Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 172: Ed Gein Part I - Oddball

Episode Date: April 30, 2015

It's finally Gein time as we cover the origin of Wisconsin's real life bogeyman and just what his mother did to make Eddie Gein into the inspiration for Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Silence of the Lambs, and countless others.

There's no place to escape to this is the last time on the left You're out there you're you're backing up your car there where you're going with the family That's funny you're going to IKEA That's so weird because I haven't been to IKEA in years. Oh, yeah, I Keep it real local. You know what I'm saying real local Where you going after that are you going to pure one? That sounds silly to me Couldn't caught me dead in pure one

Oh It's an inside joke with myself Well, you have fun now any you sick And you're not feeling too good You sure your mother's looking kind of big She's not feeling too sick Well, I'll be seen. Oh, I'll babysit anytime. Don't you worry. All right, you betcha. Oh, that's a receipt That's perfect. That's your impression of a Wisconsin conversation and you nailed it

That's I that is a perfect Example of what it is to live in Wisconsin Wow, okay, I'm constantly asking people if they're going to IKEA because you've got a house full of fucking human skin placemat It's the only kind all right, welcome to the show. I'm Ben Kissel. That's Marcus Parks all the way from beautiful, Toronto Um, oh my god. Am I excited for today's episode? It's edgine day Put your hands again because it's edgine day If you're a big fat man, I want you to slap your titties against your belly do that viewer if you're a sexy woman I want you to slap your tits against your belly. Yeah

Edgine always wished he could have done that edgine. We're going all the way to beautiful, Wisconsin Plainfield we'll be talking about that. That's 20 minutes outside of where I grew up in the Wonderful Stevens Point. Oh Let's hear how then honestly This is the only time in which anything that you remotely know innately can be useful to the show Yeah, that's correct. That's correct You know how to pronounce these names so you have to make sure that we're pronouncing them, right? Oh, most of these are all just fucking native American coughs

They really are we have a lot of the Chippewa's and a lot of things like that But if I say the Wisconsin The name of a Wisconsin town and you don't think it's right you are wrong because that is my home state Yeah, yeah, too many verns in that state a lot of verns, but can you have too many verns? No, because you can never have too many people serving up camp style lunches That's what verns do. They create an amazing cells very steak. And do you want some potatoes on the side? You're getting them This is real this show is for the locals Yes

Also, what I noticed in watching a lot of documentaries about Ed game a lot of use of the surname umpfer Umpfer and Vern That was supposed to be Laverne and Shirley was supposed to be umpfer and Vern But they went with the more feminine route. Yeah, because originally it cast a 400 pound hunchback. Yes Umpfer as umpfer and then when they got that when they when when the executive producer threw up all over his suit Right, they changed it up and made it a woman. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Umpfer's don't make very good butlers because they block the door Yeah, and butlers are supposed to escort people inside What I love about today's stories, of course Ed gain we've kind of hopped around Ed gain for a little while

Yeah, we covered him a long time ago But getting deeply into his story. We read the book by a Shecter Harold Shecter. Yeah, Shecter deviant, which is incredible. It's very fun And Ed gain story is incredibly fascinating and it's a little different than other big hitters and we've covered because he's not a He's not like a pure predator. No, he's a nice guy. If anything, he's a reverse Grave to digger. No, he's a great digger No, there's no reverse. He's a reverse putting people in great

He takes them out. He tries to bring them back to life like that movie like that TV show grave robber That's the word you're looking for a robber. That's what he is It's not like one of those movies where you film it backwards and then you play it forward You know, I think so you make the effect look different. Yeah, just he was trying to eat some dead old women's pussy But what I wanted to spell them as a myth right up top Ed gain was not a cannibal No, he was a purist. Oh, by the way, just a little bit off top But because so happy to see Jeffrey Dahmer trending on Twitter this week, isn't it great? And I don't know if you guys have read those stories

We'll get right back to Gean, but of course Dahmer's a Wisconsin guy as well kind of connected I didn't realize Dahmer was such a jokester. He had a something. Did you see he had the I don't believe it He had the cannibals anonymous club He wrote that on a side and put that into his in his prison cell so no one would bother him But that is just good prison humor. Mm-hmm. I don't know I mean, it seems like it's a prank that happened to him It seems like once that happens in prison a good like schoolyard prison, right prank Would it be like take the word like cannibal and slap it on his back, you know, like I'm a cannibal kick me

Well, he was a target well, Wisconsin nights are full of joy full of laughter and full of humor and we'll get back to add Gean, he was always smiling. Mm-hmm What I one more thing literally always smiling because he had a fucking mental defect. Oh, yeah, so The number one edging is not a cannibal. That is true Second of all what I love about this story is it again? It's just this example of that the boogeyman is real. Yeah that when it's that House out in the middle of nowhere when you read about when we're gonna cover like kind of where Edgene lived They all every kid in the neighborhood knew that that was the haunted house

They would dare each other to go and like ring his doorbell and like run away Because old Edgene would come out and be like you want to come inside and play with these apples. I made I made my own apples They're like, what do you how do you make your own apples Ed? He's like, they're just a bunch of hands I love a good hand apples Bob and for hand apples that was a fun game you could play in the Gean backyard The other thing Edgene would always say exactly what he was doing, but then with a laugh afterwards They all joke. That's what they always do. Oh, yeah, man And the other thing about Edgene the lowest body count of any heavy hitter besides OJ Simpson This guy only had two murders possibly three under his belt over a period of I would say six years

Somewhere around there, but let's get an A for effort. You know, I mean because when you're your own Martha Stewart That's something special. She runs an empire today. I mean, but you know, most of his stuff was with stuff He could stick his dick through and so he could pretend he had a vagina So if you have some superglue and some scissors around all you need to do is find yourself 15 human nipples And today on Martha Stewart, we're gonna be making a human nipple belt It seems like the biggest problem with the craft is is getting all the nipples. Yes Yes, it's not easy today's episode isn't as simple as making a cake. So we're gonna have to rub We're gonna have to rob graves or kill kill women to get these nipples Bob. Bob feel your chest right now. Yeah, no

You have no nipples. I stole them from you The whole crew has lost their nipples. That's how good I am. I'm sorry. So sit back and your chair made out of straps That little girl Little girl, please don't have a chair made of dead little girls get yourself a bowl That's made from the thumb bones of a homeless man stuff it full of sweet sweet Wisconsin Jamaican grain Put in your head and we're getting on up We're getting on up a rickety old Ford driving down to Plainsfield, Wisconsin

Lanefield yeah, all right We're gonna read we're gonna start off with the reading from Harold checkers deviant to really set the scene of what? Plainfield, Wisconsin was like in the 1950s For the most part, Wisconsin is a beautiful state a lush sprawling park an endless expanse of bright green meadows and thickly wooded hills It's not until you cross over into the south central Plain area 60 or so miles north of the capital that you feel you've suddenly entered a different and far less hospitable world Every part of the landscape seems bleak and ungiving the grass looks parched the sky

Even on a perfect spring day Presses down on you and the soil is a faded pink the same sickly color that the makers of children's crayons used to call flesh To some Wisconsinites this flat and infertile section of the state is known as sand country others call it Wisconsin's great dead heart Well, now that's a little overdramatic The heartland of America, it's the great dead heart Ben you come from the great dead heart of Wisconsin

Huh, I didn't know that we always Traveled to the great dead heart of Ben Kissel That's something exciting people like to go there. Can I ask real quick? Have you ever been to Plainfield? Yeah, we used to go try to find his grave But at that point this was you know mid 90s late 90s it had already been so Destroyed that they had just taken it away already at that point I think it's in some museum now somewhere cool Well the hometown of Ed Gein Plainfield seemed to exemplify the so-called great dead heart of Wisconsin

In fact the state guidebook at the time characterized the town simply as just Nondescript well, I love to go to a nondescript place I also vacation and put I put paper bags on me on my family's heads, so it's all totally anonymous And then all we do is drink water and we stay there for about four hours, and then we believe that's literally what you would have To do in Plainfield, Wisconsin I love the idea of the Wisconsin guide like there's some family going on a Wisconsin road trip. Oh, let's check out Plainfield What's that all about? What's this here? It's got it's got a mailbox, and it's got a guy who can oh look at that

He can fart when you point at him. Oh, that's something that seems to be most town folks around that area Got ya. That'll be a nickel. That's a nickel and a nickel goes far Well the population in Plainfield never rose above 800 most the revs residents were just poor struggling farmers Even the name of the local body of water seemed to confirm this bare hopeless nature the settlers called it Sand lake. Yeah, just showed that they didn't understand water. Yeah, that's the thing I think they thought sand was water They wanted to call it water lake, but they just got it all wrong No, no, no, no, we can't be calling it water lake. That's redundant. All right

We got to call it something fun like like dirt lake or sand lake But despite it being a barren and miserable place It was still a close-knit very prideful community the kind of place where you'd have your annual Christmas pageants your potluck dinners Yeah, big events attended by the entire town including Ed Gein. So the Gein family Let's go way back and start with the patriarch of the Gein family Let's start with George Gein Ed's father Now everybody knows that every good serial killer starts with a really strong father figure Oh, absolutely really fucking guides their life and helps them a good healthy family structure that

encourages education and You know a simulation into society. Oh, of course. Well Ed George is George's entire family died When George is only three years old They all died in a flash flood Legitimately we're just going into a town and a cart and a Literally just started raining and they just watched the water come. Yeah What it comes down to is that the Geins Just wanted to go. I think that's true

And when you say flash flood, yeah, everything is slow. Yeah. Oh, it's oh, it's coming. Oh, yeah. Oh, look at that They're being it's funny how it's like it's getting higher. It's higher What you doing to get in higher like that? Hey Betty Jean, why don't you go check and see if it's actually getting higher if I just mind I got water on my glasses from when I was sucking out of the ravine Yeah, well George grow up to be an utterly insignificant man a drunk prone to bouts of anger and self-pity And then there was the love of Ed's life his mother Augusta I gotta say this even just him describing Augusta. I kind of fell in love with her

Just as amazing. She's close to three hundred and thirty pounds your muscle mm-hmm tits like the front of a battleship Oh, yeah a face like Ernest Borg nine if he was also half cigar No, they said that she wasn't pretty but she was a handsome woman. She was a handsome woman in Wisconsin It's a utilitarian society. That's good That's what you want a lady a good stock a strong a good wide stance You want a woman that if a cow breaks its leg she can just strap it to her back exactly a field Exactly, she was a stern discipline disciplinary and self-righteous and domineering completely I'm getting hard

self-assured in every one of her beliefs and these beliefs should be spread She believed and preached to every single person that she came into contact with in other words the classic Evangelical Christian pain in the ass Yeah, I mean she was beyond judgmental and she was one of those people that blamed all of the ills of the world on The harlots and the hussies that roamed the streets Tempting men into abominable sin or worse It's so weird because the women that that are normally this type of judgmental or never have or never like a size three Like with like big bouffant blonde hair and like hourglass figure

They're pretty much always shaped like a refrigerator. Yeah. Yeah, it's tough to say sometimes you can get those skinny ones out there But for the most part they are Yeah, they they look as if they've definitely given some swirlies to some girls. They thought we're whores. Yeah, always Because it's a thing as other women being so terrified of Augusta if she thought you were a whore Oh, you were just and you're just you literally just go into like an office interview Like you're just trying to get a job and you're wearing like a pantsuit and just like you goddamn whore trap put around Snap grabbing you by the ankles and snapping you like a towel That's what she does

She believed that sex was a despicable act that should only be done to procreate and even then it was not to be enjoyed In fact, Ed said If we were meant to have sex Ed said that she told him if we were meant to have sex The Lord would have made it enjoyable. I want to watch her having sex with poor George. Oh poor George Oh, so I made you how I imagine that she did it is that she would get him hard and then pull his dick back behind his balls Right and fuck him from behind Into her own vagina. Oh, don't you know, that's okay. Okay. Thank you You just lay there and let me finish it myself

You're worthless worthless piece of shit George. You can't even get hard for me. Thank you. Thank you You know Wisconsin men are very very nice because they outnumber women It's like, you know, there's like 60 percent at this point is probably even more like 70 to 30 or something So they're so nice and these women they just do very very mean-spirited things to these poor guys Oh, yeah, and the marriage was predictably horrific for every single person involved George was constantly berated by Augusta But you could also say that she might have some reason to berate him He was almost an aggressively lazy drunk and sometimes he would refuse to even speak for days on end He's been shell shocked. He's so torn down. He's so beaten down

He's just like he's completely resigned to his fate that he's gonna die in an easy chair Yeah, but I mean the way they the way they were they courted each other is also like a straight up She just chose him because he was tall Yeah, she was obsessed with the fact that he was tall and had a strapping good like because he had sort of like what she called a Regal stance because he was tall and broad-chested, but he was never a good worker He had because basically when his family died it set the tone for his whole life and everybody told him like you should have died with him. Yeah, I mean Yeah, he she chose him with well sitting in the corner of some smoky bar with chewing tobacco in her lips spitting into a spit tune She looked at him. She said yeah, that's the one

That's the one I'm taking home and then he was just so thrilled a girl was talking to him And then he had no idea that that was gonna be the worst situation of his life Oh my god, and he was one hell of a drunk although she was completely sober all the time and in fact when he came home drunk She would start berating. You're just a drunk George. You're just a drunk and he'd start flailing at her with open hands Just hitting her again and again She'd fall to the floor and just keep hurling the insults and after each beating which beating I mean And yeah, and they got they described it as flailing with open hands

So it was pretty much just a slap fight And then after he finished after he finished with her She would just get up and get down on her knees and just pray for his death Find that something like this it's like I understand we had rough Christmases to my family like we were very it's a it was a very intense household But I would say that It's just like Not great for kids. No, not ideal. Am I going out on a limb? No, no, I think it's safe to say when George comes home drunk and has the slap fight with Augusta

That's not the best evening for a child's life Dear Lord Jesus Christ, I mean I want to hear that prayer so bad Well nevertheless in 1901 Augusta allowed George to implant his seed in her musty unwelcoming hole Yeah, I saw that you wrote that down there in the outlaw musty unwelcoming hole I think it's a pretty accurate representation I don't know if it if you took off her underpants right and she had the Sweetest greatest vagina on the face of the planet and it drove George insane

Possible She's protecting all these years. Yep on January 17th 1902 Two days before my birthday Augusta gave birth to Henry Gein The oldest of the good ones. Yes, the well, I mean They both stayed single until the day they died, but which is really creepy Living with your parents until your early 40s I mean not for playing field. That's pretty standard. Yeah, I suppose so four years later Augusta decided she could try again because she wanted a girl

Someone that was free from the sins of man Uh-huh. She allowed George into her bed once more and poor Edward Theodore Gein created Yep, Eddie. Eddie. Eddie. Eddie was born Eddie Created with drunken PBR riddled sperm Augusta stared blankly into George's eyes literally these personification of born into the world with hate I love this sentence from deviant and Ed would not be sinful He would not be like every other man in this abominable world. He would be pure

He would be good, but what he would eventually become would shock the world in ways We had never thought possible. Actually, that's not from deviant. Those are my words That is exciting, but he wouldn't be like everybody else he wouldn't be like your normal fat Wisconsin farmer. He was different And we're talking about Bruce Jenner. Oh my god the transitioning that Bruce is going through and I love that and if you're trans We support you 100% but no one was there for Ed. No, I want to wear I want to wear human skin. He said and everyone mocked him and made fun of him Well, we'll get this and probably later more into in the second part of this series

But this is very appropriate that we're doing this episode during Bruce Jenner's coming out Because I mean all Ed wanted to be was a lady and so what I think is is that you know again if you're trans And yes, we support you entirely But if just go buy a wig Yes, I mean if you are trans again, don't don't skin don't go Buffalo Bill with it. No You don't got to anymore. No, save literally had to in a way In a way in a way You however have the option to save up and have the surgery the gender reassignment surgery

You it's 2015 you have that choice now in 1950 city move to get out of Plainfield if right now I'm gonna say this right now If you live in Plainfield get the fuck out of Plainfield or stick around you never know when the economy is gonna start coming back You know playing fields a beautiful place. Well Ed Ed worshiped his mother from the very beginning. He just he described her as Pure goodness and tears would well up in his eyes Anytime he spoke over, you know, I couldn't help but think of North Koreans when they speak of Kim Jong-Soon or in or Unor ill they close they do he worshipped her to that level though. Yeah, this was the end all be all this was God

To Ed Gein, which is very interesting. Yes, she was his savior But he seemed to fail her at every single turn His first memory was of a staircase when he was a toddler He lost his balance at the top of the staircase as toddlers do and as he fell He felt the crushing grip of his mother on his arm She picked him up and just started screaming at him shaking him He knew he had done something horribly wrong, but just couldn't figure out what all he knew was that his mother had saved him But you know that was George's fault Augusta was like where's Ed George and George was like I put him on top of the staircase to play

You know, that was also got Henry Gein who's just tried to crawl out of the window and Also, she's got a fucking George tied to a rope to her belt. So he doesn't run up the door I think legitimately everyone was trying to kill themselves. I think so. I said, I think there was definitely some self-conscious Some subconscious suicide going on. I think so. So another incident that when Eddie was seven his mother just a sad story This is a super sad story Ed's mother charged him to walk just a block only a block away to buy bread I will say blocks in Wisconsin are much longer than they are here in this city

There's no a block is like just from this rock to that rock, but that could be a mile two miles. There's no rules That is true But somehow during the walk from the house to the bakery Ed managed to just lose All of the money that his mother is walking down the street and I saw this dog And I was like, oh, that's a funny little dog over there You know what you could do you could turn them little leg bones into like I've seen what them China men use for forks and spoons You could just where's my money? Where's my money?

Maybe he planted it. Maybe he thought he was gonna make a money tree kids are fun So he came back empty-handed sobbing and terrified She looked down at him and said in a quiet Heartbroken bitter bitter voice you dreadful child only a mother could love you. Oh, no, it was much quiet voice. No, no It was like you dreadful child Love Augusta I wish she was my mom. I gotta tell you're reading deviant and If you read if you're reading deviant deviant and trying to flirt with people I feel like there is a there is a fucking

Problem that like working through in my body. You know, I mean we're I just keep seeing like flashes of Augusta Whenever I'm talking to a woman, right? I'm sick. Oh, no That's yeah, you are when you go on dates. You're supposed to break down walls You're building them up Henry reading things like that in public. Oh, yeah And there's actually another book about Ed Gein that I also took some information from it's called psycho It's not as good as deviant, but if you're an Ed Gein fanatic as I am it's worth the read Why aren't there any books just called farmer, you know friendly friendly guy around town? Psycho and deviant they're they're very leading titles artist. Yeah, they're very judgmental

I think so and I can't believe yeah the kind of judgment heaped on this guy. Yeah, you know because I I mean, yes, he had a fucking cardboard box full of salted Pussies that he would drape over his own dick and balls, but he also was a son and a brother He was a son and a brother will figure out what happened to his brother here Second so Ed's first experience with death came around the same time as the bread incident Not too long after Eddie's birth His mother took complete control of the family's destiny and opened her own grocery store in La Crosse, Wisconsin Was this also interesting where we're gonna find later on with the only two victims that Ed has that he loved local business women

his mother was a both a she was a very solid business woman and A go-getter like that's why it's like when it came down to the basic the whole family had to rely on Augusta Gein Because she was the only one getting shit done. She was and this was not an easy thing for a woman to do This is the 50s. Maybe the early 60s at this point. Oh, no, this is 19 12 1910. Oh, then when she opened the supermarket was 1910 Yeah, it was the holy shit So you think about what a woman's role was in society then and this chick goes down to La Crosse, Wisconsin You're typical traditional Christian place. No one wanted a woman to own a supermarket and that's a strong Augusta was

Oh, yeah, you literally had to take this supermarket from the man who owned it before if I put them in a headlock You don't think I can't show you just one of my own tits Exactly. She did everything like one of those glow wrestlers gorgeous ladies of wrestling People get hard thinking about it. So there was a building behind the store where the family slaughtered the animals Can I can I read a passage from deviant about this please? Behind the meat and grocery store was a windowless wooden outbuilt in which he was forbidden to enter Ed As a result it exerted a tremendous fascination It had seen animals being led into the rear of the shack big-eyed heifers and grunting pigs

On on several occasions. He had heard a fearful bellow and come from behind its sagging boards Curiosity blazed in him One day when his parents weren't around he went out through the back door of the grocery and stepped quickly to the prohibited place The door was open a crack enough for him to peer inside There hanging upside down from a chain in the ceiling was a slaughtered hog His father stood to one side of the animal holding it steady While his mother slipped a long-bladed knife down the length of its belly pulled open the flaps

Reached inside and began to work at the glistening ropes of its bowels which slid out of the carcass and into a large middle tub at her feet Both his parents had on long leather aprons spattered with blood He must have made some sort of noise Because his mother turned completely around look at him And for the rest of his life you remembered the moment with an uncanny clarity The dangling beast its carcass split open its guts slapping onto the ground his mother stand him beside it Blood and slime smeared down the length of her body. Yeah, I love it And it actually reminded me we used to go to a great one of my favorite strip clubs in Wisconsin was called the slaughtered hog

Yeah, my favorite the second my second favorite was of course the dangling pig Because of the trapeze Like mixed in you come down to the dangling pig Tuesdays free beer from 9 p.m. To 10 p.m You know and thank God the tragedies ended ended and the tragedies finally ended once they fully supported that ceiling Because yeah, I mean the Wisconsin stripper. Oh my good. Well, we won't we won't get into that That's a whole episode with guys in strip clubs But it's interesting to me that they didn't want to watch they didn't encourage him to watch the slaughter of the animals They did have some sympathy to the idea that this would scar a child

He was it because that's what they said one of the one of the more They talk about how when he was growing up he had a lot of feminine qualities, which is father fucking hated Yeah, Giorgio hated how attached he was to his mother. He thought it was a mama's boy, which is the truth That's what he was. Yeah definition of it. Yeah, but he would cry Horribly all the time at any sort of provocation. He he was very weak. He was very Sensitive. Yeah a little too sensitive. Well, George if George was just more of a father figure I think the whole house structure probably could have worked out a little bit better Oh, yeah, I think so too. There were a lot of mistakes made in the game household, right?

So in 1913 Augusta decided that the Geens would be farmers So the small miserable family bought a homestead outside of Plainfield, Wisconsin The same home that Ed would eventually do all of his horrific deeds The appeal of the house in Augusta's mind was the extreme Isolation as she had come to regard La Crosse, Wisconsin where the family had previously lived as a modern-day Sodom where Hussies where Hussies ruled the streets. Yeah gals there. They were showing. They showed a little ankle It was ridiculous 1913 how much how much skin could they have shown? Well, they can show a lot

There's definitely a lot of a lot of clothing has to cover it up Yeah, that could be exposed sure I love the supermarket though That would be crazy to be you know know this story than to have actually shopped in the Geen family supermarket. Oh, yeah Yeah, so yeah, just fucking Ed just sit there with the steak on his head just being like have you seen my new hat? I think it's fun. It's keeping the son out of my eyes Keep getting all this blood in my mouth. Oh Good kid. It's like really Augusta didn't really care all that much about Henry Geen

Ed was her project Ed was her special little guy And Augusta thought that out in the wilderness He'd be safe from the influence of all of the harlots the house It was just surrounded by nothing but meadows marshlands Just little clumps of dying trees an acre upon acre of pale Sandy soil, that's exactly what Ed needs. He needs isolation Desolation, isolation, loneliness. Should he be around educated people who might try to help him with his mental problems? No, no, no put him near the bushes

Put him near the specific. This is one of the specific stories, too We're a little dose of Lady Gaga. Oh Again, yes, where was her and her meat dress speaking of people who like to wear animal carcasses for clothes? Mm-hmm. Ed was not a happy child Nor was he particularly well-liked by any of his classmates. Yeah, well, but his three classmates 800 beer. I don't know. That's probably a class of like 25 or something Maybe 20 I grew up in a town of like three four hundred and I had 12 people in my class. Okay. All right. So yeah He had a few. All right. Yeah, so I would also put it this way

Yeah, so this is also from deviant the problem is is that he would try to watch how people act and imitate their behavior, right? But from the point of view of his peers, there was definitely something a little different about Eddie again At no point in his life not at any rate until his simmering psychosis erupt into full-blown dementia Did anyone perceive that he might be a dangerously disturbed individual and in fact, it would have taken a fairly sophisticated eye to see in young Eddie's behavior his social incompetence for example in increasing isolation But there were things about Eddie that certainly struck his schoolmates as peculiar The way his eyes kept shifting around whenever he talked to you the odd lopsided granny always wore Even when the conversation had to do with the deer hunting accident that killed Eugene Johnson

Oh, man Beckley's heart attack his habit of laughing and weirdly inappropriate times Yeah, so he were listening to some strange private joke that no one else could hear Well, that's amazing that you just mentioned the only two ways to die in Wisconsin a deer hunting accident or a heart attack Or a serial killer so the other thing about Ed is that in addition to all of his behavioral problems He also had a slight physical defect his left eye Droop down just a little bit further than his right because he had a very heavy mole on it and they would call it they called it his saggy baggy eye and You know and then next thing he knows

All those people are fucking furniture. So watch what you say when you're a kid Absolutely, yeah, he did he did get some perfect revenge on on any of the bullies that he had to deal with in school Oh, it was just poor old women Really for the most part He doesn't seem that strange to me though yet at this point. I mean, I think he could be saved still He definitely could have been saved. I mean, I was a pretty sensitive kid You know, I would cry quite a bit But they I mean with any time that someone made fun of his eye he'd cry and blubber about it for days and days

And that was another word that they use quite a bit and deviant blubber They didn't have any sugary snacks or good television shows to distract him. There's no save by the bell We couldn't live through Kimmy Gibbler, you know, there was a lot of people that I mean I remember kids like this in school all the time We were talking about this before and you talk a little bit about this and sex and their human activities Which I don't listen to but I saw the title Um, I just can't listen to Jackie. I know I know but John but I

It's very interesting because when I was a kid growing up. I was friends with all the weird kids. Mm-hmm That's just how it was. So yeah, you would have been friends with Ed Gein Yeah, absolutely. It's it's very difficult because you go to school you be all shifty-eyed You're kind of stinking you're kind of odd and then you go go back to Augusta So the education process you was it had to it really stopped there once you got home And that's these are the reasons why people like Rick O'Casey learned how to play the guitar Love how you get women. This is what you do. This is how you make friends. You got to acquire a skill Yeah, well, he needed to have a skill. I suppose. I mean, it was a very isolating skill. Yeah

Yeah, all the whittling of bones. It's hard to put on a resume. It's hard to put in a tinder bio Well, yeah, I mean it worked for Marcus, but technically I mean he's also he's got a charm about him. Yeah Yeah, yeah, I'm a little bit better looking than Ed Gein a little bit. Yeah So Eddie this guy completely isolated both emotionally and Physically unable to make any friends at school and every other moment was spent in the company of as you say been a drunk Bitter abusive father in a domineering know-it-all mother who just constantly asserted that the world outside of the Gein farm was just a place of utter despair and sin and

As far as perfect perfect soup for killer Delicious serial killer soup. I love to hear it. That's the thing We're not talking people used to call playing field little little Las Vegas, you know, I mean it was a wild town They had a they had a light and they had a whole stoplight. They had one Man, I wild if you go look around a corner, you'll find they got three mailboxes. Holy hell I mean it was it was going to the devil. Oh, yeah And in fact any time Ed would just start to have the beginnings of a friendship at school He'd come home and start telling his mother about it because of course he told his mother about absolutely everything and

She would just I mean it would start with this just kind of low Let me tell you everything that's wrong with this kid. There's this thing that's wrong with him There's this thing was wrong and oh did you know his mother did this and oh did you know that her father did that and then by the time She was done with her tirade. She was screaming in his face About the most innocent thing a kid can do is make a friend at school It's a nice thing for you to do if you're a child to make a friend at school and good parents encourage such activity And you know by the end of this ranch her titties were out in her space. We're sucking one of his one of her nipples Now come back now come to mommy what you need. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do your friends have these big mustard cakes?

No mother they don't they certainly don't but one day I will all over the house In that corner, you know where you put the sugar and put nipples in the sugar so at least we can say that Ed had Celebrated the female body. He was the most we talk about a lot of these serial killers being very Misogynistic being being very anti-woman. We cannot say Ed Gein was anti-woman. Absolutely. No, no, no He had problems with like the skull bones. Yes in problems with the parts of the women that he didn't really could use or wear Sure, but yeah Otherwise he was very respectful of women. He won. Yeah, and especially of his mother

Because she just hammered into his head that if he was not in her immediate presence He was not safe at all especially from the temptations of women and every woman other than Augusta was painted to be a wicked Tainted creature and somehow I don't know how Augusta came upon this conclusion But she decided that all of the ills of the world could be blamed on the hussies on the streets It's a playing field. Yeah, I mean did she think that girls were just throwing themselves at young Ed? Is that what you imagine and his feet playing with this pock just going like yeah, you know, I just I don't know what to say I just think skeletons are fun little playing blocks. You know, I don't know how I even think that

Oh, yeah, my friend. I want to be your friend Ed So when rain made it impossible to work the farm Augusta would gather her sons around her old rock and chair and Read from her Bible one of her favorite verses was from Proverbs But this one she didn't need to read because she knew it by heart and this I think sums up Pretty much everything you need to know about Augusta Gein The lips of a strange woman drop honey and her mouth is smoother than oil, but her latter end is bitter as wormwood Sharp as a two-edged sword now therefore my sons Harken unto me and depart not from the words of my mouth

Remove thy way far from her and come not nigh the door of her house For why shouldest thou my son be ravished with a strange woman and embrace the bosom of a stranger? What my son and what oh son of my womb and what oh son of my vows Give not thy strength unto women nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings And now this comes from chapter 4 of the book of sexless nerds Yes, yes, yes, and of course the reason she loved that passage so much as George ate her out one time and came up It's it. Oh that tastes like great bitter warm wood. I Love that pussy tastes like worm. No. Yeah, love that

I wanted it to taste bad so you wouldn't get a liking for my Oh my god, my god, why do I want to see his mother's vagina so bad? That would stick a fixture to my head. Yeah, it's so bad And after she would recite this passage she'd sit her boys down and instruct him in the ways of masturbation she just tell him like over and over again like just masturbate just masturbate the sins of onan are Preferable to the sins of the foul women. So so mom is is this technically are we having the talk? Is this the talk? We have to talk every night. Oh, okay. Oh These poor awkward poor Henry too. Oh, you know, we forget about the older brother at all of this

He was just like what the fuck is happening? I just straight up believe that Henry just never spoke. No, I don't think that he did I really don't think he did with between drunk drunken George and crazy Augusta Henry was a rock in a hard place and speaking of George He would meet the end of his Ultimately pointless and miserable existence killed in a hunting accident. Oh, no strud I've just drank it himself to death. All right. That's the fourth way to die It was said by locals that he died with a smile on his face and This is amazing when George Gein died Henry was 38 and Ed was

34 and she was now was the mother still reading them these chapters from the Bible. Yes, okay Absolutely, they would literally sit like little boys next to her while she read from the Bible to them every single night Yeah, okay Yeah, I am the idea again makes me hard. This whole situation makes me sexually around. Yes. Well, we know that yeah Yeah, but it's just not cool. You know, I mean you're near 40 years old and you're just like mommy Is it time for story time tonight again? Yeah, you know, it's like when you need like a 38 year old DJ who like works at a club and stuff and a part of you It's like grow up and get a real job

This is a 38 year old man who sits on his mother's knee while she reads from the Bible And teaches him the ways of masturbation and remember this house. No electricity. No indoor plumbing It does sound so fun though. Can we go camping? I want to get out of here Yeah, I think I should sit in your room watching your father struggle to make it to your fucking huge mother to the rickety walls Can I also can I ask an honest question because I was thinking about this while I was reading this, of course And not sexually not like masturbatory in a way. Um, do you think that she molested them? No, I don't think so Okay. Yeah, I mean other than mentally and yeah, she molested him in a way mentally rape them. Yes I'm sorry. I meant to say that she molested them

I just wonder because when she said that she taught him the ways of masturbation I was just like and it's the way you do it. You gotta pull on it You gotta pull on it. I bet you that she did. No, I'm sure she did. Mmm. It's possible. Yeah, of course She probably watched him. She probably made him do it in front of him So when George died Eddie picked up what little slack there was to pick up by taking on various odd jobs as a handyman He also became kind of a babysitter for local kids I will say This is kind of a good thing that George was a raging alcoholic because when you do die your child has to take all your responsibilities on

But it's like oh, he didn't do nothing. Yeah, I just have to sit on the couch for three hours a day now more who in their right? Fucking mind would choose the guy with the saggy eye who's always half retardedly smiling like What would possess you to ask him to be babysitter of your Oh, come on. He's a loving guy. Yeah a bit of an oddball now That is the that's that is the adjective that comes up over and over and over again with Ed gain Bit of an oddball. Yeah, he was a bit of an oddball But he was good with kids he was great with kids he would rough house with the boys He'd do magic tricks for the girls

Yeah, and he'd tell them creepy tales of headhunters and cannibals I would say if I was a seven-year-old boy, I would love it when Ed came over he would be my best friend Yeah, like I would love it. I there's certain things well It's also this is during his time period when he became obsessed with adventure magazines Yeah, which was at the time basically rape stories not all of them A few of them so now that he was grown up he could relate to kids, but of course adults Mmm, could not relate to whatsoever. He was considered a good neighbor, but soft-spoken a little foolish But overall polite and decent the only person who had a bad thing to say about Ed

Gein was the local barber who described Ed who admittedly cut his own hair Yeah, he described him as quote a filthy thing It was also really rough when you started wearing those belly buttons as earrings That was really hard on the neighborhood, right? This barber needs to keep his mouth shut the barber is like a priest What is said in a barber shop should be kept quiet and it should be secret He said to is that Ed would always come and help like if you ever asked Ed to come to work on your farm He would come help and he said like of one characteristic about him is that while he looked very slight and soft

He was incredibly strong. Oh, yeah, which is a part of I guess just farm life I don't know. I grew up in the fucking bustling cities in New York City So I had a sharp mind and quick feet and I had a fucking graffiti tag my way across all the bit bopping burrows No, it's farm life. I could beat you to death Henry. Yeah, like easily The movie the Warriors Henry your life was not like that You're a bit more like a George Gein, but without any alcohol. Oh, I got booze So Ed uh his relationship with Henry Pretty good. He got along with his brother brother for the most part Henry

Definitely a little more independent than Ed But Ed looked up to Henry because Henry actually got a job outside of the Gein farmstead He oversaw a crew of Jamaicans on a public works project and for some reason Ed considered that to be the highest achievement And how isn't that how hasn't that been a major motion picture? Jamaican construction crew working in Plainfield, Wisconsin those poor poor men Who had to go talk about culture shock? Yeah in 1952 All right, what we're gonna do it's about it's about Jamaican

Wisconsin construction workers. We're looking at it's like a cross between cool run-ins and 12 years of slave. Okay, perfect Those Jamaican I would have I would love to hear the Jamaican story of what they thought of the white culture of Plainfield Probably just kept silent and looked around or it's like If they have a safe place where we can talk because there's everybody's in the woods. They always hide now in the woods He dressed like the Amman. He dressed up like dear You can't tell who's white and who's just who's just a dear man. I agree with that. It's crazy out there It was only really only one thing that Henry and Ed disagreed on and that was Augusta and it took a Baffling amount of years for Henry to bring up that maybe

Ed was a little too close to his mother. I feel like Henry was very sensitive about the issue You know Henry wasn't like oh Augusta is a crazy wench woman who's holding you back And there's a reason for your mental retardation. He's like, maybe you're just been maybe take an hour away Because he probably because Henry seems like he's like sort of normal and he's looking at himself just being like I need to I need to be normal Figure out how to fix my life and then he's looking at Ed and Ed's really really not normal He loves it is like the actual thing of an oddball Which is when you're up close to an oddball and you realize? Oh, he's a total

Deviant and fucking psychopath. It's like the cold Kidman and Tom Cruise. They were both Scientologists, but it eventually Nicole Kidman woke up and then Tom Cruise is Ed Gein But it's it's he should play him in a movie. He's sure I want to see Tom Cruise is Ed Gein You want to do like the Eileen Mourno Starleys there. Oh, yeah, we try to make her ugly, but she's still pretty hot Yeah, yeah, it's still hot it banging body Yeah, it's just him just like still having sex with like Penelope Cruz like out on the field

But then you know I hate it I hate Hollywood I hate that Hollywood does that Eileen should have been played by a real ugly woman who understood what it was Like to be an ugly gal Abused by men. Well, you don't understand English. They take ugly women and they put them into camps and they gas them This is what happens in Los Angeles. You would know place. I believe you so Henry He actually didn't criticize Augusta in the least bit, but there was an implication there That if Ed was spending a little bit too much time with Augusta Then Augusta might be wrong and you know Ed thought about this for like, I mean, this was the thing

He was thinking about for weeks. Yeah, yeah, he just I mean in possibly even years Because three years after George's death because after George died, that's when Henry that's when he started to think Okay, maybe this isn't the best thing for me and who knows he may have some credit He may have him right because he definitely thought about it because they said during this time period He went because then he went he'd went on the only trip that he had ever went on in his life to go sign up for the army And he was like he was trying to figure out what you do and they were like you can't take you in the fucking army Who are you get the hell out? He showed up. He's like I'd like to be in the army because I think it'd be fun To have a gun and they're like no, no, no

Just get the hell out of here But so he he knew That that things were a little unusual in the house. Oh, yeah, absolutely I mean you can't go try to join the army when you call a bayonet a butter knife and he definitely This was no one was going to take him Yeah, so when Augusta yells at him and tells him that nobody wants him. She's not lying Well, she's made him that way. Well, yeah, she has made him Unlovable essentially by anybody except for her and he doesn't really want to be loved by anyone except her his

Entire world revolved around Augusta and the only love that he wanted in this world was the love of his mother Yeah, and three years after George's death Henry Gein would be dead as well and this is a matter of Speculation huge speculation probably the biggest matter of speculation surrounding Ed Gein that he may have actually killed Henry I'm just gonna start a little whisper campaign right now He may have also been killed by the elements while fighting a runaway brush fire Yeah, but then they found him and he had no burn marks on him and his clothes are completely fine and he was choked death Okay

That was a thing they found him and they said that maybe the fumes from the fire had caused him to exphyxiate But it was just like Ed who found him Ed was the only one with him He went out and you know like he was like oh like he did a thing where he saw Ed to Henry choke and he was like Somebody somebody My brother's dying look yeah, and so he was good and dead and then he ran and got help right So yeah, I mean this would require Henry to be like I like to go down to fires and just take a deep breath I mean Never caught fire

Well, they were fighting fires from both sides, you know, they were trying it was on their land They were trying to save it and Ed He said his version of the story is that they split up. He went back to find Henry Couldn't find him because darkness was starting to fall. He went back to town But when he brought authorities back out, he was able to go straight to Henry's body See that he wasn't creative enough to like Stumble upon it No, and when they asked him and when they asked him like how he was able to lead him straight to the body

He just kind of shrugged and said funny. How that works. What work? No, it works Ed. There's nothing funny about it. He's dead. It's a funny. That is a funny joke Ed I just don't think the police arrested murderers until 1998 It is the I mean you could do whatever you wanted back then they worked a little Robert Durst explanation for many years I've just been like he had his reasons. Yeah Well, they weren't big on investigation for a really long time No, like it was just because they thought it's like, you know what? There's no way that you know a little old meek Eddie Gein could hurt anybody much less kill him

He'd also been known in town for having an extreme aversion to violence. Yeah, that he wouldn't even go hunting When which is like a fucking very weird thing in Wisconsin especially in that people where everybody went fucking hunting everybody Actually called him. I love forgot about this nickname. They called him. She's they're just a Eddie's just another weak act in Casper milk toast Yeah, which is a that's very very high insult. Oh, that's high. That's an insult in the highest degree in Wisconsin So Casper are they talking about Casper, Wyoming? No Casper the ghost scaredy-cat This is before Casper. No Casper that ghost was around in the early 1900s

I don't think you know your comic book history. Oh, I know my history You just like funny things that look like globs of semen I laugh at a lot of strange globular things So Ed Finally after all of these years he finally had his mother all to himself Oh, it was just Ed Nagusta in the house, but the domestic bliss wouldn't last for soon after Henry's death Augusta would fall victim to a stroke She would be in and out of the hospital for a few months and Ed

Finally tending to her every need. He was finally able to just have her completely in his control Can I read her favorite Bible passage that he would have him read to her while she was on her deathbed? Yes Thank you Oh Lord Rebuke me not in dying anger neither chastened me in thy heart displeasure have mercy upon me Oh Lord for I am Queek Oh Lord heal me for my bones are vexed my soul is also sorely vexed But now oh Lord how long return Oh Lord deliver my soul

Oh save me for thy mercy's sake for in death There is no remembrance of thee in the grave who shall give me thanks I'm weary with my groaning all the night to make I'm my bed to swim I water my couch with my tears mine eyes is consumed because of grief it waxeth old Because of all mine enemies depart from me all ye workers of iniquity for the Lord hath heard the voice of my weeping The Lord hath heard my supplication the Lord will receive my prayer. I love it It sounds like Prince of Nottingham from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves The King of Nottingham a little bit of Rael in there. Yeah

Very fun so Ed was able to tend to her every single knee but her end would come in the winter of 1945 a week before her death This is the trigger Mind you this is the trigger for Augusta's death Ed Traveled to the farm of a man named Bill Smith to find to buy a little bit of straw Augusta She's still on the men from her first stroke, but she had absolutely no faith in her son as a negotiator So she came along of course they drove up to the house and they found Bill Beat in a dog on the front porch arguing with the woman

That he'd been shacking up with yeah, he wouldn't marry He was just shacking up look at that and the man eventually just beat the dog to death while the woman wept and screamed pretty traumatic type of a situation The death of the dog Augusta could not give less of a fuck. It was the mere sight of this so-called Harlot that upset her the most she just ran it and raved about the sin of these two for a full day and night Would not stop talking about and completely Exhausted herself in just a few days later. She dropped dead of a second stroke killed by her own

Judgemental nature. Thank God, and you know it's funny because she had a stroke It's terrible that was the close to the most boring story set up of all time where Ed Gein went down to Bill Smith's house to buy some grade That's like a Wisconsin tale. Oh my god. Well, let me tell you something about a way to get one day He was going to Bill Smith's house. Yeah turns out Eddie Needed to buy a little bit straw. Oh my god. That is just one of the darnest things I ever heard He's absolutely sinister I'll tell you that going to buy straw that's something sinister. I've never heard who needs straw when you're living on a farm straws fuck them everywhere Of course Augusta her obituary, I think sums up the feeling that the townsfolk have for this woman, right?

perfectly, like Mr. Gustav Gein died at the Wild Rose Hospital in December 29th of a cerebral brain hemorrhage The body was brought to the goat funeral home where services were held December 31st Reverend C.H. Wise Officiating she is survived by one son that fucking weird guy Eddie Who lives in the home farm? Southwested here

Wild Rose how Wild Rose? Fun hospital to go to the old Wild Rose real shitty way to spend New Year's Eve as well Oh, yes Yeah, the only people to show up to her funeral were a couple of her family members specifically her two brothers Who were also unmarried? Oh? Oh, that is a fun little thing that makes everybody totally of isolated and weird Yes, I would have loved to see this funeral and of course Ed was there Inconsolable weeping uncontrollably its face just covered with tears and snot bet she feels bad about killing his only family now

And he told the congregation She was too good. Just too good for all that suffering. Oh He did he loved his mom so much. Yeah, and after feel bad and after a local woman tried to Consolium saying she was finally at peace. He said yep. She's truly at peace now. I'm alone I'm truly alone in the world What a cry for it But me but then first of all it's like you it's like but while you're trying to offer solace You're like, yeah, I mean, okay. Yeah, sure. Yes. I'm just trying to say

Feel better. I know why you being just you're weird man. Yeah, I mean he's weird But I'm sure I mean he had to embrace a woman very aggressively and hold her far too long at some point during these services And then realized that ain't mom. Yeah, so after mama died Eddie Gein's free to live a bachelor life And he found a girlfriend and then they shocked up and everything was totally cool, right? Oh, absolutely I love the way this story ends. He says I'm finally free. I'm finally free Yeah, and it turns into entourage Right where it's him hanging out with Jeremy Piven and they go to Vegas and you got Johnny Vegas and Billy Vegas and the guy named Like Tony Cleveland. Yeah, all hanging out with Sasha Gray

It's them weirdest thing is Tony Cleveland's the only one from Vegas We're kind of one of those bizarre kind of a fun little thing. No, this is when things got really fucked up for him This is where Ed Gein's entire life falls apart. He has no family members to control him whatsoever And this is a man It's like if you were in solitary confinement for 20 years and you get thrown out into the middle of you know The middle of some random metropolis and you're just left to fend for yourself. Mm-hmm Yeah, and it's just and but I'd also say this is the the the perfect example of the tour You know the the idols hands idle hands or the devil's tools, right?

Right, that's kind of what this is all about Whole story is about like we we could tell say Eddie Ed Gein Please get a hobby and but what he did Different hobby get a different hobby. Yeah, idle hands are the devil's tools But unless you use hands, I don't did he use the hands as hammers? I don't think you can that would be kind of fun. That's me. It's too fleshy Oh, it'll just pass right through that. You ever yeah, I mean I've put my hand through a hammer before or a hand through a nail Before sure. Yeah. Well, you did construction all wrong

That's why you never made it in that business. Yeah Marcus did construction for one day, but he brought no tools He's like, I know what I'm doing You went straight from Texas and you're just going like hey I brought my own damn hammers the best part about these hammers that they're also screwdrivers and also help me drink my beer All right, so that's Ed Gein part one. Obviously part two is coming up next. What a great Wisconsin tale Very very interesting. Again, if you are If you I don't know wanting to dig up graves and make nipple belts and things like that don't even bother You can just go on Etsy. Yeah by your own nipple belt. It's already been made for you

I mean really if Ed would have had the internet none of this would happen I think the internet has saved a lot of lives I really do think it has they can outrage. You could have just bought some fake skeletons and had them around the house Yeah, or Absolutely, he could have made his whole macabre house and it would have been really fun It would have been a great haunted house during the Halloween season Everyone would have loved to go over there and visit the old Gein house No, he could just go and could have been hugged a couple of more times

Yeah, you know that this is one of those cases where he could have been hugged a little bit more Well, I think he was hugged after his mother berated him and made him cry and then I it was very bizarre Affection, you know back and forth. Yeah, which is the the old seesaw that creates a killer All right, so let's see here. Let's do I'm gonna do a hail yourselves Thank you guys so much for listening and make sure to follow Marcus Parks on Twitter and that's Henry loves you on Twitter I'm at Ben kissle and of course last podcast on the left LP on the left on Twitter Hail sweet Satan You're always there when I need you

Like I was so hungry on set yesterday, and I was like please Satan will you feed feed what I need? and They had burritos at the at the crafty table So that's craft services coming through there and the big sweet Satan well one more things go to iTunes and rate and review if If you haven't done so already and go to cave comedy radio comm slash elp our last podcast on the left and Get your very own last podcast on the left teacher and Henry Why don't you tell the audience a little bit about how the shoot's going? How's everything in Toronto with you top secret, okay?

Very good. Thank you so much for sharing It's fucking great. Okay. Uh, I I don't know how to say it. I'm living. I'm living. I'm living a nerd's wet dream right now Awesome. Also, um, I do have a message to give Christopher Russo Wants to say to Anos Sionis Um, but he loves you and you were right and he wants you to come home. Wow And thank you guys so much for supporting the shows that Marcus and I do as well here on CCR We had three in the top 200. You know this

Past week or so on iTunes, so that really means a lot to all of us. Yeah, we're really choking the airwaves with our thick fucking cack Yeah, yes, so we can actually fully say Hale Geen today. Yeah For more shows like the one you just listened to go to cavecomedyradio.com