Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and this is stuff you should know. And this
Speaker 2: episode Chuck has made fun of, even though I took
Speaker 2: pride in helping to assemble it.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's fine. It's a top ten. We haven't done
Speaker 1: those in forever. Yeah, it's always kind of a fun throwback,
Speaker 1: and it seems like we never do ten with our
Speaker 1: three x structure. Nine is probably a great number, but
Speaker 1: I guess we'll see what happens.
Speaker 2: Right, let's see what happens. So, you know the old
Speaker 2: saying cut off your nose to spite your face.
Speaker 1: Yes, And I feel like we did this on an
Speaker 1: internet roundup or something. Maybe it's unded really familiar the story.
Speaker 1: Did it did?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 1: Not to you.
Speaker 2: No, As a matter of fact, it was all new
Speaker 2: to me. But that doesn't mean we didn't do it already.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but you would remember this one because it involves
Speaker 1: self mutilation.
Speaker 2: So just want to put out there that this actually
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with that phrase. And I'll explain
Speaker 2: why that phrase doesn't actually have anything to do with this.
Speaker 2: Oh really, but I guess I should probably say that
Speaker 2: we're starting this episode out in like the worst possible way,
Speaker 2: with a really downer of a story that may or
Speaker 2: may not have to do with Spie. So I say
Speaker 2: we just go ahead and start that.
Speaker 1: Now. Yes, there is a book, and this is as
Speaker 1: the story goes. The book in nineteen oh four called
Speaker 1: A Dictionary of Saintly Women. The story is that Viking,
Speaker 1: you know, berserker raider types, came pillaging southward to the
Speaker 1: British Isles at one point well not at one point
Speaker 1: eight sixty seven CE specifically, and while they were doing
Speaker 1: their berserkering and ravaging of the villages and things things,
Speaker 1: there was obviously the kind of thing that would happen
Speaker 1: would be assaults on people physically, sexually and otherwise. And
Speaker 1: so when they went to a monastery in Scotland, the
Speaker 1: Coldingham Monastery, the lead nun, Saint Aby the Younger, said, Hey,
Speaker 1: here's what we'll do. We want to keep our chastity
Speaker 1: and our covenant to God. It's a big deal for
Speaker 1: us nuns. We should cut off our noses to keep
Speaker 1: that from happening, because they won't assault us then.
Speaker 2: But not to spite our faces, to snite the vikings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, not even to spite. I think. I think it's
Speaker 1: to protect themselves from sexual assault. Sure, I mean this
Speaker 1: is all horrific.
Speaker 2: It is horrific.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not saying like this is a laugh, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: like that.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying no, no, no, thank you.
Speaker 2: Anyway, back to the horrific story, Saint Aby said, and
Speaker 2: she was in a saint at the time, but this
Speaker 2: certainly helped her case. Later on, she said, come, nuns,
Speaker 2: let's go sit around and talk. I have something to
Speaker 2: say to you. Uh, to prevent ourselves from losing our
Speaker 2: chest from being raped by these Vikings, We're going to
Speaker 2: cut off our own noses. I'm going to cut off
Speaker 2: my lip and maybe I'll inspire you to do the same.
Speaker 2: And the rest of the sisters said, yes, let's do that,
Speaker 2: and they did. And there's actually old like wood cuttings,
Speaker 2: and there's at least one stained glass panel of this happening,
Speaker 2: and it's gory, even as a wood cutting as gory.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And when the Vikings showed up, they found these nuns
Speaker 2: missing their noses, bleeding, missing their lips, just in quite
Speaker 2: a state. And they were like, we're just gonna move on.
Speaker 2: To the next monastery and see what we find there.
Speaker 2: The nuns, however, were not their lives were not spared,
Speaker 2: were they.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it gets even worse because what the Vikings did
Speaker 1: was burned the place down with them inside and killed
Speaker 1: them all.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But there's a different way of looking at this,
Speaker 2: and that is that these nuns protected their chastity, which,
Speaker 2: as you said, is like really really important. They're known
Speaker 2: as the brides of Christ, and that's one of the
Speaker 2: reasons why they're chased. Why they're meant to die virgins,
Speaker 2: is because they have given themselves to Christ or to God.
Speaker 2: So as long as they're chased and they die chase,
Speaker 2: then they have fulfilled this covenant. Even if it's not
Speaker 2: by their own will or decision that they lose their virginity.
Speaker 2: If they lose it through force, it's still not quite
Speaker 2: the same as dying chase. So they managed to come
Speaker 2: out on top religiously speaking. So that's that story. Oh.
Speaker 2: The reason why it doesn't have anything to do with
Speaker 2: cutting your nose up to spite your face is because
Speaker 2: that phrase means that you are doing something in revenge
Speaker 2: to somebody else or to harm somebody else, but you're
Speaker 2: actually harming yourself much worse than you are them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they just burned them down.
Speaker 2: They didn't spite anybody, right, So that's a heck of
Speaker 2: a way to kick off what was supposed to be
Speaker 2: a semi lighthearted top ten list.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh wait, didn't it mean to spite your own face?
Speaker 2: Right? So you're.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I got you.
Speaker 2: You see what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just got confused.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like there's another saying that hating somebody
Speaker 2: is like drinking poison and expecting them to die.
Speaker 1: I've never heard that.
Speaker 2: It's a good one. It really gets the point across.
Speaker 2: It makes you not want to hate or steal or
Speaker 2: something about someone else.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's really good. I like that.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot. I just made it up.
Speaker 1: Look at you dropping nugs. All right, Let's talk about
Speaker 1: Henry Clay Frick because he was a Gilded Age I
Speaker 1: don't know about robber Baron, but he was at very
Speaker 1: least a mogul, and along with Andrew Carnegie, they made
Speaker 1: quite a lot of money together as partners in the
Speaker 1: steel industry. That relationship went south and Carnegie got him
Speaker 1: out of the picture, got Frick out of the picture,
Speaker 1: and you know, to the point where he was Carnegie
Speaker 1: was sued and and Frick actually won a lawsuit and
Speaker 1: one compensation and everything. But it wasn't like he was like,
Speaker 1: all right, we're all even now. He hated Andrew Carnegie
Speaker 1: for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anytime, like Carnegie's companies, I can't remember which steel
Speaker 2: company was he owned, but anytime there was like some
Speaker 2: misstep or bad decision or business went awry, Frick would
Speaker 2: send a note like chiding him or taunting him for
Speaker 2: having made a terrible decision, like just constantly kept it up.
Speaker 2: There was I think Carnegie built a mansion in New
Speaker 2: York and Frick was like, oh, yeah, I'm going to
Speaker 2: build an even bigger one right down the street, just
Speaker 2: to show you up. Like would not let it go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, anything you can do, I can do
Speaker 1: bigger and better. And so you would think at the
Speaker 1: end of their lives they could just let buy guns
Speaker 1: be by guns. And that's what Andrew Carnegie tried to
Speaker 1: do when he was in failing health, said, can you
Speaker 1: get in touch with my old partner Frick, mister Henry
Speaker 1: Clay Frick, and tell him he's got a great name,
Speaker 1: and tell him that I'd like to meet up with
Speaker 1: him and patch this thing up before we're gone off
Speaker 1: of this earth. And so they brought the letter he
Speaker 1: dispatched as his personal secretary James Bridge to send this
Speaker 1: to Frick personally, and Frick apparently bawled up the letter
Speaker 1: and threw it back at him and said, tell him
Speaker 1: I'll see him in hell where we are both going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great, comeback.
Speaker 1: I'll meet him in hell.
Speaker 2: Yeah. His other thing that he was said to have
Speaker 2: said was not until he admits that I'm the Mary
Speaker 2: and you're the Rhoda.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I know you're getting into some old TV
Speaker 1: and you always have been. But if you do, you
Speaker 1: have Criterion the Criterion channel streamer. Uh no, highly recommended,
Speaker 1: by the way, like it's really the only great one
Speaker 1: out there as far as quality stuff. But they have
Speaker 1: Old Mary Tyler Moore. Or maybe that was on Max.
Speaker 1: I can't remember, but anyway, Emily and I started watching
Speaker 1: Old Mary Tyler Moore episodes.
Speaker 2: Well like the original where she worked at the TV station.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it is. I watched a little bit when
Speaker 1: I was a kid, but man, it it is so
Speaker 1: good and it's so funny and charming and witty and
Speaker 1: like still great. Yeah, holds up.
Speaker 2: Those shows used to like just be written so well too,
Speaker 2: and acted.
Speaker 1: She was so good.
Speaker 2: I can't remember. There was one episode where I think, Ted, yeah,
Speaker 2: Ted Night, he was doing he was doing something and
Speaker 2: it was so ridiculous and preposterous, but he was playing
Speaker 2: it straight so well that the rest of the cast
Speaker 2: just started cracking up and like they couldn't not They
Speaker 2: did it in every take and it ended up kind
Speaker 2: of in the show. It's some classically well known episode.
Speaker 2: But check that one out and make sure you see
Speaker 2: that one too.
Speaker 1: So good, Ted Knight. And uh, who's the woman who
Speaker 1: played rote A?
Speaker 2: Valerie Burton Alley? No, Valerie, Uh, oh.
Speaker 1: It's killing me. Valerie Harper. There you Valerie Harper ed Asner.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's just it's really a great, great show.
Speaker 1: And Mary Tyler Moore is just a gem of a human.
Speaker 1: I hope she's still good as a person. Sure, I'll
Speaker 1: watched the documentary about her. It's worthwhile. Oh really, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's excellent.
Speaker 2: In fact, all right, I'll check it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, quite a woman.
Speaker 2: Well thanks for the recommendation.
Speaker 1: Hey, sure, I feel like we've killed some time, should
Speaker 1: we do a third in then take a break.
Speaker 2: I think that's a great idea.
Speaker 1: Chuck, all right, we're gonna talk about Sadam Hussein, and
Speaker 1: Sadam Hussein didn't like one George H. W. Bush, who
Speaker 1: was the guy who said his name that way because
Speaker 1: of the First Gulf fer.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, sure, I invaded Kuwait, but that doesn't
Speaker 2: mean you have to come over here and liberate Kuwait.
Speaker 2: And George Bush said, yes, we do. And as a result,
Speaker 2: after this war, Saddam Hussein was still in power, and
Speaker 2: he apparently was willing to use his power in all
Speaker 2: sorts of weird ways and techie ways. Frankly, in one
Speaker 2: of the ways he did that was he had a
Speaker 2: mosaic mural, and unflattering mosaic mural of George Bush laid
Speaker 2: into the floor of the entrance of the Al Rashid Hotel,
Speaker 2: one of the nicest hotels in Baghdad, if not the nicest,
Speaker 2: And the whole reason was it also said Bush is
Speaker 2: criminal on it too. And the reason was is that
Speaker 2: anyone coming into this well traveled hotel would walk right
Speaker 2: over George Bush's face.
Speaker 1: Right, and if you walked around it, you were given
Speaker 1: a bad room.
Speaker 2: Right, or taken out back and shot one of the two.
Speaker 1: Did you look at a picture of this?
Speaker 2: I did. It is an unflattering portrait, but you just
Speaker 2: totally tell who it is.
Speaker 1: You totally tell who it is. It's a big old
Speaker 1: George Bush senior right there on the floor of the hotel,
Speaker 1: of the lobby. It's a very strange thing to see
Speaker 1: in a nice hotel. Yeah, but w came along later on,
Speaker 1: went back to Iraq for the you know, the war
Speaker 1: there on the basis of weapons of mass destruction that
Speaker 1: did not exist, right, And he had them smash that up.
Speaker 1: And he's like, Daddy, I'm not gonna let him do
Speaker 1: that to you. Here's some sledgehammers. And so they went
Speaker 1: in there and they smashed that thing up and chiseled
Speaker 1: it up and supposedly laid a portrait of Saddam. Did
Speaker 1: they didn't do that in mosaic tile? Did they?
Speaker 2: I don't think so. From what I saw, it looked
Speaker 2: just like a picture. I didn't see a close above it.
Speaker 2: I just saw it. Yeah. I couldn't find one either,
Speaker 2: Like the head without a proportion with the Body's.
Speaker 1: Like, here's some sledgehammers, and I need a good tile
Speaker 1: guy in bagdad.
Speaker 2: Right, the sledgehammers head, don't mess with Texas engraved on them.
Speaker 1: They probably did.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean that's spiteful. Right to make a
Speaker 2: mosaic portrait of one of your sworn enemies so that
Speaker 2: your people walk all over him, I.
Speaker 1: Think so to ruin your hotel lobby, your nicest hotel lobby.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, so we have a definitive example of spite.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: Well then that I think that means we should take
Speaker 2: a break while we're ahead.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll be right back with three more. I
Speaker 1: want to learn about Terris ort to college, horedactyle, how
Speaker 1: to take a bird.
Speaker 2: Is gone?
Speaker 1: That's a little hunt the.
Speaker 2: Word up, Jerry, Okay, Chuck. I guess we should at
Speaker 2: this point decide which one we're not going to do
Speaker 2: for doing three three and three.
Speaker 1: Well, I think the Beatles one has the least amount
Speaker 1: of meat on the bone.
Speaker 2: All right, I was gonna skip that one too. Or
Speaker 2: suggests we do great, uh and if you did it,
Speaker 2: I was just gonna not talk. I was gonna skip
Speaker 2: it either way.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean we can just quickly say that at
Speaker 1: one point after the Beatles break up. John Lennon wrote
Speaker 1: a song where he talked a lot of trash about
Speaker 1: Paul McCartney. So everyone wants story. It's very, very famous story.
Speaker 1: But the one that's really interesting to me is Ford
Speaker 1: Versus Ferrari because that is a terrific movie that I
Speaker 1: high they recommend.
Speaker 2: Is it on Criterion Channel?
Speaker 1: I doubt it, but I'm sure you could stream it somewhere.
Speaker 1: The great James Mangold directed it, and I'm always a
Speaker 1: fan of his work. He did the new Bob Dylan movie.
Speaker 2: What else?
Speaker 1: He did the last Indiana Jones movie, which was better
Speaker 1: than the one before.
Speaker 2: What Else. I don't know.
Speaker 1: He's done, he's done. James Mangold's good. He sort of
Speaker 1: has a very varied resume, which I always appreciate in
Speaker 1: a director.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was gonna say that's all over the place
Speaker 2: for sure. Yeah, So I guess if you've seen Ford
Speaker 2: Versus Ferrari, you're familiar with this story.
Speaker 1: I am, and I do recommend it. He also did
Speaker 1: the Wolverine movie in the Logan movie, so yeah, he's
Speaker 1: all over the place.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I'm going to tell this story then, because
Speaker 2: I haven't seen that movie. So this was new to me, Oh,
Speaker 2: you'd like it, okay. So in the sixties, Henry Ford
Speaker 2: the second, who was the successor president of the Ford
Speaker 2: Motor Company and I guess probably a relative of Henry Ford's,
Speaker 2: he decided that he wanted Ford to get into racing
Speaker 2: just to basically like make Ford, just to expand the brand. Basically, yeah,
Speaker 2: rather than just giant land yachts, we also make really
Speaker 2: fast cars too.
Speaker 1: Totally.
Speaker 2: He also was like, you know, I know that there's
Speaker 2: probably easier ways to get into racing than to build
Speaker 2: race cars, and that is, let's just buy Ferrari like
Speaker 2: they were already known around the world for building cars
Speaker 2: that were just fast as all get out.
Speaker 1: That's right, and they're very famous. Founder Inzo Farrati pitched
Speaker 1: a deal for eighteen million bucks for ninety percent interest
Speaker 1: in the company. And as the movie portrays it, this
Speaker 1: isn't in this article, but as a movie portrays it.
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, and I'm not sure if it's
Speaker 1: true or not, but at least it wasn't a movie.
Speaker 1: I don't see why they would make this part up
Speaker 1: is that he was using that deal to get a
Speaker 1: better deal from Fiat. So playing one against the other,
Speaker 1: which will really make someone mad in business.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 1: Apparently, when Ford showed up to sign the paperwork, Ferrari
Speaker 1: said that you know what you're this Ford assembly line.
Speaker 1: This bureaucracy that you've got in this company is this
Speaker 1: is not of how we do it over here.
Speaker 2: So no deal, right, And Ford was not very happy
Speaker 2: about this, right of course, not so out despite and
Speaker 2: to get back at Ferrari, and I think also to
Speaker 2: get into racing too, Ford decided to build their own
Speaker 2: race car, which came out to be the Ford GT.
Speaker 2: Forty and I went and looked it up. I'm not
Speaker 2: a car dude, but I am like, here, this is
Speaker 2: an amazing car.
Speaker 1: I'm the same way man.
Speaker 2: And in fact it actually did best Ferrari at Leman's
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty six. And you can buy that car
Speaker 2: at the very least, the original body that won Lamon's
Speaker 2: in nineteen sixty six for cool six hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: five thousand dollars from it looks like a private owner
Speaker 2: in Jacksonville, Florida.
Speaker 1: Wow, Jacksonville, it's beautiful. So they won first, second, and third,
Speaker 1: so they really bested Ferrari. They also won in subsequent years.
Speaker 1: So they swept in or not swept, but they won
Speaker 1: in sixty six, sixty seven, sixty eight, and sixty nine.
Speaker 2: That's a sweep.
Speaker 1: Well, I meant not sweep for a second and third
Speaker 1: place necessarily, or they may have. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: I think we should do one on the twenty four
Speaker 1: hours of La Monz because that's that's I'm not a
Speaker 1: car race guy, but that to me is the most
Speaker 1: interesting one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they just drive around and around and around
Speaker 2: for twenty four hours to see who can go the
Speaker 2: furthest right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: It's an endurance race.
Speaker 1: And it's not just like a you know, a circular
Speaker 1: NASCAR thing. You know, they're driving through streets.
Speaker 2: Right, and every once in a while it starts to
Speaker 2: get boring. They just push pedestrians out in there and
Speaker 2: see what happens exactly. So there's a little more to
Speaker 2: this story. A little separate spoke that Ferrari had going
Speaker 2: on at about the same time or a couple of
Speaker 2: years earlier. Our friends at Mental Floss pointed out that
Speaker 2: Lamborghini actually was founded out of spite to Ferrari.
Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently the founder of Lamborghini, John Smith. His name
Speaker 1: was Ferruccio Lamborghini. He was a tractor maker in the
Speaker 1: sixties and he had a Ferrari and he was like,
Speaker 1: this clutch is kind of janky. And as the story goes,
Speaker 1: he got in touch with Inzo Ferrari and I was like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, I think I can help make your clutch better,
Speaker 1: because you got this problem here with this spawndivot and
Speaker 1: I can help make that thing better. And apparently, as
Speaker 1: the story goes, Ferrari did not receive that phone call
Speaker 1: well and was basically like get lost.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, stick to making tractors. Lamborghini. Who's ever
Speaker 2: heard of Lamborghini?
Speaker 1: Exactly?
Speaker 2: What a weird name for a car, right, So Lamborghini
Speaker 2: was like, well, I'm just going to go make my
Speaker 2: own car, and in nineteen sixty three, I believe, he
Speaker 2: started making Lamborghinis with the help of five workers who
Speaker 2: had recently been fired from Ferrari. That's how we established
Speaker 2: his car company. And had Enzo Ferrari not rebuffed him,
Speaker 2: we would never have that classic Garfield poster from the
Speaker 2: eighties where he's standing next to a Kuontosh Bright.
Speaker 1: You and I are not car guys, But like, if
Speaker 1: I see a Lamborghini on the street or something, or
Speaker 1: like the old Magnum Ferrari. I love that stuff.
Speaker 2: Tinkle yourself a little bit.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I'm not a sports car guy,
Speaker 1: but I just can't help but see those and think, like,
Speaker 1: what a what an amazing machine?
Speaker 2: That is gorgeous. Those Magnum Ferraris you can get for
Speaker 2: a song these days. I mean they don't work very well,
Speaker 2: but like, how much are you O? Dohn't know. I'm
Speaker 2: gonna guess anywhere between ten and fifty grand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, considering how much they were, that is
Speaker 1: a song, you know it is.
Speaker 2: And they're so small too, Like I'm not sure either
Speaker 2: one of us could fit in one of those.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I think every guy are. I mean
Speaker 1: Thomas magnefited him, but.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that was a stunt. Double half his size.
Speaker 1: Really well he was when it showed him in the car.
Speaker 1: His knees were up toward his chin a bit so.
Speaker 2: Like by his ears.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because he was he was a tall guy.
Speaker 2: But I.
Speaker 1: Like that that Ferrari. I feel like for guys of
Speaker 1: our generation, that Ferrari and the the Porsche from Risky
Speaker 1: Business or like Top two of the top five probably
Speaker 1: dream cars.
Speaker 2: Was that in nine, nine to eleven, it was the.
Speaker 1: Now in the nine to eleven it was the nine
Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with that one. Then, yeah, it had
Speaker 1: the lights that popped up.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: It was one of the not as lauded versions, I think.
Speaker 1: But man, and that it's just something about that movie.
Speaker 1: It just sort of locked it in. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: like a little hatchback. It's not even that special.
Speaker 2: Hatch pack when you look at it. Now, yeah, for
Speaker 2: grocery shopping. Exactly how many have we done for this thing?
Speaker 1: We just did one, right, Oh yeah, we gotta get going.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, let's get going. Because it turns out
Speaker 2: that there was a road in China made out of spite.
Speaker 1: That's right. And I feel like I've seen this in
Speaker 1: more than one place in the world where oh really, yeah,
Speaker 1: not even necessarily a road, but like where like, well,
Speaker 1: you don't want to give up your house, so we're
Speaker 1: just going to build these skyscrapers all around.
Speaker 2: It, right, Sure did you see pictures of this though?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this is this is the extreme because this
Speaker 1: happened in China to this couple in twenty twelve, The
Speaker 1: man's name was Luo Bogan Boggin Boggin. He and his
Speaker 1: wife refused to you know, they tried to come in
Speaker 1: and take their house to make a highway, and they
Speaker 1: were like, no, we're not going to do it. You
Speaker 1: didn't offer us enough money, and so we're not going anywhere.
Speaker 1: And so they built. I mean, if you visualize, if
Speaker 1: you're visualizing a house literally sort of in the middle
Speaker 1: of a road, in the right way goes around it,
Speaker 1: that's what they did.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like, it wasn't even aroundabout. It's just that the
Speaker 2: road widened and kind of curved in a bulge on
Speaker 2: the sides around this house literally in the middle of
Speaker 2: a highway. Even worse, even more reckless, if you ask me,
Speaker 2: they kept electricity going to this house. So there's an
Speaker 2: electrical pole in the middle of the highway too, totally unmarked.
Speaker 2: It doesn't look really, no, it doesn't. It does not
Speaker 2: at all doesn't. And if you want to see what
Speaker 2: we're talking about, The Atlantic has a good photo spread
Speaker 2: called the House in the Middle of the Street from
Speaker 2: in twenty twelve.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, this is the most extreme case of
Speaker 1: something like this that I've heard. You know, it didn't
Speaker 1: take long for them to give in, obviously because it
Speaker 1: was well dangerous and awful, and so they got They
Speaker 1: did eventually give in and got a larger offer than
Speaker 1: they are originally asked for. But I don't get the
Speaker 1: feeling that they thought they won.
Speaker 2: No, they definitely didn't. So I've looked into this a
Speaker 2: little further. There was a five story house that they
Speaker 2: had just built for ninety five grand when the provincial
Speaker 2: government said you need to move because we're building a
Speaker 2: highway through here. And they weren't the only ones who
Speaker 2: had kind of tried to stick it out. So they
Speaker 2: were also aware that they could not leave their house.
Speaker 2: They had to stay in their house twenty four hours
Speaker 2: a day because if they left, the government would come
Speaker 2: and bulldoze their house while they were gone and be like, ts,
Speaker 2: what are you going to do? And they had no choice,
Speaker 2: but just holding out was kind of a protest and
Speaker 2: to draw attention to this generally unfair practice, because I mean,
Speaker 2: any government can exercise eminent domain, but typically you want
Speaker 2: to give at least market value.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's it's really egregious.
Speaker 2: When you look at this picture, it's nuts because they
Speaker 2: were on their porch like a second floor balcony, and
Speaker 2: they're looking down and you're looking down not at a
Speaker 2: front yard, you're looking down at the road, like it
Speaker 2: went right around this house.
Speaker 1: Yeah, through crazy stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that was a spiteful road.
Speaker 1: That was a spiteful road. And now we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about a spiteful statue.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 1: Because in Germany, between the towns of Bonn and Buah,
Speaker 1: there's the old Rhine River and the Rhine River Bridge
Speaker 1: that connects the two and so the Little Bridgeman or
Speaker 1: the bruchen Mankin frucin Mankin, it's kind of a mouthful,
Speaker 1: is the little Bridgeman. And that is a sculpture of
Speaker 1: a guy sort of bent over sticking his butt out,
Speaker 1: and that became the subject of a lot of contention,
Speaker 1: eventually backfiring. Is that right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So the story went that in the late nineteenth century,
Speaker 2: I think December seventeenth, eighteen ninety eight, this bridge between
Speaker 2: Bonn and Buell, which was supposed to be a joint
Speaker 2: construction project between the two, ended up being paid for
Speaker 2: entirely by Bonn because Buell was like, we'll use the bridge,
Speaker 2: but we're not going to pay for it. You go
Speaker 2: ahead and pay for it. Yeah, And so under wraps
Speaker 2: until this unveiling of the bridge was that little statue
Speaker 2: of a little man carved into the bridge with his
Speaker 2: butt sticking out, basically.
Speaker 1: Mooning Bule, mooning Bule.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine just the pilarity of seeing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But like I said, it backfired because that statue
Speaker 1: became a bit of a local icon. So it you know,
Speaker 1: it was on banknotes, it was on people took pictures
Speaker 1: of it, it was on local postcards, and it was
Speaker 1: a little tourist attraction. But what they did was they
Speaker 1: put attacks on the bridge, but only attacks going one
Speaker 1: way and not back into your own place.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So what happened was from the Bule side they could
Speaker 1: see the statue because it was pointing, you know, their
Speaker 1: butt was pointing at them. So they got all the
Speaker 1: benefits of seeing this thing without having to pay to
Speaker 1: to cross the bridge to see it. If you're on
Speaker 1: the other side and you wanted to go, like actually
Speaker 1: see the statue, you had to pay to get across.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And you can believe that anytime you had out
Speaker 2: of town guests visit, you had to take them to
Speaker 2: go see the little bridge Man, go see the butt man.
Speaker 2: So yeah, they ended up what was supposed to be
Speaker 2: a joke at the expense of Bule ended up to
Speaker 2: be an actual expense for the city, a bond because
Speaker 2: they had to pay this fee to get onto the bridge.
Speaker 2: But supposedly their friendly rivals still or they were. Now
Speaker 2: I think they're one town, kind of like Buddha Pest.
Speaker 2: There's Buddha and Pest and it's separated by the river,
Speaker 2: but it's still one city now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, same thing, and that's what Bonn and Bule interest.
Speaker 2: That's how I understand it. So this you can still
Speaker 2: see the little Bridgeman, but he's not the original. The
Speaker 2: original was almost destroyed in the Second World War. The
Speaker 2: bridge was at least, but they were able to get
Speaker 2: their hands on the statue and get them out of
Speaker 2: the rhine. They put them back on the rebuilt bridge,
Speaker 2: but then some local youths in nineteen six he destroyed that.
Speaker 2: So now there's a recreation of it on the bridge.
Speaker 1: A little punk rockers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, a little punks at least. Uh. So that's that
Speaker 2: was a little Bridgeman made out of spite.
Speaker 1: All right, And I think that's break number two. And
Speaker 1: we'll be back to finish up with three more right
Speaker 1: after this, I want to learn about a Terris ran
Speaker 1: College veradactyle, how to take a bergink is gone. That's
Speaker 1: a little hunt we should know.
Speaker 2: Word up, Jerry, all right.
Speaker 1: We're gonna talk about uh. And I've seen stories sort
Speaker 1: of like this, but this one seems to take the cake.
Speaker 1: When a Christmas display goes too far and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, people are neighbor are like, hey, this is
Speaker 1: getting out of hand. It's too bright, or it's you know, neighbor.
Speaker 1: People are driving in to see these things now, and
Speaker 1: I can't even get down my own street, right. And
Speaker 1: this happened in the mid two thousands in Ross Township, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: when a dude named Bill an electrician key named Bill
Speaker 1: an Sell did a pretty you know, audacious Christmas display
Speaker 1: in his front yard there in Ross Township, such that
Speaker 1: people were driving in and neighbors started to get annoyed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And actually the way that this neighborhood was arranged
Speaker 2: is a cul de sac. But in the center of
Speaker 2: the coulda sack was Bill Ansel's house. So with his
Speaker 2: light display, you it was just kind of like driving
Speaker 2: through a holiday light display because you just drive past
Speaker 2: and go all the way around and come back on
Speaker 2: the other side.
Speaker 1: And lee, he's kind of perfect.
Speaker 2: Actually it was perfect, and Bill Ansel definitely thought it
Speaker 2: was perfect. But like you said, the neighbors were like, man,
Speaker 2: come on, this is one hundred thousand watts of Christmas joy.
Speaker 2: It's just it's too much, so and we do something
Speaker 2: about this. Bill Ansel apparently was not the type to
Speaker 2: take criticism. Well, sounds like it. I think he actually
Speaker 2: was required to take down the holiday display, and yes,
Speaker 2: I think they cited him for an out of season
Speaker 2: decoration or something like that. Right, So he took it down,
Speaker 2: but in short order he put up a new display
Speaker 2: and specifically designed it so that the neighbors regretted ever
Speaker 2: asking him to take down the original joyous display.
Speaker 1: And he did this chuck out of spike, that's right,
Speaker 1: and apparently left it up year round. Santa urinating in
Speaker 1: the front yard, a choir that was beheaded, Frosty the
Speaker 1: Snowman getting run over by a car. Also up in
Speaker 1: lights f Ross Township. Yeah, just right there in string
Speaker 1: lights a sign that said this display is dedicated to
Speaker 1: Ross Township. Shame on you. For destroying my display that
Speaker 1: brought so much joy and happiness to so many people.
Speaker 2: There was also a warning, a sign that said Ross Township,
Speaker 2: don't touch any of this property. If you do, there
Speaker 2: will be bloodshed.
Speaker 1: Is that true?
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, no, it totally is. And there was another one.
Speaker 2: I read an interview with twenty twenty with the neighbors
Speaker 2: who were like, this guy actually wrote a sign. I
Speaker 2: didn't see what he said, but he came up with
Speaker 2: the disparaging sign for the deceased wife of Tom White,
Speaker 2: one of the neighbors. The day after she died, he
Speaker 2: put up some sign disparaging her. So this guy was
Speaker 2: definitely off the chain with this thing. And I mean
Speaker 2: like he would stay up at night and hit metal
Speaker 2: with sledgehammers to make noise. He had floodlights pointed directly
Speaker 2: in the neighbors' houses, and I mean, living like that's
Speaker 2: bad enough. But they said something that stuck out to
Speaker 2: me that I hadn't thought of. That It's like, this
Speaker 2: is a living nightmare when you have a neighbor like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and you sell your house anytime you have a showing,
Speaker 2: They're going to turn around before they even get out
Speaker 2: of their car. That's like, you're trapped. They were totally
Speaker 2: trapped there, and despite the township finding him, despite court orders,
Speaker 2: like you said, he kept it up year round, and
Speaker 2: he kept it up for years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then he built a kill desert.
Speaker 2: Yes, I thought that there was definitely a parallel between
Speaker 2: those guys too. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Be a good neighbor everyone. Be a good neighbor to
Speaker 1: your neighbor. That's all you got to do. You don't
Speaker 1: have to. You can go above and beyond if you want,
Speaker 1: but just be like base level good.
Speaker 2: Sure, and if your neighbor, then if your neighbors come
Speaker 2: to you with a complaint about some special thing that's
Speaker 2: special to you, rather than going off the handle, maybe
Speaker 2: say well, let's figure out a compromise because this is
Speaker 2: really important to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and let's not tank everyone's property values. We're all
Speaker 1: in this together.
Speaker 2: Sure, And if they're like, no, we insist you take
Speaker 2: it down, then you do something right, at least give
Speaker 2: him a fighting chance.
Speaker 1: That's right. This is this is super spike.
Speaker 2: So we want to thank not just our friends at
Speaker 2: twenty twenty, but our friends at Mental Floss too for
Speaker 2: pointing that one out to us.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: So I think we got a couple more, right.
Speaker 1: That's right. We'll move on to Prince Rogers Nelson aka
Speaker 1: Prince AKA for a little while. The artist formerly known
Speaker 1: as Prince because very famously Prince changed his name in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety three when to an unrecognizable symbol. It was
Speaker 1: sort of the symbol for a man and woman, and
Speaker 1: it had some other flourishes and had kind of been
Speaker 1: tweaked and redesigned over the years. It was on different pieces,
Speaker 1: you know, he had a guitar shape like that previously.
Speaker 1: I think it was on his motorcycle and purple rain maybe,
Speaker 1: oh yeah. But it was a symbol that had been
Speaker 1: around his world for a while and Prince said, yep,
Speaker 1: that's my name now, and wear it out. He was thought,
Speaker 1: he was, we don't wear it out because you can't
Speaker 1: say it, so that's impossible, right. But I think at
Speaker 1: the time, I remember, everyone just thought it was Prince
Speaker 1: being prince and being strange and being eccentric. But it
Speaker 1: is now pretty widely accepted that he did that to
Speaker 1: spite Warner Brothers Records because he was in a record
Speaker 1: contract he didn't like for numerous reasons.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, it was a very lucrative contract. A
Speaker 2: lot of people were playing like the world's smallest violin
Speaker 2: for Prince at the time.
Speaker 1: Resigned it too.
Speaker 2: By the way, twenty years later resigned with the same company.
Speaker 1: And I don't know he resigned before this one. This
Speaker 1: was the second. Really he resigned a third time later.
Speaker 2: I got you okay, did not realize that, but this
Speaker 2: was like one hundred million dollar contract was worth two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifteen million dollars today. It was a big
Speaker 2: fat contract.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The thing is is, Prince I saw like when he died,
Speaker 2: when they went into his audio archives, They're like he
Speaker 2: could release an album like every month for the next
Speaker 2: fIF years or something like that, that he had that
Speaker 2: much stuff recorded. Yeah, and he wanted to release music
Speaker 2: really quickly and with high turnover, and Warner Brothers is like, no,
Speaker 2: you're gonna flood the market. You're gonna shoot yourself in
Speaker 2: the foot. You can only release X number of albums
Speaker 2: every say, twelve months of like one a year maybe
Speaker 2: or something like that. He didn't like that. And then
Speaker 2: apparently Warner Brothers owned the rights to his songs too,
Speaker 2: which I'm quite sure he really really didn't like. So
Speaker 2: to get out of his contract. He thought, well, okay,
Speaker 2: the contract is between Prince and Warner Brothers. I'm going
Speaker 2: to change my name and maybe the contract won't be
Speaker 2: valid any longer. I'm not sure how much he actually
Speaker 2: believed that, because Prince wasn't a dumb person at all. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but at the very least he was trying to humiliate
Speaker 2: Warner Brothers make life harder for them. And he did
Speaker 2: all this, as you said, out of spite.
Speaker 1: That's right. He also wrote the word slave on his
Speaker 1: cheek and a lot of performances at the time, and
Speaker 1: it didn't work. He had to see the contract through,
Speaker 1: which was just another few I think in two thousand
Speaker 1: it expired and then he was Princes again. And like
Speaker 1: you said, you know by guns were by guns I
Speaker 1: guess because he re signed yet again twenty years later
Speaker 1: with Warner Brothers.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One of the things that Warner Brothers too had
Speaker 2: to do, Chuck, was they had to send out digital
Speaker 2: files to the media. And this is the nineties, because
Speaker 2: there was no way to there was no like combination
Speaker 2: of keys on a keyboard to make this symbol, so
Speaker 2: they had to send a digital image of the symbol
Speaker 2: for the like newspapers or magazines or whatever to insert
Speaker 2: into their articles about Prince. And then finally the media
Speaker 2: was just like, we're just gonna call him the artist
Speaker 2: formerly known as Prince, and Prince.
Speaker 1: Was like, damn it, right, work around.
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, So rip Prince man. He was pretty great.
Speaker 1: Yes, my friend and your friend Scottie got to go
Speaker 1: to his final performance, the solo Atlanta performance at the
Speaker 1: Fox Theater, just days before he died. Yeah, and it
Speaker 1: always makes me so mady because Scotty didn't even really
Speaker 1: love Prince. Yeah, now I'm glad he got together.
Speaker 2: He just showed up there, like how did I get here?
Speaker 1: So that's one of those We almost went and pulled
Speaker 1: the trigger to scalp tickets, and it was just like,
Speaker 1: I don't know why we didn't, because it was special
Speaker 1: enough to be a piano solo concert by Prince. I
Speaker 1: was like, man, we gotta go yep, and we didn't,
Speaker 1: and then he died.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we were going to do the same thing, and
Speaker 2: that's actually a well we were going to scalp. We
Speaker 2: were going to go, and I don't remember why we didn't,
Speaker 2: But that's kind of par for the course for me,
Speaker 2: because I did that with Prince. I did that with
Speaker 2: Pink Floyd, I did that with Steve Ray Vaughan, and
Speaker 2: I did that with The Grateful Debt. I was just like,
Speaker 2: I'll see him next time.
Speaker 1: I saw Prince when I lived in LA in the
Speaker 1: late ninety or I'm sorry, Yeah, I guess it was
Speaker 1: early two thousands, and that was amazing just being able
Speaker 1: to see him once with a full band. It was
Speaker 1: something else.
Speaker 2: You saw him for some tour I think Musicology tour,
Speaker 2: and she was like, hands down, the best show I've
Speaker 2: ever seen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what a loss.
Speaker 2: Apparently he was quite the dancer. He was.
Speaker 1: Also saw Tom Petty on that last tour. I saw
Speaker 1: him quite a few times, but I was I was
Speaker 1: really glad to be at that last one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was cool. He's one of those guys that
Speaker 2: you like, you appreciate the older you get, you know.
Speaker 1: What I mean, the best. No, he's one of my faves.
Speaker 2: Great, let's move on to the pink House, Chuck, the
Speaker 2: Last of the.
Speaker 1: Last, the Last, John Mellencamp.
Speaker 2: No, that's a little pink house.
Speaker 1: This is just the pink house, that's right. This is
Speaker 1: another image search quality or image search worthy kind of
Speaker 1: thing to look up. If you're in a place where
Speaker 1: you can do that, just type in Plum Island pink
Speaker 1: house and you will see a quite large pink house
Speaker 1: sitting in the middle of nothing, just.
Speaker 2: A desolate marshland. Yeah, and it's it's just looking at it,
Speaker 2: it's very eerie, especially now it's abandon it's kind of
Speaker 2: ramshackle and run down. But it was built on Plum
Speaker 2: Island and it's considered one of the all time great
Speaker 2: example of a spite house. And a spite house is
Speaker 2: basically any house wall structure that's built to get under
Speaker 2: someone else's skin, right, so sometimes it's built to block
Speaker 2: their view. We talked about Henry Clay Frick building a
Speaker 2: mansion that was bigger than Andrew Carnegie's that would be
Speaker 2: considered a spite house. And in America they go back
Speaker 2: at least until eighteen o six. That was the earliest
Speaker 2: one I could find. But this one on Plumb Island
Speaker 2: off the coast of newberry Port, Massachusetts, which by the way,
Speaker 2: is one of the more charming towns in the entire country.
Speaker 1: Oh, I've never been there.
Speaker 2: Oh, it's wonderful. That's where this pink house is. And
Speaker 2: there's a great backstory to it that makes it a
Speaker 2: spite house.
Speaker 1: A lot of times the spite houses happen when a
Speaker 1: couple gets divorced. It should come as no surprise, or
Speaker 1: I should say probably a couples with a lot of
Speaker 1: money get divorced, because what I've learned is in order
Speaker 1: to have a spite house, you have to be rich. Right, Oh,
Speaker 1: I'm just going to build that huge house to get
Speaker 1: back at someone. It's a very privileged position to be in,
Speaker 1: for sure, So you know I am judging. But in
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen there was a New York Times article that
Speaker 1: talked about this thing that was built, like you said,
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. It said it was overlooking
Speaker 1: a vast landscape of pristine salt marsh. And it apparently
Speaker 1: happened in nineteen twenty five when a couple got divorced
Speaker 1: and the wife said, all right, we can get a divorce,
Speaker 1: but you have to rebuild an exact duplicate of the
Speaker 1: house we live in if you're kicking me out of it,
Speaker 1: because I love it so much. And he went, no problem,
Speaker 1: And so he built it. And he said, you didn't
Speaker 1: say where, And he said, it just like that.
Speaker 2: I bet yep, he did. So he built it on
Speaker 2: Plumb Island. At the time, there was no one else
Speaker 2: living there, no fresh water, no electricity. It was just
Speaker 2: the worst place you could build a house. And he said,
Speaker 2: there you go, there's your spite house. And he walked away,
Speaker 2: rubbing the dust off of his hands or what do
Speaker 2: you call that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that whatever, you clapping the dust off your hands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we need to come up with a name for that, right, yeah,
Speaker 2: a snigglet yeah yeah. So yeah, that's how it ended.
Speaker 2: And the story went that she lived there for a
Speaker 2: while and sold it, and it actually was inhabited, weirdly enough,
Speaker 2: by a succession of people up until twenty eleven. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if you're a loner and you
Speaker 1: like the nature, it's not the worst place to be.
Speaker 1: I just saw a sunset picture. It look pretty nice in.
Speaker 2: That sense, Yes it did, But it's just I mean,
Speaker 2: like the sea off of Massachusetts can be fairly unforgiving. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: you know, this is an old house from the nineteen twenties,
Speaker 2: Like you're it's gonna probably be kind of drafty depending
Speaker 2: on the time of year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm sure I'll keep on that thing as
Speaker 1: you're probably repainting that thing every couple of years, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, but you would have to paint a pink girls.
Speaker 2: Everybody in newberry Port would hate you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you would have to. Apparently that it was lived
Speaker 1: in until twenty eleven and then eventually was sold to
Speaker 1: the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge in twenty twelve, and
Speaker 1: you can't get to it now. It's off limits to
Speaker 1: the public. But they're trying to make it an official
Speaker 1: like protected house so it will stand forever.
Speaker 2: And it was made out of spite or was right shock?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Well, some people say that that was
Speaker 1: just an urban legend and it was just a family
Speaker 1: who lived out there.
Speaker 2: Right, which is a much less interesting story.
Speaker 1: So we're just going to spite whatsoever.
Speaker 2: We're going to go with Spiite House for that one.
Speaker 1: Agreed, All right.
Speaker 2: Well that's it for things done out of spite. We
Speaker 2: hope you enjoyed it. And since I said we hope
Speaker 2: you enjoyed it, it's time for listener now.
Speaker 1: So another recent one from automat. I love this real
Speaker 1: time stuff. This, you know, I mentioned some sort of
Speaker 1: episode on currency and how it affects things, And this
Speaker 1: is from tree.
Speaker 2: Tree. Okay, awesome, not a tree, but tree tree.
Speaker 1: Hey, guys, Chuck, specifically, you mentioned in the Automate episode
Speaker 1: you were trying to formulate something around how change affects
Speaker 1: things our currency rather a look into the situation in
Speaker 1: Zimbabwe that might help where it was too expensive to
Speaker 1: import metal coins they had adopted the US dollar. It
Speaker 1: was too expensive to import the metal because of weight,
Speaker 1: so there was a huge chain shortage because store owners
Speaker 1: couldn't give shoppers change, shoppers would have to purchase additional
Speaker 1: items to try and get their total purchase as close
Speaker 1: to the whole dollar amount. And he sent a New
Speaker 1: York Times article and that, my friend, tree, is exactly
Speaker 1: what I was talking about as something that could be
Speaker 1: a part of that episode. So I appreciate that direction,
Speaker 1: and that is specifically Tree March Shink, great name, three
Speaker 1: tree Markshink from South Carolina.
Speaker 2: Thanks a lot. That's a good one. And I remember
Speaker 2: we talked a little bit about Zimbabwe's hyperinflation. Oh yeah,
Speaker 2: where people were like showing up with actual weird wheelbarrows
Speaker 2: of cash because it was just going nuts.
Speaker 1: That was crazy.
Speaker 2: I remember that, great, great example. Yeah, we've got to
Speaker 2: do that episode.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's there's got to be more to it, for sure.
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to be like Tree and fill
Speaker 2: us in on something we've said we want to know about.
Speaker 2: We love that kind of thing, you can send us
Speaker 2: an email to Stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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