thomdunn

[thomdunn]

Exploring the lurid life of Armie Hammer on BADLANDS

My script for the Season 5 premiere of the Badlands podcast could not be more opposite from the script I wrote for the Season 4 finale. Okay well maybe that’s not entirely true — they both involved a lot of sensitivity and careful wording. In the case of Robin Williams, that was because of the tragedy surrounding his suicide. In the case of Armie Hammer, that was, uhhh, because of ongoing legal matters and some really dark sexual fetishes that I don’t want to kink-shame but also went to some pretty disturbing places.

So, ya know. Tread lightly and all. But in very, very different ways.

Here’s the synopsis for the Badlands Season 5 premiere, written by me, titled “Armie Hammer: Dirty Texts, Bloodthirsty Fetishes, and a Cannibal Kink”

With his chiseled jawline and matinee idol good looks, Armie Hammer could have been another leading man like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt. But Armie Hammer was not most movie stars. He wasn't even most people. On the surface, his life was perfectly curated and appeared picture-perfect, with no major public scandals or dirt-digging by the press. But his increasingly bizarre appearances in interviews and on social media, not to mention leaked videos and texts, led to shocking revelations about what was really going on behind closed doors. And what was going on was more wild than the untamed dreams of a Hollywood screenwriter.

You can listen to the episode below, or wherever you get your podcasts:

[thomdunn]

My new BADLANDS podcast about Robins Williams is now out everywhere!

I’ve been doing some freelance writing work lately for Double Elvis Productions, the company behind the popular true crime music podcast Disgraceland (which also just aired its 100th episode). The first of my scripts to go live is the ✨season finale✨ to the latest season of Badlands: Hollywoodland, which goes deep on the dark side of Robin Williams’ life, leading up to this tragically complicated death.

I’m really, really effing proud of the work I did on this one. It’s obviously a sensitive subject, and one that really affected me personally on a lot of levels, and I think I did a damn good job of handling it with care, without losing the delight and humanity of the story. Also, it was just a cool experience scripting within an established episode format, with a pre-existing structure and stuff.

You can check out the episode below, or on whatever podcast platform you prefer:

…Also did I mention that, right after my episode premiered, we shot to #1 (!!) on the Apple Podcast History charts?! I GOT A #1 HIT, BABY! (in the same sort of technicality way like how I sort-of kind-of have a Tony Award, but still)

[thomdunn]

“Joss was a dweeb and Joss was sharp as hell and Joss was a dick, but to me he wasn’t a toxic dick, he was the kind of dick a person is on the path to becoming someone better. I did believe that.” A few days later, she sent me a text. “Joss is a beautiful person,” she wrote. “But you know what,” she added dryly, “I’m actually particularly vulnerable to abusive people.”

The Undoing of Joss Whedon

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Whedon, 57, lives in Santa Monica, 13 blocks from the ocean, on a street lined with magnolia trees and $5 million homes. His house is open, airy, modern. He sat hunched over on a black leather couch, his fingers clicking together, the thumbs tapping each of the other digits in quick succession whenever the conversation shifted toward his recent troubles. Pale and angular with bags under his eyes, he no longer much resembled the plump-cheeked Puck who once impishly urged a profile writer to describe him as “doughy” and “jowly.” It was a perfect day in Santa Monica, as almost every day in Santa Monica is. But Whedon wanted to stay inside. Gazing through a wall of glass at his lush backyard, he announced in his quiet rumble of a voice that he was thinking of getting curtains. “The sun is my enemy,” he said.

The Undoing of Joss Whedon

[thomdunn]

The media tend to prioritize their relationships with law enforcement over their connections with communities impacted by state violence, overpolicing, and generations of trauma and governmental neglect. That’s because police give journalists information quickly and cultivate relationships with reporters through ride-alongs and press conferences. Police do all of this to control the narrative, set the news agenda, and stoke public fear so that law-enforcement budgets keep going up. And for decades, police have harmed Black and brown communities by manipulating the media with half-truths or outright lies.

Defund the crime beat

[thomdunn]

Study after study shows how the media’s overemphasis on crime makes people feel less safe than they really are and negatively shapes public policy around the criminal–legal system. And study after study shows that it’s racist and inhumane.

Defund the crime beat

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Both measures, backed by some of the Senate’s most powerful Republicans, were attached to the huge government spending and coronavirus relief package that is expected to head to President Trump’s desk early this week, effectively creating the first significant climate change law since at least 2009.

Climate Change Legislation Included in Coronavirus Relief Deal

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Since releasing the Birthday Cake Oreo in 2012 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of its signature cookie, Oreo has introduced 65 flavors, including, in the last three years alone, Hot Chicken Wing Oreos, Wasabi Oreos, Crispy Tiramisù Oreos and Carrot Cake Oreos.

We Asked: Why Does Oreo Keep Releasing New Flavors?

[thomdunn]

Facebook’s stated mission—to make the world more open and connected—has always seemed, to me, phony at best, and imperialist at worst. After all, today’s empires are born on the web. Facebook is a borderless nation-state, with a population of users nearly as big as China and India combined, and it is governed largely by secret algorithms. Hillary Clinton told me earlier this year that talking to Zuckerberg feels like negotiating with the authoritarian head of a foreign state. “This is a global company that has huge influence in ways that we’re only beginning to understand,” she said.

Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

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Facebook does not exist to seek truth and report it, or to improve civic health, or to hold the powerful to account, or to represent the interests of its users, though these phenomena may be occasional by-products of its existence. The company’s early mission was to “give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” Instead, it took the concept of “community” and sapped it of all moral meaning.

Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

[thomdunn]

Facebook is not a media company. It’s a Doomsday Machine.

Facebook Is a Doomsday Machine

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When the body of Chris McCandless was found in the wilds of Alaska in the summer of 1992 without any identification, it took authorities only two weeks to figure out his identity. A friend in South Dakota, who’d known McCandless as “Alex,” heard a discussion of the story on AM radio and called the authorities. Clues followed quickly, and McCandless’ family was soon found. Now it’s 2020, and we have the internet. Facebook knows you’re pregnant almost before you do. Amazon knows your light bulb is going to go out right before it does. Put details on Twitter about a stolen laptop and people will track down the thief in a Manhattan bar. The internet can decode family mysteries, identify long-forgotten songs, solve murders, and, as this magazine showed a decade ago, track down almost anyone who tries to shed their digital skin. This case seemed easy. An avid Facebook group committed to figuring out his identity soon formed. Reddit threads popped up to analyze the notes he had taken for Screeps. Amateur detectives tracked down leads and tried to match photographs in missing persons databases. A massive timeline was constructed on Websleuths.com. Was it possible, one Dr. Oz viewer asked, that Mostly Harmless was a boy featured on the show who went missing in 1982? Was it possible that Mostly Harmless was a suspect in Arkansas who had murdered his girlfriend in 2017? None of the photos matched. The story pulled people in. Everyone, at some point, has wanted to put their phone in a garbage can and head off with a fake name and a wad of cash. Here was someone who had done it and who seemed to have so much going for him: He was kind, charming, educated. He knew how to code. And yet he had died alone in a yellow tent. Maybe he had been chased by demons and had sought an ending like this. Or maybe he had just been outmatched by the wilderness and the Florida heat.

A Nameless Hiker and the Case the Internet Can’t Crack

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The word monument comes from the Latin monere, meaning “to warn.” Statues of Great Men are not just mementos, they are warnings from the past—including to those who might be tempted to question their greatness.

The Timelines of Our Lives | WIRED

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This is the way the world ends—not with a bang but a set of clichés that make it all feel horribly redolent of big-budget fever dreams about stormtroopers and jackboots, when the military police finally come to drag the activists away.

The Timelines of Our Lives | WIRED

[thomdunn]

The documents show Amazon analysts closely monitor the labor and union organizing activity of their workers throughout Europe, as well as environmentalist and social justice groups on Facebook and Instagram. They also reveal, and an Amazon spokesperson confirmed, that Amazon has hired Pinkerton operatives—from the notorious spy agency known for its union-busting activities—to gather intelligence on warehouse workers. Internal emails sent to Amazon's Global Security Operations Center obtained by Motherboard also reveal that all the division's team members around the world receive updates on labor organizing activities at warehouses that include the exact date, time, location, the source who reported the action, the number of participants at an event (and in some cases a turnout rate of those expected to participate in a labor action), and a description of what happened, such as a "strike" or "the distribution of leaflets." Other documents reveal that Amazon intelligence analysts keep close tabs on how many warehouse workers attend union meetings, specific worker dissatisfactions with warehouse conditions, such as excessive workloads, as well as warehouse worker theft—from a bottle of tequila to $15,000 worth of smart watches. The documents offer an unprecedented look inside the internal security and surveillance apparatus of a company that has vigorously attempted to tamp down employee dissent and has previously been caught smearing employees who attempted to organize their colleagues. Amazon's approach of dealing with its own workforce, labor unions, and social and environmental movements as a threat has grave implications for its workers' privacy and ability to join labor unions and collectively bargain not only in Europe, but should also be concerning to customers and workers in the United States and Canada, and around the world as the company expands into Turkey, Australia, Mexico, Brazil, and India.

Secret Amazon Reports Expose the Company’s Surveillance of Labor and Environmental Groups - VICE

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Touching family moments are interspersed with Bible quotes that look like Hallmark cards, hyperpartisan fearmongering and conspiratorial misinformation. Mr. Young’s news feed is, in a word, a nightmare. I know because I spent the last three weeks living inside it.

Opinion | What Facebook Fed the Baby Boomers

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In emails and interviews with The Washington Post, dozens of men shared stories about Zoom poker games, backyard cigar nights, neighborhood-dad WhatsApp chains, Dungeons & Dragons groups and Fantasy Football leagues where casual chats about sports and politics have suddenly led to deep conversations — about the struggles of virtual schooling, family illness, breakups, births, wedding postponements and job losses. The moment feels heavier and so do the conversations. Some men said their friendships have begun to look more like those of their wives and girlfriends. For the first time in their lives, they’re going on walks with male friends just to catch up. They’re FaceTiming old college friends and checking in on neighbors — not only to talk about the NBA draft picks or their children’s soccer schedule — but to ask how they’re doing.

No game days. No bars. The pandemic is forcing some men to realize they need deeper friendships.