0:01

Hey, be warned. The following

0:04

behind the scenes interview contains

0:06

major plot spoilers of

0:09

hooker Gate Season one.

0:17

Yo, what's cracking?

0:20

It's me your best friend in the world.

0:23

Lindsey Byron, the host

0:25

of hooker Gate, and

0:28

I am here today yet

0:30

again with the homie

0:33

Guy Kelly.

0:34

Hey, what's up?

0:36

The man behind the music the

0:38

sound of hooker Gate,

0:41

And today Guy

0:43

is gonna be interviewing me on

0:46

the process of creating

0:48

this podcast. You know,

0:50

by the way, the

0:53

process of creating

0:56

this podcast, to be honest,

0:58

could be the subject of a whole season

1:01

of this podcast for sure, you know, for

1:04

those of you guys who don't know, and why

1:07

would you know. I

1:10

got pregnant on the day

1:12

that I was alerted that Guy and

1:15

I had won the next Great podcast

1:17

competition, and so hooker

1:19

Gate all along has

1:22

been tied with

1:26

New Life literally and

1:28

metaphorically. I'll be

1:30

honest, I don't really believe in cosmic signs.

1:32

I mean, you know that. But

1:34

if I did believe in cosmic

1:37

signs, that pregnancy

1:39

on the same day is winning this podcast

1:42

competition certainly would

1:44

have been one.

1:45

Before we get started. Let me say I

1:47

had a very young child when

1:49

we started this whole process. I

1:52

think my son was about eight

1:54

months old when we first started

1:56

on the competition pilot,

1:59

and so I didn't personally know

2:01

what it was like to be pregnant, but I knew, you know, my

2:04

wife's experience being pregnant and knew

2:06

how difficult that was. And I definitely

2:08

knew how difficult it was caring

2:10

for an infant. But I

2:13

never had a moment where I was worried

2:15

that you wouldn't be able to do what you do.

2:18

I know how motivated

2:20

and hard working you are, and I know

2:22

what you accomplished when you had your first child,

2:25

so I knew it was going to be hard

2:27

for you. But there was never a

2:29

doubt in my mind that you're going to pull it off.

2:31

Man. Thank you. I really appreciate that vote of confidence.

2:34

I knew I would pull it off too.

2:36

And we have. We have, so

2:39

I say, we go ahead and get into it.

2:41

Let's get into it, all right.

2:42

So everyone has gotten to know Lindsay

2:45

as the narrator and the storyteller

2:47

and voice actor in this

2:50

podcast, but a lot of you may

2:52

not know much about Lindsay and

2:54

her history and career to this point.

2:57

So why don't you just give us a quick

2:59

rundown of who you are and

3:02

where you've been.

3:03

My name is Lindsay Byron, And

3:07

first of all, if you really want to get to

3:09

know me, and if you enjoy my writing, by

3:12

my masterpiece, the best writing

3:15

I've ever done. My life story

3:18

Too Pretty to Be Good by Lindsay

3:20

Byron, sold wherever books

3:22

are sold online that

3:25

I'll tell you everything, but let me give

3:27

it to duck Wick

3:29

version. I'm from Danville.

3:32

As I state in the podcast, I

3:35

had a difficult youth. My

3:38

dad died suddenly

3:40

when I was sixteen. It was absolutely

3:43

horrible and incredibly formative. My

3:46

mom pretty much

3:50

died too as

3:52

far as that went, so

3:55

it's fair to say I was fairly orphaned.

3:59

Like a lot of kids, you know, in a situation

4:01

like that, I got tangled up with all the wrong

4:04

things, bro you know,

4:06

predatory asque grown men who

4:09

would get me, you

4:12

know, hooked on terrible hardcore

4:14

drugs. Meanwhile, I was

4:16

always this, you know, great student.

4:19

I just loved school, the straight a's.

4:21

I made straight a's my whole life until I was a senior

4:23

in high school and was getting my ass beat by my boyfriend

4:27

and then, by the way, I was making straight

4:29

f's, and it bears noting that

4:32

no one noticed or cared. In

4:34

fact, I had a reputation in school

4:37

as the high school slut. My

4:40

teacher of the literary magazine that

4:43

I wrote for this

4:46

dude was married to

4:48

a former high school student, by the way, and

4:52

at Christmas that year, my teacher

4:55

gave me knee pads as a

4:58

Christmas gift. What actually

5:01

happened knee pads

5:03

and said, because he imagines I spend

5:05

a lot of time on my knees. My god, isn't

5:07

that something. Yeah,

5:11

So I had a chip on my shoulder,

5:14

and the moment I graduated

5:16

high school straight away, I

5:19

decided that I was gonna take this

5:22

bad reputation and weaponize

5:24

it and just lean into it. So

5:26

I promptly started stripping. I mean,

5:30

listen, I was in a strip club

5:33

so young that I

5:35

wasn't allowed to drink alcohol in that

5:38

bitch though

5:40

I was, of course, you know, drinking

5:43

white zinfandel, which is what a kid drinks.

5:46

And I stayed in that world

5:49

on and off for a whopping sixteen

5:52

years.

5:53

That's a really long time.

5:55

Oh my god, it's a

5:57

long time. In

6:01

the meantime, I got a PhD

6:04

in English, you know, which is the three

6:06

degrees had to get a bachelor's and master's in

6:08

a PhD. And

6:10

by the way, I only got all the

6:12

English degrees because all I ever wanted to

6:14

do was write.

6:16

And so let me actually underscore

6:19

that, because I tell my life

6:21

story and kind of like what I forefront over and

6:23

over is being a stripper, and what

6:26

I really was and what I've always

6:28

been is an artist. All

6:31

I ever wanted to be

6:34

was a writer. And

6:36

I thought, well,

6:39

you become an English professor and

6:42

then you can write your books.

6:44

This was not actually how things

6:47

panned out. I finished

6:49

my PhD and actually

6:52

rewind. I started my PhD, and

6:55

the first day of that program,

6:58

the head of the department, this

7:00

dude stands up in front of all of

7:02

these grid assistants and literally says,

7:05

there are no jobs for any of you. So

7:08

it became quickly, you know, obvious

7:11

to me that I

7:13

was not actually going to have a career in the academy.

7:17

And then I found this thing pole dancing,

7:20

that I was real good at,

7:25

and so I started posting videos

7:29

on Facebook. But

7:31

I made a fake account because

7:33

I didn't want people to find Lindsey Byron.

7:35

You know, I was working at Georgia Tech by the way at

7:37

this time, and

7:41

so I made this fake in

7:44

this fin stuff you know as

7:46

you would call it nowadays, on

7:49

Facebook, and I named

7:51

it lux Atl. People

7:54

ask me all the time, where did I

7:56

get the name lux To be honest, I

7:58

really just like the way it sounds. You know, it's

8:01

sharp, it's short, it's three letters,

8:05

but incidentally it means light and

8:10

lux Atl ended up being one

8:15

of the biggest lights of my

8:17

life. I started

8:19

posting these videos on Facebook

8:22

and them shit started going viral. This

8:25

was before the days of influencers.

8:29

This wasn't like a career or even a

8:31

word. I do not think the word existed.

8:34

Yeah, definitely not.

8:35

This was like twenty twelve. Around

8:39

that same time, I convinced

8:41

my poor husband to

8:44

give me the go ahead to start stripping again,

8:46

which he didn't want to do.

8:48

Mm hmm.

8:50

And guess what murdered

8:52

it. I was making money,

8:56

so I was, you know, posting this stripper life

8:58

on Facebook too, and

9:01

so then I started thinking, huh, wonder

9:04

if I can make money off this whole Facebook

9:06

bang. I invented a workshop

9:09

called strip Craft,

9:12

changed my life entirely. Toured

9:14

that workshop all over the world. All

9:16

over the world. I toured that workshop, created

9:19

a large fan base that way, and

9:21

from there, lux at Al became my career.

9:23

Now that was almost a decade ago. From

9:27

there, you know, I taught workshops,

9:29

and then the workshops turned into retreats,

9:33

Strip Cabin being the first of those

9:35

retreats, and then Strip Cabin

9:37

created Strip Cabana and Costa

9:39

Rica, and then the next thing you know, I'm you

9:42

know, renting a whole island in Belize.

9:46

So now my professional

9:48

life is one in which make

9:50

most of my money hosting

9:53

what I call strip trips,

9:56

getaways for grown women, for normal ass

9:58

women who want to go somewhere,

10:01

do something fun for themselves with a

10:03

gang of other goals, have some

10:06

sexy fun in a

10:08

safe and encouraging environment.

10:11

People often ask me, like, what is this shit?

10:13

Is this like lesbian orchies. No, it's

10:16

not, and like, by the way.

10:18

That's just what the husband's wish it was.

10:20

It is. I can't

10:22

tell you. I've had clients like show up at retreats

10:24

and be like my husband says that whatever happens

10:27

here is fine. I'm like, okay,

10:30

but like, this ain't the place, and I like really,

10:34

so that you know is sort of a

10:36

long winded way of telling

10:38

you who I am. Lux Atl

10:40

is the person that the world knows now Lindsey

10:43

Byron has seemed like practically

10:46

a secret. In

10:48

fact, I'm pretty protective over that name.

10:50

I don't really like to be called Lindsay,

10:52

though I'm kind of leaning into Lindsay now as

10:55

an artist. Mm hmm, So

10:58

who you're talking to is

11:01

Lindsey. But the person

11:03

that the world has kind of rewarded

11:07

is lux And

11:11

that trajectory is

11:14

really what drew

11:17

me to this story. My own, my

11:20

own personal trajectory.

11:22

So let's start talking about Hooker

11:25

Gates. Yeah, in the very first episode,

11:27

you tell us the story about your unnamed

11:29

friend ambushes you with

11:32

a binder full of old news clippings of this

11:34

salacious story that happened in your hometown.

11:38

When this happened, you were at a

11:41

you were home for your grandmother's funeral.

11:43

Yes, that's correct.

11:46

How soon did you realize this was

11:48

actually a real story?

11:50

Right then and there immediately?

11:54

So my unnamed friend,

11:56

which I realize is an awkward phrasing, who

12:00

I'm talking about was initially totally

12:02

down to be involved in this and then

12:05

pulled out, doesn't want to

12:08

be named or any of that, which,

12:11

by the way, has been a theme of this whole project.

12:14

So my friend, you know, she had been telling

12:17

me for years that

12:19

she had this story. And

12:22

at that time, I was writing my own memoir running

12:25

a business. You know, I

12:27

was smiling and nodding, yeah, okay, great,

12:29

sure you got a great story, but I got my own shit. Rather

12:33

dismissive. Well,

12:38

as you said, my

12:40

friend had found in

12:43

her mother's trunk, her dead

12:45

mother's trunk, a

12:50

massive collection of

12:53

fifty year old news

12:55

clippings, like just raw news

12:57

clippings that

13:00

she then took the time

13:03

and the money to

13:05

have scanned and

13:07

placed into a bound notebook.

13:13

Not a easy or

13:15

cheap endeavor, by the way.

13:18

And so she handed me this bound book

13:21

and said, this is what I've been telling you

13:23

about. I've been telling

13:25

you I got a story for

13:27

you. This is it. And

13:31

I start flipping through this and

13:34

bro, I mean straight away, I'm

13:36

like, hold on, truck

13:41

stop, brothels. Then

13:45

I flip a little bit more and I'm like the

13:47

commonwealth attorney, Yeah,

13:50

who is you know where the buck

13:53

stops? When it comes through the law in an area.

13:58

It took me all of five minutes to just

14:00

read the first little articles I came

14:03

across in that book to know immediately

14:07

this is gold.

14:10

But the moment that I got a

14:13

holt to these stories, I was at that

14:15

funeral, and then guess what. Leaving that funeral,

14:17

I was going straight to the beach. It

14:20

was my family, my nuclear family,

14:22

me and my husband. I would say kids,

14:24

but it was just a kid at that time. We

14:26

go to the beach every year, same beach in North Carolina

14:29

and the Outer Banks, and

14:31

like, the whole point of that beach trip is to sit on

14:33

the deck and read. I

14:35

took that note book, bro I set

14:37

on that deck for two straight weeks

14:40

at that beach, and I read

14:42

every line of

14:45

those news articles.

14:47

And by the end of

14:49

that vacation, I

14:53

truly thought this

14:57

is about to take up the next decade of my creative

14:59

life.

15:00

Wow.

15:00

Really, I don't know how, I

15:03

don't know in what form, but I

15:05

know this is the best, most

15:07

compelling raw

15:09

material that I have ever had my hands

15:12

on outside of my own life story.

15:15

What made you think a podcast

15:17

would work well for telling this story

15:19

versus writing a book? Which

15:22

you had already done, or

15:24

any other sort of medium.

15:27

The number one reason that I chose to

15:29

a podcast is because my favorite

15:31

creative medium is oral

15:34

storytelling. But

15:37

also I always had a long

15:39

game vision for this project, which by the

15:41

way, I still do, so hey,

15:44

powerful people who are listening right

15:46

now, pay attention.

15:50

My long game vision was, Okay,

15:54

we put out a podcast, and

15:58

I'd already had a fairly sixful podcast

16:00

that i did all on my own strip cast.

16:06

Get some interest in the story via the podcast,

16:10

and then turn that into

16:13

a book. And

16:16

my ultimate goal is

16:19

to turn this into a

16:21

series. To be honest,

16:24

I think it would make us sick. HBO

16:27

series. It is just begging

16:29

to be prestige television. Oh yeah,

16:31

it is begging to be prestige television.

16:36

So you clearly had a vision

16:39

for like wanted to do the podcast, And

16:41

I remember when you called

16:43

me the very first time, you had a

16:45

real vision for what you wanted the podcast

16:47

to sound.

16:48

Like.

16:48

I think when I tell people that I'm working on a

16:51

podcast, they usually think

16:54

Joe Rogan kind of thing, a couple of people shooting

16:56

the shit and like,

16:58

how hard is that? And I'm like, that's

17:01

not what this is at all. So

17:03

you mentioned soundscapes, original

17:06

music. Do you use the word cinematic

17:08

frequently as you're talking about it? And these

17:10

are all the things that got me excited about it. So

17:13

what was your inspiration for that

17:15

vision and how

17:17

did the finished product compare to what

17:19

you imagined?

17:20

I am proud to say that this finished product

17:23

is pretty damn close to the vision that we

17:25

started out with. Awesome, and

17:27

in fact, it may even be better.

17:29

It's better than what I imagined it was going

17:31

to be when you explained it to me.

17:33

I think that you and I have both grown

17:35

a ton as artists, absolutely,

17:38

and I think that with every

17:40

episode we just got better and better.

17:42

Definitely.

17:45

I may sound pretentious here, but

17:48

honestly, I wanted to create a work

17:50

of art. Back

17:54

in the olden days, there were radio shows

17:57

that were similar to what we're doing. By the way,

18:00

oh yeah, this is like before TV, right,

18:03

And when I was a young woman, somehow I

18:05

became privy to a number of cassette

18:08

tapes that had these old radio shows on them,

18:11

and it was like you'd listened to these

18:13

radio shows and that there were plot driven, they

18:17

had sound effects, they had

18:19

scores, and

18:21

I'm no expert on the history,

18:24

but it seems that they were the foundation

18:26

and inspiration for television m

18:29

H. I

18:31

wanted to create an immersive

18:34

world that would allow the

18:36

listener to feel like a fly on

18:38

the wall, and even

18:40

more importantly than that, I

18:43

wanted these listeners to be

18:45

able to have some emotional

18:49

investment and

18:51

connection to

18:54

these characters. I

18:57

also wanted to hear

19:00

human eyes and

19:02

portray as complexly

19:06

as possible the

19:09

individuals that appear in this story. Take

19:11

Joe Whitehead, for example. In the papers

19:14

in the court documents, it ain't favorable,

19:16

right, but even Whitehead,

19:20

I wanted to do the best I

19:22

could to understand. And

19:25

by the way, yo, I am sure I missed

19:27

some marks because I'm just using my

19:30

imagination mixed

19:32

with the facts available to me to try

19:34

to understand. But

19:37

for all of these people, I wanted

19:40

to make them complex

19:44

human beings in

19:48

a world that the listener

19:51

would press play on this podcast

19:53

and for about thirty to forty minutes,

19:56

they are just transported

20:00

to Danville, Virginia, a

20:03

gravel parking lot outside

20:05

of a truck stop.

20:07

You refer to this genre of

20:09

podcast as docu trauma. What

20:11

do you mean by that?

20:13

I use that term

20:16

deliberately to indicate

20:18

the fact that in

20:20

this podcast there are scenes where

20:24

people are having thoughts, feelings,

20:27

private conversations. You

20:30

know, I'm having to make that shit up, Okay,

20:33

I'm doing the best that I can

20:35

to understand

20:38

these people and what they might

20:40

be feeling. And I'm, by the way, dig

20:43

in deep dog to

20:47

try to read the facts

20:49

of the case and

20:52

then depict to

20:55

the best of my ability, what

20:58

a normal ass person like me,

21:01

like a complex human being, would

21:05

feel and think in these situations. Here's

21:08

how I have created this these scenes.

21:11

I did a ton of research, firstly

21:13

into these news articles, which numbered

21:15

in the hundreds. Secondly,

21:19

into the mother load the

21:23

official court transcripts

21:25

of the Rico trial, of the federal

21:28

trial of the quote unquote

21:30

Big six that's

21:32

Whitehead, Holly and the truck stop

21:34

operators. And

21:37

in those primary documents

21:40

a number of scenes are described. For

21:43

example, one of my favorites in

21:46

court and in the news, they

21:48

recounted a time in

21:51

which Janet was

21:53

having a

21:55

appointment with Joe Whitehead and

21:58

he told her that he

22:01

owned her, and

22:03

Janet quote unquote was not

22:06

happy with that, and

22:10

in turn, Joe stood

22:12

on top of the bed and

22:14

started jumping up and down until

22:17

the bed broke. Okay,

22:20

those are the facts of the mantain. That's

22:22

the raw material I was working with. Now

22:25

that is recounted in the news.

22:28

Okay, so I'm assuming

22:31

that's fact. I

22:35

take that fact and then I depict it,

22:38

and I want to put you as the

22:40

listener there, and

22:44

I want to try

22:47

to imagine, like what does that feel

22:49

like to be Janet?

22:51

Yeah?

22:52

And what does it feel like to be Joe?

22:53

Like?

22:54

Why the hell? Like, where where are you at

22:56

in life?

22:56

Dude?

22:57

If you are in this powerful

22:59

of a position politically, but

23:02

somehow you were so far gone that

23:05

you're jumping up and down on a bed,

23:07

screaming at a woman that you own her

23:10

until the point that the bed breaks.

23:14

Even just hearing those facts stated,

23:17

even if it's dry like a newscast,

23:19

it is salacious enough. But the

23:22

process of dramatizing

23:24

it as we did, to show

23:27

the chaos and the you know, the sounds

23:29

and just brings it alive

23:32

and just totally transforms it

23:35

into something so much more than a

23:38

straight podcast. If you were softly

23:40

talking like an NPR reporter talking about

23:42

how he owned her and dropped on the bed.

23:44

Dude exactly exactly,

23:48

And so that's why, you know, I want

23:50

to be up front and clear that

23:53

you know these conversations

23:55

that characters are having while in bed together,

23:58

I don't know. I mean, I

24:00

don't know what they actually said to

24:02

one another. Who can ever know? And

24:06

that's the drama part of

24:08

the docu drama. For

24:10

me, to make this story

24:13

something not only immersive,

24:16

but something that a listener would emotionally

24:19

invest in, it

24:21

required some imaginative

24:24

creative writing on my part,

24:27

definitely, hence the term docudrama.

24:31

I remember when you originally told me

24:34

about the project, you

24:36

were expecting interviews to be a pretty big part of

24:38

the process. You've hinted that a little bit.

24:40

But why don't you tell us about what the

24:42

process was like one finding

24:45

these people, asking them to do interviews,

24:48

what the reactions were, how

24:50

did that go?

24:52

You know what? We got to talk about Facebook

24:54

again because

24:57

one of them ways

24:59

that I found found Rodney,

25:02

the way I found Rodney, which,

25:04

by the way, Rodney, if you're listening, and I'm

25:06

sure you are, shout out

25:09

for just being an awesome human being,

25:11

Like I legit have so much respect

25:14

for you and

25:16

you were so nice

25:20

so I go on Facebook. I'm going I start

25:22

looking into groups like you know you're from Danville

25:25

when, and like Pittsylvania

25:27

County History all right. I start finding

25:29

those sorts of groups. I go

25:31

into the groups and I'm making posts

25:35

like, Hey, has anybody ever heard of this dude?

25:38

Rodney? He was a reporter

25:40

for Gretney Gazette, and in fact, he was the editor

25:42

for the Gretny Gazette. Has anybody heard of

25:44

this case? And I'm just dropping this information that

25:46

I have. A

25:49

Couple weeks later, I got an email, Dear

25:52

doctor Byron. I

25:55

am Rodney Smith, the reporter

25:58

that I think you're looking for, and

26:01

if you'd like to talk, here's my number. I look forward

26:03

to speaking with you. So

26:06

finding Rodney was easier

26:09

than I thought. Now there

26:11

were other people that I

26:13

talked to. Some

26:17

I would talk to for months, actually, people

26:22

who knew me as lux strangers

26:24

to me. I was starting

26:27

to get in boxes, being like, hey, dude,

26:29

y'aught to talk to my mom?

26:31

Wow.

26:32

Yeah.

26:35

There was one particular individual that I came

26:37

in contact with who

26:40

what she told me is that she

26:43

lived in the house with

26:46

one of the pimps okay, namely

26:48

Tommy but

26:51

that she had not, you

26:53

know, engaged in the sexual

26:55

labor. I

26:58

mean, ain't

27:00

gonna try to pull it out of you because

27:02

you know, I don't know. But her claim

27:04

was that she hadn't, but

27:07

that she had a lot of information. You know. What I

27:10

wanted from this particular individual was insight

27:12

into the women's lives, because that's

27:14

what you don't get. Yeah, I

27:17

mean, the people on trial

27:19

are all the men. Okay, you

27:23

get very little insight via

27:25

the news or the court transcripts,

27:30

like what these women were experiencing. Now

27:33

I take that back, the court transcripts give

27:35

you. The court transcripts finally

27:37

gave me insight. But the news

27:39

articles, which was all I was working with at that time,

27:42

it's just you know, unidentified women, the

27:45

prostitute, you know.

27:48

Yeah,

27:50

And I knew that I could not make

27:52

a podcast that is involving this

27:55

much sex work and

27:57

just treat these women like background characters. Yeah,

27:59

Like, I could not do that. That would be to my

28:01

mind, ethically unresponsible.

28:04

And you know, I mean like I felt like I was one of these

28:06

broads. If look,

28:09

if I was in Devil in the seventies, boy, they

28:11

would have snatched me up so quick.

28:13

I would have been in one of them truck's ips, no problem.

28:16

Oh, as a perfect kind of I

28:18

mean, I was a troubled young woman.

28:22

I was a troubled young woman who

28:25

was very susceptible to the

28:27

charms of older men who

28:29

made me feel like I was somebody. And

28:34

I thought, I bet that's what most of them women

28:36

were like too, for sure, you

28:38

know, yeah, so I wanted to understand

28:40

them. So that was an individual who I thought had some

28:43

good insight to that. But you

28:46

know, that individual would email me in the middle of

28:48

the night for you know,

28:51

months and would be down

28:53

for talking and then not. And

28:57

I did end up meeting up with that individual

28:59

and doing some you know,

29:02

long, lengthy interviews.

29:05

But ultimately she was

29:07

another person who was you

29:10

know, fairly repeatedly expressing

29:14

buyer's remorse, you

29:16

know, contacting me and being like I don't know what kind

29:18

of shit you're gonna do with my story, Like I don't know if

29:20

I trust you, blah blah blah,

29:22

I don't know if I trust you. Kind of like attitude,

29:25

and to be honest, it offended me,

29:28

like I get it, you know, but I was just at

29:31

that point, I was just like all right, So I

29:33

cut that entirely. Yeah, uh

29:36

huh, cut that source entirely. There

29:38

was another woman who I know was

29:41

a sex worker in this ring.

29:44

She's in the newspapers repeatedly. I

29:47

was amazingly able to find this

29:49

woman. She's living in

29:52

you know, I

29:56

don't want to give away details because I don't want to identify

29:59

this woman, but like, yeah, I mean you could

30:01

probably call it a halfway house, okay.

30:05

And I was trying to contact her

30:07

and I left her messages, and then

30:09

one day, at like seven thirty

30:11

in the morning, she

30:14

called me and

30:17

seemed to me to

30:20

be not

30:22

sober.

30:23

Yeah, at seven thirty in the morning.

30:25

Seven thirty in the morning, And

30:28

I got a lot of experience of people on pills.

30:32

It seemed like a pill haze, you

30:34

know what I mean. And this

30:37

individual was also not

30:40

exactly friendly. It

30:43

went on back and forth. Actually, she'd be

30:45

like, you know, like what the fuck are you trying

30:48

to do? And then she'd be like, you know,

30:50

you seem like a nice woman. I shit

30:52

you not. And so that

30:54

source, I decided, like, I don't

30:57

think that I'm big and pregnant.

30:59

I'm like eight months pregnant. To

31:01

me, I'm like, I

31:05

didn't really want to get too involved, dude.

31:09

And if I were one of these like bulldog investigative

31:12

reporters for whom I have a lot of respect

31:14

mm hmm, I probably would have shut up

31:16

at this woman's store and just hounded her to death

31:18

until she gave me what I wanted. But

31:21

I didn't have it in me. Yeah,

31:23

and I also felt that with the

31:26

primary material that I had, namely

31:28

the court transcripts, particularly,

31:30

that I had enough to go on.

31:32

Anyways, let's talk

31:34

about the transcripts for a second, because I remember

31:36

that wasn't something you had when we first started

31:38

this process. You just had the news

31:40

clippings and you

31:43

had big plans for interviews

31:45

to be a part of this. You never said

31:47

anything about court transcripts. And

31:50

I actually remember at some point

31:52

when we were doing some prep work, I was

31:54

thinking to myself, I bet we could find the court

31:57

transcripts, but you had so much

31:59

going on with the pregnancy and everything.

32:01

I was like, let me not bug her with details.

32:03

She'll take care of everything. And then I get

32:05

a text. You're like, bro, I found the court transcripts.

32:08

So how did you find the court transcripts?

32:11

It was no easy feat But

32:14

shout out to

32:17

the folks in Philadelphia

32:20

at the National Archives, because

32:23

they the ones that really

32:26

found these transcripts. Now,

32:28

how did I find them? Shout out

32:30

to the PhD. It was the lifetime

32:32

of scholarship. I

32:34

am trained in scholarship and I know how

32:36

to find sources,

32:39

and so I researched what to

32:41

research? How do you

32:43

find transcripts? Who do you go to? Then

32:46

I started emailing different courts.

32:49

This clerk is telling me, no, it ain't here, you

32:51

got to go look here. Now that now I'm being sent

32:53

to this other clerk. Oh well, now

32:56

it's not here. Maybe try here. Through

32:59

a up of different county

33:01

clerks putting

33:03

me in different directions, I

33:07

was finally sent

33:09

to the National Archives in Philadelphia,

33:12

where they said they might have it. So

33:16

one day I was hosting a retreat,

33:19

in the middle of hosting a retreat, pregnant as

33:21

hell, just

33:23

hating from outside the club while

33:26

all of my guests are hooting and hollering

33:28

and having fun, you know, and

33:30

I'm like trying to be cool, but I'm

33:32

jealous as hell. And

33:35

I get an email and

33:37

it's from the National Archives and they're like, hey,

33:40

great news, we have found

33:42

the transcripts, and we are

33:44

not going to be able to scan

33:46

them for you as requested because

33:48

it's four thy six hundred and eighty

33:51

five pages.

33:51

Wow.

33:52

Yes, but you can come

33:55

here and scan them if you won't. Do

33:58

you know how long it takes to scan four thousand,

34:00

six hundred pages.

34:01

I don't know, but I can imagine it's a very very

34:03

long time.

34:04

It's a very long time. It's a very tedious process.

34:06

And you can't put it in a feeder

34:09

like a copy machine like where it feeds mm hmm.

34:12

You have to do because they don't want you damaging

34:14

their and your shoff, of course, so you

34:16

have to I bought a flatbed scanner

34:19

and I spent one week in those

34:21

archives and just scanning

34:24

page by page by page

34:26

by page. By the time

34:28

I was done and a head back

34:30

home. Once I finally get

34:32

back to Atlanta, it's time

34:34

to go to the beach again. Uh huh.

34:37

And so for this next beach trip,

34:39

instead of the news articles, I had

34:41

with me all of these

34:44

transcripts. And that's when I first dug

34:46

into them. And that year

34:48

at the beach, I sat on the deck and I read these

34:50

transcripts.

34:52

They really transformed the

34:54

story. It feels from my point of view, it

34:56

feels like the bulk of your

34:59

knowledge of the case comes

35:01

from those transcripts rather than the news

35:04

clippings or anything else.

35:05

It does because in fact, the news clippings,

35:07

most of them at best, are secondhand accounts

35:10

of the court proceedings.

35:11

M M.

35:13

And here I had the actual

35:15

court proceedings. And the hugeous

35:18

gift of those transcripts

35:21

is how many of those women testified.

35:24

Wow, Yeah, I

35:26

guess we have a lot of those quotes in the podcast.

35:29

That really helps queue up the

35:31

stories that are told.

35:33

Absolutely, And so this

35:36

mystery where I was just imagining what

35:38

must these women be, like, what were they going through?

35:42

Was for so many of these women no longer

35:44

a mystery, right Yeah,

35:46

And I'm hearing like actual women

35:49

who were who had, by the way, dispersed

35:52

across the US. Clearly

35:54

shit got hot and everybody

35:57

got out. Nobody wants to be involved,

36:00

know these women that had kids and stuff, like they

36:02

didn't want to lose their kids. Yeah,

36:04

which was a worry for at

36:06

least one of these women, and like

36:09

a reasonable worry because you didn't have her kid.

36:14

But the FBI went

36:18

and found a whole

36:20

lot of these women and went knocking on

36:23

their doors and they said,

36:25

well, you better come over here and do this testifying,

36:28

you know, or else, And

36:30

so they did. And because of

36:33

that, I was finally able to get some

36:35

first hand accounts of

36:37

what the women experienced.

36:39

Yeah, that is a really special

36:44

thing that you're able to find, because that was

36:46

always from the beginning you

36:48

talked about wanting to tell the story

36:51

of the women, and that was only

36:53

going to be possible with the interviews. Yes,

36:56

originally, and so were

37:01

all very fortunate that you put in

37:03

that work. And it's clearly

37:06

you can't just google Federal Court transcript

37:08

from nineteen seventy five and get any

37:10

results. It's a lot of layers

37:13

that you had to go through. It's

37:15

an amazing story. On the

37:17

topic of the interviews. The other big interview

37:19

that's featured prominently is Frankie

37:21

Jones, and boy, were

37:23

those segments.

37:24

Wild, absolute gold.

37:26

I could not believe some of the things

37:29

that he was saying. What was

37:31

Frankie like? And why

37:33

do you think he was so comfortable being

37:35

so candid with you.

37:38

Frankie was immediately

37:42

warm and welcoming and

37:45

gave me a hug when he met

37:47

me. The

37:49

reason that I contacted Frankie

37:52

was because his dad was on the grand jury.

37:55

So I was just hoping to get some insight, like,

37:58

you know, tell me about your dad's experience. That's

38:00

all I expected. Now

38:02

what I did get from Frankie was

38:05

so much more. First

38:09

thing I want to say about Frankie, when

38:11

we started talking already, I was

38:13

like, Okay, this is gold,

38:16

because I'm gonna tell you. People think

38:19

that this accent of mine is fake. They

38:21

do. Yeah, that dude

38:23

started talking, I'm like, oh my god, he's even

38:25

more damnvill than me. Like

38:27

that real Southern

38:32

accent, you can't

38:35

you can't replicate it. Yeah,

38:38

So when I heard his accent, I already knew. I'm

38:40

like, this voice is gonna sound beautiful

38:42

on this podcast.

38:47

Frankie

38:51

chose to open

38:54

up to me because he

38:57

was just treating me like a

39:01

human being with whom he

39:03

was having an honest conversation,

39:07

which is rare. He

39:13

It was disarming, in

39:16

fact, the

39:18

unguarded honesty from this man. It

39:23

was a pleasant

39:25

surprise, the sort of jovial

39:28

nature in which he

39:30

told these stories. Did

39:33

I ever think I was gonna

39:35

find an individual who had actually

39:37

been to one of these brothels who was

39:39

willing to talk about it.

39:40

Hell no, you didn't even know when you

39:42

started the interview.

39:43

Absolutely not. But

39:45

then he starts talking about, yeah, I've been to one or two,

39:48

and I'm like, oh, helly, you

39:50

know, tell me more.

39:57

And I really appreciate that honesty

40:00

because even talking about these topics, you know,

40:02

I mean, you know, you're kind of like, look,

40:06

I will tell you what I don't want to do. And

40:09

one of my greatest fears in

40:12

regards to this project, I

40:15

don't want to bring any

40:18

problems or shame

40:21

on anybody who chose to be involved. And

40:24

that's why it's hard, you know, to even write

40:26

about people. I mean, like, you

40:28

know, a lot of these people are still alive. Man,

40:33

I want to tell this story. I'm telling the story.

40:35

Obviously, it's told, it's done,

40:38

but there's a part of me that's

40:41

like, damn, you know, like do

40:43

I want to like these people are fifty years

40:46

gone? People

40:48

change. I mean, bro,

40:50

listen, if you wanted to

40:53

make a podcast about the fucked up shit

40:55

that I've done, boy, we could have

40:57

a number of seasons on that. By the way,

40:59

please okay, please

41:02

don't. And

41:04

I know That's how I feel, like, please don't.

41:08

So you know it is with

41:10

some uh conflictedness

41:16

that I tell

41:19

this story at all, because you

41:21

know, I mean, all of this was public, it was all in

41:23

the news. I'm not bringing up anything that

41:25

ain't known. But I

41:28

don't want to drag people's name through the

41:30

mud. I don't want to fuck anybody's life up

41:32

like I don't want to do that. But

41:34

at the same time, is there any

41:37

story in the world that can be told

41:39

without that risk? And

41:42

if I allow that to keep me from

41:44

researching, if I allow that to keep me from

41:46

telling stories, then what story

41:49

can I ever tell that everybody

41:51

looks good in? And if everybody

41:53

looks good, then where's the story?

41:55

Yeah? Yeah,

41:58

So let's pivot again. You talked

42:00

a lot about your origin story

42:03

when we started the conversation, and

42:05

you definitely mentioned that you are

42:07

an artist. And something that I

42:09

have always found striking

42:12

about you is that when you talk

42:14

about yourself, you use that word artist.

42:18

What does being an artist mean to you and

42:20

how does it influence your

42:23

career to this point and your ambitions for the

42:25

future.

42:26

Man, we are always

42:28

looking at this life and

42:30

we are trying to understand what it means,

42:34

and we find this meaning in any number of ways,

42:36

but the search for it is absolutely

42:39

fundamental to humanity, hence the existence

42:41

of religion. For example, when

42:46

I talk about being a writer, and when I talk about

42:48

being an artist,

42:52

to me, it means this. We're

42:56

all living this life. We're all seeing the trees

42:59

and the people walk around and the experiences

43:01

that we're having. And

43:04

I'm seeing the same thing as everybody else. But

43:10

sometimes I see things and

43:13

to me they are immediately a poem,

43:17

laiden with meaning, a

43:20

way that we can understand what

43:24

life is about. In

43:27

the early days of COVID, they removed

43:30

the swings from the swing set in

43:33

my neighborhood playground and

43:36

wrapped the swing set and caution tape.

43:39

Yeah, that's

43:41

a poem.

43:44

That's the kind of image that I take.

43:47

I put it in my back pocket and

43:50

I think, one damn, we'll put this shit into a story.

43:55

I am a collector

43:57

of such images. I'm

44:00

a collector of the casual things that a

44:02

person says that they don't ever think

44:04

twice about. But I hear

44:06

it, and I think that's a poem. We

44:10

talk about ai writing stories.

44:12

Oh, the writers are gonna lose their jobs, you

44:15

know, like the AI is writing stories. Yeah,

44:17

they might be able to make some paragraphs and shit,

44:21

but how can

44:24

the robots understand

44:27

the human heart and

44:30

the meaning of this universe

44:33

of chaos. I

44:37

could have gone my whole life and never been all

44:39

these sparkly pretty things

44:42

that I had to be to make money.

44:44

But if I was on this deathbed and I didn't write

44:46

this book, I didn't

44:49

write this art. I

44:51

didn't write all the poems that I guess

44:53

nobody's ever gonna read that

44:57

I couldn't do. Being

44:59

an artist is

45:01

the most important

45:05

thing to me as an individual,

45:10

regardless of any material

45:12

gains that I ever received from it.

45:14

It is where I find my meaning. It

45:16

is where I make my meaning. And

45:20

if I could be known for

45:22

anything, it would

45:24

be my art.

45:25

I love what you said, a collector of images.

45:28

I don't know if that was off the cuff or not, but I think

45:30

that's a really brilliant way of describing

45:33

being an artist of any medium,

45:35

A collector of images from life. Yes,

45:38

that you convey

45:40

the beauty of the hidden, beauty of that

45:42

of a.

45:43

Beautyl Yes, like I'm not making things

45:45

up out of whole cloth. I am not making

45:47

things up. I merely have the ability

45:50

to see the meaning in what already exists,

45:52

the meaning that I think a lot of people miss.

45:54

M m. Yeah, yeah,

45:56

that's beautiful. Well, this

45:58

has been an amazing convert stations

46:01

been so much fun talking

46:03

about this. We also had a

46:05

conversation with me about my role in the podcast,

46:08

and it's been so fun to debrief

46:10

and talk about this process. And I hope all

46:13

of you really appreciate

46:15

hearing this behind the scenes. Once

46:18

again, too pretty to be good. I

46:20

can't say it enough. You got to read it. Strip

46:23

Cast.

46:24

Y'all will probably like strip Cast because,

46:26

in my humble opinion, it's quite a page turner.

46:29

It's very compelling.

46:30

But when you listen to it, you're gonna be like, damn, this is

46:32

a angry ass bitch and I'm as mad

46:34

as a motherfucker the whole time. But

46:38

yeah, check it out. And also,

46:41

Guy, you are

46:43

an artist in your own right. I am so

46:46

plug your stuff.

46:47

Well, I think the biggest thing

46:49

you can do is go to Guy Kelly dot

46:52

com. You can find links to my music.

46:54

I have a few different artist names. I have some

46:57

music listed under Guy Kelly on

46:59

Spotify or or any streaming service you

47:01

go to. But if you want to find lots

47:03

of my work, some of my design work, head

47:05

to my website Guykelly dot com

47:08

and you can get links to all kinds of stuff

47:10

that I do there.

47:15

Hey, dudes, yo, I

47:18

really appreciate y'all listening to

47:21

me and guys art this whole

47:23

season. Let us

47:25

know what do you want to hear in

47:27

season two? By the

47:29

way, I've already got it planned out,

47:31

but you know all might take

47:33

some input. What do you want to hear

47:36

more of? What can't you

47:38

wait for next season? Season

47:41

one was a bastuff

47:44

of labor, but

47:46

we about to do it again. Thank

47:48

you for being here, Thank you for your time. I

47:51

am Lindsey Byron and this

47:53

is my homeboy, Guy Kelly.

47:55

Thanks everybody.

47:56

Thanks.

48:01

Now, let me be clear, I

48:03

thoroughly support lesbian orgy.

48:06

All right? Where are they at? Let me know?

48:09

Send me the invite, just Kidden

48:12

or Emma