Part Two: Nicolae Ceaușescu: The Dracula of Being A Dick

I just I know there's a lot of activists out there in the streets who have been fighting for mummy rights for a long time, and I just wanted to let you all know it was all worth it. Jeff May, how do you feel about mummified persons? I'm calling them mummies and I don't care. Let the woke mob come from me. All right, they are mummies, They've always been mummies. I'm not Are they going to go back and change the classic horror film to the mummified person? Absolutely not, nonsense.

Is it the m word now? Yeah? Horrible. If anyone ever calls it a mummified person to me, I am I am going to read from the Book of the dead, and I know from the movie The Mummy how badly that can go. I would give somebody a d d T. If somebody was just like, um, do you mean mummified persons? I would immediately just jake the snake Roberts d d T them into the ground. Now, I know you're talking about a martial arts term, but I assumed you were talking about the pesticide that was made famous in the

book Silent Spring. And now I assume that you always carry a full canister of DDT on you it all. Yes, I gotta take I gotta fight malaria. Now it's I would say martial arts term is that's loose? Is that I would say a professional wrestling term. That's where you put somebody in sort of like a like a headlock is kind of a thing here, and then you just kind of catapult the top of their head into the ground. Well, that wrestling is the only martial art I respect um.

So there, it's the only one you can do while you dressed like a like a garbage manner. Yeah, Jeff, this is Behind the Bastards. It's a podcast about you know, people who aren't great um in in history. Speaking of which, today are subject in part two is still Nikolai Cechesco. How are you feeling about Nikki as we as we go into to part two? We love a bastard nick on this show with with you and I together here. Um, you know, he's he's he's something, he's something, He's something,

all right, he's he's he earned the name. I know we were building up to it last episode. It's fun to see that it's going to build up to the crescendo that we're going to see here. There was a lot of a lot of background last episode. Gotta you gotta cover the background. Um, the you know, it's kind of like how if you really want to understand the humanity of a mummified person, you have to understand I'm sorry,

what did you say? You son of a bit? Also a side note here that the Chicago Studies what was the name of the place, the Chicago, Plicago Institute of Oriental Study something like that, is that it's it's referring to the region. I know, I get it seems like it's a way to work. Okay, you know what you do kind of you do kind of want to know when they started calling at that and like, yeah, I wonder, I wonder Chicago anyway, whatever, I'm sure it's fine. I'm

sure it's fine. You know who's not fine, Marshall Antonescu. So this guy winds up and again Marshall Antonescu. He's this interesting character because he's ideologically he is not a guy who is particularly interested in fascism. Um, but he winds up in bed with these fascists and becomes like one of the worst of them in terms of like his actual death toll for a stump of fascism. Yeah, it's weird. He's he's he's he's a fascinating, geting figure because yeah, he's the forest gump of of of the

Axis powers. So under Antonescuu Romania again when kind of you know, there's this whole World War thing that starts up again. And the last time Romania had gone with uh, you know, Britain, France, Russia, uh and and and sided with them, and it had gone terribly for Romania. Right, the war kind of ends and they get some land, but they don't do well. All of their oil fields are lit on fire, all of their young men get killed. Um. And under Antonescu they're going to back the opposite side

and the next World War. And you know what, Jeff, it doesn't go well for them either. World Wars not a good call for Romania. Yeah, they're not. They're not the champions of World Wars. No, it only really goes well for us in Switzerland. But um, you know that's

a story for another day. So Romania, and again, the kind of the reason Antonescu sides with the Nazis, there's there's a lot of stuff going on, but one of the big ones is that he wants to get back best Arabia, which based on the treaty that the Nazis its side with the Soviets. The Soviets got to take

from Romania just a little bit earlier. So the Romanians side with the Nazis, who would agreed to give up this territory that now the Nazis are saying, hey, if you side with us, you can get this territory back, which may seem like a shitty deal to you, Um, maybe not trustworthy of the Nazis. I know, this is going to like blow a lot of people's mind historically speaking, this is really going to cause some people's tops to

pop here. Yeah, wild stuff. So Romanian troops fight alongside the Nazis during Operation Barbarossa, which works really well for a little while, right for there's a couple of months there where it seems like, hey, maybe a good call back in the Nazis. We're taking a lot of territory. Romania is suddenly much bigger. What a cool time. Um.

So it goes really well for a little while. But then the bulk of Antonescue's military, the pride of Romania's army, a huge chunk of their young male population, winds up in a in an interesting position. They are put watching the flanks of the German I believe it's the sixth Army as it encircles Stalingrad. Now, jeff right, you think that's gonna play out? I don't know if anybody's ever heard of Stalingrad, but it's pretty well known as far

as battles go. It's in like I would say, as far as battles go, that's a top three historically probably, yeah, probably a top three, very fair. Yeah. And if you're going to pick a position to be in in World War Two, there's a lot of bad ones, but one of the worst is watching the flanks of the German Army is the circle Stalin hard to get much worse than that, trying to get famed sniper ed Harrison to take out Jude Law. Yeah, Jude Law is fucking running

rough shot over these Romanians. Um, it doesn't go well for them. Romanian military gets its ass handed to them shortly before the German military gets its ass handed to them, and things only get worse after that point. It doesn't go well after Stalingrad. Yeah yeah, I mean, you know, land war in Asia and all that beyond them too, Like the Russians. This is like the guy at the bar that tries to pick a fight with the bouncer. Yeah,

and the friends like, I don't think that's a good idea. Man, This guy, you know, he got the job for a reason. And it's like I've taken a couple of mm A classes. I think I's like three times your size. Man. There is a scar on his face bigger than your fists, not a real tooth in his mouth at that point in time. Yeah. Um so yeah, thanks go downhill from there. Um. And despite being again on paper, Antonescu, he is not a guy that has a long history of like anti

Semitic agitation. He's not a guy who I think under his own devices, would have cared much in either way about kind of Nazi policies in that regard more of a hobbyist. But his policies against Romania's Jewish population lead to an unprecedented level of mass death in Romania. Um and this is not the subject for this episode today. We will talk about this at some point. Antonescue probably

deserves his own episode. But more Jews are murdered by the Romanian government, but then by the government of any other acts as state besides Germany itself. Um, it is it is a japan didn't have a lot of options there,

although there are a couple of interesting cases. I mean there's there's there's a couple of interesting cases of Japanese officials who saved Jews, um and parts of the world from the Nazis, and at least one interesting case of a Nazi who saves Chinese citizens from rampaging Japanese troops. That's why World War Two lots of lots of neat interesting history moments there. Yeah, it's like each country of doing horrendous things is like these other guys need to

call down. Kind of seems like there's some got bad guys on the Axis side, they're massacring the wrong people. So, um, yeah, it's Antonescu, nightmare monster. UM kills about three hundred thousand

Romanian Jews. I think something like that UM. Now. Supporters of Antonescu, because he's kind of been rehabilitated by some corners of Romanian culture recently, will note that he also saved three hundred thousand Jewish lives by refusing to deport those people to people to Poland when the Nazis asked what he could kill them himself. I'm not sure that you get credit for saving three hundred thousand Jewish lives when you've just killed three hundred and eighty thousand or

so Jewish people. I don't know that. Yeah, I'm not going to really give you credit. In Vegas terms, they call that a push. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that that's UM. I feel I feel weird being like, look at all these lives he's saved. Does he's massacring um like a city's worth of human beings. We're not gonna we're not gonna be doing that here on this show. That said, we're also not going to be getting that into the

Holocaust in Romania. Not that obviously it's a worthwhile topic, but I don't want to just like, you know, we should just I'm just trying to acknowledge the extent of how bad it was. We'll talk about it more detail at some other point. So they don't know what you're talking about. Um, Jeff, we may need to sit down and talk about that after class. Don't you have a history degree? I'm like, I don't know how I got. Yeah, but it's from Florida, so they're not allowed to have

books Diaria and Frank hasn't gotten approved by De Santis yet. Yeah. Um. So, as the war unraveled, resistance to Antonescue coalesced behind the scenes, and there's this alliance of like liberals and royalists led by the new King Michael and a guy named Giulio Manu who's the head of the National Peasants Party we talked about in the last episode, and they decide we're going to do a coup and get Antonescu out of here.

But it's kind of useless for them to do a coup if the Allies aren't going to lie stop doing a war on Romania, right, Like, there was no real point in getting this guy out if they're just gonna

have to fight the war more. Um, I mean, to be fair, historically speaking, we've seen it happen where people do a coup and then they pull out of the war and they're like, yeah, but it's also they're trying to like make it less messy than it's other one, because like this, the Russians do that, right, and in World War One, you get your revolution and then the revolutionary government kind of awkwardly winds up still at war with Germany for a while and it's it's it doesn't

doesn't go great. Um. So they have this back channel to the Allies and the Brits, who is the people they're talking with directly, are like, look, we'd love it if you get Antonescu out, be real great for us. But Stalin's really the guy you got to talk to because your romania. Um so we are not going to be your main point of contact. They're like, hey, you know who you need to talk is too, is our very stable friend, are sane and totally reason bold buddy Jason to send guy now ja Stall To be fair,

it's not an unreasonable thing. He says, Hey, look, you know, if you want to work something out with us and coup this guy, that's great, it will save me some trouble. But you gotta bring the Romanian Communist Party into the coup government, right, They've got to be part of it, which is again not an inherently unreasonable thing, except for the fact that again there's like seven hundred Romanian communists, right, so it's not a major party that will take an

afternoon to get me. Yeah, exactly, so, man, you the National Peasants Party guy is like, of course, look, man, we're this is a bad situation. I'm not gonna fight you over this matter. Um. But he is like, there's not really a whole lot of communists in Romania, Joseph Stalin, who do you recommend? We put In? And Stalin and the Soviets recommend a law professor named Lucres Patronascano, patresh Canoe. Sorry Lucres, you, I'm sorry. I did look these names up.

It's hard to keep them all straight. Lucreshu, petrash Canoe, Um, and he and Menu. They plan to basically take Antonescue down by inviting him over for dinner and having the king be like, hey, Antonescue, you're under arrest now. Funk off um, which is kind of a funny way to do it. Yea exactly on party. Come over, No, no, it's fine. We just want to all hang out together in a room. It's gonna be totally cool. How do you don't agree on a lot of stuff? Come on

over to my house, Come on in a room. Leave your guards, leave your guards, um. And it's very funny. The coup actually works great. And there's this moment where like they're like, hey, Antonescue, do you have a gun? And he's like, I don't need a gun. You know, my authority doesn't derive from a gun. Um. And then they're like, okay, cool, well you're under arrest and then we're gonna have you executed and they do. It works

out great, This part works out really good for them. Yeah, brought that gun and and the National Peasants Party guy Manu is kind of an old man at this point. He's like, look, man running a coup government, that's young man's work. So this communist petresh Canoe winds up being kind of the first person to take a public role in the new government. And he's actually a pretty reasonable dude all things considered, Like I think he handles this

about as well as it could have been handled. Um. So. One of the things that happens, though, is because this guy is kind of your public facing dude, and the National Peasants Party, all of the Liberals who are much more numerous, and the royal like folks who are much more numerous and actually in like the you would suspect be the people who would wind up in charge are all kind of scared, right because they're they've just cooed

the other leader. There's still a bunch of German soldiers in the country, so they don't want to make too much of a public stink. Meanwhile, the Communists, even though there's not many of them, these guys have been beaten and in prisoned and starved. They're all like hard sons of bitches. So the Communists are like, why don't we just immediately take power? Um, which they do, and it

works pretty well for them. They they get in and they basically like put themselves in a lot of positions that are going to to to kind of give them the ability to control the direction of Romania at least help with that. Obviously, the fact that the Soviets are so nearby helps too, and the Romanian or the Red

Army enters Romania soon after that. So the Communists kind of despite the fact that up until this point there had been very few of them and they'd had no power, when World War two wins, they're kind of the preeminent power in Romania. Um and Stalin. Yeah they stepped up. Yeah,

they stepped up. And they have an election and show Cescu gets to practice his faking at election skills, um and and goes about making sure that the Communists win that election, even though again there've been about seven hundred of them in the company prior in the country prior to to World War Two. To be fair, if the people that actually stepped up to rule are running for something, it wouldn't be the worst to be like, oh, yeah, I guess I'll vote for the guys that actually said

they yeah no again. And it's it's not an unreasonable thing that as as Romanians in World War Two, you would see the Communists taking over, given everything that happened with the Nazis, and be like, maybe this will work out better. Hey, not like anything else had been working very well. It's the opposite of a Nazi economist. Nothing

could go wrong. Let's let's try it. Um So Georgiu Day that that um, that peasant who had been like the uh the leader of that railroad union, um that had done all those strikes that chess Cou had helped support. He becomes one of the leaders of the country. Um. Now there's a bunch of this is it's more complicated than that Anna Poker. That other lady is also kind of one of the people who's running Romania initially after the communist kind of take over. But you know, you

know how it goes. You get your show trials, you get your people start getting put in jail and locked up on bullshit charges, and over the course of time, George you Day kind of consolidates his power. One of the things that this means is that he executes this guy pro trash Canu who got the king out, who helped overthrow or who not the gout the king out, who got um antonescu at who like overthrew the dictator.

They they come after this guy on bullshit charges and they kill his ass um It's so crazy when it's just such a throwaway thing and like and then they executed that guy. Let's move on. That cool dude you know that cool dude who was the communist that Stalin picked to take over and they fucking killed his ass. Yeah, And and Parker, they get rid of Poker. Um, it's it's it's it's as ugly as it usually is when a guy consolidates power. Um, it's it's a real end

of the Godfather energy when that ship happens. And it's a gradual process. Um. And Nikolai Chachescu is a quiet figure for most of this. He does not stick his neck out, He does not try to take any big fancy jobs for himself. He sticks close today and he he kind of like just sort of keeps him as happy as possible. And I'm gonna I'm gonna read a quote from journalist cattle and Gruya here under the protective

wing of day, whose favorite he had become. While in prison, Chauchescu struggled, flattered, adapted, worked and raised himself up step by step, tenaciously, stubbornly and with a real instinct for power. At seven, he was the leader of the Communist Youth Organization and later of the Central Committee of the Romanian

Workers Party. At twenty eight, party instructor in Constanta and Olinia at twenty nine deputy in the Grand National Assembly, after he had mobilized motorized troops in the electoral precinct to convince electors to place ballots in the urns which had already been filled by the communists ahead of time. His meteoric rise continued, culminating with his election at age

thirty seven to the Politbureau as Minister of the Interior. Now, this gave him a lot of control over what's called the Securitat, which is Romania's answer to the k g B, which means he is in a position to put people into the Securitat, the organization that is surveilling everybody in

the country, um sweeping out corruption. Good position to be in if you're a guy like this and everyone's kind of like, well, yeah, we want like, you want someone dumb and pliable in that job if you're not going to be running that if you're someone with power in the Romanian communist infrastructure and you can't be doing that job, you want a dumb person in that job, right, You want somebody who, like you feel like it's controllable, and everyone kind of feels like Chowchesku is just sort of

this like not a very serious person, right, So they're like, yeah, give him the job. You know, what's the worst that could happen. He's not that, he's not that dangerous. Um. Uh, the worst that could happen is pretty rough. Yeah, the worst that could happen is about to occur. Um. But for a while, everyone's like, yeah, you know, at least, you know, if someone's going to have that job and it's not gonna be me, we might as well have it be this lick spell who kisses everybody's ass and

who wasn't very threatening. He's not, you know, really worth fearing, and he's not worth fearing as long as George you day is is healthy and and doing good. Um. And given that he is an old time communist street fighter who smokes like a chimney, surely he's going to live forever. Yep. That's classic. Yeah yeah. Um. So, as Nikolai climbed the ranks of the Romanian Communist Party, there's this combination of as kissing and convincing everyone else that he's too dumb

to be a threat. His wife Elena experienced numerous career benefits as well. All of the different wonderful things that nepotism can provide to you. He's a plus wife guy. By the way, Oh my god, you have never wifed a guy as hard as this guy. Wife's that shout out to this guy for just being just like a He's like the Rob Zombie of wife guys of Romania, just being like, I don't care what you can or can't you. I'm still giving you opportunities. I wish, I

wish I could. Given that this is Romania, I should have been able to make a Dragula joke, but um, I'm really not sure how to work it out. I threw your curveball with that. It's not it's not coming to me, Jeff. It's not coming to me, And I feel ashamed for that. Um, But you at home make your own, make your own joke about Rob Zombies, hit song, Dracula and the Romanian historical figure Dracula. Well, Jeff, and I listen to some ads, Jeff, that that all got

me pumped up. I'm gonna be honest, man, I'm going to consume all of the things that were just advertised, gonna slam them in the back of my Dracula was that his car was that Rob Zombies car. Well, it's the monster's car, isn't it. Are you serious? Is that song about the monsters? Yeah? I think Dracula is the name of their car. That's cool. It's cool because he wrote a cool, heavy song about Are you serious? Yeah, I mean there's a reason, oh my god. And it

is based on the drag racer Dracula for the Munsters. Yeah, you don't know how I know that really well, aside from the fact that I'm I I study this ship, the pinball machine, the munsters pinball machine has a dragula thing. Wow. Wow, uh that's right. That's kind of a baffling piece of pop culture. Why did that song go so hard if it's about the Munsters? Because Rob Zombie did it. I guess that makes sense. It does make sense that Rob Zombie would do a song about the munsters and he

would go hard. Yeah, and he would, he would he would go baffling lee hard with it. Speaking of baffling Lee hard, Nikolai is baffling Lee hard for his wife Elena, who sucks. Ass um. That actually worked out pretty well, so nailed it. There we go. As Nikolai climbs the ranks of the party, He's he starts putting his wife in jobs. Now, at first, she's just kind of like raising their kids and stuff while he's in you know,

moving on his way up to the polit bureau. But she's got this ambition to be a chemist from the time when she worked in a legal pill mill um. She thinks it would be really cool to be to be in chemistry, So she takes starts taking college classes in chemistry, hoping that she can achieve her lifelong dream of being a serious scientist. Now, in most cases, that's

a perfectly respectable thing to do. In fact, I have a lot of any any woman who could raise three kids, support her powerful husband in his career, and get a

complex degree in science, that's incredibly impressive. Yeah. Absolutely. Unfortunately, Elena was nearly illiterate, and she had no interest in actually being taught anything by the tutors that Nikolai got for her, who become increasingly desperate with the fact that like, oh my god, we have to we have to teach her how to be a chemist, and she does not want to read anything or like chemist. Yeah, she wants to put on a white coat and poor things and beakers. Really,

isn't it like that? I think it's a Romanian textbook. There's like a Roman or there's a textbook I forget what country it's in that has Jesse Pinkman on the cover of their chemistry thing of him. Uh, I'm looking that up right now. Um. Yeah, Jesse Pinkman textbook cover should give you exactly worth if it's from Romania. That's

the symmetry for that is unbelievable. Yeah, because it is just satisfying to see because you know, it's just a cursory Google image search for chemist and that one clearly has the best look because it was, you know, directed by this I think that language is Romanian. Um, it's definitely not Romane. Oh Sri Lanka Okay, Okay, that's just shame.

Um that that would have been beautiful Jesse Pinkman. Jesse Pinkman actually is objectively a better chemist than Elena czechesscu Um, which is unfortunate because of the job she's about to have. So these tutors who are just struggling to teach her something get a brief reprieve because she's caught cheating on her exams and expelled from university in the mid nineteen fifties. But By nineteen six, Nikki is in the polit bureau.

So you can't keep her out of university just because she's cheating in a danger to herself and everyone else around her. So he forces the Scientific Establishment of Romania to give his wife a job. She's made a junior technician at the Central Institute for Chemical Research, and then she gets promoted to run the institute five years later.

Now again, her credentials are was kicked out of college for cheating on her exams at this point, so five years it's time to learn r Yeah, yeah, yeah, you can. You learn that. You learn most of that ship on the jet, like Jesse Pinkman. Actually, you're gonna learn most of that ship on the job anyway, right. He didn't do good in school either, he flunked out. And look at how Jesse did. Yeah, exactly. So she was as

bad at this as you would expect. When her scientists would request supplies of ethyl alcohol, which is needed for a lot of experiments, she would turn them down with a note that said she knew they just wanted the alcohol to get drunk with. Now I'm gonna say this for al I'm gonna I'm sure she wasn't wrong a hundred percent of the time. This is this, this is the easter in block right, Like I'm sure of the

time she wasn't wrong. Um. But what's really funny is the researchers realized that, like, Okay, if we request ethyl alcohol, she's gonna like really drill us and turn us down, turn it down because she thinks we're gonna drink. So they put in the exact same request, but they used the chemical name for ethyl alcohol, and Elena would grant it every time because she doesn't know anything about chemistry

because she's a dumb guy. Yeah yeah, yeah. And now over time she she is aware that she doesn't know anything about chemistry, and she has impostor syndrome because she's an impostor, because she's actually a look, impostor syndrome is not always wrong. Some people who have impostor syndrome are impostors. And Elena starts avoiding actual chemists, you know, the people she's managing, because conversations with them would inevitably reveal she

had no idea what she was doing. My favorite example of this was how she pronounced c O two, calling it coutu or doi in in Romanian, right, so she she wouldn't call it kutu, but like she called it kudi, which is the equivalent of calling c O to couto, right, because she's just kind of sounding it out because she

doesn't know how you're supposed to read um chemical names. Now, Cody in Romanian is a slang term, or it's at least close to a slang term for someone who has a huge ass, right, Like it's it's like a dump truck ass like cody. That's kind of what that means. So since Elena herself has kind of a big butt, again this is what historians will say, her scientists started calling her kudi behind her back, like big ass. Basically, um, she got that, Yeah, she's she is caked up uranium baby. Yeah, well,

please don't let her around the urane. That would have gone very badly for everybody. Yeah, we could have had a Chernobyl incident. Yeah. So, like most incompetent people who wind up at the heads of large complex organizations, Elena decided to focus her efforts on the one thing she knew how to do, which was deny people resources in order to save money. Right with bile as Yeah, yeah,

you swagger in with that big butt and start cutting money. Um. It is kind of the thing that if you don't know anything about an organization and you're promoted to lead it, just start trimming the budget, you know. Um, you can always make it look like you know what you're doing then, and you can funk with the people who are actually good at their jobs. This is not a thing that you or I or any of the people we've ever worked with have had experience with ever in our careers.

Not It only happens in communist states. So that's good. It's good that we are immune from that here. Now, this basically drives all Romanian efforts in the chemical sciences into the ground, and it's stymies basically all of their progress on chemistry and ship. But her institute did spend less money over time, so that's good. Um, probably probably worthwhile now that the chemistry labs that look making it

at a low budget. You say that, but I'm waiting for the James Cameron uh to to appear in this story. There's that we We still don't have that here, probably because Elina would have had him purged. Yeah, maybe maybe that would have been for the best. Would a would a would have saved us that whole period of time and which everyone thought three D tv s were going to be a thing. Sorry, but I will not sacrifice true lies. No, yeah, that is that is true lies. Uh.

Strange Days films. Oh, he was involved in those. Huh that's interesting. Um, I wonder if people know that James Cameron. Right. Yeah, I was just yeah, I'm really confused, and I'm like, did I say a wrong name? No, David Fincher, And I'm like, you know he did Terminator too. I do kind of want to see David Fincher's Terminator too, would be something, right. Yeah. So, in person, Elena was extremely

anti social and quick to anger. She was jealous of any of the other polit bureau wives she thought were more attractive than her, and she preferred to spend her time avoiding social engagements. Altogether, she was disgusted with the other wives because they were traditional homemakers, whereas she had a career of her own. Now, the fact that her career was an absolute sham does not seem to have upset Alda. It is also worth noting that she was

a pretty piss poor mother. Um. Look some people with with well, with a large ass um that's that everything like that's all up to up to personal up to personal judgment. Um. So, Nikko cho Chesku, her son born in ninety one, was the baby of the family and from the jump seemed to realize that his parents position made him untouchable. He was disruptive in school, He threatened

teachers and classmates. No one could discipline him. He would just start punching teachers and students whenever he got angry. Because you know, his dad is helping to run the country, nobody can actually punish him. It's a good situation. We call this like the U We call this the day and Kusa route. Right, that's kind of where if you believe now, I'll say this. A lot of our sources on Niku chow Chesku come from a guy who defects

from the country after running the secret police. So there's some debate over how accurate all this is because maybe he has a vested interest in making the family sound worse than they were at that. That said, the idea that Nikko chow Chesko would be a violent asshole um not a not a big stretch either. So I don't know, you know, grain assault m According to this guy who later defects who we will talk about later. At age fourteen,

Nikko rapes one of his classmates. Um. At age fifteen, he gets his first boat and he drunk drives it before he gets his first car at sixteen, at which point he becomes one of the leading causes of car accidents in the capital of Bucharest. Um, because he is just a you know, he's he's he's a dictator's son, right, This is all pretty standard dictator's good stuff. Go than

golden weapons and and you know side palace isn't ship. Yeah, he doesn't have the panash of Uday and kusay, So he's not I don't know, firing a golden machine gun and do a crowd at a party. Um. But he is crashing his car constantly, so he's got that. He's got that good Assad energy, the Assad kid who fucking killed himself in his car drunk driving. Um, he's he's that kind of dictator's son as opposed to more of

the more of the days dash day esque variety. So for the first decade or so that Communist Romania is doing its thing, the Soviet Union keeps a bunch of soldiers in country, right, because you know, they want to make sure things keep going, keep going in a direction they're comfortable with. Now, this means that for a while Romania's Communist Party is a subservient branch of the party

in Moscow. George U. Day, who's running the country, and his polit bureau are not happy about this, especially once Stalin dies and Khrushchev takes power, because Cruise have kind of repudiates some of the stuff that Stalin had done. Right, he gives the speech where he's like, hey, you know what everything Stalin did wasn't perfect. Um, you know what it was George you Day? Where I oh, oh, George

U Day. Yeah, George you Day, Georgie. That's that is my personal headcanon, like fantasy fiction mash up between George Bush and Uday Husain Um mainly or actually, no, you know that's that. Yeah, that's the that's that's what I'm shipping them together, right, that's what you'd call it. We shipped them. Yeah, we should, Yeah, ship George Bush and Uday Hussein somebody somebody gets some fan art going, use that chat GPT, make it real horny and make sure

they're both caked up in honor of Elena. Just just huge asses on both Day and George Bush and just sweaty against each other. Get him in there. Yeah, and then you would have George H. W. Bush and Saddam Hussein looking down on them both from heaven, smiling, smiling, proud George as George Bush paints Day done up like the chick from Titanic, but instead of the heart of the ocean, it's a golden ak forty seven. Somebody do this. You know you've got, You've got. It's perfect, perfect opportunity

for giving you God. Yeah, and do it. Do it? Aii. So everyone has really fucked up, unsettling hands. George Bush has like three long fingers painting it'll be great. Oh so I'll be able to call you a loser on the internet for doing that. Let's let's get a T shirt out. I mean that's up to Sophie. Sophie make the merch. Yeah, I think I think this will She's still there. I'm here only if the people demand it. I think the people are going to demand it, not

want you demand Yeah. So um yes. As a Stalinist, Day is not thrilled by the fact that Kruschev has repudiated uh some of the stuff that Stalin did Um. So they're all kind of figuring, how can we get a little bit more autonomy from the U. S. S R. How can we get these soldiers out of our country, How can we kind of like take actual control for ourselves. In nineteen fifty six, protests and Hungary boil up into an uprising, which is again right next to Romania. Now

that includes the destruction. Like in these protests and Hungary, they destroy a bunch of statues of Stalin and Budapest. Unrest spreads widely from there and it reaches Romania by October of that year. You know the way protests do. You get protests in one capital, they move over to the other soon. And I'm gonna quote in a right

from a rite up by the Wilson Center here. On the twenty ninth of October, railwaymen in Bucharest held a protest meeting calling for improved conditions of work, and in the asse there were street demonstrations in supportive better's food supplies and exceptionally poor harvest had drastically cut food production and cues, and Bucharest and the other main towns were commonplace. Georgia Day and a Romanian delegation cut short of visit

to Yugoslavia in the October to address the crisis. Thousands of arrests were made in the centers of protest, especially among students who participated in meetings in the Transylvanian capital of Clues and tim Assura. One of the largest meetings took place in Bucharest on the thirty of of October. The Timnasaura, Radia and the Assy regions were placed under military rule as Soviet troops were brought in across the Romanian border in the east and concentrated on the frontier

with Hungary in the west. Important question did that postpone trick or treating? I don't think there's a lot of trick or treating going on in Georgia Day's Romania, So that's the time for draculas. It would have been perfect. It would have been perfect, um. But I think it's

interesting here. One of the things you're seeing Georgiu Day is a railway man like running like was the guy organizing in a legal railway union and spent a shipload of his life in prison for doing so, And now that he's in charge, he's cracking down on protests by railwaymen and throwing a bunch of them in prison. Always fun. How that keeps happening? It's the circle of life. Yeah, it's beautiful. It's beautiful in its own way. Um we

are yeah yeah, or it's the flat circle thing. So the Hungarian crisis concludes when Soviet sent tanks into Budapest to crush the crush the uprising. And this actually, the Romanian Communist Party is going to benefit from this hugely because Soviet troops helped them stop protests in their own

capital from turning into an uprising. And the fact that the Romanian regime is so supportive of crushing these protests means the USSR is like, well, we can't trust Hungary because we just had to send in tanks here, but we can trust Romania. And so now the Romanian Communist Party and Georgiu Day are like, hey, you know, we don't need all these troops in our country. Khrushchev, you know you guys, you guys need those dudes in Hungary. Why don't you send all those troops to Hungary and

and we'll take care of Romania. You know, we can. We can keep a lock on things ourselves. Um So in this works, the Soviets withdraw troops from Romania, and as a result, Romania is going to have a lot more autonomy than other country. These who are kind of in the Warsaw Pact in the region are going to

have in this period of time. So in nineteen sixty five, Georgio Day gets sick with lung cancer, which is a huge surprise for a for a communist dictator in the nineteen sixties to have lung cancer just absolutely shocking stuff because because that was back when cigarettes were really good for you. Yeah, this is back when doctors recommended them. You know, he's he's smoking the good ones, he's smoking the lucky strikes, which which I'm sure every yeah, every

dum listening. The air quality was general, like the air quality was roughly the same as like a cigar lounge. Yeah. Yeah. The way they would do it is they would just light giant piles of lead on fire every time you bought gasoline and celebration. Uh, that's what we were all doing. It's why everyone liked brain. Like, we found these rocks that radiate heat, so we've been just hovering around them

like that one episode of Star Trek. Yeah. Um, so org you day gets his ask some lung cancer, um and, and it's he's the whoever it becomes clear that like whoever is going to inherit power from him, is going to inherit a really centralized, strong state in Romania that's more independent than basically any of the other countries in the Soviet Block other than Yugoslavia. I mean, whether or not you want anyway whatever, it's it's it's a lot of power. Who that who coming into whoever takes over

for this guy? Um And because he had been such a private man, effectively, right, he was number one in total power. But he was also because he was in power able to hide the fact that he was sick until the signs of the fact that he had terminal cancer got too obvious to ignore. Like you read that like a baseball stat you like, you know, he was actually number one in total power. Yeah, he was Mark McGuire, he was the Mark McGuire of of of the Warsaw Pact.

A lot of people right down to the well, I mean, cigarette were steroids for for for dictators. But yeah, if you're a member of a of a of a communist dictatorship, you're yeah, you're really the performance enhancing cigarettes really get through you. I guess we'd probably say that Tito was the Nolan Ryan, just because I think he probably could have cold cocked anybody else in the Warsaw Pact if he had to. Yeah. Yeah, and longevity, Yeah, and longevity.

He really did stay in there a while. And Ryan throwing a hundred three four years old, that's something that is Tito energy. Yeah. So chow Chessco, you know the fact that so first off, like all of these other guys, because everyone in the polit bureau right either has someone else that they want to take over for Georgie you day or once that job themselves. Um, but they don't realize he's sick until he's very close to death. Now, chow Chesscu again, he's the ass kisser. So he's in

there daily. He's seeing Georgiu day all the time. He's talking to him all the time. How you doing. Yeah, you're looking like you're losing white man and hair and some skin. Yeah, you seem to be wasting away more. You want to sign this piece of paper real quick, don't ask about it. Yeah, you're good. So, um, all of these other guys kind of suddenly find themselves scrambling to figure out how to set themselves up for the post George you Day world, whereas Chachesko knows exactly what's

going on. And I'm gonna quote from Paul Kinyon again here. The list of possible successors was short. The nine member polit bureau was hardly overburdened with talent. Five of them had barely completed elementary school, and three were former rail workers from George you Day's union days who had been elevated for loyalty, not literacy. Not only had George you Day purged the upper echelance of the party, he had

impoverished the entire country with his anti intellectual policies. Children of political detainees were denied a university education, their extended families were considered stigmatized. Schools were barred from teaching critical thought. Academics were regularly arrested and detained. All this was designed to eradicate opposition, but had inadvertent starved the Romanian Communist

Party of even moderately capable minds. You know, so maybe don't purge people who know how to do things um from your although it does make it easier to stay in power. So it really, it's a it's a it's a tough situation that they were in. Um yeah, yeah that that kind of happens when somebody withers away and dies it is surrounded by morons. Yeah, this is this is actually a version. I mean it's interesting because Georgie Day is a stolidist. This is basically the same kind

of thing that happens. It's a little less severe, right, the pollit Bureau that kind of stalin uh leaves behind are more capable than the guys that Georgie Day had around him. Um, but yeah, it is. It's interesting kind of some of the similarities here. But you know who else has carried out a series of anti intellectual purges in order to ensure that no one capable can force them from their position of power. Pot pol Pot who is the primary sponsor of this podcast? Oh wow yeah yeah, no, no,

we got the big pol pot coickwork company, pol pots Pots. Yeah. He's selling cast iron skillets and you do not want to see what happens if you wash one of them with soap. It's either that or it's like some clever weed brand. M yeah. Um, it'll make you so stupid, you'll be anti intellectual. Just go ahead, and if you've got some of this weed, just throw your glasses away. You don't need them. Um, it'll I don't know, I don't know how to keep making pull. Welcome to the

smoking fields. Everybody that's a boy, yeah, will be stoned out of your skull. Let's let's get let's break two ads. Now. Ah, we're back, and we're we're talking poll pot um. Well, no we're not. We're talking the end of George you Day's time in charge of the Romanian Communist Party, So joking about pol pot we're talking about just like this episode isn't horrible enough plot? Yeah yeah, yeah, bring a little bit of pol pot in there. So let's have

a holiday in Romania. Yeah yeah. Now, there are only three veteran members of the Pollit Bureau who had any degree of competence um, but all of them had with the party considered to be unhealthy origins. One of them is German, another's Ukrainian, and the third is Bulgarian. And as Catalan Gruia notes, the three prerequisites for the future leader were one to be Romanian, two to be an activist, and three to be part of the working class. So no one in power likes Nikolai or considers him a

good choice to replace Georgie. But Nikki had maneuvered himself into an incredible position um and it was one that surprised his colleagues. His job in the Pollit Bureau at this point was secretary for organization in Cadras, and this

is kind of a boring job. It's pretty low prestige within the pullet bureau jobs, but it provides them with this opportunity to make a lot of little decisions about who's in position where, who's booking the boss's schedule every day, right, who gets to like set George you day schedule, all these different people, who's working in his house. He's kind

of picking all of these low level functionaries. And it turns out when that's your job, when your job is to hook a bunch of people up with these little jobs that determine everything about the boss's life, you kind of control the boss's life, especially when he's dying of cancer and doesn't have as much wherewithal as he used

to have. Um So, because Nikki is in charge of the people making the boss's schedule, Nikki effectively has control over who gets to visit George you Day every day, and once the man gets sick, Nikki is able to exercise near total control over who sees the boss and win. The last weeks of George you Day's life where a constant series of pullar bureau members trying to get him to confirm his successor, and Shochesco being like, now he's sick today, he doesn't want to talk politics. Don't come

around another day. You know, you just gotta let him, let him chill out um. And Ko is doing this because he knows he's in the best position. He's a Romanian, you know, he's got peasant credentials. He's the best positioned to take over for for for George you Day. And so if you can just kind of keep the others away from him and stop them from getting him to agree to make someone else's successor, he's got a pretty

good shot of getting the job. Now, George you Day, despite his illness, realizes what Nikki is doing and he sees it as a major threat to the country. And this is kind of a thing that happens with Lenin and Stalin. Right when Lennon's on his last legs, He's like, I don't really think this Stalin guy is a good job to follow me up. I think this could go badly. He's like, excellent point, I'm going to Mexico. Yeah, yeah,

that's how that went. So in snatched conversations with old comrades, he warns of Nicolai's feverish maneuver rings, but the boss has already been out maneuvered himself. While half the Pullet Bureau was angling to try and get Georgie to make it a selection, Nikolai is getting the other half to line up behind him, and he promises them, Hey, guys, you know me, I'm a blank slate, right, you could just make me do whatever. I'll do anything you want. You know, It's fine. Yeah, I'll be your guy. I'm

a I'm a fun time guy. I just want the title. You know, you guys will be the power behind the throne. I just want the title. Um, just a fun time and guy, ain't nothing wrong with me again. Georgiu Day has pretty systematically purged anyone most of the people who are good at things, so all of the other Pollet Bureau guys are like, well, this seems reasonable. Why would he lie about this? Why would somebody in a position of power. Lie, It's like, dude, what what war do

you think you just lived through by wild wires? Uh? So this works incredibly well for chat CHESSCO. The Boss dies on Mark nineteenth, nineteen sixty five, and CCO is shortly thereafter confirmed as Prime Secretary of the Romanian Socialist Republic, which is a new term. They've been using other terms for their leaders before that. He decides, I'm going to pick a new title, you know, new guy at forties seven, I think he's the youngest leader in Europe at the

time when he when he gets power out there is it? Yeah, yeah, he's doing good. These guys. Everyone else kind of running communist countries in Europe at this point time is a lot older. He's he's young, he's considered handsome, he's a he's the JFK of communism, right. That is actually kind of how he's viewed when he takes power. Um yeah yeah, And and to be fair, he does pretty well at first.

You actually wouldn't be there were not initially warning signs that like this was gonna be worse than kind of anything going on around him. Right, It's like, hey, this guy, he's not going to do like like a genocide or anything, right, like yeah, not per pussfully. So despite being essentially he is an old fashioned stalidist, and he's pretty consistent about being a stalinist, particularly like economically most of his career. Um, but he supports a lot more liberalization than Georgia Day

had allowed. He opens up some space for private enterprise. Mostly what he does is he kind of opens up space for foreign trade, which means Western music is getting in right. People are getting to listen to like rock and roll in that kind of stuff, which is cool. Some movies and some TV is getting in um and that makes people really happy. He also provides a little bit more space for public speech. He allows newspapers you can't criticize the system, but you can kind of poke

around edges of like certain programs that might not work. Well. It's a lot more than they've had right under George you Day, because it's a pretty pretty strict system under him. So he he liberalizes quite a lot. And people are really optimistic. This is actually considered a lot of Romanians. It was like it was not a bad time, you know, Um, there's there's plenty of food. Uh. People are like the state was actually doing a decent job of taking care

of people. It's it, It seems it seems good everything. That's it. That's just the pretty cool breeze of a dude. None of these guys ever stopped there, um, And part of why things are good is that he kind of wants he's part of part of One of the things Chichisco is doing is like, like anyone who takes power in a system like this, you gotta consolidate it, Nicks, right, you gotta push out your rivals, you gotta jail some people. You've got to force them out of their jobs so

you can take total power. And you don't want to be cracking down on the people well that's going on, right. You want to keep them happy while you're taking power. And so that's kind of part of what he's doing in this period of time, and in fairly short order, he forces out all of these guys who'd agreed to vote for him to take power. He pushes them out of their jobs, right, Um, some of us he does.

He opens an investigation into the purchase that had been carried out by George you Day, that dude Petronascu who had forced the who had taken out Antonescu. He he doesn't investigation into that guy's execution, and obviously Chowchescu had helped with that, right, he had been a part of killing that guy and purging all of these people. But now he's being like, yeah, we're gonna look into this. That was really bad. We gotta get these bad actors

out of here. You know. It's like when the police are like, we're going to have an internal on this massacre that we did. Well, it turns out we found out we did nothing wrong. So yeah, it was just those five guys who happened to be rivals to my power. Dollars more please, Yeah, yeah, this is it's it's very

much that sort of thing. Um. And while he does this, he also supports a drive towards Romanian nationalism, and he's he's gonna back anything that he thinks will make people feel an identity separate from the Soviet Union and one of them. Because again, while he's he is a strong communist by this point, and and so is obviously the

Romanian Communist Party is a communist party. That doesn't mean that there like I want to be part of Russia, right, This is actually a big thing for a lot of countries in the Warsaw Act, and Romania has this, as we've talked about, this kind of long history of being oppressed and attacked by their neighbors. So they don't he doesn't want and obviously it's bad for his own personal power to if everyone in Romania feels like we're just

a satellite of Russia. So he starts backing. He starts like really supporting a series of like books and uh uh, kind of questionable historical tracts about guys like vlad Dracula and the Emperor traction, who he kind of turns into a Romanian um. And what's really funny is like, while they while he's kind of backing guys like Dracula and Emperor Trajan, they have to be framed as proto socialist right. They're not communists obviously because communism didn't exist back when

Draculas walking around. But you have to say that like Dracula actually, when you think about it, was like a pre socialist leader. You know, he had a lot of these tendencies that we that we've now figured out as commune. This So like the Emperor Trasian, classic proto socialist right really was big about redistribution of wealth. What a weird what a weird person to try to reframe the the

emperor Trasian socialist here the people's hero. Yeah, it's like, you know who actually was a good person, Elizabeth Battery. Let's talk about how great she was. She loved unions, couldn't get enough of unions. She was just the union darling. Really yeah. Um, so obviously all of this was was very questionable from historic standpoint, But again, why is anyone going to complain for one thing? At least you're getting to read more books now, you know more the papers

are out there, You're getting some music. Um, life is pretty good. What do you think the most popular song was when they're hitting what? Um? I know, I don't think I know if it's in sixty five quite yet, but the fucking Stones were pretty popular in Romania. Yeah, I mean obviously, um, the Romanian stonesiction it's just like the beach Boys. Because it is the sixties. I'm sure the beach boys are fucking blowing up out there. U

s in big popular. Yes, Romania's famous surf culture. Yeah, they really get heavily until like that you Yeah, Um, so Romania had been one of the major bread baskets of the region. Um. It was actually the Soviet Union back when they were still kind of occupying the country. Their pitch to the Romanian Communist Party was like, Hey, we'll do all this industrializing you guys basically grow all of the food for the Warsaw Pact, right, that'll why

don't we just do it that way? And the Georgia Day had kind of been like, well, no, i'm a I'm a I'm a railway union man. I want to industrialize too. I don't want us to just be your garden base. Sickly, So he had industrialized the company the country pretty rapidly. And one of the reasons why a lot of Romanians suspected that he had been because because there's this this conspiracy theory develops that he had gotten cancer because the Russians had poisoned him because he was

so independent. I don't know how likely this is. There's a lot of reasons why George you Day might have gotten cancer. Um, but anyway, there's a myriad that hard to get cancer being that guy. Um, though I would I will add that Romania. I looked up some of their number one songs and they it looks like they only charted like the international stuff around that I saw quickly. Yeah that makes sense. You are not alone by Michael Jackson.

Oh that's nice. It's like mostly American stuff. It's it's surprisingly it's surprisingly close to what you would think of because like it was like the top charts in the United States. I know that Chowchesku's favorite TV show is Kojack um, because yeah, Kojack can just shoot anybody who

wants and ask you identifies with that. There's um. Telly Savalis wrote a book I Think about Getting Asked, which I think is just really hilarious, like it's just a way to get ass wait when I'm I'm super into that. The idea that Ko Jack was writing a how to pick up women? Um, yeah, it's interesting. It's always interesting, like when you look at kind of these countries while they are under communism. What American TV shows are really popular? I think it was Hungry where um what's its name?

The Peter Folks show, Um, Colombo Colombo. Colombo was like huge, I believe in Hungary where it was like people were absolutely out of their fucking minds for Colombo, which makes sense against Colombo isn't that weirdly enough? I think that's one of the main points of WandaVision. Oh is it so like if you saw wand Division on Disney Plus, the whole point of it was that she, you know, where she grew up was clearly the Eastern Bloc, and they just like they had these old DVDs of old sitcoms.

I've talked to a couple of people, like there were um, like folks who grew up in countries where like The Simpsons was illegal, who would get like smuggled Simpsons DVDs where like one person you would just have some like random lady who would read in the local language like over who would basically do these like underground dubs of

shows like The Simpsons. And how it's like, even now that they have access to the show as it actually is, the voices sound wrong because it's like, well, no, I grew up with like like Vlad from the village over was the guy who did the voice. It was like this, there's a documentary about the world. It's fascinating stuff. It's all It's I love this kind of like weird culture bits like that. It's always really interesting. It's kind of

like how you had. I mean, one of my favorite stories from Castro's Q but is that during the aid's outbreak, Um, there was like there were basically punks who you know, a lot of there was heavy restrictions and what music you could listen to and what music you could play, and so you had these punks who realize that like, well, if we get AIDS, the government will put us in these like basically medical facilities where because we're all dying,

there's not the same kind of restrictions. So if we just infect each other with HIV, we can play and listen to whatever music we want. Um, it's a it's a fucking There was an NPR documentary about it. That is not the most far sighted way. I think that's about the most punk rock anything could be. I'm not saying I wouldn't say punk rock is something that is not shortsighted. Well, yeah, that's probably fair given the lifespans

of a lot of those guys. Yeah, like the crust punk lifestyle is not designed to make it to to you know, you're not gonna die of old age if if you're like really, but you know who I love g Allen. Important to note Chow Chessco through none of this period is not listening to to punk music. He is, however, watching Kojack. It is interesting that, like the dictator of Romania's favorite TV show is a fucking cop show. Um yeah,

Greek car Perhaps not surprising, um so yeah. Chow Chesscu has this plan to continue Georgiu Day's policy of industrializing Romania. He wants to build it into this consumer goods mecca. His plan is to turn Romania. Instead of it being a breadbasket, and Romania is very well suited to produce a shipload of high quality food, he wants it producing consumer goods, appliances, refrigerators, and televisions, all sorts of electronics

that can then be sold all throughout Europe, including Western Europe. Now, doing this, Romania not a huge country. He's gonna need a bigger population. If you want to be an industrial nation, you need a lot of workers. So in order to p vide this needed base of industrial workers, Nikolai and Elena calculate that the country should shoot for a population of twenty million people. Now, what's the best way to

incentivize basically doubling the population of your country. Well, first you've got to make sure people don't have condoms, and then you have to ban abortion, and you know what, you might as well just make it illegal to provide much of anything in the way of sex set or contraceptives. But just just get rid of all that and people will naturally make more of themselves. Now, there's some consequences

to this, UM. For example, the fact that over time a huge number of Romanian women seek abortions anyway, but they don't have access to decent medical care or information about their bodies that would allow them to do that in anything that even approaches a safe way. And so during the time that Nikolae and Elena are in power, between ten and twenty thousand Romanian women die due to botched abortions. UM. So that's pretty bad. You're not going to help the population well overall, I mean, they do

reach their population goal. We will talk more in another episode about the other things that happened as they that. His goal was just like, you know, why don't we become like Japan? Yeah, and it's like just I don't. I think they got a lot of assistance from America

in that regard that you're not getting in Romania. Yeah, you're not going to get that in Romania, you know, you don't have there's a lot of things that like, maybe you shouldn't immediately assume that you can go from zero to like producing everybody's televisions when there's a lot of competition for that role. And yeah, getting a Magna box or a Sorny you know, Um, it's not going to work out well, a lot of none of this

is going to work out well. But you know, in the early kind or in the mid to late sixties, while you still have this, I mean this, this abortion policies pretty nightmarish and that's going to cause a lot of suffering. You could be forgiving. Yeah, yeah, if you're living in Romania, you could be forgiven for thinking, well, ship, this is actually kind of working out, okay, right, um, And that's that's the point at which we're going to

end right now. On an up note, aside from the ten to twenty people who die in a nightmarish totalitarian anti abortion policy, that's called dipping your toes into the pool, baby, Yeah, dipping your toes into the pool. And we will come back and we will talk about what happens when Chowchesco dips a little bit more of himself into the pool. But first, Jeff, you you who do you? Who are you? Jeff? Where do you come from? Where did you come from?

The cotton? Jeff? Well, you know, I'm I'm a comedian podcaster. The one thing I will say is that if you are in the New England area and you want to see me performing live, I'm going to be doing one show uh Wednesday, February twenty second at Redemption Rock Brewery in Western Massachusetts. It's my one show that I do out there. Limited tickets, but it's a great stand up show and I love doing stand up and I get I don't get to do it enough, so I'm very

happy to do that. You can also see me live the second Friday of every month at Blast from the Past on Magnolia and Beautiful Burbank, California for my show Mint on card Love Burbank. Podcast wise God, you can hear I got a lot of good ones I got Jeff has cool friends, which you can hear for free anywhere. But you can get early access to uncensored episodes with bonus content at Patreon dot com slash Jeff May one Word. You also have access to shows like Nerd with Drey Alvarez,

which is a nerdy deep dive podcast. You can do shows like ug Find Me with Kim Crawl that's monthly. You can go to Game Fully Unemployed, and you can hear Tom and Jeff watch Batman with Tom Riman, who's been a guest of the show a million times. Um, you can check that out. You can also check out you Don't Even Like Sports, a sports podcast for people that hate sports, and Unpopular Opinion, both on the un Pops Network with Adam Todd Brown. Um. Other than that,

I'm around. You can find me on social media. Yeah, you can find Jeff. That was very thorough. That is what happens when you do these plugs seven times a week. And you can find me next to Jeff waiting for him to get sick and die so that I can take over for him. Been much. I'm gonna be the chow chesscoo of Jeff may Um. Yeah, it's gonna be good. And then I'm going to turn Jeff's apartment into a manufacturing hub for southern California. We're getting up all my toys.

We're gonna, we're gonna, we're gonna melt him down and turn him into those big old style TVs made like seven pounds in the back. Oh yeah, oh yeah, the ones that are like of a nuclear bomb, like you basically have a dirty bomb if the TV goes out. That's the kind of TV that has that fizzy static on it when it's been off for the whole time. Yeah, the one that glows at night and you just wonder, is it is there something always going on in there? I miss old TV. There's something in this TV humming

all the time, unplugged, still humming. Yeah, the one that could kill a family of four if it fell over while you were eating your fucking uh TV Swanson dinners. Um God, things were so much better in the nineties. Well, we'll be back on Thursday. Everybody Behind the Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. For more from cool Zone Media, visit our website cool zone media dot com, or check us out on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.