Subscribe to Lemonada Premium for Bonus Content

A New York City architect is charged with murder in the Long Island Serial Killer (LISK) case. Sarah Silverman joins a class action lawsuit against OpenAI and Meta over their AI programs. And V hangs out with podcast host and creator Nikki Boyer, who wants you to feel more comfortable and empowered to have the tough conversations with your friends and family about “making a date with death.”

Follow Nikki @nikkiboyer on Twitter and @nikkiboyer on Instagram.

Keep up with V on TikTok at @underthedesknews and on Twitter at @VitusSpehar. And stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.

For a list of current sponsors and discount codes for this and every other Lemonada show, go to lemonadamedia.com/sponsors.

Joining Lemonada Premium is a great way to support our show and get bonus content. Subscribe today at bit.ly/lemonadapremium.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Nikki Boyer, V Spehar

V Spehar  00:00

Hey friends, it’s July 21 2023. Welcome to V Interesting, where we break down the viral and very interesting news you may have missed. I’m V Spehar and today, I discarded pizza crust may have helped catch the Long Island Serial Killer and that is proof that only bad guys don’t eat the crust. Plus the latest in the world of AI including why you should be avoiding that agent filter on tick tock then I’m joined by award winning podcaster Nikki Boyer for the best conversation you will ever hear about death all that more on today’s be interesting from Lemonada Media. Let’s be smart together. Now for some headlines. We’re going to start this week off with your arrest of a potential serial killer in Long Island. The case of the so called Long Island Serial Killer they didn’t really try too hard with that name did they sometimes they come up with very unique names. This one was a little on the nose. The whole story began in December of 2010 with the discovery of skeletal remains on Gilgo Beach by December of 2011. Police had found a total of 11 victims, including nine women, a man and a toddler. And then not a lot happened. I mean, at least not publicly. But behind the scenes folks never gave up on trying to catch this killer. According to a story in The Oregonian the case remained active through five police commissioners, it received more than 1000 tips and spun up countless conspiracy theories. Last year, the cop said hey guys, look, we kind of got to take a fresh look at all of this. And so they went back to the beginning. And we’re able to tie an old clue about a pickup truck linked to a victim’s disappearance to a new name. Rex Huberman. energized by the truck info they went back and charted the calls and travels of humans, multiple cell phones, picked apart email aliases, reviewed search histories and collected his discarded bottles. And yes, even a pizza crust that was half chicken. And all of that got sent out for DNA testing, according to court papers. And it paid off because last week human was charged with murder in three of the killings. And prosecutors called him the prime suspect and a fourth. He has pled not guilty of course. Now on paper this guy seems like your average suburban dude. He’s been married since 1996. He’s a dad. He’s a well respected New York city architect and consultant. His friends and colleagues are reportedly shocked by his arrest. But according to The New York Times, quote, he glowered at his neighbors while swinging an axe in the front yard of a low slung, dilapidated house that parents caution their children to avoid on Halloween, he was kicked out of a Whole Foods for stealing fruit. The paper quoted his neighbor as saying I wasn’t surprised at all, because of all the creepiness human had 92 registered guns, but CNN says that officials found between 203 100 firearms in a walled off vault behind a locked metal door in his basement. So yeah, creepy is right and gross. Why was this big time New York city architect who was once hired by the Trump organization to work on 40 Wall Street. 40 Wall Street is Trump’s most prized property. Why was this very successful, rich New York city architect keeping his family in a low rent dilapidated house. We’re gonna find out soon because this guy’s wife and kids are enthusiastically cooperating with the police investigation. They can’t wait to tell the police about all of his properties and storage units and what it was like to live with them. The investigation is also now trying to match your man’s DNA to unsolved crimes in Las Vegas in South Carolina, where he owns some timeshare properties. They’re going through his storage units and four parcels of land that he owned. They have even gone so far as to take your men’s brother’s truck into evidence. If you look back at the history of serial killers in this country, the suspect being a seemingly regular dude with a nine to five tracks. Dennis Rader aka the BTK Killer, was a Cub Scout leader and was elected president of his church council. John Wayne Gacy was construction contractor in addition to being hands down the world’s creepiest clown, and the so called torso killer Richard cutting him was a computer operator for an insurance company. And while our culture has an icky fascination with serial killers, we give them all like quirky nicknames and make movies and TV shows about them. Let’s make sure that we don’t lose sight of the victims in this case, their families have been waiting an awfully long time for a break in the case. And as one family member said on the day of humans indictment, quote, I am grateful that today is happening and I am hopeful for the future.

V Spehar  06:40

I feel like we all need a laugh after that first story and lucky for us, Sarah Silverman is in the news and she’s hilarious. She should make us feel better rights. Oh, it’s because she’s also having problems. She’s suing open AI the company behind chat GPT and meta the company behind llama for copyright infringement. Maybe not such a funny story, but it’s still really important. Sarah has joined a class action lawsuit with other authors alleging that open AI and meta copied and ingested their copyrighted works without their permission in order to train their AI programs. Now surely, you’ve heard of chat GPT maybe you’ve even asked it to name your new cat or to suggest an itinerary for your next vacation. But in this case, I hadn’t heard of llama. Turns out llama is a quote foundational large language model designed to help AI research. It was initially released to a small group of users primarily working on research, then this system was leaked online. The authors in this lawsuit claimed that their books appear in a dataset compiled by another organization which was used to train the llama system. Less is known about how chat GPT was trained. But the lawsuit states that chat GPT is the ability to generate summaries of the plaintiffs works is only possible if Chet GPT was trained on plaintiffs copyrighted works. We are definitely in the wild west of the AI age. And this is the case to keep an eye on elsewhere in the land of AI. Have you played around with the old age filter on tick tock the filter which has over 9 million videos on Tiktok. It provides a rendering of users faces with realistic aging, including wrinkles, crow’s feet and gray hair. It’s been a jump scare for many of us. The filter looks different on each person and uses AI to enhance existing facial features like under eye bags or wrinkles to estimate how your face will age. Every time one of these filters makes the rounds. I feel like I need to remind you that by using them you are consenting to have your image analyzed and stored. And don’t think if you’re not on Tik Tok, or Snapchat that you’re safe, you ever try on glasses using the Warby Parker app, or experiment with makeup using L’Oreal’s makeup genius. Yep, these all do the same thing. These all use facial recognition technology which means that they need to access your personal data in order to work properly. These large data sets can be vulnerable to breaches and could potentially expose personal information. Some social media or photo editing applications may also share data with third parties for various purposes, including targeted advertising, often without the explicit consent of the user. So while it might be fun to imagine yourself as a 70 year old, please just skip the filter reapply some sunscreen and defy the wrinkles Kylie Jenner saw on the filter and so eloquently responded to with. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all. No, no. Now Kylie might have been talking about what she looked like but you should be saying no to the filter itself. Earlier this week, Russia pulled out of the Black Sea grain initiative. Ukraine is one of the world’s top producers of wheat, corn and edible oils like sunflower oil, and the deal allowed Ukraine to export grain by sea despite Russia’s naval blockade, the announcement came hours after a key bridge linking Russia to occupied Crimea was attacked.

V Spehar  10:08

The Russians say that the two things are not linked and Ukraine has celebrated the attack but has not admitted any involvement. But back to the deal. After Russia invaded Ukraine last year, they blockaded Ukrainian ports on the Black Sea, abruptly halting exports from Ukraine. Turkey and the United Nations brokered the Black Sea grain initiative last July, and allowed for the export of grain food items and fertilizers from three Ukrainian ports to global markets. The deal was in place for an initial 120 days and has been renewed three times. For its part a Russian spokesperson said that the agreement had been halted until Russia’s demands were met. They are claiming that hidden Western sanctions are hurting their own food and fertilizer exports. So what does this mean? Are we going to have a food shortage? Obviously, the war in Ukraine has been devastating for Ukraine. 10s of 1000s of people have died millions are displaced. But Ukraine status as the breadbasket of Europe means that the war has far reaching consequences beyond the Ukrainian border. According to David Miliband, Chief Executive of the International Rescue Committee, approximately 80% of East Africa’s grain is imported from Russia and Ukraine, with over 50 million people across East Africa facing hunger a crisis levels and food prices up by nearly 40%. This year. Any disruption to the global food supplies at a time of heightened need could have devastating consequences. The UN Secretary General Antonio Gutierrez said Russia’s decision will quote strike a blow to people in need everywhere, adding that the price would be paid by the world’s most vulnerable. So where do we go from here? Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that Putin wants this humanitarian bridge to continue, and that senior Turkish officials would work to extend the deal. Now, I don’t love the idea that we’re pinning our hopes on Erwan and Putin but apparently that’s what we’ve got right now. So right now this podcast is coming out, you’re probably listening on a Friday morning, tune into my tic tock to find out how things turned out. We’re gonna stay in Ukraine for this last story, but we’re going to leave the human world for the animal kingdom after the Chernobyl nuclear disaster in 1986 local residents had to permanently evacuate. As you might imagine, it’s not a real safe place to be. Since then, hundreds of dogs have taken up residence in the so called exclusion zone. The dogs still living around the exclusion zone are likely descendants of pets left behind after residents fled. The radioactive contamination devastated wildlife populations in the region. But some survived and continued to make cute little might be radioactive puppies. And now scientists have conducted the first deep dive into the dog’s DNA. Scientists collected blood samples from 302 dogs living in different locations in and around the exclusion zone. Nearly half of the dogs lived in the immediate vicinity of the power plant, while the other half lived in Chernobyl city, a lightly occupied residential area about nine miles away. Although there was some overlap between the canine populations in general, the power plant dogs were genetically distinct from the Chernobyl city dogs researchers found now I know what you’re thinking. It’s the radiation V. It’s the radiation that’s made them different. Well, no. Turns out not necessarily. The scientists said it remains too soon to say if or how the radioactive environment has contributed to the unique genetic profiles of the dogs of Chernobyl. But the study is the first step in an effort to understand not only how long term radiation exposure has affected the dogs, but also what it takes to survive an environmental catastrophe. It’s pretty cool, right? Are we loving the animal stories? Good because I got another one. Joining the orcas fighting back in the sea is otter 841 This gal lives off the coast of Santa Cruz, California and has captured the internet’s attention because she is stealing surfboards. You heard me right. She has been swimming up to surfers and wrestling their boards away from them. After a couple of these board jacking. She’s hung out on the surfboards for a while. Yes, she’s cute and fluffy. And that behavior seems pretty darn funny. But wildlife officials are trying to capture her. They want to find out why she’s acting so aggressively towards humans and probably relocate her a little bit further away from shore. as of this taping, she has so far out maneuvered all of their attempts to capture her, which include using a bait surfboard. I mean, come on people. That’s entrapment. I mean, who’s on the capture team Jonah Hill. Let my people serve let otter 841 Carry on relationships with unstable women. Let her post photos of herself sir thing and let her maintain friendships with mail servers. Wow. Other than that last story, the headlines were a little bit dark this week, nothing had a conversation all about death can’t fix. I laugh because even though this interview with Nikki Boyer does focus on one of the hardest topics humans can talk about. It is really one of my all time favorite conversations we’ve had. And we start off light touching on the barbie movie Britney’s memoir and girl dinner, find out what we’re having for girl dinner. Stick around, we’ll see you after the break.

V Spehar  17:18

And we’re back, today we’re talking about death in an effort to make it easier to have the hard but oh so important conversations with your friends and family. As a podcast listener you may know Nikki Boyer is the host and creator of dying for sex. That podcast chronicles the sexual adventures that Nikki’s best friend Molly had after a terminal cancer diagnosis. The show is incredible. And if you haven’t listened to it yet, please go check it out. As soon as you’re done listening to this episode. It’s only six episodes, and it says bingeable as any TV show out there. Nikki has a great friend and recently just joined Team limonada she’s got a new show called near death right here on this network. Near Death features Reverend Peggy whom we met in dying for sex. And this podcast retails some of the most fascinating stories from Reverend Peggy’s 20 year career as a chaplain for the dying. This conversation with Nikki again is one of my all time favorites. I really hope you enjoy it and maybe even find some healing in it. Nikki it is so good to have you on the show. How are ya?

Nikki Boyer  18:44

I am so thrilled and happy to be here because I love you.

V Spehar  18:52

No. This space be interesting under the desk. It’s a space of great love and gentleness and toxic positivity. It’s a perfectly love

Nikki Boyer  18:59

toxic if anything is going to be toxic. Let it be the compliments and the love but I have to say I’ve been watching you I followed you on Tik Tok. I love your podcast. So I feel like when people say to me like I feel like I know you because I’ve been with you for months on end. And that’s how I feel right now. Yeah, with you.

V Spehar  19:14

I’m glad to hear that people are like, did you create a character for under the desk? I’m like, no, no, I should have I would have maybe I shouldn’t have given all of myself so authentically, but now there’s no going back now. Before we get into the interview, when we talk about all of the projects that you’re working on, I wanted to kind of just get your hot take on a couple things that have happened in the news recently and see like what you’re where you’re thinking.

Nikki Boyer  19:39

Okay, I love this because I do not watch any news and my husband’s always like she knows what’s going on in the world. And I was like No Tell me so now you get to tell.

V Spehar  19:47

I will get to tell you. Well first. By the time this comes out both Oppenheimer and the Barbie movie would have come out. What do you think about the Barbie movie press for so far?

Nikki Boyer  19:57

Okay, it is eye candy. I find it To be fascinating, I love anytime you can see Margot Robbie and Ryan Gosling doing like interviews with there’s like one on tick tock where there’s like a bunch of puppies on the ground and they’re so I love. I love the eye candy of it. I still haven’t seen the movie, but I still don’t know how they’re gonna pull this movie off. It looks to me like a potential shit show. But everybody says it’s supposed to be good. So I can’t I kind of can’t wait to be proven wrong, but I don’t know how you pull it off because it just, it all looks so plastic and weird. What do you think?

V Spehar  20:35

First of all, is Margot Robbie? Like the most iconic actress of this time? I feel like Yes, anybody you could play like Barbie and Tonya Harding and like all these different roles, and she just just like slaying and giving it her all. I am worried that I am so in love with the press tour and I’m so in love with like her dressing like Barbie that when I go see the movie, I’m gonna be like, Oh no, I really just wanted to watch Margot Robbie dress like Barbie.

Nikki Boyer  21:04

You just wanted like, liquor store.

V Spehar  21:08

A storyline. I’m gonna be like, where’s the fashion? It’s how I felt about Princess Diana the musical. Was it good? No. Was the fashion good? Absolutely. I’ve watched it at times.

Nikki Boyer  21:18

I like do sort of love to be proven wrong, though. That’s one of my favorite. I go to movie and I’m like, oh, oh, this is Oh, this is good. So we’ll see I can get back to you out.

V Spehar  21:28

Could be the new Wizard of Oz. We don’t know. We won’t know until we see it. It could be a classic American iconic film we’ll find out. But speaking of another icon of the American flavour, Britney Spears has a lot going on right now. So she she’s out of the conservatorships. She’s got a memoir coming out and she did Greenlight that Broadway show Once Upon a one more time that uses your music which is great. What do you think about a Britney Spears memoir potential book tour?

Nikki Boyer  21:56

Okay, I’m so in for this because I am a little oddly obsessed. Like I was a Britney fan. I thought she was great. But this version of Brittany I’m very invested in I get lost on Tik Tok on these like, conspiracy theories of is it her? Or is it an AI generated version of her and they’re like going in on her teeth and saying there aren’t any teeth like this is all far. So I would love to hear from her yet. There’s a little part of me like I would love to read her memoir and see her on tour. But I wonder if it would still be authentically her. Or if she’s still sort of being puppeted or the I don’t know, I’m not sure if we’d still I don’t know if we’d ever get the real real Brittany. That’s kind of how it feels to me right now.

V Spehar  22:44

I remember seeing Britney Spears in concert and like the height of her fame when I was like a teenager and I thought it was the most incredible spectacle I’d ever seen. And you know, these costume changes and all that. But compared to like Taylor Swift shows, or Harry style shows now, the spectacle factor is so high for these musical performances. And I wonder if we’re not better off with Britney in our minds and memories the way that we wanted her to be? I do worry about demanding too much of her again.

Nikki Boyer  23:11

I know I do too. I did watch the documentary. And my friend Justin gorini is in the with the musical. So I have a little you know, I have like this. I have hope that things go well. But I think at the end of the day not to sound like oh airy fairy, but I do think mental health I think that’s really what’s most important here. Like I want her to be I don’t know healthy and Okay, and I’m not sure if she is a doctor who I don’t know. But you know, just from watching on the outside.

V Spehar  23:38

It is spooky. It is spooky. We’re gonna have Justin greeny on the show soon because I loved him in the musical. He’s such an incredible person.

Nikki Boyer  23:46

So like I worked with him when we were at TVGuide network and we worked on the red carpet together. So you really get to know somebody when you’re on the red carpet waiting for all the celebs to come by you get to really like have conversations downtime, and I just love him and he’s so friggin talented. So you have to squeeze him for me.

V Spehar  24:03

I will incredibly talented. But speaking of people who are asking a little too much of folks, the Jonah Hill texts, he goes to data surfer and that is like don’t take pictures in your bathing suit. Don’t do this. You’re crossing my boundaries using all this like therapy talk. That’s so problematic. What do you think about that?

Nikki Boyer  24:23

I always loved Jonah Hill. And I was just sort of waiting for the shoe to drop. Right. I was like what you know, he did that that documentary about mental health. And I was like, Oh, well, this is amazing. This is great, right? We’re all taught. And then when this came out, I actually wasn’t super surprised. And I was like, oh, there it is. There’s what I’ve been sort of waiting for and not to be glass half full, but there was a little part of me it was like I knew this was a little too good to be true. Funny, charming them and you hear behind the scenes stories. I think this has been I don’t know from what I’m hearing you know this little birdies tell you things, and you try to go everybody deserves a fair chance. Maybe he was having a bad day. But there are quite a few examples out there of people saying he was really, really difficult to work with and be around and now I’m like, Oh, I don’t I hate to talk shit about celebrities. But what do you think?

V Spehar  25:17

I know it’s a bummer if this happened. So I swear for the James Beard Foundation is very involved in the chef and restaurant world. And when Guy Fieri was shaking hands and hugging Trump at that UFC match, I got so many DMS from chefs who are like finally people are gonna start to see how guy really is. And I’m like, dude, many things are true. He’s a very nice man. He’s very talented man. He is a very fluid man from time to time and I think that was certainly a you know a judgment call that went poorly. Lastly, on tick tock, there is this this new trend? It’s called Girl dinner, girl dinner. What are you having for girl dinner? And why don’t I don’t want you’re gonna love this. You’re gonna love this. It’s brand new, and you’re on the cutting edge of this trend cutting edge, the bleeding edge. So girl dinner is what you make for yourself as a girl typically as a single woman, and it’s like maybe chips and pickles. Or it’s like stuff that doesn’t go together. But it’s girl dinner. Yes. Yeah. What would your ideal girl dinner be?

Nikki Boyer  26:18

Is that really the song girl dinner girl. Okay, now I’m in love with this. I can’t wait to fight it. Okay, so my friend Ross Matthews. And I always laugh about combining these two items because it’s the perfect meal for girl dinner. It is parmesan and pickles. So you get a block of parm and you slice it. So it’s like kind of crunchy and hard. And then you have the pickles on the side, and you just devour it until you physically can’t eat anymore. And that’s one of my go to because I love the pickled flavored potato chips, but then I’ll eat the whole bag and that’s a lot of carbs. So now I do parmesan and pickles. And that’s my girl dinner and I think you’ll love it.

V Spehar  26:57

That is an iconid girl dinner.

Nikki Boyer  27:01

Okay, okay, well, I don’t want but for the lactose intolerant folks out there. I don’t know what to tell you. Because parmesan and pickles is amazing.

V Spehar  27:07

You’re just gonna have to make it worth it. You know, like most people who are lactose intolerant and just do it anyway, you make your

Nikki Boyer  27:14

I will take a Lactaid before I enjoy this meal, but that’s my girl dinner. But I do love popcorn. I will make popcorn any day with coconut oil. And I will eat an entire batch of that and I salt the crap out of it. So those are my girl dinners.

V Spehar  27:27

I’m very into coconut right now. I’m in my coconut era. Yes, I’ve been putting coconut milk in my coffee. I’ve been like coconut and everything. This little cafe near us has like a coconut vanilla syrup that I’m quite into. It’s it’s coconut summer, for sure.

Nikki Boyer  27:43

You go coconut popcorn. Yeah, welcome. Thank you.

V Spehar  27:47

So you created this massively popular podcast called Dying for sex. For folks who haven’t listened to it. Can you describe the podcast and talk about your friend Molly cogens end of life experience.

Nikki Boyer  27:58

I love you. I love you for bringing her up. Anytime we get to talk about her. It’s like a gift. So when my best friend was diagnosed with stage four breast cancer, she decided to do something sort of bold, what most people don’t do, which is leave your STUDY relationship. Right. She left her marriage of 15 years and decided to go on a bit of a sexual journey to heal some old wounds, calves, some great experiences, and she just really wanted to have lots of good sex because she felt like well, what am I waiting for? Right? It’s time to live. And for her that was very healing. So in the midst of it, I was like, why don’t we just, I don’t know, why don’t we record together and she was like, okay, so what turned out with it started actually as this very interesting sexual escapade of just going out. I mean, she was having sex 2345 times a day with people and reporting back to me. And it was fascinating. This is all while she’s going through treatment for her breast cancer. So she’d have great days where she’d have all this energy and other days, or she was just laid out. And I just, I remember watching her going this is really powerful for her. Then she got really sick and ended up in the hospital and we kept recording and V it’s just really cool to get perspective about life from someone who’s dying. And our podcast is sexy and funny and inappropriate, and heartfelt and moving. And it’s one of my favorite projects I’ve ever, ever worked on or created. So yeah, if you haven’t listened to dine for sexism, I think Molly can make every everyone’s life better.

 

V Spehar  29:26

You are such a good friend Nikki. Oh, you are such a good friend. Imagine I hope that we all have a friend that when we get diagnosed with stage four cancer, we call her up and are like, Listen, I’m just gonna, like have sex with as many people as possible and be on an adventure and they’re like, yes, yeah, let’s record it for everyone else. That is a good friend. We need a Nikki in our life. May everyone listening right now find their Nikki or maybe you’re thinking of who your Nikki is right now. Give her a call after this. Oh, Gosh, I love that. Was there an episode from dying for sex that just really stood out to you?

Nikki Boyer  30:06

You know, it was a six episode series. And episode six to me is a little bit of a touchstone if I’m having, like, a crisis in my life, or I’m like, What am I doing? Why am I here? Who am I, I go back to Episode Six, because I feel like that’s, I get emotional, just thinking about that’s the moment when she really sort of gets really clear about why she was alive. And what she got out of her journey. And what she’s taking away with her to wherever she was going next. And having a conversation like that was someone is life changing? And so she let us all in on it. So episode six becoming whole was my who Ellie was, it’s not sexual. Just, uh, you know, who we are? Becoming whole? Could you imagine?

V Spehar  30:53

That was really a great title, I guess. I mean,

Nikki Boyer  30:57

She would laugh at that, by the way, she would totally love it that. But I think I mean, I think it’s definitely a six episode series. There’s an arc to it. So I would if I were you, I would get your partner’s John and pickles. And I would want I would listen from episode one to six. But it’ll all make sense. But it that’s my favorite, I think.

V Spehar  31:17

Being the person who is kind of charged with shepherding through someone else’s story, and being you know, so close to such a raw story about death and sex, these things that are so deep in our humanity, and also very, like forbidden to talk about and very scary to talk about, like both of those topics. How did you prepare yourself to be in that world?

Nikki Boyer  31:43

That’s a great question. And I don’t, I don’t think I did prepare myself, I think I was just sort of driving and, and looking down at the map and going which way are we going, which what we do always did it together, and I let her guide. But one thing she said in the beginning was, nothing’s off the table, I have nothing to lose here, I am dying. So let’s get it all out there, I’m not going to hide behind the trauma. I’m not going to try to make this sexier than it is it’s kind of messy. And it’s a little clumsy. And although I want to be sort of viewed as this, you know, desirable person in the world, I also I’m dying. And it’s it’s really not pretty to sheet right from the get go was very clear that this had to remain very authentic. And I just found that to be so brave. So I kind of followed her lead. And just nothing was off the table. It’s great to talk to somebody where they’re like, you can ask me anything at any time. And she would just go there. She was just odd. She was so good.

 

V Spehar  32:39

What a trailblazer though because when we think about, you know, the diagnosis of breast cancer, ovarian cancer, these ones that affect women in particular, so often, there’s this thing that follows of like, all the pink ribbons and all the feeling sorry for you and all the you’re going to lose your femininity and all the fear. And you like you just said she was like, No, I’m gonna stay sexy, and I’m gonna live. What was it about Molly that made her choose that path? But she always like that.

Nikki Boyer  33:10

No, it’s so fun. That’s a really good, you know, you should get a podcast. Yeah, that’s a really good question. You know, the I think what’s so interesting it was we met when we were 20. And we were both self conscious actresses, we met an acting class. We’re always wondering if we were pretty enough for skinny enough or good enough. And I think we met at a really vulnerable time in our lives. And although our backgrounds were very different, we just connected actually, she hated me at first and then I forced her to love me, which is often what happens.

V Spehar  33:39

That’s how the best friendships work, right?

Nikki Boyer  33:43

So I think she was always struggling with her self worth and her how she was showing up in the world as a sexual being. So when she got this diagnosis, I think she was like, oh, oh, I have a certain amount of time to figure this stuff out for me. So she dyed her hair blonde, it was super, super short, she totally changed the way she looked. And the way she vibrated. And she was experimenting. So she wasn’t always like that. But I think she always had that in her that sort of fearlessness of wanting to be that. And when then when you get a terminal diagnosis, you’re like, Oh, this is the time to be what I want to be and who I want to be. And if people don’t like it, like, who cares? But people liked it. So she’s, you know, on the other side, loving all of this, because she did say to me, like, you know, if you tell the story, and it happens to catch fire, and people start to love it, like, I’m going to be so grateful. And so I think that was sort of her her last attempt at being what’s the word like feeling worthy and knowing that her story would have a ripple effect?

V Spehar  34:43

It’s so funny when we face death, right? Either our own or our friends or parents or I don’t know there’s some celebrities die and I faced death through that, like, celebrity like will pass away and I’m like, Oh my God, I feel like it’s affecting me so directly, like my mortality is so poor As in to me, because it just seems so unreal. The ways that we give up on the all those things that we were afraid of, right? We have to live this very small, perfect life so that we don’t hurt ourselves. And then when you find out that like you have only a limited amount of time left, nobody hides in the bedroom, really, or we’re most ideally you don’t hide in your bedroom, you start to gain a greater sense of like, what’s been around you. For you walking alongside her through this, did you find yourself changing how you related to life and what life would be like after Molly was gone?

Nikki Boyer  35:29

Totally. Uh, you know, it’s funny, we were both going through really interesting stuff. At the same time, she was fighting for her life and I was trying to make a life I was trying to have a baby. So she was in the hospital sick with chemo or a surgery that had gone wrong. And I was in the hospital having a miscarriage after miscarriage after miscarriage. And I think there was this moment where I was like, I am so fixated on having a baby, not even having a child like not even being I just wanted a baby so bad that I couldn’t see anything else. And she was a little bit of my escaped, right because when I talked to her, it was all about sex for fun, and, you know, fighting cancer and like it seemed very sexy at the time while I was like, you know, in a diaper having a miscarriage in my bed, and I was like this is, so she kind of gave me the permission to go, what if this doesn’t happen for me? And it didn’t, right, I have two stepkids that I raised, but I didn’t get to have a baby of my own and am I going to die from this? Like, really, and I didn’t, and my life is so good and so full, and honestly, all my friends that have kids are completely miserable. So like Amy, but in that time, she gave me a mirror to hold up to myself and to go, Listen, Nobody’s life turns out the way they want it ever. Nobody’s so just be present for what is and I, I had tangible evidence of somebody in my life on a day to day basis that was just being present for what was and what is and so that was really helpful. So that kind of changed my my life and how I think about things.

V Spehar  38:06

Now you created this company called it dying for media and recently partnered with lemon Automedia, which produces this show. Of course, we love the gals that limonada and you guys worked on a podcast featuring riveting end of life stories with one goal in mind. And that is to help everyone be a little less afraid of death. Can you tell me about that?

Nikki Boyer  39:09

Okay, so Molly, when she was dying, there was a chaplain that was coming in and helping Molly die. But you don’t ever think about someone helping you navigate your own passing kind of wild, right. And Molly was Jewish and not religious at all. And Peggy was the Christian chaplain. So there was not a match made in heaven there. But Peggy sort of broke the mold and sort of help Molly navigate this beautiful passing for herself and asked her questions and was present for this hole. And I just remember thinking when Peggy came into the room, like everything felt better and peaceful. And so when she left the room, I thought, oh my gosh, she doesn’t belong to us. She’s a chaplain for everyone here. So Peggy and I became friends. Reverend Peggy and I talked on the regular and I just realized that she’s helped navigate, I think to over 2000 People die and what it was be like do that work. And so talking about the uncomfortable, which is what Molly and I did, and Peggy and I are doing it too. And I think the more you talk about your fear around death, and you can laugh about the insane stories and the insanity that surrounds it, I think you can free up a little space to have those uncomfortable conversations with your friends or your family and things you can ask yourself. So I always lean into the uncomfortable and that’s what we’re doing in a really fun way. And we drink martinis while we..

V Spehar  40:23

Oh, you have to have a cocktail for these things, you know, that you said my mother was a hospice nurse. And we used to call her the Angel of Death. Because she was so good at it. She was boring. She was a lovely Irish Albanian woman. She’s still with us. I talked about it like she’s died very much alive, and only 63 years old, but they just call her the angel of death because she was just so good at sitting with people through death in a way that was like sometimes it’s funny, sometimes they would play jokes on the family if this person wanted to. There were times where she would bring us in for people who didn’t have children and had severe dementia. And they would cry to her that they wish they had kids or they would tell her all these things from her deathbed that they really wished for. And because they had dementia, she’d like bring us in to sit by them. And we’d be like, Oh, Mom, you did great. No way I this is why I am the way I am and have all my people pleasing problems. But like, you know, she would like make all this magic happen. And we we don’t we think of death as something that is lonely and cold and scary. And it’s not it can be something that’s so funny. It can be sexy. It does have its downtime. So I mean, not all of it is fun, but there’s a good bit of it. That’s kind of funny. Did you have any funny times with Reverend Peggy?

Nikki Boyer  41:35

Oh my gosh, we you know, I She’s got death stories that will make your mouth drop. And she’s got supernatural things that I didn’t think she would believe in because I just had my idea of what a Christian chaplain was. But she breaks the mold. She takes all the juicy patients like she never shows up to work and says like, just, you know, give me what what do I got? She’s like, give me the difficult ones give me the hard ones give me the beautiful ones. And so she’s got these gorgeous stories of like marrying people on their deathbed, because, you know, this is their last chance. And then she’s got really funny stories about, you know, people’s having visions and the same things. And she asked to indulge them because she meets them where they are. And it’s things that you don’t think would happen in the hospital like exorcisms, which was a past episode and ghosts and paranormal stuff. I mean, you think it happens, but you don’t think a chaplain is gonna go, oh, yeah, there’s a ghost in the hospital. But there’s a ghost in the hospital. And it’s so good. And then there’s also family drama like women fighting over the husband and laying in bed. He was he was an I was his favorite wife. And like, just all the messiness you can imagine, Peggy has seen it all and she shares it with us. And there’s moving stories, beautiful stories, like seeing angels and seen your pets. And I don’t know, I just really liked talking about death.

V Spehar  42:46

I know I think when you experience a death, so up close and personal as you did with Molly yours, like me and stuff, and just from Lebanon, I have with our brothers and whatnot, you just go through this walk of life that no one has really like, accurately walked through before. So you’re creating it as you’re going. And now of course, there are blogs and podcasts and different things that can help with that with with that kind of work and that kind of experience. But prior to the last couple of years, it just wasn’t something you talk about. Right? It was like no, it was like sacrilegious.

Nikki Boyer  43:14

Well, was that different for you? Because well, yeah, because you grew up in a house where your mom witnessed and help people.

V Spehar  43:20

You would think we would have been great at it. We were terrible at it. My mother for being the angel of death and like doing hospice and understanding everything when it happened to us. No, we were terrible at it. Nobody’s good at grief. Right? Nobody can and we really wanted to. And if there was anybody who could, you would think that I or my mom would have been able to like rationalize and step our way through it. But the steps of grief are not in order. Sometimes you’re very angry. You’re I was furious at him for so long, right? And then you’ve then you’re heartbroken, then you’re kind of like bargaining and yeah, you do them all, but you do them out of order.

Nikki Boyer  43:54

There’s so much in I mean, I look at it. Like we all gather around for these births, right? Everybody shows up and has parties. And I think if you’re lucky enough to be able to be walked home gracefully, then I just try to like see the privilege in that like, not my biggest fear is the like getting hit by a truck or someone I love getting like swept by a tsunami like tragic, horrible, fast deaths. When you get a slow process. Of course, it’s messy and uncomfortable and probably painful physically and emotionally. But like there’s this process, there’s this, like, you’re like dipping into this other side of thinking. And when you don’t get that it’s such a bummer. So if you get an opera to this show is hopefully encouraging people to have these kinds of conversations with friends and family like now I’m asking my mom, like, what exactly do you want? Like, what do you want? If we’re lucky enough to have time? What do you want your passing to be like? And she was very clear, and I don’t know if I would have gotten those answers from her if I wasn’t doing the show and asking those questions.

V Spehar  44:52

So yeah, well, that’s one of the things you talked about on the show, right is like the advanced healthcare directives that we actually have A lot of control and how our death may go if we’re experiencing illness or, you know, if we know that we have a certain amount of time, why should people prepare some advanced healthcare directives?

Nikki Boyer  45:10

I think it just adds less drama. Right? Yeah. You know what your loved one one, there’s no argument, there’s no, oh, my gosh, she’s coding do we bring, you know, do we want to revive her, like if it’s in their advanced directives, there is a map and a guideline. Now listen, it doesn’t cure everything. It’s not like everything’s roses when you have an Advanced Directive. But the big things are all very clear. And you can get clear on the little things to like, I don’t want this, I do want this. And you’d be, you’d be amazed if you went online, just start Googling advanced directives, what you can put in there, you can get really, really specific, but I think you should get really clear about the big things. Are you a donor? Where do your organs go? Does your family know that? So they’re not like, please.

V Spehar  45:52

Please tell the family, let me tell you, as a child of a hospice nurse, please tell the family there is nothing worse than when the family walks in and sees that bright orange DNR bracelet on someone and they’re like, cut it off. We can’t actually, please tell your family what your wishes are, even if you think that they’re going to try to convince you out of them. That’s your will. It’s your directives. You you keep that between you and your doctor, but at least give them a heads up.

Nikki Boyer  46:14

Yeah, give them a heads up and you can give it to your doctor, you can send it an email and say don’t open this now family. But this is here. And this is what I want. And I don’t know, I just think that if you take some of the guesswork out. And then I think this less family arguments, less drama, less crying. I think there’s always crying and grief. But like, you don’t want to cry about the details. You want to cry about the experience. So I don’t I haven’t done mine yet having said that.

V Spehar  46:37

I know we have to do it immediately when we hang up.

Nikki Boyer  46:41

There’s actually a website called Five Wishes, I think we’re kind of walks you through it. And it gives you like a prompt to help you think about these things. But yeah, Peggy always says, Make a date with death doesn’t have to be long, 10 minutes, make it print it, put it in your you know your folder, put it in your safe, give it to your beautiful family and friends and just make sure it’s there. But like nobody wants to talk about this, like nobody wants to talk. But it can really spark interesting conversations with family and friends.

V Spehar  47:09

He’s saying no one wants to talk about this shit. And they have an entire frickin podcast network that’s practically dedicated to talking about this. I’ve had more episodes of my happy podcast on death and passive suicidal ideation. And like, all the different things, we did an episode with this with this lovely woman who was the executive director of a place called the in between, which is a Death with Dignity hospice center for people who are experiencing homelessness, get it the in between, like they’re in between different places. Yeah, she had such incredible stories, I think, I think it’s like money or sex or religion or anything else, right? We’re, we’re, we want to talk about it, because we’re fascinated by it. But we’re embarrassed and we’re scared and we don’t feel literate on what happens when we die. And so then it becomes this thing that we’re going to kind of like, not deal with. And what I’m wondering from you, as a person who creates content surrounding this is like, you know, you’ve got the way you talk to your girlfriend’s or maybe your brother or sister or whatever, about death, or what could happen with death. But when you’re producing content for the masses, you have to have like an editorial set of standards for how you want to go about stuff. How did your process of relating to death and talking about death change when you knew that you wanted to put it into a podcast format?

Nikki Boyer  48:20

Who I knew. So you know, you have your inside thoughts where you’re like, that’s dark and twisted. And then I would kind of soften the edges of those because I know that if I leaned into the weird, creepy questions that I have, potentially, you know, creep people out. And that was the opposite of what I wanted to do. I wanted to talk about in a in a way that had heart and humor, but also opened up space, you know, within yourself to have the courage to talk about it yourself. Like I want to pass it on, right? Like, Hey, listen to this, and then you can maybe next time you see your mom say hey, what are you? Just curious, creepy question that what do you want? And then you’d be amazed how people just say, I don’t know. And then the next thing it’s like, four paragraphs later, and you’re taking notes. But I think I I wanted to tap into it in a way that was real and raw, and not creepy and twisted, like where my brain goes, because I I’ve done a lot of like, I used to answer the phones at the Suicide Prevention Center.

V Spehar  49:15

That’s why we’re friends. Crisis texting for teens for a year.

Nikki Boyer  49:25

I wanted to bring this in, you just took the words out of my mouth. I want to help people not turn them off and freak them out. So we go there. And as soon as we dip in to an episode where it’s like overwhelming and you want to cry and you can’t stand it, then we’re laughing at the same time, like two seconds later and then having a martini. So I hope this podcast feels like you’re going on a little bit of a journey with us. And at the end, you feel like you’ve made some space than within yourself to have these difficult conversations. So I don’t know if that answers your question.

V Spehar  49:57

The answer is once again, Nikki Boyer is a very good good friend and continuing on a journey through something very uncomfortable, and serve you martinis and laughs along the way, and hold your hand when you cry. And we all deserve a friend like that. spending all this time with the stories and with people and the reactions and the list from the listeners and whatnot. Have you thought about what does happen to our soul? What happens to our spirit? What happens to us when we die? I mean, you’ve been sort of like, sitting on the edge of the dock all this time. Is there anything you can share with us?

Nikki Boyer  50:31

Okay, so we’re all gonna die. I mean, that’s right. Like it’s the one thing that links all of us like, well, we all get married. Well, we all have children, will we all be successful? Nobody knows. But the one thing we will all do is die. I think it’s, it’s just this weird, creepy common denominator yet nobody talks about it. But what I have sort of learned about this afterlife thing is that, like I was a Catholic kid, I hung out in church morning, noon and night. I don’t really believe in any of it. I’m a very spiritual person. When Molly died, and I was in the room, something undeniable happened that I could not explain that was outside of the realm of norm. She woke me up to witness her death. I was fast asleep and something someone’s were tapped my fingers and woke me up. And literally, she took her last breath. 30 seconds later step. When you hear about these stories, that’s one thing. But when you tangibly feel something in the room, waking you up and guiding you and allowing you to witness and be a part of something I just there? I mean, I feel like there has to be something bigger than this. If there isn’t, then this is a really bad joke like this. There’s got to be something bigger and more magical. I don’t feel like there’s a heaven I don’t feel like there’s a hell I feel like what is on the other side? And what is there something that our tiny little cute brains could probably not even put words to. So I’m going to hold on to the hope that we all turn into energy and go somewhere really beautiful and magical, and maybe get to decide if we come back and get reincarnated. So that’s kind of my vibe, what’s yours?

V Spehar  52:05

I dig that. I think I’m still developing it. I mean, I’ve gone through so many different versions of experiencing other people’s death, and to your point, like being in the room when it happened. But most of those people were older. And then when my brother passed away, it was like, I truly felt like all the animals should like stop and the sun should set and you should all like genuflect to his memory. And like, that didn’t happen. And I was really upset about that. Then you go through, like, You’re delusional, insane, everything you take. So personally, when you lose your person, you think that the universe is so unfair, yeah. And you get mad at God sometimes. And then, of course, also having been raised Catholic. And in a very, like, spiritual spooky place like Connecticut, I have to believe that there is this perfect, beautiful heaven that exists somewhere, whatever that is not necessarily like sky, daddy style, but that this energy goes on and that everything is beautiful, and there is no pain, and it’s a perfect Oasis, and we’re with our pets, and we’re with all these different things that are paradise to us. And so then how could I be upset that he went there that anybody goes there? I can’t. But then I’m also like, ah, but you bastard, we could be getting Wendy’s Baconator is today, if you didn’t do this, you know, like the things that don’t make sense to you. So I think it’s I think it’s a process for everyone. And what I’ve loved again, about like the internet, and the space that these podcasts and folks like laminata and you have made is that people can feel their feelings about grief are valid. Totally. We’ve we’ve seen on like, you know, when you would watch, like a television show, and maybe somebody’s wife was missing, and they didn’t seem sad enough. And then everybody’s like, ragging on this guy, cuz they’re like, he’s not sad. He probably killed her. And it’s like, no, everybody experiences death. So I think it’s interesting to see where we go and what we do. But I want to go back to being in the room, which is a unique experience that honestly, I bet a lot of people have and don’t even totally like, put into their body that they’ve had that experience always. What was the energy shifts like for you, when you knew that she had taken that last breath? And you were just there in the stillness? What did you physically feel like?

Nikki Boyer  54:10

Relief, I felt a big sense of relief, because I knew I just knew she was going somewhere better. She was only 45 years old. So this wasn’t like watching an old person go, this is the process. I didn’t want her to leave. I was devastated. But I think I think the relief of she’s finally gone. And crossed over and the pain and the struggle is gonna sound so cheesy, but I’m gonna say it. I couldn’t cry, because I was so proud of her. And I was so blown away how she had navigated it so gracefully. And I felt like she was like, getting a rebirth into something else bigger and better for her than what her little sweet body could handle. So I wasn’t crying because I was so enamored by the fact that she woke me up by the fact that I got to witness her last breath, by the fact that, like, she kind of orchestrated it from I think the other side because I didn’t feel her in her body, but I felt something above her in the room. And I think she was sort of, so to have that I just felt. I don’t really I said, relief, but almost like I was enamored by the Spirit, and by her and by whatever is bigger than us, and it was, it made me feel so small. And I just remember, I was buzzing. I couldn’t contain what was happening. I was devastated. But my best friend had died. Are you kidding? Like, oh, I hated that part. But something bigger than us was happening there. And I will never forget that.

V Spehar  55:42

It is a buzzing feeling. It’s a little bit of a warm feeling. I remember like the tips. My ears were tingling when I felt when I really sat with it. Because you’re just like, reminded that the world and the universe is so much bigger than our day to day struggles and thoughts and whatnot. And it is truly, you know, as close to God as you can get as being in the room and somebody is passing because you’re sort of in between these two worlds. Yeah. Have you felt like Molly has come back to visit and check on you?

Nikki Boyer  56:05

Yeah, she pulled some poltergeist shit one night, and I was yelling at her. Yeah, it wasn’t nice. It was very nice. I was terrified. I talked about this on one of our episodes, I’m laying in bed, and I get up to pee. And then I see my husband, who oddly looks like Molly. They look like they could be siblings. The therapy session, right? Hey. So my husband walks into the kitchen to get a drink of water or will do whatever he was doing. And I get it. You know, I finished going to the bathroom and I come back into the bedroom and I lay down and he’s in bed. And I’m like, who just walked? who just walked who home and I couldn’t move and I was like, Molly, this is not okay. This is not okay. I just knew it was her. And so from that point on, she’s been a little quieter but she gives me signs she shows up she plays. Ladybugs are our thing. I was always like, send me a ladybug and they show up in the weirdest places and friends tech meet. I just I feel her. I definitely do. And I feel like she’s involved in this podcast that I’m doing with Peggy I feel like she’s a definite part of it.

V Spehar  57:10

So thanks for asking me, sir. From the other side. What could be better than that? You know, and obviously your brother? I do. Yeah, right after he passed right. When I came home, I was sitting in like the the chair downstairs. I was talking to my mother. It went he was 25. So he was very young. And he had like a bounce to his walk like but he was also built like brick shithouse and tattooed from his shoulders to his ankles, but the nicest boy. And at least my mom and me, he was the nicest boy he struggled, struggled but you know, and he used to when I would come home, he would get extended out here and run up the stairs. And then he would bound down these two stairs and it would sound like and I heard it behind me and I heard it and I looked at my mother was like get fucked. I heard it too. And I was like, No way. So that was the first time. And then the second time. Speaking of bathrooms, I don’t know what it is with spirits and bathrooms. But it was like laying on my phone. And it was like being all sad about him. And this was not even that long. This is like a year or so ago. And on the corner of my eye. I saw him with like weight in his clothes and everything, walk out of my bathroom kind of look confused and walk down the hallway. And I was like, Natalie, who’s my wife and I’m like Peters in her bathrobe and she’s like you’re having a psychotic break. But I think you see, you know, in your mind’s eye or in your dreams, or maybe I was half asleep or any number of things. They come to you and they they make you feel like it’s okay. But yeah, I totally believe it. Anytime. Anytime people tell me, we look at my niece and I’m like, you gotta tell me that’s not grandma in their mind. She does all the hand gestures, my grandmother’s and stuff. Yeah, babies are creepy, man. You want to talk to the dead? Ask children stuff that they see they see all.

Nikki Boyer  58:47

These TikTok’s where these kids come back and they’re like I saw I was a fighter pilot back in 1940. And they described with the cockpit looks like and they’re with their wife and family in your life. I full on believe it. First of all, a kid doesn’t have that vocabulary or experiential knowledge. And I’m just like, what? So that’s when I’m like, Oh, you get up there and then they’re like, so do you want to go back and like redo some things? Maybe be a better person, maybe get some perspective people like, maybe after a little break? They’re like, Yeah, send me back. And then they’re like, in a two you know, in a two year old there’s like I fly planes.

V Spehar  59:19

They’re like I died on the USS Indianapolis it was a shark tank and they’re like to and you’re like oh my god, please when we have children let them have like survived the Titanic not died and the Titanic survived lives but come back and tell me about what escaping the Titanic was like.

Nikki Boyer  59:40

That’s our next podcast.

V Spehar  59:41

We just interviewed children and you just got them talk absolute nonsense to us and we believe and validate all of it. It would be the best show. Oh down oh my god. You know when we’re looking for when we’re experiencing trauma or death or anything or just even trying to Like reflect on our life and our place in it there we look to like TV and movies and whatnot and I had a difficult time finding anything I really thought that like, death was gonna be like I don’t know like the movie Ghost I guess I was like, should I take up pottery if I want to see him or like, you know, Beetlejuice or something. But do you think there are any depictions in movies or TV shows or their pop culture of dying at the end of life experience that like, do it?

Nikki Boyer  1:00:26

You know, no, I know it’s really funny. You say this? No, I, I loved Terms of Endearment. I think the reason that I loved it, there was nothing like a theory all about it. It was just kind of a dysfunctional mother daughter who maintain dysfunctional up until the very end, which I kind of liked about that show is that they didn’t do this, like wrap it up in a bow and make everything perfect. But we do an upcoming episode about like, you die the way you live. Like you don’t all of a sudden just become like Mr. Rogers at the end is Peggy says she’s always like, nobody Can’t becomes Mr. Rogers. If you were a dick, usually dyadic unless you get a moment where you’re like, This is my last chance. But I can’t think of it like Isn’t that sad that I can’t think of any TV shows or movies that really did get me that’s what we should do. Let’s make a TV show. Because that’s an easy thing to get off the ground.

V Spehar  1:01:12

Right? Well, we’ll real quick during the writer, strike and sag strike, whip up a television show. Have you ever seen anything at a funeral? Or has Reverend Peggy told you a story about something really goofy happening at funerals like fistfights, over showing up? And that’s the fun part about death?

Nikki Boyer  1:01:31

This might have probably happened in my family more than Peggy’s. You know, what’s funny is that she has this. She has this story about, I don’t even want to spoil it. But it’s a story about these three women. Actually, maybe it was four, and this one old, very rich Hollywood guy. And on his deathbed in his home, they were all there, which I find interesting. Can you imagine having all your ex partners like surrounding you when you die? But apparently he had a very blended ex wife situation right with children. Every white every wife was a different generation, right? Like the 20 year old, the 40 year old, the 60 year old, the 80 year old, and they were all sort of clamoring with Peggy to prove who He loved the most. And this was so she said like, I I would go to this house to give spiritual care. But I was really giving spiritual care to the women because they were but she was like it was like watching a Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Like it was just insane. So we dig into that. One of these upcoming episodes, so I just can’t even imagine what it’s like to go into people’s homes. I mean, your mom knew you’re walking into a whole world of who knows what. But that’s one of my favorite ones have he loved me more? No, he loved me more. No, he loved Peggy Who do you think he loved more and asking the chaplain to weigh in on the love and the guys like comatose like totally in a coma? He’s not even aware.

V Spehar  1:02:54

She’s like, man, he loves me the most you can all leave of God, I put that in my advanced health care directives that y’all better cause foolish drama at my memorial service. Just absolute fullest drama and just have like one person standing like way off at the grave and avail. Right. And then everybody Oh, I love it. What was that? Yeah, and just crying and then just leaves. You know, you gotta you gotta build in suspense for your family. So the stay at this is what we say when we leave the room and my family were like, Okay, I’m leaving now feel free to talk about me while I’m gone. Feel free to talk about me when I’m gone. I want all and don’t be like oh, she was amazing person be like she was nice but Right. She did talk a little shit. You know?

Nikki Boyer  1:03:39

Oh, my gosh, I love a good i know i just love a good idea of like writing your own eulogy. Like I think there’s something kind of fun in that of like, she was like really, really calling yourself out for what you are. She was nice until you factor into a corner and then she’d cut you like that would be mine.

V Spehar  1:03:54

Just reading a list of in case you were wondering she never cared for you people. This one fell in. Love it. Oh, man. So with this with a dying for media company and all this work that you’re doing? What are you really hoping that people take away from the work?

Nikki Boyer  1:04:12

I hope that people become less afraid to have the difficult chats. I hope that people can open up like I said about that space within themselves to have difficult conversations because I do think when you talk about this shit that is usually swept under the rug. I feel like when you air that stuff out, you create a wild connection with people.

V Spehar  1:04:35

And you also write and direct music video parodies. I don’t want people leaving here. I think that you’re all death and destruction and Sadie kins times you did a recent Taylor Swift parody that blood test which hit 90 million views. Tell me about that.

Nikki Boyer  1:04:49

So it’s so funny. I my husband is a singer songwriter and an engineer and a composer and I love doing music. So way back in the day when Yahoo like did these music video parody they would hire us and we would just do them and they would hit the front page and they would just go nuts. It was amazing. And then we did this Taylor Swift one and there and the company, we had sold it to be like, Nah, we don’t want it. I was like, oh, so the production team was like, just put it on your YouTube channel and see what happens and it blew like 90 90 million clicks. The problem is now the if I put anything else on my YouTube channel, they’re like, where’s Taylor Swift? We don’t want you. Where’s Taylor Swift. So now unless I have Taylor Swift, specific content, I do not put it up. But I love taking songs and twisting the lyrics and telling a different story with really cool visuals. Like it’s one of my favorite things to do. So yeah, if you want to see some super inappropriate funny, quirky parodies, you can go to my YouTube channel.

V Spehar  1:05:45

Are there any songs we’re working on right now?

Nikki Boyer  1:05:49

No, but every time I hear a song on the radio, I’m singing alternate lyrics, right? I’m like, oh, it’d be funny if we changed it to this like, you know that Call Me Maybe the Carly Rae Jepsen Call Me Maybe mine was makeup baby. And it was about a girl going through fertility issues. Hmm. See Annie and her she was just basically trying to get anybody to impregnate her. So that was fun.

V Spehar  1:06:12

This has been one of my favorite episodes. I think it’s just so funny. I mean, we’ve just talked about some of the goofiest, most devastating things and at the end, we get to end with the song and what’s better than that I said at the top of the show in the middle and at the end, Nicky Boyer, you are a good friend. And I hope that everyone gets to have a friend like you.

Nikki Boyer  1:06:32

Okay, I adore you. I just think you’re the best and thanks for having me on the show.

V Spehar  1:06:40

Okay, I know we were joking around but How amazing would a podcast featuring the creepy things kids say be? I mean, I want to make that show. Jess, Steph. Chrissy Are you guys listening? This feels very on brand for Lemonada we’re gonna need a producer assigned here. But seriously, thank you so much to Nikki for this amazing conversation. I know I got a ton out of it. And I hope that you at home did as well. Be sure to tune into next week’s episode where we dig into the headlines you may have missed. Please leave us a five star rating on whatever platform you’re listening on. It really does help people find the show. Follow me at under the US news on tick tock instagram, youtube and now on Patreon patreon.com/under the desk news and guess what friends? There is even more be interesting with limonada premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content, like Grammy Award winning country superstar Ashley McBride weighing in on the song of the summer, subscribe now in Apple podcasts.

V Spehar  1:07:40

V Interesting is a Lemonada Media Original. Our producers are Kryssy Pease, Kathryn Barnes and Martin Macias. Our VP of weekly programming is Steve Nelson. Executive Producers are Stephanie Wittles Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Mix and scoring is by James Farber. Music by Seth Applebaum. Please help others find the show by reading and reviewing wherever you listen and follow us across all social platforms at @VitusSpehar, @underthedesknews and @LemonadaMedia. If you want more V Interesting. Subscribe to Lemonada Premium only on Apple podcasts and follow the show where ever you get your podcasts or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership.