Ep. 258: alpine divorce

[00:00:03] Speaker A: In some natures, there are no halftones, nothing but raw primary colors. John Bodman was a man who was always at one extreme or the other. This probably would have mattered little had he not married a wife whose nature was an exact duplicate of his own. Doubtless there exists in this world precisely the right woman for any dark given man to marry, and vice versa. But when you consider that a human being has the opportunity of being acquainted with only a few hundred people, and out of the few hundred that there are but a dozen or less whom he knows intimately, and out of the dozen, one or two friends at most, it will easily be seen, when we remember the number of millions who inhabit this world, that probably since the earth was created, the right man has never yet met the right one woman. The mathematical chances are all against such a meeting. And this is the reason that divorce courts exist. Marriage, at best is but a compromise. And if two people happen to be united who are of an uncompromising nature, there is trouble in the lives of these two young people. There was no middle distance. The result was bound to be either love or hate. And in the case of Mr. And Mrs. Bodman, it was hate of the most bitter and arrogant kind. In some parts of the world, incompatibility of temper is considered a just cause for obtaining a divorce. But in England, no such subtle distinction is made. And so until the wife became criminal or the man became both criminal and cruel, these two were linked together by a bond that only death could sever. Nothing can be worse than this state of things, and the matter was only made the more hopeless by the fact that Mrs. Bodman lived a blameless life and her husband was no worse, but rather better than the majority of men. Perhaps, however, that statement held only up to a certain point, for John Bodman had reached a state of mind in which he resolved to get rid of his wife at all hazards. If he'd been a poor man, he would probably have deserted her. But he, he was rich. And a man cannot freely leave a prospering business because his domestic life happens not to be happy. When a man's mind dwells too much on any one subject, no one can tell just how far he will go. The mind is a delicate instrument, and even the law recognizes that it is easily thrown from its balance. Bodman's friends, for he had friends, claim that his mind was unhinged. But neither his friends nor his enemies suspected the truth of the episode, which turned out to be the most important, as it was the most ominous event in his life. Whether John Bodman was sane or insane at the time he made up his mind to murder his wife will never be known, but there was certainly craftiness in the method he devised to make the crime appear the result of an accident. Nevertheless, cunning is often a quality in a mind that has gone wrong. Mrs. Bodman well knew how much her presence afflicted her husband, but her nature was as relentless as his, and her hatred of him was, if possible, more bitter than his hatred of her. Wherever he went, she accompanied him, and perhaps the idea of murder would never have occurred to him if she had not been so persistent in forcing her presence upon him at all times and on all occasions. So when he announced to her that he intended to spend the month of July in Switzerland, she said nothing, but made her preparations for the journey. On this occasion he did not protest, as was usual with him, and so to Switzerland this silent couple departed. There is an hotel near the mountaintops which stands on a ledge over one of the great glaciers. It is a mile and a half above the level of the sea, and it stands alone, reached by a toilsome road that zigzags up the mountain for six miles. There's a wonderful view of snow, peaks and glaciers from the verandas of the hotel. And in the neighborhood are many picturesque walks to points more or less dangerous. John Bodman knew the hotel well, and in happier days he had been intimately acquainted with the vicinity. Now that the thought of murder arose in his mind, a certain spot two miles distant from this inn, continually haunted him. It was a point of view overlooking everything, and its extremity was protected by a low and crumbling wall. He arose one morning at four o', clock, slipped unnoticed out of the hotel, and went to this point, which was locally named the Hanging Outlook. His memory had served him well. It was exactly the spot, he said to himself. The mountain which rose up behind it was wild and precipitous. There were no inhabitants near to overlook the place. The distant hotel was hidden by a shoulder of rock. The mountains on the other side of the valley were too far away to make it possible for any casual tourist or native to see what was going on on the Hanging Outlook. Far down in the valley, the only town in view seemed like a collection of little toy houses. One glance over the crumbling wall at the edge was generally sufficient for a visitor of even the strongest nerves. There was a sheer drop of more than a mile straight down, and at the distant bottom were jagged rocks and stunted trees that looked in the blue haze like shrubbery. This is the spot said the man to himself. And tomorrow morning is the time. John Bodman has planned his crime as grimly and relentlessly and as coolly as ever. He had concocted a deal on the Stock Exchange. There was no thought in his mind of mercy for his unconscious victim. His hatred had carried him far. The next morning after breakfast, he said to his wife, I intend to take a walk in the mountains. Do you wish to come with me? Yes, she answered briefly. Very well then, he said. I shall be ready at 9 o'. Clock. I shall be ready at 9 o', clock, she repeated after him. At that hour they left the hotel together, to which he was shortly to return alone. They spoke no word to each other on their way to the Hanging Outlook. The path was practically level, skirting the mountains, for the Hanging Outlook was not much higher above the sea than the hotel. John Bodman had formed no fixed plan for his procedure when the place was reached. He resolved to be guided by circumstances. Now and then a strange fear arose in his mind that she might cling to him and possibly drag him over the precipice with her. He found himself wondering whether she had any premonition of her fate, and one of his reasons for not speaking was was the fear that a tremor in his voice might possibly arouse her suspicions. He resolved that his action should be sharp and sudden, that she might have no chance either to help herself or to drag him with her. Of her screams in that desolate region. He had no fear. No one could reach the spot except from the hotel, and no one that morning had left the house even for an expedition to the glacier, one of the easiest and most popular trips from the place. Curiously enough, when they came within sight of the hanging outlook, Mrs. Bodman stopped and shuddered. Bodman looked at her through the narrow slits of his veiled eyes and wondered again if she had any suspicion. No one can tell when two people walk closely together what unconscious communication one mind may have with another. What is the matter? He asked gruffly. Are you tired, John? She cried with a gasp in her voice, calling him by his Christian name for the first time in years. Don't you think that if you'd been kinder to me at first, things might have been different? It seems to me, he answered, not looking at her, that it is rather late in the day for discussing that question. I have much to regret, she said quaveringly. Have you nothing? No, he answered. Very well, replied his wife, with the usual hardness returning to her voice. I was merely giving you a chance. Remember that. Her husband looked at her suspiciously. What do you mean? He asked, giving me a chance. I want no chance, nor anything else from you. A man accepts nothing from one he hates. My feeling towards you is, I imagine, no secret to you. We are tied together, and you have done your best to make the bondage insupportable. Yes, she answered with her eyes on the ground. We are tied together. We are tied together. She repeated these words under her breath. As they walked the few remaining steps to the outlook. Bodman sat down upon the crumbling wall. The woman dropped her alpenstock on the rock and walked nervously to and fro, clasping and unclasping her hands. Her husband caught his breath as the terrible moment drew near. Why do you walk about like a wild animal? He cried. Come here and sit down beside me and be still. She faced him with a light he had never seen before in her eyes, a light of insanity and of hatred. I walk like a wild animal, she said, because I am one. You spoke a moment ago of your hatred of me. But you are a man and your hatred is nothing to mine. Bad as you are, much as you wish to break the bond which ties us together, there are still things which I know you would not stoop to. I know there is no thought of murder in your heart, but there is in mine. I will show you, John Bodman, how much I hate you. The man nervously clutched the stone beside him and gave a guilty start as she mentioned murder. Yes, she continued, I have told all my friends in England that I believed you intended to murder me in Switzerland. Good God. He cried. How could you say such a thing? I say it to show how much I hate you, how much I am prepared to give for revenge. I have warned the people at the hotel, and when we left, two men followed us. The proprietor tried to persuade me not to accompany you. In a few moments those two men will come in sight of the outlook. Tell them, if you think they will believe you, that it was an accident. The mad woman tore from the front of her dress shreds of lace and scattered them around. Bodman started up to his feet, crying. What are you about? But before he could move toward her, she precipitated herself over the wall and went shrieking and whirling down the awful abyss. The next moment, two men came hurriedly around the edge of the rock and found the man standing alone. Even in his bewilderment, he realized that if he told the truth, he would not be believed. [00:12:01] Speaker B: Thank you, Marco. Well, read. [00:12:04] Speaker A: What a pleasure. What a treat. [00:12:06] Speaker B: I really enjoyed. Watch. I don't Usually get to see when you are reading one of the stories here. And it was wonderful to watch like you enjoy and get into reading a story. [00:12:18] Speaker A: Listen, there's so many things about six years of Joe Ag that I've loved, right. I've loved. I don't need to go into it in depth, right. But one of the real, real fucking core pillars of Joe Ag up to now that I've really been enjoying is the occasional opportunity to just embody and ham the fuck out of a tale like that, right? I love doing it. [00:12:43] Speaker B: Yes. [00:12:43] Speaker A: And you know, 10, 15, 20 odd years just without doing anything like that. So being able to fucking chew up a tale like that is a real treat from time to time. So thank you. [00:12:56] Speaker B: Yes, it was absolutely wonderful. What'd you think? Did you like the story? [00:12:59] Speaker A: Oh, gripping, gripping. A real page turner, you know, Melodrama. Sturm undrang, you know, great fucking landscape. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beautiful tale. [00:13:11] Speaker B: It's fun because I got to like watch you sort of uncover what was happening as you read it too, which was, you know, getting little sly smiles on your face and things like that as you went through it. Oh, delightful. [00:13:21] Speaker A: Let me just see if I can find the word here, which I particularly enjoyed. What the fuck is an alpenstock? [00:13:28] Speaker B: Where, where was. I mean, you're obviously one word. [00:13:31] Speaker A: Some kind of garment the woman dropped. [00:13:34] Speaker B: Oh, that she. Yeah, I don't know. [00:13:37] Speaker A: You just pull up GPT here and just sit down. She fucking. Well, fuck, I'm so wrong. An alpenstock is a long, sturdy, iron spiked staff or pole. [00:13:52] Speaker B: Oh. [00:13:53] Speaker A: Used whilst traveling on like glaciers in the Alps. Used by shepherds. [00:13:59] Speaker B: Yeah, you've seen that in like every photo of like, you know, old timey people going up a mountain. [00:14:05] Speaker A: Yes, listeners, that is an alpenstock. [00:14:08] Speaker B: Well, look at that. We've learned something new. We're gonna learn more here, Marco. [00:14:12] Speaker A: Interesting. Ah, right, interesting, because over here we have a cereal, a kind of, I guess you'd call it granola. Like kind of a oaty kind of cereal called alpen, which purports to be Swiss in origin. So fucking. What's the word? Etymology. Love it. [00:14:29] Speaker B: Well, yeah, I mean, we would say Alpine of course, but Alpine. [00:14:33] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:14:34] Speaker B: Of the Alps. Yes, naturally. Y. Yes, I love an etymology. Yeah. So Mark, I did have you read this for a reason. [00:14:45] Speaker A: Yes. Good. [00:14:46] Speaker B: Okay, so let's get into it. You know that I'm not on the tiktoks and I tend to have zero. [00:14:53] Speaker A: I barely am these days myself. [00:14:56] Speaker B: Good. I'm very glad to hear that I'm just. [00:14:59] Speaker A: Apologies to rabbit hole you right away. [00:15:02] Speaker B: This does happen quite a bit. [00:15:03] Speaker A: It does. But today I cancelled Amazon Prime. [00:15:08] Speaker B: Very proud of you. [00:15:10] Speaker A: Yes, I did. Today I cancelled Amazon Prime. I don't make TikToks anymore. I barely did, to be honest, you know, But I'm spending consciously, just really fucking doing my best to spend less and less time on video, social media in particular, because it's having a fucking ruinous effect on [00:15:37] Speaker B: everybody, on everybody. [00:15:38] Speaker A: On society, I believe. And I don't want to sound like a fucking boomer. Right. You know, I give myself pause whenever I think I'm about to sound like a boomer. [00:15:46] Speaker B: Right. Yes. [00:15:48] Speaker A: But I. I am now inescapably left with at the conclusion that it's fucking things up. [00:15:54] Speaker B: Well, like I said, you know, I sent you a video weeks ago, which I'm sure you did not watch, but I did suggest you watch maybe with your. Your kids, but that went into that. That, like, now we do have amount of, you know, at least the beginnings of research showing that. Specifically. [00:16:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:16:10] Speaker B: Things like TikTok and YouTube shorts that are like, scroll. Ongoing. Ongoing scrolling videos are genuinely destroying our brains. [00:16:19] Speaker A: Yeah. It's. It's designed. [00:16:23] Speaker B: Right. [00:16:23] Speaker A: The best analogy I can think of. And this has come to me in the moment, and this is a little bit scattershot, but bear with me. When you're smoking a cigarette. Right, Right. Come with me. Just hear me up. Sure. [00:16:36] Speaker B: It's not a thing I do, but I. Yeah, I'll come along on this adventure. [00:16:40] Speaker A: When you're smoking a cigarette, you know when to stop. Because the cigarette fucking ends. It burns down. [00:16:45] Speaker B: Right, Right. [00:16:47] Speaker A: Burns your fingers. You've gotta stub it out. Cause the cigarette is over. Right? [00:16:50] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. [00:16:52] Speaker A: When you're vaping, you don't have that signal. And you could just stand there and vape all fucking day. [00:16:58] Speaker B: Right, Right. Yeah. [00:17:00] Speaker A: It's a similar kind of connection that I've made between that. That analogy and scrolling video versus looking at like a webpage. [00:17:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:17:09] Speaker A: A webpage has indicators when you have come to the end. [00:17:13] Speaker B: Mm. [00:17:15] Speaker A: Whereas constant video does not. Engineered for instant dopamine takes away all of the visual cues from the screen. Real estate. You don't have any other fucking buttons, any other visual indicators. Your battery indicator is gone, your clock is gone. You just got that. The screen, the entire fucking thing is the video. Hit, hit, hit, hit, scroll, scroll, scroll. With no indicator to stop ever. That can't be good. [00:17:39] Speaker B: Yeah, that. I like that analogy. That is good. Unrelated to what I was going to talk about. But still, I'm glad you brought it in. [00:17:47] Speaker A: Okay. [00:17:49] Speaker B: That's all right. You know, I never got into that stuff. So my point being, I'm out of the loop a lot of the times. You know, I don't know a lot of the trends that are going on because they're from the tiktoks and I don't use it. But recently, a popular genre of TikTok video has caused some chatter to reach Blue sky, which piqued my interest. [00:18:12] Speaker A: Okay. [00:18:13] Speaker B: I mean, not enough to download and look at TikTok, but enough to read about this trend. And this trend, for lack of a better word, is videos about a practice that takes its name from the very story that you just read. [00:18:28] Speaker A: No. [00:18:29] Speaker B: An Alpine Divorce by Robert Barr. [00:18:32] Speaker A: Yeah, sure. Which was 1899. Is that right? [00:18:41] Speaker B: 1893. [00:18:42] Speaker A: 1893. Okay, okay, okay. Do go on. [00:18:44] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. So, listener, if for some reason you skipped past the story, here's just what you need to know about the premise. A husband and wife have grown to loathe each other, but British law does not allow for people to divorce simply because they don't get along. Again, 1893. Now, I'm pretty sure you can divorce for whatever reason you want, right? [00:19:01] Speaker A: You certainly can. It's known as a no fault divorce. [00:19:04] Speaker B: No fault divorce. [00:19:05] Speaker A: Yeah. Anyone can. You can. You don't even have to have this. Your spouse's. You don't have to petition as a couple. One person can initiate the divorce and then the second, the other the recipient of the divorce. The divorcee will then get notified afterwards after a couple of weeks. So, yeah, you're divorced. [00:19:23] Speaker B: Congratulations. Yeah, well, yeah. So anyway, being rich and of high social standing, the husband can't simply leave the wife like a poor. So he hatches a plan to bring her to Switzerland and throw her off a mountain to her death. Only his wife has figured out the plan, told everyone she knows he's going to kill her, and had two men from the resort where they're staying follow him. She tells him all that, all this, then throws herself off the mountain, leaving him without the satisfaction of murdering her, but with all the repercussions he thought he was going to cleverly avoid by claiming it had been an accident. [00:19:54] Speaker A: It's a very Columbo story. It's a very Hitchcock. [00:19:57] Speaker B: Yeah, totally. Isn't it? It is so Columbo. That is so true. Especially because it's rich people. [00:20:04] Speaker A: Yeah, so true. Yes. [00:20:08] Speaker B: This story has been invoked now some 130pl years later, because if TikTok is to be believed, men taking their female partners on hikes and then leaving them in the wilderness to fend for themselves is shockingly common. [00:20:22] Speaker A: Stop it. [00:20:24] Speaker B: Yeah. So the inciting incidents for this trend are sort of twofold. For one, on TikTok itself, it seems to have started with a woman with the accountaya who posted a video of herself on a hike with the text pov. You go on a hike with him in the mountains, but he leaves you alone by yourself and you realize he never liked you to begin with. The post ended up amassing thousands of comments. Had something like 8 million views or something like that. And many of the comments were just basic, like, what the fuck? Why are men? Kinds of things, of course. But others were saying, yes, this happened to me too, folks brought up that indeed this is a thing and it's referred to as Alpine divorce, and that there are allegedly whole ass support groups for women who have been through this. [00:21:21] Speaker A: I don't believe that right now. [00:21:24] Speaker B: I do. I want to add a caveat there. Yeah. Because every, every article that I read mentioned that said there's support groups for people in out who have experienced this. I tried searching, you know, Google and all those kinds of things. I searched Facebook groups and I cannot find any such support group. I will say I was specifically searching the term Alpine divorce support group. So maybe by some other description, you know, bitches left on mountains. Like, I don't know, there could be another kind of support group that fits the this. But I'm just gonna say that I'm skeptical about that particular claim that like, this has happened so many times that there are full support groups for this. The news says so. I don't buy it. I think they just didn't look into it deeply enough. But regardless, that said, there's no doubt that this is a thing that happens. Women all over the Internet have talked about being left on hikes by men who either broke up with them or stormed off in an angry rage during an argument and left them to fend for themselves, often without any supplies, in dangerous conditions like extreme heat or cold. [00:22:34] Speaker A: Now again, apologies for diving in, but, but, but a couple of weeks back, fascinating, fascinating story made the news here. [00:22:47] Speaker B: Don't tell it if it's about this happening, because I'm gonna tell that story. [00:22:51] Speaker A: It isn't about this. Are you? The case I'm talking about is in Austria, right? In February. Is that what you're talking about? [00:22:59] Speaker B: Yes, I will be there. [00:23:01] Speaker A: Yes. Good, good, good, good, good. This was big, big, big, big news for a Couple days. And Owen and I had a series of impassioned discussions about this case. [00:23:10] Speaker B: All right, well, well, I want to hear about those once we get there. But I'm not there yet. [00:23:15] Speaker A: So what I'd also say I'm diving in left, right and center here. I'm very sorry, my mind's quite skittish. We had parents evening this week. Right. Went to chat to the kids, teachers, and his English teacher said the quality of Peter's discussions is excellent. It's clear that you talk a lot about current events at home. Yeah, I didn't say anything, Corrigan. Right. I didn't say a word. [00:23:42] Speaker B: You didn't actively like pat yourself on the butt back? [00:23:45] Speaker A: I didn't have to. [00:23:46] Speaker B: Yeah, we do. [00:23:47] Speaker A: I looked at Laura and I looked at Peter and they knew how smart I was feeling. I'm still feeling smug. [00:23:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm a good parent. What? Honestly, something I would like to go back to at a different time because I just went to like this, this fundraiser, a dumpling fundraiser thing. It was largely like. [00:24:10] Speaker A: Fundraiser? [00:24:10] Speaker B: Yeah, fundraiser for like local schools and they made and sold dumplings. [00:24:15] Speaker A: Okay, fine. [00:24:16] Speaker B: Yeah, but so like this whole thing was kind of. Yeah, it's exactly what it sounds like. But these teenagers were kind of in charge of everything and it was not going super smoothly as a result. And you know, I walked up to like kind of get my. You pre ordered the dumplings or whatever and like the dear girl who, you know, was serving me or whatever was like so confused and no idea it was going and like kind of, I don't know, the whole interaction is very stilted and whatnot, which I find happens a lot when I talk to teenagers and I'm always like, I wonder, you know, when I was a teenager, were teenagers like this and I just didn't notice because I was one. Or is it like something about like, you know, and they talk about like AI voice and things like that now? Like, is it something about the way that they're used to interacting with screens and things that makes them weird about other people? Or is it like you, you know, if you grow up in a family that talks all the time, you know, like you do, is that what impacts like the way teens speak? [00:25:16] Speaker A: Or is there another option? And this is something I've a question I've had to confront in myself recently. Are we just big fucking massive weirdos who are intimidating to kids? [00:25:29] Speaker B: I don't think. I think you might be intimidating. I don't think I'm particularly intimidating. [00:25:34] Speaker A: Okay. [00:25:35] Speaker B: I do have children and Teens approach me in public often. [00:25:39] Speaker A: Okay, fine, fine, fine, fine. [00:25:40] Speaker B: So I don't think it's that. But anyway, we won't get into that today, but it is something I'd like to talk about. [00:25:46] Speaker A: Would I eat and buy and pay for a dumpling that some fucking random kid had sold me? Like, am I doing it? [00:25:54] Speaker B: They were good. They were. I mean, it wasn't like they were like. They made them in a kitchen, like, in a place, you know, supervised by an adult who does this professionally. Oh, right. [00:26:05] Speaker A: Funny. [00:26:06] Speaker B: It's not like. Yeah, it wasn't. It's not like making lemonade, you know, like, just like, I'm just gonna pour this in a cup and hand it to you. [00:26:12] Speaker A: It's only quite recently that the British understanding of the word dumpling has evolved to mean what I think you think it means. [00:26:22] Speaker B: Okay. [00:26:22] Speaker A: Because as a. If I was growing up, right, and I got back from school one day and my mam told me that she'd made stew and dumplings. [00:26:30] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, that's a different. That's like. Like, chicken and dumplings is like a [00:26:35] Speaker A: thing, like just a bowl of. [00:26:37] Speaker B: That's a. [00:26:39] Speaker A: Just a caramel. Yeah. Just a fucking sphere of. Just like a stroke in your hand. [00:26:48] Speaker B: Yeah. I have no idea what those kinds of dumplings are comprised of. I'm also from New England, so I didn't eat it growing up. But I know there are areas of [00:26:57] Speaker A: the United States that flour and fat and. [00:27:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:27:01] Speaker A: Just boil that in chicken bits for a week and. [00:27:06] Speaker B: Yeah. I think once I went somewhere and had chicken and dumplings, and I was like, this is horrible. Thank you. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about Asian dumplings. [00:27:15] Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah, I know. Yeah. You know, if you time travel. Yes. But if you time travel to, like, 1986 and offer someone a dumpling and then produce, you know, lovely little gyoza. Yeah. [00:27:27] Speaker B: They'd be like, ah, fair enough. Okay, so that rabbit hole accomplished in 1 2022. It's gonna be that kind of episode, and it's fine. In one 2024 video, a woman was told by her partner that they were going on a hike, and he instead took her on, like, a legit climb up, like, a dangerous mountain. Then, while she was on a ledge in improper climbing equipment, sneakers, no helmet, no gloves, etcetera, he jumped off the side of the mountain in one of those BASE jumping suits and left her on the side of the mountain. This is all on video. This is. I thought it was funny. Yeah, Right. She's just clinging here in her like Adidas on the side of a mountain. And this man jumps off. He later claimed that he thought she was a morgue. This is on video? Yes. [00:28:21] Speaker A: Gonna see. [00:28:23] Speaker B: Yeah. He later claimed he thought she was a more competent climber than she was. And she downplayed it and tried not to blame him. She just said mistakes were made. Mistakes were not made. He did that on purpose throughout the whole video. Yeah, right. Like, oops. Like what? He's laughing at her while she's, like, terrified. On this video, it was very much on purpose. And then he got to see save her afterwards while also being like, oh, what's the big deal, baby? You, like, just tormenting someone for fun. Yep. Climber Maya Silver told her story of alpine divorce on climbing.com. she had gone on a trip to Unaweap Canyon in Colorado, sorry to any Coloradans if I'm pronouncing that wrong. And was scouting a climb in extreme heat with her boyfriend. Hot and exhausted, she fell behind and was sort of walking with her head down, as you do when you're tired and trying to keep the sun off your face. When she looked up, her boyfriend was nowhere in sight. He'd gone ahead without her, annoyed that she was moving so slowly. The path was treacherous and craggy and infested with rattlesnakes. She had very little food and water, and if anything had gone wrong, there was no one there to help her because he never turned back. He just waited at the end for her to turn up. It took a full hour for her to catch up to him. An amount of time in which she could have been seriously injured or killed. Fucking crazy. [00:30:00] Speaker A: It's incredible. Incredible, incredible. [00:30:04] Speaker B: I can't wrap my head around this, you know, Like, I've been. Kyo and I did the Tongariro crossing in New Zealand. I fucking hated it. Horrible, horrible. Very long hike. And I'm just thinking, like, you know, I was, like, obviously angry by the end of this hike, right? And so, like, Kyo had every. Every right to be, like, annoyed that I was being, like, a bit of a bitch about the whole situation. But, like, you know, got me into. Was very much his idea. And he, like, understood that. He was like, I got her into this situation, you know, and so he just dealt with me. Yes. He's like, it's fine, you know, we're gonna make. We're pushing through it. We're gonna get to the ends of this. The idea of him, like, you know, me being, like, angry about this, and then him Just like leaving me as a result, pulling out a wingsuit, just fucking off like. No, that is absolutely not. [00:31:00] Speaker A: Picturing Kyo doing that is hilarious. But I get it though. I mean, we. A couple of years back, we were in Greece and we did a gorge walk and it was rocky underfoot, you know, kind of shale, pebbles underfoot, baking fucking heat. And by the, you know, we did the easy path because the kids were younger, but by the time we got to the end, to the bar at the end, just bright red faces fucking sweating. [00:31:27] Speaker B: Right. Feet swelling. [00:31:29] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Completely, completely. So the idea that somebody would, you know, the harder paths were, you know, full of warnings. You. You could. [00:31:37] Speaker B: Right, yeah. You could die here. Yeah, yeah. [00:31:41] Speaker A: Mad sociopathic behavior. [00:31:43] Speaker B: Exactly. That's exactly it. Another Redditor, or. Sorry, this. I skipped a part. A woman on Reddit who identified herself as a search and rescue volunteer in British Columbia said that once she experienced a man who took his wife into the mountains, let her get hypothermia, sat for three days, and then got up and walked for four hours for help. How is it [00:32:08] Speaker A: what I'm. What I'm. The time I'm not spending on TikTok and Reels, I am spending on Reddit. [00:32:15] Speaker B: Sure. [00:32:16] Speaker A: Is that okay? That feels better to me. I mean, Reddit feels more interesting because I was. I was a forum guy in the early Internet. Yeah, yeah, forum poster. And Reddit feels like an evolution of that. [00:32:28] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean there is a degree to which Reddit is a bit of a black hole, but I think less so then my endless scrolling. But you certainly can kind of jump around Reddit forever. I will say though, that like, Reddit feels like one of the few things that's still intact. So if you do want information about something, you can find it. [00:32:45] Speaker A: Yes. [00:32:47] Speaker B: So I find myself like when I am looking up something like typing my question and then Reddit and then seeing what other people link to from Reddit to find it instead of Googling shit. [00:32:57] Speaker A: Very nice. [00:32:58] Speaker B: So yeah, it is. Unfortunately, despite, you know, the reputation it once had as being like a cesspool, I also think it is where we can find information now better than we used to or better than we can in other places. So, you know, I think Reddit's better to be on than TikTok. TBH. [00:33:16] Speaker A: I'm inclined to agree. [00:33:18] Speaker B: But yeah, so she said, like he. He managed to get up and walk for help, so clearly he'd been fine that whole time. You don't get stronger after three days of sitting on a mountain. Right? Like he could have gotten up and walked. As soon as his wife got hypothermia. He waited and then walked. And she didn't say in her comment whether the woman survived, but it doesn't sound like it. From her description of the event, it sounds like he waited for her to die and then went for help. Afterwards, she said it was clear to everyone on the search and rescue team that he had done it on purpose. Another Redditor described having been repeatedly abandoned on hikes by her boyfriend, who would regularly fly into a rage and stomp off or throw her equipment off of cliffs. He once left her in a parking lot of a mountain in Oregon and was pulled over by the cops as he left the park while she was walking alone down the road. The police told him if he ever did that again, he'd be arrested. If you've ever been to Oregon, you know, like a mountain parking lot is not near anything. She would have had to have been walking for, you know, anywhere from a few miles to 100 miles to get to other people on that road. So, yeah, he essentially left her for dead. She eventually left that guy, thankfully. And I'll link to that post in the show Notes, Notes, because there are a bunch of such tales in the Alpine Divorce thread in the Climber Girls subreddit, just story after story after story of women being like, yeah, my boyfriend did something similar to me while we were hiking. [00:34:55] Speaker A: My goodness. [00:34:57] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:34:59] Speaker A: And masculinity is a weird fucking thing, isn't it? What a weird beast. [00:35:04] Speaker B: That's really what this seems to come down to completely here. [00:35:08] Speaker A: How fragile are you that you've got to fucking leave your partner on a cliff? [00:35:14] Speaker B: Right. [00:35:14] Speaker A: And especially men will jump off a wingsuit, leaving their partner to fucking, you know. [00:35:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Instead of going to therapy. [00:35:21] Speaker A: Exposed to the elements. [00:35:22] Speaker B: Yeah, well, we'll get into that more. But it's especially this, like, perceived idea of female weakness from men that it enrages them, in this case, that really, you know, a woman kind of being slower or in any way, you know, needing something or questioning a man about, like, his plan can throw them into these intense rages that cause them to do things like this. It's a. It's a real instance of fragile, toxic masculinity that you see here. [00:35:52] Speaker A: You like stories about people being left on mountains, don't you? [00:35:56] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, I, you know, I love, like, a survival story that's like, yeah, Everest and things like that. Like, oh, that is. That's my bread and butter, man. Kids from that school, you know, if I can watch something that's like a. A wilderness. Like I've told you before, I read Outside magazine, like, religiously. I love Outdoor, like Peril, basically. I don't want to be in peril. Yeah. But I like reading stories of other people overcoming. Experienced it. Yes. Especially if they overcome it. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes they die. But, you know, I do. Like a story of peril. Yes. It's not mountains specifically, but outside peril. I know. I feel like there's something, like, very American about that because we have so much wilderness all around us. It's like some sort of cautionary thing I'm doing in my head or something like that. I don't know. [00:36:49] Speaker A: You're compiling strategies is what you're doing, right? [00:36:54] Speaker B: Yeah. It's like, you know when people talk about, like, why do women watch true crime or listen to true crime so much? And it's like, it's, you know, we're like. We're compiling a database. [00:37:03] Speaker A: God forbid it should ever happen. But what will happen is if you're ever left on a mountainside, like, your eyes will start to flicker wildly and you'll access, like, a database in your head of Outside my palace. Yeah, exactly. You'll start Sherlocking and you'll be like, right, right, fucking Weaver. Lean to out of these fucking fronds, and you'll be fine. You'll be absolutely fine. [00:37:29] Speaker B: Pretty much, yeah. But, Mark, obviously, neither of us have ever been on the dating apps. We are both folks that got Hitch, or at least, you know, were with our partners before those existed. [00:37:45] Speaker A: I had a conversation with a work colleague this week, in fact, about fucking, God forbid. Can you imagine? Can you imagine? [00:37:52] Speaker B: Absolutely not. I think I would do it if I were single. [00:37:55] Speaker A: Like, matching with either of us on [00:37:57] Speaker B: an app and never going. [00:37:59] Speaker A: Turning up at a fucking bar or restaurant and, oh, no, you or I walk in, hey, fuck, yeah. [00:38:06] Speaker B: No, we would be completely hosed. Yeah. There's simply no way that we would just happen to find the right person swiping through shit. Absolutely not. [00:38:15] Speaker A: I'd end up getting man scammed. I think I'd end up absolutely destitute. I. Taking out loans, selling everything I own to give, like, cryptocurrency to some fella in fucking Slovakia. [00:38:33] Speaker B: I can see it. I can see it. Yeah. No, we weren't. We weren't built for that. We're an acquired taste. You gotta, like, know us to love us. Very true. But even I, as a person who has never been on a dating app, have heard people say that, you Never say yes to a hike for a first date. Wow. It's just an accepted fact that there are too many ways that a man can harm you in the wilderness, including, it would appear, just leaving you there. And as many of these posts and articles about the phenomenon point out, these kinds of outdoor activities tend to trigger, as you were saying, some of toxic masculinity's worst behaviors. So like I said, the reason this is trending is twofold. First, the bajillions of women on TikTok saying this had happened to them. But in these cases, obviously they came out alright, perhaps with emotional and or physical scars. But they lived to tell the tale on the Internet. [00:39:31] Speaker A: They learned, right? [00:39:34] Speaker B: They learned something, that's for sure. And they're sharing that wisdom. But this was not the case for Kirsten Gertner, who was left to die on Gross Glochner, Austria's tallest mountain, by her boyfriend Thomas Plamberger. By his account, the two had been climbing up the mountain doing just fine. You even as the weather took a turn. And then suddenly and unexpectedly, Kirsten fell ill. He called the police, then decided to descend alone to get help. He called again several hours later requesting a helicopter and Kirsten's body was found the next morning, now on its face. Fine. [00:40:19] Speaker A: Pun accepted. [00:40:26] Speaker B: We know that climbing is dangerous. Conditions can change suddenly, both weather and health conditions. However, even knowing that there are red flags here, and we can kind of go back to the story that I told a month or two ago that you just referenced about the tragedy on Mount Hood, being prepared is a big part of climbing. You not only have to have the right equipment and skills, but you also need to be pragmatic and aware. You need to be looking at weather patterns and considering all possible outcomes for what could happen to you. Bad weather generally isn't fully unpredictable. The forecast is going to tell you there's a chance things are going to go wrong. This was absolutely the case in Oregon, where the leader knew a snoo storm, knew a snowstorm was coming, but thought they could totally beat it. It's bad planning. It's negligent planning to see a hazard and power through. Especially when not everyone's on the same level of skill and when you haven't brought the appropriate equipment for it is negligent. The weather conditions on Grass Glockner that day didn't come out of nowhere and it was January. So obviously at best it's gonna be super goddamn cold. You know that much. But they undertook this climb without basic shit like thermal blankets, which is hard for me to even fathom, because as we discussed recently, I've got two of those in my car and I don't even go anywhere. [00:41:56] Speaker A: Considering that Thomas was supposed to be such a adept. [00:42:04] Speaker B: Right. [00:42:04] Speaker A: Climber. Yeah, well, and the, you know, the fact that they didn't have a fucking shiny foil blanket between the two of them seems nuts. [00:42:13] Speaker B: Right, Exactly. And to an extent, too, you know, I was reading that like he. His sort of being experienced, the way that he presented himself as experienced was like he wasn't trained in any way on this and most of his knowledge came from the Internet, which is, you know, listen, some people can really learn their shit from the Internet. He does not appear to be one of them, but he was certainly representing himself to his girlfriend as someone who is extremely proficient in this and that he could be trusted to take the lead here. So it gets worse than those little bits of negligence. He also waved off help. According to climbing.com sometime between 10:30 and 10:50pm a police helicopter was sent to help them. It flew over and found them and shined its light on them. However, Plamberger did not make any indication that they were in distress. According to him, they were fine. It was literally as soon as the helicopter left that she suddenly showed increasing signs of exhaustion, which he said was completely unexpected and objectively unforeseeable. [00:43:31] Speaker A: Which is unforeseeable. [00:43:34] Speaker B: Unforeseeable. You sure about that? [00:43:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:40] Speaker B: Rescue services then attempted multiple times to get a hold of him via phone and he had service. His phone shows that it received those calls, he just didn't answer them. His attorney says that this is because he kept his phone on vibrate and hadn't noticed, which is insane. [00:44:01] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:01] Speaker B: How are you on a mountain with your girlfriend who is suffering a medical emergency and you don't even glance at your phone? [00:44:09] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:44:09] Speaker B: The normal thing to do would be to pick up that phone and call someone, not leave it in your pocket on vibrate so that no one can contact you. [00:44:18] Speaker A: Yeah. Again, like I've said, Owen and I have hotly discussed this case. [00:44:22] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:24] Speaker A: It was all over the news, all over the radio here for a couple of days. And that. That particular fact is the bit which makes it very difficult to swallow his. [00:44:37] Speaker B: Right. His version of the story, by all [00:44:39] Speaker A: accounts, that that mountain has absolutely perfect mobile signal. You've got no problems making or receiving calls on. Fucking gross. Glockner. [00:44:49] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:44:51] Speaker A: So Thomas, pal, don't buy it. [00:44:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And he finally did call the police and had a conversation which the police described as unclear. They didn't fully understand what he was trying to communicate to them. He then put the phone back in his pocket and didn't turn the ringer on. [00:45:10] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:45:12] Speaker B: What? Yeah, like, come on, man. He claims that he thought that the police knew how serious the situation was and that they would bring help immediately. He hunkered down with her for about an hour and a half and then left around 2am to get help. He didn't call for help again until 3:30am and again, like you said, this whole mountain gets service. There's no reason why he should have waited that long to call again. You know, if you. If you don't see any movement or anything for 15, 20 minutes and you know that there should be, get. Give him another ring. Of course, don't wait it out. But he. He makes that call and suggests that they send another helicopter for her. They couldn't, though, because the storms had gotten too bad for a helicopter to fly in. Thus they couldn't check until morning where they found her and she had frozen to death. And just to add some icing to this asshole cake. Marco, you may have. You may have read this already, but this motherfucker had done this before. [00:46:18] Speaker A: Oh, now this. I didn't know that. I did not know. [00:46:20] Speaker B: Not the first time. During his trial, a former girlfriend of his, identified as Andrea B. Testified that he had left her on the same mountain two years prior. Yep. She told the court, quote, the atmosphere was bad, and then he was suddenly gone. She said, my headlamp had gone out. I was alone, crying and screaming. He just left me there completely alone. He went ahead. That was our last mountain hike. For his part, Plamberger had been annoyed at how slowly she was moving and afterwards told her not to make a big deal of it. She said he would often get grumpy when she was scared and would tell her not to be such a baby, despite being such a monumental dick. There's no evidence that Planberger necessarily killed his girlfriend on purpose. Mostly it just sounds like he kind of hates women and sees them as weak and hypochondriacs. So when they complain that they're having trouble, he doesn't listen. His attitude is no way cut off, basically. [00:47:26] Speaker A: Yeah, completely. No way over here that I saw. Was it shared that he's got previous in doing this? [00:47:34] Speaker B: Yeah, this was. I had seen it like come up a few times, like in comments and things like that on Blue sky and whatnot. And so I was looking, I was like, is this a real thing or is this just like a rumor that, like, Started and it's now become common knowledge or whatever. But no, sure enough, it's in the. It's in the proceedings that they. She went into the court and testified that this had happened. And, and that's the thing is. Honestly works in his favor in that way to say it's not murder because he's not trying to kill these women. He's just. He just doesn't like them, essentially. You know, his opinion is like, if you can't hack it, then I'm gonna go without you. You. Which you can imagine is probably what happened with his girlfriend this time, is that she probably was com. Like, I'm not feeling too good or whatever. He was like, walk it off. Don't be a baby. Let's keep going. Until it was too late and didn't fully take what she was saying seriously until, you know, she was on death's door and there wasn't. [00:48:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:34] Speaker B: Anything else that could be done about it. [00:48:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:48:37] Speaker B: And then he didn't want to, you know, seem like a pansy and call the cops and panic about the fact that she was dying and that it's his fault for. [00:48:46] Speaker A: I, I am, I. I'm. I'm gathering my thoughts since you telling me that he'd done it before. That's a bombshell. [00:48:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:48:55] Speaker A: That's the same fucking mountain. No less. [00:48:57] Speaker B: The same mountain. [00:48:58] Speaker A: That is a bomb. That's a pattern. [00:49:01] Speaker B: Yeah, Right. [00:49:02] Speaker A: That's what that is once, is what you know. All right. [00:49:05] Speaker B: Yeah. Right. [00:49:06] Speaker A: You got one go, mate. I'll give you one go at it. But if you go back to the same fucking mountain and do it again, sorry, I do not buy your defense. [00:49:16] Speaker B: Right, yeah. And ultimately he was given a five month suspended sentence and a fine of €9,600 for grossly negligent homicide. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Suspended means you do no time. [00:49:27] Speaker B: You don't do time. [00:49:28] Speaker A: Yeah, as long as you don't leave any more girls on a mountain within that. [00:49:31] Speaker B: Right. Yeah, exactly. And in Austrian law, grossly negligent homicide is when one causes someone else's death, quote, through exceptionally and conspicuously negligent conduct. Like, basically, buddy, you saw this coming. This is your goddamn fault. [00:49:48] Speaker A: You bet he does it again. Bet he does it again. [00:49:51] Speaker B: Yeah. He doesn't sound like the kind of person who learns tbh. But while the punishment seems real light, the case has at least gotten people talking about this very real problem with toxic men taking their partners into the wilderness. Friends, if you don't already know, don't go in. Don't go into the wilderness with A man. It's a bad fucking idea. [00:50:19] Speaker A: Not all hiking men. [00:50:22] Speaker B: Not a hiking man, but always a hiking man. [00:50:26] Speaker A: Fair enough. Let me quote directly from my notes, if I may. [00:50:31] Speaker B: Yes, please do. [00:50:32] Speaker A: Fucking look at these nerds. Oh, mise en scene. [00:50:35] Speaker B: I don't think anyone has ever said mise en scene in such a horny way before. [00:50:40] Speaker A: The way I whispered the word sex. [00:50:41] Speaker B: Cannibal. Roussine. Worst comes to worst, Mark, I'm willing to guillotine you for science. [00:50:46] Speaker A: Thank you. That's really, really sweet. It's cold outside, but my pancreas is talking to me. I'm gonna leg it. [00:50:52] Speaker B: You know how I feel about that, Mark? [00:50:55] Speaker A: I think you feel great about it. A lot of fun, right? A lot of fun. I am. I'm gonna. I'm gonna. I'm gonna take you all in. Friends, listeners, Corrigan acquaintances, those on the journey. I've got a little tale to tell. A fascinating tale to tell. Fascinating little story. A fascinating little. [00:51:15] Speaker B: Leave us a yarn. [00:51:16] Speaker A: Micro mystery. Yeah. [00:51:18] Speaker B: Okay. [00:51:19] Speaker A: A mini mystery that's going on in my life right now. So excellent. In a few. In like a month's time, right, it will be my darling wife Laura's grandmother's 100th birthday. Right? Dang. [00:51:39] Speaker B: A centenarian now. [00:51:41] Speaker A: No. For she has died. Right. Oh, it will have been her 100 birthday. [00:51:48] Speaker B: Right, yes. Got it. [00:51:50] Speaker A: She did not make it to 100, listener. She did not make it to 80. [00:51:53] Speaker B: It just remains. Her birthday just remains chronologically. Yes, yes. [00:51:58] Speaker A: And so Laura wants to mark the occasion by bringing her family together for some kind of, I don't fucking know, party meal. I don't know. Right, okay, now here's where it gets interesting, all right? Laura has in her possession a collection of, if I were to say, mini dv, video cassettes. Would you know what I'm talking about? [00:52:24] Speaker B: Of course. I was a graduate major. [00:52:26] Speaker A: There you go. [00:52:27] Speaker B: Yes, that was the primary way you filmed things when I was in college. [00:52:31] Speaker A: There you go. Mini D. Little tapes, little tapes. Little tapes. Lots of little tapes. Some of which she suspects might have footage of her nan on while she was alive, right? From family holidays in the. In the late 90s, early noughties, okay? So let me tell you what I've done, okay? We don't have a mini DV cam anymore. We threw it out fucking years back. So I've bought one, right? [00:53:00] Speaker B: Okay. [00:53:02] Speaker A: It's beaten up the battery. You've got to keep it plugged into the wall because the fucking, you know, lithium battery is fucked. And it's Scratched to shit, but it works. I got it from an ebay seller, Right? [00:53:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:53:17] Speaker A: Like, you know, camera tech4u.co.uk or whatever. Whatever. And they've sent me this fucking camcorder, right, Corrie. It had a fucking tape in it. [00:53:30] Speaker B: I was like, was there a tape? Okay, go on. [00:53:35] Speaker A: It's a fucking tape in it. [00:53:38] Speaker B: Amazing. Okay, tell me more. [00:53:42] Speaker A: I could play for you right now. It's there. The tape is a group of ladies who feel to me to be like in their kind of 60s and 70s themselves. Kind of like a Golden Girls type group. Think of that. Right? [00:53:59] Speaker B: All right. [00:54:00] Speaker A: And they are at a zoo. They're at a monkey sanctuary. And they're going around for the day at a museum. I think they're like, in Spain or somewhere. [00:54:12] Speaker B: All right. Are they Spanish or are they British on holiday in Spain? [00:54:16] Speaker A: They're not British. They're not Spanish. But I think where they are is Spanish because they're going around a museum and talking about Spanish kind of history, historical figures. Right. [00:54:25] Speaker B: They're speaking English. [00:54:26] Speaker A: Yes, but not with an English accent. [00:54:29] Speaker B: Okay. Interesting. [00:54:30] Speaker A: I know, I know. And here is what I have pieced together in my head. Right. Here's what I think has happened. Here is head cannon. Here's what has happened. [00:54:40] Speaker B: All right. [00:54:42] Speaker A: I think. I think one of the women in this tape, the owner of the camera, has died. [00:54:52] Speaker B: Right. Mm. [00:54:54] Speaker A: Because it figures if she was in her 60s during that filming. [00:54:58] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:54:58] Speaker A: In the noise. [00:55:00] Speaker B: 30 years ago. 20. 30 years ago. Yeah. [00:55:03] Speaker A: I reckon. And I'm reaching here. I've got no evidence to back this up, but this is my vibes. I think some kind of house clearance has taken place of her personal effects. [00:55:11] Speaker B: Right. [00:55:12] Speaker A: The camera has wounded in the secondhand market and has wound its way up to this tech reseller. They haven't checked the camera. And now suddenly, through an unfucking likely series of events, I have a dead woman's tape right here. [00:55:30] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:30] Speaker A: Right here in my line of sight. Isn't that incredible? [00:55:33] Speaker B: I love that. [00:55:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:35] Speaker B: Big fan of that. Now, I want. I want to. You need to digitize it and share with me, but it's very. I want to see. [00:55:42] Speaker A: I bought a load of fucking cables and shit. [00:55:45] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:55:46] Speaker A: Off the Internet. [00:55:47] Speaker B: Nice. FireWire or whatever. Yeah. [00:55:49] Speaker A: I try to get this fucking thing talking to my MacBook. I was doing it just before we started recording, in fact, and I can get a bit of audio if I fuck with the jack a little bit. [00:55:56] Speaker B: Sure. [00:55:56] Speaker A: Can't quite get it to read the video out yet. So I've Got a bit of dicking around to do, but I'm gonna do it. Yeah, good. [00:56:04] Speaker B: I want to see this. [00:56:04] Speaker A: Now, what that also leads to is if I can digitize from a mini DV camera, I can also digitize from VHS because it uses the same three connectors, which means that I should be able to borrow a VHS player of someone and get all of my home fucking videos ready for jolly. I can get my movies and stuff. [00:56:23] Speaker B: Ah, it's beautiful. This is a beautiful revelation all around. Yes. I love that, though. The. Just the idea of having some, like, just. Yeah. The unlikely scenario in which someone opens up this camcorder that has been through whatever number of different owners and hands since. Probably you're right, it was an estate sale or something like that. Or just like, you know, they. Someone's cleaning out her house and was like, do we need this now? Sell it on ebay or whatever. You know, somehow this changed hands and ends it up. Ends up with you. Big fan of that kind of things. Finding stuff. Like, you know, I was in a cemetery in New Zealand once and found like a picture of a family, you know, that certainly was. Someone had put on one of the graves or whatever, and it had just like blown across the cemetery or something like that. And that's like. Immediately I'm like, stories. My brain is making stories for who these people are and, like, why this picture is here and things like that. I just think it's fascinating to have someone else's memories. [00:57:24] Speaker A: And I will stress again that I. There is no supporting evidence for the chain of events that I pieced together here. But that. [00:57:32] Speaker B: But that's a reasonable. [00:57:33] Speaker A: Isn't it? Perfectly plausible. [00:57:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Why else would that have changed hands that way in a way that, like, no one would have taken the tape out? Right. Because if you. If it was something that you were actively like, oh, this still belongs to me or to my mom or whatever, you'd check, right? You would. You wouldn't send it off with that in there. So the idea of, like, someone buying a whole bunch of. At once and that getting, you know, pieced out to different sellers makes sense, but I don't know, maybe we can find out who they are. [00:58:04] Speaker A: Well, again, we're reaching here into the future, but, you know, I've got the tape, so I may. As if I'm gonna digitize a buttload of other fucking home videos. I may as well just chuck this one up there as well. [00:58:14] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you've got me in here, so, you know, might as well. Thank you. Thank you for that [00:58:23] Speaker A: privilege is, of course, to say yes. I hope everyone's well. What kind of a week have you had, crew? Just take a moment, if you don't mind. Just be guided by my voice. Just for a moment. Just be guided. Let me just lead you on a moment of reflection. I want you to just pause for me. If you. If it's safe to do so. Just allow your eyes to close for me. If you'd be kind enough and just kind of tune out your surroundings, tune out your day, tune out what you're doing, and just allow reflection to enter your mind. Just allow. Just bathe and bask in the memories of the last seven days. And as you do so, just take note of what feelings arise in you, because they're all valid. Any feelings that come, just sit with them for a moment and accept them and dwell in them. Let them wash over you. Are they. Are you feeling proud of your last week? Are you feeling ashamed somehow? Have there been any awkward, awkward moments? Moments which you think you could have done better? I want you to dwell on those moments. I want you to really let the heat rise in your cheeks. If you feel as though you. If you feel shame, if you feel as though you want to hide, let that feeling just inhabit your body. Because you probably deserve to feel that way, don't you, about the week that's passed. But it's fine. You can draw a line under it, because it's Jack of all Graves. Jack of all Graves is here. And we feel your shame, right? And we feel every one of your regrets. Know that we regret them also, right? We are right here with you. [01:00:15] Speaker B: Bring your burdens unto us. Just. We will give you rest. [01:00:19] Speaker A: We will give you respite. We will wash the sin from your feet. Right? That's what we do here in this podcast. I'm sort of like Jesus in that way, as is Corrie, just dabbing at your feet with a little bit of sponge. Don't worry. It's all right. [01:00:35] Speaker B: We're here. [01:00:37] Speaker A: And then you. [01:00:37] Speaker B: This is what you meant when you said the. Yesterday that you found Christ. [01:00:42] Speaker A: Did I say that? [01:00:43] Speaker B: I believe you. You posted yesterday. [01:00:45] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. [01:00:46] Speaker B: That you've decided to follow. [01:00:48] Speaker A: It's just Blue sky talk. Don't ever listen to what I posted. I do enjoy. [01:00:53] Speaker B: There's. Listen, it doesn't. [01:00:56] Speaker A: How. How long. How long has Blue sky been a thing? How long have we been on Blue Sky? Three years, maybe. [01:01:00] Speaker B: So in that neighborhood. Yeah. [01:01:02] Speaker A: How. And sorry if this is boring to anyone listening, but I'm curious. How do you find it in differs today from how it did maybe a year and a half, two years ago. [01:01:14] Speaker B: That's a good question. [01:01:14] Speaker A: Because it's grown. It's grown a lot. [01:01:16] Speaker B: It's grown. Yeah, it's. It's a lot bigger. Which means I think you get, like, a little more, like, annoying people than there used to be. Like, it used to be pretty much all shitposters. [01:01:27] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:01:28] Speaker B: And now you do have people who, like, take everything very seriously, which I think, like, you know, it manifests in. In like. So if you're not on Blue sky, slash, aren't into wrestling, for example, wrestling was one of, like, the big communities on Blue sky from the start. Russell Sky. And so, you know, it's a big thing. People talk a ton, especially about AEW specifically. And then Rachel Maddow told liberals that they should come to Blue sky and leave Twitter, famously, in November of 2024. So there's, like, you can put a labeler on. On posts that you can see when someone joined in 2024, November of 2024. And those people tend to, like, see that people are posting about wrestling and feel the need to be like, oh, you're all a bunch of Trump supporters and things like that. And it's like, very, like, what. Why don't you just, like, hang out in. In your neighborhood instead of, like, coming in, like, jumping on people for, like, watching a TV show, you know? [01:02:38] Speaker A: Yes, I. Again, the. The time that I'm not investing in TikTok. Investing. Ha. That's a joke. The time I'm not spending on. On scrolling video sites is time I'm spending more on. On Reddit and Blue Sky. And I. I don't know. I. I'm grateful to Blue sky, in fact, for allowing me to reconnect with a side of myself that I really enjoyed about the good days of Twitter when Twitter was fun. [01:03:06] Speaker B: Right. [01:03:07] Speaker A: Just there's a little kind of part of my brain that really fucking just loves verbalizing synaptic kind of. [01:03:19] Speaker B: Yeah, just the weird thought. [01:03:20] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and. [01:03:22] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. [01:03:25] Speaker A: I don't know. I think it serves a purpose for me to be able to have a place where I can just bang out a sentence of fucking idiocy that, to me, makes me chuckle in the moment. [01:03:34] Speaker B: Right. 100%. [01:03:36] Speaker A: I continue to love it. It continues to serve a very valuable purpose. [01:03:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, this is from a lot of people complain about all of the, like, you know, the weird liberals and centrists and whatnot that have come on and get into your mentions and shit, like, that for one, I. I have made it so no one can reply to me who doesn't follow me. [01:03:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:55] Speaker B: And most people aren't going to put in the effort to follow you to neg you. Like, they're not that interested. If it's easy, they'll reply to you or whatever. But if they're like, oh, I have to follow you first, they're not going to put in that effort. So that makes the experience fine. Like, I never have weird replies now because everybody who's on there is someone who I like. And I don't follow a shit ton of people, which I think people complain about, like, oh, everybody's posting like this, or whatever. And I'm like, then don't follow people who post like that. [01:04:28] Speaker A: Well, yeah, exactly. [01:04:29] Speaker B: You know, this is easily solved. [01:04:31] Speaker A: You can not subject yourself. [01:04:33] Speaker B: Right. I see people complain about things, but also they're like jumping into conversations, like political conversations and stuff like that. And like yelling at people and stuff like that too. And I'm like, I mean, if you didn't do that, this would not be what your feed looks like. So. I love Blue Sky. I have a great time there. [01:04:49] Speaker A: Good, good, good, good. So do I. This, this episode is dedicated to you specifically. If you follow Jack of All Graves on Blue sky, this one is for you, right? You specifically. You know, I'm talking to. I'm talking to you in this episode. It's all yours. [01:05:04] Speaker B: Here, here. Which we're not great at using our Jack of All Graves Blue sky. It's like having to just like, switch over to something else is like a thing that I'm like, oh, that's a step too far. I should use it more. Nonetheless, we have a good time. Mailers are coming, everybody. The snow has melted. I can walk to the post office and send out mailers. So if you are in our top tier of supporters on our KO Fi, those mailers are coming to you. Should be this week that I send those out. So do we get any clues? [01:05:43] Speaker A: Do you get any clues what's coming? [01:05:44] Speaker B: Oh, no, I don't give clues. They will come from my hoard of things that I collect in my travels to send to people. Everywhere we go, I find some gift shop or something like that and I buy like a stack of postcards or, you know, something interesting. Like when we were in Rome, I bought a whole bunch of prayer cards with Pope Francis on them and sent them to people, you know, just. Just anything that I can find that will fit in an envelope while we are traveling. I stick in a Dresser drawer in my office. And then I pick each time what I'm gonna. [01:06:18] Speaker A: Prayer card. Sounds fantastic. I would dearly like one of those. [01:06:21] Speaker B: Well, it was. I think I have one for you, actually. I was going through a bunch of stuff and I was like, do they [01:06:25] Speaker A: all have different prayers from Rome? [01:06:28] Speaker B: They're all the same, but they're. You know, it was Pope Francis and it was like we went right before he died. So, you know, before it would have been this guy. American Pope. [01:06:37] Speaker A: I hope that Pierre Battista Pizzabala has in time learned to deal with the loss of not becoming Pope. I hope he's walked it off. I hope he's okay. [01:06:49] Speaker B: I think it's the rest of us who feel that loss of not having a pope. Pizzabala, you're right. Imagine the celebrations and the concoctions that people would have come up with to. To create the pizza ball up to celebrate. You know, insofar as popes can be good, even though they are all bad, at least American Pope is like the goodest a pope can be. [01:07:15] Speaker A: Oh, is he doing okay? [01:07:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think he's still got shit because he's a Catholic, but I think for the most part, you know, he's been good about, like gays and shit like that and, you know, not been terrible. So, hey, what can. That's the most you can expect? [01:07:35] Speaker A: It is, yeah. The bar is low, but the bar [01:07:37] Speaker B: is extremely low until we get trans Pope, like in conclave, where this is. This is what we get. I love that movie so much. I was thinking about it yesterday for some reason, and I was like, oh, I could watch that again. I watched it like three or four times in like short succession. [01:07:57] Speaker A: When that came out, I'm sure I will have said it at the time, but that's a real fucking movie right there. [01:08:02] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. And you know how I feel about when I'm just like, it's a movie when I go to see something. [01:08:07] Speaker A: Yep. [01:08:08] Speaker B: So, yes, mailers are coming. Anything else that we wanted to. [01:08:13] Speaker A: Look, we're not gonna bang on about this every single week until the 8th of August, right? We're not, I promise. [01:08:18] Speaker B: I mean, we should probably. That's how you make sure people remember. [01:08:21] Speaker A: But we'll ramp it up in a. In a while. Right. But this is the last we'll speak of it for now. But I. Last week, while I was working in London, I took a little hour at the end of my day and hopped on the tube and went to Zombie Games Cafe and bar in. [01:08:39] Speaker B: Yes. [01:08:40] Speaker A: Fucking good old Merry old London. Which part of it is it? Which part? [01:08:45] Speaker B: Cricklewood. [01:08:46] Speaker A: Cricklewood? Is it Cricklewood? Is it Rickmansworth? Cricklewood? One or the other? [01:08:49] Speaker B: No, it's. I've never heard of the other things, so I think it's great. [01:08:52] Speaker A: And just got a vibe check of the place, and it's great. And we've given him a deposit and we've locked it in. [01:08:58] Speaker B: Yes, it's happening. [01:09:00] Speaker A: It's out of the realms of the possibly could happen and is now very much in the fucking reality phase. [01:09:08] Speaker B: Yes, it is, for sure. [01:09:11] Speaker A: So you gotta fucking know listeners, you gotta know that we're fucking chucking everything behind this one, right? [01:09:16] Speaker B: Yes. Big time. [01:09:18] Speaker A: We are going as big as we've ever gone here, which, you know, we. The episode is already taking shape in my head. We're gonna have fucking giveaways. We're gonna have audience participation. We're gonna have fucking video. We're gonna have. We're just gonna be the most interactive, accessible, tangible, physical version of Joag you've ever fucking known. [01:09:48] Speaker B: I can't stress enough that, like, Mark is taking. We talked about this. Mark is sort of taking the lead on this to the point where I don't know what his plans for this episode are yet. He just keeps telling me I've got. It's. It's taking shape. [01:09:59] Speaker A: Yeah, it is. [01:10:00] Speaker B: I mean, it's coming together. [01:10:01] Speaker A: By which I mean, I'm thinking of bits. [01:10:03] Speaker B: Yep. [01:10:04] Speaker A: You know, all you. All you need to do, Corrie, is what you're doing now. Right. Only after a bit of a journey. All you have to do is come to the place and do this. Right. [01:10:18] Speaker B: All right. [01:10:19] Speaker A: And leave the rest to our audience, to our listeners, and to me. [01:10:25] Speaker B: All right. I feel pretty good about that. I mean, being the person I am, I've also obviously looked at, you know, place to stay. I know, like, our dear friend Sam was like, I'd love to get, you know, accommodation, lockdown, found a place that's. You know, the thing I like to do is stay in a Premier Inn. Right? I learned that from your brother. Like, if you simply cannot go wrong. [01:10:46] Speaker A: Listen, anyone who. I will not hear a fucking bad word about Premier Inn, right? [01:10:53] Speaker B: No. Yeah. [01:10:54] Speaker A: Because I tell you what they. I tell you what they offer, Corrie. You know what they offer. I'll tell you what they offer. They offer consistency, truth. Like McD's. It doesn't matter where the fuck in the world you should care to go. If you're staying at a Premier Inn, it is going to be identical. Right. It's going to be clean, smell the same. [01:11:13] Speaker B: Yes. [01:11:13] Speaker A: It's going to be, you know, functional. You're going to get a decent night's sleep and you're going to walk out and you're going to forget all about it and that's fucking perfect. [01:11:21] Speaker B: That's all you want. Right. Well, one thing that is slightly different is that a lot of the ones now in London, in central London, they've changed to almost like pods at this point. They're really small, tight little, you know, almost like Japanese style rooms. Yeah. Cubicles that you stay in at this point. So I was like looking for premier ins to stay in that. I was like, oh, like. I mean it's fine. [01:11:50] Speaker A: But premiere, premiere. [01:11:54] Speaker B: Can you imagine if I said it like that? Ugh. The premiere. [01:11:59] Speaker A: Say premiere in. To me, just say premiere. [01:12:02] Speaker B: Premiere in quite sounds actually. [01:12:05] Speaker A: No, [01:12:09] Speaker B: It's, it's. The word in my mouth is like, I'm like, oh, that's not how that's supposed to sound. Anyways, in the, in the big P, the ones that are in central London are like a little small. I thought, you know, I don't know if that's what our homies are going to want. So I did find one. There isn't one like in Cricklewood, but there is one in Hampstead which is near some things that I really love. For example, it's near. What's the cemetery that we went to? Highgate. [01:12:40] Speaker A: Highgate, yes. [01:12:41] Speaker B: Cemetery. [01:12:41] Speaker A: It is a bit of a trek, this place, this bar, it's not by [01:12:45] Speaker B: any means from the train. [01:12:46] Speaker A: Yeah, sure, sure, sure. [01:12:47] Speaker B: Whereas this Premier Inn is two minutes from the train according to all of the reviews and whatnot. Like a little thing called the Social that's like a 24 hour restaurant or whatever. So if we need to meet up with people to then go to say the meetup or things like that, it's got a little space to stay in. This is the Hampstead, London premiere in. So. But all of which, we'll write that down. But just, you know, if you're thinking about it, that's what I'm thinking. We'll do. Put us all in there. Easy peasy central. [01:13:21] Speaker A: All coming in the packet. Right? [01:13:23] Speaker B: All coming in the packet. [01:13:24] Speaker A: Even the packet itself itself is going to be ferocious. [01:13:28] Speaker B: Oh, wow. [01:13:30] Speaker A: Just a fearsome packet. Just, just a, a foreboding thick document. Right. Imagine it being slid across the table to you like a manila envelope. You know what I mean? It's one of those, It'll be one of those. It's gonna be amazing. [01:13:45] Speaker B: I'm feeling really good about it. It's gonna be so much fun. So, yeah, August 8th, put it in your calendars. It's gonna be so much fun. We can't wait. Oh, and the other thing is, hey, new Joag fan. Cave will be out tomorrow as well. We just recorded it the other night. [01:13:59] Speaker A: Nice. What'd you watch? [01:14:01] Speaker B: Night of The Living Dead, 1968. [01:14:03] Speaker A: Fantastic. Unimpeachable. [01:14:05] Speaker B: Unimpeachable. Great flick. Really fun to watch. Fun things, things to think about. So we kind of talked about it in terms of, you know, race and television and kind of what the movie was responding to and how it was changed by having a black lead. [01:14:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yep. Absolute game changer. And again, unimpeachable. Speaking of unimpeachable movies, I got sent just a fucking. I will send you this clip and you will love it. Richard sent it to me. Rich Lambert. Thanks, buddy. And it's Guillermo del Toro. And an interviewer is asking him, you know, like the rapid fire this or this? Okay, this. Okay, well, that or this. This or that. That or this. But horror movies and Texas Chainsaw Massacre comes up and every fucking movie they put next to it, Texas Chainsaw. Texas Chainsaw in Texas. Great American film. The Texas Chainsaw. And he's just beaming. He's just grinning from ear to ear talking about Texas. [01:15:06] Speaker B: And it's fucking. [01:15:07] Speaker A: Oh, it's just the most heartwarming 30 seconds just watching this fucking big teddy bear of a bloke. [01:15:14] Speaker B: I know, he's the best. [01:15:15] Speaker A: I love him. I fucking love the guy. Yeah, really nice. [01:15:19] Speaker B: On that note, should we talk about our Mormon friend first? Or should we talk about what we watch first? What order. [01:15:24] Speaker A: Hey, whichever. I mean, I'd like to talk about Mormons. [01:15:31] Speaker B: Okay. [01:15:32] Speaker A: If I may. Do you know about the Mormons, Listeners, just for context, every Friday night, my son Peter and my other son Owen go to Scouts. Right? They go to Sea Scouts. And what my partner and I have taken to doing in that window is hitting Netflix and just ripping into the true crimes. Right? [01:15:56] Speaker B: So that's. You found your common thing. Sit and watch a true crime. [01:16:02] Speaker A: We have at last. [01:16:03] Speaker B: You. [01:16:04] Speaker A: It occurred to me earlier on when I was discussing. Did not. Yeah, I, I, I clearly know a lot about no fault divorces, let's put it like that. So it's, it's good that we found some common ground. [01:16:19] Speaker B: Yeah. After all this time, this is your breakfast at Tiffany's. [01:16:23] Speaker A: Exactly. And all of which is to say that on Friday we watched and I can't even remember what it was called, but Watertail. What a tale. So we're in Utah in this documentary. Utah. Is that right? [01:16:37] Speaker B: Probably. [01:16:38] Speaker A: I think it is. [01:16:38] Speaker B: I haven't. I haven't watched this in a long time, but it is Utah. That's a good. Yeah. [01:16:42] Speaker A: And it tells the story of an influencer family, right? A mom and pop influencer couple with their six kids, and they have a YouTube channel called 8Passengers. And it's the most. It's one of those. It's one of those. It's one of those types of content that makes you almost curl up. It makes you sick because it's so saccharine and so fake and so superficial and manipulative. This fly on the wall. Ah, family life. Ha ha. Oh, God, it's so chaotic. But we get through it together through the fucking power of God and love. And it's horrible and it's exploitative to anyone with a fucking rational mind with the slightest bit of literacy can look at this and go, this is fucking rotten as fuck. [01:17:39] Speaker B: Which, by the way, like, I was talking with Q about this earlier about this idea, like, what you just said of anyone with like, an ounce of literacy can see this. And one thing that I keep on realizing as I watch people comment on things is that people don't have that. We. I think we expect a lot of people when it comes to their literacy for understanding, like when they're being sold something like an image like this, I think they don't really clock that this is fake. They might say that, you know, Instagram is your highlight reel or blah, blah, blah. But when it comes down to it, I don't know that, like, the amount of people that follow people like that could right back that up. [01:18:22] Speaker A: You know, billions of views, hundreds of thousands of followers, millions of dollars in income, right? And at some point, their story intersects with the story of a neighbor of theirs who lives in the same kind of area of Utah, a lady by the name of Jody Hildenbrandt. Hildebrandt. [01:18:45] Speaker B: Hildebrandt. [01:18:46] Speaker A: A. A Mormon with hardline views on demons, the demon of masculinity, the demons of sex and pornography addiction and how males need to be controlled and trained and, you know, restrained and restricted. And at some point, her life and the life of. Of this family intersect. And it. It ends up in just the most, ah, fucking heartbreaking and horrible instances of abuse of two kids who were bound with duct tape and were starved, emaciated, and cut and brainwashed. Chained up, brainwashed, locked in a safe room and all under the auspices of controlling the demons within them. Yeah, one of the kids escapes and knocks on a neighbor's door and the police are called, and that's when the whole thing unravels. But a big part of the documentary, a big part of the Netflix piece, is about this lady, Jody, and her counseling enterprise, right? Her therapeutic exercise. A company that she formed called Connections with an ex edgy course which offered couples counseling, but was just taking people apart piece by piece, Right. Whilst charging them un fucking real amounts of money for the privilege. People were, were remortgaging their homes, were taking out loans, were putting themselves in thousands and thousands of dollars worth of debt just to come back to this woman, to take them through courses and classes, deconstructing their every fucking, every impulse, their every action, their every behavior. Again, the term I keep going back to is brainwashed. Whilst the public facing, you know, the videos, the attraction videos, the marketing videos, were people on camps, climbing mountains, brown campfires, hugging one another, singing songs, crying in exaltation, having their lives suddenly making sense, coming into focus through her teachings, whereas in reality it was just mangling people's fucking minds in the auspices of, you know, the Holy Spirit. And I wanted to ask you, what can you tell me about Mormons? [01:21:38] Speaker B: Oh, well, you know, it's really interesting. Have you guys also come across Sins of Our Mother on Netflix? Has that been on your radar? [01:21:48] Speaker A: Yes, it is there. I have not seen it, but if it's anything like this one, I will [01:21:53] Speaker B: absolutely put that on your, your next week watch with, with you and Laura. That one's about Lori Vallow. [01:22:02] Speaker A: Okay. [01:22:02] Speaker B: Another Mormon who, in sort of similar fashion, like she and this guy named Chad Daybell, [01:22:13] Speaker A: one of the kids of Chad, Eight Passengers, is a chad. There's always a chad. [01:22:17] Speaker B: Always got to be a chad. Yeah, I mean, because Mormons are very white. So, you know, there's gonna be a chat. [01:22:23] Speaker A: I did say that, Laura. That did it. [01:22:25] Speaker B: For a long time, you couldn't be Mormon and not white because black people were black because of their sins according to Mormon theology. So like you, I'm gonna tell you about a little bit about Mormonism in a sec. But just it's worth noting, in the case of the Vallow Daybell murders, they also came from Mormonism and then sort of like a self help sort of situation. They were writing books and things like that and getting famous off writing these books. And it became like a doomsday cult, essentially a spin off of Mormons that was obsessed with demons. [01:23:01] Speaker A: Jody Hillebrand's Big prepper. Big doomsday prepper. [01:23:05] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. None of this extremism. And they ended up murdering their children and like fucking off to Hawaii and acting like it had never happened. And so this is another very like extreme Mormon cult situation, much like what happened with the eight passengers family, the. The Frankies. [01:23:28] Speaker A: Yes. [01:23:30] Speaker B: And so, you know, there's this thing about Mormonism is that like it's. So it's a very American religion. Right. It, the Bible takes place here in Mormonism. So like, you know, according to their theology, it's like all of this stuff that happened in the Bible is like, this all occurred in North America. And you know, it was started by a guy who had many failed attempts at grifting, Joseph Smith. You know, he did all kinds of things before he created a religion and realized like that was really where the money was. [01:24:08] Speaker A: How old is this? How long ago are we talking? [01:24:10] Speaker B: It's the 1800s. [01:24:11] Speaker A: Okay. [01:24:12] Speaker B: I want to say like the early to mid-1800s somewhere in that general vicinity. But this guy, you know, he created this religion, said that like an angel appeared to him named Moroni, and he gave him these tablets that, you know, have all of this information about how we're supposed to live and yada yada. And of course no one can see those tablets. They're gone. But this starts this religion that has a lot of really violent origins, actually, including like, basically when they moved west, they wanted to create their own territory and the US Government was like, fuck no, you're not gonna do that. Basically, like a little war happened between the Mormons, the United States government. They eventually end up in, in Utah, which is why whenever you hear these stories, they tend to take place in Utah. Utah is extremely Mormon. [01:25:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:09] Speaker B: And you know, especially Salt Lake City, if you go there, it's like that's really central to this area. So you've got a religion that's like super almost insular. Like people do leave and go other places and it stretches Mormons famously. Every, every Mormon has to go on a two year mission. [01:25:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:25:27] Speaker B: So. So they're all over the world going and showing up at your door in their white dress shirts and ties and their elder so and so name tags. But like they really kind of keep in like their communities and stuff like that that are very white. But so, I mean, Joseph Smith was killed in jail, you know, when he tried to shoot his way out of jail, basically. They don't tell that story that way. But he, he was arrested and he brought a gun, he tried to shoot his way out and he was killed in the fray. And, you know, there he believed in the practice of polygamy. That's like a core tenet of Mormonism. But obviously the US Government doesn't allow that. And over time, they've distanced themselves from that. And thus there are sects that have broken off to maintain that. That's where you hear about things like the flds, led by Warren Jeffs, that there's all the horrible child abuse and things like that in. And there's a lot of those in Mexico. They fled to Mexico and other places in South America. But this is to say that, like, Mormonism, because of its founding and the violence in its, like, initial years and things like that, has a lot of, like, tendency to rupture. [01:26:45] Speaker A: Right. [01:26:45] Speaker B: And to spin off into cults and have people get. Because one of the things about Mormonism, too, as opposed to say, like, evangelical Christianity, is that you can have new revelation in Mormonism. Right. So this wasn't in the book, but. Oh, our leader had a revelation that actually this is the case. Right. So that's like one of the things with. With plural marriage. Right. Is, oh, okay, this leader said he's had a revelation and God says, we don't do that anymore. Right. You can't do that in evangelical Christianity. [01:27:20] Speaker A: So clever, isn't it? [01:27:21] Speaker B: So, right. I mean, it's a religion built by a grifter, so it is made to be grifted with. Right. And so, yeah, it kind of. Because of that ability for there to be new revelation and things like that, it lends to these, like, cult spinoffs, [01:27:37] Speaker A: which is not, you know, that makes. [01:27:38] Speaker B: Don't turn into cults. [01:27:40] Speaker A: Borne out by the events of this documentary. [01:27:44] Speaker B: Right. [01:27:47] Speaker A: The two. The two ladies, Jody and. What was her name? [01:27:52] Speaker B: Ruby. [01:27:52] Speaker A: Ruby, yes. Would. Would vanish and lock themselves in rooms together for hours and then come out claiming to have had visions. Yeah, you know, claiming. [01:28:02] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. So I think that's one of the things that, like I said, like, Christians obviously have plenty of cults that spin off of them. Mormonism. I think just one of the reasons that it kind of spins off into these particular kind of, like, apocalyptic cults and things that are, like, obsessed with demons and stuff like that and control of children. And that sort of thing is kind of because of how it was created. That was basically, you know, a guy who wanted to have sex with a lot of women and to make a lot of money off of religion and things like that and. And to violently defend his right to, like, take territory in the United States you know, when that is where it comes from, you're gonna have these kinds of things happen. But the interesting thing otherwise, though is like, when you don't look at these kinds of instances, Mormons on the surface are like the sweetest, nicest people that you've ever heard of. It's like a bunch of like, very insular people. Nice white people who grew up in nice white neighborhoods who take care of each other and, you know, things like that. And then they come to your door and they want to, like, they want you to want what they have. Don't you want to, like, be beautiful like me? Like, blonde haired, blue eyed, gorgeous? Like, Mormons are very pretty a lot of the times, you know, they're like, there's eugenics y shit going on in the Mormon culture. And like, they want to like, spread that everywhere. Like, don't you want this perfect life? And so on the surface, Mormons more than like pretty much any other religion put out this vibe that on the surface, if you don't know anything about them, you're like, you know what? They're not harming anybody. Like, we love a Mormon. But they also, like, famously, when California was trying to legalize gay marriage, there was a proposition called Prop 8 to ban it. And Mormons were like the driving force before behind Prop 8 to ban gay marriage. So they like, very much get behind, like political causes and things like that that are extremely regressive and conservative. But their public image. [01:30:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:30:14] Speaker B: Is very shiny. [01:30:16] Speaker A: Sure. [01:30:17] Speaker B: Very slick. Yeah. So it's interesting that these two cases, the Valo Debel murders and Ruby Frankie and Jody Hildebrandt, kind of happened around the same time and brought to light these, like, two very twisted versions of LDS theology. [01:30:35] Speaker A: Fascinating. [01:30:35] Speaker B: Which also. They don't call themselves Mormons. [01:30:38] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [01:30:40] Speaker B: They're Latter Day Saints. [01:30:42] Speaker A: I knew you'd be able to fill me in. Thank you. [01:30:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a, it's a, you know, a fixation of mine, obviously. One of my favorite classes when I was in undergrad was a New Religions and cults class. And so we talked a lot about Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses and all these kinds of like this sort of offshoots of like Christianity is like the little thread at the middle of it and then it spins out into something that is like, not really that. And I just have always found Mormons really intriguing. [01:31:13] Speaker A: The. If you look, the doc is called Evil Influencer, by the way. [01:31:17] Speaker B: Yes, Evil Influencer. And what did I tell you? That the Valo Daybell one was called Sins of Our Mother. So put that at the top of your Netflix queue for next week's Scouts movie. Scouts documentary. It's good. They are particularly unhinged. They just. They are so convinced that they're kids or demons or whatever that, like, once they get rid of them, it's like they never existed. Like, everything's good now, and it is wild to watch. It's kind of that thing, you know, we've talked quite a bit about the idea of, like, true believers. Right. And it's very hard to believe in a true believer. You know, you always think, like, there's no way they believe that. It's just convenient for them. And I think there's, like, a degree of that here, obviously. But I do think there's a psychology of wanting so badly to believe something that you do. [01:32:19] Speaker A: You know, I'm less. Because I can. From a certain angle, I can kind of forgive that. [01:32:28] Speaker B: Mmm. So, yeah, I don't necessarily see it that way. That's not. I'm not doing it saying that as a divorce people from responsibility way. I'm saying it more as a. It's like, you know, when did you ever. When you were in school, like, you convinced yourself you were sick and all and you had a stomachache. You know, I remember doing that when I was a kid where I would be like, I don't want to go to school today, and I'm gonna lie and say I'm sick, and then I would, like, have a psychosomatic reaction to that of, like, oh, actually, I am sick. You know, that's more of what I'm thinking. I wanted to do a wrong thing. I wanted to skip school. And then I convinced myself, because I so badly wanted to have a reason not to go to school, that I was sick. And that's more what I'm saying here is these people, their motives are impure. You know, they want to do the bad thing, and then they just tell themselves a story so often, and they get other people to. Yes. And that story. Yeah, that's absolutely what's happening here. Until the distance between the motive and the, you know, the fiction just are so intertwined. [01:33:40] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, I can't get any further than avarice. That's the only thing I can pin it down to. I think profit is the root of 90% of what. What, you know, someone from an LDS cult would consider to be fervor. I see only profiteering. [01:34:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And that's certainly kind of, like I said, that's the origin of this religion when it Comes down to what the people are like who are in charge of that religion. It becomes very clear that I don't believe that any of those people are really true believers. When you get to the top. [01:34:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:34:26] Speaker B: Same of the Mormon Church. Did you ever watch Big Love? [01:34:30] Speaker A: Nope, never heard of it. [01:34:32] Speaker B: Oh, fucking great show. Bill Paxton, he plays a Mormon who believes in plural marriage and has three wives. And so it follows them trying to, like, keep that a secret while he's also kind of a hotshot in this Mormon community. But also main mainline Mormons don't like polygamists, so he has to hide that from mainline Mormons and from the government and everyone else who might be aware of this happening. [01:35:04] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:35:04] Speaker B: Fucking great show. It's so good there. You get all kinds of weird, like, Mormon crime rings and things like that going on in it. And it's just kind of. Yeah, to me, it's like that really is the way that I think about it. It's like the people who are at the top of things often, you know, they know that it's. [01:35:23] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I believe that utterly. 100 and see also, you know, any spiritualists. See also any healer, any, you know, any faith healer. I, I, I don't, I don't think [01:35:39] Speaker B: I, which we've talked about too, that I don't think that they're, I don't think they're all, I don't think they all know that they're grifters. A lot of them don't really make money off of this stuff and they really think they're helping people. But, you know, I, I think it comes from a place of having had belief myself that it's hard for me to reconcile that because now I'm like, how, how did I ever believe in that? That's so far from like my, the way my brain works. But I did. Yeah. And so knowing that somehow I believed that at the time and yet I can't connect with it now makes it so that I can kind of understand objectively. [01:36:23] Speaker A: Kind of look at it. A bit of removal. [01:36:25] Speaker B: Right, right. Like, yeah, it's like I can understand what you can convince yourself of that. [01:36:33] Speaker A: Would you, would you liken it to what you said earlier on about kind of making yourself feel a bit ill when you thought you wanted to be a bit ill? Is it, Was it that was it. You know, you surrounded yourself with people who you saw, oh, well, okay. [01:36:47] Speaker B: They believe. [01:36:47] Speaker A: Maybe I should. Okay. And over a period of time, it becomes true. [01:36:51] Speaker B: Yeah. I think there's like a, you know, as I'VE said I sought it out because I was scared of how big the universe was and, you know, afterlife and all that kind of stuff. So I wanted that. Right. Like, you know, I'm like, I wanted something to give me security in that. And then I go to a place where a bunch of people are sure about this, and then everyone. Yes. Ends it. And you're reading a book that confirms it, and I go to a school that confirms it and things like that. Yeah, absolutely. It started with the desire that I had. I wasn't born into it. And that's a whole other thing altogether when you're, I mean, like, these people were born into that. You never had a chance. But, like, I chose this and believed this out of, you know, I had a desire for something. It was met and then everything. Yes. Ending me into it. [01:37:44] Speaker A: So we, we must come back to that, because that's fascinating. Because. No, I'll, I'll, I'll save my thoughts until we discuss this again, because that's. I, I. That's the closest I've come to being able to, to grasp that state of mind. [01:38:02] Speaker B: Right. [01:38:05] Speaker A: Something that, by your own admission, isn't something that was in. Was in your heart from birth. [01:38:11] Speaker B: Right. [01:38:12] Speaker A: Something that you felt you needed to seek out, which in itself does that. Not in itself. Did that never give you cause to pause and they can't. Why was this not here always? Why have I had to find this and grow it in myself? [01:38:31] Speaker B: Well, certainly that's a thing that is a huge part of Christianity. [01:38:34] Speaker A: Okay. [01:38:35] Speaker B: That God is pulling at all of us, and you're either ignoring it or actively pushing it away or you're accepting it. So, you know, that is easily explained within the religion. Why didn't you have this before? Well, you know, your parents, before you chose to reject this. They chose the world instead of, you know, choosing God. But he's been calling at you. You were always gonna find him, you know. [01:39:02] Speaker A: Okay. [01:39:02] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:39:03] Speaker A: Nice. [01:39:03] Speaker B: Yeah. So, yeah, if you guys have watched those. Interested to hear what you think. If any of you were former Mormons or still Mormons. Current Mormons, for that matter. Always love to hear those kinds of thoughts. Mormons, Mormons, Mormons. Like, I sit here and I dog Christianity all the time, but our friend Melanie, she listens to this, and she is still a Christian. She is, you know, not offended by my constantly dogging it. [01:39:35] Speaker A: Good for you, Melanie. [01:39:38] Speaker B: All right, shall we run down what we watched before we head off into the night? [01:39:43] Speaker A: We sure can. Let me see, how far back are we going here? Because we didn't jawag last week, did we? So how far back are we going? [01:39:48] Speaker B: We didn't, but not a lot has happened since then. [01:39:51] Speaker A: I'll kick off with crime 101 then. [01:39:54] Speaker B: I know. I was so sad because this was so much fun for me. And you didn't enjoy it? [01:39:59] Speaker A: No, I was super bored. Maybe it's one of those cases of it not being the film I thought [01:40:07] Speaker B: it would be okay. [01:40:10] Speaker A: And the film that I had tuned myself into thinking I was going to get okay. I thought I was gonna get like something more fast and more furious. [01:40:22] Speaker B: Okay. [01:40:23] Speaker A: I was expecting driving through banks. I was expecting just high octane thrills. And what I instead got was some thrills, but something a little bit more studied, a little bit more character work going on a little bit more. [01:40:43] Speaker B: It's not an action movie, per se. [01:40:45] Speaker A: I thought it would be, mate. [01:40:47] Speaker B: Yeah, that's on me, honestly, in the way that I described it, because I did keep telling you there's car chases in it, which there are, but yeah, that does. It's not a high octane thrill ride through and through. It is more of a character. [01:41:00] Speaker A: Yes. So two stars. But a lot of that is on me. [01:41:05] Speaker B: Yeah, it's me giving you the wrong expectations and you expecting a different movie. And there you go. Maybe if. Maybe if those things had not gone that way, you might have enjoyed this. [01:41:16] Speaker A: Maybe I would have enjoyed it more. A lot of people did, though. It's done well. [01:41:19] Speaker B: Yeah, it's done well. I like I said I really liked it. Maybe now, friends, your expectations will make more, you know, will be more measured between our descriptions of it. But I, Yeah, I love that movie. I could. I could go see it again right now. I've been. I finally, you know, I've been complaining because our local theater stopped showing fun movies and keeps like just playing the same things for long periods of time, like same indie movies for like months instead of like getting anything new and whatnot. So I finally caved and got an AMC A list membership again, which makes you can see four movies a week and which is insane. I'm not seeing four movies a week. But if I see four movies a month, that is worth it. Which I went. The first thing I used it for is I went and saw Hoppers. [01:42:17] Speaker A: Listen, I was gonna ask super briefly. I. I can't remember the last time I paid full price for a movie ticket, right? And I'm wondering, is, is. Is it the same in the States that movie tickets are just given away everywhere you fucking look? Really? Not never I get a free ticket every month from my bank. I get a free ticket. I get two free tickets every month from sky, my TV package. You get. You get free tickets depending on. If you go here, go here, go here. Free movie ticket. Movie ticket. Nobody pays full price for movies. [01:42:52] Speaker B: They are extremely expensive. And you will always pay full price for them. Here, there. Yeah, it's anywhere from, you know, a matinee is like 11 bucks to the, you know, evening showings being $1718. And you will, you will pay it. And then if there's anything, you know, an IMAX screen or things like that, you're getting up near 30 bucks for a ticket, you will pay that unless you have something like a list which allows you to see any kind of movie. [01:43:21] Speaker A: Okay. [01:43:22] Speaker B: And it's. [01:43:23] Speaker A: Did you say four a month? [01:43:24] Speaker B: Because that's for a week. [01:43:26] Speaker A: Mad. [01:43:27] Speaker B: Yeah, you can see up to four a week. [01:43:28] Speaker A: What was Hopper's like? [01:43:30] Speaker B: Hopper's is great. Oh, my God. I loved. Was so good. This is the Pixar magic is back. This is what you. This is what you want from a Pixar movie. It's so goddamn weird. I think that's one of my favorite things about it. Just a bizarre film about a bizarre little girl who gets her consciousness put into a beaver well and tries to save their habitat. [01:43:58] Speaker A: What is. [01:43:59] Speaker B: And it's got scary stuff in it. You know, what is this? Child environmentalism. [01:44:06] Speaker A: Fine. [01:44:07] Speaker B: Yeah. And yeah, it's. I recommend Hoppers wholeheartedly. It is just a fun time. Guess I think, I think it's an hour and 40 minutes or whatever. You know, gets to the point. And yeah, it was laugh out loud. Of course, tears because it's Pixar and. Yeah. Scary. All the things. Checks all the boxes. Go see Hoppers. [01:44:32] Speaker A: Okay. Fantastic. I do, I am. I do look forward to it, particularly if it's the return to form everyone is talking about. [01:44:37] Speaker B: Yeah, it feels very. Yeah, feels very Pixar. [01:44:41] Speaker A: All right. In which case, let us. I'll super briefly talk about the Addams Family. [01:44:47] Speaker B: Yeah, I did. This was your first time seeing it, right? [01:44:50] Speaker A: Oh, God, no, no, no. [01:44:51] Speaker B: Oh, no. It was Owen's first time or Peter's. Owen's first time. Okay. [01:44:55] Speaker A: And it kind of like research for him because his school doing like an Addams Family musical which he's got to roll into. [01:45:02] Speaker B: So cute. [01:45:02] Speaker A: We gathered around here. [01:45:03] Speaker B: Who's he playing? [01:45:08] Speaker A: A role that isn't in the movie or isn't in the. [01:45:11] Speaker B: He's the lobster. [01:45:12] Speaker A: No, no, no, no. It's quite a big role he's got. But it's not. [01:45:18] Speaker B: Oh, it's just not in the movie. [01:45:20] Speaker A: It's not enough. Not kind of, you know, a law based character. It's not one you'd know. [01:45:25] Speaker B: Sure. Okay. [01:45:28] Speaker A: It just. What's. What is it? What? There's so much about that fucking film which works and it's not the cast, but it is the cast. And it's not the writing. But it is the writing. And it's not the music, but it is the music. It's. It doesn't. It's alchemy almost. There's so much going on in that film. It's not the cinematography, but it is. And you couldn't take. You couldn't kind of isolate any one great thing about that film. [01:45:57] Speaker B: Right. [01:45:58] Speaker A: Because it kind of all exists within itself and as a product of itself. The music plays off Barry Sonnenfeld's direction which play off the fucking incredible casting, man. Yeah, just. I'm not. I'm not articulating this very well, but it's. [01:46:18] Speaker B: No, I get what you mean. [01:46:19] Speaker A: It's like a man. It sounds hacky to call it like a. Like a double helix kind of thing where everything is linked and all kind of builds on the great work that everyone seems to be doing in that film. [01:46:31] Speaker B: Right. It really is a matter of like the. The whole is. Is greater than the parts. Like the parts are great in and of themselves and then it comes together into this like. It's weird. It's like lightning in the bottle. Except they did manage to do it twice. Right. The second movie is just as good, if not better than. Than the first one. It's just everything really comes together so well. [01:46:52] Speaker A: What is Barry Sonnenfeld doing now? [01:46:55] Speaker B: That's a good question. [01:46:56] Speaker A: Because he's. [01:46:57] Speaker B: Hope so. I really like a Barry Sonnenfeld joint. So do I feel like I want to say I saw something recently that I was like, oh, I was surprised that it was him, but I could be. I spelled that wrong, but that's okay. Let's see what it. What is he doing? According to the imdiba, [01:47:20] Speaker A: he is still alive. [01:47:21] Speaker B: He's. Yeah. Oh, this is. I hate that IMDb is just such a pain in the ass the way that it. Now I just somehow managed to get rid of director credits. There we go. Oh, he did schmigadoon. That was several years ago though. I don't. I guess he has not done a ton since Men in Black three. [01:47:41] Speaker A: Why that is. [01:47:43] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. I really. I did enjoy Schmigadoon though. That was a good. And he did A Series of Unfortunate Events and. But not doing much since 2021. [01:47:54] Speaker A: And of course, Wild, Wild, Wild West. [01:47:57] Speaker B: When I roll into the. [01:47:58] Speaker A: Stop, it. [01:48:01] Speaker B: Walked out. [01:48:02] Speaker A: Walked out. [01:48:04] Speaker B: Yeah. That was. I. I know every word to the song, but I hadn't seen it until, what, two, three years ago, and. So much worse than you think it's going to be. [01:48:13] Speaker A: Oh, out of Sight. That's the one I couldn't quite remember. Great, great, great, great. [01:48:18] Speaker B: Yeah. So Adam's family. Did he like it? Did it. How did it go over? [01:48:20] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, fantastic. I mean, how. You know, how do you not. [01:48:24] Speaker B: That's great. Question. I can't imagine. Certainly not a child of yours. I can't imagine not enjoying it. [01:48:30] Speaker A: There it is. Yes. How good? [01:48:33] Speaker B: Some children, maybe, but not your children. [01:48:36] Speaker A: No, I honestly, I don't even think it's. It's unique to the Lewis genetics. I don't see how you can fail to plonk someone down in front of the Adams family. [01:48:46] Speaker B: Well, see, this is where we're weird, Mark, as we've discussed. But I mean, that's the whole thing about Adam's family, right. Is it's not for everyone. And that's the. [01:48:57] Speaker A: That's the message, isn't it? [01:48:58] Speaker B: That's the heart. Right. Is like, you know, this is about weirdos. [01:49:02] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:49:03] Speaker B: And you either relate to these weirdos or you are like, what the fuck? There's gonna be people who are like, it's not funny. They keep trying to, like, kill a baby or like, you know, things like that. Like, there's things that are not going to connect with certain audiences, but that's the point of Adam's family. [01:49:25] Speaker A: Yep. You could not be more right. So where to begin? [01:49:30] Speaker B: I have. I have two more. Before the. The one that we watched together, I watched Cold Storage because you were like, pass on that one. [01:49:41] Speaker A: Pass. [01:49:43] Speaker B: And you were right, too. You would have, like. Honestly, I think this would have made you angry. [01:49:48] Speaker A: Yeah. And I got that from the trailer. I've seen the trailer like eight times, and it pisses me off. [01:49:54] Speaker B: It's so mid. [01:49:55] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:49:55] Speaker B: And I think that is what would, like. It's not bad per se. It is forgettable and, like, you know, it's not enough comedy and it's not enough serious, and it's, you know, it just is in that middle space that does nothing. [01:50:11] Speaker A: Ah, the worst space. The absolute worst base. Listen, is. Is. Is Liam Neeson. Is he Bruce Willising himself right now? [01:50:21] Speaker B: I mean, he's been doing this for ages. Like, he. You know, he made Taken, and then he spent the next decade making various versions of Taken. [01:50:32] Speaker A: Yeah, fair enough. [01:50:33] Speaker B: So I don't. I don't think that this is a [01:50:37] Speaker A: new choice for him to pop up in. I don't know if he's. [01:50:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. Maybe he's. Well, apparently he. He produced this one. He is, like, this is like, a passion project of his of some sort or whatever. And he's, you know, he's Liam Neeson. He's always a fun time when he pops up in something. There's not enough of him in this movie. You're spending too much time watching the two young leads boringly flirt, you know, and get their, like, backstory or whatever. And there's not enough of the quirky Liam Neeson ness in this movie. So, yeah, Cold Storage. Yeah. I mean, there's some. Here's the thing. The thing about Cold Storage is the supporting cast in it are the best part, and they turn into some really disgusting, fun monsters. You know, there's like, the ex boyfriend of the lead girl in this for, like, a good chunk of the movie is, like, slowly transforming into something that's getting, like, grosser and crazier. And he is very fun to watch. And, like, that's the case with most of the side characters. You just don't see enough of them for it to, like, make up for the rest of it. You're spending too much time on the character development of two people you don't really care about and not enough on the weird, gross people around them. [01:51:59] Speaker A: Is it short at least? [01:52:01] Speaker B: It is short. It's 90 minutes in and out. [01:52:05] Speaker A: I haven't. I will end up watching it. [01:52:06] Speaker B: I'm certain somehow it'll end up on. Yeah, it's just. I think it's the kind of, like, mid that, like, really annoys you, you know, Feels low effort. [01:52:18] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:52:19] Speaker B: But the other thing that I watched was a movie called the Night Digger, which, its alternate title is, I guess, the Road Builder. When I looked it up on Letterboxd or on. Yeah, it might have been on Letterboxd came up as the Road Builder. I recorded this off of TCM. So it's an old movie from, like, the 70s, I want to say. Somewhere in that general vicinity. And it's creepy. I was, like, not sure what to make of it at first. Like, very British and, like, 1970s British. So it, like, comes in and it's, like, just very. I don't know. It's like watching something on, like, Masterpiece Theater or Whatever. Like, very. [01:52:54] Speaker A: What is it? Like a hammer? [01:52:57] Speaker B: A hammer. [01:52:57] Speaker A: Hammer horror. [01:52:58] Speaker B: Oh, no, no, no. It's not a. It's not a hammer movie. But this movie is about, like, this guy shows up at this woman's house. She's blind, and she lives with her adopted daughter. Adult adopted daughter. And this guy shows up and he's like, I hear that you give free board to people if they, like, work around your estate. And so he moves in there and you kind of immediately start to feel like there's something a little sinister about this guy. And then he turns out, you find a very graphic scene that he's a serial killer. And it really takes off from there and becomes like this really interesting psychological horror movie with, you know, this guy and, like, the. The adopted daughter who, like, didn't want him there and stuff like that, is falling for him in this weird sort of motherly way. And he has some sort of strange need that somehow is also being fulfilled by her. And it's, like, very weird and tense. And meanwhile, he's doing terrible murders. And. Yeah, it's. It's a hell of a ride. So, yeah, the Night Digger is one that, you know, I recommend. It's like the first 15 minutes of it, you're kind of gonna be like, this is to England in the 1970s. And then it gets insane. And it's a good ride. [01:54:27] Speaker A: Nice. Is it too old for me? Is it too old for me to enjoy it? [01:54:32] Speaker B: I think the first 15 minutes of it, you'd go, corrigan, what the fuck? And then once it gets going, I think you could enjoy what's going on in it. Once he does his first murder, it's really hard not to get absorbed into the weird chaos. The Road Digger or the Night Digger or the Road Builder. Those are the two. If you're looking for it on letterboxd, it's the Road Builder. [01:54:58] Speaker A: That's probably the British title, you know, a gripping time. [01:55:04] Speaker B: I don't know. The Night Digger sounds kind of. I mean, sounds sus. Well, what's the other doing, digging at night? [01:55:13] Speaker A: Nothing good comes of that. [01:55:15] Speaker B: Yeah, you can't be doing that. All right, all right. [01:55:17] Speaker A: So go on in. Let's see. What is it? In what at time of recording on the 14th of March, is the. My favorite film of the year so far. [01:55:27] Speaker B: Oh, all right. [01:55:28] Speaker A: I think. I can't. I certainly can't think of any I've enjoyed more. [01:55:32] Speaker B: Sure. Big standouts. [01:55:34] Speaker A: And let's be clear here. I'm saying my favorite film of the year, not necessarily the Best. [01:55:38] Speaker B: Sure, those are different things. [01:55:40] Speaker A: Totally different things. But my favorite film of the year so far is by. It's not close either is. Good luck. Have fun. Don't die. Yes, I've. I know I've put it in these terms before, but within. Within minutes of the film starting, you know, you break out into a smile and you know, this is right up my fucking street, right? [01:56:07] Speaker B: Totally. [01:56:10] Speaker A: It's in that lovely kind of Venn diagram, middle spot overlap of, you know, all of the cool stuff that I love so much, like Doctor who and Black Mirror and Rick and Morty and Quantum leap and 12 monkeys and groundhog Day and Source Code. You know, it's. All of that, you know, doomer kind of unescapable, unstoppable, dead future tearing at us. And humanity has one last fucking shot to, you know, to pull the plug and steer us on a better course. It's a plot. It isn't a plot that you won't have seen before. [01:56:57] Speaker B: Right, Right. Yeah. [01:56:59] Speaker A: And what did occur to me is, isn't it fascinating time and time again how movies reflect the paranoia of the era that they're in? [01:57:09] Speaker B: Exactly right. [01:57:11] Speaker A: Again, I mentioned 12 monkeys. This is that film. It's the same film, but with AI instead of a super virus, you know? [01:57:18] Speaker B: Right. [01:57:20] Speaker A: It is. It's the same film. This is in decades to come, if indeed there are decades to come. This will be a perfect example of looking at movies that reflect the fears of the time, reflecting the paranoia. [01:57:33] Speaker B: Yeah. It will come up in so many academic essays and things like that, you [01:57:36] Speaker A: know, one fucking hundred percent. But, oh, there's so much to set this film apart from the pack. Right. And I said this to you at the time. It is just the writing on display in this film. I just like. The best CG is the CG you don't notice. [01:57:57] Speaker B: Right. [01:57:59] Speaker A: You know the best. You know that big fucking massive TV they've got at Skywalker Ranch with the Mandalorian acts in front of, you know, that big fucking TV background that they use? You never notice that. Which means it's doing a fantastic job. The dialogue in this film is so fucking good. [01:58:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:58:17] Speaker A: The most outlandish. Just sounds just beautifully human and natural. People talk like people and react like people. It presents. It's a relentlessly outlandish movie. Right. There's some bonkers happening every few minutes in this film. [01:58:37] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:58:38] Speaker A: But it's. It's so eloquently written and so human in its writing that it's. Everything is acceptable. Everything is rendered acceptable by the quality of the writing. I'd love to know who fucking wrote this. Let me have a little look here. [01:58:54] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good question. It was funny because I didn't know till the end that it was a Gore Verbinski joint. [01:59:01] Speaker A: That was one of the reasons I [01:59:01] Speaker B: was looking forward to it so much, [01:59:03] Speaker A: because I didn't know that. [01:59:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I had no idea. So when that popped up, I was like, oh, well, no wonder I was having such a fun time. That guy knows what he's doing. [01:59:12] Speaker A: This was written by one Matthew Robinson. [01:59:15] Speaker B: Matthew Robinson. [01:59:16] Speaker A: Interesting. Very interesting. CV Love and Monsters, also great. [01:59:22] Speaker B: Oh, I love Love and Monsters. [01:59:24] Speaker A: Great movie. The Invention of Lying Piece of shit. Starring a piece of shit. [01:59:31] Speaker B: I think I may have said before, though, that that has one of those scenes that, like, broke me laughing in it. And it was just simply like, it's a dumb scene. It has nothing to do with the asshole who stars in it. But it's just that there's a scene where he's, like, sitting next to, like, a big old Great Dane or something like that that's, like, drooling and being disgusting. And he keeps on, like, just gagging throughout this entire scene where, like, there's a conversation going on, but every time it turns to him, he's just, like, next to this dog. And it. It just. I was crying and, like, trying not to throw up myself. [02:00:11] Speaker A: But perhaps most interestingly, Matthew Robinson wrote Dora and the Lost City of Gold, which is another very fucking smart movie. Very, very, very. [02:00:22] Speaker B: All right, he's got one miss. But I'm feeling great about his oeuvre. [02:00:27] Speaker A: And we can also obviously talk about how fucking great Sam Rockwell is. [02:00:33] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, come on. And my. One of my. I think. I think people are gonna know her more and more, but I love Haley Lou Richardson, who, you know, is the. What. What does he call her throughout that. Princess. Yes, Princess in that movie. And she's just wonderful. She's fast becoming. I've liked her for a long time, but. Fast becoming. One of those, like. She's in it. I'll watch it. Kind of great. [02:00:57] Speaker A: Teen Zaezy Beats as well. Loved her in Joker. Great to see her again. [02:01:01] Speaker B: But, you know her name is actually Zazee Bates. [02:01:04] Speaker A: No. [02:01:05] Speaker B: Yep. Suppose she says it's Zazi like Marie, and then Bates like Bates. [02:01:10] Speaker A: I will never make that mistake again. [02:01:15] Speaker B: I make it that mistake every time I say her name. And then I have to re. You know, correct myself. [02:01:20] Speaker A: I'll never make that mistake. Sounds like a 24 hour YouTube Z Beats playlist to study Too. [02:01:27] Speaker B: Yes. [02:01:32] Speaker A: If I'm gonna level any criticism of Good luck, have fun, don't die, it's a. It's a criticism that I've leveled at myself during this episode. In this. It is a little bit boomer. [02:01:45] Speaker B: Oh, sure, yeah. I mean, yeah. On its face, the premise is boomery, but I. [02:01:54] Speaker A: In terms of just. Just enjoying some fucking good work, you know, Just enjoying some really fucking great work. It's again, outlandish and relentless and it has lots in common with movies you've already seen. And the ending is kind of stupid. [02:02:17] Speaker B: Yeah, it totally is. But that's fine. [02:02:21] Speaker A: See what I mean? [02:02:22] Speaker B: It's fine. Yeah, exactly. Just lean in. Really. That's what it comes down to. [02:02:29] Speaker A: Just the. This, the first kind of 15, 20 minutes of the film is pretty much all Sam Rockwell monologuing in that dinosaur. And it's masterful. [02:02:39] Speaker B: It's. Yeah. Sam Rockwell at his best. Right there it is captivating us, genuinely. [02:02:46] Speaker A: I would sit. I would pay for tickets to see that live. I would pay for tickets to see that. The opening of that movie live. That combination of his performance and the costume design and the writing, it. Oh, it's so good. [02:03:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:03:01] Speaker A: Great movie. [02:03:01] Speaker B: So we recommend Good luck, have fun, don't die. We both had a blast with that movie. You know, I did. Anything else that we want to. Oh, go ahead. [02:03:11] Speaker A: You asked me before we hit record, was there anything you saw but didn't write down? And I said no, Corrigan. There isn't. But it is. But you know what? Maybe we'll talk about it next week. Because for reasons I can't quite articulate, last night at a loose end, I watched Aguilar, the Wrath of God. [02:03:34] Speaker B: I've wanted to. To watch that for a long time. I always hear great things. I want to say it's Aguirre. Yeah. But yeah, I've wanted to watch that for ages. [02:03:45] Speaker A: Herzog movie from 1972. In fact, I'll tell you for why I watched this. Right. My current sleep podcast is the rest is history, Right? [02:03:56] Speaker B: Yes. [02:03:56] Speaker A: British podcast with two historians talking for about an hour per episode. About then they do. They do. Episode two or three, four episode series is about particular historical events, Right. And I've caught the first half an hour of four episodes about the Spanish invasion and the Spanish search for El Dorado. Right. The fucking conquistadors down the Amazon. [02:04:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [02:04:30] Speaker A: And I thought, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I quite. Quite like. I wonder if there's a movie about this. Ah, her song. That's gonna be a good laugh. So nice I sat myself down. [02:04:39] Speaker B: Maybe I'll watch it and we can. We can talk about it next week. [02:04:42] Speaker A: It's. I mean, it's great. It deserves everything that's been said about it. It's a fantastic film, but it's. You know. You know, how do you take a story like that and make it. Not boring is the wrong word. But very little actually goes on. [02:04:57] Speaker B: Okay. [02:04:57] Speaker A: A lot of people wade through swamps, and there's a lot of rafting, and there's, you know, people get lost. [02:05:03] Speaker B: Here's the thing. I am. This is. It goes along with my interest in people wrecking themselves outdoors. And so one of my favorite reads was Lost City of Z, which is, you know, a similar true story of trying to find this. So, you know, it on its face. I think the premise is kind of up my alley. [02:05:27] Speaker A: I know from that point of view, you'd absolutely love it. It's got a lot in common with Apocalypse now, only it's got. With less of. With less flair, you know what I mean? With less cinematic kind of ambition, I guess. It's as close as you can get to a naturalistic kind of view of something, of an event like this. [02:05:51] Speaker B: All right? [02:05:52] Speaker A: But it's undeniably fantastic. But it's also nothing you will ever, ever watch more than once, ever. [02:06:00] Speaker B: It's somebody's favorite movie that they watch, you know, three times a year. But it will not be this podcast. So, yeah, maybe I'll try to give it a whirl and we can discuss. But other than that, anything that you would like to say to our dear listeners this fine Saturday night? [02:06:16] Speaker A: No. I. We now release you from our grasp and bid you go out into the world this week with unburdened. With a lightness in your step, with openness of your mind and heart, and know that we're here, and we'll be here next week and the fucking week after, as long as you keep listening. All right? So thank you for listening, and stay spooky. [02:06:42] Speaker B: Stay spooky, indeed.