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CLASSIC: History's Weirdest Flexes, Part Two · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians. We are returning with a dope beat
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: for you to step two, Step two, step two. Yeah,
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: for sure, we are returning with part two of History's
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: Weirdest Flexes. And guys, we had such a great time
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: on this one with our pals Jack and Miles from
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the Daily Zeitgeist.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: You're certainly familiar with the phrase weird flex But okay,
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: and we go deep down the historical rabbit hole of
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: weird flexes. You enjoyed part one, Now dive right on
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: end to Part two.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeart Radio. Ridiculous History
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: is a production of iHeart Radio. And we're back. Thanks
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Welcome to Part two of Weird Historical Flexes, or,
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: as we have come to find, perhaps a cruel historical Flexes.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: I'm Ben, I am Noel, and that's our super producer
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Casey Pegram, who, to our knowledge, has never eaten twenty tortoises.
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: We are not venturing into this alone, listeners. You recall
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: from our previous episode we had two of our favorite
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: fellow podcasters on and they decided to be kind enough
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: to return for the second part of this show. Let's
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: welcome the Daily Zeitgeist. Miles and Jack back on the air.
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: WHOA, thanks for having us.
• 1:46
  Speaker 4: Truth be told.
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: They didn't really return so much as just stayed in
• 1:50
  Speaker 2: the same place, and we you know, through the Magical podcast,
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: we didn't have.
• 1:54
  Speaker 5: To go in for a whole week. I'm so thirsty.
• 1:57
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we just sat in our seats on pause.
• 1:59
  Speaker 4: Doesn't it doesn't.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: Robert Evans have some like mountain dew that you guys
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: could have.
• 2:03
  Speaker 3: Oh no, if we touch his mountain dew, we are
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: in like, we will actually be in harm's way.
• 2:08
  Speaker 4: Okay, sometimes don't touch.
• 2:10
  Speaker 3: We don't touch Evans's do.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, sometimes sends me out of context text about that
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: and he's like, don't touch my lot and do And
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know the number at first,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: so I was very confused.
• 2:22
  Speaker 5: No.
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  Speaker 3: One time I was driving with him and we saw
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: a person at a bus stop drinking a mountain dew
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: and he's like, rolled down your window, roll down your window,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: and he stuck his head on, goes that's mine, and
• 2:32
  Speaker 3: that person was so confused and took it from him
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: and drove off. So that's what we're talking about. When
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: we talked to talk about Robert Evans.
• 2:39
  Speaker 4: Uh what do you call that?
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: His do privilege? Yeah yeah, do mania, do mania, whatever
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: you want, right he uh yeah.
• 2:47
  Speaker 5: Whenever you're driving him somewhere, he never tells you when
• 2:50
  Speaker 5: to stop. He just rolls out of the.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Car and like that, he's gone. It's it's it's crazy.
• 2:55
  Speaker 4: It's funny that.
• 2:56
  Speaker 5: We're talking about over and there's an open flapping door.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: That's that's really dangerous for you and very disrespectful to
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: your vehicle. But you know, Robert is an interesting character.
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I was speaking of sugary beverages. I'm going to do
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: sugary weird flex.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: So when Ben first hipped me to this one, it
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: was described in the article that I read in a
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  Speaker 2: list on I nine as displays of opulence in the
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: UK during the seventeen hundreds, being.
• 3:25
  Speaker 4: Piles of sugar just.
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  Speaker 2: Laying around the house like Tony like like scarface style,
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  Speaker 2: just like say, hey, check out my sugar. This is
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: how much money I have because I'm showing you because
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: I have piles of sugar all over the house. And
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: you know, we think of that in terms of today
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: that just means you're keeping a very messy kitchen.
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  Speaker 4: But this was on display, but.
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  Speaker 2: As it turns out, it wasn't just piles of sugar,
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: or it may have been at first, but it actually
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: evolved into these really ostentatious sugar sculptures.
• 3:58
  Speaker 4: Sweet get it, I do, Ben, I do get it?
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  Speaker 2: Uh? And I said seven six seventeen hundreds, and I
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: actually meant sixteen hundreds. But what's one hundred? You know,
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  Speaker 2: what's what's what's what's that between fresh drops in the bucket?
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  Speaker 2: So here's the thing. A decorative sugar was achieved by
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: using things like gum arabic and then it was mixed
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  Speaker 2: into this kind of paste that you could sculpt into
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  Speaker 2: these figures. And whether they were large sculptures that would
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: be on display constantly, or whether they were these kind
• 4:28
  Speaker 2: of small, little hardened sugary baked confections that that could
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: then be eaten. And the most bizarre part of this
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  Speaker 2: to me is the fact that they were called subtleties
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: and they're not. They're not subtle at all. Right, that
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: a flex isn't meant to be subtle. The flex is
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: a flex is it's in your face, and like, check
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  Speaker 2: out this weird thing that I'm doing, remark upon my wealth.
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  Speaker 2: But they were called subtleties, and the smaller forms of
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  Speaker 2: them that were these little creatures would be formed into
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  Speaker 2: things like buildings or animals, and they were meant to
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  Speaker 2: be admired before they were eaten. So they were eaten.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: They were eaten. But here's the thing. It was all
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: in the king class, the nobles, knights, and clergy, and
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  Speaker 2: you had to have a whole lot of expendable sugar
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  Speaker 2: to make these things, to be able to spare enough
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  Speaker 2: to actually kind of like sacrifice them for these kind
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  Speaker 2: of weird little flexes or giant flexes the case might be.
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  Speaker 2: And it was kind of this display of craftsmanship and
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: also culinary skills. But a lot of them actually were
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: satirical symbols or they had messages that were conveyed to
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  Speaker 2: the guests. And Henry the Fifth when he was when
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: he received his coronation ceremony, he did that very thing.
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  Speaker 4: They were symbols that.
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  Speaker 2: Kind of confirmed his privilege as the basically a godlike
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  Speaker 2: power as the king and also knights rites, and it
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  Speaker 2: also highlighted the this whole concept that you could it
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: was almost this nihilistic idea that you could take something
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  Speaker 2: that was artisanally created and that was meant to be
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  Speaker 2: beautiful and you could remark on it and then you know,
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  Speaker 2: admire it, but then devour it. As very similar to
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: your turtle story, Jack, where it's like, Okay, we're gonna
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  Speaker 2: like note, you know, Darwin's gonna make notes about how
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  Speaker 2: rare and beautiful these creatures are and we should, you know,
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  Speaker 2: take care of them. And then I'm going to eat
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  Speaker 2: it just to show that I am the master of
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: my own destiny and that no one is above me.
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  Speaker 2: So that is totally what happened here. And then here's
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: the thing. Over time, it became less of a completely
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: upper class thing because sugar became less expensive and it
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: was something that you know, lower class people could afford too.
• 6:50
  Speaker 4: But have you guys ever heard of the artist Carol Walker.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, actually, but I'm the worst person asked.
• 6:56
  Speaker 4: You are the worst person. Now you're the best person,
• 6:57
  Speaker 4: ask me.
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  Speaker 1: So.
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  Speaker 2: Cara Walker is a New York City artist who does
• 7:01
  Speaker 2: You may have seen some of her work. They are
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: silhouette stuff, the silhouette stuff exactly, and they're depicting ante
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  Speaker 2: bellum culture and just the brutal, the brutality of racism.
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  Speaker 2: They're simultaneously kind of grotesque and they're beautiful, and they're
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: also kind of darkly comic, where there are these kind
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  Speaker 2: of shadow figures in profile doing all these various things
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: that would have happened during those times. She did an
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: art installation in New York City in Brooklyn actually at
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: the former site of the Domino Sugar factory, and it
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  Speaker 2: was called a Subtlety, and it was a giant sphynx
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  Speaker 2: that was thirty five feet tall and was created with
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  Speaker 2: just tons of this sugar paste and was molded into
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  Speaker 2: a massive sphynx like sculpture with the face akin to
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  Speaker 2: kind of the really really stereotypical image of like Jemima
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: or like the Mammy kind of trope. Yeah, yes, utterly racist,
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  Speaker 2: and with kind of like a bandana on. And then
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  Speaker 2: throughout the factory or all of these like kind of
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  Speaker 2: like hidden messages talking about how you know, black people
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  Speaker 2: were sort of commodified and to cut cane and to
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  Speaker 2: participate in the sugar trade and all of that.
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  Speaker 4: So it's sort of taking this like.
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  Speaker 2: Old, kind of forgotten, weird flex the Subtleties, which, again,
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  Speaker 2: since sugar was so rare, it was saying like, hey,
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  Speaker 2: I've got so much money that I can take my
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  Speaker 2: expense of sugar and make it into these like frivolous
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  Speaker 2: things that are then devoured by my guests.
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  Speaker 1: And this was twenty fourteen when she did this.
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  Speaker 2: This was twenty fourteen exactly, and I think it's not
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  Speaker 2: there anymore. But it attracted about four thousand viewers when
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  Speaker 2: it first went on display, and it was a very
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  Speaker 2: popular exhibition for quite some time. But yeah, what do
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: you guys think about that? There's a lot to unpacked there.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, just piles of sugar just make me nervous as
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  Speaker 3: someone who grew up in California, where ants appear out
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  Speaker 3: of nowhere, and I was always raised to like even
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: rinse out cans or juice boxes because ants would show
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  Speaker 3: up and always caused a lot of anxiety. But also,
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  Speaker 3: but also hearing about the Kara Walker piece is good too,
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  Speaker 3: you know, because reminding people that yes, you may have
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  Speaker 3: these opulent displays in your homes, but at what cost?
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  Speaker 3: Who were the people whose blood was spilled to even
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  Speaker 3: get these things to your house? But yeah, I think
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  Speaker 3: just like you know, piling stuff up is I've got
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  Speaker 3: to say I'm not as impressed, you know, just a
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  Speaker 3: pile of a thing, you know, like gold statues or
• 9:34
  Speaker 3: like gold piles, sugar piles, sugar statues. I mean, I
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: think we could go a little bit further than that,
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  Speaker 3: but you know it's I'll rate that. I'll give it
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  Speaker 3: a solid five on the flex chart.
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  Speaker 1: Ten. Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a five out of ten.
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  Speaker 5: That's a five out of ten for me, dude. Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Do we think that they called them like, was this
• 9:55
  Speaker 5: around the time that sarcasm was invented? Because the calling
• 9:59
  Speaker 5: them subtle these is like, so that sounds like the
• 10:02
  Speaker 5: sort of thing that would be invented when someone was like, wow,
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  Speaker 5: that's subtle.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think almost even naming it a subtlety, that's
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  Speaker 3: actually the.
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  Speaker 1: Flex, that's flex.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a really good point. You really go, oh
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  Speaker 3: that that that bit of subtlety there.
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  Speaker 2: I also, I also love, I love the notion of
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: this idea of the invention of sarcasm. I think that's
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: just like that all of a sudden, it just you know,
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: poofed into existence. People were like smart asses just overnight.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I think it's fantastic. But no, yeah, I completely agree.
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  Speaker 2: It is utterly a snark to call these things subtlety
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  Speaker 2: and even more leaning in to that opulent display. It's like, oh,
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  Speaker 2: it's not it's no big deal, it's nothing, you know,
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: it's just you know, my opulence and absurd, obscene wealth.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: And terribly cruel. Because we have to also remember to
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: your point, Miles, especially at that time, in the age
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: of the subtleties, this was highly likely to be a
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: slave created sugar, you know what I mean. So that's
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: I would say, that's even less weird. Fle's more of
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: a brutal one.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: I will say this, there's something I wanted to add
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  Speaker 2: a little later in the sixteen hundreds, there's actually a
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  Speaker 2: cookbook from a royal cook in the in the court
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: named Robert May and he describes even taking this to
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: the next level, where there would be, for example, a
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: stag made of sugar, full size that bleeds wine when
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: an arrow is removed from it.
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: That's like sticking in there.
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  Speaker 2: Or you've got like a castle that actually fires live
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: artillery rounds made of sugar, or you have something like
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: like a giant pie made of sugar that's filled with
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: live birds that then fly out when they crack open
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: the sugary crust.
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  Speaker 1: So does that take it? Does that take it up
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: to six or seven.
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  Speaker 4: Can I have a point back, please, gentlemen? Thank you?
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, no, no, that the cannon firing sugar. That's
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: an eight. That's an eight for sure. Yes, lest we.
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: Start to think we're too superior to history again, guys,
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: I did this in the last episode. I have to
• 12:10
  Speaker 5: take it back to the two and three year old
• 12:13
  Speaker 5: birthday parties. Yeah, I frequent for just my own personal
• 12:18
  Speaker 5: fun on the weekends, but no, I have a three
• 12:22
  Speaker 5: year old son.
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: You do have to dunk on your son, right, Like,
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: I went to so many parties this weekend. Did you
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: go to.
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: He's not invited. But I was at a birthday party
• 12:33
  Speaker 5: very recently where they had a probably you know, it
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: was probably the size of it was bigger than any
• 12:42
  Speaker 5: dollhouse I've ever seen. It was a cake that was,
• 12:48
  Speaker 5: you know, taller than two people standing on each other's shoulders.
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: That was in the shape of like a castle. Also,
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: it was a Disney castle, obviously, And I overheard one
• 13:00
  Speaker 5: of the moms say, oh, get my daughter out of here.
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: I don't want her to see that cake because she
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: didn't want the competition for like her daughter's birthday.
• 13:10
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, that's so funny where something is
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: such a flex that you have to shield people's eyes.
• 13:16
  Speaker 4: Yeah, right, because it could forever ruin them. Exactly.
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: I can't let them think this is normal. I can't
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: let them think this is normal.
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: So we're still creating subtleties. They're just a giant rich
• 13:28
  Speaker 5: kid birthday party cakes.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I guess that's the new one. That's the new subtlety
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and this. Okay, So so we we've got we've got
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: a pretty good track record of strange flexes now, but
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: we've been building up to an especially and especially weird
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: flex that's gonna come from you, Miles. So everybody listening,
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: if this was a somewhat uninteresting or lackluster show for
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: for so far, then.
• 13:56
  Speaker 4: Why are you listening?
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: First because you believe in us, then you believe Miles
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: and more importantly, Myles, no pressure, but literally everything is
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: writing on you, my friend.
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I mean I when we were when we
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: were discussing doing this, I had a few ideas, but
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: I wanted to really bring it into the history thing
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: because recently, when I was in England, I went to
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: the you know, the the history museum there and saw
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: all the stolen history that is in there, and my
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: first idea was like, man, the English really know how
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: to flex on the rest of the world, because they
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: were like, I'll take your history and I'll keep it
• 14:30
  Speaker 3: here haha, and you can ask for it back, but
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: it doesn't mean I'm giving it back.
• 14:35
  Speaker 4: And then as I.
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: Looked into it more, I was like, Okay, so this
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: obviously it's a theme with how gigantic the British Empire
• 14:41
  Speaker 3: was at one time. But then I found out that
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: in Victorian England, one of the great flexes if you
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: were a person of means, was to obviously Egyptomania was
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: was huge in England, especially after the Napoleonic Wars and
• 14:58
  Speaker 3: things like that, but then it turned into a thing
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: where going to watch somebody just fully desecrate a mummy's body.
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: Mummy unwrappings were a huge flex if you had the
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: money to go to a live mummy unwrapping. Now, what
• 15:15
  Speaker 3: is a mummy unwrapping? Well, let me tell you that
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: was my question. Yes, Thomas Pettigrew, he was, you know,
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: he was like this surgeon and a man of science.
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: But then eventually the Egyptian bug. He got bit by
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: the egypt bug and started thinking like man you know,
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: like what's like, what's really going on under all those wraps?
• 15:33
  Speaker 3: And he decided, yes, here we go. This is something
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: I can do. I can combine many things science, I
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: can combine people's just obsession with the darkness of Egypt
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: or just the sort of otherness of Egypt and get
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: them and sell some tickets at the same time. So
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: he wasn't the first person to unroll a mummy in
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: front of an audience, but he was. He was the
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: guy who kind of mainstreamed it as being like a
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: performance where people would buy tickets to go and just
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: watch this thing happen live and in person.
• 16:03
  Speaker 4: And can I stop you real quick?
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: Did he do it like where he just like on
• 16:06
  Speaker 2: Scooby Doo where he just pulls the one string and
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: then the mummy just spins out like a car with
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: cartoon sound effects, and there's.
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: Actually almost well, what's funny is there was someone in
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: France who was doing something similar to which is a
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: little more performative than just you know, sort of taking
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: the bandages off. In France, there were moments where they
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: would take a mummy that was going to be demummified
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: and put it like on this you know machine essentially
• 16:33
  Speaker 3: that made it look like the corpse was dancing as
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: the bandages were just ripped off the body, and people
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: were like, yo, that's cool, making it a real kind
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: of freaky performance. But in England, you know, England is
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: more about, as we said, the subtleties, so they they
• 16:53
  Speaker 3: took it a little more seriously, a little more dramatic
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: by you know, saying really, you know, just over the
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: elaborate monologues while then you know, cutting off all of
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: the bandages to demummify it when these mummy I guess
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: de rappings as they called him, were happening. The man
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: behind it, Thomas Pettigrew, had a few kind of dark
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: aims with doing this. One of the theories that people
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: have suggested that he was really also like, through de
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: mummifying these people, was trying to prove that ancient Egyptians
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: were actually Caucasian and not African origin, using like physiognomy
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: to like measure the cranium and things like that of
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: prenologists yeah, oh yeah, sorry, phrenology, right, or just to
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: basically be like, yeah, this is this is my fake
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: science to prove that the this old ancient empire was
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: actually in fact a Caucasian one, but again found this
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: way of everybody would come by watch the mummy get
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: de wrapped, and it was just like the biggest thing,
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: and it got so big that even there's even a
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: secondary flex to the d rappings. There was the Duke
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: of Hamilton at the time in eighteen fifty two when
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: one of his dying wishes was to have Pettigrew actually
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: mammify him and put him in an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus,
• 18:15
  Speaker 3: and he got his wish in eighteen fifty two. So
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: now we actually we've gone from people just being like,
• 18:20
  Speaker 3: let's just disrespect this ancient body to now let me
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: kick this ancient body out of the sarcophagus. Now let
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: me appropriate Mama fi me and put me in this sarcophagus.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: And that's what happened.
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: And then he did a mummy unwrapping and scared everybody.
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: It was like that, no, I'm good, I'm good anyway,
• 18:38
  Speaker 3: coming to my birthday.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: That's like Bonnaru costume level appropriation. It's beyond bon Oh yeah,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: oh wait, Coachella, that's the one.
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He'd be like, I mean he acquired
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: a like an actual legitimate ancient sarcophagus and of like
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: a princess who wasn't named, but was like, that's that
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: will be my final sold to rest in.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: I say, more power to him. Go ahead and mummify yourself.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: That's sort of like a like a different version of
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: like go after yourself. Yeah, but get your own vehicle, right, absolutely?
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: Do you make build your own SARCOPHA guy?
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Guy just do? Oh yeah, and yeah.
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: What's so funny is like he's actually because he's mummified
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: in a sarcophagus, he actually made it into the Encyclopedia
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: of Mummies. Oh yeah, which to me feels like a
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: little bit of a you know, sort of back door
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: entry to getting into college. Reminds me of Operations Varsity
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: Blues a little bit like did you earn it really?
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: Run a person of means who is able to buy
• 19:32
  Speaker 3: their own sarcophagus and then flex on people like that.
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: People are always trying to buy their way into the
• 19:36
  Speaker 5: Encyclopedia Mummies.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah exactly. I mean it was a big problem, especially
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: in the eighties.
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: I'm going to give that one. At first, I was like, man,
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: this is clearly eight or nine, but making appropriating someone
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: in death for your own death that knocks it to
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: attend to me the hubris alone.
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: Not to mention that it is tickets are being sold.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: It's it's completely commodifying and appropriating some very sacred ritual
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: in someone's culture that you clearly do not understand or
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: care to understand. You're just using it for the amusement
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: of the public, and so then you're also playing into stereotypes.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Everything bad about this. So I think we should have
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: two scales. I think we should have the weird flex
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: scale and the cruelty scale.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: We have been going back and forth. Well, I will say,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: on the upside, one good thing about this horrifically tragic
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: story is that in comparison, it makes the four of
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: us look pretty good because we haven't done that. It's
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: true yet.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, right, no, nothing, I mean, but I mean,
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna lie. I'm every night when I when
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: I envision my future, it's having so much wealth that
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: I could also buy a mummy just on rapid right.
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: I'm gonna be honest.
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: I was gonna say, Okay, so, yes, this is what
• 20:56
  Speaker 5: we had instead of horror movies back then. But also
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: so this is something I could totally see working as
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: a flex in the modern world, Like if I was
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: at a party and someone was doing that, I'd be like,
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: that makes sense, and I'm impressed.
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: If they were like.
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: Defiling the historic object, it's like, I don't know, it's
• 21:15
  Speaker 5: still it's still just wildly insane and well it's weird.
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: We also have unboxing videos.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but I guess back then, right, they didn't have
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: the same sort of values where like we should actually
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: preserve history. They're like, oh, y'all got to see what
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: I just stole from Egypt real quick, let's watch we
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: unwrap this mummy, Whereas now it would be like, because
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: you're just merely destroying something of such value, it's like
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: it's like, look at this vase from the Ming Dynasty.
• 21:42
  Speaker 3: I'm about to just toss off the freeway off ramp.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: That would be pretty cool.
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: I could see it at a like Hollywood party of
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: some like caa agent or something like that, like somebody
• 21:52
  Speaker 5: who's cartoonishly a terrible person.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure, something like when they wanted to open
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: that mummy, that sarcophagus like last year, and you're like,
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: what's the mummy? What's the water in that? Sarcastic people
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: like I want to drink the mummy water.
• 22:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, mummy water.
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: Remember that.
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure Nick Cage had a mummy at one point,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: so that's probably available because I think he I think
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: there's like a serious Nick Cage garage sale going on.
• 22:14
  Speaker 4: He had a t rex skull, so surely he had
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: a mummy as well.
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: I'm just conjecturing here, but I'd like to believe that
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: he did.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: Snap.
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: He's a he's a He's an odd character.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: Geez, guys, this was a lot less fun than I
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: thought it was gonna be.
• 22:29
  Speaker 4: And that is not on you. That is just on
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: history itself. Uh, come on history, Yeah, I think, I
• 22:36
  Speaker 4: mean yeah, yeah, no, No, I had a great time.
• 22:38
  Speaker 4: I had a great time. But these stories were most
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: of them were kind of bummers.
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: I would say the the least bummery one was Ben's
• 22:45
  Speaker 2: uh decorative hobo story, and even that was pretty hermits.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, sorry decorative Hobo to appropriate what happened? Hey,
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: don't you accuse me of appropriation, sir? I would never,
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I would.
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: It all depends on what your flavor is A flex
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: I mean Jack's was about animal.
• 23:04
  Speaker 5: Cruelty, Yeah, flexing on the animals.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah, subtleties was about slavery. Uh, the mind was about colonialism,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: empire and the desecration of people's cultures.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: Yea.
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: And then the other one was about taking advantage of
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: the destitute.
• 23:19
  Speaker 5: Sure you know your bum son.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I guess now, I guess nowadays the flexes
• 23:25
  Speaker 3: are better because now we're just saying, like, yeah, I
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: actually like I went to high school with Chris Rocks
• 23:31
  Speaker 3: kid and I beat him in basketball. So there's that,
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: all right, But okay.
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell people that's a true story about you.
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: Now.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Are you cool with that?
• 23:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah?
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Back me up if it comes up in conversation.
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's one of the many lies I do,
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: so don't worry.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's well.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: Despite despite being kind of depressed right now, I'm also
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: really happy we got to do this and I did,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: all things considered, have a really good time having you
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: guys on this show, and maybe we can make this
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: a regular thing. I think there's obviously way more historical
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: weird flexes that we can dig into and do this again.
• 24:04
  Speaker 4: Thank you guys so much for coming on.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do I.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: Got more in my back pocket right now.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Let's do it. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna actually take
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: it a step further, and I'm gonna try to make
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: some new, weird, historical flexes for the future that will
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: hopefully not be as terrible as these four turned out
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: to be. But guys, I know everybody listening is saying, well,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: we enjoyed the hell out of hanging out with Jack
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: and Miles. Where can they find you before you come
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: back on this show?
• 24:34
  Speaker 5: You guys can find us at The Daily Zeitgeist. It's
• 24:37
  Speaker 5: a podcast that we do, as the name would suggest,
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: daily every weekday, Monday through Friday. It's an hour rundown
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: of just everything that's happened in the zeitgeist, pop culture news.
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: Those are kind of the two big ones.
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: Politics, politics, po tricks, you know, all of all of it.
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: Yeah, and you can find me on Twitter at Jack
• 24:59
  Speaker 5: Underscore Obrien.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, you can find me on Twitter and Instagram at
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Miles of Gray g r A.
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: Y and I want to give you guys a shout
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: out to to make sure that all our listeners know this.
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: You heard correct, folks. That's a daily podcast. Casey Nol
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: and I do this about two times a week. So
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: I am beyond impressed that you guys not only did
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: your regular show but also came here to do a
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: show with us. So thank you. That's amazing our pleasure.
• 25:30
  Speaker 5: We're big fans. We're thrilled to do it.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's you know, and our show isn't as
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: thorough as yours is. Again, we like to consider our
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: show a second rate podcastecond rate podcast. Just do it
• 25:40
  Speaker 3: a lot, that's all.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: So so check out check out the guys on Instagram
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: and Twitter if you want a closer look at the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: second best garden gnome collection in East Los Angeles. That
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: that's a good callback if you listen to both episodes,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: which you should. In the meantime, we're calling in to day.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: We want to give a very late thanks and shout
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: out to our super producer, Casey Pegram.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: We'd like to thank Alex Williams who composed our theme,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: Gabe Lucier who helps us out with research, and I'm
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: just miss Christopher. I'm gonna give him anotherhout out. Christopherciota's
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: Jonathan Strickland the quizz you Ben, I'd like to thank
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: you for being a friend and a confidante and all
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: the things that are in the Golden Girls theme.
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: Song, and of course thanks again to Miles and Jack.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Thanks to everyone for checking this out. Hey, you know
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: what folks tell us about your favorite weird historical flexes
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: or even just very very petty things committed by historical
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: people of note.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: And who knows, maybe this will be a running thing
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: and we can include some of them in a future episode.
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: Until then, we'll see you next time.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, apple Pie,
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. For more
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.