Drink about something
True crime and some fun banter adventures with music you don't want to miss!
Lindsey finds stories that are amazingly shocking enough that you just may need a drink after or during the tales of past crime trauma!
Drink about something
EPISODE 38: JIMBA the young cult leader JIM JONES PART 1
Our deep dive into the origins of Jim Jones reveals the complex factors that shaped one of history's most notorious cult leaders. Born in 1931 to a disabled WWI veteran father and a rebellious mother who encouraged his defiance, young Jim stood out in troubling ways. He ordered neighborhood children to lie in caskets, practiced sermons to trees in the woods, and developed an early admiration for Hitler's ability to command crowds – not for his ideology, but for his mesmerizing control over people.
This first chapter in our multi-part exploration ends with the founding of the People's Temple – a moment when Jones' vision for socialist principles and community assistance still seemed primarily benevolent. Join us next week as we continue tracing how this complex figure transformed from an advocate for the oppressed into the leader of a deadly cult.
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Hey, jesse.
Speaker 2:Hello.
Speaker 1:Lindsay, what are you drinking today? A?
Speaker 2:little bit of Bloody Mary leftover and I'm gonna go ham today, cause today is the day it is. I'm drinking Sprite, oh nice, oh, no 7-Up 7-Up. Cause I don't never buy 7-Up.
Speaker 1:And Bloody Mary, it's zero sugar, seven up. Zero sugar for your health.
Speaker 2:I'm going fucking ham today, I'm going ham. Ham. What are you drinking?
Speaker 1:I am. I've got a Bloody Mary with a backup white claw. Mixture of the mango and peach. Remember, I don't like the mango, but if I mix the mango with the peach it is perfection and it's very, very, very crispy.
Speaker 2:I busted the seal on this here. Zero proof, zero sugar, zero alcohol. Seven up.
Speaker 1:Well, you have a Bloody Mary that I lovingly made you, along with fantastic bagel breakfast sandwiches this morning. So good, I've been craving bagels so much lately.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it was so good.
Speaker 1:And I was like I'm going to make sandwiches.
Speaker 2:Lindsay makes the best breakfast bagels ever. They are the best they are.
Speaker 1:Breakfast bagels Yep. I don't know why I'm wanting to sing everything today. What are we doing hereels? Yep. I don't know why I'm wanting to sing everything today.
Speaker 2:What are we doing?
Speaker 1:here, probably just because I really want my life to be a musical.
Speaker 2:Okay, so so in talk it's always sing to song talk If there is a heaven.
Speaker 1:I will go there and my life will be a musical.
Speaker 2:So the good place.
Speaker 1:Well, the good place had kind of had twists and turns. I don't know if I want to go to the good place.
Speaker 2:The bad place trying to be the good place.
Speaker 1:And then there was the mid place. I don't know, I don't know, you keep falling asleep watching that show. I've been watching the show the good place.
Speaker 2:I've only, like, collectively watched 30 minutes of all of it.
Speaker 1:Thank you, Aaron Russell, for your recommendations, and watching Ted Danson in another series is cool. I love Ted Danson man.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He's cool.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:He'll never be what. I mean, I don't know, he'll never be as cool as Cheers Ted Danson, but he's pretty close in a good place. Yeah, cheers. Ted Danson was top tier Anyhow. What made you feel old this week?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I have no idea how much I dread it. I hate it. It's the worst part of this whole damn thing.
Speaker 1:You can make it be a positive thing. He's like you know what that did make me feel old, but I'm kind of glad that happened. You can make it a positive experience, like I've done that in the past.
Speaker 2:It doesn't always have to be negative but that's what sticks, because I mean, I painted our bathroom in the middle of the week and that kicked my ass like the next day. Why painting all the taping and all the work and all that you know but you know somebody's got to do it. You was like putting it on, we bought it over here. We'll do it, we'll do it. Oh, we'll do it then. Oh, we'll do it. No.
Speaker 1:I literally said two weeks ago that we were going to do it today.
Speaker 2:And then you just went ahead and did it, Cause you were like I got to get it done.
Speaker 1:I've been waiting at it.
Speaker 2:I was going to surprise you with doing it and I did it and it did me Just painting. And then I went to work and I was by myself all week. So we just kicked my ass the whole week at work, kicked my ass Then the holiday and everybody trying to get all their shit together. Yeah, that made me feel old. Just simple little thing. Well, I had like three hot flashes while we were at the Springs yesterday. Yeah, you were in and out. You're like, look at all the tube I'm burning up.
Speaker 1:Yes, and it wasn't just like it was hot outside, don't get me wrong, but this, like heat, happens from the inside. Yeah, so, and I had to. I was like you, what?
Speaker 2:just let me get getting this cold water, and it felt so much better is it almost like we're like you're having like a sickness, but it goes away real fast.
Speaker 1:You know, you like you have those cold chills and then hot inside of you, like when it's different because, like, when you get those chills when you're sick, it's like painful and you just want to curl up in a blanket and go to sleep. You don't want to do that when you're having a hot flash. You want to go to the nearest cooler or water or something. You know what I mean Something that's going to cool you off instantly so it's completely different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you know what it's part of life and it's we're. Yeah, but you know what it's part of life and it's we're here you know what?
Speaker 2:I support you, Lindsay.
Speaker 1:I induced one the other day by eating some Nashville hot sauce with my grilled chicken at work.
Speaker 2:You ate some food and it gave you a hot flat, oh yeah, I listened.
Speaker 1:My whole T-zone area was beaded with sweat in the top of my lip. That's never happened before. You know me like when I eat something spicy, like it'll make my eyes water before it makes me do anything else.
Speaker 2:The tip of the tongue, the teeth, the lips, the tip of the tongue, the teeth, the lips.
Speaker 1:But that Nashville hot, and it's never done that until this past week gave me the complete sweats. But you know what I ate? Some more again the next day.
Speaker 2:Because that, until this past week, gave me the complete sweats. But you know what? I ate some more again the next day because that shit is so good did you want to see if it's going to happen again too, it did it did.
Speaker 3:Do you have to let it linger? I'm going back, dude. This hot, this, this hot flash was so good.
Speaker 2:I'm going back so I apologize real quick. We got a new tablet and we're doing new audio stuff right now and hopefully everything turned out well.
Speaker 1:We thank you so much for following us thus far.
Speaker 2:Thus far, we're fixing to get on to our most epicness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so roll that intro.
Speaker 2:I think it's going to be our most, most epicness. Yeah, so journey with us and happy Friday everybody. Happy Friday. I feel like I'm riding like a carriage and we're on our way to kill vampires with that song, while doing disco Like mariachi disco. Does that make sense? No, I don't know. I'm hearing all that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I kind of just pictured that whole scenario in my head right then.
Speaker 2:So the carriage is kicking ass. It's like you know set way back, probably like 1600s or some shit, but the carriage has disco lights, panels like on the floor flashing, you know.
Speaker 1:I don't know if I want to kill vampires, though I kind of want to be one. I mean, we are vampires, but we're vampires going to kill vampires want to be like a vampire, witch, werewolf, hybrid oh god yeah, that's too I read about one of those and I remember into it during the pandemic when I got into reading where there's a word for that.
Speaker 2:There's a name for that. What is that? Not a liking lala lalapus? I don't know what is that word. Were you like a liking vampire?
Speaker 1:I like vampwich.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I like vampwich. Yeah, I don't know, but remember, in 2021, I got into reading the vampire novels because there was just not a lot to do, and suddenly they started coming up in my news feeds, these books, and I would read like one a day.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:It was insane.
Speaker 2:But anyway. Well, who was it that came back? That was the vampire in DC. Was it DC? No, it was Marvel. He was the vampire that came back. That was the Blade, yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Blade came back, Wesley Snipes came back and I was like that was one of my favorite vampires.
Speaker 1:The vigilante vampire with the fucking sword, and the whole theater stood up and cheered. It was amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, that needs to come back. That is what okay.
Speaker 1:So you know a lot of people have gotten away from going to movie theaters, but that is experience that you'll never get at home unless you've got 40 people watching the same movie with you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the stranger camaraderie, everybody just gets together on something.
Speaker 1:It makes it way better Everybody's like woohoo. Yeah, that was great. That was the most epic.
Speaker 2:Moment Wesley pops up, all old and gray and like I'm here to kick ass. And he kicked ass.
Speaker 1:And then, of course, chris Evans played you know who's also Cats of America also played Johnny Flame and also played Johnny Flame and he came back and he didn't last long.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:He was one of the many, yeah, in the multiverse, but that was that was great.
Speaker 1:Yes, that was a great film. So before we get off into our topic today, if you are new here, what we do is we have a couple of drinks. I tell Jesse a true crime story that I've been wanting to get off my chest to him, that he doesn't know about. This one today he knows a little bit about, but most of the time I shock and I awe him or I make him want to go into a corner and cry or die.
Speaker 2:So I've watched a few documentaries and things about it. So you're going to bring up things that are going to trigger my mind. Be like yes. I remember this. I remember that I'm excited to revisit this horrific-ass, fucking human being.
Speaker 1:Yeah, at the end of each episode we also plug a band that Jesse has sought out and gotten permission to play, and sometimes they've sought him out. So yeah, it's been a cool journey with the band.
Speaker 2:We have found some cool-ass fucking music here, and some of them are fixing to be famous and we're on episode like what 30, something?
Speaker 1:now you guys 37. Yeah, I believe Seven or eight, whatever We've got plenty of content for you to take a few road trips or listen while you're cleaning, cooking, doing laundry, exercising. We want to be in your ears.
Speaker 2:Maybe this is the weekend our first episode will break 100 downloads. It was at 99 last time I looked 99. Start from the first and then meet us here.
Speaker 1:And meet us here. But so today and for the next probably three weeks, if not four, we will be talking about Jim. Jones, in the name of Jesus and the Flavor Aid.
Speaker 2:Oh God, the Flavor Aid, the Flavor Aid. Everybody confuses that with Gatorade.
Speaker 1:He wasn't cool enough to have Kool-Aid, kool-aid yeah, that's what it was Flavor Aid. But that is quite a long journey from where we're going to start.
Speaker 2:Lindsay, you would have shit if I would have had some flavor aid over here mixed up and drinking it. I got flavor aid.
Speaker 3:dude, you should do that for the last part, this is going to be a short episode.
Speaker 2:This is going to be a long episode. Y'all strap in.
Speaker 1:This is going to be a long three to four episodes because there's a lot of information about this guy that I feel I should uh put out there, if it's not already known, and okay. So jim jones is quite a fine, uh, finest, it's quite a fine.
Speaker 1:This nine famous, it's quite a famous name and most people know what happened because of jim, but not everyone knows all the details and where it started. And, listeners, if you haven't heard this case before, buckle up. It's a lot. James warren jones was born may 13th 1931 to jamesurman Jones and Lynette Putnam Jones. Now Lynette was born Lunette, then she changed her name to Lynette and then she changed her name again to Lynetta, but we're going to call it, we're just going to say Lynette, because all of that's confusing for me.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a big net.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so he was born in the rural community of Crete, Indiana. Big Jim was the son of a Quaker and had been a road worker who went off to fight in World War One. Jim had not been a very ambitious man and did everything a little later in life than most did in that time period. He was 30 years old when he enlisted in the military. I mean, most do that like what? 18, 17, 18?.
Speaker 2:That's a hell of a war to take on at 30. God.
Speaker 1:Well, he was sent to the front lines in France and he was caught in a German gas attack which would give him respiratory problems for the rest of his life. He couldn't really carry on a full conversation because of this respiratory issue and had a very raspy voice, so he just didn't talk much. He was shipped back home and received a disabled veteran pension which was about $30 a month, so that still, even in those days, wasn't enough to live on. Because that's what? A dollar a day? Yeah, that's fucking wild, isn't it.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at you like how in the hell can you get even over DoorDash for that shit?
Speaker 3:Well, OK, so $30 was in.
Speaker 1:Ok, we're going to say Jim Little Jim was born in 31. So we're going to say this was mid twenties. Okay, so gas was probably like a quarter $30 was equal to about 400 a month in today's spending power Isn't that wild. But that's still not enough to live off of.
Speaker 1:So he, uh, he had to go back and work. On the road cruise he also developed rheumatism which would require him to take off work frequently. Then he met Lynette Putnam, who was quite the character. Okay, she was a rebel, she smoked in public, she wore pants. She wore pants, Jesse in the 20s.
Speaker 2:I know I'm clutching my pearls, I know, and she cussed like a sailor Woo In public.
Speaker 1:That's things that ladies just didn't do in those days.
Speaker 2:Off-hinged flapper.
Speaker 1:Yes, she was also somewhere between 15 and 17 years younger than Big Jim. Wow, lynette had been married I wrote twice before, but it was actually three times but really wanted someone, and she was only. So this bitch was married and divorced like Every other year Before she met Big Jim.
Speaker 2:And still young yes, she was only like 23 Running amok. She was looking for a come up.
Speaker 1:Yes, she was. I'm about to talk about that. She really wanted someone to take care of her, where she maybe could become a proper lady, and big jim's family was a prominent one, but she didn't get exactly what she expected. Now, big jim's father did get them a house, but it was on a farm in crete and quakers.
Speaker 2:They build everything yes, so they have stuff but, but they build it.
Speaker 1:And that farm had to be worked and Big Jim physically couldn't meet the demands of farm work. I mean, he was, you know, out of breath all the time. And this farm required harvesting of soybeans and corn, along with raising and slaughtering and selling pigs, and neither one of them were cut out for this type of work. And Big Jim's health declined, like it just kept declining, it never got better, it just kept going downhill, and he could no longer work on road crews nor help out on the farm. And then little Jimmy Jones, or Jimba as Lynette would call him, was born in 1931.
Speaker 2:So when he was born did they hold him up and put a little mark on his forehead and say Jimba, jimba. So Jimba.
Speaker 3:It's the circle circle of life.
Speaker 2:I'm just picturing it the whole time, I know Jim Jones.
Speaker 1:In Modern Family. Oh, my God, you haven't watched that show with me. But the gay couple Cam and mitchell they're my favorite. They, when they adopt their daughter, cam insists on doing that with their baby, like that's how they present their baby to the family. It's so amazing. So did the mitchell's like no, no. And then here comes cam with the music playing in the background, and then they have like slide above.
Speaker 2:So so I mean, how do they take care of their pride?
Speaker 1:rock there, lindsey oh, okay, so that's a long way from now okay so big jim's family uh, helped him get a home, and in lynn, indiana, because they couldn't do that farm in Crete. Okay, and the family told Lynette, hey, we're going to help you out, but only until little Jimba, until he starts school, and then you'll have to go get a job when Jimba starts first grade.
Speaker 2:You're fucking killing me with this Jimba shit dude.
Speaker 1:That's what he was called. I'm going to call him three different names. So this is first grade. You're fucking killing me with. That's what he was called. So that's what I'm gonna call him three different names. So this is childhood. Jim jones, okay, jim jim. So when jimba started first grade, lynette found factory work to keep the family afloat and lynette swore that her in-laws hated her, but they actually admired her and her quirky personality and everything that the family did for them was completely out of respect, not pity. They seen that. You know, lynette was a hard-working little spit fire. And then they knew that big jim had been, you know, unfortunately and unfairly injured in war. You know they weren't being shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, chemical warfare is horrific she will forever and ever, till the day she dies, says that big Big Jim's family were just asshole pieces of shit that treated her like shit. But they actually didn't.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:They pretty much supported her.
Speaker 2:Well, she had to try to adapt to the lifestyle you know.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And I bet little Jimba was like oh, I just can't wait to be king.
Speaker 1:Oh God, oh God. I don't even know where to go for that. I'll just wait for you.
Speaker 2:We're going to send him off and let him learn how to say Hakuna Matata.
Speaker 1:This is fucked up, lindsay. So Lynn, indiana, was the town area near where the Crete farm town was. They had certain days for everything Wednesdays were movie nights, saturdays were for shopping and Sundays were for church. There were, I think, three denominations, major denominations there Quaker, nazarene and Methodist. They did not compete with each other and on major holidays they would actually all gather together and give speeches on how to live right and stay on the narrow path. And there were a lot of men's social clubs like the Masons and the Kai Kai Kai. Oh, to this day I think it still has the largest population of that organization. Indiana period.
Speaker 2:And Indiana has, like, got a lot of Klansmans, wow yeah.
Speaker 1:And there was one lady, though Her name was Myrtle Kennedy, who did think that Nazarenes should have been the only denomination, and she definitely made her opinion known. And little Jimba would become very close with her and would spend a lot of time with her and her husband, and that suited his mother, lynette, just fine, as it would get Jimba out of her hair for a while. But now Lynette and Big Jim were about the only people in that town that were not weekly churchgoers. Lynette didn't really believe in a sky, god. She was more spiritual and she would have visions and in fact when she had little Jimba she had a vision that he would. She would give birth to a great man who would become a great leader. Yeah, no, I'm just kidding. Wait, jimmy Go ahead.
Speaker 3:OK, so when?
Speaker 1:when little Jimmy was in first grade, lynette, like I said before, had to go to work and worked at a glass factory. Now, big Jim, he was completely disabled. He was no longer able to do any work at this time, so he would hang out in the town pool hall all day. Lynette told little Jimmy that he couldn't go in the house until she got off work, so he kind of just ran the streets or would visit aunts and uncles and cousins, or he would go hang out at Ms Myrtle's house. Ms Myrtle was six foot two. Wow, jesse, that's how Mrs Hall is you?
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Was Myrtle fertile.
Speaker 1:I don't think, I don't know, I have not. So I'm in the middle of a very, very long book about this case If Myrtle wasn't fertile and they've already gotten way past Miss Myrtle's subject, and I didn't hear about her having a lot of kids. She may have had one or two.
Speaker 2:I did not, I didn't write it down.
Speaker 1:Well, if Myrtle wasn't fertile, at least she would have to wear like a man-sized girdle. Well, she was. Actually. She was quite the empath for transients and was always making them pies in hopes that they would join the Nazarene church. Like she's Nazarene to the core. Now, jim, little Jimmy Jimba being from a godlessless home, that made myrtle want to take him under her wing and and she never missed an opportunity to share the word of god with him. Jesus like jesus, god in jimmy's ears all the time. And, um, jimmy would even start staying overnight with the she was a kennedy, I don't know if I said that already and he really started soaking in the Bible scriptures and would memorize them, much to Myrtle's delight, and Jimmy would even call her mom in private, and Myrtle loved that.
Speaker 2:You're building a big salad here.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, oh God, there's like there's going to be two episodes of just salad. Yeah, wow, well, I'm saying like.
Speaker 2:OK, his mom is charismatic and not really.
Speaker 1:But atheist as fuck yeah.
Speaker 2:So wide open, charismatic, just you know, doing her thing wide open, and then now he's hanging out with somebody that's pushing their religion.
Speaker 1:Very religious.
Speaker 2:Wide open too. So boom, boom right.
Speaker 1:So oh yeah, yeah, we got a lot to cover you see my, you see my notes here, I'm seeing it so and um, she say she in her mind, myrtle, had saved little jimmy soul, you know, because he was in a godless house. But much, much to her chagrin, he would get curious of other denominations in town and would start attending those services as well. Little Jimmy especially loved OK, I'm going to let you guess what do you think he loved the most?
Speaker 2:And as far as religion goes.
Speaker 1:Not as a denomination, but what type of services do you think he loved the most? I'm just going to give you one guess Charismatic Like Revival Revival yes.
Speaker 2:Pentecostals.
Speaker 1:Well he's, they haven't gotten to that, that hasn't come onto the scene yet so yeah, no Baptist, nobody.
Speaker 2:No, no, no.
Speaker 1:Well, this was he was, so he would go to the revivals. He was baptized like as often as he could, and this was like really odd to most people because they're like he's like getting baptized every week.
Speaker 2:yeah so he's like reset, reset, throwing it back. Oh my god what did I? Do this week.
Speaker 1:Wait a minute, it's washed away if you just heard that, reset, reset. Um, if anybody listening has listened to one of Jesse's former bands, we won't say the name, just in case the crazy person might be a listener. Whoever, you will get that reference. You only need to know two words, but they're the same motherfucking word. We're going to say it twice Reset, reset. But they're the same motherfucking word. We're gonna say it twice reset, reset. Anyways, this would make him as odd as his parents to the townspeople. Okay, and his oddness would continue when World War II broke out and little Jimmy acquired an admiration for Adolf Hitler. What now? Don't act like that's crazy, cause we done talked about another motherfucker that loved hitler and he went on to be a I guess he's a terrible person yeah, maybe he started joining some of those gatherers okay, so
Speaker 1:he was, he was in his early teens around this time, maybe even younger, so he did not understand what Hitler was doing. But he would like the way that Hitler spoke to the crowds and how those crowds would stand at attention and listen. He would get his cousins to act as Nazis as he pretended to be Hitler, like having them goose step and all that shit. What the fuck? Until, yeah, he had them lined up already.
Speaker 2:Come zimba.
Speaker 1:Now he, I mean jimba because I'm just picturing this shit in my head you know it's wild yeah but at the same time I'm not gonna lie. When I was in high school and actually way earlier than that, when I first read the diary of anne frank that was in fifth grade I had to do a book report on it. I had to dress as her to give that book report presentation.
Speaker 2:I became obsessed with the whole holocaust after that yeah, up all the way up until something like that just breaks the trend of anybody trying to be against humanity. When you read something like that, or you just look into something like that and you're just like boom.
Speaker 1:I definitely wasn't obsessed with Hitler.
Speaker 2:I remember in school too, looking at the books of bodies piled up, oh God, like a wheelbarrow full of wedding rings, like, okay, that's that many people that just got my 10th grade teacher had us watch the the like documentary on it, where they were piling these lifeless naked bodies right and just droves, droves and just piles of dugout dirt there was skin and skeletons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so, oh, that thing that that was other than seeing people in funerals. You know, know my loved ones in funerals. That was the most death I'd ever seen in my life, but I knew that was real.
Speaker 2:But the count for all of that? We everybody drops back to that. But how many other regimes and history has done that in way worse?
Speaker 1:Right, and I mean there's a lot more spoiler alert cult leaders that have done this same shit but in different ways. Yeah, you know, but we're going back, we're in the beginning stages here. Ok, so you know the cousins. They would go back and tell their mom and dad's, like you know what they were doing in the, in the, in the woods, with Ojumba, and they were like no stop, and you can't do that, no more.
Speaker 1:So he also had a real fascination with death and would almost force the town kids to attend funeral services that he would leave for animals, like he was, like this collector of strays and like you know, and of course you know, and they all lived on, a lot of them lived on farms. They were familiar with death, but I mean, jim had to have a funeral for everything. A lizard, all that. Now, kids, his age would start to get creeped out by him. So what do you do when you can't get any friends your own age? You go to to the younger crowd and he got the younger kids to follow him and he would take his followers to the town casket manufacturer and who left their doors unlocked, because you know, small town, they're leaving everything unlocked and he would have them lay down in these caskets so they could see what it would like to be dead.
Speaker 2:Whoa yeah, come on, jimba. Sounds like you're creating a monster. Well, we're in, jimmy.
Speaker 1:We're in Jimmy now. We're in Jimmy territory. So Jimmy would also be found in the woods, sometimes by his friend Max practicing putting on sermons to the trees.
Speaker 2:So now he's off Pride Rock and he's doing his own thing?
Speaker 1:Yes, Now these weren't sermons. Okay, rock, and he's doing his own thing. Yes, now these weren't sermons. Okay, cause Max, when he recounts the tale, they weren't sermons. Like he was passionately preaching, it was a show. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:Right, he was learning how to be a good actor.
Speaker 1:He was learning how to be a showman A good actor. Yes, this is the greatest show Now since Jimmy was left alone. A lot, and they're all up there. They're all like whoa.
Speaker 2:Ladies and gentlemen, this is the moment you've been waiting for. So he's just like doing it. So he's went from.
Speaker 1:He's went from Simba to the greatest showman yeah this is great yeah, we can mention all kinds of shit throughout his life, okay, wow. So since jimmy was left alone a lot and didn't always have food available, he would go to the candy stores and just kind of take what he wanted, and the vendors didn't really get mad or say anything to him because his mother would come by and pay for whatever he had taken at the end of the week when she would get paid. Now, lynette never corrected this behavior, though she wasn't like all right, jimba, you can't go to the store and just take things without buying them. No, she actually, uh, was proud of his audacity and defiance yeah, wow.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so tell me where you want to go. So Jimmy told his friends that he had obtained the power to fly. And then he jumped off a roof. And he didn't fly, of course, and ended up breaking his arm, but he still believed that he had special powers. So now Jimmy knew a lot about sex, being around farm animals and living in a thin walled house. But no one, and all the other kids did too. But no one else would talk about it except jimmy. He talks about sex all the fucking time, like he would have like little lectures on his porch to younger kids about sex. Yeah, it's wild, and that's going to remember that for future episodes. Okay, he cussed all the time as as a as a child. When other parents would express their concerns to Lynette, she didn't care. She was like that's my Jimimba, okay.
Speaker 2:You're kidding me.
Speaker 1:In high school it seemed that Jimmy was always talking about religion, sex and death. Those were his three favorite topics and they pretty much will be forever. It's not going to work out right, it's not cool, man, it's not a good wave to ride, bro.
Speaker 2:It's not cool man.
Speaker 1:Most of the townspeople felt sorry for him because his mother was weird and godless and they assumed that his father was an abusive drunk. They assumed that there was no evidence to that. Okay.
Speaker 2:No, he was just barely getting by.
Speaker 1:I was going to say he was severely disabled and they live in a dry fucking county. Now I know that doesn't make you know a single fuck, but the pool hall that he's hung out in all day only served soda and coffee. So unless he had a connection bringing him some booze all day, but he could not physically abuse anybody.
Speaker 2:I'm seeing a weird connection with him and his mom like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the same.
Speaker 2:A very disgusting connection.
Speaker 1:She is promoting his weirdness because she's weird herself Now don't get me wrong. I think that Lynette was way ahead of her time as far as her tactics go, because yeah, fuck yeah, bitch, you wear pants, fuck yeah, you smoke cigarettes that's.
Speaker 2:That's cool, but at the same time, like you, can't let your kid run amok the wrong way promote bad behavior and can't be like, oh yeah jimba, that's my boy go steal some more candy bars I I'll pay for it. I'll pay for it later. No regrets in life, no slap on the hand there for old Jimba.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 1:But Jimmy, he liked the sympathy and he would run with that. Okay. And he also stood out in high school because he wore his Sunday clothes every day, as the rest of the school boys wore jeans and t-shirts during the week and only dressed up on Sundays. He didn't participate in the boys after school like ball games and mostly said it was because he didn't. Most boys, most of the other town's boys, said that it was because he didn't like losing.
Speaker 3:But you know that's just speculation.
Speaker 2:He's going to dress as a winner.
Speaker 1:I'm going to dress as a winner all the time, because Jim was a natural born leader. He'd organized his own team one time and coached them himself. This is when he was a teenager. He was driving these kids to game at 14 illegally.
Speaker 2:What, yes, we're going on tour. I'm getting a band back together. We're going to play the new york knicks and I mean he would.
Speaker 1:He would sit down and he would make organized stats for the team to look at. And these were all kids younger than him, so of course they were easier to manage and he made the team schedule and he got sponsors for the equipment.
Speaker 2:Holy shit, intelligent, this is the beginnings.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, he's very intelligent. He we'll get more into that later. Okay, so then one day he was talking to his team about strategies for the next game and then he trapped a puppy. Like remember, like I said, he was always collecting strays he trapped a puppy and he let it fall. I think it was like he was in a loft. He trapped a puppy and he let it fall. I think it was like he was in a loft and there was a trap door and he let the dog fall all the way to the ground, onto the hardwood floor.
Speaker 3:No.
Speaker 1:And these kids didn't want to hang out with him. No more after that. No, so the team disbanded and yeah.
Speaker 2:The band broke up.
Speaker 1:The band broke up. We ain't got no fucking band. But that didn't stop old jimmy.
Speaker 2:Okay, because he's gonna continue in life um so one day I'd hate to see what jimmy does in his chicken shack one day in jimmy's teen years, here we go.
Speaker 1:Okay, you're ready, you're ready. An apostolic or a pentecostal church came to town and they hung up flyers saying if you want to come to our service, you'll be speaking in tongues.
Speaker 2:Here we go, and Jimmy liked that shit Okay.
Speaker 1:He's fitting to learn it and he loved how the services had hooping and hollering and it was just wild and it was a celebration and he, just he soaked it all in. I can speak in tongues, Lindsay and guess who thought even that shit was weird.
Speaker 2:Lynette, she was like whoa, can I speak in tongues real quick? No oh yes, in the name of Jesus, do you remember? Boop boop, boop boop, beep bop, bop, bop bop, bop.
Speaker 1:Yes, bop, bop, bop, bop, bop. In the name of Jesus, do you remember? There was a Shit? I'm breaking our microphone. There was a Spanish dishwasher A Spanish cracker barrel, and that was how.
Speaker 2:I communicated with him. Every time I say that, I'm thinking of him back there hucking, Were their teeth out.
Speaker 1:Yes, his name was Cesar and that was how we communicated. He would just start singing and I would go.
Speaker 2:He was Pentecostal.
Speaker 1:He would try so hard. He was the sweetest man, he would try so hard to tell me stories. And you know, because he like minimal english, I mean like uno you had a point like you had a point in that stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, he would try to tell me stories and I was trying so hard to understand them like I would close my eyes and try and listen to his words and pick them out to try to translate, because I know a lot of Spanish. It's hard for me to put it together fluently, but anyways, lynette, like I said, she was not on board. She was not on board with this show.
Speaker 1:But Jimmy, he still went as much as he could and they had weekly services. They didn't just have shit on Sundays, you could go during the week, you could go on Wednesdays. I guess that's when Wednesday services got started and they had revivals on Saturdays.
Speaker 2:And every time they passed the bucket, every single time.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, because you got to pass the bucket for the preacher. You got to pass the bucket for the preacher, you got to pass the bucket for the choir, because the choir at any Pentecostal or tent revival or any kind of service that I've been to. Now, little Jimmy, little teenage Jimmy, he would notice that there were not many black people in Lynn Indiana and he would notice that the ones that did live there were not treated as equals and he didn't like that. So he would hang out with them, also making the townspeople side-eye him, and he would go to the nearest big town in Richmond where he would find where the black people would congregate the most and he would start preaching to them about equality and he would tell them if they just stayed strong, better times were coming. And that's a direct quote In Jimmy's senior year in high school, 1948, lynette, she had taken up with a lover from Richmond. Now she, I mean big Jim, old Jim, as we're going to start calling him now he's Old Jim. Okay, he was very disabled.
Speaker 2:Call him Daddy Jim, daddy Jim.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, my God, stop it. Oh, I'm going to throw up, because next episode you're going to see why that's not cool, okay, okay, next episode you're gonna see why that's not cool. Okay, so old jim he had been not able to meet lynette's needs for a long time. Okay, so she had already taken up with a few lovers, but she took up with one from lynette. She decided to leave old jim and she took jimmy with her, and they just left that guy what? Neither one of them had any respect for him.
Speaker 3:Come on, dude.
Speaker 1:Now this made old Jim sad and he left his home and he stayed in a hotel or a motel, whatever you know, like you know week by week, yeah, until he died in 1951. And it's reported that Lynette and Jimmy did not attend that funeral. What? But Lynette did file a widow's claim to get that pension.
Speaker 2:You want that money, I mean but it wasn't a lot.
Speaker 1:It was $30 a month, which was even less at this point. Okay, so now they're in Richmond. Lynette was working at a factory I think it was a glass factory there no, it was a parts factory and Jimmy, he got a night job as an orderly at Reed Memorial Hospital he's 17 now, okay, and he was going to school during the day.
Speaker 2:I was fixing to say he's still in high school. Yeah, this is where, and it's already done more than most 30-year-olds have done.
Speaker 1:Oh my God, like I said, people in those days were 40 by the time they were 17. I swear to God. So this is the beginning of where Jim Jones, jimmy he's still Jimmy right now. Okay, he learned how to live with very little sleep. He found a group of friends that believed in Christian communism and they would call him Jonesy. That was his nickname when he was in high school. Jonesy, jonesy, jonesy. What is the show where there's a character named Jonesy? Jonesy and the pushy cat. No, that's Josie.
Speaker 2:Josie Jonesy Josie.
Speaker 1:Now this at this time the Cold War was going on. So the kids, they would keep their beliefs, like within their group. They weren't expressing them verbally, you know. But as you will know and as anybody that knows anything about jim jones, like socialism and communism was his jam, okay, jam, that's his shit. So here we go, we're gonna healthy. This is not healthy whatsoever.
Speaker 1:So Jimmy excelled in school and he loved his orderly job, like he unhealthily loved it because he had to deal with a lot of death and amputated body parts. Wow, that didn't bother him at all, not even in the slightest. And it was at Reed Memorial where he would meet Marceline Baldwin. And it was at Reed Memorial where he would meet Marceline Baldwin. Marceline was a senior nursing student. Marceline was a senior nursing student and a little older than Jimmy I think she was 23 at the time and she belonged to a deeply religious Methodist family. And Marceline was musically inclined and she sang at church often and her and her sisters would also sing at Reed Memorial for the old folks and in retirement homes they called it their music outreach program.
Speaker 1:Okay, okay, marceline wanted to live a life of Christian service and had planned on leaving Richmond to move to Kentucky with one of her friends, one of her very close friends. Then she met Jim. She met Jim Jones and Jim helped her with a corpse one night and he already had an excellent, excellent reputation around the hospital. This guy knew how to make you absolutely love him and we'll get on into it where, if he gets mad at you for something that you believe in, you end up apologizing to him. It's fucking weird.
Speaker 1:Okay, he and Marceline would grow very close after this and Jim would tell her tales of his horrible childhood and his alleged abusive father and how he had grown up poor and hungry. Marceline believed that he was a man of God and wanted to help people. So she brought Jim home to meet her parents and warn them that he had a rough upbringing. So her parents thought that they could help him conform to be a more mild mannered person, because jim was loud and he was crude. But jim was like no, I want you to be more like me right.
Speaker 2:If anything, his persona is working for him. Yes, you know, he understands. Like if I push this and I'm loud and intelligent enough to actually sway you into whatever, I'm winning.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Now, jim believed that the rich kept the poor down, and Mr Baldwin, marceline's dad, being a wealthy man himself, said that this was just not true, like he considered himself to be very much a person who gave back from his wealth.
Speaker 2:And that's what I've seen in my life too.
Speaker 1:Right, Like if somebody has money not all of them, no, but honestly my workability like they're giving you an opportunity, you know in my work, in my line of work being a tipped employee. It is the ones that are known around town that to have money that actually tip a lot cheaper than our middle class hardworking you know.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that the rich aren't hardworking. That's just cheap people. Yeah, you know.
Speaker 1:Jim was. You know he was set in his socialist, slash communist beliefs and you could not change his mind. Let me remind you he's 17 years old. Most people don't have that deep seated beliefs and set in their ways, so they're much older. Right, this fucker is 17.
Speaker 2:These kids nowadays haven't even stopped playing video games yet, no, nor even thought about a driver's license or a job right now. Right, they're just like no, I'm cool in my bedroom.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Just get me an Xbox, I'm good.
Speaker 1:But I mean the Baldwin's. They ended up accepting Jim for who he was because they were like if Marceline likes him, there's got to be some good. She was a very lovely lady. She was a very lovely young lady at that point and will always continue to be one. Some good, she was a very lovely lady. She was a very lovely young lady at that point and will always continue to be one. So they gave Marceline their blessing when Jim proposed marriage. Now Jim ended up resigning from Reed Memorial to move to Bloomington and enroll in college classes there and he would just come home and see Marceline on the weekends and stay with the Baldwins. But Jim and Marceline would get married on June 12th 1949 in a double wedding with her sister Eloise and her husband. I'm sorry, double weddings are. That's strange to me, but I know that was a thing for a while.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't know. I mean, it just depends.
Speaker 3:It was a. Thing.
Speaker 2:Depends on your connection, you know, with the person. Yeah, I don't know. I mean it just depends it was a thing Depends on your connection with the person.
Speaker 1:Well, soon after the wedding, while Jim was at home at the Baldwin's, when he was home from school for the weekend, ms Baldwin said in her opinion that it was not Christian for people of different races to marry, and she called black people the N-word and said that they were communists. And Jim lost his shit. Now I can get behind him on that. You know what I'm saying. I can get behind him. But this woman at the same time was in her own home voicing her opinion on what she had also been brought up to believe.
Speaker 1:So yeah, she was, yeah, yeah jim, he loses his shit and he said he would never eat at their table again as long as he lived and told marceline that she would have to choose between him or that bitch.
Speaker 2:Wow, yeah so the and they left they dropped it and they left well, rightfully so. I mean I mean you know better inside Right, even if it's brought upon you, I don't know. I mean, there's just so many shitty narratives.
Speaker 1:I mean, you and I were raised in a your mine was probably a lot more than yours and that same type of mindset we were. You know, we were born in the 80s and grew up in the 90s. We were still in that same type of brought up in that same type of mindset, like Jesus Christ. If my granny saw a white woman with a black man or vice versa, she just clutched all her pearls.
Speaker 2:You know what I mean? Yeah, not so much my family. We were kind of a little bit more outgoing.
Speaker 1:Mine was absolutely not, and I mean, my father is one of the kindest people ever and had no problem with any kind of races, but he didn't. He thought the same as this woman here. He literally thought that it was a sin for mixed races to be in relationships.
Speaker 2:What we was brought up on. Literally God created man. You know, right, we're all, it's all love, it's all love. So now there was, there was none really of that. Now they were on my dad's side, there was a little bit of deep grain stuff that was brought upon him, but he also knew better also.
Speaker 1:So you know, I'm saying like at the same time he would be a little breaking them chains. Yeah, you know, continuously well, and just like what we said the other day, you know the way. I'm glad that we have been breaking them chains yeah.
Speaker 2:You know continuously Well, and just like what we said the other day, you know the way to stop it all is to quit talking about it. Right, you know the only reason why it even exists nowadays is people keep talking about it.
Speaker 1:You know, we're, and I don't want to get political whatsoever at all, but the whole picture has got to change a lot for that all to stop.
Speaker 2:It all has to stop.
Speaker 1:But we're going to move on with this. So when they left, when they would visit Richmond again, they would actually stay with Lynette, and if the Baldwin's came over to see Marceline Jim, he would go out the back door and they ended up apologizing to him. But at the same time I see Jim's point there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they should have 100%.
Speaker 1:He was trying to break that chain of racism and he will continue to do that, and that's one good quality that this man had. Remember how I said, marceline thought that Jim was a man of God. He actually told her he didn't believe in her God and that a just and loving Lord would never permit human misery. And I can kind of get behind that too. You know what.
Speaker 2:I mean Well, still twisted by man.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:You put those words down in that book the way you wanted to we weren't there.
Speaker 1:We weren't there we don't know no. Yeah. So this caused a lot of fights and marceline even thought about divorce. But her mother actually said, girl baldwin, women don't get divorced, so it'll all be okay now. If she only knew, yeah, the future she might. Oh, mrs bald Baldwin might have said a few different things yeah.
Speaker 1:So Marceline just stopped arguing with Jim about that subject and Jim would still go to church with her. Now Marceline had a nine-year-old cousin named Ronnie who had lost his father, and his mother had many, many of what you would call unsuitable lovers, and he would end up in foster care. So Jim and Marceline took Ronnie in and they moved to Indianapolis where Jim wanted to study law. Now he's moving on.
Speaker 1:Yeah he's moving on. Ronnie was 10 years old, okay. Ronnie was 10 years old, okay, and he was forced to listen to long lectures from Jim about sex, jim thinking the boys should just know everything that there was to know for some reason and sorry, jim, that's a little young, I nope, nope, yeah. And he would also tell Ronnie that his mother was a whore. That's also not cool, jim, it's not cool. So in 1952, jim began attending meetings about communism and would bring along Marceline and Ronnie. She began to believe that what she was hearing about the government being responsible for the poor was true. You know, she started soaking in all that information and kind of yeah, that's deep, we ain't going to go there, but you know, there's points to be made, yeah. So Jim also began to despise the church and felt they were not doing enough to actually help the needy Also.
Speaker 2:I'm behind you on that.
Speaker 1:But then the platform of integration, helping the needy, free speech, prison reform and things like that were introduced into the Methodist church and Jim was back on board. He's like all right, I got you, I'm listening, I'm with it. Now I'm feeling you, I'm feeling you now'm with it.
Speaker 2:Now I'm feeling you. I'm feeling you now. All these points do seem valid. Yes, they do, they really do.
Speaker 1:And I don't want to spoil too much in the future. But Jim will go on to make a lot of moves for the poor and it's just very unfortunate how all this ends, so now we're working on team Jim at the moment, though. Yeah, Right now and a little bit into the next one.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Little creepy, but team Jim.
Speaker 1:Oh, he's very creepy and crude, and he is. I never thought I'd say that he's a little too outspoken, yeah, but at the same time Gotta remember 1951, he's only. He's 20 now. I think this kid's 10. And he's known about this shit his whole life. So he thinking he's doing this kid some good Right, but that's what I'm saying, like people in their late teens and 20s were 40 years old at that point and looked 40.
Speaker 2:And that time period Damn sure did my God Got wore out quick, man.
Speaker 1:Life was hard, though so jim's back on board and now he wanted to become a methodist minister and marceline was thrilled now why he searched for a church that would have him as a student pastor. He would take marceline and ronnie to black churches, because that's what he really liked. Black churches were more fun. You didn't have a time limit, you didn't feel as though you were fulfilling an obligation, you just wanted to be there. And Marceline, she loved the music because she was musically inclined. So that type of music, just really spoke to her.
Speaker 2:More upbeat, more organic, you're just living it. I mean, jim was in his element here.
Speaker 1:He was in his element at the black churches and he made so many friends and he got down to politics of how the black community was treated differently than whites and you cannot argue that period, especially back then. Yeah, now, in the summer of 1952, jim was hired as a student pastor for Somerset Methodist Church. Now this was an impoverished church, but Jim was happy. Now he was 21. 21. That's it. That's it.
Speaker 2:Youngin'.
Speaker 1:We got a 20-year-old in our house right now. Nowhere near.
Speaker 2:I don't think he'll ever be Well in a lot of ways, I hope not.
Speaker 1:I mean we don't want to tip-toe. I hope not. Well, in a lot of ways, I hope not, we don't want to, but I'm just saying, like, as far as the drive, absolutely well too, though the louder you are, the more you seem that you're right you know.
Speaker 2:So somebody's just like coming at you and they're loud as fuck. The quiet people are usually the ones that are true and right, you know. But he's like he's doing good shit, though at the same time I'm like kind of of team Jim still.
Speaker 1:And around this time he wanted to legally adopt. Ronnie, could you imagine being 21 and wanting to legally adopt, even having the thought?
Speaker 2:No, I was still trying to grow up too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're still trying to grow up. We're not going to grow up, but Ronnie, ronnie, he declined because he wanted to be back with his mother and brothers. And this, this hurts Marceline like emotionally, but Jim, but Jim was more fucking pissed.
Speaker 1:And this is where you'll see from here on out, if Jim does something for you and you don't accept it, he takes that real, personally, real personally. Finna clap back. But he sent. He did end up sending Ronnie back to his mother and brothers, but not before giving him an all night rant about his mother was a whore and all that jazz, yeah. And he actually came to an event back in Richmond Richmond where Ronnie was there. It was that it was at Marceline's parents house. Ronnie came because he was invited, because he's the nephew he was Marceline's nephew, right and Jim showed up and Ronnie started running from Jim. He was that terrified of him. Jim starts chasing him down with a fucking vehicle Really, yeah, but I guess it was. After that Jim was like all right, I'm going to back off Whatever, whoa, whoa. And because it wasn't long after that, after Ronnie returned to his mother, that they found another unfortunate child to give their infection of not their infection their affection to and this little girl, I think you were right, I think you're right.
Speaker 1:What Infection. Yeah, I think you're right, and this little girl was named Agnes, and they adopted her quickly.
Speaker 2:One of my favorite names.
Speaker 1:I know Agnes and Agnes and Agnes. She doesn't come up a lot in further endeavors as much as the other children will that he'll acquire along the way. So they've adopted Agnes now and Jim being a student pastor. That really didn't pay very much. I mean, marceline was still doing her nursing work but Jim had to do odd jobs to make ends meet and one of those jobs was selling spider monkeys door to door.
Speaker 3:What For $29.99.
Speaker 2:$30 spider monkey.
Speaker 1:How many spider monkeys were around that time, and where do you get them from?
Speaker 2:What was the monkey off of? Off of the, the gemstones at the end there?
Speaker 1:dr watson dr watson's.
Speaker 2:He was slinging dr watson's all over the united states. Well, what I just think is hilarious?
Speaker 1:What I think is hilarious is they have tied in this parody of a megachurch all shit of megachurches throughout history.
Speaker 2:Right, Goodness gracious. Do you think Danny McBride actually looked into that and was like there's monkeys, absolutely. He used so much of that shit.
Speaker 1:Well, he grew up in shit like that. So, that's where he got a lot of his inspiration.
Speaker 2:He didn't have to do a lot of research on finding something real, organic, charismatic Christian church stuff.
Speaker 1:No, because it's all weird, it's all there we're going to cover next year, because I've already got pretty much everything I want to do for the rest of this year. We're going to cover some more megachurch fuckers next year. Uh, they weren't exactly cult leaders, but there was true crime involved. So, and this, and it's important to me because I grew up in that world and it's so corrupt, oh, I never have been to a megachurch before. So our local megachurch you've been to, yes which is like a mini-mega.
Speaker 2:Oh.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you're selling stuff in your church, it's not right. No, wasn't that like dispelled by somebody. I mean, according to the Bible, Jesus split the tables at the synagogue selling goods, but we can have Starbucks in ours, so is that the same book that y'all are looking into here? What?
Speaker 1:what, what well, I mean all the mega churches that I ever went to, all the, they all have gift cash, grab they all have that same preacher and those episodes on tape that you can buy. Their specials you could buy.
Speaker 2:I mean it's just all been a cash grab for sure.
Speaker 1:So tax-free too. Oh yeah, so tax-free. So jim would also attend as many revivals in reasonable driving distance as he could. And this man was taking notes. He was studying the evangelist, he was remembering, he was remembering what phrases would get the biggest response from the crowd, what scriptures, what anything that was getting a hallelujah, amen, brother, blah, blah, all that shit. He was soaking that in, he was taking notes on this. He was getting ready for his platform. Okay, so he really started focusing in and and paying attention to those faith healings and driving out demons. Have you ever been to a church where they got, where they would just touch your forehead and you fell down with the flopping.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You have. That is lot more wild to me.
Speaker 1:Yes, I've seen it, because that was when I was growing up, I thought that was absolutely normal.
Speaker 2:Now that I'm an adult and I'm like oh now I felt stuff where I got chills or been you know completely just enthused, and stuff especially doing power. I mean chills or been you know completely just enthused and stuff especially doing powwow music.
Speaker 1:This is oh yeah Well. I mean, it's spiritual, it's beautiful, Right. But we also get those same feelings when we go see live music, right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And that is what. So I saw a meme one day where it said when I was growing up and I used to cry at church, I thought it was because I was feeling the spirit. But then I grew up, got away from religion but would also feel that same feeling at a live concert. And now I just know I like live music.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, you can also get the same feeling between the hedges in Gainesville. Go to a football game yes, 80,000 people, no, no, I got chills.
Speaker 3:That's a whole big power. I didn't get teary-eyed, though.
Speaker 1:How many times have you seen me ball at a concert? How many times have we balled together? Yeah, yeah, musically, yeah.
Speaker 2:At concerts.
Speaker 1:yes, like oh, that's exactly what a megachurch service is like. It's a different emotion. You know, A fucking football game.
Speaker 2:I've been there.
Speaker 1:I've been to both. Yeah. So Jim decided and this is a direct quote as well if these sons of bitches can do this, so can I. So he started preaching at revivals and before the service would start, he would mingle and start taking mental notes of what people were talking about their ailments or what kind of healing they were in need of. Then the sermon would start and he would point that person out and he would be like I know what you're going through and your life is going to turn around, or I, I know what's ailing you and you will be healed in the name of Jesus. Sorry, I'm going to completely get into this shit, because I've been there, I've done it, I've watched it happen my whole life.
Speaker 2:Don't work yourself up into another hot flash over here.
Speaker 1:Well, this just wowed the hell out of his crowd, and even his wife.
Speaker 2:Right. They didn't know that there was a better way. They thought he was going to fix them and make them have a better life.
Speaker 1:This had already started becoming a big thing.
Speaker 2:How many times in your life, have you been told? If you live the way of Jesus, you're always going to be successful, you're always going to be prosperous, you're always going to have this and everything's going to work out. You got to work for that shit. He don't want you to just be like, well, follow me and everything's going to work out. You still got to work. Following him is also working and doing for yourself.
Speaker 1:It's in there, so you can't just be like I'm going to ride this wave and everybody's going to fix it for me. I have refilled my cup of my mango and peach.
Speaker 2:That's what I'm going to be on all day. Today I'm on another 7-Up sugar free.
Speaker 1:You need to drink some more of that damn, bloody Mary.
Speaker 2:I love it. It's starting to get watered down, but I love it.
Speaker 1:It made you, it doesn't matter, it's still good.
Speaker 2:It is good, but that and that don't go together much.
Speaker 1:And I even gave you a garlic piece in there.
Speaker 3:I see.
Speaker 1:Well, words spread real quick about this young preacher who could read minds and had prophecies. His crowd, it grew bigger and bigger, and then at one revival this little old lady called him a prophet, and that was music to Jim's ears. Ooh.
Speaker 2:Got me chills, I've been touched, I got chills. They're multiplying. So now like he's just building it up and he's getting more power because he loves that feedback. And it's not really hard to control people back then, because they're kind of living a little bit of a simple life, yeah, and he knows what they're doing in life and there's so much post for Knows what they're looking for, because we had a war every fucking decade we had a war, what, like every fucking decade, and I feel like that is not really that hard to figure out.
Speaker 2:People and then, you know, caress them into, making them feel like he's gonna do something awesome for them, and you give them a little bit and all you're doing is just giving them words, but that's gonna inspire them, you know, with enthusiasm, more enthusiasm, the more inspiration, you know well, just like I told you off mic, when I was younger and I was socially awkward, I did learn how to adapt to the crowds.
Speaker 1:I was going to be around and say things that I knew that they would like, or agree with things that I knew that they liked, that I didn't necessarily know shit about.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 1:But, and it took me a while to figure out who I actually was and what I actually liked- Right. Versus what I was just pretending to like to be liked.
Speaker 2:But you did your social adapting to be comfortable with yourself, not with any power, narrative or anything like that Right and I figured out. You were just trying to fit in and be like okay, I can join this conversation.
Speaker 1:Yes, yes, yes, yes or I can do my job better.
Speaker 2:There was no other narrative there.
Speaker 1:You're not like trying to get something from them. I took a self journey to figure out what I actually did like where, if you don't do that, it becomes very unhealthy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can't live your whole life like that, no no so, with the crowds that jim was drawing, he could talk about what he really wanted to talk about, which was socialism, equality I'm on board with that and integration, which are not bad things. So, but he was tricking people. He had them thinking he was pretty much like a miracle worker, you know, but most of his audience were white conservatives, so he would lose a lot of his audience at times, and that was before he leaves Somerset. Now, at Somerset, he was actually asked to leave because some of the church members were accusing him of stealing funds, but this was not true, because he didn't have access to that money whatsoever. So he went out on his own and he formed Community Unity. Community Unity I mean, it's got a nice ring to it. You know, I would, I would probably go there, you know, if I was looking for answers, looking for acceptance, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if you had like some kind of a hard work in a press life where you don't have much going on.
Speaker 1:Everyone was welcome, but the focus was on the low-income black community. Now we're in 1954. This is where I know around 54,. 55 is where the charismatic preachings really took off.
Speaker 2:The birth of the regime of all the hooping and hollering.
Speaker 1:It's so easy to see through that shit you know, Now his main goal was to attract the black community to his church instead of the ones they were already attending. So he stepped up his showmanship as well as getting involved in making changes in the community. He would ask his congregation what was bothering them. As well as getting involved in making changes in the community, he would ask his congregation what was bothering them and then he would do things to help these problems go away. Like, for example, there was one woman who was paying her electric service on time every month, doing what she's supposed to do, but she was not getting repairs, like there was light flickering, there was, there was shit that needed to be prepared, uh, repaired that the electric company was not given a shit about fixing because of who?
Speaker 1:the community that she lived in. So jim and marceline wrote strongly worded letters like during service, okay, and we get signatures and they would write these to the company and guess what? The repairs would happen.
Speaker 2:What happened Making it happen?
Speaker 1:And now, after that, I mean, and he started to just help, I mean he would do this every week.
Speaker 2:Which is notes that he took before. Because of a church community comes together and they're supposed to take care of the community exactly so that's just being a good person, you know, period, but he took some good ass notes, didn't he? He sure?
Speaker 1:did? He sure did, but, like I said, at the same time he was doing good things, at the same time where he was taking notes for more sinister actions later on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:He was still doing good things in the community and would continue for a very long time.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, so all bad things can be built on good platforms.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 1:You know, now, after this would happen, like I said, they would do it every week they would start writing letters to whoever they needed to write letters to. He would. He would just say what the hell's going on with you, what can we do to fix it, and he would help. Now the congregation would start to grow and grow and, after you know, after a while he would need a new space. So he decided to do some traveling preaching gigs to break in some money, you know. And he would do some tent revivals as well. Now those, have you ever been to a tent revival? Several, okay.
Speaker 2:I feel like that was the birth, the real birth, of all the charismatic stuff. Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1:Like I said in the 50s, that's where it was going on.
Speaker 2:It didn't roll into churches until later on, and that's 54 is the time that both of my parents were born.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is the time that both of my parents were born.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So that's literally what they lived in Now they're doing stuff like that in the 20s still like the tent revival stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it wasn't. It didn't become what it became. Yeah, what I grew up in until the 50s Right, right, that's when that was birthed.
Speaker 2:It was a different shift.
Speaker 1:yeah, Right, the speaking in tongues and all that. That was a new thing. So he would. He would gain crowds so large that at times people would have to be turned away. Now these were his tent revivals, not at community unity, that was just his weekly service on Sundays, tent revivals. He's doing a big okay. More and more people were believing in his faith healings and tons I mean tons were saying that they had actually been healed by jim jones.
Speaker 1:I mean well, by god, but through jim jones you know, yeah, now it is known that he would have plants, uh, throughout the crowd, but it is not known who all was involved, but so he would bring them in and be like you know. So we got to do this, and all right. So I didn't go into detail.
Speaker 2:I know how this conversation is fixing to go right.
Speaker 1:I know what you're fixing to tell me.
Speaker 1:What the plants would do. Okay, so he would point out one plant, be like you have cancer by God and you are healed in the name of Jesus. Now the other plant would go to the bathroom with that plant. He would be like now you go to the bathroom and you cough that mess up, you got cancer. You go cough that cancer up right now. So they would go to the bathroom and what would happen was they would have chicken guts and they would put it in a napkin so they would come out. I coughed it up, here it is here, it is In a napkin and it was almost to the point of rotting, so it would smell bad. And he's got a napkin and oh, you can't come see it. It rotting, so it would smell bad. Yeah, and he's got a napkin and oh, you can't come see it it's highly infectious.
Speaker 1:You can't come near it, right. But by god, in the name of jesus, you are healed. Or the name of jim jones. Whatever he was saying, we will. I'm going to get, uh, next two episodes. I'm going to try to get some more of the um, because he, this fucker, was so narcissistic he recorded everything, everything. Everything, yeah, so he would do things like that. He would have people that could actually walk, be in wheelchairs.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know that being factual, like they would put people out there to be automatically healed or they wanted more inspiration, it just makes me mad, and he would tell them, though, to get them to actually do that, I'm sure that he would tell them if you do this with me, it's going to help them in the long run. So it's not a lie. It's not a lie. It's to help God find his way into their lives. So we're using this to help them, and they would believe that.
Speaker 1:I grew up going to services where shit like this would happen after Jim Jones happened. Why? Why were there preachers being inspired to do the same bullshit that Jim Jones did? But you know what? Because there's a whole new generation who knows nothing about Jim Jones, like little old me who was believing that. Yeah, and it's fucking terrible but they would.
Speaker 2:They would tell them, though. They would be like, if we do this, even though you're not really hurt, or you're not really this, or you can really walk, it's going to help lead somebody else to god.
Speaker 1:You know, I'm saying that's what they would tell them or lead somebody else to come to their church right or whatever so and a lot of that, a lot of this is really sad it's, it's psychosomatic, yeah, like, and unfortunately some people could not actually walk and he's telling get up out their fucking wheelchair.
Speaker 1:And they're walking because they're like, believing this man's about to heal them, and then they injure themselves more, right, you know, in the long run. But for that moment they've got the adrenaline to do this and get out and say, because jim's like yelling at him, fucking, take that step right now.
Speaker 1:You know, do it in the name of jesus last time I did this, I broke something I have seen it happen with other preachers that I grew up watching with my parents on tv I I watched this same exact thing happen. I had no idea who Jim fucking Jones was at that time in my life.
Speaker 2:No idea. Do you think the people that took you to that church was actually ever going to tell you about Jim Jones?
Speaker 1:I didn't find out about Jim Jones from my family whatsoever. Oh, that's what I'm saying. I wasn't fixing to drop your family because I knew that's who took you, lindsay, but you know who I actually?
Speaker 2:They're not going to tell you about this, though they're not going to tell you about what the fuck he did.
Speaker 1:I didn't know, Like I've heard the whole don't drink the Kool-Aid thing my whole life yeah.
Speaker 2:Never understood where the fuck it came from.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Until I heard her talk about this case and I went deep. I found everybody else that could cover this case and I like I had already turned away from church going a long time ago when I became a server and started waiting tables on Sundays and seen how nasty that the church crowd is. When they come in on Sundays they treat us. The church crowd treats servers like garbage, and it's not just at my restaurant, it is known worldwide. I am a part of server groups who talk about it every week.
Speaker 2:Right? Well, we're not going to talk about the Kool-Aid too much but it has become a staple for American conversation, whether it's the literal Kool-Aid or don't feed into the bullshit. Right, there you go.
Speaker 1:That's a metaphor.
Speaker 2:That's the metaphor.
Speaker 1:Then it's common terminology. Now we talk.
Speaker 2:We talk that. You know, like British people say go ride a bike or some shit.
Speaker 1:Go ride a bike.
Speaker 2:Fly kite or whatever yeah.
Speaker 1:So, but what I'm saying is like I had already pretty much turned away from church going in religion before I found out about this and then this and then going other into other cults and other things that I found out. That happened. And I'm absolutely not, you will not, I don't even want to go to a wedding that's held in a church, like that's how much.
Speaker 2:But what a charismatic church ever have a sermon about Jim Jones at their church.
Speaker 1:Like I said, I grew up going to church three or four times a week. I never heard about Jim Jones.
Speaker 2:I want to find out if a charismatic church actually talks about Jim Jones and what he did with using charismatic stuff. We need to look. They're not going to.
Speaker 1:No, they're not going to shut down their own theme park Because that's going to make them look like bullshit. Right yeah, that's a good, that's good.
Speaker 2:They're not going to shut down their own theme park. They're not going to do that.
Speaker 1:Yes, no, sir, no sir, no sir. So you know, I mean, a lot of people knew that we're going to his church, that a lot of his faith healings were bullshit, but he had already locked them in as followers, as friends, but his main goal was the teaching of socialism. I mean, that was his main teaching. Now Jim would go on to raise the money for a new space, which was an old Jewish synagogue that still had the word temple on it, and instead of removing it, the new church was now called the People's Temple, but without an apostrophe, because there's no ownership, because we're socialists. Now, okay, everybody's equal, it's ours, it's not just yours, it's not mine, it's not Jim's, it is his.
Speaker 2:It is his.
Speaker 1:But that's where we're going to leave off for this week. So now we have started the People's Temple.
Speaker 2:And you have started my brain Like I'm looking to the side. So much shit's rattling and firing right now that I don't want to talk about because I know some shit. Oh, so still Team Jones at this moment. Right, can you say that I?
Speaker 1:mean he's doing, he's making some bullshit.
Speaker 2:There's some bullshit. He's lying.
Speaker 1:He's doing a lot of lying.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:A lot of manipulation, but he's still helping the community and we're going to go on next week in part two to talk about how he'll help the community more.
Speaker 2:Right. So yeah, yeah, and you'll see exactly what I was talking about when I said that you still have to do the work in life. You can't just rely on God to make it all happen. For you.
Speaker 1:He really wanted to improve the quality of life of the black community, and those will become his, his main followers.
Speaker 2:And I believe that they were working. I believe they were oppressed. I believe all that I know for a fact all they they were looking for a better way.
Speaker 1:And I want to go ahead and say this Most of his church at this time is elderly black women and a few elderly white women that had followed him from Somerset, from Somerset Methodist. So that's his audience at church Now at the 10 revivals. He's great, he's getting in the traveling preacher gig. He's trying to pull, he's gained a lot a big, a bigger and bigger audience.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so here we go, yes. And then it's my turn, yes, to play music.
Speaker 1:What band are we plugging today? I see in your notes.
Speaker 2:We are plugging this cool ass band called Ignisant.
Speaker 1:Ignisant. Yeah, is that how you pronounce it for sure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's how you pronounce it.
Speaker 1:I think so too. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And they have this really badass song, so, song, so I want you guys to check it out. Amazing band. They're from chicago, illinois. This song is called monster.
Speaker 3:You made, you're gonna love it, I'm excited you only see what you wanna see, so you make me the enemy. Talk is cheap. You'll believe what you wanna believe. Got nothing to lose, got nothing to prove. So take your best side, go, shut the door and block me out when I become your nightmare. If you want a villain, then I can be. I'll become the monster you made me.
Speaker 1:You free the darkest side of my heart.
Speaker 3:Can you feel my shadow? Possess you. You're one last of pain I've tried to hide. Got nothing to lose, got nothing to prove. So take your best shot. You'll shut the door and lock me out when I become your nightmare. If you want a villain, then I can be. I'll become the monster you made me. I'll become the monster you made me. I'll become the monster you made me I am. Who are you, baby? You created the monster. You shut the door and lock me out when I become your nightmare. If you want a villain, then I can be. I'll become the monster you made me. I'll become the monster you made me.
Speaker 2:I'll become the monster you made me. I'll become the monster you made me. Woo, that is just like the epitome of a badass chick metal group. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So they remind me a lot of Beartooth, but with a girl, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I get it.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just so clean, groovy.
Speaker 1:Great job.
Speaker 2:Oh, Chicago Ignisant.
Speaker 1:We're going to say that that's what we're going to. I love that. That's what we're going to.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 1:That's what we're going to say. I'm becoming the monster you made me. It's fucking cool, yeah, I love it.
Speaker 2:So many cool bands I'm finding Dude, that is fucking going to be. Oh, I'm jamming it all weekend. Dude, we're jamming it.
Speaker 1:Oh yes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're rerunning that later on. Rerunning it.
Speaker 1:Rerunning Adding to a playlist yes, yes, I've already followed you guys on the Insta Instant love.
Speaker 2:I don't know if you're excited about this band. Yes, that was more charismatic than anything I need today. Woo Woo, I had to give them a woo. Man, I had to give them a woo. Yes, they were woo-worthy. Well, thank you for your story, lindsay.
Speaker 1:Well, it's going to continue for the next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2:Round one.
Speaker 1:Round one. We're going to title this one Jimba I think jimba won this round well, up until the end up until the end.
Speaker 2:Yeah, with the, the plants and the, yeah, yeah, the rotten chicken guts and yeah, that will, yeah, that'll continue oh that was a great ending song. Absolutely Great job Crushed it.
Speaker 1:Bad ass, your rideability, your studio. And now I'm going to dive into everything about Ignisence.
Speaker 2:Everything is just perfect. If you come to Florida, we're going to see you? Yes, we're going to see you. That was hot.
Speaker 1:I want to know what that means. What.
Speaker 2:Ignisence means.
Speaker 1:It means emitting sparks of fire. Whoa, yes, that's awesome yeah, so follow these guys if you enjoyed their sound. Yeah, I mean female fronted from chicago. Yeah, um, her name is jennifer benson. Good job, good Benson.
Speaker 2:Good job. Good job, Jennifer you fucking Rock Rock. Good, it's good, it's very good. In light of all of that and ending with all of that, yeah, we'll see you with the next episode next Friday.
Speaker 1:Yes, where we continue on the road to Jonestown, which is the name of the book that I'm listening to actively right now. Yes, on audiobook.
Speaker 2:To get my information all right. And, uh, as always, don't drink the kool-aid.
Speaker 1:We'll see you next friday don't drink the flavor aid bye.
