Madness Madness!

Episode 87: The Enfield Poltergeist, Ghostwatch, and (haunted) Government Cheese

Sat, 11 Nov 2023 19:00:00 -0600

Any of your better cheese experts will tell you there’s nothing that pairs better with a fist-sized hunk of Government Cheese than a couple of British ghost stories, one almost certainly made up, the other definitely made up. Warm up your false vocal chords for some fake ghost sounds, and learn more about the chain of government fuckery that ended with the son of a bitch Ronald Reagan offloading warehouses of third-rate Velveeta to his most hated enemy, Poor People!

Episode 86: Not Jeff, but Gef / more like NarcoNONSENSE AMIRITE

Sat, 14 Oct 2023 11:00:00 -0500

My freshman year in college I (Brian) got like, Freshman Drunk at a house party where a home video was playing. My friend Jeff appeared in the video several times, and apparently every time he was onscreen I would slur, from the living room floor, "there's Jeff." The story of Gef (he's Welsh!) the Talking Mongoose seems not dissimilar, except the house where it took place was definitely harder to get to, from the sounds of things. Good thing College Brian wasn't addicted to drugs, or he might have wound up at Narconon, a "drug rehab" program that's "definitely not a Scientology front" and is surely "not responsible for the deaths of numerous patients over the years due to its foundation on utter quackery spouted off by an oily maniac." Dodged a bullet there!

Episode 85: Frank Dux gets his ass beat in Cassadaga

Sat, 09 Sep 2023 19:00:00 -0500

We don't like to brag or anything, but the people behind Madness Madness have accomplished some pretty incredible feats of combat prowess, to the point where several hit movies have been based on our exploits: Avatar, Avengers: Endgame, Avatar: The Way of Water, Titanic, Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens, Avengers: Infinity War, Spider-Man: No Way Home, Jurassic World, The Lion King, The Avengers, Furious 7, Top Gun: Maverick, Frozen II, and of course Barbie. That’s more than $27 billion at the box office just from the ones we can name off the tops of our heads, so honestly we’ve got nothing to learn from Frank Dux, a fight choreographer and semi-professional liar whose “life story,” the 1988 Jean-Claude Van Damme breakout “Bloodsport,” pulled in a mere puff of dust to the tune of $11.8 million worldwide, which I don’t even think is enough money to wipe your ass with these days.

Nonetheless we’ll hear about this valor-stealing boomer schmuck, then imagine him dropped into Cassadaga, Florida (formerly New York), the fortune-telling capital of the world, mouthing off to a series of increasingly irritable palm readers until the ghost of Patrick Swayze manifests and Road House roundhouses him so hard he lands in a different ZIP code from his medals of honor, which turn out to be made of cardboard and cellophane anyway. Join us, won’t you?

Episode 84: The Emu War and the Nimbin Aquarius Festival

Fri, 30 Jun 2023 16:00:00 -0500

Aine’s in town! In honor of friend of the pod/friend of us as actual people, today’s episode is all Australia, all the time! There’s Corn Thins! Mike invented them! There’s Tim Tams! Some saint or another invented them! And there’s research that yields phrases like “singer Paul Joseph, Donny McCormack (ex-Nutwood Rug Band), The Larrikins and Ian Farr!” Former Nutwood Rug Band members infested the Nimbin Aquarius Festival, a surprisingly thoughtful invasion of a small town in New South Wales during the sixties; decades earlier, significantly less thought was given to the entire enterprise known as the Emu War, which you may know by now was not won by non-Emus. Join us, won’t you?

Episode 83: Christian Fundamentalist Amusement Parks; Albert Broel, Frog Magnate

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 14:00:00 -0500

Florida’s state government isn’t the only bunch to get a bug up its collective ass over Disney not being fundamentalist enough: Turns out there’s a storied history of Old Testament fanboys opening entire theme parks, except instead of a theme there’s the Bible, and instead of a park there’s the Bible. Today we learn more about this string of inexplicable failures, plus one man’s equally successful plan to boost Americans’ frog intake by several hundredfold. Albert Broel is the author of “Frog Raising for Pleasure and Profit,” and believe us when we tell you that’s not even the best part of Albert Brull. All this, plus Doug! Our friend Doug is here, and we love him. Also there's a lot of singing, and most of it's pretty great. Doug! Songs! Frogs! Fundamentalists! It’s all here!

Episode 82: Karl “Old Shatterhand” May; Richard “Signal 30” Wayman

Fri, 19 May 2023 18:00:00 -0500

Like reasonable people everywhere, we here at Madness Madness, when considering the accurate and true representation of American Indians in film, television, and literature, immediately think of Germany. Thus none of you will be surprised to learn of Karl May, creator in the 1890s of the “Old Shatterhand” novels, the Wild West adventures of the titular benevolent whitey and his “blood brother” Winnetou, a wise chief of the Apache, a formula that would in no way lead to an utterly bizarre century-plus-long fixation by Germans on American Indian life as portrayed by a man born in the Kingdom of Saxony.

You know what Old Shatterhand didn’t have? Access to driver’s education snuff films, the bread and butter of one Richard Wayman, a man with access to a vast store of color film and a frankly troubling affinity for the Ohio Highway Patrol. Wayman’s literal snuff films—“Signal 30,” “Highways of Agony,” “Mechanized Death”(!), and of course “Hell’s Highway”—routinely terrorized driver’s education students from the ‘50s through at least the early ‘90s. His interests also included filming “sting” operations to publicly humiliate gay men and producing disastrous telethons featuring Sammy Davis Jr. Meet both these white guys on this episode of Madness Madness!

Episode 81: Dr. John C. Lilly; Rollen "Rainbow Head" Stewart

Sat, 29 Apr 2023 08:00:00 -0500

We say it a lot here on the show, but the 1960s was an era unique for its sheer volume of uninformed drug-induced white guy fuckery. Emblematic of said fuckery was Dr. John C. Lilly, who was real into dolphins and LSD and giving dolphins LSD when he wasn't floating in an isolation tank trying to miraculously make it even further up his own ass. Fortunately the '70s and '80s came along, and everybody got their shit together hahahahahaha just kidding. One guy did get an idea to put on a rainbow afro wig and cram some Jesus into televised sports though: Rollen Stewart gained a kind of fame, then a kind of infamy, and finally a free ticket to life without parole for his trouble. Fortunately he also inspired one of the greatest early '90s SNL sketches ever made.
Content warning: There is some deeply upsetting stuff about dolphins in here. Also there's a hostage situation in a motel room during which no dolphins are harmed.

Episode 80: Madame Rachel and the Neptune Ceremony!

Thu, 30 Mar 2023 16:00:00 -0500

If you’ve ever asked yourself, “Do I have what it takes to cross the equator? On a boat? For the first time?”, you’ll need to consider some follow-up questions: How good a swimmer are you? How do you feel about the biggest, hairiest dude on your ship being greased up and dressed like a baby? And is there a way you can take a car, plane, or train instead? We’ll examine these questions on today’s episode, plus we’ll learn how relatively straightforward it is to exploit repressive Victorian social mores for fun, profit, and crimes, crimes, crimes! Of COURSE you can sell people literal poison packaged as an elixir of youth! Of COURSE you can skate straight on through to extortion! Of COURSE your storefront is a terrific anchor business for the brothel you’re running upstairs! Come on in and let’s get started, using the Madame Rachel method!

Episode 79: The Blackburn Cult and Explo '72!

Fri, 17 Mar 2023 13:00:00 -0500

SPRING BREEEEEAK!!!! Today we're taking a break from not talking about cults, so as to learn more about the Blackburn Cult, the proper name of which is the Divine Order of the Royal Arms of the Great Eleven, a name perhaps designed to remind people that while the Great Depression might be raging, you can still use as many words and letters as you want when naming your Jesus-adjacent child-resurrection grift. Then it's time for a ROAD TRIIIIIIP!!! To a blank spot by I-35, just north of Dallas, in June, for an outdoor Jesus music festival in weather more like Actual Hell than anyone seems willing to discuss! Explo '72 was the fundamentalist Woodstock that people had, I guess, been waiting for? Which people, and since when, are questions I definitely don't care about. Join us, won't you? SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS! SHOTS!

Episode 78: The Minnesota Starvation Experiment and the Tar Creek Superfund Site

Thu, 02 Mar 2023 18:00:00 -0600

Have we all, every one of us, stared at a small humanlike doll and thought to ourselves, "What would it be like if this doll were like 35+ dudes and I starved them for six months in the University of Minnesota football stadium?" Of course we have; there's no need to even phrase it as a question. A notable fellow of science thought the same thing during World War II, and the results were the Minnesota Starvation Experiments, in which at least one dude just went full raccoon and started wandering around campus at night eating garbage. None of that is made up.

Meanwhile in northeastern Oklahoma, the Duke Boys were watching, helpless, as Ole Boss Hogg stole a bunch of American Indian land AGAIN, dug a bafflingly high number of lead mines, abandoned them when they stopped making money, and left countless piles of lead and rock dust hundreds of feet high next to stagnant pools of acidic lead water sitting on top of gigantic underground man-made caverns that were supported only by old boards! Don't worry though—the Dukes never put two and two together to pin it on Boss Hogg, as they'd been severely lead poisoned by the air and water of Picher, Oklahoma, one of our nation's very worst Superfund sites that's uninhabitable to this very day. Ladies and gentlemen, it's Tar Creek, one of the more perfect examples of Oklahoma fellating businesses while said businesses burns the entire state down and puts on a fake nose and big glasses when it's time to foot the cleanup bill! Join us, won't you?

Episode 77: Painless Parker and the Actual Shogun Guy

Thu, 16 Feb 2023 16:00:00 -0600

A lot of people say dentistry lost its street cred when it started happening in "Offices" with "Sterile Instruments" and "Windows that close," and at one point the Street Dentist who legally changed his first name to Painless to avoid a lawsuit would have agreed with you. Today we learn about this ... guy ... in the history of dentistry. Plus, a look at Tokugawa Ieyasu, the actual guy at the center of James Clavell's incredibly lengthy but surprisingly pretty good historical novel "Shogun."
PROGRAMMING NOTE: The guy Amanda couldn't remember in this episode was Charles Bronson.

Episode 76: The Dreadnought Hoax and Ada Blackjack

Thu, 19 Jan 2023 12:00:00 -0600

Most days you get up, have a coffee, look at the same six gifs again, and then it's off to work. But what if you didn't have the daily grind to distract you, and you could focus on doing the things that really feed your soul?

If the things that feed your soul include dressing in blackface and pranking the entire Imperial Navy, you've got some racist shit going on. But also the story of the Dreadnought hoax will be of particular interest to you! Meanwhile, if you've ever been an oppressed native woman in dire enough straights to accept a caretaker job on an expedition designed to claim an Arctic island for Canada even though literally everyone agrees it's Russian territory, only to find yourself the only survivor, you are probably Ada Blackjack, because to our knowledge she's the only person that's happened to. Hear all about it on this week's Madness Madness!

Episode 75: Square Dancing, Sonic Booms, and a Brand New Year!

Thu, 05 Jan 2023 15:00:00 -0600

What better way to ring in the new year with a solid six months of deafening, damaging aural assaults that you're powerless to stop? Other than a bracing series of square dances, nothing I can think of! This week we learn about what would ultimately become one of the most important reasons we don't have cross-country supersonic passenger flights. We also learn about what is almost certainly the rootin'est, tootin'est American tradition of all: the venerable square dance. All this knowledge, delivered with the benefit of several bottles of Prosecco and a poop shotgun*! Join us, won't you?

*Poop shotgun does not fire poop. Restrictions apply.

Episode 74: Troubled Gymnasts! Magazines for Ladies!

Thu, 15 Dec 2022 07:00:00 -0600

Are you now, or have you ever been, a Lady? If yes, were you a Lady in the United States during the 19th Century? You are doubtless familiar, then, with Godey's Lady's Book, a source of densely packed text, hand-colored fashion plates, piano sheet music, and the odd Edgar Allan Poe short story ("for the love of Godey, Montresor!"). All this, plus a look at the troubled romance between legendary circus aerialists: Lillian Leitzel, a tiny woman who is stronger than you or any man you know, and Alfredo Codona, a shining star of the Flying Codonas, shunned for years by the Walking Codonas, who were generally agreed to be fiercely jealous of their far more glamorous cousins. Join us, won't you?

Episode 73: 40 Elephants, a Sci-Fi Convention, and Thou

Fri, 25 Nov 2022 14:00:00 -0600

You know what's awesome? VICTORIAN LADY THIEVES. You know what else is awesome? Science Fiction! Mostly! Partly. It's complicated. Today we hear tales of both things!

Episode 72: When a Mannequin is More Than a Mannequin

Mon, 14 Nov 2022 07:00:00 -0600

Two pivotal questions lie at the heart of this week's episode. One: To what extent have we been collectively missing out as a society since the practice of soap carving fell by the wayside? Two: What happens when Erin and Amanda don't call their dad?

Episode 71: Bicentennial Chiropractors!

Sun, 30 Oct 2022 14:00:00 -0500

By the time July 4, 1976 had rolled around, a lot of people had put a lot of effort into crushing the whole thing into a bureaucratic logjam. A lot more people had made sure not one single American had the option of forgetting, even for a moment, that it was the BICENTENNIAL AND EVERYBODY BETTER AMERICA REAL REAL HARD STARTING RIGHT NOW, GOT IT?!? By that point, chiropractic medicine had begun to ease into a slightly less quackery-intensive version of itself (don't worry, it was still pretty batshit). Learn about both on today's Madness Madness, now brought to you in color!

Episode 70: Buggery and Bald Knobbers

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 16:00:00 -0500

Today, a lighthearted look at England's long and storied history of, as an official act, killing men for being gay. It goes back a while! It's awful and pointless, but ... uh. Well. No actual "but" there, as it turns out. We'll also examine a group of racist vigilantes of the pedigree that's only possible in central Missouri. Also they called themselves "The Bald Knobbers," and the fact that they went around beating people for moral failings while having a name only slightly less pornographic than "Sleazy Gang Bang XI: Thursday Night at The Man Hole" is an irony seemingly lost on them. It's just gross. Join us, won't you?

Episode 69: Pullman Porters and the Hitler Diaries? Nice.

Thu, 29 Sep 2022 16:00:00 -0500

George Pullman, it should be universally agreed, was a huge piece of shit. Nobody who isn't a huge piece of shit has himself buried in hundreds of cubic feet of concrete and railroad ties to keep his employees from besmirching his corpse. Today we'll be talking about the Pullman Porters, black men and women who migrated north for a better life after the War the South Started Because They Didn't Want to Stop Owning Other Human Beings and found work—up to 400 hours of it per month! This did ultimately lead to unionization, but not before a whole lot of racism from both the Pullman Company and the existing employees' union. Then we'll hear about The Hitler Diaries, which aired for 8 seasons on The CW and starred Ian Somerhalder. Wait, no. The Hitler Diaries were a different thing, but were also fake. Join us for our 69th* episode, won't you?
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*nice

Episode 68: K-Tel Records and the Dionne Quintuplets!

Thu, 15 Sep 2022 17:00:00 -0500

It's easy to forget the days before fertility treatments that yielded between four and thirty babies per pregnancy. It's even easier to forget 1934, since most of us weren't born yet. You know who WAS born in 1934? The Dionne Quintuplets! As was the case for a great many Depression-era babies, things didn't go as well as they could have. Speaking of the number five and the year 1934, a guy named Philip Kives WAS FIVE YEARS OLD IN 1934! After spending several years as a child, Kives went on to form K-TEL records, which is a memory bomb that'll blow your mind if you're older than 42 or so. JUST THE HIIIIIITS

Episode 67: A 17th-Century Bi Vivant, and The Greatest Football Team Between Kansas and Texas

Thu, 08 Sep 2022 07:00:00 -0500

Boomeur Sooneur!! Today Erin takes a look at the practically unheard-of* football team at the University of Oklahoma, and Amanda introduces us to Julie d'Aubigny, a vastly overexposed** 17th-Century fencing master, opera singer, and lover of the ladies, who managed to do a frankly astonishing amount of L-I-V-I-N inside 33 years. Join us, won't you?

* a number of people may have actually heard of OU football
** d'Aubigny is not, in fact, overexposed

Episode 66: The Ship's Cat Catches a North Korean Godzilla

Thu, 01 Sep 2022 15:00:00 -0500

If you've listened to the podcast for a while, you've almost certainly been waiting literally months to hear us spend an hour and a half talking about cats. WAIT NO LONGER, MY FRIENDS! Today Amanda tells us about ship's cats, in between the times when we interrupt ourselves and each other talking about other cats. Then Erin takes us on a trip in the wayback machine to a sleepy little hamlet by the name of Pyongyang, and the time its former dictator kidnapped a couple of South Korean film luminaries to make a series of movies for him. Extras were absolutely harmed during the making of these films. Join us, won't you?

Episode 65: Just Say No to the Penn Square Bank Collapse

Thu, 25 Aug 2022 15:00:00 -0500

The thing about the '80s is that there was a lot of money and a lot of drugs, and they were both gonna last forever! Until they didn't. This week Erin tells us about the collapse of the Penn Square Bank, which knocked the oil business on its ass far beyond the greater Oklahoma City area, and was toooootally different than the financial collapse of 2008 you guys, OK? OK. Then Amanda takes us back to a time when the shitty actress wife of a shitty actor president told kids across America how all we had to do to avoid a life of drug-fueled desperation was Just Say No, OK? OK! It's her fault Gary Coleman is dead. Don't believe any of that horse shit kidney failure cover story.

A Poor Substitution

Thu, 18 Aug 2022 10:00:00 -0500

Regretfully we must inform you, our avid listeners, that there is no new episode this week because Adobe is being a dick about things.

We are working on these technical difficulties and will be back as soon as humanly possible.

Episode 64: The Pearly Kings & Queens and the "Irish Crown Jewels"

Thu, 11 Aug 2022 15:00:00 -0500

Today's show is a real study in contrasts. England's Pearly Kings and Queens (you've probably seen them even if you don't know the name) are working-class Britons who've been collecting money for charity by way of some truly jaw-dropping suits for more than a century. The person in charge of the "Irish Crown Jewels," by contrast, is ... actually exactly appropriate kind of person to be looking after English headgear that commemorates the subjugation of their very first colony, which largely did not deal with crap of this nature in earlier times. Oyster shells! Donkeys! Parades! Upper-class Gay Shit involving Ernest Shackleton's shitty brother! Don't miss it.

Episode 63: The Beast of Gévaudan & Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters

Fri, 05 Aug 2022 10:00:00 -0500

Sometimes a stark tragedy takes the form of an imperfect history. In this case the tragedy is that the Beast of Gévaudan, a creature or creatures who spent a chunk of the 1760s taking fatal chunks out of terrified villagers of the French countryside, did not show up 200 years later in the bus containing Ken Kesey and his "Merry Pranksters" and spend at least a few minutes of the 1960s dispatching one of the shining lights of white male Boomer self-indulgence. To hell with that guy. Enjoy the show!

Episode 62.5: There is Not an Episode

Fri, 29 Jul 2022 15:00:00 -0500

Vacations! You love 'em! Unless they keep your favorite podcast from having a new episode. Then you resent them, which is understandable. We'll be back next week! It's still hot.

Episode 62: The Versailles Time Slip and The Toronto Clown Riot

Thu, 21 Jul 2022 08:00:00 -0500

Is it hyperbolic to call it a Clown Riot when they were rioting against the Toronto Fire Department? Maybe. When clowns kick the ass of a city's fire department, and the fire department are Orangemen to a man and collectively symbolic both of municipal graft and Ulster Unionist fuckery, are the clowns immediately granted IRA membership? Friends, I've been drinking. Thus the work of parsing the intricacies of clownsmen vs. protestant quislings will fall to you, dear listener. Once you're done doing that, consider this: Have you ever lesbianned so hard that you hallucinated? It's OK, apparently that was pretty common during the era of The Versailles Time Slip, a thing that happened to two unmarried women 120 years ago as they were TRYING to take a PLEASANT WALK at VERSAILLES without A BUNCH OF GHOSTS SHOWING UP, but alas. Join us, won't you?

Episode 61.5: Thank you for calling, again!

Fri, 15 Jul 2022 11:00:00 -0500

Your call is very important to us. Please leave a message and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Episode 61: Chris Noel and The Hunley! [GAAAAAAASP]

Thu, 07 Jul 2022 17:00:00 -0500

Well fuck, it's wartime again on Madness Madness. Today we learn about legitimate national hero Chris Noel, who started her work actually supporting the actual troops in a way more useful than car window stickers in Vietnam and never looked back. We also learn about The Hunley!, a Civil War-era submarine that worked about as well as the submarine you picture in your head after hearing the words "Civil War-era submarine." Don't worry, they eventually succeeded in a mission that killed their fourth or fifth crew before sinking for the last time. (It's cool, they were Confederates.) A crucial fact about The Hunley: The 1999 TV movie TNT made about it was exactly the tribute it deserved. [GAAAAAAAASP]

Episode 60: An IRA Horse Kidnapping and an American Icon's Slutty German Mom

Thu, 30 Jun 2022 15:00:00 -0500

Look, the IRA did some unforgivable things in response to some equally unforgivable things done by the Ulster Unionists and centuries of even worse things done by the fucking English. But when you kidnap a horse hailed as a national hero by the people of Ireland itself, you have officially gone too far. Today we hear the tale of Shergar, a horse who was real good at running fast, and of Bild Lilli, a doll originally made in 1950s Germany for a right-wing newspaper's gross dude readers. By 1964 she'd dyed her hair, crossed the pond, and started a job with a little joint called Mattel. All this plus we talk about how it's hot! It's hot.

Episode 59.75: Thank you for pressing six to learn more about Tom Petty

Thu, 23 Jun 2022 07:00:00 -0500

Hello! Madness Madness is currently out of the office. You've pressed six to learn more about Tom Petty! Brian reads an excerpt from a remembrance by Warren Zanes, Petty's biographer, published a year after the absolute legend's death. You can read the full article here.

Episode 59.5: Out of Office Autoreply

Thu, 16 Jun 2022 08:00:00 -0500

Hello! You've reached Madness Madness. We are currently out of the office. Please listen to your choices carefully, as our menu has changed.

Episode 59: The Abernathy Boys, Goat Testicle Surgery, and more

Thu, 09 Jun 2022 16:00:00 -0500

How 'bout we just list some key items this episode has in it: Border Blasters, goat testicle implantation, rootin' tootin' child neglect, Brother Al ("A-L"), one hundred baby chicks by mail, Big Tex continuing to slowly and mechanically wave as he is engulfed in flames*, the ionosphere. Get to it!

*this is quite possibly the funniest thing that had ever happened before the "Four Seasons Total Landscaping" incident

Episode 58: The Ghosts of the Crescent Hotel and the Voynich Manuscript!

Thu, 26 May 2022 15:00:00 -0500

Friends, do you like stunning stone structures perched on piney hilltops? Do you like the ghosts of mistreated sanitarium patients, dead from neglect? OK what about the ghost of a cute little orange tabby cat? OK! Me too! Let's go to the Crescent Hotel then, and learn about Eureka Springs' most haunted place! (Also one of the prettiest.) Oh, and be sure to bring a book! We'll be relaxing in the hot springs with an annotated copy of the Voynich Manuscript. The annotations all say "I don't know what this part here means either; this book is, as I have said repeatedly, mostly gibberish. Please let me see my family again." BEACH READS!!!

Episode 57: Stagger Lee & Backward Masking!

Thu, 19 May 2022 17:00:00 -0500

This week we have a look at the actual events that led to a legendary song, the most famous version of which contained the line "I've got three little children and a very sickly wife." Stagger Lee! Real shit! That there is a song that contains absolutely no hidden backward lyrics, which means it wasn't a part of the moral majority scare about rock music hiding backward lyrics that would ... subliminally make us think Paul McCartney was dead? Or something. Climb on, it's a ride!

Episode 56: The Mechanical Turk, the 1989 Oklahoma Olympic Festival, and things not being OK

Thu, 12 May 2022 15:00:00 -0500

Today we learn about automatons from hundreds of years ago, the most famous of which may have been The Mechanical Turk, which played chess with actual people in the room and got pissy with you if you tried to cheat. Then it's a personal story of a deeply unsettling babysitting gig, the 1989 Olympic Festival in Norman, Oklahoma, and the bleak shitscape that our lives as Americans is becoming. It's fucking awful! Join us.

BONUS: The OK 89 Olympic Festival in its entirety, cued up to Roger Miller's performance, which was unquestionably the best part.

Episode 55: AAAAAA OK the tornado's over, Kit Williams' "Masquerade" cont'd, Piltdown Man

Fri, 06 May 2022 12:00:00 -0500

OK WELL ANYWAY now that the tornado has passed, Erin can continue talking about Kit Williams' book "Masquerade" and the real-life treasure hunt it spawned (on purpose). And Amanda can tell us a little something about some obvious straight-up horse shit that the British scientific community uncritically gobbled right up because it wanted to believe fucking England was the cradle of life, and let that sink in for a moment before you learn the hoax's name: Piltdown Man! Join us, won't you? Bring a shovel.

Episode 54: Koreshan Unity, Kit Williams' "Masquerade," AAAAAA TORNADO

Thu, 28 Apr 2022 14:00:00 -0500

This week we spend some time with Koreshan Unity, which has nothing to do with Waco, the ATF, or TV movies starring the guy from "Wings" or, later, Tim Riggins. Although it might be worth debating whether the standoff in Waco would have ended differently if the Earth were hollow, as today's cult insisted it was. We also learn more about "Masquerade," a picture book by Kit Williams that purposely led to an actual real-life treasure hunt ... wait, is that a tornado siren?

Episode 53: The Mayerling Incident and the French Foreign Legion

Thu, 21 Apr 2022 15:00:00 -0500

Gather 'round, listeners, and hear the story of what happens when dictatorships—sorry, I'm being told the proper name is monarchies—get so far up their own asses they get syphilis and start wars and basically murder literally millions of their own citizens. The Mayerling Incident was a low-key extremely important* example of this brand of royal fuckery, and we are definitely going to hear about it today. And if you're driven into a violent fury by tales like these, and run out and immediately get into a fistfight that ends up violating a number of international laws, don't worry: The French Foreign Legion is alive and well, and still asking few to no questions about how you came to be covered in blood and molasses. Learn more about the group countless early 20th-Century cartoon characters ran off to join approximately every five episodes.

*Is "low-key extremely" a thing? Discuss.

Episode 52: Code Talkers, a Con Man, and an Immortal Baby

Thu, 07 Apr 2022 16:00:00 -0500

Today we squint quizzically at James Bernard Schafer, a teleporting doctor who founded the Royal Fraternity of Master Metaphysicians and set out to raise an immortal baby! Until the baby's mother showed up and wanted her back. Still totally immortal, possibly.* We keep going, though, and end up with a look at “the most famous con man you’ve never heard of,” except that if you listen to this podcast you’ve almost certainly heard of him.

Meanwhile, you know what's not a transparently fraudulent Depression-era cash grab? Native American languages. You know what's not a great segue? The previous sentence. Anyway, we also learn about Native American code talkers, who during World Wars I and II saved the lives of a whole entire shitload of American GIs by baffling German and Japanese code breakers with a language that had somehow not made inroads into Hitlerton and Tojo's Gated Community. Naturally the U.S. returned the favor once the war was over by giving Native Americans their land back!

... I'm being told the U.S. did not give Native Americans their land back.

Link! The recently(!) declassified Navajo Code Talker dictionary.

Episode 51: Lyndon LaRouche and Fake Books!

Thu, 31 Mar 2022 09:00:00 -0500

This week we examine a real insane person and fake books! Lyndon LaRouche ran for president 8 times and was less coherent with each successive run. Though he started out as a semi-Marxist pro-labor kinda guy, he quickly moved squarely into right-wing pro-insane bullshit territory. No matter what, there was always room in his heart for all sorts of old-fashioned racism, anti-semitism, and an undying conviction that Queen Elizabeth II was trying to kill him.

Meanwhile, did you know that sometimes books are not what they seem to be? They're not just small objects in your home or files on your electronic reading device—they can also be secret plots by cabals of authors with a fairly hilarious point to prove! Today we thumb through the literary hoaxes Naked Came the Stranger, Atlanta Nights, and I, Libertine.

Episode 50: Fake Cults and a Fake High School! Church of the Subgenius vs. Bishop Sycamore High School

Thu, 17 Mar 2022 17:00:00 -0500

This week on Madness Madness we're out here lookin' for starters, but all we can see is a bunch of jackoffs. First off we take a surprisingly thought-provoking journey to the '80s and '90s for a look at the Church of the Subgenius, a cult that wasn't actually a cult from the heady days of heavy 'zine-ing! Straight out of Dallas, very close to our home base in central Oklahoma, this one got us right in the Gen-X Nostalgia part of our brains, the part that makes us think about how if we wanted to hang out with people in the '80s and '90s we had to get in a car and drive around to places where we thought people might be. It's a total mind fuck, friends over 40. Next, we ask the question everyone must confront at some point: If a high school doesn't have a building, classes, a field, or a coach, is it strictly ethical to have them play one of the highest-ranked teams in the country on national television? Is it even loosely ethical? You might still remember the memes, folks: It's Bishop Sycamore "high school," a baffling fraud that turns out to be an incredibly depressing reflection of the nation's fundamental racism! A hoot and a holler, I tellya. Join us, won't you?

Episode 49: Conspiracy Mysteries! Oak Island vs. The Fake Moon Landing

Thu, 10 Mar 2022 16:00:00 -0600

we're back / from a brief hiatus / time off is a predatory bird, and it ate us //

This week we step away from cults for a bit, and look instead at an ongoing mystery and a straight-up conspiracy theory! Oak Island is, as the name suggests, an island! In Canada! With a hole in it! Several holes now, in fact, since about once per generation, some dude (it's always a dude) is absolutely sure he's figured out how to get to the very bottom of it without getting flooded out like literally everyone else who's ever tried. (The hole floods! Did we mention that? It floods.) Truly remarkable, folks. We try to talk these dudes out of it, but it's their hole! It was made for them!

Speaking of things that were made for us, apparently there's quite a bit of evidence* that the U.S. Government faked the moon landing! Not only that, lauded film director and Real Piece of Shit Dude Stanley Kubrick did it all, and then felt so guilty about it that he peppered "The Shining" with clues about how the moon landing is fake and he filmed it and now feels bad about it! Don't worry, he never felt bad about abusing Shelley DuVall on the set. On the plus side, Buzz Aldrin definitely didn't feel bad about punching a dude in the face for saying Aldrin lied about walking on the moon, so at least there's that. Join us, won't you?

*there is the literal opposite of evidence

Episode 48: People Unlimited Incorporated vs. The Waldorf School!

Thu, 17 Feb 2022 13:00:00 -0600

Today we learn how to live forever, but for real this time, from People Unlimited Incorporated! (We also take a moment to mourn the death of its founder, Charles Paul Brown, who died in 2014 NO YOU SHUT UP!) Are we ready to spend our immortal lives eating the worst food imaginable? Before we decide, we'll take a look at The Waldorf School, founded by Rudolf Steiner, who dared to ask the question, "What if we did like that Montessori lady but without applying any provable facts at all?" Steiner hated facts, so thank god he started a school.

Speaking of school, this week it's book fair! Bring your rolls of pennies, as Amanda is not accepting loose coins.

Episode 47.5: Not an Episode, but an Anthem

Fri, 11 Feb 2022 14:00:00 -0600

We don’t have a new episode this week, so please accept Brian’s alternate rendition of the Terasem … anthem? from last week's show. The song might be called “Earth Seed” because every line in it has the words “Earth Seed” in it but also seriously who gives a shit. Content Warning: Some really bad white person “rhythm” comes into play and honestly the whole thing never recovers. See you next week! Ricky Williams!

Episode 47: Terasem vs. Access Consciousness

Thu, 03 Feb 2022 15:00:00 -0600

One of this week's cults is a rare example of a cult not primarily being a financial grift. Terasem's founders are already super fucking rich, and so they're really more interested in your unquestioning allegiance, their own desperate desire to cheat death, and your interest in hanging out with a deeply disturbing AI automaton named BINA48. It's pitted against Access Consciousness, which is a more traditional grift, but one that has a secret star from the wide world of sports! Described as "Scientology Adjacent," where "Adjacent" means "Shitty Clone," Access Consciousness has currently shelled out for paid ads in Google search when you look for "access consciousness cult." Try it! It's pathetic!

Episode 46: Soka Gakkai vs. Thierry Tilly

Thu, 27 Jan 2022 09:00:00 -0600

This week we're throwin' a party! A POLITICAL party! Under the smug, starfucking veneer of leader Daisaku Ikeida, a Japanese Buddhism rip-offshoot called Soka Gakkai that is also a political party? With like 20% of the vote?!? I'm sure there's a reasonable explanation (there isn't). We're also partying down in an abandoned secretarial school, in Paris! That's thanks to Thierry Tilly, a run-of-the-mill creep who bled a family of French aristocrats dry, and if you're not noting any sadness in this sentence, you're not imagining things. Hon hon! Bread! Also this week we realize our podcast's long lost tag line: "Something to look forward to; and something to do."

Episode 45: Ganas vs. The Sterling Institute of Relationship

Thu, 20 Jan 2022 16:00:00 -0600

I think we can all agree that what we really need in these troubled times are more diploma mills. How else are we gonna get more unlicensed group psychotherapists? THERE IS NO OTHER WAY. The founders of Ganas, which as it happens began as an unaccredited school for group therapy, are entirely with me on this one, and would like to interest you in a completely different, entirely legitimate diploma. But before you accept, two questions: Men, have you ever asked yourself, "Am I denying my sacred manliness by not acting like some horrifying post-pubescent toddler all the fucking time?" Women, have you ever thought, "I sure wish a gross little Boomer twerp from some shithole suburb outside Boston could tell me a lot of dumb fucking garbage about what I'm doing wrong in my relationship!" Boy oh boy, is A. Justin "My real name is Arthur Kasarjian" Sterling the guy you should be burying alive as he kicks his stupid little baby legs in weak protest. Join us, won't you?

Episode 44: Elohim City vs. Queen Shahima

Thu, 13 Jan 2022 16:00:00 -0600

There are cults where you skulk around the racist fringes of Southeastern Oklahoma planning terrorist attacks, and cults where the Daughter of God tells you to go out and do crimes so you can all keep staying in luxury hotel suites. Obviously the second kind of cult is way better for everyone, but whatever, we're examining both on today's show! Elohim City's most notable claim to fame is as a stepping stone for Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, and it's crawling with birds of precisely his feather. Queen Shahima is basically just not into having a day job, and would like to minister to people from really nice hotel suites, and look, all I'm saying is maybe I'd be more open to ministering if I was doing it from the Lieutenant Governor's Suite at the Residence Inn, the really nice one by the highway.

Episode 43: Gabriel of Urantia vs. (snort) The Gentle Wind

Sun, 26 Dec 2021 18:00:00 -0600

We’ve only come to this conclusion 70 to 90 times on the show, but did you know that a lot of cults are basically just outlets for white Boomer men to plaster over their obvious insecurities? You did, huh? Yeah.

Well, you’re already here, so why not learn about two more of them? Today’s white guys are Gabriel of Urantia, who has a “University” in “Arizona,” which may not even be a real state, and John “Tubby” Miller, who I guess decided he actually wanted other people to call him that. “The University of Ascension Science & the Physics of Rebellion” squares off this week against, I swear to god, “The Gentle Wind.”

Huhuh. Huhuh. Huhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuh. Huhuhuh. Huhuh. Huh.

Episode 42: John Frum vs. Love Has Won

Thu, 16 Dec 2021 16:00:00 -0600

Cults! Cargo! Colonialism! John Frum is a mythical and beloved figure to many native people of the island of Tanna in Vanuatu, and could, maybe, MAYBE, be part of a vanishingly rare time when the arrival of white people from the United States was an improvement on the squatting of white people from Europe. MAYBE. Our alternative to John Frum is Love Has Won, a cult whose name makes sense if you replace "Love" with "Our Super Drunk Colloidal-Silver Fiend Karen of a Cult Leader" and "Won" with "Been Dead in the Other Room for Several Months and We Put Christmas Lights on Her to Cheer Things Up a Bit PLEASE DON'T CALL THE COPS." Join us, won't you?

Episode 41: Adidam vs. Divine Madness Running Club

Fri, 10 Dec 2021 11:00:00 -0600

Sometimes you run into cults that remind you why people start cults to begin with: An abiding love of cultural appropriation; a penchant for exploiting others for sex; and the run-of-the-mill belief among white men that we should somehow be getting even more free passes than we're already getting.* Such is definitely the case this week, when Adidam, a cult started by some schmuck from Queens who stole a mishmash of eastern religious ideas and at one point called himself "Bubba Free John," and the Divine Madness Running Club, run by Marc Tizer, a guy with a drinking problem and a penchant for ultramarathons, forced abortions, and sexual assault. Join us, won't you?

*This show description was written by Brian, a white man. An insufficient number of white men were harmed during the production of this podcast.

Episode 40.5: The Hot Afternoons, My God, The Hot Afternoons

Fri, 03 Dec 2021 09:00:00 -0600

Much like the rest of you here in the rapidly crumbling United States, we took some time off this week to give thanks for the people and things we still somehow have. Thus, in place of an episode, please enjoy Erin's reading of the very long poem "Hot Afternoons Have Been in Montana," by Aesthetic Realism founder Eli Siegel.

Episode 40: Aesthetic Realism vs. Happy Science!

Thu, 25 Nov 2021 06:00:00 -0600

Happy Cultsgiving! We're celebrating today with Aesthetic Realism, a cult based on the belief that Eli Siegel, a white guy who in 1925 wrote a very long poem that includes a lot of talk about Indians and I guess solved literally everything by doing so; and Happy Science!, which doesn't actually have an exclamation point on the end of it but I refuse to stop typing it that way, and whose leader insists he has eradicated COVID-19 among its members using a "spiritual vaccine" that can be administered online. Also they have made a significant number of anime films and they're super into Trump. Enjoy!

Episode 39: Taylor Camp vs. Father Divine

Fri, 19 Nov 2021 16:00:00 -0600

This week's episode is not that depressing at all! Relatively speaking! Taylor Camp was camp started by movie star Elizabeth Taylor('s brother)! He didn't really live there; it was less a traditional camp and more of a swath of undeveloped shoreline he gave to some hippies to piss off local Hawaiian authorities. It's that or a sojourn with Father Divine, a guy who was just straight-up God, according to him. (I mean why not, right?) He sure did feed and house a lot of hungry and desperate people during a time when it was needed most! Naturally he got arrested for it a lot. Join us for an episode with a legit surprise ending!

Episode 38: MOVE vs. Bikram Yoga

Thu, 11 Nov 2021 16:00:00 -0600

Erin and Amanda are back, and cults have not improved while they were away! Today we examine MOVE, a '70s-era group that some might describe as The Cult Philadelphia Deserved. It was certainly better than former mayor and lifelong shithead Frank Rizzo deserved, but that's not saying a lot. You'd think literally anyone going toe to toe with Rizzo would come out looking better, but cult leader John Africa ... had some problems of his own. These problems would become an entire neighborhood's problems and would fuck up everything for a lot of people for coming up on 50 years now.

Meanwhile in California, skeezy shithead Bikram Choudhury heated a room up to 104 degrees and cooked up a little project called Bikram Yoga! It's great for him because he gets to shriek at people like an infant because he thinks they're fat, and also he gets to sexually harass women and charge people a lot of money for it! Literally zero downside on this one. Join us, won’t you?

SOON!

Fri, 05 Nov 2021 09:00:00 -0500

We’re putting the final touches on our bummer cults and headed back to the studio. We can’t wait to talk shit with you.

A Message from Erin

Thu, 28 Oct 2021 10:00:00 -0500

Hello Lifestylers,

Please accept this meager apology. We here at Madness Madness want y'all to know that we're eager to get back into the studio (living room) and delve deep into some fucked up mind control shit.

Thank you for sticking with us. We've got some good stuff planned and can't wait to share it with you.

Lylas*,

Erin

*Love You Like A Sis

Episode 37: UniMed vs. Aum Shinrikyo

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 16:00:00 -0500

The eternal dilemma: Get groped by a creepy Australian, or get terrorist-tastic with a creepy Japanese guy? Today we're rocketing to the bottom with Universal Medicine ("UniMed"), a cult literally dreamed up by a guy on the toilet to get to second base with the ladies, and Aum Shinrikyo, a cult dreamed up by a weird bully with a thing for constant terrorist attacks. Spoilers: There's "medical" groping. And homemade weapons. And cops who aren't great at their jobs because there is seriously very little crime in their entire country. G'day!

Episode 36: The Rainbow Family vs. Kabbalah

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 17:00:00 -0500

This week's matchup gives you a choice of cultures to appropriate: You can hang out with the Rainbow Family and immerse yourself in some muddled, deeply unsurprising theft of Native American ideas, or you can tie a string on with the Kabbalah and take a moment to consider if it's possible to improperly appropriate your own culture! Seems like a yes to me.

Episode 35: The Church Universal & Triumphant vs. J.Z. Knight and Ramtha

Thu, 30 Sep 2021 15:00:00 -0500

Sometimes talkin' real fast is the same as enlightenment, especially when you're extremely sleep-deprived and possibly living in a fallout shelter because the cult you're in is definitely sure there's gonna be a nuclear war any day now. This was certainly the case with the Church Universal and Triumphant, a bunch of weirdos in Montana. Today they go up against J.Z. Knight and Ramtha, a power duo consisting of a drunk person who "channels" a "35,000-year-old" "Lemurian warrior" who lives in rural Washington and is "definitely not a con artist and a huge fucking fraud." In local news, Brian is on steroids.

Episode 34: Larry Ray & the Sarah Lawrence 9 vs. Beta Dominion Xenophilia

Thu, 23 Sep 2021 11:00:00 -0500

Y'ever meet a college roommate's dad and think, "Now THERE'S a guy I want to move into the common area of our dorm room!" Man, have we got the Dad for you. In today's episode we meet Larry Ray, an insane creep who took advantage of his daughter's suitemates at Sarah Lawrence College and conned them into nearly a decade of deeply bizarre servitude and exploitation. The cult doesn't have a proper name so I'm gonna call it Electric Larryland.

Pitted! Against! A little ethos called Beta Dominion Xenophila, invented by petty criminal, constant liar, serial bigamist, and adult prom date extraordinaire "Scott" Caruthers. Ole Scott realized at some point that he could Just Start Saying Things and enough people would believe them that he could stop doing work and start having a cult/long con/weirdly actually successful fitness invention. There's a lot here, friends. Jump in!

Episode 33: Educo vs. Zendik Farms (Season 3 Premiere! Cults are back!)

Thu, 16 Sep 2021 14:00:00 -0500

We've had a good time with clubs and organizations, but there's also a limit to how much right-wing white guy bullshit a person can study before they have to switch back to studying not-necessarily right-wing bullshit. That's right folks, cults are back! The season 3 premiere pits a couple of obscure dipshits against each other, which is clearly shocking: Educo, a health cult from the shores of fair Ireland, and Zendik Farms, a badly structured attempt to arrange some Strange for a never-was beatnik.

Episode 32: The Future Farmers of America vs. The Friars Club

Thu, 09 Sep 2021 07:00:00 -0500

There's a point in every person's life when they must ask themselves whether 'tis nobler to indulge in forensic sniffing and tasting of milk, or to join a group of dead and dying white male comedians founded on an obsession with Milton Berle's dingus. For us, that day has come. The FFA (Future Farmers of America) was founded to promote pride and develop skills in farming, during a time when more Americans lived rurally than didn't. The Friars Club was founded to cut down on the number of fraudulent free tickets scammed off of New York's theaters, during a time when basically everyone was a fucking asshole because it was New York in the early 1900s. Fortunately nothing has changed, except they've taken to hiring literal felons to manage their charity work. Great stuff, don't miss it.

Also, holy shit! It's the season two finale!

Episode 31: The Bohemian Club vs. The Shriners

Fri, 03 Sep 2021 10:00:00 -0500

At a glance, one could be forgiven for assuming there's no way we'd join a group where the world's richest and most powerful men (only men) go to piss everywhere in a way that wild animals find unwise. One could also be correct in assuming this, but that'd make for a short and boring episode. Fortunately we've got the Shriners in the opposite corner, and let me tell you, this is a far more legit group than perhaps any of us realized. Let's learn about tiny cars and the seemingly pretty great men who drive them!

Episode DIRTY 30: Mods vs. Rockers

Thu, 26 Aug 2021 13:00:00 -0500

Hop on, loser! We're going to postwar England! Join us for one of the mildest gang fights since the episode of "Newhart" where the Hooligals rumbled with the Puffians. As thoughtfully chronicled in The Who's rock-opera-cumentary "Quadrophenia," this week we'll have a look at the Rockers, a group heavily inspired by U.S. biker culture of the 1950s, and the Mods, who were primarily about dressing real slick and ended up riding Vespas everywhere, for reasons we will get into. Brrrm Brmmmm!!!

Episode 29: The IRA vs. the AIM

Thu, 19 Aug 2021 12:00:00 -0500

This week we take a look at two groups of people utterly fucked over — by England and by the people so awful they got kicked out of England, respectively — and the groups they formed to express their well-thought-out grievances. Props to the American Indian Movement (AIM) for making their point while killing a whole whole whole lot fewer people; slight demerits for Marlon Brando's involvement, though seriously NOBODY EVEN INVITED HIM. Props to the Irish Republican* Army (IRA) for coming painfully close to killing Margaret Thatcher; fairly serious demerits for killing, uh, a whole lot of civilians, wrongly suspected informants, and even rightly suspected informants. Plus Gerry Adams is involved, the base lying shitheel. Anyway! Come learn with us!

*not that kind of Republican

Erin’s review of Gaywyck
https://matsentertainment.com/librarian-wanted-no-librarians-need-apply/

Episode 28: Skull & Bones vs. The Weather Underground

Thu, 12 Aug 2021 11:00:00 -0500

There's something for everyone in this match: Grave robbery, astonishing-yet-unsurprising disrespect for Native Americans, Paul Walker, Pacey, baffling tests designed to screw marginalized people into dying in Vietnam, "wars" consisting of bombing unoccupied buildings, decades of hiding, and a whole lot of Bad Ideas From White Guys in Their Early 20s. And when the dust settles, we get to join one of these clubs ... oh ... oh god no. It's Yale's own non-frat frat Skull and Bones vs. the homegrown, kinda half-assed '60s domestic terror frat The Weather Underground! Boom!

Episode 27: Deadheads vs. Juggalos

Thu, 05 Aug 2021 10:00:00 -0500

WOOP WOOP Y'ALL! This week it's a thoughtful examination of getting soaked in cheap soda and occasionally meth vs. endless guitar solos from a band whose most compelling members have been (gratefully, presumably) dead for decades, and whose fans are twirling, TWIRLING, ALWAYS TWIRLING!!! If you think about it, Juggalos are like Deadheads, but tailored to the ruined economy and world left behind by the Deadheads' generation. Join us, won't you? We'll discuss which is worse: Following a hellish, vomit-spattered circus packed with nightmarish clowns, or going to an Insane Clown Posse show.

Important Link: The Achewood comic about the Grateful Dead.

Episode 26.5: A Song Regarding Chipmunks and the Centennial State

Sat, 31 Jul 2021 10:00:00 -0500

We're back from vacation, and we miss it severely. But we wrote a song about it, because that's what we do around here. Enjoy!

Episode 26: The Hellfire Club vs. The Women's Christian Temperance Union

Thu, 15 Jul 2021 09:00:00 -0500

We're Americans, after all, which means we can't deal with even the tiniest soupçon of nuance. What better mindset could there be when approaching a showdown between the well-intentioned but ultimately semi-disastrous teetotaling Women's Christian Temperance Union and the gathering of unredeemable 18th-Centuray Upper-Class British Shits that christened itself The Hellfire Club? It's a roller-coaster that starts with unpardonable circumstances that lead to desperate but wrongheaded ideas, and ends with unpardonable ideas from wrongheaded and decidedly non-desperate rich fucking twits. Also Brian talks about his first job as a mall puppeteer, ultimately raising more questions than he answers. Join us, won't you?

Episode 25: 4th of July Mini-Sode

Thu, 08 Jul 2021 16:00:00 -0500

On this auspicious week following the United States' 245th birthday, we look back to a week ago, the auspicious week before the United States' 245th birthday, and the not-quite-an-episode we recorded then. I mean, look, it's an episode, it's just not specifically about clubs and organizations—unless you count the mildly exclusive club of people who tried to assassinate our 38th president, Gerald R. Ford!

That's right, today we're having a quick look at Sara Jane Moore and podcast stalwart Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme! They are definitely two people who tried to shoot Gerald Ford, who, the Nixon pardon aside, was basically just sitting there not hurting anyone. I dunno man. People wanted to shoot a dude.

Epsiode 24.5: Another Song About Not Having an Episode This Week

Fri, 02 Jul 2021 15:00:00 -0500

Folks, it's summer. It's a time of vacation. And last weekend, when we normally would have recorded this week's show, was Brian's vacation. So there's no new entire show this week. However, please enjoy/listen grudgingly to/mercilessly roast this week's offering, a new song about not having a podcast episode for this week.

Episode 24: The Bilderberg Group vs. The Black Panther Party

Thu, 24 Jun 2021 14:00:00 -0500

Look, just because it's a creepily secretive cabal of the ultra-rich and politically connected doesn't mean the Bilderberg Group is creepy as hell, does it? It does? Oh, excellent! I'm relieved to hear you say that; I also find it incredibly creepy. In today's episode they will definitely not show up to their showdown with the Black Panthers, a crucial social justice group from the '60s and '70s that dared to kick the boot off Black Americans' necks and demanded long-denied justice. Also they made free breakfast.

Episode 23: Two Scouts Enter! One Scout Leaves!

Thu, 17 Jun 2021 16:00:00 -0500

It had to happen eventually, folks: The Girl Scouts are squaring off against the Boy Scouts, and hooboy it is not gonna go well for the one with all the sexual abuse. (SNS for spoilers.) I mean, look: In the Boy Scouts' defense, is there anything inherently wrong with a crypto-militaristic, consistently right-wing group founded in the depths of British Imperialism?

... Yes! Yes. Of course there is. Jesus Christ. Anyway, the good news is we'll also be learning about the Girl Scouts this week, which is a much more uplifting tale. Except the part about the murders BUT THOSE WERE NOT DONE BY GIRL SCOUTS, OKAY

Which leads me to the CONTENT WARNING: There is discussion of some horrific murder right around the two-hour mark that lasts for about 10 minutes, so if you want to skip that, it's totally understandable. We've added chapter markers if you want to skip over it, though I don't know if that works in iTunes or whatever.

LINK! "The History of the Scouting Movement," youtube, where comments have been disabled for presumably hilarious reasons.

Episode 22: The Greek System vs. The John Birch Society

Thu, 10 Jun 2021 11:00:00 -0500

Sometimes you have choose between inherently evil and stupid organizations. Sometimes it's this week. The Greek System at U.S. Universities is known for just about every kind of baked-in racism, sexism, and classism; the John Birch Society is known for being a paranoid anti-Communist horse shit factory of the type that was generally laughed out of town back before we entered the stupidest timeline ever. Come find out which is worse!

Humorous Reference Materials

Chad Mitchell Trio: "The John Birch Society"

Bob Dylan: "John Birch Paranoid Blues"

Episode 21: The Mattachine Society & The Daughters of Bilitis vs. The Wobblies! (IWW)

Fri, 04 Jun 2021 09:00:00 -0500

Content warning: Part 1 contains some slurs against gay people, spoken by a gay person. Also CW for mentions of r*pe and abuse by police, and an unavoidable smidgen of pedophilia.

If you’re gay and have a job, you’ll have a hard time choosing between this week’s clubs! The Mattachine Society and the Daughters of Bilitis provided safe and empowering places for LGBTQ folk during the early and mid 20th Century when such refuges were painfully scant. Meanwhile, the Industrial Workers of the World — the IWW, or “The Wobblies,” a nickname no one has been able to satisfactorily explain — started sticking it to The Man at around the same time with wildcat strikes, whuppin’ some strike-breaker ass, straight-up sabotage, and demands for basic worker rights and protections, and, depending on who you asked, the overthrow of the government and the seizing of the means of production. Join us!

Episode 20: The Peace Corp vs. The Society for Creative Anachronism

Fri, 28 May 2021 09:00:00 -0500

You can have a shovel or a leather mug, but you can't have both. This week we determine whether 'tis nobler to White Savior into a recently semi-decolonized country and insist on capitalism, or to get shitty about the relative authenticity of other people's costumes. It's the Peace Corps, where the germ of an idea John F. Kennedy kind of swiped from Hubert H. Humphrey yielded a pipeline of deeply unqualified, overwhelmingly white college graduates into areas of the world we decided needed Help because they didn't look enough like the suburbs of Buffalo, NY. Compared to that, it seems like the Society for Creative Anachronism — picture guys sparring with fake swords even when it's not the Renaissance Festival — would be a shoo-in for this week's best club. It's closer than you think. Buckle in! This one's almost a third as long as Avengers: Endgame. But it's got way more shitty JFK impressions in it!

No Show This Week: An Excuse, in Song

Thu, 20 May 2021 09:00:00 -0500

For reasons fully explained in a brief song, Erin and Amanda were unable to record an episode this week. Please listen to the song, and if you have any questions afterward please email us at madnessmadnesspodcast@gmail.com. We will definitely see you next week.

Episode 19: UK Showdown: The Royal Order of Buffaloes vs. The Women's Institute!

Thu, 13 May 2021 15:00:00 -0500

This week’s matchup hops the pond to England, where we get a look at a couple of longstanding social ensembles: The Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes and the Women’s Institute. One has hats and theater people; one has women who work in the home and get shit DONE. Also the segments are relatively short so there are a lot of pleasant digressions, from soap operas to Jesus’s visit to Glastonbury, which did not necessarily cause the later death of Michael Jackson during the storied music festival in 2009, but also nobody can be 100% sure. After last week’s Hoo-Hoo Explosion we honestly weren’t sure there’d be any serious competitors in the pipeline, but listen, there’s a lot to work with this week. Join us, won’t you?

Episode 18: Clubs & Associations Madness: DAR vs. The Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo!

Thu, 06 May 2021 12:00:00 -0500

So, sometimes you have to take a step back and have a look at what you're doing. Sometimes it turns out that what you're doing isn't actually what you want to be doing, or what you feel you should be doing, or, as the saying goes, "kind of sucks."

It turns out that MLMs? All kind of suck. There's not gonna be a winner there, and we've accepted that and moved on. So today marks an exciting new chapter in Madness Madness's journey: Clubs and Organizations! What kind of clubs, you ask? Today's entries are the DAR (Daughters of the American Revolution) vs. The Concatenated Order of Hoo-Hoo, a club that may actually be even better than its name, if that even seems possible. Join us! There will be hats!

Episode 17: Multi-Level Madness: Avon vs. Amway!

Thu, 29 Apr 2021 14:00:00 -0500

Two giants of the field square off this week! One's a semi-beloved fixture of domestic life; the other is Amway. Not to tip our hand too much, but if you're a betting person, think about laying your money on the MLM that isn't a right-wing monstrosity shilling a bunch of goddamn garbage to keep the DeVos family afloat on an obnoxious yacht.

Episode 16: Multi-Level Madness! Mary Kay vs. Holiday Magic

Thu, 22 Apr 2021 14:00:00 -0500

IT'S SEASON TWO, SUCKERS!!! Now that we're wig-carrying Unarians, we need another income stream to pay for all these costumes and 8mm film. Time to start a small business and be our own bosses and definitely not wind up thousands of dollars in debt with a garage full of unsalable products! That's right, we're joining a Multi-Level Marketing scheme, and definitely not a pyramid scheme!

In our season 2 inaugural matchup, it's a face-off between two cosmetics MLMs! That's why it's a FACE-OFF! Because faces! And makeup! You see. Uh, anyway. Mary Kay and Holiday Magic! One started by a steely Texas lady with seemingly good intentions, the other bought out of some dude's garage by a right-wing grifter who liked flying planes a lot more than learning how to fly them! It's good stuff, people. For real.

Episode 15: BONUS! Cults 'n' Capitalism + Exercise Cults + What's up next season!!!

Thu, 15 Apr 2021 14:00:00 -0500

Sometimes—OK, who are we kidding, literally all the time—you look down at the stuff you've had to cut from previous episodes due to time constraints, and you say to yourself, "There's no way I'm leaving this behind." And you're right, there's no way we'd let that happen. SO! This week, a fun little grab bag!

A Special Listener Letter: Friend of the Program Allen asks an interesting question about cults and capitalism, which we do some blue-skyin' and some spitballin' about.
Exercise Cults: Sometimes when you insist that people are Doing It Wrong if they're not paying a whole lot extra for the specific exercise program you're selling, it gets kinda culty! Especially if you're selling Crossfit or Soul Cycle! You fucking weirdo! CONTENT WARNING: This segment contains discussion about disordered eating and exercising, so you might consider skipping it if that stuff is troubling to you.
Next Season!!! It's time to learn what kind of madness we'll be getting up to in season 2! OMFG!!!

Episode 14: SEASON ONE FINALE! Ivanwald, The Breatharians, and a Winner!

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 12:00:00 -0500

It's all come down to this, folks: After grueling weeks of intense research, our intrepid hosts take on the final four contestants and determine which cult is the cult for them! IT'S REALLY HAPPENING!!!

... After a reasonable discussion of two more cults, of course. Spoilers: Neither fucked-up Jesus Power Cult "Ivanwald" or the alternating straight-up lies and batshit craziness of the Breatharians will be bursting into The Big Dance.

Episode 13: Wild Card Round!

Tue, 30 Mar 2021 16:00:00 -0500

As you might expect, we here at Madness Madness are constantly bombarded with fun, exciting, and horrific cult news at all hours of the day and night. We're picking it out of our hair; spooning particles of it off the surface of our morning coffee. And today we share some of that goodness with you! Join us for shorter-than usual discussions of Iglesia Maradoniana, Armstrong-ism, the GOP, the Silva Mind Control Method, and much more! Plus listener mail! Exclamation points! My god, the exclamation points.

Episode 12: Eckankar vs. Moral Re-Armament

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 16:00:00 -0500

Sometimes you have to look your former spiritual mentor in the eyes and say, "Hey, buddy. I'm thoroughly plagiarizing your work so I can make some cash off this cult. And that's OK." Other times you have to sing over the Berlin Wall at an old East German woman who's been through both world wars about how you have to work hard for your freedom. It's a complicated life, this crazy ride we call a podcast. Join us, won't you?

Episode 11: The Sullivan Institute vs. Desteni

Tue, 16 Mar 2021 14:00:00 -0500

Picture it: It's the '70s, you live in New York, you like getting screamed at, and you're really into humpin'. Bang! Welcome to the Sullivan Institute, pal! Or, alternately, picture it: It's the early 2000s, you're at your desk, and your three favorite things are incoherent garbage, constant antisemitism, and MDMA. Whoomp! There's your cult! It's Desteni, a spelling so stupid my keyboard caps keep coming off when I try to type it. Join us, won't you?

Episode 10: Mankind United vs. EST

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 09:00:00 -0600

This week it's Mankind United, a cult whose story includes a startling refutation of Chekhov's Tiny Man With a Metal Head rule; and EST, whose story includes reinforcement of Chekhov's Confused Boomers Entering the '70s Rule. Join us as we sniff through these grifts, overturning numerous tidbits of knowledge like so many cult-researching truffle pigs.

Episode 9: Raelians vs. Kenja

Tue, 02 Mar 2021 15:00:00 -0600

France! Australia! Oy! Hon hon! Today we go deep—down under, even—into the Raelians, France and French Canada's clone-happy UFO booster club, and see if it's a better fit for us than Kenja, Australia's sorta home-grown, sorta ripped off from Scientology cash vacuum. Raelism (not realism) is, at the very least, a cult where you're less likely to be burned to death for the knights templar than France's other entry into the series. Kenja, meanwhile, may have out-Scientologied Scientology in a few key respects. Join us for bad accents, at least one suppressive person, and the gripping origin story of Corn Thins.

Episode 8: The Moonies vs. Falun Gong

Tue, 23 Feb 2021 12:00:00 -0600

Stadiumwide mass weddings! Questionable claims about organ harvesting! Richard Nixon! Al Haig! SHEN YUN!!! This episode's got it all, folks. The Rev. Sun Myung Moon and his absolutely third-grade-boy ideas about gay people fight for the elite eight against Falun Going, a relative newcomer with an omnipresent troupe of acrobats and a massive compound in the U.S. that you are not invited to. Also we would like to go on record as saying that this matchup was 100% picked by the automatic bracket creator, and that we didn't just throw the two Asian cults in a ring to duke it out.

Episode 7: The Solar Temple vs. Tony and Susan Alamo

Tue, 16 Feb 2021 13:00:00 -0600

CONTENT WARNING: The story of Tony Alamo contains details of child abuse awful enough to inspire a person to dig up Tony Alamo's body and beat the shit out of it.

The Solar Temple got pretty goddamn lucky when the randomizer put it up against Tony Alamo, let me tell you. But it does have some stuff going for it: Champagne! The Swiss Alps! Grail holograms! Arson! Meanwhile, Tony Alamo makes the impossible possible by making Susan Alamo look like Mother Teresa by comparison. Seriously. We knew Tony Alamo was a piece of shit but we had no idea how bad it was. Onward!

Episode 6: UNARIUS vs. "Teal Swan"

Tue, 09 Feb 2021 13:00:00 -0600

We had plans, you see, to talk this week about the Children of God and Aleister Crowley's religion of Thelema. These cults turned out to be, respectively, far too awful and nowhere near awful enough to talk about for even part of a podcast. So we got way better cults! This week: The charmingly earnest weirdos of UNARIUS square off against the social media influencer who is totally not a cult leader you guys, "Teal Swan." Teal Swan is in quotes for the same reason we spell out Nexium how it sounds.* In advance: You are welcome for the last-minute reschedule, folks, 'cause this one is a hoot and a holler. Yay!

* because it's dumb

Episode 5: The Source Family vs. Buddhafield

Tue, 02 Feb 2021 13:00:00 -0600

Having your own cult is about not having to decide between being a wildly successful health-food restaurant pioneer or being White Human Man God. Or between telling your gaggle of model-like Californians that sex is ridiculous while also ... uh, look, no spoilers, but the dude pushing that notion may actually have had sex.

The Source Family was a foundational southern California '60s cult; Bhuddafield was, 20 years later ... another southern California cult. They go head to head in today's episode, which includes togas, the Dorothy Chandler family mansion, something like 13 albums of psychedelia, budgie-smugglers, professional videographers, and paying a dude $50 to gently poke you in the eyes. It is yet another banger of an episode in what has become a nonstop series of bangers. Let's go!

Episode 4: Heaven's Gate vs. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Tue, 26 Jan 2021 15:00:00 -0600

At some point in their lives, everyone ends up asking themselves "Do I wear robes often enough? And should they be maroon? And why are all these pancakes different sizes? What the hell, Self!" Bearing that in mind, there is a 100 percent chance you'll find something relatable in this episode, when we compare weirdly touching space Jesus suicide cult Heaven's Gate to the salad bar-poisoning, small town-overtaking cult of the off-putting libertarian materialist Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. Come for the weirdly specific breakfast specifications! Stay for some deeply selfish ideas about what your kids can do while you go to group screeching-and-humping therapy!

Episode 3: Scientology vs. The Center for the Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Spirit

Tue, 19 Jan 2021 16:00:00 -0600

Some people like their cults real big and real ugly, and those people can fuck off! Hahaha, just not kidding. It’s the big one this week, folks. Scientology. The brain fart of L. Ron Hubbard, a man whose writing ability was only eclipsed by his Navy career, this multibillion-dollar jargon cesspit may finally answer the question: “What if I could be surrounded by insufferable batshit narcissists *and* bankrupt myself in the process?” The pile of elephant shit in the room goes head to head with a frankly quite refreshing little cult born from the visions of Terri Hoffman, a woman who refused to let the Dallas suburbs keep her from fighting creatures who weren’t there and protecting the government of Peru: The Center for the Conscious Development of Body, Mind, and Spirit. Got a lot on our plate here, folks. Get comfortable.

Episode 2: Synanon vs. NXIVM (Nexium)

Thu, 07 Jan 2021 15:00:00 -0600

Sometimes your cult leader is a recovering drunk who's super into LSD. Sometimes he's a twerpy little sex pest coasting on a middle-school judo championship and a good result on an OMNI Magazine IQ test. And since we're all about making choices here, it's time to dig into both these weirdos and the cults they founded. This week's cults: Synanon, a rehab-turned-shaved-heads-and-overalls joint in California, and Nexium, a pyramid scheme-turned-Adult-Friend-Finding service which is supposed to be spelled NXIVM but we're not doing that because it's fucking stupid. THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!

Episode 1: Krishna Consciousness vs. the FLDS

Tue, 29 Dec 2020 15:00:00 -0600

Yogurt rivers? Forfeiture of property rights? Why not both? 'Cuz that's not what this show's about! Our first episode pits the Temple of Krishna Consciousness (the Hare Krishnas) against the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) (the ones that still do polygamy). Turns out both groups are appropriated versions of existing religions! Who could have foreseen this? It's apricot body wraps vs. denim prairie skirts in this battle for the ages!