Episode 619
with W. Kamau Bell, Jane Marie, and Y La Bamba
Comedian and television host W. Kamau Bell discusses his Substack newsletter Who's With Me? and how AI got his comedic personality all wrong; journalist and podcaster Jane Marie breaks down multi-level marketing and how they prey upon working class Americans; and indie band Y La Bamba perform "Crema de Melón." Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello unpack some wild scams our listeners have fallen for.
W. Kamau Bell
Comedian and filmmaker
W. Kamau Bell is a stand-up comedian, director, producer, husband, and dad. For seven seasons, he was the host and executive producer of the five-time Emmy Award-winning CNN docu-series United Shades of America. In 2023 he won an Emmy for his HBO documentary 1000% Me: Growing Up Mixed. He also won a Peabody Award for his 2022 Showtime docu-series We Need to Talk About Cosby. He is the co-author of the New York Times bestselling book Do the Work: An Antiracist Activity Book and the author of The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell: Tales of a 6' 4", African American, Heterosexual, Cisgender, Left-Leaning, Asthmatic, Black and Proud Blerd, Mama’s Boy, Dad, and Stand-Up Comedian. His newest writing project is the substack newsletter, Who's With Me? His comedy special, Private School Negro, is available on Netflix. Website • Instagram • Twitter
Jane Marie
Podcast host & journalist
Jane Marie is a Peabody and Emmy Award–winning journalist, a former producer of This American Life, and the host of podcasts The Dream and DTR. Her writing has appeared in Jezebel, Cosmopolitan, The Toast, and more. Her book “Selling the Dream: The Billion-Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans” exposes the scourge of multilevel marketing schemes and how they have profited off the evisceration of the American working class. Website • Instagram • Twitter
Y La Bamba
Indie folk pop musician
Y La Bamba is an indie alternative/experimental band lead by Luz Elena Mendoza Ramos. Their music has been called "an unsparing work of sonic catharsis” by Rolling Stone Magazine and have appeared on NPR’s Top 50 Albums. On the map since 2008, they’ve released seven albums, their latest being, “Lucha.” The album reflects on their Mexican heritage and subjects of love, queerness, intimacy, personal struggles, and the growth that ensued. For this album to be completed as a singular piece of art, multiple stories had to be layered and pieced together. Mendoza Ramos states, “I’ve been wanting to let whatever feels natural—with rhythm and musical instruments like congas and singing—to just let it be, in the way that I'm trying to invoke in myself.” Website •Instagram • Twitter
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Luke Burbank: Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: I'm doing great. And it's time for station location identification examination. This is where I give Elena a quiz about somewhere in the country, Live Wire's on the radio. She's got to figure out where we're talking about. This place is home to the world's largest six pack of beer, which is displayed at the City Brewing Company. The world's largest six pack is a large collection of six beer storage tanks. It's a well known landmark and tourist attraction in this city. And this place is also known for another beverage, Elena, another liquid beverage that's very popular these days that if I give you the name, I feel like you're going to get it right away. Do you have any guesses? Before I give you the second part of this hint?
Elena Passarello: I now I'm feeling like it's like an Old Milwaukee.
Luke Burbank: Oh, you're so close. You're in the right state. Oh, it is Wisconsin. It's the place where they make Lacroix the sparkling water.
Elena Passarello: La Crosse, Wisconsin.
Luke Burbank: That's exactly what I'm talking about.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, it's right there on the can.
Luke Burbank: That's right. La Crosse, Wisconsin, where we're on WHLA, which is part of Wisconsin Public Radio. So shout out to all the Cheeseheads tuning in today. So we get to the show?
Elena Passarello: Let's do it.
Luke Burbank: All right. Take it away. From PRX,
Elena Passarello: it's. This week, comedian and television host W. Kamau Bell.
W. Kamau Bell: Remember when women all wore belly shirts? Anti-Racism was the belly shirts of 2022. Too Soon?
Elena Passarello: Journalist and podcaster Jane Marie.
Jane Marie: I've never seen a moment where an MLM is doing poorly and they evaluate their own product. What they do is push it all off onto the seller and say you're not working hard enough.
Elena Passarello: With music from Y La Bamba and our fabulous house band, I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire, Luke Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Thank you so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks everyone for tuning in from all over the country, including La Crosse aka La Croix, Wisconsin.
W. Kamau Bell: This sounds.
Luke Burbank: So classy. We've got a great show for you this week. Of course, we've asked a Live Wire listeners a question in honor of Jane Marie's book about multi-level marketing schemes. We've asked the listeners, what's the wildest scam you fell for? And we're going to hear those answers coming up in just a minute. First, though, it's time for the best news we heard all week. This is our little reminder at the top of the show. There is some good news happening out there in the world. Just got to look for it. Elena, what is the best news you heard this week?
Elena Passarello: Do you remember a couple years ago when there was hot girl summer?
Luke Burbank: Yes, I remember I was not part of it, but I heard about it.
Elena Passarello: This summer, I am going to participate in double brood summer, which is my kind of summer. Also known as the cicada pocalypse.
Luke Burbank: Oh, I have been hearing about this and seeing little online clips of the just swarms of cicadas, right?
Elena Passarello: Yes, literal trillions of cicadas. And when I say literal, I mean literally like there are literal trillions of cicadas at a certain swath of the country right now. And it's kind of a unique event. The last time these two broods emerged at the same time, Thomas Jefferson was the president. So it's always a big summer when one cicada group comes up from like 13 or 17 years of dormancy. But now we have two, and there are two that haven't really crossed paths. And there's one place in the country where both broods are coming up at the same time, and that is Illinois, my friend. I know cicadas might seem kind of scary to people because they have those, like, big red eyes and.
Luke Burbank: And because they're terrifying.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I guess, but they're not scary to me. And they're not scary to Wheaton, Illinois. Jack Bailey for Jack, it's the most wonderful time of the 13 years. And this is Jack Bailey's first cicada emergence. Because he's only four years old, his yard has become this treasure trove, and his family goes out with him and he gets a bucket. And he just kind of scoops cicadas that he likes into the bucket, and then they end up letting them go, which is very cool of them. But the other day, his sister was looking in the bucket and noticed that one of the cicadas had these robin egg blue eyes. And like I said, cicadas usually have these kind of like orangy red, kind of like rare eyes. But these were like like Frank Sinatra babies.
Luke Burbank: Going to say this. The Frank Sinatra is the Paul Newman of cicadas.
Elena Passarello: That's right. And then he sang "Fly Me To The Moon." So they were like, that's cool, blue eyed cicada. And then they threw it back in the yard, and then they went inside and I think their neighbor was like, oh, no, we've heard about this. This is really rare. It's this mutant gene situation, although they're not even sure because there have been so few blue eyed cicadas over the past 100 plus years of people studying cicadas. They've never even collected enough to know why one in like, 500,000 cicadas has blue eyes. So then they were like, oh no. And we threw it back. And so then they went back into the yard with flashlights because it had gotten dark at this point, and they found it again.
Luke Burbank: Is crazy.
Elena Passarello: They took it to the Chicago Field Museum, where hopefully its DNA can be studied. But the fun doesn't end there. Mister Burbank and another part of the state in Lisle, Illinois, somebody brought a blue eyed cicada to the local arboretum. What, they let that blue eyed cicada go? And then a staffer there found a third blue eyed cicada on the leaves of one of the plants in the arboretum, three blue eyed cicadas.
Luke Burbank: Is it possible that blue eyed cicadas are less rare than we thought?
Elena Passarello: There are a lot of, scientists who are still saying, you know, this is a is an anomaly inside of an anomaly. We should still consider it a 1 in 1,000,000 event. But like I said, there's trillions of cicadas this year. So 1 in 1,000,000, a thousand times a million is a billion. So the odds are a little bit greater this year just because of the sheer number of cicadas that are dropping on this one part of the country.
Luke Burbank: But regardless, I mean, that is just so statistically unlikely to find three of them.
Elena Passarello: If you liked 2024, just wait until 2089, when I personally am going to be 111 years old. But that co-emergence of several cicada broods is going to put 15 trillion cicadas onto American soil in one double brood summer. So woo, can't wait till then.
Luke Burbank: I know I'm looking forward to it. The best news that I heard all week actually comes out of Wisconsin, which is where our station location identification examination was this week. Madison, Wisconsin, to be specific, where, there is something called the Nationwide Trophy Recycling Program that has been set up by a woman named Janet Gray and a team of volunteers. And here is, what they realized. It's really hard to throw out a trophy. Like you're going through your house and you're trying to, you know, declutter. You're trying to get in touch with your inner Marie Kondo or whatever. And but they're because a trophy is given as an award because there's some, you know, usually some sort of good feelings around it. It's really hard to throw it away. So people keep them for too long, but they're cluttering everything up. So the National Trophy Recycling Program says, you bring your trophy and we will take it apart, but then we will make it into a new trophy and we will give it to a nonprofit. So that they can then use it to award their members in one way or another. Because we all know non-profits are often short on money. So the idea is that your trophy is not taking up room at your house. But it's also not gone forever. It's not in the landfill. It's still a trophy. It's still honoring someone who was listed as a participant, like I was for the Greenwood Boys and Girls Club in 1985, when I got most improved right fielder Eleanor, which is a very specific award, like they were running out of awards to give out on that Greenwood Boys and Girls Club team that year. And I still happen, by the way, to this whole point, that it's hard to get rid of a trophy. I still have these trophies. These are trophies that really speak to a childhood of very mediocre athletic accomplishment, but I just can't bring myself to toss them. But now I know if I can send them to the National trophy recycling program, they will live on and they will help out, some people who are deserving to have their moment of of award and at no cost to them. So shout out to the folks in Madison, Wisconsin, running the Nationwide Trophy Recycling program. That's the best news I heard all week. All right, let's welcome our first guest on over to the show. He spent seven seasons as the host of the Emmy Award winning CNN docu series, United Shades of America. He won a Peabody Award for his Showtime docu series We Need to Talk About Cosby, and his latest writing project is the Substack newsletter Who's With me?, in which he shares his thoughts on the world, pop culture and how to fix everything because he probably knows how to do that. He knows a lot of stuff. Take a listen to our chat with our friend W. Kamau Bell. He joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland, Oregon. Hello.
W. Kamau Bell: Hello, Portland. We meet again.
Luke Burbank: In your career. You're from Oakland. In your career. Do you find yourself in Portland a lot?
W. Kamau Bell: I never, ever came to Portland until I started doing stand up comedy. And they were like, they need you in Portland. So I don't know if I'd ever come to Portland. And then after I came for standup comedy and I had a TV show showing where America was like, you know, broken, I was like, I gotta go to Portland, like, twice. So we did two episodes of United Shades here in Portland.
Luke Burbank: I have been really enjoying reading your Substack, which is also aka a newsletter, although I feel like newsletter for a lot of people, at least of my generation, feels like and Anne Navakowski sending a newsletter out, making sure someone brings decaf coffee to the fellowship hour at church. [Yeah, I feel like] that's a weird connotation.
W. Kamau Bell: Yeah, you don't actually want a newsletter. So I think it's weird that the subsection called a newsletter, but it's so mine are like long form op eds that I wouldn't have put anywhere else or write if I didn't have the pressure of doing it once a week, because people are paying me $5. [Luke: But a lot of people.] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's enough people to me to go, all right.
Luke Burbank: They're good, they're trenchant. They're funny like you are. They talk about important things most of the time.
W. Kamau Bell: Yeah. No, I mean, you know, come on.
Luke Burbank: But I can't tell you how many writers that we've had on the show, people who have written very successful books, who will, like, take me aside in the agreement, go low key. The most people I reach is through my Substack.
W. Kamau Bell: Yeah. No, it is definitely like. I mean, I sort of came to it because I sort of got tired of like putting things up on Instagram and just watching fights break out in the comments. Yeah, like it was like this. I just thought this was a pretty bird, you know what I mean? Like. And so it was really a way to go. The people, that's why I named it Who's With Me? The people who actually want to hear from me, who actually want to hear my thoughts and may not agree with me all the time. Let's why don't we just go over here? So that's what it was away. Like, why don't we just go over here? So it's the VIP room of the W. Kamau Bell Experience? Yes. It's the champagne room of W. Kamau Bell. If you can get a lap dance. Let me be clear [Luke: From Robert Reich.]
Luke Burbank: Yeah. Former Secretary of Labor.
W. Kamau Bell: From Robert Reich. Yes.
Luke Burbank: Who is featured in a post. I didn't just throw that out. Complete left field, $6 a month.
W. Kamau Bell: You get a lap dance of Robert Reich.
Luke Burbank: I this is a thing that I've been enjoying about reading your post, though, is I do feel like you, you you managed to sort of mix the very forgettable with the kind of highbrow and sublime like, you have this post where you're, first of all, you're roasting, I think deservedly the Fox TV host Jesse Waters, for being so bad at math, so bad at the most basic of math.
W. Kamau Bell: But when Tucker Carlson can look down on you, you know, we turn around like you're not good at this. Like it's. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. But in the same post, you then also link to Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor ethics. Yeah. His Substack.
W. Kamau Bell: Yeah. Yeah, I got a lot going on in here. It's a lot going on. I'm an only child. I'm a stand up comic. Yeah. That's, that's what I like about it is that I can sort of like nobody else wants. Nobody wants 1500 words of that, but I did. And if you want to read it, come check it out. But it's like, because my brain sort of like, does that thing where it makes these connections. And so it's a way and forever in my career, people like edit out the like the tangents. And so now I get to be tangent full instead of tangent free.
Luke Burbank: I love that stuff. When someone's like it's too long of a story, I'm always like, you know, give it to me. And in fact, we got to take a quick break. When we come back, I want to talk about the post that you basically said is the thing you would like to say when you're out promoting your career and things you work on, but there's never time for it. And basically what your experience has been as a creator in Hollywood, in the television industry. So we're going to get the full download from W. Kamau Bell, in a moment. This is Live Wire Radio from PRX at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland. Back in just a moment. Hey, welcome back to Live Wire from PRX. We're at the Alberta Rose Theatre in Portland. I'm Luke Burbank, that's Elena Passarello. We're talking to W. Kamau Bell. The television host, the writer, the stand up comedy person. Also now the, proprietor of a Substack, which is really good reading. And as I was saying before the break, I, I always like to get the full story. And one of the posts that you wrote recently was about how when you're out promoting your your various projects, there's a certain kind of, you know, time limit and attentional limit, and you're there to kind of try to drive some more eyeballs towards whatever it is.
W. Kamau Bell: Help me keep my health insurance [Luke: Right, ] I have three kids. They like to eat every day.
Luke Burbank: Kids these days. Yeah, but what you wrote in this post was that you are as a content creator, you're experiencing something going on. We're just going to Hollywood. Whatever version of like making television and, and projects that you write in this post that it feels to you like there were there was a lot of noise made, particularly in the wake of the murder of George Floyd, about elevating different voices and representation and making different kind of programing, and that that feels like that's really gone away.
W. Kamau Bell: Oh, yeah, that's gone. I mean, yeah, like being anti-racist was kind of like, remember when women are all wore belly shirts? Anti-Racism was the belly shirts of 2020. Too soon? Like it was like it was like a trend. It was like a wave that a lot of people got on, and I, I had a friend in the bookstore, and he told me, like a lot of people order these anti-racist books, and then they never picked them up. Yeah. Yeah. So like and so the idea being that, like, it was cool for even the companies to like, I was in so many zoom meetings with white people like, you know.
Luke Burbank: What's it like being in real life with one?
W. Kamau Bell: Well, as people know, I live with the white person in my house as a part of my court appointed. Well, I won't get into it. I won't get into it. I don't want to get into it. I don't want to get into it. You know, it was like all these. I got all these calls from people like, you know, like, we want to do more and. And then and then a lot of it happened to a lot of black people, and then a lot of those projects that got big headlines were being greenlit, never were made. And you remember the article about the thing being greenlit, but you don't remember that it was ever made. And then the other part of it is that, like now the same attacks that are going on DEI diversity, equity, inclusion in like Florida are also happening all across America and happening in Hollywood. So a lot of the execs who run these companies are the same sort of white people always run these companies. And so it was, oh, is that cool now? Oh we're in. Oh it's not cool. And so now basically the only way to get something pitched like is was somebody murdered? Were they preferably a white lady? And or is it like a celebrity or established intellectual property, you know, no. No offense to anybody. No offense, anybody who's associated with it. I will probably check it out. But you hear that Jerry Seinfeld is making a Pop Tarts movie. Like, that's what Hollywood wants like that. Because first of all, hopefully somebody dies in it. I hope somebody dies in it.
Luke Burbank: Tony the Tiger dies.
W. Kamau Bell: Yeah, maybe. Maybe the secret behind Pop Tart. Somebody died. But, and then I'm like, how about that anti-racism stuff that I do, no? Okay. Part of the reason I started Substack is like, I'm not. I thought I'd be doing different things at this point in the year. I'm not doing those things. I made a joke. But I do have three kids who like to eat every day, so I can't like, well, I'll just wait until racism's cool again, so.
Luke Burbank: Right. Well, that's what I'm wondering, is how.
W. Kamau Bell: I mean, I'm sorry. It is cool. You're right, I you're you're right not to react. It's still totally cool. Thank you. One person in the back.
Luke Burbank: I mean, I think if you knew the exact answer to this question, you wouldn't be writing the Substack, I guess. But how do you sell something that is meaningful and we need to have when the larger structures aren't buying it?
W. Kamau Bell: I mean, so I right now, I'm sort of remembering times in my life where I thought, it's funny, like when my career was over and like, what did I do then? So I don't think my career is over. I want to be clear, but I like what are times my life where I went back and I thought, oh, maybe this is the end. And there's been a couple times, notably after my first TV show, Totally Biased, was canceled. And so I'm like, all right. So like I, I hadn't done stand up for like five years after my Netflix special came out. Private School Negro still available for streaming. After that came out, we had our third daughter. I was like, come on, take a break. I'm gonna come back in 2020 when it's election year. 2020 was like hahahahahahaha. And so then I thought I didn't do stand up again because I was like, I don't know, low ceilings with people laughing in my face. No thank you. So this year I started doing stand up again. So I'm like, you know, I feel fortunate that I've always been a person. And we'll see if people remember this. Who knows how to make his own gravy? Remember that dog food commercial? Albeit, sure. I've always been a person who's like, okay, I can't I I've sort of been really fortunate that there have been times when corporate Hollywood has wanted me to be in there, but I've never wanted to depend on that. So now I'm at the point like, okay, we got to go make our own gravy.
Elena Passarello: You do so many things. You write books, you do the television work, you do the comedy work. Now that you're doing like a weekly deadline of a Substack where you can. Write whatever you want for a pretty extended workout. Is it changing the way you're making other things or thinking about making other things?
W. Kamau Bell: No, it's just like there's just a lot of it's like a soup stew in my head, and there's a lot of things that just wouldn't go anywhere. And so, like yesterday, when Jesse Waters made fun of the fast food workers for making $20 an hour and I was like, forget this dude, FCC.
Luke Burbank: Thank you.
W. Kamau Bell: I was like, forget his mom, too. Like, I was like, mother, forget that whole family, you know?
Luke Burbank: Can you can you remind us of the quick math that he did?
W. Kamau Bell: So he said so he was on the Pbd podcast, which, if you don't know the podcast, it's like, what if Joe Rogan wore a suit? That joke is perfect, by the way. If you know that that joke is perfect. I don't know if he said it, but that's a perfect joke. It's not even about the laugh. It's about the writing. It's about so. So he was on the podcast, and he's just sort of talking, and he's. And he, says that, like, so if you're making $20 an hour, that's like six figures, right? See, everybody, everybody who laugh has worked for hourly wages and has done the math on every hourly wage. No, no, that's not even close to six figures. And the people on the podcast are like, no, no, no. That's like and they do the math quickly. Like, if you work in 50 weeks, it's like 40 grand a year. He's like, okay, but if you're married and your wife is also working for $20 an hour, that's like he does, he actually said, that's like a hundred grand. They just told him it was 40 grand within seconds. He said 40 plus 40 is is 100 grand. And as I'm watching this, I turn to my nine year old. I was like, what's 40 grand plus 40 grand? She goes, 80 grand. I go, thank you. She goes, why did you ask me that, dad? I go, cuz there's this white man who says, 40 grand plus 40 grand is 100 grand. To my to my daughter's image credit, she goes, well that's something.
Unidentified: There she is.
W. Kamau Bell: Because, like me, she starts with diplomacy. Yeah. And so I was like, I think in the old days I would have tweeted about it a lot. I would have been like, but, you know, and I still go on Twitter just to sort of like kick the dust off, but I don't like. So I sent out one tweet about it and I was like, this is what the substitutes for.
Luke Burbank: One of the other posts you're talking about. There was something that was released that was supposed to be an AI program. Oh yeah. Doing George Carlin. Although then I thought I heard that it wasn't actually like you're friends with Kelly Carlin. Yeah. Carlin's daughter.
W. Kamau Bell: First of all, thanks for humble bragging for me. Yeah. Yes. I'm friends with Kelly Carlin, George Carlin's daughter. I texted her. What I what did you say? My friend's daughter. Yes, I am. Yes. And.
Luke Burbank: So I first of all, I was I never actually understood. What did somebody use an AI program to generate, like, a George Carlin hour, or was it someone doing an impression of what an AI would do? Do you know?
W. Kamau Bell: I don't think they knew. But the important thing was that Kelly. So they said, it's this podcast called dudes. And they were saying that the whole podcast was run by AI. There are people in there who say, this is not how it would work if it was run by. But we don't we don't really know. But the important thing was they put out an hour of of material that was like, this is an AI, George Carlin. And it was an hour of George Carlin. And of course it sucked, like just of course, but it also was just they didn't ask Kelly. Kelly Carlin's whole, like most of her professional like not most, but a big part is about protecting her dad's legacy and also expanding her dad's legacy, which is why young people still know who George Carlin is. So you don't. It's not like. It's not like we're Abbott and Costello aren't using this anymore. You know what I mean? It's like George Carlin is still an active intellectual property concern. And these and this podcast is hosted by one of the show's about comedy writers. And a comedian like you should know better. So I was offended as a comedian to be like, you shouldn't do that. And so I immediately reached out to Kelly Carlin, and she was really, like, upset about it. And I was like, I am a private in the George Carlin Army. I will do whatever you need me to do. And so writing that Substack was about being a private in the George Carlin Army because I was like, I, you know, and I would even like I had a such a good time. She was like, I'm being reached out to by all these people in the media, want to talk to me. And I was like, here's some jokes you can say. Like, I was sitting here like talking points, punching it up. I was like, hey, whatever you want. She's like, I'll quote you, don't quote me. That's all yours. So it's the least I could do for what her dad did and what she does for her dad. So, yeah. And they filed a lot. Yeah, yeah. And she she sued them. And it's important because she sued them to establish a precedent that you're not allowed to do that, right? You're not allowed to take existing intellectual property that people still own and use and turn it into an AI thing, which is super important because AI is coming for all of us.
Luke Burbank: Well, that's that's the thing. There was this New York magazine like peace experiment where they took three comedians. They took you, Maria Bamford and Gary Gulman. Yeah. And they had I write jokes in your respective stuff.
W. Kamau Bell: And they asked me first. So they're like, would you like to do that? And I was like, yeah, let's see what happens.
Luke Burbank: I read the jokes that the.
W. Kamau Bell: George Carlin stuff was better, George, because it was.
Luke Burbank: Better. It was I mean, first of all, it must be weird to have somebody tell you there's a Camille Bell style of comedy.
W. Kamau Bell: Yeah, cause I haven't figured it out. It's like I'm still trying to figure out what is this thing I do? Yeah. So vulture reached out to me and said, we want to do this. I said, sure, I don't know what their process was, but I definitely know that, like, it's like, oh, I, you know, I have a couple comedy special cup of comedy CDs. I've written a lot. So I was like, yeah, sure happens. The thing that was so funny to me is that this material that came out, there was no mention of race or racism in any of it. And I was like, I don't know that I've talked three minutes on stage ever in my life without at least going white people, you know what I mean? Just something, just something. And so it was like I was like, and when I say I was like, oh, this is how I know I was designed by white people to like they told it to Stewart. Like for some reason they told it to steer clear of that. So it was like there was just no sense of like it had nothing to do with anything. I read it to my kids. We all, we all laughed at it. We did not laugh with it. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Does that and give you as a as a comedian, do you feel like you've at least got a head start on this program? Like you can't do Camel Bell right now, but could it in ten years?
W. Kamau Bell: I mean, I think you could do it in two years, you know, I mean, first of all, I, I just no, I think no, it doesn't give me any comfort. The only comfort I have is that I'm old enough that I'll be dead before all this stuff really happens.
Luke Burbank: I find myself thinking that.
W. Kamau Bell: Does that come from. Does anybody feel comfort about that? Yeah. You got.
Elena Passarello: Some cheers.
W. Kamau Bell: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Some other comics said this, and I wish I had said this, and I wish I could quote it because I don't remember, but it was maybe like we thought I was going to, like, do the work while we created the art, but somehow it's been flipped. And again, I did not say I.
Luke Burbank: Think Stavros said.
W. Kamau Bell: That's what. Yes, never said it. And I thought that was like, but we're going to do the work in the eyes and making the art. And I think that's totally backwards. And so for me, I think we all of you aware that I is coming for all of our jobs and it's coming to distract us from the outs from what we need to focus on in the, in the world.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Well. Let's end things on that message of hope.
W. Kamau Bell: W come out Bell, everyone.
Luke Burbank: That was Kamau Bell right here on Live Wire. Make sure to subscribe to his Substack like I do. It's called who's With me? This is Live Wire, of course. Each week we ask our listeners a question. This week we asked, what's the wildest scam you have fallen for? Elena, what are some of the listeners saying about scams they found?
Elena Passarello: These are great because some of the scams are kind of big global scams, you know, like and some of them are just one person trying to pull something off on somebody else. So. Okay. Pretty great of the smaller variety, Reese says. When I worked as a cashier, someone paid me in money that looked perfectly real, and I didn't even think twice about it. But later that day, I was counting the money and I saw it was fake because on the back it said, in Glob We Trust.
Luke Burbank: That it's not a sophisticated counterfeiting ring.
Elena Passarello: That's like a little bit of a dig. It's too misspelled to be true.
Luke Burbank: That's one of my, like, slightly irrational fears is that I will get a hold of a counterfeit 20 or something, and then I'll be going around saying, I didn't make this, but I got it from somewhere. I don't remember where they're going to go. Yeah, sure. Like, I don't want to be holding the hot potato. I want to be holding the counterfeit money, cause it looks like then I was the one who said in glob We Trust. It's also probably a sign that I spend too much time in casinos, that this is a primary fear of mine getting a crooked $20 bill. What is another scam that one of our listeners fell for?
Elena Passarello: This one's on the bigger sort of social level. I have to say I've fallen for this scam too. Laura says I've been putting snail mucin. Look due to at snail mucin is.
Luke Burbank: Do I want to know is the rouge?
Elena Passarello: Yeah, it's the nice name. Mucinex will give you a little bit of a clue. It's snail snot.
W. Kamau Bell: It's just the just the.
Elena Passarello: Slime, the slimy trails that, snails use to ambulate. It's become this kind of skin care trend. And Laura says, I've been using snail mucin on my face for years because some woman on a podcast swore by it. And recently I realized that there has been no difference. And, you are over this call, Luke. This video call, you are looking at a mucin slathered face.
Luke Burbank: One more scam that one of our listeners fell for.
Elena Passarello: I love this one from Alex. Alex says. One time when I was working at a gym that used barcodes that people had to scan for entry into the gym, someone just pasted the code from a bag of chips or something onto a lanyard and was let through for months until we noticed. I still think about it.
W. Kamau Bell: Oh.
Elena Passarello: I'm try that man.
Luke Burbank: That's great. I would love it if like, I don't know how their system work, but if you get like number, you know, number numbers people and then you just see a picture of a bag of like Fritos.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. This is some Wavy Lay's coming in to do some sit ups.
Luke Burbank: Pretty smart. My mom, for many years, would sneak into the YMCA in her town until she learned that at her age, it's free.
W. Kamau Bell: Hahahahahahahaha.
Luke Burbank: She would put one air, like, one headphone in and pretend like she had left something in the YMCA and go back in, even though she had was going in for the first time.
Speaker 5: No.
Luke Burbank: Susie B for the with.
Elena Passarello: As good as the chips thing.
W. Kamau Bell: Right?
Luke Burbank: Thank you to everyone who sent in a response to our listener question. We got another one for next week's show coming up in just a bit. First, though, it's time for our next guest, who I have been a fan of for years. She's a Peabody and Emmy Award winning journalist, former producer for This American Life and the host of the podcast The Dream. Her latest book, Selling the Dream The Billion Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans, exposes what is really going on with multi-level marketing schemes. And it is not great, actually, which you're probably not shocked to hear. Publishers weekly calls it an urgent and riveting exposé. Jane Marie joined us on stage at the Alberta Rose Theater in Portland, Oregon. Hi, Jane.
Jane Marie: It's me. Hi.
Luke Burbank: Hi. Welcome to the show.
Jane Marie: Hello, friends.
Luke Burbank: I want to talk about this book. Okay. Because I first of all, I. When I saw it on the list of things we're gonna be talking about this season, I circled it because multi-level marketing schemes, if you will, were a very big part of the environment I was in as a kid growing up as, like evangelical.
Jane Marie: Christian, because.
Luke Burbank: I feel like you also spent your whole life preparing to write this book. Your grandmother was a Avon lady in Michigan?
Jane Marie: Yeah, my great grandma Maxine, who I dedicate the book to. I also the rest of my family, when they get involved in an MLM, they say they got a new job.
W. Kamau Bell: Oh.
Jane Marie: Which is fine. We're all poor people from Flint, Michigan. Like we're all having fun.
Luke Burbank: Did your, great grandma Maxine, though? Sounds like she got a little something out of her sort of Avon lady status. It wasn't money, but but but, like, I mean, kind of an enjoyable experience.
Jane Marie: She did. She lived off of government, mostly her adult life. Like she had her first kid when she was 14 and then, had four by the time she was 21 or 2. And, then and then my grandpa left. So she struggled a lot. And I think the Avon experience gave her an opportunity to feel like some agency, you know, to feel like an adult in the world doing a thing. And there's no barrier to entry. So she didn't have to have a high school diploma. She didn't have to have, like, tons of money. And she did it for like 20 years. The results of it like that I saw were just like in my stocking. It's like Christmas, right?
Luke Burbank: Which actually, it kind of gets back to the book because one of the things that defines a what we might call a pyramid scheme or a multi-level marketing operation is that the products that they allegedly sell are really not being sold widely in the wider world. You don't go into a store and buy that. It's mostly being purchased by the people that are selling the product, because they're being tricked into buying it from someone higher up the food chain than them, right? Hence the Avon in the stocking.
Jane Marie: What I'll say this is also in the book. Spoiler alert. Amway. Anyone heard of.
Elena Passarello: It? Yeah. Michigan Company.
Jane Marie: A Michigan company. They did not have a product when they started their company. There was no product. They just knew that they liked this business model. So they started the business model, and then they went searching for a product and they bought, a soap company, and they sold soap, which is just soap.
Luke Burbank: But soap that was going to be more expensive.
Elena Passarello: With.
Jane Marie: More oxygen.
Luke Burbank: Just going into the store and buying, which is another thing that should tip someone off if they're in a multi-level marketing situation.
Jane Marie: In a store or dude's like, also, there's all these rules about like, you can't even like put it in your friend's salon or something, you know, like you can't advertise these things anywhere. It's so exclusive. And I get it. Also, I get it though, like, I grew up with a milk man. Like I grew up with people knocking on your door about, you know, selling your plates and stuff. I feel like there was that value in that. Yeah, back in the day.
Luke Burbank: And the money was made by design, by the people who got other people to sign up. Other people. This is called the downline.
Jane Marie: Right? And there's people right at the top. And then there's a level.
Luke Burbank: She's making a pyramid symbol for the listeners triangle.
Jane Marie: And then there's like a level. So that's like friends and family up here. And then they recruit 5 or 10 people and then they're told those people are told to get two to 5 or 10 people. And that keeps going. At the very bottom are eager, hopeful, optimistic, sometimes desperate folks like all of us, right, who are ready to sign up and say, I'll pay 199 for this starter kit to become my own business owner. To, like, start my own empire. And you do that, you fail. Someone else does it. They fail, someone else does it. They fail. And the company itself, for the most part, with MLMs, doesn't make money any other way.
Luke Burbank: Than signing up new people to try to throw themselves against the sort of castle walls, or just keep coming up with shapes to describe of this financial model. What is the percentage of people who make money through multi-level marketing?
Jane Marie: Oh, probably .01 percent.
Luke Burbank: So 99.9% of people that answer the call from Lulu Ro or scented candles or whatever are going to lose money in this.
Jane Marie: There is a statistic that's like 97.6 lose over like $100. And then between that. And 99%. Nothing. No gain. And then 99% to 100 or whatever. Make a dollar. And then there's like a teeny tiny. Does it remind you of any country that you live in?
Elena Passarello: Well. Well phrased. I mean.
Luke Burbank: I mean, this is something that I feel like it's easy to kind of want to be dismissive of people that get caught up in this. And and oftentimes now with the internet and with social media, it's somebody that you kind of like sort of remember from high school or kind of met somewhere, and then they're hitting you up, wanting you to take on this business opportunity. But you're saying, Jane, that we are living in an economy in the United States where there are so many people that are so economically disadvantaged that this pure craziness, that is, you can make unlimited amounts of money selling questionable workout tights. It catches on with people because those people are so few opportunities to try to do something.
Jane Marie: I don't think that's crazy. I think it's what we've all been told from kindergarten. I don't know if you all grew up in this country, but you were told you could be an astronaut, you could be a doctor, you could be anything you want. Just have the right mindset and go out there and work hard. And these schemes tap into that very directly. They say, actually, you don't need to have a high school diploma. You can be a felon. You don't even need like a green card. You can do this because this is the land of opportunity. And I believe they exist solely because we've all bought into that. And perhaps it was true for some moment in time, but it's not.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire radio. We're talking to Jane Marie. Her book is selling the dream. The billion dollar Industry bankrupting Americans. It's about the multi-level marketing world. Was there ever, like, kind of the good old days of this? Like, maybe before the internet? Before was so, like, now it feels very desperate and very high pressure for the people. But was there ever a time when it was just kind of like.
Jane Marie: I to talk about brownie.
Luke Burbank: Brownie wise? Yeah. The wish is a real name, not just something I said because of an aphasia. The person who is kind of credited with pioneering the idea of parties to sell this stuff, she came up with Tupperware parties.
Jane Marie: She came up with the party plan. There were no parties before. And now it's like the majority of at least like women's products and MLMs are on a party based system. No, she was awesome. She was an aeronautics executive, a saxophonist. She had a, advice column in the Detroit paper. She was a single mom with one son all by herself. And a guy came to her door trying to sell a mop, and she was like, you suck at this. And she called the boss and was like, I can let me run this whole thing. And then she hooked up with Earl Tupper. This is a real name that.
Luke Burbank: He was the Earl of Tupper.
Jane Marie: The Earl of Tupper.
Luke Burbank: Was an honorary title.
Jane Marie: And she started these parties that were. I don't know how many of you have been to a Tupperware party. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: They're so fun. So fun. I will say that one. I know that the way the the structure of the Tupperware party, it's still an MLM, but people do have Tupperware in their house. I gotta at least put them in some special category.
Jane Marie: Well, now they sell it at target to trick you into thinking it's not an MLA.
Luke Burbank: How does that work then?
Jane Marie: Well, you can still sell it to your friends and neighbors. You can still rope.
Luke Burbank: Did they achieve escape velocity though? Like as a pyramid scheme.
Jane Marie: Where they counter that? At first I think they're a makeup MLM that's at Sephora, but it's the new tactic. It's like mainstreaming. They're trying to mainstream and say, like, this is a thing you see at the store, right? So it can't be that bad. It doesn't matter what they're selling at the store.
Luke Burbank: I mean, some of the stories that you profile in the book, though, a lot of people who are already starting out in a pretty bad financial spot really lose, like a lot of money. And just like it's not kind of just a funny suit like Amway, you know, we had that person at my church trying to sell Amway. It's like people really suffer real harm from this, which is what I got from the book completely.
Jane Marie: I mean, there's lots of stories about people giving their entire life savings over to these companies, and it's part of the business model, right, is to say if you're failing, I've never in all my research, I've been doing this for like seven years now. In all my research, I've never seen a moment where an MLM is doing poorly and they evaluate their own product or their business structure. Never. What they do is push it all off on to the seller and say, you're not doing enough, you're not working hard enough, and then they sell them some class or something.
Luke Burbank: Tools.
Jane Marie: Tools, right. With Amway it's called tools. And they just sell them more and more crap to like get better at their business. That was designed to fail from the beginning.
Luke Burbank: The sales pitch on this is you're busy, you have a family. You need to support your family, but also have time to be with them. And this is a way for you to just kind of have this, make this money and but fit your real life into the rest of. Your life. And what you point out is that it is really time consuming. If you're going to try to be an achiever in these worlds of these MLMs, there's no vacation time. Because if you're not selling the people above, you aren't getting kicked up to them like it's a very intense, very hard job when the whole sales pitch is. This is like a fun thing that you'll make some extra money.
Jane Marie: If that was true, I would be in, right? Like if I could do that. But the fact of the matter is that the real pitch, the real sell, is recruiting. So you're not like, you're not actually walking around town with a cigar and cigarets. You know, you're not doing that here.
Luke Burbank: That was my idea for an MLM, and it's people walking around with open cigarets on the streets of Portland. Jayne. Marie, everyone, the book is selling the drink. That was Jane Marie right here on the Live Wire, her book, Selling the Dream The Billion Dollar Industry Bankrupting Americans, is out now. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. We have to take a very quick break, but don't go anywhere. When we come back, you are going to hear some incredible music from E La Bamba. Stay with us. Welcome back to Live Wire from PR. I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Okay, before we get to our musical guest, a little preview of next week's show, we're going to be talking to the journalist Jay Wortham, a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine and the co-host of the Still Processing podcast. They're going to explain what you should major in in college so you can get the job of Culture watcher, which is the job they have, and also how having that job might land you on a nude queer beach in Oaxaca for work. Plus, we're going to talk to author Curtis Sittenfeld about her book Romantic Comedy, which follows a comedy writer on a TV show that goes live every Saturday night. We'll leave it to you to figure out the show that this is kind of based on, and we're going to hear some music from award winning singer, songwriter and Live Wire fave Margo Silke. It's going to be a great show. You don't want to miss it. And as always, we're going to be looking to get your answer to our listener question. Elena, what do we asking our listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: We want to know what is the most romantic movie moment of all time. And I'm there's only one answer is when that dog rolls that meatball across the plate to the other dog and lady and the tramp.
Luke Burbank: Oh, that is I mean, that's an all timer. How about when a Princess Leia unfreeze is Han Solo in Jabba's layer?
Elena Passarello: That's pretty good, I guess. I mean, that that goes a little further than a meatball, but, it's not as.
W. Kamau Bell: Cute.
Luke Burbank: If you've got an answer to the question. The most romantic movie moment of all time. Send it into us via social media. We're at Live Wire radio pretty much everywhere. This is Live Wire from our. Our musical guest this week has been called an unsparing work of sonic catharsis by rolling Stone magazine. They have released seven albums, including their latest, Luca All the way from Portland, Oregon, by way of Mexico City. E la Bomba joined us at the Patricia Valin Research Center for the Creative Arts in Corvallis, Oregon. Welcome to the show.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Luke Burbank: What song are we going to hear?
Speaker 6: This one's called Grandmother Melon. And this one I talk about. Oh, it's just all my songs are collages, but there's a line of, like, you can't compare your suffering to someone else. You know, traumas, trauma. You know, it's just like, love your enemy. Really? So that's. That's what I said. It almost like singing it. It feels different.
Luke Burbank: This is la bomba en la la.
Speaker 5: So. So with La Tormenta Caribbean soul. I know they care about your little brother. So. You, you Lagrimas camara. When I look up on a finger, they lose. Who signed a day for the. Through there. They, you know to be a thumb you. He.
Unidentified: Who? Oh. You.
Speaker 5: Other than a real healing love be my head, I can do for them. Yes, I've noticed they. They. Devonian, though they love it. I saw it float, so I like it. I said me say that it did that it does that it does that it I that I did it I. That it does that it does then. But Dada. Dada Dada. They. School. Yeah, but I said then, I mean, you know, combat is like glue stick in no shape where they should be compound. The Toy Story. Ebony. The bonnet on it. Every step on it, on my papa. Other. Who? Go away. No wonder, though, the local youth will be. Hungry for more. As a stark as a. He. Other than maybe healing love be my God, I can do better than pass. I have more to say. Be near 91 when you're done. Then I feel I so I flow so I could I he said me since the day to day. The da da da da da da da da da he. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da de.
Unidentified: That's De La Bamba right here on Live Wire.
Luke Burbank: Make sure to check out their latest album, Lucha, which is available now. That is going to do it for this week's episode of the show. A huge thanks to our guests Camille Belle, Jane Marie, and De La Bamba.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather De Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Savchenko. Leona Kinderman and Evan Hoffer are our technical directors, and our house sound is by Neil Blake. Trey Hester is our assistant editor. Rosa Garcia is our operations associate, Jackie Ibarra is our production fellow, and Becky Phillips is our intern. Our house band is Sam Tucker, Ethan Fox, Tucker, Al Alves, and a Walker Spring who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Trey Hester.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and the James F and Marion L Miller Foundation. Live Wire was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week, we'd like to thank members Sam and Fawn Livingston Gray of Portland, Oregon. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, visit Live Wire radio.org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
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