HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Some people I discovered, which I did not know, some people cannot visualize in their heads.
BEN KISSEL
I don't really have, I can't draw. I think you need to have that kind of brain to draw.
MARCUS PARKS
What do you mean?
BEN KISSEL
Photorealistic.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I don't really see photos like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like in your brain you don't have like your dreams are more emotions and it's from your perspective but you don't really-
BEN KISSEL
But I have people too but I can't say that they're like crystal.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. I have incredibly vivid crystal images. Like sometimes I'll wake up and write down images like the chocolate chicken.
BEN KISSEL
Chocolate chicken.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, chocolate chicken because I had this dream where I was on the streets of New York and I found this pile of rotten chicken bones but they were covered in chocolate. So I thought maybe these would be good.
BEN KISSEL
I can save this! I can save the chocolate! Or the chicken.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Did you want the chicken or the chocolate?
MARCUS PARKS
Well I wanted the chocolate and the chicken, I wanted the chocolate chicken. So I picked up this pile of chicken bones and I started eating it but it was rotten so I kept throwing it up but then I kept eating it and then throwing it up and eating it and throwing it up. And I just woke up in the morning, I just kept thinking like the chocolate chicken, remember the chocolate chicken.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
The chocolate chicken is very important and I don't know why the chocolate chicken was important but I felt it was very important.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know you're everyone in your dreams.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. And the thing is also you can dream about anything which is amazing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I was talking about that honestly in therapy, I was talking about that, I was like I had another one of those where it wasn't a sex dream, it was everything up to. And I was like you could fuck in your dreams!
BEN KISSEL
You can do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're allowed to.
MARCUS PARKS
You're allowed to.
BEN KISSEL
It's the barriers you put up against yourself, isn't it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes it is.
BEN KISSEL
Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left. Ben hanging out with Henry. We're talking chocolate chickens today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We are. We are. Kissel, the last five or six days, literally since the moment we stopped recording the last episode of this series-
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You have been saying over and over again, hey, I got this joke.
BEN KISSEL
I got a joke.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I got this joke.
BEN KISSEL
I got a joke lined up that I came up with my own brain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you've been thinking about it for days.
MARCUS PARKS
Days.
BEN KISSEL
Days, yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Mentioned it to me at least three times.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And we're all like so what's the joke? And you're like wait.
BEN KISSEL
Wait. But the thing is now I'm bored of it. So I don't even want to say it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you mean to tell me I literally was sitting and waiting and wondering what-
BEN KISSEL
I don't even wanna say it. You already heard it. You know what the joke is.
MARCUS PARKS
I told my wife about it, Carolina. Ben says he has this amazing joke that I can't wait to hear.
BEN KISSEL
All right, fine. Here it is. Here it is. Fernando's also heard it. You've heard it, I said it on Open Lines.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't remember.
BEN KISSEL
No, you don't remember much that I say, do you?
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's new to me.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. What kind of milk does a mythical cow drink?
MARCUS PARKS
A mythical cow. What kind of milk does a mythical cow drink?
BEN KISSEL
What kind of milk does a mythical cow drink?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I now remember and I'm sorry that I did this.
MARCUS PARKS
A mythical cow. Okay, what is it?
BEN KISSEL
Legendairy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So when we last left the crew of the Essex, a highly aggressive 85 ft whale destroyed their ship.
BEN KISSEL
That's good for a popsicle stick!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Much to the surprise of the seasoned Nantucket whalemen...
BEN KISSEL
Legendairy. What kind of milk does a mythical cow drink?
MARCUS PARKS
Legendairy.
BEN KISSEL
Legendairy. See, you liked it.
MARCUS PARKS
I did.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
MARCUS PARKS
I enjoyed it greatly. You give me a pond and I'm going to be happy for days.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hate it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. There you go. All right everyone, let's go onto part 2 of the tragedy of the Essex.
MARCUS PARKS
So when we last left the crew of the Essex, a highly aggressive 85 ft whale had destroyed their ship. Much to the surprise of the season, Nantucket whalemen who had never even heard of a whale attacking a ship, much less sinking one.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness. So that means one person was like, 'And I've never!'
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They all were truly surprised cause they were like I just thought they mate.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
But while there were no records or even rumors of this happening to Nantucketers prior to 1820, it happened plenty of times after. In 1835 for example, a ship called the Pusie Hall was attacked-
BEN KISSEL
Whoa, wait now. Is there a different meaning for pussy back then?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This be my ship, the Pusie Hall. It's named after where I was born.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yarr, Pusie Hall! I remember it well. It was long, thick, kinda brown.
BEN KISSEL
Pusie Hall.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pinkish walls like the inside of a barracuda.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I see.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yarr, Pusie Hall.
BEN KISSEL
Pusie Hall, Connecticut.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was attached to my huge mother.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I see, the birth canal. The first river we go down.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's P-U-S-I-E. So it might be poo-say?
BEN KISSEL
Poo-say.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Poo-say.
MARCUS PARKS
It might be pushy? Pushy Hall? Which is worse somehow.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh. Even worse.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's pussy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but the Pusie Hall was attacked and chased by a whale but thankfully it escaped.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Over the next few years multiple ships would be sunk by whales including a vessel called the Ann Alexander which sank near the same location that the Essex had gone down coincidentally the same year that Moby Dick was published.
BEN KISSEL
Interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is definitely more prevalent than anyone had ever thought that it was.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whales definitely destroyed many boats. Now we kind of see it after the fact because I feel like again this is a theory. So tell me if I'm wrong experts out there that know whalers that have been on a ship.
BEN KISSEL
You're not directing that towards me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, I'm sorry. But the idea that they started talking about after something like this happened because this story came out and it kind of became more circulated.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where I think that sailors are so superstitious that no one really wants to talk about that not only is just doing the job dangerous, just being on a boat dangerous-
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Going to a bunch of places that are basically unmapped massive stretches of water is completely dangerous but also the thing that's got the fucking metal lubricant in its brain is also dangerous.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well perhaps the whales were having some revenge after being depleted for all those years.
MARCUS PARKS
Quite possibly. But when it came to the crew of the Essex, why the whale had attacked or whether or not it may or may not attack other ships, that wasn't the first thing on their mind. To them, their immediate concern was simple survival until they could be rescued.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
The 21 men who'd survived the sinking of the ship were divided amongst three whale boats holding 7 men each. As befitting their ranks, the whale boats went to the captain, the first mate, and the second mate according to the condition of the boat, best to worse.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's something about no matter what happens these guys stick to the orders that were made up by a bunch of people that were made up before them.
MARCUS PARKS
Go to.
BEN KISSEL
Well it makes sense. You've been there the longest, you get the nicest boat, you're the new fresh one, you can handle having to do all the stuff where you have to come in all the holes so it doesn't leak.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think that you do!
BEN KISSEL
They can do it!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But the provisions, they were divided equally with each boat receiving 200 lbs of hardtack, 65 gallons of water, and two tortoises. The only special item given to Captain Pollard was the ship's musket, while the mates were only given pistols.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And these were handed out just in case.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know that's for, man.
BEN KISSEL
What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fucking popping the top, dog. You fucking take that one old single bullet train down to Davy Jones' locker.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's a nice thought to have, sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean it's probably for hunting.
BEN KISSEL
It could be.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, could possibly be. Although they had ample opportunity, never used them for that. I think it was a contingency plan for the men.
BEN KISSEL
Well why don't you just jump into the massive ocean?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because that's a long death.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah but it's kind of nice. You swim around until you get tired and then you get eaten by a shark. We've seen Open Water.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're going to talk about why it wasn't that nice.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And so two days after the whale attack, the crew set out with their small convoy of three boats and by 4 pm they lost sight of the wreckage of the Essex. And that's when their nightmare truly began.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the nightmare's beginning!
BEN KISSEL
That's bad. You got a full night's sleep ahead of you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's bad.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the whale boats were dangerously overloaded because the supplies were double the weight of what a crew usually took out to kill a whale, 1000 lbs of shit as opposed to 500 lbs of shit.
BEN KISSEL
And this was because of the search and recovery? They wanted to have some goods to give the people that they were searching for?
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
They were planning to be on the open water for minimum a month.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Minimum.
BEN KISSEL
I see.
MARCUS PARKS
That's if everything went exceedingly well, no problems, they're out there for a month at least.
BEN KISSEL
Gotcha.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And also the whalers, the boats that they would use for the actual whale hunting, they were much, much lighter.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were made to go on top of the waves vs cutting through them. So they're actually made of much lighter wood and so the provisions that they put on it just to live was sinking it almost to sea level just as it is. That was just on food and water.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well it's a good thing The Wailers had Bob Marley to carry them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can't repeat it. You did it last time!
BEN KISSEL
No, that was a different Bob Marley joke.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's the same, it's absolutely the same concept.
BEN KISSEL
I shoehorned it in differently.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the boats had also been converted from rowboats into sailboats which came with its own set of nautical challenges that neither us nor anyone except someone who spent their summers yachting off of Cape Cod will understand. So just take our word that keeping these boats afloat and on course was exhausting.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I take your fucking word, I'm not trying to do that shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like Uber. I'm not doing all this. I can barely change a tire.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Barely change? You can't change a tire.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I do know how to. Do I want to? Am I like ooh good, ooh yay!
BEN KISSEL
When did you change a tire?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In Florida.
BEN KISSEL
You did?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I've changed multiple-
BEN KISSEL
When?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In college I changed multiple tires. I have changed tires.
BEN KISSEL
Oh he was fat enough to do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I had to.
BEN KISSEL
That is true actually.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I didn't have the money for someone to come do it so I had to do it.
BEN KISSEL
I could see it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I sat desperate on the side of the road and just being like all right. And they had I had the fucking tire change kick in the back of the Hyundai and I just took it out and I was like I know these be lug nuts. I've seen this on the TV, right, like I know what it is.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because you know where I learned how to change a tire was from A Christmas Story.
BEN KISSEL
Boom, there you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's why I remembered.
MARCUS PARKS
Not bad.
BEN KISSEL
Only I didn't say fudge. And honestly in the world of sketch comedy, Henry is very masculine.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
He's the man of sketch comedy.
MARCUS PARKS
That is true. That is true.
BEN KISSEL
Very masculine.
MARCUS PARKS
Because in sketch comedy they all have beards but none of them are masculine.
BEN KISSEL
Exactly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the idea.
BEN KISSEL
But Henry's actually a man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I came with a beard.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
That's right. Well the men divided themselves into two shifts to allow for rest but because of the massive waves in certain parts of the open sea and because the ships were as Henry said very light, each team had to deal with a near constant terror of getting separated from the group when the waves got high. Because they just kept disappearing and reappearing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is wild because-
BEN KISSEL
It's scary.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is where the atmosphere of it gets very scary.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because now you've been drifting along, you've been on this boat for was I think a year? How long were they on the boat?
MARCUS PARKS
A little over a year. Year and three months.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's your home.
MARCUS PARKS
On the Essex.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right.
BEN KISSEL
That's so long.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So now you're gone and you're in the middle of the water and you're trying to, you have this thing, we're trying to maintain some form of order, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everything's gone to shit. But we figure if we can hang in a pod. But that's each time in the middle of the ocean, the waves undulate like 40-50 ft.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So you're just watching your buddy disappear and then he comes back up, he's like 100 yards over there and then he's over there. And you're all like (faded yelling).
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People try to yell at you from like 200 yards and you just can't do anything.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then you're surrounded by fucking sharks.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this prospect was most frightening for the boat helmed by the second mate, Matthew Joy. That boat will henceforth be known as the shitty boat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Good.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Joy was the only helmsman without any navigational equipment.
BEN KISSEL
What?
MARCUS PARKS
So if he were to lose contact with the other two boats, he and his men would lose all hope for survival.
BEN KISSEL
How did they send the ship out without any navigational equipment? That's like a car without a wheel.
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's not a ship, it's a boat. Remember these are whale boats, these are meant to go away from the main ship and come back.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Five miles at most.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And so when the ship sank, remember that one sailor went down to the the lower decks and grabbed all the navigational equipment but there was only enough navigational equipment to be split between two boats and there's three boats.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was the lowest rank.
MARCUS PARKS
He was the lowest rung.
BEN KISSEL
Or it was a brutal game of eeny, meeny, miny, moe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know. The last game or eeny, meeny, miny, moe that you ever wanna play in your life.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they had to use the sun, right. They had to use the sun.
MARCUS PARKS
And the stars.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the stars. But then there was a problem because it was also starting to rain, it was really overcast.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So they were lost as fuck.
BEN KISSEL
It is so bizarre. You can look up at the stars and it could be a romantic evening and it could be totally peaceful or it could be the most hellacious experience of your life.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually find the open sky to be very frightening.
BEN KISSEL
Donner party.
MARCUS PARKS
I love it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it's beautiful.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very frightening. I don't like it. I look up there for UFOs for my work.
MARCUS PARKS
Your work?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For my work. For my tales, for my journals.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. And how much do you get paid for that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh it's about experience, my friend. Yeah but otherwise the open sky I find very frightening.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
Now considering how the crew had elected to pass on a relatively quick trip towards the islands of the South Pacific because they were afraid of mostly non existent cannibals and gay dudes, they'd pinned their hopes on being spotted by a lookout atop a whale ship. By the crew's reckoning they could make it two months on the open sea hoping to be spotted if they rationed their provisions correctly.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's worst case scenario.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
So each man got 6 oz of hardtack equal to roughly 6 slices of bread plus half a pint of water per day or at least that's what they got at first.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Do you want to hear sounds of what it's like to eat hardtack?
BEN KISSEL
I kinda do.
MARCUS PARKS
Now is this hard hardtack or is this hardtack soaked in water? Because hardtack, you can't just eat it. You have to soak it in water first to make it soft.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You literally have to soak it. So listen to this clip, this comes from just some woman, she's just masquerading as someone who needs to eat hardtack. I don't know why we're doing this.
BEN KISSEL
Is this sailor ASMR?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. This is sailor ASMR. Yarr yarr. (seagull sounds)
BEN KISSEL
Masculine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So I wanna hear this.
LPOTL
(audio) Okay, let's try taking a bite now that the piece is a little bit smaller. Here we go. Itadakimasu. (crunching)
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It sounds like bones crunching. Sounds like chocolate chicken.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She didn't soak it. And she said, 'I'm gonna break my teeth.'
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Sounds like teeth being eaten by teeth.
LPOTL
(audio) Winston, I'm sure you're everywhere. (crunching)
MARCUS PARKS
It sounds like someone eating a Triscuit, like a really old Triscuit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's what I like.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well someone's aroused out there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I know. Most people were like viciously upset.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, that first crack.
MARCUS PARKS
Ugh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Because it's extremely hard.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And I technically didn't eat the bones, I licked the bones of what little meat was left on the bones.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
But the bones were covered in chocolate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes, yes, yes.
BEN KISSEL
I really hope the people that just tuned in don't realize that was a dream. Because it's 50/50.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who knows?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the rancid meat. Well each boat also had two tortoises in case of emergencies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah because they sing songs.
BEN KISSEL
I know, it's kinda cute.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And what's nice about the tortoise is yeah, because it's bumpy and lumpy. And they're full of funny jokes and one is voiced by Nathan Lane.
BEN KISSEL
Oh that's funny.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the other one is voiced by Pete Davidson, challenging choice.
BEN KISSEL
I love it!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they are just not knowing what in the living fucking hell they're about to live in. They're in Pixar world.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they don't know they're about to be boiled, entrails and all, in their own backs.
BEN KISSEL
Honestly Pete Davidson would make a great turtle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I am already mad that I said it.
BEN KISSEL
Because it actually works.
MARCUS PARKS
Works out, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because I need these roles.
BEN KISSEL
His slow drawl kind of.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I need these roles!
BEN KISSEL
Simple sense of humor but very funny.
MARCUS PARKS
We could maybe get you a chipmunk. Would you like a chipmunk?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
You could be a chipmunk.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll take it!
BEN KISSEL
I could see angry squirrel.
MARCUS PARKS
I could see that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Give it to me! Write this for me.
MARCUS PARKS
because it's gotta be a little heavyset, you know?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, he's been eating all those nuts so he can't really talk.
MARCUS PARKS
I know.
BEN KISSEL
And then it's also something you can edit easily out of the movie. You know how bad you gotta be when they edit you out of a Pixar movie?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(crying) Yeah, millions of man hours of these poor, poor people in Taiwan carving these Pixar characters out of the mountains. Just gone.
MARCUS PARKS
Well what really got everybody down in that first week or so were the nic fits.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
See each sailor went through 70 lbs of tobacco during each two year voyage.
BEN KISSEL
Woo!
MARCUS PARKS
But now everyone had to go cold turkey in a situation that would have been hard even with a steady fix.
BEN KISSEL
Nightmare, dude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's weird because I never thought of that angle before.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Until I was like oh yeah that's right, they also have to quit smoking cigarettes throughout this entire process.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That makes it much more difficult. I mean the nicotine back then, it wasn't quite as dirty as the Marlboros, was it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, you're smoking pure leaf tobacco.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
No, this is good Virginia nicotine right here. No fiberglass in this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I like. Smooth smoke.
BEN KISSEL
I like the idea of it but I just don't smoke. I like the idea.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it a wonderful thing. It's a terrible thing but it's a wonderful thing. I miss it.
BEN KISSEL
God.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just up against your lips first thing in the morning, it's the only thing you know.
BEN KISSEL
Don't do this to Marcus. Don't do this.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm away enough at this point where I can fantasize quite nicely.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I got my little patch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's got four of them on.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What's really strange is you don't see he's got four of them on him in the shape of a crucifix.
BEN KISSEL
It's very bizarre. He actually invested in the nicotine tarp and he sleeps on it at night. It's unique.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh you want to talk about dreams? Where do you think the chocolate chicken dream came from?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But to deal with this situation, this horrible situation, some men tried either clinging to a sense of normalcy or they nervously fidgeted. First mate Owen Chase continued keeping a ship's log which is why his later account of the ill fated voyage was so vivid. Second mate Joy however spent his time twisting stray strings of rope into an ever lengthening piece of twine and oddly and miraculously that piece of twine survived the journey even if second mate Joy did not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Spoilers!
BEN KISSEL
Wow. That's cool.
MARCUS PARKS
To make matters worse, it soon became clear to the sailors that the sea itself was intent on slowly torturing and killing each man.
BEN KISSEL
Captain's log. Pretty strong today. It's a floater. You can imagine it's a poop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep. Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
I can imagine.
BEN KISSEL
Imagine that it's a poop.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What's weird is that you say that and I just imagined a butt with a poop coming out of there.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Captain's log.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A guy with a big hat on looking back at it.
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well the constant spray of salt water caused sores to develop over every piece of exposed skin and the boats had to be constantly bailed out due to the massive waves that kept filling their boats with water.
BEN KISSEL
What a nightmare.
MARCUS PARKS
In one particularly large splash, much of first mate Owen Chase's rations in his boat, much of his rations of hardtack became so soaked in seawater which caused every piece to become infused with salt.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which actually might be good for the hardtack in terms of seasoning.
MARCUS PARKS
In terms of seasoning. But in terms of nutrition, it was absolutely horrible. Wrongly thinking that something was better than nothing, Chase insisted that his men continue eating the salty provisions.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Eat that fucking salty cracker, boy. You eat that salty cracker, I made it for you, boy.
BEN KISSEL
It'd be nice if the ocean also created pepper.
MARCUS PARKS
It'd be nice.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wouldn't it be nice if the ocean created tarragon? Wouldn't it be nice if the ocean created lobster bisque?
BEN KISSEL
I'm just saying salt and pepper go together.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this, eating the salty ass hardtack only made their dehydration worse. It's like eating nuts at a bar.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, of course. But they didn't have the tap of Bud Light Lime to go down, wash it down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow, embracing Brandon!
BEN KISSEL
Embracing Brandon. Even though I've never had Bud Light Lime, it was Bud Light Margarita.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did though.
MARCUS PARKS
He did.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's wow well it's been planted.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, remember it's the reality thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The medium is the message.
BEN KISSEL
Also I'm a Michelob Ultra guy now anyway.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can tell.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm a Pacifico boy these days.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
MARCUS PARKS
West coast, Hollywood Marcus drinks Pacifico.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm a Dos Equis woman.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm a big titted woman, I love my Dos Equis. I sit around, I eat my half priced Appleby's fucking appetizers because I fucking carried a child into this world.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. You're allowed.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as if all that wasn't enough, Chase's boat began sinking and men from Captain Pollard's boat had to come over to help repair the leak with a board that was already filled with old nail holes from previous repairs.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
This would be a constant, constant repair that would have to go on in all the boats. Daily nightmare. Additionally the weather wasn't cooperating either. For days the convoy sailed in overcast conditions which made determining their location by the stars or even really the sun impossible. All they knew was that they were sailing parallel to the South American coast towards nothing closer warm enough to matter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just in the novel it says that about the idea of like that's how you know they were real Nantucketers was that instead of going to easily accessible islands, they continued on into the open waters.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Why not just go to one of the fucking islands?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We said before they're afraid of being gay.
BEN KISSEL
I just...
MARCUS PARKS
Well it's also a Nantucketer is more comfortable on the sea than he is on land.
BEN KISSEL
He's not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think a Nantucketer wants to be in a chair.
BEN KISSEL
That is true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In a house.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's how they're comfortable.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the other thing too, remember all these guys, you can't stretch out. You're curled up into a ball this entire time.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's 25 ft. cause just imagine 7 dudes, this is how big, it's like a 15 ft room? We're four dudes in it, I smell each one of you. All right? Can you imagine what it would be like if there was fucking 25 ft, you're all crammed in, each one of you just wondering when it's finally gonna turn romantic?
BEN KISSEL
Yes. Take it to the island, would you? Get an island.
MARCUS PARKS
But when the sea itself wasn't trying to kill these men, the things that lived in the sea were. On November 27, one week out, Captain Pollard's boat was attacked by a killer whale who quite literally took a bite out of the boat.
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS
He then played with the vessel like a cat toys with a mouse before killing it.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're just watching this gigantic beast. Can you imagine if you get to a point where if you have to punch a killer whale in the face, you're fucked.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
Bop it. Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like if that's the last thing you got is that you have to use your hands, your digital mandibles.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they did, they punched the killer whale and they also tried poking it with these little poles because if they tried to harpoon it, that fucker is going to attack and kill all of you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Stop it. Stop.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Truly kill all of them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Leave us alone, leave us alone!
BEN KISSEL
Well you know when it comes to all wildlife, a bop on the nose, a bop on the nose will do it.
MARCUS PARKS
Usually it does.
BEN KISSEL
There's something about a bop on the nose, even with a bear.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well sometimes they got locationers.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. Yes they do.
MARCUS PARKS
A locationer is...? Never heard that word in my entire life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Map glands.
BEN KISSEL
Map glands.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That are in a... Wow, what can I say that's made up? It is not good. It hurts them.
MARCUS PARKS
It hurts them.
BEN KISSEL
it hurts them.
MARCUS PARKS
It hurts them. I got it, okay.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
But thankfully punching the killer whale was enough.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And once it left, Pollard transferred their provisions to another boat while they had to do another patch job.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
Now as we said, the sailors were allowed half a pint of water each day but the human body requires bare minimum twice that to properly function. We need one pint of water per day. But even though two boats were doing relatively okay, the health of the men in Chase's boat was cratering because he was still insisting that they eat the salty hardtack.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We are not going out to eat, all right, because we have hardtack at home!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, the hardtack at home is full of salt.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, well did you pay for it? You go get yourself a little job.
BEN KISSEL
Yes! We all paid for it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, you are.
BEN KISSEL
We're not getting paid to be here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come on, eat the hardtack.
BEN KISSEL
They're actually paying for this experience, aren't they?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they are at this point, yeah. I mean at this point, none of them is getting paid for anything.
BEN KISSEL
oh my.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, everything is fucked, they just swam in a puddle of all their money when the fucking thing sank.
BEN KISSEL
Dang.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. They don't have insurance, they get home, they're done.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
And so 10 days in, Chase decided since his men were very sick, time to slaughter the first tortoise.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
BEN KISSEL
No!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Pete Davidson is going under the fucking knife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god, I can't believe I'm a turtle. Could you believe? Crazy.
BEN KISSEL
You're making fun of someone 15 years younger than us. Let's make fun of Nathan Lane.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, make fun of Nathan Lane. What's Nathan Lane sounding like?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's a Broadway star, all right?
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it's harder to be a Broadway star than anyone of what we do here.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've seen it.
BEN KISSEL
You're just jealous of anyone who's not 40.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like the young.
BEN KISSEL
Of course.
MARCUS PARKS
After flipping it on its back, Chase slit the reptile's throat and collected what came out in cups that were passed out to the men who could stomach a belly full of blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Can you imagine that? You're all just hungrily jumping on it. They talk about how they're licking their lips as they slit this turtle.
BEN KISSEL
Turtle blood?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ah, I'm Pete Davidson! He slits his fucking throat, right, the blood is pouring out of it and they're all trying to catch it while it's fresh.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're sucking at it like it's a water fountain.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, what's worse to drink if you're dehydrated? A little bit of salty water or blood? Isn't blood full of salt and everything else?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You will drink whatever.
MARCUS PARKS
No, somewhat accepted method of survival, blood. You can actually drink blood.
BEN KISSEL
Can you drink your won blood?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah but-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like it's not gonna be good for you.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not gonna be good for you cause it's sort of...
BEN KISSEL
Kind of recycling.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's recycling.
BEN KISSEL
Like drinking water when you're taking a piss.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, just going back out.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like eating your own come when you're starving on a boat, right. If you keep eating your own come and eating your own come, technically it's good, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Keep eating your own come.
BEN KISSEL
No, technically it's not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is for some.
MARCUS PARKS
There's protein in it, right?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But that's the thing is that at some point your body is going to stop producing protein rich semen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'm saying, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then you're just making-
BEN KISSEL
Then you're pregnant.
MARCUS PARKS
Diminishing returns.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everybody's upset, yeah. You're just like what am I even doing?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What is the deal with what I'm doing?
BEN KISSEL
And that's how you make a little sailor.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well the biggest risk when you drink blood, it might be full of disease-causing pathogens. But if you avoid that then you actually got something that's somewhat okay, just so long as
you don't drink too much of it because if you drink too much of it, iron poisoning.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's also an issue.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
We need a turtle blood sharing zone.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well it's kind of funny because if you're drinking blood, you're already fucked.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh you're fucked.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well at this point you may not be fucked but you're prolonging the period in which you may eventually be fucked.
BEN KISSEL
But also aren't the turtles starving, number one. And how much blood is in a fricking turtle?
MARCUS PARKS
Fair amount of blood in a turtle.
BEN KISSEL
Is there?
MARCUS PARKS
An okay amount of blood in a turtle. It's an 80 lb beast. I mean most of that is shell.
BEN KISSEL
Oh these are 80 lb turtles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man.
MARCUS PARKS
These are tortoises.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From the Galapagos.
BEN KISSEL
I'm thinking little guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
These are massive turtles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're huge. Technically we are being nonchalant with the fucking turtle and tortoise.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah, it's tortoise.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's tortoise.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
These are tortoises.
BEN KISSEL
They're huge.
MARCUS PARKS
These are massive.
BEN KISSEL
Gotcha.
MARCUS PARKS
80-100 lbs each.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But yeah, you can get a fair amount of blood from that. Fair amount.
BEN KISSEL
I could see that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, you ever see how much blood if you stomp a squirrel to death?
MARCUS PARKS
It's a lot of blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It splatters, man. Blood goes a long way. And you can clean and clean and clean and clean and you just still see it. It's like you're looking at it and I still see the blood.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I know it's clean because I cleaned it and other people have been in and out but then I look at it and it's like but I see the blood.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right, yeah. Well you shouldn't be killing all those squirrels.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get out of my fucking house.
BEN KISSEL
They've done nothing wrong to you.
MARCUS PARKS
Now even though some men refused to drink the blood, all of the men ate the meat. Many were drawn instinctively to the vitamin rich heart and liver. And if you'll remember this was also a popular culinary choice amongst the Donner party. That's where all the vitamins are.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's where the meat is. A heart actually can fetch you about 650 calories, a human heart.
MARCUS PARKS
That's pretty good.
BEN KISSEL
Is that right? That's called the awful. Is it the awful?
MARCUS PARKS
Offal.
BEN KISSEL
Offal.
MARCUS PARKS
Offal. But at the end of it all, each sailor got 3 lbs of meat, a pound of fat, and at least half a cup of blood.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Imagine just eating straight up tortoise fat, just room temp.
MARCUS PARKS
Ugh. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But you're that hungry though, that's probably what you need.
MARCUS PARKS
Thinking back, Chase very much regretted not slaughtering every tortoise and hog that survived the wreck. They could have slaughtered them, they could have cooked them, they could have saved them for the journey to come.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Hindsight's 20/20 though, they didn't do that.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's the year 2023. Can we stop saying that now?
BEN KISSEL
No, it's about vision. It's not about the year.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not about the year.
BEN KISSEL
It's 20/20.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, like I can see clearly now the rain is gone. That's what it's about.
BEN KISSEL
That's what it's all about.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's the show 20/20.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Is that about hindsight as well?
BEN KISSEL
Kind of. And in hindsight that show doesn't really hold up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Interesting. And in 2020 is not then hindsight is.
BEN KISSEL
No it is not. Very right. Very correct.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the convoy of three boats became more and more difficult to keep together the weaker the men got and too much time and effort was being lost in attempting to reassemble constantly. So in the interest of the group, it was decided that it was up to every boat themselves to stay in sight of the others and if they couldn't, that was that.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yikes.
MARCUS PARKS
Now it seemed on the 17th day that some luck was coming their way in the form of a heavy rainstorm. Hey, we got a refresh on the water!
BEN KISSEL
So they want the rain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, absolutely.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But the sails that they used to catch the water already filled with salt water so the water they caught was too brackish to drink.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That got fucked up as well.
MARCUS PARKS
Got fucked up.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus. Just open your mouth like you're a seagull, look up to the heavens, and get some rain.
MARCUS PARKS
That's what they said they did. They would just lay back on the bottom of the boat and just open their mouth and just let it come in and just wait for it to be over.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a long night.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That is.
MARCUS PARKS
Finally though the skies cleared and Captain Pollard was able to determine their location using his navigational tools.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Finally they're going to get oriented.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When my nipples are hard I know we are going north. And when my penis is soft I know everything's going south.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Much to his horror, he found that even though they traveled 1100 miles in three weeks, they were actually farther from South America than when they'd started.
BEN KISSEL
Good news and bad news, guys. We traveled 1100 miles. 11,000 miles?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
MARCUS PARKS
1100
BEN KISSEL
1100 miles.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we did it! Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
Bad news, the wrong direction.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is not even good news at all.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You do understand that you used that as a frame of good news, bad news. But it's just bad news.
BEN KISSEL
Holy crap.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. That means they now had 3000 miles to go.
BEN KISSEL
Well at some point this captain's gonna get killed by this crew.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
My thing is I hope that they can just fall in love enough because then maybe they'll be able to walk 5000 miles.
BEN KISSEL
The Pretenders.
MARCUS PARKS
The Proclaimers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, fuck you!
MARCUS PARKS
The Pretenders were an entirely different band.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Tell him, Marcus.
BEN KISSEL
Well I would assume so.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, that's Chrissie Hynde. The Proclaimers, that was a couple of Scottish twins.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Drag him, king!
MARCUS PARKS
Love that song though.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Love that song. Underrated song. I think if you look at that song with fresh eyes, it's very catchy. It's very nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yaas!
BEN KISSEL
That's great, that's great.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a nice song.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You got served.
BEN KISSEL
I didn't mean to open up that vault of miscellaneous music knowledge.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's all Marcus is. He's just a pile of that, he's got a couple of slices of chicken parm in there and nicotine juice.
MARCUS PARKS
That's it. That's all you need.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Now at this point they still could have gone to Tahiti. Tahiti is still on the table.
BEN KISSEL
Go to Tahiti!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Could you imagine begging people to go to Tahiti? It's beautiful.
BEN KISSEL
It is!
MARCUS PARKS
They could have been there in under a week. And additionally Tahiti would allow them to sail with the winds and waves, reducing the strain on their boats.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Their boats are falling apart, their sails are falling apart.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But because of their prejudice, stubbornness, and stupidity, they stuck to the original plan, South America or bust.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
They're just so stupid.
MARCUS PARKS
As a result, they were about to endure another two months at sea.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
Or at least the survivors had two more months at sea, some had far less.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Spoilers!
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh. I'm assuming it ends horribly.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Now concerning the crew's ever dwindling provisions, there may be some of you who like our dear friend Ed Larson, you may ask why not just fish?
BEN KISSEL
Why not just fish?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's fucking genius.
BEN KISSEL
Great point. Fantastic point.
MARCUS PARKS
Why not just not just fish?
BEN KISSEL
Why not just fish?
MARCUS PARKS
They tried.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Again and again. No luck.
BEN KISSEL
The whole ocean, just keep on trying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Apparently it's hard to fish.
BEN KISSEL
No, it's not that hard.
MARCUS PARKS
It's really hard when you don't have fishing poles, when you don't have any sort of equipment.
BEN KISSEL
Can they spear?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, most of the time they would fashion together whatever clothes they could and make one of the guys dress up as a lady. And then he'd go like come on, mister fish. And then it turns out all these fish are also gay. It's the entire ocean!
BEN KISSEL
Well if they were gay they'd be attracted to him because he stressed as a lady.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No cause he identifies as a lady. This is fun, you wanna get into this?
BEN KISSEL
Let's get into that. No, so that's the original catfishing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See, wow, see? Actually interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
He's the one that usually brings it off the rails. Why are you doing it?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
He's doing it. But why not just dip your hand in blood-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Noodling, you're talking about noodling.
BEN KISSEL
Noodling.
MARCUS PARKS
Noodling, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Put it in the water, just wait for something to freaking bite, pull it up and eat it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. That doesn't work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just don't know.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
It doesn't work. That only works with catfish and men in Oklahoma who can't read.
BEN KISSEL
Well they can read, they can read.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, the men who noodle.
BEN KISSEL
It works for carping as well, you can carp that way I think.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, carp is when you grab them by the pussy.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the thing, the only luck they had was when a school of flying fish flew up and accidentally jumped into one of their sails.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Literally it had to jump into the boat.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's amazing.
MARCUS PARKS
Instinctively Owen Chase picked one up and devoured it whole, scales and all.
BEN KISSEL
I believe it.
MARCUS PARKS
But that was the last lucky fish he had.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you imagine being the rest of that fucking crew watching this piece of shit, who by the way, played by Chris Hemsworth in the fucking movie.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you look at a picture of him he looks like if Abraham Lincoln was missing the other half of his face.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I cannot believe they chose this model to play him.
BEN KISSEL
Reminds me a bit of a DeVito's Penguin. Gnawing on that fish.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the shrinking water rations were starting to get to the men, so some began drinking seawater even though they knew it was deadly. Others started drinking piss which isn't as bad but still not great.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because you kind of need the water to make the piss good enough to drink. But again if you're drinking piss you're just making double piss.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you're making double piss.
BEN KISSEL
It's not Mountain Dew.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
The color of the Mountain Dew.
MARCUS PARKS
The yellower the piss, the less nutrients you're going to get from it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And the less pleasant it is going to be to drink. That's why in piss porn everyone drinks a lot of water.
BEN KISSEL
It's literally just water basically.
MARCUS PARKS
Quite clear, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because again, that's mostly for the crew I think.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because if you're already drinking piss, we really talking about quality? When it comes down to it, are we really gonna sit and rate this like it's different styles of water?
BEN KISSEL
No. There are differences.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think to make it less pungent for the crew.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. There's a difference.
MARCUS PARKS
I always hear a porn set is the smelliest set you'll ever work on.
BEN KISSEL
The lights.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hear tell from sound ops on porn sets that it is the sounds that you hear up close that make you not attracted to things anymore.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
There's a bar that I go to sometimes and one of the guys, he takes the pictures of the porn sites but then he also is former military, former marine. If a butt plug goes in wrong, he's gotta take it out.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow, good for him.
BEN KISSEL
It's very weird. He told me a bunch of stories and I didn't know if I wanted to hear them or not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's why I think these sex workers are brave as hell. They're covered in piss and they still show up on time.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. He does say that for the most part everyone is on time.
MARCUS PARKS
Is that so?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well for the most part, the men of the Essex began to enter the cottonmouth stage of thirst.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
MARCUS PARKS
As per author Nathaniel Philbrick's description, the sailors saliva became sick and foul tasting and their tongues clung to their teeth and the roof of their mouths.
BEN KISSEL
Oh brutal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And all they do is moan and moan.
BEN KISSEL
What else can you do?
MARCUS PARKS
Well because speech was difficult but they were compelled to endlessly complain and their voices would become cracked and hoarse until they could no longer be understood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thirsty. I'm so thirsty!
BEN KISSEL
Shh, just go to sleep. Go to sleep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Imagine me there with Holden.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh, where's my video game?
BEN KISSEL
He wouldn't have lasted four hours.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can't sit her without my Switch.
BEN KISSEL
He would have had fish, I'll tell you that much. Great bait, Holden. They'd just go bite him, pull them up, grab the fish, put him back in.
MARCUS PARKS
Well speaking of lumps, lumps would form in their throats and they wouldn't go away no matter how much they tried to swallow. Imagine that.
BEN KISSEL
Oh brutal.
MARCUS PARKS
A severe pain settled into their heads and necks. Their faces felt maddeningly full because their skin started shrinking and a lot of them began to hallucinate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think that one turtle sounds a lot like Pete Davidson, man!
BEN KISSEL
Would you just leave Pete Davidson alone? Also you just got him cast as another turtle.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in the worst case of dehydration, in a story retold in the book 'In The Heart of the Sea', the tongue hardens because saliva is no longer produced and while speech becomes impossible, moaning does not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It never does.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
The body then begins to mummify itself in a stage called the blood sweats.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh.
MARCUS PARKS
The eyelids crack and begin to weep blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(metal guitar riff) I mean it's metal but it's fucked.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
God.
MARCUS PARKS
Finally a sort of living death occurs just before actual death, in which the lips disappear as if amputated, the teeth and gums project from the mouth, flesh turns black and dry, the nose withers and shrinks to half its length, and the skin turns gray and rips like the skin of a neglected nursing home resident.
BEN KISSEL
All right everyone, you can insert your Mitch McConnell joke here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See I was gonna do a Nicole Richie from 1997 joke.
BEN KISSEL
She was full of water.
MARCUS PARKS
And all this after only seven days without water. That's all it takes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, seven days. That's a boatload of time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a Ringu amount of time.
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Now as far as the men on the Essex went for salvaging food at sea, they weren't completely helpless but the best they could do was scrape the bottoms of their whale boats for gooseneck barnacles.
BEN KISSEL
That's bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is.
BEN KISSEL
Gooseneck barnacles?
MARCUS PARKS
Actually considered delicacies in Morocco, Portugal, and Spain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's another one of those things where sea bugs are actually kind of delicious but people don't want to eat them because technically they're all full of dirt.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. See, they're called zebra mussels in the Midwest.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh really?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, zebra mussels. You had to scrape your boat if you went out on the lake, you gotta scrape it off.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you don't eat them?
BEN KISSEL
No, they're an invasive species.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you don't eat them? That's a good way to stop them, it's mussels, right, you can eat them like mussels?
BEN KISSEL
No, they're not like that. They're an invasive species, you're supposed to just kill them.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you don't eat every bird that you come across.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I eat whatever I can catch.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that's true. I've seen you running around with your mouth open.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Come here, come here, birds.
BEN KISSEL
Come here, bird.
MARCUS PARKS
Well eventually the route the crew had taken landed them in one of the Pacific Ocean's sterile regions so far from land that the only living things exist at the bottom of the sea.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
MARCUS PARKS
Additionally this area had no wind, meaning the men were dead in the water.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god. They just really messed this up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they did. Yeah. So on the third day of total calm, Pollard took a gamble and gave the men double rations during the day so they would have the strength to row out of the calm to once again reach wind. And this actually helped with morale because it finally gave everyone something to do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I get that's kind of a hidden thing of all this is that mixed with obviously terror, pain, thirst, hunger, it's the boredom.
MARCUS PARKS
Tedium.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The straight up boredom of it. Because we talk about one of the worst things about being in solitary in prison is that you're kind of left with this-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You feel every minute of the day. And these are guys that are sitting, they're losing the ability to communicate because they're so thirsty and so they are just lazing and just watching. Because technically it's beautiful out too because the sky is clear, you're in beautiful waters, all this shit. And you're just dying there.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Well by noon the next day, it seems as if the gamble paid off because they did indeed find wind. But it was blowing in the wrong direction.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Plus since they doubled rations, they no longer had enough water to last 30 days even if they caught the right wind. Their hair was starting to fall out and their skin was covered in sores. And so miserable was their existence that the men developed a mantra that they'd repeat again and again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Patience and long suffering.
MARCUS PARKS
Patience and long suffering.
BEN KISSEL
Just shut up.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Patience.
MARCUS PARKS
Patience and long suffering.
BEN KISSEL
God, you're making it so much worse.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Capital One. Patience and long suffering.
BEN KISSEL
You're an ad! Oh my god, he's an ad!
MARCUS PARKS
But when all hope seemed lost, a young sailor named William Wright was heard to shout:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Land ho!
BEN KISSEL
Hello.
MARCUS PARKS
Miraculously the men had accidentally found land.
BEN KISSEL
Great! Get off the boat!
MARCUS PARKS
The island, surrounded by rocky cliffs and appearing to be filled with vegetation, was quickly determined from Pollard's navigation book to be the Ducie Island.
BEN KISSEL
Great, who cares? Go to it!
MARCUS PARKS
This was of course wrong. It was not the Ducie Island but it was close.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Doo-see Island.
MARCUS PARKS
Doo-see? Okay.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I watched the masked men from the Nantucket history exhibit explain Ducie and say Doo-see and Doo-see and every time they said it I went (snicker) Ducie.
BEN KISSEL
Think about it, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But I like 'dutchie' because that song, to do you think about it? Think about it. But I like that song 'Pass the Dutchie' on the left hand side. I love that song.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's a cool fucking chill ass song about weed needs to be legal.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you need to spread it because it's got Jah's love in it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But this is not that.
MARCUS PARKS
Sung by children.
BEN KISSEL
All right. So either way it's an island that they can go to.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And perhaps survive.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. The crew had actually come upon Henderson Island, 70 miles west of Ducie Island and close to Pitcairn Island.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Only 400 miles away, Pitcairn Island. And Pitcairn was where the crew of mutineers who'd taken over the HMS Bounty had settled and established a community in 1789.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And by 1820, the year the Essex sank, the mutiny on the Bounty community was flourishing and they could have easily and happily taken care of the entire Essex crew.
BEN KISSEL
Go!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're 70 miles away.
MARCUS PARKS
No, it was 400 miles away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But still, after traveling all this time-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they could have gotten there.
MARCUS PARKS
They could have gotten there.
BEN KISSEL
Go!
MARCUS PARKS
They could have avoided... No fatalities. They could have all come through it with just a little bit of a sunburn and some sores. But Pitcairn Island wasn't listed in Pollard's navigation book.
BEN KISSEL
Who cares?
MARCUS PARKS
They had no idea it was out there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
They had no clue that it was only 400 miles. They could have gotten there in four days.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Isn't that wild?
BEN KISSEL
Well they are making mistake, after mistake, after mistake.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They just didn't know about that one.
MARCUS PARKS
That was that was just a tragedy.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
You call that an annoyance.
BEN KISSEL
An annoyance.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I find all this so interesting just thinking about there's so much open water that people can still find these places and live.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like that group went and they're just living the pirate's life. They're literally just living-
BEN KISSEL
Sounds fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They made a community and whatever.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Instead of going to the Pitcairn Islands, the men took their chances on the mysterious island ahead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's go over to that island, I bet we can get 10 seasons on that island. We don't even even have to figure out how it ends. We'll just figure it out as we go.
BEN KISSEL
Oh, Lost.
MARCUS PARKS
I would also maybe argue that the ending was a bit misunderstood. Maybe perhaps it was much better and deserves a second look from the community.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It might have been rushed, it might have been rushed. They didn't have a plan.
MARCUS PARKS
Perhaps maybe they didn't have a plan at the beginning but I think the ending was a tad bit underrated.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But we'll do it different because we'll tie the ending into the beginning.
BEN KISSEL
There you go, we have a Lost apologist. I liked that show to some degree when it first came-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Call me when it's found.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, kinda.
MARCUS PARKS
Well first mate Chase and two men swam ashore and walked the beach where they found a trickle of freshwater in the cleft of a rock.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
This is enough to warrant a full search for a freshwater source. So the crew of the Essex disembarked to the Lost-like island-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're welcome.
MARCUS PARKS
Where they gathered crabs and fish for a feast.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Stretching out their bodies for the first time in a month.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you imagine that? And then they're just fucking eating whatever has got legs.
BEN KISSEL
Just stay there!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. The next day the men found chicken-sized birds.
BEN KISSEL
Nice!
MARCUS PARKS
And the birds, they've never seen a human. So they made no attempt to escape.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
They all got eaten.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, that's what happened to the dodo.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you know that?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The same thing because they were just friendly because they didn't know that we should be feared.
MARCUS PARKS
That's where dumb as a dodo, that's where you get the saying from because they thought that they were dumb but no, they weren't dumb, they were just really nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were innocent.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, innocent.
BEN KISSEL
But now The Dodo is a great Instagram page where you get to see dogs do cute stuff or why is that cat friends with a squirrel?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Natalie watches the one where it's just like we saved this labrador-
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Ugh, I fucking hate those.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
From the bottom of a slave ring of dogs.
BEN KISSEL
You have to watch until the end when it recovers.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you're watching the beginning where I'm watching this cavernous faced dog with flies in its eyeballs.
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I hate this.
MARCUS PARKS
I hate it.
BEN KISSEL
But then it gets better. That's the point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean I'd much rather watch my films where I see a naked woman get cut in half every day.
BEN KISSEL
Terrifier 1 & 2.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love both.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the men who still had the strength and the shoes, because not every man had shoes by the time they got there-
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
They spent days gathering every bird they could find for a nightly bird banquet.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
As far as the freshwater went, they soon found a spring bubbling from a hole in a large flat rock which they used to fill their barrels even though the spring was only available for half an hour when the tide was at its lowest. Unbeknownst to the crew however, there was a cave on the island filled with the skeletons of eight shipwrecked men.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
They'd never discovered any spring and had most likely died from dehydration.
BEN KISSEL
What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dead men tell no tales! Honestly can you imagine that? Everything's cool, you're like we managed to survive! It's a movie moment.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's so many movie moments in this whole fucking story.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. We're gonna be just fine. The camera pans over.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're gonna be just fine. Pans over to all of the skeletons just hanging in the exact same position.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Now after filling their water barrels to the brim, the crew continued eating every bird they found which was pretty easy because they all came to the shore every morning to feed their young. They'd been centuries long-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Centuries long habit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Living the life here. And then all of a sudden you got these new monkeys, they're killing everybody.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, sure.
MARCUS PARKS
There was also seahawks everywhere. But when the crew had eaten all the ground birds after just five days, the seahawks also disappeared. Now many years later it was discovered by archaeologists that a small group of Polynesian people had lived on this island for centuries. But the crew of the Essex had rendered the entire island almost barren in less than a week.
BEN KISSEL
Dang.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's kind of symbolic.
BEN KISSEL
There's only 21 people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I still will say Pocahontas is wrong.
MARCUS PARKS
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because she should have come up with crypto her fucking self.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, indeed. But I guess they could have tried to breed the birds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I guess.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I don't know. I can't even be like now make them fuck. Make them fuck, no, no, you just would need to live there over time, you would have to build... Those cultures, a lot of these Polynesian cultures, they would travel, that's like how they would live.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They would live while they traveled. And they would come from... I remember listening, we went to Hawaii when they talked about how the island was discovered and basically it was Polynesian people watching birds go the opposite direction and they would just follow the birds as far as they could.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because they knew that they were going to land.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So that's kind of what they would do. They would track to these places and they'd find them. Because they were used to living like this.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So they had provisions and stuff by the time they would arrive.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they actually knew how to do it.
BEN KISSEL
Must have eaten a lot of birds in that five days.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now obviously 21 men couldn't survive on this island for very long. So on December 27, 1820, Captain Pollard decided to set sail en route to the Chilean coast.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Still that original fucking plan, 3000 miles away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Exit stage left. And then you're like uh oh.
MARCUS PARKS
But there were some crew members who refused to return to the ocean or at least they refused to return to the leaky whaleboats. And so the seafarers, probably happy that they're rations just got a little bit larger, they shared what provisions they could spare and they left three men on the island to construct a shelter and wait it out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was very emotional, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I would do that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In my position, I would definitely do it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll just stay on this fucking island.
BEN KISSEL
Because you've got leaves you can eat, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Come get me later.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who knows? Because that's what he said, they promised, it was very solemn and they promised saying that we will come get you. They're like sure, yep. All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I mean I don't necessarily believe it but it would be difficult to procreate with three men.
MARCUS PARKS
Well that's the thing, you're thinking I'm out here six months tops.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And it's a South Pacific island. Weather is not gonna turn. Well you might hit a tsunami season or something like that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll tell you what, all you need to do is just keep fucking me and then eventually I'll make some kind of dress out of clothes and I'll carry a coconut that I'll pretend is our child.
BEN KISSEL
Aw, that'd be nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In a way it's kinda nice, in it's own way.
MARCUS PARKS
And that'll eat up like two months before you snap out of it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, every every family is different.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Then you just see me covered in coconut juice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We choose love in this house. That's what I would say, I'd come in, we choose love.
MARCUS PARKS
We choose love. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You see me covered in coconut juice and you're like did you eat Timammy? You ate Tammy, didn't you?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was an abortion!
BEN KISSEL
Yes I did, I ate our daughter.
MARCUS PARKS
I Like Timammy better.
BEN KISSEL
Timammy!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, Timammy.
BEN KISSEL
Timammy the coconut.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the crew who took the boats hoped that the winds would take them to Easter Island where they could make another pit stop. But the winds took them too far south to reach it. They had been sailing for 44 days and were no closer to the mainland than when they left. So daily rations were cut in half to 3 oz of hardtack a day.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
Then the first death came. Second mate Matthew Joy had been ill for some time and sensing that the end was near, he requested to be moved to Captain Pollard's boat so he could die with his fellow Nantucketers.
BEN KISSEL
Who gives a fuck?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Please, please let me die with the other morons.
BEN KISSEL
What if I throw you over, just get out of here.
MARCUS PARKS
But after just a couple of hours in the other boat, he started feeling guilty for laying about, that protestant work ethic kicked in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know, it sounds a little bit like queen's mother's guilt of like no, don't worry. Yes I know. No, I can help. Oh! Oh! I'm just so thirsty. I would go. Oh, I should help. Oh! Like sit down. Sit down. It's psychological torture you're putting me through.
BEN KISSEL
Throw him. Throw him overboard.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he requested transfer back to his boat so he could die with his men. And he died that afternoon.
BEN KISSEL
Then they just have a corpse in the boat?
MARCUS PARKS
Well since things weren't quite serious serious yet, Joy was sewn up in his clothes, a stone was tied to his feet, and he was ceremoniously buried at sea.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now since second mate Joy's boat had lost their harpooner to island life, he was one of the guys who stayed behind, Captain Pollard ordered his harpooner to take command of Joy's crew and the whaleboat, the shitty boat. It was the only one without navigational equipment. This was a bad assignment.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
To make matters worse, Joy had neglected to ration the hardtack correctly during his illness. So the boat had at most three days of food left. They were 600 miles from Easter Island, 20 days away from Henderson Island, and still 1000 miles from Chile. There was 20 days inbetween the time that they left the island and now 20 days of nothing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, nothing.
MARCUS PARKS
By January 14th the third boat ran out of food and Pollard shared what he had left which meant that he was also down to just two days of rations. Owen's boat was so starved that the men were having constant diarrhea from starvation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, that's the ultimate bad irony, man.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Why does the body do that all wrong?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Whenever you're starving, it just makes it worse. I feel like that's a mistake in our programming.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's your body just being like please eat, please eat, please eat. Why aren't we eating? You should eat. We should eat some food. Why aren't we eating? What's happening here?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But why are you making me more dehydrated with the constant diarrhea?
MARCUS PARKS
Because the alarm system is very badly built.
BEN KISSEL
It is badly built.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just evacuating for further shoveling.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I guess.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And so everyone's starving and that's when the sharks came.
BEN KISSEL
Yay!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no! I thought it was the other one.
MARCUS PARKS
No. Now there have been plenty of shipwrecked sailors who resorted to the methods that the men of the Essex were about to resort to. And they did so in sometimes seemingly less dire circumstances. In 1710 a British trading vessel wrecked on a tiny outcropping of rock off the coast of Maine called Boon Island. Much to the frustration of the sailors, Boon Island was in full sight of the mainland. They could see America.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
But they were still marooned out there because it was 1710.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we're just fucked and no one can see us from there. Unless they're looking for us, no one's gonna see it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. They had no provisions, they had no way of reaching help. So when the ship's carpenter died in the third week, someone suggested maybe maybe we can eat them.
BEN KISSEL
Let's just eat...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Why don't we eat him? Who said that? Maybe we could take a chunk out of him.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, it's Jeff Dunham! I'm just so happy we have such great entertainment.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He was Jeff Dunham's great, great, great, great grandfather and he was also canceled.
BEN KISSEL
I think he's one of the wealthiest working comedians.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, yes.
BEN KISSEL
That's true.
MARCUS PARKS
Well still finding the whole business extremely distressing, the crew begged the captain to butcher the shipmate for them, I think because it was probably the captain's fault that they were fucking stranded.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And also he's the guy, right.
MARCUS PARKS
He's the guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's supposed to die on the boat, captain's supposed to do all the hard shit, make the hard decisions.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
So like many other people forced to resort to cannibalism, the captain remove the pieces that made the corpse appear human first. The head, the hands, the feet, the skin.
BEN KISSEL
Interesting.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, of course. You have to dehumanize it because only truly guys who get off on eating humans, they want to know it's a human.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wanna look in his eyes!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what I don't understand is that actually the head, cabeza, in many different foods and many different food cultures-
BEN KISSEL
So fat. You're so fat. That was the fattest sentence I've ever heard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's so good. But the head is where all the good fucking fat meat is in actually.
BEN KISSEL
No, I thought the brain, it'll kill you if you eat the brain I thought. I thought it made you get brain worms.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm not talking about the brain, I'm talking about face meat.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh face.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cheek meat is some of the most delicious meat in any other animal you could possibly... Fish cheeks are tasty.
BEN KISSEL
I don't like it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dog cheeks are tasty if you can get ahold of them, it's so difficult in the wintertime.
BEN KISSEL
No. Don't do that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I would carve the face off of the guy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Definitely I'd carve off the face of the guy.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I'd boil that meat, I'd eat that meat too. And I'd also boil the head.
BEN KISSEL
Well maybe-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd chop the skull off and then scoop the brains out and I'd boil the bones of the head.
MARCUS PARKS
Right, yeah. Oh yeah, I'd like to see you do that. What you would do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just saying, I ain't even pressed.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe this is why you weren't given the position. Because sometimes you can want it too much and so we're just gonna have the captain do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let me at it!
BEN KISSEL
He's a little bit more hesitant.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Listen, we want to play off some sweet and salties in this.
MARCUS PARKS
The captain reduce the carcass to a hunk of barely recognizable meat which the men reluctantly ate before being rescued soon after.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, like 24 hours later.
BEN KISSEL
What?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's just what happens.
MARCUS PARKS
You never know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You never know.
MARCUS PARKS
You never know. You might eat a guy on Tuesday and get rescued on Thursday. You never know.
BEN KISSEL
But of course he was dead, they didn't kill him.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, he died natural.
MARCUS PARKS
He died.
BEN KISSEL
So it's not as bad.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not as bad, no.
BEN KISSEL
It's definitely a secret you keep with every single person on that island.
MARCUS PARKS
But when we're talking about sharks, as we just were, at least one clever group of sailors thought outside the box when the man eaters came after them like the sharks came for the Essex.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
This is incredible, I can't believe no one ever fucking thought of this. Instead of using dead bodies for sustenance, the men of this shipwrecked vessel called the Polly, they used the bodies of their fellow sailors as bait to catch sharks to eat.
BEN KISSEL
That's what I'm saying!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's smart as hell.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
They survived 191 days at sea without eating a single man.
BEN KISSEL
Perfect.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And then also you get the added benefit of you don't have to eat the dude you hated.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You get to watch him being chewed on by a bunch of sharks. And then you be like that's what you get. Can't believe you cheated at Sorry.
BEN KISSEL
And now you got the shark.
MARCUS PARKS
But when the men of the Essex were attacked by the sharks, they unfortunately had no bodies to spare. They attempted to harpoon the creatures straight off without giving them a meal first. You gotta slow down the shark a little bit.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
But the sharks proved too slippery and too tough to even wound. And the same thing happened the next day when they tried killing a bunch of dolphins to eat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Difficult to kill.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You gotta really blow them up.
BEN KISSEL
Nowadays it seems pretty easy to kill a dolphin.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Every marine biologist (weeping) just to let you know that dolphins, dolphins go to their own little churches.
BEN KISSEL
You need to watch Blackfish again, my friend.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, we know. I'm not anti them, I'm pro.
MARCUS PARKS
After that, as if the sea itself was taunting them, a group of three sperm whales surfaced and dove.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Remember us? Remember us, fuckers? What are you gonna do?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. They did it all around the three boats. But even though the men were terrified that they'd all be smashed at any second cause all it took was a fucking sperm whale to surface right underneath them, none of them had the energy to row away.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You want to go kill all these fucks? You know what actually, they seem pretty hard up. Let's let the ocean do it for them.
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
But two days after the whales came to gloat, 60 days after the sinking of the Essex, they're out there for two months, crew member Richard Peterson, good old Dick Peterson, he declared that he was near death and he began to refuse his daily ration.
BEN KISSEL
What a declaration that is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Men had different things. Because there were several people in this story that just went hey guys, I'm about to die!
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(yelling) And then they'd just die in front of you. And then just drop, just drop.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. I mean thanks for the heads up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And this is somewhat of an honor thing. It's like guys, I'm gonna die, you don't need to waste food on me, I don't need anymore. I'm just gonna die.
BEN KISSEL
I'm just gonna die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just gonna go over here, I'm gonna die.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm gonna die, I'm gonna go over here.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. His organs shut down, he fell unconscious, and on January 20th as two of the boats neared the end of their rations Peterson died.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
Separately and coincidentally a man on Pollard's boat also died that same day. And so with rations low and two dead crew members just sitting there stinking-
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh. Swatting it, deserving it.
MARCUS PARKS
That's when the...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fishing started! They got all the fish on the boat.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. That's when the fishing began.
MARCUS PARKS
No, no, that's when the...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They started investing into stocks and bonds because they were looking at a more responsible future for themselves and their family.
MARCUS PARKS
No, one more guess. That's when the...
BEN KISSEL
Stand up comedy happened then.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Stand up comedy boom.
BEN KISSEL
And they said what kind of milk does a mythical cow drink? Legendairy!
MARCUS PARKS
That's when the cannibalism started!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We know, we know.
BEN KISSEL
I love that. Wow. These guys to some degree, you gotta be thankful. You gotta be thankful that these people are dead. I would say thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah sure. I mean everyday I woke up covered in canker sores, crusted with salt, and I have to eat the stinking corpse of this dude that's been next to me and I know how bad he stinks.
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've watched him cover his shit ass, covered in diarrhea.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I know I'm gonna have to eat that, I'm gonna have to kind of flake it off. It's really hard for me to count my gratefuls. It's really hard to sit and be like you know what this needs? A bit of mindfulness.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's very difficult.
BEN KISSEL
If I had to eat you Henry, I would say thank you Henry.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I would be thankful, I'd say thank you at every little slice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The whole time you just hear me like fuck you, fuck you bro.
BEN KISSEL
No you'd be really dead.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they removed the heart, liver, and kidneys and roasted those along with whatever flesh was left from the starved corpses.
BEN KISSEL
On the boat they were able to roast them?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they had fire.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no shit?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well because they brought what they could so they had some stuff.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I do think a lot of it, cause I know that when they did do that, when they killed the tortoises, they cut out their whole bodies. Literally what they would do is they would cut the top of the shell off and rip it off, right.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then they'd scoop out all the soft from inside of it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, we've seen Cannibal Holocaust.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And then they would cook it in the shell.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They'd just set up a fire underneath the shell which boiled it. So they might have used the shell itself.
MARCUS PARKS
They might have, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now normally an average human body produces roughly 66 lbs of edible meat, roughly.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But since these men were starved, their muscles were atrophied and any nutritious fat was reduced to a translucent gelatinous substance. In addition, malnutrition also shrinks the organs. So it's likely that each man only produced 30 lbs of edible meat which isn't much for 16 starving men.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not. No, no. It's barely enough for us.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just us sitting here.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Apparently the two things you're really not supposed to eat in the human body are the pancreas-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And the teeth.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, that makes sense. I believe the teeth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But you can boil the bones.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I could see that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you can boil the bones.
BEN KISSEL
Bone marrow, right. There's some marrow in there.
MARCUS PARKS
Marrow, indeed. But soon other men began dying off one by one and each man was in turn eaten greedily and quickly as if the men making a dinner of their shipmates couldn't help themselves once they began.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the quality of eating that I think is the part of it that you-
MARCUS PARKS
That's a big thing.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As a person sitting in a house or at work-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, I want to know what you mean by quality.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It is the...
BEN KISSEL
It's not about the quantity.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's not about the quantity.
MARCUS PARKS
No but what in your opinion, what kind of quality meat are you talking about?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm sorry, just so you know I just pinched my balls.
BEN KISSEL
Pinched your balls. That'd be good quality eating right there, the balls.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, not the quality of the meat, it's how they ate was scary.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what I mean?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
By the time you're eating people-
BEN KISSEL
Oh buddy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're not like okay, who's saying grace?
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're all just like ah! Like going in and just picking apart at this fucking thing. They're all fighting over who's getting enough meat. I do believe they rationed them out.
MARCUS PARKS
As much as they could.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They would chunk them up and be like here, you can have some of this, you can have some of this.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. So now cannibalism is in full swing.
MARCUS PARKS
Cannibalism is in full swing. But remember also it's meat, so there's a tick-tock on it. It's not gonna last very long. But perhaps more important as to why the bodies seemed to provide little sustenance was because the human digestive system requires some fat in the meat. So the human flesh they ate actually provided very little nutritional value.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I didn't know that. I watched that show Alone, you ever seen that how Alone?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, of course.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's better than Naked and Afraid even though Naked and Afraid got jumblies. Alone is like you can bring stuff with you. So it's a real competition.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And there was one dude who fucking prison style stabbed a bear to death. Like he went up to it, stab stab stab, stab stab stab stab. It was the wildest thing I've ever seen. And he had hundreds of pounds of meat but he ended almost starving to death because there was no fat on it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because it was an animal that had woken out of hibernation. And he was saying that you need to have fat.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You could have all this meat, you can literally starve to death.
BEN KISSEL
You want to read the nutrition facts. That's why I have a butt tattoo of nutrition facts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
May contain sodium.
MARCUS PARKS
By this point though, Captain Pollard's boat and the shitty boat, they'd drifted about 100 miles away from first mate Chase's boat. The convoy was now irrevocably broken.
BEN KISSEL
No!
MARCUS PARKS
Two boats in one spot, one boat in the other. Trying to buoy their spirits, Chase told his crew, because they're out there alone, that they would quote "not die sooner by keeping their hopes."
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is the most British way.
MARCUS PARKS
He's basically saying it's not going to kill you to have a good attitude.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is your fault, Owen! This is your fucking fault!
BEN KISSEL
Wow dude. I'm surprised he survived that speech.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(British accent) Not die sooner.
BEN KISSEL
Oh you are-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause that's how it sounded. (British accent) By keeping their hopes.
BEN KISSEL
Might as well smile while you're dying. I'll kill you.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, do you wanna die frowning?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah!
MARCUS PARKS
Hey Ben, do you wanna enter heaven with a frown on your face?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you wanna enter heaven with my arms fucking wrapped around your fucking neck in an arm bar?
BEN KISSEL
It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That is true. Have you ever tried to frown? It's weird.
MARCUS PARKS
Actually... I can't do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's weird. We look like fish. The audience can't see.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I think that frowning is something that you just have to do when you're actually disgusted and sad.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Meanwhile two more sailors died on the other two boats and both men were eaten, which may beg the question as to how these men so readily ate their shipmates as opposed to the story of the main crew who were so reluctant.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Well psychologists who studied the effects that concentration camps have on the psyches of prisoners, they believe that groups of people who resort to cannibalism or other extreme methods of survival, they become reduced to a sort of feral community.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I bet. Because cannibalism was kind of practiced in certain societies, it was. But it was way more for like we're doing this to freak them out, we're doing it to somebody else, or we're doing for religious purposes.
MARCUS PARKS
Religious purposes, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Or we're doing it to take their power or we're trying to do these things. Or in total desperation.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
We've all seen Temple of Doom.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. Om Namah Shivaya.
MARCUS PARKS
Om Namah Shivaya. Yeah. These people, they enter an animal-like state in which a sort of psychic deadening kills all feelings and it allows survivors to do what needs to be done to survive. Put in less serious terms, it's like what happens in Looney Tunes cartoons when Daffy Duck sees Porky Pig as not like a pig but as a big chicken drumstick.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Or someone looks like a big turkey that's running around, like Yosemite Sam becomes a big turkey.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld, I believe was it Kramer that got turned into a turkey?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Kramer because he started using butter. Hey buddy. Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And also for Kramer with his stand up comedy, he can use that legendairy bit and then he could replace it with his more controversial work.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He really can.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
There you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See I look at you both, right, and when I see is some sort of like... I just see globs. I see you as a glob.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm a glob.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A dinner glob.
BEN KISSEL
I don't see food.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I see you're a bigger glob and you got a bigger car. And he goes like la-la-la-la, thinner blob.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's really all I see. But I think it's just cataracts.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But at some point that is true, right. When you are starving, you start to look at the body like you look at a cow in a barbecue restaurant and you start to kind of carve up what parts you can eat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh but I feel like we were talking about it's weird because that does happen because something breaks in the mind that allows you to look at a person and say yummy.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because Natalie and I always have diametrically opposite responses to food. There's at my favorite restaurant in Atlanta, when you go to Holeman & Finch, they have a cow that's vivisected like the movie-
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
With Vincent D'Onofrio.
MARCUS PARKS
The Cell.
BEN KISSEL
The Cell, yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And she's horrified.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I love it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I look at it and I'm like yeah, feed it to me.
BEN KISSEL
Right, right. Yeah. Very Jack Nicholson Joker of you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
But when it came to the shitty boat, events transpired that almost guaranteed that no amount of psychic deadening would save them.
BEN KISSEL
Uh oh.
MARCUS PARKS
Sometime overnight on January 29, the shitty boat drifted away from Captain Pollard's and with no navigational equipment they were lost and the men inside were never seen alive again.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So all I can imagine though is that they ended up on that big gay island, had fun and they all thai massaged each other and they just figured it all out. They made this beautiful egalitarian society.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They invented dominoes on their own, just hanging out, just fucking eating papaya, sucking dick.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Channeling their own Richard Speck.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Being like if they knew how much fun we're having marooned on this island, they'd rescue us.
MARCUS PARKS
Now after the shitty boat disappeared, Captain Pollard was left with three Nantucket teenagers, none of them older than 18.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
MARCUS PARKS
Their names were Charles Ramsdell, Barzillai Ray, and Owen Coffin.
BEN KISSEL
And boys, let's rename the ship the SS Epstein! There you go, you got it, I was gonna say Einstein but that's Super Dave.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow, that's a lot of references in there.
MARCUS PARKS
There really is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That no child would understand.
MARCUS PARKS
None, yeah, none.
BEN KISSEL
Bob Einstein, Super Dave?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I tried to explain to Natalie who Super Dave was.
BEN KISSEL
She doesn't know who Super Dave was?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No and she was like what? And I was like he's like the funniest guy from Canada ever born! And she was just like I missed this whole thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He's the guy with the raspy voice from Curb. That's Super Dave.
BEN KISSEL
Really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It was iconic.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Super Dave.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well every couple must be different.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, that's true.
BEN KISSEL
Uncle corner. Now I guess that was our uncle corner for the day.
MARCUS PARKS
I think so. You know that's the thing about Super Dave is that I don't really remember Super Dave but I do remember loving Super Dave.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the thing.
MARCUS PARKS
I couldn't tell you a single... It's like a Mandela effect type thing where I don't remember a single Super Dave episode but every time you say the word Super Dave-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm happy.
BEN KISSEL
I have the exact image in my mind. Him, the beautiful little American dress that he would wear. I mean it was Evil Knievel.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Super Dave. Yeah, we know who Super Dave was.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We all just know what Super Dave is.
BEN KISSEL
But I think every single episode was kinda similar where he would do something super.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He would do something stupid, yes. And it was very funny.
BEN KISSEL
Super!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But stupid, he'd mess it up.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he'd always mess it up.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
He's like Dorf but-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Another reference that again no one that is not specifically our age will have known.
BEN KISSEL
Everyone knows who Tim Conway is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No they don't.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's a boomer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I tried to explain to Natalie who Tim Conway was.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
Hey, what's a Tim Conway?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I just... Get outta here!
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, what's a Tim Conway? Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get the fuck outta here!
BEN KISSEL
Doesn't even bother me. Doesn't even bother me at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You've gotten psychically deadened.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Captain Pollard and these three Nantucket teenagers, they were all floating 1500 miles west of South America with the half eaten corpse of shipmate Samuel Reed.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god, just throw it overboard.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's leftovers.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, it's leftovers. They're still eating on it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they're still eating on the corpse.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's good eating right there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But by February 6th, the remains of Samuel Reed had been completely consumed. So as was the long accepted custom of the sea, Pollard and the three teenagers at the suggestion of Charles Ramsdell, drew lots to see who should be killed so the others may live.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Such a teenager's idea. Because you can just see Pollard just sitting there being like well, you want to do that? Is that what you wanna do?
MARCUS PARKS
You sure you wanna do that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You sure you wanna do that?
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm gonna put together the straws, you three stupid ass fucking child Nantucketers. Let's see what happens here.
BEN KISSEL
That's incredible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know Pollard fixed this.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know he fixed it. I know he was just like yeah, let's draw some straws, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right. I mean so now they've gone from natural death and consuming the body to killing people and consuming the corpse.
MARCUS PARKS
Now at first Pollard resisted, not least because one of the kids, Owen Coffin, was his first cousin. But as he had done before and would now do for the last time, Pollard gave in to democracy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Weak.
MARCUS PARKS
And cut up pieces of paper which were placed in a hat. Once the lots were drawn, the unlucky sailor was Owen Coffin.
BEN KISSEL
No!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's like isn't that ironic, don't you think?
BEN KISSEL
Don't you think?
MARCUS PARKS
Pollard, in great distress, told his cousin that he'd shoot the first man that touched him. Then Pollard offered himself in place of Owen. But Owen, standing brave in the face of death or possibly just wanting it all to end, he insisted he die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Stupid polite motherfuckers. Each one of these guys just fighting for whoever is not gonna die. Just being like no! It simply must be me! No! I'm the one. Shut up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Owen said that he liked his lot as well as any other. And after lots were drawn again to see who would commit the murder-
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Charles Ramsdell, whose idea all this had been anyway, he was chosen to pull the trigger.
BEN KISSEL
So they're actually gonna waste a bullet on this.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Not just choke him out.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's too late. Bullets, they have not figured out how to use the bullets up to this point. This is what the bullets are for.
BEN KISSEL
Why didn't they try to shoot the shark?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Long story, man.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Long story. Well that's the thing, it's a musket.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
It's not going to be the most accurate of shots.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you're just gonna make it all bloody.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then all the other sharks are probably gonna attack the bloody shark.
BEN KISSEL
And then kill you in the process. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah and it's gonna be a feeding frenzy. Yeah. I mean these guys have thought this through.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd like to think at this point they've had a lot of time.
BEN KISSEL
They had a lot of time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. They've had a lot of time. So after offering final words to be given to his mother-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just tell my mom mama, your tits were so good I wish you weren't my mother. All right?
BEN KISSEL
Really nice last words.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
MARCUS PARKS
That's great last words. Can't wait to deliver them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
We'll deliver those to your mother if you die early.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes. And after Owen Coffin commented on his mother's breasts, he was as Pollard later wrote soon dispatched and nothing of him left.
BEN KISSEL
Dispatched to heaven.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dispatched to their fucking asses. They literally turned him into shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Meanwhile over on first mate Chase's boat hundreds of miles away, a man named Isaac Cole lost his mind, surprisingly the first and only man to do so. He began to mindlessly rant and he would twitch spasmodically. He would suddenly sit up and ask for a napkin and a glass of water, then he'd fall down again, then he'd pop back up, fall down, pop up. Philbrook put it as a possessed jack in the box.
BEN KISSEL
I mean to be honest with you it sounds kind of fun.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Have you seen the movies Jack in the Box 1 and 2?
BEN KISSEL
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Surprisingly very interesting.
BEN KISSEL
Is that a real thing?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
That's fine. Well Isaac Cole then moaned for six hours and he died at 4 pm.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a sad obituary.
BEN KISSEL
I mean thank god.
MARCUS PARKS
Now at first nobody suggested eating Isaac Cole because they believed in a somewhat quaint 19th century fashion that they may catch his madness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which is just like dude, you're already fucked up!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's the only one making sense in this whole fucking thing!
BEN KISSEL
Well you don't wanna catch it.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh but when everyone is crazy, is not the crazy man sane?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sane?
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It didn't make any fucking sense. I know it didn't make any sense.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It doesn't matter.
BEN KISSEL
No, it's why we're gonna get into WWIII.
MARCUS PARKS
So they kept the corpse on board overnight and slept next to him with plans to bury him at sea the next morning. But just as the body was being prepared for burial, Owen Chase said wait a minute boys, let's think about this for a second.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Think about it for a second.
BEN KISSEL
Just for a second, guys.
MARCUS PARKS
Let's just think about this for a second.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Look at how thick this guy's ass is.
BEN KISSEL
Pump the brakes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, he said perhaps it would be better to eat a maddened shipmate who is dead than it would be to later be forced to kill a sane man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they're all like what? First of all, what?
BEN KISSEL
I mean that does make sense.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A sane man. So you said kill, Chris Hemsworth. You said kill. The rest of us, we're just upset.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't know what to do.
BEN KISSEL
They gotta eat this guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well yes.
BEN KISSEL
They have to.
MARCUS PARKS
So they made a compromise. Right now it is three guys left on this boat. Three guys left.
BEN KISSEL
Yikes.
MARCUS PARKS
They made a compromise. They butchered what they could from Cole's body and they committed what they didn't eat to the sea. So they didn't bury him all the way at sea but they didn't eat him all the way either.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See?
BEN KISSEL
Okay, they did halfsies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Halfsies.
BEN KISSEL
One for you, one for me.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Problem was the strips of flesh they cut off turned a rancid green by the next morning.
BEN KISSEL
Good grief.
MARCUS PARKS
So their nutritional value was limited once again. Back on Pollard's boat though another teenager breathed his last. Barzillai Ray died and was eaten.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These people literally moaned themselves to death.
BEN KISSEL
It's the death rattle.
MARCUS PARKS
That left only Captain Pollard and Charles Ramsdell. And they both prayed for rescue that seemed to never come.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what, Charles? I always figured it'd just be you and me.
BEN KISSEL
Just them two on a boat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what? Nothing but net. Good work, bro. We did it.
BEN KISSEL
He just pulls out some wine and some great cheese. Master plan.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pecorino, 1975.
BEN KISSEL
I think you're gonna love it.
MARCUS PARKS
Of course rescue did come because otherwise we wouldn't know what had happened.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they just would have gone and never came back.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But Captain Pollard and Charles Ramsdell would not be the first round. That piece of luck went to first mate Owen Chase.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The guy who did all of this in the first place!
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Owen Chase and Captain Pollard shared some-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
They shared some responsibility.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Technically in the end the captain is the one who is the most responsible because he could have said no, we're going to an island.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
The captain and the cook.
MARCUS PARKS
On Valentine's day 1821, the last three men on Chase's boat ate the last bit of Isaac Cole, meaning they had just enough strength to row for a bit.
BEN KISSEL
What did you get for Valentine's day?
MARCUS PARKS
A crazy man's buttocks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Crazy man's buttocks! That's what Natalie's getting.
BEN KISSEL
And they say romance is dead.
MARCUS PARKS
Soon they were within 300 miles of the islands of Mas Afuera and Juan Fernandez with just three days of hardtack left. Now right there at the end, 15 year old Thomas Nickerson laid down, pulled a piece of canvas over himself like a shroud, and told the other two men that he wished to die immediately.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But on February 18, he lasted two more days, as harpooner-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I won't die! Let me die!
BEN KISSEL
Wow. It seems like he really wanted to die.
MARCUS PARKS
He did.
BEN KISSEL
And he couldn't even get that.
MARCUS PARKS
He couldn't.
BEN KISSEL
It's the easiest thing one can do.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as harpooner Benjamin Lawrence fiddled with second mate Joy's piece of twine, a ship was spotted in the distance.
BEN KISSEL
Yes!
MARCUS PARKS
Using their last bit of strength, Chase and Nickerson set sail and rowed to try to catch up with the ship. And soon they saw that it was a British vessel, the Indian. And when someone on board finally spotted the near sinking whaleboat, they shouted to ask who are you? And using the last of his strength, Chase yelled:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Essex! Whaleship! Nantucket!
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Meanwhile do you think they're gonna be like I don't know you.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then they just go past you?
BEN KISSEL
They might!
MARCUS PARKS
Nantucket, I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Nantucket. That place sucks.
BEN KISSEL
There's a good chance they'll just be like oh fuck it, we don't got that much time to waste, we gotta get back there, we don't have that much food, we can't pick up these two hungry folks.
MARCUS PARKS
Code of the sea, my friend. Code of the sea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh, you're a bunch of Bengals fans. Sorry.
BEN KISSEL
Oh there you go.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
More like the bungles.
BEN KISSEL
There, you really nailed it.
MARCUS PARKS
If they were French they might have said fuck you, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
They might have said fuck you.
BEN KISSEL
Awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
And with that, the first three men were rescued.
BEN KISSEL
Yay.
MARCUS PARKS
And brought aboard the ship ever so carefully so as to not rip their raw, drooping, ulcerated skin. 89 days after the Essex went into the sea, these three survivors were given tapioca pudding.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thanks.
BEN KISSEL
Honestly good.
MARCUS PARKS
High in calories and easy to digest.
BEN KISSEL
I love a good tapioca pudding.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm fine with it.
BEN KISSEL
It's good.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't like tapioca pudding.
BEN KISSEL
I don't like boba tea but I like tapioca pudding.
MARCUS PARKS
Wait, d you mean to say bubble tea?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, bobo. Bobo tea.
BEN KISSEL
Boba tea. I also don't like things that snap in my mouth like a sausage or a grape. But I do love tapioca.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Please roll forward. Please move forward.
BEN KISSEL
Something about it. I also don't like caviar. I do not like caviar but tapioca for some reason-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll never feed anything that's like a balloon to you.
BEN KISSEL
Thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're like a seagull.
BEN KISSEL
I like that.
MARCUS PARKS
A myth. Seagulls can absolutely eat rice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't care.
BEN KISSEL
Oh they can eat rice. Pigeons cannot. Don't throw rice at weddings.
MARCUS PARKS
No, that's a myth, they can all eat rice.
BEN KISSEL
they don't throw it at weddings anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've heard this three different ways. This is what were gonna get emails about. We spent hours working on this episode. They're just gonna be like pigeons, that's how they commit suicide. I don't know.
BEN KISSEL
No, no.
MARCUS PARKS
Well the three survivors began the long road to recovery. Five days later, another rescue occurred although this one was far more gruesome.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no.
MARCUS PARKS
Whereas Chase's boat still had a bit of hardtack, Captain Pollard had shared a large bit of his provisions with the shitty boat before it disappeared beyond the waves. And so when a ship from Cape Cod called the Dauphin discovered Pollard's boat, they found Pollard and Charles Ramsdell curled up in opposite corners sucking the marrow from their dead shipmate's broken bones.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, it's scary. The image is very, very scary. It reminds me in the Donner party When they first found them, they saw the kids coming out of the fucking hovels just looking like little ghosts.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah because you can just imagine the eyes when they realize that they're being seen by civilized people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes. That is literally how they said it. Because they've been gone for so long and so I think they just went through so much that they're just like (slavering sounds).
BEN KISSEL
Ravenous.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, delirious. Like the guys, they actually climbed down in the boat and tried taking the bones away from them and they wouldn't let them go. They're fighting to keep these bones and then when they looked in their pockets, their pockets were full of finger bones. They were saved for later.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Scattered amongst them were more bones as if the whale boat was in the words of one sailor, the seagoing lair of a ferocious man-eating beast. Their skin was covered in sores, their eyes had sunken back into their skulls, and their beards were caked with salt and blood.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, there's not a lot of refreshing going on.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
But nevertheless, the men were brought aboard and given food and water and after coming to their senses, they told the tale of the Essex. But in telling that tale, they remembered that they had left three guys on an island a couple of months back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're like oh fuck! Oh shit, that's right!
BEN KISSEL
No, the interesting thing is I'm actually learning along with you because wow, I totally forgot that.
MARCUS PARKS
So in early March, a ship named the Surrey out of Australia volunteered to go out and pick up the guys that they had left on the island.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
If the men were indeed still alive. But when they got to what they thought was Ducie Island because he said I left them on Ducie Island, there was nobody there. The entire beach was covered in birds and eggs, no one's been here in years. But the captain was smart enough to figure out. They're probably on Henderson Island. So when the Surrey arrived, they found that the men who had stayed behind had been having a comparatively grand old time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man.
BEN KISSEL
That's what I'm saying!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're just living on the island. They're just like what up?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. For months they'd been eating tropical birds.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was hard.
MARCUS PARKS
They found berries. They were eating crabs, they found eggs, they found turtles, turtles kept washing up.
BEN KISSEL
Sounds fun.
MARCUS PARKS
The only drawback was that the spring they'd found turned out to be temporary and it disappeared the day after the Essex crew left. But the men dug wells, they collected rainwater and when that ran low because that didn't always work, they just drank bird blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they just lived life.
BEN KISSEL
Living life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No phones, just vibing.
BEN KISSEL
Just Margaritaville living.
MARCUS PARKS
As far as the shitty third boat went though, there was no happy for anyone on board that. Five years after the Essex sank, a British navy captain named Frederick Beachy found a whaleboat washed ashore at the real Ducie Island. Inside were four skeletons.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no! They shouldn't be there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
No!
MARCUS PARKS
They were determined to be the last of the Essex crew.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I guess they didn't make it to the gay island.
BEN KISSEL
I guess they didn't but it's better to go to heaven. That's what they thought.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't think so.
BEN KISSEL
That's what they thought.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not the way they went to heaven.
BEN KISSEL
No, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There is no heaven.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well okay Mr. Lennon. You remember that when everyone's like let's play Imagine during COVID. It's not good for COVID.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. It's imagining a world in which there's nothing. That gave John Lennon comfort.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah it did but when a bunch of people are dying, it's not much of a comfort to say like now remember after this there's nothing.
BEN KISSEL
There's nothing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, hey. Gal Gadot changed a lot in this country. And how dare you let that spy from Israel, how dare you let her fuck with my songs.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, there you go.
MARCUS PARKS
Now when the survivors of the Essex arrived back in Nantucket, Owen Coffin's mother, that was Captain Pollard's aunt, she didn't particularly enjoy hearing that her son had been killed and eaten by her nephew.
BEN KISSEL
Too right. Yeah, I would actually not tell her.
MARCUS PARKS
But they had to.
BEN KISSEL
Why?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They had to. They were like where's your son?
BEN KISSEL
No, you just make it up. He fell over.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No.
MARCUS PARKS
They had to deliver the last words.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. He said, you remember-
BEN KISSEL
What were the final true last words?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He said tell my mother her tits are so good I wish she wasn't my mother.
BEN KISSEL
Right. So that he could on them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. He said that.
BEN KISSEL
Is there an alternative history that maybe he said something different?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, there's an alternative history in which he said I wish you were my stepmother.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god, all right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, so that I could bang you while my real father is late at work.
MARCUS PARKS
Perhaps if you get stuck in the butter churner.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'll be on the other side of you as a randy Amish boy who is out of the religion on Rumspringa.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic. All right, great. Historically accurate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like it when Kissel is looking for information and then we can do bits at him.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He said no, you don't get it.
BEN KISSEL
No, we don't get it.
MARCUS PARKS
But most in the community when Captain Pollard came back and when Owen Chase came back and they're like yeah, we ate dudes, they completely understood that there were unwritten rules of the sea that sometimes had to be followed.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Because if you wrote those rules down, a lot less people would sail.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
True, true.
MARCUS PARKS
And Pollard was judged to have dealt with the situation fairly and honorably. Now since the sinking of the Essex wasn't really his fault, Pollard was almost immediately given another whaling ship.
BEN KISSEL
I would never go back ever, ever, ever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's the only thing he ever knew.
BEN KISSEL
Just don't do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's what he was born to do.
BEN KISSEL
Just retire.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. He set off to a new whaling ground west of Hawaii called the Japan grounds. But even though it again wasn't Pollard's fault, his ship sank again.
BEN KISSEL
Just don't do it again!
MARCUS PARKS
Got thrown into rocks.
BEN KISSEL
Did he die this time?
MARCUS PARKS
Nope. And in fact it wasn't a big, I mean they were sailing with another boat so they got rescued immediately, it wasn't that big of a deal.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
But Pollard was utterly ruined because the highly superstitious whaling community now considered him an unlucky man.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I believe it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
It's the worst thing you can be on the high seas is considered like he's an unlucky man. He's not setting foot on a fucking boat.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Just retire.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's like guys, honestly, for the first time I agree. Sure. You're right.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Now Pollard did attempt sailing aboard a merchant vessel but when that life didn't suit him, he became a humble night watchman on land in Nantucket.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, he said that he would never let anybody out of his sight again.
BEN KISSEL
Good, that sounds perfect. That's what he should have done right afterwards.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he was actually known as a cheerful man. He was mostly concerned with enforcing curfew amongst the kids and supposedly if one were to ask him if he knew Owen Coffin, he'd gregariously say quote:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"Knew him? I ate him."
BEN KISSEL
Now it's 9 pm, go to bed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Go to sleep! Go to sleep!
MARCUS PARKS
But Pollard's family insisted that he would never make light of such an incredibly traumatic experience.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no one has ever gotten gallows humor after experiencing tragedy.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
What else are you gonna do, to be honest?
MARCUS PARKS
Well as far as the other surviving whalers went, all of them except one returned to whaling after just a brief convalescence.
BEN KISSEL
Jeez.
MARCUS PARKS
And they continued their careers on the high seas for the rest of their lives.
BEN KISSEL
All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Now first mate Owen Chase, he began working on his book almost immediately after returning to Nantucket. He finished it before he went on his next voyage. 20 years later, one of his many sons from many different women because his wives kept dying, he served aboard the whale ship Acushnet.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Acushnet.
MARCUS PARKS
On that boat, Owen Chase's son met Herman Melville and he slipped the aspiring author a copy of the book that detailed his father's harrowing ordeal, inspiring Melville to write Moby Dick years later.
BEN KISSEL
So that's the source material for Moby Dick.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The first one. Because Owen Chase wrote his version of his memoirs which heavily featured how he was not at fault and that he he didn't do anything wrong.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he also, I believe he was the one that was honest about the cannibalism.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it was the other one written by the boy-
MARCUS PARKS
Thomas Nickerson.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thomas Nickerson.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the one who said let me die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, let me die! He did deny the cannibalism because he just didn't want to admit it.
MARCUS PARKS
He couldn't really deal with it, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's pretty obvious.
MARCUS PARKS
As for the rest of them, three of the eight survivors became captains themselves while two of the island guys continued on his crew members on the Australian ship that rescued them.
BEN KISSEL
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
The third island guy, he was the only one who didn't return to the whaling life but he retired on an island. He went to Timor.
BEN KISSEL
Awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean that sounds great.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Sounds awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, he died there some years later. But as far as the Nantucket whaling business as a whole went, it had still not yet reached its peak when the Essex went down. The peak was 17 years later when Nantucket whalers killed almost 7000 whales in one year.
BEN KISSEL
Dang.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(weepy voice) Did you know that whales, they do so many things. They play games with each other.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. They do. They do.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(weepy voice) Yes, they will go and a whale will save a dolphin from a shark. They do, they do, they will go and they will away will save a dolphin from a shark.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know if that's true. So that's good, so you have sympathy for the whale.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, of course. Whales are incredible creatures.
BEN KISSEL
I love a whale.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just again, I watched all these documentaries that are just about-
BEN KISSEL
People who have empathy?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. It's very upsetting.
BEN KISSEL
You laugh at them as they cry? Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
But 7000 whales in one year, that's nothing compared to the more modern numbers, to 20th century numbers. In 1964, the deadliest year for whales in history, 30,000 whales were killed by any number of Scandinavian and Japanese whalers.
BEN KISSEL
And what do we get from it, the blubber for candles and shit?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well that was because that really happened when the first sperm whale took down the Scandinavian no trade center. They took that down.
BEN KISSEL
This is a world trade center, 9/11 joke?
MARCUS PARKS
9/11 joke.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was a war against whales.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a war against whales. Explain it further because I don't get it.
BEN KISSEL
It doesn't even make any sense.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't get it.
BEN KISSEL
Whales don't fly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't write bits before I arrive. You know what I mean? Like I don't come up with all of them.
MARCUS PARKS
Bit's not fully formed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
That one should have stayed inside.
BEN KISSEL
That's an inside thought.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like this is a playground for my ideas.
BEN KISSEL
It is. It is indeed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is a workshop environment even though it goes straight to the air and we don't edit that much out.
MARCUS PARKS
Not much, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Out of all the playgrounds, that's the metal slide of playground material. It really hurt as you were saying it and it hurt going down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, but then you go wah!
BEN KISSEL
No, your skin falls off your body.
MARCUS PARKS
However just the Nantucketers, they reduced the sperm whale population by somewhere between 8%-18%.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
While there were two million whales when whaling began, there's only about 350,000 sperm whales alive today.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man.
MARCUS PARKS
However it must be said that the only reason why the Nantucket whaling business finally ebbed was because a superior and more abundant source of lubricant was discovered in 1859. That substance was petroleum.
BEN KISSEL
Yay!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yay!
MARCUS PARKS
And one rapacious system was quickly replaced by another.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's when the petroleum started!
BEN KISSEL
That's when we got our petroleum. It's great if you want to rub your body in it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah. I got a bunch of crude at my house.
MARCUS PARKS
Most of the things in this room are made of petroleum.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow!
BEN KISSEL
All plastic, plastic is petroleum.
MARCUS PARKS
This table, this chair is made of petroleum.
BEN KISSEL
Petroleum.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank god we can always just get that.
BEN KISSEL
Well we could.
MARCUS PARKS
We can always get more. It's endless. Just like the whales.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wait a second...
BEN KISSEL
We can if people actually acted harmoniously. There's plenty.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Pocahontas was wrong.
BEN KISSEL
There's plenty to go around.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This entire series is about how Pocahontas was wrong.
MARCUS PARKS
Now while whale oil was still used sparingly until the early 20th century, the last Nantucket whale ship was tied to a dock in 1924 and the next night it was appropriately destroyed by a hurricane that dashed it against the rocks.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And the American whaling industry was ended forever.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Damn.
BEN KISSEL
That's awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a whale of a tale.
MARCUS PARKS
Whale of a tale!
BEN KISSEL
It's a whale of a tale. And I'm going to say if I had to choose between that or being a member of the Donner party, I think I would rather be a whaler.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm gonna go with Donner party.
BEN KISSEL
More survived though, didn't they?
MARCUS PARKS
No. No, no, no. The Donner party, far more survived.
BEN KISSEL
They did?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
More survived the Donner party.
MARCUS PARKS
Many more, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
What about the guys on the island? I would like to be one of the island guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See to me, the island, that's where I feel I would have been best.
BEN KISSEL
I would have done well.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'd just be like why don't we hurry to land?
BEN KISSEL
Hurry to land. Yeah, you're right.
MARCUS PARKS
It still would have been absolutely fucking horrible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, of course.
MARCUS PARKS
It would have been terrifying and difficult.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
You're still drinking bird blood most of the time.
BEN KISSEL
Not as cold as the Donner party had to deal with though.
MARCUS PARKS
That's true.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think seaweed is icky. So I don't know if I want to be in the ocean.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no, seaweed salad is great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I like seaweed salad cause it's in my mouth.
BEN KISSEL
It's seaweed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But when it's tickling my feet-
BEN KISSEL
Oh yes, sure. But then you pull it up and you dry it and then you pickle it and then it makes seaweed salad.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You good with that?
BEN KISSEL
Seaweed salad?
MARCUS PARKS
It's good.
BEN KISSEL
I order it every time.
MARCUS PARKS
You do, really?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love seaweed salad.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I like it, I'm just surprised you do.
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's commentary.
MARCUS PARKS
You eat green things.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. Green's my favorite color.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Me too.
BEN KISSEL
Henry, what's your favorite color?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Blood red.
BEN KISSEL
We're all just gonna draw lots at the end to see who has to eat who.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Who gets shot in the head?
BEN KISSEL
All right everyone, the tragedy at the Essex. On? The tragedy of the Essex.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh thank you guys so much for joining us and you want to check us out. We actually have a couple of things to announce. One thing, March 8th at the new Pack Theater, it's basically two doors down from the old Pack Theater in Los Angeles. We're doing Classy Night Out, me and Ed Larson. I don't know who is going to be there yet.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We haven't booked that yet.
BEN KISSEL
Pete Davidson as a turtle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He won't answer my texts.
BEN KISSEL
I know, I wonder why.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then we got...
BEN KISSEL
August we're gonna be in Australia.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Australia.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Check out those dates.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Lastpodcastontheleft.com, you can see all those dates.
BEN KISSEL
Can't wait.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're gonna do a live Side Stories April 8th.
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Check that out, I'm gonna give you all the information.
MARCUS PARKS
And we're gonna be appearing at WonderCon this year in Anaheim.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, that's right.
MARCUS PARKS
We're not sure exactly what day we're gonna be there yet.
BEN KISSEL
Can't wait.
MARCUS PARKS
But we're gonna be there signing our new Z2 comic book.
BEN KISSEL
Can't wait.
MARCUS PARKS
Issue 2 has been shipped, so look out for those in your mailboxes if you preordered them, thank you for your patience on waiting for those to get printed and get shipped out. And if you want one, you can now order them at z2comics.com.
BEN KISSEL
Do people dress up at WonderCon or will I stand out if I do?
MARCUS PARKS
No, you should. Everyone dresses up always.
BEN KISSEL
WonderCon is also a dress up?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
All cons are dress ups?
MARCUS PARKS
Remember that FanX that we went to in Salt Lake City?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That was awesome, Salt Lake City.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And there was that guy who dressed up as Raiden and waited in front of the Christopher Lambert table for like three hours?
BEN KISSEL
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And he didn't need to do that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He didn't have to do that, no.
BEN KISSEL
No, he didn't.
MARCUS PARKS
Because it wasn't a huge line.
BEN KISSEL
And Christopher Lambert was just like yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool, I wish you'd leave, sir.
BEN KISSEL
Yes very nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But he said good costume, sir.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. Awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm gonna be on the lookout when we go to WonderCon for some Deep Space Nine figures we're only missing in our collection, we're only missing Odo and Gul Dukat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then they can finally have sex again.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that fantastic?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Once they finally get it all together.
MARCUS PARKS
She's the one that's holding it hostage.
BEN KISSEL
Well that's great, thanks for supporting all the shows here on Last Podcast Network and our little Sirius ventures as well, Mondays and Tuesdays 6 pm EST.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And also check out our Mothman blend over at Spring-Heel'd Jack coffee.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm just gonna go ahead and say we got a new blend coming out soon and I think it's going to titillate your throat holes.
BEN KISSEL
All right everyone, hail yourselves!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan!
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein.
BEN KISSEL
Megustalations everybody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you so much.
BEN KISSEL
Be safe, don't eat your friends.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean eat your friends if you got to but...
MARCUS PARKS
If you got to.
BEN KISSEL
If you really have to. But I can't imagine any situation in modern times where you would have to.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Butt first.
MARCUS PARKS
People get lost at sea.
BEN KISSEL
Oh butt first, I see what you're saying. I thought you were gonna start a whole other episode.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no.
BEN KISSEL
But first we have to do another 5 hours.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe on Mars. We might have another chance for cannibalism when these billionaires get to Mars and they run out of food.
MARCUS PARKS
You could get stuck in... Your car could breakdown in America and you'd still have to resort to eating somebody.
BEN KISSEL
No, no. I'm drinking out of a Whataburger, there's fast food everywhere.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, I'd just start eating leaves.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just die there.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
BEN KISSEL
You have no excuse, Marcus.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe I don't.