Good Job, Brain! - 17: Off With Their Heads

Episode Date: June 25, 2012

ALRIGHT ALRIGHT I'LL TALK! We explore the history and validity behind classic and historical execution and torture methods: guillotine, iron maiden, Catherine wheel, walk the plank, and Chinese water torture. More importantly, find out how Van Halen and Barney the dinosaur saved the day! ALSO: Music Round takes a trip to the movies, "Um...Actually" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, smart, smooth, smoking, smashing, and smoldering smilers. Welcome to Good Job, Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 17, and of course, I'm your humble host, Karen. We are your amusing and animated alliteration adores admitting assonance abuse. So we have a, to start off the show, we have a quick correction segment, which we're going to lovingly called. Actually. Um, actually.

Our last episode, I think we confused assonance with alliteration, just to clarify everything. So alliteration refers to... It's at the beginning of words, kind of consecutive words. Repetition of consonant sounds at the beginning of consecutive words. Not necessarily. It doesn't have to be consonant. It can be vowel as well. My understanding was it's just repetition of whatever the sound is at the beginning. Okay.

So alliteration refers to the repetition of a particular sound in the first syllables of a series of words. Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds and only vowel sounds to create internal rhyming. So it's within. An example would be how now a brown cow. Right. And then there's also consonants. And consonants is the same thing with assonance, but it's with consonants, obviously. So it's the repetition of the same consonant in short succession.

So an example would be all mammals named Sam are clammy. Pitter-patter is both alliteration and consonants, because we have the T-P in the beginning for alliteration. So. Gee, cool. Yeah, a lot of people wrote it and a lot of word nerds out there. Yes. We are sorry for being jackassinence. Sorry.

Jack-assonance. Jackassence. We aim to get it right. Should we introduce ourselves? Oh, yes. So, of course, I am Karen. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And I'm Chris. Yeah. Call monitor. Let's do this. Let's jump into our usual general quiz segment. Pop Quiz hot shot. Get your barnyard buzzers ready. Yes.

I grabbed my cock. Okay. But what? This is a family starting salty. Sassy. All right. All right, Blue Wedge, let's go. The Galapagos Islands are part of what country that was Colin?

I believe it's Ecuador. Correct. The islands lie about 600 miles west of the mainland and known for tortoise. Yeah, tortoises and lizards. Okay, Pink Wedge, pop culture. On the TV show, Arrested Development. Yes. What is the name of Michael Bluth's son?

That was Dana. George Michael. Correct. George Michael. Played by. The inestimable Michael Sarah. Yes, Michael Sarah. And Yellow Wedge.

The minimum legal age for what activity was established in July 1984 in most states. Dana. Is it drinking? Correct. Age established was 21 and this was 1984. What was it before? States had all different drinking ages before. In the 80s, the federal government said that it would start restricting highway funds to states if they didn't make their drinking age 21 on the idea that a lower drinking age caused more accidents.

Got it. De facto federal drinking age is 21, but there is no law that says that it has to be 21. Right. Okay, let's do Purple Wedge. Who does a Bartolator worship? Chris Bart Simpson Incorrect

Colin I'm assuming it's Bartolator Would that be William Shakespeare Correct Oh bardolator Bartolator Bartonator

Bart Simpson Okay Green Wedge for science The markings on a tabby cat's head often resemble what letter What a weird question It's an M Correct

Yeah. Well, you do have cats. I do have cats. I am a cat person. Okay, last question. Not that you're a hybrid man cat. He's a liker, really. What have you heard? He's a liker. Okay, last question.

Chris is going to get this one. Hooray. What chef's signature shoes are orange crocs? What? I'm going to get this one? What chefs? Signature shoes are orange crocs. Like those rubber. Like the rubber.

orange rubbery shoes. So, I'm going to, is it Emeril? Incorrect. Why would I get this? Because it's a food thing? I don't know. Gordon Ramsey. No, Mario Batali.

That's what I was thinking. Yeah, I did not know that. What? No, I had no idea. Oh. I didn't know that. The crooks. The crooks.

All right. Good job, Brains. And let's get into our topic of the week. It's inspired by a lot of our personal quirks and fascination. A personal weird thing about me is I can't I can't watch horror movies because I can't stomach gore But I'm so curious about like what happens and how people die and I know sounds kind of morbid And so one of the series I really Like reading about not watching reading about is the saw movies The soft series of all the traps with all the elaborate contraptions

Exactly I don't know why it's just it's it's very creative and it's kind of I don't know Well I think it combines the appreciation for Rube Goldberg machinery with just the macab which I think a lot of nerds would admit to liking both of those things and I remember I confessed this to Colin years ago and I was like oh I don't you know I'm kind of weird but I really like reading about like how people die and stuff and Colin's like me too because you used to have you used to read like books about traps from like dungeons and dragons exactly I had friends growing up who would play dungeons and dragons and I was always far more interested in these collections of gruesome traps for the dungeon master to set and I would just

read them as little stories almost. I found it so fascinating how Hadevius people can be. And I, personally, think you're all left in the head. I was forced, at forced at podcast point to read all about these crazy things. As you were talking, like a little wave of dread, like, washed over me. I'm feeling a little nervous now. I did not know that about you guys. Why are you guys sliding your chairs the other day? Hey guys. So for today's episode, we will be talking about eccentric and classic punishment methods throughout history. Run to the hills.

Run for your lives. Run to the hills. For your life There's always been this fascination Like even if you go to like a Ripley's Believe it or Not museum today Especially the one that's in Times Square Where there's like this massive room Full of like medieval torture devices

So people in contemporary times Have always kind of been fascinated by older torture devices Things that were used or may have been used in medieval times And even like in the 18th, 19th centuries Like there'd be exhibitions of medieval torture devices Things like that And so you know you have ones that are meant just simply to mess with people or leave them disfigured, right?

But then there's actual, like, devices that are used for, like, execution. Right, right. That are sanctioned by some sort of authority or a government. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's not just, like, something that some guy has in his basement, right? Right, I mean, right. Or not that the Spanish Inquisition wasn't sanctioned, but, yeah. Well, I think, you know, it's interesting we're talking about the difference between stuff

that's just to kind of torture and maim and stuff that's official punishment, Really interesting to me. And, you know, as we're talking about getting ready for the show, capital punishment comes from, as we know, the Latin root for head. Capitalist. Capital. Right, yes. So removing the head is the classic form of capital punishment.

You know, I have been really interested in the story of the guillotine for a long time. Speaking of removing heads. Speaking of removing the heads and official mechanisms, it's just one of those stories that is just so full of irony and all kinds of historical intrigue that. So, I mean, you guys probably know. the guillotine associated with France. Of course. Tale of two cities. Yeah, classic. And of course, you know, the reign of terror with Marie Antoinette and just many,

many nobles going to their end at the guillotine. You know, the French didn't invent that device. There were similar devices in other countries and other cultures before then, using the idea of a large blade slicing off the head. But they absolutely perfected it to the point of that we know it today. And so it's named after French physician, Dr. Joseph Guillotin, T-I-N. Oh, so there's a Mr. guillotine. There is a doctor

guillotine. He didn't go to medical school so you could call him Mr. Guayatine. Dr. Joseph Ignatio. And he was, as I say, he was a doctor and a politician. And the irony is he was an anti-death penalty crusader. Yes, he really was part of a group of people active in France in the late 1780s who wanted to reform the entire death penalty system. Because at that time

it was, as you say, there was all kinds of What was the death penalty before that then? Well, it was really varied and kind of all over the map, but essentially it was pretty brutal. You know, there were a lot of devices, you know, that we imagine in sort of medieval torture devices where the agony and the pain was as much of the punishment as putting the person to death. And what was really unjust, you know, to Dr. Giatan and a lot of other guys was that poor people really had a disproportionate amount of these awful executions, you know. Of course. The poor and lower classes could be subjected to hanging. drowning and burning and all sorts of being beaten to death on the breaking wheel and all these

other really nasty devices whereas if you were rich or noble enough you could afford to essentially buy a swift death with an axe so he was a pragmatist basically if he couldn't be anti-death penalty he would at least create a more humane that's exactly right so he and a lot of the other politicians their thought was all right then let's start with some sensible steps small steps And so their first thought was, let's come up with something that is applied to everybody. Let's make the death penalty really egalitarian. So whether you're rich, poor, it doesn't matter what walk of life you come from, you get the same swift, easy death that everyone else can get. You know, it's not just for the rich people anymore.

I guess it was how they might sell it. But also, you know, the other thing just that it was clean and efficient, you know, even, you know, reading some of these awful, awful stories about with the Axeman, if he's just off by a few inches or even struggles, you know, drinks. Sometimes it would take two blows, two or three blows to finish somebody off, and it's just gruesome. Oh, yeah. So Dr. Yutan said, let's, this is efficient. We need to come up with a way to do this cleanly first try. And the other irony, I suppose the final irony, is that he really advocated that execution is a private matter. You know, let's preserve the dignity of even the most heinous criminal deserves dignity in this moment of death. And of course, it becomes a show. It's a public show and public spectable, which is really how a lot of executions were handled in that time.

He didn't design the device He was associated with it though Because he sort of led the crusade to come up with this device Which is noble, I have to say It was noble intentions It was noble intentions So the man who actually is credited with designing it Is a Dr. Antoine Louis

And the device was originally known in France As the Louisette or the Louison After Louis who invented it But it did not take long before guillotan's name You know, game attached And it was the guillotine named after him Yeah, I mean, I mean, just to flash forward, actually, a little bit, after he died, his family had become so kind of mortified, I mean, no pun intended, ashamed of the, of being associated with the device, they asked the government to change the name. And the government's like, nah, it's just so impractical.

We've got to reprint all these brochures. I mean, they essentially said, no, we're not going to change the name. And they changed their family name. They, they, you know, it's, I wish nobody knows. I was not actually able to track that down. Ironically, they became choppers. Yes. the head shop. Well, it's France. It was head chopin. It was head chopin. They became the Taser family.

Don't guillotine me, bro. But yeah, so in just the order of, you know, three or four years, this device that was intended to be a humane, egalitarian, private, swift means of punishment became associated with the reign of terror. And public, very public, very gory, publicized executions. Right. Well, they made it very easy and convenient. to just execute. That's absolutely right. That's right. There's one story often told about the gate team that is not actually true, which is that Louis XVIth himself suggested, oh, you know, if you put the blade on a 45-degree angle, it'll really cut a lot more efficiently.

You know, of course, being the joke that he ended up being beheaded that way. But that does not appear to be true. That angle was, in fact, part of the original design team. And there must be some sort of physics or math to everything. Earlier devices, I guess, had a rounded blade. and the 45 degree blade really is far more efficient. They say, you know, some French neurophysicists, even at the time, we're really curious about the state of consciousness after beheading.

And, again, just sort of this macab feeling. And by all accounts, it certainly seems to be the case that behead is aware that it has a beheaded head in that brief instant after it's been cut off the body. But it might be like residue kind of a nervous activity. You know, unfortunately, no one's around. No one's around long enough to really be debriefed, yeah. We're not good enough at reattaching them to ask. Yeah, exactly.

It wasn't outlawed until 1981, Capital Punishment in France. The last, the guillotine was in use in France until as late as 1977. Wow. I mean, it is amazing. We have this image of it being, oh, it's 1790s. Right. But no, it was up and used well into the 70s. That's fascinating.

Yeah, yeah, before they applaud. But it is instant, we believe. It is as instant or as swift a death as, you know, anything, I think, short of a gunshot could be, yeah. Huh, okay. Well, that makes me kind of feel better. It is much more humane than the braking wheel. Let's put it that way. Speaking of the breaking wheel, that's what I was going to talk about.

It's otherwise known as the Catherine Wheel. That sounds so nice. Doesn't it? I mean, it's also the name. They all sound so lovely. Yeah. I don't think I ever knew that. The band, the Catherine Wheel.

I don't think I ever knew that was named. Yeah. The 90s, alt-rock, British band. And it's also like a firework. Right. And it's a kind of window. It's also like a really intense torture device. A person is strapped to a wheel, like maybe a wagon wheel or something like that.

And then there are hammers that come out and hit them while it's turning. So like you can beat them to death. And that's kind of where the kuda gross comes from where like the mercy blow. Like if somebody you hit them in the head or like in an organ or something to make it faster. Unlike the guillotine, this is not instant. No. This is the example of the really drawn out. And in this case, they wanted it to be really drawn out, right?

Especially in front of a crowd. Like, you want to see somebody. Right, it is. It's a public spectacle. Don't let this happen to you. Yes, exactly. It's probably why the guillotine wasn't a private matter either. It's still the point of showing everybody. This is how we deal with people who violate our social contract or whatever.

But it was named after St. Catherine of Alexandria. So it existed before she did. So she was going to be killed on it. But the story goes that it fell apart when they were about to attach her to it. And so they ended up beheading her instead. Oh, okay. Well, that was, yeah. Right.

Well, we got this guillotine. I know. What a way to give your name to something. Right. And, in fact, the Catherine Wheel is on the flag, the coat of arms, for a ton of cities. Really? Really? Yeah.

Because she's St. Catherine is their patron saint. And then her symbol is the torture device. It wasn't used to kill her. Awkward. I think I assume that in a lot of cases that was like the wheel of. of fortune, the wheel of life being represented. Wheel of life, wheel of death, wheel of life. Yeah, so, you know, as I was kind of saying in the beginning, a lot of people are, you know,

as today, people hundreds of years ago were, of course, fascinated to look at, you know, these medieval instruments of torture. And so, of course, you know, the Robert J. Ripley's of the 19th century would, of course, arrange exhibitions and things and people would, you know, pay a penny to go and just look at these things and be told. It's like the freak show kind of. These stories that we're telling now about, oh, this is what they do with it. and they'd hit you and whatever, and as you might imagine, in the days before, you know, Karen could go on to Wikipedia and fact check, there were a few embellishments or simple outright frauds.

And I found out about one of these, for example, people have said that at this point, I couldn't find definitive information on this, but people seemed to believe that the Iron Maiden was just fictional. Right. That people just assembled these in the 19th century. I'm like, oh, in medieval times. So the Iron Maiden just were on the same page is the quintessential. medieval torture device. It looks like a large metal statue of a lady, and then the body of it opens up, and it's all lined with spikes.

So they put you inside, like a sarcophagus. Right, like a vertical sarcophagus with a smiling woman's head on top, and they put you inside, and then just close it. And then all the spikes were to go into you, and the whole thing is like, oh, all the spikes are positioned so they actually don't hit your major organs. So you're just in there, with the spikes in you forever. Yeah, you know. As far as anybody can figure, the first reference to this stuff, he's a, you do.

German professor named Johann Philip Siebenkis in 1793, but the problem is nobody seems to be able to find any other references to it. He's got to made it up. And they may, you know, people might have taken remnants of things that they found from hundreds of years previously and sort of put them back together in ways that they imagined that they might have worked using their imaginations. There was, of course, the famous Iron Maiden of Nuremberg, which was on display in Nuremberg, Germany and was destroyed in the 1944 allied bombings and has since been recreated because there had been like photographs of the original I believe but again even this nobody can go back and date it because it's gone now but nobody really knew had they you know did they just

build it in the 1800s and never actually use it and more more recently interestingly enough as I was researching iron maidens after the fall of Iraq in 2003 they found an iron maiden out in Uday Hussein's like backyard of course they did yeah of course that's He was very fond of torture. So he may, in fact, have actually used that on people. We don't really know. But they had an old, you know, rusted Iron Maiden out in his backyard. Whoa.

Yeah. So that's the original saw contraption. We don't know if it's true or not. I mean, it's just some dude is like, hey, check this out. But yeah, I designed this. Take it all with a grain of salt when you hear about the medieval torture devices because you don't actually necessarily know if they were used contemporaneously or not, because in a lot of cases, there's no record of that having happened.

And, again, in the days before, fact-checking, there was a lot of money to be made in terms of, like, charging people a penny H to go and look at these crazy things that, for all they knew, you just made it yesterday, you know, and just rusted it up. Well, I mean, the idea that sensationalism sells tickets is certainly not new. Exactly, exactly. That makes so much sense. Speaking of these medieval devices, especially the Iron Maiden, imagine the cleanup afterwards. Unlike the guillotine, that totally makes sense, because it is very efficient. It is very easy to clean. But a lot of these devices, whether if they're real or not, it's like, man.

Well, you know, I'll be honest. Some poor dude has to peel a dude out of... This is one reason I only use disposable iron makings. I am so busy. I cannot be bothered with the cleanup. They're made out of like compostable. They're compostable. They're composting.

Yeah. Yeah. I just put them in my yard waste bin. Oh, my gosh. Just picturing a commercial of like a woman running, you know, in a white dress through a field of garden flowers, you know, and look 30 seconds later, it's like, disposable iron maiden if you care. Nope.

It does sound like a feminine product. Speaking of torture methods that you can't, can't really prove or disprove, just because there's not a lot of information, I was watching Game of Thrones season two. I already don't like where this is going. Is this a spoiler alert? This is not a spoiler. It's just kind of offhand they had a torture scene. And as I was watching, I didn't really pay attention.

I didn't really figure out like how everything works. It was in the background. So basically they would sit a guy down in a chair and they would put like a live rat in a bucket like a pale, you know, a pale size bucket. And they would take the rim like the lip of the pale and kind of put it on the guy's stomach with the rat in there. And they would heat it up with fire. You would heat the bucket up with fire. And so, you know, I'm watching this. I was like, oh, yeah, whatever.

I didn't really, it didn't really connect for me what is happening. They're making roasted rats, too? Yeah, I don't know. The guy's screaming. And I finally, I went online and I'm like, okay, is this a historical torture method? And it's called rat torture or rat excitement. Well, I mean, basically. I was excited.

Yeah. Marketing on that one. Exactly. Exciting rats. See, this sounds like something that it's, this sounds more real because it's what you, yeah, because it's what you, it's like, it's like, you don't have to construct an elaborate device. All you need is a rat in a bucket. you know

and some fire which were in plentiful supply in those days they were knee deep in rats and buckets when I read about what actually

is going on I kind of like threw up in my mouth because I just didn't think about it it's the rats get really excited and they're really

uncomfortable and so the only thing they can do they can't get out bucket they're like oh look it's the fleshy

kind of cooler part and they start burrowing and scraping into the person's Which is kind of like... It's like that tofu that we talked about in the previous episode.

But you're the tofu. What is it? Dojo Nabé? I believe so, yes. It was where the eels... Jokes on you. Yeah. You're the toad.

Man. And... Oh, that's a bit of a shudder. But the thing is, there are references to it in literature, but it's probably just not true. Right, right. People probably didn't make... There are references in Orwell's 1984, and even in James Joyce's... Finnegan's wake.

Yes. But there's actually historical examples or, you know, you can't really find anything. So, um, but I do want to talk about in terms of execution, classic pirate execution. Oh, right. Those are fun. And a lot of, well, is it? Not for the person being executed. For everybody else on the boat.

It was super fun. And I have to say, I did a lot of research and I was grossed out by the different, there are a lot of different cases of different pirates and captains doing very effed up things. And most of them are, like, beating people to death or whatever. Lashing them in the mass. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely some classic pirate torture and execution that I want to talk about.

Keel Hall. Oh, yeah. Which I didn't know what it meant. I always thought it was, like, you know, kind of like a piraty term. I probably used that word for years, like doing pirate play. I'll kill haul you without knowing what it meant. Yeah. It's in Mario games.

Like Keel Hall Bay, that's a place in Mario. Oh, okay. Keel Hall refers to a person who is tied to a rope and a pulley center. system. And the victim is dragged back and forth underneath the ship. That's where the keel is. They're hauled across the keel. Halled across the keel. And I mean, that already sounds unpleasant because you have to be underwater. You see the first place. Yeah. But, you know, these big ships, they have barnacles growing on the side. And so the bodies would be scraped against these sharp barnacle structures. And that's a real one, right? I mean, this did happen, right? I mean, at best

as we can tell. And, of course, we have walking the plank, which is very famous. Actually, not as common as most people think it is. Because it's boring. So they walk off a plank, they just appear into the ocean, and they're gone? Like, who cares? That's not fun. That's not passing the hours.

It's very efficient. Yeah, it's too efficient. I don't just throw them off. Exactly, right? It's like the way, like, doing the rat in the bucket is not very efficient. It seems like it would take a long time for it. Yeah, but again, it's not like they didn't have. They had fire.

Yeah, but it's like they didn't have Netflix in those days. So, I mean, it's like just filling the hours. Well, I can see, I can see Walking the Plank. Fire being a staple of, like, movies and TV, because, like, Walking the Plank just has so much drama. Tension. You're inching out to the edge. Exactly. But, yeah, it doesn't seem practical at all.

And it's not, you know, off the edge. And in literature and movies and whatnot, it's not as gruesome as the other things. So Walking the Plank seems like it's a very high tension, but low go. It's good for kids. It's good for Pirate movies for kids. It's, oh, I'll make you walk the plank, and they walk off a plank, and they're going to go. You just don't need to see what happens after that. Right, right, right, yeah.

They took the keel-hauling scene out of Peter Pan. Do you guys know what the hempen jig is? Hempin, H-E-M-P-E-N jig. I've heard this before. Gosh. It sounds fun. Do they tie them up in a row? No, I've totally heard what the hen-J-N-J-E-N-Jig is basically pirate term for hanging.

Oh, oh, yes. rope made out of hemp. And you're dancing at the end of the rope. So I got the dancing part. But not the morbid part. I was like hemp, though. That also sounds possibly fun. There are a lot of gruesome stuff with pirates.

A lot of historians would agree that the cruelest form of torment or execution is called governor of the island. Do we know what that is? Is that you abandoned somebody? Yep, exactly. It is marooning someone that the pirate in question or the victim. Usually, you know, they're marooned on rock islands. You know, we see in movies, they're like vast islands kind of trees and lagoons.

Yeah, exactly. No, these are like rock. Rock out on the ocean. A chunk of coral or something. Mm-hmm. And so the victim, basically, this is standard, he would be left with the clothes he's wearing, right? A bottle of water or rum or alcohol, a pistol and powder and a shot. Ah, okay.

There are a lot of ways that a person could perish in this situation. situation. Obviously, at high tide, the water might flood the island or lava. Exactly. Yeah. And he would drown. There are also sharks abound. Why this may be the cruelest is because of the psychological torment of having that gun there and basically making the person commit suicide and shoot himself, which, you know, might be a more merciful death than being mauled by sharks or drowning or whatnot. But you're right. The psychological torment is almost as bad as any physical torment. And, you know, under the heat and the sun, like people go crazy. So kids, don't run away and hang out with pirates.

Don't do it. Don't do it. It's not worth it. So I have a little bit of pirate trivia, not really related to torture or execution, but very interesting. So do you guys know the rhyme or the song, sing a song of six pence? Yes. Pocket full of rye. Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

So do you guys know where that came from? Something of pirates, my guess. So there is a... When the pie was open, the birds began to sing. Wasn't that if something, something, something. There's a big urban legend or a myth or origin story that very widely believed that sing a song's expense was used by Blackbeard for recruitment. So, you know, sing the song, and obviously, they're different verses have different meanings, hidden meanings, but it's used to recruit pirates for Blackbeard. Okay.

And that's very widely kind of believed. Okay. And it is actually false. No. It has been in Discovery Channel, it has been in Borgia. games and literature, you know, quoting that this is all Blackbeard's recruitment song actually fake. And the origin

of this rumor is from Snopes.com. Snopes.com are our big kind of urban legend debunking myth. So what they planted this rumor? They planted it. It was a joke. Just to sort of see if they could spread.

They have a section called Lost Legends and basically it's just internet trolling. They have all these really elaborate and almost believable. I mean, it's so crazy. I love that. It seems bad for their credibility. It's like, because they're like, oh, no, we'll debunk it. We'll tell you if it's true or not. And then they're also placing fake things. It was done as a joke. I think it's good because it shows how easily a single bad source of information can be replicated. They're like, and we are a bad source of information.

Yeah. Trust us this time. So not actually a pirate song. Yeah. Everybody. There was, there was I had never heard that before. So you lied to me and then it raised the lie. But no, I mean, you know, there was an inflection point where like suddenly just everybody just started getting all their information off of the nascent, you know, internet, you know, and it was just like TV shows and everything, just like at some point, people just all started just trusting the internet and just the first website they found, man, they would just write that down and use it as gospel. No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders.

Shop now at no-frails.ca. When the creators of the popular science show with millions of YouTube subscribers comes the Minute Earth podcast. Every episode of the show dives deep into a science question you might not even know you had, but once you hear the answer, you'll want to share it with everyone you know. Why do rivers curve? Why did the T-Rex have such tiny arms?

And why do so many more kids need glasses now than they used to? Spoiler alert, it isn't screen time. Our team of scientists digs into the research and breaks it down into a short, entertaining explanation, jam-packed with science facts and terrible puns. Subscribe to a minute earth wherever you like to listen. So when we were talking about torture, one thing kind of jumped to my head as something that I wanted to investigate and look into. And not necessarily this would be considered torture, but in terms of like, you know, whatever it is, sort of applying pressure on somebody to try to get them to do something that you want them to. Like the Vulcan pinch?

Yeah. Well, no, metaphorical pressure. Oh, oh, got it, got, got it. I'm the nerd making Star Wars references and you can just slip in Vulcan Pinch and No and Blanche. So I'm going to, I'll throw this out there as a... Persecuted. Nerd persecution.

I got the Star Wars reference. So I'll throw this out there as a sort of a quiz. Just to see if anybody can get this answer. So in 1989, U.S. forces invaded Panama under the name Operation Just Cause in an effort to throw out dictator... Manuel Noriega. When they went into Panama, Noriega ended up holing up holding up in the vascular. Vatican embassy in Panama.

I'm not hiding there, but he was in there basically protected because it was the Vatican embassy. There's a Vatican embassy? In Panama. Only in Panama? Are there other ones? Yeah, of course there are. Sure. Oh.

The Vatican is a country. It has embassies in other countries. Oh. Hold up in the Vatican. And I thought John wins. And so the United States, very kind of famously at that point, put on a program to try to force him out of there by playing at high volume, loud, heavy metal. That's right. Setting up massive speakers and just flooding the Vatican embassy with loud music.

Yeah, because they can't just walk in there, but they tried to break him down by, like, playing this music, including several popular and 1980 songs, but including which Van Halen song, when anybody liked to venture a guest is to, which Van Halen song they might play at him. Oh, Panama. Indeed. Yes. They played the song Panama. So, in fact, I never say the military doesn't have a sense of humor. So self-com network radio, which was the radio station that was, like, listened to by the troops while they were, Southcom as being like U.S. Southern Command. So that was the radio station that they would play music on for the troops.

And that was what they were playing to them. And so that radio station actually took requests for songs from the troops as to what songs they wanted to blare into the Vatican. Wow. And, of course, many of them to get Noriega out. And so many of them had a not-so-sult message. So some of the songs that were played, there's a list. So some of the songs were, Judas Priest, you've got another thing coming. Billy Joel's Big Shot.

Tom Petty's feel a whole lot better when you're gone. And Rolling Stones rock in a hard place. Some of the songs, just some of them that were blared in there. This one's going out to Mani Inn. Exactly, exactly. And so what's interesting is I thought about, okay, this idea of like, you know, blaring loud music into something to get people to come out. We didn't work. It worked. I mean, you know, they got them out of there.

Yeah. I'm sure it wasn't pleasant for anyone. But the thing is, I actually couldn't find very many examples of this being used in any significant capacity. I would only find actually a couple of more examples of this in the news. I would expect because it's more of a modern age, you know. It is modern. Back then, it's like the violin can play as loud as it can. It's not like you can amplify it.

Exactly. It was something that you would have to have modern, like, rock concert technology for, right? Amplification, yes. Exactly. And so there are just probably aren't very many situations in which it's going to be used. Later, a couple of years later in 1983,

according to Entertainment Weekly, this is another quiz question, by the way. Tibetan chants, bugle calls, Christmas carols, and Nancy Sinatra's, these boots are made for walking, were blasted at very high volume into a religious organization's compound

in what city? Oh, Waco? Yes. Yeah. Oh. So, in fact, the FBI blared music into the Branch Devidian compound, David Koresh, and his followers in Waco. Is it bad?

I would like that music. I don't think it would be tortured to me. High volume, though. Once, maybe, but after 30 times through, you might be a little sick of these bits are made for. You haven't seen my Spotify playlist. Indeed. And in fact, just this past May, a new report said, another question for you guys, that the theme songs of what two popular children's television programs were used in interrogations

I know one of them. Of Guantanamo Bay prisoners. Teletubbies? No. One of them was Barney. One of them was, in fact, Barney. In fact, this is a direct quote. In training, they forced me to listen to the Barney I Love You song for 45 minutes, said a U.S. soldier to Newsweek in 2003.

I never want to go through that. Oh, just to get them prepped and primed. Yeah, no, no, so that they would understand what the psychological kind of poll is. I mean, to listen to this. at loud volume. It's a song that never ends. It is, it is not.

That would be great. But no, it's in fact the Sesame Street theme song. Oh, that again. Yeah. The Guardian also reported, this was, again,

this report from this past May that other, these are great trivia. Other tracks used, played at Guantanamo prisoners included Metallica's Enter Sandman. Oh. And Britney Spears baby one more time.

Oh, dear. That's like, I'd be okay. They switched to Britney Spears after they found out that they could just play it one time on normal volume. And they would just tell them everything that they want to know.

Cost-cutting measures. And they call it futility music to convince people of the futility of not cooperating because really they just want to get information out of people like, who are you? Who do you work for? How did you, you know, just start telling us everything. And by just playing this music

over and over and over again. And it's clean. Again. It just breaks you down. No violence, really just psychological kind of messing with people. And one of the classic torture methods that I want to talk about is, of course, me being Chinese would be fitting to talk about the Chinese water torture. That's just straight up races, Karen. You don't have to do that. Why do you hate yourself?

So for those who don't know, Chinese water torture is basically a victim is restrained. And there's like a bucket or some sort of apparatus that drips water. Droplets of water would hit on your forehead, kind of between your eyes. You listen to that. You're like, ah, that's whatever. It doesn't sound that bad. Apparently, it drives people crazy. It's just the regular, steady, just drip, right?

So, whoa, okay, to go back, the Chinese water torture actually is not Chinese. Oh. It is invented by an Italian dude, Hippolytus de Marsilis. And so he's kind of with inventing a form of water torture. And he kind of got the idea because he saw droplets of water falling one by one on a stone and gradually made a little divot, like a hollow. So he's like, hmm, what will happen if I do this to the human body? There is a very famous episode of MythBusters where they actually try to debunk or support

whether or not, like, this is an actual valid kind of form of torture. It is very unpleasant. I remember that, and it doesn't, it didn't take long. I remember watching on that show. Yeah, I mean, it's, I can, again, it's the kind of thing where you imagine as a kid. I remember hearing about it. I'm like, oh, it's just water on your head. What is that?

Right. But very quickly, I can see if you're just restrained there. So that's the thing. I mean, people have found, and scientists and researchers have found that dripping water on the forehead wasn't really particularly stressful or, you know, effective as a torture method. It's the combination of the restraining, immobilizing the victim, and the water drop is actually not regular. It is random. So the victim wouldn't know when the next drop is coming. But it can see the collection of water like up ahead, mostly psychological and just discomfort and being restrained.

And so that is Chinese water torture. You know, one of the more really common ones in terms of pop culture and, you know, I remember growing up, is like the stocks and the pillories, right? You know, like we see it in cartoons about colonial times and medieval times. So I know you know them if I describe them. So the stocks and the pillories are you have that image of the person who's done something wrong, and they're in a board that's either holding their head and their hands captive. Oh. And, you know, often the image will be of the person in the town square with his head and hands through the board, captive.

And people are throwing tomatoes at him or, you know. Cabbage. Those are the pillories. So the stocks are pretty much the same thing, but the stocks are for your feet. So they tend to be lower on the ground. Oh, okay. And so it would be the two planks that would hold, they would go around your ankles. Oh, like stocks.

That's, oh, there you go. That's how you can remember it. Stocks like socks. And, you know, this was pretty popular in medieval times. And it came... Does it kind of torture or just kind of like humiliation? It was really the goal was more public humiliation and punishment, you know, and it would be for anything from theft to various petty crimes up to more serious crime, perjury, things even

like that. And the idea is that you're in the public square being humiliated for what you did. And generally it would be, you know, a few hours, maybe up to a few days, depending on what you did. Reading about, it was so much more than just being in the thing of having a tomato thrown at you. So it was a very public spectacle to be on pilloried. So you would be taken, you'd be put

into the pillory, a big notice will go out to the town. Hey, everyone, there's someone in the pillory in the town square. Come on down. Come jeer and mock. Come on down. You could essentially had license to do whatever you want. People would throw rotten eggs and moldy fruit and fish guts

and feces and you could spit on people. I mean, it was really kind of just free license to really let the person have it. And it was where they were composting came from. It was at the base of the post. Because they found out that at the base of the post, the rich soil would develop. All these earthworms. It's so earthy around here.

So I don't know what this says about me, but reading about the things that would happen to you, somehow the food and all these things being thrown at me sounds terrible. But apparently, the village children would come and just tickle your feet mercilessly. So I just imagine being locked in this. thing and people are hurling insults at you, but you've got the village children tickling your feet while you're locked in there. I mean, I don't mean to make light of it. And you're just laughing your, your ass off while your poop is getting flung into your face. Yeah. Right, right. Wet willies. And as I said, you know, this hurts donuts. So many hurts donuts. The one thing,

again, an image from popular culture is it's related to a barrel pillar, barrel pillorying, which is if you were like the town drunk or doing something bad for drunk, they would put a barrel over you you and it came in two forms like either they would cut the hole out and stick you in the barrel but another form is there would be the bottom would be cut out and you would essentially wear the barrel like like a shirt and that image of sort of the town drunk i see that all the time i see that all the time and you know as i say colonial pilgrim here's lago right and i think as a kid my thinking was always like oh that town drunk he lost his clothes all he has is a barrel right yeah but no it was that was the punishment for being the drunk

and disorderly was they would take your clothes and you would have to wear that barrel around for whatever the duration of your sentence was. Oh, man. Yeah. You know, if you're talking about going in the bathroom. Oh, grody. So, yes. I looked up being tarred and feathered, tar and feathering.

Being tar and feathered sounds really brutal. Like, tar is, you know... Because it's the heat. It's really hot. It's cooking your skin. You make asphalt out of it or you put it on roofs to patch it. And yes, that kind of tar would burn you and it probably would kill you to have that. poured over you. They probably were talking about

pine tar most of the time, which has a lower boiling plate. And they use it on ropes, so it has to be flexible. And sailors actually would, they'd put their hands in it. There's a reference to it a Moby Dick. Well, that's what baseball players use, pine tar. Like, you know, pine tar resin to hold the bat better or pitchers will put it on the ball. Yeah. It probably hurts, but usually people didn't die. At least

when they did it, they did it a bunch during the American Revolution. And those people didn't usually die. So it was more just the adhesive. The sticky part. It was just had to take a long shower, I guess. It was a very political thing to do because it's so humiliating and it's like a vigilante justice kind of thing. So they did it to tax collectors or like debt collectors or strip their shirt off and then paint them with the tar and then feather them. People have died from it. Yeah, I always had the idea that it was like boiling hot road tar or something.

They did it to Joseph Smith Jr., the founder of the Latter-day Saints. Huh. Huh. They did it to him. And do you know what collaboration horizontal? is. Have you heard of that? Urban diction. It sounds a little dirty. Well, it kind of is. I'm glad I said it in the right tone.

So it's kind of the idea of you're sleeping with the enemy, so ladies who in France, who were the girlfriends of German soldiers, it would happen to them. It would have, you know, the collaboration. Horizontal collaboration. That's so funny. Very peaceful. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Oh, and I feel like this may come up in trivia, but Edgar Allan Poe wrote a horizontal. short story about Tarring and Feathering. Huh.

And it's called, it has a very wacky name. It didn't sound very agrarl impotomy, so that's why I feel like it would be a trick-trivia question. And it's called the system of Dr. Tarr and Professor Feathers. And it's, it features a staff of an insane asylum. Sounds like a children's book. Doesn't it? I read Professor Feathers dissertation, and I have to tell you, I'm not convinced.

He deserved everything he got. Oh, man. Well, it was kind of intense. It was kind of heavy. It was very interesting. I think safe to say, we could have gone much more gruesome if we had wanted to. Let's move on to a more lighter affair because for our last trivia segment, we have music round. Yay!

We're going to play an incredibly loud. Petraima. Usually, music round, I will be playing five clips of music, short clips, and you would have to identify. the artist performing the song and there is a theme but I'm going to tell you the theme to this round because there is a second part to the quiz I will be playing songs made famous from movies and that's the theme and not only do you have to tell me identify the artist performing the song you have to also identify what movie was a song featured in each one is a two-parter yep okay all right guys ready let's

Do it. me, kiss me, kill me, but I don't know the artist, I'm sorry. No, smash in pumpkins or something. On kind of the right track. Hold me, kiss me, thrill me, kill me. By you too. It sounds like you, too.

Sorry, yeah. Yeah, I doubted myself. It did sound like you too. But I don't know what movie it's from. This was a big hit. I'm going to guess like one of the Batman. I'm going to guess one of the Batman movies. Correct.

Really? Oh, all right. It was from Batman. forever and you probably remember the famous song which is seals kiss from a road was also in that same album and smashing pumpkin the end is the beginning is the end or the beginning is the end is the beginning whatever i simply made the wise choice of not seeing batman so some part of my brain the interesting thing about this was a really a very popular album and it sold a lot it did really really well and you actually didn't have to watch

the movie because only five of the songs of the whole soundtrack album are actually in the movie I hate when they do that. All the rest are allegedly inspired by inspired by that and you know

a lot of these tracks were recorded before they're just in upcoming albums but before they you know I think that happens a lot or it's a track that got cut from the studio album and they're like oh we already got this finished track we need a song yeah so good job

Not really Bomb it Okay Here we go Number two Very famous Very famous scene That is the

That is the Pixies is my mind from the final scene in Fight Club. Correct. That's the trifecta for me. It's one of my favorite bands, one of my favorite songs, and one of my favorite movies slash books. It's that scene between Hellebaum Carter. We really just had it with Norton, Helibon

Carter. Yeah. Holding hands, watching all the buildings, kind of get bombed out and fall. Very beautiful. Yeah. Very good job. Next one. I'm a goat in your stable I'm a cane was the able Mr. Gats me if you care

I'm going down In a blaze of glory Take me not Dana Why did I race you to it But I think it's Bon Jovi Correct Is it young guns or tombs?

I was going to Oh is it It's one of those like Like, is it Sovorado or Young Guns? It's one of those, right? It is not Young Guns. It is Young Guns 2. Specifically, specifically for the second Young Guns movie, 1990 Young Guns 2.

Amelia Estabez, one of the stars of Young Guns 2, originally asked that Bon Jovi's wanted Dead or Alive to become the theme music for Young Guns 2. John Bon Jovi actually, he didn't allow it. Huh. he said no so instead he actually you know he's not a bad guy he still wrote a new song which is blaze of glory this song to be used in young guns too and actually ended up with the austrian nomination that's pretty i did not know that it's really interesting yeah that was his like way of like no sorry but here's something else exactly and and you know to me honest i think wanted dead or alive is a much

better song but maybe he knew that too yeah i think so all right here we go Look down A voice was crying now Oh You say you say you simmi's by Lionel Richie, right? Correct Um, movie, movie, movie. Oh, I don't know.

Colin looks like he knew. I believe it was from White Knights. Correct. Yes. White Knights, 1984. Gregory Hines, Mikhail Baryshnikov. Oh, yes. Okay.

Very famous, the original step-up. No, very, very famous dance movie starring Mikil. What was it in 3D? No, it was not in 3D. Well, then. It was awesome if it was in 3D, though, because those two guys are fantastic dancers. Yeah, yeah. And also Helen Mirren was also in that movie as well.

Oh, I didn't remember that at all. Young Helen Mirren. Yep. And, okay, the last song. You sing to One Smile that cheers you One face that lights when it greaves you

One girl you're You're everything Oh God I feel like it's on a tip my tongue It feels familiar I don't know Who sings it? Can me get hints?

It is an old song But it's not necessarily for an old-timey movie Is it Jimmy Durrani? Correct. Okay. No, it's Jimmy Durant. Make someone happy. Oh, God, yeah.

What is it? It's from, I feel like it's from some sort of like mid-80s, late 80s. Like Sleepless in Seattle or something. Correct. Is that what it is? Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Sleepless in Seattle. I swear, I was going to say something of Billy Crystal or Tom Hanks movie. I really was. Starring Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks. And it's not an old-timey movie, but there's a lot of old-timey nostalgia, especially classic movies, classic songs. Well, they have the running. Am I thinking the right movie where they're all sort of the female characters

are watching an affair to remember throughout the movie? And they're meeting up on top of Empire State Building. Right, right. Good job, everyone. Good job, brain. And so that is our show. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys listeners for listening in. Hope you learned a lot of stuff about torture and execution.

Hope it was too torturous. Yeah. Hopefully you all. And also, importantly, you know the difference between alliteration in assonance and consonants. And, well, most importantly, we now don't know. And, yeah, you can find us on Zoom Marketplace, on iTunes, on Stitcher, and also on our website, goodjobbrain.com. We also have a Twitter page, was it just at Good Job Brain, and also a Facebook page, and we put some interesting tidbits and video and in facts and questions. and stuff so you should join us there and we'll see you guys next week bye bye bye bye bye bye now bye bye bye bye now

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