Loremen Podcast - S5 Ep36: Loremen S5Ep36 - The Old Man of Monterey Bay

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

The Loremen return to the good old U S of America. Inspired by a gift from a listener, the boys head to Monterey Bay, CA, and tangle with a whole bunch of sea beasts. (Or should that be school? Pod? Flock? What is the collective noun for aquatic cryptids?) We meet the monkey-faced Old Man of Monterey (AKA Bobo) and some real-life red-haired sea serpents. So join us, under the sea! It's enchanting!* *Yes that is a veiled Back To The Future reference. Yes, James wrote this blurb. This episode was edited by Joseph Burrows - Audio Editor. LoreBoys nether say die! Support the Loremen here (and get stuff): patreon.com/loremenpod ko-fi.com/loremen Check the sweet, sweet merch here... https://www.teepublic.com/stores/loremen-podcast?ref_id=24631 @loremenpod youtube.com/loremenpodcast www.instagram.com/loremenpod www.facebook.com/loremenpod

Welcome to Lawmen, a podcast about local legends and obscure curiosities from days of yore. I'm James Shakeshaft. And I am Alistair Beckett-King. Alistair Beckett-King. Yeah. Pack your bags. Pack your passports. Okay.

We're going America. The Big A. it's the big A in California California America we're going to hear about the old man of Monterey Bay

how old is he how much of a man is he because some people think he's a giraffe that's a hook James James Hook, James, thanks.

Have you got Netflix still? Not at the moment. Thinking about getting it back for some of the things that have come up lately. The Godzilla minus one. That's what I want to watch. Yeah. Yeah. It won the Oscar for best effects, Alistair. You like effects. And I like the best ones best. It's a

sliding scale and at the top are the best ones. The worst are just a dog that's been painted, like in the 50s, where they would just glue things to a dog that would cover you for a lot in those days well it depends what you're trying to get across yeah that really really only achieves a monster effect you wouldn't do that for a period drama no how like a lot of like david finch's film the background is actually effects yeah it's actually glued to a dog in a lot of those films in zodiac entire street scenes are just glued to a dog that's what i didn't realize how much of zodiac actually glued to a dog in a lot of those films. In Zodiac, entire street scenes are just glued to a dog.

That's what I didn't realise, how much of Zodiac was glued to a dog. It's very impressive. Yeah. You do not realise when you're watching it. Yeah. I don't know if you've seen the Martin Scorsese film, Scorsese film, The Irishman. Yeah.

Where what they've done is they've got a young Robert De Niro. He's played by a young Robert De Niro stuck to a dog. That explains the walk, to be honest. Alistair, I want to talk to you about some American monsters. Whoa! I'm just doing reactions as if I can see them. What's that? That doesn't look anything like a dog with a thing glued to it.

Whoa! Well, this is from a really good-looking booklet that was sent to us by one of the law folk. I see. I was wondering what the justification for us going outside our jurisdiction was. Well, it was sent by FullMellowBird, who, that's their name on the Discord. Thank you, FMV.

Sorry, I said FMV, which is the best genre of video game I Discord. Thank you, FMV. Sorry, I said FMV, which is the best genre of video game. I meant to say FMB. It's called Mysterious Sea Monsters of California's Central Coast. Any non-mysterious sea monsters, keep walking or swimming in this case. We're not interested in you

if you're not mysterious. It's featuring Bobo, Monterrey Bay and its vast submarine canyon by Randall A. Reinstadt. Okay, now, where is this bay? What part of America? Monterrey Bay. It's in California. I think it's Monterrey.

What? Is it? Oh, is it? Ah. Uh-oh. Well, okay. I mean, it wouldn't be like me. My evidence for this, James, is, as usual, the Rescue Rangers.

Because of the cheese. Monterey Jack comes from California, and then there's the character Monterey Jack, the cheese-obsessed, inexplicably Australian mouse character. That doesn't make sense, does it? No, it doesn't make sense that he would be Australian. Nobody outside of America would ever eat American cheese under any circumstances. None of us have even heard of Monterey Jack. It doesn't sell internationally.

Do you know it comes from some 18th century Franciscan friars of Monterey in California? Oh, no, I didn't know that. And it was marketed by a guy called David Jacks. And it was originally he marketed it as Jack's Cheese, which sounds bad. And then changed the name to Monterey Jacques. Jacques, you've given it a little sort of... I didn't mean to make it French. No, no, no, no, no.

It's not Monterey Jacques. Is it Monterey or Mont... Wait a minute, what's the right one? I think it's Monterey. Monterey. What was I saying? You said Monterey. But look, if I'm wrong, I'm going to look like a prize

fool. Wow. Right. I'm slowly... I've been buffering, re-pronouncing all the bits of this story in my head before I get into it. Now I'm taking on board that new pronunciation. I'm just finding and replacing in my head. I just hope I'm right that it's Monterey.

It is. I just looked... I asked the lady. Monterey. Oh, was I just looked at it. I asked the lady. Monterey. Oh, was it an English voice? Yeah, but when it was slowed down. It sounded English. I trust it when it's an English voice. Monterey.

My favourite thing is when you click on it and it's a really badly recorded guy from Leeds saying, Monterey. Now I know how to pronounce it because it's a real person saying it. Whereas half of the pronunciation guides are just a robot going, Monterey.y monterey bay monster but what if that guy from leeds is chris cantrell i know i'm safe because he's from bradford that's true isn't that leeds oh isn't bradford the salford to leeds is manchester they're different cities they are actually and in

different places sorry james are you a Leeds truther? Yes. Leeds is a separate city. Is it far away? I mean, I don't know. I'm pretty sure they're right next to each other. I'm going to find out right now. Is Bradford the Croydon of Leeds?

Because the airport's called Leeds-Bradford. Okay, I see how this has happened. How much they lie. How much airports lie about where they are. Yes. I mean, I'm sure I, how much airports lie about where they are. Yes. I mean, I'm sure I've complained about London Luton Airport. Bradford is smaller than Leeds and quite near, but they are not the same place.

No, they are not. They do sort of, they touch near Pudsey. I mean, everything is touching everything else in this goddamn world of us, James. I think the Odeon Lux Leedsadford represents a cutoff we'll never know unfortunately i'm guessing no one will let us know in the comments well i think we've alienated everyone from leeds and bradford now including chris chris doesn't listen to this what am i thinking about but no alistair leave those thoughts of Leeds slash Bradford slash Leeds Bradford behind, because we're going to sunny California.

California. California, I think it's pronounced. Yes, correct. Sorry, let me just check. Let me just Google it. Yeah. California. Just checking the Leeds pronunciation website.

Yep. California. California. California. That's how it's pronounced on Cantrell.com. The old man of Monterey Bay. Do you know where Monterey Bay is? In California?

Yes. And I looked it up. So I'm speaking with more authority than I was just now about Bradford. It is, do you know where San Francisco is? Northern California? Yeah. So you know America? We're starting broadly.

The left side of America. Halfway down. far how far we're going into the pacific am i in hawaii am i stopping before go back to the land go okay i'm backing up use two fingers to scroll okay oh james james i've changed where north is and i'm really confused i've spun it all around. I'm in 3D. How am I in 3D? It's 3D America. Just don't drop the man in there. These are good effects. Wow. Okay, I can see San Francisco. It's like a bridge stuck to a dog.

I'm there. That's perfect. Further down, there's like a little bit set away, a bay, you could say. What's south to cartography fans? South, some people might call that for the experts were compass truthers as i call them yeah down a bit down a bit on the map yeah there's a little bit called monterey bay and in there is a big old trench called the monterey trench and it's up to

well i think it gets as deep as 2,200 feet down there, which is a number of fathoms. Wow. What's that in metric? 2,200 feet. Oof. Let me have a look. 670 and a half metres.

Metres. Okay, you paused a long time before you said the unit. So that's over half a kilometre deep. It's 366.66 recurring fathoms. Wow. In leagues. We got in trouble the last time we brought up leagues. We got in big trouble.

It's 0.12 leagues. That's not very impressive. It's not many leagues. Yeah. And in there, there's all sorts of fish and some mystery fish. And according to some old timey sailors, some salty sea dogs. These are humans, though, not salty sea dogs with stuff stuck to them. No, no, no.

Human beings with dogs stuck to them. And there is one called the Old Man of Monterey Bay. And this is a fish? No. I'm sorry, I'm really confused. We don't know, Alistair. James, a man isn't a cryptid. Well, an old man that swims in the sea.

Because, spoiler alert, it swims in the sea. We're itting it now. Okay. Well, this old man has a long, thin, snake-like body. Okay, okay. Although, some people think has a long, thin, snake-like body. Okay, okay. Although, some people think it looks like a sea elephant.

What's a sea elephant? I hear you cry. What's a sea elephant? Well, it's an elephant, but in the sea, as far as I can tell. Some said it was bull-like. Some likened its appearance to that of a crocodile, or a giraffe, or a horse, a serpent or a duck. Sorry, what? A duck?

There's a lot of different reports. A duck? Well, that's just one. We're not going to get into the duck one. We're going to mostly stick with the old man one. San Francisco is the city of eccentrics. I thoroughly believe that some old men from San Francisco swim in the sea. So I'm going to need hard, hard evidence. Are these old men reported as anywhere from 15 to 150 feet long?

Again, I don't know them personally, James. I can't answer that. They're anything from 0.0008 leagues to 0.0008 leagues long. I don't think you should measure the length of a man in leagues, James. It's confusing. According to some of Monterey's veteran sardine fishermen. Wait, veteran sardine fishermen or the fishermen of veteran sardines? Yeah, they'd say it's as long as a telephone pole, but much wider.

I'm going to need to use my old salty sea dog voice as well i'm gonna base it on a character from jaws probably one of my favorite ones you've only seen jaws recently haven't you i saw a few years ago but yes i never watched it when i was a kid i was too scared you were right to me it's pretty darn scary there's a bunch of fishermen in that film i don't know if you remember so yeah there's quite a lot of nautical stuff going on in that film yeah there's a really great one i think it's been mentioned by i think the comedian paul f tompkins has mentioned this particular guy so there's the bit when richard dreyfus when he turns up for the first time and they've they've caught a shark that they're saying is the jaws they're like that's not jaws they're like he goes it's a tiger shark and there's a

shot of like the shark hanging up and two wizened fishermen are turned around and one goes oh what and then in the next scene that guy's shouting at the mayor with like a real like hard bit of new york accent on a second watch you realize that he was like mocking dreyfus by doing a silly voice to be like oh who's who's this book nerd kind of thing but because it's the first time the character's spoken you don't know that's not his voice so it's yeah quite funny but there's a lot more character in this two-line guy from Jaws than most of us realize I think he ends up being the one that's fishing with the pot roast that's my wife's pot roast and because they go out to try and catch it, and then it pulls the little pier over.

Remember that bit? Mm, no. They just about get away with their lives. Do they get away with their pot roast? No, the pot roast is long gone. The pot roast's gone. Pot roasts are right off. Absolute.

Well, it's salted anyway by this point. Post-cooking, no thanks. All right. Well, I don't think his wife's going to be thrilled about that. No. But anyway, this guy's voice. A what? So you're not doing his New York voice, because of course we're on the West Coast.

Yeah, because Jaws is New York. You're doing his what? A what? It was very sharp tapered and had the smallest rudder fins for a body of such size that can be imagined. On the underside of the tail, there appeared to be vacuum cups, similar to those of octopus tentacles. So, yeah. Oh, that's the entire quote. That's the tail.

No, I mean, that's fine. It just took, that's the whole, sorry, it just took about 45 minutes for you to explain. Yes. How you decided on the voice. Oh, I'm just going to, I'm going to, there's quite a few quotes. Oh, so we'll do that for each of the quotes. We'll do a little inside the actor's studio about how you came, how you came up with the character. Yes, so we'll do that for each of the quotes. We'll do a little inside the actor's

studio about how you came up with the character. Yes, exactly. Great. Yes. Great. For the old man of Minery Bay. This is where your acting training pays off. Absolutely. Pays off. Pays dividends, James. Big time. So accounts of the startling human-like qualities of the head come from the Monterey fishermen of the 1920s, 30s and 40s. Because this was peak time for viewing the old man of Monterey Bay. These guys are going to have plum accents. Absolutely. Fishermen of the 1920s. Old timers.

Great Depression, etc. That's going to do something to the voice. So it was spotted many times by crew members of Monterey's purse signers or sardine boats. So purse signers, that is a word. Wow. There's two words for sardine boats. It was seen by the entire crew of a 12-man boat, which I'm guessing is 12 people saw it all at once and they told how the creature would suddenly surface give the dumbfounded fisherman what was described as a mournful look with its large baleful eyes and it would sort of stare at them and it would rise up out of the water

sometimes up to a height of 12 feet on a big long neck so it's a massive neck with a human head at the end of it yeah they do say in moby dick that the eye of the whale is the frightening part is do they traditionally you must never look at a whale in the eye if you're a whaler apparently why that's how they get you because it means you're too stunned frozen petrified by the power of the uh the gaze which of course you know in a whale hunting scenario is very dangerous. Yes. Because you need your wits about you. You do.

You've got to have soft knees as well if you're on the seas, otherwise you'll just topple straight over. Soft knees? Well, if you're on a boat, if you're on a bucking boat that's being chopped around, you've got to keep your knees soft. Is that a, yeah? Yeah. Is that a phrase?

Sorry, I'm a landlubber, James. I'm not familiar with your nautical terminology. What do you mean keep your knees soft? Well, this is, these are your sea Sorry, I'm a landlubber, James. I'm not familiar with your nautical terminology. What do you mean, keep your knees soft? Well, these are your sea legs, I'm guessing. Is that how you say, get your sea legs, keep your knees soft? Keep your knees soft, yeah. Have you ever said that to anybody who works on boats? I think you've heard from earlier, Alistair,

that given my command of the voice of people on boats, I'm very familiar with boats. Well, let's just go down to the harbour and have you talk to people about keeping your knees soft. Keep your knees soft, lads, you could say, as they go up the gangplank. Oh, what? Oh, wait a minute.

Hold on. Hold on, Alice. Which one's the bigger one, ships and boats? You can put a boat on a ship, but you can't put a ship on a boat? I believe so. A ship is the big one. Okay. Similar with spoons as well. It's how you remember the difference between a dessert spoon and a table

spoon you could put a dessert on a table dessert on a table you can't put a table on dessert of course not unless something's gone badly wrong you could put a tea on a dessert i don't know you could probably put dessert in your tea like anyway if you sort of crammed it in i feel that's i've sidetracked us can i show you the picture slightly in this show me it please yeah pop the camera on there there he is look at those eyes oh yeah the frightening beast had a very old man's or monkey's face with eyes twice the diameter of breakfast buns exactly that. Mmm. That old standard of measurement. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The breakfast bun. It's double the breakfast bun, which, let me just see what that is in leagues. That's going to be about the size of one stottie cake. One stottie cake, I think. A breakfast bun, I'm guessing that's a tea cake. Oh, okay. And I don't know what a breakfast bun is. Yeah guessing that's a tea cake. Oh, okay. And I don't know what a breakfast bun is.

Yeah, that's like a roll. Your standard roll, I'd say. Yes. Or a scone in English. Scone size, you know. A scone? Okay, yeah. Just a little one.

Not like a bap. I mean, we're a northerner and a southerner attempting to communicate exclusively via the medium of bread rolls. This is not going to go well. It's impossible. No, like George Bernard Shaw said, no one can describe a bun to anyone else without immediately making an enemy.

Is that what he said? Pretty certain. He said something like that, except he would have said it in George Bernard Shaw's voice. So he would have said, no one can describe a bun to anyone else. Google how we talked. It was very weird. Was it really like that? It was really high pitched and it was a sort of sing song kind of voice.

Because early recordings didn't have bass. They didn't have any bass. Yeah, no, he probably sounded like Barry White in real life. But in the recordings, he comes out very high pitched and sing song. like Barry White in real life. But in the recordings, he comes out very high pitched and sings songs. Wow.

Right. So what happened to these guys in 1938, this was recorded in the Monterey Peninsula Herald, which boasted the headline, Old man of bay back on top. Weird monster sighted again. Americans are so competitive. He's back on top. Everything's a competition.

Even among sea creatures, it's like, he made it! Number one! Number one! Against whom? It doesn't matter, he's back on top.

Back on top. Although, as we'll learn later, there are quite a few different sea monsters in this bit of water. But I don't think they were like waging a war in the tabloids for column inches.

Tell you what, James, you might not agree with him, but we're all talking about it. That is true. Yeah, you know, yeah. You don't have to agree with him, but we're talking about it. Absolutely.

So on this Sina or sardine boat, the Dante Alighieri, I've got no idea how, if that's pronounced right so imagine a boat 75 minutes out of monterey passing over the deepest part of the bay's canyon when the crew spotted what appeared to be a huge white human face and the man shouted for his shipmates to look and in a matter of seconds the entire crew stood gawking at the four-foot-wide face. Four feet wide.

Could you put that in bun terms, please? Oh, that is a big breakfast. That's about 12, maybe 12 buns? Yeah. I'd say it's probably the width of about, if you imagine a foot-long sub, it's probably about the width of four of them. Four of those. Wow.

Okay. Now you've put a human face on it. Well, no, not for me. Possibly a monkey's face. Because of the earlier conversations, I'm just imagining that picture of the sausage dog in the bun, running around looking really happy. So here we go.

We've got a different unit of measurement now because the boat drifted to within i quote boat hook distance of the creature a keen optical distance the distance of the boat hook yes but i don't know what that is because as as it is becoming more apparent i'm not a sailing man but his eyes were closing it looked like it was having a little nap and then as the boat drifted closer still the man like monster awoke with a snort and flashed coal black eyes at the crew again you got to watch out for the eyes i said didn't i yeah the creature snorted and dug its two fins into the water as it rolled over and dived and then the crew they were obviously quite startled by this and it says they made the captain promise

to get a camera and keep it on board well that's how i feel about a lot of the people in our stories yeah well it turns out that they should get a camera and photograph some of these things i'd forgotten that cameras existed at this time the captain is a veteran of three sightings so he's seen it three times before and he's not thought, I could probably do with, probably take a picture of that. It is a bit weird. Get a cameraman. Keep your knees wobbly and get a camera. Keep them soft.

And that's going to act as stabilisation for the camera. It's sort of like a rudimentary thing that Kubrick invented, Steadicam. Yeah, yeah. Sort of this nature Steadicam. Yeah, yeah. Sort of this nature's Steadicam soft knees. Just to be clear, we know Kubrick didn't invent that. Don't tell us. Don't know any doing malice to say that Kubrick didn't invent Steadicam.

And also, he had to change the end of The Shining because the technology wasn't there to glue hedge maze beasts onto a dog. The voice you're doing, I've realized who it reminds me of it's the the guy from twin peaks who's who was in all of david lynch's films the fisherman from twin peaks is he a fisherman there was a fish in the percolator there was a fish in the percolator so this man the best overall description of the frightening beast was provided by the crew member who made the original sighting. And this man was quoted in the Herald as saying the creature had a very old man's or monkey's face with eyes twice the diameter of breakfast buns and a mouth like a crescent moon.

Barnacles were all over the head and all along the black body. Folds of white skin hung beneath the neck. The body was as big around as a pickup truck. It must have weighed maybe eight or nine tons. Wow. Ooh-wee! That's another unit of measurement there, the pickup truck. Yeah, the same size as a pickup truck.

Massive. It sounds a lot like a big seal, but wow. And, I mean, this convinced quite a lot of people in fact the reporter windsor jocelyn wait a minute i've just realized that's a like a pun isn't it is that yeah the windsor jocelyn oh you're going out fishing tonight windsor jocelyn monterey has its own sea monster right here in its own front yard. But in this case, the front yard is the sea. The sea, yeah. Yes.

The ultimate front yard. Yes. A country's front yard, if it's not landlocked. In which case, the country's front yard is another country. So, yeah, as I say, Bobo or Bobo has been compared to many other animals. Is that the name they've given to this one, Bobo? Bobo, yes. And I'm going to tell you why. Okay.

So there's a bunch of crocodile-like sightings, but those were always reported from people on the shore. And this mostly took place in the late 1940s. And they said the creature was extremely long, about four feet in diameter and multi-humped and the serpent like head was kind of flat with eyes like a crocodile and the teeth were v-shaped in an even like in an even line like a saw so this is sort of rather than what i showed you which was like a human face on the back of her head this is like if you saw the side of it yeah that's a clearly a

different creature i think it's a different. Do they have crocodiles in that area? It couldn't just be a crocodile? I don't know. Too big to be a crocodile? A saltwater croc. Or a log? I think people would have mentioned a saltwater croc. They're very dangerous.

And in the 30s, a 14-year-old. 14-year-old in his 30s? Yeah. That's what I was like. Reading the Financial Times, smoking a pipe. So the lad was walking home along the railway tracks, just like in the film Stand By Me, that the lad was shocked to see a long, slender neck

topped by a giraffe-like head rise out of the water. It looked from side to side, apparently satisfied or perhaps terrified at what it saw the giraffe-like giant almost immediately dropped his head back into the water and while this was taking place the shocked teenager managed to regain his voice and shout for his friends to look what did you look it's what i imagine he said um all they saw was churned up water as the creature swam away with terrific speed. They just missed it.

That's frustrating. So it says the neck appeared to be tapered and it rose and fell as if it was sort of levered. It says here, similar to the way a man's arm would bend towards his body from the elbow with the fist acting as the head. That's not at all how I would imagine a sea monster's neck bending. No. In the middle like an elbow yeah hmm very confusing but do you know why it's called bobo yes please so in the 1920s a portuguese fisherman was spotted frantically rowing back into the bay on and he got and people like came up to him on the wharf like hey what's going on and he he was he was terrified he he started garbling about a terrifying encounter

he'd had with an odd looking creature in the bay and he was clearly terrified and of course all these fishermen proceeded to just take the mickey out of him yeah and they they teased him and called him names and told him to quit acting like a bobo and in portuguese bobo means like being a fool kind of thing right yeah and so after that took place whenever someone got scared in the monterey bay area they said oh you're oh you're gonna be acting the bobo again and then that's over time evolved into saying you'd seen the bobo i'm gonna look it up because i've suddenly realized this is the past and yeah let's just check how offensive that is i might need to issue an apology to my our portuguese oh it means stew it means stew no it can also mean silly or a fool or stupid or a jester, zany, a goof, a buffoon, a clown.

I guess that's why you get clowns called Bobo. Yeah. A ninny is one of the options. A ninny? A ninny. You can't say ninny. A pantaloon, a scattamooch, or a Mary Andrew. Oh, now you've put it in context.

I understand. The phrase we use all the time, Mary Andrew. Oh, now you've put it in context. I understand that the phrase we use all the time, Mary Andrew. Ah, the Mary Andrew. He's acting the Mary Andrew. But Alistair, that actually was, that was meant to be just a little sort of pricey to what I wanted to tell you about, but it sort of ended up being loads.

I don't know. I don't know how it's going to come out in the edit, but we've been recording for four hours. And most of that was you describing how you came upon that accent. It was just me telling you the story of the film Jaws. You described the entirety of Jaws to me. Up until the one hour point. And then the guy goes, what?

So he's sat on the beach and he's worried. And it looks like the background's sort of moving a different way. He's getting bigger, but the background's getting smaller somehow. Okay, some other things that happen in Monterey Bay. Apparently, there is a giant whirlpool that forms between the harbours of Monterey and Moss Landing, and small boats have occasionally been reported missing there. Wow, think of all the buns that you could fit in there.

That must be enormous in bun terms. We don't know how many buns that whirlpool is, or fishhooks, or what was the other one? It's unbunnable. Yes, as people do say. It probably is fallimable, but not bunnable. It's the size of a bunch of pickup trucks. Wow.

Mm-hmm. Another sighting was made by these greatly... The author keeps referring to them as the greatly respected Monterey fishermen. They seem to just be bullying each other and telling stories about human-faced fish. So in 1934, the Perseverance Sardineine boat saint joseph was chugging along and the fisherman was at the wheel and he saw what he thought was a log sticking out the water and he's obviously you know didn't want to bang into it and knacker up his boat so when he was about 50 feet away you know steer away from it when he was about 50 feet away, you know, steer away from it. When he was about 50 feet away, the object turned in the water and faced him.

And he was quite startled by this. He took a closer look and his surprise turned to shock as he realized that whatever it was, the log was human-like in appearance and alive. That was quite in the book. A human log? Yeah, a log with a man's face a man log a werelog yeah a wet well a mayor log a mere log i'm guessing because it's in the sea yeah so he ran and got the crew by the time they came back onto deck the creature had disappeared now

as it says here this sounds like your classic bobo so i'm just gonna say that sounds like bobo yeah he sounds like he's acting the mary andrew but what says this story apart is the fisherman's startling answer when the author asked him whether the creature had hair and after thinking for a, he replied in the affirmative saying, It had reddish coloured hair that hung straight down. And over the years, the author had heard several reports of red-headed sea beasts. Ah, the ginger murloc. Yes, yes, a ginger murloc. Slash werelog.

Slash Mary Andrew. Mmm, sinister. Slash where, Log? Slash Mary Andrew. Mmm, sinister. You know, these respected fishermen, they heard stories of this new sort of version of the Bobo, and they laughed and wondered aloud what adornment would be added next to the colourful creature.

It sounds a little bit like they can't even fathom the idea of red hair. Yeah, that's not that outlandish. It happens. Yeah, it can happen. It's rare, but it happens yeah it can happen it's rare but it happens but as the author says perhaps most important is information indicating that red-headed sea monsters have been reported for as long as man can remember and it seems that these beasts might inhabit monterey bay but alistair get, get your search engine of choice up. Okay.

And what you want to look up is... Just cracking my knuckles here. Yep, ready to go. Okay. Just moving my... doing that neck thing where you crack your neck if you're a tough guy in a film. Look up the ribbon fish or the oar fish. Ooh, he's got a face on him.

He has, but what else has he got? He's got hair. He's got red hair. He's got a red mohawk all the way down his long, long back. He's like the Blanka of fish. Blanka, the Street Fighter 2 character. Yeah, bang back down. You're electric.

No one can touch you. Fight goes on forever. Back, back down. Don't back down. Don't back down. You're electric. If you look up the oarfish as well, this is another type of fish that it could have been.

And these can be really long. Look at that. Look at that oarfish. Wow. Look at his Wikipedia page. If you look, if you do an image search, see the size of it. I don't know if that's true,

because it's a picture of three people holding a massive oarfish on a beach, but it seems to be on the Animal Crossing wiki. So I don't know if that's true because it's a picture of three people holding a massive or fish on a beach but it seems to be on the animal crossing wiki so i don't know what i can see i can see an 18 foot or fish on from an npr website with a dozen people holding it and the dog the dog's not holding it but the dog's there oh i to show you that they're not using special effects. What? Because when you do special effects and you glue something

to a dog, all dogs in the picture would have disappeared. Well, I just, I feel like if you saw a monster that was a thing glued to a dog

next to a dog, you'd go, hang on. You could easily, yeah, yeah. You're not going to make it. Without a frame of reference, you're like,

oh, what is this strange creature? Never seen the the leg how strange and mysterious but if you saw a dog you go oh it's a dog with a thing on it apart from the fact that it doesn't look like a log and it definitely hasn't got a human face this is it where they found it that is what it is npr have found it the woke woke npr have ruined yet yet another person's fun. In this case, they've ruined the fun of the respected fishermen of Monterey Bay. It's also known as the King of Destruction. NPR is?

The oarfish. The oarfish. The King of Destruction? Yeah. That might just be on Animal Crossing for some reason. James, why is Animal Crossing your- I don't know why that is. That's my new search engine. Why is Animal Crossing your... I don't know why that is. That's my new search engine. Why is Animal Crossing your resource of choice for this? Not everything has to be channeled through King of Herrings.

Oh, wait, I think that's an album. But still. Have you seen the picture of the Navy SEALs holding a 23-foot that washed up in San Diego? I haven't. Are the Navy SEALs humans or are they SEALs? They could be SEALs with something stuck to them but no i think they are humans so that this massive thing apart although its eyes are quite starry i wouldn't describe its face as being particularly human

unless you only know really odd looking people i these fishermen they spend a lot of time at sea don't they? Yeah, they might have forgotten what people look like. That's true. That's very true. But this is massive with a load of red spines all down its back. At least one account says that it gives off an electric shock when touched. So there you go, Alistair. That is maybe an explanation. Clearly and definitely the explanation for what people have seen. Yes. Just a really big fish. So there you go, Alistair.

Those are the sea monsters of Monterey Bay. Wow. It's like Liam Neeson says in the beloved film, The Phantom Menace. Oh, yeah. There's always a bigger fish. Yes. You remember that? A little joke happens and it's animated. There's always a bigger fish. Yes. You remember that? A little joke happens

and it's animated. There's a little animated joke and then to make sure you notice the joke, one of the characters says the joke again. And that line goes to Liam Neeson. Lucky him.

Let's score those liberal West Coast metropolitan San Francisco beasts. Sardine farming beasts. Of South East London, where I live. Yeah. Should we judge them? Yeah, I'm ready to.

Excellent. Right then. First up, names. Names. Okay. Bobo. Good name for a clown. Terrible name for a fish.

A Mary Andrew. A Mary Andrew is an excellent name. Yes. The Dry Jack. It's the cheese from earlier. It's the cheese, yeah. But it would be a really good nickname for someone who didn't have, you know, didn't keep his knees soft.

Someone who was, you know, a lubber, a landlubber type. Yep, yep, yep. They'd be quite the Ninny Hammer. Yeah, excellent. Which is another translation evidently of Bobo. We had Dante Alighieri. Dante Alighieri. Neither of us are quite sure how to pronounce Dante's surname.

The humorously named reporter, Windsor Jocelyn. Windsor Jocelyn is just great. Windsor Jocelyn. Just a terrific musical name. You've got to hope that he lived long, because it seems like he was in the newspapers in the 30s, but you've got to hope that he lived long enough to become a weather reporter on the telly.

And we go, oh, what a Windsor Jocelyn. The opportunity to have the thing underneath him say, Windsor Jocelyn, Windsor Jocelyn. Yeah, reporting on a hurricane. I don't know, what do they call them in America? Call them Aston's in English. Can't remember what those things are called. The little strap that appears, like if I interviewed you doing that hello voice, it would say James

Shakespeare, respected fisherman. Yes. Excellent fisherman voice. Yes. Yes, it would. It wouldn't say Bobo or any derivation. Cryons, which sounds like a sci-fi enemy. When I were allowed, we called them Astons. There was the one in 2021 when there was the

brief fuel crisis in the UK. There was the reporter who was at a petrol station. His name was Phil McCann. I definitely saw a bank robbery being attended by PC Rob Banks. Oh, lovely. Lovely stuff. So what are we talking then? Oh, names. Oh, excellent. Very good.

Three. What? A fine three. A fine three. Yes. A three that is as respectable as a Monterey fisherman. Fair enough. Okay.

Second category. Yeah. Supernatural. Supernatural. Hmm. as a monterey fisherman fair enough okay second category yeah supernatural supernatural well i was i was really i was impressed by your honesty james yeah because it's clearly a big long ribbon fish the second one the redhead one is not the standard standard Bobo. I don't think ribbonfish have got baleful eyes the size of one or two breakfast bups. Okay. Maybe Bobo is a real supernatural creature. Or at least a cryptid. The ginger log is just a ribbonfish or an orcish. Yes, it's a misidentified ribbonfish.

Okay. Or maybe Bobo's a misidentified ribbon fish. Okay. Or maybe Bobo's trying out a new look. A wig, you think? Yes, a wig. A wigged Bobo? Yes. Maybe that's why he looked so sad before, because he was experiencing Bobo Patton baldness.

Baldness is common in the sea. Most of the great sea creatures are bald. Whales, octopuses. i don't know if you've ever seen a an underwater film set underwater such as aquaman but hair looks really silly underwater hair looks all cgi it just looks it looks like it looks like one summit being sellotaped to a dog and two just sort of like a bit of a cloud around your head. I'm not sure what point I was making there, but it was to do with how supernatural Bobo was. Well, I feel like we've had two sea creatures,

but one of them turned out not to be supernatural. But I can't give you 2.5. What about the big whirlpool? Is it whirlpool? It's not like the whirlpool between Scylla and Charybdis. Don't know about the pronunciation there in the Odyssey. That was kind of a supernaturally dangerous whirlpool. Scylla?

Scylla, S-C-Y-L-L-A. Not like Scylla Black. Right, not like Scylla Black. No. It's not like a whirlpool that's like, surprise, surprise. You would be surprised, though, wouldn't you? You would be surprised. That's true.

Probably not Odysseus. He was probably warned. People were always warning people in those days. Mm-hmm. Well, you haven't really added anything supernatural there, but we did remember several things. No, I didn't. I think, if anything.

Yeah, we all enjoy to remember. So I'm going to say two for supernatural. Nice. One for each of his deadly flukes and his staring eyes. Okay, then. In that case, my third category is a menagerie. A menagerie? A wet menagerie.

I don't know if you need a different word for it when it's in the sea, but it's a menagerie. It's a flooded menagerie. A moist nagerie. A moist nagerie. Yes. Because we've got crocodiles. Some people say they're bull-like. We've got that giraffe.

We've got a human. The most dangerous of all the game. Elephant. Didn't even get into that. Horse. The bun. Yep. And a duck. I forgot about a duck. You just saw a duck no that's not gonna impress a fisherman no you saw a duck that's not unusual i mean but what a bunch of animals right there

what a bunch of wet animals very wet yes some of them at home in the water. So many creatures, maritime, and what's the land version of maritime? Landitime, teratime. Teratime. It's teratime. Mare means sea, terra means land, maritime, teratime. So many maritime and teratime creatures. Wow. Yeah, it's five out of five.

It's a salty, damp five out of five. All different creatures crammed in there. Nice. And then my final category is, you said it actually, Alistair. I like it when I'm responsible for a category. It's the quote from Star Wars, there's always a bigger fish. Ah, but say it in Liam Neeson's voice. There's always, I don't, there's always a bigger fish.

Is that as Liam Neeson playing a respectable fisherman? There's always a bigger fish. It's just like he's in the room. I have a specific set of skills. Are they mostly fishing related? Yes. If you want sardines, I'm your per senior. Windsor Jocelyn.

My name's Qui-Gon Jinn. I wish there were any quotable lines from him from those films. Yeah. Just Googling, yeah, just Googling Liam Neeson films. Here we go. We're bound to create some natural off-the-cuff banter here. Liam Neeson films. I've inadvertently Googled Qui-Gon Jim.

Yeah, that is the, that was when he had a Republic of Irish accent. Oh, is that not when he went undercover? He taught old Ben Kenobi everything he knows to once again have a sort of vague stab at some of your stand-up from the past. My name's Michael Collins. Probably his most famous and most popular film. Michael Collins, directed by, what's his name? Off of Your Vampires.

Neil Jordan, that's it. Oh, yeah. Yeah, he directed Michael Collins. Be man, full of the force. He's in Men in Black International. Anyway, what was the category was? There's Always a Bigger Fish. There's Always, yes.

Logic. Logic would dictate that eventually we would reach the largest fish. That's the point. In a finite universe. But perhaps the universe is infinite. And if so, then that must be true. There must always be a bigger fish, which means I have to give you infinity out of five. Whoa, whoa.

I don't know. Is it possible? I don't know. Does the score have to give you infinity out of five. Whoa, whoa. I don't know. Is it possible? I don't know. Does the score system allow that? Infinity out of five? We can round it down to a five if you want. If we are limited.

Leave it up to the nerds who have that spreadsheet. Yeah, if we are limited to not be able to put infinity, which is just an eight that's fallen over. It's just a lazy eight. It's just an eight that's tried to look up to see how big Infinity is,

and then it fell on its back. Ooh, it's big. How many buns would that be? Loads. More buns than you can imagine. Well, it looks like two breakfast buns, doesn't it, in a way? Yeah, all right. I'll take that.

I'll take Infinity. Thanks. So there you have it. He wasn't a man was he i just wanted to tell you about a red-headed monster that i'd heard of because oh yeah we all know each other yeah yes exactly well thanks it's a good story and there's quite a lot of extra content which you will gain access to when you join us at patreon.com forward slash lawmen pod where you'll also get access to the law folk discord where you can chat with like-minded law folks and thank you very much for those law folks for your ongoing support thank you to you the listener for listening and thanks

for giving us a rating of five stars i'm pre-empting you there. Thank you for that, actually. Thank you. And thank you very much, Joe, for editing. And thanks. Let's just say thanks to all the sea monsters. Thanks, Bobo. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Bobo.

I remembered as well what category I want to put in, which was units of measurement, because we had the full gamut from breakfast bun to pickup truck via fish hook. Yep. That's how Fahrenheit works. It's the freezing temperature of a breakfast bun

and the boiling temperature of a pickup truck. Yep. Hmm. And the Goldilocks temperature is fishhook size that might be a post-credits little bit i think that might be yes