Bittersweet Infamy - #107 - The Tower

Episode Date: September 8, 2024

Taylor tells Josie about Alicia Esteve “Tania” Head, the prominent 9/11 survivor who was exposed as a fraud. Plus: a deep dive into the centuries-old history of the ama, Japan's legendary pearl divers.

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["Bitter Sting"] Welcome to Bitter Sweet and Food. I'm Taylor Basso. And I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast, we share the stories that live on in infamy. The strange and the familiar. The tragic and the comic. The bitter. And the comic. The bitter. And the sweet. Josie, it's these dying days of summer.

They're dead. Dead. Wow. Josie has put the Hicc-a-Tic watch. What time is it? I say it. 7.55 PM. It has been called.

Summer is toast. I got in there. You know? Yep. But that doesn't mean that all the life has left. There's love in the air. Princess Marta Louise of Norway has married her reptilian shaman fiance. Reptilian American, I should clarify, Dirk Verrett.

And as Josie mentioned in the infamous back in episode 58, the White House party. Whoa, that was. You know what? That recall. You know what? That was a while ago. That was a while back.

Well, I remember specifically that one being attached to the Real Housewives episode. And perhaps the reason that we have all of this radiant energy in the air, Josie, is that it's a time of harvest, wouldn't you say? Yeah, harvest big time. Harvest big time harvest. 100 pound pumpkins.

Though we are on like different growing seasons. I'm a little further south. It's- You wanna bring geography into it. Pretty fucking hot down here. That's all, I'm just saying. No, that's fair. Actually, into it pretty fucking hot down here. That's all I'm just Pretty it's pretty fucking hot up here. The sunflowers are still poking their heads out in some places, you know, yeah, but But I'm just gonna ask you to roll with me on this because I'm introducing a block of programming

Okay, and that is our September. Oh, right September block of programming We're gonna be coming to you weekly for the west of September. We. It's going to be great. We're coming to you weekly for the rest of September. And it's not just going to be us. We're going to have guests here as well.

Josie. Guests. You heard that s. You heard it more than one. Our first guest is coming next week, next Sunday. So to recap, when you are listening to this, it's gonna be September 8th or later, you got another episode coming right away.

You know that Sunday that you book off to sit in an empty room in your home and stare at the wall and sigh. Now you can put on a podcast. And stare at the wall and sigh. We'll laugh sometimes. We want you to laugh sometimes at the wall and sigh. We'll laugh sometimes. We want you to laugh sometimes. Oh yeah.

We want you to laugh sometimes. And I hope that you all enjoy listeners, the bittersweet harvest for the rest of September. And then I figure, why don't we just tell you what the schedule for the rest of our year is gonna look like? And that way you can get ready. Because spoiler alert,

we're gonna be taking a small break for the first time since we started this podcast back in the pandemic. We're gonna take a measly month off. So we hope that you support us in that endeavor, but here's how it's gonna go. It's September this month, as we said, Bitter Sweet Harvest and then over on coffee, we're gonna be covering I, Tanya, 2017.

Oh yeah, clásico. The story of Tanya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan starring Margot Robbie as Tanya Harding, Alice and Janie in there as Mama Harding as I recall. Oh she's so good. That was suggested by another long time friend of the podcast, Jonathan Mountain. He's a subscriber over at Coffee. And if you want to join the Bittersweet Film Club,

you too should become a subscriber at Coffee. K-O-F-I.com. F-I.com, slash Bittersweet. Infamy. And that's not all. Oh shit, what? I forgot, what? The next month, October, we are going to be,

yeah, no, it's going to be... I remember. Yeah, no, it's actually not that crazy. We're going to be doing what we always do, which is we're going to be setting out the pumpkin and the Canada dolls and Kit Kats and Maltesers and Hemoglobules and Sugar Junkie resin. And we're going to be doing that in October. And we're going to be also taping our film club finale for the year. We're gonna be doing a yet to be determined spooky pic. We're gonna be

putting the film club and the podcast to bed for for October and then in November we're gonna be taking the month of November off the main show. Shock, horror, no new bittersweet infamy for the month of November. So we're taking a break this November. We are, however, if you want to follow us over at Coffee, we're gonna be doing a little subscriber exclusive chess match. Back in episode 97, I did a chess-themed

fact or fiction Minfamous and we ended that promising that Josie and I would have a game of chess. We're gonna have this game of chess. We're gonna screen record it. I've got ideas so how to make it like wackier. Like I think that we're gonna have a wheel that we spin that's gonna have different conditions. So like every time someone gets a piece.

That's not chess. No, but neither of us is good at or likes chess. So that's fine. That's true. It's gonna be pretty boring if you just played a bad game like that. I'm bitter, sweet, I'm pouring some melted ice cream on that bitch. I left the ice cream I got one of those big plastic tubs of Neapolitan

I left it out on the sidewalk for these dying days of summer and then I brought it in I'm pouring it all over the Game of chess and we're gonna be playing that exclusively for subscribers in November and then December We're gonna give you on Christmas Eve, we're giving you a brand new episode of Bittersweet Infamy, brand new Christmas special. And then on the 25th, we'll do the Bittersweet Mixtape over at Coffee Free for everyone. Heck yeah, babies! That's it, that's the rundown. And then in January, season five. Can you believe that? Season five is crazy. Season four did hit me, season five, we're getting middle-aged, dude. Is there anything else that we need to cover?

No, I don't think so. I don't think so. I think we can jump right into the, Josie. The old Minfamous? Josie, for the first time listener, what is a Minfamous? I'm so glad you asked. You're welcome.

I like saying that phrase now. I'm gonna use it a lot more in the near future here. I'm so glad you asked. I think honestly the voice that you're using is kind of what sells it. Good, good, I'm glad. Okay, then- I'm so glad you said that.

Yes, great question. So a Mimphemus is the little teaser, the little appetizer, the small plate that you share at the beginning of the meal, So a Mimphemous is the little teaser, the little appetizer, the small plate that you share at the beginning of the meal to whet your appetite. You sit down, you're starving, you just want a story right away, but you don't want, it takes time to cook the whole thing, right?

So you just want a little mini infamous story. It's a Mimphemous. It's a short little... Tease the palette. Tease that palette, exactly, yeah. And typically, whoever is sharing the main course of the day, they have the responsibility of that. So the potluck nature of it all, whoever doesn't have the main course brings the Mimphemous,

brings this appetizer situation. Absolutely, good, very well said. Oh, I ran with that metaphor. No, good job. Good job. I found it. I held on. Never let go. That's a beautiful description of Mimphemous, Josie. And why don't you, since I brought the main course and it still has you so elegantly said,

needs a little bit of time to cook. It's already done. It's under a heat lamp. Josie, give us the Mim some infamous, please and thank you. Well, I can tell you right now, these folks, they want that plate of oysters. They want that appetizer coming out on the bed of ice. It's a cool, cold day in the Pacific. The sun is rising out there in the east on the horizon.

It's absolutely gorgeous. The seagulls are cawing. That ocean water is salty. The air is brainy and thick. Yeah, thank you. That was good, yeah. And on this early morning in the cold Pacific, you see far out there near the horizon, a boat.

And you see people diving into the water. They're diving in. From the boat? From all different sides of the boat. From the boat, yeah. And they don't come up for almost two minutes. You get your watch out, you get your phone out, you're like, what the, are they okay?

What's happening out there, what's happening? And then finally you see, oh, you see a head kind of pop up, and you're like, oh my gosh, this is insane. That's a long time. And then they go down again, another two minutes, come back up. And you see that these people are kind of plunking things

in a little life preserver, one of those, you know, round ones, must have a net on the bottom. Oh, classic. That's actually, that's a good life hack. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Life preserver hack even. Life preserver hack. And Taylor, what you are witnessing is an ancient, ancient practice of free diving. The coolest shit. The very coolest shit. I agree.

Yes. Free diving to harvest the sea floor. And this practice started in the eighth century in Japan. Yep. Cool stuff. And it is predominantly done and still done by women. Are you familiar with Ama freedivers or Ama pearl divers, Ama divers? Yes, I am through Björk, of course.

Oh, shit! There's been some- Wait, I don't know the Björk connection. The Björk connection is specifically, Josie, I'm so glad you asked. Truly. I hear it, I like it. Truly, truly, I'm so glad you asked.

Cause I was just thinking yesterday about like, wouldn't it be funny to pitch this for the film club? I watched back in like, I want to say the 2000s, Bjork was dating a, in my own estimation, and this is a subjective appraisal, very pretentious artist named Matthew Barney. Okay. And to be fair, no one is going to be good enough for Bjork. No but, no but, Bjork for all her weirdness doesn't actually take herself super seriously and is very endearing about that in that way, in a way that I really enjoy. That's true. And this guy Matthew Barney struck me as just very serious about himself. And I say that as someone who doesn't know either of them, right?

So take that and whisper it into a wall and cover it in mud, as I like to say. Which is an allusion to the end of In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar Wai, by the way. If you're wondering where that comes from. I hate pretentious people by the way. Don't cover that one with that. Just let it ricochet off the wall. They did a film together for which Bjork did the soundtrack. It was called Drawing Restraint Two plus hours of my life I'll never get back. Just, just. Oh no. Oh man.

Anyway, one of the things that I did like about it and that I did think was really cool about it is it had these, these Amma, these Pearl Divers in it. And I thought that they were just incredibly cool women with like a nuts, a nuts physical ability to do something that I find incredibly frightening at like a nuts physical ability to do something that I find incredibly frightening at like a gut level. Yeah. I don't like deep water.

I'm not that good in the water. I think that's the, like probably the most fundamental difference between me and you as people is you're excellent in the water and I'm not. Oh, well, I have to say, like, diving like that is still very, like... You're a swimmer, not a diver. You're getting below the surface.

Yeah, I would like to be, because I do think it's really cool, but I feel you on that sense of, like... Panic. Just a little, that panic, that uncertainty that can kind of grow and get out from under you, and like, it's... And also, you're specifically down there to under you. And like, it's, it's- And also you're specifically down there

to reckon with sea, like sea creatures. And these are ugly motherfuckers. They're oogly boogly. They got scalies and spikies. You know what I mean? It's true. I'm happy to leave them alone, but like also like they're not a resource that I depend on.

So there's that. Yeah. Yeah. And that's, yeah, that's fair. That's fair. Okay, so you've seen the imagery of the ama. Is that kind of the vibe? Yeah, I think of I think of like a white diving suit. And I think of like, elderly Japanese ladies who are what we will call like, quite skookum in spirit, you know? Amen. Amen, brother. Yeah.

That's so true. No, and, oh, I'm so excited because I get to tell you like even more. Awesome. You've got like the nice, like, you know, like the footholds, but there's even more, which I think is really fascinating. Women in Japan have been practicing

this very specific free diving technique since the eighth century. So the actual diving, they can dive underneath the water down to about 30 feet and they can hold their breath for up to two minutes. That's fucking sick. You could win immunity doing that. That's true. You could. So they're very regimented with how they do this because it's important to like regulate how much oxygen you're getting and how much CO2 you're releasing because you can kind of you can really mess stuff up if you're if you're not paying attention. You gotta aka die. aka die but also you could like come to the surface and still die if you're not. Oh absolutely.

Practicing. Yeah. So they only dive two sessions a day, typically like one in the early, early morning and one in the later morning. And the sessions are strictly an hour and a half each. So you can't dive any more than that. Um, I mean, it's three hours for the total time, but you have to each session is an hour and a half And they can go down almost 60 times in that session. Yeah. Oh, what a cool, women are cool. You guys are sick.

It's a good thing you got going. Thank you for roping me in with these cool women. Yeah, this is how I see you. This is how I see you in my mind. You must understand, you must, like I literally was like Josie, my most how I see you. This is how I see you in my mind. You must understand. You must. Like, I literally was like Josie, my most excellent swimmer friend. You, you understand these women.

I think you do. So when they go down, they have a very special technique that they use that's like particular to ama. And it's called isobu which translates to a sea whistle. So what they're doing is they're releasing air underwater but it's very restricted air like you don't want to release all of it at once right so you're releasing just a little bit of air at a time and it when you're restricting it, it sounds like a whistle.

Like if you imagine whistling, how air moves through your mouth in a very restricted way, that is the isobu. And underwater, it sounds really haunting because it's these long drawn out whistles and water can carry sound waves so easily, right? So you can hear it from far away. So in addition to being cool women, they are cool whales.

What would you need? Exactly, exactly. And I think it's also funny that they're making these wonderful and like eerie sounds underwater. But one thing that I found in my research is that the pressure of all that diving can cause hearing loss, hearing damage. And so apparently when they're on land, all of these women are really loud too.

They're kind of shouting at you all the time. Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. I love it. I love it. It's so good. It's so good.

So these women are harvesting, well, I'll say traditionally, began as harvesters of the seafloor, getting sea cucumber, any type of shellfish, oysters, abalone is like a really wonderful rare find nowadays. Even when they began, it was like that was a treat to find abalone. They also harvest seaweed that can be used for all different types of cooking, but also processed into different things. Yeah, smoke it.

Exactly, yeah. And you might be wondering, well, gosh, this sounds like anybody could do this. Why is it that women specifically? I guess. I mean, Taylor wasn't wondering. I guess, okay, thank you. Give me some fucking credit, I'm not a misogynist. Give me some credit. Yeah, okay. Yeah, no, Taylor was like, I guess. Okay, thank you. Give me some fucking fair, I'm not a misogynist. Give me some credit.

Okay. Yeah. But you dear misogynist listening at home might have been wondering in all of your ignorance, what are these bras got so special? Josie's about to tell you. They have more body fat. That's the myth. That's like the origin story is that women had better allocation of body fat

content. And so they wouldn't get as cold in these really, really frigid Northern Pacific waters. Okay. Yeah, so scugum. Yeah. Scugum gals.

Scugum gals. Hail and hurdy. Against the elements. Yes, yes. The other element that probably made it so that the tradition became more and more women and then got cemented as a female practice is the fact that it is seasonal work and is essentially kind of freelance work. You can kind of pick it up when you can, when your schedule allows.

Beautiful. We love a seasonal freelance gig. It's true. It is true. Yes. And so women who needed more flexibility with their work, they didn't have a farm to run and they didn't have like these very cemented things that they were expected of them from society. They were able to dive in, grab some abalone and make a few bucks. But it got to a point where they were so skilled at it and they were so good at it that they could make

quite a living off of what they pulled up from the sea floor. Hell yeah. Yeah. There's literal pearls down there. Oh, exactly. And typically even without pearls, cause a pearl, if you found a pearl, it was like, that's a bonus. You got a little like summer bonus right there.

Yeah. Walking around money. Yeah, exactly. Got some new earrings. Yeah. But even the just regular harvesting, that was enough to support a family. And what ended up happening was that it became a, became a matriarchal society where in these areas of Japan where these women could dive like this, women had more power, they had more independence and there was a lot more focus on women.

There was a lot more listening to women. Elder women in particular were being heard because they had the knowledge of how to do this that they could pass on. And they were so loud. Yeah. You had to hear them. You had to hear them. There was no alternative choice. Those lungs were just, the diaphragm just, whoo, whoo. It's pretty rad. And another really cool thing about it is that typically, women of an older age would still be doing it. There were Amma at like 90 years old

who were still diving like this. No, that's what I'm saying. In my head, and perhaps I don't recall enough to say whether this was influenced by this particular art film that I watched, but in my head, it's older women and middle-aged women doing this. Yeah, yeah.

And generally that's the case kind of in the more modern era because- Because it's old school. It's very old school, it's very traditional, and now women don't need to be Ama to make a living. They don't need to be Ama to support themselves, so they're not necessarily in need. Where is the new generation of Ama?

They're coming. Ama 2.0. There's a few of them, but there's just not as many, as many as there were. What a shame. It is a shame, I know. We should. Support your local Ama. So another thing you remember are these white gowns.

Yeah. What does that look like? White suit, like in my head they're in a suit. They look like a little beekeeper outfit. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. They kind of like surround all of their limbs. They have been depicted in these, maybe because they're wet, they almost look kind of gauzy.

And they, yeah, they have some kind of beekeeper vibes, but there's like a head scarf and- Yeah, like an aviator- It's like full body covering. Kind of. Yes, yes. And it's white, right? Yeah, white.

Now, this is actually- Which doesn't seem convenient to me, but what do I know? Maybe you can bleach, but do they have bleach? Okay, listen, I'm asking questions that you don't have answers for in your manuscripts. So let's just keep going. But it's interesting that you say that that doesn't seem convenient

because traditionally, Amma would dive in only loincloths. They would have nothing on top, just boobies free. Yeah. Yeah. I love Amma. And just like a little like booties out and just like front covering, diving all the time. Yeah.

No, pretty cute. There is a book of photographs by an Italian photographer named Fosco Marini. It's called the Island of Fisherwomen. And he took photos of the Amma in their traditional garb in the Loincloss. And they're kind of like, they feel very Italian, you know, like naked ladies, Italian.

But he also took a lot of underwater shots of them diving and they're really beautiful. Yeah, I mean all of the Ama iconography that I've like consumed has been very striking in its imagery. Yes, yeah, yeah and they're extremely striking when they're like in their loin cloth when it's all butt, you know, well butts are, but like not a lot is covered. But like also there's something that I like about that in the sense of like, what are we in this situation, but an organism getting another organism for like quite primal reasons,

you're to slake of its flesh and to eat of it and to make of it jewelry and good and to, you know, saute it lightly and such. Why not be nude? Why not be nude? The oyster is nude, the abalone is nude. And of course the dress and the gear has kind of changed. They, in the sixties, they started integrating diving masks,

like the really, you know, the round ones that kind of cover your nose. And then even today, there's some Amma who wear wetsuits. And Amma tradition and regulation, you could even say, is they do not use tanks. They do not use oxygen tanks, no diving tanks, because that's, that would violate the free diving technique.

At that point, you're just a scuba diver. At that point, you should have a little, you know those underwater disposable cameras that are waterproof that you can take a picture of some clownfish while you're snorkeling in St. Lucia, you know what I mean? You're not a novel. No, exactly. The first, well I shouldn't say the first Western depiction, but a very popular Western depiction of an Amma was in the James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice.

So you have this image of the Amma in the kind of head-to-toe white garment. That actually wasn't introduced until Mikimoto got connected to the Amma tradition. So you had mentioned earlier about pearls. So Mikimoto in 1893, he developed a way to cultivate pearls. Wait, he's a guy? Yeah. Yeah. His name is Kokichi Mikimoto. Damn, go Mikimoto, okay. So previous to his process that he invented,

you would just have to find an oyster in the ocean and you had a one in a thousand chance of getting a pearl out of it. You make it sound so easy. There was no flaw, blah, blah, blah. You'd have to find the perfect pearl. So, Nicky Motto developed this process where you would take an oyster and you would insert into the oyster the nucleus of a pearl so that it would Jesus start growing. Because pearls grow around an irritation, right? So he like, he discovered a way to insert that irritation.

He discovered this way of cultivating pearls, which was kind of revolutionary because now you can make, essentially naturally, you can make pearls, right? They're not- You can grow them. You can harvest. You can grow them, yes.

Bitter sweet harvest, folks. Bitter sweet harvest, here we go. It's time to memorial. Yeah. Harvesting the pearls for your earbuds. So he linked up with some Amma because they were harvesting oysters. So he met a few of them and then realized

that he could actually start working with them so that they could pull the oysters up to the surface. They could go through this process of inserting the pearl nucleus. And then the Am ama would take the oysters back to the ocean. Smart, smart, that's really smart. They knew the terrain so well that they could also put it in places where they where it was safe, where it wasn't subject to title, to too much title issues, where they'd remember where it was when it came by? Yeah. So then all of a sudden the ama, there was still harvesting going on,

but the pearl harvesting, the pearl diving became much more lucrative. Yeah. Flip that oyster. Flip that oyster. But one of the things that Mikimoto did was he required or regulated, suggested that the Amma wear these white garments. The rationale was that white would ward off sharks. Okay. I don't really know about that one.

Sharks hate white, everybody knows that sharks hate white, got it, Nix. Yeah, yeah. The white signifies this purity that the loincloth does not. Yeah. Oh, woke Amma. He kind of, well, I think part of it too

is he kind of brands it. He's like, I don't want these pearls to be slutty pearls. I want these pearls to be ethereal, angel-like. They themselves are the pearls. That's like. They themselves are the pros. That's true. They themselves are the pros. Yeah. So-

It's a good, honestly, it's a good- It's a good gimmick. I don't like it as someone who likes to watch topless women diving around, because it doesn't. I'm not a fan, but I will say that it's a good look. It's a strong thing to wait for. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, if you're gonna require something, then require that, yeah. Mikimoto sets up a island essentially called the Mikimoto Pearl Island near Toba City. And it is now, it's still in production and the AMA, they still work there but it's much more of a tourist attraction. Like you go and see- To see the AMA, they still work there, but it's much more of a tourist attraction. Like you go and see- To see the AMA at work. You go through a little museum and you learn about pearls

and then you go out on a boat and you see the AMA dive and you know, that kind of thing. But now it's probably, we've got more lucrative ways to make this process go faster or something. Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure it's probably one of those things where you could, you know, if you wanna buy a set of pearls, a necklace or whatever piece of jewelry.

That an amma specifically harvested. Then you pay the extra for that. You gotta pay the amma tax. Yeah, the amma tax. You gotta pay the amma tax. Yeah, that white tax, yep. Yep, exactly. We've got to dry clean the amA if it's ching ching.

So even though the Mikimoto Pearl harvesting kind of reinvigorated some of the AMA numbers, they're still dwindling. In 1956, they were about 8,000 AMma that were still working and making it their livelihood. In 2010, there was only a little over 2,000 Amma. In 1956, there were about 18,000 Amma that were still harvesting. In 2010, there was only a little bit over 2000, Amma, that were harvesting. Wow. So the numbers have gone down and part of it, like, like we were talking about, there's other job opportunities. I mean, like any rural place, right? The numbers kind of dwindle because it's

easier to get a job there. The youth are interested in the cities. But there's also this compounding issue of the warming waters and over fishing, over harvesting. So there's not as many abalone to harvest. There's not as many oysters and shellfish and even seaweed to harvest. So that's hurting things. But another really beautiful thing about the Amma is that because they've always had this tradition and because they've always had these really tight knit

communities, matriarchal communities too, where elders are listened to and like women are really cherished and taken care of, they've done a lot of work to set and maintain regulations for their own tradition. So like we were talking about, they don't use diving tanks because at that point, you're just taking a picture of clownfish.

But they- Do you have to be certified as an Amma? Like, do you have to go through this board to be recognized as an Amma kind of thing? There is no, from what I can tell, there is no like certification, but it is so entrenched in a cultural practice that you couldn't just go out and start AMA-ing

without anybody, like it would be weird. It'd be weird. And the communities are so tight too, that in all likelihood, someone might come to you and say, hey, is this what you're doing? Let us show you some pointers. Let me show you how to do it. Right.

Or how we do it, you know? Right. And also like you would never dive alone. And also like that's my fucking spot, new girl, and I'm sure. Right, yeah, I'm sure there's some territoriality in there too. But, I mean there's-

That drama, see the drama for your drama. That drama. Yeah. in there too. But I mean there's drama. But there's also you know if it's not tanks then there might be new tools that they could use for harvesting and new things like this and they've decided no if we're gonna be doing this let's do it the right way not just so that we can preserve the Alma and how cool it is but also so that we can have sustainable ama and how cool it is, but also so that we can have sustainable harvesting practices.

There's a reason that we don't use a fucking, you know, jackhammer down there to get oysters. We're using the same tools that we've always used for the express purpose of maintaining a sustainable relationship with the ocean. Which is something that I think that like a capitalist and commercially based world system doesn't do very well environmental stewardship at all, right? It's all about like take, take, take, take, take so that the stockholders are happy and

use, use, use, use, use. Whereas like it's sort of important to be mindful of old ways that were made with sustainability in mind. Yes, exactly. And there's something in that vein, there's something really powerful and entertaining about like this very sustainable practice that's like boobs out.

Like all ladies, like let's get naked, let's dive into the cold water and let's take care of our families. ["Sweet Home Alone"] Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why Cox offers a range of high-speed internet plans that fit any budget. Stream, chat, and stay connected at an incredible price. It's fast, reliable internet for everyone.

You're probably thinking, wait, what? But yeah, it's true. Learn more at cox.com slash ACP. Non-transferable one-per-household application and eligibility decisions are made by the FCC. Other restrictions apply. ["Bitter Sweet Film Club Theme Song"] We've picked an infamous beauty for this month's episode of the Bitter Sweet Film Club. It's only the 2019 Cat-tastrophe, Caps starring Judi Dench, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Idris Elvett, Taylor Swift, and more. Now you know that even with our perennial special guest Mitchell Collins, we couldn't match up to the all-star cast of Cats, so we had to call in some reinforcements in the form of friend of the podcast, Ramon Esquivel.

What should have been a highlight of the film instead becomes this moment where I, and I'm sure every other audience member, was like, holy shit, look what they did to Jennifer Hudson. You can look forward to the Film Club discussion of that and our upcoming discussion on 2017 sports biopic, I, Tonya, over at ko-fi.com. That's k-o-h-i-f-i.com slash bittersweetinfamy. Become a monthly subscriber and we'll see you at the movies. Taylor, you have a story. You have a main course. I'm starving. Those oysters were not enough. I ate a pearl and my stomach kinda hurts.

I need something like put a base down, get something in there. I would say that the commonality between the Minfamous and the main course today and... Have we done it again? No, not at all. Not at all. I'm stretching. No, I'm stretching. We have.

I think we have in that the flavors are complementary but quite distinct from one another. I would argue that... That's what you want. Yeah. The thing that tethers them together is maybe stories about girlbosses. But while I would argue this cultural practice of freediving women is maybe girlboss reuse for good, this is maybe when girlbossing goes wrong, is what I would suggest. I'm so excited.

Josie, do you know anything about tarot? I know. I don't know how to do it, but I know I like it. What is your, do you have any glancing familiarity with any of the cards and their meanings? Yeah, death does not mean you're gonna die. It just means something is changing. And people get really uptight.

People get really up, people will be like, actually death doesn't mean that you're gonna die. Like people will. Yeah. So I found that it's funny because I am funny. I found that it's funny to deliberately and obtusely insist that death only literally means death to people who are really into tarot. And just watch how pissed off they get at me.

And it works. Oh, does it work? What a party trick, dog. Wow. It's a great party trick. It's a great party trick. You know how to read tarot. Very rudimentarily. My style of tarot is like, think of a question,

draw a card from the deck, and then read what that card tells me on Biddy Tarot. Like I'm not a highfalutin tarot reader by any means, nor do I know any of even the basic spreads other than like past, present, and future. It doesn't get more complicated than that for me folks. I'm not looking to fucking build a logic puzzle. I'm just looking to look

at some cute cards and get a different perspective on my problems. I don't do, I should say I don't, I don't do tarot for spiritual reasons. I do it because it prompts me to think of problems in new ways. And I think the artifacts themselves are really cool. That's a really good way to put it. Yeah. Yeah. It gives, it can give you another entry point and like diffuse maybe some of the like extreme emotion around it and you get cool imagery Yeah artwork and and cool little stories and I thought today I would leave our our tail up to the cards. Oh Shit doggy tarot chooses our adventure here. This chooses our adventure. We've drawn an infamous card. Josie, they say that there are no bad taro pulls,

but I say they're wrong. The 10 of swords signifies betrayal and painful endings. Oh man, yeah, that guy's got a lot of swords in his back. Three of swords, you're probably getting cheated on. But most infamous of all is the card we've drawn today. The tower. The burning tower, jump from it. Spooky.

A burning building and shrouded by crashing waves, its inhabitants diving perilously to the shoals below. According to the website, Biddy Tarot, the tower represents sudden change, upheaval, chaos, revelation, and awakening. The scales are about to fall from your eyes and your institutions will crumble before you. Oh, that sounds great.

Our girl, Tanya, has a couple of great institutions for not hearting, I promise. Okay. Just, I know, I. Not Harding, I promise. Okay. I know, I know, I know, I know. Tanya, okay. I've known, literally in my head, I was like, how can you make it as clear as possible right away that this isn't Tanya Harding?

It's just a woman with a similar name. Okay. Our girl Tanya has a couple of great institutions in her life, including her fast-paced finance job on the mergers team at Merrill Lynch. Wow. Tanya is a small, round woman with a high Lisa Simpson voice and a thick Spanish accent armed with an undergraduate degree from Harvard and a graduate business degree from Stanford.

Damn girl. She speaks quickly and passionately, and it's easy to see how she's metaphorically and physically climbed the tower of the fast-paced world of finance. As she basks in that success, she contemplates the other great institution in her life, her fiancé, Big Dave. Big Dave. Big Dave. Christian name, Big Dave.

Well, I never got to the bottom of why Big Dave, I'm going to assume he was a big guy. I feel like that nickname is one of those nicknames that kind of explains itself probably. Or has a son who's Little Dave. Or like, you know what I mean? There's a Big Dave and a Little Dave. Those are kind of your options. Yeah, yeah.

They met just outside their shared workplace among those classic NYC scenarios where they had a fight over the same taxi cab. No, cute. Ha! Their enemies to lovers story proceeds as these things do until one day when Tanya comes home to find a trail of rose petals to the bedroom. There Big Dave is waiting in a coconut bra, badly dancing a hula. Classic Big Dave.

He serves Tanya a plate of inedible Hawaiian cuisine that he's made from scratch and tells her that he's gotten them two tickets to Hawaii. They fly off to get the next day. It's a very romantic set up. Oh my god! And they get married in a beautiful, though unofficial, beach ceremony in front of her parents in a white dress he's had specifically made to her measurements. Whoa! That's kind of intense.

It's a lot all at once. When they tell their friends, they say, we got maui'd. I hear it. How does that land with you? Cause I was like, oh, cringe, but I also don't know if I could resist. If it was right there, if someone came up with it. I know, he was just sitting there and like the-

If someone figured out that we got the outweighed, yeah, damn, okay. Yeah, ah, yeah. That's what I'd say too. It's rough, yeah. So now that they're back in New York City, these two crazy kids are looking to make it legal with their nuptials coming up in October.

That's what Tanya's thinking as she peers out the window at One World Trade Center, where Big Dave works on the 100th floor as a consultant. Oh no, Big Dave. At 8.30 a.m., Dave calls Tanya and asks if she wants to go get coffee with him, but she can't, she has to chair a meeting. She tells Dave she loves him

and that she'll talk to him later and hangs up the phone. Oh no. At 8 46 a.m. Tanya is in that meeting when flames start appearing on the North Tower. She runs to the sky lobby window and starts counting the floors desperate when she realizes that big Dave's office is well above the source of the flames.

And now we're gonna get into a more graphic unfolding of her story. Tanya is waiting by the express elevator on the 78th floor when she hears a woman screaming that a plane is coming. She watches as the plane slams into the south tower, into the very floor she's on and feels the air get sucked out of her lungs. She's hurled across the room and hits a wall. She smells her own skin burning and feels the heat of the explosion shortly before she passes out. Oh, yeah. There's just the note of your own skin.

Yeah, but yeah, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, it happens. Happened. When she wakes up, she's in extreme pain and surrounded by carnage, but the flames have been put out by a blanket that's been wrapped around her. She looks up and sees the blanket has come from a redheaded man wearing a red bandana.

Have you ever heard of the man in the red bandana? No, uh-uh. He becomes a very famous figure in 9-11 lore, and I'll tell you more shortly. He gives her words of encouragement that motivate her to get on her feet and stagger toward the exit. Her arm is basically severed, barely attached to her body. All around her are the noises of death. One badly birdman clasps a wedding ring into her palm telling her to get it back to his wife as he lies dying on the floor. Tanya continues her feverish attempt at escape until finally she encounters a firefighter.

He carries her out the door as the rumbles begin, as the towers finally begin their collapse, or a tower finally begins its collapse. The firefighter deposits her dazed heroine under a truck where she promptly passes out. She wakes up six days later in the hospital as a Jane Doe and slowly begins the process of sorting through the wreckage of her own life. Oh my God. I mean, thank goodness that she just passed out six days later and just like got out of that.

Or like mentally. She had one of those long good naps that we talk about. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Ugh. I mean, good timing on the nap too, to wake up at a certain point, to move in group. An important nap. And then get the fuck out.

Yeah. Ugh. Whoa. Her workplace has been destroyed. The entire Mergers team at Merrill Lynch is dead. Oh my God. And most effectingly, Big Dave, Tanya's beloved fiance, is no longer having died in the collapse

of One World Trade Center. All Tanya's institutions have crumbled around just like the tower behind her. But like the city of New York, Tanya rebuilds. She gets to work as part of the World Trade Center Survivors Network and advocates on behalf of the countless survivors like herself in what comes to be called the 9-11 community. It's a new institution built on the soil of the old brick by brick, not just by Tanya, but a group of others with stories to share and wounds to heal.

Eventually, through tireless advocacy for the cause and herself, Tanya becomes president of the World Trade Center Survivors Network. Wow. She's reached the top of her new tower. And Josie, that brings us back to our Tarot reading. What happens to the tower? Uh, it collapses again. Perhaps fittingly, it's another great New York institution, the New York Times, that sets the dominoes into motion that eventually end up toppling

Tanya's newly constructed success. In 2007, they mark the sixth anniversary of the attack on the Twin Towers with a planned profile on 9-11 survivors of whom Tanya is among the most prominent. Okay, yeah. But when it comes time to fact check, Tanya is really sketchy and quite evasive, and the

planned profile turns into more of an investigation. And after a little bit of digging, it turns out that Tanya is being slightly untruthful about certain key aspects of her story. For example, she didn't go to Harvard or Stanford. Oh, we're going way back. We're going way back. She did not work at Merrill Lynch. Okay.

While Big Dave was a real man who died in the first tower, Tanya had never met him, nor had she ever met a man in a red bandana, nor a dying spouse who handed her their wedding ring. She was not in the South Tower on September 11th, 2001. She wasn't even in the country and her name is not even Tanya Head. Okay, wow. So she constructed that tower just to watch it go down, I guess. Whoa.

Josie. Taylor. This one's fucked up. Yeah, already. Have you heard about this? Nope. I have not. Really?

Oh, to me, this one's a classic. For those who aren't aware, hijackers took over commercial airliners on September 11th. Two of them were driven into the World Trade Center. Another plane was flown into the Pentagon and another crashed into a field in Pennsylvania on its way to DC. All in, 3,000 people died and that's not including the people that would die in the years that would flow out from that gigantic consequential moment in world history. We're still feeling its repercussions, right?

Yeah. So that's 9-11 in a nutshell, which you probably already knew that it's nice to establish ground rules as we know. Our girl Tanya, listen. I try to come into these stories with a lot of empathy. I'm listening. You do. You do. Sometimes too Famously, too much.

Sometimes too much. Sometimes too much. Wow, you're really like... This one? Yeah. I just kind of went along for the ride. I was like, okay, I'm just gonna be the vessel for Tanya and I'm gonna let her speak through me and we'll see what she has to say.

But I'm not cosigning a word. For once, she's on her own this time. That sounds fair enough. Damn. The way that I came to this story is I learned about this about a decade ago when the documentary about it that I ended up using as my main source for this telling the woman who wasn't there, using as my main source for this telling the woman who wasn't there, which is by a director named Angelo Guglielmo and a writer named Robin Gabby Fisher who did a book of the same name and their context is that I think Robin Gabby Fisher is some journo who was brought in to do some of the writing but I think that Angelo Guglielmo knew Tanya Head and was a

member of the World Trade Center Survivors Network and is himself a 9-11 survivor. So it's interesting. And so the book and the film have a lot of access to this community of survivors because it's done by one of them. Yeah. So who is Tanya Head?

I'm so glad you asked. Got the head. Get ahead on this one, Taylor. You know I thought of them all. The woman known in infamy, and truly this is infamy, as Tanya Head is born Alicia Esteveged on July 31st, 1973, and this is a Spanish woman with a Spanish name, and this is a Spanish woman with a Spanish name.

And that is to say that Head is actually her mother's maiden name, basically, that she went, predominantly went by Alithia Esteve when she lived in Spain. Okay, okay. Alithia. Hence your- Yes, she's not just Alicia folks, this one's Aletheia. She lives in the Seria Sant Yervasi district of Barcelona, forgive me my Catalan is rusty, so if those pronunciations are off, where she's the youngest child from a wealthy and well-connected business family

until the scandal known as the Planas de Montt case. And Planas de Montt is the surname of the head honcho of this case. In 1992, Alicia's father Francisco Esteve Corbella and her brother Francisco Javier Esteveged, or if you like, Pancho Grande and Pancho Pequeño, are, you're welcome, are sentenced to prison for being part of a 25 million euro promissory note forgery ring. Like the Minister of Finance was involved. There was, it was a bad look and I saw at least one of them, the father or the son,

I forget which, got six years in the clink for this. What a little, what a little stinker in the apple didn't fall far from the tree. The family name and fortune fall to shit after this as they would and friends get the sense that Alethea is scrambling to maintain the sense that she is still wealthy and connected. Specifically they say Aletheia was pretty much a pathological liar. Not in any way... yeah can I shock ya? This lady had a problem with lying. Yeah. Not in any way at least in Spain that's truly harmful but in ways that paint a life that seems too good to be true she brags about her

many social events and connections her polo matches and purebred Arabian horses her many handsome boyfriends who attend to her every whim just off-screen you know my boyfriend in Canada, right? Classic. Yeah, yeah. Stop flirting with me. Gotta tape the podcast. And says childhood friend Sonia, she's obsessed with Americans and their glamorous sensibilities. Perhaps someday she will even visit this appealing land. For now, she makes the most of the business opportunities in front of her, acting as the secretary to a higher up in the commercial investment company, Jovisa. Quoting Catalonia's leading newspaper, La Vanguardia, her colleagues at the time describe her as a person with professional aspirations and a desire to be the center of attention. She had a complicated character and did not make life easy for anyone, says one of the people who worked with her at J'OuVisa.

Those who knew her agree that she liked to stand out to fantasize about her life. Her alleged lies at this time include a plastic surgeon boyfriend in America, a wealth of lavish homes and expensive trips, and perhaps most notably, and allegedly, I don't think it was ever confirmed that this was a lie, but nor was it ever confirmed that this is the truth, her explanation for a disabled right arm that seems to show evidence of a skin graft.

Okay, I was wondering what the arm situation was. Cause you mentioned that in the tower quote unquote tower, she was seven years. She's going to tell people that it's a 9-11 injury, but it exists when she's in Spain prior to when she lives in New York. So it is not a 9-11, whatever it is, it ain't a 9-11 injury. It's a 1992.

It's some kind of injury. We don't even fucking know. But the gist is, here's her version of it, and to me, this sounds fake as fuck because it's full of all the shit that she lies about. Her story that she offers is very evocative and graphic, of course it is. She's the lady who authored that 9-11 story I just told you that's full of just explosions and burning bodies. She tells of a time yeah or your own burning skin the smell of your own burning skin like all day this lady. She tells

of a time that she was racing along in her Ferrari at 200 kilometers an hour with her boyfriend. So she's in just like this hot fucking carving down with this just fucking Elon Musk is in there and he's like, will you marry me, Tanya? You know, it's a nightmare. I don't know what Elon Musk sounds like, but I hope. Tanya, marry me! This piggy doesn't have to know! They have an accident,

her arm is ripped from her body and subsequently reattached. I have not seen any evidence that confirms this story. This could, to me, just as easily be like she accidentally toppled a pot of boiling water on herself when she was a baby. You know what I mean? There's no clear source.

She looks like she had some sort of burn or skin graft or something, but I couldn't eyeball it and tell you what. Either way, it wasn't a 9-11 injury. And I don't think that she was probably zipping along the coastline in a Ferrari at 200K with her fucking biffle boyfriend, hot Fabio gentleman friend either.

Yeah, whatever. Plastic surgeon. Yeah. Injured or not, she goes to the States where English, good grades and professional success come to her easily. She's noted as an ambitious worker, ambitious to say savagely competitive, known to surround herself with people

who can't compete with her work ethic. So, loves to be a big fish in a small pond, perhaps. Yes, that's a good one. To supplement her education, Alethea returns to Spain and enrolls in Esade Business School in Barcelona, ranked among the world's top business schools. Notably, she attends classes at Esade a week after the September 11th, 2011 attacks, known in Spanish as El Te Ese 11 S. Classmates note that during this time Aletheia is uninjured of a cheery disposition and makes no mention of a trip overseas, a

dead fiancé, or any experience of having survived and recovered from the collapse of the World Trade Center. Tanya graduates from Isale with a master's degree in June, 2002. Sometime shortly after that, so let's say within a year or two, Aletheia Esteve moves to New York City and becomes Tanya Head, bereaved fiance and 9-11 survivor.

Okay, so she gets there and boom, that's the story. You know when you go somewhere else and you're like, I'm gonna have a nickname here. I'm gonna get a haircut. Yes, well, she sort of took that and just ran the ball to the end zone. Kept going. She infiltrates the survivor community

by creating an online support group. And everyone is taken aback by the graphic, vivid, and inspirational nature of her story, which outdoes those of the genuine survivors to the point of intimidating some of them. Yeah, she has the best of the 9-11 stories. It's got everything. The smell of her, the smell of her own burning skin is the best. Says Jerry Bogus, who combined his in-person meeting group with Tanya's online one to co-found the World Trade Center Survivors Network, quote, we'd all been through horrible things, but Tanya's was just head and shoulders above anything else that anyone had gone through.

was just head and shoulders above anything else that anyone had gone through. Notes one survivor, Barbara, Tanya's story was optimized to be as affecting and as comprehensive in its tragedy as possible. Quote, everyone else's story had one element. She had all the elements. Perfect story. She died, her fiance died,

the plane hit the tower right where she was. But then also, like she wasn't married, but she had had a ceremony and the marriage was gonna happen in October. To be fair to her, she was mawhied. That she was mawhied. And yeah, no, like that element, like to make that shit up, like what is going on in that brain? There's detail, we got mawhied. There's detail in there. Yeah, yeah.

Oh my God. And because her story is so perfect to the point of being conspicuously perfect, naturally there are doubts. Co-founder Jerry and another survivor, Brendan, both observed that Tanya is either coy or inconsistent about the particulars of her relationship with Big Dave, but when they look at the obituaries, they find Big Dave there, just as Tanya described him, and feel chastened. Although...

Well, that's where... where do you think she got the info? Yeah, and Brendan notes that none of the documentation of the late Dave, his profile of grief in the New York Times, none of it makes any mention of his being survived by his beloved fiancee Tanya. I want to say that the ways in which Tanya is, seems like a monster feel very human to me. A desperation to be loved, a feeling of insignificance. a feeling of insignificance. Yeah, that ambition. I've lied for attention or sympathy or whatever. Not this big.

This is a big, this is a whopper. But. This is a lot. Yeah, yeah. It compounded, but I also need to say that like, in as much as I am saying that like, ooh, the empathy approach is, gets you limited distance in this one,

I do also wanna center it in like, the things that she does and the ways that she is are recognizably human to me in whatever kind of disordered way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, that makes sense, yeah. Yeah, I get that, I see that. Because these guys find Big Dave there, they keep their half-formed doubts about Tanya to themselves.

It seems cruel to question her, and she's a member of the community in very good standing. She gives herself to the other survivors, says, Brendan, I had many one-on-one conversations with Tanya where she gave me a lot of support like no one else had. Yeah, probably because she wasn't dealing with her own. I will say there was a lady who was a male carrier named Cynthia Shepherd who had a similar story to Tanya in that her fiance died in the North Tower. And she was a male carrier who saw this happen

from outside the towers, but her fiance was in the tower. Tanya always kind of avoided her, who saw this happen from outside the towers, but her fiance was in the tower. Tanya always kind of avoided her, and Cynthia kind of really took this inward upon herself and was very like, maybe this is because since I'm not from actually within the towers, I don't really count as a survivor.

And so a lot of what Tanya did had this really toxic, the way that she sort of packaged herself and the way that she sort of will come to make her story like the story is in huge disservice to the people that she surrounds herself with who then take it upon themselves to be like, am I not 9-11 enough?

You know? Which is a horrible thing for this poor woman who's lost a loved one and saw this horrible traumatizing thing happen. Poor thing, right? But Tanya is notably an excellent advocate and organizational force for change at a time when the survivors and their needs are largely ignored. At that time, the World Trade Center Survivors Network is an unofficial organization without a definitive structure. Tanya gets them official status and state funding

Whoa Putting time herself at the time. So this is before none of the quotes. I'll ever give of Tanya come from after she's been exposed because She don't play that and we'll get there Coding herself from around the time. I've been working 24 hours a day non-stop Quoting Tanya herself from around the time, I've been working 24 hours a day nonstop. That's how my anger was channeled. Because of this obsession, I had to really not be like the hijackers. Something that someone who had been through 9-11 would say. Yeah, yes, yes, yes.

She finds a specialist trauma expert to lead therapy sessions. Prior to March 2004, survivors are denied access to Ground Zero, but Tanya is able to negotiate access for them to enter the site and grieve and try to find closure. She begins to lead tours where she and other survivors share their stories. She offers her most notable tour in September 2005 when to mark the fourth anniversary of the attacks and the dedication of a new tribute center at Ground Zero, she tells her story to media and politicians including Governor George Pataki, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg, and America's Mayor Rudy Giuliani. Michael Daly of the New York Daily News, who's one of the media present that day, observes

that Tanya behaves very edgy and nervous throughout the event and especially around the media, but he takes it at the time for stage fright. And why not, right? Yeah, yeah. Putting your trauma out on display is a great feeling. Well, not the real trauma, no. That night Tanya emails the Survivors Network gushing about the event and the amount of cameras that were on her.

So I speak of Tanya's story, the story that she just gave to Giuliani and Pataki and Bloomberg. Real serverous, those three. I speak of this story as though it's an unchanging thing, but as we all well know, or the best of us do, the more lies you tell, the harder they are to keep straight. Lies? It's so true.

That's the problem is that the one lie begets the smaller lies, and the smaller lies, even if you're morally okay with just spinning out on lies, it's hard to keep them all straight. If you've got a lie on the fly, like this lady does, to these 9-11 people that she interacts with every day,

you don't know what you said to Lynden, what you said to Janiece. You just don't know. You gotta believe it. You gotta let jump in. She does. You gotta believe it. You gotta let it jump in. And to her credit, she does. She does believe it. She does, she has to some, like, and I don't say that to let her off the hook.

She knows, she knows what she's doing here is wrong. But she has like- Oh, she knows, yeah. She's kind of done a really good job convincing herself of what she's saying, at least on like a day-to-day level, I think. Yeah. Yes, yeah, yeah, that's a good way to put it.

You have to convince yourself before you- You gotta be, you gotta, if you're method acting a 9-11 survivor, you gotta eat, sleep, breathe it, right? You gotta be, and in her fucked up head, she's like, that means I have to be thinking about my arm getting severed and my fucking skin getting burned off.

Yeah. So sometimes Big Dave is her husband. Other times he's her fiance. So... But it's cause they had- That unofficial ceremony. Oh my God. That's why. Oh my, no.

They got Maui'd? That's how Maui'd came about? I assume, doesn't that make sense? It makes total sense. I thought you said that he was your fiance, but you said to her he was married. Oh, well it wasn't an official ceremony. It was in Hawaii.

It was really cute, right? No, we were Maui'd. That's what we said. We were Maui'd. That was our joke. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Yeah. Doesn't that make sense? That's a... All this That's all this bullshit. All this stupid shit that like, again, smacks of loneliness,

smacks of maybe someone who wants love, who wants this big romantic story. Yeah, well, especially the rose petals leading to big Dave in a grass-bitten coat and a bra. She made a terrible Hawaiian meal and how we laughed, right? Yeah, oh no. How would you make a terrible Hawaiian- And if you spin off, if you spin it,

no, I think he just over- I don't know. He's just not a Hawaiian cook. He doesn't matter, he's not real. The, well, he is real, but this never happened. He's real. That version of him is certainly not real. That happened. The, um... He's real. Right, right, right. That version of him is certainly not real. That's a figment of this woman's imagination that she probably spun a long woolly tale about

because the longer I talk about getting Maui'd, the less maybe you'll forget that you caught me lying about my fiance being my husband. Exact... Exactamente. Let's talk about this and let's talk about Maui instead. Oh, wow. And so her lying isn't even peculiar to her 9-11 story. One member of the network, Aliyah, mentions that Tanya would always talk about her dog, Elvis. But when Aliyah would go to Tanya's apartment, Lupe was always taking him out for a walk. And so Aliyah starts to be like,

why the fuck won't this woman show me her dog? I like dogs. I wanna meet this dog. Which is a very human reason thing. A dog lover. A dog would make my day. Exactly, she's always talking about her dog. I wanna meet the damn dog. She's like, Elvis did the cutest thing today.

And so finally she's like, I'm just gonna ask, I'm gonna ask her and I know what she's gonna say to me. And so she's like, I'm just gonna like ask, like I'm gonna ask her and I know what she's gonna like say to me and she's like, where's the dog? Oh, Lupe's taking him out for a walk. And she's like, this is the most well-walked dog. I don't think you have a dog. And Tanya's kind of able to like maybe like stammer and talk her way, I don't know.

It doesn't quite resolve itself, this interaction. But like she's lying about having a dog. Yeah, okay. That's a deep feel. At that point, why not just get a dog? This woman could use a dog. This woman needs a dog. I think she might need an Elvis. Let's also talk about, since we're talking about Big Dave, since we're talking about Elvis, let's also talk about Wells Remy Crowther aka the man in the red bandana. Right, and at this point you asked me like, a real man. A real person. And I said, no, I haven't, a real man, okay. A real man, and what a man, truly, what a man.

Like Tanya's supposed fiance, Dave, a real person, a 24 year old volunteer firefighter and junior trader who worked on the 105th floor of the South south tower as the stories of survivors emerged from that day It becomes known that Wells Crowther went back into the World Trade Center three times and rescued at least 18 people before dying himself Yeah, a gorgeous soul and a great loss and so naturally Tanya works him into her own story in increasingly prominent roles as more and more people ask after this information until he's literally putting out the fire on her back and saving her life and giving her these very inspiring words to kind of carry her on her way. Unfortunately for our girl T, 9-11 community is a small one and word gets back to Jeff

and Allison Crowther, Wells' parents, that another person has come forward with a story of Wells being a hero on that day and Jeff and Allison in their own grief and their own process of coming to terms with their son's death while celebrating his enormous heroism. Yeah. They're tremendously proud. How could you not be? They reach out to Tanya.

Yeah. They wanna meet. Tanya is very cagey at first. She says she's had a lot of experiences meeting families of victims who get angry at her because she survived and their loved ones didn't. I find that family members of people who were killed, they want to know what happened, but I don't want to put those images in their head. They don't have to know how their loved ones died. I think it's better if they don't know. I saw so much suffering

on that floor to the degree where it's just something you don't want to share with anyone. I've just been keeping it to myself. It's a secret that you carry with you. It becomes a burden. Who wants to talk about body parts and blood and carnage? Oh my god. You! You!

You do! Oh my god! You love it! You love it! You do! You just said all those things! Oh my god! That's...

That is gross. That is so gross. Eventually, she agrees to meet the Crowthers at the private dining room of a country club. She tells them her story and she tells these grieving parents that she remembers their son's beautiful brown eyes, that she keeps a picture of him in every room in her house

so she can always see his eyes, that she has a picture of him in every room in her house so she can always see his eyes. That she has a piece of the scorched clothing she wore that day, the last thing Wells touched and that she's gonna have it framed and gift it to them. That's the bullshit police. She does not ever do this of course. She does not frame and mount her scorched garments for this grieving family who does not need or want them. But she does agree to speak at the annual memorial concert Jeff and Allison hold in Wells's honor at the last moment before Tanya speaks she becomes overwhelmed and she's got to bring in her best bud Linda, a fellow survivor, to read her speech for her. So maybe just maybe guilt, I don't know.

What do you think? Yeah, she was overwhelmed by her guilt or, yeah, who knows? Tonya and Linda, Best Budd Linda, are practically joined at the hip. Says Linda, Tonya taught me how to live life with grace, with courage, with the strength to overcome, to me, some of the scariest things that I've ever faced in my entire life. I don't want to live my life based on what happened to me.

I want to live my life like Tanya's living her life, going out and helping other people and doing something good with my really horrible experience. Oh my god. So when Tanya starts an extreme therapy called flooding, which involves listening to audio tapes of herself repeatedly reliving her graphic 9-11 story in vivid detail, Linda wants to support her. No thank you. Tanya has Linda sit there in her office and listen to the tapes with her. As Tanya talks about watching her assistant get decapitated

about a man tugging on her arm, which is hanging on by only a scrap of flesh, making her scream in pain. This is obviously incredibly triggering for Linda, who is a 9-11 survivor folks, lest we forget, never forget. Yeah. Yeah. She finds the details of Tanya's therapy sessions creeping into her own nightmares about 9-11,

but she wants to be a good bestie. And besides, well, when she tries to back out for self-care reasons, Tanya starts yelling at her. You're a horrible friend. You're so selfish. Don't you know what I've been through? My trauma was worse than yours. How can you live with that?

Exsqueeze me. That's not OK. None of this is OK, but that's especially pungent. That one wouldn't even be OK. No, no, even if okay if it were real. Even if she was the 9-11 survivor trying to like trauma Olympics this other chick. Yeah. Right, yeah.

Deeply inappropriate. Very inappropriate. Significantly worse when she didn't go through 9-11. Oh, oh, just a whole another day. Unpossibly unforgivable depending on what your moral compass is. Yeah. Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh, oh, just a whole nother, a whole nother day. Yeah. Oh my God. Oh my God.

Oh, gross. As Tanya's trauma begins to overtake the group, her cheery affect becomes significantly gloomier. Not only is she noticeably more anxious leading members of the group to speculate on her mental health and worry about the possibility of herself harming, but she's also a lot crueler and more arrogant. For example, she decides that World Trade Center Survivor Network co-founder Jerry Bogus is simply not aggressive enough and that this organization could use a little restructure. Through Borschen and Bigas and Backwater dealings, Tanya rigs Jerry off the board of the Survivor Network. Says board member Janice, Tanya was intimidated of Jerry and couldn't

manipulate him, so she manipulated everyone against him. The next day, the network, previously egalitarian and leaderless in its structure, issued a release naming Tanya Head as its president. She did a whole revamp. She did it. And like, if you've ever worked at like a small nonprofit with a board, that just gave you like trauma. Yes. That just reminded you of something you know

or have heard about. Yes, yes. Oh my Gurd, oh my Gurd, Gurd, Gurd. And it truly is as Tanya crests this tower that she's contrived that it all begins to shift underneath her. A couple of days before the sixth anniversary in September 2007, David W. Dunlap of the New York Times looks into her for what's supposed to be a standard rah-rah we love the survivors puff piece. Right, yeah here's the little biome, here's little pic of Elvis. You and Big Dave in the coconut bra, chef's kiss right? Yeah, yeah so the Times received a Pulitzer Prize in 2002

for its in-depth coverage of the 9-11 attacks and its portraits of grief series documenting each of the victims is especially well remembered for its pathos. So not a hostile venue for a 9-11 survivor on the up and up at all, right? Yeah. They're looking for some puff. And and up at all, right? Yeah. They're looking for some puff.

And to like never forget, right? They clearly made a commitment to never fucking forget. And here we are. Yeah, yeah, true. Tanya agrees to Dunlap's interview at first, but then she starts pushing back, being evasive, acting strange. She cancels the interview three times without explanation.

All of a sudden, the New York Times is burning up Tanya's phone line asking questions and Tanya is burning up the phone lines of the Survivors Network, berating everyone several times a day with paranoid demands that they not talk to any journalists about her. Meanwhile, Oh, okay.

Sure, yep, 10-4. Sure, Tanya. Wasn't gonna, but actually Dunlap is getting in touch with all of the individual members of the network, of course. Where was Tanya hospitalized? Did she really work for Merrill Lynch? Have you ever seen a photo of her and Dave together?

Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da, right? Where the fuck is Elvis? Where is Elvis? When survivor Aliyah tries to defend Tanya to the times this is the lady who was also demanding for us Elvis Tanya screams at her that she's making everything worse so even by Aaliyah being like yo this woman has been through a lot can you just like give her a break that pissed Tanya off yeah oh man Tanya around off. Yeah. Oh man, Tonya. Around this time as Tonya seemingly comes unglued, bestie Linda notes a particularly odd incident that takes place at the St. Regis Hotel. So what happens here is Tonya

says before she goes to this hotel meeting that Meryl Lynch has arranged a conference for the families of the people who have died. I think from like her mergers team, her fake mergers team that she's not on and Merrill Lynch hasn't actually done this. This is all, this is all bullshit. Yeah. But she says that there's 11 families there

and they really wanted to know how their loved ones died. So she goes to this meeting, this fake meeting at the, I'm tipping, I'm tipping my hand here. You're not supposed to know this is a fake meeting, but it's a fake fucking meeting. She goes to this fake ass fake meeting and she calls Linda crying. These people are screaming at me.

They're so horrible to me. They're demanding to know how did my loved one die? Linda, of course, roars in, finds Tanya, her best friend, fellow 9-11 survivor, Tanya Head, and she's crying and shaking in the lobby. I tried, I, Linda, I tried, I tried, I'm gonna kill myself and Linda's like, she's gonna fucking do it. Linda goes up to the person at the desk and is like, I, like, I need to, what's going on, I need to talk to these people and if she could only, there's been a misunderstanding,

you need to, and the person is like, I have no idea, like, what you're talking about, like, clearly has no idea what the fuck she's talking about. Yeah, yeah, that was a conference in like the West area. There was no conference. There wasn't to talk it like, there was no nothing. But like this person is literally just being like, like what? But by the time it can get past that,

Tanya's bundled Linda away because she's like, you need to take me to the memorial. Take me to the 9-11 memorial. And so Linda and Tanya go together and Tanya starts touching Dave's name on this memorial. And then she feels a sense of peace come over her. And she's like, it's okay, Linda. You can go now. It's okay. So she just threw a tantrum and got a nice little ending to her fake story. How can I spin this for Tanya? Oh, God. She's been under a lot of stress. She's been under a lot of stress lately. The New York Times has been calling.

Her bestie hasn't been under stress trying to- We have agreed, and by we have agreed, I mean that Tanya insists that Linda's grief is subordinate to her own. So that has been established. Oh I forgot about that. Yeah, very rough. I forgot. I got the sense that Linda was a real pawn in the shit about the board.

I feel bad for Linda. Yeah. Tanya's anxiety comes to a head, pun intended. See I got one in there, at a barbecue before the sixth anniversary which Tanya monopolizes with a fit of crying, having a full tilt meltdown about the imminent times article, which literally everyone is like, what is this? Like why are you so upset? Why are you being so anxious and cagey about this?

Bestie Linda once again takes a break from her own grief on this, the sixth anniversary of 9-11 of which she is a survivor, to console Tanya while also attempting to coax from her the name of the lone other survivor from her account, the firefighter who tossed her under the truck because they both got out together. Oh. So he wouldn't have died. Reason that this man can corroborate Tanya's account. Tanya declines to reveal his name. This is this era of you know, privacy is important. She signed an NDA. Yeah. Yeah. When he before he tossed her down by the track. He's like, I wasn't here. She's like, I wasn't here. And she's like, don't worry. Neither was I.

Oh my God. Tanya is able to convince the other survivors that the source of her anxiety, and this is a good one. I respect this one. It's not, I respect this one. Let's put a lot of, let's put a lot of qualifiers on respect. It's a decent enough cover your ass lie. She says that the source of her anxiety

is that she's not an American citizen and she's worried that the times piece will dredge up that she's not here legally. That's a decent ass lie. It creates problems in that eventually like, that's not true either. Like we will get to the bottom of that lie too, but it does buy you time potentially.

Right. The other survivors, selfless souls that they are, are happy to help her. Board member Janiece accompanies, God bless the 9-11 community, truly. One bad apple does not spoil the bunch. Oh my God. Board member Janiece accompanies Tanya

to a lawyer's office where Janiece sits in the waiting room for two hours while Tanya tells her story to the attorneys behind closed doors because attorney client confidentiality. When Janiece rejoins this group, so she rejoins Tanya and these lawyers and the lawyers are kind of recapping the story as Tanya has told it to them and Janiece is stunned by the differences from the versions that she's heard. In this version, Tanya has only known Day for a few months and she's only at the World Trade Center visiting for the day. That is very different. Presumably she couldn't tell the lawyers that she was employed at Merrill Lynch because that creates a different... like she can't tell these lawyers some of these lies I would, because it affects the particulars of the case that she's lying to them about. Yeah, yeah.

They will find that she was not employed at Merrill Lynch, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, that's a pretty easy thing to find out. As we will find out. Janiece is in shock. She starts looking things up, and it quickly becomes clear that Tanya Head is not who she says she is,

where it quickly spreads among the survivors. On September 27, 2007, the New York Times publishes a front page article by David W. Dunlap and Serge F. Kovalesky in a 9-11 survival tale. The pieces just don't fit. Oh, shit, she's getting exposed. The article reveals that no component of Tanya's story has been verified that her engagement to the man named Dave who died in the first tower is an impossibility. Big Dave.

That Dave's family has never heard of Tanya, nor have Harvard, nor Stanford, nor Merrill Lynch. Because again, you just gotta ask Merrill Lynch. As the headline reverberates across the world journalist Marta Forn of Barcelona's La Vanguardia picks up the story and confirms that Tanya Head is actually hometown girl Alicia Esteve because you know the tipsters for being like listen you're not going to believe this. That gal. the tipsters for being like, listen, you're not gonna believe this. That gal.

Yeah, yeah, oh my god. Tanya is removed from her role as the president of the World Trade Center's Survivors Network. Of course. Of course. Interesting. She failed a very basic prerequisite of being a part of the survivors network but otherwise

Goes unpunished. She is not found to have committed any crimes Under American law stolen 9-eleven valor not illegal folks. You heard it here She did not receive any You heard it here. She did not receive any monetary payment as a result of her big lie. If anything, she probably contributed more time and resources to the cause of 9-11 survivor advocacy than she ultimately extracted.

So it's not a financially motivated scam. When we think of a scam and oh, is this ever one, we think of a money scam and this was like a love scam. Taking the advice of her mother to be discrete, the unmasked Aletheia vanishes into thin air. In 2008, a message to the Survivors Network arrives from a mysterious Spanish email claiming that Tanya has killed herself. It appears to be yet another lie. Aletheia has moved back to her native Barcelona, resumed her original name, and started working anonymously in business. The various impacted parties all have different thoughts or opinions about why Alethea, aka

Tanya, might have done all this. Rob and Gabby Fischer is a journalist who co-wrote the book The Woman Who Wasn't There, along with Angelo J. Guglielmo Jr. Fisher suggests, it was clear to me right away that she did it for the attention, for some crazy need to be a star. And that's what she wanted to be. Yeah. She became that. Jeff Crowther, father of Wells, theorizes that Tanya was an ordinary woman with low self-esteem who desperately wanted sympathy. She is, without her lies, a pretty unremarkable, lonely, kind of tragic person from this ruined family who just tells lies about herself. And there's something kind of like, without being condescending, there's

something a little pathetic about that, right? Like it's easy to sympathize with a person like that to some degree. No, it's yeah, yeah. There's something like deeply saddening about that. Or suggests Survivor's Network member Lori, perhaps she's evil. Also a possibility. I mean, maybe she's just evil. You gotta say, yeah. I agree. Don't take it off the table. Like, let's we accept that.

Let's have a smorgasbord. People are just evil. Why not Tanya Head? You know? Yeah. Yeah. Don't. Yeah.

Similarly, there are many different approaches to the question of forgiveness.