Doomed to Fail - Ep 9: The most influential drunk in history and a rant about culture - Tzar Nicholas & Alexandra, & Yaser Said

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

This week Taylor brings us back to Russia (does she have a Russian problem? Da.) to talk about the bad decisions Tzar Nicholas and his wife Alexandra made. Specifically, trusting a wizard.Farz tells the horrible story of the honor killings of Amina and Sarah Said by their fanatical father, Yaser.Also, are eyes the window to your soul? Farz says yes. Taylor says they are weird wet organs and everyone needs to calm down. Agree to disagree.See show notes for sources + ALL the lyrics to Boney M's disco hit - Ra Ra Rasputin Follow us on Instagram & Facebook!  @doomedtofailpodhttps://www.instagram.com/doomedtofailpod/https://www.facebook.com/doomedtofailpodSome sources:Raspotin - dark servant of destiny LPOTLRasputin BookPictures from Russia via the Creative CommonsAmina & Sarah via IMDB Yasir via Wikipedia SUPER IMPORTANT TO WATCH THIS:You can literally skip Taylor's part and just listen to this - Boney M. Rasputin on youtube There lived a certain man in Russia long agoHe was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glowMost people looked at him with terror and with fearBut to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dearHe could preach the Bible like a preacherFull of ecstasy and fireBut he also was the kind of teacherWomen would desireHey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, heyHey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, heyHey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, heyHey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, heyHey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, heyThere lived a certain man in Russia long agoHe was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glowMost people looked at him with terror and with fearBut to Moscow chicks he was such a lovely dearHe could preach the Bible like a preacherFull of ecstasy and fireBut he also was the kind of teacherWomen would desireRa ra RasputinLover of the Russian queenThere was a cat that really was goneRa ra RasputinRussia's greatest love machineIt was a shame how he carried onHe ruled the Russian land and never mind the CzarBut the kazachok he danced really wunderbarIn all affairs of state he was the man to pleaseBut he was real great when he had a girl to squeezeFor the queen he was no wheeler dealerThough she'd heard the things he'd doneShe believed he was a holy healerWho would heal her sonRa ra RasputinLover of the Russian queenThere was a cat that really was goneRa ra RasputinRussia's greatest love machineIt was a shame how he carried onBut when his drinking and lustingAnd his hunger for powerBecame known to more and more peopleThe demands to do somethingAbout this outrageous manBecame louder and louderHey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, heyHey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, heyHey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, heyHey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey"This man's just got to go", declared his enemiesBut the ladies begged, "don't you try to do it, please"No doubt this Rasputin had lots of hidden charmsThough he was a brute, they just fell into his armsThen one night some men of higher standingSet a trap, they're not to blame"Come to visit us", they kept demandingAnd he really cameRa ra RasputinLover of the Russian queenThey put some poison into his wineRa ra RasputinRussia's greatest love machineHe drank it all and said, "I feel fine"Ra ra RasputinLover of the Russian queenThey didn't quit, they wanted his headRa ra RasputinRussia's greatest love machineAnd so they shot him 'til he was deadOh, those Russians  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] 

In a matter of the people of the state of California, first is Hortonthal James Simpson, case number B.A.019. And so, my fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country. What's your drink? Tell me. So my drink is called Karkad. All right. You can talk about it. Okay. great because they did such a great job pronouncing it yeah okay so let's go ahead and get started welcome to doom to fail the podcast where taylor uplifts and i do whatever the opposite of that is

my name is fars i'm joined here by my co-host taylor hi taylor hello how are you groggy yeah it's like two hours ahead of your time and i'm still groggy and i don't chase kids and I'm still having a hard time. Yeah, it's Saturday. You're joining us from lovely, lovely Joshua Tree that is currently raining. Is that right? It is. We had tons of snow this week as well.

We had a couple inches that stayed on the ground for a while. So it's been wild. That's incredible. I love talking about the weather and it's been wild. Yeah, look, we're at that age where talking about the weather's kind of all we got. No, totally. I want to hear about it. Tell me what's going outside.

Look at your window. Give me a play by play. I want to know. It's overcast. I'm looking out right now. It's overcast. It's a little bit chilly. But it's supposed to be pretty good weather later on here in Austin.

I'm going to take Luna for a nice little hike and just, it's going to be an outside day, I think. Very nice. I'm going to Dallas next week. So I know that's far away from you, but I will be in Texas. Maybe I'll be there because I haven't been to Dallas and enough time to my parents are complaining about it. So maybe I'll join you there and we can grab dinner. Yay.

Let me let me admonish my dog for a second. okay i'm back uh taylor what is going to be your drink for today's episode um well i am shockingly going back to russia don't even drink that much vodka friday really like i feel like i've never had like have vodka at home but i'm going to try vodka again but i'll tell you about it in a second but first tell me your drink and then i'll go into my story well do you have a brand that you like oh and i feel like i don't know don't people like titos isn't that like yeah the in on trend right now it is awesome based so that would be great that's what i'm going with yeah perfect okay awesome um my drink i actually don't really totally know how to pronounce

this i'm going to try it looks like it's pronounced karka karkada carka da how do you spell it k a r k a d e h and it this my story involves an egyptian man which is why i went to egypt to find a traditional drink there it is made from boiling dried red hibiscus flowers with water then you chill it then you add sugar to it so it actually sounds really good i think starbucks kind of makes something like this yeah it looks like a Starbucks drink it's like I'm looking at it now it's like a deep red yeah yeah exactly exactly so I'll go into details of why I picked any you know who this person is and the connection to Egypt later on but that's my drink for the day

it's not alcoholic unlike your pension for just drinking straight vodka someday I will buy I'm in the morning I'll remember and maybe next week next week I won't go to Russia but I will drink vodka anyway. I'll just be like taking shots of vodka and like sleep all day. My husband and my family would love that. They'd be real proud of me. So Paris, we're going back to Russia again. And I know we've gone to Russia like a million times so far in this podcast.

And I'm trying to think about like why do I talk about it so much? Like what is my current problem? And I think it's because so many good stories that come out of Russia, so much tragedy, so much grandeur. There's just like a lot. it's so interesting because it's so isolated and it's cold and like i'm just thinking about like the idea of being in russia and there's this woman that i really like she was the editor of vogue of the 1960s her name's diana freeland she's like another like really like over-the-top personality she like smoked cigarettes all the time and like was like oh like very just very funny she was from

paris um and i mean i'm making like i'm moving my arms like you know what a lot of hand waving yeah a lot of hand waving so she was great and then there's a documentary about her called the i has to travel and in that documentary angelica houston is talking about her and she's like diana was like why worry about this and this one there's russia like russia like russia really big and it's like that's how i feel about it even though like i'm not super stoked about the current state of russia but it's like a i don't know how explain it does that kind of make sense why it's fascinating It is fast. I mean, their history's incredible. Yeah, the arts fantastic.

They have Faberj eggs. Nobody else does Faberjeet eggs. Yes, exactly. I feel like that's that's good. I get you, Taylor. Faberjeet eggs. That's exactly right. Exactly right. So today, the couple I'm going to talk about is a couple that Marcus Parks from last podcast on the left called one of the most tragic love stories of all time. because they were thrust into something they weren't prepared for. And like, yes, that's true, but you are also the company you keep and they kept company with Rasputin.

Yes, I knew it. The second you got up Marcus Parks, I was like, yep, yep, I know what you're going. So we're talking about the last emperor of Russia, Tsar Nicholas, and his wife, Alexandra. So some of the sources, I watched this amazing made-for-TV movie called Respure. Dark Servant of Destiny, and Alan Rickman plays him. It is unbelievable. So I took, I was like taking pictures literally of my screen to send them to my husband because it's so funny.

And then Google Photos made me this like really like stylized collage and just pictures of Alan Rickman as Resputin. It's hilarious. So I'll put it on our Instagram, but he does a great job. It's everything that you could ever imagine an Alan Rickman performance to be. Ian McKellen plays our Nicholas. It's great. So highly recommend I watch it on YouTube.

I also listened to last podcast's whole series on Resputin and read a little bit of a book that I wanted to read more of, but it's 25 hours long. I didn't have 25 hours to listen to it, but called about Resputin as well. So I'll put that in the notes. My favorite part of the Resputin series was when the guards had a scale for how drunk he was. yes drunk very drunk totally overcome with drink and then uh ben kissel at the end goes they left one off which is oh i'm just drunk enough to be good to drive right now exactly he was very drunk most of the time in this story but i also don't want to talk about him as much as i want to talk about Alex and and Nicholas because let's talk about their relationship but also like rest of

you and obviously played a big part of it so some of the characters that were going to meet. So Nikolai Alexandrovich Romanov, it was born in 1868. His father was in line to be emperor. And when his grandfather was assassinated, he became heir to the throne. So he was pretty worldly. He traveled around Europe, meeting with other royal families and Queen Victoria. So it sounds like he loved the rich part of being heir to the throne and the traveling and all of that. But he wasn't really. thinking about the ruling part or like actual politics. He was more like this is fun, having a good time. And 10 really thought through when he was going to actually be in charge. His wife, Alexandra, was born Princess

Alex of Hesse by the Rhine in 1872. She came from Germany, but she was also Queen Victoria's a granddaughter. So a lot of this is like, they're not related, but like everyone's related. You know what I mean? It's like a small pool. Have you seen the Kingman? The Kingman. Yeah, it's on Netflix.

um ray finds is in it oh yes i have it's all about this part of world history and how like those three the german guy um the nicholas and then the guy in the uk or the king george you talked about them already before but they were all like they were raised together like they were like yeah there were cousins like they were like very close to each other it's very it's an interesting uh dynamic they had yeah exactly so it's like the small pool of like royalty all over Europe and Russia and everywhere. So Alexandra was called Alex, and she seemed to be like a lovely child, but she was very shy and very introverted. And then diphtheria came through, you know, the palace and she lost a sister and her mother.

And she became like really brooding, like a very like melancholy child. She was very shy, very religious. So her being very religious plays a lot into this because she believes a lot of shit because she's very religious and people saw her as like maybe a little bit haughty but really she was just super shy so they met at a wedding of her sister to someone in russia and he nicholas was interested in her she was 12 he was 16 and she was like whatever they didn't get married right away and four years later they ended up getting married one of the reasons that she didn't want to was because she really didn't want to convert from being lutheran to being russian

Orthodox, but ultimately she does. So she does end up converting, but it stays very religious. So similar to Catherine the Great, she, you know, became Russian Orthodox kind of right away when she got there. Also, like political reasons, people wanted them to get married. And they did love each other. So all accounts, they loved each other, you know, they had like a good, you know, connection. They spoke in English, I think is, is funny. Like after, you know, living in Russia, they didn't really speak Russian in the court. They, they spoke in English to each other. And Alexandra goes to Russia. And right before their wedding, the current czar dies and Nicholas becomes the emperor of Russia. He was not ready. And he said when he found out

his dad had passed, he said, what is going to happen to me and all of Russia? They're just like, not a good sign. No. And he was not like a baby. He was 26. You know, so you should be prepared to take this job. Like, I'm sure. like um what's his face charles king charles has been preparing to be king forever even though he didn't get that job because he was like 80 you know but at least you know he was thinking about it for a long time yeah so he should have been more ready but he wasn't another thing that is like super contradictory to that because like he should have been more ready to be czar he wasn't but he like firmly believes that god made him czar like 100% like he believes that like god put him there and

everything that he says is like has to go because it's what god wanted and we talk about that i think before and other things as well it kind of goes hand in hand with the like any monarchy is that assumption that you're that much better than everybody else yeah exactly so that that just like makes you a weird person you know um taylor is that is that a is that a gray nation builder's shirt or a black one you wash these shit out of it's gray okay that was great All my black ones are gray now, that's why. Oh, no, it was always gray. But I do wear, I do rock this station.

This is the only nation builder short, I think I still have. Nice. I like it because it's cold. So, there you go. So, Zarniklist is from Katham the Great's line. And if you'll remember from episode one, Catherine the Great was great, and her son, Paul was not. He was the dope.

And one thing that Paul did was re-changed the law so that women couldn't be emperor. And that directly ties into our story as well later. And so we'll talk about that. And even though it was 150 years before that, it still plays a direct role. So I've got some background and some think about kind of the time that we're in right now. So he becomes a czar in 1896. And I don't know if you've seen pictures of Nicholas, but he has an amazing mustache. I don't know if that matters, but it's like a wonderfully curled up mustache.

He becomes czar 1896. they can get married. In 1904, there's a revolution. And it's more than just like, it's very complicated, but it's a revolution. There's a thing called Bloody Sunday where people are like revolting, people are starving. They want, you know, more, they need help, they need jobs, they need all these things. And the, there's like some orders and a lot of people die. And it's, you know, a pretty like turning point. There's a revolution in 1905. And Nicholas ends up giving up part of his power to a legislative body called the Duma. So he's already kind of has given up.

Taylor, can I cut you off real quick? Yeah. Here, look at, I'm going to share my screen with you. Okay. I'm excited. How do I do the whole desktop? This is the silent interactive part. Oh, my God, it's so funny.

Fars is showing me how our necklace looks just like Jack Dorsey. They're like identical, right? He really does. That is terrifying. For those of Jack Dorsey is the, um, was the CEO and founder of, uh, Twitter and swear, but he looks identical to the T. Oh my gosh. It's so amazing. Sorry to interrupt you. No, I think that that is some, that's important for everybody to know. Wow. There we go.

There we have it. Both have global implications for their jobs and leaving their jobs. Yeah, no kidding. Lots of similarities. that's amazing thank you for sharing that was totally worth it so yeah now you know what he looks like so he looks like jack dorsey with a gilded military outfit on um so there's also speaking of the military this is there's a rush of japanese war happening sometimes nicholas goes out with his troops but it's just like a long game plan he just like kind of doesn't really know what he's doing right now so we're also in a very heavy time with like occult things so far as, would you, would you, have you ever gone to a seance? Would you go to a seance?

Yeah, I would totally go to a seance. I had not gone to a seance, but I would. I don't know if I would. I think I'd be too scared. Like, I would really want to, but I think in the moment I'd be like really, really scared. I mean, I see why you would be, but I'm so, it's an Austin thing of like getting into like spirituality in weird ways, I think. And okay. Yeah, I think that's where the appeal would be for me. How many crystals are you wearing right now? I'm wearing one tiger's eye necklace, some lava rock beads, and then another bead that I don't know what it's made of, but it's, it's good looking. All right.

Well, those seem to be working well for you. Yes. But this is also a very heavy, like, time with it. It's like, it's the occult. Like, I don't know if you listened to the last podcast about Madame Blavatsky or, like, have, like, people who are like, oh, I can communicate with the dead. Like, come over. We'll have a seance. things like that and obviously a lot of it's like well most of it is probably all sham but you know

there's a lot of that happening and the rich people fucking love it because of course they do you love going to these things um so it's relevant to our story because rassputin is also in this so one thing that have you ever watched american horror story yes absolutely did you watch roanoke yeah so roanoke's my favorite season and remember the part where like in the first part of it when the wife is at home alone and it starts raining teeth and then her husband comes home and he's like, you need to calm down.

So at that time, my husband and I made a deal that if I say something to him, like Juan, it was raining teeth while you were gone. He will believe me and we will move because that is something that like you just don't make up. You know, so we're like, okay, let's believe each other. If I'm like, the chairs in the kitchen

rearrange themselves on their own, like believe me, don't gaslight me into thinking that I'm crazy. so that's our deal but also I think an exception to that is if one of us comes home and says hey babe I just met a wizard he's going to solve all of our problems we should step back and say no you did not yeah yeah makes it pretty pretty simple rule yeah so rest of you is I mean imagine him being a wizard he was born in Siberia in 1869 there's some great resources on him watch that movie with Alan Rickman it's so good but some of of the like fun things about him are i always think of him as so an ancient being you know but he's not there's pictures of him you know he's you know he died in 1900s not like he's an ancient mystic but he feels kind of ancient you know what i mean it was just good branding yes exactly it was exactly good branding and we'll talk about why like his so another just timeline thing like He had kids and his daughter lived until 1977.

So it's like there's, you know, she wrote a memoir about him that I didn't get to read, but I would love to read someday. He lives in Siberia, which is terrible. You know, it's just cold and awful. And he has a family. And he ends up, you know, being like, you know, kind of the town drunk, but I feel like everyone's drunk because you're cold. And he takes these like big pilgrimages walking across Russia in the name of God,

abandoning his family, doing all these weird things. But it's also important to remember he's never directly in the church. He's just like around. He just like wears robes and like hangs out. He's never like actually a part of the church. And he ends up making friends with these sisters who are called the Black Crows, who seem really cool. They're like also like, you know, mystical occult people.

But they're just like rich people having fun in St. Petersburg. And he, you know, starts to be introduced to like some more rich people. and that's the way he gets eventually introduced to the emperor. He is a weird guy. So it's like his personality is to be like eccentric. He comes in and he kisses people and he hugs people and he does a lot of like touchy things. He'll talk to you and then he'll like start like lowering his words and then like come back. And then he'll like turn and talk to someone else and then he'll like do something else.

So it makes him kind of like mysterious and enchanting. And he like does this like hilarious thing that he convinces people that in order to be forgiven they have to sin so he like that's how he gets that people to sleep with him you know things like that which is like sure i feel like uh from everything i've read about rascuant he he created that persona like that mannerism that you're talking about which i've read a lot about it feels like that was manufactured and actually not who he was who he was at his core was the village drunk but he wanted greater than that and then he's like what do i do he's like okay i got a walk a certain way.

You're going to have the right swag, right? Got to have the right voice, the right, like, all that shit. Right, exactly. To, like, be appealing to these people, to the people who, like, want something to happen. Like, the reason that, like, the occult is so popular is, like, these rich people want something to happen. So they're, like, looking for it. So they see that in him, exactly.

He has these piercing blue eyes, and everybody's, like, oh, my God, his eyes. And I just also wanted to state for the record that your eyes are not a window to your soul. That's dumb. It's not true. And that he just had blue eyes that are probably very watery. And people were like, ooh, they're sparkly. Eyes don't sparkle. Just eyes.

So. I don't know, Taylor. I don't agree with you. No. They're not. It's not, it's magical about people's eyes. There's eyes. They're just like gross organs, wet organs that you can see from your head.

You have a weird take on eyes. I don't know where this hatred comes from, but. I just think that they get too much, they get too much capability that they don't deserve. I mean, like, I'm grateful for them. but it's not a window to your soul. Okay, we'll agree to disagree. Okay, great. Agree or disagree.

So people are entranced by him. And I love the idea of like, you know, going to room and seeing this weird, you know, guy and everybody being like, this is the guy. But I feel like personally I'd be pretty uncomfortable if I saw him. And I'd be like, what is this? And I feel like nowadays I could probably walk a place and find like a dude with a bunch of crystals who's like, hey, like blah, blah, blah, blah. But like, I'm a little skeptical of that. but it'd be fun just to like give yourself into being like this is a magic mystical guy you know what I mean so you don't find my um this this tiger ride necklace magical or whimsical at all

no well I find you whimsical but not because not because of the necklace there we go that makes fun um but it's also like I don't blame people for falling for this or like being a trans by it it's like when you meet like Bill Clinton and people are like you're the only person in the room when he talks to you, which is true, because that's his job. They can't understand how to talk to people. So that's kind of what Resputein is doing. I also was thinking, and I'm curious, like, I don't feel like I hear this about women very much,

that, like, idea that, like, you just entranced everybody. So I want to learn more about that. So if anyone has stories of that, please let me know. But he ends up, Respitent ends up being introduced to Alexander Nicholas, and they love him. They love that he's mysterious. They call him our friend. He hangs out with him all the time.

He promises to, like, do matter. things for them. There's an awesome scene in the Ellen Rickman movie where he meets Alexander for the first time. And he's like, Mama, Papa, blah, blah, blah. He calls him Mama and Papa. He's like, always on the floor. Real weird, but they love it. And back to the Zars and that line that we talked about where Kevin the great son, Paul, said that women cannot be the emperor. They have four daughters, which we've learned before is gross. No one wants daughters. So they have to have a son. So Alexander and Nicholas finally have a son. His name is Alexi, and he is super sick.

He's a hemophiliac. And this comes directly from Queen Victoria. She's a hemophiliac and brought that into the line. So then, like, Alexandra carries the gene, and then her son has it. So basically, if he gets, like, bruised, he can die of internal bleeding. He's, like, always in pain. So he's just, like, a little sickly little child. And somehow, Rasputin does actually help Alexi in, like,

some way that like is don't really understand there they talk about it in last podcast it's like in a lot of the books like he did potentially make him feel better and maybe a lot of it's like psychosomatic like having this wizard over you makes you feel better um but one story that is kind of crazy he used to heal him like over telegram if he was like near death he would send a telegram to the family and be like he will be fine blah blah well one one thing i remember from that was he would tell the doctors to stay away from him because they would keep giving him aspirin at the time they didn't realize that aspirin was a blood thinner which is the worst thing you give to somebody who's a hemophiliac yeah totally totally which i think is that sounds true but like how did the rest of you

know that did he like what well one of the one of the other things i read was that um he had nurses there who would intentionally get him sick or make him feel worse so that he could come in and be this wizard who fixes him. I would totally believe that too. Yeah. Yeah. And so for better or worse or however it happened, he did seem to heal the boy enough so that they were like really beholden to him and like really

needed resputein around. But they also didn't tell anybody that the boy was sick. So they were spending all this time with respute and people, most people around them were like, what the hell is going on? Like is it a sex thing? What does he have over you? Like, what is this is he having an affair with the empress which like he was not he's you know sleeping with a lot of people but not her and he's like this weird drunk guy around all the time and all these things but i think people would have maybe understood if they were like we think

he heals our son but they didn't tell anybody that they didn't tell anybody that Alexi was hemophiliac so that's um kind of making everything worse there was a reason for that i don't remember what it was but it was something around how they couldn't let the next because i think that at that time nicholas thought that his grip on the monarchy was tenuous anyways and he also thought that if he said that the next in line was a sickly child it would have made it even work because i think the duma was trying to convert to a constitutional monarchy at that time or uh whatever you call it you know that's right like like the uk yeah exactly yeah so that's exactly right so they if they would have known you know maybe people have been more sympathetic but he was

definitely like, this is, I have a very, like, loose grip on this anyway. I can't let people know this. You know, there's a lot more about Resputin, but he's starting to put his friends into power. It's just like, again, like a better emperor would have had better advisors than Resputin and Resputin's friends. So a lot of it is like, if you're in charge or something, like a country or a company or anything, like you need to hire the right people and they were not hiring the right people at this point. So a lot of people, long story short, a lot of people are mad at Resputin think he's a weirdo. So, you need to hire the right. So, you need to hire the right. So, So on December 29th, 1916, a group of people decide to assassinate

Resputin and it's a whole deal. So they end up bringing him over and giving him cyanide-laced cake and wine. And Resputin just like does not die. Probably because he was alcoholic and his veins and stomach is lined with vodka. So like that happened before too. They also thought part of it was, I'm going off the last podcast memory here, but Rasputin was stabbed in the stomach at one point in his life. Yes.

And they had to cut out a bunch of his intestines to, like, make him whole again or healthy. And they also assumed that because of that, because the cyanide didn't, wasn't able to travel through and digest and absorb through his intestines completely, like a normal person, that's probably what saved them. Yeah, totally. Absolutely. That totally makes sense. Because he definitely, like, ingested a lot of cyanide and did not die, like they expected him to.

And eventually they end up shooting him in the head and dumping him in a river after all, after all this. So Rasputin dies and it's already a very tumultuous time in the palace. And so Alexandra and Nicholas are sort of like resigned to it. They're like, okay, like they're trying to figure out what to do, what to do next. So essentially, like there were a lot of problems in Russia. We had all these revolutions, all these wars, a better emperor, a different emperor could have, you know, navigated World War I better. He could have, you know, helped his people more, but he, you know, was not able to, Nicholas was not able to effectively address these problems. And the government

was seen as corrupt and ineffective, you know, because of a lot of reasons, but that, you know, became the whole impetus for the whole revolution. And he is, in 1917, he is, like, taken from the throne and the family is brought to Siberia to live in exile. So the girls, Sykelexi, Alexander Nicholas are kind of taken prisoner and the Bolsheviks become in charge and the emperor line of Russia is over. So now he's the last of the Russian emperors. Maybe he could have done a better job. He didn't really want to. He relied a lot on on Alexandra who also didn't know how to rule. They were both kind of like living their life. They were very concerned about their son. They were concerned about religion. They were concerned about mysticism. They were trying to like live this life that

wasn't compatible with the time because the time was like a really revolutionary time and things were going to change no matter what so if they would have done them like maybe they could have done the constitutional monarchy and there could have been an emperor like they have in the UK with the queen and the king or whatever but they didn't and they ended up you know in this place in in Siberia and it ends for Alexandra and Nicholas in a really terrible way they are in this place in Siberia in exile and then they're brought to the basement on July 16th, 1918, the whole family, along with some other, you know, of their friends are brought to the basement, and they are shot to death by a couple people just shooting into the crowd of people in this basement. So they're trapped in this basement. They're shot. It sounds awful. They actually do it in the Ellen Rickman movie. They do it in a very like slow motion, chaotic way. But the parents, Alexandra, Nicholas die right away. The girls, which is, this is also terrible, don't die right away because they had like jewels and gold sewn into their dress that they had like taken from the palace. And that kind of acted as a bullet professed for them. So they didn't die right away. They were just like injured and they ended up like being stabbed or shot at close range to die. So all the Romanovs are killed in the basement. They put them in the back of a like cart to take. take them away to bury them and then like the guys driving the cart are also drunk everyone's tired no one wants to do it so they just kind of bury them in a field and they ended up finding their their bones like pretty recently in identifying like who they were but um that's how they ended off as like you know heirs to a really great empire and coming from these really rich families and they ended up being you know shot in in a basement and buried in a field um so one thing that I

I remember, again, this is one of those rare topics that you bring up that I actually know a lot about. I love it. Please tell me more. It's so interesting. To me, they, the way they struck me forever was this is just a married parent couple. Right. No part of the story as I read it, listened to it, understood it was you're dealing with these Uber powerful people who like, understand the gravity of what their responsibilities should be.

They were lit all of this was because of Alexi. All of it like Rasputin's involvement, the way that everybody felt around the two of them was all tied to Alex because again, nobody knew what was going on with them, except the parents. So right. So there was no trust in them and in their government.

And like, yeah, you're right. They seem like just like, they seem like just people. don't seem like an emperor yeah yeah and i think like that's the for me the the doom to fail part of all this is that i don't know what you do with you're them because it's just not in their character to be these people but i don't know if it's not then maybe you just don't maybe you advocate i don't know yeah i think that you you surround yourself with smart people and people who are smarter and people who know what they're doing so it's not like he became emperor and there was

no one to help. There were people who had been like AIDS to his father and his grandfather forever. So they could have like continued to help him. But he was just like a little bit like, well, I mean, everything I say is right because God made me in charge. Like Henry the Ace did. So I'm going to do these things that maybe aren't advised correctly. So like you should have people around who are super super smart and really, really good at their job. But instead they like had respute in around because they were afraid their son was going to die. And they like invited his friends around. And it became like a. I don't know, like a group of people who didn't weren't qualified for the job. Yeah. Yeah. You know. So, it's unfortunate. It is unfortunate. It's not a fun story.

I think that Rasputon adds this element of like comedy to everything. But it's just generally like a sad, awful, especially the way they died in that basement with their kids all next to them. The other unfortunate part of it is that it ushered in linen. And then it ushered in beyond that, Stalin. Like all the downstream horrible effects were because of, frankly, Nicholas's lack of leadership. Exactly. Because of this poor leadership and because they were not, you know, at all prepared. And then, you know, all these things happen.

And we get to, you know, where we are today. So fun times. Very, very fun. I recommend anybody who is interested in this, go listen to the last podcast on the left episodes. So I think it's, it might be five parts or four, I can't remember. It's four. Yeah, but it's based on their focus was Rasputin. But again, he's the critical figure in this country at that time.

Yeah. They said, they said something in that that I thought was really interesting, which was like, if you, because like I just said, if you didn't have Rasputin, then you wouldn't have had, sorry, Nicholas over, run over by the Bolsheviks, which means you don't have linen, which means you don't have linen, which means you don't have Stalin, which means you don't have the allied powers of world. What they said was really interesting was, RASP was weirdly one of the most consequential humans that has ever existed, because all the downstream impacts of it, you probably don't even have the 2016 election because you don't have someone like Putin who is a KGB officer and Saul.

Right, you don't have like Russia on Facebook. Yeah. And I think, yeah, and he was just like a peasant from Siberia who wanted to do something exciting. So he was like, let me go for a walk and see what happens, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Pick your friends wisely. Exactly. Well, thank you for that, Taylor. That's awesome. I'm really glad. Yeah, I'm really glad you covered that one. It's such an interesting story. So I'm going to segue us into the true crime side of our doomed to fail stories.

So my story this week elicits a lot of feelings for me. Okay. For one, it starts as a story I can totally resonate with. if it wasn't clear by my name already to folks or general appearance, I'm Middle Eastern, I'm Iranian specifically, and my family immigrated to the United States when I was two years old. So in 1986, for folks who don't know, Iran's history in the mid-70s onward was very, very turbulent. And I'm not going to go down a history rabbit hole here, Taylor.

Like, that's a you thing. But it's important for the context of setting this up, what was going on. But the TLDR is that Iran was, basically a secular country for most of its history. It was a constitutional monarchy leading up to the revolution in 1979. With that revolution, the leadership and institutions that were ushered in were focused primarily around Islam and forcing a strict moral code on people, which is where we're at now. So if you follow the news even a little bit, that's why women are protesting why they can't go see soccer matches or why they have to keep their hair in a, I don't know what you call it, the hijab thing.

Yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, there's constant protests that are immediately followed by executions because that's a kind of... Right. But also, as far as dealing with this dog, but it's not just going to soccer games and wearing the hijab. It's like they can't go to the doctor unless the doctor's a woman. Also women can't be doctors. So yeah. Yeah. It's, you know, I put this within the context so I could actually have folks try to conceptualize what this actually means. Because that's how quickly things shifted in Iran specifically was. 79 it happened like you are living one way again it's just it was a secular country the shot there was no auspices of religion there so to put it in context imagine you're living your cool hip life in L.A. or New York going out with your friends meeting people and then one day you have police telling you to stop holding hands with your partner that all the places that you socialize are shut down like that's how stark and different things ended up being which is you know like again like I have a point to all this but

about what happens to those people who are like no i'm not going to live like that like all the cool people leave right like all the ones who are not insane religious zealots leave because or well then the ones who have the opportunity to right they have the right the ones that can so and that's exactly what my family did right they were like they made a decision that we do not want to be religious zealots so we're going to leave and that's what we did and that's how we ended up in texas so the reason i'm bringing all of this up is because as i mentioned the start of this story resonates with me because it is about someone trying to escape their home country for a better life but this story also enrages me because of what one member of this family ends up doing

I am going to shit on religion a little bit on this. We've never done that before far as that's totally off character yeah it's totally off for me yeah it will be a thousand percent justified every time I do it so I'm I'm gonna keep going on this rants because I'm like riled up now and this has nothing to do with what's in the outline if you come to the United States for a better life because you're trying to escape

things that are going on in your home country, don't try to make this like your home country. Right. If you're already decided, like, unless something bad, don't bring the bed with you. Yeah, it has nothing to do with assimilation. Really, like, maintain your language, maintain your religion, maintain your whatever, but don't be the thing that you needed to escape for a better life. That's my general thesis to anybody who is, you know, over here from a different country, Anyways, whatever. I'm going to keep, I'm going to get into more romance later. No, totally. I want to, I want to know more because I'm also curious is like, is that how hard is that to do? Well, I actually do put that in the outline. I actually discuss a piece of this in the outline because I think that there's a point in time when you have to decide.

At what point do you have to diverge from your cultural understanding of the world? and there's going to come at a point in time when this guy could have done it and he didn't do it and I'm going to point that out I'm going to put a punctuation point on that so the person we're discussing is a guy named Yasser Abdul Syed

Osir is from Egypt and he came to the U.S. at 26 years old he did it for exactly the same reason anybody does it. It's for opportunity specifically he was here to pursue higher education because in those countries I'm not going to keep going down that ramp But, like, it is impossible to get, like, a decent education there if you're not, like, the 1.001% of smartest people in the country, basically.

Yasser married an American woman named Patricia when he was 30 and she was 15, which we've learned a lot about this dynamic. How they meet. I actually don't know how they meant. But I would say that... Not at a bar. Definitely not a bar. On Tinder. But I would say that

I discuss Patricia sparingly here because I mean I hate to be mean about it but she just seems like a nothing like she just seems like a nothing person like just like an empty vessel basically so the two of them would go on to have three kids they have a son named Islam who was born in 1988 a daughter named Amina born in 89

and another daughter named Sarah who was born in 90 so three kids to say Yasser was controlling as a bit of an understatement. He had an almost abnormal predilection to know exactly what his daughters were doing at any given point in time. By all accounts, this behavior did not extend to Islam. He really didn't give a shit what the son was doing. Got it. It's on the person. Yeah. Yes, exactly. And this is where my speculation is going to come a bit into play. There aren't. I've watched a lot of news shows about what goes on here. I've read a lot about it.

but it's not a super meaty topic um people we don't go into a ton of details about the inner workings of these this family or the news doesn't really go into the inner workings of this family very much so there is going to be some speculation here because again i feel a little bit like it's appropriate for me to talk on it given that it's a western guy and i've like i'm we'll get into it so part of the speculation is i'm assuming and i think correctly that part of why he really didn't care about Islam, the son, I'm just going to call him the son because it's confusing. Yeah. Versus a daughter is really religion. It's cultural.

Mm-hmm. I think Yasser came up in an Islamic household and in a country where women just aren't seen as equal to men. He doesn't have to keep tabs on the son because the son probably, he, in his mind, he knows what's up. It's the girl's got to keep tabs on. Right. Per usual, I hate making excuses for this type of behavior. but I feel like if you've lived in that environment for 26 years, breaking that programming has to be hard. Yes, totally. That's what I was thinking, yeah.

I referenced a little bit earlier about like where that divergence happens. I think in any situation, a person who has been programmed by life or culture or whatever it is comes to a certain point and then has to make a decision. Go with the programming or break the cycle. that is an inflection point I think happens again as an immigrant like I can speak with some knowledge of that like there you reach a point where like this is what I know this is raised what do you do what path do you take here yasser is going to take the exact wrong path and we're going to see that happen here in a moment so going back to the two daughters there were reports of abuse of course there were some physical abuse and by some accounts sexual abuse as well. I won't go into them, but mostly it's because that's not the interesting part of this story. The interesting part is the extent to which Yasser wanted to control the daughters. He almost sounds like a jealous ex-boyfriend. Like he'd go through me. Yeah, 100%. He'd go through their phone. He would record them without their knowledge to see what they were talking about. And in particular,

or he had an extreme aversion to them, I mean, really just growing up and dating boys. That's what it was. Yeah. The latter part, the dating boys part, seems to be the biggest trigger for Yasser. There were multiple stories and accounts of these, this understanding that Yasser was very violent.

Can you hear that? Is your dog? Yeah. I can kind of hear it, but I barely. I don't think I was able to hear it. They might think it's farts, though. It's not funny. you've heard that feedback your brother's so wrong like if he re listens to it i don't even know

how you would make that sound like the pitch of it is obviously the yelp of a dog you heard that you hear that cancate talking to you yeah um so so like i said with with with with with yostra the trigger with him was really like the girls and their relationship with with boys he did one of these gross old guy things that was just all about like protecting the virtue of his daughters there's one story about how when amina turned 16 yasser took her to egypt to marry a friend of his which at this point yasser's 48 so how old is this friend who's marrying a 16 year old also these girls were born in the united states are born in Texas like right they you know what I'm getting flashbacks to that family

the one with the dad who looks like Harry from dumb and dumber where it's like where you have exposure to the real world and then now you're going to Egypt to marry some guy and be in this like Islamic family like I don't know it it sounds awful yeah obviously the more he pushed the girls in the way that he pushed them the more he repelled them So Amina starts dating a boy she meets in a karate class. They would have to use code words and stuff to get around Yasser's surveillance, which just shows really the unflappable resolve of a teenage boy dating a girl. I know, poor guy. Seriously, poor guy.

At one point, Yasser suspected that she was dating someone and beat these shit out of her to try and get her to tell him the boy's name. She took the beating. she refused to give the boy's name because she legitimately thought he would kill him if she did wow yeah again constant theme that i read over and over again was like yeah the mom thought that he was going to kill them he was going to kill her like constantly it comes up over and over again the mom just yeah like she just seemed like maybe it resigned to it that's probably the right i shouldn't talk bad about her like i think that she was just so beaten down by this guy that she was just like whatever whatever happens yeah why i mean like i don't i'm so sorry but i don't

understand why he's so mad because he wants to like he wants them to just completely be controlled by him then like why i wouldn't send them to school okay so that so that's the thing like that's why i mean i hate to say this way i know this guy like i grew up with guys like this I'm not going to go into details because it'll be obvious to people who hear the story you know me, like what I'm talking about. But there's something about this cultural grip that when some people just can't handle it. Like it's almost like a known thing when you come to America that like if you're from one of these countries, it's almost known that some people just can't take it. But it's too much stimulation, too much going on. I think that he just falls in this category.

I don't think that it was like, I'm so mad. I think it's like a, I'm just out of my element thing. Totally. Yeah, I definitely don't understand that. So I appreciate that perspective because I'm getting it. Yeah, it's a thing. It really is. So that relationship with Amina progressed to the point where her and the boy actually got engaged.

To me, it's just cutesy teenage bullshit. He probably got her a ring out of one of those gumball machines, you know? It's horrible. By some accounts. that I actually couldn't verify. The other daughter, Sarah, had also started dating someone and also got secretly engaged.

To me, the girls at this point, as I was reading this, it sounded like they were just trying to find any exit, any way to fly. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm sure those boys were like very, I don't know, like brave and like comforting, you know, they'd be like, it's going to be okay. Yeah, of course.

So I'm going to take us on a bit of a side quest here. Taylor, have you heard of the concept of honor killings before? Yes. I think that's when like a dad kills their daughter to stop her from doing something that would dishonor the family. Like, yeah, that's roughly it. So I put a little bit of facts together here. So I did a bit of research on this and several things I found will probably shock no one. Again, I'm not trying to shit on religion or the ethnicity. But obviously, this is something that happens in Middle Eastern cultures. Like that's not prejudice or racist for me to say. That is actually what ends up happening. So I remember Taylor when I was around 16 years old, I found this book at the library because I used to actually read that was called the stoning of Soraya M. And because it was framed as like an Iranian book, it was, it is, it's about an Iranian woman. I picked it up because I was just like trying to learn more about like Iran and what goes on there. And I was 16. I thought, okay, let's see what this is all about. It's the true story of a woman named Soraya in a village in Iran whose husband wanted to marry someone.

someone knew, but didn't want to return her dowry or support to families at the same time. So he spread a rumor that she was having an affair. So the village in her own family would agree to kill her by stoning her to death. That is exactly what happened to Ann Bolin. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. He wanted to marry someone else. Yes. So he accused her of having an affair and had her killed. Yeah. I guess, I guess this is more common than it probably should be. I put this part in. I literally wrote this is for one. because he asked for more gruesomeness. So in a stoning, what ends up happening

is the victim is buried in the ground, up to their neck, and people will just take turns throwing stones at their head. In Soraya's case, it was documented that her father had to start the process. He was the first one to throw the stone, followed by her son, and then followed by the guy, they made up the story about that she was cheating

on her husband with. He didn't get killed. Like, that guy was fine. But he did have to also throw rocks this woman's head. But they all, like, knew that it was a lie. The husband knew was a lie and the, this guy knew was a lie. Yeah. Yeah, but apparently when it was his turn, he was supposed to throw a few.

And I guess he threw one and he just picked up the other stone and was disgusted and just threw it away and walked away. He just couldn't do it. Oh, how brave. I know. Yeah. So super awful story and also surprisingly not uncommon. The vast majority of honor killings are women and girls, as you stated. the exception of men really being homosexuality, or if they're caught, you know,

diddling a kid or a family member or something like that. The UN estimates that about 5,000 of these killings occur annually. And as the name implies, and as you also mentioned, the killing is meant as a way to restore the family name when someone is perceived to have dishonored it. So I did a lot more research on this. Don't need to go into details. The one thing I would note is that the Quran actually itself does not reference or bring up the concept of death for the sake of honor so it is what it is it's a weird thing because

i feel like there's no like in my family there's no like dishonor the family thing you know like it just doesn't mean that we like think of i mean look look i can i can feel this even from my perspective of like you know having to be a doctor or a lawyer an engineer like it's it's it's a no like if you weren't then that is a dishonorable like it's a thing it really is. Totally. So going back to our story, these girls are basically constantly plotting their escape with the boyfriends, why they're getting engaged anyways. And Yasser is a constant terror to be around. And on January 1, 2008, he tells the girls to get into the taxi cab he drives for work so that they can all go get someone to eat. By all accounts, they do not want to do

this. They are terrified of this guy at this point. He drives them to a park in a lot of a hotel and a part of Dallas, which I'm actually like really, really familiar with. My mom used to work like right here. It's called them, it's, this part of Dallas called Las Kalinas. And he parked his cab at the Omni Hotel there. After which he promptly turned to the girls who were in the back seat and shot them. Oh, Amina died. Yeah, Amina died. Yeah, I actually talked about that here in a psych. Amina died instantly. Sarah actually lived long enough to call the police, call 911, and explicitly said, said that her dad shot her oh my god in total he shot off 11 bullets which like in the in the back

seat of the car yeah i mean i've been gun shooting and i've had like the headphones on it is deafening with that situation much less than the inside of a car so like i said amina died right away it was actually sarah who took the run of it because he how old are they oh i should know that. I don't know. Hold on. So this happened in 2008. Amina was 89 and Sarah was 90. So Sarah would have been 18. Yeah, Sarah would have been 18 and Amina would have been two year or year older than that. So 19. Yeah. So like I said, Amina died right away. It was Sarah who took the brunch. She took nine shots and then also survived for a little bit. Going back to my side question, um this is classic honor killing to the tea it's actually how the police also defined it he did

this because the girls were dating american boys and he couldn't handle it because in his mind based on his behavior they were his property and he chose who they should be married to which right again was like a mid 40s man in egypt you and when i said you want them to live in egypt yeah yeah even though after he left yeah yeah which like I mean to his credit good for self-awareness of knowing that you probably don't belong living here like it's this is not your vibe so when I said earlier that there's an inflection point whether you go to your programming or you alternate this is that moment this is the time when you decide upon self-reflection my I got to find a way to be cool with my daughters dating these guys and move beyond it. or go to my programming. My programming is telling me I got to kill them. That was the decision point that he chose to go this route, which again, I would say in any

situation, most people come to this country in an immigrant capacity. You probably experienced that in a much less severe way, but it is, it is relatively common. Yeah, that makes sense. So like I said, this all happened at the very, very start. It was Jan 1 of 2008. from that day until August of 2017 so just shy of 10 years nobody heard or saw anything of yasser what yeah he just kind of vanished they actually thought that he went back to egypt but they couldn't find any records of it he walked away from the car he got out of the car after he shot them

and poof that was it wow yasser also has the unique distinction of having been placed on the FBI's 10 most wanted list in 2014. Wow. Yeah, I actually used the way back machine to figure out who else he was on the list with, which is like he was on the list with some crazy, crazy people. He was on a list with this guy who was a cartel guy who was like a captain in some cartel. Like he was big enough to where he was one of those guys who would like get plastic surgery done in his face so that nobody could recognize him, which is insane. Insane level of like there was another guy who was on the list, who killed his wife, killed his two kids, then blew up their house that they lived in in Scottsdale, which, I mean, don't do that again, but the flare for theatrics

is kind of appreciated. But my favorite guy that he's on the list with is this guy named Semyon Mogulovich, who the U.S. government describes as the most powerful and dangerous gangster in the world. He's basically the head of the Russian mafia. Yeah. Not cool. That's terrible. No, it actually is super cool. You should read this guy's Wikipedia page.

His aliases alone are like several paragraphs long. What's his name again? I'm going to type it down. Semion is S-E-M-I-O-N. Oh, I can't, right away. Semian-M-Golovich, criminal, it says. Yeah. Okay, I'll read this one.

It is, his life. So I wrote this, I wrote this at some point, if we ever start covering just like random people that we find interesting. I 100% am going to do this guy because it is, like, he sounds like a fictional John Wu character. Like, he sounds like he belongs in all the WIC movies. It's fascinating.

So, okay, but just so everybody knows, like, that's the caliber of people that he's on this list with in 2014. Wow. So going back to Yasser. In 2014, his dumbass son rents an apartment in his own name

in Texas. The son, the son was obviously trying to protect his dad so when police showed up to interview is i mean i wrote Islam but i'm just going to call him the son because it's confusing they showed up to interview with the son he was just very defensive uncooperative so somebody had mentioned that they saw a figure inside this house because everybody's looking for this guy they'd been looking for like 10 years at this point right and it makes sense that he would still talk to his son because he like care of the son yeah yeah 100% the son was protecting him throughout this whole thing so please show up talk to him the sun gives them nothing overnight whoever was in that apartment disappeared the fbi

showed up the next day they broke in and they just nobody was there the fbi found a pair of eyeglasses and they used this thing called dna kinship analysis which means they built a DNA profile of yasser by like reverse engineering it so essentially they took dried blood from the girls which they had they took an oral swab of patricia which they had and they created a dna profile of yasser and they conclusively determined that eyeglasses were his. So they knew he was in the area. They knew that someone was protecting him. So that's a lot of information.

Go ahead. Sorry. No, but how did you get your DNA from your glasses? I guess, like maybe if there's like a thing of hair or dandruff on there. I don't know. I don't know how any of this works.

This happens, but then nothing happens again. It'll be another six years before authorities catch wind of where these guys are again. And they see Islam, again, son and his uncle, just name your kids something different, like Christians and his moms, like. Yeah, Christian, I feel like we accept that as being a name, but when you like think about it more than four seconds, you're like, that's a weird ass name. Yeah, like, I'm not going to name my

son Protestant boy. Like, why are we cool? Anyways, whatever, it doesn't matter. Yeah, no, totally. Um, they spot the son with his uncle. So Yasser's brother is also a part of this dynamic and helping them out. And they're going in and out of a house and a part of town called Louisville. The FBI gets a warrant and enters the house. They fine and finally arrest Yasser. Wow. They also arrest the brother, sorry, the son and Yasser's brother the same day for aiding into bedding a fugitive. Yasser went on trial actually just last year. It's very recent. Wow. This all happened in 2008. He just went on trial a year ago. Wow. His absolutely inscrutable defense is that someone was threatening him and his daughter

in the cab that day and so he parked the cab and walked away leaving his daughters alone with this person who was a threat to them because he thought that the guy was after him and not the daughters that that was his argument that's his defense that the guy would like follow him yeah the guy would follow him and not the daughters oh my god that's dumb and not true yeah the jury took three hours to deliberate which i'm shocked at this like i was like i wrote they must have had like a two and a half hour lunch break and they counted as part of the deliberation because i have no idea how this would take you three hours to figure out so yasser unsurprisingly gets life a life sentence without the possibility of parole he's incarcerated this place that

sounds really charming it's called b county it's very very nice name yasser's son also gets seven years and his brother gets 12 years and they arguably got it a little bit worse since they're actually in a federal prison there goes that he took out a lot of people down with them. I want to circle back to the topic of our show and what it means here and what it means, again, to me personally. Like I said before, I grew up with guys like this. Like I understand guys like this. And like I said, I can literally think of three men off the top of my head that obviously didn't take it this far, but were in need of control and possession more than would be acceptable in modern society.

And I wrote down here, you know, all this is culturally informed while living in a culture that doesn't adhere to those beliefs, which I think is where that juxtaposition happens on someone's mind, which is like, how do I reconcile that? I would say this. If you're dating someone whose background is historically on the extreme conservative side of things, pay attention to things. If a guy tells you what to wear, how to act, that's not something that's going to wash away by you asking him to chill that's entrenched programming it's not look this is like look

i've been framing this as like a middle eastern thing it's not even really that like it's think about the entire middle of this country think about the hardcore conservative guys who i mean those are also a demographic like this that don't want women to show their faces right so i don't know i would just say like again go my the topic of this show like pays attention to this stuff like it's it has consequences obviously patricia divorced him in 2009 after the murders but like wow whatever like she didn't really help her daughter she can really protect them and i don't think she really had the wherewithal to do that anyways so yeah and like yeah there's like a weird thing in in like conservative christianity where there's like the purity thing with your dad were you like

so weird you know like a purity ball and like promise to remain pure into you marry which is stupid and like not real um it's so creepy i so again like i was raised in texas and like i knew kids growing up where like they're going to a dance with their dads to talk it's all sent around your virginity like yeah do you not think that's weird so weird anyways yeah it's so weird it's so weird it's so weird to think that much about your yeah it's weird i don't i don't know and i think that but i think he was back to something that we said a bunch is like controlling women for whatever reason you feel like you have to yeah yeah yeah so that's my story luckily this guy's in jail he's going to be in jail for the rest of his life um i went down so many side quests on this one what was the what's the

is the doomed part that trying to move your culture into another culture it's so much of it it's it's just go back to egypt man like yeah just go back to egypt like you'll find a nice girl there you'll get married and she won't show her face like i like just she'll your kids will adopt that as their personas like i don't know why you have to do that here so that's a part of it and the other part is obviously the marriage of Patricia where again I don't I'm gonna sing a swan song for her but she sounds like she just had literally no power control to do anything and I think that's the age difference I think that some people frame their culture as this incredibly incredibly important thing I'm gonna have this conversation

So I had this friend, I'm going to bring up exactly how I know him, because again, it's going to give up too many details. But I had this friend, he's a white guy. And him and his girlfriend went to Spain, and they went to like the bull show, the running of the bulls, right? Uh-huh. And they recorded this and they played me this video of it. And they were just like, we just have to honor their culture. I'm like, no, you don't. This is fucking savage.

This is like, fuck their culture. like this whole excuse of like it's my culture i'm so vehemently against that because like just because you were raised in a certain way doesn't mean that's how it should be basically right totally so yeah i think like in this case it's like i think that part of it is patricia was again trying to be super chill and was like i'm not raised in a very in-depth culture so i don't know how it is so this must be how it is it's like yeah you can also call that out you can also be like yeah actually fuck that part of your culture it's stupid we should abandon that yeah but that's like there's so many people who are so like violently obsessed with their culture

which is like all this of that's happening in the middle east right now because they're like this is and like who's to say like there's like I don't want to say like who's right and who's wrong but I also want to be like I do believe it's wrong too not like women outside there's a thing that um people iranians do that i am going to the next generation i'm going to change the tide of us doing this completely it's called tarofing which is you constantly are trying to like get people to like you're trying to offer them things in a way that's just absolutely annoying like imagine sitting at a dinner table. In every two minutes, your grandma or a relative is just like, have you tried that salad? It's really good. You should try that salad. I'm okay. Like two minutes later. Have you tried

that? It's really good. It's like, it's like, what? Just leave me a lot. Or, or the worst is when you go out to dinner. And it's just like, everybody just like tries to shove their credit card at the waiter. And like, I stopped even trying when I'm in those situations. Like, dude, whatever. Like, take it. Like, it's fine. Like, I'm not even like, if this is how you want to live, like, We could just split it. We just have to be normal people and split. But whatever. Let them pay.

That's a cultural thing that Iranians is absolutely driving nuts. So anyways. Yeah. Well, that was terrible. Those poor girls. Yeah, no kidding. That's terrible. They had no idea what they were signing up for.

I know. That's a lot. Like for those kids, they were just kids and probably like, you know, love their cute little girlfriends. and so we're just like they're just normal you know that could have been like i don't know cute little happy and also Patricia is white yeah which i feel like i just i'm finding on google and so like yeah they it wasn't like i don't know that's too bad that's really sad and it's definitely like i wonder what he did for those years that he's on the run yeah yeah i think

his son support him his brother support him i have no idea and what a way to like i i know that we've we've definitely talked about the hot take of don't kill your family hot take don't kill your family but you can also like you said i can leave them just leave them you'll also never talk to them again just go go somewhere else go to egypt like you said like just leave so many people so many people have multiple families just have your family here you got it out of your system who cares leave them go to egypt yeah you can pretend they're dead they're dead to me get out of here you know but they don't have to actually kill them i feel like we're just like we're just like therapists for psychopaths at this point i just i mean we have so many good ideas which are like

don't kill people have you worked on even wizards have you worked your eyes are not the window to the soul have you worked disagreed have you worked more on your um dating app for widows yet no widow wouldn't you um no but i think it still is a top priority for me because i think it's it's it's a gold mine. How many widows? How many widows are there in the world? In their 20s

are there in the U.S. Love and loss, no, older adults. What percentage of widows are under 40? Oh, 5%. Okay, that's not great. Not great. Yeah, we're not going to, we're not, my Moomoo idea was the right idea. That's what we actually should have done. Fine. Okay, this is maybe my second second plan

is it my widower would you but yeah I mean I think also like there's a lot of people in the world so

go find someone else if you feel like killing your partner then we do yeah yeah I'm a I think I've shown

that I'm a firm staunch supporter of not murdering partners can you also when you when we're done listen to the

the disco hit the rest of the respute in where it goes rah rah rah Sputin. Have you heard that song? No. Well, look, I'll put that in the, in some notes as well because you should listen to that after.

Love it. Um, cool. Well, that's our story. Taylor, thanks for sharing yours. Yeah, thank you. Hopefully you have a lovely weekend in Joshua Tree. Thank you. You too. And, um, I will, yeah, thank you, everyone for, for listening and subscribing. Please give us those reviews and email us at Dummedafelpod at gmail.com. have any ideas. Questions? Yes, all of it.

Thanks, everyone. Thanks all.