Sofa King Podcast

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we explore the meteoric rise, scandal, and fame of the one and only Hulk Hogan. Born Terry Bollea, this six foot seven inch monster became synonymous with wrestling for several decades. It is said that nobody ever sold as many tickets to a wrestling match as Hulk Hogan. Starting in humble beginnings, Bollea was a big guy who bragged about becoming a wrestler—so much so that on day one of his training, they broke his leg on purpose and sent him home. But this didn’t stop him. For the better part of a decade, he traveled to different wrestling territories. Eventually, he ended up in New York working for Vince McMahon Sr., and this is where he got the name Hulk Hogan and started to get real fame. However, he was fired for his work in Rocky III and went elsewhere. Eventually, the WWF was bought by Vince Jr, and he instantly hired Hogan as the most popular wrestler in America. Together, they broke all the rules and lit wrestling on fire. They conquered every

I will just leave this right here. Merry Christmas.

This holiday season has hit us with some unexpected time restraints as we are visiting and spending quality time with our families.  We hope all of you are healthy and doing well in this joyous season.  Please excuse our absence as we will be back next week on our normal schedule, well as normal as we three can be. On this very merry episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we discuss Christmas. But it wouldn’t be us if we didn’t dig back the layers and come to some strange and ugly truths about the holiday that is associated with the birth of Jesus Christ. You may think this topic is a no brainer (a recent Pew Poll showed that 65% of Americans believe the Christmas story to be true), but be prepared to learn some odd truths about this beloved holiday. For one thing, the origins of the holiday and how it is celebrated date back to ancient pagan rites and were only adopted by the Catholic Church as a way to lure pagans to church membership. That’s right: gingerbread cookies, the Yule Log, a Christmas ham, Christmas

This holiday season has hit us with some unexpected time restraints as we are visiting and spending quality time with our families. We hope all of you are healthy and doing well in this joyous season. Please excuse our absence as we will be back next week on our normal schedule, well as normal as we three can be. Hello and welcome to Brewing The 99 where we talk about all facets of the Magic: the Gathering’s Commander format. This episode we are giving you some ideas on how to play webmander, online live commander games.  We will also be answering a no stupid questions question asked by one of patrons.  And we bring you another week of hot picks.  Lastly, we break down our successes and failures collecting for Commander, so you can learn from our mistakes, and start your collection off right.  We hope you stick around for the show and we also hope you take something away from it as well. Follow us on Twitter! @Brewingthe99 Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brewingthe99/ Follow us on Instagra

This holiday season has hit us with some unexpected time restraints as we are visiting and spending quality time with our families. We hope all of you are healthy and doing well in this joyous season. Please excuse our absence as we will be back next week on our normal schedule, well as normal as we three can be. The old man lingered in the liminal place that presaged sleep, that space where reality had variable density and fluctuating tactile strength. Moments of clarity, of skies with a blue so sharp they caused him to ache, were interspersed with vagaries, memories, haunting scars and echoes of the psyche in which he was intruding. This episode of Mindframe is a Prelude of the whole story. It introduces you to some of the major characters as seen through the eyes of a very interesting “Old Man” who doesn’t have the best grip on reality. He travels from place to place and time to time, checking in on people who he knows. It may be trippy and seem innocent, but the key themes (such as WorldGov and the Worl

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about a true-crime story. It is a case that feels like the plot of the next Grand Theft Auto game. The first character is a Ukrainian mobster named Tarzan who owns a strip club called Porky’s (named after the classic 80’s movie) and who used to be an enforcer for the Gambino crime family. Additionally, the second character is an elite car and power boat salesman/thief/grifter from Miami who starts to sell black market military equipment from Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union. The third character? A member of the Cali Drug Cartel named, who is considered violent even among cartel members. What do they have in common? Well, for one, the rapper Vanilla Ice. Next, they love to make money and do illegal things. Additionally, they are pretty awesome. They try everything from selling Russian military helicopters to impersonating Pablo Escobar to trying to buy a Soviet era submarine to sell 40 tons of cocaine per trip. The characters are unbeliev

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the murder of Brian Wells, also known as the Pizza Bomber. This is a strange one. It involves an innocent pizza delivery man who is held at gunpoint as he delivers his pizza. A bomb is strapped around his neck, and he’s given directions to go on a scavenger hunt to keep the bomb from boing off. One stop on the scavenger hunt? A little bank robbery using a shotgun made to look like a walking cane. Here, the cops catch Brian Wells, and the bomb goes off and kills him. But as the backstory unfolds, this turns into a tale of hardened life-time criminals, murders, a potential female serial killer, and bodies stored in freezers. Oh, and Brian Wells may have been in on it all along! Want to know more? Give this one a listen! Visit Our Sources: https://allthatsinteresting.com/brian-wells-evil-genius-marjorie-diehl-armstrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Brian_Wells https://pizzabomber.com/faces-from-the-case/ https://www.mcall.com/ne

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look at the life and imagination of Ian Fleming. Fleming was of course, the creator of the iconic James Bond and author of a dozen Bond books, but he was also a key figure in British Intelligence during WWII. In fact, many people say his depiction of Bond is one of the most accurate depictions of what a spy was like during the war. His own exploits involve trying to steal an Enigma Machine, training one of the most important commando-spy units in Great Britain, and even helping draft the key elements of the CIA in Washington, D.C. He was a drinker, a womanizer, an adulterer, and a spy, and the world was made better for him. He was born to a very wealthy family. His grandfather was the founder of a bank, and the family had deep pockets and strong political connections. His father died in the trenches in WWI, and he grew up a smart and inquisitive child (though not one who cared for school work). Eventually, he was sent to a boarding school in Austria w

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we cover the true crime roller coaster that was the trial of Amanda Knox. She and her boyfriend Raffaele Sollecito were arrested for the murder of Meredith Kercher. This case it had it all. Promiscuous college students, rough Italian cops, bar hopping, Americans, Brits, and an international cast of characters. The case gets crazy as they two get convicted, released, and then arrested and convicted again due to crazy loopholes in Italian law. Amanda Knox was born in Seattle and was a normal child and a good college student. Since childhood, she had a love of Italy, and she got a chance to study abroad while she was getting a degree in linguistics. She moved to Perugia, Italy, to finish her studies. Perugia is a small town known for its colleges (and college students) as well as some pretty crazy murder cases. Amanda Knox was not the only wild murder in town. There was a case there of an Italian Prime minister allegedly murdering a journalist and another case of a band

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time and look at the king of all swashbucklers, Sir Henry Morgan. Morgan was a privateer (paid by the crown, so not a dirty pirate) who single handedly changed the face of the Caribbean and the war between England and Spain. In the 1600s, he was known for his cunning tactics (such as using the nuns and priests as a human shield), and he’d fight on land or at sea. He was one of the leaders of Jamaica, beloved by the people of England, and the scourge of the Spanish fleet. Yes, he helped England, but often at the end of a cutlass, with his men torturing their captives, taking slaves, and burning entire towns to the ground. Nothing could stop him. Born to a humble farmer, Henry Morgan longed for adventure. Two of his uncles served in the British Navy, and he wanted to as well. At a young age, he worked his way to the Caribbean and Jamaica, though nobody is exactly sure how he got there. It was very expensive and dangerous to make the voyage, and many v

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look into one of the most famous cases of a haunting to come out of the UK, the Enfield Poltergeist. This is the story of a single mother living in government housing trying to support four kids when some very strange things started to happen in their house. One night in 1977, she went upstairs because her kids were freaking out, and she saw the chest of drawers move several times amidst knocking inside the walls. What came next was a series of hauntings that ran for 18 months--or a series of hoaxes if you think the daughters were up to no good! So on the night of August 31, 1977, Peggy Hodgson saw the chest of drawers move and ran next door with all of her kids. The neighbor went to investigate the now empty house and heard bizarre knocking in the walls follow him around. He went back home and called the cops. They investigated, and the officer saw a chair move on its own. She tried to find out how but could see no logical explanation. Since nobody

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look at one of the worst natural disasters of our lifetimes, the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami. Responsible for the death of at least 230,000 people, this massive wave gave no warning in most areas, and the level of destruction was unprecedented. Some native peoples in the area knew it was coming due to old folk lore their people followed for thousands of years (and turned out true), but for most, it was a day of horror. First off, before you even listed to this episode, you should make sure you watch some clips on YouTube. The terror of the black wave, the people swept away to nothing, cars filled with people as they get swept aside as if by the hands of giants. It is truly terrifying. The tsunami was spawned by an underwater earth quake that hit on December 26th, 2004. It was said to be the second strongest quake ever recorded and lasted a total of ten minutes of shaking in some areas. The wave was generating from the quake, and due to the holiday, tou

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we indulge in some true crime and talk about one of the worst monsters we’ve run up against, Pee Wee Gaskins. Born Donald Gaskins, he was always small (hence the nickname). His childhood ticked all the boxes: absent father, step fathers who beat him, a mother who didn’t care, drinking kerosene, and never even learning his own name. By the age 11, he had dropped out of school and ran with the “Trouble Trio,” where he robbed and gang raped prostitutes. This behavior never stopped, and with a life in and out of prison for endless crimes, he finally found his true calling once he started to kill and discovered his “Bothersome Feeling.” Once Pee Wee was busted for the horrible things he did with the Trouble Trio, he was sent to a reform school. All he learned there was how to be gang raped, and he finally had to sell his sexual services to the “Big Boy” for protection. He finally escaped and joined a carnival, like you do, and eventually he was too old to serve his juveni

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast we tell the story of Robert Durst. This is true crime at its best. Durst was born to a wealthy real estate family in New York, and after watching his mom fall from a roof and die, everything went sideways. He had a rivalry at work with his brother that made them keep lead pipes handy in case of fighting, and then the bodies started to pile up. Or, at least vanish. His ex-wife, his close friend, and a neighbor he met in Galveston. You know the place where he lived in disguise as a woman to escape officials? So, where did this all start? In New York. Durst was born to real estate investor Seymour Durst, and after a tumultuous childhood, he went to UCLA for college. While there, he did scream therapy with John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and moved back east to start a health food shop in the early 1970s. Eventually, he met his first wife there and finally went to work for the real estate business. His brother was put in charge, and a rivalry started that got bad enough that pee

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time and look at the first tech giant in American history, the one and only Thomas Edison. Edison was credited for almost 1100 patents in his life (400 of them from just a short 8 year period!). He is known for inventing the light bulb (it already existed, but he perfected it), and he rolled out the phonograph, motion pictures, car batteries, chemicals, medical devices and anything you could think of. He’s also famous for having a huge ego and for going to war with Nikola Tesla about electricity. He was born to a typical family in Ohio, and was a very smart child. He learned the best on his own, so he was home schooled, even though it kind of meant just sitting back and watching him learn. He read constantly and even did science experiments in his own house. When he was 12, he was was allowed to sell newspapers on the train route, but he was too clever for that. He got the scoop on what was happening from train passengers and telegraph operators and

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we talk about one of the greatest failures and cons by any tech startup in Silicon Valley, the lies and deceit of Elizabeth Holmes. Holmes started the tech firm Theranos from Paulo Alto, California, home to all the tech giants. She idolized Steve Jobs so much, that she even wore his same black turtle neck and posed for photos that he himself had already been in. Her big idea was the Edison blood test, a test that would use the power of the internet to scan just a pinprick of blood live time instead of taking vials and sending them to a lab. But it didn’t exists. She was a liar and a fake who cost investors hundreds of millions of dollars and the suffering of patients. Elizabeth Holmes grew up in a wealthy family in Texas (son of an Enron exec) and eventually got accepted to Stanford. After a short time, she dropped out since they couldn’t teach her anything anymore, and she used her college fund to create her company, Theranos. Her goal was to make a world changing b

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look at a strange case of a missing child from Texas and the Frenchman who assumed his identity. This is the story of Frederic Bourdin. When this professional imposter was on the run from INTERPOL in Spain, he learned of a missing boy in Texas named Nicholas Barclay. Though he was much older, he took on the persona and moved in with the boy’s family. This story gets crazy and involves a TV crew, a private investigator who is on to him, and a possible case of murder! Even after this one gets cleared up, Bourdin takes on more personas, even passing himself as a 15 years old Jr. High student while he was 31 years old! Born to a single mother who wanted nothing to do with him, he was raised by his grandparents. There were claims of him being sexually molested by a neighbor, and he started acting up, drawing disturbing cartoons, lying to people, and stealing from neighbors. His bad behavior got him locked up as a child, and he moved from group home to grou

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we discuss the mystery of the Toynbee Tiles. Part art, part graffiti, part philosophy, part political statement, part crazy, these tiles have been appearing in the blacktop of Philadelphia (and eventually, many states and South America) since the 1980s. The classic tile reads "TOYNBEE IDEA IN MOViE `2001 RESURRECT DEAD ON PLANET JUPITER." The tiles express the creator's desire to terraform Jupiter and fill it with recreated molecular copies of all humans who ever died through the history of the earth. For starters. This American street art is as interesting as its creator is mysterious. Much of the research done on these tiles were done by Justin Duerr, an artist and the maker of the documentary called Resurrect Dead. He does a deep dive on the subject and comes to his own theories of who this person is and what the message means. Most people break the message down to be a statement that involves the great British historian Arnold Toynbee, and a connection to the st

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we do a true crime dive and look at the case of a missing paper boy named John Gosch. This one starts a simple missing person case and then gets pretty strange, delving into child sex trafficking, a mysterious man named Sam Soda, and a possible connection to the infamous Franklin Child Prostitution Ring. It gets even more strange when an adult John Gosch shows up for a brief visit with his mother, all the while waiting for permission to speak from the man who accompanied him. The basics of this one are, well, basic, but the details added by his mother Noreen really make it a next level case. On September 5, 1982, twelve year old John Gosch got up early and started his paper route at 5:45 in the morning. He always went with his father, and asked his dad if he could go alone that morning, and he was told he could not. Either way, John woke up, got his trusty dachshund to go with him, and did the route solo. His father John Sr. and his mother Noreen were woken up to mul

On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we look at the infamous Moscow theater hostage crisis. Also known as the Nord-Ost Siege, this horrible event saw a Russian rescue attempt become far more lethal than the terrorist hostage-takers. The terrorists were Chechnyan and were there to get Russia to cease hostilities in the war against their country. It was around 50 people, men holding assault rifles, women strapped down with body bombs. When Russian special forces arrived, the final assault involved a mystery gas that killed around 120 hostages and vast majority of terrorists. In the second act of a popular musical that was put on in a theater close to the Kremlin, a bus filled with Chechnyan terrorists parked and emptied. They ran into the theater firing guns and took the entire place hostage. Some actors escaped out the back window and called the cops, but the rest were there for the duration, roughly 850 of them. It was four crazy days. There were negotiations between the terrorists and med