As everybody knows, I often get made fun of for how Fatfat fun I am thanks to phablet fun. And basically I'm just giving in at this point because I wear my mukluks in an Instagram post and, you know, everybody loved them. So that's all your mukluks, your headband.

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Oh, oh, I don't know, the stuff was another song, Teach me, teach me the who, don't raise the bar for myself.

Christmas, Christmas Day.

I have the most I mean, you all know this because as I said earlier, Christine, I keep asking you to not sing.

Well, you just keep saying, like in our relationship, I think you really met your quota when it comes to how many songs I want to hear from you, but you keep finding ways to exceed it.

Yeah, our listeners feel exactly the same way. And I just as you said, I shan't.

I shan't and I shan't.

That's exactly right. Well, for those of you who don't recognize, if you're watching YouTube, you might notice that we're dressed in the same clothes as our last video. And it's because we are recording these back to back.

So you haven't so everyone else has had a week to really process what Christine singing sounds like.

I have had five minutes.

So you didn't listen to our holiday episode. You really missed out on a do.

You really did. It was, I would say easily one of my top five favorite episode. That was one of my favorite stories I've ever covered, which was like not shocking because no one actually died in it, which is great.

Yeah, it was.

And it was that ended up just being a happy, non non abused dog.

But if there's one thing that I love about you and our friendship is like you're wildly nerving, unnervingly creative mind.

Oh, and so that's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. I've also it was very nice to see it in action there because you got to be creative with your story this time.

Well, it's frightening that you and I have somehow the universe has allowed us to be in one project together. OK, this podcast, because like after the escape, I think everyone is fully aware of how unnerving your mind and creativity are. And so if mine or similar status, or at least in your mind, then we must be a tornado of chaos.

That's that was poetry right there. You know, we have said I remember the last time we had a sleepover as like you imagine if we were enemies, like we would be we would be our perfect rivals, like we would, like, destroy each other and ourselves.

We were awesome royally fuck each other up.

But like in, like, the most creative, sinister Wintersun way, like, thank God the world decided to put us on the same side because we would be like mortal yin yang, perfect, perfect enemies. Yes. I think honestly, like we've had this conversation and we've talked to people who are like psychic mediums who are like, oh, you've lived multiple lives together. And we're like, yeah, we know.

Because, like, don't worry, this is not a new occurrence. We I've been dealing with this bullshit for millennia. I don't worry about I feel it all the way to my very fucking core. But I can still can't escape. I could literally drop dead on this in this life. And she'll just be there tomorrow when I open my eyes in a brand, a brand new. Oh my God, it's true. Anyway, welcome to twenty twenty one everyone.

Aren't you. Oh my gosh. Reagan in the new year with us.

A year that we refuse to make predictions about because last year it didn't go so well. I predict, I predict one thing this year and it said I'm going to eat a lot of really delicious sandwiches. Well, let's hope you don't fuck that up to God. Please don't let me, like, all of a sudden, like, have like a gluten intolerance or there's like a bread shortage.

Yeah. You know, you don't know what you could do with those words. I have no idea how damaging one sentence could be manifest. Yes. That's how terrifying. I would like to eat a lot of sandwiches this year. That's really my my only take away. Yeah.

Why don't we just vision board stuff and like, let the universe do what it will.

Yeah, I'd like the podcast to go well and I would like to eat sandwiches. That's pretty much it.

OK, I think I might actually put the both of those exact things on my vision board and leave it at that. Perfect. Oh I wanted to tell you since I didn't get to mention it. So we're recording this like before Christmas, shortly before Christmas. So most earlier. How's your doing?

And I was like, oh my gosh, I'm going to tell you on the show, he's at doggy daycare today because we're recording.

And I was able to take him out of the premises for once. And they were like, would you like to sign up for pictures with Santa? And I about fell out of my what, fainting couch?

What evil, evil wench would say no to that? Can you imagine you matricide like? I don't I don't participate in that.

No, I don't. And I truly I was like, wait, what? And they're like, here's a sign up sheet. And I oh my God.

I put him on that little sign up sheet and they did a Secret Santa like a Santa pours Secret Santa Claus.

And we had to buy a toy and put like, what size range the the dog that it goes to and then write like love go and then he's going to get a toy. It's like the cutest thing ever. And every day they post photos. I mean, I'm like I'm just enamored with this place.

My heart is like dripping into my stomach because it's so melty, like I mean, really what we were just saying about how powerful our collective mind is to imagine if we ran like a dog circus.

God, this shit that we're. I'm out of us, every holiday would be the noodles, fucking noodles, noodles, all linguini, all the way up, the linguine, the fettuccini, you know, all of it.

The bow tie is solely on unclassy affairs, doesn't have quite the same ring, but yeah. So hopefully by the time this episode comes out, I'll have a copy that I can put in the YouTube video. I hope, I hope it works out. I mean this is my first year there obviously. But I think Jeonju because on the way he was like shaking with nervousness and I was like, maybe he knows that I've done something terrible to him and made him, like, approach a stranger.

I was going to say maybe he's so excited, but you're right. He probably knows you well enough to be like knowing you fucking stirred something up that now I feel like I have to get through this. It's true. He's like, I'm just as antisocial as you, mom. And yet somehow you force me into these scenarios.

I have to during quarantine when, like, he has seen very minimal people and now a big, burly, red suited person is going to be like, sit on my lap.

Oh, my God.

But I've seen some of the other dogs who sign up earlier, and it is the cutest freaking thing. So I will hopefully post that somewhere on social media and we can post in the video.

You know what I would like to do next year if this is at all possible and like we just happened to be in Cincinnati near December at all, or Cincinnati or wherever the hell you live anymore, I think it would be precious at some point.

And if it doesn't happen near December, we can we can, you know, chop it to be a different situation. I would like to be dressed as Santa in your home and then take the samples and surprised you.

I was like, where are we going with this? OK, got it.

I think it would be precious if we took a picture and then, like, you got like a live reaction of him realizing it was me because we hadn't seen each other in so long. Right.

I mean, I think since he's a dog, he'll probably smell that it's you. But we can roll around in some dirt or something.

It'll be OK. We love you even more. You won't even notice, I will say, to just like on that note, a lot of people are very baffled and understandably, because I don't think I ever explain this properly. And I think people are very some people are concerned because now they think I've moved again to another place. Like I'm just very concerned because I keep fucking up the city that you're in.

Is that. No. Well, no, no, no. Because like I said oh, by the way, I'm in Kentucky. I'm like, I guess I never clarified that. And so now people.

And so every time I target social media, people like you moved again, like, why do you keep moving?

OK, I only moved once, but as someone who doesn't know geography myself, I shouldn't have assumed everybody knows this. But Cincinnati is like right on the border of both Indiana and Kentucky. So I'm about ten minutes away from downtown Cincinnati, but on the Kentucky side. So I'm technically in northern Kentucky, like on the river. But like, I can like it's like literally you can walk across the bridge to Cincinnati. So I'm closer to Cincinnati than I lived even when I grew up here.

But technically, my state of residence is Kentucky. So to clarify for anybody who's worried that I'm like just upsetting all over the fucking place, livelihoods all over the place, I'm I'm still in the same place.

And if you are like, you know, you were listening forever ago and now you're listening to, like, this random brand new episode. Yeah, Christine did leave, but we also nothing has changed. Yeah. Nothing's clearly as the amount I sing has just increased. Well, that's also that was one of the reasons why we waited until after a few months of you getting settled then because nobody really seemed to notice that anything changed. Although I know the point was so like if we announced at the time that you were moving, we were afraid people would think, oh, now the dynamic is going to change.

We were worried. People read into things. Yeah, but we wanted to be to the punch and be like, you had no idea. She moved forever ago and nothing has changed.

So and the part I think one of the coolest parts is that I was on Instagram like the month I moved here last spring and suddenly Kenyon from Wine and Crime posted in our new home, and she lived in South Africa.

And all of a sudden she's like in our new home home. And it was like Louisville, Kentucky. And I went, Wait, what? And I literally moved that week to Kentucky. And I was like, wait. So I'm in from Los Angeles. She moved from South Africa and we both ended up in Kentucky.

I feel like if quarantine weren't a thing, the two of you would have a like a a set like weekly coffee arrangement, a wine arrangement.

But yeah, close enough lots. But so I was just like this and she was like, oh, we almost we tried to make plans because the IKEA is up here. And so she's like, well Zach and I want to go to the IKEA. So like when we come up we'll meet up. But obviously then quarantine got messed up.

But that would be preferable if you had like a standing weekly rendezvous together.

Listen, I don't know how she feels, but I certainly plan on it. So but I was just, like, so excited and surprised because I'm like I felt very isolated out here. And now I have, like, a neighbor, and that's it's literally like an hour and 20 minutes for me, like it's not far.

So I was just like especially the weirdest maybe to other people that's far like let's remember, like, you have been perfectly primed as an L.A. drug. Over, yeah, so far, an our drive is just like what, you drive an hour to my house to record. Exactly.

It would just be like me driving over to your place. Like to have dinner. So. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Or to like, you know, borrow five hundred bucks or whatever that that one occurred. How are you feeling or.

I'm glad you mentioned that because every single time that that memory comes to mind I'm like I don't have a better friend because I really don't know about that.

I straight up showed up uninvited to your home while you had other people over. And I said, I need five hundred dollars in cash immediately. And you just fucking gave it to me.

So it could be like, no, I mean that's that's a homie. We're like no questions asked. Clearly you're asking for a reason. I mean you are fortunate in the fact that I somehow had five hundred dollars at this point in my life. If you had asked me a year before you and I both would have been like, well, neither of us have a dollar.

I'd be like, I can offer you one penny and you can find the rest on your own. Yeah. Which is precisely how the podcast started, by the way.

We put it our entire two hundred dollar savings into this show to 50.

We each had I had 50 the day after we bought our equipment and I gave you two hundred fifty dollars. I literally had eighteen bucks to my name. Yep.

Yep. And I remember ordering, ordering food and being like I have to order a small pizza because I cannot afford a medium and that's the end and not like I can't afford to because I'm trying to budget things out. It's like no I can't, I do not have literally the funds.

So anyway, sorry that went way on a tangent. But point being to clarify, is currently with Santa Claus. Oh right. Traumatized my child, as you can imagine. I'm traumatizing him.

And I'm in snowy Kentucky where it's snowing and I'm wearing a sweatshirt one.

I'm wearing a sweatshirt now right now. And that was bother me because it's a little too warm today. So that's where we stand.

But I do think has changed. I do think that we should find a way when I do when I am reunited with GIA, we should do it in a very cute, obviously filmed way.

Oh, we should probably hire an entire TV crew, am I right? Get on it. You got Eva. You're a TV crew. No, welcome, Eva. You produce everything actually.

Also, you have to dress as an elf so that everyone's in on it. You know, you actually that's what she would be like, a cue elf. So she'd be a precious elf actually that feels like the exact mythical creature she could be. Yeah. Maybe she is like a little fairy elf or something, you know. Eva are you an elf? Eva. OK, step one, get a polygraph and then we're going to test to see if you're an elf step to get an elf outfit.

Some three produce the rest of our lives on camera. Also step forward.

Let me play with the polygraph because I always wanted to play with one and then stuff five, please never, ever, ever leave us because I won't know where to return the polygraph machine. So you're going to have to do that also. Sorry, we just called you an elf. Please don't leave me.

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OK, let's start the show. OK, let's start over. Actually Ed, take every single thing out. Welcome to.

And that's why we drink um where we only stay on topic where we only talk about everything except our story is actually OK. So let's, let's get into this. I wanted to do another wintery ask on and know this is the one driving. I wanted to do another cryptid of sorts. I did the Yudi last week because it was the closest one to Christmas and I was like, OK, let's do something. One, because I can't snowy I don't have too many Christmas stories I get to cover.

And so I wanted to do. The Yeti for some reason was like my version of like a Christmas episode, even though it wasn't very Christmas. I think it fits well.

I wanted to, but I'm very late to the game now. I'm literally like three weeks behind. But I was like, I should also throw in like four other holidays like like a Hanukkah one or something. So welcome. January twenty twenty one. Now I'm going to cover Hanukkah.

This is a very, very early Hanukkah story. Look, you can you're Jewish all year long, so really this can be special for you any time. OK, still seeking mensch on a bench. Still still looking for my bench. So this is the I try basically I was trying to come up with something for, like, people outside of like celebrating Christmas because I use my Christmas episode on. I don't know, it felt Christmassy, so I'm trying to do something other than that, so read the cheer.

I got it. Read the cheer and the New Year. So this is what are you covering? I can't figure it out. This is the golomb gold. Gold.

Oh, OK.

Have you heard of the Golem? I feel like I've heard of it, but I don't really know.

I mean, I think the gold really made his way through pop culture. al-Attiyah.

What does that Lord of the Rings that the rings Gollum is different than Golem because it's not like based on it.

OK, I maybe I would say in a very loose way, I would say OK, but I really don't know much. I would say Golem. He is known to be a protector. So if Gollum was supposedly protect the ring, I could we could put that together, that is.

But I think that is I thought he was based on like a character, like a mythical.

Well, apparently we're not gonna talk about it today except one. I know. I don't trust me on any of that, especially pop culture.

There's definitely a similarity between Gollum and the Golem. So I also really hope I'm saying it right. I checked Google and typed in a Golem pronunciation, and I think that's right.

Feels right.

Again, don't trust anything I say, but I think that's right. Don't trust anything I say. And I'm only like 50 percent of the information over here on this podcast. So, OK, the Golem, so very similar in a way to Frankenstein, because they are both they were because they were life created by a man made created.

So there are some similarities that you'll hear throughout this that have to do with Frankenstein. But so the Golem is a creature made of clay and that has been magically brought to life. And the term golem is Hebrew for basically incomplete or unfinished. And the Golem is said to appear, or at least the phrase, the term is said to appear at least once in the Bible and Psalms. One thirty, nine, sixteen and again, meaning like unfinished substance or shapeless mass.

But so let's do some history. So this is not the first mention of the Golem. This is just one of the most popular stories of the Golem. So it's not totally chronologically correct today. I'm just going with like if this were like a shopping site, I'm not going from oldest to newest. I'm going to like best seller, you know, featured.

Got it trending, if you will. So so this is one of the main stories is from the 16th century and this is the golem of Prague, arguably one of the most popular stories.

Oh, OK. So in Prague at this time, the Jewish people were having a good moment finally because in history they really just can't catch a fucking break.

Yeah. So they say that they're enjoying a golden age of security.

And however, record, scratch, record, scratch, the Jews had a pretty tough time all of a sudden. So there are rumors are starting to spread that the Jews of Prague were performing blood libel, which do you know what that is? No, I did not either until. So you are not alone. Blood libel, apparently. And these were rumors. This is not what was happening, but they were being accused of this. Got it.

You basically using the blood of Christian children and their rituals.

So basically, my God, they were basically all the Christians are saying, oh, they're killing us, they're killing our children and they're using their blood and like Jewish, which apparently means satanic rituals.

Yes, it's like satanic panic, but like but the Jewish version and like, probably worse.

Got it. OK, yeah. And so satanic, I just thought of, like, satanic panic. And I thought but with like dreidels I was taught to think of like Jewish things. And then I thought of Satan with a dreidel. It got really weird in my head artistically. But now I want it as a poster of like, no, no, no.

Like let's get a whiteboard in and just like let's just get it out, do a real Pictionary situation here where we've got, like, you know, everyone except like the Christian children, apparently. Yeah.

Well, we have the time to brainstorm for hours and hours. We've got nothing but time.

On this podcast. You refer to episode two to where it was like, please stop. Just go.

OK, so yeah. So rumors are not look, it's not a cute look for the for the Jews right now. And so obviously they are terrified of violence, ensuing or riots or some sort of like Jewish massacre. And so meeting a symbol of hope, the Jewish people. There is one rabbi named Rabbi Lowe who decided that he was going to help his community come up with the symbol of hope. So Rabbi Lo wanted to protect the local Jewish people from, like I said, attacks on them.

And this is kind of going off of. I guess this is a. I don't know if it's artistic license or it's it becomes a little magical just so we're clear, so I'm not going to base this entirely on. In fact, this is just the story that has been passed on. So the rabbi or rabbis in general are seen as merely godlike. So they were able they have this power, the super power of sorts, where they could control the elements.

And so this one rabbi, Rabbi Lowe, he brought two other rabbis with him down to the river and three of them Reppas. The three of them represented three of the four elements. So they represented water, air and fire. And then for Earth, they started taking clay like kind of like wet ground from the by the river. And the three of them started molding this manmade creature out of the clay. So all four of them together made the elements.

And so they basically they molded this clay thing into a human shape and then they performed this ritual. And this is basically this is a quote from, I think, the book itself that tells the story. Lo takes two of his pupils down to the river where there is a lot of mud. He shapes figures out of the mud and encourages them to do the same. This is a ritual found in earlier sources. He and his pupils walk around and around the rudimentary form of the Golem.

And then it happened. A golem appears from the earth and turns a reddish light appears around him. He rises even higher and goes redder still then begins. He then begins to breathe. It's not like God breath isn't blown into him. Instead he sits up and then stands. He is very big and they already figured he would be naked. So they brought clothing for him. I love it. I like it. They figured he'd be naked even though they literally made him naked with their hands.

They couldn't like just like with an extra layer throw like a flannel on him or something like a clay poncho. Yeah.

And let's see, they give him a name. So he's not actually called Golem. They called him Joseph or Joseph and they take him along and tell him what he needs to do. And he basically he's just supposed to sit there well behaved in the synagogue. And when they need him for protection, they will call him. So like, that's a good gig. OK, yeah.

So they were like, you're just going to be here for protection if something were to happen to the local Jewish people until then, just like Cypriote, like, you know, just you, you know.

So the Golem is now alive. Apparently the Golem had superhuman strength. Also some sources so that it had the had the power of invisibility if it wanted to do that. OK, the Golem looked out for people once, even rescued a girl from being kidnapped by people. And so he was just kind of like almost like a little Jewish superhero I got you into.

So there are a few ways to bring a golem to life according to, like, I guess, Jewish traditions. The one that the rabbi did, however, was he put a shem, which is like a clay tablet. He wrote God's name or wait on. Yeah, so it's a clay tablet bearing the name of God, sure. So he put that shim under the tongue of the Golem. So basically, like, wrote God's name, put it under his tongue.

And that was kind of what activated the Golem. And when he would take the shim out, he would just kind of like turned to stone and not do anything. It was like he was just like like power switch. Exactly. Yeah.

So either he was alive or he was like just a stone creature. Got it. And the way that the rabbi in this story did, he would put the shem either in its mouth or not. The Golem. I was going to mention this later, but this just seems like an appropriate time to say the Golem is also mentioned and a lot of pop culture, which I'll get to. But one of them is The Simpsons. And there's like a whole episode where they have they find the Golem and they communicate to it by like leaving notes under its tongue.

Oh. And then are like they're able to like, control it by saying, like, wake up or meet me at midnight. And I haven't seen that and putting the note and then Marge and Lisa like make out of Plato a female golems for to have a girlfriend.

So OK, that sounds pretty onepoint. Yeah.

So just so you know, that's like one place people have probably seen the Golem before, so. Yeah. So the rabbi would put a sham under its mouth and that's how it would light it up I guess like a like a Christmas tree, other ways to bring it to life or to recite the proper letters of God's name, putting God's name on their forehead or writing m e t. So Emet sort of on its forehead or its body in some way, kind of like either chiseling it in or but the words are the letters e et, which I'm going to get to that a little bit later.

But it basically it spells the word truth and it's O for truth.

And so that story basically ends with a golem save the day. But he apparently got too powerful or was because he was so successful, the rabbi decided to keep him for too long. And there's a. A concept where the longer the Golem is alive, the more powerful or the more dangerous it becomes either.

And it does. It's not like because it slowly builds strength or anything, but it's kind of the Frankenstein mentality of it starts developing like human tendencies and it strays from being strictly obedient for what its purposes.

So like every human's fear about like I kind of like it just starts thinking for itself. And if it doesn't want to obey you, maybe it won't. So, guys, can they. So it's he found that out the hard way. And basically this golem started like terrorizing the town.

And so and then he kept closing his mouth so nobody could pull the thing out, you know, like a like a dog with a TV remote that it shouldn't like like do it with socks.

Yes, precisely.

And much like a golem or a Frankenstein's monster, G.O. definitely does not do what he told and decides that he has superiority over everyone.

So it's pretty well. So that's exactly it. But somehow the rabbi found out that the Golan was terrorizing the town, was able to pry its mouth open and get the shem out and turned it off. And now there's this folklore that he left that shem in the old synagogue in Prague. And you can still, which I don't know why they don't call the old synagogue, but I write that down.

We need to write a letter to Prague Evea.

We have to build the synagogue immediately to call the call that the Prague, the construction, the construction company of Prague.

OK, yeah. So there's a legend that it's still upstairs in the attic and just kind of waiting for the next time it's needed to protect the Jewish people.

But I really went out of order. So let me read through my own notes. I just really decided to run with it. I derailed you.

You don't say, OK, so OK. So here's a fun fact about that story is that Rabbi Lowe, who I'm pretty sure was real, I think I'm going to I'm going to commit to that. He was real rabbi. That was real. But he actually didn't believe in miracles. He didn't. Or he condemned magic and he never wrote about the Golem. So this was almost like a story where someone really respected the rabbi and just kind of inserted him into the story.

So he helped create a protector for the Jewish people when they really need.

OK, so people say that the rabbi told the story and it's a real story. But in nineteen nine, really what happened was that a manuscript from his son in law was, quote, found or discovered, but like nobody's ever actually seen the legitimate manuscript. It's just like this story is this is how the legend has kind of grown of like Oh well there's no like real hard context where this story existed, but it's allegedly from this manuscript that was found and then went missing again.

Sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure, sure.

So apparently, this manuscript was discovered by a guy named Udal Rosenberg, and he ended up using that manuscript he discovered to write his own version and publish it as a real manuscript.

And it was called Golem and the Wonderous Deeds of the Morale of Prague. The moral moral of Prague is Rabbi Lowe. Oh, OK. So the wondrous deeds of the Rabbi Lo so he wrote his own book after a potentially fake manuscript, he potentially never discovered fun.

Got it. I think you just needed an explanation for, like, how he was inspired to write this. Yes. Yes. So anyway, so he published it. And when the book came out or when he was writing the book, actually, it was at the same time that there were more blood libel accusations and then there were also problems in Russia for Jewish people. So I think he was writing during that kind of head space where he was like, I'm going to write something about this golem and make him look like a protector just because it's what we need.

So, yeah, yeah.

This is why I mentioned earlier that this is not in chronological order, because I think a lot of people would be confused here before this whole story about Rabbi Lowe and creating the Golem. And now he's in the attic.

That was a story after the Golem had already existed. But it was known beforehand as more of like a servant that you could create to help you with. So and then this Rabbi Lo thing, that's where things change, because now the Golem was seen as this like protector or guardian of the Jewish people. And that's why it's probably best known, because all of a sudden the Golem is like this revered character. Like the superhero.

Yeah. Yeah. So and also the relocating of Jewish people for many horrible reasons. And other you know, just general reasons, just the the general spread of Jewish people across the world has helped perpetuate the story of the Golem. So that's probably how it's best known as just through word of mouth before.

Like I said before the Rabbi Lowe story, the Golem was seen as a servant to help a Jewish people with their work. The earliest mention of the Golem is actually in Germany's Rhineland in the 12th century. So that was four centuries before the rabbi story and. Oh, wow. And at the time, there was this movement for Jewish people called the pious of Ashkenazi, which in fact, twenty three of me tells me that I am forty nine percent Ashkenazi nice.

I am only 10 percent. Oh no I'm fifty one and then I'm forty nine percent my dad. So I'm technically more mom than dad which is fine. Linda wins by one percent.

I beat him out. So anyway. Fifty one percent Ashkenazi over here. I had also at ss someone else there was a had Ashkenazi like was a majority Ashkenazi Jewish or something and every time he saw me we would walk past each other and say Ashkenaz and I don't know why. And it looks like anyone else it would have been slightly anti-Semitic or something, but like it was just like the way we like you like bonded over is the way we recognize each other.

Every time I see Ashkenazi now, I just hear his voice scream Ashkenaz. And I'm like, that feels wrong to do, but it's like a fist, a fist bump. Yeah. I was like, hmm, I wonder how other people feel about this. But it was it was done with love at least so between two Ashkenazi people.

So I'll say can I just say one thing real quick. I'm so sorry to interrupt you. I forgot that I say something if you did it at all. I feel really bad that I'm interrupting you. So like when you were mentioning, like the exile of the Jewish people, I was like, oh, my God. Because so my mom's PhD was in German Jewish literature. So I texted her just real quick, like, what was your DNA?

And again, which I was like, this is a mistake to open that door, which is she literally just started sending me pictures of her or her, like for a second. I thought for a second I thought you were going to say she just sent me pictures of the Golem.

And I feel like, oh, my God, this is Dr. Renata of the Golem.

She sent me pictures of her dissertation. I was like, OK, I'm not going to read it on air. I just wanted to ask her right now, though, what she knows about the Golem. And then maybe at the end we can have like an excerpt of her if it's if it's new.

How do you know what do you know about the Golem or how do you spell the Gollu m m o m.

I just want to see what she'd say, because if she has something to add, I'm sure she'll have something to add whether she knows what it is or not.

But I heard her dissertation was on the change of the religious voices through the trauma of exile in the works of Jewish writers Elsa Laska Schuller, Nellie XOX and Barbara Honigman. So, wow.

You know, anyway, I just heard you say like Jewish exile. I was like, I would be remiss if I didn't give my mom some props in this remote area of expertise. I would love to hear what she has to say. She'll probably blow my entire argument out the water. I'm certain she'll go alone. Never existed. She is the Golem. She is the Golem. Wait a minute. Sometimes she's going to tell you later. She just turns to stone.

OK, so anyway, there was a this the pious of Ashkenazi. There is a documentary actually called The Golem, a legendary Jewish clay man and his impact on art, where they talk about the pious of Ashkenazi, which is the Rhine Jewish people at the time, they were, quote, very sure of their capabilities and they did what God desired and they were complying with all the commandments. And that's why they could achieve what others cannot. Now, that's where we first find the accounts of rituals to create a golem that were also successful.

So it was at this time where I guess just like the purest of Jewish people, they somehow had this power because they were so perfectly righteous that they could almost perform godlike acts, including creating life, if that makes sense.

Yes. And I guess throughout time we've all just been, you know, slowly turning more into centers and we're less likely to be able to do that or something. But at the time, there was a specific group of Ashkenazi people who had this ability, like the rabbis, OK?

And so I just want you to remember that. And then also I'm going to come back right now to that phrase, Emet, the EMT there. So putting that somewhere on its body, usually chest or its forehead, that was part of the ritual to create a golem, to basically write the word for truth on the body. And that's, I guess, truthfulness is like the highest value in Judaism and the three letters in MFT. So I know there's two E's in there, but there's only three letters that it takes to make up the word each of those letters.

It's weird, but they're so they're the first, the middle and the last letter in the Hebrew alphabet. And also visually I like how there's like a reason, like, you know, I was like I was just like, OK, I accept it.

But I got the whole reason I read this. And I was like, this feels like someone had ADHD.

This feels like this is too, too specific. But if you look at the words m e t, apparently visually the the letters rest on very wide bases like their wide letters. Yeah. And that suggests that truth itself stands on a broad and stable foundation like holy shit.

OK, we're going to tell me twice really looking for all the metaphors here. Also apparently the word Shekar KTAR, which is the opposite of truth, it stands for falsehood.

All the letters and that are either narrow around bases that suggest instability.

So very weird. I don't know who. I don't know who realized that.

I can't imagine that, like, you know, that somebody did hundreds of years ago. I think it was just a coincidence.

But it sounds like something like someone on pot would be like, hey, you know what?

It literally sounds like? You know what I just realized? Yeah. Truth and false opposites, man.

Like, some people write that down so that hundreds of years from now my wisdom will be passed and write down that M is like a really wide letter, you know, and it spells M it's also a lot of it's also your name.

Oh my God, everything's changed. Shit. Well, anyway, so I just wanted to mention that because I had to read it and I was like, this is too weird. So anyway because it means truthful, our truthfulness or then that's like the highest value that because these righteous, almost godlike Ashkenazi Jewish people, if they wrote the highest value on this thing, it was almost kind of opening up the potential for it to really come come true. I guess so.

Anyway, so the other thing about it is so the way that the rabbi low in that story would take the shame out of its mouth to kind of deactivated or, you know, turn into stone. One of the cool things about if you were to write em on the forehead or the chest of the Golem, it was also just easier, which sounds like stereotypically like the most like Jewish thing in my family. Like, let's just make this as easy as possible.

It's just like really get a Sharpie and. Well, if you if you write. And you just raised the E apparently it's only spell's met, met, which means dead, so like like, oh, so clever.

It's clever and so simple. It's like, oh, I only have to wipe off a quarter of the stuff that I've cause, like, I love that. I think it's it sounds exactly like how I would invent something like just the Luly just wipe away what you did but then pretend it means something like really deep but now like also totally makes sense.

So yeah. So you would just wipe off the first letter and then all of a sudden the problem solved. So the people in Rimland were able to make these golems because again they were truly righteous and could perform godlike acts and create life, according to legend Adam, famous for Adam and Eve of Adam and Eve fame.

Yes, exactly.

Adam was apparently a golem for the first 12 hours. Oh, because he was made from the dirt.

But it was, I guess in the first 12 hours he didn't have like a soul or a personality or something. And so they just thought of him as like the living shell of sorts. OK, weird. I'm sure there are some Christians out there who are angry right now, but that's OK. In the Hebrew Bible, God brings Adam forth from the earth and then God actually is the one who breathe life into him later as what the I think is closer to what the translation is supposed to be versus he doesn't have a soul.

It was like, OK, so step one was create him from Earth. And step two will be the part that actually makes him alive because God was into him so and because.

So they think that's why I also like golems should represent the Earth and they were made from Clay because Adam himself was made from the Earth. So sure, it's just kind of a tie in on how Adam Lasic Old Testament stuff, you know, good stuff. Good stuff. People are made of ribs and mud.

It's great. That's a good old days as far as my religion goes.

My religion understanding pretty extensive, I would say.

So part a part of the Jewish tradition or Jewish beliefs is that the rabbi could create artificial man. But because the rabbi himself is not God, he could not actually give full power to these golems. So he could basically create it and create life only to a certain point, whereas God actually gives you like the power to, like, speak or just weird.

I would think God is the one that gives you life and then everything else you can learn. But apparently the understanding is only God can make can give man the power to speak. And so a lot of times golems are mute. Actually, I think across all stories, golems are mute and don't speak because there's only so much a rabbi can create for them ability wise. And OK, one of the powers is they can't talk.

And so in many Bronze Age mythologies, fun fact, God is depicted as a potter and he's out of Pottersville a lot of times making humans from clay and all of that. And in the Book of Job, Jobe tells Adam, You and I are the same before God, I was nipped from Clay. So it's just a lot of nods to like all life comes from Clay and the Earth. Mm hmm. And so, you know, the Golem is made from the same stuff as you and me.

And one fun fact, apparently, there is one claim that golems aren't made from Clay, but they're made from wood. Oh, because there was this one Jewish poet named Solomon Gabber role. Gabriel, it doesn't matter. I can't Gabriel Solomon G.

And he allegedly had some sort of like skin disease. And so he put himself he ran away and hid in the woods because he was embarrassed about it. Oh, no. But apparently he was able to make himself a golem out of the wood from the trees that he was living under. So apparently they don't just have to be made from clay, they can be made from wood, though. The weird thing about Solomon's situation, though, is like not that the Golem was made from wood, but that he particularly specifically made a female golem.

OK, that was my next question. Yeah. What were the intentions here?

Got to maybe be a concubine of sorts, if you will. Goodness, it seems like the I mean, if you think about it, this is like not a cute look. But I mean, he wanted, first of all, a golem who has historically best known for being a servant to do your chores. So there's no way because you are not God to give it the power to speak. So now it's a silent female servant who is having sexual relations with so.

Oh, good. Just everything perfect about toxic masculinity.

And there was one rabbi and the sixteenth century who defended this situation because he said since golems are not, quote, born from men Siemen. Or grown in a woman's womb, sex with a golem is not a sin, which then that could really get messy if it's like it gets messy real quick.

Yeah, that could very, very quickly trickle into some other stuff when you're saying like, oh, well, it's not made from a human or it's not human, so you can have sex with it.

So I'm just going to like I was going to list a whole bunch of things. I'm just going to let everyone's imagination take their own stab at it.

Everyone else's imagination can can run off and do what you want. It doesn't. You know, we don't talk about any more of it, but I just wanted to make it clear that someone I'm twenty one.

I'm going to step out of it for once. This was in the 16th century. So luckily, if we wanted to just totally cancel that person, he's already dead, canceled. So he's like physically canceled. He's like God, physiologically canceled. So fun fact. Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein, she actually took inspiration from the Golem legends because it was a creature created from by man in Frankenstein. She also does confront the ethical issues of creating artificial life, which we discussed during that episode.

I think it was one five. I loved that episode. It was a it's a real thinker because it makes you think like, you know, artificial life. How far can you really go?

Yeah, because that one got into, like, true crime as far as like body parts and reanimated corpses and like a discussion on morals of like what's right and what's wrong.

So X of.

Oh, my gosh, so fascinating. So you can really talk about that also at the golems of like you're creating something purely to serve you, like, blindly and just like but at some point, if the the fear or the superstition is the longer it's alive, the more powerful becomes and the more human it thinks, then like, are you God, by turning it off and keeping it from having its own thoughts.

And like if it's becoming more human and you're having quote unquote sexual relations with that, how long does it get to a point where you're like, yep, doesn't have a say?

Like, I don't ever have a say. Yeah, yeah. It could get real bad real quick. Oh.

So here's one thing that's kind of like. It ends up being funny, so hang in there, dropping in there for a second. OK. And today, Golem is actually Hebrew slang for an idiot. And it's because one of the arguably funniest parts to me about a golem is in their personality, is that they take things way too fuckin literally. And so, like Amelia Bedelia, I would like literally sound like a million.

I OK, I recently have started we all know I love to collect things and eBay won't let me buy Pokemon cards anymore. So I've recently been trying to recollect all the Amelia Bedelia.

I love Amelia Adelia. Do I like Amelia Bedelia was one of the only books that I fucking I think reading that's where we formed our sense of humor was maybe like from those that girl was kooky as ever.

She was so funny while she made me laugh, draw the drapes and she'd just get you a picture like God. I still think of that every time someone uses the word draw or stuff, the turkey or whatever. I mean, oh my God.

Oh, Miss Bedelia. She I loved her so much, I, I really hope I can collect all the books. It would be very fun for me.

Can you read them to me at bedtime. I haven't read them in ages if anyone would. If you have old Amelia Bedelia books lying around, you want to send them to our P.O. Box, I will happily take them. OK, so they take their job too literally.

So if your owner or your creator said, can I have some water, they would literally go out. And because they were also freakishly strong, they would pick up the entire well and try to bring the deer into your house or like, I need some firewood. And they would pick up the tree roots and all. And then it would like it was like a very beautiful dramedy of like the tree would fall on your house. Like it was like just terrible circumstances would happen.

So, like, are you happy?

And you're like, oh, no, in there did I do well? And so so now it's slang for an idiot. OK, all right. I didn't see that coming. So here is a description of what a golem is supposed to look like around eight feet tall with glowing eyes and a thick belt around its waist. Although that image specifically comes from a film and the twentieth century called the Golem, how he came into the Worlds. I have not seen this movie, but according to the Internet, it seems like it is pretty pivotal in the golems being seen in a lot of pop culture today.

So a lot of the references you'll see about a golem have to do with that movie being made. But I did also hear that it use a lot of creative license when telling the history of the story. Apparently it got real like dark magic verses, like trying to describe the history of religion. And apparently there was a few notes that it had some anti-Semitic undertones. So just just if you're going to watch it, just be prepared for that. So let's see.

So before the film, the original description of a golem was that they were slightly thinner and more humanlike, but always tall and muscular. But at the start of the twentieth century, the Golem started looking a little different, like having the belts around its waist and being kind of, I think like maybe sort of potbellied or something. And it started a following that way in pop culture, because there was a book called Dare, Dare, Golem, D-R.

It's German. I say it. Oh yeah. There. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

OK, go. Yeah, you got it. You got it. And it kind of depicted the Golem as like scarier versus it being like a hero or a laborer or something like that. It was kind of more of like a like a kind of spooky looking like a villain.

Yeah, I guess so. So this is still probably the most famous version. So a combination of that. And then the Golem from the the film in the nineteen hundreds. OK, so like Frankenstein, Golem is a loose interpretation for films about A.I. or machines in general who develop human tendencies. Also the head of the Neuro Robotics Research Lab in Berlin, their names, Manfred Hild, and basically they were talking about how the more a golem becomes a human, the likelier that they are more destructive towards their surroundings because they are less obedient.

And Manfred said it's basically the same concept for golems and robots, where fear has become the main element because robots in our version of golems and that it's the farthest we can get without creating life.

Sure. OK, so makes sense. I think that's a really good way to look at it, of like we can only build so much with the technology or the abilities we have, but there's no breathing true life into it. So it's almost soulless life.

And then the so the Golem also, if you're looking for one of the other ways that we have been inspired by the Golem, there is a I am there is a poem which people have heard of, I think called The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Aha. And here is basically a quick excerpt blurb explaining the poem as an old sorcerer departs his workshop, leaving his apprentice with chores to perform. Tired of fetching water by Paille, The Apprentice enchants a broom to do the work for him using magic and which enchants a broom to do the work for him, using magic in which he is not fully trained.

The floor is soon awash with water, and The Apprentice realizes that he cannot stop the broom because he doesn't know that the. Magic required to do so, The Apprentice splits the broom in two with an axe, but each of the pieces becomes a whole broom and takes up a pail and continues fetching water. Now, at twice the speed at the at this increased pace, the entire room quickly begins to flood. When all seems lost, the old sorcerer returns and quickly breaks the spell.

And the poem concludes with the old sorcerer statement that only a master should invoke powerful spirits.

So Fantasia traumatized the shit out of me when I was a kid. And that poem adapted into was adapted into Disney.

The last time I was in L.A., even I like before you came over, but I spent like a solid half hour talking about how much Fantasia traumatized children.

What's weird is I don't I don't think I realize it traumatized me. But if anyone were to ever say, do you want to watch Fantasia? My first thought is absolutely not. So I think it's because I also I do it's just if let's put it this way and if we were to tweet it out, we would say if you watched Fantasia as a child, you have anxiety now, like, yeah, I think that's a fair argument.

There were three VHS tapes that I hid from my father because he likes he's like, you know, he like read me Franz Kafka like a bedtime story. So he loved watching me, like, turmoil in turmoil. But so the three VHS tapes I hid from him were Fox in the house in Dumbo and Fantasia, because I was like, these three are I mean, and they did stick in my brain forever. So there's there under my mattress for a long time.

Dumbo traumatized me.

I think that was a brave choice of Disney to recently make a live action version of that. Compared to other movies. I didn't understand. I was like I was like of all the movies are going to pick the one that, like most people, have the worst criag experiences to like you couldn't pick. Little Mermaid, you couldn't pick, you know, literally anything, literally anything else besides Fox in the house? You know, it would be a precious live action in the day it happens.

I'm going to squeal is so I have three favorite four favorite Disney movies. And they were all the, quote, boy movies, if that even is a thing which is not. But like I like Hercules and Tarzan a lot and I but my two favorites were The Fox in the Hound, which apparently I'm a masochist. And then also Oliver and Company. If they did all that was so good, they did a live action of Oliver and company.

I believe my dinking mind No. One.

OK, I thought they did, but I could probably be completely I think it's the reverse because Oliver and Company is from the live action, Oliver Twist, which is from the Broadway.

Maybe that's what I'm yeah, I'm probably I'm probably making this up.

If they did, I don't know about it and I'm about to go frantically Netflix that.

So yeah, I could we yeah. All of our company is as a live action.

There's no way it says Kristen Bell, Bill Hader. Maybe it's coming up. Maybe I just like it. It is coming up. Oh my God.

I don't know. I don't know. It says Chris Nelson. It is Dodger Billy Joel. Hang on a second. I got to see something.

But now it's not in like IMDB or anything, so. Oh, it's a casting thing. Maybe it never actually.

Halliburton Co. live action. No one needs to know at the same time, it's a fan cast, it's not. I know. Anyway, I think I'm probably fantastic myself. Well, I am excited that Hercules is becoming a live action. So very, very exciting.

Also, I just want to I just made a realization that this is like. Right.

If I write this down for my therapist later, I just realized my two favorite animals are elephants and foxes.

And they're the movies you really used to watch on Disney. Maybe you have.

And they traumatized me because the victims in those movies were the baby elephant in the box.

Also the fox in the Hound was actually much fucking worse because it wasn't it. It was like adapted from like something like like a Brothers Grimm or something like it was.

Yeah, they were both really bad. Dumbo was like his mom was like caged up in, like tortured and take it away.

I mean.

Well no, I mean like the like the Fox in the Hound Disney movie is like arguably much less traumatic and certainly so I think like in the real one, like the dog like terrorism to pieces or something.

Yes, I'm certain that's right. That sounds very different.

Or like forced the dog to like eat his best friend or something was really it's no wonder that like my parents thought it was fun to watch as family.

But anyway, those are my favorite animals. It's just a weird connection I made anyway. Anyway, Fantasia. Right. Remember that. Right, right. Right, right, right. So here's a fun fact about Fantasia. Apparently, Walt Disney, when they first premiered it, they decided that they wanted to, like, stimulate the senses of the audience. And so they put perfume and the theater during The Nutcracker Suite. And they also did the smell of gunpowder to fill the room during the Sorcerer's Apprentice.

That's not frightening at all. Now, I know a lot of Broadway shows do that. They're like they'll do like the smell of a certain food in the show or something or I mean, it's it's not uncommon, but I think it is probably ahead of its time back then. Yeah.

I mean, I didn't know that existed. Also, gunpowder is a scary thing to smell in a crowded theater, just saying.

Well, apparently not back then. Back then and also when the whole theme of the entire thing is anxiety, terror, it's also smell gunpowder.

So another fun fact is that the film's music conductor, the So Fantasias music conductor, actually originally pitched to Walt Disney instead of Mickey, be the main character and play The Sorcerer's Apprentice, he pitched that it would be dopey from the Seven Dwarves, which that's fun.

I think it kind of actually would have worked really well. So, like I mean, I think it would have been less anxiety inducing. Yeah, I think so too. I think it makes sense, though, if it were going to be dopey, the one who liked it didn't know his like the magical powers he needed to be able to, you know.

Yeah, it does make sense. I think it makes sense.

Apparently Walt Disney was like the stupidest idea I've ever heard. OK, all right.

So the Golem legend has also been found in many folk tales. There's a Yiddish and Slavic folktale called Playboy. And apparently it's like a weird combination of the Golem and then like the gingerbread man and the story, I guess there's a million different versions of it. But the the general premise is that a couple makes a child out of clay and there are disastrous consequences.

So, OK, that sounds about right. So one Russian version is that an older couple whose children left home made one another kid. So they made a boy out of clay. And when the clay boy comes to life, the he starts eating all of their food and he won't stop growing. He soon is eating their livestock. Then he eats them. Then he destroys the village and then a goat kills them. Oh, so it gives you real out of hand real fast.

Sounds like a Disney film. It sounds like the early adaptation of a movie for sure. So in the Czech Republic there are many Golem touristy things to do. I forgot to Google what things? Because I wanted to give you a list. So sorry about that. But everyone take a little Googs, if you like, throughout the Czech Republic. Yeah, it's also the Golem is still a very popular figure. You can see statues, signs of the Golem.

You can buy little figurines made of clay if you'd like. You can also visit a Rabbi WLOS grave, which apparently Michelle Obama has done. So. Oh, cool. You want to be like Michelle Obama? I do. Go visit Rabbi Lowe's grave. You can also visit the old synagogue, if you will. The old the progs old synagogue.

That sounds like a Cinnabon. Look, just megamix. Maybe they could have Walt Disney pump in the smell of Cinnabon in Prague. And then we've got ourselves really something a marketing opportunity. Yeah.

Yeah. Cinnabon. Are you listening. OK, Praag now.

OK, Krog, if I told you to get Praag on the phone, are they here. OK, so like I said in the ah the original legend of the Golem of Prague is that he's still waiting in the attic of the synagogue to be reactivated so that he can help protect the Jewish people again when they need him most and. The the I keep trying to call it the Senate because I fucked myself up, the Golem, Jesus, the Golem is has been seen and a lot of pop culture.

I already mentioned The Simpsons. It's also used a lot as a creature and games. So like Dendi, apparently the Golem and Dungeons and Dragons is a monster that is made from either Flesche, Clay, Stone or iron, and based on what it's made of, determines its strength.

It is also in Pokemon. Hello, Golem is number 76. OK? Yeah, I'm sorry.

You understand why I've heard this name before.

So word Jodo turns into grappler who turns into Golem so. Right. My God. So Golem is I mean now that I'm looking at it, it makes total sense. I used to think he was like a rock turtle or something. Yeah, same. But now it makes sense that he is like just a creature that's made of like clay and rock and he is like one of his big like powers. He's like a protector and like he like everything can like bounce off of him and stuff.

So. Oh, and one of my favorite things about Gollum, which like I don't know if Pokemon was trying to do this, but it certainly fulfilled my stereotypical Jewish needs of my stereotypical Jewish family is that Golem requires one hundred Candie's to evolve, which sounds it sounds like me like if you want me to be the best version of myself, I need minimum one hundred Candie's so ninety nine won't do it.

Won't do so. You give me a bag of racism, we'll see where I end up tomorrow. And then it's also Golem is seen in Minecraft as apparently iron golems and snow golems. According to PC games in Iron Golems, primary function is to protect villagers and that's despite being able to punch the life out of most things. This is like an actual like Bravo, I think, or something. Despite being able to punch the life out of most things, they're also incredibly kind hearted and can often be seen spotted offering villagers poppies that they can magically create in their own hands.

So that's nice. So that's sweet. So here's my favorite way that they have been mentioned, the Golem. So you ready? Yeah, not not well, they haven't been not that not in a bad way, but I mean, like not consistently. It was just like almost like a little cameo of sorts. But the Golem is apparently and was mentioned in Marvel so.

Oh, the Golem. I think it was like ten different comic book issues. They're all from different series. But in ten comic issues out there, the Golem is seen as a humanoid creature. They, by the way, Stan Lee or Jack Kirby or whoever at Marvel decided to create Golem really didn't even want to fuckin mess with the back the back story at all. Interesting. This is how Golem, the superhero, was created. Golem is a humanoid creature made in the 16th century from Clay by Rabbi Lowe to protect Jewish people from persecutors in Prague.

Copy, copy. Paste that wiki like we don't even want to mess with. Love it. Yeah. Oh, so their superhero story. There's two different golems, I think in two different series. It was like a different alter ego or something that becomes Golem. So one of them was this archaeologist named Abraham Adamson, and he was looking for the stone. He always heard about Golem and he wanted to find Golem, finally finds Golem, and then something happens to him where he is dying right next to Golem.

And so he ends up putting his life force into Golem at the same time that he is dying. He's praying that his family would be safe and something would protect his family. So he becomes Golem, a protector.

And basically he's reanimated as Golem. And I'm pretty sure, like the superhero thing is like, you know, I don't know if, you know, it's like super Superman with kryptonite or like, you know, like once he's near kryptonite, like all of a sudden his powers are going away or like his powers are really like his real source of energy is the sun. So if he's, like, not near the sun for very long, his power start to weaken.

Apparently, Golem, if he is not near land for a very long like near the Earth. Oh, and then he loses his strength. He becomes interesting, less and less superhero like so. And one of the issues he's like at sea the whole time and he's like becoming weaker and weaker and so.

Let me see. Apparently, he's eight foot six, he's six hundred pounds, this is the superhero. Sixteen hundred pounds, just a safe sixteen hundred pounds. Do you remember when you said the Yeti was eight feet tall and two hundred pounds?

This thing is literally eight times heavier and six inches taller than the other. Oh my God. That's the Abominable Snowman.

If you're listening from our last episode, I covered the Abominable Snowman. Right? So eight foot six hundred pounds. Apparently his superpowers are that he's his strength is drawn from the earth. He is durable. He can take like shockwaves and bullets and explosions and like nothing hurts them. And he's apparently stronger than Captain America. Oh, his first appearance ever was in 1970 and the Incredible Hulk. And that was the Abraham to Abraham Adamson one. But then there's another alter ego or a different character that becomes Gollum one day.

And it was more historically, I guess, pivotal. This was in nineteen seventy seven. The Golem shows up in the invaders and this guy's name is Jacob Goldstein, which like, wow, they really ran with like the classic Jewish names. So he was apparently in a Jewish ghetto during World War Two and he became Golem purely to fight the Nazis. So wow. I'm down with that too. Yeah. The enemy. This is kind of weird and I don't totally understand it, but the enemy of Golem is Kabbalah, which is literally like the word for ancient Jewish tradition and mysticism.

But like the the villains name was Kabbalah, also the villains name.

Oh, got it. Got it. Got it. Yeah. So the bad guy was Kabbalah and he had like these little minions who worked for him that were all different demons made from the elements.

So like they had so Kabbalah would tell like er demons or fire demons or water demons that they had to fight Golem. So it was all weirdly like they paid attention to the history before they made this comic. And then I'm just going to end on. My favorite fact of them all is that the Golem at one point was also a member of Shields Howling Commandos, which if anyone was a Captain America fan, knows that the Howling Commandos were the unit that Captain America led in World War Two.

And so apparently the Golem is from the same unit as Captain America. And he was guess who else was in the howling commandos?

Apparently, I don't know you.

I wish the the fucking abominable snowman shut up. So apparently Marvel had like a series called Like Monster Force, and they were all about, like, weird crypts.

I've never known this, but God, how weird is that? So the unit howling commandos, apparently there's a whole series where it's howling commandos has this breakoff. They're called the Monster Force of the Howling Commandos. And two of the people on it were the Golem and the Abominable Snowman. And so the Abominable Snowman, I'm going to say real quick, his name, his alter ego was Carl Hansen, and he was an explorer looking for the Abominable Snowman.

And he steals a picture of the Yeti in the Himalayas. And over time, as he climbs the mountain looking for the Yeti, he becomes the Yeti.

It sounds a lot like stealing that finger and all that. Yeah. So the Abominable Snowman actually at one point worked with the X-Men. He was also known for being able to, like, take he was bulletproof and all that. He had superhuman smell. Apparently he was a pilot. Good for you. And he first appeared in Nineteen Sixties Tales to Astonish. And here is the the the trifecta here is in one of the issues that the Abominable Snowman is mentioned in on the monster force with the Golem.

The Abominable Snowman teams up with Sasquatch to fight groups from Guardians of the Galaxy. Stop.

How weird is that anyway? That's the Golem. A little Marvel trivia for you.

Wow. That really ended on an M note. On a weird note, I had no idea about any of that comics. I have to go read that now for sure and catch you up on what Sasquatch is doing with Captain America or what? I hope so, yeah.

Anyway, because he did like the Yeti back to back with the Golem. Nice.

So I learned about I did the Golem second my notes for the go on second. And I was and I was reading about this Marvel shit and I was like howling commandos. It's so wild. And then it said also with the Abominable Snowman, I went so and we're sorry. Did my own notes good. Actually copy and paste it onto this page. What happened. And apparently they're both mentioned on this like monster force. I don't know. I think it's a pretty recent series.

I think it's from like this decade or something like it's not like a classic, but but still like I'm going to go check it out. So anyway.

Wow, OK, well, that was cool. You kind of bridged the gap there without even knowing it. Sure did. OK, well, let me just check real quick, because earlier I Googled if Gollum was Golem, I don't know, but I don't I don't know, apparently.

It's very much argued on the Internet whether or not Golomb had anything to do with gold, but now that you know the history, it does. I mean, he is supposed to protect the ring. I mean, so that makes sense. It does make some sense. And he does kind of look like he's made of clay, like he's kind of right. Gray and weird looking. But he is kind of weird looking.

Right. So, I mean. Who knows? Did Dr. Ainata say anything about. Oh, my God, she always said something. I said, Do you know what a golem is? And she said, yes. So that was good. And then and then, like, I guess a few months later, since I didn't respond, she sent another text message that says it depends on the country. I kind of think of it as a vessel.

You can put to good and bad in it and it stands for whatever you need.

Oh, so? Well, it was seen for a long time across the traditions as like a symbol of hope and protection during times of like genocide and shit. So I guess it was like based on how you manifested or perceive it.

Yeah, well it's interesting, too, depending on which country was experiencing what kind of persecution or whatever.

Hmm.

Sometimes a dwarf is just a dwarf and a Gollum is just a Gollum. So just sit back, relax and enjoy the movie. OK, Seth, just get over it. Seth. God, I'm sorry. I'm just curious about the history behind the movie. All right.

Apparently probably not is the answer. So, my God.

OK, Amethi, I'm ready. I'm so excited to start in twenty twenty one out with a bang.

Oh, I for you today. Amethi first story of twenty twenty one. I'm covering the son of Sam.

Oh. Oh man. OK my I was going to say my aunt has a story but she doesn't have like a legitimate story. But my whole family is, was from the area. My mom also was from that area at the time. And so they all at least kind of like how I've told you, like I remember like little moments of like the D.C. sniper sniper, like having to run from the car into buildings and shit. My mom and my dad and all of his siblings have said, like, oh, we remember, like, no parking here, no doing this.

Like, if you drove near this area, you tried to find another route, like just because there were Son of Sam, it was like he was like terrorizing the area. Yeah.

So I think it's oh, that's fun.

I've heard I've heard my mom kind of sport sadly reminiscing about like but that's interesting.

So anyway. Wow.

OK, well I wonder what I wonder if he'll make any connections here.

So let's just crack into it. And Son of Sam, by the way, in case anyone else is wary, is a legitimate actual criminal. This is not the Grinch to point out.

Oh yeah. Linda remembers him well. Well, look, I think for generations we all remember the Grinch pretty well and somehow it totally escaped me. So just.

Yes, no, son of Sam. I think it's one of those that gets gets quite a quite a following. I think a following. Yeah. In one way or another. Yeah.

So our story begins July 31st. Nineteen seventy seven. Stacy Moskowitz and Bobby Volante were on their first date sitting in his parked car in Brooklyn's Lover's Lane when Stacy spotted a figure lurking in the shadows.

Shit. She asked Bobby to leave, but he convinced her it was nothing to be afraid of.

But he would forever wish that they had driven away because unfortunately, moments later, the man walked up to the car and shot both Stacey and Bobby. Oh, my God. Tragically, Stacey died and Bobby survived. However, he lost his left eye and was blinded.

Wow. Fortunately for police, though, there had been a witness. OK, the witness had seen a man getting away in a car that had a parking ticket on it.

Only a handful of tickets were given out that day, one of which belonged to a man called David Berkowitz.

OK, so. A little clip rewind that a lot of this info is from my favorite site, Murder Pedia, as most of you know, I, I just love murder.

It's like a basically like an amalgamation of of just tons of articles on like a single killer, all kind of like laid out. It's like it's a Christian Bible if you knew.

Yeah. Yeah. The the the Sistine Chapel as the Sistine Chapel. That's our testament.

That's your testimony up.

So OK. David Berkowitz was born Richard David Falko to a woman named Betty Browder on June 1st, 1953. Here we go. Gemini season did not have to attack me like that. Yeah, I know this is a pointed attack from the universe, I think at us specifically. And you know how people are always tagging us in those means that are like most serial killers are Geminis.

I'm like, well, yeah, we're not denying it. Looks like we don't make me mad. Then you tell me exactly. Then why don't you step off like it shocks me zero percent that any serial killer would be a Gemini.

It it it just fits, you know. Absolutely.

We are very emotional people. Yeah. Very emotional.

Make sure that some of us are emotionless actually.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So he born in Brooklyn on June 1st, 1953. So, Betty, his mom was also bringing up a young daughter, but she had begun a relationship with a married man and apparently his wife actually knew about it and they'd like sometimes have dinners together. So it wasn't like a secret, like it was a secret to the outside world. But in the family, like this man's wife knew he had a mistress.

So they were potentially like just poly before.

It was like accepted by the world, sort of, OK, we're not like the wife just accepted it because she didn't really have a choice. I don't think it was like, this is fun for me as the woman. I think it was like, got it. He's the man he gets to do. What he wants is, is more of the understanding I've gotten.

I see. I will I won't attach I want to attach the poly community to. Yeah.

I'm not going to put labels on this because it's just not a good look.

So I apologise to to to everyone listening to everybody.

Just I was going to say to the poly community and I was like, no, no, no, just, just to everyone. Just like a general apology to to fill the gaps, if you will.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So she sometimes so the wife apparently knew about this, but the one condition of Betty being supported by this man that she was having an affair with was that she could not get pregnant because they were like if anybody, he was like I from the outside world. I'm like a great husband and family man. And if it gets out that I have a mistress with a baby, right. This is just not a good look.

So the one rule is that she not get pregnant. Well, I think we can all guess where this is going.

Whoops.

Maybe in nine months there was a little baby crying in the background of this little itty bitty baby. So he was not happy, obviously, but Betty didn't have enough money to continue a livelihood without his support. And so basically, Richard, the baby was put up for adoption when he was just a few days old and he was adopted by Nathan and Pearl Berkowitz.

So they were hardware, they were Jewish American hardware store retailers. And they had been trying for a baby for a long time. And we're very ecstatic to finally have a baby. And they changed his name. So his middle name, his name originally was Richard David Falko. So they changed his name to David and then his middle name and then sure gave the last name Berkowitz.

So when he was about eleven, his mom and dad told him that he was adopted and this completely blindsided him, especially because they kind of fudged the truth. So they told him that instead of saying that his mother had given him up for adoption, they said his mother had died in childbirth and that his father wasn't able to care for him. It didn't have the means necessary to care for him. And I think they might have had good intentions. But this backfired because for the rest of his childhood, he had this guilt that he had killed his mother in childbirth and that, like his dad maybe hated him because he was the reason his mother died.

So I I first of all, I hope I hope, you know, that's a sad feeling to have. But I also like I feel like if I were in that situation, I would feel the same way. I always completely I as a kid like you don't know any better.

You know, I be like, you know, what was the the emotional process for having to give me up? It was my dad excited because he was getting rid of the thing that. Right.

Hurt someone he didn't want me to like. So he felt unwanted and he felt like guilty because he felt that he was the cause for his. So, you know, they didn't I don't think intend that.

But that's kind of what ended up happening. What comes from it. Yeah. Yeah. And so. Yes, sorry. So he was known to be like a actually a very smart kid. He had a high IQ. I think his IQ was like one 18 at the age of like seven or something like he was.

My IQ is 2000. So like, oh, yeah, yeah. You know, he doesn't hold a candle to me.

And you're only eight. That's the truth. That's the truth. So but with his high IQ, he also had some pretty intense behavioral issues. In later testimony, he recalled.

Now, this kind of a long quote, but hang in there, OK? Ever since I was a small child, my life seemed to be filled with torment, I would often have seizures in which I would roll on the floor. Sometimes furniture would get knocked over. When these attacks came, it felt as if something was entering me. My mother had no control over me. I was like a wild and destructive animal. My father had to pin me to the floor until the attack stopped.

When I was in public school, I was so violent and disruptive that a teacher who had become so angry at me grabbed me in a headlock and threw me out of his classroom. I was getting into a lot of fights, too. Sometimes I started screaming for no reason at all.

So he was a trouble maker, for lack of a better word.

Also, yike seizures. I feel bad for him in that regard ever.

Yeah, well, I'm not it's it's not clear whether he was like having seizures or whether he was faking. It's oilor alert. Later on, he claimed that he had been possessed by the devil. So. Oh, my word. OK, how much of it is like scrap what I just said, health issue or because there was never any mention of like he actually had a seizure condition.

That's not so. Oh, I got it. OK, well, I think he mostly was referring to like having fits and like tantrums, OK, throwing things around.

But I mean it could be. But so despite his outbursts, he was extremely close to his mom, his parents, for what it's worth, we're like very loving. They really, really cared for him. Apparently, he was somewhat spoiled being like the only child that they had wanted for so long. But unfortunately, she passed.

Pearl passed from cancer in 1967 when he was only fourteen years old. And he was like completely gutted, like he was devastated by the death of his mother.

At the age of 18, Berkowitz graduated from Christopher Columbus High School in the Bronx and then attended Bronx Community College for a semester before being enlisted in the US Army. He qualified as an infantry sharpshooter with the M sixteen rifle and went on to serve in South Korea, where he excelled as a proficient marksman.

So that comes into play so much, you know, of the story.

Well, you started it with someone got shot in the eye, so. Oh, that's right. I already told you that one other person also got shot and died.

So I'm like, how mysterious. Like, no, you literally thought, why not take a hit? Remember, my IQ is two thousand, so. All right, got to be like six. So it's fine. I together they average out to be a pretty good team.

I think this is true. Yeah I, I literally I'm still on the same page and I'd already forgotten the entire beginning, so good for me.

So let's see. He excelled as a marksman and early in his army service, for whatever reason, he left Judaism to become a fundamentalist Baptist. He just kind of one day decided to walk into a Christian, a Baptist church and said, this is for me now.

I guess, OK, it's kind of unclear why it is speculated that when he joined the army, he was still a virgin and that his first sexual experience during his three year service was with a sex worker.

OK, and let's just say it didn't go well for him because afterward he contracted venereal disease. And this is thought to have greatly exacerbated his anger toward women.

So he hadn't really had any sexual experiences before then.

And then when he did have one, it ended very poorly. And that just was not a good step in his in his life toward a murderer.

Yeah, got it. Got it. Got it. Shut up. I think so. Either put it on the whiteboard, check out yes or no.

We'll do a poll. Just say yes or yes because I don't want to hear no, I don't want to do it. We're going to do a poll and you're going to answer and then that's the end. You're going to say the right answer. Answer yes.

After finishing military service in nineteen seventy four, Berkowitz returned to New York, where he got a job as a letter sorter for the US Postal Service before working as a security guard.

And so this is a fun fact. I don't know how much Seinfeld you watched at all growing up.

My family was more of a Friends kind of household, but I do know of Seinfeld.

Yeah, my family. My family was none. I liked Friends and Blaze's family was definitely Seinfeld. So, you know, it keeps things interesting.

I think I think we've all aged into becoming a Seinfeld family back in its prime. We were a friends house. But now as time goes on, I'm liking Friends less and liking Seinfeld more.

So, yeah, I would agree with that. But I look at the merits of it.

But I'm not like I'm not like a huge fanatic, so I don't know how much I would know based on what you're going to say next.

Yeah. Yeah. OK, sorry. Can I like do a complete 180 tangent here. Not tangent, just like a note because I meant since the beginning of the episode I feel like such an ass for not mentioning it was I was going to mention it last episode that I was just on an episode of Astonishing Legends that I got to read like a personal story from my from my family. It's like an astral projection story. And I got to read it in their Christmas special.

And I literally had it written down on this paper and I just went, oh my God, I didn't mention it at the beginning of the episode, I got too wrapped up in my singing.

Oh, my God, no. Kubilius, I know that has nothing to do with Seinfeld, but I was going to say where we took a lot of turns out.

I'm so sorry. I like how your excuses you got wrapped up in your own singing. Like we we know we know what happened. Don't work. We also got Rocky right there. Yeah. Yeah, it happens. It's ok. OK, sorry. We'll mention at the end of the episode too. OK, ok. I just feel bad because I was like shit. I told them I was going to mention it in this episode and then I completely blank so I'm really proud of it.

So go listen to it.

OK, because I felt Seinfeld anyway. They're like what a show is this OK to show everyone there's a weight loss right now? I'm sweating a lot, so I don't know about you guys, but that's where I stand.

So for Seinfeld, fans of detail about David Berkowitz working for the Postal Service is reference in an episode called The Diplomat's Club, where Kramer asks new men to bring over his mail bag worth thousands of dollars as collateral for his gambling. But the bag isn't any old mail bag. It actually belonged to David Berkowitz. And then at one point, Newman even jokes about dogs speaking to him while he's on his mail route. So depending on how much you know about that story.

Right, the rest of the story, that will make sense later.

But there is like a run. There was like a joke in an episode about he got a hold of David Berkowitz original mail back.

Oh, OK. So back to The Real Story. It was when Berkowitz returned from the Army that he decided to look into his biological parents. He was both shocked and elated when he found out that his mother, Betty Falko, was still alive because he had been living with this guilt for his entire life, basically.

Wow. Can you imagine, like, now you are eight. Your formative years are over like you have developed under the guise of you killed your mother or. Yeah, according to yourself, in your own psyche and your own psyche. That's what you've built up, your identity has. And now all of a sudden, like it's too late to say, never mind, like now I just have this information. But you grew up and turned into this person who believed this other thing.

You probably like internalized it so much.

It's OK to revert that.

So I listen to an episode of Serial Killers, the podcast show on it was a two parter and they had like a voice actor reading a lot of his quotes, a lot of Berkowitz later quotes describing this. And he basically I mean, to paraphrase, he said something like, a lot of people thought it was like a really fraught and terrible reunion, but it was actually a really happy reunion when I met other.

So just, I don't know, worth noting, I guess according to him, they had a happy reunion, but he eventually lost contact with his birth mother. He began he also learned about his sister. Remember, he his mom was raising a young girl when she got pregnant and gave the baby up. But she still had the so he had an older sister.

Now, at this point, he began working a number of blue collar jobs and after hearing about his what his mother called an illegitimate birth and how his father, like, basically didn't want him because he wasn't going to fit into the family he had, this belief was growing in him that he was unwanted, not just by his own mother now, but by all women. He just started feeling like the world specifically. Women were out to get him. And he let's just say he lashed out about that.

Hmm. So neighbors originally, like, didn't really think much of Berkowitz. He wasn't like a huge character. Like some of these serial killers are, like outwardly speaking, he kept to himself. He was known to be odd, like a friend remembered quote, He used to laugh a lot by himself. He'd roar and couldn't stop, but he wouldn't tell you anything about it.

That's like me on tech talk in the other room. It is like you. Oh, don't worry about it. I'm not going to tell you what it is. It's all about it.

It's just I don't I don't know if you won't get it. It's OK. You had to be there. You had to be there in my tick tock. You had to be on my couch in silence.

So apparently feeling isolated by the world around him. He became what you do and arsonist's.

Oh, well, what else? You know how it is. According to his meticulously kept diaries later found in his apartment, Berkowitz was responsible for around fifteen hundred two thousand fires.

That's almost one for every pound that the Golem is. My God, can you imagine? Wow.

Yeah. So he started most of them in Brooklyn before nineteen seventy seven, and as we've seen in the past, this behavior pyromania can often signal that something worse is coming. Sure. And I'd also like to add that this behavior started young, like he started this when he was young. It wasn't like he was in his 20s now.

And he also did start fires like time out. Hang on. I got to do math on that. How on earth do you how do you even find the time to do 50 hundred fires?

Fifteen hundred divided by three. Six five. I mean, just do. Oh, that's not too bad for your. Wait, wait, wait, no, I did not. Thirty five years old. Yeah, I heard it, I heard it, I heard it. That's over the age of a golem.

OK, so how old was he at this time in his life? I go around like 30 or something.

Let's pretend he's like 30.

OK, so he's definitely way younger than that. I think he's like twenty two.

OK, divided by twenty two. But then also we got to think like he probably didn't start the schedule, he was like five.

Right. I don't think he started fires till he was like a teenager or so let's say let's say 12.

I loved fire at 12 so let's say to ten years. So that's one hundred and fifty a year. So one hundred and fifty now divided by twelve months. Yeah, 12 and a half a month divided by four weeks. You do like three a goddamn week every week.

How I used to calculate how many dollars I had left to buy from and after my job, and it was always like negative eight. And I was like, oh.

So it literally had to have been starting a fire for in a decade. He had to start a fire every other day, basically. Yeah. Yeah. OK, so I think probably he would like set several at a time.

I don't know, I would just like one in every corner one and. I'm in a mood to set fires.

I'm going to run to like ten abandoned buildings and set them on fire. I don't know. But he did. He wrote down every single one. So they never would have attributed these fires to him by like a number eight.

I would have been so over logging ratshit.

I would have been like, yeah, that that's that takes a lot of I was I worked as a Lyft driver and they were always like, write down your your logs. And I found the log recently, had two rides in it because I gave up after two.

I was like, this is too much work is not driving to be clear. But I stopped writing them down.

I was like, yeah, it's exactly like I'm not I'm just the thought. It sounds so tiring. Yes, it does. This is a spiral notebook. I mean, so they they that's how they figured out how many he had set. I assume not all of them like turn into a major blaze.

I think he was just like sending little ones. I don't know. But so anywhere from fifteen hundred two thousand fires, they were mostly in Brooklyn before seventy seven. And according to his own accounts. Berkowitz Oh. I forgot to also mention that coupled with the fire starting when he was young, he also like to torture cockroaches, which is just like a really weird and disturbing thing. He would like try to drown them in glue and like pull off their leg like.

It's like, I know if you had a torture or something like I a cockroach, but also you really shouldn't be torturing anything, you know.

And it also just shows like a lack of empathy or, you know, like, I fucking hate cockroaches. I know. First of all, I couldn't get close enough to fucking torture.

Like, I that's the I just want them near me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Torturing anything is no bueno. It's not good. And it's like if you're going to do that. Who knows what else you're going to do, right, start with cockroaches and with humans, that's how they that's how it goes. That's the thing. That's always that's the wives tale.

So according to his own accounts, Berkowitz first murder was on December 24th, Christmas Eve. Nineteen seventy five. He walked up behind a 15 year old high school sophomore, Michelle Forman, and stabbed her in the back with a hunting knife fork.

That's also a really we've talked about this before, but that's a real gruesome way to kill someone like it's. Yes, OK. If I had to kill someone, it would be like the cowardly way of like shooting them from miles away or something. Like I could not with my bare hands, throw something into another.

Well, it's interesting. They've like so I also listen to an episode of True Crime all the time. And they were like discussing theorizing why he switched from a hunting knife to a gun. And they were saying, like, it probably was like such a up close and personal thing.

And then he never used a knife again to kill. He used the gun. He was like that one too intimate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Exactly. And like I know they say this, like disproportionately women use poison.

And other means, like gun or I think so, right, women use poison and women, the way I've always heard it in my head is that women are more sneaky and thought out about it and distance themselves from the situation versus men being like on the scene doing there's like strangulation, stabbing, like, that's much more like.

Yeah, hands on basically. Exactly.

Anyway, so he walked up behind 15 year old high school sophomore, stabbed her in the back with a hunting knife. She her injuries sent her to the hospital for seven days, but she did survive. And then hours after that stabbing, he attacked another woman and she's actually never been identified. He stabbed her repeatedly, even in the head, in the fucking head.

How do you I don't even OK.

Oh, it's just sick.

It's just hard for me to even imagine the head because, like, in my mind, there's no like in my head, it has to be like the knife would retract on itself because it's a skull.

Like it's I know it's hard for me to think you could stab through bone anyway.

Yeah. So it wasn't like the face, it was like the head, which is so weird, you know. Jesus, that's really intense.

OK, and so to clarify, at this point he was only twenty two. So that's kind of why I gave that get it. So I'm not actually sure when the fires began on start or ended, but sure the stabbings were his first murders, according to him were when he was twenty two.

So his neck. So those were the only two stabbings that he ever did as far as we know.

So his next attack was six months later in the early morning hours of July. Twenty ninth, nineteen seventy six. Eighteen year old Donna Loria, a young woman training to be a New York medic, and nineteen year old Jody Valenti, a nursing student. We're sitting in Jodi's car at 1:00 a.m. after being out at a disco.

Miss Donna open the car door to leave and noticed a man quickly approaching the car.

Startled, she said, Now, what is this? The man pulled a 44 caliber revolver from a paper bag he was holding. This is weird. Crouched down, braced one elbow on his knee, aimed his weapon with both hands and fired. Donna was struck by one bullet that killed her instantly. Jodi was shot in her thigh and the third bullet missed both of them. The shooter then turned and quickly walked away. That is very odd.

The the crouching down in, like, setting up. So that's like the where we get back to the marksmanship. Yeah, but he learned in the war or in the army.

No, it makes total sense. It's just like it's so creepy. First of all, I can't imagine anyone like fingers crossed. I'm never put in a situation like that where someone could possibly point a gun at me. Yeah. But also it's just like if that were to happen the way I have envisioned it in my mind, at no point in any circumstance have I thought, like, OK, so now they're going to set up, now they're going to get down on one and they know like they're going to do the wind up.

It's like just extraordinary that like you're watching the intent happened before your eyes before like just like, oh my gosh, that extra weird.

So extra creepy. And like just like the like the line at all. Yeah. It's like a formula and like a process.

Yeah. It's not like in my head like if some, if I were to ever get hit with, with a bullet I would think that it would happen so instantly that I wouldn't have time to process what's going on.

But in that situation, like you're allowed to feel like watching it unfold like holy shit, I'm watching.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh I know.

It makes it so much creepier, honestly. Like even like resting his elbow on his. Yeah. I mean it just adds such a creepy element to it. So when questioned by police, Jody said she didn't recognize the killer as someone she knew, but she described him as a white male in his 30s with a fair complexion, about five foot eight, weighing about two hundred pounds or ninety one kilograms. His hair was short, dark and curly. And interestingly, Donna's father claimed to have seen a similar man sitting in a yellow car parked nearby.

My neighbors gave corroborating reports to police that they had also seen an unfamiliar yellow car cruising the area for hours before the shooting. And I'm thinking, if you're a fucking murderer, get a silver Toyota. Why are you driving around in the yellow car?

Well, that's why you every time they identify as like, oh, they're in like a black SUV, they're like, well, we're just never going to fucking find this guy then because it's got a black SUV.

Can you imagine episode where they're like, oh, lucky us. He's driving a yellow Volkswagen Beetle with like with eyebrows, eyelashes on the headlights, people with paint and blood.

And just all of it spells out I'm the murderer right in front of the car. It's me. So I think it was my phone number. You can find me here. Yeah, that would be really cool.

Oh, my God. I know. It's just like, wow, OK, so this guy is like just trolling around in a yellow car.

So on October twenty third, nineteen seventy six, Berkowitz struck again. So this now three months later or so. So it was about six months later, now it's about seven months later and it's about three months later. And as we go as you can, I guess the time periods get shorter and shorter. The intervals. Yes, yes.

Yes. So October twenty third, nineteen seventy six, Berkowitz struck again, this time in Flushing, which is in Queens. Twenty year old Carl De Niro and his twenty one year old Rosemary Keenan were making out in their car when suddenly the side window just shattered.

Rosemary immediately started the car and drove back to the bar. They had come from to call for help.

Remember, they don't even have cell phones, so it's like, God, I can't I know it sounds so millennial, but I'm like, oh my God, you have to, like, drive somewhere for help.

Like, you can't even it's especially wild because when I think of them back then, like the concept of a phone of a cell phone wasn't even thought of. So it's not like they knew of an option of any other option. But for me, if I like time travel to a time like that and then I was in trouble, I would have extra anxiety of, like, I know, a simpler way.

Like, I, I know a woman give me an iPhone or like I'm going to call 911 one with a rotary phone.

Good night.

It's so nice to think about Saturday night is the farthest away.

Honestly, I used to think about that all the time. I was like, why isn't it just like one one one likes that.

Really? Why is it just one? How come there's not like a special situation where you only have to press one?

Oh boy. And we're brilliant. You and I listen, they don't they don't call me the expert and user design for nothing.

That's correct. They don't call you that period.

OK, ok, so.

Right, the window shatters, they rush back to the bar for help. And it wasn't until they got help that they realized the window had been shattered because they'd been shot at like they didn't even realize why the glass had shattered, because they didn't see the shooter over a rock like a rock hit the window or.

Yeah, yeah. They thought maybe like something else, something had hit it or like a rock, although apparently they then realized Carl had a bullet wound in his head.

So I guess the adrenaline just like didn't catch up with them until they got there.

I get it. I mean, I feel like I mean, there have been times like I got really severely hurt and I told myself I was like, do not look because your adrenaline takes over. I was like, once I look, I know how bad it is. Yeah. And I, I'm not going to look until like I'm already next to bandages and a doctor, but but yeah.

But like it's never been bad enough or it was a literal bullet wound. So I feel you're in. If that were the case my adrenaline wouldn't be able to kick in that intensity. I'd be like no. Like even though I'm not looking at the wound, like this one's pretty bad. I can tell something's wrong.

I wonder, though, if, like, if the window shattered, maybe he thought he got hit by a rock like who knows, like what he thought maybe hit him. You know, you're right. I don't know. But like because like why on earth would you think somebody was out right outside your car while you're making out with someone like I? I think your brain would just not process that.

You and I would, because we if you're right, if they weren't your crime podcast's back then, like cell phones, then, you know, then people might be more scared at the time.

Yeah, probably no one would be safer, but we'd all be more scared. So great. That's fun for higher alert. Higher alert. OK, let's see.

So both Karl and Rosemarie survived the attack and neither of them saw the shooter. Police determine the bullets were forty four caliber, but they didn't initially draw a connection between the shooting and the previous one because they were occurring in two separate boroughs of New York.

So, I mean, obviously, like shootings in New York, it's not immediate that you would like piece two together, right?

Right. However, the type of gun was becoming a trademark for David Berkowitz.

So barely a month after the attack on Karl and Rosemary, shortly after midnight on November twenty seventh, nineteen seventy six. Seventeen year old Donna Demasi, a senior at Martin Van Buren High School, and eighteen year old Joanne Lemina, a recent graduate of the same school. We're sitting on Joanne's porch in Belrose, Queens. After a night out. As they talked, a man approached them dressed in military fatigues.

He began to ask them for directions in this strange, high pitched voice.

Here's before taking out a revolver and just like shooting them on the spot, like they started to give him directions.

That's like the whitey. Why'd you even take the time to ask why so bizarre? Why didn't you just it says something about like how this guy seems to want to get close enough to look people in the eye first because like, yeah, you would think if you just wanted to kill them, like you could have done it when you spotted them from across the block, you know. Yeah.

And he and he had a thing, quote unquote, for four women with or girls or women with dark, long hair.

And so that's why my mom was terrified. She was. No, I thought of that when you said Linda was like, well, yeah, she was like, I gotta go.

I think a few of her friends had, like, blond wigs and their car or something.

I remember like interviews where people are like people are cutting their hair off. They're putting buttons or like dyeing their hair, dyeing their hair just to, like, not have apparently hair dye like sales went through the roof. Yeah, yeah.

The reason very, very was very wild. So he shot them. They both fell injured and the shooter ran away, but not before firing several shots blankly into the apartment building, like not aiming for them, but just like out of like excitement or exhilaration. He just kept shooting. Miraculously, both survived. But Joanne was. I know. I know that's the other weird thing a lot of people end up not a lot, but like a few people end up surviving.

Luckily, like for a marksman, he was pretty bad at it. I know.

That's what that's what kind of gets me, too, is I'm like, huh?

I thought you were, you know, does he ever make a statement like he's one of these people to die or is it that he just wanted to hurt them?

Because maybe if he's like, no, he actually made a statement that he didn't ever want to hurt anybody. He only wanted to kill them.

So, like the opposite.

OK, got it. Yeah. OK, got it. Yeah. So uh ba ba ba ba ba. Both survived but Joanne was paralyzed from the waist down and then suffered from paraplegia.

So still a rough, a rough go rough outcome.

Police were able to determine that the bullets were again from an unknown forty four caliber gun.

So on January 30th, nineteen seventy seven, only about two months later. Twenty six, sorry. Twenty sixteen. She's Jesus. Twenty six year old Christine Frind and her boyfriend of seven years, 30 year old John Deal, who was planning to propose to her two weeks later on Valentine's Day.

Jesus, why did you have to say that?

I know they were sitting in John's car in Queens after having gone to see Rocky and theaters and suddenly shots were fired into the car. John suffered minor injuries, but Christine died of her injuries at the hospital and neither of the victims ever saw the shooter. After this shooting, police finally took all of these cases and publicly announced that they were connected, they observed that all the shootings involved a 44 caliber gun and he was therefore now called the 44 caliber killer.

And that was his initial moniker.

Sure. And they told the public that the shooter seemed to target young women with long, dark hair. So when the composite sketches from the various attacks were released, NYPD officials originally noted that they were likely searching for multiple shooters. So oddly enough, even though the cases were connected, the composite sketches that they made ended up looking like two different people. So we'll get into that.

But it's just it's something to note, I guess. So at this point, the front of the bus became like, as you said, a. Colossal circus people were terrified, I mean, this man was terrorizing New York City and he was striking like in different boroughs. It wasn't like he was isolated to one spot.

No one was safe, OK. The front page of The New York Post read, No one is safe. Jesus.

OK, maybe you were maybe you were there in a past life with Linda.

Maybe I was just watching out for her, making sure she dyed her hair blonde or something. I was just a little devil on her shoulder being like, you know, it would be a cool idea right now.

And it was shave your head, just shake your head. My mom did shaved her head in the 70s and 80s. That surprises me zero percent. Right?

It was for Arabian Arabian ad in a magazine. Every time we speak, I have at least 10 questions and I'll speak to my mother. I'm like, what? So don't worry. It's not with you. And then I ask her what a golem is and she goes, Yes.

And I'm like, well, this is the time where I need you to elaborate the verses versus the time. I wanted to hear nothing at all at the time.

My friends are over and I'm 13 and I really don't want to know about how you model for Raven.

OK, thanks. Oh, doctor.

Mom. OK, so the police tip line had basically and this is NYPD had never seen anything like it. They were receiving one hundred calls an hour, according to time. A police official told the magazine women are naming their husbands, their boyfriends. People are calling in about their coworkers, like saying it's him. I think it's my husband or my co-worker.

I like how everyone was like on top of it, though, they're like, we are ratting every man out in the city. No, I don't care.

Even though what I'm married to and sleeping next to, like, yikes. Women were advised to either get shorter haircuts, bleach their hair or wear in a ponytail.

My parents also insisted their daughters have their dates at home, which is very convenient.

Dad, why don't you just have your date here in the living room where your mother and I can watch.

So very topical for Asra. We're in quarantine of like. Yes, true. OK, well, you know what? It's been done before, I guess.

OK, so you're saying that earlier about like going out and like avoiding. I don't know.

I was just thinking to myself, like, hi, wonder serial killers that attack people outside or like shit like I wonder what the what the numbers are much easier.

I wonder what the stats would look like in terms of like crime right now when it comes to public violence, like how far the numbers have decreased or if they've stayed the same in places where people aren't taking it seriously or like if home invasions are like more on the up and up, like I'd like to see be less common because people are home.

Right? I feel like they're like I wonder just violence statistics right now, you know, would be really sad, though, is domestic violence right now.

Well, that actually has been statistically proven to have gone up, unfortunately. So that one we definitely know.

I mean, you make a good point about home invasions because, like, you can't it's harder to rob somebody when they're upstairs.

But what if it's like a like a serial killer who planned on hurting you anyway? Because it could be like a night stalker situation where they don't they want you. Sure.

So you don't have to, like, differentiate between just like a burglary and like Saarland or an assault or murder. Exactly.

Hopefully the answer is just zero across the board. But like, I would just go with zero. I can't my brain. It's too early.

Would be an interesting comprehensive study. Somebody Eva, can you figure that out quick? Can you get us a comprehensive study? Can you actually do all of the research and then let us know the data? Thank you. Yeah, but just wear a mask.

OK, thanks. All right.

Just about every single person store in the country wear a mask. You'll be fine, man. We're being real aggressive toward even today. Hershey's just paper. The paper shards and pencil shavings are flying off the table right now. Just poor Eva. Oh, OK. So they OK, so parents, we're like have your dates at home.

Have fun. OK, some girls decided to dress in baggy clothing or skip dating altogether until cops caught the killer fair and then a yeah definitely fair.

A month and a half later on March 8th, nineteen seventy seven Columbia University student Virginia Basker again was walking home from class when she was confronted by an armed man in an effort to defend herself.

She pulled her textbook over her face, but the bullet penetrated the textbook and struck her head, killing her back.

So she actually just lived one block away from Christine Farrowing, who had also died previously. Did that help?

At least they could triangulate.

I'm a little bit, um, you know, I'm not sure.

Probably not. If he's still just all over the goddamn place. It seems like he's still kind of all over the place because I don't have a great grasp of geography, period. Definitely not of me. Now, it surprise you to know I mean, I even told people I lived in the wrong state for the last six months or so, but so I don't know.

I even visited Columbia because I don't know. My dad, I guess, thought I could get in Lowell. Spoiler alert. I didn't. But so I once went to Columbia on like a tour, but I have no idea where it is. And he lived in Yonkers. So wherever Yonkers is in relation to Columbia University. Is where the shooting took place and but it says she lived a block away from Christine, so I don't know where she is.

Anyway, it's all very convoluted, but it is a it's either a weird coincidence or it has to do with, like, his triangulation.

So and then the following month on April 16th, nineteen seventy seven at three a.m., a 20 year old tow truck driver named Alexander Isaw and an 18 year old model and actress Jodine Sirianni were hanging out in their car only a few blocks from the scene of the Jodi and Donna shooting.

So maybe he had like pockets of areas that he was targeting when they were both shot twice. Both died, unfortunately, before they could talk to police.

But investigators determined that they were killed by the same suspect in the other shootings with the same 44 caliber firearm.

At the crime scene, though, there was something new.

What a new twist to the M.O. They found a handwritten letter addressed to the captain of the NYPD, Joe Borrelli.

OK, now I'm going to read you this letter, and it is like Yonke Donkers Bonkers, Yankers bonkers, if you will.

It's next level. And there's a lot of spelling. There are a lot of spelling mistakes. For example, he spells women with Wieman w e moanin.

So it's all over the place. But just bear with me while I try to read this to you.

It's like you're trying to morph it into the word lumin. It does look like demon lemon. Yeah.

Women are following in woman yankers bonkers. OK, I am deeply hurt by your calling me a woman hater. I am not.

But I am a monster. I am the son of Sam. I am a little brat. One father Sam gets drunk, he gets mean, he beats his family. Sometimes he ties me up to the back of the house. Other times he locks me in the garage. Sam loves to drink blood, go out and kill Command's father. Sam, this sounds like a terrible Dr. Seuss book.

I'm realizing the cadence go out and kill, says Father Sam. Yeah, Sam, I am Sam. I am. Oh God. He is saying I am Sam.

I will not drink your blood, Sam. I am whatever. I will not murder people on your behalf, ok?

I will not do it with a draft. Yeah, only with a forty four caliber rifle.

OK, I go out and kill Command's Father Sam behind our house. Some rest mostly young, raped and slaughtered. Their blood drained just bones. Now Papa Sam keeps me locked in the attic. I can't get out but I look out the window and watch the world go by. I feel like an outsider. I am on a different wavelength than everybody else programmed to kill. However, to stop me, you must kill me. Attention all police shoot me first.

Shoot to kill or else keep out of my way or you will die. Papa Sam is old now. He needs some blood to preserve his youth.

He has had too many heart attacks. Too many attacks. Sorry, too many heart attacks on me. Who it hurts, sonny boy. I miss my pretty princess. Most of all, she's resting in our lady's house, but I'll see her soon. I am the master Beelzebub, the chubby behemoth. I love to hunt, prowling the streets looking for fair game, tasty meat. The women of Queens are prettiest of all. I must be the water they drink.

I live for the hum my life. Blood for Papa. Mr. Borelli, sir. I don't want to kill anymore. No sir, no more. But I must honor thy father. I want to make love to the world. I love people I don't belong on earth. Return me to yahoos, to the people of Queens. I love you and I want to wish all of you a happy Easter. May God bless you in this life and in the next.

And for now I say goodbye and good night. Police. Let me haunt you with these words. I'll be back. I'll be back to be interpreted as bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, ug yours and murder.

Mr. Monster. Oh, I'm sorry.

That gave me a headache. So I disassociated halfway through there. Yes, I think as I think I did, I think if anyone were watching the YouTube channel and that were on my face the whole time, at some point my eyes deadend, I think I definitely was one of those slow Zoom's on your face.

The entire time I checked out, I tried and I remember hearing Happy Easter and my brain was like, I think no, I think that's one of the ones where that lady was saying her husband complains about my laughter that like, if you're zoning out while you're, like, doing something at work and you suddenly hear like a bang bang, happy Easter, you're like, wait, what are they talking about?

That was I just heard like. I mean, I I think the first half that I really was trying to process what you were talking about and then you you had me a little chubby behemoth and I was like, I come out, OK, goodbye.

I can't really say last time I said goodbye, I said goodbye. Now, like God, I like this whole.

He even wrote ug exclamation point. I'm like, yeah, this is how I so OK.

It started off almost like it was like a diary entry about like being like with an abusive father or something. Yeah. Then the dad also drinks your blood and then now like the dad's kind of dying and also now you need to go get him blood. But he's had heart attacks. And then I got by the way, happy Easter. Beats the bunny rabbits as I.

Oh yeah. I don't know. It's I don't know. I'm the Easter Bunny. Goodbye now. And I'm Santa. Hello. I'm the Easter Bunny. Goodbye. There's a lot of things happening.

Years and murder, Mr. Monster.

So I don't know where to I should I try to start or begin?

I think I you know, I think we should just not even try because it just gets worse and weirder.

Did anyone ever try to, like, decode it or did they read it one time and there like, really anything to decode? I think, like, I I'll get into it more.

But basically what they did get from this is Son of Sam. He calls himself this I am the son of Sam. And so instead of 44 caliber killer, now, they he gave himself his own moniker, which is kind of like like really awful, that they were like, oh, I'm so sorry.

I like it's like it is weird that that they took like letters. And it sounds very much like if he were like, actually those aren't my pronouns. And they went, oh, OK. So like from now on we will call you. That's got it. It's like you're still going to hell.

But I guess I'll respect your, your name, your name, but also like you're a serial killer and like we are you already got a name. I don't want to I don't want to even like give you the the the satisfaction of having your name you picked.

Yeah.

Well he later on says that he doesn't want the name, so don't worry about it.

He gets he can't make up his mind. OK, no he cannot. So in the letter obviously Berkowitz refers to himself as Son of Sam. He expresses his desire to continue his shooting sprees, even though he, quote, doesn't want to. A police task formed at this point. Officers recruited psychiatrists to help them come up with a profile. Criminal Minds. Anybody OK?

Are you all right? Spencer Reid? No. All right. Just me anyway.

After consulting. Thank you. After consulting with several psychiatrist, police released a psychological profile of their suspect. He was described as neurotic and probably suffering from paranoid schizophrenia and believed himself to be a victim of demonic possession.

And quite frankly, they were spot on.

Really. OK, so seventy detectives worked the case full time starting in April. Nineteen seventy seven police volunteered to help on their days off, but there were really no real clues or breaks in the case. And like witness descriptions were basically a man in his 20s with medium build and like it just was really hard to pin that down in a place like New York is for sure. Yeah.

So then on June 26, that's like two months later, there was another shooting. Twenty year old Sal Lupo and seventeen year old Judy Plácido had left a discotheque in Queens and they were sitting in their car when Judy said This son of Sam is really scary. The way that guy comes out of nowhere, you never know where he'll hit next. And moments later, shut the fuck up.

That's so creepy.

I know I'd have goose calm right now, and it's so horrifying. Moments later, three gunshots blasted through the car. And obviously, it's not like he knew they were talking about him. The windows were closed.

Were those her last words? That is horrific. Well, both were struck, but neither was injured seriously.

So it was not their last words, but it was probably the words that were seared into their nightmares for the rest of time.

Definitely the words like I mean, I've never heard of a stronger manifestation ever. Like, I know even when you say, oh, I can't believe, like, you know, you have no idea where he'd be. You still think in that moment. But he's not here, like, you know, like like why would you.

The odds are so outrageous. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just so wild. Like the guy just shows up and. As you're saying, wow, this guy just shows up and shoots them, so they they were injured, but they neither of them died. Sal ran back to the club for help. Police offered composite sketches of the suspects in the shootings, based in part on the testimony of people who had survived the shootings as well as witnesses. But again, there were these two separate images that were coming up, like the dark haired man and then somebody else, although publicly police were insisting that there was only a single suspect being sought.

So one sketch and description roughly matched Berkowitz, so medium height, slightly pudgy with hair that was short, dark and curly. But another suspect was reported to be quite different, a taller and slimmer man, a hippie sort with jaw length hair that was either light brown or dark blonde.

So now police are thinking maybe it is the same guy, but he's wearing a wig.

Huh? Huh.

So on May 30th, 1977, columnist Jimmy Breslin of the New York Daily received a handwritten letter from the Son of Sam. What does this one say?

A lot of a lot of weird shit like, hi, I'm the St. Patrick's Day leprechaun. Goodbye. Happy Flag Day.

Before I forget it's Arbor Day, let me tell you all about trauma that I'm not really sure existed.

So much of the chubby behemoth. Do you get the only thing you need to know?

So. OK, basically, the son of Sam is a huge fan of this columnist, which must be the worst compliment ever, just saying. Right. So the letter read hello from the gutters of NYC, which are filled with dog manure, vomit, stale wine, urine and blood. Hello from the sewers of NYC, which swallow up these delicacies when they are washed away by the sweeper trucks. Hello. From the cracks in the sidewalks of NYC and from the ants that dwell in these cracks and feed in the dried blood of the dead that have settled into the cracks.

Then the writer said he was a fan of Jimmy Breslin, noting, JB, I also want to tell you that I read your column daily and find it quite informative.

By the way, everything up before that very wonderful compliment. You could have read any of that as Zach begins, just so I regret.

OK, I'll read this part then. Yeah. Ominously, the writer added, What will you have for July twenty ninth, which ominously was the one year anniversary of the son of Sam's first shooting and was quickly approaching. So a week later, after consulting with police, obviously he sent this letter to police and they withheld portions of the letter, but they published some of it, urging the killer to turn himself in to police. And he was later quoted as saying he actually Breslin sorry, was later quoted as saying he actually had admiration for the son of Sam's writing style.

He said, quote, I remember when I read it, I said this guy could take my place with the column. He had that big city beat to his writing. It was sensational.

And that's really that's all you need. They did note that, like compared to the first letter, which was like so all the sentences didn't even make sense. Like this one was actually coherent and like well thought. Like there were thoughts.

Yeah. He was he was really tryin. He was like that first one didn't it wasn't my best work. Let me it was like a rough draft. Don't really add up. Yeah. Yeah.

It was like these were fully formed thoughts. So it was a little bit odd that they were so different. So despite Brazilian's advice to stop killing, Berkowitz didn't listen. What a shocker. And he killed again just the day after July after the anniversary, July 30th.

Nineteen seventy seven police set up a sizable dragnet because they were expecting him to attack right on that day. Sure. Or like around that day. And so like around the Queens or sorry, around Queens and the Bronx. However, this time the son of Sam struck in Brooklyn.

So, oops, all of these. So Stacy Moskowitz, age 20 and Robert type age 20. In case you're wondering if they sound familiar, they are the the couple from my little intro story.

So Stacey and Bobby were parked under a street lamp on their first date making out, and they were kissing when suddenly a man approached within three feet of the passenger side window, shot in the car, shooting both of them in the head.

Stacey died tragically and she actually would become the only blonde victim of the son of Sam, interestingly enough.

And although Robert survived, like I said earlier, he lost one eye. And although no one knew it at the time, Stacy Moskowitz and Robert Violante or Bobby would be the son of Sam's final victims. Wow.

OK, and so that's why when I read that little intro the beginning, I mentioned that there had been a witness this time who had seen the parking ticket.

Great story to look at.

That's that's my best friend there, the actor, the Grinch.

Like, I need to judge things up a little. But are these are you submitting these for, like, the Pulitzer or something?

I'm confused. Yeah.

I'm submitting a story about the Son of Sam to the Pulitzer and, you know, and also the Grinch, but posing him as a famous also to Jimmy Breslin, my favorite columnist, J.B. TV.

I just want you to know I'm such a fan. OK, so that evening, Cecilia Davis, who lived near the crime scene, saw a man remove a parking ticket from his yellow Ford Galaxy, which had been parked too near a fire hydrant.

So that was clearly his undoing. She saw this man only a few minutes before the shooting.

So she contacted police who determined that. So they were like, OK, yellow cars in the Bronx who got parking tickets for being by a fire hydrant. Yes, we can narrow this down for sure. So they figured out it was Berkowitz and they thought, hey, this Berkowitz guy, he's probably an important witness.

He might have seen what happened here at the shooting, which like, why would you immediately go like, oh, he's the murderer. He got a parking ticket nearby, you know? But she was like, well, I guess I'll point out something odd that I saw. So thank God she did. Yeah. You see something, say something. So they were like so they called Yonkers, which is twelve miles north of Manhattan, says the Internet, OK, and asked the police for some help tracking him down.

So a sergeant named Mike Novotny was at the Yonkers Police Department and he said they actually had their own separate suspicions about Berkowitz in connection with other strange crimes in Yonkers. Crimes that they say referenced were referenced in one of the Son of Sam letters. So to the shock of the NYPD, they told NYC detective, what's his name again? Well, I already lost it. Sorry, they told the NSA and the NYPD detective that Berkowitz might not be just a witness, but might actually be the Son of Sam.

And they're like, aha, OK, we misread the room, but let's like regroup face first into the point.

Yeah. Thank you so much for that update, Younkers. So when they investigated his car parked on, so they found his car parked on the street outside his apartment, police find a rifle in the backseat. They search the vehicle, find a 44 caliber bulldog pistol, along with maps of the crime scenes and a letter to Sergeant Dowd of the Omega Task Force. So like bingo bango, they literally have every piece of this guy's crimes in one place.

It really is like zero to one hundred. Yes. In terms of imagine like missing your shift at the police department day and you're like, what the hell?

I just slept in my wife, but I took a day off and slept in. You wake up for coffee and you're like, no. Oh my God.

So they waited several hours outside for him to leave his apartment building. And when he did, he was immediately arrested. He didn't like fight or anything. The date was August 10th, 1977, and it was 11 days after his final murder. His first words upon arrest were reported to be. What took you so long?

Oh, gross.

It's still so smug and arrogant, so creepy. Police searched his apartment and found it in disarray with occult graffiti on the walls. According to a Time article, the windows were covered by sheets to keep neighbors from seeing in pornographic magazines were strewn near the bed. One large hole had been knocked in a wall with an arrow pointing to it and a puzzling hand printed message that read, Hi, my name is Mr. Williams and I live in this hole. I'm sorry.

That's just so odd. That's the hmm.

OK, who pull who pulled the short straw to have to look in that hole by the way, the shorter straw to stick there have a hole. I feel like that's like when you personify lemon too far.

That's how I'll know when you play with you. What do you make. Little text bubbles and like you're like this. Who lives in the walls of my house. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Also on the wall was another irrational declaration that said I have several children who I'm turning into killers wait till they grow up.

Oh, they also found a diary where in Berkowitz took credit for dozens of arsons throughout the New York area, later counted up to be, you know, three a week for ten years, the other for ten years, if our math is correct, which is probably not.

And when Berkowitz was exiting the apartment, arresting officer, Detective Fallow fellow, Teko held a gun to him and said, Now that I've got you, who have I got? Berkowitz responded, You know, the detective said, No, I don't. You tell me. Berkowitz turned his head and said, I'm Sam. What didn't it also throws me because, like he's been calling himself Son of Sam and now he's calling himself Sam and now I'm like, know.

Right. He's like elevated family tree wise.

I'm like, what is going on?

Sam Junior, are you on anyway? I'm like, are you the one that drinks blood or the one that gets blood for the one or I mean, this is far fetched, but hear me out.

Maybe he has paranoid schizophrenia and bingo.

OK, that's the guy. I mean, maybe. Maybe, yeah.

Where do we ever find out where the name Sam even fucking came from?

Well, I'll just tell you what he says, and you can decide if if any of it makes any sense to you. Excellent. So Perkowitz quickly confessed to the shootings. He expressed an interest in pleading guilty in exchange for receiving life imprisonment rather than facing the death penalty. He was only questioned for about 30 minutes and confessed to all the Son of Sam killings. During questioning, he told a bizarre tale that seemed to demand an insanity defense. He said the Sam mentioned in the first letter was one Sam Carr, a former neighbor of his Berkowitz, claimed that Sam Carr's dog, Harvey, was possessed by an ancient demon and that it issued commands to Berkowitz to kill.

OK, so that's Sam. OK, OK, next page, OK. Now, I want to tell you in advance, there's some dog cruelty, but it's not fatal. So just just a warning. Berkowitz admitted to shooting the dog on April twenty ninth in an attempt to kill it. But thankfully, the owner brought it to the vet and he survived. He claimed that his aim as a professional marksman was spoiled due to supernatural interference.

So that could also be why he thinks he didn't kill all of his victims.

So every every single time that they all survived, they it was a ghost pushed him out of the way.

OK, I got to go. Yeah, yeah, you get it. According to journalist Maury Terry's book, The Ultimate Evil, during his sentencing, Berkowitz repeatedly chanted, Stacey was a whore at a quiet, though audible volume.

And he was referring presumably to his final victim, Stacey Moscowitz. And I believe her family was in the courtroom. So it it it created like this this real uproar in the courtroom.

Court was adjourned. Ultimately, he was sentenced on June 12th. Nineteen seventy eight to six life sentences in prison for the killings, making his maximum term some three hundred and sixty five years behind bars.

Which is weird because earlier you just got goose cam because earlier you did the math of three hundred and sixty five years.

And how many shots or how many fires that would be, by the way, he would have done four or five years for every year he was in jail.

All right, there you go. It is a pulling itself together. I was like, that's odd.

He later claimed that the Hall and Oates song Rich Girl motivated his murders.

So what a shame, because it's such a great fucking song. That is a great song.

Now, I don't want to listen to it, but the notes are probably like, yo, back off like that.

They're like really pleased. It's just like our song. It's like the colonists who's like, thanks, but like I didn't really want to be.

It's like if someone says that they listen to our podcast when they are like killing people, I'd be like, OK, yo, you got to not say that, like, promote it all wrong.

PR wise, not a cute look for us.

Can you hire a whole PR team to listen to our story. Thank you. Also like yikes.

But please leave a five star rating before you leave.

Just check out kindly. Just, you know, with Grace.

With Grace, the ultimate grace. So Berkowitz arrived at least one attempt on his life by a fellow inmate while in prison.

His behavior reportedly earned him the nickname of David Berkowitz, which I find somewhat clever.

I'm not going to lie. It's nicer than a lot of prison nicknames I've heard.

So no, I mean, at least it makes like a it's a nice pun. It's a good pun. I'll say that for sure. As someone who appreciates a pun, they found quite a way to put two words together. I would agree with that. Yes. Like like like I don't know, synagog. Oh.

Like, I guess what's one one example of a perfect pun that I can think of. Yes.

It would be so strange that you and I both thought that that is the only one that lives up to the berserker wits.

That's what I like. How we both had a pun. That's where our level of skill. Yes.

In seventy nine there was an attack on his life. Someone slashed his throat like really brutally, I guess according to true crime all the time. Now you see him in interviews like he has like a huge scar on his throat from where he was slashed.

He refused to rat out the guy who'd cut his throat, but he has claimed that it was directed by his former cult, which like how much of this is true now?

Berkowitz claim that he did not act alone in the killings. He says he was part of a part of an occult group that sacrificed animals to Satan and ran a child pornography racket. There's really no proof of that.

It's also help. Doesn't make it better. No, it does not help. No, no. Berkowitz also claims that he is not the Son of Sam shooter, but merely one of the lookout men for the son of Sam shooter and that there were multiple other people involved.

So now he's just kind of saying, oh, it's not me, it's all these other people.

I'm Sam and I'll confess everything in thirty minutes or less. But I'm not Sunnism, but also not you get it right.

OK, Berkowitz now describes himself as a born again Christian and says that his obsession with pornography made a played a major role in the murders. I guess according I guess alongside Hall and Oates, I don't know. He sent a letter to New York Governor George Pataki asking that his parole hearing be canceled, stating, I can give you no good reason why I should even be considered for parole.

So he really is like, I'm in here and I don't. So good.

So so I rolled my eyes very heavily when you said he became a born again Christian. So what was it like a like a stunt or did he does he legitimately think he's, like, completely repent? Here's the thing. There is no way to know. I think that I mean, my personal opinion, there's no way to know with a person like this, what is the truth? What is not I mean, the number of stories, a number of like how mental illness is played a factor.

It's just like impossible to know also that they don't know if you know this, but in jail, like they would, they medicate him like was he.

Oh, I don't know if I don't know if he's medicated. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I do know that.

So I feel like I was going to say, like maybe he legitimately is trying to turn a new leaf. But like, I feel like if they're not medicating him or if he's not in therapy, like, then I guess I'm just not totally going to trust whatever he's saying.

So, yeah, I'm not I'm not positive. And like, obviously, I want to make it clear here that schizophrenia is not a, you know, like a trait of a murderer.

It is not by no means what I'm saying. But obviously, I think that diagnosis had something to do with, like a lot of the erratic behavior, initial claim to it at the very.

Yeah. Yeah. Like it had something to do with it, but obviously it's like. I mean, this is a very obvious statement, but not everyone with schizophrenia is a dangerous person and that kind of thing, I just want to be clear that that that's the case.

This one sounds like he was not doing anything to treat his situation, though. No.

And I mean, he also clearly showed signs as a child of other pretty severe issues, like I believe he was also diagnosed with psychosis. I mean, he was torturing bugs. And that also, by the way, that animal cruelty is. I learned this from the serial killers podcast. Animal cruelty is not associated with schizophrenia at all. So so that was a completely separate thing. So that could have just been like a mix of many mental illnesses, just like manifesting in a horrible, horrible event.

Yikes. Just a melting pot of. Yeah, yeah.

Which I feel like we see a lot with, with these like really well-known serial killers. Like it's a combination of like their upbringing, their a head injury, any a lot of things not being taken care of or like.

Yeah.

Maintained or even just like bad luck, you know, I mean I think in some instances like there was no way to take care of there wasn't a good way maybe to take care of certain illnesses or they didn't understand mental illness or whatever. So, yeah, no, I agree.

I think it was just he was cut out for for a bad but didn't get it.

Didn't get a very delightful deck. A delightful hand. Yes. When he said it's a great way to put it. Yes.

So anyway, all of this aside, he now says he is a born again Christian. He's very adamant about it. He also asks now to be known as the son of hope instead of the son of Sam because of his new outlook on life in June 2004, he was denied and his second parole hearing after he stated he did not want a parole hearing, the board saw that he had a good record in prison programs, but decided that the brutality of his crimes called for him to stay in prison.

Obviously, Berkowitz is very involved in prison ministry and regularly counsels troubled inmates and one major side effect of his murder spree, where the Son of Sam laws, which I find really interesting, I never really thought about. And the first of these laws was enacted in the state of New York after rampant speculation about Publishers' potentially offering Berkowitz large sums of money in exchange for his life story. And they were afraid that he would like make millions from telling his story.

Right. And so they they quickly enacted a new law. They called it the Son of Sam laws, and it authorized the state to seize all money earned from such a deal from a criminal for five years with intentions to use the seized money to compensate victims. Oh, wow.

OK, yeah.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court declared those laws unconstitutional in nineteen ninety one. I guess there's like some gray area there, but I thought that was very interesting. Last couple of things here. As of 2005 five, Berkowitz has written a series of memoirs which he plans to publish. Despite outrage from the family members of his victims and victims rights advocates, he has devoted his publishing efforts to bringing in funds for the victims families.

But then again, if they're asking you to please not publish them right, I don't think it's like they're asking you not to do it. So saying, well, here, I'll give you them the proceeds is like still a slap in the face, in my opinion.

So Berkowitz can now be seen. But portrayed by Oliver Cooper in season two of mine, Hunter, a.k.a. one of my favorite shows of all time. Check it out.

And Berkowitz had basically he I mean, as you said with your mom, like it was one of those things.

You just remember if you were there or if you were in that time period with the killing spree. And it wasn't, you know, I hate to say that many people, but, you know, it wasn't like a Ted Bundy level of.

But but just like the. His letters, like the terror, are notorious, like it's like a super, super duper yeah, my mom always told me to like with them. She remembers a part of the D.C. snipers where if she had to, like, go into a store or something, she would have me, like, hide under, like, the seat of the of the car. Oh, God. And or she remembers me thinking, like asking what the address was at because I asked, like, can I have your cell phone?

So if I hear a gunshot I can call the police.

And she says, But that memory stuck with her because it reminded her of when she would hide under the car or hide under the car console when she was with people running in somewhere because it's on the sand.

So, God, I mean, really, it's like she was like, wow. I was like looking at a looking at a really sad, sad mirror. Yes, I know it is.

It's like, oh, I hate that it repeats itself like that. But yeah. So obviously it's very notorious, especially the thing about like the dog told me to do it. Obviously that's become like a really big part of the story. So the survivors were, of course, like wildly traumatized by what they've been through. And as Jodi Valente recounts, it took probably about six years of my life to be able to get in a car at night.

It took a long time to be able to deal with the sounds of popping fireworks and stuff like that. But I faced my fears like sort of the son of Sam. Wow. But I do have a horoscope for you since he is a Gemini. And I just had to I had to own it. Sure.

OK, here's our horoscope for today for Son of Sam Gemini.

You are embracing new ideas now, but it looks like you might be the only one.

Everyone around you is behaving with extra caution around you and what they fear might not be clear to you.

And it doesn't have to be you don't have to take on the burden of changing everyone's mind. But putting some effort in that direction will make you feel good. Pushing your agenda too hard will turn people off, but it will also show them that you're a person of substance and conviction. Make sure you're fighting for something that's worth fighting for.

And the review, I mean, not review.

That's for my other podcast. And of course, and at the end of the show and end of murder story. I am Santa. Good bye now. Yikes. Well, well done.

Well done. I've that's one of the only ones that I know. More or less, the whole story of so was may finally get the whole picture. So how comforting for you, Frank. Well, thank you. Do want to do your shout out one more time for a song. Oh, yeah. I'm sorry.

I know. I just like but I like I knew I wasn't going to remember. And then the next time we record is going to be eight weeks. And I was like, I'm never going to mention it. I was in and I got to read like tell my story of when my grandfather had an astral projection experience. And it's very cool story in my opinion anyway. And they put it in their holiday special episode. And so I was very honored and a couple of people tweeted like this.

I you know, so I'm just very honored to to be in that in that episode.

And Astonishing Legends is one of my my fav my fave podcast of all time. It's actually my ringtone too, but don't tell them that sounds creepy.

All right. So that's that anyway. So that's all I've got. Happy New Year. Happy New Year.

Happy twenty twenty one. We did it. Hopefully, hopefully we'll actually let you know in 2010. You what if we will let you know, you'll find out. All right. And that's why we drink.