Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 310: Rasputin Part I - Greg Drunk

Episode Date: March 30, 2018

It's world history time as we cover the full saga of one of the most mysterious men of the 20th century: Grigori Rasputin! Join us on this one as we explore the early life that shaped the Siberian peasant who helped bring down a dynasty. Take a Chance Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

There's no place to escape to this is the last time on the left That's when the cannibalism started I gotta say one of my favorite things about the residual high of having eaten a bunch of edibles and you wake up Still stone is that what it's nice is that like nothing's real and there's no Consequences and it's like I get out of jail free card for whatever you do Didn't you have those edibles 48 hours ago? No, I did it again last night. I But okay what it does is make it so like you sort of feel like I'm a traveling wandering God like a Loki and I can tell people what to do and I could do whatever I want

And it's like they can't see me or they'll laugh if they saw me doing something bad Well, maybe that's what happened to the character We're gonna talk about today Welcome to the last podcast on the left everyone. I am Ben Kissell with Marcus Parks. We got Henry Zabrowski over there Teflon Henry Zabrowski ain't nothing gonna stick in me today because I'm not a part of your world Everything sticks to you. I'm like the little mermaid. I am not a part of your world. Oh My goodness you took a bunch of brownies last night that were full of weed I watched the show moon shiners and there was a funny moment where they were wrapping this bucket in cheese cloth

And they said and this woman said if it was easy, everyone would do it Because it's not true No one would do it no matter how easy it was because it's moon shining different nights. All right So today's episode this is huge by the way this one people have been asking about this dude for a long time We're finally getting to him Rasputin Rasputin How else are you supposed to say it

Rasputin that is how it's supposed to be said. It's supposed to be said with a Russian mystery There's a lot of different types of names in this episode. Well, I've been listening to a lot of Alabama lately Oh, oh good. I'm glad that stop saying song of the self. Don't ever say it ever again in a bunch. All right Dixieland delight It's I could name both of their thoughts Well, Grigory Rasputin aka the mad monk and Grishka to his friends was a spiritual advisor For lack of a better term who wormed his way into the highest echelons of power at the end of the imperial era in Russia in the early 20th century cool now a lot of myths and tall tales have been told about Rasputin over the last century or so that Helped to make him the booger bear that brought down the Russian Empire the booger bear. Yeah

No, it's not a term. No, I can't what first of all It makes me think of the most adorable baby Charmin bear that they nicknamed booger bear because you can also use toilet paper for your nose This is not the first time I've mentioned booger bear on the show. I would have remembered I'm pretty sure I would have remembered the same thing with him. It's calling it a cuckoo clock But the Rasputin being a booger bear is interesting because booger bear you make it cute But for me, I just imagine a big shirtless wet man That everybody calls booger bear because no one knows his fucking origin and he's just covered in his own nose slime

Right. Yeah, he's like the dog. He's like the dog from family vat era national ampoum's Christmas vacation or the father of honey boo boo But that's not far off from Rasputin and these were active style choices that he made Well, a lot of the rumors and myths about Rasputin aren't true No, which is really sad because again, it's a it's a classic example of like would they built up a whole? Mysterious world of Rasputin being this powerful wizard and he and doing weird dark sex magic and shit But half the time of course, there's gonna be a middle ground In this story of what is real and what is fantastic very common I was talking to my friend Simone or Bobby about Che Guevara evidently. He's stunk. Really bad order. Well, not brought up

Well, we're gonna talk about Rasputin's odor later on or lack of or the rumor of Yes, okay Speaking of which the rumors an innuendo about Rasputin came from two places his contemporary enemies in imperial Russia and the Soviet Union Who used Rasputin as an example of the debauchers evil that came before the formation of the USSR? Okay, but since the Russians have only fairly recently made their files on Rasputin public following the fall of the Soviet Union The picture of Rasputin that is since formed shows somewhat of a different man The story goes that Rasputin was responsible for the fall of the house of Romanov a dynasty that had ruled Russia for 300 years by the time Rasputin came on to the scene

Through Rasputin's actions Zara Nicholas the second and his wife Alex were led astray by this mysterious Siberian monk whose only motivations in life were supernatural evil chaos in six Minimize that by saying only I Like to think so it seems to be a life goal if that's what you want to do every day you wake up And I want to make sure I am sowing as much supernatural evil chaos and sex in your life

You'll get it But it's going to be in a lot of laquintas and it's going to be after polyamory festivals or jade festivals somewhere in Arizona Well, I'm not saying only in like a minimizing way. I'm saying only is in like singular or in this case Triangular laser focus laser focus laser focus, but the whole truth is actually a lot more complicated What we're aiming to do in this series is to dispel the myths that surround one of the most mysterious figures of the 20th century While also painting this man just as he was a man, but he was a fucking cool ass dude. I love this story I mean, I mean he's done bad things Obviously some bad things didn't really awful shit

But it's very metal and a lot of this fucking when I think of this story quite a bit It's like a man just fall with a Duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh-duh as he's spinning through the fucking Russian force Fighting demons and shit that may be a part of his mind But he's making him real and he's out there wrestling him and women are falling for him and he's drinking as much Stinky vodka as he could put into his big flappy mouth He does seem like someone who really takes slipknot seriously Just like like I know you're hearing the band like but are you listening?

Are you listening and are you even aware of the lore of slipknot and how the masks are a different chapter for each section of the fantasy line No, Rasputin was not necessarily what you would call a cult leader. He had followers Yes, but he was more of an advisor like a worm tongue. He did not want to strictly rule He more wanted to be around those who ruled Oh, like John Hornacek Well, I'm alone. John Stockton. Yeah. Yeah, or a sec. Just like to be on the tape Utah jazz Utah jazz midnight I'm not letting any of this fake music basketball

information sully the fake shit. I've already put it in my mind No, like a cult leader Rasputin liked to play with people But he didn't have that one skill that we always say is one of if not the most important when it comes to running a successful cult Hmm organization or a podcast network We could maybe use a little bit of that as well But I part of the but the truth is that cult leaders have an eye for uh delegating authority and structure societal structures And they know that what you have to do is put people to work

Rasputin in my mind quite a bit because what we're gonna see and what we're gonna Show in these next couple episodes So Rasputin was actually also very self-conscious of his image and knew what he was building and how to attract people to it To me, he's more of a big stinky Madonna than anything Where he hit on a style and everybody got into it and technically is the first practitioner of what I believe is a subgenre That only Rasputin does which is crust goth I think I was accidentally a crust goth when I was 12 Trust me. It is definitely a subgenre that exists. I knew quite a few crust goths in college

It's very easy to be one Now that image that Rasputin was trying to make for himself All that was about making him a great man. That's really all he wanted It just didn't matter to him what kind of great man he was I mean, don't get us wrong. This guy is a monster of history His actions led to untold misery for millions on a macro scale and hundreds on the micro And actually he's one of those guys where you really wonder if the whole of 20th century history might have been different If you would have just plucked Rasputin out

It's fucking true dude. It's fucking a lot of shits on his shoulders First ignorant question of the podcast. What what what years we talking about here? We're talking yeah, like world war one years here. Like we're talking like 1900 uh to 1917 These are some of the most consequential years of the 20th century It's set the tone for the entire 100 years world war one a war. So fun. We did it again. That's a very controversial statement Very controversial advertisement, you know, I should be I'm just saying I could have been a great McNamara I could have I could have you know, he's he that's how you brand Vietnam It's like world war two. We're doing it again

And we're also going to be stealing a little bit from dan carlin's concept of the capital g great man But how like there's what we're going to tell is the story is that what we also learn from jim jones and we've learned from other cult leaders Is that laser-like focus and adherence to like personal even fake Insane values can drive you really far in this world and somehow this stinky I keep using stinky because that's a lot of people. I mean constantly talking about with them This is possibly a rumor. It's true. This this horny version of a world war one version of forest gum Managed to get crazy access to very important people and he used it very sinisterly Forest Gump used it very positively

Who doesn't love shrimp? Well, despite all that Resputant was not the supernatural beast of mysticism and magic that we've been led to believe he is I mean like everyone we cover Resputants basically just another piece of shit So the two books we're using for research on this series are resputing the untold story by joseph t firman Yeah firman it's i'm sorry. No, it's not bad. It's just I hate when there's I hate when books are titled the untold story Is it blank? You're telling the story. It's the now told story. I hate the term untold

You can't say now told now telling The story I'm currently telling of Rasputin that really tiny type of top of it and just label it Rasputin right Well, the other book is Rasputin faith power and the twilight of the romanovs by douglas smith Now this kind of story is new ground for us as we've never really covered world history in previous episodes This is I mean, it's definitely new ground. So right up top We want to make sure everyone knows that we're not claiming to be historians here. No, we are not Shocking revelations the kernel of cbd gel. I still have stuck to my wisdom

Is evidence of that I know there's some people out there who are huge buffs of imperial russian history like I knew a guy In college he turned the entire first floor of his house into like this weird kind of museum dedicated specifically to the romanovs Nowadays if your roommate is doing that you call the fucking fbi and say he's planning to kill a bunch of people Because you don't devote a whole section of your I guess maybe it does make you see them It's a mean I think if they just have a corner of their room with specific candles and pictures of people that they don't like around

And they're constantly licking their gun Then then you called it. I call that pull in a canan. Yes. No, this is just a sweet guy who was Intensely obsessed with the romana family. Awesome. We went to that. What was it? Was that in uh in Pittsburgh? The people who turned their entire house into the museum very fun. Yeah, strange place to live Yeah, it's great stuff But my point here is that you know, there are people that know this shit backwards and forwards, you know And so yeah, we might get a couple of things wrong here on there And especially when it comes to like the world war one stuff because that is insanely complicated

I know all about world war one Also, especially the names because reading these books reading Rasputin the untold story that is currently being told that you are reading I learned that I uh, I can't pronounce the names I don't know they all kind of blend together sometimes and it kind of feels like when you're deep into like book four of dune And they're just rattling off like the different house names and all the different dukes and arch lords and all that shit And you're just like I just hope that we get back to the plot at some point and tell me Where do we find out where they kept his penis which is in the end?

They're driving first driving thought of mine during the research Rasputin is where's his cock? I've heard they got his cock. Oh, all right. Yeah names. That's basically all the bible is too It's just listing of names has a kaya son of Jeremiah son of mitakaya Yes, and then somehow they slip in homophobia Yeah, we're we're gonna fuck up some names here. There's a ton of very difficult to pronounce names and places We're gonna get some wrong here and there, but please know that we're gonna do our best with everything here Like we're absolutely we're we're trying our hardest I do love that we try to nip mean tweets in the bud. We have to know

Oh, I'm tired of them. We just have to. All right, let's do this. So with that, let's get into the life of Rasputin Can you handle the eyes of the dark monk himself? So Gregory Ethimovich Rasputin known as Grishka to the townsfolk Grishka meaning friend Oh Was born in 1869 in the desolate wasteland of Siberia in the small town of pokrovskaya And this being 1869 not a lot is known about his parents His father Ephraim was according to records chunky unkempt and stooped. Yeah, you mean Siberian

He's Siberian I told you technically they measure how much land you should receive from the government by how many degrees your stoop goes From the center of your back. Huh? Yeah, I mean his mother is hardly mentioned at all But both of them seem to be like fairly normal Siberian peasants just regular salt to the earth emphasis on salt I would assume The only negative thing about his father that was said if you could even consider this a strong negative or even slightly remarkable For a Russian peasant was that he had a taste for quote

Strong vodka. That's totally normal. Yes. I think so. It's very cold in sub Siberia I feel like a lot of people are like strong vodka and it'd be weird actually if you liked weak vodka Yes, absolutely. I mean the blanket you it's a it's a liquid blanket. Yeah Yeah I do not go to bed and look at a bottle of vodka and be like, thank you That definitely is not the first time you've referred to booze as a liquid blanket That's a classic. No people with the whiskey. That's the sweater inside You know that that's been said before you just shoot yourself like a big drunk canary and just pull a blanket like over your face

And then now it's time for sleep even in the middle of the day. You can go to sleep as long as it's dark No, one of the first myths we'll tackle has to do with something as simple as Rasputin's name Now some have said historians included that Rasputin's family was so poor that they had no last name Wow The name Rasputin they said was given to him as an adult as calling him a grigory Rasputin was a kanda calling him grigory the drunk Rasputin being derived from the word

Rasputin the chop, which means debauchers so far so good on these names Yeah, I guess so. I guess it's a hundred for a hundred. Also a part of it's like his name is greg Yeah, his name's greg greg Just imagine the the just essentially the american version name is greg drunk That's what he was If he came here, which I guess it doesn't help you come to this country sounds like someone who might uh start Breitbart But in reality the name Rasputin is nothing more than a geographical designation

Used to describe the Rasputin family's hometown in russian at least back then a word for crossroads was Rasputin Making the name no more extraordinary than roads or strata Huh, his name was greg drunk roads. Well, it's actually what it means. Oh man. Yes, essentially a greg drunk driving That's his name. That brings it to another level Now another possibly more appropriate origin of the name Rasputin is the word Rasputitsa Which is a word that describes the muddy Siberian spring season that actually makes it impossible to travel by road Which then you can see the entomological. Is that the term?

Hmm, I think so entomological. I've no I think entomological means I think that's bugs I think you need etymological endominomials The word science If you think about it is that a muddy road in traveling through it is akin to being drunk So you can see how the name slowly turned into drunk over time. Okay. Well, no, it never was drunk Shut up I just let something absorb And the myths about what happened before little gregory was even born don't stop there

One of the myths created by Rasputin's contemporary enemies concerned the sexual habits of his parents The paper morning of russia published a story that said that Rasputin's father Yefim was such a sexual deviant that he dared to have sex with his wife Anna while she was pregnant with Rasputin Yes On one occasion when Anna refused to have sex it said while she was pregnant Yefim supposedly screamed in reference to the baby inside her quote This they say resulted in the childhood nickname pushed out grishka I'm starting to think these russians are just having fun with us

I tell you what I've got a lot of these peppers. I've been eating recently. I've been fucking up with my pushed out grishka Which is really Fucking with me today. Good lord. It was also said in the same article that when Anna grew too large for vaginal sex A handyman witnessed them engaging in a bit of anal although. I don't really see how that's easier What is this? Why are these stories? Why does this exist as a story? At the time people were really like people hated Rasputin and so they were trying to smear him as scandalously as possible And I guess anal is bad but at the same time I kind of think it's refreshing that there's parents were still sexually active This is the best parent, uh, that we've ever covered the best duo here that we've covered so far

Well, I don't really I mean, I don't know if the whole anal thing is true. How would they do anal? I know that they do But how would the how what was it? I who found them? Uh, the handyman the hand First of all, we need to investigate this handyman. Yes. Hello. I am the handyman I can tell difference between vaginal hole and butthole the butthole it makes the woman go Wow, wow, wow, which is what unfortunately Mrs. Rasputin was to say Well, yeah, the thing was like they didn't need to exaggerate Rasputin's sexual habits. He was a Hard core sex addict who do who did a litany of awful things that we're gonna cover

But really I'm like on the other why do they bring his mother's butthole into this whole thing? There was no reason for that. I've said that I leave it alone I will tell you I did miss the sentence originally I was going over the outline that it said that they had gauged anal sex and all I saw was the sentence of Mom's butthole. Why did they bring his mom's butthole into this whole thing? So then I googled Rasputin mom's butthole And I gotta say there is some controversial stuff I'm sure there is So the land in which Rasputin was born Siberia could be described as a collection of middle of knowwares

It makes up 77 percent of russia's land but only a quarter of its population And that was and the population was even less in Rasputin's time Now it does have quite the frozen tundra wasteland reputation and that is deserved up north But the majority of people lived in southern Siberia, which actually has better weather than alaska Don't get jealous alaska. This is not your fault And that's but that's not to say that it's not barren it is but at the very least it was able to support agriculture Which was the Rasputin family trade and the Rasputin's had lived there forever hundreds of years And this actually tells you a lot about the Rasputin's

It wasn't really until the 19th century that russians started seriously immigrating to Siberia And even then those that did come were of what you'd call a desperate sort Yeah, how sad are you when you have to immigrate to Siberia? That's the place you want to be leaving they view it as a place of freedom because there's they have a reputation of being Independent when you go to Siberia, it's kind of like the wild wild west the wild wild west part of america Where you go out there and it was about people thinking about a huge robotic spider. I'm sorry damn it I'm sorry, but you go out there essentially for lebendstrom living space. You know that term kissle Because your grandfather had spray painted over the base. Thank you

Man of the world actually started labor unions, but we don't think that's true But that's kind of the a little bit of the drive to go to Siberia, but it's still I think it probably sucks Yeah, there's a drive to go there, but it's also where russia made people go It's where it dumped its undesirables even before like the days of the soviet gulags and the Terrifying modern Siberian prisons that we see like on lock-up raw today Okay, and this is where they sent the weirdos and the religious leaders and the political exiles This is the place that you sent people when you just wanted them out of the way But just like a lot of other isolated wildernesses in the world where life is short brutal and miserable

The people of Siberia were deeply religious But those people also had a kind of like odd relationship with the church And the major religion was eastern christian orthodox, which is pretty much catholic not catholic catholic not catholic They're like catholic number. They're like second catholic They're like Lutherans in the catholics. We always have we described as a Lutherans was catholics without discipline Like the eastern orthodox they're like in between Lutherans and catholics Okay Yeah, they still have all like the pomp and the rituals that the catholics have they just don't follow the pope

Well, it seems like the russian government I tried to dip a toe into the religious history of russia and I will say it is complicated I try to understand it just the greek orthodox versus russian orthodox is there's a lot of different differences in there I know that my mentally handicapped cousins had a greek orthodox wedding and it was three hours long And there's a lot of circling each other So I know that they draw a lot of pictures big ornate pictures And it seems the government was always either at odds or in cahoots with the religion with different types of religions at different parts in russian history So different times the church's stock would go up and then lessen in terms of influence in the country

It does seem like most of the research you did on this religion was at your mentally uh Handicapped cousin's wedding. Yes. It was like I took a master's course and how to be uncomfortable Now what spoke to these people the people of russia and especially the peasants of russia was not dogma or theology as much as it was The icons and the rituals Only four percent of ciberia was literate at that time So it's not like people were at home studying the bible and more than anything these people just wanted something that sounded good Which made russia at the time fertile ground for a whole host of flimflam men that had the ears of both peasants and royalty

And resputin was the best flimflam man of all All right, if I were to write flimflam next to resputin's name in terms of like a job title I would use two capital F's wow And resputin would be what's also interesting about the people of ciberia that I seem to sort of absorb is the idea of fatalism Was uh rampant and especially in peasant life the idea of god gives us whatever it is that he gives us Including suffering including being conned including everything that's happening So everything that happens happens essentially for a reason and we're we're supposed to take it our suffering is god's will And so we're going to be fine with it. So you have a lot of people that roll with difficult shit

So it kind of not I don't say gullibility, but it definitely It adds fire to what rasputin rasputin just kind of like came at the right time When his his shit was also perfectly absorbed by the people looking for somebody confident to listen to Well, they got to be knocked down for you to pick them up. Oh, yeah, that's what I say Yeah, well, I mean that's gonna play into shit later on without a doubt. Is that what you do when you just stare at horses going around prospect park? You just yelling at that yelling at people So the legend goes that rasputin was born on a cold january night And as his mother gave birth a comet screamed across the ciberian sky above their home

And this marked gregory as a great man to be Oh, this was of course not true But according to rasputin the untold story such omens were kind of the norm in rural russia Other omens talked about babies being born with iron teeth Dogs born with six legs or snakes falling from the sky. That's scary Now all of these things were omens that pestilence and death were sure to come to the village You know the baby with the iron teeth the dog was six legs that you know steak falling from the sky They're literally just creating james bond villains. Yes

That's very unlucky Yeah, that's true. Oh, that was because all of this shit were like death and pestilence were very common and people needed something On which they could blame their misery. For example, the infant mortality rate in ciberia at this time was Brutally high out of eight kids possibly nine Rasputin was the only one To survive past childhood. Yeah, and honestly you have to be very strong To live past all the other kids, especially the they all just very casually The kids die

They throw them on top of the potato pile and they start fucking again and they make another one and then they just pop it out Me like its face fell off Like oh, so does god give us this fate and they throw it in the river and then they fuck again and have another kid And so by then I imagine it does make you a weird person Watching baby after baby die and you just stare and they're like lead the zone of this and everyone's just sucking on vodka Lifting rocks from one place to another Yeah, I mean they really just treated them more like potential workers, right? Yeah I mean it wasn't like people just sort of accepted it. They didn't really talk about it at all

It was just once one kid left. It's like, all right. Well, that's the way it goes All right, you know and this shit, you know, it produces weird people and Rasputin was the weirdest one out of Like first of all, he was scared of shadows Because he thought that all shadows were filled with ghosts waiting to jump out and get them, you know I I can see it. I actually I don't think that that's that irrational for a child. Technically that is what George Norrie is like now Rasputin also said he never stole as a child because he could see if a person was a thief just by looking at him Oh, he said that he could even see what they had stolen and since he assumed that everyone could do that He never stole but as we'll see that was a huge goddamn lie

You know sheriff Joe Arpaio said the exact same thing, but it just turns out to his racially profile. Oh Yeah Rasputin was also a bed wetter Which for some reason made him an outsider in a village of outsiders as the moment the bed wetten got out None of the other kids wanted to be around him. How does the bed wetting stories? How do they always get out because it's common. It's you smell like pee you show up someplace you smell like pee They're like hey sputin you're smelling like a lot more like piss today than yesterday He's like hey because I make a soup in my pants and they're like, okay

And you know like he just unwittingly because he was a weird kid and and also in Siberia bed wetting is reserved for the parents But through it all Rasputin still had a love for his homeland Yeah, he'd come back even after he was one of the most like influential people in all of Russia Like once a year he'd go back and hang out in his small town We got to remember your roots. It does seem a little rome and michelle Every time he does it though like he shows up kind of in like look at the minnow Hey more hairy, huh? Hey time does this to me. Haha you fucking guys love you. Yeah, that is a good point. It might just be trips to go brag

And even as a child Rasputin had a deep and abiding faith in God a lot like Jim Jones But it was around the age of eight that Rasputin's path took a turn for the supposedly supernatural He and his cousin both came down with pneumonia after falling into a river and only Rasputin survived Now because his cousin was apparently the only kid who'd hang out with him Rasputin turned to horses for company and pretty soon he said that he could communicate with them on a mental level Did you do the same thing? No, I didn't communicate with horses He would never communicate with horses But you do get the feeling when Marcus said that he's like you don't do that

You get to know the horse power and horse wisdom. It's not meant for man My uncle did it. He's been in a coma for 30 years No, you got to earn a horse's trust Yeah Can't just break in there. Hey, man You don't got to tell me well really? I mean it seems like All of Rasputin's outward miracles when he was a kid had to do with the horse at some time or another He just seemed like he was good with horses. Yeah, he was great with horse chip gains is great with horses. Yes

He is fixer upper And when Rasputin was 12 he was in bed with a high fever when he heard adults talking in the other room They were discussing a recent theft in which the poorest man of town had lost his only horse A Rasputin got out of bed looked at the faces of the men in discussion pointed at one of them and screamed He stole the horse. Oh, no, this is how the Salem witch trial started. But that's what happens. He's a weird sickly kid He's like all covered in fever. He shuffles out going let the man is the thief And they're like get out of here. You sweaty weird little boy And then he goes back to sleep and then they find him later on

Yeah, like the father apologized, but the he said like oh the kid's just sick. He's talking nonsense Uh, but the other guys are like, well, maybe this kid's on to something here So they followed the guy home and they found him trying to move the horse Yeah, he was trying to launder the horse And so the problem is the boy is right. I mean the boy is right. That means everybody else is wrong You know what I mean, which is bad for the town. Yep. He's like the rainmaker from a looper Yeah So the man was beaten within an inch of his life as was the custom and the town finally put

How do you know when the inch is up? Like like what's the final hit cyberians now? Okay Well, they do the old school wrestling thing where they lift the hand to see if it holds to give them the three count Well after that the town finally put little gregori's bedwetting habit aside and gave him just the tiniest bit of respect Well, it seemed like it was also a mixture of fear because they got a weird reputation Where it's like immediately it happened like he's a bed pisser He um, he's a very strange child all he does is hang out with horses and whisper on them all day long And then he comes out with this very uh accurate prediction and they all

Immediately get nervous being like if you can see that we steal that means that we can't steal now What we have to do is treat this treat this as if it's real and we need to isolate the boy Okay Yeah, but you know the reverence would not it wouldn't last long because when Rasputin got older He developed a taste of furbaca to rival even that of his father All right, he turned into a lecherous troublemaker earning the nickname sniveller and snot nose Cool, it's pretty sweet. It does sound like the um the second line of teenage mutant ninja turtle toys characters I was gonna say that. Yep. I like that. Yeah, I mean and he did actually have those nicknames

That wasn't uh a smear by his enemies, but his enemies freezing cold and he's trashed of course Let the snot roll But the enemies, I mean they made him out to be pretty much this young devil Even though, you know, he wasn't that bad by russian peasant standards This is what one propaganda leaflet said about him in his youth. Rasputin was uncommonly helpless with a foul mouth Inarticulate speech Draveling dirty as can be a thief and blasphemer. He was the fright of his native village Siberian he's Siberian

Now they followed that with accusations of vodka and horse thievery Two of the worst things you could do back in those days. Yeah, how it's it cannot be easy to steal a horse It's pretty. I mean you just kind of get on it and you're right off You hit it with the fucking hammer and then you drag it on the cart You can only you can definitely only steal one at a time. Yeah, well unless you got a buddy Or and but that's the thing actually you can because what you do is you top on one horse And you got the other horse like tied to a rope or something like that And that horse will follow you if you got a rope jerking

Or you got a dick like apu's tail Which is what he has and it's fucking It's got a prehensile edge to it. They can grab the vodka and stick it up your asshole Like those old dirty jokes about the guy with the elephant trunk dick I have no idea what your father read to you In reality like respite was probably just like a snotty kid Like one of the only things on record concerning Resputin was that he did two days in jail for giving quote a rude attitude to a local government official

Okay, well, he had got the properties Right. He started off as a tiny little Dracula and he knew Instinctively as a little boy to lean into the role of being mysterious and uh being uh unpredictable Like I have been in the past And you have to but that's a part of what you do He's starting to he kind of immediately understands. Oh, you kind of have to cultivate your persona in this world of nobody Since this small town Siberia and he immediately was like I could be a fucking character here and get a lot of attention But the one thing that everyone agrees on about Rasputin was his eyes

His eyes were so famous and important to his character that the book Twilight of the Romanovs Dedicated an entire chapter just to Rasputin's eyeballs and how he'd use them It's fair to say he does not exist as Rasputin without those eyes. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah him and um, what's her name? It's garland joe hanson. She's got tiny eyes. He'd be his his eyes are in pictures like that's kind of funny Even the old black and white pictures that you look at them and they really do stand out And I'll look at a picture for a long time just like staring at it while I'm reading and I am all of a sudden nude Just looking at his face And my my penis is in my hands and I'm like why am I doing this to myself in front of this man

And but it's like his eyes are following me everywhere around the room while I have the the book open And I'm full of edibles and I'm jerking it. Sure. I feel an interest I that's what I do when I look at pictures of Frank Sinatra. Although I put on a three-piece suit without even knowing it classy One person called Rasputin's eyes quote Psychologically inexplicable. Wow. Wow. It's a strange strange optometrist Stop flirting with me doctor And the other said that his eyes pierced like needles like a metallic greenish bluish brownish gray

His eyes like seem to change hues. They kind of changed color And they were described as at the same time being disturbing alarming and alluring stop it marcus You're doing this to me again. I'm gonna be nude again They said that he would stare at you without blinking Uncomfortably long staring at you as if he was trying to set you on fire And some said that Rasputin's eyes were the source of his power over people either attracting them or throwing them off balance And it wasn't just his eyes

Rasputin's whole way of communicating almost sent you into a trance But in this the strangest way possible When he spoke his sentences were disjointed and oddly phrased Like he'd use like fragments of subjects and this like kind of weird stream of consciousness That would go from religion to philosophy to off-handed sexual remarks. He was probably a dyslexic with adhd It's possible. But honestly, I've I've heard it a lot. He just sounded like an uber driver Yes, you got everybody takes the 405 but nobody ever asked ol gregor if I want to take the 405 And sometimes I think the Mexican people's pants are too long. Why you get shorts if you're going to hide your knees

And you're just like, what is that sir? He's just like that would be 772 There is nothing like an uber driver in la because they are Ready to they they think you might be a producer and they're ready to perform When brook and I were down there this guy was like, so what do you think about trump? And we're like, oh, you know, not not big fans. He's like, I have an impression and he did it for seven minutes It was great. It was so fun Well, Rasputin was like super herky jerky with his arms too And he would shuffle his feet when he spoke and he constantly fidget with whatever was around

Like any of these three things taken alone like the staring like the weird way of talking and all the herky jerky It would have been devastating to anyone else But Rasputin even as a teenager was able to make it work He sounds like fucking in drew garfield Like it sounds like honestly when I read about his behavior is that he is a dude that realizes Oh, if I'm super mysterious chicks will really dig me And so he becomes weirder and weirder as he goes like experimenting with how weird he can be And he's getting positive feedback on people like, oh, there's something to this gregory. And he's like

I'm not gregory anymore. My name is Rasputin. I mean like oh, you guys must have made some money bought a last name Hey, did he ever go through a fat phase like Marilyn Manson? Not really. He died then, huh? Well, he was always kind to skinny, but he got a belly later on. Okay, like that part. Yeah, I love Marilyn Manson now Well the thing is about like his whole way of moving is like that was kind of natural to him That's just the way he did it But as he grew older, he learned how to cultivate it

Like he was so good at it that I mean this guy he grabbed the ears of emperors eventually Like through this weird trance-like way of being it's like his whole way of being was to put people into a trance And these are people who just kill folks for not having their food cooked properly Well, actually the the czars weren't that bad. They weren't that capricious Is that gonna get us into a lot of trouble saying that the czars weren't that bad? They were let's just say they're all so horrible. They were no they were canonized a few years ago. It's fine Oh, so that erases everything I forgot that makes them that makes them good So as I said earlier, God was always a presence in Rasputin's life and in the life of his family

The family would go on like regular pilgrimages together to monasteries and around Siberia So when Rasputin was 17, he got permission from his parents to make the trip on his own And on this trip he met a woman named Praskovia Dubrovina at the feast of the assumption of the virgin Mary man that party must have been off the fucking chain I do Siberia assumption of the virgin Mary. I've got nine keeklorks of vodka and my mules horny This is gonna be a great assumption Praskovia was 20 years old a spinster by the standards of the day

Disgusting When did they die? 29 years old 20 Well, you got to remember like they have to start having kids early because you got to play an odds game there Oh, sure. That's right. Yeah So within a few months the two were married and Rasputin brought his new wife home. I married bitches You guys all thought that I wouldn't but I tell you what I throw that dick fuck down so solid She stayed with me for life. Oh, I'm five. Why everybody's not stay with me. This is the Siberian version of heraldon mod

17 and 20 with that elderly woman So their first three children died of scarlet fever and whooping cough respectively Uh, but their fourth fifth and sixth actually lived well into adulthood. Oh, nice, but the seventh died Ah, three so they got three out of four. No, they got three out of seven Right, but yeah, they're three. I mean, they're not winning the NBA finals. Yes, but they lose the NBA children finals However such was life in Siberian Russia Uh, and a lot of peasants is interested. They just kind of saw this as a manifestation of God's will

So after marriage from the ages of 19 to 28 Rasputin seems to just kind of done his best to be the town pain in the ass while still trying to be godly Like he'd get drunk He'd hop in his horse cart and he'd just ride around town shouting obscenities at all the respectable folk There's a part of this that sounds fun. Yes, it does Just the idea of being like see if you don't fucking tell me where to go. What to do? I go out there I get ripped up. I get fucking crazy. That's what Greg the drunk fucking does. Okay You fucking good going to fight them a nickname. Then you get to just slill

Fucking vodka all night on a horse cart. There's no DUIs if it's a cart, right? Man, just yelling at people honestly, man. Yeah every one of these there's always a moment where it's just like let's be friends Yeah, but he's still also like talked about God all the time Like Rasputin he was kind of like that frat boy that has like the cross tattoo and the cross necklace And he has that weird little hook on his cap that like, you know, oh, it's about fishers of men He also sounds a little bit like johnny cash peak drunk And still loving the lord do a gospel album. We're gonna do a gospel album

But not tell you what because if we don't I'm gonna shoot my your fucking wife Most people they wouldn't hire Rasputin for a job and usually when something went missing in town Rasputin was the prime suspect In fact, one of the myths about Rasputin is directly related to his thievery Now it was said that Rasputin's evil nature was so strong and diabolical in the true sense of the word That he had a small horn growing out of his forehead a bump just below the surface That they said was the reason behind his messy hair Because he was hide in the horn and therefore his intentions God, it's like you're talking about Marilyn Manson

I know it But the real story is actually much more embarrassing than that. Uh-oh. He had a zit One night a fellow villager named Kortov Steve God damn it. I've been trying to figure out this one We're gonna get so much fucking trouble. Let's just call him Cart. We'll call him Cart. I like that. Yeah, we'll call him Carty So Cart caught Rasputin stealing his fence piece by piece That is Come outside the night job defense

Fence belongs to me at the outside You need to tell me that I cannot catch word make bet I see fence now fence might bet and it's the vodka that gives me permission for some reason I just think it would be hilarious if they were neighbors and he was stealing his fence and moving it like one inch under his lawn I take a look at the codes the community codes and your grass is one inch too high I cut it with fucking sword and you try to take it from me No, you just chopping it up with an axe and like throwing it in his car throwing the pieces in his car

So he could like sell them for firewood later. It's so funny So when the villager caught him Rasputin like he kind of threatened him with the axe So the villager just took a steak and just bash Rasputin right in the face with it And then beat him as hard as he could and the beating caused a permanent bump in Rasputin's forehead Honestly, it's a very like drunkard story. I see in the frame of this arc is it up until now? Rasputin has been a mess, right? He's fucking as many women as he can He's got kids at home

But he's just the town drunk who sort of being like being religious is sort of his thing But in the end he mostly he's just got a bad reputation and people hate him But this shit this hit is going to send him off Into the the trip that will then mark his destiny, you know Yeah, like according to the untold story the same neighbor that beat Rasputin Would also be the man who would inadvertently send Rasputin on the journey that would be his first step towards his ultimate destiny A couple of carts horses had gone missing And Rasputin along with a couple of his drinking buddies were the prime suspects

The friends were found guilty and were permanently exiled But the evidence against Rasputin being involved wasn't as clear cut A temporary exile was suggested which wouldn't have been so bad But Rasputin had a different suggestion. He offered to take a pilgrimage to the Siberian monastery of st. Nicholas 325 miles away The townsfolk accepted the proposal maybe thinking it would do him some good But probably just hoping they wouldn't have to deal with this this asshole for just at least a few months Sure. Yeah, that's a long ways away

But on the other hand we should not just dismiss this outright as some drunk dickhead trying to get out of a punishment Rasputin had chosen a grueling dangerous possibly life-threatening path when he could have easily just fucked off into the wilderness For a little while he hit rock bottom I do believe that that's kind of what happened here is like in the style of the show intervention He had hit rock bottom. He did know what to do with his life. He had a lot of ambition He had been meandering and talking about it to this point about how he was destined for something great His parents who were kind of hinting at that a little bit saying that there was something special about his birth or Or all this bullshit whether that's true or not

But he started to believe a little bit being like I can make something of myself And if I do something impossible if I go do this like crazy thing I'll gain some sort of esoteric knowledge from it and come back a different person Which is exactly what happened. Well a journey is afoot. Yeah. I mean the thing is about Rasputin. Is he at the end of the day He's really what he's like a late bloomer, you know, like this it took until 28 for him to really like get his shit together And this was you know, this was the trip that would make Rasputin blossom. Oh And so in the spring of 1897 Rasputin began the long trek to st. Nicholas and became one of the straniqi The straniqi were what the russians called holy wanderers. Oh good

I thought it was someone who ran on the football field after their college football team won naked. Oh Gosh, that's fun. That is cute I mean, they were like hobos. They were hobos. They were hobos that just kind of talked about god a lot Okay, but this dude just went like, you know, like normally you put like point a from like from where we are in Prostokia to st. Nicholas. It's like a straight line But normally you take like roads and shit to go right at like you'd follow formal things But he's like no, I'm going straight. So that means it's like he's walking through fucking Bushes. Yeah, he's walking through ditches

He's walking over mountains and the whole time He's going like I did big gosh big gosh and like and spinning and circles and shit Like he's really going for it. And in my mind, he's also fighting fucking demons And he's out there and demons kind of and he's got the sacred stick of skrushia and he's fighting him Like it's a fucking kung fu movie. No fall around and he's getting the eyes He's shooting laser out of his eyes. That's where it jumps into fan fiction Absolutely, there's something very like labyrinth about it all. Yeah, and the whole time he's like repeating the jesus prayer Like he keeps saying like lord jesus christ have mercy upon me a center

Like as he he's just saying it over and over and over again as he's walking like the way timothy Me vey forced everyone to listen to bad company by bad company off the album bad company He also may have been he may have been a proto bad company But that's also a way that uh, like the um the harry christmas and Different sex of different Spiritualism believes that you should do is your mantra like basically you say your mantra over and over and over again

Until it becomes a part of you like you say christ again and again so they say it becomes like your heartbeat Where now it's like in your brain forever and becomes a part of your body And so he really got very serious about this Yeah, I mean this was like I mean it was a true dirty like he he slept outside. He begged for all of his food He said he escaped murders and brigands And he said the devil tempted him on multiple occasions with quote unholy desires. So he wasn't drinking No, he wasn't it was just him just looking at a tree that had bumps on it that vaguely looked like tits It's like stop it god. Stop making me horny. I'm horny enough

He also met the muppets Really? So after months of walking respite and finally arrived and reconnected with the man he'd already been acquainted with brother mackery Now mackery was the type of monk who wore chains to look mortify his flesh. He was one of those He was a penitent a penitent monk mortifying his flesh like he'd wear chains. It's that mortifying your flesh Uh, it's fucking yourself up. It's like when uh the flagellants like whip themselves Uh, yes, he would wear chains pretty much just to hurt himself just to punish himself constantly

That's why I never got that. Dave Navarro does that. He just hangs on hooks. I don't get it People like they say there's an endorphin rush in it But you know where I get it an endorphin rush when there's a new top chef listed on on demand on my cable And that's the rush that I need. That's the rush that I crave. Absolutely Well, mackery also believed that all society should have the unquestioning faith in god that a peasant has And he also claimed to be a mystic someone who speaks directly to god So when Rasputin went to mackery for guidance Rasputin believed that he was pretty much taking advice from god himself

Now imagine this is like the old punks that existed that weren't tv ready Mackery was disgusting. He was covered in cuts. He was the one that also gave he was the banan To he was the banan for Rasputin where he gave him all the tools he needed because the peasant being closer to god Was such a good political move that helped him later on because would it allowed him to speak to quote-unquote the common man And say you're the real people You are the real people. I am but yes, I talk to these fancy people and I wear a fancy hat But you're a rail and so he learned all the shit But mackery was like the old school punks that weren't ready to be uh, superstars and then all of a sudden Rasputin shows up

And he's seditious and he's a corporately packaged punk Like pop stars. So Rasputin's brain kind of a carl rove type Did I ever tell you that story of when I saw carl rove outside a news core? No, he walks on a news core He's just a little nerd person like all the people we cover You know they get blown up and he knocks over a delivery person's bike and he tries to pick it up But he literally he can't It was the nerdiest thing ever and finally the guy came out and was just like okay Carl rove knocked over my bike. It was just a delivery guy. It really humanizes them when you see them for all their

A little nerdy pause It is really nice to know that I could grab Dick Cheney in his wheelchair and flip it over And he'd squirm around on the ground and I could grab my jacket and just literally just mop the floor with him And he'd be like stop. You just want to do what John Goodman did to the elder Lebowski Yes Well, I understand And so during this time at the monastery like something changed in Rasputin He actually found god or at least his version of it

He found a version of god that spoke to him But it's also possible that he just found something that he could exploit But you know the truth is probably somewhere in between that was us with again with podcasts You just discovered the thing that works for you and he got it though immediately and he's like That's the one one of the Rasputin's one of those stories too of like a guy in ancient not even ancient times Like this is still this is technically modern times It just feels ancient because it's fucking Siberia, but he Was like a very modern person dropped

Into an old old system. It's like he woke up modern He woke up like realizing like oh shit like I'm going to take all this Podunk version of what they're doing all gross and I'm going to sell it to the next level Yeah, and this was him doing all this shit by never leaving. He hasn't left Siberia at this point like he's just I mean, he's like a he's a small town boy does good Where he does he has no idea of what's happening outside But yet he's still somehow like almost cosmically

Uh is made for this time. Okay, so when Rasputin returned to the village, they said he had a coat They shoveled her a no hat singing and laving his arms. He had no hat. No hat. No hat No, he had a hat. It didn't I guess he had a hat when he left and didn't have one when he came back That's what they noticed. Yes You used to have a hat, you know, he traveled 700 miles at this point not just noticed but remarked. Okay Yeah, and he was all like he was a an alcohol-free zealot, you know And he wanted nothing more than to talk about his conversion to anyone who would listen to it So in other words, he'd left his village is one kind of pain in the ass and returned as another

Yeah, you guys think that I'm drinking now and you're like, oh he goes to the bar too much wait until I get sober You guys are gonna be like, so have you thought about having another sip? Oh god because it also yeah, nothing's worse than a baby straight edge nothing but in many ways He was still the same old Rasputin just without the alcohol in church Rasputin would swing his arms and quote Make grimaces during services and would sing in quote an improper voice Well, no, it's just it's just doesn't sound like it would come out of a six foot four huge man where he just shows up and he's like

And everyone's just like, whoa, we actually we all sound like shit I don't even know how he got that beautiful singing voice. Was he six four? Yes. Was he really six four? Motherfucker was huge. He must have been That's like the equivalent of seven foot He walked in because imagine it's like honestly, it's only a couple inches shorter than you walking into a room Waving his arms around everybody else is all stooped and like and he had a that's a part of it too Is that he had the lindenby johnson effect where he'd lean in on people and he's got those big crazy eyes So people are giving him a lot of room. So when people didn't really dig Rasputin's vibe

Breasputin decided that it was time to start services of his own Rasputin's services were held in his father's root cellar with just a small group of people who liked the cut of Rasputin's Jim I just want to know the people who look at this guy this six foot four person dancing like joe cocker on map And just like I want to go to the basement I want to hear what he has to say like those people are almost more interesting to me in a weird way Well, it seems like it sounds like the nerdy girl who went to college had a great spring break and came back and now she's hot And they're all like look at me and like there's something about that Rasputin

They're all just like I'm very interested in him like he's got a special verb to his step He's different than the other boys Which is also very attractive Um, and he never hangs out with his wife Yeah, what's going on with the fam at this point. Uh, they're just kind of there. We'll get into the family But yeah, they're just kind of there Well, the important thing to know about these meetings that Rasputin was having in the root cellar with his new followers Was that they were secret and this is something that Rasputin learned early on if something was secret

It was dirty even if sex wasn't involved and if it was dirty then it was powerful So naturally the rumors started almost immediately and the most scandalous rumor What was that during Rasputin's last pilgrimage? He had fallen in with an absolutely real christian sex that some called the anti church We could eventually do an episode on all of the weird esoteric side chapters in christianity Because this group is very interesting. It's anti church church the anti church. It sounds like something out of the invisibles Like uh, this is really strange. They were called the uh klisti

klisti klisti the klisti The klisti klisti sounds like a cute name for a clitoris. Yeah, like I wanted to make a couple of jokes like how do you find them? You know, it's Keeping it classy Well, the klisti called themselves the believers of christ But the establishment had given him the name klisti because klist was the russian word For one of the sex main tools used during services. Oh the whip

If you're going to a church and the pastor brings out a whip slowly back out get out of that church So a klisti service went like this The services were held underground in a basement cellar or crypt They would all wear white robes and start each service singing strange hymns of their own devising It sounds like they're trying to figure out how to invade a rock Jesus help me tie my shoes today. I'm making this That's exactly what they would do they would sing these stupid songs and then the leader Would whip them if it was a man it would they would be called a christ

And then if it was a woman, uh, they would be called a mother of god Okay, uh, and then after they would sing it like get whipped. That's when the spinning would start Yeah, and then they start spinning dude Yeah, just around and around they keep singing and spinning and getting whipped and they work themselves with this like frenzied Spin drunk ecstasy. So they're basically on like a biblical gravatron. And this is something that they're enjoying They're love. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're loving it because they would spin and spin and spin they get whipped and they're singing and they're Spinning spinning and all stuff and this is a lot of noise for a bass bit And they're trying to keep this secret and it has to be like you're just outside with your mule

Having your vodka water and you hear just Then when the ecstasy would reach its peak They would all fall to the floor Crawl to the nearest warm body and the congregational orgy would begin This room did John Belushi yell bacon and they all started sizzling on the ground like animal house And nothing Works a russian cleasty up to a froth Then being covered in whip

Whelps You're bleeding from the skin and then you just slide your penis like a bookmark into whatever mailman Or or mule salesman is next to you because they did gay and straight they did whatever It was whatever was ever close. It seems like yeah, whoever was close it But the baker, I mean what like don't you look at these people on the I guess it's whatever It's all they seem to be a part of it. That's what I say about so much in my and about things I don't understand they seem to be enjoying it. Well, that's all the matters They liked the guilt they liked the shame for them

That was all a part of it because the harder they send this is what they believe the harder They send the more they could repent and the more they could repent Well, it's and the closer they could get to god. That doesn't seem to be very productive to have it as a society that it hears the laws It makes your bone or harder Because you know that the harder your bone is honestly, it's great If you are a criminal just love getting beat by the cops and I think they'll stop you flip it reverse it If you albert fish it nothing's ever a punishment because now it's like nothing Honestly, think about how sexy that is you at your most

Naughty ooh, you're most dirty naughty Is the most sweet for god to put his hands on and you're like, oh man. Thank god. I'm gonna get whipped today So I could say I'm sorry When martin scurelli was like, I am gonna raise the the price of that drunk so high I can't wait to go to the basement and get whipped. This is like what ceo's think Well, these guys they believe that all sex even sex within marriage was a sin But they believe they were sinning to drive out the sin and in order to sin in such a sinful manner One had to summon the quote

Dark courage to sin. I love the way they circumvented the human primal need for sex And they were just like, no, I think we figured it out. I think we got a path to it Also saying that let's have the dark courage to sin tonight is such a good pickup line at a steampunk convention. Yes Now it is very possible if not probable that respite participated in one or two of these services Enough at least to greatly influence him throughout his life But Rasputin's early services were not of the orgy variety His followers met in cellars and sang the weird cleasty hymns, but Rasputin's services did not include sex during the service itself

Because Rasputin was actually smart enough to know that joining the cleasty officially Would bar him from doing pretty much anything more than just fucking embassments for the rest of his life Okay, but if that's all he wanted then he could have had it Yep, but that's not what he wanted He had ambitions and he did the same thing that Jim Jones did where he cherry picked certain aspects of things He liked and smashed them all together Because I think he really did want his fucking and his job to be separate for a while I think that's where it ends up

That's what kicks him in the ass later on because he starts joining them together quite a bit But at this time he's trying to keep the two worlds separate. Well, yeah, I mean Rasputin He was a leader. He wasn't a follower like he wanted his own system. He wanted his own followers people that were beholden only to him And that was all helped along by Rasputin's first major vision And as as Rasputin was working in the fields one day He said the virgin Mary suddenly appeared to him in the sky hovering above him Now she didn't say anything, but she did point towards the horizon Hey

You want to go over there? Yeah to wrestle mania Now what's important to remember is some people actually believed Rasputin when he said this shit People do you think he believed it though? Uh, maybe I don't know. It's hard to say. I mean, it's the same thing with Jim Jones You know, well, you never know. You never know. You never know what actually goes on in these people sets For Rasputin in my honestly in my mind. I think that he did believe himself I think that they had a more spiritual connection and he really did lose himself on his travels When he went out he took it very seriously

He would go into gnosis like he would see shit like he would Really believe that he could change people's lives by uh by inserting his presence in them quote unquote wink wink wink wink And then he was that's what when he developed this of course also He has to create the story He has to he understood that I have to build an arc and a part of my arc has to be I'm on a vision quest people come with me, right? So then when other people come up and be like I think I'm spiritually be like have you met the virgin mary because I freaking did Well these people like they saw visions as evidence of god's grace that god had chosen this man to share

And disperse his holiness upon earth Is it true to say at the time visions were taken more seriously much more visions were taken Extremely seriously to the point where you know it would be one of those things like why would he make up that he had a vision? Like that is a great grand sin to make something like that up Why would someone make up that the aliens have visited land? I heard it on the radio And I heard the aliens are invading earth so And since these russians since they were all about miracles and visions and all that shit because of the eastern orthodox Influence

Rasputin had a wide opening to settle into nicely All right So as far as the virgin mary vision went Rasputin saw this as a sign that he should travel over the horizon to which he pointed and take another pilgrimage his biggest one yet In 1900 Rasputin declared that god had instructed him to go to the monastic center of the eastern orthodox world Mount Athos in greece almost three thousand miles away. Sounds like a fun trip. It doesn't It's actually the opposite because he's just walking to greece. It's walking across russia To greece it's using your feet as a car

And just he was odd. He just started running Well the flintstones did it In this pilgrimage Rasputin took even further than the last He went the entire trip there without changing his underwear or touching his body in any way with his hands Humble brag a humble brag Where because he what he had to do is he had to chain his hands to his bed He would wear shackles to keep himself from touching himself which also included cleaning himself Which is then how he got the reputation for smelling like a quote-unquote goat. Mm-hmm. Wow

Yeah, and he tried to make himself as gross as possible like he'd stand motionless in swamps for days at a time Just letting the bugs eat him alive. Oh, that's a trip, dude That's not a fucking other trip. You're you're just you're locked into something like that. I don't know what it is It's fucking kind of metal. It's very hell's angels that you wear your clothes so they fall off Yeah, I think also if he was an american in the 70s, we would have won vietnam What a soldier this guy is. Yeah, but he's walking around. He's covered in shit and bug bites and piss I don't I don't know why he's doing this to himself, but I I guess these are life's many questions

But much to Rasputin's disappointment when he finally got to mount ethos He found that a lot of the monks were openly homosexual And though you might think that Rasputin would be kind of groovy to this idea for some reason is completely weird I'm out. So we left. Hey, Greg. Nice to meet you, man. I'm so glad. Uh, so you walked here. Yeah. Yeah, I walked here Yeah, you must be crazy tired, huh? Yeah Exhausted. Yeah filthy too. I but you want to suck my dick then suck this guy's dick And then what we'll do is um, then we'll all fuck Um, and then maybe we can have some soup

You know, I got I There was a swamp a while back I didn't stand in it quite long enough. I'm gonna go back and check it out. There was a toad that I was staring at Yeah, right. Well, you're leaving a lot of dick on the table. Bye Oh, so when Rasputin finally returned to Siberia, he'd been gone for two Years, and he had a family there the whole time He had, you know Three kids and a wife that he just left and he was like see you later going on a pilgrimage deal with it

Oh, like the meme. Oh deal with it when it comes down. Oh, yeah The sunglasses came from the sky and they landed on Rasputin's face and Rasputin said deal with it Deal with it. There it is Yeah, now Rasputin's wife was another what you would call the long suffering He would leave on pilgrimages whenever he wanted and he took as many lovers as he wanted And proscevoia just had to accept it And Rasputin actually convinced his wife that his penchant for having sex with as many women as he could In other words, his sex addiction was not about pleasure

No, it was rather quote His burden So at some point he was just like talking himself up and being like she is gonna beat the shit I mean, she's so pissed at me. Okay. How do I do this? How do it? It's for her I got it. I got it. I'm doing this for her. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm helping you. I'm saving you You just be like, oh, thank you Rasputin for fucking everybody. Good god. I don't want to do it It's all part of my thing, you know Poor guy. That's what it was. I mean, she was a lot like Marceline Jones, you know, she let it slide

Because she believed that Rasputin was a man of God and he convinced her I have to do this I have no choice but to do this and if you believe in me as a man of God, then you have no choice But to accept all this But most of the people in the village weren't so sure about all this yet So after enduring ridicule and jeers from the local church and the townsfolk Rasputin set off to the big city of Kazan To find more like-minded individuals. Okay And that's where we'll pick back up for part two

Of Rasputin the big city in Kazan. If you can make it there You you can you can make it you can do other you can go to other Siberian towns and kind of make it to Not Kazan Kazan. No, not with there's no G. There's no G. Kazan. I like Kazan a little bit better. I like Kazan a lot better too, but it's just Kazan Just Kazan. But then you have a whole side pop where he's out there in the forest He's the same size as one of those Chechnyan centers the play for the NBA He's just like walking around pointing at people fighting demons

Man, I love this fucking movie. That's fake. That's laying in my head when I I think we have a similar thing going on. What a crazy journey this guy's been going on It only gets crazier from here. I mean the next episode we're going to meet the crow sisters We're going to introduce, you know, the the czar and the czarina And all manner of other weird palace intrigue very cool A lot of palace intrigue. There's a lot of palace intrigue. There's a lot of ripping open of bodices There's a lot of weird rituals. There's a lot. It's a fun ass story And I never thought that history when I remember being in high school that history wasn't fun

It's because they didn't teach us about Rasputin's fucking 13-inch cock And eventually we will get into the mystery of whether or not it is in fact his penis in that jar somewhere In a sex museum. I believe Budapest. Yeah, it's not in like a bottle of rum in the world's oldest tavern And if you pay a hundred bucks, you get to have a shot of the rum, but you gotta touch the tip with your lips I hate that. Yeah, that is pretty good. It's in the Yukon, right? It's a toe thing. Usually a thumb thing Anyway, all right. What do we want to do here? We have to we have to thank everyone for just being awesome So there's that and thanks everyone for giving our patreon. Uh, we really much appreciate it if you uh Feel like we deserve a little bit of cash and if you want to get a ton of uh bonus material

Including an interview with Stan and Friedman that the two of you just did. Oh my gosh You just got to go to patreon.com slash last podcast on the left Uh, and uh, just donate a little bit of money. Yeah, Henry and I have had a great time interviewing Folks for the patreon. We have a cool interview coming up next week as well With the detective and uh, yeah stan freeman was a he was a trip I I really I'm excited to learn more about people and if you have anybody that you want us to interview If you'd be interested to hear from please hit us up on twitter at Henry loves you at marcus parks have been kissle Um instagram at dr. Fantasty at marcus parks have been because of the number one or at lp on the left

At any of that bullshit and try to give us suggestions because we'd love to Get to the heart of some people you're curious about absolutely and uh, thanks for everyone Uh, the amazing response to our uh to our book reveal. Yeah, thanks everyone was so unbelievably nice We got a bunch of people who have submitted Uh, they're incredible art, so it's going to be extremely difficult to choose But thanks forever. Thanks to everyone who submitted. Uh, everyone is amazing. Yes, I'm very excited It's and we're gonna I I just love looking at comic book art and it's fun. Yeah, it's fun Keep on supporting all the shows here on the lpn network. We appreciate you. Yeah. Hail Satan. Hail yourselves

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