Latest / DISGRACELAND / Bjork: The Package, the Fan, and a Deadly Obsession

Transcript

Bjork: The Package, the Fan, and a Deadly Obsession · DISGRACELAND

0:00
Speaker 1: Disgraceland is a production of Double Elvis. This is a
0:14
Speaker 1: story about obsession, about art, about death, about a high
0:20
Speaker 1: stake search in low down hate. It's also about love, mercy,
0:26
Speaker 1: and creativity. This is a story about a deranged fan
0:31
Speaker 1: and the musician he obsessed over Byork, a musician who
0:36
Speaker 1: made great music, unlike that music I played for you
0:40
Speaker 1: at the top of the show that wasn't great music,
0:43
Speaker 1: and that was a preset loop for my melotron called
0:46
Speaker 1: Grease Paint Assassin MK. Two. I played you that loop
0:52
Speaker 1: because I can't afford the rights to Macarena by Los
0:55
Speaker 1: del Rio. And why would I play you that specific
0:59
Speaker 1: slide of come on Man?
1:01
Speaker 2: Not the song again?
1:02
Speaker 1: Jeez? Could I afford it? Because that was the number
1:07
Speaker 1: one song in America on September twelfth, nineteen ninety six,
1:11
Speaker 1: And that was the day that Ricardo Lopez went to
1:14
Speaker 1: his local post office with a gun in his pocket
1:17
Speaker 1: and a package in his hand, setting off one of
1:19
Speaker 1: the weirdest and potentially disastrous chapters.
1:23
Speaker 2: In music history.
1:25
Speaker 1: On this episode, Obsession, Hey Creativity, A deadly package. Ricardo
1:32
Speaker 1: Lopez in the Icelandic drum 'ond Bassed Princess b York.
1:37
Speaker 2: I'm Jake Brennan. In this this disgraceland.
2:09
Speaker 1: All Byork wanted to do was create, and sometimes it
2:13
Speaker 1: seemed like all the world wanted to do was prevent
2:17
Speaker 1: her from doing so. Especially in nineteen ninety six. Buzzing
2:22
Speaker 1: about her London apartment, the thirty year old singer was
2:25
Speaker 1: attempting to piece together music that would bridge the excellence
2:29
Speaker 1: of her first two solo albums, Debut from nineteen ninety
2:32
Speaker 1: three and Post from nineteen ninety five, to some sort
2:36
Speaker 1: of as yet unimagined artistic evolution. Drum and bass music
2:42
Speaker 1: blared throughout the apartment and ceedy jewel cases were scattered
2:45
Speaker 1: about most of the flat surfaces. A giant projector screen
2:49
Speaker 1: was set up for future film viewing Japanese independence and
2:53
Speaker 1: red in stimpy cartoons. The video cassettes and books were
2:57
Speaker 1: strewn about everywhere, and her bed was upstairs, as was
3:01
Speaker 1: the bed belonging to her ten year old son, and
3:04
Speaker 1: the dad was.
3:04
Speaker 2: In the picture.
3:06
Speaker 1: Speaking of pictures, Byork's face adorned the covers of numerous
3:11
Speaker 1: magazines laying about Vox and Emmy and CMJ from the States,
3:17
Speaker 1: also from America Interview magazine with an ageless Goldie Hawn
3:22
Speaker 1: on the cover in a Byork interview within on the
3:25
Speaker 1: wall a telephone which Buorke made a habit.
3:29
Speaker 2: Of not answering.
3:32
Speaker 1: In most stories about artists, this is the point where
3:35
Speaker 1: the storyteller would say, since breaking onto the scene in
3:38
Speaker 1: the year blah blah blah, Byork had blah blah blah
3:40
Speaker 1: and blah blah blah, but Bjork was practically always on
3:45
Speaker 1: the scene. She'd broken through at the age of eleven
3:49
Speaker 1: in her home country of Iceland. Granted Iceland, back in
3:52
Speaker 1: the time of Byork's breakthrough in nineteen seventy seven, had
3:55
Speaker 1: only a population of about a quarter million people, but
3:58
Speaker 1: still fame as fame, and no matter how atomized pressure
4:02
Speaker 1: is pressure. B York's hippy parents recognized early on that
4:07
Speaker 1: their daughter could sing, and soon after a performance of
4:10
Speaker 1: young Buork's the recording of which was arranged by her
4:13
Speaker 1: parents to be broadcast on national icelandic radio, led to
4:16
Speaker 1: a recording contract and an album was released in December
4:20
Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy seven. A series of punk bands followed
4:23
Speaker 1: for Biorkis she developed her voice, a voice like no other.
4:30
Speaker 1: As the teenage Bork strolled through her icelandic Homeland bundled
4:34
Speaker 1: up on her way to and from school. She cut
4:36
Speaker 1: through the raw, frozen landscape and the icy mountains shooting
4:40
Speaker 1: up out of nowhere, and along the jagged coastline, and
4:43
Speaker 1: passed the bulging glaciers and floating icebergs, and through the
4:47
Speaker 1: fertile lowlands and over the black sand beaches. This dramatic
4:52
Speaker 1: landscape gave way to wicked winds, winds that whipped up
4:55
Speaker 1: in sneaky fits and starts that were there in an
4:58
Speaker 1: instant and then gone as soon as they arrived. As
5:01
Speaker 1: Buyork walked through this maze of natural drama, she sang
5:05
Speaker 1: to herself, and when the winds gusted, she'd have to
5:09
Speaker 1: raise her voice to hear herself, And when the winds disappeared,
5:12
Speaker 1: she'd drop her voice to a whisper so as to
5:15
Speaker 1: not be heard by any curious passers by. In this way,
5:20
Speaker 1: she developed one of the most unique singing styles in
5:23
Speaker 1: all of pop music. To hear Byork sing is to
5:26
Speaker 1: hear the voice of a true original, and that originality
5:30
Speaker 1: was born of Iceland's dynamic terrain. Just like the singer herself,
5:35
Speaker 1: Byorke's voice sores, it shoots up out of nowhere like
5:38
Speaker 1: an iceberg, and then quickly sinks below the waterline, submerging
5:43
Speaker 1: itself in the Mystery of the Deep. You could hear
5:48
Speaker 1: this style rounding into form in Buyork's first real project
5:51
Speaker 1: of international consequence, her band The Sugarcubes, a band that
5:56
Speaker 1: garnered critical acclaimed in the UK and in the US
5:59
Speaker 1: with their single Birthday and their Electra Records distributed album
6:03
Speaker 1: Life Stute Good. In nineteen eighty eight, The Sugar Cubes
6:06
Speaker 1: appeared on Saturday Night Live in the States, but by
6:09
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety the band was broken up and b York
6:12
Speaker 1: was now a young single mother, having given birth to
6:15
Speaker 1: a son by the Sugar Cubes guitarist Door Elden, and
6:20
Speaker 1: she soon launched a solo career through a creative collaboration
6:23
Speaker 1: with Soul to Soul Alarm and Massive Attack co conspirator
6:26
Speaker 1: Nellie Hooper, and the fruit of this relationship led to
6:29
Speaker 1: the release of Byork's first proper solo album debut in
6:33
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three with its massive hit Human Behavior, and
6:37
Speaker 1: the album was an international commercial success, which quickly led
6:41
Speaker 1: to more success, including the brit Awards and a collaboration
6:45
Speaker 1: with Madonna for her nineteen ninety four album Bedtime Stories,
6:49
Speaker 1: and before anyone could take a beat to appreciate the
6:51
Speaker 1: whirlwinds swirling around b York, the artist continued creating Now
6:56
Speaker 1: in collaboration with producer DJ Trickey in eight o eight
6:59
Speaker 1: State Graham Massey, and by nineteen ninety five Byorck had
7:04
Speaker 1: a second, even more successful solo album on her hands
7:08
Speaker 1: called Post. Post was in a way a perfect sophomore effort.
7:14
Speaker 1: It reinforced every promise made on Buyorck's debut. It doubled
7:18
Speaker 1: down on the sounds Buyork first presented with excellent singles
7:21
Speaker 1: Army of Me and It's Oh So Quiet, and the
7:25
Speaker 1: album solidified Buorck as a one of a kind visual artists,
7:28
Speaker 1: with her videos for those tunes, each one presenting a
7:32
Speaker 1: new vision imagined by the artist and the groundbreaking director
7:35
Speaker 1: she chose to collaborate with Michelle Gondry and Spike Jones
7:39
Speaker 1: among them. It was a vision that cast Buorick as
7:42
Speaker 1: a generational artist, a venerable pixie five foot four but
7:46
Speaker 1: full of roar and the slack generation's female answer to
7:50
Speaker 1: the Man Who Fell to Earth, but with beats and
7:52
Speaker 1: a total babe to boom by this time, Buorke's fame
7:57
Speaker 1: was not atomized. By nineteen ninety b York was an
8:02
Speaker 1: explosive international pop star. Nineteen ninety six was a much
8:06
Speaker 1: different time for pop stars than twenty twenty five. Nowadays,
8:11
Speaker 1: artists pay a premium for people's attention. The premium they
8:14
Speaker 1: pay is their privacy. In exchange for relevance. Artists open
8:19
Speaker 1: up their private worlds to show the public their authentic cells,
8:23
Speaker 1: and no moment is too sacred for some and for others,
8:27
Speaker 1: even the most innocuous peak behind the curtain can result
8:29
Speaker 1: in millions of views, like shares and new followers. In
8:34
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, it was very much the opposite. In
8:37
Speaker 1: the nineties, artists put a premium on privacy. Once an
8:42
Speaker 1: artists broke through, there was no need to open themselves
8:44
Speaker 1: up because the media at the time was completely different.
8:48
Speaker 1: Small armies of publicists and agents and managers ensured that
8:51
Speaker 1: the public saw exactly what the artists and celebrities wanted
8:54
Speaker 1: them to see. Spoon feeding publications to keep their clients'
8:58
Speaker 1: names in the public long enough to maintain continuous relevance.
9:03
Speaker 1: What canned photo ops, pre arranged Q and A interviews
9:06
Speaker 1: could only go so far. It was then as now natural,
9:10
Speaker 1: if you'll excuse upon human behavior to want to know
9:13
Speaker 1: more about the artists who inspire us enter. The paparazzi,
9:21
Speaker 1: pesky photographers, and gossipy so called journalists still exist as
9:25
Speaker 1: they always have. It's just that today they're more of
9:28
Speaker 1: a utility than a nuisance. In this digital age war
9:32
Speaker 1: for our eyes and ears, artists and celebrities court attention
9:35
Speaker 1: and thus the paparazzi for clicks, follows and relevance. In
9:40
Speaker 1: the naval gazing nineties, artists loathed the attention of the paparazzi,
9:45
Speaker 1: going to extremes to avoid their cameras and questions lest
9:48
Speaker 1: their raw comments and unwanted candids would end up in
9:51
Speaker 1: the pages of checkout line trash. So when itty Bitty
9:55
Speaker 1: Buork went full Sean penn On a member of the
9:58
Speaker 1: paparazzi in a Bangkok airport in early nineteen ninety six,
10:01
Speaker 1: attacking a reporter with her fists in front of her
10:04
Speaker 1: young son and also in front of numerous other cameras,
10:08
Speaker 1: this behavior was not seen as something beyond the pale.
10:11
Speaker 1: It was only a bad moment for Byorke, who had
10:14
Speaker 1: just completed an international flight. It was likely sleep deprived
10:18
Speaker 1: and a bit beyond herself in the moment. Buorck eventually
10:22
Speaker 1: apologized and the incident wasn't in the least bit damaging
10:25
Speaker 1: to her career. Still, the images of Buick's attack were
10:32
Speaker 1: broadcast all over the world. For culture vultures, this was
10:36
Speaker 1: a delicious peak behind the curtain at Buorck's authentic self,
10:40
Speaker 1: a young Tiger mom defending her privacy. Most people could
10:44
Speaker 1: sympathize with that, including a fan all the way over
10:49
Speaker 1: in the United States, an obsessed fan, a fan whose
10:53
Speaker 1: obsession was bending toward derangement, a fan who was in
10:56
Speaker 1: love with Byork, A fan who wrote countless letters to Byork,
11:01
Speaker 1: letters that went unanswered. A fan who had to know
11:04
Speaker 1: that Byorke knew who he was. A fan who was sick,
11:07
Speaker 1: A fan who was racist, A fan who could not
11:10
Speaker 1: accept that his obsession, this snow white picture of creative purity,
11:15
Speaker 1: was now in a relationship with the UK DJ Goldie,
11:19
Speaker 1: a black man. This demented fan believes he had to
11:23
Speaker 1: do something about this agreement, this insult. If b York
11:27
Speaker 1: wouldn't answer his letters, if Buorck wanted to debase herself.
11:30
Speaker 1: If Buorke wanted to embarrass fans of hers like him, well,
11:34
Speaker 1: then he would just have to introduce himself to Byork.
11:38
Speaker 1: He'd have to make sure that Byorke knew who he was,
11:42
Speaker 1: and he'd do so formally with a letter, a letter
11:46
Speaker 1: inside of a package, a package that come hell or
11:50
Speaker 1: high water, Byorke would open, and by doing so, Byorke
11:55
Speaker 1: would learn exactly who he was. And seconds later Borke
12:00
Speaker 1: will be violently blown to bits. Dark, syrapy and persistent.
12:33
Speaker 1: That's how the housing manager at the Hollywood, Florida Vambieran
12:36
Speaker 1: apartments would describe the substance seeping into the ceiling. If
12:41
Speaker 1: there was a smell to it, he couldn't tell. But
12:44
Speaker 1: whatever it was, it didn't seem like the substance was
12:47
Speaker 1: done with the cheap acoustic ceiling tiles. Slowly it persisted
12:52
Speaker 1: through the floor from the apartment above and down into
12:56
Speaker 1: this concerned tenants apartment. There are those moments in life
13:02
Speaker 1: when the world is one way, but then you know
13:05
Speaker 1: if you open your mouths and say what you're about
13:07
Speaker 1: to say, then nothing will ever be the same again.
13:11
Speaker 1: The housing manager didn't know exactly what the substance was,
13:15
Speaker 1: but he knew that this was one of those moments.
13:18
Speaker 1: He had to do it. One phone call and the
13:21
Speaker 1: police were there in minutes. Ricardo Lopez seen Byorke's Human
13:28
Speaker 1: Behavior video on MTV three years earlier, and it changed
13:32
Speaker 1: his life. Byork was an unimaginable beauty to Ricardo, who
13:36
Speaker 1: even to himself was an unimaginable beast. Eighteen, extremely overweight,
13:42
Speaker 1: and hopelessly unable to speak to girls, Ricardo had to
13:46
Speaker 1: some extent already given up on the world. A Uruguayan
13:50
Speaker 1: immigrant and helpless mama's boy whose mother lived on another
13:54
Speaker 1: continent in his home country, Ricardo's life consisted of unsteady
13:59
Speaker 1: work with his older brother's Southeast Florida extermination company, Miami Mice,
14:04
Speaker 1: and increasingly locking himself away in his tiny Van Buren
14:07
Speaker 1: apartment and obsessing over celebrities. Ricardo saw himself as a
14:12
Speaker 1: celebrity someday, not as an artist. Though he did paint
14:16
Speaker 1: and illustrate and wasn't without talent, he did not see
14:20
Speaker 1: art as his ticket to fame, but simply as a
14:22
Speaker 1: way to occupy his hands. In his overactive mind, no
14:27
Speaker 1: celebrity would come to him by other means. Ricardo had
14:31
Speaker 1: no desire to accomplish anything in exchange for his fame.
14:34
Speaker 1: He just wanted to be famous for the sake of
14:36
Speaker 1: being famous. MTV, tabloid magazines nineteen ninety, celebrity culture in general,
14:44
Speaker 1: red carpets, gossip disguised as entertainment news shows. Ricardo Lopez
14:49
Speaker 1: lived for all of it. More and more. He saw
14:52
Speaker 1: himself as a part of this machine, alongside some of
14:55
Speaker 1: the biggest names in Hollywood. Bruce Arnold sly naturally that
15:00
Speaker 1: Ricardo needed a celebrity girlfriend. At first, he settled on
15:04
Speaker 1: Geena Davis. She was adorable, if not terribly original. But then,
15:09
Speaker 1: upon seeing Byorke blast across his television screen one night,
15:13
Speaker 1: Ricardo Lopez fell in love. B York has been an obsession.
15:21
Speaker 1: Look at his beautiful face, as cute, innocent, sweet and
15:29
Speaker 1: shy thing. Ricardo poured his love into the pages of
15:32
Speaker 1: his diary, hundreds of pages detailing the endless appeal of
15:36
Speaker 1: the Icelandic songstress, pure as the Nordic snow. Buorke's beauty
15:41
Speaker 1: promised just as much as God does on the first
15:43
Speaker 1: day of Spring. In one day, Ricardo's love would be
15:47
Speaker 1: reciprocated Byorke would come to love him the way his
15:50
Speaker 1: mother did, but differently, in the way that Ricardo imagined.
15:54
Speaker 1: Only artists can love, tapping into the same deep reservoir
15:58
Speaker 1: of empathy and sensuality they mind for their work.
16:01
Speaker 2: Most people are puckelol, just me being one of them.
16:05
Speaker 1: If you look around you, I'm a piece of shit, okay,
16:08
Speaker 1: how dirty, sloppy, fat, disgusting. Okay, I'm a piece of shit.
16:13
Speaker 1: But celebrity giveth and celebrity taketh away. January nineteen ninety six,
16:20
Speaker 1: Ricardo's Entertainment Weekly arrived in the mail. At first, the
16:23
Speaker 1: magazine sat untouched on his makeshift plywood desk, amid the
16:27
Speaker 1: squalor in his small apartment, dirty styrofoam takeout containers, sticky
16:31
Speaker 1: empty soda cans, filthy clothes, paint supplies, old newspapers, trash bins,
16:37
Speaker 1: overflowing wet towels hanging over various pieces of cheap furniture,
16:42
Speaker 1: all of it barely masking the layer of real filth
16:45
Speaker 1: below it, all covering his entire living space, and on
16:48
Speaker 1: the walls numerous paintings, drawings, and posters of Byork captured
16:54
Speaker 1: in what Ricardo Lopez believed were better days, because, as
16:58
Speaker 1: his Entertainment Weekly had just informed him, Bjork had changed
17:05
Speaker 1: these days. Byork was dating a black man, the producer
17:10
Speaker 1: in DJ Goldie. And there they were, right there out
17:14
Speaker 1: on the town and the pages of his magazine. Look
17:16
Speaker 1: at the way he dressed. What the hell is that
17:19
Speaker 1: all about? Didn't Goldie have any class? Didn't he know
17:22
Speaker 1: he was the luckiest man on the planet to be
17:24
Speaker 1: on the arm of such a pure soul. But Bjork
17:28
Speaker 1: was no longer pure. B York was damaged. This was
17:34
Speaker 1: a betrayal that Ricardo was certain Buyorke could never recover from.
17:38
Speaker 1: After this, after being with this man, with Goldie, the
17:43
Speaker 1: purity was gone, and Goldie knew it, and now Ricardo
17:47
Speaker 1: knew it. And now Ricardo had to make sure that
17:51
Speaker 1: Buorke knew it. So Ricardo took his pen to paper.
17:56
Speaker 1: He found Bjork's London address and wrote Byork countless letters,
18:01
Speaker 1: and not one of them was returned. And this further
18:04
Speaker 1: fueled Ricardo's rage. After all, he'd given her the best
18:08
Speaker 1: of him. Why wouldn't she acknowledge him? Why wouldn't she
18:12
Speaker 1: write back? Did she think she was better than him?
18:16
Speaker 1: And there was that old song Murder. He said it
18:19
Speaker 1: was the B side to the original version of It's
18:22
Speaker 1: Oh So Quiet, the song Buorke covered and released on
18:25
Speaker 1: her second album. The actress Betty Hutton first recorded the
18:29
Speaker 1: American version back in nineteen fifty one, Murder. He said
18:34
Speaker 1: the song. Buorke must have heard that song, and that
18:37
Speaker 1: song was this situation that Ricardo now found himself in.
18:41
Speaker 1: In that song, the singer makes fun of the man
18:43
Speaker 1: pursuing her. The singer thinks her suitor is beneath her
18:47
Speaker 1: because of the way that he talks. Murder, he says,
18:50
Speaker 1: like some classless buffoon, not knowing how to converse in
18:53
Speaker 1: polite society.
18:54
Speaker 2: That's what this was.
18:56
Speaker 1: Buorke, the celebrity, Buyork, the famous artist, York, the stylish
19:01
Speaker 1: white songster was fashionably dating the black DJ thought Ricardo,
19:05
Speaker 1: the part time exterminator, he was the classless buffoon in
19:09
Speaker 1: this situation, and that must have been it, just like
19:12
Speaker 1: that old song. Yes, just like that. He was beneath her.
19:16
Speaker 1: But how could she think that way? Byorke didn't know him.
19:20
Speaker 1: Byorke didn't know what made him think the way he thought,
19:22
Speaker 1: or love the way he loved. How could she she
19:26
Speaker 1: didn't return his fucking letters? Did she even read them?
19:29
Speaker 1: Did she even care at all about him? Why? Why
19:32
Speaker 1: didn't she return his letters? Ricardo Lopez slipped into madness
19:37
Speaker 1: and thought murder. He said, Okay, then one final letter
19:43
Speaker 1: to my love. I am are old angel of death
19:49
Speaker 1: for her. The authorities thanked the housing manager for making
19:54
Speaker 1: the call and politely asked him to vacate the premises,
19:57
Speaker 1: but not to go too far in case they needed
19:59
Speaker 1: him for anything else. The lead crime scene investigator saw
20:03
Speaker 1: the video camera set up in Ricardo's apartment, and he
20:06
Speaker 1: immediately delegated a junior officer to start reviewing the tape
20:09
Speaker 1: to get to the bottom of just what the fuck
20:11
Speaker 1: it was that had happened in this hell hole of
20:13
Speaker 1: an apartment over the past few days. In no time,
20:17
Speaker 1: the authorities discovered on that tape a reality far worse
20:21
Speaker 1: than the horror show they were currently standing. Smack dab
20:23
Speaker 1: in the middle of. One of the camera's videotapes revealed
20:27
Speaker 1: that Ricardo Lopez had indeed drafted one final letter to
20:31
Speaker 1: his love to the international pop star Buyork, and that
20:35
Speaker 1: Ricardo Lopez had placed that letter in a box which,
20:38
Speaker 1: upon opening would trigger an explosive device that would spray
20:42
Speaker 1: deadly sulfuric acid all over Byorke's face. Before this happened, though,
20:48
Speaker 1: Buorke would know from the letter in the box who
20:51
Speaker 1: Ricardo Lopez was, and that was the point she had
20:54
Speaker 1: to know before Buorke died. She had to know who
20:58
Speaker 1: he was. And now it was only a matter of
21:00
Speaker 1: time before that happened, because that letter and that letter
21:04
Speaker 1: bomb that package was on its way via international mail
21:08
Speaker 1: the Buork's London apartment, and it would arrive and no
21:11
Speaker 1: more than four days.
21:19
Speaker 3: We'll be right back after this.
21:21
Speaker 4: We're, we're, we're.
21:26
Speaker 1: What you're about to hear is the actual audio from
21:29
Speaker 1: Ricardo Lopez and the moments before mailing his letter bombed
21:32
Speaker 1: to B York.
21:35
Speaker 2: Package.
21:36
Speaker 1: Package will be sent to her when she is there.
21:42
Speaker 2: Okay, she's going to receive the package.
21:44
Speaker 1: Oh. On September twelfth, nineteen ninety six, Ricardo Lopez mailed
21:51
Speaker 1: his package bombed to B York USPS Express mail takes
21:56
Speaker 1: about three to five days to deliver a package from
21:58
Speaker 1: Southeast Florida to London, England, aside from a gig at
22:02
Speaker 1: Webley Stadium. On September thirteenth, nineteen ninety six, New York,
22:06
Speaker 1: was not scheduled to be anywhere but home in her
22:07
Speaker 1: London apartment with her young son. Over the course of
22:10
Speaker 1: the next week, the clock was ticking. Florida police, who
22:15
Speaker 1: had discovered the existence of the bomb and pieced together
22:17
Speaker 1: its intended target across the pond, notified New Scotland Yard. Immediately,
22:22
Speaker 1: New Scotland Yards sprung into action. A specialist operations group
22:27
Speaker 1: is assembled to counter this potential crime of terrorist obsession.
22:31
Speaker 1: The only problem was that at the moment, with the
22:33
Speaker 1: package in transit, there was little investigators could do to
22:36
Speaker 1: thwart this deadly threat except wait and pray. With the
22:40
Speaker 1: package tucked away in a cargo plane high above the
22:43
Speaker 1: Atlantic Ocean, authorities went to work and forming local London
22:46
Speaker 1: mail sorting stations of the situation and what type of
22:49
Speaker 1: package to be on the lookout for. They did not
22:52
Speaker 1: inform Byork. Authorities were confident they'd locate and destroy the
22:56
Speaker 1: deadly package long before it reached its destination. Decided, for
23:00
Speaker 1: the time being, anyway, that there was no need to
23:03
Speaker 1: notify Byork of the impending danger. If any pesky journalists
23:06
Speaker 1: or paparazzi were to find out, it would be a
23:09
Speaker 1: much bigger, much harder to control public crisis. For now,
23:14
Speaker 1: the situation seemed contained, but time was of the essence.
23:19
Speaker 1: After her Wembley Stadium gig, Byork settled into her cozy
23:23
Speaker 1: apartment with her son for a couple of days off,
23:26
Speaker 1: investigators got a lead on which plane the package might
23:29
Speaker 1: be arriving on. A bomb squad was dispatched to heathrow
23:32
Speaker 1: An Airport. The plane was surged and nothing. No sign
23:39
Speaker 1: of the package, no sign of a bomb. At the
23:43
Speaker 1: same time, Byork and her son went about their daily
23:46
Speaker 1: routine in her apartment, oblivious, completely unaware of the threat
23:51
Speaker 1: against her life. You see all that damage, that's sulfuric, guys,
23:58
Speaker 1: ninety six percent. I burned myself a little bit in
24:02
Speaker 1: the tongue because I wanted to fight blue. And this
24:04
Speaker 1: is so your guests, that that was diluted big.
24:06
Speaker 2: Ten with water. Instantly it touched me. Now I washed
24:10
Speaker 2: it off real good. It takes time.
24:13
Speaker 1: For this shit to burn, at least a minute.
24:15
Speaker 2: To do some serious davenue.
24:20
Speaker 1: New Scotland Yard dispatched investigators to London sorting stations where
24:24
Speaker 1: mail passed through on its way to Byork's neighborhood. The
24:28
Speaker 1: package was now either on a truck heading from the
24:30
Speaker 1: airport closer to a sorting station, or in the mail
24:34
Speaker 1: bag of a postal worker on its way to Byork's house. Finally,
24:38
Speaker 1: authorities moved to inform Byork, but as of yet there
24:42
Speaker 1: was no confirmation that Buorck had actually been contacted. It
24:46
Speaker 1: was just before four pm on September sixteenth, nineteen ninety six,
24:50
Speaker 1: not quite tea time at Byork's, but it was time
24:54
Speaker 1: to check the mail.
25:10
Speaker 2: All all.
25:22
Speaker 1: September sixties, nineteen ninety six, Bjork and her son remain
25:27
Speaker 1: at home, absorbed in the lethargy that a rare off
25:30
Speaker 1: day provides, reading, watching films on the projector, listening to music, daydreaming,
25:36
Speaker 1: drinking tea. All is calm, All is peaceful. There is
25:42
Speaker 1: no hint of the world shattering destruction making its way
25:45
Speaker 1: to Bjork's apartment. Out on the streets of London New
25:50
Speaker 1: Scotland Yard authorities are frantically trying to weave through traffic
25:54
Speaker 1: to get to Bjorg in time before the bomb does
25:57
Speaker 1: and warn her of the threat. Authorities have also just
26:00
Speaker 1: upon mail sorting stations and are frantically searching for the
26:03
Speaker 1: package from Ricardo Lopez. Back in America, US authorities were
26:08
Speaker 1: still piecing together Ricardo Lopez's madness. Some people give and
26:16
Speaker 1: some people take. Ricardo Lopez felt that he had given
26:19
Speaker 1: the best of himself to Byork and she'd taken plenty
26:22
Speaker 1: and given back nothing. This was, of course insanity. Buorke
26:27
Speaker 1: had no idea who Ricardo Lopez was, or that he'd
26:30
Speaker 1: been trying to contact her, or that he felt aggrieved
26:33
Speaker 1: in any way, and had she known any of this.
26:36
Speaker 1: She was under no obligation to give Ricardo Lopez anything.
26:39
Speaker 1: In fact, Byorke had given plenty. She was an artist,
26:44
Speaker 1: a prolific artist, not some charlatan who worked her way
26:47
Speaker 1: up the creative arts ladder of success and manufactured pap
26:50
Speaker 1: for shock value, fabricating headline news every couple months to
26:53
Speaker 1: keep the journalists and paparazzi hooked in order to maintain
26:56
Speaker 1: a certain level of relevance. Instead, York was constantly creating.
27:02
Speaker 1: She constantly walked through the world, thinking about the next
27:04
Speaker 1: bit of music she was going to make, the next
27:06
Speaker 1: image she was going to subvert, the next statement she
27:09
Speaker 1: was going to drop. She was forever absorbing other people's music, films, books, fashion,
27:14
Speaker 1: processing it all and finding ways to take elements to
27:16
Speaker 1: improve upon, to break down, to discard, and then tapping
27:20
Speaker 1: into the greater infinite intelligence to create her own music
27:23
Speaker 1: and art, art that was truly novel. This is love
27:29
Speaker 1: to create, to bring something new into the world that
27:31
Speaker 1: brings joy to others, or that provokes thought, or that
27:34
Speaker 1: compels some other sort of positive action as an act
27:37
Speaker 1: of love. It's one of the most impactful things we
27:40
Speaker 1: as humans can do in this world. Monsters do the opposite.
27:45
Speaker 1: Monsters destroy, Monsters take.
27:49
Speaker 2: I want'll be the biggest influence on her life.
27:51
Speaker 4: That the most important person would change your life more
27:55
Speaker 4: than anybody else.
27:56
Speaker 2: We live in the world of monsters. Do you understand that.
28:03
Speaker 1: On September sixteenth, nineteen ninety six, five days after Ricardo
28:07
Speaker 1: Lopez mailed his lethal package to Bjork's London apartment, Byork
28:12
Speaker 1: decided it was time to retrieve her mail. She headed
28:15
Speaker 1: out her front door and walked leisurely down the path
28:18
Speaker 1: to her mailbox, and the sun burned back the London overcast,
28:22
Speaker 1: and the birds above sang over the sounds of rush
28:25
Speaker 1: hour traffic, traffic that authorities were stuck in. Authorities who
28:30
Speaker 1: were desperately trying to reach Buorick and warn her about
28:32
Speaker 1: the impending threat on her life at the hands of
28:34
Speaker 1: an obsessed madman. After Ricardo Lopez mailed his letter bomb
28:39
Speaker 1: to Byork, he returned to his apartment. He shaved his head.
28:43
Speaker 1: He took red and green grease paint and painted his
28:46
Speaker 1: bald skull and face a la Martin Sheen's captain Benjamin
28:50
Speaker 1: Willard in Apocalypse, now snaking his way up the river
28:53
Speaker 1: toward the unimaginable and on her way to her mailbox,
28:58
Speaker 1: Byork was taking a completely different path. And back in
29:02
Speaker 1: Ricardo's apartment, Ricardo shaved and painted for battle. Stripped down,
29:07
Speaker 1: he grabbed his gun, certain he'd accomplished all he would
29:11
Speaker 1: in this life, and then Ricardo put Byork's song I
29:15
Speaker 1: Remember You on full blast. Ricardo looked into the camera.
29:20
Speaker 1: Ricardo breathed heavily in quick burst to juice his resolve.
29:24
Speaker 1: Buyorck blared in the background. Ricardo put the gun in
29:28
Speaker 1: his mouth. Ricardo drew quicker, heavier breaths, psyching himself up
29:33
Speaker 1: for what was to come. Then b York stopped singing.
29:38
Speaker 1: The song had ended. It all ended. As the camera
29:42
Speaker 1: rolled Ricardo Lopez bit down on the barrel of his
29:46
Speaker 1: thirty eight caliber revolver and pulled the trigger. Once at
29:55
Speaker 1: her mailbox, b York held the package in her hands,
30:00
Speaker 1: contemplated it, what it meant, who it was intended for,
30:04
Speaker 1: and why it needed to be sent, its impact when received,
30:08
Speaker 1: and what people would think. And that didn't matter so much.
30:13
Speaker 1: What mattered was how they felt, how they felt now,
30:16
Speaker 1: and how they felt in the future. This wasn't some
30:19
Speaker 1: grand gesture or a work of art. It was just
30:22
Speaker 1: a package, a letter accompanying the flowers that she was
30:27
Speaker 1: sending to the family of Ricardo Lopez, expressing her condolences
30:32
Speaker 1: for the loss of their son, who had just killed
30:35
Speaker 1: himself while trying to kill her. That dark syrapy persistent
30:41
Speaker 1: substance seeping down through the ceiling of one unlucky tenant's
30:44
Speaker 1: apartment back in Hollywood, Florida. That substance that was reported
30:48
Speaker 1: to authorities by the Van Buren apartment's housing manager. That
30:52
Speaker 1: was Ricardo Lopez's blood. Five days earlier, Ricardo Lopez had
30:58
Speaker 1: videotaped his own suicide hours after mailing the package he
31:02
Speaker 1: intended to kill Byork with. Upon discovering Lopez's body. The
31:08
Speaker 1: authorities in Florida discovered a video camera on a stand
31:11
Speaker 1: just a few feet from the corpse, as well as
31:13
Speaker 1: the previously mentioned trove of recorded videotapes. When they reviewed
31:17
Speaker 1: the tapes, they saw Ricardo Lopez and all of his
31:20
Speaker 1: madness unraveling into a storm of murderous rage, hell bent
31:24
Speaker 1: on killing Buyork. The tapes revealed the exact date and
31:28
Speaker 1: time Ricardo mailed his package, and from there the authorities
31:32
Speaker 1: were able to trace, track down, and ultimately destroy the
31:35
Speaker 1: package before it got to Buorke. Byorke, of course, lived
31:42
Speaker 1: and continues to create and remains a relevant artist to
31:45
Speaker 1: this day. Ricardo Lopez chose a different path, hate and destruction,
31:52
Speaker 1: and he died in disgrace. I'm Jake Brennan in this this.
31:59
Speaker 3: Disgrace Land, all right, hope you dug this episode.
32:15
Speaker 1: Apple podcast listeners, make sure you have auto downloads turned
32:18
Speaker 1: on so you.
32:19
Speaker 3: Never missed an episode of Disgrace sad.
32:20
Speaker 4: This week's question of the week is what is the
32:23
Speaker 4: wildest story of fan obsession.
32:26
Speaker 1: From music and or Hollywood history? All Right? Was it
32:29
Speaker 1: York's Ricardo Lopez or was it someone else?
32:31
Speaker 3: Six?
32:31
Speaker 4: One, seven, nine, oh six six six three eight, Leave
32:34
Speaker 4: me a voicemail, send me a text to be a
32:36
Speaker 4: part of the show. We play and read some of
32:37
Speaker 4: your answers on the after party bonus episode coming up
32:40
Speaker 4: right after this in your feed. You can also hit
32:42
Speaker 4: me on Instagram, Facebook, x and disgracelampod at gmail dot com.
32:46
Speaker 4: Leave a review for the show on Apple Podcasts or
32:48
Speaker 4: Spotify and you might win.
32:49
Speaker 1: Some free merch All right, here comes some credits. Disgraceland
32:54
Speaker 1: was created by Yours Truly and is produced in partnership
32:56
Speaker 1: with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode. It can be
32:59
Speaker 1: found on the show show notes page at disgracelampod dot com.
33:03
Speaker 1: If you're listening as a disgracelan All Access member, thank
33:06
Speaker 1: you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it. And
33:09
Speaker 1: if not, you can become a member right now by
33:11
Speaker 1: going to disgracelampod dot com slash Membership members can listen
33:16
Speaker 1: to every episode of disgracelan ad free, Plus you'll get
33:19
Speaker 1: one brand new exclusive episode every month, weekly unscripted bonus episodes,
33:24
Speaker 1: special audio collections, and early access to merchandise and events.
33:29
Speaker 1: Visit disgracelampod dot com slash membership for details, rate and
33:33
Speaker 1: review the show, and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter,
33:36
Speaker 1: and Facebook at disgracelampod and on YouTube at YouTube dot
33:40
Speaker 1: com slash at disgracelaandpod Rock a Rolla. He Thedann