Stuff You Should Know - SYSK Selects: What's the deal with Rasputin's death?

Episode Date: June 3, 2017

In this week's SYSK Select episode, Grigori Rasputin, the Russian charismatic cleric and political adviser to the ruling Romanovs, is said to have been poisoned, shot, shot again, bludgeoned and drowned. Exactly how did he die and how would such a legend grow around a modern figure? Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hey everybody, it's me, Josh. And this week for SYSK Selects, I've selected our episode on Rasputin, the mad monk. And I remember it was recorded during a weird time at How Stuff Works for some reason.

We were recording in an old corner office and there were weird blackout drapes on the windows. It was very odd, but it lent itself perfectly to this episode. And a heads up, I should say, this one has a lot of talk about genitalia. So if you're a parent, you may just wanna be aware of that. Are we talking about Rasputin?

You're darn tootin'. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. And there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. And this is Stuff You Should Know, the podcast. That's right.

Are we doing Rasputin? Yeah, we're doing Rasputin. Okay. No, disputin'. Rasputin. That's right. Actually, there is a lot of disputin'. There's tons of it.

The man's whole life is in dispute agreements. Mystic hypnotist. Possible healer. Porn star. Yeah, pretty much. Not a porn star. He was into some freaky stuff. He could have been.

He's a big dude, six foot four. Yeah, I saw that written down. And there's pictures of him, which is great, because this is the time in our world history where we had photographs of these folks. Right. But even that said, the fact that there are surviving photographs of him when he was just some peasant in Russia

really speaks to the impact that he had on the people around him. Totally. There are very few Russian peasantry portraits, you know? Yeah, I bet. Or studies of a specific person from, like, you know, 1880, 1890 even. That's a good point.

But there's pictures of Rasputin before he became famous. Yeah, and those creepy eyes. Yeah, it depends on the photo, I think. I think some of them make a little more creepy. Some of them look photoshopped. Yeah. Like the glowing ones and stuff. Plus also, when he's like, I think he turns it on sometimes.

He's like, oh, look at that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. Freak. Yeah. So yeah, we're talking about Rasputin. I think everybody kind of has a certain idea. He's also known as the mad monk.

Yeah. And he was a prolific lover. Yeah, he was a kinky man. Yeah. And he had the ear of the czar and the czarina, the last ones. It's our Nicholas II and his wife. Of the Romanoff.

Yeah, the Romanoff. That's another way to put it. So Alexandra and Nicholas II invited Rasputin to their court, which we'll get into. Let's just start chronologically here, though. OK, like birth? Yeah. Well, he was born.

Grigori Efimovich Rasputin in 1869 in Siberia. I imagine being born in Siberia in 1869 is just a big ball of laughs. Yeah. You know? Yeah. Or in 2013. Yeah.

And he supposedly, although this was disputed by his daughter, I believe. Yeah, I want to say, for me, this is the fact of the podcast. Rasputin had children. Yeah. Like he had a family. He was married from age 20 on. Yeah, and they still exist, apparently, in France.

One of them lives in Los Angeles, I believe. Oh, really? Mm-hmm. Hornstar. I don't think so. But I mean, think about it, Rasputin. And just bear that in mind, he was married and had a family this whole time, from age 20 on.

Yeah, that's a little weird, actually. Yeah. So his daughter, I believe, disputed this. But apparently, early on, his religious activity was, he was involved with a group called the Clists with a K and an H. And a Y. And a Y. And then everything else normal.

And then they were into some serious sexual activity, like self-flagellation that erupted into orgies. Right, self-flagellation in front of a group. Yeah. And then people would be like, OK, it's humpy time. Yeah, with the idea that in order to cleanse yourself of sins, you just had to do a lot of that sin.

Is that right? Yeah, and the reason that they would have orgies was because it was part of their religious belief was that if somebody was having trouble with sin, you had to help them work it out, get rid of the sin by doing the sin. Right. And apparently, it was a sin to have an orgy,

and so they did it a lot. Interesting. And they were hated among the Russians, basically. They were mistrusted. Yeah. They were just viewed upon as weird. And they were actually fairly subversive. And they knew that they were viewed like this.

So one of the tenets of being a Clist was that you went to the church, the Russian Orthodox Church, and you were fervent and outspoken and super into the Russian Orthodox Church by all outward appearances. Oh, really? That was what you did if you were a Clist. And then your dirty secret was you would whip yourself and have sex with like 20 people at the same time.

Exactly. Nice. Well, like I said, his daughter disputed that he was involved, although historians say that he was. So who knows? I read that she said that he was rejected by the Clists. Oh, really?

Yeah. Well, he might have, well, never mind. We'll get to that. He may have been too much for them. So he built his reputation traveling on Russia as a healer, as a mystic and a preacher, and eventually landed in St. Petersburg in 1905, somehow got introduced to the aforementioned Tsar and Tsarina.

Yeah, but before that, he had become, he had undergone a religious conversion apparently from about the age of 12. He was doing it with anything he could get his hands on. And I don't know what age, but I would say before 20, between 12 and 20, some monk came through town, came through the village, and said, you know what? I think you should come with me to the monastery.

I think you're kind of special. You've got some talent. Exactly. Young man. So he took him to the monastery, and that's where Rasputin underwent this religious conversion there, and came out really fervently religious, like the real deal.

He actually walked from Russia to Palestine and back, walked. That's not a short trip. Is there a dispute in that, or is that? Not that I understand. OK. I haven't seen that disputed. Gotcha. But I think that's a good point to bring up.

Anything that sounds even remotely a stretch that's attached to Rasputin, you should probably take with a grain of salt. Yeah, because he was such an odd, unique individual in world history, there had been countless stories and I'm sure at the time, there were just like rampant stories about who this guy was. Yeah, and not only that, most of them

were written and spread by his enemies. He was a very hated person contemporarily. So the original accounts are of people who are trying to make him look bad, and then people started basing biographies on those original accounts. And that's why he's got such a bad reputation. There's so much lore and legend and confabulation

surrounding him. So you don't really know much about him. Well, he was, for him, he was just like, I'm just a giant Siberian monk looking for a good time. Like, why is everyone out to get me? Why has everybody got so many hangups? I know, the haters. So yeah, he makes it.

He's already kind of known as a star, a stardit? Star it. Star it, yeah. That's a religious advisor. By the time he gets to St. Petersburg. Yeah. And he's hanging out there. He's like, we're going to make it in the big city.

This is where the Romanovs live. This is a good place for me to be. And apparently, like you said, impressed somebody enough that he was taken to the Romanovs and introduced to them at court. This is might as well be Boogie Knights. Yeah, it is. You know?

Yeah. He's Eddie from the Valley. Yeah. All right, so he does get introduced and warms his way into the inner circle, not warms his way through. He earned his place in the inner circle. He definitely did. By healing a hemophiliac son, Alexis,

who was the heir to the throne and very important to keep around and alive. And here's the only boy in the family. Yeah, despite being a hemophiliac, he would do dumb things like ride horses and fall off them. And apparently, on the first time, not having the second time, he was not doing so hot and rescue and supposedly healed him, possibly through hypnosis.

So with hemophilia, I didn't really realize this. I always thought hemophilia was where you cut yourself and your wound wouldn't clot. It's that as well, right? Or not at all? It is. Yeah. But I thought that was it.

Right. Apparently, the much bigger problem is with internal bleeding. Yeah, because you don't know what's going on. Right, and that's what Alexi had. And they were worried about him becoming a morphin addict, so they wouldn't give him any morphine. So he would just suffer like these bouts

of internal bleeding. Poor kid. And the doctors couldn't do anything. Right. And Rasputin came along the first time and basically just took away his pain. Yeah, and in 1912, it happened again. This is after the horse fall.

Yeah. And he was, I believe, not there at the time. And Zarina gave him a ring and said, hey, Rasputin, we need you to do your thing again. And he sent a telegram that said, don't sweat it. He's going to recover the next day. And I guess long distance hypnosis or whatever happened, or maybe healing prayers, who knows, or maybe none of that.

Yeah, there's also a hypothesis that he just exerted the first calming influence over the house about this matter that anyone ever had, and that that in and of itself had some sort of healing effect. I think because supposedly he was known to be a very calming figure when you're in his presence. With hemophilia, I think to lowering your stress levels will help.

Yeah, I'll bet. Man, stress is a killer, isn't it? It is, literally. So at the same time, while this is all going on, like you said, there were people out there that did not like him, one of which, not the least of which, was Prime Minister Peter Stollepin. And he was gathering a case, putting a case together basically to present and get him ousted from the court, saying,

this guy's a crazy sex pervert. Yeah, I think he was not the first one to accuse him of being a clist, but really was taking that and running with it. Yeah, he wanted him gone. And he died, shot at the opera before he could make this case. And some say that old Tsar Nicholas might have been behind that, but we don't know that for sure.

Yeah, he was the Tsar. Yeah, they were not keeping records very well in Russia at the turn of the century. Especially not of cover up scandals. Yeah, that's true. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker

necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper,

because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it, and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands

give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you.

Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy.

You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So Peter Stollepin comes up, he tries it, fails.

Yeah, not try to kill him. Just try to get him removed. Right. We should, let's, let's, let's provide a little backdrop here. OK. At about this time, this is 1910, 1912, 1914. Sure. The Russia's undergoing, the world is undergoing a huge transition.

Yeah. From agriculture to industrialization. Yeah. And the Russian peasantry loves the czar. They love those guys. Yeah. But the farmers. Yeah.

In the cities, an urban working class is developing, and they don't love the czar. They don't, they think the czar is disconnected out of touch, is back in these agrarian days, and everybody's moving forward into the factories, and that there's no, that the czar has no love for these new people, and this is where Lenin came from, and the Bolsheviks came from, were these factories.

So this is all going on in the background. That's in Russia. Outside of Russia, Europe is going to war for World War I. So Russia is torn between these domestic problems and these international problems, and it's headed by a family that is becoming viewed as increasingly out of touch with what's going on in Russia, and therefore have, are losing legitimacy pretty quickly.

And now all of a sudden, there's this weird guy who humps anything that moves, and has the ear of the czar and the czarina, and where did he come from? What is, what's going on? Yeah, and increasingly less influence on the czar, apparently over the years, but increasingly more influence on the czarina. She was way into him, especially after he healed the son

twice, or supposedly did. Right. And well, she definitely believed he did, so. Oh yeah, that's all. Yeah, exactly. Say it. That's all it took. And he even called the mama and papa,

which I thought was interesting. I think that's manipulative. I take it from my impression that he was being manipulative by calling them that, and I'll bet it was creepy. I bet it was. So he's in the newspapers and stuff. He's becoming a well-known guy. And I'm sure the industrialists are reading this.

And like you said, who is this guy? It's at the center of all this. Yeah. And he's got this great influence. And who even is he? Even. Well, he had not only influence, but once Russia joined World War I, it was all over.

Well, it was. czar Nicholas goes off to command the army. And the czarina is left in charge, which means Rand Sputin is sort of in charge. But yeah, very close to being in charge himself. And he was in a position to stack well-paying, high-level government jobs with friends who were incompetent and inept. And they almost completely undermined

the infrastructure of Russia. Like trains didn't operate. Armaments weren't built for the war effort. People weren't fed. There was like nobody running the show or nobody who knew what they're doing was running the show. And it was all Rasputin's fault. And this was the last straw.

Yeah. This is what led to the revolution. Well, and also to some murder attempts. Well, yeah, he's like Bob Marley. People would try to kill him. And it just didn't happen, you know? The first one on June 16th, this woman, Kiania Kosemishna Goseva.

Oh, that was good, Chuck. Thank you. Apparently was sent by a former friend of his named Sergei Truvanov. He was a monk who was tight with Rasputin. But they split up in 1911 because he was kind of disgusted by his, you know, humpiness. And apparently sent this woman to murder him.

And she stabbed him in the stomach. And like it was gnarly. Apparently he had some entrails hanging out. Jesus. It was easily a mortal wound. But here in the article, they just said he healed a few weeks later. They made it sound like he healed himself.

He had surgeries. And I think it was like eight to 10 weeks of recuperation. I don't think there was any mystery to that. But they did manage to save his life. But he wasn't the same after that. He became an opium user. And the daughter was one that was just like it was just different after that.

That sucks. He had bad stomach problems, which we'll get to later, actually. That'll play a role. See, there's one other aspect of Rasputin that I kind of gathered about him from researching him. And that was like he had this thing. Not that he had kind of a light.

He had an exuberance. He loved life. He didn't seem to be a, even though he's been accused of all sorts of manner of crimes, we don't really know what he did or didn't do back then. Because again, contemporary sources are like. Is he the devil? He's against him.

But he seemed to have something that was really neat about him. Like he was somebody that I think a lot of people wanted to be around. And the idea that that went out of his stomach wound, that's sad. It is. Not as sad as what ultimately happens to him, but let's keep going.

All right. What ultimately happened is a plot was hatched. And we'll get to the newer, possibly truer story. But here's the original story. Prince Felix Yusupov, he was the husband of the niece of the Tsar Nicholas on December 29, 1916. He was also the gay lover of the person who was also an heir to the throne.

If Alexi didn't make it, who the Brits favored. So keep that in mind. So he was married to the niece and the gay lover of, so he had both his bases covered basically. Right, exactly. Well, good for him. 1916, that's pretty forward thinking. Sure.

So he plotted to. We're all going to evolve into bisexuals. Maybe. He plotted to kill Rasputin to save Russia. And here's where things really, like the details of how this went down, are really highly disputed at this day. Yeah. Supposedly.

Yusupov? Yeah. Supposedly he invited him over, said, hey, come take a look at my wife. He'd like her. I also read that he said, we got a gypsy wine party going on over here. And Rasputin's like, I'm there.

Well, here's the deal, though. He gets there, he laces pastries and cakes and wine with cyanide, enough to kill like five men. Supposedly Rasputin starts chowing down. Nothing happens. The daughter disputes this and says he would not. He had bad stomach problems after his stabbing incident. And he didn't drink wine or eat sweets anymore.

Oh, OK. That's what she said. Well, that explains the later finding. That's what she said. It does explain later filing, perhaps. But he had hyperacidity in his stomach, and she's like, he just wouldn't have been doing that. Or possibly he was immune.

That was another theory, which I think is bunk, that he had taken part in mithridotidism, which is slowly building up your immunity to poison by ingesting small amounts of poison. I've been doing that for years. I'm sure you have. Oh, is that why? OK.

Or maybe they have a theory that the cyanide might have vaporized when they baked the stuff in cakes. Oh, yeah. With the high temperatures. Dummies. But at any rate, the poison had no effect on them. And they were like, what is going on with this creep? He could have killed 10 men with this stuff.

Or an ox use of poplator said. Oh, really? So they said, I don't know what we'll do. Let's just shoot him in the back. Easy peasy. Easy peasy. And he did so. He fell down and died.

They fought. He checked his pulse. Well, wait. First they went upstairs and partied. Well, they checked him out. And then, like he's dead, let's go party. And then he came back down, I think, to get a coat or something and checked him again.

To get a coat. I think that's how the story goes. Really? Yeah. And that's when Rasputin's just like, he comes alive and attacks the guy. After they shot him twice in the back, right? I think.

At least once. Two times at that point? I think so. It ended up being four total with one in the forehead, which we'll get to as well. OK, so they shot him once, and then they came back downstairs, and he's still moving. Not only is he still alive, he manages to get to his feet

and bust out the door and out into the yard, out into Yusupov's yard. And that's when they shot him twice. Yeah, and beat him severely. There's pictures of his body. He was severely beaten with a rubber club, tied him in a blanket, dumped his body in the Neva River. So let's go over this again.

Shot in the back once, he gets up, goes outside. They shoot him two more times. They beat him with the club. They wrap him up in a blanket. Well, now somebody shot him in the forehead too. That was a fourth shot. OK, shot him in the forehead, wrap him up in a blanket, drop him into a frozen river that they've carved a hole into.

And then that's that for Rasputin. That's that. Until they find him, and they found him, and his arm was outstretched like he'd managed to struggle free of the blanket. Right. He managed to partially free himself, indicating that maybe he wasn't even dead when they put him in the water.

So they did an autopsy on him, and the autopsy lists Rasputin's mode of death as hypothermia. Right. Not being shot four times, not being beaten to death. Including the forehead shot, which all manner of evidence says that this was a kill shot by a professional. Yeah, but supposedly he died of hypothermia. Supposedly.

And then, seriously, they didn't, although now that you've explained it, not so mysteriously, they didn't find arsenic in his system. Right. But that until, I guess, recently. I think it was cyanide. Cyanide, OK. That was a big point of lore.

Like, he ate all this stuff. This cyanide-laced pastry. And it didn't even show up in his system. Right. Well, it sounds like it didn't show up in his system, because he didn't actually eat that stuff. And we have great cause to wonder if he was beaten. Was he?

Yeah, he was beaten. OK. So he was shot four times. Yeah. And I guess he was dumped in the river. Yeah. But what's in dispute then? Who shot him?

Yeah, who shot him? And what was the actual cause of death? Did he really free his arm? Or was that just something that happened? Gotcha. Like, what was the cause of death? And did they cut his penis off? Well, that's a big one, too.

Supposedly. Man, all these double entendres are totally accidental. I know. I apologize. There's another one. I haven't met a single. Oh my god, it's just need to stalk. So supposedly, they may have cut his penis off.

And it has changed hands throughout the year, maybe even belonging to a French collector who loaned it to a Russian museum to put on display for a little while. There are pictures. And we just don't know if that's it or not. If it is, it's ginormous. Good for a rescue.

So much so that apparently no one's actually tested it, but just looking at it, some biologists feeling that's a horse. That's from a horse or a cow. Yeah. Or as you said earlier, it looked like a baby's arm holding an orange. So we don't know if that's his penis or not.

It definitely adds another little strange sidebar to the story. It definitely does. Also, we should say that after he was buried in the Bolsheviks revolted, they dug him up and burned his body. Oh, yeah? Because I don't think I knew that. We should say the Bolsheviks did revolt.

The czar abdicated the crown in March of, I think, 1917. And then the revolution happened. They were placed under house arrest. And then very famously, the entire Romanov family, their doctor, two servants, and the family dog were all executed by Bolshevik revolutionaries, including Anastasia. Yeah, and Rasputin had predicted that along with his own demise

before he died, writing, if it was one of your relations who have wrought my death, then no one in the family, none of your relations will remain alive for more than two years. That was my Rasputin. And that's what happened. I mean, he was killed in December, the end of 1916. They were killed before the end of 1918.

So he was right. And apparently, he'd also written that he didn't expect to make it to January 1st. Oh, really? And he was killed two days before it. Yeah, there were disputes about the date, too, but I think they settled on December 30th. So what's up with the weirdness now?

Well, they've dug into this more recently in the 2000s. Scotland Yard has a detective named Richard Cullen, and a historian named Andrew Cook. And they have a theory that I think is probably true, that it was the SIS, the British Secret Service, actually led the plot to kill him. And modern forensics believe they have tied the gun and the caliber of the bullet

in the forehead was different than the other three. Oh, yeah? And so they have tied that back because it was not a rare gun, but rare enough to where they tied it back to this guy. Oswald Reiner? Oswald Reiner, who was a British officer, who was there. He was there. He was also a friend of Yusipov.

And while he's not named in Yusipov's memoirs about the murder of Rasputin, Yusipov boasted about frequently, he does appear suddenly in that same time. So he's in the city. And yeah, a lot of, well, a retired Scotland Yard detective and an historian both think that he's the one who carried out the kill shot.

Yeah, and Reiner actually supposedly told his cousin that he was there and that he was the guy that did the deed. But before he died in 1961, he burned all his papers. And he only had one son. And he died just a few years later. So all evidence is gone, except for a memo. A memo was sent between Reiner's superiors, John Scale and Stephen Alley, who weren't there at the time.

And the memo says this, quote, although matters have not proceeded entirely to plan, which, you know, that's pretty true. Our objective has clearly been achieved. Reaction to the demise of Dark Forces, which was Rasputin's code name, have been well received by all. Although a few awkward questions have already been asked about wider involvement,

Reiner is attending to loose ends. We'll no doubt brief you on your return. Wow. So it sounds pretty rock solid to me that the SIS might have been behind it. Right. So there was another conspiracy that's actually probably just a broader look at that, that it was actually

the prime minister of Great Britain, David Lloyd George, who was ultimately behind this plot to murder Rasputin and install Yusupov's gay lover, the prince. Right. And the whole reason for either of these theories, the whole reason that Brits would want to get involved in the first place was because they were worried that either one, Rasputin

was going to persuade Nicholas to withdraw from the war. Yeah. Or he was going to continue undermining the credibility of the Roman off so much that there was a revolution. Right. And either way, Russia was going to withdraw from the war, which is a big problem, because they were keeping Germany

busy on the Western Front, which meant that Germany was divided between the Western Front with Russia and the Eastern Front with the Brits. Dicey. It was. So if Russia pulled out, then Germany could put all of their attention on the Western Front. Right.

Yes. We're always quiet. I got them wrong the first time. I got them backwards. Yeah. But you corrected yourself. Thank you. Yeah.

So maybe so. Maybe Britain. And it makes sense if it was SIS. It might have gone all the way to the top. Yeah. The prime minister. Yeah, it's true. So that's Rasputin.

That's everything there is to know about him and completely factual every word of it. Yes, Rasputin. Well, let's see. If you want to learn more about Rasputin, you can type his name into the search bar howstuffworks.com, that is capital R-A-S-P-U-T-I-N, Rasputin.

And since I said Rasputin, that means it's time for a message break. Suffice should run. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces.

We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever.

Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper,

because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in, as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man.

And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life, step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Oh, just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Now it's time for Listener Mail. Josh, this is a very special Listener Mail,

because it features Jerry. Oh, they're just special. This wasn't even to us, you know? I know. This is like, forget you guys. This is for Jerry. So here's how it goes. I've been listening to your show from the very beginning,

guys, and I have never missed an episode. I listen to about 15 podcasts on a regular basis. And listening to those other podcasts makes me truly appreciate the job that Jerry does on your show. While listening to other shows, I often hear pieces that were intended to be edited out, but obviously were not. This is something that is extremely distracting to me.

What usually happens is one of the hosts starts a sentence, doesn't come out right, so they go back and start that sentence over again. It's not done in a very natural way, and it drives me crazy. Kind of like finding an obvious typo in a book. Boy, I hate that too. When this happens, it takes away from the conversation aspect of the podcast and emphasizes the fact

that there is an outline for these conversations. While I cannot guarantee that it has never happened in your show, I can't think of one time where something was obviously supposed to be edited out, but was not. Right? Yeah. The production of your show is so good, it feels like you do the podcast in one continuous take

without any edits. That is not true, either way. We're not that good. No. We don't stop and start a lot. No, it happens, mistakes happen. Yeah, but we're pretty conversational. Sometimes we say things that we know we can't include.

It feels like you do the podcast in one take without any edits. There is much more, this is much more entertaining, because it feels more like an organic conversation and a planned out discussion. Obviously, you guys play in your podcast with outlines and points you want to touch on. Not true.

No, no. That is not true. And that goes to Jerry's powers and skills. That's right. That guy thinks that. Yeah, for those of you who don't know, I feel like we said it a gazillion times in interviews, but not everyone reads that stuff.

We have our first conversation about the topic right here in the studio. We study independently, then we come down, sit down, and we have our first conversation about it. Right. Sometimes there are starts and stops, and Jerry takes care of that. Finishing up here.

It seems more natural in your podcast than any others that I listen to. So I just want to thank you guys for many hours of entertainment, and thank you especially to Jerry. She needs a raise, even if it comes out of your pockets. I agree that she needs a raise. Not out of our pockets. But not out of our pockets.

And that is from Spencer M. Couch of Couch Law. And I was like, can I mention your law firm? And he was like, please do. So that is Couch Law in Bountiful, Utah. For all your maritime law needs. Not in Bountiful, Utah. Call Couch Law. I'm not sure what kind of law he practices,

but if you are in Bountiful, Utah, and you're in need of a lawyer, give them a call. And say, hey, you've got good taste, and you appreciate the fine work of Jerry. So here's $400 an hour. And if you are in need of a world class podcast editor, you have to keep looking because Jerry's ours. That's right.

Yep. Thank you, Jerry. Thank you, Jerry. All right. She just saluted us. Yes, she did. If you want to sing Jerry's praises, we love hearing that kind of thing.

Jerry does especially. Yeah, I just wonder now. Oh, is it? No, I'm just kidding. OK. You can tweet to us at SYSK Podcast. You can join us on facebook.com slash stuff you should know. You can send us an email to stuffpodcasts at discovery.com,

right? Yeah. Jerry gets those, too. And you can join us on our home on the web, stuffyoushouldknow.com. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called David Lasher

and Christine Taylor. Stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends

to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation?

If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say, bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass

on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.