This is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast more of what you
hear weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. He's a pioneering auto journalist. You've seen
him a lot, un hurdling him a lot on the programs like This,
American Life and All Things Considered. He has produced a new podcast that can
be heard everywhere you get podcasts, including the iHeartRadio app Shattering the System.
Basically, he covers how it is possible for criminals of all kinds to get
away with many unthinkable things and I gather Scenari Glinton. This is not just
another true crime podcast. No, it's not you know, wealthy people laughing
at the misfortunes of crime victims. And it's not looking at the crime for
pleasure. It's looking at what happens so that we can find out what what
are the sources that underlie this problem of somebody being able to you know,
two men going into your house on two different occasions and they both died in
the same way, and multiple people you know say that you know, you're
a partner is the gates of hell, But nothing happens like why, why
is why is that? And what's behind that? And a lot of that
is to do. You know, it's a tale as actually as old as
Hollywood or really as old as time. Uh, and you you have I
don't know if I'm more amazed that you have several episodes of stuff like this
or that it it seems to be an ever present problem. Well, you
know what the thing is is when you look, when you look at a
story like this, Jamal Moore and Semiptein were three people who were who died
of of meth overdoses essentially, and they were you know ed Buck was convicted
of injecting them. Right, this is we at first on the surface,
this story seems strange and unusual, right that these two men would die.
And then you look and you think, well, actually, when you stand
on a corner there and you when I do the math, and I think,
well, actually this is you know, this is a story about housing,
This is a story about drugs. This is a story about power,
And you think, oh, up the street is where John Belushi passed away.
You know, a couple of blocks away is where Marilyn Monroe was traffic
when she was a team. You know, like this this part of Hollywood,
this the using of bodies and of people. Is not jef of gay
bodies. It is of a lot of bodies. There's a trap. You
know. Los Angeles is a center of trafficking, of human trafficking and lost
and West Hollywood is one of those centers and is not necessarily you know,
gay men. But but when we look at we often don't see these things
that are just right under the surface, right, And that is that is
what this is about, Like, oh, you see this tragedy about gay
people, and it uncovers things that are really true about West Hollywood, the
Hollywood system and greater Los Angeles, one of the biggest cities in America.
And when we look to see how these crimes are overlooked, we can figure
out how they're overlooked in other places. When we understand how power works in
a place like Hollywood, we definitely will understand how power works in a place
like Pelsa. Right, those things are It's about the real important thing,
which is all politics is local. And I believe the connection to that is
all politics is local and all power is local. And so if you want
to look, when you look at these local stories, they are about power
and what and who's powerful in your community, and that is that's why local
is important. Right this man was able to influence elections with half of a
million dollars right in one of the witchest cities in the country. That's all
it took, right that. So this is this is a show that's really
about power, what is underlying these crimes, and hopefully we'll get beyond you
know this just these in future seasons. Let's hope we get to there,
that we'll get to you know, corporate crime or you know, uh,
political corruption that gets overlooked, these things that need eyeballs and you know,
journalistic brains because you know, in many ways we're running behind the daily,
daily news the things that are happening, and we're not taking the time to
do what I've always wanted to do in public media, which is deeper asked
the sharp questions and look for the connections between homelessness, the drug, academic
fentnel. All of those things come ahead right in this apartment. If you
just look beyond just the headline, you'll see the stories of today. So
Nari Glinton, the podcast is shattering the system. Available on the iHeartRadio app
and everywhere you get podcasts. You deal a lot with a man named Ed
Buck. Can you touch a little on who Ed Buck is and what attracted
the you to his story? Well? Ed Buck was was born ed Bernhard
Peter Buck Melter in Steubenville, Ohio, also known for bringing us Dean Martin
in nineteen fifty four. He's almost seventy and he was a wealthy political donor.
He made about a million dollars in the nineties and he spent you know,
over twenty years, almost thirty years in West Hollywood, you know,
becoming sort of a man about town by donating money and becoming really involved in
the founding of West Hollywood, which is only about forty years a little the
thing. Things sort of went awry when Jamal Moore, twenty six year old
gay black man, turned up dead in his an apartment and within five days
the case was closed and there were still people going inside of that apartment telling
stories of being you know, assaulted or forced to being forced to do drugs
in exchange for money or shelter or even food at times. You know,
this man was praying on a vulnerable community right in a time when we see
homelessness. You know, they have seventy six thousand homeless people in the County
of Los Angeles, and so he had a lot of people to choose from
while he was praying on homeless people while he was living in a rent stabilized
apartment. Right, this is I mean it is. This is a story
about Hollywood. It's about race, it's about power, you know, it's
about sexuality and drugs, and it hits all of consent. You can just
go through the wheel of issues that should be dealt with on your local radio
stations and it's in this story. And that that is why we figure use
storytelling to get to issues that are bigger. And that is you know,
when you have this happening in Hollywood, you know, you get the flash
of Hollywood for people that make it interesting and you see that this man was
praying on vulnerable gay black men and also that that is he is not alone,
and it is that it is a pattern that happens, that is happening
across the country. We've seen and we've seen, you know, an awareness
of the violence that gay black men endure, right when you don't have And
this part of this podcast is about representation. Right, I was often the
only black man in Congress covering Congress, I was only black man covering you
know, the auto industry for you know, like I was often the only
black man in the room, and the issues that I find frightening or horrified
might be a little different than other people's. And it might be a little
different when I cover a story about gay black men than when someone else does.
I mean, we see this because it took me years to get any
one to think it was important. We've been It was in well over four
years of you know, two years of really trying to convince people that this
is a story. And luckily, you know, we I was able to
hook up with Macro and which is you know, a new interesting product auction
company in Hollywood that's doing films like Nope and they clone Tyron and giving black
creators like myself the ability to tell stories that are really really important to my
community. And that's why I got into media, That's why I got into
radio, to tell intimate stories, to get up close and to give a
little time and not just the quickest sound bite. And hopefully we find out
about not just Ed Buck and what happened in his apartment and what happens is
to Melmoree and Timothy Dean, but what are the systems that allows someone to
do this, What allows this man to abuse is as people? What puts
these young people in this situation and how do we keep it from happening again.
Sonari Glinton, I'm very interested in what you found in relation to homelessness
because we've seen it kind of really explode in our area over the past four
years. And if there's a connection between what you talk about in your podcast,
Shattering the System, and what is happening right here in our own backyard.
Sonari Glinton, I'd love to talk to you more, but we'll have
to catch you on the podcast. Thanks for joining us, Thank you for
having Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast,
and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and
iHeart Media Presentation