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The Last Meal Ritual · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Josh and Chuck here to remind you that
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Speaker 1: our last three shows of the year. Boy, this is
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Speaker 1: tickets right there. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a
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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
0:36
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is Stuff you
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Speaker 2: should Know, part of the very Grim edition.
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Speaker 1: That's right. All star writer Livia helped us with this,
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Speaker 1: so you know it's going to be great. I'm just
0:52
Speaker 1: trying to butter Livia up so she knows how much
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Speaker 1: we appreciate her.
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Speaker 2: Sure. This topic though, is like she did a good
0:59
Speaker 2: job with it. But it's one of those things where
1:03
Speaker 2: people are all morbidly fascinated with it, right. It's just
1:07
Speaker 2: kind of one of those things where you might talk
1:09
Speaker 2: about at a party or something like that, what would
1:11
Speaker 2: be your last meal kind of thing.
1:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, but when you dig into.
1:14
Speaker 2: It, you're like, man, this is a dark topic. Yeah,
1:17
Speaker 2: because at the end of the day, what you're talking
1:19
Speaker 2: about is ultimately a ritual that surrounds the execution of
1:25
Speaker 2: a human life. Yeah, and when you really start to
1:29
Speaker 2: dig into and look at it seriously and look at
1:31
Speaker 2: like last meals that people actually had, or why we
1:33
Speaker 2: give people last meals that kind of stuff, it's just
1:36
Speaker 2: it's grim. I mean, there's no other word to describe it.
1:39
Speaker 2: It's a grim, grim topic.
1:41
Speaker 1: So it is buckle up, and it's easy to while
1:46
Speaker 1: you're sort of researching all this about the food, to
1:50
Speaker 1: forget what happens just after the food.
1:54
Speaker 2: I thought you're gonna say, get hungry.
1:56
Speaker 1: No, but I found myself over and over being like,
1:59
Speaker 1: oh right, and then there was a firing squad, or
2:02
Speaker 1: then they were hanged, or then they were put in
2:05
Speaker 1: the electric chair.
2:06
Speaker 2: How many times did you forget?
2:09
Speaker 1: Two more times? I've forgot six, six times, five times?
2:12
Speaker 2: Whoever.
2:13
Speaker 1: No, it's just it was sort of a constant reminder.
2:16
Speaker 1: So this one won't be, you know, as full of
2:20
Speaker 1: laughs as usual.
2:21
Speaker 2: Probably every time we say that it turns out to
2:23
Speaker 2: be a laugh riot.
2:26
Speaker 1: Can we go back in time?
2:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say, we probably should get historical
2:30
Speaker 2: because people have been eating last meals for a very
2:33
Speaker 2: long time. Apparently the Code of Hammurabi was the first
2:40
Speaker 2: to describe not last meals but capital punishment execution by
2:45
Speaker 2: the state. Right, Yeah, it's not, they didn't say. And also,
2:48
Speaker 2: by the way, they can have some unleavened bread or
2:51
Speaker 2: something as a last meal. It's not until I believe
2:55
Speaker 2: the Romans, the ancient Greeks, and the Chinese, I guess
3:01
Speaker 2: contemporaneous Chinese where last meals first start appearing in documentation.
3:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, there are other examples that weren't necessarily like you're
3:12
Speaker 1: going to be executed for a crime, like Roman gladiators
3:14
Speaker 1: supposedly feasted pretty well because they might die. Aztecs would
3:19
Speaker 1: give the people who were going to be ritually sacrificed
3:24
Speaker 1: a big feast because they knew what was coming next.
3:28
Speaker 1: And the woman named Linda ross Meyer, who she's going
3:32
Speaker 1: to come up quite a bit because she's done a
3:33
Speaker 1: lot of studying on this stuff, had a paper in
3:36
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight where she said, you know, I
3:38
Speaker 1: think a lot of this is based on the Last
3:40
Speaker 1: Supper of Christ, and you'll see that kind of throughout,
3:44
Speaker 1: whether it's seventeenth century England or twenty first century America,
3:49
Speaker 1: where someone may just request the Eucharist as their last meal.
3:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, and not only that being the last meal. Apparently
3:59
Speaker 2: the more religious the group is, the more likely they
4:03
Speaker 2: are to ritualize.
4:04
Speaker 1: Executions, which is surprising, I guess, but maybe not not.
4:08
Speaker 2: Really if you think about like the state executing somebody
4:11
Speaker 2: and you take it to like an Orwellian level, this
4:14
Speaker 2: that's just so dispersonal and dispatching. It just gets to
4:18
Speaker 2: the point it's an execution done next, you know. Yeah,
4:22
Speaker 2: it makes sense to me that religious types would be like, no,
4:24
Speaker 2: we've got to like add this ritual to it, to
4:27
Speaker 2: that ritual to it to give it meaning, you know,
4:29
Speaker 2: or else it's what's the point of it kind of
4:32
Speaker 2: thing aside just taking a life.
4:34
Speaker 1: No, that's that's a good point. Like the Puritans, certainly
4:37
Speaker 1: they almost have like celebrations of like, hey, you're you're
4:40
Speaker 1: going back to God, so let's throw a party.
4:43
Speaker 2: Can't you just see the condemned like getting elbowed in
4:46
Speaker 2: the ribs like.
4:46
Speaker 1: Wright Man lighting up.
4:47
Speaker 2: It's a party.
4:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, look easy for you to say, goody, goody Clark, goody.
4:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess Clark will do. Yeah, I can't think
4:59
Speaker 2: of anything better, So.
5:00
Speaker 1: Goodie Bryant, you just fire it right back at me.
5:03
Speaker 2: Trying to Puritan up the you know Clark. Oh sure,
5:08
Speaker 2: I guess you could spell with a Y and an
5:09
Speaker 2: E or something weird like that.
5:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're goodie Mather.
5:12
Speaker 2: Yeah you can all right. So yeah, the Puritans were
5:17
Speaker 2: big time into that kind of thing, but they were
5:20
Speaker 2: far from the only ones to hole kind of like
5:22
Speaker 2: a communal or at least a bit of a feast,
5:25
Speaker 2: a communal meal or a feast. I guess Germany was
5:30
Speaker 2: really big on ritualizing it as well, which makes sense
5:34
Speaker 2: because they were pretty big into Protestantism by this time.
5:37
Speaker 2: This is the eighteenth century when Frankfurt used to give
5:40
Speaker 2: out the hangman's meal, which is a pretty lavish feast.
5:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, sounds like it. There was one they described in
5:47
Speaker 1: seventeen seventy two from a murderer named Susannah Margaret Brandt,
5:53
Speaker 1: who had and this is kind of gross to read
5:57
Speaker 1: out loud, but there were six officials to eat this
6:00
Speaker 1: meal with Susannah. But it was three pounds of fried sausages.
6:04
Speaker 2: Check.
6:05
Speaker 1: So far not too bad. Ten pounds of beef doesn't
6:09
Speaker 1: say I was prepared six pounds of baked carp It's
6:13
Speaker 1: koy you realize twelve pounds of carp is COI I
6:20
Speaker 1: don't think I knew that.
6:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gonna, I'm gonna that's a hill I'll die on.
6:24
Speaker 2: I'm probably wrong. I realized in the last episode in
6:27
Speaker 2: Mad I did bad math right off of the Big Bat.
6:31
Speaker 2: But this is I'm gonna stay with this fact.
6:33
Speaker 1: Well there's no math involved in baked carp No, but
6:36
Speaker 1: I could you should be wrong. Twelve pounds of larded
6:42
Speaker 1: roast veal.
6:43
Speaker 2: That's a new one to me.
6:45
Speaker 1: Soup, cabbage, bread, a sweet, and eight and a half
6:49
Speaker 1: measures of seventeen forty eight wine. I tried to find
6:54
Speaker 1: out what a measure was in seventeen forty eight. The
6:59
Speaker 1: best I could find that it was like five or
7:02
Speaker 1: six pints. But I don't know if that's right or not.
7:05
Speaker 1: It's a lot.
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Speaker 2: Who knows? So a lot of wine, yeah, for sure.
7:09
Speaker 2: And that's an ongoing thing, Chuck. You know, getting the
7:12
Speaker 2: person drunk before you execute them used to be like
7:17
Speaker 2: a long standing tradition, and not just in Europe, you know,
7:20
Speaker 2: like the I believe the INCA when they sacrificed children
7:26
Speaker 2: just basically left them out to die of exposure. They
7:28
Speaker 2: would get them high usually or possibly drunk on some
7:33
Speaker 2: sort of wine. And as we'll see, that is not
7:36
Speaker 2: something that's a part of executions today. That that is
7:41
Speaker 2: there's just something wrong with that. We've decided, even though
7:44
Speaker 2: it makes a lot of sense. But I guess if
7:46
Speaker 2: you're trying to exact retribution, you want that person like
7:49
Speaker 2: fully cognizant of what's happening to them when it's happening
7:53
Speaker 2: to them. But that's a kind of a new idea
7:55
Speaker 2: from what I can tell.
7:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, the same as the last cigarette. You know, you
7:58
Speaker 1: have the sort of image in your head of the
8:01
Speaker 1: firing squad, like someone going and putting a cigarette in
8:03
Speaker 1: someone's mouth. But even cigarettes, you know, if they're if
8:07
Speaker 1: they're not on the prison menu as far as being allowed,
8:10
Speaker 1: then they don't allow it.
8:12
Speaker 2: That's right. I wondered, I wonder why I was researching this.
8:15
Speaker 2: If I would I if I could have a last cigarette,
8:18
Speaker 2: if I were being executed, if I would do it,
8:20
Speaker 2: and I decided I wouldn't, I wouldn't die feeling like,
8:24
Speaker 2: oh man, I'll let this get to me again, So
8:27
Speaker 2: I just wouldn't do it.
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Speaker 1: Oh, good for you. That means you've really quit.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, agreed. If you wouldn't smoke a cigarette right before
8:35
Speaker 2: your execution, you've quit smoking cigarettes.
8:38
Speaker 1: That's a good It's sort of a baggy T shirt,
8:40
Speaker 1: but not bad.
8:42
Speaker 2: Well, the big baggy T shirts are back, the ones
8:44
Speaker 2: from the nineties. Everybody's wearing those now. Yeah, so you
8:47
Speaker 2: could fit that on it, are they really? Yeah?
8:51
Speaker 1: All right, because I couldn't tell because you've been messing
8:53
Speaker 1: with me a lot.
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Speaker 2: No, Oh, it's true. Somebody wrote in it was like,
8:56
Speaker 2: please stop doing that.
8:57
Speaker 1: I didn't understand what she meant at first, but I
9:00
Speaker 1: was like, oh, you mean when like Josh said something
9:02
Speaker 1: and he says, I'm just kidding. Yeah, she seems you
9:04
Speaker 1: pretty mad about it.
9:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, she didn't like that at all, So like.
9:07
Speaker 1: Twelve year old boys, that's true, which I took as
9:10
Speaker 1: a compliment. In London, there was a tradition of and
9:17
Speaker 1: this was in I guess the like late seventeen hundreds,
9:20
Speaker 1: early eighteen hundreds. I think there was a tradition of
9:23
Speaker 1: letting the prisoner actually like have friends over and celebrate
9:28
Speaker 1: and then when they stepped up to the gallows, they
9:30
Speaker 1: would have a quote great bowl of ale to drink
9:33
Speaker 1: at their pleasure as their last refreshment in life.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, that's one of the suggested origins for falling off
9:40
Speaker 2: the wagon. That you were taken to the trawls in
9:42
Speaker 2: a wagon, remember, and then yeah, get off the wagon
9:44
Speaker 2: to have that last drink. Button's right. They decided that
9:47
Speaker 2: probably wasn't it.
9:49
Speaker 1: In the US, this came about formally sort of at
9:53
Speaker 1: the end of the nineteenth century when public executions and
9:57
Speaker 1: big sort of hey, let's everyone meet in the town
10:00
Speaker 1: square and watch someone be hanged, was replaced by a
10:03
Speaker 1: little more private affair, a little more standardized, with not
10:07
Speaker 1: as many people around, and they started some prisons started
10:11
Speaker 1: publishing in newspapers because it sold papers what people wanted
10:15
Speaker 1: to eat.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, and they kind of had to because if not,
10:19
Speaker 2: then that's just again the state executing people because the
10:24
Speaker 2: state can or the states decided the point of an
10:27
Speaker 2: execution is it's the states carrying it out on behalf
10:31
Speaker 2: of the community. And so since they stopped involving the
10:36
Speaker 2: community directly by saying you can come watch this person
10:39
Speaker 2: be killed because we're killing them for you, they have to.
10:43
Speaker 2: They had to share enough details to say, we did
10:46
Speaker 2: this for you guys, and here's the details of what happened.
10:50
Speaker 2: And one of the things that kind of came out
10:52
Speaker 2: of that custom and new custom in the I guess
10:55
Speaker 2: late nineteenth century, is sharing what the person requested for
10:59
Speaker 2: their last meet.
11:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then what followed was like, should we still
11:04
Speaker 1: do this? You still hear about this stuff every now
11:08
Speaker 1: and then, but it's not as codified. I don't think.
11:12
Speaker 1: Some states used to have websites that had details like this.
11:17
Speaker 1: Texas stopped doing that in the early two thousands because
11:22
Speaker 1: people complained. Arizona apparently still has a web page even
11:27
Speaker 1: though the last last information informational entry was I think
11:31
Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen. So this idea that people want to
11:37
Speaker 1: hear about this has always been intriguing slash controversial.
11:41
Speaker 2: Right by the way. Texas stopped doing it because people
11:45
Speaker 2: complained that they were taking up too much of the
11:47
Speaker 2: internet with those details. Because they execute so many people.
11:51
Speaker 1: I mean, you can't talk about executions without talking Texas.
11:55
Speaker 1: That's true.
11:56
Speaker 2: Spell it without the ex in both Texas and execution.
12:00
Speaker 1: Yeah, and we're gonna talk about Texas again later of course.
12:03
Speaker 2: Uh, yes, should we take our early break, Yeah, let's
12:07
Speaker 2: do it. Well, we're gonna do it, everybody, Okay, so Chuck.
12:44
Speaker 2: There's some some questions about the purpose of last meal,
12:49
Speaker 2: like it's one of those things that you know, it's
12:52
Speaker 2: not a part of people's everyday life, and when it is,
12:54
Speaker 2: it's you know, arm's length enough these days, Like we
12:57
Speaker 2: were saying that it's just it could be a part
12:59
Speaker 2: of party conversation even but it's if you stop and
13:02
Speaker 2: think about it, like there's a good question, like why
13:05
Speaker 2: why would you do that? There's a very famous, uh quote,
13:11
Speaker 2: I guess from a guy who was executed in Arkansas
13:14
Speaker 2: in I think the nineties, who said, it doesn't make
13:18
Speaker 2: any sense because you're basically putting it's like putting gasoline
13:21
Speaker 2: in a car that's got no motor, that there's no
13:25
Speaker 2: reason for this person to need food. Right, we eat
13:30
Speaker 2: technically so that we can make it through the next
13:33
Speaker 2: day and the next day and the next day. It's
13:35
Speaker 2: like how we gain energy. Once you're executed, you don't
13:38
Speaker 2: need that energy any longer. So why would we feed
13:41
Speaker 2: people a last meal? If it makes no sense If
13:45
Speaker 2: you step back and look at it as a purely
13:47
Speaker 2: functional thing.
13:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, if you're we can go back to Meyer, who,
13:51
Speaker 1: like I said, has studied a lot on this, and
13:53
Speaker 1: she has a few reasons that you know, and all
13:55
Speaker 1: of these are plausible because it's the kind of thing
13:57
Speaker 1: where there is no like quote, you know, correct answer,
14:01
Speaker 1: but so people can sort of speculate. And she said,
14:05
Speaker 1: you know, like you kind of hinted at earlier, like
14:07
Speaker 1: it it would just be extermination and have no meaning.
14:10
Speaker 1: So people like to attach meaning to things. It might
14:15
Speaker 1: be help the prison officials make them feel better, like hey,
14:21
Speaker 1: like it's nothing personal, it's my job. Here's this nice meal.
14:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, not in like a direct way like they that's
14:27
Speaker 2: why the officials are doing it, but almost like it's
14:29
Speaker 2: there's a subtext to it.
14:31
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, exactly, this one makes a lot of sense.
14:35
Speaker 1: Maybe it's even like a tool to keep the prisoner
14:38
Speaker 1: passive and like, hey, you know, like the threat that
14:42
Speaker 1: that could go away if you don't behave yourself on
14:44
Speaker 1: the way out.
14:45
Speaker 2: Yeah. And there's a guy named Brent Cunningham who wrote
14:48
Speaker 2: a really good article on this in Lapham's Quarterly, and
14:52
Speaker 2: he kind of concluded something that dovetails with what Meyer
14:55
Speaker 2: was saying, that we were showing that the person has humanity,
15:01
Speaker 2: so it's adding meaning to the whole process. But his
15:04
Speaker 2: was kind of a darker take on it, that we're
15:07
Speaker 2: adding meaning to the process because we have stripped the
15:12
Speaker 2: person of their humanity so thoroughly while they were in prison,
15:15
Speaker 2: they were in number, they were like kept in a cage,
15:18
Speaker 2: they were not allowed to do stuff without permission. That
15:23
Speaker 2: by allowing them a last meal, we're re bestowing humanity
15:28
Speaker 2: back on them, so we see them as a person again,
15:30
Speaker 2: so we can then kill them to get the maximum
15:33
Speaker 2: retribution out of killing them. Right, Does that make sense,
15:36
Speaker 2: Like we're humanizing them so we can get the most
15:39
Speaker 2: satisfaction out of their death, because if they're not humanized,
15:43
Speaker 2: then there's no free will, there's no We're just killing
15:48
Speaker 2: like a machine or something like that, so there's not
15:51
Speaker 2: as much closure, I guess as if we if we
15:55
Speaker 2: didn't give them a last meal. That was his take,
15:58
Speaker 2: and that really resonated with.
15:59
Speaker 1: Me totally, Like, enjoy that steak, buddy, because you know
16:03
Speaker 1: you're getting what's coming to you. That kind of attitude.
16:06
Speaker 2: Hopefully they don't say things like that to people while
16:09
Speaker 2: they're eating that last steak, But it's socially speaking. You.
16:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was talking about like the person at home,
16:15
Speaker 1: not necessarily the server.
16:17
Speaker 2: Of the state. I know you are, but I could
16:18
Speaker 2: not let that one pass and not jump on it.
16:22
Speaker 1: Refusing a last meal is something that happens all the
16:25
Speaker 1: time and always has as an active protest. There was
16:29
Speaker 1: one person named Lawrence Hayes who was on death row
16:32
Speaker 1: but I think eventually was found innocent and was a
16:37
Speaker 1: member a founding member of Campaign to End the Death
16:39
Speaker 1: Penalty who basically said, yeah, I wouldn't have taken a
16:43
Speaker 1: last meal because it's a gimmick just to make us
16:45
Speaker 1: feel better about this like terrible process.
16:47
Speaker 2: Yeah.
16:48
Speaker 1: And then there there is one study of close to
16:51
Speaker 1: two hundred and fifty people who are executed over about
16:54
Speaker 1: a four year period in the two thousands found that
16:57
Speaker 1: twenty nine percent of people who insist they were innocent
17:01
Speaker 1: declined to last meal, compared to eight percent who said not, Like, yeah,
17:04
Speaker 1: I did it. Yeah, so that's a pretty big dif.
17:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a huge difference too. And it makes sense too.
17:10
Speaker 2: I wouldn't want anything from the people who are about
17:12
Speaker 2: to unjustly kill me. I wouldn't want to be in
17:14
Speaker 2: their dead at all. Yeah, that's what I'm guessing one
17:19
Speaker 2: of the reasons why they would protest it. At least
17:22
Speaker 2: that's why I would.
17:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think to draw a little more attention.
17:26
Speaker 2: Plus I would also kind of manipulate them into offering
17:30
Speaker 2: me a cigarette, so I could be like, no, I
17:32
Speaker 2: don't want it, you can keep your stupid cigarette.
17:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then say, and I used to love smoking.
17:38
Speaker 2: Right, but you guys ruined it for me.
17:41
Speaker 1: There are a few legal scholars a guy named Andrew Davies,
17:45
Speaker 1: Sabrina Atkins, and Sarah Gerwig Moore who about thirteen years
17:50
Speaker 1: ago and twenty ten looked at sort of the rules
17:53
Speaker 1: on the books in the thirty five states who are
17:56
Speaker 1: still punishing capitally and twenty ten, two of them hadn't
18:05
Speaker 1: executed anyone, even they were still allowed to in decades,
18:07
Speaker 1: and they didn't have protocols. Of the remaining thirty three.
18:11
Speaker 1: Fifteen had no specific rules of that last meal. Some
18:15
Speaker 1: had suggestions. Five states had spending limits from fifty bucks
18:21
Speaker 1: in Cali all the way to fifteen dollars in Oklahoma.
18:26
Speaker 1: Georgia had some specifics like, hey, if they want a lobster,
18:30
Speaker 1: we're going to go down and get it at Public's.
18:32
Speaker 1: We're not going to fly it down for Maine or
18:34
Speaker 1: something like that. Sure, and then I think a few
18:40
Speaker 1: states three of them would deny the meal altogether and said,
18:45
Speaker 1: you're gonna like, you'll get a last meal, but it's
18:48
Speaker 1: going to be whatever is on the prison menu, Like
18:50
Speaker 1: nothing special for you.
18:52
Speaker 2: I know, couldn't you when you be like, man, cabbage
18:55
Speaker 2: really had to be cabbage tonight tonight? It just seems,
19:01
Speaker 2: you know, like it's that to me is worse than
19:04
Speaker 2: denying a last meal altogether. For some reason. It's just
19:08
Speaker 2: I don't know, I can't quite put my finger on it,
19:10
Speaker 2: but just being like, nope, you get what everybody else
19:12
Speaker 2: gets for your last meal. I just feel like it's
19:15
Speaker 2: worse than saying no, you can't have one at all
19:17
Speaker 2: for some somehow.
19:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's not you know, you sort of get
19:22
Speaker 1: the idea from movies that they like, you know, wipe
19:25
Speaker 1: their mouth with from the lobster and then like get
19:29
Speaker 1: up and walk down the hall toward the execution chamber, right,
19:33
Speaker 1: And that's not happening. Basically, It's usually like the day
19:36
Speaker 1: before because I imagine executing someone on a big I mean,
19:41
Speaker 1: some of these meals, as we'll see, are humongous. It's
19:44
Speaker 1: probably not a good idea for a lot of reasons.
19:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can actually interfere with the effects of the
19:50
Speaker 2: drugs that they use to execute people, now, you know. Yeah,
19:55
Speaker 2: and again, remember we said that like, the more religious
19:58
Speaker 2: a group is, or like state or something like that,
20:02
Speaker 2: more likely they are to ritualize executions. And apparently that
20:06
Speaker 2: study also found that the more fundamentalist Christian the state
20:13
Speaker 2: population was, as well as the least amount spent per
20:18
Speaker 2: prison in MA overall, and the ones with the largest
20:22
Speaker 2: prison populations where those three dovetailed, they typically were the
20:25
Speaker 2: most generous with the last meals.
20:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, really interesting.
20:30
Speaker 2: But Meyer had a word for that. She called it
20:33
Speaker 2: retributive ritualism. And you're not supposed to say it like
20:37
Speaker 2: porky pig. You just say retributive ritualism.
20:43
Speaker 1: That's funny. I see. I knew there would be a
20:45
Speaker 1: joker to in here. That's in good taste. Sure, Texas,
20:49
Speaker 1: which we said we would get back to, they changed
20:54
Speaker 1: things in twenty eleven. Before this is they were one
20:58
Speaker 1: of the states that were like in you just get
21:00
Speaker 1: the regular prison food whatever that is. But what really
21:05
Speaker 1: changed was when a man named Lawrence Russell Brewer, there's
21:10
Speaker 1: always three names requested, and I'm going to read all
21:14
Speaker 1: of these because this is sort of indicative of how
21:18
Speaker 1: ridiculous these meals can get. Two chicken fried steaks, triple cheeseburger,
21:24
Speaker 1: an omelet with ground beef, tomatoes, onions, bell peppers, and jalapenos,
21:31
Speaker 1: fried okra with ketchup, three fajitas, pint of bluebell ice cream,
21:37
Speaker 1: a pound of barbecue with a loaf of white bread,
21:40
Speaker 1: a meat lover's pizza, three root beers, and peanut butter
21:46
Speaker 1: fudge with crushed peanuts. Yeah, a whole slab of it.
21:53
Speaker 1: Brewer refused to eat the food, and it seems like
21:57
Speaker 1: it was sort of the waste of time and money.
22:01
Speaker 1: Really got under the skin of a Texas State Senator
22:04
Speaker 1: name John Whitmyer, and he had kind of had enough
22:09
Speaker 1: at that point and was like, no, we got to
22:11
Speaker 1: cut this off. This is a ridiculous privilege that shouldn't
22:14
Speaker 1: be allowed.
22:15
Speaker 2: Yeah, he spotted an easy way to energize his base.
22:20
Speaker 2: So he wrote to the Texas Criminal Justice Division and
22:23
Speaker 2: said so he said something like, quote, is it is
22:26
Speaker 2: extremely inappropriate to give a person sentenced to death such
22:29
Speaker 2: a privilege, and that he pointed out, and this is
22:32
Speaker 2: very important that Lawrence Russell Brewer, who was one of
22:36
Speaker 2: the white supremacist scumbags who dragged James Lee Boyd to
22:39
Speaker 2: death behind a pickup truck in the nineties, that he
22:44
Speaker 2: never gave James Lee Boyd the opportunity for a last meal.
22:48
Speaker 2: That was his reasoning, and that is very sound reasoning.
22:52
Speaker 2: But what John Whitmer, the state senator from Texas, is
22:55
Speaker 2: missing is that one of the points of a last
22:58
Speaker 2: meal is for the state to show that it's murder.
23:03
Speaker 2: Its execution of this person is different from the crime
23:07
Speaker 2: that the person's being executed for the state is saying like,
23:11
Speaker 2: you have to die, but we can still treat you
23:14
Speaker 2: humanly even though you didn't treat your victim humanly, and
23:17
Speaker 2: so it elevates the state morally. And that seemed to
23:20
Speaker 2: be totally lost on John Whitmyer, because one of the
23:22
Speaker 2: reasons he saw for not giving somebody that meal is
23:27
Speaker 2: that they hadn't given that to their victim, that opportunity.
23:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really interesting to think of it that way.
23:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it worked, and they stopped serving last meals
23:37
Speaker 2: in Texas thanks to again Lawrence Russell Brewer, one of
23:41
Speaker 2: the white supremacists comebacks who dragged James Lee Boyd behind
23:44
Speaker 2: a pickup truck to death.
23:46
Speaker 1: That's right. When this happened, there was a former inmate
23:50
Speaker 1: who cooked these last meals as part of his job
23:54
Speaker 1: in prison, and then I think afterward even named Brian Price,
23:59
Speaker 1: who said, you know what, I'll continue to make these meals.
24:02
Speaker 1: It won't cost the state a penny. But Texas said, no,
24:05
Speaker 1: thank you, We're not going to take you up on
24:07
Speaker 1: that offer. And apparently Price got a lot of emails
24:10
Speaker 1: from people like supporting him and saying, you know, we
24:13
Speaker 1: think he did the right thing and making a humane
24:17
Speaker 1: effort at least, and ended up writing a cookbook called
24:21
Speaker 1: Meals to Die For.
24:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, you said there'd be some tasteless joke or tasteful
24:25
Speaker 2: jokes in here. That was not one of them.
24:27
Speaker 1: I mean, that was Brian Price's joke. Right.
24:29
Speaker 2: I know we can distance ourselves from that. Yeah, but yeah,
24:32
Speaker 2: he cooked two hundred and eighteen last meals in ten
24:36
Speaker 2: years again in Texas. Right, And I guess when he
24:41
Speaker 2: was offering to do this for free, like he was
24:43
Speaker 2: no longer a prisoner, but he was willing to come
24:45
Speaker 2: to the prison yeah, and bring his own ingredients and
24:48
Speaker 2: cook on his own time, and the state still said no.
24:51
Speaker 2: And again, the reason why they said is that it's
24:54
Speaker 2: not really money, it's the sentiment behind the whole thing
24:57
Speaker 2: that they're opposed to, so they turned them down. But
25:00
Speaker 2: in his book, he kind of chronicled with some of
25:02
Speaker 2: the people typically asked for, and cheeseburger in French fries
25:07
Speaker 2: is like one of the biggest or one of the
25:10
Speaker 2: most frequent requests. But also there were those ones that
25:14
Speaker 2: were kind of fancy, like lobster, shrimp or something like
25:18
Speaker 2: that people wanted as their last meal. But because he
25:21
Speaker 2: had to work from the ingredients in the prison kitchen,
25:24
Speaker 2: they didn't have lobster or shrimp typically on hand, so
25:28
Speaker 2: he would just try to get creative with it. And
25:30
Speaker 2: apparently at first this was his job. He was tasked
25:33
Speaker 2: with this, and he wasn't very comfortable with it because
25:35
Speaker 2: he believed in the death penalty, and I think he
25:38
Speaker 2: felt a bit like a scumbag cooking for a scumbag
25:41
Speaker 2: he was about to die. And then he had a
25:44
Speaker 2: conversation with a guy whose job it was to clean
25:46
Speaker 2: up the execution room after executions, and he said that
25:51
Speaker 2: cleaning up the actual execution room itself never really bothered him.
25:55
Speaker 2: What bothered him was cleaning up like the tear stains
25:59
Speaker 2: and the lipstick stains off of the window to the
26:02
Speaker 2: execution room that the family members left behind. That that
26:04
Speaker 2: really stuck with us. And so that conversation with that
26:08
Speaker 2: guy really stuck with Price, and it kind of changed
26:12
Speaker 2: his view of the whole thing, so that he started
26:14
Speaker 2: to think of imagining the person he was cooking for
26:17
Speaker 2: as one of his family members because he was thinking
26:19
Speaker 2: of the family and apparently eventually changed his mind on
26:21
Speaker 2: the death penalty altogether.
26:23
Speaker 1: Oh wow. Yeah, So we talked about what you would
26:28
Speaker 1: call like status food. He said, shrimp and lobster and
26:31
Speaker 1: you know, like caviare and you know, stuff like that.
26:34
Speaker 1: That's a common request.
26:35
Speaker 2: I said, fancy food.
26:38
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but Livy called it status food.
26:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I know that's what it's supposed to be called.
26:42
Speaker 1: And I would agree, And it is fancy. I mean,
26:45
Speaker 1: what's fancier than a sea spider?
26:48
Speaker 2: Right? Is sea cockroach?
26:50
Speaker 1: Was it cockroach?
26:51
Speaker 2: Yeah?
26:52
Speaker 1: Oh okay, I thought were spiders anyway, not literally thought
26:55
Speaker 1: they were spiders.
26:56
Speaker 2: There are sea spiders and they're one of the most
26:58
Speaker 2: terrifying things on this planet.
27:01
Speaker 1: Oh sure, oh man, but not as tasty as a lobster.
27:05
Speaker 1: Probably not you into lobster.
27:07
Speaker 2: I like lobster. It's fine. I'm not like Gaga for it,
27:10
Speaker 2: but yeah, I'll eat. I'll ead a good lobster. I
27:14
Speaker 2: public's lobster bisc out of a plastic container the other day,
27:17
Speaker 2: So yeah, I guess I do kind of like lobster.
27:19
Speaker 1: Oh man. They sell this wish you in the name
27:21
Speaker 1: of the company. There's a chowder, a claim chowder, and
27:24
Speaker 1: a lobster bisc then the frozen aisle.
27:27
Speaker 2: I'm not tried. I know what you're talking about them?
27:29
Speaker 1: Is that the one? It's good you drop the whole
27:30
Speaker 1: bag in boiling water and just let it sort of
27:32
Speaker 1: flaw itself and cook.
27:33
Speaker 2: I think they also make a gumbo, and if it's
27:36
Speaker 2: the same company, the gumbo's not that good.
27:38
Speaker 1: M the bisk and the chowder are good.
27:40
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll try them because I gave up on them
27:42
Speaker 2: after the gumbo because I really wanted some gumbo. I
27:45
Speaker 2: was like score when I saw it and I made it,
27:48
Speaker 2: and I was like, I still want gumbo.
27:51
Speaker 1: I will love lobster and like a bisk or certain
27:55
Speaker 1: other things, but I don't know that I've ever ordered
27:59
Speaker 1: a lobster or like a lobster tail.
28:02
Speaker 2: Oh, I have Red Lobster.
28:06
Speaker 1: Probably, so for real, that was like too fancy for us.
28:10
Speaker 2: The really, you don't go to Red Lobster for the
28:13
Speaker 2: actual seafood. You go for the salad with their rants dressing,
28:17
Speaker 2: which is off the chain, or and or their cheddar biscuits,
28:22
Speaker 2: which if you get them when they're fresh, they're really good.
28:25
Speaker 1: Do you want to know something funny. One of the
28:27
Speaker 1: only times I've literally ever eaten at Red Lobster was
28:30
Speaker 1: with you.
28:32
Speaker 2: When did we eat at Red Lobster?
28:34
Speaker 1: We went? I think when Discovery owned us. I think
28:39
Speaker 1: we went in Silver Springs, Maryland when we were there
28:43
Speaker 1: for a meeting or something. You were like, let's go
28:45
Speaker 1: to Red Lobster. Let's go to Red Lobster.
28:47
Speaker 2: I actually remember that now.
28:48
Speaker 1: Yeah. And we had those Cheddar biscuits and man, those
28:51
Speaker 1: are good.
28:51
Speaker 2: They are God, I'm glad you're one and only Red
28:53
Speaker 2: Lobster experience with me.
28:55
Speaker 1: Then, Yeah, it was too that was too ritzy for
28:57
Speaker 1: us as a teacher kid.
29:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know, they just needed what to spend
29:04
Speaker 2: their money on in red lob service. Part of it it.
29:07
Speaker 1: Was probably a special meal for you guys there, right,
29:10
Speaker 1: yeah or not?
29:11
Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean we typically Mom made like chicken, ola
29:14
Speaker 2: king and pepper steak and stuff like. Sure. You know,
29:18
Speaker 2: it occurred to me, Chuck, as we were having this
29:20
Speaker 2: conversation that we're talking about food and food we love.
29:23
Speaker 2: Is that distasteful to talk about that have that kind
29:26
Speaker 2: of tangent in an episode about last meals and executions?
29:30
Speaker 1: I don't think so. It just it can live it
29:32
Speaker 1: as its own little side conversation.
29:34
Speaker 2: I just wanted to gut check it.
29:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think we're okay. But how we got started
29:40
Speaker 1: on that was status foods or symbolic requests. So you know,
29:44
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about some of these over the
29:46
Speaker 1: years that have been made symbolically. There was a murderer
29:50
Speaker 1: named Victor Figure in Iowa, I think the last Iowa
29:55
Speaker 1: and the last federal inmate to be executed previous to Timothy.
30:00
Speaker 1: They yeah, exactly, as for a single olive with a
30:03
Speaker 1: pit saying he hoped that the fruit of the tree
30:06
Speaker 1: of peace would grow from his grave, and he.
30:08
Speaker 2: Kind of got his wish because it was thirty seven
30:11
Speaker 2: years before somebody was executed federally.
30:14
Speaker 1: Yeah. What about Gary Gilmour famously from the book to
30:18
Speaker 1: the Executioner song in movie.
30:21
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was executed in Utah, and one of the
30:24
Speaker 2: reasons why he became so famous was twofold one, he
30:28
Speaker 2: insisted that he'd be executed by firing squad, which Utah
30:31
Speaker 2: was one of the few states that still had that
30:33
Speaker 2: on the books, and that's how they executed him. And
30:36
Speaker 2: then two by refusing to appeal his death penalty despite
30:43
Speaker 2: the entire Apparently there's a lot of public sentiment against
30:46
Speaker 2: commuting this guy's sentence, but he was like, no, I
30:49
Speaker 2: want to go along with it, So he was. I
30:52
Speaker 2: guess there was enough public attention on it that he
30:54
Speaker 2: was given the special privilege of having friends and family visit.
30:58
Speaker 2: And I guess Johnny Cash called up and sung to
31:00
Speaker 2: him over the phone.
31:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was his uncle had snuck in Jack Daniels
31:06
Speaker 1: and this guy. Somehow his defense attorney arranged for Johnny
31:11
Speaker 1: Cash to call and Johnny Cash sang a Stonewall Jackson's
31:16
Speaker 1: hall called don't be Angry. That apparently he kind of
31:19
Speaker 1: dueted with Gary Gilmour over the phone man. That guy
31:23
Speaker 1: was so cool, Johnny.
31:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, he had a real thing for prisons though, didn't he.
31:28
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, sure, I mean he You know, he performed
31:30
Speaker 1: in prisons very famously because he was in prison at
31:33
Speaker 1: one point himself.
31:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, and sometimes I mean he would go to the
31:36
Speaker 2: trouble like if he was a little hard up, he'd
31:39
Speaker 2: go to the mall and find that little room where
31:41
Speaker 2: they keep shoplifters and perform for them once in a
31:43
Speaker 2: while as well.
31:45
Speaker 1: I know, you're kidding. He didn't get me this time.
31:49
Speaker 2: I wasn't trying.
31:50
Speaker 1: I was so close though.
31:52
Speaker 2: No. Yeah, that Johnny Cash took it upon himself to
31:56
Speaker 2: go sing for shoplifters at the mall when he couldn't
31:59
Speaker 2: find a prison gig.
32:01
Speaker 1: I mean, it sounds ridiculous when you say it like that.
32:04
Speaker 2: Wow, I can really sell it.
32:06
Speaker 1: Huh. Yeah, you're good at what you do. Let me
32:08
Speaker 1: say that, thanks, Chuck. What else? James Edward Smith was
32:12
Speaker 1: executed in nineteen ninety and requested voodoo dirt. It's called
32:18
Speaker 1: Rakunda dirt, and they said dirt. Yeah, they said no,
32:22
Speaker 1: you can't have that. He wanted to prevent his soul
32:25
Speaker 1: from remaining on earth as a ghost. They said, no,
32:29
Speaker 1: have yogurt instead, and he said, all right, well you
32:33
Speaker 1: will be haunted by me then for three hundred years.
32:36
Speaker 2: And he was apparently a voodoo priest. I saw a
32:40
Speaker 2: self professed voodoo priest, so I don't know what that means,
32:43
Speaker 2: but yeah, he was not very happy that they wouldn't
32:46
Speaker 2: give him that.
32:47
Speaker 1: Should we go through a few more of these.
32:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's one that we just could not do this
32:53
Speaker 2: episode and not mentioned because it's one of the most
32:55
Speaker 2: messed up things that we'll talk about today in a
32:58
Speaker 2: podcast about messed up things. A guy named Ricky Ray
33:03
Speaker 2: Rector who was executed under presidential candidate Bill Clinton's watch
33:08
Speaker 2: when he was a governor of Arkansas, and Ricky Ray
33:12
Speaker 2: Rector had always been a little bit cognitively challenged. He
33:19
Speaker 2: went on a killing spree basically over four days, he
33:23
Speaker 2: killed five people, just randomly in most cases, and then
33:27
Speaker 2: before the cops could get to him, he tried to
33:30
Speaker 2: end his own life by turning the gun on himself,
33:33
Speaker 2: but he missed and he made himself like apparently he
33:40
Speaker 2: then had the cognition or cognitive abilities of a kid
33:43
Speaker 2: about the age of four, from that point on, and
33:45
Speaker 2: that's the shape he was in when he went to trial.
33:48
Speaker 1: Yeah, lobotomized him basically, yeah, accidentally. Yeah.
33:53
Speaker 2: So the advocates for him said, no, we don't execute
33:57
Speaker 2: people who are cognitively challenged. If they can't understand what's
34:01
Speaker 2: going on, why they're being killed, we don't kill them.
34:04
Speaker 2: That's just what we do in the United States. And
34:06
Speaker 2: Bill Clinton said no, we're going to do this anyway,
34:10
Speaker 2: and they did, Chuck, They executed Ricky Ray Rector in
34:13
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety two. And that's not the that's not the
34:17
Speaker 2: thing about this story. There's something that's just about as
34:21
Speaker 2: haunting as it can get.
34:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, because while he was eating the meal, there was
34:27
Speaker 1: a pecan pie was part of that meal. He pushed
34:29
Speaker 1: it aside and said, I want to save that for later.
34:33
Speaker 2: That was the understanding of what was happening to him.
34:35
Speaker 2: He knew he was going to get executed, but he
34:38
Speaker 2: was saving the pcompie for afterward.
34:40
Speaker 1: Yeah.
34:41
Speaker 2: Isn't that nuts? Yeah, So that's Ricky Reer recordor what
34:46
Speaker 2: about John Wayne.
34:46
Speaker 1: Gacy Gaysey was a one time manager at Kentucky Fried Chicken,
34:53
Speaker 1: So he got Kentucky Fried Chicken original recipe French fries.
34:58
Speaker 1: He got some fried shrimp too, got a pound of
34:59
Speaker 1: straw Berry's and some diet coke. I went through and
35:03
Speaker 1: looked at a lot of other people in lists, and
35:07
Speaker 1: one thing I found weirdly, And of course I'm sure
35:11
Speaker 1: you could find it if you really really searched. But
35:14
Speaker 1: I saw a lot of Burger King and Pizza Hut.
35:17
Speaker 1: But I didn't see one McDonald's.
35:19
Speaker 2: Oh weird.
35:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I don't know if it was just the
35:22
Speaker 1: you know, the the twenty or thirty that you know,
35:25
Speaker 1: I kind of scanned through on the internet, but a
35:27
Speaker 1: lot of Pizza Hut, pizzas and Burger King cheeseburgers.
35:31
Speaker 2: Probably because most prisons have a McDonald's in him and
35:34
Speaker 2: we just on the outside don't know it, you know,
35:37
Speaker 2: like a hospital of like a Chick fil a. Right,
35:40
Speaker 2: So there's one more I think we should talk about
35:42
Speaker 2: before we move on, if you don't mind.
35:45
Speaker 1: Sure.
35:45
Speaker 2: Philip ray workman, Okay, did you hear his case or
35:49
Speaker 2: see his Yeah?
35:51
Speaker 1: This is the vegetarian.
35:53
Speaker 2: Yeah, he his for his last meal. He wanted a
35:56
Speaker 2: vegetarian pizza be delivered to any homeless person nearby the prison,
36:01
Speaker 2: and the warden and the prison officials said, no, we
36:04
Speaker 2: don't contribute to charity, so no, we're not going to
36:07
Speaker 2: do that. And Philip ray Workman said, well, I'm not
36:09
Speaker 2: going to eat anything then, but it's Tennessee, right, Yeah,
36:12
Speaker 2: And so his story got out. Apparently between the time
36:16
Speaker 2: he requested and was denied and the time he was executed,
36:20
Speaker 2: it made it into the media what he'd done and
36:22
Speaker 2: what the response had been, and apparently around the country
36:26
Speaker 2: people on the day of his execution ordered vegetarian pizzas
36:30
Speaker 2: and had them sent to homeless shelters all around Tennessee.
36:34
Speaker 1: Yeah that's pretty neat. Yeah, I agree. Should we take
36:38
Speaker 1: our second break? Sure? All right, let's take another break,
36:41
Speaker 1: and we're gonna wrap it all up after this. So
37:18
Speaker 1: we talked a little bit about booze and cigarettes. That
37:22
Speaker 1: was a long tradition for you know, hundreds of years,
37:25
Speaker 1: and then kind of went away basically when prison started
37:29
Speaker 1: saying like, hey, you can't have cigarettes smoking his band
37:33
Speaker 1: and booze is just not a good idea to let
37:35
Speaker 1: people drink alcohol, and people still request it from time
37:39
Speaker 1: to time. I think there was a guy in our
37:42
Speaker 1: very own state of Georgian twenty fifteen who wanted a
37:44
Speaker 1: six pack of beer and that was it, and they
37:48
Speaker 1: said no and gave him a meal of fish and
37:51
Speaker 1: grits and beans and coleslaw and cookies and fruit punch instead.
37:56
Speaker 1: What about elsewhere around the world, and that limits it
38:00
Speaker 1: just a handful of countries, because America is one of
38:03
Speaker 1: just a few democratic, industrialized countries that still put people
38:07
Speaker 1: to death.
38:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, a few, meaning exclusively or specifically three. There's South Korea, Japan,
38:13
Speaker 2: and the United States.
38:14
Speaker 1: That's right.
38:15
Speaker 2: And I don't know if this is better or worse.
38:18
Speaker 2: But in Japan, if you're on death row, you don't
38:21
Speaker 2: know the day you're going to be executed until the
38:23
Speaker 2: day you're going to be executed. Which what would you want?
38:28
Speaker 1: Jeez, I don't know.
38:30
Speaker 2: I don't either answer that. I don't know. There's yeah,
38:33
Speaker 2: I don't, I do not know. Imagine like if you
38:36
Speaker 2: did existential trivia and that was a existential trivia question.
38:42
Speaker 1: I would want to know, actually you would, huh, because
38:45
Speaker 1: otherwise I would just constantly be wondering when.
38:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, but if you know, then you're you're counting down
38:51
Speaker 2: the days and do that. Okay, all right, I got
38:54
Speaker 2: you good. I think it's good to know yourself like that. Yeah,
38:57
Speaker 2: But so they don't know when they're going to be
38:59
Speaker 2: exec but when they do, they can have whatever they
39:03
Speaker 2: want to eat. Apparently they're very liberal with that that idea,
39:08
Speaker 2: and that if they don't specify anything, they'll be given cigarettes,
39:13
Speaker 2: drink which I take to mean booze, and cake, which
39:18
Speaker 2: Japanese cake is delightful.
39:20
Speaker 1: Yeah. China is sort of all over the map, and
39:25
Speaker 1: we probably don't even know really what happens to be
39:29
Speaker 1: honest these days. But there are witnesses from like the
39:32
Speaker 1: eighties that's say, like, hey, I saw a mass execution
39:36
Speaker 1: where people were just chained to a post and given
39:38
Speaker 1: a hard boiled egg. Other times bleak. Oh it's yeah,
39:44
Speaker 1: as bleak as it gets. Other times, like there was
39:47
Speaker 1: a soldier in nineteen eighty eighty five who was apparently
39:51
Speaker 1: given a pretty good meal of like meat dumplings. There
39:54
Speaker 1: are other reports of prisoners eating with their executioner, which
39:59
Speaker 1: is not unique to China, that that was sort of
40:02
Speaker 1: an old tradition back in the day as well in
40:04
Speaker 1: different countries.
40:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, called Saint John's blessing.
40:06
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, and it just seems like there is no
40:10
Speaker 1: hard and fast rule in China. It could either be
40:13
Speaker 1: a very sort of lavish thing or almost nothing at all.
40:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, and just real quick before we move on that
40:18
Speaker 2: Saint John's blessing, like it was a socially prescribed thing
40:21
Speaker 2: where before you were executed, you drank with your executioner,
40:25
Speaker 2: like the two of you hung out. Put yourself in
40:28
Speaker 2: that situation. Imagine being on either side of that equation, Like,
40:32
Speaker 2: how would you make it through that.
40:35
Speaker 1: As the executioner or as.
40:37
Speaker 2: The as the condemned.
40:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know. That's tough stuff.
40:42
Speaker 2: Sorry, I know I keep getting philosophical here.
40:45
Speaker 1: I know I don't have answers for all these but you.
40:47
Speaker 2: Are answering them quite well, if you ask me.
40:50
Speaker 1: I appreciate it. One thing I wondered was and I
40:53
Speaker 1: know the answer, so I actually don't wonder. But Timothy
40:57
Speaker 1: McVeigh wanted two pints of Ben and Jerry's Mint chocolate
41:02
Speaker 1: chip and was given that. But you know, Ben and
41:05
Speaker 1: Jerry's is a very sort of progressive lefty company, and
41:09
Speaker 1: I'm sure they didn't like that association.
41:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're very anti bombing.
41:14
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, i'm sure they're probably anti capital punishment,
41:18
Speaker 1: but no, I don't know if they would want that
41:21
Speaker 1: association of like being tied to a capital punishment.
41:26
Speaker 2: Probably not. They probably don't bandy that about.
41:28
Speaker 1: Well, there's nothing they can do about it, though, It's like,
41:30
Speaker 1: could they protest that? I mean, I guess it could
41:32
Speaker 1: protest it, but you can't. You can't say who can
41:36
Speaker 1: can't eat your ice cream? So at the end of
41:37
Speaker 1: the day that I'm sure they would have no leg
41:39
Speaker 1: to stand on.
41:39
Speaker 2: But also then you're denying this person their last thing.
41:42
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's Timothy McVeigh, but if it were somebody else,
41:46
Speaker 2: did you want to be in that position? As the
41:47
Speaker 2: company'd be like, no, you can't have that, sure, because
41:49
Speaker 2: we don't agree with them killing you.
41:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm sure they just didn't like that pressure. Speaking
41:55
Speaker 1: of press, Olivia had a few more little nuggets here
41:58
Speaker 1: for us various sort of weird slash terrible things that
42:02
Speaker 1: have happened over the years or interesting things. One of
42:06
Speaker 1: them in nineteen eighty five, two weeks after South Carolina
42:11
Speaker 1: executed their first prisoner in twenty two years, Pizza Hut
42:16
Speaker 1: ran a commercial that showed again Pizza Hut, showing an
42:19
Speaker 1: inmate ordering pizza for the last meal. This executed person
42:24
Speaker 1: had requested pizza, and so they kind of tied it
42:27
Speaker 1: back to that, and they got a lot of heat
42:30
Speaker 1: for that, and they took the commercial down.
42:33
Speaker 2: I think we talked about this in our Death Penalty episode, Yeah,
42:38
Speaker 2: one of our Death Penalty episodes. There's a blog called
42:41
Speaker 2: dead Man Eating that ran from two to twenty ten,
42:44
Speaker 2: and it just tracked last meal requests, which is another thing,
42:48
Speaker 2: like they're frequently requests. They don't necessarily say what the
42:51
Speaker 2: person got. It's the request, that's the thing that's always
42:55
Speaker 2: been published.
42:56
Speaker 1: Yeah.
42:57
Speaker 2: And then Amnesty International ran an ad campaign that's just haunting.
43:02
Speaker 2: It's images of the last meals of five different prisoners
43:06
Speaker 2: who were executed and then found innocent.
43:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean that makes a statement for sure. There
43:14
Speaker 1: was also a book in twenty eleven ISH from a
43:17
Speaker 1: photographer named Jonathan cam Boris called The Last Meals Project,
43:21
Speaker 1: and I don't think these were people who were proven innocent,
43:24
Speaker 1: but he superimposed last meals on photographs of the executed prisoner,
43:30
Speaker 1: So you know, another social statement for sure.
43:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember Chuck reading it. There was I think
43:36
Speaker 2: a New Yorker article on Cameron Willingham. He had a
43:40
Speaker 2: third name in there. Somewhere, but he was executed and
43:43
Speaker 2: they are pretty sure he was innocent, not a great guy,
43:47
Speaker 2: but probably did not start the fire that killed his family,
43:50
Speaker 2: but was executed anyway. And I remember there was a
43:53
Speaker 2: quote in there that always stuck with me. One of
43:54
Speaker 2: the Supreme Court justices said that if there was ever
43:58
Speaker 2: clear evidence that an innocent person had been executed wrongly,
44:04
Speaker 2: that that would cause a constitutional spasm that would be
44:07
Speaker 2: really tough to require from him and probably immediately lead
44:10
Speaker 2: to the cessation of the death penalty. And when you
44:13
Speaker 2: stop and think about that Amnesty International ad campaign where
44:16
Speaker 2: they've got five people whose last meals they're showing, who
44:20
Speaker 2: were later found to be innocent, Like we now know
44:22
Speaker 2: five people at least have been executed and then later
44:26
Speaker 2: found to be innocent, and yet we still have the
44:28
Speaker 2: death penalty. It's not even a topic of conversation that
44:31
Speaker 2: just that sticks out to me because that quote always
44:34
Speaker 2: suck to me. It suck with me, and it's just
44:37
Speaker 2: I don't know. It was just worth mentioning. And also
44:40
Speaker 2: it was worth mentioning because that article on Cameron Willingham
44:44
Speaker 2: was just insanely good because not only is it about
44:47
Speaker 2: his case and also calls out how Arson is just
44:51
Speaker 2: like Arson investigation is just junk science and people are
44:56
Speaker 2: executed based on that evidence. Huh, yeah, it's good. I
45:00
Speaker 2: can't remember what it's called. Just look up New York
45:01
Speaker 2: and Cameron Willingham, I can't remember his middle name.
45:05
Speaker 1: Have we done one on Arson, I don't know. I
45:09
Speaker 1: don't think we have. That would be interesting because I
45:11
Speaker 1: always wonder how they find the source of those fires.
45:15
Speaker 2: I remember talking about Arson being junk science before, so
45:18
Speaker 2: we've talked about something supper club fire. Maybe no, it
45:21
Speaker 2: was long before that. No, okay, you got anything else.
45:26
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. I mean, you know, this was
45:29
Speaker 1: dark for sure, but we hope it was in the
45:33
Speaker 1: good taste in which it was intended. Yeah, there are
45:37
Speaker 1: also articles out there that are a little more fun
45:41
Speaker 1: to read about people's last meals, non executed, but people
45:46
Speaker 1: who knew, you know, famous people who knew they were
45:48
Speaker 1: on the way out, and like, what's the very most
45:50
Speaker 1: special thing that they wanted to eat? Like Julia Child
45:52
Speaker 1: having French onion soup. Stuff like that.
45:56
Speaker 2: Oh man, a good French onion soup.
45:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, so maybe go read those instead would be my recommendation.
46:01
Speaker 2: You go, well, since Chuck made a great recommendation everybody.
46:04
Speaker 2: That means it's sound for listener. Maw.
46:09
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this cussing dentist because you know I
46:13
Speaker 1: talked about my doctor cursing and how much I enjoyed that,
46:18
Speaker 1: and so this guy wrote in he said, hey, guys,
46:20
Speaker 1: I want to tell you about my cussing dentists. The
46:22
Speaker 1: first time I went to this guy's practice, I hadn't
46:24
Speaker 1: been in years, and the hyghgenis brings me in for
46:27
Speaker 1: X rays in a cleaning and eventually she tells me
46:29
Speaker 1: she's going to go grab the dentist sad cavities. I'm
46:33
Speaker 1: in the dental chair, the lights on my face. I
46:36
Speaker 1: hear footsteps behind me, and an upside down mask disembodied
46:40
Speaker 1: head slowly comes into my field of vision. He glances
46:44
Speaker 1: up to my X rays and looks back down. No introductions,
46:47
Speaker 1: no anything, and just says, hmm, open up, so open
46:52
Speaker 1: my mouth. He starts poking around with a little mirror tool.
46:55
Speaker 1: I'm panicking about that. Hmm what did he see in
46:59
Speaker 1: those X rays? Is something wrong? My anxiety is growing
47:02
Speaker 1: and he's taking a long looking around my mouth. Finally
47:05
Speaker 1: he says, uh, yeah, We're gonna have to pull all
47:08
Speaker 1: of these effing things out. There was a comedic beat,
47:13
Speaker 1: and then he pulled his mask down, revealing a sly,
47:16
Speaker 1: goofy grin. I laughed so hard and nearly choked, and
47:20
Speaker 1: then he finally introduced himself as the dentist. I'm not
47:24
Speaker 1: sure how he picked up on my hey it's okay
47:26
Speaker 1: to swear around me a vibe so quickly, or if
47:28
Speaker 1: that's just how he greets all of his thirty somethings
47:30
Speaker 1: male patients, but it was the best first impression I
47:32
Speaker 1: ever had with any medical professional, and I recommended him
47:36
Speaker 1: to literally everyone I know. That's my story. Thanks for
47:40
Speaker 1: the show. You guys are both true legends and stuff
47:42
Speaker 1: you should know is my all time favorite card. Listen
47:45
Speaker 1: that is Ryan and Maine and oh Man, Ryan, I
47:48
Speaker 1: wish you had permission to out this dentist because I
47:52
Speaker 1: would go to Maine to get to go see this dentist.
47:55
Speaker 1: What a great sense of humor. Gonna have to pull
47:57
Speaker 1: all these effing things out?
47:59
Speaker 2: Who who could it be? Is it like John c Riley,
48:02
Speaker 2: d MD, or the guy who played He Had No
48:06
Speaker 2: the guy who played j Peterman on Seinfeld. I could
48:09
Speaker 2: see him.
48:10
Speaker 1: That'd be great. Sure, yeah, I love that.
48:13
Speaker 2: Let's go with that guy then, all right, okay, Oh,
48:16
Speaker 2: and also just want to give a quick update to everybody.
48:19
Speaker 2: Remember Corey's choice in charge.
48:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we we influenced Spotify.
48:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, so remember Corey wrote in and said that Millie
48:29
Speaker 2: Vanilli and what was the other.
48:31
Speaker 1: One, don't remember the initial one.
48:35
Speaker 2: I don't remember either, but they were two very disparate oh,
48:38
Speaker 2: owner of a Lonely Heart. They both showed up in
48:40
Speaker 2: Spotify search together and he said it was probably because
48:42
Speaker 2: you guys. So let's do a test, and we tested
48:45
Speaker 2: Black Sabbaths, war Pigs and Barry Manilow's even Now, And
48:50
Speaker 2: in short order, people started writing in with screencaps of
48:53
Speaker 2: their Spotify searches, where if you searched Barry Manilow, Warpigs
48:57
Speaker 2: was the second thing that came up you searched war Pigs,
49:00
Speaker 2: Harry Mandela was between three and five, and that was
49:04
Speaker 2: clearly our influence. So that's pretty awesome.
49:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know, I mean, how do we use
49:11
Speaker 1: this power?
49:11
Speaker 2: I don't know. We'll figure it out, but yeah, for good, agreed,
49:14
Speaker 2: we should probably do it for good?
49:16
Speaker 1: All right?
49:17
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, if you want to get in touch with
49:18
Speaker 2: us like Ryan Ryan did, you can send us an
49:23
Speaker 2: email to Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
49:30
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
49:33
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
49:37
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.