Bittersweet Infamy - #71 - Elizabeth Shrugged

Episode Date: May 28, 2023

Taylor tells Josie about American con artist and automotive entrepreneur Geraldine Elizabeth Carmichael, and her three-wheeled masterpiece: the Dale. Plus: the time 300 to 400 pounds of pasta appeared overnight in the New Jersey woods.

Welcome to Bitter Sweden. I'm Taylor Basso and I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast we share the stories that live on in me. The strange and the familiar. The tragic and the comic. The bitter. And the sweet. Okay. Okay. It's time. Yeah, it's time. I also think it's time. Yeah. I visited SEMA, my 97 year old friend at the retirement home yesterday. How is she doing? Okay. It was a really nice time while I was there. I ran into this blind dude and he told me his name was Dr. Phillips and we just kind of struck up a convo because he's like, you know, you have a great voice for broadcast. And I was like, thank you. And he's like,

oh, you should you've got it. Like he was he was really buttering me up for my voice and he was like, and you know, I'm blind. So we've got like enhanced hearing. So you know, I'm the best judge of this. And I was like, listen, if the best if you're telling me you're the best judge and you're also like blowing smoke up my ass, then I am happy to give you that. Like, what a compliment. We need to put that somewhere. So we've heard of some dangerous, illegal dumping in the past, nuclear waste being dumped in the Mojave desert dangerously with not enough signage, the chromium in Aaron Brockovich, the chromium. We hate the chromium. We fuck PG&E. Yes. Thank you, Aaron Brockovich for all the work

that you've done. Even close to me here in Houston, there's a big issue in the fifth ward with Creosite in the railroad ties. There's a big railroad yard in the middle of a neighborhood and they treated the ties, the wooden stays of the railroad line with this Creosite stuff that is extremely toxic and very dangerous. So there's all these cases of cancer popping up in a historically black neighborhood. It's really that's good. We don't like that. No. But this story, thank goodness, there are no sever illnesses, there are no deaths to count as of yet. But Taylor, I'm going to tell you the story of an illegal dumping site in New Jersey in the township of Old Bridge, which is just about 30 to

480 miles outside of the New York metropolitan area, New Jersey, which my good friends, Erica Joe Brown and BJ Love, they're possibly moving to New Jersey and this story does come from BJ, so hats off to BJ. Is it rude of me to ask why? Why are they moving? To New Jersey. Because BJ might get a job in Jersey. In waste management, I understand. Erica Joe's a little worried because as she says, Jersey's just all woods and hoods. She doesn't know if she can handle it. She's also from Staten Island, so she's like Jersey is a little like, it's a little hard. Mentally, it's a little hard. Staten Island is just a poor man's New Jersey, don't write me. Don't write me, Erica Joe, don't write me. Urgent listens, too.

Not anymore. But this one does go out to Erica Joe and be with their maybe possibly potential move, but also because BJ alerted me to this story, so. Thank you, BJ. Big thanks, BJ. And you remember BJ? Yeah, yeah, we met. And Erica as well. Yeah, yeah. But he's a big wrestler, wrestler guy. I roll rumble 2020 after we left the show, I just drunkenly babbled at him in a bar about like, oh, it was a really good show. So yeah, I know all about BJ. And he babbled right on back. Oh, it was a good show. So there you go. It was a good show. The edge came back, baby. We're all light of spirit. Brock Lesnar lost that royal rumble. It looked like it was going to take a different turn for a while there. It was

great stuff. Yeah. Old Bridge, New Jersey, the township of, there was a case recently, like within the last month. And I know we try and, you know, give a little time for things to develop so that we're not reporting theories and falsities. But let's speculate is what you're saying. Let's spend a little time speculating because there was a resident of Old Bridge who was on a walking path through a wooded area, woods and hoods, so the wooded wood side of hoods, and came upon 25 feet of what seemed to be a legally dumped Spagutter pasta. It's pronounced Spagutter. I know this one. But what's Spagutter? It's how they pronounce Spaghetti in Italy. Oh, okay. In Sicily, we pronounce this Spagutter. Well, it was it was Bagutter, but it was also

Ziti and elbow pasta. Wow. So a diversity of pastas. A diversity. Yes. Yes. Yeah. What would the plural noun of that be? A medley, a carb, a heart attack. This is actually the exact unit. That's very funny. This is the exact unit that I'm on in my Esperanto lessons, actually. That would be called multi-pasta. Many pastas. Many different pastas. Many pastas. That's good. I like it. This hiker came upon quite a sight, like right along a stream, just mounds and mounds and mounds of pasta, of kind of like dense, slightly moist wet pasta. Like someone had just emptied a pasta buffet in the forest. I saw the pictures. I don't know what this ends up being, so I'm excited, but I saw the pictures. Yeah, yeah. The pictures are, they're pretty entertaining.

They tell a thousand words. More than. That's true. It's true. So this person who was walking, they alerted a local activist in the community in Old Briggs. She ran for a local pasta activist store. Well, she ran for city council and didn't win this last election, but she is very active, especially when it comes to cleaning up streams and wooded areas in her neighborhood. So she was kind of a logical. The city council, Josie, stop telling me facts. I'm going to make a pasta joke to you. Those city council elections are hard. I heard that they're often rigged, a very nice. That was good. That is definitely one of the beautiful things that has come out of this illegal dumping story is the puns. The puns are really quite lovely. How could they not be?

How could they not be? Let me share one with you. Please. Somebody on Reddit hearing the story, a subreddit New Jersey thread commented, we should send the perpetrators to the state pen a. Tentury. I mean, another New Jersey subreddit thread. If we do that, I'm Alfredo. What will happen to them? Yeah, I can see how this is going to go. There's probably a big, there's probably several big threads of these, aren't they? Just all the way down. Who could have done it? I think it was a man named Al Dente. We're taking liberties now. Oh, yes, we are. Yes, we are. So this hiker, an old bridge or a walker, more like, I think it's more kind of an urban wood space. They contacted

Nina Jacknowitz, who is the community leader and environmental activist. Didn't even stumble on that one. You've come a long way. You're doing really great. Thank you. No problem. No problem. I mean, it's probably wrong. Let's be real. But that was some heavy Polish shit and you approached it with confidence. So good job. Thank you. No problem. Thank you. And she went out there and took a few photos so that she could send them to City Council and Waste Management. Waste Management, the number one employer in New Jersey, as we all know. Yes. Yes, exactly. Exactly. We've all seen the intro, at least, just the Sopranos. Soprano. So the photos were taken and sent, and then they started to kind of

proliferate, as they should, as an image of 25 feet of pasta in a wooded area, wood and should take over the internet so that puns can live and thrive all over the world, not just in Old Bridge Township. And so we can just kind of sit there and stew in the mystery and ask our questions. Maybe not stew. Maybe like a, more of like a, you know, like a macaroni salad. Yes. Yeah, yeah. With Chiknowitz's alerting of the proper authorities, some workers from the community did come out and take away what appeared to be 15 wheelbarrows of all the pasta. Another pun that came through, they carbo-loaded 15 wheelbarrows. I took it out of there. That was one of the better ones to me. Yeah, that one was good. Yeah. I like that one. That was

not just take pasta name, make things sound like other things. That one took me a second. 15 wheelbarrows. 15 of them, yeah. Wow. That's New Jersey, baby. Yeah. Meenak Chiknowitz. Maybe. See, now I've got you a little rattled, though. You're like, no, I can't fuck it up. Meenak Chiknowitz, she was surprised actually to see that it had kind of taken to the internet. It was on Reddit and fueling all these puns. What she really wanted to do was just kind of push the city council and push waste management, push the township so they would do something about it. Because as I said, she's an activist, an environmental activist in the area, and like there's dumped tires right next to where all this pasta is, and she's had to work so hard to get

anybody out there to help with any type of cleanup. And part of the issue is that this township doesn't have large waste removal. We need more waste management. More waste management in New Jersey, yes. How is it possible that we need more waste management? Because none of them are doing the goddamn jobs. I see, because they're busy whacking people is what I've learned from HBO. Is she not a little curious about where the pasta came from? I mean, publicly she says, you know, it does not matter. It does not matter. But privately she's got to be like, listen, I know the buffet that did this. Uncle Murrell's pasta buffet on the west side of fucking Patterson, you know, whatever it is. It's a real mission and pastible.

Yeah, no, I can't argue. I'd like to, but here we are. So certainly everybody in town is wondering that as everybody else on the internet is, a few ideas were coming through. It was so much pasta that it was like, this must have come from an industrial kitchen. There's just this is too much. One of the questions that was raised was also, was this pasta cooked or was it put out there uncooked and the moisture got to it and created it so it looked like it was cooked, which that is an important question. Okay, who has the capability to cook all that pasta? It'd be a huge kitchen, right? Barbara Streisand. Yes, Barbara Streisand in her basement. You go into the elevator, you hit like a B six, you go down to the industrial

pasta kitchen. Sure. You might think the B stands for basement, it stands for Barbara. Stands for baths. Who do you think it was, Taylor? My very first instinct there was, okay, so my first instinct was something like a pasta buffet. Now you're talking, the quantities seem a little bit too big for that. So maybe we're talking like industrial kitchen. Who's eating pasta in that quantity? New Jersey. Oh man, I'm going to go like catering hall for a wedding. That's my guess. This story was updated relatively quickly after it broke the internet. And they determined when they were able to remove the pasta and dispose of it correctly, that it was uncooked when it was placed in the woods, when it was dumped. Okay. And then the

moisture and you know, it's soft up rain and stuff like that, it began to kind of bloat. The problem though is that in that large quantity, 15 meal barrels, 300 to 400 pounds, it does affect things when there's so much of it. No, I got that. And pasta has a pH level that will impact the water stream that's right next to it that feeds into the township's water supply. So there is some concerns about cleaning it up properly and making sure that it's like a quick and taken care of cleanup situation. Luckily the cleanup, according to Chuck Nowitz, it was one of the fastest that she has ever seen. Probably the proliferation on the internet was a big part of that, but certainly something kind of joyous about all that pasta in

the woods. But in terms of who put it there, the update most recently is that they know the gentleman who dumped, illegally dumped it, but the township is not citing his name nor are they finding him for privacy reasons. They're not sharing it with the media. That seems unusually responsible. Good for them. I agree. I agree. Part of why he had so much extra pasta was that his parents, who lived nearby, had recently died and he was cleaning out their house. And they must have, you know, maybe a sprinkling, a little parmesan over the top of hoarder tendencies. Oh, no. Because during COVID, they had just gone crazy, apparently, with the amount of pasta that they had put in their pantry. Oh, wow. 300 to 400 pounds of it.

Oh, I can see how something like that would happen. You don't want to, you don't want to, like, especially if you come from like any past where you've been deprived of resources, which is like most people who grew up at any point in the 20th century prior to the baby boom, right? Right, exactly. I can totally see how something like that would happen. There is the question of like, well, if it was especially dried pasta, this gentleman could have very easily donated it to a food bank, which would have been not only a wonderful way to get rid of it on his end, but to, you know, feed other people. But I think the township was very aware to that, like, in moments of grief and faced with 300 to 400 pounds of pasta. Yeah, you just put

that shit again, it's New Jersey. What do you do? Move the body to the left and dump the pasta. And it very well could have been like, well, it's a few boxes here. I'm just going to shake them out for the deer. That's fine. And then all of a sudden it's like, oh, this is, oh, this is, okay, I'm just, this is a lot. It's three and four. Okay, 15. Okay. I just dumped a lot of pasta. Yeah, that's a few traps, maybe. So many garbage bags full of pasta. Yeah. This story is about illegal dumping, which is dangerous and it's not safe for our communities, as we can tell by chromium and creoside and fuck the chromium, stand strong against chromium, folks. Don't get, don't let chromium catch you slipping. It's around every corner.

Hexavalent. Anyways, go ahead. Thank you. Thank you. I know, bitch. I watched Aaron Brock. I took that movie very seriously. I love that movie. That's a good fucking, that's a piece of cinema is what that is. It really, it truly is. It truly is. So even though this story is, of course, much lighter, there is the little sadness with the idea of like, yeah, having to clean out your parents' house can be very emotional inside, but there's also something very sweet about the township of Old Briggs saying, you know what? That is, that sucks for you and you should have done that,

but we got it cleaned up and this is an excellent reminder for all of us that we should have large garbage removal as part of our civic ordinance and it should be part of our tax system and we should just pay for it and get it done. And grief support, right? And maybe some grief support in there too. If they said that, I'd throw that in there, why not? Throw it in there, throw it out into the woods. Yeah, interesting. I didn't know that's how that had resolved. I had seen the photos of just these moist piles of pastels. It's like... Like these long embankments of it. Yeah, yeah. Do you know what it kind of reminded me of is like, when you would leave the ice rink and the Zamboni would have pushed all the snow

out into the parking lot, this is kind of like dirty ice rink snow, that but pasta, and the environment is like where Adriana Spoilers gets fucking snuffed in the Sopranos. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. Spoilers for a 20 year old show. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, dude, that's the story of woods and hoods and pasta. Pasta, baby. It's in the past. Hey, babe, what you got there? This is a check from Carvana. I just sold my car to them. I went online and Carvana gave me an offer right away. Then they just picked up the car and gave me this. What's a big check? Well, obviously you could put this towards your next car,

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It's the 1970s and these United States of America are wracked by an oil crisis. America, along with many other nations, supported the Israelis in the Yom Kippur War. The Arab states are not happy about it. Intergovernmental Petroleum Body OPEC took a vote and now we have issued an embargo on oil. The cars of the era are gigantic gas chugging boats and now prices at the pomp or skyrocketing the common man is despondent and the nation needs a hero. Thankfully, one Maverick automotive entrepreneur is ready to challenge the big three in Detroit with a two-seater sports car that has great fuel economy, a low price, and a unique design that looks like nothing else on the road. Now I know what you're thinking. Taylor,

I fucking heard this one. It's the DeLorean. I know it's like another car story. It's way too early to start repeating stories, which I say, fuck you, no. Let me finish my sentence. Oh, okay, okay. Sorry. Get out of my head. Get out of my head. Because this isn't the DeLorean. This is the DeL. The DeL is powered by an 850 cc air-cooled engine that gets 70 miles per gallon crucial in these austere times. The DeL costs a cool $2,000 less than a stripped-down VW bug, so it won't hurt your pocket of the dealership or the pump. The DeL is bright yellow like a beautiful banana made of a specially designed aeronautic fiberglass called rigidx. And the DeL has three fucking wheels, not four, three. What? Because where we're going, we don't need four.

Tight, dude. Tight. Are the two in the front? Two up front, one in the back. If you do it the other way, it tips over pretty quick. Oh, okay, yeah. Another way to think of it, I looked down and I only saw three treadmarks because the DeL was carrying me. Oh, thank you. I had that in there. And the Outsider, ready to take on Chevy, GM, Ford, and any other big bug who might get in the way of a better America, isn't Jonza DeLorean. She is 37-year-old Geraldine Elizabeth Carmichael, an Indiana farm girl, a mother of five, the widow of a former NASA structural engineer, and a woman with a few degrees of her own in engineering and marketing. She believes in the power of the free market to do good and she wants to shake up the status quo.

And if you pre-order a DeL today, you're helping Liz Carmichael build a better future for America. You hear that, Siren? Mm-hmm. That means that by the time you realize that only 30% of what I just told you is true, Liz will have already vanished into hiding with her share of the investor's money. Oh, shit. Did she really have five kids? I was like 37 at five kids. She has more. Oh, whoa. This is the story of Liz Carmichael, a gifted con woman who believed every word she said, a devoted mother who frequently abandoned her children, an egomaniac, an entrepreneur, a landmark figure in American transgender history, and the central character in one of the weirdest sagas in the U.S. auto industry, a story littered with secrets and lies, murder and sabotage,

and far too much Ayn Rand, Josie, this is the tale of the Dale. Have you ever heard of this one before? Michael. Carmichael. And so this is a really interesting thing. It's interesting that you point that out because, I'll just dive right in here because that is like a really nice sake. I've never heard of this. Let's go. Okay, perfect, perfect. It's interesting that you point out that her name is Carmichael. So as I alluded, Liz Carmichael is transgender, although in the 1970s, the more common term was transsexual. She was a sign male at birth and she started transitioning around middle age. It's typically seen as respectful when you're covering a transgender subject in a nonfiction capacity to refrain from using their

name before they transitioned. And so that's what I'm going to do. Yeah, dead name. See ya. Her former name is not a secret. It's readily available information. It becomes public during the course of the story. But I think it's just a way to make crystal clear that I want to come into this story giving Liz a sense of dignity that the contemporary coverage didn't necessarily afford her. Totally makes sense. And sounds like there's enough juice that one name is more than enough. I'll be referring to Liz as she and her throughout the story, although I will make clear when relevant which parts of the story happen when she's presenting socially as male and which happened after she begins to transition. Gotcha. I used a few sources for this story. As

always, I'll shout out all my my sources over the uncredits. My favorite of the sources that I used was an HBO documentary four parts called The Lady and the Dale. The co-directors were Zachary Jekker is transgender. The other is someone named Nick Camilleri, who like really seems to have thrown himself into the task of like presenting a compassionate portrait of Liz Carmichael. So basically without trying to give too much away, Liz will end up on Unsolved Mysteries, which is an important plot, as all the greats do, right? As all, yeah, yeah. Nick Camilleri saw this Unsolved Mysteries episode and then years later looked around for some sort of continuation of the saga, couldn't find anything, quote, I thought maybe there'd be

a book or a movie or a documentary that would tell me everything, but there was nothing and I didn't learn till years later that it's because transgender history gets erased. So Nick ends up saddling up with Zachary Jekker. They end up with the DuPlace brothers produce this documentary film with the participation of a lot of Liz's kids. So Liz's kids, Candy, Michael, and Michael, Michael, and that's the thing that I was actually going to come back to. Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael. I think it's amusing as you pointed out that her name is Carmichael because she's like, what, what if old last name, Buck Carr? This documentary, The Lady in the Dale, was made with an idea of reexamining what had previously

been Liz's legacy as like a con man who dressed like a woman to get away with a con and kind of turned it into a morn, like no, she was a transgender woman who just happened to be crooked as hell. Yeah. Don't get it twisted. I think I went a little there because that is such a part of trans representation, especially in Hollywood and on film is this idea that like being your authentic self or transitioning becomes this very duplicitous, like tricking and, you know, like nefarious business. And it's like, no, it's transitioning. It's nope, you can still be an asshole, of course. But just because you transitioned does not make you an asshole. Yes, exactly. Or it doesn't mean that you're lying and doesn't mean there. This is all very

central to this story. A big part of it is that Liz gets outed and people say some pretty brutal shit about her that is transphobic, like to say the least, that is both a product of widespread ignorance around trans issues at the time, as well as, I would argue, part of a narrative being deliberately pushed by legitimate bigots. And we will dive into all that. So with that said, warning, explicitly transphobic language, deliberate misgendering, all that kind of step ahead, although always in the context of quotes, and we will be explicitly breaking down why that kind of shit is wronghearted. Have you seen the documentary Disclosure? No. It's a Netflix documentary. It's really good. I've assigned it for classes and stuff, but it examines trans representation

in Hollywood and Hollywood depictions. And it does a really honest and heartfelt and very thorough job of kind of tracing trends within representation where it's like, the trans character is duplicitous and conniving, or there's like this very meant to be comedic, but very hurtful disgust that happens in it. Sexual predation. All of the above. Yeah. It's just a really, it's a really good documentary, especially if you like movies, because they kind of break down movies. I like most movies. I like most movies that that Esperanto one with William Shatner was really hard for me. I'm not gonna lie. That one, I white knuckled it through that one. That was an assignment. You did it. You did it. But I did it. God damn it.

Yeah. Let's go. Let's get on the road. Let's get on the road. I'm buckled in. Let's go. All right. Another car story. Yes. Another Taylor Basta car story, part two of my trilogy. Yes. Liz Carmichael is born in 1927 in Indiana, a side male at birth, as we've discussed. She likes to tell it that she was a dirt farm kid from Jasonville who used to go to the movies to see people being fancy. Her classmates say otherwise that Liz was reasonably well off, good looking, popular with big dreams of conquering the world. There are signs early on that she may be transgender. She likes to try on dresses with her female cousins. She likes to walk home from bars with no pants on because the wind under her shirt makes her feel like she's wearing a skirt.

This type of thing. Sounds lovely. Breezy. Oh pants are the worst. There are also early signs that she is ready to tackle a very ambitious and innovative life of crime. She takes like fish to water to any old scam or scheme, but in her early years she's specifically a fake ID queen and her best one-two combo is cut a fake check, cut a fake employee ID, go to the bank and cash it. Very nice. Very nice. My half-brother who's a little bit older than me who's telling me a story where they would go to get their fake IDs and it was a friend's garage where he had blown up like a really big license. Like a big big, yeah and you hold it. That's classic because then you don't need to do any editing. You just crop it right? Yeah. You just take the Polaroid,

crop it, laminate it, boom, done. That's genius. Liz makes a bunch of money doing these little Shenandigas. She buys cars for all her buddy. You get a car, you get a car, you get a car. Whoa. Makes them accomplices after the fact, but what do you do with that? Oh yeah, well you know us. She ends up getting arrested and she seems kind of pleased that it's made the newspaper. She likes the attention. Oh, okay, okay. In court she never dimes on any of her co-conspirators, never flips on anybody and she's able to skillfully manipulate the court using her rhetoric and get out of serving any serious consequences. This slipperiness will be a signature quality as Liz, and let's just call it straight down the line, goes around the world committing crimes and knocking up girls.

All right. Let's get down to browse text pretty quick. No time. Yeah. She has two kids with a girl in Germany named Marga. She deserts them, pleads guilty and gets a suspended sentence. In 1954, Liz marries a girl named Juanita. I think this is in America. They have two kids. Liz goes door-to-door selling knitting machines with the promise to buy whatever knitwear the client produces. Then whoops, disconnected number. That old scheme. During Juanita and Liz's three-year marriage, they change residences 21 times. Juanita gets sick of it and leaves Liz taking the kids with her. So some kids out will never see them or Juanita in this story again. In 1957, Liz starts selling vacuums, gets fired for stealing the down payments.

She moves to a place called El Nora, which I think is in Indiana, runs an unsuccessful newspaper. 1958, marries a girl named Betty, who she's known for four weeks, gets her pregnant after two months. They separate shortly after that. Liz never sees the kid. Whoa. So I told you there's a lot. Please keep your arms in the fucking cart. We are peeling through kids and wives here. Okay. Shortly thereafter, Liz meets a 16-year-old diner waitress named Vivian, with whom she will spend the bulk of the story. I don't want to run the ages there, but I'm sure they don't reflect well. They elope and can I fucking shock you, Vivian gets knocked up. They all move back in with the family. Her family, Vivian's.

Vivian's family. Okay. Not much on Liz's family, actually, really. Yeah. Yeah. Seems like she got out of there pretty fast. She got out of there pretty fast and probably told some kind of this, that and the others to obscure things. True. In 1961, we're still in El Nora. Liz is with Vivian. She's running this failing newspaper out of an office above a grocery store. Someone gets the idea, why don't we use this printing press to make some counterfeit bills? Liz likes the sound of that. Why best she do? That's music to her ears, right? Seems right up her alley. Print is a dying medium. Yeah. In 1961. She's ahead of her time. She's, dude, she is a, I will say again and again, she's ahead of her time in many ways. And Vivian, the new wife, looks over Liz's shoulder and she's

like, that money doesn't look right. Paper looks wrong. We should stain that with some coffee and tea. Works a treat. Oh. So now we have a power couple, such as it is. Yes. Eventually, the FBI figures out what's going on. A federal grand jury indicts Liz on conspiracy and possession of counterfeit currency. She knows shows the arraignment and they flee. And from there, Liz and Vivian, and what will become their five kids. Oh. They go on the land, which is how they will live the rest of their lives. How is there not a movie? You would need to kind of make a star, I think, because I don't think any of the existing people that I know of, the existing trans actors that I know of, would, would really quite fit this. But I'm maybe ignorant in that department. Also,

make a star, baby. This story can support it. This is wild. We have not even begun this story. Yeah, I know. I'm looking at the clock. I'm like, where are they? We're flying through wives here. There's no car. Where's the car? I was told there was a car. So Candy Michael and Michael Michael are among those interviewed for the HBO Max documentary, The Lady in the Dale. They were born under false names with false documentation stolen from dead children, which they acknowledge has been a great hindrance for them when applying for jobs, traveling, dealing with the government in any capacity, etc. They're not official citizens, even still. Oh, man, there's just so many ways to mess up your kid, huh?

There's ways you won't even think of until you hear that somebody else did it. And then you're like, oh yeah. Wow. Wow. But I will say other than that, they broadly speak kindly of Liz as a parent and reflect fondly on their unconventional childhood on the run. Liz had five kids and only two of them were in this documentary. But perhaps those who didn't participate feel differently. And we just kind of don't know that because they didn't appear in this documentary that largely sympathizes with her. Point being, at least two of the kids are like, yo, Liz was the shit. Love, bad bitch. Yeah. In so many words. We're good. Exactly. Pour one out. The kids, the whole family, all five of them plus Vivian Liz, are trained that at any moment's

notice, you may hear a weird click on the phone, weird little click on the phone. You may notice unfamiliar mailman that you've never seen doing this route before, maybe off hours or whatever. And at that point, the whole family is to drop everything, leave your bike in the street, get in the car, and vanish. We will get new shit. Quoting daughter Candy Michael, the police could be knocking at the house next door, and we would be gone before they got to ours. Whoa. Yeah, just like, move, not just gone, like just, yeah, just like that. We were never here. We got raptured, basically all our shit is here, but we are not. Yeah, this happens once every few months or so. Yeah, God, they would

like just start to make friends and then on to the next. As law enforcement continues to pursue the Michaels from state to state, the Michaels, meanwhile, stay in touch with their extended family via ads in the newspaper with code phrases like the red horse is still available, and if you're still interested in the Impala, call Ted. By 1965 Liz is running an exotic pet store. There are monkeys climbing the drapes. She's flooding basements illegally to breed tropical fish. Somehow she pisses off the mob doing this, so she fakes her own death, her car gets found shot up at the roadside with her blood in it, and the family goes underground again. Jesus Christ, this is like a little footnote here. So by now, Liz is nearing her forties,

and for all of the activities I've encountered thus far, she has been presenting to the world as a con man rather than a con woman. Okay. And then one day, Liz and her oldest daughter, Candy, are in the car waiting to see a Christmas parade, and they miss Santa, and Candy's upset, of course. And to cheer her up, Liz says, like, would you like me to be your mommy? Like, maybe I can just be your mommy. That'd be pretty cool, right? And Candy, of course, a little girl, so she's like, yeah, that'd be sick, yeah, let's fuck yeah. And so she's into it, and it's not until later on in life that she realizes, quote, I thought my daddy was doing it for me, I realized my daddy was unhappy being a man. Liz Carmichael is of course not the first known transgender person, although she's

among the first to become a public figure in 20th century America. The Lady and the Dale does a good job naming off other trans figures of note all the way back to the 1700s. But at the time of the story, the big name in transsexuality, as it's then called, is a woman named Christine Jorgensen. And Christine is a former military personnel, she was assigned male at birth in 1926, and she transitioned in Denmark in the 50s. While she hopes to remain a private figure, Jorgensen is outed by the New York Daily News and ends up making her money by traveling and lecturing on transgender issues. Okay, but like among the very, very, very first to do so. So while there are examples for Liz to point to while explaining her own transition, they are few and little understood.

Yeah. Eventually, Liz breaks the news to Vivian, who doesn't take it well at first. She kind of separates from from Liz for a bit until Liz sends her a very personal letter, which I'll read now as it was presented in this movie, The Lady and the Dale, I'm sure it must have been edited, but. Okay. I'd like her to be like, it's very personal and private letter, which I will read now. I mean, yeah. Listen to like TW, very personal content incoming. Okay, I'm ready. As I got to know you, I found you to be truly worthy of deep love and the lasting respect and admiration. Even with the irritants, arguments, the recriminations and the hard words,

the love has carried on stronger than ever. As I grow older and hopefully wiser, I have come to realize that love is pretty important. The passion is gone. Like the ocean, the wind and waves have died down and left a placid surface, but the underlying current goes on strong and stable and everlasting. As funny as it sounds, I'd walk through fire for you and the kids. I'd give up my food and clothing in bed. And yes, even my life. So a lot of complicated sentiments in there that like some of which are really beautiful, some of which must have been really hard for Vivian to hear. All very, very kind of personal, you know? Right, yeah. Extremely. This missive is able to sway Vivian back to her wife's side.

And from there, Liz changes her name to Geraldine Elizabeth Carmichael, with the name Elizabeth coming from one of Liz's idols of womanhood, American actor Elizabeth Taylor, who has all the things Liz loves, jewelry, friends and power. Thirst, eyebrows. Violet eyes, white diamonds. Take a second, sorry, Liz Taylor plug. If you've never watched who's afraid of Virginia Wolf, take a second and watch it. That shit holds up. It's very funny. Liz gradually begins the process of physically transitioning and presenting as a woman in public over a period of about three years, getting the limited surgery she's able to acquire in Mexico. Candy, the daughter, the oldest daughter remembers going with Liz to get her boobs done

in Tijuana in 1969. Liz, not the daughter. And Liz went to the surgeon's office wearing a suit and presenting as male and left in a dress, never to present as male again. Transitioning in the 1970s is no small feat. The process is in its infancy, and there are many barriers to accessing transition medical services. For example, a doctor might not let you transition if you're married or have kids. Liz starts giving herself her own hormone injections acquired through veterinarians. Without the vocal feminization surgery, she just tirelessly practices a new, more feminine voice into a tape recorder. Vivian, who has now taken on a more sisterly rather than a wifely role,

helps Liz learn makeup and goes to a nightclub with her, posing as sisters-in-law. By the time Liz resurfaces during the saga of the dayl, she's out as transgendered all the main players in her life, though not the general public. And while the reaction is not uncomplicated, her nearest and dearest ultimately come around. The kids who take to calling her mom or mommy Liz are down, quoting one of the kids I think this is probably candy. We were all fine with it because she was a great mom, we have two mothers, and moms are the best. Even Liz's brother-in-law, Vivian's brother Richard Barrett, is able to wrap his head around it despite his initial ignorance on the subject. Quote,

Once I accepted the fact that she was a woman, it started to make sense. Having a transgender person in our family definitely did change my viewpoint because it became acceptable to me. Because I understood from personal experience now what had happened here. Yeah, I understand. I get it. She's family. By 1973, Liz and the family have moved to Los Angeles. Liz is seeking legitimate work and is facing the typical employment and housing issues that come with being visibly trans in any era, let alone the 70s. Fortunately, a lawyer named Sam Schlesman likes Liz, recognizes her potential as a salesperson, and takes a chance on her. He gives her a nice job with clients and a car phone. She's very fancy in 1973. Ooh, shit. Yes. And eventually,

she ends up working with a company called USMI, which connects home inventors with patent and marketing materials. Okay. I guess like a consultancy for home inventors kind of thing. Okay. I guess they're not quite on the run anymore. Is that the case? If they're kind of settling as much? Anytime they move to a new town, take for granted that they all have different names. And then on top of that, the last time Liz was seen, she was presenting as male. She had a different name and her car got shot up and was found with her blood in it. Oh, right. I forgot about that. She's faking her own death. And during the time that she's faking her in death, she's also transitioned. And so now she's living in LA. She wants to go straight, not sexual straight,

but like crime straight. Yeah. And she, you know, it's important to clarify. And so she's like, I will take anything I can get. And at first, she ends up working as a realtor for this guy, Sam Schlesman. And then she ends up as like a patent consultant. That makes sense. Okay. It's via her role at USMI that she meets inventor Dale Clift and his homemade contraption. Here we go. The commuter cycle. Okay. New pedia. Okay. Rolls off the tongue. So Clift is an avid motor cyclist who doesn't like missing out on his favorite activity during these harsh winter months in California. Yeah. And so he's chopped up a 1963 Honda CB77 Superhawk and he's Frankensteined it. Take the brake pedal off here and make it the handlebar over here. Take the clutch and make it

the shift. Whatever. He's Frankensteined it all into a surprisingly sophisticated three-wheeled motor contraption with a Yamaha speedometer and a couple of bucket seats welded to a quote birdcage structure made out of a half inch of electrical conduit and covered in Nagahide and Goldflake. Nagahide and Goldflake. Damn. Oh, baby. When are we? So somebody sees Dale Clift out in the wild in this thing, this commuter cycle and strikes up a conversation and says, I know just the woman you need to talk to. You got to talk to Liz. So Dale meets Liz. Liz instantly sees the value proposition, especially when it comes to this fuel efficient motor. Because again, we are in the middle of this oil crisis. We need mileage. Yeah. Also, you're in Los Angeles, which

is like Sunbelt, commuter, car, culture, car centric. All these cities are built for cars. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So here comes the old Liz Carmichael Charm Offensive. She sells them and how the two of them are going to take the American auto industry by storm and we're going to shake the fat cats in Detroit down to their socks because we're going to take this weird cross between a motorcycle and a dune buggy and we're going to chop and screw it and refinish it until we have a car, an American made car with low fuel economy. And I'll give you $1,001 now, but I'll give you $3 million in royalties when we get big and we will get big because everyone in America is going to be driving this car. And hell, Dale, why don't we call it the Dale?

Yeah, I'm sold. I'm sold. There you go. And so is Dale. And so is Dale. And like others before him, he falls prey to Liz's siren song. He signs the car over to her. He ends up consulting for a while on the project, but the relationship goes sour in the two part ways. Dale Clift and the original commuter cycle kind of leave the story here, but I'll shout out in the inputs. There's a good Hemmings.com article by a guy named Daniel Stroll, S-T-R-O-H-L, that kind of covers the saga of Dale Clift and the commuter cycle after they part ways with Liz Carmichael. And long story short, it ends up in the Peterson Automotive Museum in LA. So I think you can go and look at the original original commuter cycle there if you want, at least it was at the time that I

read it. Yeah, that's rad. But now Liz has got it. This is the big idea that's going to launch her into the stratosphere. And by all accounts, from everyone in her life, Liz very sincerely believes in this idea and this car. She has big dreams for the Dale and for the Liz Carmichael lifestyle brand. Here is an oral history of Liz's vision board from the woman herself. Some quotes. A little smattering of quotes here. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. She belted in. General Motors, I'll kick the shit out of them. The Dale will be the biggest thing since Henry Ford introduced the Model T. Okay. All right. Number two, let's go. I'm going to build the public exactly what they're looking for and I'm going to knock the hell out of Detroit doing it. I'll run the automotive

industry like a queen. These are like her mantras. She like goes to bed wakes up the morning. She has these endless like Tony Robbins self-psych up quotes. I don't even know what it is, but she's she's well stocked. Number three, my full intention and expectation is to become the biggest automotive manufacturer in the world in the next five years and it won't stop with automobiles. Whoa. Okay. Number four, if somebody who doesn't believe in capitalism becomes president of the United States, then there won't be a United States in another 50 years. If I can stay out of jail, I intend to run for president. I like the conditional of if I can stay out of jail. You never know because big government is coming for Liz. They want to shut her down.

That's true. She knows too much. She knows she's too she's too clued in. Number five, my personal goal is to someday build an empire of 2000 to 3000 acres, put a wall around it and withdraw from the United States. I'll declare a laissez faire capitalist government and surround myself with producers who resent income taxes. They just resent them. Yeah. Yes. Like like at a fundamental level will not abide taxation. So if you haven't noticed, Liz is one hardcore hyper capitalist libertarian. Yes, you did mention Anne Rand. I did mention Anne Rand and I am about to shortly again. Yes, I bet you will. I bet I will. She believes in individual rights and unintrusive government and the cops should stay off my back. Wonder why. And she believes

supremely in the almighty dollar and she has no compunction saying so, telling one reporter about her fuel efficient car, quote, if in the process I save the world, that's okay. My main concern is for myself. To another, she says, I don't give one hoot in hell about ecology or public welfare or the public good. I'm in business for only one reason to make Liz Carmichael the most important person in the automotive industry. All right, vision board away, baby. Literally what I have written here. When I say Liz was a woman ahead of her time, I mean 10 years ahead of her time because she's basically inventing the 80s here. Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. I mean, the 80s had to come from somewhere, right? And they sprung fully formed from the head of Liz Carmichael to

win. Yeah. In order to produce the Dale, Liz establishes the 20th century motor car corporation so named after an organization in A&Rans in 1957 book Atlas Shrugged. Oh, no. To briefly quote the Wikipedia plot synopsis, the book depicts a dystopian United States in which private businesses suffer under increasingly burdensome laws and regulations. Michel had to read this in high school. It was like required reading for him. I think a lot of teachers in education was, you know, pretty conservative. Yeah. He was growing up. But even this one, he was like, wait, really? We're going to do that. Okay. Dude, Anne Rand is miserable. Did you guys have in the States, did you have that fountain head

essay competition? No, not that I knew of. No. So for like getting into university every year, there was always X amount of scholarships you could do. And one of them was always like right. It was like some sort of like libertarian objectivism type thing, I guess, who like get them while they're young, right? So once you get like 17 year olds, you have to read the fountain head and you have to like write an essay on it. But like, it was like a decent chunk of change they were offering. It was like four figures. So good way to get young objectivists in the fold, give them money, make them read Atlas Shrugged. Again, essay contests, they, you know. Mixed bag, as we know now. Liz is a noted Anne Rand superfan, quote,

because of the kindred spirit I see in her, and is known around this time to force the books constantly on her disinterested children. Oh, yeah, that sounds right. So the 20th century motor car corporation is live out of a combined showroom and R&D garage in Encino, California. Liz hires great engineers because it's 1973 space race just ended and now all of these great minds are looking for work. Yeah, she has great salespeople because they're true believers in her cause and have become swept up in her passion, quoting Liz, my morale is like a tent revival. The atmosphere here is like a religious fervor that always ends up working out. Liz is on a press blitz charming reporters as this tough talking mother of five who will cut a promo on the big three in Detroit

view anytime you want, like put a fucking nickel in her and watch her go. She has all these glowing press write ups with saucy titles like Carmichael's car can the feisty redhead bring Detroit to its knees. A picture of her, yeah, eyebrow waggle indeed. A picture of her standing like Wonder Woman towering over the city below gets turned into a poster parentheses by Liz. Liz has made it, baby. Whoa, I'm gonna make a poster of myself saying I have made it. I don't know where I made it, but I've made it. Meanwhile, she's also plugging the hell out of the Dale itself, taking the prototype to auto shows and flogging it to the masses and potential funders. It's small. It's inexpensive. It gets 70 miles to the gallon. When other cars get eight, it's entirely American made. We build

every component in house. It won't tip or sway. You can take turns at 55 miles per hour with no loss control whatsoever. It's made of rigidx, the material from the nose of the space shuttle, which is nine times stronger than steel ounce rounds and came with stamp bullets. In fact, I drove it into a wall myself at 30, 40, 50 miles an hour. It didn't even scratch. You can shoot it with a gun if you want. Once I got caught up in test drive and drove that son of a bitch into the ocean. And you know what? It has no wires. No wires at all in the entire car. Take that GM, put that in your pipe and smoke it forward. No wires? No wires. Fuck you. How do I do it? Because capitalism. Okay. Yeah. Why? Okay. I'm confused by the new wires. Give me your money.

I didn't kill the wires for bad. Give me your money. No wire wires ever. Yeah. Two grand, that's all on it. Do you want to see a picture of the dale, such as it is, such as it has evolved? Does it say Liz across it now? It's not. It's bright, bright, yellow, big, beautiful, yellow banana. I like it. What do you think of it? It's hard to, you can't really see the, the signature third wheel in that pic. No, no, but it makes it like kind of spacey how it's floating back there and like it's round, but has still has edges and very, very saucer, very like alien saucer vibes to me. I think that they were trying to trade on the NASA slash aeronautic pedigree that some of the engineers had as well as the way they were

promoting this material. I know that like they did ads where they said that it was like designed to drive to the moon trading on that kind of, we just landed on the moon like what two, three years ago at this point. It's probably a very popular reference. That makes sense. Yeah. I could see an ad where it's like, you can drive it to the moon, fill up the gas tank and then 70 miles. That's a lot too. 70 miles per gallon. But Josie, I'm just going to encourage you to be not as credulous about Liz Carmichael's claims about the mileage of this car. Right. Thank you. Sorry. I'm just going to ring you back in on that one. Yeah. There's no wires in this car. There's absolutely no wires. Let's say this is no, not a one wire. Let's say this is a soft 70 miles per gallon.

Okay. A soft, yeah. Yeah. On a, on a extreme downhill than a 70 miles per. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. So while the car is in this prototype phase, so right now it's not actually on the market. It's, it's just, we've got this non-working prototype that we're taking to auto shows, this kind of thing. And we're trying to get a working prototype up and moving so that we can move toward an assembly line basically, or however they're going to do it, right? However they're going to build the cars. Yeah. And while this is the case, Liz has her salespeople outselling options on future dales invest now, get your car later. This is probably a good time to talk about securities fraud. Excellent timing. Excellent timing. Yes. It just, it just occurred to me. I'm, I'm a legal novice

despite the many Phoenix Wright games I have played. I can't tell you if this applies in all scenarios, all states, all timeframes, et cetera, but it definitely applies in this one. I promise. You have a bittersweet law degree. I have a bittersweet law degree and I also have a premonition that it will be important later on in, in very brief, in this context, it's legal to take prepayments from customers as long as you put that cash away in an escrow account somewhere until the product is actually complete. So you can be like, okay, we will take that money at such and such a time, but you can't sell something to customers that doesn't actually exist and use their money to fund the production of that thing. Okay. Totally unrelated, I'm sure. Liz is paying

everyone at the office very well in fat stacks of cash, in fact. Oh, oh. Every, every like Sunday or whatever it is, she'll call this to the, to the showroom, the Inskino showroom and she'll set up this long like, uh, what, what's the word? What are those tables with the folding legs underneath, like a table that you'd get powerbomb through? One of those? Yeah, like a folding six foot big good table. Yeah. There we go. Boo. She calls him this long table. She just has all the kind of relevant stacks of cash all stacked up and should be like, here for you, here for you. Oh my gosh. Once an employee notices that there's a 357 magnum revolver just chilling on the table with the payroll. Whoa. And there's also started to be some new faces around the office, mysterious

guys in suits who don't smile, but that's just old Johnny Flack and that's how he dresses. He's a serious guy and it's the long face. And Liz has taken to traveling with bodyguards, a pair of guys named Bill Miller and Jack Oliver who may or may not have met during their stretch in San Quentin prison, but don't worry about it. The future is bright and it has three wheels. The future is bright yellow and it's got three. The future is muy amarillo. Flava as we say in Esperanto and it has three wheels. I feel like this is a good time to touch in on Liz's like general crooked vibe. Okay, okay. Because I get the sense and it seems to be echoed by people in her life that she really was seriously bought in on the dale

and like making it with the dale and challenging the big three with the dale. My read is that she simply had been a crook so long slash was so innately crooked that she didn't kind of know non-crooked ways to do it. That makes sense. Yeah, yeah. The default was to call up that person do it this way. Don't worry about that little rule. This is hard. I need the mafia. Yeah, the free market is hard, baby. It's a hard world out there. And again, it's one of those misclio things where when we look at like the splitting of this person's identity, it doesn't seem so strange to me that they would fall in between the cracks and fall into all these like many names, many stories, many scams. You know what I mean? We kind of see that sometimes when in

these times where like homosexuality, being transgender, et cetera, aren't normalized and you kind of really need to like suppress and compartmentalize those parts of your identity. And it also doesn't help that Liz just in general thinks the system is rigged against her. At one point she tells the, which kind of, and at one point she tells one of her colleagues, she says, you know, I'll be legal, but just. I will like whatever I can do up until the line. I will do it, but that is it. I will be at the line. I will see you there. Enter a field reporter for KABC named Dick Carlson, who at this point has a rep for choosing salacious story matter. He and his producer, Pete Noyes, watch a profile on Liz and think this is some feminist media BS. This is all

like a crock, right? Let's take up some dirt on this, on this woman and they go to the Dale showroom in Encino and according to Dick, they run into a guy he knows from the, the DA's office who's there and who basically alludes that he's there to squeeze employees for info on something. Getting juice right away. Not a great first impression. True upon sight and yeah. Yeah, juice on demand. Then Dick meets the receptionist Vivian. She's Mrs. Carmichael's sister-in-law and best friend. And then he meets Liz and shakes her hand and seems in that moment to have taken a real interest in her. Quote, Pete Noyes and I were always bothered by the fact that she looked so much like a man. That was my first thought, but I couldn't impart that to the rest of the

crew because I couldn't say that in front of her. Dick and his team are able to smuggle an engineer disguised as a lighting man into the research and development garage and he confirms that contrary to Liz's claims, the components for the car are not being made in-house. Are there an actuality, wires? Inconclusive, but like, yes, we have at this point, we have not figured out wireless transfer of energy. Absolutely. There must be wires. To say that she is making a car without wires is a psychotic statement. I do want to affirm that. That is not true. It's just like, we're making a car without circles. It's like, what? Listen, we've cut down the circles by a quarter, okay?

Carlson, Dick Carlson runs the story and pre-orders for the day will go up 200%. Whoops. Oh. Well, unfortunately, though, this causes the state of California to issue the 20th century motor car corporation in order to stop selling options on the dale, to which Liz, of course, claims big government harassment. Right, and ran by my side. Let's give it a go, sister. Once I built a railroad, yes. But it's not the government Liz needs to be worried about right now because Dick Carlson isn't done with this investigation yet. Yeah, Dick is a dick, sounds like. Your lips to God's ears, my love. He sends a plant in to buy an option on a dale, and when he confirms the company is still selling them, which they're not supposed to be now,

he brings in his camera to ambush them like proper, like, hello, hello, evening news, you know, like the weather style. He gives them that treatment. Photosing video on our phones so that we could do this constantly. This was like, this was fresh. This was very new stuff. Yeah. Dick Carlson figures out that Liz doesn't have the degrees that she claims when he confronts her about it. She hems and haws and then hangs up the phone. Oops. The plans are for this car to go into production June 1, 1975, the latest, but by November 1974, we're nowhere near that. The government is breathing down our necks. God damn it. An engineer named John Griffiths senses imminent disaster and he goes to Liz to ask to be given

oversight of the car and its schedule because we got to get this thing into production ASAP. Yeah. Yeah. Something's got to change and I'm the man to do it. Yeah. Liz disagrees. She rejects his offer. Yeah. He's not the only one frustrated. Checks are starting to bounce and employee morale is turning. Liz placates everyone by promising that on New Year's Eve, 1974, we will be showing the car to Japanese investors and they'll put in $30 million, but we need a working model for a test drive, which we don't have yet. So everyone puts in, puts in, puts in, rolls up their sleeves, elbow grease, elbow grease, elbow grease. No one's sleeping. No one's sleeping. We're in crunch mode, baby. December 31, 1974,

a parking lot near the Incino facility. Half a dozen black Bentley's rolled out and out pour the Japanese investors. Whoa. The engineer. Again, why is there not a movie? This is, yeah. No, dude. It goes and it goes. It truly goes and goes. We're not even getting there yet. Oh my God. I mean, we're getting there. We're getting there. Don't hang in there, folks. You can look at the little timer. It'll tell you how much time is left. Yeah. The engineer running the test drive as in like behind the wheel driving the car is John Griffiths, who's just been turned down for this position. It's going good. It's going smooth. It's per and per like a BMW. And then John decides to speed up and hit a hard turn and that bitch tips like a top-heavy seapot.

The side of the vehicle drags against the concrete before finally writing itself. The Bentley's leave. The investors will not be investing. John Griffiths is, of course, accused of sabotage by his own coworkers when asked for his reasons in 2021. He says, I've indicated the poor design. I wanted this thing to be road tested and engineered and everything, and it never was. The safety of the car is important and it never would have hit the market without that safety in it. So for sure. Yeah, I don't know. I feel like Liz the Libertarian is going to be like airbags or a fucking ploy to get convicted. You know, like she's like, she's seatbelts. Who needs him? If I want to crash through my own window shield, I can.

What is this? Communist fucking Russia? Like she's she's off on one, right? Meanwhile, so who is watching this test drive out in the bushes like a filthy pervert? Oh my god, binoculars, trench coat, the whole thing. Dick Carlson. Dick. What a dick. He leers in as one of the lab techs leaves the scene and he follows that person to a bar where this guy tells Carlson that he's just being paid to stand there in a lab coat and look smart. Crooked Liz, crooked again. You know, crooked is as crooked does. So it's deep in there. Dick Carlson sends his new mole on a retrieval mission to get a glass

from Liz Carmichael's office so Dick can have his LAPD contacts run the prints. Oh my god. Oh my god. Out of curiosity. Yeah. I mean, I know Liz is not above board and she's possibly committing crimes and it's not great, but Dick is still a dick. I can't profess to know California state law, certainly not in that time period. That feels not legal, right? You can't just like take a private, this is the exactly the kind of shit that Liz hates. You can't just take a fucking private citizen's fucking drinking glass and have the LAPD run prints when you like you're just what is this a fucking citizen's print arrest? Like fucking bullshit. Absolutely not. Privacy, baby. January 22nd, 1975. Following

this most recent debacle in Encino, Liz has accepted an invitation from the governor of Texas to move the Dale Plant to Dallas where you won't have to worry about all those old pesky government regulations. That's hairspray. I love it. The family, the five kids in Vivian go out to Texas ahead of Liz who's finishing up some business back in Encino. They're rambling down the pair of Lawson Highway when news comes on the radio that there has been a murder in the 20th century Motor Car Corporation showroom. Oh my god, she faked her death again. No, this one's real. Of course, the family panics, but they arrive in Dallas and find Liz has beaten them there to the family home. They're very relieved to see mommy Liz is there in one piece. So who's dead?

Who is dead? So it was bad blood between the bodyguards, Bill Miller and Jack Oliver, the San Quentin boys. Yes, yes, some old feuds. Well, not an old feud, a new feud evidently, or at least that's how Jack Oliver the survivor tells it, which again, he's I think the one accused of the murder here. So take it with a grain of three wheeled car. Yeah, okay. An investigator of the security exchange, like a state investigator was coming into 20th century to look at the books. And we can't have that. This is a cash business, baby. What books? Stay out of my bedroom, Uncle Sam. I've got a load to Anne Rand over here. Yeah, exactly. Those books all day long. You can read those twice, read a cover to cover and then read it again. Have a little book club.

So according to Jack Oliver's daughter, Jackie Powell, Bill Miller wanted to kill this guy, this investigator. Yeah. Jack said no, they fought over the gun and it accidentally went off into Miller four times. Oh, bang, bang, bang, bang. Yes. Okay. Four. Yeah. Damn. Four, four dreadful accidents. Yes. So now the media coverage of Liz Sowers, irate investors are showing up at the showroom demanding refunds and Dick Carlson salivatingly reports every twist and turn over multiple segments. Quote, a lot of people have asked me if we have an obsession on eyewitness news with the Dale. No, we don't, says Dick, in one of the 27 reports he will end up doing on Liz and the Dale by the end of this saga. It feels personal to me. It feels personal. If it's not

clear by now, it's my opinion that Dick Carlson is badgering Liz Carmichael in a way that feels more sinister than just it was 50 years ago and we hadn't come as far then. Yeah. And that will continue to be the case as the story goes on. Like, I definitely get like, if you're at home listening and you don't like, you're like, I don't want to project the fact that we're 50 years later in progress and our understanding of what it means to be transgender, et cetera. And maybe he was just blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. As the story goes on, there will be more said that leads me to believe that as you say, this is something a bit more personal. This is like a personal quest of his to kind of bring this bring Liz Carmichael down. Yeah. And like you say, not to

say that Liz isn't guilty of what she's being accused of because I think she is. Totally. Totally. So it's complicated, right? Yeah. By now, Liz is in Dallas trying to figure out how to shake the Cali stink. She tries. I bridge your cultures, by the way. You're welcome. Don't California my tuxes. She tries to rebrand the car as the revet. You know, Dale who? Yeah, she gets the car on the price is right. So it's like a prize where no one guesses it's low, low price of $2,000. That's right. It's simply to who could who could predict and no wires to boot. That's where we saved all the money. It was the wires. It was the wiring. Yeah, just get rid of that. And you're good to go. But the die has already been cast. Dallas assistant district attorney Jerry Banks has

gotten wind of lo que pasó in California. And he travels out to the garage in Edison, Texas to look at the prototype. Quote, it was a large toy kit type car at the very best. Jerry thinks it over and this isn't a real business. I'm going to charge them with conspiracy to commit grand theft. That feels right. Whoa. So that's not much of a Texas welcome. Yeah. Everything's bigger, including the charges. Why do you think Thelma needs to get out of Texas, baby? The principles of the 20th century motor car corporation get together. This is Liz Carmichael, one of her salesman, her old buddy, Sam Schlesman, the lawyer who hired her way back when, just as the crew of the nearest and dearest who have skin in the game. They take a vote

about what to do, in which Liz apparently does not pick a side. And in the end, they split up all the money six ways and agree to go their separate ways. Once again, the Michael family is in the car and on the road. Are they in a dale? Nope, they probably don't all fit in a dale. I was going to say, and it might tip over and it probably doesn't have an engine. So there's a few things. They all get in their dale go cart and they Fred Flintstone that bitch down the road. Only straight no turns. All the other five executives, except for Liz, end up getting caught. Liz, no, she's vanished. She's an old pro at this, right? Yeah, she knows what to do. She knows how to get lost. She knows how to go missing. The cops get a warrant and crash the Michael's Dallas house,

where they find various literature, undergarments, etc. that elude that Liz might be a transgender woman. They also discover Liz's acquaintanceship with Richard Barrett, her brother-in-law. Feds pay him a visit. He holds out initially, but they're able to crack him under pressure and they learn about both Liz's transition as well as her current address in Miami. Oh, whoa. So it's not looking great for Liz right now. No. Uh-uh. Right around the same time, the results have come back on Dick Carlson's fingerprint glass that he got his mole to take out of the showroom. Right. And he is now armed with the truth of Liz Carmichael's previous identity and criminal record. Oopsies. He and Pete Noyes run the Symfo on air without consulting network management in one of

their two dozen plus Dale segments. Okay. See that feels that that crosses that like personal line. Yeah. The segment features a slow dissolve from Liz as a woman to a photo of her presenting his mail and quote, she or rather he was caught by the FBI in Florida. Carmichael is actually a man and he spent the weekend in men's lockup in the Dade County Florida jail. Suck my dick, dick. From here, Carlson will present the story that way always referring to Liz as he by her previous name and really pressing this narrative that Liz is a man who's dressing as a woman in order to get away with deception and crime really emphasizing the sleaziness of this. This is one of the most common and harmful of the many tropes that are thrown at trans people as you said earlier.

According to scholar Susan Stryker, it was also version of what now gets called the evil deceivers and make believers trope and stereotype that we're pretending to be something we're not and it's a deceitful act. And it's unfortunately easy to see how dick pins this on Liz here. She's a pathological liar. She does. Yeah, she's got, yeah, she's a, she's a criminal. Yep. At one point in my notes amidst many of Liz's random quotes I've written lies like she breathes this one. And yet it is worth noting that from the moment Liz leaves that surgeon's office in Tijuana with her daughter Candy in 1969 until the moment, spoiler, she dies. Liz Carmichael unwaveringly dresses, acts, refers to herself, conceives of herself as female. She has various

surgeries that you do not get without being real committed. When a reporter asks her, why did you decide to pose as a woman in this transaction? Liz replies, I am a transsexual. It had nothing to do with 20th century motor car corporation. I've been living as a woman for eight years. My children regard me as their mother. Yeah, I'm not posing. This is not posing. Yeah. Maybe I swindled a lot of people out of there. But unrelated. Yeah. Liz Carmichael isn't crooked because she's trans. She's just a trans woman with the God given right that we all have to be crooked, abrasive, narcissistic, libertarian, egomaniacs. And if you don't like that Chevy motors, then I'll see you in the court of the free market. That's what I think. Wow. Yeah. Fuck you,

Chevy. Miami, Florida. Let's go. One of Liz's kids or son Brian is outside and he says it's like a strange delivery man. Two doors down. Wendy and candy to the kids. Look outside the door and they see they're like, that's the delivery man and the mail truck. That's weird. It's not mail day today. Yeah, some doesn't smell right. Liz is in Liz's inner body suit, which is like, I think like 1970s Spanx, like a kind of undergarment shapewear kind of vibes. Yeah. Yeah. She fucking bolts. She gets up and tears out the back door and within seconds, the police have kicked down the fucking door. They are in with guns like the point and guns at the kids. Like it's a fucking riot. Liz is gone. The cops leave and now there's this family just like, it's the next day. What do we

do? We're never going to see her again. Like what the fuck are we supposed to do? And the curtain twitches and who should emerge from behind the curtain? But Liz, she has come back to say goodbye to her kids. And unfortunately, that's her downfall because when she does that, the cops fucking kick in the door again. Oh, they tapped the phone. They there's like some microphone or they were surveilling or something and they knew they knew that Liz had come back into the house and they got her. Oh, no. She gets extradited back to Texas and it's it's off to jail, which is unfortunately a men's prison. Right. It's degrading and depressing. She's supposed to be kept separate from the general population at all times. But at one point, her assigned deputy conveniently disappears on her

and the other inmates beat the shit out of her. She ends up in court with two black eyes, apparently everybody gasped kind of thing. It's really, really awful time for her. And one of those things that proves how unfair it is to imprison transgender inmates among the population they don't identify as because shit like that happens. Yeah. But Liz is still optimistic about her chances in her case. She's begun studying law while she's in jail. She rolls with her outing and embraces her new persona as a transgender woman in the public eye, says Jerry Banks, the Dallas ADA who convicted her. She told me she wanted to be known as a trailblazer making the change from male to female. I said all this stealing will detract from that. And her answer

to that was no, I don't think it will. You know, I don't see how I don't see your logic. I don't see what you're getting. Yeah. Yeah. Liz who's out on bail during the court proceedings is the only one of the Dale Fendants to request a jury trial. And true to her optimistic and self aggrandizing chutzpah, Liz chooses to defend herself in court. Oh, never going to. Well, do you want to hear Liz's logic? This is Liz. If once you hear Liz's logic, you'll get it. Why would I allow any defense appointed by the government to sabotage me for being an outspoken woman entrepreneur? Like, why would I let the government parentheses who is out to get me? Yeah. Do this. True. Fool me once, you know. That

holds true. Yeah, I get it. Logic. The logic follows beautifully. Before the case starts, Liz has to lobby the judge for her right to wear feminine clothes in the courtroom, be referred to by her chosen name, etc. When asked what her name is, Liz replies, I'm Geraldine Elizabeth Carmichael. I'm world famous. Bitches. Liz's request is granted in what feels like a surprisingly progressive move from the judge. So Liz can go to court as Liz, dressed as Liz, as she, her identity as a transgender woman is taken seriously, which is really cool. Yeah. And that helps too, because it like focuses on the actual crimes that she committed. The many, many frauds. And unfortunately, this doesn't stop Star

Witness Dick Carlson from reportedly calling Liz he and Sir by accident on purpose, and then tittering to himself as the judge reprimands him, quote, because I thought it was ludicrous and I didn't think I had to. He said that in 2021. Yeah, he continues to run salacious reports on Liz during up the drama on the case around this time. He also travels to a tennis tournament in La Jolla to out private citizen Renee Richards as a trans woman on the news in the name of athletic fairness. Yeah, see, it's like it's more than, you know, cracking the story. It feels like a lot more than cracking the story. Yeah, yeah. Regardless, Liz grows more and more confident as the case goes on. She calls up former employees

who cry on the stand as they pledge their allegiance to her and enthuse that they would return to work for her right now if they could. She's got this like cult leader thing that she's really, really good at. She handles herself well across what will become one of the longest cases in the history of the LA Supreme Court. But ultimately, the jurors seem to be more concerned with figuring out if Liz is a woman or not and making up their minds on the criminal case accordingly. According to scholar Susan Stryker, when they couldn't decide if the car was real or not, they focused on Liz. If she was a fraud and the car was a fraud. Yeah. Oh, wow. The jury nearly hangs. There's one holdout on a guilty verdict, Mary Thayer, who all the other jurors think is in

the bag for Liz because she showed up one day wearing a mysterious new mink coat. And her husband, who came to pick her up, was like, I've never seen that mink coat before. But in the end, Mary gets sick. And of course, Liz accuses like she wasn't that sick. You took her out. Oh, the man. Dreadful and alternate gets put in and the jury comes back. 12-0, guilty. Oh. Liz skips bail and vanishes. Okay. Yeah. Good. A warrant is issued for her collection as an issue to collect her. But also here's a warrant for your collection. Yeah. Yes. This is where Vivian gets off the ride. Fair enough. I mean, you've been on for a while, Viv. She's been on for a while. She's been really marginalized in the family dynamic for a while.

Apparently the kids switched from calling her mom to Aunt Viv, which is rough. Oh, poor Aunt Viv. That is rough. The family is given the choice to go with Viv or to keep living on the land with Liz. And you mean Aunt Viv? With Aunt Viv or Mommy Liz, and they choose Mommy Liz. Oh, wow. That's a tough one. I know. Yeah, stabbing in the heart. The two Vivian and Liz remain friends. Vivian remeries and eventually passes away from cancer. So, RIP. RIP. A real one. My God. Stood by Liz through a lot. And was her receptionist as well. That kind of thing. Yeah. As for Liz, she ends up in Austin running an unlicensed flower selling business called Roadway Flowers, buying Bloom's wholesale and giving them to unhoused people to sell at

intersections with all the labor off the books because, fuck you, IRS. Oh, yeah. She buys a four-acre lot and sets up mobile homes on the property for her family and the sellers. She's able to maintain her newfound anonymity until an episode of Unsolved Mysteries. Oh, yeah. The Carmichael case airs. Within minutes, a call comes in and Liz is apprehended in the small town of Dale, Texas. No. Texas town names. A town for every occasion. They keep giving. Yeah. You want to go to Paris? Go to Texas. You want to go to San Diego? Go to Texas. Go to Texas. Odessa? Go to Texas. To cheer. Just saying. Just saying. Liz gets sent back to jail for 18 months. And again, I believe, unfortunately, this is a men's prison. Yeah. When Liz comes back to Texas,

she continues with the flower business. She kind of becomes the beloved matriarch of this transient crime family taking care of them with gifts every January 25th, which is when they have Christmas because that's when the sales are. Smart. It's just good sense. Says her granddaughter, Jerry Burchard. I loved growing up like that. Not only all my family all together, but all these different eclectic sort of people. It was very diverse. I thought it was great. Says flower seller, John Pedroza. If I hadn't met them, I'd be in jail or dead. They helped me a lot. Ultimately, despite her wishes for anonymity, to commit her little scams in fucking peace. Yes. Let this woman scam. Liz gets exposed by a journalist for the Austin American Statement named Mark Lischeron.

From there, she has to deal with unwanted attention and prejudice until she eventually gets sick from a combination of cancer, diabetes and untreated injuries that have kind of built up over the years. It's not much for seeing doctors, Liz. Eventually, she can't get out of bed. Liz gets admitted to the hospital in what ends up being a diabetic shock, and she passes away that same day in 2004 at the age of 76. While Liz requested that her family throw her body into a ditch somewhere so as not to waste money on a funeral, they end up donating her body to science. Import shit. Until the day she died, Liz kept a framed picture of the Dale automobile in every home she lived in. According to a 2021 article by Jim Motavalli for eBay.com, the various prototypes

of the Dale have found their way to museums, including the Peterson Museum in Los Angeles and the Speedway Motors Museum of American Speed in Lincoln, Nebraska, as well as private owners. In fact, Nick Camilleri, the co-director of Lady and the Dale, found an additional prototype which he gave to Liz Carmichael's grandchildren. As for old Dick Carlson, his 27-part series on Liz Carmichael and the Dale receives a Peabody Award. I'm just sick of it. That was my cough. Fair enough, that was a cough of sickness. He doesn't seem to have lightened up on Liz in his old age. In 2021, he tells the directors of The Lady and the Dale that if you think Liz Carmichael's life is normal, you probably think

Jeffrey Dahmer is normal too. What the fuck? She wasn't killing anybody and eating them. It's kind of sad too that Dick doesn't take the time to draw on the points of commonality between he and Liz. They're both proud parents. For example, Dick's son, Tucker Carlson, has carried on the family legacy of using shit on a brick. Isn't that the worst like third act plot twist of your entire life? What? How can you do this to me, Taylor? I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to. You're just out of there just pulling tuck from a dick. Oh my god, I can't even. It makes so much sense. Everything's coming into hand to focus. Okay, no wonder. No wonder.

Dick Carlson can suck my fucking dick. Okay. No wonder Tucker Carlson is like that. He has carried on the family legacy of using journalism as a pretext to say unforgivable shit about transgender people on television. And to hear Zachary Drucker, who's one of the directors of this The Lady and the Dale, tell it this might be what made kind of Tucker Carlson like that because he looks the fuck up to his dad and his dad was deeply frightened by Liz Carmichael. Yes, for whatever fucking reason. Possessively frightened, it seems like. Myopically focused and frightened on Liz Carmichael. And now, and now Tucker Carlson has taken that to, wait, what's that? He got fired. Well, let's hope that lasts. It won't.

Yeah, but fuck him for now. So it is not at all a surprise to me that Tucker Carlson is the son of Dick Carlson. Isn't that terrible? I hated that too. That's a knife in the stomach. That's a knife in the stomach lifted up to the throat. Yeah, you meet around kind of feeling. Yeah, for sure. And it's one of those things that I think really draws the line between a story like this and the modern day where trans people are under attack from bigots and apparently they're the direct descendants of the bigots who started the whole thing off. So says Lady and the Dale director Zachary Drucker, who I was just talking about. By the end of the project, I realized that Liz's story has so many prescient themes that

reverberate in trans life today. Her lack of access to trans related health care, her inability to gain lawful employment after transitioning, the way that she was treated in media, and the way that her identity was conflated with her life as a criminal. And in the end, yes, Liz was a criminal. A pretty good one, I would argue, and one who never pulled a weapon on anybody. Yeah, the only gun that appeared was not right. Yeah, it was just on the table next to her. Fuck you. Just on the table. But she, like all of us, contained multitudes. Liz was a mother and a grandmother, albeit one who left multiple wives and families behind. Her granddaughter, Jerry Birchar, said that if she could talk to one person in heaven for an hour, quote, I'm sorry, dad, I would still choose my

mama. Liz was an important, if incredibly flawed piece of representation for transgender people in a world largely ignorant of their existence. Liz was fundamentally courageous, at least as much as someone who's constantly running and hiding from the consequences of her actions can be. And if you ask Geraldine, Elizabeth Carmichael herself, quote, I am the one thing that's lacking in this country, which is a hero. People need a hero. We haven't had a hero since Teddy Roosevelt. And so I would like to end by encouraging everyone to visit ko-fi.com slash bittersweetinfamy, that's coffee.com slash bittersweetinfamy, and come and give us some money because, God damn it, the free market and Liz Carmichael demand it, the end.

Yeah, we need a hero. We need a hero, and the hero is Capitalism. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, a lot happened. A lot happened. A lot, a lot. I threw a pen across the room. Yeah, there's some ups, there's some downs. All around. Wow. Gotta love Liz, but also horrible criminal. Great criminal. I don't know. Horrible criminal. Terrible priorities. I don't give a shit about Ayn Rand. No. The better part of me says I couldn't hold the conversation with her for more than five minutes without losing my mind. Oh, no. Right. But then the flip side of that is like, eh, but everyone else seems to have really gotten, oh, she seems to have a real way with words, so maybe I would have liked her. Yeah. You never know. Yeah. Poor Viv. Poor Ayn Viv.

Oh, Viv, and Viv took a, and Viv, you know, you know. I don't know. I'm not sure I know. No, that's what's so nice about this story. It makes, it makes a sexually good story is that there's just like human foibles left, right, and center, and some of them are disgusting and gross and have large implications, and we're just seeing them today, and so it makes it very like gut-wrenching. Yep. But others of them too is just like, Aunt Viv, you poor, you poor woman. Poor Viv. You kids wouldn't even call you mom anymore. Oh. It has a lot of everything. It has, it has a muchness of a muchness. Yes. It's a maximalist story. It has a little bit of a lot. Yes. A lot of feelings, a lot of textures, a lot of patterns. It's good. A lot of scams. A lot of

flavors. A lot of different scams. We got fake IDs. We got all these different kinds of fraud. It's a real melange. If you will. I love it. If you will. If you will. And I, I've had this, the picture of the Dale here, and it's, I'm enchanted. I would drive that. Oh, Chanté. It's tippy. Imagine like popping out of that in like a little sundress and just being like ready for my day. Ready for my day, and then like the door falls off because it's like put on by a piece of gum and, yeah. Oopsie. Thanks for listening. If you want more infamy, we've got plenty more episodes at bittersweetinfamy.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the podcast, shoot us a few bucks via our coffee account at ko-fi.com forward slash bittersweet

infamy. But no pressure. Bittersweet infamy is free, baby. You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing, leaving a review, following us on Instagram at bittersweetinfamy, or just pass the podcast along to a friend who you think would dig it. Stay sweet. The sources that I used for this infamous was an article from NPR by Bill Chappell entitled A Massive Dump of Pasta in New Jersey sets off a Fury of Interest and also a Fury, published May 5th, 2023. I read an article in Food and Wine written by Gillesa Castrodale, entitled New Jersey Town Baffled by Mysterious Piles of Pasta, published May 5th, 2023. And I read an article in the Smithsonian Magazine entitled How Did 500 Pounds of Pasta End up in

the New Jersey Woods written by Sarah Kuta, May 5th, 2023. The sources I used for this episode included the four-part HBO documentary The Lady and the Dale, released in 2021 by producers The Plas Brothers and directors Nick Camilleri and Zachary Jekker. Dale Clef's original three-wheeler prototype emerges from hiding after decades, heads to Peterson, in Hemmings by Daniel Stroll May 21st, 2021. This docu-series could explain why Tucker Carlson hates trans women by May Rood for Out magazine March 8th, 2021. I read Murder in the Price is Right, the story of the Dale Carr hoax by Jason Torchinsky, published April 1st, 2013, in Jalopnik. Liz Carmichael promised the world a three-wheeled car. The true story was much more complicated,

by Kate Story for Esquire January 21st, 2021. The real story of The Lady and the Dale's Liz Carmichael by Samantha Vincente for Oprah Magazine January 31st, 2021. The Dale was a car implosion to rival DeLorean with a founder more controversial than Elon Musk, by Alex Lauer for Inside Hook, February 8th, 2021. Where are the cars from HBO's Lady and the Dale now? On the eBay Motors blog by Jim Modavalli, February 3rd, 2021. And lastly, I read the Speedway Motors Museum of American Speeds official landing page for the Dale Carr. Big ups as always, Jonathan Mound for keeping us afloat with his monthly coffee donations. You should consider joining him. Bitter Sweet Infamy is a proud part of the 604 podcast network. Our interstitial music

is by Mitchell Collins. The song you are currently listening to is Tea Street by Brian Steele. Hands on tendon too!