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Speaker 1: You can do your your your job now, Robert h Well,

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Speaker 1: I did my job, Sophie. I introduced the podcast. How

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Speaker 1: are we feeling? Everybody good? We all have we all

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Speaker 1: have newly hot bev's. We're doing great. Yeah, we got

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Speaker 1: a hot bev uh and we've got a hot bud

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Speaker 1: Jeff May. Jeff, I got a bone to pick with you. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: what what is that bone? Well, Jeff, at the end

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Speaker 1: of last episode, I said, as I was asking you

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Speaker 1: to introduce your plug doubles, where did you come from?

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Speaker 1: Where did you go? Where did you come from? And

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Speaker 1: then I had to say Cotton eight, Jeff, which made

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Speaker 1: me sad because if your name had just been Joe.

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Speaker 1: You see what I'm saying here, Jeff, that worriginal enough

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Speaker 1: to do that, But they just missed Joseph. It's like

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Speaker 1: the one white guy name that nobody in my family

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Speaker 1: has let them know. They fucked up my joke. Mm hmm,

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, honestly, like that's on my dad. Yeah. Well,

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Speaker 1: I'm I'm living now, Jeff. What I'm not living at

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Speaker 1: is you for being here to continue talking about Nikolai

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Speaker 1: Cechesco with me. How are you? There's no place I'd

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Speaker 1: rather be than right here talking about tyrannical despots. Wow,

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Speaker 1: that's a lie, but it's a nice lie. Um, a

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Speaker 1: sweet lie, Jeff, Thank you for thank you for that,

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Speaker 1: for that friendly lie. We used to call those white lies,

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Speaker 1: but now I'm going to call them Jeff May lies.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the name Jeff May is pretty synonymous with

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Speaker 1: the word white, so I feel like it does work

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Speaker 1: either way. Jeff May of the West estimate, h, we

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Speaker 1: gotta find more uses for you to do your your

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Speaker 1: your front American Northeast accent. Jeff, that was perfect. Um,

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Speaker 1: I gotta, I gotta do a Vanderbilt. But before we

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Speaker 1: do a Vanderbilt, let's talk about a guy who probably

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Speaker 1: had an accent like the only, the only Romanian accent

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Speaker 1: that I know how to do as a Dracula accent.

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Speaker 1: And I do feel like that would be offensive. Although Jeff, No,

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Speaker 1: we are about to start by talking about how Chowchescu

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Speaker 1: used Dracula Um and other heroes from Romania's passed um

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Speaker 1: in order to uh to to make the case as

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Speaker 1: to why he and I'm gonna quote here from an

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Speaker 1: article on the cult of Chaochescu by The New York

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Speaker 1: Times In Tirgo Vista's History Museum, there is a new

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Speaker 1: exhibition of Romanian heroes. An enormous portrait of Chowchescu gazes

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Speaker 1: down on the busts of Romanian rulers. Among the venerated

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Speaker 1: is of lad Dracula, the fifteenth century prince whose cruelties

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Speaker 1: gave rise to the Dracula Vampire vampire legend. Flanking the

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Speaker 1: entrance way are huge bronze busts of Decibel, the Dacian king,

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Speaker 1: and Trajan, the Roman Emperor, who defeated Decibel at a

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Speaker 1: great cost in the second century. Could it be that

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Speaker 1: Chowchescu is casting himself not only as a Romanian emperor,

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Speaker 1: but as a Roman one as well. After all, he

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Speaker 1: carried a jeweled royal mace at his nineteen seventy four

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Speaker 1: induction as President Roman Emperor. I had snorted, it's a

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Speaker 1: little late to do jeweled mace. Do you think seventy

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Speaker 1: four you think that's late for a jeweled mace? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Like if my dad was alive for it. I feel

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Speaker 1: like you shouldn't have, like shouldn't have a jeweled mace.

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Speaker 1: But I do love the idea of like, I vant

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Speaker 1: to rehabilitate your legacy. Yeah, I we're talking about Sachku

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Speaker 1: here as we should on the idea of having a

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Speaker 1: jeweled mace at your coronation. But the British royal families

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Speaker 1: over there sweating in a corner being like, don't bring

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Speaker 1: us up, don't bring us up. We got a fucking

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Speaker 1: room full of jeweled mace is don't let anybody tell.

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Speaker 1: They're like, you don't even want to know where we

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Speaker 1: got these jewels. Yeah, um, so yeah, it's it's very funny. Um.

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Speaker 1: There's a line in that article where the Guide is like, no,

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Speaker 1: he doesn't think he's a Roman emperor. He thinks he's

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Speaker 1: a god. Uh. And the New York Times reporters like,

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Speaker 1: what do you mean? And the Guide is like, in

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Speaker 1: the newspapers they've printed poems about Chesko describing him as

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Speaker 1: a dimmi gut. Yeah. Um, not too far off from

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Speaker 1: what Roman emperor's thoughts. So then were yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's it's good. So I mean you could say, yeah,

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Speaker 1: he's just he's honoring his his cultural heritage, Um, all

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Speaker 1: of our cultural heritage. As an Italian, Um, I understand

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Speaker 1: the need to believe that some guy who was born

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Speaker 1: into a job is literally divine. It's easier than thinking

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Speaker 1: yeah exactly, yeah, thank you, um the god of my people.

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Speaker 1: So why is Mario Italian? What is it? What is

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Speaker 1: it about? What is it? What? What? What is it

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Speaker 1: about Japanese game designers that made him think? Like, well,

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Speaker 1: you got a plumber? What what what's the natural natural

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Speaker 1: ethnicity for a plumber who fights mushroom people? Wasn't he

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Speaker 1: the superintendent of of the Nintendo of America? Like he

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Speaker 1: was like his character was created to basically he was.

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Speaker 1: He was like some guy that they knew they designed

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Speaker 1: him that way. Okay, well that that is less magical

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Speaker 1: than I had hoped it was. Yeah, but I mean,

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Speaker 1: you know, it's the Japanese and the Italian's deep rooted

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Speaker 1: history all the way back to roughly trying not to

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Speaker 1: go too deep into this new Chris Pratt playing Mario situation.

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Speaker 1: That's my question. When I had a real voice, I

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Speaker 1: was like, get this ship out of here. If you're

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Speaker 1: not being an offensive Italian stereotype, you're not my Mario. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that is what Bob, Bob Hoskins played an incredible Mario.

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Speaker 1: It's like, you know, who's a great Mario, that Cockney actor. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so we're back talking about Romania um and kind of

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Speaker 1: occasionally Italy. Um. But yeah, so Cesco when we kind

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Speaker 1: of leave left off, he's he's he's gotten himself into power,

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Speaker 1: he's establishing his cult of personality, and he's he's he's

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Speaker 1: doing some some terrible stuff like band abortion um. And

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Speaker 1: he's starting to do some dumb stuff like trying to

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Speaker 1: turn Romania into the television making capital of Europe. Um.

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Speaker 1: But broadly speaking, things are going okay. And one of

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Speaker 1: the thit reasons things are going okay is because he

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Speaker 1: does not have enough money yet to realize all of

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Speaker 1: his visions of turning the entire country into a giant factory.

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Speaker 1: And in order to get that kind of money, Church

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Speaker 1: knows he's gonna need some loans. Now, the Soviet Union

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Speaker 1: does not hit. One of the funny things about this

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Speaker 1: is for all of the mismanagement the USSR was guilty of,

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Speaker 1: they're totally right here where they're like, no, man, just

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Speaker 1: just keep growing food. They're making TVs probably isn't gonna

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Speaker 1: work out for Romania, and it doesn't. Um, So they're

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Speaker 1: not going to give Romania the resources that Ski thinks

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Speaker 1: they need in order to become this manufacturing capital of Europe.

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Speaker 1: But you know who does have a lot of money

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Speaker 1: and he's really willing to use it on stupid shit.

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Speaker 1: The United States of America. Now that's our thing. That

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Speaker 1: is our thing. We will put a lot of money

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Speaker 1: into some very dumb ship because we have infinity dollars. Now,

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Speaker 1: the problem with this is that the United States is

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Speaker 1: the heart, the beating heart of global capitalism, and Romania is,

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Speaker 1: in theory, a stalinist state, right, a state that's based

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Speaker 1: on at least quasi stalinist policies. So the fact that

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Speaker 1: Chowchesco decides to get in bed with the US seems

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Speaker 1: like a bad I like something that couldn't possibly work.

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Speaker 1: It's actually going to be one of the most successful

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Speaker 1: things that he does. But the first stage of his

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Speaker 1: plot to get in bed with Lady Liberty comes courtesy

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Speaker 1: of Lady Liberty's pimp at the time, a fellow that

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Speaker 1: you might have heard about, a friend of the pod,

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Speaker 1: Richard Millhouse Nixon. Now we love him, We love old

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Speaker 1: tricky Dick. Choochesco actually is going to get along very

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Speaker 1: well with with with old Dick Nixon. Now nineteen sixties seven,

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Speaker 1: which is when they meet, is kind of an awkward

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Speaker 1: time for for for Richard Nixon. He had finished being

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Speaker 1: vice president quite a y hile ago, and he's sort

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Speaker 1: of in the term that politics political writers would use

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Speaker 1: at the time is that he's in like the wilderness

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Speaker 1: right now, right where he's kind of he doesn't have

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Speaker 1: this like he doesn't have like a super prominent role,

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Speaker 1: but he's trying to get back into politics, right He's

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Speaker 1: trying to, you know, he wants to become president. Um,

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Speaker 1: he's had a couple of scandals. He's in this kind

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Speaker 1: of very messy place, um, and he's trying to he

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Speaker 1: knows that he wants to like kind of recapture some

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Speaker 1: of his glory days in order to put himself back

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Speaker 1: on the political limelights that he can run and and

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Speaker 1: win the Republican nod for president. Now. One of the

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Speaker 1: biggest moments from his career previously to this had been

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Speaker 1: this very highly publicized kitchen table debate that he'd had

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Speaker 1: with Nikita Khrushchev. So Khrushchev comes to power after Stalin,

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Speaker 1: there's kind of this falling of a little bit in

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Speaker 1: the Cold War. Nixon has what most people would consider

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Speaker 1: to be pretty unimpeachable anti communist Cold warrior credentials. So

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Speaker 1: referring to Richard Nixon is anything unimpeachable is also very it.

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Speaker 1: It is very and yeah, perhaps an ironic term to

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Speaker 1: use for him, um, but he he So he meets

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Speaker 1: up with Kruschev and they have this like very famous debate.

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Speaker 1: That is, it's one of these things that kind of

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Speaker 1: turns him, makes him look like a statesman, and so

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Speaker 1: as he's kind of in this awkward position, he's like, well,

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Speaker 1: what if I do that again? So he he gets in,

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Speaker 1: He gets in a fucking plane charter is a flight,

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Speaker 1: and he starts traveling through the USSR. He goes to

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Speaker 1: Moscow and he tries to set up another debate with Krushchev,

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Speaker 1: but the Soviets are like, well that worked out for us,

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Speaker 1: but now the Cold War is like getting gnarlier again,

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Speaker 1: and we really it doesn't benefit us at all to

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Speaker 1: help Richard Nixon become the Republican presidential candidate. So no,

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Speaker 1: we're not going to do this. Um. And he kind

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Speaker 1: of dick kind of awkwardly mopes around Eastern Europe until

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Speaker 1: he finds a communist leader who would be absolutely thrilled

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Speaker 1: to be his buddy. And that communist leader is Nikki Chauchesco. Now,

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Speaker 1: the first meeting between the two men is mainly a

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Speaker 1: photo op for Nixon, but it helps to soften his

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Speaker 1: image as this hardline cold warrior, and it makes him

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Speaker 1: look more like a statesman, Right, that's what Dick wants

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Speaker 1: to look like a serious politician, is Yeah. And the

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Speaker 1: big the big thing about that is obviously that he

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Speaker 1: has built up a very good photo opportunity life like Nixon.

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Speaker 1: For all of the all of the bumbling that that

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Speaker 1: man has done throughout his entire career, I'm not giving

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Speaker 1: up checkers and all this stuff. Like he went to China,

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Speaker 1: like yeah, yeah, and this is kind of the start

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Speaker 1: of that, right, because I mean you could say Kruz

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Speaker 1: Jeff was kind of the start of that. But it's

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Speaker 1: interesting as much of like this anti Soviet hardliner, as

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Speaker 1: he has a reputation for being, a lot of his

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Speaker 1: career gets made by hanging out with communists. Um, so

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Speaker 1: that's kind of cool. Um at least it's well, it's

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Speaker 1: actually gonna be disastrous for a lot of people, um,

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Speaker 1: but it's it's uh, we'll call it a mixed bag. Um,

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Speaker 1: So it works out really well though for Nixon. It

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Speaker 1: makes him look, you know, like a statesman. And it's

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Speaker 1: gonna work out really well for chaw Chessco because it's

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Speaker 1: it's going to give him a connection to the man

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Speaker 1: who's about to be the president of the United States.

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Speaker 1: And Richard Nixon you wouldn't call him a great friend,

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Speaker 1: but he does remember when people are useful to him. Right. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's a I don't know, loyalty is the wrong word,

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Speaker 1: but he is going to have like a soft spot

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Speaker 1: for chow Chessco after this, and he's going to help

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Speaker 1: out the dictator of Romania in whatever way that he can. Um. Now,

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Speaker 1: this does a couple of things for Chowchesco besides just

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Speaker 1: sort of making him look like, oh maybe this is

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Speaker 1: maybe this this guy is actually not as much of

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Speaker 1: a hardline communist as we've been led to believe. The

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Speaker 1: first thing it does outside of that is it it's

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Speaker 1: it's him throwing a middle finger at Moscow, right. The

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Speaker 1: Soviets don't want him to do this. And one of

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Speaker 1: the other things that's happening in this period, this is

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Speaker 1: when you have that big Sino Soviet split, So there's

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Speaker 1: really like soldiers killing each other Chinese and and and

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Speaker 1: Soviet soldiers killing each other on like the borders of

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Speaker 1: both countries. Right, this is a really nasty time, and

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Speaker 1: this conflict is escalating, and the Soviet Union basically asks

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Speaker 1: chow Chesscu to stand with them against the People's Republic

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Speaker 1: of China and he's like, no, I'm not going to

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Speaker 1: do that. You know, I'm not going to actually take

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Speaker 1: a side in this Sino Soviet split and the way

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Speaker 1: that you want me to. Um. So by doing that

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Speaker 1: and by having Nixon over, he's kind of provided a

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Speaker 1: bridge for the Americans where they're like, well, we actually

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Speaker 1: would really like to be able to communicate and and

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Speaker 1: talk and settle things directly with China, and we've had

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Speaker 1: to do that kind of through the Soviet Union prior

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Speaker 1: to this. And now there's this guy at chow Chesscu

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Speaker 1: who the Chinese, like Mao likes show Chesscu because chow

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Speaker 1: Chesscu wouldn't throw down against him with the U. S.

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Speaker 1: S r Um and he's already had Nixon over, so

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Speaker 1: maybe we can work with this guy. Maybe this guy

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Speaker 1: is going to be our buddy and help us like

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Speaker 1: smooth out some shit. Um, so this is a you know,

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Speaker 1: this is a bold move. It's it's risky, but you

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Speaker 1: have to say this is actually he's going to do

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Speaker 1: a lot of stupid things. Most of the things Ciochessco

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Speaker 1: does are very dumb. This is good foreign policy. He's

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Speaker 1: actually playing very intelligently all these kind of powers off

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Speaker 1: each other for his own benefits. That it's intrigue, yeah,

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Speaker 1: surprisingly adept at intrigue. Yeah. And it's one of those things.

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Speaker 1: If he had never been running the country, if he'd

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Speaker 1: just been like Romania's head of foreign you know, policy

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Speaker 1: or something, he might have actually been pretty good at

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Speaker 1: his job. Um. The problem is that no one actually

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Speaker 1: is ever good at the job that he has, which

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Speaker 1: is like guy in charge of an entire country down

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Speaker 1: to the lives of individual people in it. But he's

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Speaker 1: pretty good at the foreign policy ship. And he's gonna

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Speaker 1: double down on this foreign policy success. In August of

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Speaker 1: nineteen sixty eight, when Vincent Czechoslovakia provide him with a

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Speaker 1: golden opportunity. So the checks elect a new first Secretary,

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Speaker 1: and czechos a Bakia is a communist state, they elect

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Speaker 1: a new first Secretary of their party a guy named

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Speaker 1: Alexander Dubcheck. And dumb Check is a communist, but he

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Speaker 1: is a reformer, right, Um, he's and he's very popular

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Speaker 1: in the West because while he's he's still a comy.

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Speaker 1: He's this kind of communist who's got more democratic attitudes

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Speaker 1: about how things ought to work, and he starts pushing

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Speaker 1: a raft of reforms that are much more extensive than

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Speaker 1: the ones Cho Chessco had offered his own people. Most crucially,

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Speaker 1: he's like, maybe we'll have elections again, and hey, maybe

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Speaker 1: we'll even let parties run that aren't communist parties. Now,

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Speaker 1: the Soviet Union, who has just sent tanks not all

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Speaker 1: that long ago into Hungary over you know, um an uprising,

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Speaker 1: they're not going to like this. Uh, this is not

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Speaker 1: acceptable to them. And Moscow responds by invading Czechoslovakia and

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Speaker 1: arresting Dubcheck. The force they sinned is made up of

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Speaker 1: the five Central Warsaw Pact nations. UM. The two countries

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Speaker 1: that do not participate in this invasion are Romania and

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Speaker 1: Yugoslavia because they're seen as unreliable um, and they are

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Speaker 1: in fact unreliable for that. I love that where we're

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Speaker 1: in like obviously Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, and we're like, oh man,

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Speaker 1: these things don't even exist anymore. Like it's so funny.

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Speaker 1: It's like we're talking about yeah, yes, but yeah, I

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Speaker 1: mean we are. You've got Romania still, you know, you

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Speaker 1: gotta Czech Republic um, but um, yeah, it is, it is.

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Speaker 1: We are talking about like these ghostly nations. It's interesting

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Speaker 1: too because like if you go around, if you travel

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Speaker 1: through a lot of Eastern Europe, especially if you travel

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Speaker 1: through like the Balkans, it's obviously it's not uniform, but

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Speaker 1: you will run into a lot of people, particularly older

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Speaker 1: people who are like um, who miss when Tito was

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Speaker 1: around and who missed the days of Yugoslavia, which is

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Speaker 1: not hard to see why when you think about how

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Speaker 1: ugly things got as soon as Yugoslavia broke apart, and

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Speaker 1: you can find people, particularly in Russia who missed the U. S.

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Speaker 1: S R. You do not run into a lot of

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Speaker 1: Romanians who miss ko no no no no no no no. Um.

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Speaker 1: Not as common, not nearly as Not to say that,

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Speaker 1: obviously I'm not trying to like whitewash either the Soviet

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Speaker 1: Union or Yugoslavia, but you you you you do run

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Speaker 1: into people who are like, ah, you know that for

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Speaker 1: a lot of reasons, there were there were things that

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Speaker 1: I preferred back then. That does not tend to happen

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Speaker 1: nearly so often with Chesco in Romania. Um, but what

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Speaker 1: he is pretty good at is this right here. So

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Speaker 1: the Soviets invade Czechoslovakia, they arrest this guy, dub check Um,

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Speaker 1: and they, you know, put an end too this whole

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Speaker 1: We're gonna try opening shipped up a little bit here.

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Speaker 1: And Nikolai is in a dangerous position. He does not

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Speaker 1: have Soviet soldiers in his country. But obviously Romania is

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Speaker 1: not gonna win a war with the Soviet Union, right

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Speaker 1: If the USSR wants to come in and force him out,

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Speaker 1: they can do it. And he's just seen they're willing

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Speaker 1: to do that to the checks Um. So he's not

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Speaker 1: going to back down over this though. Um. He calculates

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Speaker 1: kind of act curately that the uss are they've just

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Speaker 1: blown a lot of political capital and taken a risk

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Speaker 1: themselves in occupying Czechoslovakia. They're not gonna want to funk

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Speaker 1: with Romania right now, right because they're kind of dealing

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Speaker 1: with this ship storm already. So while they're occupying the country.

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Speaker 1: He delivers a speech on August twenty one to nineteen

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Speaker 1: sixty eight in front of a hundred thousand people and

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Speaker 1: Republic Square in Bucharest, and he's he's it's called the

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Speaker 1: Balcony Speech. He's standing on this balcony of this uh

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Speaker 1: UM like government building and he addresses this crowd and

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Speaker 1: he tells them that the Romanian Communist Party is expressing

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Speaker 1: full solidarity with the Czech people. He calls Soviet actions

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Speaker 1: a danger to the peace of Europe, and he condemns

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Speaker 1: them for forcing their version of socialism on another socialist state.

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Speaker 1: One of the things he's like is that like, as

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Speaker 1: socialist states, we should have the freedom to exist whatever

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Speaker 1: way we want and to like experiment with policies, and

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Speaker 1: the Soviet unions shouldn't be cracking down on that stuff

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Speaker 1: which is objectively good, right, Like what he he's actually

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Speaker 1: taking this is a prince suppold stance, and it's a

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Speaker 1: risky one for him. Now. He's not taking it because

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Speaker 1: he's morally opposed to what the USSR is doing so

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Speaker 1: much as he's taking it because this is going to

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Speaker 1: reinforce his popularity with the Americans and the West right,

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Speaker 1: and it is outrage. It is popular, you have to say,

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Speaker 1: it's very popular. In Romania. This is seen as like

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Speaker 1: the high point of his regime, and it gives a

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Speaker 1: lot of people reason to be like, oh, you know

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Speaker 1: this guy actually, you know, maybe maybe we we lucked

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Speaker 1: out in terms of you know, having this student charge

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Speaker 1: of the country. He's willing to stand up to the Soviets,

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Speaker 1: you know, he's taking a taking this prost stance in

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Speaker 1: favor of liberty from the from the U. S. SR.

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Speaker 1: Maybe maybe we're doing all right. Yeah, yeah, no notes

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Speaker 1: on the specific thing. Yeah, and with that we can

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Speaker 1: put a lid on him. Yeah, that's the end of it.

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Speaker 1: Rides off into the sunset um like co check. So um,

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Speaker 1: he's he's done this thing and these kind of two moves.

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Speaker 1: He's made this unique place for himself in the world

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Speaker 1: of diplomacy. And shortly after there, right around this time,

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Speaker 1: Nixon wins election. Yes sixty eight, Nixon wins election and

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Speaker 1: he takes office. Um, and so now his buddy Richard

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Speaker 1: is running the United States, and he's just given himself

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Speaker 1: a really good reason to be trusted by the West.

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Speaker 1: So he starts saying, hey, I would like to have

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Speaker 1: most Favorite Nation trading status right with the U S.

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Speaker 1: Which is a big deal economically, there's a whole bunch

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Speaker 1: of benefits to that, and no communist country had ever

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Speaker 1: been offered that um. And the US is like, well, funk,

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Speaker 1: why shouldn't we do this? Right? This guy actually seems

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Speaker 1: like he's you know, and obviously we don't care that

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Speaker 1: he's he's a he's a dictator who's purged his enemies,

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Speaker 1: he's made a borshit illegal, he's doing all of these

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Speaker 1: things that are like fucked up in his own country.

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Speaker 1: But obviously we've never given a shit about. That we

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Speaker 1: care about is that he's benefiting US foreign policy right now.

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Speaker 1: So we're going to stand up and start offering him

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Speaker 1: some shit um. And one of the things that means

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Speaker 1: is that, like we do, Romania does eventually get most

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Speaker 1: Favored Nation trading status. But the other thing it means

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Speaker 1: that Tricky Dick is is going to start talking to

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Speaker 1: American business leaders in American banks and being like, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can trust Chessco, you know, invest in his country,

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Speaker 1: give him some loans. It's gonna trustworthy bron Yeah, as

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Speaker 1: he's as he is pounding his entire body weight in

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Speaker 1: vodka on a daily basis and threatening Henry Kissinger. He

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Speaker 1: is he's letting people. Yetta put her money in Romania.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna work out really well long term. Good goodbye.

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Speaker 1: Who amongst us would not threaten Henry Kissinger given the opportunity. Yeah, Um,

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Speaker 1: I mean we probably shouldn't go much further down that road, uh,

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Speaker 1: because I think he still has a secret service detail.

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Speaker 1: So um. This is also very popular among the Romanian people,

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Speaker 1: and catal And Gruya, who's a Romanian journalist, describes people's

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Speaker 1: feelings this way, Romanians lived better and they were out

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Speaker 1: of their president, frustrated by history. They saw in Chaochesco

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Speaker 1: one of their own who was on equal foot standing

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Speaker 1: with the world's bigger players. When he condemned the military

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Speaker 1: intervention in Czechoslovakia, Romanian enthusiasm was spontaneous. This act of

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Speaker 1: defiance against Moscow brought him the respect of the entire world,

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Speaker 1: and Silvio Bruckin, another Romanian writer, adds this Chesko was

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Speaker 1: a tyrant when it came to politics and economic disaster,

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Speaker 1: but in his foreign policy he had a spark of genius.

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Speaker 1: Although uneducated, he was smart, a wily peasant sort of smart,

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Speaker 1: and uh, you know it is the kind of one

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Speaker 1: thing that's interesting is Choochesco is this little guy. He

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Speaker 1: doesn't have he never has anyone backing him up earlier

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Speaker 1: in his career. He's entirely on his own, and so

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Speaker 1: he's really good at kind of running in between the

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Speaker 1: feet of these more powerful figures in Romanian politics. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: and that's what he's doing. Like you can see why

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Speaker 1: his background makes him good at this specific job, because

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Speaker 1: Romania is in this really awkward position geographically, and it's

401
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Speaker 1: in this awkward political position between China and the USSR

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Speaker 1: in the US, and he is he is very good

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Speaker 1: at He's as good at this as he was good

404
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Speaker 1: at navigating a similar situation in the Constist Party. What

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Speaker 1: do you do when you're a rock between three hard places? Like, like,

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Speaker 1: how do you like? You're like, yeah, when you're a

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Speaker 1: tomato between three rocks. Props to him for doing I guess,

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Speaker 1: as far as foreign policy is concerned, as good as

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Speaker 1: you can do in this situation from a foreign policy standpoint,

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Speaker 1: he's kind of your best case scenario as a leader

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Speaker 1: in Romania at this point. Now from an everything else standpoint.

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Speaker 1: That's what we're about to talk about. It's not the

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Speaker 1: optimal case Scenaria. Unfortunately, it is not enough to be

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Speaker 1: good at foreign policy. And for his first half decade

415
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Speaker 1: and so in power, he seems to be okay at

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Speaker 1: some of the other stuff we've just talked. He does

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Speaker 1: some ugly ship, but like the Communist Party under him

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Speaker 1: in the first five or so used in power also

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Speaker 1: does the sort of ship communists are supposed to do. Um.

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Speaker 1: They put a huge amount of money into this building

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Speaker 1: program to ensure every one in the country has a

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00:23:01,080 --> 00:23:05,320
Speaker 1: private hat residence, which is nice and a good policy

423
00:23:05,359 --> 00:23:08,760
Speaker 1: for keeping people happy. Right. Um. He also invests funds

424
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:11,600
Speaker 1: in education, and again it's it's promoting books that you

425
00:23:11,640 --> 00:23:15,160
Speaker 1: know he supports, including these like propaganda books about Dracula

426
00:23:15,160 --> 00:23:18,480
Speaker 1: and ship. But it's still like better than I guess

427
00:23:18,680 --> 00:23:21,600
Speaker 1: doing nothing at all. Um. And then in nineteen seventy

428
00:23:21,600 --> 00:23:23,919
Speaker 1: one show, Cesco goes on tour and as part of

429
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:27,760
Speaker 1: his plan to irritate the USSR, he visits China, North Korea,

430
00:23:27,800 --> 00:23:31,119
Speaker 1: and North Vietnam and Mongolia. Now China is going to

431
00:23:31,240 --> 00:23:33,760
Speaker 1: be the big visit, right because he has just kind

432
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:38,239
Speaker 1: of backed or at least refused to like side with

433
00:23:38,280 --> 00:23:41,840
Speaker 1: the USSR against China, and Mao is very grateful for this.

434
00:23:42,240 --> 00:23:46,800
Speaker 1: So he gets this huge welcoming, these massive crowds and marches,

435
00:23:47,119 --> 00:23:54,080
Speaker 1: you know, China's and then he played for three hours straight. Yeah. Yeah,

436
00:23:54,080 --> 00:23:56,760
Speaker 1: he does all all all of the big hits he's doing.

437
00:23:56,880 --> 00:24:00,640
Speaker 1: Um Um, I don't know, uh, I don't know where

438
00:24:00,640 --> 00:24:03,480
Speaker 1: to take this joke, Jeff, but Mao shows him a

439
00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:07,680
Speaker 1: very good time. And obviously China massive powerful country, so

440
00:24:07,800 --> 00:24:10,800
Speaker 1: coming from Romania, Mao is able to show off these

441
00:24:10,920 --> 00:24:15,280
Speaker 1: huge factories, these massive crowds of soldiers and workers marching

442
00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:19,880
Speaker 1: in unison, and he in Elena Cchesco and Elena look

443
00:24:19,920 --> 00:24:22,280
Speaker 1: at all this and they start to get really jealous

444
00:24:22,320 --> 00:24:25,119
Speaker 1: because they're like, well, ship, this is like a first

445
00:24:25,200 --> 00:24:30,679
Speaker 1: class world power, and you know, we're us and I

446
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:32,440
Speaker 1: would really like it if we could be a little

447
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:35,320
Speaker 1: bit more like Mao. Um. One of the things that

448
00:24:35,359 --> 00:24:37,159
Speaker 1: he in Elena do is they go to see this

449
00:24:37,240 --> 00:24:40,880
Speaker 1: play put on by Mao's fourth wife, John quing Uh,

450
00:24:40,920 --> 00:24:42,439
Speaker 1: and they see for the first time what this like

451
00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:46,560
Speaker 1: real cult of personality looks like. Because Um, Mao's fourth

452
00:24:46,600 --> 00:24:50,040
Speaker 1: wife and Mao. Both have very effective cults of personality,

453
00:24:50,240 --> 00:24:53,320
Speaker 1: massive and expanse of huge numbers of people, of all

454
00:24:53,359 --> 00:24:58,080
Speaker 1: these books about them and paintings and portraits everywhere. Um

455
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:02,679
Speaker 1: we he I made the joke the three hours he

456
00:25:02,840 --> 00:25:06,280
Speaker 1: performed for three hours talking about being on tour. Yeah,

457
00:25:06,320 --> 00:25:08,080
Speaker 1: I mean it's kind of it's actually kind of the

458
00:25:08,119 --> 00:25:12,920
Speaker 1: opposite of that, because Choochescu is the and and Elena,

459
00:25:13,040 --> 00:25:16,320
Speaker 1: like Nikolae and Elena are the audience, and Mao is

460
00:25:16,359 --> 00:25:18,920
Speaker 1: putting on a show for all of them. Right, He's

461
00:25:18,960 --> 00:25:22,840
Speaker 1: got these huge crowds of soldiers and of workers like

462
00:25:23,040 --> 00:25:26,000
Speaker 1: marching in Unison. He's got all of these like they

463
00:25:26,040 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 1: go see these beautiful, elaborate plays. He takes them to

464
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:34,200
Speaker 1: see these factories. And Nikolai is just first off, he's

465
00:25:34,240 --> 00:25:37,400
Speaker 1: blown away by all of this, but he's also he's

466
00:25:37,520 --> 00:25:41,640
Speaker 1: kind of like jealous, right because China is on its

467
00:25:41,680 --> 00:25:44,399
Speaker 1: way to becoming kind of this first class world power

468
00:25:44,960 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 1: and Romania is a pretty small country by comparison. Um

469
00:25:49,000 --> 00:25:51,640
Speaker 1: so he's he falls in love both with this idea

470
00:25:51,760 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 1: of power that Mao is able to show, but also

471
00:25:54,640 --> 00:25:58,200
Speaker 1: he becomes aware of this huge cult of personality around Mao.

472
00:25:58,280 --> 00:26:00,919
Speaker 1: And around Mao's fourth wife, where they got all of

473
00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:03,640
Speaker 1: these books about them, all of these plays that are

474
00:26:03,640 --> 00:26:06,920
Speaker 1: both like dedicated to them and dedicated to like kind

475
00:26:06,960 --> 00:26:10,600
Speaker 1: of referencing them, and they've got you know, portraits up everywhere.

476
00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:15,440
Speaker 1: And he sees number one, Wow, this is really what

477
00:26:15,520 --> 00:26:17,280
Speaker 1: you can do when you get off your ass and

478
00:26:17,320 --> 00:26:20,600
Speaker 1: you put together a first class cult of personality. But

479
00:26:20,680 --> 00:26:23,600
Speaker 1: the other thing he sees is that, like, well, shit,

480
00:26:25,040 --> 00:26:28,639
Speaker 1: Romania could maybe be the kind of power that China

481
00:26:28,800 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 1: is if only I exercised power the same way that

482
00:26:32,359 --> 00:26:36,720
Speaker 1: Mao did. Right, Um, because Mao is a very centralized ruler.

483
00:26:36,800 --> 00:26:39,560
Speaker 1: He's got total pretty total control, least he he is

484
00:26:39,800 --> 00:26:42,600
Speaker 1: heard of him? Yeah, we've heard of Mao. Right Like,

485
00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:46,120
Speaker 1: every time you say cult of personality, I immediately want

486
00:26:46,119 --> 00:26:48,919
Speaker 1: to break into the Living Color riff. Oh see, I

487
00:26:48,960 --> 00:26:53,720
Speaker 1: was gonna in and there I was thinking of isn't

488
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:56,119
Speaker 1: that a in that a? What is it? Duran Duran song?

489
00:26:56,600 --> 00:27:03,240
Speaker 1: Living Color? Wait? The TV show that's David Allen Greer. Oh.

490
00:27:03,359 --> 00:27:08,080
Speaker 1: Excellent is the band fronted by Corey Glover and in

491
00:27:08,200 --> 00:27:11,520
Speaker 1: Living Color was the comedy show fronted by Keenan, Ivory

492
00:27:11,520 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: Wayans and uh and and uh and uh David Ellen Greer.

493
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:19,600
Speaker 1: David Allen Greer was there. Yeah, that was really a

494
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:22,600
Speaker 1: Wayn's joint. It was and and and didn't know how

495
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:26,200
Speaker 1: Jim Carey broke out to Jim Carey did that until

496
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:29,600
Speaker 1: up until the end, really, I mean he stuck around there,

497
00:27:29,600 --> 00:27:34,119
Speaker 1: you go, Jim Carey relevant because he's obviously the chairman

498
00:27:34,200 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: Mao of comedy. You could say that, you know, there's

499
00:27:36,880 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 1: a lot of similarities between the Cultural Revolution and that

500
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 1: year that we got ace Ventura and The Mask, and

501
00:27:45,280 --> 00:27:47,119
Speaker 1: there was at least one other Jim Carrey movie that

502
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:51,480
Speaker 1: he was at nine, I believe, and then The Mask

503
00:27:51,600 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: was five. I think you had dumb and Dumber around

504
00:27:55,840 --> 00:28:00,880
Speaker 1: them somewhere in there too, much like Mao clearing more

505
00:28:00,920 --> 00:28:03,000
Speaker 1: on the Sparrows. Well, I mean, if you think about it,

506
00:28:03,000 --> 00:28:05,760
Speaker 1: there's a lot of similarities between when when um, when

507
00:28:05,800 --> 00:28:07,800
Speaker 1: he was showing up, he was saying, let me show

508
00:28:07,800 --> 00:28:10,440
Speaker 1: you something, and that's a very fire Marshal Bill line

509
00:28:10,520 --> 00:28:13,760
Speaker 1: right there. So it all does tie together, a lot

510
00:28:13,800 --> 00:28:16,879
Speaker 1: of a lot of similarities between the two men. But

511
00:28:17,000 --> 00:28:22,000
Speaker 1: you know who won't make inappropriate references to tragedies from

512
00:28:22,080 --> 00:28:27,360
Speaker 1: Jim Carey's life. I'm going to guess that it's these

513
00:28:27,400 --> 00:28:29,840
Speaker 1: amazing sponsors that we have coming up. It is these

514
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:41,760
Speaker 1: amazing sponsors because they are all big fans of Jim Carrey. Ah,

515
00:28:41,760 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: we're back. I'm feeling good. I'm I'm feeling like maybe

516
00:28:46,960 --> 00:28:49,080
Speaker 1: watching The Mask tonight, that seems like one of the

517
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:51,760
Speaker 1: Jim Carrey movies that didn't have anything problematic in it. Right,

518
00:28:52,200 --> 00:28:55,680
Speaker 1: it's The Mask is pretty good. He also saved them

519
00:28:55,680 --> 00:28:57,280
Speaker 1: a lot of money in c G I by being

520
00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:00,000
Speaker 1: able to do a lot of that stuff. Interestingly enough,

521
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,360
Speaker 1: off that is one of four movies that were produced

522
00:29:03,520 --> 00:29:08,520
Speaker 1: by Dark Horse Comics. Ish, So you had a two

523
00:29:08,600 --> 00:29:11,640
Speaker 1: year span where we had four movies. You had The Mask,

524
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:14,520
Speaker 1: you had Tank Girl, you had Time Cop and barbed Wire.

525
00:29:15,000 --> 00:29:17,320
Speaker 1: I didn't realize that was a man. The Tank Girl

526
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:23,360
Speaker 1: movie also pretty good. It's definitely better than Yeah, I'm

527
00:29:23,360 --> 00:29:26,080
Speaker 1: gonna say it, tank Girl better than The Mask and

528
00:29:26,160 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 1: now a better dictator than chow Chescu. But now he's jealous, right,

529
00:29:30,520 --> 00:29:36,240
Speaker 1: he's jealous at seeing this Jim Carey like power jealous, Wow,

530
00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:42,000
Speaker 1: um good work chef, professional comedians. So he decides that

531
00:29:42,040 --> 00:29:45,000
Speaker 1: like the only thing holding Romania back from being China

532
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: is that there's still all this red tape, right, it

533
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:49,480
Speaker 1: takes too long to do things, there's too many other

534
00:29:49,480 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 1: people who aren't Nikolai chow Chesscu and power if yeah

535
00:29:53,760 --> 00:29:59,800
Speaker 1: yeah yeah, because the communism, right yeah yeah. Well, obviously

536
00:30:00,040 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: there's a lot of reasons why Romania was never going

537
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:05,560
Speaker 1: to be the kind of power China is, including look

538
00:30:05,560 --> 00:30:07,560
Speaker 1: at the two of them on a map. Just look

539
00:30:07,560 --> 00:30:10,520
Speaker 1: at the size of both countries. Yeah, we're not saying

540
00:30:10,680 --> 00:30:12,600
Speaker 1: I wouldn't show that for all of the tea in

541
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:18,640
Speaker 1: Romania exactly. Um. The other reason is that Mao a

542
00:30:18,680 --> 00:30:23,320
Speaker 1: lot of problems with Chairman Mao pretty canny fellow, and

543
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:27,280
Speaker 1: Nikolai Chowchescu has his kinds of canniness, but they are

544
00:30:27,360 --> 00:30:29,640
Speaker 1: more limited than Mao, so he is not going to

545
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:31,040
Speaker 1: be good at this. But I'm going to read a

546
00:30:31,080 --> 00:30:34,800
Speaker 1: quote from Nicolas Holman describing what happens next. To achieve

547
00:30:34,800 --> 00:30:37,080
Speaker 1: his aims, the population would have to be subjected to

548
00:30:37,160 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 1: his control, most easily achieved if they were contained in

549
00:30:39,720 --> 00:30:43,360
Speaker 1: large urban centers. The economic consequences of such a policy

550
00:30:43,440 --> 00:30:45,720
Speaker 1: was an all out drive to create a heavy industrial

551
00:30:45,760 --> 00:30:48,720
Speaker 1: base in Romania and a determination to make Romania self

552
00:30:48,760 --> 00:30:51,880
Speaker 1: sufficient through the elimination of its foreign debt. A policy

553
00:30:51,880 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: of systemization was also proposed, in which the rural population

554
00:30:55,080 --> 00:30:57,479
Speaker 1: was to be moved to larger urban centers, but this

555
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,440
Speaker 1: was later abandoned. Initially, the developments strategy was very successful,

556
00:31:01,480 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: as vast pools of underutilized labor and agriculture was mobilized

557
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 1: for industry, with the proportion of the non agricultural labor

558
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:11,480
Speaker 1: labor force increasing from thirty point three percent in nineteen

559
00:31:11,480 --> 00:31:14,080
Speaker 1: fifty six to sixty three point five percent in nineteen

560
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 1: seventy seven. However, this growth was not sustainable, being based

561
00:31:17,680 --> 00:31:20,320
Speaker 1: on structural shifts, and soon the labor force was faced

562
00:31:20,320 --> 00:31:23,600
Speaker 1: with inadequate employment and income opportunities, with a reduced supply

563
00:31:23,680 --> 00:31:28,080
Speaker 1: of food and other consumer goods. However, Chachesco's ideological inflexibility

564
00:31:28,160 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: allowed for no changes in his policy, and the regime

565
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,040
Speaker 1: resorted to coercion to achieve the production targets, which enterprise

566
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:36,840
Speaker 1: managers were then forced to fabricate. The effects of this

567
00:31:36,880 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: flawed system soon became apparent as the benefits from the

568
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:42,440
Speaker 1: labor force shift were reduced. Economic growth fell from ten

569
00:31:42,480 --> 00:31:44,880
Speaker 1: percent in the early nineteen seventies to three percent in

570
00:31:45,000 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, with food and other consumer goods becoming very

571
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:53,719
Speaker 1: short and supply and gentlemen. Yeah. He he basically is like,

572
00:31:54,160 --> 00:31:56,960
Speaker 1: everybody get out of the country. Everyone has to move

573
00:31:57,000 --> 00:31:59,280
Speaker 1: to the city so that you can work in these factories.

574
00:31:59,480 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 1: And we're just going to start the slow process of

575
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:06,120
Speaker 1: bulldozing every single rural community in Romania. Um. Yeah, it's

576
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:09,720
Speaker 1: like he did. Did he think he could build food? Yeah?

577
00:32:09,760 --> 00:32:11,760
Speaker 1: I mean he he doesn't want to make food, Like

578
00:32:11,920 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: food is not sexy, right, Food is a very reasonable

579
00:32:15,800 --> 00:32:18,600
Speaker 1: thing to want to have, um and actually not a

580
00:32:18,640 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: bad thing to base your economy around making because people

581
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:24,560
Speaker 1: are always going to need food, but you're never going

582
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:27,800
Speaker 1: to be a world power just making a decent amount

583
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 1: of food. As like a country the size of Romania. Right,

584
00:32:31,120 --> 00:32:34,080
Speaker 1: You've become a world power by industrializing, so you can

585
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:36,600
Speaker 1: have this massive industrial based so you can have a

586
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 1: big military, so you can have all of these things

587
00:32:39,080 --> 00:32:41,080
Speaker 1: that he sees the USSR and the Soviets and the

588
00:32:41,080 --> 00:32:45,000
Speaker 1: Americans having um and so this is going to be

589
00:32:45,440 --> 00:32:47,480
Speaker 1: a fucking This is kind of Romania's version of the

590
00:32:47,480 --> 00:32:50,160
Speaker 1: Great Leap Forward. And like the Great Leap forward, it

591
00:32:50,240 --> 00:32:53,360
Speaker 1: does not work very well, and he might have known

592
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 1: that if he'd actually gotten an accurate look at what

593
00:32:56,360 --> 00:32:59,840
Speaker 1: was going on in China. The problem and she was

594
00:33:00,880 --> 00:33:03,440
Speaker 1: she and she checked in with Mao's wife and said,

595
00:33:03,480 --> 00:33:09,120
Speaker 1: everything's good, it's going great. Ye. The backyard furnaces worked wonderfully.

596
00:33:10,160 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: Um we've been leaping forward greatly. Yeah, And this is

597
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:15,600
Speaker 1: part of the problem, is that, like his attitude about

598
00:33:15,640 --> 00:33:19,720
Speaker 1: what works in mouse China comes from Mao, and that

599
00:33:19,840 --> 00:33:23,440
Speaker 1: you may recognize Chairman Mao not the most reliable source

600
00:33:23,520 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: on Chairman Mao. Yeah. So Nikki's friendship with Nixon, who

601
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:32,560
Speaker 1: was also buddies with Mao. They all get along like legitimately,

602
00:33:32,600 --> 00:33:35,760
Speaker 1: people will say Nixon and Schawchesku were friendly with each other,

603
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:40,080
Speaker 1: like they enjoyed one another's company. Um So that's sweet, Jeff.

604
00:33:40,120 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 1: It's always nice to hear about friends. You know. It's

605
00:33:42,600 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: funny when you see that people are friends with other

606
00:33:44,960 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 1: people that you know and you're like, oh, yeah, I

607
00:33:47,080 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 1: know you guys were friends. Oh you like Maw, I

608
00:33:49,600 --> 00:33:53,480
Speaker 1: know Maw. Oh my god, I was in glee club

609
00:33:53,520 --> 00:34:00,160
Speaker 1: with Mao. Yeah, great guy. Um So, Nikola's French up

610
00:34:00,160 --> 00:34:02,960
Speaker 1: with Nixon had earned Romania or had earned Romania and

611
00:34:03,040 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: invite to the World Bank and the I m F

612
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:08,360
Speaker 1: UM and then again the only communist nation at this

613
00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 1: point at least who gets invited invited to the World

614
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:13,799
Speaker 1: Bank in the I m f the US considering Nikki

615
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 1: a good communist, and this is the term that people

616
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:18,200
Speaker 1: in Nixon's White House will say for him, and eventually

617
00:34:18,239 --> 00:34:20,560
Speaker 1: I think in Reagan's White House to people are calling

618
00:34:20,640 --> 00:34:23,760
Speaker 1: him he's the good communist, right, he's the nice one. Um.

619
00:34:23,800 --> 00:34:26,359
Speaker 1: They encourage banks to lend money to Romania, and so

620
00:34:26,440 --> 00:34:28,719
Speaker 1: Nikki uses all of this cash he's getting from the

621
00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 1: West to start building these massive, absolutely titanic factories, much

622
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: larger than they need to be and much larger than

623
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,200
Speaker 1: there's any kind of demand for. Right. This is the

624
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:44,120
Speaker 1: field of dreams of industrializing Soviet block. If you build it,

625
00:34:44,200 --> 00:34:47,719
Speaker 1: everyone will want to Romanian television. Um. But there are

626
00:34:47,760 --> 00:34:50,240
Speaker 1: problems with this. One of them is that Romanian steel,

627
00:34:50,280 --> 00:34:52,240
Speaker 1: because they're also trying to make like cars and shipped

628
00:34:52,280 --> 00:34:55,359
Speaker 1: Romanian steel is of terrible quality. Right. This is I'm

629
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 1: not a metallurgist, but certain areas make good steel. In

630
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:01,480
Speaker 1: certain areas do not make good steel. Unless you know

631
00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:04,040
Speaker 1: how to like to move impurities and ship the the

632
00:35:05,400 --> 00:35:09,719
Speaker 1: Iberian Peninsula and Pittsburgh. Yeah, generally speaking, those are the

633
00:35:09,760 --> 00:35:15,160
Speaker 1: two the two main spots are like Saville and Pittsburgh.

634
00:35:15,280 --> 00:35:18,400
Speaker 1: And I'm not, again not a metallurgist, but perhaps Romania

635
00:35:18,400 --> 00:35:20,759
Speaker 1: would have done a better job from moving impurities from

636
00:35:20,800 --> 00:35:24,240
Speaker 1: their steel if they'd had chemists who weren't a Lena Ceches.

637
00:35:27,000 --> 00:35:30,319
Speaker 1: It might have helped um. There's also massive corruption in

638
00:35:30,400 --> 00:35:32,960
Speaker 1: corner cutting, which means none of their products are actually

639
00:35:33,080 --> 00:35:36,080
Speaker 1: very safe to use. Romanian televisions were known to be

640
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:38,200
Speaker 1: as likely to burn your house down as let you

641
00:35:38,200 --> 00:35:42,000
Speaker 1: watch threes company, and so once they start producing this stuff,

642
00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:44,879
Speaker 1: European countries get a look at these things that are like, well,

643
00:35:44,880 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: these will kill people. You can't put these in houses

644
00:35:48,120 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 1: like very so idea, but some houses burned down. It's fine.

645
00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:57,440
Speaker 1: But you can tell you what Dracula would say. Dracula

646
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:01,720
Speaker 1: would say, sometimes you get them paled. Sometimes impaled gets you,

647
00:36:01,719 --> 00:36:04,319
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, so you just just take it from

648
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:13,320
Speaker 1: nationally rehabilitated hero the impaler. That's a fun time and

649
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:15,960
Speaker 1: nickname to have for somebody that you're trying to rehab

650
00:36:16,800 --> 00:36:19,320
Speaker 1: I mean, it's funny. He is objectively a better person

651
00:36:19,360 --> 00:36:22,120
Speaker 1: than a lot of the American folk heroes I was

652
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 1: raised to hear about, like Kit Carson, where it's like, well,

653
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:30,239
Speaker 1: at least Dracula was usually doing it in self defense. Um,

654
00:36:30,280 --> 00:36:32,279
Speaker 1: I don't know, you know what, I'll say it right now,

655
00:36:32,520 --> 00:36:36,480
Speaker 1: Dracula better person than Kit Carson. That's ah, that's my

656
00:36:36,520 --> 00:36:42,480
Speaker 1: path right yeah, yeah yeah, and genocide fighter. Okay, so

657
00:36:42,520 --> 00:36:44,640
Speaker 1: now we're just gonna call every American we see that

658
00:36:44,680 --> 00:36:49,359
Speaker 1: does a slight genocide a genocide, a light a light genocide.

659
00:36:49,520 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 1: So if you will, yeah, yeah he was. He was

660
00:36:52,280 --> 00:36:57,160
Speaker 1: a genocide uh theoretician. So matters were made worse by

661
00:36:57,200 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 1: the fact that all of this industrial production used up

662
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 1: more fuel than and again Romania, like the Nazis, are

663
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: very like like. Part of why they wanted Romania on

664
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 1: their side is that, like, Romania has a shipload of oil, right,

665
00:37:10,520 --> 00:37:14,160
Speaker 1: That's why the Germans wanted to conquer Romania like during

666
00:37:14,200 --> 00:37:16,720
Speaker 1: World War One, is Romania has a shipload of oil.

667
00:37:17,080 --> 00:37:19,400
Speaker 1: One of the things that Romania could be other than

668
00:37:19,440 --> 00:37:22,880
Speaker 1: a bread basket is a massive oil producing nation, which, again,

669
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,240
Speaker 1: everything is set up for Romania to have been doing

670
00:37:26,320 --> 00:37:31,760
Speaker 1: quite well in this period. Could be the Dubai, Yeah,

671
00:37:32,239 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 1: could have made made very well for himself. But because

672
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 1: he wants to industrialize, this takes a shipload of fuel

673
00:37:38,320 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: and so Romania, one of the most oil rich nations

674
00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:45,440
Speaker 1: on Earth, becomes a net importer of petroleum. Like they

675
00:37:45,440 --> 00:37:49,640
Speaker 1: are having to buy guys, what are you doing? They're

676
00:37:49,719 --> 00:37:52,759
Speaker 1: buying oil from Iran because he's using up all of

677
00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 1: their fuel trying to make fucking televisions. Um. Yeah. It's

678
00:37:57,120 --> 00:37:59,960
Speaker 1: like if the Saudi king embarked on a building program

679
00:38:00,040 --> 00:38:02,400
Speaker 1: that forced them to buy oil from Texas, where it's like,

680
00:38:02,400 --> 00:38:04,960
Speaker 1: what the funk are you doing? Your word, you shouldn't

681
00:38:04,960 --> 00:38:08,040
Speaker 1: need to do this. This should have been a sign

682
00:38:08,080 --> 00:38:12,240
Speaker 1: that something was awry. Um. And as the building program

683
00:38:12,280 --> 00:38:16,800
Speaker 1: turned ever onwards, Romania's debts stacked up. CHESKU cut rations

684
00:38:16,880 --> 00:38:18,960
Speaker 1: over and over again, and caps were put on how

685
00:38:19,040 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 1: warm buildings could be during the winter. It was like,

686
00:38:21,840 --> 00:38:25,719
Speaker 1: if it was above sixteen degrees fahrenheit, I think you

687
00:38:25,760 --> 00:38:28,000
Speaker 1: had to you, I think, yeah, that was the equivalent

688
00:38:28,239 --> 00:38:30,799
Speaker 1: you you weren't allowed to use heating at all, which

689
00:38:30,840 --> 00:38:36,160
Speaker 1: is like that's quite cold, um, below freezing. Yeah, And

690
00:38:36,200 --> 00:38:38,759
Speaker 1: it becomes increasingly common for the old and sick to

691
00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:41,680
Speaker 1: freeze to death in winter. Again, in a country with

692
00:38:41,760 --> 00:38:44,880
Speaker 1: some of the largest oil reserves in Europe, um, should

693
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 1: not have been a problem they were dealing with. Now.

694
00:38:47,719 --> 00:38:50,600
Speaker 1: This was of course very stressful for Nikki and he

695
00:38:50,680 --> 00:38:53,040
Speaker 1: opted to blow off steam and one of the most

696
00:38:53,080 --> 00:38:57,760
Speaker 1: time honored traditions of European rulers shooting hundreds and hundreds

697
00:38:57,760 --> 00:39:02,560
Speaker 1: of animals. Now, Romania is a country with a long

698
00:39:02,640 --> 00:39:06,319
Speaker 1: sporting tradition UM and as a result, brown bears had

699
00:39:06,360 --> 00:39:09,640
Speaker 1: been prized hunts of the Romanian nobility for I mean

700
00:39:09,880 --> 00:39:13,240
Speaker 1: presumably for thousands of years UM. And as a result,

701
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:16,160
Speaker 1: the whole country of Romania had less than nine hundred

702
00:39:16,200 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: brown bears when the monarchy fell right um. By the

703
00:39:19,560 --> 00:39:24,439
Speaker 1: time Chowchescu took power, socialist policies had rehabilitated the bear count,

704
00:39:24,480 --> 00:39:27,239
Speaker 1: because again, there's not any nobles hunting bears at this

705
00:39:27,239 --> 00:39:31,560
Speaker 1: period of time for sport communists shutting, yeah, one thing.

706
00:39:31,560 --> 00:39:34,720
Speaker 1: Communists are great at making sure that doesn't happen, um

707
00:39:34,800 --> 00:39:37,440
Speaker 1: for a little while. So the early years of Communism

708
00:39:37,480 --> 00:39:40,480
Speaker 1: are very good for Romania's bear population. It goes from

709
00:39:40,520 --> 00:39:44,239
Speaker 1: about eight nine hundred prior to communists taking over to

710
00:39:44,320 --> 00:39:48,200
Speaker 1: about hundred um by kind of the like first ten

711
00:39:48,280 --> 00:39:51,879
Speaker 1: years or so of Nikki's So that's good. Be those

712
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:55,400
Speaker 1: bears are fucking nobody's killing them, So bear fucking the

713
00:39:55,400 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 1: woods in Romania. They did for a while, and then

714
00:39:59,280 --> 00:40:02,919
Speaker 1: Chowchesku found out that it's kind of fun to shoot things. Um,

715
00:40:03,080 --> 00:40:05,040
Speaker 1: so one of the things he does when he gets

716
00:40:05,040 --> 00:40:07,200
Speaker 1: into hunting. If you're a dictator and you take up

717
00:40:07,200 --> 00:40:09,920
Speaker 1: a hobby, you can get really into that hobby. So

718
00:40:10,000 --> 00:40:12,720
Speaker 1: he takes personal possession of all of the best hunting

719
00:40:12,800 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: land in Romania. And so the game wardens who were

720
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:17,880
Speaker 1: watching these areas realized that, like, if I want to

721
00:40:17,960 --> 00:40:20,680
Speaker 1: keep my job, anytime the boss comes by, I need

722
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,560
Speaker 1: to make sure he gets to shoot something right, which

723
00:40:23,680 --> 00:40:26,560
Speaker 1: you may recognize is not really hunting, but we're about

724
00:40:26,560 --> 00:40:31,280
Speaker 1: to talk about that. I'm gonna quote me hunting isn't Yeah, um,

725
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:34,880
Speaker 1: this is less hunting than most bad hunting. This is

726
00:40:34,920 --> 00:40:37,960
Speaker 1: like like like the guys who pay half a million

727
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,040
Speaker 1: dollars to shoot an elephant in the head from a

728
00:40:40,040 --> 00:40:42,200
Speaker 1: truck would look at what Chacu is about to do

729
00:40:42,239 --> 00:40:45,440
Speaker 1: and be like, well, that's a little gross um, So

730
00:40:45,440 --> 00:40:48,440
Speaker 1: I'm gonna quote from the Atlantic. Here, one district competed

731
00:40:48,440 --> 00:40:51,439
Speaker 1: against another for his visits, offering big bears and rack

732
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:55,000
Speaker 1: heavy stags as easy targets for his expensive imported rifles.

733
00:40:55,239 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 1: For typical hunt, Chessco would fly in by helicopter, landing

734
00:40:58,239 --> 00:41:00,640
Speaker 1: on a pad cleared within the hunting area. From there

735
00:41:00,680 --> 00:41:03,239
Speaker 1: he'd be taken by rough terrain vehicle. In earlier years

736
00:41:03,239 --> 00:41:06,640
Speaker 1: he favored jeeps. Later a Russian made the gas and

737
00:41:06,760 --> 00:41:10,400
Speaker 1: later still a rattle trap Romanian imitation the row along

738
00:41:10,480 --> 00:41:12,879
Speaker 1: forest roads to a point very near the spot where

739
00:41:12,920 --> 00:41:15,560
Speaker 1: hungry bears are running red deer were expected to appear.

740
00:41:15,840 --> 00:41:18,320
Speaker 1: He would walk the short distance to a strategically placed

741
00:41:18,360 --> 00:41:20,360
Speaker 1: high seat, a tight little draw that served as a

742
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:23,200
Speaker 1: game corridor, for example, or along a stream where the

743
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:26,320
Speaker 1: gurgling water would cover noises made by a hunter. Usually

744
00:41:26,360 --> 00:41:28,719
Speaker 1: he was accompanied by at least one security officer who

745
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:31,600
Speaker 1: would carry his weapons and ammunition, and a forestry official

746
00:41:31,600 --> 00:41:34,600
Speaker 1: from the district office. Many other forest department employees would

747
00:41:34,600 --> 00:41:36,640
Speaker 1: have been involved in preparing for his visit, but they

748
00:41:36,640 --> 00:41:38,920
Speaker 1: were kept at a distance during the actual hunt, and

749
00:41:38,960 --> 00:41:41,880
Speaker 1: the high seat. Chaochescu had little patients for waiting and watching.

750
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:44,239
Speaker 1: His attention span, according to a witness who had worked

751
00:41:44,239 --> 00:41:47,040
Speaker 1: with him, often was five minutes. The report of his

752
00:41:47,080 --> 00:41:50,800
Speaker 1: short attention span comes from Vacille Crissan, a forestry official

753
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:53,480
Speaker 1: who later published a memoir in German, the title of

754
00:41:53,480 --> 00:41:57,440
Speaker 1: which translates as Chochescu hunter or butcher. The gist of

755
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 1: the book is that Chrissan's boss was indeed a butcher

756
00:42:00,120 --> 00:42:03,240
Speaker 1: and not a true hunter. For instance, Chesko would continue

757
00:42:03,280 --> 00:42:06,320
Speaker 1: firing wildly at an animal until it collapsed or ran away.

758
00:42:06,560 --> 00:42:09,000
Speaker 1: If he wounded a stag, he'd command Chrissanne and the

759
00:42:09,040 --> 00:42:11,200
Speaker 1: other attendants to find it and bring him the trophy.

760
00:42:11,320 --> 00:42:13,160
Speaker 1: If he missed all together, they would tell him the

761
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:15,080
Speaker 1: stag was wounded and that they'd find it, and then

762
00:42:15,120 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 1: that stagg or a similar one would be killed and delivered.

763
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:21,040
Speaker 1: Sometimes more stags were found than were shot. Chrissan wrote

764
00:42:21,280 --> 00:42:23,560
Speaker 1: once after a hunt, a party secretary called him the

765
00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:25,880
Speaker 1: next day and told him that all six stags were found.

766
00:42:26,239 --> 00:42:29,040
Speaker 1: The hell chouches said, how can you find six stags

767
00:42:29,080 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 1: if I only shot four? I mean, they're like, look, man,

768
00:42:35,080 --> 00:42:38,400
Speaker 1: you're just good, Yeah, I know you want from us.

769
00:42:38,400 --> 00:42:41,800
Speaker 1: You're just talented you John wicked it. Yeah, you you

770
00:42:42,000 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 1: folded the bullet through one and into another. Um. One

771
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:47,960
Speaker 1: of the things that's funny about this, so there's a

772
00:42:47,960 --> 00:42:50,960
Speaker 1: way that you can, like if you're the kind of

773
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:54,560
Speaker 1: people who measure trophies and hunting trophies and stuff, there's

774
00:42:54,600 --> 00:42:57,440
Speaker 1: like different categories, right, And it was known for a while,

775
00:42:57,520 --> 00:43:00,560
Speaker 1: like if you go to museums in Romania of like

776
00:43:00,719 --> 00:43:03,880
Speaker 1: that like have animal stuff like that are like museums

777
00:43:03,880 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: of like natural wildlife in Romania that have stuffed animals,

778
00:43:07,160 --> 00:43:09,879
Speaker 1: like most of them even to this day or from Chowchescu,

779
00:43:10,320 --> 00:43:12,239
Speaker 1: and he had this he was noted during the time

780
00:43:12,280 --> 00:43:14,400
Speaker 1: when he was hunting for he had like a weird

781
00:43:14,520 --> 00:43:19,840
Speaker 1: number of incredibly high quality trophies um, particularly for bears,

782
00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:22,080
Speaker 1: and there were a lot of questions about, like how

783
00:43:22,120 --> 00:43:24,280
Speaker 1: are there so many bears of that size in Romania,

784
00:43:24,400 --> 00:43:27,319
Speaker 1: Like there shouldn't be that many trophies that big. And

785
00:43:27,360 --> 00:43:29,360
Speaker 1: it came out after his fall that what what his

786
00:43:29,560 --> 00:43:32,960
Speaker 1: um like, the people who were responsible for keeping him

787
00:43:32,960 --> 00:43:35,719
Speaker 1: happy we're doing is they were stretching the hides in

788
00:43:35,760 --> 00:43:37,560
Speaker 1: a bunch of fucked up ways in order to make

789
00:43:37,600 --> 00:43:41,919
Speaker 1: it look like the bears were much bigger than they were. Yeah. Yeah, yeah,

790
00:43:41,960 --> 00:43:44,319
Speaker 1: they were like cheating to make him feel like he'd

791
00:43:44,320 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 1: shot a bigger bear than he had. It's like those

792
00:43:46,920 --> 00:43:51,399
Speaker 1: dudes that that were like filling fish with uh with weights. Yeah, yeah,

793
00:43:51,440 --> 00:43:55,600
Speaker 1: it's exactly like that. But he's not even competing against anybody.

794
00:43:55,640 --> 00:43:59,160
Speaker 1: They're just trying to make him feel like a big man, um,

795
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:04,399
Speaker 1: and he's trying to make himself feel like aman. Yeah yeah, exactly. UM.

796
00:44:04,640 --> 00:44:06,759
Speaker 1: So it was not uncommon for him to shoot more

797
00:44:06,840 --> 00:44:09,520
Speaker 1: game than just four. I will say that on one

798
00:44:09,600 --> 00:44:12,800
Speaker 1: day in nineteen seventy four, he shot twenty two bears

799
00:44:13,360 --> 00:44:15,399
Speaker 1: um and over the course of his reign he's known

800
00:44:15,400 --> 00:44:18,040
Speaker 1: to have killed at least four hundred of the animals.

801
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:21,520
Speaker 1: He also blew off steam in the gigantic, almost impossibly

802
00:44:21,560 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 1: large mansion he had constructed for himself using some of

803
00:44:24,880 --> 00:44:27,160
Speaker 1: those same four and loan dollars that he'd used to

804
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:30,000
Speaker 1: make giant factories with. I know this is the name

805
00:44:30,040 --> 00:44:31,799
Speaker 1: of the show, but this guy's kind of a dick.

806
00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:34,080
Speaker 1: He is a little bit. We are getting well into

807
00:44:34,120 --> 00:44:38,000
Speaker 1: the bastardry now. So when he had taken power, Nikki

808
00:44:38,080 --> 00:44:41,040
Speaker 1: had actually refused to live in the mansion occupied by

809
00:44:41,120 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 1: his predecessor, because he was like, yeah, I want to

810
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 1: live in a people's house. I'm wanna live in a

811
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:47,319
Speaker 1: humble house when I go out and shoot twenty two

812
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:49,759
Speaker 1: bears in a day. But then he visits MAO and

813
00:44:49,840 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 1: he comes back and he's like, actually, I think I

814
00:44:52,520 --> 00:44:55,400
Speaker 1: want a palace. So he builds one for himself using

815
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:59,640
Speaker 1: the people's money, UM that has eighty rooms, a jacuzzi,

816
00:44:59,719 --> 00:45:02,560
Speaker 1: and in movie theater where he can watch Kojack. That

817
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:05,919
Speaker 1: sounds awesome, It does sound awesome. Look, it's it's it's

818
00:45:05,920 --> 00:45:10,080
Speaker 1: objectively sweet to have your own private ko Jack theater. Um.

819
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:11,840
Speaker 1: But that's not a thing that I would be like,

820
00:45:11,880 --> 00:45:13,400
Speaker 1: this is a problem. I'd be like this is this

821
00:45:13,400 --> 00:45:21,279
Speaker 1: guy gets it, although perhaps not very communist. Um, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

822
00:45:21,040 --> 00:45:25,640
Speaker 1: you know, you know what is communist? I mean I'm

823
00:45:25,680 --> 00:45:27,640
Speaker 1: at a loss because there's so much stuff that we've

824
00:45:27,680 --> 00:45:30,640
Speaker 1: talked about that is communist. The products and services that

825
00:45:30,680 --> 00:45:43,560
Speaker 1: support this podcast all proud members of the Romanian Communist Party. Uh,

826
00:45:44,080 --> 00:45:47,959
Speaker 1: we're back. We're feeling good. I'm feeling good. I'm feeling great.

827
00:45:48,200 --> 00:45:54,440
Speaker 1: You're feeling great, excellent, So feel thank you Sophie, do

828
00:45:54,440 --> 00:45:58,759
Speaker 1: you feel hunt bears? Yeah, Sophie, why don't you and

829
00:45:58,800 --> 00:46:01,759
Speaker 1: I go out, We'll shoot need two bears will come back.

830
00:46:01,880 --> 00:46:05,279
Speaker 1: We'll have us a good time. I'll pass. You don't

831
00:46:05,280 --> 00:46:07,160
Speaker 1: want to shoot twenty two bears? You don't even want

832
00:46:07,160 --> 00:46:10,680
Speaker 1: to run romania? Yeah, you're never gonna wind up and

833
00:46:10,680 --> 00:46:13,879
Speaker 1: shared your romania with that attitude. So two bears, it's

834
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:16,400
Speaker 1: a little bit much for my taste, you know. Okay,

835
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:21,480
Speaker 1: what about an even baker's dozen't uh half half a

836
00:46:21,560 --> 00:46:29,160
Speaker 1: chow chess bears a day? Yeah, dreamer's dream, Yeah exactly.

837
00:46:29,320 --> 00:46:32,319
Speaker 1: They're to dream follow your following. But if you feel

838
00:46:32,320 --> 00:46:35,520
Speaker 1: like doing that, all life for you in court. Thank you, Sophie.

839
00:46:36,640 --> 00:46:39,120
Speaker 1: Help me out in my poaching trial. Everybody, and hey,

840
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:41,759
Speaker 1: if you've got any bears that you need shot, I'll

841
00:46:41,800 --> 00:46:45,600
Speaker 1: helicopter in. Um. I've got about a five minute attention

842
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:50,400
Speaker 1: span like Nikki, but that ought to be enough. Allegedly, Yeah,

843
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:52,879
Speaker 1: you're fine, You're fine, it'll be good, it'll be good.

844
00:46:52,920 --> 00:46:55,640
Speaker 1: I'll just keep shooting until I hit something much like

845
00:46:55,719 --> 00:46:59,600
Speaker 1: chow Chessco. Now, so chow Chessco builds himself this mansion.

846
00:47:00,200 --> 00:47:03,480
Speaker 1: But he realized that he decides pretty quickly. It's it's

847
00:47:03,560 --> 00:47:06,880
Speaker 1: nice having a mansion, certainly, but that's also not nearly

848
00:47:07,040 --> 00:47:09,640
Speaker 1: enough for a guy with my kind of tastes. And

849
00:47:09,719 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: so there's this in nineteen seventy seven, there's this devastating

850
00:47:13,120 --> 00:47:16,640
Speaker 1: earthquake in the capital in Bucharest Um And most people

851
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:21,120
Speaker 1: would say devastating earthquake, that's a tragedy, but Chu says,

852
00:47:21,160 --> 00:47:24,319
Speaker 1: devastating earthquake, well ship that got rid of a lot

853
00:47:24,360 --> 00:47:26,960
Speaker 1: of buildings that weren't doing anything but taking up space

854
00:47:27,000 --> 00:47:32,480
Speaker 1: I could have replaced with a balace. Tragedy the opportunity

855
00:47:32,560 --> 00:47:35,160
Speaker 1: that that's right, And you know you You might say

856
00:47:35,200 --> 00:47:38,359
Speaker 1: he's a dreamer, Jeff, but he's certainly not the only one,

857
00:47:38,640 --> 00:47:42,040
Speaker 1: because nobody is allowed to disagree with his dreams. Um,

858
00:47:42,080 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 1: are you proud of yourself? Thank you. I'm always proud

859
00:47:45,239 --> 00:47:48,239
Speaker 1: of myself as long as you're proud, because I'm not

860
00:47:49,120 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 1: proud of him. Thank you, thank you, Jeff, not thank you, Sophie,

861
00:47:53,360 --> 00:47:55,719
Speaker 1: and thank you Chaochescu. Because the thing he's about to

862
00:47:55,760 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 1: do next is he's about to start construction of a

863
00:47:58,239 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 1: parliamentary palace for Romania. Now I thought you were going

864
00:48:01,280 --> 00:48:03,160
Speaker 1: to say a death star for some reason. I don't

865
00:48:03,160 --> 00:48:06,040
Speaker 1: know why I thought that, but it is a little

866
00:48:06,040 --> 00:48:08,719
Speaker 1: bit of a death star. Undergone construction of a new

867
00:48:08,760 --> 00:48:11,399
Speaker 1: death star. It is going to be a death star

868
00:48:11,520 --> 00:48:15,680
Speaker 1: for the Romanian economy because the palace they are building. Again,

869
00:48:16,000 --> 00:48:20,480
Speaker 1: Romania lovely country, a lot of great resources, not a

870
00:48:20,560 --> 00:48:24,080
Speaker 1: massive country, right, tend to twenty million people, you know,

871
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 1: kind of over the course of his reign, it gets

872
00:48:26,239 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 1: up to about twenty million people, so not like tiny,

873
00:48:29,719 --> 00:48:34,279
Speaker 1: but not a massive country. And Chaochescu decides, we need

874
00:48:34,440 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 1: one of the largest buildings ever constructed by human hands

875
00:48:38,480 --> 00:48:40,880
Speaker 1: in order to act as the center for our government,

876
00:48:41,880 --> 00:48:47,000
Speaker 1: tourism dollars folks. Yeah, well that's not legal. Um, there's

877
00:48:47,040 --> 00:48:51,400
Speaker 1: the biggest ball of yarn of Romania. Um, that's what

878
00:48:51,440 --> 00:48:53,000
Speaker 1: he should have done. He should have made the world's

879
00:48:53,000 --> 00:48:55,000
Speaker 1: biggest ball of yarn and then lived inside of it.

880
00:48:55,280 --> 00:48:59,080
Speaker 1: He is not going to do that, Um, Sophie, would

881
00:48:59,120 --> 00:49:01,759
Speaker 1: you google chich Escu stairs so you can pull up

882
00:49:01,800 --> 00:49:06,000
Speaker 1: some of these pictures pictures for for uh, for Jeff

883
00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: while I tell this story. So today, the Parliamentary Palace

884
00:49:10,400 --> 00:49:13,920
Speaker 1: that chaw Chesku had built is the third largest building

885
00:49:13,920 --> 00:49:17,319
Speaker 1: on the planet by volume. Um. It comes in right

886
00:49:17,360 --> 00:49:21,320
Speaker 1: after the Aztec Pyramid of Teotihuacan and the Cape Canaveral

887
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:25,040
Speaker 1: rocket assembly hangar. It uses thirty It used thirty five

888
00:49:25,360 --> 00:49:29,280
Speaker 1: hundred tons of crystal and one million cubic meters of marble.

889
00:49:29,840 --> 00:49:32,799
Speaker 1: The carpet of the main hall weighed on its own

890
00:49:32,920 --> 00:49:35,200
Speaker 1: one and a half tons. When you have a three

891
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:41,279
Speaker 1: thousand pound carpet, that's a big building. Now, the earthquake

892
00:49:41,360 --> 00:49:44,759
Speaker 1: had not destroyed enough of the enough of the city

893
00:49:44,880 --> 00:49:48,359
Speaker 1: to make room for this palace, So Chauchescu ordered the

894
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:52,640
Speaker 1: rest of the city center bulldozed. He flattened a hill. Yeah,

895
00:49:52,800 --> 00:49:54,600
Speaker 1: like you do. We gotta get rid of the rest

896
00:49:54,600 --> 00:49:56,840
Speaker 1: of this capital city so we can build a capital

897
00:49:56,880 --> 00:50:01,160
Speaker 1: for our city. UM. I prefer to that that has very,

898
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:05,400
Speaker 1: very like the forbidden city energy. Yeah. And he is.

899
00:50:05,480 --> 00:50:09,040
Speaker 1: He sees what happens to the government that makes a

900
00:50:09,080 --> 00:50:11,760
Speaker 1: forbidden city, and he decides, I want that for myself.

901
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:15,400
Speaker 1: Why not me? Yeah? Why not me too? Um. He

902
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:17,880
Speaker 1: changes the course of a river using dams, and he

903
00:50:17,960 --> 00:50:21,600
Speaker 1: forces he's going to evict forty thousand people from their

904
00:50:21,640 --> 00:50:25,000
Speaker 1: homes in order to build this thing. Every building, and

905
00:50:25,320 --> 00:50:27,960
Speaker 1: not only does he bulldoze the center of town in

906
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:32,359
Speaker 1: order to make this fucking thing? So yeah, every surrounding

907
00:50:32,440 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 1: building for four square miles is rebuilt. So not only

908
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:38,480
Speaker 1: does he demolish a bunch of buildings in the center

909
00:50:38,480 --> 00:50:41,440
Speaker 1: of town or to make this thing, but he demolishes

910
00:50:41,560 --> 00:50:44,680
Speaker 1: and rebuilds every building four miles within four miles of it,

911
00:50:44,760 --> 00:50:47,160
Speaker 1: so that it will match the style of the building.

912
00:50:47,239 --> 00:50:51,800
Speaker 1: It's pretty pretty impressive. Yeah, it is quite a building.

913
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:54,480
Speaker 1: You're looking at those photos now, yeah, Like, well, I'm

914
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:56,600
Speaker 1: seeing him, you know, Sophie did bring them up. We're

915
00:50:56,600 --> 00:51:02,880
Speaker 1: looking at these things and like the hell, well, the

916
00:51:02,880 --> 00:51:05,560
Speaker 1: man forced a large number of other people to make

917
00:51:05,560 --> 00:51:11,360
Speaker 1: an impressive looks like scientology, just a little bit scientology

918
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:16,040
Speaker 1: esk Um. Yeah, so that's pretty cool. Um. He calls

919
00:51:16,080 --> 00:51:20,480
Speaker 1: it the people's Palace. Um, Like yeah, and in order

920
00:51:20,520 --> 00:51:23,000
Speaker 1: to make the people's Palace, he has to demolish multiple

921
00:51:23,040 --> 00:51:27,560
Speaker 1: hospitals and as well as two dozen historic churches and synagogues. Um.

922
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:31,560
Speaker 1: They do say nothing for him, No, No, he's he'll

923
00:51:31,600 --> 00:51:36,600
Speaker 1: demolish a lot more than that before I'm in Um.

924
00:51:36,920 --> 00:51:39,360
Speaker 1: He also, like, while this is going on, there's this

925
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:43,759
Speaker 1: kind of like um, covert plan within citizens of Bucharest

926
00:51:43,800 --> 00:51:48,000
Speaker 1: where they figure out how to lift up historic churches

927
00:51:48,120 --> 00:51:51,040
Speaker 1: and put them on wheels and like drive them away

928
00:51:51,080 --> 00:51:53,719
Speaker 1: from where Cheski wants to destroy them, and so they

929
00:51:53,760 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 1: wind up like hiding. There's all these there's these there's

930
00:51:56,200 --> 00:51:58,920
Speaker 1: I think like three of them, these old Orthodox churches

931
00:51:59,239 --> 00:52:01,840
Speaker 1: that are like in the middle of these gigantic warrens

932
00:52:01,960 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 1: of massive apartment buildings because they had to hide them

933
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:07,120
Speaker 1: from him. He didn't want to see them, so they

934
00:52:07,120 --> 00:52:09,879
Speaker 1: had to like stick them in courtyards and stuff where

935
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:12,360
Speaker 1: nobody could see them so that they wouldn't be destroyed

936
00:52:12,360 --> 00:52:18,959
Speaker 1: by Chess. Genuinely unhinged. Pretty it's pretty cool stuff. Yeah,

937
00:52:19,000 --> 00:52:22,759
Speaker 1: that's like yakety sacks playing while they're moving. Now. I

938
00:52:22,800 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: want to quote now from an article in CNN Travel

939
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:28,880
Speaker 1: that interviewed Irene, a parliamentary aid who works in the

940
00:52:28,920 --> 00:52:31,280
Speaker 1: building today, or at least did when that article was written.

941
00:52:31,400 --> 00:52:36,400
Speaker 1: Well passed escuse period. Quote. Construction involved seven d architects

942
00:52:36,440 --> 00:52:39,160
Speaker 1: and twenty thousand building workers doing three shifts a day,

943
00:52:39,440 --> 00:52:42,520
Speaker 1: plus five thousand army personnel, one and a half million

944
00:52:42,560 --> 00:52:46,560
Speaker 1: factory workers, and an army of so called volunteers. You

945
00:52:46,600 --> 00:52:50,440
Speaker 1: didn't always get to volunteer. The palaces Union Hall features

946
00:52:50,480 --> 00:52:53,240
Speaker 1: two large spiral staircases that descend to the main entrance

947
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:55,600
Speaker 1: to allow Chachesscu and his wife Elena to make grand

948
00:52:55,640 --> 00:52:58,960
Speaker 1: synchronized entrances. He was short and touchy about his height,

949
00:52:59,040 --> 00:53:02,000
Speaker 1: says Irene, so he had the staircases rebuilt twice to

950
00:53:02,120 --> 00:53:05,200
Speaker 1: match his step. All right, I'm gonna say that that's

951
00:53:05,239 --> 00:53:08,040
Speaker 1: not a good investment of money. No, no, no, you

952
00:53:08,040 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 1: gotta make you gotta you gotta make it sound right, right, Um,

953
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:12,600
Speaker 1: you gotta make it look like you're a taller man.

954
00:53:12,719 --> 00:53:15,239
Speaker 1: So you have to change the staircase is repeating. Man,

955
00:53:15,320 --> 00:53:17,520
Speaker 1: just spend that money on lifts if that's the case,

956
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:22,080
Speaker 1: or yeah, bigger shoes. Irene claps her hands. The sound

957
00:53:22,120 --> 00:53:25,680
Speaker 1: travels crisply. Every chamber has a perfect echo because when

958
00:53:25,680 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 1: Cesco wanted something, he clapped and he wanted everyone to

959
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:32,520
Speaker 1: know he'd clapped. Oh yeah, that was very big in

960
00:53:32,680 --> 00:53:36,279
Speaker 1: um google architecture. Actually, they used to do that a

961
00:53:36,280 --> 00:53:39,440
Speaker 1: lot in palaces. They would have those reflective the refractive

962
00:53:40,080 --> 00:53:43,520
Speaker 1: yeah whatever, the I forget what the building processes where

963
00:53:43,560 --> 00:53:45,560
Speaker 1: you'd clap in one spot and it would travel all

964
00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:48,319
Speaker 1: the way to a central location. Yeah, there's actually this,

965
00:53:48,560 --> 00:53:51,240
Speaker 1: It's really actually pretty amazing what people can do with stuff.

966
00:53:51,280 --> 00:53:55,400
Speaker 1: There's this, like with with the way sound travels around objects.

967
00:53:55,400 --> 00:53:58,440
Speaker 1: There's this art project by the wharf in San Francisco

968
00:53:58,440 --> 00:54:01,120
Speaker 1: where it's these two big metal chair rs that are like,

969
00:54:01,160 --> 00:54:03,960
Speaker 1: I don't know, thirty feet apart, and you can sit

970
00:54:04,000 --> 00:54:06,520
Speaker 1: in one and like whisper and the person in the

971
00:54:06,520 --> 00:54:09,440
Speaker 1: other chair will hear you clearly just because of like

972
00:54:09,520 --> 00:54:12,160
Speaker 1: the way the sound waves travel. It's fucking wild. Um,

973
00:54:12,200 --> 00:54:14,319
Speaker 1: some of the stuff that that you can do with

974
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:18,759
Speaker 1: that ship. Um. But yeah, as impressive as aspects of

975
00:54:18,800 --> 00:54:22,319
Speaker 1: this building are, it is not worth the money. Um,

976
00:54:22,400 --> 00:54:25,360
Speaker 1: and in fact is kind of like a massive disaster

977
00:54:25,680 --> 00:54:32,200
Speaker 1: from every practical standpoint. So today in Romania, the People's

978
00:54:32,239 --> 00:54:35,520
Speaker 1: Palace is still empty, Right, They're still using this thing

979
00:54:35,560 --> 00:54:38,759
Speaker 1: because like, well it's kind of you have to at

980
00:54:38,800 --> 00:54:41,719
Speaker 1: this point. But like they've never it's never even been close.

981
00:54:41,800 --> 00:54:44,800
Speaker 1: They never needed anything nearly this big, Like a building

982
00:54:44,880 --> 00:54:47,440
Speaker 1: the third of the size would have been perfectly adequate

983
00:54:47,640 --> 00:54:50,600
Speaker 1: for their needs well into the future. Um, but you know,

984
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:54,680
Speaker 1: Cho wanted to look fancy. Now fancy looking he is

985
00:54:55,040 --> 00:54:58,400
Speaker 1: he is. And another person who liked looking fancy was

986
00:54:58,400 --> 00:55:02,600
Speaker 1: a Lena Curchesco. She had developed very expensive tastes over

987
00:55:02,640 --> 00:55:04,800
Speaker 1: the period of their time and power for high faction

988
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:10,160
Speaker 1: and luxury goods. And it ain't cheap covering that ass No, no, no,

989
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:12,560
Speaker 1: you need a lot of a lot of nice fabric

990
00:55:13,120 --> 00:55:16,840
Speaker 1: um and so esco. Obviously, regular Romanians are not allowed

991
00:55:16,840 --> 00:55:20,040
Speaker 1: to travel unless they're involved in the security services UM,

992
00:55:20,080 --> 00:55:22,600
Speaker 1: and they're certainly not allowed to go buying capitalist goods

993
00:55:22,640 --> 00:55:26,440
Speaker 1: unless they're paying bribes and ship. But Cescu's family, well,

994
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:28,680
Speaker 1: they're able to travel, They're able to go shopping, you know,

995
00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:31,600
Speaker 1: wherever they want. And we're going to go to the US.

996
00:55:31,600 --> 00:55:33,520
Speaker 1: We're gonna go to Paris. We're gonna buy all the

997
00:55:33,600 --> 00:55:35,719
Speaker 1: nice luxury goods we can. Now, the problem with that

998
00:55:36,120 --> 00:55:39,919
Speaker 1: is that it takes cash to do that, UM, and

999
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:43,480
Speaker 1: getting cash is going to because again this is a

1000
00:55:43,520 --> 00:55:46,240
Speaker 1: communist state, they have to get a little creative about

1001
00:55:46,280 --> 00:55:50,080
Speaker 1: where they find cash for these kind of fulling shopping excursions.

1002
00:55:50,520 --> 00:55:54,319
Speaker 1: And Chescu decides that the best way to kind of

1003
00:55:54,440 --> 00:55:57,239
Speaker 1: ring water from the stone that Romanian had become on

1004
00:55:57,480 --> 00:56:00,640
Speaker 1: Romania had become under him was to ransom off city

1005
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:03,560
Speaker 1: the country's Jewish population for cash. That's how he's going

1006
00:56:03,600 --> 00:56:08,200
Speaker 1: to pay for these shopping trips. He's Romania's Jews. How

1007
00:56:09,520 --> 00:56:15,480
Speaker 1: that's so much somehow worse? It is pretty bad. I

1008
00:56:15,560 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 1: don't think somehow we need to say yeah, well, I

1009
00:56:18,120 --> 00:56:22,919
Speaker 1: mean other than like straight out extermination, like yes, well,

1010
00:56:22,920 --> 00:56:27,399
Speaker 1: and that's I mean strange. It does involve obviously he's

1011
00:56:27,400 --> 00:56:30,920
Speaker 1: not killing anybody here, but it is this is intimately

1012
00:56:30,960 --> 00:56:34,640
Speaker 1: tied to genocide because you know, World War two ends,

1013
00:56:34,680 --> 00:56:37,319
Speaker 1: and an awful lot of Jews in Romania are like

1014
00:56:37,840 --> 00:56:42,759
Speaker 1: well Antonescue killed like half of us. Maybe this isn't

1015
00:56:42,800 --> 00:56:46,120
Speaker 1: a safe place to stay, and you know, it's it's

1016
00:56:46,160 --> 00:56:49,520
Speaker 1: it is perhaps time to go um. But obviously the

1017
00:56:49,640 --> 00:56:51,920
Speaker 1: people who are in charge, the new leadership of Romania

1018
00:56:52,160 --> 00:56:55,239
Speaker 1: UM are not going to do that, right. They don't

1019
00:56:55,239 --> 00:56:58,040
Speaker 1: want anyone leaving. They certainly don't want a fairly well

1020
00:56:58,160 --> 00:57:02,399
Speaker 1: educated and economically productive chunk of the population to suddenly leave.

1021
00:57:02,880 --> 00:57:06,520
Speaker 1: And so at first under George you Day, when Jewish

1022
00:57:06,520 --> 00:57:10,200
Speaker 1: people in Romania would try to leave, generally for Israel,

1023
00:57:10,640 --> 00:57:13,840
Speaker 1: they would ransom their Jewish population off to Israel and

1024
00:57:13,920 --> 00:57:16,080
Speaker 1: exchange for money and trade goods, a lot of it.

1025
00:57:16,120 --> 00:57:19,600
Speaker 1: They would like trade pigs for people. Um, because they

1026
00:57:19,640 --> 00:57:22,640
Speaker 1: were trying to start all of these factories. Um. Many

1027
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:25,880
Speaker 1: Romanian Jews were ransomed off in exchange for bull seamen,

1028
00:57:25,960 --> 00:57:31,440
Speaker 1: which was later used as part of a breeding program. Um. Yeah,

1029
00:57:31,440 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 1: it's a it's a whole thing. And when comes to

1030
00:57:35,280 --> 00:57:37,840
Speaker 1: power and he realizes what Georgiu Day had been doing,

1031
00:57:37,920 --> 00:57:40,360
Speaker 1: he was initially like livid, like, oh my god, that's

1032
00:57:40,400 --> 00:57:43,440
Speaker 1: actually kind of fucked up, like what the hell? Um,

1033
00:57:43,440 --> 00:57:46,480
Speaker 1: But then he starts to he gets over it when

1034
00:57:46,520 --> 00:57:48,480
Speaker 1: he understands how much money is at stake. And I'm

1035
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:50,520
Speaker 1: gonna quote from the book Children of the Night by

1036
00:57:50,520 --> 00:57:54,840
Speaker 1: Paul Kenyon here. Under Cichesco's stewardship in the nineteen seventies,

1037
00:57:54,840 --> 00:57:57,560
Speaker 1: the trade and Jews became even more elaborate and far

1038
00:57:57,640 --> 00:58:01,680
Speaker 1: more lucrative. Financing animal farm was no longer adequate. Churchesco

1039
00:58:01,840 --> 00:58:03,760
Speaker 1: was prepared to throw caution to the wind in a

1040
00:58:03,760 --> 00:58:06,800
Speaker 1: man direct cash payments in exchange for Jewish exit visas.

1041
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:09,520
Speaker 1: The ransom money was to be calculated according to a

1042
00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:12,120
Speaker 1: sliding scale at the lower end, where unemployed Jews and

1043
00:58:12,200 --> 00:58:15,280
Speaker 1: children who were considered Category D and required a ransom

1044
00:58:15,280 --> 00:58:18,440
Speaker 1: fee of around two thousand dollars. More well educated Jews

1045
00:58:18,440 --> 00:58:20,840
Speaker 1: were deemed Category A and could only be released from

1046
00:58:20,880 --> 00:58:23,240
Speaker 1: the country for a fee of six thousand dollars in

1047
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:26,560
Speaker 1: exceptional cases that rose to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.

1048
00:58:26,880 --> 00:58:29,280
Speaker 1: The secret trade and Jews provided an important source of

1049
00:58:29,320 --> 00:58:32,360
Speaker 1: income for Chesco. He never drew an official salary and

1050
00:58:32,400 --> 00:58:34,720
Speaker 1: in fact never actually earned a penny in his life,

1051
00:58:34,720 --> 00:58:36,760
Speaker 1: having worked in exchange for food and lodging when he

1052
00:58:36,800 --> 00:58:40,400
Speaker 1: was an apprentice shoemaker. The ransom money constituted an emergency

1053
00:58:40,480 --> 00:58:43,360
Speaker 1: slush fund. He kept it in secret bank accounts alongside

1054
00:58:43,360 --> 00:58:45,880
Speaker 1: the proceeds from other covert operations carried out by his

1055
00:58:45,920 --> 00:58:49,400
Speaker 1: foreign intelligence services. According to the former chief of his

1056
00:58:49,440 --> 00:58:54,320
Speaker 1: foreign intelligence services, Yon Pasipa, these accounts contained around four

1057
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:57,200
Speaker 1: hundred million dollars by the mid nineteen seventies that were

1058
00:58:57,280 --> 00:58:59,880
Speaker 1: used to buy a Western mortar call cars for Churchesco's

1059
00:58:59,920 --> 00:59:02,880
Speaker 1: chidred and custom built armored Mercedes limousines for the leader

1060
00:59:02,920 --> 00:59:05,200
Speaker 1: and his wife, along with the new acquisitions for A

1061
00:59:05,240 --> 00:59:08,240
Speaker 1: Lena's expanding collection of diamonds. The first Lady was notorious

1062
00:59:08,240 --> 00:59:11,560
Speaker 1: for purchasing jewels while on trips abroad, but on most occasions,

1063
00:59:11,560 --> 00:59:13,840
Speaker 1: her aids persuaded the foreign hosts to present her with

1064
00:59:13,880 --> 00:59:17,360
Speaker 1: expensive gifts. This is for a rainy day. Chowchesko would

1065
00:59:17,360 --> 00:59:20,040
Speaker 1: whisper to Pecipa as they discussed the slush fund while

1066
00:59:20,040 --> 00:59:23,920
Speaker 1: walking along the moonlit pathways around his villa. So that's cool,

1067
00:59:24,080 --> 00:59:28,240
Speaker 1: he's a Jew salesman. Yes, he's selling them to Israel.

1068
00:59:28,840 --> 00:59:33,360
Speaker 1: That's such an uncomfortable thing. Yeah, it is pretty gross.

1069
00:59:33,960 --> 00:59:36,960
Speaker 1: Pretty gross. Now within the broad context of his at

1070
00:59:37,000 --> 00:59:41,880
Speaker 1: least these people are getting out of chow Chess goose Romania. Um,

1071
00:59:41,920 --> 00:59:47,920
Speaker 1: but yeah, we probably don't need to do that. So

1072
00:59:48,240 --> 00:59:52,360
Speaker 1: I don't know, Jeff, you don't make your money by

1073
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:59,200
Speaker 1: ransoming Holocaust survivors off to another country. How do you

1074
00:59:59,280 --> 01:00:04,320
Speaker 1: make your money? Uh? That is fair, that's a great question.

1075
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:08,560
Speaker 1: Occasionally I I win small fortunes on Netflix game shows. Um,

1076
01:00:08,600 --> 01:00:11,640
Speaker 1: but when I'm not doing that, I have I do

1077
01:00:11,720 --> 01:00:15,880
Speaker 1: stand up and I am a podcaster. Um, I am

1078
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:20,240
Speaker 1: also a podcaster. I don't do stand up. Um, but

1079
01:00:20,320 --> 01:00:23,600
Speaker 1: you know what I do like is hearing you and

1080
01:00:23,720 --> 01:00:27,520
Speaker 1: Tom watch Batman. That's right, Tom and Jeff watch Batman.

1081
01:00:27,640 --> 01:00:29,800
Speaker 1: Is a is a podcast I do with Tom Ryman

1082
01:00:30,200 --> 01:00:33,360
Speaker 1: on game Fully Unemployed where we watch we go through

1083
01:00:33,400 --> 01:00:36,520
Speaker 1: the all of the annals of Batman history and we

1084
01:00:36,640 --> 01:00:39,960
Speaker 1: talk about it and we are doing Vent three super

1085
01:00:40,000 --> 01:00:43,680
Speaker 1: Friends and that is insane. So you can check that

1086
01:00:43,720 --> 01:00:47,200
Speaker 1: out at game Fully Unemployed. You can also hear you

1087
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:49,560
Speaker 1: Don't even like sports and in Popular Opinion both on

1088
01:00:49,600 --> 01:00:52,240
Speaker 1: the Unpopped Network with Adam Todd Brown and I do

1089
01:00:52,320 --> 01:00:54,560
Speaker 1: my own show called Jeff Has Cool Friends, which is

1090
01:00:54,640 --> 01:00:57,160
Speaker 1: a sort of long form interview podcast with people I

1091
01:00:57,200 --> 01:01:00,600
Speaker 1: know that have cool jobs and we we talk about

1092
01:01:00,640 --> 01:01:02,320
Speaker 1: it and that's really fun and that you can get

1093
01:01:02,320 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 1: for free if you just look up Jeff Has Cool

1094
01:01:04,360 --> 01:01:07,040
Speaker 1: Friends wherever, or you can go to patreon dot com

1095
01:01:07,080 --> 01:01:10,200
Speaker 1: slash Jeff May. You get early access to uncensored episodes

1096
01:01:10,280 --> 01:01:13,320
Speaker 1: with bonus content, as well as access to shows like

1097
01:01:13,400 --> 01:01:16,120
Speaker 1: ug Fine with Kim Crawl, which is a monthly show,

1098
01:01:16,200 --> 01:01:19,960
Speaker 1: the monthly show Nerd with Drey Alvarez, which is a

1099
01:01:20,080 --> 01:01:23,400
Speaker 1: deep dive into nerdy histories between me, who is more

1100
01:01:23,440 --> 01:01:26,840
Speaker 1: of like an artsy nerd and Drey Alvarez is a

1101
01:01:27,000 --> 01:01:31,360
Speaker 1: stats nerd. So it's an interesting clash of two worlds

1102
01:01:31,920 --> 01:01:34,320
Speaker 1: in that regard. If you want to see me live,

1103
01:01:34,480 --> 01:01:36,360
Speaker 1: I run a stand up show in a toy store

1104
01:01:36,360 --> 01:01:39,520
Speaker 1: and Burbank called Mint on Card. It is the second

1105
01:01:39,520 --> 01:01:41,640
Speaker 1: Friday of every month that blasts from the Past on

1106
01:01:41,720 --> 01:01:46,200
Speaker 1: Magnolia in Burbank, California. So our next show will be

1107
01:01:46,200 --> 01:01:49,520
Speaker 1: coming up pro quick February ten. And if you live

1108
01:01:49,520 --> 01:01:52,960
Speaker 1: in New England, I'm doing a very rare one night

1109
01:01:53,000 --> 01:01:57,480
Speaker 1: only show at Redemption Rock Brewery in Worcester, Massachusetts, and

1110
01:01:57,520 --> 01:02:02,920
Speaker 1: that is Wednesday, February twenty second. Um. I'm very excited

1111
01:02:02,960 --> 01:02:05,320
Speaker 1: to be able to get home. I perform back home

1112
01:02:05,440 --> 01:02:08,000
Speaker 1: once a year. Uh, and it seems like this is

1113
01:02:08,000 --> 01:02:10,280
Speaker 1: going to be it. I do a lot of local talent.

1114
01:02:10,840 --> 01:02:12,840
Speaker 1: I managed to make sure that the people that I

1115
01:02:12,840 --> 01:02:16,560
Speaker 1: work with are not scum, which is very hard in comedy.

1116
01:02:18,400 --> 01:02:21,600
Speaker 1: How you know what, It's almost as hard as finding

1117
01:02:21,920 --> 01:02:25,240
Speaker 1: a good dictator. Yeah, it's very hard. It's I I

1118
01:02:25,320 --> 01:02:27,960
Speaker 1: get to I get to I get to take the

1119
01:02:28,040 --> 01:02:30,360
Speaker 1: moral high point of saying, if I find out a

1120
01:02:30,400 --> 01:02:33,160
Speaker 1: comedian is a rapist, I don't work with them anymore.

1121
01:02:33,680 --> 01:02:36,160
Speaker 1: And the club's very hard to get the clubs to

1122
01:02:36,200 --> 01:02:38,840
Speaker 1: buy into that. Um. But I love stand up. I

1123
01:02:38,840 --> 01:02:42,120
Speaker 1: love doing it. I love my hometown, I love performing.

1124
01:02:42,480 --> 01:02:44,360
Speaker 1: I keep the tickets cheap. So if you want to

1125
01:02:44,400 --> 01:02:46,720
Speaker 1: check that out Redemption Rock Brewery, and you can go

1126
01:02:46,760 --> 01:02:49,320
Speaker 1: to my social media at hey there Jeff ro for

1127
01:02:49,360 --> 01:02:52,400
Speaker 1: more information about that. Hell yeah, we'll check all of

1128
01:02:52,440 --> 01:02:57,000
Speaker 1: that out. Um and uh, I don't know, go uh

1129
01:02:57,360 --> 01:03:00,400
Speaker 1: go go to hell. But you know we should do

1130
01:03:00,800 --> 01:03:03,080
Speaker 1: huh we should do this again in a couple of days.

1131
01:03:03,200 --> 01:03:04,600
Speaker 1: We should do this and again in a couple of

1132
01:03:04,720 --> 01:03:08,480
Speaker 1: days and talk more about chow Chessco, particularly the end

1133
01:03:08,480 --> 01:03:10,480
Speaker 1: of chow Chessco. Actually, there's a lot of other funked

1134
01:03:10,560 --> 01:03:15,160
Speaker 1: up ship including, um, the inevitable consequence of banning all

1135
01:03:15,240 --> 01:03:19,120
Speaker 1: contraception in your country. Um. And uh yeah, we'll get

1136
01:03:19,160 --> 01:03:25,080
Speaker 1: we'll talk cult personality, we'll talk getting shot with your wife,

1137
01:03:25,520 --> 01:03:27,960
Speaker 1: all the good chow Chessco. Shit. If you're going to

1138
01:03:28,040 --> 01:03:32,800
Speaker 1: get shot up, someone might as well do with your wife, right, yeah, man,

1139
01:03:32,840 --> 01:03:35,240
Speaker 1: not if it's a Lana. Actually no, that sounds a yeah,

1140
01:03:35,320 --> 01:03:37,880
Speaker 1: that sounds actually well maybe worse. I don't know, that's

1141
01:03:37,880 --> 01:03:42,280
Speaker 1: actually way worse. Yeah, who knows. We all as everybody

1142
01:03:42,960 --> 01:03:45,400
Speaker 1: gets to choose who you want to get shot with. Um,

1143
01:03:45,600 --> 01:03:51,440
Speaker 1: that's not true anyway. Episodes over perfect, finished, excellent, dismount.

1144
01:03:53,480 --> 01:03:56,200
Speaker 1: Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media.

1145
01:03:56,520 --> 01:03:59,120
Speaker 1: For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool

1146
01:03:59,200 --> 01:04:02,200
Speaker 1: zone media dot com, or check us out on the

1147
01:04:02,240 --> 01:04:05,680
Speaker 1: iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.