Transcript
music
“Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song” by Brian Keith Dalton. A jaunty, upbeat instrumental.
carrie poppy
Hello!
ross blocher
Hi, everybody. This is an update and corrections episode. But we recorded this a couple weeks ago, before a lot went down in the world. And we just wanted to record an extra little update to our updates.
carrie
[Chuckles.] So, we recorded this three days before the murder of George Floyd. [Ross confirms.] So, that’s why you won’t hear reference to that in this episode. Boy, when we were recording this, I thought nothing would eclipse coronavirus.
ross
Yeah. Oh, the world is so topsy-turvy.
carrie
But it did. So.
ross
I know both of us have been just gutted.
carrie
Yeah, for sure. But you know, it’s nothing compared to— [Ross agrees.] —Black people in this country. Yeah.
ross
Right, and if we feel that way… yeah, imagine how Black people feel.
carrie
Yeah. So, what can two White hosts say about this? I don’t even know. [Chuckles uncomfortably.] I guess one thing I’d suggest for people who are thinking about these issues and who are White and privileged, like me, is to try out Project Implicit, at Harvard. So, that’s at Implicit.harvard.edu. It’s a project they’ve been doing for a while where they help you identify your own inherent biases. Don’t wanna give away the game, per se, but basically you play a game and then it shows you the ways in which your subconscious loads you toward having these biases toward people who don’t look like you or live like you or seem like you, for whatever reason.
ross
You hear about studies like that, so that’s cool that they have a way to go interact with that. I will do that.
carrie
Yeah. It’s cool. And once you—you might even think, as you’re listening to this, “Well, Carrie! You’re giving it away and now I’ll be able to game it.” That’s the thing, you can’t even game it. Like, I know [chuckles] what it’s trying to do, and I still can’t stop it. Like—
ross
Amazing. Yeah.
carrie
So, I think the lesson is, like—we all carry these very shitty, subconsciouses around. [Laughs.] That evolution gave us and they—they’re not as pretty people as our bigger, higher brains. And we’ve all got them. So, I mean, it’s about whether you educate yourself and try to overrule these sort of base instincts. [Ross agrees.] But it sucks!
ross
Yeah. Yeah, it does. And education is key, because we can retrain our gut responses to things. And so, now’s a great time to be reading books by Black authors. [Carrie agrees.] And about issues of social justice and racial equity. It’s a great time to watch movies. It’s a great time to listen to podcasts!
carrie
Mm-hm. Yeeeah! Like the podcasts on Max Fun that are hosted by Black hosts!
ross
Minority Korner.
carrie
Yeah, culture and news podcast.
ross
They’re covering all the news coming out, in really relevant ways. So, check that out.
carrie
Yeah, there’s Heat Rocks—which is a music review show. Who Shot Ya?, which is a movie podcast. My friend Ify co-hosts that one. And a new one, called FANTI, which is a—our listeners will love this, it’s a portmanteau of “fan” and “anti”. [Ross chuckles.] So, they look at—they’re two—
ross
Oh, that’s right! They were on the Judge John Hodgman show. [Carrie affirms.] They were debating whether or not to cover the Kardashians in an episode.
carrie
[Laughs.] That’s great.
ross
And Judge John Hodgman—for those of you who have access to the bonus content, not only will you hear our dispute, but also—
carrie
Which—you can skip past that.
ross
[Laughing.] You will hear his excellent ruling on that case.
carrie
[Skeptically.] I don’t know that he gives excellent rulings. [Ross wheezes with laughter.] But they look at pop culture. They’re two Black journalists and they look at pop culture from sort of a nuanced perspective of, like, every piece of art is going to have pro and con and how do we kind of deal with that? Also, I don’t know, I—yeah, I hear this question a lot. Like, “But what do I do?” And obviously there are a lot of different ways to, like, deal with this problem. I think one way that we don’t talk about enough—and like, we kind of—I don’t know, we have some weird [blows a raspberry] aversions to talk about it in our culture, but like—just give your money away! [Ross agrees.] If you’re—if you’re privileged in the financial realm, like, other people aren't.
ross
A little bit.
carrie
And that’s—yeah, even a little bit. [Ross agrees.] Like, that’s such a clear and easy way to begin to level the playing field.
ross
Yeah. Like, a couple that I’ll just recommend—one is the Equal Justice Initiative. If you haven’t seen or read the book Just Mercy. By the way, the film is now available for free for the month of June on all streaming platforms, which is really cool that Warner Brothers did that—or almost all of the streaming platforms. Anyways. Give to the work that Bryan Stevenson and all of them are doing. And also, another one is Campaign Zero and they’re looking at data. I love data-driven policy, and they’re looking at data of different police departments and what actually moves the needle on reducing violence against Black people. And so, they have kind of like eight main policies that have really shown to reduce violence by up to like 72%. And anyways, that’s another good cause, Campaign Zero.
carrie
Yeah. I supported them myself, this week. I think there’s, like—there’s some discussion about that charity and what’s the best way to attack all these things and we’re not policy experts. So, I couldn’t tell you, but you know—I like that all these different approaches are coming into the conversation. You know. Some with sort of more radical agendas and some with more moderate agendas, like—we need all those—all those people in the conversation. Today, I just gave to UNCF, which we used to call the United Negro College Fund but changed its name to UNCF. Because I think thing, today—I was like, “What are the ways in which I feel particularly privileged in a really obvious way?” I’m sure there are lots of invisible ways that I don’t even think about. But the thing I feel most privileged by is my education. That’s like, “Oh, okay, who’s giving education to disadvantaged people?” And—
ross
I like that. Yeah. Kind of wherever your particular interests lie, there is something to match that. And yeah, those are just the tiny tip of the iceberg, you know. There’s the NAACP. There’s the ACLU. There’s all these really good causes and groups you can give to, big and small. Yeah, that’s a—that’s an excellent way to do something. [Carrie agrees.] There’s protests going on. You know. Show up. Protest. Be heard.
carrie
Yeah. Anyway! Here’s a podcast update about, you know, homeopathy and shit. [Ross laughs.] We hope you like it. [Laughs.]
ross
Yeah. Alright, yeah. Back to our updates and corrections episode.
music
“Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song” by Brian Keith Dalton. A jaunty, upbeat instrumental.
ross
Hello! And welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie! The show where we don’t just report on fringe science, spirituality, and claims of the paranormal, but! Take part ourselves.
carrie
Yep! When they make the claims, we show up, so you don’t have to. I’m Carrie Poppy.
ross
And I’m Ross Blocher. And this is a little updates and corrections episode. [Carrie confirms.] We’ve been meaning to do that for a long time, because it’s been a while since we’ve—
carrie
—been wrong.
ross
—we’ve updated ourselves and corrected ourselves. Well, you know we do that off and on anyway. So, we’ve released lots of little, mini corrections along the way. Because whenever relevant and not too off topic, we like to let you know when we’ve messed up, said things wrong.
carrie
Sure. Or just update everybody!
ross
Right! ‘Cause there’s all these fun little things that continually happen after investigations. They never fully leave us. [Carrie confirms.] We’re left with newsletters. [Carrie laughs.] We are left with new pen pals and correspondents.
carrie
Yeah, definitely. Video obsessions.
ross
Right. Yeah. New subscriptions to YouTube channels. That’s kind of the danger of this show and our format, is we cover so many topics and we try to stay kind of tapped into all of them.
carrie
That’s a 10 on the danger rating, is—
ross
Yeah. [Laughs.] That’s true.
carrie
Getting stuck in a YouTube rabbit hole.
ross
All of those danger ratings from all the investigations, just add them up.
carrie
You’ll probably notice when we get to corrections that a lot of these corrections are like, “When did they ever even talk about that?”
ross
Right. “I don’t remember that. That’s not important to me.” Well, it was important to someone who emailed us!
carrie
[Laughs.] A lot of the times it’ll be something that we sort of tangented—[swallowing the sound] tangential-ed into.
ross
That’s the most dangerous territory, when, “Eh, you know, I remember hearing about this thing. Blah, blah, blah. Well, anyway. Moving on.” That’s when I get things wrong. [Carrie agrees.] Then we hear about them. But this is good! We wanna know when we’re wrong. There’s nothing wrong with being wrong. We’re always gonna be wrong. Everybody is wrong about things all the time. And the way you find out is to get them right and change. You know, sometimes people write and say, [grouchily] “Well, you got this thing wrong. And here you are, you know, getting mad at other people for getting things wrong!” Yeah! That’s fine. People get things wrong. There’s a difference when you’re making a claim that’s part of your business, your job, your profession, and you’re promoting wrong ideas. And there’s also another thing where, you know, you learn and you stop saying things and say, “Ope! Sorry, oops. I was wrong about that. I won’t get that wrong again!”
carrie
I think, how central is that thing to your point? The theme of whatever you’re doing. That matters quite a bit. Say—say—say—say, say, say, say, say your whole thing is that you’re the world’s most supported medical medium. [Ross agrees with a chuckle.] Most supported, most backed by the scientific establishment. I don’t know. Maybe you should know what a double-blind study is.
ross
It’s that whole maxim of “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence”. There’s kind of a similar scale there, where there’s a level of importance to the thing you’re saying and how much rides on you getting it correct. Anyways! We wanna clear the air when we get things wrong. So—
carrie
Aaand mostly people write in very nicely.
ross
Yes! That’s true. And we really appreciate that.
carrie
Alright, anyway. [They chuckle.] First update and/or correction, [imitates an announcement bugle].
ross
[Singing.] Bum-baaa!
carrie
So, we cured COVID. That’s what my notes say.
ross
Okay, so this is in relation to our recent, homeopathy for COVID-19 class that we took.
carrie
Yeah, so we offhandedly asked what hydrotherapy is, ‘cause she kind of went quickly past that, I guess, in a slide. And we were like, “What’s that? Is that just curing things with water? Is that drinking water? What is that?”
ross
We couldn’t be bothered.
carrie
Yeah. [Laughs.] There was—I mean, so much flies by you in that class, it’s wild. [Ross agrees.] But a few people wrote in or tweeted to let us know what it is. So, we were right! It’s using water for pretty much anything.
ross
It’s a big catch-all term for some things of varying levels of repute.
carrie
Yeeeah, so that’s one of the problems, is that it’s so widely applied that I was looking up studies about, like, okay—hydrotherapy. Is it real? Does it work? They were including things like using an icepack. You know, like on a sprained ankle.
ross
As an example of water therapy?!
carrie
As an example of [laughing] hydrotherapy. They were like—
ross
Hydrotherapy, okay.
carrie
They were like, “That works!” It’s like, well yeah. Yeah. Agreed.
ross
It’s funny, the thing that comes to my mind is Charles Darwin had a water cure that he was really into.
carrie
For thirst.
ross
[Chuckles.] A good cure for thirst is to drink water! Yes. Very good, Charles Darwin. I didn’t find out about this until I saw the 2009 film, Creation—with Paul Bettany playing Charles Darwin. And there was this whole scene where he takes his daughter to this practitioner and they dump just tons of water on him. And I’m watching the movie thinking like, “He didn’t do that! That’s crazy!” [Carrie laughs.] Turns out he did! He had this series of terrible complaints of all kinds of things going wrong with his body. He was vomiting. He had nausea. He had—I think headaches and eczema and—everything was wrong with Charles Darwin, poor guy. And people now think it was maybe some problem with his autonomic nervous system. That’s like the system that kind of runs all of your unconscious functionings of your body. So anyways, poor guy. He was miserable all the time. And so, he would have, like, water dumped on him and… [Carrie makes a sympathetic sound.] Yeah. And he had a doctor trying out homeopathy on him and he didn’t buy into that so much. Good job, Charles Darwin. ‘Cause it was pretty new at the time. Anyways, that what I think of when I think of water therapy. You were saying?
carrie
[Laughs.] Well, we’ve also of course heard it applied to colonic hydrotherapy, which is shooting water up your butt for various reasons. So, that’s definitely on the less supported by the evidence end of the spectrum.
ross
And I guess homeopathy itself is a form of hydrotherapy. [Carrie agrees.] You’re thinking the water’s got this amazing power to heal you ‘cause it has a memory. Speaking of which, someone pointed out very aptly that really, more than water—even alcohol—you’re talking about the memory of sugar pills. Because essentially they’re taking that water that—we talked about all the difficulty that goes into sicussing and all of that. And they’re just putting a drop of it on the sugar pill and that’s supposed to be the storage medium to hold all this. So really, sugar has a memory.
carrie
Touché!
ross
There you go!
carrie
So, about Shakuntali Siberia.
ross
Ooooh, this is a big one!
carrie
My very best friend.
ross
Lotta updates here.
carrie
Boy. Okay. Well.
ross
She did not like the episode! She didn’t like it while she was in it.
carrie
[Laughs.] And then she came to love it and now she’s a big fan of the show. Hi, Shakuntali! [Ross jokingly agrees.] Nooo, that’s not true.
ross
So, immediately she set about online to subterfuge the episode and our podcast and all of these efforts that we make.
carrie
Sooo, here’s what then happened. First of all, listener Mike saw the plank she was walking across in the famous walking on water video. I can’t believe I didn’t actually bother to look. I guess my—subconsciously I was like, “They didn’t leave the plank visually in.”
ross
Right! Who would be so sloppy and lazy! I wasn’t looking for it either. But yeah, there’s this video of her miraculously walking on water, on YouTube. And very cleverly, whoever was editing this together, at least distracted from the moment where you can see the board that she is walking on—that is just under the surface of the water—‘cause, as it goes back towards the shore, that’s when you see it crest above the water. So, it’s right behind her. And instead of, you know, using Mocha and editing it out or something like that, instead they put this big flourish of light that kind of shined on Shakuntali and then moved screen left. Hopefully to distract you for just the two or three seconds that the board is visible. Why not just cut that out?
carrie
Don’t use that POV!
ross
If you don’t know how to match, move, and erase a board, at least just cut it out!
carrie
That means someone shooting the video knew. So, there are more people in on this gimmick.
ross
Oh yeah. Layers of dishonesty.
carrie
Yeah. Indeed. Well, listener Mike thought to actually look and see if he could see the board, whereas I was just like, “There’s no way.”
ross
Yeah! I know. And then both of us felt guilty like, “Oh. Why did we not actively look for the board that we assumed was there?”
carrie
Right. You can see her walking the way you would walk trying to balance on a balance beam, so that was enough for me.
ross
Right around the 55 second mark, in the video.
carrie
So, we posted about this. We posted Mike’s screenshot where he circles the board. I actually did send that screenshot to Alice—Shakuntali’s assistant—and was like, “Hey. You deserve to know this.”
ross
Yeah. Here’s a lie. Look at it.
carrie
[Laughing.] Yeah! And she said, “She does walk on water, I’ve seen it myself.” I was like, “Okay, but that—that doesn’t address this.” So, we had a back and forth that was civil but a little heated. Then, Shakuntali took down that video, or at least made it private.
ross
Right, so nobody could see it for a while.
carrie
Right. Then reinstated it.
ross
As an unlisted video. [Carrie affirms.] So, if you still have it in your browser cache, as I do, yes. You can still get there. But if you search on YouTube for “Shakuntali water”, it won’t show up. And then, on that video and another one where she had very not-so-subtly referred to the people who are trying to be naysayers and critics of her—“needing forgiveness for these terrible people”, which sounded like it might be talking about Carrie and this podcast. Enough people saw that and downvoted it [chuckling], like disliked it. Hit the thumbs down. Where those thumbs downs were outnumbering the thumbs up by quite a bit. She disabled that just so you couldn’t see how many likes or dislikes those videos had had.
carrie
She doesn’t allow comments anyway. But it seems very our show’s fans anyway to be like, [tersely] “I’m not gonna say something mean, but thumbs down.”
ross
[Laughs.] You’re right. Which, you know, that’s fine by me. [Carrie agrees.] But yeah, then where did she go?
carrie
So, then she went to Facebook and saw that we had a variety of pictures that were sort of supporting documentation for the interview. And one was pictures of her trifold, which I got free at the Conscious Life Expo, from—
ross
Being passed out to everybody.
carrie
—from one of her followers.
ross
Made by her.
carrie
It does have some untruths printed on it. Just that she has a PhD, some HIV curing adjacent claims. So, I’d taken pictures of this and put it on our Facebook. So, she submitted what’s called a DMCA takedown—Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown.
ross
Mm-hm. And social media companies take this very seriously. When you file one of those claims, you are saying, “I am legally the author of this content. It is being improperly used by… x podcast.”
carrie
Carrie.
ross
Or Carrie. “And so, I am telling you, Facebook, to remove it.” [Carrie agrees.] And Facebook automatically does that. It just takes that—
carrie
At face value.
ross
At face value. They don’t research it; they don’t look at it. There’s no human involved. Just immediate takedown.
carrie
And then you can try to appeal the decision, and that may or may not work. Kind of worked in our case. Anyway. This was a cruddy thing to do. I believe that was a fair use use, which means that we were using it to support reporting work. It doesn’t affect her market value. This is one of the things that’s fair use—one of the questions is, “Well, did the critic’s use affect your market value in some way other than they were criticizing you?” [Ross agrees.] If I printed her entire book somewhere—well, now you can just get it on my website and not pay her the $13 for her Kindle. That’s the sort of thing that’s meant to be an exception to fair use. Here, it’s like, uuuh.
ross
Yeah, you’re not cutting out the bottom of the market on her free pamphlet that she hands out.
carrie
[Laughing.] Right. And anybody who looks at that and goes, “Oh. Huh. Something’s screwy,” is saying something’s screwy about what she wrote in her pamphlet. Not our posting in any wayyy. So, we fought this. Those photos are still gone.
ross
You and our lawyer, Matthew Strugar, wrote a very impassioned and fact-filled response to those takedown requests. And Facebook just sent an automated response saying, “Nope. This isn’t how we do things.” Instead, the system requires the person who filed to write back with the email they used to register this complaint and say, “You know what, actually—"
carrie
“I changed my mind. You can use it.”
ross
“I changed—” Right. But that doesn’t help in the situation with Shakuntali’s likely other takedown notices.
carrie
So, then we started getting DMCA takedown notices for very old photos from very old episodes.
ross
So, she just went through old albums—
carrie
[Interrupting.] We don’t know it was her.
ross
We have a fair suspicion that—but yeah. That’s true. We do not know for sure. But right after those takedowns, we got other takedown requests for older images that were ascribed to email addresses that sounded kind of like the actual copyright holders but weren’t. And in one case, it was the Handsomizer logo. The Handsomizer is the hair styling business of our good friend, Stephen Mason, of Jars of Clay fame. And he had been on our show. He’s a friend of ours. And so, this had been taken down. And instead of the email address being Handsomizer, it was Handsomizzer.
carrie
[Chuckling.] Two ‘Z’s.
ross
Like, okay. So, what are you supposed to do? You’re supposed to negotiate with this fake address to get your content returned?
carrie
And we did check with Stephen and he was like, “Nope, not me.”
ross
Yeah, “I didn’t do that.” And then there was another piece of artwork from our amazing facts investigation.
carrie
From, like, 2017 or something!
ross
So, both of those were things that I had uploaded, and Facebook decided not only to remove those instantly, but then to ban me from Facebook.
carrie
Fiiinally! The [laughs]—the ugliest voice on Facebook is finally gone.
ross
[Laughs.] So, for three days, I had no Facebook access to comment or like or post or anything. Super irritating. And so, I responded to Facebook. Long story. Anyways, they kind of responded with their auto-responder, “No, sorry, we’re not putting the content back.” I angrily replied again. And they put the content back but did not reduce my Facebook jail sentence. [Carrie chuckles flatly.] Anyways. Good fun. The other piece of this was that, most likely, it looks like Shakuntali or her followers created four fake Facebook profiles and they were brand new—as of the time we’d published the episode—to go onto our various posts on Facebook and comment, “Oh, I don’t understand! I thought she was wonderful!” [Carrie chuckles.] And I pointedly asked a couple times on those, in response, “Asking, as a real question, are you Shakuntali or someone who is writing on her behalf?”
carrie
Who works for her. Mm-hm.
ross
Yeah. Those weren’t responded to. One of them—I was doing reverse image searches on the profile images. One of them was an image from a Ukrainian dating website.
carrie
Oh no. [Laughs.]
ross
[Chuckling.] And so, I said, “Either this is not your name, or somebody has stolen your photo for a Ukrainian dating website.”
carrie
Or you’re on a Ukrainian dating website.
ross
Yeah. And so, I linked to that. And that profile got deleted pretty quickly.
carrie
Ooh. Hm. Interesting.
ross
So. Yeah! Shakuntali. Creating all kinds of trouble.
carrie
Perhaps!
ross
Perhaps.
carrie
Yeah, I did let Alice know—and this is true—that it’s not legal to impersonate someone else online. And then she did not write back, since then. And there’s even more than that. But we’ll tell you later.
ross
More in progress.
carrie
Well, about our republican dude. Oh boy.
ross
Oh yeah! So, you remember also at the Conscious Life Expo, this was one—we didn’t even personally meet him or go to one of his talks, but we found his little postcard where he was searching for his republican goddess. And we took the survey at MyRepublicanGoddess.com. You may remember it. It’s good fun.
carrie
I lazily and half-jokingly said, “I wanna talk to this guy. Someone figure out what his name is and email me. I can’t be bothered.” [Ross chuckles.] And, like, ten of you probably did!
ross
We got a lot of excellent sleuths amongst our listeners!
carrie
So, we do know his real name now. I would discourage anyone from being in contact with this fellow. Heee… yeah. There is some documentation indicating that he had a lot of troubling personal stories and legal issues and…
ross
That he was, uh, stalking a woman. At least, she had multiple restraining orders against him.
carrie
Yeeeeeah. And some stuff written by him about those incidents that don’t make me feel better about those incidents! You know. Thank you everybody. You did the right thing. You were being very nice! But I think we can let that train leave the station.
ross
We know everything we need to know about him, now. But he’s a fascinating character. There are many layers to this guy. And he’s been involved in a number of kind like spiritual pursuits and little business pursuits. And one thing that had done was he had written a book about prostitution.
carrie
Oh yes, I gave a copy of this on Kindle to Drew, as a gift. [Ross laughs softly.] [Yelling into the other room.] Hey, babe! Have you read that prostitution book yet?!
drew spears
[Muffled.] What?
carrie
That book I sent you. The Kindle about prostitution. You read that yet? [Ross giggles.] From the republican goddess guy.
drew
[Muffled.] Ooh. Uh, nooo.
carrie
Okay. [Ross wheezes with laughter.] That’s fair. Thank you, hun.
ross
I’m 35% of the way through the book, because—thank you to listener Katie Catsicas—I have a copy of it. She gifted me, on Kindle. [Carrie laughs with delight.] Cara, like, did not understand. I was like, “No, I’m reading this book on prosti—remember that guy? We were talking about him? He wrote this. He’s, like, telling us why it’s good.” “Why are you reading it?” “For irony! I don’t know! For the podcast!”
carrie
[Laughing.] Someone sent it to me!
ross
[Laughing.] Yeah! Oh, my goodness.
carrie
Katie Catsicas and I, keeping! This! Man! In! Busineeeess!
ross
Right? Yeah. At least it was only, like, four bucks on kindle. But! He had written this as part one. It was gonna be a five-part opus.
carrie
Oooh, never say that from the beginning.
ross
Deconstructing all of the, uh, social morays against prostitution. And I’ll just show you one of his diagrams.
carrie
[Flatly.] Great. And we’re using the word “prostitution” here ‘cause that’s the word he uses. Though, of course, people in the industry tend to say sex work.
ross
Yes. Oh no, he very thoroughly describes why he’s using the prostitution and why—
carrie
Ooooh. Good, good.
ross
Why it’s a good thing and a sacred thing.
carrie
Woooah.
ross
And why he’s very thankful to all the prostitutes that have received his money and given him sex.
carrie
Oh wow, okay.
ross
But Carrie’s looking at this…
carrie
[Stammering.] Flow chart?! What would you call this?
ross
Yeah? No, flow chart’s right. It’s a bunch of, like, bubbleoid shapes that are connected. And he’s numbered—I think it’s 43 counterarguments against prostitution. And one by one he goes through and he, you know, he proves them invalid! But I don’t understand what the flow is to that flow chart. [Carrie agrees.] Because they’re numbered, but sometimes one, two, and three are right next to each other, but then you have to jump halfway around the diagram to get to four? And it’s not connected in any logical—so, I’m not sure where the numbering came from, except I guess that was the order he wanted to confront these myths. It’s written just like his dating website. And it’s—[laughing] it’s terrible! Because he just, like, sets up what he’s gonna say and then he says it. And then he unpacks it. “And this is what I just said. And I proved to you what I said would say.” [Carrie chuckles.] And, you know.
carrie
It’s like an episode of Destinos.
ross
I don’t know what that is.
carrie
Oh, it’s a telenovela meant to teach you Spanish. And they go, like, “This is what will happen in this episode. Now it’s happening. Do you remember what happened in the episode?”
ross
Yeah, but even more didactic and annoying. Anyways. Yeah, he says all kinds of things about how men need sex and women shouldn’t be withholding it from them. That’s—
carrie
Oooh nooo! [Ross agrees.] I was with you for a second!
ross
It’s very uncomfortable.
carrie
Yeah. No problem with voluntary sex work, but uh, yeah. You could make some bizarre claims around there if you want to.
ross
That’s a good point. He does make a lot of good arguments! ‘Cause there are many good arguments for responsible sex work. And you know, that’s what he’s calling for. So, I’m getting a little more sympathy for the guy as I read his story.
carrie
[Laughs.] Oh, okay, cool. So, anyway!
ross
He means well.
carrie
Ross is best friends with him now.
ross
If you follow me on Goodreads, you can find my review of that book—which I probably will have finished by the time this comes out. I write long, ridiculously long, reviews of every book I read.
carrie
I write mostly very short reviews of the books I read. But sometimes full reviews!
ross
Nice!
carrie
Mostly I just say, like, “GOOD!” [Ross agrees with a chuckle.] “Not good! Dumb!” How ‘bout them David John Oates?
crosstalk
Ross: David. John. Oates. Carrie: How ‘bout them Oates?
ross
Yes, that’s our reverse speech guy. You may remember.
carrie
So, he continues to have the wildest Facebook presence.
ross
Nice.
carrie
His Facebook is surprisingly a little bit hostile, I think? I think he must have a few people he’s friends with who kind of second guess his posts.
ross
Oh, so he’s always on the defensive?
carrie
He’s always on the defensive and often preemptively defensive. So, he’ll post something and be like, [aggressively] “And if you don’t agree, just like why are you even here?!” [Softly.] Jeez. Okay. I wasn’t disagreeing yet. Okay.
ross
[Giggles.] We’d given some updates before about him being very pro-Trump.
carrie
Mm-hm. That appears to still be the case. So, he has been hearing reversals about war, recently. And he suspects—
ross
Oh! What is it good for?
carrie
[Chuckles.] It’s good for: coming in August! So, he suspects that, come August 2020, the US is having a war with China.
ross
Not a bad guess.
carrie
Suuuuure. Sure. August is specific, but…
ross
I mean, it just seems like the sort of random thing that Trump would do just to sow chaos right before the election. [Carrie agrees several times.] “Well, you can’t elect somebody new. We’re in a war now!” You started it. Why did you start it? I don’t think we’re leading towards that, but it’s not the most far-fetched thing I’ve ever heard.
carrie
Sure. David John has said that he’s not confident about this. He several times said, “Now, I’ll be the first to admit, I may be totally wrong. I’m not saying that I have total faith in this. But.”
ross
“I’m just saying, I get 100% credit if it happens.” [Carrie laughs and agrees.] “And I’ve got a nice little exit path if it doesn’t.”
carrie
Yeeeah, so, let’s see. He said, “I found my fourth reversal now on a client about war coming. This one said, ‘battling wanting, USA’. Previous ones were, ‘War comes. It’s sudden.’ ‘USA, sudden.’
ross
Yeah, “USA, sudden.” Alright.
carrie
“And I can’t remember the other one!” [They laugh.]
ross
That’s what he said. Okay.
carrie
“And they all point to August. Now, I’m the first to admit this could mean absolutely nothing, but I’m getting ready just in case. I suggest others do the same.”
ross
How does he know they point toward August?!
carrie
I guess from the various tapes. I don’t know. [Ross agrees with a sigh.] So, at first when we posted about this, he just said he believed a war was coming. He didn’t say when or with whom. So, I commented and said, “Oh! Interesting! Do you have any idea of when?” And then he replied, and he said, [angrily] “I have posted about this many times.”
crosstalk
Ross: Yeah, Carrie! Carrie: I was like, “Okay. Uh, my apologies? Could you direct me to post?” So, that’s an example of— Ross: Fun! Carrie: —unnecessarily hostile. Ross: Alright! Cool. Good old David John Oates.
carrie
Yep. And he said it’s just his personal opinion, but, “I reckon it’ll be between America and China. Personally, I think it’s already started.” Huh. Not sure what that means. Alright! Linda Moulton Hoooowe!
ross
[Chuckling.] Linda Moulton Howe. Okay, so we assumed that after Carrie told us about her sting and Linda hadn’t responded for months that maybe she just kind of figured out, “Oh, okay. I see what the ONRAC thing is. I’ll stop responding about this whole dog theory.”
carrie
Right. You’d think that—
ross
You’d think that.
carrie
But! She is still emailing me and asking me for, like, verification of my credentials and more information about this story. I was like, “What?!” When I got the email, I couldn’t believe it.
ross
This is why you don’t lie. You have to follow it up with a bunch of other little lies. [Giggles.]
carrie
I am now Father Yod. I’m like, “Go away! I didn’t mean to do this!” [Ross laughs helplessly and Carrie chuckles.] “Please stop!”
ross
Oh nooo. So, yeah, Linda wants clarifying details about Carrie’s insides scoop on how canines are the most advanced intelligence.
carrie
Most advanced, most compassionate, most perfect. Etc. [Ross hums in agreement.] So, I need to write her a real heartfelt come to Jesus email.
ross.
Yeah. “Linda.”
crosstalk
Carrie: Linda. Ross: Linda. Carrie: [Compassionately.] Liiinda. Google yourself every once in a while.
ross
Little update on the Dylan Louis Monroe front. I had mentioned Q Anon, and I think I said that Q had posted on Reddit. That is incorrect. Q had started on 4Chan, on the Pol board. P-O-L. So, Angela Kinsler wrote in and said that that was where he started, ostensibly, the thread’s supposed to be about news and politics, but in reality is a hive neo-Nazis and reactionaries. And they were even banned, there! And so, then Q moved to 8Chan. I didn’t even know there was an 8Chan. So, essentially the message here is I got my hives of scum and villainy on the internet cross.
carrie
But we have very nice people on the Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Reddit, so we’re not talking about you. [Ross chuckles.] Reddit’s okay. Yeah. I think you solved a mystery.
ross
Did I?
carrie
I think Angela Kinsler is Q.
crosstalk
Ross and Carrie: [Thoughtfully.] Oooooh.
carrie
How about Kimberly Meredith, the medical medium I interviewed?
ross
Oh, yeah! You know, compared to Shakuntali, she seems practically content.
carrie
Oh yeah. [Laughing.] Totally. She’s happy with her life. Yeah. So, she’s still tweeting a lot of, like, vague stuff about truth and checking and knowing the truth—a lot of hashtags that are vaguely about the truth.
ross
Cool Kimberly. Keep looking for the truth.
carrie
So, here’s one from yesterday: “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it. Ignorance may deride it. But in the end, there it is. Truth is the property of no individual, but it is the treasure of all men.” [Ross snorts.] “#KimberlyMeredith #FactsMatter #TruthMatters #LoveIsLove #GodRules #FreeSpeech”
ross
I was snorting not at the quote itself, but [laughing] just the string of hashtags I saw on this Google Doc we’re sharing. That’s amazing. Okay!
carrie
I’m gonna start hashtagging “Carrie Poppy” after all my tweets.
ross
Oh yeah! She’s hashtagging herself.
carrie
Her own name! It’s like when your 60-year-old aunt sends you a text and signs it.
ross
Right. And she said you’d be hearing from her lawyer?
carrie
Yes. I have not heard from her lawyer. [Ross affirms with amusement.] Unless! Her lawyer is Angela Kinstler! Also known as Q, in which case we have heard from her, but not about that.
ross
[Chuckles.] A little update from our interview with Nick Little, from CFI. We were talking about some of the pending court cases against CVS and Walmart, in regards to homeopathy.
carrie
So, you have a Little update? Mm? Mm-hmm?
ross
Yeah, [chuckling]—they—mm. Hm. I see! I see what you did in there. So, when we were talking to him—one of those little asides was that we were talking about Scientology and I think I mention it being banned in Germany. We heard from a few people after that. It is not banned in Germany. There is Scientology in Germany, but they’re not allowed to call themselves a church. And the government keeps them on a watchlist, with—you know—neo-Nazis and anarchist groups. [Carrie expresses shock.] I did not write the source on that but thank you to whoever wrote that to me. I was trying to look into this and just figure out, “Okay, what is Scientology’s status in different countries?” And there was kind of a good Wikipedia doc tracking a lot of this really complicated machination all over the planet. So, it’s very complicated. It’s different everywhere. And various, like, states of—
carrie
Acknowledgement?
ross
Yeeeah. Exactly. So, apparently Greece is kind of the same, where they’ve sort of hit back at Scientology, but they’re not officially banned or anything like that. Russia came much closer to an all-out ban on Scientology in 2015. So, they’ve probably been, like, the most anti-Scientology in their response. Chile and France consider Scientology a cult. Israel calls it a cult but it’s legal. Norway does not recognize it as a religious community, but it is registered as a non-profit there. Ireland has not granted Scientology charitable tax-free status. [Carrie expresses surprise.] But these countries do not recognize it as a religion. So, at least—for whatever reason—either they don’t recognize religions period, or they’ve said, “You do not qualify as a religion.” That’s: Poland, Belgium, Brazil, Romania, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Japan, and China. I think there’s a few others that are kind of, like, iffy on their Scientology status. So, very complicated, but— [Carrie agrees.] Yeah. Scientology’s fighting battles all over the place.
carrie
Yeeeah. Boy, things really do get complicated when you try to define religion. It’s—it is a—it is a really tough thing to do. Yeah.
ross
Yeah. ‘Cause anything—anything you wanna say, there’s always an activity or behavior that’s halfway between that and what you would call illegitimate. So, then you look at that edge case and you say, “Weeell, it kind of looks like a religion. It kind of looks like this other thing.” And you define your rules there and then there exists something between halfway between that and whatever you would not count.
carrie
Mm, sure. A lot like trying to define species, taxonomically.
ross
Right, it’s us trying to overlay categories on top of continuums. [Carrie agrees.] But that’s what humans do. We like to organize.
carrie
Yeah. And it helps you make a society, so what are you gonna fricking do? Well! How ‘bout them frequency of love chimes?
ross
What is that frequency of love? 528 hertz?
carrie
Yes, it is exactly 528. It is not 530, but our chime was 530 and so we sent it back! [Ross laughs.] So! As y’all know, we got a 50% refund when we sent it—actually, you know what? They said we could get 100% if we sent it back, but it needs to be in its official packaging or some silliness. Or we could keep it and they’d give us 50% back. So, we said, “Fine. We’ll take the 50%.”
ross
Which means we still have our fork.
carrie
Soul Malas was the company that sold these. And their Facebook page has a bunch of complaints!
ross
Mm-hm. And it’s not a malask by the way. [Annunciating carefully.] Soul Malas.
carrie
Malas. Right.
ross
M-A-L-A-S.
carrie
So, I had written on the Soul Mala’s Facebook page and said—just sort of a short summary of my experience with the product. “Wasn’t the right tone, tried to return it, here’s how complicated that was. Etc. If you wanna hear more about this, I have a podcast. Here’s the link.” And a few people actually commented on that and said, “Oh wow! Thank you for doing this. I listened to that and that affected my decision.” [Chuckles.]
ross
They appreciated the tone… of your comment.
carrie
Oookay! Yeah, very good!
ross
Mm-hm. Mm-hm. In that particular episode, we talked about the Solfeggio scale and I was already talking out my ass, ‘cause I don’t know anything about that stuff. But! People wrote in to let us know a little bit about that system. I’m gonna quote a listener, Joel Bechtel. He said, “It helps to know that Solfeggio is basically an old-fashioned way of referring to the idea that notes have names. In the United States, we typically refer to notes with the letter names from A to G and with the addition of inflection, sharp and flat.” So, he goes on, but apparently there’s no solid connection between this particular tone and the Solfeggio scale. [Carrie affirms.] And some people hastened to point out—I had read about this a little bit and I wasn’t sure exactly what the connection was, but apparently in Sound of Music, when Julie Andrews is singing to everyone, [singing] “Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do,” that is a great example of a Solfeggio scale.
carrie
Oh, yeah! I was just gonna say that ‘cause I remember in high school choir, we had to do—it was called Solfege. You have to do these hand motions for Do, Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do as you’re going. But Do resets, depending on what key you’re singing in. So, you have to mentally say yourself, “Okay, what’s Do in this? Okay, now I’m singing Ti, now I’m singing R.” And then you have to make these hand motions. I do not know why they made us do it.
ross
Wow, that doesn’t seem like a very good place to start.
carrie
[Laughs.] It’s not. You should begin with A, B, C. [Ross laughs. Carrie makes a vomiting noise.] Solfeggio. No thank you!
ross
Wow! I didn’t know that it had hurt you.
carrie
Yeah. [Laughs.] Well, yes. And I don’t wanna talk about it again. Footpads!
ross
Footpads!
carrie
So, y’all may remember that at the end of our foot pad episode, I called the representative for this company that sold the footpads.
ross
And he very sanguinely said, “Oh yeah! We’ve got studies. I’ll send them to you.”
carrie
Yeah. He did not. And I— [Ross reacts in disbelief.] —have been texting him since—I think it was October, last [laughing] year. And every, like, maybe… mm, five weeks, I’d say—I’ll think of it and be like, “Aah! I gotta text him.” So, I’ll text him and be like, “Hey, so-and-so. Still me! Still waiting on those studies!”
ross
You don’t wanna get on this side of Carrie, because— [They laugh.] She’ll stay on your ass.
carrie
Well, he said he was gonna send them! And he said—when I called, he said, “This is my cell phone. So, just text me if I forget.” And I was like, [enthusiastically] “You got it! It’s no problem!” [Ross laughs.] So, yeah. Okay. It looks like our first conversation was October 12th. And I—yeah, I sent him a text and said—
ross
The adventure continues.
carrie
And said, “Here’s my email for the studies on the footpads. Very interesting stuff. Thanks!” Then a few days later, “Hey! Were you able to locate those?” Then, a couple weeks later. “Hey! Still waiting on those… footpad studies.”
ross
It’s just like Carrie with the, “It was supposed to be 528 hertz, but it’s actually 530. Can I get my money back, please?”
carrie
Yeah. Well! Well, that’s your whole business model is that its 528 exactly! November 3rd, “Heeey, it’s Carrie. I went and called. Uuh, still need the—[murmuring and petering off]. Sorry to keep bothering you. Is someone gonna reach out?” Anyway, most recent one: May 10th, “Hey! I’m the one who called seven months ago with questions about how your footpad work! You said you’d send me some studies about their efficacy, but I never heard back. Who can I talk to for that?”
ross
He’s researching getting a new number. [They laugh.]
carrie
He has not replied one TIME!
ross
Rude! Rude.
carrie
Ugh. I’m starting to think he’s ignoring me.
ross
[Giggles.] He just needs a couple more reminders.
carrie
Okay! Text, text, text, text, text.
ross
We had an episode a while back about our migraines and eczema.
carrie
Sooo, I think I mentioned in that one about why Botox shots help. [Ross agrees.] Yeah. They help.
ross
Well, I think more recently you’ve told us about that.
carrie
Okay! Well, then—ding, ding, ding, ding, d-d-d-d-diiiing! Update! So, I now get these Botox preventative migraine shots from my neurologist. My neurologist gives them to me once every three months. And they’re very effective. They’re great.
ross
That’s great!
carrie
The only thing is they last for two months and then you have to wait an additional third month so that you don’t develop a tolerance to the Botulism toxin. [Ross hums in affirmation.] So, as a result, that third month is awful.
ross
Oh, so your body develops a resistance like it does to iocane powder, essentially?
carrie
I don’t know. What’s that?
ross
[Chuckles.] In The Princess Bride—it doesn’t matter which glass of wine he drinks ‘cause he’s developed a resistance to iocane powder.
carrie
Aaaaah, smart of him!
ross
I’m, uh, currently listening to Cary Elwes read about the making of The Princess Bride. There’s an audiobook and I’m very happy about this.
carrie
I’m one of those people who’s like, “The Princess Bride’s fine. Saw it one time, never need to again.” [Ross affirms with a chuckle.] But maybe I will again! ‘Cause it’s been—I think I was like 15.
ross
That’s better than my coworker, Jessica, who had never heard of The Princess Bride.
carrie
Oh, right. But she’s like 14 or something. Yeah.
ross
[Laughing.] Yeah, 24, whatever. But then she watched it and did not like it.
carrie
Mm. That’s possible.
ross
I’m sorry, that is not acceptable. [Carrie laughs.] Anyways! Moving on. For my eczema, I’d mentioned that I did clinical trial. [Carrie affirms brightly.] So, I went off my usual meds—my topical treatments for my foot—and I took Tradipitant, which was an experimental drug, but it was experimental long enough that it was—I think—in a stage three. I think I was part of the stage three trails. So, yeah. They had me take it or a placebo! For months. And I kept detailed records, which is what I do. Took daily pills. And it’s tough to say. I feel like I may have had the placebo, ‘cause I wasn’t noting any great improvement. Or—it would be good for a while, like it does, but then it would get really bad again. So, for that time I was taking the pills and I would show up every couple weeks and they would take fresh photos and give me a new bottle. Yeah, it at least didn’t miraculously make my eczema melt away. Though, the stated intent of it was to be more of an antihistamine and to keep me from feeling itchy and scratchy, making things worse. Again, with kind of mixed results. So, now I’m back to my regular meds, which—if I used them regularly—are a reliable way to clear up the eczema. But! I don’t use them as reliable as I should and right now my foot is angry.
carrie
And where do you want people to send you suggestions about different things you can use on your foot?
carrie
[Laughs.] Uh, okay. Right brain therapy. We talked to—
ross
[Laughing.] Ooh, yeah! Okay, our friend Jerry Mungadze!
carrie
Yeah, we talked about this at one of our Texas live shows—that would have been Austin. And I think we mentioned later that they sort of threatened to sue us?
ross
Yeah, we had kind of a similar situation where Jerry’s wife had reached out and said, “You need to take down your Facebook photos and this is not acceptable and it’s full of falsehoods and you’ll be hearing from our lawyer.” And we said, “Okay! Well, uh, here’s our lawyer and how to contact him and let us know if there are any particular falsehoods. Happy to let you clear this up.” We never heard back again!
carrie
Yeah! Sooo, there’s that.
ross
Good thing she didn’t give you her cellphone number or you’d be texting her.
carrie
Well, if she told me that I should text her and follow up, yes I would! [Ross laughs.] I would say, “You told me to follow up, I’m following up!” Sri Harold Klemp, the living Eck master.
ross
It’s so funny, because—it’s just a funny sound. Klemp.
carrie
Yeah. For sure. So, he’s the living Eck master, as we all know. And—for anybody who hasn’t heard that series—he’s the living leader of this religion.
ross
Right, and it’s like a step above even, say, a pope-like figure, because he is the Mahanta—he is this guiding spirit. He is the counselor. He’s the one that sees you in your dreams and gives you wisdom and comfort and he’s always with you.
carrie
Yeah, he’s supposed to literally meet you during your sleep time.
ross
Their scriptures refer to him as a God man.
carrie
Yeah, intense. And, yeah… Sri Harold is just [speaking timid and high] the most nondescript little person who just sort of talks like this and has little, tiny bits of wisdom. Like, one time a lady wrote a letter and twelve years later, the letter came back to her and she realized, “I’m the wise one!”
ross
[Softly and slowly.] And perhaps he’ll tell you a little story about when he was just at the grocery store, last week. And a woman helped him get some bananas and it was very nice.
carrie
[Still speaking high and careful.] He realized the banana is a perfect symbol life, because you never know what will appeal (a peel) to you. [Sighs.]
ross
[Laughs.] Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.
carrie
Chuckle, chuckle, chuckle, chuckle.
ross
Yeeeah. Sri Harold.
carrie
So, he has released a special, 10-minute message about COVID.
ross
Oh yeah, I listened to this while taking a shower today.
carrie
Okay, cool. So, apparently, he and his wife live in an assisted living facility, now.
ross
Yeah, he was describing it as a rest home, and I would just imagine being the ecclesiastical leader/God man that there would be sort of a dedicated detail of Eckankar people to take care of him. But I’m kind of glad to hear that he’s at an assisted living home if that’s what he needs.
carrie
Yeah, and I wonder if maybe there are a lot of Eckankar people there? ‘Cause he was saying their names as if, like, we the listener would have context for those names. It wasn’t like—
ross
Per Judy.
carrie
Yeah, it wasn’t like, “And my nurse, Judy.” It was like, “And Judy said, ‘Blah, blah, blah.’” And I don’t know, it felt like I was supposed to know who that was. [Ross affirms.] So, gotta say this for Sri Harold—although his message is not terribly exciting, it’s just basically like, [mimicking Sri Harold] “You gotta wash the doorknobs. And you gotta wash your hands and please stand six feet away from people for God’s sake.”
ross
[Mimicking Sri Harold.] “I was looking around and they’re not always consistent about cleaning things. So, I get up at night and I wipe off the door.”
carrie
So, he clearly believes this is a virus, believes it’s a dangerous virus, believes that he—being in a—at an advanced age, is particularly susceptible. Uh, it was a very realistic little message. I will say, at the very end, he said—there was this huge pause in the last—
ross
Yeah! I thought, “Oh, that’s weird, they ended this mid-sentence!”
carrie
Yeah! He said, [mimicking Sri Harold] “Until… [a long beat] we see each other again. I love you.” And it actually gave me a little bit of like premonitory… butterflies? Where I was like, “Oh, that’s the last I’m gonna hear from you.”
ross
Oooh, yeah. We mentioned the last time we saw him that he wasn’t doing too hot. [Carrie agrees.] He looked like he wasn’t recovering well from whatever had kind of changed his health situation. Doesn’t sound like he’s getting too much better.
carrie
So, like David John Oates, I will now say I have no confidence in this and I hope I’m wrong, but also if I’m right please talk about how right I am, if we don’t hear from Sri Harold again. [Ross agrees.] But I hope I’m wrong. And by the way, I still haven’t seen Sri Harold in my dreams.
ross
Aw man!
carrie
I have been trying.
ross
You still have his portrait?
carrie
It’s not by my bed, now. Now it’s in the living room. But I still see it every day. I’m looking at it right now.
ross
You know, it’s so funny. The other day I flipped over my pillow, and I guess I hadn’t done this for months, because I flipped it over and I laid my head back down and I felt like something kind of crinkly? [Carrie laughs.] Under the pillow. I was like, “What? What is this?” And so, I reach into the pillowcase and there’s a little thing that looks like it came from a voodoo shop and it’s a little ball, like a wrapped cloth around a lump of something, and it’s saying, “This will help with your astral travel. This will—"
carrie
Oh! I gave you that!
ross
Yeah, okay. I figured, “Oh, Carrie must have given this to me at some point and I forgot.” It must have been—I don’t know, what, half a year ago or something?
carrie
Oooh, longer! So, I’m pretty sure I got that at the New Orleans Voodoo Museum, in 2017. Yeah.
ross
[Laughs.] Okay, so it’s been in my pillow this whole time and I totally forgot it was there! Which is a great test of whether it works. And as far as I can tell, I have not had more astral travel.
carrie
Aw shit. Have you had any astral travel?
ross
No, not really. [Carrie makes a disappointed sound.] Not since our astral travel and—yeah, I think there was maybe one instance where I went, “Oh, cool! I’m kind of out of my body for a second!” But it happened sometimes and it’s awesome.
carrie
Yeah, it’s very exciting. Well, Living Stones Ministries—you may recall, they’re the ones who tried to un-gay you. So, I’m still on their mailing list and most of their mail actually comes through the physical mail. There are emails, but mostly they send letters in the post office mail.
ross
Cool, who needs trees?
carrie
And Denise Shick is the woman who runs Living Stones Ministries. I get the impression she’s the only person that is Living Stones Ministries. [Ross makes a sound of surprise.] But she’s the one who—people may recall her parent, who she grew up with thinking of as her father—came out as a trans woman late in his life and she never really accepted that. And she started this whole ministry trying to convince people that your gender identity is always in sync with your sex assigned at birth. She keeps sending these letters that are just sort of heartbreaking where you can see her own—or maybe I’m projecting this, but I feel like I can see her own inner turmoil on the page. You know? Where she’s saying, like, “Some people say we’re not accepting people as they are, but we’re doing the opposite! We’re trying to get them to accept themselves as they are!” And it’s—
ross
[Sighs heavily.] No, that’s not better.
carrie
I don’t know, I just feel like, “Are you talking to me or are you talking to you?” [Ross agrees.] Yeah.
ross
Who are you trying to convince here?
carrie
Right. Finally, after reading, like, dozens of these, there was one that came with a self-addressed envelope to send notes back or whatever. So, I wrote her a little note. I didn’t sign it. And I just said, like, “Hey, listen. It sounds like this was really traumatic for you, this experience with your parent, but like—you know, maybe just let it go. I think maybe this is how your parent was happy and—” I don’t remember, you know, exactly how I wrote it all, but I tried to be really nice. The next letter I got, again sent presumably to everyone on their mailing list. This wasn’t addressed to me and I hadn’t signed it. Was like, “You know, we’ve been thinking we should update our mailing list. If you’re getting this and you don’t really want our mailers anymore, please let us know.” [Ross laughs.] And that’s my update.
ross
“To whom it may concern.” [Ross agrees several times as Carrie continues.]
carrie
[Laughing.] Right. Denise has also written a children’s book that just came out. It’s called I’m Glad God Made Me a Girl. So, apropos of nothing, I want to encourage everybody to go buy Theresa Thorn’s kid’s book, It Feels Good to Be Yourself. That’s—Theresa co-hosts One Bad Mother on the Maximum Fun network. She is a delight and has a personal connection to this issue and writes about it really delicately and sweetly and wrote a great book.
ross
That’s awesome.
carrie
Yeah. So, go get that one.
ross
And from that same investigation, I think we already cleared the air on this one, but I had mentioned lymph nodes in connection with hormones. That is not right! [Dramatic, regal sounding music begins to play. Ross and Carrie both go silent and then begin laughing.]
carrie
That’s my text message coming in! But also, it seems appropriate!
ross
Yeah! Okay! Anyways, it’s the endocrine system that produces your hormones. The lymph nodes filter leaked fluids from your cells and remove infection from them before returning that fluid to the blood.
carrie
Okay! Okay. Everybody’s clear on that? You’ll remember that in an hour. Good.
ross
They’re nodding their heads. Yep. I got a fun little update about our friend, Trevor Heasley.
carrie
Aah! Trevor Heasley, former Scientologist.
ross
That’s right! Who had listened to our podcast, partly in an effort to get us in trouble. [They chuckle.] And ended up getting himself out of Scientology! He did end up moving to a new place with his daughter. So, he’s no longer living in Scientology housing.
carrie
Is his mom also out of that housing?
ross
I would assume so, but I didn’t ask him specifically about that. But I actually ran into him while I was working in the election! He showed up at my polling place and we looked at each other. I was like, “Trevor!” And he’s like, “Oh?! You remember me?” Like, of course! And he was so sweet. He ran and he went back to his place and got for me a yellow Scientology volunteer jacket.
carrie
Oh, that’s right! You showed me this!
ross
Nobody tell Scientology that I have this. But— [They chuckle.] It was so awesome. And he also brought me a podcast he was working on that—this was the main update I wanted to share. He’s been working on a podcast of his own and it’s just fun to see him being creative and he does—he does a great job with a team of others. It’s called Knights of the Spooken Word. And—knights, K-N-I-G-H-T-S of the spooooken word. And it’s about kind of haunted Hollywood history. And he has an episode on the Cecil Hotel, on ghosts of Hollywood past.
carrie
Cool! Fun!
ross
Yeah, it’s brand new. Check it out. Yeah, I think it’s great.
carrie
Well! I’m gonna listen myself. So, you may recall Nathan and his ghost house, in Arizona. [Ross affirms.] Yeah, our old friend. So, I talked to him today and he said, “Eh, you know I don’t care anymore. You can tell people my name.” Yeah! So, his name is Brandon Estrella. He says he hasn’t been bothered by ghosts since our visit.
ross
Hey! We successfully cleared his house!
carrie
We de-ghosted a house. Though he did say that one person who came to work on the house told him that his house seemed really creepy. I was like, “Oh, interesting. Had you told him of the stories?” He was like, “Oh yeah.”
ross
[Laughing.] Okay. Important context. [Carrie agrees.] My response would have been [petulantly], “You’re real creepy!” ‘Cause I’m mature like that.
carrie
[Laughs.] He also has a podcast that he asked me to mention. And so, I will. It’s called Know This—K-N-O-W T-H-I-S. Brandon’s views are very different from yours and mine. But if you’d like to go listen to it, you certainly could. Please interact nicely with him. And if you think that he’s wrong about things, be nice about that.
ross
We had some interesting back and forth conversations between ourselves and Chris Shelton and Brandon. He’s willing to engage in conversation. That’s cool. [Carrie agrees.] We like that.
carrie
Definitely. So, please. Be a fiend. Be nice to Brandon.
ross
No, no, no, no.
carrie
Hm?
ross
You wanna be a friend, but!
carrie
Oh!
ross
But speaking of fiends! [Carrie affirms.] Can I tell you about my best fiend?
carrie
Absolutely! Who’s your best fiend?
ross
This app right here.
carrie
Oh my gosh! I can’t believe how seamlessly we fell into this advertisement!
ross
It’s not even just one fiend. There’s multiple ones. This app is called Best Fiends!
carrie
[With a canned quality to her voice.] Fiends!
ross
And it’s a free download on all of your favorite online app stores.
carrie
My favorite app stores. Okay. Uh. TGI Fridays.
ross
Nope. Not an app store.
carrie
Uuuh, you can get lots of apps there. [Inaudible].
ross
Those are appetizers.
carrie
Aaaah! An aplicación! Okay.
ross
We just—we just made a connection for Carrie. And guess what? You wouldn’t be the only to download Best Fiends, because it has over 100 million downloads on those various app stores!
carrie
Aw shit! That’s amazing. Though, if I were the only one, that might actually be an extra incentive for me. If I were the first person to play.
ross
Ooh, that’s true. That’s true. Well, you’d be joining a movement of people who are playing this game—which is a lot of fun. I’ve been playing it from the couch recently. My son and I have been watching the Vietnam series by Ken Burns. Yeah, so—
carrie
Okay, woah. Heavy.
ross
Yes, very heavy. I’m learning many new things. But I’m also playing Best Fiends! [Chuckles.] ‘Cause—
carrie
Alright! Does that lighten it up for you?
ross
That’s interesting. I feel like a different part of my brain is handling that. But! It’s a fun part. Because I’m solving puzzles. I’m collecting new characters. I’m upgrading. Yeah! A lot of fun. And I’m on level 861.
carrie
[Laughing.] Wooow! Okaaay!
ross
Yeah, moving right along. Footloose and fancy-free. [Carrie agrees.] But getting there is half the fun! So, if you wanna share it with me, you can also download Best Fiends and you can play it from anywhere! Doesn’t require an active internet connection.
carrie
That is nice.
ross
If you connected Facebook, you can see all your buddies on there, see how well they’re doing, get surprised that Becca happens to play the game and then be like, “I didn’t know you played Best Fiends!”
carrie
Beccaaaa!
ross
“But I’m gonna send you a gift!”
carrie
Is that a real person you connected with?
ross
Someone I know from Camp Quest.
carrie
Ooooh! Hey, Becca! ‘Sup?
ross
But I got all kinds—I got all kinds of friends on there.
carrie
Your Becca Fiend. Becca’s Ffffiendseses. Anyway!
ross
That worked! And Best Fiends has thousands of levels already, with new levels, events, and characters added every month.
carrie
It’s hours of fun right at your fingertips. Your fiend-tertips. Aaand you can—
ross
That’s worked, Carrie! That was—
carrie
[Giggling.] Even play offline!
ross
With over 100 million downloads and tons of five-star reviews, Best Fiends is a must play. Download Best Fiends free on the Apple App Store or Google Play.
carrie
That’s friends without the “R”—Best Fiends. BEANS! But thinking of good things to do with your time and your heart, another thing a person could do is [amping up to a cheer] a jumbotrooooon!
ross
A jumbotron! Somebody has a jumbotron?!
carrie
Somebody here—that someone is me—has a jumbotron to present to thee.
ross
Is that why there’s the 120-foot screen?
carrie
Mm-hm, I just bought this. Was this worth it?
ross
I mean, it’s bright! Uuh…
carrie
Yeah. It was $2000.
ross
Oh wooow.
carrie
And I’m still paying off my student loans.
ross
That’s actually a good deal for that size screen.
carrie
Oh! Thank you! Yeah, I got it on Craigslist.
ross
Well, looks like—let’s see. This one is for Steve and it’s from Hayden.
carrie
That’s right! And Hayden says, “That’s right!” [Ross giggles.] “I got you a message on ONRAC!”
ross
“I’m so glad I found someone who I can share so many of my weird interests and hobbies with.”
carrie
“I love you more than orcs, rats, and flat Earth theory.”
ross
“I’m really proud of all you’ve done in the past year and I can’t wait until the next time I’m down to visit you.” [They both “aw”.]
carrie
Wonder if they’re an LDR—a long distance relationship.
ross
Well, I hope it’s very soon that they get to be S… D… R.
carrie
[Thoughtfully.] SDR… Sssss…?
ross
Or short distance relationship. [Carrie makes a sound of understanding.] Or at least—at least CTE.
carrie
Or—okay. Uh. I was gonna say SFA—six feet apart. [Ross agrees with a laugh.] [Laughing.] What was yours?
ross
Well, close to each other. But. [Carrie affirms several times.] Yeah, SFA’s—
carrie
I hope they get into an SFA relationship soon. [They laugh.]
ross
Or would that be a close encounter of the… sixth kind? I don’t know—how many kinds are there? There’s a lot of kinds out there.
carrie
There’s so many kinds. There’s so many ways to be in contact. I’m Carrie Poppy. This is some wisdom.
ross
Well, we love you Steve and Hayden. We hope you’re doing well.
carrie
Woah, speak for yourself.
ross
And we have another jumbotron! And this one is for Anne Dimitri? From Jane Thereonorman.
carrie
That’s… probably right. [Ross chuckles.] And Jane says, “Hi Carrie and Ross, first of all.” Always start your jumbotron with “Hi Carrie and Ross”. It’s just nice. Uuuh, no you don’t have to do that. But she said, “Just wanted to say happy Anne-iversary to my amazing wife, Anne.”
ross
“As of June 2nd, we will have been together six years!” Wow! Cool!
carrie
[Giggles.] “Thank you for always helping me find the truth in things and supporting me, as well as introducing me to this cool podcast.”
ross
“I love you and our pets, Hannah and Mia.” Awww. Happy Anne-iversary.
carrie
Iversary.
carrie
Okay! A rythmia update! Ooh my god.
ross
Yeeeah! Rythmia! How did that go? How’s—where is that Vice story, Carrie? I really—
carrie
Oh my gooood.
ross
I refresh the Vice website every five minutes.
carrie
[Laughing.] Oh my god! Wow!
ross
Looking for your story.
carrie
Vice pretty much fell apart, Ross. [Ross makes a sad sound.] So, a lot of legacy media and a lot of online media as well is really, reeeally having trouble. And my editor left, then the new editor left, then somebody got fired that—just a lot of shit happened. And then it—this story belongs to Vice. They bought it. So, it took a very long time to return the ownership to me. Now it’s is mine again. [Ross hums in affirmation.] So, I—I don’t wanna say who, at this point, given this history so far. Another magazine that said they would buy it—if they don’t soon, I’m just gonna put it… out into the world. Yeah.
ross
Okay. Alright. But this should tell you that Carrie has not forgotten. [Carrie affirms.] And that she will make you abundantly aware when the story comes out. [Carrie confirms several times.] ‘Cause it’s an exciting story. That you need to hear!
carrie
Yeah, for real. Tony Robbins!
ross
Tony Robbins!
carrie
I just wanted to say, twice now I’ve been on John Hodgman’s Instagram show, Show Me Your Pets. And in this last [chuckling] guesting appearance on the Instagram show, I mentioned Tony Robbins for some reason and John Hodgman said, “Oh, you know, I’ve met Tony Robbins.” [Ross makes a curious sound.] And I said, “Well, tell me more!” And he said that they were in an Apple commercial together, at one point, that he’s pretty sure never aired.
ross
Interesssting!
carrie
So, now I really wanna see that!
ross
Yeah! Like, recently? Or—
carrie
No, no, years ago.
ross
Okay, from back in the day when he was regularly doing the, “I’m a Mac.”
carrie
Or I think he was the PC.
ross
That’s right. He was the PC, and it was—aah, I can’t think of his—
carrie
Jennifer Anniston’s husband?
ross
[Struggling.] Yeah, I can picture him.
carrie
Mr. Face. [Ross makes a soft sound of distress.] Justin, Jason…
ross
Yes! Yeah, no, I think you’re right.
carrie
Let’s not look this up and keep looking at each other.
crosstalk
Ross and Carrie: Juuustin— Carrie: Guarini. Ross: Something with an ‘M’. Justin Mmmm— Carrie: McElroy. Ross: Nooo. Carrie: Justin McElroy!
ross
That’s probably what my brain’s trying to give me. Justin…
carrie
Green? [Ross sighs.] Ju—I feel like there’s a ‘G’ in there. We’re not gonna look this up and so many of you are shouting it at us! And—
ross
[Strained.] It’s Justin!
carrie
Juuustin! [Laughs.] Long?
ross
Just-in Case.
carrie
Long? Justin Long?
ross
No. Just-in Time.
crosstalk
Carrie: Isn’t it?! Ross: Yes! No, you’re right! You’re right! [Carrie wheezes with laughter.] Ross: [Chuckling.] Sorry, I was having too much fun. Uh, yeah, Justin Long! Carrie: Okay, yeah. Whew! Ross: See!? We don’t need the iiinternet! Carrie: [Petulantly.] We don’t need the—[babbling], uuuuuh! Okay!?
ross
[Haughtily.] That’s right. We don’t externalize all of our memories—says the guy who couldn’t remember it.
carrie
Anyway! About Tony Robbins. [Ross agrees with a laugh.] Sooo, I asked—
ross
What was he? Lenox?
carrie
[Chuckling.] You know, I don’t know what the context was for him. But I asked John what he was like and he said, “Very firm grip. Shook my hand.” And I said, “[Gasps.] Did his palm touch your palm?”
ross
[Wheezes with laughter.] ‘Cause it doesn’t touch many things!
carrie
Yeah! And so, I explained about the clapping and he was like, “Oh! That’s very interesting! I think he touched my palm?!” So, that’s my update on Tony Robbins.
ross
Now I’m busy trying to figure out which operating system Tony Robbins is.
carrie
What’s one that’s just like super powerful but crashes all the time and you just end up being like, “I didn’t need this.”
ross
[Laughing.] I don’t know if that necessarily matches anything.
carrie
Okay. Use that one. Alright. [They laugh.] Healing Room Ministries. We went to Healing Room Ministries in Boston, with Jennings Brown. [Ross confirms.] For a live episode more than a year ago now.
ross
Yeah. Well, I had a fun time with them in person, but I have not been keeping up with them. What’s been going on?
carrie
Yeah, I just checked in today. So, they are still doing healings, but they’re via Skype. They’re—so, they’re at least, like, following the law of the land in that regard.
ross
Like, “We will heal you, but we’re not magical. So, stay at home.”
carrie
The guy who runs that place is very good friends with Dutch Sheets, who is a Trump guy with a crazy name.
ross
Wait, Dutch—?
carrie
Dutch. Sheets.
ross
That’s a name?!
carrie
Yeah. He’s mentioned in the book I just lent you. The Cult of Trump. That’s where I learned about Dutch. Sheets.
ross
[Giggling.] What is going on?!
carrie
Yeah, so anyway, this is a long windup to say, I think Healing Room Ministries probably has a pretty strong rightwing bent. And so, I would not be surprised they—if their defense would be, “Oh, we’re not saying this is necessary, we’re just saying we don’t want to be fined for doing these healings in person.”
ross
This is a great argument for the government’s role in these kinds of oversight proclamations, is that a group like this can at least save face by saying, “You know what? We have to obey the law.”
carrie
Yeah. Oh, that’s true.
ross
So, good.
carrie
Checked in with our old friend Jennings. His hand has cleared up. You may remember that it was itching. That was one of the things he had them heal.
ross
Right, ‘cause he has so many problems.
carrie
[Laughing.] Oh, that’s right! He’s like, “My hand itches.”
ross
“Sometimes, my hand itches.” Oh great, aren’t you perfect?! [Carrie laughs.] I’m just kidding. I love you, Jennings.
carrie
But yeah, he said that his hand doesn’t itch anymore. So, I told him that was Healing Room Ministries and you’re welcome. And then asked, “Have you been seeing those visions of death?”
ross
Oh, right! Yes!
carrie
Because he kept seeing visions of death! And he said, “Nooo! Well, I hadn’t been. Now, I am.”
ross
“Now I will because you mentioned it.”
carrie
Yeah, and he—then he was, in that moment. And this has happened twice, now, where we’ve wanted to check in and I’ve asked him and he’s been like, “Well, now I’m—oh yeah.”
ross
And you’ve resurfaced his visions of death.
carrie
So, yeah, I’ve just become the grim reaper of Jennings Brown’s life.
ross
Why don’t you text him every month and… [They laugh.]
carrie
“Still thinking about dying? Hey—"
ross
“You’re not picturing death right now, are you?” [They laugh.]
carrie
I mean, he also—oh boy. Yeah, he lives in the Bronx. Maybe this isn’t—well! Anyway. He seems to be doing well. [They laugh.]
ross
Or at least, he was!
carrie
Yeah! Sort of disregarding—so, Cal Pierce, he’s the founder of Healing Room Ministries. He wrote a blog on April 30th saying that, “During Passover, the corona virus began to flatline, which means that it’s passing over us and will have no power to destroy us!”
ross
Thaaat’s incorrect!
carrie
So, Passover was April 8th to 16th, so I pulled some stats! To see if—let’s see, okay, if it flatlined, we should see these numbers going way, way, way, down.
ross
That was not the, uh, top of the curve.
carrie
So, worldwide on April 16th, end of Passover—the world had seen 145,000 deaths. [Ross makes an “oof” sound.] Today, the global death count is about 329,000. [Ross sighs.] So, it doubled in roughly a month. So, actually the growth rate increased. Okay, woah, woah, woah—wait, wait, wait—maybe he means the United States. Corona virus is passing over the US, because we are God’s country or whatever. Well, on April 16th, the US had seen 33,000 deaths from COVID-19. That was over a two-month period. Today, the US has seen a total of 73,639 deaths.
ross
Close to 90,000 now, aren’t we?
carrie
Oh, are we? Well! [Laughs sharply.] That was, uh, when I last checked the CDC website.
ross
Yeah, right now—at least according to the Worldometer, 97,647 in the US.
carrie
Okay. You know, I see that Worldometer and I don’t really know what it is. So, I went to CDC. So. Anyway. Either it more than doubled or even more than more than doubled.
ross
But the terrible thing is, now—these numbers are so large that most of us know somebody. So, we’re feeling for all of you out there.
carrie
And we’re recording this on—what is this? May 22nd. [Ross echoes the date.] So, these numbers are outdated by the time you hear this. So. But! The point being, corona virus definitely did not pass over us and sitting there and hoping you’ll be saved, probably not a good strategy.
ross
Yeah. And, you know, you never wanna be in the position of pointing to someone who said the wrong thing too early and saying, like, “Aha!” You know. “Now the deaths are this!” You know. We don’t wanna be exultant at these growing numbers and it’s a terrible thing. But it’s all the more caution against making these kind of pronouncements early on. Like, “Oh, well it’s only—you know, a handful of cases! It’s only—” Everyone is doing the math of, “Oh, it’s only .00012—” Well, guess what? It’s growing. Exponential growth.
carrie
Take into account the—yeah. The Arnot, how many people you can infect once you have it.
ross
Worth taking very seriously, Healing Room Ministries!
carrie
Indeed. So, maybe don’t go around hugging people. That is my segue.
ross
Aah! To Amma, the hugging saint!
carrie
Ammaaaa!
ross
So, we gave a few updates on her I think that I scrambled for while we were doing our live show in San Francisco about the Mystery Spot. But just to throw in a couple other notes that we got about Amma. I had read her book and I was talking about her being from a region of India. I think I was pronouncing it Kah-rah-la. Like, K-E-R-A-L-A. We had a very helpful listener let us know that it’s pronounced Karuhl-a. And the language that I loved the name of, ‘cause it was a palindrome, to me it looked like Malayalam (Muh-ly-uh-lam), but apparently that’s pronounced Mul-yahl-am. So, now you know.
carrie
Mm. Not as good. They should change it. [Snorts a laugh.]
ross
Yeeeah! Go with mine.
carrie
Just kidding, you can keep your language name.
ross
Also, we were both kind of thinking this at the time, but neither of us mentioned it—that, you know, in the book it was mentioning that—from time to time—Amma, when she was younger, would want to just eat dangerous things, random things, things that were not of any nutritious value. Like dung or—I can’t remember if shards of glass were on—
carrie
I think so, yeah.
ross
Yeah. Various things that, like, “Why would anyone eat that?” And so, many people pointed out that that could be pika. Very possible. You’d have to diagnose that and know more about the case. Who knows how much of that was her—we might say, inventive storytelling? Or the storytelling of the biographer. But yes. That is something to consider when somebody has kind of fixation with eating things that are not edible.
carrie
And in her case, it’s such a weird thing because she—or at least, the writers of these stories—would position these tales as, like, impressive things? That puts us in the awkward position of being like, “Well, nah. I mean that’s not—[laughs] that’s probably not good. It probably indicates something going on beneath the surface that you need to deal with.” But also, nah, I don’t wanna—what’s the word, like, knock you for maybe having mental health or a nutritive deficiency. [Ross agrees.] Yeah, pika’s very common, too. Like, especially among pregnant women. So, yeah. Like, that’s one explanation. But if that is the case, it’s not a bragging moment it’s a, “Go get an iron supplement,” moment. Or whatever your doctor tells you to do.
ross
Let’s talk about Vital Tones. You remember that app! [Carrie confirms brightly.] Or those three apps!
carrie
They… cured… my pedophilia? [Ross affirms with a laugh.] I—that’s not true. Knock on wood, not an issue I deal with. But I think that is one thing they said they could—uh.
ross
Yeah. So, uuuh. [Chuckles awkwardly.] We had actually heard from Uygar Dogan. That’s a guess at how to pronounce his name. But he was the creator of the app. He had listened to our episodes and he was very positive and friendly and gave us little insights into his testing process for creating these apps that were supposed to, with sounds in your ears, address things like—
carrie
Cerebral palsy. [Ross echoes her.] OCD. Migraine.
ross
A wide variety of things. And one of them was pedophilia. And, um…
carrie
Yeah. I think another was homosexuality.
ross
When he wrote us and we kind of pushed back a little bit on, you know, “Well, how do you support some of these claims of things that you say you can address?” He referred us to someone we could talk to who said that it’s been helping her ADHD. And she was a clairvoyant, psychic medium/reiki master. Sounds very, uh, reliable there. Also, you asked him to clarify this statement and he—far as I could see—did not respond. He said they were testing a passive pedophile who was deaf on his left ear who had come asking for help. “In four months, we have reached 75 effectivity dealing with thoughts and 50% shutting down his thoughts. We have also been working on his sexual orientation. He is noticing women more and more. So, first of all, putting numbers—conflicting and weird numbers—on something that’s kind of subjective and hard to measure, the amount of thoughts that you have that you don’t want—but then also this conflation with sexual orientation that somehow, you know, sexual orientation for children, yes that is problem that needs to be managed, but then treating what sounds like a same sex attraction as being an issue…
carrie
Or he might just be saying he’s starting to notice women more as opposed to children.
ross
Women instead of—oh, okay! In that case, never mind.
carrie
That would be beneficial for that person. Okay, it looks like he did reply to me. He didn’t reply to you.
ross
Got it. What did he say?
carrie
Okay, so he said—so, yeah, you mentioned that I asked him to clarify, said, “Are you saying that he’s also gay and that you’re attempting to make him heterosexual? I must say, if so, this is more concerning than promising.” Let’s see, he wrote back. He said, “Pedophilia is a brain disorder. It can’t be compared with homosexuality. There are also enough pedophile sex offenders against female children, ratio between female and male children is 2 to 1. Homosexuality has a genetic basis. Pedophilia not. Oh god, no. Homosexuality is not a disorder. This can’t be changed.” [Ross expresses surprise.] He’s saying homosexuality doesn’t need adjustment.
ross
Got it! Okay. I was—I was having a hard time kind of parsing his phrasing there. But okay, yeah. That makes sense. [Carrie agrees.] So, okay. Well, that’s good at least.
carrie
Yeah. Although, uh, we’ve said this before on this show, but the way to talk about pedophilia is such a tricky thing. I don’t know if a psychologist would agree that brain disorder is the right thing to call it. I really don’t know. But yeah, I have so much sympathy for anybody who carries that demon and—
ross
That’s a bad roll of the dice.
carrie
Yeah. And of course, doesn’t act on it. It’s just a huge burden to bear. If such a person listens to this show, well you know, I have sympathy for you. [Ross agrees.] I think people talk about you—like that you’re awful for even existing. I don’t think that’s true. I think you are fighting a brave battle by not acting on that.
ross
Yeah, absolutely. I agree. If that’s something that you’re dealing with, you should be taking with a therapist and not with someone producing tone apps.
carrie
[Laughs.] Agree! Agree.
ross
Speaking of which, listener Mark Warner got really excited about that ‘cause he recognized the sounds from the app as isochronic tones and said that they’re kind of related to binaural beats as well. Which I’m sure we’ll be talking about in the future. But with Binaural beats, you have two different, constant sounds playing in either ear, but they’re not matched to each other. And your brain kind of creates these additional sensations kind of from the combination of them. Whereas, with isochronic tones—like we were hearing—involves constant, rapid pulsing sound. Both of those get marketed as brainwave entrainment. So, that’s another thing that we’d looked up while we were recording and we’d seen a different context for entrainment and we thought, “Oh! This has nothing to do with it.” It was more of a kind of a physical phenomena. But Martin Weiner wrote in—he’s an assistant professor of psychology at George Mason University. He said that the entrainment definition that we had found was correct, but that one’s limited to meteorology. Entrainment in physics is, “the interaction between two oscillators, such that they match their period. It’s a phenomenon observed quite often in psychology and neuroscience as well where human brains do show entrainment to external, periodic stimuli such as speech or music.” That’s a nice little bit of expert knowledge!
carrie
Yeah! And thank you, Martin Weiner, for saying that in such a polite, helpful way. There was someone else who wrote in about this who was real jerk! [Ross agrees.] Anyway, but Martin Weiner? I like you. And you get to hear your name, Martin Weiner, whereas the other person? I just called you “jerk”. [Ross agrees with a chuckle.] Okay! Numerologyyy!
ross
Yeah! So, you remember, we released our numerology episode. We mentioned the guy’s name, because we thought, “Hey! You know, we’re gonna have a fun follow-up conversation with him. He was kind of excited about being on our podcast. This is call gonna be great! We’re gonna make a new friend!” [Carrie agrees several times.] But then he heard the episode.
carrie
He wasn’t into it.
ross
He was not into it. And oh my goodness, he hounded us. He called me repeatedly on my cellphone.
carrie
Oh, that’s right! [Carrie agrees multiple times as Ross continues.]
ross
Ended up shouting at him, ‘cause he would just not listen and then he would just not stop. And it just—poor guy, like—he was just distraught about this and so I said, “Look, Dale. Alright, let’s focus on the future. What can we do?” And oh my goodness, he just thought that it was just irresponsible for us to talk about numerology and we just—we got so many important things wrong and he had all these tiny little points.
carrie
And they would be things that—at least to me—would not have adjusted much at all, to clarify.
ross
But clearly we’d thrown him into a tailspin. And so, as a concession I said, “Okay, well. What we’ll do is we’ll reedit this episode. We’ll remove your name, and we’ll post that, so your name is not mentioned anywhere.” So, we did that, and we offered him—you know, “We’re happy to air any statement you wanna make.” And he said, “Well, I need time to work on that.” That’s fine. But then at the same time he was saying, “Well, my family, they’re all lawyers and I think you’re gonna be hearing from us.” Okay, well that’s fine too if you wanna do that. Just [chuckles]—calm down. Anyways. We haven’t heard from him again since then.
carrie
[Chuckles.] And Ross recorded an intro to that episode just saying, like, “There may me more from this person, stay tuned.” And then he called me on my cellphone and was like, “What’s this ‘stay tuned’ thing?! Ross is trying to make it like some dramatic [emphatically] ‘stay tuuuned’!?” It’s like, “Oh, goodness. There is nothing we could say that would please you.” [Laughs.] Your name’s not even in it now.
ross
He was just in this state where anything you said, he would tear it apart and read into it in every which way. He just, you know, wanted to scrutinize and analyze everything. It was—it was miserable.
carrie
But then would not invite the same sort of reflection on him.
ross
Right. It was the most awful kind of like—like having a breakup with somebody. Like a nasty breakup. That’s what every conversation with him felt like—a nasty breakup.
carrie
Yeeeah, it was really tough. Anyway!
ross
Good times.
carrie
This doesn’t happen that often, but it happens sometimes, and I hope he’s doing well.
ross
Yeah. I thought he was delightful when we met him!
carrie
At the time!
ross
And I thought—I thought we had a fairly positive reaction to his readings, but I—I—that’s not how he saw it.
carrie
Same. When we saw him, he also made a point of saying, like, “But thank you for saying I’m handsome.” [They giggle.] If I remember that. ‘Cause I had said he was handsome in the episode.
ross
We didn’t—we didn’t mention this. Like, we actually went to visit with him, ‘cause we thought we were having a follow-up interview that we had scheduled.
carrie
Yeah, we were like, “Aaah! What a mensch!”
ross
Oh, and—that’s right! That’s—oh my goodness, now I’m remember more of this. We had confirmed the time that we were gonna meet him at his place and he said, “No, no. I never responded to say yes that I had agreed to this time!” And then we pointed out in the email and he said, “Oh. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Alright. Fine. I missed that.” But instead, we stayed in his house and had this long, unproductive conversation. I don’t know.
carrie
Yeah, like two and a half hours or something like that.
ross
Yeah. Oh, it was—
carrie
Oh, it was painful.
ross
Super uncomfortable.
carrie
And I still feel bad about this. I was the one who said, “Okay, well how about this. Here’s an olive branch. We bleep out your name.” And he was like, “Okay, that’s fine.” [Chuckling.] And then you had to spend all night doing that and I had somewhere to go. Sorry.
ross
That’s fine. I wanted to make him happy! [Carrie agrees.] And I was all about extending the olive branch, too. So.
carrie
Oh, I know. I know. I just felt bad for, like, volunteering your time. [Ross reassures her.] ‘Cause then he wanted it, like, THAT DAY!
ross
Yes. Oh yes. Right away.
carrie
Uuum. Anyway! That went great. Urine therapy! You’ve been drinking your pee?
ross
No.
carrie
Oh! [Ross laughs.] I drink my pee—are we not supposed—were we supposed to finish that?!
ross
Yeah. Yeah, we’re done.
carrie
Oh, shit. I’ve been drinking my pee every meal!
ross
Oh, that explains the, uh, the glass of not-quite-water over there. [Carrie giggles.] Just kidding! She’s got water.
carrie
It’s waterrr. Urine is gross. Sooo! [Ross laughs.] Oh, actually, I have a non-Brother Sage related urine therapy update.
ross
Oh, do ya?
carrie
Do you remember, back during this investigation, I had watched a video interview with a guy who drank his pee every day and he said, “For a while, I was trying to cycle everything I produced, but I was going too often.” [Ross makes a disgusted noise.] And I was like, “Are we talking about eating your poop?! We’re talking about eating your poop, aren’t we?!” That stayed with me so… often that finally, just like three or four weeks ago, I was like, “I’m gonna find that guy and email him and ask him if was eating his poop.” As it’s—
ross
I can’t let it go.
carrie
Its’s living inside me. I need to know. [Ross chuckles.] So, I found the interview, found the guy. Then it took a while to find his email. Found his email. Emailed the guy. And [laughs] he wrote back! Let me see if I can find it, actually. So, this was February 27th. I said, “Hey, Dave. I listened to an interview you gave about urine therapy. You mentioned having done a 30-day urine fast. You also mentioned that at first you tried to, quote, “cycle” everything your body produced, but this made you go to the bathroom every 15 minutes. I have wondered, ever since, what this meant. Does it mean eating your feces? Thanks. Carrie.” [Ross laughs.] He wrote back, “No, it does not! And I am at a loss to figure out how you arrived at the idea of eating feces from urine therapy!”
ross
Weeell, everything your body produces…
carrie
Mm-hm! You’re already drinking your pee, sir. [Ross chuckles.] So.
ross
But he was incensed.
carrie
Yeah, so I wrote back. I said, “Oh, hey Dave. It was this interview, timecode 43 minutes—44 minutes in.” And then quoted it. Quote, “I did a 30-day urine fast, which—well, no food or water. It was just urine. I tried looping everything I produced, but I ended up—like, I was going every 15 minutes.” Unquote. So, I said—
ross
Okay, well. That makes sense in the light of it just being urine, but still it does invite that interpretation.
carrie
Yeah, so I said, “I’m not sure I understand what ‘everything I produced’ means in this context, if not urine and feces. But okay maybe you meant that you don’t drink every bit of urine. You merely saved some and drank it at certain times during the day, flushing the rest.” [Ross makes a sound of understanding.] “Is that what it is? That’s what confused me.” And he said, “All the urine I produced.” And I wrote back, “Ah.” [They laugh.]
ross
Okay! Well, mystery solved. Piss-tery solved.
carrie
Ooooh! Okay! That worked!
ross
Ey! [They laugh.] Thank you! So, Carrie reached out to Brother Sage, who we had interviewed on our show as a urine therapy practitioner and expert, who had written his own book on the topic, because he had at some point told us, “Hey, you should interview me again, because I’ve got an amazing update!”
carrie
And he sent the email to Max Fun headquarters. [Ross laughs.] And then they had sent it to us, “Hey—you—did you guys want this urine therapy news?” [Chuckles.]
ross
It’s so fun, because there are many ways in which our show is not like your normal Max Fun show. I think sometimes we keep the Max Fun staff on their toes. [Carrie affirms.] “Huh. We have a guy… who drinks his pee? Wants to talk to you. Is that alright?”
carrie
Every once in a while, I’ll get an email from Jesse Thorn that’s like, “This person wants to be interviewed on Bullseye, but it looks too nuts. Do you want this?” [Laughs.]
ross
Max Fun handles this like a passel of champs.
carrie
Mm-hm. Okay. It looks like you read his reply, which I haven’t read yet. What’d he say?
ross
Okay. Yeah, this was one of those things where he kept replying just to me and then I would have to copy you back in. But yeah. He had responded to you and said, “Hey! Great to hear from you. My life has been nonstop since I met you guys. Loving the journey.” He’s talking about all that. “How are you both doing?” And so, I said, “Aw yeah, okay. We’re doing great. Yeah. But what was that breaking news that you were gonna share with us, again?” You know? Like that we should interview you about? And so, he just went off on this thing that’s really—it’s just kind of marketing fluff saying, “Hey, we’re doing well! And the movement is strong and we’re growing, and everybody should be joining us!” So, I—it’s very—
carrie
Growth is stratospheric.
ross
Yeah, right. Exactly. So, it’s very long, but he says, “The breaking news in the UT world is the dramatic increase in people worldwide practicing Shivambu. AUT = Auto-Urine Therapy. Thanks to the great awakening and purification happening today, reports of new UT testimonials, discoveries, and research reaches millions daily through social media and the Shivambu hut.” And he just keeps going and going and going.
carrie
Shivambu being another word for urine therapy.
ross
Yeah, one that he particularly likes. So, I said, “Well, thanks for sharing the news. Copying Carrie back so she can see and read as well.” And so, he wrote back just to me and said, “Thanks, Ross. Be a good boy and drink your pee.”
carrie
[Chuckles.] And did you?
ross
No. I was—I was a bad boy and did not drink my pee. [Carrie laughs.] But yeah, he posts regularly on Facebook and I still get updates from the urine therapy movement. My old school chum who had been a proponent, every now and then he’ll write me to say, you know, “Hey, look at x group. Boy, they believe something crazy, don’t they?” [Carrie chuckles.] Like, “[Clicks teeth.] Sure. Yep. Yeah.”
carrie
Everyone’s got blind spots.
ross
“How’s your pee drinking going?” Good times.
carrie
We’ve got ‘em too. [Ross agrees.] So, the flat earthers! The flat earthers, I still follow pretty closely a variety of them—especially on Twitter. As you might expect, they’re kind of having their moment. A lot of the people who believe in flat earth tend to believe in conspiracy theory in general. So, this moment where society has changed quite a bit and where we’re being asked to do things by our government and so on has really coughed them to life for a moment, here. And so, a lot of them are talking about the great awakening and Q and how, if you’re really, completely conscious, you won’t follow all this mask nonsense.
ross
Ay, yi yi. I wonder how they square the circle on their man Trump—who’s kind of their best advocate—also creating the Space Force.
carrie
Yeah. Though, you know, when we did the flat earther meetup, there were—I mean, there were definitely a lot of pro-Trump people, but there were some people who were like, “Oh, are you crazy? Like, he’s in charge of things. He’s in on it.” [Ross affirms.] Yeah. No, no.
ross
Fair enough.
carrie
But I did reach out to Jeran. Jeran Campanella, who I still think is the most open of the flat earthers we’ve talked to. I texted him every once in a while and said, like, “Hey! What do you think about x?” And he’s pretty game to, like, engage for a little bit. He doesn’t wanna have a protracted conversation, which actually I appreciate. And so, I checked in on him. I looked at his YouTube channel and he had just posted a conversation where he and a guest were arguing that masks will actually make you choke on your own carbon dioxide and vaccines are unsafe and so I was like, “Oh, goddamn it Jeran.” [Ross lets out a fluttery sigh.] So! Uh, but the video was, like, three and half hours so I thought, “I don’t have time to watch this all right now.” This was just today. “But, you know, maybe I’m getting just like a tiny piece of this and I’m not getting the whole picture.” So, I texted Jeran and I said like, “Hey, just found this. Don’t really have time to watch all of it. I wondered if you could give me just, like, a quick summary of your views on the corona virus and what’s going on here.” So, he wrote back, and he said, “Constitutions are written to prevent governments from arbitrarily interfering in citizens’ lives and businesses. Governors and health directors who have been imposing closures and regulations have done so illegally. If you are sick, stay home! I don’t trust the numbers. And I think fear is the only contagion. I was at the May 1st California protest and will be at the one tomorrow. Have a good day. Stay healthy. And that includes taking that mask off, so you don’t get hypoxia.” Which is, like, low blood oxygen.
ross
Some of that would be fine if it weren’t for the problem with corona virus specifically, where you don’t show symptoms right away.
carrie
So, I wrote back and said, “Wait, why stay home if you’re sick if fear is the only contagion?” [Ross chuckle and agrees.] And he said, “Because that’s how you get better. More to the point, if you wanna stay home, stay home.” And I said, “Why does it help you get better to stay home, then, if it’s not a contagious virus. This is confusing.” He hasn’t replied to that.
ross
I mean, on the upside, at least the current situation has distracted my cousin, who now—instead of talking about flat earth regularly—is talking about Bill Gates putting tracking devices and the mark of the beast inside of this vaccine.
carrie
Bill Gates, are you listening? Or Melinda. Actually, Bill’s really cool, but I think Melinda’s even cooler.
ross
Yeah?
carrie
Melinda, are you listening? Can we talk? Can we just all sit in a room, be like, “Bill, Melinda, this is Kevin. Kevin’s freaking out.” [They chuckle.] “Can you explain what you’re deal is? Okay. So, Bill and Melinda. There have been some policy decisions you guys have made that weren’t tippy top, just like any major entity. Let’s talk about those. Cool. We’ve got that covered. Okay. What are some good things your do—Kevin, what are some good things you’re doing? Okay! Great.” Melinda. Give me a call.
ross
Yeah, Bill and Melinda are doing great work on the whole. I heard him recently on a Stephen Colbert interview, and Bill Gates was saying, “Oh, you know, we need to do this in the meantime, but as a final solution, we need to—” And I’m thinking, “No, why did you say that?!”
carrie
Oh nooooo…
ross
And Stephen Colbert, being—you know—sharp as he is, he picked up on that immediately and said, “Eeh, you made a joke out of it, you might not wanna use that phrase.”
carrie
Let’s use a different term.
ross
Goodness.
carrie
That reminds me of two of my favorite filmmakers, the Christiano brothers. They make my favorite Christian films. Oh yes, we’ve talked about them. [Ross affirms.] And they are making one right now. I think it’s called The Greatest Race? And it’s about, like, a kid in track and field. [Ross lets out a pained laugh.] And it hasn’t been released yet and I saw the title and I was like, “[Sighs.] Do I write to them and say, ‘Hey, like, think about it.’?” [They laugh.]
ross
Just look at the title, just by itself.
carrie
Yeah, just like—just—just give it a moment.
ross
Forget your project for a second. [They laugh.] The Greatest Race, aw.
carrie
Yeah. Oh no. Alright, holotropic breathwork!
ross
Yeeeah! So, we had tried to go to another event that was being organized by Michael, from the holotropic breathwork workshop that we went to.
carrie
One of our favorite investigations.
ross
Yeah! It really was. And this event was something different—something we’ve actually mentioned earlier in this episode. But it was gonna be taking place at someone’s house. So, this is just an interesting follow-up, because he recognized our names when we signed up. And he gave us the nicest brushoff I have every received in my life. [Carrie agrees with a giggle.] The kind of brushoff that makes you feel good about yourself.
carrie
Aww! Yeah!
ross
As you’re being dismissed. [They laugh.] He wrote, “Aw, hi Carrie and Ross. I hope you’ve been well since the Joshua Tree Retreat last year. At the time, I had no idea about who you were or about your podcast. A friend of mine emailed me a couple of months later to tell me that you had done a couple of podcasts on holotropic breathwork and the retreat. I am happy that you had a good experience. The one fact that you might want to edit is that Stan Groff is actually still alive. You said that he had died, in the podcast. It is his longtime wife, Christina Groff, who co-created holotropic breathwork with him, that died a few years back. I see you registered for an event that I am leading with—” He lists the guy’s name. “This Sunday. This event is being held at his home and is for a small group of primarily friends and family to do inner work in a safe, intimate space. Given the nature of the event and since you have an additional agenda, we’re unfortunately not able to have you participate. So, I am sending your payments back via PayPal. Blessings, Michael.” But then he followed up later to say that he actually really enjoys our show! And he’s listened it and—you know, it sounded like he was actually a fan and thinks that we’re doing valuable work. Yeah. So.
carrie
Good! Love it.
ross
Best brushoff. Loved it.
carrie
Best brushoff. I also like this sort of unloaded use of the word agenda. [Ross agrees.] Mm-hm. Let’s bring back agenda as just, like, [droopily] some plans.
ross
Is that your agenda, now? To bring that back?
carrie
Yeah! My agenda is to just be like, [relaxed] “That’s fine. Agenda’s fine.” One of my agendas is of course to destigmatize the Cars movie. That’s a movie that’s like fine. It’s a C+ movie. It’s fine.
ross
Let me check my agenda. Oh, sorry. It’s, uh, filled up right now. I recently showed Andrew the movie Doc Hollywood.
carrie
Oh right, on which Cars appears to be based.
ross
Right, which I would say they have essentially the same plot. And it was fun. And he enjoyed it, ‘cause Back to the Future is his favorite movie and that was—
carrie
Ah! I didn’t know that!
ross
—Michael J Fox, very much in that same era.
carrie
I didn’t know that was Andrew’s favorite movie!
ross
Oh! In fact, Andrew started a Back to the Future club at his high school.
carrie
Oh my god, this is gonna be so much easier to get Andrew gifts!
ross
[Laughs.] But only his friends showed up, just to support him. [Carrie makes an “aw” sound.] So, he gave it up pretty soon afterwards. But I’m very proud of Andrew for having created that club.
carrie
I created the Smooch Club in elementary school. And it was just me and my friend Helen kissing. [They laugh.] But she worked for Space X for a long time! So, I think I probably propelled her. [Ross agrees.] Yeah.
ross
Good thing you had the Smooch Club.
carrie
Yeah, for sure. Anyway. Uuh, Forerunner Ministries. Remember them?
ross
Oh, right! “The man-child is born in the stars.”
carrie
Yeah! [Putting on an exaggerated, sagely voice.] “The man-child.” Yeah, yeah.
ross
There was this big prophecy that was being fulfilled in the High Desert.
carrie
Yeah. On November 23rd, 2017, I think?
ross
Yeah, a date that shall live in nobody’s mind.
carrie
Actually September 23rd. That’s how much it’s gonna live in our minds.
ross
[Laughs.] Okay, yes. Very momentous.
carrie
So, just checked in on them. So, you may recall that their main minister, his name is Michael Petro.
ross
Yeah. Is the end of the world here? Did we miss it?
carrie
Uuuuum! You know, hard to say! Because, uuh, why not talk about these things as vaguely as we can? But he’s still making prophetic videos about how we’re in the end times. But I didn’t see any particular mention of something changing three years ago. But I did write to my friend, the one—well, I’m using friend loosely—but my acquaintance, who was the one who first told us about this. And I asked how he was doing and said, “You know, now such a long a time has passed. Do you feel like there was a shift, that night?”
ross
Oh yeah! That’s right. You knew this guy from your local city council.
carrie
Yeah. He has not written back, but I only sent the email nine hours ago. [Ross affirms.] So, if he writes back, I’ll update this update.
ross
We’ll make a whole episode about his response.
carrie
[Laughing.] His email.
ross
I hope it’s a long one. Contact in the Desert?
carrie
Aww, Contact in the Desert has been canceled this year. [Ross makes a disappointed sound.] It’s moved to 2021. [Ross affirms.] Presumably ‘cause of COVID. Also, their Twitter account was suspended for violating Twitter rules.
ross
Do we know how?
carrie
No, I just—I went to look at their Twitter and it said, “This account has been suspended for violating our terms of service.”
ross
Maybe they pissed off Shakuntali.
carrie
Probably. They’re putting up pictures of her trifold trying to give her free advertising and she was like, “You will not!”
ross
[Chuckles.] Self-Realization Fellowship, how are they doing?
carrie
Actually, I was very pleased with them. You know, after we did our investigation, we said, “You know, if they were running the world, things would be okay. Not perfect, but okay.” So, they are actively supporting social distancing. There’s a letter on their site right now from Brother Chidananda, who’s the person who took over as kind of the head of that operation, and he’s encouraging everyone to follow the ordinances. He says, “Protect yourself and others by observing the health and hygiene guidelines mandated for your locale. And if social distancing rules create a little extra time in your daily routine, use it gratefully to uplift yourself and all whom you can touch and serve by your right actions.” Not literally touch, though. “As an outwardly distanced but inwardly united band of souls, let us continue to charge ourselves from the infinite source of strength and inspiration.
ross
Very nice. Yeah. Yeah, I think they’ve set themselves up where their focus isn’t so much on the miraculous and it’s just on nice, positive things that you can do in your real life. You know, it seems like they’re at a position that it takes most religions a couple thousand years to get to. You know. It’s pretty innocuous and yeah, I get those little updates and they’re always—you know, nice little stories and life lessons.
carrie
Yeah! So, they’re cool. They seem pretty cool. Braco, by the way, is doing 13 sessions a day of freegazing, online.
ross
Oh, thank goodness someone is addressing the real problems in the world right now. Okay.
carrie
So, if people wanna go see them, you can go to Braco.me. So that’s B as in boy, R-A-C-O dot M as in Mickey, E.
ross
I’m going there.
carrie
And it does have a disclaimer. It says, “Please note before gazing, the encounters with Braco are open for adults 18 years and up and are not a replacement for medical treatment or consultation.”
ross
18 and up? So, what, it’s like just too sexy for the kids?
carrie
[Laughs.] Yeah, I guess. I bet it has something to do with like—not even wanna—wanting to deal with, you know, making health claims around kids.
ross
[To the tune of “Too Sexy for My Shirt”.] Too sexy for this livestream. Too sexy for this livestream…
carrie
We’ve lost Ross, everybody.
ross
Do-do-do. Aw, ended seven hours ago. [They make disappointed sounds.]
carrie
Well, they’re free and they’ll be back.
ross
Oh, this is interesting. It shows how many participants there are from which countries.
carrie
Oh, that’s cool.
ross
Guess who’s number one?
carrie
Croatia.
ross
No. [Sighs.] US is number one, Carrie.
carrie
Oh, okay. USA.
ross
[Chuckles.] Yeah, 52 of the participants. Next one is Deutschland, with 14 in Germany. Uh, 5—
carrie
[Inaudible.]
ross
Yeah! That’s right! Have 5 from Austria. Slovenia, 5. Romania, 4. Canada, 4. Okay. Interesting. Well! Good to know.
carrie
Yeah. So, if you wanna watch that, watch that. I’m not gonna stop you. Hey, how ‘bout Melissa Scott?
ross
Oh, you got some updates on her?
carrie
Yeah. Checked in. Gotta check in. So, she released a weirdly angry video. Ah, why am I surprised? I mean, she’s always pissed off.
ross
She used to be our most vindictive former subject.
carrie
That’s true! But she released this video where she was really pissed off because some of her followers were criticizing her for being patriotic! So, she had released a video some time ago talking about how we should all stand for the flag and basically criticizing Colin Kaepernick and others for kneeling during the National Anthem.
ross
Oh yeah, ‘cause kneeling is such a sign of disrespect.
carrie
[Laughing.] Right. That’s, you know—that’s why the Queen is always like, “I’m gonna chop your head open when you do that.” Anyway! After that, I think people, probably rightly, suspected that she was a lot more rightwing than her husband was.
ross
Oh, that’s weird. ‘Cause, uh, people got really mad at us when we suggested that there was a rightwing sentiment at the church.
carrie
Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Mm-hm. I couldn’t tell if this had happened online or in person. I got kind of the impression we were talking about internet comments. But yeah, she was really mad that some people in her king’s house…
ross
[Amused.] Oh-kay, yeah.
carrie
—had criticized her for this.
ross
King’s number 5382 is officially banished.
carrie
[Laughs.] Right. She didn’t name anyone or name anybody’s number, but she said she’s not gonna use her pastor platform to give political messages, only like three times has she ever done that. But oh, now these people are jumping down her throat. But she doesn’t want anyone here to be surprised if she does things as a private citizen. And she kept kind of alluding to these, like—
ross
If you look closely, you’ll see that I’ve done something political on the side?
carrie
Maybe. Or I’m going to? [Ross affirms.] Yeah, it felt like preface. Anyway. She said, “If this is the new America, with legislators taking away people’s freedoms, then this is not America.” So, I think she’s gonna be, like, protesting the shutdowns or something.
ross
[Flatly.] Cool, cool. [Carrie laughs.] Melissa Scott. [Carrie echoes him.] A real piece of work.
carrie
She really is.
ross
But an American piece of work.
carrie
True. Speaking of farting. Soylent is more widely available now.
ross
Yeah! That’s right. We got in on the ground floor, at the founder’s house, to try Soylent early on. But yeah, it’s changed quite a bit. New formula. I’d be glad to try it again.
carrie
Yeah! Well, they sell it at 7-11 now.
ross
Yeah, I think you can get it a lot of places, right?
carrie
Yeah, I think so. But I mean, it’s just sooo—
ross
Pervasive. Yeah.
carrie
Yeah. And most of the flavors are vegan now.
ross
So, uh, I guess kind of that plan worked out. It’s become a staple and sort of an expected thing. People know about it. So, well done. And most versions are vegan. Yeah, very nice.
carrie
Yeah! Heeey!
ross
Gladly give it another go. I did, once at a work garage sale—I bought a bunch of Soylent from a friend who said, “Oh, I love it! It’s just I bought too much, accidentally.” So, I think that was version three? It was good!
carrie
Yeah, I really wanna try the coffee one.
ross
Ooh yeah! I think I had the chocolate and there’s one that’s—I don’t know, like, cinnamon-y or something like that?
carrie
Oh, they have a chai, I think.
ross
Chai, that was it! Yeah. That was good! [Carrie affirms positively.] They were both good.
carrie
Niiiice. Laughter yoga’s daily calls continue. I think this is a great time to do laughter yoga and I was gonna ask you. Ross. Ross, is it?
ross
I’m Ross.
carrie
Do you wanna pick another day for people to call in the laughter yoga hotline with us?
ross
Let’s do it.
carrie
Be cool, everybody. You’re just gonna laugh along. Enjoy it. Okay, Ross. How about… anyone who wants to join can join us on the laughter yoga call on June 10th.
ross
That’s a Wednesday.
carrie
Yes. At 6PM, Pacific.
ross
That’s 1800, military time.
carrie
That’s right. And they can call in to: (712)432-3900.
ross
But they’re gonna be prompted for an access code! And then that happens, they should probably enter: 6071292#
carrie
You got it!
ross
And we’ll probably put this on our Facebook page or social media. But yeah, 6PM Pacific. Join us for Laugh with Janette—aka, Juicy Starfruit, from Montana.
carrie
Fun stuff. Laughter yoga really is really good. I’m already looking forward to this. This is gonna improve your day.
ross
So, you know, play along. Have fun. Laugh. We can all hear each other. And hopefully, they’ll laugh because they’ll wonder where everybody came from.
carrie
Yeah! The last time we did this, you could tell that they were just overwhelmed with the number of people. In a good way. So, someone would chime in and everyone would go, “Ooh! Ho-ho-ho-ho! OH-ho-ho-ho-ho-ho!” And we got a good, like, 40+ people on there. It was great.
ross
It was fantastic. Does it say how long it goes for?
carrie
I think it’s 20 minutes.
ross
Okay. There we go. So, be there at 6 o’clock or be square. And I don’t know, we should probably just make it a regular thing but let’s do it on the 10th! [Carrie agrees.] See ya—hear ya there!
carrie
Yeah. And then we’ll, uh, see what happens. And speaking of seeing what happens! [Ross makes an impressed noise.] Okaaay?
ross
That was a good transition!
carrie
[Laughing.] Thank you. Um, we had some predictions at the beginning of 2020 and a couple have panned out or not panned out!
ross
Okay, yeah! I thought there would be some major good news about malaria or reducing the number of deaths from malaria.
carrie
And there was just a new vaccine that was announced with some promising efficacy. It’s not widely available yet or at the consumer market, because it’s not quite as efficacious as they would like for side effects. But like, a very promising new route.
ross
I was also reading, in that book I Contain Multitudes, I was reading about a successful pilot program that was done with adding a very common bacteria to mosquitos that essentially just kept them from being able to carry the virus. But it didn’t—you know, it didn’t harm their ability to reproduce and so then those would be kind of manipulated and then released into the wild. I think—I wanna say either the scientists were from Australia or I think the first experiments were done in Australia. Anyways, now that’s being spread around to different locations. So, take that, malaria!
carrie
Yeah! Malaria, if you listen to the show, just unfriend us now! We don’t even like you! We don’t support what you do!
ross
You know what? I’d rather you not listen to the show, malaria! [Carrie agrees.] You’re awful!
carrie
Fuck off! [Softening.] But if you need to talk about your views and, like, maybe if you’re willing to change your mind then I’d like to talk to you, please email me.
ross
I made another prediction, hasn’t panned out yet. I thought the year 2020 would be a great year for the number 27, but the year’s not over yet. We’ve got a big election coming. You wait for it! 27 is coming. If I had said 19, I would’ve won already.
carrie
What’s 19?
ross
COVID.
carrie
Oooh, sure.
ross
Yeah. But. We’ll see what happens. I’m still holding out for the number 27.
carrie
I did look up the number 27 in Google News and—yeah. I mean—
ross
Yeah, same here. It was like, “Oh! 27% of this district have gotten COVID-19. Or have—"
carrie
And then you have to start asking yourself like, “Well, if I were a psychic, would I count this? Maybeeee?”
ross
Yeah, essentially any number is gonna give you some results on the news search. But I’m still holding out hope.
carrie
That is how far-flung and reaching our media is, now! And speaking of! I predicted: that a peacock would make national news. Now, a few people did write in to say, “Oh my gosh! NBC is announcing their streaming platform, their OTT called Peacock!” Unfortunately, that was actually announced in 2019. So, we did—we did know about that. So, I haven’t been counting that. But, on May 11th 2020, a peacock—a physical, animal peacock—made national news on the New York Times and CNN because he got out of a zoo in Boston and was just, like, escaped in some neighborhood and the neighbors were worried. So, they called in animal control. And so, the cop who was dispatched there was very smart and called up a peacock mating noise on his phone and just stood near the peacock playing this horny peahen noise until he came over. And then they got him, and they brought him back to his home.
ross
That was a peafowl (foul).
carrie
I see. I see, okay!
ross
So, if you make a successful psychic prediction about a peacock, does that make you a psycock?
carrie
[Laughs.] That’s a pretty good one. [Ross thanks her with a laugh.] That’s a pretty good one.
ross
I’ll be here all night.
carrie
And I must say, Max Fun Drive has been delayed—as we all know. But there’s a little bit of serendipity around the timing of the peacock finally hitting the news and our enamel pin for Max Fun Drive. I can’t say more, but I think you’ll all be very pleased. Those are our updates. Those are our corrections. Everything else we’ve ever said: accurate and up to date.
ross
Correct. [Laughs.] And thank you for joining us for this trip down memory lane/a look at the present.
carrie
Thanks for the memories.
ross
And also, we wanted to let you know about a couple fun projects coming up, in case you wanted to use any of your creative energies to help us out.
carrie
Yeah! So, we’re just taking on a couple new, fun things. One is we’re gonna be asking listeners to go through our backlog and collect a few datapoints for us.
ross
Every now and then we hear from someone who says, “I just listened to your entire back catalogue in three weeks!” And I go, “What?! How did you do that?”
carrie
How is this possible?
ross
That is so much content. Well! If you’d like to be part of this effort, one of our very generous and awesome and talented listeners, Amelia Selvaggio, is leading this effort—collecting recruits, people who would like to volunteer to go through a previous episode or 2 or 3 or 15 and pull information about things that we mention that would belong in show notes, things that we made as predictions or that—
carrie
Promises we made and may have forgotten because I said something ridiculous and now we need to do it.
ross
So, we just wanna pull a lot of info about our episodes that could make our various supporting material more useful and helpful to people getting through them. So, yeah! So, if you want to help with that, we’ll be sharing out a link soon on social media, on Twitter, on Facebook. So, keep an eye open for how you can get involved with that.
carrie
And we will also mention it in a forthcoming episode if you don’t have social media. Also, we have been getting a lot of emails lately of two flavors. One is—
ross
Vanilla.
carrie
[Chuckles.] One is, “Boy, these times are getting me down and I want to be reassured that there is a way to get through to people who have absorbed bad information. Maybe I have an aunt who’s big into Q Anon or a parent who’s always been into alt-med, but now I’m worried about them because they’re not taking COVID very seriously.” Things like this, and how do you reach out to those people? And we try our best to answer these things, but of course every situation’s different. And we realized there’s this second flavor of email we’re getting that might help the first. So, the second flavor is people saying, “I realized during this time that this show helped me in my journey toward taking evidence more seriously and how that’s changed my life or gotten me out of a bad situation.” And so, that kind of inspired us to say, “Wait a minute, maybe we should be connecting these two people up.”
ross
It really means the world to us when we hear from someone that our episodes either gave them courage to leave a bad situation or talk to someone who they felt disconnected with. Or, you know, it helped a relationship with a friend or a loved one. Or even just it got them through a tough time. [Carrie agrees.] That means a lot. So, if you’d be willing to record that, just—you know, a quick telling of your story and kind of how the show impacted you—we’d love for you to send that to us.
carrie
So, try to keep it under five if you can, because we wanna collect these all in one place in a future episode. But it can be anything, you know. If it’s—if it’s more along the lines of, like, “This helped me talk to my mom about ‘blank’,” we’d love to hear that too. And send your audio file to info@ohnopodcast.com and be sure that whatever you include on there, you’re okay with sharing on this feed. So, if you don’t want us to say your name, that’s fine. Just don’t say it in the file.
ross
And it doesn’t need to be perfect audio quality or anything. Like, just recording on your phone is great, if that’s what you’ve got. You know. Just try to get into a quiet environment that’s not too echoey or anything like that.
carrie
If you can!
ross
If you can. We’d appreciate that.
carrie
But if you have a bird sitting on your shoulder all day, it’s fine!
ross
We’ll hear your bird!
carrie
It’s fine. The birds sing and the flowers croon.
ross
[Singing.] In the tiki, tiki, tiki room.
carrie
There it is.
ross
Carrie knows how to set me up. [Carrie giggles.] And I know how to hit that t-ball. [Laughs.] So, please and thank you.
carrie
Ta-taaa!
ross
Well, that’s it for our show! Our theme music is by Brian Keith Dalton.
carrie
This episode was edited by Victor Figueroa.
ross
Our administrative manager is Ian Kremer.
ross
You can also leave us a positive review at iTunes or Overcast or Spotify or wherever it is you listen to our show. That really does help us. That helps other people find us. It helps us look legitimate. Like, “Oh, look at all these people who like them!” That really helps us. So, thank you.
carrie
Exactly. Also, by the way, if you have a suggestion—people who have successfully migrated from Facebook to something Facebookian but not Facebook, I’d like to hear about that. [Ross agrees.] Because I fucking hate Facebook.
ross
Yeah. Theeeeey’ve been pretty awful.
carrie
Yeah. And remember!
clip
Sri Harold Klemp: Whether a soul be in Hell or the ocean of love and mercy, Mahanta is with it—with soul—as well as with all other souls. The soul only has to recognize this to understand and know this miracle of life. This is in the Shariyat-Ki-Sugmad, page 105, if you have the individual volumes. And my copy is quite old, so I hope—you know, in case you wanna check any of this, you can find it. So, my love is with you and until… [a long silence] we see each other again. I love you.
music
“Oh No, Ross and Carrie! Theme Song” by Brian Keith Dalton. A jaunty, upbeat instrumental.
promo
James Arthur: Hi, I’m James, host of Minority Korner, which is a—? Speaker 1: Podcast that’s all about intersectionality. It’s hosted by James with a guest host every week. Speaker 2: Discussing all sorts of wonderful issues; nerdy and political. Speaker 3: Pop culture— Speaker 1: Black, queer feminism. Speaker 4: Race. Sexuality. Speaker 5: News. Speaker 6: You’re gonna learn your history. There’s self-empowerment. And it’s told by what feels like your best friend. Speaker 2: Why should someone listen to Minority Korner?
promo
Speaker 7: Why not? Speaker 8: Oh my god. Free stuff. James: There’s not free stuff. Speaker 1: The listeners of Minority Korner will enjoy some necessary lols, but mainly a look at what’s happening in our world through a colorful lens. Speaker 2: People will get the perspective of… marginalized communities. Speaker 1: I feel heard. I feel seen. Speaker 9: Like you said, you need to understand how to be more proactive in your community? And this is a great way to get started. James: Join us every Friday on MaxFun, or wherever you get your podcast. Multiple speakers: Minority Korner! Because together, we’re the majority.
promo
Danielle Radford: Mmmacho man, to the top rope! [Thump!] Danielle: The flying elbow! The cover! [Crowd cheering swells.] Speaker 2: [Distant; impact on each word] One! Two! Three! [Ding ding ding!] Danielle:: We've got a new champion! Music: Excited, sweeping music. Lindsey Kelk: We're here with Macho Man Randy Savage after his big win to become the new world champion! What are you gonna do now, Mach?! Hal Lublin: [Randy Savage impression] I'm gonna go listen to the newest episode of the Tights and Fights podcast, oh yeah! Lindsey: Tell us more about this podcast! Hal: [Continuing impression] It's the podcast of power, too sweet to be sour! Funky like a monkey! Woke discussions, man! And jokes about wrestlers' fashion choices, myself excluded! Yeahh! Lindsey: I can't wait to listen! Hal: [Continuing impression] Neither can I! You can find it Saturdays on Maximum Fun! Oh yeahhh! Dig it! [Music fades out.]
promo
[A quick, energetic drumroll.] Music: Exciting techno music plays. Tre’vell Anderson: So, here’s the thing. I know no one really needs another podcast to add to their feed. Jarrett Hill: But let’s be real. Jarrett and Tre’vell: One more won’t hurt! Tre’vell: I’m Tre’vell Anderson. Jarrett: And I’m Jarrett Hill. We’re the hosts of a new podcast coming to Maximum Fun, called FANTI! Tre’vell: Yes! Like, Rhianna’s last album, but with an ‘F’. Jarrett: What the hell’s a FANTI? Think “fan” and “anti”. Tre’vell: [Chuckling.] To be FANTI is to be a big fan of something, but also have some challenging or anti feelings toward it. Think about Tyler Perry, out here in these streets telling people that he’s writing every single script for all of his productions as if they’re all amazing. Audio Clip: [Dramatically.] They are, now! Tre’vell: I’m glad you’re making all the money yourself, but like, come on. Jarrett: Or like we’re two Black, gay men who grew up in the Black church.
promo
Tre’vell: Amen. Jarrett: Love gospel music. [A short “hallelujah” plays.] Jarrett: But are really challenged by some of the messages. Tre’vell: Listen, they say that we’re not supposed to be here. Jarrett: We’re tackling all of those complex and complicated conversations about the people, places, and things that we love. Tre’vell: Even though they may not love us back. Jarrett: FANTI’s about the nuance you’re definitely not getting on your Twitter timeline. From the White House— Tre’vell: —to the real house. Wig Jarrett: Subscribe to FANTI. That’s F-A-N-T-I, at MaximumFun.org or wherever you get your podcasts. Tre’vell: Trust me, you’re gonna love it! Jarrett: [Quietly.] I don’t trust you. [Music ends.]
music
A cheerful ukulele chord.
speaker 2
Comedy and culture.
speaker 3
Artist owned—
speaker 4
—audience supported.
About the show
Welcome to Oh No, Ross and Carrie!, the show where we don’t just report on fringe science, spirituality, and claims of the paranormal, but take part ourselves. Follow us as we join religions, undergo alternative treatments, seek out the paranormal, and always find the humor in life’s biggest mysteries. We show up – so you don’t have to. Every week we share a new investigation, interview, or update.
Follow @ohnopodcast on Twitter and join the Facebook group!
Get in touch with the show
@OhNoPodcast
/ONRACPeople
How to listen
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