Sofa King Podcast

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Sinopsis

comedy, entertainment, pop culture, and topics we want to talk about

Episodios

  • Episode 507: Maura Murray: A Disappearance Most Strange

    14/08/2020 Duración: 01h38min

    On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we explore one of the strangest missing persons cases in America: the disappearance of Maura Murray. On the evening of February 9, 2004, she had a minor car crash, and by the time the police got there, she was missing. But her behavior leading to this moment is what makes it strange. She had packed up her entire dorm room, lied to her bosses that there was a death in the family (so she could get a week off), and she had a car full of clothes, directions to rentals to stay in, and even a lot of cash from an ATM. Her entire family had no idea she had done any of this. What makes this a weird one is that she was a great student. She went to West Point and then transferred to the University of Massachusetts. She was a good student, a local track star, and otherwise a girl in her early twenties doing things right. Murray had a run in on the wrong side of the law when she stole the credit card number someone and used it at restaurants, but was otherwise an upstanding citiz

  • Episode 506: Paul Ogorzow: Nazi Serial Killer!

    11/08/2020 Duración: 01h28min

    On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about little known serial killer who did his thing during the reign of the Third Reich in Berlin. His name was Paul Ogorzow, and he was a Nazi serial killer. He started with sexual assault and rape, but like most serial killers he grew in desire and comfortability with his crimes. Eventually, he graduated to murder, and he had the perfect environment to do so. He committed his crimes during war-time black outs intended to keep bombing raids from finding targets. He also did it on a rail line that saw as many as 29 accidental deaths per month due to the dangers of the blackout. There isn’t a whole lot known about his childhood. He was born to a single mother who was a farm worker during World War One. He was eventually adopted by a farmer named Ogorzow and moved near Berlin. As a young man, he joined the Nazi Party and eventually became a member of the its paramilitary branch called the SA. For some reason, he never went off to war, but he was ins

  • Episode 505: Titanic: Icebergs, Hubris, and Death

    07/08/2020 Duración: 01h42min

    On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time and look at the short life of the doomed ship, The RMS Titanic. The Titanic famously sank on April 15, 1912 and had a massive cultural impact, just like the Challenger or 9/11 did in more recent times. Of the 2240 people on board, only 706 survived, in spite of having three hours from the time of the iceberg collision to the total sinking of the vessel. The chaos and poor management during the crisis lead to a great many deaths, and the entire event lead to both Oscar winning films and tons of pretty cool conspiracy theories. The Titanic was built by the White Star Line, which was in a trade battle with the Cunard line. These two companies were the main passenger lines across the Atlantic, so building bigger, nice, and faster was sort of a corporate cold war at the time. The Cunard line had been winning for years, so the three Olympic class vessels built by White Star were supposed to win this war. The Titanic, obviously, was the first of these

  • Episode 504: Eminem: Drugs, Detroit, and Detox

    04/08/2020 Duración: 01h41min

    On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the life, career, addiction, and rap battles of the one and only Eminem. Call him Marshal Mathers or Slim Shady, but he’s one of the biggest selling musical artists of all time and still has the bestselling rap album of all time. He was born poor to a father who ditched him and a mother who he claimed was abusive and strung on out on pills. This critical figure in the hip hop game went from the streets of 8 Mile to the top of the charts in spite of being a white drug addict and underage father. If he can do it, so can you (if, you know, you’re one of the best rappers to ever live…). Though Detroit is his spiritual home, Marshal Mathers was born in Missouri. He had a rough childhood with an absentee father and a mother who couldn’t land steady work. They traveled a lot trying to stay with family or get a job and ultimately landed in Detroit when he was very young. Marshal hated school, repeated the 9th grade 3 times before dropping out. The

  • Episode 503: Apollo 13: Explosions, Starvation, and Duct Tape

    31/07/2020

    On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the infamous flight of NASA’s Apollo 13. Made famous for a new generation by the film of the same name, this was one of the most important moments in all of space flight. A critical error on the way to the moon led to the three astronauts cramped into a small lunar lander built for 2 passengers the whole way home. They were low on power, venting oxygen, couldn’t scrub the CO2 from the air, were starving (their food was frozen and dried), and one of them was sick with an infection. How did they survive? This was the 13th Apollo mission, and many said that is the number of bad luck. Well, maybe. The Apollo missions were created by John F Kenedy as a race to the moon to help win the Cold War, and after Apollo 11 landed on the moon (or didn’t, depending on your beliefs), there were still a bunch of Saturn V rockets left over. NASA used them for more missions to the moon, and Apollo 13 was to be the third mission that would land humans on the lunar surface. The

  • Episode 502: George Washington: The Reluctant Warrior President

    28/07/2020

    On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we travel back in time and look at the life, loves, war, revolution, presidency and death of George Washington. Born to a middle class family, he rose in wealth and power, until by age 20, he was the wealthiest land owner in Virginia. His story is incredible. He joined the British to stop the French from spreading onto their land. His first fight there basically started a world war because he didn’t know what he was doing. This man was a passionate farmer and whiskey distiller, but he kept getting the call to serve his nation, as a warrior, a spymaster, a politician, and ultimately president. The Washington family had been in American for three generations before George was born. His parents were of an upper middle class and bought some land, which eventually became his famous home at Mt. Vernon. His father increased his fortune, died, left it all to George’s older brother Lawrence. Then Lawrence built up more fortune, died of tuberculosis, and left it a

  • Episode 501: John Demjanjuk: The Hunting of a Nazi

    24/07/2020 Duración: 01h46min

    On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the crazy case of a Cleveland man named John Demjanjuk, and the decades long court battle to prove he was the evil Ivan the Terrible. Ivan the Terrible was a guard at the gas chambers in the Treblenka concentration camp. He was notorious for stabbing the prisoners with a saber, cutting their ears off on their way to a work shift, rape, killing babies, and nailing people’s ears to the walls of the death chamber. If John Demjanjuk was truly Ivan the terrible, he deserved to pay for his crimes. But the battle in various international courts were a roller coaster of evidence. Was he Ivan the Terrible? What is known about Demjanjuk is that he was born in the Soviet Union in 1920 He survived the Holodomor famine, worked on a state-owned farm, and was finally drafted into the Soviet Army in 1940. While there, he fought in the horrible Battle of Kerch Peninsula where Soviet Casualties were above 570,000 in five months. He was captured and taken as a prisoner of wa

  • Episode 500: Who’s Askin’?

    21/07/2020 Duración: 01h48min

    On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we celebrate our 500th episode! If you’re looking for a regular episode, this ain’t it! This is a star-studded (well, us three anyway) extravaganza. We walk down memory lane of the past 500 episodes. We share stories, drink whiskey and answer questions from our lovely SKult. What questions, you may be wondering? You guys have separated yourselves from all of the other conspiracy/true crime podcasts (at least in my opinion), what do you think you guys did to get away from others and make your own signature show and culture? What is the most memorable episode you have recorded? What was the worst podcast to research because it was overly sensitive topic or just not a lot out there about the subject? What would happen if Brad actually studied for a topic? I want to start by saying I love the show so there is no shade being thrown here but I wanna know Why is there such a lack of deep research done on a lot of the main individuals lives, specifical

  • Episode 499: Polio: The Paralytic Pandemic

    17/07/2020 Duración: 01h33min

    On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we get all pandemic on you and talk about Polio. Famous for causing paralysis and death through the first half the century (most notably in the US and UK), this disease goes back to ancient Egypt. Two doctors created different vaccines for the disease in the 1950s and 60s and largely set the path toward the vaccine schedule that is used in modern medicine. However, with that came complications such as the Cutter Incident where the vaccine itself paralyzed kids. And what about the rumors of the vaccine causing cancer or even the new polio like disease spreading in America? Polio is a horrible disease caused by three different viruses. It spreads most notably through the brown highway, aka, the fecal-oral route. The virus does its thing in the intestines, so your poop is filled with Polio if you are infected, and if that somehow makes it into someone’s mouth, well there it is. Though it sounds gross, in areas with natural rivers as water sources, this woul

  • Episode 498: Whitey Bulger: Boston’s Godfather of Crime

    14/07/2020 Duración: 01h46min

    On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we do some mobster-style true crime and talk about the kingpin of Boston, Whitey Bulger. In the 1970s and 80s, Bulger ran the Winter Hill Gang and was the head of the Irish Mob in the Boston area. This was a title he earned through several wars with the Irish, a deal with the Italians, and a whole lotta bodies. His story was so wild that Martin Scorsese based Jack Nicholson’s character from The Departed on him. Johnny Depp also played him in Black Mass. Whitey was part of MKUltra, supported the Irish Republican Army, and turned his job as an FBI informant on its ear, corrupting the local feds. He managed to escape capture by globe-trotting with his girlfriend for 16 years. Born to two immigrants from Canada, James “Whitey” Bulger was a typical Southie kid from Boston. His father was a longshoreman who lost his arm in an accident and could no longer work. While Whitey’s siblings all did well in school and walked the straight and narrow, he turned to the streets. He wa

  • Episode 497: Order of the Solar Temple: Murder, Suicide, and Sex

    10/07/2020 Duración: 01h39min

    On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we sift through the ashes of a pretty wicked cult that most people have near heard of: The Order of the Solar Temple. The OTS was a group that was loosely based on the beliefs of the Knights Templar with a heavy dash of the Rosicrucians, but after it met with some financial success and had a good base of followers, it was all about brain washing, sex, extortion, and transitioning to the Dog Star Sirius to escape the upcoming apocalypse. Oh, and then there was the time all of the members killed each other and themselves. That’s how you get to Sirius after all… The whole thing started in 1976 when Jo Di Mambro launched the Centre for the Preparation of the New Age. It was a small affair, but soon he had small groups coming to live with him and give him their money. He started a second franchise in Geneva, and a few years later, he met Luc Jouret. Di Mambro recognized that Jouret was even more charismatic than he was, and they partnered up. Di Mambro would be the shot c

  • Episode 496: Gardner Museum Heist: Half a Billion Dollar Mystery

    07/07/2020 Duración: 01h44min

    On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we explore the largest art heist in American history, the Gardner Museum Heist. In 1990, thirteen pieces of art were stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The grade total? A whopping half $600 million dollars. Just one painting was worth half of that. The FBI thinks it was done by a group of local Irish mobsters, and though the statute of limitations is past, it is still an active case as the FBI hopes to retrieve the art back. The Gardner museum was troubled. The FBI discovered a plot for Whitey Bulger’s Irish mob to rob the place with a storm of smoke bombs. After this, the museum upgraded its security. However, the museum was on hard financial times, and they were limited by the wealthy (deceased) Gardner’s wishes. The museum had to stay as is, no renovations, no exceptions, so every upgrade of security was a breach of this agreement Eventually, some motion sensors and outdoor cameras were installed, but it wasn’t enough. Because on t

  • Episode 495: Dreaming: What’s Going on In There?

    03/07/2020

    On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we explore one of the greatest mysteries of the human mind—dreaming. We all dream. Whether we remember it or not, our mind makes us dream several times a night when we get normal sleep. The average person is said to have five years of dreaming in their lifetime. But what are they, where do they come from, and what do dreams mean? Those are hard questions to answer. Experts can’t locate a specific center of the brain that is doing the dreaming. For example, parts of the brain that control imagination are entirely shut down during the dream. Also, the brain does amazing feats of recovery, such as flushing plaque off of neurons and letting the emotional center run wild while the parts that cause stress shut off. The question really becomes why do we do it? One sleep expert named Matthew Walker from Cal Berkeley, says dreams serve two major purposes. One is to give our daily experiences a place in the framework of our lives. By dreaming, our new memories ar

  • Episode 494: Kiddie Pageants: Big Hair and Big Money

    30/06/2020

    On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we polish our tiaras and talk about child beauty pageants. They of course made national news with the tragic death of Jonbenet Ramsey in 1996. But after that, they stayed in the forefront of popular culture. HBO’s influential documentary called Living Dolls lead to the TV show Toddlers in Tiaras and the flaming turd filled train wreck that was Honey Boo Boo. Each year, over 250,000 children participate in America alone. From underage prostitutes to 8 year olds getting motel Botox, this one has it all. You would think that beauty pageants for children came from the sick minds of the current generation, but there is in fact a long history. P.T. Barnum organized a kid’s beauty pageant in 1855 called the National Baby Show, and it gained 143 contestants and an audience of over 60,000. This spread to other similar ideas, mostly judging naked babies like cattle. By the 1920s, however, the modern adult beauty pageants was born in New Jersey (of course it was…). From there,

  • Episode 493: Spanish Inquisition: Torture, Death, and other Catholic Fun!

    26/06/2020 Duración: 01h24min

    On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we travel back to castle times and look at one of the worst crimes the Catholic Church ever committed: The Inquisition. While the Spanish Inquisition is the most famous, there were inquisitions in Rome, Portugal, The New World and tons of colonies in Central and South America. The Inquisition was based on a series of edicts passed by the Catholic church and enforced by local kings and queens. The purpose? To eradicate heretics, supposedly. And who were heretics? Well, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Protestants, those who committed sodomy, families that couldn’t produce children, and many more. In some areas of the world, the Inquisition was pretty mild. The point of the Inquisition was to get heretics to confess, and a few lashes later they were free to go on about their business (as long as the converted to Catholicism or got the hell out of town). But in other areas such as Spain, it got medieval. People were tortured on The Rack, The Catherine Wheel, and the Strappado. T

  • Episode 492: Johnny Knoxville: Stuntman, Prankster, Jackass

    23/06/2020 Duración: 01h36min

    On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the stunts, injuries, films, practical jokes, and television shows of the one and only Johnny Knoxville. Knoxville was inspired as a child by Evil Knievel, Jack Kerouac, and Hunter S. Thompson, and he went on to live a life they all would have been proud of. He was the a producer and main performer in the wildly successful Jackass television show, which went on to spawn several films (with yet more in pre-production all the time). He’s been nominated for an academy award and has injured just about every part of his body that exists. Born Philip John Clapp in Knoxville, Tennessee, he was a very smart and sickly child. At one time he had the flu, bronchitis, and pneumonia all at once; on top of his asthma, it literally almost killed him. He got straight A’s in high school and earned a free ride to a drama school, but dropped out to do his own thing. He wanted to be an actor and stunt man, so he found a way. He started by writing articles for Big Brother, a s

  • Episode 491: Alchemy: The Science of Magic

    19/06/2020

    On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we look at the ultimate merger of science and magic, the ancient art of Alchemy. Everyone knows that Alchemy was an attempt to turn lead into gold using something called the Philosopher’s Stone. But it was much more than that. At the heart of Alchemy was a philosophy or religion about how the world works and how it ties to the nature of mankind. For centuries, they were considered valid scientists, but eventually, a bunch of Alchemical conmen and religious fervor persecuted them. At this point, they went underground and hid their chemical experiments in symbols and crazy works of art that are just being understood by scholars today. Alchemy is an ancient pseudo-science that dates back thousands of years. It was everywhere from India to China to the Middle East and Europe. Some of the greatest minds in science such as Isaac Newton and Robert Boyle were convinced that much of Alchemy was accurate. And it was. For centuries, some of the greatest minds dedicated themselv

  • Episode 415: Hopkinsville Goblins: Aliens, Cryptids, or Silver Monkies?

    10/09/2019 Duración: 01h25min

    On this episode of the world famous Sofa King Podcast, we hit you with a crazy recipe—take one part cryptid and one part UFO encounter, bake in the Kentucky summer, and you get the Hopkinsville Goblins. The case of the Hopkinsville Goblins is one of the most important in all of UFOlogy because it establishes the details that a great many UFO cases follow for years after. It is, in fact, the genesis of the term “little green men,” even though the Goblins weren’t thought to be green. So, what exactly happened in Hopkinsville that is still studied to this day? Back in August of 1955, two families were staying in a small, homemade house in the woods of Kentucky. There were a total of 11 of them (5 adults, 4 children, and 2 carnies) at the house when things went sideways. One member of the house went outside to draw some water from the pump and saw what he called a flying saucer that showed every color in the rainbow. He told everyone this, and they dismissed it as a shooting star. (A highway patrol officer repor

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