Something You Should Know - Why You Get Embarrassed and What To Do & How A Parrot Solved a Murder
Episode Date: September 7, 2023I am certain that many times in your life you have had “one of those days.” Those are the days when nothing seems to go right, everything seems to be a problem and you tend to dwell on how horrib...le everything is. This episode begins with a quick and effective technique for the next time you have “one of those days” that will help you snap out of it. Source: Judith Orloff, M.D. author of Positive Energy (https://amzn.to/2KHzr3K) It's hard to imagine anyone going through life without being embarrassed. It’s a horrible feeling that actually serves an important purpose. Listen as I speak with Charise Harper author of the book So Embarrassing: Awkward Moments and How to Get Through Them (https://amzn.to/35uLpFZ). She explains why we get embarrassed, why it feels so horrible and how best to handle it in the moment when it happens. Wouldn’t you love to hear the story of how a parrot solved a murder or how someone was so gullible they actually believed that investing in an idea from a prince from Venus was a smart thing to do or the story about how the same woman survived the sinking of the Titanic as well as accidents on Titanic’s 2 sister ships? Well those are just three of the tales you are going to hear from Steve Silverman, host of The Useless Information podcast (https://uselessinformation.org) and author of the book The Flip Side of History (https://amzn.to/3l7htEb). No one likes to clean, so I have three tips from a top cleaning expert that will actually reduce the amount of time you spend cleaning and ensure you do a better job. Source: Don Aslett author of No Time to Clean. (https://amzn.to/3fy5i2f) PLEASE SUPPORT OUR SPONSORS! PrizePicks is a skill-based, real-money Daily Fantasy Sports game. You pick 2-6 players and if they will go more or less than their PrizePicks projection. It's that simple! Go to https://prizepicks.com/sysk and use code sysk for a first deposit match up to $100 Anxious thoughts seem to happen at the worst time. It's important to try and get out of those negative thought cycles. If you’re thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It’s entirely online, so it’s convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist. Get a break from your negative thoughts with BetterHelp Visit https://BetterHelp.com/SOMETHING today to get 10% off your first month! Now, your ideas don't have to wait, now, they have everything they need to come to life. Dell Technologies and Intel are pushing what technology can do, so great ideas can happen - right now! Find out how to bring your ideas to life at https://Dell.com/WelcomeToNow Planet Money is an incredible podcast with entertaining stories and insights about how money shapes our world. Listen to Planet Money https://npr.org/podcasts/510289/planet-money wherever you get your podcasts! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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Today on Something You Should Know,
what to do when you're having one of those days to help the day go better.
Then, embarrassment.
Why do we get embarrassed?
It is something that is innate within us, and it helps us stay in our groups.
We have a social contract that we have with whatever groups we associate with.
And embarrassment is something that keeps us in that group.
It seems like it's something that is pretty much hardwired in us.
Also, three techniques that will make housework easier and more efficient.
And some strange but true tales that will have you on the edge of your seat.
This is a story about the Titanic.
It involves a woman named Violet Jessup.
She was a stewardess on the three sister ships.
The Olympic, the Titanic was the second, and the third was supposed to be the gigantic.
So she's the only woman to survive the accidents of the three sister ships.
All this today on Something You Should Know.
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Something you should know.
Fascinating intel.
The world's top experts and practical advice
you can use in your life today something you should know with mike carothers
hi welcome to something you should know so i'm sure you've had one of those days. In fact, I'm pretty sure you've had more than one of one of those days
where everything seems to be going wrong,
you can't think about anything other than how wrong everything is going,
and it just gets worse.
So how do you turn that around?
Well, there is a technique that is so simple yet amazingly effective.
And here's what you do.
You stop the negative thinking and focus on one positive or beautiful thing in your life.
And then another one.
And then another one.
And while you're doing that, you breathe deeply.
If you do this for a few minutes, that's it.
This technique was developed by Dr. Judith Orloff. She says by forcing yourself to
shift from negative to positive thoughts, it breaks that cycle of constantly thinking how
horrible everything is. I've actually tried this and it really does work because what this technique
does is it takes advantage of the fact that your mind can only focus on one thing at a time.
So if you focus on something positive, you, by definition, cannot think those negative thoughts.
The downward spiral then stops, and then you become more objective about everything,
and life seems a little more manageable.
And that is something you should know.
One thing we all have in common is that we've all been embarrassed. We've all done something or said something we wish we hadn't. And when you do something embarrassing, that feeling of
embarrassment, you know, that feeling that everybody's staring at you and judging you and you feel terrible,
which makes it even harder for you to say something to try to recover.
Well, why does all that happen?
Why does embarrassment feel so terrible?
Here to explain why and help us all get over those inevitable moments of embarrassment is Cherise Harper.
She is an author mostly of children's books, and she has tackled this topic because, well,
not only do adults feel embarrassment, so do kids.
The name of her book is So Embarrassing, Awkward Moments and How to Get Through Them.
Hi, Cherise. Welcome.
Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me on here.
Sure. So everyone Hi, Mike. Thanks for having me on here.
Sure. So everyone has experienced embarrassment. We all know it when it happens.
So what is it exactly? What is embarrassment? So embarrassment is something that we do to ourselves. And I'm not sure how you can stop doing it to yourself, but it is something that is innate within us,
and it helps us stay in our groups. We have a social contract that we have with whatever groups
we associate with, and embarrassment is something that keeps us in that group. And it seems like
it's something that is pretty much hardwired in us as a way of controlling our behavior so that we
can function as a society. And as we get older,
we join more groups. We join the work group, and that has a social norm that is beneficial to
working in a consistent way together. And we have other groups that we join as well. So we have all
these different groups, and every group has different social norms. And so we have to keep
all that in our brains and try to stay within those groups. And embarrassment is a way that we don't have to constantly think about the rules.
We know what the rules are and we don't want to step outside them. I'm not saying that's always
a good thing to do, but I'm saying that, you know, it's kind of hardwired in us and that's
the way we're reacting to those things. And so embarrassment is that uncomfortable
price you pay when you step outside the rules.
Absolutely.
And it can be very, very uncomfortable.
And everyone has this.
As soon as you say that, there's a story that pops in everyone's mind of something they've done they wish they hadn't or something they said that they wish they hadn't said to the wrong person.
And you just feel horrible.
Yeah, you do.
You feel pretty bad.
You know, and definitely, you know, you can try to hide your embarrassment.
But if you're someone like me who blushes, then good luck with that.
You know, there's no way to hide the blushing except to leave the situation.
And that is something else that happens, I think, when you are embarrassed.
You have sort of this innate fight or flight response
that comes into your system, and you're either, you know,
you want to leave, and you just want to get rid of that feeling
as fast as possible.
I think one of the things that many people do
is when they become embarrassed is they replay as fast as they can
what has just happened over and over again,
and that is not something that's going to help you to be calm. So maybe having a go-to element of counting down from 10
to 1 if you're embarrassed. And I think, I live in the Pacific Northwest, and we have to have a
earthquake preparatory kit in case something happens. And I think it's not a bad idea to
have an embarrassment preparatory kit as well,
to have some things that you can do to help yourself if that should pop up, because embarrassment's best friend is surprise. So as uncomfortable as it is when you're caught
and you're embarrassed, showing that embarrassment is a good thing, right?
Yes, it is a good thing, because what it does, and there is science to
back this up. If you see somebody that's embarrassed, the first thing you think about
is that that person has empathy. That person has the knowledge that what they've done is not
appropriate. And therefore, as a group, you understand that that person knows that they
have stepped out of those bounds and that they really want to be part of the group. And it's something that scientists say that it makes
people feel like they can trust that person because that person knows the rules and they
understand that they've stepped out of the rules and they feel like that's someone that they can
trust because they themselves are trying to stay within those rules as well.
So showing embarrassment is basically acknowledging that, yes, I did something wrong.
I'm aware I did something wrong so that the group sees that you know that you're contrite about it.
Yes, you're contrite about it.
And it also, embarrassment is something, just like you said before, everybody has a story. And
so I think it's a great opportunity for people for sharing their story. If you say to somebody,
oh, I can't, I remember the time I fell down in front of everybody, it was so embarrassing.
And the next person's like, oh my gosh, I did the exact same thing. I can't believe it.
And if you share those stories, suddenly you have a bond between you that you
didn't before. So I think it's a really strong tool. I listen to a lot of TED Talks, and I have
to say that a large percentage of TED Talks start with a person saying, I want to share a personal
story. And so obviously sharing a story is something that has power. It seems to me that there are really two kinds of embarrassment.
There's the kind of embarrassment where, you know, your fly's down, you fall in front of a group of people for no apparent reason.
You know, there's toilet paper on the bottom of your shoe.
It's all inadvertent, just stuff that's kind of silly. And then there's the kind of embarrassment like when you're talking about somebody to a group of people
and then you realize that the person's right behind you
and can hear everything you say.
And it's kind of mean.
And that's a different kind of embarrassment
that probably requires an apology.
There is absolutely a correct way to do an apology,
and that is just to say, I am so sorry for whatever the situation has been,
without adding an amendment of, oh, I did it because of this, this, this.
Or, you know, the apology is reduced in strength if you add reasons about why you did something.
If you add your own feeling
of, I did this because, oh, I was tired and I was, you know, I'm so sorry. I just, you know, I had,
you know, I didn't have any breakfast or something. If you just give out a straight apology, that is
the correct way to do an apology without adding your own feeling of, oh, well, there's this reason
why I did it. And so, you know, I'm not really 100% accountable. And I think that that was something that I had not realized. And I am definitely going
to apologize in a different way. And I think that kind of apology in the situation you just
outlined would probably be a good thing to do. Yeah, because because if you I can just imagine
if somebody starts explaining why they did what they did, it doesn't sound like an explanation more
than it just sounds like excuses that lay flat. Right. We're responsible for our own behavior,
right? And so I think if we expect somebody else to deliver an apology that we find to be sincere
and thoughtful, we have to force ourselves to do the
same. But don't you think sometimes, and maybe there's some psychology to this, that sometimes,
you know, little slights, little things just are better left unsaid? I mean,
yeah, I mean, we could talk about it and apologize for it or we could we'll never see each other again.
So let's just move on with our lives.
Yeah. And I think maybe sometimes that's just both people sort of acknowledge that that might be the right thing to do.
This is this is a gray area, obviously, embarrassment.
And and that's why it makes it an interesting area to explore, because there's no hard and fast rule about what to do. And it's not
this, it's not the kind of thing where, oh, you did this embarrassing thing and this is the solution
and now everything's good. It's a lot more complicated than that. And I think that's why
it's something that we just have to endure continuously. There's no way to get over it.
We just have to deal with it. And that's why everybody has great embarrassment stories. Right. Well, and as you say, it's hardwired, so it may not do any good to know this.
But my experience is that as bad as you feel for falling down or doing whatever it is you're doing,
what you think people are thinking is nowhere near what people are really thinking. They're really,
people are very forgiving in situations like that. And you think they're all thinking you're a fool.
They're not. No, I mean, I think after the initial, oh God, I'm so glad that's not me,
which is probably everybody's first thought, right? They are, they are forgiving. And that's
because it's this collective thing that we all have experienced. And there is, you know, you do, it's actually called the spotlight effect when, you know, the fact that you think that everybody is suddenly staring at you and they're going to be talking about you for the next, you know, five hours about this thing you did, whatever it was. And that is not true because people don't think about you as much as you think they think about you.
Because they're thinking about them.
Absolutely. Everybody's thinking about them, thinking that other people are thinking about them.
We're talking about embarrassment, what it is, how to handle it when it happens.
And my guest is Cherise Harper.
She is a writer. She's written several books, one of which is so embarrassing, awkward moments and how to get through them.
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People who listen to Something You Should Know are curious about the world,
looking to hear new ideas and perspectives.
So I want to tell you about a podcast that is full of new ideas and perspectives, and one I've started listening to called
Intelligence Squared. It's the podcast where great minds
meet. Listen in for some great talks on science, tech,
politics, creativity, wellness, and a lot more.
A couple of recent examples, Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI,
discussing the future of technology. That's pretty cool.
And writer, podcaster, and filmmaker John Ronson,
discussing the rise of conspiracies and culture wars.
Intelligence Squared is the kind of podcast that gets you thinking a little more openly about the important conversations going on today. So, Cherise, it's clear that everybody gets embarrassed at some point in their life,
but it does seem that embarrassment affects some people more than others in the sense that, you know, I know people who get embarrassed much easier than other people. those people are probably very sensitive, very sensitive to social norms and a little more,
you know, overly attuned to what they think other people might be thinking. Or maybe those people
just have, you know, I feel like I'm one of those people and I have a creative brain. And so my
brain can produce so many scenarios of what I imagine is in other people's heads. And even
though I know I'm always wrong, it is so hard not to do that.
It is so hard not to go down that creative, you know,
fiction story making of your own worst case scenario.
Right.
Well, you think about getting called on in school and you don't raise your hand
and the teacher calls on you anyway.
A lot of kids get
embarrassed because the spotlight is on them, even though they haven't done anything wrong and they
might actually have a good answer. It's that they're just embarrassed because now the focus
is on them. Right. And I think some people just don't like to have the focus on them. You know,
not everybody wants to be on stage. So perhaps this would be a good time to offer up some,
maybe some tips that people can keep in their back pocket,
their mental back pocket,
when the next time they slip or fall or do something stupid.
What's a good way to, you know, not call attention to yourself
but get over it and not be embarrassed
or at least move through it. So there are some things you can do, certainly for being embarrassed.
The best thing to do if you can, if it's not something that's just, you've done that's just
really horrible and hurting other people's feelings is to try to make a joke out of it.
If you have any improv skills, trying to make something funny, even an awkward joke
is better than just leaving it sort of laying there and feeling shame because nobody wants to
feel shame. And that's even almost embarrassing for the people watching. So if you can make it
into a joke, or if you can somehow acknowledge that you did an embarrassment and try to move
forward, and I think that's the best thing you
can do. And then also there is some science saying that if you smile or if you try to laugh after an
embarrassment, that also can help you and help your body physically calm down. I think it's a
muscle memory thing. And I think it's like standing tall before going to do a presentation.
You just really feel like that gives you a little extra oomph
in the way you deliver something.
So I think that the smiling and the laughing,
if you can laugh it off,
is really one of the best things to do.
What about, I guess it's embarrassment,
but when some people walk into a room full of strangers,
they feel embarrassed, not because they did anything,
just because they don't
know anybody and don't really know how to break the ice or start a conversation.
Yeah, I mean, that's a really hard one. And obviously, if you're in a business situation
where you have to go meet a group of strangers, or you're meeting some new people, or you're
meeting a new group that you have to work with, that could be really hard. And I think in those situations, you just have to force yourself to work through the fear. Your fear is what's
holding you back. And really, if you think about it, it's something that's invisible. It's not
stand in front of you. It's not a real barrier. You've put that there yourself. And if you can
make yourself go through that fear and think about what's the worst thing that could happen? Well,
the worst thing that could happen in your situation is that you just remain alone,
standing by yourself.
The less worst thing that could happen is you actually go talk to somebody and you find
someone to talk to who maybe introduces you to two other people and suddenly you have,
you know, three or four people you can talk to.
And if that doesn't even happen when you go talk to somebody, well, the worst thing that
happened is you're by yourself again. So I think if you can force yourself through those situations that are
really not embarrassment yet, but more an embarrassment that you've put on yourself,
that we have to kind of work through that fear to sort of show ourselves what we can do. Because
unless we do that, you put yourself in a box and you're unable to get out.
What's interesting in those situations, everybody pretends they're not embarrassed or that they don't feel alone.
And it would be sometimes good if whoever is having this affair where all these people are standing around and don't know anybody did something so that all of that could disappear somehow.
I actually did. I did go to a dinner party where it was a bunch of families and we were all sitting at a table together and we didn't know each other. And the host of the party handed out little cards
and she said, please write an embarrassment story that you want to share with the group.
And we were just like, oh, I don't know. I don't know. And what happened was even the kids did it. And the first couple of people that went, the braver people, we laughed
and we nodded our heads. But as we got towards the end of the table, everybody was very excited
to share their embarrassment story. And it was something that we all talked about, regardless
of age. Obviously, our stories were different, but we all knew that feeling because the feeling was the same.
If you were like 12 years old or if you were 30, 40, 50 years old, you all had that same feeling.
You knew what that feeling was.
And that was just a great way to bring the group together because I couldn't even think of something else that we could share that we all had that same feeling.
Showing embarrassment as difficult as it is, is actually a good thing.
And I think people think exactly the opposite, that if I show I'm embarrassed, that makes
me look foolish.
And it's really the opposite.
Yeah, I think people think it makes them look foolish and weak, when actually it makes them look like someone that can be trusted.
So if you are someone who does not show any embarrassment or does not show any empathy, that is not somebody that can be trusted.
And trusted, I mean trusted with information or trusted with people sharing
their feelings you you feel like you can't tell a story to somebody who doesn't have any empathy
think about the guy who trips and falls down and starts swearing as opposed to the person who trips
and falls down in front of everybody and looks embarrassed and says, whoops, you know, and makes a joke about it.
I mean, who's the more likable character?
Exactly, exactly.
And, you know, I think that's another thing that happens with embarrassment.
You can have different reactions, right?
Some people get angry when they get embarrassed.
Some people, you know, will lie when they get embarrassed.
And, you know, other people, you know, get just get embarrassed or could make a joke about it.
So depending on what your reaction is to your embarrassment really tells a lot about who you are.
Well, it's probably going to be very difficult the next time I do something really embarrassing
to keep telling myself what a great thing this is.
But embarrassment really is.
And it's interesting to talk about.
My guest has been Charisse Harper.
She is a children's book author, and one of her books is called
So Embarrassing, Awkward Moments and How to Get Through Them.
You'll find a link to the book in the show notes.
Thanks, Cherise.
Okay. Yeah, well, that's great. Thank you.
Since I host a podcast, it's pretty common for me to be asked to recommend a podcast.
And I tell people, if you like something you should know, you're going to like The Jordan Harbinger Show.
Every episode is a conversation with a fascinating guest.
Of course, a lot of podcasts are conversations with guests, but Jordan does it better than most.
Recently, he had a fascinating conversation with a British woman who was recruited
and radicalized by ISIS and went to prison for three years. She now works to raise awareness
on this issue. It's a great conversation. And he spoke with Dr. Sarah Hill about how taking birth
control not only prevents pregnancy, it can influence a woman's partner preferences, career choices, and overall behavior due to the hormonal changes it causes.
Apple named The Jordan Harbinger Show one of the best podcasts a few years back,
and in a nutshell, the show is aimed at making you a better, more informed, critical thinker.
Check out The Jordan Harbinger Show. There's so much for you in this podcast.
The Jordan Harbinger Show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. and family-friendly show, we count down our top 10 lists of all things Disney. There is nothing we don't cover.
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Every once in a while,
I like to wander off the beaten path and talk about some interesting and unusual topics that aren't necessarily useful, but pretty interesting and fascinating nevertheless.
Which brings me to my next guest, Steve Silverman.
Steve is a science teacher and podcaster who began collecting interesting and unusual true stories to share with his students.
He also shares these stories on his podcast, which is called the Useless Information Podcast.
And some of the stories are also in his book called The Flipside of History.
Hey, Steve, welcome to Something You Should Know.
Hi, thanks for having me on.
Sure. So let's get right into some of these great true stories you've uncovered.
And let's start with the Green Parrot Murder.
This is from 1942. It took place in Harlem, of course, in New York City,
at a place called the Green Parrot Bar and Grill. And it was owned by a guy named Max Geller.
And you have to imagine this
bar and grill is just packed with people. Someone comes in and shoots Max Geller and he drops dead.
And not a single person could say what happened. They asked 20 different people and they got 20
different stories. No one could say for sure who came in, what he looked like, how it happened.
And they're investigating this thing for quite a while.
The only one who was talking was the green parrot for whom the bar was named after.
And the parrot just kept repeating, it's murder, robber, robber.
It's murder, robber, robber.
And this is going on for a while.
And then one day, one of the investigators saying, maybe it's not saying it's murder, robber, robber.
Maybe it's telling us who the person was who committed the crime.
Maybe it's saying it's murder, robber, robber.
So they investigated.
There were only two robbers that patronized the bar.
And it took them a whole year.
But they found this guy named Robert Butler in Baltimore.
And he had committed the murder.
So the parrot actually turned in this guy named Robert Butler in Baltimore, and he had committed the murder. So the parrot actually turned in this guy, Robert Butler, and he got seven to 15 years at Sing Sing.
Talk about the Crayola Caper. That's an interesting one.
So this story occurs in 1973. And oddly, it takes place at the Concord Hotel,
which was in walking distance of where I grew up. And one day they received a letter in the mail and it was signed by someone named Crayola, you know, of the crayon fame. And he
demanded $320,000 be delivered to a phone booth on Fifth Avenue in New York City. And he warned
them not to contact the FBI. If they did, he threatened to lace all the water and coffee at
the hotel with LSD. Anyway, so of course, the Concord did
contact the FBI, just as they were warned not to do, and they sent in an agent who posed as a
Concord employee. The phone rang. Then, of course, they played this game of going from phone booth
to phone booth to phone booth until finally they ended up in Grand Central Station. And the FBI
agent was told to slip the bag through a broken window
at the base of one of the bathroom doors. And they did that. And then, of course, the FBI come
running in and they found out the door was locked. It was locked from the inside. What they didn't
know was that the person on the other side was able to escape up a service staircase to another level and got away. Now, what the people who did this
didn't know was that it was fake money. And of course, they put a tracking device in.
So Crayola sent an angry letter to the FBI, demanded the release of Timothy Leary, who was
the LSD guru at that time. And, you know, nothing happened. So he went to Jack Anderson, who was a
famous columnist back then, and told him his story.
But Jack Anderson and his staff were like, well, we need some proof.
And by then, the FBI kind of figured out who it was.
So this guy, Crayola, sent his accomplice to get the letter out of a safe deposit box
in New York City.
And as he was exiting the bank, they snatched, you know, they snabbed him and, you know, arrested him. And in the end,
they arrested three people. But the main person was a guy named John Calvin Van Orsdale.
And he got two years in prison for doing it. Well, it sounds like a movie plot, like not even
a particularly good movie plot of, you know, we need money or we're going to do this horrible thing and don't call the police.
Of course, you call the police. Well, the interesting thing is that that was one of
his claims when he went to court that this was all to expose the FBI for their corruption.
And it was the basis for a book that he was writing.
Tell the story of the Salem Trade School football team.
The story takes place in the 1920s out near Boston.
There's a school called the Salem Trade School, and they were without a doubt the worst high school football team in the Boston region.
There was no one worse than them.
Now, in those days, schools didn't pay for their football teams, for their sports.
Basically, the admission that people paid at the gates was split between the two teams.
So everybody wanted to play Salem trade.
You were guaranteed to win.
So basically their coach would call up their coach, arrange it all in play,
and they were guaranteed to win.
This is going on for about five or six years.
And then right before the stock market crashed in early October,
they won their first game.
And you'd think that people would be going crazy. After six years, Salem Trade finally won a game.
It turns out when they investigated, there was no school. It was a made up school.
They basically recruited some guys. They were probably between 18 and 21, 22 years old.
And they were splitting the receipts from, 22 years old. And they were splitting
the receipts from the gate with them. And these guys, they weren't even in high school and they
were just going around playing team after team. And once it was exposed, you think that would
have been the end of it. But again, they were guaranteed gate admission at these games. So
for another couple of years, they kept doing it. Since you've been doing this for a long time now, what is the craziest story you've ever found?
Okay. So I've been collecting these for about 30 years. And honestly, I don't think there's
anyone more bizarre than what is known as the murder of Michael Malloy, which took place in
1933 in the Bronx. This is during prohibition. So of course, there were no bars, there were speakeasies,
everything was done in secrecy. And the owner of this bar needed some quick cash. Basically,
they knew that prohibition was coming to an end and they'd be out of business. So they needed some
quick cash. And they came up with this crazy idea. What you do is you find some guy who looks like
he's in really, really bad shape and And you bump him off. You take life
insurance policies out on him and you bump him off. And then of course, you'll get the proceeds
from the life insurance. So there was this guy named Michael Malloy. He kept coming into the
bar. He was probably about maybe around 60 years old. He was in really sad shape. So they figured,
hey, we'll just give him an open tab and he'll drink himself to death. So they did that. And
night after night, they're giving him more and more alcohol. It did nothing. So after about a week of doing this,
they realized they needed to, you know, up the ante somehow. And so they started spiking the
drinks with antifreeze, turpentine, horse liniment, rat poison, so on. And that wasn't working. So
then they decided to put some, you know, oysters and clams and soak it in antifreeze and let him eat that. Didn't work. They let a sardine sandwich rot away until it was almost inedible. Well, he go to the sandwich, and put tacks onto the sandwich. And he ate that, and there was no problem.
So then what happened over time is they kept bringing in another person,
another person, and they brought in a taxi driver.
And they decided to get Michael Malloy really, really drunk until he passed out.
So they put him into the back of the taxi cab.
They took him out to the middle of nowhere, and they ran him over.
They got the cab up to high speed, ran him over, and they killed him.
At least they thought they did.
And just to make sure they did it right, they went around and they ran over him a second time.
And so now they're certain that Michael Malloy is dead.
All they have to do is cash in, take in the life insurance policies and cash in.
But they had no proof that he had died.
They knew he was dead, but where was he?
They checked all the hospitals. They checked the morgue. No records of him anywhere.
They got another guy, and they put the fake ID on him saying he was Michael Malloy and ran him over,
but unfortunately, he survived. Well, after about three weeks, guess who comes wandering into the
bar? There's Michael Malloy. And he's all bandaged up
and he's saying, I got hit by a car, but I didn't have any money. So the hospital just kind of took
me in as a charity case. So now they say, we got to kill this guy outright. So they took him up
to one of the guy's rooms. And in those days, they had the gas hooked up to the wall and they
shoved it down his throat, turned on the gas. And after about 30 attempts on his life, they finally killed Michael Malloy.
And one of the guys in on it was an undertaker.
So they buried him and they were about to put in the insurance money,
but they couldn't keep their mouth shut.
So they're like, did you hear anything?
Do you hear anything?
Next thing you know, the police hear about it.
They arrest the six guys.
One of them died in prison.
Another one turned state's witness,
and the other four went to the electric chair at Sing Sing.
Were there ever any theories as to why this guy was almost indestructible?
Not really. I think it was more they were bumbling at it. They wanted to do it and not make it look
like they did it. It's hard to say. When I first came across the story,
and I came across the story probably 27, 28 years ago, just a little blurb somewhere.
And I live in Albany, New York. And in those days, you had to go use microfilm. You really
couldn't do any research on the internet. So I drive over to SUNY Albany, University of Albany,
and I went down to their basement. I pull up the microfilm of the New York Times and I was shocked to see the story really was true. And it was front page headlines back then.
Tell the story. It's kind of a weird story about the womanless library.
So the story is from 1930 in Lamars, Iowa, and it involves an attorney named T.M. Zink.
And he was a very prominent attorney and very well known out there.
And he suddenly died.
And people in the community just loved him.
So there's all these tributes in the newspaper to him.
And it was a very sad moment for Lamar.
But then two days later, his will was revealed.
And he was a lawyer, and he's fairly wealthy.
And when they revealed the contents of the will, all of a sudden it became a story nationwide.
Basically, he paid his daughter $5, which is about $75 today, and he left absolutely nothing to his second wife.
In fact, for her to stay in the home, she had to pay him rent.
Now, the remainder of his estate, which is in, you know, they weren't sure exactly how much it was back then,
but they valued it between $40,000 and $80,000 back then, which is in, you know, they weren't sure exactly how much it was back then, but they valued
it between 40 and $80,000 back then, which is an incredible chunk today. He wanted to invest it for
75 years. At the end of 75 years, all the money, all the interest that it earned would be used to
build a public library. But here's the real catch. There had to be a sign above the door, above every
door to the library that said no women allowed. Not only no women allowed, but they couldn't be involved in the building of it,
the designing of it, the operation. And it couldn't even have any work that was written
by a woman in the library. Of course, the daughter challenged this and she actually won in court. You know, you sometimes wonder why or how people fall for scams like, you know, the Nigerian Prince email scam or those calls from people claiming to be from the IRS and they're going to come and arrest you if you don't pay them.
And the reason that those scams are around is because if they call enough people, eventually somebody falls for it.
And you have a story of a scam that, I mean, well, tell the story.
This involves a guy named Harold Jesse Burney. And the story takes place actually over time,
from about 1953 to 1957. And he lived in Washington, DC, and he had some patents on
television antennas.
Keep in mind that the 50s television was relatively brand new.
Now, his main financial backer was this woman named Pauline Goebel,
and honestly, I have no idea where she got her money from.
Anyway, in the summer of 1953, he told Pauline he needed to go to Delaware on some really important business.
What she didn't know is that he went there and he met up with a couple and basically suckered them out of every penny
they had. He took them for $22,000, claiming he had a device that could derive endless energy
from the atmosphere. And of course, that wasn't true. By the way, that would be over $200,000
today. So it was quite a chunk of money he ripped them off for. Anyway, when he got back, he told Pauline that he was really on a secret mission with
the US government.
And he said, I have to entrust you these details.
You can't tell anybody.
What he told her is one of the craziest stories and why she bought this.
I wouldn't say she was really gullible, but she had to be somewhat gullible.
He said that he went down to Washington, D.C. to meet with government officials who took him out to see a flying saucer.
And when he got out to the flying saucer, he met with a guy named Prince Eusebius from Venus.
And suppose the United States wanted to establish a relationship with Venus.
So Eusebius told Bernie of this incredible device they had that could extract
endless energy from the atmosphere. And of course, they needed investors. So, Pauline Goebel agreed
to put in more money into it. So, in April 1955, Goebel gets a call that Bernie was really,
really sick on Venus and he had died. Now, why some prince on Venus needs to pick up the phone and call her is
beyond me, but that was the claim. Anyways, months later, all of a sudden he's regenerated.
Basically they had this ability to do that on Venus and he flew from Venus back to Texas and
got in contact with her. And Pauline Goble provided him with another $10,000 for this invention that he had.
Anyway, a few weeks go by, and Bernie's real wife receives a package in the mail saying that he had died,
and it had his wallet and all his possessions in it, and she just didn't buy it.
She knew he was a bit of a con man, and she didn't buy it.
She contacted the FBI, and it took them about a year, but they tracked him down and arrested him.
And he was sentenced to 20 months to five years in federal prison.
In the end, he took Pauline Goebel for $38,000 and the Delaware couple for $22,000.
Adjusted for inflation, he basically took both of them for $570,000.
Tell the story of Violet Jessup.
This is a story about the Titanic and involves a woman named Violet Jessup. She was a stewardess on the three sister ships. Most people don't realize
there were three almost identical ships. It was the Olympic, the Titanic was the second,
and the third was supposed to be the gigantic. Now, basically when the Olympic, which was the
first of the three sister ships to be launched,
Violet Jessup was a very young, attractive woman, and they wanted their best staff on their best ship.
So they put Violet Jessup onto the Olympic, and on its fifth trip out, it crashed with a British cruiser and almost sank.
So they limped it back to port, and they had to stop work on the second ship, which was the Titanic.
In fact, I read that they
took the propeller off of the Titanic and put it onto the Olympic so they could put it back out to
sea. Of course, once the Titanic is finished, they transfer Violet Jessup from the Olympic to the
Titanic. And she was on the very last lifeboat to leave the Titanic. And she wasn't supposed to get on. She was just a worker on the ship.
But basically, they couldn't convince people to get into the boat.
So they asked her to get in and show people how to put on the life jacket and so on.
And she did that.
And of course, she was saved.
Now, once she got to New York, her biggest regret was she didn't go back and get her
toothbrush.
That was her biggest concern.
Although I should point out that initially, there was supposedly no loss of life.
It was only a few hours later that they started realizing that a lot of people had died.
Anyway, so that's the first two Sisha ships.
Now World War I breaks out, so they stopped work on the Gigantic.
I shouldn't say that.
Basically, they changed the name of the Gigantic to Britannic because gigantic sounded too much like Titanic.
The war breaks out, and they turn the Britannic from a cruising ship into a hospital ship.
And when it was on its sixth voyage across the Aegean Sea, it hit a mine and started to sink.
So Violet knew exactly what to do.
She runs back to her cabin.
You can probably guess what she grabbed.
She grabbed her toothbrush, jumped into the lifeboat,
and they lowered down onto the water.
And all of a sudden, she sees everybody in the lifeboat jumping out.
She turns around, and the captain decided to gun it towards shore
and sees a giant impeller coming towards her.
So she jumps out of the lifeboat also.
She goes down, comes up, smashes her head into something, goes back down, finally gets
her head above water, grabs someone else's life jacket, pulls herself afloat, and she
just sees body parts all over the place.
Somehow she had managed to survive.
So she's the only woman to survive the accidents of the three sister ships.
So I think it's a pretty cool story.
Yeah, all I would say is if I saw her name on a ship I was getting on, I would not get on.
Well, I do like your stories because they're in that vein of, you know, truth is often stranger than fiction.
And many of your stories seem, frankly, unbelievable.
But you've done the research to prove that they're true and they're really fun to listen to. Steve Silverman has been my guest. His podcast is called The Useless
Information Podcast, and his book is The Flipside of History. And there are links to both the
podcast and the book in the show notes for this episode. Thanks for coming on today, Steve.
Appreciate it. Thanks, Mike, for having me on the show. It's been a pleasure. I really enjoyed it.
If you would like to spend less time cleaning and clean your home better,
here are three suggestions from cleaning authority Don Aslett, author of the book No Time to Clean.
Number one, 40% of the time you spend cleaning your home is likely because of clutter.
If you get rid of the clutter or put it somewhere else, you will drastically cut down the amount of time it takes to clean.
If paper towels or newspaper are such a great way to wash windows, why is it you never see professional window washers using them?
Because the best way to clean windows is a few drops of dishwashing liquid in a bucket of water and a very good squeegee, just like the pros use.
Number three, carpet cleaning is really best left to professionals.
Over 55% of people clean their own carpets by renting a machine at the
supermarket. It may be cheaper, but professionals usually do a better job and get up most of the
moisture. It is one job not worth doing yourself. And that is something you should know. As someone
who enjoys this podcast, and you must enjoy it because you made it all the way to the end of the episode,
why not share it with someone you know so they too can enjoy this episode, and we get to grow our audience.
I'm Micah Ruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.
Welcome to the small town of Chinook, where faith runs deep and secrets run deeper. In this new thriller,
religion and crime collide when a gruesome murder rocks the isolated Montana community.
Everyone is quick to point their fingers at a drug-addicted teenager, but local deputy Ruth
Vogel isn't convinced. She suspects connections to a powerful religious group. Enter federal agent
V.B. Loro, who has been investigating a local church for possible criminal activity.
The pair form an unlikely partnership to catch the killer, unearthing secrets that leave Ruth torn between her duty to the law, her religious convictions, and her very own family.
But something more sinister than murder is afoot, and someone is watching Ruth.
Chinook, starring Kelly Marie Tran and Sanaa Lathan.
Listen to Chinook wherever you get your podcasts.
Contained herein are the heresies of Redolph Buntwine,
erstwhile monk turned traveling medical investigator.
Join me as I study the secrets of the divine plagues
and uncover the blasphemous truth
that ours is not a loving God
and we are not its favored children.
The Heresies of Randolph Bantwine,
wherever podcasts are available.