Podcasts about Scientology

*Content Warning : In this episode we discuss excommunication, death and suicide. Please use discretion when listening.* Liz Gale was born a 3rd Generation Scientologist. In fact, her family was into Scientology, before it was ever called Scientology. From the moment Liz's grandmother picked up that copy of Dianetics, it set her family on a tragic trajectory until Liz herself decided to break the generational trauma that L. Ron Hubbard created. In our chat we discuss what excommunication looks like inside the church and the worst possible outcomes for those who feel like they have nowhere else to run. Show Notes Connect with Liz : TikTok | YouTube | Blog | Instagram Confessions of an Ex-Scientologist Pothead Philip Gale South Park - S9 E12 Trapped in the Closet Aftermath Foundation What is SPTV? IGotOut.org Out of MLM The BITE Model LAMLM Book Club MLM Dupes How can you help? MLM Change Report Fraud Truth in Advertising Report to your state Attorney General's office! Not in the U.S.? No Problem! Support the Podcast! Website | Patreon | Buy Me a Taco | TikTok | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Discord | Merch! Life After MLM is produced by Roberta Blevins. Audio editing is done by the lovely Kayla Craven, video editing by the indescribable RK Gold, and Michelle Carpenter is our Triple Emerald Princess of Robots. Life After MLM is owned by Roberta Blevins 2023. Music : The Limits of the Cosmos by Geoff Harvey *Some links may be affiliate links. When you purchase things from these links, I get a small commission that I use to buy us tacos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's the holiday season and if you think your family is dramatic... this week we talk about the lady who has made family drama big business, Jada Pinkett Smith. With the release of her memoir in the middle of WWIII, Jada doesn't want us to keep her name out of our mouth. We go over her history as a self-proclaimed drug dealer (entrepreneur!), the Scientology school she founded with Will Smith, her friend zoning of Tupac, and the many INSANE Red Table Talks that made us know frankly too much about her relationships. Follow us  @RisqueBusinessNews  @laurasogar @mae_planert and Happy Thanksgiving weekend!

John Travolta's involvement in Scientology has a deeper meaning than just participating - as controversial as that already is - His way of living and sexuality play a big role in Aaron's observation. Ex scientologist and Scientology expert Aaron Smith Levin chatted with me live on YouTube about his theory. It's amazing to talk with him, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. Don't forget to support him on his channel https://www.youtube.com/@GrowingUpInScientology Andrew Gold links: http://YouTube.com/andrewgold1 http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok  http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok  https://andrewgold.locals.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's Black Friday and we're going deep! 0:00 - Tiffany Haddish gets 2nd DUI, Jenna Lyons coming back, Scientology drama, P Diddy 17:45 - Jeff Lewis / Heather McDonald / Justin Martindale / Krista llamas 48:00 - RHOBH thoughts Get your own Face Pro + with $70 off at www.blumene.com/dailydosedana ! THANK YOU FOR THE RATINGS AND REVIEWS!!!  JOIN MY NEW PATREON HERE! Make sure to follow me on Instagram and Tiktok! Don't forget to join the Daily Dose of Dana Facebook group! This episode is brought to you by F22 Studios, your one stop shop for video production here in Los Angeles! Use Code DANA10 for 10% off! https://f22studiosla.com/ Did you know you can watch the whole show on my Youtube Channel! I record my episodes using Riverside.FM! Make sure to check them out!    

Gobble, gobble our friends. Jeff and Leo are back with all the stuffing you can handle. Eli Roth carves up a good slasher with Thanksgiving. SNL redeems itself with chef sketch. A crazy person downs more spice than Kobayashi takes hot dogs. Scientology troll marvels his way to roasting a guy into questioning what if scientology is fake? How to make a Goated turkey with bacon and more on this episode of The Mixtape Ambassadors

*This episode discusses many heavy topics, including child abuse; including descriptions of abuse, starvation, sexual assault and suicidal ideas and actions. PLEASE use discretion when listening.* When I first started looking into Scientology stories that needed to be told, Michelle asked me if I knew about Liz Ferris and the story of her dad Bob Ferris. You see, Scientology is really good at a couple things; disconnection, abuse and lies - but I was WHOLLY unprepared for the story that Liz had to tell. Listening to Liz recount her life, from as early as she can remember as a Second Gen Scientologist, to the strange and devastating phone call that changed the trajectory of her life, one thing is for sure, Liz Ferris is a warrior. Connect with Liz : YouTube | GoFundMe Meet Liz Ferris Where's Bob Ferris? The General's Daughter (film) Save Bob Ferris Tee Aftermath Foundation What is SPTV? IGotOut.org IGotOut.org Out of MLM The BITE Model LAMLM Book Club MLM Dupes How can you help? MLM Change Report Fraud Truth in Advertising Report to your state Attorney General's office! Not in the U.S.? No Problem! Support the Podcast! Website | Patreon | Buy Me a Taco | TikTok | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Discord | Merch! Life After MLM is produced by Roberta Blevins. Audio editing is done by the lovely Kayla Craven, video editing by the indescribable RK Gold, and Michelle Carpenter is our Triple Emerald Princess of Robots. Life After MLM is owned by Roberta Blevins 2023. Music : The Limits of the Cosmos by Geoff Harvey *Some links may be affiliate links. When you purchase things from these links, I get a small commission that I use to buy us tacos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mike Rinder & Claire Headley talk to Mike Brown about the horrific treatment of his mother, Rosemary, now 77, in the Sea Org, and how, with the help of the Aftermath Foundation he managed to get her out.The details of what was done to her (and others) will make you angry and wonder how this sort of blatant and widespread mistreatment is allowed to occur in a civilized society.Get Mike's book: "A Billion Years My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology" on Amazon. Find me on X (Twitter): / mikerinder Instagram: / rindermike Facebook: / rindermike Visit the Mike Rinder store for merch -- t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, mousepads and more: ...

In March of 2017, three women filed sexual assault allegations against Danny Masterson who denied the allegations via his agent.  The filing triggered an LAPD investigation, and in December of 2017, a fourth victim came forward with allegations.  A few weeks later, a fifth victim came forward with allegations.  Masterson was able to escape justice for years by hiding behind the rules / laws of the Church of Scientology.  Eventually though, he was brought to trial and found guilty of rape and given 30 years to life in prison.   ***TRIGGER WARNING*** Drugging - Rape - Sexual Assault - Cult - Emotional, Physical, and Sexaual Abuse - Animal Abuse / Poisoning - Pretty Much Everything Hang with us: Follow Us on Instagram Like Us on Facebook Join our Case Discussion Group on Facebook Get Killer Queens Merch Bonus Episodes Support Our AMAZING Sponsors: Embrace Pet Insurance: Head to EmbracePetInsurance.com/QUEENS and sign up for pet insurance today. Athena Club:  Switch to the best razor on the market and show your skin you care with Athena Club! Head over to AthenaClub.com and grab your razor kit today or you can find Athena Club Razors at your local Target. Plus with your purchase of a Razor Kit and blade subscription on their site, you can try their Gentle Body Scrub for FREE with code QUEENS at checkout (for a limited time only). Lume:Control Body Odor ANYWHERE with @lumedeodorant and get $5 off off your Starter Pack (that's over 40% off) with promo code [INSERT CODE] at lumedeodorant.com! #lumepod Canva: Collaborate with Canva for Teams! Right now, you can get a FREE 45-day extended trial when you go to Canva.me/QUEENS. © 2023 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved Audio Production by Wayfare Recording Music provided by Steven Tobi Logo designed by Sloane Williams of The Sophisticated Crayon YouTube Editing by Jennifer Da Silva

Episode 170 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Astral Weeks", the early solo career of Van Morrison, and the death of Bert Berns.  Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a forty-minute bonus episode available, on "Stoned Soul Picnic" by Laura Nyro. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata At one point I, ridiculously, misspeak the name of Charles Mingus' classic album. Black Saint and the Sinner Lady is not about dinner ladies. Also, I say Warren Smith Jr is on "Slim Slow Slider" when I meant to say Richard Davis (Smith is credited in some sources, but I only hear acoustic guitar, bass, and soprano sax on the finished track). Resources As usual, I've created Mixcloud playlists, with full versions of all the songs excerpted in this episode. As there are so many Van Morrison songs in this episode, the Mixcloud is split into three parts, one, two, and three. The information about Bert Berns comes from Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues by Joel Selvin. I've used several biographies of Van Morrison. Van Morrison: Into the Music by Ritchie Yorke is so sycophantic towards Morrison that the word “hagiography” would be, if anything, an understatement. Van Morrison: No Surrender by Johnny Rogan, on the other hand, is the kind of book that talks in the introduction about how the author has had to avoid discussing certain topics because of legal threats from the subject. Howard deWitt's Van Morrison: Astral Weeks to Stardom is over-thorough in the way some self-published books are, while Clinton Heylin's Can You Feel the Silence? is probably the best single volume on the artist. Information on Woodstock comes from Small Town Talk by Barney Hoskyns. Ryan Walsh's Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968 is about more than Astral Weeks, but does cover Morrison's period in and around Boston in more detail than anything else. The album Astral Weeks is worth hearing in its entirety. Not all of the music on The Authorized Bang Collection is as listenable, but it's the most complete collection available of everything Morrison recorded for Bang. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before we start, a quick warning -- this episode contains discussion of organised crime activity, and of sudden death. It also contains excerpts of songs which hint at attraction to underage girls and discuss terminal illness. If those subjects might upset you, you might want to read the transcript rather than listen to the episode. Anyway, on with the show. Van Morrison could have been the co-writer of "Piece of My Heart". Bert Berns was one of the great collaborators in the music business, and almost every hit he ever had was co-written, and he was always on the lookout for new collaborators, and in 1967 he was once again working with Van Morrison, who he'd worked with a couple of years earlier when Morrison was still the lead singer of Them. Towards the beginning of 1967 he had come up with a chorus, but no verse. He had the hook, "Take another little piece of my heart" -- Berns was writing a lot of songs with "heart" in the title at the time -- and wanted Morrison to come up with a verse to go with it. Van Morrison declined. He wasn't interested in writing pop songs, or in collaborating with other writers, and so Berns turned to one of his regular collaborators, Jerry Ragavoy, and it was Ragavoy who added the verses to one of the biggest successes of Berns' career: [Excerpt: Erma Franklin, "Piece of My Heart"] The story of how Van Morrison came to make the album that's often considered his masterpiece is intimately tied up with the story we've been telling in the background for several episodes now, the story of Atlantic Records' sale to Warners, and the story of Bert Berns' departure from Atlantic. For that reason, some parts of the story I'm about to tell will be familiar to those of you who've been paying close attention to the earlier episodes, but as always I'm going to take you from there to somewhere we've never been before. In 1962, Bert Berns was a moderately successful songwriter, who had written or co-written songs for many artists, especially for artists on Atlantic Records. He'd written songs for Atlantic artists like LaVern Baker, and when Atlantic's top pop producers Leiber and Stoller started to distance themselves from the label in the early sixties, he had moved into production as well, writing and producing Solomon Burke's big hit "Cry to Me": [Excerpt: Solomon Burke, "Cry to Me"] He was the producer and writer or co-writer of most of Burke's hits from that point forward, but at first he was still a freelance producer, and also produced records for Scepter Records, like the Isley Brothers' version of "Twist and Shout", another song he'd co-written, that one with Phil Medley. And as a jobbing songwriter, of course his songs were picked up by other producers, so Leiber and Stoller produced a version of his song "Tell Him" for the Exciters on United Artists: [Excerpt: The Exciters, "Tell Him"] Berns did freelance work for Leiber and Stoller as well as the other people he was working for. For example, when their former protege Phil Spector released his hit version of "Zip-a-Dee-Do-Dah", they got Berns to come up with a knockoff arrangement of "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?", released as by Baby Jane and the Rockabyes, with a production credit "Produced by Leiber and Stoller, directed by Bert Berns": [Excerpt: Baby Jane and the Rockabyes, "How Much is that Doggie in the Window?"] And when Leiber and Stoller stopped producing work for United Artists, Berns took over some of the artists they'd been producing for the label, like Marv Johnson, as well as producing his own new artists, like Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters, who had been discovered by Berns' friend Jerry Ragovoy, with whom he co-wrote their "Cry Baby": [Excerpt: Garnet Mimms and the Enchanters, "Cry Baby"] Berns was an inveterate collaborator. He was one of the few people to get co-writing credits with Leiber and Stoller, and he would collaborate seemingly with everyone who spoke to him for five minutes. He would also routinely reuse material, cutting the same songs time and again with different artists, knowing that a song must be a hit for *someone*. One of his closest collaborators was Jerry Wexler, who also became one of his best friends, even though one of their earliest interactions had been when Wexler had supervised Phil Spector's production of Berns' "Twist and Shout" for the Top Notes, a record that Berns had thought had butchered the song. Berns was, in his deepest bones, a record man. Listening to the records that Berns made, there's a strong continuity in everything he does. There's a love there of simplicity -- almost none of his records have more than three chords. He loved Latin sounds and rhythms -- a love he shared with other people working in Brill Building R&B at the time, like Leiber and Stoller and Spector -- and great voices in emotional distress. There's a reason that the records he produced for Solomon Burke were the first R&B records to be labelled "soul". Berns was one of those people for whom feel and commercial success are inextricable. He was an artist -- the records he made were powerfully expressive -- but he was an artist for whom the biggest validation was *getting a hit*. Only a small proportion of the records he made became hits, but enough did that in the early sixties he was a name that could be spoken of in the same breath as Leiber and Stoller, Spector, and Bacharach and David. And Atlantic needed a record man. The only people producing hits for the label at this point were Leiber and Stoller, and they were in the process of stopping doing freelance work and setting up their own label, Red Bird, as we talked about in the episode on the Shangri-Las. And anyway, they wanted more money than they were getting, and Jerry Wexler was never very keen on producers wanting money that could have gone to the record label. Wexler decided to sign Bert Berns up as a staff producer for Atlantic towards the end of 1963, and by May 1964 it was paying off. Atlantic hadn't been having hits, and now Berns had four tracks he wrote and produced for Atlantic on the Hot One Hundred, of which the highest charting was "My Girl Sloopy" by the Vibrations: [Excerpt: The Vibrations, "My Girl Sloopy"] Even higher on the charts though was the Beatles' version of "Twist and Shout". That record, indeed, had been successful enough in the UK that Berns had already made exploratory trips to the UK and produced records for Dick Rowe at Decca, a partnership we heard about in the episode on "Here Comes the Night". Berns had made partnerships there which would have vast repercussions for the music industry in both countries, and one of them was with the arranger Mike Leander, who was the uncredited arranger for the Drifters session for "Under the Boardwalk", a song written by Artie Resnick and Kenny Young and produced by Berns, recorded the day after the group's lead singer Rudy Lewis died of an overdose: [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Under the Boardwalk"] Berns was making hits on a regular basis by mid-1964, and the income from the label's new success allowed Jerry Wexler and the Ertegun brothers to buy out their other partners -- Ahmet Ertegun's old dentist, who had put up some of the initial money, and Miriam Bienstock, the ex-wife of their initial partner Herb Abramson, who'd got Abramson's share in the company after the divorce, and who was now married to Freddie Bienstock of Hill and Range publishing. Wexler and the Erteguns now owned the whole label. Berns also made regular trips to the UK to keep up his work with British musicians, and in one of those trips, as we heard in the episode on "Here Comes the Night", he produced several tracks for the group Them, including that track, written by Berns: [Excerpt: Them, "Here Comes the Night"] And a song written by the group's lead singer Van Morrison, "Gloria": [Excerpt: Them, "Gloria"] But Berns hadn't done much other work with them, because he had a new project. Part of the reason that Wexler and the Erteguns had gained total control of Atlantic was because, in a move pushed primarily by Wexler, they were looking at selling it. They'd already tried to merge with Leiber and Stoller's Red Bird Records, but lost the opportunity after a disastrous meeting, but they were in negotiations with several other labels, negotiations which would take another couple of years to bear fruit. But they weren't planning on getting out of the record business altogether. Whatever deal they made, they'd remain with Atlantic, but they were also planning on starting another label. Bert Berns had seen how successful Leiber and Stoller were with Red Bird, and wanted something similar. Wexler and the Erteguns didn't want to lose their one hit-maker, so they came up with an offer that would benefit all of them. Berns' publishing contract had just ended, so they would set up a new publishing company, WEB IV, named after the initials Wexler, Ertegun, and Berns, and the fact that there were four of them. Berns would own fifty percent of that, and the other three would own the other half. And they were going to start up a new label, with seventeen thousand dollars of the Atlantic partners' money. That label would be called Bang -- for Bert, Ahmet, Neshui, and Gerald -- and would be a separate company from Atlantic, so not affected by any sale. Berns would continue as a staff producer for Atlantic for now, but he'd have "his own" label, which he'd have a proper share in, and whether he was making hits for Atlantic or Bang, his partners would have a share of the profits. The first two records on Bang were "Shake and Jerk" by Billy Lamont, a track that they licensed from elsewhere and which didn't do much, and a more interesting track co-written by Berns. Bob Feldman, Richard Gottehrer, and Jerry Goldstein were Brill Building songwriters who had become known for writing "My Boyfriend's Back", a hit for the Angels, a couple of years earlier: [Excerpt: The Angels, "My Boyfriend's Back"] With the British invasion, the three of them had decided to create their own foreign beat group. As they couldn't do British accents, they pretended to be Australian, and as the Strangeloves -- named after the Stanley Kubrick film Dr  Strangelove -- they released one flop single. They cut another single, a version of "Bo Diddley", but the label they released their initial record through didn't want it. They then took the record to Atlantic, where Jerry Wexler said that they weren't interested in releasing some white men singing "Bo Diddley". But Ahmet Ertegun suggested they bring the track to Bert Berns to see what he thought. Berns pointed out that if they changed the lyrics and melody, but kept the same backing track, they could claim the copyright in the resulting song themselves. He worked with them on a new lyric, inspired by the novel Candy, a satirical pornographic novel co-written by Terry Southern, who had also co-written the screenplay to Dr Strangelove. Berns supervised some guitar overdubs, and the result went to number eleven: [Excerpt: The Strangeloves, "I Want Candy"] Berns had two other songs on the hot one hundred when that charted, too -- Them's version of "Here Comes the Night", and the version of Van McCoy's song "Baby I'm Yours" he'd produced for Barbara Lewis. Three records on the charts on three different labels. But despite the sheer number of charting records he'd had, he'd never had a number one, until the Strangeloves went on tour. Before the tour they'd cut a version of "My Girl Sloopy" for their album -- Berns always liked to reuse material -- and they started performing the song on the tour. The Dave Clark Five, who they were supporting, told them it sounded like a hit and they were going to do their own version when they got home. Feldman, Gottehrer, and Goldstein decided *they* might as well have the hit with it as anyone else. Rather than put it out as a Strangeloves record -- their own record was still rising up the charts, and there's no reason to be your own competition -- they decided to get a group of teenage musicians who supported them on the last date of the tour to sing new vocals to the backing track from the Strangeloves album. The group had been called Rick and the Raiders, but they argued so much that the Strangeloves nicknamed them the Hatfields and the McCoys, and when their version of "My Girl Sloopy", retitled "Hang on Sloopy", came out, it was under the band name The McCoys: [Excerpt: The McCoys, "Hang on Sloopy"] Berns was becoming a major success, and with major success in the New York music industry in the 1960s came Mafia involvement. We've talked a fair bit about Morris Levy's connection with the mob in many previous episodes, but mob influence was utterly pervasive throughout the New York part of the industry, and so for example Richard Gottehrer of the Strangeloves used to call Sonny Franzese of the Colombo crime family "Uncle John", they were so close. Franzese was big in the record business too, even after his conviction for bank robbery. Berns, unlike many of the other people in the industry, had no scruples at all about hanging out with Mafiosi. indeed his best friend in the mid sixties was Tommy Eboli, a member of the Genovese crime family who had been in the mob since the twenties, starting out working for "Lucky" Luciano. Berns was not himself a violent man, as far as anyone can tell, but he liked the glamour of hanging out with organised crime figures, and they liked hanging out with someone who was making so many hit records. And so while Leiber and Stoller, for example, ended up selling Red Bird Records to George Goldner for a single dollar in order to get away from the Mafiosi who were slowly muscling in on the label, Berns had no problems at all in keeping his own label going. Indeed, he would soon be doing so without the involvement of Atlantic Records. Berns' final work for Atlantic was in June 1966, when he cut a song he had co-written with Jeff Barry for the Drifters, inspired by the woman who would soon become Atlantic's biggest star: [Excerpt: The Drifters, "Aretha"] The way Berns told the story in public, there was no real bad blood between him, Wexler, and the Erteguns -- he'd just decided to go his own way, and he said “I will always be grateful to them for the help they've given me in getting Bang started,” The way Berns' wife would later tell the story, Jerry Wexler had suggested that rather than Berns owning fifty percent of Web IV, they should start to split everything four ways, and she had been horrified by this suggestion, kicked up a stink about it, and Wexler had then said that either Berns needed to buy the other three out, or quit and give them everything, and demanded Berns pay them three hundred thousand dollars. According to other people, Berns decided he wanted one hundred percent control of Web IV, and raised a breach of contract lawsuit against Atlantic, over the usual royalty non-payments that were endemic in the industry at that point. When Atlantic decided to fight the lawsuit rather than settle, Berns' mob friends got involved and threatened to break the legs of Wexler's fourteen-year-old daughter, and the mob ended up with full control of Bang records, while Berns had full control of his publishing company. Given later events, and in particular given the way Wexler talked about Berns until the day he died, with a vitriol that he never used about any of the other people he had business disputes with, it seems likely to me that the latter story is closer to the truth than the former. But most people involved weren't talking about the details of what went on, and so Berns still retained his relationships with many of the people in the business, not least of them Jeff Barry, so when Barry and Ellie Greenwich had a new potential star, it was Berns they thought to bring him to, even though the artist was white and Berns had recently given an interview saying that he wanted to work with more Black artists, because white artists simply didn't have soul. Barry and Greenwich's marriage was breaking up at the time, but they were still working together professionally, as we discussed in the episode on "River Deep, Mountain High", and they had been the main production team at Red Bird. But with Red Bird in terminal decline, they turned elsewhere when they found a potential major star after Greenwich was asked to sing backing vocals on one of his songwriting demos. They'd signed the new songwriter, Neil Diamond, to Leiber and Stoller's company Trio Music at first, but they soon started up their own company, Tallyrand Music, and signed Diamond to that, giving Diamond fifty percent of the company and keeping twenty-five percent each for themselves, and placed one of his songs with Jay and the Americans in 1965: [Excerpt: Jay and the Americans, "Sunday and Me"] That record made the top twenty, and had established Diamond as a songwriter, but he was still not a major performer -- he'd released one flop single on Columbia Records before meeting Barry and Greenwich. But they thought he had something, and Bert Berns agreed. Diamond was signed to Bang records, and Berns had a series of pre-production meetings with Barry and Greenwich before they took Diamond into the studio -- Barry and Greenwich were going to produce Diamond for Bang, as they had previously produced tracks for Red Bird, but they were going to shape the records according to Berns' aesthetic. The first single released from Diamond's first session, "Solitary Man", only made number fifty-five, but it was the first thing Diamond had recorded to make the Hot One Hundred at all: [Excerpt: Neil Diamond, "Solitary Man"] The second single, though, was much more Bert Berns' sort of thing -- a three-chord song that sounded like it could have been written by Berns himself, especially after Barry and Greenwich had added the Latin-style horns that Berns loved so much. Indeed according to some sources, Berns did make a songwriting suggestion -- Diamond's song had apparently been called "Money Money", and Berns had thought that was a ridiculous title, and suggested calling it "Cherry Cherry" instead: [Excerpt: Neil Diamond, "Cherry Cherry"] That became Diamond's first top ten hit. While Greenwich had been the one who had discovered Diamond, and Barry and Greenwich were the credited producers on all Diamond's records  as a result, Diamond soon found himself collaborating far more with Barry than with Greenwich, so for example the first number one he wrote, for the Monkees rather than himself, ended up having its production just credited to Barry. That record used a backing track recorded in New York by the same set of musicians used on most Bang records, like Al Gorgoni on lead guitar and Russ Savakus on bass: [Excerpt: The Monkees, "I'm a Believer"] Neil Diamond was becoming a solid hit-maker, but he started rubbing up badly against Berns. Berns wanted hits and only hits, and Diamond thought of himself as a serious artist. The crisis came when two songs were under contention for Diamond's next single in late 1967, after he'd had a whole run of hits for the label. The song Diamond wanted to release, "Shilo", was deeply personal to him: [Excerpt: Neil Diamond, "Shilo"] But Bert Berns had other ideas. "Shilo" didn't sound like a hit, and he knew a hit when he heard one. No, the clear next single, the only choice, was "Kentucky Woman": [Excerpt: Neil Diamond, "Kentucky Woman"] But Berns tried to compromise as best he could. Diamond's contract was up for renewal, and you don't want to lose someone who has had, as Diamond had at that point, five top twenty hits in a row, and who was also writing songs like "I'm a Believer" and "Red Red Wine". He told Diamond that he'd let "Shilo" come out as a single if Diamond signed an extension to his contract. Diamond said that not only was he not going to do that, he'd taken legal advice and discovered that there were problems with his contract which let him record for other labels -- the word "exclusive" had been missed out of the text, among other things. He wasn't going to be recording for Bang at all any more. The lawsuits over this would stretch out for a decade, and Diamond would eventually win, but the first few months were very, very difficult for Diamond. When he played the Bitter End, a club in New York, stink bombs were thrown into the audience. The Bitter End's manager was assaulted and severely beaten. Diamond moved his wife and child out of Manhattan, borrowed a gun, and after his last business meeting with Berns was heard talking about how he needed to contact the District Attorney and hire a bodyguard. Of the many threats that were issued against Diamond, though, the least disturbing was probably the threat Berns made to Diamond's career. Berns pointed out to Diamond in no uncertain terms that he didn't need Diamond anyway -- he already had someone he could replace Diamond with, another white male solo singer with a guitar who could churn out guaranteed hits. He had Van Morrison: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl"] When we left Van Morrison, Them had just split up due to the problems they had been having with their management team. Indeed, the problems Morrison was having with his managers seem curiously similar to the issues that Diamond was having with Bert Berns -- something that could possibly have been a warning sign to everyone involved, if any of them had known the full details of everyone else's situation. Sadly for all of them, none of them did. Them had had some early singles success, notably with the tracks Berns had produced for them, but Morrison's opinion of their second album, Them Again, was less than complimentary, and in general that album is mostly only remembered for the version of Bob Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue", which is one of those cover versions that inspires subsequent covers more than the original ever did: [Excerpt: Them, "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue"] Them had toured the US around the time of the release of that album, but that tour had been a disaster. The group had gained a reputation for incredible live shows, including performances at the Whisky A-Go-Go with the Doors and Captain Beefheart as their support acts, but during the tour Van Morrison had decided that Phil Solomon, the group's manager, was getting too much money -- Morrison had agreed to do the tour on a salary, rather than a percentage, but the tour had been more successful than he'd expected, and Solomon was making a great deal of money off the tour, money that Morrison believed rightfully belonged to him. The group started collecting the money directly from promoters, and got into legal trouble with Solomon as a result. The tour ended with the group having ten thousand dollars that Solomon believed -- quite possibly correctly -- that he was owed. Various gangsters whose acquaintance the group had made offered to have the problem taken care of, but they decided instead to come to a legal agreement -- they would keep the money, and in return Solomon, whose production company the group were signed to, would get to keep all future royalties from the Them tracks. This probably seemed a good idea at the time, when the idea of records earning royalties for sixty or more years into the future seemed ridiculous, but Morrison in particular came to regret the decision bitterly. The group played one final gig when they got back to Belfast, but then split up, though a version of the group led by the bass player Alan Henderson continued performing for a few years to no success. Morrison put together a band that played a handful of gigs under the name Them Again, with little success, but he already had his eyes set on a return to the US. In Morrison's eyes, Bert Berns had been the only person in the music industry who had really understood him, and the two worked well together. He had also fallen in love with an American woman, Janet Planet, and wanted to find some way to be with her. As Morrison said later “I had a couple of other offers but I thought this was the best one, seeing as I wanted to come to America anyway. I can't remember the exact details of the deal. It wasn't really that spectacular, money-wise, I don't think. But it was pretty hard to refuse from the point of view that I really respected Bert as a producer. I'd rather have worked with Bert than some other guy with a bigger record company. From that angle, it was spectacular because Bert was somebody that I wanted to work with.” There's little evidence that Morrison did have other offers -- he was already getting a reputation as someone who it was difficult to work with -- but he and Berns had a mutual respect, and on January the ninth, 1967, he signed a contract with Bang records. That contract has come in for a lot of criticism over the years, but it was actually, *by the standards in operation in the music business in 1967*, a reasonably fair one. The contract provided that, for a $2,500 a year advance, Bang would record twelve sides in the first year, with an option for up to fifty more that year, and options for up to four more years on the same terms. Bang had the full ownership of the masters and the right to do what they wanted with them. According to at least one biographer, Morrison added clauses requiring Bang to actually record the twelve sides a year, and to put out at least three singles and one album per year while the contract was in operation. He also added one other clause which seems telling -- "Company agrees that Company will not make any reference to the name THEM on phonograph records, or in advertising copy in connection with the recording of Artist." Morrison was, at first, extremely happy with Berns. The problems started with their first session: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl (takes 1-6)"] When Morrison had played the songs he was working on for Berns, Berns had remarked that they sounded great with just Morrison and his guitar, so Morrison was surprised when he got into the studio to find the whole standard New York session crew there -- the same group of session players who were playing for everyone from the Monkees to Laura Nyro, from Neil Diamond to the Shangri-Las -- along with the Sweet Inspirations to provide backing vocals. As he described it later "This fellow Bert, he made it the way he wanted to, and I accepted that he was producing it... I'd write a song and bring it into the group and we'd sit there and bash it around and that's all it was -- they weren't playing the songs, they were just playing whatever it was. They'd say 'OK, we got drums so let's put drums on it,' and they weren't thinking about the song, all they were thinking about was putting drums on it... But it was my song, and I had to watch it go down." The first song they cut was "Brown-Eyed Girl", a song which Morrison has said was originally a calypso, and was originally titled "Brown-skinned Girl", though he's differed in interviews as to whether Berns changed the lyric or if he just decided to sing it differently without thinking about it in the session. Berns turned "Brown-Eyed Girl" into a hit single, because that was what he tended to do with songs, and the result sounds a lot like the kind of record that Bang were releasing for Neil Diamond: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl"] Morrison has, in later years, expressed his distaste for what was done to the song, and in particular he's said that the backing vocal part by the Sweet Inspirations was added by Berns and he disliked it: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl"] Morrison has been very dismissive of "Brown-Eyed Girl" over the years, but he seems not to have disliked it at the time, and the song itself is one that has stood the test of time, and is often pointed to by other songwriters as a great example of the writer's craft. I remember reading one interview with Randy Newman -- sadly, while I thought it was in Paul Zollo's "Songwriters on Songwriting" I just checked that and it's not, so I can't quote it precisely -- in which he says that he often points to the line "behind the stadium with you" as a perfect piece of writing, because it's such a strangely specific detail that it convinces you that it actually happened, and that means you implicitly believe the rest of the song. Though it should be made very clear here that Morrison has always said, over and over again, that nothing in his songs is based directly on his own experiences, and that they're all products of his imagination and composites of people he's known. This is very important to note before we go any further, because "Brown-Eyed Girl" is one of many songs from this period in Morrison's career which imply that their narrator has an attraction to underage girls -- in this case he remembers "making love in the green grass" in the distant past, while he also says "saw you just the other day, my how you have grown", and that particular combination is not perhaps one that should be dwelt on too closely. But there is of course a very big difference between a songwriter treating a subject as something that is worth thinking about in the course of a song and writing about their own lives, and that can be seen on one of the other songs that Morrison recorded in these sessions, "T.B. Sheets": [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "T.B. Sheets"] It seems very unlikely indeed that Van Morrison actually had a lover die of tuberculosis, as the lover in the song does, and while a lot of people seem convinced that it's autobiographical, simply because of the intensity of the performance (Morrison apparently broke down in tears after recording it), nobody has ever found anyone in Morrison's life who fits the story in the song, and he's always ridiculed such suggestions. What is true though is that "T.B. Sheets" is evidence against another claim that Morrison has made in the past - that on these initial sessions the eight songs recorded were meant to be the A and B sides of four singles and there was no plan of making an album. It is simply not plausible at all to suggest that "T.B. Sheets" -- a slow blues about terminal illness, that lasts nearly ten minutes -- was ever intended as a single. It wouldn't have even come close to fitting on one side of a forty-five. It was also presumably at this time that Berns brought up the topic of "Piece of My Heart". When Berns signed Erma Franklin, it was as a way of getting at Jerry Wexler, who had gone from being his closest friend to someone he wasn't on speaking terms with, by signing the sister of his new signing Aretha. Morrison, of course, didn't co-write it -- he'd already decided that he didn't play well with others -- but it's tempting to think about how the song might have been different had Morrison written it. The song in some ways seems a message to Wexler -- haven't you had enough from me already? -- but it's also notable how many songs Berns was writing with the word "heart" in the chorus, given that Berns knew he was on borrowed time from his own heart condition. As an example, around the same time he and Jerry Ragavoy co-wrote "Piece of My Heart", they also co-wrote another song, "Heart Be Still", a flagrant lift from "Peace Be Still" by Aretha Franklin's old mentor Rev. James Cleveland, which they cut with Lorraine Ellison: [Excerpt: Lorraine Ellison, "Heart Be Still"] Berns' heart condition had got much worse as a result of the stress from splitting with Atlantic, and he had started talking about maybe getting open-heart surgery, though that was still very new and experimental. One wonders how he must have felt listening to Morrison singing about watching someone slowly dying. Morrison has since had nothing but negative things to say about the sessions in March 1967, but at the time he seemed happy. He returned to Belfast almost straight away after the sessions, on the understanding that he'd be back in the US if "Brown-Eyed Girl" was a success. He wrote to Janet Planet in San Francisco telling her to listen to the radio -- she'd know if she heard "Brown-Eyed Girl" that he would be back on his way to see her. She soon did hear the song, and he was soon back in the US: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Brown-Eyed Girl"] By August, "Brown-Eyed Girl" had become a substantial hit, making the top ten, and Morrison was back in the States. He was starting to get less happy with Berns though. Bang had put out the eight tracks he'd recorded in March as an album, titled Blowin' Your Mind, and Morrison thought that the crass pseudo-psychedelia of the title, liner notes, and cover was very inappropriate -- Morrison has never been a heavy user of any drugs other than alcohol, and didn't particularly want to be associated with them. He also seems to have not realised that every track he recorded in those initial sessions would be on the album, which many people have called one of the great one-sided albums of all time -- side A, with "Brown-Eyed Girl", "He Ain't Give You None" and the extended "T.B. Sheets" tends to get far more love than side B, with five much lesser songs on it. Berns held a party for Morrison on a cruise around Manhattan, but it didn't go well -- when the performer Tiny Tim tried to get on board, Carmine "Wassel" DeNoia, a mobster friend of Berns' who was Berns' partner in a studio they'd managed to get from Atlantic as part of the settlement when Berns left, was so offended by Tim's long hair and effeminate voice and mannerisms that he threw him overboard into the harbour. DeNoia was meant to be Morrison's manager in the US, working with Berns, but he and Morrison didn't get on at all -- at one point DeNoia smashed Morrison's acoustic guitar over his head, and only later regretted the damage he'd done to a nice guitar. And Morrison and Berns weren't getting on either. Morrison went back into the studio to record four more songs for a follow-up to "Brown-Eyed Girl", but there was again a misunderstanding. Morrison thought he'd been promised that this time he could do his songs the way he wanted, but Berns was just frustrated that he wasn't coming up with another "Brown-Eyed Girl", but was instead coming up with slow songs about trans women. Berns overdubbed party noises and soul backing vocals onto "Madame George", possibly in an attempt to copy the Beach Boys' Party! album with its similar feel, but it was never going to be a "Barbara Ann": [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Madame George (Bang version)"] In the end, Berns released one of the filler tracks from Blowin' Your Mind, "Ro Ro Rosey", as the next single, and it flopped. On December the twenty-ninth, Berns had a meeting with Neil Diamond, the meeting after which Diamond decided he needed to get a bodyguard. After that, he had a screaming row over the phone with Van Morrison, which made Berns ill with stress. The next day, he died of a heart attack. Berns' widow Ilene, who had only just given birth to a baby a couple of weeks earlier, would always blame Morrison for pushing her husband over the edge. Neither Van Morrison nor Jerry Wexler went to the funeral, but Neil Diamond did -- he went to try to persuade Ilene to let him out of his contract now Berns was dead. According to Janet Planet later, "We were at the hotel when we learned that Bert had died. We were just mortified, because things had been going really badly, and Van felt really bad, because I guess they'd parted having had some big fight or something... Even though he did love Bert, it was a strange relationship that lived and died in the studio... I remember we didn't go to the funeral, which probably was a mistake... I think [Van] had a really bad feeling about what was going to happen." But Morrison has later mostly talked about the more practical concerns that came up, which were largely the same as the ones Neil Diamond had, saying in 1997 "I'd signed a contract with Bert Berns for management, production, agency and record company,  publishing, the whole lot -- which was professional suicide as any lawyer will tell you now... Then the whole thing blew up. Bert Berns died and I was left broke." This was the same mistake, essentially, that he'd made with Phil Solomon, and in order to get out of it, it turned out he was going to have to do much the same for a third time.  But it was the experience with Berns specifically that traumatised Morrison enough that twenty-five years later he would still be writing songs about it, like "Big Time Operators": [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Big Time Operators"] The option to renew Morrison's contracts with Berns' companies came on the ninth of January 1968, less than two weeks after Berns' death. After his death, Berns' share of ownership in his companies had passed to his widow, who was in a quandary. She had two young children, one of whom was only a few weeks old, and she needed an income after their father had died. She was also not well disposed at all towards Morrison, who she blamed for causing her husband's death. By all accounts the amazing thing is that Berns lived as long as he did given his heart condition and the state of medical science at the time, but it's easy to understand her thinking. She wanted nothing to do with Morrison, and wanted to punish him. On the other hand, her late husband's silent partners didn't want to let their cash cow go. And so Morrison came under a huge amount of pressure in very different directions. From one side, Carmine DiNoia was determined to make more money off Morrison, and Morrison has since talked about signing further contracts at this point with a gun literally to his head, and his hotel room being shot up. But on the other side, Ilene Berns wanted to destroy Morrison's career altogether. She found out that Bert Berns hadn't got Morrison the proper work permits and reported him to the immigration authorities. Morrison came very close to being deported, but in the end he managed to escape deportation by marrying Janet Planet. The newly-married couple moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to get away from New York and the mobsters, and to try to figure out the next steps in Morrison's career. Morrison started putting together a band, which he called The Van Morrison Controversy, and working on new songs. One of his earliest connections in Massachusetts was the lead singer of a band called the Hallucinations, who he met in a bar where he was trying to get a gig: [Excerpt: The Hallucinations, "Messin' With the Kid"] The Hallucinations' lead singer was called Peter Wolf, and would much later go on to become well-known as the singer with the J. Geils Band. He and Morrison became acquaintances, and later became closer friends when they realised they had another connection -- Wolf had a late-night radio show under the name Woofa Goofa, and he'd been receiving anonymous requests for obscure blues records from a fan of the show. Morrison had been the one sending in the requests, not realising his acquaintance was the DJ. Before he got his own band together, Morrison actually guested with the Hallucinations at one show they did in May 1968, supporting John Lee Hooker. The Hallucinations had been performing "Gloria" since Them's single had come out, and they invited Morrison to join them to perform it on stage. According to Wolf, Morrison was very drunk and ranted in cod-Japanese for thirty-five minutes, and tried to sing a different song while the band played "Gloria". The audience were apparently unimpressed, even though Wolf shouted at them “Don't you know who this man is? He wrote the song!” But in truth, Morrison was sick of "Gloria" and his earlier work, and was trying to push his music in a new direction. He would later talk about having had an epiphany after hearing one particular track on the radio: [Excerpt: The Band, "I Shall Be Released"] Like almost every musician in 1968, Morrison was hit like a lightning bolt by Music From Big Pink, and he decided that he needed to turn his music in the same direction. He started writing the song "Brand New Day", which would later appear on his album Moondance, inspired by the music on the album. The Van Morrison Controversy started out as a fairly straightforward rock band, with guitarist John Sheldon, bass player Tom Kielbania, and drummer Joey Bebo. Sheldon was a novice, though his first guitar teacher was the singer James Taylor, but the other two were students at Berklee, and very serious musicians. Morrison seems to have had various managers involved in rapid succession in 1968, including one who was himself a mobster, and another who was only known as Frank, but one of these managers advanced enough money that the musicians got paid every gig. These musicians were all interested in kinds of music other than just straight rock music, and as well as rehearsing up Morrison's hits and his new songs, they would also jam with him on songs from all sorts of other genres, particularly jazz and blues. The band worked up the song that would become "Domino" based on Sheldon jamming on a Bo Diddley riff, and another time the group were rehearsing a Grant Green jazz piece, "Lazy Afternoon": [Excerpt: Grant Green, "Lazy Afternoon"] Morrison started messing with the melody, and that became his classic song "Moondance": [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Moondance"] No recordings of this electric lineup of the group are known to exist, though the backing musicians remember going to a recording studio called Ace recordings at one point and cutting some demos, which don't seem to circulate. Ace was a small studio which, according to all the published sources I've read, was best known for creating song poems, though it was a minor studio even in the song-poem world. For those who don't know, song poems were essentially a con aimed at wannabe songwriters who knew nothing about the business -- companies would advertise you too could become a successful, rich, songwriter if you sent in your "song poems", because anyone who knew the term "lyric" could be presumed to know too much about the music business to be useful. When people sent in their lyrics, they'd then be charged a fee to have them put out on their very own record -- with tracks made more or less on a conveyor belt with quick head arrangements, sung by session singers who were just handed a lyric sheet and told to get on with it. And thus were created such classics prized by collectors as "I Like Yellow Things", "Jimmy Carter Says 'Yes'", and "Listen Mister Hat". Obviously, for the most part these song poems did not lead to the customers becoming the next Ira Gershwin, but oddly even though Ace recordings is not one of the better-known song poem studios, it seems to have produced an actual hit song poem -- one that I don't think has ever before been identified as such until I made a connection, hence me going on this little tangent. Because in researching this episode I noticed something about its co-owner, Milton Yakus', main claim to fame. He co-wrote the song "Old Cape Cod", and to quote that song's Wikipedia page "The nucleus of the song was a poem written by Boston-area housewife Claire Rothrock, for whom Cape Cod was a favorite vacation spot. "Old Cape Cod" and its derivatives would be Rothrock's sole evident songwriting credit. She brought her poem to Ace Studios, a Boston recording studio owned by Milton Yakus, who adapted the poem into the song's lyrics." And while Yakus had written other songs, including songs for Patti Page who had the hit with "Old Cape Cod", apparently Page recorded that song after Rothrock brought her the demo after a gig, rather than getting it through any formal channels. It sounds to me like the massive hit and classic of the American songbook "Old Cape Cod" started life as a song-poem -- and if you're familiar with the form, it fits the genre perfectly: [Excerpt: Patti Page, "Old Cape Cod"] The studio was not the classiest of places, even if you discount the song-poems. Its main source of income was from cutting private records with mobsters' wives and mistresses singing (and dealing with the problems that came along when those records weren't successful) and it also had a sideline in bugging people's cars to see if their spouses were cheating, though Milton Yakus' son Shelly, who got his start at his dad's studio, later became one of the most respected recording engineers in the industry -- and indeed had already worked as assistant engineer on Music From Big Pink. And there was actually another distant connection to Morrison's new favourite band on these sessions. For some reason -- reports differ -- Bebo wasn't considered suitable for the session, and in his place was the one-handed drummer Victor "Moulty" Moulton, who had played with the Barbarians, who'd had a minor hit with "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?" a couple of years earlier: [Excerpt: The Barbarians, "Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl?"] A later Barbarians single, in early 1966, had featured Moulty telling his life story, punctuated by the kind of three-chord chorus that would have been at home on a Bert Berns single: [Excerpt: The Barbarians, "Moulty"] But while that record was credited to the Barbarians, Moulton was the only Barbarian on the track, with the instruments and backing vocals instead being provided by Levon and the Hawks. Shortly after the Ace sessions, the Van Morrison Controversy fell apart, though nobody seems to know why. Depending on which musician's story you listen to, either Morrison had a dream that he should get rid of all electric instruments and only use acoustic players, or there was talk of a record deal but the musicians weren't good enough, or the money from the mysterious manager (who may or may not have been the one who was a mobster) ran out. Bebo went back to university, and Sheldon left soon after, though Sheldon would remain in the music business in one form or another. His most prominent credit has been writing a couple of songs for his old friend James Taylor, including the song "Bittersweet" on Taylor's platinum-selling best-of, on which Sheldon also played guitar: [Excerpt: James Taylor, "Bittersweet"] Morrison and Kielbania continued for a while as a duo, with Morrison on acoustic guitar and Kielbania on double bass, but they were making very different music. Morrison's biggest influence at this point, other than The Band, was King Pleasure, a jazz singer who sang in the vocalese style we've talked about before -- the style where singers would sing lyrics to melodies that had previously been improvised by jazz musicians: [Excerpt: King Pleasure, "Moody's Mood for Love"] Morrison and Kielbania soon decided that to make the more improvisatory music they were interested in playing, they wanted another musician who could play solos. They ended up with John Payne, a jazz flute and saxophone player whose biggest inspiration was Charles Lloyd. This new lineup of the Van Morrison Controversy -- acoustic guitar, double bass, and jazz flute -- kept gigging around Boston, though the sound they were creating was hardly what the audiences coming to see the man who'd had that "Brown-Eyed Girl" hit the year before would have expected -- even when they did "Brown-Eyed Girl", as the one live recording of that line-up, made by Peter Wolf, shows: [Excerpt: The Van Morrison Controversy, "Brown-Eyed Girl (live in Boston 1968)"] That new style, with melodic bass underpinning freely extemporising jazz flute and soulful vocals, would become the basis of the album that to this day is usually considered Morrison's best. But before that could happen, there was the matter of the contracts to be sorted out. Warner-Reprise Records were definitely interested. Warners had spent the last few years buying up smaller companies like Atlantic, Autumn Records, and Reprise, and the label was building a reputation as the major label that would give artists the space and funding they needed to make the music they wanted to make. Idiosyncratic artists with difficult reputations (deserved or otherwise), like Neil Young, Randy Newman, Van Dyke Parks, the Grateful Dead, and Joni Mitchell, had all found homes on the label, which was soon also to start distributing Frank Zappa, the Beach Boys, and Captain Beefheart. A surly artist who wants to make mystical acoustic songs with jazz flute accompaniment was nothing unusual for them, and once Joe Smith, the man who had signed the Grateful Dead, was pointed in Morrison's direction by Andy Wickham, an A&R man working for the label, everyone knew that Morrison would be a perfect fit. But Morrison was still under contract to Bang records and Web IV, and those contracts said, among other things, that any other label that negotiated with Morrison would be held liable for breach of contract. Warners didn't want to show their interest in Morrison, because a major label wanting to sign him would cause Bang to raise the price of buying him out of his contract. Instead they got an independent production company to sign him, with a nod-and-wink understanding that they would then license the records to Warners. The company they chose was Inherit Productions, the production arm of Schwaid-Merenstein, a management company set up by Bob Schwaid, who had previously worked in Warners' publishing department, and record producer Lewis Merenstein. Merenstein came to another demo session at Ace Recordings, where he fell in love with the new music that Morrison was playing, and determined he would do everything in his power to make the record into the masterpiece it deserved to be. He and Morrison were, at least at this point, on exactly the same page, and bonded over their mutual love of King Pleasure. Morrison signed to Schwaid-Merenstein, just as he had with Bert Berns and before him Phil Solomon, for management, record production, and publishing. Schwaid-Merenstein were funded by Warners, and would license any recordings they made to Warners, once the contractual situation had been sorted out. The first thing to do was to negotiate the release from Web IV, the publishing company owned by Ilene Berns. Schwaid negotiated that, and Morrison got released on four conditions -- he had to make a substantial payment to Web IV, if he released a single within a year he had to give Web IV the publishing, any album he released in the next year had to contain at least two songs published by Web IV, and he had to give Web IV at least thirty-six new songs to publish within the next year. The first two conditions were no problem at all -- Warners had the money to buy the contract out, and Merenstein's plans for the first album didn't involve a single anyway. It wouldn't be too much of a hardship to include a couple of Web IV-published tracks on the album -- Morrison had written two songs, "Beside You" and "Madame George", that had already been published and that he was regularly including in his live sets. As for the thirty-six new songs... well, that all depended on what you called a song, didn't it? [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Ring Worm"] Morrison went into a recording studio and recorded thirty-one ostensible songs, most of them lasting one minute to within a few seconds either way, in which he strummed one or two chords and spoke-sang whatever words came into his head -- for example one song, "Here Comes Dumb George", just consists of the words "Here Comes Dumb George" repeated over and over. Some of the 'songs', like "Twist and Shake" and "Hang on Groovy", are parodying Bert Berns' songwriting style; others, like "Waiting for My Royalty Check", "Blowin' Your Nose", and "Nose in Your Blow", are attacks on Bang's business practices. Several of the songs, like "Hold on George", "Here Comes Dumb George", "Dum Dum George", and "Goodbye George" are about a man called George who seems to have come to Boston to try and fail to make a record with Morrison. And “Want a Danish” is about wanting a Danish pastry. But in truth, this description is still making these "songs" sound more coherent than they are. The whole recording is of no musical merit whatsoever, and has absolutely nothing in it which could be considered to have any commercial potential at all. Which is of course the point -- just to show utter contempt to Ilene Berns and her company. The other problem that needed to be solved was Bang Records itself, which was now largely under the control of the mob. That was solved by Joe Smith. As Smith told the story "A friend of mine who knew some people said I could buy the contract for $20,000. I had to meet somebody in a warehouse on the third floor on Ninth Avenue in New York. I walked up there with twenty thousand-dollar bills -- and I was terrified. I was terrified I was going to give them the money, get a belt on the head and still not wind up with the contract. And there were two guys in the room. They looked out of central casting -- a big wide guy and  a tall, thin guy. They were wearing suits and hats and stuff. I said 'I'm here with the money. You got the contract?' I remember I took that contract and ran out the door and jumped from the third floor to the second floor, and almost broke my leg to get on the street, where I could get a cab and put the contract in a safe place back at Warner Brothers." But the problem was solved, and Lewis Merenstein could get to work translating the music he'd heard Morrison playing into a record. He decided that Kielbania and Payne were not suitable for the kind of recording he wanted -- though they were welcome to attend the sessions in case the musicians had any questions about the songs, and thus they would get session pay. Kielbania was, at first, upset by this, but he soon changed his mind when he realised who Merenstein was bringing in to replace him on bass for the session. Richard Davis, the bass player -- who sadly died two months ago as I write this -- would later go on to play on many classic rock records by people like Bruce Springsteen and Laura Nyro, largely as a result of his work for Morrison, but at the time he was known as one of the great jazz bass players, most notably having played on Eric Dolphy's Out to Lunch: [Excerpt: Eric Dolphy, "Hat and Beard"] Kielbania could see the wisdom of getting in one of the truly great players for the album, and he was happy to show Davis the parts he'd been playing on the songs live, which Davis could then embellish -- Davis later always denied this, but it's obvious when listening to the live recordings that Kielbania played on before these sessions that Davis is playing very similar lines. Warren Smith Jr, the vibraphone player, had played with great jazz musicians like Charles Mingus and Herbie Mann, as well as backing Lloyd Price, Aretha Franklin, and Janis Joplin. Connie Kay, the drummer, was the drummer for the Modern Jazz Quartet and had also played sessions with everyone from Ruth Brown to Miles Davis. And Jay Berliner, the guitarist, had played on records like Charles Mingus' classic The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady: [Excerpt: Charles Mingus: "Mode D - Trio and Group Dancers, Mode F - Single Solos & Group Dance"] There was also a flute player whose name nobody now remembers. Although all of these musicians were jobbing session musicians -- Berliner came to the first session for the album that became Astral Weeks straight from a session recording a jingle for Pringles potato chips -- they were all very capable of taking a simple song and using it as an opportunity for jazz improvisation. And that was what Merenstein asked them to do. The songs that Morrison was writing were lyrically oblique, but structurally they were very simple -- surprisingly so when one is used to listening to the finished album. Most of the songs were, harmonically, variants of the standard blues and R&B changes that Morrison was used to playing. "Cyprus Avenue" and "The Way Young Lovers Do", for example, are both basically twelve-bar blueses -- neither is *exactly* a standard twelve-bar blues, but both are close enough that they can be considered to fit the form. Other than what Kielbania and Payne showed the musicians, they received no guidance from Morrison, who came in, ran through the songs once for them, and then headed to the vocal booth. None of the musicians had much memory of Morrison at all -- Jay Berliner said “This little guy walks in, past everybody, disappears into the vocal booth, and almost never comes out, even on the playbacks, he stayed in there." While Richard Davis later said “Well, I was with three of my favorite fellas to play with, so that's what made it beautiful. We were not concerned with Van at all, he never spoke to us.” The sound of the basic tracks on Astral Weeks is not the sound of a single auteur, as one might expect given its reputation, it's the sound of extremely good jazz musicians improvising based on the instructions given by Lewis Merenstein, who was trying to capture the feeling he'd got from listening to Morrison's live performances and demos. And because these were extremely good musicians, the album was recorded extremely quickly. In the first session, they cut four songs. Two of those were songs that Morrison was contractually obliged to record because of his agreement with Web IV -- "Beside You" and "Madame George", two songs that Bert Berns had produced, now in radically different versions: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Madame George"] The third song, "Cyprus Avenue", is the song that has caused most controversy over the years, as it's another of the songs that Morrison wrote around this time that relate to a sexual or romantic interest in underage girls. In this case, the reasoning might have been as simple as that the song is a blues, and Morrison may have been thinking about a tradition of lyrics like this in blues songs like "Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl". Whatever the cause though, the lyrics have, to put it mildly, not aged well at all: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Cyprus Avenue"] That song would be his standard set-closer for live performances for much of the seventies. For the fourth and final song, though, they chose to record what would become the title track for the album, "Astral Weeks", a song that was a lot more elliptical, and which seems in part to be about Morrison's longing for Janet Planet from afar, but also about memories of childhood, and also one of the first songs to bring in Morrison's fascination with the occult and spirituality,  something that would be a recurring theme throughout his work, as the song was partly inspired by paintings by a friend of Morrison's which suggested to him the concept of astral travel: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Astral Weeks"] Morrison had a fascination with the idea of astral travel, as he had apparently had several out-of-body experiences as a child, and wanted to find some kind of explanation for them. Most of the songs on the album came, by Morrison's own account, as a kind of automatic writing, coming through him rather than being consciously written, and there's a fascination throughout with, to use the phrase from "Madame George", "childhood visions". The song is also one of the first songs in Morrison's repertoire to deliberately namecheck one of his idols, something else he would do often in future, when he talks about "talking to Huddie Leadbelly". "Astral Weeks" was a song that Morrison had been performing live for some time, and Payne had always enjoyed doing it. Unlike Kielbania he had no compunction about insisting that he was good enough to play on the record, and he eventually persuaded the session flute player to let him borrow his instrument, and Payne was allowed to play on the track: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Astral Weeks"] Or at least that's how the story is usually told -- Payne is usually credited for playing on "Madame George" too, even though everyone agrees that "Astral Weeks" was the last song of the night, but people's memories can fade over time. Either way, Payne's interplay with Jay Berliner on the guitar became such a strong point of the track that there was no question of bringing the unknown session player back -- Payne was going to be the woodwind player for the rest of the album: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Astral Weeks"] There was then a six-day break between sessions, during which time Payne and Kielbania went to get initiated into Scientology -- a religion with which Morrison himself would experiment a little over a decade later -- though they soon decided that it wasn't worth the cost of the courses they'd have to take, and gave up on the idea the same week. The next session didn't go so well. Jay Berliner was unavailable, and so Barry Kornfeld, a folkie who played with people like Dave Van Ronk, was brought in to replace him. Kornfeld was perfectly decent in the role, but they'd also brought in a string section, with the idea of recording some of the songs which needed string parts live. But the string players they brought in were incapable of improvising, coming from a classical rather than jazz tradition, and the only track that got used on the finished album was "The Way Young Lovers Do", by far the most conventional song on the album, a three-minute soul ballad structured as a waltz twelve-bar blues, where the strings are essentially playing the same parts that a horn section would play on a record by someone like Solomon Burke: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "The Way Young Lovers Do"] It was decided that any string or horn parts on the rest of the album would just be done as overdubs. It was two weeks before the next and final session for the album, and that featured the return of Jay Berliner on guitar. The session started with "Sweet Thing" and "Ballerina", two songs that Morrison had been playing live for some time, and which were cut in relatively quick order.  They then made attempts at two more songs that didn't get very far, "Royalty", and "Going Around With Jesse James", before Morrison, stuck for something to record, pulled out a new lyric he'd never performed live, "Slim Slow Slider". The whole band ran through the song once, but then Merenstein decided to pare the arrangement down to just Morrison, Payne (on soprano sax rather than on flute), and Warren Smith Jr: [Excerpt: Van Morrison, "Slim Slow Slider"] That track was the only one where, after the recording, Merenstein didn't compliment the performance, remaining silent instead – Payne said “Maybe everyone was just tired, or maybe they were moved by it.” It seems likely it was the latter. The track eventually got chosen as the final track of the album, because Merenstein felt that it didn't fit conceptually with anything else -- and it's definitely a more negative track than the oth

She made us laugh in the comedy series "The King of Queens," but her life behind the scenes was no laughing matter.  Actress Leah Remini joins Cheryl to talk about how her time on Season 17 of DWTS saved her after just leaving Scientology. She went from losing a community to finding a new one, revealing that Cheryl and Tony were her first non-Scientology friends.  Plus, she shares the unrealistic expectations she put on herself and what she would do differently now.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Our first Scientology episode of the Cultvember season! Meet Alex, who was previously the Director of Public Book Sales at the Church of Scientology London, until he was kicked out and labeled a ‘Trouble Source". Which works perfectly because I have a lot of questions and Alex is here to let us know what's up with the whole MLMy side hustle of book sales in CoS. Along the way we break down Alex's own story, and some of the more complicated policies of L. Ron Hubbard. Show Notes Connect with Alex! - YouTube | Instagram | Twitter | Website Cause Over Life Aftermath Foundation What is SPTV? IGotOut.org Out of MLM The BITE Model LAMLM Book Club MLM Dupes How can you help? MLM Change Report Fraud Truth in Advertising Report to your state Attorney General's office! Not in the U.S.? No Problem! Support the Podcast! Website | Patreon | Buy Me a Taco | TikTok | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Discord | Merch! Life After MLM is produced by Roberta Blevins. Audio editing is done by the lovely Kayla Craven, video editing by the indescribable RK Gold, and Michelle Carpenter is our Triple Emerald Princess of Robots. Life After MLM is owned by Roberta Blevins 2023. Music : The Limits of the Cosmos by Geoff Harvey *Some links may be affiliate links. When you purchase things from these links, I get a small commission that I use to buy us tacos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

NETSUITE: Take advantage of NetSuite's FREE KPI checklist: https://www.netsuite.com/ICED Oracle: Free test drive of OCI at https://oracle.com/iced NEW: Join us at http://www.icedcoffeehour.club for premium content - Enjoy! Add us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jlsselby https://www.instagram.com/gpstephan Official Clips Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCeBQ24VfikOriqSdKtomh0w For sponsorships or business inquiries reach out to: tmatsradio@gmail.com For Podcast Inquiries, please DM @icedcoffeehour on Instagram! Timestamps: 00:00 - Intro 06:05 - How Grant became a drug addict 10:46 - "A million dollars is nothing" 19:21 - How much it costs to own a plane 24:30 - All of Grant's 4 audits 46:50 - Why printing money DOESN'T cause inflation 01:01:07 - Why you should NEVER be liquid 01:08:20 - How to pick the right mentor 01:17:32 - Addressing the Scientology stigma 01:20:57 - Why Grant hates the public school system 01:30:22 - Where Grant and his daughter disagree 01:52:33 - Is Grant a hypomanic freak of nature 01:54:44 - How Grant maintains perfect health *Some of the links and other products that appear on this video are from companies which Graham Stephan will earn an affiliate commission or referral bonus. Graham Stephan is part of an affiliate network and receives compensation for sending traffic to partner sites. The content in this video is accurate as of the posting date. Some of the offers mentioned may no longer be available.

Thank you so much for tuning in for another episode of Tin Foil Hat with Sam Tripoli.  This episode we welcome Investigative Reporter Andrew Gold to the show to discuss journey into investigating Exorcisms, Jimmy Savile, Scientology, NXIVM and at the end he drops a bomb on us about a program Germany came up with on how to fix their pedophile problem.  This was an insane episode.  Thank you so much for your support. Please support The Chaos Twins Indiegogo.  Join the Army Of Chaos: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/chaos-twins-1-by-sam-tripoli-paranoid-american--2/coming_soon/x/5548203   Want to see Sam Tripoli live?  Get tickets at SamTripoli.com:   Nov 17th: Headlining Vulcan with Eddie Bravo and XG In Austin https://tickets.vulcanpresents.com/e/tin-foil-11-17/tickets   Nov 18th: Tin Foil Hat Comedy Night And Swarm Tank LIve The House Of Comedy in Dallas Tx 7pm: Tin Foil Hat Comedy- https://txtickets.houseofcomedy.net/event/tin-foil-hat-comedy-night-special-presentation   9pm: Swarm Tank- https://txtickets.houseofcomedy.net/event/swarm-tank-special-presentation   Nov 24th: The Revival Live At Room 237 at The Rabbit Hole In Woodland Hills https://therabbitholebar.com/event/room-237-3/   Dec 16th: Headlining The Post Comedy Show in El Monte, Ca https://www.eventbrite.com/e/the-post-comedy-show-w-sam-tripoli-tickets-758061160337?aff=oddtdtcreator   Jan 25th-27th: Headlining the Comedy Vault In Batavia, Ill https://www.comedyvaultbatavia.com/calendar?month=1&year=2024   Feb 8th-10th:  The Comic Strip in Edmonton https://wem.thecomicstrip.ca   Please check out Andrew Gold's internet: Linktree: https://linktr.ee/andrewgold Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AndrewGold1 Podcast:  On The Edge With Andrew Gold- https://apple.co/3MNLLfR Locals: https://andrewgold.locals.com Twitter: https://twitter.com/AndrewGold_ok     Please check out SamTripoli.com for all things Sam Tripoli. Please check out Sam Tripoli's Linktree: https://linktr.ee/samtripoli Please Follow Sam Tripoli's Comedy Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samtripolicomedy/ Please Follow Sam Tripoli's Podcast Clip Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samtripolispodcastclips/   Thank you to our sponsors:   FUM: Stopping is something we all put off because it's hard, but switching to Füm is easy, enjoyable, and even fun. Füm has served over 100,000 customers and has thousands of success stories, and there's no reason that can't be you. Join Füm in accelerating humanity's breakup from destructive habits by picking up the Journey Pack today. Head to TryFum.com and use code TINFOIL to save 10% off when you get the Journey pack today. That's TRY-F-U-M.com and use code TINFOIL to save an additional 10% off your order today   CopyMyCrypto.com: The ‘Copy my Crypto' membership site shows you the coins that the youtuber ‘James McMahon' personally holds - and allows you to copy him. 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Lauren Sanchez & Jeff Bezos' cringy interview, Will Smith outed by his former assistant, UFC saved Bud Light, Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God, new airplane meltdowns, and we reconnect with Rod from 10Kforawife.com after 24 years. The Buffalo Bills were humiliated on Monday Night Football. Poor Karl can never watch football again. University of Michigan football is “America's Team”. No one still knows what happened with former QB coach Matt Weiss, but it seems we might know more soon. Will Smith's former assistant is spilling and outing him. Brother Bilaal has a book to sell. Our favorite Detroit Lions fan, Katie Six, has a new business venture… OnlyFans. Politics: A Senator challenged a Teamsters President to a fistfight. The Las Vegas Golden Knights celebrated their Stanley Cup victory at the White House. David Axelrod vs Joe Biden. JFK Jr. needs to put socks on. The ownerless White House cocaine has been seen for the first time. Secret Service had to take out a carjacker in DC. You can NOT text-to-vote. Dana White stands with his Bud Light partnership with the UFC. Airplane Meltdowns: Bobbi Storm does whatever she wants on airplanes. This woman is being “humanly trafficked” on the plane. This southern gentleman had a hot head on his flight. The ‘Right Now' meltdown lady is selling merch. A Michigan man is looking for love via a sign on the road. We reach out to Jim Smalls to help spread awareness. Reach him at 517-490-9313. Sound familiar? We reconnect with 10Kforawife.com's Rod Barnett. $10KForRod Part II coming soon. Jeff Bezos and Lauren Sanchez think they are sooooo hot and soooooo funny in Vogue Magazine. You can only see Travis Barker and Kourtney Kardashian's brat via appointment. Alabama Barker is a little racy online and her dad loves it. Travis is annoying in the delivery room. We check out another cop cam. This may be the worst one yet. A former big wig in The Church of Scientology is popping off about David Miscavige. Love Has Won: The Cult of Mother God is a crazy doc available now on HBO. Joey and Monica break their silence regarding Chandler's death. Waiting on the other three… Adam Driver to fan: “f**k you”. Lenny Dykstra needs rent money. Visit Our Presenting Sponsor Hall Financial – Michigan's highest rated mortgage company If you'd like to help support the show… please consider subscribing to our YouTube Page, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (Drew and Mike Show, Marc Fellhauer, Trudi Daniels, Jim Bentley and BranDon).

Rachael recounts her personal experiences as scientology tried to "cure" her of being gay. She explains what it was like working directly for Miscavige, including that his $10,000 per day hair and make up people were not allowed to be gay, and the absolute insanity of what had to be done to make his hair look "perfect" for photos and video. It's some ridiculously crazy stuff.Get Mike's book: "A Billion Years My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology" on Amazon. Find me on X (Twitter): / mikerinder Instagram: / rindermike Facebook: / rindermike Visit the Mike Rinder store for merch -- t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, mousepads and more: ...

*Content Warning : This episode discusses topics such as death, cult indoctrination and child abuse. Please use discretion when listening.* As we move out of Evangelicalism and into Scientology, Marilyn Honig is the perfect guest to bridge the gap. Raised in trauma, Marilyn started her life as a Lost Child, falling between the cracks in the systems put in place to help her. She ended up being adopted by a large Pentecostal family, entrenched in the bells and whistles of the tent revival movement, complete with speaking in tongues and laying hands to cast out demons. By the time she was 20 she was deep in another religious group that controlled her every move, and it wasn't until she became a mother herself that she found the fire inside to break free. Show Notes Connect with Marilyn : Facebook | YouTube A Thief in the Night Film A Thief in the Night Wiki Aftermath Foundation What is SPTV? IGotOut.org Out of MLM The BITE Model LAMLM Book Club MLM Dupes How can you help? MLM Change Report Fraud Truth in Advertising Report to your state Attorney General's office! Not in the U.S.? No Problem! Support the Podcast! Website | Patreon | Buy Me a Taco | TikTok | Instagram | Facebook | YouTube | Discord | Merch! Life After MLM is produced by Roberta Blevins. Audio editing is done by the lovely Kayla Craven, video editing by the indescribable RK Gold, and Michelle Carpenter is our Triple Emerald Princess of Robots. Life After MLM is owned by Roberta Blevins 2023. Music : The Limits of the Cosmos by Geoff Harvey *Some links may be affiliate links. When you purchase things from these links, I get a small commission that I use to buy us tacos. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ask A Question: saythatpodcast@gmail.com thebridgechicago.tumblr.com/ask (Anonymous) *Matt's audio is better this episode. We promise it will be fully fixed by next week. We had a stern talk with our audio engineer...who is Matt. Intro and an emergency with a twist. (00:00-11:30) How should Christians think about the economy changing? Like, I know giving is good, but if I want to buy a house someday soon, I probably need to save more than I thought I would need to. (11:47-25:30) I was recently told I was “too negative.” I don't consider myself a negative person. I would say I am positive sometimes and negative other times and that I try to be realistic. Is it possible to just be a “negative” person? What do I do? (25:33-42:34) How do I deal with people who talk about all religion like it is a cult? I heard someone talking about Scientology recently and someone commented something like “yeah, that's weird. But they all are.” That kind of offended me, but I didn't know what to say. (42:40-01:00:55) Closing Song: A Mighty Fortress (Pete Lawson)

Part 1 of 2. Want Part 2 right away??? Join our Patreon to get it a week early! Plus you get all of our past episodes ad-free as well! In March of 2017, three women filed sexual assault allegations against Danny Masterson who denied the allegations via his agent.  The filing triggered an LAPD investigation, and in December of 2017, a fourth victim came forward with allegations.  A few weeks later, a fifth victim came forward with allegations.  Masterson was able to escape justice for years by hiding behind the rules / laws of the Church of Scientology.  Eventually though, he was brought to trial and found guilty of rape and given 30 years to life in prison.   ***TRIGGER WARNING*** Drugging - Rape - Sexual Assault - Cult - Emotional, Physical, and Sexaual Abuse - Animal Abuse / Poisoning - Pretty Much Everything Hang with us: Follow Us on Instagram Like Us on Facebook Join our Case Discussion Group on Facebook Get Killer Queens Merch Bonus Episodes Support Our AMAZING Sponsors: Hello Fresh: Go to HelloFresh.com/killerqueensfree and use code killerqueensfree for FREE breakfast for life! One breakfast item per box while subscription is active. Hatch: Right now, Hatch is offering our listeners $20 off your purchase of a Hatch Restore 2 and free shipping at hatch.co/queens. Sleep deeply and wake gently with the Restore 2 - go to hatch.co/queens to get $20 off and free shipping! That's hatch.co/queens. Quince: Go to Quince.com/queens for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Simplisafe: For a limited time, listeners can get a special 50% off any SimpliSafe system with a Fast Protect Plan. Visit SIMPLISAFE.com/killerqueens. © 2023 Killer Queens Podcast. All Rights Reserved Audio Production by Wayfare Recording Music provided by Steven Tobi Logo designed by Sloane Williams of The Sophisticated Crayon YouTube Editing by Jennifer Da Silva

Peter Ivers, the murder of Peter Ivers, New Wave Theatre, David McGowan, Laurel Canyon, Harvard, Signet Society, Douglas Kenney, Lucy Fisher, Tim Hunter, David Lynch, Eraserhead, American Film Institute, National Lampoon's, Caddyshack, Animal House, Terminal Love, Francis Ford Coppola, Zoetrope, Cotton Club murders, Stanley Kubrick, Wonderland gang, Ron Launius, David Lind, Manson family, Aryan Brotherhood, Wonderland murders, John Holmes, Eddie Nash, Ivers' possible involvement in drug trafficking, Peter Rafelson, Bob Rafelson, Bert Schneider, Esalen, Yippies, John Belushi, John Belushi's overdose, Doug Kenney's suicide, Harold Ramis, David Jove, occult, Scientology, Aleister Crowley, Process Church, Ufology, William Milton Cooper, Rolling Stones, Redlands drug bust, Jove as the Acid King, Jove as spy/police informant, Lotus Weinstock, Paul Krassner, "The Cave," MTV, MTV as derivative/watered down version of New Wave Theatre, "The Top," Michael Dare, Ivers/Jove/New Wave Theatre as influence on Ghostbusters/Repo Man, LA punk scene as opMusic by: Keith Allen Dennishttps://keithallendennis.bandcamp.com/ Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's episode is sponsored by BetterHelp.  Julie Bogart homeschooled her five children for seventeen years while also shepherding a Cincinnati homeschool co-op of 300. But it wasn't merely homeschoolers that were a little bit culty in her life. With experiences of missionary evangelical Christianity, the New Thought movement, Scientology, and four years as an  e s t  devotee, Julie Bogart's got some culty notches in her belt. Now she's helping cult-proof parents and their kids by teaching families to think well. In this episode, Julie shares insight into susceptibilities for cult-jumping, our perceptions of “trusted” authority/expertise, and the power of wonder and curiosity. We're also reminded of the parental golden rule: seek therapy yourselves before subjecting your kiddos to any kind of psychotherapy. For a deep dive into those waters, rewind to our episode with Meg Appelgate who navigated the Troubled Teen Industry firsthand.   NOTES: Julie Bogart has devoted her life to the triumvirate of writing, kids, and parents and is known for her common sense parenting and education advice on how to raise critical thinkers. She created Brave Writer, an online writing and language arts program that coaches folks to discover their own original thoughts. She has scores of professional writing credentials including a weekly column for United Press International, Brave Writer's Home Study Courses, and two books, The Brave Learner and Raising Critical Thinkers. Mother of five and grandmother to three, Julie lives in Cincinnati, Ohio.   You can find her on Twitter  and Instagram.   Also…   Let it be known far and wide, loud and clear that…   The views and opinions expressed on A Little Bit Culty do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the podcast. Any content provided by our guests, bloggers, sponsors or authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, group, club, organization, business individual, anyone or anything. Nobody's mad at you, just don't be a culty fuckwad.   OTHER LINKS: Check out our lovely sponsors Join ‘A Little Bit Culty' on Patreon Get poppin' fresh ALBC Swag Support the pod and smash this link Cult awareness and recovery resources   CREDITS:  Executive Producers: Sarah Edmondson & Anthony Ames Production Partner: Citizens of Sound Producer: Will Retherford Co-Creator: Jess Tardy Writer: Holly Zadra Theme Song: “Cultivated” by Jon Bryant co-written with Nygel Asselin  

This week it's answers about prosecuting Scientology; how connected are the Sedona Method, EST & Scientology; some blunt talk about COVID conspiracies and more. Enjoy! (1) When it comes to prosecuting the Church of Scientology, what's in it for the government to go after the cult? Years of lawsuits, tying up courts, delay after delay… Read More »Critical Q&A #432

Rachael Hastings was a Sea Org member at Scientology Media Productions, and a favored camerawoman of David Miscavige. As part of an "ethics handling" for being gay, she was required to interrogate a man who admitted to molesting young girls -- scientology officials refused to report this to the appropriate authorities or even kick him out of the Sea Org.Due to algorithms and policies we have deleted the name of the perpetrator and some of the details from the interview. They can be found on Mike's blog here: https://www.mikerindersblog.org/anoth...Get Mike's book: "A Billion Years My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology" on Amazon. Find me on X (Twitter): / mikerinder Instagram: / rindermike Facebook: / rindermike Visit the Mike Rinder store for merch -- t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, mousepads and more: ...

Considered by many Magicians and Occultists to be as close as we have to a Rockstar, John Whiteside Parsons lived perhaps one of the most interesting and captivating lives of any resident of the Fools Gallery. A gifted chemist, many have said that he is one of the most important figures in the history of space exploration; some even going so far to say that without Jack Parsons, humanity would not have made it to the moon. And yet going hand in hand with his rocket chemical brilliance was a fanatical obsession with Western Magic, particularly that of Aleister Crowley's Thelema. Consider this an introduction to one of the most fascinating humans to grace this planet in the last 100 years- Jack Parsons.

Leah Remini and Claire Headley met with LAPD Chief Moore after social media pressure shamed him into it. The LAPD has given Scientology preferential treatment, and met with Danny Masterson's attorneys.  Leah and Claire hoped to educate the LAPD on the truth about Scientology. They describe how the meeting went and a lot more.Get Mike's book: "A Billion Years My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology" on Amazon. Find me on X (Twitter): / mikerinder Instagram: / rindermike Facebook: / rindermike Visit the Mike Rinder store for merch -- t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, mousepads and more: ...

Who doesn't love a movie about making a movie? Who doesn't love Eddie Murphy? Who doesn't love Steve Martin? By the end of our "Bowfinger" podcast, you'll find out exactly who. Along the way, you'll hear Big D downplay the tragedy of Anne Heche's death. Gene will explain his fascination with Gogglebox. And you'll discover this 1999 comedy's connection to the Church of Scientology. As the Shat Crew considers a move to Michigan, your hosts also reveal what exactly they'd do for a shot at stardom (Big D would do a bit more than Gene would) and reflect back on the pop hit "Boogie in Your Butt." SUBSCRIBE Android: https://shatpod.com/android Apple: https://shatpod.com/apple All: https://shatpod.com/subscribe CONTACT Email: hosts@shatpod.com Website: https://shatpod.com/movies Leave a Voicemail: Web: https://shatpod.com/voicemail Leave a Voicemail: Call: (914) 719-7428 SUPPORT THE PODCAST Donate or Commission: https://shatpod.com/support Shop Merchandise: https://shatpod.com/shop Theme Song - Die Hard by Guyz Nite: https://www.facebook.com/guyznite

Scientology...ADHD....Tik Toks..... --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/2gsandamic/message

Leah & Mike expose the lies of scientology claiming they have no policy preventing anyone from reporting crimes to law enforcement. Read the policies for yourself and hear how scientology prevents perpetrators of crimes from facing justice.  See the full documents at Mikerindersblog.org.Get Mike's book: "A Billion Years My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology" on Amazon. Find me on X (Twitter): / mikerinder Instagram: / rindermike Facebook: / rindermike Visit the Mike Rinder store for merch -- t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, mousepads and more: ...

There are cults that leave no doubt that they are cults, like Scientology. But what about those cults that really seem Christian? Those that claim they use the Bible as their authority, they spout "Christianeze" words and phrases, and even have very Christian-like sounding names for their churches, but underneath all of the smoke and mirrors, they are as bad a cult as The Branch Davidians, and their teaching is just as much from hell! Join us as we look at three of these cults that you may not have realized were cults at all!Thanks for tuning in! Be sure to check out everything Proverbs 9:10 on our website, www.proverbs910ministries.com! You can also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Rumble, YouTube, Twitter, Truth Social, and Gettr!

Joe Szimhart shares his remarkable knowledge of religious belief and helps Jon to assess the value of 'being here now.' Observations about Scientology, Ron Hubbard's childhood, Jon's brief time in a Zen monastery and Joe's experiences in the Church Universal and Triumphant. With reference to the origins of karma as a teaching, the separate 'bodies' of CUT as compared to Hubbard's 'exteriorization'. How groups induce 'transcendent' states through repetition, fixation and mimicry, fasting and sleep deprivation which actually create different neurological states. A wide-ranging discussion taking in many points about Scientology, its offshoot Eckankar, Paul Brunton, TM, Meher Baba and Uncle Tom Cobley and all. Links: Jon's paper, never believe a hypnotist Joe's video Joe's channel Joe's website and check out Jon's spiffy new website!

Tune in and enjoy this livestream I did on my YouTube channel with Alex Barnes Ross, about David Miscavige making a shock return to the United Kingdom - a public appearance after years away to the spot where Bella Cruise, Tom Cruise's daughter, works in Scientology. Alex Barnes-Ross is arranging a protest, and here's how you can help. #scientology #davidmiscavige #tomcruise  Alex's links: https://www.youtube.com/@apostatealex http://scientologybusiness.com  Andrew Gold links: http://YouTube.com/andrewgold1 http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok  http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok  https://andrewgold.locals.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We hope you've enjoyed CULTOBER's cultertainment recommendations! Nobody asked her to do the hard work of compiling 45 shows, movies and documentaries to keep you entertained and informed but y'all know she's here to give you what you didn't know you wanted or needed!In our last recommendation episode, Ash and Apostate Alex, from Ash and Alex Do Scientology, talk about culty movies that they love and why!For links to all of the shows that Ash recommended, and where you can stream them, click here!Find Previous Director of Public Book Sales at the Church of Scientology London, Apostate Alex, on his YouTube channel! Follow his anti-Scientology advocacy work on his on Scientology Business and find everything else Alex on his main website!The video version of our interview with Sarah Edmonson from A Little Bit Culty podcast is available now on Alex's channel and the audio version will be out soon here!-Join us for as little as $5 a month on Patreon!-We have super fun merch, go take a look!-We'd love to see you in our Discord, come hang out!-Audio editing by Dallas Hernandez.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4523794/advertisement

This week on Coven of Rejects we have Liz Gale on to discuss her upbringing in Scientology and how she escaped as a young adult. We talk about the fundamentals of Scientology and unpack its origins. 
You can find Liz on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@liz_liz_gale_gale?_t=8gs1tmUgYeY&_r=1

This week, it's answers about how Scientology really doesn't plan very well for the future, Miscavige's lavish lifestyle, some thoughts about cult critics who body shame and a lot more. Enjoy! (1) In the United States, many big-name universities raise money from alumni. Some of it comes in during the alumni's lifetimes, but a sizable… Read More »Critical Q&A #431

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Let the fun begin again! Leah Remini and Mike Rinder are back, talking all things scientology. We discuss what happened to the Fair Game podcast and why it came to an abrupt ending. We also have some scientology documents that you need to hear about. You can find full copies of the documents we reference in this video at mikerindersblog.org. Get Mike's book: "A Billion Years My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology" on Amazon. Find me on X (Twitter): / mikerinder Instagram: / rindermike Facebook: / rindermike Visit the Mike Rinder store for merch -- t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, mousepads and more: ...

Scientology celebrity, Danny Masterson, was sentenced to life in prison for the rape of women who reported these crimes to the Church of Scientology while they were all members. Scientology does not believe in reporting such crimes to law enforcement or any agency outside of Scientology. As a result the crimes were covered up. The victims fought for many years to see justice served. Leah Remini was in court for Masterson's sentencing. She brings her unique perspective as to how it unfolded. See the letter from Jane Doe 1's mother at Leah's Substack: https://leahremini.substack.com/p/dav...Get Mike's book: "A Billion Years My Escape from a Life in the Highest Ranks of Scientology" on Amazon. Find me on X (Twitter): / mikerinder Instagram: / rindermike Facebook: / rindermike Visit the Mike Rinder store for merch -- t-shirts, hoodies, mugs, mousepads and more: ...

Can deeply entrenched religious beliefs inadvertently shield and even perpetuate abuse? This perplexing question arose during a recent episode of the "Hidden Killers Podcast" with Tony Brueski. He invited Dr. Laura Anderson, a prominent psychotherapist and religious trauma consultant, to demystify the layers surrounding religious trauma.    In the discussion, Dr. Anderson sheds light on a crucial distinction: "Trauma is not the thing that happens to us, but it's the way that our body responds or our nervous system responds to the thing that happens to us." This means that while abuse might be the root cause, it doesn't necessarily equate to trauma. Instead, trauma stems from how individuals internalize and react to abusive incidents.    One could wonder, how do religious organizations inadvertently or even actively contribute to this dynamic? Dr. Anderson pointed to several red flags typical of high-control religious groups that can pave the way for trauma. These range from isolation, where individuals are urged to associate only with those deemed appropriate by the religious hierarchy, to strict information control, where members are told what they can read, watch, or listen to.    Furthermore, in many high-control religions, rigid definitions of gender and sexuality exist, typically placing men in power roles above women. This often leads to abusive behaviors, backed by justifications of doing it "in the name of God." Spiritual abuse takes many forms, with threats and accusations being commonplace. For instance, if one strays from the religious path, they may be warned that they are now susceptible to harm, both in the physical and spiritual realms. One stark example is Scientology's "fair game" concept, where those who leave the Church become targets for various forms of harassment.    However, the insidiousness of religious trauma often lies in its subtlety. As Dr. Anderson states, "Oftentimes there's consequences for saying no to those things." A church's seemingly benign requirements, like donating a certain amount or adhering to specific dress codes, may seem trivial at first. Yet, over time, these "tiny things" accumulate, gradually chipping away at an individual's autonomy and identity.    Taking a more specific example, Brueski brought up the controversial case of the Duggar family, members of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church. The incident involved Josh Duggar's sexual abuse of his sisters, with his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, seemingly dismissing the severity of the situation. One might ask: how could seemingly moral parents act this way, seemingly prioritizing their faith over the well-being of their children?    Dr. Anderson's answer delves deep into the foundational beliefs of many high-control religions: the idea that humans are born sinful or evil. In this perspective, sin is expected, and when one sins, it's a "God problem" and not necessarily a legal issue. Dr. Anderson elaborates, "When you sin, then it's a God problem. It's not a legal problem." Consequently, the solution is often sought internally within the religious community, sidelining the legal and societal implications of the abusive action.    This protective stance isn't unique to the Duggar case. From the Catholic Church to the Southern Baptist Church, many religious institutions have grappled with scandals, often opting to "deal with it in-house" rather than confront the issue openly.    Concluding their discussion, Brueski and Anderson highlighted the broader implications of religious trauma, urging society to be vigilant and question the structures that may enable such behaviors.    So, we return to our initial inquiry with a twist: how can society recognize and address religious trauma effectively while respecting the sacredness of individual beliefs? Want to listen to ALL of our podcasts AD-FREE? Subscribe through APPLE PODCASTS, and try it for three days free: https://tinyurl.com/ycw626tj Follow Our Other Cases: https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com The latest on Catching the Long Island Serial Killer, Awaiting Admission: BTK's Unconfessed Crimes, Delphi Murders: Inside the Crime, Chad & Lori Daybell, The Murder of Ana Walshe, Alex Murdaugh, Bryan Kohberger, Lucy Letby, Kouri Richins, Malevolent Mormon Mommys, Justice for Harmony Montgomery, The Murder of Stephen Smith, The Murder of Madeline Kingsbury, and much more! Listen at https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com

Steven Mango is a former scientologist - now exposing the horrible things they made him suffer in the cult, and the psychological and physical pain that gave him. Having to hide his sexual orientation out him in a position of complete discomfort and fear. #scientology #cults #homosexuality  Steven's link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCE5IHywtKYHcTGfr0AUB1Mw Andrew Gold links: http://YouTube.com/andrewgold1 http://instagram.com/andrewgold_ok  http://twitter.com/andrewgold_ok  https://andrewgold.locals.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Can deeply entrenched religious beliefs inadvertently shield and even perpetuate abuse? This perplexing question arose during a recent episode of the "Hidden Killers Podcast" with Tony Brueski. He invited Dr. Laura Anderson, a prominent psychotherapist and religious trauma consultant, to demystify the layers surrounding religious trauma.    In the discussion, Dr. Anderson sheds light on a crucial distinction: "Trauma is not the thing that happens to us, but it's the way that our body responds or our nervous system responds to the thing that happens to us." This means that while abuse might be the root cause, it doesn't necessarily equate to trauma. Instead, trauma stems from how individuals internalize and react to abusive incidents.    One could wonder, how do religious organizations inadvertently or even actively contribute to this dynamic? Dr. Anderson pointed to several red flags typical of high-control religious groups that can pave the way for trauma. These range from isolation, where individuals are urged to associate only with those deemed appropriate by the religious hierarchy, to strict information control, where members are told what they can read, watch, or listen to.    Furthermore, in many high-control religions, rigid definitions of gender and sexuality exist, typically placing men in power roles above women. This often leads to abusive behaviors, backed by justifications of doing it "in the name of God." Spiritual abuse takes many forms, with threats and accusations being commonplace. For instance, if one strays from the religious path, they may be warned that they are now susceptible to harm, both in the physical and spiritual realms. One stark example is Scientology's "fair game" concept, where those who leave the Church become targets for various forms of harassment.    However, the insidiousness of religious trauma often lies in its subtlety. As Dr. Anderson states, "Oftentimes there's consequences for saying no to those things." A church's seemingly benign requirements, like donating a certain amount or adhering to specific dress codes, may seem trivial at first. Yet, over time, these "tiny things" accumulate, gradually chipping away at an individual's autonomy and identity.    Taking a more specific example, Brueski brought up the controversial case of the Duggar family, members of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist church. The incident involved Josh Duggar's sexual abuse of his sisters, with his parents, Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, seemingly dismissing the severity of the situation. One might ask: how could seemingly moral parents act this way, seemingly prioritizing their faith over the well-being of their children?    Dr. Anderson's answer delves deep into the foundational beliefs of many high-control religions: the idea that humans are born sinful or evil. In this perspective, sin is expected, and when one sins, it's a "God problem" and not necessarily a legal issue. Dr. Anderson elaborates, "When you sin, then it's a God problem. It's not a legal problem." Consequently, the solution is often sought internally within the religious community, sidelining the legal and societal implications of the abusive action.    This protective stance isn't unique to the Duggar case. From the Catholic Church to the Southern Baptist Church, many religious institutions have grappled with scandals, often opting to "deal with it in-house" rather than confront the issue openly.    Concluding their discussion, Brueski and Anderson highlighted the broader implications of religious trauma, urging society to be vigilant and question the structures that may enable such behaviors.    So, we return to our initial inquiry with a twist: how can society recognize and address religious trauma effectively while respecting the sacredness of individual beliefs? Want to listen to ALL of our podcasts AD-FREE? Subscribe through APPLE PODCASTS, and try it for three days free: https://tinyurl.com/ycw626tj Follow Our Other Cases: https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com The latest on Catching the Long Island Serial Killer, Awaiting Admission: BTK's Unconfessed Crimes, Delphi Murders: Inside the Crime, Chad & Lori Daybell, The Murder of Ana Walshe, Alex Murdaugh, Bryan Kohberger, Lucy Letby, Kouri Richins, Malevolent Mormon Mommys, Justice for Harmony Montgomery, The Murder of Stephen Smith, The Murder of Madeline Kingsbury, and much more! Listen at https://www.truecrimetodaypod.com

In Scientology, being declared a "Suppressive Person" (SP) is a significant and highly negative designation. It is a form of excommunication or shunning within the Church of Scientology. Definition: A Suppressive Person, according to Scientology doctrine, is someone who actively works against the Church, its principles, and its practices. This could involve publicly criticizing Scientology, its leadership, or its beliefs.Consequences: When someone is declared an SP, they are considered to be a pariah within the Scientology community. Scientologists are instructed to disconnect from SPs, which means cutting off all communication and association with them, even if they are family members or close friends. This practice is designed to isolate and ostracize the individual.Ethical Handling: The Church believes that declaring someone an SP is a form of "ethical handling" to protect the church and its members from perceived threats. They see SPs as destructive influences and potential sources of harm.Rehabilitation: In some cases, the Church may offer a route to redemption for individuals declared SPs, typically involving extensive auditing and training to re-enter good standing within the organization. This process is known as "Atonement" or "Amends Project."Controversy: The practice of declaring someone an SP and enforcing disconnection has been highly controversial. Critics argue that it is a form of control and manipulation that can result in family estrangement and emotional distress.After being convicted of rape charges, Danny Masterson has now been declared a suppressive person by Scientology according to sources. to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.com(commercial at 9:26)source:EXCLUSIVE: Danny Masterson is expelled from Scientology and declared a 'suppressive person' - requiring members, including wife Bijou Phillips, to cut all ties with actor | Daily Mail OnlineThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5003294/advertisement

Julia has been reading John Stamos's memoir and shares about his close call with Scientology, Trixie Mattel is getting a new home renovation series, and Ryan McEnaney (PR expert and part of Bailey Nurseries) talks PR wisdom with the Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake relationship. Plus, Ryan sticks around for Hollywood Speak! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In Scientology, being declared a "Suppressive Person" (SP) is a significant and highly negative designation. It is a form of excommunication or shunning within the Church of Scientology.Definition: A Suppressive Person, according to Scientology doctrine, is someone who actively works against the Church, its principles, and its practices. This could involve publicly criticizing Scientology, its leadership, or its beliefs.Consequences: When someone is declared an SP, they are considered to be a pariah within the Scientology community. Scientologists are instructed to disconnect from SPs, which means cutting off all communication and association with them, even if they are family members or close friends. This practice is designed to isolate and ostracize the individual.Ethical Handling: The Church believes that declaring someone an SP is a form of "ethical handling" to protect the church and its members from perceived threats. They see SPs as destructive influences and potential sources of harm.Rehabilitation: In some cases, the Church may offer a route to redemption for individuals declared SPs, typically involving extensive auditing and training to re-enter good standing within the organization. This process is known as "Atonement" or "Amends Project."Controversy: The practice of declaring someone an SP and enforcing disconnection has been highly controversial. Critics argue that it is a form of control and manipulation that can result in family estrangement and emotional distress.After being convicted of rape charges, Danny Masterson has now been declared a suppressive person by Scientology according to sources. to contact me:bobbycapucci@protonmail.com(commercial at 9:26)source:EXCLUSIVE: Danny Masterson is expelled from Scientology and declared a 'suppressive person' - requiring members, including wife Bijou Phillips, to cut all ties with actor | Daily Mail OnlineThis show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/5080327/advertisement

A Corey Feldman podcast takedown by WATP Karl, Britney Spears book whoppers, Alaska Airlines pilot on shrooms, Sarah Silverman said something bad in 2001, two tall NBA legends gay accusations, and Al “keeps it real.” Sports: Michigan Football is in hot water because some people think they are cheaters. Other people know it's no big deal. Adonis Garcia smashes the Texas Rangers to the World Series to face the winner of tonight's Arizona Diamondbacks vs Philadelphia Phillies Game 7. Antonio Brown posts his erudite thoughts on child support. Politics: Dr. Jill Biden will keep rich people's secrets. All the lawyers are flipping on Donald Trump. Michael Cohen testified against The Donald today. 50 Cent vs Joe Biden. Britney Spears' book is finally out today! Michelle Williams had to read the hard parts. She isn't over Justin Timberlake. She lost her virginity at 14. Crossroads ruined her acting career. Karl from WATP drops by promote Jocktober, roast Corey Feldman on The Harland Highway, promote Point Dabble Point and much more. Go to Stuttering John's live show in March! A Jewish group has reached out to Dave Chappelle. An old 2001 TV clip of Sarah Silverman is making the rounds again for some reason. Megan Rapinoe is fundraising for Gaza… even though she's married to an Israeli-American and they'd stone her to death for being gay. Danny Masterson has been declared a ‘suppressive person' and has been kicked out of The Church of Scientology. Masterson is causing a strain on Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis' relationship. Marc declares Jennifer Lawrence in No Hard Feelings as “over-the-top”. The movie isn't funny. Amy Robach and TJ Holmes had a hometown date. Pat McAfee us way too edgy for College Gameday. Al Fellhauer “keeps it real”. Charlie LeDuff was a guest on ML Soul of Detroit. Wait… Tim Duncan is gay? Dwight Howard admits to a gay relationship in court. Cher is still nailing 37-year-old Alexander Edwards. What is wrong with Madonna's ass? David Eason has been charged with child abuse on Tenn Mom Jenelle Evans' son Jace. The Alaskan Airlines pilot in trouble for trying to take the plane down has an excuse… magic mushrooms. Family Guy takes a SHOT at Meghan Markle and Not-a-Prince Harry. South Park has a new special dropping on Paramount+. Tyler Perry is giving some old bag a new house. Visit Our Presenting Sponsor Hall Financial – Michigan's highest rated mortgage company If you'd like to help support the show… please consider subscribing to our YouTube Page, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter (Drew and Mike Show, Marc Fellhauer, Trudi Daniels, Jim Bentley and BranDon).