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Speaker 1: Mother Knows Death presents External Exams with Nicole and Jimmy.

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Speaker 2: Today, I'm interviewing doctor Paul Kutinaris, who is the author

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Speaker 2: of Memento Mori. Paul is one of my favorite people,

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Speaker 2: and I'm friends with him. I met Paul years ago. Well,

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Speaker 2: I actually will let him fill you in of how

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Speaker 2: we actually met, but I'll tell you how I was

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Speaker 2: introduced to Paul. At first, I was invited to this

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Speaker 2: death salon that was being held at the Muder Museum

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Speaker 2: in Philadelphia years ago, and I went and I didn't

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Speaker 2: really know anybody that was going to be there, but

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Speaker 2: I was invited there because I had the Instagram that

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Speaker 2: was popular with death. And I showed up and just

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Speaker 2: sat in the audience and watched a lecture by Paul,

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Speaker 2: who I never had heard of, and I was kind

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Speaker 2: kind of mind blown by how intelligent he was, obviously,

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Speaker 2: but just he was just saying such cool stuff that

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Speaker 2: resonated with me so much about how death is is

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Speaker 2: a very He was saying there was a soft line

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Speaker 2: with death in some cultures and there was a very

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Speaker 2: hard line with death.

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Speaker 3: And I think about.

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Speaker 2: This photo that was in his lecture with it was

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Speaker 2: like this guy with a white picket fence outside and

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Speaker 2: there was a skull and he was like shaking hands

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Speaker 2: with this, you know, this dead guy. It was really funny.

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Speaker 2: But how in our culture, or at least in America,

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Speaker 2: we have a very hard line with death. And I

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Speaker 2: took like a bunch of notes after his lecture and stuff,

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Speaker 2: and I thought it was super cool. And I don't

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Speaker 2: exactly remember, Paul, how I I might have like stalked

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Speaker 2: you on Instagram or something and how we started talking.

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Speaker 3: So I don't know if you remember, Well, remember I

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Speaker 3: met you.

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Speaker 1: Through Adam Wallackott.

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Speaker 2: Okay, so yeah, so we have a mutual friend Adam

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Speaker 2: And yeah, that makes sense. So that's and then we

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Speaker 2: met in person then or something. I'm not sure, but

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Speaker 2: Adam's the he makes the really cool octopus chandeliers and

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Speaker 2: he's a really awesome artist in Tier Decorator.

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Speaker 1: Adam is basically the de facto mayor of Philadelphia. For

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Speaker 1: those who don't, it's like every every time I stay

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Speaker 1: in Philadelphia, I stay in Adam's house and there is

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Speaker 1: no place I can go where at least twenty people

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Speaker 1: don't know this guy. He is the mayor of Philadelphia.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, You're totally right about that. He does know everybody.

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Speaker 2: That's how we met. And first, I guess, Paul the

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Speaker 2: most hated question of all. Tell us, just tell us

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Speaker 2: a little bit about yourself with like, who are you,

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Speaker 2: how'd you get here? Where where'd you come from? Just

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Speaker 2: give us a little background about Paul.

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Speaker 1: Well, where did I come from? It's probably at complicated,

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Speaker 1: but the rest of it will do. I have a

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Speaker 1: PhD in art history and from UCLA. I'm from Los

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Speaker 1: Angeles originally, and I was always kind of, I guess,

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Speaker 1: like the fox molder of the art history department, just

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Speaker 1: studying these weird things that other people didn't like, you know,

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Speaker 1: while while everyone else was studying Rembrandt, I was out

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Speaker 1: looking at woodcuts of you know, wareholes and stuff. And eventually,

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Speaker 1: when I finished my PhD, I was traveling through Europe

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Speaker 1: and I had gone to a lot of the famous

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Speaker 1: death related sites, you know, the Paaris Catacombs and all

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Speaker 1: of these bone places, and eventually I started finding a

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Speaker 1: lot of them that nobody had heard of, you know,

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Speaker 1: because there are about four that are big popular sites

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Speaker 1: like that, like tourist destinations, and then there's about a

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Speaker 1: Hydrid that nobody's heard of, and nobody cares about me.

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Speaker 1: You need special access to go into and I became

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Speaker 1: really fascinated by that. I mean, I had just finished

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Speaker 1: a PhD in art history with a specialty in Baroque,

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Speaker 1: and here were all these old Baroque era bone rooms,

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Speaker 1: and it just seemed like a natural thing for me

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Speaker 1: to start studying and writing about. You know, it was

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Speaker 1: right up my alley, and the discovery of all this

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Speaker 1: stuff was perfectly timed. So I had traveled around Europe

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Speaker 1: for a couple of years and documented all these places

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Speaker 1: and put out a book called The Empire of Death,

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Speaker 1: which was the history of these bone rooms. In the

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Speaker 1: process of doing that, I had discovered a bunch of

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Speaker 1: old Baroque jeweled skeletons that everybody else seemed to have

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Speaker 1: forgotten about, and I wrote a book about them called

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Speaker 1: Heavenly Bodies. But in the process of doing those first

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Speaker 1: two books, I had also been continually traveling the world,

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Speaker 1: studying these places in other cultures in Asia and South America,

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Speaker 1: and that's what led to that book Momentum Wory that

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Speaker 1: we're talking about today, which was taking what I had

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Speaker 1: been doing, you know, studying these death related sites on

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Speaker 1: a microcosmic level, like only within one culture and with

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Speaker 1: you within one era, and then just kind of expanding

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Speaker 1: it to the entire world, you know, and taking a

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Speaker 1: global look at these sites and the way the importance

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Speaker 1: these sites have, these you know, bone decorated sites and

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Speaker 1: with mummies, and the importance that these sites have in

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Speaker 1: the spiritual lives of people throughout the world. How it's

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Speaker 1: really a very universal thing. And what you had mentioned

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Speaker 1: that I had been talking about originally in Philadelphia, you know,

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Speaker 1: death as a boundary became something that was that was

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Speaker 1: really important to me in understanding why in some cultures

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Speaker 1: and in some eras of history this stuff is so

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Speaker 1: okay and it's okay to interact with the dead and

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Speaker 1: it's encouraged, and why we live in a culture where

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Speaker 1: it's really discouraged. You know, it's considered kind of perverse,

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Speaker 1: you know, to keep your relatives bones around or to

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Speaker 1: keep your relatives mummy around, and it would be considered

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Speaker 1: you know, perverse and almost kind of in some way evil,

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Speaker 1: although no one could really define it as to why

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Speaker 1: in some cultures. What I came up with, you know,

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Speaker 1: after years of studying this stuff, I came up with

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Speaker 1: something that was really simple that should have been obvious,

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Speaker 1: but it took me a long time to figure it out.

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Speaker 1: That dying is a biological condition. You know, dying is

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Speaker 1: a biological act, just like being born. But death is

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Speaker 1: not a biological condition. Death is a border between two

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Speaker 1: different states.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: Death is a boundary line between the living and the dead.

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Speaker 1: So being dead is a biological state. Death has nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with biological biology. Death has to do with

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Speaker 1: where we place the border, and we tend to think

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Speaker 1: of death as being fixed, but it's really not. In

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Speaker 1: some cultures, you know, this boundary can be in what

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Speaker 1: I called an open border, and in other cultures it's

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Speaker 1: a close and in some cultures, in some periods of history,

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Speaker 1: you know, death is this is this open border that

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Speaker 1: provides access to those who have passed on, and those

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Speaker 1: who passed on are invited to continue to have an

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Speaker 1: important spiritual and social role. And in other places, like

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Speaker 1: in the United States, now death is this very closed boundaries.

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Speaker 1: It's like imagineal line, this fortified line where you will

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Speaker 1: not pass and to try to try sim that order

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Speaker 1: and to try to understand what's on the other side,

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Speaker 1: Like I said, it's considered kind of perverse.

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Speaker 2: I think it's It's one of my favorite things about

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Speaker 2: you is that the book is not only super informative,

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Speaker 2: but it's it's so it's beautiful, and I love that

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Speaker 2: you were interested in this and you not only learned

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Speaker 2: about all of this, but you went to all of

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Speaker 2: these places yourself, and you took all these photographs yourself.

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Speaker 2: And I'm curious with your experience with that because I

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Speaker 2: know that you actually have were able to interview people

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Speaker 2: that live in these different areas and do these different cultures.

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Speaker 2: But also if you have one that resonates with you

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Speaker 2: the most, that's your your favorite kind of death tradition.

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Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I can answer to that for sure. But

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Speaker 1: I want to say something about what some of you

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Speaker 1: you just mentioned that it is important to me that

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Speaker 1: the books be both informative and to be attracted. I

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Speaker 1: think you know, I'm certainly not the first guy who

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Speaker 1: went out and studied bone room, or who went to

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Speaker 1: Indonesia and studied some of these places with skulls and mummies.

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Speaker 1: You know, a lot of anthropologists have the bore, a

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Speaker 1: lot of historians have the poor but they tended to

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Speaker 1: create books that were very academic and not very visual,

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Speaker 1: you know, And my approach was always this has to

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Speaker 1: be informative, it has to have legitimate information, but it

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Speaker 1: also has to have this kind of aspect of like

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Speaker 1: a high quality art, so it can be tangible for

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Speaker 1: normal people. Because to do this, you know, when I

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Speaker 1: wrote this book about the jeweled skeletons, which are so

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Speaker 1: visually beautiful, the only people who had covered them before

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Speaker 1: me were doing them in academic circles. So you have

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Speaker 1: these books talking about beautiful, broke jeweled skeletons with no

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Speaker 1: pictures in them at all, you know, So it creates

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Speaker 1: this closed circuit. So I appreciate saying that that was

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Speaker 1: important to me. I'm not the first person who studied

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Speaker 1: some of these things and gone to some of these places,

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Speaker 1: but I was the first person to want to do it,

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Speaker 1: to want to present this material in a way that

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Speaker 1: crossed from from being strictly academic to something that would

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Speaker 1: be tangible to popular culture. You know, that was extremely

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Speaker 1: important to me, And I know that for you it's

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Speaker 1: kind of the same way, because everything you have done,

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Speaker 1: you've always wanted to take from medical pathology and place

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Speaker 1: it in a room where it's tangible for normal people

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Speaker 1: to understand and appreciate. But some of my favorite places, well,

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Speaker 1: I would say for sure in South America. There's a

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Speaker 1: festival called the Yesterday Lost Utitas in Bolivia. Then I

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Speaker 1: went to for like twelve years in a row. It's

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Speaker 1: every November eighth. I went there every year until the

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Speaker 1: pandemic kind of shut down travel. But there are these

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Speaker 1: people who adopt skulls, and they may know who the

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Speaker 1: people were while they were alive, where they may not.

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Speaker 1: They may be total strangers, but they'll acquire these skulls

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Speaker 1: and they'll become the kind of the guardians or ten

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Speaker 1: of these skulls. This is This is across the Altaplano

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Speaker 1: and Bolivia, but it's mostly in the La Pause. It's

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Speaker 1: an imar thing. Who are you know, the indigenous people

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Speaker 1: of Bolivia, and they really have a very strong belief

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Speaker 1: not just in the afterlife, but the ability of those

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Speaker 1: who have passed on to continue to impact the lives

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Speaker 1: of the living. And so these people who will acquire

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Speaker 1: these nutitas. The name means locally, it's kind of a slang.

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Speaker 1: It means the pugnos once and it refers to the

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Speaker 1: shape of the skulls, and so they will adopt these skulls,

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Speaker 1: and they will create shrines for them in their homes,

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Speaker 1: and they will live with them as family members, you know,

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Speaker 1: as as friends and family members or business partners or companions.

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Speaker 1: And some people will acquire tremendous numbers of these skulls.

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Speaker 1: I've met people who have like a hundred of them,

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Speaker 1: and their houses are considered locally like shrines. Like if

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Speaker 1: you're a believer in the power of the skulls and

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Speaker 1: the power of the dead, and you don't have skulls,

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Speaker 1: you might go to someone's house who has a bunch

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Speaker 1: of them, and oftentimes they'll be arranged on shells, and

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Speaker 1: there will be certain skulls that are good for certain things.

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Speaker 1: So you know, if your kid is failing in school,

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Speaker 1: there might be one of the skulls that the spirit

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Speaker 1: is believed to have the ability to help with academia,

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Speaker 1: and so you know, you'll send your kid and say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you go pray in front of that skull, make an

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Speaker 1: offering in front of that skull, and you're going to

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Speaker 1: pass that geography test, you know. Or there's another skull

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Speaker 1: that might be good for marital problems anyway, these people

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Speaker 1: who will own the skulls. Every November eighth, they'll have

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Speaker 1: this party at the cemetery and they bring all the

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Speaker 1: skulls back down to the local cemetery, the cemetery Hiner,

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Speaker 1: all the big cemetery in Lapawnas and they'll have this

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Speaker 1: massive part where you know, like ten twenty thousand people

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Speaker 1: show up at the cemetery with skulls. It's the largest

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Speaker 1: skull celebration or celebration of death in one place in

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Speaker 1: the entire world. I mean, I'm seriously talking about like

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Speaker 1: ten or twenty thousand people showing up carrying skulls and boxes,

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Speaker 1: carrying them in little sedan chairs. They dress them up,

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Speaker 1: they decorate them, and they take over the ground and

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Speaker 1: you know, bands will come and play music for the skulls,

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Speaker 1: and people will scroll scroll the grounds and offerings for them.

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Speaker 1: You know, they'll they'll decorate the skulls with flowers. It's

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Speaker 1: an incredible, beautiful celebration that is designed to thank the

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Speaker 1: dead for what they do for the living and at

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Speaker 1: the same time kind of recharge the energy of the dead,

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Speaker 1: of those souls so they can continue to function for

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Speaker 1: the living in the upcoming year. And uh yeah, and visually,

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Speaker 1: of course, it's very powerful because it completely turns on

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Speaker 1: and what we're used to with dealing with the dead.

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Speaker 1: You know, I come from a culture where, you know,

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Speaker 1: the dead are considered kind of horror film stuff. It's like,

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Speaker 1: you know, army of darkness or something, and there's some

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Speaker 1: kind of thread and this is the exact opposite. You know,

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Speaker 1: these are skulls and mumiflied heads that are decorated beautifully

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Speaker 1: and covered with flowers, and people are coming up and

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Speaker 1: talking to them and think. You know, it's a complete

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Speaker 1: opposite of the way we have of what we've constructed

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Speaker 1: with this kind of horror movie version of what happens

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Speaker 1: when the dead and treat on the lives of the living.

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Speaker 3: That's really interesting. So now I just got another question

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Speaker 3: at what you were just saying.

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Speaker 2: What So if you're living in Bolivia and you just

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Speaker 2: decide that you want to start collecting these skulls, where

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Speaker 2: where do you? Where does one go to? Boy, because

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Speaker 2: you're saying they might know them or they might not.

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Speaker 2: Do they do they get donated or they purchase So.

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Speaker 1: So a couple of questions obviously arise in addition to

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Speaker 1: where they get the skulls, Like if they don't know them,

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Speaker 1: I'm like, you know, why do they have the skull?

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Speaker 1: And and you know, what is their connection to someone

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Speaker 1: they didn't know? They know? The Imara a spiritual system

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Speaker 1: which I think is really wonderful, beautiful, actually it's very

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Speaker 1: it's much more sophisticated than ours. I think it makes

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Speaker 1: our you know, kind of Judeo Christian idea of the

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Speaker 1: soul look pretty primitive, because for us, it's kind of

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Speaker 1: a one to one relationship, one soul, one person.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 1: They believe that there can be up to seven different entities,

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Speaker 1: and not in a schizophrenic way, you know, just seven

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Speaker 1: different entities that congeal to make a person. So you know,

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Speaker 1: within every man there's you know, there is a woman,

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Speaker 1: then every woman there's a man with then every old

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Speaker 1: person there's a child. You know what I mean. That

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Speaker 1: all congeal as the recipe that creates who you are

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Speaker 1: in different portions, you know. And then when you die,

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Speaker 1: to believe that one of these spirits, you know, they'll

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Speaker 1: all kind of disperse, they'll go to Pachamama, they'll go

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Speaker 1: to the you know, the mother goddess, and one of

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Speaker 1: them will come back and use the skull as a focus. So,

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Speaker 1: you know, I might die, but maybe it's a you know,

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Speaker 1: I might die as an old man, but maybe there's

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Speaker 1: some child who comes back and inhabits my skull, you

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Speaker 1: know what I mean. So I like their spiritual system

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Speaker 1: because it provides for you know, these real subtleties are

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Speaker 1: going the individuals. But for that reason, it doesn't really

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Speaker 1: matter if you knew the person in life, because someone

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Speaker 1: else might be coming back to the skull in terms

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Speaker 1: of where they get them. Understand that because and I

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Speaker 1: think it's largely because of our great phobia with death

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Speaker 1: skulls in the United States and Europe. Human bones in general,

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Speaker 1: and human remains are very hard to come by, you know,

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Speaker 1: they're very regularly. They really don't want you to have

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Speaker 1: considered somehow disrespect of them, which is which is another

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Speaker 1: debate we could have. Is it really truly disrespectful to

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Speaker 1: have someone's remains, especial if you care.

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Speaker 3: For them, if they don't even want us to have them?

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Speaker 3: In medical school?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and I know, and I know you get this

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Speaker 1: a lot for sure, because I get it. Sometimes people

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Speaker 1: will ask me, Hey, you know, my father died, I

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Speaker 1: would like to be able to have a skull. How

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Speaker 1: can I do that? And it's I'm sorry, it's not easy.

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Speaker 1: You can't just do that, you know. But in those

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Speaker 1: cultures you can. Where the skulls come from, it depends

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Speaker 1: they have a different type of cemetery system than we do.

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Speaker 1: First of all, so a lot of them come from

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Speaker 1: the cemetery. When you die will pause, like if you

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Speaker 1: walk around that cemetery, you will in the cemetery in

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Speaker 1: real you will see a lot of graves have little

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Speaker 1: white notices paced to them that are actually evictions that

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Speaker 1: you're renting grave. You don't have it permanently, and so

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Speaker 1: people have to keep kind of paying the rent on

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Speaker 1: the grave. And at some point in time, you can

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Speaker 1: assume that unless they have created some kind of trust

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Speaker 1: fund that pays out for their grave and propetuity, everyone's

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Speaker 1: gonna get evicted from their grave, right because at some

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Speaker 1: point in time someone's gonna say it's like, whose grave

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Speaker 1: are we paying it on? I never even meant that,

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Speaker 1: you know, you know, so at some points everyone's going

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Speaker 1: to get evicted from their grave. And they have a

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Speaker 1: kind of massive pit burial area in the back of

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Speaker 1: the cemetery where they're supposed to put the bones, and

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Speaker 1: I don't want to tamble too much. But let's say,

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Speaker 1: you know, you're a cemetery worker. You're not making that

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Speaker 1: much money. I'm I mean, I've had skulls offered to me,

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Speaker 1: and I'm sure it's different now because a lot more

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Speaker 1: Americans go down there, and a lot of them, you know,

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Speaker 1: a lot of them are kind of oddities dealers.

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Speaker 3: Which is nice to you.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's kind of unfortunate because I don't want these

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Speaker 1: things to be collected as audities. I want them bus

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Speaker 1: to affected, right. But I had a guy offer me

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Speaker 1: four skulls for twenty dollars. Oh wow at one point,

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Speaker 1: and this was well, this was many years ago, but

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Speaker 1: I had a guy offered four for twenty bucks. I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's not that hard to it has traditionally not been

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Speaker 1: been not that hard to get them. Another place they

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Speaker 1: can come from is archaeological sites. So you know, I mean,

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Speaker 1: this is an area with a great ancient history, and

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Speaker 1: so skulls are often found in archaeological sets. I have

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Speaker 1: found in the end these plenty of old tombs that

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Speaker 1: are filled with bones. I mean, I'm not going to

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Speaker 1: give the location away on this one. But I found

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Speaker 1: an old burial site that had plenty of elongated skulls in.

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Speaker 1: It's several, and those are worth a tremendous amount of

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Speaker 1: money to outsiders. You know. Skull bind Yeah, that's cool. Yeah,

341
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Speaker 1: up in the Andes and and so, you know, some

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Speaker 1: of them come from archaeological sites. Again, whether or not

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Speaker 1: that's ethical or whether they should be going to a

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Speaker 1: museum is another question. But people will often take them

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Speaker 1: from archaeological sites, and maybe they have a right to them. Really,

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Speaker 1: if you're Eyemura and these are your relatives, maybe you

347
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Speaker 1: have more of a right to them than than a

348
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Speaker 1: museum does. Skulls that come from archaeological sites, because of

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Speaker 1: their antiquity and that history, are are felt to be

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Speaker 1: especially spiritually powerful. Another place they will come from are

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Speaker 1: med schools and dental schools. The dental schools often use

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Speaker 1: real skulls down there. I have a I remember I

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Speaker 1: was down there once and a guy had this skull

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Speaker 1: he was proudly displaying. And this skull had a great

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Speaker 1: set of teeth, which is unusual down there because dentistry

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Speaker 1: is you know, the dentistry is not top notch in

357
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Speaker 1: you know, a lot of a lot of Bolivia, and

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Speaker 1: this skull had far nicer teeth than I did. I

359
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Speaker 1: was like, this skull really has great teeth. And the

360
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Speaker 1: guy smiled and said, oh, well, that's because I'm a

361
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Speaker 1: dentist and this was my skull in dental school and

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Speaker 1: he helped me get through school. And so I made

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Speaker 1: sure that his you know, I made sure to give

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Speaker 1: him dental implants and he has the greatest teeth. You know,

365
00:19:15,680 --> 00:19:18,440
Speaker 1: Schill's playback, payback, you know, for helping this guy go

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Speaker 1: through dental school. So they can come from med schools,

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Speaker 1: they can come from dental schools. They can even come

368
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Speaker 1: from the police. Because the police even have these skulls.

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Speaker 1: In the homicide department in al Alto, which is the

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Speaker 1: largest barrio of La Paus, they have had some of

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Speaker 1: these skulls. Well, they have two in particular, one Eto

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Speaker 1: and Wanita. They have two skulls Enshrine and the homicide

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Speaker 1: department that are the longest serving detectives in the pause.

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Speaker 1: And when the detectives can't find a clue, they will

375
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Speaker 1: go and make offerings to these skulls and they will ask,

376
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Speaker 1: you know, it's like, please send us a clue you know,

377
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Speaker 1: you're dead. You have this ability to see things we

378
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Speaker 1: don't see, and they will often take they'll often take

379
00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:01,200
Speaker 1: suspects in who won't can best and they will make them,

380
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Speaker 1: you know, they'll try to force them to confess before

381
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Speaker 1: the skulls. And the questions come from that too. It's like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: well do they really believe that these skulls have this power?

383
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Speaker 1: And I asked the colonel who was in charge of

384
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Speaker 1: homicide about that, the colonel who used to be in

385
00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:18,760
Speaker 1: charge of homicide there, and he gave me a great answer.

386
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Speaker 1: He's like, I can't really say, you know, we've had

387
00:20:21,760 --> 00:20:23,600
Speaker 1: these skulls that you Juan Itito has been on the

388
00:20:23,640 --> 00:20:25,680
Speaker 1: force for one hundred years and people have believed in

389
00:20:25,800 --> 00:20:28,560
Speaker 1: him for a hundred years. I can't really say if

390
00:20:28,640 --> 00:20:32,720
Speaker 1: the skulls really send us clues, or if it's a

391
00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:36,480
Speaker 1: psychosomatic thing. You know, if if believing in the skulls

392
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Speaker 1: allows our detective to work harder and more creatively, you know,

393
00:20:39,760 --> 00:20:43,600
Speaker 1: just just just a psychosomatic instance of believing that the

394
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Speaker 1: skull is helping them. I can't really say if the

395
00:20:46,359 --> 00:20:48,440
Speaker 1: skull is forcing a guy to confess, or if the

396
00:20:48,480 --> 00:20:51,520
Speaker 1: guy is so intimidated by seeing this skull that's been

397
00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:53,080
Speaker 1: in the police for one hundred years that he breaks

398
00:20:53,119 --> 00:20:56,360
Speaker 1: down and confesses. All I know is that whether it's

399
00:20:56,480 --> 00:21:00,280
Speaker 1: you know, magic or psychology or spirituality, when we use

400
00:21:00,359 --> 00:21:03,600
Speaker 1: the skulls, we solve cases. So we use the skulls.

401
00:21:03,840 --> 00:21:04,639
Speaker 1: That's all I need to know.

402
00:21:05,200 --> 00:21:06,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's you know what's interesting.

403
00:21:06,840 --> 00:21:09,439
Speaker 2: You just made me think, like of my Italian family

404
00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:14,040
Speaker 2: and all the medallions that we have, uh for you know,

405
00:21:14,160 --> 00:21:16,240
Speaker 2: you put one in your car to keep you safe

406
00:21:16,280 --> 00:21:19,200
Speaker 2: in your car, and there's there's a saint for this,

407
00:21:19,400 --> 00:21:21,360
Speaker 2: and there's a saint for that kind of thing. It's

408
00:21:21,560 --> 00:21:24,120
Speaker 2: it's it's like, you believe in this thing that you're

409
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:28,679
Speaker 2: going to be protected from your religion kind of thing, and.

410
00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:30,879
Speaker 1: It creates itselful billing prophecy. So I thought that was

411
00:21:30,920 --> 00:21:32,560
Speaker 1: a great answer that he gave me when I asked

412
00:21:32,600 --> 00:21:35,400
Speaker 1: him about the skulls and police work. Yeah, you really

413
00:21:35,880 --> 00:21:37,560
Speaker 1: do they really work? You know? I was like, Hey,

414
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:39,320
Speaker 1: we use them, and we saw the rhymes. I don't

415
00:21:39,400 --> 00:21:41,480
Speaker 1: need to know whether I don't need to know whether

416
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:45,760
Speaker 1: it's magic or spirituality or psychology. We use them and

417
00:21:45,840 --> 00:21:47,199
Speaker 1: we solve crymes, so we use them.

418
00:21:47,920 --> 00:21:49,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I mean that's how if it's in the

419
00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:53,000
Speaker 2: same area, that's how the people grew up thinking that

420
00:21:53,200 --> 00:21:57,880
Speaker 2: you Yeah, that's cool. So I don't You don't really

421
00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:01,679
Speaker 2: need to get into how Little Paul is raised religiously

422
00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:06,399
Speaker 2: or anything. But throughout your travels and just learning about

423
00:22:06,400 --> 00:22:10,560
Speaker 2: all these different cultures do you have Have you changed

424
00:22:10,600 --> 00:22:13,800
Speaker 2: your perception from when you started until now as far

425
00:22:13,920 --> 00:22:18,399
Speaker 2: as what you personally personally believe happens to you after

426
00:22:18,840 --> 00:22:19,280
Speaker 2: you die.

427
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:28,880
Speaker 1: Not really. My spirituality has always been very ambiguous and abstract,

428
00:22:30,359 --> 00:22:33,480
Speaker 1: you know, the idea that that you transcend in a

429
00:22:33,680 --> 00:22:38,240
Speaker 1: physical body to a physical place, you know, like you know,

430
00:22:38,400 --> 00:22:42,040
Speaker 1: like an allegian field. That's a new Eden. That's never

431
00:22:42,640 --> 00:22:44,720
Speaker 1: really worked for me because, like I say, I tend

432
00:22:44,760 --> 00:22:47,680
Speaker 1: to think of things in more abstract terms and more

433
00:22:47,960 --> 00:22:50,760
Speaker 1: I would say, I gravitate more towards like a concept

434
00:22:50,800 --> 00:22:55,520
Speaker 1: of a nirvana where everything is is reunited at a

435
00:22:55,800 --> 00:23:00,600
Speaker 1: more abstract level. The thing that actually, and you may

436
00:23:00,640 --> 00:23:04,120
Speaker 1: not know this about me, the thing that actually changed

437
00:23:04,200 --> 00:23:08,720
Speaker 1: everything for me, that probably pushed me towards this in

438
00:23:08,800 --> 00:23:13,960
Speaker 1: the first place, was that about twenty years ago I

439
00:23:14,080 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: was run over by a truck.

440
00:23:15,840 --> 00:23:17,040
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I didn't know that.

441
00:23:17,960 --> 00:23:20,440
Speaker 1: No, I yeah, And I was run over by a

442
00:23:20,720 --> 00:23:24,119
Speaker 1: truck in my core. I was on the freeway. I

443
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:28,159
Speaker 1: was taking my cat to the vet and the it

444
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:30,920
Speaker 1: was a it was a Toyota Celica and something. I

445
00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:34,159
Speaker 1: don't know what happened. Maybe maybe I was distracted by

446
00:23:34,200 --> 00:23:37,440
Speaker 1: the cat and I hit some some something in the road.

447
00:23:37,520 --> 00:23:39,080
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened. All I know is the

448
00:23:39,240 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 1: car started spinning around in circles in the three way

449
00:23:43,400 --> 00:23:46,159
Speaker 1: and I looked over my shoulder and I saw this

450
00:23:46,280 --> 00:23:48,240
Speaker 1: grilla a truck and that was the last thing I

451
00:23:48,280 --> 00:23:50,400
Speaker 1: saw and the next thing I knew. And by the way,

452
00:23:50,440 --> 00:23:53,320
Speaker 1: the cat survived too. And I knew then that I

453
00:23:53,440 --> 00:23:55,639
Speaker 1: was a good cat dad, because when they woke me

454
00:23:55,720 --> 00:23:57,640
Speaker 1: up and they were cutting me out with the jaws

455
00:23:57,680 --> 00:24:01,160
Speaker 1: of life, I remember not knowing who I was, because

456
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:02,960
Speaker 1: I didn't at the time. They asked me my name,

457
00:24:03,000 --> 00:24:05,280
Speaker 1: and I had no idea, but I knew that there

458
00:24:05,400 --> 00:24:07,840
Speaker 1: was a cat in the box. The carrier next to

459
00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 1: me said, I don't know, but there's a cat in

460
00:24:09,800 --> 00:24:12,280
Speaker 1: the box. Get the cat. Make sure the cat's okay.

461
00:24:12,320 --> 00:24:14,080
Speaker 1: So I knew then I was like, I'm an a

462
00:24:14,200 --> 00:24:18,720
Speaker 1: plus cat there, right, but yeah, I remember not knowing

463
00:24:18,800 --> 00:24:22,080
Speaker 1: who I was. They took me and the cat to

464
00:24:22,280 --> 00:24:26,560
Speaker 1: a hospital where they had to screw my pelvis back together.

465
00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:31,040
Speaker 1: I had deflated long, I had several broken ribs. I

466
00:24:31,160 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: was a mess, and I had to I had to

467
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:36,800
Speaker 1: learn to walk all over again. And you know, now

468
00:24:36,920 --> 00:24:40,200
Speaker 1: I'm going but it was a very bad accident. Someone

469
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 1: told me in the hospital that they didn't believe that

470
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:46,240
Speaker 1: anyone could have survived. Both the cat and I survived

471
00:24:46,280 --> 00:24:50,600
Speaker 1: that accident together. That is what really changed a lot

472
00:24:50,800 --> 00:24:54,720
Speaker 1: for me, Not so much spiritually, but in terms of

473
00:24:54,840 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: appreciating wife, you know, appreciating even the little things in life.

474
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:02,320
Speaker 1: Because I remember how to, you know, learn to walk again.

475
00:25:02,480 --> 00:25:05,399
Speaker 1: And I remember I had learned to walk on a

476
00:25:05,560 --> 00:25:07,960
Speaker 1: cane and I was able to walk up the hill

477
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:12,240
Speaker 1: and get this bowl of chelmine at this horrible Chinese restaurant,

478
00:25:12,280 --> 00:25:15,280
Speaker 1: like the worst cholmine you've ever eaten, just like nothing

479
00:25:15,359 --> 00:25:18,360
Speaker 1: but noodles and Greece. It was awful. It just tears

480
00:25:18,560 --> 00:25:21,520
Speaker 1: streaming down my face because I was so happy that like,

481
00:25:21,640 --> 00:25:23,200
Speaker 1: oh my god, I've come to a point in life

482
00:25:23,200 --> 00:25:26,680
Speaker 1: where I can go out and choose a horrible belt

483
00:25:26,720 --> 00:25:28,760
Speaker 1: bowl of chowmaine. I I want to, you know. And

484
00:25:28,880 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: so that really changed a lot for me in terms

485
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:35,399
Speaker 1: of appreciating life on just a daily and a minute basis.

486
00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:38,920
Speaker 1: And I think that is what helped me really be

487
00:25:39,040 --> 00:25:41,879
Speaker 1: able to understand death. You know, when we talk about

488
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:46,040
Speaker 1: met Maury, we're talking about a reminder of death without

489
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:49,600
Speaker 1: realizing that every memento Mary is also a menta vita.

490
00:25:49,920 --> 00:25:53,119
Speaker 1: Every reminder of death is also a reminder of life.

491
00:25:53,720 --> 00:25:56,560
Speaker 1: And that's something that I think I learned from that accident.

492
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:00,639
Speaker 2: That's that's really interesting. I think that a lot a

493
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:04,200
Speaker 2: lot of people say that haven't like a near death experience.

494
00:26:04,359 --> 00:26:08,480
Speaker 2: They they feel that they get this whole other perspective

495
00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 2: on death.

496
00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:15,400
Speaker 1: Not If you have an experience like that, you cannot

497
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:17,720
Speaker 1: come away from it without a better perspective. It can

498
00:26:17,840 --> 00:26:19,720
Speaker 1: make you a better person, or it can make you

499
00:26:19,840 --> 00:26:23,320
Speaker 1: a worse person, because I've seen people who have a

500
00:26:23,440 --> 00:26:26,480
Speaker 1: similar accident fall into this like victim syndrome. You know,

501
00:26:28,080 --> 00:26:31,520
Speaker 1: but uh, it can't. It has to change in you.

502
00:26:31,720 --> 00:26:35,200
Speaker 1: You can't remain the same afterward. I always say this,

503
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:38,480
Speaker 1: and I'm not joking. I think in many ways. It

504
00:26:38,600 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 1: was probably the best and most important thing that ever

505
00:26:42,119 --> 00:26:44,000
Speaker 1: happened to me, Which doesn't mean that I want it

506
00:26:44,080 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 1: to happen again. You know, there was just there were

507
00:26:46,480 --> 00:26:48,960
Speaker 1: a lot of there were a lot of things I

508
00:26:49,119 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 1: need to learn about myself and about the world and

509
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:55,480
Speaker 1: just about the process of living. And I learned them

510
00:26:55,560 --> 00:26:57,400
Speaker 1: at that time. I learned them in a much harder

511
00:26:57,480 --> 00:27:01,640
Speaker 1: way than I ever wanted to, but I needed to learn. Yeah.

512
00:27:01,680 --> 00:27:06,080
Speaker 2: I find that just people that go through really horrible experiences.

513
00:27:07,400 --> 00:27:12,359
Speaker 2: I mean, it's just it builds resiliency, and you a

514
00:27:12,440 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 2: lot of people that are doing really awesome things have

515
00:27:15,200 --> 00:27:17,080
Speaker 2: went through some really shitty things.

516
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:19,040
Speaker 3: Based that's what I think anyway.

517
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:23,680
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, I agree with you. Uh, Like I said,

518
00:27:23,840 --> 00:27:27,879
Speaker 1: it can't it can't not change you. It's just a

519
00:27:27,960 --> 00:27:30,359
Speaker 1: question you will learn. It's just a question of the

520
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:32,040
Speaker 1: lessons you choose to take away from.

521
00:27:38,920 --> 00:27:41,360
Speaker 2: If you love this podcast, you are going to love

522
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:45,840
Speaker 2: the Gross Room. There are thousands of videos, posts, photos

523
00:27:45,960 --> 00:27:48,359
Speaker 2: of all different things that have to do with pathology.

524
00:27:48,680 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 2: Plus there is no censorship, so we could talk about

525
00:27:51,800 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 2: anything that we want to without having to have the

526
00:27:54,119 --> 00:27:57,560
Speaker 2: limitations with social media. You can join now for only

527
00:27:57,680 --> 00:27:59,800
Speaker 2: five ninety nine a month, and this gives you access

528
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:03,080
Speaker 2: to all of the posts going back to twenty and nineteen.

529
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 2: Join the grosserroom dot com today. So a lot of

530
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 2: people ask me this question, what do I want done

531
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,399
Speaker 2: with my body when I die? Or something right? And

532
00:28:15,480 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 2: I always my answer is always, I don't when I die.

533
00:28:20,119 --> 00:28:22,800
Speaker 2: It's up to my kids and my husband what they

534
00:28:22,880 --> 00:28:26,200
Speaker 2: want to do, because when I'm dead, I'm dead. Like

535
00:28:26,359 --> 00:28:28,919
Speaker 2: I look at a dead person as being a dead person.

536
00:28:29,720 --> 00:28:32,159
Speaker 2: So I don't care if you want to bury me creamate.

537
00:28:32,240 --> 00:28:34,520
Speaker 2: I don't have anything in writing. It's just kind of

538
00:28:34,600 --> 00:28:37,000
Speaker 2: like whatever my family wants to do to get over

539
00:28:37,160 --> 00:28:41,240
Speaker 2: my death. And now that you've seen all these different things,

540
00:28:41,520 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 2: you know, having a skull on display or a mummy

541
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:49,440
Speaker 2: inside of a room, do you have any specific wishes

542
00:28:49,600 --> 00:28:51,800
Speaker 2: or do you not really care?

543
00:28:52,360 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: Well, I'm with you one hundred percent on this. Actually,

544
00:28:55,480 --> 00:28:59,320
Speaker 1: I believe that the way we process the dead is

545
00:28:59,480 --> 00:29:02,040
Speaker 1: for the life. It's for the benefit of the living.

546
00:29:03,360 --> 00:29:07,600
Speaker 1: So I would say yeah, And that doesn't mean that

547
00:29:07,640 --> 00:29:09,880
Speaker 1: if someone has a preference, I don't think that's important.

548
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:12,080
Speaker 1: If someone has a preference and it stated it, I

549
00:29:12,120 --> 00:29:14,680
Speaker 1: think it should be followed and that it should be respected.

550
00:29:14,720 --> 00:29:16,800
Speaker 1: But for me, because I think the way we process

551
00:29:16,840 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 1: and deal with the dead, uh is for the benefit

552
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:22,080
Speaker 1: of the living. I feel the same way. It's just

553
00:29:22,440 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 1: let my friends decide, you know, if they want to

554
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:26,880
Speaker 1: dump me in the desert and let the crows eat me,

555
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:29,640
Speaker 1: oh flar it. You know, if they want to put

556
00:29:29,680 --> 00:29:31,560
Speaker 1: me in a suit of armor and set me on

557
00:29:31,640 --> 00:29:33,960
Speaker 1: a horse and let me ride until my body falls

558
00:29:34,000 --> 00:29:37,000
Speaker 1: off somewhere go, it's I think it's I think it's

559
00:29:37,200 --> 00:29:42,040
Speaker 1: it's up to them because ultimately that final act for me,

560
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:45,040
Speaker 1: the way of all I've always viewed it, that final

561
00:29:45,200 --> 00:29:48,960
Speaker 1: act is a final act to commemorate that person's.

562
00:29:50,480 --> 00:29:54,360
Speaker 2: Exactly. That's how I feel too. So you're not like

563
00:29:54,560 --> 00:29:57,440
Speaker 2: my because my dad is very specific, like.

564
00:29:57,720 --> 00:29:59,920
Speaker 3: Don't let them put makeup on me and touch my hair.

565
00:30:00,080 --> 00:30:03,440
Speaker 2: I don't want to be he's and we're just like Dad,

566
00:30:03,480 --> 00:30:05,480
Speaker 2: We're gonna like mess up your hair and everything, and

567
00:30:05,640 --> 00:30:06,400
Speaker 2: we're gonna put.

568
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:09,120
Speaker 1: You on this. We're gonna make you a drag clean Yeah.

569
00:30:09,000 --> 00:30:17,040
Speaker 3: Exactly, It's so funny. Okay. In the German oscar called Oppenheim,

570
00:30:17,160 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 3: is that what it's called?

571
00:30:19,400 --> 00:30:19,520
Speaker 1: Uh?

572
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:21,880
Speaker 2: You mentioned that one of the skulls was painted gold

573
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:23,040
Speaker 2: for a movie production.

574
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 3: Do you have any more information on that, like, do

575
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:30,880
Speaker 3: you know what movie? Do you know anything like that?

576
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:34,840
Speaker 1: I wish I did. Yeah, that's a great question. I act.

577
00:30:34,960 --> 00:30:39,040
Speaker 1: I tried really hard as a historian. I hate when

578
00:30:39,080 --> 00:30:42,840
Speaker 1: I don't have an answer. I despise that, and I

579
00:30:43,240 --> 00:30:47,280
Speaker 1: never got a clear answer on that. It was a

580
00:30:47,440 --> 00:30:50,840
Speaker 1: German production, I think for sure, not a Hollywood production.

581
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:54,240
Speaker 1: And that's that's what they told me because I went.

582
00:30:54,520 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 1: You know, when I went there was like, whoa this skull,

583
00:30:57,000 --> 00:30:59,720
Speaker 1: this skull is goal? What's the story? This supposed to

584
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 1: be a very very important So they're like, somebody did

585
00:31:02,240 --> 00:31:04,360
Speaker 1: that for a movie, and then they just left it

586
00:31:04,440 --> 00:31:08,960
Speaker 1: that way. And I asked everybody at the church. Nobody

587
00:31:09,000 --> 00:31:12,080
Speaker 1: at the church was working there when whatever movie was made.

588
00:31:12,120 --> 00:31:14,360
Speaker 1: All they know was from a movie. And I wish

589
00:31:14,440 --> 00:31:17,240
Speaker 1: I had that answer. I tried, and I never came

590
00:31:17,320 --> 00:31:18,640
Speaker 1: up with the answer to that question.

591
00:31:19,880 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 2: Do you do you think that just have you were

592
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,360
Speaker 2: there and everything and you saw it, do you think

593
00:31:25,400 --> 00:31:30,680
Speaker 2: it's kind of I mean, I'm assuming that assuming probably

594
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:33,160
Speaker 2: isn't correct to do, but I'm assuming that they got

595
00:31:33,280 --> 00:31:36,120
Speaker 2: permission from someone to do that, But do you think

596
00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 2: that kind of messes with the history of that place

597
00:31:40,640 --> 00:31:43,000
Speaker 2: and is kind of disrespectful in a way.

598
00:31:43,920 --> 00:31:49,960
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so more background. You you know this about me,

599
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:52,520
Speaker 1: I think that I'm from la and so you know,

600
00:31:52,680 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: I grew up in a Hollywood environ and you know,

601
00:31:56,160 --> 00:31:59,000
Speaker 1: when I was living in Echo Park, pretty much everybody

602
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:01,440
Speaker 1: on my street from me worked in what they call,

603
00:32:01,520 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 1: you know, the bids. So I've been surrounded by Hollywood people.

604
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:09,240
Speaker 1: So first of all, this did not surprise me at

605
00:32:09,320 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 1: all because I'm so used to dealing with movie and

606
00:32:12,240 --> 00:32:14,840
Speaker 1: TV people that they would go in and do that.

607
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:18,440
Speaker 1: To a normal person, you would say, as you've said,

608
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:20,480
Speaker 1: it's like, well they must have gotten permission, right, It's

609
00:32:20,520 --> 00:32:27,320
Speaker 1: like the house on it people, I know how they are.

610
00:32:30,520 --> 00:32:34,920
Speaker 1: Do I find it? Do I find it disrespectful that

611
00:32:35,040 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 1: they did that? Yeah, I think it's disrespectful to the

612
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:42,360
Speaker 1: church itself that they did that and left it that way.

613
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:46,240
Speaker 1: At the same time, you know, I'm sure the church

614
00:32:46,400 --> 00:32:48,760
Speaker 1: needed the money. I don't know what they paid them.

615
00:32:51,040 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 1: Does it mess with the history of the place. The

616
00:32:55,240 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: easy answer is yes, But that's not necessarily the right

617
00:33:01,000 --> 00:33:04,440
Speaker 1: because one thing about these places, you know, we have

618
00:33:04,760 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 1: this we we have this nostalgia that you know, nostalgia's

619
00:33:12,280 --> 00:33:16,680
Speaker 1: a really insidious forsum that things need to be the

620
00:33:16,800 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: way they were, the way they're supposed to be. Is

621
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: if there're this one golden moment that defines a place.

622
00:33:23,000 --> 00:33:25,400
Speaker 1: You know, it's like, well, we don't like what's happening

623
00:33:25,480 --> 00:33:28,840
Speaker 1: to that neighborhood because it's changing the traditional character of

624
00:33:28,880 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: that neighborhood. It's like, okay, but when is the golden

625
00:33:31,120 --> 00:33:34,480
Speaker 1: moment when that neighborhood is exactly what it was, what

626
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:37,280
Speaker 1: it was supposed to be January first, nineteen thirty six,

627
00:33:38,520 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 1: you know, seventeen seventy one. What about when many of

628
00:33:42,400 --> 00:33:44,640
Speaker 1: us lived there and it was all Native Americans. Maybe

629
00:33:44,680 --> 00:33:46,280
Speaker 1: that's the way it's supposed to be. There is no

630
00:33:46,520 --> 00:33:49,640
Speaker 1: you know, things have an evolution. There's not one defining moment,

631
00:33:50,000 --> 00:33:54,680
Speaker 1: and everything that happens within that astuary is part of

632
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:57,480
Speaker 1: creating the living history. Do you see where I'm going

633
00:33:57,520 --> 00:34:00,760
Speaker 1: with this? Like I went to there's a very famous

634
00:34:00,800 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 1: oshuary in Portugal, ever, and you go around and like,

635
00:34:04,960 --> 00:34:08,239
Speaker 1: now you are absolutely not supposed to touch the skulls

636
00:34:08,360 --> 00:34:11,759
Speaker 1: right into anything on them. That's considered defilement. But if

637
00:34:11,800 --> 00:34:13,920
Speaker 1: you look at the skulls very carefully, you'll see that

638
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:17,799
Speaker 1: there are all kinds of people who visited and carve

639
00:34:17,880 --> 00:34:21,239
Speaker 1: the names on the skull. I found Alexander Dumas's name,

640
00:34:21,280 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 1: you know, the famous fridgif. I found Alexander Dumos's name

641
00:34:25,640 --> 00:34:28,040
Speaker 1: carved into the one of the skulls. It's like, what

642
00:34:28,239 --> 00:34:33,200
Speaker 1: an amazing living piece of the history that Alexander Dumas

643
00:34:33,239 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 1: has come and put his name on the skull. So

644
00:34:36,040 --> 00:34:38,799
Speaker 1: I'm not necessarily saying we should go in and graffiti

645
00:34:38,960 --> 00:34:41,719
Speaker 1: these places and make a miss out. You know. I'm

646
00:34:41,760 --> 00:34:44,000
Speaker 1: not sure we should send guys in with spray paint

647
00:34:44,120 --> 00:34:46,520
Speaker 1: canth and tag them. I don't want that. But at

648
00:34:46,520 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 1: the same time, we have to remember that everything that

649
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:51,840
Speaker 1: goes on in there is a living part of the history.

650
00:34:52,239 --> 00:34:55,880
Speaker 1: Those skulls and open a lot of them. If you

651
00:34:55,960 --> 00:34:59,480
Speaker 1: look at them carefully, they have rubbed out marks on

652
00:34:59,560 --> 00:35:02,520
Speaker 1: the foret. And the reason they have these rubbed out

653
00:35:02,560 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 1: marks is people would come back in the day and

654
00:35:05,120 --> 00:35:07,400
Speaker 1: they would pray and they would rub really fard on

655
00:35:07,480 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 1: the ford rest on the board while they were praying

656
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 1: to commune with the dead. So you know the I

657
00:35:14,840 --> 00:35:17,359
Speaker 1: don't really like the gold skull in there. I think

658
00:35:17,400 --> 00:35:20,359
Speaker 1: it's terrible that a movie company would go in there

659
00:35:20,440 --> 00:35:22,840
Speaker 1: and do that. But does it mess with the history.

660
00:35:23,120 --> 00:35:23,560
Speaker 3: I don't know.

661
00:35:23,760 --> 00:35:26,400
Speaker 1: It becomes part of the history, does that make it?

662
00:35:26,520 --> 00:35:29,719
Speaker 3: Yes, that's awesome. Yeah, I agree with you too.

663
00:35:30,320 --> 00:35:34,120
Speaker 2: I think that a lot of times people think you're

664
00:35:34,200 --> 00:35:40,200
Speaker 2: being disrespectful or something. And agreed, like, now, I mean,

665
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:42,800
Speaker 2: this gives you an awesome story to tell kind of

666
00:35:43,000 --> 00:35:45,440
Speaker 2: about it and that you know, oh a movie was

667
00:35:45,480 --> 00:35:46,920
Speaker 2: film heare and we did this and that, And I

668
00:35:47,040 --> 00:35:50,720
Speaker 2: agree that it shouldn't be you know, give people sharpies

669
00:35:50,800 --> 00:35:53,040
Speaker 2: at the entrance and just let them graffiti all over

670
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:56,560
Speaker 2: the place. But it is cool for that purpose.

671
00:35:57,440 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 1: You're the history, you know. And and I don't like

672
00:36:00,840 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: these things being it's like, okay, this is frozen and

673
00:36:04,360 --> 00:36:06,560
Speaker 1: telling from three hundred years ago, and that's the way

674
00:36:06,600 --> 00:36:08,959
Speaker 1: it was, you know, as if it's as if it's dead,

675
00:36:09,200 --> 00:36:12,440
Speaker 1: we're coult off with it. If nothing else, that gold

676
00:36:12,560 --> 00:36:15,160
Speaker 1: painted skull creates a bridge from us to them.

677
00:36:16,280 --> 00:36:17,040
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right.

678
00:36:17,360 --> 00:36:19,800
Speaker 2: You know what's interesting, And this is a completely this

679
00:36:20,000 --> 00:36:22,520
Speaker 2: is a completely different story that has really nothing to

680
00:36:22,600 --> 00:36:24,360
Speaker 2: do with this, but it just reminded me of this.

681
00:36:24,960 --> 00:36:29,560
Speaker 2: My friend's dad had a nineteen seventy gto and he

682
00:36:29,800 --> 00:36:32,919
Speaker 2: was like the original owner of it, right, And when

683
00:36:33,400 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 2: when the dad was dating the mom, they got in

684
00:36:36,760 --> 00:36:40,040
Speaker 2: some kind of a fight and because there was jealousy

685
00:36:40,120 --> 00:36:42,400
Speaker 2: over another girl, and this girl came up to the

686
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:45,120
Speaker 2: car and keyed the car. And it was brand new

687
00:36:45,200 --> 00:36:48,279
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy and they still have the car and

688
00:36:48,360 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 2: the family to this day. And the dad never removed

689
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 2: the key mark because he wanted to be able to

690
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:57,880
Speaker 2: like retell that story of this jealous girl that keyed's

691
00:36:57,960 --> 00:37:00,920
Speaker 2: car when he was dating the mom. And I think

692
00:37:00,960 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 2: that that's so cool to like, the car is in

693
00:37:04,600 --> 00:37:06,719
Speaker 2: car shows all the time, and he shows it off

694
00:37:06,760 --> 00:37:10,160
Speaker 2: and it's got this obnoxious scratch across it. But it's

695
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:12,440
Speaker 2: such a good story. And it's not perfect, you know,

696
00:37:13,480 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 2: it's a.

697
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:17,600
Speaker 1: Living piece of the history. And sometimes things being worn

698
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,839
Speaker 1: or things being tattered, or things being imperfect create something

699
00:37:22,880 --> 00:37:26,319
Speaker 1: that's really more perfect in a way, you know, exactly, Yeah,

700
00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: because it shows a personality rather exactly rather than simply

701
00:37:31,239 --> 00:37:32,120
Speaker 1: creating an image.

702
00:37:33,280 --> 00:37:35,320
Speaker 2: That's cool, all right, So this is just more of

703
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:38,080
Speaker 2: I don't really know if it's necessarily a question, but

704
00:37:38,280 --> 00:37:40,520
Speaker 2: just to comment, we thought it was really cool that

705
00:37:40,680 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 2: the Thai culture seems to they had on display all

706
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:48,759
Speaker 2: of these skulls of unknown people and kind of gave

707
00:37:48,840 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 2: them more dignity in their death than just kind of

708
00:37:51,840 --> 00:37:52,959
Speaker 2: throwing them in a hole.

709
00:37:53,520 --> 00:37:55,759
Speaker 3: What are your thoughts on that, Well.

710
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:59,919
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a much more complex. In Bangkok, there's

711
00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 1: a foundation called Room Katana and it's actually an emergency

712
00:38:06,680 --> 00:38:10,960
Speaker 1: ambulance service and there are not there's not good ambulance

713
00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:16,480
Speaker 1: service in Bangkok and and so they are so what

714
00:38:16,640 --> 00:38:19,879
Speaker 1: happens are there are these volunteer ambulance services, like it's

715
00:38:19,880 --> 00:38:22,120
Speaker 1: a good Samaritan thing. You kind of make your own

716
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:27,240
Speaker 1: ambulance service to help people. And the Room Katani Foundation

717
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:29,759
Speaker 1: a lot of you know, so a lot of people

718
00:38:29,760 --> 00:38:31,719
Speaker 1: because there's not good ambulance service, a lot of people

719
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:35,680
Speaker 1: might die before getting to a hospital traditionally. And they

720
00:38:36,000 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: kept the first skulls of these deceased people that had

721
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:43,160
Speaker 1: been in their tear and they painted the guilded them

722
00:38:43,239 --> 00:38:45,640
Speaker 1: and they created a shrine for them as kind of

723
00:38:45,760 --> 00:38:49,560
Speaker 1: like their board of directors and Room Katani doesn't just

724
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:54,360
Speaker 1: operate this emergency ambulance service. They also operate kind of.

725
00:38:54,440 --> 00:38:54,680
Speaker 3: Like a.

726
00:38:56,360 --> 00:38:59,919
Speaker 1: Charity funeral service. So if you die as a poor

727
00:39:00,160 --> 00:39:02,239
Speaker 1: person with no one to take care of you, they

728
00:39:02,280 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 1: will take the body and they will provide a coffin

729
00:39:04,920 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 1: and they will bury you. And these skulls are a

730
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:11,040
Speaker 1: reminder not just of dead people that they've they've attempted

731
00:39:11,080 --> 00:39:14,280
Speaker 1: to help, but like you say, they're guilded in the shrine.

732
00:39:14,320 --> 00:39:16,319
Speaker 1: That's kind of like a board of directors, and they

733
00:39:16,520 --> 00:39:20,560
Speaker 1: have they have an actual function because spiritually, it is

734
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:24,720
Speaker 1: believed that you know that someone who dies a violent

735
00:39:24,880 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 1: death in an auto accident or someone or someone who

736
00:39:28,360 --> 00:39:31,799
Speaker 1: dies alah you might stick around, you know, if they

737
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,600
Speaker 1: have a bad death, they might stick around as an

738
00:39:34,640 --> 00:39:39,600
Speaker 1: angry ghost. And so while they're while they're human representatives,

739
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:43,200
Speaker 1: their living representatives, are going out to find people and

740
00:39:43,320 --> 00:39:46,880
Speaker 1: provide assistance. It's believed that the spirits of these skulls,

741
00:39:46,960 --> 00:39:49,440
Speaker 1: the first ones who died, are also going out to

742
00:39:49,560 --> 00:39:52,560
Speaker 1: find the spirits of these people and help them pass

743
00:39:52,640 --> 00:39:55,040
Speaker 1: on and not you know, not have a bad death

744
00:39:55,600 --> 00:39:57,800
Speaker 1: and not stick around as an angry ghost, you know,

745
00:39:57,960 --> 00:39:59,160
Speaker 1: help them pass on to them.

746
00:40:00,200 --> 00:40:03,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's that's really interesting because it seems that

747
00:40:03,200 --> 00:40:06,600
Speaker 2: they they have they have respect, a lot more respect

748
00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 2: for each individual life regardless of yeah, I mean.

749
00:40:11,920 --> 00:40:14,480
Speaker 1: You know, Okay, well this gets into a complicated question too,

750
00:40:14,520 --> 00:40:17,320
Speaker 1: because you also then get into a lot of cultures

751
00:40:17,360 --> 00:40:20,400
Speaker 1: that have caste systems, you know, and and so so

752
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:22,800
Speaker 1: it does get complicated. But on that level, on the

753
00:40:22,880 --> 00:40:25,800
Speaker 1: level we're talking about, yes, there is this incredible respect

754
00:40:26,600 --> 00:40:29,040
Speaker 1: for the dignity of people when they're passing.

755
00:40:30,560 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 2: That's that's cool because I feel like I feel like

756
00:40:33,239 --> 00:40:39,000
Speaker 2: that needs to because for example, in the American hospital system,

757
00:40:39,080 --> 00:40:43,759
Speaker 2: there's people that are unclaimed, right like, they go to

758
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 2: the hospital, they don't have any family, and it's you know,

759
00:40:48,120 --> 00:40:51,040
Speaker 2: we've had bodies in the fridge for a couple of weeks,

760
00:40:51,080 --> 00:40:53,319
Speaker 2: and then eventually, if nobody comes and picks them up,

761
00:40:53,360 --> 00:40:55,719
Speaker 2: we send to the medical examiner's office and then they

762
00:40:55,800 --> 00:40:58,320
Speaker 2: stay there for a couple of years, and then I

763
00:40:58,400 --> 00:41:02,200
Speaker 2: guess eventually they have you know, they get cremated or whatever.

764
00:41:02,360 --> 00:41:04,160
Speaker 2: But it's just kind of it's kind of sad to

765
00:41:04,239 --> 00:41:08,720
Speaker 2: think that people that either don't because sometimes even someone's

766
00:41:08,800 --> 00:41:09,960
Speaker 2: dad might die or something.

767
00:41:10,080 --> 00:41:12,719
Speaker 3: But if you go to a funeral home.

768
00:41:12,800 --> 00:41:15,080
Speaker 2: I feel like it's like a minimum five thousand dollars

769
00:41:15,160 --> 00:41:18,879
Speaker 2: to even do to get a cremation right, and it's

770
00:41:19,040 --> 00:41:22,400
Speaker 2: just it's sad for people that don't have means like that.

771
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:27,160
Speaker 1: It's also well, and there's a big difference because we

772
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:34,360
Speaker 1: refuse to we refuse as a culture to treat the

773
00:41:34,520 --> 00:41:37,600
Speaker 1: dead on a spiritual level. That is, you know, for

774
00:41:37,760 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 1: us culturally, that is simply that is only under the

775
00:41:42,560 --> 00:41:45,320
Speaker 1: auspices of a church or something. But you know what

776
00:41:45,400 --> 00:41:48,320
Speaker 1: I'm talking about with room can tell you it's something

777
00:41:48,480 --> 00:41:50,680
Speaker 1: very different than we would have in the United States,

778
00:41:50,719 --> 00:41:54,880
Speaker 1: where we have basically a public group that is trying

779
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:57,600
Speaker 1: to treat the dead not just on a physical level,

780
00:41:57,680 --> 00:42:01,239
Speaker 1: but on a spiritual And that's what's really left out.

781
00:42:01,320 --> 00:42:03,880
Speaker 1: And you're talking about leaving a body locked and you know,

782
00:42:04,000 --> 00:42:06,359
Speaker 1: locked in deep breeze for a couple of years. You're

783
00:42:06,440 --> 00:42:09,480
Speaker 1: not treating them on spiritual But this is also a culture,

784
00:42:09,560 --> 00:42:11,879
Speaker 1: you know, to expand our discussion a little bit, because

785
00:42:11,880 --> 00:42:14,399
Speaker 1: I've been working for a long time about a book

786
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:17,320
Speaker 1: on the history of pet cemeteries, this is also a

787
00:42:17,440 --> 00:42:22,920
Speaker 1: culture where overall they really do have this respect for

788
00:42:23,040 --> 00:42:27,400
Speaker 1: the spirituality of life, because you know, Bangkok, for instance,

789
00:42:27,400 --> 00:42:29,839
Speaker 1: I was just writing something up about this last night.

790
00:42:30,120 --> 00:42:32,600
Speaker 1: I've gone to many temple. There are several temples in

791
00:42:32,640 --> 00:42:37,640
Speaker 1: Bangkok where they perform animal funerals, and you know the

792
00:42:37,760 --> 00:42:40,960
Speaker 1: one that I'm most familiar with where I photographed a

793
00:42:41,000 --> 00:42:44,080
Speaker 1: bunch of times. It started about twenty years ago with

794
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:48,720
Speaker 1: them performing funerals for stray animals or for street dogs

795
00:42:48,760 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 1: and cats that were unowned, to cremate them and give

796
00:42:52,160 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 1: them a respectful end so that their spirit would be

797
00:42:55,680 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 1: able to transition, you know. So no, we're not just

798
00:42:57,840 --> 00:42:59,400
Speaker 1: talking about the spirit of humans. We're talking about the

799
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:02,560
Speaker 1: spirit of animals. And then it kind of expanded into

800
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:07,880
Speaker 1: the temple offering you know, funerals for pets and entire

801
00:43:08,040 --> 00:43:10,000
Speaker 1: rituals where you know, like a person, they'll do like

802
00:43:10,040 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 1: fifteen or twenty a day, because I spent an entire

803
00:43:12,160 --> 00:43:15,320
Speaker 1: day there observing funerals and photographing them for animals, and

804
00:43:15,400 --> 00:43:17,560
Speaker 1: people will come in with their dead dog or cat,

805
00:43:17,600 --> 00:43:19,920
Speaker 1: and they'll come into the temple and they'll go with

806
00:43:20,000 --> 00:43:22,000
Speaker 1: the monk, and you know, like the bunk will provide

807
00:43:22,040 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 1: an operation and the temple will provide offering. Then they

808
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:27,160
Speaker 1: will do a cremation, because this temple even has a

809
00:43:27,239 --> 00:43:29,880
Speaker 1: crematory now for animals, and then they will take the

810
00:43:30,040 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 1: ashes of the animal, and they have an oxy at

811
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:34,120
Speaker 1: the end to go with a monk out onto the

812
00:43:34,200 --> 00:43:38,839
Speaker 1: river on a boat and release the animal's ashes onto

813
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:41,120
Speaker 1: the river, and you know, really like provide closure for

814
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:43,680
Speaker 1: the owner and help the spirit of the animal to

815
00:43:43,800 --> 00:43:46,000
Speaker 1: pass on it. And that is something when you think

816
00:43:46,040 --> 00:43:49,080
Speaker 1: about an equivalent to the United States, it just doesn't exist.

817
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:52,160
Speaker 1: It would be like walking into a Catholic church and

818
00:43:52,680 --> 00:43:56,440
Speaker 1: finding a crematory for animals and find, you know, a

819
00:43:56,640 --> 00:43:59,040
Speaker 1: Catholic priest, because we're talking about a temple with monks.

820
00:43:59,239 --> 00:44:01,000
Speaker 1: It would be like walk can get to your local,

821
00:44:01,200 --> 00:44:05,080
Speaker 1: you know, Saint Joe's Catholic church and finding them performing

822
00:44:05,280 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: funerals for dogs and cats, you know, and having a

823
00:44:08,840 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 1: animal crematory. And so it just doesn't exist in Western culture.

824
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: We just don't think that way.

825
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:16,920
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's interesting. I guess that brings me to

826
00:44:17,080 --> 00:44:19,680
Speaker 3: my next because I was going to ask you if.

827
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:25,000
Speaker 2: You've clearly written other books that are awesome and beautiful too,

828
00:44:25,160 --> 00:44:29,800
Speaker 2: So what you know, if someone really liked this particular

829
00:44:29,880 --> 00:44:33,480
Speaker 2: book for this this month's book club. Do you what

830
00:44:33,680 --> 00:44:36,680
Speaker 2: other books have you written that you suggest to them?

831
00:44:36,800 --> 00:44:39,439
Speaker 2: And then I want you to talk about your most

832
00:44:39,520 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 2: recent book about the history of cats.

833
00:44:42,320 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so I already mentioned that I wrote two

834
00:44:44,719 --> 00:44:48,360
Speaker 1: other death related Booksmntumory is the last, and it's the

835
00:44:48,440 --> 00:44:53,560
Speaker 1: more global version of it. Heavenly Bodies is the second one,

836
00:44:53,800 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: and to me it's kind of I honestly think it's

837
00:44:56,080 --> 00:44:59,120
Speaker 1: really the best one because it deals with only one

838
00:44:59,360 --> 00:45:03,760
Speaker 1: particular thing, which is Baroque era jeweled skeletons. But they're

839
00:45:03,800 --> 00:45:07,360
Speaker 1: the most beautiful dead people I've ever seen. They're just extraordinary.

840
00:45:07,760 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 1: I also wrote that book Empire of Death, about about

841
00:45:11,719 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 1: the European charnel houses, and then I wrote a book

842
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:19,560
Speaker 1: about the history of domestic felines. It seems like an

843
00:45:19,600 --> 00:45:22,319
Speaker 1: oddball project compared to the rest, but if you really

844
00:45:22,360 --> 00:45:25,719
Speaker 1: get into cats, now there's a whole mythology connecting them

845
00:45:25,760 --> 00:45:28,440
Speaker 1: to death, I suppose. But I happened to have a

846
00:45:28,560 --> 00:45:31,319
Speaker 1: cat Baba, who is a kind of a really well

847
00:45:31,400 --> 00:45:35,359
Speaker 1: known feline cosplay artist, and so I was doing all

848
00:45:35,480 --> 00:45:38,640
Speaker 1: these costume photos with their like She's just a magnificent

849
00:45:38,760 --> 00:45:43,279
Speaker 1: mon al and at the same time, after I wrote

850
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:45,320
Speaker 1: Momento Maury, I mentioned that I've been working for a

851
00:45:45,360 --> 00:45:47,440
Speaker 1: long time a book about the history of pet cemeteries.

852
00:45:47,480 --> 00:45:52,040
Speaker 1: I've gone back to that project. But originally after Ramnta Mauri,

853
00:45:52,160 --> 00:45:54,360
Speaker 1: the follow up was supposed to be a book about

854
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:57,719
Speaker 1: the history of pet cemeteries. In the process of doing

855
00:45:57,840 --> 00:46:00,439
Speaker 1: that book, I started to you know, to learn about

856
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:02,920
Speaker 1: pet cemeteries, they have to learn about the animals buried there.

857
00:46:03,719 --> 00:46:08,200
Speaker 1: And I had found all these incredible stories about cats

858
00:46:08,280 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: that nobody knows about or that just had just been

859
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,840
Speaker 1: pushed aside because you know, we consider dogs to be

860
00:46:13,920 --> 00:46:16,400
Speaker 1: the heroic an, you know, it would consider cats to

861
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:18,520
Speaker 1: kind of be the domestic animal. But cats can be

862
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:21,680
Speaker 1: just as heroic as dogs. It's like, these are incredible

863
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:24,040
Speaker 1: stories that have really never been told, or they haven't

864
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:26,640
Speaker 1: been told properly. And at the same time, I had

865
00:46:26,680 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 1: this cat who was this you know, cosplay artist, and

866
00:46:31,239 --> 00:46:34,080
Speaker 1: I had this idea. Gave me this idea for a book. Okay, well,

867
00:46:34,120 --> 00:46:36,439
Speaker 1: why don't I write the history of cats but from

868
00:46:36,480 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 1: a cat's perspective, and it'll be illustrated with pictures of

869
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 1: my cat dressed as people from the era were talking

870
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:46,680
Speaker 1: about and let a cat replay history but from a

871
00:46:46,760 --> 00:46:49,839
Speaker 1: cat's perspective and retell the stories of the famous cats

872
00:46:49,840 --> 00:46:53,040
Speaker 1: who lived in those eras. So that was that wound

873
00:46:53,120 --> 00:46:56,080
Speaker 1: up as my last book, and now I'm back to

874
00:46:56,800 --> 00:46:58,680
Speaker 1: working on this book about the history of pet cemetery.

875
00:46:59,560 --> 00:47:02,759
Speaker 2: That's so awesome. There's a museum near US University of

876
00:47:02,840 --> 00:47:07,240
Speaker 2: Penn Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. There's there's mummies on display,

877
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:11,879
Speaker 2: and there's cat mummies, which is super cool. Yeah, it's

878
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:15,120
Speaker 2: it's really it's really cool that you know, there's a

879
00:47:15,200 --> 00:47:17,719
Speaker 2: long history with that. So I think, I mean, I'm

880
00:47:17,760 --> 00:47:20,360
Speaker 2: a cat person and I love that book too, so

881
00:47:20,719 --> 00:47:24,759
Speaker 2: and I think that you know, we have a bunch

882
00:47:24,800 --> 00:47:26,760
Speaker 2: of people in the gross room that would be interested

883
00:47:26,840 --> 00:47:29,960
Speaker 2: in that as well. What you're doing is just so great,

884
00:47:30,080 --> 00:47:32,319
Speaker 2: I think not only for people like me, but all

885
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,359
Speaker 2: people in the gross room, because it makes us feel

886
00:47:35,440 --> 00:47:38,120
Speaker 2: like more normal that we have a connection, more of

887
00:47:38,160 --> 00:47:41,960
Speaker 2: a connection and interested with death than most people do.

888
00:47:42,840 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 2: I know, I have a ton of skulls and bones

889
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:49,080
Speaker 2: and everything, not only of animals but humans too, because

890
00:47:49,160 --> 00:47:52,400
Speaker 2: I like the connection of it to be able. I

891
00:47:52,480 --> 00:47:54,480
Speaker 2: don't want to look at a plastic skull. I want

892
00:47:54,480 --> 00:47:55,960
Speaker 2: to look at a real skull, to look at the

893
00:47:56,040 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 2: real anatomic features, And I guess I just wanted to

894
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:02,000
Speaker 2: know if if you had any of your own like

895
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:03,640
Speaker 2: Memento Mori collection.

896
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 1: Well, well, first of all, don't ever feel abnormal for

897
00:48:09,360 --> 00:48:12,160
Speaker 1: liking that stuff, because it's not. You know, I've always

898
00:48:12,200 --> 00:48:14,520
Speaker 1: said that when you really get into this history and

899
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:16,880
Speaker 1: you look around the world, you'll find out that the

900
00:48:17,120 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: weird ones, you know, the weird thing is where we

901
00:48:21,160 --> 00:48:24,760
Speaker 1: are now creating that hard boundary of death. Because throughout

902
00:48:24,920 --> 00:48:27,160
Speaker 1: history and cross culturally you have act all the way

903
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:29,800
Speaker 1: to prehistoric times, you'll find that it was always a

904
00:48:29,880 --> 00:48:32,640
Speaker 1: soft boarder. You know. One of the oldest cities in

905
00:48:32,719 --> 00:48:38,480
Speaker 1: the world is Jericho in the Middle East, and what

906
00:48:38,600 --> 00:48:41,920
Speaker 1: they found in the old archaeological remains were decorated skulls,

907
00:48:42,000 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 1: like secondary burial, where people had been taking the skulls

908
00:48:45,040 --> 00:48:48,120
Speaker 1: and decorating them and keeping them around in the living area.

909
00:48:48,440 --> 00:48:52,000
Speaker 1: So there's absolutely nothing weird at all about this. We've

910
00:48:52,120 --> 00:48:56,080
Speaker 1: just been made to feel weird over time after Western

911
00:48:56,160 --> 00:48:58,600
Speaker 1: culture kind of perverted everything that had been going on

912
00:48:58,760 --> 00:49:02,200
Speaker 1: for centuries. I have a lot of stuff when I

913
00:49:02,400 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 1: lived in Los Angeles. I had a huge collection of

914
00:49:08,160 --> 00:49:11,920
Speaker 1: taxi dermy bones, and so before I've got a lot

915
00:49:12,080 --> 00:49:14,440
Speaker 1: less of it now, just because when I when I

916
00:49:14,520 --> 00:49:18,359
Speaker 1: finally gave up on California, I also kind of gave

917
00:49:18,520 --> 00:49:21,439
Speaker 1: up on stuff to an extent. I wound up having

918
00:49:21,560 --> 00:49:25,200
Speaker 1: a free garage sale, which is the story in and

919
00:49:25,320 --> 00:49:28,560
Speaker 1: of itself, because you know, I had entire taxidermy lions

920
00:49:28,600 --> 00:49:30,680
Speaker 1: at that house. And I decided, you know, because I

921
00:49:30,800 --> 00:49:33,520
Speaker 1: loved these things. I didn't get into taxidermy like a

922
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:36,120
Speaker 1: big game hunter. I got into these things. I got

923
00:49:36,160 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 1: into collecting these things because I felt terrible for them

924
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:40,120
Speaker 1: because they had been killed and discarded.

925
00:49:40,200 --> 00:49:40,320
Speaker 3: You know.

926
00:49:40,440 --> 00:49:42,400
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, this is terrible that someone's hunted

927
00:49:42,480 --> 00:49:44,680
Speaker 1: you and didn't even keep you. I'm going to give

928
00:49:44,680 --> 00:49:46,600
Speaker 1: you a home, and I'm going to refurbish you and

929
00:49:46,680 --> 00:49:48,400
Speaker 1: make you look good to get. And so I had

930
00:49:48,440 --> 00:49:53,120
Speaker 1: this huge collection stuff, and when I moved, I just

931
00:49:53,200 --> 00:49:56,640
Speaker 1: wanted everything to go to people who would appreciate it,

932
00:49:56,760 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 1: you know, rather than reselling it. I didn't want money

933
00:49:59,280 --> 00:50:01,120
Speaker 1: for the stuff because I I loved this stuff, you know,

934
00:50:01,200 --> 00:50:02,920
Speaker 1: I just wanted to get rid of it. And so

935
00:50:03,000 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: I decided to have a kind of free garage sale,

936
00:50:05,640 --> 00:50:07,400
Speaker 1: and I mean invited just my friends. I made a

937
00:50:07,440 --> 00:50:09,759
Speaker 1: Facebook group that was like, Hey, I'm finally leaving out

938
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:11,920
Speaker 1: of California. I'm not taking that much stuff with me,

939
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 1: you know, all the junkits in my house and giving

940
00:50:14,640 --> 00:50:17,560
Speaker 1: it all away on this day, you know, show up

941
00:50:17,560 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 1: at eight am and anyone can take anything they want.

942
00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:22,640
Speaker 1: Thinking in my head that this was going to be

943
00:50:22,760 --> 00:50:26,640
Speaker 1: like a reasonable process, and it really it turned into

944
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:31,880
Speaker 1: insanity because then it's like I had people like renting

945
00:50:32,480 --> 00:50:36,040
Speaker 1: trucks and hiring day laborers to come to my house,

946
00:50:36,160 --> 00:50:38,000
Speaker 1: and because I had so much step to just take

947
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:42,359
Speaker 1: this stuff away, Like there were people hiring trucks because

948
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:45,400
Speaker 1: they were going to redecorate their entire house with my stuff.

949
00:50:46,120 --> 00:50:49,480
Speaker 1: And I had people calling from around the country wanting

950
00:50:49,600 --> 00:50:51,279
Speaker 1: to come to this event, and so I had to

951
00:50:51,440 --> 00:50:54,760
Speaker 1: like I eventually had to post something and said, Okay, guys,

952
00:50:55,880 --> 00:50:58,839
Speaker 1: this is turning into something. And I didn't want I'm

953
00:50:58,920 --> 00:51:01,560
Speaker 1: gonna my doors going to be closed until eight am,

954
00:51:01,880 --> 00:51:03,799
Speaker 1: because then I had all my all these people were

955
00:51:03,840 --> 00:51:05,120
Speaker 1: calling me. It's like, hey, can I just come all

956
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:06,960
Speaker 1: over a day early? Actually have trouble on the day,

957
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 1: Holy no, because I know what you're trying to do.

958
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:14,719
Speaker 1: You're trying to take that skeleton. I know what you're

959
00:51:14,800 --> 00:51:18,160
Speaker 1: up to. And so I had to host this message saying, Okay,

960
00:51:18,280 --> 00:51:21,200
Speaker 1: this is only for people I know, and this is

961
00:51:21,239 --> 00:51:24,239
Speaker 1: a private event, and my door is going to be

962
00:51:24,480 --> 00:51:28,680
Speaker 1: locked until eight am, and don't knock and don't bug me.

963
00:51:29,320 --> 00:51:32,840
Speaker 1: And by seven am, an hour before, there was a

964
00:51:33,040 --> 00:51:35,920
Speaker 1: line around the block because all my these people know

965
00:51:36,000 --> 00:51:37,960
Speaker 1: we're out there, like I say, a lot of them

966
00:51:38,000 --> 00:51:42,319
Speaker 1: bringing day laborers, and and my neighbors were flipping out

967
00:51:42,360 --> 00:51:44,400
Speaker 1: because they had no idea what was on. You know,

968
00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:46,839
Speaker 1: it was like it was like a Walmart sale from

969
00:51:46,880 --> 00:51:49,240
Speaker 1: It was like, you know, it was like Black Friday

970
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:52,520
Speaker 1: from hell. And and then I opened my door and

971
00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:55,960
Speaker 1: they just stormed in and there were people running out

972
00:51:56,000 --> 00:52:00,400
Speaker 1: into the street with like moose heads floating like tire

973
00:52:00,520 --> 00:52:03,400
Speaker 1: goats and stuff, you know, like people running out on

974
00:52:03,480 --> 00:52:05,800
Speaker 1: the street waving these bones around and throwing them in

975
00:52:05,920 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 1: cars and trucks. It's absolutely not a friend of mine

976
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: who was there said it was the fastest home clean

977
00:52:11,600 --> 00:52:13,719
Speaker 1: out he had ever seen because they took everything. But

978
00:52:13,800 --> 00:52:16,279
Speaker 1: that's what happened to all that stuff. I gave it

979
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:19,040
Speaker 1: all the way free, and it was I will never

980
00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:23,200
Speaker 1: forget that day. I mean, I couldn't stop laughing because

981
00:52:23,200 --> 00:52:25,279
Speaker 1: there were a couple people like good friends of mine,

982
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:28,120
Speaker 1: like Adam. We talked about who wanted certain things, like

983
00:52:28,200 --> 00:52:32,000
Speaker 1: he wanted this taxidermy monitor and it was absolutely beautiful.

984
00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:33,279
Speaker 1: Maybe it was an maybe it was a big o

985
00:52:33,440 --> 00:52:35,399
Speaker 1: one I forget and I said, all right, I'm gonna

986
00:52:35,400 --> 00:52:37,040
Speaker 1: put that aside for you, and I put a name

987
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:38,800
Speaker 1: on it. You know, I said, do not touch this

988
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:40,960
Speaker 1: because this is going to my friend. At Pennsylvania. It

989
00:52:41,120 --> 00:52:44,279
Speaker 1: was gone with intensity someone Oh wow. Yeah. They were

990
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:46,520
Speaker 1: just taking everything, whether it had a note on it

991
00:52:46,680 --> 00:52:48,920
Speaker 1: or not, and people were putting stuff. They were like

992
00:52:49,040 --> 00:52:51,719
Speaker 1: grabbing piles and things and putting things down, and someone

993
00:52:51,719 --> 00:52:54,000
Speaker 1: else would come over and grab this taxidermy's head out

994
00:52:54,040 --> 00:52:56,320
Speaker 1: of their pile and go running down the streets. And

995
00:52:56,400 --> 00:52:58,279
Speaker 1: then they'd come to me like, oh my god, I

996
00:52:58,400 --> 00:53:00,120
Speaker 1: put that head in my pile and this car I

997
00:53:00,200 --> 00:53:03,240
Speaker 1: grabbed it, and RANT was like, don't ask me. Whoever

998
00:53:03,360 --> 00:53:07,520
Speaker 1: gets it out the door first owns it. Oh, anyway,

999
00:53:07,520 --> 00:53:08,960
Speaker 1: that's what happened to all that stuff.

1000
00:53:09,800 --> 00:53:12,440
Speaker 3: Well, I see that you still have a couple things,

1001
00:53:12,520 --> 00:53:13,359
Speaker 3: so that's cool.

1002
00:53:13,480 --> 00:53:15,959
Speaker 1: Yeah, you but mostly it's gone.

1003
00:53:16,560 --> 00:53:18,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's and that is that when you sent me

1004
00:53:18,920 --> 00:53:21,080
Speaker 2: didn't used to send me like a wild board. He

1005
00:53:21,480 --> 00:53:24,360
Speaker 2: he sends me a text message like hey, do you

1006
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:27,920
Speaker 2: want this wild borehead And I was like, okay, yeah.

1007
00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:30,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did send you that because I was trying

1008
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:32,319
Speaker 1: to Yeah, that's right. I was trying to piece out

1009
00:53:32,320 --> 00:53:33,880
Speaker 1: a few things to people I knew from around the

1010
00:53:33,920 --> 00:53:34,719
Speaker 1: country can come.

1011
00:53:35,200 --> 00:53:38,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so we still have that, which is awesome.

1012
00:53:38,560 --> 00:53:41,120
Speaker 2: Do you want to tell them where they I mean,

1013
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:44,719
Speaker 2: they could obviously find you on Instagram if they want to,

1014
00:53:45,120 --> 00:53:47,239
Speaker 2: you know, follow what you're doing and keep up with

1015
00:53:47,360 --> 00:53:49,240
Speaker 2: your stuff. Do you have a website and everything?

1016
00:53:49,800 --> 00:53:52,239
Speaker 1: My my user name is h e x E M

1017
00:53:52,360 --> 00:53:55,719
Speaker 1: k U l T, so, uh, that's a place to

1018
00:53:55,800 --> 00:53:58,360
Speaker 1: follow me. I'm on Facebook, I'm on Instagram.

1019
00:54:02,880 --> 00:54:06,680
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening to mother nos Death. As a reminder,

1020
00:54:06,920 --> 00:54:10,640
Speaker 2: my training is as a pathologist's assistant. I have a

1021
00:54:10,760 --> 00:54:15,080
Speaker 2: master's level education and specialize in anatomy and pathology education.

1022
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:18,360
Speaker 2: I am not a doctor and I have not diagnosed

1023
00:54:18,480 --> 00:54:22,080
Speaker 2: or treated anyone dead or alive without the assistance of

1024
00:54:22,160 --> 00:54:27,320
Speaker 2: a licensed medical doctor. This show, my website, and social

1025
00:54:27,400 --> 00:54:30,920
Speaker 2: media accounts are designed to educate and inform people based

1026
00:54:30,960 --> 00:54:34,839
Speaker 2: on my experience working in pathology, so they can make

1027
00:54:35,080 --> 00:54:39,720
Speaker 2: healthier decisions regarding their life and well being. Always remember

1028
00:54:39,800 --> 00:54:42,880
Speaker 2: that science is changing every day and the opinions expressed

1029
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 2: in this episode are based on my knowledge of those

1030
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:49,359
Speaker 2: subjects at the time of publication. If you are having

1031
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:53,360
Speaker 2: a medical problem, have a medical question, or having a

1032
00:54:53,440 --> 00:54:57,759
Speaker 2: medical emergency, please contact your physician or visit an urgent

1033
00:54:57,840 --> 00:54:59,960
Speaker 2: care center, emergency.

1034
00:54:59,440 --> 00:55:00,680
Speaker 3: Room, or or hospital.

1035
00:55:01,160 --> 00:55:06,840
Speaker 2: Please rate, review, and subscribe to Mother Knows Death on Apple, Spotify, YouTube,

1036
00:55:07,080 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 2: or anywhere you get podcasts.

1037
00:55:09,160 --> 00:55:09,560
Speaker 3: Thanks