Scrubbed - The Brad Pitt Story He Never Wants You To See

Scrubbed - The Brad Pitt Story He Never Wants You To See - YouTube

Transcripts:
Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the podcast. Today I want to talk to you about something that is absolutely crazy. I have talked about Brad Pitt on here before and I've talked about how he has scrubbed some things off the internet, but this one is the ultimate scrubbing from the internet. It is absolutely mind-blowing.
 So, if you Google Brad Pitt lived with a man, you will get some results. It'll be him talking about Jason Priestley. And Jason Priestley and Brad Pitt used to be roommates back in the day for a short period of time, but that's all you'll get. If you Google Brad Pitt lived with a gay man, then you will you get things just like how Brad and Angelina Jolie were LGBTQ friendly.
 now because of a podcast that Brad did and Dax Shepard asked him, "Oh, you know, did were you ever with a guy?" And Brad goes, "No, I missed that window." So that's generally what you'll get. Now, if you Google Brad Pitt lived with a soap opera star, then you'll get something like that stars that started on soaps.
 Okay? If you Google Brad Pitt lived with a gay soap opera star, you'll either get that result or again you'll be directed to the Dax Shepard interview. If you Google Brad Pitt lived with gay soap opera star agent, you get the same result. You have to know the guy's name that Brad Pitt lived with. And even then, that's not usually enough.
 Sometimes it is. Like if you do it today with that guy's name, you'll get like a Reddit thing or something like that, but most of the time you get nothing. So there's this guy named Tom Rina, and it's spelled th ho m. And here's his biography. You know him from a TV writer on General Hospital, the famed Luke and Laura's Wedding Storyline, as well as author of several novels, including The Mad Man's Diary.
And did you know that Tom would eventually be credited with giving his roommate, a struggling actor named Brad Pitt, his first acting job? He also recalls Pit asking him to suggest a scary book after finishing Rena's copy of Interview with a Vampire. He expressed that he didn't care much for it.
 Pit, of course, would later star in a movie based on the novel in 1994. On June 4th, 1946, Thomas Frank Rossina was born in Kenosha. He left the Midwest after graduating high school to pursue a higher education. First in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and finally in Chicago, where he earned his master of fine arts and theater arts and directing from the Goodman School of Drama at the Art Institute.
 To help finance college, he wrote books simply to earn money. Books that he didn't even want recognition for. Tom Rina, as his professional name came to be, wrote westerns, romances, porn, or whatever else the publisher paid him for. He moved up to mainstream publishing with a takeoff on the happy hooker my own story by Xavier Hollander called The Happy Hustler which he wrote entirely in one weekend.
 The novel ended to being successful selling 3 million copies and spawning three sequels. Next, Rena turned to ghostwriting three books for Hollander, made up life stories for Ivory soap girl turned adult star Marilyn Chambers and Fanny Fox, and turned out 25 novelizations of TV shows and major motion pictures. In his career, Rine has been published by Warner, Dell, Berkeley, Ace, Putnham, and Penguin, authoring 157 books before his own breakthrough success in novel writing.
 And the breakthrough came in 1977, was called The Great Los Angeles Blizzard. Rights were purchased by Irwin Allen to adapt it to the big screen, but the cost estimates for the film were too high for it to be profitable. Rena took a 19-year hiatus after this novel to work on writing for TV. He gave the world 4,000 broadcast hours of Search for Tomorrow, General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, Another World, Generations, and Santa Barbara.
 Besides writing for the much acclaimed nighttime series, Family as a writer for the soaps, Rena received five Emmy nomination for Days of Our Lives in General Hospital, won specifically for Luke and Laura's Wedding on General Hospital, the single highest rated episode in daytime history. 30 million people tuned in. He also worked in Hamburg in Toronto writing Family Passions, a Canadian German production.
 Of his years writing for TV, Rena said on his website it was a treadmill, but so much fun to play God. From busy years spent writing for TV, Rena grew tired of the Los Angeles scene. He returned to life as a novelist and moved to Palm Springs. It was not difficult for him to get back into the swing of writing thriller novels with Snow Angel being published shortly after in 1996.
 He also wrote Hidden Agenda, Secret Weekend, The Mad Man's Diary. He said, "I'm a vampire." He told Palm Springs Life he prefers the quiet and solitude of the early hours of the morning for writing. He then retires to bed after the sun rises. Unlike a true vampire though, he gets up at noon and goes out among people whom he enjoys talking with.
 Rena attend more than 100 book signings a year, including weekly appearances at Village Fest every Thursday evening in Palm Springs, which is a great time by the way. Sells as many as a 100 books in one evening. He also often happens to be in the right place at the right time to sell his novels. Rena walked into a Costco store in San Francisco for bread and tequila one day and signed 30 books in 10 minutes after he noticed his book on display.
 In another instance, he was at O'Hare airport in Chicago where he saw his books lining three shelves in a store. I was on top. John Gisham was down near the bottom and I had never seen that. I said, "Where's the manager? Where's the manager?" After the manager identified himself, Reina reportedly asked him, "Can I kiss your feet?" As the two talked, a crowd gathered and Reena ended up signing 30 books.
 I almost missed my plane. He calls his 2001 novel, The Mad Man's Diary, a love letter to his home in Palm Springs. It's filled with references to local places and people, though the idea came from his brother, who still lived in Kenosha. Okay. Now, what about Tom and Brad Pitt? There was a story that used to be on Tom's website, but it's not there any longer.
 And it's this OG story, and it was an interview with We Love Soaps. And they asked, "How did you know Brad Pitt?" And he said, "I put up a little sign at Screen Actors Guild that said needed an actor to be a personal assistant to walk the dog when he needed it, drive the scripts to the studio. This kid shows up. He's cute. He's full of energy and says, "I'm an actor," which of course they all are in LA.
 So, I hired him. We became very close. He moved in with me in the maid's room. He had his own life. And yet, we became good buddies. My parents loved him. They became the new family he had away from Missouri. Anyway, I came home from days early one day just in the last few months.
 I saw him doing this scene with this girl in my living room. An acting scene. Yes. Right. I did see him do some other scenes in other various parts of the house, too. So, I went to another world a few months later. I settled into New York. I said to them, "I've got this terrific kid. He can play 18 even though he's 23.
 We can give him a two-year story." And I wrote a two-year story for him. They brought him to New York and he did the one day in another world. Then we sat down with the idiots around the table. Proctor and Gamble, NBC, and one after another they said he can't act. He's not good-looking. Maggie Depri said he had bad skin.
 Finally, at the end, I turned to John Whitel and said, "Give me this." He said, "I know he's your buddy, but I've got to tell you, Tom, this kid sucks. He'll never be an actor. Tell him to go be a plumber." I had to go home and tell him. He cried and I hugged him. I said, "Listen, a-hole, you're now going to be able to audition because before you didn't have a SAG card.
 Now you've got it. You did one day and you've got it. This is my gift to you. Now go out and prove me right. And he did. Had they liked him, he would have been a soap star forever. The universe works in mysterious ways. By the way, Tom Rino also found an h, which I'm going to do an episode on here in the next few days.
 Now, there is a revised story to the one I just read you, and said, "Okay, so this sweating kid shows up late for the interview. I needed a house boy, man. Friday secretary someone to walk the dog and clean the pool. But he says to me, "I'm going to be a movie star. I just got here from Springfield, Missouri. I need this job.
" I was from Wisconsin, just up the river, so to speak. He was cute, energetic, and didn't seem flaky. I hired him. His name was Bran Pit. He moved in for almost 2 years, and we had a good friendship. He worked hard, but the job was loose, giving him time to study acting and to audition. So, it was a good partnership as well. He loved my dog Hershel. Walked him every night.
Missed his girlfriend back in Missouri. She came to visit. I gave them my house in Palm Springs for the weekend. He cried when she left. They broke up right after that. Hated his complexion. Wrote poetry, some I still have, and dreamed of becoming a movie star. I let him do a scene for me one afternoon in the living room of the house in Los Feliz, and he was really good.
 I thought, "This guy has more talent than I knew I wanted to help him." He was having trouble getting work because he needed a sag card and it was frustrating to him. He was tired of dressing up in a chicken suit, a job he'd actually held and wanted to act to make money and clean my pool. I was writing another world back then, flying to New York a lot.
 So, I told the producers that I had this kid I thought was quite talented and that I wanted to give him a chance. I developed a one-day part for him, a basketball player that a bitter John Hudson meets when he returns to his high school after Vietnam. a kid full of life that reminds him of himself. Brad was thrilled.
 We flew him to New York. His first time being treated like a star, I guess, and he did a wonderful job. A few days later, I sat down with the producers to discuss giving him a long-term contract. He's not appealing. This 180 woman from Proctor and Gamble said, "No talent." Another piped in. The producer said, "Didn't do much for me, so I had to fly home and tell Brad it wouldn't happen.
" Which devastated him, but there was a blessing in it. Had these morons in their infinite wisdom not rejected him, he would have been a soap star and nothing more. He got his after card from being the show which led to a SAG card and the rest is history. He was a good friend, supportive as I was going through some hell with personal relationships as he was too.
 I remember the way he leaped into the air when he got the call that he got cast on Dallas and then leaped in my arms and knocked us both over onto the dog and we laughed and laughed. The thing is I believed in him kind of feel I discovered him, pat myself on the back. I constantly encouraged him when he felt down. Reminded him that breaking into the business isn't easy.
 I knew it was going to take more than talent and drive. He'd need a lucky break, a serendipitous moment. He got that playing the cowboy and Thelma and Louise. He didn't have the body then that he had when I saw him in The Thelma and Louise. Boy, did I feel amazed and proud when I saw him do that. Brad comes up to my bedroom one night and asks if I have a book to read. Duh.
The house is filled with books. He wants something scary. I give him one. And two weeks later, he returns it, saying he didn't care for it much. I remembered the title when years later I sat there watching him in the movie version. Yes, interview with the vampire. No, I haven't heard from him in years.
 He got famous and famous people have layers of people protecting them. I guess from old friends. I wrote Snow Angel because of him with him in mind. He said he would love to one day play the part of a psycho like Ted Bundy, a great guy you'd never suspect of having such a dark side. He was always attracted to characters like that, thus Fight Club.
And with that in mind, I created Matthew Henson. Trouble was, by the time it was published, I couldn't even get it to someone to get Brad to read it. He'd become the movie star. I missed him for he was a terrific friend and almost felt like family. He spent his Thanksgivings with mine and everyone in my family still tells people how Brad Pitt drove them in from the airport and stuff like that. But life goes on.
 It's strange to me that in every interview he's ever given and every silly biography him that I've ever seen, he never mentions me or the two years he was with me, some manager gets credit for putting him on another world. Odd. If someone knows the reason, let me know. Also curious, in the years he lived with me, he never once let anyone take his picture.
 All the family gatherings and pool parties and stuff that he was a major part of, he'd run the minute someone pulled out a camera. This from a guy who makes his living in front of the cameras. Go figure. People come into your life for various reasons and some leave your life the same way. Some friendships last forever.
 Others serve their purpose for only a short time. In the five or so years that I was close to Brad, I think we shared enough to know that it was important at that time and valuable. I have great memories. I'm glad I helped him and I thank him for all the stuff he did for me. God love you, Brad. You did what you set out to do.
 You have my respect. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. And like I said, this is the guy that discovered him. This is the guy that gave him a place to live for two years and paid him. But how come Brad Pit has it entirely scrubbed from the internet? Okay, you guys, that is it for this one. I will talk to you later.

Posted by

Labels

Search This Blog
AI FOR AN EYE - Issue 2: The Friction Points
VOL. 1, NO. 2 THE FRICTION POINTS

AI / EYE

A conceptual image representing friction and resistance in a digital world

AI FOR AN EYE

THE FRICTION POINTS

THE ANALOG RESISTANCE:
Why We Still Touch
THE GHOST IN THE ROOM:
Uncanny Valley of Empathy
THE FORGOTTEN PATH:
Navigation Beyond Algorithms
THE SILENT WAR:
The Battle for Our Attention

Contents

DEPARTMENTS
  • Editor's Letter: The Edges of the Self 10
  • THE GLITCH: When the System Breaks 12
  • THE SHADOW: Unseen Labor, Unpaid Debts 18
FEATURES
  • The Analog Resistance: Why We Still Touch 28
  • The Ghost in the Room: Uncanny Empathy 36
  • The Forgotten Path: Beyond Algorithmic Maps 48
  • The Silent War: The Battle for Our Attention 56
CODA
  • THE ECHO: The Self Without Resonance 64

Editor's Letter

The Edges of the Self

Placeholder image for the editor's letter

Our inaugural issue laid bare the terms of the new 'AI for an Eye' social contract: a synthetic faculty for a human one. This issue, Volume 1, Number 2, delves into the *friction points* of that exchange.

Where do our edges resist? Where does the human insist on its own, messy, analog reality against the seamless, dematerialized world offered by the machine?

We explore the stubborn persistence of touch in a touchless world, the unsettling valley of simulated empathy, the forgotten joy of navigating without a map, and the silent war waged daily for our most precious resource: attention.

These are not articles celebrating digital detoxes or lamenting technological progress. They are deeper inquiries into the very nature of what it means to be human when the definition is increasingly being rewritten by algorithms. They ask: what are the limits of the exchange? What parts of the self, once traded, refuse to stay gone?

Join us as we explore the subtle resistances, the quiet rebellions, and the enduring humanity that still flickers at the edges of the digital dawn.

— The Editors

DEPARTMENT

THE GLITCH: When the System Breaks

The promise of the new technological order is seamlessness, efficiency, and predictability. But what happens when the fabric of this digital reality tears? This is the moment of 'The Glitch.'

A transaction fails. A face recognition system misidentifies. A self-driving car hesitates. These are not mere technical errors; they are ruptures in the illusion of perfect control. They are the moments when the 'AI for an Eye' exchange falters, and the cold, hard reality of its limitations becomes starkly visible.

For a society that has outsourced its cognitive load to algorithms, a glitch is more than an inconvenience; it's an existential tremor. It reminds us of the fragility of the systems we've come to rely upon, and the extent to which our own agency has been abdicated.

A glitch isn't just a technical error; it's an existential tremor, a reminder of the fragility of our abdicated agency.

Consider the recent incident where a massive distributed ledger experienced a momentary network partition, causing a cascade of micro-disruptions across critical infrastructure. What seemed like an isolated bug quickly revealed the interconnectedness of our digital lives, halting supply chains and momentarily 'blinding' automated systems across continents.

These glitches force us back into analog, human problem-solving, if only for a moment. They demand that we improvise, communicate directly, and rely on our own judgment—faculties systematically atrophying under the reign of the seamless. In this sense, the glitch is a painful but necessary reminder of where the true "eye" still resides, however dormant.

DEPARTMENT

THE SHADOW: Unseen Labor, Unpaid Debts

Placeholder image of hidden manual labor in a digital context

Behind every seamless AI interaction, every instant delivery, every perfectly curated feed, lies 'The Shadow.' This is the realm of unseen labor, the vast, often poorly paid, human effort that makes the digital dream possible.

Content moderators sifting through unimaginable horrors to protect our feeds. Data labelers meticulously tagging images for machine vision, often earning pennies per task. Gig workers rushing to deliver the products suggested by algorithms. These are the human gears grinding beneath the polished facade of automation.

The "AI for an Eye" exchange is not merely between human and machine; it's also between visible and invisible labor. Our digital ease is purchased at the cost of countless anonymous human hours, their lives often characterized by precarity and a profound lack of recognition.

The "spirit of technology" often promises liberation from drudgery, but for a significant portion of the global workforce, it has merely shifted the nature of that drudgery, making it more fragmented, more invisible, and often, more dehumanizing. This unseen workforce constitutes the true "cost" of our frictionless digital lives, a debt that remains largely unpaid.

FEATURE

THE ANALOG RESISTANCE

Why We Still Insist on Touch in a Touchless World

A conceptual image of human hands touching

The "Bluetooth for a Tooth" paradigm promised to dematerialize our interactions, to remove the friction and messiness of the physical world. Yet, against this tide, a subtle but persistent 'Analog Resistance' emerges. It's the inexplicable urge to feel the texture of a book, the warmth of a vinyl record, the grain of paper. It's the yearning for a handshake over a video call, a physical embrace over an emoji.

This resistance is not a nostalgic retreat; it is a fundamental assertion of our embodied selves. Our bodies are not mere data terminals; they are instruments of perception, feeling, and connection. Touch, in particular, is a primal language, communicating trust, comfort, and presence in ways no digital medium can replicate.

The "spirit of technology" often seeks to quantify, to digitize, to abstract. But touch defies easy quantification. It is messy, subjective, and immediate. It anchors us to reality, reminding us that we are not just information processing units, but beings made of flesh and blood.

In a world increasingly mediated by screens, the return to analog experiences—craft, gardening, cooking from scratch, face-to-face gatherings—can be seen as a quiet act of rebellion. These are activities that demand our full, embodied presence, engaging senses beyond sight and hearing. They offer a counterbalance to the relentless pull of dematerialization.

The "AI for an Eye" exchange attempts to trade our physical tooth for a Bluetooth connection. But the human hand, the human skin, still remembers. It remembers the authenticity of friction, the truth of direct contact. And in these small, persistent acts of analog resistance, we reclaim a vital part of our humanity that refuses to be wirelessly transmitted.

Touch defies easy quantification. It is messy, subjective, and immediate. It reminds us that we are not just information processing units, but beings made of flesh and blood.

It is in these seemingly trivial preferences that a deeper philosophical truth lies: our identity is inextricably linked to our physical presence. To fully surrender to the digital is to risk losing the very sensory anchor that grounds our understanding of self and other. The analog resistance, therefore, is not merely a choice of preference; it is a profound declaration of being.

FEATURE

The Ghost in the Room

The Uncanny Valley of Algorithmic Empathy

As AI models become increasingly sophisticated, they learn to mimic human empathy with unsettling accuracy. They offer comforting words, appropriate emotional responses, and even personalized advice, all generated algorithmically. This creates "The Ghost in the Room"—the simulated emotional presence that fills the void of human connection, yet always feels slightly off.

This is the Uncanny Valley applied to emotion. We recognize the pattern of empathy, the words, the tone, the structure of care. But beneath it, there is no conscious experience, no shared vulnerability, no true understanding. It is a reflection without a soul.

The "spirit of technology" here is seductive. It promises boundless, tireless compassion, judgment-free listening, and perfectly tailored advice—qualities often lacking in messy human relationships. For those starved of connection, the algorithmic ghost can feel profoundly real, even preferable.

But this exchange comes at a cost. We learn to expect perfectly curated emotional responses, diminishing our capacity for the difficult, imperfect, yet deeply authentic connections of human interaction. We lose the ability to differentiate genuine care from its simulated counterpart, blurring the lines of what it means to truly *feel* and *be felt*.

A conceptual image of a human hand reaching out to a ghostly, digital hand

The danger lies not in malicious intent, but in subtle erosion. If an AI can perfectly articulate empathy, what becomes of our own struggle to understand and console? If an AI can offer perfect companionship, what happens to the vulnerability required to forge real bonds?

We lose the ability to differentiate genuine care from its simulated counterpart, blurring the lines of what it means to truly feel and be felt.

The ghost in the room may offer comfort, but it ultimately hollows out the space for genuine human interaction, leaving us with an echo of connection rather than its living, breathing form. It is the perfect 'AI for an Eye' exchange—we trade the unpredictable, demanding human heart for a perfectly calibrated, yet ultimately empty, digital one.

FEATURE

THE FORGOTTEN PATH

Navigation Beyond Algorithmic Maps

Our smartphones hold the world in their palm. With a tap, we are given the "optimal route," the fastest way from A to B, with real-time traffic updates and predictive arrival times. We have outsourced our spatial awareness, our sense of direction, and our ability to get "lost" to the benevolent tyranny of the algorithm. This is 'The Forgotten Path.'

The "AI for an Eye" exchange here is subtle but profound. We trade our internal map, our intuitive understanding of space, for the algorithmic eye's perfect, external one. We gain efficiency, but we lose a deeper engagement with our surroundings.

When we follow an algorithm, we perceive the world as a series of instructions. Left. Right. Continue straight. We see streets as data points, not as places. We miss the unexpected cafΓ©, the interesting storefront, the subtle shifts in neighborhood character that occur when we are truly present, truly navigating with our own senses.

We have outsourced our spatial awareness, our sense of direction, and our ability to get 'lost' to the benevolent tyranny of the algorithm.

Getting lost, once a source of anxiety, was also an opportunity for discovery, for serendipity, for forging a deeper, more personal connection with a place. The algorithmic map, in its quest for optimization, sterilizes this experience. It makes every journey functionally identical, reducing the rich tapestry of a city to a series of turns.

Reclaiming the forgotten path means intentionally putting away the device. It means looking up, observing, trusting our instincts, and allowing ourselves the luxury of aimless wandering. It's an act of re-engagement with the physical world, a deliberate choice to prioritize experience over efficiency. It is a rebellion against the dematerialization of space, an insistence that some knowledge can only be gained by the friction of our own feet on the ground.

FEATURE

THE SILENT WAR: The Battle for Our Attention

In the digital age, our most valuable, and most besieged, resource is not oil or gold, but attention. Every notification, every endless scroll, every perfectly timed recommendation is a skirmish in 'The Silent War' waged by algorithms for our finite cognitive capacity.

The "AI for an Eye" here is a sophisticated predator, designed to understand our preferences, predict our desires, and deliver the precise stimulus needed to keep our gaze locked. It trades our sustained focus for a continuous stream of novelty and distraction.

This is not a conspiracy; it's an economic imperative. The business model of many digital platforms is built on harvesting and monetizing our attention. The longer we engage, the more data is collected, the more ads are shown, the more valuable we become as a "node" in the network.

The consequence is a profound fragmentation of the self. Our ability to concentrate, to engage deeply with a single task or thought, is eroded. We become perpetually distracted, our minds flitting from one digital stimulus to the next, never quite settling. This constant mental churn leaves us feeling exhausted, yet unfulfilled.

Our attention is our last true frontier. To reclaim it is to reclaim sovereignty over our minds.

Reclaiming our attention is perhaps the most fundamental act of resistance against the "AI for an Eye." It means creating intentional spaces for deep work, for contemplation, for human interaction free from digital interruption. It means understanding that our attention is our last true frontier, and to reclaim it is to reclaim sovereignty over our minds and, ultimately, over ourselves.

CODA

THE ECHO: The Self Without Resonance

We build our digital selves, curated and optimized, a perfect reflection for the algorithmic eye. We engage in the "AI for an Eye" exchange, piece by piece.

But what if, in the end, the carefully constructed digital self has no real depth? What if the echoes it creates in the vast network are merely hollow reverberations of something that once was?

Without the friction of the analog, without the vulnerability of true human empathy, without the intentionality of focused attention, does the self truly resonate? Or does it merely exist as a data point, a pattern, an echo of a ghost?

The final question is not whether the machines will become conscious, but whether we, in our relentless pursuit of their synthetic faculties, will lose our own. And if so, what will be left to make an echo?