The Fruitcake Factory featuring Laci Mosley
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Favorite intro ever? I think this might be it. I'm into it. I'm into it. You got us there. City girls. Okay. Yes. Well, city girls, banjo girls, ratchet girls, welcome and butch girls, I guess. This week's episode of Vibe Check, as promised, is the long-awaited audio from our live show at the Ford last month in Los Angeles. So excited to share it with y'all. Yeah, we finally got Saeed to come visit us.

our hometown, or our current hometown, me and Sam's. And he loved it, I think. Question mark, question mark. Or liked it. It was okay. It was okay. It was cute. LA behaved. Yes, LA behaved. You loved the show venue and loved being at the show. But outside the venue, you were like, meh. We have to pay homage because, like...

You know, we've gotten to go to Boston, New York, and now LA for live shows this summer. But I've got to say, the Ford is one of really, maybe in my career, one of the top 10 venues I've been in. It's gorgeous. It's a beautiful outdoor amphitheater. Gorgeous. There's like...

florals and like plants and greenery going up the back of the stage. Zach had the most dramatic entrance. He walked down this procession of like a hundred stairs amongst the flowers. Skydived into the middle of the canyon. It was incredible. It was Butch Queen, not her first time at the ball. So...

If you're very confused by these references, go watch Paris is Burning. These are all based in that world. Yes. We also had my dear friend, the amazing LA institution DJ Novena Carmel there. She spun a whole set to get the room hyped and it worked. It was a party. She's wonderful. This was my first time meeting Novena and I'm just an instant fan. Also, I don't want to brag,

I don't want to brag. Oh, brag, brag. But we've been talking on Instagram. Yeah, you never want to do that. And she sent me a song. She was like, I think you would like this track. It reminded me of you. That's so sweet. And it's this beautiful kind of spoken word track. So thank you, DJ Novena Carmel. She's the best. Novena is the best. She is the homie. I would say when we left the show, so many people reached out to me to say...

I'm obsessed with that woman. I didn't know who she was. I'm now listening to KCRW because of her. So she is an institution that you all are now aware of. So we love that she was able to make it. Yeah. You know, outside of DJ Novena, we also had some great conversations. We went deep into the conversations around Ozempic and the body positivity movement. So we're excited for y'all to hear that convo in this episode. And we also had the scam goddess herself, Lacey Mosley, joining us, which was...

perfect in some ways. She's so fun. What a delightful person. Yeah, it was, Kimberly Drew was at the show and afterwards she was like, who was the brilliant person that suggested the scam goddess herself come? And I was like, yeah, I was like, I think it was Sam Sanders and it was a really brilliant idea because at first I was like, what? And then when it happened, I was like, oh, this makes so much sense. So thank you, Sister Sam.

Listen, happy to do it. She really is just like the epitome of when someone says like, oh, that person is a breath of fresh air. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful. And listen, my goal in life is to just get paid to have conversations with people I would have talked to anyway. And that's what we did.

That's what we did. It was so fun. And I do want to share, Lacey, if you're listening, I took your advice. When we were in the green room, we met Lacey and hugged her and she smells so good. And she says she uses Rihanna's perfume thing where you spray it everywhere. Spray it all over. I do that now. I've been doing that. I've been doing that. And Lacey, thank you.

Well, because when you do it right, you get like a head turn when you walk into the room. They notice you. Yeah. There's a physicalness to the smell. Speaking of moments, let's get into this wonderful LA live show moment full of so many great moments. So happy to share this with you all. Let's just jump in, shall we? Let's go. Let's do it. All right. All right. We're going to start like we always do, checking in on the vibes.

Zach, sleeveless diva. You were looking at me so hard and I thought, what did I do? I saw the crossfit popping out. You're fighting with Saeed right now, not me. I'm over here. I saw love because I was looking and I was like, damn, Lena Waithe is right. You do always dress like you're getting off a boat. I'm...

That's what I thought you were about to say. Let's start there. Actually, that's my vibe. That's your vibe. Boat life. Lena Waithe. Is she here? She's not here. Okay, thank God. I love Lena Waithe, obviously. She was our guest in New York. She's amazing. That's our play cousin. Our cousin, though, got on stage and immediately looked at me and said, why are you always dressed like you're getting off a boat? In front of, like, hundreds of people. People have come up to me on the street mentioning to me that I look like I just got off a boat. She didn't just say that. She said, I just call him yacht. Yacht, yes. Yacht.

So I decided to just lean in. And I was like, I'm in honor of chapel, in honor of boats. I'm wearing a vest suit like a lesbian from the L word. Yes. That went on a boat. So there we go. So that's my vibe is boat life. But beyond that, I've been having a great week. Me and Sam were in Chicago, which was great. And we were flying back together. We're separate planes this week. And I was excited to come here to be with y'all for the LA show. My family's here. So it's really wonderful. Yay!

It's great. My chosen family is here. Kimberly Drew's here at her show at Pace Gallery. Gordon Parks is open now. So please go, everybody. Also, if you listen to our Hey Sis series, Kimberly Drew is one of our guests. The homie. Yes, the homie. So I've been feeling really full with a lot of love and it's been amazing and I'm so glad to be here.

be here in LA. But on my flight back, I noticed something that I wanted to just bring to the space today. I was on a plane and a woman next to me, a very sweet auntie, she kept talking to me, but she took a nap. And I looked at her at one point and I was like, she doesn't have a book. She doesn't have a phone. She's just riding this plane. She just took a nap and she has nothing. And I have like my iPad, my phone. I've downloaded every episode of everything. And I'm like really busy. And as I'm looking at her, I remember this term. Oh.

That I was like, oh, this is why. A term I hate to be used about this. Well, we can say this is a safe space. It's a queer space. It's a brave space. I was about to say, I enjoy it. I mean, I enjoy using the term. Oh, Saeed. Well, the term is raw dogging. Have people heard this term before? Everybody got to eat. Everybody's got to eat. Yeah. Um...

Sam is so deeply uncomfortable. The church kid just is like crawling out. I'm grinning through it. So if you're not familiar with this term raw dogging, it's a term going really viral right now on TikTok and Instagram. But it describes this new thing men are doing where they get on planes and bring nothing to watch, nothing to eat, nothing to drink. And they just ride the plane. And brag about it. And brag about it. On international flights. Although sometimes they will allow themselves to look at the map the whole flight. To look at the map, yeah. To look at the map, yeah.

Yeah. Straight guys do have a weird thing about maps. 100%. Columbus. Is it like colonization? Yeah, it's like a lot of, yeah, Magellan. Yeah, a lot of maps. And a lot of bad decisions with maps too. But I was thinking about this and I was like, is she raw dogging? Like, what's going on over here? Is she raw dogging? Is she raw dogging? Auntie. And she wasn't because she was sleeping. So I just wanted to bring that into the space to ask, are men okay? No. No.

What's going on? Besides are men okay, I want to ask a larger question. Why does everything need a new word? Motherfucker, you're meditating. They're not even doing that. I would like it if men would sit there and think about the things that they've been doing. They're not thinking. No thoughts, just vibes for 17 hours. Like, I'm good. But I just, masculinity is hard.

I subscribe to it for a little bit of my life and then let it go, obviously. It's gone. To me, it feels like it's like a certain type of masculinity has a relationship to austerity and stoicism, right? Which, you know, used to be like a philosophy.

Yeah. That's what it feels like. I just think it's so interesting that I'm like, are you really doing this in a sincere way if you're also making sure to make a TikTok? So we all know about it later, which feels like peak masculinity, right? Like if you want to do something, if you're really passionate about it, by all means, go for it. But it's interesting that they're doing it to try to communicate something. And it's so manly.

To literally sit and do nothing for hours and won a trophy for it. Yeah. I sat still for several hours and I have a word for it and thank me for doing it. Like it's so man. It's,

And it also just... That really should be a t-shirt. That should be a t-shirt. It's so man. That should be a t-shirt. But it just, for me, this is the end of my vibe check, and it affirms to me what Judith Butler argues in her books, that gender is a performance, and these men are performing their masculinity in the most annoying way. In the laziest way. Yes. If you're going to perform gender, do something. Interesting. Do something. Also, I have to admit...

It would be uncomfortable to sit next to someone on a long flight. You know, I would invariably be like, are you okay? I'd be all up in their space. I'd be interrupting. I'd be man-terrupting. You sure you don't want water or something? As much as possible. Yeah. Did you say man-terrupting? I did. I did.

I did. Oh, my God. But anyway, that's my check-in. That's my vibe. Saeed. Hello. You traverse the highways, byways, airways. You're here. A couple of alleys. Alleys. What's your vibe, my darling? Okay, so my short, cute vibe is... Okay, I'm going to reach to say something nice about L.A. for a second.

Do it. I want to record this. Wait, did you just go... Something nice you said? Something nice you said? Stand up and aspire. I'm recording. Go. So I've gotten DoorDash a couple of times since... Are you videotaping? I want to hear this. It's nice about LA. I got DoorDash a couple of times while I've been here. And are all of your DoorDash guys hot? Is that it? No? No?

Well, sister... Where y'all live? Mine? I don't know what's going on in this neighborhood over here where I'm staying, my hotel, but he went to hand me my bag of dumplings and I was like, so what are we? Like... Syed has never pressed yes to tipping on the Uber Eats app. He said 42%. I wanted to tip him. I wanted to show him my tip. I wanted to... Yes. Yes. And I am an over-tipper baby. Yes. Amen.

So, there you go. I said something nice about LA. I like that. I like that. Thank you. Thank you. You look like you needed a treat. And then my other thing is, I've mentioned on the podcast, I've accepted a one-year artist residency at Harvard Medical School. Yay!

So excited. He's so smart. So excited. But, you know, moving, ugh. And especially when it's like cross country. And so Boston has like, I think it's something like 40 colleges or something. I believe. Maybe more. I believe. It's insane, you know. And so, you know, as I was getting ready, people were like, prepare yourself. And I was like, listen, I lived in New York for 10 years. And people were like, no, it's actually worse because of the turnover. It's overpriced. It's very competitive. So I've had all of this anxiety anyway. I got the first apartment I applied for.

And it revealed something, which was that I'd been so anxious, and then I got it like that, and then I immediately had this deep sense of dread, like a well of dread. And I realized, I think, you know, when you are socially mobile, when you've made it maybe from survival into another mode, like there are these moments of panic. And it's not that I don't think I deserve good things. I know I deserve good things.

But I think a lot of us have this work ethic instilled in us. And so when something that we really are, like, bracing ourselves for, like, battle, and someone's like, oh, here you go. Like, I freaked out for, like, a full three days, I'll be honest. Wow. Yeah. And I just, I don't know. That's something I want to learn from because it's been a while since I had, like, a surprise like that. Yeah. Has a good surprise ever freaked you out? No.

It has. In that way? All of us, right? Especially in these times. But yeah, you deserve, sweetie. And I'm going to come visit and throw a party in your house. Please. Okay, I'm there. Please. I love it. And also now I'm the last one to not go to Harvard and that's not going to happen. You never know, baby. We can write you a reference letter. Oh, thank you. Oh my God. Here we go, Craig. We're going to Harvard. Well, Sam, what's your vibe? How you doing? My vibe is

I've been thinking a lot about how this summer compares and contrasts to previous summers. And I cannot help but comparing this summer to the summer of 2016. Sure. And I might have alluded to this on the podcast before, because in 2016, I was running around chasing these candidates, thinking that Hillary was going to win. Had I known she wouldn't have won, I would have partied harder.

I would have gone out more. But this summer, I'm not on the campaign trail. Thank Beyonce. Yeah, thank goodness. And I'm trying to tell myself, Sam, treat this summer like your last summer. Damn. The last summer? We don't know what the fuck is afoot. You can tell when someone was raised in the church, can't you? No. Fuck. You think these are the end times. I'm using last hyperbolically. Right. But basically I'm saying, come November, we might be back in the streets in pussy hats. We don't know.

We don't fucking know. So you better get out here and have fun. You better touch grass while you can. As if this taping touching grass is legal, do it. Let me tell you how outside I am this summer. This month, this past month, I went camping for the first time ever. Laid my ass on the ground two nights in a row. I have witnesses here tonight. Did you build a tent? Oh, my friends brought it for me. Okay.

And they fed me very well. Next month, I'm going to Montana to be outside. All right. I'm like, let me do it now. Yeah, before the Civil War breaks out. Yeah, go to Montana. The mood might change. And also, all of my energy come November might have to pivot to resist, resist, resist. Right. So let me get outside now. I think that's fair. So yeah, my vibe is treat this summer like the last summer while it's still legal. Touch fucking grass. Damn.

That's it. It was a really good summer. It was a really good summer. For our next segment, we are diving into a divisive topic, especially here in Los Angeles, which is Ozempic and how it is changing the world, but specifically the body positivity movement.

And before I begin, I want to just take a quick pause because this conversation was hard for me as someone that has been very vocal and open about my own experiences with disordered eating that if, you know, this moment you need to step out and take a break and not listen to us yap about Ozempic, please do. I think the bar's still open. Go have a drink. So with that said...

If you don't know, Ozempic is a diabetes medication that's now being used for weight loss. Currently, about 1.7 million Americans are using it for this purpose only. And that number could hit over 4 million in 2026. And certain reports are saying that once the patent goes wider and more companies can make it, we would have maybe up to 40% of the nation on it, a version of it.

And as we all know, our society has a complicated relationship with weight and body image. On one hand, the body positivity movement is making huge strides, even here in California, where they recently passed weight discrimination protections for work. But as the demand for quick weight loss fixes is growing at an exponential rate in the U.S., the body positivity movement finds itself in an interesting moment that we want to dive in today. Some big questions we want to explore with you all in the room are, can medications like Ozempic

coexists with the body positive movement and what does that look like? What does the future look like as these technologies become super available, even more so than now? And how does this industry that is pivoting this drug from diabetes to weight loss only fuel our already fat phobic culture in a new way? It's a lot to dive into, but let's start off with just Ozempic. We've been talking about it privately a lot. What was your first thought when you heard about the drug that some people are calling the magic pill? Two things.

when do we find out what the long-term effects are? You've already heard of some of the side effects that people are already experiencing. What happens when they're on these pills for 10 or 20 years? So I worry about that. But two, as someone who grew up in the South, the child of two Southerners, one of who was really good at making soul food, I felt a little sad about a pill that was going to make food not fun for people.

Can I say that? Like, honestly, I think that like one of the earth's gifts to us, one of humanity's gifts to us, one of the universe's gifts to us is the ability to enjoy food and to come together around it. When I think of food, how I grew up, it was communal. People were cooking for you and with you. You were in the kitchen, you were talking, you were sharing, you were going together. I think of my mom, she would always be like, do you taste the love? Yes. And she would cook some. Yeah. Or like when someone asks you, have you eaten? What they're saying is, I love you and I care for you. Yeah.

And so I know that we are in a culture that blames so much of people's health or weight issues on food. But I don't ever want to blame food. And I don't want to be in a situation where we are taking away one of the few unadulterated joys of this life, which is good food. And I felt weird for even thinking that, but I'm saying it out loud now. I think about it a lot.

I want folks to enjoy food. That's my first thought. What about you, Saeed? Yeah, I mean, the idea of the love of food and the enjoyment being taken away to me sounds like a punishment. And so I worry about that. There's a book that we're probably going to reference a lot tonight called Magic Pill by Johan Hari. He was obese for years and years, and he actually took it while doing research on the book. And he noted to this point that as someone, and he was an over-reader, that because part of how Zympic works is it like,

it takes away the desire to eat. You just don't feel, you know, on like the chemical level. And he said, so he experienced and many Ozempic users experienced like intense depression.

Because, you know, like any kind of addiction, right, it's often a response to some kind of emotional, mental struggle. Well, you still have the mental struggle, but now you don't have the kind of stopgap measure. And so, you know, he just said that he had a really rough day, for example, and after he started taking it and he went to KFC and he just ate like a piece of chicken and then just was like, it does nothing. And just so having to sit in those feelings.

That sounds really difficult. So that's part of it. I worry for people because of the long-term effects. But I guess one of the first things I noticed was American culture is a surveillance culture. Yeah.

And that's absolutely true, certainly when it comes to our bodies and how we look. And so just like the immediate sense of like, does this actor have Ozempic face? Oh, that person lost a lot. Let me go look at some of those old Instagram posts from that person. You know, that sense of,

I mean, it makes me think of, you know, kind of the way cis people evaluate trans passing people, which again, I mean, we can actually talk about that in a different way too. But yeah, the nastiness, this immediate sense of that person's cheating and I'm going to get to the root of it. And the surveillance has just flipped. So it felt like 20 years ago, we were surveilling Oprah and saying your arms got too big. And now we're surveilling Mindy Kaling and saying you got too skinny too quick. Right.

And so Ozempic may have fixed, quote unquote, a weight, quote unquote, problem, but it hasn't fixed our propensity to surveil. Yeah.

The body. Yeah. I mean, that's been the conversation I hear in LA at parties, at events, is where people are often gossiping about someone they know. Who's on it. A family member, a friend, a colleague, and it becomes like a snickering thing. They're like, ah, you see they're on it. They're cheating. And what they're inferring is that you're doing something wrong by taking it in private and that we're not imagining that this can also be something really beneficial for someone. Right.

we don't know people's journeys. We don't know what they've been going through and what they need to get through their own days. And I've just noticed that people are just so like ready to jump and make fun of these people. And I just don't think that's okay. As someone that has battled eating disorders, you know, it's kind of your worst fear is that someone notices that you're changing something in your diet, changing your body, and they start laughing

or saying that you don't deserve it because you cheated. It's pretty awful language to use. - And also, what do they want? They're mad if you're fat, they're mad if you're skinny? - Yeah, they're mad. - What the fuck? - They want you to suffer. - Fuck you. - They just want you to suffer. - Fuck you, asshole. - Yeah, yeah. - Sorry, piss me off. - Well, because it's never out of love. - Never. - It's never out of genuine concern. - It's like people who get mad at someone who's plus size at a gym.

What the fuck do you want them to goddamn do? I'm so glad you used that example because Gia Tolentino wrote about Ozempic and different kinds of diets and weightless for her book Trick Mirror, which is excellent. I love Trick Mirror. It first appeared in The New Yorker. But she, to this point, she said, you know, part of the issue with American culture is you're supposed to strive, but we're not supposed to see you sweat.

I think it actually like repulses the collective American imagination to see someone working hard. So whether that is, you know, someone who's not physically fit finally going to the gym and just like being made to feel so unwelcome or how dare you skip all the work again and now take this pill. Like it's so interesting. You're supposed to yearn, but then you are punished for your yearning, I think. Yep.

For the laboring, yeah. And, you know, people that have been getting punished in public for what they're doing and being open about it are people like Oprah Winfrey, who stepped down from her board position on Weight Watchers because she started taking Ozempic, or a version of Ozempic, and people were not happy with her about that. Then she did a special, which, Sam, I know you have thoughts on. I have thoughts on it. And then other... You have to tell the audience before the doctors start talking if the doctors work for the drug companies. That is so messed up. That is messed up. I'm sorry. She told at the end.

Come on now. But beyond Oprah, other celebrities like Heather Gay from Real Housewives of Salt Lake City. Who I love. An amazing person. She's been very open and she was on ABC recently being interviewed and asked about her own experiences on Ozempic because she has lost a considerable amount of weight that has become noticeable and people keep talking about it to her. And she said, and I quote, what I learned from taking Ozempic was that the body positivity movement was all a lie. Okay.

because she realized that she was being treated so much better for getting skinny, not for being on TV, not for having a New York Times bestseller book, and that her family was even being nicer to her. So it really rocked her. So what do you guys think of that framing of this? It's so troubling. I mean, Zach has shared a few articles that talk about what Ozempic has done to the body positivity movement, which is basically saying, love all bodies, love your body. All bodies are worthwhile and beautiful. It took us decades to get to that.

You know, the movement for fat rights, for body positivity, it started in the 70s. And we didn't get to the point where we could have a pop star like Lizzo until just a few years ago, right? This was a big thing and a big deal. And so on top of all of that progress seemingly beginning to be chipped away overnight, you're also losing...

We're starting to lose a livelihood for a lot of people. There are a lot of people who have become influencers by virtue of being proud of themselves where they are. And now they have this incredible pressure to become something else, to keep being able to make money. That bums me out. And I also think that if we lose body positivity around weight because of Ozempic,

What other forms of value and self-worth and love of body will we also set ourselves up to lose? I mean, I've always been a little skeptical about body.

body positivity in terms of how it's performed by celebrities. Because I'm like, it's branding. If it's able to be tipped over so easily, I think it reveals that the foundation wasn't structurally sound. I mean, let's also talk about the transness of it because it feels related to where we're trying to connect ideas and values to capitalism. Because we're also in this moment where

Trans rights are being assailed. Trans health care in particular, right? This idea of gender-affirming health is like just, it's being demonized. It's part of Project 2025. States like Ohio are doing everything they can to make it impossible for people to get the gender-affirming health care they need and deserve. But what is more gender-affirming than losing weight? Right?

Isn't that interesting? Like, when it's a cisgender priority, it's not treated in the same way, you know? But I think... I know these things aren't, like, directly related, but I think... They are. I think Ozempic is...

exposing some lies. What's also exposing that we are in this moment, and I think Chase Strangio has talked about this a lot. Chase Strangio is a lawyer with ACLU. He does a lot of amazing work around trans rights and fighting all of those awful bills. But he talks a lot about how this battle we're in right now in our country is a battle about who can be in public space.

And also who has bodily autonomy in that space. And I think the conversations, the snickering, the laughing we're having about Ozempic is also a part of that alongside trans rights and all these other things that deal with the body and what we allow people to do with their own bodies, with reproductive rights, et cetera. And I think that's what I'm really, when I look at all the articles and the tweets and talking about it, I'm like, we are really in a cultural moment where we are fighting for our bodies in every venue of our lives. Yeah.

I think so much about a thing I heard on the radio years ago. I think it was the moth. Oh, we love the moth. And there was this woman talking about having body issues for years. And then someone wiser than her said, you keep talking about all the things you're mad at your body for. Have you ever thanked your body for all it's done for you? She said, it's taken you around the country, if not the world. It's allowed you to hold your children back.

It's taken you to concerts and movies. It's eaten great food. It's had wonderful sex. It's held you when you sleep. It's carried you to and fro. What if you could just be grateful for your body? And what if that could replace the judgment? And I think what I keep seeing in this Ozempic conversation is that everyone is saying, well, because we have Ozempic, no one has to be judged anymore because we can all be skinny, but we're just judging in a new way. And what I want

is to leave the judgment behind and say, yes, when I see a body, let me not see judgment. Let me see gratitude. Let me see gratitude. I'm grateful for my body. I'm grateful for your body. I'm grateful for yours. That's what I want. I'm grateful someone has the means. Yes.

And the access to do what they feel they need to do to be at home. And like, that's part of what I'm working on this whole book. Like the idea of like being at home in the world. And it also means being at home in your body. And just as I'm like, yeah, I don't identify as trans. Like hormones are not for me. That's not what I need to feel in myself.

I have no judgment on anyone who feels that they do need that. It's the same thing. If Ozempic or going to the gym five days a week, whatever it is that helps you feel at home in your body, you deserve to feel at home. I was watching these Oprah specials about Ozempic.

the whole pitch was, it's different now. I'm Oprah. You saw me for 30 years battle with my weight. You saw me roll out the tub of like congealed fat. You saw me do this to my arms. Oh yeah. You saw me go on the diet. You saw it, but you know what? It's better now because of the pill and now look. Yeah. And on the one hand, you want to say, yeah, Oprah. Oprah says it's better now, but Oprah's

But Oprah is putting her body in front of the world and asking strangers to accept it. - Yeah. - Still. - Yeah. - Asking strangers to love it. - Yeah. - If Oprah still has that pressure after Ozempic, what is it like for everybody? - Well, I mean, sure. - I don't like that. - But also, fuck Oprah. She's doing it.

I don't subscribe to that statement from personally. I love Oprah. Zach said I will not pass up that Harpo bag. Listen, listen, I have been waiting my whole life to meet Oprah Winfrey. Yeah, we didn't say that, Oprah. Yeah, Cy D. Jones said that. I did not say that. You know, you know that wonderful documentary we talked about on the record about Drew Dixon and hip hop. Oprah was signed on to be an executive producer and then she tried to bury it at the end.

I have actually a lot of issues with Oprah and I think she's like brought herself back into the, like the way she handled like Hawaii, the wildfires in Maui. Please donate money. Please donate to help these people. Girl, you are a billionaire. Give them that money on that colonized land you're living on.

I don't think Oprah is continuing to talk about weight loss because she has to. She's talking about it because there's a way to make money from it. That's why I say... And I think that's what I want. So I think two clarifying points. I don't feel sympathy for Oprah. I am saying that if someone as rich and powerful as Oprah still deals with this, how hard must it be for the rest of us? She's responding to a sticker. And two...

What I want is a media landscape and a cultural environment where someone like Oprah just gets to come on TV and be smart about anything else besides her fucking body. That's what I want. Oprah's brilliant. She is. That's my two cents. Stedman, if you're listening.

God. A lot of the points you made are so important for me to hear you say on the stage. Something I'll share with this crowd is when Ozempic came out, I did talk to my doctor about it. My doctor is gay.

And he said, well, I can't do it for you, but I got somebody for you. Oh, wow. And in that moment, I talked to my partner about it and all this stuff. And I was like, why am I doing this? And it wasn't because I wanted to. It's because I felt like the world was pushing me to. It was because I had to sit on a stage that summer and do things like this that I was wanting this. Yeah.

And I had to go to therapy and be like, I need to do more work on checking in with myself and taking care of myself and not doing these things that I think are taking care of myself, like thinking about Ozempic for myself and running towards that. And I think for other of my friends, it's been so important for them and I'm so glad they did it. But I think what we learned from this conversation is that it's an individual choice and we should all have as many choices as we'd like and we should be supported in those choices.

And that's what I think the body positivity movement has in its future is that we will have this arsenal of resources for everyone and that we should be supporting each other. Even Oprah, Sam Sanders and Saeed Jones. Even Oprah. Even Oprah. Love Gail. Yeah, Gail's great. I do too. I like Gail. I do too. All right, it's time for us to take a quick break, but stay tuned. We'll be right back.

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We are so excited about our next segment. I feel like Zach helped us understand how much the three of us do indeed love scams, which inevitably introduced us to Lacey Mosley's podcast, Scam Goddess. Please come out, Lacey. Lacey, welcome. Thank you.

We are so excited to talk to you, Lacey. We each have come up with some scams of our own that we're excited to talk to her about. But since you are an expert on scams, could you give us a working definition of scams? How do you define it?

So the way that I define scams is that if two people enter like an interaction or a transaction and one of them walks away feeling duped, that to me is a scam. And the reason it's so broad is because... Okay, let's think about like sugar parents. I don't want to call it sugar daddy, but like sugar parents. Because that could be anybody, right? Oh, that's what we're doing. Sugar parents. And if you...

I'm inventing new language, Sam. Let's make it harder for ourselves. But like, if you are someone in a situation where you are sugaring somebody who's like sexy and fun and y'all going out right,

You're getting something and they're getting something. They want that electric bill paid. It's a transaction. And you want to walk around and parade them and maybe do sex to them. It's a transaction. Maybe even occasionally with them. Right. I've read articles. Right. But in that situation, both parties are entering knowing what they are providing. It's an equilibrium. And so that's not a scam.

There's knowledge. But there's another situation where maybe you're a sugar parent and you're just trying to support the person, but they're using you for all of your resources and you didn't realize, like maybe you just thought she was a sexy ass old bitch and...

That they were in love with your ass, but really they were in love with your bank account. And that is a scam. That's a scam. So see how those same two situations can differ? It's like about the honesty of it. It's like an equilibrium, right? There has to be a sense of balance for all the parties involved. If both sets of eyes aren't fully open.

It's a scam. Oh, okay. I thought that was going somewhere else. I'm going to steal that. No, no, no, no, no. Thank you so much. Y'all remember that different. I said it. I love it. Before we get to our own scams, Scam Goddess is about to become a TV show. First of all, congratulations again. Congratulations. Truly. Thank you.

Deserved. Deserved. As you're kind of working, I've wondered, like, as your podcast has expanded, is there something that, like, the overall project has kind of taught you maybe about American culture that you didn't understand before? Yeah.

Absolutely. I mean, all of my children have the same name. Scam Goddess, the book, comes out in September. September 10th. She is working. You know, there's a podcast and obviously the TV show, but they're all very different. Like Scam Goddess, my book, is a lot about how I didn't realize my life guided me in that way.

I'm a dark-skinned black woman, and I'm queer, and I wanted to be successful in this world. And I was born into a world that did not create rules to support me or to care about me, if anything, to subjugate. So I just realized one day, like, everything made up. Yeah. Yeah. That is true. Everything is made up. So why can't I make some shit up that works for me? There you go. Come on.

We talk about them a lot. And someone tweeted this or said this. I read it somewhere. But it was that, like, tradition is basically... Tradition is peer pressure from dead people. Wow. When I was shooting the show, though, it changed my perspective on a lot of the scams that I had read about. Like, I've never punched down on the people who were victimized. But when I started to talk about it, I realized that I did not want to use the word victim anymore.

there's such a negative connotation it's like are you a victim your whole life no you were exploited in one period of time and we all have needs which means there's always a way for someone to exploit us and when people read headlines and stuff about scams I feel like there's a lot of judgment because like sometimes you read something it's like oh this this lady just gave fifty thousand dollars to somebody who was threatening her pretending to be the police and you're like I would never do that right but my thing is is like

Because we're human beings and we have need, there is bait for everyone. And I just pray you don't find your fishermen. Oh my God. She's that girl. She's a goddess for a reason. With that in mind, have you ever faced a scam that you could share here today personally? Possibly. Tell us.

I remember in college, there was this woman, a black woman, who I ran into when I was like walking somewhere on campus. And she stopped me and she said, hey, my car just ran out of gas. My mother's in the hospital and I need to pick my daughter up.

It's a lot going on. It was a lot going on. And honestly, when people give you too many details, they're lying. Yes. Like, it's always, oh, comes Razzler. Because if they're desperate, they will just say, can you give me some money? Right. But there was something in my spirit that I was just like, let me help this woman. I had no cash on me. I'm a college student. Back then, $20 was really 20-ing. Now it's really kind of like 5-ing. Speak on it. Speak on it. But a 20 used to be something. It used to mean something. Right.

It's like a penny now. What the fuck do we do with pennies? It's like, what you doing with this? Throw it away. Paris Hilton wasn't wrong when she said she threw the change out from her purse. It's not worth anything. So I go with her to the PNC bank and I get the money out. I think I gave her like either 20 or $40, but it wasn't a lot, but I was, you know, I'm a college student. And then she thanked me and she left.

And then after that, I read in the campus police blotter that a black woman was on the streets telling people that her mother was in the hospital and they're trying to pick up her daughter. And if you didn't give her money, she had a brick in her purse. She would hit you with her purse with a brick in it. What? Where was this?

In Pittsburgh, I went to Pitt. You went to Pitt, yeah. University of Pittsburgh. My head is, a dread hit me. Oh my God. Oh my God, Lacey. I'm so glad something in my spirit, something Jesus said. Yeah. Jesus said, just be scammed. Oh my goodness. Let you be scammed. Let the scam wash over you, baby. Because if you want a brick to the head, hell no. Wow. I made the right choice. Yeah.

Damn. So she scammed me, but she ain't hit me with a brick, so, you know. Thank God. I'm shook. Okay, damn. Okay, well, now we're going to get to our scams. Gagged, goofed, and gathered. We can't beat that. Really can't. I had one. I can't beat that. Really can't. Yeah, I'm like, now I don't want to share my scam. I'm like, damn.

Do you want me to go first? Yes, Zayin, you go first. I love yours. You got a good one. Zayin did research for his scam. I did a little bit of research. He saw his paperwork. Come on. I did a little bit of research. Yeah, lick her fingers, turn her face. Since we're in Los Angeles and y'all like to drive, I was like, you know, let me find a way to shade LA. The idea was like if a favorite or a big scam, something you want to rant about. Mine is that America's highways are racist.

I think America's highways are racist. It's true. And so I just, I intuited this. I've heard some stories, you know, if you talk to your elders, like, it's not unusual to have someone in your family who's like, oh yeah, like, they totally messed up this black neighborhood in our town, building that, whatever. But I hadn't done research into this week, and I

I was fully shook because step one, I didn't realize that our interstate highway system came into being in the 1950s. I assumed it was older, but me being me, here's how I know it's a scam. If white people were excited about it in 1950, assume the fucking worst. Assume the goddamn worst.

And as it turns out, Deborah Archer, a professor at New York University, explains that in the 1950s, at the same time that housing discrimination laws were being struck down, the 1956 Federal Aid Highway Act happens.

And so... To get the white folks out of there. Well, not to get them out of there, to protect the neighborhood. So big barriers between black neighborhoods and white neighborhoods. There were so many different ways. So one thing they would do, for example, here in L.A., Boyle Heights...

The Fifth Ward in Houston, the Bronx in New York, Rondo in St. Paul, Minnesota, were all neighborhoods that were destroyed by highways. They were like, these are slums. You won't even miss them. And so by the 70s, one million people, most of them black and Latino, had been displaced because of highways. But another function of highways I didn't know was that they would be used as a barrier to

And so there are actually pamphlets from the 1950s to appeal to affluent white neighborhoods that were nervous about highways. And they were like, well, look, you know, if you want to protect your white enclave, if you allow us to have this aspect of the highway wrap around it, we can further separate you from the black and brown neighborhoods. Well, and what's so crazy in L.A., for those who know the history here, before we had highways, we had streetcars. Mm-hmm.

We had streetcars that ran all up and through this city. And the auto lobby was like, no. So it was also like, it was a bid to segregate or further segregate the country. But also it made these auto companies richer than ever. It's horrible. It goes hand in hand with redlining.

Yeah. There's so much systemic- Yes, it's absolutely part of redlining. Like, scamming that is just built into the fundamental basis of how we live. Yeah. I did want to point out there was some resistance. And first, I mean, famously, Greenwich Village. I mean, think about how wonderful the West Village is in New York. That was going to be turned into a highway and the neighborhood pushed back. In D.C., there was also really strong resistance, so much so that a famous slogan at the time was, quote, no white men's roads through black men's homes.

Like it was that much of a thing. So I just, you know, I think so often, you know, capitalism promises us ease and progress, but it almost always comes at the cost of black dignity, black lives and respect. And, you know, so highways, fucking scam. That's a scam. Fucking scam. I drove down three highways to get here. I got scammed. I got scammed.

We all got scammed on the way here. Who wants to go next? I can go. So my scam is Manifest Destiny. Are y'all familiar? Oh, yes. That's a scam, right? What are you nervous about? Okay. Okay, well, now we're going to get to why I'm nervous. So Manifest Destiny was kicked off by two men, Lewis and Clark. I argue that Meriwether Lewis is our first gay scammer. I mean, Meriwether, come on.

Yes. Like, that isn't a track name. No, you're absolutely right. Because Manifest Destiny was just them being like, God told us to steal. Yes, God told us to steal. Scam. But no. They were the original Pastor Gucci. Yes, they were the original Pastor Gucci. They were like, God told us we're going to steal all this land. Could you imagine going up to someone and being like, God told me your man actually belongs to me. It came from above. It's not at all.

Jesus said, get on your knees, Saeed. Okay. Jesus put on his chaklas and he texted me and told me that this is for me. Okay, so I'm glad we're on this ride. We're on this ride. So let's go deeper into this ride to prove that this is scammery. Meriwether Lewis, do you all know who his boss was and why he went on this journey? Thomas Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson.

Oh, and all of our dads. My dumb ass being like, Clark? All of our dads, Thomas Jefferson. We're all related to him. So Thomas Jefferson was like, hey, girl. They grew up in the same neighborhood. Thomas Jefferson didn't really like him that much. He was like, hey, girl, I got a job for you. You're going to go west. And he was like, okay, sure. Why not, mister? So as they go west, he's like, hey, you need to pick someone to go with you. And he had been in the military. And while he was in the military, he had met Clark,

Lewis had a crush on Clark.

This is the scam part. He said, Clark, Thomas Jefferson wants us to go west to explore the west. You should come with me on this very long trip. Clark says yes. So Lewis flew Clark out? Yes, he flew him out. Flewed out. Flewed out Clark. On their way west, in the journals, if you read them, it's very clear to gay people that he is trying to have sex with them. The whole time.

Not only him. What an expensive date. Not only him. Yeah, expensive date. Oh my God. Oh, we're going to get to the date part because it did get expensive. Not only was he trying to sleep with Clark, he was also like flirting with the soldiers. There's a famous moment where a hailstorm hits them as they're journeying. And when the hailstorm stops, guess what Lewis does?

He gathers the hailstones and makes cocktails with whiskey for all the soldiers. This man is also working, by the way. Going west, working. So anyway, when they get west, they get to Oregon, something happens that we still don't know what happened, and they journey in separate boats back through the river. So they had a lover's quarrel. So there was a quarrel. I don't think Clark... You just know, like, Sacagawea was writing Sally Hemings, like, girl. Girl, what's tea? What's tea? These queens are messy. Messy. Damn.

Messy. Bitch, we on several posts. So... We can't go in and steal these people's land. I'll tell you when I get there. I'll tell you when I get there, Sally. Girl. So, what's... For me, it operates on so many levels, but there is a great irony that Manifest Destiny, one of the most violent campaigns in American history, began because some queen had a crush on a straight man and chased him across the country. Is that a scam? I was going to say, we've all been there, but this stage is full of black people, so...

I'll sit this one out. How far have I gone from me? I mean, I've traveled across the country. Traveled? Outside the country?

Yes. Yes. That face said multiple times. Am I Lewis or am I Clark? That's the question. Oh, Lord. Oh, I might have been Clark back when I dated men. Oh, Lord. I'd fly them out, I'd pay for dinner, and then I started to get mad when they got too comfortable. Yes, through that. I was like, no, no, my grandmother's rolling in her grave. I have to date women now. But so is this, I mean, if we really dilute this, is a gay man going after a straight man a scam in this scenario? No.

He did take the trip. He did. He did. He flew out. He flew out. He flew out. He wasn't dumb. So scam. Scam. Scam. For sure. But also scam with great branding. Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny. Honestly, I feel like Clark took that to heart. He was like, I'm also Manifest Destiny. 100% Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny. Manifest Destiny.

I love it. Here's my final joke about it. When he got back, he had spent so much money on this scam, he was in deep debt. And then he became the governor of the Louisiana Purchase Area and went into even greater debt and then did die a few years later. Oh, damn. Deeply in debt. These queens be spending money they don't have traveling. Listen, I can't have no sympathy for him just because he applied to look a bigger ticket. Oh, my.

He was out here robbing people of their labor rights. What did you say? Ligabigatika? Ligabigatika. Ligabigatika. Okay, we have time for maybe one more scam. Do you want to do your scam? I'll do the scam. Okay.

Last year, I began to move my career into pretty much full-on freelance contract life, which meant I went from company health care to individual health care on the market. Scam. That's a fucking scam. Yeah. The first scam of it all, you Google. You say, I need health insurance. Where should I go? Obamacare, California, Gavin Newsom. Give me the stuff. I don't know.

The first 17 numbers you see aren't the right numbers to call. No. You call them once, and they call you for the rest of your fucking life. Yeah. I have health insurance now. I still get calls from West Virginia every day. That's the first scam of it all. The second scam of it all is like, you know, when I was on company insurance, I was like, whatever, check the box, take the thing. When you're on your own in the marketplace, you have to make some really interesting selections about what parts of your body...

to insure. So, if you were going to ask a kid who had first begun to understand the concept of insurance, you'd be like, "Hey kid, how do you think health insurance would work for your body?" The kid would say, "You pay a fee, they cover your body."

But we know how it works. It's a conversation for another day. I'm like, what fucking kids do you talk to like that? No, I'm just saying. Your liver or your kidneys? I'm working. Okay. I'm working. Keep at it. I'm sorry. I'll focus. So you end up...

You buy one insurance for most of your body, but that's not going to cover your teeth. You get this one for your teeth, but that's not going to cover your eyes. You get this one for your eyes, but there's actually a different doctor. He's ENT, ear, nose, and throat. And once you get that covered, don't even talk about your fucking brain. Right. We'll never pay for your fucking therapy. Fuck you. The idea that our...

Americans spend more on health care every year than any other developed nation, and we have worse outcomes than any other developed nation. We pay for three, four, and five health insurances and have shitty health care. American health care is a scam. It's a scam. It's a scam. Absolutely. And I will say this. Like, if you go to the hospital and...

You get an ER bill, if you ask them to itemize everything on the ER bill, they will take money off. Because they be like, oh, we got a Band-Aid fee. We got a curtain fee. That's $6,000 when we close the curtain. We got a stretcher fee. Like, we got air fee because we really do purify the Cedars-Sinai. Like, they will add $6,000.

So many charges. And if you actually just ask them to itemize it, they will cut a lot of that money out because they just know that most people won't check. Yeah. And the bigger historical scheme of it all, at various points in our nation's history, both parties, both sides have argued for universal health care and never got it. When we introduced Social Security...

They wanted it. We didn't do it. In the 40s, Truman tried for universal health care. Didn't do it. Republicans pushed for it in the 70s. Didn't do it. If you ask any politician off a microphone, should we do this? They'd say, probably yes. Put a mic in front of them. It's a no.

It is the biggest fucking scam. Everybody knows it. I'm done. I'm done. It's a scam. That was good. All right. We have to pay for that child's mental health care now because he's like fucking shook. He's not insured. That's not insured. We don't cover the mental health care. Out of pocket. Out of pocket.

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This message is brought to you by McDonald's. Did you know only 7.3% of American fashion designers are Black? Well, McDonald's 2024 Change Leaders Program is ready to change the face of fashion. The innovative program awards a monetary grant to five emerging Black American designers and pairs each with an industry professional to help them elevate their brands. I

I know specifically and distinctly how McDonald's can support and empower not just black Gen Z but black people. My first job was McDonald's. I learned a lot there about customer service and how to relate to people. I still love that place and go there very often. Look out for the change of fashion designers and mentors

at events like the BET Awards and the Essence Festival of Culture. And follow the journey of the 2024 McDonald's Change Leaders on their Instagram page, We Are Golden.

Lacey, the scam goddess herself, please bring us home with one of your favorite scams. Obsessive scams. So Sam and I are both from Texas. Yeah. Me too. So this one happened in Corsicana, Texas around the 2010s. There's a man named Sandy Jenkins, and he worked for 15 years at the Collins Street Bakery, which is the most famous fruitcake factory in the world. Apparently they send fruitcakes to dignitaries, to royalty, and like...

how fruitcakes was nasty. They are. Apparently, the girls be liking to eat the fruit in the cake. I didn't know. A good fruitcake is a good fruitcake. But so, he was working there and I really think he started to steal because he was handling all the finances, writing all the checks and he was kind of like a basic bitch. Like,

he would wear, like, plastic flip-flops. Um, no shade. You know what I'm talking about? Like, a grown man in a plastic flip-flop is a gorgeous thing. You're in L.A. You're in L.A. Be careful. A lot of men wear plastic flip-flops. Still. Okay, but get you a leather strap, okay? Get, get... Don't, don't get me, Haviana. You grown. Like... Okay, but, like...

He was that kind of person. He wanted to be in the country club. And you know, Corsican is a small town, so everybody's judging, everybody's looking at everybody. And so he was tired of being a basic bitch. He said, y'all not going to do me like this. So he started embezzling. Embezzle?

Embezzled. Also, the fact that a fruitcake factory has enough money to be embezzled. That's sad. Yeah. Who would have thought? Who would have thought? They were bringing in banks. Because I guess when you're the only one who provides a service that nobody really needs, I guess you get all the business. You own the market, yeah. You get all the business. So he started, like, cooking the books. Like, he was cooking the books like they were stir fry. Like, he was in the kitchen cooking the books. He would be like, oh, yeah, y'all, we need to spend $280,000 on stamps this year. Don't look into it. Um...

Don't worry about that, sweetheart. Okay? Just know that's what's going on. And so he had embezzled millions of dollars. At one point, he's- Millions of fruitcake dollars. Millions of fruity dollars. Yes. He was on the PJ in his PJs. He got into the country club. He started making so much money that he didn't even know what to do with the shit. He started buying gold bricks. All fruitcakes. All fruitcakes. All fruitcakes.

And so when the FBI caught up to him... And the gold bricks weren't more solid and hard than the fruitcake. It also, like, to me it also implies that they were making so much money they didn't even notice for a long time. Yes. Jesus. Yes. Maybe we should talk about that.

and food cakes. I don't know. And when the FBI caught on and Sandy knew he was in trouble, he started trying to hide his assets. So at one point, he was like at a lake, like a goddamn pirate throwing gold bricks and watches and stuff into the lake trying to hide it like it was like his booty. Like, what are you doing? Why isn't this a Netflix limited series yet? Like, I want to watch this. It's wild. But then when he got caught, like it's such a small town, everybody,

like, hater energy came out. They were like, so they would have, like, parties where they would watch the FBI raid the house. And then if you couldn't be there, other people would take pictures. They had phone trees. Like, oh my God, y'all know Sandy been in pencil? In pencil. Like, they...

We're living for this shit. The FBI reclaimed their home and then during the trial, somehow Sandy and his wife figured out how to break into the home. So then they were just living in this home that had been seized on the low. They don't stop. No. And I'm so proud of them. Don't fuck with fruitcake people. Wow. Shout out to Sandy. Also, that's like the straightest gay story ever. It's very queer coded. It was like gay was everywhere but there were no gays in it. As soon as you said fruitcake factory, my first thought was five check. But then...

She said booty at one point in my brain. Y'all are the fruitcake factory. Y'all are. We are. You're part of that factory now. I am a part of that factory. Welcome to the fruitcake factory. Thank you so much. I love to be fruity. Yes, yes. Well, definitely a scam. Yeah, but honestly, I kind of fucked with him because he was like, you know what? Y'all not going to let me be a bad bitch. I'm going to be a bad bitch. He did it. He just started stealing too much. That's the thing about scammers. It's about the fuck.

the fun. I love it. I love it. Well, Lacey Mosley, Scam Goddess, congratulations on everything. Thank you for joining us. Give it up for Lacey. Check out the podcast, Scam Goddess. We have an episode I did with you like two years ago all about Pastor Gucci, the embezzlement king of New York church life. Which I actually, there's an episode on the TV show. Oh, I'm so excited. I went to his prison. Oh,

Did you interview them? I went in and they was like not going to let me do nothing. But there was someone beating on a glass window when I was there. And I thought maybe it's not, it's probably not nothing. And every time I would try to step away or walk away while we were filming, they would start beating harder. And I'm like, Gucci, is that you? No!

It's Gucci. He wanted to talk. He was like, tell Slay Jones, Jesus didn't tell you to suck that man's dick. Jesus had nothing to do with him. Tell him, Lacey. You know all the private conversations I had with Jesus, okay? Okay.

Wow. I'm on the main line and he said manifest. Manifest, honey. Manifest. Screaming. All right, my loves. Lacey, L.A., we did it. So that's the show. We're not going to end before we say some very special thank yous. Oh, and can I just say, I have a live show at the Regent Theater. It's my five-year anniversary on September 22nd. So if you're in L.A., pull ups.

We're going to have a wild ass time. September 22nd. Yes. Regent Theater. Thank you for tuning into this week's episode of Vibe Check. If you love the show and want to support us, please make sure to follow the show on your favorite podcast listening platform. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts and leave a review. And most importantly, tell a friend. Tell all your friends.

Huge thank you to the team at the Ford Theater in Los Angeles. Truly consummate professionals. Everyone there that day was so on top of it and like nice. We loved it. We stand the Ford. We really do. And of course, special thanks to our amazing guests.

Lacey Mosley, and my neighbor friend, Novena Carmel. As always, thank you to our producer, Chantel Holder, engineers, Jordan Duffy, Brendan Burns, and Jared O'Connell, and Marcus Holm for our theme music and sound design. Special thanks to our executive producers, Nora Ritchie at Stitcher and Brandon Sharp from Agenda.

And of course, we want to hear from you. Don't forget, you can email us at vibecheckatstitcher.com. Keep in touch with us on Instagram at vibecheck underscore pod and our Patreon, where for $5 a month, you get direct access to our group chat, aka the Vibe Chat. That's patreon.com slash vibecheck. Stay tuned for another episode next Wednesday. Bye. Bye. Bye. Stitcher.

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