Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. That's our one and only
Speaker 1: super producer, the Man the myth Legend, Max Williams. They
Speaker 1: called me Ben and no, believe it or not, we're
Speaker 1: kind of on a streak, dude. This is another on
Speaker 1: purpose two part. Or isn't it's true? We're batting too?
Speaker 1: Is that a thing? Batting averages work? Does that to
Speaker 1: be does have to be a ratio? It has to
Speaker 1: be a ratio. I think. I don't think you can
Speaker 1: just bat too. I don't know. We can discuss this
Speaker 1: more today. In our second part about dumb mobsters, dumb
Speaker 1: mafio sos, we mixed a few others in their mind.
Speaker 1: Was about dumb kind of secondary players doing dumb stuff
Speaker 1: to a mobster who then eliminated all of them with impunity,
Speaker 1: including his own people. Because uh, you know, that's just
Speaker 1: what a guy with a name like Johnny the Bats,
Speaker 1: Johnny Batts, Johnny Batter, he was a new Baseball Scores.
Speaker 1: I can tell you that right now. That's just the
Speaker 1: kind of stuff that guys like that do. But we
Speaker 1: are once to con joined with Matt Leeb and Vince
Speaker 1: Mancini from the pod Yourself a Gun Podcast, the only
Speaker 1: sopranos podcast on the Internet that sound cube. Hi, hey guys,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for coming back. Uh and you know,
Speaker 1: I know it was a little touch and go off air,
Speaker 1: but we have we have squashed some beefs and uh,
Speaker 1: we're back to our adventures now. Previously we explored this
Speaker 1: story of jack Ente and uh as as you said, Noel, Uh,
Speaker 1: the vengeance of Big Tuna, which is how that's like
Speaker 1: burned into my brain now, uh, and today in part two,
Speaker 1: we're going to explore another strange event and then we're
Speaker 1: also going to explore an interesting sibling duo. So fans
Speaker 1: of Mafio so it's probably can already call that one
Speaker 1: from a few miles away. But Vince, let's let's hear
Speaker 1: about Let's hear about this caper you found because you
Speaker 1: found out like, um, was it a kidnapping? It was
Speaker 1: a kidnapping? Yes, so good? All right? You know you
Speaker 1: guys said dumb mobsters and I knew you know, as
Speaker 1: you guys were gonna have to bag on Italians a lot.
Speaker 1: And uh, and I was like, you know what, there
Speaker 1: are other dumb people in the world. It's anti Italian discrimination,
Speaker 1: that's right. And this this was a plot that involved
Speaker 1: three people, so I think that is technically you know,
Speaker 1: an organized I'm that's right itself. Also, it took place
Speaker 1: in chow Chilla, California, which is just up the road
Speaker 1: from where I live in Fresno. And um, you know,
Speaker 1: we don't get a lot of you don't get a
Speaker 1: lot of like central California, San Joaquin Valley news that
Speaker 1: breaks out into the mainstream. Um, a chow is a
Speaker 1: chow chilling, like a combination between a chin chilla and
Speaker 1: a chow like the like, Yeah, that'd be some sort
Speaker 1: of labradoodle portmanteau situation. Actually, don't know how it got
Speaker 1: the name. I feel like it was probably in this
Speaker 1: article somewhere and I missed that part. But chow chilla
Speaker 1: sounds also a little bit like Godzilla, So they're part
Speaker 1: of me. That's just like a really really big woman
Speaker 1: inside of a Chinese food buffet, just being like it
Speaker 1: could also be a lesser known member of Wu Tang
Speaker 1: for sure, ye chow yeah for sure. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know how that one got its name. Um. There's a
Speaker 1: few others that I like Kalinga, which is at the
Speaker 1: far west south end of Sandwaquin Valley that used to
Speaker 1: be they gotta stame because it was coaling Station A
Speaker 1: and so they just put coaling A and then they
Speaker 1: named the town. I don't go there. It's not very nice,
Speaker 1: but straight do do. It's like just to do do Town.
Speaker 1: I hope, I hope that it's is welcome to do
Speaker 1: do town. Welcome to do do veil population you and
Speaker 1: a bunch of cows do do town, USA with a poopamji. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So this I'm getting most of my There was a
Speaker 1: recent box article by Caleb Horton about this episode, which
Speaker 1: is where I'm getting most of these quotes and facts from. Um.
Speaker 1: And he is from Bakersfield, which is at the far
Speaker 1: south end of the Sandwaquin Valley. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you need an insider. So it's not just people looking
Speaker 1: down their nose is at US country folk. Um. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this was this happened in July nine, and you know,
Speaker 1: we were talking about mafia, like dumb mobsters and you
Speaker 1: and mostly the story with like the mafia was of
Speaker 1: immigrants who sort of came here and uh, we're trying to,
Speaker 1: you know, figure out how to climb the societal ladder.
Speaker 1: And so they decided to you know, do crime and
Speaker 1: uh and then that was kind of the way that
Speaker 1: you climbed the societal ladder back in the day was
Speaker 1: you know, you've got a few corners. Most of the
Speaker 1: people that were rich didn't get there by doing uh,
Speaker 1: you know, not crime. So but this one, I think
Speaker 1: is is interesting because the people that did this crime,
Speaker 1: which was they kidnapped school kids from a school bus. Um.
Speaker 1: The thing about it is that they're all rich. Uh.
Speaker 1: These are all rich kids who lived uh up in
Speaker 1: the Bay Area, in Portola Valley, which is like a
Speaker 1: sort of wealthy suburb of San Francisco down on the peninsula.
Speaker 1: The kids who were kidnapped, the school bus kids are
Speaker 1: rich or the three the school bus kids, well that
Speaker 1: were kidnapped, we're from Chowchilla, uh and the rich kids
Speaker 1: lived up in uh Portola Valley in the in the
Speaker 1: Bay area. Um. The ringleader of the gang was a
Speaker 1: guy named Frederick new Hall Woods the Fourth. Yeah. That's
Speaker 1: a great mafia nickname, right. Yeah. And when you have
Speaker 1: like the fourth in your name, like, you know, usually
Speaker 1: that probably beings that you're rich. He was rumored to
Speaker 1: have a one million dollar trust fund. What wow? So
Speaker 1: wait wait wait, So he's either he's either quite wealthy
Speaker 1: or comes from a line of very uncreative people when
Speaker 1: it comes to names. And yeah, I guess we can
Speaker 1: assume he's not into this school bus caper for the money.
Speaker 1: Well he was. He was in it for the money,
Speaker 1: which is the weird. He wanted more than a million dollars. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what if I had a hundred million in one dollars?
Speaker 1: You know, what's cool? Hundred million and one dollars. I mean,
Speaker 1: the worst thing that you can do is be sort
Speaker 1: of rich, but be around people that are more rich
Speaker 1: than you are, which is uh. You know that if
Speaker 1: you've ever seen the gods must be crazy where they
Speaker 1: all fight over the coke bottle. Yeah, that's pretty much
Speaker 1: what happened here. But just a little bit more about
Speaker 1: Frederick new Hall. His middle name comes from Henry Mayo
Speaker 1: new Hall, who traveled to California in eighteen fifty with
Speaker 1: the miners to strike it rich and did in land
Speaker 1: and railroad speculation. He formed the new Hall Land and
Speaker 1: Farming Company, which is Children incorporated in eighteen eighty three.
Speaker 1: By nineteen seventy six, the family was making eighty million
Speaker 1: dollars a year in ranching oil and land. It was
Speaker 1: Henry new Hall's land that became Santa Clarita and Valencia
Speaker 1: the old this community in the area. New Hall is
Speaker 1: even named for him. Fred's dad, Frederick new Hall Woods
Speaker 1: the third, owns a rambling estate in the wealthy Bay
Speaker 1: Area town of Portola Valley called the Hawthorne's. That's another
Speaker 1: tell when you're really rich, is that you're the place
Speaker 1: that you live has a name. Yeah, if your house
Speaker 1: has a name, I think that's a good rich man,
Speaker 1: poor poor man. If if your house has a name,
Speaker 1: because it's either like the name of the housing project
Speaker 1: or the name of your estate. Right, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's right. That's very true. You make a good point,
Speaker 1: and it only really counts if other people participate in
Speaker 1: the name. Right. You can call your place like Santa Do. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: apartment in East Hollywood's name is Santa Do. Thank you.
Speaker 1: I just on all of my government forms whenever they
Speaker 1: ask address, I just put Zana. They should know by now.
Speaker 1: M uh yeah. So, Frederick, that's the kid. He lived
Speaker 1: on his the seventy nine acre estate, in his own apartment,
Speaker 1: on his on his father's property. Uh. And the description
Speaker 1: of him from this article is he's a funny looking kid.
Speaker 1: He's got long gold hair and a goofy mustache. He
Speaker 1: looks kind of like Lee Marvin if Lee Marvin was
Speaker 1: melting and lived with his parents. God, that's a great description.
Speaker 1: So what he's like, what like in his early teens
Speaker 1: or what we say? Okay, so he's not fully a
Speaker 1: kid yet it got it, got it, got it. He's
Speaker 1: your basic, you know, fail sun dumbass kind of character. Uh.
Speaker 1: Description of him all He really cares about his cars
Speaker 1: and he has north of fifty of them on his
Speaker 1: parents estate, many of them junkers. He carries pictures of
Speaker 1: his cars in his wallet. The neighbors complain about how
Speaker 1: often they hear shotgun blasts from the property. Apparently he
Speaker 1: loves his cars so much he shoots out the windows
Speaker 1: for kicks. That's fun, that's fun. This guy seems like
Speaker 1: a real delight that he had a lot of friends.
Speaker 1: He's he's sounds like a lot of winner, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean? Like this is just like someone who's
Speaker 1: like I got a billion dollars. Now that's the genetic
Speaker 1: lotto winner. Yeah, seriously. Yeah. So but he's got he's
Speaker 1: got this gang. He's getting a gang going, um, you know,
Speaker 1: to to figure out this crime. Um. And so he
Speaker 1: has his buddy, his buddy Jim Schonfeld, who was also
Speaker 1: twenty four, son of a wealthy Atherston podiatrists. That's where
Speaker 1: the criminals come from, podietry. Yeah. The feet. Uh. He
Speaker 1: helps fred by repair and sell cars. Um and uh
Speaker 1: repair the ones that he blew the windows out from.
Speaker 1: It's just three glasses of them. Yeah. And then Jim
Speaker 1: Schonfeld has a brother named Rick Schonfeld, who is two
Speaker 1: years younger, is twenty two. Uh, he is actually a
Speaker 1: film major at San Jose State and his like their
Speaker 1: big plan is they want to use the proceeds from
Speaker 1: the car business to finance Rick's movies. And part of
Speaker 1: the plan here was to do this crime and then
Speaker 1: to get the ransom and then also make a movie
Speaker 1: about it and then make double money. Oh dude, now
Speaker 1: you got the money and the money one money bad?
Speaker 1: Too money good? What wasn't it already based on some
Speaker 1: sort of short story that was like published in like
Speaker 1: an Alfred Hitchcock kind of compendium of some kind. Did
Speaker 1: you read that detail? I don't know, I didn't know,
Speaker 1: well what the What I got from this article was
Speaker 1: that they based it on Uh. I think it was
Speaker 1: Dirty Harry. There was. They based their their kidnapping plot
Speaker 1: on on Dirty Harry. Yeah, they got they got it.
Speaker 1: I forget the exact plot. Didn't do an original. They
Speaker 1: didn't do an original, uh, like kidnap plot. They were like,
Speaker 1: we're gonna make a movie out of this, even though
Speaker 1: there was were gonna do the kidnapping based on a movie.
Speaker 1: Then make a movie based on the kidnapping. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: read somewhere along the way that there was a story
Speaker 1: called The Day the Children Vanished by Hugh Pentecost that
Speaker 1: was published in like Alfred Hitchcock's Daring Detectives, like one
Speaker 1: of those like you know, kind of um weekly or
Speaker 1: whatever monthly like with a different little short stories in.
Speaker 1: But yeah, Hugh Pentecost was a great name, great name.
Speaker 1: But who knows, maybe Dirty Harry got some of their
Speaker 1: inspiration from that short story too. Nothing's original in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: not a thing. Yeah. Yeah, because the Dirty Harry actually
Speaker 1: had the bus, uh, And that happened, and that was
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, but the density and complexity of the
Speaker 1: city was too overwhelming for them. Uh. The way they
Speaker 1: saw they'd have better odds in a very rural area
Speaker 1: with fewer bystanders. And so they basically looked around for
Speaker 1: like a place that where the bus routes seem like
Speaker 1: it would be isolated and wouldn't have too many people
Speaker 1: poking a round. Uh, and that's how they came to
Speaker 1: Chow chill Up. They didn't like count on the fact
Speaker 1: that that would also be a poor area, like what
Speaker 1: like this is was part of the plan to ransom
Speaker 1: of these kids to their parents? Well, no, the plan
Speaker 1: was because the schools are run by the government. Uh,
Speaker 1: they figured that the government, would you know, the best
Speaker 1: way to do it was to try and build the
Speaker 1: government because they would have the money in public notoriously overfunded.
Speaker 1: They're just hemorrhaging money. So logic is that they need
Speaker 1: multiple victims for multiple millions, and they need to be
Speaker 1: children because people will do anything for children. And it
Speaker 1: had to be a school because keeping kids safe at
Speaker 1: school is a government responsibility. Yeah, historically that's proven out
Speaker 1: real real Well, yeah, that's the thing that. Oh man, Yeah,
Speaker 1: schools are always safe. We've known that since day one
Speaker 1: in America because again, they have so much money. These
Speaker 1: guys like I just already vince. I want to be
Speaker 1: not participating in their heigst, but I want to be
Speaker 1: like casually in the room, maybe just like eating chips
Speaker 1: and watching them, you know, like this is They were serious.
Speaker 1: I guess they had to be because they had They
Speaker 1: did it. They did it. Um. It had to be
Speaker 1: a school because keeping kids safe at school is a
Speaker 1: government responsibility. They'd pay the ransom, no problem. Quote. I
Speaker 1: wasn't going to commit any crime, risk my life or
Speaker 1: risk my reputation for anything less than a million. So
Speaker 1: a bank proberty wouldn't work. A drug deal wouldn't work.
Speaker 1: James continued with a kidnapping quote. The state pays us
Speaker 1: the ransom, We're happy forever. All of our troubles are solved,
Speaker 1: and we let the victims go. Everybody's happy. The windows,
Speaker 1: the windows on the cars. What his parents? Maybe he
Speaker 1: was just pissed that he couldn't get that trust fund
Speaker 1: like right away they were being withholding. He just needed
Speaker 1: the cash. Now, did he have some hairbrained venture in mind?
Speaker 1: I just I didn't understand why form a gang. I've
Speaker 1: never heard of such a gang of like these aristocratic youths.
Speaker 1: You know, this is a very weird situation. I was
Speaker 1: gonna save the modem motive for later, but I think
Speaker 1: I can what Rick, Okay, let's have a slow burn
Speaker 1: to them. Sure, yeah, because it's pretty kid um. So
Speaker 1: you know they got this plan. They picked chow Chilla. Uh.
Speaker 1: So you know they find they find this bus that
Speaker 1: they're gonna kidnap. And this is what happened. A guy
Speaker 1: in overalls with pantyhose covering his face jumps out in
Speaker 1: front of the bus with a revolver. The man walks
Speaker 1: to the driver's side window and asks ed the bus
Speaker 1: driver's name is eds guy ed Ray, with no intimidation
Speaker 1: in his voice, would you open the door please? Two
Speaker 1: other guys with rifles, one to drive, one to watch kids. Basically, Uh,
Speaker 1: they had there's three of them. There's uh, there's two
Speaker 1: in the bus and then one is driving. Uh. One
Speaker 1: follows them in a van and they drive about they
Speaker 1: go and they ditched the bus and they move the
Speaker 1: kids into another van and they take these two vans
Speaker 1: and they drive a hundred miles uh north up to
Speaker 1: a rock quarry outside Livermore. How many kids are we
Speaker 1: talking about. There's twenty six kids, twenty six kids, a
Speaker 1: hundred miles and they want to do this all in
Speaker 1: the space at twenty four hours. I just feel like
Speaker 1: there's something to be said about setting yourself up for success.
Speaker 1: A little pre production wouldn't have hurt. And you know
Speaker 1: the thing that you have to understand about Central California,
Speaker 1: this is also July. It's the Central California in the
Speaker 1: middle of July, so it is extremely, extremely hot. Um.
Speaker 1: So they drive up to Livermore and in Livermore there
Speaker 1: is like this makeshift prison made out of a third
Speaker 1: van and it's just buried in the dirt uh in
Speaker 1: uh in the rock quarry. Their prison looks to be
Speaker 1: a moving van and the sides and ceiling warped from
Speaker 1: the weight of surrounding dirt. There are two air shafts
Speaker 1: hoses that run above ground to a tree. There are
Speaker 1: some mattresses on the ground and a pathetic amount of
Speaker 1: necessities wonderbread, peanut butter, potato chips, water jugs, some holes
Speaker 1: carved for toilets. After all, the kids are inside a
Speaker 1: steel plate slides over the entrance and it's weighted down
Speaker 1: by two hundred pound tractor batteries. So you know, they
Speaker 1: stuffed all the kids and the bus driver uh into
Speaker 1: this van buried underground. I mean, that's a bit of
Speaker 1: a production right there. They had to bury the van,
Speaker 1: they had to find the site, they had to build
Speaker 1: a makeshift prison. That's kind of impressive. It takes a
Speaker 1: little bit of you know, moxie to get something like
Speaker 1: that done. Yeah, I mean, I feel like they could
Speaker 1: have applied themselves to literally anything else and had had
Speaker 1: a nice little life. You know. It's unfortunate. It's really unfortunate. Um.
Speaker 1: And then we don't know exactly what the kidney eppers
Speaker 1: did at this point, but one thing that they didn't
Speaker 1: do was deliver a ransom note, which is what but
Speaker 1: they tried, right Uh well, no, they found the ransom
Speaker 1: note later in a notebook. They had one, but they
Speaker 1: didn't get to the part where they delivered it yet.
Speaker 1: The police in Chowchilla get a call at about seven
Speaker 1: pm from an anonymous woman who directed them to the
Speaker 1: quarry Livermore can become famous. Later in the night, Mayor
Speaker 1: Jim Dumas's wife gets a call from another anonymous woman.
Speaker 1: The children will be found, but there will be others.
Speaker 1: It's not over a hundred miles away. Twenty seven people
Speaker 1: are buried in a moving van, sweating, crying and struggling
Speaker 1: to breathe. And despite the mysterious phone calls, the police
Speaker 1: have no idea why. There's no motive and no ransom note.
Speaker 1: The kidnappers forgot to deliver one. And so at some
Speaker 1: point in the night. Uh, the bus driver who is
Speaker 1: uh classic Oakie, Uh, Central Valley obviously is where you
Speaker 1: know Steinbeck Country. All the os came over the dust
Speaker 1: bowl and this apparently this bus driver is just a
Speaker 1: he's just a strong, good old boy who likes to
Speaker 1: bail hay and drink Pepsi's um. And Uh so they
Speaker 1: sort of pile up all the mattresses in the corner,
Speaker 1: and they get the wood out of the mattresses, and
Speaker 1: he uses uh they used the stacked up match mattresses
Speaker 1: and the wood wooden slats from the bed springs to
Speaker 1: pry the tractor batteries off of the Yeah, so they
Speaker 1: get out like sort of in the middle of the night.
Speaker 1: They had been in the bus for about fifteen hours
Speaker 1: by this point, and so basically, where are the three guys.
Speaker 1: Are the three guys around are they keeping watch? So
Speaker 1: here's the thing, because these guys were, which they sort
Speaker 1: of Well, what happened was the kids and the bus
Speaker 1: driver got out, you know, they get discovered, and the
Speaker 1: kidnappers hear about this on the news, and uh two
Speaker 1: of them immediately flee, and then the younger, the younger
Speaker 1: brother immediately does what any rich kid in this situation,
Speaker 1: uh does, which is resolved to confess and lawyer up immediately.
Speaker 1: So because he lawyered up immediately, there's like a whole
Speaker 1: of time where we don't know exactly what happened because
Speaker 1: you know, they were able to make plea deals and
Speaker 1: whatnot too and and never really had to reveal what
Speaker 1: exactly happened between the time that they buried these kids
Speaker 1: and at the time that they were found. And uh so,
Speaker 1: by three the undelivered ransom note was found. It was
Speaker 1: exactly what you'd expect, naive, dashed off, lots of words
Speaker 1: crossed out with penn like it was written in thirty seconds.
Speaker 1: It says your bus that's you are you are bus
Speaker 1: has been kidnapped. Uh. It claims there are members of
Speaker 1: some unknown Satanic cabal called beals Abub. Actually have I
Speaker 1: have the actual uh note here in my in my notes,
Speaker 1: are we gonna have a dramatic reading? Yes, please do
Speaker 1: a double voice. Please put two and a half million
Speaker 1: dollars in each of the suitcases total use old bills
Speaker 1: have ready at the Old police station. Further instructions pending
Speaker 1: until ten five pm Sunday. We are wait. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: They wanted the uh, the ransom money delivered to the
Speaker 1: Oakland Police Station. Yeah. So they actually apparently had like
Speaker 1: a decent idea uh to collect the money. To collect
Speaker 1: the money, um, they decided the five million dollars ransom
Speaker 1: will we delivered to a drop site in the Santa
Speaker 1: Cruz Mountains. Uh. This is the only part of their
Speaker 1: plan that could be considered clever. They were going to
Speaker 1: drive up the host to someplace heavily wooded, then go
Speaker 1: back inland and have airplanes patrol for two hundred miles
Speaker 1: up and down the area until they saw a certain
Speaker 1: series of lights indicating the drop site. Then the money
Speaker 1: was to be dropped on them, and then they'd be gone.
Speaker 1: By the time they had the money, Nobody would be
Speaker 1: able to get there. You can't just stake out two
Speaker 1: hundred miles. And that was that was from the bus driver, right,
Speaker 1: wasn't that him giving his perspective from that No, that's
Speaker 1: actually the one of the investigators named a different edu.
Speaker 1: They bought an everyone was named ed. That's right. They
Speaker 1: bought an X ray machine from a Navy surplus station
Speaker 1: in case the ransom money was bugged. Uh, they had
Speaker 1: homemade bulletproof vest that they made with scrap metal. Um.
Speaker 1: Fred rented a trailer in Reno for a safe house
Speaker 1: and got a passport under a fake name of Ralph Snyder,
Speaker 1: and he bought a printing calculator to count the money. Uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: they had. They had a lot of plans. But the
Speaker 1: only reason we know about these plans is because the
Speaker 1: police found Jim's notebook, which had all the plans in it,
Speaker 1: which is where they got the ransom note that wasn't
Speaker 1: actually delivered. Yeah, so this is part of this is
Speaker 1: from the notebook. Conceal the kids, hide the vans, go
Speaker 1: somewhere else to collect the money. From there, Rick will
Speaker 1: get a plane to take James to a small uncontrolled
Speaker 1: airport like LOWD. They'll meet Fred, who will hijack the plane.
Speaker 1: Then they just kind of buried the lead on that one.
Speaker 1: They like they looked around when they were brainstorming or
Speaker 1: pitching this, and they're like, the fucking Fred will do
Speaker 1: the plane? The plane, And he's like, all right, we're
Speaker 1: drawing straws for who gets to hijack the plane. I
Speaker 1: love hijacking a plane is part of the escape plan, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: then Rick and Fred load the dummies into the plane
Speaker 1: with parachutes and an extra parachute of course dummies. Okay,
Speaker 1: why are their dummies? I'm assuming they're going to fake
Speaker 1: their deaths as part of this. Playing love it. I
Speaker 1: love the simplicity really of the whole thing. It's well,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's like simultaneously like over complicated and incredibly
Speaker 1: simplistic in the same time. It's like this magical media.
Speaker 1: It's like doing it for the movie as much as
Speaker 1: for the heist. You know, they're like, someone's going, you
Speaker 1: know what we really need though from a filmmaking perspective,
Speaker 1: to be a strong act to which means another heist.
Speaker 1: That's right, Jim is taking possession of the money. Thus,
Speaker 1: a state employed secretary will be appointed to bring the
Speaker 1: money in three brown paper parcels and instructed too, and
Speaker 1: that's it. They don't finish the sentence. Uh. Another section
Speaker 1: of the notebook details other general stuff. They had to
Speaker 1: remember to burn the book. They forgot to get infrared
Speaker 1: to see it night. They didn't to get a vote
Speaker 1: for Reagan bumper sticker to quote be anonymous, uh or
Speaker 1: just be like less of a cop target, like to
Speaker 1: be pulled over because it's like you're a friendly I guess, yeah, yeah, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: he's cool. He's gotta vote for Reagan sticker on this
Speaker 1: obvious fucking like kidnap van. Some other items asked for
Speaker 1: used bills. Don't spend money for seven years. Get an
Speaker 1: X ray truck with gas masks and lead vests, a
Speaker 1: microwave oven to foul bugging devices, melt all plastic, and
Speaker 1: then the heaviest lift a parenthetical has ever had to do.
Speaker 1: Quote to pick up the money using an illusion like magic,
Speaker 1: So I just David Copperfield that ship, like make the
Speaker 1: statue of Liberty disappear as a diversion so you can
Speaker 1: get the money. Smoking mirrors, man, smoking mirrors again. The
Speaker 1: planning sounds like such an amazing conversation totally like there
Speaker 1: are they they're smoking weed? Right? Is that this is
Speaker 1: this is totally just a lewd fueled kidnap plot. There's
Speaker 1: also oh no doubt mean or or the very least. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, mushrooms are some psychedelics because there's a part
Speaker 1: in the notebook from from from the article that I
Speaker 1: found um where he talks about having just seen The
Speaker 1: Exorcist and how it was making him question his sanity. Like,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't apropos of nothing. Really, It's not
Speaker 1: like I think I maybe won't do the crime because
Speaker 1: I'm thinking that maybe I'm not all there. It was
Speaker 1: just this one little aside where it's like this movie
Speaker 1: The Exorcist is making me question my sanity. Um said
Speaker 1: to me, I think there has to be some heavy
Speaker 1: psychedelics involving because the logic of this thing, the whole
Speaker 1: thing is like an acid trip where you're like you
Speaker 1: can just kind of flip from one thing to the
Speaker 1: next and you just kind of go with it, like
Speaker 1: it all kind of makes sense if you look at
Speaker 1: it holistically, but on paper, none of these states steps
Speaker 1: make any sense, and they're all just so designed to
Speaker 1: I mean, of course, at all collapses before they even
Speaker 1: get a chance to do like most any of it. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: they didn't get all of the kids inside of dream logic. Yes, exactly, Ben,
Speaker 1: That's exactly what I was trying to get out, total
Speaker 1: dream logic. They were able to get all of the
Speaker 1: kids inside of what almost was very tragic, grave sort
Speaker 1: of situation because they could have suffocated. They didn't even
Speaker 1: have holes punched in the lid form or anything, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, did they think any arrangements to make sure
Speaker 1: they they could have holes? Okay, good, good, good, but
Speaker 1: not like food water. Well, they had peanut butter and
Speaker 1: jelly sandwiches. They had a hole for ppe and poopo, um,
Speaker 1: you know, everything that a kid needs to survive for
Speaker 1: five minutes. Exactly I do. I do think we should
Speaker 1: point out there's I did not see this. I did
Speaker 1: not see me playing this role today. But in defense
Speaker 1: of the airplane part of the highest okay, just hear
Speaker 1: me out, hear me up. In defense of that part.
Speaker 1: We have to remember this is this is seventies six,
Speaker 1: right roundabouts, so just five years earlier. One of the
Speaker 1: most well known successful sky jackings in history occurred. D. B.
Speaker 1: Cooper in one. So they it's very recent and everybody
Speaker 1: knew about it, so maybe they were maybe it seemed
Speaker 1: much more plausible from their perspective, don't you. I still
Speaker 1: think no, the seventies was the golden age of of
Speaker 1: plane hijackings. Yeah, there's actually a book called The Skies
Speaker 1: Belong to Us which is all about how many hijackings
Speaker 1: there were in the seventies. Is pretty good. Basically, at
Speaker 1: this point, you know, the Rick has lawyered up, told
Speaker 1: his dad, and then James and Fred are still on
Speaker 1: the loose. Uh, and so this is where we're picking
Speaker 1: up the story. Meanwhile, a nationwide manhunt was on for
Speaker 1: James and Fred. There were sightings of them clear out
Speaker 1: to Tennessee. James would later write the following in his
Speaker 1: notebook quote, I save swear words for bad situations, But
Speaker 1: all I could think of was, oh shit, you guys
Speaker 1: got the heart of a poet. Wasn't he a film student?
Speaker 1: I think you mentioned that he was his brother. His
Speaker 1: younger brother was the film His younger brother was a
Speaker 1: film student, so he definitely would have been thinking, at
Speaker 1: least in terms of the cinematic kind of I swear
Speaker 1: to God, the whole dB Cooper thing, it's probably like
Speaker 1: he saw it was just like, you know, that was awesome.
Speaker 1: Let's like, let's incorporate that into this thing. And then
Speaker 1: the Dirty Harry thing. Definitely the short story from the
Speaker 1: they were. What I found was that there were a
Speaker 1: few details of the crime. I didn't get specifics that
Speaker 1: were in this short story that I talked about, the
Speaker 1: disappearing shouldern or whatever, But I mean, I think the
Speaker 1: bigger parts of it were definitely inspired by Dirty Harry.
Speaker 1: So he's pulling all his influence from works to fiction. Uh,
Speaker 1: possibly dB Cooper, which is, you know, the most cinematic
Speaker 1: heist like of that era. I mean, this dude is
Speaker 1: just kind of a weird stoner kid. I gotta know
Speaker 1: the why he needed the money. His whole deal is
Speaker 1: like he very much like reading his notebook. He strikes you.
Speaker 1: It feels like holding Coffield there was some other sort
Speaker 1: of novel written from the perspective of like an immature dope. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's pretty great. Uh, we'll get to the motive. After
Speaker 1: the kids escaped, Fred and James had driven out to
Speaker 1: their safe house and Reno then using his phony passport,
Speaker 1: Fred had flown up to Vancouver, leaving James behind with
Speaker 1: no good options. Alone and terrified, he fled to court Aline,
Speaker 1: Idaho because of its proximity to a border crossing, But
Speaker 1: on the eighteenth, when he tried to get to Canada,
Speaker 1: a hundred miles north, he was turned away by border
Speaker 1: patrol because he was too nervous and well, his car
Speaker 1: was full of guns. Yeah, that's how they get you.
Speaker 1: That's how they get you. Damn it foiled again by
Speaker 1: my mountains of guns in the back of my Uh.
Speaker 1: Driving back to court a lane, James couldn't keep his cool.
Speaker 1: He was too exhausted. In a desperate last ride, he
Speaker 1: drove to Spokane to sell his guns at a sporting
Speaker 1: goods store. Then, believing he'd done his due diligence, he
Speaker 1: tried again to enter Canada at Cascade. He was refused,
Speaker 1: this time because of Fred. He left two pistols in
Speaker 1: the center console and two rifles in the trunk, which
Speaker 1: James had somehow missed when he was specifically looking for
Speaker 1: guns to get rid of. He turned I got rid
Speaker 1: of most of them. He turned up with Canada. You guys,
Speaker 1: you see a couple of guns in the dash again, sir,
Speaker 1: We're very sorry. You know, we don't make the laws.
Speaker 1: We're just we're just here working like you. I like
Speaker 1: guns personally, but you just can't bring him in. So close, though, dude,
Speaker 1: so close. That was almost all the guns. He turned
Speaker 1: back to court Alane and sold them before bandoning, abandoning
Speaker 1: his sixty three Chrysler, trading it for fifty Chrysler Van.
Speaker 1: He was filthy broke, smelled like garbage, and hadn't slept
Speaker 1: in a bed in five days, and he continued writing
Speaker 1: in his diary through it all. This is this is
Speaker 1: another great part from his diary. Remember there is something
Speaker 1: good and everything. Why don't people see the good? They
Speaker 1: only see the bad. It's just like the Diary of
Speaker 1: Anne Frank, except for it's a guy who's kidnapping children.
Speaker 1: I I gotta say the kudos to the journalists from Vox.
Speaker 1: Filthy broke. I don't know that one. That's that's really
Speaker 1: clever Turner phrase filthy comma broke. But okay, you know
Speaker 1: I'm still taking it as filthy broke though you know no,
Speaker 1: I think you coined it. Then it's mine filthy rich.
Speaker 1: There's filthy broke. Caleb Horton that comma separated you from greatness,
Speaker 1: my friend. Um. But yeah, by the way, anybody that
Speaker 1: wants to like really dig in. This is a super
Speaker 1: in depth article on vox. It is really really cool.
Speaker 1: It's like very like lots of cool images and it's
Speaker 1: a really really great read. Highly recommended. I will continue
Speaker 1: to see good in everything, no matter what happens. Refer
Speaker 1: to the myth of Sysiphus, which is that like a
Speaker 1: note for him in the final draft he also spelled
Speaker 1: Sysiphus wrong, which is another there aspect of this. Meanwhile,
Speaker 1: you know you got your Fred. He was the he's
Speaker 1: the ringleader. Uh and he is up in Canada. Fred
Speaker 1: got to Vancouver at six pm the Saturday after the
Speaker 1: children's escape and checked into the St. Francis Hotel on
Speaker 1: Seymour Street by the freight Yards. He paid in advance
Speaker 1: and asked the hotel manager if he could get some work.
Speaker 1: Quote he seemed like a big dance of a kid.
Speaker 1: The manager later said he dressed like a cowboy and
Speaker 1: grinned all the time. Which I think this whole thing
Speaker 1: is kind of funny because it's like these kids, these
Speaker 1: dumb kids from a San Francisco suburb who are uh
Speaker 1: the whole time like dressing, like what their idea of
Speaker 1: chow chilla and what their idea of Canada is where
Speaker 1: they're kind of just like, look at me, I'm just
Speaker 1: a big dumb cowboy. Greetings fellow locals. He wrote a
Speaker 1: letter to his screenwriter friend David, telling him that his
Speaker 1: crime would make a good movie of the week if
Speaker 1: not a feature. I'm just sorry. It's just it's just
Speaker 1: also sad. It's just like, uh, this the idea that
Speaker 1: at the end of the day, this was just like man,
Speaker 1: but because this would be a cool movie, do you
Speaker 1: make like what we made a cool movie? And it's like,
Speaker 1: just write a script like you know, ki kids. He's like,
Speaker 1: it's snow but I like, I don't want to. I'm
Speaker 1: not like I'm more of an ideas man, like a
Speaker 1: bunch of three idiots saying I'm an idea man in
Speaker 1: a circle for an hour. He's just like, I'm too
Speaker 1: bad at game theory. I can't. I can't game this out.
Speaker 1: I have to see what Actually, you just gotta exactly
Speaker 1: run the simulation. No wait, it's not a simulation. Now
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to go to prison for the rest
Speaker 1: of us. You gotta get a look at this guy too.
Speaker 1: Like it's a black and white image, and I think
Speaker 1: it might just be the light, but it almost looks
Speaker 1: like he has this weird like skunk stripe in his hair,
Speaker 1: like this kind of like like super villain kind of
Speaker 1: skunk stripe. Um, And he looks like like he should
Speaker 1: be a you know what what is it, um Slytherin
Speaker 1: kind of like you know, villain and one of the
Speaker 1: Harry Potter movies. He's got like severe eyebrows and yeah,
Speaker 1: just really has the look of a guy that would
Speaker 1: be this guy, Like you said the holding call field, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm so entitled yet so sad, and so I deserve
Speaker 1: to have this adventure. Let me have this. Why don't
Speaker 1: people see the good? You know, you only see the
Speaker 1: bad when I kidnapped children. He's got a lot of
Speaker 1: feelings and he does not have the brain power to
Speaker 1: articulate them in any cathartic sort of way. Um, So
Speaker 1: this is this is back from the letter to his
Speaker 1: friend Jim or sorry, his his screenwriter friend David. I
Speaker 1: guess he's got a lot of screenwriter friends. That's what
Speaker 1: you did in the seventies, um My ending is not
Speaker 1: exciting enough, so you might have to kill some people
Speaker 1: or something. Uh. If you do make it into a film,
Speaker 1: all I want is a percentage of it you make
Speaker 1: it up. I don't care how much, but be fair.
Speaker 1: Uh and he spelled fair fri e. This letter would
Speaker 1: contribute to his downfall. On Friday, acting on an FBI
Speaker 1: tip plane, closed officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Speaker 1: taked out the main Vancouver Post office. They knew Fred
Speaker 1: had been setting letters, sending letters under the name Richard Snyder.
Speaker 1: They waited and waited, and finally sprang into action, only
Speaker 1: to mistakenly tackle two German students. Uh, but you know
Speaker 1: they've eventually got the right guy. I like how they
Speaker 1: always make the cops a character uh in this, and
Speaker 1: really like the cops did almost nothing in this, Like
Speaker 1: they got they found the letters. The kids were so stupid.
Speaker 1: I mean they like they gift wrapped all this literally
Speaker 1: the notebook with the whole narrative, the letter there, the
Speaker 1: ransom note they forgot to deliver. It's all like right
Speaker 1: there in one place. Yeah, I would love to be
Speaker 1: in the interrogation room. Also, in my head, I still
Speaker 1: have the bagga chips, and then the guy from the
Speaker 1: earlier conversation where they were planning the heist, like, this
Speaker 1: must have been okay, I don't want to diminish what happened,
Speaker 1: but as if they're the detectives are in there and
Speaker 1: they've got the notebook and they're like, al right, guys,
Speaker 1: hell of a read them. You know, spelling is tough,
Speaker 1: but let's let's talk about this because I I read
Speaker 1: somewhere that initially they somehow had the hutspit of plead innocent. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: part of what they got charged with was kidnapping with
Speaker 1: intent to inflict bodily harm, and so they disputed the
Speaker 1: bodily harm part and um, and then the bus driver
Speaker 1: testified and the judge did not agree with their assessment,
Speaker 1: and so they all got life in prison um without
Speaker 1: the possibility of parole, which they appealed a bunch of
Speaker 1: times until they eventually received the possibility of parole um.
Speaker 1: But thirty nine years after the crime, Jim got to
Speaker 1: speak at his parole hearing, uh, and he described the
Speaker 1: motive as I wanted to fit in with these new
Speaker 1: people that we moved next to, he said, and you know,
Speaker 1: my friend's parents had twin ferraris his and hers with
Speaker 1: telephones in them. My dad lent me some money and
Speaker 1: I bought a Jaguar. I found out that the insurance
Speaker 1: was more than I made in a whole year, So
Speaker 1: two months later I had to sell the jaguar. I
Speaker 1: just figured I need money. Money would solve all my problems.
Speaker 1: You know, I got Okay, I'm gonna make a we
Speaker 1: do parliamentary procedure or something like it. Here on ridiculous history,
Speaker 1: and this story is so fascinating. No, what do you think?
Speaker 1: Do you want to just I think we should spend
Speaker 1: this episode on this story because there's still some stuff
Speaker 1: to unravel here. Oh there's a lot. Like I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's a pretty big It kind of keeps going.
Speaker 1: You think you've seen the bottom of it. I just
Speaker 1: have so many questions that I know will never get answered,
Speaker 1: and they might they might, because what are those guys
Speaker 1: like I think this is where you go with this VENC.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about their their lives like in prison. Well,
Speaker 1: so the Schonville brothers got out eventually, uh in like
Speaker 1: or something like that. Well they did, but then they
Speaker 1: you know, because they're rich. They found a lawyer that
Speaker 1: appealed it to you know, get their sentence knocked down.
Speaker 1: The ring that is still in prison. Uh. And he
Speaker 1: has had an interesting life uh in prison apparently when
Speaker 1: you have enough money, like prison isn't that bad because
Speaker 1: he can sort of pay for protection and pay for well,
Speaker 1: you know, not as bad. Um. But anyway, a few
Speaker 1: months ago it came out that he was running a
Speaker 1: used car dealership and to hatch Appy and a Christmas
Speaker 1: tree lot in the Bay Area and it would have
Speaker 1: been legal to save for one one caveat. Apparently from
Speaker 1: from what I heard, he totally could run as many
Speaker 1: businesses as he wished if he literally just went to
Speaker 1: the warden and said, hey, is it okay? If I
Speaker 1: do this, I'll still be in prison, is it? And
Speaker 1: he just didn't. It was just too much of a
Speaker 1: pill to ask if it was okay. And so well,
Speaker 1: he had a note where he was asking for permission,
Speaker 1: but he forgot to send us to the warden. There's
Speaker 1: actually a forty eight hours apparently about his life in prison.
Speaker 1: Or he keeps getting caught with pornography and cell phones. Uh.
Speaker 1: And he bought a mansion on the coast um, which
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know what you do with the
Speaker 1: mansion on the coast when you're in prison, but I
Speaker 1: guess if you ever get out, you got a place
Speaker 1: to go just to have just in case, you know,
Speaker 1: it comes to the mansion is a treat, you know exactly. Um. So, okay,
Speaker 1: he's still in prison today, that's right. Yeah, the ring leader, Frank,
Speaker 1: he's up for a parole here and again in I
Speaker 1: hope he gets it. Dude. I was gonna say, Matt
Speaker 1: if if if you've got a lot of questions, I
Speaker 1: bet we could we could actually write to him. I mean,
Speaker 1: I would love to get him on an episode of
Speaker 1: pot Yourself a gun. I want to ask if you
Speaker 1: like the Sopranos and uh, you know what he because
Speaker 1: like these guys, like especially the ring leader, um, reminds
Speaker 1: me so much of like Chris Malta Sante with like
Speaker 1: like kind of like if if this is like if
Speaker 1: Chris were born rich and but he's still you know,
Speaker 1: like he he could have taken over his dad's like
Speaker 1: oil and you know, train business or whatnot, but he
Speaker 1: really just wanted to be a screenwriter. And it's just
Speaker 1: like it's got the same vibes. He's like the spelling errors,
Speaker 1: Like it feels like he's gonna write in his notebook
Speaker 1: at some point, I must be loyal to my capol. Oh,
Speaker 1: why Ellie, did you ever feel like nothing good was
Speaker 1: ever gonna happen to you? It's like, yeah. It also
Speaker 1: reminds me of the Scottish Prince and Monty Python and
Speaker 1: the Holy Grail who's like Father just wants him to
Speaker 1: like be the you know, the Lord of the Swamp
Speaker 1: or what it was like. But Father, but Father, I
Speaker 1: just want to I just want to to sing, you know,
Speaker 1: like and then that's kind of what he just wants
Speaker 1: to sing, or like do a weird, fucked up, messy
Speaker 1: heist and you know, get caught for it. And I
Speaker 1: bet you his notebook at some point has like a
Speaker 1: whole passage just that just says like they say, they're
Speaker 1: no two people on this earth exactly alike. But how
Speaker 1: did they know that? For sure, it's impossible to tell
Speaker 1: even with computers, which is exactly what Chrismal said. So
Speaker 1: another weird little wrinkle of the story is that one
Speaker 1: of the judge there's a three judge panel, uh that
Speaker 1: approved their appeal saying that they'd be eligible for parole.
Speaker 1: This was eighty One of the people on the panel
Speaker 1: was William Newsom, who is actually Gavin Newsom's father, the
Speaker 1: governor of California. For now, no, please please vote no.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. And then after we retired, Judge, that's all
Speaker 1: I was trying to say, go ahead, Judge Newsom became
Speaker 1: an outspoken advocate for the Chili Chilli kidnappers, saying that
Speaker 1: this notorious crime was just a quote, a youthful stunt
Speaker 1: that had no vicious aspect to it. Okay, your honor,
Speaker 1: I guess we've all been there. Apparently, listen, we've all
Speaker 1: done it. That's the thing about you know, these are kids, man.
Speaker 1: Sometimes kids, you know, they get law ambunctious. You know,
Speaker 1: they steal a sweater from you know, from Macy's, and
Speaker 1: then they get arrested. And sometimes they kidnap a bust
Speaker 1: full of kids and then have an entire plane hist
Speaker 1: that they're going to do right after. That's an escape
Speaker 1: math method. It's just normal. Right. There's an episode of
Speaker 1: Wonder Years where this happens. Yeah, and uh, I I heard,
Speaker 1: uh this is a true fact. I heard that these happened.
Speaker 1: So frequently. That's the reason that school buses don't have seatbelts. Uh,
Speaker 1: that's at least what I heard. Oh, yeah, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: M will hopefully we don't get letters about that one.
Speaker 1: But but you guys are like, it does seem strange.
Speaker 1: Though I'm sure a lot of members of the public
Speaker 1: assumed that someone might be greasing the wheels of justice here,
Speaker 1: was there any speculation that maybe this guy was getting
Speaker 1: bribed or something because that that I mean he has Yeah,
Speaker 1: they've been in jail. He was in jail for forty
Speaker 1: years or something like that. You know, at that point, sure,
Speaker 1: why not let him out? Yeah, so he's from from prison.
Speaker 1: He has been directing three businesses, the Ambria Acres Christmas
Speaker 1: Tree Farm down the road from Creston, California, the Little
Speaker 1: Bear Creek gold mine near Lake Tahoe, and a used
Speaker 1: car business with a warehouse filled with vehicles. And to
Speaker 1: hatch it, I'm sorry, he has a gold mine. He
Speaker 1: literally owns and operates a gold mine. It's not a euphemism.
Speaker 1: I love and he Actually the reason he got caught
Speaker 1: was Michael Bianki, who managed aspects of all three businesses,
Speaker 1: injured his back, neck and shoulder in the Little Bear
Speaker 1: Creek mine. Uh he needed surgery and uh Woods refused
Speaker 1: to pay, and so he had to file a claim
Speaker 1: with the State Workers compon board. Um. And that's basically
Speaker 1: how he sort of got caught running all these businesses
Speaker 1: because he sued the and he sued that guy for
Speaker 1: like over a million dollars or something. Yeah, he also
Speaker 1: has had four wives in prison. Um. What relations are
Speaker 1: tough in prison? Super uncommon? I don't think. I think
Speaker 1: there's a lot of like you know, um, example, it
Speaker 1: has a serial killers, like people to become fans of
Speaker 1: the person and letters. That's a long time man, I
Speaker 1: mean forty years. You know, who knows what the circumstances are.
Speaker 1: You right, it sounds like the perfect husband. He's stuck
Speaker 1: in prison. He has enough money to buy you a
Speaker 1: mansion and sure only have to see him when you
Speaker 1: want to. Like, that sounds like a pretty good deal.
Speaker 1: It's it's a very good point, a good deal for
Speaker 1: him to dude. Sometimes you just want to be free
Speaker 1: and hang with your boys in prison and then occasionally
Speaker 1: get that conjugal trailer exactly. So, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: if you just look at the math of it, that's
Speaker 1: uh one every ten year average, So yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I guess it makes sense you could just every ten
Speaker 1: years or just like, I'm sorry, babe, I just uh,
Speaker 1: our letters are getting you know, less and less filled
Speaker 1: with passion. I'm kind of faking it now and I
Speaker 1: can't be tied down, Hunt. I'm a free spirit. Yeah, literally,
Speaker 1: just in prison, I can't be typed. I gotta likee
Speaker 1: going on. Oh man, so Vince, And I'm sorry if
Speaker 1: I if I missed it. I mean, is the motivation
Speaker 1: literally this idea of of making a real life event
Speaker 1: that that can then be the inspiration for a movie
Speaker 1: or was there more? Mean they literally just wanted more cars,
Speaker 1: Like that was the whole That was the whole thing.
Speaker 1: They wanted more cars, and like you know, as a submotivation,
Speaker 1: as a submotive, uh, the cars were maybe going to
Speaker 1: finance the younger brothers movies, which I'm sure he made
Speaker 1: would have made lots of if he hadn't gone to prison.
Speaker 1: I mean, it really was just like he was trying
Speaker 1: to keep up with the Joneses. He was just like,
Speaker 1: oh man, you know, these guys are so cool, and
Speaker 1: I got all these better cars and I got the
Speaker 1: Jaguar because he couldn't he couldn't afford the insurance, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and so he's like, you know, who can afford the insurance? Um,
Speaker 1: the state that funds schools doesn't. Doesn't a trust fund
Speaker 1: usually kick in when you're like in your twenties. I
Speaker 1: had to be how he was like, because usually it's
Speaker 1: tied to like when you're eighteen or something. I would think,
Speaker 1: so when you become when you become a non minor,
Speaker 1: when you because I was about to say a major,
Speaker 1: that's not a thing an adult, but yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: I just don't understand. Maybe his parents, you know, they
Speaker 1: certainly can write, you know, caveats into it where it
Speaker 1: requires certain things like you gotta not live in the house.
Speaker 1: Maybe you gotta find your own way, get a career,
Speaker 1: go to college. Otherwise, you know, kids just become garbage.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that was even a thing in
Speaker 1: the Sopranos with Meadow, where they wouldn't give her her
Speaker 1: trust fund because she was threatening to go to Europe
Speaker 1: or whatever instead of staying in college. And then finally
Speaker 1: they relent, like, you know what, we trust you to
Speaker 1: make the right decision. Here's your trust fund. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and uh, I also think that, like, you gotta give
Speaker 1: kudos to the parents for having foresight for knowing that, like,
Speaker 1: let's wait a little bit. Let's make the age thirty
Speaker 1: for the student collecting his trust fund, because I just
Speaker 1: have a sneaking suspicion he's gonna do like a bus kidnapping.
Speaker 1: And uh, you know they're really doctor saying this, right,
Speaker 1: and when when the kid's born. Yeah, like I've been
Speaker 1: delivering babies for a while, this kid is a bus thief. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this kid, Uh, just wait till thirty for the million dollars.
Speaker 1: You will thank me later. And I'm sure they did.
Speaker 1: They were just like, all right, well that's our money. Still.
Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting, you know, because there's there's this
Speaker 1: moment then where like it's so common that it's almost
Speaker 1: the troope, right, the idea like there's this kid who
Speaker 1: has money, but they can't get it, you know, until
Speaker 1: they satisfy some conditions and they reach a certain age.
Speaker 1: And so I just have this image of like the
Speaker 1: errants getting hit up for money and they say, look,
Speaker 1: we have a trust fund for you, but you have
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more mature to get it.
Speaker 1: And his responses, I'll show you mature. Yeah, he should
Speaker 1: have just had to go back and do all the
Speaker 1: grades over again, like Billy Madison. I forgot about that one.
Speaker 1: So what's what's your takeaway from this, Vince? Like, has
Speaker 1: this inspired you towards a life of crime or do
Speaker 1: you feel more cautionary to I am going to kidnap
Speaker 1: more children? Um? No, Yeah, it's I feel like the
Speaker 1: root of all of these crimes is generally, you know,
Speaker 1: seeing other people with better stuff than you and being like, hey,
Speaker 1: I want to do that. Um. And that's pretty much all.
Speaker 1: There's not a lot more deep thought that went into it.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's a line from a Mr. Show
Speaker 1: sketch Coupon the movie where they're like green lighting this
Speaker 1: movie about this coupon and there's a guy that they
Speaker 1: think it's gonna bomb, and one of the exacts goes,
Speaker 1: I swear to God, if I have to go from
Speaker 1: being rich, super rich to just rich, I'll kill myself. Um.
Speaker 1: And I think that that's something that I really is.
Speaker 1: Once you go, once you hit a certain point, anything
Speaker 1: any back pedaling is a tantamount to utter failure. Um.
Speaker 1: And you really just measure yourself against everybody else. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's honestly a life lesson to just you know, be
Speaker 1: happy with what you got and not like measure success
Speaker 1: or happiness based on other people's ship because it is
Speaker 1: a losing proposition, because there will always be someone with
Speaker 1: more than you. Uh. And this is exactly I think
Speaker 1: that the takeaway from the story, as far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: my entire happiness on how many five star uh, five
Speaker 1: stars in a review we get on our podcast events
Speaker 1: and um, and then I compare it to other people's
Speaker 1: podcasts and uh, and then I just cry, you know,
Speaker 1: I mean, I know there's there's some pretty good reas
Speaker 1: church into the comparative level of happiness. And one of
Speaker 1: the things that is counterintuitive to some people is if
Speaker 1: you are making like, let's say you're making thirty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars a year and everybody you work with is making
Speaker 1: twenty nine thousand dollars a year, just that little difference
Speaker 1: will make you feel pretty great according to like, according
Speaker 1: to psychology, and then uh, in comparison or in contrast, rather,
Speaker 1: if you're making two million dollars a year and you
Speaker 1: know that everybody work with is making like two million
Speaker 1: and two hundred dollars. You're you're in the depths of
Speaker 1: despair and you're like, what have I done to deserve
Speaker 1: this tragic injustice? Well, and there's also a level at
Speaker 1: which like you're not actually like tangibly happier. Um, there's like,
Speaker 1: I think, what is it, like, seventy grand a year.
Speaker 1: I think is like a pretty decent depending on where
Speaker 1: you live, A decent benchmark for like, this is enough
Speaker 1: money for you to have the things that you want
Speaker 1: and the things that you need and to not you know,
Speaker 1: go batship with it, but also just to kind of
Speaker 1: live a nice, measured, happy life. And then once you
Speaker 1: get above that, that's can you start getting into the
Speaker 1: more money, more problems proposition of wealth. You know? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know someone who um complained. Who I know someone
Speaker 1: who was on a canceled NBC sitcom who keeps complaining
Speaker 1: about their costar making more money when this person made
Speaker 1: a million dollars for being a side character a million
Speaker 1: dollars and complaining that the co star got a million
Speaker 1: point too. And I was just like, you're never allowed
Speaker 1: to talk to me again. Just don't complain about money
Speaker 1: like that is not going to that that is just
Speaker 1: that's insane just because they got a million dollars it
Speaker 1: was canceled. You should tell them about the school bus solution.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm gonna tell them. It's like, you want
Speaker 1: to earn that extra point to school bus their kids
Speaker 1: and choo Chilla who need kidnapping. There's no school bus
Speaker 1: solution to a spiritual problem. And I think that's that's
Speaker 1: the lesson here and one of the other lessons perhaps
Speaker 1: when the primary takeaways is to immediately check out Pod
Speaker 1: Yourself a Gun. Uh, Vince, thank you for taking us
Speaker 1: on this journey. And I just behind the scenes, I
Speaker 1: was checking out pod Yourself a Gun. Uh My rider died.
Speaker 1: The one and only Noel Brown has been on the
Speaker 1: on the show. In fact, No, what did you guys
Speaker 1: talk about on that episode? Well, it was like I
Speaker 1: think we talked about this. Off are the four of us.
Speaker 1: But I've found Pod Yourself a Gun literally, just because
Speaker 1: I needed to fill the holes within me that that
Speaker 1: can only be filled with Sopranos content. And I you know,
Speaker 1: I rewatched the show like several times a year, and
Speaker 1: I saw a meme that kind of sums me up
Speaker 1: where it's like, well, just finished rewatching The Sopranos. Guess
Speaker 1: it's time to watch the Sopranos. Um. It's just it
Speaker 1: beets become this kind of comfort thing for me, even
Speaker 1: though it's you know, it's a very tense and anxiety
Speaker 1: build show. But I I so once you know what
Speaker 1: what what it's doing and where it's going, I don't
Speaker 1: think it affects you the same way. I find it
Speaker 1: to be like really like calming and comforting. So I
Speaker 1: rewatched it constantly, and I was looking for podcasts and
Speaker 1: there really aren't a ton of them out there, and
Speaker 1: y'alls came up and it was a clever name, obviously,
Speaker 1: and so I checked it out. And then it turned
Speaker 1: out that like some of our colleagues from The Daily
Speaker 1: Zeitgeist and from our l A crew had been guests.
Speaker 1: So I literally reached out to Anna host Night and
Speaker 1: asked if she'd introduced me, like literally, I was just
Speaker 1: like a fan of the show, and she did, and
Speaker 1: y'all were kind enough to have me on UM to
Speaker 1: talk about season five, episode one, the Two Tony's, which
Speaker 1: is the one where all the old timers are getting
Speaker 1: out of prison, like this wave of like you know,
Speaker 1: incarcerations that happened I guess like in the seventies or
Speaker 1: something like that, and they're all kind of getting Now.
Speaker 1: He got Feature Lamana, and he got Tony Blondetto, which
Speaker 1: is Tony's cousin played by Steve Bushemy, and then there's
Speaker 1: a handful of others. But yeah, that's what we talked about.
Speaker 1: And we talked about A j being kind of an insufferable,
Speaker 1: awful young you know, Rascal, that's the word fails son.
Speaker 1: I love that. I think I've only heard you guys
Speaker 1: say that. And also a terrible drummer. That was my
Speaker 1: biggest point that I think I may and if anyone
Speaker 1: walked away with anything that I felt strongly is that
Speaker 1: JJJJ is a horrible, horrible drummer. There's nothing nothing more
Speaker 1: insufferable than someone playing drums at you while you're trying
Speaker 1: to talk to them and not even doing a good job.
Speaker 1: It's just it's it's the worst. And then watching him
Speaker 1: get attacked by a bear. And as as Matt said earlier,
Speaker 1: if you want to if you want to help our
Speaker 1: guys here, uh feel a little better, not rob as
Speaker 1: school bus. You can make a difference with a five
Speaker 1: star review on your podcast platform of choice and uh
Speaker 1: you can also check out You can also check out
Speaker 1: Vince and Matt's other podcasts. You're you're making us look bad.
Speaker 1: You guys are doing a lot here. Well, the Prodcast
Speaker 1: film drunk Prodcast has been going on for a long
Speaker 1: long time. We're all about quantity over quality. Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: you just keep loading up the content slop and you
Speaker 1: just let the piggies feed. I love it well and
Speaker 1: then a ringing recommendation of a million percent and then
Speaker 1: you know, this story ended up being a real epic.
Speaker 1: But you have a story about you, you tease to
Speaker 1: the top of the show about some kind of bumbling
Speaker 1: mafia brothers. I propose that we do that as a
Speaker 1: separate episode, just the two of us and Max, and
Speaker 1: make this a trilogy. You know what, Let's let's go
Speaker 1: for a three for because then I think, yeah, that
Speaker 1: that with three is the smallest number you need to
Speaker 1: make a list. This technically a list, so we could
Speaker 1: call it a franchise. And we can't wait to hear
Speaker 1: your stories about bone headed mafio. So it just hit
Speaker 1: me speaking about bone headed crimes and criminals in general,
Speaker 1: it just hit me that some of our friends from
Speaker 1: this story might be listening to the podcast today. I
Speaker 1: don't know what the stances on podcasting in prison, but yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true. It's true. So we can't wait to hear
Speaker 1: what you think of pod yourself a gun, a film
Speaker 1: drunk broadcast. We also can't wait to hear your takes
Speaker 1: on some of history's dumbest crimes. As always, you can
Speaker 1: find us at our uh we got a lot of stuff. Now,
Speaker 1: let's see, We've got the Facebook page, Facebook page ridiculous historians.
Speaker 1: Just pop it over to Facebook, type that in and
Speaker 1: I think you have to answer like a basic question
Speaker 1: like one of our names, or just say something to
Speaker 1: let us know you're not a Russian bot and you're in.
Speaker 1: We now have a working email address. Swear to God,
Speaker 1: are you still not getting it? Ben? We gotta figure
Speaker 1: that part out so forward, I will well. Also like
Speaker 1: they also go straight to my spam folders, so I
Speaker 1: don't see them readily, but I gotta. We need to
Speaker 1: start doing listener mail episodes to give us a reason
Speaker 1: to search for them, because our company has quite a
Speaker 1: restrictive spam filter. But we do get them, we swear.
Speaker 1: So please write to us at ridiculous at I heeart
Speaker 1: media dot com, and and and we're gonna get that fixed.
Speaker 1: So so Ben's getting them too soon. And then I think,
Speaker 1: do for a listener, Maile episode, I bet you we
Speaker 1: have a good little crop of of letters, and Vince
Speaker 1: that we usually don't tell people this until the very
Speaker 1: end of guest spots, but we really tried to dress
Speaker 1: up the show for you here by helping you avoid
Speaker 1: our nemeses. This show does have a nemesis. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: pops in unexpectedly and gives us pedantic history quizzes. It's
Speaker 1: probably coming back in a week or two. What do
Speaker 1: you say? You know? I think so we we can,
Speaker 1: you know, we are able to summon him, but we
Speaker 1: we don't want to leave off without delivering on a
Speaker 1: on a promise that we made. Vince, gotta put you
Speaker 1: on the spot. We all need mafia nicknames, if you
Speaker 1: don't mind. Oh jeez, hey, I'm gonna call you the beard,
Speaker 1: uh because it's real creative. You got that beard? Hear?
Speaker 1: I like it? Walk us through the logic here? Yeah? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was what's that? I said? That was the logic?
Speaker 1: The logic was you see a beer it's sort of
Speaker 1: like driving around naming signs that you see are reading.
Speaker 1: You know now that that you also have you go
Speaker 1: deeper with these. Don't sell yourself short, Vince. What about Ben? Uh?
Speaker 1: You know we're gonna call him, Uh damn, what was
Speaker 1: that scaban? Uh? We'll just call him to tone because
Speaker 1: you know he's like, what was the bowling for? Was
Speaker 1: a bowling for soup? I don't know. Does he look
Speaker 1: like the guy from Bowling for Soup? I don't know.
Speaker 1: Isn't that you know, like Benny two tone? I like it? Yeah,
Speaker 1: we just need one from Max MAXI. You know, he's
Speaker 1: we call him Max Pause because he's you know, he's
Speaker 1: a puppy with big pause. That's what we're talking about.
Speaker 1: I love Uh. Yeah, that's better that Max. My one
Speaker 1: for you was gonna be a little gigante. So I
Speaker 1: think backs pauses is much better. Well, good safe, good catch,
Speaker 1: because we got close to forgetting about that, and we
Speaker 1: would have gotten some angry let We probably wouldn't know.
Speaker 1: You never know, but Vincent and Matt, thank you so
Speaker 1: much for for joining us. Where can folks find you
Speaker 1: on the internet outside of your podcasts? Yeah? As always
Speaker 1: on up Rocks on the Senior Film and Culture writer,
Speaker 1: dropping lots of takes over there, and uh yeah, and
Speaker 1: Twitter Vince at Vince Mancini and you can find me
Speaker 1: on Twitter at matt leeb um or on Instagram at
Speaker 1: Matt leave Jokes and so yeah, check that out. Matt.
Speaker 1: Don't get don't get mad at me for saying this,
Speaker 1: but I did go check out some of your stand
Speaker 1: up on YouTube. We're talking about that off air. Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: people can people can still find that as well. Please, yeah,
Speaker 1: go ahead and go to YouTube and type in Matt
Speaker 1: leeb and then eventually you'll see some stand up videos
Speaker 1: and uh, you know, go ahead and watch them and
Speaker 1: tell your friends to watch them. I got lots of jokes.
Speaker 1: I did had this one joke about it. Mouth Billy
Speaker 1: Bassie'll love it. You don't want to know what I
Speaker 1: do with it. You'll have to You'll have to hear
Speaker 1: for yourself. To hear for yourself, it's exploited, all right.
Speaker 1: And you can also find Nolan me of course, uh
Speaker 1: not just this is your show, but as individuals, that's right,
Speaker 1: you can find me. I'm pretty much exclusively on Instagram
Speaker 1: aside from the occasional Twitter lurking, but look me up
Speaker 1: on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown. You can check
Speaker 1: out my adventures on Instagram at ben Bulling b w
Speaker 1: L I N I am. I made a decision not
Speaker 1: to not to show some backstage misadventures today, but I
Speaker 1: just got my eyes dilated and it is like weird.
Speaker 1: I if I see him off today, guys, it's because
Speaker 1: I can't fight see you um. But you can also
Speaker 1: find me on Twitter appn Bolling hs W and as
Speaker 1: soon as my vision returns, I'll check back into Hopefully
Speaker 1: I'll be back by the next time we record then
Speaker 1: for the third part of this now Prime trilogy. This
Speaker 1: may well be our God Other three red Cut, but
Speaker 1: I think the red cut is supposed to be pretty good.
Speaker 1: The re cut is supposed to be pretty good because
Speaker 1: it's not our Exorcist too. We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.