A Geek History of Time - Episode 361 - Funny Deaths in History Part I

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

You know, the thing is, you have reached farther for less good. To be blunt, the money in tabletop games isn't great. We have to wind up with the Church of England because Opvi, I'll start. I mean, you're here to be the expert, but in the pale... That one oddly doesn't make me angry. Because you know who's the boss. You know what? I'm going to keep my head down inoffensive as I can to everybody possible.

And that's it. You want to fight? I'm going to dry hump your leg until we're friends. Of course, reminded me of that one woman that I went on a single date with who said, you know, the downside about my job is that we don't show kids drowning anymore. A geek history of time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California.

And I got a new Xbox console. I got my palsy nerd hands on it yesterday. And my in-laws are visiting. And we had a whole bunch of stuff we were doing all day. So I wasn't able to even plug it in and start trying to get it to work until like 5 o'clock in the afternoon. And because it's Microsoft, I ran into an error code just trying to run the update to get it hooked up. and I resolved that issue and then

my everybody else in the house took control of the TV so I had to leave it and what wound up happening I had multiple error codes come up over the course of trying to get stuff working so at 1215 in the morning I was finally able to run Mac Warrior on it

and all of the oaths I muttered against Microsoft under my breath were totally worth it because oh my God it is just so pretty the graphics

are better like I didn't get into this telling you about it but when you fire a PPC with the new graphics processing the level of visual distortion along the arc of the shot is like clearly a

thing and just the details on everything are more textured and the load time is so much faster. So, yeah, it was frustrating as hell to get through the process of getting started, but now that I'm, I'm so happy. I'm just so happy. So yeah, that's, that's my news. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony.

I am a harmony. I am mush-mouthed and yet a teacher for more than 20 years at the high school level. That you say and yet like that isn't actually an explanation. Probably causing. Yeah. But I teach US history and government as of this release. And let's see. I cooked stew.

Okay. But it wasn't, I crockpotted today for me and my kids. No, nice. It's cold out. It's the time for it. Yeah. I normally crock pot at like, seven in the morning and then set it to be done at five right afternoon right yeah i this time i got

home i had about you know there's a four hour setting a six hour setting and a ten hour setting so i went for the four hour setting very different uh yeah you know and and and kids both liked it both really liked it um they my son made an amazing william made an amazing cheesecake oh my god um But, and the day before, my daughter made an amazing soup. And so I was like, yeah, let's do this. I expected the meat to be like, oh, God, what's that song? Silent Night when they're describing the baby Jesus. Okay.

Tender and mild. Meat falling off the bone. And it was not. It was, this was not a well marbled baby Jesus. It was much more of kind of the throwing over the money lenders tables, kind of, you know, salty. Kind of chewier. Yeah, chewier. Yeah.

It was fine. Yeah. But I definitely, I definitely want that slow cook that, where the fats dissolve and become part of everything else. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, lesson learned.

Yeah. No, I don't ever go for anything under under the sixth hour. setting. Yeah, I figured, you know, it's got a four hour setting. Let's do it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah.

In a pinch. Was amazing, though. Okay. Well, there you go. That's awesome. That was, oh, he was, he was proud. I was proud. We were all happy.

Nice. And he served way too big a slice for each one of us. I was just like, oh, I'm so heavy coming up these stairs now. So. Yeah, you know, but of all the problems in the world, you could Have having a son cook a really good cheesecake and give you a fat slice of it. Yeah, giving you too big a piece of a really good cheesecake is like, that's like a humble complaint. Yeah, no, absolutely.

My arm hurts from polishing my trophies too much. Yeah, you know, it's like that kind of thing. Oh, man. Hey, Ed, have you ever thought about your own death? Well, there was a phase of my life when I was younger where I did try to. follow the principles of Hagakure, the 1700s manual for how to live a samurai life in a no longer war-torn world. Go fast, go strong, go splat?

Kind of, but more you should contemplate dying every day. Think of yourself being pierced by spears or shot with a gun or set on fire or falling from a great height. Contemplate your death in this way and you will be able to face deathly peril fearlessly. Has it worked? No. No. I think there's just something in some.

It's kind of one of those people's things where like it's like, wow, how do you do that? And they're just a natural at it. And they're like, we just do it. And then they come up with an explanation of like, well, I think maybe I might do that. But it's like, no, no, that doesn't work for us normies. Yeah, for everybody else. That's not realistic. Well, you know, and the thing is, as I've gotten older, I'm less worried about my own

extinction and my concern is more for like the fear of death has more to do with what's going to happen to my son. Oh sure sure. Which isn't to say that I am utterly fearless about the possibility of my own extinction. No, but the majority of your anxiety about your own mortality now centers on. Yeah. No, I get that. I get that. So, but in all seriousness, I mean, yeah, I've thought about it, but not. Have you thought about it in less seriousness? Like in like, what would be a funny way for you to go. Because my friends and I, we had this whole thing and it still was applicable, like, where we were, like, coming up with, like, the most bizarre way to go that would make people laugh.

Okay. Even though they don't want to. And we figured out super glue your hands to your head and then jump off of a building with a bungee cord around your neck with piano wire. And then have it be about 12 feet too short and then foop. And so then your head gets pulled off and you're holding it and probably. and probably it'll fall forward so you'll see your own body as your consciousness goes away. Right.

So. Okay. And my God, what a funny story that would be for the people on the ground floor, you know? Like, they would be like, what the hell? That doesn't look like a party to me. Well, no. Okay. So you.

Like, I'm immediately put in line of Nat. Yeah. Yeah. Like, I understand how from a certain point of view that's funny, but that, that, that, I, sure yeah I wouldn't be one of those people I'd be one of the ones going oh my fucking God what you know um see I try to come up with funny ways to die because the very thought of death is is paralyzing for me okay and you know I've tried like hell I will be honest with you here I've tried like hell to believe in an afterlife in a cosmology anything that would warn off the idea of a permanent death yeah and I've wanted to believe for so long but for some reason I just can't get myself there. Right. And the funny thing is, like, here's where, like, my, I guess, aggressive need for empathy

or something, I'm not sure. Okay. But, like, I project onto everyone else my inability to have faith. And so I always, like, kind of look sideways at faithful people and be like, come on, we both watch pro wrestling. Like, you're K-Faving. Like, which is fine. I love that's where, that's where you go.

Like, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, Perfect. That's so on brand. Yeah. But I just, I can't get to myself there, you know? And I assume that everybody has like one-tenth of one percent where they're like, yeah, no, that's probably not a real move. Well, okay. But that's me absolutely projecting. I fully get that too.

Well, speaking just for myself. I can't speak for anybody else who is a believer, but as a believer. And as a convert, as an adult believer. As an adult convert. Yeah. I guess you were a believer all the way through, but you kind of codified it. With varying degrees of intensity. Sure.

But it was always there. Like that was part of your assumption. Yeah. It's always, it's always been there. And like on any given day, if you look at me and you say, all right, Ed, no bullshit. This part of the Nicene Creed right here, do you, do you groove with that? Like, for real. There be days when I would have to admit.

that well, you know, the resurrection of the body is a point of doctrine. I mean, I don't know. Yeah. So you're getting into like dogma though, right? You're not getting into the fundamental of your makeup, which seems to have faith as a component. Well, yeah. I don't have that.

And so I just kind of assume like I don't know how other people and maybe it's just because I'm this way. I think it's part of the same part of my brain that doesn't really appreciate music on a deep level or like feel moved by art or compelled to enjoy poetry like I just I figure everybody's play acting on some level and I wonder if other people like if they don't even bother thinking about it with me which is much more likely or if they're like oh at some point he's going to come round like you know I wonder if there's that same projection but well again only speaking for myself.

Sure. I have known enough of, of, you know, non-believing people. Sure. That, like, we believers kind of exist on a spectrum, and you non-believers kind of exist on a spectrum. And, like, there's always that individual who I look at, and I'm like, part of this is performative. Like, you're making all this noise about, oh, yeah,

know, God isn't real. You know, God is dead. In order to try to get a response out of the rest of us. Okay. So, like, that person, I'm like, you know, you're not fully committed. Right. I get the feeling that you're, you're a big part of this is motivated to be an edge lord. And like those people, I sometimes am like, you know, eventually you're going to be, that's not going to stay forever.

Right. You're going to have a moment. Yeah. But for somebody like you or my friend Ryan, um, you. You know, may his memory be a blessing. Because, you know, he would, he would advocate for the idea that he's not resting. He's just gone. Yeah, right.

You know, the level of maturity of your non-belief is a different thing. So, no, I don't think you're going to wind up coming around. Right, right. And it would be, I think it would be presumptuous and disrespectful of me to think that of you. Or to, you know, your, your, your, your expressed position on metaphysics. Yeah. Is. Never might organize this or that.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, never mind, you know, the church, which is, you know, another layer of that onion entirely. Sure. You know, your position on that, your status as a believer, because it's so easy to just say your belief. And I'm like, but it's non-belief, you know. Right.

So the language gets a little tricky. But your position vis-a-vis the idea of the soul and God and whatever is like, if that's your professed position and you are consistent about that. you are, you know, mature in it, then, like, me trying to do anything to change your mind about that is disrespectful to your integrity. Yeah, it's, and I wouldn't, I wouldn't do that. Now, a couple of things going on. Number one, I'm a late in life convert.

So I have my own journey in regard to belief. Sure. So my view about that is going to be very different from somebody who was raised. in an organized face and, you know, has the dogma that, no, I've got to save everybody, right? Right, right. Although, you know, converts are often the most zealous, too. So. Well, yes.

And in some ways, I am. But I'm also coming from a position of having been fortunate to have a lot of friends of differing beliefs or non-belief who were like, all right, if that works for you. Yeah. Cool. Much more the 5E paladin than the. 35 paladin. Yes, very much. So like, I've tried to have faith, but it at the end of the day, it is literally just that. It's, it's the equivalent of like a white guy wearing puka shells after visiting Hawaii for a week. Like, it just. Yeah. And, and because of all that, like I said,

I just deepen my bones. I'm like, you're k-fayb in orange. You know, like there's, but I don't like to insult people. So I just k-fabe with them, you know. But so not only am I without the benefits of being a faithful person, which sounds rad. I'm also deep down a judgmental asshole about it, but that's largely just because I can't conceive of a person thinking their way to faith and truly meaning it because I've only ever been able to arrive here. So it's kind of like I'm aware that warlocks exist, but come on. They're just, three-skin paladins. Like,

and I don't want to like... As a paladin, I'm fucking insulted that you put me in the same category as an arcane fucking... I know, I know, but like that's, you know, those are doctrinal differences.

Like, Sugar baby. Yeah. You're putting me in the same fucking category as an arcane sugar baby. No. First off, I like the phrase arcane sugar baby. Secondly,

I now want to play a paladin or a warlock who thinks he's a paladin. See, now that, I could, that I could groove with. That would be, that would be a hoot on the table. So here's the thing. And I'd want to play the pallet in the party who's like, mm-hmm. Yeah, totally.

Totally. Totally. Totally. Totally. It'll get you through the night there, buddy. Yeah, yeah. All right. We're good.

Wow. Your faith just isn't strong enough because they get more spells in you. Uh, you know. Why? I'm going to. No. No. His path is his path?

I took an oath. I took an oath. I took an oath. I took an oath. He hasn't actually done anything evil. but I'm fucking watching I'm fucking watching So the thing about all that is that

It means that life Is all I've got Like because there is no after life And that makes it really precious to me I have a friend Angelica Who is also she grew up Catholic And she said to me that she said She said to me that I, Damien

Understand better than most people That life is short enough as it is Given tragedies I've had And that quote Life is for living. She told me that. She's like, that's your, and I'm like, as lazy as I try to be, it's true. Like, even when I'm lazy, I'm squeezing everything I can out of luxury time, you know? Right. As far as I know, I only get about 80 years or so, and that's if I'm lucky. So I've got to

make it a good 80 years, especially now that I'm at my 48th. But that doesn't mean that there's not meaning to life beyond the arithmetic to me. It just means that meaning is entirely constructed by the person living it, which is horrifying and yet at the same time liberating. For me, boiled down, it means that I enjoy the times that I'm not fighting. Okay. So I need to fight for a fight so that others can enjoy. And then I need to enjoy the times where I'm not fighting. Because that's what you're fighting for.

Yeah. You know, and there's also a bit of making sure that I make the world a better place as best I can because that's part of the fight. And that's what I've decided matters and make. makes meaning for me and therefore I've committed and even even that I know is a fully constructed paradigm on my part like I could set it down tomorrow and it it that would also be just as valid as as me picking it up right like yeah the stone could roll roll down the hill again yeah and at the bottom of all it's like a cavern with wind blowing through it it's just kind of empty and I

dare say a little bit lonely um and now as a result of this, life matters to me. And death is a fearsome beast who gets all of us. And death is it. That's it's it. And that's goddamn awful and scary and anxiety-inducing for me. I feel my heart picking up as I say these words out loud. To the point where the summer when my daughter was born,

I had sweat-inducing panic attacks every night for like three months straight. And I think I've talked about this. And this was because I knew I would die. And not because I was afraid I'd die when she was young. because that's a very rational fear, but it was based on the idea that I would die at all. Like, now that I brought these two wonderful people in this of this world,

how could I possibly okay with not seeing the end of their story and what they've done with their lives? And again, rationally, I totally get that that's the only way that any of this works because it'd be really crowded here if we didn't kick off at some point. Yeah, mortality needs to be built into the system somehow. Yeah.

I saw that Jim Henson show, you know, death was in the bag, you know. So when I say that I take life and death very seriously, I think that there's several structural things cooked into my thinking when it comes to life and when it comes to death that all y'all faithful folks have some form of emotional security blanket to help you claw through it. And I don't mean that in any kind of pejorative way. Okay. I envy it on several levels when I let myself not project my bullshit.

Right. I don't know because, like I said, I think deep down everyone thinks that, things like me if they let themselves. But again, I'm not going to let my narcissism stretch beyond those shores, right? Right. Now, all that to say, sometimes death is really fucking funny. Okay. And it's not the fact that a person is no longer or that they're just done never to return, consciousness over. That's not the funny part.

That's the awful part. But the manner in which some people die, that shit is hilarious and quirky as hell. Okay. And I don't simply mean ironic like I tell of the Hun dying of a nosebleed. I mean funny. Okay. So tonight, here's a list of people with funny deaths. Respectfully.

Okay. Or not. Respectfully. Or, me. So. That's cool. I have to show Robert about reconciliation anyway. because he's coming up,

he's coming up on his first reconciliation. So let's do this. Yes. I can, I can be an example for my child. All right. All right. All right.

Well, let's start by talking about Robert Liston. I've heard this name before. Okay. Now, he didn't actually die. I mean, he did actually die. It's not his death that's funny, but he caused three others to die.

And their deaths were funny. Now, this might be apocryphal. I know. You're going to. Oh, no. Yeah. We might just do it. one episode tonight because you're going to need to like

flagellating. Yeah. No, I'm not a member of Opus Day. I don't need to know, but I will need to make a point of going to confession. Okay, yeah. Yeah, Opus Day, they're famously,

despite the fact that they're silent but deadly, they're very loud about their self-flagellations. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So this might be an apocryful tale, as records in the 1800s in London seemed to be lacking a little bit but as best as I can figure

Robert Liston was a surgeon with a ton of letters after his name who got to be known in London as the fastest blade in the West End. I think the clouds might be parting around his name for you now. At this time there was no reliable anesthesia

nor was there any reliable antiseptics okay. Doctors were still about 50 years off from accepting germ theory en masse So this is 18 what now? 1830s. Yeah. So being fast with the scalpel, fast with amputations mattered a lot.

The quicker you can move and work, the less likely the patient was to bleed out. And the quicker you could work, the faster you could get that shit bandaged and away from the germy-ass air of the operating theater. Right. And it was a theater at the time. People would come and watch and learn. And because Liston gained a reputation for going fast, more and more people came to watch. watch and in 1837, Liston was 43 years old, and he wrote a manual surgery called practical surgery.

Okay. In it, he made his case for fast amputations, quote, these operations must be set about with determination and all and completed rapidly, end quote. So again, guy knows his stuff. He's making his bones, no pun intended. And he is, he's actually really good at this. He gave a lecture in London in 1844. in which Liston said, quote,

you must study to perform the operation with as little pain to the patient as possible for that purpose as quickly as you can and so leave the truncated part that it shall not be a source of suffering and annoyance to the patient afterwards, end quote. Okay. So I genuinely think he is a humanitarian.

I genuinely think that he is operating with the best possible interests of his patients in mind. Oh, yeah. sounds like it. He's also still a surgeon. So he's also still a sociopath. Like so so hold on. I want to interrogate that that that logic statement sure sure so so like I could understand you saying he's also a surgeon so he has to be at least a little bit egotistical. Okay that too I can buy that but but where do we Where do we get to sociopath? I think the longer.

Because he's cutting on human beings. No, I think the longer that he is doing his thing and the better he gets at it, the more he believes his own hype. Okay. And the more he tries to push it, you know. Okay. I think the Steve Martin movie, it's more of a documentary, the man with two brains. But. More of a documentary.

Right. You know, where he's like got the screw top head. And now he's doing two at once, you know, and it's like, what the get that cat out of here? You know, it's like, you know, hubris. Yeah. I'm way too smart for hubris to catch me. But speed was key, all right, for this guy. And in order to move fast, Liston used something that was a straight blade, not a curved blade, which many people were using.

Liston used something called the Catlin knife to cut flaps of leg muscle in preparation for limb amputation. Okay. He would then use his bone forceps to cut away bone fragments and the spicule after the limb had been amputated. Okay. With the patient, while the patient's leg was being amputated, his leg would be supported partially by the surgeon, but mostly by an assistant. Okay. So you're holding on to the leg largely. I'm, I've got a hand under it and I'm slip, slap, slap, slap, slap, right?

Right, right. Sorry. I just, I looked up a. Catlin amputating knife. Uh-huh. And that's not a surgical tool. That's a fucking dagger. Oh, that's sharp.

He made it razor sharp. And he went. Well, I mean. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, oh, and so he's just snicker snacking his way with this thing. Oh, he's quick.

Like, and we're talking legs. So like the heaviest part of, you know, most bodies, right? With gravity holding it down. Yeah. So, so I just need to read the description here from. from the website that I'm on. Sure. The Catlin amputating knife's long blade and double-edged design facilitates the separation of muscles,

blood vessels, and other soft tissues during limb amputations. It can also be used to clear surrounding tissue to allow access to the bone. Yeah. Yeah, that's a double blade works on your back swing. You can also do work. That's this more. Yeah. So, you know.

Okay. The bone would frequently break off. once the surgeon was almost completely through the bone with the saw, right? Leaving bone shards and needles that could cause post-operative irritation within the stump. Yeah. So the forcepts that he used were designed to remove that sharp edge after the fact. Okay. So fast, fast, fast.

Right. Now, one of his colleagues described Robert Liston's method thus, quote, a thrust of the long straight knife, two or three rapid sawing movements, and the upper flap is made, undergo his fingers and the flap is held back, another thrust, and the knife comes out in the angle of the upper flap. Two or three more lightning-like movements and the lower flap is cut.

Oh, okay. Now, Liston himself said, quote, the incisions from within outwards, be it remembered, are always performed more quickly and with much less pain than those in the opposite direction. So in other words, once I get under there, coming back out, it's going to be a lot quicker and a lot less pain if you go quick. Okay. Yeah, you get a bucket. Now, by all accounts, Liston was interested in minimizing mortality and pain for his patients. Right. And it seemed to work.

Surgeons at the time lost one in four patients. Yeah. He lost only one in ten. Yeah. That's, wow. And it's this ratio that he. kept that led to his being your 20th century cocky surgeon a hundred years before it was cool to be a 20th century cocky surgeon yeah he definitely was among those who'd say uh who would say

that a surgery was success but despite a cadaver now being on the table right right yeah yeah um he would start every amputation surgery with the following words now gentlemen time me oh this isn't gonna end well oh no in a way he went uh sometimes an amputation would take less than 30 seconds. Just grab on. Can you get your hand all the way around your thigh? I can't get my hands around my thigh. No. And then losing half of that with all the weight underneath that part. Yeah, I know. 30 seconds. Yeah, I know. Once, one time he sliced with such speed and zeal that in taking a patient's leg, he took the guy's testicle as well. Hmm. So that's just, that's back swing. You know, that's, I, um, but the one I really wanted to hide.

highlight was the time that Robert Liston operated an amputation of a leg that had a 300% mortality rate. Okay. Go on. This is a guy, mind you, who could amputate a full fucking leg in less time than it takes you to do your intro for this show. Right. And again, speed mattered because the culture of surgery at the time was akin to sacrificing priests in the Aztec Empire. The more blood that stiffened the cloak, the better. Yeah.

Like they literally would walk around with blood-soaked cloaks. Oh, yeah. Their shit was stiff. So the 300% mortality rate surgery? Here we go. Liston said, now gentlemen, time me. And he reached back to slash down hard. And in so doing, he slashed through the coattails of a spectator behind him.

Oh, no. Who literally died of fright because they thought their vitals had been slashed through. On the down swing, he cut off two fingers. Some report the whole hand from his assistant because speed, baby. And then despite doing a bang-up job with the leg coming in under two and a half minutes, the hospital had rampant cases of necrotizing fasciitis at the time it was called hospital gangrene. Right. That meant that both the patient and his assistant got necrotizing fasciitis, and there's your three for one.

Now, this is sometime between 1844 and 1846 because it predates his early adoption of, anesthesia in 1846. He was an early adopter. Okay. Well, good. In fact, he was the first European to try anesthesia and he sang its praises immediately. Remember, the need for speed was because they had awake patients who would thrash from the fucking pain. And the assistant was there to hold them steady. So you can see how this helped create a triple deadly successful surgery. Yes. Yeah, triple deadly successful surgery. You were going to say. Yeah. I just need everybody listening to think for a moment about what the audience conditions had to be for on his back swing

him to catch the coat or coat tails of a spectator like like and how far like on his back swing yeah like I understand okay I'm gonna need I'm gonna need to really plunge this knife into this guy's leg. Yeah. But but but catching the guy behind him catching a fly ball. Right. You know. The foul tip actually.

Yeah. Yeah. And then and then having a heart attack. Mm-hmm. Or a stroke. Who knows. Yeah. Something that, you know, killed him.

Stone dead. Um, like how close did he have to be? Like, my brother in Christ, back the fuck up. Do you not see how long that knife is? Right. Like, I mean, I get, yeah. I mean, I'm still getting over the idea of, um, a surgery being, uh, so violent. Mm-hmm.

Uh, that, that you'd need to have that kind of warning. But, you know, then you think about this is, this is an amputation of a leg. Right. There's arteries in the leg. And like, I would think there'd be a splash zone like at SeaWorld. Yeah. Like the first couple of rows back, like, like the surgeon having blood all over his clothes. Like, all right, that's a cultural thing.

Like, Spartans never replacing their clothes. Silhouette on the audience. You know? Yeah. Like, yeah. Like, like, why? Like, back up. Yeah.

And, you know, I mean, I also can understand that like, you know, they didn't have, you know, cameras in a Jumbotron. So you couldn't get the really good view of what was going on if you were from the back. But I don't know if I'd want to be up that close. Yeah. For that anyway. But when there's actual risk of, you know, getting cut like a bitch. Yeah.

Yeah. I don't know. That's, that's, that is the part of this story that, that has me laughing. out of anxiety. Oh, for me, it's the, and I totally understand, like, yes, of course, you might not notice his fingers were underneath the wherever you got. Yeah. Oh, shit, Dave, I'm so sorry.

Like, you cut off his fingers. Yeah. Wow. And presumably, he's training to be a surgeon. Like, there's not zero chance that, like, well, I'm sorry, you're going to have to find a new trade if he had survived. Yeah, I'm like, you know. All right.

You ready for the next one? Yeah. All right. So we're going to stay in Europe. This guy, fuck with the names. Vice Admiral Lothar von Arnold de la Père Perrier.

He's German, but P-E-R-I-E-R-E and the E has the accent going back toward the I. Oh, yeah. That's one of those. Yeah, he was German, but, you know, family background was French. Yeah, yeah, probably Alsacean. Yeah, okay. Anyway.

Perrier. So, Perrier's, okay, if there's an Eon on the end, it's Perrier. Perrier, okay, so Lothar von Arnold de la Perrier. He was the most successful German U-boat skipper in World War I. Okay. Now, a fun fact, World War I was the first time you saw any successful use of a submarine in warfare ever. because there had been attempts, all of which didn't work. Yeah.

All of which, all of which to one degree or another failed. Yeah. The difference was the spectacularity. Yes. Of the failures. Yes. But every other use of a submarine submersible attack platform resulted in its destruction and the death of the crew prior to World War I.

But in World War I, they got their shit together. And Vice Admiral Lothar von Arnold de la Perrier, Lothar to his friends, he actually stuck to the Mediterranean during the entire World War. Oh, really? Yeah. Interesting. And his sub-campaign on behalf of the German military.

Right. Okay. Because he was a German U-boat skipper. And at that time, he was just a skipper. Vice Admiral is what he ended up with. Right. But he stuck to a code of conduct that seems suicidal to modernize too. So you're the military historian, but I love my World War I stuff.

So I've done a deep dive here. here. You were supposed to surface. Yeah. Fire warning shot. Communicate to the other ship and be like, I could sink you. Yeah. So. Signal light. Yeah. More scint in your boats.

We're going to search and we're probably going to scuttle your boat, but we want to make sure that you're safe. You know? Yeah. And like, again, doing that is damn near suicidal because what's going to stop them

from turning their deck guns on you, right? Yeah. He sank 194 ships. Yeah. Over 450,000 gross tons. Yep. Which makes him the most successful sub-skipper ever, and he did it largely by following the Code of Conduct.

He actually, he followed what are called the Rules of Engagement. He actually didn't use torpedo as much. He only used machine guns. The deck gun. Yeah. Yeah. I found this description on Reddard. And now I've edited this some, but it's definitely not mine, but it verifies with a lot of the sources that I've read about them.

Okay. Quote, according to tradition, enemy vessels were supposed to offer their prey a chance to surrender. This was in everyone's best interest as it avoided bloodshed and the victor could take the surrendered vessel to a friendly port for sale as a prize. This is always a big deal for Navymen as well as pirates and privateers because the money made at auction for the sale of a ship would be divided. among the owner of the prize takers vessel, the prize takers captain, and then his officers and crew in that order. For an able-bodied seaman who had made a pittance, the bonus from the sale of a prize could be a real windfall. This tradition was codified over the 19th century

and over the 19th century in international law, and that carried on into World War I. According to law and tradition, the subs were initially ordered to stop suspected enemy ships, search them, and then either claim them as a prize to be sailed to a friendly port or the crew disembarked and the vessel sunk. It was quickly realized how impractical it was to board every single suspected enemy vessel, let alone claim it as a prize to be sailed away.

The realities of war meant that subs often had little time to loiter around on the surface. It meant that vessels felt entitled to defend themselves, and it meant that the subs already limited crew would be stretched even thinner by sending a prize crew to sail their prize home. Right. Rules of engagement were then changed early in the war from, you must stop and search a ship before taking it as a prize or sinking it to

deny it to the enemy. Two, you will stop the ship, order the crew to disembark onto Lifecraft, and then you will sink the ship. This change in the ROE meant that submarines meant the submarine would surface near a target and would announce its presence by firing a deck gun in warning.

The crew would be told, usually by means of speaking cone. I just love that. Yeah, a relic of the era. Right. Well, not only that, but you're like, you're yelling in your language and maybe what you hope to be their language based on their flag, right? So just hearing German yelled through a cheerleader cone. Anyway. It does make for quite the picture, doesn't it?

It does. Yeah. In a World War I German naval uniform. Yeah. You know, yeah. Let's see. To abandon ship and offer no resistance. Merchant vessels they were stopping were now.

being equipped with their own deck guns, which were more than capable of punching a leaky hole through their subs hull. This problem was aggravated when the Entente allies started corraling all shipping into organized convoys with armed escorts for mutual protection. A sub surfacing near a convoy is practically a death sentence. These factors, as well as the declarations of unrestricted submarine warfare, led to new rules of engagement. Instead of stop the ship and offer the crew a chance to escape, they became, surface

and fire upon enemy ships directly, sink them to deny them and their cargo to the enemy war effort. Merchantmen were no longer offered a chance to get to safety before their vessel was torpedoed or shelled by a lurking submarine. This led to some situations where a sub-surfaced after sinking a ship, ostensibly to check on the men who had made it to the life raft, only to be fired upon by angry sailors with pistols and submachine guns. After those few instances, captains determined that they no longer had any onus to check for survivors or seat their care. To do so risk their vessel and their crews. Yes. And that's a very concise and effective description of the evolution of doctrine. Yeah. Yeah. I liked it because it did take us from beginning to end of the war.

What we all expect as modern readers. Yeah. Now, Vaughn Lothar, too, his friends. He's still stuck to that, though. And he used his 8.8s on the top of his sub to warn ships and then sink them, firing only 74 torpedoes in his entire career. Wow. Of which 39, 39 found their mark. Wow. So now after the war, Arnold was one of the very few naval men to retain his commission

and stay in the military after the Treaty of Versailles, remember? Right, yeah, yeah. And in 1932, having retired from Almond, active service, he, De La, became a naval instructor for the Turkish Navy. Oh, dear. Yeah. Okay. But in 1939, Arnold De La Perrier was recalled to active service again by the German

military because the German military was back on its bullshit again. I love that way of phrasing it. Yeah. The not yet Vice Admiral Lothar sent as naval commandant in Danes. Or he served as Naval Commandant in Danzig. And then the low countries in 1940. Eventually, he got promoted to Contor-Admiral and then Vice Admiral. He probably wouldn't have been promoted, or he probably would have been promoted further, but for his silly fucking death.

Okay. Okay. I'm ready for it. So I think. I have braced myself on the table. I am to that extent, I am ready for it. Here's the guy who spent 50 to 75 meters, he spent much of his life, 50 to 75 meters under the ocean surface for a whole bunch of World War I. Right.

Right. And in 1941, on his way to take command of the Kriegsmarine Navy Group, South, the plane that he was in crashed upon takeoff in late February of 1941 at the Le Bourgette Airport in Paris. The same place that Lindberg, another guy who did the work for the Nazis, had landed. I assume that that Prairie Air had flown before, but it's really funny to me that like he basically had a certain altitude from about 75 meters below, Neg 75 to about 100 meters above. Yeah, and that's it. Yeah, and then you try to get above that and it all fell apart. spent his life under the water at depths that I would shudder at and he died before even even got to an equal altitude in the air and it's just really funny to me that a submarine guy

dies in an airplane yeah you know it's like the old uh the old the old the old phrase there are what is it there are more airplanes in the ocean than there are submarines in the sky yeah it makes you think yeah yeah um did you did you find out in in reading the story was it like engine failure was it like what happened it seems like it was pilot error like it just crashed upon takeoff and honestly takeoff and landing

are the two times where where shit crashes yeah that's the two most the two most dangerous points exactly because they're transitioning by airplane yeah yeah although I guess you could say that they all crash upon landing so they all land

upon crash one way or another it's whether the landing is a landing or a crash. I'm going to argue as somebody's been around aviation all my life, I'm going to argue the semantics on that one. No, no, it's not, it's not that they all, no, no, no, works the other way than you're saying.

All crashes are landings. Yes, not all landings are crashes. Yes. Yes. Thus, the phrase amongst aviators, any landing you can walk away from. Right. Is a good landing.

Gene Rodenberry learned that early on. That he did. Yeah Anyway, I mean, he is still the most successful U-boat skipper Yeah, well, and what I find interesting about that is You know, I mean, there's all kinds of harrowing Submarine stories out of World War II And there was, I mean, a lot of submarine shit going on there

But I think part of the reason for his record being what it is And I don't think his records ever going to be surpassed, frankly because the way that doctrine developed from there. Yes. And the way that navies were structured from there. Well, yeah, you had convoys. You also had the, if you, if your sub made it into the Mediterranean from the Atlantic, you didn't get to leave the Mediterranean after that in World War II.

Like Das Butte talks about that, right? Yeah. Yeah. Like, because Gibraltar is so fucking. narrow. Yeah. So you make it to the Mediterranean. There's no Suez Canal yet.

You're stuck. Yeah. He was able to actually get back out into the Atlantic several times. Yeah. But in World War II, things tightened up. And like you said, doctrine changed quite a bit. Yeah. Well, and everybody was using submarines by that time.

And everybody had more submarines in their fleets. Yeah. So there wasn't the same level of opportunity for one captain to be. the one getting or for one boat to be the one getting that many and they developed wolf pack tactics to get around convoy tactics like yeah yeah became a bit of an arms race under the water so so okay so i didn't do these in any kind of order at all so this next one is ancient we're talking like 400s bce okay yeah now quick question uh are the 400s bcee are those the fifth century BCE.

I have it going forward, no problem. Going backward, I'm screwed. Yeah, I know it's weird. It is, right? Yeah, no, it works. It works the same way. First century, BCE. 1 to 99.

0 to 99. Yeah, there's no zero. Yeah. Yeah, sorry, one. Jesus. Negative 1 to negative 100. I get you. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. All right, cool. So this one, ice-less. Spell that for me. A-E-S-C-H-Y-L-U-S. Aes-E-S-E-S-E-E-S-E-E-S-E-E-L-S. Well, I can.

I could Latin at it. Yeah, I get ice, ice chylos. But yes, ice chelis. I've always heard it, Aeschylus. Oh, Jesus Christ. He's the father of modern, modern tragedy. Or not modern tragedy, I'm sorry. He's the father of tragedy.

Yes. RFK the Greater called him Ischelis, and it was his favorite. Oh, okay. He was his favorite poet, whom RFK the Greater actually quoted that night that Martin Luther King was assassinated. So I believe Icegillus, Icegillus, Icekylus, I believe he's an Attic and Greek. Okay. And he came from the nobility of that time in that place.

And as always happens, Dionysus visited him in a dream and told him to write plays that were tragedies. Okay. And at this time, tragedy was a brand new genre of theater. Okay. So recall, theater was tied directly to Dix and to Dian. Dionysus in a religious way. Yeah, yeah, I love that way you phrase that, yes. I mean, none of it wrong, but just the way.

So when the God of Dix comes to you in your dream and tells you that you need to make plays that make people sad instead of horny, that's one hell of a calling. That really is, yeah. Yeah. Now, because Iskaius was about 35 by the time Darius, the first, was doing his thing in Greece, He, Iskalis, along with his brother, Aminius, and their older brother, Kignegirus, they were all brought into military service around 490 BCE. Okay. Ten years later, Aminius became known as the hero of the Battle of Salamis. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, but younger brother, I'm sorry, oldest brother, Kinegirous, was one of the Athenian generals who, fought at the Battle of Marathon. Okay, yes. So they're spread all over the place fighting Persians. Kinigirous helped fight the Persians back to their ships, thwarted their invasion of Marathon, and lost his life trying to trap them on the shore to defeat the Persians once and for all.

Okay. Now, according to many legends, not maybe most, but many of the more famous legends, Kinigiris literally tried to hold a Persian ship on shore by its prow and lost both his hands in the attempt, dying by bleeding out on the shore. His brother, Aminius, was the captain of a trirem in the Battle of Salamis in 480 BCE, fighting against Xerxes and other Greek allies of the Persian king and rammed his ship into a Persian ship, not Xerxes specifically.

And that started the naval battle at Salamis. Eiskulus fought at Salamis and then again a year later in 479 BCE at Plataea, Plataea, think the land version of Salamis, basically. Okay, yeah. Now evidently, this series of wars was a lot like World War I was to British literary genius. Tons of playwrights came out of this experience, so it is really just as likely that it wasn't the God of Dix Dionysus telling him to write boner-killing tragedies, but rather Isklaz was tapping into the fact that everyone felt a lot

of tragedy for a big chunk of his adult life due to the wars. Okay. Potato-potato. Either way. He won play competitions on the regular for this new approach. His own sons went on to become tragic playwrights, and the genre really took off in their generation. Sophocles and Euripides both competed with his sons to see who could make the Greek theater

goers, most sad and flaxid. But the father of tragedy, the guy who basically invented the Greek version of sad jazz, died in a way that was at once tragic and hilarious. Okay. And I'm here for it. Silly, even. Oh, okay.

So, Ischalus had been staying outside in anordinate amount of time when he was about 66 years old because he had heard that he would die from something falling on his head. Even then he was wearing, even then, like, playwrights and actors refuse to say the word Macbeth in the theater, like going back that far. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so. Those superstitions have deeper roots, did you think? Oh, they do. Yeah. So, I mean, and since Macbeth had already been written, it was just a matter of time before someone said it in a neon sign fell on his head and crushed him to death, right? I oh my god I want to reach through the monitor right now

what's that now I want to reach to the monitor and push you in the face so hard right now I know you're thinking they didn't have like the steel necessary to hold up neon signs yet yes that's that's why I'm that's why I'm having to contain my fist of rage yes 100 so in order to avoid that ice-clis was staying outside just as often as he could and the thing was he was bald okay and in the summer sun his head shone just like a perfect rock. Oh no. And eagles, not just Don Henley alone, but all of them use such rocks to crack open tortoise shells.

They would swoop down, grab a tortoise, drop it on a rock, cracking it open, and then fly down for heroes on the half shell. No. Yes. So imagine you're a playwright, famous for tragedies, having sons who are really starting to come up, and you're going to get to see them right. really great tragedies just so long as you can stay out of harm's way and live another 20 years or so and everything's going great because you're staying outside away from any possibility of stage lights

falling on your head during a production of moliere's imaginary invalid and you get killed by tortoise ex aquila oh i see what you did there and as the tortoise crashed down he thought well isn't this nice okay look here you little shit i'm I'm laughing at that and I hate you for it. There's someone packed in there in there. Really, really, really is. He died like Wiley Coyote. The guy who wrote tragedies died in the most slapstick way.

So, so, okay, no, no kidding, though. No, no bullshit. He's recorded as having been struck in the head. by a turtle by a flung turtle yeah tortoise technically but yeah but yeah yeah yeah okay now now the part of this the part of this that I wonder about sure after after the initial what the fuck man I actually wonder about is the eagle was associated with Zeus Yeah So like was there anybody who was like well you know

When the gods want you gone Sure Right like you know Death could come slow from a tortoise Yeah Haunted Zeus chose a tortoise and not a thunderbolt Okay So here's here's my rejoinder to that

Yeah This is why I think everybody is in on the joke of religion Because people back then who believed deeply in this shit and they went to theater for dicks for it and all this all of them were like no sometimes it's just a fucking turtle man I don't know like there's

even they had to admit like you see and I find that funny because like you look at the literature and that's the kind of thing Zeus would pull yeah like tell me that's out of character for him you can't

yeah you can't tell me that um Um, Taurus, Aquila. Yeah. Yeah. It's too early for ex machina.

We don't have machine yet. Right. They don't exist. But, but Aquila we have lots of. That's, wow. Yeah.

Yeah. It's beautiful. You're going to get killed by something falling on your head. Okay. Well, I better stay outside from outside under the open sky where nothing bad could possibly happen to, no. son

I think I got to like bring in the quote from our intros from 2019 isn't the fucking Eagles in this case

it is yeah it totally is um wow just you know and that just goes to

goes to prove kind of like I said a moment ago like when your number's up man your number is up there's there's there's a certain extent to which you just have to accept is that sometimes fatalism isn't wrong.

Yeah. Like. Yeah. So. So, wow. All right. Let's stay in Greece, actually, but 200 years later. This is Chrysippus, Chrysippus of Soli.

Okay. Another Greek guy, but this one's a philosopher. Okay. 200 years later or so, this guy, Chrysippus of solely, was probably a Phoenician. Which meant that when he died, someone probably waved and said, bye Phoenician. No. He died on a Friday.

Just no. Good day, sir. Now, this guy was excellent at logic, and he moved to Athens after losing the family fortune. Okay. To affiliate himself with Clianthes, the chief of the Stoic School of Thought. Okay. When Cleantes died in about 230 BCE, Fisipus took over the Stoic school and wrote a ton.

And unfortunately, despite how prolific he was in his writings, none of them have survived. Oh. We get to him a lot through later Roman authors and Greek philosophers, Galen among them, as well as Plutarch, who seems to have written about everyone. Okay. However, with the good stroke of luck that we found in the early 2000s in Herculaneum, Herculaneum, remember, there's Pompeii. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Pompeii and Herculaneum. That's like in the early 2000s, there was like, holy shit, there's a whole thing. lot of writing in Herculaneum.

So fragments from some of his works have actually been found. Oh, wow. Yeah. Now, I'm trying to remember, is this the stuff that was carbonized and the infrared laser scanning kind of technology is the stuff that's that's so bitching. Super dope. All right. And here's the tragic part of that is that by just the unrolling and the flattening and

all that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, you do all the things. it's already started to fade. Oh, you know, it's kind of like, you know,

they pulled up like these incredible statues, like that were found at the bottom of some shipwreck or something. Right. And the moment they get exposed to the air and they start falling apart. The pigmentation starts going away. Yeah. And you're like, oh,

we finally see how, how they were meant to be, you know, instead of like sun bleached for 2,000 years. Anyway, um, so yeah, we found a bunch of his,

uh, a few fragments of his stuff, not a bunch. Uh, but he's mentioned a lot by others. So here's a man, known for being the most serious, brilliant and frankly incomprehensible mind of his time.

Okay. He codified stoicism in a major way while still maintaining a similar reputation to Jackson Pollux. He was brilliant, but incomprehensible and kind of aloof due to his intense focus on all the things that don't have any bearing on communicating clearly with the rest of the world.

Okay. So it's one of those like... I can tell this guy's a genius, but I don't entirely understand how I can understand how he is one. Yeah, I can take him 10 minutes at a time, you know? Like, and I'm going to have to go away for a month and decode that. It's amazing, but, you know. Like when I figure it out, it's going to be mind-blowing. Yeah.

Okay. So he's the guy known for his own brilliance or known for his brilliance. And he died laughing at his own stupid joke. Oh, you know what? I think I read about this. Literally like yesterday. Okay, okay. Yeah, so I have a lot of respect for him.

That tracks. Yeah. Totally 100% tracks. Oh, God. So he saw a donkey eating figs. And he pointed it out, joking that someone should give the donkey wine to wash it down with. Yeah. And that joke caused him to die laughing.

Right. So stupid. Well, I can totally relate because I once turned beat red at the joke of the children. of dictators being dictator tots. And my students talked about it for years afterwards how all of class stopped because I was laughing so hard and for so long. And I was convulsing. You hardly breathe.

Yes. Okay. All right. So, so I actually saw this of all places on Reddit. There you go. I want to say it was like a subreddit like explain the joke. Yeah. And somebody was like, okay, this guy last.

He laughed himself to death. I need to understand what, what, you know, I know that cultural context is critical. Like, what does this mean? So, um, the, the, the details of it were, you know, the donkey had cultural, uh, associations with, uh, Dionysus and being unruly and being kind of, kind of wild and stubborn and a little bit dumb. Uh-huh. And it wasn't just that he was eating fig. But it was a specific like prepared fig dish that the donkey somehow got a hold of. Okay. And there's a pun.

You'll appreciate this. Oh, of course I will. That in Attic Greek, figs was a homonym or a close to a homonym for a term for female genitalia. Okay. Yeah, I can see that. And the specific line he used was. you need to give the donkey unwatered wine.

Okay. Now unwatered wine is, let me explain. You had essentially, oh God, I forget what it was called now. It's not Molsom, but it's, well, maybe it is. But, no, most of my thing is a sweet honeyed wine. But anyway, you made wine in concentrate.

And what you would have was at a party, you would have a jug of water and a jug of concentrate and you would pick the Arbiter Bibendi at Roman parties and I don't doubt that there's something similar in Greece and how you decided to mix it with the Kianta, with the little ladles. Yeah. Think like a salsa, like one of those long spoons for salsa at a Mexican restaurant.

And you would mix the wine, two to three, three to one, you know, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. And the idea was to give everybody the good rosy glow without getting everybody fucking hammered. You wanted it to last and like just keep it right there. You would maintain the right level of buzz. Exactly. And the Greeks added honey to it.

So what you said about the honeyed wine is not entirely wrong. Right. And so the comparison or the root of, you know, why this would be funny to an addict Greek philosopher is because the donkey. and the figs and being related to genitalian sex and the unwatered wine all point to

Dionysus. Right. And so it's kind of a the person that gave a really great modern version of the joke would be like if you walked into a bar and you saw a priest and a rabbi hanging out

and you ask them, well, where's the imam? Right. And then, you know, thought you were so clever, you laughed yourself into an aneurysm. That's the theme right there. But yeah, yeah.

So this famous stoic. Yeah. Laugh to death. I once, I found a picture of someone who changed their phone number and they printed out a flyer. You know, one of those tear off at the bottom flyers. Right, right. They printed out a flyer saying, my number has changed. Tear off the new number.

He doesn't give his name or his old number. that had me laughing. I think I woke up my wife at the time. I don't remember. That had me laughing so hard. Not so long that I died, but then again, I'm not so prolific a writer

or so serious and good a thinker that I developed and codified a philosophy into what we know of today. Right. Chrysippus of Sully? By Phoenician. Yeah. I fucking hate you for that

But But yeah It wasn't even a good joke I have such respect for that I just You know of all the ways that you could go Uh huh That that one sucks a lot less than a lot of others

Yeah I would I would hope that you just laugh into fainting Or something Yeah Yeah Like because you still I mean I mean, I assume, like, do we know roughly how old he was at the time? I think, let's see, in 2.30, Cleanthus died, and I do not have his age at death now.

Because, you know, you think about if he was, if he was really laughing at heart, it could have, it could have brought on, you know, an aneurism, you know, something, something could have happened because of. the intensity of that. Oh, he was 73 when he died. Okay. So, yeah. I mean, you know,

but again, still, of all the ways to go, you know, it's a good one. Since they don't talk about him lingering and suffering at all because of it.

Right. You know, yeah. No, I can think of a lot of worse ways to leave the world than that. Well, here's one.

You ready? Yeah. Oh, shit. I really handed you. I really handed you a lead in there, didn't I? You did. Jean-Baptiste Lully. Have you ever heard of him?

And again, the name is familiar. Okay. But I don't remember why. So my partner told me about this one because she, I told her what I was researching. And she's like, oh, you got to do Luli. And I was like, I certainly do. Who's this guy? Tell me about him.

So this is for her. So this is a Baroque conductor. from the times of Louis the 14th. Oh, no. Okay. He was Tuscan, but he ended up in France. And you talk about being in the right place at the right time. Now, he was Tuscan at a time where Italian was a generalization, but by no means, was it a language or a national identity?

Oh, hell, no. He was Tuscan. He spoke Tuscan Italian. Right. There was no Italian Italian. Like people still do. Right. Like modern Italian is something everybody learns in school because it's been defined by the government as this is our national language.

Right. You know, and it was put together by committee out of like three different dialects. The whole story of that is a thing all on its own. But yeah. But so Luli was 14 years old and he was dressed up as a harlequin playing violin during Mardi Gras. And because he was Tuscan, he was actually. entertaining the bystanders alternatingly in French and Tuscan while also being a clown and playing the violin.

Very talented young man. Okay. This attracts the attention of, I assume these are French names. So I know it's supposed to be Roger, but it's Roger de Lorraine. Okay. Well, that's not the full name. Roger de Lorraine Chevalier de Guise. Okay.

Chevalier de Guise. Chevalier de Guise. G-Y-S-E. say the roger say it again roger de lorraine chevalier de lorraine chevalier de g-u-i-e-e de guise de guise

de guise who himself was the son of charles duke of geese son of charles de lorraine fourth duke of geese and third prince of joinville who was returning to France yeah right okay now because jean baptiste

lulli was fluent in his own tongue and that of the French and because Charles de Lorraine, Fourth Duke of Geese and Third Prince of Joinville, was looking for someone to converse in Italian with his own niece, the niece of de Guise, whose name is Anne-Marie Louise De Orleans, de Orleans, Duchess of Montpensier,

the Mademoiselle de Montpensier. Okay, see, now you're trolling. Mademoiselle. Mademoiselle de Montpensier, also known as La Grande Mademoiselle. Charles de Lorraine, Fort Duke of de Guise and third prince of Joinville

took the young Jean de Baptiste Lully with him to become the chamber boy to the grand Mademoiselle Okay So he's 14 Right And a guy's like, dad, get this guy And the guy's like, hey, come with me

You're going to live with my niece Okay And you're going to be her chamber boy There's no way this could go wrong No Now following the frond Which is a series of civil war attempts by a bunch of princes using the Spanish-French war as cover for their attempt to take over the government.

Right. The grand mademoiselle was exiled to the country, which Luli didn't like the idea of. And so he asked to be released from her service. That's right. He asked to be released from the niece of de Guise, a request which she actually granted. You're having way too much fun with this, to say the least. Nice. Interestingly, Louis the 14th at the time, was.

I think he was like 15. What year are we talking about? Louis the 14th. Well, what these events we're talking about? This is... Oh, so this is like... 16 what?

The 1660s? Okay. I want to say? Yeah, okay, lines up. Yeah. So Louis the 14th, he's 15 years old. He likes being a part of a really long fucking ballet play. Where he got to play, wait for it.

Apollo. Well, I mean, yeah. Yeah. Okay. This is called the Ballet Royale de la Nuit or the Royal Ballet of the Night. Okay. Essentially demons, dark shit, werewolves, Venus, Minerva, marginalized people and all the things that come out during different watches of the night. And this fucking play lasts for 13 hours.

Oh, okay. Because it's literally the vigils, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Louis the 14th met Jean-Baptiste during their dance number together when he comes out as Apollo. You know, Jean-Baptiste is on stage as well. And the boy who would be king, or the boy who would be king, Louis X, 14th, was only 15 at the time. Like I said, he was so taken with Jean-Baptiste Lully's performance. Lully himself at this point would be 20 years old.

And within the year, Lully was made court composer. Oh, wow. All right. And as Louis rose to power, he brought Luli. Louis rose to power. He brought Lully with him. Right. In 1661, Luli, now a French subject, and Moliere, began working together and enjoying

each other's company quite a bit professionally for the next 10 years. Okay. But because Lully was gay in a way that displeased Louis the 14th, Lully fell out of favor with Louis in the mid-1680s. Which track. because Louis couldn't punish his brother who was his, you know, right, beloved, you know, his beloved idiot little brother is kind of the way the, the, the record comes down of him kind of, kind of viewing his brother.

Which I think it's interesting because like everybody smelled terrible. Everybody is pissing in corners. Right. Everybody's fucking everybody else. But his whole thing was don't embarrass yourself and don't embarrass me by extent. Yeah. And being caught with a chamber boy was an embarrassing enough thing because everybody's jockeying for position. Yeah. So being caught being gay. You know, the anthra, if somebody could do like forensic anthra, well, not forensic, well, kind of forensic cultural anthropology. Sure. On the court of Louis XIV, it would be a fascinating read because that was such a bizarre environment. Oh, yeah. Well, Robert Evans did a really good. podcast on Versailles itself. Oh, yeah?

Yeah. Okay. I got to look that out. Yeah. But all right. So anyway, fast forward to, so he's out of favor in the mid-1680s. In November of 1686, Louis the 14th had an operation to remove an anal fistula, which I got to learn from a lot of pictures.

Yeah, it sucks, don't it? Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to remember who else. There was somebody else that was believed to have. of one of the kings of England. Well, there was a... Oh, it might have been Henry...

Henry the second. Oh, trying to remember. Yeah. Because the sources talk about him, you know, having to fight off rebellions by his sons and being on horseback and being in, like, agonizing pain. Oh, I bet. And the theory is that it was a, that it was a fistula.

Okay. Yeah, because a lot of people talk. about it being hemorrhoid or something like that. Yeah. But, um, so anyway. Yeah. So that's fine.

I remember there's a guy named last name. It looks like Pepys, but it's pronounced Peps. Peps. Peps. Peppes. He took out his own, um, kidney stone. Right.

Yeah. Using a mirror. Yeah. Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, in an era where, uh, uh, asthesia didn't exist. Right.

Well, you want to show. sure mind on that. But also, you're cutting into your dick. Yeah. To remove a stone. Yep. In amongst all the bloody tissue.

Yeah. So, anyway. And having to hold a mirror steady while you do it. Right. Like, well, I'm hoping that he was at least set the mirror up somewhere. Yeah. Well, you know, you wonder. Right.

But, yeah, double tough. So anyway. So it took about two months for Louis to heal from the anal fistula removal. Okay. And it worked. Now, Luli had written... I could be lucky for the surgeon that it did. No kidding.

Now, Luli had written a ballet called Te deum. Or no, it's not a ballet. It's an orchestral piece called Te deum, which literally is, this is accusative of exclamation. This is you, God. Right. But it's interesting because Tay is the accusative form. and so you're not just shouting to him potentially.

There's a few possibilities, but it seems like accusative of exclamation. Anyway, he wrote Tay Dayum a few years prior, but he decided to dust it off and conduct it in celebration of Louis's successful surgery. Okay. Now, back then, conductors did not have a wand. They used a staff, a large staff, that they would pound the ground with. Yeah, bang on the ground. Yeah.

And he pounded on his own toe during the concert that he was conducting. inducting in honor of the successful amputation of an anal fistula. Right. And he wounded his own toe. And the wound grew infectious to the point of needing an amputation. Luli refused the amputation and the gangrene spread very quickly to his brain and he died in March of 1687. Wow. That's a...

Go ahead. Bummer of a way to go. Ha. Yeah. The royal composer refusing to amputate, what he'd injured during a celebratory concert for a successful amputation ended up dying by way of decomposing. And there's the pun. There it was.

Yeah. Yeah. I have another one from Louis XIV, actually. Oh, wow. That may or may not be, well, I have found it kind of funny. Sure. So the individual that I'm talking about is Francois Vattel. Okay.

He was and I'm taking my information here from Wikipedia because I remembered the story from a cookbook. Oh, sure. And so I wanted to check my facts. So Francois Vatel was the major domo of Nicholas Fouquet and Prince Louis Grande Conde. So he worked in the palace under Louis XVI superintendent, Nicholas Fouquet. And in this role, he was known, and now I'm quoting directly from Wikipedia, he was known for the meticulous care with which he reviewed every minute detail. So he's the head chef of a palace, right? So he's overseeing everybody looking in the kitchen.

And he was responsible for an extravagant banquet for 2,000 people on the 24th of April 1671 at the Chateau de Chantilly. and this was the Louis the 14th first visit to this region of France to the Grand Conde Vatel and he's overseeing everything and he's watching everybody in the kitchen

and he's keeping an eye on what's going on and it's all intensely high pressure this is the king right and and you know our employer's reputation is going to be you know desperately tarnished if this doesn't go off right

you know, so really high stakes. And one of the courses was a seafood course. And the seafood didn't arrive. And the seafood didn't arrive. And the seafood didn't arrive. And Vatel, and I'm quoting again, Vatel was so distraught about the lateness of the seafood delivery that he ran himself through with his sword. That's right. As the seafood was arrived.

diving. Sword, fish. Where? Yeah, according to a letter, according to a letter by Madame de Sivignet. This incident is thought to be the origin of the idiom, died for want of lobster sauce. A phrase meaning to die or be devastated due to some trifling disappointment, peak, or wounded vanity. Oh. Oh, Lord.

So, yeah. That's, that's, so what this tells. me is that if you were in any way in any level of proximity to Louis the 14th you were living in such a bullshit fish bowl yes one that was apparently too empty yeah that you are that your chances of dying for stupid reasons were were highly elevated over anybody else in the world at the same time yeah died for want of lobster sauce. Wow.

So, yeah. All right, I'm going to give you one more, and then we're going to cut this, because this is definitely a two-parter. Okay. So Zayuxis, he was a painter in Magna Greikia, which is the southeastern bottom of the boot of Italy. Okay.

He lived essentially from 464 BCE to the turn of the next century, and he traveled extensively back and forth into Mediterranean. Okay. None of this stuff, none of his stuff survives either, but it gets a lot of mentioned by people who came through later who praised the hell out of his work. Again, he was a painter. Pliny the Elder wrote a fair bit about him,

although I've only ever focused on Pliny the Younger's work, so I'm no help there. Same thing with Cicero's mention of him in De In Wentiole. However, Zeyuchis was known for painting very realistic paintings of nature, as well as group photos of the gods. Okay. Okay. Deuxes was big on using shadow and light play to make things more realistic,

and he preferred smaller scale work to the murals that were popular at the time. Oh. He and a competitor had a competition to see who could paint the more lifelike illusion. Zayuxes painted grapes that were said to be so realistic that birds came down to try to eat them. Oh, well. All right. His competitor, a man named Parasius. He painted curtains, and then he asked Deuxes to pull the curtains back to review.

what he'd painted. And Zayuxes tried and was like, oh, you painted curtains. Oh, you got me. And he actually declared Phrasius the winner because, according to Zayukes, I only fooled birds. You fooled me. All right. All right.

I like this guy. That's a good. Yeah. Good way to approach that. Okay. Yeah. And he dies in around 398 BCE in Athens. Okay.

because he painted an old woman who insisted on modeling for his painting as Aphrodite and he found it so funny that he couldn't stop laughing. So he died. I mean, a picture is worth a thousand words. There's layers to that. Like, like, like, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm, I'm kind of trying to figure out, you know, the Greek ethics in that situation.

Because on the one hand, an old woman wanting to pose as Aphrodite kind of, kind of bumps up against ideas of hubris and, you know, right. Not not wanting to come not ever wanting to compare yourself to the gods like all because that's bad juju right You turn into a spider for that shit. Yeah, that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's that's a level and transformation level shit right there yeah um so there's there's that as a modern as a modern listener to that story I'm like kind of a dick move bro mm-hmm you know um like like I mean, you took the money. You took the money and like, you know, privately going to your friends and being like, so let me tell you about this weirdo client I have would be one thing. Right. But like laughing so hard you die? That's, I don't know.

It's not a great look there. No, it's not. That's not, that's not cool. But. Well done. But then. but then, you know, just just the whole the whole story of the whole thing is,

is like who's, to the Greeks, who's the bigger jerk here? You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. You know, like modernly, ageism isn't cool. Like, don't be that guy. But then again, we've also,

anybody who's worked in the service sector is going to be like oh my god people are fucking crazy and you know so yeah but laughed himself to death over it yeah this seems to be a recurring theme in the ancient world yeah i just like did we have we been so jaded that it's impossible a height to reach now or like or were they just so effusive because like you remember, like in the Iliad, like, everybody's crying all the time. Oh, and that's totally fine. Yeah. Like, were men just allowed to experience 100 and zero, whereas we're only allowed to experience,

like, 45 to 65? Yeah. You know? Yeah, no. I understand. I mean, it keeps us alive, but. Yeah. There's, there's so many ways to attack that question.

Right. You know, I think. Um. I had ideas and then I started talking and they went away. I think there is something to the idea that our cultural mores, mores, mores, how we pronounce that word, around emotional expression have changed for sure. Absolutely. You know, and you hear about, again, Henry the second as an example, and I think Henry the first too. the plantagenets

having a reputation for being these incredibly volatile like horrific tempers on him Henry Henry the second apparently being so fearsome at one point when he became angry with a court ear just the transformation that came over over him being so so pronounced that one of his

courtiers had a heart attack you know and and we have We have accounts from reliable sources of, I'm trying to remember whether it's Henry the first or Henry the second, but I'm sure it's one of the two of them, just being so incredibly angry that like he flung himself on the ground in a rage. Sure. You know, just like tantrum level shit. Oh, I mean, people, you know, in movies, you see men throw their hat on the ground, right? Yeah. And I mean, biblically, the Pharisees ripped at his clothing, you know?

Yeah. Like rent his own clothing because he was so mad. Yeah. And, like, we don't do that today. Right. You know, and, you know, so, so there's a, an aspect of this that is, is an issue of us having a culture that more value self-control that has, like, we have developed into, you know, this, this cultural idea that, you know, as rational, civilized, humans we don't we don't do that right cultural tight assery yeah

you know you know catch a bubble friends um you know like um or is it is does it have something to do with the um I'm trying to think of how to put what I'm thinking into words does it have something to do with the level of media, I guess.

Like we are just so saturated with input. Yeah. Yeah. We're exposed to so much that, oh hey, a donkey's eating figs. Whereas, you know. And and I mean, part of that,

in that particular case, that issue, and well, actually both of them have to do with the gods being involved. Right. And the intensity of belief in or the intensity of the intensity of the importance of the role of the gods, like as intercessors on a daily basis in the world might have something to do with the intensity of the response to that joke.

Could be. Could be also. So like, oh, go ahead. I was just going to say, I think there is a lot more abstract thinking that we're now capable of. So our, our threshold for absurdity is much, much higher. Okay, yeah. Whereas back then, it was a very concrete world. I mean, not, but you get the idea.

Yeah, no, I totally understand what you mean. Like, people's worldview was much more, you know, right in front of you. Yes. You know, yeah. so so the bar for absurdism was much lower yeah yeah so anyway no that makes sense well uh what do you want people to read or see or i'm oh i'm gonna really strongly recommend the most uh recent knives out movie oh uh wake up dead man okay um i seriously want them to make like 20 more of these movies um because so far they've made three of them and all three of them have been amazing in

different ways um and daniel craig as benoit blanc is is a treasure i love that he's gone from 07 to benoit blanc yeah it really does feel like a retirement home for for like a genius like spy kind of does yeah kind of does and and yeah just just his portrayal of blanche is amazing. Nice. And this film in particular gets into issues, kind of appropriately to our opening conversation, gets into issues talking about, you know, belief and faith and what is the role of religion. And, you know, the interesting thing about all of the Knives Out movies is Benoit Blanc is the continuity character.

He's the one that's in all three of them. Right. But he's not the protagonist in any of them. Right. The protagonist is his sidekick. He's the sidekick. Kind of. Yeah.

And in this one, the protagonist is a young priest. And there is a lot of analysis of what, of the kind of the two sides of organized religion. And without getting into any, I'm not really getting. to spoiler territory by talking about it. But it has a remarkable, meaningful, respectful conversation because Benoit Blanc is an avowed atheist. And of course, the main character being a young priest, he's very much an idealist.

And one of the other characters, played by Josh Brolin, is an older priest who is very much of a, the world is our enemy. We need to be fighting the world. And the younger priest is, no, we need to be working to save the world. We need to be working to invite the world in because that's what Christ would want us to do. And anyway, it's, it's an amazing movie. It has some great, it has great performances by everybody involved.

There are some moments that are darkly, really funny. Speaking of me, need to go to confession. And yeah, no, it's just an amazing movie. Highly recommend it. Wake Up Dead Man, A Knives Out Mystery. So it's on Netflix. Check it out. It's amazing.

What about you? I'm going to recommend actually something very practical. It's called, fuck, I'm dead. Now what? It's an end of life planner. Get one. I love that title. That's a great way to do that.

That's perfect. It just get one. Okay. Make it. Like, it'll help everybody. Like, yeah. So many decisions that they don't have to make now. Yeah.

Or just they know exactly where to call, you know, that kind of thing. So get one. They're cheap. There's other ones, but I just love, you know, my loved ones finding that and having it say that. So. Yeah. So I need you, you know, when it happens, you know, hopefully it won't be for a long time. But when it happens, check the top drawer of the desk in the upstairs bedroom, right?

You'll know it when you see it. You'll know it when you see it. And they open the door. Fuck, I'm dead. Now what? That's absolute. Chef's kiss. No notes.

I love it. Let's see. Where can they find us? We collectively can be found on our website at wauba, wabba, wabba. com. We can also be found on the Apple podcast app and the Amazon podcast app, also on Spotify. Wherever you have found us, because clearly you have, please take a moment to give us the

five-star review that you know we deserve. And please subscribe on our website or on any of those services that I just mentioned. You can go back and look through our archive. Find anything that interests you there and pick a spot and go back and listen to all, what, six years now going on. Yeah. Yeah. of our adventures in geekery.

So where can you be found, sir? First Friday of every month. I'm not even going to guess as to when this has come out. First Friday of every month, comedy spot, Sacramento, California, 9 p.m. Capital punishment. This is, we're closing up our 10th year, I believe. Fuck, yes. Yeah, closing up on our 10th year on this, or coming upon it, rather.

closing in on there you go anyway first Friday of every month at sacramento comedy spot go to satcomedy spot dot com click on the calendar find our show uh get your tickets 15 bucks either online or at the door you want to get your tickets online it's a lot easier and bring some money for merch there's been a few things that we've changed up and you should come see it again so all right cool well for a geek history of time. I'm Damian Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, don't roll a one.