The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 617 - Lisa Frank

Episode Date: January 23, 2024

Comedians Gareth Reynolds and Dave Anthony examine artist and business woman Lisa Frank Tour Dates Redbubble Merch Sources  

And we're also brought to you in part by Airbnb. Dave, I love staying at Airbnb's. I've told you this before, my buddies and I get together twice a year and we always find some amazing spots via Airbnb. So the other thing is maybe you've stayed in Airbnb before and you've thought to yourself, this actually seems pretty doable.

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your home might be worth more than you think. So find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. Man, you're listening to the dollop. This is an American history podcast where each week I, Dave Anthony, user of ointments. What? Ointments is sick. Weirdo.

Sniff stuff couple times a day and cleans his eye glasses with a cloth reads a story to a guy in a hoodie. Name Gareth Reynolds who has no idea what the topic is going to be about. That was a really bad one. Normally they're weird and short. Those are all three of those are like sentences. Define bad, I mean.

Long and not worth it. Okay, well that's an interesting definition that I'm gonna have to disagree with and I think our producers are as well. Who are they? We don't have them. We have producers. No we don't, it's just you and I. Marty we don't just you and I Marty Marty Tigg in the hammer

Marty taking the hammer producing our Nessie if you're little the if the things you'd said at the beginning were short and punchy like that was good But what did you just take you just took a pill? Why don't you why didn't you tell everyone what you're juicing on I? Just took one of my hairpills that I take you taking a history history pills neutral the neutrophil. Oh, you're neutrophil And I also take red yeast We'll be right back Red yeast

Can that be your superhero name? Let's get into medicine, Gareth. My family has a history of cholesterol. Boring. And this is bad. I'm looking at the numbers. The show's numbers are tanking. One of the things you can take without going on the, whatever they are, the blockers, whatever that shit is, is red yeast and it actually works. So I do that. It lowered it. going on the whatever they are the blockers wherever that shit is is red east and then actually works.

So I do that. It lowered it. That is the pill read. And I also eat a little pill every day. You know what? A lamb. I eat a lamb leg every day. Leg. A lamb of leg. Wow, that's not a lot of people are doing a lamb of leg.

Gareth, we are brought to you by our Patreon page. We have a Patreon page and you can go there and we have all kinds of stuff right now. There's an ad that runs on the show for it now, I think. Right now, we're going to be throwing up a little something. What would you describe it? The the office in the van? Yes. Yes. We were doing the show the single camera van show. We've greenlit for ourselves because no one else wants anything to do. There's people who said they would. Wait. No one wants anything to do with it, but also we haven't told anybody about it.

So yeah, it's it's kind of weird like that. But people like it. So yeah, there's a lot of great stuff up there. Yeah. Also, look at snacks. I'm telling you, listen, our Patreon is insane. It's gotten really good and it is insane. Yeah, agreed. April 21st, 1955, year of our Lord J-Town, the raddest Jesus of all time.

Sure. Hey, you know what? It's bad when we're speaking to it's in and you've given up. I think I to be fair, I think I gave up a little while ago. Like just in general. No, like 90 seconds ago, I think I was like,, I think I gave up a little while ago Like just in general No, like 90 seconds ago. I think I was like man, I'm done. Are you sick? Yeah, I have a cold. Yeah, I told you I Thought you just said you had a sinus thing

But now I hear you and I see you and you seem well, you're not bringing it I'm gonna need I'm let me tell you something what I'm let me no no Well, you're not bringing it. I'm going to need. I'm going to tell you something. What I'm let me. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Return to the office because remember. Remember the Michael Jordan.

Remember the Michael Jordan flu game? That's what I'm about to have, except it's with a vitamin water with zero calories. Do you remember the Bobby Hurley Diarrhea game? April 1st, night, which 55 was it? What did he do? What happened to the Bobby Hurley Diarrhea game? Other plan, night which 55 was it. What did he do? What happened to the Bobby Hurley Diary a game. Oh they're playing that I think it was the finals or maybe close to the finals and coach K was like what happened to Bobby Hurley in the

middle of the game he was he just disappeared and he was like well he had diarrhea. That is. One time when I was in high school I was playing soccer and I kicked and I was I was half back and I kicked the ball up to the winger and the ball was going towards him and he started running away from it and ran off the field that up a hill and I was like what in the hell happened and then he came at halftime and he had a big brown spot in the back of his shorts. Oh my god. I hope this is nobody's first episode.

They're like, what is this show? It's, yeah, it doesn't make sense. Anyway, April 21st, 1955, Lisa Frank was born in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan. Gorgeous. That's one of the richest cities in the United States. A bunch of richie riches lived there. Her grandfather and his brothers founded the Detroit Aluminum

and Brass Company in 1925. Eventually, Lisa's dad takes it over. He's running it. So they got money. Sure. It was a big car parts supplier for the auto industry and very, very, very successful. So her dad is on the board of the Detroit Institute of Art. He's an art collector. Sure. He introduces Lisa to pop artists when she's growing up. What's a pop art? What do you mean pop artists?

What is it? I don't know what that is. Pop artists is like a cool new artist. Like Christina Aguilera art? No, no. Christina Aguilera art no no yes Christina Aguilera paintings is yes we're talking okay right great that's good so so she's getting an art like a lot of us her mom had a kiln in the basement. Yeah. To make pottery. Yep. Yeah.

Oh, mom had a mom always had a kiln. Yep. Yeah. I mean, everybody's mom had a kiln, right? It's America. Absolutely. Killing people. And they sent Lisa to art classes starting when she was five.

Quote, I think to keep me quiet, they would bring the coloring books and crayons and I would fill up the books And then every parrot though that now it's just the iPad, but that's not every like that's what they would do You know what I my mother used to do she used to put out cans Like super evaporated milk cans with the price tags on them and I like to sit there and peel them all off until there was no residue It's a little history. Were you raised during World War Two in England? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Our house was bombed out. Yeah, you remember. Yeah. You would take the labels off the cans. Yeah, the price. The price labels. Oh, just the price label Yeah, not the like paper. No, you gotta know what it is. That's a fun game, too Though you ever do that. That's a fun game. Yeah, take all the lining off of your cans and just put your cans in somewhere And then it's just basically supper bingo

You know what you're gonna get you might have ravioli you might have peaches. I do that all the time Don't look at me like I'm strange. You're the guy who said lamb of leg. I'm the normal guy All right podcast. Let me write back I was a total girly girl. I was not a jock Okay Like most of us again her parents gave her a loom when she was 12. Yeah Like most of us again, her parents gave her a loom when she was 12. Yeah. It's it's funny. Actually, I was given the loom and the kiln.

I mean, I had a whole crafts area. Yeah. When did you start weaving? Pretty early. I mean, I turned our basement into a bizarre, basically. Yeah. Yeah. Like most kids. Yes, of course. That's classic Wisconsin. Yeah. Well, you didn't have much to do in the winter,

so you just kind of turned your basement into a marketplace of rugs and pots. And unlabeled cans. Yes, and not labeled cans, sometimes unlabeled. That was more for when I got older. Take a bong rip and be like, what am I going to have? Yeah, that sounds bad. She went to Cranbrook Kingswood High School, very rich high school, a place where Mitt Romney went.

Oh. Quote, they had real people teaching, accomplished artists. We sat in the original, I can't read this, Serenian chairs? I don't think we realized what we were surrounded by. OK, what does that mean? Like actual if she's trying to she's trying to make it sound like opulence. Well, she's trying to make it sound like it's normal,

but it's clearly doesn't sound normal. Yeah, I mean, yeah, but she's she's like, oh, no, we had real people teaching. If you say you had real people teaching, it means you did not have real people teaching. No one. Well, it's also like a weird, that's a weird thing to say, just because then everyone, what does that even mean? Like salt of the earth?

Or does she think other people have like robots? Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, we had, well, I had a robot. Yeah, my math teacher was an abacus. So she starts painting, right? In high school, I think. She has a show her senior year and she makes $3,000. Shit.

Telling her art. Not that she needed it, but yeah, OK. Well, like is very common with most high school artists, one piece was bought by Leigh Iacocca, the CEO of Christmastime. He used to come see me do improv all the time. In high school. He would come down to comedy sports and he would watch us play all the time.

Are there any people who were not supported by Leigh Iacocca in high school with their activities? I think we all were, I mean. Yeah, the guy made the rounds. He was always. It was crazy. He came to my weaving expedition Exhibition you're weaving expedition

Expo I also did an expedition. Why I hiked I hiked from California to Wisconsin with my weaving to weave. Yeah, right? unbelievable So I've seen her paintings I would call them not good. Okay. Uh, once she sold one, now, once she sells these paintings, her father stopped paying her for painting supplies. He's like, well, that's it. Now you're on your own with the painting business.

Sure. She decides that she's going to go to the university of Arizona. Okay. Which her dad not into when she told him, he said, quote, that's fine. And I love you all the same, but I'm not going to support you. That's an interesting, that's very strange. See, that's what you got to do what I did, which is have no

colleges except for one except you. Mm hmm. They can't, they don't have that leg to stand on. That's right. Yeah. Not, not really a math college, right? That you went to? Actually, to be fair, they have math waiver.

To be fair, literally when you get in, they were like, you did algebra, you don't need it here. Truly. I was like, that's great, because I suck at that. Everyone at Emerson sucks at math. Yeah, they were like, you're about to enter a magical place with no math. Yeah, I was like, whoa. I was tutoring math in college just so you're aware.

Shut up, what a dork. Shut up. Pre-calculus, is this calculus? Pre-calculus, I'm gonna take my red yeast pill and tutor someone in math. Shut up. Next time I see you, I'm gonna rip your underwear so far. I'm gonna hike your undies so far up you. I'm one in math. Shut up. I'm next time I see you. I'm going to rip your underwear so far. I'm going to hike your undies so far up you.

I get it. I'm going to give you a wedgie. Swerly. Imagine having me as a math tutor. Oh, my God. You'd be like, can I stick to the math? You'd just be like, I'm going to fucking kill Reagan. So he's not into it at school. She's not in Arizona, so she's getting a whole new world, right?

That's an awful lot of native. A lot of Native Americans there. OK, sure. So they sell art, the Native Americans in Arizona. So she starts buying their pottery and their jewelry, taking it back to Michigan, selling it on Jack's Up Prices and making money. Nice, nice.

Garrett, it's called being awesome. It's called continuing the theme. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha In her story, this is always sort of position is like a cool thing. She knew how to buy stuff cheaply and sell it somewhere else by exploiting the natives. Yes. Imagine. So she does that. She's so successful that she now starts telling the Native Americans what sort of art she wants them to make.

This is where we need her. So like the jewelry that they would make her, quote, if I said make a teddy bear or a unicorn, that was what sold. Running feathers. Can we actually go in more of the Teddy Ruck Spin route? Lisa, please stop. Did you did your people have teddy bears and unicorns? Because I would like that in the art.

We speak English too, so just, um... Do you have a teddy bear mythology? I would like to lean into that. Hasbro! Hasbro! Do you guys know Hasbro hasbro Do you guys know hasbro So as far as art She said quote at first I didn't want to do unicorns the artist in me You know this is one of those things that you've put in here that you're like,

this, he probably won't care much about this, but I'm like, this is a crazy thing that this woman is saying. This is a conversation every artist has had with themselves. Do I want to do unicorns? No, but the market demands it. It's in comedy when we talk about cruises. That's right.

Do you want to do comedy on cruises? No. No. No, but The artist in me said no, then I thought wait a minute. This is commercial art. Let's do what's going to sell Nice like a great artist. Yeah, like a great artist the best So next Lisa made a line of plastic jewelry. Oh, fuck me. Fuck me. Fruit. Oh my God.

You figured it out. Yeah. I think so. This is right in your this is your this. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So plastic fruits. She called the the brand sticky fingers. Jesus. And she started selling them at gift shows. And that's the easiest product to steal.

You're like, I thought that was the game. I have sticky fingers. As happens with not rich people, they soon were being sold to Neiman Marcus and Bloomingdale's. Just that happens, Gareth. Our comment, yes. You're making plastic fruit things for hands. Then bam, Neiman Marcus.

So then she starts making stickers and buttons. Okay. She's heading into other areas. She gets the rights to Betty Boop, Popeye, and Mighty Mouse. Okay. Quote, I would put like Betty Boop on a unicorn. It's not good, but it is. You know, I have like friends, friends, say,

are quoting who have been in this business and they were able to fund, because their families had money, fund like huge film shoots and things like that. And you'd be like, well, it's not good, but it's a thing. And some people will see it. So you don't need to waste all those years toiling as like a host at a restaurant, China make ends meet. You know, you're able to do this. So it's kind of like that version where it's like,

yeah, this is not good, but she's making a thing. I have a hard time with this kind of art, but yeah, I mean, is it art? Why is your garage all unicorns then? That, well, that's a different story. That's a totally different kind of thing. I don't think it is. I mean, do it why is your garage all unicorns then? That well, that's a different story. That's I don't think it is. I mean, if you do you understand why that seems a bit like hypocritical? Those are sex unicorns.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know. Believe me, I've had the tour. So you've seen the horns. Yeah, both top and bottom. And this isn't about me. Or should it be? I don't know. This kind of art is like it's pop art, right?

I just, yeah. To me, I look at it now and it's like, yeah, that's what tons of stuff is. I don't think it's something that takes a lot of, like it's not an incredibly artistic mind that... But are you... I think it's a commercial art. I'm going to be honest. It's not an incredibly artistic mind. But are you? I think it's a commercial.

I'm going to be honest. If you go to a museum, do you know what you're looking at? Are you like, oh, I like that. Well, if it's like a dinosaur skeleton, I know. That's not. Well, I mean, like an art museum. Yeah, I've been in a lot of art museums. And I knew you see.

Because for me, I feel like I'm placating whoever is like with me. I'm like, ah, they did really good there. Alright, should we get out of here? That's pretty much made every art museum. I mean, look at the art I have behind me. That's what I'm dealing with. I went to I remember I went to a museum with David Cross once and we were looking at what was essentially a 12 foot hat. Yeah.

And you're just like, I mean, someone got paid a lot of money for this and we just sat there and made fun of it for a while. That's fun. There's sometimes like there's I've seen like like installations and stuff where I've been like, oh, that is actually very cool. Like I've seen some but I if I walk around an art museum, you're not going to hear a lot of things where you're going back. But Gareth really enjoyed that. I'll just be like, is anyone hungry? Should we get out? Is anyone hungry? I'm famished. I'm so hungry. I'm so hungry. The guys I love are the artists who just will send back a blank canvas and go,

ta-da. Yeah, I love that. Or when someone puts like a dot of paint on and they're like, yeah, there was a guy recently in Denmark who got like, I don't want to say million dollars for a piece and then he gave them nothing and he goes, that's the art. And which I just want to like so good. So good. That is so good. OK, so good. OK, so back to that's our art conversation and anybody who has an art history degree just slit their throat.

They were. That's so her her little sticky finger things and the and the the stickers and the buttons there. They're being mass produced in China. That's this point in 1979, the company is renamed Lisa Frank, Incorporated. Okay. Or as I will call it, LFI from now on. She's 25 years old.

She gets her first million dollar order from Spencer Gifts. Dude, so I don't mean- If people don't know, it's technical- I worked at Spencer's Gifts for one day. That doesn't surprise me at all. I literally did. I will not make this long. I was there and I used to go to Spencer's gifts because I'd be like,

all right, they got like weird, you know, shit. So I'd go in there and there was a kid in there and I just like helped the kid with something and this manager was like, you should work here. And I was like, okay. And I was doing improv at the state fair. This is my life. Oh my God. I was doing improv at the state fair. My life was nice. I was doing improv at the state fair.

So I was making like decent money, like doing improv at the state fair for like a 16 year old. And so I was like, all right. So I went there for one day. I was like, the whole day I was like, why am I here? And then when she told me that if they threw something out that it wasn't trash, I was like, oh, let me have that shot glass.

My buddy's sister's name is Barbara. She's like, it's not trash. I was like, oh, let me have that shot glass. My buddy's sister's name's Barbara. She's like, it's not trash. I was like, you're throwing it out. And she was like, that's stealing. And I really had a major issue with it. And it resulted in me being like, I'm not gonna come back. They were throwing it out, but you couldn't take it? Yes.

Yes, people who work in retail know what I'm talking about. This is like one of the crazy fucking things. It's like, it's trash, but you can't go to the trash and take it and you can't ask to have it. It's trash, but that's stealing. It's a good system. Okay. So they're getting stuff from China. They get their first million dollar order from Spencer Gives.

And like I said, it's technicolor, it's rainbow colors. It's like animals with huge eyes. It's like this look, right? Uh huh. It explodes. The business explodes in the eighties. In 1987, the company moves into school supplies, and then it's just like everywhere. It's a fad.

OK. She's very careful not to let her image out. Her personal. There are like there are like two photographs of her that we know of. Oh, wow. Questing more. In my own little way, I understood Michael Jackson. Oh my God, what?

That is not what you want to be like. That's the correct response. What? Yeah. No, that's that's not normal to compare. So he's the king of pop right now when she's saying this right now. Sure. He is the most famous man on the face of the earth. He probably also at this point has had a lot of surgery and is hanging out with a monkey.

It's not, yeah, it's not good to, there's no part of you comparing yourself to Michael Jackson that you come out good. The only time when it's like acceptable to compare yourself to Michael Jackson is when he was in the Jackson Five and even then that would be really weird to do. Still not good.

I'm like the six year old. So she thinks like she's an artist making unicorns and colored cheetahs on binders and she thinks that's equal to the most famous. OK, now I know I'm torn between one of two things as to what this is. Lisa said she puts a little bit of herself into all her characters like the white fluffy kitten that does one of her mainstays known as Priscilla. Quote, Priscilla is very into glam and glitz and jewelry and everything very girly and some of the jewelry is in the illustration.

Oh wait, did I get that wrong? And some of the jewelry in the illustration is even my own jewelry. She is a very glamorous kitty. She gave her she killed her assistant. Her assistant brought her a coffee that was not as warm as she wanted. So she threw it on her assistant's face and kicked her off a balcony. Don't look the kitty in the eyes. Yeah.

I also go in sand. So she really used her own jewelry in the, so we're talking diamond, diamond tennis bracelets, a bedazzled tiara, heart-shaped box of gemstones. It's all apparently stuff she has. Sure. So it's normal. Lisa now builds a 320,000 foot warehouse in Tucson, Arizona

in 1996. It's nice. And let me tell you, working in there is nice. Nice. Nice summer work. And there's great. It's what? Very colorful.

She does just like the business. It's all painted colors There's huge colored music notes on the outside. There's hearts. There's stars Then she has giant character statues around. There's like a giant unicorn out front The company is now making over 60 million dollars a year Lisa over $60 million a year. It's a lot. Lisa, however, and you're gonna be shocked at this, doesn't treat the employees very well. What?

But she's from money and she's never had to really work for anything. And now she's a top of a big company. Right, I don't get it either. This might be the first time. Wow, she is a unicorn. One ex-employ. I personally heard her scream at sales managers and threatened their lives if they fucked up a presentation. I'm

waiting for something that doesn't sound like good bossing. Right. That sounds like a good boss. That's how that's yes. That's how you keep them in line. That's that's what I call putting the unicorn into managing. Yeah, that's I mean that that's just What she wants the best you have to threaten people you gotta threaten their lives a worker you do that to me before most shows Every show what are you doing down there? Why do you keep leaning? Well you want to go get it because I, you keep bobbing out of the way. OK. See? And go ahead and put that in your arm.

Another quote, every day was so stressful, and hearing Lisa's voice downstairs on the speakerphone made my blood run cold. I had many instances where she abused me verbally. Jesus. Now- It's always so crazy to me because you'd think that people who get really sick, like I understand being like, I have a high standard or whatever,

but you just would think that people, and again, I know that this is the most flawed thinking, but you just think that people who have a lot, who have it fairly easy, who have security, would just be easier to be around. Yeah, you would think so. One would think if you put it on paper, you'd be like, those are going to be the people that are, they have the comfort of like a simple existence.

So why, but instead it's the opposite. They, for some reason, and a lot of times it's where they miss that phase. They miss the phase where it's like hardship and, you know know, this is like she's never worked in a restaurant. She's never worked at Spencer's Gifts for a day. She's in an ivory tower. I mean, that's exactly what it is. These people have never worked. So they don't know what it's like to actually work under someone. And so they don't treat them with respect. I mean, that's the end of the day, what it is. So James Green started working at LFI in 1982. He was their first in-house illustrator and designer.

And Lisa's father dies in like 83. And then right after that, James and Lisa start banging. Dave, they dated or come on. Bangin. David. By late 83 or 84 they're in a relationship. And he starts moving up in the company. Interesting. In 1988 he became an executive and eventually he would become a CEO and president in 1992. Nice. Working for it. They got married on October 22, 1994. Okay. They had a kid 10 months later. When they had their kid,

Lisa's 41. Okay. So they're living the life of the rich in Arizona. Flashy cars. They got their own plane. They have a huge mansion, which Lisa described as, quote, purple and yellow and hot pink and light green and orange. So dumb. You are living in a neighborhood, and that moves in next to you. And you are so angry. Oh, yeah.

Yes. You're so angry. When I used to paint houses, this one woman wanted us to paint a house, green, purple, and orange, and we did in Compton, and everyone was like, people literally come up and be like,

why are you doing this? Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha After after she has their second son Lisa turns the company over to James to run. She just wants to spend time Raising the kids doing some art ruin in the house. It's kids are hunter and forest. That's the kids names. Oh fuck off She named them after two of her characters. And I and my daughter Buck shot. Yeah, don't worry about that. What the hell? A kid came through here. She also gave James

forty nine percent of the shares of LFI. OK. Up until then, Lisa was the only shareholder, so now she's 51, he's 49. An ex-employee quote, she wasn't that interested in being a businesswoman. She wanted to just enjoy her life, which totally, but this is the most relatable thing ever. You'd be like, yeah, let another person run it and you do your thing, especially because she's an artist, right? Like, you don't want to do business. No.

But now she rarely comes into the office. She dropped in once a month to talk to people and see how they're doing. So it turns out they weren't doing well. Okay. Because James, according to one employee, quote, really turned that place into a shithole, the guy's a dick.

So he's worse than her. Yeah. Wow. But that makes sense, because if I think of a bad person, usually finds another bad person, right? Or a chaotic person finds another chaotic person or whatever it is. Yeah, I don't think that, yes, sometimes you're like, oh, thank God for that. Yeah, but for the most part, you're like, yeah.

Yeah. So James, one of the things James did was he didn't try to learn any of the workers' names and instead he'd just give them nicknames. That's awesome. Now that I support, I like that. Nicknames only. You like that, do you Gary?

Yeah, I support that yeah, yeah prick Yes, I do prick There was also a woman who was not attractive and portly and James start calling her That guy oh Jesus Christ Man, so they're, 94, 95? This is 95. Man, we really, the 90s, we really had like, there was a real, it was a real weird humor time.

Yeah, it was, I agree with that. But this is just being nasty. Oh, horrible, but he's like, I'm a cut up. That's a man. He would walk around calling a lot of the young male employees punk. OK. Tough guy in place. Employees described his management style as oppressive, abrasive,

yelly and mean. I mean, you need to just like it's just one guy needs to beat the shit out of this guy. And that's like we keep saying about a billionaire CEO. Just gotta take one down. A message reverberates. So, I just, this is okay. One one employee said James quote, wreaked of cologne and had a Napoleon complex. Hmm. Another employee quote,

people who work directly with James couldn't wear heels. He said it was because they couldn't walk fast enough to keep up with him. In reality, he has a short man syndrome and didn't like working with women taller than him. Yes. There's no, this guy would, first of all, love to be faster than everyone too. So there's no way that heels would be that issue for that. He just feels like a little tiny guy. Yeah. He just feels like one of the little dolls. Employees said James got access to everyone's email. Wow. Wow.

Red deleted and forwarded emails. Oh boy. What a weird. What was that time? I want to point out one one one went to the VP and she goes, you guys are reading my emails and the VP was like, how do you know that? She goes, because they're marked red. I can see someone's reading them. You're not marking them on red and the VP goes, how do you know that? And she goes, because they're marked red. I can see someone's reading them.

You're not marking them unread. And the VP goes, how do you do that? I'm not going to tell you how to get away. It's very easy. It's so easy. Another employee, quote, I was also told by several IT managers over the past years that phones and offices were sometimes bugged at the request of James. That is crazy.

So what is going on? Well, is he like he's like toy chow chesky. If there's if there's teddy bears at stake, there's a large fluffy. I mean, what does he think is happening? He really had like he is like a Napoleon Caesar complex. What does he think is happening? He really had like he is like a Napoleon Caesar complex. Jezebel, who is a lot of the source source of this would nickname this the rainbow gulag.

That's fantastic. Yeah. I.T. managers often told people like people would come in and I.T. managers would go to them to warn them James read your emails So so when you first got there the IT manager be like hey just a heads up. He reads all your emails Wow That's how bad it was welcome aboard Yeah, the art department was a disaster because James just procrastinated all the time and he has to make the final decision So jobs would just sit there for weeks and months

waiting for him to approve it. And then the deadline would pass and then he'd blame the artist and yell at the artist for missing the deadline. Right. Cool guy. Workers had to come in on weekends and work late hours because James was just delaying all his decisions.

And Gareth, workers in the warehouse were not allowed to talk to each other. Oh, Jesus Christ. What is that? How is that even rational? I can't. This I hear happens in businesses sometimes and I can't imagine This I hear happens in in businesses sometimes. And I can't imagine the thought process behind it. It's it's not a mention how horrible it is. The thought process is if you're talking you're not working. But it's also like, you know, you're talking

about like, for long term sustainability, people should be allowed to just be happy. Yeah, you know, like I remember my my when my dad was he when he actually worked at a toy company. And he had like he had a wear he was like in charge of a warehouse. And those dudes were like the best of friends like they were like 3040 dudes and they like they loved they were like buddies. Yeah, that's how it should be. Yeah. This is crazy that it gets here crazy also like this is the mid 90s So these these people there's probably it's Arizona

So no one's approaching I'm going you guys could unionize because I get they can get they can get union cards in this building signed in ten minutes Yeah, right. Yeah, right. Yes So it's it's obviously very terrible. Twice a month, a document gets sent out from James. It's called Fairly Speaking, sorry, Frankly Speaking. Because he's a, yep.

Lisa Frank. Yeah, it tells workers how to behave and especially how they were to interact with James. Oh, fucking A. And they would just get more restrictive. So each successive, frankly speaking, has more restrictive rules. We noticed one of the employees continued urinating when James walked into the bathroom and started peeing next to him. A reminder, you're supposed to stop your stream as soon as James starts.

Highly disrespectful. We've said this several times, but please only look James in the left eye when you are speaking to him. And the right eye when you're exiting the room in front of the James. By the way, we are now calling him the James. the room in front of the James. By the way, we are now calling him the James. And we're also brought to you in part by Airbnb. Dave, I love staying at Airbnb's. I've told you this before, my buddies and I

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And you know there's like a team full of enablers around him being like, I think that's absolutely right, James. Great, great. I don't think they should be, they should not be chewing while you look at them. No. Good Lord. So, if you violated the rule, any rule, you would get anything from James screaming

at you at the top of his lungs and calling you names or you would just be fired. Boy, it's just, you just gotta smash his head down on a table one day. One worker left the office 10 minutes early because they had something to do. So James ordered the warehouse manager to chain and padlock the doors. So quote the staff can't escape. Christ. That's I mean, you got you kind of got to take your hat off to the guy because he's doing this in like 95 96 This is like 20 22 shit

It is very ahead of his time What's also fascinating about this is like I Can't tell you I mean the late the late 90s specifically It was a boom. So yes The work the work environments of some of these companies was like party central crazy. Right. Like, like, yes. I mean, they had chefs and shit. Like it was like I went to work money and burn. I went to work for a company in 98 called comedy. Fuck, I can't remember what it was, but it was comedy. I remember them radio comedy comedy business. Might have a comedy bomb, but when I got there,

they're like, we're going to hire a chef. We're going to have, everyone's getting these $1,000 chairs. The guy had a $60,000 painting in the lobby. Like it was just like, let's go, baby. And it was all about, we're getting beers on Friday nights. Like it was just. When I first, I think the first time I visited LA when I was 18, I saw the offices of the Drew Carey show

because my buddy was like a writer's assistant there. And I was like, what is happening? Yeah. It was crazy. Especially Drew, Drew likes to have a good time. Oh, so that's looked awesome. Yeah. Oh, it was Comedy World, that's where I worked. Okay. Awesome. Yeah. Oh, it was Comedy World. That's where I worked. OK.

So. So that's illegal to lock the doors, by the way, because of the whole member we had triangle. The triangle switch up factory fire, all those women died hundreds, you know, so we kind of stopped that. Well, several times, James was known to stand outside his office, so like on the top of a staircase,

and yell obscenities at the workers in the warehouse. I wonder what does Lisa know about this? She's like, how was work? He was like, pretty good, pretty good. I mean, she's really checked out. So I think she's I think it's her husband. He's gone mad. Power. He's gone mad. So it's her husband. So I think workers are scared to say anything to her. Right. That I guess. And then he's and then he's telling her how bad they are.

Right. Right. Boy, that's what I was going a real shit crew of assholes up there. I had to put a cigarette in the guy's eye today. Do you know how how what has to be done to get me there? Some embers hit the edge of my fingers. I'm going to blister because of this idiot. The abuse of the abusive atmosphere led to many employees quitting. The guy who worked in a 40-person creative department said over four years they had complete and total turnover three times. Wow, oh my god. That's insane. That's nuts.

In one year, a third of them left and were replaced. In the sales of marketing, 80 people quit over two years. That's wild. For those fired, James often refused to give them their promise severance. And he would fight unemployment benefits. A lot of people who left had to sue to get their final paychecks. Now, that's cool. These employees couldn't go to his second in command because she was just as awful. Yeah, she had to be though.

You have to be. It's like the Nazis. Yeah. Like, you know what I mean? There was nobody like, there was nobody being like, hey, this seems like we've lost the plot a little bit. You know what I mean? There was nobody like, everyone had to be like, no, this is great.

Really good stuff. It's great. I love it you wouldn't be in that room if you were like hey James you're cussing a lot I don't know if you're allowed to kick a woman in her vagina James uh this is what we do here it's Lisa Frank LFI we're kickers right up at getcha Rhonda Rowlett had worked there since 1984 quote Rhonda was his hammer One employee said Rhonda was Darth Vader and James was the emperor I Don't not familiar with Star Wars and the emperor's worse you don't even know Darth Vader and the emperor? Like it's one thing to be not familiar.

I was getting laid back then. I wasn't helping people with math and watching this shit. So what, the emperor's worse? The emperor's, yeah, let's just say the emperor's above Darth Vader. But Darth Vader was a real prick, dude. Yeah, well, he's a bad guy. And then he was a good guy.

It's hard to... Was he? Yeah, he's a bad guy. And then he was a good guy. It's hard to. Was he? Yeah, I don't know. It's I stopped following. He used to he used her to keep control of the workers. So she would threaten jobs and quote, an atmosphere of hostility is maintained. OK, so people were often brought into her office where they were threatened and harassed.

Some would leave her office crying. And it's fairly common for people to just come out into her office where they were threatened and harassed. Some would leave her office crying. It's fairly common for people to just come out of her office crying. So funny that they're bugging the office and they're the ones who are insane. Yeah, right. She once told an employee, quote, don't open your big fat mouth. Well Dave, were they opening their fat mouth? I think so. I mean, that's the problem.

Oopsie-boopsie. At the same time, James was constantly heaping attacks on Rhonda, of course, because he attacks everybody. He's the top dog, right? Yeah. So the employees would just hear them screaming, him screaming at her in her office. He'd call her fat, stupid, or just but a little hurt

every way. A sales team asked to be moved from away from in front of her office because of all the yelling. See, part of me is like, I would enjoy this for a little while. Like, I'd be like, this is exciting. Yeah, I mean, a little bit. Well, if you could detach from it, maybe. That's what I mean. I've worked around total chaos before,

and it is difficult, obviously, and I wasn't, like, berated. So it's different, obviously. I wasn't, like, abused, meant, like, by words. But sometimes being around chaos while it does run down, it trickles down to you, and it becomes a bit of a nightmare for you, there are times where it is like, this is tasty. Yeah, no, I've definitely had writing jobs. Let's be honest, we're talking about writing jobs here in writer's rooms, but I've definitely

had writer's rooms where one person can just cause so much chaos. And it gets so crazy that you're just like, well, now I'm just going to watch this because it's fascinating. Yeah, there becomes a point sometimes where you go, I, it's like, I'm still very invested, but I'm also, let's watch the circus. We've got a one man circus over here. Yeah, Mick, I'm talking to you. Wow. Jesus.

Yeah, I named him. Here at the same time talking about. So, ha ha ha ha ha. So, she's just mean sales. The sales teams has to be has to be moved and they move them like the next day. They get moved the next day.

One night James and Rhonda were yelling in her office and he picked up a chair and threw it against the shelves in the office. OK, somebody needs to somebody needs to be like, ah, listen, hey, stop, this is fucking nuts, stop it. This is like working with Vince McMahon. It really is. Crazy. And people, no, I'm not gonna do Vince McMahon one.

People keep asking. Too much sexual assault stuff. Listen to Behind the Bastards, he did it. He did it, he stuff. I'm just listen to behind the bastards. He did it. He did it. He did it all. Let go listen to his. So they're yelling and screaming.

He throws a chair against the shells. Everything clatters and falls down. Then he storms out of his office and he's walking to his office and he's cursing and yelling at the top of his lungs. While Ron Ron,ny just follows him. It's just totally like, this is how they do it. A guy stands up at his desk. He's like, he said he did it accidentally.

So he just must have just been not been thinking like you didn't want to draw attention to yourself at that point apparently. Yeah. And he stands up at his desk and James stops and points at him and yells, quote, You didn't hear a damn thing. Do you hear me? That's the hardest question to answer.

You know what I mean? You'd just be like, your mouth would be open. You'd be like about to speak. And then you'd be like, I didn't hear him though. I didn't know. You didn't hear a damn thing, do you hear me? You're like, I think this is some sort of Tibetan Buddhist ritual.

I didn't hear a damn thing, do you hear me? Now, remember, James is the head of the company. So I haven't forgotten that. That means he's dealing with other companies. He's the LFI representative guy. So their relationship with Target becomes more and more strained because James keeps arguing with Target because Target's like, listen, we're normal.

So what's going on? He did this with a bunch of different buyers. Target ends up just ending the contract. Buyers start asking to not have any contact with James Oronda. One had a meeting about afterwards, afterwards said, quote, he wanted to punch James in the mouth. Yes, that's I mean, that feels like everyone would want to be like that. I think so.

OK, so it's there. Is there a big product coming our way? A big product like in this story? Yes, yeah. No. Okay, you have first for a minute, for a minute I really thought my little pony was coming my way, like in the first quarter of this.

But it's the same aesthetic, like you get the feel. Yeah, right, right, right, right, right, right, right. Yeah. Yeah, it's at its peak right now. This is when it's making all its money. Yeah. This is like this is really this is pretty much the peak of the American economy. Yeah, I would say so.

Yeah. Yeah, you kind of could do no wrong at this point in the late 90s. Unless you're in wrong. So I guess that was two thousand. Well, I can wrong. So I guess that was two thousand more like N wrong. The dollop will be right back. Um, so, so yeah, it's, it's, it's a huge thing. Now, now I, I bring up all these, these things you're hearing about. Right. There's anger, there's rage.

There's wildly unprofessional behavior. Are you going to cite any examples? I could go back to some. I'll put them in later. Yeah. I don't know if this sounds familiar to anybody listening, but this isn't going to surprise you because at this point, it didn't surprise me.

An employee quote, James and Rhonda were pretty big into coke. Ah, all right. Yeah, it's a coke party. Now I like it. were pretty big into Coke. Ah. All right. Yeah, it's a Coke party. Now I like it. Now imagine this. This is like the Arizona version of Miami in the 80s. This is the 90s. It's all pink and yellow and blue and green.

Yeah. The Coke. I mean, you're talking about the cocaine. The cocaine was blues and pinks. And it was like pixie coke. No, no, the atmosphere. Oh, oh, sorry. Yeah. The Coke. I mean, you're talking about the cocaine. The cocaine was blues and pinks and it was like the atmosphere. Oh, oh, sorry. Oh, you don't know what cocaine is. How excuse me, sir, you said a lot of rude stuff to me on this show. I'm not going to sit here and let you say that to me. I guess. I'm sorry. I apologize.

Jesus. So the workers at James would come into the art department very sweaty and acting paranoid and then he would walk back and forth. Did he have any, were there any signs he was on Coke? No. No. No, we gotta just kind of take his word for it.

Quote, and there was nothing to be stressed about. It was just a regular day. So they'd just be like a normal day and he would roll in sweaty and paranoid and pace back and forth in the art department. It's so funny that it's over like little kid toys. Yes. That you're fucking screaming and throwing chairs and banging lines. Just railing bombs.

It's bananas. It's bananas. While you're just like trying to pick out a pattern for a teddy bears chest. So the Coke situation has been going on for years at this point. Rhonda would sometimes come to work completely shitfaced and one morning she couldn't even stand up straight. So now they say that I imagine you know you see someone who's trying to stand up they're on their feet but they're just like hanging over to one side or. It really is a testament again to how great the economy was.

It was just, it was really good. Yes. So one employee said a coworker told her, James regularly sent her, quote, with an unmarked box or paper bag to meet someone at a gas station or parking lot. And then the employee would hand over the box and get one back, but she was forbidden to look inside. Just bring it back to James. The employee who was a woman also had to buy James's Viagra and his porn. Jesus Christ.

What? This guy, there's a lot of... Okay, and what sort of porn do you like? I'm looking for some really aggressive stuff. Sort of like leather bound ladies and men with huge hammer cocks. Okay. So go in there and really look around. I'm looking for videos, I'm looking for DVDs.

I'm trying to think of what, oh God, there's one, I can't remember this guy's name, Jack Hammer. Jack Hammer has a huge head on his dong, and then I really like to see the women in a position of full control, like they're being controlled. So look around for that sort of stuff, and then big loads, big loads.

So make sure you watch whatever you're buying to the end and make sure that the load is like a porridge, bowl of porridge. Okay, okay, here's your box of cocaine. Yeah, whoa. Sorry. Can I get a hello? Box. Okay. Hammercocks. Yeah, thank you. Bye, Spice. Thank you. Can I get a hello? Boxed. OK.

Hammercocks. Yeah. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. So the company, if you can believe this, oh wait, did I mention that Rhonda and James are screwing and everybody?

I knew it. I knew they were fucking. I knew it. Of course they are. They're two drug addicts. They're totally banging. It's a party. So everybody now in Tucson knows that Lisa Frank,

Inc., is the worst employer in Tucson. Everybody moves. It's kind of good in a way. A woman moves to town and she's about to go apply for a job because there's all these job openings and all the locals talk her out of it. They're like, do not go there. You do not want to work there.

It's not worth any money. Quote, every single person I talked to advised me to avoid Lisa Frank at all costs. I didn't know a single person who had not heard horror stories about the work environment there. Every person who ever worked there seems to have a case of PTSD from it.

I told you at one point, I forget, it was like I was working for Viacom and something and someone was like, I could have tried to go right for WWE and everyone was like, do not go take that job. You're like in New Hampshire, Connecticut and apparently it's like this. It's just crazy. Yeah, right. That's what I've heard.

So yeah, so that's good. That's great. And like I said, most of these quotes and stuff are from Jezebel inside the rainbow gulag, the technical arise and follow this frank by Tracy Egan-Morsey on article. In 2004, the Arizona Daily Star writes an article about LFI's 25th year in business.

Now, it's mostly a puff piece, but it does notice they are down to just about 100 workers and they have a hard time keeping staff. Sure. I just noticed they are down to just about a hundred workers, and they have a hard time keeping staff. Sure. At their peak, they had 500. Okay, they're downsized. Quote, advertisements for jobs of the company appear frequently in newspaper classified ads,

but Frank said turnover is on par with other businesses of similar size. Oh, the average work span of an employee is eight hours at any company. Ah! But I would not, there's no way that that's unique to us. That's how. If that, if that.

Most companies do it. Most companies are hiring people for positions in the morning and then hiring a new person for the afternoon. I mean, that's just pretty standard stuff. Yeah, if you look at AT&T, I think they're turned over at six hours per evening. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. No, most big companies are like that. Yeah. And they bleed a lot. They'll leave bleeding. That happens. That's pretty common. A lot of them die. I mean, by the way, a lot of these aren't firings. A lot of these are deaths.

Yeah. You know, James put a sword through a man on Tuesday and we had to get someone new right away. Right, that's why, like most big companies, we have a whole PTSD department. Absolutely. To deal with that. Yeah, it's fantastic. And we've got it all. Things are fine here.

Yeah, it's good. We're killing it. So there's a famous letter in the building. This one, this one I'm not sure of, but ever. Okay, so it's been Xeroxed and everybody, your employee, everyone has a copy of it. It's just been going around for years. Sure.

It's from the archive room where all the original art is. And it was on the back of a piece of art. Like, so someone wrote this on the back of a painting. It's very national treasure. Quote, it's from Lisa's friend to Lisa about how much fun she had free basing with Lisa and whoring around New York. OK. So this is what I think. I think Lisa enjoyed her party days because we

are talking about the 80s, or 80s. So it's cocaine time. Everyone's doing cocaine. Yes. So she's probably, you know, doing that and their business took off and then she had kids and she was older and she's like, okay, like normal people. I had my party days. Yeah, I free-based, now I have a daughter. Now I have kids and I'm going to take care of my kids. That's what it seems like, right? Yes. But she married a guy who didn't stop the party. Yes.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. To James, he's still in 1985. Yes. But after so much time, however, Lisa is now done with James, which is what happens. This is common.

This guy is very common. Yeah. Why? He's fun. Well, she doesn't like fun anymore, Gareth. Yeah, that's what it is. She's she's to be fair, she's the one who's changed. It is true. So she's looking for a way out of the marriage.

She tells a friend that he's verbally abusive and she's looking for a way out of the marriage. She tells a friend that he's verbally abusive and she's scared of him and she wants a way out. OK, when Lisa would stop by the warehouse, she would ask workers. Because she would go around and kind of visit and she'd ask him if her and James got divorced, would they stay on as workers? Can you imagine your boss coming like?

No. You're like, I'm not your teenage daughter. What are you, what? What? Do you, would you want his co-parenting or would you live with me full time? Huh? I put tape on the boxes.

So finally James moves out of the house in June 2005. Now he's still his CEO and president. So I think it's and he's 49 percent. Yeah. Show this. So it's hard to get rid of him. Like, I don't think she can just jettison. I don't know the legal implications, but I would imagine. So he's still working there. And Lisa starts spending much more time in the warehouse.

And James is like, oh, she's coming back and she's going to boot me. So he and Rhonda now start trying to sabotage the business. As if good husband, as if they'd have to do anything different. Yeah, I bet that is so fucking true. We need to start fucking this place up. All right, why don't you keep running it? Just do everything you've been doing. Keep doing that.

To all the same stuff. James, follow your instincts to try to make this a fortune 500 company. So he and Ronda now start going to employees and telling them to pick a side. This would be so like it would be stressful, but you'd also be like this is awesome. Because Lisa was just there like would you stay if James if I got rid of James and James like look, I'm a little frazzled. I'm a little coked up. You got to pick a team Shit's about to get weird and go down. I need to know you with me or you against me Are you part of team James? You're like

What are you on the axis of awesome? Or the axis of evil look, I'll be honest or the axis of evil. Look, I'll be honest. Ryan and I have been banging and doing a lot of lines, but Lisa fucking sucks. So if she fucking fucks me, whose team are you gonna be on? Dude, do you wanna do a bump? Do you like egg salad?

Do you wanna come to my car? What kind of porn you like? I wanna be the dad you never had. Here's the deal, I get you work in sales, but the way this is going, there's gonna be blood! There's gonna be blood! Look, a lot of people, I think I speak for everyone, we know about 150 people are gonna die over the next week and a half. How do you want history to remember you?

What? I'm putting little stuffed animals in boxes. Look, I got a robot that could shoot bullets from his ass. And we're going to use it. OK. Nobody's getting my cocaine. All right. OK, so it's so he tells people he would start his own company. Quote, he was trying to recruit people to go with him. Imagine so that way, if Lisa did get the company

She wouldn't have anybody to help her This is trying to recruit after this Hey, hey Tom if I started my own thing, would you would you come or would you come would you join me? If I if I you do you want to see me unfettered? unfettered. Hey, come to my new business. They're taking they're taking the chains off James. That's what's gonna be called. James off James. Yeah. James is giving James is giving is Jerry Maguire speech, but it's like, dude, we saw you do coke and walk like whack off like in the lunchroom. So they told employees they wanted to know who they could and who they couldn't trust.

Rhonda then forgot to pay the company's health insurance premium, causing everyone to lose their health insurance. It's so funny that that used to happen accidentally. All right. As Lisa got more involved, this just upsets James Moore. Quote, I would get art direction from her, and then James would come down and be like, that's bullshit. I run this company and you've got to do it my way. Over like what pattern to put on a T set for a little?

100%. I mean, you're talking about the main on the unicorn is green. Like that's what we're talking about. Like, so Lisa hires an IT consultant and gets control of the program that James had used to monitor emails and communication. Uh-oh, uh-oh.

Now, she was doing what he had been doing, deleting emails, forwarding, et cetera, because he can't run the business. So now she's going in... Is she... Is she doing that to get his shit? Yeah, she's trying. I think, I can't say for sure,

but it sounds like in the story I read, because a lot of this is from depositions. Yeah, it sounds like in the deposition that I read about this that she was trying to get the business moving and functioning because it's right. It's really it's grinded to a halt like it's a disaster. Yeah. James said this created a quote siege like atmosphere. Then Wells Fargo calls. Oh, God. Hey, what hurt you looking for assholes in the story? Hey, there's no black guy banks here.

What do you guys want to do? Is there a zone? Okay, let's talk. What do we after? What do you guys try to do here? What are we talking? Crime, racial crime? What are you after?

Wells Fargo had been their bank for 25 years, to do here. What are we talking crime, racial crime? What are you after? Wells Fargo had been their bank for 25 years and now they call up and say they're calling in the line of credit. OK, I'm back, right, which is a big fucking deal for a business. Lisa then looks into it and finds out the credit line has already been extended four times of the last 10 months. Shit. So Wells Fargo has been trying to have been saying we're calling it in and he keeps getting an extension.

But she had no idea about it. And now Wells Fargo is coming in and saying it's over. We're calling it in become because James had stopped returning Wells Fargo's phone calls. And I'm sure like a lot of that money is just going right up his nose. 100%. Her, Rhonda's writing checks to herself, like it's exactly what you think.

He was supposed to be sending in monthly required financial reports to Wells Fargo. He is not, because sales are down 50% over five years. God damn. So this would be like when Bar Rescue would come in, basically. Like they are, this is, they're tanking. Well, I mean, the one thing is, it is a fad and it's on the tail end of its fad. So it does have a natural cycle, but because this guy's in charge,

they're not able to weather it at all and maybe seek new avenues and all that shit. Right. It's a guy who's like, yeah, he's trying to ruin it. You know, Dave, I've often been accused of calling things Brewster's Millions too much. So I'm like. So Lisa tells Wells Fargo she is now in charge and gets the credit extended. OK.

So it sounds like once Lisa realized that James and Rhonda were screwing, she decided to use that to file for divorce. So she was the whole time she's looking for grounds for divorce. I got to get grounds for the worst. This is the idea that she doesn't think she has it. I know. So I mean, I guess it's I guess it hasn't trampled the relationship just yet. But yeah, OK, so yes.

But the bangs are good. Yeah, I mean, you know, there's there's always delusion that comes with marriage or not wanting to see, you know, put the blinders on. So so whatever, she realizes it. She she files for divorce in September of 2005. In the divorce court papers, Lisa says, quote, James and Rhonda formed a close personal bond and a secret partnership.

After she filed, James steals six computers from the office because they contain, quote, personal correspondence. And then he and Rhonda load up five trucks of company property and take them. Wow. That's the six computers or whatever seemed weird until you mentioned the five trucks. But also, I would imagine they've left some kind of digital footprint. So yanking the computers out of there is probably, I guess it's just hard drive shit.

I don't know. Yeah, I don't know if that's true. I think it might be. It could be just inside their own network kind of stuff. He remember he is a paranoid and weirdo. So he might have a cocaine closed off. Yeah, it might be in, you know, inner business communication. Either way, whatever was on those because they're having a pretty bad

to be shit with Rhonda. Like, you know, I, you know, I fucked you on a unicorn last night or whatever. Yeah. No, yeah. A judge orders him to turn the computers back over to the company. You know, I, you know, I fucked you on a unicorn last night or whatever. Yeah. No, yeah. A judge orders him to turn the computers back over to the company. So Lisa files a civil lawsuit that forces James to go to a yearly shareholders meeting. OK. Now, who are the shareholders?

I don't know. It's just her and James. Oh, Jesus Christ. This is not true. So she for... Tristan. So she does that so that she can then elect a new board of directors and she gets a temporary restraining order to keep him away from the warehouse and stop him from quote, harassing employees and blocking purchase orders and removing assets from the warehouse and stop him from quote harassing employees and blocking purchase orders and removing assets from the company.

And then she has James and Ronda escorted out of the building by cops. It's pretty cool. So she's CEO once again. She's taken back her company. At this point, Lisa Frank has grossed one billion since 1979. But it's a fucking shell. Yeah, there's nothing left. It's essentially the business is destroyed. Right. James James was Jewish. Okay. But months after leaving LFI, he became a born again Christian. Nice. And he started selling Christian T-shirt designs and stationery.

Oh, Jesus Christ. This guy. The Viagra Coke guy? Of course he did. Yeah, he's Stephen Baldwin. He made a website. Coke guy? Of course he did. Yeah, he's Stephen Baldwin. He made a website. You can see it today, Jameschristianman.com.

Wow, that's awesome. Christian man. Christian man. That is awesome. I'm a man. But hey, you know what we don't have is like real man being Christian. On the site, he also had poetry photography and sculptures The business name was salvation

LLC Wow, this is hilarious and Gareth. You're not gonna believe who the VP is Rhonda Rhonda, there we go. I think I see him right now That's not in the picture. That's his name. Oh, it isn't yeah, okay Gareth Rhonda is married. Oh gosh. That's not in the picture. That's his new it isn't. Yeah. Okay. Gareth Rhonda is married. Oh gosh. That's not very Christian. Are you laughing at it? Now before Lisa and James married or right after they signed an agreement that if they divorced, Lisa could buy out all of James shares. OK, that's good.

So he now tries to block that with a lawsuit and he claims he created all of Lisa Frank's designs, quote, the 400 original characters and themes with the exception of a handful. Yeah, but you didn't even know her before a lot of these, James. Yeah, there's that. But also he didn't know he was her employee. Right. It doesn't matter if he he worked for her and under the. Yes, you're working for the business. So you're creating. Yeah, you're giving ideas. That's what she's

buying. I mean, to be like me. A lot of the products she's using, I came up with. Yeah, you're a good worker. That's awesome. I mean, imagine if you work on a TV show and you leave and you're like, well, Maron, those are my jokes. What? So he tries to get the court because he's saying I came up with stuff. He's trying to get he tries to get the court to dissolve LFI by saying Lisa's trying to take control and it's illegal.

And the court's like, yeah, what? And so he eventually. Sir, are you on cocaine? No, I'm on Christ now. Yeah. Rhonda now sues Lisa for $2 million in damages. Just cause damages. What she says it was supposed to be her severance.

OK. After three years, they settle. No one knows what it was, but they settled. Right. Lisa, Suze, Rhonda and James for stealing the five truckloads of property and using corporate funds for personal use. So this is what we find out. Ron had been running tons of checks to just use for herself. I'll think the kids are having a good time. Oh yeah.

Fuck yeah. Kids are probably really like this is good. We'll get to the kids. Uh oh. James then sues Lisa to repay a loan that he used to buy a jet. Sixteen point seven million dollars. Holy shit. He's she's Lisa.

Yeah, he might I had to look at this for a while. He sued Lisa to repay a loan on a jet. He bought. I don't. He must have taken. Is that possible? He must have taken a loan out in his name. Was his lawyer like James? I I'm shady, but.

She owes me jet money I got from her. You understand. She sold the jet and then he sued her for two million, saying that was his share of the sale. OK, that makes a of the sale. Okay. That makes a little more sense. Okay. In 2008, he sues again, this time to take control of the company. So here's what happened.

When they built the warehouse, they created a company to own the land and then they would lease it from that company. Right? Uh-huh. Right? lease it from that company, right? Uh huh, right. So, so he says Lisa failed to pay rent to the property owner company. Okay. And he was 40.

So he's 47% owner of that company. When she's 53. No, she has 47%. Okay. The other 3% are in her kids names. They're 6%. Okay. Right. So that suit is tossed. Okay. The other three percent are in her kids' names. They're six percent. Okay. Right. So that suit is tossed. Okay. Judgingly, I don't know. This is what I imagine the judge doing. I don't know what's happening.

Your Honor, we split that business and she was renting it from us who are co-partners and then she lapsed on the rent. So the business is mine. I don't know what's happening. So, okay. so we have a we rented the property to LFI, our company, she's in charge, we're co in charge of the land. So she's screwing me and her. So because she screwed us, I get the company that last part, even when I say it, I'm having trouble with, but I would love it if you could just give it to me. Okay, so I'm gonna rule no just no because I that's my ruling just no also go away those are my two rulings I guess go no I'm gonna bang my gavel I brought my own gavel I'm gonna bang it too so if you think you're the only one who can

bang a gavel. This is one gavel courtroom. I can bang my two and I'm a bang I'm I'm actually yeah it's been a long time this is a no court court back no I find for me what you can't okay I sort by Agra I am is it legal that's the bailiff to shoot someone I brought my own bailiff. It's a dog There's no dog here. I've I need money

Really bad I Know okay. I'll know that cuz this is all right Thank you. Thank you. Bye. Thank you be UI Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Be you. Why? Gareth, three years after she filed for divorce. Rhonda's husband sues Lisa. This guy's awesome.

Look who came to the party. I think I'm going to sue Lisa. What? Right? Or who could I sue? Remember Lisa sued him saying he was part of the taking the five trucks of stuff. So now he's saying that's whatever defamation of character or he sues her. Okay.

They judge those. Okay. Right. or he sues her. Okay. The judge throws it. Okay, right. In October 2009, James tries to have LFI evicted from the building. Because he has 47% of the leasing company. Correct. Right. And his kids have 6% each.

Right. So, his two sons, who are now 13 and 19. Jesus, the 13 year olds like I got a Vic mom in order for daddy to have his comeback. Well Jane sends them letters demanding they give their consent for him to file against his mom. It's a birthday card. Wait what? So it'll be it'll be like happy birthday. Oh this happy birthday hunter. Let's say your mother has lapsed on payments So I need you to help me evict her

You're just the greatest Hey, love you son sons. I don't know which birthday it was so I sent two cards Where's little buckshot? Daddy's not doing coke anymore you guys Daddy's dead. He's no more daddy's doing cross cane daddy's in the catamene So they don't do it the kids don't do it cuz they're sure to deny right so the divorce in a nine or nineteen 13 and nine. They're 13 shit. I thought you said nineteen. No, he tried to give a legal document to a 9 year old. 9. How are you, Forrest?

You been good? Look at all these trains. Yeah, I like my trains. Yeah. Hey, can you come with me real quick to get a contract notarized that you'll sign? What? You're gonna need to get an attorney. So...

Yeah, you're gonna need to... Did you testify against mom? What? Can I have a bike? Yeah, of course you can have a bike, yeah. Your mother's stealing money out of daddy's ass. What? So we gotta go to a notary. Your mother's stealing money out of daddy's ass. So we got to go to a notary. Can't lose an ass.

OK, we got to go to a notary. I know. Do they have ice cream? Shit, shut up. Just come with me to the notary. Jesus, dad, you're such a fuck. Well, it's just so the divorce is obviously bitter and ugly as of 2013. So we're talking we're talking eight years. They're still fighting over anything.

They fought over dividing up furniture. They fought over family pictures. They fought over the kids vacations and schedule. They fought over the kids so much that they have to go through their lawyers to make up plans for the kids. So cool for those kids. Yeah, it's good for them. Over in 2009, someone made a nostalgic blog post about LFI on, you know, some random blog and ex workers found it and they all start commenting and it becomes sort of a

support group type situation for people who've been through the trauma of working at Lisa Frank. type situation for people who've been through the trauma of working at Lisa Frank. In 2012, LFI only made $2.3 million. Wow. By 2015, all the retail stores are closed. Lisa Frank's products are very hard to find. It's just any store. They once had 500 employees, they now have six. They put up the building for sale in 2016 for $13 million. And that might have been 2015. So the Arizona Daily Star

reports, goes and sees the warehouse is vacant, the parking lot is covered in weeds and the unicorn statue, the horn is falling off. Oh, man, that's so. That's sad. Pates, now it's just a pony. But Lisa makes a deal with Urban Outfitters on Lisa Frank vintage t-shirts. Now it's just one run, but it's a little hopes, but now she's light, she always made products.

Now she's licensing, you're essentially, it's a different animal, right? Then she licensed her brand to a Delaware company, but they didn't live up to her demands or their promises, so she kills the deal. She starts collaborating with different companies, like Reebok and Target, she's doing, you know, Target pajamas, she's doing you know target pajamas

She's target was probably like is James is it there is he? scared of James Reebok of course, you know shoe collaborations. Those are a big thing in in 2017 a cruelty free makeup company called glamour dolls Makes a deal with Lisa Frank So glamour dolls, it's gonna be like Lisa Frank makeup. I don't know what the fuck that means. It must be the colors. But Glamour Dolls goes into a deal with them and then they're gonna do a Kickstarter to see how many people do it and they make

$370,000, so 6,000 backers. It's one of the quickest kick starters in history. It's just like huge. So Lisa's reaching out to to design more products with the makeup company like they're going into business together. But then the items never come to the kickstart donators. And Glamour dolls said Lisa Frank was purposefully slowing things down. slowing things down. And then Lisa Frank releases a makeup line with a larger company, Morph, M-O-R-F-E or Morph-E, it's probably Morph, but you know.

Sure, who cares? In 2020, Glamour Dolls at this point has paid $770,000 to LFRI for licensing and now they're being fucked. So they filed a lawsuit for fraud and defamation because after doing this and they called out Lisa Frank, Lisa Frank then talked shit about the business or LFI did not Lisa. Right. So they publicly blame glamour dolls.

So most people... It's like, it's all well and good until you're like, well, it's just an argument with glamour dolls. Sounds a bit funny. I mean, Glamour Dolls is a good company. They do like ethical, non-hurt the animals makeup. Like that's a little point of the company. So it looks like they're one of these don't hurt the animals makeup guys.

I always feel like I want to know how the bunnies look in that sort of stuff. I never know what what they're doing to animals. I always thought I was just talking to some about that. Makeup. I think it's there. What they're doing is like in our comedic heads we're picturing putting eyeliner on ferrets but what's really happening is like taking the chemicals and seeing if it burns them. Shaving the animal and putting it on their skin, I would imagine, right?

Something like that, problem. Closer to, I'm picturing like Bugs Bunny is a woman. And it's not that. And honestly, whoever knows, you do not have to tell us because I do not have to know how the animals are being hurt. I am already against it. Thank you. Oh yes.

I don't need to see pictures of where we're gonna send me on Twitter. Yeah, Dave and I believe it should be done on people who have been put in jail for shoplifting from CVS. Thank you. Thank you. Now, based on everything and the way things shook out,

it looks like Hunter took the side of his dad because he is now featured on Christian man dot com or James Christian man dot com one or the other and has his own startup designs shirt design sorry with James James is not going by Jamie going by what Jamie okay Hunter goes by stop. Hunter goes by Hanna G. So we lost him. That's what you know. You lost your kid. A balloon just opened up on me and started bleeding when you said that. What? Hanna G. Their designs are very, very, very bad versions of Lisa Frank. OK. That's the only way I can describe them.

Very bad version of. Oh, I see him. Oh, boy. Wouldn't you say that like it's like a dog's face, the color around it kind of? And yeah, it's all it's I would say it looks like a dog's shit. Their other son, Forest, takes another path. He sticks with mom. He had been sitting in on LFI meetings since he was six. He goes on to UCLA. And at the beginning of the pandemic,

he takes over the LFI Instagram account. He's just like, can I run this? No one's doing anything with it. Within two weeks, he had 30,000 new followers. Wow. It now has 837. Wow. And because of the new popular Instagram account, more people want to jump in and collaborate. At 24, Forrest takes over as director of business development at the company.

He is exactly... There's a shirt that costs $155 on here. Go ahead. He is just as private as Lisa is. There's not many photos of him. Now, designer artist Amina Muccelli, Muccillio, started taking off online for her quote, bubblegum aesthetic. She designed a really colorful apartment and put up pictures of it, and people love it. It's featured on TV shows and magazines. It's very colorful, just like Lisa would have done.

And LFI starts commenting on the posts and sharing them and even reaching out to her in DMs. And then in 2019, Amina is invited to see the brand new Lisa Frank pop up flat, which is going up on Hotels.com and you can rent it. And it sells out as a little like a hotel room in under an hour for like the year or whatever. Okay.

And it looks. I was going to say. Exactly like Amina's apartment. It's called being inspired by. A few months later, I mean, it turns in her rent a little bit late, which she had done before. And the property manager had just been like, it's fine. Like just no, no big deal.

This time, the property manager evicts them, her and her husband. Or spouse, whatever. Right. It turns out the property manager also owns the building, leases, hotels, pop up apartment is in. Oh, and it's across the street from a Mina's apartment. Oh, and it's across the street from Amina's apartment. So Lisa Frank, when the whole, remember the whole BLM Instagram blackout thing. Yeah. Yeah. So Lisa Lisa Frank does a blackout on

support BLM and Amina comments and rips her from stealing from black artists. Hmm. Lisa deletes the post. Jesus Christ. In 2022, it's revealed Lisa Frank is having artists art posts taken down around the internet for copyright infringement. Basically, it's just art that has rainbow colors. Well, but she you're allowed to own the rainbow. We all remember how litigious Skittles was.

Years after being fired, an ex-employee ran into Lisa in a hair salon in Tucson. And she asked Lisa if she remembered her. And Lisa said, quote, oh, did we fire you? And I was like, yeah. And she was like, oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't really a great employer. She probably, but it's like such a safe guess for her to be like, did we fire you?

And to be like, well, yeah. Yeah. We fired so many people. It's like you just go with that. You fired the whole town. Yeah. Now, I regret to inform you that James Twitter account at Jay Christian Man has been suspended. For what?

I can't imagine. He seems like such a good guy. And I have to inform you that last week, on January 17th, Lisa Frank made a TikTok post. So there are two of our iconic characters standing there. One is like a multicolored tiger. And it's people in costumes.

Sure. The other is some yellow thing. And they're looking, they're in the desert and they're looking, and the camera swings around to show they are looking at a freshly painted Lisa Frank warehouse. Oh, God. And the post just says, we're back. Oh, Jesus Christ.

What kind of an ending is this? There's also supposed to be a documentary coming out about the horrors of working at the Lisa Frank Company very soon. Wow. But whatever is going on, Lisa Frank is apparently back. You know, it's like,

like how they're doing another fire fest. You're just like, how do we, how? Nobody cares. You know, people will buy tickets just because the first one was so bad. They'll be like, I wanna explain. Yeah, but it's like you deserve, I would, it would be, I mean, I would go.

I would go just to like document. But the idea of like, it's like the idea of like, well, yeah, but it's brand recognition. It's like in the worst way possible. But that's sort of like. The thing about Lisa Frank though is it is one of the biggest fads of the 80s and early 90s. Yeah. So all these kids then are adults now and they wanna get their daughters into it

and like this is what I liked and that kind of stuff. They don't know about the warehouse. They don't know the horrors. Yeah, that's the difference. Right, but maybe they will, but it's just there's no accountability ever for anything. Anything. So it doesn't matter.

It's not. You know what I mean? It's absolutely. Yeah, it's just like the most it never matters. It's it doesn't matter. No, nothing. No, no one ever gets. No one ever pays the price. Yes, ever.

Like one in a million. And I look, I don't know what the solution is to bad bosses. Like, I feel like as a, as a person, if you're going to jail people, like we're going to be a jailing society and jail a worker for stealing a couple of things from a place, their job, then you should be able to jail guys like this. Yes, way ahead of that. But I mean, if you're talking about cumulative damage or like, you know Who's worse?

The more like we just we just found out Dollar general has been just stealing gobs of money from from people From customers from employees wage theft nothing's gonna happen No, and as well as is 10 bucks from Dollar General, they would get charged and whatever else, but they get away with it. Everyone's just like, ah. And Dollar General is kind of a rarefied space

because it really is supposed to be one of the most stressful worst places to work because most times it's like one or two employees are working there and customers are out. It's like, there is that where it's just like, I mean, it's just like any other industry. I mean, we bitch about all of them, but it's like, you know, like the travel industry, the CEOs are never gonna get cussed out by the passengers.

The people who work there are gonna get the brunt of that because they're the ones who gotta tell you, hey, this sucks. Here's how this company's screwing you for whatever reason. You go into Rite Aid, Rite Aid is now cheap to hire two workers. They have everything locked up and there's one person at the front who's supposed to be ringing people up and getting stuff out of the back. Yes. You know, on aisle 17, get a brush or whatever.

And you're irritated by that and the employee has nothing to do. The employee just wants a fucking job and to be treated well. No, and it's just like it's like the employees are a problem. Stealing is a problem. The downside of the whole system is that it's now lines and holds. You're going to wait in line a lot longer and you're going to be on hold a lot longer. And you know, that just is like, they're basically now like we are,

your time is now going to be what we exchange for our money. And that's really how it works. And we don't care. But can we say this? People stealing from the electronic checkouts is working because a lot of places now are gonna have to bring back employees. Yeah.

So listen, it's the little thing. It keeps stealing. Keeps me going. When you steal, you're creating jobs. Yes, that's our economy. That's our theft based economy. OK, sources. Jezebel inside the rainbow.

Good luck. The technical horizon fall. Alisa Frank, Zipia.com. Lisa Frank, zippia.com, Lisa Frank, careers, YouTube, The Chubbling History by Lisa Frank, by Jennifer Landa, bustle.com, Lisa Frank, Greens, fiercely private celebrity-filled world, Crankbook Kitchen Sink, which is her high school's web page. Wow. Business Insider, Lisa Frank's abandoned factory. Business Insider, BeautyBrain, Glamour Dolls suing Lisa Frank, FastCompany.com,

the second company, Lisa Frank, TheMarysue.com. Lisa Frank goes after rainbow artists, jaymegreen.com, KTVQ, we are back, the nostalgic Lisa Frank making a return, and laist.com, Lisa Frank Flat Studio, Mochi Controversy, theft of addiction. It's quite a little tale there. At least James is doing well. If you want to go check out that website, I would highly recommend it. And not to continue to promote our Patreon, but we are going to be doing the SoulCycle

class at some point soon, and we're probably going to have Luke do it. And then one more thing I said I'd mention this. There's a buddy of ours and we're not gonna like this is a rare thing. We don't want to make this like a thing we do because a lot of people are hurting but his name is Dominic Petrulyo and he is a blind friend of ours who has been trying to get a kidney match for a long time. If you or anyone you know can help him, he's on Twitter at EnvisionFF. That's E-N-V-I-S-I-O-N-F-F. And, you know, if anyone has any interest in helping that guy out, Dave and him are dating. So it'd be great.

I need it. I need it to happen. Dave and him are dating, so it'd be great. Mm-hmm. I need it. I need it to happen. Yep. All right. Thanks, everybody. Gobble, gobble. Gobble, gobble.