Ep. 195: the london monster & the murder castle myth (w/ Hellrankers!)

[00:00:04] Speaker A: 100 years before Jack the Ripper, another series of attacks terrorized the London streets. A string of stabbings targeting primarily young and reportedly attractive women resulted in widespread moral panic and some untraditional wardrobe decisions. [00:00:23] Speaker B: Ooh. All right. You have my attention. [00:00:27] Speaker C: That's right, yeah. [00:00:28] Speaker B: So, did you hand write this, Anna? [00:00:31] Speaker A: Uh, yes. [00:00:32] Speaker B: Amazing. Perfect. Carry on. [00:00:36] Speaker C: So we're talking about the London monster today. London monster, yeah. [00:00:42] Speaker B: Doesn't ring any bells. [00:00:43] Speaker C: No. And that's interesting, because I kind of joked, like, what if we did Jack the Ripper? [00:00:48] Speaker B: Nobody real underground, like, you know, kind of eloped. [00:00:54] Speaker A: You might have heard of it. [00:00:56] Speaker B: Right. [00:00:57] Speaker C: My mind, like, did the. The file flip thing where it was like, wait a second. Jack the Ripper? I got something on that. The London monster, actually. I said the butt stabber. [00:01:06] Speaker A: That's what we're gonna get to that. I was like, okay, well, we have. [00:01:09] Speaker B: Go on. [00:01:12] Speaker C: So we're talking about late 1780s to 1790 in London. And I just wanted to set a little bit of a scene. [00:01:22] Speaker B: Please do. [00:01:23] Speaker C: Because London at this time is huge. We're talking about a million people. [00:01:27] Speaker B: Yeah, big for them. [00:01:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:28] Speaker B: At that point. [00:01:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:30] Speaker B: That's insanity. [00:01:31] Speaker C: And we're talking specifically about the city of Westminster, and it's a period directly following the american revolution. [00:01:43] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [00:01:44] Speaker C: So England is feeling like a bunch of losers. [00:01:47] Speaker B: Sure. [00:01:48] Speaker C: Duck it. Lobsters. [00:01:51] Speaker B: USA. Yeah. [00:01:53] Speaker C: USA. We're also in the georgian period of England, which. Hard to feel patriotic when a german guy became your king. [00:02:06] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:07] Speaker C: And now his third son, who is definitely dealing with mental illness at this time especially, is your king. And right across the channel, the French are beginning to revolt. [00:02:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:02:24] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:02:24] Speaker B: There was, like, a little bit going on in the world. [00:02:27] Speaker C: A little bit. It was hectic, and it's a hectic city at the time. I mean, it's loud, it's boisterous, it's. People constantly in the streets until three in the morning. [00:02:37] Speaker A: Perfect setting. Such a slate we're about to spare you. [00:02:43] Speaker C: So, yeah. So we start to hear reports of young women being slashed in the buttocks and thigh region to death. [00:02:54] Speaker B: Or, like, just kind of like. No. [00:02:56] Speaker A: So, interestingly, not a single death was reported. No deaths. But women would reportedly be on their way home at night, and then a figure would be following them and would sometimes shout obscenities at them and, like, just be kind of harassing them, and then would eventually approach them. There would be an altercation, and then at some point in the aftermath, he would end up leaving, and then they would discover that they were bleeding and. Yeah, it was generally in the derriere region or the thighs. [00:03:39] Speaker C: He was described by a lot of the attack victims as strolling way. Meaning? [00:03:45] Speaker B: Yeah, like, no. [00:03:48] Speaker A: Unbothered. [00:03:49] Speaker B: And I just say, isn't it weird? Like, I believe, Anna, you had said at one point that, you know, you're interested in being stabbed a little, just to find out what it's like. [00:03:59] Speaker A: I do wonder what it feels like. Yeah. [00:04:01] Speaker B: And it is. It's like a baffling thing, right? And this is one those things where it's like, you know, they. This guy's walking away, and then all of a sudden, people are like, am I bleeding? And it's weird how that works, you know? Like, have you ever grated your knuckle with a cheese grater before? And it's always like, you're, like, sitting there doing your thing, and then the bowl starts to fill with blood, and then all of a sudden, you're in the worst pain you've ever felt in your life. [00:04:27] Speaker C: I have had a very specific instance in which I was slashed and did not realize I had been slashed. [00:04:33] Speaker B: Please tell the class, because this is a wild story. A wild story. And I think you told this to me while we were, like, just. We were having, like, a study party or whatever, like an editing party, and you told me, and I was like, sorry. And I tried to, like, tell it to Kyo later on, and I was like, I'm sorry. I can't. I can't do this justice. [00:04:55] Speaker C: Yeah, I told this way back in the day on dead and lovely, I think when we did that to Alexander, Ajahn movie, switchblade romance, aka whatever it is. Anyway, not important. [00:05:07] Speaker A: Don't remember french. [00:05:08] Speaker C: French extreme horror. [00:05:10] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, yeah. [00:05:11] Speaker C: Anyway, so I think it's my senior year of college. I had gotten a ride with my roommate back to our place, and when we got there, we saw someone walking out of our house with a sack. [00:05:27] Speaker B: Like, if it's not Santa, this is problematic. [00:05:31] Speaker A: I don't think it's, like, one of those, like, burglars. [00:05:33] Speaker C: He may have been reversed Santa, if possible. [00:05:36] Speaker A: Yeah, the Grinch. [00:05:36] Speaker B: It's, like, literally got, like, dollar signs on it. [00:05:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:05:41] Speaker A: There's, like, some cartoonish music playing in the background. [00:05:44] Speaker C: Of course. [00:05:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:46] Speaker C: And I, being the idiot I am, I confronted him. I was like, hey, that's our stuff. Like, you'd be like, oh, I didn't realize. [00:05:57] Speaker A: My apologies, sir. I didn't know these items were claimed. [00:06:02] Speaker C: He didn't turn around. Really. He backhanded me. And then I, like, felt like I was trying to turn my head, and it wouldn't turn. Like I was going to try to punch the guy, right? And I tried to turn my head, and it didn't really turn. And my. My roommate at the time said, you're bleeding. I was like, huh. I reached up, and then my hand was covered in blood. [00:06:33] Speaker B: You guys know how I feel about necks and wrists. [00:06:37] Speaker C: The scar still shows how close he was to cutting my windpipe. Very, very close. [00:06:43] Speaker A: It's a pretty badass scar somehow. [00:06:46] Speaker B: I've actually never noticed it irl. I'm gonna have to, like, make a. [00:06:51] Speaker C: Point to look at it. [00:06:52] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:06:53] Speaker C: I had a very lovely woman who gave me all sorts of things to help me with my scar at the time, and I used it all, and it did help, obviously, but. Yeah. My experience with that, though, was he had used a very sharp blade. I didn't feel it. [00:07:08] Speaker B: He did the thing. [00:07:09] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:09] Speaker B: Where he was. He casually was, like, walked off, and. [00:07:12] Speaker C: He casually strolled away. He did. In fact. Holy shit. [00:07:17] Speaker B: Right? [00:07:18] Speaker A: Time traveler now, too. [00:07:19] Speaker C: He's still at large. [00:07:20] Speaker B: It's a time after time situation. Have you guys seen time after time? Oh, yeah. Mark did this for a video rant which Keo had actually put in the wheel. And the premise of this is that what's his face? Is it HG Wells? I think it's about HG wells. And he actually builds the time machine. [00:07:42] Speaker A: Right. [00:07:44] Speaker B: And goes to future San Francisco, like, 1970s San Francisco and what? [00:07:53] Speaker C: It's a funny premise. [00:07:54] Speaker B: I like the premise of the movie, and. But, like, jack the Ripper goes, too. [00:07:59] Speaker C: Goes to. Yes. Now he's pursuing Jack the Ripper. [00:08:05] Speaker B: It does, but it's not a ya movie. [00:08:07] Speaker A: Okay. [00:08:09] Speaker B: I'm pretty sure there's, like, I want to say it's, like, very young. Is it Mary Steenbergen in it? And, like, she. There's, like, some very strange sexual things in it and, like, yeah, it's. Malcolm McDowell is in it. And is it Donald Sutherland in it? It's worth watching. [00:08:29] Speaker C: It's just very weird to check it out. [00:08:31] Speaker B: Yeah, very weird movie. But anyway, this is what happened to the butt stabber. Obviously. HG wells built a time machine. He came, slashed you in the neck, and walked away. [00:08:40] Speaker A: He knew you were going to be talking about. [00:08:41] Speaker C: He knew I was going to reveal it. [00:08:43] Speaker A: He was just a little bit early. [00:08:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:08:47] Speaker A: So, yeah, I also going back to that, like, the pain and not knowing it until later, I don't have good interoception, you know, and so, like, I constantly have bruises on my hands. And for the longest time I was like, where are these coming from? And then the other day when I was walking at work, I was walking down a hallway, and I smacked my hand on a book cart, and I was like, oh, that's where I have these from. But, like, yeah, in the moment, I very, very rarely, like, notice that I injured myself. Yeah. So it's like, I totally get, like, you're caught up in this. You're, you know, you're bumping into each other. Like, you're so full of adrenaline. [00:09:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:09:29] Speaker A: That you don't even notice until you start to feel, like, the after effects of. [00:09:35] Speaker C: Yeah, well, and it seems from the majority of the attacks that he wasn't trying to damage them. Like, he was more trying to damage their clothes, it seems. [00:09:47] Speaker A: Or there's another. [00:09:49] Speaker C: Well, we'll get to that. We'll get to some theories as to why this man. So a lot of these attacks keep occurring for the next couple of years, including on the night of the queen's birthday. Like, five different attacks occurred. So it's ramping up, and the papers are covering it. And we get to enters a man who has particular interest in this for some reason. John Julius Angerstein. [00:10:20] Speaker A: John Julius Jingleheimer Schmidt. [00:10:23] Speaker C: Yeah. He's a Lundian. He's a businessman and an underwriter for Lloyds of London. [00:10:29] Speaker B: Okay. [00:10:30] Speaker C: He had come as an immigrant from Russia, and he. He seemed to generally have been a good guy who was trying to do positive things. He was anti slavery. He saw this going on, and he wanted a solution. He wanted. [00:10:49] Speaker B: What was his last name? [00:10:54] Speaker C: Frankenstein. But even scarier. I was going through this earlier because I can't. I can't figure out, like, I. [00:11:01] Speaker B: Where did that come? Did he change it at some point? [00:11:03] Speaker C: The likelihood is nothing. His name was John Julius Angerstein. Yeah. [00:11:07] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:08] Speaker C: Well, it's also possible because Russia at that time, you know, whenever. What's his name? Peter the Great had taken over the. The throne, he established French as the language of the court. And so it's possible that because frenchness and europeanness was more popular in Russia, more in vogue, that he may have been named John Julius Angerstein would indicate potentially that his family was jewish. [00:11:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I would imagine. [00:11:45] Speaker C: But, yeah, I'm not. Not sure. Yeah. I didn't really find a lot of history about his family. He had just kind of come. There's. There's. Loading suggestions that he was the son of Catherine II, which has been disproven. [00:11:58] Speaker B: He definitely, like, maybe a stretch, but. Okay. [00:12:03] Speaker C: And his family believes that he was. His true parents were the Empress Anna of Russia and a London businessman. So even his family doesn't know his history. [00:12:16] Speaker B: Where did this guy come from? Are they sure he's related? [00:12:19] Speaker C: Maybe a time traveler trying to stop. [00:12:22] Speaker B: He just, like, showed up on the door one day and like, I am your son. And they were like, okay. Oh, cool. [00:12:29] Speaker A: Whatever you say, guys. [00:12:31] Speaker B: Sounds good. Come have dinner. We've, you know. [00:12:34] Speaker A: So he got us in. His attempts to help may have actually made it a lot worse. [00:12:40] Speaker C: He probably did, because. Yes. He kind of. He kind of set forth this, like, hunt for the London monster, which he. [00:12:50] Speaker A: Put out a hundred pound reward. [00:12:53] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:12:53] Speaker A: For anyone that could deliver up. [00:12:56] Speaker C: And as I said, there are a lot of. There are a lot of veterans of the american revolution out there on the street with PTSD. [00:13:04] Speaker B: Yep. [00:13:05] Speaker C: And also a ton of pickpockets. And it became very advantageous to those pickpockets to say that guy's the London monster because it distracted people. [00:13:17] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:17] Speaker C: Pick your pockets. [00:13:19] Speaker B: Nice. [00:13:20] Speaker C: So monster attacks go through the roof. [00:13:24] Speaker B: Because now, so, like, people like, sorry, no, go ahead and finish that before I ask a question. [00:13:29] Speaker C: Well, that's suddenly, at the very least, claiming a monster attack makes it possible to pick some pockets. [00:13:36] Speaker B: Right. [00:13:37] Speaker C: As well. Supposedly, the monster only attacked young, attractive women. [00:13:43] Speaker B: Right? [00:13:43] Speaker A: So that's. That's now a potential for some clout chasing. [00:13:48] Speaker C: If you get put into the same echelon as these other young, attractive women who are getting all this attention. You've now been attacked by the London monster. You're older and less attractive and want to feel relevant. You could claim you were attacked by the London monster. [00:14:07] Speaker B: Oh, that's amazing. [00:14:08] Speaker C: And since the London monster never kills anybody, and largely the cuts aren't deep, you could just fake them or just pretend totally. Nobody's going to ask. [00:14:18] Speaker B: Right. Like, in the 18th century, you're going to ask a lady to see her. [00:14:25] Speaker C: Thigh, like, ma'am, we're going to need you to take off all those petticoats so we can see. [00:14:31] Speaker B: I have to put a ring on it first. That's absolutely not happening. [00:14:36] Speaker C: Yeah. So this. This really. Yeah, initiated like a kind of a boom on accident. His attempt to help end up hurting. [00:14:45] Speaker B: Right. [00:14:45] Speaker C: Um, but that's, you know, he's still pursuing. He's still trying. He is still putting it out there, trying to actually solve these cases that were kind of being ignored. Cause at the time, the police force is tiny. [00:14:56] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, he was interviewing these victims and asking, like, gathering data. [00:15:02] Speaker C: Really putting it together. [00:15:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:15:03] Speaker B: Like, and he's just some guy. Like, he's influential. But he's just some guy. [00:15:07] Speaker C: Just some dude. Yeah. [00:15:08] Speaker A: So he started taking down descriptions of, you know, from these victims. And never the same. Exactly. [00:15:17] Speaker C: They're never described the same person. [00:15:19] Speaker A: Sometimes he's described as very short. Sometimes he's described as very tall. Sometimes he's described as wearing very fine clothes. Other times he's in rags. So there's really no baseline for. That's consistent amongst all of these stories, except, like, the stabbings. But even then, it wasn't always the same type of stabbings, which is kind of atypical of a serial attacker. [00:15:44] Speaker C: Right. [00:15:45] Speaker A: Because at times, he would apparently have knives attached to his knees and would knee women in the butt. And then other times, he would apparently have, like, a bouquet of fake flowers. [00:16:00] Speaker C: A nosegay. [00:16:01] Speaker A: A nosegay that would have, you know, some type of pointed object in. In there that he would trick women into smelling and then stab, which is, again, completely different. [00:16:15] Speaker B: Totally different. Mo. [00:16:16] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:16] Speaker B: Yeah. And all seems, like, so elaborate, like. [00:16:19] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:16:20] Speaker B: Because those initial stories you were talking about seems like, very opportunistic. Like, all you'd have to do is kind of walk by with your arm down. No one would notice it, much like you do pickpocketing, you know? Well, like. [00:16:32] Speaker C: And that is one theory regarding this is that, in fact, it was just pickpockets trying. [00:16:38] Speaker B: It's just trying to get wallets out or whatever. Yeah, yeah, totally. [00:16:42] Speaker C: That makes sense. But everyone believes it's a person. One single London monster. So when Ann Porter comes along in June of 1790 and claims that she spotted her attacker, she was a. She was a victim of the London monster in St. James park. She sent her boyfriend, John Coleman, to pursue it. [00:17:07] Speaker B: Okay. [00:17:08] Speaker C: It turns out that this man was 23 year old florist Renick Williams. A Welshman. [00:17:18] Speaker B: Not a Welshman. Oh, no. [00:17:22] Speaker C: Rinnick is a florist. He makes artificial flower bouquets, uh, which people connect, of course, with the. [00:17:32] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. [00:17:33] Speaker C: Um, they. [00:17:34] Speaker B: And he's Welsh, and nobody likes them anyway, so. [00:17:37] Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah. Well, that. That's helpful. Yeah. [00:17:40] Speaker A: You know, not like. I mean. Yeah, not like not wealthy. [00:17:44] Speaker C: His father had. His father and his family had moved to London as his father had gotten a job as a chemist, you know. And then his father died five years later, and his brother took over the job. The. The position. Uh, and their family was kind of struggling a little bit. Uh, Rennick Williams had been a, uh, ballet student in the past and was now working as a florist. Uh, he worked until late into the evening, which is why he was also suspect somewhat because he was always getting off work around 01:00. [00:18:19] Speaker B: Also, everything that you've just said has said gay. [00:18:24] Speaker A: Yeah. His sexuality was definitely called for sure. Yeah. [00:18:29] Speaker B: Like, all of this stuff to me, I'm like, so you're talking about a guy that probably everyone was like, that's a deal as well. Yeah. [00:18:36] Speaker C: Well, yeah. And by the way, ballet at this time was considered deviant. We don't have to get entirely into 18th century England. [00:18:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:18:46] Speaker C: So. Yes. Yeah. [00:18:47] Speaker A: And a lot of the attacks as well had taken place in and around the area that he worked. [00:18:54] Speaker C: Right. [00:18:54] Speaker A: So not necessarily a tie, but people were definitely interpreting it that way. [00:19:01] Speaker C: And so Renew Williams is taken by John Coleman and held at the porter house until they can get a magistrate there. And they charge him with the only thing they could think to charge him with that will get him definitely executed. [00:19:22] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:19:23] Speaker C: And that is defacing clothing. [00:19:26] Speaker A: This is one of the most interesting aspects of this. [00:19:29] Speaker C: Yeah, we got. [00:19:30] Speaker B: This is, like, one of, like. It's like here with horse thievery. You know, you're just like that. That's the thing that is unforgivable. You could shoot somebody. [00:19:39] Speaker A: That's the felony. [00:19:40] Speaker B: Stealing a horse, attacking. The thing that gets to me. [00:19:42] Speaker C: Attempted murder is a misdemeanor at this point. [00:19:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:19:46] Speaker C: Defacing clothing is a felony execution. So this is because of the bloody code, which was established in the, like, early 18th century and really ramped up at this time. It had started with a list of about 50 capital offenses, and by this time, there were a. A list of 220 offenses that could get you hung. [00:20:14] Speaker B: We don't have that many now. Right. I feel like it's, like, only, like, a couple things. You know, we're still doing it, but, like. [00:20:24] Speaker C: Well, we did find profit in putting people in prison, right? [00:20:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You can put people away for anything. Like, kill them. I feel like at least, you know, we've narrowed it down to, like, two or three things. 200. [00:20:36] Speaker C: Yeah. This is 100% class oppression. Like, they're doing this exactly because they have a lot of poor and the poor overwhelming them, and they don't have a police force to beat up the. [00:20:48] Speaker A: Poor, and the poor can't afford legal representation, so they're easy targets. [00:20:54] Speaker C: And another thing, interestingly, a capital offense could get you hung, but you could go to Australia instead. [00:21:03] Speaker B: That's true. [00:21:04] Speaker C: And guess what? What's the easiest way to colonize a place when nobody wants to go there? Make them go there. [00:21:12] Speaker B: Exactly. Force them. This is as, like, a somewhat connected aside to this. On the wisecrack Patreon, we did a pod about victorian women who shoplifted. It became a huge trend or whatever. And similarly, like, poor people, if, like. Like, rich women who got caught shoplifting, of course, it's like they pathologized it, and it was like, oh, those. You know, clearly there's something wrong, and they medicated them and things like that, you know? But if you were poor. Fucking Australia. [00:21:46] Speaker C: Yep, off to Australia you go. Where again? Hey, you know, we're sending you degenerates down there. Maybe you kill everybody. [00:21:55] Speaker B: Hey. [00:21:57] Speaker C: Anyway, so they're. The setup, essentially, is we're in a city run by a madman who is worried that the poor gonna kill the rich. So what better time for a London monster to appear for slashings at the pocket level to suddenly become this individual that you can say is out there attacking women specifically? Fact is, this was happening before 1689. Happens after Rennick Williams is arrested. Happens after Rennick Williams is in jail for a long period of time. It happens after they decide Rennick Williams is, in fact, guilty, even though there's not a lot to stand on there. And we'll talk about that a little bit. But generally, it just means that they now have. They have all the reason in the world to say that their current policing isn't working. And their current policing was. Every man was supposed to take a rotation at some point throughout the year. Every two weeks. [00:23:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:23:11] Speaker C: Every guy, every single man had some. [00:23:14] Speaker B: Honestly, that couldn't be worse than how policing works now, to be honest, 100%. [00:23:18] Speaker C: Doesn'T sound as bad. Right. [00:23:21] Speaker B: There's probably more good dudes than proportionally on the police force. [00:23:26] Speaker C: So the fact was that you could contract it out, and so, okay, everyone did, and they contracted it out to the sickest people and the people with the least. [00:23:37] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. [00:23:38] Speaker C: These people had no interest in stopping a crime. When someone's offering money, so you want to get away with the crime at that time, you give that sickly old man with nothing but a. He's got. He's got a lamp and a little noise maker to let people know that a crime's happening. [00:23:54] Speaker B: I just imagined it like one of those little crank things, you know, at a ballgame. Yeah, yeah, exactly. [00:24:02] Speaker A: So, home run. [00:24:05] Speaker C: But at a little earlier in the century, around the mid. Mid century, the bow street runners had been formed in Westminster, and they were a salaried police force, but they were really small. And so you can see how if you were an insurer, an underwriter for Lords of London, and you really thought that the way to stop crime was to have people on the street beating up the poor. You might offer a $100 reward for this enigmatic London monster. [00:24:40] Speaker B: Right. [00:24:41] Speaker C: So Rennick Williams comes along and he's a perfect scapegoat. Importer and John Coleman and importer sister, all, you know, identify, identify him. They bring in like for the, for the trial, they had like twelve different witnesses. Five of the twelve said it wasn't him, but the other seven said it definitely was, even though it didn't match with most of their descriptions. [00:25:08] Speaker A: And all of his co workers and the foreman from where he works. [00:25:12] Speaker C: Yeah, there were all for him. [00:25:14] Speaker A: And said, no, he definitely was at work this night. That you're saying this until this time, that was after when the attack happened. [00:25:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:25:22] Speaker A: And his, his, like some of his co workers like vouched for his character, which we is kind of in question because other people's people in his life who said that he actually was very forward with women and would make them uncomfortable in the streets pursuing them, that's not the same thing or necessarily an indication that he's attacking them, but. [00:25:49] Speaker B: Right. It doesn't have to be a good guy to not be stabbing. [00:25:52] Speaker A: Exactly. [00:25:52] Speaker C: Yeah. So yeah, when we come down to his character and his treatment of women, he definitely, like, there was story told that he had called Ann Porter a whore in the street before and perhaps that is what drove her to maybe make the false claim that he did it. Now again, I'm not saying it's an entirely false claim because again, when he was in prison, the attacks seem to have slowed down. But of course, reporting of the attacks was to catch a monster and they've caught the monster, so why keep reporting? Also, if now the monster's in jail and you want to, you know, get your popularity, you can no longer say, well, the monster attacked me because now it's unpopular to get attacked by the monster because he's in jail. [00:26:36] Speaker A: And if you're like a supposed copycat. [00:26:40] Speaker C: Oh, yes. [00:26:41] Speaker A: If that were going on, then it's kind of like, well, I'm going to tell on myself. Now if everyone thinks he's locked away. So if this continues, then it's like clearly, you know. [00:26:53] Speaker C: Right, right. And so, yeah, he's, he's arrested and the mobs stay outside the jail and courthouse for the entire time. They are howling for his blood. They want him hung. [00:27:06] Speaker B: And he didn't even kill anybody. Like, even if he did what he was accused of. [00:27:11] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:12] Speaker B: You know, like there are crowds outside because this guy may have stabbed some butts shallow. [00:27:19] Speaker A: So, yeah, like, I, you know, and like, women were so afraid of this happening to them. Like, I alluded to this earlier wardrobe change. I mean, women were walking around. Wealthy women were walking around with cork rumps. [00:27:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Big fake bugs or copper petticoats to try to prevent this from happening. And, you know, poorer women didn't have those resources, so sometimes it resorts to just putting pots, like porridge pots. [00:27:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:27:52] Speaker A: You know, in their. I, you know, clothing to try to prevent. [00:27:58] Speaker B: Yeah. You see that with, like, was it the night stalker that women did that with? Or was it Golden State kill at night stalker? I think it was, you know, and that was the same thing. It was like, oh, he liked a certain kind of woman. So women like, dyed their hair, cut it, like, wore it different ways and stuff like that. Like, made their entire look around trying not to get murdered by the night stalker. [00:28:20] Speaker A: Imagine this was all a big plot. A plot of like, big cork rump. [00:28:25] Speaker C: Big cork rumps. And he was like, business. [00:28:29] Speaker A: Do you think you could like, go into a shop and like, pick out, like. [00:28:32] Speaker B: Yeah. Now you raise a very interesting question. Like, who was. Where was the market? Did someone like, pop up on the street corner with that in the first place? Or, like, were women at all like buying cork and like, shaping it into. [00:28:44] Speaker A: Shaping it? Yeah, like, let's. Let me sculpt this. [00:28:48] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:28:48] Speaker B: I mean, what else did they have to do? If you were like, privileged enough to be worried about this, then maybe you're at home making cork butts for you. [00:28:58] Speaker C: Having low party fashion decisions become a fad too. Like, you know, the fact that, like, everybody's doing this, like, if you aren't doing it, you're saying what you're putting out there. Like, I don't think I'm young and attractive. [00:29:11] Speaker B: Right. [00:29:12] Speaker C: So if you're not wearing the cork butt or putting a porridge pot on your butt to make sure you don't get a slash, you're obviously down on yourself. Everybody else, what's wrong with her? [00:29:23] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, the fashion and. [00:29:25] Speaker C: Yeah, so the, the trial is a sham. The, they send the jury back, they almost immediately return with a guilty verdict. And this is then sent to a, you know, tribunal of twelve judges who look at it and say, no, like, this is, this is a miscarriage of justice. Like, he may have done it, but like, this, this is obviously the wrong charge. [00:29:53] Speaker A: Right. [00:29:53] Speaker B: Yes. [00:29:53] Speaker A: The clothing aspect, that's ridiculous. [00:29:56] Speaker C: Yeah. So they. [00:29:58] Speaker B: He just stabbed people. He wasn't trying to rip anybody's clothes. [00:30:03] Speaker C: Right. [00:30:03] Speaker A: To ruin people's wardrobe. How dare you say this about this man? [00:30:10] Speaker C: And also at this time, an irish poet named Theophilus Swift wrote, great name, basically a conspiracy pamphlet where he, he laid out, like, this conspiracy against Frank Williams and that Ann Porter and John Coleman were after the reward money. And Theophilus Swift then became his lawyer on the retrial. Bad choice. Yeah, bad choice. He, he, of course, was able to, with his, with his pamphlet, he was able to rile up public sentiment, but in court, he doesn't know what he's doing. [00:30:49] Speaker B: Not the same thing. Yeah. Right. [00:30:51] Speaker C: Yeah. So he, he goes hard at and turn our importer, and then it is revealed that importer didn't take the reward. [00:31:03] Speaker A: She didn't. She did not take the reward. [00:31:05] Speaker B: Really got to make sure that that little detail is. [00:31:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Seems devastating. [00:31:11] Speaker A: However, however, John Coleman, he did take their reward. [00:31:17] Speaker C: Then they got married, and very shortly. [00:31:19] Speaker A: After, so, and, and she had said in court that they were just friends. There was no connection there. But he did take the money. And sure, they eventually got married. [00:31:31] Speaker B: Yeah. That, like, honestly is like, straight out of a story from that era in England, you know, like 18th century novel. Right. It's like Kenzian. It's like, you know, the, what was the new, like, Willy wonka movie with Timothy chalamet? Like, you know, it's like all those kinds of things where it's like all these people come together and, like, conspire. [00:31:54] Speaker A: Right. [00:31:54] Speaker B: Yeah. You just know they're, like, singing little songs and cockney accents about it. [00:31:59] Speaker C: Of course. [00:32:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:32:03] Speaker C: So Williams eventually is convicted on three counts. They're not hanging offenses. Uh, he gets two years for each, a total of six years in prison, and he's released six years later, never. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Really to be heard of again. [00:32:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Just kind of, you know, serves his time and moves on his life now. [00:32:25] Speaker B: Right. [00:32:26] Speaker C: This is interesting because the attacks supposedly stopped, but they don't, they don't like, this is still happening. It's just that the furor around it, the, the idea that you could gain popularity by being attacked by the London monster is gone, so nobody talks about it anymore. [00:32:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's not advantageous from, like, a societal perspective. [00:32:54] Speaker C: Right. Yeah. [00:32:57] Speaker B: Like, there's a point where it's like, okay, we've found the guy, whether we have or nothing. Let's calm it all down. Yeah. [00:33:07] Speaker C: If you got attacked, no, you didn't. [00:33:09] Speaker A: That's very, like, how, which is Halloween kills, you know, like, the idea of, like, pinning, like, just grabbing any random person and say, because you just want us to be over yeah, right. And it's like you say, this is the guy. We got the guy. It's done. It's like the equip, like the adult equivalent of, like, covering your eyes and saying, yeah, see me anymore. [00:33:30] Speaker C: Right. [00:33:31] Speaker A: You know? [00:33:31] Speaker B: Exactly. [00:33:32] Speaker C: So the underlying issue doesn't go away, of course, and continues well into the early 19th century, and, of course, is eventually going to be solved somewhat by improvements in the economic situation in England during victorian era. But it's, you know, still likely that attacks like this continued to happen because the large possibilities, they were just trying to pick their pocket. [00:34:04] Speaker B: They were just completely makes sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:34:08] Speaker A: It also spawned this kind of interesting phenomenon where men were, like, would wear these badges that said, no monster. Like, no monster club. They were part of this. Like, they're like, my no monster t. [00:34:22] Speaker B: Shirt is raising a lot of questions already answered by. [00:34:25] Speaker C: Exactly. Yes. They're so. Like, they're virtues signaling their pick me boys. They're like, I never stabbed. [00:34:32] Speaker B: I'm one of the good ones. Jesus Christ. [00:34:37] Speaker C: We're not the monster squad. [00:34:40] Speaker A: Right. That's amazing. Another, like, idea, or I guess, theory of, like, what this guy was doing, this guy, this nebulous idea of this monster, was that he had this inclination, I guess, called picarism. [00:35:01] Speaker C: Yeah, it's a paraphilia. [00:35:03] Speaker A: Yeah. So that's, you know, that's something that's been discussed. If he was actually getting, like, some type of sexual pleasure from penetrating the skin of these women. [00:35:16] Speaker C: The reason that people have kind of come to that conclusion, one is because early critical analysis, psychoanalysis was, like, one of the ways to go. Probably trying to do it because of sex. [00:35:28] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's definitely sex. It all comes back around. [00:35:30] Speaker C: Yeah. But, yeah, it would basically, the reason they primarily think that is because once he had penetrated them, he just walked away. [00:35:38] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:39] Speaker A: So he's got this pent up energy. He gets it out, he leaves, you know, but I mean, I. I don't think that's. I mean, you know, it's so. It's really funny. Like, in some of those resources that we were looking at, like, they really came to, like, that conclusion that that was very, very likely. And I want us looking at, especially, like, all the research Stephen did. Like, well, yeah, I'm gonna read. [00:36:03] Speaker C: I'm gonna do a marxist reading. Always conditions support the idea that, in fact, there was no London monster. [00:36:13] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. [00:36:14] Speaker A: It's not sexual deviancy. It's nothing. [00:36:17] Speaker C: Right. [00:36:17] Speaker A: You know, this underlying, like, seedy underbelly of a city that needs to be tamed. [00:36:23] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:36:25] Speaker A: Money. [00:36:26] Speaker C: Yeah. City with vast wealth inequality and wealthy people who want a police force to keep the poor down. And, in fact, they'll get it. [00:36:35] Speaker B: Right. And it works. [00:36:36] Speaker C: Yeah, and it works. And later, we'll see it. The same with Spring Hill, Jack and Jack the Ripper. I mean, we know Jack the Ripper definitely existed. We do know that. But the use of their crimes as a way to increase policing, the idea that you need more police, more policing, and that will stop it somehow. Right. Well, also sort of stop talking about it in the press, and boom, it's gone. [00:37:01] Speaker B: And putting it on, you know, like, the poor people and all of that as well. Like, the issue is Whitechapel. It's all the horrors in Whitechapel and all that kind of stuff. [00:37:11] Speaker C: I mean, and we're talking 4 miles away from Whitechapel 100 years earlier, like this still, like. Like, at the time, that saying that this is happening where it's happening is a threat to a lot of rich people. [00:37:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:37:26] Speaker C: Later, when you say it's happening in Whitechapel, it reinforces the idea that the poor are degenerate. [00:37:32] Speaker B: Right. [00:37:33] Speaker C: Man. And, of course, there are theories about. We don't have to get into Jack the river, but there are theories about Jack the river being a nobleman and doing that specifically because, you know, he was a poor area and he'd never be suspected of ever being there. [00:37:47] Speaker B: Exactly. There's even, like, a prince who is suspected of being Jack the Ripper. Yeah. It's really interesting, but it all kind of does come back to that. The poor as contagion, the poor as something that needs to be managed and contained and these kinds of things happening amongst them and targeted at the wealthy in this case, too, like, the people young and hot and. [00:38:14] Speaker A: Relevance. [00:38:15] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:38:16] Speaker A: And desired, you know, I mean, almost. [00:38:18] Speaker C: Always, you can say, look what they're doing to your daughters and whatever it is. [00:38:25] Speaker B: Just like that. Yeah. [00:38:26] Speaker A: And we know that wealthy white women lie about being attacked. You know, like, that's. [00:38:33] Speaker B: With horrendous consequences. [00:38:35] Speaker C: Very horrendous consequences. [00:38:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:38:38] Speaker C: Terribly horrendous consequences. And, yeah, I mean, at this time. [00:38:42] Speaker A: Pin it on a guy who may or may not be gay. [00:38:45] Speaker C: There was a lot of safety in that, too. Like, in that, like, claiming that you were attacked, you didn't even have to show proof. [00:38:52] Speaker B: Right. [00:38:53] Speaker C: Like, because that would. It would be. It would be inappropriate to ask for proof. [00:38:57] Speaker B: Mm hmm. [00:38:58] Speaker C: Yeah. But, yeah, I think. I think Rennick Williams, from what we, you know, heard from what you, like, read from what his brother says and from what other people said about him. He was a dick. [00:39:10] Speaker B: Yeah, right? Yeah. [00:39:12] Speaker C: Absolute dick to him. Nobody likes would have been abusive in a relationship. Yeah, he is really unlikely he was going around slashing butts. [00:39:22] Speaker A: Mmm. [00:39:23] Speaker B: Interesting. I love it. I love this. And I think we should bring back the cork butt. [00:39:29] Speaker C: I think so. [00:39:31] Speaker B: Instead of the bbls and all that. [00:39:33] Speaker A: Let's do this low tech, you know, it's customizable. [00:39:38] Speaker B: You know, it's comfy. It's a built in sit upon. [00:39:41] Speaker A: It's, like, also doubles as a bulletin board, you know? [00:39:45] Speaker B: Okay. [00:39:45] Speaker A: Hey, instead of, like, the juicy on the butt, now we can just, like, tack whatever you want. Here's my grocery list. [00:39:56] Speaker B: We're on to something here. Yeah. And on top of it, you won't get stabbed in the booty. We're in the business of solving problems here. [00:40:05] Speaker A: Absolutely. [00:40:07] Speaker B: Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. Yes, please do. Fucking look at these nerds. [00:40:13] Speaker C: Oh, mise en scene. [00:40:15] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said mise en scene in such a horny way before. The way I whispered the word sex. [00:40:20] Speaker C: Cannibal received. [00:40:21] Speaker B: Worst comes to worst, Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:40:25] Speaker C: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. [00:40:27] Speaker B: It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm fucking. I'm gonna leg it. You know how I feel about that, Mark. I think you feel great about it. Thank you for bringing that to your friends. Thank you. [00:40:39] Speaker A: Steven, you did the vast majority of the work on that. [00:40:43] Speaker C: Yeah, that. Actually, I had run across that when I was researching monstrosity and, like, monster theory in graphics. [00:40:51] Speaker B: Amazing. [00:40:52] Speaker C: Yeah. Because, like, you know, up to that point, monster indicated, like, a. Like a deformation in a birth, oftentimes. So it was like a two headed calf or something was a monster. But it wasn't necessarily a monster in the sense of like, oh, no. But monster in the sense that it didn't. It demonstrates the evils that can occur in consummation or even as a woman is giving birth, if she sees a picture, it can turn the baby into a goat head or something. [00:41:29] Speaker B: Or in the case of our state cryptid, the Jersey devil misses lead curses because she's had too many kids and she's pissed about it. And then she's like, let this one be a devil. And then it transforms into a weird thing and eats all other kids, flies you up into the pine barrens. [00:41:48] Speaker A: It's crazy how, like, that just doesn't happen anymore, you know? [00:41:51] Speaker B: It's so weird, right? [00:41:52] Speaker C: Like, somebody should try it out there when you're about to give birth. Just yell, like, let this be a devil. [00:41:59] Speaker B: Just see what the fuck happens. Right. It is interesting, though, that, like, you know, it's not quite the same thing as, like, the changeling child. Right. The deformities brought as monstrosity or whatever. But just on that note, I do think it is incredible. Um, I've probably brought this up before, but one of my favorite pieces of, like, folklore knowledge, I said this on blue sky, and it, like, everyone went bananas. That the chupacabra is new. [00:42:29] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:42:29] Speaker B: And that we have only had the chupacabra for, like, 30 years now. [00:42:34] Speaker C: Right. [00:42:34] Speaker B: Uh, and it's, like, inspired by species. [00:42:37] Speaker C: Right? [00:42:37] Speaker B: Inspired by species, right. Like, some lady watch species had, like. [00:42:42] Speaker C: A weird about it being sucking goats. [00:42:45] Speaker B: It's crazy. It's bananas. And lived in an area where people's, like, livestock were probably getting picked off by, like, wolves or whatever, you know, something very normal. But then everyone started being like, no, it's definitely the chupacabra. And within, like, a year or like, a year and a half, there was an X Files about it. [00:43:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:43:03] Speaker A: It was the first thing I thought of when you brought up the chupacabra was that episode. [00:43:08] Speaker B: Right, yeah, yeah. And it's like, right after this, Korea. I thought that because it's sort of considered, like, a southwest United States kind of thing in, like, you know, Mexico region. And so I had moved from Massachusetts to California, and I just assumed that I had never heard of the chupacabra because I was from the other side of the country. I was like, oh, this has clearly been around forever, and I'm only just. Just now hearing of it because I lived somewhere else. And it is wild to me because, like you said, we, like, now we kind of. We understand why babies are born deformed and things like that. We don't get a lot of new cryptids. [00:43:51] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:52] Speaker B: And it's, like, very fun that we got, like, a new one in the nineties. Yeah. Creepypasta's close. [00:43:57] Speaker C: The closest we're getting to new cryptids. [00:44:00] Speaker A: But, like, it's so interesting, though, how quickly the turnover, like, how quick the turnover is of forgetting the origin of a story. [00:44:06] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. Like, you watch text files. [00:44:11] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:13] Speaker A: And then it's like, oh, this has just always existed in our reality. And so we just assume that, like, people have known about things for a long time or whatever, when. When we don't have all of those pieces. [00:44:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:26] Speaker A: So, yeah, I mean, this is what. [00:44:28] Speaker B: Makes folklore so interesting. It was a field that I considered going into in my, like, academic life, but, like, because there's just so much to that. You know, there's, like, the meanings behind it and those ways in which, like, you see how people process things. Even when you go up to, like, what obviously I came on dead and lovely and talked about with, like, the mothman is, like, people processing 200 years of tragedy in an impoverished mining area of West Virginia through, you know, the cornstalk curse through the Mothman. You know, these things were beliefs that they had in order to deal with the fact that a lot of really horrible things happened there, especially that silver bridge collapse and all those people dying and that cutting off economically point pleasant from everything and thus plunging that place into economic depression. The mothman's way of dealing with that. Right. [00:45:27] Speaker A: Yeah. It's really upsetting to not have a reason. Like, it's really upsetting to just accept that bad things happen and there's nothing that we can do about it and there's nothing. No one that we can blame and there's nothing that we can do to prevent it. You know, it's. It's so much easier, I think, to accept that, oh, some someone or something did this to us, and now we have a target for all of these emotions that we're feeling. [00:45:52] Speaker C: Yeah. You know, that's the source of tons of conspiracy. [00:45:55] Speaker B: I was just gonna say the same thing. Yeah. [00:45:56] Speaker C: Yeah. It's just always like, how can we take control of this? If we can. If we can put, like, defining limits, in fact, that it's. It is psychologically what you're doing is exactly right. Because the monster patrols the borders of definition. Monster is not definable. That's the problem. If you can't define it, you're. All you can feel is fear. [00:46:21] Speaker B: Yes. [00:46:21] Speaker C: So defining it is part of controlling it, defining it, making it a thing. Making it. It's. Now it's a mothman. [00:46:28] Speaker B: Right? I can face a mothman. [00:46:30] Speaker C: The problems is a mothman. Yeah. [00:46:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:46:33] Speaker B: Right. I can't tackle structural inequalities and problems of infrastructure. [00:46:38] Speaker C: But the London monster is something I can stop. [00:46:41] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. I can. [00:46:43] Speaker A: I can wear copper. [00:46:45] Speaker B: Yeah. Cover myself in copper. [00:46:47] Speaker A: And now I feel like I'm doing something. [00:46:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:46:50] Speaker A: Like, it's just like that feeling of inaction or helplessness, you know, is. Is consuming. And so, yeah, I totally understand, like, that mindset. And I'm sure, like, I've done that as well, you know? Like. [00:47:00] Speaker B: Right. [00:47:01] Speaker A: You know? [00:47:01] Speaker B: So, yeah, I think that's the thing, is that we all have to recognize that we do it right. And that is kind of that line between where, like, conspiracy comes in. Like, do either of you listen to behind the bastards? [00:47:14] Speaker C: Oh, yeah, I've listened. [00:47:15] Speaker A: I keep meaning to. I haven't yet. Didn't they talk about. [00:47:21] Speaker B: Yeah, they did. [00:47:21] Speaker A: A. I think that's why I was like, yeah, I really wanted to listen to that series. Yeah. [00:47:26] Speaker B: So I. Well, they, like, two, three weeks ago, finished a four part RFK junior series, which is fucking wild on so many different levels. Like, the guy is, like, the perfect intersection of, like, total weirdo, like, mild sociopath and, like, extreme rich person bubble, so that, like, his entire life is either the weirdest thing you've ever heard or the most evil thing you've ever heard, and, like, every now and again, those things intersect. [00:48:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:07] Speaker B: But, you know, that's. He was obviously one of the, like, forefront people of, like, anti vax stuff and still is. Like, he is very much about that. And that's like, that same kind of thing where it's like, when all of this shit is going wrong, and if you're a Kennedy and you're one of the only ones that no horrendous tragedy has befallen you while everyone else around you dies and has horrible things happen to them, it's like he thinks because he has maintained a certain kind of healthy lifestyle and because he doesn't let vaccines touch him and because he, you know, runs and takes his steroids every day and all that, that, like, this is why he is the surviving Kennedy. And so you just have to, like, live like that and you outrun fate in that way. And that's kind of like. It's just such a. He is such a clear little microcosm of how conspiracy works. Right. Like, you get why when you come from a family that seems cursed. Yeah. [00:49:13] Speaker A: It's a desperate ploy for control. [00:49:15] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:49:16] Speaker A: In any way that you can possibly, you know, try to do, like, 100%. [00:49:21] Speaker C: To be in the family of one former president and very likely other president. [00:49:30] Speaker B: Yes. [00:49:30] Speaker C: Very much to be talking about the elites. What the fuck are you talking about, guy? [00:49:37] Speaker B: Self awareness is not his strong suit, except in some ways it is, which is like, again, he's such a strange character. [00:49:45] Speaker C: Weird person. [00:49:46] Speaker B: Yeah. In running for president, it's like all the things that normally kind of, like, sideline or, like, waylay a presidential campaign. Right? Like, coming out that, like, he's, like, sexually harassed people and stuff like that. His. Like, where others would try to, like, deny it or things like that. He's like, yeah, no, I'm. I totally did that. I'm sorry. I have a lot of skeletons in my closet. You would not believe the skeletons I have in my closet. There's an arm in his fucking pool from Poltergeist. You know, like, that's. He's like, yeah, totally. And so he has, like, these weird. But, like, I don't. Maybe self aware is the wrong word because if he were self aware, he probably wouldn't say that. It's just unfiltered, I guess, right? [00:50:31] Speaker C: Yeah, no filter. Yeah. The brain worm ate his filter. [00:50:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And he just doesn't have that sense as a rich person because everything has gone right for him. That, like, you shouldn't say something like that. You shouldn't just be like, oh, yeah, no, I definitely did grope the babysitter. Probably shouldn't have done that. My bad. There's more of that if you did. [00:50:55] Speaker C: I found a dead bear cub and I thought, wouldn't it be a lark to take it to Central park and leave it there? Haha. Did you get my right, guys? [00:51:04] Speaker B: Did you guys watch the video of him telling that story? No, I had only read it. And then when you watch the video, it's somehow even more unhinged because he's sitting in, like, roseanne barr's kitchen. [00:51:18] Speaker C: Oh, God. What? [00:51:19] Speaker B: She's walking around, like, doing things, and then she's kind of stopped and she's like, leaning on a chair listening to him sitting there, like. And I, you know, I just thought it would be very funny. So bizarre. Like, even Roseanne, one of the most unhinged humans on earth, is looking like, why are you telling me this story? Like, it came out of nowhere. There's no reason you should be saying. [00:51:47] Speaker C: We weren't, like, talking about bear cogs. [00:51:49] Speaker B: Or discussing this at all. And, yeah, it's just so bizarre because he, like, he talks about how he had done this whole thing or whatever, and then it came out in the newspaper or whatever, and then he was like, oh, shit. I, what you think was going, why did you stage it as a dead bear riding a bicycle or just fucking crazy? Like, what? Or that it got hit. That was a funny thing was that it got hit by a bicycle. Not even like it would have been funny if it was like he tried to pull a circus bear thing or something like that. But, like, what's the joke of someone hit a bear with a bicycle and left the bike? However, there is a great story in the behind the Bastards episode where he talks about how the Kennedys kind of like processed death and how largely, hugely unhealthy ways, drugs and alcohol and all kinds of things did not end well for 90% of them, but some kind of funny and healthy ways, including the RFK and his cousins, would go, and when cars were sort of slowly moving by, they would hit the back of the car, and then one of them would jump in front of the car, and then they would pretend that the kid had been killed, and they'd run up to the driver and go, you killed another Kennedy. [00:53:18] Speaker A: That's honestly kind of iconic. That is kind of iconic. I am not going to lie. [00:53:24] Speaker B: It's so fucked up and that's so funny. [00:53:26] Speaker A: And that's the shit that your pants would immediately. [00:53:30] Speaker B: Oh, my God. I just chappaquiddick to Kennedy. What do you do? [00:53:36] Speaker C: I'm not gonna get away with it, right? [00:53:40] Speaker B: It is incredible. So, you know, listen, he's a giant asshole and always has been, but that, you know, gotta hand it to him. It's kind of. Maybe this is a you don't have to ever hand it to Isis kind of thing, but I'm gonna give him this one. I'm gonna give it to him anyways. Friends. Hi. [00:54:03] Speaker A: Hi. [00:54:04] Speaker B: Welcome. [00:54:05] Speaker A: Thank you for having us. [00:54:08] Speaker B: Friends, in case you didn't know already, if somehow you are a listener to this podcast, but nothing to the podcast in the Dead and lovely podcast o Matic universe that's right here today, we have my dear friends, Hollywood Steve and Anna Martin. [00:54:28] Speaker A: Hi. [00:54:28] Speaker B: I feel like we need, like, a better Anna Martin name than this. Not that Anna Martin isn't a great name. [00:54:33] Speaker A: It's like, obviously. Yeah, that's right. [00:54:36] Speaker B: You talk about this, right? Your pal. Yeah, I don't know. I'm your pal, which I like. [00:54:41] Speaker A: I like gender neutral, you know? Nice. [00:54:46] Speaker B: My blue sky name is your friend Corrigan, so it makes me feel like. [00:54:49] Speaker C: We'Re like, there we go. [00:54:50] Speaker B: Related. [00:54:51] Speaker C: There we go. [00:54:52] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:54:53] Speaker B: Into it. But anyways, Hollywood Steve, of course, formerly of the Dead and Lovely podcast, Anna, you know of the Jack of All Graves podcast, right? For a period last year. Yeah. Around this time. [00:55:09] Speaker A: Around this time last year, yeah. [00:55:11] Speaker B: Yes. And now of the joint Hellrankers podcast. [00:55:20] Speaker A: We'Re recording our second main feed episode of Hellrankers tomorrow. [00:55:27] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:55:28] Speaker B: What are we watching? [00:55:30] Speaker A: Mad. [00:55:31] Speaker C: Mad Max. Yeah, we did all the mad, right? [00:55:34] Speaker B: Yes. I normally kind of. I reason them out based on Anna's letterboxd activity. [00:55:40] Speaker C: Okay. [00:55:40] Speaker A: I have wondered if I should, like, not rate the movies that we cover on Letterboxd, but I feel like I would be like, yeah, it would be like I would be twitching constantly. [00:55:51] Speaker C: We have talked about. [00:55:52] Speaker A: So I feel like it's just like a little sneak peek for the few people that listen that do follow me on letterbox, and then you can hear me elaborate, you know, so. [00:55:59] Speaker B: Right. [00:55:59] Speaker C: We're also unveiling the new Hellrankers theme by obscure bulgarian bandaid and blush found on Fiverr. [00:56:09] Speaker B: I love that so much. [00:56:11] Speaker A: A couple theme songs for you. [00:56:13] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:56:13] Speaker B: The rap. For those of you that don't know, the premise of hell rankers comes from formerly the Patreon exclusive from Dead and Lovely, which is Anna here cannot simply watch one movie in a series. They must watch all of the movies, no matter what the quality or how many there are. And so as such. And I believe you said this started with Leprechaun, right? This started with one of our watch alongs. [00:56:45] Speaker A: It started because of joag. Yes. Hellrankers exists because Joe ag exists. [00:56:51] Speaker B: That helps me to not feel so sorry about the fact that you watched all of those leprechaun movies so that. [00:56:57] Speaker C: We could watch something good came out of it. [00:56:58] Speaker B: Yeah, leprechaun in the hood or whatever we watched. [00:57:00] Speaker A: Yeah, it was in the hood. Yes. Which is fifth or 6th series. And I was like, well, there's no way in hell that I am gonna jump in, in the middle. [00:57:12] Speaker B: Come on, stop. [00:57:15] Speaker A: At that point, if I have watched five movies and there's more, why would I just be like, fuck it, I'm like this. I am in this hood. [00:57:27] Speaker B: You gotta find out the sunk cost podcast. [00:57:30] Speaker C: Yeah. 100% Hellrakers is a sunk cost. [00:57:35] Speaker A: Hey, listen, I. Okay, some of my favorite leprechaun movies are in the second half of the. [00:57:42] Speaker C: Series, which is the best, right? Leprechaun. [00:57:47] Speaker A: I mean, let's not give away everything. I'm sure we're gonna cover this again. [00:57:50] Speaker B: Yeah. You'll come back to it at some point. [00:57:52] Speaker A: Listen, I. You know. [00:57:54] Speaker C: Yeah, that's the thing. [00:57:55] Speaker A: You never know. When is it? It might get good. It might. And sometimes it does. [00:57:59] Speaker C: We might. We're actually taking all the Patreon episodes that we did and putting them on the hell Rankers Patreon. [00:58:07] Speaker B: Oh, nice. [00:58:08] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:11] Speaker C: Yeah. And it'll be fun to, I imagine to listen because we just did hellraiser and we did it back in the day. It would be fun to listen. What changed? [00:58:22] Speaker A: Compare, have you guys. [00:58:23] Speaker B: Compared to what changed yourself? [00:58:26] Speaker A: I can't bear to listen to myself. So I had intended to go through all of the old episodes and take some notes and do some stuff. And then I was like, you know, what if I didn't do that? [00:58:37] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:58:37] Speaker A: What if I just didn't make myself do that? [00:58:40] Speaker B: Yeah. The mark method, we never revisit. This is the way to go. I get that. I am like, I feel like, steve, you probably have this where it's like, when you are the one who edits it. I'm immune to my own voice. Words, stupid things. [00:58:56] Speaker C: It doesn't bother me in the least bit anymore. Yeah. I used to have the same issue before I started editing, and now it's just like, oh, that's just my voice. That's what it sounds like. [00:59:04] Speaker B: I basically tune me out. Yeah, I am completely. I know what my, my tics are and all of those kinds of things, and I just have to, yeah, release it into the universe or I will go crazy. [00:59:17] Speaker A: Nobody notices it. [00:59:19] Speaker C: No. [00:59:20] Speaker A: Like, you notice it yourself, you know. [00:59:23] Speaker C: Because people like your podcast and you're like, really? Even though I say, um, all the. [00:59:26] Speaker B: Time or they think it's a funny quirk, you know? [00:59:29] Speaker A: Yeah, endearing. Yeah. [00:59:30] Speaker B: My, my famous. I feel great about. That was a thing I did not know that I said all the time, but there was a bar back at the local pub that I went to all the time, and he said something to me, and I was about to say, I feel great about that, and he went, you feel great about that? [00:59:45] Speaker A: I was like, I love it. That's so cute. [00:59:52] Speaker B: Now, hold on. Do I say that all the time? I feel great about a lot of things. [00:59:57] Speaker A: That's so wonderful, though, of all things. [01:00:01] Speaker B: It's like, at least it's not something, like, horrendously negative. I just am constantly super positive about the things that are occurring around me. [01:00:09] Speaker C: That's the person who feels great about things. That's a good thing to be thought about. [01:00:13] Speaker B: Heaven forbidden. The thing that I think is that I always worry about with listening back to things is that we all know. We retell the same stories over and over again. And I feel like I'm like, oh, no, I don't want to listen back and know how often I do that. And when nobody ever brings it up, when they. Sometimes people say, oh, you revisited this, or whatever, because people will binge past episodes. And I'm always like, oh, no, they're probably just sitting there like, yeah, they've told this story a thousand times. [01:00:48] Speaker A: Never once had that thought cross my mind. [01:00:51] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:00:52] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:00:52] Speaker B: Because nobody remembers any, like, no. I have one friend who listens to this sometime. Dear Melanie in New Zealand. She follows from. She was an electric fan, cave listener back in the day and is followed here. But she has a mind like a steel trap. [01:01:06] Speaker C: Uh oh. [01:01:06] Speaker B: And she will remember. She'll be like, oh, in episode three of this, you said this, this and this. And I'm like, if there are other melanies out there, they know that telling the story. But it was so validating listening to. And I'm going to talk about this, actually, but I was listening to last update on the left, so I got serious radio because they were running a promotion where for a year, you get it for $3.99 a month. And I was like, I like, serious $3.99 a month's worth. I'm not going to renew it at the end of that when it goes up to, like, $27 a month. But for $3.99 a month, sure, I will pay for this so I can listen to the last update on the left. And there was a part on there they had Harold Schechter, true crime author Harold Schechter on there this week. And he started saying, he goes, I read something about how. And he starts to tell this thing, and then Marcus is like, that's from your book. He was like, oh, okay. He had no recollection of this. And then they started talking about how, like, they're like, it's okay. We do this all the time. Like, apparently we did the exact same bit about the car Casey Anthony drives. Both times that we talked about Casey Anthony on this podcast, like, we'd just completely forgotten and done the same thing. I was like, okay. It's validating that people who, like, have, like, multimillion dollar podcast networks do the same shit that my dumbass does on us. [01:02:40] Speaker A: Now, citing myself, I read somewhere, yeah, that's awesome. And a great flexibility. [01:02:48] Speaker C: If you find it, pick it up. [01:02:52] Speaker B: Well. And his other thing, I was like, this is super relatable as well. I'm like, I don't know if Harold Schechter's ADHD team, but he was like, once I write something, it's gone. It's like I've moved on to the next thing, and that is no longer a part of me. [01:03:04] Speaker A: I feel that hardcore. Yeah. [01:03:07] Speaker B: Yes, extremely. So when people bring things up, like, when people relisten to the podcast and they bring up something that we talked about, I'm like, this is new to me. [01:03:18] Speaker A: What I said is none of my business. [01:03:20] Speaker C: Yeah, I should probably listen to dead and lovely. Like, I have 400 episodes. Whoa. What were we talking about? [01:03:27] Speaker A: I start, I'm not gonna lie. I did start like, at the beginning, I'm just, like, listening through again because I don't know what the fuck to listen to right now. [01:03:35] Speaker B: It's like, it's always new. Like, every now and again, I'm like, did I listen to this one? And then I'm like, there will be a line somewhere in it that I go, oh, yeah, right. Yeah, I did listen to this one, but it's still. It's still new. So anyways, hellrankers, check that out. Also, you know, obviously, you guys only can binge something like that so many times. That's once a month. And then every Tuesday, you. [01:04:02] Speaker C: We cover a movie that has bad ratings on Rotten Tomatoes. [01:04:07] Speaker A: Trash Tuesday, which also has a really bitchin theme. [01:04:12] Speaker C: Oh, my God, it's big. It's hot. My head. [01:04:14] Speaker A: We walk around, just be like, trash, trash. [01:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah. So good. [01:04:22] Speaker A: Yeah, we're gonna be doing. I guess we haven't decided what we're doing for the next. [01:04:27] Speaker C: Yeah, we're definitely gonna be letting patrons pick in the future, but so far we've done ghost Shark, which is ten out of ten, not trash. [01:04:39] Speaker B: Don't know what they're talking about. Let me tell you, the journey for me has really been something with this podcast. [01:04:46] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:04:47] Speaker B: Yes. [01:04:47] Speaker A: And I was so interested to get. When we were talking about what we've. [01:04:50] Speaker B: Watched, I. Yeah, we'll get to this because. Yeah, as a result of this, there were some that I'd already scene. Yeah, I know. [01:04:57] Speaker A: Who killed me was our second one. [01:04:59] Speaker B: Right. And we did that as a watch along. [01:05:01] Speaker A: Yes. [01:05:02] Speaker C: I'm always stoked to watch that movie. [01:05:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. I mean, that is the definition of trash to peace right there. [01:05:08] Speaker C: Absolutely. [01:05:09] Speaker B: But as I said on the Joag fan cave, I watched Ghost Shark and then had a nightmare about it. Yeah, I had a whole last nightmare about Ghost Shark afterwards, I was like, what the fuck? [01:05:23] Speaker A: The horror movie did. Like, the horror movie thing so many of us are now just totally immune to. [01:05:29] Speaker B: And then it's like, something like that. Yeah. [01:05:32] Speaker C: Like, I remember Ghost Shark. You know, it explores a lot of the areas where a ghost shark could possibly appear. [01:05:42] Speaker B: Right, exactly. It was the inevitability, and it's the final destination of it. Yeah. You could not really run from Ghost Shark because eventually you will need to be near water. [01:05:56] Speaker C: You start sweating because you're afraid of him. Boom, go. Shark comes out of your pores and eats you. [01:06:01] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Like there is, you know, I think that is where my brain went with that and caused that. And then this week, yes. We'll discuss that I watched Wild, Wild west. [01:06:15] Speaker C: Oh, God. [01:06:16] Speaker A: That we covered last week. [01:06:18] Speaker B: Yeah, that was. I love the song so much that I just felt like the movie couldn't be that bad. [01:06:24] Speaker C: Yeah, but it is. [01:06:26] Speaker B: It is. So we'll get there. But I do want to go back to that Schechter interview that I talked about on last update. My mind has been blown by this episode here. This episode. Basically what they do with last update on the left is they take something that they have already talked about and revisit it, whether that's, like, there's more information about it now or there's corrections or things like that. So they've obviously covered hh Holmes. You know who hh Holmes is? [01:06:59] Speaker A: Murder house guy. Right. [01:07:00] Speaker B: Yes. Right. The murder castle. Oh, boy. I am about to scotch this so hard, and it's crazy. Hh Holmes. For those of you who don't know, sort of the center of the book, devil in the white city is usually where people know it from a man who murdered a bunch of people against the backdrop of the Chicago world fair in the late 18 hundreds. And famously, he allegedly built a murder castle in which there were all kinds of chambers and things like that in which to do horrible torture to people who were sort of coming in for the world's fair house. Right. And basically make it so that no one from the outside could hear and all of this kinds of stuff but friends. [01:07:50] Speaker C: Uh huh. [01:07:51] Speaker B: Harold Schechter dropped a bombshell on this podcast. [01:07:55] Speaker A: Okay. [01:07:56] Speaker B: According to Schechter, who wrote the definitive biography on Holmes, 1990 four's depraved, there was never any murder castle. [01:08:07] Speaker A: Okay, so wait, so, like, the whole thing that we know about the guy that everyone. [01:08:12] Speaker B: Right. The whole thing that makes him so. [01:08:13] Speaker C: Sensational always been the most sudden element of the story. [01:08:17] Speaker B: He kept hiring contractors over and over. [01:08:21] Speaker C: And over, and none of them were like, that's a staircase to nowhere, right? [01:08:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Which he did hire contractors to do weird shit and stuff like that. But not for murders, for fraud, basically. Yeah. This is huge to me because, like, I'm a big Eric Larson fan. Aside from his, like, Winston Churchill worship book, I read and, like, everything that he comes out with, and you kind of assume that, like, bro does his due diligence as one of the most famous historians in America. And, like, maybe he writes too many books to be as on top of things as I think he should be. Right? Like, maybe he's farming some of that out to people. [01:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:09:06] Speaker B: I don't know. But you would think something as big as this thing didn't exist. Wouldn't have slipped by him. [01:09:14] Speaker C: Right. [01:09:15] Speaker B: And in this interview, they asked Schechter, like, if this is decades later, hindsight, like, you've read more and that's what happened. Or, like, when did this, like, you start questioning the existence of this murder house? And he was basically like, pretty much by the time I finished the book, I realized, oh, God, no fucking way. It's like. But I'd written the whole book. So he was like. I tried to kind of. [01:09:40] Speaker A: Oh, my God. [01:09:41] Speaker B: I put into, like, the epilogue or whatever. Like, my hesitations and doubts or whatever. That was good enough. [01:09:47] Speaker C: So impossible. It's so impossible. People trust books. You just trust books. [01:09:52] Speaker A: If it's in print, it must be true. [01:09:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Surely this has been fully vetted and all this stuff. But, like, you know, this guy, basically, he. He wrote what he considers, like, elevated pulp. Right? And so his kind of mindset on this was like, I'm. I'm writing trash, essentially, because it's 1994. So true crime is a thing that we all do, like, secretly, you know, it's not a thing that people openly are. [01:10:19] Speaker C: Yeah, and you're weird. Yeah, people think it's weird. A bunch of stuff about Manson or whatever. [01:10:24] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. It wasn't like everybody was like this at the time, at least. Again, not openly. You would pretend you weren't into it at that point. And so people picking up these books weren't looking for, you know, like, deep historical documents. They wanted something, like, sorted and pulpy. [01:10:41] Speaker A: Sensational. [01:10:41] Speaker B: They could. Sensational. They could read. So he didn't consider himself as being like, oh, I'm contributing to, like, this massive misinformation about this guy. He's like, he did what he. Like at the end of it, he put his hesitations into it. So, like, it's on the record. But mostly he was writing something to entertain people who were interested in true crime. And it's a pretty interesting interview, like, basically, where he criticizes that people talk about, they try to justify true crime and be like, oh, it's about trying to understand the world and how we feel safe in it. And to a degree, sure, there's an element of that to it, but he's like, massive industry. [01:11:23] Speaker C: If there's money involved, I believe that's it. [01:11:25] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's like, you have to acknowledge that the. That one of the reasons, and probably one of the main reasons you're interested in true crime is a titillation factor with it, you know? And so, yeah, he didn't consider himself to be writing something that needed to be, like, ironclad history. That wasn't the purpose of the book. But then people like Eric Larson are writing history here. Like, we do expect that from here, from him. So, to be clear, we do know that HH Holmes killed probably around nine people, though. Like, we don't know exact number, but that's pretty much what's estimated. So he definitely was a murderer. And, like, I don't know if prolific one is the right way. It's a lot, but it's not. But, like, a lot of. [01:12:13] Speaker A: I mean, it's more than what, you know, the average number. [01:12:15] Speaker B: It's more than I've done. Right. [01:12:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:12:18] Speaker C: Average number of murders is probably zero point something. [01:12:21] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. It's like having 2.5 kids. [01:12:26] Speaker C: Right. [01:12:27] Speaker B: Someone is skewing those. I would love to hear that statistic, actually. Like, how many murders. [01:12:37] Speaker C: Right. [01:12:40] Speaker B: Population and number of murders committed. [01:12:42] Speaker C: Right. [01:12:44] Speaker B: If someone out there can run those numbers, nobody listens. While alive, he confessed to 27 murders, but he was also a sociopath who was absolutely reveling in the attention that he was getting from this. So he's like a super unreliable. Exactly. Super unreliable narrator. What Schechter says in this interview is he's like, most of the stuff that HH Holmes said or wrote or confessed to clearly was written by other people, and he just signed his name to it or repeated it. So, like, the mythology around him comes from basically, like, the cops being like, here's your confession. And him being like, yes. Sweet. [01:13:29] Speaker C: Cool. [01:13:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I definitely did all that. [01:13:34] Speaker C: You know, I imagine he got stuff in prison for it. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah, that's generally. The thing is, the cops want to clear it. They want to say they solved it. They tell a prisoner, like, listen, and will bump you up to a better sell or whatever. [01:13:48] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah, I think that's probably the case with this is on top of just the fact that his ego loved it. I'm sure he was getting things for this. I mean, he still got executed, but in the meantime, life might have been better. Yeah, exactly. But it was the 1940 book Gem of the Prairie by Herbert Asburye that saw those numbers suddenly skyrocket to some 200 victims. [01:14:17] Speaker C: Wow. [01:14:18] Speaker B: Yeah. As author Adam Selzer explained, it had kind of a throwaway line that some people suggested. It may have been as many as 200 people. Nobody had actually suggested that, in fact, but thereafter, everybody else who retold the story threw in that same line, until people started deciding that that was a real estimate or a real kind of like, a. [01:14:40] Speaker A: Like a game of telephone on our side, you know? [01:14:43] Speaker C: Or like the wade Boggs story, the what's the way. The way him drinking 60 beer across country flight. [01:14:51] Speaker A: It just, like, keeps all of his. [01:14:53] Speaker C: Teammates have a different number. Yeah, big fish probably drink several gallons of beer. That's probably not. [01:15:03] Speaker B: No, just from, like, a bladder perspective. It's just very unlikely. [01:15:08] Speaker A: They get, like, he dies, and they're doing the autopsy, and they open him up, and they're like, God damn. The bladder on this guy. It's like his entire. Almost his entire guts are filled with bladder. [01:15:21] Speaker B: Is the taher of drinking bruise on the plane. But, yeah, it is. It's that thing that happens with stories. They get embellished and embellished. Embellished, and people forget, like, where they heard it or whatever, until the embellishment just becomes the accepted fact about whatever happened. And in the murder castle story, like I said, he's supposed to have built this specialized hotel full of horrors where he lured in random folks coming for the world's fair with a cheap place to say, and then killed them. Now in the devil in the white city. Have either of you read this? [01:15:59] Speaker C: No. [01:16:00] Speaker B: Okay. In this book, Larson basically kind of plays off the fact that no one seems to come for these people. Bye. Like, basically acting like HH Holmes is playing 40 chess here. Like he is picking out the less dead kind of people, the people that no one would care. Right. They're coming from long distances. You know, these people are coming from all over the midwest. They're coming from out west, searching for jobs. They're young and anonymous and all these things. And so they go out there, they don't tell anyone that they're coming. They're like, I'm gonna search out a job at the world's fair. And then they disappear, and nobody raises any fanfare about it, which is like. Like, to an extent, it's believable, because that is how, like, serial killers often work. Like, they target prostitutes and they, you know, target drug addicts and things like that. Because, you know, people already think they're missing, and the cops are not gonna spend any time trying to solve those murders. They're like, yeah, whatever. Nobody is looking for them. We don't give a shit. So, you know, that's why they call them the less dead, right? [01:17:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:17:15] Speaker B: So to an extent, that logic makes sense, except that, like, it doesn't on the scale of, like, on purpose having people. Yeah. Come and stay at his murder hotel that he knows come from. Like, how heavily is he screening these exactly. [01:17:33] Speaker A: He has to vet every single person to make sure that they're not, like, well known and gonna be missed. [01:17:37] Speaker B: Exactly. [01:17:38] Speaker A: And then why would he, like, what would his excuse for turning them away be, you know? [01:17:41] Speaker B: Right. [01:17:42] Speaker C: You're homeless. Certainly you have room for a hotel room, money for a hotel room. No. [01:17:47] Speaker B: Yeah. It doesn't really make any sense when you completely think about that. And I think in the book, it kind of is played as unraveled when someone. He picks the wrong person, you know, and someone does notice. But basically, you know, I was reading, like, what other historians have to say about this, and they're like, bullshit. There's not one, not one record of anyone going missing at the Chicago's world fair. That's not to say nobody died or anything happened to them, but, like, they identified them, they knew who they were. Nobody went missing under mysterious circumstances and never turned up, let alone 200 people or even 27 people from the Chicago World's Fair. And there's simply no way he was that strategic that he only killed people no one would come after. In reality, the people that he did kill were people he knew, which makes up. [01:18:45] Speaker A: Isn't that, like, normally, like, how that goes? Like, you're more likely to be killed by someone you know than a stranger. [01:18:52] Speaker B: Exactly. Which I guess maybe with a, like a serial killer, not as much. You know, they don't want to, like, annihilate people around them because it'd be very obvious that they're doing it. But again, we're looking at this to a lens of fraud, which makes it make a lot more sense. So the hotel, the murder castle here, was not a hotel at all, for one. The first floor of it was storefronts. I think there was like a pharmacy or something on the bottom of it. The second floor had some long term apartments. I couldn't tell from what I read whether anyone was living in them or not. But there was space for long term apartments. On the second floor, the third floor, he had considered turning into a hotel, but it was never furnished, and it was never rent it out to anybody. It was just like an unfinished, ramshackle top of this building. So there was no point at which anyone was staying there, a transient person or otherwise. [01:19:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:20:00] Speaker B: And so according to Selzer, the whole idea was just a vehicle to swindle suppliers and investors and insurers. Thats schechters take, too. His passion was fraud, not murderous. Murder just helped him to commit the fraud. So all of those things, like, he dabbled, right? Like, that was his side. Hustle and his main thing was fraud. So all of that stuff about, like, getting all these different contractors to do things. Like, he was basically, like, finding ways to, like, extort money through insurance fraud and stuff like that. And that's why he was having people just build random shit onto this building, you know, to then take out insurance policies and cash in on them in fraudulent ways and stuff like that. [01:20:44] Speaker A: I mean, like, you know, who doesn't want to read, like, a whole book about insurance fraud, right? [01:20:50] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:20:51] Speaker A: Why are we murder house? Let me. Let me get up on these, like, insurance and claims and all this. [01:21:03] Speaker B: Stealing. [01:21:04] Speaker C: From the poor insurance company. [01:21:08] Speaker B: Yeah, when you put it that way. Hh is kind of a good guy here, no? Hh, yeah, just kidding. He didn't murder. He murdered. Not the good guy in this case. [01:21:22] Speaker A: Complicated man. [01:21:24] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Listen, he wrote a problem, you know. Yeah. Throw the first stone, if you will, right. [01:21:31] Speaker C: You haven't committed nine murders or cover. [01:21:33] Speaker B: Up some insurance fraud. And so we know that how he actually got caught was that he'd killed his fraud associate. Basically. I was gonna say business associate, but, like, his business was fraud, and he killed his associate. And that associates three kids while trying to cover up a scam that they had committed together. [01:21:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:21:55] Speaker B: So, like I said, these are in a bunch. That's four murders out of the nine. All committed in, like, one fell swoop of this family that he killed off all in one go. And it was all to hide a bit of fraud. He wouldn't have just murdered them otherwise. Like I said, he wasn't that kind of sociopath. And, in fact, one of the interesting things that Harold Schechter said in that interview was, like, if he hadn't been a sociopath, this guy probably would have been, like, one of the captains of industry, the way that his mind worked. What's like. I mean, I guess he'd still be a sociopath. [01:22:37] Speaker C: Basically. Tweak him a little bit, right? [01:22:40] Speaker B: Tweak his sociopath. Rein it in a little bit more. And then you get, like, an oil baron instead of a guy who builds a shitty building and kills some people to cover up his fraud. [01:22:53] Speaker A: They're just completely incidental. Like, it's just like a means to an end for him. [01:22:58] Speaker B: Right? He's like, you know what? These people are in the way, fucked. [01:23:01] Speaker A: Up in a completely different way, honestly, like, that you don't even have this urge to commit violence. It's just that you don't even care. [01:23:10] Speaker B: Like, they're NPC's. [01:23:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:23:13] Speaker B: You know, there's. They're in the way. He does not care that it's like a seven year old is just like, nah, this is gonna be a problem. [01:23:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:23:22] Speaker A: Damn that milkshake. [01:23:24] Speaker B: Exactly. So it was good old fashioned yellow journalism that turned his dumb ass fraudulent endeavors into the work of some sort of evil mastermind. The newspapers claimed that he had built trap doors and torture rooms, and, you know, they were largely just making it up. [01:23:42] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, they wanted. They wanted breeders. Yeah, right. [01:23:46] Speaker A: It's the same shit as what we were just talking about. [01:23:48] Speaker C: Exactly. Yeah. Journalism. The idea of journalism ever having, like, some period where it was really about, like, getting to the heart of truth. It's, like, not really. [01:24:01] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like you have, like, the period of, like, the muckrakers and stuff like that who, like, tried to sort of expose the underbellies of all these kinds of things, but at the same, like, this stuff was coexisting. [01:24:11] Speaker A: Right, right. [01:24:12] Speaker B: What, Ida Tarbell and Nellie Bly and all those. [01:24:15] Speaker A: There's always gonna be people that are pursuing truth, and it just happens to get buried. [01:24:20] Speaker C: They're gonna butt up against the actual shit. [01:24:23] Speaker A: That's more interesting. [01:24:24] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So, like, a good chunk of it was straight up. Others, again, were sort of embellished. So they claimed normal shit, like a laundry chute. And dumb waiters were, like, used for, like, yeeting bodies into the basement. Right. [01:24:39] Speaker C: Yeah, it's like they were just the body eater. [01:24:43] Speaker B: They were just used for, like, normal laundry chute things or trash chute things. There was indeed a vault that was mostly soundproof in there, but it was far more likely it was used for hiding all the furniture that he stole. Cause he was just a fucking thief. So he just tucked it in his little hideaway vault. There was no people in there that he was torturing so that nobody could hear them scream. [01:25:10] Speaker C: Most vaults are pretty much soundproof. [01:25:13] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I feel like it's just by virtue of what they're made from, they're going to be mostly soundproof. [01:25:19] Speaker A: He didn't want anyone to hear that sofa us, you know, screaming at the. [01:25:23] Speaker C: Top, I'm in here. Get me back to my family. [01:25:26] Speaker A: This weird guy stole me. [01:25:30] Speaker B: Get me back to Raymore and Flanagan. [01:25:34] Speaker C: The people I love. [01:25:38] Speaker B: But all this is say, this is just, like, a wild revelation to me. Not because, like. Like you said, steve, like, it's fully believable. Because the story was. I mean, that's the thing about the story is it sounds unbelievable. [01:25:50] Speaker C: Right, right. [01:25:51] Speaker B: It's just wild to me that it's unbelievable because it's not real. [01:25:56] Speaker A: It's just made up, straight up, didn't happen. [01:25:59] Speaker B: Fabricated. And, like, no one really, because nobody wants this corrected, you know? [01:26:04] Speaker C: Yeah. Because they want the story of the fucking murder mansion. Like, that's interesting. [01:26:10] Speaker B: The point of the Eric Larson book, which also is like, how he tends to write his books, is that he likes to juxtapose two events and show how they kind of led to one another. Right. So, you know, there's, like, in thunderstruck, it's like a capture of this guy who murdered his wife and how the advent of wireless telegraphy lined up just so that they managed to catch this guy as he was fleeing to America. Right, right. And in devil in the white city, it's like. Like HH Holmes and his murders being enabled by the concurrent building of the Chicago World's Fair. So that these two things sort of align with each other, when really, these are two completely unrelated events. There is no connection between HH Holmes and the world's fair, except that he just happened to live there at the same time. [01:27:06] Speaker C: Wow. [01:27:07] Speaker A: The more you know. [01:27:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:27:08] Speaker B: The more, you know. [01:27:10] Speaker C: I mean. Yeah, I'm definitely gonna have that in my back pocket if anybody ever starts talking hh Holmes, just like, hey, you know, that's just made up. [01:27:17] Speaker B: Well, I literally referenced it, like, last episode or two episodes ago. Like, I was. I guess it was like, two episodes ago because I was talking about something murdery, and I said, like, I compared two people, and I was like, I mean, one, you know, built a gas chamber in his house, and it's like, that wasn't real. Like, a thing that I just said is based on misinformation. [01:27:38] Speaker C: Yeah. It's always interesting to find things like that, that you've just repeatedly. [01:27:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:46] Speaker A: Like the bystander effect. [01:27:48] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:27:48] Speaker A: You know, where it's like, actually. That none of that was actually happening. [01:27:53] Speaker C: And most people will get involved. [01:27:55] Speaker B: Exactly. Like, actually, the research proved the complete opposite of that. Yeah, I. It's bananas because, I mean, and the bystander effect is such a good example of that because it's a thing that comes from reputable sources. This is a thing that you find on psychology websites and, you know, like, literally, it is in textbooks that people learning to be psychologists read, despite the fact that the actual literature and research says the opposite thing. [01:28:24] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, when we. When we were trying to decide what we were gonna talk about today, you know, I at first, was kind of going in the direction of, like, social experiments, psychological experiments, and. [01:28:35] Speaker B: Oh, so much of those, every list. [01:28:39] Speaker A: As if it is true and vetted. [01:28:42] Speaker B: And like Stanford prison experiment. [01:28:45] Speaker C: So bullshit. Yeah, it doesn't prove anything except that rich white men will treat anybody like shit when given power. All approved. [01:28:55] Speaker B: And these things are the still constantly referenced in reputable places as it's being accurate. [01:29:02] Speaker C: Like Milgram was telling them what to do. Experiment. [01:29:07] Speaker B: How do you leave that out of the story? [01:29:09] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not. I mean, it is controlled. People just. [01:29:15] Speaker C: Think it's because, like, for the media, it's best that people are depraved. It's true. Validation that people are depraved so that when they tell you a depraved story, like the Hh Holmes story, you believe it, you laugh it up. Because that's just how people are. [01:29:31] Speaker A: It gets us to not trust one another. It destroys community. [01:29:36] Speaker C: Right. Absolutely. [01:29:37] Speaker A: You know, it turns. I mean, and it's the same thing as the bus, you know? If you can't trust your fellow man, they can't trust you automatically. You are so much easier to be manipulated. [01:29:52] Speaker B: You need power to control everything. You need people above you. [01:29:57] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:29:57] Speaker B: Making sure that you're safe from all of these, you know? [01:30:00] Speaker A: And the fact all of your rely on your neighbor. [01:30:03] Speaker C: The pickpockets on the street saw it for what it was like they saw. They're like, that's bullshit. But we can use it, right? Use that against these rich people. Like, that guy's the monster. [01:30:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:30:18] Speaker B: Yeah. It's so fascinating. Just, you know, again, like we were saying before, it's like we. We get taken in by this stuff, too, and it's like the process of finding out you're wrong. Often it's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable, and it's chance, right? [01:30:37] Speaker C: Yeah. You aren't looking for something to tell you you're wrong. [01:30:42] Speaker B: Right? If I had not happened to subscribe to Sirius this week and listen to the most recent episode of last update on the left, I would still think that he had a murder castle. And who knows if I would ever come across information otherwise, because why would I be looking for it, you know? [01:31:00] Speaker C: Well, people listening right now will be like, hey, we can. Maybe we can all spread this. [01:31:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Just go to work. [01:31:08] Speaker C: Hey. [01:31:09] Speaker B: Out of nowhere. [01:31:10] Speaker C: Oh, you haven't heard of him? Let me tell you a story, all right? The story I just told you. Bullshit. Not real. [01:31:16] Speaker A: Let me tell you the real story. [01:31:17] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. First, let me tell you this crazy story, okay? Now let me explain to you why it's not true. Normal people are not spending a lot of time thinking about Hh Holmes. [01:31:28] Speaker C: Probably no, they're not. [01:31:30] Speaker B: Until that movie finally makes its way to the. I think it's a series now. [01:31:35] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:31:39] Speaker B: I think it was supposed to be like a Catherine Bigelow movie, like. [01:31:42] Speaker C: At a certain .6 or seven years ago. I know Leonardo DiCaprio was a producer. [01:31:47] Speaker B: On it, and then I think it was, like, supposed to be a Hulu miniseries or something. [01:31:51] Speaker A: And maybe. Maybe there were like, oh, wait, this isn't actually real. Let's just kind of. [01:31:55] Speaker B: Please. You really think that would stop them? [01:31:58] Speaker C: No, no, not at all. [01:32:01] Speaker B: Did you watch under the banner of heaven with Andrew Garfield? [01:32:05] Speaker A: I didn't. My sibling did and recommended it to me. And I see the problem is, like. [01:32:11] Speaker B: It seems like a good idea. Yeah. If you've read the book, then that show is, like, infuriating. Like, this is. They just created this character, the whole cloth, and created this whole other storyline. Aside from the actual thing that happened that was horrifying in and of itself. [01:32:36] Speaker A: There's enough real information about this that you don't have to make up bullshit. [01:32:42] Speaker B: You base this on a book. Just use the book. [01:32:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:32:45] Speaker B: It's so ridiculous. [01:32:46] Speaker C: It's written right there. [01:32:47] Speaker B: It's right there in front of you. Although, I don't know, John Krakauer is weird about that stuff. Like, I read the book into thin air and then watched Everest, which is based on into thin air. And I was like, these are exactly the same. And John Krakauer was like, that movie was bullshit. It was nothing like my book. [01:33:03] Speaker C: Oh, wow. [01:33:04] Speaker B: Okay. I don't know. [01:33:05] Speaker C: All right, maybe I missed something. [01:33:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Maybe he was really into under the banner of heaven, even though it was nothing like his book. I have no idea. I was very confused by his reaction to the Everest movie. I was like, this is exactly the same. This is almost like word for word. Never mind. [01:33:22] Speaker A: Wow. [01:33:23] Speaker B: Anyways, now that we've, you know. [01:33:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:33:26] Speaker B: Done all that, why don't we talk a little bit about what we've watched? [01:33:30] Speaker C: What have we been doing? [01:33:31] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:33:32] Speaker B: Which is, for me, like, a very, very straightforward. Because I only watched one thing, essentially. I watched one franchise last week. Mark talked about how he and his family had watched back to the future in his backyard, and I hadn't watched back to the future in a long time. You know, it was like one of the first little, like, box sets that I bought when I was in college and all that stuff. But it's been ages since I watched it. And so I was kind of like, I don't know if I'll like it now. I don't know if it's, like, nostalgia or. I don't know. For some reason, I kind of felt like I wouldn't, and I did. I was like, this is great. I'm having a really good time. So, Kia, when I watched the first one, and he happened to be home for a few days, so, like, we actually, like, watched things more than one night. So we watched the first one, and then the next day, while we were eating dinner, I put on the second one, and then we finished it. And it was only, like, you know, 730 or whatever. I was like, I might as well watch the third one, right? [01:34:35] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you know, they go kind of right into each other, right? [01:34:39] Speaker B: Yeah, they blend. So it's like, we're here. [01:34:41] Speaker A: Why? [01:34:41] Speaker B: Nothing. And then we finished the third one, and Kia was like, well, then, like, should we go see the Broadway show? And so to Broadway the next day. [01:34:50] Speaker A: How was that? [01:34:51] Speaker B: And saw it, bruh. It was. I have never seen anything like that on stage before. [01:34:57] Speaker A: That's awesome. [01:34:57] Speaker B: The effects are incredible. The way that they do the DeLorean and all that, like, has you, like, sitting there. Like, I don't. Like. I kind of can get some parts of what they're doing with it and others, I don't know what they're doing. And it looks so cool. [01:35:13] Speaker A: God, I love. I love theater because it's, like, one of the last bastions of practical effects, you know? And if they can do it on fucking stage. [01:35:25] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:35:25] Speaker A: You know, how come they can't do it in anyway? I don't need to get on a soapbox. [01:35:29] Speaker B: But there was even a point in it where I wondered if they would. So, like, when he's doing the clock tower at the end, I was like, are they gonna switch to, like, video? [01:35:38] Speaker A: Mm hmm. [01:35:39] Speaker B: Because it's like the clock is, like, way in the back, you know, and all this. And I was like, how are they gonna pull that off? Like, are they gonna do some of this? Not live. Is some gonna be, you know, pre recorded and. No. They figured out a way to make this work, and I was like, yo, this is so crazy. That's awesome. So. And the. The guy who plays Marty in it was the lead in dark Harvest. Did you guys watch that? [01:36:03] Speaker A: No, but it's on my list, I believe, to watch this. October. [01:36:07] Speaker B: Yeah. It's very much like an October movie, for sure. Adam told us about it when you watch it. [01:36:12] Speaker C: Oh, yes. Yeah. Okay. [01:36:14] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. The. The lead is Marty McFly, and he. The guy who plays doc, you'd recognize him. He's like, a total. That guy. But. And he originated the role in London. So Keo saw it there, as did Mark. And he's like, the doc. It's like, what's his face? And Beetlejuice. Alex Brightman. Alex Brightman and Beetlejuice. It's like, that's the guy. That's this guy. With Doc. And their chemistry playing off each other was really fun. So that was really fun. The first two back to the futures are just absolutely delightful to me. And on that second back to the future, watching that had a similar thing with the musical where I'm just like, I'm amazed that they did this whole movie just going like, how'd they do that, though? Like, because they didn't film it at the same time. This is four years later or whatever that they do this movie. And I was like, I don't understand how they put this together. And the second one is just, like, so stressful the whole time that it's like, from start to finish, there's, like, no downtime in that movie. [01:37:27] Speaker A: You're just like, I'm so glad that I didn't have, like, watch them back in the day and then have to wait a year to see the next one. Like, when I watched them, I just watched them right in a row, you know? So it's like, yeah, yeah. I got that relief very quickly from all of the stress of the second one. [01:37:47] Speaker C: Totally. Two and three were too far apart. [01:37:50] Speaker B: Yeah, two and three were. I think it's 89 and 90, so they were pretty close. [01:37:54] Speaker C: But I remember seeing two and being like, what's gonna happen? [01:37:58] Speaker B: What next? And then it's years until you get another one. The third one I didn't like when I was a kid. Still don't really, like, really interesting. I like, it's just a western I used to, and I don't like westerns. [01:38:11] Speaker A: I used to tell people, my favorite western is back to 53. [01:38:15] Speaker B: I thought it was boring when I was a kid. [01:38:17] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:38:18] Speaker B: Now I think it's boring. But I like the acting. So it gets, like, points for the fact that I'm like, they're all really good in this. [01:38:25] Speaker A: Michael J. Fox killing it. [01:38:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:38:27] Speaker B: And, like, this is the best bit. If all of them, you know, like, I mean, he's always great. Yeah, he's like, he's always great in all of them. He's such a show stealer. But in this one, he really, like, in the third back to the future, he really gets to, like, shine absolutely in it. And so, you know, that's a lot of fun. All of the timey wimey stuff. Just makes zero sense. In the third one, I don't understand the stakes at all. [01:38:55] Speaker C: It doesn't make sense in two, either. Like, essentially, what we. What we get is Marty steals someone else's life. [01:39:07] Speaker B: Right. [01:39:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:39:17] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, I'm not great with time travel stuff and following it, but I was like, I feel like that. No, I think he's just created another split. [01:39:24] Speaker C: Yeah. Which. Yeah. People are questioning, like, okay, so what happened to the Marty in that? Yeah, like, he would just have been in bed and then suddenly disappear. [01:39:34] Speaker B: Right. Yeah. I feel like Doc even kind of says something towards the end that, like, acknowledges that there is, like, that timeline does exist. We've just averted being in it. [01:39:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:39:46] Speaker B: Which I guess is, like, I don't know, maybe. Yeah, maybe it was always going to exist. Like, there's always. I don't know. Like. But, yeah, with the third one, I was like, I don't understand what the stakes are because he goes back to, like, save Doc from being shot in this thing, but, like, doc's gonna die. [01:40:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:40:04] Speaker B: So look, like. I don't understand how this makes any sense. Like, what's he doing here? [01:40:10] Speaker C: The stakes aren't there. [01:40:11] Speaker B: The stakes don't make any sense, but. [01:40:14] Speaker C: They do turn a train engine into a time machine, which to me here, my Jules and Verne, I was like, stop. [01:40:26] Speaker B: No, they should have ended this movie ten minutes ago. [01:40:29] Speaker C: Whenever he says that, I really wish it had just cut to Ernest. Just a quick picture of Ernest making a really cute, like, earnest face, and then it's just like, oh, that's the Verne. [01:40:43] Speaker B: Oh, shit. What a reveal that would have been. That would save it for me. I'd be back on board if we find out that Verne has all been a time traveler, 19th century, the whole time. Like, fuck, that totally makes sense. [01:40:58] Speaker C: All the sense of the world. [01:40:59] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. So, you know, that's one that I don't think I'll revisit a whole heck of a lot, but, yeah, I appreciated the cast in that one, at least that I was like, this saves it for me being like, why am I watching a western? [01:41:14] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:41:15] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:41:15] Speaker C: Which it is. It's just a western. It is the time travel elements into a western script, and it's like. Like, cool with me. I understand if you don't like westerns. [01:41:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:41:24] Speaker C: Right? [01:41:24] Speaker B: Like, it's just not gonna work. [01:41:26] Speaker C: Not like the other two at all. [01:41:29] Speaker A: There's none of them really like each other. You know? The second one is so dystopian. [01:41:34] Speaker C: The first one is very much like contained story. [01:41:36] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:41:37] Speaker A: And it's very hopeful, you know, and goofy the whole time. And the second one, like you said, is stressful and dark and Trump's rise. [01:41:46] Speaker B: Yes. Oh, no. Yeah, there's a. The first two also are just always more adult than I remember them being. You know, there's a lot more in them that I'm like, oh, and potential incest. [01:42:02] Speaker C: A lot of that. [01:42:03] Speaker B: Yes, lots of potential incest. Which you don't really process when you're a kid. No, like, you get that. It's like, it's like funny that it's gross when you're a kid. You're like, oh, you're not supposed to like, you know, kiss your mom or whatever. [01:42:16] Speaker C: Then when you're like Thompson, you're like. [01:42:20] Speaker B: Yeah, you know, get it. [01:42:24] Speaker C: I mean, poor Leah Thompson, that period. She's kissing her son. [01:42:30] Speaker B: We're kissing a duck. Yeah. [01:42:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:42:33] Speaker B: It's a weird moment for like, everybody's first crush. Like, you're the hottest girl in movies. [01:42:39] Speaker C: She's kissing a duck. [01:42:41] Speaker B: Like, come on, they didn't know what to do with her. Like, we cannot have her in scenes with men. It's going to be a problem. [01:42:48] Speaker C: No. Either. Just young Michael J. [01:42:51] Speaker A: Fox as her son. [01:42:54] Speaker B: Yes. So, yeah, it was that. And then of course, wild, wild west. [01:43:02] Speaker C: Wild, wild west. So another western which you don't love. [01:43:08] Speaker B: No, no, I don't. I don't. All these years, I don't know, I just like these aesthetic appealed to me, though. Like the steampunk look and all that. I felt like the trailers made it seem cool. And of course, you know, at that point when I was like in 8th grade or whatever, Will Smith was everything. [01:43:31] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:43:33] Speaker B: So. And I liked Kevin Klein. Like, I'd been in the midst of an extreme, like when I was in 7th grade and he was. He played bottom, which I also played. So I was like, Kevin Klein, fuck yeah, let's do this. So, like, there was a lot that had me on board for it. So I kind of thought when I started wild, wild west that like, this was going to be one of those things that I'd watch and go like, oh, everyone. Like, this was overblown. Everyone trashed this. And I bet it's like actually like, you know, kind of like a fun, like a trash. True. I thought it was gonna be a trash. Trips me too. It's. [01:44:11] Speaker C: I had remembered loving it. [01:44:13] Speaker B: Oh, really? So you did like it back then? [01:44:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:44:16] Speaker B: Cuz I was thinking the whole time would I have liked this if I saw it in 8th grade? [01:44:21] Speaker C: Which I think so, right? [01:44:22] Speaker B: Maybe. [01:44:23] Speaker C: Yeah. It does. It's. It's stupid. It's bad. The story, not great, but the aesthetic and the silliness of it really appealed to me back. [01:44:33] Speaker B: Like, yeah. And the dirty joke throughout it, which, like, now, like, wear on you. You're like, this is rating. [01:44:40] Speaker A: It's like, this is the only type of humor that you guys know how to do right. [01:44:44] Speaker B: Just constant double entendre. Like, grow up. You know? If I were 13, sure. But at 38, I'm like, adults made this movie. [01:44:56] Speaker C: They. [01:44:56] Speaker A: Did you see Will Smith's dick and balls, and I'm in the situation. [01:45:03] Speaker B: This is how badly this movie flopped. Is that I didn't know that somehow. [01:45:08] Speaker A: Yeah. That's not, like, legendary across the Internet. [01:45:13] Speaker B: Why aren't there gifs of Will Smith Dick and balls? You know? Because nobody saw this movie and remembered it. [01:45:24] Speaker C: It couldn't have stuck with anybody. [01:45:26] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, when you. When you. [01:45:28] Speaker B: Incredible scenes. Yeah. [01:45:30] Speaker A: When you said that you were. Finally had an excuse to watch it covering it, I was like, well, good. Good luck with that. I hope you have a good time. [01:45:41] Speaker B: The best part was the credits rolling at the end and getting to sing along with Will and Cisco because that song still rules. [01:45:52] Speaker C: And also, we didn't acknowledge this on the episode because I forgot to talk about it. But Cisco became famous because of that feature on that song, and that's why we have the Thong song. So without Wild. Wild west, we wouldn't have the Thong song. [01:46:09] Speaker B: Did you see this was going around on Instagram, the clip of him talking about how he wrote the Thong song? [01:46:16] Speaker C: Uh, uh. [01:46:17] Speaker B: It's like, very. It's like the most wholesome, dirty thing you've ever heard of in your life. Okay. And if you find the clip, it's great. Um, but he basically is talking about how, like. Like, he. One of his friends, none of them had ever. He and his posse. None of them had ever seen a thong before. And then one of his friends was with a girl and did, like, a strip tease and was wearing one. And he was like, what is this? Went back to the crew and told them what he'd seen, and he was bearing a witness. [01:46:55] Speaker C: They were like, she had dumps like a truck. Well, I was like, what? [01:47:02] Speaker B: Almost as good. Like, so he said he, like, was, oh, God, I can't remember how it goes, but that basically, that someone actually said, like, that song, the thong, thong, thong in the room. And that is how that happened, baby. And I, like, this is. Oh, it's so. You have to watch. [01:47:26] Speaker C: That's awesome. I'm gonna look it up. Yeah. [01:47:28] Speaker B: It's somehow very wholesome, the way that he explains it. Even though this is a story about men sharing their sex lives with one another, it's, like, super adorable. [01:47:36] Speaker C: Insane to think of a group of men sitting around going like, I've never seen a thong. [01:47:40] Speaker B: I've never seen that before. [01:47:41] Speaker A: I would not admit that. [01:47:43] Speaker B: Well, that's, like, what I think that's why it's so wholesome, is that men are, like, you know, like, always trying to up each other sexually, exploits and stuff like that. And that they all sat around and, like, none of us have seen the promised land. Here. [01:47:59] Speaker A: Reach that first. [01:48:01] Speaker B: Right. [01:48:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:48:03] Speaker B: There's something kind of delightful about them all being like, we need to experience it. Excellent. Yeah. So that's all my movies. What about you guys? [01:48:16] Speaker A: We rewatched Barben star go to Vista del Mar. [01:48:21] Speaker C: We did. [01:48:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it was. [01:48:23] Speaker B: There's a good. Kind of stupid right there. [01:48:25] Speaker A: Yes. We. I just really, like, I love that movie, and I don't. I don't. It's been. It had been a while since we'd watched it, and I just wanted something that was gonna be silly and not stressful and colorful and fun, and I was like, yeah. I was. I just was like, do you want to watch Barbara star again? And he was like, yeah, obviously. [01:48:45] Speaker B: Absolutely. [01:48:46] Speaker C: Like, half my life is wanting to watch Barbara and star. [01:48:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I. I fucking love Kristen wiig. Like, yes, to me is one of the funniest people on earth. [01:48:55] Speaker B: Have you guys tried watching the Palm royale? [01:49:01] Speaker A: I think that might be on my watch list, but I don't know why. [01:49:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's like I use my friend's plex account, and he torrents everything that has ever been made in existence. So it's like, every time I open it up, I'm like, okay. And so I saw that on there. An Apple show with Kristen Wiig as the lead. Ricky Martin's in it, and he's, like, too hot. It's like, sometimes a little overwhelming where you're like, I just. I can't look at him anymore. It's just. It's too much. But she plays, like, a woman who kind of cons her way almost into high society in Florida, in Palm beach. And everyone there knows she doesn't fit in, but she refuses to accept this and as such, keeps making worse and worse decisions as she tries to keep up this image of luxury. I don't know if it's good, per se. [01:50:07] Speaker C: Okay. [01:50:08] Speaker B: But it is just good enough that if you just kind of, like, want to watch something, like, kind of, like a little bit background, and you wouldn't. You could scroll your phone a little bit, but every now and again, look up and be like, okay, I'm enjoying this. The palm royale absolutely kind of fits that. It's like that very specific kind of, like, background. It requires no real investment from you. [01:50:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:50:33] Speaker B: There's tons of celebrities in it. Laura Dern's in it. [01:50:36] Speaker A: Oh, nice. Yeah. [01:50:38] Speaker C: And the opposite of the white Lotus. [01:50:41] Speaker B: Yes, it is. Yeah, they're definitely playing off of that. Like, when you watch it, you can tell that this is, this is a post white lotus creative. [01:50:52] Speaker A: Maybe we should watch that after white, because here's my thing with white Lotus, because he's watched it. I love watched it. And, yeah. And he was like, you got to watch this with me. I'm like, okay. I really want to. I love all the people in it, you know? And then we want, like, we will watch an episode, and I will be like, I feel like I just, like, worked out or something. I'm so. [01:51:17] Speaker B: Just so high. [01:51:19] Speaker A: Yeah, it's, like, so stressful, and I love it, and it's great, and it's so good. But I, like, I can't watch more than one episode at a time of it because it, like, I'm just, it's so fucking stressful. [01:51:32] Speaker C: Like somebody went back to, like, 1888 and just plucked Henry James asexual ass, set him in a writer's room and said, make a show. It's great. [01:51:46] Speaker A: Yeah. We have two episodes left of season two that I haven't seen yet, so we'll probably finish that over the course of, like, the next month. [01:51:56] Speaker B: But it does. [01:51:58] Speaker C: It seems like one a week. Maybe we get to watch before Anna's. [01:52:01] Speaker B: Like, I'm, like, the exact opposite, because if something stresses me out, I need. I got the completion of it. [01:52:06] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:52:07] Speaker B: I'm like, I have to see where it's going. If I wait, then I'm like, nope. [01:52:11] Speaker A: See, I'm. I was the type of child who would, like, if somebody was doing something bad, quote unquote, in a movie or, like, getting in trouble or whatever, I would go hide in the other room. I did not want to see, like, I would not watch, like, Pollyanna because she's, like, sneaking out and being naughty or whatever, which, like, no, she wasn't. But I was just so stressed as a child, I couldn't even see, like, I can't else getting in trouble or, like, being in an uncomfortable situation. And so, like, I'm a lot better now. You know, I don't run out of the room or whatever, but I still just feel it so viscerally, and I'm just like. I have to be like, okay, these are actors. This is not real. These people are actually experiencing these things. [01:52:49] Speaker B: But, yeah, so, yeah, the cast on there, they're all very convincing as well. So, you know, you get. Get attached or you hate people or, you know, whatever the case may be on their. [01:53:03] Speaker C: For sure. Lot of hateable people. [01:53:06] Speaker B: A lot of hateful people. [01:53:07] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I was hanging out at Belmont station where Steven works, like, a couple months ago. [01:53:14] Speaker C: You live in Bartlett? [01:53:15] Speaker A: Yeah. And I was sitting outside, you know, reading a book, drinking my beer. And at the table next to me was a couple that. I kid you not, it was like, they were that couple. That's the first season that just got married. Alexandra Dario. [01:53:34] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:53:34] Speaker A: And I'm listening to their conversation, and I'm like, am I fucking in white Lotus right now? [01:53:40] Speaker B: She just goes under the table. [01:53:42] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:53:42] Speaker B: Nope, I don't want to. I can't engage with this. [01:53:47] Speaker A: Oh, my God. I felt so bad for that poor woman. Anyway. Yeah. So Barbon star is not that. [01:53:52] Speaker B: It's Barbara stars, not white Lotus or palm Royale. [01:53:55] Speaker A: Opposite of that. You know, it's just wonderful and wholesome and heartwarming, and I love it. Yeah, we had a great time with it. [01:54:03] Speaker C: Loved it. We also double featured that with hot Rod. [01:54:06] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:54:07] Speaker B: Nice. [01:54:08] Speaker C: Hadn't seen hot Rod in a while. [01:54:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't seen that much. [01:54:10] Speaker C: Just be reminded that hot Rod's amazing and so fun. [01:54:14] Speaker A: So fun. Yeah, yeah. [01:54:16] Speaker B: I'm such an Andy Samberg, Stan. [01:54:18] Speaker A: Really? Like, yeah. So goofy, so fun. And there's all the, like, side characters in it, you know, Bill Hader's hilarious. Not really in it that much, but every time he's on screen or, like, saying his lines, like, I'm just like, this man is so fucking funny. [01:54:34] Speaker B: Yeah, that was in his underrated era. Now everybody, like, finally gets. [01:54:39] Speaker C: But that was another show that's too stressful for us to continue watching all the time. Barry. [01:54:43] Speaker A: Oh, my God. Long time listeners of Joag will know that I talked about how we were watching through Barry last summer. Last summer. [01:54:51] Speaker B: Last year. [01:54:52] Speaker A: We have not finished it, by the way. [01:54:55] Speaker B: Amazing. I love that. [01:54:59] Speaker A: So that was fun. And then we also watched Raising Arizona. [01:55:03] Speaker C: Yes. [01:55:03] Speaker B: Oh, nice. That was one of the, like, you know, when Kio and I started dating, one of the early movies that he showed me because, again, that's the point at which, like, mostly everything was dvd collections. Streaming did exist, but, like, not where you could get a whole heck of a lot at the time. So it was like, going through our dvd collections with each other, and raising Arizona was amongst the first. [01:55:27] Speaker A: Raising Arizona is one of, like, when I watched it for the first time, it just. It gave me that feeling of, like, oh, like, this is why I love movies. You know? Like, it's just one of those ones where I'm just like, I just love movies. Like, somebody made this. And, like, people, you know, like, Nick Cage is amazing in it. Holly Hunter is so cute. [01:55:47] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:55:47] Speaker A: You know, the Coen brothers just, like, they translate story to screen and so. Such a, like, compelling way. And. Yeah, I mean, I just. Yeah, I just love it. I think it's so great. And if you haven't seen raising Arizona, definitely. It's like, it's wholesome, it's exciting, it's funny, it's heartwarming. It'll, you know, tear jerker moments. It's got everything. [01:56:12] Speaker B: Yeah, it does. Yeah. [01:56:14] Speaker A: So, so good. [01:56:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:56:17] Speaker A: And then we also did. So I. We watched Twister, and I knew that this was gonna come up. I knew this was gonna come up because I know this is, like, a beloved movie, too. [01:56:31] Speaker C: Yes. [01:56:31] Speaker A: And I totally understand why. [01:56:33] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [01:56:34] Speaker A: I did not rate it as highly as you do. [01:56:38] Speaker B: Right. I was actually kind of curious about this because obviously, I don't have objectivity on this. I love this movie and have forever. And I rewatched it over and over every year. It's like a constant one for me. So there's no objectivity to this. One of the things that I enjoyed when I was reading through people's twisters reviews, which famously, I hated, was that a ton of people on there were like, I just watched the old one for the first time, and I really loved it. And I was like, oh, yay, that's okay. But a thing that I did not know until, like, two or three years ago is that a lot of people think it's a bad movie. And I was like, wait, why? Like, I don't understand. [01:57:21] Speaker C: I. Yeah, I don't like it. It is constantly like it. My issue is that it told us all what storm chasers were, and back in the day, that was like, oh, cool. But if you know what storm chasers are now, 90% of the movie is them expositing what storm chasing is and doing it poorly. Learned how to do it better. [01:57:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:57:46] Speaker C: That they can exposit to you again, how they learn to do it better. But it's all chasing one storm. Yeah, but it's. [01:57:57] Speaker A: That is several ways. [01:58:03] Speaker C: The thing that I realized, though, while watching it is its jaws, the movie. [01:58:06] Speaker B: It is 100%. [01:58:08] Speaker C: And I was like, I totally get. [01:58:11] Speaker A: Why he was like, this is why Cory likes this movie, because it is job. [01:58:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:58:16] Speaker A: The thing is, like, you know, I like the people in it, so it's not a chore. No, it's, you know, like, I'm not saying, like, I'm not, like, shitting on it. You know, I. I still had a really good time, you know, like, so I'm not, you know, my problems with. [01:58:32] Speaker C: It are always just the scripts. [01:58:34] Speaker A: It's also okay. I will say whatever. Whatever. His I is, like, engaged. That movie did her fucking dirty. [01:58:45] Speaker C: They introduced her to be us, to. [01:58:48] Speaker A: Be the body who doesn't know what's going on chasing. [01:58:51] Speaker C: And then when they're done with her, they're like, all right, move on. [01:58:54] Speaker A: She doesn't even get to be part of the climax or the ending of the movie. [01:58:59] Speaker B: She doesn't want to be. [01:59:05] Speaker A: You know, I've always. [01:59:06] Speaker B: I've always liked her because I feel like I, like, get her because I don't want to be there. I enjoy watching them do it. I don't want to be there either. I'm interested in the science of it and everything, but I don't want to be in the middle of it. And I always liked that. She's not the bad guy. No, she's just kind of, like, this is not. She's competing with something she can't compete with here, the storms and Joe and that, like, when she realizes that because she's a therapist, she's like, you know what? Let's not do this. It's not making a thing. [01:59:44] Speaker C: I'm gonna go forward. [01:59:45] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:59:47] Speaker B: Yeah, right? Like, there is clearly something better for both of us. [01:59:53] Speaker C: She serves her meteorologist, man, and I hope she. [01:59:56] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Like, I've always, like, had, like, a soft spot for that character and the way they portrayed her because I just feel like in the nineties, it's like, you never had, like, an ex who wasn't, like, a heinous bitch, right. Yeah. She should have been nagging him. I felt like a lot of the. [02:00:12] Speaker A: Characters were just mean to her for no reason. [02:00:14] Speaker C: Right. [02:00:14] Speaker A: You know? And that's kind of, like, part of what I like. I wish they would have just been like, oh, she doesn't know, but we're gonna tell her. Instead of being like, why is she here? Which is why I did really appreciate it. [02:00:28] Speaker C: I'm gonna try to fuck her. [02:00:31] Speaker B: This is clearly not going to work out. [02:00:33] Speaker C: So he's just like, okay, I'm leaving storm chasing to become a meteorologist. [02:00:37] Speaker A: I did say while we were watching this, I realized that my gender is just every Philip Seymour Hoffman character. [02:00:45] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:00:50] Speaker B: It'S so funny, too, because obviously this movie having coming out when it did, I was like nine or whatever when this came out of. So for a decade or more, Philip C. Murray Hoffman was that guy from Twister. Because it was like he was a that guy for so long, he started getting like, those. [02:01:08] Speaker A: He was leading man roles was boogie nights. [02:01:11] Speaker C: Boogie nights was like. [02:01:14] Speaker B: A little later than that, I want to say. That was like 98, late nineties. Yeah, yeah. [02:01:21] Speaker A: So he was like, getting out there, but not like. [02:01:23] Speaker B: Like he was everywhere. Yeah, it's. It's the Jack Black thing, too. It's like how I just called Jack Black that guy from that X Files episode eight, you know, and like, you know, he was. He was in stuff. He's like Mars attack, Orange county and stuff. Right. [02:01:38] Speaker C: But like, he wasn't. He was being Jack Black, but not getting to do the Jack Black full. [02:01:45] Speaker B: Yes. [02:01:46] Speaker C: Charming thing. [02:01:47] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And so, yeah, Philip Seymour Hoffman at this point, it was like, yeah, I'd seen him in a ton of stuff, but it was like the. The place that he'd cemented was Twister. So he was just like, oh, this has got that guy from Twister in it. Yeah, I love that guy. [02:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah. You know, and like, so, yeah, like, the experience. The actual experience was very enjoyable. So, like, I just quality of like. [02:02:08] Speaker B: Yeah, right, I get you. I think that's the thing is, like, the thing that always confuses me when people are like, this is like a bad movie or whatever. I was like. But like, were you not entertained? I think that's my question. [02:02:21] Speaker A: Yeah, it's more like it. [02:02:23] Speaker B: Right. [02:02:23] Speaker A: So I think that also goes into. [02:02:25] Speaker B: My, like, plays into the rating. [02:02:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:02:28] Speaker B: But, yeah, there's a lot of stuff that, like, I would say that I'm like, yeah, I think 2.5 is usually that kind of rating. I give something where I'm like, I had fun. I just know, like, good. Like, I'm not gonna come back to it. Like, I don't think this was quality filmmaking or anything, but, like, I had fun. Right? Yeah. And I think that's the thing that has always been the gap for me. I'm like, are people watching this in serious? Seriously, like, boredom the whole time or, like, they couldn't be yeah. Like you said, it is. It's. [02:02:54] Speaker A: There's too much going on. [02:02:55] Speaker B: Yeah, there's a lot happening. Okay. Thank you. I appreciate the explanation of that for me. [02:03:03] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:03:05] Speaker B: Anything else that you guys got to this week? [02:03:07] Speaker A: I did, on a whim, watch this movie that had been in my watch list for a little bit called Dead Wear. I watched this on my. [02:03:17] Speaker B: On there. [02:03:18] Speaker A: Yeah. I was interested in it because the premise was that it's these childhood friends. It's set in the late nineties, and so they're talking to each other over video chat. [02:03:34] Speaker B: Whoo. [02:03:35] Speaker A: And playing this spooky game together. And the game was cursed. And I was like, I like cursed video games. I like computer games and that kind of thing. That sounds kind of fun. And I'm, like, willing to forgive a little bit of anachronistic technology if it just means that this is how we're getting the movie. Like, I'm willing to accept that. You know, it. But. But the, like, the level. [02:04:00] Speaker B: Oh, no. [02:04:01] Speaker A: Non research. I feel like that went into anti research. [02:04:07] Speaker B: Are you doing this on purpose? [02:04:10] Speaker A: Facts out of his head. Like, please suck out my knowledge of this era. [02:04:14] Speaker B: Oof. That. [02:04:15] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it was. There was, first of all, no reason why it needed to be set in 99. They're not dressed like it's 99. They walk like it's 99. [02:04:26] Speaker B: It's not. It's clearly not to, like, avoid phones or anything like that. It's not that a technology is. [02:04:33] Speaker A: They use cell phones in the movie, like. [02:04:36] Speaker B: And it's a movie about technology. Right. [02:04:39] Speaker A: Yeah. So it was. I think it was just one of those, like, weird, like, let's bank on the nostalgia that people have for this era, you know? But not, you know, actually do. I don't. I don't fucking know. But the other thing that was, like, so frustrating about it is, like, one of the main characters was truly one of the most aggravating people I've seen on. [02:05:04] Speaker B: Oh, no. Yeah, I don't have a lot of time for that. [02:05:07] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And, like. And it was one of those situations where he kept saying, I don't even want to be doing this. I don't want to even be. I don't even play this game. And it's like, leave. Then he does at a certain point, and then she's like. She calls him and she's like, but please, like, please just play the game with me. And he was like, okay. And then he gets back on. He's like, I hate this. I don't even want to be doing this. And, like, there's no, like, he's there because he needs to be there for the story. You know, it's like, characters have no depth. It was, and, like, the thing that, like, the actual game they were playing, it was one of those, like, point and click, like, mystery games, which I was obsessed with. Like, I love those. And it looked. It actually looked really good. It looked really accurate to what those games are and everything. And I was like, why can't we just do that? [02:05:58] Speaker B: Sure. [02:05:59] Speaker A: Instead of have open with 30 minutes of us getting exposition of these people's lives and why they know each other and how they're friends and all this setup for something that's going to happen later on in the movie that no one gives a shit about. Just play the damn game. But no, you know, so. And this is something that, like, I just have an issue with. With most, like, found footage or, like, that. That adjacent type of, like, genres that, like, it's like, found media or whatever. I don't know. [02:06:29] Speaker B: Yeah, but, like, it's. [02:06:32] Speaker A: It's like, make a found footage movie where the characters don't suck. Challenge impossible, right? [02:06:39] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:06:40] Speaker A: Level impossible. Because, I mean, that. [02:06:44] Speaker B: That feels like. Yeah, it's become a trope in it that you have to have. [02:06:49] Speaker A: Ever met. Yeah. [02:06:50] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:06:51] Speaker B: Have you seen butterfly kisses? [02:06:54] Speaker A: No. And. And that actually, someone just was talking about that the other day, and I remember you talked about it and I was like, I should get on that. [02:07:01] Speaker B: Yeah. That's not an asshole one. [02:07:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:07:04] Speaker B: Yeah. It's really interesting the way that this one is, is done and uses talking heads and all kinds of stuff in it, like. Yeah, because I always think when I watch something, like, I know how much you. You constantly watch found footage because you want to like them, but you never knew. Yes. So when I watch things, I. I often think about that, and that's when I feel like, I don't know, it might. It might because it's really. It's so well done as, like, a documentary feel to it that there are times in it where I wondered, like, did the talking heads know? Like, did they tell these people something and they're reacting to it? Do they know they're in a movie because they're so real in this movie that I'm, like, so deeply convinced by it? So you might, you know, stupid name for a movie. Butterfly kisses, is, you know, I think one that maybe might work for you. [02:08:03] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll have to check that out. [02:08:04] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:08:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll move it up on my list. [02:08:07] Speaker B: Yeah. Instead of wasting your time with dead wear. Dead wear. [02:08:13] Speaker C: I did just add to our list last night, man bites dog, which I watched that one. [02:08:19] Speaker A: Okay. [02:08:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I did not like that. [02:08:22] Speaker A: That a French. [02:08:23] Speaker B: It's a french one. And the guy, he's in like my favorite, one of my favorite rom coms ever. Certainly my favorite french rom.com called Romantics anonymous. And he plays this very shy chocolatier who falls in love with another very shy chocolatier. And it is such an adorable movie. And then I watched man fight Dog and I was like, oh, no. [02:08:50] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [02:08:52] Speaker B: This is not, it's rough. [02:08:54] Speaker C: It's rough. [02:08:55] Speaker B: It's like got like graphic rape in it. Like extremely graphic. Full news comedy. Yeah. [02:09:04] Speaker C: Hbo. [02:09:04] Speaker A: The French's idea of what a comedy is, is very interesting. [02:09:09] Speaker B: It's not the same as ours. [02:09:10] Speaker A: No. [02:09:13] Speaker C: Man who is old and she get. [02:09:15] Speaker B: Scared to death, you get. Yeah, it. It does not. But, and I think that's like, man Bite's dog has like a very edge lordy quality to it. And that's to a degree because the character is like an editor. He's very impressed with himself and all that. But I don't feel like there's enough, like, judgment on him in it for, for a time. [02:09:43] Speaker C: Not documentary style is following a murder. [02:09:47] Speaker B: Exactly. And it's like. [02:09:52] Speaker C: Henry are two of the earliest and they're both so hard to watch. [02:09:56] Speaker B: Like, yeah, Henry also lots of graphic rape and things like that in it. Henry's a weird one. Is like, on top of my just, like, not liking it. It was like, the weird thing about that movie is like, the music is like an after school special in it. And so it has, like, the weirdest weirder. [02:10:13] Speaker C: It makes it so creepy. Yeah. [02:10:15] Speaker B: The vibes of that movie are deeply confusing. But yeah, there's another movie, I can't think of what it's called that I think you might enjoy because it's actually like, it's either the late nineties or the two thousands, but it's a movie that takes place through, like, found footage of sorts. But it's pre, it's before Blair witch, so it's like, we weren't calling it that yet. And it takes place with this guy, like video chatting and like, that's like the conceit, right? He's video chatting with his girlfriend. This is new technology that there never has been before. So it's like anachronistic in the sense that in order to make this work, this is a technology that didn't really exist at the time. And so they have to kind of fudge it to make it work. I'll have to look up, try to figure out what the name of this movie was because it's so interesting as, like, it's not perfect. I think it does a lot of really cool things, like kind of a paranormal story, but working with something that there really hadn't been yet, like a found footage movie taking place fully on screens in, like, the late nineties or early two thousands, it's very interesting to watch. [02:11:33] Speaker C: Cool. [02:11:33] Speaker B: Cool. [02:11:33] Speaker C: Let's check it out. [02:11:34] Speaker B: I will find that for you. And I'll try to, if I can find it. As I'm editing, I'll put it in the description with the rest of the movies, but otherwise, I'll let everyone know later on. [02:11:45] Speaker A: Sweet. [02:11:46] Speaker B: Anything else? [02:11:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I'll just briefly mention. So we're still doing screaming chats and ice cream sundaes and stuff over on the dead and. Lovely discord. So on Friday night, we watched attack of the killer dome doughnuts. And it was about what you would expect. You know, it wasn't great, but it was. It was definitely fun. Yeah, they had some really cheesy fun shit in there. So I would say if you're just looking for a very low stakes, something you like, you don't have to super pay attention to, but has some funny kills. [02:12:20] Speaker B: Check it out and see Thomas Howell, right? I think I look at the. I was like, oh, I love C. Thomas Howell. [02:12:28] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, we. None of us really hated it. You know, we actually had, like, a pretty good time with it, so. And then, yeah, last night, we. We decided to watch a little movie called Paul Blart Mall Cop. Neither of us had seen you. Really. You really don't need to. You really don't need to see. [02:12:51] Speaker C: You don't need to see it. I had never seen it. I always thought of it as joke movie. I believe the reason we watch this, because does the McElroy brothers mentioned it a lot on. [02:13:01] Speaker A: Yeah, back in the day, I was a big Mbim bam fan. My brother. My brother and me. And they would bring up Paul Blart Mall cop constantly. [02:13:11] Speaker B: Like, in a positive way or. [02:13:12] Speaker C: Okay, no, I think. [02:13:13] Speaker A: I mean, like, fondly, but, you know, making fun of. And I was always like, oh, I guess I should watch that. You know, like, these people that I, like talk about it all the time. I don't know. [02:13:24] Speaker B: Aren't there multiple? I mean, I don't want to, like, speak this into your world, but aren't there multiple? [02:13:29] Speaker A: Oh, believe me, I already know there's, like, two of them, I think. Yeah. [02:13:34] Speaker B: Okay. [02:13:34] Speaker C: So, yeah, finally. I mean, you know, it had been brought up several times as a potential, and I was like, well, let's just do it. And it's such. It's what I expected it to be. It's such an innocuous movie with no real comedy to it. Like, Kevin James is not. His audience isn't looking for something to be funny. They're looking because they think his big eyes are cute and they like to see his big, cute eyes on screen. And then when he says stuff, they go, oh, of course. A happy Madison movie. And there's nothing Adam Sandler finds funnier than a fat guy. [02:14:16] Speaker B: Yeah, true. [02:14:17] Speaker A: Put a fat guy out there. [02:14:19] Speaker C: Put a fat guy on the screen, and then people will laugh because he fell. [02:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:14:25] Speaker A: There's not just him. Like, there's so many other side characters that are just there and they're fat. And that's the joke. [02:14:33] Speaker C: The joke. But there's not even, like, a joke. [02:14:35] Speaker A: But they're also very all. [02:14:36] Speaker B: They're. [02:14:36] Speaker A: They're all, like, normal. [02:14:37] Speaker C: They're just normal. [02:14:38] Speaker B: Right. [02:14:38] Speaker A: All, like, normal people, you know? [02:14:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:14:41] Speaker A: So, like, the 2009 idea of fat, you know? [02:14:44] Speaker B: Right. Yes, of course. [02:14:46] Speaker A: But. But, yeah, I mean, it was like. Yeah, it's like, I. I'm not, like, mad at it, but I also am. [02:14:55] Speaker B: But one star. [02:14:56] Speaker A: One star. Because fuck you. [02:14:58] Speaker B: Because, like, I'm not mad at it, but fuck you. [02:15:04] Speaker A: Okay. Like, it's. It's so mid. [02:15:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:15:08] Speaker A: That I despise how low effort that. [02:15:12] Speaker B: You resent that someone made this, because. [02:15:16] Speaker A: The movie itself is nothing. Not right. It's. It's fine. [02:15:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:15:20] Speaker B: Right. [02:15:21] Speaker A: And there's nothing that I hate more in art than mediocrity. [02:15:26] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:15:26] Speaker A: Due to not caring. [02:15:28] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:15:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:15:29] Speaker A: Like, it's edited horribly. No reason for that. [02:15:32] Speaker C: Yeah. Right. [02:15:32] Speaker A: No reason for that. Like, everyone involved in this, like, they're in the industry, they know how to make a fucking movie. [02:15:39] Speaker B: It's just nobody gave a shit at any point in the production of this movie. [02:15:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:15:44] Speaker C: And for me, like, the entire time sitting there just going, there's a sequel to this. [02:15:49] Speaker B: People watch face and said, many people watched this that they made. [02:15:53] Speaker A: James was in it and said, I want another one. [02:15:57] Speaker C: That's what made a lot of money. It made a lot of money. He could. He didn't, like, scam people in the making sequel because the first one made a lot of money and sequel made a lot of money. It's crazy to me, like, there are families out there right now that quote, paul Blart like, they have an inside joke where they're just like, something about Paul Blarthe. [02:16:15] Speaker A: What? It definitely falls in that I feel, like, kind of sparse demographic of, like, families whose kids are in, like, middle school, high school, and they want something that they can watch together that's kind of edgy but not uncomfortable. [02:16:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:16:32] Speaker A: There's not a swearing in it. There's not, like, sexual content or whatever, so. But it's not something that you would show to little kids. [02:16:38] Speaker C: It really is truly like, a dad sitting in his. His jean shorts and his white socks and his white shoes would sit back after and go, that movie was so good. And you know what? One thing that I noticed. No swears. [02:16:51] Speaker B: Just knows you can be funny. Oh, man. We've all. We all know him, and every, you. [02:16:59] Speaker A: Know, every die hard fan can be like, oh, this is the die hard I can show. [02:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:17:03] Speaker C: Cause again, it was Adam Sandler being like, what if we made die hard. [02:17:06] Speaker B: With a fat guy? [02:17:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [02:17:08] Speaker C: He gets up in the. Into the ceiling and he falls. [02:17:13] Speaker B: Oh, man. Oh, that's rough. So I'm gonna go ahead and skip Paul blart and not make the same mistake I did with. Yeah. [02:17:23] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [02:17:24] Speaker B: It can't be as bad as people say it is. [02:17:26] Speaker C: It is. [02:17:27] Speaker B: It's that bad. Oh, man. Okay. Well, dear friends, I did not think of a question for this week, which we have been talking for plenty of times, so we don't necessarily have to have one. [02:17:43] Speaker C: True. [02:17:44] Speaker B: But is there anything existential on your minds this week that you'd like to put out into the universe? [02:17:50] Speaker A: Of course, everything in my mind has just gone away, completely goes blank, ran out. I'm being questioned. [02:18:01] Speaker B: Story of my life. Yeah, it's. You know, it's not a must. It's just, if there's something that you've been thinking, honestly, a good chunk of the time, the reason that, like, we even ask these questions, it's usually something that I've weirdly texted mark at some point during the day, is that is what I constantly do, is ask him questions. I feel like this is a. There are little ways in which, in real life, our roles swap a little compared to on this show, where Mark usually plays. Like, I. Like, I'm the straight man to mark, like, doofus. But in, like, real conversations between us, oftentimes, I'm just asking him the stupidest thing you've ever heard. It's like, why? What would make you think that? Like, I don't know. Just came to mind. [02:18:56] Speaker A: It's just a fun topic that we're discussing as friends, you know. [02:18:59] Speaker B: You know, it's what we do in this no judgment zone here in the text message, but that is find friends at home. You know, where to find the Hellrankers on all of your favorite podcast apps. Soon to be on Patreon, I assume. Are you doing the YouTubes or the socials or anything like that? [02:19:20] Speaker C: We're eventually going to include video components. It's just so much work. [02:19:27] Speaker B: I've got this down to a. Almost zero work art at this point. Doing. [02:19:33] Speaker C: I can edit a two hour podcast in like 1015 minutes. [02:19:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the export is the longest part of the process. I want to go to bed now. [02:19:42] Speaker A: Okay. This will be bouncing for the next three to seven business days. [02:19:46] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. Well, now I've thrown a wrench into things because there's three of us and I have like, a frame for two of us. So this is, you know, it's just gonna be plain sorry. Friends. You don't get a cool pink background. [02:20:00] Speaker A: But they get us. [02:20:01] Speaker B: But you get our dear friends Hollywood, Steve and Anna. Anything that you would like to leave our listeners with as they go off into their week, stay hydrated and drink beer. And drink beer. [02:20:15] Speaker C: Yeah, it's good for you. [02:20:17] Speaker B: Or perhaps a root. Bruce, should you, you know. [02:20:20] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. If you don't drink alcoholic beer, go for root brewski. Already called root Brewski. [02:20:26] Speaker B: I don't know why. That's what I decided. It is root brewski. So, yeah, have one of those and of course, darling ones. You gotta go ahead and stay spooky.