Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready, are you hey? And welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark with me as always, It's Charles W.
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant that makes the stuff. You should know the
Speaker 1: podcast the audio version, because we have a video version, baby. Yeah.
Speaker 1: We throw videos that once a week now. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: I mean we have like a video version of our
Speaker 1: podcast that has rules. It's like a game show, remember
Speaker 1: the stupid game show and we hey, yeah, yeah, that
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Speaker 1: the video section of how Stuff works and search in
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Speaker 1: able to find that. And it's not an audio version
Speaker 1: of what we do. It's a totally different. It's like
Speaker 1: a couple of minutes long new content that you've never heard.
Speaker 1: Loose fun. It's not that fun, but it is definitely loose.
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Speaker 1: we love w FMU and it's we're very proud to
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Speaker 1: classic episode. It makes them kiss like Barbie Dolls, right
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Speaker 1: audio books, one on the Economy, one Unhappiness. You can
Speaker 1: find them on iTunes. Yeah, super stuff guides. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: you're ready now, Chuck. Have you heard about this occupy
Speaker 1: Wall Street jam? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, they're shutting it down
Speaker 1: here and there are they? I thought they were generally
Speaker 1: keeping it as long as it uh stayed contained in
Speaker 1: Zuccati Park. It was relatively okay. Well, I mean in
Speaker 1: different cities. They're like, cleared them out of Atlanta yesterday,
Speaker 1: Oakland and tear gas them, tear gasts and stunt grenades,
Speaker 1: and the apparently when they came back, they tear gast
Speaker 1: them again, stun grenade at them. And there and the
Speaker 1: the Occupy Oakland people are like, we're gonna come back
Speaker 1: every day, and the cops that are like, we're gonna
Speaker 1: stunt grenade you every day. We got lots of stunt grenades.
Speaker 1: Did they clear out Atlanta? What happened? He cleared out
Speaker 1: Atlanta overnight last night, I think, But I don't know
Speaker 1: if people are gonna come back or nothing. It is
Speaker 1: so shady to clear it out overnight. It happens apparently
Speaker 1: so well. Occupy Wall Street in particulars doing pretty well. Um.
Speaker 1: It started September seventeenth, and as of today, October UM,
Speaker 1: it's been going on for thirty nine days, which is substantial.
Speaker 1: I think a lot of people are surprised that it's
Speaker 1: been going on this long, But as long as thirty
Speaker 1: nine days seems it's got nothing on the occupation of
Speaker 1: Alcatraz that took place starting November nine sixty nine and
Speaker 1: lasted nineteen months. The Red Power movement, Yes, Red Power.
Speaker 1: Basically this was you've heard of AIM, the American Indian movement,
Speaker 1: the one that UM Marlon Brando helped out by having
Speaker 1: what was her name, Little Feather go except as Oscar, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that was her name. UM this started that.
Speaker 1: This is largely credited with starting that. So November sixty
Speaker 1: nine a guy named Richard Mackenzie who was a UM.
Speaker 1: I think he was a mohawk. No, I'm sorry, Uh,
Speaker 1: Richard Oakes was a mohawk and he led an occupation
Speaker 1: UM that took over another occupation basically that it started
Speaker 1: like a couple of weeks earlier, and UM basically just
Speaker 1: sat in with about a hundred people on Alcatraz and said, hey,
Speaker 1: we think this should be a cultural center for Native Americans,
Speaker 1: and we think it should be the site of an
Speaker 1: Indian university as well, and we're gonna stay here until
Speaker 1: you meet our demands. And they did. And one of
Speaker 1: the key UM ingredients of this was that it was
Speaker 1: UM inner tribal. There was more than one tribe. It
Speaker 1: wasn't just the Mohawks who were doing this, which made
Speaker 1: it UM groundbreaking as far as um Indian, the Indian
Speaker 1: movement was concerned um and it lasted for a while,
Speaker 1: It had its ups and downs, and basically it was
Speaker 1: ultimately co opted by the dirty hippies in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: um on the across the bay, who started showing up
Speaker 1: and like doing drugs, like openly in the in the prison. Now, granted,
Speaker 1: you don't get too many opportunities to take acid on Alcatraz,
Speaker 1: but they they ended up eroding the occupation severely the
Speaker 1: right and there was a basis for that. Even the
Speaker 1: Treaty of Fort Laramie in eighteen sixty eight said that
Speaker 1: all retired, abandoned, out of use federal land shall be
Speaker 1: returned to the Native people from whom it was acquired.
Speaker 1: And since Alcatraz the prison had shut down in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty three, it was declared a surplus federal property. So
Speaker 1: they said, you know what, We'll give you forty seven
Speaker 1: cents an acre, which is what you bought it for.
Speaker 1: So we'll give you nine dollars and forty cents for Alcatraz.
Speaker 1: Nice And they said no, let's bring in the coast Guard. Well,
Speaker 1: for a while it was tolerated again nineteen months. But
Speaker 1: then in January, two oil tankers collided UH in San
Speaker 1: Francisco Bay, and although there was it was clearly established
Speaker 1: that the lighthouse, which was no longer working on Alcatraz
Speaker 1: because of the movement, had no part in this. It
Speaker 1: was enough so that public sentiment was like, get those
Speaker 1: guys out of there. So Nixon was like, get them
Speaker 1: out of there. Yeah, they shut down the power, shut
Speaker 1: off telephone service, a fire broke out, and then it
Speaker 1: dwindled down to about fifteen people, and that was small
Speaker 1: enough to where they could just go in and say,
Speaker 1: come on, five women, four children, six unarmed men, and
Speaker 1: Richard Oakes thirteen year old stepdaughter unfortunately felled her to
Speaker 1: death during the middle of this occupation three three stories
Speaker 1: down because she probably fell from a cell block because
Speaker 1: they were three tiers high. That's right. So this is
Speaker 1: just one major event in the history of Alcatraz, one
Speaker 1: of many UH in. Alcatraz itself dates back at least
Speaker 1: well far before this. As far as Europeans are concerned,
Speaker 1: Alcatraz origins begin in seventeen seventy five, but let's talk
Speaker 1: about the Native American um use of Alcatraz before then.
Speaker 1: I got one more interesting factory. A young Benjamin Bratt
Speaker 1: was one of the with his mother and sisters, Benjamin
Speaker 1: brad of TV's Law and Order fame. Wow, he was
Speaker 1: one of the one of the kids. That's awesome, alright.
Speaker 1: So taking Alcatraz, let's go back in time to the
Speaker 1: Native Americans. There was some rumors that it was actually
Speaker 1: a prison for them as well, where they would exile
Speaker 1: those who broke tribal law, but historians say that might
Speaker 1: not be the case. They probably just went there looking
Speaker 1: for eggs there, Pelican egg specifically, because the word Alcatraz
Speaker 1: is an anglicization. I think that's right of the word alcatrasis,
Speaker 1: which means Pelicans or gannetts. Though that's what I didn't
Speaker 1: get working on with Pelicans, that's what I've heard, but
Speaker 1: alcatrazs which was given to the island by the Spanish
Speaker 1: explorer Don Juan Manuel day Ayala in seventeen seventy five
Speaker 1: when he sailed into San Francisco Bay. He was pretty
Speaker 1: cool because he was like, it is on this site
Speaker 1: that I decree here and he will eventually play. Yes,
Speaker 1: that's right, Yeah, that was my Don Juan Ayala. Very nice,
Speaker 1: very nice. So that was that was the earliest history
Speaker 1: that we know of, even though it's not written down. UH.
Speaker 1: In eighteen forty seven there was an official survey of
Speaker 1: this island, which we should mention is a the top
Speaker 1: of a mountain, because San Francisco Bay used to be
Speaker 1: a valley. Pretty much all islands are tops of mountains
Speaker 1: when you get down to it. Yeah, But I like
Speaker 1: how Grabanowski was like, no, I'm just coming out and
Speaker 1: saying it. In this time, Lieutenant William H. Warner of
Speaker 1: the U. S. Army UH was like, Hey, this is
Speaker 1: a really prime location here in the bay to UH
Speaker 1: stage munitions and to have a defense position. So let's
Speaker 1: construct let's construct a building here to guard against the
Speaker 1: Confederate soldiers. And you don't I don't really think about
Speaker 1: you know, it's your north and south, but forget about
Speaker 1: San Francisco on there. Yeah, being a part of the
Speaker 1: Civil War. Oh yeah, especially with the gold rush going
Speaker 1: on out there. Anybody who controlled San Francisco controlled the
Speaker 1: substantial amount of gold. So it's a big deal. But
Speaker 1: despite the fortifications that were eventually built there and the
Speaker 1: guns that were brought there, the citadel is what they
Speaker 1: called it. But It is not to be confused with
Speaker 1: the school. Um. The the guns were fired a couple
Speaker 1: of times, but never in battle. It was always like
Speaker 1: a case of mistaken identity, like what was that? Or yeah,
Speaker 1: or everybody who was on stationed on Alcatraz got drunk
Speaker 1: and just fired him off out of boardom I suppose
Speaker 1: that could have happened. Um, eventually people started being sent Alcatraz.
Speaker 1: If you deserted and were caught, or your court martial
Speaker 1: and it didn't go so well, you might end up
Speaker 1: on Alcatraz, especially if you were stationed around there. And Um,
Speaker 1: the guy who was the head of the um fort
Speaker 1: they're basically, was like, wow, we have a basement. I
Speaker 1: guess we can start keeping people in the basement, and
Speaker 1: we will. It's a brig Now build a couple of
Speaker 1: cells here there. And then all of a sudden it
Speaker 1: became very apparent not only is it a great spot
Speaker 1: for a garrison, it's a great spot for a prison, because, Chuck,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of aspects to Alcatraz that that make
Speaker 1: it a very attractive prison location. It's an island, it's
Speaker 1: a rock, there's a prison on it, and the water
Speaker 1: is very chilly. Uh, and it's invested with great white sharks.
Speaker 1: And that's the word everyone uses, is infested. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's is it infested, that's what everyone uses.
Speaker 1: Even San Franciscan's are like infested. They make it sound
Speaker 1: like you jump in and you will be attacked by
Speaker 1: great white sharks. Have you ever seen the movie Piranha. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like that, but with great white sharks. I saw
Speaker 1: the remake the other day. By the way, how is it?
Speaker 1: It is kind of awesomely gruesomely awesome and funny? Is
Speaker 1: it an homage to the first one? Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: it's way over the top, and it's one of those
Speaker 1: is so over the top it's like, well this is
Speaker 1: kind of fun. It's not good. I have a feeling
Speaker 1: it's sort of like that. But yeah, there's way way
Speaker 1: over the top and awesome for that reason too. But
Speaker 1: have you seen Piranha three D? You remembers they fly eventually? Yeah?
Speaker 1: The Spawning? Yeah you know who wrote that actually, Benjamin Bratt,
Speaker 1: no amazing writer filmmaker John Sales. Yeah, that was one
Speaker 1: of his first writing jobs in Hollywood, was writing a
Speaker 1: Piranha three The Spawning. I think crazy, you know, Roger
Speaker 1: Ebert wrote, Um, yea, did we talk about that and
Speaker 1: they exploitation film. Yeah, that's well you should say that
Speaker 1: beyond the Valley of the Dolls. All right, back to Alcatraz,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, back to the citadel post Civil War. Um,
Speaker 1: there was a big earthquake in San Francisco in nineteen
Speaker 1: o six, and so they had to actually bring two
Speaker 1: hundred regular civilian prisoners out to Alcatraz, and uh, you know,
Speaker 1: the military at that point was like, you know, it's
Speaker 1: really expensive. Let's we don't really need a military prison anymore. So, um,
Speaker 1: let's tear the citadel down. Jedger Hoover said, we need
Speaker 1: a big deterrent in a big scary place, So why
Speaker 1: don't we use Alcatraz and make that a regular federal
Speaker 1: penitentiary penitentiary. Well, that was in the thirties. In l
Speaker 1: they said the citadel, we do need a military prison,
Speaker 1: or if we're gonna do it, let's do it right,
Speaker 1: And they tore the citadel down and built the military prison.
Speaker 1: They built actually the technical name was the United States
Speaker 1: Military Prison Pacific Branch, Alcatraz Island, and that was in
Speaker 1: nineteen twelve. But then, like you said, they were like,
Speaker 1: this is really expensive. You got to bring in everything
Speaker 1: from the San Francisco area. Everyone knows how exp some
Speaker 1: cheeses in San Francisco. And they're like, hey, Mr JAA Hoover,
Speaker 1: look over here. And he did, right, he did. He said,
Speaker 1: I'm trying to crack down on all these bootleggers and
Speaker 1: all of these chippies, and I need a prison that's
Speaker 1: gonna just scare people. Just the name of it's gonna
Speaker 1: scare people. And I'm in love with my assistant and
Speaker 1: and we're gonna we're gonna use Alcatraz because it is again,
Speaker 1: a perfect prison, that's right. So that that happened. Ownership
Speaker 1: was transferred in between thirty three and thirty four, and
Speaker 1: they brought the first regular civilian prisoners prisoners over to
Speaker 1: stay and in secrecy. Yeah, I wonder why. I think
Speaker 1: that's a good way to start off the worst prison
Speaker 1: in the country. Okay, well they secretly transporting prisoners there.
Speaker 1: That's like, yeah, that makes you feel like you can
Speaker 1: be stolen out of your house at any moment. All right.
Speaker 1: So that is the history of the island and the
Speaker 1: origins of the prison a k a. Part one. Now
Speaker 1: starts part too. M M, thank you, Chuck. Yes. Part
Speaker 1: two begins with oh, let me stop you first. By
Speaker 1: the way, did you mentioned that lighthouse. That's the very
Speaker 1: first lighthouse on the West coast, and they rebuilt it
Speaker 1: and it still operates today. Yeah. They actually had to
Speaker 1: rebuild it because they started building up San Francisco and
Speaker 1: the lighthouses, like, I can't see it's foggy, yeah, and
Speaker 1: the sharks everywhere help and uh so they tore it
Speaker 1: down and built it again in nineteen nine and now
Speaker 1: it's bigger and it's unobstructed. That's right, all right, So
Speaker 1: modern day or more modern day at least Alcatraz. We
Speaker 1: mentioned it's a mountain top of a mountain. It's very rocky,
Speaker 1: and well they call it the rock for a reason. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of plant life growing there. It's
Speaker 1: not some beautiful island getaway. No. Almost all the plant
Speaker 1: life that grows there was brought in by construction crews
Speaker 1: over the years who were like, God, we need a
Speaker 1: tree or something here, you need a boxwood or something,
Speaker 1: and so they started bringing in so oil and shrubs
Speaker 1: and trees and planted a few things here there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a few of those things found purchase. It's just a
Speaker 1: dead piece of rock, which just adds to the gloom
Speaker 1: and the dismalness of it, right, which actually plays a
Speaker 1: part in the end of the great, great great movie
Speaker 1: Escape from Alcatraz movie. Remember you saw the little flower
Speaker 1: on the shore. Yeah, that's right. He's like, they ain't
Speaker 1: no flowers like this here. Yeah. Uh so Alcatraz Josh
Speaker 1: was built to accommodate six hundred cons but it only
Speaker 1: held about three hundred, and at the time in l
Speaker 1: it was really innovative because first you had the island
Speaker 1: as as hey, you can't escape from the island, so
Speaker 1: why bother trying. Then they had cellblocks within the concrete wall,
Speaker 1: so it was for the first time you know it
Speaker 1: cells within cells almost right. You didn't have a window
Speaker 1: looking out to the outside from yourself, no, no, no, um.
Speaker 1: So yeah, if you wanted to get your way out
Speaker 1: of there, you had to make it through the wall
Speaker 1: of your cell and then the outer wall. That's right. Um.
Speaker 1: They also had metal detectors, which were pretty much new,
Speaker 1: brand new at the time, and rather than the key
Speaker 1: like they had in the Green Mile, they had the levers.
Speaker 1: The lever system to open cell blocks, like they had
Speaker 1: an escape from Alcatraz, which was a big deal because
Speaker 1: you could do that remotely. You didn't have to go
Speaker 1: to the cell where you're vulnerable. Uh. They also reinforced
Speaker 1: all the iron with hardened steels called tools distant because
Speaker 1: you couldn't cut through it, just like me, because you
Speaker 1: couldn't cut through the hacksaw. And apparently it cost as
Speaker 1: much to install those did to build it in the
Speaker 1: first place. So so the average the typical cell um
Speaker 1: was something like, uh, five ft wide by nine ft deep,
Speaker 1: and they were concrete walls. How big is this in here? Oh,
Speaker 1: this is like two cells. I think if you go
Speaker 1: like this, it's like two cells going that way. Yiche.
Speaker 1: All three three, three of the four walls were made
Speaker 1: of um concrete, and then the fourth wall was the
Speaker 1: um steel tool resistant um bars. That's right, the fourth wall.
Speaker 1: You didn't want to break that. People thought you were corny.
Speaker 1: That a little bed. You have a little turlet. You
Speaker 1: had a couple of shelves in the back to put
Speaker 1: your stuff. You had a little they call it a desk.
Speaker 1: It was really just a sort of a little fold down.
Speaker 1: It was very small. Obviously everything was small. And that
Speaker 1: was it. That was it. No uh, you know, no
Speaker 1: dub's no breakfast in bed and you could, uh, you
Speaker 1: can imagine this is pretty bad in and of itself.
Speaker 1: But that's a block, B block and C block, right,
Speaker 1: that's right. Um, there was also D Block, and D
Speaker 1: Block was where if you were trouble they sent you.
Speaker 1: They called that the treatment unit. Yeah, it was the
Speaker 1: inhumane treatment is what they should have called it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: That they had um, I think fourteen or fifth cells
Speaker 1: in D Block and that was solitary confinement, and then
Speaker 1: you had cells nine through fourteen was the whole and
Speaker 1: those were the ones with the iron doors where you
Speaker 1: had no light. And then they had one cell that
Speaker 1: apparently was the worst of the worst that just had
Speaker 1: a hole in the floor to go poo poo and
Speaker 1: peepee and you were usually naked if you were in there,
Speaker 1: and not for any good reasons. That's where the Birdman
Speaker 1: stayed the whole time. Really, Nanny's on de block. Really Yeah,
Speaker 1: apparently you couldn't be in the hole for more than
Speaker 1: nineteen days. But the Birdman, Robert Stroud, was in prison
Speaker 1: for fifty four years, and forty two years of that
Speaker 1: were in solitary confinement. Can you imagine, dude, I can't.
Speaker 1: They're not rehabbing that guy. And I'm not making a
Speaker 1: big political statement, but forty two years in solitary that
Speaker 1: was just straight up punishment. I think that. Um, I
Speaker 1: think that that was the best Alcatraz movie ever. Birdman
Speaker 1: of Alcatraz, no way, Yeah, have you seen it? Yeah, dude,
Speaker 1: Burt Lancaster, Yeah, it was good, it was good. Um.
Speaker 1: He didn't have any birds in Alcatraz though, Did he
Speaker 1: really spent Yeah? He did. What are you talking about? You?
Speaker 1: It's like, you're crazy. He had There were no animals
Speaker 1: all out there. He had that came from Leavenworth Prison
Speaker 1: and when he got to Alcatraz there were like no
Speaker 1: more birds for you. Oh. I thought he ended up
Speaker 1: keeping birds anyway, and that's probably why he was in
Speaker 1: D block the whole time. Let's go with that, Okay. Um, Well,
Speaker 1: then why would they call him the Birdman of Alcatraz
Speaker 1: because he was already a birdman when he went to Alcatraz.
Speaker 1: It's a movie the same reason they fictionalized murder in
Speaker 1: the first with Kevin Bacon. We'll get to that, um.
Speaker 1: And prior to the the construction of D Block. You
Speaker 1: would just be held in the dungeon, which is in
Speaker 1: the basement of the original citadel, which is where the
Speaker 1: first prisoners ever to be kept on Alcatraz were kept.
Speaker 1: It's probably not a fun place. So Chuck, you said
Speaker 1: that there was no breakfast in bed. There was breakfast,
Speaker 1: and that came every day. After you swept yourself, then
Speaker 1: you lined up for inspection and you went down for breakfast.
Speaker 1: That's right. Then after that you went to work. Twenty
Speaker 1: minutes twenty minute breakfast. Huh, twenty minute for each meal.
Speaker 1: I could do twenty minute breakfast. It's leisurely, that is true.
Speaker 1: Is lesually, so you'd be sent to like the laundry. Um,
Speaker 1: you would be maybe if you were the book guy,
Speaker 1: you would be sent for the library. A lot of dockwork,
Speaker 1: lots of unloading and loading of things. Yeah. Um. And
Speaker 1: also they manufactured stuff on Alcatraz. They manufactured brushes and brooms,
Speaker 1: but a little known fact these things, by law, could
Speaker 1: not be sold on the own open market, only to
Speaker 1: federal agencies because the government didn't want to flood the
Speaker 1: broom and brush markets with cheaply made goods. So government
Speaker 1: buildings were swept with Alcatraz rooms. Interesting. Yeah, I did
Speaker 1: not know that the walkways they named the Central Walkway
Speaker 1: was between the Cell Blox was Broadway. Because they had
Speaker 1: a flair for the dramatic, they named them after New
Speaker 1: York streets, Park Avenue, Michigan Avenue and Broadway. And then
Speaker 1: Times Square was between the mess Hall and the Cell Blox.
Speaker 1: And overlooking all this on either end was a very
Speaker 1: important station called the Gun Gallery and it was enclosed
Speaker 1: in bars and mesh, and there's where you will find
Speaker 1: some of the only guns aside from the towers and Alcatraz,
Speaker 1: where these armed dudes that had a very clear shot
Speaker 1: in the line of sight of the whole place. But
Speaker 1: the guards didn't carry guns or keys or handcuffs because
Speaker 1: that was a risk, but they illegally carried these things
Speaker 1: called SAPs. It was like a metal baton and a
Speaker 1: leather strap black jack. Yeah, and they weren't supposed to
Speaker 1: have those, but they had those um And then after
Speaker 1: a hard day of work of being eyed by guys
Speaker 1: in the Gun Gallery, you would have inner lights out
Speaker 1: at ninety and then ovensmores and then the thing is Alcatraz.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Jacker Hoover had a really crazy reputation for
Speaker 1: being like the hardest place ever. UM. But everything we
Speaker 1: just described you're going to go through generally in any
Speaker 1: prison in the thirties through the sixties, UM, but Alcatraz
Speaker 1: did differ in some ways. Specifically, it was extremely especially
Speaker 1: at its beginning, it was extremely rigid in its UM discipline,
Speaker 1: Like there was literally no talking for most of the time. UM.
Speaker 1: Prisoners weren't allowed to speak out loud UM except for
Speaker 1: designated times. I think like twenty minutes a week. I
Speaker 1: don't know that sounds about right. UM. And they if
Speaker 1: you if you did speak out loud, you went to
Speaker 1: the dungeon or d black later on. Did you have
Speaker 1: no talk in school elementary school, I don't remember if
Speaker 1: we did. They would do that in the cafeteria sometimes
Speaker 1: we had these flags and if things were getting roundy
Speaker 1: or they were whatever, they were mad at us, they
Speaker 1: would say, you know, you're on no talk and they
Speaker 1: put up the red flag. And it was the worst.
Speaker 1: It was awful, especially for me. I was just like
Speaker 1: trying to say things to my friends. Yeah, they actually
Speaker 1: said the dining room is the most dangerous place in Alcatraz.
Speaker 1: I would imagine because you got all the cons in there,
Speaker 1: and they had um have you ever been no, I'd
Speaker 1: like to go go. They have on the wall in
Speaker 1: the dining room they have where they kept the knives,
Speaker 1: the knife rack. They had silhouetted outlines in the shape
Speaker 1: of each one, so if one of them was missing,
Speaker 1: you would see what's missing immediately, So there's no sneaking
Speaker 1: out of butcher knives. Even though they had that stuff there.
Speaker 1: John lithcow On Dexter had that for his tools. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a great season. They did have visiting hours
Speaker 1: um or should I say visiting our You got one
Speaker 1: visit a month. Had to be an immediate family or
Speaker 1: a proo the visitor, and you could only talk about
Speaker 1: personal matters. You can talk about the prison or life there.
Speaker 1: And there was of course no contact whatsoever. Like they
Speaker 1: wouldn't like put you in a room with them. They'd
Speaker 1: be like not touching, not touching at all. Um. Alcatraz
Speaker 1: also was a little different in that people lived on
Speaker 1: the island, which isn't all that different. I think most
Speaker 1: prisons have an area around him where the guards live.
Speaker 1: I didn't know this, um, but with Alcatraz it was
Speaker 1: like you live on the island, Your family lived on
Speaker 1: the island. Your kids take a boat to school every
Speaker 1: day and back. Um, if you want a grocery shop,
Speaker 1: if you want some smokes, whatever, you take a boat
Speaker 1: and back. If you use up your razor and you
Speaker 1: need to shave, you throw your old razor in the bay.
Speaker 1: Same with used utensils. I'm sure after they're worn out,
Speaker 1: not from washing like every time, it's their work in
Speaker 1: the bay or anything like that. Um and the kids
Speaker 1: weren't allowed to have toy guns for really good reasons,
Speaker 1: because she didn't want to convict getting their hands on
Speaker 1: one and then pretending that they were gonna shoot a
Speaker 1: guard with a with a cap gun. And magazines had
Speaker 1: to be carefully patrolled because they didn't want prisoners looking
Speaker 1: at sexy things or reading about current events at all,
Speaker 1: or sex or crime. Those are two things that the
Speaker 1: prisoners who were not allowed to read about, which came
Speaker 1: into play with your buddy Robert Stroud what the birdman? Yeah?
Speaker 1: What do you mean? He? Um was not allowed to
Speaker 1: read his biography because it had chapters of his criminal past.
Speaker 1: In so his biography came out and he wasn't ever
Speaker 1: allowed to read it. It's said he had a pretty
Speaker 1: sad life. What did he do? He was a He
Speaker 1: moved to Alaska and took up with in the pimping industry,
Speaker 1: with one particular lady of the night. Ah. He though
Speaker 1: he went to go protect her at one point from
Speaker 1: this dude who didn't pay her. A scuffle broke out
Speaker 1: out and he was killed, and uh, he turned himself
Speaker 1: in with the gun, said here I did this, and
Speaker 1: um but took the money from his wallet, which I
Speaker 1: think trumped it up to a more serious charge. But
Speaker 1: it was originally manslaughter. So he he probably would have
Speaker 1: been okay if he hadn't gone to prison and been
Speaker 1: such a jerk. When he got to prison, he was
Speaker 1: one of the most violent inmates anywhere he went. And
Speaker 1: that just kept adding time and adding time, and he
Speaker 1: kept shuffling him around until he ended up at Alcatraz.
Speaker 1: But Burt Lancaster says that he wasn't like that. One
Speaker 1: thing the Grabster did not mention was the wreck yard,
Speaker 1: where you could go I think, for an hour a
Speaker 1: day if you're a good boy, in an hour a
Speaker 1: week if you're in solitary. And they had handball and
Speaker 1: horse shoes and chess and checkers and backgammon, and you
Speaker 1: were allowed to play hearts, cribbage, and that is it
Speaker 1: for card games, even though it says they played bridge
Speaker 1: using dominoes. And you could see from the from the
Speaker 1: reck yard, you could see San Francisco, which they said
Speaker 1: it was the biggest psychological crippler of all is. You
Speaker 1: could see the stuff going on, and they said every
Speaker 1: New Year's at the yacht club would have a party,
Speaker 1: a big, big party, and if the winds were blowing right,
Speaker 1: you'd actually hear like music and ladies laughing and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, which was just torture. Were a lot of fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like listening to something at last spirit Um. You know
Speaker 1: al Capone was there, Did you know that? That's what
Speaker 1: I hear? And so al Capone was there. You get
Speaker 1: the Birdman of Alcatraz and then has the reputation of
Speaker 1: being the worst of the worst, the worst prison where
Speaker 1: the worst of the worst are housed. That was you know,
Speaker 1: al Capone is a pretty big criminal. He has a
Speaker 1: pretty big nab for the g men. But it was
Speaker 1: a federal prison and it was early on in the
Speaker 1: history of the federal prison system, so people who really
Speaker 1: probably didn't belong there sometimes ended up in Alcatraz as Um,
Speaker 1: you could be sent there for shoplifting in a store
Speaker 1: that had a post office branch, madd a federal crime.
Speaker 1: If like you know, how like you like to bring
Speaker 1: fireworks into Georgia a lot. Well, had that been bootleg
Speaker 1: liquor and had you been caught just just bringing in
Speaker 1: like a fifth, you could have gone to Alcatraz. So
Speaker 1: it wasn't all murderers and gangsters, No it wasn't. It
Speaker 1: had a very um, a surprisingly normal history as far
Speaker 1: as prisons go, federal prisons go for the time. Um,
Speaker 1: but it also had a very fearsome reputation and some
Speaker 1: of it was earned compundn't a very good time there though. No,
Speaker 1: he had syphilis and he was crazy and used to
Speaker 1: cry like a baby. Plus he had it made in
Speaker 1: the prison before apparently he was still running his ops
Speaker 1: and they got to Alcatraz like no, no, no, now
Speaker 1: it's not happening here. So, um, you want to talk
Speaker 1: about escaping from Alcatraz? Yeah, I didn't want to mention. Two,
Speaker 1: you did get cigarettes. You got a pack of smokes
Speaker 1: every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, whether you smoked or not.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's currency right there. Yeah, would smoke. I
Speaker 1: think if I was in prison, would you Yeah? Something
Speaker 1: to do? Man? Yeah, And you're like, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think at that point I trying to be I
Speaker 1: try to shorten my life anyway. I could this faster
Speaker 1: ways than smoking, that's true, more efficient ways as well.
Speaker 1: So escape, Yeah, it happened. Yeah, there have been plenty
Speaker 1: of attempts, but um at least two were possibly successful. Right.
Speaker 1: So the first attempt was two years after the prison started.
Speaker 1: I think when you still weren't allowed to talk. This
Speaker 1: guy was like, I can't take it anymore and he
Speaker 1: ran and jumped on the fence and was shot and killed.
Speaker 1: So that was pretty easy. That was the first escape attempt.
Speaker 1: What two years after that? No, the next year two
Speaker 1: prisoners got out and they escaped and they think that
Speaker 1: they drowned, but they're not sure because they never got bodies, right,
Speaker 1: But the places infested with great white sharks, right, I'm
Speaker 1: sure they were eating alive. Then, Henry Young, we talked
Speaker 1: about the movie Murder in the First with Kevin Bacon
Speaker 1: n nine. He tried to escape with three other ones,
Speaker 1: three other inmates. They were found on the beach so
Speaker 1: they did get out. One was shot and killed, another
Speaker 1: one was wounded, and Young and rufus McCain. Uh, we're
Speaker 1: probably near hypothermia, and we're collected back into prison. And
Speaker 1: this was there. I think Young stab McCain the next
Speaker 1: year to death in the workshop. But um, if you
Speaker 1: see the movie Murder in the First it is highly,
Speaker 1: highly fictionalized. It's not very close to the real story.
Speaker 1: So don't don't take it's a good movie though. Now
Speaker 1: and the trial of Henry Young definitely brought attention to
Speaker 1: the treatment of prisoners in Alcatraz and public outcry, Um,
Speaker 1: you may still be out there. He broke parole, he
Speaker 1: was released and in Washington and skip parole and just disappeared.
Speaker 1: He's probably not out there because he was in prison
Speaker 1: in ninety nine. They said he'd be in his nineties. Crazy.
Speaker 1: My grandmother lived to be a one. Well, if you're
Speaker 1: Henry Young, we want to hear from you. Please let
Speaker 1: us know. We want your your Deathbay confession. They'd be sweet.
Speaker 1: Did I ever tell you that? Um? You know I
Speaker 1: wrote about dB Cooper. I wrote an article, a brief
Speaker 1: article about him. Um. One of the guys who I
Speaker 1: cited is possibly having been dB Cooper. His widow emailed
Speaker 1: me it was like it was not him, It wasn't him.
Speaker 1: I'm like, that is pretty cool. People have asked for
Speaker 1: that podcast? Is it? Is it meeting enough your article? Uh? Yeah?
Speaker 1: And and there's enough research and stuff that's happened since
Speaker 1: it was like a five minute podcast. Do you want
Speaker 1: to redo that one? We actually did that one. No, No,
Speaker 1: I didn't see it. I'm sorry, cheater. Do you want
Speaker 1: to yes? Okay, we will. That brings us o to
Speaker 1: the most famous escape attempt and possibly escape from the
Speaker 1: great great movie, Escape from Alcatraz, which was really pretty
Speaker 1: accurate Clint Eastwood. No, man, that was pretty accurate job
Speaker 1: that they did. Have you ever seen the real head?
Speaker 1: It was? So we're talking about Clarence and John Anglin,
Speaker 1: two brothers, and uh played by Fred Ward and some
Speaker 1: other guy and Frank Morris played by Clint Eastwood, worked
Speaker 1: a couple of years on their plan to get out
Speaker 1: of Alcatraz, and they chipped away at the wall, which
Speaker 1: was at that point rotting somewhat from salt water and
Speaker 1: salt air. We'll probably not water, and um, they chopped
Speaker 1: the way holes big enough to get out they made
Speaker 1: a little false facade that looked like the great in there. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it was like painted cardboard. Yeah, that they would pull
Speaker 1: too behind them when they went out in the conduit
Speaker 1: area behind the walls. So they go behind the walls,
Speaker 1: which is where they kept all their stuff. They fashioned
Speaker 1: raincoats together to make a crude, uh sort of a
Speaker 1: life raft that they could blow up. They made paper
Speaker 1: mache heads that they put in the bed every night,
Speaker 1: and they could go work and think about how tired
Speaker 1: they work, and they couldn't sleep the next day. They
Speaker 1: must have gotten they I wonder how they figured out
Speaker 1: a schedule, like Okay, we can do this X number
Speaker 1: of hours every night or else we're gonna lose our minds. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I imagine it's like should I be tired or
Speaker 1: should I escape from Alcatraz? Oh, and you escape from Alcatras.
Speaker 1: You want to take your time do it right? As
Speaker 1: they proved though, because one night finally everything was finished
Speaker 1: and they went up to the roof through this little
Speaker 1: conduit area and um hopped the fence and made their
Speaker 1: way out into the night and were never heard from again.
Speaker 1: That's right. And they found apparently, uh, these myth Busters.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of them? Yeah, they apparently did in
Speaker 1: the first season. They tried to recreate it because they
Speaker 1: lived in San Francisco, right, Yeah, they're up there somewhere,
Speaker 1: so they they tried to recreate the escape and they
Speaker 1: did it, which I guess kind of shows that it
Speaker 1: is possible, especially if you were going to go back.
Speaker 1: I can imagine they had all the incentive in the
Speaker 1: world to make that happen. Yeah, that's good point. Eight
Speaker 1: months after that escape, there was a Norwegian ship discovered
Speaker 1: a body that they said resembled Frank Morris. But years
Speaker 1: later they found this body, dug it up, did DNA
Speaker 1: testing and found it wasn't him, and the FBI closed
Speaker 1: the case in seventy nine. And then years later, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: this year on a station called nat Geo, they had
Speaker 1: a special called Vanish from Alcatraz and there was new
Speaker 1: evidence where they discovered a raft on Angel Island with
Speaker 1: footprints leading away and a report of a stolen car
Speaker 1: in the area that night, which could have been those guys.
Speaker 1: And they confirmed these facts and that they were hidden
Speaker 1: from officials for a long time, and as a result,
Speaker 1: the US Marshall's office said, you know, what, We're going
Speaker 1: to keep the case open until these guys are supposedly
Speaker 1: a hundred years old, and then we'll close the case.
Speaker 1: Well that's great. If they live to be one on one,
Speaker 1: we'll just give it to them. Yeah, you know, then
Speaker 1: they can come out exactly. Yeah. So what else you
Speaker 1: got that was it? I mean that that escape and
Speaker 1: the deterioration of the prison physically pretty much meant the
Speaker 1: end of Alcatraz. They're like, it's really expensive to operate
Speaker 1: if dudes can escape from here. Kind of the whole
Speaker 1: point of being here in the first place was that
Speaker 1: it was escape proof. So it's just a drain on
Speaker 1: our funds. So let's just shut it down. And now
Speaker 1: it's a tour. Yeah, it's starting in the seventies, right,
Speaker 1: seventy two something like that. Yeah, well worth your time.
Speaker 1: And Alcatraz is not alone. There are other Alcatraz islands
Speaker 1: or Alcatraz like islands throughout the world, Like South Africa
Speaker 1: has Robin Island, um Tasmania has Port Arthur, and there's
Speaker 1: one that's in Quentin right in then An Island, Rikers Island,
Speaker 1: You've got Rikers Island. There's a bunch of them. The
Speaker 1: one that I found that was really interesting though. Um
Speaker 1: is in Norway and it's called Boss Toy or however
Speaker 1: you pronounced the oh with the slash through it. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Um boss Toy is. It doesn't have any bars, no
Speaker 1: doors are locked. There's no guns on the island, so
Speaker 1: the guards aren't armed. Uh. The guys farm their own food.
Speaker 1: There's a little grocery store. When they get there, they're
Speaker 1: given five cronan I believe it's cronanner to spend at
Speaker 1: the supermarket and basically get themselves started. And that's it.
Speaker 1: Like that's the prison. It's basically like a little commune
Speaker 1: where like you're free to kind of live your own
Speaker 1: life and hopefully underghost some sort of reformation. But there's
Speaker 1: guards there, there are, but they're not armed. The only
Speaker 1: gun on there on the whole island, it's it's in
Speaker 1: the warden's office and it's a statue of a bronze
Speaker 1: statue of pistol. And the warden says he has no
Speaker 1: idea where it came from. It predates him. I kind
Speaker 1: of like the Escape from New York plan. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a good one where you just throw him on the
Speaker 1: island and build up big walls and just leave them
Speaker 1: to work it out. That's kind of what they're doing
Speaker 1: with Boss Toy, but it's a little more hippie then
Speaker 1: Escape from New York probably. Well there're Norwegian, so not
Speaker 1: too much violence there. And if it is, it's just
Speaker 1: like one guy, you know, that's it. That's Alcatraz, baby,
Speaker 1: scary place. Its chilling. There's ghosts apparently. Yeah, I didn't
Speaker 1: look into that. I didn't either that. I'm sure there's
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure there's just there. Um. If you
Speaker 1: want to know more about Alcatraz, a picture of Robert Stroud,
Speaker 1: who is a little bird like himself in appearance. Um.
Speaker 1: And well, this is just a good article all around.
Speaker 1: If you want to go over it, you can type
Speaker 1: in Alcatraz, not Alcatrazi's alcatraz um in the search of
Speaker 1: bartow stuff works dot com, which means now it's time
Speaker 1: for listener male friends. Yeah, this is an old one
Speaker 1: that's been sitting in the queue. It's about ethnobotany, remember
Speaker 1: that one. Yeah, that's a good one. Guys. I'm an
Speaker 1: undergraduate chemistry student who has been a long time listener
Speaker 1: to your awesome podcast. You guys asked about synthesis versus
Speaker 1: extraction in the Ethnobotany podcast, So I thought i'd clear
Speaker 1: it up for you. Extraction is often more difficult than
Speaker 1: synthesis because when one extracts something from a plant, one
Speaker 1: also has to worry about separating the desired component from
Speaker 1: the rest of the plant, since the plant is an
Speaker 1: organic material, separating he robe that by the way, uh,
Speaker 1: separating one organic compound from another is often very difficult,
Speaker 1: whereas if you used synthe this one could use polar
Speaker 1: and nonpolar solvents to manipulate the process for easy separation,
Speaker 1: kind of like how oil and vinegar will separate when
Speaker 1: left alone. And lastly, syntheses are constantly being updated because
Speaker 1: of more efficient and faster reactions. The less steps and
Speaker 1: a synthesis, the better the inn yield. The better the yield,
Speaker 1: the happier your bosses. And that is from Evan, and
Speaker 1: he says, ps, I forgot to mention that an extracted
Speaker 1: product and a synthetic product will show no chemical difference.
Speaker 1: Very interesting, that's excellent. Thank you for clearing that up.
Speaker 1: That was Evan, Yeah, very excited. Thanks a lot of
Speaker 1: evan um is he an anthropologist, A nutcom botanist. I
Speaker 1: think he's a gym teacher. Okay, um chuck. We got
Speaker 1: a pretty good response from our call out for um
Speaker 1: autumn treats. Do they be cocktails, dessert and um breads?
Speaker 1: What have you? That was I think we should do again,
Speaker 1: and I think we should compile them eventually once we
Speaker 1: get enough into like maybe a step you Should Know
Speaker 1: autumn cookbook or something like that. That's great. I I
Speaker 1: will undertake that with forward by Paula Deene. Anyway, if
Speaker 1: you have a great autumn treat, whether that be drink
Speaker 1: or food, we want it. You can email it to
Speaker 1: us at stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff
Speaker 1: from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we
Speaker 1: explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought
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