Episode Transcription

00:00 Hey man, what's up? Have you heard of them? How I want to want to call this? I haven't thought about that. Let's call it. I don't know. I will just have you heard of the secret mall apartment secret mall apartment? Yeah, 00:17 No, I got- wha- no. 00:22 We're putting the P in podcasts today and in our shoes. 00:30 But not our own. I'm gonna pee in his shoes and he's gonna pee in mine. 00:36 But who will pay for Alex's shoes? 00:53 have you is it okay? Have you heard of Michael Townsend Michael Townsend? No, this is him uh okay. Michael Townsend is him on survivor. Is that why he's got that thing around? He never went on survivor, but I'm not going to lie. I would not be surprised if he was a fan and this is where he got that style style from he's like so I'm to audio listener. He's like he's like a scrawny or white guy like kind of he looks tall in you know. They're saying 01:21 like when you can look at people's neck proportions and be like that guy's pretty tall yeah yeah and ah and so he's you know probably what is he in this picture in his forties maybe five probably you know yeah and he's he's wearing an orange. What are those things called that they wear on the show? No, I'm yeah, but there's a word like bandanas yeah, but there's a word for I don't know what they're. I don't know what yeah, but there's a word for like a scarf yeah, but there's a word for 01:48 like a hanky yeah, but there's a word for all right, that bit's done so yeah, but but he looks like this shot looks like it's you know he's in front of a wall yeah, so so who is he so he's an art teacher and providence, Rhode Island that tracks. He does look like an art teacher and he's here's the thing like I don't understand. I don't understand exactly what kind of art teacher like I couldn't figure out he teaches mostly adults 02:18 but I couldn't figure out if this is like a he is doing like freelance art teaching and he's got his own little like I guess private practice of art teaching and people come and learn art from him or if he was like a university art teacher, people come and do art or if like he had like a rec center art class like I couldn't figure out what kind of art teacher he was okay, but he's an art teacher and he's also an artist like he they're called buffs. Oh, that is called 02:48 are buffs. Oh in survivor yeah. Oh, they're like gators. They are called gators. Yeah, gator buffs. Okay, interesting, but like the buff is the brand survivor buff. Yeah, buy it from paramount shop dot com, and if you use code telling it won't work, it'll say sorry. The code doesn't exist. This code doesn't work because they didn't sponsor us yet, but if enough people use it, they'll be like wait a minute. 03:15 wait a minute. We need to figure out who these people are. Are these guys and not give them credit for this? So yeah, so he's an artist ah and he does like a lot of like public art displays right uh his big thing that he's known for his tape art. So here he is at like the Children's Hospital doing tape art, um which if you're I was thinking this when I was walking through the airport today because I don't know if you've been to an airport. Yeah, airport has some good art, but mostly bad. Yeah, well 03:44 it's all subjective and you know what that means. If someone looks at something and it's like man, art is so subjective. That's their way of being like this looks like crap looks bad and this is not. It's what I was thinking today when I was looking at some of these sculptures. I think man, that took a long time for this person to do. Are they selling this? They shouldn't have, but I'm saying like are they selling it for a price of this person is able to make like a and know I do comedy for a living. I understand the economics of how that works. I go do a show. get paid yes 04:15 this is tape art. This is this is what I did in my room. You know here's the thing that I gather for audio listener. It's shapes on a wall made out of tape like there's a person. It's like painters tape yeah and it's like he's made like a you know it's like a flat like drawing. I think it'd be like yeah. If you drew like with a pencil just a one line thing, but it's on the wall with tape yeah and it's like that's cool yeah and so he gets hired 04:43 mostly by like children's hospitals to do these installations at children's in Kansas City. That's a fountain. It could be. I honestly don't know. He gets hired all over the place to do these okay, but I will say sometimes they look like this, but sometimes they're like grand murals that are. Oh my gosh, that's that's worth it is what I'm saying. The first photo you showed not worth it. Sorry to this guy. This photo that's crazy amazing. That's tape yeah and this here's another one. 05:11 and the whole idea of what if the whole he's like the pioneer of tape art and the whole idea is like they're temporary murals and so like the idea is like we're putting up this really cool intricate thing that's like difficult to do and it's not going to last forever and which is very interesting. He did this. This was in which is just like life. This was in the command center at okay, see after the bombing uh and so they hired him to I is this this 05:41 This is the angels. I think that's the idea. Yeah, it's a little on the nose if you ask me, but I guess it like really helped keep a lot of the people going in the command center to like as they were digging it out. I keep is the idea. 05:56 Yeah, you can't make jokes about it. I'm not gonna. I would never. It's a little on the nose. They also he also him and his little cohort of of tapers. They also have tape worms as they like to be called. They went around taping stuff. They also did. They did this huge project. ah This one's actually kind of cool. I mean, all of them are kind of cool, but this one they did. uh They went around Manhattan. 06:22 uh for it took them two years after nine eleven and they did silhouettes of every person who lost their lives in nine eleven all over manhattan was like a big project okay, which was very crazy and and then he did he's. Is this like the thing they do is silhouettes of people who have died in tragedies? That's like if that's like the main use case for tape art, I guess I don't think that's the main use case, but he does seem like that's a lot of the 06:50 things he's got contracted for our tragedy. Yeah. Yeah. And hospitals and things like that. I think like, but I do think that it's an art thing. Like people are like, we use art to make ourselves feel something. And so like we needed to put some art in here. I'm not making fun of it at all. Feel better. know you're not making fun of it, but I think that it's like people say we need art so we feel better. Yeah. So anyways, so he, uh, at the end of the nineties, he had this other art installation he did. 07:17 where he collected a lot of his things throughout the nineties. Okay, and he found this storm drain tunnel and he piled them up in there along with a bunch of sculptures of himself that he dressed in his clothes from the nineties. no, no, because here's what I imagine. All right, you're too high school or you sneak off. You sneak off to an empty park because you're going to kiss right. 07:44 and that's what other high schoolers did. I wasn't a center, so you go out with your girlfriend and you're like hey, let's go to this empty park and then you see a storm drain tunnel and you're like you're trying to be play brave. Yeah, you're trying to be like oh, I'll go in there and then you shine your phone light and there's a dozen mannequins dressed in nineties close yeah yeah and then now you've screamed like a girl in front of your girl. 08:14 and she's like I don't she goes it's clearly a mannequin made of tape by the art installation. This is clearly a nine eleven memorial. 08:25 that that you're not even why I can't believe you to react that way. That's so disrespectful of you. This is clear. What do you mean? Like just buy pay for a storage unit? Well, it was to memorialize that 08:42 decade for him like he wanted to memorialize like all right. We made this that how my life is over time to put that in a storm drain. We talking about and so like he made sculptures of himself in poses that would help him remember different things that happen throughout the year with different items that he had collected. So sculpture at it, but the weird thing he did was he didn't just put the sculptures of the storm drain. He hung them around. Oh my gosh dog, that's terrifying. 09:15 here's a here's another here's another one. This is what I'm saying dude. I'm actually just stumbling upon this storm. Hey girl, hey, I know a place that we can sneak off and make out you know and then you go in here and now you can never kiss anybody again. Every time you your lips almost touch the lips of another you're reminded of these tunnel filled with floating people. 09:42 if you're an audio listener, I truly don't know if I can describe what's happening because they're held up by cables and they're literally just a bunch of mannequins floating in this storm drain yeah where like this is where dude you like look down, let's play it. There's your dozens of these you're homeless, you're high out of your mind and you're going to this storm drain. 10:08 Yeah, is crazy. 10:12 in this picture, your eyes get drawn to those two, but you look down the tunnel and there are just dozens of them floating through the thing and okay thing he didn't pull, but that's also the great. That's like the sidewalk above, so let's say that you're walking here, walking on the sidewalk. It's a sunny day and just at the you're down. You maybe you stop to tie your shoes. You stop to tie your shoe. You say that and then like just looking through the storm great 10:41 up at you is a fully dressed Nordstrom Manakian. That is psychotic. It's crazy. The best thing about this is he never took credit for this. He never put anything that was like this or for me. He didn't tell anybody about it. Urban Explorers just found this and then it started spreading 11:04 and everybody sort of and eventually the art community was like. Oh, this is Michael Townsend because they recognize the scops. Yeah, they were like a lot like Michael Townsend. Oh and that's his shirt. I remember him wearing that so how upset would you be if you bought him that shirt? He just left. I was saying you bought that shirt for somebody and then they were just like thanks. Thanks. I'm putting it on my sewer man. 11:30 uh This'll look great in the sewer. 11:37 crazy. So anyways, so they lived in like what was like the art district of Providence, Rhode Island, okay, him and his wife at the time and they lived in the best way I could describe this and we're going to have to extrapolate this a little bit for people outside of Kansas City, but it's like the West bottoms. Okay, like it's like okay, this old derelict side of town, yeah, where all the buildings are 11:58 mostly vacant, but there's also like apartments in them. Yeah, there's like there's things that are there, but they don't feel like they should be yeah yeah and the buildings are like started. That's things that are here that feel like they shouldn't be 12:16 here. Let me explain. Never mind. I'm not going to explain. I'm not going to explain this. Why did you try to shake my hand like that? Okay, I did not think I thought we were going to do high five and then you just grow and kiss it. Kiss my kid. I can't I'm thinking of those men. I can't 12:39 Every time's my every time my fucker 12:46 Oh, if I, if I, you think sour, I think about him. 12:52 m So he freaks out whenever his lips do that. 13:02 trying to get a good thumbnail picture for YouTube. 13:08 I got a new hold on don't to me. I'm don't like to be on viewing okay, so yeah, it's a part of town that like it's mostly vacant buildings yeah. They're all the fun apart used to be prosperous, but now it's not and and the artists all live there. They there is this one of the specific building that they're in 13:34 there's a bunch of artists that have apartments there and then they also have like art installations around the building right because half of its vacant so they could just put up art installations and then there's like a big music venue where it's like where our podcast started though. If you go back and listen to the first couple of episodes, we keep having to stop and we reference it because of the chainsaw upstairs yeah where it's like it's the kind of building where you could rent a studio to do your chainsaw artwork. You know yeah you couldn't do that in an actual apartment complex. 14:02 Yeah, you couldn't rent uh a studio in like a business park, right? And chainsaw and then just, you know. 14:11 sorry to the counselor next door. We're chainsawing today. uh Hey, I know uh a place that you and I could sneak off together and then you get into this old like this old building and then just upstairs you hear 14:27 Ahem. 14:30 that's a pretty good chainsaw. That is a thing pretty impressive. So we watched that Ed Gein show on Netflix and uh it you know first of all Ed Gein never actually killed me with a chainsaw yeah, but it's just driven. I can do scary movies if I know that I can get away from the scary thing. Does that make sense like like knife like slasher films? Yeah, I know that I could probably get away from the killer from a slasher. You know ghosts 14:59 those things come through the doors. There's no like running into a room, shutting the door and then you're safe. All right, I can't do those kind of movies because there's no escape right, but a guy with a chainsaw. You're held a chainsaw yeah yeah, they're not light. They're pretty heavy. If you can't outrun a guy with a chainsaw, that's good hearing, a chainsaw, a good point, then I not a victim blame, but like you probably kind of your fault. But he got like do you can't outrun a guy? Have you ever held a chainsaw Eagle Scout so they're 15:29 they're heavy. Yeah, yeah, you can't sprint after somebody with that thing. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. So anyway, uh so they lived in that art installation building uh and they they called it Fort Thunder, which was really sick, which is what my youth group was gonna be called, but they had a that a music venue. There's like an underground music scene that like did a ton of shows there, and so it's like it is very, very much like a cultural arts district. 15:57 Yeah, honestly, I cannot over emphasize enough how much it sounds like the West bottoms, uh but across the freeway from where they were at was a pretty large plot of land. That was a few different things that got bought up by a developer who put a mall there and it is a giant mall. That is it's called the Providence Place Mall K and this is what year is this ninety nine yeah. That's prime mall season yeah and with 16:25 with where it was, which I mean like we've done an episode about the what's the what's that big mall? We did an episode about the American all of America, no American dream, the American dream yeah and like the idea for these malls. Where is that you would but like it's the same thing like zona rosa up there or like the Galleria where I live, is that it got made fun of in the TV show hacks that I've watched. She gets an apartment in the Galleria, so it's like literally the cheesecake factor in my house yeah. 16:54 and she's like why would I want to pay all this money to live above the mall and it's like yeah, that's why no one wants to what's really fun. Those units aren't cheap yeah, so it's like you're paying luxury prices and also you live above the ball. Well, that's the thing that's really interesting is this era was when that idea became so popular and they I watched a video and they have like a newscast of someone who was planning to move into the mall when it opened right 17:24 and she was like how convenient would that be to be able to be like right there and have like all the stores, all your restaurants, everything right there and it's like you're describing a city you're describing a city. You're describing a city before we started designing them for car. Yeah, you're describing a city before we ruined. Hey stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop, stop 17:54 but I'm saying like I would never like this was the era where the nineties and two thousands malls are exploding yeah because our malls were. mean the eighties malls were huge, but I mean like they're still like moving into they become outdoor malls in two thousands. It was still like it's crazy how what I'm saying is it maybe we should do an episode on this too and sorry for this is being too long of a tangent. I guess but like malls eighties nineties 18:22 two thousands that twenty something thirty something year arc for malls and in the very fast drop off. Yeah. Do you think it's entirely because of online shopping or do you think that it's just because the mall model was never going to work? No, I think it's I think it's online shopping because I think the mall model existed for a long time before that and I think I think if it weren't for online shopping, I think it would still would be convenient in a world that is suburbanized. 18:48 I think the mall was you know what and I'm gonna I'm gonna crash out for a second, but chill with me for a second. It's incredible that we let Amazon come in with all these big centers of fulfillment centers that they knew from the beginning they were going to put robots in and we were like yeah, but they're making all these jobs and it's like why do you think Amazon go to your local mall and see the jobs that Amazon already ruined? You know yeah, yeah, it is interesting like every time any of these projects are announced. 19:16 that's the thing that they told. It's like it's like we're going to create jobs, but it's like you're going to create jobs to build that building of course and then once the building's built yeah, it's going to robots one day. It's going to be all robots and they plan on it being robots from the beginning. Everybody else in the process. yeah, but 20,000 people are going to work there until the robots take over. Oh okay, oh okay, cool, yes, we see it's a great great plan. You know, but I that's right. I guess that's I was just thinking about. Like I like the idea of them all. I don't like the idea of living at one, but 19:45 I do miss hanging out at the mall. Of course, you miss it. The mall was fun. It really was and I you know what and I think I know you made fun of me for being in a Disney adult person, but like I do think that I enjoy. This is just me off the cuff thinking yeah in the airport on the way here yeah. Yeah. This morning there was like a couple of sports teams and stuff in the airport and it's teenagers being teenagers in the airport. 20:14 and I remember being a teenager. We were dumb. You know we were annoying and public of course and like there was a time where I would see that I'm really oh my gosh pulled together somebody like but now I see here and I go as you know what you're you guys are being Tom yeah in public good for you. You know how far get to be done and I think that's what I mean is that when I'm at Disney, I enjoy watching kids hat make memories. I enjoy being around. That's the atmosphere that I think I miss is the mall is what you're driving 20:47 Hey, join us on Patreon if you want this to be ad free and also there's a bunch of other perks you get to all episodes are ad free. You get next week's episode right now and you get to do monthly hangouts with me and Tim. Like we really look it's like a virtual just hangout room and we play games together. We talk, we have show and tell sometimes we've made a lot of good friends through this and so it's a really good time to do that. So either way, please share the episode, tell somebody about it. These are all those ways to help us grow the show because we love doing it. We want to keep doing it. So thanks for being here. 21:21 It's nice to be in large public spaces because we don't have very many of those and now every time I go to the mall, it's like dude, the only reason I go to the mall. That's it's it's I only reason I'm going to the mall is to return something that I bought online right. So now I'm at the mall. It's an inconvenience for me to be here and everybody else. It's an inconvenience for them to be here, so no one's happy and no one's enjoying being there. I have to walk through this little this maze of coals. They make you go all the way to the back. Yeah, let me return this 21:51 and nobody's here shopping. Everybody's here. Yeah, it's so weird to be in those places. It is very weird. Yeah, and I miss it. I agree. I agree. Yeah. Anyways, you think we could get it back? No, okay. I don't think we can. All right, so this day, I small opens this mall had the apartments inside the mall. Okay, so like this is the mall because the battlefield mall did not was not built to live at 22:19 yeah in Springfield yeah. No and this wasn't a mall where you had apartments outside on the top floor. This is apartments literally inside the mall yeah. We've never had this, so it's a little weird. Did your mall have apartments, not the mall that I went to. I do remember as I was like 22:36 getting out of high school. They were building a couple of those around me yeah, but they were like the outdoor malls with the apartments out yeah. That's what I'm saying. That became super popular two thousands early two thousand tens because the Branson landing got built. I remember I was like a third or fourth grade. That was a really big deal yeah and then because the Branson landings just zona rosa yeah now technically this is a mall, but that we're in right now. Yeah, technically this is a wall. No yeah. Are you dumb? Technically this is a mall 23:01 that we're in right now. Yes, this is technically a dumb person. I'm sure it would be no technically. This is a model. 23:08 okay. That was the opening scene for chair company. I was just doing the open okay. What is a mall? We cannot recommend that show by the way. Here's what happens. I was recommend TV shows and then like and then and then like on episode four or five they'll do something that's in say that then that it may look really bad. Yeah, yeah, recommending this show to you yeah, but I recommended it on episode three before you knew before I knew 23:36 So anyways, this this arts district, all the people lived in this art district, so like there started building this mall yeah, and they were actually like they were in stark opposition to them all because they knew it was going to be this giant monstrosity right and they knew it was going to bring all this traffic and they yeah they they just and they had a feeling was going to gentrify the neighborhood and threaten where they live. Okay, and it was going to block their view of the city, which if you've never seen province, Rhode Island, it's actually like a beautiful city. Those look really nice. It's it's I would I would move to the northeast yeah. 24:05 Would you move to you want to move to Vermont with me? I would love for mine. I don't know anything about Vermont and I think that's what I like about it. You know nobody knows anything. Nobody knows anything about it. One. No one talks about it. The only thing you know about Maine is like all the lobsters up there. That's the only thing you know. So so they they built this mall right and everybody in the art district was like look at that monster. We hate it yeah. So Michael and a group of his friends were like let's do like a little like 24:35 public art installation, like performance art. And so they decide in like protest to the mall when the mall opened, they said, let's stay at the mall for 10 days and see if anybody notices. And so they all like, were like, we're going to stay here. 24:51 and this is this is this is art. This is performance art. Okay, yeah, so so that's the justification I've given for sneaking into like a college graduation is like it's a performance are really is just me being dumb. Yeah, yeah. All right, I guess I you know what I you know what that is something else this year. Happy New Year. This is another thing. I was like man. I got to do more like blind date. Yeah graduation stuff so twenty twenty six. I'm going to be doing a lot more performance art 25:22 yeah be ready to observe, be ready to observe. I like that that framing so they go in and the whole idea was like whoever can how many is this eight? There's eight of them, eight of them, who can last the longest. Yeah, the idea is this is a Mr Beast video before you to yeah. Actually, that's actually my seven friends are going into this mall for ten days and the last one out wins the mall. Congratulations, 25:50 You're the owner of the battlefield. Good luck. Now you got to revive it. You have to handle the lease agreements. That's the other thing to man like the the places that have like twenty five year lease agreements. Oh gosh, that's like there's there are travel agents travel agencies that signed like a twenty year lease in two thousand seven who now are still in that yeah. That's insane and it's like your business has been dead. 26:20 since two thousand and eight yeah. That is crazy. That's crazy to to think you're going to be able to be successful that long. I don't think that's what was crazy about that. That's what this we're on year eight of this year nine on year nine of there is no chance I would have signed a nine year lease at the beginning of this. Would you yes, I would have I would have been way too skeptical about our ability to be successful at this. I you're not you're not even thinking about our inability to quit. 26:49 it's not about your ability to succeed. It's about your inability to stop. Well, no, no, no, no, no, it's not about. I just would be like I would look at that and be like oh, I'm going to be paying for this myself for eight of those years, which we have so so that they're doing a Mr. B style thing before yeah. That's pretty accurate. 27:08 and it starts out like you would think it would start out. are kind of going around the mall, exploring, having fun all closes at ten. They're kind of hiding through the shadow. Well, here's the cool thing about this mall. Twenty four hours it's it. have a movie theater, so the main section live there well there. Well, there's a few. There's a separate entrance for residents that them to the upper level, but the bottom level closes God. So like there is a point at which is also crazy. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, It's also like 27:36 the bass pro in Memphis. Okay, it's that giant pyramid. That's also a hotel. Yeah, that is crazy. You can just stay at and then at night you can sit on your balcony and look out over and this is not an exaggeration bass pro. You know I'm saying like can you find an image of is that you can stay at this 27:58 very luxury lodge themed hotel and then sit on your balcony and hear the sounds of crickets and running water inside the largest and again not making this up bass bro shots. This is insane. That is nuts. I'm trying to pull up a okay. Yeah, you can see the hotel from this. That's what I'm saying. Dude, it is. It's so ridiculous that they I just don't understand 28:27 this makes no sense to me at all. Yeah, this is crazy. So this is this is the interior and you can see that back section is the balcony of the hotel yeah, so that overlooks there's a hotel up there. The store you can see it's just you see what I'm Like it's not it's not any different than any other bass pro yeah, but you could just but you can stay there and then at night it closes a hon. There's no one there. We've been married for twenty years. I've prepared a special trip for our 28:57 anniversary baby. You and me are going to stay at the Bass Pro Hotel, the best pro tell the Bass Pro tell. So they are kind of exploring the mall, doing the thing this mall. The reason why this worked out so great is because the mall had a movie theater. Okay, it's the movie theater would have late shows, so the mall didn't close to after midnight because of the movie got it and so and then it opened early in the morning. So there was only a few hours it was closed 29:26 And so the idea was like okay, we are going to hang out at the mall all day, but then when it gets close to closing time, we got to find a place to hide because we're staying in this month and also maybe sleep. Yeah, yeah, so they do the whole day and then after the day they all sneak off to places to try to find places to feel like a picture of the floor plan for this small. Do you like a map? I don't know. I don't have a map. Let me see. Okay, just pull one real quick. Sure, but they go around 29:55 trying to find places to hide. Some of them find like weird spots in stores, but most of them try to find fitting rooms. ah That's actually a pretty decent idea because there's no cameras in there legally. uh 30:09 Okay? 30:14 What a weird thing to say. 30:20 mean for that to be as weird as it was like they're not legally allowed to, but it sounds like you put cameras in there is what it sounded like. You were like no legally they can't, but it's what it came out like there's no cameras in there. That's what it sounded. didn't put any cameras in there. There's no cameras in the fitting rooms legally. 30:46 hands up don't shoot. Okay, I got this picture. I got this map. I'm just trying to figure out how big the mall is. Oh, it's huge. I mean you saw that picture from the outside. Oops, I just yeah, I be that one. Yes, I was trying to have already seen this image. I trying to grab this, but you're right and I grabbed the wrong. at this image. I would love to see a different image. There we go inside yeah. That's what I'm saying. So it is a very big mall. 31:16 I this is all map, so it's kind of hard to see how big this is. Okay, there's a big another thing is that I was traveling for some shows and in a small town in Missouri, there is a stand alone J C penny. Have you ever seen a stand alone J C penny? No, not like J C penny at the least in a strip mall, but not like this was like a standalone building. This was J C penny and it's like dude. I'm not 31:44 going to Jase, going through J C pity to get to get a pretzels and hot topic. Those are and like maybe I'll go to my pretzels to compare prices on van yeah yeah yeah and it's like that's what J C pity is not a store you go to 32:04 jc penny is the store that you reluctantly wade yourself through to get to where you're trying to go. I know. I buy pants from jc pennies. Yeah, of course you'll buy stuff from there, but you don't go there to buy stuff from there. You know saying maybe I don't know like you'll go to the places you want to buy stuff from and then be like oh well, I guess I'll jc penny. guess I'll check jc penny and then it's like okay. Well, I do need a pair of khakis for my cousin's wedding and like even though they're going to get divorced, I'm still gonna have to go right. It's like 32:28 you knew that as a sixth grader to your that's never going to last, I'll see you at the divorce. Let me know when this ends. That sounds like you to that sounds like you want to marry her. Is her wants. Let me know when this legally no, so they disperse around the mall. They find different hiding spots right, but what most of them do is they find the sizeable mall. They find the service access points, so it's like there's 32:58 If you don't know all the most malls had these areas well because also the stores close their gates to that's kind of you don't want to get locked inside of a store yeah because then what are you going to do just peeing the shoes yeah. 33:12 somebody painted all our shoes last night and not all of them. That's different. That's uh all the shoes is intentional. That's a good. That's a you plan to do that. I'm Peter. All of these shoes that's different than someone like someone p in these shoes. I've been in the spare shoes. Have you ever 33:35 Have you ever? 33:40 Alex is already tired. If I'm going to say something, I don't know how to ask this on the podcast. We don't have you repeated to a bottle. Yeah, you're a course. You don't realize how much you pee until you frantically. It's like reaching the top of the yeah. Oh no, oh God, oh God, oh God, I got to stop right here like oh no, it's getting too. This is more than six. was panicking one time 34:12 anyway, there was no way for me to bring that up and then I poured that bottle in to some shoes and so yeah. You don't want to get locked in a store is what I'm saying, but anyways, everybody disperses and try to find the place they're to cut that out. I know I know the P. We always got to leave the P so so Michael and his wife. Remember, this is a competition. 34:40 they're trying to see. That's right. right. right. Everybody splits up. find their places to hide and people brought like they brought their backpacks with like sleeping bags in the backpacks and things and they were like okay. We're going to wrap ourselves up in places and hide and so Michael and his wife also security is pretty lax at the malls at this point. You know yeah it existed, but it wasn't yeah. It wasn't like yeah it became all cops became like a thing yeah in the two thousands yeah because of Paul Bart sure 35:10 No, uh Michael and his wife, though, Michael was like, Hey, I think I know that there's a place we could get where this will work really well for us because I have this running route that I run every morning that went right in front of the mall during all of construction. And there's something really weird about this mall that actually took it forever to be built. And it's because the plot of land they wanted to build it on was cut in the middle by these railroad tracks and a river. 35:39 And so they built this mall over the railroad tracks and over the river. Okay. And so it bridges over that and part of that construction made it to where for whatever reason in the architecture, there's this little sliver where kind of the two buildings meet, but they never actually kiss. 35:58 So there's a little gap there, not kid. And as it was being built, he would run by it every day and just kind of take note and be like, I wonder what this little section is going to be. I wonder what this is. And he noticed there's this little section where they never quite meet. And then all of a sudden there's like just an air gap and they close that in. And he's like, I think there's like a room there, but like there's a, it's like a building. There's no building. like a hidden little room there. And he's like, so I, bet we could get there. And so 36:27 they go digging through the bowels. So basically what you're saying is that he challenged his friends to hide in the mall while having a plan to hide in the mall the whole time. So he's like he's like so basically he sees an open window in this thing. He's like oh that'd cool to live in there, but I can't just I can't bring this to my wife and go hey. Do you want to go live in the mall? So instead what he says is let's make a challenge yeah, 36:55 to all of our friends. Yeah. Hey, hey, let's challenge our friends at who see what stay in the mall the long. Yeah, yeah, that's crazy. I've got a really good spot and she's like honey, please don't take me to the store. Sue, which is again, yeah, I can't go to the sewage. It's full of my man. I got a place that fresh place with nothing in it. There's nothing there. Open opportunities. Yeah, we could put so many mannequins in this room. Wait to see it. I'm gonna put so many 37:24 peat filled shoes in this room, so many people choose that same like it seems like he did have a plan. Yeah, he definitely had a plan. Okay, he just didn't want to seem weird to his friends. I don't know if I don't know if he didn't want to seem weird to his friends and I don't even know if like he was thinking about this from the beginning, but while he was there, he's like I think I know up the best place to high yeah and so they go through the bowels. They end up finding 37:50 service entrance that connected to this like weird little connection tunnel that eventually They could get to that air gap between the buildings. There's this thin little hallway that Here's a shot of it in some areas. It was pretty wide in some areas It was really really thin. Okay, there was certain areas where they had to actually shimmy through this hallway in the mall To get to the other side. Okay, and then there was a spot where it opened up like this and There was a ladder and the ladder goes up and 38:19 there was just this large vacant space, vacant open space and so they camped out there and that's where they hid and they ended up winning this competition with their friends of court. Meanwhile, something else is going on because they live on the other side of the freeway from the mall and as they expected uh gentrification did come to town and somebody got really expensive. Well, somebody just bought that whole district, yep and they m 38:47 leveled the district. They evicted everybody who lived there. They leveled it. They built. will say that is nice that that didn't happen in the West bottoms like they bought the buildings and then they've been revamping them to yeah. They've been trying to they've been trying to restore the buildings rather than just tear them down. That is that is nice, but it also sucks that then they do that and then it's like okay, right here's four thousand dollars. You're like no one's paying that yeah yeah. So this place they actually tore it down. They put in a grocery store. They their apartment building literally is now a parking lot. 39:17 ah and so this was a really interesting thing because they find this spot in the mall. Then their apartment gets taken from them. Wait, do they like fully move into the mall and so they said they went to all the public hearings to like to try to like hey, agree with this tear down our building and so well, even with the mall like even before their building was a part of this, the mall like the a lot of the space where they were putting them all was unused land. That was like right. I been next to downtown and one thing that they 39:47 constantly said in these uh hearings was the developer was like, we're just trying to develop unused space. And his wife, after they took their apartment, said, well, what if we develop the unused space in the mall? 40:04 okay, so they said I think we could pull this off. There's a couple issues though it's in the bowels of them all and so it's hard to get there and also it's illegal. We're squatting. It is technically a legal, but then we can't live here. Legally, that's crazy. 40:36 Hey, if you love the show, a great way to serve support is by getting some merch. We got lots of great stuff. I'm going to showcase some of it right now. This is like our little Tillen QVC. You can get a it's not a call. It's a podcast sweatshirt. Very sweet. The nice thing about this is no one knows what podcast you're talking about. So you wear it in public and you can tell them about your Lord and Savior. So podcast. We also got the this is one of my favorite things we've ever made. The fiddle off fest hoodie. It's got uh the devil. 41:05 playing a fiddle. It's not really the devil's a skeleton. And then all of the bands on the back of it like it's a festival. But spoiler alert, these aren't bands. These are jokes from episodes. So worth checking out. And this is one of my favorite things we've ever done. This is for the real fans. This is an old one. We've got a Tim Stones get well quick trick shirt. And it's very cool. We've got some really good designs. Darren is good at designing stuff. So support his dream. No one will hire him as a designer, but you can by buying his merch. 41:34 It's our merch, but it's his designs. so leave a comment, say, Jared, you're good at this. um We like your art. He really needs it. He needs your support so bad. Please make him feel better about it and buy some merch. It helps make this show keep happening. You can tell people about how much you love this show with it. So. 41:57 Did you hear? Did you hear what I said? Yeah, you're to do a two minute merch ad. wasn't a two minute merch ad. Oh, Jaren's a good designer. Give him a high five. Make him feel good about his art. 42:12 and then you're going to make them listen to two minutes of ads. We got to do all that and then it's going to be like back to school this fall like 42:22 I don't want to be. I hate there's skippable ads. They're not skip. They are skippable. Yeah, you too premium leave all this in that uh 42:36 said, okay, we could. uh This is in there's those weird hallways you got to go through. But that area that it's in is like a service area of the building. So technically people can get there. They didn't see anybody there the whole time they stayed. But technically people could get there. And that area they were at was kind of just this big open landing. And they were like, wow, the problem with that is if we're just hanging out in there and somebody walks through, were there or just exposed in public. Right. But down that area, there's just tons of 43:05 cinder block walls with doors that just lead to different service areas where there's like electrical units or cooling, you know, just random service things. And so they said, let's build a wall. So him and his eight friends, they went to Home Depot and they bought about 1400 pounds of cinder block and they got Nordstrom bags. 43:28 Oh yeah, to look like you're yeah, no one's shopping them all. Um, dude, it's like freaking clothes look really heavy and very square. 43:42 dragging it on the Wow for jacket, a fur jacket, not a real fur coat. So yeah, they did around of that pulling supplies in the in their backpacks and in orange from bags and stuff like that. uh That ended up being pretty impractical. What they found pretty quickly though is there was in one of the parking garages. There was an emergency exit that you could get to that access place from 44:07 But when you went through the emergency access, the alarm would sound. And it took two minutes. It was a two-minute alarm. That would sound. 44:16 All right guys, I just got to wait it out. We got to see what happens to the police show up. No, cool. It's not actually connected to anything and mall cops don't exist yet. So yeah, well there was security and in fact the securities office was in the mall parking garage on that floor at the other end of the garage. Got it. But what was useful about that is they had windows from their office that just looked out into the garage. 44:42 and so they could easily just drive by and see if anyone was there and if anyone was pay attention and then quickly get to that door, open it, unload all their bricks and then jump in the staircase and run with them to where they were going. So for two minutes going off though yeah, it does go off for two minutes and so they over the course of a few months slowly but surely moved these cinder blocks through the through the mall and built a wall and carried it up to that spot and they started building this wall. 45:12 to make a doorway for, uh to close off this area, to make an apartment in the mall. uh They never, there was one time where security saw them loading these cinder blocks through and security pulled up, they opened the door, security pulled up and they were running all these cinder blocks through and security talked to him and Michael just confidently was like, you know, we bought all these cinder blocks earlier today. Then we stopped by here on another errand and my car won't start. 45:42 And so one of my friends, he's going to meet us and he's got a truck, but we got to get all the center box down to the first floor to load his truck. so like, know we're going through the emergency exit, but it was just easier than having to try to walk the other way. And the security guy was like, 45:57 yeah and that was here's the thing about being a chatty person all right. You can usually get away with it because like the security guard people they got that job because they they couldn't be real cops and I got this guy's time so he's just much right. He's just he's like oh my God, shut up yeah. Okay, all right, all right, yeah and so yeah, so they unloaded all those the center blocks carried it through that little maze labyrinth to that spot 46:27 and they built a wall. got the plaster and everything and they plastered this wall and they got a door and they installed the door with a lock on the. So they have a fully sealed apartment. Yeah, they have a fully sealed apartment with a lock that only they have a key to. The mall does not have a key to this apartment because they don't know it exists. Right. And so now they're like, well, we've got our own place. So then they run some extension cable. 46:52 they did this before they built the wall so they could build around it, but they ran some extension cable down through the service hallway to an outlet somewhere that they found and plugged it in and so that way they could run power into the unit. They obviously they did not have a bathroom. They would go into the mall if they had to go to the shoe store. You wake up in middle of the night to go pee and you're like 47:23 together. 47:35 you know, you know when you're peeing in the middle of night and like there's part that you almost fall over yeah yeah yeah you know you're peeing and you're like and then I don't know if this happens to you dude, but yeah my P four thirty in the morning. It's like it that's the time four thirty five o'clock is like I'm going to wake up at six yeah. It's like sometimes my body is like is this worth it fall back asleep and my brain is like yes, please please do it. Please fall back. Everybody's like we don't have to my body's like you're going to be over my 48:05 in there and they're like no so you like you know when your piece is you know when you do your morning pee. You know when you're you know when you're in the morning, you know like in the morning when the sun comes up and your pee in the bathroom, you know, but you know that talks about P way too much. You know, you know that morning P yeah where you're staying in there and it's just going just for so long like it's to the point where you're like do I live here now? Is this why I'm talking about? Am I ever going to leave 48:34 for real. Sometimes my wife will hear me P. So go are you okay? So are you not done yet? That's too much and I'm like I'm hydrated. Hey, I can be in here as long as I want legally. 48:58 that's crazy. Sorry, hey, sorry for all the P talk. All right, we're done. So they, they went, we're the P in podcast today and in our shoes. 49:18 but not our own. That's an out of context for sure. I'm going to be in his shoes and he's going to be in my 49:27 crazy. That's so crazy. Alex just wrote that down so, but who will pay in Alex's shoes? Oh, we have a weird throuple situation going on over here where I could be in your shoes. You could be in mine. There's no one to be in. There's no one to be in Alex's unless you want to do it by joining us on Patreon. 49:57 That's right. If we reach 200 subscribers on Patreon, we're going to let one of y'all be in Alex's shoes. 50:10 Hey, welcome to the new year. We're not changing. So we were like oh wow. This episode they've done a lot less tangents and they've been really sticking to the story until now. Hey, for real, I got a people represent. Yeah, I do too, so they they get power up to that apartment. They get a wall built yeah and now they're able to they hung like like work lights around so you can see in there, but they're like going to live here. 50:39 Yeah. So now the problem was like, oh, we need to furnish this place. It's kind of hard to pull our furniture in here. Yeah. But luckily we're in a mall. So they went to the furniture store in the mall and they bought some furniture and they were like, all right, do you want to come back? They're like, we'll just take it. And so they just walked out of the furniture store with a couch, the big hutch with a table, with some chairs. How did they get it in there through the shimmying through the stuff? Well, so the main way that they found initially, I probably should explain that a little bit better. 51:09 where they found it initially, like you shimmied through the whole place and that actually led all the way outside. There was a way to get out of the building oh because it technically wasn't indoors. Like it really was a spot where the buildings just didn't connect. Um, okay. And so it was almost an alleyway. Uh, but, uh, there was also ways through service access points to get there. And so you could, if you went through the, that alarm in the garage, 51:36 There was another door that actually went into the right into the movie theater. You could get in through there. And so there's just different spots in the mall where you could get through service entrances to get up to that spot. But that wasn't the initial place that they found. OK, initially they had to go that route and they did. They did for a little bit with the cinder blocks because after they got caught with security, they're like there's too much heat on us. And so they shimmied them all the way up through that because that was safer, a little safer. Yeah. Yeah. Then setting off the alarm. And so. 52:05 They just walked all this furniture through the mall and they went and they bought artwork. They went to there was a Salvation Army. So they bought they thrifted some items and they furnished this apartment to the point where they had a full place to live. That is the wall that they built. can very yeah looks like the one that looks like it's not professionally built and they brought a full and brought a PlayStation up. 52:32 and so they could play PlayStation together. They had these couches, they had artwork, they had a little ficus and that couch looks like that your old one a little bit. Yeah, it's so great. They had a little dining area that they set up. This looks like a work crime photo. This one does does looks like a full hutch. Go back to that. Like what are they putting in there? They're fine China. Actually, I think so you haven't guessed over up there and so 53:02 This is the floor plan of their apartment. I don't know what's really happening with that middle part, but this is do they build a bathroom? So they, this whole project, uh they kind of had a master plan. So what you saw there was the living area and the dining room. They were working on the kitchen and eventually their plan is they're going to go down to the bedroom and then tap this, the waterland sewer lines and put in a bathroom and have a full apartment where you could live in. And they had been living here, living, 53:30 belongs in very strong air quotes though. Nobody was staying the night regularly. They'd stayed the night from time to time. I think one of them said the longest stretch they stayed was like five days. And so they would stay, this was, they weren't, this wasn't a primary residence. Right. Because they couldn't make it a primary residence because they couldn't get mail there until they found out that there was a mail room at the mall. So then they started going down a rabbit trail to figure it out. How can we get mail at the mail room at the mall? Okay. 53:59 like if we can get mail here, then we're residents uh was the I don't know. I don't know if they ever succeeded on getting mail at the mall sure, but uh they had this whole plan to build this out and they they were there. It took about four years for them to get from found this place to get this living room done. The dining room down start on the kitchen. ah They were living in here for four years, living again and air quotes, but they spent a lot of time. They're hanging out in here, having meals together, 54:28 I'm inviting their friends over to see it, but then one day they came into the their apartment and the door was broken off the hinges like somebody had kicked the door in oh and they went inside and somebody had robbed the place and what's interesting is robbed it. Yeah. What's interesting is there's a lot of valuable items in the apartment. The things that were stolen was only two things. The photo album that they had 54:57 and their PlayStation. And what they ended up finding out later down the line was that security found the apartment. Security saw this door and they were like, we don't know what this door's to. And they tried to open it and they didn't have none of their keys worked. So they kicked the door down and they're like, somebody's living here. And then they decided, let's take this photo album so we can figure out who they were. And then they said, if we take the PlayStation, we could look at the save game logs. 55:26 to find out when they were here and they've been here. Oh wow! Okay, so security at this mall was freaking on it except for the part where they let them carry center blocks and build a fake wall and like live there for like a for four years for four years. This has been under my nose, but also once I found out about it, I knew exactly was on of I found this and I was let's the PlayStation local saved card memory so we can see what time we've been playing and then we can figure out when they've been here. Also take the photo op and that's pictures of all of them. 55:54 Shinkies, he's onto something. 55:58 that's actually crazy so then they're walking in the mall. They surely get recognized by security right, so then they're walking to the mall posters all over the mall. Have you seen this man and it's just them? Have you seen the wall people the wall people a wall, the tape worm, 56:21 So here's the thing. This changed a lot for them. They're like, they know we're here. And so we can't, what they had done up until this point, their whole ruse was we're just shoppers at the mall. And so we just walk through with our items and nobody, nobody's on the riser. We carry Nordstrom bags full of our supplies. Nobody thinks anything. We're just living in the mall. But now it's like security's onto us. They have our photo album. They have our safe games. They don't have it played way too much at the Sims two. And so they're like, we can't let them find me. And 56:50 They change kind of the rules of the group to where now it's we're only there after close. We sneak in through that alleyway entrance. Got it. We hang out there after close. We cannot be there during opening hours. Unfortunately, one day Michael had a friend in town um and he was driving her back to the airport and they were kind of catching up. They driving right by the mall and he's like, hey, you want to see something? And so he figures it's going to be a quick thing. We're just going to. 57:18 go up in there, we're going to see it and then that's it. Right. And then we're going to leave, go to the mall. It'll be really fast or go to the airport. It'll be really fast. And so he takes her up there. Yeah. He opens up the door. It's like insecurity is waiting for him. No, he opens up the door, brings her in there, shows her the apartment. He's like, this is our apartment. He's like, we're working on the kitchen right now. Our goal is to go around and build the bathroom and the bedroom back here. I've here for four years and she's like, oh my gosh, you're kind of crazy. This is almost as crazy as that sewer thing you did. 57:49 you're gonna mark that down for sound, whatever that was almost as crazy as that sewer. Sure thing. I say it again. That's almost as crazy as the sewer thing you did right. Yeah. And so but then they're getting ready to leave. They're packing up their gram, their coats and they hear the sound of walkie talkies outside the door. Oh and the door opens up and it's security and Michael sees them and he just says surprise 58:18 and the ruse was up. They were like we know you've been here for four years and they took them in for the way. They knew they were like we know you've been here for four years. We know you've been here for four years. We just thought it was cool. No, they're like they're like we know you've been here for four years. We looked at the safe games and so they took them. They tried to charge him with a lot of stuff. They took him to court right um with a whole bunch of stuff. They thought like they were going to put him away for years and the judge after the whole case was heard. 58:48 The judge heard everything and the judge was like, I see no crime here. And he's like, he's like, I'm going to charge you with misdemeanor trespassing. And that's all I think that this deserves. And you can never go to that mall again. Well, after that, the mall was really mad and the mall was like, fine lifetime ban. And so there they gave them a map with these red lines around the property line. And he's like, you're not allowed to come over this map, the lines ever again. And he was like, oh no, oh no, I could never go to the ball again. never go to the mall again. 59:18 and and then he partnered up with Jeffrey Bezos started a because he was like you know what I hate this place. I'm going to make sure your business dies. So really, if you think about it, this guy so okay, this guy basically killed them all and so what's crazy about that lifetime ban though is the lifetime ban got passed. He was never allowed to come again sure, but recently 59:46 an independent filmmaker, partnered with Jesse Eisenberg, who you might know. And they produced a documentary film about it called The Secret Mall Apartment. oh And it was like a premiere on Sundance and like that whole like indie film documentary thing. uh And what's really funny about this is I'm guessing Jesse Eisenberg's connection pulled this, but they got the premiere at the movie theater in the mall. 01:00:15 and they got them to lift the lifetime ban for one night for him to be able to go to the premier at the mall. So that's come back for the premier yeah well. What happened was is that now it's different managers of them all and also no one goes to the mall and so they're like we oh you guys want to do a big movie premier and bring a bunch of people to the mall. Please actually you want them. We'll bring that old manager back. We'll make the manager kiss him 01:00:45 No, that wasn't. don't think we don't know. We'll make them need the kiss part. I don't think that we wanted to do that. Pucker up. I don't need that scary man. that part. No, it's cool. We just do the movie premiere. Yeah. Do you want the manager to kiss him? No, no, no, you keep bringing that up. Stan, why you think every email ends with should the manager kissing by the way? 01:01:09 Don't you think the manager hey just kind of hey, don't you think a good addition to your premier? What if they kissed and made up? No and now the north tour manager is going to kiss my 01:01:32 The manager's endorsement was like, nobody told me this. Hey, give me your shoes. 01:01:40 what is happening and Jesse Eisenberg over there like well, you know he's not very. 01:01:50 Wow 01:01:53 man. He's not yeah. He's not he's not like super expressive, not very bold yeah. He doesn't even stand up for me. He's like he's got a kiss uh him to kiss him now. Kiss him sorry man. I don't can't do anything about that part yeah, so that's that's the story of how these people built a mall or an apartment in the mall. Wow, they got away with it for four years. That's pretty incredible. Yeah, that's crazy. I can't believe they did it yeah well. ah 01:02:24 I 01:02:28 I was trying to think about it in this, but all I could think about is how much I want to pee in your shoes right now. Hey, should we kiss? Oh, whatever man. Hey, thanks for listening this episode of things. I learned last night. If you like that you want another one that you just love malls, we did an episode about the American Dream, which is a giant mall. They were trying to put together in New Jersey and kind of fell apart for different reasons and so 01:02:57 That was like an older episode, like much longer, like couple studios ago. So you can check that out. If you can't wait for another episode, you can listen to the next week's right now on Patreon. You can join our Discord where you get to hang out with me and Tim and a couple, just a bunch of different other fans of the show. And then every month we get to hang out and a Zoom call and just have some fun and get to know each other. So we would love for you to be part of that. You can scan the QR code or there's a link in the description wherever you're listening. And we'll see you next week on Things I Learned Last Night.