Bittersweet Infamy - #109 - Night at the Dick Museum

Episode Date: September 22, 2024

Josie tells Taylor about the Icelandic Phallological Museum, which contains the world's largest display of phalluses, and curator Sigurður Hjartarson's quest for the collection's crown jewel: a human penis. Plus: listen to "Amelia's Song," the mysterious melody that reunited a family across cultures, continents, and centuries.

Hey moms, looking for some lighthearted guidance on this crazy journey we call parenting? Join me, Sabrina Kohlberg. And me, Andi Mitchell, for Pop Culture Moms. Where each week we talk about what we're watching. And examine our favorite pop culture moms up close to try to pick up some parenting hacks along the way. Come laugh, learn, and grow with us as we look for the best tips. And maybe a few what not to do's from our favorite fictional moms. From Good Morning America and ABC Audio.

Pop Culture Moms, find it wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, sweethearts. Taylor here from the podcast you're just about to listen to. This episode is about dongs, AKA dicks, AKA penises. Depending on who's around, you might wanna listen to this one with headphones on. Stay discreet. Welcome to Bitter Sweet and Food.

I'm Taylor Basso. And I'm Josie Mitchell. On this podcast, we share the stories that live on in infamy. The strange and the familiar. The tragic and the comic. The bitter. And the sweet. Josie, we are in our third episode

of The Bitter Sweet Harvest. It's been a lot of work. We've been toiling in the fields, picking stones, watering and so forth. And I got to tell you, Josie, it's been a bountiful crop that's come in. As listeners may know, we've been remastering old episodes, by which I mean to say we've just been accessing them and normalizing the loudness, reducing the noise,

chucking a limiter on that bad boy, and just making it so that everything is nice and clear and it's not so quiet. It's not so quiet. Sometimes it's really loud! No, we've evened it out. And the best part is, the last time I checked in, we'd done the first 11 episodes, right?

I am happy to tell you that now the entire first season of Bittersweet Infamy has been remastered. Episodes one to 30. Wow. Whoa! Wow, episodes one to 30. Some of our! Wow. Episodes one to 30. Some of our all-time favorites in there, you can go and check out The Well to Hell about the world's deepest man-made hole.

You can check out Flowers in Hell about the silent twins, June and Jennifer Givens. That's a good one. A classic, right? How about Mitchell Collins in her first ever guest spot with When the Sky Was Open opened about the Twilight Zone movie, uh, killings, really. It's an accident, but it's a manslaughter, really,

is what it is, and you're all about it. Josie brought us the, uh, the one-taste sex cult in episode 20, which is not, which, sorry, I just skipped over Dolphin House, number 17, and the Melty Award-winning Night Trap, number 19. So many great... And this isn't to say we got number 20, 27, Vanessa Williams dethroned about the first Black Miss America. We've got, uh...

That was only 27? That was... We were packing them in. And, uh, we got our original trick-or-treat infamy. If you're feeling up to the holiday season, you can tuck into our first ever three spooky episodes. Wrap up the excellent first season. That's pretty exciting. That's... Wow.

Number 24, Girl Interrupted, The Mysterious Death of Brittany Murphy. We were... we were... we were on to something in season one. All you need to do is go back, and it's in your usual podcast carrier. They've been seamlessly replaced. There may be a few extra now that it's not your usual podcast carrier. They've been seamlessly replaced. There may be a few extra now that it's not so quiet and distant. You may notice a few little extra bumps and bumps

that I can't take out because of the... Because I'm working off the MP3s, not the original Masters, with my apologies, but hopefully you won't even notice unless you're wearing really, really top of the line headphones and your experience will just be that, man, I can listen on the tractor now. I can listen with the air conditioning on. There we go. That's, yes, on the bus. That, yeah, yeah, the diesel bus, not the electric.

But yeah, exactly. Yeah, Rui had to stop listening on the tractor and that was, I think, part of what spurred me to a change. I want the farmers to be able to listen because it's bittersweet harvest. It is bittersweet harvest. Get out there and shuck some corn, folks. Josie, how you been? How you been as we ease into autumn here? As we eased on down the road. Scarecrow. Think about that. Wow. Yeah, there's a lot of imagery in the soul head over here. The whiz, huh? Yeah. We were talking Harvest Scarecrows, baby. Scarecrows. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I'm looking at a closet full of flannel.

Yeah. So, mm-hmm. Were you ever, were you ever, are you a green thumb? How about that? Are you a green thumb IRLsies when we're not doing harvest themed content? I can keep, I can keep a house plant alive more or less. And I like having a lot of plants in the house. I think it's really nice. When it comes to things that need to be harvested and like food and cultivation growing, I wouldn't say I'm the best. I don't know too much about it. I've grown some tomatoes here and there and some cucumbers and some okra. Okra, no surprise, does really well in the climate I live in.

Where do you live for first time listeners? Oh, well, if you're first time, hey, hi, thank you. Thank you for choosing us. Thank you for choosing this podcast experience. I live in Houston, Texas, the humidity capital of the world. Wow, really? No, I just made that up. I'm sure there's some.

You're so convinced. Are you a meteorologist? Ha-ha-ha! No, I just lived in a very hot and humid place. Sweet, wow. Pretty rough. I know we had this... When we started Bittersweet Harvest, we had a break in the heat here in Houston,

and I was like, all right, here we go. Harvest up, baby. And then this right, here we go, harvest up, baby. And then this week, it just shot right back up, and it's in the 90s, the Fahrenheit 90s, which is like high 20s, 30s. Dang. Dang. And it's just humid, like it always was. It's just kind of slightly depressing.

But it's okay. The seasons will change. They'll keep, they'll, they will. They always do. It makes you bolder, even children get older and we're getting older too. Are you agreeing, Thumb? Not exceptionally. My mother is, my mother is an excellent gardener. And the thing is, it's been nice that I sort of alluded earlier. I have been dating a farmer, which is like very, I've gotten to work on the farm,

which is nice this past summer. And I haven't done that before. I think that probably is why I've been so like harvest minded in the theming is because I've been like, wow, vegetables. You know what I mean? They grew out of the ground. This is how boards are made. Yeah. Whoa, tomatoes don't all look like the ones in the store, you know, I'm really learning, learning the- You're such a city boy that it's kind of nice to see your little city mouse self out in the country. Yeah, I'm a city boy.

Little country mouse. Country mice are important. You need mice for all seasons, mice for all locales. You need those huge zucchinis. Yeah, they're big. They're skookum zucchinis, dude. They truly are. Well, in the spirit of bittersweet harvest, I've brought you a fresh... Oh.

...minfamous. I will say today's minfamous may be bittersweet in the truest sense, but it's bittersweet on a continuum where it starts a bit bitter and maybe moves, resolves itself into sweetness. Okay. Which you'd rather have than the opposite. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, that's very true.

Yeah, bite into the candy and get a lingering fish sauce taste. Ooh, nothing worse than when you get that candy and you think it's a good candy and then back note an envelope glue, the worst. Yeah, yeah, ugh, yeah. All right. Yeah. Arm Infamous, which you first time listeners should know

is the mini infamous story that we do to start each episode, starts today in Harris Neck, Georgia. OK, all right. Is this a familiar location to you, Harris Neck? No, I live in Harris County, so that glimmer of recognition was that and now it's gone. Short-lived. Yeah, short-lived.

Very short-lived. Harris Neck is not... You don't know the neck, you only know the rest of the body. Got it. Yes, exactly. Yes. Well, in 2024, Harris Neck is a wildlife refuge, but in the 1930s, when our story begins, it's a Gullah fishing village in coastal Georgia. Tights. The Gullah, village in coastal Georgia. Tights.

The Gullah, also called the Geechee, and I gather that there's like, um, there are distinctions between when you would use Gullah or a Geechee or Gullah Geechee, but I'm not entirely fluent in them, so please forgive me if I misuse any terminology at any point. Because that's, I've heard the Gullah Geechee, but I think that's kind of like a, you're casting a wide net when you say that or something.

Yes, exactly, exactly. Or when I say exactly, I mean, presumably, I'm not certain. But in general, this is, in the most umbrella form of it, let's say, this is an African-American group who live predominantly in South Carolina and Georgia, although there are other locations in play. And they're associated with living in sort of like the coastal and island kind of regions of these states. Of

course, this is the Eastern seaboard. Many of these states have little islands in it, but we've even talked awesome island, right? Exactly. We've talked about some of these islands in the coastal South there. We know a barrier island when we see one, hell yeah. Well, we might know a thing or two about a barrier island. So due to their relative isolation, for example, Harris Neck is in a dense thicket of marshland, the Gullah have preserved many Africanisms either in their original form or one altered by the intermingling of cultures. At this point in the story, the 30s, we're relatively freshly post-slavery, people born into slavery were still alive until the 70s, the 1970s I should say.

So we don't know much about where specifically these African cultural markers come from at this point. In the present tense, 2024, we know that Gullah culture is formed by a creolization of around 30 distinct African cultures. And when I say creolization, I mean, what it sounds like. These cultures meld together and become something new and different that incorporates features from each of them. We've talked a little bit about the transatlantic slave trade on the podcast before

in episode number 73, This Side Up with Care. In that episode, I think we went into a bit more detail about some of the specific atrocities that were committed in the name of slavery than I'm going to go to in this particular story today. But- It being a minfamous and all, yeah. It being a minfamous and all, but I don't think that you should be deceived in the telling and deceived in the fact that this minfamous is relatively free of the intense physical,

emotional, and cultural violence that slave traffickers and owners visited upon enslaved people. The transatlantic slave trade, one of the great atrocities in human history, enslaved Africans received subhuman treatment. Their cultures and identities were often entirely stripped away, which makes it all the more remarkable that so many cultural markers survived the life-threatening middle passage

across the ocean and became part of Gullah culture in America. Because the Gullah culture is unique and worth documenting in the 1930s, anthropologist Lorenzo Dow Turner and musicologist Lydia Parrish go to Harris Neck to converse with and wire record its inhabitants. And this guy, Lorenzo Dow Turner, this anthropologist, he is an African-American academic, and to look at him right away, you're like,

academic, like he looks like someone who is in it. You know how some people just look like academics? This guy looks like an academic. I'm imagining like small glasses, a vest, like... Yeah, very da... He's very dapper when he's young and very, like, uh, slacks and running shoes when he's old, you know. Okay, yeah.

He was the head of the English departments at Howard and Fisk universities for a combined 30 years. Oh, cool. Historically black colleges and universities too. Exactly. And he's specifically interested in the Gullah culture and the Gullah dialect and phrasings because he recognizes some similarities in the way that his own mother speaks. Okay, yeah.

So while visiting Harris Neck, Turner and Parrish, Lydia Parrish, this musicologist, find a 50-year-old woman named Amelia Daly, D-A-W-L-E-Y, who is later described by her daughter, Mary Moran, as a hard worker, a good cook, always played with a young Mary. Uh, Mary describes her as a hard worker, a good cook, always played with a young Mary. Uh, Mary describes her as, quote, a roundabout woman, which I think is like

a Georgia way of saying a skookum gal. You know what I mean? Yeah, I like that. Roundabout, yeah. Roundabout woman. The descendants of slaves and at least one slave owner, Amelia's family lived on an otherwise uninhabited island in the Harris Neck Swamp. Uh, which man, swamp people are hardy. I don't envy that. family lived on an otherwise uninhabited island in the Harris Neck Swamp. Cool.

Which man, swamp people are hardy. I don't envy that. Dude, swamps are... They're tough places to live. Full of gears and insects, man. The insects, the insects are like, yeah, the insects, man. Big ones. Raised without TV or radio, Amelia only had music and dance for entertainment. Turner and Parrish record Amelia singing a haunting song that was passed down by her grandmother, Catherine, who passed it down to Amelia's mother, Taba Shaw,

and so on down. Okay. Amelia doesn't know the language of the song or the meaning of the words in the song, but she still sings it for her young daughter Mary who likes to dance to it with her. And Josie I'll share that song with you now. So that was Mary Moran and her own granddaughter, Jaret Moran. That's Amelia Dali's daughter and great granddaughter respectively singing that. And I'll explain the context of that, you know, in a little moment.

But for right now, all Turner knows when he's got Amelia Dali's original recorded version of the song is that he's got something really special here. He makes it a regular part of his lectures. His whole family learns it. The song comes to the attention of one of Lorenzo Dow Turner's students, Solomon Cocker, who's a British student, originally from the Western African nation

of Sierra Leone. Oh. And Cocker recognizes some of the language as Mende, the major language of the Mende people of Sierra Leone. And, specifically, he recognizes the word Kambé, which means grave, which makes us begin to think that this might be a funeral birch. Oh.

So, now that we are able to identify this as Mende, we're able to get to the work of translating it, or Mende, at least in some form, having, you know, come to the US and been altered in whatever way, we're able to get to working on a translation. The Dirge, with its original text and translation, gets published by Turner in his 1949 book,

Africanisms in the Gullah Dialect. The song comprises the longest text in an African language found in the United States, which is cool. Wow. How often are you discovering new original text in African languages in the United States? Right. Yeah. I mean, I just I just wish it were longer, I suppose. Yeah, for sure. And just wish it were longer, I suppose, at that point. And the text means the translation is akin to,

everyone come together, let us struggle, the grave is not yet finished, let his heart be perfectly at peace, and his here, we assume, is the person who's passed away. Oh, wow. Wait, so who provided that translation? This was in Turner's book. I wouldn't be surprised if Solomon Cocker was involved

because he's the one who identified the Mende word, -"combe." But basically, once we're on the path that this is Mende, or something like Mende, now we can translate it, right? Because there are still Mende speakers. Yeah, okay. Speaking of funeral dirge, it's Lorenzo Dow Turner dies in 1972, RIP.

Shortly afterwards, American anthropologist Joseph Epola begins to build on Turner's work. Epola goes to Sierra Leone in 1974 as part of the Peace Corps. And while he's there, he is encouraged to survey a former slave port, Bunce Island in the Sierra Leone River. His research links the Gullah people of the American South to what is called the Rice Coast of West Africa, which runs from Senegal to Liberia, Sierra Leone very much included.

Farmers in Charleston and Savannah would pay prime prices for slaves from this area, the Rice Coast, due to their agricultural knowledge of rice, the crop, the staple. Wow. APALA's research shows that from 1785 to 1800, more than 45% of slaves in Savannah, Georgia, were Leonian, which is the demonym for people from Sierra Leone. They were particularly trafficked through Bunce Island, then Bance Island,

and that island was half the big home of a fancy white man and half a prison where enslaved people were held captive, suffering cruelty to say the least. Mm. Rough. As the connection between Sierra Leone and the Gullah people becomes clearer in 1989, Leonian president Joseph Saidu Momo hosts a historic Gullah homecoming.

APALLA is working with them on this, and he's working with a band called the Freetown Players, a local band. He remembers this five-line Mende song from Turner's book. So he wants something to kind of wow them, to kind of like play up this Gullah, Le Neon, Le Oneon connection. And so he thinks of this book that he happens to write,

cause this is the same field that he's in, right? And he is able to track down the original recording of Amelia Dolly to get the melody so that they can actually sing it. And we're off to the races. The performance is a success, but while the audience reacts strongly to the idea that this music in Mende came from America, what is this, what is, how are we hearing new music

in Mende from America? Yeah. It's still new music. It's not an identifiable song to them. Okay. Yeah. It's not an identifiable song to them. Okay. Yeah. It's not like, oh, yeah. The old classics, the hits. The grave songs that we're always singing, right? So, Joseph Apala, I think he's kind of high off the success

of this 1989 Gullah homecoming, and he wants to pursue the work further. He enlists American ethnomusicologist, Cynthia Schmidt and Mende Linguist, Tazif Karouma, to see if they can track down where specifically in Sierra Leone this song came from. Whoa, that's a tall ask. That's a tall order. Yeah, that's a big ask, right?

Because when you think about it's the needle in the haystack. Yeah, yeah. And then the haystack is like over 100 years old too, so... Yeah, yeah. And all the old hay is dead and there's new hay now and you gotta hope that the old hay talked to the new hay somewhere along the way. Yeah. Karuma identifies one word, tombé, as a specific ideophone

that is traceable to a particular district, the Pujun district. His reasoning is if you're not from this region, that's not an expression you would use in this way kind of thing. Okay, yeah, yeah. Or if you don't have some type of tie to this region and therefore would know something about it.

Would have learned it somewhere along the way. The same way I'm not a West Coast trader or indigenous person from the 1800s, but I sure do say skookum a lot. You do? I saw that post you did of your mom using the adverb form. Same skookum-ly? Skookum-ly. It's a very skookum-ly built...

Skookum-ly built. We're talking about modular storage, by the way. Oh, fun. And it is very skookum-ly built. I'm gonna use it for art supplies. So, these language nerds, these... these... the ethnomusicologists, the anthropologists, you know, they hop in their car and basically they go around Mende country

in the Puchun district playing this song in every village for every elder they can find. Ooh, okay, yeah. No dice. Not working. Whoa. People are like, yeah. No dice, not working. Whoa. People are like, this is Mende, like I can tell that this is Mende or like I recognize some of those expressions,

but I don't know what this is. I haven't heard this song before. They're about to scrap the whole thing when Cynthia Schmidt ends up in Senahunngola, which is just outside the border of Puchun, the district. She goes through her usual rigmarole and plays the recording and she's not hoping for much. And to her surprise, one of the women,

Bindu Jabati, starts to sing along with the tape. Ooh, that's what she want. That's what she want. So she want, said Bindu Jabati, that song brought back memories of my grandmother, Mariam Asuba, knocking on my head and saying, sometime in the future, when you hear someone singing this song, you will be able to identify who that person is. I believe that my grandmother told me the truth,

that those who sing this song are my brothers and sisters. Whoa! Grandma chills, grandma chills. Grandma chills. They are able to confirm with a 90 year old chief named Nabi Ja that this song is part of a Mende burial ritual, the Tanjami, or the crossing the river ceremony is how Tanjami is translated. This takes place on the fourth day after a man dies

or the third after a woman. It involves an animal slaughter, the preparation and serving of food, and the singing of this song to gather the community. Uh, this song is sung by the women who cover their skin in white to symbolize mourning. The ritual, once common, died out of use when Leonians returning from service in the British army after World

War I introduced Christianity and Islam to replace it. So... And more probably, anybody who died during the war was died very far away. So the idea of three or four days simply wasn't a doable time frame anymore. But Baindu's grandma taught her this ritual as taboo as it had become. She taught her this ritual step by step,

instructing her, even after I die, this is how you must perform this. Like, you need to wail and mourning here. You need to move this over here at this point, that kind of thing. Wow. Shortly after finding Bain-Doo in the early 90s, Apollo and Schmidt are able to track down

Mary Moran, Amelia Dali's daughter, the woman who was singing before. Mary, now in her 70s in the 90s here, previously had no idea of her ancestry, but is now able to trace at least some of her roots back to a very specific place in Sierra Leone. That's very cool. She receives very specific place in Sierra Leone. That's very cool. She receives many invites to visit Sierra Leone,

but a deadly civil war postpones the trip. The war sees between 50,000 and 70,000 deaths, including many civilians, and two million displacements. Uh, Bindu Jabadi is held captive by the rebels. Her six-year-old granddaughter, Sattu, dies of starvation. Oh, God. For the first time in a long time, Bindu finds herself calling upon the Tanjami song

while grieving her granddaughter. Oh. Finally, at long last, in 1996, circumstances in Sierra Leone improve enough that Bindu and Mary are able to meet. Mary Moran's Leonid Homecoming is filmed 1996, circumstances in Sierra Leone improve enough that Bain-Dou and Mary are able to meet. Mary Moran's Leonian Homecoming is filmed for the 1998 documentary, The Language You Cry In,

which was a big source for this telling. And that evocative title, The Language You Cry In, comes from a Mende proverb that Nabi Ja tells us, you can speak another language, you can live in another culture, but to cry over your dead, you always go back to your mother tongue. You can identify someone's tribe by the language they cry in. Beautiful. Mary, who truly is Giga, like she's an old lady in her 70s.

She's you know what I mean? She's she gets the Taylor Swift reception in Sierra Leone. They roll out the dancers and they roll out the dignitaries and she's front page news. She's reading about herself in the newspaper. Whoa! She gets like a private, not private, it's very public audience with the president of Sierra Leone.

She's given the nickname of Jeiwa or elderly mother. So again, Giga, right? Like Mrs. Giga. Yeah, Mrs. Giga. With a tinge of respect. G-Gadam, Madame Giga, Giga-sama. Madame Giga, yes, yes, there we go. The Morans go to Bance Island, the slave port,

which is a very powerful experience for them, obviously. Yeah. And Mary is carried by Hammock into the village of Senahun Ngola, only barely cleaned up from being a war zone, where she is received in a manner befitting a prodigal return. And finally, with great emotion, we see Bain Dujabadi and Mary Moran exchange performances

of each of their own versions of this song, because, you know, over the years, the American one sounds more like American music and the other one has different phrasings or a slightly different melody, you know? Yeah, yeah, pauses and yeah, all of it, yeah. But still, recognizably the same song so much so that Cynthia Schmidt was able to be like,

okay, you're singing a little different, but we can work with this. The women share words of reconnection through a Mende translator and Bain-Doo collapses crying in Mary's lap. They share many tears and hugs. This song, which was so rigorously preserved by Bain-Doo Jabadi's grandmother,iamma Subba, with her fists of fury. Mary Moran's great-grandmother, Catherine, her grandmother, Tabasha, her mother, Amelia Dali, and Mary herself, and Bain Dhu herself, has done what it was meant to do.

It helped generations of women grieve and carried them to a greater connection with each other and themselves. Mary Moran died on May 31st, 2022 at the age of 100. Damn right. Damn right she did, quoting her obituary. She often said she wanted to live to be 100 because 99 and a half won't do.

God was listening and allowed her to achieve her goal. Oh. Sister Mary, she was known by the congregation, had 12 kids and many grandchildren, great grandchildren, and great, great grandchildren. I bet, yeah. Bain-Doo Jabadi remained in Sierra Leone and the Moran stayed in touch.

In 2023, First Coast News reported that Mary's son, Wilson Moran, and his cousin, Winston Relaford, helped Bain-Doo build a new home. Whoa! And that is the story of the song that reached across cultures, continents, and centuries to help two families become one again. That's so cool! We've picked an infamous beauty for this month's episode of the Bittersweet Film Club.

It's only the 2019 Captastrophe, Caps, starring Judi Dench, Jennifer Hudson, Ian McKellen, Idris Elba, Taylor Swift, and more. Now you know that even with our perennial special guest Mitchell Collins, we couldn't match up to the all-star cast of Caps, so we had to call in some reinforcements. In the form of friend of the podcast, Ramon Esquivel. What should have been a highlight of the film instead becomes this moment where I, and I'm sure every other audience member, was like, holy shit, look what they did to Jennifer Hudson. You can look forward to the Film Club discussion of that and our upcoming discussion on 2017

sports biopic, I, Tonya, over at ko-fi.com. That's k-o-h-i-f-i dot com slash bittersweet infamy. Become a monthly subscriber and we'll see you at the movies. So, Taylor, you brought a beautiful, heartfelt story of loss and memory and preservation. And I... I hope... I hope that this story does not desecrate that memory. I don't want it to. Oh, good. Oh, good.

Is this some diarrhea story? What are we doing here? No, I'm just gonna like cock and balls this whole story, this whole theme. And shouldn't people's pants ripping open and then they fall over? Well, we are going into a historical frame of mind. And how our two stories do line up is the idea of preservation. Okay. An archival episode then. Archival, yes.

Here we go. Yes, yes, yes. How do we archive the human experience? How do we archive a cultural understanding of the human experience? And specifically, I'll be talking about a museum. And you know this, I love museums. I got married in a museum.

You did. Museums are cool spaces for me. I love the museum as well, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, they haven't always been great with, like, extracting... Well, that's society, baby. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that's very true. That's society, baby. I bet libraries got some dirt

under their fingernails if you look too, but, you know? Fair enough. But this museum, from the research that I've done, uh, isn't... doesn't have as much dirt under his nails, from the research that I've done, isn't, doesn't have as much dirt under his nails, we'll say that. It's relatively new and it is located in perhaps Taylor's favorite place in the whole wide world, Iceland and Reykjavik. Home to our gal on your wall, Bjork.

Yeah, Bjork. Also home to, well, Iceland is... Home to fake Dracula. Fake Dracula. Home to Goodlugger, the swimming guy. Yes, exactly. We've got all the stars here. That's three of the Mount Rushmore right there. And we can add to the list

the Icelandic Phaleological Museum, derived from the word phallus. Icelandic dick museum, I understand. Yes. Yes. I understand. That took me a while to catch up to you. I appreciate you explaining it to me. Oh, so it is a big long dick joke today.

Yes, yes. Oh. Yeah, sharpen your pencils, boys and girls. Be careful what you put in that pencil sharpener. Exactly, Exactly. Have you heard of this museum? No, first time. First time hearing about it.

Okay. Okay. I'm surprised because I feel it feels like it. What do you mean? Well, because it fulfills it fulfills the bittersweet prompt like. Yeah, it does. I mean, I would assume I would Yeah, it does. To the hilt. I mean, I would assume. I would assume that it does. Yeah.

This museum has over 300 specimens of mammalian penises on display. This museum is relatively new. It got its start in 1997. And our founder is an Icelandic gentleman by the name of Sigurdur Pjartason. He also goes by the name of Siggy. So Siggy, his career began as a historian and a teacher, and he was a lifelong educator. He actually was a principal at a secondary school in Iceland when he, as a joke, as a gag, was given a bull's penis as a gift from one of his teachers. Apparently, Sikki had one as a child when

he worked on a farm, and it was kind of like a crop that he used. It was like a whip or a crop. Right, right. And he probably told people that I used a bull's dick as a whip and they're like, yeah, okay, bud. And they gave him a bull dick. I see what happened here. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Very natural progression of events. Now that you've given me context, it actually does kind of explain itself. Yeah, yeah. A bull's penis is called a whizzle, which is fun. And it's kind of like it almost looks like a hard, skinny... Well, I recognize it as a dog chew toy, which they can be used.

Yeah, a bully stick. Yeah. So this was funny to Ziggy, but also got him thinking, got him kind of intrigued and he started his own personal collection of phalluses. Look what you did. Look what you did. Yeah. Yeah, you opened that door.

And he started collecting pretty vehemently. His home was starting to fill up with all of these penises, so much so that his wife said... I was gonna ask, is he married? Yes, he's married with kids. to fill up with all of these penises. So much so that his wife said- I was gonna ask, is he married? Yes, he's married with kids. And for how much longer? Right. I don't know what the Icelandic divorce courts are like, but I hope they got a slot open

soon. Apparently, his wife was fine with it until it got to a certain size. And then she was just like, you can't, you can't have these any in the house anymore. This is, this is too much. You should start a museum, honey. Which I thought is a very kind thing to do because obviously he's fascinated by this collection and because of his background as an educator and historian, he did, he wasn't just, like, collecting to look at them

or to kind of, I don't know, just, like, sit in a room with them. He was interested in where they came from, the biology of them. Like, he wanted to share this information with people who were interested. Who's got the biggest? Who's got the biggest? Who's got the biggest? Who's got the smallest? Yeah, yeah.

Yeah, so, Siggy, uh, and I quote says, I wasn't interested in collecting stamps, end quote. He was so fascinated. Uncool, I love stamps. I know. Well, you know, we all love what we love. And Siggy loved a dick, so... There's a... I usually say there's an ass to fill every seat, but I suppose there's a dick too.

Yeah. So the museum at his wife's request was started in Reykjavik, a very small kind of storefront situation. It was 1997. And the lease expired, the rent went up, and actually, Siggy and his family had to move, so the collection moved with them. And it opened, the museum opened in its second iteration in Husevik, Iceland, which is a coastal town known as a tourism spot specifically for whale watching. And there's a big fishery industry there as well, all this stuff. So, because he was in the second iteration, because the museum was so close to all this fishery industry... Fish sticks.

Fish sticks, exactly. Yeah. And whale sticks as well. Sigi was gifted quite a few penises from whales, dolphins, seals, kind of, you know, the mammals of the ocean, if you will. How are the penises acquired? Very good question. So every penis comes from a being that is no longer with us. So none of these are unethically harvested, bittersweet harvest.

No cut and runs, is what we're saying. No cut and runs, yes. There's not an aggrieved dolphin out there. No, no, no, no, no. Usually like the, in the case of the fisheries donating seal penises or whatever. The seal is already dead and there's nothing we're going to do with the dick. Do you want it? You seem like you're into it. Exactly.

I know a guy. I'll just bring him the seal dick. Don't worry about it. And he'll love it. I have a dick, man. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly.

So, no animals were harmed in the collecting of penises for this museum. Sigi was responsible for preserving all of the specimens that he gathered. So they were either kept in like a formaldehyde solution, displaying jars. JAYLEE Classic. STIGGY Classic. JAYLEE The Rasputin special. STIGGY A nice long jar, right? To a cylindrical elongation. JAYLEE Yep. Preserves. Pickles.

STIGGY Or they were hardened and displayed in various cases. Some of them, the bigger ones were almost like a game head. You know how you mount a deer head on the wall? Like a big mouth Billy Bass. Yes. Yeah. But a dick. Yeah.

The smallest penis, of course, I know you're wondering, that, uh, this museum had on display, or has on display, I should say, it's still, still there, is a little hamster penis. And the way that the display is made, there's a, um, you need a magnifying glass to see it because he's so small. The largest penis on display is from the sperm whale. sperm whale. Gah! Yeah, yeah, that was good. Good, good, good, good.

I thought I briefly thought it might be blue because it seemed too obvious that a sperm whale would have the biggest dick that felt to that felt to on the dick. Well, you're you're right, and you're right. The biggest one on display at the Icelandic Phallological Museum is a sperm whale. It's about five feet high, and it's only a third of the actual whale penis. Very big. But the biggest one in the world is the blue whale. I have business at this dick museum, clearly.

Yes, you know. I just know which animals are big too. It's not that remarkable. I mean, yeah, yeah. There's a little bit of calm, eh? A little bit of calm, eh? Ziggy's intent, besides a display of his collection, is to address what he determines to be a taboo topic of the penis. And he's coming at it, like I said, from an educator's standpoint,

from a historian's standpoint. So the museum, even in its earlier iterations, it has, you know, phalluses on display, little charts, little explanations of this and that. You know, there is a lot of information being conveyed. And penises, like they are interesting just in the animal kingdom. We mentioned the biggest penis on record, which is the blue whale, which can be eight to 10 feet in length. That's massive. A hundred and fifty pounds in weight.

And it can ejaculate gallons of sperm at a go. Like of course it would be. It's the biggest creature on earth. So there's some other weird ones too. The American possum has two penises. Get out of town. I will not. That is a fact.

Damn. I will stay in my American town with my two-dicked possums. That's fair enough. Why do they need so many? In a few of these examples that I'm going to name, the particular anatomy of these penises and the phalluses mirror the female genitalia. So it's probably something with the female possum. Two dicks, two cooters.

I see how it goes. Yes, yeah. Yeah. Not to be outdone by only two penises, the echidna has a four-headed penis. Oh, but they're Australian, aren't they? Yeah, they're down under those little guys. Like Tasmania, I think.

Anything goes. It's like the Galapagos Islands, you know, four dicks, five dicks, ten dicks. They don't quite know why there's so many. Well, I should clarify, it's like a four headed penis. So it almost looks like a little paw when it comes out. If that makes sense. Aww. Aww. But when it is copulating, it only uses two of the penis heads and it switches between

each time. Yo, that's crazy. That's so intense. That's so, um, that's ornate. We only use 10% of our brains. I think it's like one of those things. Yo, that's crazy. That's so intense. That's so, um, that's ornate, Echidnas. We only use 10% of our brains. I think it's like one of those things. Yeah, yeah. Well, the Echidnas are using like 400% of their dicks, man. Yeah. So true. Barnacles, little itty bitty barnacles, they have the biggest penis to body ratio

with eight times their total body length, these long spindly penises because barnacles are stationary, right? These penises go out and they blindly inseminate other barnacles around them. And dolphins, you'll remember our good friend, Peter from... Yeah, I remember not just dolphins, but dolphin sex. Yeah. And we know from that episode that dolphins take pleasure from their sexual activity, which is kind of rare in the animal kingdom. What I didn't know is that male dolphins have prehensile penises, which...

Yeah. They can kind of like grab, they can choke you with them if they want. That's kind of hot. If they... No? Okay, yeah, yeah. If you were a dolphin... If that's your thing, yeah.

Stick it in my blowhole, baby. Come on. Come on. Yeah. And apparently that's another example of, of the anatomy of the penis mirrors the repert, the female reproductive system. Cause apparently female dolphins have this very labyrinthine situation. Dolphin sex clocks in at only about 10 seconds

until ejaculation. So pretty tight time frame. How good are the 10 seconds? Well, that's the thing is the dolphin until ejaculation. So pretty tight time frame. How good are the 10 seconds? Well, that's the thing is the dolphin can ejaculate multiple times within an hour. So it's like the refractory period is very short. You're micro-fucking. Cool. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Some people are out here micro-dosing. Dolphins are just micro-fucking. You're right.

That's smart. That's a smart way to do it. Yeah. Another interesting facet of this museum, along with displaying actual specimens, is there's quite a bit of phallic art or like phallic representations. Yeah, it's like, it's just, you can't not, right? If the sign is pointing that move this way. We have bare walls, bare walls at the Dick Museum. Come on. Absolutely not. No. That arrow is gonna be a penis.

You know. It is. It should be. It should be. Out in front of the museum, there's a very large statue using stones of cock and balls. And it's designed such that you could stand behind it. And look at it. So it looks like you're a dick.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They get the brief, sure, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I took it just like I took a picture dabbing with that astronaut outside of the Houston Space Center. I dabbed with that dick in front of me. Exactly, yeah.

Rave to self. Yeah. Sigi himself is an amateur whittler. I dab with that dick in front of me. Exactly. Yeah. Right off the shelf. Yeah. Sigi himself is an amateur whittler, so there's quite a few things on display of his own making, including a penis and testicles gavel that he's very proud of. Yeah. I mean, is that... Did you see it?

Uh, I did. Yeah. Yeah. How would you rate the quality of it? Um... You know, I... I did, yeah. How would you rate the quality of it? You know, I... I... There's a reason I included amateur. No! Okay, fair enough. I shouldn't ask questions I don't want to hear the answers to.

I mean, what have I whittled? Not a thing. That's true. I mean, I've whittled a regular ga a thing. Who am I? Who am I? That's true. I mean, I haven't whittled a regular gavel, let alone a dick and balls gavel. Exactly. Exactly.

He's got little salt and pepper shakers, little dick and balls. The phone that he uses, it hangs on the wall. I'm guessing it's a dick and balls. It's a dick and balls. That's really my guess. You're good. Wow. Yeah. It's like I've heard this one before.

I do. Yeah. When we're thinking of representations of the phallus through human history, older than the time in Memorial, my friend, like cavemen paintings have dick and balls, all of it, right? As long as there have been surfaces to draw on, there have been people to doodle dicks on them. And there's a real art to the drawing of the dick,

like what you do with it. Do you put a little line? Do you put a little slit? Do you do hairs on the balls? Like, what is your... Do you ever doodle a dick? I've doodled a dick in my day. What's your style? I... I like the... I like the little line. We're talking about, like, at the tip, right?

Yeah, the tip, the slit. The P slit. Yeah, the P slit. A little line there. And, you know, maybe some water droplets. It doesn't have to be water. It could be urine. It could be sperm. Some droplets. Ski-ski. Sometimes I do... You know what? You're right. I didn't think about it, but often I will do three drops sprouting from the tip

if I'm feeling festive. You know what I mean? I'm not done. There's something really... Rule of threes, if you will. Yeah. Yeah. There's something really satisfying to me about the classic. It's so easy to draw. Long oval, two circles, da-da-da-da-da. So, like, you could really bang those out in volume

if you were motivated to me. The squirt drop says, like, I wanted to dally here. I'm enjoying myself drawing this stick. And I wish I were a better illustrator, a better drawer. I don't think there's a wrong way to do it. That's true. That's true. Like you said, the cavemen have been doing it since time immemorial. I don't think that's the wrong way to do it. That's true. That's true. He said the cavemen have been doing it since time immemorial.

I mean, jumping quite a bit ahead, but to ancient Greece and even the Romans, the god of fertility, his name was Priapus. And Priap is the word for an erection, right? So we have that language coming through already. The most famous depiction of Priapus was preserved in a Pompeii fresco. And it is an image of him and his huge shlong holding a bag of coins to show just how strong that member. Look how big my dick is. Look how big my bag of coins is. Yeah.

And throughout all different types of culture, representations of the phallus have been signs of fertility in Hinduism. Traditionally, Shiva is a destroyer and also a creator. So one of the common images to represent Shiva is a lingam, which is a penis. And throughout Southeast Asia and Africa, you can see similar depictions of fertility. And typically they're in some, not in every case, but in some cases, they're accompanied by representations of the vagina as well to represent fertility. Equal time laws.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Title nine, really, if you're thinking about it. Yeah. And there is kind of current taboo around it. But of course, taboo is a very ripe situation for art. And if you think about like Andy Warhol or Robert Mapplethorpe, like these artists in very modern and even postmodern tradition, like playing with the idea of how to reinvent the phallus or how to represent

like a homoerotic understanding of the phallus too. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. You can find a lot of writing about, you know, how skyscrapers are phallic architecture. Fun story. The first sketch that I got for this lighthouse tattoo that I've got on my forearm, which is of course, it's a big, thick lighthouse

with a big splash of water coming up behind it. Is that why it is? Yeah, it is. Well, the first sketch that I got, I was like, oh, and I had to like basically like, write back with some suggestions to like, dick it down a little, you know? I don't mind a dick, but I just need to dick it down a little bit. The first thing you think when you see it shouldn't be dick,

and to her credit, I've never gotten that. If I have, people have been too polite to say it directly to me. But it doesn't look super dick-like in the end. Yeah. Ziggy wanted to break through this barrier and... but also not take himself or this collection of penises too entirely serious, right? You can't. The phone is a pen... You just can't.

Because at that point, you might as well just be like a perennial candidate for office and stand up there ranting about your dicks and be the dick guy, you know? It's no fun. Yeah. yeah. And I think Ziggy himself does a really wonderful balance of that. And part of that balance is that he,

nor any part of the museum has any type of sexual overtones. It is a family-friendly museum. It is educational and humorous and a very PC and kid-friendly mix of both. Interesting. How do you balance that well with the fact that these are inherently, at least partially,

sexual in their utility, right? Like, I pee out of dick, but I fuck with dick too. And that is part of what we're doing here. Do they... What are their references to sex and reproduction like? Are they just, like, very scientific in their nature? The... When it comes to the specimens, yes. They'll talk about reproductive systems and they take, like, a very, like,

biology 101 view of it and desexualize it in that way. Um, but there is... I mean, it's not skirting the topic of sex. But it's also not somewhere you'd come to catch a boner of your own. Exactly. Unless you were buying it in the gift shop. Unless you were playing the mini game

where you can catch the boners in the net. Yes, yeah. Yeah, because I think there is something, there's a difference between like a photograph of an erect penis and then like a cartoon of like a little of a penis. An anatomical drawing. Yeah, yeah. That's also like an oven mitt, right?

It's like, okay, those are two, those have two different tones to them. They have a mascot. The insignia is a outline drawing of Iceland with a penis overlaid on top of it. Very simple line drawing. Sigurdur, hire me. I have big ideas. I have big ideas. I think we could do, I think that, I think that there's a very cute plush penis with eyes here that you're missing the mark of money on the table,

Kroners on the table, you know? Mm-hmm. Well, there is a gift shop. So, originally, Sigi purposefully collected penises of Icelandic mammals. So... Yes. I guess. Yeah, actually quite a few elk and deer and being an island and especially in the museum.

Second iteration had a lot of whales and dolphins and seals. But over time, the collection grew, as any good collection does. As any good dick does. As any good dick, yeah. And it was about the 2010s, early, you know, late-oddies, early 2010s. And Sigi is getting close to retirement age. He's around 70 years old at around this time. And he is really considering

his legacy and what the museum means to him and how he wants the museum to go after him. One specimen that he claims is the only one that he's missing, which, you know, like, there's so many, so many different types of creatures out in the world. Could you imagine what dick he's missing from the museum, Taylor? Is it human? It's human. The most dangerous game. Oh, my God, is he gonna die and donate his dick to the museum?

We'll get to that. Oh, wow. Okay. Um, okay. Okay. Here we launch into a wild fucking story, my friend. Oh, no. It's not just a dick museum. It's not just a dick museum. It's never just a penis.

It's never just a dick museum. Yeah. There's always something more. Okay. I'm curious to find out how or if he gets the human dick for his museum. There's always something more. Okay, I'm curious to find out how or if he gets the human dick for his museum. I know. What a conundrum, folks.

What a conundrum. Can he do it? Can he do it? Yeah, it really is kind of like, this is my goal. Can I do it before I retire? Before my health declines. He wants to do it before he retires. Okay. Yes. Yeah, yeah. That's the goal. So it's around this time, late-audies and like 2010s around then. Yeah, you want my, you want my schlong. You want my dick on the wall.

I know you do. Listen, I got a lot of pictures that I can send you. Yeah. That's apparently the thing on Wikipedia, that there's no shortage of people voluntarily offering pictures of their penis for illustrative purposes. Ha ha ha ha! Educational and illustrative. We're good on dicks, okay?

We've got, yep, the erection page. No, we don't need to freshen it up. Nope. We've got it. We're good. Thank you, thank you. So, the tradition is live and well at this time too. So, there are two Canadian men and they're filmmakers, Zach Math and Jonah Bekar. And they hear a 2007 episode of CBC's radio

program As It Happens. Carol Off, who's one of the hosts, she interviews Siggy about the museum. And, you know, it's a fun little puff piece, penis, penis, big one, small one, you know, blah, blah, blah. Perfect for that kind of radio show. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And then one of the final things that Ziggy says is... I am in need of and in search of a human specimen to complete my collection before I can attack. That's fucked up. That's like inciting terror.

You can't just let someone say on your radio show, I'm looking for a human dick not attached to a body. Please contact me at siggy.dickguy at yahoo.com. No! But I think the thing is, is that when people hear about this museum, they ask, what's the biggest, what's the smallest? And then the third question is always... How do I get involved?

Well, do you have a human penis? Is there a human penis on display? So these filmmakers, Zach Math and Jonah Bekar, I should maybe have said earlier, they do not offer up their dicks. But... That's good of them. They hear this story and they are... Keep a healthy distance from the story, folks. As a filmmaker. They hear this story and they're like, there's something that maybe we could follow up on. So they contact Ziggy. They start learning about the museum and all the cool stuff, blah, blah,

blah. And then they ask, like, well, you know, you said about this human specimen, what's the process of securing one? And Siggy lets them know that an Icelandic man has already volunteered his penis to be on display. And he's an elderly man, so once he passes, then it can go and be on display. So in order to secure a human specimen, it is, like you mentioned earlier, Taylor, it is, you know, you can't just say, give me a detached penis. It's not a typical organ to donate.

If you, you know, if you check the little box on your ID, or your driver's license, and you're an organ donor, your heart, your liver... That's not the organ we're talking or your driver's license, you're an organ donor. Your heart, your liver. That's not the organ that we're talking about. What a funny story you brought us. Your eyeballs. Right. You're a funny gal.

You're a funny lady. Those can be easily donated, but typically a penis will not be donated. So Siggy needs a very specific legal document signed that has three witnesses signed with their signatures as well. The T-69. Exactly. very specific legal document signed that has three witnesses signed with their sigmixtures as well. The T-69. Exactly. SIGI also has a requirement and that requirement is something called the legal length.

So I think this, this displays kind of an interesting, that Venn diagram of like scientific approach, but also like Dick and Ball's cartoon vibe as well. Right, right. And that's the best part of that Venn diagram is if you put a third longer oval in the middle. It's true. Yeah, yeah, at the top, a little line. Yeah, some squirts. Yeah. Yeah. At the top, a little line. Yeah. Some squirts.

Yep. So this legal length rule is based on an Icelandic folk tale. And as the best laws are. As the best laws are, yes. So according to this fairy tale, I guess you could say, a wife approaches, uh, like the town, the town hall, and she says that she wants to divorce her husband because he does not meet the legal length requirement, which according to this tale and this fictional wife is five inches. So... Brutal. Brutal sorry, smell that, guys. Yeah.

You're gonna have to get fucking civil union, I'm afraid. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so this five inches kind of gets cemented in this idea of what is legal length according to this folk tale, which, you know... Pretty vicious. Yeah, yeah. And the idea is that she can be granted the divorce from her husband because his dick isn't big enough. She don't want no short dick men, and that's who he is, and that's legally binding, baby.

And considering a folk tale that centers female pleasure and a female protagonist, it is kind of interesting, you know, okay. You're saying this was Megan Thee Stallion, is that what you're saying? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, Siggy takes this legal length rule and that becomes a requirement for the human specimen to be displayed, which...

Why? See, and that's kind of a question mark for me. It's like, well, why does that matter? I don't see why this display dick needs to be a particular size, but I guess the folktale thing is very like, why not be a little bit whimsical and a little bit riddles three? And your reasons for your dick museum, I guess. Why not? Like, what am I trying to do?

Tournament League dick museum here? It's Why not? Like, what am I trying to do tournament league dick museum here? It's just fly by the seat of your pants. SHANNON LAUGHS But that's another interesting facet of this museum. It has, like, that scientific side, but then it has this kind of, like, goofy side too. Because... It's factual, but it's also entertainment.

Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, Icelandic is in the name too, so that's kind of an important part. And apparently, there's a section of the museum where they display, like, mythical creatures. So... Unicorn dick. Of Icelandic tradition, so like elves and trolls.

And apparently, elves have really, really big dicks. Wow. And that's, that's like the joke is that the biggest dick in the museum is an elf dick, but these creatures are invisible, so you cannot actually see it. I see. But it's there, and it's the biggest one. I see.

That's kind of, that's kind of funny. Yeah, it's cutie. So, there is a person, an Icelandic man, who is willing to donate his penis to be on display after his passing. And his name, we know his name, is Paul Erason. So, Paul Erason, he's actually a well-known name in Iceland. He's kind of a local celebrity, and he's known as an adventurer. So, okay, so celebrity dick.

Yeah, so it's celebrity dick. Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And he's known for, in like the 30s and 40s, he was one of the first people to go into northern Iceland, what's called the Highlands, and traverse that very cold, very snowy, unpopulated area. Yeah, rugged. Yes, via vehicle with a car. Beautiful, I'm sure. Yeah, and he essentially opened up tourism of Icelandic Highlands by doing so.

Nice. Yeah, he would offer to take people out and da-da-da. He's also this kind of larger-than-life character. He's, you know, this adventurer, and there's, like, kids' books written about him, but he's also known as this womanizer and this, like... Okay, so perfect. ...cheeky, yeah. Right?

And he's packing enough heat that he meets the legal requirements? That's what they perfect. Yeah. And he's packing enough heat that he meets the legal requirements? That's what they say. Yeah. Yeah. So, everything should be good. He's an Icelandic figure too, which Siggy wants to kind of continue this Icelandic. You want it to be an Icelandic dick. It would have to be. It would have to be.

Yeah. The thing is though, is that, well, there's a few things. One, Paul is a, he's not just like a good looking guy who gets the ladies. He's like a womanizer. He has like a little black book where he's written every name of every woman that he's slept with and it's like over 300 women that he claims, right? So, there's a little bit of like, all right, your God's gift to women, so your dick has to be on display, okay.

Yeah, but like, you're not gonna get like, a shy humble man for the Dick Museum, are you? I guess not. But what is not so great is that he was a Nazi sympathizer. And yeah. A white Suprema dick would be on display. Exactly. Yes, yes. And so then you kind of, it kind of falls into this framework

of like the uber mink, the uber dick. Oh, no, it's a eugenics dick. That's so boring. Exactly. It is very boring. But there's also a third problem, which is the fact that Paul Arson is in his 90s when he says that he will willingly, kindly donate his penis to be on display. But there's concerns about how to remove the penis, if it can be removed in time to be preserved once he passes. What's the science here? The science is that his body would not have yet gone into rigor mortis.

Right. That takes like two hours or something. Yeah. Yeah. So it can't have stiffened quite like that because once it's removed, you would have to essentially bleed it out. Let all the blood run through the penis. We're in the dick bleeding section of the podcast, folks. Welcome. Welcome. It's the part you've all been waiting for. Put on your plastic ponchos. all been waiting for, put on your plastic ponchos. And then at that point, it can be kind of stretched and filled with a fluid to show its full length.

Fluffed. Yes, a little fluffing. Yes, yes, exactly. But that all is like, it's dependent on, you know, if he, if rigor mortis sets in, if he passes in his sleep and he's not found until the morning, then... Have you been drinking? Are you in the mood? Do you have a headache?

You know, these sorts of things. Are you thinking too much about work? Yes. Yeah. The other issue is a man in his 90s can be subject to considerable shrinkage of his penis. Yes, but this is an arbitrary designation that this man has made. It doesn't actually matter if it's a tiny little wiener at all.

This guy just is really into folktales. There's that, but also, Paul himself is such like a... He's vain. ...braggard, vain, glory guy. He's too vain to put his shriveled dick on display. You can't violate Icelandic folklore tradition with my tiny dick if my dick is too small.

If my dick has shrunk. Oh, my God, he's Joe Biden. He's like, this is what's best for the nation. I have to step down. Yes, yes, exactly. So there's like, there's turmoil, there's issues with... Is it turmoil? It's like, there's turmoil, there's issues with this actually... Is it turmoil? It's turmoil, Taylor!

Okay, I'll accept that. I'm willing to believe that, sure. These are important. People are being kept up nights here. Yes, yes. This is a man's life work, okay? This is an identity crisis for the Icelandic Phalliological Dick Museum, yes. Yes, yes.

But there's also another very possible and likely donor in a man by the name of Tom Mitchell. No relation. So, Tom Mitchell is an American from California, Santillanes, California. He is an older, older guy, but he's like in his late 50s to 60s. He's not in his 90s, knocking on death's door. An older guy, not the oldest guy. Exactly, yes. And his penis is seven inches flaccid.

Congratulations. Yeah, he wants everybody to know. And from a very young age, he had always had this inclination that his penis should not go to waste. He's very proud of his penis. For Tom, his relationship to his penis is pretty interesting.

There does seem to be quite a bit of separation between him and his penis. He refers to his penis as Elmo, which is a name that his first wife gave. Josie! Yeah. Ah! He doesn't know why she named it Elmo, but it's stuck.

He only refers to it as Elmo. So he never says my penis or my member or my schlong, none of that is Elmo. Oh man, Elmo's got a, Elmo's his imaginary friend, man. Yeah, yeah. He has contacted Ziggy in Iceland and said, I would love, I would be proud, it would be a such an accomplishment. Insist. Yes. I insist that my, that Elmo, that his penis, be the first human specimen in this respected museum.

And he is so... The first of a new era. Let's not say the first, but like the first of many to come, we hope. Right, yeah, that's true. The first of a wall of them. The first of a wall of big dick, skinny dick, black dick, white dick, circ, no circ, all of it. Beautiful.

Now, Tom... Tom Mitchell is resolute in this goal to such an extent that he, knowing about Paul Erison and his age and how close he is to death, closer, Tom is willing to part with Elmo before he passes away, before he dies. He is willing to surgically remove not only his penis, but his scrotum and testicles and a swath of skin containing pubic hair.

So people can and do make modifications to their genitalia, people transition, people do this and that for whatever reason, no judgment. If your reason is like you wanna be first to market on the Dick Museum, I don't think that's a good reason. Subjectively, and I'm not God, but subjectively, I wonder about the judgment in every way, in every way. In every way I wonder about the judgment in every way. Yes. In every way.

Yes. In every way, I wonder about the judgment. If the thing that stands between this farmer in California, removing his genitalia and giving it to you, if really what's standing between that and reality is a centuries oldold Icelandic myth? I don't know. I feel like maybe we should just, um, look the other way on the legal length thing. Yeah. Yeah.

The film that I mentioned earlier, uh, made by these two Canadians, uh, the documentary, it's called The Final Member. And it came out... I know, right? Yeah. It came out in 2012, and it follows the story of Paul Erison and Tom Mitchell and Siggy in this museum. And I watched it. It's very interesting. I also read some follow-up stuff about, you know,

when they interview people from documentaries and they're like, did it get the whole thing right? Did it not? And according to my friends, read some follow-up stuff about, you know, when they interview people from documentaries and they're like, did it get the whole thing right? Did it not? And according to my follow-up research, Sigi felt that the film depicted the quote-unquote race between Paul and Tom slash Elmo. It's not an arms race, It's a dick's race. Yeah. Yeah. So, Siggy apparently claimed that the dick race was not... It wasn't this, like, very intense and, like,

who's gonna come out first and da-da-da. There were other men who would offer... who had offered and who had signed the forms and were willing to do this. What is this form that he keeps having people... What is this dick racket, this dick bureaucracy that this man is running? He's got, is this hostile? What the fuck is happening in Iceland?

Do we need to be looking at what it, are you guys okay? I mean, I think something maybe to anchor us is the fact that he still did not have a human specimen. So, you know, nobody was too eager, I guess. So it's all a waste of fucking time. So he did not have a human specimen. So, you know, nobody was too eager, I guess. So it's all a waste of fucking time. So he's not even good at it. I want to say that because it does seem in the research that, like, Paul and... Paul Erison and Tom Mitchell are, like, vying for this spot of being the first

penis on display in the museum. Which Ziggy was like, you know, that wasn't really the case. But I do think that for Tom, it may have been. I think he really was... He is offering to cut his dick off and a swath of pubic hair for display purposes. Yes. And not only... And he goes through a lot of rigmarole to try and get this done. The first, as self-imposed really, he gets his penis tattooed. He is very proud of the fact that the first penis on display will be an American penis. So he gets stars and stripes tattooed on the tip.

Can you imagine that you get like the first Ford Model T and you like put truck nuts on it? It's the same kind of thought, you know? Yeah. That's so good. What, what? I love, I love garish tattoos. What was that man thinking?

What is this? He needs to stop. He needs to,. He needs to... Maybe he does need to part ways with his wiener, dude. This isn't healthy. He goes, not only is there the tattoo, but he's very invested in how it will be displayed. So he commissions and helps design a display case

that involves mirrors so you can see up under the situation. Who, what, what, like, what guy who does custom fish tanks had to fucking do that, by the way? Exactly, exactly. In fact, uh, because this is a scene in the documentary, the final member, Tom Mitchell asks him, do you have a warranty for your displays? And the guy's kind of like, uh, I do warranties for aquariums.

So, yeah, yeah, I can get you a warranty. Okay, so I wasn't just fucking pulling the shit out of thin air. Okay. Yeah, no, no, no, no, no, you nailed it. What is that guy's internal, like, like, because if I'm that guy, I'm like... Pay me. I'm like, I'm like either pay me or like, like, because if I'm that guy, I'm like... Pay me. I'm like, I'm like either pay me or like...

But also, is there like a service I should be calling for you? Like, when you explain your, this logic to me? Yeah. So, in the film, we follow Tom Mitchell as he goes and speaks to a surgeon. Which is an interesting scene, I suppose, because when Tom is speaking with the surgeon, and this is a surgeon who does genital modification, and she explains very clearly that, you know, the first rule of medicine is to do no harm. And if there's no medical reason to remove your genitalia, then I cannot ethically remove your genitalia.

Go find a mob, Dr. Baby. Eh, in that scene, according to the filmmakers, Tom Mitchell explains for the first time, to their knowledge, that he has strictures in his urethra that make it very difficult for him to urinate without dilating his urethra. And, you know, he doesn't have the full medical background paperwork to like display in the documentary, but the doctor responds and says, okay, well, let's do an exam. She sees the stars and stripes. She says, oh, okay. And then she says...

She says, did you serve? Did Elmo serve? Did Elmo serve? God bless America! Oh, man. But she says, from what I can tell, and I will need to kind of go through your medical history, but from what I can tell, we do have a medical reason to do this procedure.

So the film never confirms that it's all like a green-lit from the medical standpoint, because he also needs to speak to a psychiatrist, because that's like part of the, I guess, the process of doing genital modification. And at that point in the film, once we learn that, then we also learn that Tom, who's had three failed marriages and a slew of girlfriends that has not worked out,

he feels that women have taken advantage of him in his life. And he would like the next chapter of his life to not include his vulnerability to women. to women. So he feels that if he removes his genitalia, then he can have more agency and control over his life. He's like those stuffed animals that I used to diagnose in the Flash game. Yeah, there's this strange thing happening

where he wants to transition to an asexual life, but still have his penis be immortalized and enshrined, and like his man, quote unquote, his manhood enshrined, right? It seems like he's like internalized that this is the only thing that is of value about him or something, and he resents that, and so... Potentially.

He also was very consumed with this project, we'll say. And he was... Get out. Yeah. The guy who had the fucking display case, me? Get the fuck out of town. He also sent numerous, and when I say numerous, I mean dozens upon hundreds of emails to Sigi coming up with ideas about how to display it. At a certain point, he said,

you can have it when the museum is open and in the off season, please send it back to me and I'll be able to display it the way that I want it to be displayed. It got to the point where Sigi... No, this isn't healthy now. Yeah. Was it ever, but...

Right. It got to the point where Siggy was just like, I do not have time to respond to all of your emails. And I- Buddy, I run a dick museum. Yeah, I got things to do. I got dicks spilling out of my hands, man. I can't devote this time to one dick, even an important dick.

Yeah, exactly. And Siggy's getting kind of annoyed because Tom is like, hey, I'm your star guy over here. I'm going to solve your problem. And Elvo is... This is the attraction, the star attraction. Yeah, and you're not treating the talent. I'm not getting only, you know, red M&Ms over here.

I'm about to go to the Cleveland Dick Museum. How do you feel about that? Yeah, yeah. No, at a certain point, he does say... They offered me double. He does say I need to find maybe some other options. And... What? There is like a sex museum in New York, I guess,

but I don't think they're taking like live specimens. Yeah, yeah. So, it's, yeah, it's a very kind of strange... He's an interesting character, Tom Mitchell. Yeah, truly, truly. And he seems I've got an OK relationship with my dick, you know. Yeah. Is that conforming? Is that nice? At the end of the day, for all the for all the accident security and all that,

that we all feel to our own bodies. Yeah, I've never been like, let me ship this baby in dry ice. Well, the quote unquote arms race, the Dick race is is solved when Paul Erison dies peacefully in his sleep and his penis is able to be removed from his body, transported in dry ice, as you say. Great episode of ER there in the Icelandic version of ER. In a case that's wrapped in like blue cellophane paper and like a red and blue ribbon to signify Iceland, the colors of Iceland. Mm-hmm. And it's delivered to Siggy, and Siggy unpacks it and removes a human specimen that is of

legal length. I think that was the most important thing. Yes. Yes. True. Yeah. It includes, yeah, the shrinkage was not an issue. Good, good.

It includes the penis, the scrotum, testicles. We get a few little dick hairs in there too. Long scraggly gray ones. Three little squirts. It's a perfect, it's just like the pictures. Yeah. Like with all of the other specimens, Sigi is responsible for preserving it in his homemade formaldehyde solution.

There's one point where he, not this penis, but another penis, he preserves it and he's not wearing gloves. And I'm just like, oh my God, what is happening? Dude, it's like when you see beekeepers who just do it without any of the protection now because they're just, this is old hat. The filmmakers did say that that was bar none the grossest thing that they encountered at the Penis Museum. In their lives. In their entire lives.

The fucking smell of Sigi's basement where he preserved penises. Oh, oh, I bet it howled down there. Yeah. I bet it howled like embalming fluid in a million old dead dicks. That's exactly what I was. So that's where all the ghosts live of all the dicks. Yeah. Just scream and their screams are smelly.

So with the completion of Ziggy's collection, he finally has closure. Yes, the climax. Well, the climax is there's a grand event to reveal the display. Of course. Of the human specimen. And at that event, Siggy announces his retirement and how he is passing the museum.

No more dicks left to collect. Correct, correct. He needs to retire and calm down his life and pass on the museum to his son-in-law who is taking up the mantle, a man by the name of Thordor, who is now, this was in 2011, when Ziggy retired, Borda took over, and the museum has flourished. Is it Ziggy's long legacy? Or... Or is it the human specimen? You know, it might be a little bit of calm-ay.

Might be a little calm-bee. A little bit of calm-pee. A little bit of column A, might be a little column B. Uh... A little bit of column B. A little bit of column D, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, man. Yeah, man. Yeah, man. So, the museum actually, shortly after this period, it was moved back to Reykjavik, and the space is, the current space is three times larger than its original.

It expanded. It expanded, It expanded. It engorged. Yes. Yes. That's exactly what I meant. Yes. The museum services about 99% of its visitors who are tourists to Iceland.

So you're not getting, you're not really getting like- People are going in for like lunch from their office job at the Dick Museum, Dick Cafe, where you can get the cock waffles. Damn dude, you nailed it. There are cock waffles. That's what they serve. Oh, come on, come on.

I'm that good. Who's better at Dick Museum? Sigi, you're dead beat son-in-law, kick him out. It's me, it's Aaron Taylor at? Dick Museum. Ziggy, you're deadbeat son-in-law. Kick him out. It's me. It's Aaron Taylor at the Dick Museum. I'll mail you my dick if that's what it takes. Yeah, where's that fish tank guy? They also serve penis themed beers. Brews by the name of Moby Dick.

Big cock ale. Short and stout. Yeah. No, actually, that's... See? Again. Ziggy. Hire me, Dick Museum. H and stout. Yeah. No, actually that's... See? Again. Hire me, Dick Museum. Hire me, Dick Museum. Uh, Dick's Johnson session IPA and a phallic logger. And you'll be happy to know that all of these are on tap. And so the pull tabs are large dildos.

Perfect. And does it come out in three little squirts? Because that would just be... That would just be ideal. No, unfortunately, no. No. Can't have everything. The museum's newest acquisition is the famous slash infamous plaster cast

of Jimi Hendrix penis. His well-endowed... Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we've all heard that. That's that Cynthia Plastercaster, right? Yes. Um, the museum did survive the pandemic. It is... of course, had to shut down and, uh, it was only open for private tours.

Private tour of the Dick Museum, huh? Think about it. Think about that. Not bad. That's date night, baby. Huh? Think about it. Think about that. Not bad. That's date night, baby. A big recommendation is the audio tour. If you go to Iceland and you're in Reykjavik and you go to this museum, get the audio tour.

That's the word on the street. And I know, I know what everybody is thinking at this point in the story. There's a penis museum. Is there a vagina museum? And... You know, that's a good point. That's a really good point. Yeah, the answer is yes, actually.

Absolutely. And it was founded by a woman who- By Georgia O'Keeffe. The vagina museum was founded by a woman who had learned about the penis museum. And she said, well, fuck, we need a vagina museum then. Pee the change you wanna see in the world. Exactly.

It's located in London, England, and it's changed a few different locations. It was located in Camden Square, a little bit there. And from what I can tell, the vagina museum has a feminist agenda, first and foremost, but it seems... No. ...to me... Uh-uh. has a feminist agenda, first and foremost, but it seems to me to be striking, and maybe it's just my own familiarity with it, but it's striking that balance between like educational and addressing

a taboo and kind of being a little tongue-in-cheek funny. Like, it's marrying all those things together in a way that makes maybe a little bit more sense. Let me name a few of the exhibits that have been on display. So, the most current one is entitled, Indometriosis into the Unknown Medical History. Okay, so that's an IMAX. Yeah, yeah. into the unknown medical history. Okay, so that's an IMAX. Yeah, yeah.

We're gonna shrink down and go into the uterus, baby. It's coming. And that's purely kind of informative, educational. The previous exhibit to that was one called Periods, a Brief History, which I like the brief bit. That's kind of cute. Their first exhibit ever was entitled Muffbusters, Vagina Myths and How to Fight Them, which

that's pretty good, a muff, a muffbuster. Yeah, that's cute. That's cute. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And the idea is to display vaginas and vulvas and educate people on how different they look and how no one is... Yeah.

-...more good-looking than another. Yeah. And I don't know, to me, it just seems to be fulfilling. I don't... Well, how do I put this? The vagina, the vulva have taken a place in human history of being perhaps dominated by patriarchal societies and having a museum and exhibits that display, discuss. It's like the vagina monologues, right? It's kind of flipping the script and doing that, which, like I say, is something that I'm more familiar with than maybe the penis museum.

I think there's a place for both on their own terms. Yes. Yeah. No. I think that there's a place for any kind of museum and there's a place for anything that has a history to have a museum. Yes. And I think that, like, I think that there's a place for an eyeball museum.

You seem skeptical there. What do you think that has a history shouldn't have a museum? Because even when we look back at, like, atrocities, like when we look back at, like, the rabbit island that you brought to us back in the late 40s, I think it was like episode 47 or something like that. This was an island that had a... There's the Mustard Gas Museum.

Yeah, that had this history of developing chemical weapons that is supposed to have a really good museum there in the husk of where these things actually happened that sort of addresses these things, right? So I do think that even bad history, perhaps mostly bad history, deserves museums. STACEY Yeah. But maybe I guess that's where my skepticism comes into play. The penis can be a site of like unsolicited aggression.

JARED Sure. STACEY And from what I can tell, I don't know if the museum is really addressing that angle of it. This idea that, like... Yeah, I think that's a fair point. That, you know, it's taking a scientific look, it has this kind of tongue-in-cheek humor going on, but I don't know if there's really discussion of, like... The social piece is missing for you a bit.

Maybe a bit of a social piece is missing for you a bit. Maybe a bit of a social piece, yeah. Yeah. Especially with, like, prevalence of dick pics, as we mentioned, right? Like... Yeah. Even in a tiny cheek way to be like, remember that even though we've got the dicks on the walls here, you should keep your dick to yourself.

Right. Yeah. Yeah. But then, like you say, they're not trying to... on the walls here, you should keep your dick to yourself. Right, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? But then, but then like you say, they're not, they're not, they're not trying to, they, they kind of avoid any sort of cheekiness of that type that you'd associate with a dick museum mostly. Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, the story of the Dick Race between Paul Erison and Tom Mitchell.

What happened to Tom after all this? He had his aquarium made. Yeah, that's a very good question, because the documentary ends with Tom being very disappointed that he was not the first human specimen, but he's like, well, that's okay, because Elmo is still great, and who knows, he could be the first, you know, American penis on display. Through my research, I have

not been able to either confirm nor deny if Tom Mitchell has had his penis removed, has had Elmo removed, and if it's on display somewhere. Some mysteries are perhaps best left to the listener's imagination, huh? What he has done... Fill in what you want off the... Uh-oh. Uh-oh. ...is commissioned a graphic novel to be made about Elmo, The Adventures of Elmo.

Just do porn, just get an OnlyFans. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, at that point, yeah. Well, this is the point in the story where I think it's only appropriate that we play the penis game and yell into the microphone as loud as we can. Can we spare the listeners, please?

Yeah, we can, it's fine. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I'll just whisper it. Penis. Penis. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'll just whisper it. Penis! Penis! Thanks for listening!

If you want more infamy, we've got plenty more episodes at bittersweetinfamy.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the podcast, shoot us a few bucks via our Ko-fi account at ko-fi.com forward slash bittersweetinfamy. But no pressure, bittersweet infamy is free, baby. You can always support us by liking,

rating, subscribing, leaving a review, following us on Instagram at bittersweetinfamy, or just pass the podcast along to a friend who you think would dig it. Stay sweet. My sources for The Infamous included the documentary, The Language You Cry In. You can watch that online in a lot of places. I watched that at Canopy with a K, which you can access with your library card if you're

in a participating location. I also read the Smithsonian article, How the Memory of a Song Reunited Two Women Separated by the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, written by Joshua Kagavi, February 29, 2024. I read Mary's Song in the Tampa Bay Times by Herb Frazier, April 27, 1997. There is a beginning, how an ancient song uncovered ancestral roots in centuries of pain for a Jacksonville man by Andrew Babio, February 22, 2023 in the First Coast News. And I read the obituaries of Mary Alan Moran by the Darien Funeral Home and the obituary for Lorenzo Dow Turner published in the Sphinx, volume 58, winter 1972.

The clip of Mary Elmeran and her granddaughter, Geret Singing, was from the language Ukrainian. The sources that I used for this week's episode include the documentary, The Final Number, directed by Jonah Bechors and Zach Math. And it was released 2012. I looked at the website phallus.is which is the official website of the Icelandic Paleological Museum. I've read an article posted by CBC radio for As It Happens entitled Goldfish, penis museum and a car starting dog, five weird stories to distract you from the news, which was published April 17th, 2020.

I listened to a podcast episode from the museum camp, all about museums. It was the very first episode and it was released January 1st. I read an article in Blue Loop entitled, Do Things Stand Up? At the World's Only Penis Museum. Written by Rachel McKay, published March 31st, 2022. I read an article in The Daily Beast. I Fren's Penis Museum Curator on What the Final Member Gets Wrong. Written by Melissa Leon, published April 17th, 2014. An article from Vice Magazine,

the infuriating hubris of men who want to donate their dicks to a penis museum. Written by Monica Hiesay, published April 4th, 2018. Another article from Vice Magazine, I dragged my parents to a penis museum and it bored them to tears. Written by Caroline Thomas, published July 17th, 2017. I read a review of the documentary, The Final Member, written by Simon Abrams, posted to

robertebert.com and it was published April 18th, 2014. I read an article in Extra Magazine entitled The Search for Cough written by Matt Thomas published January 13th 2014. I looked at the website for the vagina museum. I read an article in the Reykjavik Grapevine Penis Museum donation attracts global attention published April 13th 2011 and another article from article from Reki with Grapevine, Man Wants to Cut Off Own Penis and Donate It to Penis Museum, published November 18th, 2016, written by Andy Sophia Fontaine.

I read an article from Smithsonian Magazine entitled, Nine of the Weirdest Penises in the Animal Kingdom, published November 17, 2020 and written by Corinne Wetzel. And lastly, I looked at the Wikipedia articles for the Icelandic Phalaenological Museum, as well as the article for Falak Art and Architecture. And we've got a big shout out to our monthly subscribers, Ramon Esquivel, Jonathan Mountain, Lizzy D, Erica Jo Brown, Soph, and Dylan and Sakshal the Cat.

If you too would like to become a monthly subscriber and help support the podcast, one, we'd really, really appreciate it. And two, you get cool exclusives like the Bittersweet Film Club. You can head over to coffee.com slash bittersweetinfamy.com slash bittersweetinfamy.com and the film club episode up currently is Cats 2019. Up next we'll be watching I, Tanya. So head over to ko-fi.com to become a monthly subscriber and thank you. Bittersweet Infamy is a proud member of the 604 Podcast Network. This episode was lovingly edited by Alexi Johnson and Alex McCarthy over at 604.

The interstitial music you heard earlier is by Mitchell Collins and the song you're listening to now is Tea Street by Brian Steele.