Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, chuck here. I'm a little sleepy because it's
Speaker 1: Saturday morning. You know what that means. It's time for
Speaker 1: another classic episode. Stuff you Should Know selects this one.
Speaker 1: It's from a third two thousand two, How Bullfighting Works,
Speaker 1: And you know what, Honestly, I picked this one because
Speaker 1: I just wanted to, uh, to go to people further.
Speaker 1: I came out. We usually try and keep things fairly neutral,
Speaker 1: but I came out hard against bull fighting on this
Speaker 1: because it is barbaric and awful, and uh, I don't
Speaker 1: apologize for that. So I'm gonna puff my chest up
Speaker 1: and republish this one right now. I don't care about
Speaker 1: the tradition. I don't care about any of that. I
Speaker 1: just want people to stop bull fighting. So we get
Speaker 1: into the history of it and all that. And I
Speaker 1: think Josh was a little more neutral than I was,
Speaker 1: if I remember correctly, But uh yeah, I'm not into it.
Speaker 1: So go ahead and send your hate emails now if
Speaker 1: you want, or emails of support. Here we go How
Speaker 1: Bull Fighting Works all over again. Welcome to Stuff you
Speaker 1: Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hi, and
Speaker 1: welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as
Speaker 1: always is Charles W. Chuck Bryant, hol A, Chuck Hola,
Speaker 1: hola right back at you. Um, how are you doing?
Speaker 1: I'm great? How are you? I'm doing pretty good? Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been learning a lot about bull volume lately. I
Speaker 1: don't know if you know you mean bull killing. Bull
Speaker 1: fighting is what it's cultured. It's not what I call it.
Speaker 1: Or you could also call it a cardido corda boy,
Speaker 1: Here we go, Corrida. Have you ever been to Spain? No?
Speaker 1: Have you? Yeah? Where I've been to? Uh and in
Speaker 1: um Tulsa de Mar, which is uh little coastal town
Speaker 1: near Barcelona there on the coastal Brava very nice. Have
Speaker 1: you been to Okay? Yeah, very Have you seen a
Speaker 1: bull fight? No, I would not I would not do that, sir,
Speaker 1: I have seen a bull fight. And um, to offend
Speaker 1: you even further, not only was it a bullfight, it
Speaker 1: started off with a cock fight. It was in Cancoon.
Speaker 1: I saw it with my sister and my dad, and um,
Speaker 1: it was crazy because we were we were there and
Speaker 1: it was a bullfight like it wasn't like you could
Speaker 1: have accidentally walked into this thing like it was a bullfight. Um,
Speaker 1: and I would say of the people, there were um, white,
Speaker 1: probably American tourists, who booed and yelled and shouted things
Speaker 1: the whole time. And I remember thinking of that one
Speaker 1: Simpsons where UM Lisa was having a nightmare about being
Speaker 1: second chairs for saxophone in the school band, and um,
Speaker 1: at the concert, everybody was booing and she wakes up
Speaker 1: and thinks, like, why would everybody come just to boo?
Speaker 1: It was exactly like that. People came just to boo
Speaker 1: to bullfight. Well, that is one h people who who
Speaker 1: say bullfighting is not good, of which I'm one of them,
Speaker 1: say that that's one of the only reasons bull fights
Speaker 1: are still even going on is because of tourists. That
Speaker 1: they're the ones buying the tickets. And many times those
Speaker 1: tourists get there and they're horrified and they leave early
Speaker 1: and think, Wow, what to spend? Yeah, no, no refunds,
Speaker 1: No exactly, So you just funded bullfighting, yeah exactly, sucker. Um.
Speaker 1: A couple of quick stats, oh, roughly to between two
Speaker 1: hundred and two hundred and fifty thousand bulls are killed
Speaker 1: each year from bull fights from bull fights, and UM,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if this is accurate, but the number
Speaker 1: I got was it? Fifty two matadors have been killed since.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised it's that few. Have you heard of Julio Aparchio?
Speaker 1: I know if you have a very strong constitution, Uncle
Speaker 1: Josh warns you against this one. Yeah, yeah, I saw it.
Speaker 1: Holy cow. It was almost like, how is that not photoshop?
Speaker 1: It was perfect? The horns so Julio Apariccio was he
Speaker 1: fell down and bull got the best of him, gored
Speaker 1: him with his with its horns, with his horns because
Speaker 1: bulls of boy, um and what a boy huh, and
Speaker 1: gord him under his chin and it threw his through
Speaker 1: his neck and then the horn came out of his
Speaker 1: mouth perfectly, and um a guy from getting him. It
Speaker 1: just got a close up of it, like like fifty
Speaker 1: of them. There video of it. It's it's amazing. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen the video. It's on the YouTube and it's
Speaker 1: one of those that's so awful that you have to
Speaker 1: like sign in and verify your age before you watch it.
Speaker 1: And I would do not advise people to watch this.
Speaker 1: I don't even advise you to see the too. Look
Speaker 1: at the Daily Mail article that has it, but it's
Speaker 1: pretty crazy. But yes, it happens, and I'm surprised that
Speaker 1: only how many fifties seven? The stat I got was
Speaker 1: fifty two in the last you know, three hundred plus years. Um.
Speaker 1: So there's not much of a fight going on. And
Speaker 1: matador is actually Spanish for killer, so is it really um, yes,
Speaker 1: they're killer bulls for sure. It's the whole point, Like
Speaker 1: there's really no gray area here, like bullfighting is the
Speaker 1: the purpose of it is to kill the bull. Yeah,
Speaker 1: under certain conditions or um, within a certain framework. But
Speaker 1: that's the point of bullfighting. It's not anything but that.
Speaker 1: And if the matador fails to kill the bull, that's
Speaker 1: on him and it is a huge disgrace, like that's
Speaker 1: a that's a loss, and it's not very good right. Um,
Speaker 1: But I I start I'm starting to suspect that you
Speaker 1: are a post bullfighting. Um. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: people and apparently Spain's um. I mean in Spain, it's
Speaker 1: like a natural cultural thing. It's been around for a while,
Speaker 1: and even people who feel the same way you do
Speaker 1: still say I still don't think it should be illegal.
Speaker 1: It's just too much a part of our tradition. Not
Speaker 1: everyone feels that way though, No, definitely not. They did
Speaker 1: a gallop pole in two thousand ten, and seventy of
Speaker 1: Spaniards said that they were ready to do away with it.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's a lot of Spaniards. And that's up
Speaker 1: from like fifteen years earlier. So in this modern day
Speaker 1: people are starting to think twice about it. Well, let's
Speaker 1: let's talk about this, Chuck, let's talk about how how
Speaker 1: long people have been fighting bulls on the Iberian Peninsula.
Speaker 1: We don't know, Fox show, but um, there is evidence
Speaker 1: of bull ritual dating back all the way to b C. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The Mycenaeans apparently used to leap over bulls that were charging.
Speaker 1: It was like a thing, and they were always revered,
Speaker 1: you know, as like these godlike creatures, which is why
Speaker 1: I guess they want to kill him. What. Yeah, what's
Speaker 1: the taurus? One? Taurus? Is that the Is that an
Speaker 1: astrological sign? Yeah? Okay, yeah, of course, pretty ancient. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: The article points out that the Visigoth rule Um of
Speaker 1: the Iberian Peninsula from fourteen fifteen to seven eleven UM No.
Speaker 1: Four fifteen four fifteen to seven eleven UM had men
Speaker 1: on horseback fighting bulls um, which evolved into mounted bullfighting,
Speaker 1: which uh jonnel, which still exists in Portugal horseback bullfighting,
Speaker 1: where they kill the bull outside the ring. Later on, right,
Speaker 1: they weaken it to a certain point, which is the
Speaker 1: equivalent of killing the bull is far. I guess there's
Speaker 1: some point of no return that the Portuguese understand and
Speaker 1: they're like, okay, well we're done, come outside, and then
Speaker 1: that's that. But as anybody who's opposed bullfighting will tell you,
Speaker 1: that's not any more humane. Of course not. It's just
Speaker 1: out of sight of the spectators. Um. So yeah, you've
Speaker 1: got what is it? Ray hoo ray jono jo um.
Speaker 1: And then uh. Bull fighting itself as we understand it today,
Speaker 1: was firmly established in Spain by the eleventh century UM,
Speaker 1: and it came about during festivals, specifically one festival called
Speaker 1: the Fiesta descind Ferminton and anybody's been to Pampalona will
Speaker 1: recognize that because that's where the running of the bulls
Speaker 1: takes place. And when in July now so I seven
Speaker 1: when it used to be September, and then in the
Speaker 1: sixteenth century they moved it to July, and ever since
Speaker 1: then the running of the bulls has been held. But
Speaker 1: it's been going on since long before that, And it
Speaker 1: actually started with a bunch of um ranchers and their
Speaker 1: kids moving the bulls from like their pens to about
Speaker 1: a half a mile to the arena. UM. And then
Speaker 1: people started running alongside him, and counting evolved into the
Speaker 1: running of the bulls. Now interesting else, said the Spanish
Speaker 1: military leader uh midd eleventh century. He was one of
Speaker 1: the first to actually bring it into the arena and
Speaker 1: make it the sanctioned corrida, which was government sanctioned is
Speaker 1: today at least what was back then imagined financially supported
Speaker 1: by governments to fifteenth century. It was a big part
Speaker 1: of the aristocracy until Queen Isabella came along and said
Speaker 1: this is not cool. I don't know why she was
Speaker 1: against it, probably because she was an animal lover. I
Speaker 1: would say that's probably a good idea. And Pope Pious
Speaker 1: UM five almost said v uh. He banned it, but
Speaker 1: didn't last very long, um only about eight years, because
Speaker 1: people were into it pretty pretty big time, right um.
Speaker 1: And then in about the I guess in the six
Speaker 1: hundred is when that that whole divergence between horseback and
Speaker 1: foot bull foot bull fighting took place, and it remained. Um.
Speaker 1: The sport of the aristocracy until Philip the came along
Speaker 1: and he said, you know what, this is barbaric. You
Speaker 1: would have to be a low class barbarian to engage
Speaker 1: in bullfighting. So if you remember my court and you
Speaker 1: get caught doing this, I'll shoot you in the knee.
Speaker 1: And the aristocracy said, well, we want our knees intact,
Speaker 1: so we're gonna stop doing this. And at this point
Speaker 1: bullfighting transferred from a kind of high flutant, snooty pastime
Speaker 1: to the the um, the pastime of the people, the
Speaker 1: national sport of the Spanish people, and from that point
Speaker 1: on it's it's stayed that way. Yeah, but they they
Speaker 1: The author does point out that there are arenas in
Speaker 1: Spain that still have the royal boxes for the royal
Speaker 1: family right to attend these things, so it hasn't gone
Speaker 1: away completely as far as that goes. So Spain is
Speaker 1: the heart and life center of um bull fighting, but
Speaker 1: there's other places that it's held. Obviously, I saw him
Speaker 1: in cancun Um, and if you're a bullfighter, you can
Speaker 1: follow the season pretty much year round and get work
Speaker 1: if you're good. They have in France. Did you know that?
Speaker 1: I didn't, But I saw that it's been It was
Speaker 1: banned in the UK. Had no idea anybody was fighting
Speaker 1: bulls and going on in Germany was going on all
Speaker 1: over the place. It's crazy. But that doesn't make sense
Speaker 1: that it would happen in Germany if the Visigoths are
Speaker 1: the ones who introduced it to the Iberian Peninsula because
Speaker 1: they were Germanic people from south of the south Norway
Speaker 1: will call you south Way. I don't think the Goths. Uh.
Speaker 1: So we'll walk you through what happens in a in
Speaker 1: a corrida um in this whitewashed article version. But um,
Speaker 1: before this ever happens, we'll walk you through the couple
Speaker 1: of days before the bull even gets to the ring. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is a special treat for me. It is the
Speaker 1: bull Um is not an aggressive animal at all. Bull
Speaker 1: likes to hang around and chew grass and uh smell flowers.
Speaker 1: That sounds like bullfighting propaganda to me. No, Ferdinand, the
Speaker 1: bull it's like a sweet creature. But they actually are
Speaker 1: not aggressive. They're only um going to charge somebody if
Speaker 1: they're threatened and angry, which is what bullfighting is all about. Um. So,
Speaker 1: in the two days prior to the bull showing up
Speaker 1: at the arena. They are abused. Um, they are uh
Speaker 1: basically mentally destroyed versions of what a bull should be.
Speaker 1: But there you're fat bull. While they do fatten him
Speaker 1: up to make them slow. Well, that's problem, and you
Speaker 1: can call somebody out for that. Okay. Um. They have
Speaker 1: wet newspaper stuffed in their ears so they can't hear anything.
Speaker 1: They have vasoline rubbed on their eyes so their visions blurred.
Speaker 1: They have their eyes taped open so they can't sleep. Uh.
Speaker 1: They stuff cotton up their nostrils so they can't breathe
Speaker 1: very well, and they stick and needle through their genitals. That'll,
Speaker 1: that'll take anybody off. They rubbed this caustic solution on
Speaker 1: their legs, which makes the bull not be able to
Speaker 1: balance and uh keeps the bull from lying down. Ever.
Speaker 1: They strap their horns to the ceiling of their transport
Speaker 1: truck ah to take them on their long hot journey
Speaker 1: to wherever they're going. And for the two days before
Speaker 1: they keep them in a in a box. Oh wait,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, that's not all. They give them drugs to
Speaker 1: either pep them up or slow them down, just to
Speaker 1: keep them in whatever state they want them in. And
Speaker 1: give them laxatives, uh to just sleep make things even
Speaker 1: more uncomfortable. Um. Then they put the bull in the
Speaker 1: in this dark box for two days, uh to disorient
Speaker 1: the bull. Finally, when they opened the box, there's a
Speaker 1: light at the end of the tunnel that the bull thinks,
Speaker 1: my god, I'm finally getting out of here. Runs to
Speaker 1: the light and all of a sudden they're in a
Speaker 1: bull ring, right, And there's trumpets and fanfare and people cheering, um,
Speaker 1: and the bulls like, oh cool, how's how's it? Hey?
Speaker 1: How are you all doing? I've been through some rough
Speaker 1: times lately. Um. Some of that stuff, I think if
Speaker 1: you were found out, you would be disqualified immediately, especially
Speaker 1: doing stuff that slowed the bull down or made it
Speaker 1: less dangerous. Yes, the bull ring is a ring for
Speaker 1: a reason. Um. Bulls would want to go try and
Speaker 1: hide in a corner, but the ring, the circular ring,
Speaker 1: will confuse in a bull to where it can't hide anywhere.
Speaker 1: Have you ever seen that footage of that bull that
Speaker 1: like makes it up into the hands, like jumps up
Speaker 1: and then is into the stands like on top of people.
Speaker 1: It was crazy? Was that bull run our test? No?
Speaker 1: Do you get that joke. Okay. So the different acts
Speaker 1: I believe are called tercios, Yes, I believe so. And
Speaker 1: there's three of them, right, Yes, there's three of them,
Speaker 1: and the that's three acts in a fight in a cardido, yes,
Speaker 1: in a bull fight. Yeah, and um there's no suspense
Speaker 1: going on either by the way they all go down
Speaker 1: the same way. I bet it's suspenseful for the bull. Um.
Speaker 1: So the bull comes out the first act or what? Uh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Act one? Okay. In act one there are um guys
Speaker 1: called peka doors and they're mounted on horseback and they
Speaker 1: are basically, um, I guess, low level torreros or bullfighters
Speaker 1: because both. A matador is not the only kind of bullfighter.
Speaker 1: He is cream of the crop, pinnacle of bullfighters, the
Speaker 1: well paid rock star. Yes, um, but he works with
Speaker 1: a crew of pika doors who show up in the
Speaker 1: first act and bandilli aros who show up in the
Speaker 1: second act. But the pika doors what they do is
Speaker 1: they lance the bowl between his shoulder blades around his
Speaker 1: neck muscles. And the whole point of this chuck You'll
Speaker 1: love this one is to weaken the neck muscles so
Speaker 1: that the bull's head hangs so that the matador can
Speaker 1: get to its heart more easily. Yeah. It also hits
Speaker 1: a gland in the neck that releases adrenaline. Apparently. Um
Speaker 1: So they lanced the bull three times and twist the
Speaker 1: blade around to ensure maximum blood loss. Um. Three matadors
Speaker 1: will now come in. They will fight individually later on,
Speaker 1: but they all come in at first in the first
Speaker 1: act with their capes. And this is and for the
Speaker 1: for the bull fight, it's an afternoon of them. There's
Speaker 1: six bulls and three matadors in each mattador fights two
Speaker 1: bulls and each bull fight takes about fifteen and twenty minutes,
Speaker 1: yes roughly. Um So they come in with their little
Speaker 1: capes and uh do their little maneuvers to draw attention
Speaker 1: away from the pika doors. And the pika doors go
Speaker 1: and hide behind their little walls. They have these interior
Speaker 1: walls that they can hide behind. Whenever the bull starts
Speaker 1: to get too dangerous, they run and high behind these walls. Yes,
Speaker 1: or if this or America, the Pika doors would be
Speaker 1: dressed as clowns and would hide in barrels. Look at rodeo. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it will do a rodeo podcast at some point. Do
Speaker 1: we have to not sure, okay, they don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think they kill the cows and rodeos. No, okay. Um,
Speaker 1: So the pika doors leave the ring. The matadors leave
Speaker 1: the ring at two begins in the bandel yarros. I
Speaker 1: know that's a tough one. Yeah, they come in. They're
Speaker 1: they're basically bullfighters, assistant bullfighters, but they're on foot. Yes,
Speaker 1: and if you've ever seen a bullfighter picture of a
Speaker 1: bull fight, bulls seem to have some um crepe barbed
Speaker 1: sticking out of him. That's the bandelierros work. Yes, and
Speaker 1: that is called a bandias and it's a barbed dart.
Speaker 1: It's adorned colorfully. The bulls aren't the only things dying
Speaker 1: in this episode, so was the Spanish language, because we
Speaker 1: are butchering it. I'm trying uh this of course, further
Speaker 1: weekends the bull um so the mighty Matador doesn't have
Speaker 1: much work to do. So the bull is still dangerous.
Speaker 1: Um are They run in circles at this point to
Speaker 1: to get it nice and dizzy and confused. The manador
Speaker 1: comes out for the final act and he has ten
Speaker 1: ten official minutes to kill the bull. Well to do
Speaker 1: a little showing off first and then kill the bull.
Speaker 1: Um after the ten minute warring. After the ten minutes,
Speaker 1: he gets in a viso, which is a warning first warning.
Speaker 1: After three minutes he gets another one, and then he
Speaker 1: gets a third one, so he has a total of
Speaker 1: in actuality fifteen minutes to kill the bull or else
Speaker 1: the bull is let out alive and the metadors disgraced.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, the matador is going to
Speaker 1: dispatch the bull, and um, he does it if he
Speaker 1: first starts using the cape and the cape is always
Speaker 1: held in the left hand. Is it? That's all right handed? Dudes?
Speaker 1: I did not. I was looking, and I could even
Speaker 1: tell that they were. Um there, the cape was kind
Speaker 1: of clumsy held in the left hand. They were still
Speaker 1: holding it in the left hand. Well, the guys I
Speaker 1: saw were practicing, so maybe I don't know, but I
Speaker 1: don't see why they would practice with their right hand.
Speaker 1: I don't either. Okay, But you have a cape in
Speaker 1: one hand, you have a sword in the other. Yes,
Speaker 1: and the point of the cape. By the way, we
Speaker 1: should probably get to this now. Um, cape is always
Speaker 1: red because red Anger's bulls right true balls are color blind,
Speaker 1: so they're not angered by red or any other color.
Speaker 1: What does get them going is the movement of the
Speaker 1: cape and sticking uh swords in their neck. That's another
Speaker 1: thing that gets them going. Um. And actually that's not
Speaker 1: necessarily true. By the time the manador comes out, sometimes
Speaker 1: the um the bowl is really tired from blood loss
Speaker 1: and being tortured for a couple of days apparently, um.
Speaker 1: And so the manador really kind of has to work
Speaker 1: to get it riled up again. And even though the
Speaker 1: bulls just like, just kill me, manador is like, not yet,
Speaker 1: we have a crowd to please first, So um the
Speaker 1: the manador eventually after the cape work is done. Um.
Speaker 1: Oh the cape is read by the way to high bloodstains. Um.
Speaker 1: Once the cape work is done, the manador will um
Speaker 1: as the bull runs past him, will plunge the sword
Speaker 1: in between his shoulder blades and what's called a estoccata,
Speaker 1: which is the death blow and uh it properly delivered
Speaker 1: estocata will sever the bulls a order and that will
Speaker 1: be that almost immediately for the bull. If it's not
Speaker 1: done correctly, then the bull can be in even more
Speaker 1: tremendous pain as it bleeds out. But to protect against this,
Speaker 1: a bandeliero will come out and uh immediately deliver any
Speaker 1: any another thrust of a blade to make sure the
Speaker 1: bull is dead with a puntilla a smaller knife. UM.
Speaker 1: Ideally they killed them with one blow. That rarely happens
Speaker 1: because apparently matadors aren't so great at doing that anymore.
Speaker 1: I don't know if they ever were. And uh, a
Speaker 1: lot of times the bull lives even through the smaller
Speaker 1: knife plunge and is still alive when the ears and
Speaker 1: tail or hoof or cut off and presented to the matador.
Speaker 1: Usually there's a there's another fail safe um where they
Speaker 1: just bring out a tractor and run the bull over
Speaker 1: a bunch of times to make sure that it's it's
Speaker 1: so nice. And if that doesn't work, then they the
Speaker 1: people come down from the stands and just start shooting it.
Speaker 1: That's not true, and it's not funny. It's not funny
Speaker 1: because it's not true. And oftentimes do survive hanging on
Speaker 1: by a thread. Their lungs are punctured, so they're bleeding,
Speaker 1: like drowning in their own blood and like vomiting up
Speaker 1: blood through their nose and mouth like a whale dying
Speaker 1: and flurry. Uh. And sometimes they will take it outside
Speaker 1: and skin it while it's even still alive. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a kind of a tradition. Um. I saw the bull
Speaker 1: after the bullfight. It was pretty sad. Um. They take
Speaker 1: the bull right outside and um they'll dress it and
Speaker 1: then sell the meat at the stadium. Um, which is
Speaker 1: customary and very strange, but that's one of the aspects
Speaker 1: of bullfighting. If you've ever wanted a bull burger and
Speaker 1: you wanted to eat it right after you saw a die,
Speaker 1: go to a bullfight in Spain. Uh, they will drag
Speaker 1: the bull out with some mules attached to chains. And UM.
Speaker 1: I don't know if the booing booing you heard, because
Speaker 1: apparently the people will boo and throw beer cans at
Speaker 1: the bull at the end. I don't know if that's
Speaker 1: what you were. It depends, So it depends. Um no, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: that's this was. They were booing the matador, the banliros,
Speaker 1: the doors, everybody. They were booing the whole country of
Speaker 1: Mexico for this. Um. Yeah they're booing everybody. No. Um,
Speaker 1: it depends on the bull. If the bull was um
Speaker 1: a woss, then I could see the fans throwing beer
Speaker 1: cans at it. There's also um that an aspect of
Speaker 1: this that cannot be denying that a bull that shows
Speaker 1: great bravery, anger, um, spirit, spunk really tries to kill
Speaker 1: the matador or the bandili arros will be very much
Speaker 1: revered by the people in the stands and gruesomely UM.
Speaker 1: They'll bring it out for a victory lap, being dragged
Speaker 1: by the mules in a circle around the arena. After
Speaker 1: it's dead, or apparently while it's still dying, people will
Speaker 1: cheer it, throw roses for it. Um. And there's a
Speaker 1: there's a a UM. There's a rule where the crowd
Speaker 1: or the manador can ask for an uh indolito, which
Speaker 1: is a reprieve for a particularly courageous bull, and the
Speaker 1: president of the of the bullfight, the referee can say, yes,
Speaker 1: I give this bull of reprieve because it's such an
Speaker 1: awesome bowl. We're gonna let it live. And the manador
Speaker 1: proceeds to um with an empty hand simulate the death blow,
Speaker 1: saying I could have killed the bull, but I like
Speaker 1: the bull so much I lobbied to get it released.
Speaker 1: That bull is taken away and UM put out the
Speaker 1: stud for the rest of its life. And there was one.
Speaker 1: It's very rare to get an indulto. Um. And there
Speaker 1: was one one bull called Manzanito in seven he got
Speaker 1: an indulto because he gored all three manadors in the
Speaker 1: plaza that day. Wow. That that that will get you
Speaker 1: off right there. You get to go stud for the
Speaker 1: rest of your life. Mr. Bull. Horses are also abused.
Speaker 1: The ones that participate, uh, their ears are stuffed with newspaper,
Speaker 1: wet newspaper. They're blindfolded, and they sever their vocal cords
Speaker 1: so they can't scream out in pain because people don't
Speaker 1: want to hear that. They don't want to scream. Yeah,
Speaker 1: people don't like that, So they sever the vocal cords.
Speaker 1: So the horses that are, you know, trembling in fear
Speaker 1: inside this ring at this bowl, don't bark out and
Speaker 1: let people know that. And if the horses are hurt,
Speaker 1: they take them out of the ring and patch them
Speaker 1: up and send them right back in there. Where are
Speaker 1: you getting this activist info all over the place? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, I mean it's not activist info, it's
Speaker 1: how it goes down. No, it all just kind of
Speaker 1: has a certain ring to it. I'm not disputing it.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying like, yeah, well I mean coming out
Speaker 1: of my mouth, it probably sounds activist because I think
Speaker 1: it's an awful thing to do something like this. But
Speaker 1: this is the these is the facts. UM. Okay, Well
Speaker 1: in check you will love the next part wherein we
Speaker 1: talk about famous manadors. Yeah, I feel free. So uh.
Speaker 1: People have been doing this since what we said, like
Speaker 1: the eleventh century, right, Elsid was supposedly the first guy
Speaker 1: to fight a bull in a arena, UM, and since
Speaker 1: then it's it's just become huge, big business. UM. But
Speaker 1: the first real and probably only real Golden age if
Speaker 1: you call it that, bullfighting happened UM from nineteen fourteen
Speaker 1: and nine, and there were two matadors, Juan belmonte Garcia
Speaker 1: and Jose Gomez, who fought bulls under the name Joslite.
Speaker 1: Though UM had a rivalry and Um. Belmonte Garcia was
Speaker 1: actually the first guy apparently to stand still or stand
Speaker 1: his ground when he was in cape work with a bull,
Speaker 1: rather than try to run away from the bull using
Speaker 1: fancy footwork that erect style. Jsalito was his rival, and
Speaker 1: the rivalry was really going swimmingly, I guess for everybody
Speaker 1: but the bulls, until Hosalito was fatally gored Um at
Speaker 1: a match that both of them were at Garcia and
Speaker 1: Hosalito were fighting at um In and that end of
Speaker 1: the Golden age of bullfighting. You'll be happy to hear.
Speaker 1: He must have been small. Hosalito. Yeah, his name is Jose,
Speaker 1: and I think if you're Jose and they call you Hosalito,
Speaker 1: that means you're small, like add that eto to anything
Speaker 1: alito or young because he started very young. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe that's true. He started at age thirteen, um and
Speaker 1: he was only I think twenty twenty five when he
Speaker 1: died when he was gored So. Uh. Another guy who's
Speaker 1: gorgeous named Manuel Rodriguez E Sanchez. Do you think that's
Speaker 1: like the mothers and the father's names when it's two
Speaker 1: last names and there's an e in and in the middle.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I would think so. And well, Rodriguez
Speaker 1: in Sanchez. You put the Rodriguez together and the Sanchez
Speaker 1: is together and you get Manuel also known as Menolette.
Speaker 1: Maybe so. And he was gordon In. He was the
Speaker 1: top matador from nineteen forty to ninety seven, and I
Speaker 1: think is goring In the end of his being the
Speaker 1: top matador was not coincidental. I think you're probably right. Uh,
Speaker 1: should we talk about the bulls because it's very specific
Speaker 1: what kind of bulls are fighting. They're all four years old,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know. I didn't either, Um, and they
Speaker 1: are specifically bred to bull fight, and they way about
Speaker 1: thirteen hundred pounds. You want to translate that niquilos for
Speaker 1: our friends, it's five ninety kilograms, right, And um, they
Speaker 1: are bread and ranches. And this article says that they
Speaker 1: are tested for bravery and ferocity and that if you
Speaker 1: pass that test, you would become a fighting bull. Um.
Speaker 1: And that may be true sometimes, but uh, matadors like
Speaker 1: to make their money and they don't want to be gored,
Speaker 1: So the high falutin matadors will request very placid, docile
Speaker 1: bulls just to keep the show going. Is that true?
Speaker 1: Well that's what that's what I read. Okay, So have
Speaker 1: they just want to put on the show? You know,
Speaker 1: they don't want to die? Well, I'm sure they don't
Speaker 1: w want to make They want to make a few
Speaker 1: million bucks a year. Ye doing it easy too, because
Speaker 1: they get paid about a hundred grand a bullfight and
Speaker 1: they can do maybe thirty to forty or more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know the um oh the guy Bell monteh he
Speaker 1: had a record hundred and nine bullfights in It's a lot.
Speaker 1: It's like in Rocky three when he was fighting all
Speaker 1: the chumps just for a pay day. Oh yeah, he
Speaker 1: didn't want any real challenge. But ultimately he did want
Speaker 1: a real challenge because he fights. He fought Draco, well,
Speaker 1: he fought cluver Lang and three and three it was
Speaker 1: the Russian. Oh no, no, ye. Three was clever Lane. No. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The first two were Apollo, the third was cluver Lane,
Speaker 1: the fourth was the Russian. I thought that he was uh,
Speaker 1: Tommy Morrison. And then the sixth was when he came
Speaker 1: back as a trainer, huh. And the seventh was him
Speaker 1: enjoying a nice sandwich for two hours. No, Rocky three
Speaker 1: was definitely clever Lane, because that was my favorite one
Speaker 1: until I got older and I realized that the first
Speaker 1: one was actually the better one. You know. I thought
Speaker 1: that I would think that too, and then I went
Speaker 1: back and watched it as an adult, and I'm like,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's pretty good, but oh man, I loved it.
Speaker 1: There's just too much character development in it for a
Speaker 1: Rocky movie. Well, it was a love story it wasn't
Speaker 1: even a boxing movie. Wrong with you, I understand, but
Speaker 1: it was a love story starring and written and directed
Speaker 1: by Sylvester Stallone. That's right, all right. Back to the bulls.
Speaker 1: Bulls are never exposed to more than one fight. Yes,
Speaker 1: apparently they have very good memories, so they learn how
Speaker 1: to out dual the the matador in their in their cape.
Speaker 1: So that's why they don't bite them twice. And the
Speaker 1: guys who test their ferocity for I guess the ones
Speaker 1: that are tested, those are done on horseback, so that
Speaker 1: the bull is not like, oh I remember those capes.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna get you. I associate you with laxatives. Well,
Speaker 1: even this article says that they they alter bulls to
Speaker 1: make them easier to fight. But this is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's so um it's a very participatory sport for spectators. Um. So,
Speaker 1: like you can ask for an indolito, you can also
Speaker 1: challenge or charge uh somebody with fighting an altered bull,
Speaker 1: one that's overfed and too fat and slow, one whose
Speaker 1: horns have been altered, because apparently the tips of the
Speaker 1: horns of a bull are very much like a cat's whiskers,
Speaker 1: and if you remove that the bull is not going
Speaker 1: to have a very good sense of kinetics and Willever
Speaker 1: hit the matador. If the crowd thinks that your career
Speaker 1: is like over pal, that's why I don't think it's
Speaker 1: quite as widespread either that or else. Um, bullfighting crowds
Speaker 1: have become complacent. Well, I think that's definitely true. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: because it's tourists they don't know how to spot a
Speaker 1: fat bull. Well, then that very well may be the case.
Speaker 1: And they also apparently the way they stabbed them and
Speaker 1: where they stabbed them, they do so in order to
Speaker 1: make sure they charge straight instead of like I've got
Speaker 1: a bad left leg, all of a sudden, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: be going left all day or right all day. Yeah. So, Chuck,
Speaker 1: we mentioned that you can make a pretty decent living
Speaker 1: doing bull fights, but you also mentioned, um that there's
Speaker 1: there may be the death of bull fighting as it were.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's really true. I mean, seriously, people
Speaker 1: have been doing this since the fourth century, and now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, just because of a bad economy
Speaker 1: and animal activism, bull fight is going down. It's starting
Speaker 1: to where's the evidence. Well, the polls that the popular
Speaker 1: sentiment is changing in Spain over the past fifteen years
Speaker 1: is one. UM. Catalonia is the first region in mainland
Speaker 1: Spain to actually ban it in Barcelonas in Catalonia. Yeah,
Speaker 1: which is big because Barcelona had not one, not two,
Speaker 1: but three bullfighting arenas, that's right, and that took effects.
Speaker 1: That took effect. Actually just this year, on January one,
Speaker 1: they said, like, let's finish out the two thousand eleven
Speaker 1: season and then we'll ban it shouting from that point.
Speaker 1: They had the last one at UH in September. I
Speaker 1: think September two thousand eleven was the last one ever
Speaker 1: was UM. But that's a huge deal. But even in
Speaker 1: Spain they're kind of like the snooty Catalans, like they
Speaker 1: don't they don't enjoy bullfighting. I think that's made some
Speaker 1: quarters of Spain even more fiercely proud of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: probably so, like Madrid apparently is still very proud of
Speaker 1: their bullfighting it UH. In two thousand ten, one of
Speaker 1: the state television stations said, we are going to ban
Speaker 1: coverage live coverage of it because kids can watch this
Speaker 1: on tv UM. They happen in the hours, in the
Speaker 1: early afternoon hours, in early evening, so they won't broadcast
Speaker 1: until after ten pm. Now right, well, there's a there's
Speaker 1: a law that says you can't show animal cruelty on
Speaker 1: Spanish television until after ten pm because of children, And
Speaker 1: so that's effectively banned, right, showing bullfighting in Spain. Um,
Speaker 1: which is a huge blow to it. Um, I guess
Speaker 1: economically or financially, because I mean think about how many
Speaker 1: how much money comes from television deals and sponsorships, if
Speaker 1: you can get rid of it on TV, like, that's that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's true. And then there's also, Um, they've shown that
Speaker 1: there's evidence that government, that the federal government of Spain
Speaker 1: is pretty much what's propping up bull fighting these days,
Speaker 1: because um, there were what it went from a thousand
Speaker 1: bull fights in two thousand eight to eight hundred and
Speaker 1: two in Spain, and um, that two hundred was almost exclusively, um,
Speaker 1: the result of cuts and government subsidies to small towns
Speaker 1: that can't afford to put on a bullfight. And so
Speaker 1: that means that, yeah, the government's holding the whole thing up. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I read a couple of interesting articles today. One of
Speaker 1: them was from a veterinarian. Uh, and they have vets
Speaker 1: at the bullfight. Um on staff, I guess uh. And
Speaker 1: this vet went on record as saying they did all
Speaker 1: this testing of like adrenaline and or adrenaline and all
Speaker 1: these different uh chemicals in the body on these bulls
Speaker 1: that had just survived, ones that were dead ones before
Speaker 1: they went in and basically to prove that the bull
Speaker 1: suffers a great deal because there's this misguided notion that
Speaker 1: the bull doesn't suffer because they're this magical creature. I
Speaker 1: saw this one interview with a Bandaliro and he said
Speaker 1: that a vetinary in this translate obviously, but he said,
Speaker 1: a veterinarian told me that the bulls have a special
Speaker 1: cell in their body that prevents it from suffering and
Speaker 1: feeling pain. It's not true. Oh are you sure? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no special cell that that keeps them from feeling pain.
Speaker 1: Well that's a that's a larger debate too. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: I believe bulls can suffer. But you know, um, if
Speaker 1: you've read David Foster, Wallace is considered the lobster. Can
Speaker 1: a lobster suffer is no susception is the perception, the
Speaker 1: physical feeling of pain is that the same thing is suffering.
Speaker 1: Now we've shown it's not remembering our happiness audiobook. We
Speaker 1: talked about the difference between experiencing physical pain and experiencing suffering.
Speaker 1: Right now, they actually utilize different parts of the brain.
Speaker 1: So if there's no suffering, is inflicting pain on something
Speaker 1: e g. Cooking it um? Is that cruel? It's a
Speaker 1: good point, it is, But I think bulls experienced suffering.
Speaker 1: It's especially if they go through what you describe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if you're against bull fighting and you want to
Speaker 1: do something, you can email the or mail the embassies
Speaker 1: of these countries that still participate and tell them that, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to visit your country. I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: spend my money there. If you're still going to endorse this,
Speaker 1: it's a small thing you can do. Can you mail
Speaker 1: me some wine because I can't make it over there?
Speaker 1: Some temper and neo uh And I just I'm gonna
Speaker 1: go on record as saying this whole thing that it's
Speaker 1: a it's part of the culture is just crap. Well,
Speaker 1: the the Spanish federal government would disagree with you because
Speaker 1: in two doesn't tend. And what a lot of people
Speaker 1: see as a response to um, the Catalonia ban Um
Speaker 1: the Spanish government transferred jurisdiction over bullfighting from the Interior
Speaker 1: Ministry to the Cultural Ministry, so as an attempt to
Speaker 1: keep it from being banned. It's gonna be uh, it'll
Speaker 1: be a tough fault one. But yeah, apparently even Mexico
Speaker 1: now is entertaining the idea of banning it. You know
Speaker 1: some other things that were defended as culture, genital mutilation
Speaker 1: on females, witch burning, bear baiting. You ever heard of that? Um? No.
Speaker 1: Bear baiting was popular in England up until the eighteenth century.
Speaker 1: That is, when you take a bear like a you know,
Speaker 1: grizzly bear or brown bear, like a clown well not
Speaker 1: far off, You put it in a pit and chain
Speaker 1: it to a steak and release dogs on it, and
Speaker 1: the dogs kill the bear, or the bear kills some
Speaker 1: of the dogs, so they release more dogs, and people
Speaker 1: sit around and gamble on is the bear gonna get
Speaker 1: eaten first or the dog's gonna get killed first? And uh,
Speaker 1: it's blood sport. And I think this is the same thing.
Speaker 1: You know. Um, that's where bulldogs came from, and that's
Speaker 1: where they got their name from. It's called bull baiting,
Speaker 1: and bulldogs used to not even come close to resembling
Speaker 1: what they do now. They were actually bred to be
Speaker 1: less vicious um by making them slower and dumber and
Speaker 1: more cuddly and dumber but more cuddly um. And that's
Speaker 1: how we have the modern budocks now. But they evolved
Speaker 1: from basically uh, in the nineteenth century bulldogs. Where we're
Speaker 1: where um pitple breed is now where there are a
Speaker 1: lot of people being like, we just need to wipe
Speaker 1: this breed off the face of the planet. It's gone
Speaker 1: out of control. They're crazy. Everybody scared them. They're killing people. Um.
Speaker 1: And then they managed to breed the meanness out of them.
Speaker 1: But bull bull baiting too. Bull baiting bulls just have
Speaker 1: been taken it well. Embarbating actually still happens in Pakistan
Speaker 1: and it's uh, it's horrific. So two from me to
Speaker 1: you people of Spain, Mexico, France, Uh, ritualized killing of
Speaker 1: animals for people to pay for and watch is a
Speaker 1: little outdated and just silly and cruel, and I say
Speaker 1: please stop, from from Chuck to you, from me to you.
Speaker 1: And one more thing. The whole notion of culture isn't
Speaker 1: that supposedly to advance your civilization. And isn't that supposed
Speaker 1: to mean like positive things like culture? I mean, what
Speaker 1: brings people together more than the ritual is killing down
Speaker 1: here and watching watching bull fight. All right, I'm done,
Speaker 1: um off soapbox. So how do you feel about bullfighting personally?
Speaker 1: I think it's great. If you want to learn more
Speaker 1: about bull fighting UM or Chuck's views on it, you
Speaker 1: can type in Chuck or bull fighting in the search
Speaker 1: bar at how stuff works dot com. Uh, And I
Speaker 1: said search bar, which means it is time for listener mail.
Speaker 1: We're very riled up listener mail. That's right, this is calm.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this. Uh. Illustrator wrote us about the
Speaker 1: comics episode Guys, I'm in currently an illustrator. Uh. Does
Speaker 1: he not have much hope for his future in that field? No?
Speaker 1: I think he does, Um, I felt because he does
Speaker 1: like a digital illustration team. UM. I found your podcast
Speaker 1: when I was hip deep in art school at the
Speaker 1: Art Institute of Boston. But there are only so many
Speaker 1: times I could listen to the same old Our Lady
Speaker 1: Peace songs on repeat from that group. No, he had
Speaker 1: like one song, Oh I can't remember I dug it.
Speaker 1: This song actually I got the CD because of that song. Man,
Speaker 1: I used to fall for that. When I was like,
Speaker 1: well fourteen, you just be like, that's the only good
Speaker 1: song on the whole CD before the Kiss single. Yeah. Um.
Speaker 1: I'm now a professional illustrator, but I also teach art
Speaker 1: at A I B. And I was able to live
Speaker 1: a mini dream when my higher ups approached me about
Speaker 1: teaching a comic book class. So he was pretty stoked
Speaker 1: about this um on the comics. And this is just
Speaker 1: some things he pointed out on the comics code of
Speaker 1: authority you guys talked about. World War Two was long
Speaker 1: over and the new round of superheroes Spiderman, Fantastic Four
Speaker 1: had yet to emerge from the minds of Lee Kirbean Ditko.
Speaker 1: As a result, comics were merely treading water and chasing
Speaker 1: from fad to fad, westerns to romance to eventually horror
Speaker 1: horror comics or what really started to worry everyone, so
Speaker 1: they began to put pressure on companies like EC, who
Speaker 1: had made their names in over the top horror. In turn,
Speaker 1: EC basically jettison at Steak in horror comics and latched
Speaker 1: onto a little humor comic uh Mad, which we talked about.
Speaker 1: It was like UM Stories Guaranteed to Drive you Mad,
Speaker 1: exactly the original but to this point, Mad was published
Speaker 1: basically as a comic book. In essence, EC was looking
Speaker 1: to hedge its bets, so it relaunched Mad as a
Speaker 1: magazine UM, which is very different distinction because it all
Speaker 1: of a sudden wasn't under the code of authority. Uh In,
Speaker 1: we were blessed with a very first MAD magazine, a
Speaker 1: very calculated move since they were not heavily scrutinized like
Speaker 1: comics and they didn't have to worry about the comics code,
Speaker 1: and it's very smart. It is UM. I hope to
Speaker 1: make it big as a comics illustrator in children's book
Speaker 1: illustrator who says I can't do both. I also thought
Speaker 1: you might like to know that you're keeping me company
Speaker 1: during these long hours chasing the dream and this dude
Speaker 1: stuff is awesome And if you want to hire Greg Marathus,
Speaker 1: you can get in touch with him at the Greg
Speaker 1: Marathas Studio, which is g R E G M A
Speaker 1: R A T h A s dot com or Rita's
Speaker 1: blog Greg Marathus dot blog spot dot com. Stuff is
Speaker 1: very cool. I told him I'd keep them in mind
Speaker 1: if we ever needed drawings. We could use some drawings.
Speaker 1: We need some Facebook timeline drawings. If he's holling to
Speaker 1: work for free, can it? Did we remember? We um
Speaker 1: we got chastise biographic designer for holding that T shirt contest. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I emailed him back act it dissas calm them down.
Speaker 1: Uh yeah, I was like, you know, most of these
Speaker 1: were amateur designers. There was some pros in there, but
Speaker 1: there was something in mind. And it's not like we've
Speaker 1: forced anybody to do with but there's a whole there's
Speaker 1: a whole movement um from designers about design contests being awful.
Speaker 1: Like what other industry basically asked for free work as
Speaker 1: a contest quote unquote there's like fiction contests. Yeah, there's
Speaker 1: all kinds of box Derby's. Yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff that people do for free as part of a contest,
Speaker 1: bake offs or bakes off. I'm sorry. And I saw
Speaker 1: some designers that say I don't agree with that contests
Speaker 1: make me better. And if you don't, that's a ridiculous idea.
Speaker 1: Architecture as a field has been in contest mode for
Speaker 1: a century more and like, yeah, that's there's a lot
Speaker 1: of work put into it, and there's a lot of
Speaker 1: work put into graphic design. Contests are everywhere. I think
Speaker 1: that's a ridiculous stance. Well, his point was, because he
Speaker 1: mailed me back in he was like, well, find the
Speaker 1: contest is fine, but you should give them a cut
Speaker 1: of the T shirt sales. I don't disagree with that. Well,
Speaker 1: I know, but we had no choice. Well, no, we're
Speaker 1: in no position whatsoever to share it. I told him, dude,
Speaker 1: if it was up to me, they would get of
Speaker 1: the T shirt sales. I don't know about that. Well,
Speaker 1: we don't get any well, I know, but still we could.
Speaker 1: If we couldn't negotiate on their behalf, we would work
Speaker 1: a little bit in for us to man, what a
Speaker 1: volatile episode right to the end. Yeah, so I guess
Speaker 1: if you want to express your volatility UM toward us,
Speaker 1: that's cool. We can handle it. We've been taken it
Speaker 1: for years. You can tweet to us at s Y
Speaker 1: s K podcast. You can send us stuff on Facebook,
Speaker 1: including Facebook art for the timeline UM at Facebook dot
Speaker 1: com slash stuff. You should know. You can also email
Speaker 1: us at Stuff podcast at Discovery dot com. Be sure
Speaker 1: to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future.
Speaker 1: Join how Stuffwork staff as we explore them A promising
Speaker 1: and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow