Caroline Fraser (on serial killers)

29:49So there seems to have been a lot of confusion, a lot of anger about his mom. And you start seeing him acting out at a very young age and doing violent things. And that's another thing that all these guys have in common is they start having these fantasies about women, about murder, about rape, very young. And did Ted ever say why he was doing it? It's one of the really frustrating things, though, about him is that they talked to him a lot. They got him to make statements, most of them hypothetical and a kind of, if I had done this, I would have done it that way. Right. Because he wouldn't admit culpability.

30:39Like OJ's book. Yeah. If I had done it or whatever. Oh, my God. Jesus. I know. That's so dark. But there's so many things we just don't know. We don't even know how many people he killed, when he started killing. Yeah, the first thing we know about is an eight-year-old that he took out of a house. This is a theory. We don't know for sure because she has never been found. He would never admit to it. Although in other cases where we know for a fact that he didn't kill the person when he was asked about it, He would just say, no, no, I didn't do that. And it turns out he was right about those. In the case of Anne-Marie Burr in Tacoma, who he may have killed when he was 14, he said stuff like, oh, I never went to that part of Tacoma, which is not true because his uncle lived around the corner.

31:33He said, I was too young to have done that. You know, the more somebody kind of embroiders on their denial, the more it kind of sounds like they're lying. And it isn't consistent with the other way. Right. What do you think the ethics are of true crime? And why are women predominantly the creators and the audience of true crime? This is a fascinating phenomenon. I think, you know, Anne Rule had a lot to do with this because her relationship to true crime, I mean, she was making a living at it as a single mom writing for detective magazines. but I think she also experienced it as a way of like, the more I know about this, the safer I can be almost.

32:25And the safer my daughter will be if we know who these people are, if we understand where they came from and how they do what they do, then it becomes a kind of protective. Yeah, having the knowledge. Right. That's now why so many women are drawn to it. But of course, the ethics are just all over the place. The desire to sensationalize this stuff is almost overwhelming. It's undeniable that violence is a human health issue. You know, I mean, where does it come from? You know, why do so many men commit violent crimes? So I think it's legitimate to engage in conversations about it, to write books about it, to examine the history of it.

33:18And I also think it's useful to kind of pull it out of the standard treatment where you kind of have a silo. You know, you've got a book about Ted Bundy and a book about the Night Stalker and a book about Jack the Ripper or something, but you're not looking at the whole history. There's no synthesis of it. That's right. And so I think historically, it's useful to look at. Yeah. It's very Malcolm Gladwell to kind of be like, this is what was going on for all these people. Oh, wow, there is a through line. Yeah, my explanation has always been kind of intuitively just we are all afraid of the thing that we have the highest probability of dying from.

34:01Although, ironically, we don't because we don't care about dying and stuff. But the flashy stuff that we have no control over, we tend to fixate on. And there was this moment going around last year where women would ask men when the last time they talked about the Roman Empire was. I don't know if you saw this. How often do you think about it? Think about it, talk about it. And it really did lead me down the path of like, well, that isn't. I recognize the reality of that. And then go further. World War II in color. What husband isn't watching World War II in color? And the wife is like, what the fuck is the obsession with World War II?

34:35But it occurred to me, that's how we die. We die in war. We have been dying in war at the level of tens of millions. And we're not even one generation out of it. My father was in Vietnam. You know, people went to Desert Storm. Like, that's how young men are going to die. So guess what? We're pretty interested in war. And we consume it over and over again because that was the high likelihood of how we will die accidentally. And so it just kind of makes sense that women have found their way to being murdered by men or abused or hurt. And men are focusing on getting killed in a war. And there was that other sort of meme thing that happened about bears, you know, women.

35:15Oh, that's right. Would you rather be trapped? If you're hiking alone in the wilderness, who would you rather encounter, a bear or a man? Oh, my God. Yeah, that was a big thing. And women pretty consistently said bear. A lot of people said bear. Guys, I don't know if that's the right decision. We just look at statistically the kill rate of bears versus random men. I know. I think the message is important. Yeah, I can imagine walking through the woods and then seeing a random man. That is so terrifying. I don't know if it's more or less than a bear, but that's a real fear. My husband and I once did a sort of six, seven month stint at this place above the Rogue River.

35:57It was like a writer's retreat thing that didn't, you know, have electricity or whatever. And it was really remote. And we did see bears and mountain lions, which was very exciting. But the scariest thing that happened when we were out there was when this guy came hiking out there and he had a rifle with him, which he said was for bears. Right, right. But you just don't really know. Yeah, exactly. Ooh. Yeah. Let's talk about missing white woman syndrome. That just came up on a show I was watching. You. The show You. Yeah, yeah, yeah. About a serial killer, basically. Yeah, it's a huge thing where white women are obsessed with other white women going missing or abducted or raped or murdered or whatever.

36:44When in fact, most violent crime is being experienced by women of color. It doesn't get all the headlines. I watched a doc. Yeah, Compton had a serial killer that was worse than most of these other ones that got headlines. but he was killing black prostitutes and no one cared. Some astronomical number of them and no one even put together that this was happening. Right. That grim sleeper killer in L.A. was killing women, most of whom were black, most of whom were prostitutes for decades. And nobody was really paying attention. And recently this guy made a documentary about that and actually went to the community and talked to people And they all just said, nobody cared.

37:28Nobody's even been here to ask us these questions. Women who had been involved, women who had been attacked by this guy said, you're the first person who came and talked to us about it. So it's a huge issue. And even on the podcast and the true crime stories, it's like who you're choosing to put at the center of the story. Often it's a white woman. Right. Because, yeah, that gets more clicks. What is genetic science? How is it shining a light on some of these cold cases? Oh, well, they've, of course, caught the Golden State Killer, who you mentioned. That was the big one. But I think there have been a couple others whereby they can go back and they can find, even if they don't know who the person is, they can, using DNA from the case, they can locate a relative of some kind and kind of move forward until they can pinpoint the exact person.

38:26But I also think that all the stuff that we now know about neurology and brain development, that should also be playing a part in how we sort of think about violent crime. Because we know now. I mean, the whole football brain injury thing is huge because some of these guys had significant brain injury from being beaten or being in an accident or something. And so that I think is another thing that should be looked into. Interestingly, with that, we just had a CT expert on. Weirdly, the mechanism becomes the same as lead, which is it is an area of the brain that is now obstructing communication with other parts of the brain.

39:08And the result of that is, yeah, a lot of unpredictable, erratic, often violent behavior. Did you consider in this, because another thing that I don't hear pushed forward a lot in all these different explanations, what seems quite likely to me is the contagion effect of these things. So it's like, yeah, it had this enormous peak and serial killers seem to beget other serial killers in the same way that reporting on suicides leads to outbreaks of suicides, that psychosomatic illnesses are contagious. When people see this in press and in the media, other people do it. How much do you think was it just a self-fueling phenomenon?

39:51I would say now it's been replaced with school shooters. We can easily identify these patterns of when they're heavily reported, all of a sudden we have another outbreak of them. Yeah, although I wonder about that because the serial killers, the vast majority of them are motivated by the sexual compulsion. They're getting off on what they're doing. Whereas the mass shooters, that seems to be slightly different. Yeah. I mean, they're both obsessed with getting credit. Yeah. They do. And the publicity of it. Notoriety. The mass murderers seem more motivated by that celebrity aspect. Their manifestos.

40:34Right. Yeah. And obsession with guns and so forth. But I think it's a different kink. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. Whereas the serial killers, the wiring got crossed in some devastating way that left them with this sexual compulsion to do the same thing over and over again. and achieve gratification through that. And that seems really different. Now, in all of this research and formulating this theory, did you have any vision forward? Do you have any, I mean... Prescriptions? Yeah, any prescriptions? No, and I think what I wasn't doing was writing a kind of academic argument or a thesis about this because I was more interested in a subjective approach, one that kind of captured the era and the feeling of it and the look of it and my sort of memories of it because that felt like a kind of drama that people could maybe relate to.

41:41There have been great works of academic histories of lead and the corruption that allowed lead to become such a huge factor in this country. So those are out there. You know, they've been done. I think I was after something a little less programmatic and more expressive or evocative of the era. Yeah, it feels like you felt like these stories were missing context. Right. And that you wanted to provide this context. And then even furthermore, these things which are incredibly low percentage things, these are statistically negligible, really. One in 13 million is the current estimate of serial killers.

42:27But that in some ways, these larger societal problems do feed into that downriver. That this is yet one of the many downriver effects of this kind of corruption and greed and lack of accountability. Yeah. When you were researching this book, did it make you more, are you more paranoid now post writing this? No, I don't think so because I think it was a factor of that time. I mean, I'm more paranoid probably about like keeping the door locked and the windows locked. I mean, that serial killer at the end, Israel Keys, who I kind of close with him and he would always say, Yeah, why don't people lock their windows?

43:10Oh, wow. So I'm more aware of things like that. Yeah. But I wouldn't call that paranormal. Yeah, that seems just sensible. I'll tell him why. Laziness. No, yeah. Yeah, just laziness. Oh, my God. Oh, well, Caroline, such a fascinating topic and such an interesting look at it and way to evaluate it. It's such a pleasure meeting you. Murder, land, crime, and bloodlust in the time of serial killer Seattle, Washington. Yeah, I mean, minimally, you have to be a little more optimistic because the trajectory has been pretty consistent. We are getting better at this somehow. Yes, we are. And crime is down, actually.

43:45We'll see what AI does. There's something to be learned on that little spike during COVID. That could be a telling when we fully understand what happened there. Oh, that's exactly. We have all these corollaries, but these corollaries now make this a little more compelling. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I wish you tons of luck with the book. Thanks a lot. Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

44:14Stay tuned for the fact check. It's where the party's at.

44:22Hello. Hello. Welcome back to the Big Apple. It's a scorcher today. It's hot out. The only thing I was looking forward to about leaving Nashville, where the day I left, the day before I left, it was like 95. They do the real feel, kind of like they would do in Michigan with the wind chill or what it really feels like. And it was 95, but it felt like 100. And it did. Yeah. So it's like, oh, that won't be bad. Sticky, sticky. Go up to New York, get a little fresh air. Yeah. It's 95 today. Today is hot. Yeah. Yesterday, though, was, in my opinion. Tolerable. Nice. It was hot yesterday, too. It was hot.

44:59I do think real feel. Real feel. When you're surrounded by buildings. Yeah. It feels hotter. There's no breeze. It's true. But when I, so when I left the hotel, when I left the airport, I had a sweatshirt on. And I got to the hotel and I had to drop my bags. My room wasn't ready. And so then I was walking with my sweatshirt on for a while. And I was like, I'm fine in my sweatshirt. Yeah, but you. I know. You really run cool. Let's talk about this. Okay, so I went home to see my parents, and it was so hot there. Probably even hotter than Nashville, right? It's a little bit further south. It felt similar, but yeah, it was so hot.

45:44But as we know, as we all know— We looked up the humidity. We did. It was 1 % higher than Nashville. You're like, it's a little bit more humid, and it was 1%. It's pretty much the same, but there's something a tiny bit different, and I was right. But yeah, so I went, I got to my parents' house and I was like, oh, I'm gonna walk to the grocery store. And my parents were like, it's too hot. And I said, it's fine. It's close. It's very close. How far did they live from the grocery store? Very close. Like, let's see. Could you put it in miles or kilometers? Less than a mile. Okay. Definitely less than a mile.

46:23To me, no brainer. Yeah. And then, you know, they're like, it's too hot. And I was like, it's fine. It's going to be fine. And then it turned into this crazy, like, you can't. And I was like. They were like worried you were going to die. Yes. Did they load you up with water and stuff? No, they were like, you can't go. Like, I'll drive you. And I was like, well, no, you don't. Don't drive me. And then I was like, well, I'll just drive if you're that worried. And they're like, well, you can't drive because this car is here. And then my aunt was coming over. and it's like, she won't be able to get in.

46:56And I was like, well, I'll take mom's car. And they're like, you can't. She just bought it. You don't know how to drive that car. And I was like, oh, I was there for five minutes and I was like, I gotta go. I'm shocked you even agreed to drive a car, which was shot down. I know, I already was being like, I don't wanna do this, it's fine, I'll just drive. You were bending over backwards. I was, thank you for acknowledging that. But then ultimately I was like, I'm walking. Yeah. And then I'm a big girl. I'm a biggest girl in this house. I did. I said, I'm 37. Yeah. I live in LA. I'm okay. I'm weeks away from 38.

47:33We'll just, don't say that. Okay. Okay. So I left. I walked. It was very hot. Okay. At any point, did you think they were right? Okay. No, but I was starting to feel like I think I'm getting like in my head about it. A little anxiety, panic attack. Yes. And then I made a whole story in my head where I was like, this is what they do. Everything's so scary. They planted the fear. Yes, they planted the fear. And now I'm like feeling fearful about a thing I have zero fear about. And this is my whole life. Yeah. And look what I've overcome. Yeah. So then you felt good. You're like, I've overcome this.

48:17Yeah, but I also felt like righteous. Being in the South really has forced me to think about temperatures way more than I normally would. There's so many weird, inconsistent things about it. One is when you walk inside of a house down there, the air conditioning is only set at like, I don't know, 78 or 77 or something in the house, which feels ice cold. But in L.A., you would never have it. You need it at 72. Yeah, you would never have it on 78. What is going on? Why does it feel complete? It feels colder in the house in Nashville because relative to outside, but then you do the math. The temperature's not higher.

49:00Like when we get into late August, September, October in LA, it'll be 98, 100. It won't feel as hot as 93. Real feel. Real feel's different. It's different. And then I still don't understand why the gap in the AC has to be so much more dramatic out West. It doesn't make any sense. I think it's because, well, I guess I don't know, but I think like we always set in the summer to 78 and in the winter to 68. That's like what you're supposed to do eco-friendly wise, but also money wise. Yeah. So for my parents, it's always about money and spending. So it's probably more, it probably requires more energy.

49:39Yeah. Yeah, of course. To cool it more. When it's hotter outside. Yes. So that's why people are doing it. You're just saying it feels different. You don't feel warm in the house. Like, were you feeling warm in your parents' house at 78? No, but I don't feel warm at 78. But if you walked into my house in L.A. in September and it were 78, you would go, why don't you guys have the air on? Maybe. I'm telling you, because our bedroom will be 78 and I can't go to sleep. Really? In L.A. in the summer or when it's hot. We're not really hot in the summer. We're hot in the fall. it's very confusing. I can't believe that something like temperature and humidity could be that relative.

50:23Yeah, it is weird. I mean, humidity changes the whole game. That's the - Changes, yes. That's the factor. It throws the rules out. Yeah. It did remind me too, like my whole childhood in Michigan, I never once was in a house with AC. Maybe my dad's, when I go to my dad's on the weekend, he would live in a condo and he would have air conditioning, but never in my house growing up. Really? No, we never had air conditioning. My grandparents, Bob and Grandma, no AC. Every window had a box fan in it. Yeah. It was noisy as hell. Yeah. That made it kind of tolerable. It gets hot there. Oh, my God, yeah.

51:00Then why didn't they have it? It was too expensive. Oh. It wasn't, most of the year, like, I think everyone was just like, yeah, you just got to get through July and August. Well, that's how California is now because it used. You got to get through September and October. Exactly. And it didn't used to be like that. So most apartments and stuff, they don't have AC. You have the box. Yeah, and you're not going to put in AC for something that you only need for 20 days a year. Like in Santa Monica when I lived there, almost none of those apartments had AC. Yeah. And you only needed it like nine days a year in Santa Monica.

51:36And it's changed. Like it's gotten a lot hotter in LA over the past 10 years. so like now I think these apartments do need AC but they don't have it I wonder I want to look that up because I do remember in Santa Monica there were there was always a few brutal weeks that Brina would be like in there smoking cigarettes again with a box fan in the yeah window and one out the back trying to get a little airflow Sure. Yeah. Has LA gotten hotter, but you don't like the way that's worded? Oh, no. That's fine. I'll sign off on that search. From 1990 to now. AIO review says yes. By how much? Approximately 2.5 degrees in the last 50 years.

52:2850 years. Okay. I don't know. And then you cut that into a third. I don't know. I just know when I lived with Anthony. You also, though, live further east. I live further east. You were at Fairfax. Yeah. You think that's much cooler? It's seven miles closer to the ocean. That's true. But it wasn't. I'll tell you, Santa Monica is a full 20 degrees cooler. Yeah. Even, that's fine. That's fine. I can accept that. I understand that about Santa Monica, but the Grove was hot. Yeah. But not as hot. That's a fun thing in LA. So our house in LA is a good 10, 15 degrees warmer than Santa Monica. But then I drive one mile on the 101.

53:16I go over the hill into the valley and then it's another 10. It's like 30 degrees hotter within two miles. So fun. Mountains. Mountains, valleys. Sea breeze. Equid aqua deck. Did you ever use Seabreeze? No, tell me about it. I think that was like an astringent for the face for acne. Seabreeze? Yeah. The stuff that they were selling us in the 80s was - That wasn't around when I - It was not good for your skin. It was just like put turpentine on your face. Seabreeze face cream I'm going to put? No, it was like a - Face cleanser? Cleanser. Seabreeze astringent sensitive skin. Is it still? It's still.

53:59Okay, then I take all that back. I don't want to be sued. It's a great, great product. When I used it, it made my skin a little dry. Yeah. Well, you do have to be careful, obviously, with astringent. They used to think you should just dry your face out in the 80s. Yeah. You know, I go to Corrective Skin Care. Yeah. Shout out, Jen. And. One of your many personal sponsors. I actually, so I kind of freaked out because I have a little breakout now. Now everyone's going to be staring and that's fine. You don't have, can I tell you something right now? You do not have a breakout? I do. And I do. I worry about your sanity if you think you're having a breakout right now because I'm staring at your face.

54:33Listen, I have makeup on. I have makeup on. Okay. Anyway, I was like, oh, fuck. Like maybe she doesn't work anymore. You decided she had retired while you were gone. I got so worried. I was like, I think maybe she's like lost her touch or something. And then I was looking at my calendar and I was like, oh, oh my God. I am about to start my period. It really snuck up on me. Oh, okay. I didn't know. And that is standard. I'm definitely going to have, regardless of corrective skin care, a little break. You could you could bathe in sea breeze, but every 28 days you're getting something. I'm getting something.

55:13But she does for my skin anyway. She likes it to be dry. OK. You know, I use a I use a cleanser. By the way, people who don't live in L.A. and are like, I want some of these things or I need help. I think you can buy some of these products on her website. Okay. So, yeah. So, I use a cleanser that makes my skin pretty dry. And it's good for my skin. And then I use ice on it. Did you ever do Accutane? I've never done it. You never did it. I was scared of it. You were scared of it. I did everything else. So, I took the antibiotics. Because it can, what, can it have kidney outcomes or? Also like some mental stuff.

56:00Interesting. Yeah, like some depression. Okay. Again, we're not doctors. We don't know. We love Seabreeze. We love Accutane. This is all alleged. Yeah. This is alleged. Yeah, some like depression, some potential suicide allegedly. That could also be a very easy correlation, not causation. Because think about why you're having the acne. You're having more hormones. Yeah. You're at an age where you're starting to have more of those. Yep. It could be that. But also, it's really, it's like intense, I think. It's kind of like a carpet bomb. Yeah, I have several friends that did it. But I have several friends that like had really bad acne and then they never did.

56:37It's gone. Yeah. You can't like get pregnant. You can't drink on it. You're not supposed to drink on it. Probably. And then you can't get pregnant like for a while. Okay. Which always is a little when you hear that. If you have it in your teenage years, maybe don't get pregnant as well. Yeah, but people have acne like me when they're adults. Would you call what you have acne at this point? It doesn't have any one. Yeah. The floors, you could get down on the floor. Oh, boy. Yes, I would. I say I think I have it under control. Okay. But, yes, at any moment, I could slip. Let's just put it this way.

57:19Like if someone said, does your friend Monica have acne? I go, no. Well, that's nice. I would. I would never, ever describe. And the many things I could list about you, acne would never be on that list. Well. Ever. Well, that's nice, but you'd be lying to them. Would you, Rob, ever say that Monica has acne? What? No. Oh, that's very nice. But also, what are you guys going to say right now? Like, that would be, if I did. I would just not bring it up. Well. You got to understand, like, when I just don't bring it up. Yeah, but you asked Rob. You put him on the spot. That was compromising, for sure.

57:56Yeah. That wasn't fair. But I said not bad skin. Yeah. I also asked a lot. Yes, I put him on the spot. Yeah. B, that was A. Yeah. B, I only ask questions that I'm certain are going to be, that it's not going to be hard for him. I know. I know he would never describe you as having acne. I just know it. Well, that's. We've talked about it a bunch of times while you weren't around. Okay, great. Like we'll be having lunch sometimes. I'll go, you think Monica's got acne? Monica, Monica? Yeah, Monica. Our Monica. Yeah. No, why would you ask that? That's what he says when I ask him that. He says, why would you ask that?

58:37Why would you ask that? Of course she doesn't. Okay. When we're having lunch. And then he's like, what do you think? No, of course not. But I heard her say she had acne. I was like, bitch, look in the mirror. You ain't got acne. What should we order? And then he goes, you shouldn't call her a bitch. And I go, I only say bitch affectionately. I never use it pejoratively. And then we stopped talking about it. I don't know if she'd like that. Then we're in the weeds. Yeah, obviously. Listen, it's not crazy. Like I do. I go to a place that is acne-centric. And it is why it's under control for the most part.

59:13I also had acne for so long. It's not like, this isn't like I was a teenager with acne. Like, I am, I have acneic skin.

59:29Stay tuned for more Armchair Expert, if you dare.

59:42I am an acne. No one can tell me I'm not an acne. I'm Monica and I'm an acne. Oh, acne. What a horrible name for it. It's not bad. I think it's bad. I'll tell you what's bad. I was not going to tell this story. What? I'm reading the Mark Twain book, as I've said a million times. I happen to be in a section for the last couple weeks where almost every night I'm hearing about his carbuncles. Okay, teach me. He's got these carbuncles. He's on tour in Europe and he's got carbuncles like on his thighs and there are these big sis, boil sis. And just the name carbuncles. It's such a rough fucking name.

1:00:21Like shingles. Yeah, shingles, yes. But carbuncle. Like, oh, my carbuncle hurt. You're like, oh. But it sounds kind of whimsical too. I do like that it has car in it and buncles are fun. Buncle's fun. But you don't, I just, this is crazy. So I've been kind of obsessing for a couple weeks about carbuncles. Yeah. Just because I keep hearing it all night long as I'm falling asleep. Carbuncle, carbuncle. So I take a bike ride five days ago. We have a whole night. We go out to Nashville and then we go see Superman. Oh, fun. Great movie. Our boyfriend's so good in it. Oh, God. Nicholas Holt. It's really funny, by the way, when Lincoln starts liking somebody a lot.

1:01:02And she has no interest in our job. But then she, of course, is loving Lex Luthor. Yeah. And I go, like, Nicholas Holt's so good in this. And she goes, you know him? And I go, yeah, honey, I've interviewed him a couple times. You have? Yeah, we're friends. We text each other. You are, like, it's only in those moments. Well, you text him. I text him. It's pretty one directional. Yeah. But anyways, we see that. And then we go, and I am feeling all night, like, I almost felt like my boxers were pinching my thigh or something, right? Okay. I get home. I pull down my pants and I have fucking like a marachino cherry hanging off my inner thigh.

1:01:44It's so swollen. It's irritated. Were you worried it was a tick gone bad? No, no. I immediately went, I have cancer. Sure. Of course. This is like, it's now coming out of the skin. I have cancer. Of course I have cancer because this house is too nice. I mean, literally, I was so quick to think, of course, the shoe's dropping. I have cancer. I'm in a panic in the bathroom by myself. And then I go, man, I think AI is really good at identifying, you know, radiology charts and stuff. I take a photo of it. Great. I upload it. Okay. And I did, this is a little dicey. I did say, is this a boil? Okay.

1:02:24So you sort of led. I could have potentially led the witness. Okay. But it was like, yes, this is definitely a boil. And I'm like, oh, my God, I have a boil. You know what? A boil is a bad word. It's terrible. Yeah. I don't want a boil. I do prefer acne to boil. I'm like, oh, my God, I have a boil. How did I get a boil? Why do I have a boil? What made you even think it was a boil? Why wouldn't you just say like. I was just like my best, like my Hail Mary pass was that this was a boil. And it was, right? But in reading about this boil, now it gives me this long thing. it's a form uncle. Oh. If you get multiple they become carbuncles.

1:03:03I was like Oh my God. This is impossible. I've been obsessing about carbuncles and now I have I'm in route to a carbuncle. I know you don't want to believe in the sim but like come on. I know. If the sim was fairer to everyone I'd believe in it but I just can't get on. But just because okay this is All right let's I think we'll get sidetracked on that. But so And then I really enjoyed this interaction with AI. It's as if there's any more information, you know. And I say like, okay, well, I took a long bike ride this morning, blah, blah, blah. And then immediately it's like, that makes a lot of sense.

1:03:40People who cycle get them often because you're wearing extra tight clothes. And what a boil really is, is generally staph infection. And I'm like, oh my God, now I have a fucking staph infection. I'm not pumped about that either. That's not good, yeah. It tells me to do hot compresses four times a day and it'll probably clear up on its own. Okay. But I'm not happy with that because we have to go to New York in 36 hours. Yeah. And staph infection can turn into shingles. Yes. I did get one round of the vax. Hopefully that would protect me. Anyways, I find a doctor that'll take me in Nashville. Great.

1:04:18Kristen's already gone with Lincoln at a vocal lesson. The Richardsons are leaving. Delta. I don't want her to be home. So I have this like mad dash race to this doctor. I get there. I love the nurse. She's so fun. And I think I'm going there to lance it. They go, yeah, come in. We'll lance it. And then we'll give you an antibiotic. And she's like, I don't think that needs to be lanced. And I'm like, oh man, I really wanted you to lance it. And she goes, I really wanted to lance it. I was excited for you to come in and I'm going to lance it and all that. She goes, but I don't, I'm not even sure it's a boil.

1:05:00It looks more like just a big blood blister. Oh, okay. But you're leaving tomorrow. Blood blister, also not a good word. All preferred to staph, carbuncle, fornacle, and boil. So I'm disappointed. So I'm so anti-compress, hot compress. Chris is always begging me to do hot compresses on stuff. I'm like, what the fuck does that do? Get in bed that night. I do a hot compress for 15 minutes. Felt so nice. No, even better. Oh, it burst. It just starts opening. No. Yes. I took pictures along the way. I have many pictures. And then it just, it completely like drained. So I was like, God damn, this hot compress thing really works.

1:05:48So that night I actually went to bed feeling pretty good because it was drained, antibacterial spray, Neosporin on top, huge bandage. Woke up the next morning, took it off, loved what was happening on the bandage, flat as a pancake. Great. Now I'm down to a small Band-Aid. Great. Everything's delicious. Great. Don't say delicious. It looks pretty delicious. This is not the time to say delicious. You haven't seen it. You're not in a position to say it. Okay, fine. Let me ask you this. Are marachino cherries delicious? Because that's what the first thing looks like. They're not for me. They're not for you.

1:06:21Only arm cherries. Okay. Cherries. Yeah. I had a cherry. Okay. So you got the small bandaid. That's it. But then you also have a wart. What's happening? I don't know what's happening. Is it a wart? That's a side thing. I know. There's another thing. I don't want to talk about my wart. I was happy to talk about my wart. Oh, no. You know me. I like talking about things that have already resolved themselves. It's so confusing. I know. I have a weird pattern of on. You just talked. I'll be honest about anything once it's over. Like if I've shit my pants, yes, I'll never tell you while I'm shitting my pants that I'm shitting my pants.

1:06:58Okay, well. Yeah, I'm falling apart, I guess. I hope. So I have a, I don't know if it's a word. I just felt something on my thumb. I'm like, if that's a word, I want to handle it. What if it's a farm uncle? I have a band-aid on that erodes. And are you worried it's a farm uncle? Farm uncle. A carbuncle. No, that's when there's a lot. That's a lot. No, we're all, yeah, we're at foreign uncle level. Okay, speaking of like this. Gross stuff that's happening to me. My friends, when I was home, I was with my friends from home and they had bedbugs this summer. Oh. And the pictures are on. They eat you up, right?

1:07:43She's covered in bites. It sure wasn't scabies. It was bed bugs. Okay. And both her and her husband. You have to burn your house down virtually, right? They were in another, they were at their parents' vacation house. Thank God. No one else in the house is just in that room. There was a big New York City bed bug thing I remember reading about a couple years ago. Yeah, a long time ago. Disgusting. Yeah, it's rough. We're talking about gross stuff. Yeah. So after dinner last night, I'm like, oh, I'll walk through Central Park on the way home. I love Central Park in the summer. And as soon as I get on the path, I'm hearing all this rustling in the bushes.

1:08:21And every time I look over, I see a rat in the undergrowth. And then I just start seeing rats all over the walkway. And I'm like, I guess if you look at them like squirrels, we don't mind squirrels. It is like it's racism against rats. Yeah, speciesism. It is. It is. Speciest. Haven't I? Even mice versus rats. We think mice are so cute. Yeah, miniature mice. Exactly. If you were a miniature rat. Honestly, I'm offended even just hearing that. Yeah, that's so bad. Distasteful. But I feel bad for them. They're just little animals on the planet trying to make it work. I know. But they were, I couldn't believe how many were just running around the pathways.

1:09:02And no one seemed. Worried. But me. Do you think there was a dead body? I was like, are they going to bite my ankles? What? Do you think there was a dead body? I don't. I would have smelled it. That body smell. Maybe your smell is gone because of all this other stuff that's, you're having sickness. That's possible. Yeah. Possibly. I mean, all of those rats in one spot. Wouldn't they be all over the dead body chowing down instead of running around the path? They. Or are they telling their friends? Yeah. They're gathering. We got a corpse. Yeah. They're gathering. But, oh, wait, real quick, because we're talking about dead bodies.

1:09:36Yeah. Which, that's really distasteful what I just did. because I am going to talk about some sad stuff, which is Malcolm Jamal Warner died, which is so sad. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So sad. Swimming. Yeah. And you guys never take my drowning talk seriously. Just saying. Okay. And then Ozzy Osbourne died. Yeah. Do we know of what? I think just a hard life. Hard life. I mean, it was like he was. Hogan, too. So exactly. So this is what, so when I was with my friends from home, they were like, well, Ozzy Osbourne had died that day. And they're like, well, you know, these things come in threes. And I was like, no, that's not real.

1:10:24And they're like, we'll see. And they were right. They were right. They do come in threes. I don't like that. The Hulk Hogan thing. So my friend Dean text Aaron and I a picture of Hulk ripping his shirt off. Yeah. I didn't, I hadn't heard he died. Oh, you just thought it was a rant? Yeah, which would not be unlike Dean to just randomly send a Hulk Hogan picture. Yeah. And luckily, I wrote A God Among Men. Oh, that's nice. And then an hour later, I found out he's dead. And then I was like, oh, he was letting us know. And I'm like, oh, no, that really worked. It really worked. It almost worked better.

1:11:00I don't even know if I would have come up with something as appropriate. Wow. Yeah. Okay. Is there still a phone in the tomb of the woman who invented the Christian Scientist Church? She said that they put a phone in there. Oh. In case she came, in case she like. Woke up. Rose. And wanted to order a pizza because she was starving. She was starving. She was under there for so long. Okay. According to a longstanding rumor, a telephone was installed in Mary Baker Eddy's tomb at Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts. This is not true. Oh, boy. The origin of this rumor seems to center around the circumstances following Eddie's death on December 3rd, 1910.

1:11:43After her funeral on December 8th, Eddie's casket was kept in Mount Auburn Cemetery's receiving tomb until the gravesite could be made ready. In order to protect against vandalism, the casket was guarded around the clock. At that time, a telephone was installed for the guards to use. It was removed after the casket was transferred to the gravesite in January 1911. You also have to imagine what a phone in 1910 was. I think it was an enormous plywood box. I know. I don't even know if they have plywood yet, but a huge. Remember, you never watched Green Acres, did you? You're too young. No, I don't think so.

1:12:18Do you know the theme song? Sing it. Green Acres is the life for me. Farm living is a... And then Josh, Josh, like a board would say, Darlene, I love you, but give me Park Avenue. Oh. You are my wife. goodbye city life green acres we will do do do do do do do boy that was a mess but i got some pieces okay so they left the big city yeah it does he drugged jaja gabor out of the big city and took her to a farm it's plus this mess i guess yeah what about it um telephone oh yeah i was gonna say on that show they had the kind of telephone you pick up and you hold the big part to your ear and then you talk into the little mouthpiece and there was an operator and that phone was enormous.

1:13:07And I, and that was, that was probably set in the forties. I don't know. So just imagine how big it is. That's all I'm saying. It might've been the size of a casket. How are they even having it outside? At the cemetery? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. With the guards who were, who were using it or whatever, like. And you used to have to crank it. I don't know if that was to supply electricity. I don't know. You had to crank the fucking thing. I kind of wish I had one, actually. You could probably auction for one. I'd love to have one in my car where I'd take up the whole passenger seat, and that would be my cell phone in the car.

1:13:40Yeah. Remember when—I mean, things have moved so, so fast. Because when we watch What Lies Beneath, they're on a cordless phone in that. Yeah, yeah. And it just looks wild. Yes. Yes, and we've been doing the Tom Cruise Marathon. And yes, what's even crazier is to watch early Mission Impossibles because it's like the highest tech CIA covert shit. And you're kind of looking at all the stuff. And it's like, you know, your iPhone would do way more than every single thing in the movie. It's so weird. I know. Oh, my God. Oh, Lord. Oh, my God. Oh, my heavens. Okay. How many states have religious exemptions for vaccines?

1:14:2345 states and D.C. allow for religious exemptions to school vaccine requirements. These exemptions allow parents to decline vaccinations for their children based on religious beliefs. The remaining five states, California, a ding, ding, ding, Connecticut, Maine, a place I really want to go. Mississippi, which I'm very surprised by. Yeah. And West Virginia do not allow religious exemptions. You'll get surprised. You will get surprised. West Virginia and Mississippi I'm interested in. Yeah. Okay. Can the Amish borrow their neighbor's car, not have electricity, but borrow their neighbor's car? While Amish individuals cannot own cars due to their religious beliefs, they can't and often do accept rides from neighbors or hire drivers for transportation.

1:15:18The key distinction is that they are allowed to be passengers and vehicles, but not drivers or owners. Not drivers. Yeah. Okay, so I guess you go to your neighbor's house and go, like, take me up to Rite Aid. Yeah, but they better not be Amish. The neighbor? Yeah, and don't they all kind of live amongst one another? Well, they probably strategically make sure it's every other one, like, boy, girl, boy, girl. Make sure you got one worldly person to the left or right of you in case you need to go to Rite Aid. Yeah, this is interesting because you would think if this was the case, you'd see more Amish people just amongst non-Amish people so that, yeah, they could like reap the benefits.

1:16:01Well, where my grandparents had their motel in Sturgis, you saw that. It was like, and you would, and you can tell because out there, none of the power lines are buried. So you're driving and you're seeing power lines come off the main power lines into a house. And then the next house, there's no power lines going into. So you literally could just drive down the road and see exactly who was Amish and who wasn't. But I got to say, I'm often critical of religions. And Amish is quite extreme, of course. But I love the Amish solely because of Rumspringa. I think it's so rad that they go, go out, not just you can, you should.

1:16:40Yeah. Go out and spend a year in the worldly world, and we want you to decide to be here. I think that's fucking, that's all you can ask of a religion, really. What I hate is like trying to mask reality from the practitioners or hide truths, or as this term, put it back on the shelf we've heard and under the banner. All these ways to like stifle knowledge and information. That's my issue, mostly with religion. So the fact that they encourage a full exploration, I think is awesome. I think it's awesome, too. I'm a little more pessimistic about the actual chances of coming out of Rum Springa and having a true assessment.

1:17:28Because you've grown up, you know, it's like you've grown up being told these things about the modern world. And then you're just like thrust in. The modern world is scary if you're thrust in. and be clear again they're living among the modern world it's not like they're unaware of it they're driving in their horse and buggy down the road with you know yeah porsches driving they're being told like that's not a good way of living and then you're in it i i think it's hard to then be like yeah i love it i think it it would take a lot maybe longer to fully adjust than they have for the little spring break.

1:18:03Yeah, I just don't know of any other. I don't know of any sect of Christianity that says go become Muslim for a year, go become Jewish for a year, go practice on full other religion and we're confident you'll return to ours. Yeah. It's just rad. Yeah. OK. Is Alaska the number one per capita serial killer state? Yes. California has the highest total number of serial killings, but it's not the most per capita. Just like California, a high GDP. Exactly. Yeah. I just was watching Newsom in an interview on a podcast talk about the amount of money that California gives to the federal government that it doesn't take.

1:18:50So we're in a like$81 billion surplus that California gives to the federal government. Whereas Texas, and I love Texas, make no mistake, is in a$71 billion deficit from the federal government. So, you know,$150 billion difference there. Yeah, that's something I like. I remember during the fires. When Trump was like threatening to like, you know, not help us and not give us aid and stuff, I was talking to my dad about it and he was like, good luck. All California has to do is say, then we're not contributing to the federal government and the whole country is riding on that money. Like we are in New York.

1:19:39Yeah, the country is propped up on California. I think about eight states. Yeah, I think somewhere in there. Which is rad, by the way. I love it. That's why we're a union. We all benefit. Okay. So what is the current estimate of serial killers? Well, pinpointing an exact number is impossible due to the clandestine nature of serial killing. It is estimated that there are at least 500 serial killers currently at large and unidentified in the United States. The FBI has previously stated that for every one serial killer apprehended and brought to trial, three more may emerge and begin their criminal activity.

1:20:19While the number of active serial killers has decreased significantly since its peak in the 70s and 80s, there is still a concerning number operating undetected. The decline is generally attributed to advancements in forensic science, policing, criminal justice and technology, making it harder for serial killers to avoid capture. For example, the number of known active serial killers in the U.S. dropped from nearly 300 in the 1970s to fewer than 50 in the 2010s. Despite this downward trend, the FBI estimates that the problem is far from eradicated. Yeah, they kind of. Yeah. Law enforcement, the risk they run is they get a little tunnel vision.

1:20:54Like even if they're seeing a very clear pattern of decreasing, they're like, don't you dare think about cutting our funding. Yeah, it's still raging. It's definitely come down. It's very interesting. I don't think we really have the answer yet. I think there's well, Eric and I were talking about on this trip. But, you know, there's weird outlets for people now and weird ways to pacify people that didn't exist. Like you could sit in your basement and just blast people all day long on video games. And you could be talking to other dudes on headsets and yelling at them and being aggressive. And, you know, all kinds of shit can happen online.

1:21:32And you wonder, is that pacifying a lot of people that otherwise would be roaming around delinquent and bored with these weird ideas? I don't know. There's some explanation and it seems like it has to be correlated to technology, whether that's also it's way harder to get away with it. I'm sure that's part of it. But again, I don't believe serial killers exist or don't exist because of deterrence. I think if you're that way, you're that way. It's not like, oh, I was going to be a serial killer, but then I find out you get the death penalty. So then I wasn't a serial killer. I don't think it works that way.

1:22:07Me either. It's definitely a brain. I think it's a brain. It's a disease. Like I think it's like psychopathy. I mean, okay, so here's an interesting question. Do you think if they discover a gene that is a serial killer gene? Yeah. But it only appears in the eighth month of the pregnancy. You can only test it. Do you think the country would be like, yeah, you can abort that child that late in the game? I think it would be split. I think a lot of people would say, no, you can't kill. Again, everyone that's anti-death penalty would say, no, no, you can't just kill somebody. That's not the right of any of us or any government, but they would have to live in a very interesting way.

1:23:06There'd have to be some monitoring at all times. Like if there was a known gene. Yeah. And again, it's so tricky of a hypothetical because so often people are genotypically one thing and then phenotypically not that thing. Like you could, you know, things happen that prevent the expression of those genes. So you could have that gene and probably not, if not happens. So it's very, very tricky. I think a more compelling aspect that is ahead for us is there's that gene should, and CRISPR is totally ironed out and dependable. Would there be legislation that on that eighth month, you have to use CRISPR to edit out that gene?

1:23:54I think people would sign up for that. It's pretty scary. Serial killers or CRISPR? Serial killers. Yeah. Then we would be putting in so much. It would require a lot of funding to like monitor those people or put them in a place or, you know, whatever. Yeah. And I don't like I don't know if people would go for it. I mean, you see the obvious the pushback would be it's like a very slippery slope. That's eugenics, right? So we're weaning out people. So that's why it's an interesting conversation. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Comment if you'd say yes on the bill.

1:24:38All right. Well, that's it for Caroline. I hope everyone can sleep at night, even though they're scared. They're scared. So scary. Oh, spank a churra. All right. Love you. Okay. Love you. Bye.

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