The Blotter Presents

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Brief 35: Over My Dead Body Feb 15, 2019

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The story of Dan Markel's power-couple marriage, hideous divorce, and death is another Pringles-for-the-ear outing from Wondery.

085: Lorena And Talked To Death: The Dark Side Of TV Talk Shows Feb 13, 2019

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Amazon Prime's Jordan Peele-produced Lorena drops Friday, February 15, and Piper Weiss is back to talk about what we missed in the Lorena Bobbitt story the first time around; why the focus seemed to be on the violence done to John Wayne Bobbitt's penis and not to his wife, by him; who crime stories should "belong to"; and the enduring repellence of the word "panties."

Next, it's an early HBO doc on the murder of Scott Amedure, and other (cultural) crimes for which the daytime-talk-show craze may be responsible. Were Jerry Springer et al. like the WWE? Was Amedure's family right to blame Jenny Jones for their loved one's demise? And what classist aspects of these "entertainments" let us stare, while distancing ourselves? The nineties still have much to teach us on The Blotter Presents, Episode 085.

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SHOW NOTES

Special Guest: Piper Weiss.

Brief 34: ReMastered: The Two Killings Of Sam Cooke Feb 08, 2019

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The Netflix series interrogates the circumstances surrounding the demise of the soul singer and activist.

084: A Very English Scandal And The Scandal Story Feb 06, 2019

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Mark Blankenship returns to discuss TWO eminently English scandals from the middle of the last century. Mark brought Amazon's three-part take on the Jeremy Thorpe "business," A Very English Scandal, up for discussion, and we contemplated -- as Toby and I did last week -- how outlawing human behavior turns a whole bunch of humans into criminals, and creates more problems than it solves. We also wondered what English class-division issues we might have missed as Yanks, talked about the gorgeously subtle performances in the series, and giggled at the nicknames of the posh set ("Boofy"!).

Later, we talked about a documentary show from 1989 that covered not just the Profumo affair but the 1989 film about it, Scandal, that created a couple scandals of its own. What exactly was the crime there? Because we have a feeling it's more how people talked about Christine Keeler than any kind of felonious infidelity or Cold-War honey-trapping. It's a veddy veddy veddy good day to play croquet in four-inch pumps on The Blotter Presents, Episode 084.

SHOW NOTES

A Very English Scandal
The Scandal Story
My convo with Al Lowe on Criminal Justice (which became The Night Of) at Previously.TV
Mark And Sarah Talk About Songs
Mark on Twitter

Special Guest: Mark Blankenship.

Brief 33: Monster: The Zodiac Killer Feb 04, 2019

Show notes

The Atlanta Monster team takes on the Zodiac, with mixed results.

083: Murder Mountain And The Weather Underground Jan 30, 2019

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Toby Ball returns to discuss the clashes between two sets of sixties ideals and one implacable system, capitalism, in the latest podcast. We led off with Netflix's six-part series on the changing times in Humboldt County, CA, Murder Mountain, and its heady blend (so to speak) of true crime and subcultural documentation. How does it stack up with Josh Zeman's other projects? Did it need another couple of episodes to follow the fates of "trimmigrants"? And should the series have arranged a certain poignant meeting?

Later, we contemplated 2003 Oscar-nominated The Weather Underground and the simultaneously corny and resonant message of the Weathermen here in 2019, plus the utility of bombing, well, utilities, and why the film seemed to avert its eyes from the group's biggest mistakes. Not sure "bombs, joints, and naked carpentry" is quite as catchy as "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll," but grab your toolbelts and a lighter and let's find out in The Blotter Presents, Episode 83.

SHOW NOTES

Murder Mountain
Crime Writers On's Murder Mountain ep
The Blotter Presents's Prohibition ep
My interview with Josh Zeman and Rachel Mills on The Killing Season on Previously.TV
The Weather Underground (also available on Amazon Prime)

Special Guest: Toby Ball.

Brief 32: I Am The Night Jan 28, 2019

Show notes

Another day, another take on the Black Dahlia that tries to do too much and loses me early on.

Brief 31: The Drop Out: The Rise And Fall Of Elizabeth Holmes's Theranos Jan 25, 2019

Show notes

For those of us who wished Bad Blood would never end, it's a new podcast from ABC Radio.

082: The Ted Bundy Tapes And Cathy Evelyn Smith Jan 23, 2019

Show notes

Sometimes I feel like I should retitle this podcast The Joe Berlinger Review Hour, because he's back on Netflix with Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, and first-time guest Piper Weiss joins me to discuss the male gaze of the miniseries; Carol DaRonch's bitchin' Camaro; and the things about Bundy that it's not possible for us to understand.

Later, we dug into the death of John Belushi -- specifically, Cathy Evelyn Smith, the woman who allegedly gave him the speedball that killed him, and whether she did time for administering those drugs because someone had to do time for something. Would Belushi have died the same way anyway? Is there any groupie who isn't, in some sense a victim? And can Erin Lee Carr please tell Smith's story? So many questions, so many muddled '70s non-answers in an all-new The Blotter Presents.

SHOW NOTES

Conversations With A Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes on Netflix
The Stranger Beside Me and other Ann Rule essentials
You think Zac Efron playing Bundy is nuts? Dig THIS
The 20/20 interview with Cathy Smith
Rolling Stone's piece on Belushi and Smith
Wired on YouTube
PiperWeiss.com

Special Guest: Piper Weiss.

Brief 30: Smiley Face Killers Jan 19, 2019

Show notes

Oxygen's new series, on hundreds of possibly connected possible drowning deaths, sounds crazy...but it just might work. (My kookballoons idea for a "let happy-hour bar patrons try to crack unsolved cases" podcast, not s'much.)

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