My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 317 - Hello and Welcome to Disgraceland

Episode Date: March 10, 2022

On today's episode, Karen and Georgia welcome Jake Brennan, host of the podcast Disgraceland, to tell his hometown story. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. Hello. Hello.

And welcome to my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hartster. That's Karen Kilgariff. And I'm Jake Brennan. And this is Disgrace Land. Yes. Yes. We mailed it.

We've done the crossover. I think you guys nailed it. I think I fucked it up. I don't know. No. It was the, it was perfect. Yeah. It was great.

We did it. Okay. Now let's take it again in this time with more energy and less energy. Less energy on certain words and then other words. You'll know. You guys did an audio book. Yeah. When you did it, did you have, did somebody produce you guys doing it?

Oh, yeah. You produce yourself. Oh, no. Right. Right. Same here. And I found it to be highly annoying. I was driving me crazy with people telling me how to talk into a microphone.

Oh my God. They didn't tell us how to talk. I mean, thankfully, I think because we're pod, I would assume because you're a podcaster, you wouldn't need that much help. No. Yeah. Yeah. You do it a lot.

I know. One would think. One would think. Yeah. Did you get notes? Like, can you do it again with more, whatever? Yeah. Yeah.

Like I had an engineer in the booth. Like I got really fed up really quickly and he got, he got, he got my note, put it that way. Like back off dude. I got very passive aggressive about it and it ended up working out okay. But it was like, it was like, what the hell? Why? You know, like.

No. Yeah. I feel like it being, you being a podcaster and you having written the book, it's not like it's some other authors, like when we did our audio book, people are like, are you going to do the audio? And it's like, well, yeah. That's what, audio is our thing. I would love it to be Julia Roberts because I fucking hate my voice, but you have a great

voice. Although I'll read your next book. I'll go on record. Oh good. Perfect. Yeah. Let's switch it up. Yeah.

Let's do it. You can read mine. There we go. Great. How about you write our next book and me write your next book. That would be hysterical. Actually that, you just volunteered for way harder homework for us. Yeah.

Exactly. Oh my God. Research. I don't need to do research. I don't need to do so much research. How much, you do so much research, right? Like that's your, you did a homework podcast like us. Yeah.

Yeah. Someone asked me the other day whose English is, this dad, is that my son's birthday party and this dad, he's Greek and English is his second language and he was like, how much homework do you have to do? Like he literally didn't say research, he said homework, but it's a lot. I've got it down to a system now. It's like, basically a week of research to spend a week writing an episode. Wow.

It used to be a lot more. And do you have researchers or any support? Not for disgrace land. I have worked in a couple of the writers here and there, but then for our other shows, we have a bunch of writers and we have one full-time researcher on staff, my dad. I love that. Yeah. That's awesome.

He gave me the love of reading and now we pay him to read. So it's all worked out. But for me, I like to, if it's something that I'm writing directly, I want to be able to research it because it just gives me the right point of view. Definitely. Right. And it's something you're already interested in. So it's not, you probably read that book or you already know the story a little bit,

right? Totally. I feel like that was the sort of unknown leg up that I had in the beginning, this advantage that it's this subject matter that I've just spent my whole life immersed in music and music history. And I don't need to do a lot of, like, if I was doing a podcast on politics or something, I'd probably have to do a lot more research just to get a base level of information. But with music, I'm pretty well-schooled already.

So it's a lot easier. Yeah. I love that. I feel like the same way where it's like, I'm obsessed with true crime. So doing the research is just me reading a ton of articles or books about it and Karen and I are already fascinated with it. So it's easy. For me, it's just like, oh, I actually remembered that completely wrong.

Most of the time when I'm reading, I'm like, remember that crazy story where this and that? And then I'm reading it. I'm like, I don't know where I got half of that story. Yeah. Thank God I'm doing this actual research. Yeah. Although I'm old enough now where I've heard stories that I feel like have been erased from the internet that I think are true.

You know what I mean? But they're just like, I've gone back to look for them. I'm like, I know I read this somewhere, reputable, 30 years ago or something, and now I can't find it anywhere. Do you think like Mick Jagger's people have scrubbed it or is it that kind of situation? Oh yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah.

Yeah. For sure. Scrubbed from the internet is Jake Brennan's next podcast. Scrubbed. Yeah. The research on that is so hard. You have to go to the micro fish every single time in the basement of the library. You're screwed.

Yes. Yeah. God. Imagine, no, how hard would it be for us to do our shows, just create this content in another era, in a pre-internet era? Yeah. It would be impossible. I mean, I don't know that it would be impossible.

We'd probably find a way to make it work in that world. But now it's like, I mean, I'm writing on my phone constantly and researching the efficiency is like crazy. So whenever I'm bemoaning the era we live in and all the annoying things about technology, I try to remember how much easier it makes things. Oh yeah. You know what I think is wild that like, I'm always like talking to my inner child, right? So sometimes I'll go back and be like, what if I could tell my child herself, I couldn't

tell her what she's going to be when she grows up because it doesn't exist. And it doesn't make sense. What am I going to be? I don't get it. Yeah. Did you do the thing with the guidance counselor where they give you a test and they tell you what you're going to be when you grow up? Did they do that?

Yep. Yeah. What was yours? God. Do you remember? The communications, which I took as like, oh, this is a good sign, but I mean, what the hell else was it going to be? Because I can't do math and I'm, you know, not really apt with anything else.

But I do feel like it was something where I was like, yes, another sign that I should do stand up comedy. Yeah. Yeah. It's not though. I feel like the options then were so limited. Like I didn't know you could go to school to be a chef. Like I knew that I could have gone to school to be a chef, you know, or like, you know,

in like a hairdresser, that would have been so exciting, like something you're actually interested in rather than communications. What did you get? I literally got a blank stare and it was like, we don't know what you're going to be, but you're going to work for yourself. Like that's, that's what it was. And at the time I took that as like, I'm going to be like a psychopath and be in jail. I didn't know that was a thing.

You could work for yourself. You know what I mean? I thought, you know, the options were like, you can go work in construction or you can be a cop or you can be a teacher and then that was pretty much my world purview at that point in junior high. I didn't, I didn't think there were other options. Yeah. Yeah.

How are we supposed to choose? Like even at 18, like you're just going to choose, like you have kids or whatever they want to be right now. What if they had a stick to that the rest of their lives? I know. Great because you usually base it on like the friends you're with. Right. Right.

When you're 17, you know nothing. Nothing. When I was 17. No one knows anything. Nothing. Your brain isn't fully formed until you're like out of college. Right. I feel like college should happen when you're like 30 to 35.

Yeah. Yes. And you're actually interested in like, oh, I should be improving myself in some way. Right. Let me actually try at this. Whereas, yeah, I felt forced. It felt like an extension of high school. And all I wanted to do, I just was so excited to be like on my own that I was always just

like cutting glass and like, oh my God, there's a campus Burger King going over there. Like, oh my God, I can drink beer right now and no one will know and I won't get in trouble. Like just hedonistic insanity. Yeah. When did you, how old were you when you, when you realized you really wanted to be a stand up comic? I mean, pretty young. They started putting stand up on TV all the time in like the early 80s.

So it became this kind of thing that like was one of the very overt choices and luckily in San Francisco, Alex Bennett hosted, it was on PBS. It was a stand up show. So it was local stand up comics in San Francisco doing set. So it was like, it felt so close. It wasn't like Hollywood, you know, it was like, you could drive over the bridge and see these people and they were hilarious and amazing. So it felt like it was kind of being served up all the time.

So I think from a young age. That's amazing. Jake, when did you do your first, when were you in your first band, like legit band? My first legit band was, I was like 19, I think when I joined. So I was already out of high school and I was in college and they were older kids. They were kind of like local, like in the hardcore scene, they were like, you know, they were kind of like stars, you know what I mean, in our little area. So it was intimidating and I tried out and I got in the band and then like we played

our first show and then our second show was immediately booked and it just kind of like just started going and going and I was like, whoa, okay. And I wasn't even really sure I wanted to be in that band, you know, but it was such an opportunity. It turned out to be great and a lot of fun and very like, you know, probably the most formative years of my life. And then it's like, oh yeah, I want to be a musician. And like what a tremendously complicated decision that is for somebody to make at 19 years

old to try and figure out the rest of their life. What did you play? I sang. I was the front man. I ended up playing guitar and other bands after that and singing. What was the band? Come on. Can we find them?

Or have you scrubbed them from the internet? No, no, they're not scrubbed. You can find them on Spotify. That band was, we ended up signing to Victory Records, which is still a big hardcore label and that band was called Cast Ironhike and then I did like a solo thing after that and then I was in this other thing called Bodega Girls, which had a thing going on for a bit. And it was these periods of like, I really know what I want to do and then long periods of like, am I getting anywhere?

Am I doing anything at all? And then of course you're on track, you think again. And then the summation of all that, by the time I met my wife in my mid 30s, I was like, what the fuck have I done with my, you know, what is happening? You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Because she was like private school, private high school, New England high school, then

goes to music school, like then grad school, like she was on a track. You know what I mean? And I was not, and I was really fighting above my weight class when it came to like getting together with my wife. I like overshot. Nice. Don't tell her that. Good job.

Good job. But anyways, now I look back at it and I realize everything I did, all of it, every stupid decision I made, every like 10 hour van ride I was in to go play a show to four people, every dumb book I read and shitty album I wasted money on that I no longer listen to, all of it contributed to what I do now. And I didn't know it then, but I know it now and I'm so grateful and I wouldn't change a thing. It's amazing.

It's like you can't know it then. You're not supposed to know it then. I feel bad for kids these days because they have social media to all get on there and be like, I don't know what to do or they feel like they're comparing themselves to people who are really fake or they're telling kind of a story, you know, that whole like, I'm a millionaire and I'm 21 or whatever. It's like, that's bullshit. It's not real.

You're supposed to go and be lost and not know and be bummed out. And then because of that, do something about it. Right. Yes. You're not supposed to be comfortable the whole time and you're not supposed to be happy the whole time. You're supposed to like get knocked around a little bit so that you can land and then look back and be like, fucking thank God.

Yeah. It's like build resilience doesn't just happen. For real. Yeah. But I love that what you're saying because I feel like we're similar in that way of like all the true crime, creepy shit we watched that everyone talked shit like what is wrong with you stuff. Yeah.

Who the fuck knew? It would be our careers. Yeah. You know? Yeah. It's like, well, you were practicing how to be in front of the microphone. Right. And you too, Karen.

Yeah. Yeah. Like all the times that, you know, like slumber parties where it's like, I can't stop talking because that's actually my anxiety response unlike other people's and then it's like being able to whisper in a 12 year old me's ear of like, you're going to make money from being a crazy weird show off. Don't worry. It's going to pay off being kind of a freak like this.

It's pretty nice. It's inspiring. It is. You know, in reading your book too, like the thing that hit me and I know this had something to do with the success that you guys have, it's the arrow in which we were raised or not raised. You know what I mean? I'm 11 years older than my wife and it's like her parents, they're not necessarily like

my parents are really, my mom was a young mom and her mom was a little older. So they're almost the same age, but her stepdad is the same difference in age from me that I am with my wife just in the other direction. So she was raised in almost like with this, under this different generation of kind of the first generation of, you know, millennials where it's like, to the parents credit, it's like we're going to do this right. We're going to like, we're going to parent, we're going to actually pay attention to our kids.

You know what I mean? Can you imagine? I mean, I feel like we wouldn't have had a lot of fun that we had. However, I wouldn't need as much therapy. Right. They were right to make the change. Maybe. Oh, was that a slam?

Was that just a light slam from Dick Brennan? No, not at all. We can't blame our, we can't blame our parents for everything, you know, I'm kidding. I've atoned. I told you, I already hired my father. I'm done. I know. I love that.

Does that inform how you raise your kids too? Are they, I bet they're the cool kids. I think they're cool. Yeah, they're definitely cooler than I am. But you know, I know I'm doing it wrong on some way, you know, like I feel like my parents did it wrong. I kind of feel like if you asked my wife, she'd probably say her parents. My parents did it wrong.

And if you ask my kids, they're definitely going to say we did it wrong. We haven't hacked this parenting thing. It's like, it's been either like no attention, too much attention or whatever the hell I'm doing now, which I don't even know what it is. It's real back and forth, like it's real hot and cold. Yeah. It's, I mean, no, I love my kids and you know, I built this studio so that I, you know, right next to my house so that I could be around them as much as possible and not have to take

two hours out of my day to work, you know, like all of it's intentional. But at the end of the day, is it, is it going to help them in the end? I really hope so. But who the hell knows, you know? Yeah, true. Because your dad was in a band, right? So rad. And it's a band that opened for the Ramon.

So not just like a dad band just kicking around at like the Mexican restaurant down the street, but like a band. Yeah, the Ramon phones and you were at that show, right? I was. And is to some extent, he's older now, obviously, but my whole life a professional working musician, the very blue collar. I mean, he was signed to CBS Records when I was really young. And then he was later signed to Atlantic Records with another fan.

But the Ramon thing happened when he was working with Ed Stasium, who was the producer who produced Ramon's records. And they did a show together. And it was at this period, you know, now I know, I didn't know then it was at this period in the Ramon's career in the early 80s when they weren't really doing much. You know what I mean? And they played this like real divey place in Rhode Island that my dad's band opened up for.

And I remember my dad to his credit was like, you know, made sure I came to the show. We didn't live together. So it was a big thing. My dad had to drive out, get me an hour away, bring me to another state, blah, blah, blah. And you know, I remember him telling me the importance of the band, you know, and being like, there's an important band. They're not your ordinary band. I didn't know anything.

I was like, well, what do they like? He's like, you know, I was into the Beach Boys, I guess at the time. Bob O'Ran was like, I couldn't stop listening to that song. But he's like, they're like the Beach Boys, but just really, really loud. And sure enough, to my like 10 year old self or whatever age I was, you know, that's what they were. But I got to be like, I was like backstage and it was like super grimy punk rock, you know, like it was not, you know, when I started seeing movie like biopics, music,

biopics later, I was like, that's not what I remember, you know what I mean? Like, so I already kind of had this thing in my head that like, maybe we're not getting the real story, you know, and then I was in bands and I start to, I, you know, when you're in a band and you're on the road, especially in the pre-internet days, you hear all these stories and there were stories that I would hear from my dad or my dad's bandmates and about other bands and other musicians that are just crazy stories that lo and behold, most of which turned out to be true. Yeah.

So, you know, by the time I'm in a band, I can't shut up about this shit. You know what I mean? I'm like, did you know Jerry Lee Lewis killed his wife and my bandmates are like, shut the fuck up. We don't care. We've heard this story a million times and then it, you know, it ends up being a podcast. Hell yeah. You just told the perfect origin story.

Yeah. This is actually how it came to be. Karen wrote some questions before this, which I really appreciate. And there was one on there that I was like, oh, I want to hear that. And now I can't fucking find it. Hold on one second. I didn't know how this is supposed to work. Should I have had questions as well?

Because I can just riff and come up with something. Oh my God, please don't ask us anything. How dare you? No, we wrote you some questions to ask us. Nice. Oh, the question was something along the lines of like, is there anything you want to cut? Because like Karen and I, there's certain true crime stories we will never, ever cover because they're horrendous or, you know, just illegal.

Yeah, we can't, yeah, we can't talk about them the way we talk about most things or we wouldn't want to, you know, it would just kind of shut it down a little bit for us. Yeah. So are there any, any musicians or any like stories you want to cover that just like legally or whatever reason you can't cover? Yeah. Well, I'll answer. I'll give you two answers.

On the legal side, there was an artist, total fucking loser, big artist, but a wicked loser. Okay, that's all I'm going to say. I'm not going to say, I'm not going to name any of his songs. He was just a, he was just a loser. Okay. Oh, I see. And, and, and, but he had a lot of other loser friends that were part of this big, big, big, big, some would call it a church, other people might call it a cult.

Anyways, I was going to do a story on this loser. It was going to be the, it was going to be the third or fourth episode of Disgrace Man. And before Disgrace Man came out, I wasn't, I was just like, I'm doing this thing, you know, and I like, I made a website and I put what the subjects were going to be. And then the first few episodes hit and, and I got all this press like out of nowhere and like real like magazines or editorials online and that loser's, a loser lawyer from the loser cult got in touch with me. It was like,

Before you even, Yeah. Did it. Yeah. It was like, it was like two days before. And I was like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not going in on this headache. So that didn't happen. No way.

It just was not. They kind of did you a favor though. They really did. You had posted that. If, if, if the podcast ended, if Disgrace ended up being just the thing that no one knew about, you know what I mean? Like it wouldn't have mattered. But at that point really quickly, people did know.

And I, you know, and I remember like, I had one friend who's like, oh, you're a fucking solo. I was like, fuck you, man. Like, you go turn. You're a solo. Yeah. Just like, you know, you're drunk friend in your ear, giving you a shit. I'm from Boston, New England.

Like everyone gives everyone shit. That's how we bond. Right. Right. But it just wasn't worth the headache. But then to the other, the other side of it is there's, I don't like to tell stories that involve abuse with children because it's, it's really sad and upsetting and gross. And honestly, who wants to listen to that?

I don't want to listen to it. I don't want to have my head in that. And there's a lot of that in the music business as we know, I try to stay away from it as much as possible. It creeps in every now and then because you have to acknowledge it sometimes with some artists, even if you're telling a different story. So I've stayed away from the R. Kelly and the Michael Jackson things. Yeah.

However, I'm going in. It's time. I feel like I can tell the story. I'm good enough at what I do now that I can tell the story in a way that isn't going to be disgusting, that can still be respectful and still to the victims and still tell the story. I feel like I know I have enough confidence to do it now. But as a rule, I try to stay away from that's the type of stuff I try to stay away from.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes total sense. And also those R. Kelly victims have had their say now, which and you know, that documentary was done so well that that yeah, sometimes it's good to follow that stuff where you're just like, well, here's, you know, here's how I would do it, but they get to say it first. Yeah. Totally.

Yeah. Good point. How do you like come to terms with, here's an example, John Lennon and people who you respect and love musically, but like kind of our pieces of shit in real life. It's kind of every single episode. It's like, you know what I mean? It's like, it's like every single episode almost. I mean, there's, you know, I'm writing about Robert Johnson out of the old blues guy who's

like, you know, lauded and just these glowing books and scholarly novel, not all this whole thing. And it's like, when you really read about what the dude was getting up to was not good, you know? Yeah. But he was like 25, 26 years old. I'm not excusing it. I'm just saying like, you know, I mean, he wasn't like killing people.

And with John Lennon, it's like, you know, John Lennon was a really complicated guy. And I try to, without making excuses for these artists, I try to be objective and empathetic and take into account everything that's going on. Like we don't know what it's like to be the biggest pop star on the planet, you know, with Taylor Swift. We have people criticize Taylor Swift like it's a fucking job. No one has any idea what it's like to be Taylor Swift, except Taylor Swift. And the fact that she's managed, whether you love her or hate her, managed to get her career

to the point where it's at without losing her mind is, it's an achievement, you know? So I try to not lose sight of that. And I think, honestly, I think that's why people relate to Disgrace Land because of that nuance. And there's not a lot of nuance anymore. It's either everything, our whole discourse is devolved into, I'm right, you're fucking evil. It doesn't matter what the subject matter is, that's what it is.

And Disgrace Land is not that. Love it. Well, it's also what I really like is kind of like the journey of fame. And like it's hard for us to understand people that have never stood in front of a football field, arena full of people and rocked them and had every single person be like screaming or whatever. Look, our live shows are great, but it's not the same thing. Soccer field 2022 is what my favorite murder, Disgrace Land are going on.

We're going on tour. We're going to rock the world. But you know, when you see those live at Wembley concerts and it's just like all the arms going like this and it's 80,000 people or whatever, it's like, right, you don't walk off stage from that and go like, well, I got to turn it early because I need to take care of myself. Like, you know that what happens after that is a world full of people going, whatever you want. Right.

And like, none of us would know what we would do if that was our world. George and I are like, yeah, I'm fucking mac and cheese at 1230 at night or whatever. It's like, that's a groupie, a groupie mac and cheese. You're eating the shit out of that mac and cheese with like, oh, it's happening, snorty and off the dresser. But there is a thing, you know, you get off stage and there's a chemical thing where you have all this adrenaline and you can't just shut down. You can't shut it off.

And that's like, when you introduce drugs into that as well and then trying to just calibrate your life as a functioning member of society, I mean, it's unlike anything civilians have to go through at all. Yeah. Drugs, groupies. Yeah. I mean, I did a good point too that it's like, with like, oasis or someone like that, like they were 19 years old when they became in, you know, huge stars, all of them, Beatles,

everyone. Yeah. I mean, as we said, 17 year olds are stupid, 19 year olds aren't that much smarter. No. You know? Yeah. George Harrison quit the Beatles when he was 27. 27.

Holy shit. Holy shit. I mean, just come on. What the fuck? He had enough. You know? I have my head so far up my own ass at 27 years old, never mind being in the Beatles. That's crazy.

Right. It's crazy. Right. I was his data entry and it was, and I was going crazy, you know, wild and out and stuff. Looking for a better cooking routine? With meal planning, shopping and prepping handled, HelloFresh has you covered. HelloFresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year.

HelloFresh meals are convenient, seasonal and delicious. Stay cozy all winter long with classic comfort foods available weekly. Why stop with just dinner? Now you can enjoy HelloFresh's expanded menu of quick lunch solutions, weekend brunch, simple side dishes and amazing desserts. Karen, January is going to be my month for HelloFresh. I am so sick of takeout. I miss cooking so much I haven't lifted a knife or a pan since like early fall.

So I can't wait to get back in the kitchen and HelloFresh makes it so easy and also makes it so that my food tastes good, which is hard to do on my own. It gives you everything, everything you need. So get up to 20 free meals with purchase plus free shipping on your first box at hellofresh.ca slash murder20 with code murder20. That's up to 20 free meals plus free shipping on your first box when you go to hellofresh.ca slash murder20 and use code murder20. Goodbye.

Hey, I'm Arisha. And I'm Brooke. And we're the hosts of Wondery's podcast, Even the Rich, where we bring you absolutely true and absolutely shocking stories about the most famous families and biggest celebrities the world has ever seen. Our newest series is all about the incomparable diva, Whitney Houston. Whitney's voice defined a generation and even after her death, her talent remains unmatched. But her incredible success hit a deeply private pain.

In our series, Whitney Houston, Destiny of a Diva, we'll tell you how she hid her true self to make everyone around her happy and how the pressure to be all things to all people led her down a dark path. Follow Even the Rich wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Should we pivot to what we heard from you is an amazing hometown story? Let's pivot. I didn't mean to say we heard from you, meaning like, we don't, we don't know if it's good,

but you keep saying it is. That's not what I meant. Yeah. This, I have to say, the celebrity hometown thing made me think, like, oh, what's gone on in my hometown? And then when I thought about it for a minute, I was like, holy shit. I had a laundry list that was like, I could talk about five different things here. You know what I mean?

What's your hometown? Clinton, Massachusetts. And I'm, the way, there's only one way to tell the story and this is with me in it because I'm part of this crime kind of love it. First person, first person hometown. I don't know when's the last time that's happened. I got to be careful. So what are the statute of limitations to set the stage?

So Clinton mass is where I grew up. It's like 40 miles west of Boston, small town, beautiful town. But if you've ever seen a, or here's a, here's a fun fact to it. It's in the Guinness Book of World Records, my town, in 1977 for the most bars per square mile. Holy shit. Swear to God. Oh, okay.

I see it. I see it. I see it. I get it all. Yeah. Coincidentally, you can't walk 10 feet without passing a funeral parlor. So there's lots of funeral parlors. Lots of bars.

Wow. If you've ever seen a Boston gangster movie or whatever about like South Boston, like Southie, which we all have, it's Clinton's like the sort of like small town version of Southie. It's not in the city. It's a mill town. It's a beautiful New England town, but it's got kind of like a creepy element to it. And to prove that, the Stephen King series, Castle Rock, which was filmed in Clinton the

first season. Tim, did you guys see it? Did you see that? Yes. So where Tim Robbins works, that's the street I grew up on, that street, like where the whole finale takes place is literally the exact spot I got drunk for the first time in my life on the train track. They're filming.

Almost having a trip. They're filming the new Stephen King, Salem's Lot, there right now. And I think one of the American horror, which I've never seen, was filmed there too. So it's like, it's got like these old Victorians. It looks really cool. So just to give you a couple small bites at the true crime thing here, one true crime, one myth thing. So when I was in elementary school, they found this girl's body about two houses down from

mine, completely just savagely murdered. And I know the family, so I don't really want to go into that. But it was like, I wonder now, like things happen to you when you're younger and you just take them for granted. And then you start to think about them as an adult. Like, what if any effect did that have on me? I don't think it had much, but it did happen. And there was out on the town line next to the town next door, there was this place called

Blood Forest. And it was founded by this guy in the 40s named Arthur Blood. And there was all these like stories about kids who died there. And literally, I saw this, this is the God's honest truth. There's something biological that is going on with the pond in the middle of Blood Forest. On a full moon, I swear to God, anyone in Clinton who hears this will know I'm telling the truth. And I know you guys have listeners in Clinton.

When the moon falls down on the pond, it's red. And when the moon is full, and there's something in like at the bottom of the pond that makes it look like blood. So Blood Forest. But that's not true crime. You can't name a place Blood Forest and think everything's going to be fine. But what's crazy is it's after a guy's name, right? So it's just as easily been like Brown Forest, but that's really creepy.

That's so crazy. I believe it was Arthur Blood, I think that was the name. Wild. That's in a book. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It's in a Stephen King book. But not true crime.

So the true crime one, so this is this cartel thing, this crazy drug cartel story with a missing kid. So like you guys, we kind of hit on this earlier. I was a juvenile delinquent as a child, total, total latchkey kid like you guys left to my own devices. By the time I got into high school, you know, I was less of a juvenile delinquent and more of just like a stoner high school kid. Like all I wanted to do, like my main motivation in life was to just smoke pot with my friends

and listen to music and talk about music and play music and have a good time. I mean, it is pretty great. Karen said, yeah, yeah, how are things changed? I know. I don't see this. And what do we do? Everyone's goal. So I'm saying this for the reason that pot was really important to us.

Okay. Like if we didn't have pot, there was a problem and we used to buy weed at Mr. Donut. Mr. Donut was like an off brand Dunkin Donuts. Yes. Okay. Oh my God. I love it. So Clinton has since graduated, we now have a Dunkin Donuts, so.

But all right, Peter, Mr. Donut, Mr. Donut. So we used to go in and you could buy, I think it was like, you know, give me one jelly and it was like an eighth of weed, two jellies and you'd get, you'd get a quarter round and you would get the donuts in the back, right? Then this summer, I think it was the summer. I thought it was the summer of my going into my sophomore year, but I look. Wait, I'm sorry. I hate to interrupt you.

Sure. But did you get the donuts and the pot? Yes. I would hope to God. Yeah. Because they like. Yeah. So they'd stick it in there, but you still got the donuts.

Yeah. So when you went and got high, you would have donuts after. Yeah. Yes. Was it some teenager? Like was it one guy when he was working, you could go in or was it just like Mr. Donut? That was. One guy.

The operation. One guy. And I so want to say his name, but I can't say his name. He should get the credit. One guy who had this connection. And. Got it. We didn't know who the connection was.

You know what I mean? Obviously. Then all of a sudden, in this one summer, there's no weed at all. Like none. Nothing. No one in town has grass and it's a problem. Like no one at Mr. Donut. No one anywhere.

And we start to hear these rumors that the main guy got busted. The main connection, right? And this guy is like, we just know him as the connect. Like I said, like we don't know anything about him, but then things start to start to creep out these other, these other rumors about this dude. And so he's not just your every day ordinary drug dealer. He's like Colombian cartel connected drug dealer who lives in the town next to ours. And everything is moving in off the islands of Massachusetts, coming up on boats from

South America and he's bringing it in. And we're like the first town on the fucking, the drug rep. Yes. You don't get stems and seeds. He gets a good shit. Freshest weed buds of all time. Well, I got to say we were like high school, low kids on the totem pole. So we got crap all the time.

It wasn't, it was not. I remember 80s weed. It was like, well, not for me was nineties, but stems and seeds. Yeah. So, so this was, this was 90. I thought it was, I thought it might have been earlier was 90. I looked this up. So in the summer drought, we called it the drought.

These weird, these weird things, always the storyteller, I guess these weird things start happening. And the first thing that happens is my friend's dad, who I don't want to give too many details here because the guys, people, people know him. I will just say he was a man's man, like six, five bad ass dude had a bad ass job in a position of authority. No one fucked with this guy. And all of a sudden one night he's walking out of a bar, a van pulls up, he gets abducted,

put over the head, pulled into the car, beat to a pulp, bound and thrown in the bottom of a ditch and no one did shit about it. No one did anything. What? Yeah. So it was some. I'm sorry. Was he killed?

He was not killed. He lived. Oh, okay. Which made it even weirder because it's this thing that no one talks about like still, you know, and I don't blame him. I wouldn't want to talk about it either. But the point is, like, if they're not talking about it, there's a reason because someone doesn't want them to be talking about it.

Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So if the crowd happens, the abduction happens, then this kid from the next town over who we knew was a local drug dealer, high school kid goes missing, this kid Richie Tunnel. And all the rumors start. He was dealing for the main guy. He said something.

He's dead. He killed him. He's Richie's buried out behind the Fung Wong restaurant. Like this whole Fung Wong was the like the Chinese restaurant in town. And now it's like scary. You know what I mean? Yeah. And we're like, oh, shit.

All right. So around the same time this summer, this guy comes into town. This guy already. Okay. He's older. He's in his thirties. He's hanging out with like high school kids, hitting on our girlfriends, driving our cars. Yeah.

I mean, Georgia, this is like the guy your parents warned you about. You know what I mean? Like, like literally from central casting, tattoos, violin. I remember there'd be the 30 year old with the kid with the, and I'd just be like, oh, that's Danny and like, it was fine. But it's like looking back, it's like, why is a third year old hanging out and buying a spear? Yeah.

Buying a spear. Buying a spear. Well, well, this Danny, our Danny, Artie, we, we didn't mind because he all of a sudden was the only guy with pot. So it was like, oh, okay, cool. Like you're going to drive my car. Yeah. Artie, look at this beautiful Corolla get in here.

This Corolla, you drove a Ugo. Yeah. Come on. Geometry. Geometry. Geometry. It's purple. Oh, yeah.

I'm thinking of cars now. I'm losing my train of thought. Anyways, Artie, we all started hanging out with Artie. God knows why because he's got pot and he's buying a spear, I guess. So like I said, I was a latchkey kid and my parents left me alone during the day and it was, I had full reign. I never went to school. I skipped as much school as possible.

I stayed home. I read books. I listened to music. But at night, they had me under lock and key. My mom, like I said, was young. She had me when she was 18. So she knew all the fucking stupid stuff I was getting up to and would not, when she was around, she wouldn't let me out.

I couldn't go out on school nights. So I don't know how this happened, but it was a school night. I must have got in a fight with my mom or something and just like split. But I was at this party, an apartment party. I'm 50. Okay. I'm at some rando adults apartment on like a Wednesday. Oh my God.

My skin is crawling. Yeah. I can smell it. I can see it. I don't like it at all. It's gross. A lot of brown. A lot of brown.

A lot of browns and discernible. Like greens. You can't really tell which is which. You know. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. You got to be careful which bottle you drink out of bad lighting. Yeah. That's my cigarette butt. Cigarette butts. Yeah.

No. Another bottle. Yeah. Let us steely down. No. No. No. You shouldn't be there.

Exactly. So I'm at this party and there's, I'm with a couple of my friends but it's largely an adult party and it's already how we got in there. I'm sure of it. But there's also these other grownups. I don't know who the hell they are and they're like rough looking dudes. It's like a weird vibe. I'll never forget, the 11 o'clock news comes on, okay?

On a Wednesday, I'm guessing, or Thursday. The 11 o'clock news comes on and everything gets like really serious all of a sudden. And everyone's watching the one television. And there's a newscast on this prison break at this local prison nearby, not in our town, but close by. And I realize the dudes I'm in the room with

are watching themselves on television on the news about the prison break. Oh, my God. They were having a prison break party and you got invited to it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Did their photos come up and you like looked to the right and looked to the left?

No, I want to say yes, but I honestly do not know what the connection was that I made. But I knew, man, I knew. And it clicked with Artie the whole thing. And I was like, I just like sulked out of there and I went home and, you know. You kissed your mother and said you were sorry. I kissed my mom.

I said I was sorry. Please, mommy. That guy disappeared right after that. Never came back. No one, yeah, already disappeared. I never fucked with those people again in any meaningful way. And, you know, going into my junior year,

you know, I was thinking about this. But because of getting ready to tell you guys this story, I was thinking about this. I think that event had this transformative effect on me where I just was like, is this the path I'm going to go down, hanging out with fucking losers and end up like in jail or whatever. But so, you know, junior, senior year,

when I went back to school, junior year, and then senior year, those are the only two years I ever applied myself in school to get to college and to get out of town. And so it worked out all right for Richie Tuttle, the kid who went missing, did not work out right. They ended the drug kingpin guy, they caught one of his associates,

he flipped, ratted out the kingpin, and they ended up pulling Richie Tuttle out of a pond in the next town over about five years later. Yeah, it was brutal. Oh my God, it hit. So he was just a teenage drug dealer who got caught up. Yeah. Oh man, it's so crazy that you think about those things

where it's like, how upsetting is it that the decisions you make as a teenager can affect your whole life that much? Yeah, that kid maybe just wanted to like, he didn't want to get an after-school job. Maybe some, like you had a cousin that did it. That's always how that shit happens is like someone's older brother does it.

So he's like, this is something I can do, it's no big deal. And then suddenly they're caught up in a fucking cartel. That's horrible. It's crazy, it is horrible. I pray my kids never hear this podcast because I feel like I need a fair share of glorifying my juvenile delinquency here, but... No, you made it clear that, you know,

Steely Dan and all of that will get you caught up in... Steely Dan's never a good idea. Steely Dan will drive you down a bad road. But this is the full circle thing of like that you have to kind of go through some shit and you have to see what your choice is and maybe even the results of those choices could possibly be to go,

it is quote unquote being cool with this quote unquote cool group of people really where I want to go in my heart. Because yeah, you don't. Like you're doing, we all do at that age especially, but kind of all our lives, we do what's kind of around us and what we think we're supposed to

and what we think other people would think is cool. But yeah, that's a great, I mean, but also the idea that you're kind of like 15 trying to blend in and then you realize there's like escaped hardened criminals all around you. Yeah, yeah, I was with a couple of my friends. I don't want to cut them out of the story here.

I don't want to go back, I don't want to go back to Clinton and get beat up. I just... No, no, no. Full credit. You think that's your story? Jake, what the fuck? I invited you to that fucking party.

Yeah, Artie was my friend. Actually, I just remembered our Artie was named Shaky. That, so I don't even know this guy's name. And he could have been a serial killer. And I was like the girlfriend that they were, he was trying to date, you know, that you mentioned, like I was 13 and Shaky was driving us around buying us beer.

You never brought Shaky home to mom. My mom would have flipped. Even as Lachke doesn't, isn't around, she would have been like, you can't hang out with adults. Yeah, for real. And I'd be like, mom, you're so uncool. Shaky's awesome.

Shaky's awesome. Don't make me unpopular, mom. Yeah. Right, right. Oh, that was it. Wow. I mean, that was a chef's kiss of a hometown, I have to tell you.

I mean, you're a great storyteller anyway, but that really was... Twisty tourney and little things here and there. That was... Also, that's from a movie. Seeing, like, look, a prison break and then the party gets quiet. Quiet, I'm on the news.

Oh, I'm finally on TV. Guys, circle up. Circle up, turn down the music. Circle up. Oh, shit. Wow. Hats off to Clinton, Massachusetts. Clinton, Massachusetts.

You guys should come and play. They've got a big old theater. You can jam it out. They have a soccer stadium, you know. First night of our soccer stadium tour. Yeah. First and only night. First and only.

Open and close. It'll be a little good one-off. Yeah. Do you ever do live shows? I did. I tried it out. They were great. I did three of them.

One in Colorado, one in Boston, one in San Francisco. They were all awesome. I loved it. Nice. When I was doing it, I loved it. But then everything around it, I did not love. And it just reminded me of being in a band again and being away from my kids I didn't like.

So I'm a creative person, obviously, at heart. And I can get my complete creative fill doing what I do with the podcast. Not to say I won't do it here and there again. I definitely will. But not to the extent that you guys are doing it. That's a whole other thing. It turns out, I didn't know this when we started.

It turns out touring is hard. Karen knew. Yeah, I'm calloused over to it. And George is like, this is stressing me out. And I'm like, I don't know. I don't feel anything anymore. I don't have one friend left who's in a band who enjoys it. If they act like they are, they're lying.

Because I hear them. It's a young man's game, for sure. And it traps you, too. I have this theory that the old musicians, like Dylan, these guys who are still touring constantly, that they're doing it because they think now it's all they can do. And if they stop, they will die.

And I think there's some truth in that. You can get trapped in it. I saw one of Tom Petty's last concerts. And I was like, what are they doing? Go home. It's past your bedtime. But it's all they've ever done, especially Tom Petty. Wait, Tom Petty, you just did a perfect segue.

That's right. Tom Petty is in the new season 9 of Disgrace Land. Yes, Tom Petty, Taylor Swift, Juice World, George Harrison, the Eagles, two partner on the Eagles. Just too much cocaine. You couldn't fit it all into one episode. So much cocaine. You talk so fast for both of those episodes.

You're just like cigarette. And then smoke three cigarettes. I'm in the middle of like, F2. I'm pitching my screenplay to some random dude. Opening your restaurant called Mr. Donut, it's going to be great. Hear me out. You get donuts and you get weed. It used to be illegal.

It's not anymore. Let's do this thing. What? It's called Stems and Seeds. Here we go. You know, you're saying all this. We're making fun of cokeheads. And I'm like deep into Seinfeld right now.

Like, why? Because it's on Netflix, so I'm working my way again through the whole season as far as instead of the syndicated ones. And like, basically, I think Kramer's just like a cokehead character, right? He's always pitching these random ideas he has. He's got way too much energy, you know?

It's sliding through that door. It's like implied croquet. Yeah. Yeah, I could totally see that. Very true. So yeah, DisgraceLand. You can get Tom Petty, George Harrison, all. You know, we had tons of episodes.

Cardi B, Grateful Dead, Rolling Stones, all available for free, amazon.com slash DisgraceLand. Amazing. And you have like, you have multiple spin-offs of the podcast too, which is so rad. Yeah, we have another show called Badlands, which season three launched today, and that's kind of like the catch-all for other Disgraceful stories that aren't just music.

So we've done two seasons on Hollywood, one from the world of sports. This is our second season on Hollywood right now. We launched with an episode today on Heath Ledger. And it's me doing the same dog and pony show I do at DisgraceLand, just with different subject matter. I feel like you're not going to have a lot of material for the sports one,

for people behaving badly. No, no, they're all pretty. They're very polite young men. And they keep it real low key, usually. Yeah, they keep it tight. The role models are supposed to, I think Karen and I both understand how hard it is to do a music podcast, because you can't put any fucking music in it.

So the fact that you score it all yourself, I feel like, is the work around. But we've been pitched music podcast before for the network. And it's like, well, we can't do that. You'll get sued multiple times. Right, right. Come to us, come to Double Elvis. Our company will collab.

We'll figure it out. Figure it out. All we do is music podcasts, except the two sports and Hollywood ones I just mentioned. But yeah, being a musician has helped. And in the beginning, I scored everything. I score it now myself, but I have other musicians who work with me.

And that way we can do things fast and quick. And honestly, that's part of the most fun part of it for me, is being able to fuck with the music. Well, it still makes me feel like I'm a half-assed musician, which is. Yeah, well, because you can. I mean, that's the thing, is put it all out there. It's your podcast, and that's how you started.

So it makes perfect sense. It's like, yeah, I'm talking. I'm writing. I'm writing this music. Get a load of me, Jake Brennan. It's a one-man band with 15 full-time staff of employees around me. Hey, it's a small little company.

Industry. Well, it's great to see you again. It's been so long. Thank you so much for doing this with us. Thank you for having me. I really had fun. I'm so stoked we got to do this, and I can't wait to see you guys in person again,

hopefully sometime soon. Hell yeah. Totally. Amazing. Thank you so much. All right, stay sexy, and don't get murdered. Rock and roll. Rock and roll.

Perfect. Amazing. That was perfect. Amazing. You guys are the best. Yay. Oh my god, that was so cool. That was fun.

Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, we'll see you around, guys. Thanks. Bye-bye. OK, bye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah.

This has been an exactly right production. Our senior producers are Hannah Kyle Crichton and Natalie Rinn. Our producer is Alejandra Keck. This episode was engineered and mixed by Andrew Eben. Email your hometowns and fucking hurrays to myfavoritmurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritmurder and on Twitter at myfavemurder.

Listen, subscribe, and leave us a review on Amazon Music, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Goodbye. Goodbye. OK, I'll see you around.