My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark - 310 - I Like Seagulls

Episode Date: January 20, 2022

On today’s episode, Georgia and Karen cover the Attica prison uprising and the survival of José Salvador Alvarenga.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

This is exactly right. We at Wondery live, breathe, and downright obsess over true crime. And now we're launching the ultimate true crime fan experience, Exhibit C. Join now by following Wondery, Exhibit C, on Facebook and listen to true crime on Wondery and Amazon Music. Exhibit C, it's truly criminal. Hello. Hello.

And welcome. To my favorite birder. That's Georgia Heartstar. That's Karen Kilgariff. We start at the same way every time for your comfort. Okay. Maybe we'll change it up. You just never know.

Don't be scared. Posted. Yeah. Stay alert. Uh-huh. Watch your six. Watch your what? Watch your six.

It's, you know, army talk. You know how I get military, militaristic sometimes. You said it as if I'm supposed to know. Was your dad in the army? Did he talk like an army person? No, not at all. My dad was, um, he was in like the reserves and he basically was a typist in, uh, the radio in San Francisco in the fifties.

He like missed, he was that perfect generation to miss all the wars. Too old for Vietnam, too young for Korea, I guess. Huh. Yeah. Interesting. Home gym. Add it again. Home gym.

Killing it. Being a typist. My dad was a cook in the army reserves during Vietnam, which kept him out of Vietnam. Which, you know, again, also lucky. Yeah. It's a great job if you can get it. I mean, well, you can get it if you're Marty Hart Stark. Thank you to all of our military members who have served bravely and didn't dip.

Appreciate your service. Didn't get six out of there, as you like to call it six out, which is not a military term. What's going on? I feel like we've, uh, just did this. We days ago. We did just do this days ago, and I've got nothing in my life going on whatsoever. It's how it should be because there's a pandemic going on.

Let's all try to chill the fuck out a little bit. I'm bored, but no, but that's it. Yeah. What about how about Game of Thrones, anything going on in the land of Westeros? Game of Thrones is going well. You know, what's your face? I just dyed her hair black, so you know, things are fucking getting crazy out in there. Wait, who?

Sansa? Sansa dyed her hair black, so shit's getting goth and crazy. She's going to marry that hot psycho, uh, who totally ruined Theon Greyjoy's life. Yeah. And then I'm a little bit bored of it, but, uh, well, it's, it's quite a, you know, it's quite a journey. Yes. It just keeps happening.

I could see why watching it while it was happening and you had to wait for the next episode from the next week would have been very frustrating because sometimes nothing happens in the episode until the end of the episode. And they're like, whoa. Yeah. But it probably was like super exciting and time to talk about it throughout the week with other people. Yep.

So I think I'm getting a little too much, uh, sword fighting going on in my life. I think the way we now binge television series, it's, we're spoiled. It's like, oh, this, and it's like, yes, this accomplishment where they created another world that you actually believe in. Right. It's, you know, especially because of quarantine or because of staying home so much. Yeah. Yeah.

You just kind of plow through it. You're like, all right, let's pick up the pace. Well, you know what I like? So I watched the new search party, which was just insane, the zombies are key words there. Yes. Really? Okay. I have to catch up because I'm way behind on search party.

It was wild. It was great. And then also station 11, I just finished too. And they both did a really cool thing where they put out two episodes a week. So you could like double binge two episodes. It was really fulfilling, but you didn't get all of them at once. Yeah. Okay.

So that, I feel like that's a good new thing we should be doing. Can I, because I really liked the first couple of episodes of station 11. Yeah. But then there was an episode where I couldn't stop looking at my phone. And I think it's because it was about like traveling Shakespeare company. Oh yeah. In the post-apocalyptic future, where I was like, really, we'll never get away from these goofy bastards.

The theater kids are even in the survived the apocalypse. Like who would put money on theater kids surviving the apocalypse? I mean, you know, from what I've seen in my days in the theater, actually it makes a lot of sense to me. Oh, yeah. But that isn't where it stays. Am I correct in assuming that they don't, it then goes other places from there? Yeah.

But she is part of the traveling symphony and the Shakespeare, traveling Shakespeare. So it's still there, but it's so well acted. And I don't know anything about Shakespeare. So I was like, wow, you know, but you might get it made you like it. Oh yeah. It's like Hamlet. Wow. Okay.

Not just Hamlet 2 starring and made by what's his name? Steve Coogan. All I can think of is Steve McQueen. Steve Coogan. Steve Coogan's amazing movie Hamlet 2. That's basically all. That movie is, I'm sorry to sidebar. Let's sidebar.

Section 11 is great. I'll dip back in. Yes, please do. Hamlet 2 is one of the fucking funniest things. Like there's moments where I laughed so hard and so loudly by myself. Yes. Here's the other movie I was going to recommend that's a Steve Coogan movie that I think kind of went under the radar from 2018.

And it's called Ideal Home. And it's Steve Coogan and Paul Rudd as a gay couple who have to basically adopt Steve Coogan's grandson from like a 70s marriage that he had immediately divorced out of. Wow. It's a good one. Yeah. When Harry met Sally. Ideal Home.

Oh, Ideal Home. Okay. Oh, here's something that has nothing to do with any of this. There was recently in December, an article on Refinery29 called I'm a drag queen and this is what my beauty routine looks like in a week. And it's the incredible internationally renowned drag queen Shea Coulee who's a model. She was on RuPaul's Drag Race. Of course.

And she has her own podcast, Want to Be on Top. But on Thursday, she says that she likes to listen to That's Messed Up or My Favorite Murder. What? Yeah. Hell yeah. Shea, we are huge fans. You are incredible.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Thanks. That's it. I just wanted to bring that up because it made me really excited. Awesome. So, you know, I just started a podcast that's Scotty Landis. You started another podcast?

You already have two. Yeah. I started a fifth podcast. I hope you don't mind. And I can't talk that much and in fact, I have to wrap this up right now. Is it a podcast that talks about the last episode of My Favorite Murder and like breaks it down and talks shit? Yeah.

We just don't, we don't like it. Why don't they just start? Do what I want. Do exactly what I want all the time. Sorry. It's, Scotty Landis was like, my friend just started this podcast and it's called Wild Things and it's about Siegfried and Roy and their whole, the whole behind the scenes leading up to the night of the show.

It's, and I just started episode one and it's really well done. It's really good. It's called Wild Things. There's a neon tiger face as the cover art and it's so good. Yeah. Can you tell them in a place where I'm not watching TV because I'm just binging podcasts constantly? Good.

Good. That's a good place to be. I feel like I'm in the opposite place, which feels a lot lazier because when I'm listening to podcasts and up and around, I'm doing this, I'm doing that, but when I'm watching like Game of Thrones, I'm just like fucking sitting on my lazy boy and like trying to figure out where that smell of pee is coming from because Mimi probably peed on something like it's just not conducive to like a good mental health state. True.

Well, it's, yeah, it's almost like you're over-relaxing too much where then your legs start getting tingly and you're just like, is my circulation bad because I've watched so much television. How many hours of sword fights have I fucking muted at this point? Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang.

Clang. Clang. Clang. Oh my God. I don't have anything else. Let's see. Do you want to do a quick- That's all I have.

Exactly right corner. Yeah, let's do it. All right. The fourth season of Tenfold, more wicked, with Kate Winkler-Dawson is finally here. It's called Tiger Woman and it features the story of the killer Clara Philip based in 1920s Los Angeles. Can you believe fourth season of Tenfold? Amazing.

Amazing. Kate Winkler-Dawson does such an amazing job with that show. It's so well researched. Yeah. So good. She's great. Yeah. It's season four.

Also this week on That's Messed Up, an SVU podcast, they talk about SVU season 13, episode three with actor Judy Reyes. You know her from Scrums and you know her from Search Party. Hey. She's on that episode. And I said, no gifts. Bridger is joined by comedian Tien Tran, who's in the new How I Met Your Father series on Hulu.

And of course, in the MFM store. Oh no, my voice is changing. That's fine. In the MFM store, there's SSDGM BFF pin sets. One for you, one for your bestie, their little hearts broken in half. I love it. You couldn't ask for anything more. Those are so, I just love those throwbacks.

Did you like have those best friend ones that you were like, if you, I don't know. Those were so like fraught with tension of like, who has that? Who gets your other half? It's exciting. No, the 80s weren't really like that. We were all a little bit more. It was like, should I start bullying this person? What's my bullying schedule this week?

What's my strategy going to be? You had like a, like a detective wall with a red thread going from this girl to that girl. Who to bully, who to be bullied by was all very bullying. Who to retaliate against for bullying your friend. It was a lot like scandal, but junior high. And it went all the way to the top. To the very top of junior high.

That's right. Cool. Well, is that everything? I think it is. I think we should kick this off. Let's kick this into overdrive. What? That makes no sense.

It's never happened before. It'll never happen again. This is about to be an overdrive podcast. Get ready. All right. Well, let's get serious because. Were you singing, uh, sister Christian motor in? Yep.

What? Yeah, but I called it overdrive and said, because I've never know the words. So there's, there's where I am. Looking for a better cooking routine with meal planning, shopping and prepping handled hello fresh has you covered. Hello fresh makes home cooking easy and affordable so you can stay on track and on budget in the new year. Hello fresh meals are convenient, seasonal and delicious.

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All right, Karen, today, I'm going to talk about the Attica prison uprising. I was going to do this, why don't you read that so much? Yeah. Amazing. Sorry, I'm doing it. It's the bloodiest prison riot and so it keeps being called a riot. It is an uprising, which of course we know is a totally different meaning and connotation. So please know when I say it, I'm referring to the uprising and I'll get more into that.

It's the bloodiest prison riot. It's known as that in US history and also known as one of the most important civil rights stories of the last century. Great. So the sources used in today's episode are Project Nia, two New York Times articles, one by James Forman Jr. and one by Jennifer Schusler and another old article from the New York Times by Murray Schumack, a Democrat and Chronicle article written by Gary Craig and a US Today article written by Stephen Beard and Gary Craig and also of course our

friend Wikipedia. There's also a really incredible documentary that was made last year. It was the 50th anniversary of the prison uprising and you can find that on Hulu or Showtime called Attica. It's incredible interviews from people who were there, inmates who were there. It's really great. So Karen, the maximum security prison Attica is located in Attica, New York. It's a small upstate town 35 miles east of Buffalo.

The prison was built in the 1930s and it was meant to accommodate 1600 inmates, but by 1971, there were more than 2,200 inmates crammed into the prison. So about one in six New York inmates were incarcerated in the Attica prison, so that's a huge amount of people. So of course, there was a huge discrepancy when it came to race in Attica. At the time, 54% of inmates in Attica were black, while the entire administration team and every single one of the nearly 400 prison guards were all white. Overpopulation and race inequality weren't the only issues at Attica.

The men were treated incredibly poorly. They were kept in their six by nine foot cells for 14 to 16 hours per day, allowed only one shower a week, their sheets were only changed once a month, and each inmate was only given a single roll of toilet paper that had to last them the entire month. So obviously living conditions are inhumane. The prisoners are also malnourished. The prison spent only 63 cents per prisoner per day on food, which if you do the math is 21 cents per meal for a fucking human being.

And because the prison had an adjacent pig farm, a huge portion, 85% of the food is pork meat or pork saturated food, which is also an issue due to the growing black Muslim population of the prison and which we know, of course, it's forbidden to eat pork according to Islamic law. So these and of course the regular and horrific physical abuse by staff are just a handful of the many issues the prisoners faced. Leading up to the famous prison uprising, Attica inmates tried different things to get the attention of those in power so changes could be made, but nothing seemed to work.

One of those cries for help happens in June of 1971, when five prisoners start the Attica liberation faction or ALF and start holding meetings, hoping to spread awareness about how the mistreatment they're facing isn't normal, even for the prison system, which as we know back then and now as well is very problematic. In July, the ALF comes up with a list of 27 demands they feel need to be met in order to make the prison a livable place. The ALF presents their demands to Commissioner of Corrections Russell Oswald and Governor Nelson Rockefeller.

Essentially Commissioner Oswald assures the ALF that there will be change, but nothing changes. Everything stays the same. So there's been unrest for months and it's really starting to ramp up on September 8th. That day, two inmates had been put in solitary confinement for fighting in the yard. There was this whole scuffle and issue around that. They had been told that no harm would come to them and they wouldn't have been put in solitary confinement, but later that night when everyone's locked up, they take these

two prisoners to solitary confinement, which in Attica everyone knows just means they're going to be tortured by the officers. So this upsets the inmates. They throw things from their cells as officers drag the two inmates away. And at around 8.45 the next morning on September 9th, a large group of prisoners are in the A tunnel, which is typically used to funnel inmates to different yards for recreation time. So basically there's four tunnels that lead to the center area, that area is known as

Times Square, and then from there they're dispersed into one of four yards. Many inmates are still angry about the two inmates being sent to solitary, which worries corrections officers. They can feel that there's something going on, so they lock the prisoners inside the tunnel. But this of course only makes things worse. The prisoners are now worried that they're going to be attacked by the officers, and so they have no escape, so they start fighting back and attacking the officers.

Prisoners that are in the A yard can hear fighting in the tunnel, so they start grabbing whatever they can find to arm or protect themselves. And just after 9am, a number of inmates in the tunnel are able to break one of the locks. The building was built in the 30s, so obviously it's not up to code, one of the locks easily breaks off. And officer Bill Quinn is beaten and his keys are taken, which means the inmates have keys to the entire facility. The prisoners are then able to get through the gates that separate the tunnels.

They start running to different areas, taking employees hostage and grabbing whatever weapons they can find. And within minutes, there is a full riot at the Attica prison. When all is said and done, that day 42 prison employees are taken hostage in the D yard where they're blindfolded, dressed in prison clothes and held as hostages. And they're dressed in prison clothes so that if there's like a sniper, they won't shoot because they don't know who they are hoping that they wouldn't kill, purposely kill hostages. Yeah.

Okay. Although the founding members of the Attica Liberation Front did not take part in the uprising, they soon offered to help prisoners negotiate with Commissioner Oswald. They work on their demands while other prisoners maintain control of the prison. So they actually guard the hostages because they don't want them to be attacked and they want to be fair and make sure that they can be used in the proper way, which is not attacking and killing. And so they have guards, prisoner guards, protecting the hostages.

So one more, it's like, these are the things that delineated from a riot is when everyone just goes crazy. Right. It's like mob mentality and insanity. These guys had a plan and the reason they were doing it was they needed demands met. There was no way they were being heard, otherwise they were being tortured. They were being starved. Someone had to do something.

Right. And there is just this kind of, what's it called, boiling point that everyone had and everything, you know, everything was in place. It all just kind of blew at that point, but they were still there to make their demands and to negotiate. It wasn't, yeah, it wasn't a riot in that they were like, you know, no laws. It was, we need to make things better for ourselves. Yeah.

Right. So on September 10th, the ALF finalizes a declaration explaining the uprising to the American people. It was on the news, everyone was watching what was going on and the inmates invited reporters and TV cameras inside the prison because the inmates knew that the, you know, the politicians and the police outside could control the narrative if they wanted to and just be like, the prisoners are just going crazy and writing. So they smartly invited them in to say, listen to our demands and like, let's let the public

know we're not just, you know, criminals. We're trying to be treated like human beings. Right. So one of their demands was to, to make sure the reporters and TV cameras came in. The declaration that was read had been written by this incredible kid. He was 21 years old. He was a burgeoning civil rights activist. His name was Elliot James Barkley and he was known as LD.

LD was from Rochester and he was in Attica for driving without a license because it had violated his parole from a prior prison sentence for cashing a forged money order for $124. So he was in a maximum security dangerous unsafe prison for these minor offenses. And he was actually getting out soon too, but he was like, I'm still helping. I'm not laying low. Fuck this. They're being treated inhumanely. You can see his speech and his demands on video and it is so powerful and so incredibly

highly recommend watching that on video or watching the Attica documentary. So part of the declaration LD reads says, quote, the entire incident that has erupted here at Attica is not a result of the dastardly bushwhacking of the two prisoners on September 8th, 1971, but of the unmitigated oppression wrought by the racist administrative network of this prison throughout the year. We are men. We are not beasts and we do not intend to be beaten or driven as such. The ALF also comes up with a list of 15, quote, practical proposals, which are basically changes

that the prisoners want made before they will end the uprising. Some of the demands that the ALF make are for simple human necessities like proper medical staffing at the prison, which at the time is understaffed and the staff that they do have are untrained, medically and inadequate, often making mistakes and dispensing medication and proper care. So the other proposals include apply the New York state minimum wage law to all state institutions. I think they were getting something like 40 cents a day. And so they wanted to stop slave labor and also they wanted to get some basic training

so that when they are, you know, paroled and let out, they have some on the job training. They also wanted to, quote, institute realistic rehabilitation programs for inmates according to their offense and personal needs, quote, educate all correctional officers so the needs of the inmates, i.e. understanding rather than punishment, quote, give us a healthy diet, stop feeding us so much pork and give us some fresh fruit daily, quote, give us a doctor that will examine and treat all inmates that request treatment. Those are just some of the basic demands they wanted of just being treated like humans. But they also wanted complete amnesty from the uprising and a guarantee that no retaliation

will be made against them once it's over. But no matter how many times Commissioner Oswald asks, Governor Rockefeller refuses to go to Attica to negotiate. He won't even go. Commissioner Oswald does go in with the reporters to listen to the demands. But most importantly, Governor Rockefeller refuses to give the prisoners amnesty, especially because on September 11th, two days into the riot, it's announced that the officer, Bill Quinn, who had the keys taken from him and had been trampled in the tunnel, died from

his injuries. So the prisoners, of course, come to the realization that many of them can now be charged for murder, which of course makes negotiations that much more difficult. On September 12th, prisoners, hostages, and Commissioner Oswald all beg Governor Rockefeller to come to the prison. He still refuses. Meanwhile, plans are made by Oswald to retake the prison, not by giving it to the prisoners' demands, but by whatever means necessary.

Prisoners also plan for authorities to take back the prison. They know something's up. They get the prison ready for retaking by making weapons and setting up places to hide. On the morning of September 13th, Oswald tells the prisoners that the state is accepting their deal, but the prisoners say the deal is no longer valid, that they don't believe the state will stick to their word. But it turns out it's all a ruse, anyways, because around 550 state troopers, national guardsmen, and other law enforcement officials gather outside the prison.

Prisoners respond by taking some of the hostages out onto the catwalks, and they hold homemade knives to their throats, hoping that that'll keep them up from attacking them. At around 9.45 a.m., two helicopters fly over the D-yard and drop tear gas, and at the same time, hundreds of law enforcement officers flood into the yard and start firing, while snipers shoot at inmates who are holding hostages on the catwalk. Officers fire for six to ten minutes straight. Oh my god. Some even run around liberally shooting specific inmates and giving the white power sign.

Even inmates who are lying on the ground or have their hands in the air are shot. When the smoke clears, 29 prisoners and 10 hostages are dead, and 89 prisoners are seriously wounded. I'm sorry, 10 hostages meaning the hostages are prison staff, that they had held to say, please listen to us, and we're protecting them, and now they basically just send in a bunch of cops who start shooting everybody. Well, here's the thing. The story that comes out later, obviously, by the officials say that the 10 hostages

who were prison staff and guards had died from their throats being cut, so saying that it was the prisoners. But later, the coroner comes forward and says they were all shot by officials. And he and his family get death threats for him coming forward with that. Of course. Right. So, 29 prisoners and 10 hostages are dead, but when the shooting stops, it's not where the story ends.

Surviving prisoners are stripped naked and forced to run through a, quote, gauntlet of 30 to 40 corrections officers who take turns at beating the prisoners with batons, belts, and more. And the medical staff don't treat any of the prisoners' wounds, so it becomes bedlam at this point and kind of a free-for-all for the staff and the guards to retaliate against this uprising. That's really gross. State Assemblyman Arthur Eve was there and witnessed the whole thing.

He accounts how some of the prisoners were tortured for hours, sodomized with foreign objects, forced to play roulette with shotguns. What the fuck? Inmate Frank Smith, who was a member of the negotiation team, later tells the media what happened to him. He was taken to the side of a building and laid on a table on his back. And for the next two hours, the officers beat him. They dropped hot bullet shells all over his body.

They burned him with cigarettes and cigars, and when the officers finally let him off the table, he still had to run through that gauntlet. He was taken to the hospital wing. He was beaten again. And from that point on, Frank faced psychological torture for days. Frank Lott, the chairman of the ALF, had a similar story of abuse. He was taken to an area where prisoners were forced to walk on glass with no shoes on. They were led upstairs and made to run through the gauntlet with the officers and batons.

He was taken to a cell and then officers came around with fire hoses and sprayed the inmates, then took all of their possessions and all their blankets and any furniture, left the windows open and forced them to sleep in the freezing cold temperatures. Jesus Christ. That's fucking mayhem. I know. And the incredible L.D. Barkley, the burgeoning civil rights activist who was one of the leaders of the ALF, was sought out and murdered.

So this 21-year-old kid who was in there for forging a money order worth $124 was murdered. There are many prisoner stories like this, and the abuse doesn't stop there. Around 80 alleged leaders of the uprising are put in 24-hour segregation and prison staff retaliate against the inmates for months. Meanwhile, Governor Rockefeller and Commissioner Oswald tell the public that the employee hostages died from having their throat slit. It's not true. They all died by shots fired by law enforcement officers.

They later corrected that in the paper, but of course, the first thing that comes out publicly is what people remember. They're not going to remember a correction. Correction. Yeah, that later comes out. So in response to how the government handled the retaking of the prison, protests and uprising break out around the country, some in prisons and some in public. There's so much public criticism that Governor Rockefeller appoints a special commission to

investigate what led up to the uprising and what happened during and afterwards. The report that comes out a year later, it states that Rockefeller, the Department of Corrections and the New York State Police did not properly handle the retaking, and it didn't protect inmates from retaliation following the riot. A special deputy attorney general is appointed to investigate the uprising and the retake and then prosecute those who broke the law. Within four years, he ends up charging 62 inmates with over 1200 separate counts. He only charges one trooper for reckless endangerment during the retaking.

It's clear to the public that the government is acting suspiciously. They're not telling the truth, and the families of the people who died during the uprising and retaking, they all want answers, including the families of the hostages, of course. In 1976, Governor Kerry drops all the charges against those 62 inmates. And following that decision, surviving inmates and families of inmates who died sue the state for violating their rights during and after the retaking. And the lawsuit spends decades going through the court system, and in 2000, the year 2000, the state finally agrees to pay an $8 million settlement.

Whoa. A similar lawsuit is filed by surviving prison employees and families of the deceased. And in 2005, they settled with the state for $12 million. But this happened in 1971, and it took to the year 2000 and 2005 for them to settle. It's, of course, insane. Because it's all the same system. Right. It's the people, it's the governor, the people that run the prison, the whole thing is, yeah.

Right. It's the judges, all of it. Right. To admit wrongdoing just goes against the entire system that's been set up for decades. Following the Attica prison uprising, the New York State Department of Corrections does opt to make some changes, like providing more basics such as more showers, soap, medical care, and family visits, introducing a grievance procedure in which inmates could report actions by a staff member that violated published policy, creating liaison committees in which

inmates elect representatives to speak for them in meetings with prison officials, allocating funding to prisoners, legal services, and lawyers, providing access to higher education, and allowing more religious freedom for inmates. So there is some changes that are made, but then in the 1980s and 1990s, the war on drug comes around, which leads to more overcrowding. And then between 1971 and 1999, the New York prison population increases from 12,500 to 72,600. Jesus.

All right. This is also the area of being, quote, tough on crime, which we all remember. So in addition to being overpopulated, many prisons go back to barely providing basics to inmates. So basically, the prison system goes back to their old ways, which led to the uprising happening in the first place. In 2011, corrections officers brutally beat an inmate at Attica prison, and this led to charges of assault against the corrections officers.

And this was the first time this had happened in New York state history that charges were brought in 2011. In 2015, the officers ended up pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of misconduct in order to avoid prison time. So nothing much has changed. Days after the uprising ended on September 20, 1971, L.D. Barkley was given a hero's funeral at the historic 142-year-old AME Memorial Zion Church in his hometown of Rochester. The church had once seen Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass fight for the end of slavery.

This is an amazing historic church, and this 21-year-old kid got a hero's funeral there. One of the things he said during the uprising was, quote, Every one of us here have to set forth to change forever the ruthless brutalization and disregard for the lives of the prisoners here and throughout the United States. What has happened here is but the sound before the fury of those who are oppressed. We've called upon all the conscientious citizens of America to assist us in putting an end to the situation that threatens the lives of not only us, but of each and every one of you as well.

And that is the story of the Attica prison uprising. That's so much worse than I thought it was. There's a book by Heather Ann Thompson that won a Pulitzer Prize. It's called Blood in the Water, and it details these stories of these people who fought for basic human rights, and it's supposed to be really incredible. I mean, also, I think there's, you know, I've heard plenty of opinions during my life of that thing of like, well, if you don't want prison to be so bad, don't do stuff to go to prison.

It's like, as white people slowly start to realize how the system is rigged against black people and, you know, being arrested because your taillight is out and suddenly you're in the system, or how poverty basically is that prison, sorry, whatever they call it, what's it called? A revolving door? Yeah. When you're poor and you don't have options, and you have to say, for example, forge a cashier's check for $100 so that you can stay alive, and suddenly you're an Attica for that.

Right. And just the inequity of the system, and then when in the system you have people who are sociopaths and enjoy torturing human beings, like, it's just so much worse than I think your average middle-class white person who's never really experienced anything like that understands. Totally. And how much that reform needs to happen, how much things need to change in that way, and the fact that, like, you know what I mean, it's like, we have to stop defunding schools.

Yeah. We have to stop not having services for people who need support. Right. That whole idea that, like, that it's every man for himself and pull yourself up by your bootstraps is totally incorrect because the game is rigged. Totally. The game is rigged. Totally.

It's that whole, that stupid saying, don't do the crime if you can't do the time. It's like, that's not how, that's not, life is not that fucking simple. Yeah. Life is simple. You wish it were that simple. Yeah. It sounds great. It rhymes, but it's not all that simple.

Then it justifies any behavior on, like, the prison guard's side because also, you know, I knew people who were related to prison guards and they talk about what kind of miserable tortured lives they lead because of how hard that job is. And it's because of the inhumanity, you know, whether you can control it or not, whether it's just like that system is, it's, yeah, this is all dumb for us to be talking about when we don't know anything about it. But it's really, just to hear that story, I just kind of, what do you say to that? Totally.

I mean, I want there to be a good ending. The only ending that I can think of was this incredible kid who tried to make a difference despite not needing to. He could have laid low. He was in prison just for a really short time, was going to be out soon, but saw the injustices for himself and wanted to do something and he was killed for it. And it's just, that's one of the examples of the many people there. But also, he knew he couldn't, he knew laying low is not an option.

And I think that's the difference. That's what bravery is all about is, yes, you can be, you can be self-preserving. You can live that way all your life. But actually, the point of what we're all doing here is not just getting through and getting by, but doing what's right and standing up and, you know, that's all the more making him a hero. But also, it's like, there's some people who really understand how that's just not an option.

Right, right. And with the privatized prison system, we'll never fucking, that's just never going to be a fair shake for anyone. People making money on the prison, we're fucked. We're fucked. If there's a high recidivism rate, then that lines their fucking pockets. Why would they want to rehabilitate anyone? Sorry, why would they want to give anyone education in prison?

Why would they want them to learn about their rights and the law? That's not going to line their fucking pockets. Well, and also, it won't matter because after a while, that's just, you get to pick people off the street. Right. So that you make money. I mean, that's the, when I talked about Centoya Brown, that's literally what was happening in the juvenile system in that state.

Yeah. Good job. Thank you. That was really amazing. Thank you. And I didn't know any of it. And I feel like we've all consumed lots of propaganda about it over the years. Yeah, totally.

Like the fact that I think that there's people out there who think that the postages had their throat slit by the inmates, so, and it's not true. Right. You know. All right. Well, my story, we're going to take a left turn. And I'm just going to tell you a straight up plain old survival story. Hell yeah.

And this one is actually, it's almost like a record setter in its own way. It's so insane. It's the survival story of Jose Salvador Alvaranga. Okay. The sources for this story, there's a Slate article by David Epstein. There is a podcast that, the transcript from Slate, they did a podcast on it basically, and the podcast was called How to Survive in the Wild. There's Guardian article by Jonathan Franklin, the Wikipedia page of Jose's Alvador Alvaranga,

and a Guardian article by Joe Tuckman. All right. So this starts on Saturday, November 17th, 2012. And 33 year old fisherman Jose Alvaranga gears up for a fishing trip in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Costa Azul in Chiapas, Mexico. So his usual fishing partner can't come that day. So he hires a 22 year old day laborer named Ezekiel Cordoba. And Ezekiel has very little boating or fishing experience, but because Jose is a season vet,

he's not concerned. So together, Jose and Ezekiel set out on a 22 foot fiberglass skiff for what's typically like a two to three day trip. And this boat, it's a really simple boat. It has a small motor, it has no lights, no other electronic features except for a two way radio. And the only safety features are a waterproof plastic bag that they store their cell phones in, and a barrel that they use as a flotation device should they need it.

Those are not safety features. Those are things that happen to be on the boat. Yes. Things that are also at home depot if you, you know, not reliable. So they travel about 60 to 70 miles from shore because they're basically out there to catch sharks and fish. Jose then brings them back into town and sells everything he catches for 50 cents a pound. So the bigger the haul and the more he gets, then obviously the more money he makes.

So in the middle of this trip, a storm starts to roll in, but then they have to decide are they going to head back and avoid getting caught in the storm or do they roll the dice, keep fishing and get a bigger haul and make more money. So they decide to keep fishing. But this storm proves to be more powerful than they can handle. And once these waves start to kick up, the engine gets flooded. They don't have sails or paddles. They have no way to get back to the shore.

So the waves are just tossing this little boat around and most of their equipment like the nets and the rods and the lures that they fished with, that's all washed away. So to stay afloat, they're forced to throw most of the fish they've caught overboard. Now the whole reason that they risked staying out there through the storm is gone, they've lost it. So these two men spend the next few days bailing water out of the boat by hand and arguing with each other the entire time, right? It takes about, this is kind of mind blowing, it takes a week for the storm to fully pass.

So they're basically kind of out in the midst of rain, clouds, choppy water. But once the storm does pass, Jose and Ezekiel find themselves adrift in the middle of the ocean with no sign of land in any direction. Oh, fuck that shit. Right. In a tiny boat. Yeah. So I'll tell you a little bit about Jose.

Jose Salvador Aloranga is born in 1979. He grows up in Guarida, Palmera, Oachapan, El Salvador. His family owns and operates their own flour mill and store. But Jose is kind of a lone wolf. He prefers to make his own money fishing and he starts when he's 11. So by the time he's an adult, he's a pro. When he gets older, he has a daughter out of wedlock, but he is all about the nightlife and about being a lone wolf and is independent.

So Jose leaves his daughter to be raised by his parents. Then in 2002, he leaves his family behind in El Salvador and he moves to Mexico. And there in Costa Azul, he builds a simple life for himself. He works as a fisherman. He makes just enough money to pay his bills and to party. And then when he spends all his money, he goes back out to sea, catches more fish and gets more money, essentially. So during this big storm, Jose is able to reach his boss, a member of the Camaroneros

de la Costa Cooperative. And he lets the boss know that they're in trouble. But his phone battery dies soon after he makes contact. And with that phone battery, the guys lose their only way of reaching anybody for help. So I guess the two-way radio was lost in that storm as well. But luckily, that short call that he made is enough for Jose's boss to get the point that the men are in trouble. And so he does arrange for a search party.

So Chiapas Search and Rescue official Jaime Maraquin leads a team to look for Jose and Ezekiel out in the water. But the winds are still so strong and the rain and the cloudy weather basically reduce the searcher's visibility. So after two days, the poor conditions forced them all to call off the search. So now Jose and Ezekiel are alone at sea. And they look around, they take stock of the few supplies they have left. So they have some matches, they have a refrigerator-sized Styrofoam cooler that they've been using

to store the fish. They have a knife, they have a pole, they have about a baseball-sized mirror, and they have the clothes on their backs. And that's it. Jesus. So their first instinct is to keep an eye out for passing boats that can pull them to safety. And sure enough, after the waters get calm again, they spot a cargo ship that's out on

the horizon. So here's their plan of signaling the cargo ship. They tie one of their shirts to the end of the pole. They light it on fire with the match and they try to signal the ship with it. Oh no. But the ship doesn't come any closer. So then they tried to use the mirror to mount sunlight in this ship's direction. But the ship is so far away that to them it looks like a Lego on the horizon.

So the ship doesn't see the fire signal or the reflection cast by the mirror. None of that works. Plus, even if it did work, the boat is painted blue and white, so it blends in perfectly with the ocean. So basically the men are left to fend for themselves and just hope that another boat comes along and that it comes along a lot closer. So Jose, he's a skilled fisherman, so he manages to catch some sea turtles with his bare hands. They eat turtle flesh to stay alive.

But drinking water, on the other hand, is very hard to come by. And of course, they can't drink the sea water. Never drink the sea water when you're stuck at sea, please. So now the storm has cleared. They haven't had rainfall in days. So now we have to do a trigger warning. People had such bad reactions about the difficult animal fluid moment that took place in the last survival story that I told that involved bats.

Okay. Oh yeah. That I'm now warning everybody, like skip ahead 15 seconds if you can't handle it. Can I skip ahead? No, you stay right here beside me because they now drink turtle blood to get by. Oh, that's not as bad. No, it's not as bad as scrambled bat guts, which is the last one. Right?

It's a little less bad, but also it's more sad because I think turtles, especially sea turtles, are just the most beautiful, wonderful animal. So it's rough. And smart, too. Yeah. Very smart. Bats are dicks. They're sensitive.

Bats are vampires. Yeah. They're not enough, so dehydration eventually sets in. At one point, Jose's tongue swells up to the point where he can't speak. Oh my God. But then after about a week of no rain, they're on the brink of dying from dehydration. But to their great relief, it starts raining. Now in the meantime, when things were getting bleak, they were smart enough to start picking

up the plastic water bottles that litter the ocean. Oh. So they had ended up picking up 72 water bottles, which is horrifying to know that that's the Pacific Island plastic patch, all that shit that's going on out in the ocean, but it really serves them in this horrible moment they're in. They also got a 55 gallon oil drum that they found floating by. All right. So when these rains come, they manage to collect and store a ton of fresh drinking water.

And this, of course, changes things completely for them. And they are now hydrated and they have a hefty reservoir of water to rely on. So as this boat drifts further and further out to sea, their food source of sea turtles become scarcer. So then Jose starts fishing for small sharks. And what he does is he waits for them to approach the boat. Then with his bare hands, he grabs them by their back fins. He yanks them onto the boat and kills them.

Damn. Right? I mean, thank God he was so experienced and so kind of fearless. He also knows that shark livers are packed with nutrients. So basically he cuts the livers first and he and Ezekiel eat those. And he, you know, basically like, he knows what he's doing when it comes to all this fish. But then the sharp supply starts to diminish.

Oh no. So which is kind of a hilarious thing where it's like all these animals are communicating being like, don't go over near that boat. Hey, that's the one where they don't play fair. They grab you by your back fin in later days. It's like the Pacific Northwest of that part of the ocean. Just stay away. There's so much murder over there.

Okay. So the next animal the guys find, the only other animal that's out there are seabirds. So Jose takes the pole, he basically mounts it so that birds can land on it. Then he waits quietly beneath it and then he lets the birds get comfortable. Then he grabs them by the legs, breaks their wings and then he is able to store live birds on the boat, keeping them alive until they're ready to eat them. Damn. This guy's a survivalist.

He's serious about surviving. At one point they're keeping 20 to 30 birds on the boat with them. They're set. Yeah. Yeah, they have fresh food nearby. So there are other challenges. They have to protect themselves from the sun because they're just in like a little, essentially like a rowboat, so there's no shelter on board.

So Jose and Ezekiel are forced to take shelter under the Styrofoam cooler during the hottest parts of the day, which works, it prevents them from getting burned too badly, but the cramped position that they have to keep under, to both be under it, eventually causes the guys to both get slipped discs in their backs from how they have to lay. Oh my God. So they basically are able to take care of the most basic physical needs, food, water, shelter, but as the weeks go by, their mental health, of course, especially Ezekiel, starts to wane.

Jose takes it upon himself to be Ezekiel's caretaker. He tells them stories and makes up these kind of alternate reality scenarios to distract Ezekiel from the situation. So he, Jose pretends like they're getting close to shore and he starts to say, what kind of food do you want me to get you when we get there? He tells them, you know, when Ezekiel says he wants oranges, Jose talks about going and getting oranges, now he has them stored on the corner of the boat and they're basically like pretending things are okay.

Another time a plane flies overhead, but not close enough to rescue them. Jose gets them both theorizing what kind of food everyone on the plane is eating. That sounds worse than just being like, I like seagulls. That's my favorite food. And turtle blood. It's American Airlines, so you're eating seagull for sure. They're not anything different than we are. Okay.

So at night, they stare up at the stars, they try to find different constellations. Ezekiel, who has a great singing voice, sings them songs and Jose's voice isn't great, but he joins in. He just wants to encourage anything that's going to keep both of their moods up. Yeah. But the stress gets to them. They fight a lot because basically Jose lived the life of a ladies man and a party animal before this situation that they were in, whereas Ezekiel was conservative, God fearing Catholic,

so they're kind of philosophically at odds. But no matter how bad it gets, they both know they're in it together, so the fights don't last long and they know their only mission is to keep each other alive. So they've been measuring time by counting moon phases. So basically somewhere at the 10 week mark of being lost at sea. 10 week mark? 10 week mark of being lost at sea, they figure it's probably close to Christmas. So to celebrate Christmas, Jose decides that they both are going to have two birds each

instead of the normal one bird. So he tries to make Ezekiel like a Christmas feast, but as they're both eating, Ezekiel becomes terribly ill, doubles over in pain, he starts retching, a foam like bile starts to come out of his mouth, Jose grabs the birds Ezekiel's eating, opens them up and sees that the bird had eaten a poisonous yellow snake, and it was still in the bird's belly. So basically Ezekiel's poisoned like second hand by this bird. Oh my God. So I know, so Jose tosses it overboard, he basically takes care of Ezekiel, gives him

a bunch of water, lets him lay down, and eventually Ezekiel does pull through from that poisoning, but it did ruin Christmas for them. So now Ezekiel's too afraid to eat birds, and especially any raw animal. Jose does his best to inspect every piece of meat, anything that they're about to eat, and feed Ezekiel little bits at a time, but he refuses to eat, and his body gradually deteriorates, and then he basically knows he's going to die. So then he makes Jose promise that after he dies, that Jose won't eat his body. And Jose agrees to this, and then a couple days later Ezekiel dies of starvation.

Oh man, to get 10 weeks in, and then to die is just like. It's awful. So bad. It's just, and also the impact on Jose. Oh, totally. Because not only is that traumatic, and horrifying, and scary, but now he's on his own. So Jose absolutely keeps his promise, he does keep Ezekiel's body on board. And this is another upsetting part, there's lots of upsetting parts of this story, because

this survival story is so fucking extreme. It's just like, it's unbelievable. But he keeps the body on board, and talks to the corpse, like it's still alive. And it's essentially the same thing he did when Ezekiel was alive, kind of making up a fantasy of, like as a survival tactic. So he talks to the body, asks how it's doing, what it wants for breakfast, just kind of so he isn't so isolated and alone. But then these conversations start leading him down a dark path, where Jose would later

say he could hear the body talking back to him, and it would start telling him how nice death is, and how Jose should join him. So after like a week of that, Jose realizes he has to get rid of this body before he talks himself into suicide. So he strips Ezekiel's body down, so that he can keep the clothes, and then he lays his companion to rest with a burial at sea. So now we're week 11. So Jose's been like lost at sea for three months.

No other humans to talk to, and this suicidal ideation returns. And he starts to make these plans of how he could do it, like what would the least painful way be. So there's an old broken like piece of metal that he's like, maybe I should stab myself in the heart, or maybe chum the waters, get sharks to come, and then I'll just jump in. He does this for four days to himself. I mean, and it's so horrible to think about, because there's nothing else going on. It's so bleak for him that he's like, you know, he doesn't just want to waste away.

He's kind of like, can I stop suffering? But then after four days of that, he decides he's not going to do that. He's going to go back to the daydreaming and the imaginary scenarios, and basically start focusing on living and what he loves about living. So he starts imagining himself eating at his favorite restaurants. He starts imagining himself having romantic encounters with beautiful women. He would later go on to say, these daydreams are so vivid, they were the best meals and the best sex of his life.

I feel like I would do the opposite where it's like, don't think about cheeseburgers, don't think about it. Like it just makes it so much harder, don't you think? I mean, if you only could, though, right, because it's just like, you know, that would be the only, you would just have obsessive thoughts about, God, I want to eat a cheeseburger. So he's almost like, then you have to, right? So then he's like going all in and just like, it's not just a cheeseburger, but that cheeseburger has caramelized onions and blah, blah, blah, what, I don't know what you like, shredded

lettuce. Ooh, I'll do a good shredded lettuce. I love a shredded lettuce, a nice dill pickle. Yes. I like ketchup, not mustard. I'll do mayo on, like that's the only, oh, you hate mayo, right? Well, not by itself. If you mix it with the ketchup and some relish, that's basically Thousand Island.

Thousand Island, I feel like. Come on. Thousand Island. I mean, then we get into what type of fry would be on the side. Yeah. And what kind of bun are we using? Don't fucking come at me with a pretzel bun. I will grow it back in your face.

No, not on a boat. It's too salty. It's already dry. And then we're doing that medium, rare, medium. How do we want this cooked? I would change. I can't have a burger without cheese. Without, yeah.

Cheese is a given. Yeah. With all the birds and snakes and rawness, I would, I would want mine well done. I would want mine. This is the one circumstance where I'll take it well done. You accept that? I accept it. And I think those, what are those french fries where they're like fried and is a duck

fat fries? Oh yeah. Dude. And then I sprinkle a bit of truffle salt. Come on. Go by. Anyway. Are we on a boat?

We're not even on a boat. And I'm like, I would never do that. No, I'm hungry. I know. Now I want to do it right this second. Now I want to get it out. Okay. So after this, you know, this phase, then this leads him to start reflecting on his

real life. And he comes to the realization that he has a will to live and it's getting stronger when he decides that he needs to redeem himself as a father. His daughter was four years old when he left her behind in El Salvador. He hasn't seen her or anyone else in his family for five years. And he realizes that his daughter deserves better and that he wants to survive so he can reunite with her and basically make up for all the lost time being her father. So I think that's really beautiful.

It's kind of like, you know, it's a decision. You can make what you focus on and figuring out the why of living, what's good about living and then why you want to do it. It's like the perfect plan. Then he also starts making up innovative ways to occupy his time. For example, grabbing a puffer fish out of the water, puffing it up and then throwing it to the birds that are on board, then the way they peck at the puffer fish, he pretends that they're, um, it's a Mexico versus Brazil soccer match.

Wow. He then selects a bird from the group that he is keeping. He names it Poncho and he keeps it as a pet for a few weeks. But then as the, as he starts running out of birds, he of course ends up eating Poncho. Oh, Poncho. Because he is now Bennett, a lost at sea for a year. That's right. No.

Yeah. A year of time? A year of time, but, and, and a good, and I would say a third of it by himself. Fuck. Yeah. And so right around this time, I think it was around the year mark, Jose spots a boat heading directly toward him and he can't believe his eyes. He jumps up and down.

He's frantically waving his arms at the fishermen that are on board. So it's like a regular fishing boat. Yeah. The fisherman is so close, he thinks it might even hit him and he finally sees, oh my God, it's finally over. I'm going to be rescued. The fishermen on the other boat think Jose is just waving hello. No.

And all they do is wave back at him and continue on their way. Guys. Yeah. Guys, we need to learn body language. Just check. Slow down and check. Is the wave frantic? Why would he care that much about waving at you?

Yeah. Frantically, probably not a friendly hello. Does he look emaciated and ill? Like he's been eating a ton of seabirds. Guys. Also, it's like, were those guys total snobs or they're like, look at that nerd trying to make friends with us. Yeah.

What is wrong with you? It is. Okay. So on January 30th, 2014, a year and a month after being lost at sea, Jose's drifting along when he suddenly realizes that the air smells different. He can tell there's like, it smells like dirt. And then he looks up and sees there's birds in the air more than there were before. And they're not the birds that he's used to.

It's a different kind of bird. Then he looks down under the water. He notices there are fish swimming beneath him again and they're an unfamiliar species. And he knows all of these signs of new life must be a good omen, a good sign. A few hours later, Jose spots land. So fortunately, his boat's heading right toward it. So the current is basically pushing him to shore. Jose is in complete disbelief as his boat gets close enough for him to get out and swim

to the beach. Holy shit. So when he gets to land, he can barely walk. His ankles are so swollen, but he crawls on his hands and knees up onto dry land. And he is finally basically out of that boat after 436 days at sea. No. Yeah. So laying in the sand and just basically thanking God that he made it and got out of

that boat, he sees a couple of people coming out of a nearby shack. It's two locals. Their names, Emmy, Leiboch, Mehto, and Russell, Lake Hedrick. And these men are so shocked by the sight of Jose that they don't even think it's a human being at first. They think it's an animal because he's just naked and curled up on the sand, but they get closer. They see it's a human and then they can hear him shouting in Spanish.

So they rush over and they help him walk into their house and they start cooking him pancakes. And they just, they feed him, he just keeps eating them and they just keep feeding them to him. It's like your top five things that you would want to eat if you are at sea for 400 days. And it's like, boom. Yeah. I would say it's right up there. I hope there's some kind of a, not just dry.

No. No dry pancake. And certainly not salty. Then they contact the US ambassador to report their discovery and then they get Jose to the nearest medical facility. So after their pancake feast. Yeah. Yeah.

He's like, you know what? That couldn't wait. Maybe you shouldn't even be eating these right now. Right. You want three more? Okay. So as Jose is being treated at the medical facility, he learns that he has floated all the way from the southwestern coast of Mexico to a place called Iban Atoll of the Marshall

Islands, which is a tiny group of volcanic islands situated between Hawaii and the Philippines. Whoa. So, I mean, if you've ever looked at one of those maps or like as you've flown to Hawaii, it's just a bunch of open sea. Yeah. So like it'd have been easier to miss it than to hit it. Yes. Yes.

Probably. Like it's wonderful luck that he hit it. Yeah. And it ends up being that distance, his journey was somewhere between 5,500 and 6,700 miles. Holy shit. Also it's remarkable how healthy Jose, like what a good condition he's in. So the doctors caring for him say that other than swollen ankles, he's overall okay. His immune system's weak, but not as weak as they expected it to be.

Wow. So, he even managed to dodge the most common illness of suffer by people who get lost at sea, scurvy. Yeah. So, he, all of his kind of fishing knowledge and everything really served him and he kept himself relatively healthy that whole time. Yeah. So, Jose's incredible journey breaks the day after his rescue on January 31st, 2014.

But as this story spreads, people can't believe that someone could survive at sea for that long. And pretty soon people are saying it's not true. They're trying to prove that he must be lying somehow. But Chiapa's search and rescue records show that a boat was indeed reported missing on November 19th, 2012 and that the two men on board were Ezekiel Cordova and Cerilio Vargas. So the skeptics pointed out Cerilio isn't Jose's name, but then Jose's father comes forward to say that he went by Cerilio back when he lived in El Salvador.

So it's very plausible that that's the name he gave to the people in Mexico when he was going out on that expedition. So the U.S. ambassador on Marshall Islands, Tom Armbruster, sums it up nicely saying, it's hard for me to imagine someone surviving 13 months at sea, but it's also hard to imagine how someone might arrive on Ebon out of the blue. So exactly the point you were making, which is the whole thing's an incredible insane story. Right.

And also, Ebon, that atoll, is so remote that what would the point of like, what is he going to like, take a boat or boat out right to the edge and then be like, I'm here. Can you believe it doesn't make sense. So on February 10th, 2014, after spending 11 days in the hospital, Jose is well enough to go home. So first they fly him to Mexico, but he does plan to go back to El Salvador to reunite with his daughter and his family. But when he lands in Mexico, they're all these reporters and they're all crowding him.

They all need to know about this unbelievable journey. He's like totally overwhelmed because the shock of being alone for so long and then suddenly being like, you know, overwhelmed by people and hounded by strangers. It's completely overwhelming for him. He just wants to go home. But the good news is because this story spreads so widely and so quickly, his family who thought he was dead all get to learn immediately that he's alive and well. And of course, his daughter is the most excited of all.

So when the press chaos dies down, Jose finally returns to El Salvador and reunites with his family and it's beautiful and it's, you know, everything it's, you know, he's a changed man. Obviously anybody would be his life has changed for the worst in many ways because he did develop anemia, which is something he discovered later. And because of the raw animals that he had to eat, they did find parasites in his liver. Yeah. And then he starts getting really paranoid and he's afraid that somehow the parasites

could get to his brain. And that never happens. But the fear, it's just, it's, you know, it's like PTSD. He's gone through a highly traumatic experience and then the after effects are all the fears and things that he didn't have time and he didn't give into when he was on the boat. He's also, of course, incredibly afraid of water. It takes him months before he can go into the ocean again. And he's also dealing with the unprocessed trauma and grief of watching Ezekiel die.

So it takes about a year for those issues to subside for Jose to get back to feeling a little bit more normal. So then in 2015, he agrees to be interviewed by a journalist named Jonathan Franklin about the experience. And Franklin ends up writing a book about Jose's story called 438 Days, an extraordinary true story of survival at sea. So after everything that Jose endured, he came away from the experience with one valuable lesson and he says, quote, I suffered hunger, thirst and extreme loneliness, but I didn't

take my life. You only get one chance to live so appreciate it. And that is the unbelievable survival story of Jose El Salvador, Alvaranga. Wow. 400. How many days? 38, baby. Dude.

Right? Yeah. I mean, that's wild. It's so fucking crazy. So crazy. I can't believe, I feel so bad that the other guy died, like, with a sad tragedy, but it's yeah. Wow.

That is wild. Another great survival story. Good job. Thank you. I really do enjoy a survival story. I know. Right? Like, even though you know he's going to survive, I'm just holding my breath of like,

how many times it can be? It'll be 11 days. I really thought it was going to be like 11 days on this boat and then I found him. Goodbye. I mean, yeah. It's just the overall concept of like, human beings can really take a lot. We shouldn't have to. Certainly don't want to live that way.

But then it's also that kind of thing of like, maybe the life you've led and that's gotten you to this point is the reason you're going to be able to survive something like that idea. The idea that he's just like, fine, I'll get a puffer fish and I'll make this bird's play soccer. Like, I'll just do what it takes. Yeah. Yeah.

Oh my God. Wild. It's wild. Great job. Thank you. That was a good episode. Well, thanks for listening, you guys. Once again, and we're just this one time, if this is the first time you've ever listened.

Thank you. Oh, hey. Hi. Is this your first episode? What did you think? Yeah. What did you write? Tell us in the notes.

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