Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from House Stuff Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me. It's always Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant, hol A, Chuck Hola, Hola right back catching Um.
Speaker 1: How are you doing? I'm great? How are you? I'm
Speaker 1: doing pretty good? Yeah. Yeah, I've been learning a lot
Speaker 1: about bull foling lately. I don't know if you know.
Speaker 1: You mean bull killing. Bull fighting is what it's culture.
Speaker 1: It's not what I call it. Or you could also
Speaker 1: call it a cardido cordida. Boy, here we go corrida.
Speaker 1: Have you ever been to Spain? No? Have you? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Where I've been to? Uh? And then um Tosa de
Speaker 1: Mar which is little coastal town near Barcelona there on
Speaker 1: the coastal Brava, very nice. Have you been to Okay? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Very Have you seen a bullfight? No? I would not,
Speaker 1: I would not do that, sir, I have seen a
Speaker 1: bull fight. And um, to offend you even further, not
Speaker 1: only was it a bullfight, it started off with a
Speaker 1: cock fight. It was in Cancoon. I saw it with
Speaker 1: my sister and my dad, and UM, it was crazy
Speaker 1: because we were we were there and it was a
Speaker 1: bullfight like. It wasn't like you could have accidentally walked
Speaker 1: into this thing like it was a bullfight. Um. And
Speaker 1: 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 sacks phone 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 boom
Speaker 1: to bullfight. Well, that is one people who who say
Speaker 1: 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, no refunds making no exactly he just
Speaker 1: funded bullfighting. Yeah exactly, sucker. Um. A couple of quick
Speaker 1: stats roughly to between two hundred and two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty thousand bulls are killed each year from bull fights,
Speaker 1: from bull fights, and um, I'm not sure if this
Speaker 1: is accurate, but the number I got was it fifty
Speaker 1: two matadors have been killed since. I'm surprised it's that few.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of Julio Aparichio? If you have a
Speaker 1: very strong constitution, Uncle Josh warns you against this one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: holy cow. It was almost like, how is that not photoshops?
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: bull um and what a boy? Huh, and gordon under
Speaker 1: his chin and it threw his through his neck and
Speaker 1: then the horn came out of his mouth perfectly. And
Speaker 1: m a guy from getting Images got a close up
Speaker 1: of it, like like fifty of them. It's it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen the video. It's on the YouTube and
Speaker 1: it's one of those that's so awful that you have
Speaker 1: to like sign in and verify your age before you
Speaker 1: watch it. And I 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 bull fighting is
Speaker 1: the 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 it's not very good right. Um,
Speaker 1: what I start, I'm starting to suspect that you are
Speaker 1: a post bull fighting 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. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of Spaniards. And that's up from like
Speaker 1: fifteen years earlier. So in this modern day, people are
Speaker 1: starting to think twice about it. Well, let's let's talk
Speaker 1: about this, Chuck, Let's talk about how how long people
Speaker 1: have been fighting bulls on the Iberian Peninsula. We don't know,
Speaker 1: Fox Show, but um, there is evidence of bull rituals
Speaker 1: dating back all the way to BC. Yeah. The Mycenaeans
Speaker 1: apparently used to leap over bulls that were charging. It
Speaker 1: was like a thing, and they were always revered, you know,
Speaker 1: as like these godlike creatures, which is why I guess
Speaker 1: they want to kill him. What. Yeah, what's the taurus? One? Taurus?
Speaker 1: Is that the Is that an astrological sign? Yeah? Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: of course pretty ancient. Uh. The article points out that
Speaker 1: the Visigoth rule Um of the Iberian Peninsula from fourteen
Speaker 1: fifteen to seven eleven um No. Four fifteen four fifteen
Speaker 1: to seven eleven, UM had men on horseback fighting bulls um,
Speaker 1: which evolved into mounted bullfighting which uh rijneo, which still
Speaker 1: exists in Portugal horseback bullfighting where they kill the bull
Speaker 1: outside the ring. Later on, right, they weaken it to
Speaker 1: a certain point, which is the equivalent of killing the
Speaker 1: bull is far. I guess there's some point of no
Speaker 1: return that the Portuguese understand and they're like, okay, well
Speaker 1: we're done, come outside, and then that's that. But as
Speaker 1: anybody who's opposed bullfighting will tell you, that's not any
Speaker 1: more humane. Of course, it's just out of sight of
Speaker 1: the spectators. Um. So yeah, you've got what is it?
Speaker 1: Ray hoo rayjono joo um. And then uh. Bull fighting
Speaker 1: itself as we understand it today was firmly established in
Speaker 1: Spain by the eleventh century UM, and it came about
Speaker 1: during festivals, specifically one festival called the Fiesta descind Ferminton
Speaker 1: and anybody has been to Pampalonna will recognize that because
Speaker 1: that's where the running of the bulls takes place. And
Speaker 1: when in July now so I seven when it used
Speaker 1: to be September. And then in the sixteenth century they
Speaker 1: moved it to July, and ever since then the running
Speaker 1: of the bulls has been held. But it's been going
Speaker 1: on since long before that. And it actually started with
Speaker 1: a bunch of um ranchers their kids moving the bulls
Speaker 1: from like their pens to about a half a mile
Speaker 1: to the arena. Um. And then people started running alongside
Speaker 1: him and evolved into the running of the bulls. Now
Speaker 1: interesting els said the Spanish military leader uh midd eleventh century.
Speaker 1: He was one of the first to actually bring it
Speaker 1: into the arena and make it the sanctioned corrida, which
Speaker 1: was government sanctioned is today at least, but what's back then,
Speaker 1: I'm financially supported by governments to fifteenth century. It was
Speaker 1: a big part of the aristocracy until Queen Isabella came
Speaker 1: along and said this is not cool. I don't know
Speaker 1: why she was against it, probably because she was an
Speaker 1: animal lover. I would say that's probably a good idea,
Speaker 1: and Pope Pious UM five almost said the uh he
Speaker 1: banned it. But that didn't last very long, um only
Speaker 1: about eight years, because people were into it pretty pretty
Speaker 1: big time, right um. And then in about the I
Speaker 1: guess in the six d is when that that whole
Speaker 1: divergence between horseback and foot bull foot bull fighting took place,
Speaker 1: and it remained um the sport of the aristocracy until
Speaker 1: Philip the came along and he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: this is barbaric. You would have to be a low
Speaker 1: class barbarian to engage in bullfighting. So if you remember
Speaker 1: my court and you get caught doing this, I'll shoot
Speaker 1: you in the knee. And the aristocracy said, well, we
Speaker 1: want our knees in tack, so we're gonna stop doing this.
Speaker 1: And at this point bullfighting transferred from a kind of
Speaker 1: high flutant, snooty pastime to the them the pastime of
Speaker 1: the people, the national sport of the Spanish people, and
Speaker 1: from that point on it's it's stayed that way. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but they they The author does point there are arenas
Speaker 1: in Spain that still have the royal boxes for the
Speaker 1: royal family right to attend these things, so it hasn't
Speaker 1: gone away completely as far as that goes. So Spain
Speaker 1: is the heart and life center of um bullfighting, 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 the heaven 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. It was going on
Speaker 1: all over the place. It's crazy. But that doesn't make
Speaker 1: sense that it would happen in Germany if the Visigoths
Speaker 1: are the ones who introduced it to the Iberian Peninsula
Speaker 1: because they were Germanic people from south of the south.
Speaker 1: Norway 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 bull.
Speaker 1: Um is not an aggressive animal at all. Bull likes
Speaker 1: to hang around in 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 gonna charge somebody if they're
Speaker 1: threatened and angry, which is what bullfighting is all about. Um.
Speaker 1: So in the two days prior to the bull showing
Speaker 1: up at the arena, they are abused. Um they are
Speaker 1: uh basically mentally destroyed versions of what a bull should be.
Speaker 1: You're fat bull. While they do fatten them up to
Speaker 1: make them slow. Well, that's a big 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 stuffed cotton up their nostrils so they can't breathe
Speaker 1: very well, and they stick and needle through their genitals.
Speaker 1: That'll that'll take anybody off. They rubbed this caustic solution
Speaker 1: on their legs, which makes the bull not be able
Speaker 1: to 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 uh to take them on their long hot journey's
Speaker 1: wherever they're going. And for the two days before they
Speaker 1: keep them in a in a box. Oh wait, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: that's not all they give them drugs to either pep
Speaker 1: them up or slow them down, just to keep them
Speaker 1: in whatever state they want them in, and give them
Speaker 1: laxatives uh, to just obviously make things even more uncomfortable. Um.
Speaker 1: Then they put the bull in the in this dark
Speaker 1: box for two days uh to disorient the bull. Finally,
Speaker 1: when they open the box, there's a light at the
Speaker 1: end of the tunnel that the bull thinks, my god,
Speaker 1: I'm finally getting out of here. Runs to the light
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden they're in a bull ring, right,
Speaker 1: And there's trumpets and fanfare and people cheering, um, and
Speaker 1: the bulls like, oh cool, how's how's that? Hey, how
Speaker 1: are y'all doing? I've been through some rough times lately. Um.
Speaker 1: Some of that stuff, I think if you were found out,
Speaker 1: you would be disqualified immediately, especially doing stuff that slowed
Speaker 1: the bull down or made it less dangerous. Yes, the
Speaker 1: bull ring is a ring for a reason. Um. Bulls
Speaker 1: would want to go try and hide in a corner,
Speaker 1: but the ring, the circular ring, will confuse in a
Speaker 1: bull to where it can't hide anywhere. Have you ever
Speaker 1: seen that footage of that bowl that like makes it
Speaker 1: up into the stands, Like jumps up and then is
Speaker 1: in the stands like on top of people. It was crazy.
Speaker 1: Was that bull run our test? No? Do you get
Speaker 1: that joke? Okay? So the different acts I believe are
Speaker 1: called ter CEOs. Yes, I believe so. And there's three
Speaker 1: of them, right, Yes, there's three of them. And the
Speaker 1: 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 the cream of the crop, pinnacle of bullfighters,
Speaker 1: the well paid rock star. Yes, um, but he works
Speaker 1: with the crew of pika doors who show up in
Speaker 1: the first act, and bandilli airos who show up in
Speaker 1: the second act. But the pika doors what they do
Speaker 1: is they lance the bowl between his shoulder blades, around
Speaker 1: his neck muscles and the whole point of this chuck.
Speaker 1: You'll love this one is to weaken the neck muscles
Speaker 1: so that the bull's head hangs so that the matador
Speaker 1: can get to its heart more easily. Yeah. It also
Speaker 1: hits a gland in the neck that releases adrenaline. Apparently.
Speaker 1: Um so they lanced the bull three times and twist
Speaker 1: the blade around to ensure maximum blood loss. Um. Three
Speaker 1: matadors 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 bowls and three matadors, and each matador fights two
Speaker 1: bowls and each bull fight takes about fifty in twenty minutes. Yes.
Speaker 1: Um so they come in with their little capes and
Speaker 1: uh do their little maneuvers to draw attention away from
Speaker 1: the pika doors. And the Pika doors go and hide
Speaker 1: behind their little walls. They have these interior walls that
Speaker 1: they can hide behind. Whenever the bull starts to get
Speaker 1: too dangerous, they run and hide behind these walls. Yes,
Speaker 1: or if this America, the Pika doors would be dressed
Speaker 1: 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 sure they don't. I don't think they
Speaker 1: kill the cals and rodeos. Okay, Um, So the pika
Speaker 1: doors leave the ring, the matadors leave the ring at
Speaker 1: two begins, and the vandel Garros, I know that's a
Speaker 1: tough one. They're they're basically bullfighters, assistant bullfighters. Put they're
Speaker 1: on foot, yes, and if you've ever seen a bullfighter
Speaker 1: a picture of bull fight, bulls seem to have some
Speaker 1: um crepe barbed sticking out of him. That's the bandelierros work. Yes,
Speaker 1: and 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, and so was the Spanish language, because
Speaker 1: we are butchering it. I'm trying uh this of course,
Speaker 1: further weekends the bull um so the mighty Matador doesn't
Speaker 1: have 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 warning. 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 matadors disgraced.
Speaker 1: But for the most part, the matador is going to
Speaker 1: dispatch the bull, and um, he does it. He first
Speaker 1: starts using the cape. And the cape is always held
Speaker 1: 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 not true. Balls are
Speaker 1: color blind, so they're not angered by red or any
Speaker 1: other color. What does get them going is the movement
Speaker 1: of the cape and sticking swords in their neck. That's
Speaker 1: another thing that gets them going. Um. And actually that's
Speaker 1: not necessarily true. By the time the manador comes out,
Speaker 1: sometimes the um the bowl is really tired from blood
Speaker 1: loss 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 protecting into this,
Speaker 1: a bandeliero will come out and immediately deliver any any
Speaker 1: another thrust of a blade to make sure the bull
Speaker 1: is dead with a plantilla a smaller knife. Ideally they
Speaker 1: killed him with one blow. That rarely happens because apparently
Speaker 1: matadors aren't so great at doing that anymore. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they ever were. And uh, a lot of
Speaker 1: times the bull lives even through the smaller knife plunge
Speaker 1: and is still alive when the ears and tail or
Speaker 1: hoof or cut off and presented to the matador. We
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 that's
Speaker 1: so nice. If that doesn't work, then the people come
Speaker 1: down from the stands and just start shooting it. That's
Speaker 1: not true, and it's not funny. It's not funny because
Speaker 1: it's not true, and they oftentimes do survive hanging on
Speaker 1: by read. Their lungs are punctured, so they're bleeding, like
Speaker 1: drowning in their own blood and like vomiting up blood
Speaker 1: through their nose and mouth like a whale. Dying and flurry. Uh.
Speaker 1: And sometimes they will take it outside and skin it
Speaker 1: while it's even still alive. Yeah, that's a kind of
Speaker 1: a tradition. Um. I saw the bull after the bullfight.
Speaker 1: It was pretty sad. Um. They take the bull right
Speaker 1: outside and um, they'll dress it and then sell the
Speaker 1: meat at the stadium. Um, which is customary and very strange,
Speaker 1: but that's one of the aspects of bullfighting. If you've
Speaker 1: ever wanted a bull burger and you wanted to eat
Speaker 1: it right after you saw it die, go to a
Speaker 1: bullfight in Spain. Uh. They will drag the bull out
Speaker 1: with some mules attached to chains. And UM, I don't
Speaker 1: know if the booing booing you heard, because apparently the
Speaker 1: people will boo and throw beer cans at the bull
Speaker 1: at the end. I don't know if that's what you were.
Speaker 1: It depends, so depends Um. No, no, no, no, that's
Speaker 1: this was. They were booing the matador, the bliros, the doors, everybody.
Speaker 1: They were booing a whole country of Mexico for this. Um.
Speaker 1: Yeah they're booing everybody. No. Um, it depends on the bull.
Speaker 1: If the bull was um a woss, then I could
Speaker 1: see the fans throwing beer cans at it. There's also
Speaker 1: um that an aspect of this that cannot be denied
Speaker 1: that a bull that shows great bravery, anger, um spirit, spunk,
Speaker 1: really tries to kill the matador or the bandili arrows
Speaker 1: will be very much revered by the people in the
Speaker 1: stands and gruesomely UM. They'll bring it out for a
Speaker 1: victory lap, being dragged by the mules in a circle
Speaker 1: around the arena. After it's dead, or apparently while it's
Speaker 1: still dying, people will cheer it through roses for it UM.
Speaker 1: And there's a there's a a UM. There's a rule
Speaker 1: where the crowd or the matador can ask for in
Speaker 1: uh indolito, which is a reprieve for a particularly courageous bull,
Speaker 1: and the president of the of the bullfight the referee
Speaker 1: can say, yes, I give this bullet reprieve because it's
Speaker 1: such an awesome bowl. We're gonna let it live. And
Speaker 1: the manador proceeds to um with an empty hand simulate
Speaker 1: the death blow, saying I could have killed the bull,
Speaker 1: but I like the bull so much I lobbied to
Speaker 1: get it released. That bull is taken away and UM
Speaker 1: put out the stud for the rest of its life.
Speaker 1: And there was one it's very rare to get an indulto. Um,
Speaker 1: And there was one one bull called Manzanito in he
Speaker 1: got an indulto because he gored all three manadors in
Speaker 1: the plaza that day. Wow. That that that will get
Speaker 1: you off right there. You get to go stud for
Speaker 1: the rest of your life. Mr. Bull. Horses are also abused.
Speaker 1: The ones that participate, their ears are stuffed with newspaper,
Speaker 1: wet newspaper, the 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. Yeah, people don't like that, So
Speaker 1: they sever the vocal cords. So the horses that are,
Speaker 1: you know, trembling in fear inside this ring at this bowl,
Speaker 1: don't bark out and let people know that. And if
Speaker 1: the horses are hurt, they take them out of the
Speaker 1: ring and patch them up and send them right back
Speaker 1: in there. Where are you getting this activist info all
Speaker 1: over the place? Yeah, yeah, okay, I mean it's not
Speaker 1: activist info, it's how it goes down. No, it all
Speaker 1: just kind of has a certain ring to it. I'm
Speaker 1: not disputing it. I'm just saying like, yeah, well, I mean,
Speaker 1: coming out of my mouth, it probably sounds activist because
Speaker 1: I think it's an awful thing to do something like this.
Speaker 1: But this is the these is the facts. Okay, Well
Speaker 1: in check you will love the next part wherein we
Speaker 1: talk about famous matador. Yeah, I feel free. So uh,
Speaker 1: people have been doing this since well, we said like
Speaker 1: the eleventh century, right, El sid was supposedly the first
Speaker 1: guy to fight a bull in an arena. UM, and
Speaker 1: since then it's it's just become huge, big business. UM.
Speaker 1: But the first reel and probably only real golden age
Speaker 1: if you call it that, bullfighting happened UM from nineteen fourteen,
Speaker 1: and there were two matadors, Juan Belmonte Garcia and Jose Gomez,
Speaker 1: who fought bulls under the name joslit though um had
Speaker 1: a rivalry and um. Belmonte Garcia was actually the first
Speaker 1: guy apparently to stand still or stand his ground when
Speaker 1: he was doing cape work with a bull rather than
Speaker 1: try to run away from the bull. He's in fantasy footwork.
Speaker 1: Jsalito was his rival, and the rivalry was really going swimmingly,
Speaker 1: I guess for everybody but the bulls, until Hosalito was
Speaker 1: fatally gored UM at a match that both of them
Speaker 1: were at Garcia and Jsalito were fighting at um in
Speaker 1: N and that end of the Golden age of bullfighting.
Speaker 1: You'll be happy to hear. He must have been small Zalito. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his name is Jose, and I think if you're Jose
Speaker 1: and they call you hosalito, that means you're small, like
Speaker 1: add that eto to anything Alito or young because he
Speaker 1: started very young. Oh yeah, maybe that's true. He started
Speaker 1: at age thirteen, um and he was only I think
Speaker 1: twenty twenty five when he died. When he was gord so. Uh.
Speaker 1: Another guy who's gorge is named Manuel Rodriguez E Sanchez.
Speaker 1: Do you think that's like the mothers and the father's
Speaker 1: names when it's two last names and there's an e
Speaker 1: in and in the middle. I don't know. I would
Speaker 1: think so. And well, Rodriguez in Sanchez. You put the
Speaker 1: Rodriguez together and the Sanchez is together and you get
Speaker 1: Manuel also known as Menelette. Maybe so. And he was
Speaker 1: Gordon in He was the top matador from nineteen forty
Speaker 1: and nineteen forty seven, and I think is goring and
Speaker 1: the end of his being the top mattador was not coincidental.
Speaker 1: I think you're probably right. Uh, should we talk about
Speaker 1: the bulls because it's very specific what kind of bulls
Speaker 1: are fighting. They're all four years old, which I didn't know,
Speaker 1: I didn't, um, and they are specifically bred to bullfight.
Speaker 1: In the weigh about thirt hundred pounds. You want to
Speaker 1: translate that niquilas for our friends, it's that's right. And um,
Speaker 1: they are bread and ranches. And this article says that
Speaker 1: they're 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 mattadors will request very placid, docile
Speaker 1: bulls just to keep the show going. Is that true?
Speaker 1: That's what That's what I read. Okay, So have they
Speaker 1: just want to put on the show, you know, they
Speaker 1: don't want to die too? Well, I'm sure they don't
Speaker 1: want to want to make They want to make a
Speaker 1: few million bucks a year 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 bel Monte. He
Speaker 1: had a record hundred and nine bullfights in It's like
Speaker 1: in Rocky three when he was fighting all the chumps
Speaker 1: just for a pay day. Oh yeah, he didn't want
Speaker 1: any real challenge. But ultimately he did want a real
Speaker 1: challenge because he fight. He fought Draco, well, he fought
Speaker 1: Clever Lang and three and three it was the Russian.
Speaker 1: Three was clever Lane. No, yeah, the first two were Apollo,
Speaker 1: the third was Clever Langing. The fourth was the Russian.
Speaker 1: I thought that he was, uh, Tommy Morrison. And then
Speaker 1: the six was when he came back as a trainer, huh.
Speaker 1: And the seventh was him enjoying a nice sandwich for
Speaker 1: two hours. No, Rocky three was definitely clever Line, because
Speaker 1: that was my favorite one until I got older and
Speaker 1: I realized that the person one was actually the better one.
Speaker 1: You know. I thought that I would think that too,
Speaker 1: and then I went back and watched it as an adult.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I mean, it's pretty good, but man, I
Speaker 1: loved it. There's just too much character development, and for
Speaker 1: a Rocky movie, well, it was a love story. It
Speaker 1: wasn't even a boxing movie. Wrong with you, I understand,
Speaker 1: but it was a love story starring and written and
Speaker 1: directed by Sylvester Stallone. That's right, all right, Back to
Speaker 1: the bulls. Bulls are never exposed to more than one fight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so apparently they have very good memories, so they learned
Speaker 1: how to out due the uh, the matador in their
Speaker 1: in their cape. So that's why they don't fit them twice.
Speaker 1: And the guys who test their ferocity for I guess
Speaker 1: the ones that are tested, those are done on horseback,
Speaker 1: so that the bulls not like, oh I remember as 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, so, um,
Speaker 1: it's a very participatory sport for the 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 bowl,
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 will
Speaker 1: never hit the matador. So if the crowd thinks that
Speaker 1: your career is like over pal, that's why I don't
Speaker 1: think it's quite as widespread either that or else. Um.
Speaker 1: Bullfighting crowds 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. 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, bullfighting is going down. It's starting to well.
Speaker 1: The polls that the popular sentiment is changing in Spain
Speaker 1: over the past fifteen years is one um. Catalonia is
Speaker 1: the first region in mainland Spain to actually ban it
Speaker 1: in Barcelona's in Catalana. You, yeah, which is big because
Speaker 1: Barcelonlona had not one, not two, but three bullfighting arenas.
Speaker 1: That's right, and that took effect. That took effect actually
Speaker 1: just this year. On January one, they said, like, let's
Speaker 1: finish out the two thousand eleven season and then we'll
Speaker 1: ban it shouting from that point they had the last
Speaker 1: one at UH in September. I think September two thousand
Speaker 1: eleven was the last one ever. UM. That's a huge deal.
Speaker 1: But even in Spain they're kind of like this nooty
Speaker 1: Catalans like they don't they don't enjoy bullfighting. I think
Speaker 1: that's made some quarters of Spain even more fiercely proud
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah, probably like Madrid apparently is still very
Speaker 1: proud of their bullfighting UH. In two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: one of the state television stations said, we are going
Speaker 1: to ban coverage live coverage of it because kids can
Speaker 1: watch this on TV. UM. They happen in the hours
Speaker 1: in the early afternoon hours, in early evening, so they
Speaker 1: won't broadcast until after ten pm. Now, right, Well, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a law that says you can't show animal
Speaker 1: cruelty on Spanish television until after ten pm because of children.
Speaker 1: And so that's effectively banned 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.
Speaker 1: And then there's also, Um, they've shown that there's evidence
Speaker 1: that government, that the federal government of Spain is pretty
Speaker 1: much what's propping up bull fighting these days, because um,
Speaker 1: there were what it went from a thousand bull fights
Speaker 1: in two thousand eight to eight hundred and two dozen
Speaker 1: ten 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 bull fight. And
Speaker 1: so that means that, yeah, the government's holding the whole
Speaker 1: thing up. Yeah. I read a couple of interesting articles today.
Speaker 1: One of them was from a veterinarian. Uh, and they
Speaker 1: have vets at the bullfight um on staff, I guess ah.
Speaker 1: And this vet went on record as saying they did
Speaker 1: all this testing of like adrenaline and or adrenaline and
Speaker 1: all these different uh chemicals in the body on these
Speaker 1: bulls that had just survived, ones that were dead ones
Speaker 1: before they went in, and basically to prove that the
Speaker 1: bull suffers a great deal because there's this misguided notion
Speaker 1: that the bull doesn't suffer because they're this magical creature.
Speaker 1: I saw this one interview with a Bandaliro and he
Speaker 1: said that a veterinarian this is translated 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. That's not true. Oh are you sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's no special cell that that keeps them from feeling pain. Well,
Speaker 1: 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
Speaker 1: suffering 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? That'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 gonna endorse this,
Speaker 1: it's a small thing you can do. Becaun, you mail
Speaker 1: me some wine because I can't make it over. There's
Speaker 1: some temperar neo. Uh. And I just I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: on record as saying this whole thing that it's a
Speaker 1: it's part of the culture is just crap. Well, the
Speaker 1: the Spanish federal government would disagree with you because in
Speaker 1: two dozen tend and what a lot of people see
Speaker 1: as a response to um the Catalonia band Um, the
Speaker 1: Spanish government transferred jurisdiction over bullfighting from the Interior Ministry
Speaker 1: to the cultural ministry, so as an attempt to keep
Speaker 1: it from being banned. It's gonna be uh, it'll be
Speaker 1: a tough fault one. But yeah, apparently even Mexico now
Speaker 1: is entertaining the idea of banning it. You know some
Speaker 1: other things that were defended as culture, genital mutilation on females,
Speaker 1: witch burning, bear baiting. Have 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 bearer, brown bear, like a clown, well not far off,
Speaker 1: You put it in a pit and chain it to
Speaker 1: a mistake and release dogs on it, and the dogs
Speaker 1: kill the bear or the bear kill some of the dogs,
Speaker 1: so they release more dogs, and people sit around and
Speaker 1: gamble on is the bear gonna get eaten first or
Speaker 1: the dog's gonna get killed first? And uh, it's blood sport.
Speaker 1: And I think this is the same thing. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: that's where bulldogs came from, and that's where they got
Speaker 1: their name from. It's called bull baiting. And bulldogs used
Speaker 1: to not even come close to resembling what they do now.
Speaker 1: They were actually bred to be less vicious. Um. By
Speaker 1: making them slower and dumber and more cuddly, or not dumber,
Speaker 1: but more cuddly. Um. And that's how we have the
Speaker 1: modern bulldogs now. But they evolved from basically uh, in
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century bulldogs. Where we're where um pitple breed
Speaker 1: is now where there are a lot of people being like,
Speaker 1: we just need to wipe this breed off the face
Speaker 1: of the planet. It's gone out of control. They're crazy.
Speaker 1: Everybody scared them. They're killing people. Um. And then they
Speaker 1: managed to breathe the meanness out of them. But bull
Speaker 1: bull baiting to bull baiting bulls just have been taken
Speaker 1: it well. Embarbating actually still happens in Pakistan and it's uh,
Speaker 1: it's horrific. So two from me to you people of Spain, Mexico, France. Uh,
Speaker 1: ritualized killing of animals for people to pay for and
Speaker 1: watch is a little outdated and just silly and cruel,
Speaker 1: and I say, please stop from from chuck to you,
Speaker 1: from me to you. And one more thing. The whole
Speaker 1: notion of culture. Isn't that supposedly to advance your civilization?
Speaker 1: And isn't that supposed to mean like positive things like culture?
Speaker 1: I mean, what brings people together more than the ritual
Speaker 1: down here and wanting wanting bull fight. All right, I'm done. Um, So,
Speaker 1: how do you feel about bullfighting? Person? Which I think
Speaker 1: it's great. If you want to learn more about bull
Speaker 1: fighting UM or Chuck's views on it, you can type
Speaker 1: in Chuck or bull fighting in the search part how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Uh, and I said search bar,
Speaker 1: which means it's time for listener mail. We're very riled
Speaker 1: up listener mail. That's right now. This is calm. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna call this. Uh. Illustrator wrote us about the comics episode. Guys,
Speaker 1: I'm in currently an illustrator. Uh. Does you not have
Speaker 1: much hope for his future in that field? No? I
Speaker 1: think he does. Um. I found because he does like
Speaker 1: Digital Illustration Team. I guess 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 into the same song gets which song was?
Speaker 1: I can't remember. I dug it this song. Actually I
Speaker 1: got the CD because of that song. Man, I used
Speaker 1: to fall for out when I was fourteen and just
Speaker 1: be like, that's the only good song on the whole
Speaker 1: CD before the Kiss single. Yeah. Um, I'm now a
Speaker 1: professional illustrator, but I also teach art at a I B.
Speaker 1: And was able to live a many dream when my
Speaker 1: higher ups approached me about teaching a comic book class.
Speaker 1: So he was pretty stoked about this UM on the comics.
Speaker 1: And this is just some things he pointed out on
Speaker 1: the comics code of authority you guys talked about. World
Speaker 1: War Two was long over and the new round of
Speaker 1: superheroes Spider Man, Fantastic Four had yet to emerge from
Speaker 1: the minds of Lee Kirbean Ditko. As a result, comics
Speaker 1: were merely treading water and chasing from fad to fad,
Speaker 1: Westerns to romance to eventually horror. Horror comics are what
Speaker 1: really started to worry everyone, so they began to put
Speaker 1: pressure on companies like EC, who had made their names
Speaker 1: in Over the Top four. In turn, EC basically jettisoned
Speaker 1: at Steak in horror comics and latched onto a little
Speaker 1: humor comic, uh Mad, which we talked about. It was
Speaker 1: like UM stories guaranteed to drive you mad, exactly the original,
Speaker 1: but to this point Mad was published basically as a
Speaker 1: comic book. In essence, EC was looking to hedge its bets,
Speaker 1: so it relaunched Mad as a magazine UM, which is
Speaker 1: a very different distinction because all of a sudden wasn't
Speaker 1: under the code of authority. Uh. We were blessed with
Speaker 1: the very first Mad magazine, a very calculated move since
Speaker 1: they were not heavily scrutinized by comics and they didn't
Speaker 1: have to worry about the comics code. It is UM.
Speaker 1: I hope to make it big as a comics illustrator
Speaker 1: in children's book illustrator who says I can't do both.
Speaker 1: I also thought you might like to know that you're
Speaker 1: keeping me company during these long hours chasing the dream.
Speaker 1: And this dude's stuff is awesome and if you want
Speaker 1: to hire Greg Marathus, you can get in touch with
Speaker 1: him at the Greg Marathas Studio, which is g R
Speaker 1: E G M A R A T h A s
Speaker 1: dot com or Rida's blog Greg Maratha dot blog spot
Speaker 1: dot com. Nice and stuff is very cool. I told
Speaker 1: him I'd keep them in mind if we ever needed
Speaker 1: we could do some drawings. We need some Facebook timeline drawings.
Speaker 1: If he's holling to work for free, you get to it.
Speaker 1: Did we remember we um we got chastised biographic designer
Speaker 1: for holding that T shirt contest. Yeah, I emailed him back.
Speaker 1: Actually we did use to calm them down. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, most of these were amateur designers.
Speaker 1: There was some pros in there, but never mind. And
Speaker 1: it's not like we've forced anybody to do with But
Speaker 1: there's a whole there's a whole movement um from designers
Speaker 1: about design contests being awful, Like what other industry basically
Speaker 1: asked for free work as a contest quote unquote, there's
Speaker 1: like fiction contests. Yeah, there's all kinds of so box Derby's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff that people do for free
Speaker 1: as part of a contest, bake offs or bakes off.
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. And I saw some designers that say, I
Speaker 1: don't agree with that contests make me better and that's
Speaker 1: a ridiculous idea. Architecture as a field has been in
Speaker 1: contest mode for a century or more, and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's there's a lot of work put into it. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of work put into graphic design. Contests are
Speaker 1: everywhere I think that's a ridiculous stance. Well, his point
Speaker 1: was because he mailed me back and he was like, well,
Speaker 1: find the contest is fine, but you should give them
Speaker 1: a cut of the T shirt sales. I don't disagree
Speaker 1: with that. Well, I know that we had no choice. Well, no,
Speaker 1: we're in no position whatsoever to share that told him
Speaker 1: due if it was up to me, they would get
Speaker 1: of the T shirt sales. I don't know about that. Well,
Speaker 1: we don't get any well, I know, but still we
Speaker 1: could if we could negotiate on their behalf, we would
Speaker 1: work a little bit in for us to what a
Speaker 1: volatile episode right to the end. So I guess if
Speaker 1: you want to express your volatility UM toward us, that's cool.
Speaker 1: We can handle it. We've been taken up for years.
Speaker 1: You can tweet to us at s Y s K podcast.
Speaker 1: You can send us stuff on Facebook, including Facebook art
Speaker 1: for the timeline um at Facebook dot com slash stuff
Speaker 1: you should know. You can also email us at Stuff
Speaker 1: Podcast at Discovery dot com. Be sure to check out
Speaker 1: our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How
Speaker 1: Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and
Speaker 1: perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the reinvented
Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, are you