Podcasts about Mask

Christina and Jeff kick off the new year of Overtired sans Brett. They delve into Christina's impending cervical spine surgery, ICE raids, and neighborhood signal groups. How do you keep mental health in check when Homeland Security is in your alley? Tune in for a wild start to 2026. Sponsor Copilot Money can help you take control of your finances. Get a fresh start with your money for 2026 with 26% off when you visit try.copilot.money/overtired and use code OVERTIRED. Chapters 00:00 New Year Kickoff 00:41 Personal Updates and Health Challenges 01:49 Surgery Details and Insurance Woes 04:45 Exploring Surgery Options and Recovery 12:44 Journaling and Mental Health 15:40 The Artist’s Way and Creative Practices 24:31 Unexpected Alley Incident 38:10 Family Activism and Signal Setup 38:52 Unexpected End of Year Incident 39:35 Speculations and Concerns 40:13 Dealing with Law Enforcement 45:35 Reflections on Responsibility 54:43 Gratitude for Signal 59:31 Tech Talk: Synology and Backup Solutions 01:03:08 Mac Updater Alternatives 01:10:03 Conclusion and Well Wishes Show Links Journaling – The Artist's Way Signal Synology Updatest Join the Conversation Merch Come chat on Discord! Twitter/ovrtrd Instagram/ovrtrd Youtube Get the Newsletter Thanks! You’re downloading today’s show from CacheFly’s network BackBeat Media Podcast Network Check out more episodes at overtiredpod.com and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Transcript Promise Not to Whine [00:00:00] New Year Kickoff Christina: Well, happy New Year. You are listening to Overtired and I am Christina Warren, and I’m joined as always by Jeff Severance Zel and, uh, Brett Terpstra couldn’t be, uh, here with us in this, uh, happy early 2026 episode, but I’m, I’m super excited to be able to kick off the, uh, the first pot of the year with you, Jeff, how are you? Jeff: I am good. Happy New Year to you. Christina: Likewise, likewise. Um, oh, here, here, here’s to 2026 being significantly better than 20, 25. So Jeff: So far, not so good, but I’m, I’m really, I’m really excited about 2026. I’m Christina: I was gonna say, like, like globally, globally, so far not great, but, but, Jeff: in here. Good in here. Personal Updates and Health Challenges Christina: So, um, so how are, uh, uh, how, how, how is the, I guess a, I guess we can kind of a drill into like a, a brief kind of mental health or, or just personal update thing if we want. Um, how, um. How are things for you so far? Um, I guess the end of the year. How are things with the kids? Um, the [00:01:00] wife, everything. Jeff: the, how the year ended is, and that gets us back to almost a political level. I will save for a topic ’cause boy do I have a story. Um, but, uh, generally speaking, doing really well. Like we traveled, saw my dad and stepmom in Iowa. Saw my in-laws in Indiana, had a really nice, just like generally had a really nice time off. Um, and despite the fact that I’m under a super stressful deadline over the next few days, I feel good. How about you? You got a lot going on. Christina: I, I do, I do. So I guess just kind of a, a, an, an update on, um, the, uh, the Christina, you know, cervical spine, um, saga since we last spoke a couple of weeks ago. Um, I guess maybe two weeks ago now. Um, uh, it was maybe a week ago. Um, uh, it was two weeks ago, I think. Sorry, it was, it was right before Christmas. Surgery Details and Insurance Woes Christina: Um, I was still awaiting, um, hearing back about when I would be scheduled for, uh, surgery and I’m getting, um, uh, artificial disc replacement in, um, I guess [00:02:00] between like C six, C seven of my cervical spine. And I do finally have a surgery date. Yay. Um, the bad, yeah, the bad news is it’s not until February 2nd, so I’ve gotta wait, you know, a month, which sucks. Um, I would have been able to get in, you know, uh, three weeks ago at this point. Um, had I been able to like, I guess like book immediately, but without insurance, like approval, um, I didn’t really want to do that. Um, I think, I think people, uh, can understand why, like, you know, when the doctor’s like, well, we can book you now, but you’ll just need to sign some forms that say you’ll be responsible for the bill if insurance doesn’t pay. Jeff: Oh fine. Get Where’s my pen? Christina: right, right. And I’m like, yeah, this is, you’re gonna keep me overnight just for, you know, observation to make sure like nothing bleeds or, or, or whatever’s a problem. Um, ’cause they’re gonna go through like the, the, the front of my, of my neck to, to be able to reach, you know, um, things that way and, and, and so, [00:03:00] you know, and be under, you know, anesthesia, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s not like a huge critical procedure, but it’s still neurosurgery. Jeff: is through the front of your neck. Christina: and, and, and, and, and, and again, and it’s a neurosurgeon and it’s like, you know, they’re gonna, you know, take some stuff out and try to make sure that like, you know, very, like they’re gonna be, you know, um, screwing up against my trachea and stuff. And like, yeah. I mean, like, you know, it’s, it’s not, it’s not minor. It’s not like I can just go in in an afternoon and be like, oh, I’m, I’m, I can just like walk out. Jeff: Right. Christina: Um, um, although apparently I will feel better, uh, as soon as it happens, but yeah, I mean, this is probably gonna be a six figure, you know, operation, I’m assuming so. No, I, I, I’m sorry. In, in this climate, uh, I don’t feel comfortable. Just, I need my name to be like, oh, yeah, I’ll, I’ll be responsible for that, and then be responsible for trying to track everyone down to, to pay. So that’s the frustrating thing is that, and now of course, you know, you, you get the beginning of the year, a bunch of people have been waiting, you know, to get, you know, things scheduled, I’m sure, and [00:04:00] whatnot. So I’m grateful that I’m scheduled at all. Um, I’m also grateful that right now I’m not insignificant pain, which is a really good thing because if this had been the pain level that I was in for the first few weeks, then like, I wouldn’t, I, you know, I mean, I would wait. I mean, if, if, if you have to wait, you have to wait. But, um, I, I, I might have like pressed upon them like. Is there any way we can move this up? Um, but I’m not in that position, which is good. The only thing is just that the numbness, um, on both arms. But, but, but primarily, yeah. No, I mean, that’s not gone away and, and it’s, and it’s not going to is the thing, right? Like there are a lot of people and like, and I, I’ve started now that I’ve got, got it like actually like done and like scheduled and you know, I’m going through all like the, you know, um, checklist stuff before you, you go in and whatnot. And I have like my, you know, pre-up appointments and all that stuff scheduled. Exploring Surgery Options and Recovery Christina: Um, I am starting to, to look more into, I guess like, you know, I guess recovery videos that people have put up on YouTube and, and reading a few things on Reddit. Although I’m doing my best to, to stay off the internet with [00:05:00] this stuff as much as possible. Um, just because for me it’s, it’s not beneficial, right? Like, it, it’s, it’s one thing if you know, um, you, uh, you don’t like. If, if you can separate and not kind of go down rabbit holes and like freak yourself out or whatever, sure. Maybe it can be good information, but for me, like I, I know my own kind of, you know, limits in terms of, of how much is good for me. And so I’ve, I’ve tried to keep that in moderation, but I have watched a few, you know, videos of people, you know, kind of talking about their experiences. And then of course then that gets used sent with like videos of like doctors who of course, for their own reasons, like are trying to promote like, oh, well you should do the, the, the fusion versus the, the, the disc replacement and, or you should do this versus that. And I’m like, okay. I actually watched one interesting talk that, that some guy gave it a medical conference and neurologist gave it a medical conference and it was a neurosurgeon, I guess is, is the proper term. But that I think kind of really distinctly a, it was very similar to. Exactly what my surgeon said to me, [00:06:00] um, when he was kind of explaining the differences in the procedures. Um, and, and b but kind of went into, I guess like the, the difference in terms of outcomes and, um, and it made me feel better about like that if I’m a good candidate for this procedure, that, that this is, um, the right thing to, to do and probably will be better for me long term. Um, because the, the results are, are better and, but not by a small portion, not like by like a, a gargantuan portion. But they are, they are, there is like a sizable difference between outcomes in terms of whether like the average person who needs a revision, um. For, you know, cervical spine versus getting, you know, disc replacement versus, um, uh, fusion. Fusion has been around a lot longer, and so insurance companies are a lot more likely to approve that. But in Europe, they’ve been doing the, the disc replacement stuff for 25, 30 years. Um, and so there is a lot of data on it, but it’s been a much more recent thing in the United States because insurance companies didn’t really start to do it until about five or 10 years ago. And so, and so, you know, some people will, [00:07:00] like some doctors who very clearly have an agenda on, on YouTube and like, that’s fine, like your practices, your practice and you’re comfortable with what you’re comfortable with. But they’ll be like, oh, we don’t have enough data on, you know, the types of, um, you know, discs that we’re putting in people’s, you know, necks and, and how, how long they, you know, last and, and there might be some differences in terms of if you’re doing like a multi-step, meaning you’re doing like multiple discs at once. Or if, you know, depending on like what, what, what part of the spine you’re in. And like, I, I think at this point for, for artificial disc replacement in the US they’ll do it two steps. So they can do two at once, but they won’t typically do three, although they will do three in Europe. And so there are people who will go to Europe and get the three Jeff: They’re so liberal in Europe. We’ll do three. Christina: Well, I mean, I think it’s a difference in, in that case, just a matter of like, if they’ve been doing the surgeries there longer, you know, then, then they, you know, and, and, and you know, and, and this is not uncommon in, in various forms of, of medicine, you know, where like you have different, you know, procedures and different exploratory things in different fields, in different areas.[00:08:00] So anyway, so then I get kind of trapped into those rabbit holes. But the interesting, the night, the, the, I guess comforting thing is that like, you know, I’ve been reading, you know, around reading, but watching people who were doing vlogs, like after their surgery and like there was this guy who. I was a few years younger than me, but he, you know, posted some updates. I, I guess he got his in July and he kind of did like, you know, updates, you know, kind of like, you know, this was me right after surgery. This was me, you know, three weeks later. This was me however many months later. And that was really great to see. Um, and, and his, his scar actually healed really nicely, which was encouraging. So, um, yeah, I mean, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m hopeful. I mean, the one thing that’s interesting that, like almost the universal thing that people say, of course you have a few people who say, this didn’t help or, or, you know, this, this was bad or whatever. And, and obviously like that’s always terrible to see that, but you know, you’d have to kind of like go by law of averages. But the, one of the central kind of things is a lot of people being like, I should have done this earlier. And, and so I’m feeling good about that because that is, I, I, I, I don’t know what this says about me, [00:09:00] but like there’s was never a moment in my mind where I’ve been like, oh, I’m not gonna get the surgery as soon as I can get the surgery. That’s never even been part of my like, thought process. And, and, and, and, and it’s funny because I think that like, that is actually odd compared to almost everybody else. Um, the general public, I guess, who goes into these sorts of things. Um, or at least the people who are vocal on the internet, right? So, so maybe like, maybe there are a lot more people like me who just don’t go to forums and comment on stuff and are just like, yeah, I’m gonna get the surgery because that’s what the doctor says. There’s the right thing to do, and that’s what makes sense to me and I wanna, you know, not be in pain and I wanna be able to feel my arm and all that stuff. Um, but there are a lot of people who, I don’t know why, um, I mean, I guess the idea of surgery is, is really scary. And, and like, I can, I can understand that obviously, but to the point where they’re like, okay, well no, I’m gonna try physical therapy and I’m gonna do everything I can to avoid surgical intervention. And I’m, I’m like, no. Like, like [00:10:00] freaking cut me up, doc. Right? Like, like, like, get me in, get me in. Like, let’s get better, right? Like, I, I’m not, I’m not here to like fuck around with like, ’cause right now, because the immediate pain is not there, I could be okay. Right? Like, I Jeff: Sure. Christina: try steroids, I could try pt, I could try to do other types of therapies and be like, well, maybe that will move the nerve around. Or maybe it can get the disc like UN you know, bolt, whatever the case may be. And maybe I won’t need surgery. Um, or I could let this go on longer and continue to be weakness, you know, and, and, and in, you know, it’s not like I’m not in, I’m, I’m not in active pain, but it’s not, not painful at certain times. Not worrying about is this just going to become like a permanent way that I feel, which would be. Awful. Um, and, you know, and, and, and like, it’s not the most debil debilitating thing, like I said. Um, if, if I was in a position where I, I couldn’t get surgery, obviously I could be okay right now, but you never know. Also, like, when is it going to, to swap again? Right? [00:11:00] Like, and, and, and, and for me, I’m also, I’m like, I, I don’t wanna have to like, live in fear of doing something, you know, to my arm or my neck or, or whatever, and, you know, making things worse. So, Jeff: right. Oh, I’m glad you’re doing it. Christina: yeah, me too. So anyway, that was a long-winded update, but Wow. Jeff: Yeah, that’s intense. So I’m really glad the pain is not what it was ’cause Holy shit. Christina: Yeah, the pain was, was really, really bad. And I, like, I look back now and it’s, you know, I, I guess ’cause it’s been a couple of weeks since it’s been really debilitating and it is, and again, I don’t know like that this is me or this is like just somebody else, but I, or this is me or this is the comment with other people. Sorry. Um, is that. Like when I’m not in pain anymore. It is such, so much like, I mean, depression is like this too. It’s so much like a vacuum. It’s like when you’re in it, that’s all you can see. But when you’re out of it, like it’s so easy to forget what it was like Jeff: Yeah, yeah, totally. Completely. Christina: totally completely right. Yeah. Jeff: Yeah. I can even imagine being in the [00:12:00] situation you’re describing, knowing I have a surgery coming up and being like, well, do I want to? Which, like, to your point now, you make that call and you’re worrying forever. Am I gonna wake up? And this thing’s there. Next time it happens, I gotta wait another God knows how long before the surgery, when I’ll know it’s time. Like, you know it’s time now. Get in there. Christina: No, totally, totally. And and that’s the thing. And I think sometimes it can be. Like I said, like when you’re not in the thick of, of it, whether it’s like, you know, feeling depressed or feeling overwhelmed or, or stressed or, or in physical pain or whatever, like it’s easy for to forget like what that can be like. And so I have to just kind of like remind myself like, no, this was really fucking bad. And yeah, you got through it and now you’re on the other side of it. And so you’re like, oh, okay, well, you know, I, I, I could, you know, do whatever, but you’re like, don’t, don’t forget what that was like. Right. Journaling and Mental Health Christina: Um, sometimes I think like, and, and I, and I’m bad at remembering to do this, but new thing for the new year, I guess is why, um, it is important I think to like write things down, right. Like however we’re feeling, whether it’s, you know, good, bad, whatever. [00:13:00] Sometimes, like for me, like it is Jeff: Just like journal you mean, right? Christina: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Be, because it can be useful just to like look back and like, if you’re in a darker spot to remember, hey, there were times when I felt this way. Right. Might not bring, bring me back to that place. But it’s a good reminder. But also I think almost just, it’s importantly, it’s, it’s, it’s the inverse where it’s like you need to remember when you’re in a good place. What it can be like to be in a worse place. Um, because, you know, I think that’s why sometimes people make decisions they make about what medicines they’re going to take or not take or what therapies they’re going to continue or not continue. And, um, and it’s, and it’s really easy to get into that, you know, cycle of, okay, well I’m fine now, um, because you’re removed enough from what it felt like to be bad, you know? And, and then, and, and, and also I think sometimes like, uh, and this is why I wish that I’ve been journaling more over the last few years. You can really get yourself into a deep depression and not realize it. Jeff: Yes, yes. Yeah. And I feel like journaling too, just like helps you internalize some of the flags and [00:14:00] warning signs, even if you’re never looking back, like, ’cause you’re gonna process them a little bit. Christina: yeah, yeah. Jeff: can’t, I, I’ve journaled over the years for stints of time. I can’t go back into them. I almost like, I almost like bounce off the page when I try. Um, but I really have come to believe that just the act of doing it is the thing. Christina: agree. Jeff: Yeah, Christina: Yeah, I agree. Yeah, I, I usually don’t re reread my old stuff either, and I haven’t journaled regularly in a really, really long time, and I actually would like to get back into that again. I think it would be better for my overall health, but similar to you, it’s one of those things I wouldn’t necessarily revisit, Jeff: But now, you know, you have a document, you have a reason to go back into it. Christina: right. Well, but, but also, I mean, I think to your point, just the act of doing it, um, you know, and this is case, we’re both writers. I think this is the, the case for a lot of, of people who, who write like it, it is one of those things that like, that’s what will almost like cement it in my mind. You know what I mean? Like, as, as, as mattering [00:15:00] like, like even if it’s something innocuous, even if I don’t remember the small details of just that, that the fact that like, I’ve done it, like, like to your point, helps you kind of process things and kind of, you know, act more as kind of a therapeutic place. Jeff: Yeah, I don’t, when I’m writing like that, or just in general, I don’t feel like I’m writing from my brain or feel like I’m writing on my brain. Christina: Yeah, yeah. Jeff: It’s like I am actually putting the information in, not drawing it out weirdly. Christina: Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I know, I, I, I, I love that actually, I’ve never thought of it before. Writing on my brain. I love that. That’s really, that, I think that’s really profound. Jeff: Yeah. So there’s, um, there’s a kind of journaling that I wish I, I, well, I don’t beat myself up at all to be clear about this ’cause that I’m too old to do that anymore. The Artist’s Way and Creative Practices Jeff: Um, but there’s this book I read back in. Oh God, 2019 99 called The Artist’s Way by this woman Julie Cameron. And I don’t remember much about this book except for, and I probably have talked about it on this podcast [00:16:00] years ago at this point, but she has this practice, she calls morning Pages. And the idea is you sit down first thing in the morning, you fill three pages, you don’t think about what you’re writing or why you just keep the pen moving. And, and I, what I have found, that’s the only kind of real regular journaling I’ve ever done. It’s a great, great hack for me. ’cause it, it, I can do that. And I fill, I’ll fill a, you know, big notebook and I have a box full of them from over the years. ’cause again, I’m old. Um, but what is, I have never, I don’t think there’s been a single day that I’ve done those morning pages when I haven’t been a little surprised and something hasn’t emerged that. I’m like, I’ll think to myself, well shit, if I hadn’t have done this, where would that have stayed and lived and, and lodged itself. Right. Like, um, so anyway, I I’m glad you are bringing this up ’cause it’s reminding me of that and New Year is a great time to be thinking about that. Christina: Totally, totally. No, I love that. And I, yeah, I, I found the book The Artist’s Way, a Spiritual Path to Higher [00:17:00] Creativity. Jeff: Yes, Christina: and it’s like this yellow gold book, but like, apparently, and then like they, they, they, they, they sell Morning pages Journal, a Jeff: they do, of course. I Christina: Yeah. Yeah, of course. Jeff: it probably took her two decades to realize she should be cashing in on that, but she did. Christina: No, honestly, so the book, it looks like it was published the first one in 92, Jeff: Yeah. Christina: then they were selling the companion volume to the Artist’s Way as December 29th, 1997. Um, so, so like Jeff: that you’re doing this history. This is delightful. Christina: I, well, I just looked at Amazon is just kind of filling this out for me, so I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m, so at least it is possible that, that the, the book pages might have been even earlier than that, but like, good for her on like, recognizing there’s also a Artist’s Way workbook, um, now that was like a decade later, like 2006. Jeff: Yeah, that’s what I, maybe that’s what I’m thinking of. That came much later. Christina: Yeah, yeah. But, but it does seem like she got into that, like a David Allen kind of, you know, like, you know, whatever steps of highly, you know what I mean? Like, like all that kind of like stuff, [00:18:00] which Jeff: You’re letting the publisher have those meetings with you. Christina: Which honestly look good for you if you’re selling that many and whatnot. And, and if you come up with this journaling way, yes, sell the freaking paper. You should be selling PDF copies so that people can have it on their iPads now, like, you know, Jeff: Yeah. Christina: or, or, or on the remarkable tablets or whatever. Jeff: she had another thing actually I haven’t thought about in a long time. It wasn’t as useful to me long term. It helped me in the moment I. In the moment I was in, she called ’em artist dates and the idea was like, ’cause as you said in the title, it’s all about creativity. She was like, you, you take yourself out, go to a, whatever it is, a museum, a art supply shop, something like that. But with intention, like, I am going out to do this thing on my own alone because I know that it has some connection to what feels good to me about art and creativity and expression, whatever it was. That seems like a silly thing. Like it’s basically her saying, go to a museum. There was something about calling it an artist date. I think I was in a relationship too at the time where I was like not, it was not easy for me to [00:19:00] just go do something on my own. It was just a weird dynamic a little bit. So anyway, that was another good thing that came out of it. I mean, I, you don’t really have to work hard to tell me to go do something on my own, but at that time in my life you did. Yeah, she was great. That’s awesome. Christina: Yeah. Yeah. Uh, yeah. No, that is funny. Yeah. So yeah, so apparently that book was published in, in 1992 and, um, you know, uh, was immediately like, well, the first printing was about 9,000 copies. In 1992, the book was published by Jeremy Tarcher. Now part of Pink Wing Group revised and millions of copies have since been sold millions. Jeff: it was total like guru status by the Christina: Oh yeah, absolutely. No, absolutely. You know, and, and in a, yeah, she, she was, uh, she’s a, she was born in 1948, and so, uh, she’s still alive. She’s still kicking it. Um, Jeff: yeah. I think she made some new book that was like kind of a take on it, but it was a different, I don’t remember. Anyway. You’re the Christina: Yeah, no, no. Her, her list of like, of like books that she’s published is, she’s the, the most recent one. So she’s still doing the, the, the [00:20:00] writer’s way thing, living the, the artist’s way. An intuitive path to greater creativity. So I guess they did a 2024 version Write for Life, a toolkit for Writers Seeking wisdom, A spiritual Path to Creative Connection. Six week artist program. Jeff: it’s kind of like David Allen, where it’s like, wouldn’t it be nice to have created something when you were, whatever, reasonably younger, like 20, 30 years ago, that not only that you can ride for a long time, but you probably don’t feel bad about riding it for a long time. Right? Like, ’cause you can create things or have a band or something like that, that like your only choice is to ride that thing, but it gets pretty ugly. I see you Vince Neil. Um, but yeah, anyway, must be Christina: No, it ha it has to be nice, right? ’cause it’s like, okay, well no, and, and then it has all these little spinoff things, so it’s not like you have to feel like, I mean, although th this actually, this would, this would be an interesting idea for like a, a, a novel or a screenplay or something, which would be to be like, okay, you know, and people have have done like riffs on these things before on, on, you know, shows or whatever. But, so this would be an interesting story, I think to kind of focus on where it’s like you have somebody who is like, just famous for like, this, this one thing that they did, [00:21:00] and now their whole life has to revolve around it. But what if it was like, something that they didn’t like actually, like, believe in? Jeff: yes, Christina: what if you have the guru? What if you have the guru who’s like, actually is like, actually I don’t really, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m David Allen, but I, but I can’t actually get anything done. I have to have like a whole, you know, cadre of assistance to actually organize my, my, my, my calendar and my life. For me, you know, I don’t Jeff: Carol and Pluribus, I don’t know if you’re watching Pluribus, but that Yes. Her, her whole like book series. Clearly she was at a point where she’s like, yes, I should still ride this, but I cannot. That’s all right. Things changed for her. Um, okay. I have to tell you about something insane that happened to me at the end of 25. Christina: Okay. Alright. Before, before we do that, let me let Ru first, um, let’s, uh, let’s, let’s go ahead and, and get our, our sponsor read Jeff: Oh, way to remember the sponsor. We remember you sponsor. Christina: We, we, we do. So, um, I, I, I, before we hear about what happened to you at the end of 2025, let’s, uh, let’s go ahead and talk, uh, forward a little bit about 2026. So, are you [00:22:00] ready to take control of your finances? Well meet copilot money, the personal finance app that makes your money feel clear and calm with the beautiful design and smart automation. Copilot money brings all your spending, saving and investment accounts into one place available on iOS, Mac, iPad, and now on the web. And so, as we are entering 2026, it is time for a fresh start. And, you know, with Mint, uh, shutting down last year and rising financial uncertainty, consumers are seeking clarity and control. And this is where copilot money comes in. So, copilot money. Basically helps you track your budgets, your savings goals, and your net worth seamlessly. And with a new web launch, you can enjoy a sending experience on any device. And I, I know that, like for me, like this is a big deal because it’s great to like have the native like iOS and MAC OS apps, but I need to be able to access on a, on a, on a web browser. Um, I, I don’t wanna be tied just into an application model for something like, you know, um, tracking my budget. And guess what? For a limited time, you can get [00:23:00] 26% off your first year when you sign up through the web app. New users only don’t miss out on a chance to start the new year with confidence. With features like automatic subscription tracking, you will never miss upcoming charges again. Copilot money’s privacy first approach ensures your data is secure and that their dedicated to helping you stress less about money. So whether you’re a finance pro or just starting out, copilot money is there to help you make better decisions. Visit, try. Do copilot money slash Overtired and use the code Overtired to sign up for your one month free trial and embrace financial clarity today. That’s try dot copilot money slash Overtired and use that coupon Overtired and you will, as I said, save 26% off your first year. So try copilot money slash Overtired. Use the coupon code Overtired. Thank you very much. Copilot money. Jeff: Bam. Can you hear my Synology? Christina: No, Jeff: Oh, that’s funny. ’cause I, I get this. Hum. I recently com I, I’ll visit this in GrAPPtitude. I, [00:24:00] uh, I completely clean, installed my Synology after like six years. ’cause when I did. Build it. Initially, I actually didn’t really understand how to use it, and I, and I made some mistakes that because of all the stuff I put on, it was hard to sort of, I was treating it like it was gonna be an external drive and I could just kind of work with, you know, which was a huge mistake. Um, but anyway, I, it’s working so hard. It’s working so hard and it’s on my desk, which it normally wouldn’t be. So I hear this humming. Didn’t know if you heard it. Christina: I, I did not, I did not, which is a good thing. So, okay, so, all right. Uh, let, let’s, let’s go back. So what, what, yeah, I’m ready. I need to hear what happened to you at the end of 2025. All right. Unexpected Alley Incident Jeff: All right, so, um, my boys are out. They’re almost never out, but they’re both out with friends, different places. My wife and I we’re home and we were eating dinner and I got an alert from my back door ring camera, and. That almost never happens. It’s only exists to, to notify me of like alley shoppers. We’re in, in the city. We have an alley behind us and, and we get a fair amount of pretty [00:25:00] harmless alley shopping. Like it’s, is the car unlocked? If it is, you got some change. If not, I’m moving on. Um, but I like to know when they’re there. Christina: yeah, Jeff: We’ve had some bikes stolen and some people go into our garage and stuff like that. It’s very rare that it goes off less than I actually thought it would. Um, and so it goes off and it goes off at around 7:00 PM very unusual. And, uh, and so I, I, I pull it up and I look and, and I, all I can see is there’s two cars parked in the alley. I have this weird view where, um, it’s kind of a fence and then our garage. So I can see between those two things to the alley basically. So there’s two cars. That’s weird actually. And when I see some of people’s like videos about folks breaking into their cars, there’s often two that come. And so I was like, oh, okay, well it’s, I should just like go out and look. So we go and we kind of look at our, at our back window to see if we can see anything. And we’re just like, yeah, it’s weird. They’re not only parked but the headlights are off. And like, I’m gonna go out and check it out. She’s like, well first, why don’t you look at the video it recorded, which I wasn’t thinking of at all. So I pull up the video, it recorded, and I see these [00:26:00] cars park, but it’s like three or four of them come through the two that I can see park. And all of a sudden there are probably seven or eight figures running down the alley from these cars. Okay? And I’m like, well, that’s crazy. And so I walk out there and I go up to the first car and it’s got Texas plates. And around here where we have a little bit of an ice invasion, Texas plates are reported a lot. I look at the next car and it’s got no plates at all. And I look at the car after that and it’s got vanity plates, specifically chosen one with a Z. Um, and, and I’m like, oh my God. It’s the thing like ice is in my alley. And, uh, and so I come back in, I I’m like, you tell my wife, like, should probably get your coat on. I think it’s the thing is what I said. And, and we go out and sure enough, like at the end of our alley where there is a family and, and they are, um, US citizens, they’re Mexican immigrants, um, that’s where I see all these officers sort of, or these agents sort of coalescing and um, I’m gonna leave some aspects of this out. They were [00:27:00] actually, they were serving, uh, uh, narcotics warrant that ended up being totally misguided. Nothing happened of it. Um, but it was super scary. But I kind of don’t wanna say more than that because I wanna be really clear that as everyone should know about policing, a search warrant is not an indictment. Um, and oftentimes search warrants are so searching and, and, and often come up with. With nothing. Right? And, and maybe even were targeted at the wrong person. And there’s didn’t even have the name of my neighbor on it. It’s this whole thing. But the point is, it was a little different from what we’ve been hearing because there was a different agency there serving a warrant. It was the airport, airport, police department, ’cause of a package. So there was that piece, there was actually a signed warrant. ’cause everyone’s trained to say, show me the warrant. Show me the warrant. So everyone, you know, my wife and I were the first ones there. Um, and then another neighbor rolled up, and then I’ll get to the rest in a second. Um, so it, it’s shocking that it’s happening in our alley. Christina: in our alley, right? Jeff: just like, Christina: you, yeah. Jeff: what? What the Christina: I, I mean, how [00:28:00] I would feel to a certain extent would be like, I’d be like, am I in Amer in an episode of the Americans? Like, like, you know, Jeff: is, did they have to write it this way? Just ’cause how else are you gonna bring it to the people? You know? It’s, you gotta bring it to the characters. Um, so anyway, we go down there and, and there’s one, so all of the, everyone decides the airport PD guy who has no mask and is kind of like presenting like a pretty normal cop basically. And he is got a badge and a name and a number. But walking in and out of the house, all around us are these guys who are in full battle fatigues. They’ve got masks on, they’ve got ars. Um, they are, they are a weird mix of people. There’s a woman in there who’s like looking like, literally like she was cast for a movie to be, uh, an, an ice person. In this case they were Homeland Security Investigations, HSI. But it’s all intertwined at this point. Um, and then there was a guy that must have been like eight feet. That was crazy. There was a single guy that was wearing a, like a straight up like helmet, uh, for, as if he were going into battle. [00:29:00] Nobody else is wearing a helmet. Um. And none of them were talking. They were just passing through. And, um, and so we tried to engage one of them, talked to them for a little bit, do the thing you do. Hey, why don’t you take that mask off? You know, I don’t wanna get docked. I was like, uh, Christina: around. Jeff: it was like, I both understand why you don’t wanna get docked. I also feel like you’ve got the power here, brother. Um, and which was the conversation we had, um, I was like, you have a mask on. You also have your finger on the trigger of a gun. And he’s like, well, that’s not, it’s not on the trigger. This is how we hold guns, dude. I was like, I understand that, but your finger is itching at the trigger of a gun. And so he put his hands on top of the butt of the gun. ’cause it was kind of, you know, mounted the way it is. Is that better? I was like, no, you’ve still got all the power. Take the mask off. Like, at least. Um, and uh, what, what was really interesting, and I I have this sort of like wrap up that occurred to me later that kind of blew my mind is, you know, in our neighborhood, um, because ice activity has been going on all around our neighborhood, like in. Neighborhoods [00:30:00] surrounding our neighborhood or a little further out, but all within a, I could get in the car and rush out there distance. Basically we have these, we have these neighborhood signal groups. The first one that popped up was actually around my son’s school, which is very close to here and has a lot of East African and Hispanic, um, immigrants and, and, um, and so that we knew that was like, you know, people were scared there. Some kids weren’t coming to school. And so, um, some neighbors organized in such a way that they could a, have a signal, uh, communication channel. But also part of that was planning at the beginning of the day and that release time for enough people to sort of be paired up in areas around the school, but not so close that it freaks the kids out. That like if something happened, there could be sort of a rapid response. So we had that signal group. There’s a broader signal group that probably covers like a four block area, and then there’s a wider one that’s our wider neighborhood basically. And that one’s like a rapid response signal group. So these have been going. Pretty, like consistently [00:31:00] ever since it was announced that we were getting ICE and Homeland Security folks here. Um, so the network was all in place. And, and so I’m out there initially and I see all the cars. I’m like, holy shit. Wife and I go to the end of the block. We start talking to first the airport PD guy who’s there, and then the the one HSI guy who comes out. Then another neighbor, another neighbor. I go back to take pictures of the plates because folks around here are keeping a registry that you can get through the signal group of all of the makes and models of cars that we know have been at these, um, kind of ICE activities or homeland security activities, and then their license plates. And so there’s like a running log, which has happened in other cities too. So I was taking pictures of all the cars. Um, but I was pretty like, I mean, I’ve been through some shit and. Having it in your alley is very different from going halfway across the world as like an activist or something. Um, and having it ha neighbors are people we know and care about. And so knowing that, not knowing what’s happening for them, which I don’t mean to bury that lead [00:32:00] ’cause I’m kind of getting to that part, but I also want to just respect their privacy. Um, so like the thing I should have mentioned at the top is like, we know these folks and it was fucking terrifying to be standing there arguing with these HSI guys knowing that at some point, or just assuming at some point these people we know are gonna be dragged outta the house in front of us. And then it was just like this constant question of what the fuck will we do? Then? It did not happen to be really clear, uh, ahead of time. So I’m taking pictures of these cars, I’m like, oh shit. I’m supposed to notify like the signal group, but I’ve got, I’ve got all the presence I need to take pictures of cars. I’ve got the presence I need to engage these guys, which my wife was doing plenty good job of, so I could just like walk away and do the license plate thing. But when I pulled up my phone. To open signal. I opened Slack three times, like I could not, I got an S into my search, my app search, and like kept clicking the wrong thing. I was shaking. It was also freezing out and so like I’m shaking and so [00:33:00] thank God it occurred to me. I have one friend I know on this signal group that I, I know would answer the phone, so I called her. I called her and I was like, I need to be quick. Here are like the fundamental details. Can you please notify? The signal group and the rapid response people. So that was great. She did initially, the first group that showed up, which was just incredible, were like all of our neighbors, we all know this family. Like it’s not, they are just neighbors. It’s not like it’s a special offset group or something. Like they’re neighbors. So all of the neighbors show up. We have a really tight block. Um, that was incredible because it’s not like it’s a neighbor of activists. It’s what’s been incredible about this stuff from the beginning, which is like how easy it seems to be for people to pop outta their house and be like, Uhuh. Like it seems like, it seems like a lot of people are not feeling inhibited about that, which I think is really cool. And I totally respect the people that feel inhibited, right? Like, ’cause it’s just, it’s a whole thing to go out there. So we had this great group of neighbors and they were all, we had a public school teacher who was just killing it with this one HSI guy. It was so, [00:34:00] so good to watch and it felt really powerful and I think she was doing a really good job of trying to sort of like. Knock some things into this guy’s head knowing that like, you know, you’re in a dynamic that kind of you, there’s not a lot of room for things to change. Right. But given that she, it was really just inspiring watching her do her thing and then the like rapid response community showed up, which is like a mix of, you know, folks who are kind of just dedicated neighbors and then people who are sort of what you might call the usual suspects, right? Like the people you would expect, especially in South Minneapolis to show up at a thing like this. And I don’t know if you’ve heard about the thing people do with whistles around these things. Christina: Yeah. Well, I, I, all I’ve heard is that, and I ha, so all I know is I think sometimes people have whistles and kind of like, like, like blow them, almost like to alert people like that, that like, like the, like the, the, the, that like ice is there. Jeff: Yes, exactly. And that yes, that’s exactly it. And that’s been going on here and, [00:35:00] and everybody’s getting whistle. You know, sometimes when you get a good, it’s, I’m not calling it a bit, ’cause I’ll tell you in a minute why it was effective, um, in ways that I hadn’t anticipated. But, uh, you know, it’s like a, it’s, I can do this, I can get a whistle, I’m gonna get a whistle, right? Like, that’s something I can do. Like, it’s something that really caught on and there’s all these whistles being passed around and people on the neighborhood group being like, got a bag of whistles if you wanna come by. So I, ima imagine at this point that when these HSI or ICE people roll up to a thing before they get out, they’re like T minus 15 minutes to whistles, right? Like, this is how long we have before everyone shows up. And, and so pretty soon it’s whistles everywhere. I had a neighbor who kept putting off her, um. Car alarm just to make more crazy noise. We had another neighbor next to this neighbor who is a very conservative like Trump guy who, when he doesn’t like the noise that’s happening in the neighborhood sets off fireworks. And for some reason he was like, I’m gonna do the thing I do, even though there’s all these guys with guns and I’m gonna set off fireworks. But in that case, ’cause he is pissed off at all of us, like it was so [00:36:00] fucking chaotic for a minute. Um, but it was, it was an incredible thing to see how quickly people can deploy basically. Um, ’cause we aren’t like Chicago where like we’ve had a lot of activity here, but it’s been pretty quiet activity. Like, it’s like what happened here? It’s like you and your neighbors know about it and maybe 20 people showed up from your neighborhood rapid response. But like, they’re not the kinds of stories that. They’re not landing on rooftops, they’re not showing up with a hundred cars and calling people away. They’re hauling one person at a time away. And you hear about it here and there, but it’s been very quiet, unlike Chicago. Um, and so to have it given that, especially to have it show up just in your alley was like really, really insane. Um, so anyway, so it all, fortunately the, the police HSI, everybody left with nothing. They did not carry our neighbors away. They did not have any, any result of this warrant that we could tell. But of course, we’re not gonna know. Another [00:37:00] theme of this is how, how hard it is for good information to be resilient in a moment like this, right? That’s a whole other theme. And that, that’s one that gets me kinda riled up when people start after the fact or during the fact really kind of shouting out almost things that are wrong. Like the, the call that went out. For people to come. Said there were six cars in my alley with Texas plates, but I was very clear, there are six cars in my alley. One of them has Texas plates, right? So it’s like, that kind of stuff is a little spooky, but here’s what happened. So at the end it was all over. Our neighbors were able to pop out, wave at everybody, thank everybody. They had been handcuffed this family, um, in their living room while HSI figured out if they were citizens. And, um, what had what the whistles meant in this case was that they knew people were all over around the house. And that was, I’m sure, a level of comfort to know that like something’s happening out there. And then we learned later that there was an immigrant family down the block in the [00:38:00] other direction, across kind of a thoroughfare that we’re on the intersection of who heard the whistles and knew like, let’s stay in the house. There’s a lot going on out there. I dunno what it is, but now I hear whistles. Let’s stay in the house. And, um, and so it was quite a, quite a thing. Family Activism and Signal Setup Jeff: And what I kind of realized afterwards. Was we started this year. My family, my in-laws, my in-laws especially, were very, they’re, they’re, they’re very, um, active. They do kind of activist work, but it’s very like, um, service oriented. But they’ll go to an anti-war protest. They’ll go, you know, they’ll do the thing. They’re, they’re lovely people. And my father-in-law, especially at the beginning of the year, I was like, I don’t know what’s coming. Um, I hear that it’s good for everyone to have signal if we wanna be able to communicate to each other. So I wanna learn how to use signal. And so I helped him, my mother-in-law set it up. I created kind of a family group for Signal and everyone was setting up signal, right? Like at that point, not knowing what was gonna come. It wasn’t even January 20th yet. Unexpected End of Year Incident Jeff: And I wrapped up my year activating a signal network for rapid response because I [00:39:00] had masked people in my alley with guns refusing to identify themselves driving cars from out of state. That is insane. And I was like, that looks pretty tight. Season wrap up. Like, what the fuck? Because I kind of had gotten to the point, I guess prior to when ICE got here in, in the first place, I’d gotten to the point where I’m like, I don’t even really think about Signal anymore. Um, but then they came here and it, and it popped up. So that’s what, that’s what happened in my alley. Um, at the end of the year. Christina: And, and, and, and, and, and I mean, and, and, and you said, you said your neighbors are okay. Speculations and Concerns Christina: I mean, do, do you know anything more about like, like what, what happened or like what the, what the situation was? Jeff: I don’t know anymore. And that’s where I’m like a little cautious because since it was like a warrant for something, it was a narcotics warrant, right? Like, I, I have no idea what happened there. I don’t know. I can, I can only speculate. Um, but I know that the, the [00:40:00] name on that warrant was not someone that lives there. Um, so I can tell you that ’cause I saw the warrant. Um, and, and that’s the most I really feel comfortable saying. Christina: Fair enough. Yeah. I, I, I, I, yeah. I’m not, I’m not trying to like, Jeff: No, I get it. I get it. That’s me actually. Dealing with Law Enforcement Jeff: I’ve been wrestling with like, how much, even on the, I kind of like was asking people to be cautious, even on the signal, because they were sharing details about the warrant. I was like, Hey, details in a warrant. Do not share those, because that sticks to people. And like the details in the warrant were just like, no, we’re not gonna do this. Even when the guy read me the warrant, I was like, are you serious about that? He’s like, oh man, for sure. Okay, sounds good. Let’s, we’ll talk in an hour when you’re all done and you don’t have anything. Like I, I’ve been down this road before. I was a reporter for a long time, like I watched The Wire. Um, Christina: exactly. I was gonna say, yeah, I was gonna say the, the sort of reporting I did, like, yeah, I watched the Wire. Um, so would be Jeff: I said that to the guy. I didn’t say I watched the, yeah, I didn’t say I watched The Wire to the guy, but I was like, he [00:41:00] kept gaslighting us and I was like, come on man. Like you and I we’re smart people, you and I, and that was me being generous. But like, we’re smart people. You and I like, we know this thing you’re saying. It’s like, it’s totally not the case. Like when I asked him. The airport PD guy. What’s up with the cars with Texas plates and no plates and vanity plates? I don’t know, I don’t coordinate with those guys. I was like, okay, that’s weird. ’cause like here you are and they’re walking all around you. Surely you coordinated with them enough to get them here. It was just like, what the fuck? Just so much gaslighting that I won’t even get into, but it was just nonstop. But I was so proud watching my neighbors when the rapid responsible showed up. It was a, there’s always like some people in those situations where I, I, I get pretty activated around lack of discipline and I understand how that happens. But having been in like really super high stakes situations where people could, and who this was one, right? Like I don’t, I don’t react well internally to people who I feel like are working out something that’s theirs. Um, [00:42:00] and at the same time, how do we know how to process this, right? Like, I don’t, we, it was something incredible to watch Mask men and one masked woman walking up and down my alley, bumping past me with guns, with masks, with no idea, with no badges, refusing to pro produce any saying, why does it matter anyhow, saying how much threat they’re under, seeing how they get followed, like just, it was, it was an incredible thing. I had my reaction, but my reaction was based on wiring, based on really intense, unusual experiences. Um, other people, this is new to them. This kind of thing is new to me too, but, so anyway, I, I just like, I saved that. I didn’t even tell you guys when it happened. I’m like, I’ll just tell them on the podcast. ’cause Christina: yeah, no, I mean, that’s, that’s wild. I mean, like, and it’s just, it’s just, well, and, and it’s, I don’t know, it’s so dystopic, right? Like, it’s such a, like a, a terrible like thing to like have to like witness part of, right? Because like, look, yeah, there are going to be circumstances when maybe like, you know, Homeland Security or somebody else, like really actually does need to be involved and, you know, [00:43:00] um, you know, at your neighbor’s house. And like, that’s unfortunate, right? But like, there, there are real circumstances where that could be a case. Like I, I, I, I, I mentioned the, the Americans earlier, that was like, based Jeff: I need to watch that. Christina: It’s a great show. But, but the, the, the, uh, a former CIA agent was one of the, the, the, the creators. But the, um, the idea came to like, uh, one of the showrunners basically, he read an article, I think in the New Yorker or something about a, a family that like seemed like, just like the perfect, like normal family next door. And like the kids came home from school one day and the parents had been picked up because it turns out that they had been Russian spies living in the United States for like 20 years. And like, they were like actual Russian spies. And, and then that kind of like went into, okay, well, well, well, what happens then? Like, what happens to that family and, and what happens to get to that point? Like, what happens? Like if your neighbors are those things, right? And so there are those like very much like stranger than fiction. Like, like things, right? But in most cases, that’s not the circumstance. And, and certainly the way that like all this has been handled and the way that they’re doing all of this treat things for, [00:44:00] you know, like whatever the warrants were for whatever the situations are where they’re like, okay, now we’re gonna bring all these other groups in. We’re not going to have any due process at all, and we’re not going to, to bother with any sort of thing of humanity at all and then freak everybody else out, like is just, you know, then, and then it puts you like, as, as the neighbor, like in this position where you’re like, okay, well how do we get the word out? How do we help, how do we, you know, make sure that if’s something, is that if this is something that you know, isn’t what we, what we think that it is or whatever, that we can make sure that they’re not going to be. ’cause we see all the reports all the time. I mean, US citizens are getting arrested for, Jeff: Yeah, totally. Christina: the wrong way, Jeff: Oh yeah, we had a, we had a woman here probably, I think she was like in her sixties, and she walked out of her house ’cause there was something happening across the street. And in moments she was in the car, she was gone. Her husband didn’t know where she was. She was released later that day. Like we’ve had a lot of stories like that. And so that was stressful too, going in, right? Like when my partner and I went, went up to talk to this guy, I, I left down the alley to take pictures, but I [00:45:00] was like looking over my shoulder constantly. ’cause she and I have talked about how, like, can you imagine if one of us was taken and we didn’t know? And I was like, oh, we are in a situation right now where no way can I say, there’s no chance one of us will be taken. Like, no way. And you know, the longer you’re there, the more you push it a little bit, you know, not push it like physically or something, but just like push it a little more people out front. Someone kicked an ice car in, in an HSI car and got like pepper sprayed or whatever. Um, Christina: and it’s, and it’s like, don’t do that. Like, don’t like, Jeff: Well, it’s funny because, it’s funny because that per I, this is, I, I know there are people listening who will think I’m such an asshole for this, but I, to I, I feel zero apologetic for it. Reflections on Responsibility Jeff: So I am, I’m not like a huge fan, like kick the car when there’s a family that we don’t know how they’re doing and these people are around, like, don’t escalate in that way with these people. Don’t set off fireworks behind the guys that have their fingers resting near triggers. Like you Christina: That’s what I’m saying. That, that, yeah. Jeff: yeah, you just don’t do that. Uh, but here’s the part that makes me sound like an asshole and, and I don’t mind at all. [00:46:00] Um, they were, they were the only person that was pepper sprayed. And, and it was this, you know, certain people that come from outside the neighborhood. It was this very dramatic thing, whatever they pepper spray, you know, whatever. And I was like, what, what happened? They kicked the car. I was like, eh, I’m going in like, I mean like, yeah, you got pepper spray because you kicked the car. I assume you were in for that. Like you signed just like the guy with the mask who’s worried about being docked. He signed up for this dude. Christina: I was gonna say, you, you, you, you signed up for this, you, you, you, you’ve signed up because you saw Christina O’s you know, like ridiculous, like, you know, like, come, come join Ice, you know, like, like, you know, freaking social media, you know, posts or whatever, like there ads you’re doing like, yeah. Like you, you know exactly what you’re doing, so fuck off. I don’t, yeah, I have zero. Jeff: I I said you signed up for this. I did not sign up for this. I said you signed up for all of it, dude. Like you Christina: Yeah, absolutely. No, I mean, honestly, well, well look, you know, it’s the same thing like the military, frankly, like, you know, like in the, in, in the seventies and stuff, and we saw, you know, more of it then, like, I’m not saying that it was like the, the right or like nice or like humane thing to spit in the, in their faces. [00:47:00] Right. But like. Especially after the draft was gone. Like, you sign up for that shit, Jeff: It’s a tough man. I, I had that, I, that experience throughout the Iraq war where. I knew. I mean, there’s the economic draft. There’s all right, there’s all these reasons people end up in war. But at the end of the day, when I am walking around a city I love, and other Americans are there in armor and Humvees and they have destroyed a city, I feel like this is what you signed up for. It’s not what you signed up for, but it is literally what you signed. Same with police. It’s a little bit Christina: that’s Jeff: I totally respect the trauma. I respect that you’re in situations where Christina: that’s real. No. Jeff: your values. Like I Christina: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and, and that, that is real. And, and to your point, there might be like, like economic scenarios, drafts and other scenarios where like you’re like, well, I had a choice, but I didn’t have a choice. Okay, but you knew that this was a trade off. Like you knew that this was a thing that comes with, with, with the territory. If it comes with adulation, but it comes with the bad stuff too. Right. Jeff: And if you’re killing people, I don’t feel super bad about saying that. I feel super bad for you for having to live with that [00:48:00] fact. But like I don’t feel bad for saying, Hey man, Christina: well, I mean, like, and, and it’s a Jeff: have said no. Christina: and it’s a completely different like thing. I’m not even trying to categorize it the same way. ’cause it’s, it’s not. But like, just, just like in, in my life, you know, people oftentimes will like, yell at me about stuff that they don’t like, about, like the companies like that I work for. And you know, what I, I’m, I’m part of my job is to kind of be a public face for, for those things. And that means that I get yelled at and that’s okay. And like that, that I, I quite literally knew that I signed up for that. Does that mean that I always appreciate it? That is, does that mean that I don’t get annoyed sometimes? Does that mean that I like being like tarred and feathered with like mistakes or decisions that like, I had nothing to do with Absolutely not right. But like, that’s quite literally part of my job. So, you know, it, it, it is. So I can’t like turn around and be like, oh, well, you know, you can’t, you know, like. You know, say, say this to me, or whatever. Right. Um, but, and, and again, I realize it’s a completely different scale of things. I’m not in any way trying to equate the, the, the, the two [00:49:00] scenarios, Jeff: No, but it’s, I mean, it is, yeah, Christina: but all of us, but all of us, we have jobs and we do things and like in a case like this, like if you work for those agencies, right. Especially right now, and like I recognize and I can be sympathetic that you may not have signed up. Under these circumstances. Having said that, I will say that if you signed up in the last eight years, you knew that these were things that were going in a certain direction, right? Um, I, I, I, I, I will, I will further say that like I, I’m not gonna say that like every single person is involved, but I will say like in the last eight years, you’ve, you’ve seen which way the wind was going and, and, and, and, and that’s okay. You can make that decision and, and like, I’m not gonna judge you or your character as a person for that decision. I’m, I’m, I’m, I’m not. ’cause we all have to make decisions about where we work. Having said that, that just also means like what we’ve been saying, you’re gonna have to deal with some shit. You’re gonna deal with people recording your face. You’re gonna have to deal with people being angry with you. You’re gonna have to deal with, to your point, people kicking the cop car. And if that’s all that happens and like, and, and, and, and it’s not gonna lead to another escalation point, that’s fine. I, I’m with you. I

Original Air Date: February 17, 1941Host: Andrew RhynesShow: The Lone RangerPhone: (707) 98 OTRDW (6-8739) Stars:• Earle Graser (Lone Ranger)• John Todd (Tonto) Writer:• Fran Striker Producer:• George W. Trendle Music:• Ben BonnellFor more great shows check out our site: https://www.otrwesterns.comExit music from: Roundup on the Prairie by Aaron Kenny https://bit.ly/3kTj0kK

This week on Happy Hour, Jenny tries to hit an NBA-regulation three-pointer from the Casey's Center, Keith and Jenny try out a Leonardo DiCaprio ski mask, and the Murphy family takes on the punching bag game. Presented by Iowa Distilling Company. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Original Air Date: February 17, 1941Host: Andrew RhynesShow: The Lone RangerPhone: (707) 98 OTRDW (6-8739) Stars:• Earle Graser (Lone Ranger)• John Todd (Tonto) Writer:• Fran Striker Producer:• George W. Trendle Music:• Ben BonnellFor more great shows check out our site: https://www.otrwesterns.comExit music from: Roundup on the Prairie by Aaron Kenny https://bit.ly/3kTj0kK

Teaching on Mark 7:1-23

Join our book club!https://www.patreon.com/LifeonBooksBooks mentioned in this episode:The Armies by Evelio Roserohttps://amzn.to/493q8E3https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811218641Stalingrad by Vasily Grossmanhttps://amzn.to/498NQgIhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781681373270The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkaihttps://amzn.to/4pFjl9lhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811215046You Bright and Risen Angels by William Vollmannhttps://amzn.to/4a9mr0yhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780140110876House of Fury by Evelio Roserohttps://amzn.to/4qpBQOThttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811234580One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquezhttps://amzn.to/3MRQ0Kmhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780060883287Tono the Infallible by Evelio Roserohttps://amzn.to/4ph97uRhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811228817Europe Central by William T. Vollmannhttps://amzn.to/4qrQiWRhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/97801430365932666 by Roberto Bolanohttps://amzn.to/45ob15Chttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780312429218Cloudsplitter by Russel Bankshttps://amzn.to/3MUtAYUhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780060930868Ahab Sequels by Pierre Sengeshttps://amzn.to/49nV7cUhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781940625461The German Lesson by Sigfriend Lenzhttps://amzn.to/3YXImkchttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811209823Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishimahttps://amzn.to/3YmfhyRhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811201186Empty Wigs by Jonathan Meadshttps://amzn.to/44W3J9ghttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781806770045Underworld by Don DeLillohttps://amzn.to/45nysMuhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780684848150White Noise by Don DeLillohttps://amzn.to/4qd2jj9https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780140077025The Public Burning by Robert Cooverhttps://amzn.to/495UE08https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780802135278Marshland by Otohiko Kagahttps://amzn.to/498OavWhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781628974041The Logos by Mark Desilvahttps://amzn.to/4q1aVsWhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781955904223The Royal Family by William T. Vollmannhttps://amzn.to/4aC88BOhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780141002002The Eighth Life by Nino Haratischvilihttps://amzn.to/3YSGCsBhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781950354146The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barthhttps://amzn.to/4pjYGqshttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781628973945Get the Freedom App to remove distractions and read more books:https://freedom.sjv.io/N9074OJoin the Life on Books mailing list to stay up to date on all of our latest book giveaways, projects, and more!https://linktw.in/BRYAnVhWant to read one book from every country? Check out our resource online:https://linktw.in/ZeoltyWant to know my all time favorite books? Click the link below!https://bookshop.org/shop/lifeonbooksFollow me on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/alifeonbooks/Follow Andy on Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/metafictional.meathead/

Dave Mustaine opens up about Megadeth's self-titled final album and the health issues affecting his hands and back that influenced his decision to wind down the band. He shares insights on recording with guitarist Teemu Mäntysaari for the first time, his choice to cover Metallica's 'Ride the Lightning,' and the upcoming tour with Iron Maiden. Mustaine also discusses the band's documentary 'Megadeth: Behind the Mask' premiering in theaters, his relationship with former bandmates, and his successful ventures into wine and beer. Also on the podcast, The Warning, a rock trio of sisters from Monterrey, Mexico, joins Eddie Trunk to discuss their remarkable journey from playing the Rock Band video game as children to selling out venues across the world. Danny, Paulina, and Alejandra share how they naturally fell into their roles as guitarist/vocalist, drummer, and bassist, and how their parents' love of music shaped their path. They discuss the challenges of being young women in rock, their special sibling bond, and the passionate Mexican rock scene. The sisters reveal how they caught the attention of Lava/Republic Records during the pandemic after eight years as an independent band, and hint at exciting plans including new music and upcoming tours in South America and the UK. Catch Eddie Trunk every M-F from 3:00-5:00pm ET on Trunk Nation on SiriusXM Faction Talk Channel 103.And don't forget to follow Eddie on X and Instagram!Follow the link to get your free 3-month trial of SiriusXM: http://siriusxm.com/eddietrunk Find all episodes of Trunk Nation: https://siriusxm.com/trunknation Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Our annual Black Friday poll was as unhinged as usual, with the clear winner being 1994's THE MASK. It's always shocking to remember that this was Jim Carrey's breakout role and Cameron Diaz's first acting role. These factoids are mainly drowned out by the unforgettable swing revival soundtrack (wall to wall bangers, btw) and the dozens and dozens of quotes we all beat to death in junior high after watching this. Don't worry, though, we actually go the entire episode not doing any Stanley Ipkiss impressions. Is this personal growth? We'd like to think so! Join our Patreon Buy some Merch Join our Facebook Group Follow us on Instagram Follow us on Letterboxd Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new season of film discussion begins for us with a random number generated year to choose movies from to watch.  1994 was the year that stuck, and it is a big year generally for classic movies we all still know, and watch.  Our first movie is 1 out of 3 Jim Carrey movies that came out in 1994 with THE MASK.  Please send any and all feedback to anotherlookpod@gmail.com.  Please follow us on Instagram @anotherlookpod, and rate/review/subscribe where ever you get your podcasts.

Burnout and compassion fatigue don't just affect nurses and healthcare workers — they affect anyone who gives too much of themselves without rest.In Episode 32 of The Sexy Nurse Chronicles Mental Health Podcast, Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner Nurse MF 2Keys explores burnout in healers, compassion fatigue, emotional exhaustion, and the hidden cost of always being the strong one.This episode is for:Nurses and healthcare professionals experiencing burnoutCaregivers and parents who never get a breakTherapists, teachers, and helping professionalsThe “strong friend” everyone depends onAnyone feeling emotionally drained, numb, or overwhelmedIn this conversation, we cover:What burnout really looks like beyond physical tirednessThe difference between burnout and compassion fatigueWhy healers often neglect their own mental healthHow survival mode becomes normalizedThe emotional toll of constant caregivingWhy boundaries, rest, and saying no are essential to healingThis episode reframes self-care and mental health in a realistic way — focusing on boundaries, rest without guilt, and permission to stop overgiving.If you've been feeling exhausted while still showing up for everyone else, this episode is for you.

Hello! Welcome to another edition of the exclusive audio commentary podcast hosted by me, David Hughes.  For this episode, I'm thrilled to have reunited the brilliant British actor Paul McGann with author and screenwriter John Collee, 35 years after Paul starred in Christopher Morahan's perfect/no notes adaptation of John's novel A Paper Mask. I'll bet there is no bigger fan of 1990's Paper Mask than me. Paul is sensational as the hospital porter who steals the identity of a doctor and begins practicing medicine at a big hospital, with inevitable, tragic and yet still shocking consequences. The source novel is terrific, the film is note perfect with a superb supporting cast, including Amanda Donohoe and the late great Tom Wilkinson, and although it's hard to find these days – it's been a dream of mine to nab the physical media rights for my Blu-ray label Plumeria – Paul and John's walk down memory lane is a great way to kick off our new season, even if you haven't seen the film – especially as we recorded the commentary ‘wild', rather than to picture.Huge thanks to Paul and John for agreeing to do this. Hopefully Paul will finally pluck up the courage to watch the film for the first time in 35 years, and come back to tell us what he thought of it.Comments? Feedback? Suggestions? Email David *at * Rogue-Commentary *dot* com We have lots of exciting episodes in the works, so if you like what you hear – or just the idea – please subscribe, and remember to rate us wherever you hear this podcast – it'll really help us to keep going. Oh, and follow us on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠X⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and/or ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to stay up-to-date on our forthcoming releases.Thanks for listening!A Plumeria ⁠⁠⁠production, conceived and presented by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠David Hughes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. Produced by Sam Ibrahim. Music by Olli Oja.All content © 2025 Plumeria Pictures Ltd. All rights reserved.

In this episode of Gangland Wire, Gary Jenkins sits down with Bob Cooley, the once–well-connected Chicago lawyer who lived at the center of the city's most notorious corruption machine. After years out of the public eye, Cooley recently resurfaced to revisit his explosive memoir, When Corruption Was King—and this conversation offers a rare, firsthand look at how organized crime, politics, and the court system intersected in Chicago for decades. Cooley traces his journey from growing up in a police family to serving as a Chicago police officer and ultimately becoming a criminal defense attorney whose real job was quietly fixing cases for the Chicago Outfit. His deep understanding of the judicial system made him indispensable to mob-connected power brokers like Pat Marcy, a political fixer with direct access to judges, prosecutors, and court clerks. Inside the Chicago Corruption Machine Cooley explains how verdicts were bought, cases were steered, and justice was manipulated—what insiders called the “Chicago Method.” He describes his relationships with key figures in organized crime, including gambling bosses like Marco D'Amico and violent enforcers such as Harry Aleman and Tony Spilotro, painting a chilling picture of life inside a world where loyalty was enforced by fear.   As his role deepened, so did the psychological toll. Cooley recounts living under constant threat, including a contract placed on his life after he refused to betray a fellow associate—an event that forced him to confront the cost of the life he was leading. Turning Point: Becoming a Federal Witness The episode covers Cooley's pivotal decision in 1986 to cooperate with federal authorities, a move that helped dismantle powerful corruption networks through FBI Operation Gambat. Cooley breaks down how political connections—not just street-level violence—allowed the Outfit to operate with near-total impunity for so long.   Along the way, Cooley reflects on the moral reckoning that led him to turn on the system that had enriched and protected him, framing his story as one not just of crime and betrayal, but of reckoning and redemption. What Listeners Will Hear How Bob Cooley became the Outfit's go-to case fixer The role of Pat Marcy and political corruption in Chicago courts Firsthand stories involving Marco D'Amico, Harry Aleman, and Tony Spilotro The emotional and psychological strain of living among violent criminals The decision to cooperate and the impact of Operation Gambat Why Cooley believes Chicago's corruption endured for generations Why This Episode Matters Bob Cooley is one of the few people who saw the Chicago Outfit from inside the courtroom and the back rooms of power. His story reveals how deeply organized crime embedded itself into the institutions meant to uphold the law—and what it cost those who tried to escape it.   This episode sets the stage for a deeper follow-up conversation, where Gary and Cooley will continue unpacking the most dangerous and revealing moments of his life. Resources   Book: When Corruption Was King by Bob Cooley Hit me up on Venmo for a cup of coffee or a shot and a beer @ganglandwire Click here to “buy me a cup of coffee” Subscribe to the website for weekly notifications about updates and other Mob information. To go to the store or make a donation or rent Ballot Theft: Burglary, Murder, Coverup, click here To rent ‘Brothers against Brothers’ or ‘Gangland Wire,’ the documentaries click here.  To purchase one of my books, click here. 0:03 Prelude to Bob Cooley’s Story 1:57 Bob Cooley’s Background 5:24 The Chicago Outfit Connection 8:24 The Turning Point 15:20 The Rise of a Mob Lawyer 23:54 A Life of Crime and Consequences 26:03 The Incident at the Police Station 50:27 The Count and His Influence 1:19:51 The Murder of a Friend 1:35:26 Contracts and Betrayal 1:40:36 Conclusion and Future Stories Transcript [0:00] Well, hey guys, this is a little prelude to my next story. Bob Cooley was a Chicago lawyer and an outfit associate who had been in, who has been in hiding for many years. I contacted him about six or seven years ago when I first started a podcast, I was able to get a phone number on him and, and got him on the phone. He was, I think it was out in the desert in Las Vegas area at the time. And at the time he was trying to sell his book when corruption was king to a movie producer And he really didn’t want to overexpose himself, and they didn’t really want him to do anything. And eventually, COVID hit, and the movie production was canceled. And it was just all over. There were several movie productions were canceled during COVID, if I remember right. A couple people who I have interviewed and had a movie deal going. Well, Bob recently remembered me, and he contacted me. He just called me out of the clear blue, and he wanted to revive his book and his story. He’s been, you know, way out of the limelight for a long time. And so I thought, well, I always wanted to interview this guy because he’s got a real insider’s knowledge to Chicago Outfit, the one that very few people have. [1:08] You know, here’s what he knows about. And he provides valuable insight into the inner workings of the Outfit. And I don’t mean, you know, scheming up how to kill people and how to do robberies and burglars and all that. But the Chicago court system and Chicago politics, that’s a, that’s a, the, the mob, a mafia family can’t exist unless they have connections into the political system and especially the court system. Otherwise, what good are they? You know, I mean, they, they just take your money where they give you back. They can’t protect you from anybody. [1:42] So I need to give you a little more of the backstory before we go on to the actual interview with Bob, because he kind of rambles a little bit and goes off and comes back and drops [1:54] names that we don’t have time to go into explanation. So here’s a little bit of what he talked about. He went from being, as I said before, Chicago Outfit’s trusted fixer in the court system, and he eventually became the government star witness against them. He’s born, he’s about my age. He was born in 1943. He was an Irish-American police family and came from the Chicago South side. He was a cop himself for a short period of time, but he was going to law school while he was a policeman. And once he started practicing law, he moved right into criminal law and into first ward politics and the judicial world downtown. [2:36] And that’s where the outfit and the old democratic machine intersected. He was in a restaurant called Counselor’s Row, which was right down. Bob had an office downtown. Well, he’s inside that system, and he uses his insider’s knowledge to fix cases. Once an outfit started noticing him that he could fix a case if he wanted to, he immediately became connected to the first ward power broker and outfit political conduit, a guy named Pat Marcy. Pat Marcy knew all the judges He knew all the court clerks And all the police officers And Bob was getting to know him too During this time But Bob was a guy who was out in He was a lawyer And he was working inside the court system Marcy was just a downtown fixer. [3:22] But Bob got to where he could guarantee acquittals or light sentences for whoever came to him with the right amount of money, whether it be a mobster or a bookmaker or a juice loan guy or a crap politician, whoever it was, Bob could fix the case. [3:36] One of the main guys tied to his work he was kind of attached to a crew everybody’s owned by somebody he was attached to the Elmwood Park crew and Marco D’Amico who was under John DeFranco and I can’t remember who was before DeFranco, was kind of his boss and he was a gambling boss and Bob was a huge gambler I mean a huge gambler and Bob will help fix cases for some notorious people Really, one of the most important stories that we’ll go into in the second episode of this is Harry the Hook Aleman. And he also helped fix the case for Tony Spolatro and several others. He’s always paid him in cash. And he lived large. As you’ll see, he lived large. And he moved comfortably between mobsters and politicians and judges. And he was one of the insiders back in the 70s, 60s or 70s mainly. He was an insider. But by the 80s, he’s burned out. He’s disgusted with himself. He sees some things that he doesn’t like. They put a contract out on him once because he wouldn’t give somebody up as an informant, and he tipped one of his clients off that he was going to come out that he was an informant, and the guy was able to escape, I believe. Well, I have to go back and listen to my own story. [4:53] Finally in 1986 he walked unannounced they didn’t have a case on him and he walked unannounced in the U.S. Courthouse and offered himself up to take down this whole Pat Marcy and the whole mobster political clique in Chicago and he wore a wire for FBI an operation called Operation Gambat which is a gambling attorney because he was a huge gambler [5:17] huge huge gambler and they did a sweeping probe and indicted tons of people over this. So let’s go ahead and listen to Robert Cooley. [5:31] Uh, he, he, like I said, he’s a little bit rambling and a little bit hard to follow sometimes, but some of these names and, and, uh, and in the first episode, we’ll really talk about his history and, uh, where he came from and how he came up. He’ll mention somebody called the count and I’ll do that whole count story and a whole nother thing. So when he talks about the count, just disregard that it’ll be a short or something. And I got to tell that count story. It’s an interesting story. Uh, he, he gets involved with the only own, uh, association, uh, and, uh, and the, uh, Chinese Tong gang in, uh, Chicago and Chicago’s Chinatown. Uh, some of the other people he’ll talk about are Marco D’Amico, as I said, and D’Amico’s top aide, Rick Glantini, uh, another, uh, connected guy and worked for the city of Chicago is Robert Abinati. He was a truck driver. [6:25] He was also related to D’Amico and D’Amico’s cousin, former Chicago police officer Ricky Borelli. Those are some of the names that he’ll mention in this. So let’s settle back and listen to Bob Cooley. Hey, all you wiretappers. Good to be back here in studio gangland wire. This is Gary Jenkins, retired Kansas City Police Intelligence Unit detective. And, you know, we we deal with the mob here once a week, sometimes twice a week on the podcast. And I have a special guest that hadn’t been heard from for a while. And, you know, to be honest, guys, I’ve kind of gotten away from the outfit. I’ve been doing a lot of New York stuff and Springfield, Massachusetts and all around the country. And I kind of got away from Chicago. And we’re going back to Chicago today. And I’m honored that Bob Cooley got hold of me. Now, you may not know who Bob Cooley was, but Bob Cooley was a guy. He was a mob lawyer in Chicago, and he really probably, he heard him as much as anybody’s ever heard him, and he did it all of his own accord. He was more like an undercover agent that just wasn’t officially designated an FBI agent rather than an informant. But anyhow, welcome, Bob. [7:37] Hello. Nice meeting you. Nice to meet you. And I’ve talked to you before. And you were busy before a few years ago. And you were getting ready to make some movies and stuff. And then COVID hit and a lot of that fell through. And that happened to several people I’ve talked to. You got a lot in common with me. I was a Kansas City policeman. And I ended up becoming a lawyer after I left the police department. And you were a Chicago copper. And then you left the police department a little bit earlier than I did and became a lawyer. And, and Bob, you’re from a Chicago police family, if I remember right. Is that correct? Oh, police, absolute police background, the whole family. Yes. Yeah. Your grandfather, your grandfather was killed in the line of duty. Is that right? [8:25] Both of my grandfathers were killed in the line of duty. Wow. In fact, that’s one of the reasons why I eventually did what I did. I was very, very close with my dad. Yeah, and your dad was a copper. [8:38] He was a policeman, yeah. And in fact, you use that term. I, for many, many years, wouldn’t use that word. It just aggravated me when people would use the word copper. To me, it would show disrespect. Oh, really? I said to us in Kansas City, that’s what we call each other, you know, among coppers. Oh, I know. I know. But I know. But, you know, I just, for whatever reason, one of the things that aggravated me the most, in fact, when I was being cross-examined by this piece of shit, Eddie Jensen, the one I wrote about in my book that was, you know, getting a lot of people killed and whatever. And he made some comment about my father. and I got furious and I had to, you know, my father was unbelievably honest as a policeman. [9:29] Everybody loved him because they didn’t have to share, uh, you know, but he was a detective. He had been written up many times in true and magazines and these magazines for making arrests. He was involved in the cartage detail. He was involved in all kinds of other things, but honest as the day is long. And, and, um, but, uh, again, the, uh, my father’s father was, uh, was a policeman and he was killed by a member of the Capone gang. And, uh, and when he was killed, after he was killed. [10:05] The, uh, well, after he got shot, he got shot during a robbery after he got shot, he was in the hospital for a while. And then he went, then he went back home. He went back home to his, uh, you know, to his house, uh, cause he had seven kids. He had a big family too. And, uh, stayed with his, you know, with his wife and, and, and eventually died. And when he died they had a very mediocre funeral for him. They had a bigger, much bigger funeral when Al Capone’s brother died. But during that time when I was a kid when I was about 13, 12, 13 years old, I worked among other places at a grocery store where I delivered to my grandmother. My grandmother lived in South Park which later became Mark Luther King Drive. She lived a very, very meager life because she basically had nothing. [11:09] What they gave them for the, at that time, what they gave them for the police department was a portion of the husband’s salary when they died, whatever. It was never a big deal like it is now, you know, like it is now when policemen get killed in the line of duty. and I’m thinking at the same time I’m thinking down the road, You know, about certain things from my past did come back to affect me. [11:38] Doing what I was doing, when I got involved, and I got involved absolutely with all these different people. My father hated these people. I didn’t, you know, I didn’t realize how much. I didn’t realize much when I was growing, you know, when I was growing up and whatever. And even when I was practicing law and when I opened up Pratt-Mose, I would have my father and mother come along with other people. And the place was all full of mobsters. I mean, we’re talking about, you know, a lot of Capone’s whole crew. A lot of the gunmen were still alive. In fact, the ones that ran the first award were all gunmen from Capone’s mob. And never said a word, never said a word about it. You know, he met my partner, Johnny Diaco, who was part of the mob, the senator, and whatever colitis could be. My dad, when my dad was dying. [12:38] When my dad was dying, he had what they didn’t call it, but it had to be Alzheimer’s because my dad was a unbelievably, he was a big, strong man, but he was never a fighter, sweet as could be to anybody and everybody. When he started getting bad, he started being mean to my mother and doing certain things. So we finally had to put him into a nursing home. When I went to see him in the nursing, and I had a close relationship with my dad because he saved my life many times when I was a kid. I was involved with stolen cars at school. I should have been thrown out of school. It was Mount Carmel, but he had been a Carmelite, almost a Carmelite priest. [13:25] And whatever, and that’s what kept me from being kicked out of school at Marquette when they were going to throw me out there because I was, again, involved in a lot of fights, and I also had an apartment that we had across the hall from the shorter hall where I was supposed to stay when I was a freshman, and we were throwing huge parties, and they wanted to throw me out of school. My dad came, my dad came and instead of throwing me out, they let me resign and whatever he had done so much, you know, for me. Yeah. [14:00] Now when I, when I meet, when I meet him up in the hospital, I, I came in the first time and it was about maybe 25 miles outside, you know, from where my office was downtown. And when I went in to see him, they had him strapped in a bed because apparently when he initially had two people in the room and when somebody would come in to try to talk to him and whatever, he would be nasty. And one time he punched one of the nurses who was, you know, because he was going in the bed and they wouldn’t, and he wouldn’t let him take him out. You know, I was furious and I had to go, I had to go through all that. And now, just before he died, it was about two or three days before he died, he didn’t recognize anybody except me. Didn’t recognize my mother. Didn’t recognize anybody. Yet when I would come into the room, son, that’s what he always called me, son, when I would come in. So he knew who I basically was. And he would even say, son, don’t let him do this to me when he had to go through or they took out something and he had to wear one. Of those, you know, those decatheters or whatever. Oh, yeah. [15:15] Just before he died, he said to me, he said, son, he said, those are the people that killed my father. He said, and his case was fixed. After, I had never known that. In fact, his father, Star, was there at 11th and State, and I would see it when everyone went in there. Star was up there on the board as if there’s a policeman or a policeman killed in the line of duty. When he told me that it really and I talked to my brother who knew all about all that that’s what happened, the gunman killed him on 22nd street when that happened the case went to trial and he was found not guilty apparently the case was fixed I tell you what talk about poetic justice there your grandson is now in that system of fixing cases. I can’t even imagine what you must have felt like when you learned that at that point in your life. Man, that would be a grief. That would be tough. That’s what eventually made me one day decide that I had to do something to put an end to all that was going on there. [16:25] I’m curious, what neighborhood did you grow up in? Neighborhood identity is pretty strong in Chicago. So what neighborhood do you claim? I grew up in the hood. First place I grew up, my first place when I was born, I was at 7428 South Vernon. Which is the south side, southeast side of the city. I was there until I was in sixth grade. That was St. Columbanus Parish. When I was in sixth grade, we had to move because that’s when they were doing all the blockbusting there in Chicago. That’s when the blacks were coming in. And when the blacks were coming in, and I truly recall, We’ve talked about this many times elsewhere. I remember knocking on the door and ringing the doorbell all hours of the day and night. A black family just moved in down the street. You’ve got to sell now. If you don’t, the values will all go down. And we would not move. My father’s philosophy, we wouldn’t move until somebody got killed in the area. Because he couldn’t afford it. He had nine kids. he’s an honest policeman making less than $5,000 a year. [17:45] Working two, three jobs so we could all survive when he finished up, When he finished up with, when we finally moved, we finally moved, he went to 7646 South Langley. That was, again, further south, further south, and the area was all white at that time. [18:09] We were there for like four years, and about maybe two or three years, and then the blacks started moving in again. The first one moved in, and it was the same pattern all over again. Yeah, same story in Kansas City and every other major city in the United States. They did that blockbusting and those real estate developers. Oh, yeah, blockbusters. They would call and tell you that the values wouldn’t go down. When I was 20, I joined the police department. Okay. That’s who paid my way through college and law school. All right. I joined the police department, and I became a policeman when I was 20. [18:49] As soon as I could. My father was in recruit processing and I became a policeman. During the riots, I had an excuse not to go. They thought I was working. I was in the bar meeting my pals before I went to work. That’s why I couldn’t go to school at that time. But anyhow, I took some time off. I took some time off to, you know, to study, uh, because, you know, I had all C’s in one D in my first, in my first semester. And if you didn’t have a B, if you didn’t have a C average, you couldn’t, you kicked out of school at the end of a quarter. This is law school. You’re going to law school while you’re still an active policeman. Oh yeah, sure. That’s okay. So you work full time and went to law school. You worked full-time and went to law school at the same time. When I was 20, I joined the police department. Okay. That’s who paid my way through college and law school. All right. I joined the police department, and I became a policeman when I was 20, as soon as I could. My father was in recruit processing, and I became a policeman. Yeah, yeah. But anyhow, I went to confession that night. [20:10] And when I went to confession, there was a girl, one of the few white people in the neighborhood, there was a girl who had gone before me into the confessional. And I knew the priest. I knew him because I used to go gambling with him. I knew the priest there at St. Felicis who heard the confessions. And this is the first time I had gone to confession with him even though I knew him. [20:36] And I wanted to get some help from the big guy upstairs. And anyhow, when I leave, I leave about maybe 10 minutes later, and she had been saying her grace, you know, when I left. And when I walked out, I saw she was right across the street from my house, and there’s an alley right there. And she was a bit away from it, and there were about maybe 13, 14, 15 kids. when I say kids, they were anywhere from the age of probably about 15, 16 to about 18, 19. And they’re dragging her. They’re trying to drag her into the alley. And when I see that, when I see that, I head over there. When I get over there, I have my gun out. I have the gun out. And, you know, what the hell is going on? And, you know, and I told her, I told her her car was parked over there. I told her, you know, get out of here. And I’ve got my gun. I’ve got my gun in my hand. And I don’t know what I’m going to do now in terms of doing anything because I’m not going to shoot them. They’re standing there looking at me. And after a little while, I hear sirens going on. [22:00] The Barton family lived across the street in an apartment building, and they saw what was going on. They saw me out there. It was about probably about seven o’clock at night. It was early at night and they put a call in 10-1 and call in 10-1. Assist the officer. Is that a assist the officer? It’s 1031. Police been in trouble. Yeah. And the squad’s from everywhere. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. So you can hear, you can hear them coming. And now one of them says to me, and I know they’re pretty close. One of them says to me, you know, put away your gun and we’ll see how tough you are. And I did. [22:42] Because you know they’re close. And I’m busy fighting with a couple of them. And they start running and I grab onto two of them. I’m holding onto them. I could only hold two. I couldn’t hold anymore. And the next thing I know, I wake up in the hospital about four days later. Wow. What had happened was they pushed me. Somebody, there was another one behind who pushed me right in front of a squad car coming down the street. Oh, shit. Yeah, man. And the car ran completely over me. They pulled me off from under the, just under the back wheels, I was told were right next to, were onto me, blood all over the place. Everybody thought I was dead. Right. Because my brothers, my one brother who was a police kid that, you know, heard all the noise and the family came in. I tried to prostrate my house and they all thought I was dead. But anyhow, I wake up in the hospital about three days later. When I wake up in the hospital, I’m like. [23:54] Every bone of my body was broken. I’m up there like a mummy. And the mayor came to see me. All kinds of people came to see me. They made me into an even bigger star in my neighborhood. The Count lives down the street and is seeing all this stuff about me and whatever. Jumping quickly to another thing, which got me furious. Willie Grimes was the cop that was driving this quad. He was a racist. We had some blacks in the job. He was a total racist. When my brother and when some others were doing their best to try to find these people, he was protecting them. Some of them, if they caught, he was protecting them. [24:48] I was off the job for like nine months when I came back to work. I never came to the hospital to see me. I mean, everybody came. Every day, my hospital went. Because one of the nurses that I was dating, in fact, she was one of those killed. That’s when Richard Speck wound up killing her and some of the others at the same time. It was at the South Chicago Hospital. Holy darn. What they did for me, I had buckets in my womb with ice. We were bringing beer and pizzas and whatever. Every day was like a party in there. When I finally came back to work, it was 11 o’clock at night. I worked out in South Chicago, and I’m sitting in the parking lot, and the media is there. The media, they had all kinds of cameras there. Robert Cooley’s coming back to work after like nine months. They wouldn’t let me go back. [25:51] I’m walking by the squads. And Willie was a big guy. He was probably about 220, a big one of these big muscle builders and all that nonsense. [26:04] He’s sitting in the first car. The cars are all lined up because when we would change, when we would change at like 11 30 uh you know the cars would all be waiting we jumped into the cars and off we go as i’m walking by the car i hear aren’t you afraid to walk in front of my car. [26:26] I look over and he had a distinctive voice i walk over to the car and i reach in and i start punching them, and I’m trying to drag them out of the car. The cameras, the cameras are, you know, they’re all basically inside. They’re all inside. You know, as you walk in there, they’re all inside there. When I do, I eventually walk up there. But the other police came, and they dragged me. They dragged me away, and they brought me in, and whatever. We got transferred out the next day out of the district. And the first policeman I meet is Rick, Rick Dorelli, who’s connected with, who’s a monster. He’s connected with them. And, and he’s the one who told me, he said to me, you know, we played cards and he realized I was a gambler, but I had never dealt with bookmakers. And he said, he says, yeah, you want to make some money? You want to make some easy money? Well, yeah, sure. You know, uh, you know, and thinking that’s, you know, working security or something like that, like I had done back in Chicago, you know, like I had done on the south side. And he said, I want you to make some bets for me with somebody who said. [27:43] And I remember him using the term. He said, I want you to be my face. He said, and I want you to make some bets for me. He said, and he said, and if you, if you’ll do it, I’ll give you a hundred dollars a week just to make the bets for me. And then, you know, and then meet with these people and pay these people off. And I said, sure. You know, I said, you know, why? He says, because I can’t play with these. people he said i’m connected with him he said and i’m not allowed to gamble myself he said but he told me he said i’ve got a couple people i take bets from i’ve got my own side deal going so i want you to do it i want you to do it and i’ll give i’ll give you to them as a customer, and you’re gonna be a customer and he’s and he tells people now that i got this other police He’s in law school. He comes from a real wealthy family, and he’s looking for a place to bet. He’s in Gambia. He’s looking for a place to bet. [28:47] So I call this number, and I talk to this guy. He gives me a number. When you bet, you call, and you do this, and you do that. And I’m going to get $100 at the end of the week. Now, I’m making $5,200 a year, and they’re taking money out of my chest. I’m going to double my salary. I’m going to double my salary immediately. Why wouldn’t you do it? That’s fantastic money at the time. So I start doing it. And the first week I’m doing it, it was baseball season. [29:19] And I’m making these bets. He’s betting $500 a game on a number of games. And he’s winning some, he’s losing some. But now, when I’m checking my numbers with the guy there, he owes, at the end of the week, he owes $3,500. [29:38] And now, it’s getting bigger and bigger, he’s losing. I’m getting worried. What have I got myself into? Yeah, because it’s not him losing, it’s you losing to the bookie. That’s what I’m thinking. I’m thinking, holy, holy, Christopher, I’m thinking. But, you know, I’ve already jumped off the building. So anyhow. I’d be thinking, you better come up with a jack, dude. It’s time to pay up, man. Anyhow, so when I come to work the next day, I’m supposed to meet this guy at one of the clubs out there in the western suburbs. [30:21] I’m supposed to meet the bookmaker out there. And Ricky meets me that morning, and he gives me the money. It’s like $3,400, and here’s $100 for you. Bingo. That’s great. So, okay. When I go to make the payment to him, it’s a nightclub, and I got some money in my pocket. Somebody, one of the guys, some guy walks up. I’m sitting at the bar and, you know, I hear you’re a copper. I said, pardon me? He says, I hear you’re a copper. He was a big guy. Yeah. I hear you’re a copper. Because at that time, I still only weighed maybe like, well, maybe 60, 65 pounds. I mean, I was in fantastic shape, but I wasn’t real big. And I said, I’m a policeman. I don’t like policemen. I said, go fuck yourself. or something like that. And before he could do anything, I labeled him. That was my first of about a half a dozen fights in those different bars out there. [31:32] And the fights only lasted a few minutes because I would knock the person down. And if the person was real big, at times I’d get on top and just keep pounding before they could do anything. So I started with a reputation with those people at that time now as I’m, going through my world with these people oh no let’s stay with that one area now after the second week he loses again, this time not as much but he loses again and I’m thinking wow, He’s betting, and I’m contacted by a couple of people there. Yeah. Because these are all bookmakers there, and they see me paying off. So I’m going to be, listen, if you want another place to play, and I say, well, yeah. So my thought is, with baseball, it’s a game where you’re laying a price, laying 160, laying 170, laying 180. So if you lose $500, if you lose, you pay $850, and if you win, you only get $500. [32:52] I’ve got a couple of people now, and they’ve got different lines. And what I can do now is I check with their lines. I check with Ricky’s guy and see what his line is. And I start moving his money elsewhere where I’ve got a 30, 40, sometimes 50 cent difference in the price. So I’d set it up where no matter what, I’m going to make some money, No matter what happens, I’ll make some money. But what I’m also doing is I’m making my own bets in there that will be covered. And as I start early winning, maybe for that week I win maybe $1,000, $1,500. And then as I meet other people and I’m making payments, within about four or five months, I’ve got 10 different bookmakers I’m dealing with. Who I’m dealing with. And it’s become like a business. I’m getting all the business from him, 500 a game, whatever. And I’ve got other people that are betting, you know, are betting big, who are betting through me. And I’m making all kinds of money at that time. [34:14] But anyhow, now I mentioned a number of people, A number of people are, I’ve been with a number of people that got killed after dinner. One of the first ones was Tony Borsellino, a bookmaker. Tony was connected with the Northside people, with DeVarco, the one they called DeVarco. And we had gone to a we had gone to a I knew he was a hit man, we had gone to a basketball game over at DePaul because he had become a good friend of mine he liked hanging with me, because I was because at that time now I’m representing the main madams in Chicago too and they loved being around me they liked going wherever I was going to go so I always had all kinds of We left the ladies around. And we went to the basketball game. Afterwards, we went to a restaurant, a steakhouse on Chicago Avenue. [35:26] Gee, why can’t I think of a name right now? We went to a steakhouse, and we had dinner. And when we finished up, it came over there. And when we finished up, I’d been there probably half a dozen times with him. And he was there with his girlfriend. We had dinner and about, I’d say it was maybe 10, 30, 11 o’clock, he says, you know, Bob, can you do me a favor? What’s that? Can you drop her off? He said, I have to go meet some friends. I have to go meet some friends of ours. And, you know, okay, sure, Tony, not a problem. And, you know, I took her home. [36:09] The next day I wake up, Tony Barcellino was found dead. They killed him. He was found with some bullets in the back of his head. They killed him. Holy Christopher. And that’s my first—I found that I had been killed before that. But, you know, wow, that was—, prior to that, when I was betting, there was i paid off a bookmaker a guy named uh ritten shirt, rittenger yeah john rittenger yeah yeah yeah he was a personal friend yeah was he a personal friend of yours yeah they offed him too well i in fact i he i was paying him i met him to pay him I owed him around $4,500, and I met him at Greco’s at my restaurant he wanted to meet me out there because he wanted to talk to me about something else he had a problem some kind of a problem I can’t remember what that was. [37:19] But he wanted to meet me at the restaurant so I met him at Greco’s, And I paid him the money. We talked for a while. And then he says, you know, I got to go. I got to go meet somebody. I got to go meet somebody else. I got to go straight now with somebody else. And he said, I’ll give you a call. He said, I’ll give you a call later. He said, because, you know, I want to talk to you about a problem that I have. He says, I want to talk to you about a problem that I have. I said, okay, sure. He goes to a pizza place. Up there in the Taylor Street area. That’s where he met Butchie and Harry. In fact, at the time, I knew both of them. Yeah, guys, that’s Butch Petrucelli and Harry Alem and a couple of really well-known mob outfit hitmen. Yeah, and they’re the ones that kill them. I’m thinking afterwards, I mean, But, you know, I wish I hadn’t, I wish I hadn’t, you know, I wish I could save him. I just gave him. Man, you’re cold, man. [38:34] You could have walked with that money. That’s what I’m saying. So now, another situation. Let me cut in here a minute, guys. As I remember this Reitlinger hit, Joe Ferriola was a crew boss, and he was trying to line up all the bookies, as he called it. He wanted to line them up like Al Capone lined up all the speaks, that all the bookies had to fall in line and kick something into the outfit, and Reitlinger wouldn’t do it. He refused to do it no matter. They kept coming to him and asking him his way. I understand that. Is that what you remember? I knew him very well. Yeah. He was not the boss. Oh, the Ferriola? Yeah, he wasn’t the boss, but he was kind of the, he had a crew. He was the boss of the Cicero crew. Right. I saw Joe all the time at the racetrack. In fact, I’m the one who, I’m the one, by the time when I started wearing a wire, I was bringing undercover agents over. I was responsible for all that family secret stuff that happened down the road. Oh, really? You set the stage for all that? I’m the one who put them all in jail. All of them. [39:52] So anyhow, we’re kind of getting ahead of ourselves. Reitlinger’s been killed. Joe Borelli or Ricky Borelli’s been killed. These guys are dropping around you, and you’re getting drawn into it deeper and deeper, it sounds to me like. Now, is this when you – what happens? How do you get drawn into this Chicago outfit even more and more as a bookie? Were you kicking up, too? Well, it started, it started, so many things happened that it just fell into place. It started, like I say, with building a reputation like I had. But the final situation in terms of with all the mobsters thinking that I’m not just a tough guy, I’m a bad guy. [40:35] When I get a call, when Joey Cosella, Joey Cosella was a big, tough Italian kid. And he was involved heavily in bookmaking, and we became real close friends. Joey and I became real close friends. He raised Dobermans, and he’s the one who had the lion over at the car dealership. I get a call from Joey. He says, you’ve got to come over. I said, what’s up? He says, some guys came in, and they’re going to kill the count. They want to kill the count. And I said, And I said, what? This is before the Pewter thing. I said, what do you mean? And so I drive over there, and he says, Sammy Annarino and Pete Cucci. And Pete Cucci came in here, and they came in with shotguns, and they were going to kill them. I said, this was Chicago at the time. It’s hard to believe, but this was Chicago. And I said, who are they? I didn’t know who they were. I said, who are they? I mean, I didn’t know them by name. It turns out I did know them, but I didn’t know them by name. They were people that were always in Greco’s, and everybody in Greco knew me because I’m the owner. [41:49] But anyhow, so I get a hold of Marco, and I said, Marco, and I told him what happened. I said, these guys, a couple of guys come in there looking for the talent. That are going to kill him because apparently he extorted somebody out of his business. And I said, who were they with? And he said, they were with Jimmy the bomber. They were with Jimmy Couture. [42:15] I said, oh, they’re for legit then? I said, yeah. I said, can you call? I said, call Jimmy. I knew who he was. He was at the restaurant all the time. He was at Threatfuls all the time with a lot of these other people. And I met him, but I had no interest in him. He didn’t seem like a very friendly sort of anyone. I could care less about him. I represented a lot of guys that worked for him, that were involved with problems, but never really had a conversation with him other than I. [42:53] I’m the owner. So I met with him. I wrote about that in the book. I met with them and got that straightened out where the count’s going to pay $25,000 and you’ll get a contract to the… He ripped off some guy out of a parlor, one of those massage parlors, not massage parlor, but one of those adult bookstores that were big money deals. Oh, yeah. So when I go to meet these guys, I’m told, go meet them and straighten this thing out. So I took Colin with me over to a motel right down the street from the racetrack, right down from the racetrack, and I met with him. I met with Pete Gucci. He was the boss of, you know, this sort of loop. When I get finished talking with him, I come back, and here’s the count and Sammy, and Sammy’s picking a fork with his finger and saying, you know, I rip out eyes with these. [43:56] And the count says, I rip out eyes with these. And I said, what the fuck is going on here? I said, Pete, I said, you know, get him the fuck out of here. And you all at the count said, what’s the matter with you? You know, these guys are going to kill him. And now the moment I get involved in it, he knows he’s not going to have a problem. You know, he’s pulling this nonsense. [44:23] So anyhow, this is how I meet Pete Gucci and Sammy Annarino. After a while, I stopped hanging around with the count because he was starting to go off the deep end. Yeah. Yeah. [44:39] And we were at a party, a bear party with, I remember Willie Holman was there, and they were mostly black, the black guys up there on the south side. And I had just met this girl a day or two before, and the count says, you know, let’s go up to a party, a bear’s party up there on Lakeshore Drive. If we go up there, we go to this party, it’s going to be about maybe 35, 40 people in there, one or two whites, other than the players. And other than that, we’re the only white people there. When we walk into the place, there’s a couple of guys out there with shotguns. It was in a motel. And you walk through like an area where you go in there, and there’s a couple of guys standing there with shotguns. We go in and we go upstairs and, hey, how are you? And we’re talking with people. And I go in one room. I’m in one room. [45:45] There were two rooms there. I’m in one room with a bunch of people and, you know, just talking and having a good old time. And the count was in the second room. And I hear Spade. He always called me Spade. Spade, Spade, you know. And I go in there, and he’s talking with Willie Holman. I remember it was one of them. He was the tackle, I think, with the Bears and a couple of others. And this whole room, all these black guys. And he goes, that’s Spade Cooley. He says, him and I will take on every one of you. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And we’re in a room, and he goes, that’s what he says. You know, him and I will take it on every one of you. And Willie did that. He calmed down. He’s telling him, calmed down. What the fuck? It was about a week or so after this. And because I had been out with the county, he’s calling me two or three times a week to go out. And we’re going, a lot of times it was these areas in the south side with a lot of blood. He liked being around Blacks. [47:00] That’s when I met Gail Sayers, and I met some of these others through him. But a lot of the parties and stuff were in the South Side out there, mostly Blacks and all. But we had gone someplace for dinner, and we’re heading back home. We’re heading back to my place, and we’re in his car. He had a brown Cadillac convertible. On the side of it, it had these, you know, the Count Dante press. And he always ran around. He ran around most of the time in these goofy, you know, these goofy outfits with capes and things like that. I’m driving and when we’re talking and I’m like distracted looking at him. And I’m waiting at a stoplight over there right off of Chicago Avenue. And as we’re there. [47:48] I barely touched the car in front of us, you know, as I’m drifting a little bit and barely touch it. There were four guys in the car and, you know, and the one guy jumps out first, one guy jumps out first and then second one, and they start screaming. And when the count gets out, the guy starts calling you, you faggot or something like that, you know, whatever. And as the other one gets out, I get out of the car. And the next thing I know, they jump back in the car, and they run through a red light, and they disappear. Somebody must have recognized them. One of the other people there must have realized who this is that they’re about to get into a little battle with. In fact, they ran the red light. They just ran the red light and disappeared. They come, no, no, no, no, no. And we go off to my apartment and I’m here with this girl, another girl I had just met a day or so before, because I was constantly meeting new people, uh, running around and, uh, we’re sitting on the couch. I’m sitting in the couch next to her and the count, the count was over there. And he suddenly says to her, he says, he says, this is one of the toughest people I’ve ever met. He said, and he says, tell her how tough you are. Tell her how tough you are. [49:10] I said, you know, I said, you know, you know, and he says, tell them how tough you are. And I said, John, you know, and he walks over, And he makes a motion like this towards me. And he barely touched my chin. But I thought he broke it. He then steps back and he goes, I got to cut this hand off. He says, you saved my life. He said, you saved my life. He said, the only two friends I’ve had in the world were my father and you. He says, I wasn’t even that crazy about my mother. That’s when I said then he goes and he stands and I’m looking at it now he stands up against the window I looked up on the 29th floor, he stands by the window he says get your gun he says and I want you to aim it at me, and say now before you pull the trigger and I’ll stop the bullet, I’ll stop the bullet this guy was nuts and I said I said, what? [50:28] He says, before you pull the trigger. [50:36] Tell me before you pull the trigger and I’ll stop the bullet. He wanted me to shoot him. He stopped the bullet. When I got him out of there, Now when he’s calling me, I’m busy. I’m busy. Once in a while, I’d meet him someplace. No more driving or whatever. That was smart. I hadn’t seen him in probably five or six months. And this is, again, after the situation when I had met with Anna Randall and Gooch and the others. I’m up in my office and I get a I get a call from the county, and he said and I hadn’t probably seen him even maybe in a month or two at all and he said, can I come over and talk to you and I was playing cards in fact I had card games up in my office and, we called him Commissioner. [51:41] O’Malley Ray O’Malley, he was the head of the police department at night. On midnights, he got there at 4 to 12. He started at 4 to 12 until midnights. He was the head of them. He was the commissioner. He was in charge of the whole department. He used to play cards up in my office. We had big card games up in my office. And when he’d come up there, we’d have the blue goose parked out in front. We’d have his bodyguard sitting out there by my door. When he was playing in the games. This went on for a couple of years. [52:15] I was at the office, but, you know, I’m at the office playing cards. [52:20] And I had a, it was a big suite. We had, you know, my office was a big office in this suite. We had about six other, you know, big, big suites in there. And so he comes over, he comes over to meet with me. And so I figure he’s in trouble. He’s arrested. He says, I’ve got a situation going. He says, well, you can get a million dollars. And he said, but if I tell you what it is, he says, and you’re in, he said, you got to be in. I’ll tell you what it is. I said, John, if I need money, I said, you get $2 million, then you can loan me if you want, but I don’t want to know what it is. I said, I just don’t want to know what it is. [52:59] It was about a week or two later. It was a pure later, basically. It was a pure later caper. Yeah, guys, this was like the huge, huge. And the one he set it up with was Pete Gucci, the guy that was going to kill him. That was the one who set it up. I knew that. I thought I remembered that name from somewhere. I don’t remember. They ended up getting popped, but everybody got caught, and most of the money got returned. No, no. No bit that the outfit kept, I understand, if I remember right. What was the deal on that? There was more to it than that. Just before that happened, I go up, and Jerry Workman was another lawyer. Actually, he was attorney up in the office, post-rending bank. When I’m going up into the office, I see Pete Gucci there. This is probably a week or so after the situation with the count. Or maybe even a little bit longer than that. I said, Pete, what are you doing? I said, what are you doing here? Jerry Workston’s my lawyer. Oh, okay. [53:55] Okay. He said, I didn’t know you were off here. I said, yeah. I said, Jerry’s a good friend of mine. Okay. And as I’m walking away, he says, you tell your friend the count to stop calling me at two, three in the morning. He says, I got a wife and kids and whatever. And I said to him, I said, Pete, you got no business dealing. I don’t know what it is. I said, but you guys got no business dealing involved in anything. You got no business being involved with him. And I walked away. I see him and I see him as he’s leaving. I see him as he’s leaving and say goodbye to him. Jerry was going to be playing cards. [54:39] It was card night too. Jerry was going to be playing cards in my office because the people would come in usually about 9 o’clock, 9.30 is when the game would usually start. I talked with Jerry. He had been in there for a while. He was arrested a day or two later. The fbi comes in there because he had stashed about 35 000 in jerry’s couch oh really that was his bond money he got that was his bond money if he got to get bailed out to get him bailed out that was his bond money that was there that’s how bizarre so i got involved in so many situations like this but anyhow anyhow now sammy uh, So it’s about maybe a week or two later after this, when I’m in the car driving, I hear they robbed a purulator. The purulator was about a block and a half from my last police station. It was right down the street from the 18th district. That was the place that they robbed. And not long after that, word came out that supposedly a million dollars was dropped off in front of Jimmy the bomber, in front of his place. With Jimmy the bomber, both Sammy Ann Arino and Pete Gucci were under him. They were gunmen from his group. Now I get a call from, I get a count was never, you never heard the count’s name mentioned in there with anybody. [56:07] The guy from Boston, you know, who they indicated, you know, came in to set it up. The count knew him from Boston. The count had some schools in Boston. And this was one of his students. And that’s how he knew this guy from Boston that got caught trying to take a, trying to leave the country with, you know, with a couple thousand, a couple million dollars of the money. Yeah, I read that. It was going down to the Caribbean somewhere and they caught him. And Sammy Ann Arino didn’t get involved in that. He wasn’t involved in that because I think he was back in the prison at the time. [56:44] Now, when he’s out of prison, probably no more than about maybe three or four months after all that toilet stuff had died down, I get a call from Sam, and he wants me to represent him because he was arrested. What happened was he was shot in a car. He was in a car, and he had gotten shot. And when they shot him, he kicked out the window and somehow fought the guys off. When they found him there in the car and in his trunk, they found a hit kit. They said it was a hit kit. How could they know? It was a box that had core form in it, a ski mask, a ski mask, a gun, a gun with tape wrapped around it and the rest of it. Yeah. And he’s an extra time. Mask and tape or little bits of rope and shit like that. I’d say no. So he was charged with it, and he was charged with it in his case, and he had a case coming up. I met him the first time I met him. He came by my office, and he said, you know, and I said, no, that’s not a problem. And he says, but I’ve got to use Eddie Jensen, too. [57:52] And I said, I said, what do you mean? I said, you don’t need Eddie. And he says, I was told I have to use him. Jimmy Couture, his boy, he said, I have to use him. I know why, because Eddie lets these mobsters know whenever anybody’s an informant, or if he’s mad at somebody, he can tell him he’s an informant, they get killed. And so I said, you know, that piece of shit. I said, you know, I want nothing to do with him. I had some interesting run-ins with him before, and I said, I want nothing to do with that worthless piece of shit. You know, he’s a jagoff. And I said, you know, I says, no. He said, please. I said, no. I said, Sammy, you know, you don’t need me. He knows the judge like I know the judge, Sardini. I said, you know, you’re not going to have a problem in there. I get a call from him again, maybe four or five days after that. He’s out of my restaurant and he says, Bob, please. He said, You know, he says, please, can I meet you? He says, I got a problem. I go out to the meeting. And so I thought, there’s something new. I want you to represent me. I want you to represent me, you know, on the case. And I says, did you get rid of that fence? He says, no, I have to use him. But I says, look, I’m not going to, I want, no, Sammy, no, I’m not going to do it. He leaves the restaurant. He gets about a mile and a half away. He gets shotgunned and he gets killed. In fact, I read about that a couple of days ago. [59:22] I know it’s bullshit. They said he was leaving the restaurant. It was Marabelli’s. It was Marabelli’s Furniture Store. They said he was leaving the furniture store. What they did was they stopped traffic out there. They had people on the one side of the street, the other side of the street, and they followed, they chased him. When he got out of his car and was going to the furniture store, They blasted him with shotguns. They made sure he was killed this time. After that happened, it’s about maybe three or four days after that, I’m up in my office and I get a call. All right, when I come out, I always parked in front of City Hall. That was my parking spot. Mike and CM saved my spot. I parked there, or I parked in the bus stop, or in the mayor’s spot. Those were my spots. They saved it for me. I mean, that was it, for three, four, five years. That’s how it was. I didn’t want to wait in line in the parking lot. So my car is parked right in front of the parking lot. And as I go to get in my car, just fast, fast, so walking, because he was at 134 right down the street from my office and he parks like everybody else in the parking lot so he can wait 20 minutes to get his car. [1:00:40] And, and, and Bob, Bob, and, you know, and when I meet up with him, I’m both standing and we’re both standing right there in front of the, in front of the, uh, the parking lot. And he was a big guy. He weighed probably about 280, 290, maybe more. You know, mushy, mushy type, not in good shape at all. In fact, he walked with a gimp or whatever. And he says, you better be careful, he says. Jimmy Couture is furious. He heard what you’ve been saying about me. [1:01:17] You’ve been saying about me. and something’s liable to happen. And I went reserved. I grabbed him, and I threw him up on the wall, and I says, you motherfuckers. I said, my friends are killing your friends. [1:01:34] I said, my friends, because he represented a number of these groups, but I’m with the most powerful group of all. And when I say I’m with him, I’m with him day and night, not like him just as their lawyer. Most of them hated him, too, because most of them knew what he was doing. Yeah most of these and most of these guys hated him and i said you know but i and and i just like you’re kissing his pants and i don’t know if he crapped in his pants too and uh you know because i just turned around i left that same night jimmy katura winds up getting six in the back of the head maybe three miles from where that took place yeah he was uh some kind of trouble been going on for a while. He was a guy who was like in that cop shop racket, and he had been killing some people involved with that. He was kind of like out away from the main crew closer to downtown, is my understanding. Like, you were in who were you in? Who was I talking about? Jimmy Couture? Jimmy Couture, yeah. He was no, Jimmy Couture was Jimmy Couture, in fact, all these killers, we’ll try and stay with this a little bit first. Jimmy Couture was a boss and he had probably about maybe a dozen, maybe more in his crew and, He didn’t get the message, I’m sure. [1:03:01] Eddie Jensen firmly believes, obviously, because it’s the same day and same night when I tell him that my friends are killing your friends. [1:03:14] He’s telling everybody that I had him kill, I’m sure. Yeah, yeah. Because it was about another few days after that when I’m out in Evanston going to a courthouse. And there you had to park down the street because there was no parking lot. Here I hear Eddie, you know, stay. I’m going to say Bob, Bob. And when he gets up, he says, Bob, he says, when I told you, I think you misunderstood. When I told you it was Jimmy Cattrone. it was it was jimmy katron was a lawyer that you know worked in out of his office close friend of mine too he was a good friend of mine it was jimmy it was jimmy katron that you know not because he obviously thought he believed so he’s got all these mobsters too bosses and all the rest thinking that i was involved in that when i when i wasn’t uh when i was when i wasn’t actually But it’s so amazing, Gary. And that’s one of a dozen stories of the same sort. I met unbelievable people. I mean, we’re talking about in New Orleans. We’re talking about in Boston. Now, if you were to say, who were you with? Always somebody’s with somebody. Were you with any particular crew or any particular crew. [1:04:41] Buzz, were you totally independent? [1:04:46] Everybody knew me to be with the Elmwood Park crew. And that was Jackie Cerrone before Michael, I mean, before Johnny DeFranco. That was Jackie Cerrone. Okay. That was Giancana. That was Mo Giancana. Mo was moving at the clubhouse all the time. That was the major people. [1:05:13] And where was their clubhouse? What did they call their clubhouse? Was that the Survivors Clubhouse, or what was the name of their operation? Every group had one, sometimes more clubhouses. Right. That was where they would have card games in there. They’d have all kinds of other things going. the place was full of like in Marcos I call it Marcos but it was actually Jackie Sharon’s when I first got involved Jackie Sharon was the boss who became a good friend of mine, Jackie Sharon was the boss and Johnny DeFranco was, right under him and then a number of others as we go down, our group alone we had. [1:06:04] Minimum, I’d say, a thousand or more people in our group alone. And who knows how many others, because we had control of the sheriff’s office, of the police department, of the sheriff, of the attorney general. We had control of all that through the elections. We controlled all that. So you had 1,000 people. You’re talking about all these different people who we would maybe call associates. It would be in and out of our club all the time. Okay. Yeah. We’re talking a number of policemen, a number of policemen, a number of different politicians of all sorts that we had. I knew dozens of people with no-show jobs there. We had control of all the departments, streets and sanitation, of absolutely urbanizing. We controlled all the way up to the Supreme Court. What about the first ward, Pat Marcy, and the first ward now? Was your crew and Jackie Cerrone’s crew, did that fall into the first ward, or were they totally there? How did that relate, the Pat Marcy and the politicians? And I found out all this over a period of time. [1:07:28] Everything had changed right about the time I first got involved with these people. All these people you’ve read about, no one knows they were still alive. I met just about all of them when I got connected over there with the first word. A lot of the, we were talking about the gunmen themselves. All the Jackie not just Jackie but I’m talking about Milwaukee Phil Milwaukee Phil and all the rest of them they were over there at Councilors Row all the time because when they were to meet Pat Marcy, what they had there in the first war and, It just so happened, when I started in my office, it was with Alan Ackerman, who was at 100 North, where all their offices were upstairs. The first ward office was upstairs. [1:08:22] And below the office, two floors below, I found out on this when I got involved with them, we had an office. looked like it was a vacant office because the windows were all blackened out. That’s where he had all the meetings with people. When Arcado or Yupa, anybody else, any of the other people came in, this is where he met them. When the people from out of town came in, we’re talking about when, what do you think? [1:08:58] But when Alpha, when Fitzgerald, when all these people would come in, this is where they would have their meetings. Or these are the ones who would be out with us on these casino rides. When these people came in, this is where they would do the real talking because we’d go to different restaurants that weren’t bugged. If this office was checked every day, the one that they had down below, and nobody, nobody, their office was, I think it was on the 28th floor, the first ward office. You had the first ward office, and right next to it, you had the insurance office when everybody had to buy their insurance. Obviously at upper rates big office connected to the first ward office when the back there’s a door that goes right into into theirs but the people were told you never get off or you get off you get off at the office floor but then you you walk you you get off it and i’m sorry you get off it at the. [1:10:11] You don’t get off at the first ward office you get off at one of the other offices one of the other offices or the other floors and when you come in there, then you’ll be taken someplace else after that a double shop that’s where they would go and in fact when I had to talk to Petter Cary messages or whatever people like Marco couldn’t talk to Marcy. [1:10:41] Only a few people could. Only people at the very top level could. Marco, he was a major boss. He could not talk to Marco. If he needed, you know, whatever. Marco D’Amico. Marco was, you had, Marco was the one right under Johnny DeFonza. Yeah. Marco’s the one that was in charge. He was the one who was in charge of all the gambling. Not just in Chicago, but around all those areas in Cook County. We had not just Chicago. They were also the ones that were in charge of all the street tax, collecting all the street tax. That’s where the big, big money was also. Everybody paid. What happened was in the 70s, right as I got involved

I am that actor. Content warnings for drug abuse, mental illness and psychological decline, NSFW sex scenes, extensive reference to self-harm and suicide, suicidal ideation, visceral and auditory gore, death and extreme grief, and general horror. If you enjoy HEMOPHOBIA and want an extra episode every month, access to an exclusive Discord server, or even a mini-episode made based off of you / your nightmares, consider supporting the show on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠PATREON⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, with subscriptions ranging from $1 to $15 a month. Linked here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠http://patreon.com/cswhorror⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠. All merch, including T-shirts, OSTs, and the official Camp Havenside novel can be found here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cswhorror.com/category/all-products⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Episode transcripts can be found here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.cswhorror.com/episode-transcripts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ CAST: Stephen Mallory: Giancarlo Herrera Myles Dorrance: Soren Narnia Wylie Cerber, and the Blood: C. S. W. Geoffrey: Mason Amadeus Percy: Dustin Parsons Sullivan: Josiah Knight Marcus: Atticus Jackson Bianca: Kayla Temshiv Amethyst: Brooke Jennett Serah Mallory: Caroline Mincks Thomas Mallory: Jordan Reed Lorelei: Onnika Hanson Ensemble: Marion Toro, Haberlin Roberts, Graham Rowat Additional vocals provided by Onnika Hanson. Additional music provided by Caleb Ritchie. All writing and sound design by C. S. W. Follow the show on Bluesky ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠@cswhorror.bsky.social⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, join ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠the Facebook page,⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ or visit ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.cswhorror.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ for all updates. Part of the Fable & Folly network. Find and support my sponsors here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://fableandfolly.com/partners/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Comedy and Crime on a SundayFirst, a look at the events of the day.Then, The Lucky Strike Program starring Jack Benny, originally broadcast December 28, 1947, 78 years ago, Goodbye 1947 Hello 1948 With Alice Faye.  The cast does "The New Tenant," a New Year's fantasy with Alice Faye substituting for Mary, who is out with a cold.  Jack forgets his wallet and hitch-hikes to the studio.Followed by The Martin and Lewis Show, originally broadcast December 28, 1951, 74 years ago with guest Dale Evans.  Dale and the boys do a ranch sketch entitled “Life With Trigger”. Then, Dragnet starring Jack Webb, originally broadcast December 28, 1952, 73 years ago, the Big Mask Part 1.  A robber wearing a black mask has hit a string of supermarkets. After going shopping for groceries, he locks the market employees in the freezer!Followed by Suspense, originally broadcast December 28, 1958, 67 years ago, The 32nd of December starring Mr and Mrs Frank Lovejoy.  A man buys a watch with many dials, including one that travels through time.Finally, Fibber McGee and Molly, originally broadcast December 28, 1955, 70 years ago, the Bank Robbery.   Fibber and Molly finds themselves in a bank while it's being robbed. Thanks to Debbie B. for supporting our podcast by using the Buy Me a Coffee function at http://classicradio.streamCheck out Professor Bees Digestive Aid at profbees.com and use my promo code WYATT to save 10% when you order! If you like what we do here, visit our friend Jay at http://radio.macinmind.com for great old-time radio shows 24 hours a day

This Week on Toy Power Podcast; we are taking a close look at a few of the New Mondo TMNT Soft Vinyl Figures - namely: Baxter Stockman, Ray Fillet & Mondo Gecko! With close comparisons of how they compare with their Vintage Counterparts & just what makes these figures so unique from anything that has come before! (Plus: a bit of a wish-list too!) Then we take a look at what 2026 has in the space of upcoming Films! Aside from the obvious Sequel Heavy releases, we chat towards what we are most excited for! This is our Final ep of 2025 - see you in the New Year!!Support the show: http://patreon.com/toypowerpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

It's time to bring 2025 to a close with our holiday episode — and what are the holidays without a healthy helping of chaos?Featuring the 6D Glee Club: Gillian Quigley, Shamila Karunakaran and Harley Quinn (Jasmine Garcia)PLUGGABLES: Grady: @snakebitcat on the socials, recommending Mask of the PhantasmGillian: @cutiepuppyfire on the socialsShami: @theonlinemuse on TumblrRiver: @dreamsrebel on BlueSky, @punk_skeleton on Letterboxd, blog.filmlion.online, and host of The Straights Aren't AlrightMUTUAL AID SPOTLIGHT: Warm the Children (https://warmthechildren.org/), dedicated to making sure children in need get the winter clothes they need.Support the showSam: @DemiSemme on YouTube, Tumblr, BlueSky, and most other social media platforms (NOT eX-Twitter). Visit our Tumblrs at sixdegreesofstarwars.tumblr.com and ier-6d.tumblr.comTheme Music provided by Refractory Period: @RefractoryPeriodTheBand on Instagram, linktr.ee/RefractoryPeriodForever Mutual Aid LinksE-Sims for Gaza: https://gazaesims.com/Click to Help: https://arab.org/click-to-help/Anti-Imperialism support for people across the world, organized by Kandakat_alhaqq: https://linktr.ee/kandakat_alhaqqCampus Bail Funds: https://campusbailfunds.com/6DOSW is a Pro-Union podcast. Please support artists by contributing to the Entertainment Community Fund if you can: https://entertainmentcommunity.org/how-get-help-and-give-help-during-work-stoppageThe views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.

As the year comes to a close, many CRNAs find themselves focused on family, travel, and well-deserved rest. But year-end is also one of the most important times to pause and take stock of your financial picture. Small, intentional decisions made before December 31 can have an outsized impact on your long-term success. In a special holiday episode of Beyond the Mask, Jeremy and Sharon walk through a ‘CRNA Christmas list' with 12 financial moves designed to help you finish the year strong and start the next one with confidence. Here's some of what you'll hear in this episode:

Ep 351 – SuperBrawl IX “He Who Wins the Belt Has the Power”/”World Heavyweight Title!” 0:29 - Welcome 18:04 - SuperBrawl Opening 21:10 - Disco Inferno vs Booker T 24:18 - Chris Jericho (w/ Ralphus and Scott Dickinson) vs Perry Saturn 30:22 - Chavo Guerrero Jr vs Billy Kidman for the WCW World Cruiserweight Championship 35:04 - Curt Hennig and Barry Windham vs the Horsemen (Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko) in the WCW World Tag Team Tournament Final for the WCW World Tag Team Championships 39:51 - Curt Hennig and Barry Windham vs the Horsemen (Chris Benoit/Dean Malenko) in the WCW World Tag Team Tournament Final for the WCW World Tag Team Championships 45:43 - The Outsiders (Kevin Nash/Scott Hall) (w/ Lex Luger and Miss Elizabeth) vs Rey Mysterio Jr and Konnan in a Hair vs Mask match 52:06 - Scott Steiner vs Diamond Dallas Page for the WCW World Television Championship 59:01 - Scott Hall (w/ Disco Inferno) vs Rowdy Roddy Piper for the WCW United States Championship 1:02:47 - Bam Bam Bigelow vs Goldberg 1:05:10 - Hollywood Hulk Hogan vs “The Nature Boy “ Ric Flair for the WCW World Heavyweight Championship 1:09:31 - Overall Thoughts 1:14:23 - Smarking It Up 1:27:50 - Ready to Rumble 1:35:53 - Goodbyes Music from this week's show is the theme from SuperBrawl and “Wolfpac” by Jimmy Hart/Howard Helm Rate and review us on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you find your podcasts Email – WrestlingHistoryX@gmail.com X – WrestlingHistoX

Many desire growth, expansion, and opportunity—but few prepare for what they're praying for.In this episode of Mask/Off – A Charitea Movement Podcast, host Keiara Gladney explores why intentional preparation is essential before stepping into your next season. This conversation centers on strategy, faith, discipline, and clarity—because the “more” you're asking for requires capacity, stewardship, and alignment.This episode is a foundational conversation leading into our Vision Casting & Vision Board Experience on December 29th via Facebook Live, designed to help you move from dreaming to intentional planning.

► Shop for ACSOM Merch: https://www.acsom.net/shop ► Register with The ACSOM Blog here: https://www.acsom.net/blog ► Visit Barras Art and Design (BAaD) here: https://www.baadglasgow.com/ #ChampionsLeague #ReoHatate #DaizenMaeda #CelticFC #CelticFootballClub #TheAcsomBulletin #ACSOM #ACelticStateOfMind #AwardWinningPodcast #Charity #scottishfootball

On the 154th episode of What Is a Good Life?, I'm joined by Katie Elliott. Katie is a facilitator, writer, and programme designer working across community and organisational settings. With a background in jazz and a long-standing fascination with human change and habits, she creates tools, conversations, and projects that explore how people make sense of themselves and one another. Her work includes Amiko® Cards, the Adventures in Behaviour Change podcast, a series of children's books, and an album of original piano music.In this conversation, we explore curiosity, bewilderment, and the value of staying with experience rather than rushing to explain or resolve it. We talk about patterns, presence, and how meaning slowly reveals itself in relationships and in life — showing how deeper listening and meaningful conversation can genuinely shift how you see yourself and others.For more of Katie's work:Website: https://www.littlechallenges.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/katieelliott/For more of my work:Contact me at mark@whatisagood.life if you'd like to explore your own good life through:- 1-on-1 coaching and online group courses: https://www.whatisagood.life/p/individual-coaching- The podcast's YouTube page: https://www.youtube.com/@whatisagoodlife/videos- My newsletter: https://www.whatisagood.life/p/individual-coaching00:00 — Patterns and Play 04:31 — Bewildered by Humans 07:48 — Not Being Believed 10:21 — Staying Open 13:01 — Kindness Inside 17:17 — Being Human Together 20:56 — Dropping the Mask 23:31 — Jazz and Freedom31:26 — Creating Human Spaces 40:44 — Making Meaning Together 52:31 — What is a Good Life for Katie?

Batman roasting on an open fire; Knightcast nipping at your ears... The dynamic hosting duo of Chris Franklin and Ryan Daly have brought special guest Captain Entropy to help them cover a classic* Christmas comic. Join the Trinamic Trio as they discuss Legends of the Dark Knight #79 written by Mark Millar and illustrated by Steve Yeowell and Dick Giordano. After that, Chris and Ryan respond to listener feedback from the last four episodes. * The mid-90s counts as classic. It was 30 years ago. Have a question or comment? Looking for more great content? Leave comments on our website: https://fireandwaterpodcast.com/show/batman-knightcast-2/ Images from this episode: https://fireandwaterpodcast.com/podcast/batman-knightcast-46-image-gallery/ Subscribe to BATMAN KNIGHTCAST: Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/batman-knightcast/id1788229385 Don't use Apple Podcasts? Use this link for your podcast catcher: https://feeds.feedburner.com/knightcast Follow BATMAN KNIGHTCAST on social media: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BatmanKnightcast Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/batmanknightcast.bsky.social This podcast is a proud member of the FIRE AND WATER PODCAST NETWORK: Visit the Fire & Water WEBSITE: http://fireandwaterpodcast.com Like our Fire & Water Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/FWPodcastNetwork Follow Fire & Water on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/fwpodcasts.bsky.social Support The Fire & Water Podcast Network on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fwpodcasts Music: “The Batman Theme: Epic Version (feat. Mask of the Phantasm + Imperial March” arranged by Samuel Kim. Check it out on Youtube right here: https://youtu.be/m-AnLl9Vyb8?si=H5SsJPY_L8FMdtG5 Additional music: “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" by Scott Weiland Thanks for listening!

Director Ritesh Gupta (The Red Mask) joins us for a deep dive into his bold new horror film which premiered at FrightFest 2025. The Red Mask stars Helena Howard, Inanna Sarkis, Jake Abel, and Kelli Garner — and it's not your typical slasher.Ritesh reveals how this meta-thriller flips the remake trope, explores the war between creators and fans, and uses horror as a lens for cultural identity and internet obsession.Whether you're a filmmaker, screenwriter, or horror fan — this episode peels back the mask on what it takes to make a fresh classic in a world obsessed with remakes.

Kyle's back to celebrate 300 episodes of the HGO Podcast! What N64 Game has the best cover art? Join us as we dive head first into the Nintendo 64s vast catalogue to find the best, worst and weirdest N64 Box Art! Timestamps:00:00:00 - Intro00:07:30 - Mario 64, Mario Kart 64, GoldenEye 007 , Ocarina Of Time, Smash 6400:23:00 -Pokemon Stadium, DK64, Diddy Kong Racing ,Star Fox 64 , Banjo Kazooie,00:34:00 - Pokemon Snap, Majora's Mask, Star Wars Episode 1 Racer, Wave Race 64, Yoshi's Story00:46:00 - Mario Party, Star Wars: Shadows of The Empire, Pokemon Stadium 2, Perfect Dark00:56:00 -Mario Party 2, Mario Tennis, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, 1080 Snowboarding, Excitebike 6401:06:30 - Mario Party 3, Hey You Pikachu, Kirby 64, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Turok01:16:00 - Banjo Tooie, Mario Golf, Paper Mario, Jet Force Gemini, Pilot Wings 6401:24:00 - F-Zero-X , 007 The World Is Not Enough, Bomber Man 64, Castlevania 64, Castlevania: Legacy Of D01:34:00 -Gauntlet Legends, Mischief Makers, Rocket Robot On Wheels, Mortal Kombat 4, Super Man 6401:40:00 - Daikatana, Quest 64, Buck Bumble, Ogre Battle 64, Snowboard Kids, Space Station Silicon Valley01:50:00 -OutroRemember to follow us on twitter at @hotgamersonly and subscribe to our youtube channel for the video version at youtube.com/hotgamersonly. You can also follow the boys on twitter/bluesky: Ethan @ChaoticAether, Hunter @ReaperHunter23 and Kyle @KDavisSRL.Be sure to also follow us on your favorite podcast service and we greatly appreciate anyone who leaves a review!

Can a psychopath be a good person? And how do we spot dangerous people when they seem so charming? This holiday special brings you an in-depth answer to one of your most-asked questions with highlights from Dr. Kerry's interview with Tara Blair Ball about the Dark Triad Personality.  We explore why dangerous people don't look scary, how we underestimate predatory behavior through "positive projection," and the critical difference between niceness and kindness—especially important to remember during the holiday season. CHAPTERS0:38 Can Psychopaths Live Morally?7:09 Narcissism, Psychopathy & Machiavellianism Explained10:09 Why We're Attracted to Arrogance & Confidence13:04 The Stages of Moral Development17:45 The Mask of Sanity: Nice Doesn't Mean Good22:48 The Light Triad: The Opposite of Dark PersonalitiesPODCAST EXTRA This week, there is no exclusive Podcast Extra interview. Instead, we're offering this special holiday edition to ALL Substack subscribers as our gift to you!  This is the perfect time to join our community. SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT All Substack paid subscribers now receive immediate access to the Toxic-Free Relationship Club, which includes: -Invitation to the monthly Q&A with Dr. Kerry -Quarterly club-wide events featuring narcissistic abuse experts -Weekly newsletter with exclusive insights Find the Substack newsletter and join the community here: https://substack.com/@breakingfreenarcabuse 

VYS0055 | Merry ChristMups! - The Muppet Christmas Carol - Vayse to Face with Phil Ristaino: Saturnalia 2025 - Show Notes God help us, every one! 'Tis the season of good will to all creatures and, even better, that jolly old elf, Phil Ristaino, returns to Vayse after an absence of only 4 episodes for an urgent meeting about the Muppet Christmas Carol, a film which he had never seen before researching for the episode! With Phil's help and encouragement Hine and Buckley joyously delve into a film which has been a Vayse favourite for over 3 decades, discussing the sad and sudden demise of the genius that was Jim Henson, the connections between the muppets and spirituality, why the Muppet Christmas Carol is one of the best Christmas movies, if not one of the best movies ever made, how the spirit of Jim Henson visited his successor to the voice of Kermit... and how the Muppets got the best performance of his career out of Michael Caine (recorded 4 December 2025). Phil Ristaino online The Post Relevant Podcast website (https://www.postrelevant.com/) Phil's website (https://www.thesearedreams.com/) Agents of Venus - Bandcamp (https://agentsofvenus.bandcamp.com/album/boduvt) Phil on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/philristaino/) Jim Henson and the Muppets The Muppets - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppets_(2011_film)) The Muppets Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4YhbpuGdwQ) Man or Muppet - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRTjksM3YAs) The Muppet Christmas Carol - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppet_Christmas_Carol) The Muppet Christmas Carol Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNo-Q0IDJi0) The Muppet Movie - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppet_Movie) The Muppet Movie Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDfXXaqfc2k) Labyrinth - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labyrinth_(1986_film)) Labyrinth Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2yd4em1I6M) The Dark Crystal - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dark_Crystal) The Dark Crystal Trailer - Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaH6cOR8NKc) Jim Henson - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Henson) The Muppet Christmas Carol: A festive classic's dark backdrop - BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/culture/article/20221209-the-muppet-christmas-carol-festive-classics-dark-backdrop) Michael Caine - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Caine) Gonzo The Great - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzo_(Muppet)) Rizzo the Rat - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizzo_the_Rat) The Muppets - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppets) Christian Science - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Science) The Muppets and Drug Use - Muppet Wiki (https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Drug_use) Jane Henson - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Henson) Sam and Friends - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_and_Friends) Sam and Friends - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Sa1WTfD6s4&t=194s) Kermit The Frog - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_the_Frog) Jim Henson and The Muppets Visit The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson - 03/18/1975 - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9MiNN3VeVyg) Sesame Street - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sesame_Street) The Land of Gorch - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Land_of_Gorch) The Land of Gorch - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0oc7YLI-hfE) The Muppet Show - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppet_Show) The Muppet Show Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3MsLOi7PXA) The Muppets Valentine Show - First Muppet Show Pilot - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sglin_5oClM) The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence (Opening Scene) - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycdhrEQohC4) Brass Eye - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brass_Eye) Brass Eye - Complete Series (All 7 Episodes) - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQCrcAFuI-E) Prince on The Muppets Tonight - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cARhhf-ATT8) 10 Behind the Scenes Facts about The Muppet Christmas Carol - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CRuX8uVsEwo) Star Wars - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Wars_(film)) Star Wars Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHk5kCIiGoM) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teenage_Mutant_Ninja_Turtles_(1990_film)) Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMJPwRWaZBI) VYS0054 | You Can't Make An Omelette Without Breaking A Few Egregores - Vayse to Face with Joshua Cutchin (https://www.vayse.co.uk/vys0054) The Great Muppet Caper - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Muppet_Caper) The Great Muppet Caper Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Niz03jeeqoQ) The Muppets Take Manhattan - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Muppets_Take_Manhattan) The Muppets Take Manhattan Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfyi7NDuUHU) Ghostbusters - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghostbusters) Ghostbusters Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hDkhw5Wkas) Fraggle Rock - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fraggle_Rock) Fraggle Rock Opening Theme - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KLQS6xo40kI) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial) E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSx8Jobx-Gs) Streptococcal Pharyngitis - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streptococcal_pharyngitis) Mastoiditis - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastoiditis) Scarlet Fever - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_fever) Meningitis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meningitis) Toxic shock syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxic_shock_syndrome) Frank Oz - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Oz) The Muppet Christmas Carol Charles Dickens - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens) A Christmas Carol - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Christmas_Carol) A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens - Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/files/46/46-h/46-h.htm) Brian Henson - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Henson) Christian Science Website (https://www.christianscience.com/) Mary Baker Eddy - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Baker_Eddy) Mitch Horowitz (https://www.mitchhorowitz.com/) Seth Material - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Material) Jane Roberts - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jane_Roberts) Big Henson Energy: The Ridiculous Optimism of The Muppets by Aimee Knight - Kill Your Darlings (https://www.killyourdarlings.com.au/article/big-henson-energy-the-ridiculous-optimism-of-the-muppets/) Steven Mackintosh - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Mackintosh) Robin Weaver - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Weaver) ‘God bless us, every one!' The five best film versions of Dickens' A Christmas Carol by Kevin E G Perry - The Independent (https://apple.news/AnCVOMNzmSmST2ho9PmLepw) Dr. Bunsen Honeydew - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Bunsen_Honeydew) Puppetry for the Modern Shaman by James Godwin - Howlround Theatre Commons (https://howlround.com/puppetry-modern-shaman) Masks in Magic by Gordon "the Toad" MacLellan - Whitedragon.org (https://www.whitedragon.org.uk/articles/masks.htm) The Mask - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mask_(1994_film)) The Mask Trailer - Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZl69yk5lEY) Dave Goelz -Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Goelz) How we made: The Muppet Christmas Carol - Guardian (https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/dec/21/how-we-made-the-muppet-christmas-carol) Muppets From Space - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muppets_from_Space) Muppets From Space Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ze_tsDEuYEg) Gonzo's attraction to chickens - Muppets Wiki (https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/Gonzo%27s_attraction_to_chickens) Sesame Street Theme - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfQSp92L88I) X-Men - Fandom.com (https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/X-Men_(Earth-616)) How Were the Ghosts in The Muppet Christmas Carol Created? by Via Laurene - Comic Book Resources (https://www.cbr.com/muppet-christmas-carol-ghost-creation/) Bob Marley - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Marley) Miss Piggy - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miss_Piggy) Dionysus - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysus) Banshee - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banshee) The Roman god Bacchus as a Christian icon by Riley Winters - Ancient Origins (https://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-religions/roman-god-bacchus-christian-icon-002237) The Immortality Key: Uncovering the Secret History of the Religion with No Name by Brian C. Muraresku - GoodReads (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/51174256-the-immortality-key) Ergot - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergot) Kykeon - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kykeon) Eleusinian Mysteries - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries) Triple Deity - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_deity) Paul Williams - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Williams_(songwriter)) The Carpenters - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Carpenters) Rainy Days and Mondays by the Carpenters- Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainy_Days_and_Mondays) Rainy Days and Mondays by the Carpenters - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjFoQxjgbrs) When Love is Gone by Paul Williams - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RbawsayImds) When Love is Gone - Muppet Wiki (https://muppet.fandom.com/wiki/When_Love_Is_Gone) When Love is Found by Paul Williams - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIaJcjJReCU) Why It Matters That “When Love Is Gone” Is Found by Joe Hennes - ToughPigs (https://www.toughpigs.com/when-love-is-gone-faq/) Why ‘Love Is Gone' Is Vital To The Muppets Christmas Carol by Julia H Dixon - Writer in a Hat (https://writerinahat.com/2020/12/13/why-love-is-gone-is-vital-to-the-muppets-christmas-carol/) Steve Whitmire - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Whitmire) Muppet Religion by Jodi Eichler-Levine - The Revealer (https://therevealer.org/muppet-religion/) The Simpsons - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Simpsons) Read the apology letter Barbara Bush once wrote to Marge Simpson by Dan Snierson - Entertainment Weekly (https://ew.com/tv/2018/04/18/the-simpsons-barbara-bush-apology-letter-to-marge/) The Beatles - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beatles) Bob Ross - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Ross) Carl Sagan - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan) Five fun facts about The Muppet Christmas Carol as it turns 25 - BBC (https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1Bt1WZgDXcbv5Fnr8XTz7Yl/five-fun-facts-about-the-muppet-christmas-carol-as-it-turns-25) Michael Caine Loves The Muppet Christmas Carol as Much as You Do by Lauren Larson - GQ (https://www.gq.com/story/michael-caine-muppet-christmas-carol-interview) Sam the Eagle - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Eagle) Sesame Street - Monsterpiece Theater "Twin Beaks" - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vftf8TTve4s) Muppet Songs: Muppet Christmas Carol - Scrooge - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ULaNvmjZWxg) Muppet Christmas Carol - Spider Joe - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlK9LSDwVng) Lullaby by The Cure - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijxk-fgcg7c) Spirited Away - Boiler Room - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/shorts/RT7fi_Hf42s) Scrooged - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrooged) Scrooged Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OLRQfMOXOw) Mickey's Christmas Carol - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey%27s_Christmas_Carol) Mickey's Christmas Carol Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEy6MbkMxR0) Scrooge - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrooge_(1970_film)) Scrooge Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDWxqmEBG_s) Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mister_Magoo%27s_Christmas_Carol) Mister Magoo's Christmas Carol - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVBOJU-ToGA) Muppet Christmas Carol, Heatwave (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IwahCM3mC9A) Muppet Christmas Carol - 'Tis the Season - Youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_OPIxB_CE4) Anunnaki - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anunnaki) Sasquatch - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bigfoot) The Fae - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairy) Christmas Recommendations Groundhog Day - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Groundhog_Day_(film)) Groundhog Day Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GncQtURdcE4) Eyes Wide Shut - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eyes_Wide_Shut) Eyes Wide Shut Trailer - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgVo96JaqeM) The 33 Degrees of Eyes Wide Shut (https://33degreesofeyeswideshut.wordpress.com/) Making of The Beatles - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/@MakingoftheBeatles) Wonderful Christmastime by Paul McCartney - YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94Ye-3C1FC8) Part 8 (Twin Peaks) - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Part_8_(Twin_Peaks)) Cheech & Chong - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheech_%26_Chong) VYS0052 | Goddamn Shit-sucking Vampires - Halloween 2025: The Lost Boys - Vayse to Face with Sorcha Ní Fhlainn (https://www.vayse.co.uk/vys0052) PRP3: Twin Peaks: the Return: the DECODE episode 5 (https://www.postrelevant.com/home/episode/367aca19/31-prp3-twin-peaks-the-return-the-decode-episode-5) Buckley's Final Question ChatGPT (https://chatgpt.com/) Yoda - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoda) Salacious B. Crumb - Wookiepedia (https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Salacious_B._Crumb) Cookie Monster - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cookie_Monster) Animal - Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_(Muppet)) Vayse online Website (https://www.vayse.co.uk/) Twitter (https://twitter.com/vayseesyav) Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/vayseesyav.bsky.social) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/vayseesyav/) Bandcamp (Music From Vayse) (https://vayse.bandcamp.com/) Ko-Fi (https://ko-fi.com/vayse) Email: vayseinfo@gmail.com Special Guest: Phil Ristaino.

It's the last news show of 2025 and boy there is lots to get through! Ghostbusters, TMNT, DC, Marvel, Spawn, Back to the Future, Blokees, Flintstones and even - (drum roll please) Samurai Pizza Cats! There's some silhouette guessing, flocking expensive kitties, a four pack that has Frank in trouble and a figure literally decades in the making. Then, Tis the season of giving as Tealo surprises us with gift box of goodies! And finally, we do the Secret Santa thing to prove that you CAN buy things for the collector with everything! Support the show: http://patreon.com/toypowerpodcastSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kelly was in tears over a Gucci gift—a $2000+ collection of The Alchemist's Garden fragrances. And Leigh's introducing her new baby, a hair mask from her brand, Brillo Beauty, that took two years to make and is already outselling the brand’s cult body butter! In this final, Spendy Savey of the year, Leigh and Kelly cover the biggest finds across all price points. Leigh reveals a once-secret, highly-clinical skincare brand that’s about to go mainstream (and why it’s worth the splurge). Meanwhile, Kelly drops a bombshell with a Nivea serum (a $42 drugstore product), that has the feel and results of an expensive competitor, making it a dream for summer skin. Plus, a brilliant sub-$20 SOS mist and the two pricey serums they are finally scraping out! EVERYTHING MENTIONED: SPENDY: Kelly: NIVEA Cellular Filler Expert Replumping Hyaluronic Serum, $45. Leigh: SkinBetter Science Alto Advanced Defense and Repair Serum, $270. SkinBetter Science Even Tone Intensive Correcting Serum, $300. SkinBetter ScienceSkinBetter Science Interfuse Treatment Cream Eye, $180. SAVEY: Kelly: BIODERMA Sensibio AR+ SOS Spray Soothing Anti-redness Mist, $29.99. Leigh: Mega Moisture Lipstick - Velvet Matte, $26.95. NEWBIES: Kelly: Gucci Alchemist’s Garden Collection Eau de Parfum, $410 - $578 x 4. Leigh: Brillo beauty, The Hair Mask, $49. SHOP MY STASH/EMPTY: Kelly: Skin Ceuticals, P-TIOX Peptide Serum, $216. Leigh: Kate Somerville ExfoliKate Glow Moisturizer, $85. DON'T FORGET: Watch & Subscribe on YouTube, this episode drops tonight at 7pm! Catch it here. Follow us on Instagram: @youbeautypodcast Follow us on TikTok: @youbeautypod Join our You Beauty Facebook Group here GET IN TOUCH: Got a beauty question you want answered? Email us at youbeauty@mamamia.com.au or send us a voice note on Instagram! You Beauty is a podcast by Mamamia. Listen to more Mamamia podcasts here. For our product recommendations, exclusive beauty news, reviews, articles, deals and much more - sign up for our free You Beauty weekly newsletter here Subscribe to Mamamia here CREDITS: Hosts: Kelly McCarren & Leigh Campbell Producer: Sophie Campbell Audio Producer: Tegan Sadler Video Producer: Artemi Kokkaris Just so you know — some of the links in these notes are affiliate links, which means we might earn a small commission if you buy through them. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, and it helps support the show. Happy shopping! Mamamia acknowledges the Traditional Owners of the Land we have recorded this podcast on, the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. We pay our respects to their Elders past and present, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.Become a Mamamia subscriber: https://www.mamamia.com.au/subscribeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Get the print version of the novel: https://weirddarkness.com/AdventOfEvil#WeirdDarkness #ChristmasHorror #HolidayHorror #SupernaturalThriller #HauntedCalendar #DarkChristmas #HorrorStory #DemonicEvil #CreepyTales #YuletideTerror

In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, pychotherapist, university lecturer and author Josie McSkimming, chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Gutsy Girls: Love, Poetry and Sisterhood. Here's what you'll discover in this episode: Why Gutsy Girls began as a 180,000-word biography of the poet Dorothy Porter, though later transformed into a hybrid of memoir, biography and family history. Why Gutsy Girls is a pioneering work placing sibling relationships at the centre of the narrative. Why Josie waited until both her parents had died before publishing.  Why Josie shaped the 19 chapters of Gutsy Girls to mirror Dorothy Porter's published and unpublished works chronologically, from her childhood creation ‘My Pocket Book of Prayer' (spelled P-O-K-E-T), through to her acclaimed verse novels, including The Monkey's Mask. Why Josie chose the title Gutsy Girls. How Josie found her own authentic voice beyond religious constraints, while honouring the strength of all three sisters who had to forge paths beyond childhood trauma and family expectations.

Livestream with Yuri Rashkin----------Silicon Curtain is a part of the Christmas Tree Trucks 2025 campaign - an ambitious fundraiser led by a group of our wonderful team of information warriors raising 110,000 EUR for the Ukrainian army. https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/christmas-tree-trucks-2025-silicon-curtainThe Goal of the Campaign for the Silicon Curtain community:- 1 armoured battle-ready pickupWe are sourcing all vehicles around 2010-2017 or newer, mainly Toyota Hilux or Mitsubishi L200, with low mileage and fully serviced. These are some of the greatest and the most reliable pickups possible to be on the frontline in Ukraine. Who will receive the vehicles?https://car4ukraine.com/campaigns/christmas-tree-trucks-2025-silicon-curtain- The 38th Marine Brigade, who alone held Krynki for 124 days, receiving the Military Cross of Honour.- The 1027th Anti-aircraft and artillery regiment. Honoured by NATO as Defender of the Year 2024 and recipient of the Military Cross of Honour.- 104th Separate Brigade, Infantry, who alone held Kherson for 100 days, establishing conditions for the liberation of the city.- 93rd Brigade "Kholodnyi Yar", Black Raven Unmanned Systems Battalion ----------SILICON CURTAIN FILM FUNDRAISERA project to make a documentary film in Ukraine, to raise awareness of Ukraine's struggle and in supporting a team running aid convoys to Ukraine's front-line towns.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SILICON CURTAIN LIVE EVENTS - FUNDRAISER CAMPAIGN Events in 2025 - Advocacy for a Ukrainian victory with Silicon Curtainhttps://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasOur events of the first half of the year in Lviv, Kyiv and Odesa were a huge success. Now we need to maintain this momentum, and change the tide towards a Ukrainian victory. The Silicon Curtain Roadshow is an ambitious campaign to run a minimum of 12 events in 2025, and potentially many more. Any support you can provide for the fundraising campaign would be gratefully appreciated. https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extrasWe need to scale up our support for Ukraine, and these events are designed to have a major impact. Your support in making it happen is greatly appreciated. All events will be recorded professionally and published for free on the Silicon Curtain channel. Where possible, we will also live-stream events.https://buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtain/extras----------SUPPORT THE CHANNEL:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/siliconcurtainhttps://www.patreon.com/siliconcurtain----------TRUSTED CHARITIES ON THE GROUND:Save Ukrainehttps://www.saveukraineua.org/Superhumans - Hospital for war traumashttps://superhumans.com/en/UNBROKEN - Treatment. Prosthesis. Rehabilitation for Ukrainians in Ukrainehttps://unbroken.org.ua/Come Back Alivehttps://savelife.in.ua/en/Chefs For Ukraine - World Central Kitchenhttps://wck.org/relief/activation-chefs-for-ukraineUNITED24 - An initiative of President Zelenskyyhttps://u24.gov.ua/Serhiy Prytula Charity Foundationhttps://prytulafoundation.orgNGO “Herojam Slava”https://heroiamslava.org/kharpp - Reconstruction project supporting communities in Kharkiv and Przemyslhttps://kharpp.com/NOR DOG Animal Rescuehttps://www.nor-dog.org/home/-----------

Dream on America, gun nuts, Stanford is an incubator of idiots, some thoughts on Peter Greene, time to get ready for the prom, some fucked up Stephen King movie, hang up on Black Phone 2, and some dime store philosophy. Stuff mentioned: Pulp Fiction (1994), Mask (1994), The Blob (1988), The Rich Man's Wife (1996), Clean, Shaven (1993), Riding the Bullet (2004), Black Phone 2 (2025), and A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984).

A late shift, a walk to the barn, and a long line of potential victims.  Contributing writing & research: The Queen of all things, Haley Gray.  For information pertaining to this case, check out the highlight at the top of my profile at Instagram.com/TheHeatherAshley.  Sponsors: Go to my http://skylight.com/BIGMAD for $20 off your 10 inch frame Text BIG to 64000 to get twenty percent off all IQBAR products, plus FREE shipping. Message and data rates may apply. Take your food to the next level with Graza Olive Oil. Visit https://graza.co/BIGMAD and use promo code BIGMAD today for 10% off your first order! Get 30% off during Blueland's holiday sale by going to http://blueland.com/BIGMAD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This week you can draw your moon to us as we discover Foxing's fourth, pentultimate and most Majora's Mask-coded album: Draw Down the Moon. I'm thinking bout drawing down a cool glass of water and boiling up a kettle corn --my impersonation of a prospector. Also up for discussion: We become a Car Talk podcast, downtown Seattle is back in business thanks to Borders, and the phrase "festival rock" is abused from all angles. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's the usual brawl at the bar with the three barflies of the Three Whisky Happy Hour, where we take note of Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson sayiing the quiet (progressive) part out loud, likely flattered by the New York Review of Books recently saying of her: “Ketanji Brown Jackson is proving to be the sharpest justice […]

It's the usual brawl at the bar with the three barflies of the Three Whisky Happy Hour, where we take note of Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson sayiing the quiet (progressive) part out loud, likely flattered by the New York Review of Books recently saying of her: "Ketanji Brown Jackson is proving to be the sharpest justice on the Supreme Court." (No, seriously—they really printed that sentence.) But did she really just give away the whole anti-democratic impulse of progressives? It looks like she did.We actually agree that Humphrey's Executor is going to get executed because Slaughter (the party to the case against Trump) ha set it up for the slaughter.Speaking of slaughtering, we get around to celebrating the seasonal apperance of the McRib, but not before reviewing how his bears on John Yoo's favorite constitutional doctrine, the 'unitary executive,' and we take a brief tour to argue over some of the fine points of the Dred Scott case. Because whisky will do that to you.

MUSICRoger Daltrey of The Who is now SIR Roger Daltrey. He was knighted by Prince William at Windsor Castle on Wednesday. It's in recognition of not only his musical achievements, but also his charity work. Here he is on the award, and what his younger self and band would've thought back in the day. https://consequence.net/2025/12/sir-roger-daltrey-knighted/ Sharon Osbourne has given her first interview since the death of her husband Ozzy this past July.Appearing Wednesday on the British TV show Piers Morgan Uncensored, hosted by her longtime friend, she opened up about his health struggles, doing his final show this past July 5th in Birmingham, England, their last conversations and much more. You can watch the show on YouTube, and here are a few excerpts:Sharon Osbourne on the last two weeks of Ozzy's life. OC:...in seven years. :27 [Courtesy of Piers Morgan Uncensored]"He was so happy Piers afterwards. And he kept looking at the papers and he goes to me, 'I never knew so many people like me.' But that was the way he was. I mean, he knew he was famous, but not to the amount that people loved him. It's a whole different thing. And he was just so happy. Happier than we'd seen him in seven years."Sharon Osbourne on dreams Ozzy was having the last week of his life. OC:...he was ready. :26 [Courtesy of Piers Morgan Uncensored]"He was having dreams the last week of his life. He was seeing people that he never knew. I said, 'Well, what kind of people?' He goes, 'All different people. And I just keep walking and walking and I'm seeing all these different people every night. And I go back there and I'm looking at these people and they're looking at me and nobody's talking.' And he he knew. He was ready." Sharon also talked about the first time she and Ozzy met, when they fell in love, how she will never want to get married again, how if she didn't have kids she would have killed herself when he died, and the thing she misses most is holding his hand.On a lighter note, she also talked about how she wanted to get back at Roger Waters for the negative things he said about Ozzy after he died. And that was by sending him a Tiffany box filled with feces, which she used to do to critics who wrote negative reviews about Ozzy's shows without being there. When she did, it was her infant son Jack's poop that would be used.She ultimately decided against it, saying, “Even that is a waste, to send [crap] to him. It's a waste because he's really insignificant. But I just thought, anybody that passes has a family… you don't do that.” (Sharon's not the first musician's wife to do that. Paul and Linda McCartney sent some of their daughter Stella's poop to a journalist who earned their trust, then betrayed them.)Going forward, Sharon says she's continuing to work on an Ozzy bio-pic and that she knows who she wants to play him. When asked if it was Yunglbud she didn't confirm nor deny.https://youtu.be/aaLMsEJKZEQ Kurt Cobain's MTV Unplugged Martin D-18E has been donated to the Royal College of Music London by Peter Freedman, who paid $6,010,000 for it at an auction in 2020. Megadeth have released a trailer for Behind the Mask, the documentary and listening event for their self-titled album that will be in theaters on January 22nd. Watch it on YouTube.Blumhouse Games has released a mini-documentary about Robin Finck of Nine Inch Nails scoring the new horror video game Sleep Awake. Watch it on YouTube.Trailer for new U.K. documentary on David Bowie's final years titled "David Bowie - The Final Act" has been released https://ruralradio.com/rrn/abc_news/trailer-for-new-uk-david-bowie-documentary-released-abcid0409636a/ Guns N' Roses have announced the openers for their summer tour -- rappers Public Enemy will open for them when they are here at Busch Stadium in August. The Eagles, Stevie Nicks, Kings of Leon, Lorde and The Black Keys are among the headliners at the 2026 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, commonly known as Jazzfest.The first weekend, April 23rd to the 26th, will feature Stevie Nicks, Rod Stewart, Kings of Leon, Lorde, Jon Batiste, Tyler Childers, David Byrne, Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, St. Vincent, Irma Thomas, The Isley Brothers and The Revivalists.The second weekend, April 30th through May 3rd, features will feature the Eagles, Teddy Swims, The Black Keys, Widespread Panic, Earth, Wind & Fire, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Alabama Shakes, Ziggy Marley, Lake Street Dive, Mavis Staples, Little Feat and Rickie Lee Jones.Passes go on sale tomorrow (Friday) at nojazzfest.com. TVJohn Stamos is joining the next season of Netflix's "Hunting Wives" show. https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/john-stamos-cast-hunting-wives-drama-wife-questions-potential-nude-scenes Sigourney Weaver will appear in Amazon Prime's live-action series of Tomb Raider https://www.the-independent.com/tv/culture/sigourney-weaver-tomb-raider-phoebe-waller-bridge-b2883033.html MOVING ON INTO MOVIE NEWS:"Ella McCay" (PG-13) Trailer - A comedy starring (British actress) Emma Mackey as an idealistic young woman trying to juggle family problems while taking over her mentor's job as governor once he accepts a cabinet position in Washington. Woody Harrelson is her sexually irresponsible father, Jamie Lee Curtis is her supportive aunt, and Albert Brooks plays her political mentor. (20%)"Silent Night, Deadly Night" (R) Trailer This is the second remake of a 1984 slasher about a kid who witnesses his parents being murdered by a guy in a Santa suit . . . then grows up, puts on a Santa suit himself, and goes on his own killing spree. It stars Rohan Campbell from "The Monkey" as your killer Santa, and Ruby Modine from "Happy Death Day" as a true crime junkie (slash) his love interest. (84%)"How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (PG) Trailer The 25th anniversary re-release of the live action movie starring Jim Carrey as the Grinch, Taylor Momsen (from The Pretty Reckless) as Cindy Lou Who, and Christine Baranski as the woman who secretly has feelings for the Grinch. (50%)Will Smith hit with another major scandal—longtime friend turns on him in $3 million lawsuit Everybody's getting into the year-end roundup business. Even the deliciously gay hookup app Grindr!!! Here's a sample of their 2025 wrap-up:Mother of the Year: Lady GagaDaddy of the Year: Pedro PascalMother-In-Training: Sabrina CarpenterShow of the Year: "Overcompensating", Prime VideoAlbum of the Year: "Mayhem", Lady GagaSong of the Year: "Abracadabra", Lady GagaGay Dictionary . . . The Phrase on Everyone's Lips: Delulu. (Short for "delusional".)Hottest Man of the Year: Jonathan Bailey (Fiyero in the "Wicked" movies)Movie of the Year: "Kpop Demon Hunters"Bulge of the Year (!!!): Bad BunnyGayest Fashion Trend: Slutty little glassesBest Beef: Cardi B vs. Nicki MinajMost Bears: IrelandHighest Percentage of Twinks: Switzerland AND FINALLYWe all know the debate about "Die Hard". But there are plenty of other films that spark the same argument, "Is this actually a Christmas movie?" Here are 13 more:1. Every "Harry Potter" movie (2001 - 2011). All the "Potter" flicks . . . with the possible exception of the last one . . . have some kind of yuletide vibe . . . or at least a wintry one.2. "Batman Returns" (1992). One of the big set pieces is the lighting of the Gotham Christmas tree.3. "Eyes Wide Shut" (1999). Even though it was released in July, it takes place over Christmas.4. "Gremlins" (1984). This one has Christmas written all over it. And also little green, murderous demons.5. "First Blood" (1982). The first of the "Rambo" films has a Christmas tree in the background of one scene. So . . . Christmas movie!!!6. "Trading Places" (1983). There's a Christmas party, and Dan Aykroyd as a drunken Santa waving a handgun. But it doesn't end on December 25th. If it's a Christmas movie, then it also qualifies as a New Year's movie.7. "Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" (2005). This one takes place during the Christmas season in L.A. And it was released in November.8. "Edward Scissorhands" (1990). Kind of a no-brainer.9. "Lethal Weapon" (1987). Another one of those action movies that HAPPENS to take place around Christmas.10. "Rocky" (1976). This might be the greatest American holiday film of all time, because it includes Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's. And also punching.11. "Hook" (1991). The scenes in the real world, outside Neverland, are set at Christmas. 12. "Iron Man 3" (2013). The whole movie plays out around Christmas.13. "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (1993). Is it a Christmas movie or a Halloween movie? Why not both?AND THAT IS YOUR CRAP ON CELEBRITIES!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today's episode starts with chaos in the studio

Today's show is one for the record books.

Join our book club!  / lifeonbooks  Get the Freedom App to remove distractions and read more books:https://freedom.sjv.io/N9074OJoin the Life on Books mailing list to stay up to date on all of our latest book giveaways, projects, and more!https://linktw.in/BRYAnVhWant to read one book from every country? Check out our resource online:https://linktw.in/ZeoltyWant to know my all time favorite books? Click the link below!https://bookshop.org/shop/lifeonbooksFollow me on Instagram:  / alifeonbooks  Follow Andy on Instagram  / metafictional.meathead  Books mentioned in this episode:The Pale King by David Foster Wallacehttps://amzn.to/47PeURQhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780316...Satantango by Laszlo Krasznahorkaihttps://amzn.to/3KDGzxuhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811...List of William Vollmann's Published Works:  / works-of-william-143602359  The Melancholy of Resistance by Laszlo Krasznahorkaihttps://amzn.to/4pFjl9lhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811...Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishimahttps://amzn.to/4q26Rs5https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780811...One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquezhttps://amzn.to/4rN7Uh9https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780060...Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchonhttps://amzn.to/4rXp1x6https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780143...Stoner by John Williamshttps://amzn.to/4iOCaEzhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781590...Hard Rain Falling Don Carpenterhttps://amzn.to/48Lnr8uhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9781590...Killer Angels by Michael Shaarahttps://amzn.to/4aDv4R6https://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780345...Cloud Splitter by Russel Bankshttps://amzn.to/4poKkpwhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780060...Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompsonhttps://amzn.to/4a3rbERhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780345...Babel by RF Kuanghttps://amzn.to/495VWYOhttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780063...Yellowface by RF Kuanghttps://bookshop.org/a/103053/9780063...https://amzn.to/4pzlF1KBetween Two Fires by Christopher Bhuelman

With cold season here, our disposable mask defense is back. But when we toss it away, its story isn't over. It begins a centuries-long sentence in landfills and oceans. What if we could commute that sentence? Scientists may have found a way, transforming this symbol of waste into a tool for cleanup. Is this the key to breaking a toxic cycle? On the show: Steve, Fei Fei & Yushan

WWEternia was a fun moment in time! This week we do a deep dive into Wave 1 plus the Ring gift set! We also talk about Regium Godwinns, Pinnacle from Zombie Sailor Toys, Mattel LJNs, ROH Jericho/Cardona, New MOTU lines, Chromatic, MASK, Power Rangers Re-Ignition and much more! Check it outalso check out the TB Toycast YouTube Channelhttps://youtube.com/@tbtoycast?si=pKdzDxfKBIw8mC36Also check out The Saturday Morning Rumble Wheel Podcasthttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-saturday-morning-rumble-wheel/id1654659843

Join Lord Manny Hayes

In this episode of Fortress of Comic News, hosts Chris and Mike dive into a variety of topics ranging from holiday cheer and comic book bargains to in-depth discussions about popular series like The Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter. They also explore the latest in musical adaptations with Wicked 2, share recommendations for new shows, and discuss the implications of Netflix's acquisition of Warner Brothers. The conversation touches on the excitement surrounding upcoming projects, including Taylor Sheridan's new series and the anticipated role of Scarlett Johansson in Batman Part 2. In this episode, Chris and Mike delve into the future of DC films amidst ongoing mergers, the resurgence of DC properties, and the impact of the Snyderverse. They discuss Marvel's new cosmic series, horror comics influenced by Lovecraft, and provide a plethora of comic book recommendations and reviews. The conversation also touches on the evolution of Batman and the Bat Family, upcoming crossovers in DC, and highlights from indie comics and Kickstarter projects.Get your Fortress Comics merchandise with the link belowhttps://www.teepublic.com/user/fortress-comicsFortressofComicNews.comhttps://chriscomicscorner.substack.com/YouTube.com/FortressComicsFind Chris: https://bio.site/chrisrundtMike twitter @fortressrickerMike's Comic Bone Graft: https://globalcomix.com/c/bentbox-shorts/chapters/en/4/1Patreon.com/FortressComicshttps://www.tiktok.com/@chriscomicscornerThanks for Listening!#marvel #marvelcomics #mcu #dccomics #comicbooks #comicnews #podcast #indiecomics #batman

An Altadena care facility left two residents behind as they fled the Eaton Fire. LA County is set to vote on a mask ban for all law enforcement, despite legal threats. Malibu is one step closer to splitting from Santa Monica and getting its own school district. Plus, more from Morning Edition. Support The L.A. Report by donating at LAist.com/join and by visiting https://laist.com Visit www.preppi.com/LAist to receive a FREE Preppi Emergency Kit (with any purchase over $100) and be prepared for the next wildfire, earthquake or emergency!Support the show: https://laist.com

Katie talks to British-Pakistani geo-strategic analyst Moeed Pirzada about new Epstein emails which reveal the the sex criminal's hatred of Imran Khan and what that reveals about Pakistan today. But first Katie talks to Andre Easton who is running to represent New York's 15th Congressional District, which is in the Bronx and has been represented by the extremely pro Israel Democrat Ritchie Torres since 2021. And then Katie talks to Roua Daas, an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement and lead on the Mask off Maersk campaign and People's Embargo for Palestine. For the full discussion, please join us on Patreon at - https://www.patreon.com/posts/patreon-full-dr-144947666 Support the show by following Katie on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@kthalps_ Moeed Pirzada is a British-Pakistani geo-strategic analyst, television anchor, columnist, and commentator who has been living in exile in Washington, D.C since the regime change in Pakistan 3 years ago. He has written extensively for out lets including The Guardian and Al Jazeera, and interviewed Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and Imran Khan, as well as former U.K. Prime Minister David Cameron and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Andre Easton is running to represent New York's 15th Congressional District, which is in the Bronx and has been represented by the extremely pro Israel Democrat Ritchie Torres since 2021. Andre was born to Jamaican immigrants in the Bronx, and has spent 12 years teaching English in South Bronx public schools. He is an active father who is raising three boys with his wife, Angelica, who is also a public school educator in the Bronx. He is a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and has been a part of the movement against police brutality, organized for housing justice, and helped lead political education courses. Roua Daas is an organizer with the Palestinian Youth Movement and lead on the Mask off Maersk campaign and People's Embargo for Palestine. ***Please support The Katie Halper Show *** For bonus content, exclusive interviews, to support independent media & to help make this program possible, please join us on Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/thekatiehalpershow Get your Katie Halper Show Merch here! https://katiehalper.myspreadshop.com/all Follow Katie on Twitter: https://x.com/kthalps Follow Katie on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kthalps Follow Katie on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/@kthalps_

Candace Rage Bait & Mask Induced Trance Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you ever feel like you're always “the responsible one,” “the fixer,” “the overthinker,” or “the good one” — and you can't turn it off?In this episode of The Restored Minds Show, licensed therapist Matt Codde, LCSW unpacks the idea of personas — the masks we learn to wear to feel safe, accepted, and in control. Matt explains how these roles are often deeply tied to OCD, anxiety, and panic loops, and why living from a persona instead of your true essence leaves you exhausted, resentful, and disconnected from yourself.If you've been stuck in overthinking, people-pleasing, or perfectionism and wondering why you still don't feel free, this episode will help you see what's really running the show — and how letting go of outdated personas can be a powerful step in your healing journey.

The Portuguese artist Joana Vasconcelos is renowned for her large-scale sculptural pieces which have featured in galleries across the world. She has used materials such as fabric, plastic and even tampons to construct her works. In June 2018 her exhibition I'm Your Mirror opened at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain. For this Joana made a series of new sculptures, including an enormous Venetian-style mask, made of overlapping mirrors. The construction of the huge mask was a process full of challenges as the enormous structure took shape in Joana's Lisbon studio. In this programme Anna McNamee follows Joana through the process of working with the mirrors and explores how the piece is designed, shaped and packed up ready to begin its journey to Bilbao.