You are now listening to Cryptid Cocktail Party. The theme song is always longer than I remember it being. Yes, yes. I was just thinking that exact same thing. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of Cryptic Cocktail Party, a show where we have a few drinks, share a few laughs, take a dive into the unknown. I'm your host, Dave. Joined, as always, by my wonderful co -host, Sarge. How's it going, Sarge? Woo! I'm not shirtless. I know I said I was going
to be, but I decided against that. Well, I'm glad you're not, because we have a guest today. Joining us from the Funbearable podcast, we have Chuck Statton. Is it Statton? Staten? Statton? Probably should have confirmed this before. It's Staten. Is it Staten? Staten. Yeah. Think of it like Satan with an extra T. Yeah. So not named after the island. That's where I live, though. I live in Staten Island, so it's tough. Fucking botched that one. God damn. Well, anyways, how
you doing, Chuck? I'm good, man. It's all right. Everyone gets it wrong. Some people say Stanton. That's weird. There's no second N, so I don't know why they would do that. I know. I think that maybe that's a more common name. I don't know. But yeah, it's always been a thing in my life. Well, sorry you had to go through that.
I have a similar problem with my last name. I don't want to dox myself, but it sounds suspiciously like a seafood product, and people just call me the seafood product, even though a lot of those letters are missing. Wow, Sarge Shrimps. Yeah. It's not easy being named after shrimp. His actual last name is pronounced Shrimpe. He's French. It's beautiful. All right, Chuck. Well, I have a question for you. It's a question we
ask anyone who comes on the show. Are you like a cryptids paranormal alien type guy or is this something totally foreign to you? I like that kind of stuff. I think it's very fun. I like monsters. I like creatures. I was born as a creature, and I continue to be one, so it feels very homey to me. Accurate. Yeah, exactly. So I do love playing with that stuff. I love that kind of stuff. Dude, the honesty is refreshing. No, I appreciate it. I love the concept of goblins.
Goblins are really interesting to me. I know it's not really a specific cryptid, but I just love the idea of a goblin. I shamelessly play a goblin in my current D &D campaign, and I enjoy every moment of it. I shamelessly play a goblin on my podcast. Well, there you go. His name is Chuck. Well, unfortunately for you, Chuck, this episode does not have goblins or any sort of monster of any type. I was told they'd be goblins. I'm out. Yeah, sorry. No, this is something a
little bit different. I guess this is more of a mystery than anything. An unsolved mystery or possibly solved. Maybe we'll be the ones to figure it out. Did we just become a true crime podcast? Not even close. There's no murder. We already tried that once and it was fine. What do either of you guys know about the city of Philadelphia? Great cream cheese. Not too much. I dated a girl that lived there for a while,
so I hung out there a bunch of times. Okay, well, what if I told you guys that Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love, cheesesteaks, and nightmare sport mascots, is home to one of the most bizarre unsolved mysteries stretching back 40 years. Now, this is a wild street -level conspiracy that's literally baked into the pavement, one that stretches across the country and beyond. We're talking hundreds of handmade tiles embedded right into the asphalt of busy intersections,
all repeating the same weird message. Toynbee idea in movie 2001, Resurrect Dead on planet Jupiter. No name, no explanation, just a cryptic sci -fi gospel burnt into the crosswalk. Almost like someone is trying to warn us or possibly recruit us or maybe both. So who made these tiles? What do they mean? And why is the planet Jupiter
involved? Well, today, gentlemen. we're going to be diving headfirst into the world of the Toynbee Tiles, a story riddled with paranoia, resurrection, modified cars, and one man's mission to bring the dead back to life. So Sarge, I assume you are familiar with this, but Chuck, are you familiar with the Toynbee Tiles? I had no idea it had anything to do with Philadelphia, though. I thought it was like New York and like a bunch of other cities. This is so great. No, I've never
heard about this. I have no idea. Are they under Rocky? That's what I know about Philadelphia Rocky, the statue. They're not under Rocky, no, unfortunately. There might be a hidden one. You don't know. There could be. They're fucking everywhere, dude. All right, so let's start off this episode, but let's break down the message that's on the tiles. Like I said, there are hundreds of these things, and almost all of them stick to the same four -line message. Toynbee idea in movie 2001,
resurrect dead on planet Jupiter. Now, at first glance, you would immediately assume it's either the ramblings of a madman or some low effort cult recruitment effort. But if we break it down the message piece by piece, you kind of see what's being explained here. So Toynbee idea. This references Arnold Toynbee, a 20th century British historian and philosopher. He's known for his very dense 12 volume book series about the rise and fall
of civilizations. But he also tossed around some pretty cosmic ideas about death, religion and rebirth, which is where like the mystery Tyler
kind of. latched on i think he and i would have a lot in common because i'm also very dent now in movie 2001 this is obviously a reference to stanley kubrick's 2001 a space odyssey it's that trippy as hell you know movie where there's a space baby floating around and how tries to murder everyone because they all forgot to say please to him it's a movie about like evolution transformation and maybe something becoming something more than human And then you have resurrect dead. That's
just exactly what it sounds like. There's no hidden mystery there. And then on planet Jupiter, as in like the massive ball of gas, 484 million miles away. That's going to be the resurrection site. So altogether, it reads like a science fiction ransom note from some sort of like sidewalk prophet. But that's basically like the tolling be tile gospel. Breaks down to a historian had an idea. Kubrick made a movie. And now we're going to resurrect people on Jupiter. How are
we feeling? Are you guys following? It's going to be hard because from what I understand, and again, don't forget, I am very dense. There is no oxygen on Jupiter. Thank you. This is kind of what I was like. I'm like, well, if we resurrect people on Jupiter, isn't that bad news for the resurrected? Yeah, we're going to bring them back just to kill them in a new way. I know. Are we building a compound up there? That's the only thing I could think of. But then we're also
paying to get them back to Earth. It's a lot. There's a lot going on that has not been cleared up by this tile. All will become clear. I promise you. Okay. Okay. I trust you. So the message is short, strange. And like I said, it slapped onto hundreds of street corners across America. But who made them and why? Well, to learn both of those things, we're going to need to break down the message even more and get to who might possibly be behind it. So let's start with the
guy behind the name, Arnold Toynbee. Like I said, he was a British historian who... He was less into dates and wars and shit and more into sweeping theories about civilizations rising, falling, and then starting over. And in his 1970s autobiography, Toynbee tossed the idea that after we die, our bodies decay, but our quote -unquote substance lives on. Not like our souls, but like our cosmic meat dust just kind of stays around. All of our
juices. Okay, I get that. Now you toss in 2001, the movie ends with Dave Bowman dying, maybe, and then being reborn as a giant space fetus over the planet Jupiter. So Tyler took Toynbee's idea about death, mashed it up with 2001's Jupiter finale, and boom, came up with the idea that we can literally resurrect the dead on Jupiter. Literally. And how do we know he meant literally? Well, in 1983, a Philadelphia newspaper columnist got a phone call from a guy claiming to be James
Marasco. The caller went on about how all the people that ever died could be brought back to life on the planet Jupiter. He even went on to argue that Jupiter's atmosphere could somehow be made suitable for human life. And he envisioned rebuilding humanity atom by atom on Jupiter. So he truly believed that Toynbee figured out like the blueprint and then Kubrick. He dramatized it, and now it was his job to tell the world about what he has discovered. So, does that clear
up how we're going to do this? Not in any way, no. But I am impressed that you created your own tongue twister, and you said that Tyler took Toynbee's idea. You went all the way through, no mistakes. I'm impressed. I would say that was a struggle, considering how hungover I am right now. Like, I can't function. You did it so well, though, and I think it's maybe because you were hungover. You just didn't let your mind get in the way. You just fired through. So can
I ask one quick question? So we're to believe that this theory is like, listen, NASA has no idea what the fuck they're talking about. Jupiter is fine. We could start a civilization there. Yeah. And that's what we're going to resurrect. Is that right? Yeah. We just got to find a way
to like. terraform the atmosphere to make it more suitable for human life they didn't go into detail about how on a planet that has no solid ground by the way well we can work around that there's no solid ground jupiter is just a it's a gas giant oh which means it's mostly gas with like a small solid core and by the time you got to that core the gravitational pressure from the atmosphere uh you know would would fucking kill you sorry so here's here's i'm really interested
In this whole thing? Sarge, here's the problem, all right? You're thinking about it. I'm going to need you to just not think about it, okay? I knew you were going to say some version of that. I think you just need to just let your mind go. Yeah, I made the mistake. Let me just finish this Narragansett. Any theory where it's like, listen, I'm going to give you a really solid theory. But if you think about any of the logistics, it falls apart immediately. So don't
think about the logistics. Just listen to my theory. It's basically like any Alex Jones conspiracy. If you think about it for more than like 10 minutes, it all just unravels. No way. No way. I had some gay frogs I found the other day. I found the gay frogs. I want gay frogs so bad. They're there. It was crazy. The funny thing is they're probably just like there's no way to distinguish that they're gay. So it's just going to be frogs and Alex Jones is just going to start shouting at
every frog he sees. No, no. I saw the guy. The frog was wearing pink leather pants and he was pulling them off. Gotcha, gotcha. It's a leather daddy frog. It was impressive. It looked great. And you know what? I asked him some tips about decorating my house. I'm in a new apartment and he gave me some great pointers. I wonder if frogs would have bears. You guys ready to fight? Yeah. Okay, let's go. All right. So the first known Toynbee tile showed up in Philly around 1983.
And from there, the tiler just went apeshit with them, dropping them more and more at intersections and crosswalk. Like these things were embedded all over the asphalt of the city. And then they spread. They're not collected. They're all random all over the place. Yeah. And they're spread like they ended up like spreading pretty far. Like by the early 90s, tiles were turning up in Boston, New York, D .C., Chicago, St. Louis,
Kansas City. And then. they started popping up in South America, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, all of them with the same four -line message. But, plot twist, it wasn't always just that four -line message. Some tiles came with what I would describe
as bonus content. uh extra phrases like paranoid footnotes if you will sure uh there's even like a full -fledged manifesto that was so crammed with text that it looked like a ransom note put there by god like it was insane it was huge i don't understand the motivation to go to south america with this like english is hard enough yeah like i don't i can barely understand what he put on those tiles can you imagine some poor person who like has english as a second language
trying to figure out what fucking message this guy's trying to convey great point Do you want to hear some of the more wilder inscriptions put on some of these tiles? Yes, please. God, yes. For the love of God. First up, we got one of them just said, murder every journalist, I beg you. I like that one. I mean, I could get on board with that. I was a professional food writer for three years. I really was. I think
you're safe. I think you're safe. I don't think that's the kind of journalism he's worried about. Then we got Submit Obey. It kind of got like a They Live vibe on that one. I dig that. The next one is As Media, USSR, and Fronts Are Against It. This one kind of suggests that the Tyler thought he was being targeted by a coalition of the media, Soviet agents, and fronts, whatever that means. Or, and hear me out, he had one of those like, you know when you could get like
the magnetic poem thing? That you could stick to your fridge? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Create your own shit, yeah. Oh, I love that. I think maybe he just took a handful of those, threw it at the fridge, and was like, that's the next tile. I like that. That's a good theory. Then there were some recruitment -style tiles that said you must make and lay Toynbee tiles, and some of them even included instructions on how
to do it. And then you have some... pretty fucking truly unhinged ones like uh media conspiracy mass murder cover -up do not discuss this idea with the public and john knight of the philadelphia inquire is the hellion jew who blocked my move to have the idea presented on pbs so just some casual anti -semitism always for good measure because you know why not can i just i'll say i'll say i'll gotta be honest i wrote that last one Every fucking time, I think, okay, this is
just a wholesome crackpot. Immediately, the anti -Semitism comes out. It was the 80s, though. Maybe, you know, different time. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Very fair. So now we're in the late 90s. There are a shitload of these things popping up across two continents. So how the fuck is he doing this? You can't exactly just jump out of your car on the highway or intersection and just start doing mosaics. You kind of need to really plan this out. And the method is kind
of genius. So the tiler used tar paper, cut linoleum, and some sort of tar adhesive. He would build kind of like a layered tile sandwich. He would cover it with the tar paper to protect it and then drop it through a hole in the floor of his car, allegedly. Passing cars would then unknowingly press the tile into the asphalt over time and then the tar paper would wear away and then the message would appear. So holy shit. It's pretty
gnarly. That's pretty impressive because I thought this was just being like dumped on a sidewalk. Me too. No, it's like a whole it's a whole thing. Now, tiles followed the roads outward from Philly, like I -95, the Jersey Turnpike, major intersections. All of them got tagged. But as the years went on, the radius kind of shrunk. And after 2001, new tiles mostly stuck to the Philadelphia, New Jersey area. There were some copycats that did start to emerge, including the infamous House
of Hades, which we'll get to later. But the core message pretty much stayed the same. Now, I'm sure you guys and everyone are asking yourselves the same question that everyone asks when learning of the Toynbee tiles. Who the fuck is doing this? I assume that's the question on everyone's mind. No, I thought it would be funny if the tile fell down the wrong way, right? So the sticky side was up. Then it just got stuck to his tire. And so he's just going to drive with the tile stuck
to his tire. I have to wonder how many times that happened. I'm sure he fucked up a bunch of them. There's no way they get perfect every single time. Right. So here's my question. So the tiles are real, for sure. Obviously, the Jupiter thing is most likely not. If the tile things are real. So this is a real theory about how he did it. But in actuality, we're not 100 % sure how he did it. Yeah, we're not 100 % sure.
No one's ever seen the... We're going to get into it, but no one's ever seen the tiles being laid. They just kind of appear. There'll be nothing there one day, and then the next morning, there's one. So it's interesting just because... If that is true and the way he did it was that he had a hole in the bottom of his car and he would place them and that the other cars would like, you know, stick them. That's such a great concept
for like a movie. I mean, it doesn't have to be exactly this, but just the concept of like putting tar on something, having a hole in your, you know, the idea of like some sort of movie where that's a mystery the entire time and that you eventually find out that's how someone did something like this. That's an incredible theory. I'm already satisfied with that conspiracy theory and the theory about how it happened. Think of the hilarious things that you could just post
permanently on the highway. Oh, yeah. Well, I think I will say this. I don't think he can drive and do it. I think he has to go there at 4 a .m. When there's no traffic, stop his car and drop it. Right. So a lot of them are if you because I actually went and saw one today in the lead up to this episode, we happened to be near one and I went and took a picture of it. Most of them, most, if not all of them are at like intersections.
So he's at like a stop sign or a stoplight and he'll put it on the ground through the hole. And then when the light changes or it's time for him to go, he just fucks off. I think that's right. Because like they're not. Some of them are, yeah. There are some in the middle of I -95. I don't think they're still there, obviously, because it's been years. But he just fucking plops them down through a hole in his car. It's wild. You know what's interesting? I think would
be a good part of this theory. I'd like to add it. I think his hole in the bottom of his car should be somehow aligned with his back tire. So as soon as he places it, he drives over it for the first time. And then other people make it. Yeah, see, that's what I was thinking. He was dropping it. right in line with the tires so that he would be the first one to drive over
it and plant it down. Because if it's not aligned anywhere else, you can't guarantee that a tire could ever hit that, especially on the highway. Yeah, that's true. I mean, we'll get into it because we kind of have an idea, but I don't want to spoil it for you. I mean, the level of thought we just put into this is kind of staggering. Yeah, I agree. Not like, who the fuck is this guy and why is he doing it? But like, I wonder
how I could do this. Yeah, exactly. Well, do you want to know who the fuck is doing this? Yeah. Well, yeah, please. Okay, well, for decades, nobody knew. Like, the tiles just appeared. No one ever saw anyone laying them. There was no artist signature. There was no tags. Just the message over and over and over and over again. But luckily for us, three Philadelphia artists
and DIY historians named Justin Dewar... John Foy and Colin Smith spent years investigating the mystery tiles and their work all came together in this fucking incredible 2011 documentary called resurrect dead. The mystery of the 20 tiles, 10 out of 10 highly recommend watching it. So here's what they discovered. Like the first, the first thing is that they dug into like the, the, the phone call I mentioned earlier. Now this phone call was between columnist Clark daily
on and a man named James Marasco. The caller told DeLeon that he represented a group called the Minority Association, and they believed humankind could resurrect every dead person who ever lived by colonizing Jupiter. He told them that the theory came from Toynbee's writings in 2001. So it didn't take long for investigators to be like, well, this is obviously our dude. And here's the thing. James Marasco was a real guy. He was a social worker in his 70s living in Philly at
the time. But when he was finally tracked down, he denied everything, claimed he didn't know anything about any damn tiles. So either Marasco was lying or someone had been using his name as a cover. Spoiler alert, it's the second one. I mean, like, wouldn't you deny that too, though? Yeah, right. I would deny that immediately. I'd be like, no, I wasn't doing that. It's cool, though, right? It wasn't him, though. It was someone was using his name as like a code name.
So it was a dead end on that. But luckily, our trio of investigators aren't so easily deterred. Through interviews, FOIA requests, maybe dumpster diving, probably, and just general madness, they triangulated on a name. Severino Seve Verna. He was a reclusive dude from South Philly. Here are the reasons why they believe Seve was the guy. For starters, a few tiles from the 80s, including one in Santiago, Chile, had an address baked into them, and that address led to a South
Philly row home owned by the Verna family. Then there was his car. Multiple neighbors described Seve's car as having no passenger seat, no floor on the passenger side, and a big -ass radio antenna strapped to the roof. Now, you're probably wondering, why does the antenna matter? Well, one thing I haven't mentioned yet is that in the early 80s, shortwave radio enthusiasts reported bizarre transmissions in Philly ranting about, you guessed it, resurrecting the dead on planet Jupiter.
And when Doo and his team traced those broadcasts, they seemed to have originated in the general area of Seve's house. And then finally, there were praxis tiles all around his house. Like some neighbors even remembered seeing the word Toynbee on discarded pieces of linoleum. Was Seve ever caught in the act, though? No. He was like a phantom, and he never publicly commented, and he never confessed. And I think that's kind
of rad. Seve ran a decades -long public art campaign and managed to stay anonymous the entire time. But today, most Toynbee researchers agree that Seve Verna is the guy. But because he never admitted it, and because the whole project was so secretive, the myth just kind of lives on. And honestly, that's kind of the way it should be. You know what I'm saying? Wow. He's the Banksy of tiles.
pretty much yeah without the hype though i feel like well i mean it's just so bizarre that he's doing this mysterious thing and all stuff and his address is printed on them yeah isn't that weird isn't that like a real i mean you're gonna go through the trouble of taking out your passenger seat putting a hole in your floor attaching a bizarre antenna and then you're going to accidentally print your license plate on these tiles. I mean, your address on these tiles. Doesn't that seem
odd? They still, but I mean, it was kind of successful because no one found him. That's true. I guess so. That's really strange. Yeah. But it also leads us to the million dollar question. And that's Dave. Hold up. Hold up for just a second. There's somebody making a lot of noise in my yard. Hold on. Sorry about that. My son was like going ham on the fucking trampoline. I'm like, dude, I'm going to record. I'm going to record at two 30. And he's like, okay. I would love
to eat ham on a trampoline. So, like I was saying, what was he trying to say? Did he actually believe the dead could be resurrected? It fucking seemed like it, but maybe it was all just a metaphor, or maybe it was something else entirely. But depending on who you ask, the Toynbee tiles could be a number of different things, from some sort of grand philosophical project to a sci -fi cult's recruitment campaign. So let's break down some
of those like schools of thought. First is that he was just an outside artist, like the tiles with their hand cut letters, bold color choices and total disregard for legality. Some of them read like a manifesto dropped into the middle of city life. It's basically like a long running art installation. But he was using like public infrastructure as his gallery, which is kind of rad as hell. Yeah, I love I love street art. You know, that's cool. But. such a distinct thing.
Like you could be resurrected on Jupiter. It just doesn't seem like it's a metaphor for anything. I mean, these tiles went over big in the gay frog community. Man, the planet of Jupiter littered with the corpses of gay frogs. They were trying so hard. But then you got like, you got the, there's like a darker angle and that's the, the, the Tyler wasn't just quirky, but he was. probably unwell like some of the longer tiles go way off
the rails there was rants about the u .s media again the the hellion jews the mafia uh and elaborate conspiracies to try and silence him there are tiles that beg people to murder all journalists others they like i said say submit and obey and then there's the one that just ends with you must make in late 20 tiles uh yeah so this wasn't just like i have an idea and i'm sharing it it was i'm being hunted the world is against me and only you can help me spread the truth before
they kill me kind of thing sharing it is such a funny way to describe it yeah the only thing i'm thinking of though is that like it's kind of an ingenious delivery system if like if there's a lot of if there's a lot of confidence in the way that it came about like dropping it through the car and then covering it with tar paper so that other cars would unearth it. All of that leads to a mental organization that I feel like somebody who believes in this insanity probably
wouldn't have. Yeah, this is definitely more
like on the artist kind of. side for me i think right yeah but if you do lean towards this view like the tiles are a glimpse of like pretty much into a paranoid unraveling mind that like is clearly that's what it seems like that's what it seems like yeah for sure like the new york post then there was like there was like a hot minute there where people thought that this was the work of like a weird cult or like a secret society uh like early tiles mentioned and he
mentioned in his phone call the minority association One tile named the Philadelphia Address. Another referenced Dover, UK as a safe house. Some folks thought that the Toynbee tiles were the breadcrumb trail for a real life like underground belief system. Kind of like if like Heaven's Gate took up arts and crafts kind of thing going on. OK, I mean, they kind of did. They had a they had a robust website system. That website's still up, dude. It's wild. Yeah, I know. I just checked
it. So it did. yeah i mean i guess this is kind of the you know you're giving us the summary but did anyone go through these with as much evidence as possible and say here's what this guy might have been going through here's why he said this like did they pull all this and have like a generalized theory about what the guy was trying to say i know you kind of gave me a general summary but i thought maybe there'd be like a specific thing not really because no
one's ever talked to the dude so no one i mean you can all of this is just like conjecture and i know i know i'm wondering if someone laid out all the text and was like here's what happened and they kind of figured it out but i know that's difficult like i wonder if you could do that better now with ai like putting it together and have ai find patterns in it yeah maybe it's possible What sucks now is that, we'll get to it, but most of these don't exist anymore. I was going
to say. Philadelphia is always redoing their streets. A lot of these no longer exist. The fact that I found one today, I actually asked the dude who made the documentary where to find one, and he gave me the address. They're hard to find. That's awesome. Just a real quick thing for Sarge. Is there AI that finds patterns in notes and stuff? Yeah, so the police kind of use it when comparing online stuff. So if somebody makes threats online, you can run it through.
I forget what the program's called, but essentially what they can do is look at the word usage, look at the punctuation, and a bunch of different things like that. Oh, okay. Punctuation's not
going to work, but you can look through. um the word pattern the word choices the sentence structure all that stuff and you can sort of compare and then find similarities so you could you could find you know crazy rantings from one person go through the entire document and then compare it to other rantings you might find online and then say okay i can say with some degree of confidence that the person who wrote this also wrote these things online wow i'm thinking with the 20 tiles
you might be able to take like all the tiles yeah analyze them uh analyze the text separately and then say you know can you know somewhat conclusively okay these were all done by the same person or this was done by a collective okay see i was i was wondering if it was the type of thing where like the golden state killer like coded messages could have been figured out you know what i mean oh uh you mean uh zodiac yeah zodiac well i think yeah that's actually how they that's how um they
had code breakers do that but it's not it wouldn't be too far off wow that's cool That's really cool. Yeah. I was just wondering about that. Yeah. I never heard about this guy way too much credit. Well, I mean, we might not be either pants shittingly insane or just like an artist having a good time. Yeah. Right. But there's also, there's also people that argue that we've all been taking the messages like way too literally that the whole resurrect the dead on Jupiter
thing was more symbolic than anything. Like it was like a metaphor. And here's how, like, if you read it more as a metaphor, how it would kind of read. So you got the Toynbee idea, which equals humanity's potential to overcome death and destruction. And then you have Kubrick's 2001, which would be equal like our next evolutionary leap. And then resurrect dead on Jupiter is more like a poetic call to reclaim what we've lost and build something better for ourselves. Yeah,
it's not like a how -to manual. It's more like
a piece of aspirational sci -fi. philosophy like saying shoot for the moon but way more insane and you know what i mean yeah i'm gonna be honest i'm so glad that you came through on telling us what the metaphor was because if you just left that open i would have been thinking about this shit for hours what the fuck does jupiter mean yeah yeah right but then there's my personal favorite theory and that's he just wanted to leave something behind like it's not a cult it's
not a conspiracy it's not a manifesto it's just something to make people stop in the middle of a crosswalk and go like, what the fuck is this? In that way, the Toynbee tiles did work. They made me curious, made people dig into it, made us think about life, death, resurrection, art, even fucking roads and sidewalks and shit. That's
an interesting aspect of it. I think that some artists are more like, especially street artists, are more like, well, what can I put out there that will make people... curious you know i mean and that's part of the art like i you know i held up that sticker earlier i i love shepherd fairy um and he came up with the under the giant you know under the giant has a posse obey stuff and that was in providence and i'm from rhode island so i read about it and when it first started
he just started putting the andre the giant obey stuff all over the place and people were like Basically, I guess when it started, we're like, what is this? Is this a gang? Are people warning us? They took it as this very ominous thing. And this local paper, a local paper in Providence basically was like, if anyone has any information about the guy who's doing this, we're trying to figure it out. And they were worried. They
were nervous. And so Shepard Fairey himself actually reached out to the paper and was like, I'm just
doing this for fun. I just like the image. uh it's obviously it's counterculture you know the obey is sarcastic he's like it's just about like punk rock uh street art and having a good time so it wasn't ominous at all but they took it that way first and this is kind of similar except the actual inscriptions are much more negative and ominous yeah yeah but i honestly i dig that energy like i love the i love the idea of being like i'm just gonna put this weird shit on the
ground yeah people are gonna stop and read it because they don't know what it means. And then the news is going to pick it up and everyone's going to panic because people are idiots. That's the thing. So that's kind of what I think some people go for. Yeah, it's just acts of public weirdness that catch your attention. It's basically what's going on. Right. I've dedicated my life to it. Yeah, for this guy, he never said a word in public. He never took credit. And maybe he
just wanted to matter just for a minute. You know what I mean? but also being a mysterious figure. And it's kind of perfect. I love this theory that he's just a dude who just wanted to make an impact for however long he could. Now, like I said, many of the Toynbee tiles have crumbled under decades of traffic and road work, but the mystery refuses to die. And the reason for that is because new tiles keep showing up. Uh, sometimes they look like the classics. Other
times there's something else entirely. Like for example, starting in the 2010s, a new wave of tiles began appearing stamped with a signature house of Hades. Now these aren't exact copies of the original. They're way weirder, uh, sometimes cruder and often much more graphic. Uh, some features sexually explicit borders, political rants, or just random shit like house of Hades tiles made from the ground bones of dead journalists. That's probably one of my favorite ones. So it's
like Twitter. Yeah, I like that one too. But unlike the OG Tyler, House of Hades is reportedly a group, or at least they kind of operate like one. They've been known to mail tile kits to people in different cities, and you can find their stuff in Philly, NYC, Detroit, even out
west. Meanwhile, a few new Toynbee -style tiles, like the classic format with the original message, still appear now and then, mostly in Philly, leading some to believe the original tiler might still be around, just older, quieter, just not quite done with his little art project. Now, whether it's him or a devoted imitator, the message remains the same. Toynbee idea in movie 2001, resurrect dead on planet Jupiter. So there you have it, guys. That is the story. The mystery
of the Toynbee tiles. How are we feeling about it? I love it. I think it's... That was so cool. I think it's really fun. I like the aspect of the art and the curiosity factor. I do think that's fun. Yeah. I just, from my own perspective, if I was going to do something like that, and I'm not saying I'm planning on it. Well, if you hit up House of Hades, they'll send you a tile kit in the mail. So there you go. You can do
whatever you want. But wouldn't it be fun to do it, like, let's say over the course of like a year? And you keep dropping them in different places. And eventually they form a complete puzzle. Not physical puzzle, but like a story or something. Yeah, that would be cool. That would be cool. You know what I mean? Jesus fucking Christ. I think you should put just like all the most fucked up well -known porn. Like Lemon Party, Two Girls, One Cup. It's just everywhere. One guy, one jar.
Just screenshots of that, but in front of like Marjorie Taylor Greene's house. Exactly. And put someone's... And you know what? Censor them all. All the genitals, censor them. But with someone random's face. Like Barbara Walters. You know what I mean? It's like, what is this guy saying about Barbara Walters? You know? That'd be fun. Or like censor it with a rainbow flag. Because they hate rainbow flags and they want them gone, but if they pull it away, they're
going to see Goatsy's ass. And you know what? Little... Little frog holding the flag. Oh, there we go. It came full circle. Full circle, baby. All right. So you guys dig this? It was a little different. We don't normally talk about mysteries, but yeah, it was fun. It was awesome. Yeah. I remember I watched that documentary when it came out in 2011, and it's one of the reasons why I got into like weird mystery shit. So basically, if it wasn't for Tomby Tiles, I don't think I'd
be here doing this show with you guys. So shout out to whoever does the Tomby Tiles. I like it. Nice work. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, there you have it. That's it. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Chuck, before we sign off, normally we would plug our stuff, but I feel like it's only appropriate for you to plug your stuff. So what do you got going on? Hell yeah. I appreciate it. So basically, yeah, I'm I am a host of the podcast Fun Bearable with comedians Ray Harrington and Brad Rohr.
It's a really fun time. We have a lot of our friends on like Mark Norman, comedian Joe List, Mike Cannon. And the guys from the Tell Them Steve Dave podcast, which I'm also involved in. I host a couple of shows in their Patreon. And yeah, it's a very fun podcast. Funbearablepod .com is where to find it. And we are doing a live show on June 1st at the Comedy Connection in East Providence, Rhode Island. Nice. Our live shows are very bizarre. We do a lot of pranks.
We do a lot of segments. It's not really a podcast live. It's more of like an improv and sketch
thing. Very alternative. our goal is kind of like whenever people come out to one of our shows we want them not to know what they expect that's so cool yeah we did uh well it's funny we have the same you know we have narragansett as a sponsor on our podcast too that's how we got linked up yeah yeah and one of the things that's that happened was uh cam our wonderful rep wonderful guy he went to our live show last year oh he's the best and um for the close of our live show What we
did was we took my buddy Brad, who's on the podcast, we took his image and we made a fake advertisement for him having his own hot dog cart. And we made these advertisements like postcards and we sent them out all across the country to different hot dog places saying, I'm going to run you on a business. Like, you don't know what you're doing. We wrote to like the, we wrote to like the FDA and said like, Hey, I have this illegal hot dog business. I keep them all in my bathtub.
Will you guys please approve me? A ton of stuff like that. And we actually wrote to his favorite hot dog place growing up in Indiana. And the place is called Boz's. And he wrote like, I used to look up to you. Now I'm here to take the throne, blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. And it ended with, you might want to check the paper tomorrow. And we took out an ad on the paper there. And above the advertisement, it says.
better than bozz's and then it has the advertisement for his hot dog truck and he went there he went there later on and as soon as he walked in he said the first person that worked there that saw him said are you brad from brad's brats and they knew it right away but we do yeah we do a lot of fun stuff like that at the live show the reason i brought up narragansett is because i we're gonna try to get cans made of the brad's brats logo as like a uh A non -alcoholic hot
dog seltzer, which I think would be awesome. But we're not going to actually sell it. What's going to be inside, hopefully, is a hot dog scented candle. That's our plan right now. Oh, my God. That is such a good idea. Yeah. So if you're in the New England area, thank you. Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, come on out Sunday, June 1st at the Comedy Connection, East Providence, Rhode Island. It's a great comedy club. Amazing comedy club. Go to funbearablepod .com for tickets.
Yeah, I'm in the New England area. I'll make my way down there. You should. Dude, it is really fun. It is really fun. And usually, I always say to people, if you're traveling, because a lot of people come from New York to come to our shows, I go, if you're traveling, let's all go out to dinner afterwards. And we usually go to a really cool late night pizza spot. I'm in. Yeah, man. It's good stuff. I'm sure Cam will be there too. So Cam will be hanging out. I'll
report back on the podcast afterwards. Love it. Hell yeah. Yeah, so be sure to check out funbearablepod
.com. Is that what it is? that's right yeah all right yeah so check that out get tickets to the live show i'll put a link uh to the website in the episode description so you can easily find it um yes if they want to follow you on social media where can they find you i'm at discount chuck on instagram and twitter hell yeah and the i think it's at fun bearable pod for the podcast instagram yep that's all the socials
youtube instagram everything Awesome. And if you want to follow us on social media, we really only do Instagram and TikTok. It's at cryptic cocktail on Instagram, at cryptic cocktail party on TikTok. If you want to follow Sarge, you can just head to the link in our episode description. All of his social media is on there. Sarge, you want to plug your coloring book before we go? Yeah, the coloring book is still alive because we live in a dystopian hellscape. Sarge's supernormal
.com. You can color all of your favorite political enemies in any way you'd like. Barbara Walters, everybody. Or you could just roll one up and hit somebody who was a MAGA right over the head. Don't actually do that. That's a crime. But it'd be cool if you did it. So, sagesupernormal .com, $9 .99. It's better than a Volkswagen full of
nuns. I believe it. They're annoying. And with that out of the way, normally Sarge says goodbye and I love you to the audience, but Chuck, do you want to do the honors of saying goodbye and I love you to the audience? Goodbye and I love you.