HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So a lot of times when we do these shows, right, you guys know-
BEN KISSEL
You praying, Marcus?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's praying.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm listening. I'm listening intently.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Please. Thank you, thank you. It's so nice to have a focus.
BEN KISSEL
Oh as if I never listen to you?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, you're forced to. We're all forced to listen to each other, yes. But normally when we start we joke about these things, we're off the cuff here.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't like to show up with too much prepared material comedy-wise.
BEN KISSEL
Let's just hop right into it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But normally it's Kissel that has some, you know, you show up-
BEN KISSEL
I have a good joke. I've been thinking about a joke.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But actually no, no, no. This is Marcus' joke.
MARCUS PARKS
It's my turn.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa.
MARCUS PARKS
My turn.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When we came up with this content-
BEN KISSEL
Holy shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When we said this content-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When I said the word, and I've never had this, it was weird.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was like his clothes morphed.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All of a sudden he had a suede tracksuit on.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was like where did that come from? And I saw he was wearing flip flops, he had two little dogs with him.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I was just like whoa, where did he go? Because I said oh we should do this topic that's really super, super compelling.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's about La Llorona.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
La Llorona.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I'm working on it.
MARCUS PARKS
No, you got it wrong.
BEN KISSEL
Okay, I'm working on it!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. And then Marcus said...
MARCUS PARKS
(singing to the tune of My Sharona) La Llorona!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He did it.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) La Llorona!
BEN KISSEL
You've got a joke. That's a song parody at its worst.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But guess what? I then realized afterwards I have a better song parody that hopped into my mind.
MARCUS PARKS
Wow.
BEN KISSEL
I was pitching this show to a very successful man yesterday and he said he was gonna listen to this episode.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is it. Mr. Big's here?
BEN KISSEL
Kinda.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
All right, Mr. Big. You ready? Here we go, all right. (singing to the tune of Macarena) First you take your kids and you put them in the river and you put your hands down and you make yourself a quiver, every time I cry I make the joven shiver. Hey La Llorona!
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Hey La Llorona! All right, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Welcome to the Last Podcast on the Left everyone. Ben hanging out with Marcus.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't think that's too fair because I came up with mine off the cuff and Henry has had a week to think of Macarena La Llorona.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wrote that down last night.
BEN KISSEL
It was very successful. Okay everyone, today we're discussing La La-rona.
MARCUS PARKS
Ya-rona.
BEN KISSEL
Ya-rona. La La-rona.
MARCUS PARKS
Ya-rona.
BEN KISSEL
Ya-rona. Here we go!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh my god. We're keeping all this in. This whole episode is about us, this whole year honestly we're trying to do more-
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Embracing other culturas.
MARCUS PARKS
Of course.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How do we see how you guys see and how do we get into there? This is a good spooky way to enter into Latin American culture.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely, I'm super excited to get into this.
MARCUS PARKS
Well La Llorona is a legendary creature of Mexican descent, both urban legend and mythical boogeyman. She's a cautionary-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Boogeywoman!
BEN KISSEL
Boogeywoman.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How dare you?
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
She's a cautionary tale told to children, teenagers, drunks, and amorous youngsters alike in a variety of ways that all share the singular qualifier of a weeping woman. There are thousands of variations on the La Llorona tale to the point where families can have their own versions of the creature that are passed down through the generations.
BEN KISSEL
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Even separate villages in the same province will have different stories of La Llorona.
BEN KISSEL
It Follows.
MARCUS PARKS
Different neighborhoods and cities will have different La Lloronas.
BEN KISSEL
Interesting.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
La Llorona comes in a bunch of different fashions.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You got arctic fever Llorona.
BEN KISSEL
Ooh yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You've got um down in the cacti Llorona. You've delicious-
MARCUS PARKS
Mountain rush La Llorona.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, yeah. Cool breeze La Llorona.
BEN KISSEL
my favorite new Mountain Dew, Cold Sore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I love it.
BEN KISSEL
Because each one has been licked by another person who may or may not have a cold sore.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in its simplest form-
BEN KISSEL
Why are they called cold sores? They look pretty hot to me.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a really good pun.
MARCUS PARKS
That's a good pun. That's a good though, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Something. I don't know what it is.
BEN KISSEL
I told someone to listen to this episode right off the top.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Mr. Big, remember (humming Macarena). I don't have anymore words.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Hey La Llorona.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ay!
BEN KISSEL
Let's just hop right into it.
MARCUS PARKS
Technically it's wordplay. Well in its simplest form, La Llorona is a cautionary river tale that's supposed to keep kids from drowning. It's a lot like the Scottish Kelpie. Hundreds of water demons exist throughout hundreds of cultures. Any culture that exists or develops near rivers or bodies of water has something like this. Basically that version of La Llorona tells you to not go down to the water by yourself because there's a scary lady down there, she'll take you away, she'll rip you to shreds with terrible claws-
BEN KISSEL
No!
MARCUS PARKS
Or she just fucking eats you right then and there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you disappear. But that is the most simplified version of La Llorona.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But do we really need these tales when alligators exist?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not there.
BEN KISSEL
I am scared of sea creatures already.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well because the problem with kids-
BEN KISSEL
River creatures?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Kids, they're fascinated with animals I think. They'd be like oh what you have to do is you gotta take a fucking raw chicken, you gotta go over to the river and be like kids, you wanna see what's in the river? And you watch it go snap, snap, snap!
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Out of the thing, eating a chicken out of your hands. Being like you ready to go back to the river now?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
Cause at the end of the day if you're a kid and you're told that there's a crocodile down there or an alligator-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You wanna look at it.
MARCUS PARKS
Not only are you gonna go look at it, you start thinking maybe that alligator could be my friend.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Love it.
BEN KISSEL
True.
MARCUS PARKS
Maybe I could use that alligator to go eat the kids who are beating me up at school every day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hasn't met me yet, can't figure out how to assemble the AR-15. I need to get that croc out of the river and into my classroom.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. That's the Disneyfication of the alligator.
MARCUS PARKS
No, the anthropomorphization.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Wow. This is not good. These long words are not good for us.
BEN KISSEL
I don't like it.
MARCUS PARKS
When the story is more complicated, La Llorona is a tale of a lover scorned and what may become from a betrayal most bitter. This is how that version of the story goes as recounted in an article about La Llorona published in an issue of the Texas Observer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Texas Observer, you have to have big eyeballs.
BEN KISSEL
You do. Also great publication.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. In this iteration, a beautiful young woman beguiles a rich man and this big shot consequently wines and dines the beggarly beauty. And then eventually they have kids together and it all happens on the hush hush and he keeps telling her hey, don't worry, one of these days you're gonna be Mrs. Big Shot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey man, it always works out like that. Ladies, shoot for the moon because sometimes you end up on the dick of a producer.
BEN KISSEL
Well look at Queen Camilla.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, perfect dick riding all the way to royalty.
BEN KISSEL
Seriously. Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
Well eventually though the wealthy man gets bored stringing along his side piece and he abandons her and he abandons the children. He tells her I'm never going to take you as my wife. Are you fucking stupid? You some kind of fool or something? I never was, I was never gonna do that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No! No!
BEN KISSEL
This man is about to be haunted for the rest of his life.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
MARCUS PARKS
It's just pillow talk, baby, come on.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Me!
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm special!
MARCUS PARKS
Well driven insane by the casual cruelty of her love-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(shrieking) No!
BEN KISSEL
All right, that is a horrible interpretation of a scorned woman, Mr. Zebrowski.
MARCUS PARKS
The woman takes her children down to the river and drowns them one at a time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, fucking Neil Young.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So much like Neil Young. Also can we please have Keith Morrison just tell us about this story on Dateline?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And would you believe she took her children to the river?
BEN KISSEL
What a hunk, you leathery wallet.
MARCUS PARKS
But when she sees the dead bodies of her toddlers floating downstream, she realizes what she's done and drowns herself thereafter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(water bubbling sounds)
BEN KISSEL
You never want to sound like a turkey. Your last breath should not sound like a turkey trying to survive the knife of Sarah Palin.
MARCUS PARKS
Her soul soon arrives at the pearly gates. She stands in front of Saint Peter and Saint Peter asks:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, where are your children, young woman?
MARCUS PARKS
Miserable, she lies.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No lo se! I do not know!
BEN KISSEL
Wait-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're right. I forget I'm not doing Hilaria.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(wailing) No!
BEN KISSEL
Wait but why didn't the kids go to the pearly gates? The kids didn't go to heaven? She drowned her kids and god sent them to hell?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what they get.
MARCUS PARKS
Possibly purgatory, they may not have been baptized.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They have the opportunity to accept blame.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no, no, no. If you are drowned, baptized. No matter what.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I think. Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I would imagine the children are probably in purgatory or Saint Peter is just fucking with her, the kids might be hiding-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They're already in there.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, the kids might be hiding behind Saint Peter like (giggling).
BEN KISSEL
Well let's lie by omission to Saint Peter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, the two kids are just sitting on Gilles de Rais' knees in heaven. Enjoying themselves.
BEN KISSEL
No, Gilles de Rais is not in heaven.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey, he apologized at the very end.
MARCUS PARKS
He did.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
MARCUS PARKS
She's miserable, she lies. She says I don't know where they are. So Saint Peter sends her back to earth, cursing her to wander forever as a restless soul until she finds the bones of her children.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(shrieking) The bones of my children!
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
The woman's spirit then returns to earth as La Llorona, eternally weeping and wailing while wandering the river banks of Mexico and Texas until she finds those bones. But until that day comes, little boy-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's you.
BEN KISSEL
I am the little boy.
MARCUS PARKS
La Llorona may just settle for you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No!
BEN KISSEL
You can have me. Hey, I'm actually looking for a mom.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's nothing you'd love more.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that nice? Also you don't have to buy your ghost mom a house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then they become one eventually.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There has been a lot of proof of La Llorona that has been captured over time. The reason why we ended up doing this episode was because we were doing our Sirius XM call in show.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I forgot what the subject was but La Llorona came up.
BEN KISSEL
It was so cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I'd never had this in our history of the small history we have of doing the call in show.
BEN KISSEL
Broken Lines, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The boards just blew up.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And a lot of people called in and said they had witnessed La Llorona. Fernando, our producer, believes that he probably had some form of visitation by La Llorona. It's the same thing again and again, you see a woman by a body of water dressed all in white quite often then not, she turns and looks at you, where was a face is a black hole. And it emits a wail, right. And this is actual footage, well auditory footage-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Of La Llorona, she make the a noise.
BEN KISSEL
I'm telling you those calls were compelling.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(plays audio of howling)
BEN KISSEL
That's a coyote.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, looking for bones. Look, you could see La Llorona is at the top there on the trees.
BEN KISSEL
It sounds like Yogi Bear is getting pegged or something.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's La Llorona.
MARCUS PARKS
It sounds like Chewbacca before the sound mixer like mixed in the last animal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is all things probably billed towards La Llorona.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. Interesting. Further evidence, great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
See there's that, there's also this other picture of a blurry smudge that I have here that's also very good, none other than La Llorona. See, watch that, look at that. That's a phantom.
BEN KISSEL
I agree.
MARCUS PARKS
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know what that is. That's La Llorona.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, sure.
BEN KISSEL
La Llorona.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But everybody's seen her. And they all say too, it's the same, it's a sense of foreboding.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And of longing.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yes. A horrible way to spend eternity.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Edging basically.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly it sounds like some people like it.
BEN KISSEL
No but they like the process after the edge.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But if you just edge it would be like all I want to do is climb Mount Rushmore and hang off the nose of George Washington. But you only get to his chin forever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I feel like it's more like I want to go to a restaurant but it's booked.
BEN KISSEL
It's like that, that would be your purgatory.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Okay, wow.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now La Llorona isn't just a tale meant to keep kids from drowning. In what my wife informs me is a culturally Hispanic thing, La Llorona is also used by parents to punish excessive crying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh sure.
MARCUS PARKS
It's the worst version of you wanna cry, I'll give you something to cry about.
BEN KISSEL
And they always do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because after all, Llorona translates to crybaby. And kids are told that if they cry too much, they will eventually invoke the spirit of the ultimate crybaby, La Llorona.
BEN KISSEL
I thought you were gonna say Johnny Depp. Great movie!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hot takes!
MARCUS PARKS
Wonderful movie. Iggy Pop, highly underrated in that movie.
BEN KISSEL
No kidding?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hatchet-Face was my favorite character.
MARCUS PARKS
Hatchet-Face was wonderful, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Iggy Pop's having a moment.
MARCUS PARKS
He is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He is.
BEN KISSEL
He is.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as the logic goes, if La Llorona killed her own children when she was alive, imagine what she'll do to you now that she's dead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's learned her lesson and she'll take care of them?
BEN KISSEL
That would be nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She realized hey, maybe that was all a waste and now I'm obviously here wailing and searching for my lost children, maybe I got these new children.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe it's time to start over-
MARCUS PARKS
No, no, no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
In a way that I can grow and change like step by step.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Step by step.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
If you put La Llorona in the character of Tim Duffy's position-
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
La Llorona would understand actually I have to grow up in order for myself... I might be embodying an adult but I need to be one up here as well.
MARCUS PARKS
Right.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely. She needs to go to a ghost therapist. And you know what, I'm not for the remakes of films. They're remaking White Men Can't Jump. It's fine, watch the original. Rosie Perez, you don't need another one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's kind of crazy. They made the white men be able to jump.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that stupid?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it was because they got jumping boots on now.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like in the original Super Mario Bros. movie, which is my Super Mario Bros. movie and that's where I'm staying, that's where I die.
BEN KISSEL
It takes place on Mars or on the moon where white men can jump a little bit more. But you know what movie could be remade? Ghost Dad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It kinda needs to be remade.
MARCUS PARKS
Complicated.
BEN KISSEL
I think I would do a remake.
MARCUS PARKS
Complicated legacy with Ghost Dad.
BEN KISSEL
It's a little complicated.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is Ghost Mom.
BEN KISSEL
Exactly.
MARCUS PARKS
Well as it is, the way La Llorona is described as looking when she comes to get you, it can indeed be terrifying.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS
In the version of the story in which La Llorona acts as a siren that lures drunk men to their watery dooms, she starts as a beautiful weeping woman who seemingly needs consoling.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And nothing is hotter than a woman crying next to a river.
BEN KISSEL
I thought I was gonna go the angle nothing's more consoling than a hammered guy who went down to the lake to piss.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey! I can help you out. It seems you're pretty upset. Let me tell you something. You know what shouldn't be? You because Lebron James shit the bed last year at the Lakers, right? And he was real upset. A good sports bar consoling.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But when the drunk man offers to help, the woman's face turns into either a bear's skull-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
A bat-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
A metallic horse's head-
BEN KISSEL
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Or worst of all, a smooth blank nothingness.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the shit that creeps me out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So much scarier.
MARCUS PARKS
Always.
BEN KISSEL
Because then it's like you put whatever image you want on it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
And it's always the scariest thing you can imagine.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No lips, no eyes, no nose. You remember in the Twilight Zone movie when they cut to the girl, that one segment where it's the boy that could wish like all of this shit. That's my favorite bit in that movie. But cutting to the sister when they reveal that she has no mouth. That was one of the scariest moments of my childhood.
BEN KISSEL
It's horrifying.
MARCUS PARKS
That's great, yeah. One of the most horrifying Sandman stories in the Sandman comic book is it just has one scene of a bunch of faceless, noseless, blank-faced ladies devouring a man slowly while he cannot move.
BEN KISSEL
And then of course the opposite can be true if you remember Blank Face from Dick Tracy and all of a sudden you're like it's Madonna!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, being like no face, big tits!
BEN KISSEL
Whoa.
MARCUS PARKS
Now this story of course teaches you another important lesson. Don't go down to the river at night when you're drunk.
BEN KISSEL
Gotchu.
MARCUS PARKS
Even though it's super nice, it's really nice to go down to the river.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually feel like why is this the lesson?
MARCUS PARKS
Because you can fall in and drown really easily.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. There's either a serial killer in Austin right now or people are getting fucking hammered-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And falling into...
BEN KISSEL
And falling into the river.
MARCUS PARKS
Falling in the river, yeah. It's real easy to fall and drown in a river. Look at Jeff Buckley.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He wanted to.
MARCUS PARKS
He did. He wasn't drunk but he still drowned in a river.
BEN KISSEL
Rivers have a strong undercurrent that is unpredictable.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's true. And I might just be a city boy, I feel like rivers are easy to avoid. It's like right there.
BEN KISSEL
Well yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You're never just gonna like happen upon a river. But you're gonna see a river.
BEN KISSEL
You could happen upon a river.
MARCUS PARKS
But the point is that you shouldn't choose to go down to the river when you're drunk because the rocks are slippery, you slip, you fall, you hit your head, you drown. There's all sorts of bad things that can happen.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Again, this is all Neil Young's crime.
BEN KISSEL
I know, I know it.
MARCUS PARKS
But this version of La Llorona also warns men against honey traps.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
For example, in years past in the city of Austin, La Llorona came in the form of an urban legend called the donkey lady. The donkey lady-
BEN KISSEL
Now that's a name I can say. The donkey lady.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. It's actually almost too easy.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
The donkey lady would lure UT frat boy down from 6th Street to the Red River where all manner of awful things may occur.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They might look through your phone.
BEN KISSEL
That would be the worst of all.
MARCUS PARKS
But when it comes to what children are told La Llorona looks like, it's said by some that the centuries of crying have marked La Llorona's face with two scars that lead down from her eyes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(gentle metal guitar riff)
MARCUS PARKS
And because her body has long since emptied itself of tears, she now weeps blood.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's nothing but blood!
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's fucking cool.
BEN KISSEL
That is cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly if you're crying blood, see a doctor.
BEN KISSEL
See a doctor.
MARCUS PARKS
See a doctor.
BEN KISSEL
Very scary to see yourself though.
MARCUS PARKS
Furthermore, her hair has never stopped growing since she killed her children, it has become a tangled mess that wraps around her body. And likewise her nails have grown into claws so that she might more easily rake the muddy waters of streams, ditches, and shores for the bones of her murdered children.
BEN KISSEL
Can I ask her just go downstream a little bit because people find bodies all the time.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I did not come back from the dead searching for my children to get talked to by some man!
BEN KISSEL
I'm just a drunk guy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I know how to find my children!
BEN KISSEL
You wanna find your children?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I weep professionally.
BEN KISSEL
I know, I'm just saying-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I don't need you mansplaining how I'm supposed to mourn spectrally.
BEN KISSEL
Have you looked near the dam?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I did think about that but I ain't letting you tell me you're right.
BEN KISSEL
I'm not, I just want to help you get to heaven.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what? Why don't you just sit and listen to me cry and let me get it out instead of always offering advice to fix it.
BEN KISSEL
I'm sorry. I'm gonna drown myself now.
MARCUS PARKS
I'll say I'm not a river rat by any stretch of the imagination, that's a Texas term.
BEN KISSEL
I know what it is. But you always say things that no one's accused you of being.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I never said you were a river rat.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
But no, but I say that as to say I'm not an expert on Texas rivers. However I do know-
BEN KISSEL
Good, thank you for clarifying.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Because you know river rats-
BEN KISSEL
That's a whole lifestyle.
MARCUS PARKS
That's a whole lifestyle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a whole lifestyle.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a whole thing, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And I'm not saying it's bad, of course not. I have plenty of good, some of my best friends-
BEN KISSEL
Who are you speaking to?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't care!
BEN KISSEL
Who are you pretending that you're going to upset?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, who are you stepping around?
BEN KISSEL
We've covered so much rape and murder and at no point have you been like now I don't wanna step on any toes. But you've made up someone who's gonna be offended by something you're about to say about river rat lifestyle.
MARCUS PARKS
Well what I'm saying is that the rivers of Texas, specifically like the Brazos River, which I grew up off the Brazos River.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
The Brazos River has many forks, it has many branches, it has many tributaries.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Where's the spoons kept?
BEN KISSEL
Shut up.
MARCUS PARKS
So therefore La Llorona would have a difficult time figuring out which of these breaks, which of these brooks-
BEN KISSEL
Sure, gotcha.
MARCUS PARKS
Which of these forks her children's bones lay down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Do you think that maybe if she was Mr. Llorona she could figure it out? Is that what you're saying? Because men naturally have more iron in their nose?
BEN KISSEL
You know what is interesting? This is why if you do drown your kids like that one woman in the back of a car-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Andrea Yates.
BEN KISSEL
You know where they are. So you want to tie them all together as one. Because yeah, what does she have four kids or so?
MARCUS PARKS
I mean it depends. It could be one, it could be two. Most of the time it's at least two.
BEN KISSEL
So at least two. So that is a different path. That's difficult to do.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this creature is said to act without mercy nor hesitation. There is no negotiating with La Llorona, no argument. And this especially goes in other versions of the story in which she appears as a burning ball of furious flame.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can do a quick rundown of the various forms, right.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So yes, the traditional La Llorona is you see the woman in white weeping by a river, she turns around, scares the shit out of you, you run away. And I've read several stories. There was a really interesting book we got called 'La Llorona: Encounters with the Weeping Woman' which talks about the cultural importance of La Llorona which we're about to get into. But story I read where it's like a guy was driving right outside of Santa Fe, and this was back when Santa Fe was a very small city, and said that he saw an old woman on the edge of the street. And same thing, he's like now I knew something was different because it was like getting struck by lightning. I saw this old woman weeping and then as I drove past, she turned to look at me and where should be a face it was a black hole. And I just turned, I just did a full U-turn and just drove away from it, right.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Scared the living shit out of him. That's one version.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's another version that back when Las Vegas was just a small little town, like literally just a gambling outpost, right-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There was talk about like guys would go, the guys who were working there building Las Vegas. There was one story of a guy gambling and this beautiful woman, and he said how do I put it? It's like not the normal woman we see in this establishment.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Right?
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
A Salma Hayek arrives, right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She comes in, beautiful face, long brown hair, and she sits with her dress and she starts gambling and running everybody under the table. And they're all like she's great, she's great.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't know what to do with her. And men are literally falling in love with her. And she's saying like oh, you guys can all come back with me. And so finally one looks down and he felt the tapping on his foot and he's like oh, she's flirting with me. And he looked down and she did not possess a human foot but it was a hoof.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they freaked out. They were like La Llorona! And then they were all freaking out being like (humming My Sharona).
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) La Llorona!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And they freaked out.
BEN KISSEL
I think these guys are about to be leaving Las Vegas.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well what's interesting about Leaving Las Vegas was that he went there to die, so it's like he never left.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that something?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But then there's also a version of La Llorona that is a tumbling ball of flame. One story a guy saw what looked like the woman in white and then he realized it was morphing into this tumbling orb.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It looks like a bunch of flames. And he was just like oh shit, shit. Oh What the fuck, bro? Did you see that thing?
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it arrived and it landed in front of them and then turned into a bundle of blankets and then the bundle of blankets unfurled and it was a bunch of babies with razor sharp teeth.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god! That's the worst one yet.
MARCUS PARKS
Cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And everyone else said they thought that he was the most trustworthy man in the village, like we didn't think he would lie. And it haunted him all his days seeing these like little carnivorous children.
BEN KISSEL
Cenobites. All right, cool.
MARCUS PARKS
When it comes to the roots of La Llorona, the story is far more than a cautionary tale like so many that spring up around cultures that develop around bodies of water. It's also far more than a story that keeps kids from running off on their own and it's certainly far more than a cautionary tale meant to keep frat boys from drowning in the river.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
La Llorona is actually one of those rare legends that has its roots in both mythology and highly consequential historical events. It involves stories that involve beautiful women, terrifying creatures, and according to some opinions, the betrayal of an entire civilization.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is one of those stories when I typed in, I always go to my research and I go to like YouTube and I go like La Llorona.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Llorona!
BEN KISSEL
La La-rona.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And just kind of trying to see who popped up, right? And then the first thing that popped up was this very thick college level dissertation where it was these two teachers were talking on Zoom and they got really into the culture of Mexico.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I was like oh-
BEN KISSEL
That's when you checked out, huh?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's pretty intense.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I don't know if we're gonna be getting all of this.
BEN KISSEL
So that part that actually contained information you were just like nah, I don't want that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's just real thick. So we're just gonna say listen, this is gringo time.
MARCUS PARKS
It is.
BEN KISSEL
Get to ghost tits already, guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're gonna do our best to break down a lot of very complex themes within Mexican history.
MARCUS PARKS
Absolutely. And Mexican culture. It's extraordinarily complex.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
We're absolutely gonna do our best-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's thick.
MARCUS PARKS
To get into this.
BEN KISSEL
And what better three amigos to do it than us?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly I think it's finally time for Last Podcast on the Left to explain Mexico.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Do you have anything besides Mexican food?
BEN KISSEL
You know in Mexico it's just called food. Let's just, can we go drown ourselves?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's go.
MARCUS PARKS
Now since La Llorona is a terrifying Mexican legend, it's only logical that her mythological roots lie in the most terrifying Mesoamerican mythology, that of the Aztecs. And since it's a dark tale, it's only natural that the roots of La Llorona are related to human sacrifice. Now did the Aztecs practice human sacrifice? Most definitely.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They didn't just practice it, they got real good at it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah they nailed it, they got pro.
MARCUS PARKS
But was it a part of everyday life as it is often claimed?
BEN KISSEL
I hope so.
MARCUS PARKS
Unlikely.
BEN KISSEL
Unlikely.
MARCUS PARKS
Probably not.
BEN KISSEL
Man, that was when we toured Rome. We missed out on all the good shit.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that's when we should have been comedians. Ancient Rome.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
I mean Aztec sacrifice, it's one of the most hotly debated subjects in all of academia and archeology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh sure. Because who's writing the history?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well that's the thing, the vast majority of what we know about human sacrifice comes from the Spaniards who conquered and slaughtered them, just like everything we know about Druids comes from the Romans who invaded the British Isles. History is written by the victors.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
And just like the Romans, it was in the Spaniards' best interest to paint the Aztecs as pure barbarians. But when it comes to the crude ethnographies written by Spanish missionaries, they were actually usually pretty reliable when it came to the American indigenous peoples.
BEN KISSEL
And I'm just happy that in no way does the American history of our land have a similar tale.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no, no. We're straight shooters.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Straight shooters.
MARCUS PARKS
Well they're usually pretty reliable but the purpose is of course nefarious.
BEN KISSEL
Demonized.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. These chronicles of Mesoamerican tribal and cultural practices, these were guides for future missionaries to pervert existing cultural beliefs and turn them into Christian beliefs because look at how fucking well it worked with Christmas and Easter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, that rebrand was complete.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Like for example, when it comes to societies like the Aztecs, the missionaries can say oh y'all fucking love blood?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we do! Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
They like blood.
MARCUS PARKS
There's this fucking big bloody dude, he's always being tortured, his face is always bleeding.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool!
MARCUS PARKS
He's got this big fucking stab wound that's always bleeding.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck yeah, get him a bandaid though.
MARCUS PARKS
He's got fucking nails dripping into his hands and feet. Those are always fucking bleeding.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, fucking sweet!
MARCUS PARKS
Guess what, bro? We drink his blood once a week. It's awesome. You'll love it, do it or die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck yeah, dude!
BEN KISSEL
So that's the selling point.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah man, I drank blood last week and I got mono from it, man.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that nice? It's great that you can love something you're full of.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It really is.
BEN KISSEL
Isn't that nice?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But the story of La Llorona is tied into all of these mechanisms where who writes the stories of ancient groups, what do they serve, like what purpose do the writings serve for the people that are using it for their own benefit and also how they got this information? Because one of the actual origins of La Llorona kind of talks about what I mistakenly said incorrectly on the stream, like the idea that the Conquistadors when they arrived, they were outnumbered by the Aztecs. And they're sort of like this is fake, this is false, the idea that they were so overwhelmed by their technology that they just kind of gave up the ghost.
MARCUS PARKS
And also the the thing about them believing that Hernán Cortés was a god, that's totally untrue, totally false.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But what they did was that they worked their way, very similar to the CIA has left their imprint around the United States-
BEN KISSEL
If you bring up MK Ultra into this again, Walter-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's true.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I was there!
BEN KISSEL
How does it connect?
MARCUS PARKS
I agree with Henry on this wholeheartedly actually.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a very good analogy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Thank you. Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. I'm just saying we shoehorn-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Conquistadors would motivate the larger group of Aztecs or they would motivate the people that were on the lower rungs of society.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because at this time the society had already structured itself into a way where there was a group of a controlling class that ran everything and basically did what we're kind of going through right now where they are essentially like making sure that no one on the bottom got anything.
BEN KISSEL
When did the Conquistadors sprinkle crack everywhere?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is basically what they did but with La Llorona.
BEN KISSEL
Ah, she's the drug.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
La Llorona is the crack.
BEN KISSEL
I gotchu. Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Kinda. Kinda story, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Kinda simplified. But the idea that they would manipulate the bigger lower class to rise up against the controlling classes to help them flip the entire country.
BEN KISSEL
Gotchu.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And there is one woman who helped them do that which we'll get to here in a second.
BEN KISSEL
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
But those chronicles that we were talking about with the missionaries, they also worked as like a demon glossary. So the missionaries could properly recast previously revered gods as demons who have been tricking the indigenous people into worshiping them for centuries. Oh my god, it's so lucky that we came along, you've been worshiping a demon the entirety of your civilization.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh this guy's a demon!
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You could tell he'd be a snake, right. He'd be a snake and you see the snake and you think oh my god, I love this protector snake. He come, he break, he make society. He help all of us but turn out he a demon.
BEN KISSEL
Well the gods really weren't the problem. I think maybe the human sacrifice and things like that was an issue.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. What were we doing?
BEN KISSEL
But the Aztecs were a fully functioning society.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes they were.
BEN KISSEL
They didn't need the Conquistadors' help.
MARCUS PARKS
The Aztecs were an extraordinarily advanced society. All of the Mesoamerican cultures were extraordinarily advanced.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were fine.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Also can we just say this? Everyone's like oh they were so unbelievably extraordinary with technology. They had a clock. They made a big clock.
MARCUS PARKS
It was a calendar.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
It was a calendar.
BEN KISSEL
I'll do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And horses!
MARCUS PARKS
They didn't have horses. The Spaniards brought horses.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's what I'm saying, they showed up with horses. They're all like what the fuck is this thing?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a big ass dog!
MARCUS PARKS
They were confused about the horses, yeah. When they saw men on horses they did think like holy shit, that's one creature.
BEN KISSEL
It's a centaur.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, a centaur. Yeah. But the horses were a big deal as were the guns.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. Big hats.
MARCUS PARKS
But the Aztecs were also incredible warriors. But we'll get into the reasons later why they were not able to overtake or even fight back against the Spaniards all that well.
BEN KISSEL
Okay. Hop right into it.
MARCUS PARKS
But to the point of human sacrifice-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Let's get right into it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But the point of human sacrifice in Aztec culture being at least a part of the overall melange, it partly survived in oral tradition through La Llorona. See just before the Spaniards arrived, and we're gonna get into Aztec mythology right now-
BEN KISSEL
Cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Sacrifices were given to the great mother, Coatlicue. And I'm gonna do my best to-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is not too bad.
MARCUS PARKS
Thank you.
BEN KISSEL
He works hard on this though.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You'll be able to work your way through a Oaxacan menu pretty soon.
MARCUS PARKS
And Coatlicue was usually depicted wearing a long dress made of tangled rivers and drowning men.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yaaas!
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
In some versions of the Aztec creation myth, she created the world. Now Aztec mythology is fucking crazy violent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sweet.
MARCUS PARKS
But so is Greek mythology.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Remember fucking Saturn ate his son alive, the Titans. All that shit is incredibly violent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sometimes that son ain't good eating.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah I guess so.
MARCUS PARKS
That's not to mention again the crucifixion of Jesus has been portrayed as extraordinarily violent. In other words, a lot of belief systems have violent roots.
BEN KISSEL
I think all of them, don't they?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think all of them involve some kind of blood.
MARCUS PARKS
Plains Indian tribes usually don't. Their creation myths are usually very peaceful. They have to do with the land, coyotes, stuff like that. Yeah, those are actually-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Boring!
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Well honestly I mean that sounds awesome.
MARCUS PARKS
And the Jewish creation myth, that one's truly boring.
BEN KISSEL
What is it?
MARCUS PARKS
Let there be light.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well Kabbalah. The transmission of nothingness to somethingness.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, Genesis. And god said let there be light and that's it, god created the heaven and earth.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God's just a fucking executive.
BEN KISSEL
Buddy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just saying horseshit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's just saying you know what, it'd actually be nice if there was some light in here.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then he makes everybody else go scurry around and make it happen.
BEN KISSEL
Garden of Eden, yeah. I bet you they really enjoyed that series called Family Pies. They all fucked each other. According to that we're all incest babies.
MARCUS PARKS
Family Pies, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We are.
BEN KISSEL
We're not.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We are. All of humankind is incest babies at some point.
MARCUS PARKS
All of humankind. We've been getting caught in fucking washers and dryers since the beginning of time.
BEN KISSEL
We gotta figure out how to clean these clothes better.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Maybe that's one of those things that La Llorona is warning against cause if she's stuck down in a river, don't you come and do your naughty stepfather business with her.
BEN KISSEL
I wonder if you did just leave a pile of dirty clothes, if she'd wash it. Well let's move on.
MARCUS PARKS
Well some people argue that the Aztecs are mostly misunderstood, that they just loved violent stories.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Because as we know, just because people have violent interests that doesn't mean that they're violent people.
BEN KISSEL
No.
MARCUS PARKS
In fact most of the time, as our audience knows all too well, it's usually the exact opposite.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, everybody I know who looks scary a lot of time is the most gentle loving person on the face-
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Everybody I know with face tattoos in 2023 is an incredibly sweet person.
BEN KISSEL
And now we live in a world where khakis and blue shirts or red shirts-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Means you're the fucking devil.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. It used to be Target employee and now it's neo Nazi.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But as one of the violent Aztec myths go that are related to La Llorona, a goddess named Cihuacoatl helped the god Quetzalcoatl create the current human race by grinding up the bones of the people from the previous ages.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Well I'm sorry, I really-
MARCUS PARKS
And that's using Quetzalcoatl's blood.
BEN KISSEL
Sorry, I gotta take a shit. I'm gonna waddle out of here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
This is great. This is really, really good.
BEN KISSEL
My nickname was Crap-a-waddle.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're really trying here.
MARCUS PARKS
I'm really trying.
BEN KISSEL
No, you're nailing it.
MARCUS PARKS
Cihuacoatl by the way was Coatlicue's daughter.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We're just gonna get so many emails.
BEN KISSEL
You're married to a... She's fluent in Spanish.
MARCUS PARKS
This isn't Spanish, this is Aztec.
BEN KISSEL
I don't fucking know then. Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She helped a little bit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, she's fluent and also she's not Mexican, she's Colombian and Peruvian.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you piece of shit.
BEN KISSEL
I didn't say she was Mexican.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Fuck you. I can't fucking believe-
BEN KISSEL
I didn't say she was Mexican.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
How dare you?
BEN KISSEL
Beautiful people all around. Everyone is beautiful.
MARCUS PARKS
Well Coatlicue meanwhile was decapitated by her children on the orders of one of her daughters, the Moon Goddess, who with shades of La Llorona was upset with her mother because her mother had become pregnant by a man who was not the moon goddess' father. There's a bit of infidelity here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's a little bit of a telenovela.
MARCUS PARKS
Little bit, little bit.
BEN KISSEL
So even if you were a god you get cheated on?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Jesus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Women be trifling.
BEN KISSEL
I guess so.
MARCUS PARKS
But from the bloody neck stump of Coatlicue sprung the fruit of that forbidden union, the Aztec god of war, Huitzilopochtli.
BEN KISSEL
Cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's cool.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
And seeing that his mother had been killed, Huitzilopochtli dismembered hundreds of his siblings and decapitated the moon goddess.
BEN KISSEL
Whoa!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He's mad.
MARCUS PARKS
He then threw her head into the sky and that head became the moon.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh I see.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, they had the coolest fucking myths.
BEN KISSEL
That is awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It seems to be none of you seem to pay attention to me unless I'm full. Oh that's fine. Oh now you're all taking pictures. Oh okay.
BEN KISSEL
No we love you, moon goddess. Thank you for the tides.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no, there's no reason. Why should you? There's no reason to call.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god. We love you. I speak to you every night, moon goddess.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I held you in my vagina.
BEN KISSEL
I know, thank you.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
For nine months. They cut a hole in me!
BEN KISSEL
I know, moon goddess.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They cut a hole in me!
BEN KISSEL
I know. I love you, mama moon. I love you.
MARCUS PARKS
Well in another La Llorona connection, Cihuacoatl, she of the bone grinding, she was also the patroness of mothers who die in childbirth. Because in Aztec culture childbirth was compared to warfare and women who died in childbirth were honored as fallen soldiers.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was extremely dangerous at the time.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was extremely dangerous until like 1965.
MARCUS PARKS
I would say more like 2005.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Damn.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It's still dangerous. It isn't easy to do.
MARCUS PARKS
In a terrifying twist, these women became skull-faced spirits known as the Cihuateteo who would haunt crossroads at night where they would do what else but steal children.
BEN KISSEL
Why the fuck did the Conquistadors change this culture? I would have been like one of the invaders being like you know what, you guys are really cool.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You guys are crushing this. I'm with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Why don't we arm y'all and be with you guys and we all hang out here?
BEN KISSEL
Skull god.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, and then eventually we'll turn it around and go back and conquer Europe.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Dude, that would have been great.
BEN KISSEL
Europe could have used a little bit of cool shit.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because I want to say a lot of this, people talk about obviously that some of this is very symbolic of Mexican-American culture, kind of the way we deal with each other, but this is really an anti-Spain podcast. And I'm still like we need to go for Spain. I think that's where a lot of the anger needs to be directed towards because they started it, making the plates smaller. All these fucking guys do all day long, they take off all afternoon. They just get to sleep.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Absolutely.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The rest of us gotta go to work.
BEN KISSEL
Shaped like a boot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's Italy.
BEN KISSEL
No, that's Spain.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's Italy.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
MARCUS PARKS
Now when it came to an urban setting, it was said that Cihuacoatl roamed the canals of the Aztec capital of Tenochtitlan wearing a cradle board on her back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. The cradle board, that's like the little backpack for babies.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. But on that cradle board was not a child but an obsidian flint knife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
The kind used in human sacrifice.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a cool name of like a new John Wick style movie called like Single Dad. Except he's just got a baby carrier just full of guns.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well I like the idea of just a cool knife, bring knife fighting back.
MARCUS PARKS
Obsidian knife, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I was watching some old Jack Chan films the other day which was on TV.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
He uses everything.
BEN KISSEL
So cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Well ironically though the story that partly inspired La Llorona was not meant for kids. Instead it seems like it was aimed more towards young parents, at least this is kind of my interpretation of this tale as I read it. In what sounds like a cautionary tale meant to discourage mothers from leaving their children unattended, a woman goes to the market but leaves the child behind in a crib while she goes to shop and hang out with her friends.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Madeleine McCann.
BEN KISSEL
Don't bring them into this, they're innocent.
MARCUS PARKS
But when she returns the child is gone, replaced with an obsidian flint knife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cool! Dad says.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, I guess.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa, my fucking daughter's a knife now, that's awesome.
BEN KISSEL
Most of the time when your kid is kidnapped they don't leave anything.
MARCUS PARKS
No.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe a ransom note or something.
MARCUS PARKS
This signifies that Cihuacoatl has traded the knife for the child and the child has been taken away on the crib strapped to Cihuacoatl's back.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Man, knife fairy.
BEN KISSEL
Knife fairy is really cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
What you can do is just say they're going to have a better life that way. And look at my new knife.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. But look at this knife.
BEN KISSEL
It's kind of cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Well to round out the Aztec influence on La Llorona when it comes to mythology, another likely inspiration for this cultural amalgamation is a creator creature known as the hungry woman.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. This creature, a lot of times what it'll do is-
BEN KISSEL
THat's a name I can say.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When you sit to order food at a restaurant, she'll say oh I'm not very hungry right now. But then when you order something, she'll take half.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Or when you're sitting at home and you're trying to decide what to get for delivery, she'll say that she's hungry and yet every suggestion you make-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She says no!
BEN KISSEL
Guys, this is not your podcast The Husbands Can Be Right Sometimes Every Now and Again.
MARCUS PARKS
Well this wandering god, the hungry woman, she is covered with dozens of mouths that cry out not for children but for food.
BEN KISSEL
This is awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's cool.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. It's said that the hungry woman is Coatlicue herself, the devouring mother who contains both the womb and the grave.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes!
BEN KISSEL
We're talking this is like gangbang gold right here. A lot of mouths.
MARCUS PARKS
Cause of all the mouths.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The mouths.
MARCUS PARKS
All the mouths.
BEN KISSEL
Blowbang, they call it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I actually was thinking I feel like the hungry woman's a good new like, you know they have like a chicken pop up.
BEN KISSEL
Oh sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You get a hungry woman and you just see all the different mouths but there's a chicken sandwich for each one of the mouths.
BEN KISSEL
I actually love that idea.
MARCUS PARKS
And Ben I think this gangbang, it's not gonna go the way you want it.
BEN KISSEL
Why?
MARCUS PARKS
Because there's so many mouths, all you're gonna see is dudes' butts.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh, I hate that.
MARCUS PARKS
Think about it. Think about it.
BEN KISSEL
I hate that.
MARCUS PARKS
You're only gonna see dudes' butts.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just show up and you're like oh fuck, I'm late. And then you just see like two guys with step ladders at both steps, you see two guys like in a triangle on each other's backs.
BEN KISSEL
La La-rona is really just a parable about being late to the gangbang.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So far.
BEN KISSEL
The hungry woman I suppose more the parable in that case.
MARCUS PARKS
But while La Llorona obviously has roots in Aztec mythology, she owes perhaps even more of her existence to the 1519 arrival of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés. He was there seeking the three Gs: god, gold, and glory.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Can you feel the power? Can you feel the glory? This is where it gets complicated.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now what's fascinating in this context is that 10 years before Cortés arrived, the Aztecs began witnessing a series of bad omens that they believed were signaling the arrival of mysterious men who would wage war on Tenochtitlan. Laying some very strong groundwork for the future legend of La Llorona, omen number six involved a native woman covered in chalk, dressed all in white. According to accounts, she wandered the streets of Tenochtitlan and was heard crying and screaming throughout the night, saying:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"My children, we now have to live far away."
MARCUS PARKS
Or:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"My children, where should I take you?"
BEN KISSEL
Disneyland!
MARCUS PARKS
No.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Not now!
MARCUS PARKS
Supposedly this woman was the aforementioned goddess Cihuacoatl. Seven years after that omen a famine began and Cihuacoatl again appeared in the streets of Tenochtitlan, crying in hunger. She would say:
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
"Oh my children, we are about to be lost."
MARCUS PARKS
Finally to make all of this as horrible as possible, these omens were linked at the very end of the Spanish conquest when it was said that the hungry woman ate a baby boy in his crib.
BEN KISSEL
Wow, hungry indeed.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it extends. So this is really kind of about... What they learned was you could take these legends and you could flip them for their own good.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Like the conquistadors understood that if you got in and started to understand how to speak their language, how they speak to each other culturally, that's the best way to manipulate a people.
BEN KISSEL
You wrap a baby in a tortilla, you cook that up, I mean that is not the worst.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
When it comes down to it, who knows?
MARCUS PARKS
Not the worst. Now when you say not the worst-
BEN KISSEL
If you're gonna eat human flesh, I would assume a baby's flesh is slightly more tender and I don't want to talk about it anymore.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You've already on this, you've opened it up. And actually I know from accounts of cannibals that they say that those that have eaten baby meat, they say that it's very similar to fish, that it actually falls apart.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh. I'm sorry, I apologize.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You did this.
BEN KISSEL
I was trying to bring some levity to it and I realize it was the opposite.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It would be incredible in a taco.
MARCUS PARKS
Now we're about to get into history here.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And it might be a little bit controversial. I know some of our listeners might have some very strong opinions on this one way or another.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And you're correct. We don't know, we've learned as much as we could about this subject. But for some people it's just a line in a history book and for some people there's a lot of ideological stances attached to this character in history.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And things that reverberate to this very day.
BEN KISSEL
Are we gonna get into CRT?
MARCUS PARKS
CRT?
BEN KISSEL
Critical race theory! It's a joke about modern America!
MARCUS PARKS
Modern America.
BEN KISSEL
You guys.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We don't have kids. I tried to talk to Wendy about the racist beginnings of this country. And she kept saying, she's talking about pulling the ladder up and doesn't care about anybody else and she's already made it to this country and she doesn't care.
BEN KISSEL
All right, let's move on.
MARCUS PARKS
Now we don't need to get into the details of how Cortés destroyed the Aztec Empire so quickly. But for the purposes of our story, we're gonna discuss the controversial woman who helped him do it. Her given name was Malintzin but the Mexican people would come to know her as La Malinche, aka the tongue.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh did she meet the Dalai Lama?
BEN KISSEL
Oh my god. Yeah, kiss my tongue.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Suck my tongue!
BEN KISSEL
That is such a fucking, that's scary. The tongue.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's controversial.
MARCUS PARKS
Controversial.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Now the legend goes that La Malinche had been a member of Aztec nobility who'd been captured and enslaved by the Mayans at the age of eight or nine. But as it turned out, she had a knack for languages. And by the time Cortés arrived from Spain many years later, La Malinche was fluent in the languages of both the Aztec and Mayan empires.
BEN KISSEL
Wow.
MARCUS PARKS
Now when Cortés first arrived, he was given a large peace offering by the Mayans which included 20 enslaved women. Amongst those women was La Malinche, the enslaved Aztec noble. She was baptized as a Catholic and given the European name of Marina.
BEN KISSEL
Seems like the peace offering was actually exceptionally violent.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh very much so.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And if you thought La Malinche was very interesting, you should have met La... I don't know how to say butt in Spanish.
BEN KISSEL
Good word.
MARCUS PARKS
Culo. La Culo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. She was nice.
BEN KISSEL
Very good.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Wow. But the nice thing is I actually saw someone hit a grand slam and they barely even hit the ball but everyone in the infield did so poorly. So we're doing okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's all we gotta do. It's all about in the park home run.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Now since La Malinche was reportedly beautiful, she was given to a Spanish nobleman. But when Hernán Cortés discovered how good she was with languages, he took her as his own personal slave and she thereafter quickly learned Spanish. As an interpreter and eventually an advisor, La Malinche participated in every major event associated with the Spanish conquest of Mexico all the way to the fall of Tenochtitlan in 1521. She was like a mirror universe version of Sacagawea.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Evil Mexican Pocahontas.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Now reportedly Cortés told one of his men that next to god, La Malinche was the most important factor to his success. Now soon after the Aztecs were conquered, La Malinche gave birth to Hernán Cortés' son, Martín. Martín is therefore considered the first mestizo, the first boy that was a mix of the Spanish and indigenous people that now make up the nation of Mexico. She's sometimes seen as the mother of the Mexican people.
BEN KISSEL
They didn't call him baby tongue, did they?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, no, no, no, no, no, no. I don't ever want to meet anybody with the nickname baby tongue.
BEN KISSEL
Oh god.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hey my name is Grant but you can call me baby tongue.
BEN KISSEL
Oh I need to see that.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Being like oh are you here for the the interview?
BEN KISSEL
What if you were on a date, everything is going great, and they open their mouth and they have a little baby tongue.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What's going on? A little tiny tongue.
BEN KISSEL
A little tiny tongue.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I lost most of my tongue in the tongue wars in 2013.
MARCUS PARKS
However the people of Mexico who have an opinion on La Malinche are usually split between one extreme or the other. Some see her as, as I said, the symbolic mother of the new Mexican people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, of the new Mexico.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
She's like this idea, she's the combination of cultures.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. She is also seen as a woman who might have helped mitigate the suffering of her people from the inside. Someone who saw there's no way we're going to beat the Spanish, there's no way we're gonna beat these guys, so let's try to bring an end to this as soon as possible.
BEN KISSEL
She probably said something like it's not selling out, it's buying in.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's buying in.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And other people say that since she was enslaved that meant that she had no choice but to collaborate.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And they also say that she is unfairly made a scapegoat.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Because of that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Because in Mexican culture, Mexican culture can be very misogynistic, Latino culture can be very misogynistic. And some Latino feminists see her as an unfairly maligned woman.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah because again what you're seeing is a guy who used her inside knowledge to help gain the trust of many people and then used that, it depends on what you think. Are you happy with Hernán Cortés' actions? I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
But the biggest thing was that through her interpretation, what she was able to interpret as Henry said earlier, she was able to very quickly interpret Hernán Cortés' intentions to these lower classes of the Aztec people. So he was able to form, basically he was able to show up, form an army, and fuck people up really fast.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's the thing, through that other people see La Malinche as a traitor of the highest order who hastened the defeat of the Aztecs when she really didn't have to. In other words it's not her fucking choice to say who should live and who should die.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But that's why the La Llorona story is so... The way people talk about it, it's just this mixture of rage and sadness and forlornness because it's many things. It's this idea of it's a complicated ghost.
MARCUS PARKS
Very complicated.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's this thing where you look at it, you don't know really where it's coming from. Like what were the intentions of this if it was indeed a real force?
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's symbolic of that, this idea of are we settling ourselves out like a mother who kills her own children?
BEN KISSEL
Terrible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a symbol. It's a symbolic example of quote unquote "selling out your country".
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I mean that's why Wisconsin's great, they have a thing called a Hodag which is a big ass beaver.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It literally just is a thing that sits there. And I think it only says Hodag. I think that's why they call it the Hodag.
BEN KISSEL
They also have a sandwich called a Hodag. It's a whole thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, exactly. The Bigfoot is just a big guy.
BEN KISSEL
Big old foot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yep.
MARCUS PARKS
Well some of these people argue that because of La Malinche, the Aztecs didn't have enough time to adapt to the Spanish ways of warfare, that eventually if they would have been able to just kind of battle them on their own they would have figured out how to go against guns, they would have figured out how to kill horses. They would have at least been able to fight-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
To fuck some shit up, yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
To fuck some shit up for as long as they could until of course the smallpox set in and then after that they're fucked. And others say that she could have refused to collaborate altogether. She could have chose death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, she could have got murdered.
MARCUS PARKS
But she could have chose death over the betrayal of her people.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Tough options. Tough options all around.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
So it's about a ghost story about somebody that's damned by their choices because also you're a woman in society so you're just kind of forced to do these things. And then you're kind of punished for it by society.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Sure, sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, exactly. And I might be misinterpreting this but from what I can tell, Malinche is still like a slang term, it's still used today. It's used by some people as a sort of like... It's like an Uncle Tom pejorative.
BEN KISSEL
Benedict Arnold.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yup.
BEN KISSEL
I actually don't know the story of Benedict Arnold.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a whole thing. It's actually much worse than Benedict Arnold because this is like somebody who... It's basically someone who prefers Eurocentric cultures to their own.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I can compare it to the fact that Joe Gatto left the Impractical Jokers.
BEN KISSEL
How? How?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Divorce. He was forced to in the divorce.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well a prime example of this, the prime recent example of this is the Latino white supremacist who killed eight people in Dallas, what, two weeks ago? Do you even remember?
BEN KISSEL
Dude, I was speaking of this on Abe Lincoln's Top Hat and it's that race and ethnicity, different things. It's a whole thing.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's very complicated.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It's very complicated. There's a very good article in The Atlantic this week about it.
BEN KISSEL
I was speaking about The Atlantic the other day.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What is happening here? Should I break out the Metamucil? What's going on here? We gonna do some shots of wheatgrass and shit?
MARCUS PARKS
But no matter what, the modern interpretation of La Malinche's legacy may be, whether it's one way or the other-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we don't know.
MARCUS PARKS
At the time in the 1500s, she was definitely seen as a villain to the people of Mexico when she was alive.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
And as we shall soon see, her actions and the subsequent consequences slowly began to intertwine with Aztec mythology, thus helping to create La Llorona. Now once the Aztecs were conquered, the Spaniards began to recast the Aztec mythological heroes as villains. One Spanish cleric said that the Aztecs' ancestors had erred in their worship of these gods, specifically gods like Cihuacoatl who had terrified the Aztec people throughout the night by her extensive wailing and crying. It's like why do you want to worship that guy when you could have Jesus?
BEN KISSEL
Right. Jesus never cried once. He was a manly man.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No. Jesus fucking got caught and murdered. All right? He was weak.
BEN KISSEL
I like my saviors not caught.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I like my saviors not caught.
BEN KISSEL
But also I think Jesus, there's a whole bunch of shit where he was crying like a bunch.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well he was trying to get out of it.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, he was crying.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then there's also the concept of a sacrificial god, like we are all supposed to sacrifice something because we're not good enough for heaven.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We must kill some part of something that belongs to us in order to get all the good stuff in the end. So we make sure that we live a really shit ass boring life on this planet. And then we can go to the fun party. Again, Gilles de Rais, Michael Jackson, killers, all these guys just hanging out out there, man.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Never forget Jeffrey Dahmer.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Just loving life.
BEN KISSEL
Thought you were gonna go with Epstein on that one. All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Well sure enough by 1550, a few decades after the Spanish defeat of the Aztecs, the goddess Cihuacoatl had become a ghostly white apparition of a sobbing woman wandering the canals. She was now named La Llorona. Now this first La Llorona was indeed a cautionary tale but it seems like the first lesson La Llorona was meant to teach was don't fuck a conquistador because you ain't La Malinche.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you're not trying to be a La Malinche either.
MARCUS PARKS
it ain't gonna happen.
BEN KISSEL
That was the first lesson?
MARCUS PARKS
That was the first lesson.
BEN KISSEL
Don't suck that dick.
MARCUS PARKS
Don't fuck a conquistador because basically it was common for Spaniards to promise indigenous women the moon. I'm gonna make you a noblewoman, I'm gonna take you back to Spain, I'm gonna give you a better life. All you gotta do is fuck me and everything will be great.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These men.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But as soon as the relationship became boring or inconvenient, the Spaniards would toss the women and whatever children they'd fathered aside. And of course you tell the story of like if you do this, if this happens to you, then you could lose your mind like La Llorona, you might murder your children like La Llorona.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it'll hollow out your whole life. You've traded out your culture.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, you've traded out everything and your entire life will fall apart and you will wander the canals for all eternity.
BEN KISSEL
That lesson still holds true to this day. Be careful who you have kids with because yeah, they might just end up going to a quick trip and never coming back.
MARCUS PARKS
However when it comes to La Malinche, it's hard to say whether La Llorona was inspired by rumors concerning La Malinche or whether people applied the La Llorona story to La Malinche after her death in order to make her death far more tragic than it really was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Comme ci, comme ça.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I think it's a little half of one.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, half of one. Six of one, half dozen on the other. Now it's thought that La Llorona first appeared about a year before La Malinche died. But a story sprung up around La Malinche's death that was at the very least the first half of the La Llorona tale. It was said that when Hernán Cortés announced that he would be returning to Spain with his mestizo son Martín but without La Malinche, she took a sacrificial obsidian knife and plunged it into her son's heart in the manner of an Aztec sacrifice, then did the same to herself. Good storytelling.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Very good storytelling.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Damn.
MARCUS PARKS
Now that of course wasn't true at all. After Cortés left, La Malinche married a different Spanish nobleman and died fat and happy as far as we know.
BEN KISSEL
Just get all fat and happy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Get all fat and sassy.
BEN KISSEL
Go home, cook some soup.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Make soups.
BEN KISSEL
Eat some bread, some desserts.
MARCUS PARKS
But it does say something that people wanted her to die a horrible death.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh Yeah, they wanted this to be real.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They were very hopeful that she was the phantom that was crying, searching, looking for their lost children because that would feel like a fate appropriate for the person that sold us out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
it is 50/50, right? Because it's like very greatest revenge is to live a happy life. I'll say Corey Feldman, good for you, you're winning.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
But Dick Cheney is also still alive.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I mean yes.
BEN KISSEL
So it's like ah!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well in fact after the Mexican Revolution of 1810, Mexican nationalists began to directly compare La Malinche to La Llorona. Although in their minds, La Malinche was far worse because after all La Llorona had only drowned her own children.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And those were her kids.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
You're allowed to. I brought you into this world, I'll take you out.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. But La Malinche had, according to the opinions of these people, she had condemned her entire people by aiding and abetting the cruel Conquistadors who had tried erasing the Aztec and Mayan identities from Mexico completely, not to mention how many people they fucking killed.
BEN KISSEL
So it's now an amalgamation.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
So it's a series of dystopian gods kind of.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And that's why the ghost holds such a powerful cultural hold over many people.
BEN KISSEL
Sure.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And it continues and it evolves. And again, it's just how many people have seen La Llorona, how many people have talked about this style. And yes, the banshees are in other cultures, there's other cultures, but the weeping woman-
BEN KISSEL
The leprechaun just shows us that the Irish aren't great at investing properly.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the problem that leprechauns need to understand, it is nice to put it in a mutual fund.
BEN KISSEL
Put it in a lockbox.
MARCUS PARKS
Now when it came to horror stories involving the Conquistadors, some went far beyond mere consorting. But many of those stories still had a sort of La Llorona ending. In one tale the Conquistadors who first arrived in Mexico were so taken by the beauty of Aztec children that they kidnapped the most beautiful kids and gave them to their Spanish wives as gifts.
BEN KISSEL
They went with the kids there. I thought you were gonna say women.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, thanks.
BEN KISSEL
And then they were like...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they were like ugh.
BEN KISSEL
Look at these beautiful children. Lemme just get out of here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. You got anything else?
BEN KISSEL
How about something like older?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You got some kind of necklace or something?
MARCUS PARKS
Here's a screaming, terrified child for you to take care of.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Well there goes the milk.
BEN KISSEL
Oh lord. I thought flowers were kinda bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, I didn't know it was gonna happen so fast. Whoa, whoa, whoa! Here comes that milk!
BEN KISSEL
You know how to be a mom. That's all it is is just shooting your tit milk.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa!
BEN KISSEL
Men and women, huh?
MARCUS PARKS
Well when this became a trend, it was said that some Aztec women killed their children rather than give them up to the hated Spanish and La Llorona was one such woman. But in an extra twist, this La Llorona kills whatever child she finds during her wandering, perhaps echoing the old sacrificial Aztec beliefs. A child for a child.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. Child vs child.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's fun.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That would be cool.
MARCUS PARKS
But although the rumors and legends ran rampant, there actually was a case in Mexico City around 1550 which may have been a direct inspiration for part of the La Llorona story. Although in this tale no water is involved. Water seems to be something that is applied afterwards.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Here an Aztec princess fell in love with a nobleman and bore him twins. The nobleman promised to marry her but of course married someone else instead.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
These men.
BEN KISSEL
And twins.
MARCUS PARKS
The princess showed up on the night of his wedding party to confront him. But when he humiliated her in public and turned her away, she returned home and stabbed her twins to death with a dagger that the nobleman had given to her as a gift.
BEN KISSEL
The thing is how do you tell the chick that you're married that you want to add one more?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's such a hard conversation.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You know what you need to start with is some nice music, set up some nice music, you show up like baby-
BEN KISSEL
You guys like each other, why don't you guys just try to kiss each other?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You guys, you guys.
BEN KISSEL
You make yourself the male cuck, they just do what they do.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, you guys like this.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Maybe they don't like it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a hard conversation.
BEN KISSEL
Unless they love each other.
MARCUS PARKS
It's a hard sell on the wedding night.
BEN KISSEL
Well yeah because it's all like you didn't plan for it, you don't have an extra burger plate for her.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, everyone's mad, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it's a whole thing.
MARCUS PARKS
Well having lost her mind during the act of murder, this woman then wandered the streets in torn blood soaked clothing, crying for her children. For some reason, I think it was because she used the dagger, she was found guilty of both murder and sorcery and she was therefore hanged for her crimes.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh great.
MARCUS PARKS
She was gonna be hanged either way.
BEN KISSEL
Oh okay, I was gonna say.
MARCUS PARKS
But they just tacked sorcery on there.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, make sure she's extra hanged.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Gotcha.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, still a child murderer.
BEN KISSEL
Gotcha.
MARCUS PARKS
Well from there it was just a short jump to turn her into a wandering spirit who searches for her murdered children. And because the people of Mexico needed a myth that kept kids away from water, all of these stories of wandering child murdering women, they were all combined with the trauma of a conquistador conquest. And it all got mixed up to create La Llorona.
BEN KISSEL
And you know it is an interesting compromise getting rid of Title 42 but then putting the statue of La Llorona right by the border.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. It is really intense. There's also something to the taboo of a mother killing her children.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
No, it's a taboo.
MARCUS PARKS
It makes her more scary.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Some people are just not into it.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
I know.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it is a specific taste, it is a required taste to kill your children.
BEN KISSEL
It is taboo.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But it's weird cause there really is a point to it, cause see how many stories. I was just following the Letecia Stauch case which is another case of a woman killing her son. I got really into this year for some reason, I've been watching a lot of interrogation footage.
BEN KISSEL
Of course Lori Vallow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I've been really getting into negligent child homicide, child negligence. Or was it homicidal child negligence.
BEN KISSEL
When you say you're getting into it, like it's like hockey?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's like me and a couple of parents meet up a couple of times a week and just talk about how to ignore best.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And you as the non parent-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Which child do we torture?
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And you as the non parent, you get to show up and think outside the box. Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's the thing, I'm objective.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I can take a look at their kids and be like well her legs are not gonna make her good for any sports. So I feel like that's the one we gotta starve out.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
That's great.
MARCUS PARKS
Now while La Llorona certainly still lives on an oral tradition to this day, back in 1986 a woman in Houston brought the legend of La Llorona to life. A 29 year old woman named Juana-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
What is this like the live action Lion King remake?
BEN KISSEL
This is scary.
MARCUS PARKS
A 29 year old woman named Juana Leija took her seven children on a bus to the Buffalo Bayou River where the kids thought they were gonna have a picnic.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, we're gonna have a picnic and all your favorites are gonna be there. Beethoven is gonna be there.
BEN KISSEL
This is gonna be bad.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And Prince is gonna come. You guys love Zsa Zsa Gabor.
BEN KISSEL
Dude, honestly if Prince and Beethoven could rock and roll in one concert, holy hell.
MARCUS PARKS
That'd be nice. That'd be great. I don't know if the egos would match.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's such a funny...
BEN KISSEL
No, they're getting paid. They're getting paid.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a stupid idea. I just feel they'd all be like I worked for so long.
BEN KISSEL
No, they like to do it.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
They go oh, so we gotta do a gig now?
BEN KISSEL
He likes to do it.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh man, just those rock and roll fantasies. Just Beethoven and Prince.
BEN KISSEL
Oh wow, oh, I'm so sorry that I have a little bit of class and panache.
MARCUS PARKS
Rock and roll jam. Oh man, that's the best rock and roll jam I ever heard of.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it's no Spunk and the Lovedicks, whatever the fuck you listen to. Yeah, we're doing a 10 parter on The Lunks. Yeah, they're The Lunks.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Don't make fun of our other highly successful show.
MARCUS PARKS
Yes, yes.
BEN KISSEL
The Lunks make a great... They're fart metal.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Doobie Brothers, that's pedestrian. We're actually talking about, they're called The Octopus Bunch and they only do songs about shovels.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, absolutely.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah, it's great.
MARCUS PARKS
100%. And I love it. You know what? That's how I choose to live. Nay, that's how I must live.
BEN KISSEL
Great.
MARCUS PARKS
Well indeed once this woman and her children arrived at Buffalo... I don't know why I can't say Buffalo Bayou.
BEN KISSEL
Buffalo Bayou.
MARCUS PARKS
I keep saying Buffaloo Buyow.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's because there's no such thing as a bayou in Buffalo.
BEN KISSEL
That's true. Well...
MARCUS PARKS
But once they arrived at Buffalo Bayou Park, located just outside of downtown Houston.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh none of this is right.
MARCUS PARKS
Right in the middle of Houston.
BEN KISSEL
Okay.
MARCUS PARKS
Juana took her kids to the banks of the river and just started tossing them into the water one by one.
BEN KISSEL
Ugh. Jesus.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That's a terrible Olympic sport and I'm glad they cut it out.
BEN KISSEL
It's really bad. All right.
MARCUS PARKS
Her eldest however, an 11 year old, escaped and ran to get help.
BEN KISSEL
Good.
MARCUS PARKS
A passerby named Chris Sweet meanwhile heard screaming and turned to see Juana struggling to throw the last remaining child into the water. But by the time Sweet ran to help, five were already in the water and two were already floating face down.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Jesus.
BEN KISSEL
Oh no.
MARCUS PARKS
After Sweet jumped in, he was joined by a security guard named Gilbert Chavez and together they were able to save three kids. But the 5 year old and the 6 year old, the 6 year old named Judas-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa, that is an intense name.
BEN KISSEL
Judas?
MARCUS PARKS
I've never heard of anyone naming their kid Judas.
BEN KISSEL
I don't think that she wanted him to live.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, if your name is Judas as a child...
BEN KISSEL
I actually kind of like the sound of it.
MARCUS PARKS
The sound of it is cool, yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's a cool name but it means ultimate betrayal.
BEN KISSEL
for a turncoat who hangs yourself.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Right.
MARCUS PARKS
Well he died after being rushed to the hospital. Now when police interviewed Juana after the murders, she said that she'd been worn down by a life of poverty and domestic abuse.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Sure.
MARCUS PARKS
Noting that her husband had recently beaten her so badly that she couldn't eat. She was hearing voices.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS
It was later discovered that she was bipolar and somewhat like child murderer, Andrea Yates, coincidentally also from Houston-
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Weird.
MARCUS PARKS
Juana said that she wanted to kill her kids because she didn't want them to live in this quote unquote "bad world" anymore.
BEN KISSEL
That's horrible.
MARCUS PARKS
And she planned on jumping in after the kids were dead.
BEN KISSEL
And that's why we're here to talk about social safety nets and why they're needed. Programs like SNAP for example, let's discuss the debt ceiling, shall we?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, I love a good C-SPAN conversation.
BEN KISSEL
What was the years? This was the 70s?
MARCUS PARKS
86.
BEN KISSEL
86? That is so horrible.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah. But I do find the difference between female family annihilators and male family annihilators, a lot of times it comes down to an emotional quotient. The moms seem to be a lot sadder about killing everybody but the dads are just super excited to move to New Jersey.
BEN KISSEL
Is this your version of women drive like this and men drive like that?
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, this is my club appearance for comedy, yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Here at Chuckle Hut, he's got some of the best murder comparison stories.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah. The moms like to drown their kids, I guess they want to go to the pool. But dads, they mostly bury them in a field. I guess every father wants to be a gardener.
BEN KISSEL
I love this bit.
MARCUS PARKS
Well with women, what it seems like from what few child murderers I have studied, especially like family annihilator child murderers when it comes to women, it's about mercy. It's about I want these kids to not have to suffer on earth anymore, therefore I'm going and drown them.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it comes up.
MARCUS PARKS
Almost always.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
That theme comes up a lot.
MARCUS PARKS
That theme comes up a lot. And with men it's usually like...
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Save you from my embarrassments.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. Well with men it's usually like I want to get out of here.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Actually Jessica and I just started talking and she's 28 she's got different knockers than this wife I currently have and they're all kind of in the way.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah. And if I get the divorce, I'm gonna have to change my status on Facebook.
BEN KISSEL
That's a lot.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yeah, I'm gonna hear it from everybody.
BEN KISSEL
Yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And so therefore put them in the ground.
BEN KISSEL
Reminds me of that Dear Zachary documentary. If you wanna cry, watch that one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh it's fucked up.
MARCUS PARKS
Ugh. Reportedly though, when Juana Leija was interviewed by a Mexican folklorist the same year she killed her kids, it was said that she looked him in the eye and said I am La Llorona.
BEN KISSEL
(screaming)
MARCUS PARKS
But of course she was very mentally ill.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh yes.
MARCUS PARKS
And actually Texas gave her a very fair sentence, it was surprising. You'd think they would have sent her to the fucking chair.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
She got like deferred adjudication. They made sure that she got some mental health help.
BEN KISSEL
I hope so.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, they should have.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah. Most of the kids lived.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And then that was it? You got a couple of meetings and then she's got to go home?
BEN KISSEL
I think there's probably a lot to that story that they, they can handle that.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
There's a lot going on.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
MARCUS PARKS
And to this day, the La Llorona legend spreads and continues to evolve. While she's still most active in Mexico and the American Southwest, specifically Texas, the legend has made it as far away as Gary, Indiana, where it's been blended with the legend of the phantom hitchhiker. A woman in white has been reported drifting around a suburban community named Cudahee which was once populated with Mexican-Americans who worked the steel mills in Gary, Indiana. Supposedly the ghost is said to have killed her illegitimate children who had been fathered by an evil factory owner. She drowned them in the Calumet River. When she's picked up she usually asks for a ride to Calumet Harbor but just before she and her driver arrive, she disappears never to be seen again.
BEN KISSEL
Goddamnit man, I thought I was really gonna have some action here later on tonight.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The mysteries of Gary, Indiana.
BEN KISSEL
You can see the guy's pants down underneath his ankles as she disappears. Like ah, goddamnit. I have the bumper sticker that says ass, grass, or cash, no one drives for free.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Honestly I guess I am truly only interested in unavailable women.
BEN KISSEL
Aw. Ghost women.
MARCUS PARKS
And that's La Llorona!
BEN KISSEL
Wow! That's crazy.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's really intense. I would look up this book because it's really interesting to see how many different stories, how often... Because we we were gonna tell some tales, each one is very similar. But I think that's what's interesting is the fact that all of the stories are very similar.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
People see it again and again. And if the response from just our audience having seen La Llorona was so crazy-
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I'm certain this must be... I mean it's just very prevalent in a lot of Latin American society.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Oh my goodness. All right everyone, well thank you for listening.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Cause Bloody Mary has also got a whole very intense historical past too, there's a lot of historical context to her.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
But I never saw her. We did it multiple times. Do you remember when we did it on the show?
MARCUS PARKS
We did?
BEN KISSEL
I actually don't remember that.
MARCUS PARKS
I don't remember that at all.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I wanna say this was really early.
BEN KISSEL
It must've been.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Oh no, didn't we just do it at your house?
MARCUS PARKS
Probably.
BEN KISSEL
We may have just done it at the house.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
We were hammered and just did Bloody Mary like four or five times.
MARCUS PARKS
No recollection of that whatsoever.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was at your house where the original studio was.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh, 228.5 Boerum.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Yes, the house that when you walked in sober, you thought you were drunk because it was on a slant.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah, it was tilted.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah, yeah. It was the little carriage house.
BEN KISSEL
I loved that little house though.
MARCUS PARKS
Oh no, I still think about that house, it was a wonderful place.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It was.
MARCUS PARKS
It was a magical little dirt ball.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
It really was.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I miss smoking inside.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
Well light up right now, my friend.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Whoa, cool. I'm like Dave Chappelle.
BEN KISSEL
All right everyone, thank you so much for listening.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
As always.
BEN KISSEL
That was very educational and awesome. We have a bunch of stuff, you know where to find us.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
You can see all the horseshit, check out our Sirius XM show, it's Monday 6 PM.
BEN KISSEL
Yeah.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And also check out our stream live on the Patreon. Also Spring-Heel'd Jack Coffee, go and check that shit out. What are your dates?
BEN KISSEL
July 16th.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes.
BEN KISSEL
I got something coming up in July 16th. I've been told I have to market it. So come on out, that's gonna be, well look at my Instagram, I'll show you where it is. I'll show you where it is.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
God, we're so bad at this.
BEN KISSEL
I know. I can see our manager just yelling right now.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And I will pitch The Brighter Side live is happening at 9 PM at the Pack Theater tonight, this is coming out Friday. So tonight will be The Brighter Side live. So come check it out at the Pack in Los Angeles.
BEN KISSEL
Awesome. Yes. And I will be in the Cobb's Comedy Club located somewhere, there you go.
MARCUS PARKS
And next Thursday on May 25th, Season 3 of No Dogs In Space is officially premiering.
BEN KISSEL
Fantastic!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Yes. And SPUN's season is also coming out this week, we got a new SPUN season.
BEN KISSEL
Awesome, awesome, awesome.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
And we can't wait to see you next Thursday, ya cunt.
BEN KISSEL
No, that's my joke, number one.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ya cunt!
BEN KISSEL
It's cunth. Cause you see her next Thursday.
MARCUS PARKS
Thursday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
It's still a T.
MARCUS PARKS
And also we record on Thursdays, they listen on Fridays. And I see you everyday.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
I see everyone all the time in my dreams.
BEN KISSEL
Abe Lincoln's Top Hat. Let's see, Wizard and the Bruiser.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Ugh god, let's wrap it up. Let's wrap it up!
BEN KISSEL
All right everyone, thank you for listening. Don't go to the water. Hail yourselves!
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
Hail Satan.
MARCUS PARKS
Hail Gein.
BEN KISSEL
Megustalations everybody.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
(singing) My Llorona!
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah!
BEN KISSEL
Nailed it.
MARCUS PARKS
(singing) Hey, La Llorona!
BEN KISSEL
Who's the band that sang My Sharona?
MARCUS PARKS
The Knack.
HENRY ZEBROWSKI
The Knack.
BEN KISSEL
Nice.
MARCUS PARKS
Yeah.
BEN KISSEL
All right.