534 - Think About the Simulation

This week, Georgia covers the legacy and murder of Haing S. Ngor and Karen tells the story of Henderson Luelling and his “doomed Quaker sex cult.” For our sources, please visit https://www.myfavoritemurder.com/episodes. Support this podcast by shopping our latest sponsor deals and promotions at this link: https://bit.ly/3UFCn1g. Head to social media to share your favorite moments from this episode. Instagram: instagram.com/myfavoritemurder http://instagram.com/myfavoritemurder Facebook: facebook.com/myfavoritemurder http://facebook.com/myfavoritemurder TikTok: tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder http://tiktok.com/@my_favorite_murder Send your hometown stories to [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. Join the Fan Cult to access ad-free episodes of My Favorite Murder. Members also receive merch store discounts, exclusive audio and video content and more! Visit www.fancult.supercast.com http://www.fancult.supercast.com/ to join. Shop for My Favorite Murder and other Exactly Right merchandise here: www.exactlyrightstore.com http://www.exactlyrightstore.com/. Rate, review and follow My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you like to listen. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This is exactly right.

• 0:06Speaker 01

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• 0:36Speaker 02

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• 1:06Speaker 03

  I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week I bring on an amazing guest.

• 1:18Speaker 04

  Ooh, I scammed them.

• 1:19Speaker 03

  What?

• 1:20Speaker 04

  I could talk to you for an hour.

• 1:21Speaker 03

  You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Hello.

• 1:54Karen Kilgariff?

  And welcome.

• 1:55Georgia Hardstark?

  To My Favorite Murder.

• 1:56Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Georgia Hardstark.

• 1:58Georgia Hardstark?

  That's Karen Kilgariff.

• 1:59Karen Kilgariff?

  No point thing.

• 2:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, yeah, sorry.

• 2:01Karen Kilgariff?

  That's against the law. I was the only one doing it.

• 2:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Pointing is rude.

• 2:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Pointing is rude.

• 2:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Don't you ever stop it. How are you?

• 2:09Karen Kilgariff?

  I'm good. I'm grateful to have the job of podcasting today.

• 2:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Same.

• 2:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 2:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Why specifically today?

• 2:17Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't know. It's just a really nice life.

• 2:20Georgia Hardstark?

  It is. Vincent and I were talking about how it's all, democracy is going to be over soon. So like, how do we celebrate what we have now?

• 2:28Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right.

• 2:28Georgia Hardstark?

  For me, I tell my therapist that when I'm really bummed, I think about, if I took a time machine back to today, because the apocalypse has happened, I'm going to look at everything and be like, wow, I was so lucky.

• 2:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 2:41Georgia Hardstark?

  To have these things and to be able to talk to these people and to do these.

• 2:45Karen Kilgariff?

  We have a hot dog phone.

• 2:46Georgia Hardstark?

  To have freedom, to have a hot dog phone. So just pretend you're from the future.

• 2:50Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 2:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is a dark, terrible place.

• 2:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Or not.

• 2:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Or not.

• 2:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Or a rule of six.

• 2:57Georgia Hardstark?

  What's that?

• 2:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Dark, terrible place and five other options.

• 3:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 3:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Got to do five other options every time.

• 3:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 3:03Karen Kilgariff?

  My therapist does it like this, though. She puts her hand up and then goes, this is dark, this is dark, terrible times. It also could be neutral times.

• 3:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 3:12Karen Kilgariff?

  It could be very bright and shiny times.

• 3:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly the same.

• 3:15Karen Kilgariff?

  It could be like we're all working at Macy's all the time.

• 3:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 3:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Weird, but doable.

• 3:20Georgia Hardstark?

  I could have a desk job. CB Richard Ellis Investors.

• 3:23Karen Kilgariff?

  You could go back there.

• 3:23Georgia Hardstark?

  One moment, please.

• 3:24Karen Kilgariff?

  So quickly.

• 3:25Georgia Hardstark?

  CB Richard Ellis Investors. I can't pay my rent. One moment, please.

• 3:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Now, there's your podcast. I mean, you've always worked in the voice area, clearly.

• 3:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 3:35Karen Kilgariff?

  That's, that was your early training.

• 3:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 3:37Karen Kilgariff?

  And mine was reading aloud in sixth grade, which was my favorite thing to do.

• 3:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, you loved to be called on.

• 3:42Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, because they would just go up and down the road. There's no way we haven't talked about this, but I would just, I would go pick out the paragraph that would be mine.

• 3:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Practice it.

• 3:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Practice, not too much, not too little.

• 3:53Georgia Hardstark?

  So you didn't know, you didn't listen to what?

• 3:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Not a word.

• 3:56Georgia Hardstark?

  You knew what was happening.

• 3:57Karen Kilgariff?

  That was none of my business. I was on that, my paragraphs.

• 4:01Georgia Hardstark?

  See, that's why that's, yeah. And you killed it every time.

• 4:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 4:04Georgia Hardstark?

  I was very proud of my reading skills.

• 4:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yeah. Nice and smooth. No trips.

• 4:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Janet, for every, every bad thing she did, she fucking.

• 4:12Karen Kilgariff?

  She taught you to read.

• 4:13Georgia Hardstark?

  She taught me to read them real, real good.

• 4:15Karen Kilgariff?

  The basics. She covered those basics. Three hots and a cot and a book that you could actually read for yourself. Oh, belated birthday.

• 4:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Happy birthday. I just, I just plopped a fucking little gift wrapped gift in front of Karen for her birthday.

• 4:34Karen Kilgariff?

  I will tell you, listener, it's heavy. It's wrapped in gorgeous.

• 4:38Georgia Hardstark?

  It's so you. I saw it. It's from Etsy.

• 4:43Georgia Hardstark?

  Right? Tell them what it is.

• 4:44Karen Kilgariff?

  It is a Diet Coke ashtray, ladies and gentlemen. It is so beautiful. It looks like hand painted, but then underneath some clear.

• 4:53Georgia Hardstark?

  It is. Read the maker on the back.

• 4:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, the maker is Ware, W A R E, your snacks.

• 4:58Georgia Hardstark?

  And so she has, you can get that in like, mine would obviously be, it's a potato chip with crème fraiche and caviar on it. You can get hot dog. You can get.

• 5:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Mine would obviously be, who are you? Who are you, Orange County?

• 5:14Georgia Hardstark?

  That is my, caviar is like my, like, favorite.

• 5:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Mine would obviously be a gold bar on top of some cottage cheese.

• 5:24Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't know why. It's just like so.

• 5:27Karen Kilgariff?

  But it's basically looking at something that makes your mouth immediately water or makes your thing go, that's my jam.

• 5:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, that's your identity. So Diet Coke, a can of Diet Coke, I saw that. And I was like, I have to get that for Karen. It could be a catch-all. You don't have to ash and you don't have to take up smoking.

• 5:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, but I have to. Now that you've given me this, you've required it. And I'm going to go right back to the Capri's. They're thin.

• 5:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, sure.

• 5:47Karen Kilgariff?

  They're easy to smoke.

• 5:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 5:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Ladies and gentlemen, look up 1988's Capri cigarettes.

• 5:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 5:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Thank you so much. That's a perfect gift.

• 5:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 5:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Now I have a gift for you that I realized the last time we talked about birthday gift giving, you were like, it's not my birthday yet. But I was like, oh, just, we're going to give each other a gift at the same time.

• 6:05Georgia Hardstark?

  I like an in-between thing, because our birthdays are like almost a month apart.

• 6:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 6:09Georgia Hardstark?

  So, yeah.

• 6:10Karen Kilgariff?

  A month and a decade.

• 6:12Georgia Hardstark?

  A month and a decade. Wow. Almost exactly 10 years apart.

• 6:15Karen Kilgariff?

  We're a generation apart.

• 6:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 6:18Karen Kilgariff?

  I think that's the hook of this podcast, if no one's caught on.

• 6:21Georgia Hardstark?

  That's true.

• 6:22Karen Kilgariff?

  It's like old and young.

• 6:24Georgia Hardstark?

  You know what I was thinking about too is like the fact that we started this podcast when we barely knew each other. So we were getting to know each other at the same time the audience was getting, got to know us that way. If we had already known everything about each other.

• 6:38Karen Kilgariff?

  It would all be facade.

• 6:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. So I think that's the secret sauce. I hate that term.

• 6:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, should we call it the Thousand Island dressing of our souls? I agree. And I also think that we kind of knew it, but we also didn't know it.

• 6:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 6:52Karen Kilgariff?

  I think we both had that, like, we're grabbing hands and jumping off this cliff.

• 6:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 6:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Which other people wouldn't have done.

• 6:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 6:59Karen Kilgariff?

  And I think so. There was a feeling of that, just discovering this now.

• 7:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 7:03Karen Kilgariff?

  But the feeling of that of like, she's up for this.

• 7:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 7:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Whatever this thing is, she's up for it.

• 7:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. I'm game.

• 7:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Thank God.

• 7:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Thank God. And that's, and that's this podcast. Well, thanks for listening.

• 7:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye. This is our way of saying, we quit.

• 7:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Done.

• 7:18Karen Kilgariff?

  We both walk out.

• 7:20Georgia Hardstark?

  That's it. Fade to black.

• 7:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, just point out that it has been 10 years, but the last time we recorded, our episode was almost two hours long.

• 7:28Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 7:28Karen Kilgariff?

  So the idea when people are like, aren't you gonna run out of stuff? It's like, you would think we would.

• 7:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Today I'm doing this story that like, means so, 10 years in and I'm finally doing this story that means so much to me. It's not like, I found a story and like,

• 7:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 7:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Another one. It's like, they can still be so important and meaningful and shit. Unfortunately, there's just a never ending.

• 7:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. There's bad humans.

• 7:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Parade of.

• 7:50Karen Kilgariff?

  This parade of humans.

• 7:51Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. That's the name of the episode.

• 7:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's right.

• 7:55Georgia Hardstark?

  I wanted to ask everyone if they know that we name every episode after some ridiculous thing we say in the episode. And that's like, obvious to everyone. But I was like, what if they don't know that? So like, you gotta find the moment we say the dumbass thing that we named the episode. It's like a little Easter egg.

• 8:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 8:14Georgia Hardstark?

  That everyone knows.

• 8:15Karen Kilgariff?

  And then if you figure it out, we'll send you an Easter egg in the mail.

• 8:18Georgia Hardstark?

  It's just one jelly bean.

• 8:20Karen Kilgariff?

  From this last Easter. They don't, they smell really bad. But.

• 8:24Georgia Hardstark?

  But.

• 8:24Karen Kilgariff?

  That's your gift.

• 8:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 8:25Karen Kilgariff?

  You know, when we planned this show, there was all kinds of futuristic, technical, Easter egg type thinking that we put into it.

• 8:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. We love Easter eggs.

• 8:34Karen Kilgariff?

  We're like a video game.

• 8:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 8:36Karen Kilgariff?

  But so real.

• 8:37Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, this is a simulation. How could it not be?

• 8:40Karen Kilgariff?

  I'll tell you the thing that the physicist said.

• 8:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 8:42Karen Kilgariff?

  When I worked on the time travel show and somebody asked, that was the first question we asked. And he said, it doesn't matter.

• 8:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Come on, that's not what I was expecting.

• 8:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Because if it's a simulation, it's so good.

• 8:54Georgia Hardstark?

  You're right.

• 8:54Karen Kilgariff?

  We don't know.

• 8:55Georgia Hardstark?

  You're right.

• 8:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Or we're just catching on. But if it's a good enough simulation that we don't know.

• 9:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 9:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Then that idea that like, I'm stuck in the back rooms, or whatever people get online about.

• 9:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 9:05Karen Kilgariff?

  And weird in their head, it's like, it's better, it's better than that. Go to the beach.

• 9:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 9:10Karen Kilgariff?

  And then think about the simulation.

• 9:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 9:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Go now.

• 9:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 9:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, oh, okay.

• 9:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, oh.

• 9:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh shit.

• 9:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Wait a second.

• 9:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, first, fucking new MFM animated.

• 9:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh my god, that's right.

• 9:24Georgia Hardstark?

  I haven't watched it yet, have you?

• 9:25Karen Kilgariff?

  Neither of us have seen this, and so we thought it'd be fun to show you at the same time as we are seeing it for the first time ourselves.

• 9:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Our friend Nick Terry, by his own free will.

• 9:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 9:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Makes these incredible animations based on some dumb fucking thing that we've said.

• 9:40Karen Kilgariff?

  He started it.

• 9:40Georgia Hardstark?

  This is from Mini Sub 478, it's called Dramamine. Let's, if you're not watching it on Netflix.

• 9:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Please do.

• 9:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Or go look it up.

• 9:47Karen Kilgariff?

  And now we're gonna watch it for the first time right here.

• 9:52Karen Kilgariff?

  It was summer of 2005, and I was eight years old, when we took a family vacation to Yosemite and San Francisco. While in San Fran, we got a boat tour that took us past Alcatraz and to some other island close by.

• 10:06Georgia Hardstark?

  What is that, Marin?

• 10:07Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't remember there being a two-island stop for the Alcatraz tour, but I haven't been there.

• 10:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Alcatraz 2.

• 10:14Karen Kilgariff?

  It's smaller and hipper, and there's a disco.

• 10:19Karen Kilgariff?

  There's an amazing nightlife on Alcatraz 2. Okay, my dad was really nervous that I was gonna get seasick, so he gave me three Dramamine and we boarded the boat. Turns out that the serving size of Dramamine for an eight-year-old is half a pill, so I was knocked the fuck out.

• 10:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Hell yeah.

• 10:35Karen Kilgariff?

  My dad happens to be a fireman.

• 10:39Karen Kilgariff?

  And it says he's retired now, this is so classic. So he walked around the island, Alcatraz, with my sleeping eight-year-old body thrown over his shoulder in a fireman's carriage. So can I just stop here to tell you this?

• 10:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, Jim's gonna be in it.

• 10:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Dad life thing I will ever tell you.

• 10:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 10:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Which is that at night, when we were little, my dad, you could do the fireman's carry, you could do sack of potatoes, or you could ride a horse to bed. Those are the three ways we got carried to bed.

• 11:07Georgia Hardstark?

  And you gotta pick which one?

• 11:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 11:10Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so cute.

• 11:12Karen Kilgariff?

  So fireman's, you're just bent over his shoulder. Sack of potatoes, he's holding you by your ring.

• 11:16Georgia Hardstark?

  And you're behind. Oh, my God.

• 11:18Karen Kilgariff?

  But then the horse, you got on back and you put your hand over his mouth to feed the horse, and he ran down the hallway and threw you on the bed.

• 11:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Can he do it now? Can I have that?

• 11:29Karen Kilgariff?

  That might be the greatest.

• 11:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 11:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Privilege.

• 11:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, having a firefighter dad. Oh, my God.

• 11:35Karen Kilgariff?

  So that's, I think this one gets me, especially because he just basically, like every fireman's like, we're just gonna solve this problem.

• 11:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Just fucking.

• 11:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, so he would occasionally stop and wake me up to eat ice cream and drink water with my eyes closed. My mom and brother took normal pictures and occasionally included me. Weekend at Bernie's.

• 11:53Georgia Hardstark?

  I can see you have a picture. Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

• 11:55Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the best picture, too. The only thing that I actually remember about that day is waking up on a park bench next to a dog wearing sunglasses.

• 12:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, she's awakened it. Oh, my God.

• 12:07Karen Kilgariff?

  That's her way. She woke up at the end of all that was like, hey.

• 12:10Georgia Hardstark?

  That is the cutest thing I've ever seen.

• 12:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 12:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, what a joyful thing to have.

• 12:22Karen Kilgariff?

  I completely forgot that we knew what that little girl looked like. That's why the headband was so funny to me.

• 12:27Georgia Hardstark?

  It looked, we have an actual photo of her.

• 12:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, that was from Lizzie originally.

• 12:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Lizzie, I hope this is bringing you so much joy.

• 12:34Karen Kilgariff?

  You now have a character in the Nick Tariya MFM animated universe.

• 12:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Based off of you as a child, like the real photo of you. God, that's so special. I love it so much.

• 12:43Karen Kilgariff?

  So good. Wow, that was so funny.

• 12:45Georgia Hardstark?

  I was wondering if your dad was gonna throw me over his shoulder. That would've been rad.

• 12:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's right, to give you what you wanted.

• 12:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, cuz I was like, can I do it? And Jim was like, no.

• 12:54Karen Kilgariff?

  I only have this one thing, which is the funny interpretation, as I saw it. You rode the horse like, kinda like a monkey on his back, so he had your legs in his arms.

• 13:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 13:04Karen Kilgariff?

  It wasn't, cuz if you ran down a hallway on your dad's shoulders, I think, slammed into the door jamb. But not to criticize after the fact.

• 13:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 13:14Karen Kilgariff?

  That was a joy.

• 13:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure. Can we edit? Can we get that edited? Stan!

• 13:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Our first round of notes have this to say. No, Nick Terry, we love you so much. Thank you so much.

• 13:22Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 13:23Karen Kilgariff?

  What a joy. So good. Okay, should we do network?

• 13:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes, we have a podcast network. It's the fucking best, only cool people. Like, you wouldn't even believe it. So it's called Exactly Right Media. Here are some highlights.

• 13:35Karen Kilgariff?

  And one of the podcasts that is on this network is called The Knife. We love it. Hannah and Pasha continue their unbelievable story of Paul Franzak, who was kidnapped from a Chicago hospital as a newborn in 1964. In this episode, as he digs deeper into his identity, he uncovers secrets that completely rewrite the story of his life.

• 13:56Georgia Hardstark?

  So wild.

• 13:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 13:58Georgia Hardstark?

  And then over on this podcast, we'll kill you. Erin and Erin just keep bringing it. How do they even think of these things? This time they tackle motion sickness.

• 14:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Just to go along with that MFM animated.

• 14:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. Tell me everything. From boats to planes to the world's grossest historical cures. Yes, they break down why our brains and bodies completely betray us and me while traveling.

• 14:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Because you take three pills instead of half. And on this week's That's Messed Up, Kara and Lisa recap episode 18 from season seven of Law and Order SVU, entitled Venom. And their special guest this week is Joe Graffici.

• 14:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Plus, over on Ghosted, Roz is joined by drag queen and comedian Juno Birch.

• 14:37Karen Kilgariff?

  And then just really quick, over in the merch corner, the fan favorite Married Joggers, Fuck You, I'm Married, are officially back just in time for wedding season.

• 14:45Georgia Hardstark?

  That's right. Grab a pair for yourself, your partner, or your favorite legally bound murderino at ExactlyRightStore.com. And don't forget, you can watch brand new episodes of My Favorite Murder and Buried Bones every week on frickin' Netflix.

• 15:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Here we are.

• 15:00Georgia Hardstark?

  Have you seen yourself? Have you, like, been scrolling and just suddenly there's your face? Or there's last podcast on the left's faces?

• 15:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Um, I came home to my own face because while I was away, my dog sitter put on the podcast video for the dogs.

• 15:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god!

• 15:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? To see if it would help dogs sit.

• 15:18Georgia Hardstark?

  We put on reggae because we heard that dogs, like, chill out reggae.

• 15:22Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 15:23Georgia Hardstark?

  But I should put my own fucking voice on. Although Cookie Love spends more than me, so we should put on his podcast.

• 15:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes, that's right.

• 15:29Georgia Hardstark?

  She's gonna be like, this bitch is still here? Where's my reggae?

• 15:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Telling me what to do.

• 15:32Georgia Hardstark?

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• 16:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, you're first.

• 16:05Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm first, and wow. Okay, so, poof. I've been studying up until, like, while I put my makeup on, till the minute that I left the house.

• 16:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Love it.

• 16:14Georgia Hardstark?

  When we were in high school, we spent a day or two in history class, learning about Vietnam, right?

• 16:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, yes.

• 16:22Georgia Hardstark?

  The basics.

• 16:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Sure.

• 16:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Breezed over it, moved on with our lives. This is, it sounds like a brag, but it's not. So, I was really into the band Dead Kennedys. And because of that, they sing about a lot of historical stuff, so I was really into that band. And then I would go look up the things they were singing about. And one of those things-

• 16:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Pol Pot.

• 16:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. I literally was like, "Mom, what's Pol Pot?"

• 16:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Yep.

• 16:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Turns out, and the song is called "Holiday in Cambodia." So, I learned a bunch about it. I was really into Vietnam. I read the book, The Killing Fields, watched the movie, and-

• 16:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Through the Dead Kennedys music, basically, they kind of like, made you go, "What is this about? Why would they be singing about this?"

• 16:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. That, I mean, I would like, they also have a song about who was shot in San Francisco.

• 17:01Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, Harvey Milk.

• 17:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Harvey Milk. Like, they just, you learn about shit you wouldn't know. So, Pol Pot, Cambodia, let's start here.

• 17:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 17:09Georgia Hardstark?

  It's a Sunday in late February 1996, and we're in Los Angeles's Chinatown. It's about 8:45 PM, and residents hear something that sounds like firecrackers, then make a horrifying discovery in the garage of a small apartment building. Neighbors find the body of a beloved fixture in Los Angeles's Cambodian community and in the Cambodian community worldwide. He had been shot getting out of his car, and what police will ultimately decide was a robbery gone wrong, but this will remain up for debate. The reason for this is that the man- Who had been killed had been a vocal critic of Cambodia's government and a survivor of the genocidal Pol Pot regime. And just to give you some numbers, that led to the

• 17:54Georgia Hardstark?

  deaths of an estimated 1.5 to 3 million people, which was a quarter of the country's population.

• 18:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 18:00Georgia Hardstark?

  This man had been a doctor, a forced laborer, a refugee, a community advocate, and in a surprise turn, an Oscar-winning actor. In fact, he was the first person of Asian heritage to win the award.

• 18:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 18:14Georgia Hardstark?

  May is AAPI Heritage Month, and this is the story of the amazing life, brave actions, and tragic death of Hang Noor.

• 18:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 18:24Georgia Hardstark?

  The main source for the story is a documentary called The Killing Fields of Dr. Hang S. Noor. Fucking can't recommend it enough. It tells you so much information. Also, you should watch The Killing Fields. It's incredible. He plays a Cambodian journalist.

• 18:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 18:37Georgia Hardstark?

  You know who I'm talking about. Like, the main character, basically. So, the rest of the sources can be found in the show notes. I've been wanting to do this story for so long, but I just wanted to make sure I did it right. And I really want to thank Ali Elkin, my researcher, for doing such an incredible job of putting this together for me.

• 18:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Nice.

• 18:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Hang Noor is born into a reasonably well-to-do family in Cambodia. His father has several agricultural businesses, owning both rice fields and lumber yards. He's born in 1940, and his family lives in the countryside. So, they are just living this traditional life that their families have for generations in the agricultural business. They're not really far out from Phnom Penh, the capital city, but their life is just kind of a peaceful, everyday life. For all of Hang's life, there is some degree of political unrest in Cambodia, and all of it is stirred up to varying extents by Western colonialism. So, he's born under French colonial rule in a land that is still called, at the time,

• 19:34Georgia Hardstark?

  French Indochina, which also includes modern-day Laos and Vietnam. And throughout his childhood, there's a guerrilla effort to overthrow the French colonizers. Hang's family, at times, is caught up in the middle of this. His parents had been kidnapped for ransom by corrupt members of both sides of this conflict on multiple occasions.

• 19:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 19:54Georgia Hardstark?

  So that's what everyday life is like.

• 19:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Multiple kidnappings.

• 19:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 19:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Horrible.

• 19:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Part of the reason for this is that Hang's father is ethnically Chinese and his mother is part of the Cambodian ethnic majority, which is the Khmer. So they are each victimized in turn for different reasons. But this is ultimately a low level inconvenience in comparison to what happens later in Cambodia's history. As a teenager, Hang moves to Phnom Penh to try to shelter from all this unrest in the countryside. He's very, very smart, like top of his class. He eventually goes to medical school and while he's there, he meets a fellow student named Hoi and she's training to become a teacher and they fall in love. This is so truncated.

• 20:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 20:34Georgia Hardstark?

  The documentary is incredible. Hang becomes a gynecologist and in this time period, Cambodia becomes independent and under the leadership of a monarch who then becomes an elected leader. And at the same time, in the late 60s and early 70s, the Vietnam War begins and eventually the United States conducts a brutal bombing campaign on parts of Cambodia along the border with Vietnam. And so Ally added this famous quote in the research from Anthony Bourdain that says, quote, "Once you've been to Cambodia, you'll never stop wanting to beat Henry Kissinger to death with your bare hands. You will never again be able to open a newspaper and read about that treacherous, pervericating,

• 21:16Georgia Hardstark?

  murderous scumbag, sitting down for a nice chat with Charlie Rose or attending some black tie affair for a new glossy magazine without choking. Witness what Henry did to Cambodia, the fruits of his genius for statesmanship, and you'll never understand why he's not sitting in the dock at the Hague next to Milosevic." End quote, as in fucking war crimes.

• 21:40Karen Kilgariff?

  Everybody knows this already, but I just want to say it again. The loss of a mind and a spirit like Anthony Bourdain, where he is a speaker of truth to power in that way. There's not enough guys like that anymore where they're like, no, fuck you and the truth times 20.

• 21:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, like this might hurt my career.

• 21:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 21:58Georgia Hardstark?

  But.

• 21:58Karen Kilgariff?

  But I'm actually.

• 21:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Free Palestine.

• 22:00Karen Kilgariff?

  This is actually, yes, exactly. This is what we are supposed to be doing here.

• 22:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 22:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Why are We pretending that this isn't disgusting.

• 22:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Exactly. So, thank you to Ally for including that. So with this in the background, in 1970, when Hang is 30 years old and a practicing physician, and he just has this like kind of normal life. He's got friends, he's got family, he's got this girlfriend he loves, he's a doctor. He has this mentality that everything is fine and the warring is going to come to a truce. And like so many people, just pretends like it's not going to affect him and doesn't pay attention to it at all. At this place, this is when Cambodia's government is overthrown in a coup. So Cambodia's prime minister is a man named Norodam Sianak. And he had originally been appointed king by the French

• 22:49Georgia Hardstark?

  and then led Cambodia to independence, then abdicated his position, then was elected by an overwhelming majority. So people seem pretty happy with this. But then he goes out of town and there is a coup that is orchestrated by two government officials who are his opponents. And they only had support from a small minority of Cambodian elites. But some believe they were aided by the Americans, probably true. So these officials take over. They allow the Americans to invade the southern border with Vietnam to force out North Vietnamese fighters. And the influx of American money into Cambodia ushers in a time of prosperity for some, including Hang's father, who buys a second lumber mill. But in the countryside, poorer and more rural Cambodians

• 23:34Georgia Hardstark?

  are coalescing their support around Sianak, now in exile in China. Who was always been, he'd always been beloved. He, that people believe that he was appointed by God or that he was a god. And behind this unlikely ally to the countryside and poorer Cambodians is the leader of Cambodia's Communist Party, Pol Pot.

• 23:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Here we are.

• 23:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Here we are.

• 23:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay.

• 23:56Georgia Hardstark?

  This group becomes the Khmer Rouge. They are actually ethnically Khmer, and then Rouge, I think, means red, right? So red is communist.

• 24:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Hey.

• 24:06Georgia Hardstark?

  So in 1975, the Khmer Rouge, under the leadership of Pol Pot, but with the encouragement of Sienak, marches into Phnom Penh and deposes the new government. They take over. The regular Cambodians who are there are kind of rejoicing, thinking that finally, the Khmer Rouge are going to bring some kind of peace and normality, and quickly learn that's not true. It's a big part of the movie The Killing Fields.

• 24:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Right.

• 24:31Georgia Hardstark?

  So the Khmer Rouge launch a new ultra authoritarian communist regime that they nickname Year Zero. Like shit is over. Everything you thought you knew, done, gone. The idea is that the country is starting from scratch, and educated people and professionals are specifically targeted to be killed or imprisoned. So it basically becomes this ultra, ultra communist country and lifestyle. All private property is outlawed. Every aspect of life is dictated by the Pol Pot regime. There's no such thing as private property. There's no money. You can't even have your own cooking utensils and make yourself food. You have to eat in the big groups because everyone is equal. You can't wear glasses.

• 25:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Husbands and wives are separated. Children are separated. It just becomes this.

• 25:20Karen Kilgariff?

  Prison.

• 25:20Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. There's no money. There are no clocks or calendars. Citizens are just assigned to labor details, and non-Khmer's especially become forced laborers. So they're all sent out of the big cities, back into the countryside to work. Then Ali wrote, note to Georgia, "It feels important to mention that this vision of communism is often used as a reason why we shouldn't have any kind of socialized systems like healthcare, but this is authoritarianism. And whenever its ideology is communist or fascist, it can result in similar violence and wiping out of civil liberties."

• 25:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 25:55Georgia Hardstark?

  So thank you, Ali, for noting that.

• 25:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. You put authoritarianism on really anything.

• 25:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 26:00Karen Kilgariff?

  And it turns into that exact same thing.

• 26:01Georgia Hardstark?

  So when all of this had begun, as I said, Hang is a doctor. And at that moment, that everything gets changed, he is operating on a patient when the Khmer Rouge storm the clinic that he's in. One operative holds a gun to his head and asks him if he is the attending physician, which he is. But as I said, any educated professionals are wiped out. So he lies and says the attending had just stepped out of the room, essentially posing as a lower level clinic staffer, which saves his life. He can't tell anyone he's a doctor. He's then caught up in a forced evacuation from Phnom Penh and is separated from his girlfriend, Hoi, and his family, separated from everyone. So Hang lies about being a doctor,

• 26:45Georgia Hardstark?

  since educated people are automatically just being killed. Hang, like most other people, is assigned to an agricultural labor detail in which he is required to push a plow through fields. That is a job that livestock would have primarily done. And they just put people on the like oxen cart to push through the fields.

• 27:04Karen Kilgariff?

  They turned the whole country into?

• 27:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Slave labor.

• 27:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Slave labor.

• 27:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. During this period, between 1.5 and 3 million people are killed in Cambodia through execution, starvation, and disease. Hang is tortured on multiple occasions, usually for stealing food, because he's starving. On one occasion, he's tied to a tree overnight and he's bitten all over his body by red ants. And on another occasion, he and multiple other forced laborers are put on crucifixes with their bare feet over smoldering fires. And he watches as a pregnant woman, who's being punished the same way, die while this is happening. And in the documentary, he is interviewed in the States about what happened, what that was like. And he gets into some really gory details in front of this audience. And it's just horrible, but it's so incredible that he is brave enough

• 27:52Georgia Hardstark?

  to tell the awful things that they did to people.

• 27:55Karen Kilgariff?

  When they're being punished like this, what was the justification? Do you know? Like, what was the point of putting those people up on crucifixes like that?

• 28:03Georgia Hardstark?

  They stole food. This is your punishment, but this is also a?

• 28:07Karen Kilgariff?

  A lesson to everybody else.

• 28:08Georgia Hardstark?

  To everyone that this is what happens, because everyone is equal. They get the same amount of food. If you're stealing food, you think you're better than the government. You think you know more. You're punished.

• 28:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Crucifixion.

• 28:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah. Hang eventually does reunite with Hoi, who becomes pregnant. There's already not enough food to sustain someone who isn't pregnant. And Hoi begins to starve. When she's seven months along, she goes into early labor. And obviously, there's no way to get her any kind of medical attention. And there's no medicine, there's no equipment. And here's the thing. Hang is a trained gynecologist. And he could have operated, attempted to save her, though he has no safe tools or medicine. But the operation would likely kill her. He knew that. She was going to die either way. If he attempted to save her, he would out himself as a doctor.

• 28:59Georgia Hardstark?

  So he couldn't do anything and Hoy dies in his arms and the baby dies too. After Hoy dies, Hang actively tries to get killed. He just doesn't give a fuck anymore.

• 29:11Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, the guilt, the horror of that, like when you're in a survival situation like that and you're just having to make these calls that are beyond.

• 29:20Georgia Hardstark?

  And I feel like there's so many people, like when we learn about Vietnam and Cambodia, it's like that's what their lives were like always. They were used to it. And I think people need to remember that that's not the case. Like that, it's the exact same thing as if that started happening to us right now. Like the horror that if you saw a pregnant woman being tortured. It's not like you've been seeing that since you were a child, you're used to it, which I think is sometimes the justification in people's minds that it's like not as bad somehow.

• 29:46Karen Kilgariff?

  I feel like anytime that is what's coming out of your mouth.

• 29:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 29:49Karen Kilgariff?

  That's what, yeah.

• 29:50Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, you gotta check yourself.

• 29:51Karen Kilgariff?

  What are you talking about? What are you talking about? And also just the oppression, that level of extreme and just like oppression as far as the eye can see is such a hopeless, horrible situation to be in.

• 30:02Georgia Hardstark?

  I really don't think I would try to survive. I really don't think I would. I mean, I've thought about it so many times with like, you know, the Holocaust too. It's like, I don't think I'd be walking. I think I'd be laying down.

• 30:13Karen Kilgariff?

  You say that.

• 30:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Right, that's true.

• 30:14Karen Kilgariff?

  You say that, but then, remember the guy that basically ran away from the Nazis and had to keep running for like four months or something? Like that's our human survival instinct. That's what you do. And if you can get away, you do get away and then you keep going. And then you build from there and then you get used to being scared. And then you help other people that are scared. And I mean, that's what every immigrant story really is.

• 30:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Seriously, you don't want them win.

• 30:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, you go through the real shit and then you come back and help other people go through shit.

• 30:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 30:44Karen Kilgariff?

  That's very, very dismissive of an experience I am two generations away from.

• 30:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 30:49Karen Kilgariff?

  And have no idea in terms of what you are talking about is like, it's unbelievable.

• 30:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, you notice, this is gonna sound so corny, but like generational trauma, right? We all know that's a thing that's passed down. But, but the fact that we're alive means there is also generational like chutzpah.

• 31:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 31:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Meaning as they were traumatized, they stayed alive. And kept living and lived long enough to fall in love and have children. And that's why we're alive. So we have, we have generational trauma for sure.

• 31:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 31:19Georgia Hardstark?

  But we also have whatever the fuck it was, the chutzpah that kept them alive.

• 31:23Karen Kilgariff?

  And a perfect source of real gratitude.

• 31:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, for every day. So Hoy dies and Hang is over life. He steals food at every opportunity, just trying to get killed essentially. But somehow he makes it until 1978, when the Vietnamese invade Cambodia. This sets off a decade of warfare between the Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese. Now that there's the chaos of fighting to distract the Khmer Rouge, Hang has an opportunity to escape. With a large group, he travels to the Thailand border. Out of the 200 people that escape with his group, only 17 people make it alive across the Thai border. The only living relative or person he knows at that point is his young niece named Sophia, and they escape together.

• 32:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh.

• 32:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Once in Bangkok, Hang works as a volunteer doctor at a refugee camp. So despite all of these fucking horrors that he's gone through, all this PTSD, he still becomes, he could just, doesn't have to do anything but survive. But instead, he volunteers to be a doctor at this refugee camp.

• 32:24Karen Kilgariff?

  I bet you there's part of him that was just like, I finally get to be a doctor.

• 32:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Do what I'm made for.

• 32:30Karen Kilgariff?

  My skills and like actually do something about this horror that I'm surrounded by.

• 32:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. Hang takes, the only thing he has is a photo of Hoy. And when he escapes, he has it professionally colorized and puts it into a custom gold locket, wears that around his neck so she can be close to his heart at all times. And then he and his young niece Sophia move to the United States.

• 32:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 32:54Georgia Hardstark?

  So Hang and Sophia, who's a teenager now, settle in Los Angeles in 1980. Almost their entire family, in addition to Hoy, had been killed by the Khmer Rouge. He trains to take his boards so that he can practice medicine and works as a volunteer with refugees. So right around this time, and this is just, he could have lived the rest of his life out like that, but for some reason, fate intervened and this bananas thing happens to him. Right around the same time, director Ronald Joffe is preparing to make the film The Killing Fields. It's based on the true accounts of two journalists, one a Cambodian named Durth Pran and one an American named Sidney Shanberg. And they had written the book, The Killing Fields.

• 33:37Georgia Hardstark?

  And so the casting director, Pat Golden, is working really hard to find the perfect person to play Dith and hasn't had any luck. So she somehow finagles her way into a Cambodian wedding in order to scout for her actor.

• 33:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Brilliant.

• 33:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh huh. And this is where she discovers Hang. And he is, just seems like a really charming, happy person. He's smiling and laughing a lot despite everything that happened to him. He's very outgoing and gregarious. He says when he was a kid, he was hyperactive and he's just really likeable. And so something about him catches her eye. It had never crossed Hang's mind to be an actor. In Cambodia at the time, actors are not particularly well-paid or respected. But he decides to go on an audition and just have a good time with it. He's like, here's a weird opportunity to have in my life, let's do it. And there's a video of his audition.

• 34:28Karen Kilgariff?

  The man is a survivor of concentration camps.

• 34:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 34:32Karen Kilgariff?

  He's just like, sure.

• 34:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes. And he blows everyone away with his raw emotion. And when you watch the documentary and you watch this audition, you completely get it and you see that what he did is just took himself back to his actual pain and the actual things he experienced of the story that he is telling in this movie. It wasn't a hard stretch for him.

• 34:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 34:54Georgia Hardstark?

  And he's able to do it. And so he's cast in the movie along with Sam Waterston, our Law & Order, you know.

• 35:00Karen Kilgariff?

  The greatest man, the greatest actor ever to live, the greatest man ever to live.

• 35:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Here's a photo of them from The Killing Fields.

• 35:08Karen Kilgariff?

  Look at a young Sam.

• 35:09Georgia Hardstark?

  I know.

• 35:10Karen Kilgariff?

  I know.

• 35:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Damn. It's such an incredible movie. Like, I get Full Metal Jacket, but this is the movie that you should watch.

• 35:17Karen Kilgariff?

  Also, just looking at his face, he had to go to a reenactment of a thing he actually lived through.

• 35:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. And he just said he channeled it the whole time. And also, he was telling them what it was really like the whole time.

• 35:28Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 35:29Georgia Hardstark?

  On set, Hang has that same access to all his very real emotions and experiences, and he's able to consult with the actors who hadn't had direct experiences with the Khmer Rouge. When the movie comes out in 1984, it bears the brutal truth of the Khmer Rouge regime to the world. And Hang is considered a frontrunner for the Best Supporting Actor Oscar. And you know who he beat for Best Supporting Actor?

• 35:55Karen Kilgariff?

  Somebody like Robert Duvall?

• 35:57Georgia Hardstark?

  John Malkovich.

• 35:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, shit.

• 35:58Georgia Hardstark?

  He's also in this movie. But John Malkovich, like, one of the greatest trained actors of all time. And he wins. And so that year's Oscars are held at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, which is downtown. And Hang and Sophia live in Chinatown. So they're, like, able to see where they're...

• 36:17Karen Kilgariff?

  They could walk home, change their clothes, come back.

• 36:19Georgia Hardstark?

  They're not in Beverly fucking Hills or Brentwood.

• 36:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes.

• 36:22Georgia Hardstark?

  So they vastly underestimate how long it's gonna take them to get there in Oscar traffic, because they're like, it's five minutes away, it won't take us long. They just barely make it on time, and they didn't realize that the Supporting Actor Award is the first presented award that night. So when they're announcing the nominees, they have to put a photo of him up, because he's not even in his seat yet. Like, they can't pan to his seat.

• 36:43Karen Kilgariff?

  He's literally that late.

• 36:44Georgia Hardstark?

  And as he's walking in, his name gets called, and he walks straight in and up to the fucking podium and gives, like, the speech will make you cry, it's so beautiful. Here's a photo of him winning.

• 36:57Georgia Hardstark?

  It's just such a beautiful moment. You can tell he's so humbled by this opportunity to show what happened to his people.

• 37:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And it's such a representative of, like, the Oscars is the world, kind of.

• 37:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 37:09Karen Kilgariff?

  And so then it's like, the world's...

• 37:11Georgia Hardstark?

  And people understood, too.

• 37:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 37:12Georgia Hardstark?

  And he brought his niece along. I think she was 15 at the time, and she was a tomboy, and he said to her, you need Get a dress. And she's like, I don't want to do this. She goes anyways. She's in the documentary. So in his acceptance speech, he says, quote, "This is unbelievable, but so is my entire life. I wish to thank all members of the Motion Picture Academy for this great honor. I thank David Putnam, Roland Joffe, for giving me this chance to act for the first time in The Killing Fields. And I share this award to my friend Sam Waterston, Dipraan, Sidney Shandberg, and also Pat Golden, the casting lady who found me for this role. And I thank Warner Brothers for helping me tell the story to the world. Let the world know what happened in my country. And I thank God, Buddha, that tonight I'm even here." End quote. I'm not giving it what it deserves.

• 37:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, you're not supposed to do it. That's okay.

• 38:01Karen Kilgariff?

  No, but I mean, just everything about that is such a, especially back then, when it was like the time of auteurs. And I mean, I remember seeing The Killing Fields on Siskel and Ebert on the weekend. Because of course, my parents always watched that. Where it's like, oh, that's heavy. I don't think I could watch that, whatever. I'm always like, and that took over the zeitgeist, essentially. That year, and everyone paid attention.

• 38:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. I mean, there were so many incredible movies coming out at the time. So the fact that it broke through is really, says a lot about all of it.

• 38:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Go to hell, John Malkovich.

• 38:34Georgia Hardstark?

  And that's our message of this podcast.

• 38:36Karen Kilgariff?

  If there's any message.

• 38:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God. John Malkovich, we love you.

• 38:40Karen Kilgariff?

  He's not here. He's not here.

• 38:42Georgia Hardstark?

  So mad. Yeah, but our friend was gonna tell him. I'm sure they're friends.

• 38:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, Paul Giamatti.

• 38:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Paul Giamatti's gotta be friends with fucking John Malkovich.

• 38:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Powerful character actors that know each other.

• 38:51Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, they must. Come on. Okay, so Hang gets more roles, but he also really dedicates himself to telling the world what happened in his country. He uses his fame to get the message and goes on a lot of like, talk shows. At this point in the late 80s and through the 90s, no one from the Khmer Rouge has been punished. And their predecessors continue to hold power in the Cambodian government. Though the extreme and genocidal policies have been walked back a bit. Pol Pot goes into hiding. Hang testifies before Congress about his experiences. And is an extremely outspoken critic of the Cambodian government. At one speaking engagement, he notes the brutality portrayed in The Killing Fields, then saying, quote, "The Killing Fields isn't bad enough. Suffering enough. Bloody enough." End quote.

• 39:36Georgia Hardstark?

  He does this work prolifically through the first half of the 90s. He's actively speaking out against the current Cambodian government, which again, has vestiges of the old Khmer Rouge. In the wake of the fall of Western communism, Cambodia is in a period of transition with some unrest, though nothing like what he had seen. And Sienoc is still influential and somehow evades blame for the Khmer Rouge, even though he had lent his support to it. So this brings us back to the night that Hang is killed outside his Los Angeles apartment building in 1996. And this is like, I remember hearing about this and it just is, he served what the things he survived that we'll never understand.

• 40:18Georgia Hardstark?

  And he comes to, it's just like, I remember feeling shame that we did this to him after what he survived. Like our country, my city, did this to him, you know? So Hang had been shot and he's found lying next to his car with his Rolex watch missing. But there's $2,900 in cash, undisturbed in his car. And the immediate impression in the news and among Hang's neighbors is that he had been targeted by allies of the Cambodian government because of his outspoken criticism. They immediately knew he was trying to be silenced. Other people raised the possibility that organized crime could be involved, since Hang had several business interests in Cambodia, including his family lumberyard, which he still had.

• 41:02Georgia Hardstark?

  So it's a surprise to everyone when three young men, all Asian American and all affiliated with a gang, are charged with Hang's murder. All three men maintain that they had been about a mile away at the time of Hang's death. At trial, prosecutors say that the men had demanded Hang's locket, with the picture of Hoy in it that he still wore, and that he had refused to give it up. And this is why they killed him. That was the prosecution's story. People take issue with this argument because Hang's pockets were thought to have been undisturbed. And there's $2,900 left in his car. All three men are found guilty on April 18th, 1998, the same day Pol Pot dies in exile in the jungle on the Thai Cambodian border. Wow. Yeah.

• 41:47Georgia Hardstark?

  After Hang's death, Dith Pran, the journalist upon whose story The Killing Fields is based, says, quote, "He's like a twin with me. He's my co-messenger and right now I'm alone," end quote. There are no trials for members of the Khmer Rouge until the early 2010s, when the UN holds them alongside the Cambodian government. Three high-ranking officials are sentenced to life in prison. During one of these trials, the official says that Hang Nor's murder had been ordered by the Khmer Rouge-

• 42:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 42:17Georgia Hardstark?

  -as retribution for his speaking out against the regime. An organization called the Innocent Center has taken up the case of one of the three men who had been convicted of his murder. After the release of The Killing Fields, Hang had said, quote, "If I die from now on, okay, this film will go on for 100 years." And that is the story of the life and legend of Cambodian-American truth-teller and hero Hang Nor.

• 42:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Wow.

• 42:45Georgia Hardstark?

  You know, I almost did it at our LA live show, but I was like, it's too heavy.

• 42:51Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so heavy. I mean, but it's incredible. It's like, that's what makes it like, all of that, and then you walk straight into the Oscars and win.

• 42:59Georgia Hardstark?

  What a life.

• 43:00Karen Kilgariff?

  Beyond.

• 43:01Georgia Hardstark?

  I mean, what an incredible life and what a strong person and what a-

• 43:07Karen Kilgariff?

  A great example for Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month?

• 43:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Yes.

• 43:12Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, it is, though.

• 43:14Georgia Hardstark?

  You took the words out of my mouth.

• 43:15Karen Kilgariff?

  It is. That's a great example of someone who's like, been through an absolute governmental nightmare, basically the fabric of reality falling apart around him, trying to adjust-

• 43:26Georgia Hardstark?

  His whole family dying and-

• 43:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Losing everything.

• 43:28Georgia Hardstark?

  Not dying, getting murdered.

• 43:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Being murdered, and then being an immigrant, where he just builds and builds and builds and builds, and then comes back to do something about it.

• 43:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally. Doesn't just move on with his life.

• 43:41Karen Kilgariff?

  Incredible.

• 43:41Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, so Hang Nor.

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• 44:42Speaker 03

  I'm Lacey Mosley, author, actor, stand-up comedian, creator, and host of Scam Goddess Podcast, the true crime comedy podcast, all about robbery, fraud, and those who practice it. Each week, I bring on an amazing guest.

• 44:54Speaker 04

  Ooh, I scammed them.

• 44:55Speaker 03

  What?

• 44:56Speaker 04

  I could talk to you for an hour.

• 44:57Speaker 03

  You're a generational yapper, like me. That's why I had to make yapping a job. And now you can catch full episodes of my show on YouTube. Start listening to Scam Goddess on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 45:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, we are going to take a left turn.

• 45:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Please.

• 45:16Karen Kilgariff?

  I don't want to surprise you, but this is also based on the Dead Kennedys song. That's not true at all, and it's actually maybe the complete other end of the spectrum. This story is the main story. If you were a kid in the 90s and in elementary school, a teacher read you a book about a family of pioneers.

• 45:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Bernstein Bears.

• 45:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Close. It's called Apples to Oregon by a writer named Deborah Hopkinson, and it follows an 1800s Midwestern family and their westward journey, and it is loosely based on the life of a successful horticulturist who's also known as the Johnny Appleseed of the West.

• 45:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 45:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. There's the story of his life. After all his pioneering days were over and his fruit trees were planted, he went into a different branch of life. He attempted to start what's been described as a doomed Quaker sex cult.

• 46:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh dear.

• 46:11Karen Kilgariff?

  This is the story of horticulturalist Henderson Llewelling.

• 46:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 46:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Are you ready?

• 46:17Georgia Hardstark?

  I'm so ready.

• 46:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay, main sources used for today's story are reporting by Finn J.D. John from the Offbeat Oregon website, writing by Heather Arnt Anderson from Portland Monthly, and archival editions of the Iowa Journal of History and the Sacramento Bee, your favorite newspaper.

• 46:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Favorite.

• 46:36Karen Kilgariff?

  And the rest of the sources are in our show notes. So Henderson Llewelling's story begins in 1809, when he is born to a Quaker family in North Carolina. So this is one of those 1,800 stories that there's spotty reporting on some stuff. It's back far enough that it's like, we're pretty sure that he blank, blank, blank. There's a lot of that kind of storytelling.

• 46:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Prehistoric.

• 46:58Karen Kilgariff?

  It's very prehistoric in that it is like pioneer era life.

• 47:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 47:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Not a lot of, when you're out on the prairie, fighting for your life, not a lot of diary keeping.

• 47:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 47:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Not a lot of daily, there's not a lot of journaling.

• 47:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Not a lot of sources to find the truth.

• 47:15Karen Kilgariff?

  We needed more scrapbooking back then.

• 47:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely. More vlogging.

• 47:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Or, oh my God, just a vlogging on a nice stone outside of town, down by the river. Okay, so when Henderson is in his teens, he and his family and many other Southern Quakers move to Indiana, likely influenced by the Quaker community's growing opposition to slavery. So they wanted to get out of the South. And when they moved to Indiana, Henderson's father opens a nursery, and he and his brothers help run, it's the family business, he helps run it. He will later marry another Carolina-born Quaker. Her name is Elizabeth Pressnell. And when he's in his twenties, Henderson opens his own nursery. So this is a story for Janet.

• 47:58Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my God, my mom would love this.

• 48:00Karen Kilgariff?

  She loves horticulture.

• 48:02Georgia Hardstark?

  She's such a horticulturist.

• 48:03Karen Kilgariff?

  In the 1830s, when Henderson is in his 30s, because he was born around 1800, he moves west again to eastern Iowa. So this is after the Black Hawk War, and the federal government had forcibly removed both the Sauk and the Fox tribes from their land. Now they were actively encouraging white settlers to come and basically settle that land by selling it to them for next to nothing. So the Llewellyn's benefit from that and they settle in Salem, Iowa. Again, Henderson opens a nursery. He offers high quality seedlings and grafted trees. So I know you know this because you're Janet's daughter, but grafting is when you take the

• 48:45Karen Kilgariff?

  roots from a strong tree and you attach them to the shoot or a bud from another tree so that the produce is really good fruit. You're Frankenstein-ing fruit trees essentially.

• 48:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Got it.

• 48:57Karen Kilgariff?

  It's what you did all summer, every summer. So as more settlers arrive in Salem, virtually all of them become Henderson's customers because this is basically like they're settling this land and planting it. And he brilliantly, or you know, whether or not it was intentional, he's in this business that is always needed.

• 49:14Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 49:15Karen Kilgariff?

  Like no matter what, there's a demand for basically being able to grow your own food.

• 49:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 49:20Karen Kilgariff?

  So Henderson's grafted trees reliably generate so many cherries, apples, pears, plums, and peaches that per one source, quote, "The local market could not absorb the yield."

• 49:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 49:33Karen Kilgariff?

  So he's making it possible for everybody to live large. So his business is a massive success and he and Elizabeth take this prosperity and they invest it into their home, but not in the way that you would think, not the usual pioneer luxuries, red velvet curtains and soap. Instead, they build trapdoors and hiding places and then offer it as a stop on the Underground Railroad.

• 49:56Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 49:57Karen Kilgariff?

  Because they are Quakers.

• 49:59Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 49:59Karen Kilgariff?

  Today, that house is on the National Register of Historical Places.

• 50:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 50:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Problem is that when Llewellyn's church learns that they are doing this for the people searching for freedom that way, they do not approve of it.

• 50:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 50:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Very Joel Osteen of them. So Henderson decides that he's going to leave that church and start his own church that is more full-throated in its condemnation of slavery. So at some point in the 1840s, he opens the doors to his new place called Anti-Slavery Friends. That's what he names his church.

• 50:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Straightforward.

• 50:33Karen Kilgariff?

  Just like put the banner right over the front door, people will come. And they did. So now he has a successful business, he has a happy family, and he has the glowing respect of his community. But he wants more, as they always do.

• 50:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Guys, uh.

• 50:47Karen Kilgariff?

  So he-

• 50:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Literally, guys.

• 50:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Guys.

• 50:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Stop it.

• 50:49Karen Kilgariff?

  They can't help it, especially if they read pamphlets, which was the vlogging of the pioneer days. So Henderson reads some pamphlets about the Lewis and Clark expedition that went from 1804 to 1806, I say as if I knew that. And he finds it all very romantic, the adventure and the discovery. More importantly, he learns that despite the fact that the Pacific Northwest has very fertile land, it doesn't have a variety of high-quality fruit trees growing there. So instead of settling into the life that he's built in Iowa, he starts thinking about starting it all over again in the Pacific Northwest.

• 51:27Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 51:27Karen Kilgariff?

  No one can understand why he would want to give up everything and start over in an unfamiliar place for a third time, but to me, there's his trauma right there. He now needs to keep on doing it.

• 51:38Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 51:38Karen Kilgariff?

  That's how he's in control.

• 51:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 51:40Karen Kilgariff?

  But Henderson will tell a friend, quote, "It makes no difference how much a man has around him. If he is not satisfied, he will go off and leave it." So, in April of 1847, 39-year-old Henderson and his wife and their eight children, along with several other pioneering Iowans, set out in a wagon train for the 2,000-mile journey to Oregon.

• 52:01Georgia Hardstark?

  That's too many.

• 52:02Karen Kilgariff?

  In it.

• 52:03Georgia Hardstark?

  Good thing.

• 52:04Karen Kilgariff?

  Just, uh.

• 52:06Georgia Hardstark?

  Someone's pregnant and they're just having the worst time of their life.

• 52:09Karen Kilgariff?

  Keep going. And it's hot, or it's cold, or it's middle. You've always got a bonnet on.

• 52:16Georgia Hardstark?

  Always got a bonnet on.

• 52:18Karen Kilgariff?

  So the Llewellyn party consists of four wagons total, but Henderson has filled one of those wagons with 700 saplings and grafted trees so he can start his new nursery in Oregon. Author Heather Arnn Anderson writes, quote, "It was an insane plan with little chance of success. Everyone mocked him for it. He did it anyway."

• 52:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Those mockers.

• 52:38Karen Kilgariff?

  So the Llewellyn family makes the brutal westward journey across the Missouri River, over the Rocky Mountains, so they've got their pioneer wagon. Some of these trees are stretching out of the pioneer wagon like four feet.

• 52:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my God.

• 52:53Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so clunky. And so bad for that kind of travel.

• 52:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 52:56Karen Kilgariff?

  It requires constant upkeep. It's also filled with soil, like the trees are planted in back of the wagon.

• 53:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 53:02Karen Kilgariff?

  So it's incredibly heavy. There's genuine concern that Henderson's oxen are going to give out under this wagon's weight. Members of the wagon train repeatedly suggest that he ditches nursery wagon.

• 53:15Georgia Hardstark?

  No, no, it's the whole point.

• 53:16Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the whole point. But also they're just like, come on.

• 53:19Georgia Hardstark?

  But come on.

• 53:19Karen Kilgariff?

  There's trees everywhere, which you have to admit it'd be like bringing a big wagon of dirt. Just being like, we have to bring this good dirt.

• 53:26Georgia Hardstark?

  This is the dirt.

• 53:26Karen Kilgariff?

  This is the Iowa dirt. Henderson is committed and seven months, very long months after leaving Iowa in November of 1847, the Llewellyn's finally arrive in Oregon's Willamette Valley. Against all odds, the trees and saplings make it to.

• 53:43Georgia Hardstark?

  I've been there.

• 53:44Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so gorgeous.

• 53:45Georgia Hardstark?

  So beautiful.

• 53:46Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, that's where all the good stuff is.

• 53:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 53:48Karen Kilgariff?

  So they settle just south of Portland. Henderson immediately gets to work clearing his property of the large fir trees that are on it so that he can lay out his nursery, which will end up being another huge success. And it will be the first grafted tree nursery on the Pacific coast. It seems like I'm really into being an arborist or something.

• 54:07Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 54:07Karen Kilgariff?

  It's just part of the story.

• 54:09Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 54:10Karen Kilgariff?

  Because I'm going to pretend like I am just super into trees. Just pretend like that's always been my personality all the way up until this point.

• 54:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely. You're a tree influencer.

• 54:19Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 54:19Georgia Hardstark?

  Everyone knows that.

• 54:20Karen Kilgariff?

  That's when you find out that I've been dating a guy that's really into trees.

• 54:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh.

• 54:23Karen Kilgariff?

  And then suddenly I am too.

• 54:25Georgia Hardstark?

  That's so hot.

• 54:27Karen Kilgariff?

  Just a big tree guy.

• 54:28Georgia Hardstark?

  A lumberjack.

• 54:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Just so sort of a, I don't know, landscaper of some kind.

• 54:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 54:32Karen Kilgariff?

  But point of all of this is, this man had a career. He also had a very strong spiritual life. He was living in his very settled ways in many ways. But then in 1851, his 35-year-old wife, Elizabeth, the mother of his now 10 children.

• 54:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Jesus.

• 54:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Dies of complications during her 11th pregnancy.

• 54:54Karen Kilgariff?

  So some speculate that this loss changes him with one Llewelling family historian writing, quote, "His life sort of fell apart and he was adrift without an anchor, seeking for something to fill that void and never finding it," end quote. So Henderson Llewelling is grieving, but he is also in the most prosperous era of his life, producing and selling sought after trees that helped build up Portland's settler economy. But of course, he wants more. And that's when he learns that down in California's mining towns, there's such a huge demand for reliable, high-quality fruit trees that people will pay one 1850s dollar for an apple tree seedling. But essentially, today's seedlings in today's 2026 money cost $10.

• 55:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, wow.

• 55:38Karen Kilgariff?

  So that's how, you know, it's just basically the seller's market in the California mining towns. So Henderson is now in his mid-40s. He sells his Oregon business to a family member and he heads south in 1854. He winds up in the Bay Area and establishes a major nursery that he names Fruitvale in property that has since been absorbed into the city of Oakland. You know, Fruitvale Station, which is the infamous train station where the shooting took place. So Fruitvale was a big part of the city of Oakland's kind of establishment. And Henderson is in the center of it cultivating hundreds of thousands of fruit trees, apricots, grapes, apples, cherries, all to be planted throughout

• 56:18Karen Kilgariff?

  California. One write-up notes, quote, "Again, Henderson was in no small measure responsible for the beginning of the great fruit industry of another Pacific Coast state, an industry which has brought more wealth to California than all the gold the state has produced."

• 56:34Georgia Hardstark?

  I grew up in Orange County. I was aware of it as a young child.

• 56:38Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, everywhere. And it's kind of funny because then when you fly up to the Pacific Northwest, like, one of the first things you hear about are like the Marion berries, or the, you know, like, all of that

• 56:49Georgia Hardstark?

  Protos.

• 56:50Karen Kilgariff?

  And farmland that's in the Willamette Valley.

• 56:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Totally.

• 56:53Karen Kilgariff?

  So, once he gets to California, though, Henderson kind of starts going through a reinvention. He's perfectly middle-aged. He's a widower. He's been working his ass off all his life. And he's been a Quaker, but now he's crossing paths with radical thinkers, including people who are in his own Quaker community, but that are now experimenting with new belief systems like the utopian movement, which was the idea that a perfect society could exist, or the free love movement, which posits that marriage is oppressive and sexist, and that sexual norms should be looser. Or the alternative health movements like vegetarianism, where people followed it for both health reasons and moral reasons,

• 57:37Karen Kilgariff?

  or they moralized it. And of course, it's the 1850s, so you've got to have spiritualism.

• 57:43Georgia Hardstark?

  I was wondering, yeah.

• 57:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, it's right in there. The belief that the living can contact the dead. So there's a ton of overlap in all these ideas. They're all zeitgeisty, particularly in the Bay Area, which even then had a reputation for being open-minded. So it's easy to see why Luelling finds all of this to be appealing. As a fierce abolitionist, the idea of liberating people from unjust institutions is important to him. And then the idea of personal liberation is a central tenet in the free love movement. He's also kind of a single guy out there like, hey, what about, what if this was cool? To the average pioneer, vegetarianism might seem weird, but it's a long-held Quaker tradition, so it's not weird to him. And of course, Henderson would embrace spiritualism

• 58:28Karen Kilgariff?

  while coping with the death of his wife. And that is kind of the gateway to the broader idea of utopia, where society and the self are things that can be harmonized, brought into harmony. But at that point, this is where things go very far away from the Johnny Appleseed kind of folk hero stuff and into stranger terrain. Because now it's the late 1850s. Henderson's in his late 40s. He either starts this group, or he links up with this San Francisco-based group called the Harmonial Brotherhood. And there are sources that say he started it, but it isn't totally clear. But basically, there's no intricate day-in, day-out details of the Harmonial Brotherhood. But what we do know is it's made up of a

• 59:13Karen Kilgariff?

  About 20 people, men, women, and children. And many of them come from Quaker backgrounds. And now they subscribe to a blend of spiritualist, utopian, and free love beliefs, just like him.

• 59:24Georgia Hardstark?

  Fun.

• 59:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Right? And plums. So in the pursuit of personal, quote, harmony, they follow a strict vegetarian diet. They swear off caffeine. And they favor spiritualism adjacent treatments of the day like hydropathy, which is basically baths, wraps, cold plunges.

• 59:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Honestly, it sounds way better than some of the movements and religious fucking evangelicals from back then.

• 59:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Hell, yes. It sounds like goop. I mean, am I wrong?

• 59:54Georgia Hardstark?

  No, you're not wrong.

• 59:55Karen Kilgariff?

  They're definitely right about a lot of it.

• 59:57Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 59:57Karen Kilgariff?

  And kind of right-headed about a lot of it. But what usually happens?

• 1:00:02Georgia Hardstark?

  We know. Jim Jones comes along.

• 1:00:04Karen Kilgariff?

  There's always someone with transition lenses is gonna fucking ruin your utopia. So the Brotherhood's hydropathy practitioner is a man who is either a spiritualist preacher or a blacksmith, depending on who you're reading.

• 1:00:19Georgia Hardstark?

  You can do both.

• 1:00:19Karen Kilgariff?

  And he also was once a circus performer, so he can do it all.

• 1:00:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Definitely.

• 1:00:24Karen Kilgariff?

  The one thing he's not trained as is a formal medical physician. And yet he is referred to as Dr. Tyler or Dr. T. And he's the one that the water treatments are all coming from Dr. T.

• 1:00:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:00:36Karen Kilgariff?

  So there's an idea that Dr. T. kind of started this group because he's got all the treatments and the things that he's, as they're spiritual together, he's the one that's like, but I can actually lay some hands on and make some changes.

• 1:00:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:00:48Karen Kilgariff?

  So the Brotherhood shares the dream of men and women living as equals in a state of excellent physical and spiritual health in a free love utopia, entering and exiting relationships at will. Or as Heather Arndt Anderson, the writer, puts it, quote, "an individual's rights to bang anyone they fancied."

• 1:01:07Georgia Hardstark?

  She wrote that?

• 1:01:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Because essentially, that's what they're doing.

• 1:01:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:11Karen Kilgariff?

  And...

• 1:01:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Doesn't sound like the worst life I've ever heard on this podcast.

• 1:01:14Karen Kilgariff?

  No, and also, at this time, there were other US-based religious groups doing exactly the same thing. It's possible that they heard about the Oneida community in upstate New York, which was established in the 1840s and remained as a utopian, free-love Christian sect for decades, famously manufacturing the kitchenware you might have in your home right now.

• 1:01:35Georgia Hardstark?

  That's fucking right. You covered that, right?

• 1:01:37Karen Kilgariff?

  No, actually, I didn't, because Maren then writes, "Note to Karen: Oneida could be fun to someday cover."

• 1:01:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, my god, yes.

• 1:01:43Karen Kilgariff?

  Doing it dips. Okay. But as progressive as a place like San Francisco can be, it's not remote or rural upstate New York, and so the Brotherhood's values are far too radical for the average Joe down on Market Street. They realize that to live out their utopian vision, they're gonna have to go somewhere more isolated, no prying eyes.

• 1:02:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, god.

• 1:02:03Karen Kilgariff?

  Where they can build their new society in peace. It's weird. It is like a footprint, like a blueprint for Jim Jones.

• 1:02:09Georgia Hardstark?

  It follows the trajectory of a cult.

• 1:02:11Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. And so, this is where Henderson steps up and steps in. He's the richest member of this Brotherhood, and of course, he's willing to sink all of his fruit tree money into this cause.

• 1:02:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Bro.

• 1:02:22Karen Kilgariff?

  If you think about all the risks he's taken, he's completed multiple cross-country trips and reinvented himself, like, three times. And it's always worked. Why would he not think he could do this?

• 1:02:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Probably.

• 1:02:34Karen Kilgariff?

  So, he sells the bulk of his California business and pours his money into a big schooner. He buys the boat himself, and then he buys a 50,000-acre, sparsely populated volcanic island off of Honduras.

• 1:02:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:02:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Called Tiger Island.

• 1:02:50Georgia Hardstark?

  This is so Jim Jo... This is so...

• 1:02:53Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:53Georgia Hardstark?

  People's Temple.

• 1:02:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, exactly. A lot of people are caught off-guard by Henderson's deep entanglement with the Harmonial Brotherhood, none more than his new wife, Mary.

• 1:03:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh-oh.

• 1:03:05Karen Kilgariff?

  Who's been kept out of the loop on this whole Honduras utopia plan from the beginning. She is not invited.

• 1:03:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:03:13Karen Kilgariff?

  So, she's not in it, and she's not invited. Yeah, really. So, when she learns that her husband is about to abandon her, knowing that she will be left destitute, she tries to have him committed. And that actually is phrased very like it's one to the other, but there's also the chance she has been living with this man who's increasingly

• 1:03:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:03:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Wearing transition lenses inside the house. And so she knows maybe something needs to be done.

• 1:03:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Right. It might not just be because it might be legit.

• 1:03:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, exactly. She might not just be covering her ass, but we'll never know. And the thing is, the courts agree with her and the police are dispatched to go find him. But Henderson is two steps ahead of everybody. He's gone into hiding until October 8th, 1859, when the Harmonial Brotherhood schooner sets sail out of San Francisco with nine male members, five female ones, and six or seven children on board.

• 1:04:05Georgia Hardstark?

  Goodbye.

• 1:04:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Bye, guys. But Henderson's not on board.

• 1:04:08Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:04:08Karen Kilgariff?

  He's actually watching the schooner from shore. And once it sails into the bay and then passes the place that the Golden Gate Bridge once will be, he waits to see if any boats come up and try to arrest anybody on it. Once he sees that that doesn't happen, he gets onto a smaller boat and, under the cover of midnight and moonlight, boards the schooner undetected.

• 1:04:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Wow.

• 1:04:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Out in the open ocean.

• 1:04:33Georgia Hardstark?

  Smart move.

• 1:04:33Karen Kilgariff?

  It's pretty cool. Or incredibly paranoid.

• 1:04:36Speaker 01

  OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.

• 1:05:05Speaker 02

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from an original Medicare loan. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage, HMO, and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends

• 1:05:34Karen Kilgariff?

  So now they're sailing for Honduras. The boat's crewed by hired sailors, not members of the Harmonial Brotherhood. And those sailors quickly realize this is going to be a weird ride. And they will later give statements. They're the reasons that we know what was happening on this trip. And so their statements to reporters shape what we know, essentially. For example, "Living conditions onboard are physically miserable, with passengers eventually being, quote, 'more or less covered with vermin.'" Maybe they didn't know how to stock the ship or pack vegetables. They had so many vegetables. Also, tensions over food escalate very quickly. Because they're vegetarian, it's a tough reality at sea.

• 1:06:16Karen Kilgariff?

  Their onboard diet consists mostly of, quote, "coarse flour, apparently ground up with chaff, straw and all, and very much resembling cattle feed." Chaff is that outer husk that you sometimes get stuck in your teeth if you eat oatmeal.

• 1:06:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, oatmeal, yeah.

• 1:06:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Like, the oaty part. Basically, they are starving on this ship. So then, when they stop at ports along the way, some members get caught, quote, "dietary cheating."

• 1:06:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, shit, give me that bacon.

• 1:06:44Karen Kilgariff?

  Exactly. Buying salted pork and game meat.

• 1:06:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Because that's exactly what I'd go for immediately.

• 1:06:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Exactly. You get a big hunk of beef jerky.

• 1:06:52Georgia Hardstark?

  And you chew on it for days.

• 1:06:53Karen Kilgariff?

  And just chewing on it. The people who do this are caught red-handed, and then heated arguments break out among the brethren, because not only are you hoarding food, but it's against your beliefs. And it's not hot. So the biggest rift on this ship about food is known as the Egg War. And it starts in Oaxaca, Mexico, when a merchant swindles both Dr. T and Henderson. His con involves eight chicken eggs. Basically, Henderson sees him with the eggs. He runs up and says, "I'll take all of them." The seller sells him the eight eggs and takes his money. And then Henderson runs away to go get a container to put the eggs in. And while he's away, Dr. T walks up and says, "I want all eight of those eggs." And the guy's like, "Sounds good."

• 1:07:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Bad communication, no communication.

• 1:07:37Karen Kilgariff?

  No communication. He sells them a second time and then disappears. When Henderson comes back with his handful of straw, or whatever it is that he found to carry the eggs in, he sees Dr. T holding them, and they start fighting over which one of them actually owns these eggs. We've all been there.

• 1:07:55Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 1:07:56Karen Kilgariff?

  The Great Egg War. But with these guys, they can't just work it out. They can't go like, ah, we both were swindled. This is what it's like, you know, out on the open seas. Instead, they resent each other for days, culminating in an all-hands meeting on the ship.

• 1:08:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, they're little bitches, both of them.

• 1:08:14Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah, and it's like, everybody's fighting and it's ruining the cruise for the rest of us.

• 1:08:18Georgia Hardstark?

  It's ruining the vibe. The vibes are off.

• 1:08:21Karen Kilgariff?

  The vibes are so off, so they have a staff meeting and all-hands meeting on the Lido deck. And Henderson tells the group, God wants him to have the eggs.

• 1:08:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:08:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Settled.

• 1:08:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Who knew?

• 1:08:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Did they ever say that on Real Housewives? God wants me to have the eggs, so this fight is over.

• 1:08:37Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:08:37Karen Kilgariff?

  But apparently, this works. Henderson winds up with the eggs. And the only reason we believe it is because at this same meeting, Dr. T vows to get revenge.

• 1:08:48Georgia Hardstark?

  Over eggs.

• 1:08:49Karen Kilgariff?

  Over eggs. They haven't even landed on the island yet, and things are that bad. So clearly, the two vegetarian, free-love, alpha males are vying for control over the schooner and the spirit of the group itself.

• 1:09:02Georgia Hardstark?

  As they do.

• 1:09:03Karen Kilgariff?

  As they seem to always want to do. Dr. T is a blacksmith. Henderson is a rich pioneer. Who will win? Lay your bets.

• 1:09:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Uh huh.

• 1:09:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Good luck, players. It takes them several months to finally arrive at Tiger Island, so several more months of that life and that strife.

• 1:09:21Karen Kilgariff?

  I have bars. So when the schooner's crew is finally cut loose, they run to the reporters, describing the journey as a free-love hell.

• 1:09:31Georgia Hardstark?

  No such thing. You'd think those words wouldn't go together.

• 1:09:33Karen Kilgariff?

  But hey.

• 1:09:34Georgia Hardstark?

  And on a boat.

• 1:09:35Karen Kilgariff?

  And these are sailors.

• 1:09:37Georgia Hardstark?

  It's the first swingers cruise.

• 1:09:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh. And the sailors are just like the waitstaff that's forced to stand by in the rented community.

• 1:09:47Georgia Hardstark?

  And they know all the gossip because like, they're just like in the background of everything.

• 1:09:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:09:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh my god.

• 1:09:52Karen Kilgariff?

  Just not into it. They keep walking into the supply galley. Everyone's fucking back there. Sorry, don't let your kids listen to this episode.

• 1:10:03Karen Kilgariff?

  And they also document the hypocrisy among the supposedly sexually liberated group members, mentioning a specific incident in another port in Mexico where a male member of the Brotherhood happens to end up at the same stream where the female members are skinny dipping, or bathing. I mean, they have been on a boat for months and months.

• 1:10:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Sure.

• 1:10:21Karen Kilgariff?

  Dr. T shows up and becomes so irate that this other man has just seen his wife naked, that he quote, "threatened to break every bone in his body," unquote.

• 1:10:31Georgia Hardstark?

  So chill.

• 1:10:32Karen Kilgariff?

  So, the blacksmith turned water doctor seems like maybe not always okay. Or, he's like me, where when his blood sugar gets low, he threatens to kill everybody.

• 1:10:42Georgia Hardstark?

  Which is the whole time, because they're starving.

• 1:10:44Karen Kilgariff?

  They can't have any sugar.

• 1:10:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:10:47Karen Kilgariff?

  Okay. So now California papers are running sneering articles on this harmonious Brotherhood utopian journey. They're clocking all of it. Meanwhile, on Tiger Island, the gang is in rough shape. They're exhausted and they're depleted. They just arrived. Now they have to build the infrastructure needed to start, like, their little society. But immediately, and very sadly, something like malaria or yellow fever sweeps through the camp. And the terrible reality sets in for the group, that Dr. T's hydropathy treatments are no match for real disease. One of the articles covering this will document the death of a Brotherhood member identified only as Mrs. C, which is so sad if you think of Richie

• 1:11:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Cunningham's mother dying this way. And they write, quote, "They took Mrs. C while raging with the fever, wrapped her in a wet blanket till she perspired profusely, and then threw cold water over her. The speedy result was her death," end quote.

• 1:11:45Georgia Hardstark?

  What a fuck shitty way to go.

• 1:11:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Horrible. After months, eating the worst oatmeal of all time.

• 1:11:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Dude, what was it all for?

• 1:11:54Karen Kilgariff?

  For real, just to die far away from home. Two members of the Harmonial Brotherhood die shortly after arriving at Tiger Island, Mrs. C and another. As many as eight get sick, including Henderson himself, but they recover. But there's only 20 people on this ship, so morale is extraordinarily low. And to make matters worse, the egg-related rift between Henderson and Dr. T has not ended.

• 1:12:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Guys, let it go!

• 1:12:20Karen Kilgariff?

  They can't. Eggs, eggs, precious eggs.

• 1:12:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Dr. T actually breaks away from the main group with a few loyalists on his side and starts a rival utopian society.

• 1:12:32Georgia Hardstark?

  Me and my two friends are out of here. We're on the other side of the island with our eggs.

• 1:12:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Literally, they go, they move to another side of the island. They don't get any eggs, though. Soon after, Dr. T gets sick and dies himself.

• 1:12:44Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:12:45Karen Kilgariff?

  So you can't, there's no room to just be busting off and being mad about eggs?

• 1:12:49Georgia Hardstark?

  No.

• 1:12:49Karen Kilgariff?

  The point is not the eggs.

• 1:12:50Georgia Hardstark?

  God has other plans for you when you're chafing about eggs.

• 1:12:54Karen Kilgariff?

  Amen. Okay. So from here, the information is spotty because, as I told you, no one's keeping diaries. There are enough scrapbooks from Tiger Island.

• 1:13:04Georgia Hardstark?

  No one's like, I want to write down stuff while I'm actually dying.

• 1:13:07Karen Kilgariff?

  Yes. This is, I got weird and high over eating too many vegetables and like having sex whenever I wanted, which seemed impossible, and now I'm in Honduras and I don't know what's going on.

• 1:13:18Georgia Hardstark?

  Maybe my wife is right to put me in a mental institution.

• 1:13:23Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Oops.

• 1:13:24Karen Kilgariff?

  Maybe my water treatments don't actually work. This is a musical. Okay.

• 1:13:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Ooh.

• 1:13:30Karen Kilgariff?

  It only took eight months for the Harmonial Brotherhood's free love experiment on Tiger Island to implode.

• 1:13:36Georgia Hardstark?

  That's a long freaking time.

• 1:13:38Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Yeah.

• 1:13:39Georgia Hardstark?

  Jesus.

• 1:13:40Karen Kilgariff?

  What we know for sure is that in July of 1860, Henderson Llewelling commissions a crew to sail his schooner back to California. After this, when the group gets back, they disband for good, they seem to. The entire saga is extremely humiliating for all parties involved because they went out, you know, of course, guns a blazing of like, we're out of here. We are gonna, we're gonna-

• 1:14:02Georgia Hardstark?

  We figured it out.

• 1:14:03Karen Kilgariff?

  That's right. Things are gonna be so much better at our new life. And this is always what I bring up in my argument against vegetarianism. Bring the bacon.

• 1:14:13Georgia Hardstark?

  Bring the bacon.

• 1:14:14Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the old saying, bring the bacon and you won't fight so much about the eggs.

• 1:14:17Georgia Hardstark?

  Also, the, yeah, because- What's the difference between the fucking eggs and the bacon, really?

• 1:14:21Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the focus.

• 1:14:23Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:23Karen Kilgariff?

  It's the lens through which.

• 1:14:25Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:14:25Karen Kilgariff?

  It's so humiliating that Henderson Llewelling lives the rest of his life under a pseudonym.

• 1:14:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh.

• 1:14:31Karen Kilgariff?

  Members of his family, meanwhile, carry on his horticultural mantle and continue producing popular crops on the Pacific coast. His brother Seth is particularly successful, becoming famous for cultivating the Bing Cherry in the 1870s.

• 1:14:46Georgia Hardstark?

  Hey, love that guy.

• 1:14:48Karen Kilgariff?

  Seth actually changes the spelling of his last name to Llewelling, L-E-W-E-L-L-I-N-G.

• 1:14:53Georgia Hardstark?

  Just to get away from the like, damn.

• 1:14:56Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. So in 1878, while clearing land with a control burn for a new nursery in San Jose, California, Henderson Llewelling dies of a heart attack at the age of 69. So he was starting it all over yet again.

• 1:15:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Jesus.

• 1:15:11Karen Kilgariff?

  In San Jose. This is a hard part to hear. He's reportedly found, quote, "partially roasted with his clothes, beard, and the land around him still smoldering."

• 1:15:21Georgia Hardstark?

  So he got caught on fire and had a heart attack and died?

• 1:15:24Karen Kilgariff?

  He was control burning, had a heart attack, dropped to the ground.

• 1:15:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, and was still alive when the...

• 1:15:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Here comes the control burn.

• 1:15:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Couldn't get away from the burn.

• 1:15:32Karen Kilgariff?

  Hopefully, he died, but let's say he died before the control burn.

• 1:15:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, God.

• 1:15:36Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, yoy. In 1929, while musing on a sprout from one of Henderson's Oregon cherry trees, a writer named O.A. Garretson notes, quote, "That this little cherry sprout originating at Salem, Iowa, should withstand the risks of transportation across the continent and the hazards of frequent transplanting and still live. A towering monument to commemorate the energy and enterprise of a Salem pioneer is, to the writer, a fact stranger than fiction." And that's the story of the so-called "father of the Pacific fruit industry" and dirty bird Henderson Llewelling. Oh, I didn't show you any fucking pictures!

• 1:16:15Georgia Hardstark?

  Because it was so... that you had the images and the words. I didn't need it. I have it all in my mind.

• 1:16:21Karen Kilgariff?

  I want to see some of them, though. Here's the book we were talking about.

• 1:16:24Georgia Hardstark?

  I don't think I read that as a kid.

• 1:16:27Karen Kilgariff?

  It seems so innocent.

• 1:16:29Georgia Hardstark?

  Right.

• 1:16:29Karen Kilgariff?

  Well, just get ready.

• 1:16:30Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:16:33Karen Kilgariff?

  There he is.

• 1:16:33Georgia Hardstark?

  There he is. There's the neck beard.

• 1:16:35Karen Kilgariff?

  Another.

• 1:16:36Georgia Hardstark?

  Neck beard.

• 1:16:37Karen Kilgariff?

  This is crazy.

• 1:16:38Georgia Hardstark?

  This is the season of neck beards on My Favorite Murder.

• 1:16:40Karen Kilgariff?

  I guess this was like, the Benson Boone mustache is today. This neck beard was in 1850.

• 1:16:47Georgia Hardstark?

  Because he'd look fine without it. What are you doing? She's like, you put some sheep's wool.

• 1:16:51Karen Kilgariff?

  It's kind of quakery.

• 1:16:53Georgia Hardstark?

  It's quakery.

• 1:16:53Karen Kilgariff?

  I mean, this seems to be the trend of the time. Okay, what else we got? Is that the schooner?

• 1:16:58Georgia Hardstark?

  No. I was picturing like a yacht.

• 1:17:01Karen Kilgariff?

  That's Tiger Island.

• 1:17:02Georgia Hardstark?

  Great.

• 1:17:04Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, that's the schooner.

• 1:17:05Karen Kilgariff?

  There's the schooner.

• 1:17:05Georgia Hardstark?

  That's more what I thought.

• 1:17:06Karen Kilgariff?

  Still, it's not big. And you can only have like really crunchy oatmeal.

• 1:17:11Georgia Hardstark?

  Oh, God.

• 1:17:12Karen Kilgariff?

  Rough.

• 1:17:12Georgia Hardstark?

  Okay.

• 1:17:13Karen Kilgariff?

  So not even big enough for people to... If the sailors from this boat are complaining about a free love situation that weirded them out.

• 1:17:21Georgia Hardstark?

  It's everywhere.

• 1:17:22Karen Kilgariff?

  They were witnessing it, front, back, and center. Whoops. Okay, anything else?

• 1:17:26Georgia Hardstark?

  All holes filled.

• 1:17:30Karen Kilgariff?

  Oh, that's Willamette Valley.

• 1:17:31Georgia Hardstark?

  Willamette Valley.

• 1:17:32Karen Kilgariff?

  I know the Willamette Valley when I'm looking at it. All right.

• 1:17:35Georgia Hardstark?

  Well, that was great. Wow.

• 1:17:37Karen Kilgariff?

  Yeah. Those are all these experiences you can have in life.

• 1:17:40Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah, it could go so many different ways.

• 1:17:42Karen Kilgariff?

  That's all we want people to remember on this show. Please stop forgetting the variety of life.

• 1:17:48Georgia Hardstark?

  And enjoy yours because...

• 1:17:51Karen Kilgariff?

  Life is like a Bing cherry.

• 1:17:52Georgia Hardstark?

  Yeah.

• 1:17:53Karen Kilgariff?

  It's expensive. Stay sexy.

• 1:17:55Georgia Hardstark?

  And don't get murdered.

• 1:17:58Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:17:59Speaker 07

  Elvis, do you want a cookie?

• 1:18:08Karen Kilgariff?

  This has been an Exactly Right production.

• 1:18:10Georgia Hardstark?

  Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.

• 1:18:13Karen Kilgariff?

  Our editor is Aristotle Lasevato.

• 1:18:15Georgia Hardstark?

  This episode was mixed by Leona Scolacci.

• 1:18:18Karen Kilgariff?

  Our researchers are Mira McGlashan and Ally Elkin.

• 1:18:21Georgia Hardstark?

  Email your hometowns to [email protected].

• 1:18:23Karen Kilgariff?

  And follow the show on Instagram at MyFavoriteMurder.

• 1:18:26Georgia Hardstark?

  Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 1:18:31Karen Kilgariff?

  And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.

• 1:18:33Georgia Hardstark?

  And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the remind me buttons. That's the best way you can support our show.

• 1:18:39Karen Kilgariff?

  Goodbye.

• 1:18:45Speaker 07

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• 1:19:14Speaker 02

  At Humana, our Medicare Advantage plans are easy to understand and easy on your wallet. Like offering more benefits than you'd get from original Medicare alone. And including dental, vision, and hearing coverage in every plan. And the best part is, every plan has a $0 or low monthly plan premium, which makes it easier to save, too. So this Medicare planning season, plan well with Humana. Learn more at gethumana.com. Humana is a Medicare Advantage HMO and PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.