Last Podcast On The Left - Episode 438: John List Part I - Wipe Out

Episode Date: January 16, 2021

This week we get to know the infamous family annihilator John List and chart how such a stultifyingly dull man could transform into a villain capable of viciously betraying his own wife and children.Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License 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. What was that? I think it's important for this episode for me, what was important for me is that I wanted to get back to what it's like to be the child inside. Yeah, this is you as the adult outside, this is it, because right now we make a good career,

we make a nice living just telling jokes about our cocks, but this is you adulted. That's me as an admiral, that's me as a man of industry, that's me as the head of a household, and what nobody fucking understands is that I'm standing up for this, is nobody understands that I'm the head of a household. How much pressure, how much pressure's on the father, no one wants to say anything bad about oh the mother, oh how good the mother is, but sometimes, sometimes it's the father that has, oh what kind of internal investigation we're having over here, over the father with a new family.

Wow, well what a way to start the show, a strange, empathetic approach to the father, welcome to the last podcast of the left everyone. You have to get back to the boy, you have to get back to the boy, the boy who's inside who knows, he's got a tap dance because if not, I'm going to get shot in the back of the head with mommy, Tina, Bethany, and what's not going to be late execution style in the ballroom, because I wasn't funny enough at lunch, just, I'm upset, I know you've made everyone upset, what's up everybody, as I said this is the last podcast on the left, I am Ben, hanging out with Henry and Marcus, no one appreciates the father, people appreciate

the father, there's a whole day for the father, it's very nice, the father goes, he makes the money, he shuts up and he grills, that's the dad. No, he's supposed to stand silent, outside looking at an American flag, drinking the PBR, with a fly swatter and a bag of charcoals next to him, and no emotions, not a smile or a frown. I think you just described what Randy Quaid is doing right now, alright everyone, why are we talking about fathers, because today's episode, it's all about the family, unfortunately not all families.

Focus on the family, that's us. Do you know how to say focus on the family, I'm still traumatized by Dr. James Dobson, air quotes Dr. James Dobson, the manja being imprisoned for everything that he's done wrong, no we're not doing focus on the family, we are talking about a different way to destroy your family, other than corrosive religious beliefs. Let's talk about John List, this story is, I'm gonna say this, I'm happy that my dad never did that to me, you know, so thank you, I'm gonna say this right now, let's all thank our fathers for us being here, thank you dad, thank you dad.

Thank you daddy on three, one, two, three, thank you daddy, I'm not gonna say thank you daddy, both of you guys were discussing, and no one ever wanted to hear, ugh, but there is actual destructive religious beliefs already, they are in this episode, and it's riddled with it, this topic, the family annihilator is fascinating to me, because right now I know you're sitting here, some of you have families, and you're looking at them, everyone kind of has a family, yeah I've seen, but some people have made families, oh sure, family you've created, yeah okay, and right now I bet you're looking at your kids, and you think like, I did a pretty good job, if one of them's not like, was it at the capitol last week,

I mean I don't know, you're sitting here and knowing that I've done a good job, but also the same time, couldn't you think that if you had a second chance to make a new family, you could actually do like, a lot better, with the new family, and so maybe it's, no don't do it in multiplicity, they just get worse and worse, the first family, I'm sorry to say, that was your best shot, I don't know, sometimes, so the kid that you're looking at right now, eating Play-Doh, the other kid who is actively looking at the toilet for some reason, those are your, those are the cream of the cream of your cream, but you could look up to the Bobby Bonilla family annihilators, John List, you could look up

to him and say, he knew, he just needed to blow one family out of the pipe first, and then remake a new family. Okay, so this is about reincarnation, great, alright, let's talk about growth, okay, let's talk about John List, this guy is a monster. John List was an American mass murderer who shot and killed his entire family one by one over the course of an entire day, on November 9th, 1971. That's my mom's birthday, no kidding, List however, List however, is unique in the world of family annihilators, in the fact that he got away with it for 18 years, and even managed

to remarry under an assumed identity. Now while John List was certainly looking for the reset button that so many family annihilators are after, he mostly, slamming that button, slamming that button, slamming that button, he mostly killed his family because he was failing financially, and figured that his wife and kids were better off dead than poor. Additionally, John List was also highly religious, and believed that if he simply up and left, his children who were already drifting away from the church would renounce Christianity and therefore find themselves in the flames of hell.

As far as personality went, John List's defining trait was that he was terribly incredibly almost pathologically dull, so dull that his dullness actually becomes a source of fascination. I'm so dull that my dullness reaches down to the epicness of total chaos. John List's great passion in life was accounting, but even though he was a perfectly competent accountant, he wasn't what you'd call a people person, which meant he couldn't survive in the corporate waters of the 1960s in which he was trying to swim. In the 1960s especially, you gotta like, you had to entertain, you had to make me jello, yeah absolutely, your wife had to wear one of those doily shirts where you can kinda

see her breasts, and you had to sit there with the same cup from national impunes christmas vacation, the eggknot cup with the mousse antlers on it, and you gotta be like, well bub, I get a dilly on the grill outside, honestly it never gets cool, you have to be able to mix it. It's always hot. So he was more boring than your average accountant, so he stood out as, it's not exactly a group of extroverts. The accountants are the ones that you have to take the elevator and you hit the button

that you never hit, it's like the red button that you have to, and you're like, who goes down to the negative seventh floor? Yeah, just a man with a, you know those guys who hold their briefcases with their two hands in front of their own chests, and they have like owls glasses on, it's those guys, you're like, what does he do? And he's like, I crunch numbers, and you're like, don't speak to me anymore, I'm talent. They also know that people wanna shoot them in the heart, so they gotta protect themselves with the briefcase, because the numbers never lie, and sometimes the numbers tell you, you're

broke. Well, John List failed again and again, and although he could have lived a perfectly normal middle class life, middle class just wasn't good enough. Not good enough, yet the real American middle, that's a real middle-class, is it? Yeah, and middle class in the 1960s, which today would be upper, upper middle class. Yeah, have a little fun with it. Go to the Wendy's, go to the McDonald's, everything is new, everything is fresh. The 60s were a great time to be middle class.

You don't fucking understand the pressure. What pressure? You're the constant. The pressure. I feel every day waking up, we need to go to therapy. Oh, Wendy, oh, I am in therapy, and they don't understand the pressure. So John List took a gun and killed his entire family, including his mother, in a matter of hours.

Really, this series is a portrait of a truly American tragedy, from the unnecessarily miserable lives lived by most of the List family to the conclusion that John List drew as the only viable solution to his problems. Family annihilators have been a subject of curiosity for professors, actually only recently, because it's fairly modern in their prevalence, because they used, I was reading this one book that I actually thought was very interesting, it is called Familiar Hearts, The Emotional Styles of 211 Killers by Neil Webbsdale. That's a shit load of killers.

There's a lot of killers. Okay. Between this book and a couple other things, breaking down what family annihilators are and what is the root cause of why does mostly a white male father of a family wipe out his family? Because a lot of times, they've been fighting over what the term familial side even means. This one, they have to like carve out a meaning in this book. We say I hold firm.

Yeah. The familial side is when you have to kill a spouse and you have to kill at least the majority of your children. And of course, while killing the majority of the children and killing your spouse, you have to listen to the hit song, Wipe Out. What man? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's going to come up again and again.

Thank God we're on Spotify because then we can use that song. But his theory is that he breaks family killers down into livid coercive killers and civil reputable killers, where livid coercive killers are one style of someone that was a physically dominant and violent person that wanted total control of their family. Someone who the neighbors would say, saw that coming. Yes, they heard fights and that the final family annihilation was an expression of like one last spike of violence, normally when the relationship is about to fall apart. We're finally about to finally leave.

The civil reputable ones, what we're talking about essentially today, which is also a mixture of, there's also a term called anomic, which is an economic killing, the idea that like because of the fathers, mostly again, the father's status was threatened economically, because he views that as himself as like soul points like we do in America that you're worth financially. It's a beautiful credit system in a sense. Yeah, it's what you're worth as a human being. So they see these things taken away from them.

They then look at their family as an extension of themselves, like literally an extension of their, of their calm. It's living calm, walking around, eating your food, living in your home, right on free. You should never refer to your children as my living calm. If you are a parent out there, please spare them that unbelievable trauma of reminding them that they are nothing more than half calm and half egg. You are mostly egg. And that's what I said to you son, you must have gotten most of the egg.

I'm mostly egg. I don't even know if that's an insult, dad. When he killed the families though, when he kills the family though, this quote unquote the civil reputable ones, if that's how you want to classify it, they, it's extended suicide. So it is a way to, because why that's why normally these end in the suicide of the killer. Like daddy off himself. Well, we'll see here.

It's half and half when as far as how it is 50% killed themselves and 50% try to get away with it. Okay. So now, but we're seeing Mr. List. Wait, I said, well, we should bear close so we don't get upset when Mr. List did here is that he saw instead of again, truly American, instead of saw this as some kind of tragedy he did to himself. He saw this as an opportunity to change.

Wow. I do have to say it. Boom. Flip it. Yep. So before we get into the story of how all this happened, let's acknowledge our sources today. The first is death sentence by Joe Sharkey, while the other is righteous carnage by Timothy

Benford and James Johnston. I'm the two. I'd go for death sentence, but both certainly have, have their merits death, the righteous carnage is the better title, but death sentence is the better book. This is my grandmother moment of the day. It's amazing how many fun creative titles there are because every book is a different title and every book is. We haven't read one book with the same title, but they're always like, whoa.

Yeah. Because if every book had the same title, they're not every book. I'm just saying some titles you would think would, would cross over. That's true. But title is different. Every title is good. Yeah. There are titles that are.

So titles are the same. If Donald Trump gets a presidential library, only the books that we reference on this show should be in it. I think that's actually a really good exchange. You actually can't copyright titles. If I wanted to name a book fucking gone with the wind, I could. What? Yeah.

And it's just about. It's just about. It's just about. It's just about. Marcus Park likes to fart and empty coffee cans and put them back in the cupboard. So John Emile List was born in Bay City, Michigan on September 17th, 1925 to John Frederick and Alma List, who were cousins. Nice.

Okay. That's great because then your uncle can teach you how to kiss. Yeah. All in the family. Indeed. Okay. Well, Frederick was over two decades older than Alma and married her after his first wife died from cancer.

In fact, Alma had been the nurse who had taken care of that first wife in hospice. Okay. That happens more often than not. Yeah. I could see that. Now throughout John List's childhood, he was treated almost as an afterthought when it came to his father. When the family bought a house, Frederick remodeled, made the top floor a rentable apartment and

made John sleep downstairs in the lounge, never giving him a room of his own. He was teaching him a lesson about how he has to earn escape. I mean, it's going to help out in college when you just crowd, when you just couch surf a whole bunch, you're going to be totally comfortable. Yeah. He's down there with the foosball table and that's where he belongs, I guess. I suppose. Would have been nice to have a bedroom though.

Are you all immediately defending this man? No. I've done no John List. No, I've done it. I like to sleep on the couch though, I actually usually sleep on the couch, it makes me feel comfortable. Well, Frederick never warmed to his son in any way and in fact refer to John only as the boy.

Geez. But the only things that Frederick passed on to his son was the old Protestant work ethic and a strict adherence to the Lutheran faith. And also the nickname that stuck with me to this day, everybody calls me the boy, even though obviously I'm a full grown man and oftentimes I have the numbers and the various files of all several different town companies in my hand and honestly it comes down to when they refer to me as the boy. I actually would refer.

Oh, knock, knock, knock. Hey, are you the boy? I'm supposed to, they told me I'm trying to figure out how much taxes I have to pay this year. They told me to go see the boy. I am a man. I am a man. You are the boy.

It's just the boy on the sign. I wish that there were a change here but simply they simply will not listen to me in the meetings and I keep telling them I know we could really go over certain dividends and we could talk about it in the fall. I mean, honestly, the fall is a good time for a new business and you want to actually save it up for the final quarter of the year. You want to wrap everything up budget-wise, so. Thank you, boy.

When Frederick's view and in the view of many Protestants, a man's lot in life was to work long hours, do as he was told, and spend his free time either reading the Bible, going to church, or finding some other way to exalt the Lord. Yeah, so much fun though, so much to look forward to. Well, essentially it's the mixing of capitalism and Christianity, the idea that a man exalts Christ through creating capital, all while insisting that capitalism is somehow the most Christ-like economic system when it is, in fact, the least. You don't remember that whole parable in the Bible when Jesus had the 12 disciples all

fight for a URL? He got him in a bidding war for jesuschrissaves.com. Hey, man, that website's doing great right now. I mean, in fact, many of the so-called seven deadly sins, like greed, gluttony, pride, envy, and wrath, are essential to advancing in the capitalist world in the way that people like John List viewed capitalism. In this belief structure, they see sloth and lust as the only sins that matter. To them, being poor is a sign that you have displeased God, and therefore, poor people

are to be looked down upon as sinners who are getting exactly what they deserve for having led a sinful life, and of course, they have quite a few things to say about sex as well. Also the poor radiate sin, and I think that's important to remember in this story, because that's kind of what the idea is that he constantly thought that the idea is that if you fall below a certain economic line, that not only are you then, you're then lowered into the sin of the poor. You have to go down into the soup and be with them with all the seaweed, the cubes of evil tofu.

The tofu is expensive, actually. So they think that lower economic status is contagion, they're just like, oh, this is actually something if you hang out with poor people too much, you're going to become one of them. You think it's an actual disease? It sounds like that's how they view it, almost like they were smited by God. It's definitely viewed as if they were smited by God. Being poor is seen as a punishment, but it's seen as both a punishment and also something

that is completely entirely your fault, but usually it's your fault because you have sinned. Your symptom of a sinner is being poor. It's strange though, because it really isn't even, that's not even, that's not what the Bible really says about even being poor. Get out of here, you fucking Bible, but it's just a weird thing that's strange to choose that as a narrative. People like John view Christianity as a set of rules that are used to control the lives of others while completely ignoring the actual teachings of Jesus Christ, who had quite a

bit to say about how the poor should be viewed and treated. That's where this book, Famillicidial Hearts, talks about why it's such a modern phenomena, family annihilation, because it basically comes with the rise of capitalism and the grind and the idea of industrialism begets not caring about essentially any sort of emotion whatsoever. It's about driving and making money and making money and making money. You're only as good as your last paycheck. Yeah, and it's specifically a result of the corporate lifestyle, not necessarily just

industrialization or just capitalism, it is corporate living that is creating these people that feel that they have no choice but to do this. We talk about automation, but honestly people in corporate America, they've been robots for a long time, but truly they are forced to be robots because opinions and thoughts are not allowed. I know that with my nine month experience working in corporate. Well, furthermore, and the view of John List's father, Frederick, particularly, accepting any kind of assistance whatsoever, especially welfare, was to admit that you were not a

man and you were not Christian. It was not Christian to accept welfare, and Frederick was not alone in this belief in the community where John List was raised. When the Great Depression began demolishing communities in the 30s and Roosevelt instituted New Deal programs to try and save them, Bay City, Michigan refused any assistance solely out of pride to the detriment of their community. Yeah, you might want to get a new mayor, but you might want to be like, Oh, all of that stuff that's going around like we just know.

Oh, they're people jumping from buildings because of economic collapse. No, we don't need those hot dogs. We're good. We're good. A man who dedicates his entire life to work in church is naturally going to be a fucking boring person and Frederick List was just as much of a dull curmudgeon as his son would one day be. Well I think one Dennis Raider would have something to say about that.

You think one of that kind of thing isn't killing a whole series of women as you're choking and strangling yourself, you think that's a boring- Honestly, I would almost describe that as funky. I think that is funky, Mr. Parks. The church, you see, it can be cool! Good Lord, I love this, I feel like that's one of those like going deeper and deeper the longer you spend on the internet, the more you're like, yas, BTK should definitely be celebrated, look at his outfits, like him tying himself up and taking the pictures of

himself, being like, oh, that's amazing, look at him express himself. Absolutely, absolutely funky. Really, the only story anyone had about Fred List was an incident that occurred on Halloween when John List was in high school. I don't like ghosts, I don't like werewolves, I think that they are homosexuals. You're gonna hate Halloween. Now it comes as no surprise that a man such as Fred List hated Halloween, partly because it involved devils and witches and ghosts, but mostly because it involved giving free

candy to children that none of them had fucking worked for. Costumes or lies! Children don't work, they're not allowed to anymore by their so-called liberal government. I don't know. It's just fun, we're just trying to have fun because life is really hard. Ghosts are in fun, I made ghosts in the war! Can you pretend I'm one of those ghosts and give me a Mars bar, please? Yeah, I can, alright, first one is a gun, that's a gun.

Unfortunately, child, I would have to, in order for me to speak with you, I have to look at you through a rifle scope. Naturally, this refusal to take part in Halloween caused a rift between Fred and the neighborhood kids when Fred not only had no treats to give, but actively yelled at any kid who made the request. And so the kids took trick or treat really fucking seriously back then. Yeah, this is the 1960s, man, you know how difficult it was to act. This is the 30s.

This is the 1930s, dude, and yeah, you know how difficult it was to get candy? It's not like today, there ain't no kinder eggs, every single shelf doesn't have your like impulse buy snickers, you had to go a hundred miles just to look at a bar of chocolate. I actually don't know if that's true, but I like the idea of it. I think it's hard, and also all the candy was just black licorice. I mean, I've walked an hour to get a taco, that is true, if I heard it's a nice stand in the middle of like a weird neighborhood, I'll walk for an hour just to get it, so in the end, but that's how you get your steps in and you feel like you earned it.

Exactly, that's your reward. Learn response to Fred, the neighborhood kids did a little ding dong ditch, ringing the doorbell and hiding in the bushes over and over and over again. Finally Fred threw open the door and gave chase, but he stumbled, sprained his ankle, and pitifully wailed in pain on his front lawn. Respect me! Respect me! Yo, he did this to himself.

Every neighborhood has this house. These scophers are a part of the communist agenda! Putting holes in my e-lawn, they don't own this home! Oh, what a fun time to be a kid on Halloween when you have righteous indignation over your neighbor and you can actually torment him for one night and just hear him scream and hear him be angry. Scream and scream. Oh, that's fun.

FredList was so disliked and even this community of tightasses that 50 years later, people still told that story. It was the favorite story of the neighborhood. That's so funny. And after this whole incident, John List, in school, was thereafter known by a nickname that would have been fucking awesome on a more chill dude, but on John it was just kind of pitiful. They called him Trick-or-Treat Johnny.

Trick-or-Treat Johnny sounds like his dick can just come out like that. Trick-or-Treat Johnny. Like a million times. Honestly, that is such a kick-ass name, Trick-or-Treat Johnny. Yeah, if you are a character from a nightmare before Christmas, but he is hanging out with a chick from Ginger Snap. He's sitting in a full suit as a boy. He's literally sitting as like, because he was a very prim, absolutely silent no friends,

and just imagining him with his like, my first ledger, like child's toy, where he's just here like, filling out fake numbers at recess, and they're all calling him Trick-or-Treat Johnny. You know, for a fact, he's either going to become a spree killer or a senator. Well, I guess you sort of split the difference there, didn't you? As far as color goes, Trick-or-Treat Johnny was all anyone had for John List. Mostly, he was described as simply there, the definition of seen and not heard. He was so obedient that he was punished only twice his entire childhood, once for being

unruly in church, and once for running in the house. I still contend it was more of a skip, but if this was a trial, like I would need a lawyer to give him some evidence to show that I was not running, and unfortunately, if you really look at it, there's not a lot of footage. There really is. Not in the 1940s. John List pathologically obeyed authority at every turn, and obeyed his mother, most of all.

When teachers would ask John why he didn't play with the kids, he'd say, quote, Oh, no, I can't. Mother doesn't want me to get dirty. Oh, God, it sounds like you're, what do you mean? One time, because sometimes I know, like, mom is just frantic to keep me clean, and one time I spilled some raviolio on my belly, right, because I was eating with no shirt on, and she just scrubbed, and scrubbed, and scrubbed, and monologued about cutting out the root of evil and all these types of things, and honestly, I miss being close with mom.

Yeah, I guess kids are supposed to play and have fun, though. Well, according to the movie that we saw, which is wild, it's not good. No, are you talking about the one with Robert Blake, Beverly D'Angelo, and Mr. David Caruso? Dude, Judgment Day, the John List story, starring Robert Blake as John List is, it's very campy, but the whole beginning is just, it really does have John List's mother really erotically washing a little boy, a lot more, is a lot more erotic washing for a TV movie that I haven't seen on something, like, outside of, you remember, like, Red Silk Diary, Red Shoe Diary?

Red Shoe Diary. Silk Stockings, that's what you're thinking of. Silk Stockings. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, it was definitely, it was an erotic caress by an older actress on a young boy. It was very strange. Yeah, I always used to watch Cotton Sox. It was kind of a different, a different adult show, you know what I'm talking about.

Cotton Sox just sounds like footage of Praterno just sitting in his fucking lawn chair in the fucking shower. I don't hear anything. I don't hear anything. I don't hear anything. See, like so many mass murderers and serial killers, John List grew up with an overbearing overprotective mother who held his hand almost everywhere they went well into his teenage years.

All right, that gets a bit embarrassing. Yeah. In fact, as a child, they hung out so much that John actually walked and talked like his mother. You wouldn't believe that bitch Beverly down at the store. She told me the other day, she lied to me about a sale on the oranges, and I told her, you don't tell me, you don't tell me when these oranges are going down 10 cents a pound. Well, I thought we were friends, she is written off.

I mean, if he did do not friends with her anymore, that could be kind of, that's actually kind of exciting. She was my best friend last week, but now we're not friends anymore. Well, see, Mr. Smith is no longer boring. Now he's got hot goss. Now we're friends. Now I want to hang out. What else is going on in this little tiny town?

Well, outside of the home, John was drilled endlessly on Bible verses at the Lutheran Missouri Sinod Church, which was the List family singular outlet for social functions. There, John learned that he was a bad boy who deserved to be punished in literal hell for all eternity, for even the smallest of infractions. This fear certainly kept John in line, but it also gave him a sense of superiority over the other children that only made him want to obey the rules even more, because it seemed like that was the only thing that made him feel good. It kind of feels like the same impulse that makes really good Nazis.

Really good Nazis. You would think that that's the right term. Successful Nazis. Successful Nazis. Not fight and save fun Nazis, but the idea that someone is so deep down because he views that's where he gets his intake from, because in a way, the term covert narcissism also comes up quite a bit when you talk about family annihilators, because there's this little bit of they don't act like it.

They act like they're just going along to get along, but somewhere deep inside this man believes that what he is able to do is hold a moral line that other people just don't have the eternal strength to do. They can't hold this line like I hold this line, which is why that's my job. I put a toe in the dam of science so I don't let the seepage of communism and not smoking no bras come into this world. My toe is in the dam. Respect the father.

Just get your toe out of there. Just have a little bit of fun in my loosening up a little bit and then you won't have to snap and freak out. I did notice how fun it was, how nice the tip of my toe and when it got wet, I thought it was nice. It was kind of nice. But I hold the line. Yeah.

Like the wings of a plane you have to bend in order to deal with turbulence. You're a little strict. You're a little too. Yeah, I'm like a tank ripping through Africa. That's horrible. That's the horrible thing to be. Well done. I mean, John List was one of those guys that, you know, because a lot of us get instilled

with that fear of hell at a very young age, I know I was definitely, I had a very, I had a pathological fear of hell when I was a kid up through my teenage years, but I eventually grew out of it. I was taught. Some people don't grow out of it. They grew me. When I was growing up. Did you, were you truly afraid?

Because I know I was fucking afraid of hell. I have something inside of me that is called, I don't think so. I don't think so. And so I remember, I was very hardcore Christianity and I remember talking, they were talking about hell and all that stuff, and I just remember thinking even at like six, I was like, I don't think so. I was like, it doesn't make any sense. You're like the little glass box, the little person is the real you inside of your mind

that it's like held inside that saved you. Yeah. I was just like, I don't think, why would, how would it even work to make any sense? Then I think the problem that they did with you is that with you, they went over the top. They sold it too hard with me and Henry, or at least with me, they treated it as this completely normal everyday thing that it was just sort of like hell was a place just like Dallas was a place and it was made to be, it was made to seem so reasonable and such a normal thing.

Well, isn't there actually, isn't there a place called Hell, Texas? Well, I don't know. I don't know. There is a town called Hell. Yeah. I've heard of it, but that's, that's more about, they changed that for tourism. I see. Yeah.

I mean, you even think it's in Nebraska actually. The speaking of tongues thing, I was just like, I don't think that this is going to work out for me. See, I don't know. They went over the top. It wasn't just over the top for him because I don't see as anything, what is more dramatic than the Catholic church? Like we drank blood every Sunday.

But y'all were in ritual though. That was, that was a thousand, like those were rituals that were thousands of years old. So that also seemed somewhat normal. I don't want to break it to you, nerds, but it's fucking wine, man, get hammered off of that. Oh man. I'm having fun.

Yeah. Get drunk off of that. But that was John Lest's problem is that it was, it was treated as a normal reasonable thing and he just never grew out. He was all in and he kind of liked it because not surprisingly, he was also pathologically repressed from a young age. No way. He refused to deal with his feelings in any way whatsoever.

He was taught to push everything down as far as you could because it, because it wasn't masculine to complain or admit problems. Yeah. That'll, that's going to work out great. Nothing wrong here. Why are we even covering this guy? Didn't he just have a really successful career and he came out with Gogur, didn't he? Because of all of his healthy ways of dealing with stress?

Yeah. It's our new series here where we do like successful business. Yeah. Yeah. There's no way that this could lead up to him murdering his entire family. It just doesn't check out. But there was a, there was a book that was written that back in the day that was basically said, it was like a big old hit in the 1700s.

But they said like the idea that the, the modern man does not react, he doesn't react. He just, he holds strong and he moves forward. Well that can be good, but then also they have to be open in order to observe and absorb what people are going through so they can make the best decisions possible. Yeah. I mean, I think it's good for like pilots. Yes. That is a good point.

Try it and true. Don't fly into a mountain. I just, I just did some research on that German suicide story again. Oh God. It's very scary. It's very scary. I'm just going to ask every pilot, how you doing? And then I'm going to slip him a little bit of mushrooms and open the periphery vision

to help him fly. Perfect. Well, following his father's lead, John came to believe that a man dealt with his problems by working them away and or adhering to church rules because in John's system, work and God were one in the same, inextricably linked. I think this is actually kind of nice though. We always hear about mommy, dearest, you know, we always hear about the abusive mother who's one.

Andrea Yates, which is a fantastic, fascinating story. We always hear about the mom wanting the perfect family and daughter and stuff. But in this case, this is the masculine version of it, right? Just wait till we start talking about Helen List. She has her own problems. Okay. Great. Great.

Yeah. Well, as far as what impression John List made as a young man, the people who grew up with him barely remembered the guy. If they did, the only details they remembered was that he was tall, snappily dressed, deeply religious and solitary. He was so boring in fact that under the school yearbook's class prophecy section, the only thing said about John was that he would likely wind up in the army supply core. Cool.

That's fun, Nicky. He can hang out with David Burkowitz. Yeah. Well, I'm fucking Lee Harvey Oswald, everyone else who was successful enough to get killed. Wow. That's weird. I didn't even think about that. That's true.

And in the army prophecy, they were partly correct. List graduated in 1943 and joined the army expecting to battle Hitler and the Nazis. I honestly just mostly want to go after their tax discrepancies. But this could have been, I mean, he could have been good at being a spy. He sounds like perfect for the CIA in some strange ways. Yeah, they had the most boring people in the world. Absolutely. Who have body counts.

Yeah. But instead, List was stationed in Louisiana where he was described by fellow servicemen as prissy and pious. Now, to be fair, to him in Louisiana, he could have found someone with the same political beliefs as Hitler. Oh, very easily. Then he could have attacked him, I guess. At that time, most of the Nazis were actually here in New York City.

Hey, all right. We missed it. We got out. Well, in 1944, List's father died, which didn't seem to bother John one bit. He took leave for the funeral, attended the service with all the energy and emotion of running a slightly inconvenient errand and returned to base. That's what his father would have wanted. Honestly.

Yeah. Sounds like it. Well, in 1945, though, John was finally shipped to Europe as part of the final stage infantry campaign across the German border. It was called Operation Dumbo Drop. Cool. The man who knew too little. But pretty soon, his unit was captured by Nazis.

But since it was obvious the Nazis had already lost by this point, this is like the final weeks of the war, the Nazis changed their mind that very afternoon and surrendered to John's unit instead. I must have been a day. What? You start as a prisoner. You start a weird day as that in the war. You watch all these Nazis all like, they're all like kind of talking to stuff and just

kind of looking at you guys and be like, then they make the international sign for let's switch. Let's switch. Yeah. You go like. We might want to make a little use it in me with the cop and you out here with the baton. You want to be the prisoner and you want us to be just for fun.

Just for fun. Okay. This is actually the most interesting thing John List ever did because he grew up in a German community. So he was the one who actually interpreted the whole thing. He was the one that kind of broke her at the piece. I am the star honestly by German, especially Nazi Germany standards. This guy's a showman with exactly because John was a POW for a whole afternoon.

He was awarded the bronze star, which was a great source of pride for him. That's about as long as I could handle being a POW. Yeah. A long afternoon. I think the most I could be brave for. I honestly did. Oh, the under that is 15 minutes. Yeah.

No, I can immediately just see you like asking what kind of content they like and then you just trying to figure out what kind of sense of humor they have and you just desperately be a showman. Yeah. Well, concerning that bronze star, what John apparently didn't know is that it was the bronze star was a meaningless morale booster. They just unilaterally awarded it to entire divisions during the final stage of the war. Yeah.

It's like when I got the most improved trophy for Blittelig. Everyone does. You know, one did the worst one, but I got a trophy because I was, they laughed at me. They thought it was funny. I was being, I was a funny guy, but you doesn't sound like you improved at all. No, it was very bad at baseball. Yeah. No, it was a participation award.

So when John returned to the United States after being overseas for all of 34 days, most of which were spent either in transit or waiting to be transferred. He consulted with his mother as to what his next move should be. And then she lifted her skirt and she's like, back inside. Oh God, I can just see, I finally just saw the, let me get my swimming cap on and no me. I was just going to need a little butter or something. I think it's slippery.

I finally saw the sequel to Borat and I can just see his mother's bush hair very similar to that actress. That was the best scene. She was so good, by the way, in that movie. That movie was so funny. Well, together they decided that John should go for a business administration degree at the University of Michigan in pursuit of a career as an accountant, which John soon discovered was his great passion in life.

Oh, okay. He loved being an accountant. Well, it's because it's, it makes sense. Yeah. You know what I mean? Accounting to him. It's numbers. It's hard numbers.

It's hard numbers. And you have information, private information about the person. You do have a power to it. Absolutely. Well, you know what it is? It's people. As a matter of fact, we should call our accountant and just threaten him. We should make sure he's on his toes.

Anthony. Anthony. I don't know. But, you know, he gets a sit. You also, people put their trust in you. You become a pillar of the community. That's another very common thread in family annihilators, is that not only, especially this idea of the civil reputable hearts ones, right?

Like the ones that appear quiet and unassuming at the time, that not only oftentimes are they quiet and unassuming, but it's more that they're like, their morality is celebrated by the neighborhood up to a point. Because do you want them to be loud and drunk? Like you never want to walk into your accountant's office and be like, you got a strobe light, huh? Honestly. That's kind of cool.

How are the numbers looking? I do think that there should always be bad accountant, good accountant. I do like the idea of two accountants. One guy with a skateboard, back your backwards hat and just being like, let's see how much money we can get to the games. And the other guy is just like, we need to look at the dividends and I think we should actually, we should work on deducting more of your expansion of your house. Also, I'm sorry, they've shut down most of the Cayman bank accounts, Henry.

So your idea to move your money offshore, it's not going to work. Don't worry. It's just, it's strapped to me right now. Very good. The John List was perfectly capable of simply being an accountant, but he would fail even in college at any managerial task and showed particularly poor aptitude in adapting to developing situations. I love the back in the 1960s where they would do is you take an exam and then they would

just like shoot like blanks to see if you flinch. Meanwhile, John was writing letters to his mother talking about his classmates as if they were all the best of friends, but no one in college remembered John List. Oh, it's sad. He seems very lonely. Also it's weird to just, yeah, that I feel like the saddest part, which is again, it's about an internal lie. You begin to learn to lie to your own damn self because what you're looking at, if he

is a true narcissist or a covert narcissist, which I think he is, the concept is that you don't know that you actually are building a persona that is separate from who you are as a human being. Like who you are is scared, rigid, and that not only do you confront anything fucking with your rigidness, you confront it with rage, but no one knows. You just, no one has any clue that every single time they push you on a rule, you actually see fucking neon red. You just hit the top of your rage every single time, but no one knows.

You tamp it down. But then you're already writing these lies being like, and you wouldn't believe we actually all went to a hamburger stand together. Cyclone Jerry, a man who changed the name to Abraham Lincoln Legally, he's hilarious. All this kind of shit, like all lies. He created basically, he created his own avatar via the letters. That's what narcissism is. Yeah.

Yeah. What was really strange though, was that John didn't ever go visit his mother, instead, she would take a three hour bus ride to visit him at college in his dorm room for entire weekends. I've seen that movie. I don't want to see it anymore. I don't want to see it anymore. I don't want to see it anymore.

I don't want to see it anymore. I don't want to see it anymore. Yeah, we get it. Horny Bernadettes. I go, God, we should honestly write Weekend at Horny Bernadettes. You just have sex with a female corpse. That would be the whole movie if she's dead. Bernadette then theoretically is dead, which makes you a necrophile.

This is actually really true, guys. If you want to die, when you die and you don't care if someone fucks your corpse, you need to put a little sign on you that says, go ahead. Yeah, you know, whatever. Yeah, it's known in the will as the Havatic Clause. Havatic. I'd prefer if you don't do that to me. No need.

So after four unremarkable years, John Lest graduated with the unremarkable grade of a B average and got a job with an accounting firm in Detroit. Whoa. Hello. I didn't see you put on your elitist cap. I didn't realize that Marcus doesn't believe a B average isn't good enough. I got a 3.1. No, I got a C plus average.

I average a 2.6. You had to graduate with a 2.5. Ben Kitzel does enough. You know what's funny? Ben Kitzel does enough. Kitzel does enough and there's nothing wrong with a B average, B best, B fun, B average. Man, I'm not, I mean, I'm not throwing aspergers as I'm just saying it's unremarkable. I actually graduated out of the three of us.

I actually graduated with the lowest GPA. I graduated with a 2.3. No shit. New York Times bestseller. New York Times bestselling author, Marcus Marks, at a 2.3. I'd fuck a GPA. That shows you. Yeah.

It's all about who you know. Us, we, we, we propelled Marcus intellectually to be able to sit in right for two years straight. No, all it, all it shows is that I am very bad at things I don't give a shit about. In all my major and minor classes, I got A's all the way across. Everything else, D's. I got a D in bowling because it was at 8 a.m. Yeah. Can't show up there.

I did that on purpose. They wanted you to fail out. I hated that. I had to bowling at 8.30 in the morning. It wasn't about bowling. It was about waking up and you don't fucking tell me this is about bowling. You're not drinking. It's not bowling.

Yeah. Bowling requires drinking. It requires wings. And so you get mad at me because I was drinking before showing up to bowling because then it's not bowling. What if I never went to bed and then it's not the morning, it's still the night. I just, yeah. Now it's just super late night bowling for me.

Well, when the Korean War came, John was summoned back to duty and did most of his term stationed at Fort Eustis in Virginia. There his free time was spent either touring Civil War battlegrounds or going to church functions. Hell yeah. In September. Fuck. Honestly, doesn't sound that bad.

No, I do. I guess I do. It's kind of interesting. In September of 1951 though, he and a couple of his fellow officers went bowling in the basement of a Zion Lutheran school where an alley had been set up to keep the men away from the more sinful bowling establishments. I just feel like, I think the good part, the thing that actually keeps you pure in a bowling alley is the other people.

You know what I mean? If you start to isolate the bowling alley, don't you think you're going to start sucking each other's tucks in there? You might? What else are you going to do? Also, bowling alley is like, that's, he should have had a little bit more fun, but whatever. That's my advice. If I could have given him some advice, I'd say loosen up a little bit, have a little

fun. Well, it was in this church basement that John List met his future wife, Helen. Now Helen is one of those people who seem just fucking cursed from birth and the more bad shit that happened to her, the further she sank into hatred and despair. Physically abused throughout her childhood, Helen ran away from home and married a soldier named Marvin Taylor in 1941, and Marvin was soon shipped off to war. All seemed to be going well, but when Helen gave birth to a baby girl named Brenda the next year, the doctor delivering the child accidentally splashed Helen in the eye with

ether. What? This destroyed her eyes muscle control and made her noticeably wall-eyed for the rest of her life, and almost, and also limited her peripheral vision. Was she at Dr. Jerry Lewis's office? Yeah. It does sound like a three sutures. How does this bum give you, like, oh, I'm sure you put all that butter on my hands before

delivering the baby. I always do that with the butter on the hands. It does sound like a Fat Boys movie, and it's really sad that you become, like, one of those wallbasses because of it, too, like, take me to the river. Like the eyes separating, and she has a bad look. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you can see pictures. I mean, it is noticeable on the pictures that are online, like, what her eyes are looking

in two different directions. But the nice thing is she's always the first one to see the plane, and she's always the first one to understand, oh, don't go there. Someone's trying to pass on the left. Yeah, but guess what, man? She also can't see a tennis ball flying at her nose. Well, she doesn't have that. That's the problem.

That's why you need a partner who can look straight, and then this is actually a perfect marriage made in some version of Purgatory or Hell. Well, as far as more children with Marvin went, her next child died when it was six months old, and the pregnancy after that was a miscarriage, tragedy after tragedy. Now, Marvin survived World War II, but in 1947, he was transferred to Korea, where he picked up a good old-fashioned case of syphilis, which he soon passed to Helen. You mean the lover's flu? I don't know about that.

I'm not sure if you were in love with the woman that gave you syphilis in Korea. I was in love for a full minute and 15 seconds. Typical. Now, about half the people who get syphilis are completely asymptomatic and carry it their whole lives without any adverse effects. Really? Yeah, most people who get syphilis don't show any signs whatsoever. So, guys, no condoms.

No condoms. And what I always like to do before I have unprotected sex, knock on wood. Knock on wood. Okay, we'll be fine. Knock on wood. That'll work. Unfortunately, though, Helen was not one of those people. She showed symptoms almost immediately.

But since so many men in the military, like her husband, were contracting the disease, all treatment was focused on keeping our boys in tip-top shape. So Helen was denied the simple course of penicillin shots that would have cleared the syphilis right up in the early stages. By the time that treatment was available to Helen, it was too late. Her internal organs took a beating. She went blind in her right eye, and her brain was slowly eaten away by the disease over the next two decades of being married to John List.

She's like Al Capone. Yeah, it doesn't sound good. He's definitely not improving as a person. But before she married John, her first husband, Marvin, was killed in action in 1951 when he exposed himself to enemy fire to save his men, therefore ensuring that he died a hero for which Helen could pine over for the rest of her days. It does seem like the beginning of The Who's Tommy. Hmm.

Because Ann Margaret, like... I don't know that movie. You don't know that movie? It's not good anymore. Oh, okay. The Who's Tommy. But the Who's Tommy, because her first husband, Tommy's father, Lee, they think she dies in the war.

It becomes a whole thing, but then Oliver reads there, and then Robert plants Tommy, and then the pinball. Oh, that's not Robert Plant. That's not Robert Plant. That's... Robert Durant. Richard Grippin. Who's the nine for The Who?

The other guy. Robert Townsend. No, man. That's Pete Townsend. That's a guitar player. Robert... Daltree. Daltree.

Swing to microphone. Roger Daltree. Shut up! Yes! I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say shut up. Roger. Wow.

Well, you started all of that. Respect the father. Totally the moral line. Okay. Well, according to Helen's daughter, Brenda, Helen was absolutely destroyed by Marvin's death, and after running through a series of men who might take care of her and her young daughter, Helen settled on the safe and boring John List just eight months after her first husband died.

She seemed like a guy that could put a baby inside of her and make the money. Oh, she could. Obviously, she could still get pregnant, but that must have been kind of difficult, too. Yeah, well, she just viewed him as, this is my rational way forward. Okay. I mean, I get it. It makes sense. You had your hero of a husband.

He is dead, and now you're going with kind of a basic dude who's going to provide you safety and structure. No, Burps. Theoretically. Okay. Just fucking non-dramatic. These are some of the problems because one thing about men is that they never emotionally like freak out.

No. They're always just so steady, capable, rational. I've read that on some things, yes. Now, as far as what Helen's family thought of John, her sister Jean and Jean's husband, Jean, weren't impressed. Is it like the Bob Newhart show? My brother Darryl's, my other brother Darryl's, my other brother Darryl's, remember that? White people like to all share one name.

And I don't know why that is. I don't know why we like that. No, it's that phenomenon and when someone names their kids all with the same first letter Oh, yeah, it's very specific. Well George Foreman. Oh, no, that's George George George George George George George and George Jetta. Yep. Yeah, and sometimes Jean and Jean's work out. I mean, my parents are named Bill and Billy Sometimes it just happens. That's cute though. But it's just because they're raw sensuality Your parents, I mean truly like they do have a loving relationship. Yes, they do. I like to kiss each other Oh, right, Henry. I mean, she's still his parents. They're still his parents. It's just nice. She listens. His mom listens. Yes, I know and I don't

They're a loving family. We love you. Well husband Jean said that John quote wasn't one of my favorite people and Considered him a loser from the word go. That wasn't that was his words. He was a loser from the word go But despite his bland personality, there was something about John that Helen wanted to lock down Yeah, she's a syphilis riddled mother of two. Yeah, I mean, it's not one mother one at this point She literally has one eye looking at California one eye looking at New York. She needs somebody there She needs somebody in the middle, you know, I don't think I don't think that John is bragging is all I'm saying Well, no John John's mother thought that she was I what was the term? I forget the exact term

Oh, man, what was the term? She did not like her. Did not like her reach called her a dirty rebounder a dirty rebounder Yeah Just be happy your son found a woman just nip it nip it mom. No, nothing was good for also for Johnny's mommy either No, she's on the remake Yeah, I'm the remake well two months after they started dating Helen announced that she was pregnant because John's deeply held religious beliefs apparently didn't extend to premarital sex I'm sure he had plenty of things to say about other people having premarital sex, but apparently he didn't have a problem with I swear to I swear to our sweet savior Lord Jesus Christ. She came in the room

I had a long day and got golf. I was playing golf and I to be honest and I I almost like it was weird I had this this curvature to my mouth. It's called a smile. What that's a smile. That's far too long to walk I talked to Helen and honestly she revealed her apparatus to me her vagina You can call it anything you want. It's just not an apparatus The second I looked at it had a hip-no-wheel in it I had no choice you were hypnotized to have sex with your own future wife He made me do it. Okay. Well, I'm happy that you did do it. And you know what? I'm happy that you almost smiled But what I found out is that I did not ejaculate

She's pregnant whoa You have powerful dust my friend Well, John did what he thought was the right thing and he married her but as it turned out the pregnancy was a lie Oh, no, and John only found out after the deal was done But since marriage was a sacred pact in John's eyes He stuck with her without complaint setting a pattern of pushing down his feelings again and again when it came to his wife All right holding the line that is strong on the coast. No one gets into the city I've got ancient walls up working towards medieval walls. Gotta get my science up. That's if sex

Mm-hmm. I'm on a family annihilator That is that is horrible what she did to him though to lie about the pregnancy and so yeah Why he would be upset sure I don't know if she needs to get executed Or she should ended it there well, that's part of his rigid beliefs Well, it seems like that hatred seed grew into a big tree and that tree it wasn't leaves on it It was a gun on it every every single grudge you hold turns into a cancer cell Yeah So by 1954 John and Helen moved to a Detroit suburb called

Inkster and had their first child of three a girl named Patricia But from what Helen's sister Jean later said Helen didn't even like children and viewed her brood as nothing more than burdens I'm with you girl. I don't have them. Yeah, just kept having them because that's what you do Yep It would literally be like you if you said you don't like dogs and be like you have you have a dog Like why did you get the dog? Uh, my I was holding the line. No one respects a father Patricia is a great name. I feel bad for everyone involved. Of course. Yeah, John

Meanwhile found a more prosperous job in Kalamazoo working for the Sutherland paper company Which was essentially a box factory that pioneered the throwaway packaging market and looked at their contribution to the world's garbage Pile as a source of pride. All right. Well, it's not that bad if it's if it's just the cardboard It's the car. It was the cardboard the plastic They pioneered quite a bit like that. This was a company that definitely contributed to the rise of Throwaway disposable culture in America How else am I gonna get my flat screen TV delivered to my house? He hasn't watched Pocahontas recently no, I've never seen that actually

But in Kalamazoo the list had two more children John Jr. And Fred and John List became the treasurer of his church Just like his father had been Helen on the other hand didn't much care for church and stopped going altogether after John Jr. Was born now This was this was highly offensive to John. Did he ever say a word of it? No, so Helen's not going to church No, she stopped going to church. Remember because they gave him the opportunity to be treasurer And now that he has gotten this lofty position because not only is he a treasurer for this church That means he is directly now. Yeah, he was an accountant for God yesterday, but now Officially an accountant for God

Yeah, this is a lofty position and no one understands the pressure of Someone who has become the treasurer of a church who needs some backup Yeah, at the church stand up again holding the line holding the line I love for-profit churches because how else do you talk to God? How else would you even do it? I do a for-profit church. Yeah, how's he gonna notice you if your church isn't gigantic and super rich? That's how you get God to talk to you Sometimes if I want to talk to the God what I do is I take my pants fully down I bend over and I try to just yell into my own asshole. That would be more appropriate

Well, Helen's daughter Brenda followed her mother's lead in the slow separation of the list family from John's rigid religious beliefs began Helen also began drinking heavily and when she was in her cups She drunkenly teased her husband for being in her words a goody little too. She is. Oh, you're a fucking nerd She's right and also from now on don't bother me. I'm in my cups Hey, I'd like I love the turn in my cup It's a classy way to be sitting in a puddle of your own piss Don't be bothering him this weekend. He's in his cups. You don't want to be spakin' to him when he's in his cups John however would never argue never fight back and would never even have a

Conversation with his wife about her escalating harassment All he would do is sulk repress and resent and his life continued in this manner for years press and press and press He'd still go to church and he's mr. Treasurer and then he goes to the box factory And he's mr. Accountant and they give him they cuz he started saluting them and he was just like thank you Yeah, I am a veteran and he's got his brawn star on and every day he gets and he looks at his shiny car And he's just like oh, I'm a master of the universe Yeah Yeah, that's what they would say about John. This is that he was unnecessarily proud about everything in his life

Like he's a fucking accountant at a box factory and he's a good job Fine job fine job It's just the idea of you start to see how number one which we I've learned in therapy And we've talked about learning from therapy by the idea that you are not your job Right that you are but to him he very much so all of these prizes quote-unquote prizes that society is giving him For being good seeking the rules doing doing what he's supposed to do. He believes again Yes, these are these are not only prizes that I was given but I took from the jaws of Satan himself Yeah, they didn't want me to have this. I went I took it. I did I'm strong enough

I hold the line no one is fucking no one's breaching No one's breaching you know good for him for having a job and trying to you know to be living a modern family in what the 1950s It's not an inflated sense of the importance of all of that But that inflation was done via media too, right? Everyone was like the car and this is one big ads come in and this is what he Definitely internalized that yeah, what it means to be a man. Oh, yeah He absolutely internalized that and he was you know here in that shit from his father here in that shit from church here In that shit from you know the media like that's his work was worth What he could earn and the other thing too is that you know it the logical conclusion of that is that it's never enough

That there you always want more you always need more you always got to be advancing you cannot stay stagnant You cannot be satisfied with just a middle-class life You need to be at the top because you're at the top then you can talk to God. Yeah, you're you're right next to God You got restaurants as God you go to the same gas station as God You know the same car dealership Yeah, I mean it's the prosperity gospel where it's like the more successful you are the more God loves you And that's how he but that's what that's what his beliefs were but God looks like George Washington and he's got huge tits But he also like cocaine in his soda

Well Helen outside of the alcohol she was also heavily medicated with the tranquilizer So popular amongst housewives of the 50s and 60s got a problem with your wife. She's talking too much give her some fucking pills Make her a steppford wife. Mm-hmm particularly Helen was given phallodomide Which had infamously produced the so-called flipper babies in women who had originally been prescribed the drug for morning sickness But see how calm you are Yes, you just birthed a penguin, but do you see how calm you are? I actually don't mind being the mother to a dolphin So because the alcohol the tranquilizers and the progressive nature of syphilis Helen withdrew and slowly lost her mind She would keep the lights on in the house day and night and neighbors would look through the windows to see her vacuuming at 3 a.m

We my mom used to do a campaign of aggressive vacuuming to let us all know that she was upset, you know Yeah, but it also cleans No, it does, but it becomes aggressive. Yeah, mm-hmm vacuuming can be very threatening. Yes, it can be just as a Chihuahua But it's not like the neighbors could even show concern because Helen rarely went outside during the day and never talked to the neighbors But like many miserable housewives who try to fill the emptiness inside of them with things Helen was also Highly materialistic what she demanded that the list buy the most expensive clothes and have the most expensive accessories for the children Insisting that they buy a playpen that would have cost

$900 in today's money Put them in a goddamn trash can anymore you can actually they're just gonna play with the box It's a cliche, but it's true kids. Don't need what's inside $900 playpen. Just be nice to your kids. Patricia needs a pergola. I don't think that she does Sober sometimes I'm drunk you're stunk I'm not stunk. I'm not you're I'm just trying. I'm drunk. See She wants to play with you she doesn't need a night everybody gets a pergola now

Everybody gets a little bassinet now You're a horrible neighbor Well the ironic part about Helen's materialism and status chasing was that nobody even saw all these status symbols But them because nobody ever came over to their house except for maybe Jean and Jean every once in a while I feel so triggered because it's just like me in my home during quarantine just panic buying shoes for no reason Looking at shoes. Why do I have this? Why am I buying this? No one's seeing these shoes. I'm having the shoes I'm just wearing drip around the house. It reminds me when they showed Ben Carson's home He took people on a tour and right above the where you go downstairs to sort of den

There's a massive picture of Jesus Christ with the face of Ben Carson on it Wow And then you go downstairs and it's all just Ben Carson like it's like his own tomb It reminds me of that in a very strange. It's it's just very strange to get gratification out of your own stuff, but you don't gratification of sharing it with others which is where I would get the gratification That's why I don't really give a shit. No, I want to see I want people to see the shoes and go nice shoes That's all I want and then we can talk about you have nice shoes, too. And then what's your name? And then then you have a friendship Friendship maybe bridge made bonds connected. I've just been spending the entire winter trying to see if I can find the cuddliest sweater around That's cuddly sweaters that way too many sweaters now. The cuddliest sweater is actually another human

This is true closer to caroline close physically closer close my wife. That's cuddly. That's cuddly Well furthermore Helen would also harangue John at work She'd call and say things like quote your son messed in his pants if you want to change You come home and you do it I mean at the very least if you're gonna be a drunk housewife you can change the diaper You're not gonna remember your blackout anyway Honestly, I've learned that the best way the best time to do chores is Drunk when you get home late at night because in drunk you does all the chores and then sober you wakes up

And it's like all the the trolls came and the I also recommend ordering things when you're blackout drunk and then next to you a few days later You wake up. You're like, oh, what's this at the door? And then you're like, oh my God Send me a present cat. I'm so happy I ordered this Well, no matter what John was doing when she called and said the baby's messed itself come change it He he had a pretty I guess flexible work environment So he drop everything go home change the kid and come back to work fucking humiliated because everybody knew because he had to Say like hey, I got to go home my baby's shit itself

And I got a change of my wife's refusing to do it again, so I got to go do it I'll be right back and it's that same madman environment environment where they're all sitting there me like because John can't Control the little lady at home. They're like laughing in one corner, which is a part of what they called I like this book term the idea of in the office. It's called cold Intimacies where you develop these relationships is inter-office relationships where they're like, you know, it's your face They're like sure John whatever you got to do Yeah, you know, we'll say at the meeting and then as soon as he leaves me like that fucking cuck. We should put him in a spray box. Yeah, like jail Well Helen also loved telling her husband that he was nothing compared to her first-hubs husband Marvin

Marvin knew how to do it Marvin never would let the baby shit its pants Helen Marvin got shot Marvin got shot in the head Helen Marvin gave me the funnest disease you can get from a war Helen even bullied John about his hair cut badger. It was dumb It was dumb, but she would constantly badger and buzz like your hair looks stupid your old fashion Why are you fucking get a different haircut? You lied to me and told me you were pregnant to get in this marriage But it's actually this is the part of every episode

I have a bit of sympathy in the origin story of these monsters this guy He's living a wakey night. He's living Kevin Spacey's life from American beauty You have to remember and then look what happened to Kevin Spacey But I feel like he There is a two-way straight here because he never once Said the things that he was feeling he'd never it was never think look would he huff and go like Really all right then Helen okay, but I you can see the situations the way she talked about it Is that she'd be haranguing him and haranguing him part of it was searching for a reaction

I think that there was a part of it like looking being like be a human fucking scream like loose because every single time She'd braid him he'd like sigh Go like you might be right Helen or whatever and then just like go to the slam his office door and then just God give me the strength to end all this God Give me the power Soon I will give you the strength to end this Well in other words Helen fucking hated him Absolutely hated him, but it's not also not like John was a fucking catch. No

He was obsessed with strategic military board games What's wrong with that? Let me set the scene Of course there's nothing wrong with being in the board games. I love strategic military board games There's one called black orchestra that I love but anyway John would invite unsuspecting men over to the house to engage in campaigns Neglecting to tell them until the game was well underway that a single campaign lasted eight Hours they don't know that john list

Invented creating friends with board games because that's what happens. I don't know every one of we've all been sandbagged By a board game friend. I'm talking specifically about holden mcnealy when you show up in his house And he's like that's just a game. It'll be fun, but all of a sudden it's Fucking six hours and him just being like you have to look at the rule book And he's all pointing out like no one's respecting We played secret hitler the other day the secret hitler and he started screaming at all of us about not following the rules And how we were manipulating and gaslighting him Well, all I know is holden stayed at my house for one night and he was sitting on my chair and he looked at me and he said

Can you give me a glass of water? And I almost became a family annihilator Because the answer was no He can get his own water and then when he went to get to water He went to the fridge and I drink tap water because I just believe the tap water is fine And he judged me and I said you get you get out of here You get out of here and that's a castle called holding the line. That's called holding like you get out of here Well, john's favorite game was a military strategy game called the third rike and john would always insist

Was it pro or anti? He would always insist. It's neutral, but he would always insist He play as the nazis or else they wouldn't play at all But they give him get give johnny. What do you want trick-or-treat johnny wants to be a nazi today? He wants to dress up like a nazi like he's prince harry or whatever the hell If they only knew back in the day that they could just let him get it out You know what I mean? He needs to get this out, but didn't he all right? What I'm not I'm done asking questions. I played in allies as the as the axis powers many times

Yeah, I believe that well one man who got roped into a game with john less describe the experience of playing with him as quote exhausting Well, yeah, it is an eight-hour board game where you're actively fighting uh via the board and yeah And you're fighting world war two again after he just went and bought it And now you're playing the board game version of it and you're the people you were trying to kill in the first place Which I think is very interesting and I feel in this scenario You're seeing the seeds of the man who's about to kill this family. I see John was also an obsessive right winger who believed that the moral fabric of society was disintegrating before his very eyes

And he would ardently maintain maintain that all democrats were evil communists Out to destroy the country at all costs. We're even in the 1950s. It's always been like this But yeah, but then this is why he's consumed himself because you know, he's spider-manning the he's spider-manning the dam Right. He's got two toes into the holes two this fingers up in the top. He's got his nose in the hole And he's saying I'm just being like I'm the only one between democracy and communism. I am the only one Meanwhile, it seems like the more you talk about the extreme control that you how you're the only ones who knows And you begin to sound Like you might also have

autocratic Like things Yeah tendencies. It's definitely a good thing. You didn't have any more power than the power that he had He seems like a real mccarthy republican and uh, yeah, dare I say it's probably best He didn't have anything other than a humble middle-class lifestyle He's a dickhead who works at a box factory in kalamazoo. Yep. He has no power He has no power But he acts he's acting like do I treat again a little bit and then he goes into this scenario where then he has total control of this

Little unit. He has total control because the home environment was so miserable Brenda moved out at 18 and got married But since she got married only to escape the house, she got divorced then she got married again Then she got divorced again But finally made it work on the third marriage All right, but john didn't look at this from the perspective that maybe he'd created an environment So miserable that a stepdaughter escaped by any means Instead he saw Brenda's divorces as a moral failing and became determined that his own daughter patty

Wouldn't fall into the same sinful path. Just want your children to be happy Just want them to be happy But life never seemed to work out the way john list thought it should and when the southerland paper company was bought out John list was crossed out and let go because he didn't have the skills to be a manager You got to be a people person to be a manager. The bobs came in. Oh, no Now this dismissal of john is not quite good enough to join the corporate elite would end up being the pattern that would Define john's life He couldn't take being a failure and was so concerned with status even within his own family that he never

Even told them when he got fired which happened fairly often Oh my god. Tell me he didn't do the thing where he pretended He still had a job and he would wake up early and he invented it. This is where This is where this this is the truth. This is where this bit comes from is this story. Really? Yes No, he was the old he would get up every morning. He would dress He would go to the train station. He would take the train a few stations up Get off the train Sit in the other next train station and just read for eight hours

Then we get back on the train take it home and pretend like he'd been at work all day That is honestly that is a level of Sociopathy right like that's like what talking about living a lie. How can you I just don't understand how you can? I mean, it's it's just him. He's got a pretty good He's got pretty good practice pushing down all of his feelings so he can lie about fucking Anything right right eventually though John got a job with the xerox corporation at a salary equivalent to six figures in today's money, which is pretty fucking good Yeah

But because hellen had such expensive tastes John was still constantly in the hole financially He figured he could fix his money problems simply by working harder and advancing in the company because he was told That's how life worked in america. All right. This is ameritocracy No, you have to fucking smile and you have to be fun to work with Yeah, at the end of the day He just becomes a copy of a copy of a copy and what happens then you just slowly become erased Yep, you know, he was actually the person who came up with uh xerox charging 25 cents per copy

He was the one that before that it was a monthly type thing He was the one who came up with charging a quarter per copy. Wow. Well, he made them a lot of money He made him a lot of money. Yeah, and he I mean how he was promoted to director of accounting services And placed in charge of four managers and 250 people in 1962 Okay, but John's biggest problem was that he couldn't handle pressure of any kind When he was forced to speak in public his face would break out into ugly red Hive like welts and when he finally got the courage to talk his face would twitch And he'd shift his body from side to side like a nervous little boy

Furthermore, John also couldn't put up the family man front that was so essential to the corporate environment of the 1960s When there were big corporate functions to attend holiday parties and such John was forced to bring Helen who was frankly a big fucking mess See, this is sad because this sounds like this was the funnest part of the 60s. We're all the office parties Yeah, all the hors d'oeuvres when people actually ate like um, the party from Scrooge is what I was thinking Yeah, that's really fun when people have liverwurst, but it was like classy. Oh, yeah Yeah, yeah, baloney bean dip wraps. Yeah, I love a good 1960s 1970s uh cookbook a savory jello Yeah, you can put anything in jello

Helen drunk and loaded with tranquilizers would spend the parties flirting with other men while telling the wives They didn't all have to be so timid. Let me see a little bit of your breasts. I don't Here man, it's Christmas time. You want to see some of my breasts? You're talking to my husband Barry here Yeah, I just feel like maybe honestly, let's all take our underwear off Come on everybody. Wow, John you got yourself a real keeper Then as a finale she'd tell John's coworkers about how John could never measure up to her first husband Marvin This is a fun story. This is so great that you brought anyone want any of that new shrimp dip that they have over there And that was when John's face would break out into blotches and Helen would be dragged home

I just gotta hold the line till I get home and she's gonna hold the line. Come on. Give me the strength God give me the strength to give her back to you. He seems God give me the strength. He sounds like a more sympathetic version of Chris Watts though because at least like I mean Obviously what he did is absolutely horrible, but then again, Chris Watts seemed like everything was fine for him Well, it's because he was full of shit. He was absolutely full of shit and the fighting that they had Um between the inside is they again, you just didn't want to reveal anything because it came down to I'm the only person who can stomach this because I'm just so great I'm just so strong and great. So I'm the only person that can handle this. Did yes, Chris Watts and Shannan Watts did not have necessarily a

Perfect relationship Shannan Watts did spend a lot of money. They did do it Like they were like 15k in debt like when you know, that was like one of the things that was one of the joe point Welcome to every house in America. Yes, but Chris Watts again He wanted the cultural societal points of look how fun I'm this facebook dad Like I'm having fun like on videos. I'm doing bits and all except because she was a famous lupus sufferer and she Well, she was conscious. He was very online. And so she was like, but obviously she looked at all fucking life online She lived her life online when you look at the videos of Chris Watts, you can see the pain in his eyes Like you can see him being like, I don't want to be unfair. I don't want to be on video right now

But also he never said the words. He never communicated. So at some point you have to say well, I'm gonna say this feeling He definitely communicated Oh, yeah That's one way of communication. I suppose Yeah, there's nothing comes from just pushing your feelings down again and again Just pushing them and pushing them nothing good comes to that cancer or murder Yeah, and even outside of his problems at home. John who is now 40 years old was a man at a time It was 1965 by that point

So much fun age of aquarius Yeah, this new music he could be doing so much more fun could be an ad Well, I mean the country in his view was rapidly changing into something That was a complete breakdown of what he thought America should be I saw a belly button on this. I saw a belly button on the street the other day. Well, that's so far people have belly buttons You have a belly button too. Belly buttons are feet of child my belly bellies. No belly buttons I've cemented my belly button over earlier today. You cemented it over with with cement or with It's glue

I'm actually going to believe it is glue in your case. John. Yeah, I don't come I believe that's true. That's probably the problem Well, John was completely out of step with the culture He was rigid timid in the face of authority and overly and overly proud for reasons that no one could ascertain Helen meanwhile was in the early stages of cerebral atrophy, which is a condition in which the brain Literally shrinks. Oh my goodness. Her condition is because of syphilis. Yeah. Well, it was originally brought on by syphilis But the alcohol and tranquilizers only made it worse Because by this point Helen was up. She was a five scotch a day lady

Uh, but but was telling everybody was ardent that she was just I'm not an alcoholic I only have five scotches a day. That's it. That's a bottle. That's a bottle of scotch. It's like a half scotch. No, that's a full I don't know for me. No, but five because you know, so the first pour we're going to say two shots Yeah, third pour four shots by the fifth pour whatever is left But if you're coming with ice that's how you get water in there. Yeah, and then you're not an alcoholic anymore Well by 1966 Helen was in and out of the hospital constantly going in for you know, of course the brain shrinkage But also, uh, she went blind in her right eye. Her legs got so stiff that she couldn't walk and one time She fractured her skull during a blackout. Oh my

Creepily when doctors tried to ask her questions about her condition She would only respond by making smacking noises with her lips and contorting her face into a series of expressive grimaces Oh, so she's actually kind of how my grandma was at the end. Yeah, the charles manson like Yeah, all every emotion. Yes, thank you Meanwhile horrible for audio towards the end charles manson interviews horrible for audio Nobody Meanwhile, that is a great quote. That's yeah. Yeah. Yeah Meanwhile the higher ups xerox had told john that he had advanced as far as he ever would at the company

So he switched jobs and found work at the first national bank in jersey sissy in jersey city as vice president This was huge. This was huge. Yeah, that's a vp of a bank. Oh, no This was big money at the time too. Like he was ready to this was like big deal He was making it in america. So the duality is he has this Just crumbling family life that is beyond a nightmare, but he really is doing this He is actually a success in business. Is he not? I mean, this was actually this was just a lateral move Like he's he's he's he's got the title that he wanted the vice president He got the title. Well, I think he was vice president also vice president at zero

Like he was vice president of something like he was yeah, he kept getting the title vice president over and over and over again And but it was and it was also like a meaningless like vice presidential titles Like it's you know, it was it was not the best title in the world He just kept moving laterally again and again and again But this was his last lateral move after this one. It would just go steadily downhill Okay, and he saw the wall and he knew this was this was as good as he didn't know yet Yeah, he didn't know yet Well for for this job the family was relocated to the town of westfield, new jersey

And they soon found the house where all but john would meet their doom And that doom was only hastened by helens insistence that they buy one of the most expensive houses in town See john's real estate agent was showing him houses in the 20 to 30 thousand dollar range Which was well within john's budget. I'm sorry. What was that number again? Yep 20 to 30 thousand dollars Like a five bedroom house Okay, I just wanted to shout out to everyone living in an apartment in brooklyn They used to want you to be able to get a house

But helen insisted on finding a home that was in her words More elegant You have okay. You have the eyes of a walrus. You can't walk. You're a raging alcoholic elegance butlers Quarters, but do you think that you deserve maybe take care of yourself a little your mind is shrinking laundry room You're just saying names of rooms

Well, eventually they settled on a house that cost $57,000 which was almost twice their maximum budget. Oh this place located at 431 hillside avenue Was a three-story mansion with 19 rooms 10 fireplaces and five bathrooms. Why in the hell would they need this? Well, that's what he wanted That's what helen wanted. This is the term that he used. He's like I was too ashamed to tell the it's he said that they entered a phase of it was an example of conspicuous consumption in the extreme Okay, that's what he said about his own wife. It's well, I guess it is conspicuous But it's the way he says it as if he's talking about his business. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, it's all the same

Okay, furthermore the house itself was a money pit in need of numerous repairs So he not only was buying a house that he couldn't afford He was also buying a house that he was gonna have to spend even more money on Oh a fixer-upper. Yeah, it's fun. If you got chip and joe, you're not making it right Not for us. We are not a fixer-upper people. No Well to afford it. He asked his mother for a loan and she said, yeah, I'll give you the loan But only under the condition that I come and live with you Oh man, I'm so excited

I want to die for this John agreed to the condition and moved his mother to the house where he would eventually murder her and in letters to friends prior to her death Alma List would describe her years in New Jersey as the Unhappiest of her life. Not only did he buy a mansion, but then I was forced to live in it and then it sucked Because he was mean and he went and he had a tight little face and I hated his haircut too. That's your son. Yep I hated it. I hate my vagina for making it. I believe that Oh, this is such a dystopian American nightmare

It really is like this show this this episode this story is just so distinctly American in every way because it's also about living on the fucking razor's edge of your means But that's the only way to make it is just like on the blazing hot edge of what you're Quite possibly could afford and then if you don't you literally destroy everything because all the loans that you've done everything else attached to it Absolutely Now when the list moved in a neighbor named harry delvin tried bringing over a pie as a housewarming gift That's nice. That's what that's when you could accept uh baked goods from neighbors without having to worry that they're full of like drugs

Some kind of poison But john list simply thanked him and said it was not their custom to socialize with neighbors Which set the tone for the next few years. My pie is not fucking good enough for you. Unfortunately. Isn't that crazy? It's like when you it's like if you're in a sword battle on ghost of susima and you block the guys Attack and then it's like extra damaging like that pie It was it started out as a gift. He blocked it the amount of anger and rage I would be so pissed if you rejected my pie first I see this pie and honestly what I don't appreciate is that it's in the shape of a pentagram

Which is a circle. Well, it's a pie and I cannot have um, I mean honestly I just can't be spending all day talking with you at the mail box. I've baked you a pie. Uh, a pie did not ask for You're a neighbor. I didn't ask for I honestly if I had the option I would burn your house down and I would kill your family. I would kill your family I'd take your car and I'd sink it in the lake And that was where the first pie in a face happened, but it's true. But you know, sometimes you gotta set boundaries I don't think that's the proper boundary, but okay Well from that day forward John was known as the neighborhood fuddy duddy

The highly religious right-wing nut who would wear a suit and tie to mow the lawn Middle of summer suit and tie middle of winter suit and tie middle of the day at night didn't matter suit and tie Always no matter what I'm scared of suits. I actually like that about him Can I just say this when it comes to the term fuddy duddy? You tell me that doesn't sound like the most fun person in town Like the word the word's fuddy duddy should never be applied to someone who is bland because the word's fuddy duddy Sounds like they have a spinner hat and they just they're constantly it's a mentally handicapped man No, what just someone who sells a lot of candy brings ice cream to random people

I just want to make you smile. Yeah, of course I don't understand how we as a as linguistics. I'm talking to linguistics here How do the terms fuddy duddy come to imply someone's boring when the words fuddy duddy are nothing but fun I'm talking linguine here. I think fuddy duddy just comes down to like someone named a rocket. It's a rock fuddy duddy It's a point maybe I guess I'm just saying the words are fun I know I think well. I think fuddy duddy is a way to try to make dolef people fun It's a way to bring a little color to the gray. Well, it's a fun person's word for a boring person That's right. We did our george carlin word segment for today. What's the deal with funny duddy?

That's also trying to Jerry Seinfeld. Well, John List was thought of as an overly strict pious grouch Which grouch by the way is a word that I think we should bring back. I think grouchy should be brought back I don't think it's a pejorative necessarily. I think grouchy. I like a good grouchy guy a good like, you know, um I like uh, yeah, I'm fine with it. What's the what's the name of that famous actor who was always grouchy? Walter Matthow. No, not Walter Matthow. The other one Robert Mitchum. No Groton James Groton Charles. Charles Groton. Charles Groton. Yeah, he's a wonderful He's a wonderful grouch because he's the grouch he Charles Groton when I was growing up is the epitome of a grouchy guy. Robert Blake is the epitome of a grouchy guy

What is the epitome of someone who has Not quite enough talent to be where he thinks he wants to be and that he was great in the Tony dancer Specials honestly. Yeah. Yeah. He was beyond grouchy, but no Charles Groton is a wonderful grouch. Clifford wonderful grouch movie I love a good grouch Yeah, but john list was so sour that he was asked to not teach sunday school anymore Because he was because you know sunday school is i mean i Probably i'm not alone in this and thinking that sunday school was by far the most boring part of every single fucking week It was the worst

But he took it beyond boredom He took it to the point of misery where he made children miserable Well, because they asked him to not do it anymore He legitimately thought that misery was what you were supposed to feel Yeah, I will give a little bit of accolade to the people who had sunday school when I was growing up a lot of puppets I was surrounded by puppets. Remember that? Christians loved telling they loved indoctrinating kids via the puppet. I don't know sometimes puppets just somehow always lead to like touching a

23 year old penis behind a fucking shed it can I don't know why it's a different experience than I had but sure Well, when people were invited over to the list house, which was rare. They found that the mansion was nearly empty Save for a few sticks of furniture. That's all they could afford And helen never offered any hospitality and obviously loathed any intrusion Then things once again took a turn for the worst for john list after only one year john was fired from his job in jersey city He'd been expected to be a salesman who could seek out new business because this is when the suburbs were really fucking popping

No, he's not a salesman personality. No, no No, he was off-putting. He had an off-putting personality to everybody And so he couldn't even come close to fulfilling his duties They gave him a year and he still couldn't fucking do it Then of course the family was never told john spent months sitting at the train station all day every day Replacing a salary by slowly draining his mother's bank account without telling her what was going on Don't tell anyone oh and the house was double mortgaged Everything was house was triple mortgage. Yeah, he kept going and he kept going triple mortgage

anything's possible in america she's Finally he got a job as again the vice president of the american Photographic company in new york city But his salary was only half of what he'd been making at the bank and even the bank was had been a small step down from The one before from xerox. Yeah The next year american photographic company relocated And john chained to his dilapidated mansion

Couldn't follow but according to one employee nobody was sorry to see him go Because at this point like john is before he was at certain jobs like they people would describe as like he was liked Like he was like well enough. He did his job. He fulfilled his obligations. He wasn't unpleasant He just did his job, but now He is getting actively meaner More uh more rigid more and more intense about his morality talking more and more about god at work Talking about these types of things where he is really becoming seems like a fucking bummer

No one wanted to be around him anymore. He seems like the kind of guy who would be like richard nixon. Yeah, he's a socialist That's the idea. You just got so beyond the pale. Yeah Helen meanwhile was constantly demanding john by her the most expensive clothes All while she drunkenly and loudly complained about john's lackluster performance in the bedroom I mean you're real to a simple list And john keeps giving her everything because he's thinking this is how you do it You make your wife happy by buying her things and if I buy her enough things then maybe she will be happy never mind You know maybe maybe showing her any bit of emotion or love or anything like that. It's all materialism

It's all capitalism. It all is money money money So you would say it's about making her happy, but I honestly don't think it was about making her happy I think it was about him believing he was living up to his obligations Right, what a the father of a family does which is that's all they do They're atms and they pay out everything and that's and they sit and they work and that's the only thing he's good for Well, maybe not making her happy shutting her up. Yeah, it's getting some conversation Would content be the stop in the conversation. Perhaps content I don't know. I didn't end with the no one's content. He does. He thinks being happy is a fucking like makes you weak. Yeah

As far as the children went John in response to the cultural revolution happening all around him in the late 60s Grew ever more strict drilling the kids on religious doctrine and determining their daily schedules down to the minute In an effort to gain some control This is where the whole like no one saw it coming Johnless was just this sort of like it just popped out of nowhere and you start to see like no There's there you could see him start to try to gain control true control gain control. Also the 60s I mean, yes, they were a little bit. I'm gonna say fun and a little wacky, but it really wasn't that crazy

It was just concerts that were outside. It was pretty crazy People would go live whole alternate lifestyles like you could go and live a whole new lifestyle That's what they were trying to do. That was the point of it. Aren't those not aren't those lifestyles basically normalized to this point? No, no, I mean no at this. I mean in the 60s. I mean you're talking riots constantly You're talking about assassinations. Oh, but like you're talking about huge assassination like people go in the protests There's bombings like the 60s are actually as far as how bad and how much Society was in turmoil in the 60s. It's actually played down quite a bit and socially well not last week, but not anymore Uh, but it was but now they are like communal living the idea that like the whole point was showed

Of this freedom of like you don't have to live in the box at your parent that you were born into You can do whatever you want like that that first kind of breakaway idea But commune communes just became like time shares and became oh, of course everything was ruined by that generation Yes, of course. Yeah, yeah, of course then when Helen fell again in 1968 and became bedridden for weeks with continuous vomiting and headaches The kids just sort of took care of themselves while John attended to his wife's every need when I walked into that room Helen it was like the day that I married you so beautiful with the way you are vomiting. It was tense and long Very nice

When Helen's sister Jean pressed John to hire a nurse John refused saying it would be too expensive But in a very telling move when Jean suggested John apply for welfare to help with the cost Which maybe would allow him to take care of the kids He gave her a look like she just landed from fucking mars like she had six heads. Yeah, I do fucking welfare I want to like you need some help buddy Uh, you don't have to do it forever. You just just to get back on your feet Help is what a man screams when he's stuck at the bottom of a mountain not when he's riding on the wings of an american eagle Yeah

Because it seems like you might be on the bottom. I'm having a hard time getting a harness on this eagle And I'm having a little bit of difficulty With the seat on the seat. Okay. That's the only problem. Okay. All right But even as the family was falling apart the list children were doing relatively okay I mean, yeah, John jr. Was the type of kid who would stick a pencil in your ribs just to see you in pain. Not a problem That's fun But Fred was described as cuddly and adorable the youngest kid, you know, and they're all teenagers by this point They're like between 16 and 13. Yeah, the kids as far as the teenage patty went though

She was certainly the one going through the biggest transformations, which to us everything happening to patty was completely normal But to john, she was sprinting into the arms of satan satan satan satan I uh, I completely forgot why we were talking about this guy in my head. I was like, oh, I wonder do they grew up to be kind of like normal kids and then I They were halted from doing that weren't they yep The year was 1970 and patty had discovered the joy of theater through a drama group led by a man named ed iliano Now john lists saw theater as a quote field for the devil and compared acting to prostitution He's not wrong

But it's fun to be you that's the whole idea. It's free. Can I just say this both are okay? Yeah Yeah, don't properly don't safely Actually, john was partly correct in the whole field of the devil thing Uh patty was kind of she was working on becoming an all-around groovy chick She'd go to church under silent protest and tell her friends that she was becoming a witch Yeah, and she even went as far as she asked her drama teachers like hey, do you want to be a warlock in my coven? And they are all the everyone's having fun with this. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, really the worst patty ever did was sneak out one night to go walking and smoking with one of her friends

That's awesome And she was picked up by the cops and when john showed up to collect her at 2 30 in the morning He arrived in a suit Freshly shaved as if he was going to the fucking office. I don't know why you are crazy But that really scares me like this idea that in order to go like he had to like make sure that I feel I look as tight as possible and I look as good and it's conservative as I can be You have to shave before going to the police station. Yeah Now a month earlier

John had freaked out on his daughter after seeing her wear a thin cotton t-shirt featuring a peace symbol and the slogan make love not war It's the most typical fucking thing you could wear in 1971 God wants us to fight not have love. What is wrong with you? But to john a thin cotton t-shirt was an offense to god It's the only thing god ever did right He loved to wear those So in the only violent act towards his family prior to the murders John pushed his daughter against the wall and ripped off her shirt all while calling both patty and helen quote

You're so lots So lots dirty dirty filthy filthy so lots excuse me. Are you searching porno? No, except it's just the title of my favorite book. Oh, I see. I see. Well, that is show or take her shirt off completely That'll show her how to be modest He then retreated to his office and blasted classical music because that was the only thing he would listen to Was a classical music radio station, but patty responded by playing writers on the storm Yeah, that's like when I used to play protests with my mom when I used to play uh, billy jules. I'm moving out God you were so

Jesus christ. Did you really do that? Oh, yeah, that is the it's the most theatrical queen's mother fucker I was very theatrical. I used to wear a beret God Well after that patty and john list stopped speaking to each other All together Now this was the biggest conflict that john had with his family up to that point and it occurred the summer before john Did what he did, but it wasn't necessarily what broke john list See by the summer of 1971 john was working as a home insurance salesman earning only

$5,000 a year which was a fraction of what he'd been making just a few years before And this wasn't really even a job in which he was particularly skilled And at the same time he had three mortgages on his house totaling almost $50,000 In addition to that he also owed a thousand dollars in heating bills trying to keep their gigantic fucking house warm And his family had run up a $150 tab with the milk man I bet they did But man when that milk man, he brings the milk, but guess what the milk man? He'll take the milk. Yes, you will. Oh my goodness little vitamin d milk. Hello. Okay. Get out of here

I love you. Yeah, you do contractually obligated to like me. I do like that The final straw though came when the house came under foreclosure Oh, and john was faced with bankruptcy and guess who had no clue any about this Helen had no clue any of this shit was happening. I mean, would she have even Would she have been able to help if he told her? No, she would just call him a pussy or whatever, but it's still at the same time She didn't know she was waiting into I mean really. I mean these Uh kinds of murders often do come from the one income household Like it saw we saw that in the chris watt's case like her fucking, you know the mlm that she was

You know involved in she wasn't bringing in any money from that There's something about like this like one income like the housewife like not working It's I mean, which is fine. If it you know if that if that works for you, it's economic in basis, but it doesn't it's not It's too simple of an answer of like how then can someone callously just wipe out an entire family. That's what that's a thing Of course, you know, it's not an answer at all, but it's it's a component that comes up again and again and again Yeah, so faced with financial ruin and stuck with a family. He didn't approve of or even particularly like John started searching for the escape hatch Now he couldn't just cut and run with a divorce because divorce was of course strictly forbidden by his beliefs

Divorce is gross. Okay You know, I'm gonna use the word ironic in this situation knowing what happens He also couldn't commit suicide because suicide was a one-way ticket to hell And there was the option of simply killing Helen and running But his mother was too old to care for the kids and the kids would be traumatized besides and that's a bummer Yeah, super bummer. Oh, I wonder what the answer is gonna be Now, of course, there was the most reasonable and humane option Which was to declare bankruptcy and at most

Slide down to lower middle class at most and maybe maybe be forced to take some kind of assistance Sell the man tell the mansion get a smaller downsize get another job. Like, you know, just do it again Just keep living you like live a lie live your life Yeah, and do things just live a normal life in a three bed four bedroom house. It's all you need But did John going on welfare was literally a fate worse than death a shame so deep That the actual murder of his entire family including his mother Which broke two of the ten commandments would weigh easier on his conscience than taking a single check from the government That's just 20 percent. I'm 80 percent. Good with the ten commandments

Wild As far as just abandoning his family went John believes that his absence Would cause the children to drift away from the church because Helen wasn't a churchgoer So leaving would be tantamount to damning his children to hell You can just see him on a whiteboard putting all of this list putting all of these on a list and then just the equal sign Murder he did Back to murder and it's like that is the worst option of all he wrote it all out. He did. Yeah Furthermore, Helen was dying

She had come down with peresis, which was a terminal disease the brain sometimes linked to late stage syphilis That meant that leaving would at the very least condemn the children to poverty Which again was worse than death But the one option that john had That he could ask forgiveness for And god would be totally cool with it because god will forgive him for doing it was murder Wipe out That song it it works in every situation. Oh my goodness

So John settled he settled on a murderous cut and run that way he could leave his debts behind while everyone else Went to heaven And with all the millstones around his neck gone He would be free to restart his life as a new man in america And that's where we'll pick back up for the conclusion of the john list story Just like fiefel if fiefel killed his whole family and escaped to this great country Well, all right while we while we're going to get to the his systematic Destruction of his family and his escape next week

And then we got a little really got to relax it for you after that. Then we got a UFO story Then we got our big old redo All right Well, thank you all thank you all so much for listening to this episode And if you are staring at your husband or wife right now give them a hug Yeah, give them a hug hugs not guns to their back of their head. I always said that Just say if there's a bad thing you want to say it's so much easier to just say it Then kill the family say it get into a small fight and then and then

We'll get into a big fight or have sex with you and then you have sex with each other afterwards Sometimes hurt anyway. I know it's also the truth is like, you know Sometimes you need to get to that big big fight that finally ends things totally you need to have that fight It's better for you to again. It's better for you to have the fight Then systematic well execution the nice thing about age is you actually see yourself getting up to that fight now And you can't stop it. Yeah. Oh, no, you see the coming. You're like, no, it's actually and I know it's happening Yeah, and I can see it's happening, but you can't do anything to stop it No, because you are technically that's a healthy expression of everyone's uh, they're communicating everybody farts and everybody fights

So just everybody fucks and everybody shits We've started before everybody fucks Not in that shit. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. All right everyone. Thank you so much for listening Also, we have some big weed news. Thank you all so much for filling out our survey If you haven't done that, let's see Where's the best place for people to find us the last podcast network twitter go to go to the insta lp on the left And we will be posting our survey We're still trying to figure out where we're going to drop our new whid at

anywhere in california And we uh looks like and you know, we've got some really great suggestions for charities as well Yes, we did. So we're looking we're looking at last prison project right now dot org last prisoner project Uh dot org check them out. We did a little research on them and it looks extremely reputable and We've got to help because as I've said on abling us top at thousands of times Uh criminal justice reform is the biggest social issue of our time the social rights issue of our time And we live in a nation where millions of people are incarcerated that don't deserve to be and we must do something about it And it ruins lives for no reason. Um, and also come check out my twitch show this weekend on saturday

What are you doing on sipsx? Who are you gonna kill right now? I'm looking at egypt. I'm coming right forward That's true. I'm coming right for egypt I'm there 230 pst this saturday twitch.tv slash last podcast network domination of everything We're killing egypt this week. You know egypt deserves it They've had it too good for too long because everything is so peaceful over there right now. Shouldn't it settle so close to me? Yeah Entirely there for everyone has to go I guess

And we're all working on our twitch shows. I got a twitch show that's uh coming up soon I'm not gonna tell you exactly what the content is going to be but it is going to be a video game base Not just give you the title. It's going to be called till death do us part Oh, yeah, and I'm sure many of our our video game listeners out there Video game players can figure out what the fuck that's going to be all about. Yes indeed I'm going to kick some booty at football at some point and maybe even a little basketball and maybe there's a little whatever We'll have but nothing physical. This is all games. This is all game. That's the only way you can beat people up nowadays You can only do it cerebrally via

Conference call in your own home. I'm playing a video game. You can do a cough off. Yeah Check out the other shows on lpn network. We got ourselves. We got a page seven. We got a ablenken stop pad That's got to be fun these days. We've got no dags in space They just wrapped up their season and we will be coming back. I guess vaguely soon like two or three months And I have a new podcast coming out called no dogs in the tub I Can barely sit down Yeah, we just finished season one

We're going to be coming back with a season 1.5 here in about two months of the band that I think everybody's gonna love But yeah, we just finished up season one 10 bands. We finished up with the screamers, which is a fantastic story Well, I mean maybe the flying burrito brothers could be we can cover grand parson's at some point Grand parson's is cool. He also shot me down when I said Alice in chains I don't even do it here. What am I even doing? I don't even know. I don't know Alice in chains. I just don't I don't fucking get it. The rooster. What do you mean the rooster? I'm a goose deletion so I'll gain out gain. Hail me man. So sometimes you're the man in the box and sometimes you're spoon man

Yeah, sometimes you're the rooster. Yeah. Yeah, sometimes you're the not the rooster Sometimes you're one of these guys. Yeah, one of these guys, and they're all dead Alice in chains is for as far as that goes wasn't the worst band of that era. I love allison chains That's why that's why I suggested it. I just don't I'm sorry neither one of us get it You should be in the car when we're fucking listening to lithium and allison chains comes on for the third time that fucking hour It is overplayed on series like some that is true I just like a song that has only three lyrics, but it's three minutes long Yeah, man, you get into the vibe stretch it out

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