Speaker 1: How are you doing, io? Are you good? Welcome to
Speaker 1: the studio. Thank you. I really like this studio. It
Speaker 1: has the effect of like the womb. Now I come
Speaker 1: in here and I feel safe and hello Zach, Zach
Speaker 1: right here, I'm here Zach our editor and what other
Speaker 1: title editors? Such an underestimation of what Zaa does on
Speaker 1: the show. All the credits on the show are fucked.
Speaker 1: I'm like, none of this actually equates to what everybody does. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I'm glad we're doing this episode of the show so
Speaker 1: that we can actually talk about what the fuck happens. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this episode is going to have a lot of spoilers,
Speaker 1: basically all the spoilers for the whole season. So if
Speaker 1: you haven't heard the series, go back and binge it first.
Speaker 1: So we were just listening to that south By Southwest talk.
Speaker 1: So before we launched the show, Io and I went
Speaker 1: to south By Southwest to like play a trailer. But
Speaker 1: I told everybody I knew that we were premiering It's
Speaker 1: Out by Self West, So I for sure got eighty
Speaker 1: percent of the value of anything. It's out by Southwest
Speaker 1: is getting to say that you prepared It's health Byself. Yeah, Hi, everybody,
Speaker 1: thanks for coming. It's like just intimate enough to perfect.
Speaker 1: It's good because we got some very intimate conversations to share.
Speaker 1: This was before the show would come out, and so
Speaker 1: there were a lot of secrets that you couldn't talk about. Oh,
Speaker 1: I want to tell them so many things about nights. Oh,
Speaker 1: We're still in the last phases of the investigation, so
Speaker 1: I'm still like, I want to tell you guys what's
Speaker 1: coming on. But one of the big secrets didn't have
Speaker 1: to do with the investigation at all, right, It had
Speaker 1: to do with storytelling decision that we made. When do
Speaker 1: we reveal Hio's connection to the story? Right, And we've
Speaker 1: always for as long as you and I were talking
Speaker 1: about the story, that was like the thing that we
Speaker 1: read with it's like and it's investigated by the kid.
Speaker 1: It's so cool, Like it's like this personal journey, and
Speaker 1: that's what made it interesting. And so then Mark came in,
Speaker 1: Mark Smirling, our other editor. Well, Mark came in at
Speaker 1: the eleventh hour with this hair brand idea that turned
Speaker 1: out to be genius. That was, let's not reveal it
Speaker 1: until after Rebecca's told the entirety of her story. The
Speaker 1: story of them meetings. So just a few weeks before
Speaker 1: the show launched, we went to south By Southwest to
Speaker 1: test out Mark's new structure idea of holding back my
Speaker 1: relationship with Rebecca. Yeah, there's a there's a major secret
Speaker 1: that wha we will have probably and then we'll talk
Speaker 1: about this secret. And then we played the trailer and
Speaker 1: the trailer doesn't reveal that I'm her kid. And then
Speaker 1: I was like, and by the way, so how did
Speaker 1: you find out about this story? Well, the big secret
Speaker 1: is that Rebecca is my mom. I think it works.
Speaker 1: And I remember there was an audible gasp in the
Speaker 1: room and we were like, Okay, where let's do it today,
Speaker 1: Zach Austin and I peel back the curtain a bit.
Speaker 1: We'll give you some juicy secrets about how we made
Speaker 1: the show and we'll reflect on how we feel about
Speaker 1: it now from Crimetown. I'm io till it right, And
Speaker 1: this is a behind the scenes bonus episode of the
Speaker 1: Ballad of Billy Balls Austen, helloo, all right, tell about
Speaker 1: what you want to know. Well, first of all, what's
Speaker 1: Billy's real name? What's the full legal name, William Heightsman.
Speaker 1: There might be a daughter and I think my mom
Speaker 1: might know her name for some reason. She thinks that
Speaker 1: she lives in Oregon. All right, well, if she exists,
Speaker 1: I'm confident we can find them. To me, what's missing
Speaker 1: all of this, It's like we need the other we have.
Speaker 1: If we get this police report, we find out what
Speaker 1: happens then and you can introduce some of that. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that would be as at the end of this, there's
Speaker 1: some sort of coming together these two Io and Rebecca.
Speaker 1: Either bad or good, we don't know, but something's common
Speaker 1: sort of see it. Yeah. Epilogue four, The Ballad of
Speaker 1: the Ballad? All right, Io, So how did this whole
Speaker 1: thing come together? How did it start? I was planning
Speaker 1: to write a book. It was called The Ballad of
Speaker 1: Billy Balls and His Baby Girl. That was and it
Speaker 1: was gonna be a memoir, nonfiction, murder investigation book. And
Speaker 1: then I was listening to all these true crime podcasts.
Speaker 1: I went through a breakup, and I was like in
Speaker 1: the sweltering sun in Joshua Tree building furniture, listening to
Speaker 1: every true crime podcast I get my hands on. I'm
Speaker 1: a sick motherfucker. Like everybody listening to this podcast, You're great,
Speaker 1: You're all great, Yeah, and then I heard your name
Speaker 1: as I was listening to Crimetown. I'm Zach Stewart Pontier.
Speaker 1: I'm Mark Smirley. Welcome to Crimetown. I was like, no
Speaker 1: fucking way. I'd met Zach probably fifteen or so years
Speaker 1: ago through my friend Jamie Raisin shout out Jamie, who
Speaker 1: was working on a movie that Zach was editing, and
Speaker 1: he wouldn't stop talking about this brilliant young editor, Zach,
Speaker 1: Zach Zach. So when I found out that I had
Speaker 1: gotten into podcasting, I was just like, I know, I
Speaker 1: want to make a podcast. I don't know, I want
Speaker 1: to like this medium is beautiful and exciting and really cool.
Speaker 1: And then I just asked you to have lunch. You
Speaker 1: were starting to work on Crimetime season two and it
Speaker 1: was freezing and we were at a Whole Food and
Speaker 1: like gwanas, I told him about the book, and he
Speaker 1: was like, that would make an epic podcast. Have you
Speaker 1: ever thought about making a podcast? And I was like, well,
Speaker 1: I've thought about it, but I didn't. Oh, yeah, that's genius.
Speaker 1: Because he was a musician, and because you were saying
Speaker 1: my mom had documented the big parts of her life,
Speaker 1: he was always recordings, and her accents so crazy and wild,
Speaker 1: and the way she talks is so crazy and wild,
Speaker 1: and I figured everybody around would also be audio gold.
Speaker 1: And so as soon as you said it, I was
Speaker 1: like being like, yeah, yes, it has to be a podcast,
Speaker 1: and I kept writing and whatever, but it really at
Speaker 1: that point I was like, Oh, that's what this is
Speaker 1: supposed to be, right, And then I went off and
Speaker 1: tried to make it on my own, which was a
Speaker 1: great lesson in people saying no to things and you
Speaker 1: being like, no, I'm sure. Everybody I talked to from
Speaker 1: these other networks and stuff, we're like, well, have you
Speaker 1: found the Killer? Do you know how it ends? And
Speaker 1: I was like, no, you don't understand. It's not It's
Speaker 1: just it's an amorphous. It's a study in humanity. And
Speaker 1: nobody wants to hear that. They're like, who's the good guy,
Speaker 1: who's the bad guy? And I was like, no, it's
Speaker 1: it's about love but death. But I couldn't articulate it,
Speaker 1: but I knew you got it because we came up
Speaker 1: with it to get there. Basically, Yeah, and then the
Speaker 1: heavens parted and I came in here and you guys
Speaker 1: were like, so this is Austin, go have lunch with him.
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, who the fuck is You guys
Speaker 1: are basically like we are slammed and Austin's the man
Speaker 1: and we want him to be like the lead on this. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean yeah. From my perspective, it was Zach just
Speaker 1: being like, all right, so what do you think about this?
Speaker 1: There's and he gave me your pitch deck. What was
Speaker 1: the spiel that he How did he explain? It was
Speaker 1: his elevator pitch of the ballot? I mean, I don't
Speaker 1: remember it that clearly, but it was something like, all right,
Speaker 1: so there's this murder mystery that takes place in the
Speaker 1: East Village in the early eighties. And I was like, oooh, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, keep going. He was a musician who all right,
Speaker 1: all right, and then you have to work with Io
Speaker 1: till it right, And I was like no, and so yeah,
Speaker 1: that that was it. I was excited about it. I
Speaker 1: was excited about the prospect of it. We had no
Speaker 1: idea what it was going to be, and so that
Speaker 1: was that was honestly a little exciting. Um. So it
Speaker 1: was a thing where it was go have lunch with
Speaker 1: Io and see how you get along, see if you'll
Speaker 1: be able to work together. And then we sat down
Speaker 1: and had lunch and you were lovely and you told
Speaker 1: me about California and all this stuff, and I was like,
Speaker 1: all right, great do it? Was it thumbs up like
Speaker 1: in the yeah, in the in the lunch where you
Speaker 1: guys like we're doing this for me, I was like,
Speaker 1: I had no questions about him. I think our only
Speaker 1: question at that point was whether or not somebody was
Speaker 1: going to give us the money to make it right
Speaker 1: until we got Cadence Um really on board and they
Speaker 1: came in and they were great. The first trip when
Speaker 1: I came to New York in December, I came here
Speaker 1: for a week before we had a green light. I
Speaker 1: bought the ticket. Yeah. That week we just kind of
Speaker 1: like sat down. I remember you like asking me what
Speaker 1: do you hope to get from this project? And it
Speaker 1: was still all it was like raw meat, you know,
Speaker 1: it still very like un seasoned. Then we should play
Speaker 1: we should play some of that in yeah, because it's
Speaker 1: like so interesting to hear, like the wide eyed sort
Speaker 1: of yeah we saw so in terms of this project,
Speaker 1: what exactly do you want to get from this? This
Speaker 1: is my first recorded sit down with Austin. We need
Speaker 1: to piece together a picture of who Billy was, a
Speaker 1: real picture of who Billy was versus my mom's interpretation.
Speaker 1: And then we need to somehow, which is going to
Speaker 1: be the hardest part, crack the NYPD case files and
Speaker 1: get them to possibly incriminate themselves in a murder. And
Speaker 1: it might just be that it might be right there
Speaker 1: on a piece of paper, arresting officer so and so,
Speaker 1: and this is the guy that shot him. That's the
Speaker 1: guy I want to get to. I want to find
Speaker 1: who the dude is. Who is the guy in the
Speaker 1: cowboy hat. It's like strangely prescient or whatever. Yeah, certain
Speaker 1: things that you're saying, I absolutely haven't. I want to
Speaker 1: sit down with him, and I want to ask him,
Speaker 1: do you remember this man? Do you remember this day
Speaker 1: it happened? Why did you shoot this guy? Why did
Speaker 1: you go back to the hospital? Why did he die?
Speaker 1: And then certain things are just like you know, and
Speaker 1: maybe he's so old he'll be like we needed to
Speaker 1: get rid of him. You know. Maybe the guy's dead.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but if I could find his killer
Speaker 1: and have a real conversation with him, it might set
Speaker 1: my mom freeze. Really what I would hope it's a really,
Speaker 1: it's just the fucking interesting thing about this process. This
Speaker 1: show is such a People have expressed surprise at the
Speaker 1: fact that we were making it as we put it out,
Speaker 1: and I think that that doesn't even begin to touch
Speaker 1: on the like it was real, live growth and real
Speaker 1: live emotion and things changing in my family week to week.
Speaker 1: This is impossible for most people to imagine. The episodes
Speaker 1: came out at six am on Thursday mornings, and at
Speaker 1: one am, three am, four am on every fucking Wednesday night.
Speaker 1: Austin is here in the studio most likely with Kenny,
Speaker 1: probably Zach making the ship before it comes out in
Speaker 1: like a matter of hours, and Sambert engineer. Over the
Speaker 1: course of the season, you kind of go from being like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, we only have four days to do this,
Speaker 1: like holy shit, to like by the end of sy
Speaker 1: you're like, we have four days, Like we're fine, we
Speaker 1: got time, Okay, Yeah, let's try this. I mean we
Speaker 1: got four days still has to come out. Yeah, Like
Speaker 1: it was not pre done, It was not preordained at all.
Speaker 1: A lot of things happened last minute or by stroke
Speaker 1: of luck. Everything from Ron Kuby coming in to save
Speaker 1: the day, to that faint imprint of the undercover CoP's
Speaker 1: name on the police report, and even basic production choices
Speaker 1: like what our theme song would be on and also
Speaker 1: the theme song. Whole thing. We went through so many, yeah,
Speaker 1: because I was like really wanting to use Billy's music.
Speaker 1: That was a whole thing. Yeah, So we had Kenny
Speaker 1: take sound of Billy's song. We asked Kenny Qcak, our
Speaker 1: resident composer and sound engineer, to try turning a few
Speaker 1: of Billy's tracks into potential theme songs for the show.
Speaker 1: Here's one early sketch. You should play some of that
Speaker 1: and you'll hear just how fucking wrong they are. And
Speaker 1: I take total and I was the one pushing it
Speaker 1: so that I'm not It's not Kenny. Kenny was actually
Speaker 1: following the horrible direction that I was. But we were
Speaker 1: trying stuff. You have to try, Yeah, to try, you
Speaker 1: have to try. We swing hard. But when it's not working,
Speaker 1: like pretty much everybody gets on board, Okay, it's not working, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's try something else. And like I thought of Light
Speaker 1: Asylum with something you really saved the day. That fucking song,
Speaker 1: kid ass, you had a relationship with Shannon. I've known
Speaker 1: Shannon since I was like a teenager. Yeah, I'm talking
Speaker 1: about Shannon funchis the lead singer of Light Asylum. I
Speaker 1: loved Shannon. She used to perform at the Bowery Poetry
Speaker 1: Club with my mom. I think I just knew her
Speaker 1: from the village, from like when I literally I was
Speaker 1: a kid. And now people are like rediscovering light Asylum
Speaker 1: or first time discovering light Asylum and like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: are they a good band? Sho we play some of
Speaker 1: their other music for yes, this is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite Light Asylum songs. It's called IPC. They're so good.
Speaker 1: But what people don't know is that the decision to
Speaker 1: use Light Asylum happened probably a week before we launched
Speaker 1: the show, if that, which is why you don't hear
Speaker 1: Light Asylum in our trailer. Coming up, we get into
Speaker 1: our favorite moments from making the show. That's after this
Speaker 1: break and okay, so we're back in the studio with me,
Speaker 1: Austin and our editor Zach Like, what what are some
Speaker 1: of your favorite parts of the show. Our favorite parts
Speaker 1: of making the show. The fact that we got the answers,
Speaker 1: like that's just so fucking I'm so proud of that, Like,
Speaker 1: that's so insane. We found the guy in the cowboy hat,
Speaker 1: we got the police report, We like Amanda talk to us,
Speaker 1: you know, like, we got we found his body. Yeah.
Speaker 1: All the things that I wanted to solve, we solved,
Speaker 1: which is crazy. Yeah. Yeah, I mean I already cried
Speaker 1: about this in the credits. But my relationship with Austin.
Speaker 1: I'm not looking at him because I can't. But my
Speaker 1: relationship with Austin is like a gift that I will
Speaker 1: never you know. Yeah, that's something for life. You guys
Speaker 1: have been through it. Yeah, And I think there's just
Speaker 1: it's so personal, and my mom's such a character, and
Speaker 1: and there's a you know, I've freaked out a couple
Speaker 1: of times and had like just like irrational panic about
Speaker 1: weird shit and just stick in the mud about the
Speaker 1: wrong things because I was just having an emotional response
Speaker 1: to how crazy this whole process was. And like there's
Speaker 1: Austin just being like, Okay, I'm gonna take a walk
Speaker 1: and talk to you and like give you space to
Speaker 1: air your feelings and stay on the fucking phone with
Speaker 1: you for three hours while you figure out what the
Speaker 1: fuck's wrong with you, and that is a when you're
Speaker 1: dealing with something as emotional and trauma connected as this
Speaker 1: whole thing was. Was essential to making it possible. So
Speaker 1: I got Austin out of this. Um. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: know what about you. What are some of your favorite things?
Speaker 1: I love the Hard Island episode the birds. The birds
Speaker 1: are nice. The sounds want to leave you alone for
Speaker 1: a minute with them? Yeah, you could leave me alone
Speaker 1: for just a few minutes, maybe one. But I've been
Speaker 1: renound birds. Why because all my life when I was
Speaker 1: drawn up, my brother had birds are always mostly harmless
Speaker 1: fur all of them. Where do you keep all of
Speaker 1: those birds? Isn't bad? Pronounced aviary? The birds? Okay, we
Speaker 1: have to tell them that the Birds was Austin's. I
Speaker 1: want the whole world to know. They know, they know
Speaker 1: most of it is Austin's genius. No, alright, move one
Speaker 1: found compliments. Just everyone knows that's true. I love the
Speaker 1: way you hand that interview with the guy in the
Speaker 1: cowboy hat, who wasn't actually wearing a cowboy hat. But
Speaker 1: but I love the way that that worked. It was
Speaker 1: really a special thing. I wonder if you're comfortable telling
Speaker 1: me a little bit about like what you felt in
Speaker 1: that situation, Like, was that a rare occurrence or that
Speaker 1: like a conference that I actually end up in a
Speaker 1: shoot out of any time? And I was not happy
Speaker 1: with it at all. I mean, you can't be happy
Speaker 1: being involved in something like that. So it's bothered you
Speaker 1: not bet you didn't want that to happen. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't amaze anyone being happy about it. Obviously we were
Speaker 1: shooting people over the cops of like forty years and
Speaker 1: he was the only one. He's the only one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh my god. Like the fact that you you were
Speaker 1: able to have a connection with that person, I think
Speaker 1: made the show in a lot of ways, because I
Speaker 1: think if that goes a different way, it's like not
Speaker 1: as and it would have totally been reasonable for it
Speaker 1: to go a different way because of everything that everybody
Speaker 1: who listened to the show totally understands. But I just
Speaker 1: love that. Thank you very much, all right, take care bye.
Speaker 1: I love the ending. I love like I think of
Speaker 1: that like Tarantino like moment of seeing them like go
Speaker 1: off into the sunset, and I love that, which was
Speaker 1: your gene? Yeah, I we should give them credit here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this was not I mean so it was that in
Speaker 1: the studio with your mom during that last sit down.
Speaker 1: It all happened in the way that you heard in
Speaker 1: that episode. You revealed to your mom whatever she wanted
Speaker 1: to know. It was very tense. Do you want to
Speaker 1: know anything about the cop or any of that stuff?
Speaker 1: I'd like to see him fry and be six feet
Speaker 1: on there. All right, That's that's it. I mean, side note,
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here in the studio watching this happen. And
Speaker 1: when she asked about his name, what's his name? Are
Speaker 1: you sure you want to know that? Yeah? I want
Speaker 1: to know why? Why do you think I could see
Speaker 1: you processing it? And I'm like gripping the seats. I'm like,
Speaker 1: don't tell her, don't tell her, don't tell her. I
Speaker 1: don't know, Mom. Let's I gotta think about whether or
Speaker 1: not it's smart. It's kids to tell you that that
Speaker 1: interview did happen the way that it happened in the
Speaker 1: last episode. But zach as is your role in this
Speaker 1: show to kind of supervise the bigger picture structural things.
Speaker 1: You had an idea to bring it back and end
Speaker 1: with the scene with Billy. There was a story about
Speaker 1: you guys going to Boston, right. Oh, it's like a
Speaker 1: beautiful thing. It's literally them driving off into the well
Speaker 1: so the snow sets, said, I imagine her draped across
Speaker 1: the bench seat, her bleached blonde head resting on Billy's
Speaker 1: thigh as he skids through the snow, a cigarette dangling
Speaker 1: from his mouth. She reaches up and caresses the collar
Speaker 1: bones of the man she will love forever as they
Speaker 1: sing together. Freezing air flies up from the highway below,
Speaker 1: but they're unfazed, warmed by love. God, we knew when
Speaker 1: my mom sat down and she sang that fucking song.
Speaker 1: Austin and I looked at each other and we knew.
Speaker 1: Even she knew, and she said it, and it's the
Speaker 1: best end of for your show. More positive questions, like
Speaker 1: but I think that's a great way to end the
Speaker 1: whole show. Sure, but that was not originally what we
Speaker 1: thought the ending was going to be. As we were
Speaker 1: structuring the show, as we were reporting everything, where we
Speaker 1: were certain it was going to end on Heart Island
Speaker 1: with your mom in front of the grave. That's really
Speaker 1: what we thought. Yeah, but until you took that trip,
Speaker 1: good old Rebecca never fails to surprise you. We had
Speaker 1: always imagined you had always imagined that that would be
Speaker 1: this Catharsis for your for your mom, which it wasn't.
Speaker 1: So then we're constantly okay, well, then there needs to
Speaker 1: be a final sitdown. But the final sitdown wasn't going
Speaker 1: to be in the studio originally not going to be
Speaker 1: at her house, which would have been a totally different thing.
Speaker 1: And then circumstances shift again and now it's in the studio,
Speaker 1: and now okay, we're rolling with that. Okay. So it's
Speaker 1: like you we're like, it's a very live ball and
Speaker 1: all of the decisions that we're making are kind of
Speaker 1: like reacting to things also being present and trying to
Speaker 1: like mold it the way we think it should kind
Speaker 1: of be going. It's a fucking fascinating process. Well, I
Speaker 1: just want to say, like, none of the work that
Speaker 1: I've ever done has touched people the way this has. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like your openness and you're like the personal nature of
Speaker 1: this story like profoundly impacted the people that listened. So
Speaker 1: it's like all these voicemails, all these emails, all these comments,
Speaker 1: like you're just like wow, Like you know, people liked Crimetown,
Speaker 1: but it's not the same thing. It's not deep, it's
Speaker 1: not as deep. Yeah, to like be a part of
Speaker 1: this thing that like was connecting on that level was
Speaker 1: really special. Yeah. It feels really really amazing to hear
Speaker 1: and see and read all these methoges from people saying
Speaker 1: that it it's like impacted them, emotionally changed them, pushed them,
Speaker 1: made them think about things. You know, this both affected
Speaker 1: me as a mother and a daughter. And the phrase
Speaker 1: the past matters for your journey, but the ultimate end
Speaker 1: goal is radically authentic presence with another person that just
Speaker 1: resonated with me with the past with my father and
Speaker 1: also wondering what it is that I'm doing to my
Speaker 1: own children. So I just listened to the whole podcast.
Speaker 1: It was amazing. You guys like looking touch me and yeah, wow,
Speaker 1: just fucking well. Go and ask man bawling in his
Speaker 1: car thank you. I actually lost someone as well who
Speaker 1: was the lost of my life, and I realized that
Speaker 1: I listened to this podcast, but I will love him forever.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I wanted to thank you. Also, thank your
Speaker 1: mom for most of you being so vulnerable, and thank you.
Speaker 1: I agree with Ham that doctor Ham, that vulnerability is
Speaker 1: a superpower. I feel stronger than I was when I
Speaker 1: went into this. I feel that vulnerability hasn't cost me anything,
Speaker 1: Like it was painful to make it, but like I find,
Speaker 1: I think it would be more painful to make something
Speaker 1: that wasn't vulnerable. If nothing else from this story, I
Speaker 1: hope that people take that that would be incredible more
Speaker 1: vulnerability and honesty and art and in the world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: what's your life like now? Io post show? My life
Speaker 1: now involves a lot of desert and I have been
Speaker 1: remodeling a house and like building furniture in it, and
Speaker 1: I think that's just like what I created to escape
Speaker 1: my brain. Mostly I drive around in my nineteen ninety
Speaker 1: Ford Ranger pickup truck that has no AC It's white,
Speaker 1: and it's currently between one hundred and four and one
Speaker 1: hundred and thirteen degrees daily in Josh Retreat, but it's
Speaker 1: dry heat, so it's manageable, right, And I take my
Speaker 1: little dogs and I put them in my truck, and
Speaker 1: I load my truck up with tools, and then I
Speaker 1: go and I put things together and build things and like,
Speaker 1: listen to Weird Murder pot I'm basically right back where
Speaker 1: I started, And I, Oh, how is your mom? Doing.
Speaker 1: How's Rebecca great question? My mom, She's okay. That's the
Speaker 1: honest answer is she's okay. You know, she doesn't have
Speaker 1: the context of what we were making. She did not
Speaker 1: want to listen to it because it's not entertainment for her.
Speaker 1: It's her greatest trauma. And so I think there was
Speaker 1: a lot of kind of feeling like her most personal
Speaker 1: information was being put out in the world without her control,
Speaker 1: and she was like kind of flailing around in the
Speaker 1: dark a little bit. There was a moment though, during
Speaker 1: this show. So my mom has a version of my
Speaker 1: childhood that's different than mine, where she thinks it was
Speaker 1: you know, roses and peaches and glorious, because she doesn't
Speaker 1: remember a lot of what happened. And so my dad
Speaker 1: came in for his episode and he in that interview
Speaker 1: that was the first time he's ever owned the role
Speaker 1: of drugs in his judgment in my childhood. So that
Speaker 1: really changed my relationship with my father. And so she
Speaker 1: went up to lunch at his house in the Bronx
Speaker 1: and he had a conversation with her, and she called
Speaker 1: me afterwards sobbing and said basically apologized for fucking up
Speaker 1: my childhood, for the first time in my whole life,
Speaker 1: and I was totally didn't know what to do. I
Speaker 1: was like standing in my late construction site in Joshua
Speaker 1: treat just kind of like, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay.
Speaker 1: I love you, I love you bye. And that is
Speaker 1: a moment that I've literally been waiting for my whole
Speaker 1: life and only happened because of this process. But then booms,
Speaker 1: she went right back into you know, denial and the
Speaker 1: fear and the irrational kind of outbursts. So I think
Speaker 1: in the end, she is better for the fact that
Speaker 1: I've grown through this process. But if she could choose out,
Speaker 1: which she probably would not have done this. Although I
Speaker 1: don't know, you know, it's the heart Island thing, like,
Speaker 1: we don't know how that affected her yet. It's going
Speaker 1: to take time for that to settle in, so I
Speaker 1: don't know how she's doing. Just like the show, it's
Speaker 1: complicated and that's what makes it beautiful but also difficult. Wait. Wait,
Speaker 1: so we never got to my favorite parts of the show.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite parts of this was a lot
Speaker 1: of Ioe, your and my venturing out into the city
Speaker 1: and just being knuckleheads and our first reporting trip. We
Speaker 1: went up to the Upper east Side to talk to
Speaker 1: this woman that we're calling Natasha is six and the letch.
Speaker 1: And after that interview, we went and got a sandwich.
Speaker 1: Hot and krusty. That's our best bet. I like HoTT
Speaker 1: and crusty. There black and white cookies are really good.
Speaker 1: And we were standing in line and You're like, uh,
Speaker 1: Ruth Bader Ginsberg is he over there? Ruth Ginsberg is here?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, she was so tiny. It looks like
Speaker 1: Ruth Bader Ginsberg. No, that was Ruth Bader Ginsberg. No
Speaker 1: fucking way, Yeah it was. I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: I was fucking with you and I think it worked. No,
Speaker 1: this was her. I have the Instagram story. I posted
Speaker 1: an Instagram story of this little old lady and wrote
Speaker 1: RBG question mark. I pulled the story back up in
Speaker 1: the studio. Tell me is that her? I don't think so.
Speaker 1: No way. Way. We're coming from Austin Counters and pulls
Speaker 1: up a real photo of RBG online. This is her.
Speaker 1: The hair color is not right, glasses are exactly the same.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, it really looks like her. It's hard,
Speaker 1: that's why it looks like her. The posture does seem
Speaker 1: like her. It really, I feel like but I feel
Speaker 1: like a lot of people who are eighty six probably
Speaker 1: might have that posture. This mystery must be solved. Can
Speaker 1: you see her rings anywhere? Is there a picture of
Speaker 1: like her hands anywhere? Because this person has on I'm curious.
Speaker 1: Austin pulls up another picture of RBG that shows her hands, Ezac,
Speaker 1: this is fucking RBG. Look at the rings, Look at
Speaker 1: the rings. You see it? Oh yeah, Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was fucking RBG. And we didn't fucking talk to her.
Speaker 1: Oh I stared at the whole time. I narrated her
Speaker 1: whole eating experience into the microphone, into the microphone, I
Speaker 1: was thrilled. That's the tape. Ruth Bidder Ginsburgh just finished
Speaker 1: her soup. She's cleaning up her tray. She's cleaning the
Speaker 1: crumbs off her tray. She's such a saying. RBG just
Speaker 1: put on bright red lipstick like a boss. Somebody's coming
Speaker 1: to meet RBG, an older man. RBG is getting up.
Speaker 1: We solved another mystery. Boy RBG like soup. Groundbreaking investigative journalism.
Speaker 1: I just thought it was an old lady who looks
Speaker 1: like her. Unbelievable and I was always trying to think
Speaker 1: in my head of a moment when we could get
Speaker 1: that in the show. Here it is, Here it is.
Speaker 1: I want to thank everybody who's listened to this show
Speaker 1: for all of your feedback, all of your voicemails, everything
Speaker 1: you've written to me online. The response has been tremendous
Speaker 1: and it gives us all so much wind in our sales.
Speaker 1: Thank you. I'm gonna miss you. Crimetown is Zach Stewart
Speaker 1: Pontier and Mark Smirling. The Ballad of Billy Balls is
Speaker 1: hosted by me, Io till It Right and made in
Speaker 1: partnership with Cadence thirteen. Now you have to find me
Speaker 1: on the internet, and Io loves you on everything. If
Speaker 1: you want to know more about my story, you could
Speaker 1: pick up my memoir Darling Days. We still have that
Speaker 1: voicemail line set up for you to call us. I'm
Speaker 1: going to keep checking it, so please call. The number
Speaker 1: is five to seven zero three nine two nine six
Speaker 1: six zero. Truly, it's one of the greatest joys of
Speaker 1: my life to hear how this show has affected you,
Speaker 1: guys and your dad jokes. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: me and Kevin Shepherd, our senior producer is the King
Speaker 1: Austin Mitchell. Editing is by Zach Stewart Contier and Mark Smirling.
Speaker 1: This episode was mixed by Sam Bear. Music by Kenny Quciak.
Speaker 1: Now you know what that means. Our title track is
Speaker 1: Dark Allies by Light Asylum. Thank you, Shannon and Bruno
Speaker 1: so so so much. You made this show. That's all
Speaker 1: thanks to Daniella, Ariah, Rachel, Lee Wright, Emily Wiedemann, who,
Speaker 1: by the way, are all of our girlfriends and wives,
Speaker 1: Green Card Pictures, Alessandro Santro, Bill Clegg, Ben Davis, Oran
Speaker 1: Rosenbaum and the team at Hayden's thirteen, and of course
Speaker 1: my mom, without whom none of this would be possible.
Speaker 1: Never talk out about Babet's god Sa Sa Sa Sa
Speaker 1: ny Mony Mon