Jon Ronson

“What did your job entail?” I asked her.

“We had a hotline,” Charlotte explained. “Families in crisis who want to be on TV called the hotline. My job was to call them back, repeatedly, over a matter of weeks, even if they’d changed their minds and decided not to do the show. There had to be a show. You had to keep going.”

Of course lots of jobs involve relentlessly calling people back. It is soul destroying—“Honestly, it was awful,” Charlotte said, “I mean, I’d been to university”—but not unusual.

At first all the tragedy she had to listen to over the phone would grind her down. But you need to be hard and focused to be a good researcher so she devised ways to detach herself from her potential interviewees’ misery.

“We started to laugh at these people,” she explained. “All day long. It was the only way we could cope. Then in the evening we would go to a bar and scream with laughter some more.”

“What kind of jokes did you make about them?” I asked her.

“If they had a speech impediment, that would be brilliant,” she said. “We put them on loudspeaker and gathered round and laughed and laughed.”

And, sure enough, Charlotte soon began to “feel removed from the person on the other end of the phone.”

***

And then Charlotte’s secret trick:

“I’d ask them what medication they were on,” said Charlotte. “They’d give me a list. Then I’d go to a medical website to see what they were for. And I’d assess if they were too mad to come onto the show or just mad enough.”

“Just mad enough?” I asked.

“Just mad enough,” said Charlotte.

“What constituted too mad?” I asked.

“Schizophrenia,” said Charlotte. “Schizophrenia was a no-no. So were psychotic episodes. If they’re on lithium for psychosis we probably wouldn’t have had them on. We wouldn’t want them to come on and then go off and kill themselves.” Charlotte paused. “Although if the story was awesome—and by awesome I mean a far-reaching mega family argument that’s going to make a really charged show—they would have to be pretty mad to be stopped.”

“So what constituted just mad enough?” I asked.

“Prozac,” said Charlotte. “Prozac’s the perfect drug. They’re upset. I say, ‘Why are you upset?’ ‘I’m upset because my husband’s cheating on me so I went to the doctor and he gave me Prozac.’ Perfect! I know she’s not THAT depressed, but she’s depressed enough to go to a doctor and so she’s probably angry and upset.”

“Did you get disappointed on the occasions you found they were on no drug at all?” I asked Charlotte. “If they were on no drug at all, did that mean they probably weren’t mad enough to be entertaining?”

“Exactly,” said Charlotte. “It was better if they were on something like Prozac. If they were on no drug at all, that probably meant they weren’t mad enough.”

You might think that Charlotte, over in England, with her ostensibly foolproof secret medication-listing trick, would be immune to inadvertently booking guests who were the wrong sort of mad. But you would be mistaken.

Hi. This is how my producer Lina Misitzis and I spent most of 2018. 

‘In December 2017 the famous porn star August Ames committed suicide in a park in Southern California. It happened a day after she’d been the victim of a Twitter pile-on by fellow porn professionals. A month later, Jon Ronson and his producer Lina Misitzis connected with August’s husband Kevin so they could piece together the story of how Twitter bullying killed his wife. 

But then something unexpected happened. Ronson and Misitzis began hearing rumors of a very different story about why August died - something mysterious and startling and terrible.’

The Last Days of August is released exclusively on Jan 4 2019 on Audible, and three months later wherever you get your podcasts:

Listen on Audible US 

Listen on Audible UK

Listen on Audible Canada

Here are a few reviews:

Miranda Sawyer in The Observer (UK)

Rebecca Nicholson in The Guardian

Fiona Sturgess in The FT

And some interviews:

With Tina Daheley for the BBC’s Beyond Today podcast (audio)

With Mark Hay in Forbes (print)

Looking through my old Frank files, I found this deleted scene. It was to be towards the end of the movie. Jon has lost Frank. But he’s been given a lead - via Twitter - as to where he might find him...

(Sorry for the weird formatting)...

EXT. RURAL LOUISIANA - DAY A GRIM LANDSCAPE of RURAL POVERTY, strewn with old rusting metal, abandoned vehicles, shacks, hungry-looking dogs. HILLBILLY CHILDREN and OLD PEOPLE stare suspiciously at JON as he pulls up outside a SHACK in his HIRE CAR. GPS VOICE (O.S) You have reached your destination. I/E. HIRE CAR - CONTINUOUS JON (To himself) Christ. It’s like Winter’s Bone. CLOSE on the details of the POVERTY and SUSPICION. Jon gets out Twitter. JON (V.O.) (With great solemnity, as he types) I’ve found Frank’s childhood home. It’s so bleak. No wonder he never talked about it. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was the victim of some kind of... Jon sighs. JON (V.O.) ...farm abuse. And now I get it. This is the pain you need to make the great music. Hashtag but is it worth it? Jon nervously leaves the car, approaches a HILLBILLY MAN. Other HILLBILLIES stand a little way off, watching. JON (His voice quivering) I’ve come to see Frank. The man stares silently. JON (CONT’D) (Beat) Wears a fake head? The hillbilly spits on the floor. HILLBILLY Ain’t no one round here wears a fake head. JON (Beat) Okay. (Plucking up courage) Except he grew up here. And he’s been sighted here. So I think he actually may be here? The hillbillies share a HARD-TO-DECIPHER LOOK. HILLBILLY He’s in the shed. The hillbilly indicates a nearby CREEPY WOODSHED. JON (Beat) Frank’s in that shed? HILLBILLY I’ll show you. The hillbilly walks towards the shed. His friends follow. HILLBILLY (CONT’D) C’mon. Jon nervously begins to follow. JON Actually, you know what, I think I’ll leave it. HILLBILLY He’s in there. I’ll show you. (Calling towards the shed) Frank. You got a visitor. The hillbillies, with a now terrified Jon in tow, ENTER the shed. INT. SHED - CONTINUOUS Lying on the floor, in the straw, is an OLD SCARECROW with a grotesque FAKE HEAD. The HILLBILLIES laugh. HILLBILLY Is this your friend? Jon politely laughs. HILLBILLY (CONT’D) I told you ain’t no one round here wears a fake head. JON Anyway, thanks! Jon leaves the shed. EXT. SHED - CONTINUOUS Jon walks towards his car. The Hillbilly follows. HILLBILLY What’s the address you’re looking for? Jon gets out his MAP QUEST print-out. The HILLBILLIES ponder it. The Head Hillbilly spits on the floor again. HILLBILLY (CONT’D) You typed the wrong zip code into your GPS. JON Did I? HILLBILLY (Pointing at the print-out) Says here 71008. You typed 71007. JON Oh, gosh.

After a year-and-a-half of reporting, our seven part audio series The Butterfly Effect is here.

You can listen to the whole season now for free on Audible and Amazon. 

If you’re having problems downloading The Butterfly Effect. THIS is what I need to tell you. Download the audible app, but then get the show for free from the audible or amazon sites. And then it magically appears on the app. It's a bit counterintuitive but after I cracked the mystery I use the app all the time. It even reads me stories from the New York Times.

But if you still don't like the sound of it, the entire series will be free on Apple Podcasts and everywhere else at the beginning of November.

Here’s a welcome note:

Hi everyone,

Welcome to The Butterfly Effect. It’s sort of about porn, but it’s about a lot of other things. It’s sad, funny, moving and totally unlike some other nonfiction stories about porn - because it isn’t judgmental or salacious. It’s human and sweet and strange and lovely. It’s a mystery story, an adventure. It’s also, I think, a new way of telling a story. This season follows a single butterfly effect. The flap of the butterfly’s wings is a boy in Brussels having an idea. His idea is how to get rich from giving the world free online porn. Over seven episodes I trace the consequences of this idea, from consequence through to consequence. If you keep going in this way, where might you end up? It turns out you end up in the most surprising and unexpected places.

So if you’re thinking, why do I want to listen to a show about the tech takeover of the porn industry, I have two things to say:

1. Why wouldn’t you want to listen to a show about the tech takeover of the porn industry? That’s a great idea for a show.

2. Would you want to listen to a show about three women destroying a mysterious Norwegian man’s stamp collection? Well, that happens at the end of episode 2. At the end of Episode 3 a woman becomes convinced that she played a part in a murder committed by an Italian priest. At the end of Episode 4 a boy in Oklahoma is forced to move to a house on the very, very edge of his town.

I hope you like our show,

Given everything that’s happened, I’ve uploaded the film I made with Saul Dibb back in the late 1990s. I've done it because of a tweet I just received: 

@daverich1 You should post the whole thing, it's an important piece of history. All the signs were there for people who wanted to see them.

This is an excerpt from my Amazon Kindle Single, The Elephant in the Room. It took place at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in the summer. This is why I think Twitter helped Trump get elected:

I never saw the avocado lady’s speech. The nights were long and grueling and she was on so late that I had staggered outside for some fresh air. But the next day other journalists kept asking me, “Did you see the avocado lady? It was hilarious!”

“What was so hilarious about the avocado lady?” I asked them.

“Oh, she went on this crazy rant about avocados!” one journalist said. “It was just this mad outburst about avocados!”

Grinning with expectation, I hurried to YouTube to watch the avocado lady’s speech.

The avocado lady turned out to be the actor Kimberlin Brown, formerly of the soap operas “The Young and the Restless” and “The Bold and the Beautiful.” She was now an avocado grower. I can sort of understand why some people found her speech hilarious. After a punishing week of relentless shrieks from the delegate floor of “DO YOUR JOB!” and “BUILD THE WALL!” a week of relentless warnings from the stage that terrorists and illegal immigrants lurk within our borders poised to kill us or rape us or run us over while driving drunk, we were skittish for fun. And there was something casually absurd about the juxtaposition between “The Bold and the Beautiful” and avocados.

But her speech was not hilarious. “As an avocado grower,” she said, “I face the impact of our trade policies. Our domestic market is flooded with imports that harm local farmers and even drive some out of business. My neighbors, who have raised this product for years, are being forced to cut down their groves.” She sounded close to tears. “Since it was announced that I was speaking to you all tonight, I have been attacked in social media with all kinds of outrageous insults. The left wants to silence those it disagrees with.”

It struck me that the plight of American farmers suffering because of trade deals was worth getting concerned about, no matter where one stands politically, and I wondered how Twitter had responded to her speech.

Someone tweeted me today for a list of my favourite podcasts So here it is.

By the way my new podcast - The Butterfly Effect - will be released in 2017.

NPR Politics My favourite politics podcast of 2016, because it is humanistic and non-polemical, although it is sad that Sam Sanders and Asma Khalid are leaving.

Keepin’ It 1600 Smart and funny, but I do resent how they told us many times with certainty that Hillary would win. 

The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast I met him once and the fluidity which which he spoke was as superhuman as his monologues.

In the Dark My favourite crime podcast since Serial. It does something that I find constantly interesting - anatomizes a miscarriage of justice from its moment of origin onwards.

Mystery Show Of course.

Round Britain Quiz The greatest quiz.

Generation Why Interesting stories told in likably soporific voices.

The Adam Buxton Podcast Britain’s best interview podcast. Americans really should listen to this. The best ones to start with are Michael Palin, Johnny Greenwood, and the Bowie ones.

Arsecast This might seem niche but I believe that people who never even think about Arsenal, and will consequently have no idea what Andrew is talking about, will still enjoy this.  

Start Up A lot of people took offense that for the latest season they’ve concentrated on Dov Charney, but I think the later episodes - where they finally dissect the charges against him - become really interesting.

Reply All Listen to their recent PizzaGate episode.

Guys We Fucked I’ve linked to the episode I’m in. I loved doing this podcast, and pretty much wherever I am in the world people have come up to me and said how much they liked it. I love that these women are not part of any clique, they’re outsiders, and they’ve made a podcast that massively connects with people, and actually helps people, and it’s very successful. The other day when I went to the gym the woman said, “I recognize your name from a podcast.” I said, “Which podcast?” She said, “It wouldn’t be appropriate to say the name in a workplace environment.”

A journey into the Trump Campaign and the Alt-Right 

by Jon Ronson 

The Elephant in the Room is a 15,000 word Amazon Kindle Single. You may not know this, but you don’t need a kindle to read kindle books. Just download the free kindle app. You’re welcome.

The book is FREE for Amazon Prime subscribers in the US and FREE for Kindle Unlimited subscribers everywhere or:

To buy for $1.99 in the U.S click here

To buy for £1.79 in the U.K click here

To buy for $3.94 in Canada click here

To buy for $3.99 in Australia click here

To listen on audible UK for £8.09 click here 

To listen on audible US for $6.19 click here

(By the way, I first wrote about Alex in my book Them: Adventures with Extremists)

The TVs at the Equinox were showing a Donald Trump rally. I plugged in my headphones and heard someone in the crowd shout out to Trump: “Are you going back on the Alex Jones show?”

“Alex Jones?” Trump said. “He was a nice guy! You like him?”

“It was a GREAT interview!” the man called back.

“Oh good,” Donald Trump said. “Alex Jones. Nice guy.”

I was so jolted by this exchange I almost fell off my elliptical. Donald Trump knows Alex Jones?

I am basically Alex Jones’s Simon Cowell. I star-spotted him in the late-1990s. He’d been a locally renowned radio talk show host in Austin, Texas, back then, but I gave him the idea that catapulted him to fame. My idea was for the two of us to sneak into a secretive summer camp in the forests of Northern California called Bohemian Grove, where powerful men like George H.W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger were rumored to undertake an annual ritual in which a human effigy was thrown into the fiery belly of a giant stone owl.

As I watched Trump praise Alex, I suddenly had an exciting realization. I had had no way into Trump’s world. But now I did. If I could somehow rekindle my relationship with Alex, he was my way in. The Republican National Convention was approaching. Perhaps Alex would be there. I flew to Cleveland.