Part One: The Surprising Evil of 1950s Men's Adventure Magazines examines how publications like Climax and Courage shifted from veteran-focused stories to crude pornography featuring Nazi pirates and racial slurs. Hosts Sophie and Margaret Killjoy critique the 1957 issue of Courage, which exploited the Saudi slave trade for titillation while promoting toxic masculinity through tales like "All the Girls Loved Danny." Despite acknowledging historical accuracy regarding slavery's abolition in 1962, they condemn the framing that trivialized human trafficking. Ultimately, this analysis reveals how mid-century pulp fiction weaponized misogyny and racism to sell get-rich-quick schemes, normalizing violence against women and marginalized groups under the guise of adventure. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
|
Time
Text
Compelling Magazine Descriptions00:14:28
This is an iHeart podcast.
Guaranteed human.
When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He is not going to get away with this.
He's going to get what he deserves.
We always say that.
Trust your girlfriends.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast, Playing Along, is back with more of my favorite musicians.
Check out my newest episode with Josh Groban.
You related to the Phantom at that point.
Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
That's so funny.
Share each day with me each night, each morning.
Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ego Mode.
My next guest, it's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
He goes, just give it a shot.
But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of life.
Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Oh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast that's normally about the worst people in all of history and is normally named Behind the Bastards.
But, you know, we've got something special for you this week and moving forward.
But first, I want to bring on our guest for today, Margaret Killjoy.
That's me.
Hi.
Hi, Margaret.
How are you doing?
I'm doing great.
I'm really excited that you've rebranded the show to be Parenting Tips for the Unmarried.
Yeah, that is exactly it.
Tip number one.
Wait, did you actually say I just disassociated?
Did you actually?
No, actually.
So here's the thing.
Here's the thing.
Here's the thing that I was in, introduce our audience to, because we're changing the name of the podcast, everybody.
This is a big deal.
You know, you may have heard the Indian parliament is voting right now on whether or not to change the name of their country to Bahrat.
And I just want to prep everybody because the instant they drop that name, your boy's picking it up.
This podcast is going to officially be India.
Now, I know a lot of people are saying Pakistan has been in line for a while for that one, but I'm sorry.
Pakistan is not going to be able to change on a dime as quickly as Sophie can change the name of our Twitter account.
And I think that's internationally how names get recognized.
Okay, I have bad news for you about the nuclear capacity in Pakistan.
That's true, but also I was disassociated again.
But is he talking about the India thing again?
Yeah.
We're going to do it.
We're going to do it.
I only have to listen to like every two words in your sentences, and I'm still up to date.
I think this is going to be how we make a lot more money.
Because here's the thing.
Behind the bastards, pretty good podcast title.
Good name recognition after this time.
India.
That's brand recognition right there.
That's true.
You know, everybody knows India, right?
You're going to get people listening just because they're interested in the country or whatever.
You know, that's cash in the bank, baby.
So sorry, Pakistan, but the new Indy is here.
And it's, well, this week it's several hours of discussing men's adventure magazines from the 1940s.
Oh, I remember why, okay, so there are things you'll be showing.
Now, Margaret, we have not done with you a book episode yet.
Yeah.
How are you feeling?
Do you think you're ready?
The vibes are different.
This kind of responsibility.
I'm so ready.
I was born ready to look through trashy old magazines.
They're trashy, right?
So they're fascinating, Margaret.
Here's the thing.
Like is this boy's life or like highlights for kids or is this like whatever came before Playboy?
Yeah, it's closer to Playboy.
It's closer to Playboy.
So here's the thing, Margaret.
You know, anybody who knows you knows that you're a big fan.
You love Christmas.
Huge Christmas ad.
And anyone who knows you also knows you're a member of an obscure pre-Nicene Orthodox cult that believes the actual date of Christ's birth is.
Just bleep it out, whatever you say.
Yeah.
So anyway, this is a Christmas gift for you to celebrate the book you published this year, Escape from Incel Island.
Oh, okay, good.
Yeah.
Yeah, because your book, you know, is a, is a, is a fun fictional romp that also deals with, you know, some of the questions about like the toxicity of aspects of how men are cultured in our society, right?
Which is, you know, one of the more interesting things about that book.
So Margaret, here's the thing.
I wanted to both provide a little bit of a free Christmas time, you know, advertisement for that book.
And I felt like the best way to do that was to delve into the history of like masculinity and particularly like the weird media that formed a certain chunk of men's concepts of masculinity for an entire generation, specifically like two generations before we came onto the scene.
And that's why we're going to talk about men's adventure magazines.
Now, most of you have seen or heard of these to some extent.
They come up on social media every now and then.
When I worked at Cracked, we had some articles written by Sean Baby making fun of them.
They're these ridiculous magazines that would often have like these garish illustrations of like a muscly man fighting hundreds of crabs.
Or like, yeah, Nazis and pirates grabbing like women and ripping their bodices and stuff.
And like, it'll have these insane titles for like different articles about like lust slaves of the Nazi Caribbean or some shit like that, like wild stuff.
But all of these kind of, you know, there's a bunch of different publications that all sort of fall in under the broad category of men's adventure.
And men's adventure is sort of a genre name for a type of publication that started in the 1940s after World War II and had its heyday in the late 50s and 60s.
Most of these magazines had died off by the 70s, but while they were alive, they featured a mix of risque photos, some of which were just straight up softcore pornography, some of which were, you know, a bit shy of that, and illustrations alongside thrilling articles and short stories about extreme sports, daredevil activities, various fictional pulp tales of two-fisted detectives and cowboys and adventure and shit, a lot of which was like framed as these are true stories, you know?
But it's basically a fiction magazine.
It's basically a short story magazine, right?
And in fact, a number of authors who were really influential by like the 70s and 80s got their start writing for these.
I believe he's Mario Puto or something.
guy who wrote The Godfather, the book, got his start writing story.
He wrote, by his count, probably published millions of words in these magazines under a bunch of pseudonyms over the years.
Oh, yeah.
That's possible.
We'll read something he wrote today.
I have so much respect for the art of like churning out pulp adventure.
Yeah.
It is a bunch of crap out on the page.
It is a fucking blue-collar job that needs doing.
And I have so much respect.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And this is like some of these are pretty fun.
And in fact, at least one of them I learned something from.
And some of them are incredibly gross and like reveal some of some of the worst things about a specific chunk of men in this period of time.
I guess I love that they had to like specifically say this is men's adventure as if like because everyone knows that like muscly guys fighting crabs is just adventure.
Yeah.
But you have to make it men's adventure.
Yeah.
Like it has to be horny and deeply dismissive of women.
And then it's men's adventure.
Right.
Yeah, totally.
Yeah.
Good morning, girls in here.
Absolutely not.
Getting a bodice ripped off by Nazi crabs.
The first that you have gotten remarkably close to guessing how one of the stories that we're going to be talking about ends.
So True Adventure was the first magazine in the men's adventure genre.
It was a spin-off of True Detective magazine, which had started back in the 20s.
Early examples of other magazines kind of in the same field had respectable names like Blue Book or Adventure or Argosi.
But by the time the 60s rolled around, things had gotten decidedly hornier and cruder with names like Climax, World of Men, and Man's Story.
And the kind of articles that they published in these had gotten decidedly lower as well.
Somebody has a great face right now.
Yeah, Man's Story.
Climax!
World of men.
I've changed my opinion about the Death Star.
We can bring the Death Star back.
All of these have the straightest names for publications they could possibly have.
Nothing but straight with World of Men.
I would not like to attend that event.
The kind of articles that these magazines published went decidedly lower over time as well.
One issue of Man's Story from 1962 features the incredible article titled Soft Flesh for the Nazi Monsters Pit in Hell.
And I cracked the Reds Lust Capital.
It also featured an early listicle.
Portland, Oregon.
Yeah.
The Reds Lust Capital.
Yes.
It also featured an early listicle.
I was shocked to see this.
I did not realize how far back my former career had its roots called 10 Faults That Make You Repulsive to Women, which I think I've run across that exact title in modern articles before.
Wait, so actually you and I would be the perfect people to start this magazine and get money.
We could do this because both of our careers are this.
I write pulp fiction and you write listicles.
We could make this happen, Margaret.
All we need is somebody who can draw really slutty men fighting off crabs.
I'm sure we'll find it.
So before we get into some of these stories for ourselves, I found a pretty interesting Huffington Post article with the title, It's a Man's World, that cites the son of illustrators.
It covers the history of these magazines.
And at one point, it cites the son of illustrator Norman Saunders, who did a lot of the iconic cover drawings for these magazines.
Quote, Dad told me that he felt adventure magazines were towards men who had served in the war but had seen no action, which describes 85% of our 16 million servicemen.
He felt that men who saw action never wanted to think about it again, while most servicemen who had never reached a front line were doomed to a life of wondering about their manhood in the face of battle.
I find that really insightful and compelling.
Yeah.
And you will find there's some like really direct quotes from some of these articles that makes it clear, like, oh, that is exactly who you're serving.
Yeah.
Like, yeah, these guys who they, you know, they'd always wondered, what would my life have been like if I'd had that sort of like searing baptism of fire?
You know, would I, maybe all of the things, and I think there's a lot of men who like think that like, oh, if I just had some like searing combat experience, you know, I would, I wouldn't have these hangups.
I wouldn't be scared in this way.
I'd have the courage to do this or do that.
Yeah.
You know, a lot of our media reinforces this attitude, which, you know, let me tell you, folks, I, I don't think that's the most common reaction to experience in combat.
I think the most common reaction to experience in combat is being very, very scared.
And not liking it, wanting to avoid getting shot at again, wanting to avoid, you know, getting shot again.
Spending most of the rest of your life finding ways to deal with it.
If it's World War II, we're talking about, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You actually did exactly the best thing possible.
You proved you were brave enough to volunteer.
Well, unless you got drafted, but like you helped stop the Nazis and you didn't get PTSD.
Your biggest problem is that you feel like a little emasculated.
Yeah, you didn't shoot.
Because you did support work that is necessary and just as important and you helped stop the Nazis.
Get the fuck out of here.
Yeah.
You don't actually need all that many guys shooting them.
What you do need is a lot of guys ensuring that we, I don't know, make like a dozen battleships in a week in a field that like no other nation in history had ever managed because of a lot of unpleasant things, actually.
But anyway, that's beyond the point here.
So back to, yeah, I find that guy's description of like who these magazines were for compelling because it gets at an issue and a feeling that is still very much present today among a huge chunk of men in our country.
This is why it looks like the AR-15 market.
Literally, the next sentence, Margaret, is this is why so much of the equipment marketed to the gun industry is sold the way it is, right?
It's why you get guys doing this fucking like Kyle Rittenhouse shit where they show up with guns at protests because they want a chance to do something to like shoot somebody, to do something that feels like this thing that they have in their head as like the archon of masculinity, but also they're scared of real combat, right?
Yeah.
Unemployed People's Problem00:08:57
So they much prefer this, this sort of thing.
Like there's this.
Yeah, a lot of the, you get a lot of the first wave of American volunteers who went into Ukraine were like backrankers and a decent chunk of them were like, oh my God, I did not was not ready for this sort of thing.
Now, obviously, there were a lot of guys who went in there and, you know, did and are continuing to be in heavy combat.
But like, there's a desire among a lot of people for like, I want, I want the thing that military action confers to me, but I don't want to like sign away years of my life to the military or anything like that.
And I hope I found, you know, a way around that, right?
Like that, that's, I think, you know, what a lot of this, what I think that impulse is at the core of these magazines and at the core of a lot of things that are really ugly about our present society.
So much of the toxicity, I think, in the United States right now is centered around men who never saw combat or served, but also don't have a concept of masculinity that extends beyond the ability to do violence and the capacity to convince other people that you can do violence.
Right.
I think that's, that's what these magazines are getting towards.
And I think that's also like what's killing us, one of the things that's killing us as a culture.
This is a problem larger than a book episode of Behind the Bastards.
But as we've seen some of these elements in our culture get darker and more extreme, to take from gun culture again, there's a lot of media that shifted from like protecting your home and protecting yourself to like preparing to wage a war against woke groomers.
This tonal drift was also present, and I find this fascinating, was also present in the men's adventure magazines of a bygone era.
You can see a similar drift happen over the course of time that these magazines are being published.
And I'm going to quote from that Huffington Post article again.
At a certain point in the 1960s, men-adventure pulps took a darker turn.
They went from innocent stories of men fighting nature's beasts in the woods to more twisted fare, like warring gangs of Nazi biker rapists.
As author Humphrey Knip said to me once in reference to the evolution of porn magazines, you can't have brinksmanship without a brink.
Men's pulps went the same way as the porn magazine.
They died because they had nowhere else to go, which you might think about in like the context of our culture, too.
But yeah.
Without further ado, Margaret.
All right.
Let's slide off of that uncomfortable line of thinking.
Right.
And head into death crabs of our first episode.
I don't think there's a Nazi in this first one, but don't worry.
We'll get there.
Okay.
So here's our first issue: Climax.
Exciting stories for men.
Now, we've got some good titles in here.
There's a you've got a drawing of a pirate.
Looks like he's about to cut a man's face off there.
Buccaneer Burko and the slave girls.
And then you've got an article on a French tourist trap that I'm going to tell you right now, just some softcore pornography.
My favorite part.
Peter Townsend, England's Warrior Playboy.
Do you know who he is?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
We'll be talking about him just.
Yeah, you're happy.
You're ready for this.
So, this is from April of 1960, and it starts with an ad about.
And the ads in this, by the way, give us a lot of information about the people that these were geared towards.
The ads in the first ad in this magazine is a full pager on how you two can make big money in this booming industry.
And when you read it a little closer, it's an ad about how to start a business going door-to-door, cleaning furniture and rugs and offering flame-proofing upsells that are just spraying carcinogen cocktails on people's furniture.
Like, that's what it is.
It's like, give everybody fucking cancer.
This ad is mostly noteworthy because it features there's like this chunk of it where it's like, these men are building lifetime businesses.
And it's like a bunch of dudes' heads with like descriptions of their success.
And it's one of the most beautiful 50s guy montages I've ever seen in my life.
Like, look at look at all these 50s guys.
Like, one of them's got the slicked-backed, combed, fucking dapper dan-ass hair.
One guy's got a baffling, looks like his entire face, all of his teeth have been punched out of him, and he's got like a massive bald spot.
Another guy's like a fucking 12-year-old if you want it.
Yeah, yeah, two of them look dead.
Several of them have the same problem as Ron DeSantis, where nobody taught them how to smile.
So they're just doing like this weird grunt face.
It's incredible.
Yeah, the New York guy has an amazing look on his face.
Don't understand it.
The old bald Virginia man looks just the angriest anyone has ever been.
It's beautiful.
One of them is Mitch McConnell having had a seizure and just staring into the middle distance.
So the next page has an ad for a correspondent school geared towards new dads.
Now, the main thing I found interesting here is that it cites the statistic that new fathers need to up their earning by $500 a year to account for a baby.
That's around $5,000 today, while the estimated cost of raising a child per year today ranges from $13,000 to $20,000 a year.
I just thought that was an interesting little bit of context for you.
Yeah.
Market loves context.
Yeah.
That's true.
Yeah, queen of context.
Anyway, that's that's a bummer.
That's not great inflation.
No.
The next page is the table of contents, which is followed by an ad for a completely different correspondence school.
That's like half of the ads in this paper are like different correspondence schools for guys who just kind of never figured their shit out.
This is for unemployed people.
Yeah, unemployed.
I think it's for like either that or underemployed, middle-aged men.
Yeah.
Who like want to be an entrepreneur because they want easy money.
I mean, they're also probably fucked by the economy.
They're probably fucked by the economy.
Or they're doing some sort of a job that's just not going to make them rich and they are willing to fall for this shit.
Yeah.
Now, once we get past some of these ads, we get to the table of contents and we see that this magazine is filled with stories that have titles like Punk with a Switchblade, The Hunter Who Died Twice, and All the Girls Loved Danny.
Then there's an ad for men past 40 who have trouble getting up nights and have lost physical vigor.
The ad informs us.
Yeah.
The ad informs us the cause may be glandular inflammation.
And from what I can sell, they're selling enemas.
And right after the enema ad, Margaret, it's an ad for the Rosicrucians.
Hell yeah.
I talked about them on the last fucking episode of Cool People and Cool Stuff.
Yeah.
Look at this beautiful thing.
There's like this upside-down pyramid with a fucking picture of like ancient Egypt in it, knowledge that has endured since the pyramids.
That's how you have a secret society is you sell ads in the fucking men's adventure magazine.
According to this ad, you could join the Rosicrucians by sending off a letter to Aminotep IV.
Yeah, that's pretty good.
I've always wanted to email or to fucking snail mail a pharaoh.
So the actual stories themselves, most of them are less interesting maybe than the titles might make you think.
It's mostly middle-aged dad fodder.
You know, there's a short story about an old West hired gun in Montana.
I think he's solving a mystery.
There's multiple stories of like World War II soldiers and flying aces.
The most interesting one here is about Pete Townsend, England's warrior playboy, who allegedly.
He's a musician.
Not that Pete Townsend, Margaret.
Not that Pete Townsend.
No.
He was, in fact, a...
Yeah, do you want to tell a movie?
Please, please, please, Sophie.
No, go for it.
He was, I guess, for lack of a better word, an advisor, somewhat security guard to Queen Elizabeth's father and proceeded to fuck.
Oh, he sure did.
Princess Margaret.
Princess Margaret.
Oh, shit.
And then had a history of, and then like broke, and then she wasn't allowed to marry him.
He got like forced out of the country.
She was already divorced, so she wasn't allowed to marry him because they had an affair.
Then they broke.
He broke her heart.
And then he continued to date other very unquestionable leaders.
Very questionable guy.
The most interesting thing about his story in this magazine is that it describes Princess Margaret as the miniature Marilyn Monroe.
And she was not very big.
Like, so I don't understand this at all, but dear God, Robert.
Yeah, very funny.
This next image is after this boring article, we get to the highlight of the issue, which is where we're going to spend most of our time right now, which is the article, Punk with a Switchblade.
Hell yeah.
And yeah, look at this.
I should have got my butterfly knife out before that.
Princess Margaret as Marilyn00:06:44
He's got his butterfly knife out.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
So the fucking the the the introductory art is like a 50s car, you know, giant fucking steel vehicle with like a scared man and a woman, a horrified young woman with her hands on her fucking cheeks and a greaser with like a big fucking Elvis pompadour in a leather jacket holding his knife to like a cherubic child's neck.
Like the kid looks like he looks like one of those like fucking um ceramic children in like a Christmas village that you buy.
Yeah.
And his knife is the size of a bread knife.
Yeah, it is.
And it looks like a bread knife, even though it is described in the story as some kind of switchblade.
I mean, the title of the article is Punk with the Switchblade.
Which means that the handle is like nine inches long.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a lot of that's wrong artistically with their depiction of his switchblade.
Do we get to read the story?
Do we get to read?
Oh, we're going to read this story.
We're going into this motherfucker.
All right.
I'm going to start.
The crisp October night air whipped at his tired, aching body, making him shiver inside his black leather jacket with the painted skull and crossbones across the back.
His young, angry eyes stared hungrily across the narrow tar road into the window of Pop's roadside diner.
Behind the counter, a balding old man in an open-neck white shirt stood sipping coffee from a thick mug.
Here, in the cold and darkness, the kid had been watching and wanting.
When he closed his eyes, he could almost taste the rich, hot coffee.
He could even see rows and rows of juicy fat apple pies and dark brown chocolate-frosted cakes.
All the good, sweet things of life waiting to be eaten.
The angry eyes open and stared at the window again.
If he went inside and asked for something to eat, the old man would laugh at him, push him, and tell him to get out.
In the big pocket of his torn dungarees, he felt the cold hardness of the bone-handled knife.
He pressed his thumb against the switchblade button, knowing the safety catch was on.
I hate you, Daddy-O, he murmured softly.
I don't have to beg nobody.
I can just walk in there and take what I want, daddy-o, and I ain't gonna walk no more on this dirty old road.
I'm gonna get me some wheels, old daddy-o.
I'm gonna get me some nice shiny wheels.
The other credit once in the middle of the middle.
This is just a who song.
See, Margaret, authors used to know how to write dialogue, you know, before this, before we got ruined.
Yeah, daddy-o!
You gotta put that in there like three times they know he's a greaser.
And like, bring back those adverbs, you know?
I mean, like, people are trying to get rid of adverbs and their writing is terrible.
We need more adverbs, no, more adverbs, especially when you're getting paid probably like a heartbreaking amount of money per letter here.
Oh, yeah, like way more than any writer gets today.
Yeah, like we, they probably got paid more per word than the current going rate, not adjusted for inflation.
Yeah, almost certainly.
Well, we're gonna get back to greaser with a switchblade if we're talking about the Rosicrucians.
Yeah, after this ad from the Rosicrucians.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ego Modem.
My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
It's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
I'm working my way up through it.
I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
Yeah.
He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
And he's like, just give it a shot.
He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of luck.
Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
10-10 shots fired, City Hall building.
A silver .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.
From iHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios, this is Rorschach.
Murder at City Hall.
How could this have happened in City Hall?
Somebody tell me that.
Jeffrey, who did it?
July 2003.
Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.
Both men are carrying concealed weapons.
And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.
Everybody in the chambers ducks.
A shocking public murder.
I scream, get down, get down.
Those are shots.
Those are shots.
Get down.
A charismatic politician.
You know, he just bent the rules all the time.
I still have a weapon.
And I could shoot you.
And an outsider with a secret.
He alleged he was a victim of flat down.
That may or may not have been political.
That may have been about sex.
Listen to Rorschach.
Murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app.
Apple Podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts.
There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
We always say, trust your girlfriends.
I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends.
Oh my God, this is the same man.
A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
I felt like I got hit by a truck.
I thought, how could this happen to me?
The cops didn't seem to care.
So they take matters into their own hands.
I said, oh, hell no.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He's going to get what he deserves.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Ah, we're back.
And I hope you all found a new correspondence school to finally make you feel like a man or whatever.
Anyway, let's get back to Greaser with a switchblade.
Yeah.
Hungry Bad Guy Dilemma00:03:29
He was hungry.
I like that it's like the problem is that he doesn't have food and he is the bad guy.
Oh, that's not the problem, Margaret.
That's just where we're starting here.
Don't worry.
This is a believable villain.
Okay.
Okay.
Yeah, absolutely.
In the near distance, headlights glowed along the hill crest, flashed over the top, then dipped down.
The leather jacket melted further back into the shadows.
The kid watched the giant bug eyes sweep down the hill and then turn into the diner.
The car crunched to a stop in the gravel.
A moment later, the car door slammed and a man stood silhouetted on the light of the diner window.
The jacket didn't move until the man was inside, sitting at the counter, smoking a cigarette and looking at the menu.
Then the black leather jacket walked slowly across the road, scuffing the paper thin soles and worn heels over the tar.
A high nasal voice screeching a rock and roll song wailed through the diner as he swung the door open.
Howder, sonny!
The old man called from behind the counter.
Pop grinned, showing toothless gums.
Wary, flashing eyes skimmed over the old man and searched the room, sweeping past several wooden tables draped with red and white oilcloth, some straight-back wooden chairs, a pinball machine, and the colored lights of the jukebox.
There was a door in the back wall.
The youth's eyes fastened on the little man, who had turned from the counter to look at him.
The little man wore money clothes, a buttersoft dark sport coat, knit sports shirt, cream-colored slacks, and shiny black tooled loafers.
Come on, kid, sit down, the little man said, smiling.
Pop, toss a couple burgers for the kid.
Two more pop specials coming up.
I realize I'm now using the same voice for Pop and the Old Man.
The gist of it is they're actually very nice and willing to give him free hamburgers.
Yeah, but this, the Switchblade punk just gets angrier and angrier.
And in fact, he's just like continually filled with more rage as these men try to do nice things for him.
And eventually, you know, the man who buys him the hamburgers explains that he's a traveling salesman and he's had a tough life too, right?
You know, he had a period of time when he was younger where he had a, was living a little bit rougher.
And so he empathized his correspondent school.
Until he went to a correspondent school and became a rich lawyer.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So the two of them like talk for a little while.
And this guy Morell is like, a long time ago, I was a wild, hungry punk like you.
Maybe if someone would have staked me to a meal in a few bucks, it would have changed a lot of things for me.
Morel's voice became softer.
I had a lot of dreams once, a lot of big dreams.
Unexpectedly, he spun the spoon on the countertop.
It fell to the floor with a shop clatter.
But that's another story.
Joe Morell, that's me, friend of stray dogs and cats and hungry kids.
Morel took out his wallet and the kid's eyes grew wide.
He'd never seen so much money.
Morel picked out two $5 bills and tossed them on the counter in front of Smitty.
I ain't begging, mister, Smitty said between clinched teeth.
No one said you were, Morel replied stiffly.
I'm trying to do something decent.
Take it.
Smitty ground the cigarette viciously into the center of the top $5 bill.
I didn't ask for no favors.
Morel jumped to his feet and grabbed Smitty's arm.
Why, you crazy kid?
I had to put you across my knee and warm your fanny.
Fanny meant a different thing back then.
So at this point, it becomes clear this kid is deranged and, you know, just angrier and angrier that these people have tried to feed him.
And like any person in this, in any kind of drifter in this situation, when you offer him food, he pulls out a switchblade and murders the old man and takes you hostage.
Oh my God.
Mainstream Society Attitude00:13:52
Yeah, that's what I'm saying.
Of course what he's going to do, right?
Yeah.
And that's how he kidnaps the little kid.
They have to like guide the child out over like the bleeding corpse of the old man.
Yeah.
It goes very fast from like nice man offering a drifter a sandwich to the drifter murdering everybody and kidnapping them.
Yeah.
I like that the old Christian stories are like.
Yeah.
He was secretly Jesus.
The man, the beggar you gave money to was like, I am your Lord and Savior.
What you do for the least of us, you do for me.
And the 1940s version is, or 60s, whatever, is they're going to murder you.
God.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It's a good funny homeless people.
Here's the thing, Margaret.
Magazines back in this day were one of the worst forms of consuming media that anyone ever invented.
So after several pages of the story, we're told to turn to page 89.
Oh, yeah.
So maybe we'll get back to it later.
But I want to talk a little bit about why this story exists because I looked into this some because I was like, you know, I think for most people of like my age, I'm sure of your age too, the like, the primary like touch point of a greaser is like the fawns, right?
Like that's like, that's the archetypal greaser.
Maybe you think back to, oh, what's that, that musical that's Travolta?
Travolta.
No, the one that Travolta was in.
The where the gangs fight.
You're the one that I want.
Grease.
Grease, grease, right?
You know, those, those are kind of, and yeah, I think some, you know, some, some Westside stories, a little bit of that.
You want to jingle for us?
I sure, I sure don't.
So okay, it was not bad.
They are, you know, the greaser is a, an innocuous, charming figure generally.
Yeah, totally.
That is not what greasers were back in the greaser era, right?
Okay.
They were the source of a bona fide moral panic, right?
Greasers were punks.
Yeah.
Right.
They were like traveling anarchist punk kids, right?
Like that was, that was the attitude that mainstream society had towards the greasers.
Yeah.
They were poor, low-class guys.
We don't exactly know where the word comes from, but it probably started out as a phrase to describe motorcycle mechanics.
And yeah, our grandparents hear grease.
That's another theory for it.
Oh, I just kind of, yeah, you know, I don't think there's a perfectly known, like, exact etymology of the term, at least from the bit that I've read.
Yeah.
But greasers, again, the kind of most common pictures of them are like, yeah, the fawns and stuff.
But a lot of greasers, like the first wave of these guys, were not white people, right?
They were black and Hispanic kids from economically depressed areas that did not benefit from the post-war boom that characterized so much of the American experience in this era.
Greasers were also tied into the very new phenomenon of motorcycle gangs, which also scared the hell out of a lot of people, right?
Now, the actual term greaser did not come into common usage until the act, the subculture had pretty much died out.
We're talking like the end of the 60s, right?
The book that kind of popularized the term greaser was Essie Hinton's The Outsiders.
And, you know, that book was really popular.
And then it kind of, that and some other books that sort of, and then like TV shows and movies that kind of dealt with greasers kind of lodged themselves in the imagination of a generation of filmmakers who were little kids in the 40s, right?
And 50s.
Guys like George Lucas, right?
You know?
And then, you know, guys like George Lucas made films that featured greasers and kind of cemented the cultural image of them as something that was not evil, right?
But if you're going back to like the 40s and 50s, they were often seen as like, these are dangerous, like often kind of like foreign influences in our communities.
They're violent.
They've got these switchblades, which there was also kind of a moral panic about the danger of switchblades.
Well, that's why we still can't buy them in half the states.
It's just like nonsense.
There's nothing that makes that a more dangerous weapon than it was like to carry a gun and I can't carry a push-button knife.
No, it's just interesting to me that like very much when you read this story, it's like modern conservative fears of like homeless people, of fucking Antifa of all this stuff.
Like it is the same, but it's like, it's, it's to this figure that has been thoroughly recuperated as like respectable.
Like the greaser, he's a good kid, you know, maybe he gets into a couple of little fist fights, but they're, you know, he's not a bad guy.
He's a, you know, he's, he's cool.
He's, he's, uh, he's like 50s cool.
And he's like, no, they were definitely not seen as cool.
They were seen as like, um, you know, a dangerous threat to public morals, which is cool.
I know now I like that.
But the mainstream attitude was, was not that, right?
Yeah.
This, this, this story is what the mainstream attitude was.
Like, these are dangerous drifters and stuff, right?
I do think that makes them cooler.
But that's, that is, I didn't know that.
I wasn't really aware of like the etymology or the history of like the greaser as a cultural figure.
Yeah.
So that's pretty sweet.
So I should now let you know that immediately after this fascinating article follows the my favorite girl photo contest.
This is, you're supposed to take a picture of your girlfriend, right?
Or your wife and send it into this magazine to be published.
But I do note a whole bunch of times, we will not publish this without a letter where the girl signs off on her photo being used.
Yeah.
All right.
So this must have been a problem that they had.
But I think what Margot was trying to say is the first one, that's a child.
That probably is a child.
Yeah.
So one of the fun things about these magazines is that absolutely everyone in them is fine with adults, fucking 16-year-olds.
Not a problem that any of the people writing these magazines seem to have had.
We will talk more about that later.
But at least four out of five of them are probably adults.
Yeah, probably.
Yeah.
Maybe.
That's not great.
We'll just move on here.
And they're not.
These are not like for anyone who's porn.
It's not pornography.
All these people are nice.
Nobody's naked.
Yeah.
And in fact, it's kind of like, it's pretty quaint.
Like the person that we think is a child is like fully clothed and only visible from like the neck up and is standing in front of a barn.
One of the ladies is like sitting in a pumpkin patch showing off her prized pumpkins.
Yeah.
And not in a like way that you might be thinking.
Not in a at all a lascivious way.
Yeah.
These are, there's nothing like particularly objectionable about the photos themselves.
We're going to talk about all the girls loved Danny, which, as best as I can tell, is a fantasy story meant to titillate men with the freewheeling life of a 60s style bachelor with a little black book.
But since the story, again, these are kind of softcore porn mags of their time, but also the time is the 60s.
So like you have to be pretty soft with the softcore, right?
Like this is, this is not stuff that even the most like upset about sex person today would not find most of this particularly risque in this magazine.
There are some that are just like naked people, right?
But Climax, oddly enough, is one of the tamer ones that I've come across.
Yeah.
So I find this interesting because it's this like literal cultural insight into this like idealized, pseudo-idealized figure of like the Hugh Hefner kind of bachelor, right?
This is the period of time in which the concept of a bachelor of like, you know, this kind of like man of leisure has started because largely because of Hugh Hefner has started to become a thing.
And this dude is very much, the dude in the story is very much invented in that image.
Because this is the time it is, the story can't endorse him sleeping around constantly.
So it, while it describes his like outrageously prolific sex life, he's like constantly exhausted by the sheer number of dames he's got to ball every week, right?
He's just like unhappy about all of the ladies he's got to fuck.
And that's why the story is.
By the way, like this is a story about him like falling in love and like settling down with one woman.
Of course you do get quite, and it's by, by the way, apparently by a woman.
Now, the fact that it says it's by Dorothy Glazer doesn't mean it was written by that person because they would just kind of stick names on a lot of these.
But here's how this thing opens because it gives some insight into a moment in culture.
Danny yawned into the mouthpiece, listening to the buzz, click, buzz in his left ear as he glanced idly at the penciled list in his hand.
He knew the list well.
He'd been working on it all evening.
It was the plan for the week.
Tuesday, Alice.
Wednesday, Eleanor.
Thursday, Turkish Baths.
Friday, Flow.
Saturday, question mark.
Sunday, poker.
Can I just say?
I don't care.
I think it's great, Sophie.
This man's living the ideal life.
Doesn't remember his Saturdays and then over to poker on Sunday.
I once again, the question mark, I'm not even curious.
I don't want to know.
I know, I know.
It's like somebody's like mystery thing.
I'm like, well, do tell.
And now I'm like, he's trying to figure it out.
He's got to find a lady for Saturday or for Friday.
Yeah, Saturday.
Otherwise, you know, he hasn't, he's not living his 60s life properly.
See, but if he kept the Sabbath holy, it wouldn't be a problem.
You're right.
Then he could finally get some respite from these greedy women.
Yeah.
This is a hell of a way to spend a Monday night, he thought sleepily.
I wish I were at the Turkish baths right now.
As soon as I get Saturday night filled in, I'll hit the sack.
Just exhausted from writing 11 words on a piece of paper.
Completely taken.
It's like, you know what a Turkish bath is.
I assume it's like a sexy inheritance.
I mean, a lot of times, historically, they are, but like a Turkish bath, it's kind of like if you read about like Roman baths and stuff, it's like a successor to that.
It's like a big public bait.
They'll have hot poles and cool poles.
I think you need massages in them.
But is there subtext in what he's writing?
Like, probably.
Is it like, I'm going to go fuck the dudes that day?
Or like...
No, no, I think it's more like this is just like a place that cool, sex-having dudes will go to to like compare cigars and a bath and like, yeah, talk about all the sex they're having with 60s girls.
I think that's more or less what I see here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So as soon as I get Saturday night filled in, I'll hit the sack, but not until then.
Not if I have to call every number in the little black book.
If I don't feel Saturday, I'm really in trouble.
He recognized the eager voice that answered his call, and he sat up alertly, his voice a model of cheerful charm.
Hi, Gloria, baby.
How's the girl?
Why, Danny, how lovely to hear from you after all this time.
He ignored the little dig.
That's the best cha-cha dancer in the world, eh?
Feel like doing it again, say, Saturday night?
Saturday?
She managed to express doubt and interest in the one word, and he could tell she wanted to be coaxed a bit.
But Danny just yawned again and waited.
After a brief silence, Gloria went on brightly.
Why, I guess that would be all right.
Saturday happens to be the one night I'm free this week.
Aren't you lucky?
Danny smiled smugly at the receiver.
Pick you up at six, baby.
We'll have dinner and make a real night of it.
So this is, yeah, it's good.
We get into, you know, he says, like, yeah, she knew what, she knew exactly what he meant.
All the girls on the list were available to make a real night of it.
Wonderful, darling, she said.
I've missed you terribly.
Same here, he lied.
I have to rush now, sweets.
See you Saturday.
Danny sighed deeply, replacing the phone in its cradle.
He was safe for a while, anyway, and he knew he ought to be damn glad of it.
But he felt sunk, miserable.
He wanted Annette with an ache that was frightening in its force and persistence.
Filling in Gloria's name next to Saturday night, he thought about the past three weeks.
The same routine as this, the only thing different being the girls, blondes, brunettes, redheads, tall, short, slim, plump.
Yet they all reacted the same way.
Willing, easy, just like the girls who had satisfied him for 10 of his 26 years.
Again, a lot of 16-year-olds having sex in these stories.
But now.
As long as everyone involved is 16.
Whatever.
Let's not assume that.
But now there were nothing more than Margaret the name of climate.
But now they were nothing more than safeguards against his desire for Annette, although not one of them was capable of appeasing his desire.
Danny stood up and rubbed a hand across his throbbing forehead.
As he started to undress, he remembered his father's advice.
It had guided him in perfect happiness and safety all this time.
But something was wrong now.
It just wasn't working as smoothly as it used to.
Smoking in bed and staring at the ceiling, Danny relived what had been one of the most important hours of his youth.
Of course, his 21st birthday had been notable.
As a present, his father had given him an interest in his enormously successful manufacturing business just three years before he had died.
But most memorable was Danny's 16th birthday when his father had taken him out for a walk in a man-to-man talk.
Danny, Mr. Taylor had said, you're dating girls now, and you're beginning to get ideas like a man.
Now, I'm not asking you.
I know.
Danny had shuffled along beside his father, his face flaming suddenly.
He had shoved his hands in his pockets and couldn't say a word.
And I won't tell you not to get involved, his father had gone on.
I know damn well you will.
Anyway, so I say, go ahead.
It's perfectly normal and natural.
Safety in Numbers Advice00:04:45
But let me give you some advice.
First of all, there's safety in numbers.
Go with a lot of girls, not just one.
And most important of all, don't mess around with nice girls.
There are always plenty who are even more willing than you.
If a girl says no, drop her.
Forget her.
She doesn't even exist.
There will always be another one who knows the score, even at your age.
Daddy, I guess I'm glad that he said drop them if I know.
I know, right?
That's like oddly wholesome.
Yeah.
Better than I had expected.
Safety in numbers.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So he sticks to these words, you know, religiously until he meets Annette.
Now, Danny suddenly remembered the words his father had added.
Words that had never been of any importance before because he'd never been bothered by this desire.
If you persuade a nice girl, if you romance her into ignoring what she's been told not to do, she'll never let you go.
She'll convince herself that it's love and she'll hang on to you till she gets you to marry her.
Be careful of that trap.
Dad's advice.
Thanks, Daddy.
Men hate women.
The history.
Let's take a fucking capitalism break.
Yeah.
Let's wash this taste of that out of our mouths with a little bit of capitalism, baby.
Jesus.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ego Modem.
My next guest, you know, from Step Brothers, Anchorman, Saturday Night Live, and the Big Money Players Network.
It's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
I went and had lunch with him one day, and I was like, and Dad, I think I want to really give this a shot.
I don't know what that means, but I just know the groundlings.
I'm working my way up through it.
I know it's a place they come look for up and coming talent.
He said, if it was based solely on talent, I wouldn't worry about you, which is really sweet.
Yeah.
He goes, but there's so much luck involved.
And he's like, just give it a shot.
He goes, but if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat.
Just hang in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of luck.
Listen to Thanks, Dad, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
10-10 shots fired.
City Hall building.
A silver .40 caliber handgun was recovered at the scene.
From iHeart Podcasts and Best Case Studios, this is Rorschach: murder at City Hall.
How could this have happened in City Hall?
Somebody tell me that.
Jeffrey Hood did it.
July 2003.
Councilman James E. Davis arrives at New York City Hall with a guest.
Both men are carrying concealed weapons.
And in less than 30 minutes, both of them will be dead.
Everybody in the chamber ducks.
A shocking public murder.
They scream, get down, get down.
Those are shots.
Those are shots.
Get down.
A charismatic politician.
You know, he just bent the rules all the time, man.
I still have a weapon.
And I could shoot you.
And an outsider with a secret.
He alleged you.
A victim of flat down.
That may or may not have been political.
That may have been about sex.
Listen to Rorschach, murder at City Hall on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
There's two golden rules that any man should live by.
Rule one, never mess with a country girl.
You play stupid games, you get stupid prizes.
And rule two, never mess with her friends either.
We always say, trust your girlfriends.
I'm Anna Sinfield, and in this new season of The Girlfriends, oh my God, this is the same man.
A group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist.
I felt like I got hit by a truck.
I thought, how could this happen to me?
The cops didn't seem to care.
So they take matters into their own hands.
I said, oh, hell no.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He's going to get what he deserves.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
White Slave Trade Path00:15:40
We're back.
So after this story moves on to, I don't know, page 112 or some bullshit, we get a photo spread for, I think it's called Pagale or whatever.
It's a French tourist track.
They're very long.
They're each like 100 fucking pages.
They're massive.
And this is an excuse to show girl dancers, go-go dancers who have their whole breasts bared, right?
It's just like, this is the porn part of it.
Then we get to a story called The Hunter Who Died Twice, which is a story about cannibalism and I believe a zombie, white hunter in the bush of Africa.
It's not very good, but it's followed by another World War II story and then Buccaneer Burko and the slave girls, which is quite fun.
I say fun, quite racist.
Yeah.
So the story opens with the requisite boarding action by a group of pirates led by the notorious Burko, an Irish stereotype so offensive, it's almost as bad as the racist caricature of an Asian man on the cover art.
Like it is, he is, there's like so many lines about like, yeah, I'm, yeah, I, I, oh, the leprechauns, I'm too drunk.
Yeah, fascinating.
Yeah.
So after they defeat a merchant vessel's crew, Burko et al. discover a group of slave women.
Now, this is largely a wish fulfillment story featuring a fetishized Irishman as captain who notably refuses to molest any of the captured women, although the rest of his crew is allowed to.
Yeah, and winds up falling for this red-headed slave woman who looks like the girls back home in Tipperary.
Yeah, it's there's there's some like fun racial descriptions of enslaved women in this that I will not be reading because they're not actually fun.
Yeah, no, that makes sense.
Yeah.
So it's not as interesting as the title would suggest.
So instead, Margaret, I'm going to say we should move on to a new magazine, Courage from 1957.
And this one's got a real banger of a cover art here.
There's a fucking sled dog ripping out a man's throat.
And then we've got, yeah, Inside a Desert Harem, Trail of the Death Dog, Confessions of a Gigolo, the six scanty costumes of Diane, and I was trapped in Terror Trench.
What an incredible list of stories.
I know.
They deserved that dollar award or whatever they got.
I mean, they're all a bunch of assholes, but they were.
It was all earned in the titles.
Yeah.
There's craft going on in these titles, right?
Like, as a man who spent most of his adult life coming up with titles for content, game has to respect gay gear.
And Trail of the Death Dog is a fine title.
Absolutely.
I want to like, I want to just like invite authors to just like rewrite, because there's no copywriting titles.
Just take all of these titles and write different, better stories out of them.
The titles are great.
Yeah.
Not all of them.
Don't rewrite the captain.
Don't rewrite all of them a slate.
And maybe, you know what?
I'm going to say minimum age, 24.
Yeah.
We don't need to, yeah, we don't need to risk anything here.
Let's let's uh let's let's let's let's take it up a notch, people.
So I picked out this issue because I want that desert harem story.
But what drew my interest once it was open were the ads, which are again as perfect a dive into the male id as you're likely to see.
On page one, we get, and I want Sophie to show this to you: important medical facts for every man who has passed his 40th birthday.
Men too go through change of life.
Doctors call it male climacteric.
And it's talking about like men go at male menopause.
It's first off.
I'll be honest, I was a little impressed that that was a concept people were talking about in 1957.
But they were talking about it purely to sell vitamin and supplements.
And it's about keeping it up, right?
Yeah, it's about keeping your dick up.
Yeah, like I would, it would be great if people talked about how assigned male people had hormonal changes and cycles.
That would be fucking wonderful.
We could talk about that.
Yeah.
But no, it's about keeping your dick up, which is fine.
If people want their dick up, they can put their dick up.
That's fine.
I don't think these vitamins are going to.
You're going to end up like that guy with his head in his hand on the yeah.
Yeah, there's like a balding man who's got like his head in his hands, presumably because his dick doesn't work due to the male climacteric.
Yeah.
I had not ever heard that term before either.
It's in quotes.
So yeah.
That's important.
Of course, when you get to the actual ingredient list of the vitamin pills they're trying to sell this guy, it's basically Red Bull.
Vitamin A, vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin B1, vitamin B12, vitamin B2, vitamin D, niacin, vitamin B6, calcium, creatine, iodine, and some wheat germ, defatted, of course.
I'm impressed that there was actually even the laws passed where they had to put the ingredients on the advertisement.
Yeah, I mean, who knows if these were, if it was not, it could have just been lead.
It could just be lead and caffeine, but that's what it says is in here.
It's basically, yeah, primitive Red Bull.
It's like the Red Bull you find in like a bog man.
So the very next ad on page two appears to be for yet another correspondence course.
And this one promises to teach you how to be a private eye or FBI investigator.
It's also a very straight ad with like a craggy man's face underneath the text, this man is wanted by you.
This man is wanted by you.
He has left a path of violence, lust, greed.
He is a two-time loser.
Every minute he is at large, death walks the streets.
You are a trained investigator.
Bits of evidence, each insignificant alone, fit together like a crazy jigsaw puzzle.
They paint the way that leads to the man who is wanted by you.
I mean, like, we sell ads like this.
I hope so, Margaret.
Don't you want to pretend like you're a private eye?
We'll send you a thing every month and you try and figure out who the yes, yes, yes.
Oh, yeah, like those notes.
I'm not anti.
No, I think it's beautiful.
I think, I think this is a glorious commuting with our ancestors who were also hacks and frauds who had to sell ad space.
Yeah, exactly.
Finally, we get to the table of contents, which includes incredible titles like We Hacked Through Their Flesh by Sergeant Harold Spain.
Cool.
Absolutely a real name.
One thing I know, there was a true Sergeant Harold Spain.
That's a real guy.
That's absolutely a real ass dude.
Yeah.
Then, of course, Trail of the Death Dog, When the Grave Was Open, and that terror trench article.
Next to it all is an ad for a money-making shoe store business where you sell shoes door to door to your friends and family.
Wait, is that what this photo is?
No, this photo is from the next page, which is a two-page spread.
On one side, it's the same just says courage men, and then has a pinup of a well-endowed woman.
I don't understand why it says courage men.
I guess because she's so hot, you have to steal yourself to not be a criminal.
I don't know.
I don't know what that is.
It's like that.
It's probably that like, what's your opener, like bullshit?
Yeah, what's your opener, that kind of thing.
And it's right next to an ad for quack medicine psoriasis treatments for unsightly scales, crusts, and patches.
That really, those two together, it's like, oh, I get, okay, so I get who this is for.
I don't like our lineage very much right now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, you've got psoriasis.
You're not willing to go to a real doctor for it.
Here's a picture of a hot lady.
Yeah.
It says a lot right there.
So We Hacked Their Flesh is a lurid story of the Korean War with a lot of racial slurs.
Margaret, a lot.
Like as many people, which is why we're not going to be reading a racial slur.
Yeah, yeah.
It is purportedly written by a white American photographer for the army embedded with a Filipino unit.
And because they are a Filipino unit, they decide to just stab their way through the Chinese army rather than using guns.
After that is Trail of the Death Dog, which features the poll quote, the husky was strong, smart, vicious, and hated men.
His muzzle knew the taste of human blood and liked it.
Hell yeah.
Yeah.
Hell yeah.
It's about a man who's like running transport routes with sled dogs.
And he like picks this murderous dog to lead his sled, even though it kills all of his other dogs.
Like, and everyone around him is like, that dog is going to murder all of your other dogs.
And then you, why are you doing it?
He's like, but it knows the route best.
Rudolph the Red.
I don't know, man.
Seems like a bad call.
So at this point, we can call this a pretty standard example of an adventure magazine.
The most interesting piece in this issue is a hinge between the sad middle-aged guy wish fulfillment stuff, racism, and straight-up pornography.
It's a little article titled Inside a Desert Harem.
And unlike everything else in this series, it actually taught me some really interesting facts about history.
Okay.
I was surprised by that.
Don't get me wrong.
Here's how the article opens.
Justice William O. Douglas of the U.S. Supreme Court once asked a merchant why the Sudan exported so few crops.
You're wrong, Effendi, smiled the merchant.
We do export a huge crop, not cotton or wheat, perhaps, but something far more valuable.
We export slaves.
Pharaoh was a girl of 12 when she was stolen from her family.
For two years, she was kept with a tribe which stole her.
Then she was sold to a slave trader.
For another six months, she traveled the desert as the trader added more slaves to his caravan.
Finally, she was sold to an Arab harem.
At the slave gate in Mecca, the traffic in girls is both open and brisk.
Now, I was ready for that all to be bullshit.
And this article is not specifically a true story, but all of that stuff is stuff that happened, actually.
And I was kind of unaware of a lot of the dimensions of this.
But after World War I, the area that we know today as Saudi Arabia became an independent kingdom called the Kingdom of Hejaz, I think is the first name.
And slave trading had been illegal in the Ottoman Empire during its later period, but in Hejaz, it was allowed to continue once again.
And a brisk slave trade opened up between Sudan, Ethiopia, and the kingdom, right?
This is a modern slave trade.
As such, victims were often convinced, or rather, their parents were convinced to sell their children.
This was often framed as giving them a better life in Arabia.
During parts of the journey where slavery was illegal, because some of this route often included going through countries where the slave trade was not allowed, traders and their victims often disguised themselves as pilgrims on the road to Mecca.
It was also not uncommon for travelers who did the Hajj, who went to Mecca, to sell their servants or their poor friends who they had gone on the Hajj with in order to afford a return journey home.
That is the thing that happened too.
By 1930, about 10% of the people living in Mecca were estimated to be enslaved.
Many were domestic servants or harem members, but many of them were also used as laborers, like the men generally were particularly used as like agricultural laborers and the like.
Today, the UAE and Saudi Arabia engage in a system of guest worker visas that have somewhat similar dimensions.
I don't think it's quite as abusive, but it's pretty fucking bad.
A lot of people are aware of this.
But back in the day, it was just straight up slavery.
And when I found this article, I was kind of immediately taken by the fact that the woman in the artwork is depicted as white.
And it's a pretty not great piece of art, I wouldn't say.
If you're trying to talk about a very serious story about a social issue, it's pretty offensive in a number of ways.
All of this caused regular international condemnation.
In 1948, the UN declared slavery a crime against humanity.
In 1951, the British informed the U.S. State Department that there were at least 50,000 slaves in Saudi Arabia, and they were increasingly being used by the oil industry.
The Red Sea trade, obviously, because they're being used by the oil industry, like that's part of why we don't do any fucking thing for a while.
The Red Sea trade continued through the 1950s.
By the 1960s, there had been enough international outcry that it had become an embarrassment to the king, who issued a decree forbidding the sale of slaves, not the possession of slaves, early in 1962.
Slavery itself continued to be legal for several more months until it was officially abolished that November.
Jesus.
So I was unaware of that.
That's interesting.
So I got to give the story credit.
It informed me about a piece of history that I was not aware of.
So that part's good.
What's not good is the article itself outside of that.
Because everything I learned was like that first paragraph.
I was like, the fuck were they selling slaves in Mecca in 1950?
And I was like, oh, yeah, this is a thing.
This is a problem.
Was a problem.
Okay, interesting.
The story, the actual history, is, of course, interesting and important, but it is just window dressing for the story, which is softcore pornography that features a young Circassian girl who is described to us as not quite 15.
When it was her turn, she was led forward while the slave trader extolled her beauty and her skills, sexual and otherwise.
Unlike the girls who had gone before, Pharaoh did not remove her robe to get the bidding started.
She didn't have to.
The men standing around the edge of the raised platform of the slave block could see her face, and the spiel by the slave trader was enough to get things going.
The bidding reached $100 before it began to slacken.
And then it describes her taking off her clothes, which we're not going to go through.
Yeah, it's, I don't know, it's pretty gross, Margaret.
Pretty gross.
Yeah.
So I don't think I'm going to read the rest of that to you.
It's funny because I don't usually use the word pornographic in a negative sense.
Yeah.
You know, but you're like, oh, yeah, no, that's, yeah, that's.
I'll call this article about a 15-year-old girl that really, yeah, we don't need that.
That's not necessary.
But I did think it was interesting that this horrible, deeply, deeply evil story also imparted a piece of historic information that I was unaware of.
Probably talk more about the slave trade of like Circassian and Georgian and Armenian and Ethiopian and Sudanese girls down to the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, that that maybe should be a topic of more discussion than it is.
I know, and it's it's.
It's hard because it's like the way in which white slavery has always been used um, as a like a boogeyman, like to specifically like wait, why do we suddenly care when it's about white women as compared to like anyone, right yeah?
Um, and then, of course, like sex trafficking in general is like used as like an anti-sex worker talking point currently, including like voluntary sex work, right?
And it's like so hard because like the criminalization of sex work makes it so hard for us to talk about the actual bad things that are happening, right?
Absolutely.
Yeah, no, I, I, and then also, of course, anything that's like Islamophobia is like a really major problem.
And so it makes people afraid to touch what we should be talking about.
Short Attention Span Issue00:07:51
And actually, that's something I actually really appreciate about your show is that you are willing to, I mean, not like specifically look for people to condemn who are outside of certain circles, but not be afraid to say like, hey, it's like bad when slavery happens, right?
That's like a, I mean, like, look, I got, I got absolutely no problem with Islam, but like, fuck the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, right?
Fuck the Saudi royal family.
I got no issues saying that shit.
Yeah.
And it's also worth, because this is a big, a chunk of this.
And the reason why this article exists is that part of this slave trade was like white slave trade.
Right.
So that is super fascinating and lascivious and exciting to like the 50s mind.
But like a lot of the girls that are being trafficked and boys that are being trafficked for that matter are from like Ethiopia and the Sudan and are much more often a much larger chunk of the total number of people being enslaved by the kingdom, but they are being forced to work as laborers in the oil industry.
They're being forced to work as domestic servants more often.
And so there's simply not any kind of real care about that by the guys writing this magazine, right?
They want to tell a porn story.
Right.
Totally.
Yeah.
Anyway, Margaret, how you feeling?
Two magazines into our exploration of masculine fiction.
I mean, like, it's all this awful stuff, but I do feel like I'm getting off lightly for behind the bastards guest spot, you know?
So it's really always very bad to say that before we've actually finished this.
Oh, fuck.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
And then it's like, I know I'm going to regret having referred to these as our precursors, although it's like, you know, I mean, as a science fiction writer, I got to accept like a lot of bad people as my precursors, right?
That's just like a thing that we shouldn't be afraid of.
But I can still respect like, I love pulp and I'm so sad.
It's like one of my favorite genres of movie is like the trashy road trip movie where like they're going to or the kids want to throw the biggest party in the world.
Yes.
Yes, absolutely.
And I just like, I just want that without them being like, here's the transphobic joke or like, here's when the man is raped by a woman and it's humor.
Or, you know, like, like, can't we just have nice pulp that isn't fucking racist?
It is the eternal question, right?
Can you have Animal House without also having that director kill three people in a helicopter crash due to his irresponsibility and incompetence, right?
Like, is it like, I don't know, like pulp.
Because I think we can.
I don't think it has to be as fucked up and gross and pedophilic as some of these articles are.
I do think there has to be a degree of grossness to Pulp.
Yeah.
Not every story, but like Pulp needs to be grimy a little bit.
Yeah.
You know, otherwise it's not really, again, grimy does not mean talking about marrying off 16 year olds, but like you got to have some like the greaser with a switchblade story, I think is perfect, right?
Like That's fine to me.
It's both intellectually interesting.
It shows you this fascinating glimpse into the kind of cultural fear that existed during this very much lost moment in time in at least our pop culture memory.
And it's also very funny.
No, totally.
I mean, don't get me wrong, I would still read most of these stories just from my life.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
God, the world is weird.
Got some good news for you there, Margaret.
Oh, good.
What's the news?
All of...
All of these are available for free for everyone.
There's like dozens and dozens of them on the internet archive.
Just type men's adventure magazines into the internet archive.
And there's like a, I don't know, a little, I don't know what you call it, like a little file folder thing on there.
You can view or download or read them all in full glorious color.
There's a shitload of them on here.
65.
So, you know, significant amount of reading if you're in the mood for some of these stories.
And we will continue with some more of these in part due.
But first, Margaret, you got any pluggles to plug?
Well, I did write a pulp adventure novella called Escape from Incel Island.
And Merry Christmas.
It is my attempt to write trashy pulp that is still enjoyable.
And like, and it still is.
And it tries to grapple with the fact that it's like, I mean, the setup is that there's some people and they go to an island full of insoles and then they have to escape.
It's a pretty literal concept.
And then just tries to like grapple with that.
But it still involves running around with a shotgun and good old fun times.
I think you might enjoy it.
There is a, there's actually not an audiobook version of it yet.
There will be, but there's a print version and an e-book version.
And you can read it.
And you can read it in the afternoon.
That's the great thing about I have a short attention span.
You have a short attention span.
I write for short attention spans.
That's what I got.
Yes.
I also have a short attention span.
Yeah.
But I did write a novel once.
That's true.
It's called After the Revolution.
It does actually work for a short attention span, even though you can't read it in one sitting.
It's still fast-paced.
It's still, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And maybe I'll write a second one if I conquer my short attention span enough.
Although that gets harder every year, Margaret.
I know.
Every year.
Especially with Baldur's Gate 3 out.
That has torpedoed my productivity.
We spent the first like 15 minutes before we recorded with Sophie zoning out and me and Robert carrying the second one.
Might be the best video game I've ever played.
Just a disaster for my getting my book done.
Robert, this is so fascinating.
The episode's over.
Okay.
Behind the Bastards is a production of CoolZone Media.
For more from CoolZone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.
I vowed I will be his last target.
He is not going to get away with this.
He's going to get what he deserves.
We always say that.
Trust your girlfriends.
Listen to the girlfriends.
Trust me, babe.
On the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hey, it's Nora Jones, and my podcast, Playing Along, is back with more of my favorite musicians.
Check out my newest episode with Josh Grobin.
You related to the Phantom at that point.
Yeah, I was definitely the Phantom in that.
That's so funny.
Sherry, stay with me each night, each morning.
Listen to Nora Jones' playing along on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
What's up, everyone?
I'm Ago Modem.
My next guest, it's Will Farrell.
My dad gave me the best advice ever.
He goes, just give it a shot.
But if you ever reach a point where you're banging your head against the wall and it doesn't feel fun anymore, it's okay to quit.
If you saw it written down, it would not be an inspiration.
It would not be on a calendar of, you know, the cat just hanging in there.
Yeah, it would not be.
Right, it wouldn't be that.
There's a lot of life.
Listen to Thanks Dad on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.