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Short Stuff: La Lechuza - The Witch Owl · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the short stuff. I'm Josh, and
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: there's Chuck, and there's Jerry sitting in for Dave. And
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know.
• 0:11
  Speaker 2: That's right. We're beginning our Spookcius month about two.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, and I'm psyched.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: I am too. We love our halloweeny content. And we're
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  Speaker 2: going to talk to you a little bit today about
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: a kind of one of those just fun urban legend
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  Speaker 2: stories that seems to be geographically specific in that it's
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: around you know, maybe Texas, New Mexico border towns, mainly
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  Speaker 2: of the Lalla Choosa, the owl witch.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, but I think that's where its origin was, along
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  Speaker 1: the border of Texas and Mexico. But I saw also
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  Speaker 1: it spread chuck to places like Argentina and Cuba. They
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  Speaker 1: have their own versions. But Lala Choosa is a I
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  Speaker 1: think somewhere around a set foot owl with the face
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  Speaker 1: of a woman, fifteen foot wingspan and a bad attitude. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And this is one of those things where you know,
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  Speaker 2: because it's lore and legend, it's going to differ from
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  Speaker 2: place to place depending on who's telling the story. By
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  Speaker 2: the way, we should think how stuff works and all
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  Speaker 2: that's interesting. Austin Harvey from there, and I found a
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: fun article on Texas Standard from Sarah ash and Raoul
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  Speaker 2: Alonzo that helped out with this. But yeah, this is
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  Speaker 2: one of those sort of legends where and there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of different versions. We're going to go for a
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  Speaker 2: few of those. One is that La La Chusa will
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  Speaker 2: make like sounds like a baby is crying, hoping that
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  Speaker 2: someone will go, like, try and find this baby and
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  Speaker 2: all of a sudden be snatchable by the talons and
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  Speaker 2: they would be snatched up and return to the owl's nest.
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  Speaker 2: Ostensibly that's so creepy.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. Can you imagine seven foot owl woman with a
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  Speaker 1: fifteen foot wingspan mimicing of baby's cries.
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  Speaker 2: No, it's pretty terrifying like that.
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  Speaker 1: Also, some of the other stuff that said about her
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  Speaker 1: is that if you see her near your house, it
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  Speaker 1: means she's portending that something bad is about to happen
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  Speaker 1: to somebody in your house. Maybe a piece of furniture
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  Speaker 1: in your house. I don't know.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, if I think sometimes if you dream about La
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  Speaker 2: La choose a family member will die soon. And it
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  Speaker 2: seems like most of the tellings it is a woman
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  Speaker 2: who was once a or an ol woman who was
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  Speaker 2: once a human woman and something bad happened to her,
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  Speaker 2: some act of cruelty, usually something by a bad man happened,
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  Speaker 2: or maybe maybe happened to her child and it turned
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  Speaker 2: her into a vengeful beast. Sometimes La la Choosa is
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  Speaker 2: more of a witch's familiar, like the like you know,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: Dracula's or a vampire's familiar, and I think in that
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  Speaker 2: case the as a witch's familiar, they would abduct kids
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  Speaker 2: for the witch.
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  Speaker 1: Right. She's also been accused of being an MS area
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  Speaker 1: of Satan himself Satan, that's right. And one of the
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  Speaker 1: things you said is that she's often described as being
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  Speaker 1: vengeful because of something that happened in her past or
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  Speaker 1: her kid. Usually that's chalked up to either her child
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  Speaker 1: was killed for a crime they didn't commit and so
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  Speaker 1: now she's stealing other people's kids in return, or that
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  Speaker 1: her child was killed by a drunk man. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: that's actually one group that she seems to target. And
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  Speaker 1: modern tellings are drunk dudes stumbling out of bars and
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  Speaker 1: walking home alone at night and then wow, fifteen foot
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  Speaker 1: wingspan comes out of nowhere and the talents just sink
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  Speaker 1: into their head and carry them off by their scalp,
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  Speaker 1: and if they're lucky, their scalp will rip off of
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  Speaker 1: their head and they'll follow the ground and die on impact.
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  Speaker 1: And if they're unlucky, they'll be carried by their scalp
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  Speaker 1: all the way back to Lalla Choose's layer, and bad
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  Speaker 1: things are going to happen to him there.
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  Speaker 2: That's right. If you want to kill Lalla Choose, a
• 4:00
  Speaker 2: good luck, buddy, because apparently you cannot hurt Alala Choosa
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  Speaker 2: with bullets. I think if you try to kill one
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  Speaker 2: with a gun or something like that, you're going to
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  Speaker 2: get killed like pretty soon afterward for sure.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, I guess in the La La Choose a
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  Speaker 1: fact off, there's that whole idea that this is a woman,
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  Speaker 1: our woman who is actually some sort of spirit or
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  Speaker 1: familiar or something like that means that there is an
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  Speaker 1: actual person involved in this elsewhere, often a member of
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  Speaker 1: the community secretly preying on the rest of the community
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  Speaker 1: as Lalla Choosa, and that when La La Chusa is
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  Speaker 1: out doing her thing, that person is unconscious back home
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  Speaker 1: in some room until she comes back and reinhabits their body.
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  Speaker 1: So either they're possessed by her or they're using her
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  Speaker 1: or their special ability to enact vengeance and terrorize a community.
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  Speaker 1: And there's actually sposedly I looked all over for I
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  Speaker 1: couldn't find it. But there's supposedly some sort of incantation
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  Speaker 1: or prayer or something that a community can use that
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  Speaker 1: will reveal the person who is actually La la choosa
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  Speaker 1: and then ostensibly they get their scalp taken.
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  Speaker 2: All right, shall we come back after this, Yes, all right,
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  Speaker 2: we'll be right back with Mara la la Choosa.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, Chuck. And we've been using the name La la
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  Speaker 1: choosa without explaining to non Spanish speakers that la choosa
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  Speaker 1: is actually the word for owl. Yeah, which makes lot
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  Speaker 1: of sense. Sure, And this was we said that this
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  Speaker 1: whole thing kind of came from the Texas Mexico border,
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  Speaker 1: that seems to be the origin of it. And they
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  Speaker 1: think essentially that this is just like any other bit
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  Speaker 1: of folklore, that it was used to explain unbearable things
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  Speaker 1: like the disappearance of children, or probably more likely, it
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  Speaker 1: was used to keep kids on the straight and narrow,
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  Speaker 1: like fairy tales were right, you know, Western Europe, same
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  Speaker 1: thing if you're out messing around and you know, spray painting,
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  Speaker 1: somebody's brick wall or something like that. Lola Choose is
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  Speaker 1: going to come out of nowhere and snatch you up,
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  Speaker 1: so you better be good kind of thing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely, And you know, as far as where these
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  Speaker 2: things come from, I remember, God, many many years ago,
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: we did one in urban legends, and it's always pretty
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: much impossible to trace back like the true origin With
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: this one. There are people who think this might have
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: come from pre Columbian meso America, when the indigenous peoples
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  Speaker 2: had very close relationships in bonds with animals. But when
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  Speaker 2: the Spaniards came along to meso America, they brought, of
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  Speaker 2: course Christian Catholic Christian beliefs with them and condemned the
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  Speaker 2: rest as paganism. Of course.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought this is really interesting because a lot
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  Speaker 1: of the gods in meso American cultures were animal human hybrids. Right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: so an owl woman may have been some ancient or
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  Speaker 1: eldritch deity and was in no way, shape or form evil.
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  Speaker 1: But the Spaniards came along as Christians and went to
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: that Christian playbook and basically said, your gods are now
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  Speaker 1: Christianity's demons, so stop worshiping them. And that is a
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  Speaker 1: great explanation for where something like La Choosa came from.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. It's also popped up over the years
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  Speaker 2: in like various pop culture ways. I'm surprised or has
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  Speaker 2: it been like a pretty cool La la choose a
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  Speaker 2: like movie or a character in a movie or TV show?
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  Speaker 2: You know, they'd be truly frightening.
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  Speaker 1: Have you seen the movie based on Lajrana? I don't
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  Speaker 1: think I saw that. That was it was kind of
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  Speaker 1: scary that it was the Latino urban legend and it
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  Speaker 1: was okay.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: All right, well maybe I'll check it out. You have
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: good horror recommendations.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, I take that back then, because I don't want to.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: I don't want to ruin Streek.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mentioned pop culture. I think Lalla Chuosa was
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  Speaker 2: a was an enemy in an issue of a comic
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: book called Releempago, and that was created by Margarito Garza.
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  Speaker 2: So that was one. What else it was music too, righte?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah? There. Yeah, there's a song called El Parajo Gigante
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: de Robe, which is by a group called Los Campion's
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  Speaker 1: de Raul Ruiz and the de Robe is actually talking
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  Speaker 1: about a specific town called Robestown or Rob'stown. Texas along
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  Speaker 1: the borders near Corpus Christy and there was an outbreak
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  Speaker 1: of sightings of La La Choosa in nineteen seventy five
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  Speaker 1: and seventy six, and like it was a big deal,
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  Speaker 1: Like this whole town was like like credible. People are
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  Speaker 1: like I saw La La Choosa with my own eyes. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: And it turned out that there was a group of
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  Speaker 1: teens from town who had created a pretty convincing La
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  Speaker 1: La Choosa like dummy, like a life size one, and
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  Speaker 1: was just you know, running it around town scaring the
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  Speaker 1: Bejesus out of people. So that's where that that inspired
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  Speaker 1: that song. As far as I can tell.
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: You know, I wish I knew somebody who was a
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: good sort of model maker creature maker, because we've been
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: getting more into the Halloween front yard decorations and like
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: to be a little outside the box and not just
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: whatever you get at party City or no, not party city.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: What is it?
• 9:53
  Speaker 2: We did a whole episode on it last year.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: Oh spar Halloween.
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: I mean there's there's a is really good. I'm not
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  Speaker 2: knocking it.
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  Speaker 1: Have you been at home Depot lately, dude? They've gone
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  Speaker 1: off the chain?
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  Speaker 2: Oh really?
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they have like ten twelve foot tall scary monsters.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Now it's crazy like their Halloween thing. But it's the
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: same issue that you don't want, which is name somebody
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: two door sounds gonna have the same thing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I would love a custom sort of. I think
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  Speaker 2: Allala choose it would be truly scary and it has
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: kind of a fun story behind it all like stuff
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  Speaker 2: that has like a legend behind it. So hey, if
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: anyone out there wants to just you know, make me one,
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: I'll just say my address on the show and you
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: can just drop it off in the front yard.
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  Speaker 1: Good plan. Yeah. There was one other thing too, and
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  Speaker 1: I kind of touched on that Lalla choos has survived
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  Speaker 1: into modern day and that the most modern interpretations tend
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: to kind of drill into the kind of gender norm
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: or flip flop gender norms. Yeah, that the fable or
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: the urban legend actually kind of gets into, which is
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: there's a vengeful woman who is big enough and powerful
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  Speaker 1: enough and angry enough to punish bad men. Yeah, and
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  Speaker 1: that not just men who stumble home drunk from the
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  Speaker 1: bar are targeted, but men who are known to abuse
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  Speaker 1: their wives their children are her favorite like prey. Now,
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  Speaker 1: so It's interesting how she kind of evolved into a
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  Speaker 1: bit of like an avenger for women and children.
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  Speaker 2: I like that version.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, hats off Leila Choosa.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: That's right. We're good guys. Don't come after us.
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: That is true, Chuck, that is true. Anything else?
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: I got nothing else?
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, well then short stuff is Oh.
• 11:43
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• 11:46
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• 11:50
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