Doomed to Fail - Ep 130 - Come One, Come All!: The Hammond Circus Train Wreck

Episode Date: August 19, 2024

Today, we explore Circuses of the early 1900s - a not-great-for-animals menagerie of tricks and oddities. Benjamin Wallace was one of the greats out of Indiana and, by 1918, had cashed out while his Circus kept going via two giant trains full of performers, animals, and equipment. After getting through The Great Flood of 1913 and the second worst circus train crash of all time, the Hagenbeck-Wallace circus train was slammed into at 4 am in Hammond, Indiana. Many people died in the ensuing fire and were buried at Woodlawn Cemetary in Chicago at 'Showmen's Rest' a 750-acre plot procured by Buffalo Bill Cody.We also tell a few Chicago specific ghost stories just for fun! https://www.showmensleague.org/Showmens-Rest/13255248 Join our Founders Club on Patreon to get ad-free episodes for life! patreon.com/DoomedtoFailPodWe would love to hear from you! Please follow along! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpod  Youtube:  https://www.youtube.com/@doomedtofailpod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@doomed.to.fail.pod Email: [e-mail] 

It's a matter of the people of the state of California versus Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A. 019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. And boom, Taylor, we are alive, active, and healthy and happy. How are you? I'm not very healthy, and I'm kind of grumpy, but I'm alive. Are you active? No. Okay, so. Not at all.

So speak for yourself, farmers. I was told. that I came off as super low energy on the Monday episode. Really? Yeah, I didn't realize that. And so I'm going to be as high energy as I can't be. So this will be a very exciting episode for you. I really need that from now.

I know. I'm not my turn. It is your turn. Okay, great. Yeah, yeah. So I guess there's just be a casual observer. Great. High energy.

But I need you. You can make some faces at me there. Like, hi. I mean, to give me jazz hands every once in a while. I love it. Thank you. I don't know what this is. That's not a jazz hand, but it's close.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to doomed to fail. We are the podcast that brings you history's most notorious disasters and epic failures twice a week, every week. And I am Taylor joined by Fars. I'm here. You know what I was thinking is one really, really big thing that we have right now because we are not making any money off of this podcast is that we don't have any ads. and I've been listening to other very popular podcasts.

Like every fucking five minutes there's an ad and I want to murder someone. So you're welcome everyone for this adless episode. Okay. I will say that as much as I enjoy, um, got Pod Save America. Mm-hmm.

Man, they overdue it on the ads. Like it is, it is like, it is constant. It's like, constant. And like, right when you're in the, when you're like really into it and like in the zone and you're like, okay, I'm going to listen to the podcast

and hop in the shower and then you're like scrubbing yourself and you're like, damn it, there's another episode. So there goes like the entire shower time that was going to absorb their amazing commentary on American politics and it's just gone. Yeah. So you're welcome. Exactly.

Exactly. Also, you're not getting paid. I'm getting like $1,000 a month off this. Are you? Great. Good for you. It's an odd reveal. It's an odd reveal.

I feel a little weird about it, but okay. Yeah, and I said, I feel a little sick, a little sickly today. I was traveling, and it was hard, it's hard to get anywhere from here because I live in the middle of nowhere. And so, I don't know, I figured it'd be better just to take a one-way flight rather than get on one that has layovers. It's just like, do I want to do that or do I want to drive to Las Vegas? Like, those are my options. And this time I drove to Las Vegas, but it's just hard to do that. by yourself, it's like a three and a half hour drive through nowhere, you know?

So, it's boring. I listened to the song of Achilles, which was lovely. And I cried. I know what that is. It's a book by Madeline Miller. She's in a couple where she does like a little, a deep dive into a Greek myths, sort of. And that one in Sertia cried a lot of the end of both of them. And they were very good.

Beautiful. Yeah. Sounds lovely. Yeah. And, okay, so I think you are the first speaker of the day. I am. You speak first. Are you ready?

I'm the captive audience. Great. Captivate me. Okay. So I was in Chicago this week, like I just said, and I wanted to tell some Chicago stories, because I'm from there, sort of. I'm from a suburb of Chicago, and I lived there until I was 13. And I love it.

I got there actually really early on Wednesday, like 5 p.m. So I was able to walk around, and I walked to the lake, and it's so pretty. and there's like the streets are so wide there are alleys the buildings are like all old and pretty there's roving gangs

of drunk white women like so many it's so great like older white women with short hair carrying cases of Miller Light just around

I mean it sounds like every bachelor party I see here in Austin yeah but they're like but they're older in Chicago you know what I mean like they're not like in their 20s, they're like in their 60s and they're great.

And so there's, they're prepping for the DNC, obviously. So there's like DNC signs everywhere. There are volunteers at the airport, which like I love because that's something that I totally would have done is like been a volunteer to hold a sign at the airport, you know, when in my youth. I, yeah. You know what? I'm not going to go into that story.

Go ahead. Cool. Well, I would have done that. And a lot of people who, you could tell we're going in there for the DNZ who were like, you know, on their phones constantly because they think they're the most important person in the Democratic Party. Of course. If you're a delegate, you are the most important person.

You can tell that they're on their phone being like, if I do not do this, the United States of America and democracy will fall apart, you know? I will say, I kind of love that energy. I do too. If you talk to them, like these are not like crazy high power people. These are like school teachers. These are like, you know what I mean? they're just normal everyday people or they're like a staffer of like a mid to low level

you know yeah yeah but i'm very happy for them and i just want to tell them not to forget to drink water because i feel like they're probably going to be very stressed out this week i don't know it seems like it's going to be like a celebration i just i think it'll be fun i know that like some people i know we're going to an event where voice to man are singing which sounds amazing. I think if Biden was still in and I was going to be a delegate, I would just be like, why am I here? I'd be more stressed. I'd be just drinking and just like get me out of this situation. Yeah, but now it's going to be fun. Yeah, now it's going to be fun. Yeah, I agree. I also was like, I feel like every time I'm reading about Chicago, it's like there's

a conventions. I looked it up. Chicago has hosted the most major party presidential nominated conventions of any city 14 Republican and 11 Democratic so because I always feel like there's always something kept in Chicago so yeah of course it's great I was in Chicago in October like a year or two ago and it was beautiful I thought it was lovely yeah so I definitely want to go back to take the kids go to old museums and very very fun um so I'm going to tell you some Chicago stories um but I want to tell you a disaster story in the middle of two ghost stories okay I'm not even going to guess because that sounds you're not they're not really It really did.

They're not even related to each other. There are the stories my dad has told me. So the goodest stories are not true. The stories my dad has told me, but the other part is true. Dope. Okay. So my, Chicago has incredible buildings, as you know. One of them is the Hancock Tower.

So it was named after the John Hancock Insurance Company, named after, obviously, the John Hancock of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. They changed the name of the building to 875 North, Michigan Avenue in 2018, which is stupid. There's the address. Oh, really? I didn't know that. Okay. Yeah, that's dumb. So I guess you can't call it the Sears Tower's all the Willis Tower.

Like, who cares? That's stupid. You can't change anything of buildings. Wait, they changed the Sears Tower? To the Willis Tower a long time ago. Okay. The marketing sucked because I never do that. Yeah, no. That's dumb. The Hancock Tower has businesses and restaurants, 700 condos. When it was built in 1968, it was the

tallest residents in the world and the second and um and the second tallest building in the world um against the empire state building it's now the 13th tallest building in the world um but it scares a shit out of me because the polter grace three have you seen polter grace three no so one obviously amazing political grace two it's actually so scary i've only watched it once because there's like a really scary like cult leader religious old man that like buries people alive and i can't go over it. It scares me. A Pultergerger's three is in the Hancock Tower. So the girl, the little girl, it goes and visits her uncle. And just like a bunch of scary shit happens there. And it's really good. And I've seen it a couple times. And there's a lot of like mirrors involved and stuff. And like,

it's very, very scary. So also, this is nothing to do with my main story. I'm telling you today. But do you know that the word polter geist? I was like, what does it even mean? I know geist means ghost, but what does polter mean? A polter means to make a sound. So Polter guides is a ghost that makes a sound. Okay. I didn't know that. I'm glad we know that now. Everybody knew that. So my dad had a friend who lived there in the 80s and he had a condo and lived there. Everything was normal. One day, his sister knocks on the door and he's like, hey, what are you doing here? She's like, oh, I just wanted to come in and like say hi and see how you're doing. So she comes in, they talk for a little bit. And she's like, you know, I just want you to know that like I'm okay

and that I'm like very, I'm happy and that please tell mom that I love her and that I'm like, I'm totally fine. And he was like, okay. And she was like, okay, well, I'll see you. Like, I'll see you. And she leaves. And then as soon as it closes the door, his phone rings and his mom calls and his sister had just died in a plane crash. It was a ghost.

Wait, your dad told you that story? Yes. He told me his friend told me that story. I see why you were into horror, the way you're into horror now. You told me that story. And I was very, very young. I have no reason not to believe it. But anyway, isn't that exciting?

yeah it also sounds like it's awesome it's my first ghost story I feel like I've also read that in like a goosebumps story when I was like in eighth grade absolutely absolutely that's the kind of story it is I also happened definitely in the haunting of Hillhouse show

yeah you're right sister goes to the brother's house and she's she's been dead the whole time yeah spoil her alert for that old show but okay so that's my first ghost story I'll tell you another one later but let's talk about a disaster that happened in Chicago I'm going to talk

about the Hammond Circus train wreck of 1918. Sweet. Cool. It technically happened in Indiana. It happened in Hammond, Indiana. But the people who died in it are buried in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Forest Park, Illinois, which is near Chicago, which is also where

my great and grandparents are buried. So a lot of Styrics and the people who died in this train crash are in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Chicago. So I'll start with the beginning about the circus. So a man named Ben E. Wallace was born on October 4, 1847 in Pennsylvania. He enlisted in the Civil War, but before he even got to do anything, it was over. He did get to keep the $250 that he got because someone had paid him to go in their place. So he had a little bit of money and he was able to kind of go west and he ended up in Peru, Indiana.

In Peru, Peru, Indiana, he got into horses and he owned a bunch of horses and ended up having one of the best stables in Indiana. So I don't know if he like breed, what that means, you like breed horses, people can ride them, you sell them, you take care of horses. He was a horse guy. In 1882, he started to get interested in circuses because it was like a weird time to have circuses. Like there's no rules, you know, just probably like half circus, half freak show, half terrible to animals. It sounds awful, yeah. yeah um like totally unregulated entertainment yeah the worst part of human history yes yeah but we were traded four people with disfigurements and okay yeah yeah yeah and tons of animals and like

you know all the things um so the first thing he did is he bought several train cars full of stuff from another circus because there were like tons of like roaming circuses from another circus that had shut down called a wc coupe show and it was like full of weird stuff like costumes and tents and poles and like just like whatever shit you might need to start a circus then he started to buy more train cars and horses and other animals from a thing called nathan and companies traveling menagerie which was like probably again wagons full of like monkeys or animals that just really want freedom yeah it reminds me a little bit of um there's like this netflix show a while a long time ago that was like the ballad of buster scrugs like that had that one in it a couple other

once but one of them had like a weird traveling like freak show and it was very uncomfortable um so he has all these animals he has a tense and he gets performers and then he has some like weird ass train cars made which are like really ornate and i'll share pictures of them but they have like carvings of animals on the sides because like you would know when the circus train was like coming to town you know you'd be excited at it and circus trains are still a thing um another thing that my dad told me which I'm pretty sure it's true he used to be a cab driver

in Las Vegas and he some guys you know wanted to go back to where they were staying and they were staying at the train yard on the circus train because like how else did you get animals around the country you know

or this is even a thing right now well I don't think I think like they were until very recently if they aren't still I think you can still go to a circus it's not as like yeah I remember when I was a kid

like a very small kid when Barnum and Bailey came to Dallas and we went to that and I remember I thought it was incredible and then you grow up and you learn about what they do those poor elephants you're like this is horrible and then I saw Dumbo and was like we can't do this anymore yeah it's actually it's a lot

like Dumbo that is the time period that we're in that's exactly right yeah yeah yeah so Wallace partnered with a man named James Anderson who he eventually bought out and his circus toured Indiana Kentucky and Virginia and called it a world tour, which is fun, you know.

It was called Wallace and Company's Great World Menagerie, Grand International Mardi Gras, Highway Holiday, Hildago, and the Alliance of Novelties. And they changed that to the Great Wallace shows because that was too long. Obviously, that was a lot of names. And eventually, so it's the Great Wallace shows

and there's, you know, dogs, there's clowns, there's acrobats, there's elephants, there's zebras, there's like all sorts of shit that you'd expect to us. circus in the late 1800s. In 1892, he bought a 220-acre farm from the son of a Miami war chief named Gabriel Godfroy. And he called it the winter quarters because they couldn't like, you know, Indiana, Kentucky and Virginia get really cold. So you can't like ride the train around all year long. So during the winter, they were just kind of like hunker down at the space. And they would have a bunch of like barns and like places where they would take care of the animals.

there was an elephant barn a foundry where they would make like horseshoes and stuff like an ironworks and then it said there was a cat barn which like I laughed at for five minutes and then I thought maybe they mean lions not just like cats they definitely mean lions I'm actually it's funny because you mentioned like how long the name was

and I just realized the name is actually Ringling Brothers in Barnum and Bailey circus and it's like that is a really long name and then if you're on their Wikipedia page the first picture that comes up or not like one of the first ones that comes up is this guy standing in front of five what has to be like 800 pound tigers

and I'm like so so horrible that we did imagine those those guys in like a barn in Vienna you know and the Ringley and Boat Brothers Barnum and Bailey will eventually buy the Great Wallace show so it could have been Wallace's tigers that are in there you know can I just say that my hot take is every time a tiger or a lion attacks a tamer at a circus

I kind of get happy and excited I do think I do want to talk about Sycred and Roy sometime because I think that tiger was trying to protect him. I don't know the circumstances. I would assume that a place like operation like

Sycred and Roy is different than like taking tigers and throwing them on a fucking freight. Yes. It's a different time. It's like a hundred years later. It's a hundred years later and like there's PETA. There's a SBCA. There's like a whole host of regular like I assume those tigers actually

live like a pretty decent life. But like in the olden times, I think, yes, I would rather than be killed. No, absolutely. No, totally. So they have that place where they, you know, they hang out during the winter. In 1892, they also had their first train wreck. And in that wreck, 26 horses were killed, which was a cost about $5,000 to replace them and like retrain them. So they had had a couple, you know, a couple things happened, you know,

before the big one that we're going to talk about. So there was that one in 1892. In 1903, there was another train wreck. So by this time, the train is in like two sections. And the first train was in Durand, Michigan, which is where they were headed as expected. And the second train was coming up to them and they did not slow down. So it slammed into the first section of the circus train, killing 26 men of the circus and an unknown number of railroad employees and some animals. The driver of the second train said that the brakes were broken, but they weren't. He had just, for whatever reason, not stopped in time. This is the second worst train wreck ever for a circus. And I feel like now you know that I'm going to tell you about the first worst train wreck

for a circus in a second. Right. That one happened first. This is the appetizer. Yeah. And then something also about like so yeah the animals are like obviously being treated like not great and all the things but the people are also like people who are going to like hop on and off trains you know like they're heading west and they're going to work for the circus for i don't know a month and just like take care of the horses or something so there's people who are like coming in and out all the time so there's never like an exact number of people it's not like they have like a complicated like workplace system you know they don't they don't have like an HR management software, there's an ocean

place. Exactly. Did you hop on the train while I was moving or not? It's like, who gives a shirt? Yeah. Missing your arm, it's fine. Keep you doing your job. Oh, you got bit by a lion? You were insane. Humans were insane in the early days. So, in 1907, Wallace bought the Carl Hagenbach Circus, and he calls the circus

the Hagenbeck Wallace Circus from now on. Carl Hagenbeck didn't like this. He tried to sue him and have him stop using his name, but people had like the hagenbeck circus had been pretty popular and for doing things like it didn't really move you you would observe animals like in a more natural setting than like in a cage like in the last unicorn and so he would um he was kind of mad about it but he lost his suit and his name was still going to be in it um so now the wallace circus the haggenbeck wallace circus is huge um it is traveling on two trains and each train is at least 28 cars so it's really big yeah

And I have some pictures. I read a part of a book. I didn't realize that I was like, this book stops in a really weird place, but like I only had half of it. And I was like, well, it's too late to figure out

how to read the rest of this book. So, but it has the pictures of it of it of like the circus going through town when it gets there with like a parade with like zebras in it and stuff, which is fun. And it would be fun to see if you were a child in the 1880s.

Right. You know. I'm sure. I'm sure that experience didn't teach those kids how to treat. other people in a subjugated way. Yes, exactly. They just saw zebras and they're fine. Right.

Okay. So it's huge. They have a lot of animals and a lot of people working for them. In the spring of 1913, there was a huge flood in Indiana. So they're actually in the winter quarters, which is the big plot of land that Wallace had purchased. And a lot of warm rain fell on snow, which caused a lot of flooding. And the winter quarters were flooded and there was $150,000 in damages. Eight elephants died.

One elephant was found a few miles down the river. Like it floated on the river, it drowned. And eight elephants, 21 lions and tigers and eight horses all died in that flood. So they had, you know, their share of disasters, like leading up to big one. in 1913 and the Wallace sold the circus to a man named Ed Ballard so he didn't didn't run it anymore another man did he kept the land in Indiana the winter quarters until 1921 and eventually Ringley brothers would buy it and they kept the land as a place to burn old circus wagons which is a weird thing didn't need to do but it was like the

Decommissioned brother. Yeah, decommission place. And now it is the, um, the spot of the Circus Hall of Fame is in Peru, Indiana on the land that Wallace had bought with the winter quarters. And you can go there today if you want to. I'm sure it be a good learning experience. Yeah. Um, so it's 1913. It belongs to Ed Ballard and it's getting very popular. So it's getting more and more popular. The circus itself is still called, um, you know, it's still going to be called the hanging back Wallace Circus. And in 1918, it is headed into Indiana for another, for a show. And so what into Hammond, Indiana for a show. I want to get the name of the town. So the train is in two parts, as usual, traveling through Indiana. The first part of the train stops for maintenance just before 4 a.m. And the second part of the train is kind of slowing down after. it. The second part has all of the people in it. I think the first part has like more of the animals and like equipment and stuff. So there was another train, a third train behind them. It was a Michigan Central Railroad troop train, which is a military train to like move people in the military, but it was empty. And there was a man named Alonzo Sargent and he was he was the conductor of that, the engineer or whatever you call it, of that train. And he fell asleep. And his thing was like, I ate a lot of food. The day before, the train is very, like, relaxing the way it, like, lulls you to sleep.

And I was tired, and he fell asleep. I'm also sure that he was probably drunk. Also, that is true. A train does load you to sleep. Yeah. But, like, if it's your job to stay awake, you can't fall asleep. I fell asleep on the train, but it was not my job to conduct. Exactly.

So, who cares? So he missed several flags and several alarms to tell him to stop, to slow down. But he didn't slow down. and his train hit the second train full of people at 35 miles an hour at 4 a.m. on June 22nd, 1918. Eventually, Alonzo Sargent and the person that was also working with him on the train, their case will be thrown out after a mistrial and he'll never be charged for it. But, like, everybody agrees that it was his fault. And he even said, like, I fell asleep.

Like, that's what happened, you know? So people probably died initially when they got hit because they were all sleeping. Remember, it's 4 a.m. So they probably, the train got hit and all the sleeping cars like tipped over and the people were crushed. But really the big thing that happened is the sleeping cars had kerosene lamps in them and they immediately caught on fire. Right. So in the fire, 86 people died. Many of them were burned beyond recognition.

Only five of them were ever identified of the people that died. So they were circus performers, circus workers. They were, you know, transient people who were like jumping in on a. and off to like help out for a couple days and among the dead were um these two two guys named arthur and max they were the great darekicks brothers they were a strong man act and jenny ward todd of the flying wards so an acrobat and strong men they know those those people died um they are all buried in woodlawn cemetery in forest park illinois the one where that my ancestors are buried in as well in a place called the showman's breast.

So because they couldn't identify them, some of them are buried in a mass grave. Some of the other ones are in individual plots called unknown male or unknown female. One grave is marked smiley and one is marked baldy. So just like circus people. And one is a four horse driver. So it's like, we knew this guy was a driver somehow,

but we don't know his name, you know? Yeah, no human resources. whatsoever. Yeah, yeah. They were buried five days after after the crash. So showman's rest at Woodlawn Cemetery is not the only showman's rest in America. It's a place specifically for like circus traveling performers. It was actually bought by Buffalo Bill Cody and the Showman's League of America a couple years before this as a place

to bury like circus performers and traveling performers because they don't necessarily have a home. You know? Okay. I guess that makes sense. Around showman's rest, there are four elephant statues, but there are no animals buried there. I'm sure animals died in the crash, but no animals are buried there. People would say that they can hear the lions and the elephants screaming in the middle of the night.

But they probably can because it's also next to a zoo. So it's probably the zoo animals, like, roaring in the middle of the night, you know? which would still be as scary as shit if you're in a cemetery where circus people are buried yeah it's all just bad it's all creepy so only two performances

of the circus were cancelled the one in Hammond and then another one and then the Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey lent them performers and equipment so that they could keep going so by the 1930s though the show had been sold

to Barnum Barnum and Bailey, Bringley brothers, and eventually, you know, they'll kind of be sold for parts during the Great Depression. There's still be a little bit of it because obviously it's like still exists. But this was like a time or a bad time for it. So that was kind of like in the aftermath of this. Things got like, you know, kind of sold for parts in during the Depression. And that's it. Is the is the is the sounds in the graveyard, the ghost story part of this? No, I have another one. Whoa. Okay. Did you have any questions about the circus train? No, this, here's what's interesting is like that actually like no part of that is really that surprising because I still remember when I want to say it was like 2006, 2008, whatever it was in the DC metro area when the two metro cars collided. And that was that was like just computer failure.

It was like a relay switch didn't flip when it should have because of disrepair and a bunch of people died. They call it telescoping, which I remember. Because you know what it reminds you of is remember in the society of the snow movie when they, the plane crashes and the front of the plane, everybody gets smushed together. Yep. And it's like legs breaking and like bones cracking and this is like terrible. So that, it's so weird you said that because it literally just really like two days ago. we listened to the episode on last podcast about that. But actually, that's

not what telescoping is. What telescoping actually is with trains is when a train rear ends at full speed, another train. One train goes inside the other train. Oh, no. Yeah. Oh, God. Really bad. Really bad. Because, again, like the forces

you're dealing with are just like 35 miles per hour, not the big of a deal. Like most people would survive a 35 mile per hour car accident. But if a train hit you a 30 per hour, that's... Yeah. outcomes. It's just so, it's just like big and heavy. My uncle worked on the, who's a lawyer and he said that he, when I moved to LA, he called me and he was like, don't go on the subway in LA. It's not safe. And I was like, I have to, but thank you for your concern. But he was like, something's going to go wrong.

It's going to happen. Because he said he like worked on it and he like, it's not great. I was like, I don't know. What I'm going to do? I mean, it's all risk. It's funny because I felt the same way when I was in New York City. It was like, I don't want to be here. Like, there's something really weird about being this underground all these giant buildings and people above us like i don't know it just feels really creepy that's interesting i think i never thought about the buildings on top of me and i had whatever would have freaked out what was what's that one part of the ride i think so when i was there for the u.s open when you come from meadowlands back into manhattan it gets super hot and then somebody explained me that oh we're going super deep because we're going under the river river

yeah it's so scary is that scary no that is so scary I don't like being like remember that movie that like stupid movie was Sarasso Stallone Don't never call the stupid movie But yes go ahead It's stupid about the tunnel and like the Holland Tunnel Collapses in New York

No It's like Syracos Stallone and like I think I don't know this one Tunnel movie daylight From 1996 It's him and Vigal Mornson is in it And then a couple other I don't know

the only person I know from this but it's um where like the holland tunnel collapses while they're in it and they have to like get out and it like like you said it's like getting hotter and like you know the it starts leaking water and it's a very very scary and I get scared when I'm in those those big tunnels under the water I don't love that yeah yeah I'm not I'm not a big fan um I your story also reminded me that I spent a weird amount of time we're researching the cove remember the cove? Mm-hmm. The dolphin movie?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it just reminded me of like, man, we are, we are so far from where we were as humans in terms of how we treat animals. Like God. Thank God we like are, I mean, hopefully we keep progressing on that track. But like this stuff really, really like it upsets me.

Yeah, no. I think that I think that we will. I wasn't, I remember I was at the Coliseum in Rome and like one of the people I was with. She was like, do you believe how many. animals died here and how sad that is. And another person was like, people died here. And they both feel like really mad at each other. It was so funny.

And I was like, okay, guys. I'm always, so me and you disagree on this. I always come down on the side of the animal. Yeah. The people can kind of understand the paradigms of society that are constructed around them, whereas like a baboon you kidnapped from like Africa and stuff into a cage to like do tricks. has no concept of what it got itself into.

It didn't get itself into anything. It just happened to it. I mean, I kind of feel bad for a Christian who's eaten by a lion. What do the Christian do to get eaten by the lion? Probably something annoying. Yeah, it was probably like just trying to convert children.

You're like, leave the children alone. Just live your life. Maybe on that side. I'm pro-animal. No, I'm not pro-Christian. So maybe I'm pro-animal. And that one, you found it. That's my one. Okay, I have one more ghost story. Let's hear it. So it's told differently by my father and by the internet. But it's the same story that you hear about like a woman dressed in white on the side of the freeway or the side of the street. So since the 1930s, there is a ghost named Resurrection Mary. And her story is that she would find a man at a dance hall. The old Willowbrook ballroom in Chicago is one of the ones.

ones, and they would dance all night, and then she would ask for a ride home. And while they're stopped next to the Resurrection Cemetery, she would jump out of the car and run into the cemetery and disappear. And he would like never see her again. Some say that she was a girl named Mary Bregovie, who died in a car crash in 1934. There's also a woman named Anna Marja Norkas who died in a car accident while returning from a dance in 1927. So like maybe it's some of them. And they see her on the road or like clutching the gates of the cemetery as you drive by in the middle of the night which like I hate that um like those ghost stories where it's like all a time there's like a woman in the back of your car or like on like a dark road you know or like

you see one and then and you drive past her and then you like look near a river mirror and she's not there you know like that the way that my dad told that same story was it was the melody mill ball room and it was woodlawn cemetery the one where the circus uh people are buried um but in that story the girl is actually the daughter of the caretaker of the cemetery and that explains why she runs in there. All right. Well, that explains it. Hey, you brought up house on haunted hill.

Hunting of Blounting of Hill House, the TV show. Yeah. The one that was on Netflix. Yeah, yeah. Which one was that one? That was a haunting. The haunting of Hill House.

Hill House. Yeah, yeah. Blithe House came after that. Never mind. Okay, yeah. So in that one, the part of it that is like embedded in my brain is when the two siblings are driving, it's like the middle of the day. So you don't expect you didn't happen.

Yeah, exactly. Everybody knows exactly what I was talking about. And then they look at the rearview mirror and that thing just pops out and like, if they drive into the ditch, that is still in my brain. Like, I still remember that. I was,

it was so scary. I read afterwards that, like, the two in the front didn't know when it was going to happen and she did it like early, you know? So, like, they were like genuinely fucking terrified.

It's because it was in the middle of the day and you're like, what's going to happen? Like, all the creepy stuff just happened. And then the setup was like, you expect a lull in the creep factor and then just popped down. You're like, oh my God.

I mean, yeah great show great show great show i watched it twice second time i fast forwarded through all of the like family drama like i don't care about like the kid on drugs yeah shit you're shit about like that one guy who like doesn't like his wife i don't care you know i want to see ghosts taylor so like here's why i suck at movies and why i can't watch movies anymore it's because it's always predictable it's like there's some protagonists there's a what man or woman they're into they do their their main quest and the side quests is this love it's like can we just like have movies be good like it just like cut out the not like we don't have to have like love stories in every movie i wanted to go see twister this weekend or twisters because i love the first twister it was awesome i saw it several times and i want to go see it and i was like you know what man like there's gonna be at least 30 40 minutes of filler in this where it's just gonna be like some side plot love quest and we gotta like i gotta like sit there and i don't like i don't give a shit about yeah no that's stupid i don't care i don't want to have empty life people it's better yeah i don't want um i want to talk about twisters

But I do, I have read the original Haunting of Hill House book by Shirley Jackson several times and it is good every single time. I'm sure. I'm sure. Sweet. Well, we learned a lot about circuses. We learned a lot about animal rights, which you didn't intend to teach us on. But here we are. So thank you for sharing. You are welcome. Thank you for listening. I've never seen any of the poltergeists. What? No way. Yeah. they are i mean the first polter christ is so good um i just you have to watch it you have to watch

it tonight it's great they re made it didn't they they yeah that one's fine but like the old one is the first watch three original one with coach it's so good and um with coach are like you know there are um it's quag nelson yeah yeah you know you know you knew who i meant um there are parts of it that are so like they're so scary that I get scared I'm thinking about them like right now and I watched it when I was like way too young to watch it and it is I watched it in the past five years with Jay and

and Juan and it's good every single time there's like a part in it where you think you're done and you're not done and every time I think oh the movie's over and I'm like it's so good sweet all right well recommendation cool do you have

any listener's commentary? I do I have some stuff that my friend Morgan sent me in response to your episode and I'm trying to find it in my text messages. But so she sent me a couple things to follow up. I was not ready for this. I should have been. Oh, she said we need to make sure we're watching the Paralympics volleyball because I do it sitting down. So I definitely can't wait to do that.

I'm not even sure that's happening yet, but I will watch it. And so he, she also talked about, oh, she has something about Peter Thiel that I'll send you after your, your episode. I was with Pete Buttigieg talking about him. So I'll send that to you because I'll continue to talk about PayPal. But the thing that she told me that is the worst thing I've ever heard of my whole entire life is that did you realize that the Tesla model numbers are the Tesla X, 3X and Y, which spell sexy? Yeah. you yeah so um

i've never i just throat my mouth hold on um yeah because it was he was trying to do the model e and then Ford filed an injunction because they created the model e

anyways yeah i i knew that you that's all it's That big deal. It's something that a four-year-old would do. Or, like, a 13-year-olds. Anyway.

I mean, I also ended the last episode by saying he literally went back and bought X.com, his company from when he was like 22. I mean, he does like holding on to things. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Cool. Well, thank for sharing Taylor and thank for writing in. And as always, please keep writing in at Dunevillepot at g1.com. find us on the socials at Doom NFLPod and let us know if you all want me to

keep restart doing the introductions instead of Taylor please do let us know we'd love to know and we also want to remind you that we don't have commercials so so we're better than them come on listen while there's no commercials yeah exactly I mean we can always go back and put more commercial commercials in we're not going to know we're not there yet so We're not there yet. You can listen to so many hours of us talking without being interrupted by someone telling you their house is going to get robbed or whatever. Or that like you're bad at making dinner. Sweet.

Well, thank you, Taylor. I'll join you again in a few days and we'll go and cut us off.