We take a look this week at the incredibly inspirational life of Helen Keller. She accomplished SO much despite completely losing her sight and ability to hear at the age of just 19 months. Had the miracle worker Anne Sullivan not entered her life when she did, I don't think we'd know Helen's name today. Anne's life - also so incredible. Their intertwined story got me all fired up. We also take a look back at what went on at Bad Magic in 2022 and what we hope to accomplish going forward. Thank y...
Dec 26, 2022•2 hr 18 min
Josef Mengele was a great guy! Just very misunderstood. Wait, no. I'm thinking of someone else. Josef Mengele was a MONSTER. His complete and total lack of empathy for anyone not a member of Hitler's nonsensical racial purity dream boggles the mind. He saw his experimental patients at the Auschwitz concentration camp as nothing more than lab rats who happened to kind of look human. His experiments were cruel and misguided. And mostly dealt with identical twins. Child twins. And saddest of all - ...
Dec 19, 2022•3 hr 49 min
Herb Baumeister was VERY likely the I-70 Strangler, killing a suspected nine boys and men between 1980 and 1990. And then, over the next six years, he seems to have killed at least another twenty-five men and boys and buried them on his Indianapolis area property. And now this property - Fox Hollow Farms - is reportedly VERY haunted. Today we explore what we know about Herb's life, go over the many suspected crimes, and how he was about to be arrested before he took his own life. And then, after...
Dec 12, 2022•2 hr 24 min
Evangelical End Times pastor Mike Bickle founded the International House of Prayer in 1999, later renamed IHOPKC, in Kansas City after saying God had told him to do so in a series of prophecies. Former members have referred to it as a cult. Is it? Or is it an organization, with its focus on modern day prophecy, where cult leaders can easily recruit followers? In 2012, IHOPKC member Bethany Deaton was found dead, and investigators looking into her suicide (originally thought to be a murder case),...
Dec 05, 2022•3 hr 1 min
Strange and thought provoking episode today! In the 1940s, 50s, and early 60s, animal behavior researcher John B Calhoun ran a number of experiments on rodents regarding how their behavior would be affected by increased urbanization if all their basic needs were made. The results were terrifying. Crowded rats and mice became increasingly violent and lost their reproductive instincts to the point that eventually, the utopia went extinct after enduring a final phase full of random violent attacks,...
Nov 28, 2022•3 hr 33 min
The Pacific War may have been even more brutal than the War in Europe. Imperial Japan had a ferocious fighting force, they despised their enemies unlike even the Nazis, and they arguably tormented locals unlike any conquering army in modern history. The stories of local civilians being raped, tortured and killed en masse are truly disturbing. We also examine disturbing acts committed by the allies - like the brutal firebombing of Tokyo. Today we examine how Imperial Japan rose to power, how thei...
Nov 21, 2022•3 hr 5 min
Another whopper of a topic that could not be more action packed. WW2. Going over the war in Europe today - as much as we can in roughly three hours. The scale of WW2.... so massive. Over sixty million people died. OVER sixty MILLION. More people killed in less than a decade than all the people killed in two centuries of Mongol invasions. On numerous occasions, over 100,000 people would die in a single DAY. And it could have been so much worse had not the Allied powers defeated the primary Axis P...
Nov 14, 2022•3 hr
So much to go over in under three hours! Why are indigenous women on reservations in the US being killed at a rate ten times the national average? Why are indigenous women in Canada being murdered six times as often as other women? The answer is complex. It goes back to the first Europeans who colonized the New World and the precedents they set for the treatment of native women. And in the US, much of the MMIW crisis is related to the very confusing jurisdictional nightmare of tribal law versus ...
Nov 07, 2022•3 hr 40 min
On October 25, 2012, NYPD Office Gilberto Valle was arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit kidnapping after his estranged wife Kathleen had turned her computer over to the FBI following using spyware and uncovering Gil's sexual obsession with cannibalism. He'd been sharing photos of her and other women with other cannibalism fetishists and writing in graphic detail about how badly he wanted to have her kidnapped, raped, tortured, killed, and eaten. Was Gil planning on killing his wife an...
Oct 31, 2022•3 hr 41 min
How much do you know about America's first documented serial killers, The Bloody Harpes? Micajah and Wiley Harpe went on a crazy murder spree out on the western American frontier, starting in late 1798. The murdered men, women, children, and even babies. And they'd been bad, murderous men long before their final year of terror. They'd ran with a gang of river pirates, they'd been members of a Tory rape gang during the Revolutionary War. They went on raids with a band of Cherokee warriors. They L...
Oct 24, 2022•2 hr 14 min
Today we cover the formation of the infamous Bloods and Crips gang rivalry. How did it get started? Why did it begin in South Central Los Angeles in the late 1960s and early 1970s? The Crips were founded by two high schoolers named Raymond Washington and Stanley “Tookie” Williams, who formed an alliance to protect their neighborhoods from other young people who were harassing them. And then very quickly, gang violence escalated far beyond beating up other kids with your fists to drive-by shootin...
Oct 17, 2022•3 hr 35 min
For four months in 1974, 28 year old Paul John Knowles went on a reckless murder spree across the United States that claimed the lives of at least 18 people. He killed men, women, seniors, and small children. He strangled some, shot others, and stabbed still others. Some crimes were sexual, and some weren't. The man who had spent more than half his life incarcerated in some form for a variety of petty, generally theft-related crimes suddenly became very, VERY violent. Why? That's what we explore...
Oct 10, 2022•2 hr 19 min
Is Bayer AG really EVIL? Or have they, like a lot of companies done both really good things - like marketing aspirin and other valuable medicine around the world - and really bad things, like market heroin after they knew it was dangerous, and perform deadly drug experiments on concentration camp victims? Yeah - that last one is real, REAL bad. But - how many corporate hands are truly clean? How many companies buy minerals from conflict zones, or materials from sweatshops? How many other compani...
Oct 03, 2022•3 hr 47 min
The name The Movement for the Restoration of the Ten Commandments of God might not sound familiar, but in the world of cults, it should be. Only one cult in modern history has ever had more people die in its final act, the Peoples Temple's Jonestown Massacre. 778 people died in Uganda in early 2000 - murdered by cult leaders who had failed to correctly predict the day the world would end and the apocalypse would begin, on four different occasions. Today we explore what this cult was about - incl...
Sep 26, 2022•3 hr 44 min
Get ready to meet one of my comedy heroes, but only if you can handle a LOT of profanity. George Carlin, following the path of his mentor, Lenny Bruce, kicked the doors of censorship down so people like myself could have careers in comedy, and not worry about being arrested for saying something "obscene." Today, we learn about the amazing, prolific, inspiring life of George Carlin - how a boy raised by a single mother in New York City grew up to become a radio DJ, then part of two man comedy tea...
Sep 19, 2022•3 hr 2 min
Ronald Dominique confessed to raping and murdering 23 boys and men between the ages of 16 and 46 between 1997 and 2006 across six Louisiana parishes. When he was caught, investigators were shocked by... how harmless and unintelligent he seemed. How did THIS guy do what he did for so long? In part, he was able to do what he did because he targeted the poorest members of one of the poorest area of the nation. Law enforcement where and when he was killing didn't have much of a budget to dedicate en...
Sep 12, 2022•2 hr 29 min
Emotional episode today! At least for me. We examine the Catholic Church's long history of sex scandals, including extremely troublesome recent coverups, how the priesthood came to be, whether or not celibacy is a realistic expectation, how the priesthood may entice pedophiles to join, and so much more. We'll examine the history of the church's views on sexuality. Why did they choose celibacy for priests? Does it have any scriptural basis? How does not allowing priests to have a sexual life (or ...
Sep 05, 2022•3 hr 50 min
In June of 2015, 48-year-old Dee Dee Blanchard was murdered in cold blood. Her murderer snuck into her bedroom at night and stabbed her in her sleep... seventeen times. A brutal crime. But, based on how Dee Dee had treated her daughter Gypsy Rose, was her murder justified? For twenty-three-year-old Gypsy's entire life, her mom had been telling others she was sick. And convincing doctors and other medical professionals she was sick. And she wasn't. Nevertheless, she was paraded around in a wheelc...
Aug 29, 2022•2 hr 8 min
Long before German con artist Anna Sorokin aka Anna Delvey captured America's attention thanks to the popular Netflix series, Inventing Anna, another German con artist tricked numerous members of NYC's upper social circles, and caused a lot more harm, including killing one person for sure, and very likely two people: Christian Gerhartsreiter aka Clark Rockefeller. Clark lived well under various alias for over two decades, and lived the life of a millionaire for over a decade, tricking investing ...
Aug 22, 2022•3 hr 49 min
Randy Kraft might just be the most brutal and prolific serial killer you've never heard of. Convicted of sixteen murders, prosecutors felt they had enough evidence to charge him with forty-five killings. Most now assume he killed at least 67 victims. And he did so horrifically. A true sexual sadist, Randy targeted young men and boys from 1971 to 1983, removing the genitals of many of his victims BEFORE killing them. Today we cover his life from the beginning to sitting in a prison cell in San Qu...
Aug 15, 2022•2 hr 26 min
The story of this little known cult is WILD. Was the cult leader, Terri Hoffman, capable of some kind of actual mind control? It honestly feels possible. This New Age guru who spoke of reincarnation, astral planes, transcending the trappings of your Earthly bodies, and fighting "black lords" in other non-physical planes of existence seems to have broken down the minds of numerous followers and pushed them into committing suicide, right after they made her the sole beneficiary of their wills. Ter...
Aug 08, 2022•3 hr 45 min
Steve Irwin, better known as the Crocodile Hunter, was a wildlife enthusiast and conservationist, owner of the Australia zoo, and a TV icon loved all over the world. Known for his signature catchphrase, “Crikey!,” and his classic khaki uniform, and a LOT of personality, Steve Irwin became a household name. A brand, actually. He also seemed like a huge nut to many. More akin to a reckless Circus Ringmaster than a dedicated conservationist. But behind the fun and adventurous image full of manic en...
Aug 01, 2022•2 hr 16 min
As a couple, Gerald and Charlene Gallego turned their dark sexual desires into a murderous rampage that left at least ten young people dead in California, Oregon, and Nevada between 1978 and 1980. Some of these were girls as young as thirteen - barely teenagers - sexually assaulted before being murdered in a remote location. Nine women were raped before being bludgeoned or shot to death… and one man was killed for happening to be with a young woman Gerald wanted to rape and kill. Most of the vic...
Jul 25, 2022•3 hr 31 min
Off and on from 2006 to 2012, Snowden had worked as a CIA analyst, a subcontractor for the NSA, and several other positions that gave him access to classified NSA information that enabled him to see the true scope of how the US was surveilling its own citizens. Does leaking those docs to the press in 2013 make him a traitor? Or does it make him a hero who opened the eyes of the American public to the dangerous and unconstitutional surveillance our government has been clandestinely carrying out f...
Jul 18, 2022•3 hr 38 min
Rare interview on the Suck today! Chris Hansen from To Catch a Predator, and his new podcast Predators I've Caught with Chris Hansen. I ask him about today's subject, Peter Nygård, the disgraced Canadian fashion mogul who currently sits in a Winnipeg jail cell after roughly five decades of sexual abuse allegations. Nygård has been called the Canadian Jeffrey Epstein for good reason - he used his wealth and privilege to brutally prey on young women and girls he offered career opportunities too, f...
Jul 11, 2022•3 hr 5 min
So many of us have thought about disappearing and starting a new life somewhere else. It's a common psychological phenomenon. When life feels too overwhelming - when you feel trapped in a situation you desperately want out of - how fun is it to fantasize about leaving it all behind? Reinvent yourself! Be you've always wanted to be - who you know you could be - if you were just given a fresh start. But very few of us actually do disappear and attempt this. Luckily for today's show, a lot of peopl...
Jul 04, 2022•3 hr 42 min
In 1972, the 45 passengers and crew of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571 faced extreme weather, avalanches, a variety of injuries, sickness, sun blindness, thirst, and starvation so severe, they were forced to eat the bodies of their friends and family who lay in the snow next to them for over two months in this harrowing tale of survival. Their story is so unbelievable, the first police officers that two members of this group finally contacted took hours of convincing to believe it. No one should ...
Jun 27, 2022•2 hr 59 min
In October of 2002, the DC Snipers terrorized residents of Washington DC, Virginia, and Maryland for three weeks. During that time, people lived in constant fear that they’d be killed - shot down - while in the midst of doing normally safe and benign daily activities like pumping gas, waiting for the bus, or even just walking across a parking lot to do some shopping. In total, ten people would be murdered, three people were critically injured, and others would be randomly shot at. Hundreds of FB...
Jun 20, 2022•3 hr 31 min
LSD is a powerful, mind-bending drug. Only a crazy person would try and tell a coherent and compelling two-hour-plus historical narrative while frying their brain on the equivalent of four hits of acid. And well... I am that crazy person. Today, to celebrate the 300th episode of Timesuck, I try and pull this story off immediately after dropping two double-hits of LSD. And things get.... weird. Also, what an amazing story! Bass Reeves' name and story are finally getting more exposure and it's abo...
Jun 13, 2022•2 hr 24 min
Brace yourself for this one. If you can't handle graphic depictions of sexual abuse directed in the most obscene and ridiculous ways towards breasts, this isn't gonna be one you're gonna enjoy. This story truly plays out like a horror film. Some type of Rob Zombie slasher flick. On acid. Robin Gecht is a man with a VERY specific sexual obsession. And that obsession, when he wasnt behind bars, combined with Satanic worship straight out of some 1980s Satanic Panic PSA, led Robin to embark on a spr...
Jun 06, 2022•3 hr 43 min
