Ep. 193: skull science

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Are you familiar with the debunked pseudoscience of phrenology, dear? [00:00:09] Speaker B: Marco, did you just say phrenology? [00:00:11] Speaker A: Phrenology. [00:00:12] Speaker B: Yes, very much so. And great. I always wanted to own one of those phrenology heads as an artifact. I never quite got off my ass and got one, but they're common kind of, you know, ornaments and curiosities which you can pick up in any kind of, you know, head shop or whatever. But I love. I love a phrenology head. Yeah. No pun intended. But, yes, I am aware that it's got, like, some pretty unsavory connotations too, hasn't it? You know what I mean? The kind of. The ridges of the forehead overhanging, bro. You know what I mean? Basically, if you feel ahead with non caucasian characteristics, then that, hey, maybe they're gonna rob you. [00:01:02] Speaker A: There's something horribly wrong here. Yes. Yeah, that's right. It's the idea that you can tell pretty much everything about a person by the shape of their skull. And I mean absolutely everything. Like, there are parts of your skull that determine things like your sex drive, your musical talented, how vain you are, and even your skin color, according to phrenologists. Just absolutely everything can be determined by feeling around. [00:01:29] Speaker B: Do you know, just the first of, no doubt, several kind of zigs and zags here, right? But I will never cease to be disgusted at the number of people I've come across in my life. Educated people, smart people, you know, holders of office and pillars of the community who hold kind of secret undercover attachments to just not. Not as pseudo science as phrenology, but some fucking, you know, demonstrably fringe and idiotic fucking beliefs. Money, right? It blows my mind how you can both be educated and yet fucking, yes. [00:02:16] Speaker A: Hoodwinked by absolute chicanery. [00:02:18] Speaker B: Bunkery. Yeah. [00:02:20] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And I'll talk a little bit about that in here because, yeah, phrenology is complicated in that way. And I'll kind of get into why that is. But obviously, from, like, now. Like, it's clear. Obviously, this is not a real thing. I just think about, like, how I once showed you the awful things that they pulled from my head when I had, like, cysts in my head and they looked like two little, like, krangs that they pulled out of my head. And I have, like, a bump back here that, like. Yeah, bump back here that may someday become one of those. I'm not sure, but it also may be the scar for where they took out, one that was starting to grow. I'm not entirely sure, but I will. [00:03:04] Speaker B: Tell you about how I excised one of those of my own. I just fucking pulled it off my head. [00:03:09] Speaker A: I do believe you mentioned that. [00:03:12] Speaker B: I spent the first kind of 25 years of my life walking around with this horrible sphere of tissue dangling off the wall. [00:03:20] Speaker A: Did it get bigger or was it always the same size? [00:03:22] Speaker B: Nah, it was always the same size. It sort of grew when I was a kid and just kind of stayed there. And every time I would go for a haircut, I would catch the fucking barber in the mirror making some fucking weird face. I used to want to shave my head even when I. I had the choice, but I would never dare because it's. It was so fucking difficult to work around this. So I just bought one of those freezer pens in the end, you know, that you use for verucas and shit. [00:03:48] Speaker A: I mean, I've never. But, yeah, I've seen commercials for stuff like that. [00:03:51] Speaker B: And I just went to town on this bastard thing on the back of my head. Just froze the fuck out of it. Left it for a week. And I kind of vividly remember waiting for a bus one day and just thought, oh, yeah, I forgot about that thing. This just reached up into my hair and just. It came off in my hand. Just this almost fossilized. [00:04:09] Speaker A: That's, like, cool. Yeah. More like a wart kind of situation than mine. You couldn't do. You couldn't freeze off because they were, like, in sacks inside of my, like, under my scalp. There were these sacks with these big cysts inside of them. And certainly people try to do this themselves, but it's a good way to get an infection and die. To do that, they actually had to cut my head open and pull these things out. [00:04:39] Speaker B: So they were subdermal? Is that what we're telling? [00:04:44] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [00:04:45] Speaker B: Between the skull and they were underneath. [00:04:46] Speaker A: And it was like. Yeah, it started when I was in, like, 7th grade, and it was like the size of an eraser on a pencil, right? Like, that's about where when I, like, noticed it, I was like, oh, it's like a little thing. And I remember the doctor called it a fleshy nodule. [00:05:03] Speaker B: I mean, what else could you call that? [00:05:05] Speaker A: What did you call it? [00:05:05] Speaker B: A booksy. Is that what you referred to it as? [00:05:08] Speaker A: Oh, what did you say? Not. [00:05:10] Speaker B: Did you not. What did you say? What did you call it? [00:05:12] Speaker A: No, just now? [00:05:13] Speaker B: No, no, no. When you told me about it first, didn't you have some kind of pet name for it? [00:05:18] Speaker A: No. You may be. I'm wondering if maybe you're confusing when I, like, referred to my, um, my father in law's leg nubbins. [00:05:26] Speaker B: No, I'm not. I'm not. I'm sure I remember you having some kind of pet cutey name for your head. [00:05:32] Speaker A: Ganglion. I never named my little Krangs. No. [00:05:37] Speaker B: Well, that's a memory I've fucking completely invented. [00:05:41] Speaker A: You were just thinking it in your head, and you're like, don't tell her I'm thinking. [00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it really was. I remember thinking at the time, fucking strange. Like the. Have you read the dark half? It's kind of like that. Like naming one of your tumors and it taking on, right? [00:05:55] Speaker A: No, I never did that. It was like a thing that I tried to ignore existed. And then it was like. Like the doctor was like, well, it'll probably stay like that. Because she thought it was like a fleshy thing or whatever. And then over the years, what did she call her? [00:06:05] Speaker B: A fleshy nodule. [00:06:07] Speaker A: A fleshy nodule? Yeah. And then over the years, it got bigger and bigger. And then there were two of them, and they kind of grew together. And so it was like the front of my head just had these big things. And so, like, when I tied my hair back, there was always kind of like a little bit of a bump. [00:06:20] Speaker B: Gotta get rid of that right there. [00:06:22] Speaker A: Got rid of that. So. Yeah. Couldn't freeze it off. Had to. Had to cut me open again, while. [00:06:26] Speaker B: We'Re on the topic, so, next. When is it? The Saturday after I come home from holiday. So, the day after I come back from holiday, I've got an appointment to get this other eyelid. [00:06:37] Speaker A: Nice. So you might be all eye patchy on that week's Joe egg. [00:06:41] Speaker B: I might be, yes. Um. But I think. I think I could do it myself, you know? [00:06:48] Speaker A: No. Do you? [00:06:51] Speaker B: No. But rationally. I rationally believe I could take care of this myself. Especially. [00:06:57] Speaker A: I don't think things near your eyeball are just too. That's too close to danger. [00:07:03] Speaker B: I get. I get that you squeamish and I get that that's a danger. Yes. But I particularly, having had the left one done and making notes, kind of thinking, right, what are they doing? Da da da da da. I reckon I could repeat that procedure at home and save myself a whole lot of fucking trouble. Just make it nice and clean. I've actually walked this through in my head. I've got a fucking. [00:07:28] Speaker A: I'm sure you have. [00:07:29] Speaker B: I would construct a scalpel out of. I would cut a razor blade in, like, a shank. I would make a little shank. [00:07:38] Speaker A: Are you doing this in prison? Why can't you order one off Amazon? [00:07:43] Speaker B: You can't buy a scalpel off Amazon. [00:07:45] Speaker A: Scalpels are not a thing you can't get. That's like a normal thing. You can buy a scalpel. [00:07:51] Speaker B: Fuck outta here. Can you buy a scalpel on a. [00:07:54] Speaker A: I remember we had, like, a little kit when I was growing up that had a scalpel in it. Like, that's not an impossible thing to obtain. [00:08:03] Speaker B: Son of a bitch. You can. [00:08:05] Speaker A: You can buy a scalp. [00:08:07] Speaker B: Oh, this changes everything. I'm a doctor now. [00:08:11] Speaker A: Don't you dare. [00:08:12] Speaker B: I'm a fucking doctor now. Doctor giggles the doctor is in. Yeah, I would know. I would clean it up nicely. Get my blade. Not a clothes peg, but something similar to kind of clamp my eyelid open. [00:08:28] Speaker A: Deep breath. Goodbye. [00:08:30] Speaker B: One, two, three. [00:08:31] Speaker A: Whoosh. [00:08:32] Speaker B: Just. No, cut it out. Cut it out. Did I ever tell you about a. [00:08:36] Speaker A: Friend of mine who this is would be the origin story of why Mark has no eyelid for the rest of this show? [00:08:44] Speaker B: Nah, I think. I think I could do it. Yeah. A maid of mine performed surgery on his own fucking nut sack. Found a little fleshy nubbin in his ball bag that shouldn't have been there. Went to the doctor, had it, and was told that it was benign and was nothing of any, you know, any long term danger. [00:09:06] Speaker A: So he was like, at least he did that first. I was like. [00:09:12] Speaker B: It'S just like a calcified little kind of weirdness in his. In his fucking ball bag. Went home. I think. I think he got tanked up on cough syrup and just fucking got it out. Just went in there and took it out. [00:09:25] Speaker A: It's incredible. Like, these are the kinds of things. Social health, you have healthcare. Like, if an American did this and be like, listen, I get it. You don't have to do that. There's no reason to do surgery on your own ball sack. Next time you get such an inclination, just think, you know, there are Americans out there who have to do this. No, I just go to the GP. [00:09:51] Speaker B: I think there's a certain stoic honor in treating your own ailments. Bite the fucking spoon. You know what I mean? Cut it out. Crack on me to live in the. [00:10:05] Speaker A: Age of medicine, which I will. You know what? Let's get into it. Because let's talk about living in the age of medicine compared to when we decidedly did not. So phrenology caught hold around the 1830s when specifically here in the United States. But, you know, it's kind of around. [00:10:26] Speaker B: Is it big in the US? Yes. [00:10:28] Speaker A: So, in the 1830s, american physician doctor Charles Caldwell, who is one of the best known western physicians in the world, got hold of the work of european doctors Francois Joseph Gall and John Gaspar Spursheim. Gall based his initial inquiries off a theory he developed as a kid, which is better than getting some ghosts. [00:10:51] Speaker B: That's all the best medical theses are based on shit you thought of when you were nine. [00:10:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And this is very much a nine year old thigh. Just get ready for this. He noticed that a lot of his classmates who were really good at memorizing stuff also happen to have protruding eyes. So he postulated that this must mean that the part of the brain behind the eyes is associated with verbal memory. Well, it's a very. I mean, I've never noticed buggy eyes being particularly associated with memory, but I'm sure there was like a kid in his class who memorized shit all the time, who, you know, had big eyes, and he was like, that's gotta be it. [00:11:31] Speaker B: The pattern here is fucking wild, isn't it? Isn't it just insane how these things take hold? Phrenology made up by a fucking kid in school who thought, you know, clever people have buggy eyes. Chir. Fucking chiropractic ghost learnings, right? [00:11:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:11:50] Speaker B: Wisdom of ghosts takes hold. How does this fucking stuff take root? It is wild to me. [00:11:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, again, we'll talk about that with this in particular. So by the time Caldwell picked up the trail, gall and Spurzheim had been plugging away at their phrenological theories since about the turn of the century. So, you know, around 1800, the first decades, 18, 1820, they've been working on this. Caldwell, for his part, was more of like a doctor Oz type. He hadn't been a practicing physician for quite a while, and he wasn't a researcher. He's more of just like a pop science blowhard. [00:12:26] Speaker B: Now, I don't know what Doctor Oz is or who Doctor Oz is. [00:12:29] Speaker A: Oh, that's incredible. So Doctor Oz, he is a famous doctor in the United States who at one point was a practicing doctor, but certainly hasn't been for decades. He's just on tv and he grasps onto every bit of pseudo scientific nonsense that there is and shills it like there's no tomorrow. [00:12:53] Speaker B: I see. [00:12:54] Speaker A: And so, yeah, he'll any kind of dumb supplement or holistic medical practice or anything like that, that Doctor Oz is on tv and he's going to tell you about why it's going to change your life. [00:13:05] Speaker B: Antivaxx? [00:13:07] Speaker A: I honestly don't know. I mean, I think if he's not anti vax, he's certainly anti vax adjacent. I think he would at least not tell people to vaccinate, you know? And he, a few years ago, ran for Senate for Pennsylvania, um, and famously, because he is so rich and out of touch, he, like, kept trying to connect with people. He was running against John Fetterman, who at the time, we didn't know, was a terrible person who was like a real man of the people type. And so Doctor Oz started trying to present himself as, like, a man of the people. And so he made videos, like, one where he went into a grocery store and he was like, trying to be like, you know, we're having some friends over, so I'm going to show you, you know, the grocery prices that have gone up because of Joe Biden. I'm just trying to get some crudite. And it's like, like, what the. Crudite? Everyone's like, what the. Who is this man? So, yeah, very rich doctor promotes a lot of horseshit, is not practicing, but still sort of, you know, he has the name Doctor Oz, so people trust him. And so that's what this guy basically was. He was, according to an article in the journal American History Review, quote, pompous and conceited, as well as a prolific speaker and writer. Always vigorous, but frequently coarsely vituperative, which I googled and means basically. Yeah, it's a really good word, a word I've heard before, but I don't think I've ever looked up the meaning of. And it means, basically that he reacted like an asshole when critiqued. [00:14:49] Speaker B: Say it again. Viktuperative. [00:14:51] Speaker A: Vituperative. [00:14:52] Speaker B: Vituperative. [00:14:52] Speaker A: V I t u p e r a t I v e. Vituperative. [00:14:56] Speaker B: Love that. I would. [00:14:58] Speaker A: Reacting poorly to criticism. [00:15:00] Speaker B: You know, there would have been a time when I could have committed that to my long term memory and used it in the future. Sadly, those days are gone. [00:15:08] Speaker A: We'll make like a word a day calendar or whatever. That's just gonna be vituperative every day. Remember Marco Vituperative? So this article also points out that phrenology, unlike a lot of medical quackery of the time, didn't get its start as a snake oil type grift. Adherence to the ideas of phrenology, from its founders to its followers, deeply believed that they were onto something. Which completely makes sense because I've talked about this on here before. I've talked about how I did a wisecrack video that we researched this. We don't totally get how insanely new modern medicine is. It wasn't really a science at all until the late 18 hundreds and early 19 hundreds. And the vast majority. The vast majority of majority of medical science as we understand it now has only been since, like, the 1950s. It is so new. One of my favorite books, Destiny of the republic, which I keep promising to eventually cold open on, talks about the assassination of James A. Garfield in 1881, and the central reason he died is because germ theory wasn't popular yet and in fact, was basically scoffed at. So just under 150 years ago, an american president died because people were like, tiny microorganisms that make you sick, absurd, and just kept sticking their unwashed fingers into his bullet wounds. It's horrifying reading the descriptions in that book the whole time, I was just like, ugh. So skeeved out. So when phrenologists in the early 18 hundreds were reading people's head bumps to understand the entirety of their being, they were doing so in earnest. They weren't trying to sell anything. They really thought this was a thing. The article also points out that it wasn't all head bumps these guys were looking at. They were interested in other characteristics as well, like height, weight, and skin texture, as you kind of alluded to before. Obviously, these are things that thus normalize white bodies, and people outside of that standard are gonna. [00:17:12] Speaker B: Skin texture. [00:17:13] Speaker A: Skin texture. It's interesting to me. Mm hmm. Yeah. It's an interesting concept. Made me think of. I had my roommates. I had twin roommates when I was in college. Monica Michelle. And they had. [00:17:26] Speaker B: They were twins. I think I know this. [00:17:28] Speaker A: Yeah. I've lived with two sets of twins in my life, and one pair was Monica Michelle in college, and they had the softest skin I have ever felt in my life. Just like straight velvet, both of them. Just the most amazing thing. You just touch. Be like, my God, how can skin be that soft? You don't realize how much variety there can be in skin until you meet someone like the Landon twins, or you're a phrenologist. [00:17:58] Speaker B: Where are they now? [00:18:01] Speaker A: Monica is in Japan teaching, and Michelle is in Colorado being a businesswoman. [00:18:10] Speaker B: Oof. Nice. [00:18:11] Speaker A: Yeah. Went to Canada with both of them last year. I went to Montreal with them. They're delightful. And their skin is still very soft. [00:18:17] Speaker B: Excellent. Good to know. [00:18:19] Speaker A: Update. Still soft skinned. Anyways, phrenologists actually reasoned out that the brain was not just one unitary organ, but made up of a limited and ascertainable number of relatively independent faculties. That's still our understanding of the brain, basically. [00:18:39] Speaker B: So just kind of taking that in, that feels. [00:18:41] Speaker A: Yeah. Multiple parts of it that all do different things. So that's, you know, they were on the right track. They were getting too small and specific with it. And the main part of why they got it wrong is that they also thought you could tell what the brain was up to from the outside of the head. Palpatine, right? Yeah. So it's like the idea that, like, there are zones that all do different shit. They were right about that. Just how you access and study that, they were very much wrong about. And while phrenology would be, like I said, used for some awful racist, ableist, and eugenicsy bullshit, one more point this article makes in its defense is that phrenology had a liberalizing effect on other fields of medicine in that ascribing certain deficiencies to physiognomy meant that trying to punish or suppress that trait would do no good. Instead, mental and emotional issues should be dealt with more therapeutically. And I'll come back to that. But those three things are about all the good you can say about phrenology. It wasn't a grift. It got the brain kind of right, and it promoted the idea that punishment is not how you deal with mental illness. [00:19:56] Speaker B: Good. [00:19:56] Speaker A: All good things, yes. Otherwise, like you were talking about at the beginning of this, we're basically talking about the worst popular science bullshit you see on social media. And people loved phrenology. When Spercine came to America in 1932, he drew crowds of folks stoked on this new science that was going to solve all the world's problems and make humans better. There were, of course, disbelievers and skeptics who were like, come on, guys, you're kidding, right? Like, there's even. I love it. There's an example of a poem that someone wrote in Boston about this, where it's basically like, this is transparent bullshit. Like, you are joking, right? There were people who were like, what the fuck? But they were by far the minority. It's kind of like ozempic now. That's what it reminded me of, reading about this. Like, people are convinced it's God's gift that's going to solve everybody's health problems and make America healthy again. And there's all these dieticians and scientists over there, like, hey, we actually have a lot of evidence this is a bad idea. But they're totally drowned out and marginalized because everyone's riding that ozempic train. [00:21:09] Speaker B: I wonder. I find myself wondering. I mean, every. Without looking into it. I'm as reasonably sure as I can be that every kind of step forward in medicine has detractors at the time simply because people will. People will just, you know, gainsay anything just because they enjoy doing that. [00:21:35] Speaker A: Again, I mean, like I said, germ theory, right? Absolute, certain. Now, people were like, fuck off. That's not real. Yeah, that's part of the process. [00:21:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Again, like I mentioned vaccines just then, people will always argue masks. Just whenever. Whenever consensus settles on something as a good idea, kind of authoritative consensus from, be it medicine or government or fucking, you know, academia, there will always be people who are just like, nah, fuck off. No, I ain't doing that. Only tell me what to do. Yeah, exactly. Exactly, exactly. So I wonder, in phrenology's case, is it people were dissing it because they had, you know, a better idea, or was it just that kind of knee jerk? [00:22:21] Speaker A: Yeah. And in fact, there was like an. An example in this article that was talking about one guy who was one of the most famous detractors of phrenology, and for sure his science was not better. Yeah. You know, it was like, no, this is bullshit. But the thing I think is, you know, the way. And he was completely wrong as well. So it wasn't necessarily that, like, oh, some people were way smarter than this, but there were people who were like, this doesn't feel like this makes sense. You know, observably. This doesn't feel like this makes sense. [00:22:52] Speaker B: See, I'm reminded of my kind of on again, off again love affair with trepanation. [00:23:05] Speaker A: Mmm hmm. [00:23:07] Speaker B: Because. [00:23:07] Speaker A: Right. [00:23:09] Speaker B: On paper that it just seems so reasonable that that would sure work. [00:23:15] Speaker A: Right. You know, I mean, that's the thing, right? Like, you're just trying to, like, reason out. [00:23:21] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:22] Speaker A: How things work. [00:23:23] Speaker B: You know, babies learn things quickly. They have a hole in their head. [00:23:29] Speaker A: Right. [00:23:30] Speaker B: What if we always had a hole in our head? [00:23:34] Speaker A: It's also like paleo logic. Right? Like people who eat paleo diets. Right. Like, well, our caveman ancestors did this. That must be the best possible way. [00:23:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:48] Speaker A: To live life. Like, yeah. They also died when they were like, 24, but sure. Yeah, I'm sure they really had. They were skinny when they died, so they probably had shit figured out. You know, there's a lot of, like. That's why common sense and science are not the same thing. And, you know, I think that is. [00:24:10] Speaker B: A fantastic point you've made there. [00:24:13] Speaker A: That's a lot of times when it comes to people who. Who argue with the science on whatever the case may be, I think climate change is a good example of that. They think their common sense overrides what the science says. Well, they say this, but I can see with my eyes and reason that, and they think that that is just as equivalent as what scientists are doing. But it's not in vituperative. Vituperative people are very vituperative. [00:24:49] Speaker B: I'm just. Yeah, seeing 2020 minutes later, and I can still remember it. That's good. [00:24:54] Speaker A: I'm impressed. I don't know if I would have pulled it out then. So, excellent work. So, yeah, people loved it. And like I said, you know, equivalent to things, supplements, ozempic, things like that. Now that there's plenty of evidence against, but they're the marginalized voice as well. You know, people are just like, nope, this is it. This is solved. And you can understand why people want something that, like, this seems like it's gonna solve everything. Great. Tell me there's one thing, and we can know how to fix people and how to fix society and all that. Fucking sign me up, right? That's what phrenology was doing. As a side note, weirdly, Spurzheim died in Boston while on his little american skull bump tour after contracting typhoid. They removed his brain, skull, and heart during the autopsy, and they displayed them, preserved in alcohol, to the public. In his short time on these american soils, he made such an impression. Bostonians had an elaborate funeral for him and built a monument to him in the famous rich people cemetery, Mount Auburn. You can still go see it to this day, and you can see pictures of it on the Mount Auburn website, which says of it, the elegant monument was copied from the roman altar tomb of Cornelius Scipio Barbatus. Low and rectangular, the simple sarcophagus referenced classical and egyptian designs and was free of excessive ornament. Big time stuff there. [00:26:26] Speaker B: So how did he develop? Why was there such a love for him among Bostonians then? What good did his, you know, air quotes, teachings lead to? [00:26:38] Speaker A: Well, so this is like the beginning of this, right? Like, this is a guy just bringing. He's bringing the new good news. This is a tent revival, basically. [00:26:44] Speaker B: Okay? [00:26:45] Speaker A: He is in Boston for two and a half months, riding this circuitous, talking about what phrenology does and can tell us and how it can help us to improve ourselves and things like this. So people are riled up with excitement about this. You know, they have just heard about Jesus for the first time, basically, you know, so they have been brought the good news of phrenology to Boston. And once he died, like I said, they did the. The monument, and then went on to found the Boston Phrenological Society. So he was there for two and a half months before dying, and was so influential, he got a monument and a medical society in his honor and became arguably the most influential physician of the 19th century. [00:27:28] Speaker B: I'd love to think that they're still going, the bps, just like two guys. [00:27:35] Speaker A: Yeah, right. There are probably those two guys, but they're on TikTok now. [00:27:40] Speaker B: Yes. [00:27:42] Speaker A: By the end of the 1830s, just a few years after Spurzheim's death, phrenology was the accepted science, and figures like Henry Ward Beecher, Horace Mann, and Walt Whitman were all amongst its enthusiastic acolytes. [00:27:54] Speaker B: Did you say 1930s? [00:27:56] Speaker A: 1818. [00:27:57] Speaker B: Okay, okay, okay. [00:27:58] Speaker A: Yes. People were using it basically, like star charts, like, come read my kids head so we can find out what kind of life they're gonna have. [00:28:06] Speaker B: You know, palmistry and. [00:28:08] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. And the basic idea here was that, as the Atlantic put it, the shape of the brain matched the shape of the skull that encased it. So studying the bumps and indentations of the skull could reveal the function and character of the brain beneath. Again, this isn't, like, a totally crazy idea. Right? Like, they're right about the fact that the brain has different parts that do different things, and we don't totally know exactly what's going on in there, but we know it's covered in bumps. [00:28:38] Speaker B: Sure. [00:28:39] Speaker A: And heads are kind of covered in various ridges and bumps. So, like, theoretically, you mentioned something again, common sense. [00:28:49] Speaker B: Was phrenology also publicized and sold as not just a diagnostic tool, but also a divination tool? You could predict how things were going to unfold for someone like Pompey, especially. [00:29:02] Speaker A: Later on, which I will kind of get to where it kind of spins out into the more griftery territory. But, yes, it was definitely something that you could, early on, examine a kid's skull and then sort of take steps from there. [00:29:21] Speaker B: This one feels musically inclined. Let's give him a piano. [00:29:25] Speaker A: Right. And even when we're talking about mental illness, things like that. So the idea was, like, once you know this, you could strengthen the parts of the brains that have positive associations but are weaker in a person. So if I, you know, am in some way, like, intellectually disabled or something, and they find the part of my brain that causes this, then you can essentially exercise that point of the brain through various practices, and then that might fix me. [00:29:54] Speaker B: Yep. [00:29:54] Speaker A: Right. That's kind of the promise of phrenology. Yes, yes. Early indicators. Exactly. And then offering you some sort of solution to how you can strengthen those parts that they have found are weak in you. [00:30:09] Speaker B: It's intentional. I can see. I can see why it's very intimidating. [00:30:13] Speaker A: Right? It all sounds really good. And again, against a backdrop of, we don't have medical science yet, so, you know, this is what we've got, and this is why, like I said before, it changed the way people approach mental illness. So now, if your kid is suffering from a disability or emotional problems, you try to exercise the brain instead of, say, beating the shit out of them, for example. Obviously, we know now this doesn't really work. There are ways you can train your brain to do some cool stuff and, like, remember things and stuff like that, but there's, like, no amount of crosswords in the world that you can do that will train you not to have autism. Right? Like, that's not how this works. But, you know, if you were autistic at that time, this is certainly a better hypothesis than the ones that were just going to leave you chained to your bed in an asylum. Like, it's a slightly better way of doing things. But once phrenology's early progenitors died off, so did phrenological research. It soon became clear that the people who were still espousing it were simply, uh, going off the philosophies of the guys before them and not doing any rigorous studies into its validity or anything further with it. And ish started to get weird. For example, J's grimes became the face of phrenology, evolving it into what he called etherology, the phreno philosophy of mesmerism and magic eloquence. [00:31:42] Speaker B: Oh, look, come on. [00:31:43] Speaker A: Yeah, it was obviously such tricky. [00:31:46] Speaker B: Say that again. Say that again. What a great fucking fray. [00:31:49] Speaker A: The freno philosophy of mesmerism and magic eloquence. Oh, yeah. [00:31:56] Speaker B: Listen, if this podcast is about one thing, it's that. [00:32:00] Speaker A: That's it. That's the tagline. [00:32:03] Speaker B: 100% wonderful, wonderful, wonderful turn of phrase. [00:32:06] Speaker A: Yep. It was just obviously so not real that it called into question everything else about phrenology. And like I said, medicine was more art and often grift than science at this time. Time. So there wasn't necessarily credentials. People had to have to practice. [00:32:25] Speaker B: They went too far. They went too far. [00:32:27] Speaker A: Right. That's why you hear about barbers doing dentistry and shit like that. So eventually, the practical phrenologist began to become popular. People without any form of medical training at all, who basically practiced a form of skull based fortune telling for a nice fee. So what had started as sincere became clear snake oil. And by that time, it had already become a weird hierarchical system meant to create moral and social perfection in society, thanks largely to the brothers Lorenzo Niles Fowler and Orson Squire Fowler, which are some wild names, but they'd figured out. [00:33:06] Speaker B: And just like so many other times, you have to ask, or I, at least I ponder the question, did they believe it or not? [00:33:17] Speaker A: I think there's an argument to be made that these guys didn't. I think they were very business savvy and figured out, we can open a practice. They opened a practice in New York and made absolute bundles. Basically, just having people come in, get their heads read, tell them what they want to hear, what exercise they want to hear. [00:33:37] Speaker B: Nothing more sinister than that. Nothing more sinister than that. Everybody walking into that office had problems, you know, had real fucking issues that they needed addressing, and they were just sent out into the fucking streets, heads full of bullshit. [00:33:52] Speaker A: And on top of that, they were, like, selling like, gear as well. So probably these people then spent money on things that were supposed to help them. [00:34:00] Speaker B: Nothing more sinister. [00:34:02] Speaker A: Multifaceted. Exactly. Just taking advantage of people. Obviously, a lot of those people would have been like, rich assholes anyway. But certainly there's a degree of, you know, regular people just trying to get healthy or sort things out, sort out their mental health and stuff like that, that the Fowler brothers would have taken exam, taken advantage of. So while everything was basically alternative medicine back in the day, this is one of the earliest forms of institutionalized alternative medicine. Following the Fowlers was like following your favorite holistic health influencer now and buying all of their supplements. Same exact thing. Phrenology remained popular with its sort of self help emphasis for several decades. But the american phrenological journal ceased publication in 1911, which is about where you can say the whole thing fell off. Unfortunately, the eugenics ideas of being able to obtain a perfect in moral society did not fall off. And the shit they started doing to the brains and bodies of non conforming people was literally the stuff of horror movies. There are plenty of horror movies about what they did. Shutter island being among the most famous of those. [00:35:14] Speaker B: Yes. [00:35:15] Speaker A: So with all that said, I'm going to wrap up by taking you to 19th century Lisbon, Portugal, peak phrenology eradic, where a man named Jogo Alves had embarked upon a life of crime after realizing that he'd been wasting his life working as a servant in the homes of rich people, which is, you know, hey, I get it. I don't know why more servants in the olden days didn't fuck it off and just start, right? Yeah. But Jogo didn't stop there. In 1836, he began working in a home located on the Acuaduto das Aguas Libras, or the aqueduct of the free waters. And this was basically a half mileish long waterway with a 213 foot high bridge over it that let people who lived outside of Lisbon come and go from the city. So these were not necessarily rich assholes. It was people coming from farms or people who were in the 18 hundreds equivalent of the burbs. Regular folks, the rural farming people in particular, would come into the town to sell their harvest and then head back home via the aqueduct at nightfall. And thats when filthy, thieving Jogo Alves would spring from where hed been lying in wait and rob them of their days earnings. Now its the 1830s. There are no security cameras. Itd be pretty easy to hide your identity if you robbed someone in the dark of night. It likely wouldnt be huge, hugely difficult to avoid getting caught if you were willing to take a few days off from stealing every now and again. Jogo was not. And as such, rather than just let his victims scamper off back home, parted from their hard earned money, this motherfucker would toss them off that 213 foot wall to their deaths below. It's estimated that between 1836 and 1839, he yeeted some 70 people to their deaths from the aqueducts. 70 people. This guy was a champion douchebag. Yep, real jerk face. And the thing was, at first, authorities thought that these were just copycat suicides. One person threw themselves from the walkway, and every other depressed person in Lisbon followed suit. [00:37:38] Speaker B: Like the bridge of dogs in Scotland. [00:37:40] Speaker A: Just exactly, precisely that. So they responded by closing the bridge, which is a reasonable thing to do. Whatever's happening, just shut that down. However, with the bridge closure came a rise in home break ins. Because good old Jogo wasnt content to go back to work, he instead formed a criminal gang of murderous dudes, happy to bust into wealthy residents homes and wreak havoc. Their spree came to an end when four of them, including Jogo, were caught in the act of murdering four people, perhaps just because of how bonkers his crimes are. Jogo Alves is often cited as Portugal's first serial killer and the last person executed in the country, neither of which are true. Scotch a woman. Let's scotch that right now. A woman named Luisa de Jesus, who poisoned 28 children in the mid 17 hundreds, was the first serial killer, and about a half dozen people were executed. Between his hanging in 1841 and the official abolition of the death penalty in Portugal in 1860. [00:38:46] Speaker B: What I'm loving here is I cannot see the link. [00:38:52] Speaker A: You can't see. Oh. Between what I told you before and this. [00:38:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I know, I know this is gonna coalesce into a thread, but I cannot see where. And I love it. [00:39:03] Speaker A: Well, we're getting there. In fact, in my next sentence, regardless, Jogo was a public curiosity. And with phrenology taking hold throughout Europe, he presented an interesting opportunity. The chance to examine the skull. Someone evil as shit. [00:39:23] Speaker B: Yep. [00:39:24] Speaker A: So they took the head off his corpse and preserved it in a glass jar, where ostensibly they conducted research on it. The thing is, there's no actual record of that. If anyone ever did get around to studying Jogo and finding out what made him tick, that research has been fully lost to time. Part of me wonders if someone looked him over, realized he had a perfectly normal head, and was like, lets never speak of this again. But thats just my conjecture. Theres nothing to back that up. All I know is we have no idea what phrenologists thought of Diogos head. We can all give our own thoughts and feelings on it, though, because Marco. Yes, you can see that head. Really? [00:40:07] Speaker B: It was literally my next question. Where now is the head of Jogo? [00:40:12] Speaker A: It's horrifying. Marco. This guy is perfectly preserved, staring straight into your soul. He just looks like a guy underwater. And I'm going to send you that photo right now. [00:40:24] Speaker B: I'm poised, you know. You know it's going to be fire when Corrie is sending me pictures on signal for an intro. Oh, I've seen that. I know I've seen that. [00:40:33] Speaker A: Have you seen that? [00:40:34] Speaker B: Yes. Or am I thinking of the fucking no surprises video, comma police? Which one is it? [00:40:42] Speaker A: I cannot answer that for you, but, I mean, it's just a guy. Isn't that bananas? Do you want to describe what you're. [00:40:52] Speaker B: Seeing here just exactly as you have just described? It's. It's Tom York in the video for radioheads. No surprises. [00:41:01] Speaker A: Yeah. You are looking at exactly what this guy looked like as a living human nearly two years ago. And honestly, I kind of wish we did this more. We're always relying on sketches and whatnot to determine what people looked like back in the day. But what if we just straight up had George Washington's head in a jar? [00:41:18] Speaker B: Wow. [00:41:19] Speaker A: Deeply missed opportunity there. I love the description from Atlas Obscura, by the way, which says of Jogo's head, it's yellow, peaceful looking, and somewhat akin to a potato. [00:41:31] Speaker B: It. [00:41:33] Speaker A: It's the eyes yeah, the eyes, the still very alive eyes, almost withering, almost. [00:41:42] Speaker B: Kind of belittling you, looking at you as though you've just said something stupid or. [00:41:46] Speaker A: Yeah, he looks like an asshole, doesn't he? [00:41:48] Speaker B: He does. He really does. He really does. [00:41:49] Speaker A: Like, that's our phrenology. Take weirdly, you can tell by this guy's face that he's a total douchebag. So well preserved. [00:41:59] Speaker B: What if they put him in? What, is he in there? What is that? [00:42:01] Speaker A: I'm not entirely sure what he is preserved in, but he's not the only one. He's in the anatomical theater at the University of Lisbon's faculty of medicine. Down the hall from a similarly preserved head of another murderer named Francisco Smatos Lobo, who had killed, I think it's his own family of four, and thrown their dog out the window. Which is. [00:42:24] Speaker B: Why is that detail. [00:42:25] Speaker A: For me, it's just like, why? Okay, you just murdered a bunch of people. And then you were like, why is that detailed? Fuck you in particular. [00:42:35] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:42:35] Speaker A: Right. We do know that studies were done on Francisco's, but unfortunately, people are far more interested in jogos. So I don't know what those findings were, nor what he looks like, because I didn't see any pictures of him. But at least, my dear Marco, you. [00:42:53] Speaker B: Can'T do much science through a jar, can you? [00:42:56] Speaker A: No, I think you. [00:42:57] Speaker B: Not without, like, lasers. [00:42:59] Speaker A: Yeah, right. With modern technology, probably, but not with 1830s technology, I don't think. But, yeah. We, as a relic of the phrenological era, will always have the yellow, peaceful looking potato head of Jugo Albus. [00:43:18] Speaker B: Thank you. [00:43:20] Speaker A: You're very welcome. [00:43:22] Speaker B: Very nice. Yeah, genuinely. Always had a. In much the same way as I was, you know, enamored with the idea of drilling a hole in my head. Phrenology fascinated me as well. So it's lovely to have. Lovely to have a bit of context, lovely to have a bit more knowledge. Thank you. [00:43:40] Speaker A: You've got a good head for it. I think they would be like, this is a. This is a good white man right here. [00:43:46] Speaker B: Oh, okay. I thought that was maybe a pun. I don't know. But I do have a lumpy head. I do have a. [00:43:51] Speaker A: Do you have a lumpy head? It doesn't look lumpy. [00:43:53] Speaker B: No, I've got a very interesting head. The topography of my skull, I think, would lend itself. That's why you're always rubbing in all manner of interpretations. [00:44:04] Speaker A: We gotta find the two guys on TikTok who do terminology and have them fill you up. [00:44:09] Speaker B: So. All right. How's this for an angle, is there, I wonder? Money to be made, you know, money to be drawn, as it were. Okay, in think maybe like a wedding entertainer or think, you know, somebody who you'd pay to come to your fucking. Your gig, who has properly studied these old fucking cranky types of medicine and divination and, you know, prestidigitation, and we'll do them for you in 2024. I, you know, because, you know, you can book. You can book a palm reader to come to your wedding. [00:44:44] Speaker A: Or a silhouette. [00:44:47] Speaker B: What about, could I book a phrenologist in 2024 to come and use the old learning, use the old science. [00:44:53] Speaker A: Let's look that up for the meetup. See if we can get a phrenologist. [00:44:56] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. Come into your garden. [00:44:57] Speaker A: If it's gonna be anywhere, it's gonna be New York City. [00:45:00] Speaker B: Well, yeah. Then again, I am profoundly uncomfortable with people touching my head. Profoundly uncomfortable. [00:45:09] Speaker A: That would be a problem. [00:45:11] Speaker B: Fuck knows how, because I certainly didn't enter it, but my name was drawn out of a raffle some years back at work, and I air quotes one a 20 minutes indian head massage. [00:45:23] Speaker A: And it was my dream. [00:45:25] Speaker B: Horrible, man. [00:45:26] Speaker A: They do the thing where they pull the. Take the air and blow it over your head. [00:45:31] Speaker B: Fucking. [00:45:32] Speaker A: The number of times I've watched that one baba video on YouTube of the guy doing the indian head massage is through the roof. It's like my fa. Whenever I get a massage, I'm always disappointed if they don't do the scalp. [00:45:45] Speaker B: Nah, I literally. I just petrified. I became as wood. I just fucking froze up until the fucking weirdo stopped. Go away. [00:45:53] Speaker A: Mmm. Okay, well, note to self, do not try to perform any form of phrenology on you. [00:45:59] Speaker B: Look, if it's consensual, you know, if I know what I'm getting into, go for your life. But if I'm gonna get, you know, a little reading at the end. Hahaha. Yeah, I'm done with that, but okay. Don't be rubbing my scalp while I'm trying to work, mate. Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:46:16] Speaker A: Yes, please do. [00:46:18] Speaker B: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, mise en scene. [00:46:21] Speaker A: I don't think anyone has ever said mise en scene in such a horny way before. [00:46:25] Speaker B: The way I whispered the word sex. Cannibal, Rousseau. [00:46:28] Speaker A: Worst comes to worst, Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:46:32] Speaker B: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm fucking. [00:46:37] Speaker A: I'm gonna you know how I feel about that, Mark. [00:46:40] Speaker B: I think you feel great about it. Hey, Joag is in session, friends. Come on in. Come on in. Won't you close the door against the wind? Pull up a chair, maybe unbutton your overcoat, hang it up in the corner next to the fire? Pull down a tankard. [00:46:57] Speaker A: Maybe it is August. [00:47:00] Speaker B: No, no, not here it isn't. [00:47:03] Speaker A: Oh, not here in Joag. Okay. All right. [00:47:05] Speaker B: In my joag. The winds are harsh. The snow is. Is fierce. [00:47:10] Speaker A: Nice. [00:47:11] Speaker B: The ale is frothing and nut brown. There's fresh pork crackling on the spit. Yeah, grab yourself a bag. Come and sit down. Bag of crackling. [00:47:28] Speaker A: Okay. [00:47:29] Speaker B: Grab yourself a bag of crackling, friends, because it's joag time with your hosts, friends, leaders Mark and Corrigan. Let us run our calloused fingers across your bumpy skulls and tell you some bullshit about what it means, and then pay us. [00:47:56] Speaker A: Importantly. [00:47:57] Speaker B: We're bringing back the old ways. [00:47:59] Speaker A: That's what we money, please. Yeah, all of that. Welcome. And listen, I know that a lot of people are trying to escape into autumn months in advance because of the torment of the weather outside. For most of the planet at this moment, or at least the hemisphere in which it is summer. [00:48:20] Speaker B: So Greece is a flame again, just like it was last year. [00:48:24] Speaker A: Fun. [00:48:25] Speaker B: Love that. You know, people dying, homes and livelihoods ruined, farmland and fucking cars exploding, which. [00:48:32] Speaker A: Is, as I talked about a few weeks ago, same in California and various parts of North America. [00:48:40] Speaker B: Yes. [00:48:41] Speaker A: And it's hot where you are, too. [00:48:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I feel a little bit kind of ashamed to complain about. [00:48:49] Speaker A: Arkhat to you because, you know, you. [00:48:52] Speaker B: Live in a country that literally has a place called Death Valley. [00:48:56] Speaker A: I do. And I think our weather is pretty similar, like, temperature wise this week. And this is actually kind of like a nice, temperate ish week for us. But I have experienced this weather in August in England myself, and it is much worse when you can't escape it. Then here, where we all have air conditioning and every place we go has air conditioning, and you only have to be outside if you work out there or you're trying to exercise in it, so it's easy to avoid. Here it is. Not in England. [00:49:31] Speaker B: Yes. So I'm covered in bumps. I'm covered in itchy bumps. Laura, the way Laura puts it, I'm a mosquito magnet because I'm juicy. She thinks that I must be juicy for the mosquitoes. [00:49:45] Speaker A: Gross. I hate it. [00:49:47] Speaker B: I got a bite the other day right there on the tip of my earlobe. [00:49:51] Speaker A: Man, that's an annoying spot. [00:49:54] Speaker B: Real fun. But hey, let's talk about home remedies that work in a heady mix of curiosity and desperation. Earlier this week I tried the hot spoon trick and it works. It fucking works. Beautiful listener. Maybe it'll work for you if you've got a bump, if you've got a bite. If an animal is an insect, not like a dog, but if an insect has been drinking of you, hold a fucking spoon in near boiling water for a few moments and just press it on your skin for as long as you can take on the bump, you know, ideally, and it'll stop itching. And it works. It fucking works. [00:50:31] Speaker A: I think, you know the thing about like things being worse in England versus here when it's the same exact phenomenon. I think here we're so used to getting bit by bugs that like, that's too much work, you know? Also we all have like Benadryl sticks and things like that. Calamine lotion, things like that, like in our cupboards because we get bit all the time. This is a new problem for you brits now that it's hot enough for you to have mosquitoes all the time. [00:51:00] Speaker B: Benadryl sticks. Tell me about the benadryl sticks. [00:51:02] Speaker A: Oh, it's great. It's like literally just like a stick. Looks like a tide stick, you know, that you like. Do you have tide sticks? [00:51:09] Speaker B: No, but like a roll on deodorant maybe? [00:51:12] Speaker A: No, no, no, it's more like. It's like the size of this here lip gloss that or lipstick that I'm holding up for you here. And it's just got like a, you know, medicated point. Kind of like a felt pen, I guess, like a marker. [00:51:30] Speaker B: Not contains anything else to me. [00:51:31] Speaker A: Yeah. And you just spread it onto whatever you have and it makes you not so itchy. [00:51:38] Speaker B: Nice. [00:51:40] Speaker A: You can have something like that. [00:51:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I intend to. I absolutely will. [00:51:43] Speaker A: Right after we're done. Yeah, it's, you know, it comes in clutch but yeah, as such, I think most of us just have that stuff around as we're not, you know, going and heating up spoons, sticking them on ourselves. [00:51:55] Speaker B: I feel like I say this at the same time every year. I'm simply not built for it. I am not a man for summer. I'm not a man for heat. I'm just not. I'm a man of cool evenings and, you know, interesting jackets. [00:52:12] Speaker A: Yeah. If I can be in a pool then fine. Otherwise I don't. I don't really want to be hot. But I'm Mark. I'm getting a dog. [00:52:23] Speaker B: I knew you would. I know this, but I knew you would. I knew it was only a matter of time when you sent me the picture. It's adorable, by the way. Is it a he? [00:52:31] Speaker A: It's a he, yes. He will keep me outside in extreme cold and heat. He. His name currently is avocado. He is part dachshund, part some form of terrier or something like that. So he's a little stubby and very scrappy in the face. But Kristen texted after I sent a picture and was like, I'm so in love with Walter, which is what I've named him. And then Brienne reminded us that you're familiar, of course, with the actor Walton Goggins. [00:53:06] Speaker B: Of course. [00:53:07] Speaker A: And for years, Kristen, who has a habit of reading actors names wrong, thought his name was Walter Groggins. [00:53:16] Speaker B: Okay. All right. [00:53:18] Speaker A: And so will be named Walter Groggins. [00:53:23] Speaker B: Beautiful. It's very fitting. And, you know, I love that he has a surname. I would expect nothing less. [00:53:27] Speaker A: Oh, of course. Yeah. I mean, come on, let's. Let's be real. You have to have a last name. So very excited about this. [00:53:35] Speaker B: When do you pick them up? [00:53:36] Speaker A: It's been like a he comes. So he was found as a stray with, like, nine other dogs from his, like, litter in Alabama. And they were able to scoop up, like, five of them, but four or five others of that litter were just too fast. They're still on the street, and they're trying to figure out how they can, like, capture them, because they just, like, can't. They're too wily to get these other ones. [00:54:04] Speaker B: And they were abandoned together as a nine. [00:54:06] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Yeah, just like, all of them. Like, somebody's dog had. I know. It's, like, so sociopathic. Like, take them to a shelter. Don't leave them on the street. It's insane. You know, it's like people are so afraid of, like, getting a slap on the wrist for, like, you should have neutered your dog or whatever, like that. They will just abandon dogs in the street. So, yeah, he was found on the. [00:54:31] Speaker B: Street, but that has led him to you. [00:54:34] Speaker A: That has led him to me. So we got a little street dog coming. He just had. He just got neutered yesterday. He got his rabies shot. [00:54:42] Speaker B: You've met him. You've been and met him until. [00:54:44] Speaker A: I haven't met him. He's in Alabama. He's. [00:54:48] Speaker B: You're not going to Alabama to get him. [00:54:49] Speaker A: I'm not going to Alabama. He will be in a transport. They have, like, a connection with a local shelter. And they dogs up here. Yeah, a little dog network. So they send them to, I guess, I don't know. I guess people up here want more stray dogs than people in Alabama do or something. I'm not sure, but they have this connection. So in two weeks, he'll be on a transport up here and we will go pick him up. And I have bought him so many toys. [00:55:18] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. [00:55:19] Speaker A: Things. And I'm just very excited. [00:55:21] Speaker B: Old fresh stuff. You've not given him any of Gaucho's old stuff. [00:55:24] Speaker A: He might wear like a jacket or something like that. Of gauchos. But Gaucho, peace be upon you. Yeah, yeah. It was just, listen, like, we were planning on waiting a lot longer to get a pet. Be like, hey, it'll be easier to travel and stuff like that if we don't have a dog we're looking after. But it was just like, to the point, like, especially Kia was just so heartbroken that I was like, I think. I think we need another animal. I think it's too painful to, like, the reminder of not having an animal is like a constant reminder that we don't have Gaucho anymore. So it's like, I think we need to fill the void a little bit. You know? There will never be another gaucho, of course. But we are very excited for Walter Groggins. [00:56:08] Speaker B: Gaucho, if you're out there, buddy, one in a million. Never seen a fucking one in a million. [00:56:16] Speaker A: Hear, hear. The absolute best dog. But also in things for people to know that are upcoming, besides the dog that will be living in my house very soon, we have a book club this weekend, this Saturday. [00:56:31] Speaker B: Back to Walter. [00:56:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [00:56:33] Speaker B: What do you know of his temperament? [00:56:35] Speaker A: What notes have they given you? He's apparently an absolute delight. He likes to cuddle. He doesn't bark. He. Which was like, gaucho. Gaucho is not a barker either. Just basically, like, if there's like, something that, like, to bark at. Sure. But he doesn't like. He's not. Yippee. Okay. Yeah, he like, he likes to cuddle. He's playful. He is high energy. Yeah, just seems like a, just seems like a nice guy. She's like, very taken with him. [00:57:03] Speaker B: I look forward to meeting him, literally. [00:57:05] Speaker A: Yeah. You're gonna get some good dog cuddles in a month and a half at our Joag meetup that if you're considering going to our Joe Ag rankers with the brand new Hellrankers podcast meet up, make sure that you just let me know. Join our discord. Give me your email address so I can send you. [00:57:22] Speaker B: You definitely should. If you're on the fence, I think you should definitely decide to come. [00:57:29] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. I mean, at this point, we've even got one traveler from England coming. That's how big a deal. [00:57:37] Speaker B: Global event. [00:57:39] Speaker A: Mm hmm. Yeah. You definitely want to come to the Joe Agrankers, meet up and hang out with all of us. [00:57:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Dyson. Just to talk business super quick, I guess. We'll, like, you and I and Steve and Anna talk this through beforehand so we know what the fuck we're doing. [00:57:54] Speaker A: Yes. [00:57:54] Speaker B: Okay, good. [00:57:57] Speaker A: We will indeed. And it's gonna be a Crandall time. [00:58:00] Speaker B: Good. [00:58:01] Speaker A: I will remind me after this, and I will update you on more things. But yes, just show up, like what's. You'd be fine with it, realistically, I'm sure, but book club on Saturday, we are reading Maeve fly. [00:58:19] Speaker B: I'm seeing a lot of people talking about this book. [00:58:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. This one, when I put it up on the book club calendar, a lot of people messaged me and were like, oh, man, I love this one. This is huge. So very excited about this one. I have to go pick it up from the library. It's a short read. It's 288 pages, so very easy to get to, even if you have not started it yet. Get to mave fly and come hang out with us on Saturday, 07:00 p.m. eastern. 04:00 p.m. pacific. And you'll have to figure out the time zone yourself anywhere else, as per usual. That's also. I mean, we got a. We got to figure out. We've got one more. Did we already figure out when we were going to do one last New York watch along? Watch along? Yeah. Before we could do it, I guess the 31st. [00:59:11] Speaker B: Yeah. That's the day after I get back from halls. [00:59:14] Speaker A: You'll be nursing your eye, maybe have another eye. [00:59:18] Speaker B: Unless I decide. Unless I decide to fucking. [00:59:21] Speaker A: Unless you just cut it out, take. [00:59:22] Speaker B: Matters into my own hands, right? [00:59:25] Speaker A: Yes. Maybe last day of this month we will. [00:59:28] Speaker B: I think I talked about a guy who did an appendectomy on himself on here, didn't I? [00:59:31] Speaker A: Once at some point, that's quite possible. It seems like the kind of thing I just try to forget. I mean, don't think about it again. [00:59:39] Speaker B: A mechanic would fix his own car. [00:59:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I don't think so. [00:59:46] Speaker B: You agree? [00:59:47] Speaker A: Having a body is not the same thing as being a doctor, though? [00:59:53] Speaker B: I think there's. I don't know. I think I really and this isn't a bit. I really believe that we could be more proactive in performing surgery on ourselves. I just think that's something we should be doing more of. [01:00:08] Speaker A: I am going to have to politely disagree. [01:00:12] Speaker B: I think my father in law pulled out one of his own teeth once, but he's terrified of going to the dentist. He's like a grown ass man. [01:00:17] Speaker A: I think that's a common one, the pulling out your own teeth. [01:00:21] Speaker B: Why are people so afraid of the dentist? [01:00:23] Speaker A: I hate the dentist. Mostly, though, I think this is like, it's a sensory thing. It's not so much that I'm scared of the dentist. [01:00:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:00:31] Speaker A: As, like, my jaw doesn't open very wide. [01:00:36] Speaker B: Yes. [01:00:36] Speaker A: And holding my mouth open is deeply painful. And so I tend to panic at the dentist. I don't know, maybe a lot of people do that too. Maybe there's a lot of people who have panic around that, but they are, like, poking you with stuff and making you bleed and all of that kind of thing. [01:00:57] Speaker B: I get Joker syndrome at the dentist. I get giggly. [01:01:01] Speaker A: Even without the gas. You just are giggly. [01:01:04] Speaker B: Yeah. When it starts to, you know, when it's super sensitive and the drill is going and there's that kind of. [01:01:08] Speaker A: That grinding, you would make a good, like, villain in something. It's like, oh, someone's about to do me a pain and you just start laughing. [01:01:16] Speaker B: Well, Joker two coming up. Cinema's back on the menu, boys. [01:01:23] Speaker A: There it is. So that's happening as well. But before that is book club this Saturday, and before that is us doing our new Snack series, which you have given a name. [01:01:36] Speaker B: Snack to the future. [01:01:37] Speaker A: Snack to the future. [01:01:38] Speaker B: Works of fiction, works of speculative fiction, futuristic fiction, Sci-Fi what does it got right? What did it fuck up? What did it get wrong? And I've already got kind of plenty of ideas as to what kind of movies we can put in here. Loads of post kind of apocalyptic, dystopian stuff we can fit in there. But Running man is a great place to start, not only because we've both seen it quite recently, but I vividly, vividly recall talking to you about how much it just got right. It was a very prescient film. I've never read the book. I've never read the Bachmann book. [01:02:10] Speaker A: No, apparently. I mean, it's different enough that King had the Bachmann name put on the movie because he didn't really want it to be. I see a Stephen King movie, but I'm not entirely sure what those differences are. I did come across an article about it, but I hadn't actually hunkered down and read it. But yeah, we're gonna talk about the running man this Friday, and it'll be up on our ko fi after we speak about that with one another. And it should be a very fun time. So if you're not on there already, go ahead and subscribe. Also, this past week, I forgot to make the video for Kristen and I's podcast on our ko fi unlisted. So that's public for you, too. If you want to see this month's Joag fan cave, you got a freebie this time to hear us talk. [01:03:00] Speaker B: A lot of people are saying they enjoy it. A lot of people are saying a lot of good things about that. [01:03:04] Speaker A: Yes. I've got to tell you, very good feedback on this episode. Listen, I bless Kristen for doing this kind of thing because as miserable as it is for her, she is very funny to watch when she talks. [01:03:17] Speaker B: She is excellent value is Laihe, excellent vibe. [01:03:20] Speaker A: It is so much fun. So go check that out on our YouTube as well, and then, hey, subscribe if you like it and you can see her torment every month. [01:03:30] Speaker B: I have so many good things to say about Jesse the body Ventura, so it's just so good to talk about running my own, because I get to talk about Jesse the body. Have you seen him doing the media rounds lately? [01:03:42] Speaker A: I have. Yes, indeed. [01:03:44] Speaker B: Yes. [01:03:45] Speaker A: He's a very problematic politician, but at least right now, he's, you know, doing the pro LGBTQ stuff and shutting down all the conservative nonsense. So I will give him. [01:03:57] Speaker B: He's very much the Nagahulk, isn't he? Naga. [01:03:59] Speaker A: Hulk Hogan. Yeah, exactly. At least that's how he's fashioned himself at this point, is the opposite viewpoint of that guy. [01:04:06] Speaker B: Listen, you were on a pro wrestling podcast last week, is that correct? [01:04:12] Speaker A: Almost. [01:04:13] Speaker B: Oh, what happened? [01:04:14] Speaker A: Hey, what happened to what happened? I was delighted to be on the Monday night fake fights. [01:04:21] Speaker B: How did you end up on a fucking pro wrestling podcast? [01:04:25] Speaker A: Because I talk to people on social media, and I'm a treasure. I've made friends with folks on wrestle sky, on blue sky, where everybody talks about the graps. And in fact, I unintentionally came up with the tagline for this podcast, which is, you know, goofs and graps, because I had one day said to Garak, who was the host, after people were being like, Garrick. [01:04:53] Speaker B: I recognize that name from Blue sky. [01:04:54] Speaker A: From Star Trek. [01:04:56] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, of course. But, no, I'm pretty sure I recognize him. [01:05:01] Speaker A: Yeah, her. Yeah. But, yeah, she's all over, all over Russell sky and all that kind of stuff. And I had said one day, like, hey, I'm just here for the goofs and the graps. And she took that on as, like a mantra. Well, well, well. And so, yeah, she invited me to be on the podcast in which we watched an episode of Nitro and an episode of Raw from 1995, December 4, 1995. And then talked about those two things. Unfortunately, at the end of it, we realized the recording had failed. So that was a bummer, and we'll have to rein, uh, redo it. But let me tell you, Mark, I had never seen either of those things before. Never seen a raw, never seen a nitro. And it was an experience. Uh, I watched nitro first, and I was like, this is so much fun. I'm having a great time. I love this. Like, this is what I love. [01:05:56] Speaker B: Who was on the cast of nitro at the time? Was Tony involved? Tony Schiavone? Was he on? [01:06:00] Speaker A: I think he comes in, like. Like a month from where I started on. Okay, okay. I didn't know who he was. Yeah, Bobby Heenan was there. I. You know, I have notes on it elsewhere. You know how bad my memory is with things that I just watched. Yeah. But it was. It was great. Like, the first match had these guys called the american males, and their theme song was literally just like, american males. American males. American males. And I was like, fuck, this is so good. Had a blast with it. And then raw was one of the worst things I've ever subjected myself to in my life. It was. That was a show executive produced by cocaine. It was deeply bad. [01:06:45] Speaker B: The reason I ask is because how far. How far back have you gone in terms of pro wrestling? Have you watched any, like, vintage wf? [01:06:55] Speaker A: No, absolutely not. [01:06:58] Speaker B: Jesse. The body was a big part of kayfabe for me growing up. [01:07:02] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [01:07:03] Speaker B: His. His. He was on commentary with Vince McMahon at the time that I. That I got into WWF at the time. It was the days of Saturday night's main event. And, you know, superstars and his. His commentary work with Vince McMahon was fucking brilliant. And, you know, you just. You bought it, man. You bought that. There was this fucking animosity between the two of them, and their styles were so different, and he was so good at selling what was going on in the ring and making it seem, you know, just kayfabe. Exactly. Kayfabe. Carny as fuck. [01:07:36] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:07:37] Speaker B: And, yeah, I completely get how he's a dinosaur, you know, but I have unending affection towards Jesse Ventura. The guy is, you know, one in a million. [01:07:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And it was interesting to see, like, with, like, obviously, even without watching any of that stuff, I know who Jesse Ventura is. And it was interesting to watch these episodes and be like, oh, I know who these people are. Because wrestling was such a huge thing in the eighties and nineties that they were ubiquitous to popular culture. So without ever having seen any of the stuff that they were actually on, you know, them, I know who they are. And one of the craziest things was Randy Savage being on one of them. And because I only knew him from, like, slim Jim commercials and stuff like that, I'd never seen him without, like, his decorations on sunglasses and tassels and all that kind of stuff. And so when he goes to fight, he takes off the hat and the glasses and his shirt and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, that's a different guy. I don't know who that is. Like, I would, if he was walking down the street, I would not be like, that's Randy Savage. Very weird. [01:08:52] Speaker B: People often say that Hendrix didn't die. He went back to his home world. [01:08:56] Speaker A: And, you know, so did Sally. [01:08:59] Speaker B: He's. He's fucking out there somewhere. [01:09:01] Speaker A: Um, yeah, but it was very interesting. There were some favorites that I had on there, the colonel something or other who, uh, proposed to, um, another character during a match. So, like these, there was, like a whole match going on, and then on the side there was like a nitro. Okay, Colonel Parker, I think his name was, and he looks like Colonel Sanders. And, like, mid match, I think her name was something Sherry. [01:09:31] Speaker B: Sensational sherry. [01:09:33] Speaker A: Something like that. It was definitely like she did a. [01:09:35] Speaker B: Stint in WWE as well. [01:09:37] Speaker A: Sherri Martell. Yes, that's the one. And she, yeah, he proposes to her during the match. So during the match, there's, like, an actual match going on, but there's also a storyline going on outside of the ring. I was just having so much fun. It was, it was a blast. I'd watch more of those raw I never want to see again. But nitro was so fun, and I enjoyed that. [01:09:59] Speaker B: You know, there's, there's a load of really positive word of mouth around WWE at the minute, right, since that old bastard Vince has finally, you know, gotten back into his fucking coffin with, you know, sacred earth from his homeland. Everyone's like, ah, it's cooking. The fucking storylines are great. No, no, no. And then I sit down and watch it, and it's just the same old shit. It's just fucking awful. [01:10:24] Speaker A: Just piss. [01:10:25] Speaker B: Just weak. Ass diluted, you know, awful fucking spasmodic camera work. Just fucking lights and colors and catchphrases and no substance at all. And don't you fucking dare come at me and tell me that even the best pro wrestling doesn't have substance and is frivolous, because it isn't at its best. It's all art. It's all art combined, so fuck off. [01:10:48] Speaker A: Yeah, but wwe, like, watching these. It's like, very much one of those things where I can see the difference. And I've said before that I tried to get into WWE years ago and just didn't. Just didn't grab me. Whereas Aew was like, from the first thing you ever showed me, I was like, yep, in. And that was what it felt like watching these, where I was like, if you showed me nitro as the first thing that I'd ever seen, I would have been like, yes, give me more. If you'd showed me raw is the first thing that I ever saw, I would have been like, no, thank you. Not for me. Yes, I don't like it. And all that stuff you described is very much present in there. It was, like, just so frenetic in its editing and the style of it, all the cuts, the lighting, the camera angles. It's like, what is happening here? This is incoherent. [01:11:33] Speaker B: Yet on the other hand, the fucking money that it makes. [01:11:40] Speaker A: I mean, the crowd was having a great time there. That was, we remarked about on that in the podcast, just like, you know, for our complaints about it. The people who were there and the people who were watching it at the time were loving it. So, hey, there you go. [01:11:58] Speaker B: As did I back at the time when I was a young markle maniac. I was super into it. But there's, yeah, you know, things change. Yes, things change, don't they? [01:12:10] Speaker A: They do change. They do change. But I have some updates for you. [01:12:17] Speaker B: Sure. [01:12:18] Speaker A: On a thing that's very important to me, a topic very close to my heart. Believe it or not, mark, it's been over a year since the Titan submersible popped. Can you believe that? It was June of last year. [01:12:33] Speaker B: I can't believe that. In my head, it feels like earlier this year. It feels like March or April. [01:12:37] Speaker A: It's just yesterday that we were all glued to that story. That was really was. It was a moment, truly was. We don't get very often, we were all watching the same thing, you know? But in the past few weeks, as massive lawsuits have been filed, we're starting to get some absolutely gnarly news. And details about what went on in that absolute disaster of an underwater rich people casket. And as you know, I was already in maritime mode lately, big time. So I've been clicking absolutely everything that MSN and Google serve me. The algorithms have got me eating out of their hands right now. So one of the things we already knew from the myriad documentaries and articles and specials about this is that a shit ton of experts looked at the submersible before this all happened and were like, are you insane? This is absolutely not seaworthy. And Stockton Rush, the owner, was like, you're all haters. My boat rules. I'm gonna do what I want. Basically, my boat rules, in so many words. And he just straight ignored all the warnings. So, as you can imagine, when something catastrophic happens and your response to being warned was to completely ignore it out of ego, it's not a great legal defense. [01:13:58] Speaker B: He was in the bucket, wasn't he? He was down there. [01:14:00] Speaker A: He was. Yes. So he is. He will not spend a cent on lawsuits. But, you know, his estate and the company and all of that are what these are against. So, the estate of Polon ri Nagiolet, or PG, the guy piloting the submersible, has filed a lawsuit for damages of at least 50 million, which honestly seems low for putting PG into a ticking time bomb without knowing all of the things that engineers and experts had said about it. Like, that's the thing, is, none of these people were informed of any of this at the time. I know that he and others made a big deal of the thing. They signed. Right? Like, oh, there were multiple things in this about, you're acknowledging that you could die this, right? But that's different. Like, knowing you could die. I mean, I could sign that when I get on a plane, right. Every time I assume that, pick up. [01:15:01] Speaker B: A prescription and I read the leaflet inside, it says, you might have seizures, conversions, bleeding from the rectum, blindness. [01:15:08] Speaker A: Yes. [01:15:09] Speaker B: Jaundice. You know, you're not gonna get any of that shit, right? [01:15:13] Speaker A: And we all just sign the little thing and pretend we read it and we didn't. Right? Like, because you assume that the proper things, you know, precautions have been taken to make that medicine or that airplane or whatever not dangerous to you. And these are just, you know, covering your bases here. Whereas in this case, you know, they signed all of that, but those bases were not covered. He was told over and over and over how dangerous this was. But neither PG nor the people who went on it as tourists were informed that also, mechanical engineers say, this isn't seaworthy, which is an important thing to know. You're gonna make different decisions if you know that. Experts say this is dangerous as opposed to being assured, it's fine. You could die, but you're fine, you know? And among the many safety issues that the estate takes issues with was that goddamn logitech f 170 game controller. [01:16:13] Speaker B: That did not happen. [01:16:14] Speaker A: That didn't even happen, right? Because the submersible was blasted to smithereens. We'll never know exactly what went wrong. But that rush was on film showing someone that stupid fucking controller and saying, at some point, safety is just pure waste. The Nargiles have a pretty good case that this wasn't the top of the line tech they should have been on the bottom of the ocean with. [01:16:40] Speaker B: If you were to board a plane and you caught a glimpse into the cabin and the pilot has got, like, a mad cat fucking pro controller, right? [01:16:51] Speaker A: You'd be like, uh, questions. Mm hmm. Yeah, I'm good. On top of this, the lawsuit claims. [01:17:01] Speaker B: I kind of had a point there. [01:17:04] Speaker A: Hmm. [01:17:05] Speaker B: At what point I. Is there any liability on the passengers for. Because I am not a fucking, you know, I I'm. I'm not a deep sea submersible expert. I'm not an engineer. I know fuck all about pressure and millibars and nothing of the sort, but I could. I know a fucking pile of junk when I see it. [01:17:27] Speaker A: Well, I mean, that. Yeah, that comes down to you, though, I think. I mean, just what we were talking about, right, is that this was a tourist boat, right? And they operate it under the auspices of, like, everyone on it is crew, right? But it's a tourist excursion that people spend large amounts of money to get on. And when you run a tourist enterprise, you are in charge of the safety of the people on there. And so surely you can be like. Yeah. Like, you could look at it and be like. Like. Just from a common sense standpoint, these people probably shouldn't have gotten in there. But, like, from a liability standpoint, you know, we trust a lot of things that maybe we shouldn't when it comes to tourism. We've probably all done things in. You know, we strap into, like, people go bungee jumping on vacation, skydiving, all kinds of stuff, and we don't know what the fuck's going on. We just trust that they're strapping us incorrectly. [01:18:25] Speaker B: Um, is. Is it a thing in this. In malls, in the states, like, it has become over here? If plenty of times I've walked through, like, a busy shopping center in, you know, fucking Birmingham or London or whatever? And they have, like, pop up stands where you can hook yourself up to a fucking iv vitamin drip. [01:18:44] Speaker A: Mmm. I have seen that before. Yeah. I don't know if it's, like, super common here, but I have seen it. [01:18:49] Speaker B: Yeah. It's incredible. [01:18:51] Speaker A: I know, right? It's. It's bonkers. Like, take. [01:18:55] Speaker B: Take an hour out of your day. [01:18:57] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:18:58] Speaker B: In the mall and let some kid puncture you. [01:19:02] Speaker A: No hard pass. [01:19:04] Speaker B: No, thanks. [01:19:05] Speaker A: Absolutely not. [01:19:07] Speaker B: But, yeah, if I did that and I got fucking, you know. [01:19:10] Speaker A: Yeah. Gangrene and necrotizing fascinate this or whatever. [01:19:13] Speaker B: Would it be my fault or theirs? It would be. [01:19:15] Speaker A: Yeah. It's like, maybe a little bit your fault for letting it happen, but from a liability standpoint, point it would be on them, depending on what you signed. Unless the thing said, you have the risk of gangrene here and your arm might fall off. [01:19:30] Speaker B: Warning, gangrene. [01:19:34] Speaker A: But anyway, on top of all of this stuff, the lawsuit claims that in the moments leading up to the implosion, the crew would have absolutely known what was coming and been scared out of their ever loving minds. [01:19:45] Speaker B: Oh, that's a shame, because the line that we were fed Washington over in. [01:19:48] Speaker A: An instant, mate, the kid with his. [01:19:50] Speaker B: Rubik's cube, he would never have seen it coming. [01:19:53] Speaker A: That's still the official line on this. But there's various things that point us to think that this is not true. For one, we know that the titan dropped weights 90 minutes into the dive, which means they knew something was wrong, and they decided to try to abort the dive. So if you remember, that was the way that the thing would rise to the surface, was by basically dropping ballast. Yeah, exactly that. So that was the only way for it to rise, was to let the weights go, and it did. [01:20:25] Speaker B: I bet they all dropped weights at some point, if you know what I'm saying. [01:20:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Boy howdy. Yeah, so they. Yes. Yeah, that's it. Anyways, so they did try to abort the dive. We know that. So they were definitely aware something had gone wrong. Now, of course, the thing we also know about this is that oftentimes things went wrong on these dives. A thing he also, I don't think super shared with the people who were going on it, but it wouldn't have been unusual for Stockton rush to have gotten nearly stranded in that thing, because it happened on multiple occasions that they had to emergency change the batteries in. [01:21:04] Speaker B: His fucking controller. [01:21:08] Speaker A: So. But they definitely knew something was wrong, right. They were trying to abort. The lawsuit continues. And this is. Whoa, boy. Rough. The crew may well have heard the carbon fiber's crackling noise grow more intense as the weight of the water pressed on the Titan's hull. The crew lost communications and perhaps power as well. By experts reckoning, they would have continued to descend in full knowledge of the vessel's irreversible failures, experiencing terror and mental anguish prior to titan ultimately imploding. So they would have just been free falling. [01:21:46] Speaker B: That basically, genuinely, that just gave me goosebumps. [01:21:50] Speaker A: It's horrifying, isn't it? Like, it's one of the. [01:21:52] Speaker B: Hearing the cracks unknowing and still continuing to descend. [01:21:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you know how many submarine movies that I've watched? And that's one of the, like, most visceral things about those is when, like, a sub is going down and everyone is, like, coming to terms with hearing the sounds of things pop and crack and, like, you are just going to die, is what it is. Just the best or horror thing, isn't it? On top of this, there's more. The canadian military says that they are highly confident that the banging they heard while searching for the sub was man made. They first heard it the day after the sub went missing and continued to hear it between the 19th and the 22nd. They think that those were the sounds of an object striking a hull. In other words, it was the sound of the submersible knocking into the Titanic wreck site, which would have happened while it was still intact, based on the sounds that they heard. So this thing is just plunk, plunk, plunk, bopping along the wreckage of the Titanic. They would have been, if this is correct, in the submersible, alive for at least four days. Four days. [01:23:11] Speaker B: So from a certain angle, it was a successful mission. [01:23:19] Speaker A: They got to see the Titanic, didn't they? Way up close. [01:23:23] Speaker B: Yeah, they got to spend some quality time with the ghosts. [01:23:27] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Great job, Stockton. Nailed that. I watched it, rushed the assignment because. [01:23:32] Speaker B: You know, there was an angle of the story at the time was that ridiculous fucking window that you literally couldn't see fuck all out of, right. [01:23:41] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. [01:23:42] Speaker B: But, you know, I take a certain. I take a little bit of warmth from that, a little bit of comfort from, you know, what they died of amidst, you know, that, which they paid the ultimate price to see, except, oh. [01:23:57] Speaker A: They assumed that the power went out. There would have been no lights. [01:24:01] Speaker B: Okay. [01:24:01] Speaker A: They would not have seen that they were. [01:24:04] Speaker B: In which case they were right on fucking top of the. [01:24:10] Speaker A: I mean, it is. Oh, man. It is like. It's a, like, mythological story. Like this is, you know, this is the stuff the Greeks made up, you know, and this is a real thing that happened. So, like I said, the official line is still that it imploded a few hours into the dive. But this info came from internal emails between the canadian military, coast guard and fisheries that cast major doubt on that line and says they may have just been in darkness, bopping around for several days. [01:24:44] Speaker B: If that had been, like, a Frank Darabont screenplay, that's how it would have ended. They would have crashed into the wreck of the Titanic and been completely unaware of. Yeah, exactly. [01:24:52] Speaker A: From people outside. And they have no clue. Mm hmm. 100%. So, yeah, the Titan submersible continues to be one of the most horrifying stories I've ever heard in my life, and I look forward to what else we inevitably find out about this horror show. [01:25:07] Speaker B: And it feels as though the next logical step for, you know, putting the billionaires into the contraption is low orbit kind of spaceflight, doesn't it? That's. [01:25:16] Speaker A: Well, you know, one of the funny. I mean, this is what's so crazy about this stuff is, like, the billionaire hubris lives on. So, like, there's already a guy, like, trying to prove that actually this design was totally unsafe and everything like that, and he's gonna go and do it and, like, okay, take a handful of billionaires with you or whatever. Like, you know, and, like, yeah, the. All the, you know, Elon's blowing up rockets, like, left and right, you know, and they've got those people stuck on the iss right now who, like, just fucking can't come home. And, like, at least those are scientists or whatever. But, like, this idea that we're just gonna, like, send people on, like, fun little tourist shit in the ocean, in the sky, whatever. Like, come on. Yeah, this is. This is what they made mythology about. This is hubris. [01:26:07] Speaker B: Yeah, of course. [01:26:07] Speaker A: We need to. Yeah, right, exactly. We need to. We need to get our shit together. Come on. Rich people. Or, I mean, fine, go. [01:26:15] Speaker B: No, send all the rich people. I say the very opposite, Corrie, let them. [01:26:18] Speaker A: Let them play. Let them go. You know? That's fine. You do you. If you refuse to learn something from your brethren. [01:26:29] Speaker B: Excellent. [01:26:29] Speaker A: There you go. [01:26:30] Speaker B: Do you know what? Just as it occurs to me, so I was driving. I'm in a hotel right now. Dear, dear listeners, darling listeners, I'm in a hotel in York where I am for work. And so 01:00 came around. I was in the car, and what do I do? Put on radio four, of course. It's 01:00, world at one. And amidst the stories of Ukraine and, you know, the american presidential race and the fucking, the Aldi fascists in UK towns and cities, an article, an item comes on wherever they're talking about a movie, right? [01:27:09] Speaker A: Okay. [01:27:09] Speaker B: And they play a snippet of a trailer. And it's a trailer. I know. Do you believe in the boogeyman? Hang on. That's fucking Nancy Thompson. He's a guy. He's got knives for hands. They start talking about a nightmare. Elm street on the fucking world at one on radio four. [01:27:24] Speaker A: Nice. Which has random, but nice. [01:27:26] Speaker B: No, not random at all. It's been. [01:27:28] Speaker A: Okay. [01:27:29] Speaker B: The BBFC has reclassified a nightmare on Elm street from an 18 down to a 15. [01:27:34] Speaker A: Oh, wow. Wow. That's really interesting, isn't it? [01:27:37] Speaker B: Isn't it? [01:27:38] Speaker A: Times changing. [01:27:39] Speaker B: Yes. [01:27:40] Speaker A: As evidenced through movie ratings. What a concept. [01:27:43] Speaker B: There was a little article, you know, they gave it like five minutes at the end of the show on why that is why, you know, many's the time on this show, I've said that today's 15s are, you know, the yesteryear. [01:27:56] Speaker A: And they had a guy, especially given Britain's history with horror movies, exactly this. [01:28:01] Speaker B: Exactly this. And you know, there was a lovely little piece about kind of elm street at the time of its release about how its reputation did most of the work for it. You know, you were scared before you fucking hit play on your video. And why exactly. Why is it that a 15 today is an 18 of yester year? What has changed socially to let us think that that's now permissible for a younger age group? Very interesting stuff. [01:28:28] Speaker A: Yeah. Oh, man. [01:28:29] Speaker B: The answer they gave was just quite simply desensitization. [01:28:33] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, it's probably what it really comes down to. Yeah, yeah, we see a lot, we've all seen a lot more shit now than we had in 1980. What year, Doc Matt 484. Yeah, there you go. I love that. And on that note, shall we talk about what we watched? [01:28:52] Speaker B: Oh, we certainly can. Let's take a little look at the old letterbox here. What have you watched this week, listeners? [01:29:00] Speaker A: This week? Well, listen, this is definitely going to have to come up on our snack to the future. And I apologize in advance, but I don't because holy shit, this week I couldn't wait any longer. I finally watched virtuosity, which was one of the things that I. And if when we did our watch along or is this computer's watch along? Last month I was insistent that this needed to go on the pole for possible movies to watch because when I was a young girl. I was here in this house. I remember seeing the commercial for virtuosity on tv and immediately falling in love with Russell Crowe. There is like a nude Russell Crowe scene in this. And they showed obviously the top half of him in the commercial. And I was like, is that the most beautiful man I've ever seen in my life? And I deeply wanted to see this movie as a ten year old when it came out. But naturally it was not for ten year olds. [01:30:04] Speaker B: Well, nowadays maybe it would be, who knows? [01:30:06] Speaker A: Nowadays maybe. No, it definitely is not for ten year olds. But I never did ever get a chance to see virtuosity. And I finally did the other day. It's on Paramount plus. And what does come through is that Russell Crowe is indeed deeply beautiful in this movie. Sweet Jesus is a very gorgeous serial killer and he plays things cranked to eleven. [01:30:34] Speaker B: Good. [01:30:35] Speaker A: This movie doesn't deserve how hard Russell Crowe goes. [01:30:39] Speaker B: Is he still, is he still beautiful? I mean, he's a bit bigger and a bit rougher around the edges. [01:30:43] Speaker A: He's still pretty gorgeous. [01:30:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, he cut, he cut a very, you know, he was, he was a great Jor El. He was fantastic in that Superman movie. He was fucking great. Like a third of that film was about him, wasn't it? And he was, he was awesome. Like a space action hero. Really cool. [01:30:58] Speaker A: Yeah, I think he can, he can still pull off whatever, you know. I like a bigger dude, so I am not bothered by bicker. Russell Crowe, you know, a lot of gray in him. He's looking good. In fact, my friend Andrea. Is it hot in here? Is my, my air conditioner's off. That's what it is. My friend Andrea has become obsessed with late stage Russell Crowe and has been like binging everything that he's in because she's like, he hit this age and it just like clicked for her. She's like this, this man is gorgeous and she's been going through everything. So she had watched virtuosity weeks ago and I think that was what, like, reminded me that I was like, I need to get a. This get see this movie. It is incoherent. The basic premise of this movie is that there is a VR system in this world in which we're in. Enough said, right? And you can jack into the VR or whatever, but there's a serial killer on the loose in this VR who then gets brought into the real world and he is programmed with like 170 serial killers minds because he's like used as like a training thing or something like that. So this is Russell Crowe. They release him into the real world, and he becomes just a murdering machine out in the real world while also just being, like, having the time of his life doing dancing and all kinds of crazy stuff. And Denzel is in it as well. Denzel is tracking him down. [01:32:34] Speaker B: See, five minutes ago, I thought I'd never seen this movie, but it's ringing. [01:32:36] Speaker A: All sorts of bells, like maybe you have before. Boy, it is an example of getting pretty much everything wrong, and it's absolutely worth watching. Like I said, completely incoherent. Terrible movie. But Russell Crowe puts in a hell of a performance in it, and we will definitely have to snack to the future on virtuosity. [01:32:57] Speaker B: Oh, I would love that. Look forward to that. Very nice. Very nice. [01:33:01] Speaker A: You're gonna hate it, but I think you'll appreciate having seen it. [01:33:04] Speaker B: You've sold it beautifully. You've got me, you know, you've got me really kind of looking forward to anticipating it. [01:33:11] Speaker A: We'll do it next month. [01:33:13] Speaker B: Cool, right? What have I seen? Let's see. Let's just blast through despicable me four. [01:33:18] Speaker A: I mean, I've heard nothing but terrible things about this movie. [01:33:21] Speaker B: There is a load of. There's a lot of really good animation for kind of kids, isn't there? [01:33:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:27] Speaker B: You know, and if you take maybe, I guess from. From where I'm sat, Pixar as the gold standard. I'm delighted that incredibles three has been announced. Fucking yes. Let's go. Um, you've got Pixar, then mainline Disney just below that, and I guess maybe dreamworks below that, everyone. [01:33:45] Speaker A: There's a lot of independent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, there's tons. [01:33:50] Speaker B: Um, illumination is the bottom of the barrel that's underneath that barrel. [01:33:59] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, they have one trick, right, basically, and that's why they've made 9000 of the things based off of this one trick. [01:34:07] Speaker B: I hate the character designs. I hate the fucking garish palette. I hate the dialogue. Every fucking line is seemingly written for the trailer. I just hate it. I fucking hate illumination animation movies. I fucking hate them. And they're all. It's all that same fucking french guy that is in the credits of them all. [01:34:30] Speaker A: It's his multiverse, the lassiter of illumination. [01:34:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's terrible. It's just terrible. [01:34:38] Speaker A: I liked the first despicable me after that. There's nothing useful for me in any of those. [01:34:43] Speaker B: No. [01:34:44] Speaker A: And I thought the. The most eviscerating review possible of this came from our dear listener, John Benfield. [01:34:53] Speaker B: Benners who I recently bumped into on LinkedIn, of all places. [01:34:58] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Love that. That's amazing. [01:35:00] Speaker B: I'm never on LinkedIn, and I jumped on there for the first time in fucking months to find a message from John Bedfield. Yeah, good. [01:35:07] Speaker A: That's fantastic. But he rated it on letterboxd and said that he watched it with, I believe I came four year old or something, like, in there, a young child. And the child liked it, but hasn't asked to see it again, which is, like, the most damning. Yeah, right. Like, if a kid isn't like it hasn't made it their whole personality. [01:35:32] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:35:33] Speaker A: It has failed completely. [01:35:35] Speaker B: Didn't make a dent. So fuck that. Let's take a look now, rook. My Tudor era is over, by the way. It's finished. [01:35:46] Speaker A: I love this. Let me just give, like, a tiny bit of background on this. The other day, Mark texts me a picture of his television, and it says, it's your boy, and it's Robert Shaw. And I immediately went, are you watching a man for all seasons? Because I binged all of Robert Shaw's movies a few years ago, and let me tell you, Robert Shaw's costume design in every single thing he's ever been in is extremely distinct. And so it's like, are you watching a man for all seasons? Hmm. And Mark was like, well, yes, I am. I'm into tutor things now. I was like, oh, well, that's interesting. Not gonna last. I won't remember anything, but I'm into this now. The next day, I happen to ask, you know, oh, you said you were going to see two plays. You told me you went to see sister act two. What was the other thing? [01:36:44] Speaker B: Just sister act, the musical. Sister act. Yeah. [01:36:46] Speaker A: I mean, not sister act two. Sorry. Sister act musical. What was the other thing you saw? To which he responded somewhat sheepishly, horrible histories. The Tudors. [01:36:58] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [01:37:00] Speaker A: I love this so much. Like, you were totally. You were gonna slide by. You were never going to tell me that was why you were in your tutor era. And then I was like, ah, fuck. She asked. [01:37:11] Speaker B: Yeah, it got me. It was really interesting. It was really interesting. [01:37:14] Speaker A: And for Americans, horrible histories is a kids book series turned television show. Oh, that's basically like Bill Nye the science guy. Yeah, it's Bill Nye the science guy, but with history. If you watch the show ghosts, that is based off of BBC show ghosts, that is the same people who do horrible histories, so you're connected to it. [01:37:36] Speaker B: The show itself has attracted lots of kind of big names in british comedy. David Baddel has been in it. I think Frank Skinner has been in it. Rowan Atkinson has been in it. And this is like a mid afternoon fucking CBBC show. I mean, if for some reason it has this pedigree attached to it, I. [01:37:52] Speaker A: Mean, it's a great show. [01:37:53] Speaker B: Oh, it is. It's terrific. Owen. Owen in particular is fucking gaga for it. He absolutely loves it. And whilst on an overnighter in London, we went to see horrible histories, Tudors. And it was super interesting. [01:38:04] Speaker A: Oh, nice. [01:38:06] Speaker B: It was so interesting. And you know that I've got a kind of. A little bit of a fucking Jones for royalty anyway, right? [01:38:14] Speaker A: Not true. [01:38:15] Speaker B: And let me try and fucking lay this out. Why? Why? Why? I hate it. Right? I hate. [01:38:21] Speaker A: It's certainly not an affinity. [01:38:23] Speaker B: No, no, no, no. You know, I hate it. But I also am fascinated, grimly fascinated by the stranglehold that it has on society and how we got where we are, right. You know, where, you know, we're politicians. When sworn in, members of parliament have to swear fealty to the king and all his future descendants. Fred, off, will you? How the fuck did we get there? That's fucking wild. [01:38:51] Speaker A: Totally. [01:38:52] Speaker B: Um, and I found that. I found. I found horrible histories, terrible Tudors. Uh, super interesting about. [01:39:00] Speaker A: I love that. [01:39:01] Speaker B: Um, about the fucking power that Henry VIII wielded over the fucking, you know, just deciding to dismantle the church just so he could get divorced. That's fucking insane. Just insane shit. So I thought, right, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna make this my personality for 48 hours. [01:39:18] Speaker A: Nice. [01:39:19] Speaker B: And part of that was watching a man for all seasons, the story of Sir Thomas more and his role in the, you know, refusing to add his assent to the oath, which would have written, you know, enshrined in law, Henry VIII's right to divorce. Listen, subject matter aside, and my, you know, Peccadillo's out of the equation entirely. What a piece of work though it is. [01:39:50] Speaker A: It's a great movie. [01:39:51] Speaker B: Fucking high, high caliber stuff from the cast. Like I said, robert Shaw in there. You've got fucking John hurd in there. Lots, lots of that, guys of. [01:40:05] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. [01:40:06] Speaker B: But. But esteemed but british versions, you know, I mean, really, really estimable performers adapted from a play, which, of course, you know, I love. It's like watching the highest caliber of drama. It is gripping. You know, just. The classics are classics for a reason. And this is. This is just beautiful. It's exactly what I needed. And I learned, you know what I mean? It contextualized a lot of. A lot of stuff about that period for me. [01:40:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I know pretty much nothing about any of that. So a man for all seasons was very much kind of a, like, isolated thing for me. It had no context for anything, but still a great movie. So, yeah, I've always. I've, like, now kind of got various interests, probably for similar reasons to you in royalty. And it's always kind of a thing that I'm like, maybe I'll read books on it, but there's, like, so many of them. Yes, it is a lot to start from scratch on, because we don't learn about any of them except, you know, the one that we got freedom from. So, yeah, it's completely out of my wheelhouse, but a thing that I have, like, an interest that, like, one day I may sit down and learn stuff about british royalty. [01:41:23] Speaker B: I was edutained is what I was. [01:41:25] Speaker A: Loved that big. [01:41:27] Speaker B: It felt like going to the actual theater not to see, you know, sister act or whatever. Wonderful stuff. [01:41:33] Speaker A: I talked on the Joag fan cave about having watched Ghost Shark. I won't go into that because you can go and watch what I said about it on the fan cave, but just suffice to say, it's a very silly, dumb movie that, you know, if you watch it in a group, I think it's a great time. I was dragged a little bit watching by myself, but, you know, it's a dumb movie with heart, and somehow managed to give me a nightmare afterwards. [01:42:04] Speaker B: Yeah, love that view. [01:42:06] Speaker A: I could not believe it. When I woke up, I was just like, did I seriously just have a ghost shark nightmare? [01:42:12] Speaker B: You never know what's gonna happen to you. You never know where they're gonna come from. [01:42:15] Speaker A: You never know. Yeah, right? So, Ghost shark, hey, it's a fun time, if you like, kind of a schlocky Sci-Fi channel esque horror movie. Ghost Shark is a good ride. [01:42:27] Speaker B: Nice. Love that. We watched alien. I mean, because you got her. [01:42:32] Speaker A: We did. Yes, we did indeed. Because obviously, alien Romulus is coming to. [01:42:37] Speaker B: Us this week, and the kind of review embargo seems to be up and reactions. [01:42:44] Speaker A: It's like the social embargo is. [01:42:46] Speaker B: There you go. Yes. Yes. [01:42:47] Speaker A: They can post them. I was gonna. I took a whole bunch of scrap. Scrap shots. [01:42:52] Speaker B: Not a word. [01:42:53] Speaker A: Snap shots. Yeah, I took some scrap shots. I'm gonna print them out and send it to you. I took some screenshots last night of some of the ones that I was seeing initially come out to send to you because. And I saved them because if I send you something at night in the morning, you just swipe it away and don't look at it. But, yeah, like very. I mean, there was. I saw one kind of tepid review of it that someone had posted, but that I was largely seeing. Like, this was so much fun. And this is what I wanted. So very stoked for that. [01:43:29] Speaker B: I read a fantastic piece interviewing and looking at the process of fairly Alvarez until film this month. And you know, what excited me in the run up to Evil Dead releasing was reading about the approach that he takes on set, that is, building as many physical sets as possible and having them physically linked as they would be in real life so that you can film the action as it flows from one location to the next. And that's very much seemingly the approach he's stuck with. Fralean Romulus. There's a real kind of sense of geography and physical space to the set, which I'm all about. Fantastic word of mouth about the practical effect about the gore. And it's wonderful to read that wherever possible. He has brought crew members, designers, engineers, artists with him from Uruguay to work on his productions as they've got progressively kind of bigger and more high profile, which I fucking love. This guy's the real deal. He really is. [01:44:41] Speaker A: Absolutely love that. [01:44:42] Speaker B: Yep. Yep. Cool as fuck. [01:44:44] Speaker A: Yes. So we watched alien. Obviously not alien. Romulus. And I mean, what is there to say about alien? [01:44:52] Speaker B: Nothing. Nothing at all. Nothing at all. Nothing at all to say other than, you know, put it in a vault. Put that in a fucking vault, man. Really? [01:45:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Send that to, you know, that'll be the time capsule that. Send it out on a pro leave behind. Yeah, exactly. Send it in a space, broadcast it. What do you want us to know? Yep. It's gonna be alien. [01:45:17] Speaker B: I don't wanna. I don't a gloss over it, but at the same time, what. What is there to say? The. The design, the industrial kind of space, the industrialization of space that's baked into alien. It's condensation on walls and it's fucking grease and it's heat, but at the same time it's screaming fucking solar winds, you know what I mean? And the fucking terror of the void and the fucking intruder walking around with a big dick for a head. And it's the fucking milky Android and it's Sigourney Weaver. It's alchemy. It is alchemy. [01:45:53] Speaker A: I think another thing that really struck me, watching it is kind of the way this movie uses silence. Not just as, like, literally my next phrase. Yeah. It's not just as like a, ooh, silence is scary sort of thing, but in just sort of the mundanity about, of the way it's a workplace. It's a workplace, right? Yeah. So there isn't, you know, constant music throughout the whole thing. There's not like a whole bunch of, you know, sounds that wouldn't be there, bleep bloop, whatever kinds of stuff it is, you know, just the sounds of what it would be like if you were working in a space industry, you know, and sometimes nobody's talking, sometimes there's, you know, tapping, you know, things like that. And I think that's so effective. [01:46:37] Speaker B: If you're working at your job, you're not constantly just gibbering away to yourself, are you? There is silence and there, there are moments of, you know, solitude. It does have that kind of turn of the decade between the seventies and the eighties. Kind of technology is this, computers, you know what I mean? The interface and the fucking leds. It takes a stab at what interstellar travel might look like in the future. And yeah, all right, it looks a little bit quaint maybe, but to criticize that is to completely miss the point. Yeah, it's a big, big, big vision of a film. [01:47:14] Speaker A: And I think one of the things that it has going for it too, is that the technology itself is somewhat sparse and so that it doesn't revolve. It's not, the movie doesn't revolve around, say, running man, where they're constantly inputting codes into things and stuff like that. The fact that it is somewhat sparse means that we're not constantly going like, oh, that's, that looks dated. Or suggest the place in which they're working does not look dated. [01:47:43] Speaker B: Let me suggest something to you. I've said on plenty of occasions how, you know, hahaha, how quaint I find it that, that interface, that this is the same kind of thing they use in the thing and in the fly where you're asking your computer questions. Computer, what are the odds of this happening? Right? [01:47:56] Speaker A: Exactly. [01:47:58] Speaker B: That seemed, that seemed quaint and amiss until like a year or two ago. Because that's how we, that's how we're interfacing with, you know, chat, GPT and fucking Gemini and whatever. Now we're literally typing it in sentences. We're asking it fully passed questions. [01:48:13] Speaker A: So yeah, that's a good point. It has come back around to that. [01:48:16] Speaker B: Yep, it was fucking time told on that one. [01:48:21] Speaker A: Go figure. Except that it would get the answer right in the movie. That's the difference. But yeah, watched aliens. After watching it for the fan cave, I watched it. Chapter two, she mentioned last week, you know, I don't have a problem with this movie. I think to me, there isn't problems with this movie that aren't present in the story. It. Okay, well, and I like that. I don't know what you would do to fix it. I know a lot of people think maybe you could have made this one and just taken out a lot of stuff. I really like the, like, learning what is going on with the adults. I like kind of visiting what has happened to them. And I like the kids stories as well. A lot of people say you just didn't need to include so much the kids. But I like seeing that, those throwbacks to them. I don't know, I just don't. It's not as good as the first one. Don't get me wrong. I just don't, like, hate it. I don't see such a huge drop in the quality between the two as people seem to see. Like, to me, that's not like I see a lot of people that it's like four star movie to one star movie. And I don't think it's that steep a drop in quality. [01:49:44] Speaker B: I think maybe not that steep, but I maintain that between the two of them, there's one solid movie. [01:49:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And I get that. I just don't think that it's like so huge a shift that the second one is not enjoyable. I really like these characters. It's a character driven thing. The original filmed version of it is a six part mini series or whatever. It's a 1200 page book determining what's important. Andy Muschietti, his priorities on this were sort of dealing with the trauma that these kids face and, you know, what their adult lives had come to and, you know, how they were processing that. I enjoyed it. [01:50:28] Speaker B: I got a kick out of out of seeing the boss in there himself. [01:50:33] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. That cameo is so fun. Yeah. Stephen King's cameo as, like, the pawn shop owner in it, chapter two is absolutely delightful. It's not just one of those sort of one line things, but he gets, like, a good scene of being a crotchety old man and it's so fun. I mean, the other thing is like, and a lot of people are annoyed by this too, is that it's very funny. Like, the whole movie is also extremely funny. And I get a kick out of that and a lot of people find that annoying, but I love the humor in it. Chapter two. So, yeah, I had fun with that, even though other folks don't seem to like it as much. But watching it in my own home, too, where I can pause it and go get ruffles and pee and things. [01:51:21] Speaker B: Like that, that makes up for a lot, doesn't it? Yes. [01:51:25] Speaker A: Yes, you have one more. [01:51:28] Speaker B: Yes, I've got two more. I'm gonna talk about humanist vampire seeking consenting suicidal person. And yes, that is the title of the film. Once again, humanist vampire seeking consenting suicidal person. What a fantastic fucking title. [01:51:43] Speaker A: And I'm not gonna keep making you say that over and over again. So usually we repeat the titles constantly. But just FYI, we do put the titles of the movies we watch in the descriptions. You can find it there. [01:51:55] Speaker B: Very nice. Nice. Psa, Corrie. Thank you. What we have here is a. I kind of hate, hate, hate what I'm about to say here, but it's a deconstructionalist vampire movie, you know? [01:52:06] Speaker A: Okay. [01:52:08] Speaker B: Which I'm all for, right. Let's just get that clear. I love that the mythology, the trope, the archetype of a vampire is now so well known. [01:52:20] Speaker A: And so you have to take it. [01:52:22] Speaker B: Apart, baked in that. We can do that now. We can just take it apart and play with it and look at its constituent parts and what ifs and run scenarios through the vampire mythos. And that's what. That's what we have here. We have a french, perfectly, perfectly acceptable, quirksome french take. The premise is a young vampire girl who unfortunately suffers with empathy and her fangs just won't come out, and she simply cannot bring herself to kill. And we look at her family dynamic. We look at the expectations. It's an allegory for, I dare say, puberty, a sexual awakening, coming of age. And is there a way, I wonder, if a vampire could live a full life in a humane way? [01:53:16] Speaker A: Right? [01:53:17] Speaker B: And it's a lovely idea. Exactly. Exactly. It's a lovely idea. It's. You know, you've got high school, high school kind of comedy. The family dynamic is a little bit what we do in the shadows. It's. The take is a little bit girl walks home alone at night. We're in that kind of place. [01:53:35] Speaker A: Okay. [01:53:37] Speaker B: It isn't as good as either of those, but I don't. I think it's good at what it wants to be. It's quite breezy, it's quite lighthearted. No gore to speak of, really. It's, like I said, it's an allegory piece. It's a study. It's a character piece. It's a comedy. It's like. And it's a solid and easy. Three french stars. [01:53:59] Speaker A: Beautiful. Yeah, man. And a few more stars to your final one. [01:54:04] Speaker B: Chuck another two on there. I had another go with Godzilla minus one. So much weight and gravity to this film. You know, you've got. You've got PTSD and survivors guilt and national shame and fucking japanese kind of family dynamics, and you've got kind of, you know, national guilt, post war guilt. You've got a nation kind of struggling to find its identity after, you know, such a fabric rending event as a world war. Oh, and also Godzilla. [01:54:51] Speaker A: You know, also Godzilla. [01:54:53] Speaker B: Also Godzilla. Godzilla minus one's fucking just a real piece of work that any director, any fucking filmmaker from any nation would be proud to put their name to. You know, it just steps way beyond what, you know, the box that you might think a Godzilla movie would sit within. [01:55:17] Speaker A: Yeah, we were talking about it last night, just texting back and forth about this, and just basically, like. I mean, it's basically a perfect movie, right? Like what? [01:55:26] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [01:55:27] Speaker A: What can you complain about in this? It's. It's got everything. Yeah, it's. It pretty much sticks the landing on everything it's trying to do. [01:55:35] Speaker B: It does. [01:55:36] Speaker A: It goes far beyond the expectations you. [01:55:37] Speaker B: Have for it, and it doesn't all brilliantly me. [01:55:40] Speaker A: Yeah. If you haven't seen Godzilla minus one yet, I think it's on Netflix now. It's definitely on something, and I'm pretty sure it's Netflix. [01:55:45] Speaker B: It is indeed on Netflix. [01:55:46] Speaker A: We can all enjoy it. [01:55:48] Speaker B: Yes. Next time I watch it, I think if it isn't there already, the black and white version is also on there. [01:55:54] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. Yeah, I think it is on there. [01:55:55] Speaker B: That'll be the next go. [01:55:57] Speaker A: Very nice. Yeah, I gotta rewatch that as well. [01:55:59] Speaker B: Yeah, man. Any more? [01:56:01] Speaker A: So one more thing, Mark. [01:56:02] Speaker B: Go for it. [01:56:03] Speaker A: Oh. [01:56:04] Speaker B: Oh, no. Do you have any more watches, Corrigano? [01:56:06] Speaker A: No, I think that was. That was pretty much everything this week. It's been kind of a busy week. [01:56:10] Speaker B: It has. Sure has. And on the next joag, I'm delighted to think that we'll be talking about a new alien movie. [01:56:19] Speaker A: Yes, indeed. [01:56:21] Speaker B: Remind me to talk about alien three next week. [01:56:24] Speaker A: Yes. Okay. Yeah, maybe I'll catch. Or maybe we'll catch aliens. All that jazz before it comes out. We'll see what happens. But our closing question this week, maybe not such a deep question, but a question nonetheless. Mark. This week, the Olympics closed, and we all were treated to the white girl audacity of australian breakdancer Ray Gunn. [01:56:56] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Who is beautifully put, by the way. Take a bow, white girl on dask. [01:57:03] Speaker A: Deeply. Yeah. Deeply bad. Deeply bad at breakdancing, and yet was in the Olympics and went viral with her horrific routine, which I have seen people actively do in their living rooms. One of the things we always say when it comes to the Olympics. In fact, Chris Statlander and Harley Cameron both did a version of it, which. [01:57:31] Speaker B: They knocked up in a couple of minutes. [01:57:34] Speaker A: Right, exactly. And, yeah, one of the things that we have to say about the Olympics is we can all sit at home and judge it and all that kind of stuff, but none of us could make it. I think after seeing Rey Gun, we all found one thing we think maybe we could do. I'm curious. Are there any olympic sports, mark listener, you at home as well? Are there any olympic sports that you think, with some practice, you, 45 year old mark, could potentially do what, at world olympic standards, you could compete even if you were, like, the worst one in the. If you were the ray gun from, you think you could. Yeah. From. You have never done this before to. You could potentially just qualify. [01:58:21] Speaker B: Great question. [01:58:22] Speaker A: For the Olympics or even get really good at. But, like, you could. You could qualify in the Olympics. [01:58:26] Speaker B: Okay, let me just establish some parameters here. [01:58:28] Speaker A: Sure. [01:58:29] Speaker B: So money is no object. [01:58:31] Speaker A: Money is no object. You have all the time and money in the world to train for whatever. [01:58:37] Speaker B: World class kind of trainers, dietitians, equipment. [01:58:41] Speaker A: Yes. [01:58:42] Speaker B: Right. Outside of. So rookhood, probably, I think all of them. Except. [01:58:54] Speaker A: All of them. [01:58:55] Speaker B: Well, no, hang on. Hear me out. Hear me out. Hear me out. [01:58:58] Speaker A: Okay. Okay. Go ahead. [01:58:59] Speaker B: Not swimming, right? Because I just. I don't like it. I don't think. I think it's silly if I'm honest. Wow. And I can't ride a bike. [01:59:10] Speaker A: That's true. You can't ride a bike. So don't think you could learn to ride a bike? [01:59:13] Speaker B: No, I don't. I don't want to. Is the point. Right. [01:59:18] Speaker A: Okay. [01:59:19] Speaker B: I'm nearly sure. [01:59:19] Speaker A: I mean, my question is, what can you. What thing could you train? [01:59:24] Speaker B: Enough I learned to do at almost 46. I feel as though to now learn to ride a bike would be an admission of failure on my part. I've done 45 not riding a bike, and I'm fine. Right. I haven't suffered from it for not learning ride a bike one bit. So I'm not now gonna go, ah. And dedicate my life to becoming the best at bike sports. Right. I'm not doing that. So write that one off. Swimming. Forget it. My eyesight won't allow it, I'm afraid. Also, again, I don't like it. I don't enjoy. I'm comfortable with my little plodding breaststroke. And that's as good a swimmer as I ever want to be. Right, okay, the rest of them, fucking bring it on. No problem. Nah, bollocks. Wrestling. [02:00:15] Speaker A: That's crazy. [02:00:16] Speaker B: No, it isn't. It isn't. Wrestling I've already got, like, a functional understanding of. Because I've watched a lot of it. I know some of the core principles of wrestling. [02:00:24] Speaker A: Okay? [02:00:25] Speaker B: Tuck your chin. Sell for the other guy. Make the other guy look good. Get your hand up. If there's a chair shot coming in, protect your head. And the apron is the hardest part of the ring. [02:00:37] Speaker A: They get a lot of. They get a lot of chair shots in Olympic wrestling. [02:00:41] Speaker B: It's wrestling. It's all the same running I kind of do anyway, so I would just do more of it. [02:00:48] Speaker A: You realize one of the things about this. And this is what you asked. Well, yeah, but one of the things I was asking for a little bit of realism here. But think about the boxer who. There was the whole hubbub about. And one of the things about Olympic athletes is that many of their body compositions are such that they are better at things than those of us whose bodies are composed of. [02:01:20] Speaker B: So genetic advantage. The genetic advantage, there is a genetic. [02:01:23] Speaker A: Component to why some people are extremely good at something. So, like, a runner isn't just good at running because they run a lot. Likely it has to do with their muscle composition and things like that that make them especially fast in ways that the rest of us aren't. [02:01:41] Speaker B: I'll tell you something that you're disregarding here. Something you're writing off. Right. Mindset, Corrigan. Right. [02:01:48] Speaker A: No excuses, no motivation. Mindset, mindset, mindset. [02:01:54] Speaker B: I think mindset can overcome. Put mindset up against genetics. Right. And a truly deranged mindset can go a long way. Just go fucking ham on it. [02:02:08] Speaker A: I think there's a degree to which that's true, though. I think that there is a degree that, like, you know, a degree of unhingedness about it can take you far in certain things. [02:02:19] Speaker B: Yep. [02:02:20] Speaker A: I don't necessarily think that's gonna be stronger than some other factors, per se. [02:02:25] Speaker B: Let me introduce you to a little fella called the honey Badger. Fine. You know about this little guy? [02:02:32] Speaker A: Hmm? Tell me about the. [02:02:34] Speaker B: You do a little bit of research made. Right. [02:02:37] Speaker A: Think you'll find. [02:02:38] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. [02:02:39] Speaker A: Very relevant. [02:02:40] Speaker B: Just let me talk about a few others. Um. [02:02:42] Speaker A: Okay. [02:02:43] Speaker B: Tests of accuracy, like shooting. [02:02:46] Speaker A: Mmm. Okay. [02:02:47] Speaker B: Whack me up with all that metal gear, solid style fucking equipment. No problem, no problem. I've played games. I've played video games. [02:02:55] Speaker A: Shit at that. [02:02:55] Speaker B: I could do that. No, aim with the special glasses. [02:03:00] Speaker A: I could. [02:03:00] Speaker B: Yep. Just. I think I'd be really good at accuracy. Accuracy sports. [02:03:05] Speaker A: Okay, nice. [02:03:07] Speaker B: Let's write off boxing. Put that along. I don't want to be. I don't get hit. Right. One thing. [02:03:13] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. That's a good reason. [02:03:15] Speaker B: I want. I want to win a medal, but I don't want to get punched in the fucking head repeatedly to do it. Right? Don't do that. What's that? What's the. Is it artistic swimming? Is that what it's called? [02:03:28] Speaker A: Oh, like the thing where they, like, synchronize? [02:03:30] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, not doing that. That's in water. Forget that. [02:03:33] Speaker A: That looks. Yeah, that's sorcery to me. Even as a swimmer. I don't know how they do it. I watch it and I'm like. I don't understand the, like, gravity. I don't understand the physics of what you're doing. It's impossible. I don't get it. And that they somehow stay in, like, they certainly can't hear the music that well under. I don't know how they do any of it. [02:03:51] Speaker B: That's a great point. [02:03:53] Speaker A: Fencing. [02:03:54] Speaker B: Fencing, right. [02:03:56] Speaker A: You think you do fencing? [02:03:57] Speaker B: I do. I think I would excel at fencing. Because what. What happens when you. When you take technique and rage? What happens then? Huh? What happens then? Okay, gold medals happen then. And I. I can learn one, but I've got the other inside me. [02:04:18] Speaker A: It's very cobra kai of you to the sandheen. [02:04:20] Speaker B: And if I wake up, do fencing for 12 hours, go to bed. If I do that for long enough, then, yes, I would be an olympic fencing champion. Okay, let me see. [02:04:32] Speaker A: That seems reasonable. Yeah, that one seems reasonable to me. [02:04:34] Speaker B: So you initially roll like. [02:04:36] Speaker A: Come on, Mark. But, well, see, I think there's. The ones that make sense to me are like, ones that are more like, develop a skill of precision. Right? Because the ones that really none of us can hope to do are the ones that do have, like, a degree of genetic ness to it. Although, like, I think I've mentioned this before, like, I took, like, my 23 andme DNA test and it was saying that, like, the composition of muscle in my body is that of elite athletes. So maybe I could do various things if I dedicated my mind to it. Although the eds would probably get in the way, but I. The muscle in my body is composed, like, people who. Who compete at these kinds of levels. But not everybody is built like that, you know, like. Or with gymnastics, right? You have to start really early, or your body will outgrow the ability to do these things. No, you will. That's just. That's how it works, Mark. [02:05:41] Speaker B: I think that you can. You can. You can fucking beat that. You can reverse that. [02:05:47] Speaker A: Nobody in history has ever tried to beat the. That you think they've all just given up without. Nobody has ever had the mindset with. [02:05:55] Speaker B: No other focus, right, other than achieving excellence. I think the other guys with the genetics, right, they won't see you come in, mate. They'll be caught napping. They'll be resting on their genetics. Oh, I'm so tall. [02:06:11] Speaker A: I'm so strong. [02:06:12] Speaker B: And then while you think you're just gonna turn up and take that gold boosh, bang, bang, bang. Here comes the honey badger. Fucking crazy mark on the fucking pond. [02:06:22] Speaker A: And he's got gold. Dear listener, what do you think? A, can mark do any sport? And b, what could you do? What sport do you think? [02:06:34] Speaker B: I'm known for my grace, right? [02:06:37] Speaker A: Everybody says it. [02:06:39] Speaker B: I'm known as a very graceful, athletic man. [02:06:42] Speaker A: And people say I'm like a fawn. [02:06:45] Speaker B: Knowing that would carry me to the podium every time. [02:06:50] Speaker A: I think I could do the kayaking, that weird kayaking one. Of course you could. That one, that one feels like that's. And, like, everybody who does it is like, 36. [02:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:06:59] Speaker A: So I'm like. I think I could. May. I could. I could probably get to the point where I could do the kayak. [02:07:05] Speaker B: Think on, listeners. Tell us. Tell us all about it. [02:07:07] Speaker A: Tell us, tell us all about it. And until next week, dear Olympians, one thing you gotta do, you got to stay spooky.