The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 137 - Phineas Gage

Episode Date: December 9, 2015

Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds discuss Phineas Gage, railroad foreman who had an accident. SOURCES TOUR DATES REDBUBBLE MERCH

When you're staying at an Airbnb you might be like me wondering could my place be an Airbnb and if it could what could it earn? You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it. That in-law sweet guest house where your parents stay only part-time Airbnb it and make some money the rest of the year whether you could use a little extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at airbnb.ca slash host. Hi. Hi. This is the dollop. Are you sure? This is a bi-weekly American History

podcast. Each week I read a story to my friend, Gareth Reynolds, who has no idea what the topic is gonna be about. God, do you want to look who to do? I'll do one bottle. People say this is funny. Not Gary Gareth. Stay okay. Someone or something is tickling people. Is it for fun? And this is not gonna become a tickly podcast. Okay. You are queen fakie of made-up town. All hail Queen Shit of Liesville. A bunch of religious virgins go to mingle and do my thing. September 13th, 1848. Sure. It's before your time, young'un. But you weren't alive then. Finneas Gage. Finneas Gage was working as a railroad foreman. The Rutland and Burlington Railroad had

hired Gage and his crew to clear away rock near Cavendish, Vermont. Gage was known to be the best foreman in the area. Sure. A real foreman. One of his jobs, as foreman, was to sprinkle gunpowder into blasting holes and then fill the hole with sander clay, packing it in with an iron rod. Have you ever seen a cartoon? Well, I'm just gonna say that that doesn't sound like a dangerous position. Nope. Right? I mean, you just have gunpowder that you're... As I often like to say on this podcast, what could go wrong? Yeah, what could go wrong? It sounds like he's got it all worked out. So this is called tamping. That's the name of the

process. Tamping. Okay. And is that where we get tampon from? Yeah. Okay. It's always fun to figure it out. Finneas had a blacksmith make him his own personal tamping iron. Oh, so sort of like... It's like when you're really good at bowling. Yeah. And you get a dude to make you a bowling ball. Yeah. Right. Or yeah, you're a musician. You have like your customized axe. Yeah. Yeah. Your fucking axe. Yeah. The rod weighed 13 and one-quarter pounds and was three feet seven inches long with a diameter of one and one-quarter inches. If you want to know that in metrics, it is... Thank you for translating that. Okay. Gauge was five feet six inches

tall. Okay. So his tamping club was almost the size of Gauge. Yeah. Right. It was 4 30 p.m. Let me ask you something. Is it a good sign when we read out the time on the dollar? I understand that... Look, they normally know, but there could be, you know, you could be like at 4 30 he realized. You're right. Well, he hit the tamping rod and flowers came out. Oh my god. Flower. Was that even... That's awesome. It was a thing. That's awesome. Here's Jose. For whatever reason, Phineas was... So as I was writing this, the iPad, the pages document, refused to believe Phineas was a word or a name. And so every time I wrote it for this whole story, it changed

it to phones. Phones. Phones. And it finished as close... It refused to be like, all right, Phineas sounds good. No matter how many times I said, hey. That is the worst when like a spell check is like spell check never recognizes my name. It should. It's supposed to learn and change. Yeah. A fucking good program. Macintosh is bullshit. And I know I fucking use them, but fuck you. Wow. I mean, these are... For whatever reason, Phineas was distracted by... Peyton Manning and Apple on Dave's fuck you list. Well, Apple rubbed his ass. No. On Bernadette Peter's face. No. Dave, for whatever reason, Phineas was distracted by his crew

as he tamped the hole. He turned his head. Ugh. Never turn your head when you're tamping. I mean, kind of always do, but never do. I just don't go tamping. There was a spark in the hole which lit the gunpowder and the iron rod shot up and went into Phineas's head. Oh my god. It entered below the left cheekbone. Entered? It went through his head, plowed through an upper molar, then went behind his left eye and into his brain's left frontal lobe. Dave. It's gonna be fine. It's gonna be fine. Dave. Dave, I... Dave, I think he's Phineas'd. You know what? You just went 2015's Will Anderson Punn Ord. It continued through his skull.

It continued through his skull. And out of his head. Aren't we supposed to have protective parts? Isn't the skull supposed to be... It flew 25 yards away and stuck upright in the ground. It went fully through his head and stuck in the ground. 25 feet away. And I bet it went... So what you're saying is that, I mean, imagine something going 25 feet away and having a bunch of its trajectory taken off of it by a head. The rod was covered with blood and greasy to the touch. From what? Well, that's the brain tissue. Oh, the brain. I don't know who walked over and touched it. Yeah. Well, some guy was like, hey, this pole feels greasy. What are you

guys doing? Okay, four men. And then the only one man could pull it out of the ground. And he was king. He won a Chevy. All right, so... Okay, so for those of you just joining us, the tamping rod is too hard to cover the brain to pull out. And Phineas had a spike go through his brain. Phineas fell backwards and hit the ground hard. But he never lost consciousness. He's a fucking man. No. Because he's a man. He's not a fucking Peyton Man. He's a real man. If you had said he spoke again, I'd have been skeptical. He stayed awake. He stayed awake? It's a fucking hardcore. They made Americans American back then.

Someone get me aspirin. He twitched a few times. Uh-huh. And then he started talking. His first words were... I think he wants coffee. He got up and started walking around. What are we doing, boys? How's everybody's wife? Hey, did that thing go through my head? I have a headache. Oh, I had that made specially. He wasn't good enough to... good enough condition to climb into an ox cart to get driven into town. He sat up for the entire mile-long ride. What? I mean, the dude who's driving that ox cart is like, so that was crazy. What have you been doing today? I go... I go with you. Okay. Yeah, because...

How are you not dead? Yeah, I was gonna go with it, but then that spike went through my head, remember? I do? Yeah. I have a hard time forgetting it. Yeah, and then we go... you and me go to town. Yeah, we go to see... Oh my god. The docket dirt? Fuck, I have never wished a fucking tamping on a guy's whole brain before. Oh, I have another thing to say. Shut up. This is my hand. No way this is. No way both is. God, can we just take the tamping iron and swish it around in there? Hey, speak of tamping iron. Why don't I go through my head earlier? Yeah. Yeah, you there? No. Okay. Okay, I'm gonna drive this ox cart into the street. Oh, I had something else I need to tell you. This is my hand.

No, wait. No, wait. This is it. No, wait. Both is. They both is my hand. You're only holding up one. Yeah. No, I can't hold both of them anymore. Hey, remember that tamping iron from earlier? Yeah, I remember that. Yeah, what are you gonna say about it? You don't have to talk. Oh, no. Oh, yeah, I went through my head. Dude's like, come on, boys, move, move, move, ponies. He was taken to the hotel where he was staying. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, it's the 1840s. I guess you take a kind of that almost came out of my nose. You want to go back to your place? Oh, my God. Let him sleep off the tamping iron head wound. What should we do with him? I mean, maybe just take him to his hotel. Just drop him off. Get him a

sandwich and put him in a bed. This is your guys deal now. Hey, my buddy lost his key and his frontal lobe. So he parked himself in a chair in the lobby and chatted with people. No, what is happening? Chatted. Hey, what are you guys been doing? I blew up my head. When the doctor arrived, he could see from outside what he called, quote, a volcano of upturned bone jutting out of his scalp. Oh, my God. He's in the lobby. There's a medical phrase you don't hear very often. Yeah, a volcano bone. A volcano of upturned bone. That makes the small talk in the lobby. From outside. He's not inspecting him. He was fucking walking

outside. He's like, that's a lot of bone. Somebody had to have a hat. I mean, the least you could do is like sort of put a hat on it. When the doctor walked in, when the doctor walked in, Phineas lowered his head. Morning. So the doctor could see and said, quote, here's business enough for you. What is he? How about a load of them? What? So he check, check a little bit of this. How's it? So he has what you think about this? Oh, he's keeping his sense of this enough volcano for your body. He's kidding. He's having like fun with it. Can I get you a little bit of brain hole? Okay, Phineas. More keeps falling out every time you

bow your head like that. Okay, so what am I about to describe? Look at Jose. What an angel. What I'm about to describe is going to be the worst thing I've ever read on this podcast. Dave, what the fuck? Why? Why? The next minute you might want to turn it off. Oh my god. Okay. The second doctor arrived was John Harlow. He got there around 6 p.m. He had Phineas go upstairs to his hotel room and lie down on the bed. What? At this point, he was still bleeding from his head, which would make sense because there's a giant volcano hole on the top of his head and then it went through the bottom and out the top. So there's gauze or some

bandages? What bandage and gauze are you going to fucking put on that? It's a giant fucking hole. Something? Oh god. Still bleeding. Harlow shaved Phineas's scalp and peeled off the dried blood and brains. I'm gonna repeat the fact that he peeled off the brains. He peeled off the brains. Using his fingers. Oh my god. He took out the skull fragments from the wound. Oh. The hole was big enough for the doctor to put both fingers in at once. Phineas kept throwing up while this was going on. Oh my god. Because blood and parts of his brain were going down the back of his throat. Oh, what the fuck?

Made him gag. It made him gag. Have you ever had? How is that? How? Wait, from the have you ever had? Which hole are they putting the fingers? Is he put in the top of it? Yeah, the top hole. So top, he's putting the fingers in the top of the hole and that's pushing brain fragments down into his mouth. Well, it's making it saucy-ish and that sauce has got to go down somewhere. So it goes out into your throat area. He got a couple of holes up there and it slides on down. Slides on down. Oh my god. Brain tends to make you gag when it's in your throat. Yeah, especially if it's your brain. But Phineas remained conscious and calm. He

said he thought he'd be back at work in a couple of days. What? Who was he? Who allowed him to even be in the realm of talking like that? Look, he seems to be feels fine. I don't think he'll be back to work in a couple of days. I don't think that he does. Once he stops throwing up from the brain. Oh my god. The bleeding stopped around 11 p.m. Which is amazing that it ever stopped. He's crazy that he's alive. The next morning his left eyeball was protruding a half inch out. Is it still working? Well, it's there. That doesn't mean yes. His mom and uncle came to visit. Hey Phineas. Oh my god. He recognized them. Hi guys. Hey. Hey.

Hey. Hey Jude. Uncle Bob. Hey, it's me Phineas. I got so sick from my brain yesterday. Bring it in. Within days his health started to go downhill. His face swelled. His brain swelled. Oh my god. And he started losing his mind and rambling. Oh boy. He got a fungal infection in his brain. Now, part of me feels like that's because the doctor was cramming his fingers in his brain. Sure. That's a theory. Probably without washing him. Yeah. He was also laying down in a hotel bed for a little while. I've been wiping my, I've been wiping my ass in cow's asses and then just dragging my hand in the dirt. But let's get them bones

out of your brain. Anyway, I fingered your nephew's brain. He barely clung to life. Oh wait. No. Sorry. I jumped ahead. Got a fungal infection in his brain. He fell into a coma. He's measured for a coffin. Okay. Two weeks later, Dr. Harlow performed emergency surgery. He drained the wound. Two weeks later, he performed an emergency. Two weeks later. Well, sounds like we already had an emergency on our hands. He drained the wound by puncturing inside the notes. How does that, okay, whatever. Well, he went up in the brain and popped, there was like an infection. So, okay, sorry. Well, if we're getting into it, there's an infection in

the brain and he poked something through the nasal passage to fucking pop it. I'm getting sick. That explains a little bit more of how the brain chunks were going down his throat for me. Hey, there's something I never thought I'd say. He barely clung to life for weeks. But then, he seemed to turn around and he stabilized. But he could no longer see out of his left eye, which was now sewn shut. So, clearly that eye went bad. Yeah, interesting call there. So did shut. It must have gone bad and dried up and they're like, let's close her up. That's the move. That's would be my move. Seems like sweeping under the rug a

little bit. Well, that eyes fucked. Stitch it up. Phineas went back home to Lebanon, New Hampshire. There, he walked around with his tamping iron everywhere. Oh, this is why we're hearing about this. Okay, this is why. This is why. Because this is now where an insane disaster turns into a popular show. It became a celebrity of tabloid magazines. What? Tabloid magazines? Tabloid magazines is a celebrity. Katy Perry and Phineas. Are they? Aren't they? Though many doctors refused to believe the story was true. Dr. Harlow said doctors quote refused to believe that the man had risen until they had thrust their fingers into the

hole of his head themselves. Sorry, sorry. We're coming off of a fungal infection. I know, but should we be just? I sure don't believe you. Then he takes off his hat and he leans down and the doctor shoves his fucking finger in there and goes, well, I guess I was wrong. Some of the doctors wouldn't believe it was true until they could fuck it. Dr. Henry Bigelow took Phineas to Harvard Medical School for an evaluation in 1849. There is certainly a hole. I mean, I really do love that it's kind of just, they're just kind of like, well, he's fucked, we sewed his eyes shut. Give him his tamping iron. Bigelow treated Phineas as an oddity and

once presented him at a meeting along with a stalagmite. And gentlemen, these are obviously the ones that are on the ground. Now to shift gears a little bit. Here's a man who looks like a stalagmite went through his head. Phineas, come on in here. He loves fruit. I gave him a big thing of fruit. He called the stalagmite remarkable for its singular resemblance to a petrobrite penis. And then there's that guy. So what I have here is something that looks like a cock and a gentleman. This is a cave dick and a psycho. So anyway, we get in that grant. How's that going? We're pitching it as a show. Cave dick and the psycho. But Bigelow

declared Phineas was quote, quite recovered in his faculties of body and mind because of the time the test given on Phineas were limited. He was just tested for sensory and motor deficits since he could still walk, talk, see and hear. Bigelow said he was fine. But brain injuries of the prefrontal lobes can pass many neurological exams today, let alone back then. I don't. I know. How is he? How is this happening? Well, the prefrontal lobe doesn't control that shit. So it's almost like he is just he almost got lobotomized by a tamping iron. Yeah, kind of. But there's more. I think there's more brain in there than if you

got lobotomized. It's just a it's just like a quarter size. I think just a quarter size chunk. Dave, I did just say that. We're saying chunk. Okay. Well, it's not even a chunk. It's like a it's a cylinder. It's a brain. It's a chunk. It's a piece of brain. It's the thing that controls everything. Right. Yeah. So so people today, memory, language, motor skills, reasoning, intelligence all seem fine. And people who've had frontal lobe injuries. But when they are back in their lives, that's when the problems crop up. Often personalities change. Family members notice. But it's not something a doctor would pick up. Harlow really just

reported on Phineas's physical condition. But he did say he changed. He was always very determined and focused before the accident. And now he had quick changes of mood and behavior. He constantly dropped plants to do something else and do and went to do something else in the last minute. He went from being a smart businessman to having absolutely no money sense. Went from being a gentleman to quote indulging at times in the grossest profanity. I do love the like loose like he's not good with finances anymore. It's I mean, honestly, like, you know what I mean? Like, if you had said if you had said to someone when a spear went through

his head and he was laying on the ground unconscious, you know, what's gonna happen with him? He's just not gonna be good with money. And bad with cash. Very bad with cash. And then that that's when you're like, if you're his buddy, you're just sitting down, you're like, Hey, Phineas, can I borrow $10? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And then here you fucking piece of shit. Take it. Well, right. I'll take it. His friend, his friends said Phineas was no longer Phineas. Okay. The railroad refused to hire him back because of his changed personality. They honestly, how is I know how is he? How is it possible that he almost could go back? No, I would say

you can't come back because you have a hole in your head. I'd be like, look, honestly, why do you want to cut you got a whole shot through your head? What question? So you're out there working on the railroad and a bird shits in your hole? Uh huh. Then what do you do? A doctor fingers me. Okay, you can't work here. Please. So he did what any man with a hole in his head would do. He traveled around New England showing off his hole and his tamping iron for cash. He spent some time in PT's Barnum's Museum in New York for an extra dime. People could quote part gauges hair and see his brain pulsating beneath his

scalp. I mean, yep, there's comovers and then there's comovers. Oh my god. Here you go. Now look at that. Hold on. I'm gonna think real hard. See that? I'm thinking about lots of stuff real hard. That's an extra dime. This is apparently not the life Phineas wanted and he found work driving a horse coach in New Hampshire. Who hires him? I mean, honestly, like even if he was even if he was just like, I understand. Yes, look, there's a lot going on. But like I said, there's a hole in my head, but I'm ready to work and I'm excited to come to work. If anyone is ever against social security. Yeah, this is the story. Yeah. This is the one

because you don't want the guy driving you around. This guy be driving a bus. No, no. Over the years, story just keeps making the same stop. People are like, oh god, we stopped here already. All right, Main Street. All right, Main Street. Main Street. Okay, we're getting off. Hey, I figured you wanted to get off of Main Street. Over the years, stories of Phineas' gauge, stories of Phineas gauge became more and more enhanced. The vast majority of tales of his behavior are now considered false. Some said he became promiscuous, others said not sexual at all. Some say he was easy to anger and others said he was cold and emotionless. He basically

became a crazy guy over the years. You could put whatever story onto that you wanted to put on to him. Right. One story said he lived with the iron rod impaled in his head for the rest of his life. Interesting. Another said he would sell the rights to his skeleton to medical school after medical school as he traveled around the country. I like that version. That's great. That's a TV show and he solves a crime. Yeah, right. Yeah, well you guys can have me when I'm gone. 250 bucks right now. After the freak show circuit, Phineas worked for 18 months at the horse stable in New Hampshire and then he had just so just think about

how like you shouldn't be around dirt. Like animals kicking up dust. Like flies, insects. I assume he wore a hat. Regardless. Like in any, I mean, there's a hole in his head. Oh my god, flies would love a hole in your head. Imagine a fly getting inside your fucking brain. It happened all the time. It'd be so itchy. So itchy and loud. Oh my god. Just hitting his head. Just running around. Oh boy, a fly got in his brain again. Jerry, can you check? I think there's a moth in my brain. Oh boy, there is and he's freaking out. Okay, can you blow? Okey-dokey Phineas. All right, but here we go. Oh, he seems aggravated. He's really flapping. He's leaving lots of

moth chalk on there. Then Phineas headed for South America in 1852. Oh boy. Okay, this makes sense. So at first you're like, I'll be the guy with the hole in my head. And then you're like, fuck, this is awful. And then you try to go up to New Hampshire, but everyone's like, you're the guy with the hole. And people are probably going like, can I ride in your coach hole in the head guy? Yeah, he cannot get the fuck away from me. So he's like, you know what? I'm going to go to South America. I'm going to buy a hat and I'm going to become a new person. Grow a mustache and nobody's going to know about my pulsing brain. I'll just have the one eye thing and then I'll

be like, yeah, I lost it in the war. Yeah. And instead of doing anything rational with it, they just sewed my eyelid shut. Right. He was seasick the entire trip on the boat. Phineas was headed down to Chile. Just think about seawater splashing. Just splashing in the hole. How do you take a shower? Oh my God. Oh my God. Right? What if I mean, he must have like a brain cord? Is it is it like, I mean, is he cleaning it? I do. Is he cleaning the hole with like a cloth? I like, does it fucking hurt when he rubs it? Oh my okay. I can answer that one. Yes. Okay. So do you do you have nerves in your brain? Yeah. Is it just brain? No, you could definitely feel your brain. So he's rubbing because we have

to fucking rub. You'd have to figure a way to clean it. There's no I mean, honestly, what we're talking about is making me feel so sick. The idea, I'm sure a lot of people haven't been far and God bless them. I the idea that I mean, imagine having to clean your own brain hole or not cleaning a brain hole. She's saying brain hole is enough shower. I mean baths. He was just that he was like baths from now on. Yeah, just it's like a cast. It's like when you have a cast. If you fall asleep in the bath, you're like, oh, this is what you're going to be thinking about water for a while. Got to get a fly net. You'll have water on the brain. Yeah, that's what you need. Okay, so there's a gold rush going

on in Chile. So he heads down there where he started driving coaches again. Okay, just like he'd done in New Hampshire. Sure. This time along a route from Valparas. So Paris Hill, sure to Santiago. He drove that route for seven years. Okay, then his health began failing. He quit in 1859. So he lived a fucking normal life as normal as can be. He needed that job like he needed a hole in his head. He quit. So it can't believe it took you this long to get there. He quit in 1859 and hopped on board a steamer headed to San Francisco. He needed to go to San Francisco like he needed a hole in his head. There he convalesced and after a few months he was feeling better again. Phineas then got a job as a farm laborer. That

went well until a rather brutal day of plowing put him back in bed in bad shape. Yeah, what is he doing? The next night while eating dinner he had a seizure. Shocking that it has taken this month. I know 12 years later he's having fucking shock finally he's getting to the hospital. Honestly, he must have been saying finally when he was having a seizure all seizures. Dave, Dave, this is not even this is a man who should have never had a story told about him. True. He should have died the second that a fucking tamping iron cannon through his brain. This the seizures seizure was followed by a series of seizures. His family then brought him home. The doctor bled him. Always safe. Such a yeah, didn't work. Can you believe that?

Fucking. One strong seizure then ended his life on May 21st, 1860. He was 36 years old. He had lived 12 years after having a giant rod impale his brain. He was buried a couple of days later and reports say he was put to rest with his tamping iron. Although another report says he gave up the tamping iron to Harvard Medical School in 1850. Well, he owed them his body but he was dressed probably like here's this is a tamping iron. No one thought to preserve his brain when he died. So it can no longer be studied as technology advances. Right. But they do have a skull in his tamping iron which can currently be seen at the Warren Anatomical Museum at Harvard Medical School. Wow. It's a bit of a stretch to call it a

museum. It's two rows of eight foot tall cabinets on the fifth floor of Harvard's Medical Library. His skull sits near a life mask of Samuel Taylor Courage and stillborn Simeese twins. Good God. The museum curator, Dominic Hall often shows the skull and tamping iron to students and people enjoy hearing the horrific details of his injury. There's just something about him, Hall says. The left eye socket of the skull is jagged. The exit wound has two irregular holes with a bit of bone between them. The heavy tamping rod is inscribed with Phineas' name, which is misspelled. We can only assume he had it done. Scientists have used the skull to create the injury with computer models. Often these models are to back up their own

studies. One study concluded that because of the angle of entry and without his jawbone breaking that the tamping iron must have entered while he had his mouth open because he was speaking. He was probably going, fuck! A study in 2012 modeled millions of possible angles and also came to the conclusion that he was talking. It also said the injury was, quote, a much more profound than even we thought. Yeah. No, it's not more profound than I thought. It's exactly what I thought. It's exactly what I thought. Yeah, it's terrible. He also said Phineas suffered from something like Alzheimer's after the accident. Oh, whoa. But this is all based on nothing. No one knows. Yeah, because his brain's gone. But ever

since he died, doctors and scientists have been combing through his skull, coming up with new ideas of what happened to him. A guy even wrote a book about- He was combing through his skull when he was alive. He just had to do his hair. A guy even wrote a book about how all these guys created their own theories about him, then even created his own theory. What's his? It's like their addicts. I didn't even write his down. His own doctor, Harlow, after learning of his death, wrote to the family. He pestered them for details of Phineas's life. And then he talked Phineas's sister, Phoebe. Phoebe and Phineas. To exhume the body and take the skull off. This was in 1867. He died in- What did we say? This

is seven years after he died. The Gage family then brought the skull and tamping iron to Harlow in New York. Harlow wrote a report- Weird trip. Jesus Christ, man. We're just taking brothers skull to New York. Hey, we're going to dig it up and bring it to New York. We got free tickets. Anyone want anything from the big city? Harlow wrote up a report and with the details the family had provided about his whereabouts since he left New England. Turns out this was not an easy job. A coach driver. A coach driver uses each finger when using the reins and going around a bend in a road is very difficult. So he's got to use a different finger for every fucking rain, which is crazy. And the trail that he went

on was so congested, so he was always making quick stops and having to avoid other coaches at the last second. As well, he had to memorize the road and know where bandits hung out. It's not the kind of thing a guy who doesn't have a good memory does. In 2010, a researcher found notes from a doctor in Chile who knew Phineas. He was in the enjoyment of good health with no impairment whatsoever in his mental faculties. We now know that the brain can relearn skills. It has lost over time, but the process is slow, which may have been one of the reasons he went to South America to get away from everyone who saw him as disabled. He also never had to plan his day in Chile. It was set for him, same routine. This is very

helpful for those who have frontal lobe damage. But he's still famous as he ever was. He now has a dedicated webpage called the Phineas Gauge Fan Club. Wow. Someone crocheted his skull, not his, someone crocheted a fake. Someone should have crocheted his skull back in the fucking day. Songs have been written about him. There are thousands of videos about Phineas on YouTube and people continue to unearth new artifacts. In 2008, someone found a picture of him holding his tamping iron. He looks proud, is well dressed and is very good looking. And people have been looking into making a movie about Phineas Gauge. Oh boy. You like that? Yeah. So what? Leo's going to be playing another part? Well,

in one, he falls in love with a Chilean prostitute who rescues him from his life. How do you know what that means? I don't either. Well, I guess that his life of suffering or... Yeah, okay. Yeah. So she put brain in his head? A different script has him returning to the US, becoming friends with a slave, freeing the slave and then hooking up with Abraham Lincoln to help win the Civil War. Wow. That's ambitious. There, there he is. Oh, look at that eye. It's like he's flirting with me. Yeah, he is a good looking dude. And there he is with the tamping iron. Right? He was probably a lot better looking when he... Had an eye and didn't have a hole through his skull? Yeah, I think that's what I'm thinking. The

gruesome story of Phineas. Oh my God. Look at that. Go bring up those images you just dropped down there. No, now you fucked it all up. I fucked it all up, I'm sorry. That one, that cartoon one. Oh, down here? Yeah. Oh, that's not him. Oh, well, it looks like someone... That's a painting from the... That guy's also got it bad. Anyway, that's Phineas Gage. Well, that's... Don't be feel good about yourself. Yeah, no, there was definitely some tough parts. Those people who stuck around, way to go. I feel weird asking anybody to sponsor on Patreon right now. As you should. As you should. But if you want to hear more stories like Phineas, please go to the Patreon. Please. Patreon, P-A-T-R-E-O-N. Patreon, you

can put a little monthly subscription if you want, if you enjoy the podcast. I'm sorry. Jesus. Who knew?