Sofa King Podcast

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we discuss the comedy, drama, acting, drugs, life, and death of the one and only Robin Williams. He was said to be funny since childhood, and as he grew, so did his personality and laughs. He blew up with the once-in-a-lifetime hit Mork and Mindy in the late 1970s, and he moved on to a series of massive hit films. From Popeye to Dead Poet’s Society and Goodwill Hunting to Aladdin, his scope and range won him three Oscar nominations and endless awards. And don’t forget the standup. His insane half improved comedy routines were stuff of legend, and according to one story, they are the reason David Letterman got out of the stand-up business. He was born to an upper class family in Chicago, and his family moved around a lot. After an early retirement, they settled in Tiburon, California (where he still owned property when he died). He went to a couple of colleges to study acting, and eventually found himself at the world famous Juilliard School. After a few years, he was told he should leave the school because there was nothing left for them to teach him—not accents, not drama, not comedy, no methods. He was just that good. After college, he started doing standup in San Francisco and LA. He was discovered while on stage in LA and started doing small appearances on TV. Eventually, he was called in to play the alien Mork in a really bad episode of Happy Days, and he turned it into such comedy gold that he got his own show based on the character. It exploded as one of the most popular shows of the 70s and 80s and put him on the map. From there, he jumped to feature films with Popeye and spent decades doing amazing comedies and devastating dramas. All the while, he still did stand up and released comedy specials. Oh, and he did drugs. A lot. He quit and went back to them and quit again, but all the cocaine is said to have started his health decline later in life with heart problems. After four decades of hits, Robin Williams ended his own life on August 11, 2014. The common belief was that he battled from secret depression. His wife, however, revealed that he had Lewy Body Disease. The Lewy Body proteins in his brains were the worst his doctors had ever seen, and they made him miserable, paranoid, depressed, and anxious to the point where he could no longer function. After his death, he still released several films, so we like to think he’s actually alive and well and living on Tupac Island. Listen, laugh, learn. Visit Our Sources: https://www.biography.com/actor/robin-williams https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Williams https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2018/05/robin-williams-death-biography-dave-itzkoff-excerpt https://n.neurology.org/content/87/13/1308 https://www.investopedia.com/articles/wealth-management/010516/look-robin-williams-net-worth-and-what-happened-his-estate.asp

On this episode  of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk some true crime and look at the life, murders, and death of Dean Corll. Called the Candyman or the Pied Piper, Corll had a reputation in Houston for giving candy to teenage boys from his family candy shop. He was loved by his community, and he didn’t seem to have anything in his background that was typical to trigger a serial killer. A divorce and some suppressed homosexuality were in his background, but none of the madness that usually forces one to kill. However, he became one of the most prolific killers, racking up at least 28 deaths in his time. Oh, and he had two teenage accomplices. Corll was raised by middle class parents and moved around a bit since his father was in the military. His folks divorced, remarried, divorced again. His mom eventually took the advice of a traveling pecan salesman (like you do) and started a candy company in her garage. A teenaged Corll worked there after school, and it eventually became big enough to move to a proper factory. Corll was drafted during Vietnam but served stateside as a radio repairman. He was discharged early on the grounds of family hardship since he needed to run the factory. Once home again, he put a pool table in the back of the factory and would often take batches of boys to the beach as a sort of “Scout Leader” persona. Eventually, the candy competition was too fierce, and the candy shop closed. Somehow in the year or so after this, he went from a model citizen to a maniacal sex crazed serial killer. He recruited two youths to help Dean Corll scout and bring him teenage boys for $200 a pop. They were David Brooks and Elmer Wayne Henley. They saw him as a father figure and thought that the sex that was happening with Corll and their recruits was consensual. At least at first. Eventually, the rape and murder started. And eventually, Henley and Brooks helped hide the bodies and got involved at every part of the killings. This one leaves a lot of unanswered questions. First off, what set Dean Corll off? He went from mild mannered to monster in merely months. Second, how did they get so many teenage boys to come over to the house? Why didn’t the police start to investigate this crazy wave of teenage murders? Was Corll part of a nation wide teenage sex trafficking ring? Why did Henley eventually shoot Corll? What pushed him too far and made him say “enough”? Where did they hide the bodies? What kind of sentences did Henley and Brooks get? Listen, laugh, learn.   Visit Our Sources: https://murderpedia.org/male.C/c/corll-dean.htm https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dean_Corll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Wayne_Henley https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/the-lost-boys/ https://rare.us/rare-news/history/dean-corll-candy-houston-texas/ https://www.oxygen.com/candyman-killer-dean-corll-elmer-henley-real-killers-behind-netflix-mindhunter https://heavy.com/news/2018/01/pedophile-serial-killer-candyman-houston-sadist/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Owen_Brooks

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at one of the greatest maritime disasters in history, the wreck of the Batavia. I know what you’re thinking. It’s like the Titanic but back in time. No, not at all. This one involved mutiny, hanging a young girl off the side of the boat, a shipwreck, murder, sex slaves, more murder, and a war between the survivors on small islands in the East Indies. The Batavia was the newly build flagship of the Dutch East Indies Company (not to be confused with their rival the British East India Company). It set sail on its maiden voyage with a fleet loaded with silver and gold. Their job was to make it around the world on a very dangerous 8 month voyage to buy spices in Java. It was said that only one in four sailors would make it back from such a trip, but all would be sharing in a split of the riches if they did. This particular trip started off poorly. The skipper of the ship was named Ariaen Jacobsz. He had to take his order from the fleet commander Francisco Pelsaert. But, based on pervious encounters at sea, they hated each other’s guts. Toward the end of the journey, the animosity grew so much that Jacobsz and a merchant named Jeronimus Cornelisz planned for a mutiny. They had a poor woman named Lucretia Jansz get assaulted in the night on the ship. They knew the Commander would over react, and they could use this as an excuse to mutiny. Then, they could take the gold and silver and go start a new island nation, like you do. But the dumb asses ran ashore the next day in dangerous waters and wrecked the ship. 40 passengers died in the wreck, and the rest reached shore. The Commander got a ship and some of the heartiest of the men and headed out to find water. It took them 33 days to make it back due to a series of bad luck at island after island. In the meantime Cornelisz took over and lost his marbles. He started to orchestrate murders of the healthy and those who could stop him. He consolidated power, boats, and weapons and sent those loyal to the company off to “Find water,” so he had no competition. Throats were slit, people were pushed off boats, he even planned to poison a baby. There were sex slaves and starvation, and pretty much the worst depravity you could imagine. So, how did the banished soldiers end up fighting back? What type of inter-island war started between these groups? How did the soldiers survive the fights when they had no weapons? What became of the the Batavia's Commodore, and how was he able to return at the helm of a big new ship? What happened to the mutineers and murderers? Why do they think this wreck was the first time Europeans colonized Australia? Listen, laugh, learn.     Visit Our Sources: https://www.sea.museum/2016/06/04/barbarism-and-brutality-surviving-the-batavia-shipwreck https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2017/12/new-mass-grave-batavia-shipwreck-murder-australia-history/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batavia_(1628_ship) http://museum.wa.gov.au/research/research-areas/maritime-archaeology/batavia-cape-inscription/batavia https://www.nma.gov.au/defining-moments/resources/wreck-of-the-batavia

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the devastation, death, deceit, and clean up surrounding the Haiti Earthquake from 2010. On January 12, 2010, a 7.0 earthquake hit Haiti, and the results were epic. Estimates are that 250,000 lives were lost and 1.5 million people were displaced. 80% of schools, 60% of government buildings, the majority of roads, the bulk of medical facilities all collapsed. In all, roughly a quarter of a million homes were destroyed. International aid gathered billions to help Haiti recover, but corrupt government and even more corrupt charities kept anything meaningful from happening to help this island that is still suffering ten years later. Before the quake hit, Haiti was one of the poorest countries in the world, with 70% of the population living under the poverty line. Most Haitians lived on about $1.25 a day, and they relied on small time agriculture which is constantly damaged due to tropical storms. To make things worse, the government has no sense of a plan for the urban centers such as Port-Au-Prince, and there are no regulations or building codes. If there is space to build a structure, you can pretty go for it and squat and throw up a house or building. All of this led to the perfect storm of devastation for Haiti. In the days after the quake, they were using dump trucks and earth movers to haul off the thousands of bodies lining the streets. Destroyed roads, docks, and airports made aid impossible to get into the island nation. But, in the aftermath, aid organizations, celebrity concerts, and social media gathered billions of dollars. However, as one group of journalists reported, the American Red Cross lost roughly $500 million in aid that never made it to the streets, and even some of the biggest celebrities who raised money were busted for graft and taking the money for themselves (we’re looking at you Wycliffe Jean). So, if you want to hear about the worst quake in modern memory, get ready to listen, laugh, learn. Visit Our Sources: https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2020/01/12/794939899/haiti-in-ruins-a-look-back-at-the-2010-earthquake https://www.worldvision.org/disaster-relief-news-stories/2010-haiti-earthquake-facts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_Haiti_earthquake https://theconversation.com/a-decade-after-the-earthquake-haiti-still-struggles-to-recover-129670 https://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/wayoflife/01/13/haiti.charity.scams/index.html https://reliefweb.int/report/haiti/independent-review-us-government-response-haiti-earthquake-final-report https://www.npr.org/2015/06/03/411524156/in-search-of-the-red-cross-500-million-in-haiti-relief https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1690716-lamika-factsheet-from-red-cross-website.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/wyclef-jean-faces-criminal-probe-over-haiti-ch...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we study the king of the grotesque, everyone’s favorite Antichrist, Marilyn Manson. He was born as Brian Hugh Warner, and he had a love of music early in life. Once he started his band in college, he decided to name every member after one serial killer and one famous super model. And it worked. His grotesque imagery and crazy stage antics and unique, distorted sound made him rise up the charts in just a matter of year. Now, he’s still producing music, acting, has become an accomplished water color artist, and even met Anton LaVey who inducted him as minister in the Church of Satan. Brian Warner was born to two fairly religious parents. He attended Christian schools, and while they taught him everything he was not supposed to do, he took it the other way and used the ideas of sin and the demonic as what he WOULD do. After hearing The Doors for the first time, he knew he wanted to pursue music. Once in college, he started a couple of bands. First was Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids, Satan on Fire, and Mrs. Scabtree. It was the Manson persona that caught the eye of Nine Inch Nail’s Trent Reznor. Reznor signed him after convincing Jimmy Iovene he needed to, produced him, and took him on tour with him, helping to launch Manson’s career. From there, his career was an explosion of popular culture. His bizarre and shocking imagery and stage behavior made him an MTV darling (remember MTV?). He was also a permanent target of the religious and was even blamed for the Columbine shooting. So much so that it damaged his career and made record sales and concert attendance seriously dip. But, his intelligence, his ability to write and give eloquent interviews, and the truth won out, and his career got back on track. Some people see him as a clown, but his persona is very intentional and ingenious. He was poised at just the right time to do just the right amount of gross. He knew the music world needed a dark prince, and he provided one with his shock rock. So, why did Trent Reznor and him have a falling out, and what brought them back together? What type of paintings does he do? What crazy things has he done on stage? What did he do on stage to get arrested, and why did some many ex members of his band sue him and claim he screwed them out of money? And, oh, what’s the deal with him and Satan? Listen, laugh, learn. Visit Our Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marilyn_Manson https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/the-golden-age-of-grotesque-marilyn-mansons-most-shocking-moments-155971/ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/columbine-whose-fault-is-it-232759/ https://www.nme.com/news/music/marilyn-manson-says-hes-finished-his-masterpiece-of-a-new-album-2656329 https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Marilyn_Manson https://deadline.com/2019/09/marilyn-manson-american-gods-casting-season-three-neil-gaiman-starz-1202737047/

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we explore one of the strangest missing persons cases in America: the disappearance of Maura Murray. On the evening of February 9, 2004, she had a minor car crash, and by the time the police got there, she was missing. But her behavior leading to this moment is what makes it strange. She had packed up her entire dorm room, lied to her bosses that there was a death in the family (so she could get a week off), and she had a car full of clothes, directions to rentals to stay in, and even a lot of cash from an ATM. Her entire family had no idea she had done any of this. What makes this a weird one is that she was a great student. She went to West Point and then transferred to the University of Massachusetts. She was a good student, a local track star, and otherwise a girl in her early twenties doing things right. Murray had a run in on the wrong side of the law when she stole the credit card number someone and used it at restaurants, but was otherwise an upstanding citizen. There was some indication that she was having trouble with her boyfriend. There was plenty of evidence that she planned to leave. Her dorm was packed up in boxes, and she had made several net searches for vacation rentals and even called some to find out prices. So, with a packed car and apparently the intention to bail, she crashed her car into a tree. There was spilled wine found in the car, so she could have been drunk. A man drove by and asked if she needed help as she stood beside her car. She indicated she did not and pleaded that he not call the police. She said she’d already called AAA for a tow (she had AAA but never called them). The man drove and called for help since there was no cell phone reception in the area. By the time he came back, she was gone. Eventually, the police declared it a missing persons case and sent dogs on the trail. They followed it a little ways before it just vanished along the side of the road. This indicated she most likely got in someone’s car only a few minutes after the crash. Some say she was trying to head up to a nice vacation spot to kill herself. Some say she was escaping an abusive boyfriend. Others say she was pregnant in a scandalous three way love affair with a coach from her university. Another theory is that she headed to Canada where she lives to this day in order to escape some sort of danger. Alive or dead, murder or suicide, this case is still very active, and new clues keep coming up. Come to your own conclusion and give this one a listen.   Visit Our Sources: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSCpSXGo5K4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Maura_Murray https://medium.com/@kympasqualini/police-search-for-maura-murray-who-vanished-february-9-2004-f78e0f7d662a https://medium.com/the-true-crime-times/the-mysterious-maura-murray-disappearance-9ea0b581923f https://www.mauramurraymissing.org/ https://www.vizaca.com/maura-murray-disappearance/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CK_QYCBqV8U&feature=emb_logo https://www.boston25news.com/news/maura-murrays-38th-birthday-family-launches-new-website-mis...

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about little known serial killer who did his thing during the reign of the Third Reich in Berlin. His name was Paul Ogorzow, and he was a Nazi serial killer. He started with sexual assault and rape, but like most serial killers he grew in desire and comfortability with his crimes. Eventually, he graduated to murder, and he had the perfect environment to do so. He committed his crimes during war-time black outs intended to keep bombing raids from finding targets. He also did it on a rail line that saw as many as 29 accidental deaths per month due to the dangers of the blackout. There isn’t a whole lot known about his childhood. He was born to a single mother who was a farm worker during World War One. He was eventually adopted by a farmer named Ogorzow and moved near Berlin. As a young man, he joined the Nazi Party and eventually became a member of the its paramilitary branch called the SA. For some reason, he never went off to war, but he was instead hired to help run the metro trains through Berlin called the S-Bahn. He excelled at his job, and he rose in ranks in the SA. He married and had two kids and was living the Nazi dream. But somewhere along the way, something broke in him. He started to use blackout conditions to scare and berate women who couldn’t identify him in the dark. Then he started to sexually assault them, and he eventually devolved to rape. With some of his rapes, he tried to kill either by bludgeon or knife or throwing them from moving trains. He left several victims for dead (which later caught up to him since they were eye witnesses). Eventually, he started to kill. He killed a total of eight women, most of them on or around the S-Bahn train line where he worked. Eventually, the head of Berlin’s homicide division (Wilhelm Lüdtke) started an investigation. But the blackouts made it hard as did media control. Goebbels wanted to keep morale high in Berlin. Therefore, the cops weren’t able to give any real info about the murders to people they questioned, and the media wasn’t allowed to print much of anything. This meant women traveled on the serial killer’s train line without fear. So, what measures did Lüdtke take to try and capture him? What finally got him caught? What was his life like with his wife and kids through all of this? What went down at the trial, and what was the time between arrest and execution? Listen, laugh, learn.   Visit Our Sources: https://killerpedia.com/serial-killers/paul-ogorzow/ https://www.ranker.com/list/paul-ogorzow-facts/cat-mcauliffe https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/a-serial-killer-in-nazi-berlin-the-chilling-true-story-of-the-s-bahn-murderer-b-y-scott-andrew-selby/2014/02/07/1fd0b510-69a6-11e3-ae56-22de072140a2_story.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Ogorzow https://www.macleans.ca/culture/books/a-serial-killer-in-nazi-berlin-the-chilling-true-story-of-the-s-bahn-murderer/ http://www.the13thfloor.tv/2016/07/18/the-horrific-true-story-of-nazi-germanys-s-bahn-killer/ Book:

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time and look at the short life of the doomed ship, The RMS Titanic. The Titanic famously sank on April 15, 1912 and had a massive cultural impact, just like the Challenger or 9/11 did in more recent times. Of the 2240 people on board, only 706 survived, in spite of having three hours from the time of the iceberg collision to the total sinking of the vessel. The chaos and poor management during the crisis lead to a great many deaths, and the entire event lead to both Oscar winning films and tons of pretty cool conspiracy theories. The Titanic was built by the White Star Line, which was in a trade battle with the Cunard line. These two companies were the main passenger lines across the Atlantic, so building bigger, nice, and faster was sort of a corporate cold war at the time. The Cunard line had been winning for years, so the three Olympic class vessels built by White Star were supposed to win this war. The Titanic, obviously, was the first of these to launch. The ship was heralded for its beauty and size. Even the second class cabins were said to be nicer and bigger than first class cabins on any other ship. Third class, which was where the bulk of the passengers were (and where the bulk of the prophets were made) was also nicer than any other third class. So, the grandeur of the ship along with celebrities and tycoons such as John Jacob Astor IV and Benjamin Guggenheim made this THE ship to be on. So, packed with staff and passengers, it set out to cross to New York. The launch went smoothly (aside from a small coal fire), but after four days of smooth sailing, they were warned of ice bergs. They didn’t listen. They hit one. People died. The ship sank. You know the drill, but we’ll go over the time line and try to paint a vivid picture of what it would have been like on the ship or in the water. And it all points to conspiracy theories because, come on, what doesn’t? Why do they say that the ship sank because it secretly said “No Pope” on the side? What is this about a mummy’s curse? Did JP Morgan have the ship sunk to kill his rivals on the creation of the Federal Reserves? Was it actually the sister ship Olympic that sank and not the Titanic at all? Listen, laugh, learn.   Visit Our Sources: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/why-the-titanic-still-fascinates-us-98137822/ https://www.history.com/topics/early-20th-century-us/titanic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RMS_Titanic https://www.nationalgeographic.org/education/titanic/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/17665970 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wreck_of_the_RMS_Titanic https://www.history.com/news/titanic-sinking-conspiracy-myths-jp-morgan-olympic https://www.businessinsider.com/titanic-sinking-conspiracy-theories-2018-4 https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a26533526/olympic-titanic-conspiracy-theory/

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the life, career, addiction, and rap battles of the one and only Eminem. Call him Marshal Mathers or Slim Shady, but he’s one of the biggest selling musical artists of all time and still has the bestselling rap album of all time. He was born poor to a father who ditched him and a mother who he claimed was abusive and strung on out on pills. This critical figure in the hip hop game went from the streets of 8 Mile to the top of the charts in spite of being a white drug addict and underage father. If he can do it, so can you (if, you know, you’re one of the best rappers to ever live…). Though Detroit is his spiritual home, Marshal Mathers was born in Missouri. He had a rough childhood with an absentee father and a mother who couldn’t land steady work. They traveled a lot trying to stay with family or get a job and ultimately landed in Detroit when he was very young. Marshal hated school, repeated the 9th grade 3 times before dropping out. The one thing he did love was the English language and word play, and he came to life after hearing his first rap songs. In a matter of no time, he was one of the best underground rappers in the brutal Detroit rap battle scene. This landed him a spot in at the 1997 Rap Olympics in LA. While there, he took second in the nation, and was able to get a copy of his Slim Shady EP into the hands of Jimmy Iovene who promptly gave the tape to Dr. Dre. They signed him immediately. His Slim Shady character appealed to the violent but socially conscious music background of Dr. Dre. They released his first major album in 1999, and the rest is history. His second album, the Marshal Mathers LP sold 22 million copies and broke records. Eminem started to land Grammy Awards and get the praise he deserved as a rapper and criticism he earned for his violent, sexist, homophobic lyrics. With success came the dangers of success. While he was working 16 hour days on the set of 8 Mile, he got addicted to prescription medication. Eventually, he almost died for doing enough methadone to equal 4 bags of heroin. He went to rehab, left, fell back to drugs, and went back a second time. With the help of Elton John. It’s a strange world. Eminem’s album, Revival was a failure both critically and financially, and it got him attacked by a new generation of rappers trying to take him down. However, a few months later, he released Kamikaze, which most people claimed had him win a rap beef against an entire generation of mumble rappers. You might love him, and you have grounds to. You might hate him, and you have grounds to. But you can’t deny the success and appeal of this once in a life time musician. Visit Our Sources: https://www.biography.com/musician/eminem http://www.eminem.net/biography/ https://www.nme.com/photos/50-things-you-didn-t-know-about-eminem-1428834 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminem https://www.musicinminnesota.com/36-interesting-facts-eminem/ https://www.samaa.tv/culture/2017/10/happy-birthday-eminem-10-facts-you-should-know-about-the-rap-star/ https://www.thestreet.com/lifestyle/eminem-net-worth-15015963

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the infamous flight of NASA’s Apollo 13. Made famous for a new generation by the film of the same name, this was one of the most important moments in all of space flight. A critical error on the way to the moon led to the three astronauts cramped into a small lunar lander built for 2 passengers the whole way home. They were low on power, venting oxygen, couldn’t scrub the CO2 from the air, were starving (their food was frozen and dried), and one of them was sick with an infection. How did they survive? This was the 13th Apollo mission, and many said that is the number of bad luck. Well, maybe. The Apollo missions were created by John F Kenedy as a race to the moon to help win the Cold War, and after Apollo 11 landed on the moon (or didn’t, depending on your beliefs), there were still a bunch of Saturn V rockets left over. NASA used them for more missions to the moon, and Apollo 13 was to be the third mission that would land humans on the lunar surface. The crew was commanded by James Lovell and included the pilot of the lunar module Fred Haise, and pilot of the command module John Swigert. They were 200,000 miles out when they made a news broadcast for the folks back home. Nine minutes later, an alarm sounded related to a hydrogen tank. They went to mix the tank, so it wouldn’t freeze, and the ship suddenly buckled and shuttered. There had been an explosion. They lost two oxygen tanks and were venting a third, and they had to make quick, hard decisions to try and make it around the moon and back to Earth. Ground control came up with miraculous secondary uses of technology to keep them fed and breathing. But it was freezing cold since there wasn’t enough power to run a heater. They were losing weight due to lack of food and dehydration, and one of them caught a kidney infection due to lack of water (they needed to preserve the water for critical ship functions). So, how did they calculate the return burn of the engine to get them home after their equipment was destroyed? How did duct tape help save the day? What became of the astronauts? What happened to the Plutonium that was in the wreckage that made it back to earth? Why did one company require a towing bill for bringing part of the ship back from the moon? Listen, laugh, learn.   Visit Our Sources: https://www.space.com/17250-apollo-13-facts.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13 https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo13.html https://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/planetary/lunar/ap13acc.html https://astronomy.com/magazine/news/2020/04/jim-lovell-on-apollo-13 https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/apollo-13-at-50-years-looking-back-at-the-missions-lost-lunar-science/ https://www.rd.com/list/apollo-13-facts-you-didnt-know/ https://stargazersclubwa.com.au/13-facts-you-may-not-know-about-apollo-13/  

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time and look at the life, loves, war, revolution, presidency and death of George Washington. Born to a middle class family, he rose in wealth and power, until by age 20, he was the wealthiest land owner in Virginia. His story is incredible. He joined the British to stop the French from spreading onto their land. His first fight there basically started a world war because he didn’t know what he was doing. This man was a passionate farmer and whiskey distiller, but he kept getting the call to serve his nation, as a warrior, a spymaster, a politician, and ultimately president. The Washington family had been in American for three generations before George was born. His parents were of an upper middle class and bought some land, which eventually became his famous home at Mt. Vernon. His father increased his fortune, died, left it all to George’s older brother Lawrence. Then Lawrence built up more fortune, died of tuberculosis, and left it all to George. He was the wealthiest man in the colony. But he didn’t sit around counting his gold. Instead, Washington learned how to work the farm and survive in the woods. He worked with the laborers and slaves, it is said, instead of sitting in the big house. He eventually joined a dangerous surveying party and came back as the official surveyor of the surrounding area. That involvement with government made him the selection to talk to some French who had encroached on “British” territory. He did; they politely said they wouldn’t leave. Washington came back with a small military force and attacked and killed the commander, basically kicking off an war between the British and the French. His time in the French Indian War gave him experience on the battlefield. Eventually, the war ended, and he returned to his farming life at Mt. Vernon. However, the Brits were gouging the colonists to make up for the money they spent in the war. Tax after tax led to things like the Boston Tea Party, and eventually, everyone wanted an end to British Rule. The revolution had begun. Again, though he didn’t want it, Washington’s experience, wealth, and prestige, landed him the top military role in the war. Here, he suffered major victories and massive losses. He endured harsh winters, did some legendary tactics, and even survived one battle with four bullet holes in his cloak and two dead horses underneath him. Eventually, the war was won, and Washington settled down once again. And once again, duty called. The new nation of states was falling apart, many of them enacting taxes tougher than the Brits did in order to pay back the war debts. So, the founding fathers called the Constitutional Congress, rewrote the constitution, and called upon George Washington to be the first president. His time in that office set the precedence for the president. He wasn’t a king but an official. So, how long did he last as president? Did he really have wooden teeth? What was up with him and slaves? Did he have a secret lover on the side? Did he really chop down that cherry tree? Listen, laugh, learn.   Visit Our Sources: https://www.biography.com/us-president/george-washington https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington https://www.whitehouse.gov/about-the-white-house/presidents/george-washington/ https://www.

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the crazy case of a Cleveland man named John Demjanjuk, and the decades long court battle to prove he was the evil Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the Terrible was a guard at the gas chambers in the Treblenka concentration camp. He was notorious for stabbing the prisoners with a saber, cutting their ears off on their way to a work shift, rape, killing babies, and nailing people’s ears to the walls of the death chamber. If John Demjanjuk was truly Ivan the terrible, he deserved to pay for his crimes. But the battle in various international courts were a roller coaster of evidence. Was he Ivan the Terrible? What is known about Demjanjuk is that he was born in the Soviet Union in 1920 He survived the Holodomor famine, worked on a state-owned farm, and was finally drafted into the Soviet Army in 1940. While there, he fought in the horrible Battle of Kerch Peninsula where Soviet Casualties were above 570,000 in five months. He was captured and taken as a prisoner of war. However, the Germans used their Soviet POWs in some concentration camps. Many of the Soviet prisoners hated the Jews so much, that they would become complicit in the final solution. At the end of the war, he was bounced around a bit, got married, and settled in Ohio. He became an American citizen, had four children, and worked at a Ford Plant. The American Dream. But, in 1975, a reporter brought evidence to a US Senator, and the court saga was on! His American citizenship was stripped, and he was extradited to Israel to stand trial for crimes against humanity. Through a very emotional case filled with dozens of eyewitness horror stories, Demjanjuk was found guilty and given the death penalty. But, there was an appeal. And then an appeal to an appeal, and a crazy bunch of court madness that took him Israel back to the US and then Germany to stand a second trial. Janet Reno even got involved. Once the Soviet Union Collapsed, thousands of records that may pertain to his case were declassified as the KGB vanished. And that brought a whole new batch of evidence. So, what crimes was he finally convicted of by Germany? How did he only get five years jail time? How did he die before he could ever serve his sentence? What were the full crimes of the notorious Ivan the Terrible? How bad was Treblinka? Who else might have been Ivan the Terrible if it wasn’t Demjanjuk, and what ever happened to that guy? Visit Our Sources: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/john-demjanjuk-prosecution-of-a-nazi-collaborator https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Demjanjuk https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-01-28/demjanjuk-sobibor-nazi-holocaust-death-camp https://www.jpost.com/international/john-demjanjuk-jr-new-pictures-are-not-proof-my-father-was-a-nazi-guard-616059 https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a29698588/devil-next-door-holocaust-killer-ivan-the-terrible-john-demjanjuk-true-story/ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPq0HXWRf48 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Kerch_Peninsula

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we celebrate our 500th episode! If you’re looking for a regular episode, this ain’t it! This is a star-studded (well, us three anyway) extravaganza. We walk down memory lane of the past 500 episodes. We share stories, drink whiskey and answer questions from our lovely SKult. What questions, you may be wondering? * You guys have separated yourselves from all of the other conspiracy/true crime podcasts (at least in my opinion), what do you think you guys did to get away from others and make your own signature show and culture? * What is the most memorable episode you have recorded? * What was the worst podcast to research because it was overly sensitive topic or just not a lot out there about the subject? * What would happen if Brad actually studied for a topic? * I want to start by saying I love the show so there is no shade being thrown here but I wanna know Why is there such a lack of deep research done on a lot of the main individuals lives, specifically the serial killers and cult leaders? It feels almost like I’m just reading the Wikipedia for them...but then I’ll listen to Last Podcast On The Left, who does incredible in-depth research into these peoples parents, childhood, etc...at the end you get a pretty clear idea of where their psychologically at and the events that got them to that point...again I’m not talking shit or anything...just something I noticed that can make the show better than it already is. * Are there any episodes that you regret doing and conversely are there any that really inspired you? * When did people start sending you whiskey/whisky and why did they start, how did it become a thing? * How does it feel when you don’t know someone but they know you because of the podcast and they are excited to meet/talk to you? * I assume that this is the time for introspection, and I guess that I should say thanks. I don’t do social media, so the reason I became a Patron was to say thanks Aside from the great episodes I found the early bonus episodes inspiriting. The general attitude in the UK is wanting others to fail so it is refreshing to hear the opposite. In the last few years I have set up a business and generally accepted less bullshit and become a better person. I am sure you influenced that, so thanks. So, if you’re looking for a regular episode where we research and talk about things, skip ahead or skip back. This is a celebration of us making you endure our incessant blathering and dick jokes for the past several years. Cheers, salud, mazeltov, aloha, and à votre santé!

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we get all pandemic on you and talk about Polio. Famous for causing paralysis and death through the first half the century (most notably in the US and UK), this disease goes back to ancient Egypt. Two doctors created different vaccines for the disease in the 1950s and 60s and largely set the path toward the vaccine schedule that is used in modern medicine. However, with that came complications such as the Cutter Incident where the vaccine itself paralyzed kids. And what about the rumors of the vaccine causing cancer or even the new polio like disease spreading in America? Polio is a horrible disease caused by three different viruses. It spreads most notably through the brown highway, aka, the fecal-oral route. The virus does its thing in the intestines, so your poop is filled with Polio if you are infected, and if that somehow makes it into someone’s mouth, well there it is. Though it sounds gross, in areas with natural rivers as water sources, this would be a common spread. It can also spread oral to oral, but that is less likely. Polio is a trip because it can be asymptomatic to symptoms like a cold with bad body aches. Then, for the one percent, it can cause permanent paralysis of muscles and permanent muscle atrophy. It can even kill if it affects someone’s ability to breathe, swallow, or regulate mucus. But two vaccines came to the rescue. The first was invented by Jonas Salk, who created one based on dead Polio virus, and Albert Sabin who created one based on live virus that was mutated to, you know, not kill us. The Sabin style oral vaccine is what the WHO uses to this day, and it does have one side effect which is vaccine bleed. In fact, in recent years, naturally occurring polio has had fewer cases than polio caused by otherwise healthy people who bleed the Polio virus out of their bodies after they got the vaccine. There is also the case of the Cutter Incident, where one lab infected 200,000 Americans with a vaccine that gave them Polio. While Polio is often held up as the ideal disease that a vaccine can cure, many use things like the bleed and the Cutter Incident as a warning of what could go wrong with vaccines. Where do you fall? And is there any trough to the rumors that monkey cells in the early vaccine can cause cancer? Listen, laugh, learn.   Visit Our Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio https://www.cdc.gov/polio/what-is-polio/index.htm https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/post-polio-syndrome/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1383764/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cutter_Laboratories#The_Cutter_incident https://sciencefeedback.co/claimreview/claim-that-virus-contaminating-polio-vaccine-between-1955-and-1963-is-cancer-causing-not-supported-by-science/ https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2011/10/more-data-needed-to-determine-if-contaminated-polio-vaccine-from-1955-1963-causes-cancer-in-adults-today https://academic.oup.com/jnci/article/95/7/532/2520688

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we do some mobster-style true crime and talk about the kingpin of Boston, Whitey Bulger. In the 1970s and 80s, Bulger ran the Winter Hill Gang and was the head of the Irish Mob in the Boston area. This was a title he earned through several wars with the Irish, a deal with the Italians, and a whole lotta bodies. His story was so wild that Martin Scorsese based Jack Nicholson’s character from The Departed on him. Johnny Depp also played him in Black Mass. Whitey was part of MKUltra, supported the Irish Republican Army, and turned his job as an FBI informant on its ear, corrupting the local feds. He managed to escape capture by globe-trotting with his girlfriend for 16 years. Born to two immigrants from Canada, James “Whitey” Bulger was a typical Southie kid from Boston. His father was a longshoreman who lost his arm in an accident and could no longer work. While Whitey’s siblings all did well in school and walked the straight and narrow, he turned to the streets. He was in a gang called the Shamrocks by the age of 14, and in his time with them he was arrested for assault, forgery and armed robbery. Once out of jail, he spent some time in the military but spent as much time in the brig as he did serving his country. At 26 years old, he got arrested for armed robbery while jacking a truck. In prison, he volunteered for the MKUltra project once he found out he’d get paid to take drugs. It didn’t go so well as the LSD took its toll, but eventually he got out. Once free, he found himself in the middle of a war between Irish gangs. He killed the wrong guy, like you do, and escalated things until the Italian mob got involved and settled a peace. This was the birth of the Winter Hill Gang. From there, he raised in the ranks. He did it all. Extortion, theft, armed robbery, murder, anything you can think of that a mafia does, you can bet Whitey did it. Some say his mob was even responsible for the Gardner Museum Heist. Eventually, he became an FBI informant, though he prided himself on serving them weak information in return for favors. In time, he had his two FBI handlers accepting bribes and giving him tips and covering from every crime he committed. In fact, when the entire leadership of the Winter Hill Gang was arrested, Whitey was spared by the FBI and took control of the gang. He ran Boston with a strange code that he had, and he was racist, using terrorist tactics to try and stop desegregation of schools in the 1960s. Eventually, the DEA and local police figured out that the FBI was covering for him, so they build their own case. Whitey’s FBI guys tipped him off, however, and he went on the run for a whopping 16 years. At one point, he even beat Osama Bin Laden on the top 10 most wanted list. So, how did his girlfriend’s boob job help get them caught? Where were they living? How many murders did he get sentenced for? What brutal end did he face at the hands of other mobsters while an old man in jail? How did his own plans to die on the lamb lead to an abandoned mine shaft in Arizona? Listen, laugh, learn.     Visit Our Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitey_Bulger https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9j5I6h8Q-0 https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/30/obituaries/whitey-bulger-dead.html