The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds - 7 - American Vampire Panic

Episode Date: June 9, 2014

Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds discuss the American Vampire Panic of the 19th century.Tour DatesSources Dollop MerchPatreon

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. What? Well I didn't know we were starting on this one. I know where now. Where's the

mic? In front of your face but you also you normally test the mics. Right. We didn't do that. No. So you love it for some reason. Like I'm taking shit right now. I don't know why you love it. Alright so this is episode officially 12 but I deleted the first five so it's seven. No how many have we done the other six? This is seven. Six, seven. So first thing if you like the dollop please go leave reviews at iTunes that helps us out a lot. We have a Twitter feed the dollop at the dollop. We have a Facebook page the dollop. Is it the dollop podcast or the dollop? You know better. It's one or the other but you can also find that linked

to through my Facebook page Dave Anthony comedian and Dear Hunter and what else are you gonna say about it? Yeah tell your friends. Yeah. I mean since this is now apparently a two-man thing until I fire Gareth. I'm right here man. It's hard to get new people to come listen if you don't have like on big guests. Right. That's generally how podcasts work. You get a big guest on them people hear about it then it. Well this can change that. This can change that but we can also have a guest on once in a while right? I suppose. They're gonna build a studio. Limited amount of words. All Things Comedy which is all. They are. The All Things

Comedy Network which we are a part of. They're building a little studio and so maybe we can have a guest on there. Alright. Yeah right there. Yeah Al was mentioning that. That sounds awesome. Yeah so it looks like they're gonna get a storefront. Oh wow. Yeah we're gonna have it in a storefront. Oh that's great. Yeah so that's a really cool idea and then you know go look at the other podcasts on All Things Comedy. There's some good ones over there I think. That's bringing endorsement from Dave Anthony. So Gary that's not my name. You obviously know about the Salem witch Burnham. The Salem witch the Salem

witch situation. Yeah this is an ongoing drama. I think it was called the Salem witch situation. But here's what I learned. Oh boy this week. Did you know America had a huge vampire? I hope that's the end of it. You know the huge vampire? There is a much like the Salem witch thing went on for like six months or whatever. Yeah a fad. There's a fucking one time. Yeah. The vampire the American vampire I don't know what we call it the spaz out. The great American spaz out. It's called the great the great American vampire panic. Okay. Went on for like a hundred years. I did not know. Okay. I'm glad you don't know because it's fucking

nuts. Alright so let's start with let's just let's just dig into vampires in general. They started in Slavic Europe. Slavic and German immigrants brought the idea of vampires to America when they came here in 1700. Okay. Right? Right. And so like a traditional vampire aren't what we think as traditional vampires. Okay. Our vampires now are not what vampires were then. Alright. So because we think like they're all cool and. Yeah. They smoke clothes. They go out and bite. They get bite necks. Sticky. Cool shit. Right. Cool shit. So what it was was the vampire back then was a scapegoat for illness. Okay. So if people were dying in the

community they'd be like where's the vampire? Oh boy. Oh. Medicine was so needed. A vampire is a corpse that comes to the attention of the community during the time of crisis and is taken for the cause of the crisis. We do still need this. We do need this. Right. Right. 2008. Like goddamn vampires in the economy. Bram Stoker actually invented the our modern day vampire. Right. Okay. And he wrote that novel in like 1898. So that's when that's when the whole gothic-y cool sexy but hot fuckable. Yeah. Fucking vampires. Yeah. So the practice of of killing the dead started in Europe. Wait. Wait. So. Yeah. I'm

sorry. Did I. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The practice of killing the dead. It's a little redundant. It's been done. So. So in Europe if there was some shit like if everyone was like oh I don't feel good then they would then they would assume then they would figure someone had died and they'd be like that's the vampire and then they would dig up the body and drive a stake through the heart and rearrange the bones remove the organs and then burn the corpse. Just to just to stop the fever that was going through the town. Well I'm sure that it worked. It worked every time. How could it not work. Oh we put the stake through

the wrong body again. Exume another. Well the funny thing is is when you if a corpse is not fully decomposed and it's full of gas when you stick a stake in it it goes it's like a balloon. Everyone sort of like looks at each other like with a cool little smile like that was kind of cute wasn't it. Kind of cute little toot little heart toot. It was like a chest fart right. You charred it. The vampire charred it. I'm glad that we've ended the the plague but what an adorable little chest toot. Let's do another one. Let's do one more. Exume another. Toot toot. You do you do yours and then I'll do mine right after. You can do a little

stop thing. Yeah I love it. Let's stop. It's nothing. I'm not a time traveler for the last time I'm not a time traveler. Oh my heart. All right so there have been 80 documented exhumations in the US. Of vampires. Reaching as far back as the 1700s and as far west as Minnesota but mostly in New England. Exhumed the Corpse. We're gonna get that corpse there. Vampire. Vampire over here. Let's get some chowder in him. Feel the vampire with chowder. Now make his chest fart. Okay but most of it was in the backwoods of New England in the 1800s. Because in the cities they weren't like down this. Why? This is mostly country food. What was

their problem? They didn't understand logic. They hated math. They think there are hundreds of more of exhumed vampires all over New England. They just don't know where the graves are or yeah whatever or they burn them or whatever. They over rearrange the bones. So in America it started because of tuberculosis. TB. Got them. Yeah right? Yeah. Which was called the consumption which is my favorite. It was called the consumption? Yeah the consumption because it consumed you over time. I got the consumption. What's your function? It killed one out of four kids at the time. Didn't live to five. That's crazy. So that's bad and it

killed you slowly over many years. I don't know if you ever saw Tombstone the movie Tombstone. Yeah. Oh yeah. He had it. Yeah. It could also happen really quickly and kill you super fast. That's what I want. That was called the galloping one. Galloping TB. Coming to your town. So obviously it would like rip through a whole family and everybody because they all lived in the you know the same house and they don't get it. It was airborne. Well you say that. But back then they thought it was hereditary. Oh man. Talk about retrospect being a fucker. It started to hit New England in the 1730s and by 1800s the disease was a leading

cause of mortality in New England. Right. Goddamn vampires. I love it. Okay so here's how it would go down. Skyrocketing fever, hacking, bloody cough and a visible wasting of the body. Lead with that one. The oh I should have right. I mean they should. So here's a description from someone wrote in the 1818th century. The emancipated figure strikes one with terror. The forehead covered with drops of sweat. Cheeks painted with livid crimson. Eyes sunk. The breath offensive quick and laborious and the cough so incessant as to scare. Allow the wretched sufferer time to tell us his complaints. I don't even know what that

sentence means. Just give us the facts Shakespeare. Relax. He's like if not careful it's like just be like a hacky bloody cough. So a guy did identify what the tuberculosis bacteria in 1882 but it didn't hit the rural areas until the people the rural areas didn't know that. The people in the cities knew but the people the rural areas were still like digging up turnips and fucking each other or whatever they do. Well I'm gonna turn up fucker hope that works. That's amazing. And some some doctors blame it on like being drunk or just being poor. Wait what the lack of like you drank too much so now you're dying. Oh you got TV

from drinking. Way to go whiskey. I mean doctors is such a great term for what these guys were back then. They were really just like weird guessers. Well some of the cures included drinking brown sugar. Oh there you go that'll get rid of your TV. And frequent horseback riding. That's if you have the galloping one. No I can't I can't sit up. Run baby run. Not right now you can't feel terrible. Run. You're gonna need to ride your way out of this TV. What fucking asshole was like. All right. All right. You can't get out of bed. Your coffin blood's coming out of your place. Here's my idea. Fucking horse ride. I can't move. Okay you just

need the wind in your face and the and the. I don't think I could get on a horse. Bear back horse ride. I think I'm gonna have a bloody cough. Through the mountains. The mountains. What am I? I'm a doctor right? Yes. Get on the fucking horse. I'm sorry doctor. Go through the mountains. So the infection would go it would rip your family one member died of it then you know the other others would get infected. So much horse riding. Slowly died and then all horses. They'd all be riding horses. Unless they didn't have horses and then they'd hobble around on a pig. Just get the little stick with the head. Little toy. So people started to believe that

that the reason that the family members were getting sick was because the one that had already died was draining the life from the alive ones. He's just he becomes a prick ghost. He just turned into an asshole ghost. He's this TV. Stop it. Stop it Clark. So which is a great leap of well I mean it's got to be the dead guy right? Well I mean I think we all know what I think we're all thinking the same thing. I'll say it. Obviously it's the guy who just died. He's he's giving us his TV. I just I don't know why. I don't know why he's doing it. I feel terrible. It's dead Larry. Larry you stop giving us TV. So they started

blaming quote unquote vampires. That's the name that they gave the life suckers were vampires. Okay. You see the. Sure. So what had to be done was they had to exhume the body. Wow. Of the dead guy or girl to stop the vampire from doing what they're doing. It sounds like a guy made it all up on the spot. It just sounds like a run on. No I'm not sick. I'm I know I'm not. Let me. Okay. I'm fine. I know I'm sweaty and I look a little pale. Yeah. But they're you know Jeff died. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So he is making other people. Well I don't know how we solve that though. That's the thing. I don't know. Okay. So I mean I guess what we do

is we just take them up. Dig them up. Did you say. Dig them up. Yeah. We just take them up. Okay. Flip them over maybe or set them on fire or whatever. Okay. And then we won't have TV. We'll be good. I think that's pretty good. That sounds good to me. Everybody good. Everybody good. Yeah. Put their mask away. Everybody say aye. Aye. Aye. Let's dig them up. It's okay. It just makes sense. That's just how you problem solve. You heard a troubleshooting. This is ancient troubleshooting. It's the same thing. It's not even ancient. This is the 1800s. It's not that far. I mean really. It was not that distance from these people. No. We're really not. Dig up the

body and stab the heart. Krampa. Do it. In an attempt to protect the survivors and ward off the effects of consumptions bodies of those who had died of the disease were exhumed and examined. The exhumation is very widely in many cases only family members and neighbors participated. But sometimes the town fathers voted on whether or not to dig them up. I'm sorry. And medical doctors and clergymen gave their blessing. The town fathers. Yeah. All dads were the dad committee. That's probably exactly what it was. Dads are making a call. Well we came inside of our wives. Now we have the judgment. Amazing that there was that there's real value. Shame you're single. We could really use a

brain like yours. Anyway. But you're not a dad. You think that this is an airborne virus. Boy you need a wife and a child because we're taking up bodies and stabbing them. Oh fuck. Okay. So there were a lot of so like the the out I guess out in the rural areas it was kind of falling apart at this time. Like like the farming was going to shit and so people were heading to the city. So there's a lot of like abandoned farmhouses and shit like that. Right. So so that climate sort of led to people already being freaked out. You know. So yeah. So it was kind of like in the air. Right. Shit's not going well. Did they try stabbing carrots they found somewhere else. They tried throwing carrots

at their barn. And an unlike probably what you would think only about 10 percent of rural Americans belong to a church. Really. Yeah. Isn't that crazy. It's great. It's fucking fantastic. This sounds like maybe a better time. You say that it's a better time but they were digging up dead people. Fair point David. Whereas maybe maybe a priest would go. Hey let's not dig up the dead. They didn't have anybody to do that. Morals. Morals. And then in different areas they did different things in Maine and Massachusetts. They would just dig up the body and flip her over and then close it back up. What's great is there are people probably like have you heard what they're doing in

Maine. They're just digging them up and flipping them. They're not stabbing the hearts at all. It's fucking ridiculous. They're all going to die. Every single one of them. All right. Roll her over and we're safe. All right. She's on her face. In Connecticut and Vermont they would burn the dead person's heart. You want to be buried in Maine. So that means that in Maine it's better but in Connecticut and Vermont some dudes would dig up a body that had been there for months and then they would crack that shit open and pull out the heart with their hands. Nobody going we should have brought a mask. And then they go and they set it on fire. I'll tell you I've got a bit of a cough after that. A little sweaty

after all that. That heart. In Maine you're a mattress. In Connecticut you're in the temple of doom. Rhode Island was the worst. Oh it gets worse. Yeah Rhode Island was originally They'd fuck your heart. You'd get heart fucked. Rhode Island was originally founded as a haven for religious deserters. Lots of fucking stuff. Their families would burn the organs. All of them rebury the body and occasionally cut off the head. Oh my God. The heart would definitely be burned and sometimes eaten. Oh Jesus Christ. And these are people who died of TB. Yes. So they're like just eating TB hearts. Just like wow. He's still at it even after we ate his heart. I can't believe that didn't work. I don't feel good at all.

That's not work. You know we've been doing. We've been eating the hearts and that seems to really be working. Well this is where it gets hilarious. When people from Rhode Island moved into Connecticut. The people in Connecticut were like what the fuck is wrong with you. And they said they were uneducated and vicious. You're all uneducated and vicious. No the people in Connecticut who all the people in Connecticut did was they would burn the person's heart. Yeah. So when the people of Rhode Island came they were like what the fuck is wrong with you. You're burning everything. Are you not going to eat that. Excuse me. That heart you just burned. Are you not eating it. Excuse me sir. This is Bridgeport. If you guys aren't

going to eat the heart I'll just eat it. I love it. We don't do that here. Give it to me. You're going to waste a perfectly good heart. Good God. You're still going to have TB dummies. So but this is also a time when like like so there are other there are other things that people did at the time. Sure. They believed in magical springs with healing powers. My favorite. You mean bodies of water not not the things. No magical springs. People buried shoes by fireplaces. And of course that was to catch the devil if he tried to come down the chimney. Absolutely. Because if anything catches the devil it's shoes. It's underground shoes. Boy he must be pissed when he goes to that chimney. Lands. Oh no.

Fucking shoes. Now I'm going to have to go back out the chimney. My confounded system. They nailed horseshoes above doors to ward off evil. Yep. Sense. They carved daisy wheels into door frames. Got to to in order to all that. Yeah. And they believed in vampires because put a horseshoe above your door and eat this heart. So they dig up a corpse like months after it died like in Goodfellas. Telltale signs of vampires when they dug them up. Blood around the mouth. A bloated corpse. A heart with blood still in it and nails and hair that appeared longer than when they were buried. Okay. Wait. By the way those last three sides are are normal for a decay corpse. That's just what happens to a corpse. Completely. Yeah.

It really is. So I mean that's you. So basically the odds are stacked against you're probably going to be considered a vampire. So basically they're just fucking idiots with no knowledge of what happens to a body and they dig it up and they go look. I mean what are we 20 for 20 on vampire teams. We're really just nailing it. They've all had bloated blood hearts and longer hair. Okay. Often the rituals were at night. They'd light lanterns and they head out. Although in Vermont it would be really public and sometimes like a big festive event. Like a dude in a beer hat. A guy blowing fire. We're going to burn a heart. Eat it. They go to the big wheeled bikes. Hey. We found a vampire. Okay. One of the most famous

vampires is Frederick. Frederick Ransom of South Woodstock, Vermont. He's very famous. He was a Dartmouth college student from a rich family. Yeah. And he died of tuberculosis on February 14th. 1817 at the age of 20. Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day. Right. It's clearly a vampire. Jesus Christ. Frederick's father was super worried that Frederick would rise from the grave and feed on his family. A normal worry for a father with a boy that age. So he had him dug up and burned the heart on the blacksmith's forge in front of a crowd of hundreds. Hey. You know what I mean? It's Saturday, right? Got to have fun. What a great dad. Why the hundreds? Wouldn't that be, what part of you would be like, even if you believed

that, wouldn't you be like, it's just so hard to do it to my boy. But the other thing is, is like, if there's hundreds of people there, it's a tiny heart and there's no big screen. Yeah. No. In the back, you're like, you want to get the fuck out of here? I can't even see the heart. There's nothing. What is that? Is that a heart? I got a kid on his shoulders. I can't see the fucking heart. Put your iPads down. Why are you taking pictures with your iPad? Just observe the moment. So. And the crazy thing is, is this stuff was all like documented in papers because they had newspapers in and people. Okay. Timothy Meade. Miracle heart. That's a reporter. But what happened after

they burned it and they were like clapping? Yeah. All right. Pooch. What do you guys want to do? Uh, fuck. That's crazy. You guys want to play soccer? You guys want to go throw rocks at something? Like a woman? Yeah. Timothy Meade officiated at the altar in the sacrifice to the demon vampire who it was believed was still sucking blood from the then living wife of Captain, Captain Burton. You're reading from Clue, right? It was the month of February and Good Slaying. That was the quote on when they killed Good Slaying. Yeah. I mean, he threw that in at the end of hashtag Good Slaying. I mean, because the heart festival was just like another day. Hey, it was easy to get there. Hey, good. Yeah. Good Slaying out there,

get him in here. Okay. In 1827, consumption was also being called the white plague and was viewed by as a romantic disease. Finally, they're making progress. A lot of people. It was thought the disease created a euphoric state of higher awareness in the afflicted person. If someone had slow consumption, it was considered a kinder form of death as the person was able to put his affairs in order. Oh, yes. I've got to bury my shoes by the chimney and cross the T's and dot the. Oh, this is awesome. I'm slowly wasting away. I might have time for a horse ride. Okay, this is where it gets crazy. Yeah, this is where it gets crazy. Consumption became to the wealthy a form of spiritual enlightenment.

Most women actually began to make up their skin to look chalky and pale in order to achieve a corpse like you of a consumption victim. Okay, so you didn't want to fuck me. What about now? Yeah, the corpse is back in town. I look so dead you may as well burn my heart and eat it. It just goes to show you that there was always like dumb, stupid trends that people are like, Oh my God, too skinny. It's like the corpse looks in that TV look without the TV. How sick do I look, Mary? Oh my God, Jennifer totally looks like she has TB. She's killing it. So pissed. Oh my God, you're so fucking gaunt. I didn't know you had TB. I don't. That fucking bitch. It's insane. It's completely insane. So in

this fall. So in. You know, thanks for setting me up. You know, I dug her and everything but she just didn't look dead enough. Yeah, I know. She used to look more dead. I don't know. I'm sorry. Again, I hadn't seen her in a while. She didn't look as dead as she is. She used to look like dead. Right? That's what you said. You said she was like. I showed you that picture, that one black and white picture. She looked dead. Yeah, I know. She looks like she's alive now. It's gross. It's still a bummer. Sorry. The way you look personally is the way vampires have always been portrayed in folklore, like walking corpses, which is what you are, at least in later stages of consumption. Skin and bones, fingernails are

long and curved. So you look like Nosferotu. Like that's what you look. That's what you look like at the end of consumption. Thank God it didn't get you quick. So fuckable. Corpse look. You know what you can do with those nails, girl? You better trim them before you get buried. So the first known reference to an American vampire scare is a letter to the editor of the Connecticut. I love that they're, I love that the people were like writing letters. Yeah. Okay, what the fuck? Everyone's dying. I'll write a letter. I'll write a letter. It's like writing letters about climate change. How are we not doing anything about this? And to the mailbox. So he wrote a, this guy wrote a letter to

the Connecticut current and weekly intelligentser. I love that fucking great name. It's what we call an intelligentser. It makes you more like intelligent. It's gonna make you smarter. It makes you smarter, less dummy. You read it and you're like, no more, no more dumb dumbs and smarters now. Okay. We're intelligentser. This was in 1784. Councilman Moses Holmes from the town of Willington warned people to be aware of a certain quack doctor slash foreigner who was urging families to dig up and burn dead relatives to stop consumption. Holmes had witnessed several children dug up at the doctor's request and wanted no more of it. And that the bodies of the dead may rest quiet in the graves without such interruption.

I think the public ought to be aware of being led away by such a man. So if you see this weird, clearly some, hey, what do you think about the digging up the bodies of the little girls? Maybe you got to dig up the kids. Burn them. Hello, I'm from Transylvania, please. I like to dig up the little ones. Oh, that sounds good. It'll make you less sick. Everybody be okay. Okay. I like to dig up the little small ones. Let's light up a fire and go get something to eat. Okay. The idea that people have to be on the lookout for this weird doctor. Okay, some scholars, some modern day scholars think that it actually made a little bit of sense. Modern day being there. No, actually, no, modern day. There are historians

who say that the vampire idea comes from very astute observations of decay. So a bloated dead bodies appear if they have appeared as if they had been recently eaten. A steak course, a steak course, corpse screams due to the escape of gas. During time, deep during decomposition, it's possible for bodies to sit up and jerk. Okay, I didn't know that. Yeah, I mean, that's maybe why we embalm them because they'd be like, Oh, Christ, you had to open gas. Oh, God, grandma set up. Oh, the worst never leaves you. Even sounds can emit from them because bloating can occur. Well, we know that. Yeah, that's the chart. It's farting. It's charting. And wind escapes by passing over the vocal cords so there can be groans. So dead bodies

are the most fucked up. That's why we embalm them. It's a fucking horror show, like sitting up and it's like Dick Van Dyke and Mary Poppins of the instruments sitting up just farting. Is that one dead? Hello. Embalm them quickly. Eat their hearts. Wait, that one's sitting up. What's it going to do? Hey, excuse me. Okay, another famous vampire is Nancy Young. So famous. Nancy was 19 years old and living with her vet vet father. A lot of a lot of these rural guys were vets served in the military. Her mother and seven brothers and sisters that's what she lived with. In 1827, her sister fell ill. Okay. And then Nancy fell ill and died within a month. So Nancy had the galloping super super TB. A short time after Nancy died

in the summer. Neighbors and friends of the young came together and exhumed the remains of Nancy. It's a nice picnic because other people are getting sick and they were like this Nancy. Listen, Jeff. Yes. You know how other people are getting sick? Yes. What do you say? We dig up your dead daughter. I was just thinking the same thing. I'm not going to be easy, but everyone's getting so sick. I got to eat her heart. I don't know how to say this word. Is a pyre when they peer when they burn the body on a. Oh, I think it's pyre. Pyre. They had her body burned on a pyre while the members of the family gathered around and inhaled the smoke from the burning remains. You don't both got Nancy.

They're having it so into the family. It was like, um, so. Can I wait? Can I not do this? I don't want to breathe my sister. Shut up and breathe your sister in. Smoke your sister. I can't. There you go. It tastes like dead body. Yeah. None of us are going to get TB now. I got a good feeling. That's right. They felt that would restore them to health and prevent the rest of them falling into concussion. Again, inhaling TB smoke. It's not inhaling TB. It's inhaling Burt TB. Yeah. But again. Okay. So here's the word thing. Did not work. Whoa. Whoa. Her sister died in August and then her brother only in December and then uh, Hudla died in August and then Caleb died in May and here I'm died in February and then

there was only one boy sister left. Local scientists believe the local scientists believe water in the family well was contaminated. So they were more like, uh, I get what you guys are doing. Uh, maybe it's the water and not the vampires. So next time maybe we start with water and then move to heart consumption. How do you guys feel about that? Let's work the other way. You know, I think it's the water. I just smoked my daughter. I think it's the water. I think it's the water. Again, I hate to, uh, oh my God, if you were bombed your daughter, man, I just am so baked off of my daughter's corpse. I just I could eat and keep food away from me right now. That was fucking great. You know what, even if

your daughter's not dead, I recommend you burn her and smoker smoker smoker if you got her. I'm so high. Let's put on some Floyd. Some what pink Floyd. Are you a time traveler? So, uh, Thoreau famous, uh, Justin Thoreau from Jennifer Aniston. He's around then. So he wrote about vampires. Okay. In his journal, uh, September 26, 1859, the savage man is never quite eradicated. I have just read of a family in Vermont who several of its members having died of consumption just burned the lungs, heart and liver of the last deceased in order to prevent any more of them having it fucking Thoreau. Wow. Thoreau is writing about vampire people. There she, I wish she had a whole chapter and vampires and vampires.

It could be a novel. Love the woods. Also, this is crazy. Here's why I'm in the woods all the time. They're eating their children's livers. I'm going to chill in the woods. Um, the press, uh, obviously the local press view the practice as superstition. Um, but the liberal burning, burning the organs was pretty much among the rural people. We all could agree burning organs. They were like, this is good medicine. We can all agree that's the right thing. The most famous vampire of all is Marcy Lane Brown. Lena Lana. Marcy Lana Brown. Yeah. Okay. Her family consisted of, uh, Father George, Mother Mary, a daughter also named Mary, a son known as Edwin and two other children in addition to mercy. So

they got a, these people are all, I mean, just, they just keep fucking him. You want to be on the dead, the council of dads? I mean, if I was them, I would dig up a corpse and use some of the skin as a condom. They'd be like lunatic, erotic. Now here's the crazy thing and why this is the most famous one. This happened in 1893. Jesus. I mean, right? That's simply not that long ago. I mean, this is like when Carnegie and Rockefeller and Ford and Edison are trying to do the shit. Like there's some serious science. Some thinkers are out there. The case. Technological advances. They have lights and telephones and they're working on automobiles and they have gas powered engines. Eat that heart. Let me show

you how to make a car. Let me show you the Model T. Eat my daughter's liver. Now let me show you this Model T. Oh fuck. So it's an era of science, right? Yeah. And in the middle of this, we have in 1893, the Providence Journal editors were flipping out because they just heard the story of Marcy Lana Brown. It happened in Exeter, which was at this point, it used to be a big like area and now people have been moving out and like four out of every five houses is abandoned. Okay. You know, it's that kind of shit. So it's like, yeah, it's Detroit. It's fucking Detroit of the 1890s. Yeah. Consumption took its first victim within the Brown family in December, 1893, when Marcy's mother, Mary

Brown, died of the disease. So Mary's out. Okay. Seven months later, the Browns eldest daughter, Mary Olo, Mary Olive. It's a terrible name. Olive. Olive. Also died of consumption. There goes me, Olive. Part Olive. Passed away. The Browns only son, Edwin, came down with consumption a couple years after Mary's death and was sent to live in the aired climate of Colorado to try and stop the disease. Okay. That was what people, people were like, go to the dry place. That makes more sense. Needing heart. That's way better. Way better. Now notice, now notice at this point, they're not like, let's dig up Mary. She died first. Yeah, nothing. They're not no, no, go to Colorado, boy. In 1891, Edwin returned home

to Exeter because the disease was, disease was progressing. Colorado, not working. Okay. He basically came home to die. He's like, Hey, I'm back and really sick. Mercy or Marcy, Marcy or Marcy got the galloping consumption. So she fucking died within a couple of months. Okay. And she was laid to rest in Chestnut Hill Cemetery on Victoria Highway. All right. A good cemetery. Great place. Lots of good people. Love to be at six feet under there. Now residents of the town are getting a little freaked out. Now Dave, I feel like we're taking one of your classic turns. All right. Because up until this point, everything's cool. Everything's great. Then Marcy dies and they're like, Oh, wait a minute. And they started freaking out

that if it could take out the Brown family, it could take out the next family. And George Brown, the dad was getting leaned on. Everyone's like, Hey, bro, ready? It's time to start digging. You know what I mean? No, let's get some, let's get some shit going. See, we got you that shovel. People in the town, rumors started spreading of sightings. Some said they'd seen Marcy walking amongst the graves in the cemetery just cruising around. Others had seen her walking across farmlands, just cruising. And so they all deduced. Well, she's a vampire. Yeah. Right. Of course. She's walking around. So all the townspeople got together and to George Brown and said, let's fucking do this. Think tank. Let us fucking do this. Yeah. So he was like,

All right, I'll dig up my daughter and I'll take out her heart and I'll burn it. You know, just so hard for a dad to say. Here's the great thing. A reporter from the Providence Journal. Was there and please tell me they knew. He came. He was like, you guys got any local stories going on? I heard about that three-legged donkey. What's over here? Are you gonna dig up what? What? In the journal, it says that he was quote satisfying the neighbors by digging up the all right. Okay. You guys get what you want. Christ. Fine. Got the trash. I mean, I'm daughter's heart. And that's just the thing. How many times have you had to dig up like a loved one because of neighbors? So many. It's fucking I mean, it should needs to. It's the new borrowing sugar.

Come on. And the father asked that a physician come. Right. Dr. Metcalf. Of course. From nearby Wickford. So they dug up the body. And they said about examining it. They actually dug up all three of the bodies. They dug up the wife while you're there. You've got the shovels. I mean, okay, so make a day of it. Go through all this trouble and zoom all three sandwiches. So they dug up the wife and the dog who had died years before. So they're not in good shape. They're like yucky. These ones are yeesh. After digging up the graves of both the mother and daughter was determined that neither was a vampire because the bodies were decomposing as would be expected. Yeah. Right. Yes. Well, these ones. It's so fucking amazing. You know, if you leave them for a few

years, they're not vampires. If you get them within six months, they're vampires. But Mercy was different because she had recently been buried. Shut up. All right. Sorry. Not only had her body changed position inside the coffin. Yep, a roller. Well, she dies better on her side. Her face was flush. Her skin and not decomposed. And most importantly, her hair and nails had continued to grow. Yeah. Well, the villagers noted it was too well preserved. Yep. Also, they've been walking. Also, I should add she died in winter and it was still winter. I mean, she's freezer fresh. That's the problem. The doctor emphasized that her lungs showed tuberculosis germs. So he's sitting there going, Hey, it's TB. More. It smells like TB down here. We're gonna burn her. Tastes like TB

in her lung. I feel like I got TB. Okay. There's a suggestion in the newspaper that she wasn't actually she wasn't actually in the ground. She was actually put in above ground crypt because bodies were stored in the wintertime when the ground was frozen and they couldn't dig. And when the thought came, they would bury them. So it's possible she wasn't even buried. Yeah. She was just they fucking couldn't dig in the ground. Yeah. So they had her in a fucking above ground freezer. Yeah. And then they went in there to preserve. She's too well preserved. All these bodies are too well preserved. So her visible or her condition prompted the group to cut open her chest and examine their innards, which must have been just a great moment fun and good for dad fun

for dad. I mean, he's never gonna be able to walk her down the aisle, but this isn't the next best thing just and also just like so so some guy who's a farmer is like, All right, let's cut this shit open and I'll take a look in there and see what's good and what's wrong. You don't know anything about the human body. It is gross in here. It's vampire. Her guts are all vampire. You can definitely see she's a vampire. Imagine the fucking odor of all these wealth. I mean, also, I mean, in the same day you're digging up the wife and the son. There's a real there's a real home coming out of there next day like I cannot shower this. Wow. I mean, wow. I thought cigarettes stuck on my clothes. Holy God. My God, my daughter's guts are just all in my jacket. Smell this. I don't want to smell

it. I don't want to become a vampire. Smell this. Okay. The examiner organs. The newspaper said her heart and liver had blood in it. It was liquid blood, which they interpreted as fresh blood. Wow. Blood can coagulate become liquid again. So that's what happens. Okay, so that there's that one. But the liquid was taken as evidence that she was a vampire. Yep. And draining the life from Edwin and possibly other victims in the community. Possibly. Come on. Definitely. So they cut her heart out. Sure. And they burned it on a nearby rock. That's all I want to go. Then they fed the ashes to Edwin. Wait a minute though, Dave. Edwin's dead. No, he's not dead yet. Oh, he's not. He's still sick. He's not to get sicker. This is good. Can I get some to wash us down with? This tastes

really bad. Oh God. I think I'm gonna die. Are you sure? Because this seems weird. This is horrible. This tastes bad. This tastes like TB. Hey, can I just die instead? Please die. Can I die? Oh, so the idea was that by consuming the vampire's heart, the spell would be broken and the victim would get well. Makes sense. It makes sense. What are you laughing at? It makes sense. Edwin died two months later. Of what? What did he want? A car hit him? I knew it. Oh boy. Did he try eating his brother's penis? Normally cures AIDS. Jesus Christ. I can't believe this is happening in 1893 in America. We are so much more fucked up than anybody ever thought. We're not far removed from this.

I mean, slavery is like, it's hard to believe slavery was read. This is also, this is who you're dealing with. These are the people who are like, they're different color. They work for us forever, for free. It's just an enormous moral logic gap. And it feels like we bridged it. Maybe they'll look back at us and be like, can you believe that? This is fucking after the slaves were freed. This is crazy. This is recent. Okay, so this is a historian named Dignostino. I tried to put the person who's reading it into that time, so they saw how people were reacting to situations and why they did what they did. Death was much more prevalent than

it is now. One every four children in rural New England were not expected to live past the age of five, given the scarcity of doctors. Although I got to say the doctors didn't seem to matter anyway. You're lucky to not go to a doctor. You're better off not going to a doctor. The number was one in 10 healthier environments. I know what that means. Doctors cannot stop the spread of the disease. When the bizarre treatments failed, people turned to superstitions that probably had root in European homelands. One of the main ones was being a vampire. In truth, it was contagion that was responsible. It was common time for several found members to share a bed.

Okay, so that's where it happened. They were all sleeping in one fucking bed. And no one was like, hey, Doug next to me is dying. Shivering. Maybe I shouldn't sleep next to him. Maybe I should get some shut eye on the fucking floor. Guys, I'm worried that we're gonna have to eat Doug's heart soon. It's a real concern. I love that no one's like, hey, get away from the dying guy. Leave them be. Yeah. I mean, that just seems like instinct, doesn't it? Wouldn't you just be like, get away from the one coughing? Okay. No one knew that it was contagious. Not even the doctors who thought it was hereditary.

You've got TB from your dad. Your dad, yeah. Your dad has TB. He doesn't have it yet. Yeah, but it's in his family. Genome. Wouldn't no one's died of it. Yeah, but it's in... I'm the doctor. You have some heart. Eat a little of this heart. Do a cartwheel and then lay on your back and you won't have it anymore. Oh, okay. Yep, done. I'm magic. Oh, my something snapped. Yep. You can still go to the Chestnut Hill Cemetery and see where Lena was buried, dug up and reburied. Barbecued. She's still there. She lies right next to her brother, ate her heart, and her father will let it happen. Well, he didn't eat her heart. He sort of somehow consumed her

hearty ashes. God damn it. It's almost worse. It's worse. I think it is worse than eating. Can I just cook it instead of cooking it off? It looked kind of edible a minute ago. This is way overdone. I said medium. During the same year that Mercy was dug up and burned, there was a young man touring the United States from England. Oh, boy. He stopped to talk to Thoreau. He was a London stage manager and an aspiring novelist. Oh, boy. His name was Bram Stoker. Yep. His gothic masterpiece Dracula was published three years later. Wow. That's crazy. Isn't that fucking nuts? So that's where that's crazy. Yeah. So Thoreau and Bram.

So what I guess what they say is that because in America, these were all mostly young girls that there were. So notice like the mothers die. Right. Yeah, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. A brother dies. They're like, yeah, I guess a little kid dies. I guess a fuck. And then some hot 20-year-old dies and they're like, let's dig her up and get in there. I think we should fuck the dead. Oh, let me take a look at the pussy really quick. Sir. I'm gonna need to, you know what? You guys step back a little bit. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, burn this one out. Oh, good. That's my daughter. She's not a vampire. Are you gonna smoke? Are you gonna smoke?

So, so what it was, what he, he's hearing stories of these pretty young girls and then he transferred that over to pretty young thing. And there was like a hot young chick in the book. Yeah. Yeah. Like it all became it. Isn't that fucking crazy? Yeah. So then he just really made it. He kicked it up a notch. He's like, Emeril. He's so much like Emeril. It's crazy. Yeah. So then he really just put a nice shine on it. But then were people still after he wrote that, did that make people crazier? No, I don't, I mean, I don't think it could get crazier.

Well, did that make, were they still crazy? Well, they, the, after that last one, the Mercy one, they got so much shit from other people in America. Because that, because everyone else was like, wait, what? Sorry? I'm sorry. What did you say? I'm sorry. No, no, no. It sounded like you said you had your son eat your daughter's heart ashes. Because I'm working on a combustion engine over here. Because we invented cars. So. So they got, they got a lot of heat and then they stopped and that was like the last one. Man, they make us feel so bad for digging up those bodies, even hearts. Stupid city folk.

Medicine stuff. Just leave us alone. I'm gonna secede. Let him make you eat the heart. Gonna secede so I can burn and eat my daughter. Dead daughter. I thought this was America. Because you burn your daughter's heart and feed it to your son. Just whatever. You don't want to do it? Fine. You want to fucking everyone die? Fine. That's your fucking problem, guys. Just trying to help. You know, I got a phrase for you. It's called city mass country mass. Okay. So.

And I'm a country mass. Okay. And country mass like to burn up their dead daughters and eat them. Put that in your pipe and smoke and dump city folk. I'd like to say a lot has changed, but they're still voting Republican out there. Yeah. Honestly, I mean, look, like, it just, with climate change, I mean, that, that could absolutely be a thing that people will look back on us and be like. It's no different. What were they doing? Well, it's, it's almost no different. It's fucking crazy. Yeah. We, I mean, you have science versus.

Yes. Stories. Yes. And so, and for whatever reason, stories keep winning. What's the fuck? Stories do keep winning. It's the worst. Oh, god. Damn it. You know, the best way to stop climate change is to eat your daughter's heart. Polarized caps will start to swell. You got to burn it first. You got to, you got obviously you burn it. A little bit of butter. A little butter, new kids, new, put it, put a little butter on it. Hit the big potato button. Yeah.

Pop it in the microwave. Two minutes, 50 seconds. God damn, there goes climate change. Eat that. Eat that shit. Welcome rain. Rain will be there in no time. Doesn't this make you feel a little bit different about America? You know, yeah, but it just keeps. Like I had no fucking idea. The Salem witch shit happened in the 1600s. And was. This happened in 1893 and went on for over 100 years. 150 years people were digging up other people and eating their hearts for 150 years.

Oh my god. Almost, almost 1900. Just shy in 1900. Oh my god. There probably weren't people doing it in 1900. It's just way more DL. They weren't like, you know. All right. No inviting reporters. Yeah. Number one, no inviting reporters. Now listen, everyone, you know we're about to eat a heart, but don't tell anyone because all these city folk get so judgy. 100 years. We don't talk about our heart eating century enough.

Hey, I have a question. Yeah, in the bag. So we've been doing this for 150 years. Yeah, I know. And everyone just keeps dying of TB. Well, yes. Should we do something else? No, it would be worse if we weren't eating their hearts. What? There would be more. Trust me. We're putting a dent in this. Trust me. We're slowing the shit down. We're slowing it down.

I hear you, but listen, we got to keep eating hearts. I don't want to laugh you out of here, sir, because I respect you as a siren too. We're going to keep eating hearts. Thank you very much. Okay, so just a second point. It's better not be about not eating hearts. Go ahead. I just want to say goodbye because I'm going to move to the city. What? Oh, yeah. Have fun with medicine.

You know how a bunch of the houses are empty around here? Yeah. Yes. Have you ever thought that's because you keep digging up kids and eating their hearts? Listen, real estate here is open. I'll say that. But unfortunately, we've had to eat a lot of hearts. I don't think that pretty much answers your question. So you know how the Duncan's were living in that house?

Yeah, just ate the Duncan's heart. And next door, the Wilton's were like, hey, our neighbors keep eating hearts, and then they packed up all their shit in a new hall, and they took off. Yeah, I feel bad for them. Lost souls. Jesus Christ. Our 100 years of heart-eating.

100 years of fucking heart-eating. Heart-eating. I really didn't know. America. Seriously, America. Eat your heart out of the country. All right, hopefully we can do a dollop next week. We're both traveling, so we'll try to do one. If we can't, we can't, whatever. We'll do one.

Oh, wow. We'll do one. Okay, girl. Yeah, girl. Yeah. We'll just do this one again. I know a lot of people have been sending in requests. I think that, I think the way this is going,

I think we're just going to keep it about American stuff. All right. Don't you? I don't know. How do you feel about that? Yeah, I think you could open it up. We could, but right now, I kind of want to. I like how it's going. It's kind of like.

Well, wait, Papa Bawa, we definitely don't want to internet the waters. Well, Papa Bawa was a little bit a detour. I mean, people still on Twitter will be like, you've been like Papa Bawa? All right, maybe we'll open it up. Yeah, I mean, well, whatever you think. I think you got a good read.

OK. And so keep sending if you have suggestions, send them to the dollop podcast at Gmail. And then you can also post them on the Facebook page if you have an idea, or you can even tweet it to the dollop at the dollop. I think that's it. iTunes, like a.

Oh, fuck. Yeah, reviews on iTunes. Please, please, reviews on iTunes. All right. All right, next week, werewolves, I guess. OK, here we go. Hi there, dollop people. This is Gareth, not Gary.

Gareth, enough already. I've got some stand-up dates I wanted to keep you updated on. Join me on the road. We're having a lot of laughs. March 13th, I will be at Summit City Comedy in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Tuesday, March 14th, I'll be at Helium Comedy Club in Indianapolis.

March 15th, Wednesday, I'll be at the Louisville Comedy Club in Louisville, Kentucky. March 16th, I'll be at the Columbus Funny Bone in Columbus, Ohio. Date in Ohio, March 17th, Friday at the Funny Bone. March 18th, I'll be at the Funny Bone in Perrysburg, Ohio. And that's two shows that night. March 19th, I will be at Hilarities,

and it'll be Hilarious in Cleveland, Ohio. March 21st, I'll be in Lexington, Kentucky. I'm drunk at Comedy Off Broadway. March 22nd, I will be in St. Louis at the Galleria. March 23rd, I will be at the Comedy Club of Kansas City. And Friday, March 24th, I'll be in Des Moines, Iowa. Same with March 25th, Saturday, Des Moines, Iowa. And then March 26th, I'll be at the Funny Bone

in Omaha, Nebraska. Also, April 12th, the Tacoma Comedy Club. I told you I was drunk. And then April 13th, I will be in Spokane. And then April 14th and April 15th, I will be in Bozeman, Montana at Last Best Comedy. You can go to garethrenolds.com for all that ticket information.

So come join me on the road, garethrenolds.com. We're having laughs. I'm drunk.