71 - Stalin: Russia's Ruthless Man of Steel

My God. This story is so over-the-top, it's hard to accept as true. But sadly, it did happen. For roughly two decades, Fred and Rose West were the patriarch and matriarch of torture, sadism, incest, and death at their horrific British home at 25 Cromwell Street in Gloucester, England. Both Fred and Rose were raised in preposterously incestuous homes where sexual abuse was normalized. They also both grew up in households of regular physical violence. This, plus some head injuries and a whole bunch of bad choices would lead to both becoming sex-crazed, abusive parents themselves. Together, as a couple, they seemed to push each other's violent and sexually experimental natures further than either ever would have ventured alone. Their strange pairing led to a true house of horrors in Gloucester in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s. This one has to be heard to be believed. The first Bad Magic Productions June charity we are proud to donate $7,050 towards is Trinity Stables. They run a specialty program in Georgia called Stable Moments, a weekly mentorship program that utilizes equine-assisted learning to achieve life skills that better prepare foster and adopted kids for healthy transitions into adulthood. To find out more, please visit: https://www.trinitystables.net/The second Bad Magic Productions June charity we are proud to donate $7,050 towards is Vintage Pet Rescue, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit committed to rescuing “vintage” aka senior pets from shelters and assisting their owners who can no longer care for their vintage pets. To find out more, please visit: https://www.vintagepetrescue.org/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/47dqR0tllM4Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

28 Kesä 20212h 28min

Hope you have as fun listening to this one as I had making it! I had no idea prior to digging into this topic, that Lovecraft was so influential on modern horror. Like Stranger Things? Heavily influenced by Lovecraft. Like Stephen King's It? The cosmic monster who presents as Pennywise is a creature who could have come directly from the Cthulhu mythos. Much of the Twilight Zone, the X-Files, the BBC's Black Mirror and more - so influenced by Lovecraft. And, in a way, fictional universes like the Marvel cinematic universe and George Lucas's Star Wars universe - influenced by the cosmic worldbuilding of Lovecraft. We feel a lot of his influence today - but who was the man? We'll take a look at that as well - including the ugly parts. And we'll meet some of his creatures and dissect the structure of some of Lovecraft's most influential stories. A very Weird Tales edition of Timesuck awaits! The first Bad Magic Productions June charity we are proud to donate $7,050 towards is Trinity Stables. They run a specialty program in Georgia called Stable Moments, a weekly mentorship program that utilizes equine-assisted learning to achieve life skills that better prepare foster and adopted kids for healthy transitions into adulthood. To find out more, please visit: https://www.trinitystables.net/The second Bad Magic Productions June charity we are proud to donate $7,050 towards is Vintage Pet Rescue, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit committed to rescuing “vintage” aka senior pets from shelters and assisting their owners who can no longer care for their vintage pets. To find out more, please visit: https://www.vintagepetrescue.org/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/XFXFwZX6N2AMerch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

21 Kesä 20212h 26min

Big episode for a big, complex topic today. PT Barnum has been called the The Greatest Showman on Earth. And he certainly was the most famous promoter of the 19th century. He brought entertainment to millions, and millions loved him for it. He also stirred up a fair amount of controversy and many in the modern day have not looked back kindly on him. He often lied to his audience about the nature of his acts - and his acts were often people with physical abnormalities or deformities. Did he exploit them for profit? Yes. Without a doubt. But did he also provide for them a means to make life-changing and empowering income? He did. Does that justify the exploitation? That's up to you to decide. PT Barnum continues to entertain (and probably offend) today, on Timesuck. Hail Nimrod! The first Bad Magic Productions June charity we are proud to donate $7,050 towards is Trinity Stables. They run a speciality program in Georgia called Stable Moments, a weekly mentorship program that utilizes equine-assisted learning to achieve life skills that better prepare foster and adopted kids for healthy transitions into adulthood. To find out more, please visit: https://www.trinitystables.net/The second Bad Magic Productions June charity we are proud to donate $7,050 towards is Vintage Pet Rescue, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit committed to rescuing “vintage” aka senior pets from shelters and assisting their owners who can no longer care for their vintage pets. To find out more, please visit: https://www.vintagepetrescue.org/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oRomYgWK-dgMerch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

14 Kesä 20212h 27min

The Great Pyramid of Giza. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Colossus of Rhodes. The Lighthouse of Alexandria. The Temple of Artemis. The Statue of Zeus at Olympia. The Mausoleum at Halicarnassus. These are just SOME of the wonders we go over today. Get ready to want to explore the world. We are so surrounded by so many impressive man-made monuments. And also so much natural beauty - we also look at the seven natural wonders of the world today. And we look at the new seven wonders of the world. And at even more wonders. We also examine a lot of strange theories some questionable folk on the internet have postulated about many of these wonders in numerous Idiots of the Internet segments. Enjoy all this wonder! June charity TBD as of this recording date. Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/X42vSfTEGbUMerch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

7 Kesä 20212h 28min

When the 1830s began, nearly 125,000 various tribal members lived on millions of acres of land in Georgia, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina and Florida - land where their ancestors had lived for centuries. By the end of that decade, only a handful of indigenous Americans would remain in the southeastern United States. The federal government had forced them to leave their homelands and walk hundreds of miles to a specially designated “Indian territory” across the Mississippi River - present day Oklahoma. And this difficult and deadly journey - thousands would die along the way - would be known as the Trail of Tears. As new waves of European settlers kept pouring into America, farming land along the coasts was quickly taken up. Farming land for growing cotton in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee was especially coveted. New settlers wanted that land and they would do almost anything to get it - including taking it from tribe members who yes, had lost their battles against the US government, but also - could’ve been treated far more fairly in the aftermath. Rather than work to assimilate the tribes into American culture - the US federal government under President Andrew Jackson and his Indian Removal Act, passed by Congress in 1830, chose to banish them to less desirable land. Though the entire process of Indian Removal that lasted from 1831 to 1877 would come to be known as the Trail of Tears, one march in particular would become emblematic of the entire misguided and heartless venture - the 2,200 mile 1838 journey of seventeen Cherokee detachments. Historians estimate that between 1/4 and 1/3 of what remained of the Cherokee population died during that journey. We look at this journey and other tribe's journey's today, talk about what led up to them, examine the history of European contact with the Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, Seminole, and Chickasaw, and go over so much more in this jam-packed-with-historical-information episode, let's learn from our mistakes so we don't repeat them edition, of Timesuck. Thanks for helping Bad Magic Productions donate $13,800 this month to The Ocular Melanoma Foundation, in honor of Timesucker Alex Roach. To find out more, go to http://www.ocularmelanoma.org/ Watch the Suck on YouTube:https://youtu.be/KXsOxewvna8 Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

31 Touko 20212h 32min

Heard of this guy before? If you haven't, I'm with you. I hadn't either. And then once I got into this story, I wondered HOW had I never heard of him? This story is insane. Karl Denke killed, it seems, at least 30 people in Ziębice, Poland (formerly Münsterberg, Weimar Republic aka Germany). And he ate them. And he sold some of their meat to others. Probably many, MANY others. And he made suspenders out of their skin and shoelaces out of their hair and on and on and on. And he did that out of his apartment, surrounded by neighbors, for over two decades. How? Partially - due to hyperinflation. Yes, hyperinflation in the Weimar Republic led to so much economic chaos that people were a lot more worried about surviving than they were about what their neighbors were up to. And why haven't more of us heard about Karl? Because of another killer operating nearby at the same time who was even more disturbing - Fritz Haarmann. We'll go over some of his crimes as well. True crime, the economic chaos of German's Interwar Years and more on an outlandish edition of Timesuck. Thanks for helping Bad Magic Productions donate $13,800 this month to The Ocular Melanoma Foundation, in honor of Timesucker Alex Roach. To find out more, go to http://www.ocularmelanoma.org/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/oIvZy2JwlHs Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

24 Touko 20212h 2min

Today we take a fun and sometimes concerning tour around the United States looking at laws that are still on the books that either definitely shouldn't be, shouldn't have ever been, are sadly necessary, or are just plain... odd. Did you know that in Indiana it's illegal to have a "a covered clearly erect penis" at a city park? Or that it's illegal to use a ferret to help you hunt in West Virginia? It's also illegal to sell dog hair in New York. And if you've ever been in a "duel with deadly weapons" in Kentucky you can't become a state attorney. In Idaho, cannibalism carries a special punishment. Anal, oral, and premarital sex are illegal in Idaho. As is adultery. So many outdated laws that should've never existed in the first place. And so many WTF laws. It's just a misdemeanor to barter a baby in Pennsylvania. But having sex with your first cousin in Utah is a felony. Also, it's illegal to own seven or more dildos in Texas. And on and on and on. We go over actual state, county, and city legal codes for so, so, SO much legislative strangeness today. Hail Nimrod and I hope you get some laughs out of this madness.Thanks for helping Bad Magic Productions donate this month to The Ocular Melanoma Foundation, in honor of Alex Roach, a Timesucker who was taken from his family at the tender age of just 33 (amount to be announced next week). The Ocular Melanoma Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and is one of the leading research and patient support organizations focused on ocular melanoma-eye cancer. To find out more, go to http://www.ocularmelanoma.org/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/m1LVfkBh5x0 Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits.Stock music provided by four_track, from Pond5 Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

17 Touko 20212h 14min

Cult! Cult! Cult! We're back to sucking on a cult - a small and relatively unknown one which is surprising considering how crazy this story is. For well over a decade, conman Daniel Perez convinced a small band of followers into thinking he was possessed by three mostly evil angels, or maybe was an angel, and that he had the keys to heaven, or maybe reincarnation? And that he could make it rain, or maybe bring animals back from the dead? He was way better at talking followers into dying so he could get their life insurance money than he was at keeping his nonsensical claims straight. For years, he and his small band of followers lived on a compound called Angel's Landing just outside of Wichita, Kansas, messing around with ATVs, driving fast cars, playing with model airplanes, and getting drunk at weekend parties while everyone conveniently ignored the fact that he was doing stuff like sharing his bed with an eleven-year-old. This ridiculous pervert has been in prison for years now where he will thankfully die. Find out how he got there on this week's super strange tale. Thanks for helping Bad Magic Productions donate this month to The Ocular Melanoma Foundation, in honor of Alex Roach, a Timesucker who was taken from his family at the tender age of just 33 (amount to be announced next week). The Ocular Melanoma Foundation is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and is one of the leading research and patient support organizations focused on ocular melanoma-eye cancer. To find out more, go to http://www.ocularmelanoma.org/ Watch the Suck on YouTube: https://youtu.be/QT_eonHvS4s Merch - https://badmagicmerch.com/ Discord! https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want to join the Cult of the Curious private Facebook Group? Go directly to Facebook and search for "Cult of the Curious" in order to locate whatever current page hasn't been put in FB Jail :) For all merch related questions/problems: store@badmagicproductions.com (copy and paste) Please rate and subscribe on iTunes and elsewhere and follow the suck on social media!! @timesuckpodcast on IG and http://www.facebook.com/timesuckpodcast Wanna become a Space Lizard? We're over 10,000 strong! Click here: https://www.patreon.com/timesuckpodcast Sign up through Patreon and for $5 a month you get to listen to the Secret Suck, which will drop Thursdays at Noon, PST. You'll also get 20% off of all regular Timesuck merch PLUS access to exclusive Space Lizard merch. You get to vote on two Monday topics each month via the app. And you get the download link for my new comedy album, Feel the Heat. Check the Patreon posts to find out how to download the new album and take advantage of other benefits. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

10 Touko 20212h 12min