Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: I think it's a pretty well known fact to you and to all regular jo? Ag listeners that I have a deep and abiding love for bodies of water coupled with, I think, a healthy fear of them. Okay, it's a mix of both. I love water. I'm also scared of it.
I've also always been fascinated by stories of adventure met with peril.
I don't want to personally nearly die climbing Everest or searching the Amazon for the lost city of Z, but I will 100% be a spectator to someone else doing it.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: As such, one of the topics that's always captured me is folks who got on big ships for years long expeditions to explore inhospitably cold places humans have no business being, namely the Arctic and the Antarctic.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: The share. I share that, and I haven't spoken about it on the cast in a while. But you know how endlessly entertained I am by tales of people getting themselves in bother when it's entirely their own fucking fault, right?
[00:01:12] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:01:12] Speaker B: You should never have been doing that in the first place, you fucking idiot. And now you come to me, oh no, my fucking family have drowned. It's your own fucking fault, isn't it? You shouldn't have been on the ship in the fucking 14 hundreds or whatever.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: Right? Exactly. Like, use your brain.
But I want to hear about it. People need to do this stuff so that then I can read about it or watch a documentary on it and learn from it. Sure. Well, I learn not to do that.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: I don't do much learning.
[00:01:44] Speaker A: Now, another thing about me, Mark, is that I love a maritime museum. My favorite kind of museum, hands down. They never disappoint.
Go to whatever maritime museum is closest to.
[00:01:59] Speaker B: Only is there like a ceiling on the amount of new stuff you can learn in a maritime museum?
[00:02:05] Speaker A: No, absolutely not. Because here's the thing about maritime museums, wherever they are, have their own specific maritime history, right? Like, I went to one that was very specifically about. It was the Astoria bar museum, I think it was called. And it was specifically about 1 bar, like a sandbar or whatever. Or it's a feature underwater that makes it very difficult for ships to cross from one place to another. And it was an entire museum dedicated to this 1 bar on the columbia and all the ships that had wrecked there and how you cross these kinds of things and the training that pilots go through. They're specifically called bar pilots to get there. So listen, what I'm saying is there is no limit on how much you can learn at a maritime museum because everyone you go to that body of water has its own set of shit that has, like, killed people and stuff like that.
[00:03:06] Speaker B: Yes. I guess every local kind of niche sand trap has claimed its share of local victims, hasn't it?
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Fine.
[00:03:16] Speaker A: They're a lot of fun. And when I was in the UK last April, I went to the phenomenal National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. Bruh. Incredible museum. It's huge.
Just the collection is immense. I learned. I had no idea who Lord Nelson was. I'd heard the name before, but there is an insane collection about Lord Nelson. I learned why New York was called New Amsterdam. From there, I saw the suit that Lord Nelson died in.
Great place.
And it is also home to some 400 artifacts from one of the most famous doomed expeditions of all time, the Franklin expedition.
So if you've read or watched the terror, you'll be familiar with a fictionalized version of the story. Are you laughing at me?
[00:04:12] Speaker B: No, I'm not. I'm not laughing at you. I am delighting in watching you absolutely exude enthusiasm and passion for a subject that isn't very passionate. I'm being caught up in your wave, is what's happening.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: All right, I'll take that.
I think visibly excited about that.
[00:04:32] Speaker B: You're perspiring.
[00:04:35] Speaker A: It's just my leaky eyeball.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: More on which later.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: I'm sure if you've read or watched the terror, you'll be familiar with a fictionalized version of the story. And it's a story you can do a lot with fictionally because, well, we have no idea what the fuck happened.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Yeah, that's why boat Corps is such fertile ground, isn't it? Because when you're out there, mate, worse things happen at sea. And that is a broad.
Worst things. That's all you need to depict.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly that. But only in the past decade have we even had access to the most important pieces of the puzzle to try to figure it out. The actual ships, HMS Arabis and HMS Terror.
So today, I'm going to tell you what we do know about Sir John Franklin's ill fated adventure across the northwest passage and how we know it.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:05:29] Speaker B: During this tale, are you going to give us any insight into why the fuck they call that boat the terror as opposed to the good times or the fucking HMS?
[00:05:40] Speaker A: Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. It did not come up. And as you know, I used 22 sources for this and none of them explained that.
However, one did also go on to define Arabis, which also is something to do with the road to Hades or something like that.
[00:06:03] Speaker B: Talk about what's the word. Nominative fucking determinism. Is that what it's called?
[00:06:08] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. 100%.
A little bit of self fulfilling prophecy going on in the names of these boats here.
I assume this is what the terror is probably supposed to be like. I don't know. Like the terror of the sea, right?
It's like pirates of the Caribbean, Dauntless. Yeah. You're like, ooh. This is a message to other people, but it ended up being a message to themselves.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: Well, you get the energy you put out into the world, right, exactly.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: So shall we begin, then?
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Let's do it. And as you quote sources, I'm going to be counting them down like the fucking count of Sesame Street. 21 sources.
[00:06:55] Speaker A: I didn't quote all of them in here. I just used 22 sources to parse together all the pieces, maybe like that.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: So solid crew. You got 21 sources to go. You got 21 sources to go. Go on.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:07:08] Speaker B: Cut that bit.
[00:07:11] Speaker A: No.
Okay. It was May 19, 1845, when Arabis and terror set off under the command of Sir John Franklin to find the elusive northwest passage, which was basically a route no one had yet fully discovered yet, but everyone was pretty sure existed and would make it so that ships could pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific via the Arctic.
[00:07:38] Speaker B: I remember this clearly from the show. The show did this bit justice.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: Oh, really? Okay.
I read the book in 2008. I did not like it. There's a long 900 page slog. But I only watched, like, two episodes of the show. And then being the person I am, just kind of forgot about it.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: First season of the show was terrific. I was properly gripped.
[00:07:59] Speaker A: Yeah. You know how I am with those things. I'm like, I need constant stimulation. Those little slow burns are a little difficult for me, but I've heard only great things.
[00:08:10] Speaker B: I have a big man boner for Jared Harris. I love him.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Oh, same lord. I mean, I think I've raved on here about lane Price at least once before. My absolute favorite character from Mad Men.
So, anyway, I did look up the Northwest Passage because I realized as I was reading about this that I'd honestly only ever heard of the northwest passage in regards to people failing to find it. So I was like, is there a northwest passage?
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Yes, the elusive northwest passage.
[00:08:39] Speaker A: Yes, it does exist. They were on the path of the northwest passage. It's a bunch of waterways through the canadian arctic archipelago, and it was actually a Norwegian by the name of Roald Ominson who would eventually be the first to make it all the way from east to west across the northwest passage. In an expedition that lasted from 19 three to 19 six.
So to be clear, it's another 60 years after Franklin's expedition for anyone to finally conquer this beast of a waterway.
[00:09:13] Speaker B: Okay, so what made it such a bitch to tame ice?
[00:09:20] Speaker A: Okay, it's not like you're not getting attacked by whales or anything like that. It is simply super fucking icy. So it's basically just like a series of inlets and things like that. And every inlet that you're going through has a ton of ice and ice features, and it's always trying to lock you into it. So that is what made that so difficult to cross. And to me, at this point, by the time we get rolled almonds and getting there, it's been four centuries that people have been trying to cross a northwest passage, which to me would indicate maybe it's not worth.
We want, like, telling that to a.
[00:10:02] Speaker B: Fucking Mariner, though, right?
[00:10:04] Speaker A: We want to find this route for trade.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: It's like a red rag to a bull. I'll be the one.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm going to be the guy.
But, yeah, it eventually ended up basically being an underwater highway for submarines during the Cold War. That's like, the most useful thing it was really used for. And now, thanks to global warming, it's actually not that treacherous to cross.
So, hey, go us. I'm sure John Franklin would be proud.
[00:10:29] Speaker B: We conquered the northwest passage, all right, but not how they wanted.
[00:10:33] Speaker A: No, we were going to get there somehow anyway. May of 1845, like I said, franklin and 134 crew members, which would eventually become 129 when five lucky bastards were discharged early, set off in search of this fabled crossing between the Atlantic and the Pacific. Franklin was not the first choice to lead this expedition, nor was he even really on the radar, for that matter, despite the fact that he'd already been on three trips to the Arctic previously as a commander on two of those ventures. For political reasons, though, his rep was in the dumpster after a catastrophic stint as governor of Tasmania, which is called Van Diemen's land at the time.
But his wife, Lady Jane Franklin, who was by every account a fucking badass, was like, nah, you ain't going out like that, and began working to rehabilitate his shattered image. So she lobbied hard for her husband to be sent out on this expedition, and while five dudes were asked before him, eventually he got the job. It's honestly kind of ironic how hard these folks worked to ultimately send him to his death.
[00:11:45] Speaker B: I seem to remember that was covered in the show as well. The politicking and the machinations that got.
[00:11:49] Speaker A: Him that gig, right?
But it's not like he didn't know how precarious his life would be on the voyage. On one of his previous jaunts to the Arctic, he'd had to resort to eating his shoe leather to survive, garnering him the nickname. The man who ate his boots.
Yeah, right there, buddy.
[00:12:17] Speaker B: Not creative at all.
[00:12:19] Speaker A: Not in the slightest. But there's something more galling about a nickname like that. It's almost like, you know how kids will just be like, okay, t shirt. And you're like, oh, I am wearing a t shirt.
Something about it being straightforward makes it more insulting.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: I must tell you later about the cruelest nickname I was ever witnessed to in school. Fuck me.
[00:12:46] Speaker A: So you're not going to say it now?
[00:12:48] Speaker B: I can do so. This was not me, right? And I'm not just fucking saying that. It was not me, but a girl in my year had awful skin. Right?
[00:12:59] Speaker A: Eczema.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: Just terrible, terrible eczema. Which led to her being christened teddy rough skin.
[00:13:08] Speaker A: That is terrible.
It's like so cute and so awful.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Awful. Anyway, sorry. The man who ate his boots.
[00:13:17] Speaker A: Man who ate his boots.
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Time. Fuck.
[00:13:20] Speaker A: Factually accurate. It's not a thing I do, guys.
[00:13:24] Speaker B: It's just one fucking time. I'm a skilled seamen.
[00:13:28] Speaker A: Hey. But in comparison to what some of his crewmen.
[00:13:33] Speaker B: Sorry.
[00:13:34] Speaker A: In comparison to what some of his crewmen would end up having to eat later on, though, boots maybe aren't so bad, but we'll get there.
Now, these ships were kitted out as far as mid 19th century maritime situations go. According to the New York Times quote, the ships were former bomb vessels that had been refitted with iron plating furnaces and steam engines. They carried the latest magnetic surveying instruments and were provisioned for three years, with the ship's manifest listing 32, 289 pounds of preserved meat, 1008 pounds of raisins, and 580 gallons of pickles. Also aboard were 2000 books, a hand organ, and a degariotype.
[00:14:16] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: This ship also had camera. Yeah, it's a type of camera. Exactly that.
The ship had, like, a state of the art steam heating system that wouldn't exactly keep the ship piping hot, but would be much more comfortable than most sailors would have been accustomed to. And all of this is important because these journeys were long as in years.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:39] Speaker A: Which is truly hard to wrap my head around. Like, think about this. We were going absolutely bonkers in lockdown for a year and a half or whatever, right? But if we were 19th century arctic explorers, we'd have been on a boat with not but books and pickles. Basically for as long as this podcast has been going.
Just sort of wrap your mind around that.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: I'd be the first to go ape shit. I'd be the first to get like sea fever, exactly 100% trying to drink seawater.
[00:15:14] Speaker A: We have plenty of water on board.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Shut up.
[00:15:16] Speaker A: I have to do this.
[00:15:17] Speaker B: It burns.
[00:15:20] Speaker A: Franklin, for his part, was pretty pleased with himself for how prepared he'd made the ships for the journey. For example, he'd contracted with a man called Stephen Goldner, who had some sort of impressive canning technology that would allow him to can up to eight or can up 8000 tins of food, which should have kept them in canned meat for about three years.
The thing is, that contract was only finalized less than two months before the ship set sail, causing Goldner maybe to have done a shoddy rush job. That may account, at least in part for the fate of the crew. But again, we'll get there. For now, what we can say for the expedition is that it was being undertaken on the best equipped, most state of the art ship out there. Ships out there. So everyone was pretty optimistic about their chances of breaking through the northwest passage.
About two months into the journey, the two ships were seen by a pair of whaling vessels east of the entrance to the northwest passage in Baffin Bay. And then they were never seen by white people again.
And I make that specification here because there's one very stupid detail that explains part of why what happened was a mystery for over a century and a half. And that's pretty much that the british government couldn't be asked to listen to indigenous people.
Pretty much everything we now know comes from later searchers actually talking to the Inuit who had been telling the story of what happened ever since the ships went down. They saw the struggling sailors before they died. They saw them pulling the ships with ropes, they saw where the ships sank. They freely offered this information and the british government was like, fuck off.
So there's that.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah. Believable.
[00:17:11] Speaker A: Believable. Yeah. Some things are on brand.
It's just a wild thing to think about. All these people are telling you like, hey, we know where your guys are. And they're just like, nah, too brown just saw them.
No, I don't think so.
So some whalers see them head off and then no one hears from them again. They'd sent off their last letters to their families earlier from the Orkneys, where they'd also slaughtered some oxen for more meat. And then that's the last of their communication which I guess is weird. I don't know. I don't understand how mail worked on boats. And I always find this, like, they're always like, oh, they sent back letters from blah blah blah blah. And you're like, but they were on a ship in the middle of nowhere. How did those get back? So I don't know how they were expected to communicate, but they should have.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: Apparently feels like something you would have come up with.
Listen, one of your 22 sources. Not fucking shed that any.
[00:18:18] Speaker A: I only had so much time, Mark. I can't dive into every little rabbit hole. My mind takes me down. I have ADhD.
[00:18:25] Speaker B: Four hour special on old world maritime postal techniques.
[00:18:29] Speaker A: Yes, exactly.
[00:18:30] Speaker B: Tune in for that one, folks.
[00:18:32] Speaker A: That'll be our snack for this month. Corey explains the postal system. Listen, I also went to that postal museum in London, which was a gas as well. I got to dress up like a train conductor.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: When did the bit stop? And we go back to facts.
You did go to a postal museum.
[00:18:48] Speaker A: I did.
[00:18:49] Speaker B: All right. Okay.
[00:18:50] Speaker A: I did do that. That was not a joke. That's a thing I did.
I feel like you've gotten to know me very well over the past three years, but sometimes it still surprises you just how much of a nerd I am.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: It surprises and delights me.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: So, yeah, no word was sent back when there should have been. But by 1848, when the crew would surely be running short on food, it became clear that word was not coming at all.
Lady Jane Franklin was rightfully stressed out by this. So she went to the navy and was like, hey, you got to start looking for my dude. They were not in a rush to do that. But she was dogged in her resolve to find her husband, going so far as to write to the US president Zachary Taylor for help get Charles Dickens campaigning for her.
[00:19:44] Speaker B: The Charles Dickens?
[00:19:45] Speaker A: The Charles Dickens was invested in this and to fund her own expeditions, which was deeply unheard of. You weren't supposed to bypass diplomatic channels with the british government and take matters into your own hands. And in doing so, she forced theirs. Eventually, they sent out over 40 search expeditions, all to no avail. Until 1850, when some grim evidence that things had not gone well emerged on a frigid and barren stretch of land called Beachy island. They found evidence that the crew had made an encampment. Central to this evidence was the presence of three graves, those of crewmen John Torrington, William Brain and John Hartnell. Those graves are still there, by the way, although the bronze placards on them are recreations of the original ones.
There's some great pictures of them on Atlas obscura and I guess you could theoretically visit them, but I don't think Beachy island is any less desolate and uninhabited now than it was then in.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Kind of modern geography. What land is this?
[00:20:55] Speaker A: Yeah, we're talking the canadian archipelago. So it's just off of. It's one of those little islands that the inlets are going through in the north of Canada.
And you can also see the amazingly preserved corpses in full color all over the Internet. Because the permafrost beneath which they were buried, they are remarkably intact. Nothing eating at them, nothing breaking down and decomposing their bodies or their clothes. They look dead clearly. Their mouths are all stretched out and stuff like that, but you can see who they were.
They look like people. They're mummies, essentially, all just naturally from the permafrost.
This has also allowed researchers to be able to take dna and sort of look at their bones, all kinds of stuff to try to get a sense of what was going on with them.
But they find these graves of these Sailors in 1850. And then in 1859, at another site known as Victories Point on King William island, they find two handwritten messages scrolled on a single admiralty form. One was written in May of 1847 and was just like, things are chill. Franklin's in charge. We're doing our thing.
But the second, written in April of 1848, explains that 24 people, including Franklin, had died and that the ship had been trapped in ice for the past 19 months, causing the crew to eventually abandon the ships.
The note explains that they're planning to walk back to a place called Backsfish river. And as a side note, it's kind of bonkers that the April of 1847 letter was like, yep, all. Well, despite having been stuck in ice since September of 1846, and considering, according to the second letter, Franklin died just two weeks later, on June 11 of 1847.
Shit. Apparently went south slowly and then real quick.
[00:22:59] Speaker B: The golf ball was steep.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm guessing that to a degree they must expect to be stuck in ice. This is just part of the process. We're going to be stuck in ice for a while and then we'll break through it and everything will be good. But after 19 months, they were like, well, shit, we're not getting out of this.
[00:23:16] Speaker B: One day it's pickles, next day it's shoes.
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Exactly. Or worse, as we'll get to. As expeditions continued, other bits and pieces were discovered, like a couple of skeletons, things that had belonged to the crew, a sled and various letters. Although the guys weren't necessarily the most literate fellows on the planet. And those letters were somewhat difficult to decipher. And for some reason, some of them were written backwards, causing people to at first think they were written in German.
Yeah, just fully backwards. We have no idea why, because obviously we can't ask them what happened.
Someone was just writing backwards.
[00:24:01] Speaker B: Of all of this so far, that has properly caught my imagination what the fuck was going on?
[00:24:08] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Did someone's mind just sort of break and they started doing that? Or maybe it seemed like it was sort of like a journal entry of some sort. So maybe to keep other people from reading it, they wrote backwards or something like that.
[00:24:21] Speaker B: I'm not expecting you to know, but backwards by word or backwards by letter?
[00:24:27] Speaker A: By letter. So, as in, like, if it said the, it would say eht.
So everything completely backwards. Very wild.
But nothing that was found really gave much of a picture of what happened. It was, again, the Inuits who were able to fill in some of the blanks, which were gruesome. For example, Inuits pointed scottish explorer Jean Ray to piles of human bones that had been cracked in half, a telltale sign of cannibalisms.
Animals don't snap bones in half. Generally humans do, to get at the marrow inside of it. And indeed, as remains have been recovered since the 1980s, we've seen evidence that, yep, them folks was eating each other.
Researchers found knife marks on bones recovered from King William island. And more recent analysis published in the International Journey of Journal of Osteology in 2015 found that not only had bones been broken, but heated, meaning that the crewmen had probably cooked the bones to try to get that marrow out.
This shows just how desperate they were, because they would have already eaten whatever meat they could have gotten off the corpses before engaging in what's called end stage cannibalism, resorting to getting up into the bones.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Again. Never before have I even considered that there's a scale of cannibalism.
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Apparently that phases of cannibalism are an absolute thing. There's multiple of them, and this is just, you better believe, cannibalism.
[00:26:01] Speaker B: I've got my cold open for next week.
[00:26:04] Speaker A: I'll look forward to it. You know, that's a favorite of mine. So late 20th century researchers who came across these remains ran all kinds of tests on the bodies to try to see if they could tell us anything about why all these men died, aside from being stuck in ice. And one of the things that they found initially was in the three corpses buried on Beachy island. High amount of lead now, can you think of what might have happened that I mentioned before, Mark?
[00:26:33] Speaker B: High amounts of lead in the deceased.
So let's have a think.
Help me out.
[00:26:47] Speaker A: It was the rush canning job, potentially. Fuck potentially.
It's posited that under pressure to get the order filled in just seven weeks, the cans were poorly soldered shut, letting lead seep into the contents of the cans. Apparently, they found a can or various cans that looked like they had been shoddily put together, along with finding lead in the bones. And we've talked extensively about the effects of lead before. But just as a reminder, symptoms include abdominal pain and vomiting, constipation, hearing loss, seizures, fatigue, weight loss, loss of appetite, irritability, difficulty with memory and concentration, joint and muscle pain, and mood disorders.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: And that's on top of being fucking stuck. Stuck in ice flows.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: Right. So if, in fact, the crew were ingesting lead contaminated meat, they would be cranky in pain, struggling to concentrate, and potentially developing mood disorders that would make them act horribly toward each other.
[00:27:44] Speaker B: Or write journal entries backwards.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Or write journal entries backwards. Right.
That said, this theory is disputed. More recent tests using confocal x ray fluorescence imaging didn't find as much lead in the bones and found the distribution of lead in the bones to be inconsistent with a concentration that would be especially dangerous or lethal. These scientists think it's more likely that they died the good old fashioned way. Folks would die at seeing conditions like this, freezing and starving, with a touch of the old scurvy mixed in.
But a lot of what we know comes from an inuit oral historian named Louis Camuchak, who realized that stories he had heard passed down in his youth seemed like they might offer some clues to what happened to the Franklin expedition.
So he dug into that oral history and compared it with what records we do have of the journey. And lo and behold, in 2014, he was able to point canadian archaeologists to the location of the ships. Like, precisely right there. Right there. The Inuits had known all along, and by simply probing what they passed down, he was able to use their knowledge to solve a 150 year old mystery.
Isn't that fucking wild?
[00:29:09] Speaker B: It's superb. Yeah.
[00:29:11] Speaker A: It's hard to express how monumental this was. Inuits didn't have written language at the time of the Franklin expedition.
They just were really good at passing down oral history. And, well, as author Paul Watson points out, a lot of politicians and academics like to pay lip service to traditional knowledge. Be like, oh, yes, we totally acknowledge that they have their own way of telling things, and it's just as good as ours. They don't really take it seriously when it comes down to it. And yet, after more than a century, an indigenous historian found the exact location of these ships by doing just that. Taking the oral history and tradition seriously.
[00:29:53] Speaker B: Listening to it. Yeah.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: Bonkers.
[00:29:57] Speaker B: What a concept.
[00:29:58] Speaker A: Right. Incredible stuff.
[00:30:01] Speaker B: Where are the ships now? Or are you going to get there?
[00:30:03] Speaker A: I just am about to get there. But, yes, they are still there. Still where they found them.
Yeah. Right. Where they were left in Canada. In underwater footage of the terror shot since the wreck was discovered. You can see that much like the mummified crewmen, the ship is remarkably intact, with desks and file cabinets still in place, layers of silt covering shelves of items that barely move from where they'd been placed.
[00:30:28] Speaker B: That is something to see, isn't it?
[00:30:30] Speaker A: Yeah. Right. The sleeping quarters are left just as if the sailors were coming back to them.
And as such, researchers and archaeologists are hopeful that records will be able to be recovered from the ship, as well as the degariotype that was brought along on the journey. They've done this before, finding degreotypes underwater. They are able to then develop the plates later on, so they're hoping that would be there, which, again, would be wild. We might actually be able to see images taken aboard terror and Arabis all that time ago.
It is, of course, complicated to extract items from the shipwreck without destroying them, which is why the boats are still there and we have not pulled that stuff up. It's been nearly a decade since the ships were found and we don't items.
[00:31:19] Speaker B: Yet kind of encouraging that they are still left there in situ, free of plunderers and fucking leaders and dickheads.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: And I didn't even go into this. But one of the interesting things about this is that there's, like a political element to the finding of this where the Russians were actually going after it at the same time as we were in the. It was very important to the US and Canada to get to this before Russia did, which is perhaps in part why they started taking the Inuit testimony more seriously as well. Like, if someone can tell us where this is, please do so that Russia doesn't get to it before us, presumably because then you lose the artifacts, you lose the chance to determine what's going to happen to it.
[00:32:04] Speaker B: It's good that we hate Russians more than we want to disregard. Inuit.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: Exactly. Right. Balanced out who we want to discriminate against. And Russia came out on top. So there you go. Good job, Inuits.
But so, yeah, there's, as such it is sitting there being preserved, as it's been preserved all this time. And so they don't want to rush and be like, no, let's pull everything out of it, and then destroy documents that have been sitting in there for 150 years as a result of it.
But one day in the near future, we might finally know what happened to John Franklin and his men walked in the ice for two years, and through.
[00:32:51] Speaker B: Fucking primary evidence as well. Through actual stuff that they touched and fucking slept in and lived on. Beautiful, beautiful stuff.
[00:32:58] Speaker A: Exactly that. And, hey, people listening to this, like I said, I used a lot of sources. I always put the sources in the description of the episode. And on our blog, jackofallgrave.com blog, go take a look at them. Because while we don't have a lot from the Franklin expedition, what we do have has been sort of meticulously cataloged on the Internet. So you can go on the maritime museum website, and you can look at the 400 artifacts that they have. From there, you can see those mummified corpses. You can see the victory's point letter, the handwritten letter, how it was scrawled out. All of this stuff is available to you on the Internet, and it's in my source list. The video of exploring the terror. It's all there. So I highly recommend checking out the sources on this one.
[00:33:47] Speaker B: You love it, don't you? I do.
[00:33:49] Speaker A: So into it. It's so cool.
Exploration.
[00:33:55] Speaker B: I can't fucking articulate how much I like it.
Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Yes, please do.
[00:34:04] Speaker B: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, misel Sen.
[00:34:07] Speaker A: I don't think anyone has ever said Miselsen in such a horny way before.
[00:34:11] Speaker B: The way I whispered the word sex. Cannibal received.
[00:34:14] Speaker A: Worst comes to worst, Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science.
[00:34:18] Speaker B: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm going to leg it.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: You know how I feel about that, Mark.
[00:34:26] Speaker B: I think you feel great about it.
All right, time to settle in. Time to get fucking comfortable again, because we are back in the fucking routine. We're back in the swing. 2024, it's January. Fuck all is going on.
So what better. What better way to expend some of that January malaise, some of that kind of wondering what the fuck you're going to do with your life? Wondering why you're broke, you're cold.
[00:34:57] Speaker A: It is cold.
[00:34:58] Speaker B: It's bleak.
It's perfect. What I'm saying is, it's perfect, Joe Ag time, isn't it?
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Is it? Mark, I am having a terrifying week. I know. In crisis.
[00:35:11] Speaker B: I know you are. And we're going to address that crisis and we're going to lean into it, we're going to explore it, we're going to sit with it, we're going to pick it apart. We're going to deal with. It's cool, Corrigan. It's fine.
[00:35:22] Speaker A: We are.
[00:35:22] Speaker B: Because I'm here and our listeners are here.
You know full well that we'll do all we can to talk this through. You're going to be fine. We'll talk about what?
Crisis aside, are you good, generally?
If I could share with our listeners, you've kind of got an eye issue, haven't you? You've got a leaking eye going on.
[00:35:44] Speaker A: I do. I have a leaky eye. I don't know why. I don't know if it's an allergy or what.
Mostly when I'm outside, but sometimes when I'm inside, too, my right eye is just like a constant stream of water, which makes me look like I'm always. What? Makes me look like I'm always in crisis, which I am at the moment, but not the kind that would cause me to be crying all the time. So it's a little bit of a struggle for me at the time and it makes my eye itchy and so I'm like. I'm trying not to rub it. I'm trying to be a grown up about it.
[00:36:20] Speaker B: When you are in crisis, I am in crisis. And when we are in cris, our listeners are all in crisis. So one thing you don't have to do is be in this crisis alone, because now we're all in it with you.
[00:36:31] Speaker A: Okay, I appreciate that.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: We'll talk it through. We'll talk it through. We'll talk it through. But for now, for this moment in time, I just want to say welcome to another fucking fantastic year of Jack, of all graves.
Now, just to kind of address.
There's an elephant in the room with us.
[00:36:49] Speaker A: There is? Yeah.
[00:36:50] Speaker B: Now Horrigan wants to announce the thing.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: I do want to announce the thing so bad.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: Whoa. You are not going to announce the thing yet.
[00:37:01] Speaker A: I won't announce the thing, though.
[00:37:02] Speaker B: Too early to announce the thing yet.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: Is that too early to announce the thing? I don't think it is.
[00:37:06] Speaker B: We talked about this. But just know this.
But know this, dear listener. Oh, fuck, yeah. There's a thing coming, which we're going to be announcing soon. And if it's half as cool as it is in my head, it kind of, I think, will be the pinnacle of the journey so far.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: 100% agree. So sorry to tantalize you like that, but we're all in this together because I am struggling to. Not you at the moment. But there is something that I will announce that is not as exciting, I suppose. Well, except for all of us. Joe Agnerds listen, a thing that I said at the end of last year was that we are not intentionally ignoring the stuff that's going on in Palestine right now. Obviously, if you follow me on social media, you know, that's a thing that I care a lot. You know, as a podcast that addresses dark things and often, sort of when huge things happen in society, we address it. It does feel a little weird to not be talking about it or mentioning it at all. So what I want to tell you is that February, we are addressing it, and hopefully at the time that we do it will be after a ceasefire has been announced and we are on the road to palestinian liberation. But whatever the case, we're going to go on a four week journey together in which I explain to you how we got here and we are going to go way back with this, know, kind of with how the US and Britain have been at the center of this and why we are where we are and what has been going on over basically centuries of issues here. So it's going to be informative. Hopefully it'll also be fun, but also, of course, a little depressing. But that's what we do here.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: On Jack of all graves, for my part, I intend to learn some shit.
[00:39:15] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: If it has been conspicuously missing from Jack of all graves, for my part.
Look, despite this might come as a shock, but I don't enjoy not knowing about shit, and I don't enjoy talking about shit that I don't know about.
I'm a big advocate of the point of view that you don't have to fucking speak.
You don't have to just fill a fucking gap with silence, with noise, if you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. What's the old quote? It's better to stay quiet. No, it's better to stay quiet, idiot, than to speak and remove all doubt.
So, in that spirit, in that frame of mind, I go into this series that you've got in mind in February.
It's time I learned, and I think.
[00:40:11] Speaker A: A lot of people feel that way by the end of February, for everyone to understand what's been happening and to not feel too intimidated, to you know, approach it with people and talk about it and feel like, you know, things. And so I have. The library has supplied me with many at home. I am reading my ass off and have been for the past four weeks or so as I work on putting this together.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: If you thought 22 sources for the story about the boats.
Rigorous.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: Just you wait.
[00:40:48] Speaker B: The library. See Corey coming through the window and they're like, oh, fuck.
[00:40:52] Speaker A: Oh, God, she's back.
Batten down the middle east section. Here she comes.
[00:40:57] Speaker B: Get the sauces ready. She's here.
[00:41:01] Speaker A: Now that you've pointed out, I can't stop noticing that it does sound like you're saying sauces.
[00:41:06] Speaker B: Well, yeah, they're the same word in my accent.
[00:41:08] Speaker A: I know.
This is just. I've never noticed it before.
[00:41:13] Speaker B: To demonstrate my academic rigor, I quote a source.
If my dinner is a little dry, I will add a sauce.
These are the same phonetically, the same word.
[00:41:24] Speaker A: Do you ever read the book the phantom toll booth?
[00:41:27] Speaker B: It rings a bell, but I couldn't.
[00:41:29] Speaker A: Say that I have, and it's phenomenal. I feel like.
[00:41:32] Speaker B: Why did you.
Where was the leap there?
[00:41:35] Speaker A: I'll tell you.
I will explain where my thinking came from. I think your kids are probably still of the age that they would enjoy. I mean, I've reread it several times as a grown adult and I still love it.
So the book is about a kid who sort of journeys into this fantasy land of sorts where he meets all of these various people and creatures and whatnot that are basically all personifications of plays on words.
Meeting a character. That's the dodecahedron, right? Like a twelve sided die or basically all these kinds of things that have these various plays on words and double meanings and all of that kind of stuff as he's journeying through this land and it's like. It's super delightful.
And your sauce and source thing remind me of just kind of the word play that you get within this book of playing off of things like, oh, these things sound the same.
And making characters out of that. What would it mean if these two things were confused with one another? Well, you'd get a character.
[00:42:49] Speaker B: Phantom toll booth, you say?
[00:42:51] Speaker A: Phantom toll booth? Yeah.
I highly recommend. It's short, and it is just an absolute delight of a book. One of my favorite books of all time without short.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: And it's an absolute delight, much like a certain co host of mine.
[00:43:09] Speaker A: Well, when I was in fifth grade, I built my own phantom toll booth. I had a lot of fun with that. Again, we're really getting on brand with me today, aren't we?
[00:43:18] Speaker B: Really are.
Yes.
[00:43:20] Speaker A: Living up in rare form.
[00:43:23] Speaker B: Speaking of rare form, right, speaking of rare form, I am a fucking new man lately.
[00:43:27] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:43:31] Speaker B: I've said this to you numerous times over the last couple of weeks, right? Fucking hell. I don't know if it's since the Christmas break or what it is or if some fucking hormonal thing has corrected itself in me or what. I don't know. Or maybe it's the incessant darkness has brought out something joyous in me. I don't know what it is.
Well, maybe it's some of the decisions I've made are paying off, right?
[00:43:54] Speaker A: The New year's resolution to make good choices.
[00:43:56] Speaker B: Yeah, but look, the guy who was having the issues, like, three, four, five months ago, it literally feels like a different fella. I'm amazing. Really. In a fucking good place at the minute.
[00:44:10] Speaker A: I adore that.
[00:44:12] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:44:12] Speaker A: That's fantastic. I love that.
[00:44:14] Speaker B: It feels. It feels. It feels really good.
[00:44:16] Speaker A: Yeah. And I feel off to a really good start as well. This year, I've been taking my at least a mile a day walks, usually more like three or 4 miles, that have been beautiful. Really delightful at taking in the snow. I've been listening to albums. Well, for me, listening to albums, I've only done one so far. We're in week two now, so I got to pick another one. Last week, I listened to an artist called Agnes, who is some sort of northern european person, and it was great and I enjoyed it. It was one of those things that I saw, like, Instagram kept recommending videos on my for you page of this woman, and I finally hit one and listened to it. I was like, oh, I think I might like that. And I did. And she sells physical albums, so I think I'm probably going to buy a couple of beautiful.
[00:45:04] Speaker B: I've noticed, right, that periodically TikTok will cram an artist down your throat.
[00:45:12] Speaker A: Oh, really?
[00:45:13] Speaker B: Right. Just every fucking four or five scrolls, you'll get some kind of influencer content about a particular artist.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Live footage, totally organic, I'm sure.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Completely.
Last year it was idols, right? And I quite liked idols before TikTok started assaulting me with them every few minutes. And now I can't fucking stand.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: Oh, wow.
[00:45:38] Speaker B: Okay, now it's Chase and status, right? TikTok will not shut the fuck up.
[00:45:42] Speaker A: About, what is it?
[00:45:44] Speaker B: Chase and status? They're a couple of.
What the fuck would you call it? I don't even drum and bass in their early days, but then it's a bit more commercial now. And it's continually fucking telling me to listen to chase and status. And I was ambivalent towards them and now I actively hate them.
[00:46:04] Speaker A: I get it. I definitely understand that. The degree of shoved down your throat, that breeds animosity.
[00:46:11] Speaker B: It does. Because I see it. You see? I see pattern.
[00:46:13] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. That's the thing is, like, you're trying to manipulate me into it and now I won't. I refuse.
[00:46:18] Speaker B: Stupid. I'm fucking 45, mate. I'm not some hunt.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:46:25] Speaker B: Speaking of which, I just need to super quickly see if this fucking.
I told you this earlier on. I'm engaged currently right now as we speak. I'm engaged in a super petty argument with an anonymous poster in my local Bista Facebook group and it's gone on all fucking night. And I will not back is we're.
[00:46:48] Speaker A: Such, like, opposites on this because my reaction to things is like if someone pushes back against me on something on Facebook or whatever, I just write k and a thumbs up.
[00:47:00] Speaker B: If you're ever on the receiving end of a k thumbs up from Corey. No, you've crossed the line. No more of this discussion will be had.
[00:47:08] Speaker A: Right. It drives people insane, though. People don't like when you don't engage their argument.
[00:47:17] Speaker B: In much the same vein, I'm quite fond of deploying a cheeky little. All the best with a thumbs up at the end of a particularly petty post. That always does. Nice. But no, there's been nothing. So that means I've got the last word. So I win.
[00:47:28] Speaker A: Well, congratulations. I'm very pleased for you.
[00:47:31] Speaker B: Thank you very much. A hollow victory. But it's January, folks.
[00:47:34] Speaker A: You got to take, you take what you can get.
[00:47:36] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:47:36] Speaker A: Hey, have you watched anything so far?
[00:47:40] Speaker B: Yes, actually. Nice. We're doing that already. Okay.
Not at all. I was just enjoying repost.
[00:47:51] Speaker A: We can continue this bullshitting as we discuss movies.
[00:47:54] Speaker B: All right, so I don't know how far back I'm going here, right. But I think. Oh, shit. I think the first movie I have to talk about is just a gentle family.
Kind of like Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler. Have they been in a film lately? Yeah. Or before? They have, haven't they?
[00:48:21] Speaker A: Yeah, I think so. I don't know.
[00:48:23] Speaker B: Maybe not anything like that. Because the first was Antichrist. From my good friend and yours, Lars von Trier.
[00:48:31] Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
[00:48:32] Speaker B: Listen, I think I might be on one with him. I think I might be on a tip with the last one, Trier, because I'm really fucking enjoying it. I'm really fucking enjoying his stuff. I really am, like, hugely Antichrist.
I just had to. I was seized because so many, a lot of people have told me never to watch Antichrist. Right. Because it's fucking awful. And it is. Right.
[00:49:00] Speaker A: Yeah. But why would people tell you, of all people, not to watch it?
[00:49:04] Speaker B: Well, yeah. Told me that. Oh, my God. This film disgusted me. Dr. Rob Dean, in fact, Dr. Rob Dean, Earthwild, guest of this here fucking parish, saw Antichrist and warned me off it.
[00:49:16] Speaker A: Wow. Okay. Interesting.
[00:49:17] Speaker B: And now, some 25 years later, I am disregarding that. And I bought.
[00:49:21] Speaker A: It's not that old, is it?
[00:49:25] Speaker B: 2009.
[00:49:27] Speaker A: That's not 25 years ago.
[00:49:28] Speaker B: 25 years old.
[00:49:30] Speaker A: 15 years ago.
[00:49:31] Speaker B: Yeah.
I don't get things like time.
[00:49:35] Speaker A: Right.
[00:49:36] Speaker B: Look, it's edge, Lord. Right? It's edge, Lord City.
It really wants to hurt you.
But I have to fucking applaud the commitment to not cutting away.
Not cutting away from the shot, to following through, to really, really committing to being as fucking awful as possible. And look, it's an actual film, right? Willem Dafoe and his wife. He's a therapist. His wife's an artist, if I remember rightly. And an appalling tragedy happens while they're graphically having graphic, penetrative intercourse. Right.
Do me a favor.
I don't ask you this Lightly. Imagine what you think Willem Dafoe's cock looks like.
[00:50:29] Speaker A: Well, okay. So here's the thing, though. My husband brought this up, and I've read this before, that apparently they didn't use his actual dick in it because it was too big. And as Lars von Trier put it, it confused the crew.
[00:50:54] Speaker B: Because it couldn't compute.
Well, I checked this out myself, obviously, because I wanted to know if that was Willem Dafoe's actual penis. And my sources indicate that it.
[00:51:07] Speaker A: This is. Maybe it's a joke or this is the narrative that he was slinging in interviews.
[00:51:14] Speaker B: Well, it takes up the whole screen. Let's put it like that. You know what I mean? It really fills the frame.
But, yeah. After a tragedy in their lives, they retreat to a cabin that they own in a forest and they fucking spend interminable hours delving deep into the partner's fears and insecurities. And it's confrontational and it's avantgarde, as you'd expect. Interspersed with surreal fucking nature imagery and whatnot. Handwritten splurge title cards and just such violence. Such fucking relentless graphic acts of fucking self abasement, disfigurement.
Just everything you want in a film, basically.
[00:52:03] Speaker A: Yeah. That's my list. Right.
[00:52:06] Speaker B: Just in the tradition. Just like Dr. Rob Dean said to me, never watch Antichrist. Right? Never. Four stars.
[00:52:15] Speaker A: Fair enough. Yeah, that's know. I know that I would not. It's not know house that Jack built. I'm on know Antichrist is like. You just want like a movie. Of all the things you don't like to watch.
[00:52:30] Speaker B: You can watch that, man. What am I fucking stumbling over here? But it's legitimate as shit.
[00:52:37] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing.
I think sometimes this gets like the wires get crossed and I explain these things. There's a difference between a bad movie and a movie I don't like.
And it's like, I'm sure that it's very good and the story is good and all that kind of stuff. Like, I don't watch things just because they're good.
I need to enjoy a film.
[00:53:02] Speaker B: Listen, how many times. Plenty of times.
I can tell when a movie is objectively good. Doesn't mean I'm having fun.
[00:53:09] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:53:11] Speaker B: But, yeah, luckily it seems like so far, last one trio's movies are no fun at still, but you enjoy when it's long. And I'm not just talking about Willem Dafoe, you know what I'm saying? But I was talking about his cock.
[00:53:34] Speaker A: Okay, thank you.
We also together.
[00:53:38] Speaker B: Go on. You do one.
[00:53:40] Speaker A: We watched a movie called Star Time earlier this week. Yeah, a few days ago, which I do not recall how I discovered this movie. But I like that you were like, every now and again you come up with a movie that I have never.
[00:53:58] Speaker B: Heard of, no idea of its existence, and look inversely to what I was just saying about Antichrist. It's a movie that I feel I should have totally enjoyed on paper. It's a movie that I would be all over and appreciated that it was probably a really well made little passion project of a movie, but one that I wasn't super into.
[00:54:24] Speaker A: Yeah, I feel like there's like something. It's like you go through phases with movies or whatever. And I feel like the past couple months you're in a different phase than you usually are with movies. Because I feel like we've watched a lot of things that, like, six months ago you would have been like, yeah, this is my jam, but have not connected with you at all. But all of a sudden you're into Lars von Trier. You're in a different zone or just different movie head space than you normally are. Possibly, but yeah, star time is, I think, exactly that. Like a well made little passion project on a small budget. 1992, about a guy who is in some way mentally ill and decides when homeless, right. When his favorite television show is canceled, he decides that he is going to kill himself. But in the process of doing so, a man comes along and sort of talks him out of it and gives him a purpose in life, which is murder.
[00:55:31] Speaker B: Murder, purpose, hatchet and a creepy baby mask.
[00:55:34] Speaker A: Baby mask. Yeah, exactly.
[00:55:36] Speaker B: See, why don't I like the film?
[00:55:38] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. I don't know why it didn't connect.
I think what you said while we were watching it was like, it's good, and I'm not enjoying it, or something like that. I don't remember exactly how you phrased it, where it's like, enjoy feels like the wrong word, but at the same time it's got this quirkiness to it. It's got this lynchiness to it. It's got these weird moments of humor in it.
After this long, dark conversation about the murders he needs to commit and stuff like that, when it's decided he's going to do what he needs to do, they're like, yeah, and the mysterious man is like, want a jelly bean? Gives him jelly beans. Just very.
Where did that come from? Like really weird, off kilter moments like.
[00:56:24] Speaker B: That on this lynchiness bit, right?
Everybody on letterbox says that everybody said it about that film.
It feels like it's what somebody who hasn't seen many David lynch films thinks, like.
[00:56:44] Speaker A: Well, I think. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, that's the thing is, when you call things lynchian, that means so many different things to different people. I think. What do you consider the essence of a Lynch film? I think there's no denying this is inspired or know. It takes reference from lynch.
[00:57:00] Speaker B: Whether, once again, I would recommend you watch living in oblivion once again.
[00:57:05] Speaker A: Yeah, that is on my list.
[00:57:08] Speaker B: That entire film is satirizing that kind of approach. I think I'll make something lynchian.
[00:57:15] Speaker A: Right, exactly. But, yeah, I think this is absolutely inspired by that. And I think that it has characteristics that are clearly of that.
And for me, I enjoyed the journey even as it's whatever it was doing.
[00:57:38] Speaker B: Had one of those experiences where it's great watching a film with the kids and watching them enjoy a film that you enjoy. I took a risk. Took a risk, sat down with the both of them and watched Megan on.
[00:57:52] Speaker A: Nice. Yes, excellent. Yes, that's some good left column.
I mean, it's like left column journey.
[00:58:00] Speaker B: Into middle column horror left kind of middle.
[00:58:04] Speaker A: And for those who are. We haven't really described this in years. For those who are newer, Joe ad listeners.
[00:58:10] Speaker B: This is our category vernacular, isn't it?
[00:58:12] Speaker A: Yeah. This is our categorizing of movies like left column means you could watch it with your kids, your goosebumps and your Gremlins and everything, just like that wholesome stuff.
[00:58:21] Speaker B: Everybody is all right in the end. Nobody's harmed. You don't see anyone's penis, let alone Willem Dafoe.
[00:58:27] Speaker A: Exactly. Middle column. We're talking about stuff that you could put on at a party. It's like a little more intense, but everybody's going to have a good time with a couple of tins while watching it. And then you've got your right column horror, which is where your antichrist comes in. That's like.
[00:58:44] Speaker B: I think that's.
[00:58:45] Speaker A: We're not here for a good time.
[00:58:46] Speaker B: There's another column.
[00:58:47] Speaker A: Yeah, maybe there's a further column. But the stuff that is not for your horror noobs or your sensitive tummies and things of that nature, your stuff that is a little too harsh to have fun with, you probably just want to watch it alone or with a fellow horror junkie. So those are our columns. And this one, I think. Yeah. Firmly straddles left and middle. Megan.
[00:59:09] Speaker B: And do you know what? It was just fucking right for Owen. Just right. There were a couple of bits where he kind of clung on tighter. And I enjoyed it. I personally enjoyed it more than I did first time around. It's a really fucking tight little movie. That. And. Yeah, more, please. Can't wait for miforgan, which is coming.
[00:59:31] Speaker A: So there is that.
[00:59:33] Speaker B: Surely it's going to be me, g.
[00:59:35] Speaker A: Four n. Four n. I'm sure it must be.
[00:59:38] Speaker B: Please. If there ain't, I'm going to fucking take the street.
[00:59:41] Speaker A: I hope that it isn't. I hope it's Methrigan.
Because that's the thing.
Because it's like. It isn't a four, so it's Methrigan two.
Fuck you all.
[00:59:58] Speaker B: Up yours, please.
[01:00:02] Speaker A: Go ahead. No, go ahead.
[01:00:04] Speaker B: Worth no discussion at all is the mummy tomb of the dragon Emperor, which was of no value.
[01:00:10] Speaker A: Where does that come in the.
[01:00:13] Speaker B: Oh, this was January the first. No, not in the pantheon.
[01:00:20] Speaker A: The pantheon of mummy movies.
[01:00:22] Speaker B: So it's the third of the mummies. And they couldn't even get Rachel Weiss back. They recast her.
[01:00:31] Speaker A: Was Brendan Fraser in it?
[01:00:32] Speaker B: He was okay.
John Hannah, but I couldn't tell you who played Rachel Weiss. Give me a sec. Give me a second. You'll probably know who she is. Let's see.
In fact, cast, cast, cast.
Mario Bellow.
[01:00:50] Speaker A: Maria Bello.
[01:00:51] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:00:52] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah, of course.
Interesting.
[01:00:59] Speaker B: Unlike the film.
[01:01:01] Speaker A: Okay, well, fair enough. I didn't even know it existed, so that probably says something.
[01:01:07] Speaker B: This time china. There you go. That's the plot.
[01:01:10] Speaker A: The mummy. This time china.
[01:01:12] Speaker B: Yep.
Oh, man. Yeah. Also, again, you're right about this fucking phase, right? Because more and more often it seems I get seized is the right word as well, because when it seizes me, I got to do it.
The abyss had to fucking do it.
[01:01:34] Speaker A: Yeah.
Which caused me to watch it, too.
I did.
I'm just going to say out the gate, I loved the abyss when I was a kid, which I think is hilarious. It's a long and kind of scary movie, but what I didn't realize is the version that you put on Plex is the extended cut.
[01:01:57] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[01:01:59] Speaker A: Because I was like, man, I didn't remember it being 3 hours long. That's too much.
[01:02:03] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:02:03] Speaker A: And that was too much. You can see why they cut it. Because it is.
[01:02:09] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:02:10] Speaker A: Too much.
[01:02:10] Speaker B: Break it down. You got to break it down. Do it. 2 hours in a 1 hour.
[01:02:15] Speaker A: I can't do that with movies. If I turn it off, it's done. It's not going to happen. But what I will say about this is that James Cameron has made one movie in his entire life.
[01:02:27] Speaker B: I agree. Yeah, I completely agree.
[01:02:29] Speaker A: Over and over again. And it is fun to watch that happen. Like, he's just making different versions of the same.
Know if it's underwater, he's going to have his little bubble thing that he rides in, and if it's above the water, he's going to have mech suits. And it's always going to be about the environment. Some corporation that is evil and trying to take over everything going to have some sort of. Sort of schlocky romance or heart and soul sort of thing to it. He's got a very distinct thing he's doing, and it doesn't always work. In this case, with the extended cut, three storylines need to be cut from it.
But I appreciate that. He's like the most autistic director on the planet and he has fucking made his hyper fixation work for the past 40 years utterly.
[01:03:25] Speaker B: And the abyss, it was thrilling to me to see, because this has to have been the point where James Cameron fell in love with liquid. Right, where he just completely felt, holy shit, I fucking love water, mate. Water is the best. All of it. I want to go as far into water as I possibly can.
It's not subtle.
[01:03:52] Speaker A: Even slightly. No.
[01:03:54] Speaker B: In particular, I present to the defense the bit where Ed Harris is literally, his life is saved by his wedding ring. His marriage fucking literally catches and saves his.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: Just one of this is the detail I always remember from when I was a kid, too, is he hawks the wedding ring into the toilet, reaches his hand in, and it's blue. And the rest of the movie, his hand is blue. And I always thought that was so great. There was a point where something happened. I was like, oh, God, what happened to his hand? I was like, right, the toilet.
[01:04:32] Speaker B: Now, a less autistic director, right?
[01:04:36] Speaker A: Would have let that go.
[01:04:37] Speaker B: The next cut. Why is his hand not blue? Because it doesn't matter. Not sir. You could. If he makes a sequel now, Ed Harris would still have a fucking blue hand.
[01:04:47] Speaker A: Oh, totally.
[01:04:50] Speaker B: But Michael Bean is fucking brilliant. Michael Bean's mustache is fucking brilliant.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: Oh, boy. That is a dirty mustache.
[01:04:59] Speaker B: Dirty mustache with a backwards berry. I don't know if in 2025 or 2024, the decisions with the styling of that character would have remained the same. I don't know. With a big mustache and a backwards berry. I don't know if coded a little. I don't know. But all of which is to say, I love James Cameron and the abyss. There you go.
[01:05:22] Speaker A: There you go. And I would like to watch the regular version of it, because the thing was, when that ended, I was like, I loved this when I was a kid. It's a three for me now. But then when I realized that this was the extended cut, I was like, I think probably all the problems that I had with it are cut. If you take 30 minutes out of this, the problem is that it's like, we have so many movies here. You can't have that many death fake outs in a row. That's too much.
[01:05:50] Speaker B: The scene where they think that she's dead and they're trying to bring her back to life is heart wrenching.
[01:05:56] Speaker A: Il is fucking too long.
But then to immediately follow that with the scene where you think he's dead.
Come on.
[01:06:10] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:06:11] Speaker A: Basically everything between. And spoilers for a 40 year old movie here or whatever, a 35 year old movie. But everything between when Michael Bean blows up or implodes and Ed Harris goes down to diffuse the bomb is unnecessary. You need nothing in that entire section. You could cut all that whole 30 minutes out, and it changes nothing about the movie.
[01:06:42] Speaker B: I know directors who exercise self control in a narrative, and they're all cowards. Right?
[01:06:49] Speaker A: But bless. I'm not mad at it. It's just, I think, brilliant. It came to a point where I was a little like, I am a little done here.
[01:06:56] Speaker B: It's brilliant. The entire thing is blue. And I put the blue lights on while I was watching it as well. None more blue. It was about as blue as you could possibly be.
[01:07:04] Speaker A: So good blue. His hands with a blue little window.
[01:07:08] Speaker B: Yes. Dabadi.
Let me see. All right. Yeah. And hey, watched funny games last?
No.
[01:07:18] Speaker A: God, I hate funny games.
[01:07:20] Speaker B: Good shit. This is funny games, us, BT dubs.
[01:07:23] Speaker A: Yeah, well, if you recall, last year, I rewatched both. And I was like, yeah, fuck these movies. And that stupid ass edge lord director. I hate it to the core of my being.
[01:07:35] Speaker B: See, I liked it.
[01:07:38] Speaker A: Well, you remember. Here's my thing about it. It does that thing that annoys me more than anything else in a horror movie. And it's the thing where it does all this twisted bullshit and all that kind of stuff and then goes, don't you feel implicated?
[01:07:55] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:07:55] Speaker A: God, I hate that. It is so annoying. No, I don't feel implicated. I'm watching a movie. You made it. Own it.
[01:08:02] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:08:03] Speaker A: That's why I hate funny games.
[01:08:05] Speaker B: Yes. The fourth wall bricks are unnecessary, let's put it like that. Because it has no fucking.
[01:08:14] Speaker A: Well, the purpose is to go, don't you feel implicated?
[01:08:19] Speaker B: Yes, of course. But I mean, on the boat at the end, the two kids then have a discussion about the role of the protagonist in a narrative. And fucking matter versus antimatter. It's clunky and it's clumsy, but yeah.
[01:08:33] Speaker A: It'S the scene at the beginning of Scream two where they talk about the conventions of the sequel and things like that. That's what that is. And it's funny in scream two to have them do that. It's like, come on, what film school bullshit is this when you watch it in this? Oh, but have you considered that?
[01:08:58] Speaker B: Take a moment to suggest that you're at a point, then go ahead.
[01:09:05] Speaker A: Sorry. I'm sorry. I'm shitting on it, but go ahead.
[01:09:09] Speaker B: Right? Yes. The guy clearly is doing it on purpose. Right? And I think the fact that it was so explicit, being charitable, I like to think that it was knowing.
I'd like to think that. But even if you fucking cut that, Tim Roth is brilliant.
You know what I mean?
[01:09:29] Speaker A: I have nothing against the acting in it or things. And, you know, I love home invasion, too.
[01:09:34] Speaker B: So bleak. There's this wonderful 20 minutes where the two fuckers leave the house and you actually start to think, maybe they're gone. Maybe they're gone. And you get this lovely kind of sequence of them dealing with the aftermath of the fucking horror that's been visited upon them and they're trying to put it together and you think, fuck, well, surely they'd be back by now if they were going to bring them back. Oh, there they are.
[01:10:02] Speaker A: Jake it.
[01:10:03] Speaker B: Yep. Hey, what can I tell you? I was into it and I fucking love the soundtrack as well. John Zorn, frequent collaborator of Mike Patton's beautiful, beautiful fucking agro fucking noise punk soundtrack.
[01:10:17] Speaker A: Yeah, I think for me it has the things that I like. I like home invasion movies and things like that. It is simply the way that it tries to absolve itself and blame me for watching it and tries to make all these very surface level commentaries as if it's something really deep when it's not.
[01:10:35] Speaker B: You want a nice, tidy ending, don't you? You're not going to get it.
[01:10:42] Speaker A: Good grief. That film school nonsense always angers me and it takes away from any enjoyment that I had because honestly, I remember the first time I watched it in my know, I think it was like the middle of the day, it was just on HBO. And I was like, I'll give this a whirl. And I remember things like, know, they finally shoot the character and you're.
[01:11:07] Speaker B: That's right.
[01:11:08] Speaker A: Oh, thank God. And then he's like, wait, that's not right. And he picks up the remote or whatever and he like, rewinds it and you start. And I remember going, no, it's a cool thing to do. It's so hateful to them and to the audience. And I appreciate that. It's the preachiness of it that ruins the entire movie for me because you.
[01:11:29] Speaker B: Do, when she shoots the fucker right in the chest, you punch the air.
[01:11:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, thank God.
Finally this has gone right. And for him to undo that is just such a gut punch. And it's just ruined by being a message for me. Just like too progressive message makes something annoying. Having, aren't we so meta and smart?
[01:11:53] Speaker B: That's a good point. We can't have it both ways, I suppose. But I enjoy hearing the voice of the creator.
[01:12:02] Speaker A: I think I just don't like his voice.
It makes the movie dumber when you know what the director was or the writer was thinking.
You could have let me make my own interpretation and it would have been a lot smarter than what you just said.
[01:12:20] Speaker B: You could easily cut the three or four shots way he breaks a fourth wall and the film would be possibly better for it.
[01:12:26] Speaker A: Or at least, yeah, I think it would be, in my opinion.
And that he felt it was so important he need to make it twice just doesn't help his.
[01:12:35] Speaker B: Is it the same guy? You made them both.
[01:12:36] Speaker A: It's the same guy.
[01:12:38] Speaker B: Go on, pal. Fuck off. You've just completely recanted everything.
[01:12:43] Speaker A: I'm so brilliant.
[01:12:45] Speaker B: I'm going to do it again, twice.
[01:12:49] Speaker A: The Americans might have missed it. I better do it again.
Fuck you.
[01:12:55] Speaker B: I love that. Now you should do a third one. Funny games, UK or fuck off. Double down. Don't back down. Double down.
[01:13:06] Speaker A: Funny games, North Korea.
Otherwise, I was in documentary mode as well this past week.
Largely know, and I think we'll have to talk about this at some point. I know we're about to do a wisecrack related to this, but I watched the three night event of the prison, confessions of Gypsy Rose Blanchard on lifetime, two episodes a night. And I every night settled in and turned on Lifetime and watched those, which is know Paul wrote on our facebook page about this. Sort of like, gypsy Rose is the first sort of social media murderer who has everybody's sympathy, essentially, like, largely, you know, we're all on her side. And this is something that hasn't really happened before.
And it's an interesting thing to watch. This girl who, if you don't know, had her sort of Internet boyfriend kill her mother about a decade ago after a lifetime of horrific abuse because of Munchausen by proxy.
And now that she has been released from jail, it's an interesting thing because what now? Right? She can't have a normal life. She's never had a normal life. This is her first taste at freedom. But she got married while in jail. So it's her first real relationship that didn't end in murder in the real world. And the series, the prison confession of Gypsy Rose Blanchard is interesting because it sets up that this is going to be a reality show, which is fascinating. They did all this stuff. They talked to her family throughout this. They talked to her while she's in prison. Everything is being recorded and you're getting sort of the story, but by the last episode, it's very much like their other shows on Lifetime, which are like life behind bars and married behind bars and things like that. And it's just basically a prison dating show. And at the end of it, she gets out and it sort of ends on this note where then she's suddenly kicked out of Missouri. They're like, you got to get going. You got to go to Louisiana. You can't stay here overnight. You got to go. And then it's like, to be continued or whatever. So there's going to be a reality show about Gypsy Rose. And that is fascinating to, was very, it was an interesting watch, and I'm very interested in how all of this plays out.
And then the other thing I watched yesterday, just on a whim, while scrolling through Netflix, Keo and I watched bitconned, which is, boy, it is about these guys who opened a bitcoin scam in which they said they were making a credit card that would make it so that you could use your bitcoin in the real world.
And the main guy you're following is this guy named Ray, who explains, I've wanted to be a criminal my whole life.
And he started dealing drugs straight out of high school. But as soon as someone got, like, they got caught, he just ratted out his friends so he didn't get any jail time while they did.
And so you learn out the gate, like, he's a giant scumbag. His family appears to be connected, even though his mother and grandmother are like, what? No, we're not in the mob.
It's very unconvincing. His grandmother's like, I mean, bitcoin atms.
[01:16:56] Speaker B: Are a thing, aren't they?
[01:16:58] Speaker A: Well, I think this is probably since then is the case. This is like 2000 and 817 2018 somewhere in that vicinity. But yeah, his grandmother is like, my husband wasn't in the mob. He did something with elevators. Like, you were married to this guy for like 60 years and you don't know what his job was. Sure, lady, totally wasn't in the mob. But you're following this guy and his friends as they start this company, and his friends sort of seem like they think they're going to make this legit. Like, it started as a bit of a scam, but they're like, you know what? This might work, but they make up their entire website. So it's like they have a fake CEO. It's just a picture of some old white guy they found on the Internet. They fake their, you know, they all went to, you know, were executives at Wells Fargo and all this stuff, like, very easily disproven stuff. But people who are into bitcoin are easily scammed. So nobody checks on this shit, right? And people are giving them all this money. They're making bajillions of dollars off of this.
And essentially, you're watching as then people like the New York Times and stuff get involved and are like, is this real, though?
And Ray, the main guy, by the end of it, it's very clear he is like a legitimate sociopath.
He even says of himself, he's like, I'm trying to work on the fact that I don't have empathy for other people.
What other people feel like doesn't matter to me. And I know that should matter.
So that's sociopath shit. But that's the thing. It's like you're like, well, at least he's aware of it. And then by the end of it, you're like, yeah, but he doesn't care.
He's going to continue manipulating and doing crimes.
Bitcond is angering, but interesting nonetheless. So it's only 90 minutes to the point. And just makes you. These guys are so stupid. And it just makes you realize bitcoin is so stupid, and people who are in it are so dumb. And part of the thing that they're kind of pointing out here is the thing about bitcoin is for most of us, we go, I don't understand this.
Explain to me how bitcoin and blockchain and nfts and all this kind of stuff work, right? And it doesn't make sense to us because it's not real. It doesn't make sense completely. But people who are into bitcoin think that that's, like, proof that it's very smart.
[01:19:36] Speaker B: Completely. My baseline opinion of cryptocurrency hasn't changed one wit. No, it is just shit that we've invented for no reason. Right?
And yes, those fucking crypto evangelists will talk about it's freedom from fucking fiat currency the government controls cashlessly.
[01:19:58] Speaker A: But, yeah, you can't do that. You can't invent that out of thin air.
And there's a stat at the end of it that was like something x billion dollars were invested into bitcoin between these three years or whatever.
And 70% of those bitcoin businesses that were invested in were shown to be scams afterwards. So, yeah, bitcoin is an interesting ride.
[01:20:25] Speaker B: There's a lovely story that pops up in the british press every now and again about a geezer who threw out or lost in the trash. The trash. Fucking. What am I fucking saying?
He accidentally binned a hard drive which had, like, 20 bitcoin on it when they were cheap as fuck. And for years, and possibly even to this day, he is still wandering around the rubbish dump where he thinks his rubbish may have wandered up just on the off chance that these years later, he will come across this drive and he's got the fucking. The phrase to unlock it and whatever, and he's out there, you know what I mean? Trudging through shite, getting shit on by pigeons to try.
[01:21:12] Speaker A: And one day he's going to find it in, like, a box in the attic or something and it's never going to have been thrown out at all.
[01:21:18] Speaker B: Or, like, bitcoin will crash and it'll be cheaper than it was when he bought it.
[01:21:22] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, exactly.
Either way, he's wasting his time.
[01:21:26] Speaker B: Yes. What it comes down to, completely.
[01:21:29] Speaker A: Well, shall we get into our main.
[01:21:32] Speaker B: Right. So, Corrigan.
[01:21:33] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:21:35] Speaker B: Do me a favor. Let's just take a moment.
[01:21:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:21:38] Speaker B: Right. I want you to feel the ground beneath you.
Okay?
[01:21:43] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:21:43] Speaker B: I want you to feel that you are safe because you are both figuratively and literally. You are.
Nothing is going to fall off you.
[01:21:57] Speaker A: Okay, what about on me?
[01:22:00] Speaker B: No. Oh. Look, I can't tell you for sure that nothing's going to fall on you, but nothing is exactly likely to fall on you. Right.
[01:22:07] Speaker A: Well, okay.
[01:22:08] Speaker B: Nothing is likely to fall on you right now. No one's going to Donnie Darko, your house right now.
Wouldn't it be hilarious if right now.
[01:22:17] Speaker A: Just write this instead.
[01:22:20] Speaker B: I don't doubt for a second the legitimacy of the crisis that you're currently going through. So why don't you try and sketch it out for us and tell us what's up?
[01:22:26] Speaker A: Well, Mark, I think I've told this story before, but just in case I haven't, like a decade ago, maybe more, we lived near an airport. We've always lived near an airport. Our entire marriage, we have lived around the corner from an airport. This was John Wayne Airport, Santa Ana in Orange County.
[01:22:48] Speaker B: John Wayne had an airport named after him.
[01:22:51] Speaker A: Yeah, we keep trying to make that not a thing. There's a big statue of him in there, but it is what it is.
[01:22:59] Speaker B: Okay.
[01:23:01] Speaker A: But anyways, yeah. John Wayne Airport was around the corner from our house and there was one know, I'm terrified of flying. I do it all the time, but I hate it. It's not a thing that you do know. Yeah, exactly. Always afraid, never a coward. That's the motto.
[01:23:21] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:23:22] Speaker A: Don't do it stoned. No. I don't trust that experience enough for was. Kia was driving me to the airport for a flight. I don't remember where I was going, but I was going by myself and on the way, like a song came on and I don't remember. So I know a John Denver song came on. Know. Stressed me out. Very final destination to have John Denver come on. Who famously died in a plane crash. And I can't remember if it was the same song or if it was a different song, but some song came on where the lyrics were, I'll never see her again. And I was like, I don't love, don't. Don't like this music that is coming on as we're driving this five minutes to the airport. And then I get there and I'm sitting waiting for the plane, and keo texts me, I loved you.
Just a typo. He meant to write love, but it came out in past tense.
[01:24:25] Speaker B: How long ago is this? When was this?
[01:24:26] Speaker A: This was probably like 2010, 2011, somewhere in that general vicinity. And I was like, oh, my God, I am going to die on this plane. I have gotten so many indications that I am going to die on this plane. And I didn't. I'm still here. But it brings out every superstitious part of me. I hate flying so much that it overrides every logical, rational.
[01:24:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:24:54] Speaker A: And it's like in the beginning of final destination when they're walking onto the plane. And Sean Williams Scott kind of catalogs all the different people on here. There's like a developmentally disabled guy, and there's like, nuns or something like that. There's like a classroom of kids. And he's like, you have to be a fucked up God to crash this plane.
That's like how you think when you're terrified of flying. You kind of look around and think, okay, this plane is not going to crash. It would be terrible if a plane with all these children died on it or whatever. My brain just goes like that, even though I know that's rationally not how it works. So this week we had multiple things happen where it started with. I was listening to last podcast on the left. Their most recent series was on the uruguayan rugby team who crashed in the Andes and had to survive for months in the andes as a result of this. Those that didn't immediately die in the crash, which was most of the people on it.
And so I was kind of like, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, or whatever. And I'm listening to this survival story. I love those, all that kind of thing. Great. No big deal.
And then I will talk more in depth about this in a minute. But we get the Boeing 737 Max nine that the door or a big piece of fuselage blasts off of in flight, which is terrifying.
[01:26:22] Speaker B: I had a news alert on that story, actually, a couple of moments ago.
[01:26:25] Speaker A: Oh, did you?
[01:26:27] Speaker B: Yes.
United finds loose bolts in Boeing plane checks.
[01:26:34] Speaker A: And that's not the same airline.
It was Alaska.
[01:26:41] Speaker B: Yeah, this is United Airlines. They found boats in need of quotes. Additional tightening have been found.
[01:26:47] Speaker A: My face is so hot I fly united pretty much exclusively.
A what?
[01:26:56] Speaker B: A spanner wrench.
[01:26:59] Speaker A: Okay, got it. Yep, check. We'll do that.
And then right after or before that, Christian Oliver, who played Luca in the babysitters club, died in a plane crash with his two daughters, which is just horribly tragic.
And yeah, that happened right around the same time.
Okay.
Obviously. So where we're going with this is we're going to talk being jack of all graves. When we find we're afraid of something and it's causing us stress, we lean in to it. And so we're going to talk about catastrophic failures of modes of transportation.
[01:27:46] Speaker B: What is Joag? Rule number one. You are not safe.
[01:27:50] Speaker A: You are not safe. It is rule number one exactly as.
[01:27:55] Speaker B: Infinitesimally slim as the ods are of dying in a particular circumstance, a particular time.
You're never safe. You're never 100 zillion percent safe.
Even sat there where you're sat, where I'm sat, we know that embolism that you're walking around with could just go, hey, now's the time.
[01:28:15] Speaker A: Not bring that one into it.
I don't need that.
[01:28:19] Speaker B: Another one. All right.
[01:28:20] Speaker A: That's too much.
[01:28:22] Speaker B: You aren't safe. That's the first thing to accept, I guess, in living a healthy outdoors life, isn't it?
[01:28:31] Speaker A: Yeah, precisely.
So let's talk about it. And I figured a great place to start with all this is what happened this week with an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max nine flying out of Portland, Oregon. The same plane, although not the same airplane, upon which I flew out of Portland, Oregon in October on my flight to Los Angeles, or in fact to John Wayne airport just a few months ago, because it is a plane that is meant for short flights. So anytime you hear about the 737 Max nine, you're talking about flights that are basically under 2 hours.
And as I mentioned earlier, I was listening to that podcast about the uruguayan rugby team surviving the plane crash.
And Ed Larson, one of the hosts, kept reassuring another host, Henry Zabrowski, that this stuff doesn't happen on american planes, especially not anymore, because it's too expensive for airlines to let you die. They're going to do everything in their power to make sure you survive your flight because they don't want the headache of a plane crash.
[01:29:43] Speaker B: The piece, famously from Fight Club, whereby if, let's say, a car manufacturer has a defect, they work it out. Are the lawsuits going to cost more than the recall?
[01:29:53] Speaker A: Right.
[01:29:53] Speaker B: And if there is, they'll do the recall. Is that accurate?
[01:29:56] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I don't know.
[01:29:59] Speaker B: No. Do I, I'm thinking out loud, I.
[01:30:00] Speaker A: Guess, but that will kind of come in to something I'm going to talk about here, if not that necessarily. But I do think that that calculus certainly comes into things.
Yeah, it's certainly not a thing they want you to know, but I would not be surprised. And I think there's probably lawsuits that show that that absolutely is the case again, which is going to come up here.
So, yeah, he's reassuring him of this, and then this happens right after I finish that podcast. And I do a lot of things to try to make myself not panic on airplanes. Amongst them is like, for example, I finally figured out, I googled and figured out what causes turbulence when it has to do with certain geographic features. Like if you're flying over mountains and things like that, it's basically like a bumpy road. It's an air bumpy road. And so, for example, one of the things I do is if it starts to get turbulent, I pull up the sky map and I look to see what we're flying over so that I go, we're on a bumpy road. We are flying over.
[01:31:07] Speaker B: I can rationalize it. I can contextualize it.
[01:31:09] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. So I do like a lot of stuff like that to try to keep myself from going into full panic mode on airplanes, because as soon as we hit a bump, my hands get clammy and I start getting shaky and my adrenaline is running through me.
But this was sort of an instant reminder that, yeah, they don't want you to die in airplanes. It would be a real pain in the butt for them, but sometimes they fuck things up. So let's talk about what happened. A door plug blew off of the aforementioned Boeing 737 Max nine aircraft a few minutes after leaving Portland, blasting a big chunk of the fuselage into the backyard of an Oregon school teacher.
Hence why something might fall on you. I live near another airport, so just saying this caused the cabin of the plane to depressurize, forcing the 171 passengers and six crew aboard the plane to finally get a chance to use those neat little yellow oxygen masks from the safety videos.
The backyard the fuselage landed in, by the way, was in the same suburb. I got married in Cedar Hills, less than a mile from my old house. Right?
[01:32:21] Speaker B: Chasing you, Tony Todd, is going to pop up any second.
[01:32:25] Speaker A: I know, right? I'm like sninging. I'm like, I'm totally not going to take this as a sign because I'm a grown woman who does not see superstition in my life, but come on.
Anyway, according to the Guardian, the plug extricating itself from the plane, did so with so much force it blew open the cockpit door and the atmosphere on board was described as chaotic.
We can't fully know though, because for some reason the plain voice recorders only capture 2 hours and then they're overwritten.
Regulators are being pressured to mandate that recorders capture at least 25 hours, which seems reasonable.
[01:33:03] Speaker B: I agree. I completely agree.
[01:33:04] Speaker A: It is insane that they're just like, yeah, okay, and we're good here.
This didn't happen completely without warning either.
On December 7, January 3, and January 4, the auto pressurization fail light came on on the aircraft. On that aircraft.
And while it's unclear if there's a connection.
Come the fuck on. In each case of the light coming on, the problem had been investigated and was marked as resolved per the plane's maintenance procedure. But that feels like one of those things where it's like you look and you check the things you usually check, you don't see anything visibly wrong and you're like, guess it's fine, the lights are just going off.
If whatever happened with the plug wasn't a part of the maintenance procedures, they obviously wouldn't have caught it.
[01:33:51] Speaker B: Go ahead. You know that Laura is super into air crash investigations. Yeah, she's all over this. She's been all over.
[01:33:57] Speaker A: Oh, I'm sure.
[01:33:58] Speaker B: Oh yes. They've clearly the, the protocol. Yeah. See, they still have to investigate it, Mark, even though there was no.
[01:34:06] Speaker A: Can you pull out like a voice recorder one of these times and just get that amazing commentary? I would love to hear it.
[01:34:16] Speaker B: I'll see what I can do.
[01:34:18] Speaker A: We'll have Laura on as our airline expert.
[01:34:21] Speaker B: I wonder if she would.
[01:34:23] Speaker A: You should ask her, but yeah, it's pretty sketch though that they were concerned enough about the light coming on that they decided not to fly that model of plane on long routes over water, like routes to Hawai. And listen, if the plane is not safe enough to fly over water, it's not safe.
[01:34:44] Speaker B: No, no, there's a lot of, yeah.
[01:34:47] Speaker A: And like, just think if your tire was like shaking on its axle, right. You wouldn't just go like, you know, I won't take it on a dirt road. Like, you shouldn't drive it anywhere it's broken, right. So if the plane is broken, you just don't fly it over anything, in my opinion.
Thankfully, despite the depressurization pressurization and the chaos in this case, everyone made it out unharmed. But they were obviously super lucky this happened like a so close to takeoff and not midway through the flight.
[01:35:25] Speaker B: You've seen some of the passenger videos, I guess.
[01:35:27] Speaker A: Yes, of course. I mean, I watch the evening news most of the time and so, yeah, there's been tons of that on there. And no one was seated in the row where the window blew out, row 26. And because it was so soon after takeoff, neither the flight attendants nor any of the passengers were up and walking about the cabin yet, which is a good reminder to all of you assholes who just decide to get up and go to the bathroom as soon as the plane is off the ground that you might end up getting sucked out a window. Just sit down till the seatbelt light is turned off. Get your shit together.
But yes, the subverted what could have been a much worse disaster. You're seeing, like, the opposite end of me, like earlier, you saw me like, this is me at my most enthusiastic, lying.
[01:36:13] Speaker B: We've had whole spectrum.
[01:36:15] Speaker A: Yeah, just like, jesus Christ, can we all just do what we're supposed to do and everything goes smoothly or what? Here, let's follow the lights. Let's all do what they were supposed to do.
Fellow flight phobic people, though, will know that this know the 736 Max name from a pair of flights that weren't as lucky as this one. In 2019, all 737 Max planes were grounded by the FAA because in October of 2018, an Indonesia Air 737 MAX eight plane crashed near West Java after having lost contact 13 minutes after takeoff. The plane had requested to return to base and air traffic control had given them the okay. Before that occurred, flight trackers recorded an increase in speed and a decrease in altitude. At the time of the flight's last transmission, it had only reached an altitude of 5200ft before it crashed. The airplane sank and all 189 people on board were killed.
Five months later, on March 10, 2019, an ethiopian airline Boeing 737 MAX eight plane took off at 08:38 a.m. And 1 minute later at 08:39 a.m. When it had reached an altitude of just 450ft off the ground, it took a nosedive.
The first officer radioed in a flight control problem. The captain attempted to correct the flight path, with one pilot saying to the other, pitch up, pitch up. Before the transmission went dead, the flight smashed into the ground, killing 160 people.
The cause of the crash? Erroneous sensor information, causing the stall prevention system to force the nose of the plane downward. It would later be found that a similar error had caused the Indonesia air crash, a failure in the maneuvering characteristics augmentation system, or MCAs.
I'm just going to read for you from the Seattle Times what MCAS was and why it was fucking irresponsible in the first place, because this is bonkers. So extensive interviews with people involved with the program and a review of proprietary documents show how Boeing originally designed MCAs as a simple solution with a narrow scope, then altered it late in the plane's development to expand its power and purpose. Still, a safety analysis led by Boeing concluded there would be little risk in the event of an MCAS failure, in part because of an FAA approved assumption that pilots would respond to an unexpected activation in a mere 3 seconds. The revised design allowed MCAs to trigger on the inputs of a single sensor instead of two factors considered in the original plan. Boeing engineers considered that lack of redundancy acceptable, according to proprietary information reviewed by the Seattle Times, because they calculated the probability of a hazardous MCAs malfunction to be virtually inconceivable.
[01:39:12] Speaker B: And that's it, isn't it? The probability?
[01:39:15] Speaker A: Right.
They can't factor in unsinkable ship shit there.
[01:39:20] Speaker B: You can't. You can't. Like I said, you're. You're not safe. You can't factor in.
[01:39:24] Speaker A: It's an unreal thing to say, like, yeah, that simply won't happen. Like what?
As Boeing and the FAA advanced the 737 Max toward production, they limited the scrutiny and testing of the MCAs design. Then they agreed not to inform pilots about MCAs in manuals, even though Boeing safety analysis expected pilots to be the primary backstop in the event the system went haywire.
So basically this system was supposed to correct a problem with the nose of the plane pitching upward during a particular extreme maneuver. Mkhaus would counteract the problem by pushing the nose down. And if for some reason this malfunction, they were like, it's fine, the pilot will sort it real quick, but they don't need any fail safes for this. And then they didn't expect the pilot.
[01:40:17] Speaker B: Now, I am not an aviation engineer.
I have no background in air traffic control. I've gone to no courses. But there's a point of failure then, right?
[01:40:29] Speaker A: Yeah, I think we can see where maybe we would have done things differently.
Yeah. 346 people died because they tried to fix a problem, which created a different problem, implemented no failsafes, and didn't train pilots on how to fix a problem if one occurred because they thought it was inconceivable.
This whole thing led to a criminal case against Boeing. And according to PBS frontline, quote, as Boeing's fatal flaw recounts, congressional investigators found internal documents showing that after Boeing realized the impact mcas would have on pilot training and FAA certification, some Boeing employees suggested removing all references to mcas from training manuals. Boeing's employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception, said David P. Burns, the acting assistant attorney general of the DOJ's criminal division.
[01:41:33] Speaker B: All of that is horrific.
[01:41:35] Speaker A: Horrific.
[01:41:36] Speaker B: But I'm going to try and pull.
[01:41:37] Speaker A: You out of this, okay?
[01:41:40] Speaker B: Much like mcas, I'm going to try and counterbalance your crisis.
[01:41:43] Speaker A: Can you? That'd be great.
[01:41:44] Speaker B: With another crisis in a different part of life.
[01:41:50] Speaker A: See, okay.
[01:41:53] Speaker B: It isn't just planes, right. Every fucking mode of transport you could choose to take, you can't fucking insure against every single potential disaster.
[01:42:06] Speaker A: True.
[01:42:07] Speaker B: What would you think would be the most safe and completely fucking foolproof and non fatality causing mode of transport you could consider?
[01:42:17] Speaker A: You could think of staying home.
[01:42:19] Speaker B: Right? Doesn't count. Not a mode of transport to convey you from one area to another. What do you think?
[01:42:26] Speaker A: I mean, obviously nothing's foolproof. What would be the least deadly?
[01:42:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
What were you least likely to have a crisis about?
Take an elevator. A train.
[01:42:39] Speaker A: Oh, no, I hate elevators.
[01:42:40] Speaker B: Do you?
[01:42:41] Speaker A: No. Yeah. I do not like elevators. If something is less than ten floors up, I walk.
[01:42:49] Speaker B: Interesting. Well, you certainly will in a bit.
[01:42:51] Speaker A: Oh, great.
[01:42:52] Speaker B: But take trains, for example, right?
The way that risk in transport is calculated seems to be in fatality rates per billion passenger kilometers, right? Okay, so per billion kilometers traveled by train, by passengers. In the UK, the fatality rate is zero six.
[01:43:17] Speaker A: That's what I'm talking about. That's the kind of fatality rate I like.
[01:43:21] Speaker B: That's fucking brilliant. That's a fraction of a fraction of a percent per billion kilometers, right? So think on now.
That's fatalities of passengers, the death by suicide rate, and rail.
[01:43:40] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, that's a whole.
[01:43:42] Speaker B: So for example, the year 2022 to 23, right?
We have 20 fatalities per billion miles. Right? Per billion miles travel, it's 236 fatalities by suicide per billion.
[01:44:01] Speaker A: Wow. I mean, there was like, my friend was in London. Well, had gone up to Manchester like two days after Christmas and got stuck in Manchester because of. Exactly.
[01:44:16] Speaker B: You often. There are documentaries about it. You often hear of it happening. Thank fucking Christ. I've never been in the vicinity of one happening. But even that, even so, right, you still can't insure against just dickheadery.
Well, one such example, right. I'll talk to you about a train accident that happened in Spain in 2013, right near the city of Santiago de Compostela in Galileo.
[01:44:45] Speaker A: That's the walk, right? That's where they go on the walk.
[01:44:50] Speaker B: Indeed. Indeed. Now, during a very routine journey, the train hit a curve at twice the fucking speed that it ought to be at.
[01:45:02] Speaker A: Jesus Christ.
[01:45:03] Speaker B: About 118 mph. When it entered the curve, the train derailed, 79 people died, 143 injuries. We are talking causes of death.
Blunt force trauma being thrown around in the carriage, people piling into each other, people crashing into a concrete wall beside the track. It was a complete clusterfuck.
Do you know what caused it? Do you know why that train was going as fast as it did?
[01:45:29] Speaker A: Was the guy texting?
[01:45:32] Speaker B: No.
[01:45:33] Speaker A: Why?
[01:45:34] Speaker B: He was just being a dick.
[01:45:36] Speaker A: Oh, he just decided to go fast?
[01:45:38] Speaker B: Yes. The driver fucking survived. Right. Of course. And he admitted to, quote, excessive speed, possibly due to a momentary lapse in attention.
He wasn't drunk, he wasn't high, he wasn't getting. Just spaced out, cock sucked. He wasn't eating pickles.
He just got it wrong.
How do you ensure against that?
[01:46:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's one of those things where it's like you said, trains aren't hugely dangerous most of the time, but they are driven by people. And you do see that happen from time to time, like horrific crashes. And it's like someone was texting or was unfocused or whatever the case may be.
[01:46:22] Speaker B: So what I guess I'm saying is, have a crisis about planes, by all means. But if you're going to have a crisis about planes, you've got to have a crisis about a load of.
[01:46:32] Speaker A: No, this is the wrong direction, Mark. We're going the wrong way.
[01:46:36] Speaker B: Am I helping?
[01:46:37] Speaker A: No. Because I will be on trains.
[01:46:40] Speaker B: Okay, all right. But you don't like to get the lift then?
[01:46:44] Speaker A: No, no, I do not like the lift.
[01:46:47] Speaker B: Even safer. Even goddamn safer. In fact, most lift fatalities seem to occur at construction sites. Right. That makes sense.
If you look at the top. Elevator fatalities, they're all methane gas explosion in a mine in Africa, 62 dead. 987 construction site, 100 meters drop in Wuhan, 19 dead. Mine shaft elevator in Lee, in fact, Leon Sea in England, 19 dead. All construction based. Right.
Except what would you suggest? What would you guess if I were to ask you what was the worst elevator fatality incident of all time?
[01:47:38] Speaker A: Well, there's that one that haunts me all the time and is one of the many reasons that I don't go on cruise ships where the maintenance guy got crushed to death and then his blood ran down the outside the elevator and pulled on the floor.
[01:47:49] Speaker B: Just the aesthetics of that are bang on, aren't they?
[01:47:51] Speaker A: It's like very horror movie, but no.
[01:47:54] Speaker B: What's the worst in terms of numbers? Well, at 08:46 a.m. On September the 11th, 2001.
[01:48:02] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[01:48:05] Speaker B: A fucking plane wanged itself into the World Trade center.
[01:48:08] Speaker A: Of course, yes, that did occur, I recall.
[01:48:11] Speaker B: Do you remember that? I remember that it made the kind of local news blink and you miss it.
That caused the most deaths in a lift ever. When that flight, when one five seven struck the building, fucking jet fuel went down lift shafts.
[01:48:26] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[01:48:28] Speaker B: Flame spread. But this is what blows my mind about this, right? Some 200 people died in elevators during 911.
To those people in that elevator or those elevators, 911 never happened. They didn't fucking know what was going on.
[01:48:45] Speaker A: Well, yes. I mean, same with the people who were in the floors that got hit by the.
But they had a whole different disaster than everybody else did.
[01:48:55] Speaker B: Exactly. They had a completely different perspective on things.
They wouldn't have seen the news. They wouldn't have seen the fucking planes.
The heartrending kind of images of people standing at the gaping fucking hole in the plane, waving their fucking shirts around, the 911 calls, et cetera. None of that for those people in the lifts.
[01:49:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:49:15] Speaker B: I don't know.
There's something very interesting to me about that, the perspective of those people, totally different to everybody else who died.
An untold kind of angle to the story.
[01:49:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I'd certainly never heard about that. But similarly, that's always been a thing that I've thought about with the people who initially were on the 80 eigth floor or whatever, when the planes hit, they just died. And they had no concept of what was happening. Even the ones who were like the plane that was hijacked, that the passengers brought down to prevent it in Pennsylvania or wherever it went down. They had no idea they were part of a bigger thing going on either.
[01:49:58] Speaker B: I sometimes think if Wesley Snipes had been on one of those planes, it might have been a very different.
[01:50:02] Speaker A: Well, we all know that Mark Wahlberg would have stopped it.
[01:50:08] Speaker B: Look, maybe this is misguided, maybe I'm coming about this wrong, but I'm trying to drag you out of the crisis by telling you.
Don't pick and choose your crises, Corey. It's either all or nothing. You either have a crisis about every fucking mode of transport around, or you just chill. What's it going to be now? What's it going to be?
[01:50:26] Speaker A: I don't know, Mark. I'm not sure.
[01:50:28] Speaker B: Let's think on.
[01:50:31] Speaker A: I may do the second one. I might just have a crisis about all of them.
[01:50:36] Speaker B: Well, just stick to it.
[01:50:40] Speaker A: Occasionally I do get into that zone where I start spiraling on that like everything is dangerous. You drive your car statistically, because you're in your car a lot more and other people and all that kind of stuff, you're much more likely to die in your car than in a plane. But to sort of go about your daily life, you can't be constantly in the position of thinking about the fact that the thing that gets you everywhere is going to kill you. Or the fact that I walk most places and I almost get hit by cars every other day.
[01:51:13] Speaker B: Well, if we're talking private modes of transport, would you care to take a stab at what is the highest death rate per billion kilometers?
[01:51:22] Speaker A: Is it not cars?
[01:51:23] Speaker B: No.
[01:51:24] Speaker A: Bicycles.
[01:51:25] Speaker B: Motorbikes.
[01:51:27] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, motorbikes. Definitely see that as someone who lives outside of New York City.
[01:51:31] Speaker B: Yes. So if you take trains, for example, like I said, 0.6% per billion passenger kilometers. Sorry .60.6 fatalities per billion passenger kilometers. Motorcycles at 122.
[01:51:47] Speaker A: What?
[01:51:48] Speaker B: Oh yeah. Which per billion passenger kilometers. That's 122 deaths per billion kilometers. Which, when you put it up against trains, push bikes, kind of non motorbikes, is 30 per billion passenger kilometers. Motorcycles. 122 deaths. Actual. Not 1.22 deaths. 122.
[01:52:12] Speaker A: What about cars?
[01:52:14] Speaker B: What about cars?
[01:52:19] Speaker A: Just curious how that compares to a motorcycle.
[01:52:24] Speaker B: Cars less than a 1% chance of dying in a car in the UK.
[01:52:31] Speaker A: Fascinating.
[01:52:32] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:52:34] Speaker A: Although I bet that's probably a lot more here because you guys drive less than me too.
[01:52:39] Speaker B: Yes, we do. One in 20,000 risk of dying in a road accident in any given year in the.
[01:52:50] Speaker A: Mean, I'm a. I stick with my.
[01:52:53] Speaker B: Driven with me.
[01:52:55] Speaker A: I know, right? The statistics have to be much higher than. I don't think. I haven't thought about it, Mark.
I don't know. I'm not sure if I feel any better.
[01:53:06] Speaker B: You know what?
[01:53:06] Speaker A: I think I do. I think I needed to get it to think. I needed to just feel heard about it.
And now I feel less like I'm going to get Donnie Darkoed and I feel a little less like I'm going to get sucked out of a plane window. But United uses a lot of 737 maxes and I'm on them all the time.
[01:53:30] Speaker B: If we want to end this on a queer aisle. And childishly hilarious note, we did discuss this story at the dinner table here in the Lewis household the other night.
[01:53:39] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:53:40] Speaker B: And it was Owen or Peter I can't remember which. They said, what would it be like to get sucked off a plane? And that led to me going, the last thing you want to do is get sucked off on a plane. And it was.
Hilarity ensued.
[01:53:58] Speaker A: I am just imagining when you say hilarity ensued. Your kids had no idea what you're.
[01:54:03] Speaker B: Talking about and your wife choked on a chip.
[01:54:08] Speaker A: It's like, mark, I appreciate that. Friends? I don't know. Am I crazy?
Do I need you to call me that? Do you have any statistics or stories that would change my mind? Do you have any statistics or stories that validate my fear? What are you terrified of public transportation wise, or how do you overcome it? Were you terrified of planes and you figured out a foolproof way to get over it? Please share it and don't get sucked out of a plane, and don't get stuck in ice in the Arctic and just generally don't eat lead.
I think.
[01:54:49] Speaker B: Listen to the Inuit.
[01:54:50] Speaker A: Yeah, listen to the Inuits. If you take anything away from this episode, listen to the Inuits.
[01:54:56] Speaker B: They know what they're talking about.
[01:54:57] Speaker A: Amen.
[01:54:58] Speaker B: Oh, and ooh, stay spooky this year.
[01:55:03] Speaker A: That's the one.
