Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: A few weeks ago, I told you the story of the McDonald's hot coffee case.
[00:00:08] Speaker B: You did? And I enjoyed it a great deal. I.
It gave me a perspective, a brand new perspective on an event I thought I knew about. And that's. That's what I enjoy the most about your openings. As opposed to mine. Mine. It's just so I talk about some fucking nasty shit that happened, whereas I tend to pick up, you know, I tend to learn things from yours.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Well, lucky for you, hopefully that's going to happen again this week. You know, the McDonald's hot coffee case was, if you haven't listened to that episode of tribe by media that made the victim out to be a dullard and was held up as an example of how american litigiousness had gotten out of hand. But meanwhile, what had actually happened to the elderly woman at the center of the case was horrifying and life altering.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: I'd like. I'd. I mean, I'd like to think, though, that America learned from it, though, at least. Yes.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: You're so cute. You're just the most adorable.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: I'd love to think that that could never be allowed to happen again.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: Never. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely not. No. As I mentioned in that story now, it still happens fairly frequently, but this week, as I just sort of said, I'm gonna tell you another such story because you know how much I love to correct the record.
[00:01:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
You are an abitul record corrector.
[00:01:34] Speaker A: I am. Perhaps annoyingly so. That's why I have this podcast, is so that I don't do it to people in person.
It's like just biting my tongue to, like, someone. When I was working on that video for the local slate that was running a couple weeks ago, one of the guys mentioned that he had been in a war of the Worlds show, like a play that they were putting on that was about the panic broadcast, right? The thing that we've all heard about where, like, people thought it was real and all, you know, they went crazy, and that never happened, but people think it did. And so he was like, oh, I was in a play about the panic broadcast. Blah, blah, blah.
Did not happen. I can't believe I haven't talked about this on this podcast yet. I gotta put that on the upcoming slate of cold opens.
[00:02:27] Speaker B: Because everyone believed mass panic and people rang, nevertheless happened.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Not a real thing did not occur.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: Holy shit.
[00:02:37] Speaker A: Right?
I will have to bring that collective.
[00:02:44] Speaker B: Collective delusions is a great idea.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: Right? Which I've talked about before. I have talked about, you know, like, mass psychogenic illness and things like that.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:02:54] Speaker A: You know, and we've talked about various sorts of, like, forms of mass hysteria and things like that. But, you know, the. The panic broadcast never happened and is an interesting sort of example of how we're so quick to buy into the idea of things like this and how the media can, like, manufacture things that didn't happen.
[00:03:19] Speaker B: She might pop up in conversation, but Lucy Letbee is starting to feel like something similar.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Yes, I will mention that briefly, but again, yeah. One that I think we are going to have to revisit very soon.
[00:03:32] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:03:33] Speaker A: So, yeah, all that to say, I try to avoid saying anything to people in person, especially if it's not a close personal friend, when they have misinformation that they just spout out. And that's why I'm here to ask you, Mark, have you ever heard the phrase the dingo ate my baby?
[00:03:52] Speaker B: Absolutely. Yes, I have.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Okay. Do you have any concept of what it's referencing?
[00:03:58] Speaker B: Right.
I don't have names, but I know that an australian woman was maybe on, like, some kind of camping trip in the bush.
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Which is what they call it the Australians, don't they?
[00:04:16] Speaker A: That's what they call it, yeah.
[00:04:18] Speaker B: Out in the bush, and her baby went missing.
And she claimed. Well, the only explanation could have been that a dingo came and took it away in the night, Nate, the baby.
But that didn't fucking wash at all. And she probably did some time for it.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Interesting take on this.
[00:04:44] Speaker B: Uh, I'm piecing together bits of. Bits of bits. There was, you know, that is the.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: That is the story that, uh, we all heard.
[00:04:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: About this. And I love that that is how you presented it, because I'm about to smash that, what you just said. But it is absolutely the story that everyone thinks.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: Happened. Yeah. So when I was growing up, my mom was quite fond of quoting that phrase, and she wasn't alone in that.
[00:05:15] Speaker B: Now, see, for some reason, I am as well. And I wonder where the fuck I'm getting that from.
A dingo ain't my baby. I know I've said that a lot. And I wonder where the fuck I've heard that.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: Right. It's like one of those sort of things that's just sort of like, in the zeitgeist, in the air. Like, everyone knows it, but, like, no one can pinpoint. Like, what was the thing that made me start saying that, you know, and why did I think it was funny?
[00:05:43] Speaker B: Like, what, the gag or something on some fucking tv? Show.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: Maybe I can help you here. Yeah, it was all over pop culture. It was used in an episode of Seinfeld, for example. Elaine mentions it in Seinfeld. But by the way, also Seinfeld had an episode about the hot coffee thing. So Seinfeld is not new to being on the wrong side of these kinds of things. Well, it was in Frasier.
It was referenced on the Simpsons.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: It has to have been the Simpsons.
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Could be the Simpsons. It was referenced on Family Guy, Buffy the vampire slayer. It was in the adventures of Priscilla, queen of the desert and modern family. There's even a quip in tropic thunder that alludes to the fact that the joke is actually in poor taste.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: So basically, you could have gotten this from.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: The only one of those would possibly have been is the Simpsons. I fucking hate family.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: You've never seen Tropic Thunder?
[00:06:36] Speaker B: I've seen tropic thunder, yes.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:39] Speaker B: What I think my, my, you know, dango ate my baby predates tropic thunder in my.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
[00:06:48] Speaker B: Cultural kind of, you know, cash.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: Yeah, that absolutely makes sense. So it's probably the Simpsons, but it was everywhere. So it was really just kind of one of those things that everyone was sort of saying.
And this story sort of like, or at least that part of it, absolutely gripped american culture in the eighties and nineties in a comedic way. But when you know any of the details, it's super difficult to parse why anyone ever thought this was funny.
So story begins in the australian outback in 1980 when Linda Chamberlain and her family went on a camping trip at a place that's now called Uluru.
[00:07:26] Speaker B: There we go.
[00:07:26] Speaker A: At the time, it was called Ayers Rock.
[00:07:28] Speaker B: Ayers Rock, yes.
[00:07:29] Speaker A: But yes, a lot of places have been given their indigenous names back in Australia, so it's now called Uluru. Along on the trip were their two sons, Aiden and Regan, and their nine week old baby girl, Azariah. And everything was going swimmingly until 08:00 p.m. On their second night of camping, when Azariah was heard crying out from their tent where they'd just put her to bed, running to see what was going on. Lindy saw, to her horror, a dingo leaving the tent.
When she looked inside, it was confirmed that the worst had happened. Azariah was gone, leaving only bloody blankets in her wake.
Lindy screamed in horror. A dingo's got my baby. And a search party of some 300 people assembled to look for the baby, to no avail.
A week later, some of Azariah's bloodstained clothing turned up in the vicinity, but no other trace of her was found.
So that's the story that she told.
[00:08:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:24] Speaker A: When she came back from this trip.
[00:08:25] Speaker B: Yep. Pretty much. Exactly.
[00:08:27] Speaker A: Let me tell you. Just as you were accounted. Yeah.
So let me just tell you a little bit about dingoes here for context.
In general, they tend to associate humans with food, but not as scavenger kind of. I want to say coyote. So they know we keep kind of animals. Yeah. They know we keep food on us, which makes us attractive, but they don't necessarily, necessarily want to eat us in general.
But this is absolutely not a hard and fast rule. Dingoes have absolutely attacked humans, especially children, as prey, on numerous occasions. It's not a common occurrence, but it's not at all unheard of. And they're smart about it, too. While these attacks tend to be carried out by young dingoes, their strategy is quite clever.
They attack children who are some distance from an adult and are especially likely to attack if the child looks weak or injured. Like, for example, a five year old boy who tripped and fell while trailing some distance behind his family in 2022.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: You've heard the saying, what's this? That fell as smart as a dingo.
[00:09:38] Speaker A: Did you just make that up?
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay.
He's nodding. Friends. He's nodding. He made that up.
Regular dingo prey includes small animals like wallabies, and a child is around the same size, sometimes even smaller and, realistically, even more defenseless. Human children are not good at defending themselves from anything.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: If you put a fucking gun to my head right now, I could not tell you what the fuck a wallaby looks like.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: Really?
It's like a little kangaroo.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Yep, fine. Okay.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: They're very cute. I've petted them before, and they are very adorable.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Okay. But, yeah. Dingos are opportunistic hunters, and an isolated kid is a great opportunity for a dingo.
As the conversation points out, this behavior isn't fully distinctive to dingoes. In a very creepy parallel, they write that you see similar reactions in the zoo when big cats, like lions and tigers, ignore adult humans, but will suddenly get all hyped up when they see a child.
[00:10:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: They're not trying to play with your kid. Your kid has activated a predatory response, and they're basically picturing a roast dinner on a platter like some sort of looney Tunes cartoon.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like when Jerry.
No, Jerry's a mouse, isn't he?
[00:10:59] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Jerry's the mouse.
[00:11:00] Speaker B: Tom looks at Jerry and he's got the chicken.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Exactly that.
So the thing about dingoes, too, is that the ones that live in fairly regular proximity to humans tend to be less concerned with putting distance between us and them, and that makes them hugely unpredictable.
While usually the worst they're gonna do is maybe give you a sniff and steal your lunch. It's impossible to know for sure that they're not gonna suddenly lunge for a taste of you.
[00:11:28] Speaker B: Ultimately, I'm pretty sure something happened similarly with a kind of an urban fox, possibly in London over the last kind of 510 years. Brazen fucker just walked in and tried to drag a kid away.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: We had this, like, it was like, a huge problem where I lived in Costa Mesa, California, that, like, there was a coyote in the neighborhood, and I saw it when I was out walking and stuff like that. And it would just straight up walk up to people and take their dogs from them.
If you. Yeah. When animals like this get used to being around people, it's like, most of the time they're just gonna walk by, you know, you're not gonna. It's gonna be fine. But sometimes they're gonna do something fucking crazy.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: Like, yeah, it's 2010, right in fucking Hackney, in the middle of London. Fox just walked the fuck in through a door and mauled twins.
[00:12:25] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:12:26] Speaker B: Crazy.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: Wild foxes are small. We've had some foxes on our street the past few nights who are. I like them insane.
Like, I want to like them, but the sound they make.
[00:12:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:12:38] Speaker A: Is truly from the pits of.
We were. We were, like, watching a movie last night, and, you know, all of a sudden, there was those horrific, blood curdling fox screams. And we had last week gone out to watch the Aurora borealis, or attempt two, and fox screams, and we looked, and then they kind of, like, ran down the street and all that. Like, they're. They're crazy, but they're small. So, you know, it's really saying something that they're at that size. They're still not scared enough of humans and would come and maul a set of twins. But, yeah, they're going by the same thing. They know, like, a human child is weak, can't defend itself.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: And plus, it's another matter entirely for a fox to come into your home, whereas we're talking about an expedition here, aren't we? We're talking about a camping trip. You're in.
[00:13:27] Speaker A: You're in the land on a campground in their domain. Exactly that.
So ultimately, dingos don't want to fight you. They're flight animals and, like, you know, I went to a zoo in Australia that had dingo puppies, and they were so fucking, fucking cute. It would have been real hard for me not to cuddle one if it approached me in the wild. But in the wild, this makes them super bold. And again, this can make them dangerous to humans in ways that they wouldn't otherwise be. A dingo that has, like, lived way out in the outback with no context with humans, would probably never come anywhere near you, as opposed to one that lived near a campground.
So, according to the New York Times, before the chamberlain's camping trip, the chief park ranger at Ayers Rock had already warned his superiors that the dingo population needed to be thinned as they were becoming a growing threat to human visitors.
But many folks were convinced that dingoes were among that cohort of animals that is totally harmless to humans unless approached the old. They're more scared of you than you are of them, too.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: Yeah, of course.
[00:14:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And this was increasingly not the case in this park, despite the higher up's refusal to listen.
Now, at first, the story was seen as the sad tragedy it was, at least by the coroner, if not by the public. On February 20 of 1981, due to public interest in the story, the coroner actually announced on television that their inquest found that Azariah had been killed by a wild dingo.
In what was as much a castigation of the audience and police as a heartfelt message to the couple, he said, you have not only suffered the loss of your beloved child in the most tragic circumstances, but you have all been subjected to months of innuendos, suspicion, and probably the most malicious gossip issued in this country. Yep, this should have been the end of things.
But when I say this was a trial by media, I mean that in a more literal way than usual.
Rumors had begun swirling from the get go that there had never been any dingo and that Lindy had in fact, slit the child's throat and used the wild dog as a coverup. And unsurprisingly, the cops were not immune to a good conspiracy theory.
So new forensic experts were called in that raised questions about the findings of the original inquest. And mounting public pressure and pressure from the government caused them to quash the original findings and open up a second inquest, beginning with a raid of the chamberlain's house.
And let's face it, when the cops raid your house, people make up their minds about you pretty quick.
[00:15:58] Speaker B: Oh, for real? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Innocent people don't get their houses raided.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Right where there's fucking smokers. Where there's exactly smoke, there's dingoes.
[00:16:09] Speaker A: Where there's smoke, there's dingoes. And the story that had already gripped a nation now went into overdrive, becoming a full on circus. The trial lasted about a month and a half in 1982, and people legit sold souvenirs outside of the courthouse, which is insane to me. Like, okay, let's say we don't believe this woman and we think she killed her baby. That's super fucking sad. Why would you be having a party and selling t shirts about it? It's like if people were hawking tea towels outside of the Lucy Letbe trial.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: That's fucked up, man.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: Yeah, right. Like, it's horrifying. Child murder merch, right? And you can see some of it online. There's like a. Australia. It's in my sources. So, of course, you can look in the description of this episode or on the web, on our website, jackofalgraves.com. But you can see some of this, like, merch that they were selling. And it wasn't like, you know, baby hanging out of a dingo's mouth or anything like that. But, you know, it's very lighthearted for something that is like, no matter which way this went, is about, like, a dead child.
Really crazy stuff. And the rumors of media craziness didn't stop there. The Chamberlains were 7th day Adventists, a kind of niche, but not all that unusual denomination here in the US, but one that was apparently very weird to Australians in the 1980s.
People saw it as a cult, and word got around that the name Azariah was Hebrew for sacrifice in the wilderness, a portent of her parents plan for her.
[00:17:47] Speaker B: Oh, man, they're fucking lucky TikTok didn't exist.
[00:17:53] Speaker A: I'm gonna just give it 1 second. They also claim that a black dress with red trim worn by Azariah was somehow proof that they were part of a dark culture. Both of these things were bullshit.
[00:18:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just complete fabrication.
[00:18:07] Speaker A: Just a dress. Yeah. Azariah just means God helped. It does not mean sacrifice in the wilderness. And the cultiest thing about 7th day Adventists is, you know, that they have church on Saturday, and most of them are vegetarians. They're a pretty chill group.
But, you know, all of this stuff circulated and. Yeah, to your point, like, this is like the early kinds of, like, TikTok slew three, you know, people coming up with, like, insane stuff, and it's spreading like wildfire without the use of the Internet. Like, just people talked about it, and it got around, and this became, like, the common belief. There's probably still people. If you asked them, who would, you know, say, like, oh, yeah. And they named their kid sacrifice in the wilderness, you know?
And as you can imagine, this, you know, people analyzed the couple's demeanor, creating what Lindy described as a no win situation. She said, quote, if I smiled, I was belittling my daughter's death. If I cried, I was acting.
In another interview, she said the police were feeding information all the time to the press, which we had no way of combating. So the public got these initial pictures of some dreadful woman, and whenever I cried in interviews, for instance, they would edit that out because the public would get upset. So then if you smiled at a joke, you were told you were uncaring, and if you cried, you were acting. And either way, you copped to it very much.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Trial by media, like you say, yeah.
[00:19:33] Speaker A: There was, like, nothing you could do. Everyone had decided, yeah, that she was guilty, and they edited the interviews to make her guilty and all of that kind of stuff.
Viewers raked her over the coals for her, quote, sultry good looks. That was an actual thing that was written in a paper.
And her sleeveless dresses. And as the New York Times explained, quote, a further turn off for many was her cold, clinical discussion of wince inducing subjects, like how meticulous a dingo could be in peeling layers of flesh from its prey.
[00:20:05] Speaker B: Fuck me, people.
[00:20:07] Speaker A: Yeah, right? Which I'm like, I, like, so relate to that, too, because I'm like, if something terrible happened, like, I would probably very coldly and clinically describe it, too. Like, you don't want to break down every time you explain, you know, as.
[00:20:20] Speaker B: Far as sleeveless dresses go, it's fucking Australia, right?
[00:20:24] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Was she gonna wear a billion degrees all the time? Like, come on, get it together.
People harassed the chamberlains day and night, making abusive phone calls and bomb and death threats to their home.
And for their part, prosecutors claimed the cold, sultry Lindy had killed the baby and concealed her in their car until she and her husband were able later to disperse of the body.
They had lots of evidence, but it's pretty much all been shown to have been hugely flawed. For example, prosecutors said they found fetal blood spray under the dashboard of the car.
It turned out that it was actually a mix of spilled milk and bituminous compound, standard in the manufacture of the car.
Nothing like blood at all. Like, no way you could make that mistake. It was meant to muffle sound, this compound. And it's such an insane mistake to make that it feels malicious. Like, how do you confuse a thing that would be in any car with baby blood spatter? You're either the worst fucking cop on earth or you know you're wrong, but you're fabricating evidence, knowing the people in the courtroom aren't gonna know the difference.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: It's one of two, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: There's no good way that something like that happens.
So it didn't matter that the actual facts of the case very much stood in her favor. As I mentioned earlier, in the several months preceding the death of Azariah Chamberlain, there had been six dingo attacks on children in that area, according to park rangers.
Further indigenous trackers, Daisy walkabout and Judy Trigger validated that it was a dingo when they found fresh paw prints leading from the tent during the search party. And other people who had been at the campground corroborated the chamberlain story. They were not alone that night. It was a busy campground that they were staying in. They'd made friends with other people who were camping there. There were plenty of other people around, literally, eyewitnesses, literal eyewitnesses. All these people had either seen or heard what went on, including several reporting that they heard a low growl of a dingo before Azariah cried out.
But the jury found Lindy guilty of murder and her husband of being an accessory.
He received an 18 month suspended sentence while she was given life with hard labor for the crime.
Yup.
In 1985, a book about the case entitled Evil the Case of Lindy Chamberlain pointed out many of the inconsistencies in the prosecution's evidence, and the public began rethinking Lindys guilt.
She appealed her sentence twice in the following years and lost both times, but was released from prison in 1986 when Azariah's jacket was found. A jacket which the police had steadfastly maintained never existed.
[00:23:15] Speaker B: Where was it found? Like in evidence? In police evidence?
[00:23:19] Speaker A: No, no, no. In the. In the wild.
[00:23:21] Speaker B: Right, right. Okay.
[00:23:22] Speaker A: See, Lindy had consistently held that Azariah was wearing what's called a matinee jacket when the dingo took her. But only her diaper and jumpsuit were found the week after the attack.
So the prosecutor in the case insisted that she was lying about the jacket, which was significant because the jacket would have explained why no dingo saliva was found on the jumpsuit. They were like, if this baby was dragged away, there should be evidence that a dingo had grabbed the kid and there wasn't on the jumpsuit, but the jacket was. Why you know, it was in the way that was what the dingo dragged her by. So police thought she had made it up as part of her cover up. But in a strange turn of events, a british backpacker named David Brit. David Brett was hiking Uluru in 1986 and fell to his death.
His body happened to land right next to a small stained matinee jacket.
[00:24:14] Speaker B: Shut the f up.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. And both of these things, the body and the jacket, were in the vicinity of several known dingo lairs.
Crazy coincidence.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: My God.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Right? Like, meanwhile, she's in prison years later. Years later. Yeah, she's in prison for this.
So a royal commission then opened this back up and returned an open verdict, meaning that the evidence showed that it was very possible that the dingo had taken the child.
The couple was exonerated by the Supreme Court of Darwin in 1988. But the ordeal wasn't over legally or culturally. That same year, 1988, a film adaptation of Evil Angels was released starring Meryl Streep and Sam Neill. Yes, giving the case. I remember that was what you were alluding to before. Yeah. Giving the case global attention and basically spawning the catchphrase that became so ubiquitous for the next decade. The devil or the dingo ate my baby, which is not what she said initially. And I don't even know if it's what she said in the movie. I think it might still be a misquote, but that is what people took away and kept repeating. It was the movie that really kick started everyone saying this everywhere.
In 1992, the chamberlains were given compensation from the government. $19,000 for their car, which had been stripped for parts, and 900,000 to Lindy and $400,000 to Michael for wrongful conviction.
But in 1995, a third inquest was held which still left the cause of death open.
It wasnt until 20, 12, 32 years after the death of Azariah Chamberlain that a fourth inquest definitively stated that it had been the result of being attacked and taken by a dingo.
The government has never apologized.
[00:26:07] Speaker B: Son of a bitch.
[00:26:10] Speaker A: Right?
[00:26:11] Speaker B: Listen, I feel. I feel like a piece of shit for over the years, the number of times, right. And there have been a few.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Yeah, like, that's the thing is, like, so many people see it still. Ha. You still hear it, you know, and it's not funny.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: How long did she do? How long. How much time did she do in prison?
[00:26:29] Speaker A: I think she ended up doing, in total, three or four years of hardcore.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Fucking Australia hard labor.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Which is bonkers, you know, this poor.
[00:26:42] Speaker B: Woman, after a fucking dingo eating your baby, right?
[00:26:47] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: Does she still. Is she still alive?
[00:26:50] Speaker A: She's still alive, yeah. And bless this woman. Like, you know, for all of this, obviously, she's talked about, like, what it's done to her and how hard it was, but also, like, she's like, a big campaigner for, like, wilderness safety. And, like, this whole time, she's like, it was important to exonerate me so people understand how dangerous it is to, like, you know, not take dingoes seriously and stuff like that.
You know, she is. This is like, a little cause for her or whatever. It's not just, like, about her and her child, which is pretty impressive.
[00:27:22] Speaker B: They are fox like in appearance.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: Yeah. They are kind of fox esque, you know? I mean, they're. They're dogs, right? They're like wild dogs. And like I said, the puppies are, like, insanely cute. They just. Oh, little fluff balls. You just want to rub them and hang out with them, cuddle them, give them names.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: Fuck that.
[00:27:44] Speaker A: Well, some of us are more dog people than others.
[00:27:47] Speaker B: Ah.
Once again, the record is set straight.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: Mmm. And I'm happy to do it.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Mmm.
Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may.
[00:27:58] Speaker A: Yes, please do.
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Fucking look at these nerds.
Mise en scene.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: I don't think anyone has ever said mise en scene in such a horny way before.
[00:28:07] Speaker B: The way I whispered the word sex.
[00:28:09] Speaker A: Cannibal receive worst times to worse. Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science.
[00:28:13] Speaker B: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: I'm fucking.
[00:28:19] Speaker B: I'm gonna leg it.
[00:28:20] Speaker A: You know how I feel about that, Mark.
[00:28:22] Speaker B: I think you feel great about it.
A man visits his doctor one day.
A man visits his doctor one day, okay? And he is ashen faced, and he is clearly desperate for help.
It says to his doctor, doctor, I come to you in despair. I need help. I need you to help me. And the doctor invites him to lay down on an examining table and invites the man. Please, do tell me. Tell me what the problem is. And the doctor begins to physically assess him, checks his blood pressure, you know, takes his pulse, pushes down his tongue with one of those wooden lollipop sticks. And as he does so, the man talks. The man says to him, doctor, I feel as though I'm at the end of my tether. I've. I've lost my. My zest for life. I've lost my. All my pleasure and all my enjoyment for life seems to be gone. Like I can't find food. Doesn't taste good anymore. And I find I can't laugh. I'm on the verge of tears all the time. You know, I'm snapping at my family. I'm angry. I'm upset. Doctor, you must.
You must help me. And the doctor is examining him, and, you know, hits his knee with one of those little rubber hammers, and he can see nothing wrong with the man.
So the doctor ponders for a moment and lays back in his chairs, fingers laced across his chest, and thinks, hmm.
Aha, says the doctor.
I know what you must do.
You must listen to the horror culture podcast jack of all graves.
Yes, yes, you must listen to the podcast jack of all graves. They will tell you stories, and they will discuss movies, and they will.
They will straighten the record on no end of subjects. And yes, this will. This will restore your zest for life. This will bring back your spirit, your joie de vivre. And the man smiles and the man starts, the man starts to laugh, and the laughter becomes a cackle, and tears become mixed in with the laughter, and he almost starts to howl. And the man says, but, doctor, you don't understand.
I'm the co host of the podcast jack of all graves.
[00:31:03] Speaker A: Impressive.
Well played. Welcome, everybody.
[00:31:08] Speaker B: Welcome, welcome, welcome. Once more.
[00:31:13] Speaker A: I was so invested. Wow.
[00:31:17] Speaker B: I enjoyed the moment where you saw where that was heading.
[00:31:23] Speaker A: Delightful stuff. Yes. Welcome, dear friends.
Taking your medicine this week, I have great news.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: Ooh, always good. Yes, please.
[00:31:36] Speaker A: The birds are gone.
There was one sparrow left in the air conditioner yesterday.
[00:31:42] Speaker B: Now you mentioned it. Yes.
[00:31:43] Speaker A: Blown the nest.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: The soundtrack is gone. And of course, now you've mentioned it, it's all I can hear. All I can hear is the absence of birds. It's now a.
I don't know. I didn't hate it, and I'm certain our listeners didn't either. It was pleasant. What's wrong with birdsong? What's not to love?
[00:32:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it's like a little ASMR sort of situation. I know that at least one listener, Richard, was a touch confused because they weren't british birds. So he was like, those aren't the birds in my house. Where are the birds coming from? Until I finally explained it in the intro.
[00:32:18] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like when you're driving and you listen to the radio and there's like a sound in a song that sounds like a car horn. You're like, oh, what the fuck?
[00:32:25] Speaker A: Right? Yeah.
[00:32:25] Speaker B: I hate that. I absolutely fucking think there should be a law, I think, about having music with car horns in a particular.
[00:32:31] Speaker A: I've thought that before.
[00:32:32] Speaker B: Dangerous.
[00:32:33] Speaker A: I used to drive a civic hybrid a decade or so ago, and when you tapped the brake, it made a sound that sounded a bit like a siren. It was very light. Not like it was a loud. Like, all of a sudden, my car's like.
But it was as if somewhere several blocks away, there was an ambulance or something.
It was like I never fully got used to this problem in that car.
[00:33:07] Speaker B: So the birds are gone, and your home renovation continues apace.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: Yes, yes. Which, by the way, the birds were not bothered by the home renovations. Our house is getting sided. I'm super excited about it. But, like, they are pounding so hard on the side of the house that, like, they knocked. There's, like, the soap holder in the shower just straight popped off the wall. That thing has to have been there since, like, 1980, and it just popped straight off.
[00:33:36] Speaker B: That's how you know they're doing it right. That's how you know they're really right.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: Yeah, they knocked. I have, like, a. I have, like, this tiny little mini. Mini. Mini fridge that sits up on a shelf behind me, like, on my bookshelf. And I was, you know, doing something in the other room, and all of a sudden, I heard a smash, and the. The fridge had fallen down and smashed a glass on the way. And, like, all of my jaws stuff was on the floor, like, holy shit. Oh, this is really going.
[00:34:03] Speaker B: Give us a little. Give us a little kind of a roll call then. What jaws merch do you have? What jaws memorabilia do you have?
[00:34:09] Speaker A: Yeah. You've asked me this before. I'm like. And you know that I'm not, like, a huge collectory type. Like, I don't like to have a lot of stuff, so I just have a few things. I have, like, my quint doll, which is signed by Robert Shaw's son, Ian, of course. You know, I have, like, a playbill from the shark is broken. I have some stickers, you know, things like that. Like Funko pop.
I don't have. Oh, no, I do have a quint. Funko pop. Yes, I do have one. I have, like, four funko pops. I have Quint. I have Judge Dredd.
I have Alex Trebek.
[00:34:45] Speaker B: Judge Dredd. That comes as a surprise.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: It's a really specific judge Dredd. It is a penguin in a judge dread costume.
I don't know why that exists, but it does. And so I had to have that, obviously. Yeah. So I. So I guess I have three funko pops. I have those three funko pops.
Yeah. And they are now on the floor. I have not picked them back up again because they would just.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: But is it done? Is it done? Done? Is it done?
[00:35:16] Speaker A: And, no, not yet. No. There's probably another week to go, but it's looking real good. The neighbors are commenting. I'm feeling real cool. I know everybody's happy that their property values are going up. Nice results contributing our economic renovation.
[00:35:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:35:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:35:31] Speaker B: Very nice.
[00:35:32] Speaker A: Exactly. I said, I ran into a couple.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: My neighbors gentrifying the place. Is that what you're doing?
[00:35:36] Speaker A: I'm helping to gentrify the neighborhood.
But I ran into a couple, my neighbors this morning, and, you know, I was like, I'm just really stoked to not have, like, the ugliest house on the block and, you know, trying to be nice. But also, she's like, I mean, it's not the ugliest house. It's like, thanks, Rosie. No, I. I can. I have eyes. I see what it is. So, yeah, things are changing here for the Ol Edmonsons.
[00:36:02] Speaker B: Good. I'm looking forward to seeing it. And, indeed, sleeping in it.
[00:36:06] Speaker A: And sleeping in it. Yes. I mean, as I told you the other day, the inside is still 100 years old, but it's gonna look really nice when you walk up to it.
[00:36:15] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:36:17] Speaker A: How you doing, Mark?
[00:36:18] Speaker B: Yeah, listen, really good.
One of those weeks that felt like a fortnight, you know? I mean, a week that felt like three weeks of. When it was only.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Felt that way for Wednesday.
[00:36:29] Speaker B: Lots going on.
[00:36:30] Speaker A: Hold on. What is a fortnight? Three.
[00:36:33] Speaker B: No, I misspoke. Okay. I can see how that.
[00:36:36] Speaker A: Please. Please don't do this to me.
[00:36:39] Speaker B: No, no. Fortnight.
Okay.
[00:36:41] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:36:42] Speaker B: But a wonderful weekend. Just one of those weekends where, for fuck's sake, the. Whatever, crazy, fucking arcane, you know, otherworldly forces that drive my dear life partner Laura. I seem to have quelled a little bit this weekend, and she's. We've had some time to chill. It's been lovely. Plenty of fucking sofa time with the boys, just watching movies, playing fallout. All I want to fucking do is play fallout. Still. It's all I want to do. And, you know, you spoke about not being a merch type. I'm the most impressionable fucking. I'm an easy mark man for a merch company. I'm a rube. I am such a fucking rube. And it's. It's been. This is.
[00:37:25] Speaker A: You've banned me from telling you about merch.
[00:37:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Because if I click, click, click, click, click, click. Make it appear in my door, um, it's all I can do to hold off from buying fallout merch right now because I'm so. Oh, man, it's got me bad.
[00:37:40] Speaker A: I've seen. I've been watching a lot of other people. Yeah, buy a lot of fallout merch lately. Apparently the coffee that I posted on you all. I shouldn't be saying this, but people are quite enjoying.
[00:37:50] Speaker B: Oh, I tried to buy it and it was gone.
[00:37:53] Speaker A: It was gone.
[00:37:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:56] Speaker A: This. I will have let the record show I posted that before you made the blanket rule that I'm not allowed to show merch anymore.
[00:38:03] Speaker B: Good american things.
[00:38:06] Speaker A: The last straw was the fly shirt that you now own.
[00:38:11] Speaker B: Yeah, because thanks to our good friend Mister weakpound, just buying stuff from outside of the UK is ridiculous currently.
[00:38:22] Speaker A: Which it works in our favor for the first time ever. Cause it used to be even the first time that I went over there to visit. Remember that? One of the times that we went out, I was like, guys, I understand your round system, but understand that it is 40% more money for me. I'm not doing that.
This is. That's too, too rich for my blood. I cannot participate just to talk about.
[00:38:43] Speaker B: Fallout for a second, right? What I'm. What I'm rediscovering and what I love so fucking much about it is it is so rich, right? And detailed and it's. It's a lot of different games smushed into one. And none of it is compulsory. You can do or not do as much or as little as you want. If you enjoy the combat, you can just go and level up and fucking kill things. If you enjoy crafting, you can build shit and mod shit, you know? I mean, if you. You can. You can build your character however you want. You can ally yourself with whoever you like. The companions are fucking brilliant. And the world, ugh. It's up there with.
You know how as much of a sucker I am for world building, and it's up there with the best, most beautifully fucking drawn out worlds I don't think I've ever fucking seen, ever, ever, ever. Which reminds me. Which reminds me, I was pottering about in the kitchen earlier doing fucking whatever. And I. I'm gonna ask you. I'm gonna ask you, okay, if you could visit or maybe even live or just take a holiday in any fictional world. Where'd you go?
And listener, I would encourage you to ponder this too. Think of all the fictional realms. Middle earth, fucking pandora, right? The wasteland, you know? I mean, of all the fictional realms you've ever encountered through books, tv, film, whatever, where would you most like to visit.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: Well, if I thought about this longer, I might say something different, but what comes to mind is a thing. I know you have not seen this, but meet the Robinsons, because it's futuristic and it's got, like, you know, all these kinds of, like, cool Sci-Fi things and stuff like that. Like, all your conveniences are taken care of and all that kind of stuff, but they've made, like, a utopia. So also, there's, like, just tons of green space everywhere, and it's, like, a world that is, like, not ravaged by climate change or anything like that.
[00:40:44] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[00:40:44] Speaker A: You know, the. The person who has developed this world just, like, a real nice guy who his, like, motto is keep moving forward, and all he wants is just for, like, everyone to have a home and to be loved and have family. And that's the ethos of the world.
[00:40:59] Speaker B: Beautiful. Meet the Robinsons.
What is that, a show?
[00:41:04] Speaker A: It's a movie that I've told you about many times.
One of my favorite long suffering look on your face. One of my favorite Disney movies ever made.
And, you know, like, as I've mentioned, I walked down the aisle to music from that movie. It is, yeah. Deeply. Just deeply. One of my absolute favorite movies. Fantastic one that I will get a tattoo from or maybe multiple tattoos from eventually because I have multiple things I love from it, but, yeah. What about you?
[00:41:36] Speaker B: This is definitely one I'd like listeners to post on Facebook and tell me.
[00:41:40] Speaker A: Yes, please do. Yeah, please answer this question.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: I it isn't. It's up there with my favorites, but it isn't. I'm not picking this because it's one of my favorites. I'm picking it because it generally. It seems like it would be a lovely place to go. I would like to visit the land of Hyrule from the Zelda games.
[00:41:58] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:41:59] Speaker B: Just lovely open space, pre calamity, you know what I mean? Just in one of the nice eras. Just beautiful open spaces, just nice people. Just a bristling, you know, economy, just lovely personalities, you know, living rocks. Little. Little dudes, little seed dudes. I would love. Yeah, I would love to spend some time in the. The kingdom of Hyrule from Zelda.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: I like it.
[00:42:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:42:27] Speaker A: Into it. Yeah. Please let us know, what fictional place would you like to know about? I mean, to live in, to be a part of.
[00:42:35] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:42:35] Speaker A: We would like to know about. Yes.
[00:42:37] Speaker B: Yours.
[00:42:40] Speaker A: A quick shout out, of course, to our newest Ko fi subscriber, Demi. Thank you so much for doing the right thing, and I hope you enjoy all that's like two years of content almost at this point on there to go back through and check out.
[00:42:57] Speaker B: Doesn't it feel good, Demi? Doesn't it feel good to have done the right thing? That's what. Fuck the content, man.
Content comes and goes.
[00:43:05] Speaker A: Content shmontent.
[00:43:06] Speaker B: Fuck the content, man. The feeling. It's all about the feeling and the feeling of doing the right thing.
[00:43:12] Speaker A: There's nothing like it keeping this ship afloat. Exactly.
And, you know, last week we posted the latest.
So last Monday we posted the latest fan cave episode in which I exposed Kristen to the strangers.
[00:43:28] Speaker B: You exposed her to the strangers now?
[00:43:31] Speaker A: I did.
[00:43:32] Speaker B: I'd like a bit more detail on this because I've seen you post about how, you know, this kind of pushed your friendship to the edge a little.
Did it really not go that well for her then?
[00:43:46] Speaker A: Well, here. So Kristen doesn't like being scared.
[00:43:48] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, yeah.
[00:43:49] Speaker A: And so the first two movies that we watched, you know, were, like, a little spooky and things like that, but.
[00:43:55] Speaker B: They weren't on the slide. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:43:58] Speaker A: Right. And this one is genuine, like home invaders, you know, is a scary subject. It is.
And not one that Kristen watches a lot of, or any of, for that matter. And it was so funny because it was like her. Her co workers have been really championing this journey like they are. Apparently she works with a bunch of horror fans and they've been like, oh, what are you watching this time? Giving suggestions and all that kind of stuff. So she told them she watched the strangers, a movie that multiple times she actively screamed during, and they were like, oh, yeah, you should also watch, like, hush. And giving her these other suggestions, I'm like, maybe we, like, let her chill for a little while and recover from her first home invasion before we start suggesting that she watch other home invasion movies. But her sort of assessment of it was that, of course she hated the experience of it, but she thought it was very good. She was like, it's a four star movie, one star experience.
[00:44:57] Speaker B: Is it Mike Flanagan or am I thinking of a different one?
[00:45:00] Speaker A: No, it is not Mike I am thinking of. Remember?
[00:45:02] Speaker B: That's what I am thinking.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Yeah. You're thinking of hush. Yes, exactly. Which is a great movie. Someday I hope to have Kristen watch it, but not immediately after watching the strangers. That would be cruel.
[00:45:14] Speaker B: Too much too soon.
[00:45:15] Speaker A: Too much too soon. So we're doing the conjuring next month, which was her co workers really wanted her to watch the conjuring. And I think that's, like, she's gonna be fine.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: Another movie that you've another record you've straightened.
[00:45:29] Speaker A: Oh, yes, exactly.
[00:45:31] Speaker B: Two fucking shysters.
[00:45:33] Speaker A: And by, like, weird coincidence, the last podcast on the left, their current series is on the Warrens. So I told her, I was like, don't listen to it. Because she's an avid last podcast on the left fan. I was like, don't listen to it until after you've watched the conjuring. Because once you know about the warrens, like, you can't see Vera and Patrick anymore, then you're just like, these people are terrible.
So I told her, watch the conjuring first, and then you can listen to the true story of how awful they are.
[00:46:08] Speaker B: Admirable journey that she's going on are Kristen.
[00:46:11] Speaker A: I know, right?
[00:46:12] Speaker B: You know, admirable for sticking to what can often be a very uncomfortable, you know, like a baby giraffe taking its first steps.
[00:46:23] Speaker A: Right. Yes.
So, you know, she's doing that for us and for me. And, you know, I hope it seems that people are enjoying it. I really love, like, seeing, you know, people letterboxding the movies that we watched for that week, you know, getting prepped to hear about it. So, yeah, glad people are enjoying that ride. I'm having fun with it, too.
[00:46:44] Speaker B: Is it on the same places that our podcast is?
[00:46:48] Speaker A: No, because this is just for Ko fi.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: This is. Oh, right, of course. Of course.
[00:46:51] Speaker A: This is for the subscribers at any level as low as $3 a month. And you get to listen to Kristen being terrified, deeply uncomfortable movies. So I think it's absolutely worth that. I would pay $3 to watch Kristen react to things, and I hope you would, too.
[00:47:08] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:47:10] Speaker A: And of course, we have a watch along next week.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Right.
[00:47:14] Speaker A: Mark, you're gonna post up a place for people to suggest adaptations this coming Saturday.
[00:47:20] Speaker B: And what a huge topic. The topic's fucking massive. The best kind of movie book to movie horror adaptations.
Now, have I told you what my favorite is?
[00:47:34] Speaker A: I don't know. What is it?
[00:47:35] Speaker B: Because I do have a favorite.
[00:47:37] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:47:38] Speaker B: My all time. It will not surprise you that it's a Stephen King, but my favorite. My favorite book to movie is Pet Sematary.
[00:47:46] Speaker A: Ah. I don't know if I knew that was your fave.
[00:47:48] Speaker B: Yes, I, pet Sematary is probably the king book. I've read the most interesting because I fucking love it. I love it so hard.
And the, the film just nailed it. The film just absolutely fucking hit the nail right on the head. It's brilliant. So that's my favorite.
[00:48:07] Speaker A: Love it.
That's. Well, I'm glad to know that I love that.
[00:48:12] Speaker B: Do you have one? Do you have one off the top of your head?
[00:48:15] Speaker A: Um, I. I mean, off the top of my head. Again, this is the thing. If I thought about it longer, it would certainly go a different way. But pride and prejudice and zombies is definitely okay up there. You know? I mean, the book is fine. It's not my favorite book. It's not like, with pet Sematary where it's like, oh, I've read it a million times, like, pride and prejudice and zombies. The book is literally pride and prejudice and zombies. Like, it's just inserted into the story. The movie, like, gets way more creative with it and is super, super fun. And I've, like, me and Kristen and Brienne have watched it a bajillion times. So, yeah. Good at it.
[00:48:58] Speaker B: I'll put it in the mix. Who knows? Maybe.
[00:49:00] Speaker A: Yeah, right? It's a. It's a fun time. People haven't seen it.
And thanks to everyone who showed up for book club, by the way. Also on this note, we had a nice little packed house yesterday to talk about sisters of the lost nation and a great little discussion of that. So, yeah, it was a real good time. The next book that we're reading is by Omikatsu. I can't remember what it's called, but I like her. We're talking about, she wrote one of my favorite sort of ghosty books called the Deep. And Ryan was sort of explaining that her thing is basically taking a real thing that happened from history and then adding a, like, supernatural element to it.
Yeah, right. Exactly. And so, like, the. The deep is a story about Violet Jessup, who survived the Titanic and britannic sinkings.
And it's basically, you know, what if she kept being on these boats?
[00:50:00] Speaker B: Oh, that's a great idea.
[00:50:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
So I absolutely loved that the next one is like a japanese internment camp setting, supernatural internment camp thing. So looking forward to reading that one, if you're interested in that.
[00:50:17] Speaker B: Jack of all graves.com. That's such a great idea for a book that I would say I'd read it. But, hey, the fucking stack of books that I currently have a lot on your plate. I'm looking at them right the fuck now.
I got me some reading to do. I'm halfway through. The heat will kill you first. And the reason that's taken me so long is that I'm finding that I can only read it in little bits at a time.
[00:50:44] Speaker A: It's understandable. It's heavy.
[00:50:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:50:48] Speaker A: Every chapter is just ways people die in the heat.
[00:50:52] Speaker B: Yes.
It's not heavy in that it's kind of technical or scientific or oblique at all. It's a beautifully, beautifully passed really, really kind of digestible piece of work, but God damn. God damn. God fucking damn.
We're. We're. We're in danger in ways that we don't even realize.
[00:51:20] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. That that's 100% what that's about is.
[00:51:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:25] Speaker A: Big recommend it, though.
[00:51:26] Speaker B: Oh, it's fantastic. It's a real eye opener if. If you want your eyes opened.
[00:51:33] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:51:33] Speaker B: In that particular fashion.
[00:51:35] Speaker A: Precisely.
So shall we get into what we watched, Mark?
[00:51:40] Speaker B: Yeah, we can do. Yeah, by all means. I mean, I think I feel as though I made up for last week and fucking packed some movies this week. I feel like there was something else I was going to say, but it's gone.
[00:51:53] Speaker A: Was it about Jason? I think we were.
[00:51:54] Speaker B: Oh.
Oh. So every other franchise is getting love. Every other franchise is getting, you know, revived or, you know, somehow brought back to life. Except the only fucking one I want.
[00:52:12] Speaker A: Right.
[00:52:12] Speaker B: The only thing I want to see is new Elm street. So there's. There's been a flurry of Freddy the 13th news over the past couple of weeks. Did you. Firstly, Brian Fuller has left the.
[00:52:22] Speaker A: Yes, I did see that because I follow Brian Fuller. Yeah. So he's gone insta for whatever reason.
[00:52:28] Speaker B: And alongside that has sprung up Jason Universe. Wasn't that like a tv show? No, Steven Universe.
[00:52:37] Speaker A: That's Steven Universe.
[00:52:38] Speaker B: Different universe.
[00:52:40] Speaker A: It is dangerously close. Yeah.
[00:52:42] Speaker B: Jason. Not even the Jason universe. Simply Jason Universe, which is fucking a nebulous concept, which has been launched by a company called Horror Inc. Which in itself tells you every fucking thing you need to know. Horror.
[00:53:00] Speaker A: How AI is this?
[00:53:05] Speaker B: So they've, you know, sorted out some rights shit and are working on new not Friday the 13th content. Oh, no, no, no. Jason Universe, it doesn't mention Friday the 13th. Barely. Once there's an horrific article on igN.com launching this, and just the language of the article is fucking sickening. Sickening. You know the great thing, look, the quality of the Friday the 13th franchise isn't the point. Right, right. Because just like, you know, find me any franchise that goes past, say, four or five movies that doesn't have stinkers. It's part of the fun. Part of the fun Friday the 13th is knowing that you might not be watching a good movie.
Right. But what I do love about Friday the 13th, and, you know, over the years we've been doing this podcast. We've talked about this plenty of times, is that it's it's very much the product of who's making it at the time, you know? And there are lots of different flavors of Friday the 13th. There are stories within the fucking story. You got the Tommy Jarvis trilogy. You got Jason in space. It goes meta. You got fucking Freddy in there. Friday the 13th as a series is super interesting, even if it isn't always consistently good quality. It's got high points. There are some really fucking good films in that series and there are some stinkers, but it's. It's all, it's. It's got identity, right? The Friday the 13th movies all have an identity. That's what I'm getting at.
[00:54:38] Speaker A: Absolutely.
[00:54:39] Speaker B: Um, you know, whether it's. Whether it's the fucking. The Jason makeup of that particular film or, you know, Crispin Glover, for fuck's sake, rocks up. It's a, it's. It's a series that has identity. So with that in mind, right? Listen to this fucking quote. Listen to this quote.
This comes from Robbie Barsamian, who is the vice president of Horror, Inc.
We're focused on honoring the legacy while elevating the fan experience and appealing to today's horror audiences as we develop new ways to watch, interact, and engage with the Jason universe.
With a unique ability to remain at the forefront of pop culture for 44 years, Jason continues to top charts as one of the scariest phones of all time with strong global awareness across multiple generations, thanks to billions of TikTok views plus millions and millions of gamers and movies fans.
Fuck me.
[00:55:40] Speaker A: Oh no.
[00:55:40] Speaker B: Fuck me. And you know, not once does it mention movies. Because what I've also garnered from a different article is that these fucking clowns don't have the fucking rights from new line to make any new films. Right?
[00:55:53] Speaker A: Sure. Right.
[00:55:54] Speaker B: They're gonna make a single new movie, which is why. Which is why on numerous occasions in this article on IGN.com, they refer to them as. Let me just get the actual quote here. They refer to them as Jason universe activations.
[00:56:14] Speaker A: Oh, not activation.
[00:56:18] Speaker B: Jason universe activation.
[00:56:20] Speaker A: Just straight venture capital bullshit.
[00:56:22] Speaker B: New Friday the 13th activations will span a wide range of platforms like entertainment, games, immersive experiences, merchandise and more. You know what that means, don't you? He's gonna be in fortnight. That's all it means.
[00:56:32] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, 100%. That is in Roblox.
[00:56:38] Speaker B: That is literally all it means.
He's gonna be in fortnight. There's gonna be t shirts.
[00:56:43] Speaker A: That is depressing.
[00:56:45] Speaker B: All it fucking means.
[00:56:46] Speaker A: I feel like there's just something to like Jason in general, because, like, there's. And this is not a bad thing, but there's so many fan movies.
[00:56:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there are.
[00:56:57] Speaker A: And again, they can't use, like, the, you know, movie name either. You know, the franchise name, but there's a lot of that. I'm like, what is the weird, like, like, I don't know, nuance to the legal thing that makes it so that, like, people have no problem, like, just yoinking Jason from things and making whole new stuff without activating any form of, like, legal issue? Yeah, it feels like there's something there that for whatever reason, this whole thing.
[00:57:27] Speaker B: They can do fucking just, it just. It stinks. I don't need to tell you that this stinks.
[00:57:33] Speaker A: It's like, yeah, this is like Amityville level. Just put Amityville on any hundred percent.
[00:57:37] Speaker B: It's, um, there's. There's one final cow out in the pasture that we haven't quite fucking milked to death yet. You know, there's one final little fucking drop of milk in this withered, fucking dry teat for us to wring out and activate, you know, get. Fuck you soulless fucking husks. I swear to fucking God, if they try and activate Freddy, I will fucking.
[00:58:07] Speaker A: Yeah, this is. You be careful, you know, monkey paw curls. Here.
[00:58:16] Speaker B: On that, there is a creator, a content creator by the name of Diandra something or other. She goes by Sassy Sledgehammer on a lot of different platforms. And she is a elm street super fan.
[00:58:31] Speaker A: I think you've mentioned her before.
[00:58:32] Speaker B: Yeah, she's great. She's really great. She's. She talks back, she interacts. She's really good.
And, and she mentioned there, we've got to be going back a few months now, but there's, there's, there's an internal document which may or may not have been fake.
Sure. An internal document from New Line and Warner Brothers or whatever it was talking about, you know, projects which are currently in active development. And, and Elm street was on there in small text, you know, interesting.
[00:59:00] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:59:01] Speaker B: So, you know, hopes.
[00:59:02] Speaker A: I mean it, like, you know, that's exactly what them just milking the shit out of this stuff. It's like, one way or another. It's not like this is gonna just fall to the wayside forever. Someone's going to make something with it. It's just a matter of like, is it going to be content or is it going to be like a real genuine thing? Yeah. Are we going to get activations or movies, man?
[00:59:25] Speaker B: That's. And I know, I know the answer. Will always be. It's. It's right. That's all it is. But with horror in such a healthy fucking place right now. Right, is this. Is this it, is it activations, lads. Is this what you're gonna fucking. You're not gonna really do this? And this right to battle has been going on for, like, a decade or more, you know? Yeah, but you can't just work it out. Get around the table. There's money there, lads. There's fucking huge money to be made here with Friday the 13th. If Friday the 13th came back, you know, imagine, imagine. Just imagine a decent budget, fucking nice marketing behind it, you know, interesting cast, an interesting idea for a new Friday 13th in 2024. It would be fucking glorious. And what have we got? What have we got? We got activations.
Billions of TikTok views and activations. That's what we got. And it's fucking horrific. But not in the good.
Yeah, okay, sorry. Thank you for allowing me the space.
[01:00:26] Speaker A: Of course. Naturally, yes. Uh, so back to what we watched.
[01:00:30] Speaker B: Back to what we. Listen, I'll just rip through Godzilla and Kong. Godzilla times. Kong.
[01:00:39] Speaker A: Godzilla by Kong.
[01:00:42] Speaker B: Godzilla to the power.
[01:00:43] Speaker A: I don't know how.
I don't think it's to the power. I think that's a different thing.
[01:00:46] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[01:00:47] Speaker A: I don't know what they. I have no idea how you're supposed. Supposed to say this.
[01:00:51] Speaker B: I'll go with Godzilla because they aren't fighting anymore. It's a collab, isn't it? That's what it is. It's like a fucking. It's like they've released a jacket.
[01:00:59] Speaker A: I guess that's the idea though, right? Like, when there are, like, collabs, you know?
[01:01:04] Speaker B: Yep, yep.
[01:01:05] Speaker A: Somebody X. I don't know how to pronounce that either. I just try to avoid it. Yeah, whatever. I see those things. Just don't say it out loud. You're too old, Corrigan. Don't try to say the collab out loud. Um, even though I'm too old for the word collab for that same.
[01:01:20] Speaker B: Same.
And the film is as stupid as the title. What a stupid film. Stupid, stupid. Not in a bad way, though. In a good way. Stupid in a good way. It's a good laugh. I love.
[01:01:33] Speaker A: This is related to the other. Like, american.
[01:01:37] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:01:38] Speaker A: Godzilla.
[01:01:38] Speaker B: All right, let me. Let's try and sketch this out. So there's Kong. Skull island.
[01:01:43] Speaker A: Right?
[01:01:44] Speaker B: Remember that?
[01:01:45] Speaker A: I do. With Hiddles and Brie Larson.
[01:01:48] Speaker B: Hiddles. Yes, yes, yes. That one. There's that. Then there was Godzilla with Bryan Cranston. And Billy fucking Bob. That's her.
[01:01:56] Speaker A: Aaron Taylor Johnson, which was terrible.
Yeah.
[01:02:00] Speaker B: Then I think we had Godzilla, king of the monsters.
[01:02:03] Speaker A: That sounds like a thing that happened.
[01:02:05] Speaker B: Also terrible, I believe.
[01:02:07] Speaker A: I don't even I know I saw it, but I yes, I remember very little. I think it was bad. Yes.
[01:02:13] Speaker B: But then we had Godzilla versus Kong, which was a great laugh.
[01:02:16] Speaker A: Yeah. That was a good time. Yeah.
[01:02:18] Speaker B: And Godzilla x Kong. The new collab is also a good laugh. Really stupid.
[01:02:23] Speaker A: Who's in this one?
[01:02:24] Speaker B: Dan Stevens. Your man, Dan Stevens.
[01:02:27] Speaker A: Oh, right. Yes. That's that's definitely let me see. Who else going in the right direction?
Nobody from those other movies a lot.
[01:02:36] Speaker B: Can I just say?
[01:02:37] Speaker A: Yeah, he's the best. Right.
[01:02:38] Speaker B: I like Dan Stevens a great deal. And come with me on this. I think he gives Bill Paxton.
[01:02:47] Speaker A: Interesting. I really love Bill Paxton.
[01:02:50] Speaker B: He gives Bill Paxton. I really do. He has that same kind of every man. He can be a dick. He can be kind of a snarky kind of dickhead. He can also step up. He can be your hero when he needs to be, I think.
[01:03:03] Speaker A: Sure.
When he wants to be.
[01:03:06] Speaker B: Exactly. I get very a very distinct whiff of Paxton from Dan Stevens. And I will never not enjoy seeing him on screen. I think he's great.
[01:03:16] Speaker A: I'm ready for his frailty then.
[01:03:18] Speaker B: Hey, nice, nice, nice. Nice. Soon may arrive Godzilla x Kong. Right. So here's a little. Just when I say it's stupid, just too many monsters.
Sure. At one point. At one point, this sounds like I'm making this up, but I'm not. At one point, Godzilla. Right.
Literally puts Kong in a suplex.
[01:03:45] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:03:46] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Through one of the great pyramids of Giza.
[01:03:50] Speaker A: Perfect.
[01:03:51] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:03:51] Speaker A: I'm in. Say no more.
[01:03:53] Speaker B: Kong has a robot hand at some point, for some reason, to punch things with more. Better.
[01:03:58] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[01:03:59] Speaker B: You know, and it's it's a fucking load of three star idiocy. Good film.
[01:04:04] Speaker A: Excellent. Into it.
[01:04:06] Speaker B: Okay. Do you want to do what about you? You've watched a bunch this. Oh, we do sting.
[01:04:11] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah.
[01:04:12] Speaker B: We can talk about, you know, how in, you know, the Internet ruins songs for you sometimes.
[01:04:18] Speaker A: Yes, absolutely.
[01:04:20] Speaker B: One of them is, um, don't you want me, baby by human league. Right.
[01:04:23] Speaker A: Oh, I play that in my VR game sometimes.
[01:04:26] Speaker B: Right.
[01:04:26] Speaker A: Classic.
[01:04:27] Speaker B: There's a fucking. Some fucking miscreant on the Internet has has, like, audio twatted around with that song and a version of it where every single line is, you were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar.
[01:04:41] Speaker A: Right.
[01:04:43] Speaker B: And that's now become the de facto version of that song. You were working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. A cocktail bar. That's the only version of that song now that exists in my head.
[01:04:56] Speaker A: I have one of those, too. It's runaway train.
You can sing runaway train. Is everyone. Run away train. Runaway train, run away train, run away train.
[01:05:10] Speaker B: Oh, that's very good. But it ruins.
I'll tell you where my train of thought was then. Sting sang for the police.
[01:05:19] Speaker A: Yes.
[01:05:21] Speaker B: Famously can internalize an orgasm for, you know, 48 hours.
The only thing he's famous for now. But there's a version of Roxanne, which is simply the word rocks. Rocks.
And it's now replaced.
[01:05:38] Speaker A: I feel like that's really apt, because my thing about, like, the police is, like, they never knew how to, like, like, end a song. So they always go on for, like, four minutes of just saying the same thing. Afterwards, I get that put on the red light. They just keep going, you know, like, they always like that. Like, their songs just go. So the idea of, you know, just rocks over and over again is truly not that far from.
[01:06:00] Speaker B: But it. Their actual music takes away all of the other vocal. There's nothing else. So it's just whenever Sting says Roxanne, he goes, rocks, Rox.
It's hilarious to me that said, roxanne is a fucking great tune.
It is.
Think about it.
[01:06:21] Speaker A: Yeah. It goes on too long, in my opinion. But otherwise, the first two minutes of that song are always a good time listener.
[01:06:28] Speaker B: Think of Roxanne by the police right now. What a fucking great song that is. You thinking about it?
[01:06:36] Speaker A: You doing it right now?
[01:06:37] Speaker B: Are you? You should play it after you listen to this podcast.
[01:06:44] Speaker A: Sting.
[01:06:45] Speaker B: Sting.
[01:06:45] Speaker A: Why we got into this is that we watched an australian film called Sting, by the way. I would just. We watched two australian movies this week, but.
[01:06:53] Speaker B: And you had an Australian called Open. What the fuck is going on? Is it Australia Day?
[01:06:58] Speaker A: It's Australia day here at Jack of all graves.
I am so curious if there is a reason why so many australian horror films pretend to be american.
Is. It's like triangle, for example, is one of those that acts like it's american, but it's fully australian. The most recent, Evil Dead, is an australian joint that acts american.
[01:07:26] Speaker B: And I'm sure the pipeline doesn't go both ways. There are very few american films pretending to be Australia.
[01:07:29] Speaker A: Right? Americans are not pretending to be australian.
The better. Watch out. I think the Christmas one, that is another one of those. I'm just very curious if this is a marketing thing.
American distributors don't buy films with australian accents, so they just pretend to be american or something like that. It's just the thing that's fascinated me for the past 15 years.
[01:07:56] Speaker B: I can imagine it being fucked to make movies.
[01:08:00] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. Just so.
[01:08:04] Speaker B: Yeah, just keep your babies.
Keep the tent zipped up, if you know what I'm saying. Keep that tent fucking zipped. Nice and tight.
[01:08:14] Speaker A: So sting is an australian movie about a spider that has powers. Otherworldly powers.
[01:08:28] Speaker B: Having seen the trailer, I knew it was, you know, a giant spider movie.
So imagine my delight. Oh, do we talk? It's quite new, isn't it? So we can't really give away plot.
[01:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah, don't get. Don't give. Like, don't spoil it, but.
[01:08:41] Speaker B: Okay, well, it is a giant spider movie, right? It is. But the first few minutes of sting were a real nice surprise for me.
[01:08:49] Speaker A: Why wait? I don't think it's spoiling it to talk about the opening of it unless.
[01:08:53] Speaker B: It'S a space spider, isn't it? It comes from space, right?
[01:08:56] Speaker A: It's a space spider. Yes. It tells you that in the beginning of the movie. So that's not like, really.
[01:09:00] Speaker B: But they kept out the trailers that would you here. I might have paid to see it. I might not have stolen it, and I known that it was a space fucking spider movie.
[01:09:07] Speaker A: Right, exactly, yes. Space spider. That does horrific things to people. And this, you know, sort of down and out little girl with a troubled family life decides she wants to raise this little spider only to end up with it eating everybody.
[01:09:26] Speaker B: Yes.
Troubled, fractious family life. Her dad is played by the genetic fucking cloned replica of Zack Braff. He thinks.
[01:09:37] Speaker A: Not true.
[01:09:38] Speaker B: Get all the way to. They look identical to Zach Braff.
[01:09:43] Speaker A: It does not look identical to Zach Braff.
[01:09:45] Speaker B: Well, time is gonna tell on that one. You wait and see.
Zach Braff looked like dad. But it's good. It's funny.
Yeah, it's juicy.
[01:09:56] Speaker A: It's got like. Yeah, it feels kind of, like, tonally similar to arachnophobia, which I liked. I love arachnophobia. And it has that kind of, like. It's sort of taking it seriously, but leaning into the camp at the exact same time with that I found very enjoyable in this.
[01:10:14] Speaker B: Nothing. Nothing. Not to like about sting. Nothing that will fucking rock your socks.
[01:10:19] Speaker A: Right. Exactly.
[01:10:20] Speaker B: It's not gonna be anyone's favorite film.
[01:10:22] Speaker A: Just a fun ride.
[01:10:23] Speaker B: No, but, you know, if you want a space spider fucking eating shit and in a fucking block of flats, you got it, mate.
[01:10:31] Speaker A: Stings your man.
[01:10:32] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:10:37] Speaker A: You blasted out zoom speakers there.
[01:10:43] Speaker B: Let me see. Right. Okay. So sometimes you've got to give yourself a treat.
[01:10:47] Speaker A: Sure you do.
[01:10:48] Speaker B: Yeah.
And I have long considered the right movie at the right time to be a treat.
I do. I think of that.
If I need a particular, if there's an empty, emptier than usual part of me that needs filling up, I will often do that with movies. I'll do it with a nice crime thrill. I'll do it with Carly does way often. I'll do it with some David lynch. And that. That. That part of me opened up this weekend. Only. Only dream warriors would do. Only dream warriors would do.
It was the only thing that would do.
[01:11:25] Speaker A: Love it.
[01:11:28] Speaker B: Um, I don't even know where to begin, really. Uh, just like I said to Robert Englund, it isn't just the best elm street, it's one of the best films in the 1980s. And I say that with the 1980s were a fucking. Was a year, was a decade and a half for movies, right? It was. Every fucking great movie franchise began in the eighties, and 1987 in particular was a banner year. Um, but a nightmare. Elm street three Dream warriors is one of the best films of that decade. It is fucking unreal. And it's. It's. And it's only gotten more so. I mean, I'm 45 and watching it through 45 year old eyes, it's a lot grimier than I remember.
It's a lot weirder than I remember. And fuck, it just. It goes so goddamn hard, you know? We are plunged straight away into themes of fucking teen suicide and. And, you know, just broken homes, abusive fucking families, displaced children.
In this. In this film, Freddy is a cipher for addiction, for anxiety, for repressed sexuality, for abuse.
Freddy, in this film, is everything that feels too big for a kid to deal with.
[01:12:58] Speaker A: Yeah, totally.
[01:12:59] Speaker B: Do you know what I'm saying? He's. He's everything that a kid can't cope with on their own.
And the cruelty with which every one of the fucking dream warriors gets their shot at him. You know, and they're all given a fucking. You, you each one of the dream warriors, you get a little moment where you think, fuck, they've done it. Oh, my God.
No fucking way. Never happens. And one by one, they fall. One by one, they're picked off.
But, I mean, you know, it has this message that if that's what Freddy is in this film, if he is your own demon, you can't beat him alone. You've got a fucking. You need people around you. You need people you can count on. You need people you can trust to share the fucking fear with.
That's. Fuck this fucking film, man. It is so powerful, which is, of course, you know, testament to the quality of the. Of the people involved.
[01:14:01] Speaker A: Right?
[01:14:02] Speaker B: You know, you think about the ending of Frank Darabont's the mist, right?
That fucking beat of hope being just coming right on the right, right before moments of absolute, crushing despair. That's the beat that happens through each one of these dream warrior segments. You know, just when you think.
Just when you think you've done it. Nope, I.
I don't have. I simply don't have the words to tell you how good that film is. It's the fucking greatest.
[01:14:36] Speaker A: Love it. Love that. You revisited that this week.
[01:14:39] Speaker B: Yep. A little treat. I won't watch it again for years, you know, but.
Oh, it never fails.
[01:14:47] Speaker A: Love that.
Did you get there?
[01:14:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. No, I'm perfectly good. But, no, I think I've said this.
I don't know if it's a trait of something or what, but I know I've told. I know I've said this to you before, and maybe on the cast or not, but you connect. I connected to something sometimes in. In a way that almost upsets me.
[01:15:11] Speaker A: Yeah, totally.
[01:15:12] Speaker B: Um. Like, all too regularly, a song or a fucking movie or just any. Any piece of media will almost cause me to well up, because I love it so much.
[01:15:23] Speaker A: Right? Yep.
[01:15:25] Speaker B: And.
And, yeah, that happens with Elm street three. I connect with that film so fucking big time. It just. It sends me, man. It's brilliant.
[01:15:36] Speaker A: I love that.
[01:15:37] Speaker B: Mmm.
[01:15:41] Speaker A: Oh, my God.
[01:15:42] Speaker B: And that'll break the tension. Then, you see, by doing a silly little impression of sting.
[01:15:46] Speaker A: Oh. You could talk about another movie.
[01:15:51] Speaker B: All right. Yeah, we watched. Oh, fuck me, again with Australia. What is it this week? The loved one.
[01:15:55] Speaker A: Again with Australia. Yeah. This is. This is Australia and this is Oscorp.
What? All the way.
[01:16:02] Speaker B: I know we've asked this before, but what the fuck is wrong with those people?
[01:16:07] Speaker A: I don't know, man. It's. You know, maybe it's the bush. Maybe it's the. Being descended of criminals. Yeah, I don't. I don't know. I'm not sure.
[01:16:17] Speaker B: Maybe it's the.
[01:16:18] Speaker A: Maybe it's the heat, but they're fucked up, man. They've got some fucked up ideas.
And we watched the loved ones, which was what? 2009, I believe.
[01:16:30] Speaker B: Yeah. They're about one of your wrecks and.
Excellent. Great job. Great job. Great job.
[01:16:35] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:16:36] Speaker B: It was 2009, and I'd never heard of it. It was. Excuse me, a first watch for me, I'd never heard of it.
[01:16:40] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm not sure how I stumbled upon this one, but this is a story of a girl who asks a boy to prom who rejects her and has a girlfriend and all of that. And her response to that is to start sort of a violent rampage, including kidnapping the boy and with the aid of her father, torturing him.
[01:17:07] Speaker B: Graphically.
[01:17:08] Speaker A: Graphically.
[01:17:09] Speaker B: I mean, it's torture porn. You would call this movie torture porn for sure, right?
[01:17:14] Speaker A: Yeah, for sure.
[01:17:16] Speaker B: Interestingly, it isn't the boy that starts this rampage at all. I mean, we find out like, two thirds of the way through that this is something the family does. They're just a fucking their thing. Murder family.
They like to kill a fucking piggle in their ass.
But look, as nasty and unpleasant a movie as you could hope to watch, really, just very gory, very graphic. Lingering injury detail.
That's probably what they would say on the BBFC title card at the beginning. Prolonged in detail and suffering.
Yeah, just no real levity. I didn't find any humor in it.
[01:18:00] Speaker A: Was there any deeply uncomfortable.
[01:18:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[01:18:06] Speaker A: In a way that works.
[01:18:08] Speaker B: Hey, needless to say, I had a great time.
[01:18:11] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. So it's one of those things where it's like, if you. If you like an australian movie, you know, if you like that darkness, that unrelenting darkness of an australian movie, the loved ones is a good little.
[01:18:28] Speaker B: It's also quite a sweaty film, isn't it? Did you pick that?
[01:18:33] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's gross. I mean, it's a film that has a film over it. You know, everything is grimy and sticky and.
Yeah. Gross.
[01:18:48] Speaker B: Yeah. But recommended and re enjoyed it.
[01:18:50] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[01:18:51] Speaker B: Yes.
I was gonna do sting then, but I didn't because I thought it would upset you.
[01:18:57] Speaker A: Matured in the past few minutes.
[01:19:01] Speaker B: Like I said, I've had a nice weekend chilling with my family, and after a good 20 minutes of scrolling, looking for something to watch. We happened upon jurassic world dominion.
[01:19:13] Speaker A: Yeah, well, I was gonna say the final jurassic world, but apparently they're still making them.
[01:19:20] Speaker B: I listen. Of course they are. Forever and ever. 100 years, jurassic world.
[01:19:27] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:19:27] Speaker B: Listen, everybody hated this one, didn't they? I didn't know.
[01:19:31] Speaker A: I didn't hate this movie.
Yeah, I had a really good time with it. Went and saw it by myself in the theater.
I thought it was fun to see the. The old crew. I thought they were a good time. And I thought that the feathery dinosaur was scary as fuck.
[01:19:46] Speaker B: Feathery dinosaur was great. Giant locusts.
[01:19:49] Speaker A: Sure.
[01:19:50] Speaker B: For some reason.
[01:19:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Why not?
[01:19:52] Speaker B: So, right, the guy who is the head of the evil genetics company this time around, right? They didn't even try to not make him. Tim Cook.
[01:20:09] Speaker A: Right? Yeah.
[01:20:10] Speaker B: He looks like he's got the same accent as Tim Cook. He looks like Tim Cook. Right. Having not to name drop here, but having been to the Apple european headquarters in London, right, as I have, the fucking design of the building is like Apple HQ. I shit you not.
[01:20:26] Speaker A: Amazing.
[01:20:27] Speaker B: Incredible stuff.
So, yes, they've all but implicated Apple in a plot to control the world's food supply with bioengineered cricket.
[01:20:37] Speaker A: Yeah, seems. Yep, on point.
[01:20:39] Speaker B: But you're quite right. Sam Neill doesn't seem to be aging, which is nice.
[01:20:42] Speaker A: I know, man. He could still get it any day of the week. Good, good.
[01:20:48] Speaker B: Thank you.
[01:20:50] Speaker A: Just FYI.
[01:20:52] Speaker B: Yeah, good laugh. I mean, there's literally nothing more to say about jurassic world dominion, right?
[01:21:00] Speaker A: Yep, exactly.
You watch. One more thing.
[01:21:06] Speaker B: Did I. Did you hear about the slovakian prime minister getting shot this week?
[01:21:10] Speaker A: Yeah. It made me realize I don't know anything about slovakian politics. I have no sense of why that would happen.
[01:21:17] Speaker B: Now I know a slovakian.
[01:21:21] Speaker A: Okay?
[01:21:21] Speaker B: How do you think? How do you fucking feel about that? I actually know an actual slovakian.
[01:21:26] Speaker A: Lady, I feel no way. I know nothing about this region.
[01:21:30] Speaker B: I live quite close to a slovakian, and I talked to a slovakian on the reg, and I texted her to let her know.
[01:21:37] Speaker A: Is Slovakia a place?
[01:21:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:21:40] Speaker A: Like, is that the name of the country?
[01:21:41] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%, yes.
[01:21:43] Speaker A: All right, let's go on.
Well, you know how it's like. It. Like, it used to be, like, Czechoslovakia, right? And then they're, like, two places now, or these two separate things.
[01:21:54] Speaker B: You're talking about the Czech Republic and Slovakia. They're two. Absolutely right.
[01:21:57] Speaker A: But weren't they? Okay, I could have sworn that at some point there was. Yeah, Czechoslovakia. Former country. I did not make that up.
[01:22:08] Speaker B: Oh, there we go. But, no, her name is Kaka. And I texted her, and I said, your prime minister has been shot. And she replied, he is mafia.
[01:22:16] Speaker A: Okay, yeah, fair enough. That adds up. I've seen a few explanations here and there on, you know, comments on things on Instagram and stuff like that. But it's like, I can't care about this.
You know? Like, there's a lot going on, and I just deeply cannot care too much about this.
[01:22:34] Speaker B: Too much.
[01:22:35] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't think it has anything to do with us. Like, if it was, like, we're implicated somehow. Like, this is none of our business. This has nothing to do with us.
[01:22:42] Speaker B: I'm gonna stay on this one. We'll keep.
[01:22:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
No insights to offer, but I did.
[01:22:48] Speaker B: Watch challenges, which you did watch challenges, which did not fuck around in making it to streaming.
[01:22:54] Speaker A: I know. That's kind of wild. I was surprised at how fast that that made it.
[01:23:01] Speaker B: What a great movie. You've seen it. Of course. You went to movies for it, didn't you?
[01:23:05] Speaker A: I did. I told you all about it last week.
[01:23:07] Speaker B: Yes, of course you did.
Just let's hear it for fucking real films, you know? Let's fucking hear it for real, actual movies getting made by actual movie makers.
[01:23:19] Speaker A: I mean, this is what, like I said last week. Cause, you know, I went and I saw challengers and I saw fall guy and, you know, very different movies or whatever, but my thought process was like, these are both, like, movies. You know, I just came here and I just watched two movies that were someone's, like, vision, you know, that they put out there and made and that felt like, you know, they loved what they were doing and, like, had a story to tell or whatever.
[01:23:46] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:23:47] Speaker A: Yeah. So, challengers. Absolutely. I had the same sort of reaction.
[01:23:50] Speaker B: Like, yes, um, no, this is a developing thought, so bear with me.
[01:23:57] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:23:58] Speaker B: But I'm starting to feel as though, you know, how I've often said that David Cronenberg only ever tells one story in any, in all of his films. It doesn't matter what setting he's putting it in. His one theme is. Put it where it doesn't go. Um, I'm starting to.
[01:24:11] Speaker A: Cameron only has one.
[01:24:13] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:24:14] Speaker A: One movie that he makes over and over again.
[01:24:16] Speaker B: Exactly. Exactly. I'm starting to feel that whether it's vampires or whether it's tennis or whether it's, you know, a kid on holiday or whatever, I think Luca Guadagnino might have one tale that he's telling through a lot of different films.
[01:24:30] Speaker A: Interesting. What, what tale is it that I'm.
[01:24:33] Speaker B: Yet to fully round out? Like I said, it's a thought in progress, but it's, you know, it's very physical. It's very much about the, ah, man, the. The kind of, the balance between, you know, the physical and the ego, you know, love across fucking barriers and boundaries and fucking board.
Bear with me. I'll return to this thought in the future.
[01:24:59] Speaker A: I like the love across boundaries and barriers thought. I think that you're getting somewhere with that.
[01:25:04] Speaker B: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
[01:25:07] Speaker A: Very interesting, but great flick.
[01:25:08] Speaker B: Fucking impossible to not recommend. Um.
Ah, it's art, man. It's art. Fucking. I've never seen a pov of a tennis ball before, um, you know, I mean, ably supported by. What is a fucking. Another atticus and Reznor banger of a soundtrack.
[01:25:31] Speaker A: Mm hmm.
[01:25:31] Speaker B: Isn't it great? Holy shit.
Zendaya is great. I had no problems with it at all. I mean, imagine me giving a fuck about a tennis film.
[01:25:41] Speaker A: Right? Exactly. I mean, that was the first thing that you said when we, like, mentioned this movie, and I said I wanted to go see it. You're, like, not a tennis movie. I don't think it's a tennis movie, per se.
[01:25:50] Speaker B: It isn't. But, you know, that was before I knew what it really was and.
[01:25:54] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
[01:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:25:56] Speaker A: So I'm glad that you checked out challengers.
[01:25:58] Speaker B: Impossible not to recommend. Just. Just a capital m movie. Really fucking good shit.
[01:26:04] Speaker A: Love that. This week I rewatched in Bruges, which I hadn't seen in a decade or more.
[01:26:13] Speaker B: What led to that? Why? Why now?
[01:26:15] Speaker A: Well, we're going to Brussels.
[01:26:17] Speaker B: Oh, thank you. This summer answered.
[01:26:18] Speaker A: And Keough has never seen in Bruges, so I was like, do you want to. Do you want to watch this? So, of course I texted you. I was like, will you put this on plex, please?
We watched it the other night, and, you know, it's such an interesting movie because, you know, it's like, I think this is another, like, 2009 ish movie somewhere in that vicinity. 2008, 2009. And you're really kind of, like, on the edge of, like, where you can push a lot of the edginess of your characters and their dialogue and whatnot in here and you. Absolutely. And I. It'll sound like a. You can't do anything anymore because woke.
[01:26:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.
[01:26:54] Speaker A: For multiple reasons, you could not have a character as, like, just despicable as Colin Farrell is in that movie and still have empathy towards him. So, in part, is because he's a horror, he's racist, he constantly calls people the r word, and all these kinds of things in this that are like, you just wouldn't have that in a movie now, of course. But more to the point, like, we have spent the past decade or so making villains complex or whatever, and making it so everybody. People aren't despicable in a lot of stuff. And so it's really bold to be like, on the one hand, you're not necessarily supposed to like this guy. On the other hand, you do have a degree of empathy for him and what's happened to him or what he did in this movie, seeing sort of through his companion hitman's eyes in this movie who does feel strongly for him. So, basically, if you've never seen him, Bruges, it's about two hitmen who are waiting in Bruges, Belgium, for an assignment.
And one of them is cool, being there doing touristy things and stuff like that. And the other one, played by Colin Farrell, is itching to get away and thinks this is basically the worst place on earth. This is a purgatory of places for him. And you're sort of watching it's Martin McDonagh. So if you have seen things like banshees of Innis Sharon and seven psychopaths and stuff like that, this is the kind of movie you're getting into. A very talky dialogue. Heavy, whippy.
Yeah. Irish sort of character piece. Yeah. And it's one of those ones that it's like.
It takes some, when you're watching it, going like, okay, imagine it's 2009, and I'm not as shocked by the things they're saying in here while watching it, but it's a very good flick.
[01:28:59] Speaker B: I seem to remember in Bruges getting way more cultural cut through than you might have expected.
[01:29:08] Speaker A: Yeah.
[01:29:09] Speaker B: And I wonder to myself, when I think back to the kind of people who recommended imbruge to me when it came out, I wonder if it maybe were people who weren't necessarily troubled by the duality of the piece, if you know what I'm saying.
[01:29:28] Speaker A: Yeah, I think there's probably something to that. People who just think it's funny that, you know, makes fun of fat people and dwarves and all that kind of stuff. I think there's definitely something to that. I also think what's interesting about this is, like, it kind of speaks to me to why three billboards ended up being so offensive, even though, you know, it wasn't meant to be, was that he tried to transplant, like, that same kind of, like, edgy. Like these people are. They're like bad guys that you empathize with, and he tried to just transplant that onto, like, this american setting where instead, you know, the movie that he made is about racists, that's empathetic towards racists, that doesn't have their target present in the movie to show you how terrible that is. Like, the one black person in that movie gets arrested partway through, and you never see her again, you know, and so, like, he thought he could take this, like, this kind of trope that he's created here and place that onto America and tell this story, and instead you're like, buddy, we don't. We're still working on this. We don't need to empathize with racists here. You know, that's. That's not a thing that we need help with.
[01:30:37] Speaker B: Yes. I think it's very insightful.
[01:30:40] Speaker A: Yeah. Which is. Yeah, it's the only McDonough stinker for me. But, yeah. In Bruges, watched that and, you know, had a good time with it and excited to see the place for myself in a month or so.
We watched Gaslight last night, which I had. I've seen before, but hadn't seen in years. And of course, the play gaslight that this is based on is where we get the term gaslighting from a great Ingrid Bergman film with what's Misses P. Angela Lansbury in her first role in this movie.
[01:31:18] Speaker B: Is it really a first ever role?
[01:31:20] Speaker A: Yeah, it's a crazy story. I was watching this on TCM, so they always have an intro beforehand and it was like, bananas. Something terrible. I feel like it was her dad died or something like that happened in England. Her family moved to LA. She was 17 years old. Heard about a tryout for a different movie. I think it was Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde, and she went to audition for that. But the director of this was like, we need someone to play this role. And brought her in to end up playing this role, which then, you know, led to her getting, like, an Oscar nomination and things like that. So, like, just a whirlwind of bananas events with this introduction into her. But, yeah. Gaslight is the story of a woman whose mother is murdered when she is, or her aunt, who has sort of been the stand in for her mother is murdered when she's young, and she ends up marrying this guy later on who is sort of preying on her vulnerabilities and convincing her that she is going crazy in order to in some way take advantage of her. That unfolds over the course of the movie. And it's just a. It's a good time. I mean, it's a bad time for her, but it's a good movie. It's a really. Yeah. Strong movie with great performances throughout it. I love gaslight.
[01:32:39] Speaker B: I will never not love the american pronunciation of ant.
[01:32:47] Speaker A: It's not the american pronunciation. It depends on where you're from.
[01:32:52] Speaker B: I've never. I've never known anybody say it correctly or like, we do not want to.
[01:32:58] Speaker A: Do you say ant aunt?
[01:33:00] Speaker B: Yeah, ant aunt. Ant auntie.
[01:33:01] Speaker A: If you're from California, you'd probably say ant.
[01:33:04] Speaker B: Okay.
You really lean into the au on.
[01:33:10] Speaker A: That's the east coast sort of northeastern pronunciation is to say aunt. But yeah, if you were west coast, you would say aunt for sure.
[01:33:17] Speaker B: I wish that I could enjoy movies from the forties and fifties more.
No, I mean, I mean that. I mean that I say that kind of seriously. I don't know what it is about them that I find so tough.
[01:33:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't know. I'm a huge classic movie fan.
[01:33:35] Speaker B: Yeah, I know this, but I mean.
[01:33:37] Speaker A: I do have to be in the right zone for it. I can't, I'm not always in the mood to watch them. So I do understand kind of having to like get in the place for it, but I don't know. I really love an old classic flicker.
[01:33:49] Speaker B: If I'm gonna rip the plaster off, I should probably start with like Sunset Boulevard or something, shouldn't I?
[01:33:54] Speaker A: Sure. Yeah. Sunset Boulevard is great. And related to a media thing that you're already into, what with timeless toni storm, of course.
Yeah. I'm trying to think of like other things that would be good to rip the band aid off with. I mean, like, have you seen, have you seen Citizen Kane?
I was every bit as good as.
[01:34:18] Speaker B: I was forced to watch it in university.
[01:34:21] Speaker A: Oh, well, that, that might kind of.
[01:34:23] Speaker B: I watched twelve angry men. I loved the fuck out of that.
[01:34:26] Speaker A: Yeah, you loved that? Absolutely. Like there's, you know, Casablanca. Have you seen Casablanca?
[01:34:31] Speaker B: I haven't, no.
[01:34:33] Speaker A: Casablanca I have probably seen 2030 times in my life and never.
It's every time it hits. Like, it's the first time I've seen it. Every time I laugh my ass off, I cry, everything. It is such a perfect fucking movie.
[01:34:49] Speaker B: I gotta do it. I gotta do it.
[01:34:50] Speaker A: You gotta do it. Yeah, get in there.
[01:34:53] Speaker B: Maybe you could do like another podcast.
[01:34:57] Speaker A: Yeah. Where I introduce you to old flicks.
[01:35:00] Speaker B: You make your friend watch horror films and you make your other friend watch old movies.
[01:35:03] Speaker A: Yeah, my horror friend has to watch classic movies.
I like it. I'm into it. We'll work on it. Especially since you're in your taking my Rex era.
[01:35:14] Speaker B: I am.
[01:35:15] Speaker A: The only other thing that I watched, I went to the movie theater and saw a documentary called Kim's Video, which by happenstance was actually related to somewhere I've been lately. And I did not know this. So this movie is the story of an old, like a 1980s video store that was in business between like 1986 seven and like 2009, I think like somewhere in that general window owned by this sort of mysterious korean guy named Mister Kim. And it became like a fixture in, I want to say it was in Brooklyn. It was definitely somewhere in New York City. And, like, basically, he would bootleg a ton of shit. And, you know, so all this stuff that you could not get anywhere, you could get here. He had, like, something like 40,000 or 50,000 videos in there, and they would just straight. Like, there would be raids. Like, the cops would come in and take his movies because they were illegal. And he.
[01:36:20] Speaker B: What kind of stuff we talking about?
[01:36:21] Speaker A: Just anything, like, whether it was like, you know, he had, like, nouvelle Vogue kind of, you know, auteur stuff that had never been released in America, you know, underground porn, like, any kind of thing. Like, just spanned whatever. You could get normal videos, too, but he just had all of this stuff that he would bootleg. And that was the real appeal, was like, you could see stuff you would not be able to get anywhere else, especially in a pre Internet age. And then obviously, the Internet came along, and video stores weren't really a thing anymore. And he made an arrangement with a town in Italy to that. They said they were going to house his collection. He was looking for a place to donate it. He's like, we will house the collection here. Everyone can come and, like, take the movies out for free, and it's going to be, like, the centerpiece of this town.
And then through a web of corruption and all kinds of things like that, this never happened. And the videos sat in a warehouse, you know, where they were getting rained on and destroyed and all of that kind of stuff. And eventually they got repatriated to America over the course of the events of this film, where they are now at Alamo Drafthouse in lower Manhattan. And I actually was there with Kim a few, like, last month when we went to go see, all you need is death. And so, like, I have pictures of.
[01:37:49] Speaker B: So he's still around tapes and now still around in his state.
[01:37:53] Speaker A: His tapes are still around and all that. So it's a fascinating story. The documentary sucks. It's a terrible documentary where. Here's my thing.
So many white men think I saw movies as a kid, and I liked them, and I wanted to make movies is, like, an interesting documentary premise. And so you always have to go through the first part of the documentary where it's a white man being like, and then me and my friends made movies, and then I worked at a video store so I could be close to movies. And you're like, yeah, no fucking shit. Like, every Gen X Man in this country did the exact same thing. You're not special. So this guy really centers himself in this story, and then he does this thing where it's like, he relates everything to a movie, and so it'll be like. And then this happened at the video store, which reminds me of this scene from blah blah. And then they just show a scene from a movie, and you're like, and, okay, yeah, and, yeah, that does not add anything to this story. And then this fucking guy, like, he goes to Italy by himself, does not learn a word of Italian, and goes. And, like, it's basically, like, yelling at these people in French, trying to, like, learn things about, like, what happened to these videos. And I'm like, why would you. You can't tell a good story if you can't communicate with anyone. Like, it made for fun, funny parts, but, like, I want to know what happened. So, like, spending, you know, 15 minutes of this movie of just you not being able to communicate with people in this country is, like, not a good use of time to tell this story.
[01:39:33] Speaker B: You're telling a tale on yourself, sir.
[01:39:36] Speaker A: Right. Yeah. Like, it's, you know, so it's just. It's so poorly made, and it's very sad that what is clearly a, like, super interesting story is, you know, just really poorly told. And even in the end, like, alleged, like, how this ends is that he manages to steal the tapes back by asking the city in Italy if he can film a movie in the archive. And they're like, yeah, okay. So he films a heist, and they put all the movies into this truck. And the thing is, the way this is, like, made, I don't know if that's really what happened or not. You know? Like, it's presented as if this is what occurred, but we never see any conversations he had no phone calls, no plans or anything like that. So as far as we know, that's not, like, you know, he may have asked, can I take these tapes? And they were like, yeah, sure. We don't need them. You know, so it's. Yeah, it's just poorly made, and it's a bummer because it's a super fascinating story.
[01:40:35] Speaker B: I think I enjoyed your telling of the tale more than I would have enjoyed the documentary.
[01:40:41] Speaker A: Yeah. There's apparently a long form article about it I want to track down at some point, but, yeah, Kim's video. Look it up.
[01:40:48] Speaker B: Listen, speaking of. Speaking of long form articles.
So we have to bring up Lucy Letbee again. I think we do.
[01:40:58] Speaker A: Yes. We absolutely do have to. I would say, like, maybe next week or something, because this is really.
[01:41:04] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, really something. There may be a.
There may be a dingo ate my baby. Fucking situation going on.
[01:41:11] Speaker A: Yeah. If you recall during our hospital horrors series, we talked about british nurse Lucy Letbe, who has been accused or charged. She's convicted.
[01:41:27] Speaker B: The case went on for years. Yeah. And attempted murder of some more numbering in the right.
[01:41:33] Speaker A: And what we got through the media and all that kind of stuff was deeply damning. It very much looked like she did this, but an american article came out. I can't remember what publication it was, but it might have been. Yeah. Extremely long, detailed investigative report that basically raises questions about whether she did this or she's being scapegoated to cover up the failures of this hospital that she worked.
[01:42:08] Speaker B: An incredible piece of work, this article. Very, very long, very detailed. And if taken at face value, one that shines a deeply fucking unflattering light on british media, on the NHS, on the procedures in place, in particular at the hospital that she worked in, on the reasoning processes that went into the conviction, the evidence that was given by some of the, you know, highly regarded and very well qualified witnesses.
Stories that changed during the course of the fucking trial.
Fascinating. Yes. But let's. Let's return.
[01:42:48] Speaker A: Yeah, we will. Because we should dive into it because it is. Yeah. That we are in the business of correcting records and whatnot. And of course this isn't a trial. Right. Like we, we can't fully like say one way or another, but it really does reframe a lot of what we thought we knew about this case.
[01:43:07] Speaker B: Yes.
Yeah. Which leads me to ask, what was it that got you to happen on this topic that we're about to talk through? Corrigan, Edmonton? Because it seemed to come out of a left. It seemed to kind of just arrive talk to me.
[01:43:31] Speaker A: As does most things that I text you on a standard day seem to come out of left field.
But, yeah. Someone made an offhanded remark on blue sky this week about german tourists coming to the United States and underestimating just how wild our wilderness is, leading them to get their shit fucked up.
And apparently this is at least a somewhat occurrence. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And it was fascinating to me for me to think about on multiple fronts.
For one, it's only from talking to you over the past few years that I've started to realize that the outdoors generally in Europe isn't as dangerous as the outdoors in America. You have some extremes here and there, but it's not like here where everything can kill you.
[01:44:18] Speaker B: I don't think there's a single part of the UK where I would feel in danger from the environment, from the.
[01:44:26] Speaker A: Wild environment.
[01:44:29] Speaker B: You know that I. You know that I could fuck up most animals anyway. You know this. We all know this. So maybe I'm not the best person to speak to, but I don't even. Even if I were a normal human without my, you know, strength and abilities, I don't think there's anywhere that I would feel in danger from. From a predator. You know, being the apex predator myself. Like I said, maybe I'm not the guy to talk to, but I always feel very safe in the UK.
[01:44:57] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly that. And, like, certainly there are places in Europe, like, we've talked about the dyatlov pass and things like that. There are places that are extreme, but in general, it's not like a wild landscape, which is a thing, like I said, I never really thought about until I started talking to you because I am used to, like, outside equals danger. Right. And not in a way that I'm, like, scared of the outdoors or anything like that, but that, like, you know, I feel like I've spent my entire life learning to be prepared for how potentially dangerous anything that I come across out there is because it's. There's just a lot in the US.
[01:45:37] Speaker B: Can I just ask you a question about bears?
[01:45:41] Speaker A: Sure.
[01:45:45] Speaker B: Are there bears across all of North America or are they just like, in particular states?
[01:45:54] Speaker A: That's a good question. I would say probably.
I don't know if the middle has a lot of bears I'm not sure about.
I must. The west coast has bears. The east coast has bears.
[01:46:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[01:46:06] Speaker A: I don't know enough about the. Well, yeah, you've got places in the middle, like Montana and things like that that have them. I guess it's like, I don't know about, like, the south kind of region if they have bears, but probably. But broadly, we definitely have them here.
[01:46:19] Speaker B: Lots. You know, it's. It's. It's in. Bears are indigenous to most of the USA.
[01:46:27] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. 100%. Yeah, there was like, just last week there was a bear running around the next town over.
[01:46:34] Speaker B: Get the fuck out.
[01:46:36] Speaker A: Yeah. People all had it on, like their ring cameras and stuff like that.
[01:46:40] Speaker B: So there's a less than zero chance in.
[01:46:44] Speaker A: During my trip you could see a bear. It's possible. It's unlikely, but it does happen.
[01:46:53] Speaker B: But you're saying there's a chance.
[01:46:55] Speaker A: There is a chance, yeah. I mean, again, like a couple years before that, like, in upper Montclair, there was one that, like, was roaming through everyone's backyards and stuff like that. Like, I'm surrounded by wilderness, you know, as you can see through my Instagram posts and stuff like that. Like, there's tons of forest and stuff like that around here. So, yeah, we have a lot of nature like that. Like I told you, the foxes running around last night, my camera gets a lot of animals and things like that on it. Fantastic.
Yeah. And as such, like, we spend a lot of our lives, like, doing, like, outdoor education and stuff like that, you know, going away to, like, camps when you're in school, to go and learn about how to be, like, safe in nature and things like that. You know, a lot of us do some form of scouts as children, and wilderness and survival skills are a huge part of scouting. Yes, hiking is a hugely common activity for people here. Like, that's just a normal, like, Saturday thing.
[01:47:49] Speaker B: Well, yeah, it's that big and that beautiful. You. Why wouldn't you.
[01:47:52] Speaker A: Why wouldn't you go on hikes?
So, to get back to that original blue sky skeet, in response to the assertion that german tourists have a hard time here, several people mentioned the story of the Death valley Germans, which obviously piqued my interest, because I had never heard of these people before.
And it turns out this is sort of a well known case of disastrous lack of preparation in one of the most inhospitable environments on the planet. And I'm sure you've heard of Death Valley, right? Oh, God, yeah, yeah, that's. I mean, it's all over the place. Everyone's heard of Death Valley. It's vast, it's dry and it's hot. So hot. Unimaginably hot. The hottest air temperature on earth was recorded there. A scorching 134.1 degrees fahrenheit.
[01:48:48] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:48:48] Speaker A: Which is 56.7 degrees celsius.
Yeah.
[01:48:54] Speaker B: Right.
I start to get super uncomfortable at, like, 23, 24, right?
[01:48:59] Speaker A: Yeah, same, 100%.
Exactly that. And I think of the hottest temperatures that I've ever been in was around 113, which is 45 degrees c. And this was in a horrific heat wave we had in southern California some years back. That was absolute misery. Like, my students were brain dead all week. They could not form sentences because it was like there was air conditioning inside, obviously, but thus then you're going from 113 degrees into, like, a cool room back and forth. That everyone was just.
[01:49:33] Speaker B: Just the UK summer of 2022, which is mentioned.
[01:49:37] Speaker A: Which I was there for.
[01:49:39] Speaker B: Yes, indeed. Which was mentioned in the book I'm reading right now. It will kill you first. I cannot remember a more miserable time. And, yeah, it's horrific.
This isn't even slightly an exaggeration, but that summer has made me fear summers.
When it starts to get warm, I start to worry, how fuck is it gonna be like that again? Because I couldn't do fuck all. It was horrible.
[01:50:03] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. Like, I have. It gets very hot here and only has been getting hotter, obviously, like, everywhere else on the planet. And, yeah, it gives, like, a sense of dread about the changing of seasons. It's like, oh, God, here it comes.
But, like, think about that and, you know, like, what was the hottest? You think that it got during that time?
[01:50:27] Speaker B: I don't know if I'm talking through my ass here, but I think I remember it touching 40.
[01:50:33] Speaker A: Yep, it was. 40 degrees is about 105 degrees fahrenheit, which is the average July temperature in Death Valley.
[01:50:42] Speaker B: June 2023 was the UK's hottest on record average. June. That's average in the UK.
[01:50:48] Speaker A: Okay. I get. When I look it up. The hottest temperature was July 19, 2022. Yeah, 40.3. It's like 105 degrees.
[01:50:57] Speaker B: Thank you. I thought we'd hit 40. Right. Okay, great.
[01:51:00] Speaker A: Thank you.
[01:51:00] Speaker B: Fuck.
[01:51:01] Speaker A: I don't know what part of the UK specifically hit 40.
[01:51:04] Speaker B: Well, it felt like my fucking bedroom.
[01:51:06] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, that's horrifying. And like I said, that's.
[01:51:11] Speaker B: And what did you say? Death Valley, literally the hottest place on.
[01:51:14] Speaker A: Earth, average in July. And this is. Keep in mind there's different parts of Death Valley, so, yeah, yeah, there are other places to be way hotter on an average day, but the average for the all of Death Valley in July is 40.5 c. So 105 degrees and so, yeah, it's a terrible thing. And it's kind of hard to, like, express to people how deeply awful that is. And in July of 1996, 38 year old Egbert Rimkus, his 27 year old.
[01:51:46] Speaker B: I can see him, I can picture him.
[01:51:51] Speaker A: He's not. He doesn't look like what you would expect Egbert Rimkiss to look like. He's a normal looking guy. But he was there with his 27 year old partner, Cornelia Meyer, and their respective children, George and Max, and they made their way to Death Valley from Dresden. They had rented a Plymouth Voyager minivan from a Los Angeles dollar rent a car and set off on their adventure.
And already we're at a severe lack of preparedness out the gate. While a minivan is a great car for a family vacay, it is absolutely not the right automobile for Death Valley.
[01:52:23] Speaker B: We're sure you're fucking melt.
[01:52:27] Speaker A: Not melt, but there's other hazards.
The roads require four wheel drive and vehicles built for off roading. So a minivan, not a great start.
When they arrived in Death Valley, the temperatures hit 124 degrees fahrenheit, or 51 c.
So again, hard to fully express how hot that is.
[01:52:50] Speaker B: Imagine that. I cannot even imagine.
[01:52:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Like, that is brain meltingly hot.
So, you know, you need so much water and so many things there to, like, keep your body cool because you will overheat. I was reading something recently that was talking about how, like, even water. Water doesn't cool you down. So even if you are, you know, drinking tons and tons of water, that's still not enough when you're in this.
[01:53:15] Speaker B: Again, this book has gone into that. The only. The reason you need so much water is to create sweat.
[01:53:22] Speaker A: Exactly.
[01:53:23] Speaker B: It isn't the water itself that's cooling you down. No, it's the activity of perspiration leaving your skin. That's what cools you down. And you need the water to generate that.
[01:53:30] Speaker A: Yeah, precisely. So, yeah, we're not talking about a place where you've got, like, tons of shade trees to sit under or anything like that. And the Germans were not prepared for this. They had a flight back to Germany scheduled for the end of July, as well as the return of their rental vehicle, and they didn't show up to either of those things.
It wasn't until late October of that year that park ranger Dave Brenner was flying over the park in a helicopter looking for drug labs when he spotted an abandoned vehicle in an area called anvil cannon, looking for drug labs in.
[01:54:01] Speaker B: The middle of Death Valley.
[01:54:02] Speaker A: Drug labs? Yeah. And that should really give you a sense of, like, what this landscape is. Just this huge, vast, desolate landscape where people can, like, make little pop drugs because no one will find you so big.
Yeah. So it was, as strangeoutdoors.com put it, a standard passenger minivan that he found, not an off road four wheel drive, and it was not where it should have been. The road down to Anvil Canyon had been closed five years before, in 1994 as part of the Desert Protection act. So no one was supposed to be on it.
Further, it was super rough going. When the van was found, its axles were stuck in the sand, the rear tires were flat, and it looked from tracks leading to its final resting place that they had been driving on those flats for a while.
Inside the car, they found a camera that helped them to parse whose car this was and where they'd been before.
They also found a stolen american flag that said Butte Valley stone cabin on it, which is a shelter west of Anvil nice touch. Yeah.
Canyon where people can stop for some food and water. Yeah. Like the place. Like I said, it's a place where you can stop, get some food and water, rest for a little bit out of the elements, and the flag usually was a way that you'd raise it. So people knew there were people there, and these Germans just took it.
So they also found two bottles of.
[01:55:33] Speaker B: What the obvious jokes about Jim taking.
[01:55:38] Speaker A: They found two full bottles of bud ice, one empty bottle, a three quarters full bottle of bourbon, some empty large water and juice containers, luggage, a sleeping bag, and various other bits and bobs. But no sign of the family.
Search parties were sent out, including trackers, helicopters, and mounted units. They turned up nothing but an empty bud ice bottle, a few and a few footprints.
Over the years, various other search parties turned up a few items here and there, like a discarded sleeping bag that may have belonged to them, but not much else.
It wasn't until 2009 that La search and rescue worker Tom Mehud examined all the things we knew about the case and came up with a hypothesis about which direction they'd probably gone.
He guessed that looking at their map, they probably would have attempted to make their way about 9 miles south to the China Lake Naval Weapons center, pretty much the closest civilization to where they'd been stranded. And 9 miles is a long fucking way in 100 degree heat.
[01:56:39] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:56:40] Speaker A: And sure enough, evidence started turning up, including ids, passports, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a small shoe, a day planner, a wine bottle, and another bud ice bottle.
[01:56:51] Speaker B: I cannot think of a lesson. Pleasant end?
[01:56:56] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, no. It's like, amongst the worst. Like, you would be in pain and. And just dried out. Thirsty, well, hungry.
[01:57:06] Speaker B: It's an. It's why I can't read this book for more than fucking four or five pages at a time, because it accurately describes in detail the process of dying, of heat stroke, and it's fucking foul tissues disconnect, and you're fucking, you know, you start to bleed out of every hole.
Yeah.
[01:57:23] Speaker A: Yeah. It's pretty horrifying.
Yeah. And on November 12, 2009, over 13 years after they disappeared, the search party found Connie Meyers remains in an area called Goler, Wash. About 8 miles from their van and 4 miles from the China Lake facility's boundary fence. So they kinda started going the wrong direction a little bit, too.
More bones were found in subsequent searches, but they weren't able to collect enough DNA to positively identify them. It's pretty safe to say, though, they belonged to the rest of the family who had perished full of bud ice over a decade before.
[01:57:58] Speaker B: Good God.
[01:58:00] Speaker A: Yeah, so this was, you know, this whole thing, like, really sort of captured my imagination and whatnot. Like, the idea of, like, tourists going places and for whatever reason, whether it's preparedness or fluke accidents or whatever the case may be, like, stuff that happens when you're supposed to be having the time of your life, when you're on vacation, what kind of shit can happen to you?
[01:58:23] Speaker B: Well, it's supposed to be such a lovely time, isn't it? It's supposed to be, you know, something you've saved a lot of money for, and you've got yourself some time off work, and you've gathered your nearest and dearest, your family, you've charged all your fucking batteries, and you're off to make some memories.
But don't let that fool you into thinking you're immune from the rest of the fucking world, because you're not, you know, as was found out the hard way by a couple of british tourists, a girl by the name of Hannah Witheridge and her partner, David Miller. In September 2014, they were holidaying in Thailand and an island called Ko Tao in Thailand. In 2014, it was September 15, and they were backpacking. They were traveling separately. They met on that beach, and they were found early hours of the morning in a horrific scene. Hannah had her head fucking smashed in.
Signs of sexual assault.
[01:59:32] Speaker A: Oh, no.
[01:59:33] Speaker B: Yep. Miller, the guy again, he had suffered really fucking. Really bad head injuries, which it looked as though it'd been inflicted by a hoe, a fucking gardening tool, which had been found at the crime scene.
Also drowned and local. A couple of local burmese migrant workers were charged and arrested with their murders.
Be fucking situationally aware, for fuck's sake. You know what I mean?
Or your ass could get murdered.
[02:00:05] Speaker A: Well, I mean, seriously, were they, like, somewhere, like they shouldn't have been, or this is just like a normal.
[02:00:13] Speaker B: Well, no, I mean, the night.
[02:00:14] Speaker A: Regular vacation day.
[02:00:16] Speaker B: It's a popular tour. The island Ko Tao is a very popular kind of tourist island. It's, you know, nightlife, diving breaks, diving. Diving holidays, diving sites. They were seen, the two of them, seen publicly in bars. This is what made the case such big news. And it was huge news over here because it is a, you know, a standard kind of holiday.
[02:00:41] Speaker A: Everyone was thinking.
[02:00:42] Speaker B: Yes, yes, exactly. Exactly, exactly.
The. The trial itself was a fucking nightmare. The two guys who got fingered for it retracted their confessions later. They said they'd been roughed up by the police and coerced.
[02:00:57] Speaker A: Yeah, it's always a little. Iffy when migrant worker is. Who is blamed for something like that. It's not that people can't be terrible and be migrant workers, but it always feels like they were looking for someone really quickly to be able to say, did this.
[02:01:11] Speaker B: Exactly.
[02:01:12] Speaker A: When foreigners are killed.
[02:01:14] Speaker B: Exactly.
[02:01:14] Speaker A: And they were there.
[02:01:16] Speaker B: The two guys were sentenced to death, don't you know?
[02:01:19] Speaker A: Oh, geez.
[02:01:20] Speaker B: Mm hmm. Yep. Death sentences reformed in 2019.
It completely fucked up, as you'd imagine. The tourist trade in that area. It's, you know, safety measures for travelers were bumped up. The justice system of the fucking island was properly. Properly put under scrutiny. In particular, like you said, the treatment of migrant workers, use of forensic evidence.
It ain't, again, just because you're on holiday and I'm not fucking. Holy shit. I'm not victim blaming here for fuck's not their fault. Absolutely.
[02:01:55] Speaker A: That's not the point of this, these stories at all.
[02:01:57] Speaker B: But being on holiday doesn't give you a fucking shield of invulnerability at all. You know what I mean? You're still. You're still vulnerable to the same fucking tragedies and random curveballs, random, horrific curveballs that life generally throws at you. Another fucking example, right? Closer to home, London.
You'll have heard of the terrorist attacks on 7 July 2005.
Yes.
A series of bombs went off on public transport. Right. Three bombs blew up on underground trains. And then there was another bomb later on a bus. And of the 52 dead, 18 of those were different nationalities.
One was a guy by the name of Sam Lee, a vietnamese guy who's in London visiting relatives. A lady by the name of.
[02:02:48] Speaker A: Real quick.
[02:02:48] Speaker B: Yep.
[02:02:49] Speaker A: What are you leaning your elbow on?
[02:02:50] Speaker B: Nothing.
[02:02:51] Speaker A: Okay, just checking. So I was like, I could kind of hear what sounded like thumping, so I just want to make sure it wasn't on the iPad. Holding your.
[02:02:56] Speaker B: Nope. Literally nothing. They're up on my. My tummy. Um, okay. Yeah. A vietnamese guy who was literally just there visiting relatives. A lady by the name of Michaela Otto who was visiting her boyfriend in London.
An indian national who just literally started a new job in London. Just because you've gone there for a fucking recreational reason, it doesn't protect you, you know?
[02:03:18] Speaker A: I mean, you think about that with, like, the, like, World Trade center, obviously. Like, you know, all those people worked there, and it was all these, you know, people who just would have been there anyway. But that was a huge tourist spot. Plenty of people who were there were just tourists.
[02:03:34] Speaker B: Well, yeah, that's.
[02:03:35] Speaker A: That's picked the wrong time.
[02:03:37] Speaker B: Which was exactly the point, wasn't it.
[02:03:39] Speaker A: Yeah, right, exactly.
Yeah. In a, I mean, and this is just to your point as well. Like, not to make holidays sound scary or whatever, but also, like, you know, when you say, oh, you're not. Like, when you go out, it's no different. The danger, whatever. There's also adding the element of unfamiliarity. Right. Like, not knowing how to get help or what routes aren't safe to take or things like that as well. That, like, heightens more than, like, at home, you know, like, oh, avoid, you know, that alleyway or, you know, you know, who. What number to call or whatever if you're in a bind that you don't necessarily have when you are in another.
[02:04:20] Speaker B: Country with a bit of distance. Right. I think back sometimes on the time I spent in Cape Town, and I am astounded that I got back in one piece.
[02:04:35] Speaker A: Yeah. South Africa, I mean, in general, has, like, some very.
[02:04:42] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[02:04:43] Speaker A: Some areas in which you can find yourself in a lot of trouble.
[02:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Yes. And what about party was robbed at knifepoint.
[02:04:51] Speaker A: Yeah, that was, like, a huge issue even in, like, we, like, literally lived in a tourist town. That, like, that was the whole point. Port Elizabeth and, like, constant armed robberies were a pretty, like, standard thing you had to worry about.
[02:05:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
But fuck knows how. Because I. There was, there were just elevated levels of idiocy for some time there, but.
[02:05:18] Speaker A: Yeah, just sort of just dumb luck.
[02:05:20] Speaker B: That you get 100%. Somehow. I lucked out. See?
[02:05:25] Speaker A: Yeah.
[02:05:26] Speaker B: The, I guess, ultimate story, if you're british, of a holiday gone south would involve Jerry and Kate McGann.
[02:05:44] Speaker A: You know, how much another media.
[02:05:47] Speaker B: Another fucking trial. Yes, yes, yes. Another media pillorying how much, how much kind of groundbreak did that make in the States? Because it was. It was the news here for years.
[02:06:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I don't think it was, like, for years like it was for you, but it certainly had, like, whenever it happened, probably for that month, it was on the news daily or whatever, and then we would have gotten, like, updates anytime there was, like, a big forward move in the trial or whatever. So I think, like, I would guess probably most Americans would at least vaguely know who that is.
[02:06:23] Speaker B: Well, just to recap for those who don't, it was a group of seven, the McGann family, along with a group of their friends, staying in a resort in Portugal. And the holiday had kind of developed a routine of them dining in a kind of a nearby restaurant while their kids stayed in their apartments. And on the night of May 3, the McCann family get back to their hotel to find that the kids, their kid is gone. Madeleine has vanished.
Bedroom window open. Madeleine missing.
And the media and the police went just. Just apeshit. Absolutely apeshit.
Guests and staff just frantically, frantically searching the local police. The polythea Judith.
I'm gonna try that again. Polythea Judithiara. The PJ, as they're known as.
[02:07:18] Speaker A: This is Portugal, right?
[02:07:20] Speaker B: Yes. This is Portuguese. Did that not come across.
[02:07:22] Speaker A: Did I pronounce that that way? Okay, the th is a Spain thing.
[02:07:27] Speaker B: Any accent, anytime, lines of inquiry. Was it an abduction? Was it a fucking, you know, did the girl just wander off? The parents were named as suspects. The investigation stopped and restarted it. There was no evidence.
And, you know, it goes unsolved to this day just because you're on fucking holiday. I mean, public opinion, in as far as I can gauge it, is as a parent, I would say, rightly indignant that, you know, I, as a dad of two, I would never fucking dream in a zillion years of leaving my kids in a room to sleep while I fucked off to a restaurant across the street in a foreign country. I simply wouldn't do it. I wouldn't do it in my own fucking country. I wouldn't do it in the UK.
[02:08:18] Speaker A: Right?
[02:08:20] Speaker B: But short of that, I just. I have no clue what has happened. You know, people trafficking has been mentioned.
There are, to this day, many, many, many people, I dare say, who believe them both. Being doctors. There was some sort of fucking accident, medical accident and a cover up that I don't buy. I just don't fucking buy it.
[02:08:41] Speaker A: Right?
[02:08:42] Speaker B: Um. Where do you fucking hide and dispose of your own daughter's corpse that you've accidentally killed, or intentionally killed, for that matter, with the entire fucking world watching your every goddamn move in another country? In another country, yeah. Totally inappropriate balloons there. Did you see those?
[02:09:08] Speaker A: Yes, I was trying to ignore them.
[02:09:11] Speaker B: Totally inappropriate. Wrong time, Tim Cook needs to work on those balloons, man, because I was just talking about a young girl dying.
[02:09:17] Speaker A: Yeah. A child murder. And it's like, woo.
[02:09:20] Speaker B: Fiesta, Cinco de Mayo. Yeah. That's why I've never, ever bought that it was the parents. I've never bought that. Not for a second.
[02:09:32] Speaker A: Yeah. I don't know if. I mean, that's the thing is, we don't have, like, a. Like, it wasn't as constant here. So I think, like, to a degree. Pardon me? Was like, oh, it feels like it was them, but also, at the same time, like, yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't really make a ton of sense for it to be them. So much as, like, maybe.
[02:09:47] Speaker B: But you know what?
[02:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah, they left their kid. They made a habit of leaving their kids in that place. Just people who knew that there were kids alone in that.
[02:09:55] Speaker B: But much like our opening story, you know, the.
I don't have any kind of specific examples to hand, but the tone of the media response towards the parents was, you know, very condemning, very accusatory.
[02:10:13] Speaker A: Yeah, that's what I would say of, like, from here is like, if you were coming from this, from an american perspective, I think you'd think the parents did it.
[02:10:20] Speaker B: Yes.
[02:10:21] Speaker A: From the news, the media coverage here.
[02:10:23] Speaker B: Yes. Well, and, you know, they were suspects for a time. You know, I mean, as. As part of whatever the due process is in Portugal, they were named as suspect. Um, and, yeah, that. That is certainly the vibe that you would have gotten from some of the press at the time, some of the right wing press at the time, certainly, that they were. That they. That they were in the frame, that it was them and they'd pulled it off somehow.
[02:10:48] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, totally.
Well, on a different note altogether, but similar to my first story that I told, there was a dutch music promoter named Augustinus, Augustinus van Hove and his german girlfriend, Helena Neuillet, who were found in Joshua Tree National park, that's in southern California in 2011.
The couple had arrived at the park shortly before noon that August day, and about 7 hours later, van Hove's body was found by another couple on the edge of Black Eagle mine road. Again, heat. Heat is crazy.
7 hours between someone pulling into the park and being found dead. Like, just.
[02:11:36] Speaker B: Hell, man.
[02:11:37] Speaker A: Just think about that. So.
[02:11:40] Speaker B: Right, like, taking death valley temperatures, right. Taking lethal temperatures that will kill a fucking human. Human. If. If you, for whatever goddamn reason, decide you have to go out in that, what can you do? What do you fucking do?
[02:11:57] Speaker A: That's a very good question. Um, I mean, this is like, this is one of those things that I would never do. You know, I've never. I've never attempted to go to Death Valley if I were my sister. And I thought about doing it, like, at a cooler time of year, but that's also dangerous.
[02:12:15] Speaker B: Yeah, I'd rather you.
[02:12:16] Speaker A: Because they also get the, like, coldest if you do.
[02:12:19] Speaker B: I'd rather you didn't because.
[02:12:20] Speaker A: Yeah, and just, like, not.
Yeah, I mean, it's. It's about, like, having things to keep you cold with you. You know, cold packs and things like that. Having enough water, you know, it's. Supplies make a huge difference in this, basically, because it's like, once you're once you're out of the car, right? Like, your car isn't working. You can't sit in there with the air conditioner running or whatever. Like, it's you and that heat. So it's about what you have with you to stave off that heat.
You know, we talked about that guy who was running the, like, super long marathon thing, too. Basically, you know, he huddled in, like, one shelter that he found somewhere and, like, ate bats, drunk, black blood.
[02:13:07] Speaker B: You fucking mecho motherfucker.
[02:13:09] Speaker A: Yeah, you kind of got to get lucky when it's like that if you are this far gone. Because that's the thing, is, like, you can't last that long once you run out of the things that are keeping you cool.
So, yeah, it's kind of. Obviously, people do live in hot environments, but they have the supplies and things like that to be able to keep themselves from dying, you know? And so, like, with these, the Germans, like, they had sleeping bags. Like, if they had maybe had a tent that might have been of some use to them, you know, like things like that. That they could cover them, sort of, like, you know, something that they could prop up for shade. Something like that might have been of use to them. But a sleeping bag isn't useful to you in weather like this. But with this couple, like, the Germans, they'd driven down a road that was only meant to be traversed by four wheel drive vehicles because of soft sand on the road. And there were signs. This was on the road. They could see signs that said, don't drive down here unless you have four wheel drive.
And, you know, the park pointed out that these materials would have been available in every language. There's no, you know, no way that you could, like, if you had a map or anything, it would have told you you can't go down here.
[02:14:28] Speaker B: So hubris.
[02:14:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Right?
And they were. They carried on in their rented Dodge Charger, stranding themselves in that 106 degree weather. It's thought that they had tried to walk for help, but as park spokesman Joe Zarki put it, it doesn't take long to go from being in trouble to being in a life threatening situation. Heat exhaustion or heat stroke could happen very quickly and your brain and body malfunction. Seriously.
He also pointed out that a lot of Europeans come to Joshua Tree during the summer months. And he said, you can anticipate that many of these folks don't have experience traveling in desert environments.
And, like I keep saying, it's really hard to fully express what the kind of environment is like and what it does to your body. So I think, like, for a lot of people who come from other places, it's easy to think you're totally prepared or that you can make it to help in an emergency, but you cannot.
[02:15:23] Speaker B: Not to want to keep going back to this goddamn book. But the whole fucking point of the heat will kill you is that we need to reframe our entire fucking concept and understanding of heat, rather as being something that we can control and as something that is predictable. You know, it gets hot during this time of the year. It gets cooler during this time of the year. Even if it gets hotter, I can just wear less or turn up the acorn. We need to fucking pin the fuck out of that particular bubble.
[02:15:50] Speaker A: Right.
[02:15:51] Speaker B: Because heat is, you know, it endures. It is something that. And it's only going to become, you know, more of a force that is out of our control.
[02:16:02] Speaker A: Exactly. Yeah, I mean, that's what I sort of take from these situations. And I think that's the thing is, like, for Americans in a good chunk of this country, you know, not all of it, there are places that are temperate, you know, or that stay cooler and stuff like that. But largely, we do have a concept of how hot hot can be, which is also wild that people like. I think there's a degree of hubris that breeds because, you know, there's a lot of people who, like, are like, climate change doesn't worry me. Like, I know what hot weather is because it gets super fucking hot here.
As opposed to, like, when you experienced it now it fills you with dread to imagine another 40 degree day because that is not your normal. And when you felt that, you were like, this is truly hell.
[02:16:58] Speaker B: It completely fucked up both my body and my mind. I could do nothing.
[02:17:03] Speaker A: Right? Yeah, exactly that. And so, like, you know, in these situations, that's the thing is, like, people come and it's like you think you've experienced heat before. I know what it's like to be hot, and it's just so far beyond what you can really fathom when you're not used to those kinds of temperatures. And, you know, this is what, like, places like Spain that get super hot. Like, there's a reason that they have a culture that goes to bed in the middle of the day. You know, it's because it's too hot to do anything.
The best thing that you can do when it's hot is not exert any effort. So you don't want to be hiking through the wilderness trying to find help at the peak of the day when your body is like, let's not. Let's. Yeah, like, let's just nap for a while here.
So, yeah, the final story that I told is one that I want to tell is one that is not the tourist's own fault for being unprepared or anything like that.
You know, there are plenty of stories of lack of preparedness or ill advised cliffside selfies and things like that that have killed many a tourist worldwide.
But in February of 2018, five Brits were killed in a fiery helicopter crash in the Grand Canyon.
And personally, this could never happen to me because there's no way you're getting me into a helicopter.
My husband thought that maybe that'd be a cute thing to do when we first got together. Like, when we're in Hawaii, we'll go on, like, a helicopter ride. And I was like, sir, absolutely not, you fucking maniac. That's not happening.
[02:18:45] Speaker B: See, I'd love to. I'd love to go in helicopter something. I'd really like to.
[02:18:48] Speaker A: Absolutely not. No way.
Thousands of people do take helicopter tours every year, though, and they're fine, you know, no big deal. But this particular posse had been on a Vegas trip celebrating two of their marriage and one of their 30th birthday, and they decided that they would go out to Arizona for the view of a lifetime.
It's thought that the chopper was met with a violent gust of wind, causing it to spin out of control. Crash. And burst into flames.
One member of the party, Jonathan Udall, survived for twelve days afterwards with burns over 90% of his body. And his parents later got a huge settlement from the helicopter company because the aircraft didn't have a crash resistant fuel system on board, which would have potentially stopped the helicopter from bursting into flames. Didn't know that was a thing.
[02:19:39] Speaker B: I was about to say exactly the same thing.
[02:19:41] Speaker A: Yeah, right.
One other survivor, Jennifer Dorcut, suffered what are described as life changing injuries and the pilot had both of his legs amputated.
I mean, like, honestly though, it's bonkers that anyone got out of a helicopter crash like that. Like, when I first read the story, I was like, what would anti fire whatever do? Like, if you're in a helicopter crash in the Grand Canyon, you're gonna die. But apparently not. Apparently that's survivable if you don't catch fire as a result of that.
[02:20:19] Speaker B: So people do walk away from helicopter crashes. I mean, one of. One of my favorite ever photographs is of right wing political fucking dickhead party clown Nigel Farage having just walked away from a helicopter. He wasn't being crashed and he's on both feet. He's bleeding from them nose and mouth, and looks as though he's about to cry. And it's a wonderful photo.
It gives me real joy looking at it.
[02:20:49] Speaker A: But people have to give that one a look.
[02:20:50] Speaker B: People do walk away from helicopter crashes. Just. I wish he hadn't.
[02:20:55] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, you know, maybe not the ones who deserve to, but it will never be me because you are not putting me in one of those things.
[02:21:04] Speaker B: That's the only real guaranteed way to escape a helicopter, is to just not do it.
[02:21:10] Speaker A: Well, unless it's. Yeah, it becomes like that story from the dark 30 where the guy is trying to avoid his own death, and then the train just comes and barrels over him in his living room. Like, I'll just be sitting in my living room and a helicopter will fall on me and I will die in a helicopter crash that way.
Yeah, I'll get Donnie Darko'd by a helicopter. Who knows?
But hey, as we always say on this show, you're not safe anywhere, no matter what you're doing. But the moral of that story is you're not safe anywhere. So just fucking live your life. You know, it can happen in my house, it can happen in the grandchildren canyon. It can happen in Joshua tree.
You know, you just gotta.
[02:21:56] Speaker B: You just gotta live because there's way too much time spent being dead.
[02:22:02] Speaker A: It's true. We spend most of our time dead, so, you know, you just gotta live.
[02:22:07] Speaker B: With what you got, you know?
This week's Doctor who, which is back, by the way, and we've had two kind of weirdly kind of fucking around episodes, but this week's doctor who that just happened was.
[02:22:17] Speaker A: I didn't realize there's a new one.
[02:22:19] Speaker B: Oh, it's fucking brilliant. And do you know what? Within the first couple of minutes of the episode, the Doctor nails it. He says something to the tune of, you know, dying is what gives life meaning. Dying is the whole point of being alive. And there's a show that gets it.
[02:22:33] Speaker A: Love it. Absolutely. Here for it. Dear friends, thank you for coming along on this journey. If you have crazy things that happen to you as a tourist, if you died, we definitely want to hear about it.
[02:22:46] Speaker B: But any kind of walked away from a helicopter crash, that would be fantastic.
You have a fictional realm that you'd like to live in? Yes, definitely want to hear about that. If you have a favorite book to movie horror adaptation, love to hear about that, too.
[02:23:00] Speaker A: If you know who killed Madeline McCann, love to hear it.
[02:23:03] Speaker B: If you in fact killed Madeleine McGann, you can tell us. We promise we'll keep it quiet. We won't say anything.
[02:23:07] Speaker A: All right.
[02:23:08] Speaker B: We brought for you full anonymity.
Let me see. Dingoes. Babies. No, I think that's it.
[02:23:16] Speaker A: I think we covered it.
[02:23:17] Speaker B: Yep, nailed it.
[02:23:18] Speaker A: Only one thing left for the people to do.
[02:23:20] Speaker B: Stay spooky.
