Futility Closet - 198-The Man Who Wouldn't Die

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 10,000 quirky curiosities from Lincoln's lost speech to a literary fugue. This is episode 198. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1932, a quartet of Bronx gangsters set out to murder a friend of theirs in order to collect his life insurance. But Michael Malloy proved to be almost comically difficult to kill. In today's show, we'll

Starting point is 00:00:38 review what one observer called the most clumsily executed insurance scam in New York City history. We'll also burrow into hoarding and puzzle over the value of silence. During the Great Depression, the unemployment rate in New York City was nearly 50%, and that pushed some people to desperate extremes to make money. One of those people was Tony Marino, who owned a speakeasy, a clandestine bar, on 3rd Avenue in the Bronx. This was the height of Prohibition, and Marino's place attracted local hoodlums and ne'er-do-wells who might go to unusual lengths to make money. One afternoon in July 1932, Marino was drinking with two other regulars, Daniel Kreisberg and

Starting point is 00:01:20 Francis Pasqua, when Pasqua said, why don't you take out insurance on Malloy? I can take care of the rest. Marino understood what he meant. Michael Malloy was one of Marino's most dedicated patrons, a homeless alcoholic Irishman who had once been a fireman but who now spent nearly all his time drinking. Pasqua was suggesting that if they took out a life insurance policy on Malloy and then Malloy happened to die, they could make some considerable money. This wasn't a new idea. Earlier that year, Marino had befriended a homeless woman named Maybel Carlson. He gave her an apartment and convinced her to take out a $2,000 life insurance policy and name him as the beneficiary.

Starting point is 00:01:55 Then, one bitterly cold night, he'd given her drinks until she'd passed out, then stripped off her clothes, doused her with water, and pushed her bed under an open window. The medical examiner had listed her cause of death as bronchial pneumonia, and the insurance company had paid Marino $2,000. Pasqua was suggesting that they do the same thing with Michael Malloy. How hard could that be? Malloy looked to be at least 60 years old, he drank all day long, and he didn't appear to have any relatives who might miss him. After some discussion, Marino agreed to the plan. Pasqua, who was well-connected, set up meetings with local insurance agents, and soon they had three life insurance policies on Malloy, one with Metropolitan Life and two with Prudential.

Starting point is 00:02:31 All three policies came with double indemnity, which meant that they'd pay double in the event of an accidental death. If everything went as planned, the killers could make $3,576, or about $65,000 in today's money. Malloy happily signed the policies because he considered these men his friends and because Marino had promised him unlimited drinks. The killers agreed that Pasqua would pay the premiums and that Marino's bartender, Red Murphy, would pose as Malloy's brother and beneficiary. The initial plan was simple. Tony Marino gave Malloy unlimited credit, and the killers hoped he would simply abuse that and drink himself to death. They figured that access to unlimited alcohol, especially with their encouragement, would finish him off within a week. But after two weeks, he was still alive, and he was eating Marino's bar

Starting point is 00:03:12 food as well, sardines and crackers. He'd even gained some weight. That was disconcerting. The killers put their heads together. Maybe Malloy was so accustomed to drink that his body was inured to it. Murphy, the bartender, suggested that they replace Malloy's whiskey and gin with wood alcohol. Marino got some from a gas station, and Murphy gave Malloy a few shots of regular whiskey and then made the switch. Malloy drank several shots, showed no effect, and just asked for more. He went home that night as usual, and the next night he was back at Marino's, seemingly as healthy as ever. This was hard to believe. In 1929, at the height of Prohibition, more than 50,000 people nationwide had died from drinking impure alcohol. A 1927 report had shown that downing three drinks that contained just 4% wood alcohol could cause blindness, and the

Starting point is 00:03:55 killers were serving it up to Malloy straight up. But it didn't work. The New York Evening Post wrote he didn't know what he was drinking was wood alcohol, and what he didn't know, apparently, didn't hurt him. He drank all the wood alcohol he was given and came back for more. One night he collapsed to the floor and the others gathered around, hoping he'd finally succumbed. But after a moment of silence, he began to snore. According to one story, he woke up a few hours later and said, give me some of the old regular, me lad. The New York Times later wrote, the plotters tried to kill the man with good liquor and bad, but there was something about Michael Malloy that even denatured liquor could not affect. Some writers tend to exaggerate this part of the story.

Starting point is 00:04:30 They say that they also gave him antifreeze, turpentine, and even horse liniment with rat poison. But wood alcohol alone is impressive enough. Whatever they were giving him, Malloy wasn't dying, and the whole scheme was getting expensive. While they were waiting for Malloy to die, the killers were having to cover his bar tab, maintain a supply of wood alcohol, and pay the insurance premiums. They met again to discuss it and Pasqua had another idea. He dropped two dozen oysters into a jar of denatured alcohol, let them sit there for several days, and then offered them to Malloy. Pasqua hoped that the alcohol would prevent Malloy from digesting them properly, giving him a potentially fatal case of indigestion. Pasqua was an undertaker by trade and had once buried a man who died of a

Starting point is 00:05:09 massive gastrointestinal infection after eating a meal of oysters and impure whiskey. He was sure that without proper medical attention, Malloy would be dead within two days. But Malloy merely ate the oysters and washed them down with his wood alcohol. Pasqua said later he seemed pleased rather than ill. Malloy got drunk as usual and staggered home. When he came back the next day, Marino asked how he was feeling, and he said, never felt better in all my life. The Home News later reported, by this time, according to police, the plotters decided Malloy was an iron man, that he bore a charmed life and couldn't be killed, but they had paid the premiums on his insurance and wouldn't give up without trying everything.

Starting point is 00:05:44 So what next? Some of them just wanted to beat Malloy over the head, but Murphy had a creative new idea. Poisonous sardines with garnishings of tin. Marino's speakeasy offered sardines as part of its free lunch tray, and Malloy used to make sardine sandwiches. So now Murphy opened a can of sardines and left them on a shelf out of sight for several days. When they were half rotted, he put them on a slice of bread and added some metal shavings. Here again, sources differ. Some say that he also added broken glass and carpet tacks. Whatever the contents, Malloy showed up that evening and downed a shot of his regular wood alcohol, and then Murphy offered him the sandwich. The Herald Tribune later reported, Malloy ate it and liked it. He finished the whole sandwich with

Starting point is 00:06:22 no apparent ill effects. The gang watched him all night, but as with the wood alcohol, he showed no signs of harm and even asked for another sandwich the following night. So that's regular alcohol, wood alcohol, bad oysters, and bad sardines. Maybe it was just impossible to kill Michael Malloy with food and drink. But there were other ways to kill someone. Marino remembered Mabel Carlson, the homeless woman who had frozen to death at his hands. That had been the perfect crime. He'd come away with $2,000 and no one had suspected any wrongdoing. It should be easy to do the same thing to Malloy. He proposed it to the others and they agreed. By now it was mid-January and the temperatures at night were dropping into the low 20s. On one of the coldest nights that winter, Marino and Pascua got Malloy to drink himself

Starting point is 00:07:01 unconscious, then put him in the backseat of Pascua's car, drove him to Crotona Park, dragged him to a bench, stripped off his shirt, and poured a bucket of water over his head and chest. Malloy didn't move, and they left him there. Surely this would have to work. Malloy would either freeze to death on the bench or die slowly afterward of pneumonia. But the next morning, Marino opened the speakeasy and found Malloy sprawled in the basement next to the stove. Apparently he'd woken up, walked the half mile back from the park, and persuaded Murphy to let him in. One source said that he complained of a wee chill. And soon enough he was back at the bar drinking wood alcohol as if it were water. This was beyond ridiculous. It was now nearly February and another insurance premium

Starting point is 00:07:39 would soon be due. If food, drink, and cold wouldn't kill Malloy, they'd have to try something more violent. Someone suggested a car accident and and after some reconnoitering, they found a cab driver named Hershey Green, who agreed to run Malloy down for $150. On January 30th, 1933, when Malloy was nearly unconscious with drink, they drove him from Marinos to Gun Hill Road and stood him up in the middle of the street. Green had just started the car toward him when a woman happened to put on a light in a window. They bundled Malloy back into the cab and drove him to a more secluded street. There they held him up in the roadway again while Green reversed the cab and took another run at him. Malloy turned out to be surprisingly nimble. On the first two tries, when the men threw him at the approaching car, he managed to stumble out of the way.

Starting point is 00:08:20 But on the third try, Green hit Malloy, who rolled up the windshield, hit the asphalt, and rolled into the gutter. Green drove another 200 yards, and when he looked back, he could see a car stop beside Malloy's body. He picked up the other gang members, and they went back to the speakeasy, sure that Malloy must now be dead. As you will by now have guessed, he wasn't. Three weeks later, he limped into the bar and said, I sure am dying for a drink. He told his friends he'd been recovering from a car accident. He didn't remember it himself and wasn't sure of the details. A policeman had found him on the sidewalk and

Starting point is 00:08:48 taken him to Fordham Hospital, where he'd been diagnosed with a fractured skull and some broken bones. Incidentally, there was actually a second hit-and-run connected with this ridiculous story. When Malloy disappeared and the gang couldn't find any stories about a hit-and-run in the local newspapers, they visited Harlem bars until they found a heavy drinker who looked like Michael Malloy, got him drunk, put an ID in his coat pocket to fool the insurance companies, and ran him over with a cab. Amazingly, that guy didn't die either, though he spent 55 days in Lincoln Hospital recovering from his injuries. Anyway, after all that, they were still on square one. Michael Malloy was back in the bar, and apart from a limp, he seemed as good as new, or at least well enough to drink the bar's liquor, eat the bar's food, and

Starting point is 00:09:28 cost the killers another insurance premium. Pasqua finally decided to give up on double indemnity, trying to make the murder look like an accident. He suggested they just kill Malloy outright and get a crooked physician to declare a natural cause of death. The others agreed. They didn't know it, but their original plan had been bad anyway. Death in an auto accident would have qualified for double indemnity, but death by eating a sardine sandwich or drinking wood alcohol wouldn't. Anyway, in the end, they decided to gas Malloy to death. Red Murphy and Daniel Kreisberg rented a room in a local boarding house posing as factory workers. The room was lit by gas light, and the gas nozzle was right on the wall over the bed. On the night of February 22nd, Murphy kept Malloy drinking until he passed out, and the gas nozzle was right on the wall over the bed. On the night of February

Starting point is 00:10:05 22nd, Murphy kept Malloy drinking until he passed out, and then Marino loudly suggested that Murphy take Malloy home to sleep it off. Murphy and Kreisberg carried Malloy to the boarding house. They put Malloy in the bed, shut the door, attached a rubber hose to the gas valve, put the other end of the hose in Malloy's mouth, and packed a towel over his face to close his nostrils. Then they turned on the gas. In less than five minutes, Michael Malloy was finally dead. Frank Manzella, the crooked doctor they'd hired, issued a false death certificate claiming that the cause of death was lobar pneumonia. They put Malloy in a $10 box and buried him in a $12 charity plot in a Westchester County cemetery.

Starting point is 00:10:39 So the gang had finally achieved its goal, but the plot fell apart pretty quickly. Different sources give different reasons. Some say the gang collected $800 from the Metropolitan Insurance Company, but then failed to divide it evenly, which led some members to complain publicly. Others say that Prudential got suspicious because Molloy had been buried so quickly, or because some of the gang members were in jail for various crimes when the insurance claim was made. And some say that police heard rumors about someone called Mike the Durable in local speakeasies. And they may have remembered Mabel Carlson, who had died mysteriously of pneumonia near the same speakeasy, especially since her beneficiary was Tony Marino.

Starting point is 00:11:13 Whatever the reason, police arrested the gang, and District Attorney Samuel J. Foley said he'd bring Marino, Pasqua, Murphy, Kreisberg, and Green before a Bronx grand jury. After five days and 20 witnesses, the jury returned first-degree murder indictments against all of them. At the trial, an assistant medical examiner and the city toxicologist testified that Malloy had died of monoxide gas poisoning, not pneumonia. Frank Manzella, the crooked doctor who'd signed the death certificate, pleaded guilty to failing to report a suspicious death and agreed to testify. And Green, the cab driver, accepted a charge of assault rather than murder, since he wasn't a murderer, he hadn't managed to kill Malloy with his cab, and agreed to testify in exchange for a 10-year sentence. The gangsters blamed each other, pleaded insanity, and generally panicked. Murphy refused to talk, Marino had memory problems, Kreisberg suddenly wasn't sure what had

Starting point is 00:11:59 happened in the boarding house. Finally, they pointed to a local gangster named Tony Bastoni, who they said had forced all of them to kill Malloy. Conveniently, Bastoni had been shot to death recently, so he couldn't contradict them. But in the end, the case against the gang was too strong. Two material witnesses, James Saloni and John McNally, said they'd been offered first $200 and then $400 to run Malloy down before Green had been hired, and prosecutors pointed out that one of the gang members had collected insurance on Mabel Carlson a year earlier after she died in suspicious circumstances. The jurors deliberated for 13 hours and found all four men guilty of first-degree murder. Marino, Pasqua, and Kreisberg went to the electric chair on June 3, 1934, and Murphy followed them a

Starting point is 00:12:38 month later. He won a brief reprieve while the courts evaluated his metal status. Foley, the district attorney, said afterward, I don't want to give the impression of gloating over these convictions, but once more a Bronx jury has upheld the local reputation for common sense and courage. I think it was a proper verdict for a most cruel murder, which was inspired by nothing more than sordid greed. Hershey Green, the cab driver, went to prison for assault, and so did Frank Manzella, the crooked doctor, as an accessory after the fact. And Michael Malloy was returned to his grave. This story is awful all around, but one thing I kind of like about it is that if the accounts are accurate, Malloy had been the victim of six successive murder attempts and never knew about any of them.

Starting point is 00:13:14 He'd been either unconscious or too drunk to remember what had happened. So from his perspective, his life was pretty good. His friends bought him drinks, offered him food, took him in from the cold, commiserated about his auto accident, and finally put him to bed. From Michael Malloy's perspective, his life was an uplifting story about the value of friendship. Futility Closet is only here today because of the support of our incredible listeners. We just wouldn't be able to commit to the amount of time that the show takes to make if it weren't for the donations and pledges we get.

Starting point is 00:13:51 If you'd like to contribute to the celebration of the quirky and the curious that is Futility Closet, you can find a donate button in the support us section of the website at futilitycloset.com. Or if you'd like to support us in a more ongoing way you can join our patreon campaign where you'll also get access to outtakes extra discussion and information on some of the stories more lateral thinking puzzles and updates on sasha the official futility closet podcast and chief mouser you can check out our patreon page at patreon.com slash futility closet or find the link at our website and thanks so much to everyone who helps make Futility Closet possible.

Starting point is 00:14:33 In episode 193, Greg told the story of Homer and Langley Collier, the so-called Hermits of Harlem, who in the 1930s and 40s filled their New York City home with 140 tons of stuff. Jason Cutler wrote, The story of the Collier brothers is sometimes referred to as a famous example of hoarding, though at the time that diagnosis didn't exist. Greg was just trying to tell the story as it was known and understood at the time, and I actually had some questions as to whether we could be sure that hoarding disorder would actually be the correct diagnosis in this case, which ties in

Starting point is 00:15:20 with the email that Danielle Hebe Yes sent about the story. Danielle said, as this behavior is seen commonly and in many social strata, I started thinking where to draw the line between a compulsive behavior and simply having too much stuff. So he helpfully consulted the current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-5, written by the American Psychiatric Association. This book is usually seen as providing the official diagnostic criteria for mental disorders in the U.S., so I was interested to see the official criteria for hoarding disorder that Danielle sent. They are persistent difficulty discarding or parting with possessions regardless of their actual value. This difficulty is due to

Starting point is 00:16:01 a perceived need to save the items and to distress associated with discarding them. The difficulty discarding possessions results in the accumulation of possessions that congest and clutter active living areas and substantially compromises their intended use. If living areas are uncluttered, it is only because of the interventions of third parties. The hoarding causes clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning, including maintaining a safe environment for self and others. The hoarding is not attributable to another medical condition or better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder. So as with many mental health disorders, the distinguishing factors between having what would be considered to be a diagnosable illness versus what would be considered to be just part of the vast range of more normal human experiences

Starting point is 00:16:50 comes down to the level of distress or dysfunction. Feeling anxious or nervous sometimes is not considered to be a disorder. Being so anxious that you are frequently highly distressed or unable to function adequately might be considered a mental health issue. So the difference between hoarding disorder and just being a pack rat hinges on the level of distress or impairment that the behavior causes. Now making this kind of distinction can sometimes seem a bit arbitrary or be a bit of a gray area trying to establish just how much distress or impairment is too much. Though I would think that in the case of the Collier brothers, most people would agree that there, the level of dysfunction was clearly too much.

Starting point is 00:17:30 Yeah, and that list you read seems to fit them pretty well. Mm-hmm, right. Now, in the story that you told, it seemed to me that Langley was the one making all of the decisions and that Homer was just following Langley's lead. And of course, in the later years, Homer was completely dependent on Langley. So I was focusing mostly on Langley as being sort of the active one of the pair. And what gives me some pause

Starting point is 00:17:54 about diagnosing him with hoarding disorder is the last criteria, that the hoarding isn't better explained by the symptoms of another mental disorder. Okay, because it sounded to me like overall Langley was pretty odd in several different ways, and that isn't typical for hoarding disorder. What I was actually thinking of when I heard the story was schizotypal personality disorder, which in a nutshell is someone who is pretty far out there on the eccentric continuum. People with this disorder show a pervasive and persistent pattern of just being pretty odd. They may dress oddly, exhibit odd behaviors, beliefs, or speech, have a general suspiciousness or even paranoid ideation, feel uncomfortable

Starting point is 00:18:37 interacting with people, and lack close relationships other than their family. And what we know of Langley seems to fit with a lot of that. And so it's possible that his hoarding behavior was actually a symptom of a schizotypal personality disorder. All of those things. He had bits of all of those things you just mentioned, and in particular, this sort of paranoia. He would set up booby traps. He would set up boxes around the house so that if an intruder came in, he'd stumble over them. He put up, you know, grills and things over the windows. He seemed very concerned about people breaking in. Yeah, and he didn't seem to want to interact with other people, which, I mean, that's just not typical for people with a hoarding disorder. And he had, like, these odd ideas, like, that oranges were going to cure Homer. Like, he just had some strange ideas that you couldn't really

Starting point is 00:19:23 account for. And couldn't attribute to a hoarding disorder. And people had mentioned that he dressed oddly and just looked odd. Yeah. So now, of course, it's definitely possible that Langley could have had more than one mental health problem. So it seems to me that whether or not he would qualify for hoarding disorder comes down to what his motivations were for filling his house with so much stuff. The types of motivations underlying

Starting point is 00:19:45 hoarding disorder tend to be believing that items need to be kept because they might be needed or be valuable in the future, feeling that items have too much sentimental value or are too irreplaceable to throw away, having an unusually strong emotional attachment to things, or feeling overly anxious at having to make decisions about whether to discard or keep something. So we don't know whether Langley's motivations were similar to some of those, or were perhaps somewhat more unusual, like you said, like a paranoid idea that he needed so many possessions to act as defensive fortifications and to create his booby traps in order to keep him and Homer safe. That was a funny part of researching that story, is that they...

Starting point is 00:20:22 I went through all different accounts of that and you get a lot of lists of the things that were found in the house but you never hear from langley himself about why what they meant like they found an x-ray machine in there why did he think he was going to need it was he attached to it somehow reluctant to let it go or did it mean did it have some other meaning we don't know about right and that's the problem right there is that we don't have any evidence of what Langley was actually thinking. And as I said, the diagnosis of hoarding disorder didn't even exist at that time, so no one would have thought to have asked. You can find examples of hoarding behavior in literature and psychological case studies going back to the 19th century,

Starting point is 00:20:59 but hoarding only really started to be systematically studied in the 1990s. And it wasn't until the most recent edition of the DSM, which was published in 2013, that it was defined as a disorder in its own right, and not just as a possible symptom of another disorder. So I guess unless someone uncovers a diary that Langley kept explaining to us what he was actually thinking, we may never know for sure exactly what was going on for him. we may never know for sure exactly what was going on for him. Another aspect of the Collier brothers' story is their apparently enduring legacy in that area of the country. I hadn't heard of them before hearing Greg's story, but apparently some other people had. Jay wrote, when I was a youngster, my father would look at my messy room and snort,

Starting point is 00:21:40 it's like Collier's in there, clean it out. Thanks for finally explaining what he meant. I saw a lot of that in the research that apparently became sort of a saying, at least regionally up there. And a lot of people said it without knowing what it meant or what it referred to. Now they know if they listen to our show, right? And Matt and Christy McElligot wrote, dear Sharon, Greg, and Sasha, this past weekend, we had an unusual futility closet coincidence we wanted to share with you. We were out for a hike, driving down a rural stretch of highway in the Catskill

Starting point is 00:22:10 region of New York, catching up on a couple back episodes of our favorite podcast. Greg was finishing up the final sentences of episode 193, the story about Homer and Langley, the Collier brothers. Just as he concluded, we drove past one of those adopt-a-highway signs that pepper the side of the road. A couple minutes later, Christy turned to me and said, this sounds weird, but I swear a sign back there had their names on it. I had been thinking the same thing, but assumed it was just my imagination. What were the odds? I pulled over, we turned the car around, and drove back. Sure enough, this is what the sign said, Homer and Langley's Mystery Spot Antiques. It was a strange coincidence to pass that sign at all, but to do so at that specific moment while we

Starting point is 00:22:51 were finishing that particular story was surreal. Of course, we had to track down Homer and Langley's Mystery Spot, and it did not disappoint. Turns out it was named for the Collier brothers. Thanks again for all the work you do to bring history alive in such a fascinating way. And that really was an amazing coincidence. Matt sent a couple of photos and quotes the Mystery Spots website, which says, The Mystery Spot is a shrine to clutter. As a child growing up in New York City's Chinatown slash Lower East Side, proprietress Laura Levine still remembers being warned by her mother that she might end up like one of the Collier brothers if she didn't clean up her room. Did she listen? You be the judge.

Starting point is 00:23:42 And the description of the shop on its website is packed to the rafters with vintage clothing, unusual antiques, collectibles, thousands of used records, found objects, and downright oddities, which does sound a lot like the Collier's home, though based on the photos of the shop on its site, it seemed a lot more organized. And on a different note, it turns out that our podcast can be used to coerce children. Christina and Corbin Suppock wrote, Greetings to our favorite podcast hosts and cat. Just a quick note of gratitude for all you do.

Starting point is 00:24:14 After hearing about your podcast over a year ago, it's become a regular on our long drives. Recently, our seven-year-old Corbin requested Futility Closet while running errands around town. However, the greatest accomplishment came today while helping him clean and pack his bedroom. We're moving to our first home. Yay! He asked to listen to the newest podcast, so of course I obliged. After a bit, it became more play than clean for him, and I threatened, get to work or I'm turning off Futility Closet. Did he ever scramble? LOL.

Starting point is 00:24:43 Thank you for engaging my son to love history and amazing stories and to clean his room. We hope to soon get your books for some fun bedtime stories. With much appreciation

Starting point is 00:24:53 for all you do, Christina and Corbin. P.S. If you could possibly send him a hello on your next cast, he'd be over the moon. So hello to Corbin.

Starting point is 00:25:03 Yes. And of course, Christina too. And congrats on your new home. And now if Corbin doesn't keep his room clean, Christina can tell him that it looks like the Collier's in there and warn him about what happened to them. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. We always appreciate the feedback and updates. So if you have any to send, please send them to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle.

Starting point is 00:25:35 Greg is going to give me an odd sounding situation, and I have to figure out what is going on, asking only yes or no questions. This is from listener David Marrero. A world famous music group is on an international tour. Everywhere they go, they are greeted with adoring fans who go wild at their concerts, until they land in a country where the band's arrival is met with angry protests and even death threats. At the very first show they play in this country, the audience is quite reserved, not clapping and shouting wildly like audiences elsewhere. Reflecting on the experience later, the band members are appreciative of the experience

Starting point is 00:26:06 and find that it made them a better musical group. Why? Made them a better musical group. Does it matter what kind of music they're playing? I'm going to say no, not terribly. Not really? No. Does it matter what gender they are?

Starting point is 00:26:23 No. Okay. Is it something about, like, does it matter what the they are? No. Okay. Is it something about, like, does it matter what the name of the group is? No. Are there words to, I mean, are they singing? I don't know if you mean musical, like, instrumental or musical, like, their songs. No, they're singing songs with words. Their songs with words.

Starting point is 00:26:41 Is it the case that, like, one of the songs has lyrics in it that people in this country would find offensive? No. Let me say this. I'll explain the reason that some of the audiences were angry, but you don't need to pursue that to solve this. The real thing to solve here is why would they be appreciative and think it made them a better musical group? Okay. So you don't have to work out why the audience was upset. But I have to work out what they learned.

Starting point is 00:27:11 Why would they be grateful for that? Why would they be glad it happened? Okay. Does it have anything to do with their audio quality? Like they've learned something that'll have them do better audio quality in the future? Something like that. Something to do'll have them do better audio quality in the future? Something like that. Something to do with the technology behind the audio quality? No.

Starting point is 00:27:30 No. Something to do with, okay, is this going to involve multiple members of the group? I'll say yes. Okay. So it's not like one person primarily. Right. Multiple members of the group. Does it matter how many?

Starting point is 00:27:43 Not really, no. Does it matter what their role in the group was? No. No. So multiple members of the group felt like they learned something from this experience. Yes. And would therefore produce better music in the future? Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:58 Better music or just better sounding music? Better, well, that's what you mean by better music. Okay. Better music. Better, well, that's what you mean by better music. Okay. Better music. Because you could have, like, they're going to play it and sing it exactly the same, but it's just going to sound better because they're going to improve their audio quality somehow. No, it's not that. Or you could have that the music itself will be changed in some way.

Starting point is 00:28:16 Yeah, it's the latter. So I have to figure out how they changed their music or why they changed their music. Why? Why they changed their music. Yeah yeah you don't need to know like specifically what change they made uh do i need to know what country this was no i didn't even think to ask that does this have anything to do does this have something to do with some characteristic of this country like uh the the political regime or the religion that's predominant there or so it doesn't really matter what country this was in no again you don't have to know why they were reacting that

Starting point is 00:28:51 way just that they were the audience was more subdued and and quiet okay all right so okay so you said it's going to change is it going to change how they sing yes specifically yes it's going to change how multiple members of the group will sing. Yes. They're going to sing differently in the future. Yes. I mean, in addition to other things, yes, that's probably one of the factors. But would you say that they're going to be singing the same songs with the same lyrics? Yes. But they are going to, as people, sing differently, try to sing differently. Than they had been, yes. Yes. Are there some characteristics about this group that I need to know? Like specific characteristics of this group that makes them unusual? As performers? Yes. No.

Starting point is 00:29:38 Okay. It's a group you've heard of. Does it matter who the group is? Yeah, that would help you to know. Oh, it would help me to know. Would you say it's a rock group? Yes. That are still performing? No. Oh, from the 70s? June 1966. June 1966.

Starting point is 00:29:56 Is it the Beatles? It is the Beatles. It's like the 60s Beatles. It's like my go-to answer. You got it right on the nose. Anything from the 60s has to be the Beatles. Okay, so the Beatles performed in a country and got a subdued reaction, and because of that started singing differently.

Starting point is 00:30:13 Would you say they were harmonizing differently? I don't know specifically, but let's say yes, just to keep it specific. I'm kind of confused here. What do you know about the Beatles' live performances? Not much, honestly. Or the audiences at those performances? They're usually women. Were these predominantly men that came to the performance?

Starting point is 00:30:36 Um, no. Oh, I thought it was like women who like passed out or... Well, you're on the right track there. How did audiences behave when the Beatles were performing live generally? They screamed and cheered and yelled and passed out. Right. I don't know. So the difference here is that this audience was not...

Starting point is 00:30:52 Was not doing that. In a long time, they wasn't doing that. Oh, so it was that they were finally able to hear themselves playing better than they usually were. Yes. And they realized that something they were doing wasn't coming across very well. Right. Because they could finally hear it.

Starting point is 00:31:07 That's basically it. In June 1966, ultra-nationalists protested the Beatles' concerts at Tokyo Nippon Budokan Hall, a martial arts venue that protesters considered close to sacred. Because of this, security measures were extremely tight during the Beatles' entire stay in Japan, so much so that there were 3,000 police officers at each performance compared to 10,000 audience members. The presence of the officers subdued the crowd, making it unlike any since the onset of Beatlemania in 1963. Unlike the screaming audiences they were used to, the relatively hushed crowd allowed the Beatles to actually hear themselves perform and take notice how severely their playing had devolved. They were out of tune, off-tempo,

Starting point is 00:31:42 and generally under-rehearsed. They held an impromptu rehearsal backstage and had improved by the second show, but less than two months later, they had decided to quit touring and rededicated themselves to innovating and experimenting in the studio. By the end of the year, they had started work on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. Oh, wow. So thank you, David, for sending that. Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. This podcast would not still be here today if it weren't for the generous support of our listeners.

Starting point is 00:32:13 If you'd like to help support the show, please check out our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset. Or see the support a section of the website at futilitycloset.com. or see the support a section of the website at futilitycloset.com. While you're at the site, you can also graze through Greg's collection of over 10,000 concise curiosities. Browse the Futility Closet store, check out the Futility Closet books, or see the show notes for the podcast with references and photos for today's topics. If you have any questions or comments for any of us, you can email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by my phenomenal brother-in-law, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening,

Starting point is 00:32:51 and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 198-The Man Who Wouldn't Die

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