it comes out all around creative powerhouse, creative genius, one of the funniest people in the world. Thank you, as always, to Miles Gray, speaking of funniest people in the world. This is the No, No, No, No, No Book Dump, where I tell you the stuff I forgot to go into during the conversation

or didn't have time to. There was a point in the research that I did mention where this art director goes to work for her, in, I think it was 2015, and, you know, goes to the factory, and it's this post-apocalyptic wasteland version of her once bustling studio. It's gone from like 200 people working there down to six. The unicorn's horn fell off that part. So that designer said at that point that he thought one of the things getting in the way of her success was her old idea.

is her past success. Quote, she just wanted to fall back on some of her previous legacy characters, said James, an art director who was hired in 2015 to create new characters. I think it's because she felt it was successful once. Let's try it again. I say it was some remorse

too because I saw the potential, but I think Lisa stood in her own way, honestly. That was from a People Magazine article about the docu series. I just want to say, that's not uncommon. with the icons we've covered, an inability to move on from the thing that made you successful

in the first place. That first taste of globe striding success is a powerful drug. And you have to tell a bunch of people who doubt you to get fucked on your way to experiencing that drug. And so how do you come down from that? And now, you know, here you are again with people doubting you. and you're like, well, I know what to do in this situation. We saw this with Einstein. We saw it with, you know, other lesser people, but we saw it with fucking Einstein, this, you know, genius of physics.

His big masterstroke was to create a unified theory of relativity that, like, tied all of the large-scale forces of the universe together into one unified system, even though they seem to be operating differently. and he was like, no, actually, and here's how it works. So when quantum mechanics came along and people are like, things are behaving really weird at the level of like electron microscopes or whatever, he's like, nah, they're actually not behaving that way.

Essentially, he is wrong on quantum mechanics because he's acting in accordance with the instinct that gave him his greatest victory, which is that everything is, actually unified and there's going to be this unified theory of how everything works together. More consequentially, look at the way Michael Jordan dresses or other famous men. You know, their sense of fashion tends to freeze in place when they're at peak fame. And yes, it's because people stop saying no to them. But it's also, you know, when they start being like, I've got to trust this inner voice. Because look where it's gotten me.

It's gotten me the main thing, this powerful drug that I've always. always wanted, which is immense fame. It got me those yes men, those people who don't say no to me. The power of humans to achieve massive success and keep evolving feels like it can be more limited than we give it credit for. That's why some of our not actually human icons without an ego attached to them, your Santa's Clause, your gray aliens, have an advantage over human icons. they will adapt and evolve in whatever way we need them to,

to remain their most iconic. And then I'd say that's also true for iconic figures once they die. It starts being less about what they want to be and starts being about what we need them to be. All right. Another reason she might not be able to come up off those old iconic characters, those early instincts and early character, designs. She says she started designing them when she was a child, which that actually reminded

me of Stephen King, who in a past episode described writing the novels that made him famous as an adult as being, he said he felt like he had a series of characters that he'd had in his mind since as long as he could remember, just like waiting at a revolving door. And like, he would just let them out one at a time. And, you know, with Lisa Frank, she came up with some of the best stuff that, like, made her a massive success when she was a kid and, you know,

when she was the age of the children that she ends up designing for. Her ex-husband, when he was maybe being a little bit more honest about her in 1998, said, she understands little girls. You know, she's a little girl at heart. Uh, but she was also a little girl. in the 70s trying to design for little girls in the modern world.

So she needed to come up off those old characters or listen to other people's instincts. But again, that can be hard. Or, you know, she needed to go turn second grade classrooms into focus groups. The atmosphere, by the way, we'll link off to that CNN report. But the atmosphere of the classroom focus group from that CNN report is wild. kids are like pointing at the designs they like and shouting like it seems like a kids bop version of the Chicago trading floor where they're all like that one give me that one I love it and then a lot of drug talk in this episode she does seem to have I don't know I would say like that naturally high brain that I feel like I kind of glimpsed and talked about in the notebook dump from the Einstein research like Einstein was a genius at math and physics and all that shit but he was also a genius at having these sort of A to Z sort of high shower thoughts.

And he also behaved in his day to day life like he was constantly high. But with Lisa Frank, she made art and lived her life. Like she was seeing it through the lens of someone who was on, I don't know, something. Like she said, you read stuff about me. People think it was all influenced by drugs. You couldn't do what I did if I was on drugs.

And maybe she couldn't do it. what she did well on drugs, but it does feel like maybe other people would need drugs to kind of approximate her natural state of mind. Drugs are just accessing naturally occurring brain chemicals and dumping them into your brain on command. That's why drug addiction is often about control as much as anything. But, you know, she was, she really experienced colors in a lot of. very very vibrant way and the times that I've experienced colors in an extremely vibrant way have

usually been at least helped along by chemical induced things back when I did that sort of thing anyways didn't think I'd end up connecting so many ideas from the Lisa Frank episode with Einstein but here we are definitely a fucked up business a sign of how not to treat employees but also very, you know, impressed with some elements, the proprietary colors, her singular vision. And then, you know, all the things that capitalism, all the ways that capitalism corrupts. And suddenly she feels like she owns rainbows. Great story. Great pick from Chelsea.

That's going to do it for Lisa Frank. We are back next week with probably the most famous icon of my. my lifetime that we've covered so far. Possible exception of Santa Claus, but, you know, I'll just say, Santa never sang the National Anthem at the Super Bowl so well that they

started selling five-minute-long VHS copies of Santa Claus's performance of the national anthem. Um, and those, those VHSs that literally five-minute long VHS is sold like fucking hotcakes. Um, when Santa shows up to a football game, they throw batteries at him. But when Whitney Houston does it, it creates legends.

So next week, talking about the truly great Whitney Houston. It's a very fun conversation. Look forward to that. More zeitgeist in the meantime. Thank you for listening. Bye. I'm Lori Siegel, and this is mostly human, a tech podcast through a human lens. This week, an interview with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

I think society is going to decide that creators of AI products bear a tremendous amount of responsibility to the products we put out in the world. An in-depth conversation with a man who's shaping our future. My highest order bit is to not destroy the world with AI. Listen to mostly human on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. How could this have happened in City Hall? Somebody tell me that. A shocking public murder.

This is one of the most dramatic events that really ever happened in New York City politics. I scream. I don't get down. Those are shots. A tragedy that's now forgotten and a mystery that may or may not have been political. That may have been about sex. Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast, Eating While Broke, is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future.

This month, hear from top streamer, Zoe Spencer, and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum, Peacier. Pierre as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up. There's an economic component to community striving. If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they failed. Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Earners, what's up? Look, money is something we all deal with, but financial literacy is what helps turn income into real wealth.

On each episode of the podcast, Earn Your Leisure, we break down the conversations you need to understand money, investing, and entrepreneurship. From stocks and real estate to credit, business, and generational wealth, our goal is simple. Make financial literacy accessible for everyone. Because when you understand the system, you can start to build within it. Open your free IHeart radio app. Search Earn Your Leisure and Listen Now. This is an IHeart podcast.

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