Stuff You Should Know - Selects: 10ish Cases of Really Bad Luck

Episode Date: October 22, 2022

Some guys have all the luck, some guys have all the pain. So said Rod Stewart. And if this list is any indication, “guys” is gender neutral. Listen to this classic episode as Chuck and Josh cover some instances of amazingly bad fortune, most of it true!See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to

believe. You can find in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, it's Josh and in this week's SYS Case Select, I chose our listical episode on cases of people with really bad luck. And as we explained, we're being pretty broad with the concept of luck here, but I'm hoping you'll forgive us and enjoy the episode anyway,

because it's pretty interesting and entertaining. It's interesting. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart radio. Hey and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant. There's Jerry over there. This is Stuff You Should Know about people who have really bad luck. Nine of them. Yeah, we can't. I don't think we've ever done a full top 10 list, have we? No, that should be our last episode. Yeah. It's like Stuff You Should Know is 10 biggest regrets. That's a great idea. Yeah, that'll be the last one. All right, let's write that down. There's no, we don't have 10 regrets. Yeah, I guess we couldn't do a full 10.

Actually, we could probably come up with 10. No, we couldn't. VidCon, number one. That's a big one. This intro is definitely up there too. Number two. See, we're on our way. All right, good. How you feeling? Pretty good? I'm great. You feel lucky, punk? I'm a pretty lucky person. I will say that. I would agree with that. Or good fortune. And my friends have called me the rabbit's foot over the years. Yep, that's why they're always rubbing you. But that's mainly for narrowly escaping trouble, more than anything.

How about a story? Chuck Lay it on us. Oh, just, I mean, I was very famous among my group of friends for getting pulled over by police and not getting tickets. Right. I mean, at one point it was, it had literally happened like 14 times in a row or something over a span of like 10 or 12 years. Oh, okay. It happened a lot that I never, and I didn't get my first ticket till, geez, probably my 30s, mid 30s. How did you, what happened? Did you talk your way out of it or?

Yeah, you know what you do, man? And my brother always gets a ticket. And he's much nicer than I am. But you just got to be as humble, humble, humble, humble, humble as you can be. And if you show the slightest bit of attitude, then that police officer, in my experience, will delight in writing you that ticket. Sure. I mean, even if it's a sideways look, and I basically just throw myself at the mercy of the court on the side of the road. I'm like, I'm so sorry, officer. You should have pulled me over.

You did the right thing. I was wrong, and I'm sorry, there's no excuse. Here's, I was going to eat these french fries, but you should take them. You're the hero here. I think they're always a little disarmed, and they're like, oh, oh, okay. Well, I guess I can let you off of the warning. I don't know. That's been my experience. All right. There's Chuck advice right there. Yeah. It's how you get out of 14 tickets. So did you forget to the last, the 15th time? Did you forget? Did you sneer, call them a pig? What? No, I think it was just one of those things where like,

they were writing the ticket even before I had a chance to do my little song and dance. Uh-huh. And they brought me the ticket. And I was kind of like, well, wait a minute, don't you know who I am? I'm the guy that gets out of tickets. Oh, I thought you were going to say I'm Chuck from Stuff You Should Know. No, that means nothing. That's how you, that's how you get out of them these days, buddy. No.

Well, we're talking today about some people who have very bad luck. And you know, like a lot of these lists usually are just like, no to this one, no to that one, no, this is wrong. Um, I think we tried to do a list once where like, oh man, I can't remember which one it was, but like every single entry was just like just false, right? Yeah. That's only the case with like three of these this time, which I'm pretty, that's not a bad batting average for a listicle. Yeah. And some of these are, uh, the word luck kind of bothers me sometimes because as is the case,

we'll go ahead and get to the first one. Ron Wayne, who was one of the original three partners of Apple computers. That's not bad luck. Ron Wayne made a poor business decision. Have you, uh, that's a good point. Have you ever heard of Ron Wayne before? No. How do you? No, I haven't. And had I heard his name, I would have been like, he sounds like porn actor, but he's not a porn actor. Oh no, that was, that was another guy. I can't say his real name though. Uh, who? I demand that you say it.

I'll tell you off, Mike. Okay. So, um, he turns out this guy was not a pornography actor. He was one of the three founders of Apple. And as far as I had known to this point, there were two founders of Apple. Turns out there were three at the beginning for like the first 12 days. Yeah. So go back to 1976 and our way back machine and nerdy little jobs and nerdy little Wozniak are young guys in their 20s and they had this great, uh, they didn't know it at the time. Well, they may have known it or suspected, but this, this great, uh, vision for the future,

but they were kind of kids and they didn't have any experience. So they looked to a guy named Ron Wayne, who was in his 40s, uh, to come in and kind of help, uh, what they called with adult supervision. Mm-hmm. Cause I mean, they were programmers from Atari, but yeah, they didn't have the actual business sense or whatever. And Atari was just a party job at the time. I believe so. Yeah.

But I had no idea Atari produced Apple though, did you? Oh yeah. I did a bunch of Atari research stuff for my tech stuff, guest spot. Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah. We did a history of Atari two-parter. Oh, speaking of guest spots, man, let me just also give a shout out real quick. Sorry to interrupt this little entry, but I was on, um, our good friend John Goforths and our new friend Brent's podcast Hysteria 51 recently.

Oh, nice. Yeah. We talked about the Fermi paradox for like an hour and it was awesome. So go check that out. Hysteria 51. Go check that out. Okay. So plug out. Right. So we're in 1976, uh, was and jobs have recruited one, uh, Juan Wayne, Ron Wayne, uh, to be the adult in the room, to help with engineering documentation. And it was actually Ron Wayne who, uh, who drafted the very first Apple contract

and said, you know, this is what they agreed on. He did make it up, which said how much everyone is going to get. Uh, he got 10% to jobs in Wozniak's 45 and he even created the first Apple logo, which was not the logo we know and love now. It was a, uh, it was like a woodcut, um, style thing of, uh, Isaac Newton under the apple tree. Right. Not bad. That sounds terrible.

I disagree. I think it sounds ugly. So, um, Ron Wayne, though, while he was there, he very quickly was like, I don't know if this is my kind of place. I thought it was a good idea. I like what these guys are doing, but this company in a garage, Steve Jobs keeps taking acid during the middle of business hours. Um, did he really? Yeah.

Oh, wow. Steve Jobs thought he was pretty cool from what I understand. Sure. Um, he, uh, Ron Wayne was like, I don't, I don't think I fit in here. Also, apparently he was worried that he was going to have to pony up for, you know, whatever business debts they incurred. I think that was a big deal. Uh-huh.

And he was like, all right, I'm out. I'm out. Yeah. Cause he was an adult and he was like, I've got a house and like I've, I'm a real adult human. Like they're going to turn to me certainly when they need dough. So he, he cashed out in 12 days, 12 days after they established their contract. And the contract, um, was kept by Ron Wayne actually, and we'll get to that in a second,

but he cashed out for $2,300. $230,000, you say? No, $2,300, which is still today worse, less than like 10 grand. Yeah. Um, and he didn't even get it all at once. He got 800 right then and then, uh, he agreed to take 1500 later and that was 1976. And in 1980 Apple went public and everybody involved became an instant millionaire. And years later it hit the trillion dollar mark for valuation.

And all the while Ron Wayne got to watch this company grow and grow and grow and realize that he'd sold off 10% of the stake in the company for 2,300 bucks. Yeah. And apparently if he had held all those stocks, uh, he'd be worth close to a hundred billion dollars. So he, he takes issue with that. He said he probably lost out on tens of millions. Yeah.

I mean, I guess it depends on what, like you can't, since you can't go back and, uh, do it all over again, like Eddie Money says. Right. Uh, I guess there's always the thing of like, well, yeah, but he always maintains, I would have gotten out after that before the big cash in anyway probably. So I don't like to look at it as that sort of a loss is what he tells himself. Basically, or else I would have gone totally insane a long time ago. Yeah.

But he did apparently, uh, he wrote a Facebook essay and said, I probably though would have been around in 1980 and gotten some pretty good change. And, and I think regrets it. Yeah. He said, had he known that, and everybody was going to become a millionaire in four years, he definitely would have hung in there, but he just, it's hindsight's 20, 20, you know. Yeah. And the cherry on top here is pretty interesting though.

Yeah. Uh, you said he kept that contract, that very first Apple contract that he drew up and he kept it and he auctioned it off in the early nineties for how much? 500 simoleons. 500 dollars. And then what happened? Not bad. It was just a piece of paper he had hanging around.

Well, sure. Somebody turned around and auctioned it off years later in 2011 for almost 1.6 million. Poor Ron Wayne. I know. Now that one's bad luck. Wonder what he did though with his life. He wrote essays on Facebook. No, I mean, I bet he did okay.

Yeah, I guess so. Probably not Steve Jobs okay, but I doubt if he like, you know, got a low wage, hourly paying job. I don't know. He became Eddie Money's tour manager. Oh, well, things worked out then. Right. And every time Eddie Money sang, I want to go back a tear down Ron Wayne's face.

That's right. So, um, I think we should move on. We're going to leave Ron Wayne because my hat also, we should definitely tip our hats to anyone who faced adversity like this and was like, S happens and has had tip to Ron Wayne for that one. And Hodges did not have that kind of experience. She is the only person as far as anyone knows the only human being in the history and recorded history of humanity to have been hit by a meteorite.

I'm laughing and I shouldn't. Um, well, actually, she didn't get that hurt. So that's why I feel okay laughing. It's not like it fell on her head and killed her. It's November 30, 1954 in Alabama and an 8.5 pound meteorite came through her roof, bounced off of a radio and hit her in the hip. Yeah. It makes you wonder like if she had been, you know, where the radio was and this wasn't

like a bounced like a ricochet. Yeah. A ricochet. I mean, how much worse would things have been? Yeah, probably dead. I saw a picture on Reddit of her just randomly. We had already picked this episode and started researching and I saw a picture of her bruise on Reddit and it was pretty nasty, pretty nasty little bruise.

But that was about as bad as it got physically. Um, so she was laying on the couch, a meteorite came through her roof, hit a radio, hit her, and um, she became almost immediately a media sensation because word got out very quickly that a woman had been struck by a meteorite, probably the first and only person ever. Yeah. And that's super rare. Like it's rare, it's rare for a meteorite to fall just in an urban area where people live or suburban area where people live.

Because they don't know if I would call Alabama urban. Yeah. I mean, it's just not usual. Like usually meteorites, you know, there's a lot of water on earth. Usually they'll just land in the ocean somewhere. So it's big news if a meteorite hits anywhere near people, much less hitting a person. Right. There was a meteorologist named Michael Reynolds who told National Geographic, get this.

He said, you have a better chance of being hit by a tornado, a bolt of lightning and a hurricane at the same time than you do a meteorite. I'm not sure how he actually quantified that, but that's one of the better quotes I've read in a while. Yeah. And this is where it gets, this is just so America and USA is there was a court battle between her and her landlord because her landlord was like, that's my space rock because it's my house. Yeah.

And and Hodges was like, no, that's my space rock because it hit me in the hip. Right. And they went to court and Hodges actually won and got to keep that, sadly, ultimately, valueless meteorite. Yes. She's, she's settled actually. She ended up paying the landlord 500 bucks for the right to the rock. But by the time this was finally settled, two years later, they found out that nobody cared

any longer. It was old news, so nobody wanted to buy the meteorite. And you might think, well, okay, it's not clear that anyone would ever want to buy the meteorite to begin with. Not true. They have a neighbor just down the road who had just the tiniest little piece of that space rock and sold it at the time. This thing was a big media sensation and was able to buy a new house and a new car from the proceeds. So the Hodges were like, clearly we've got the space rock.

We're going to cash in, we're going to buy the state of Alabama with the proceeds. But two years later, it was totally valueless. And, um, and Hodges actually had a just, just kept taking turns for the worst and ended up dying in a nursing home at age 49 after having a nervous breakdown from the, the whole ordeal. Yeah, it's very sad. But that meteorite is on display at the Alabama Museum of Natural History. And I hope that there is at least a small placard that memorializes her, surely there is, right? I would, I would hope so.

Yeah, which that would be a nice thing after a string of bad luck. It's pretty bad luck. Should we take a break? I think we should. All right. We're going to take a break and talk about the unluckiest person in the music industry right after this. Ah, okay. I see what you're doing.

Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh man.

And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that Michael. And a different hot sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Uh-huh. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life.

Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life.

In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars, if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast. Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology,

my whole world can crash down. The situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive and the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Chuck, I have a tad bit of anxiety about this. Because you get the Beatles?

No, no. OK. No, I have anxiety about this one just because it's so rotten. Rotten and rough. I feel so bad for this guy. Well, here's the thing. Before the break, I called former first Beatles drummer. Not former first, but former and first Beatles drummer, Pete Best, the unluckiest man in music.

He's been called that. That's not true either. Pete Best didn't have bad luck. Pete Best didn't have good chops. Oh, is that what it was? Yeah. So, oh, OK, that's totally different. I didn't think it was bad luck necessarily.

Obviously, he didn't jibe with the group, but I thought maybe it was like he had to walk around being like, I have a terrible personality and that's why I'm not a Beatle or whatever. Now, we'll get to that. So let's go back in time. Pete Best, in the very early days of the Beatles in the 1950s, when they were known as the Quarrymen, his mom, he was a drummer and his mom had owned something called the Casbah Coffee Club in Liverpool. Cool. And she was cool and she was very like ahead of her time as far as the Liverpool music scene, very much out in front of it.

So it's the kind of deal where like, well, Pete's a drummer and his mom owns a place where we can play. I got you. So he's in the band and it's good because now we got a place where we can gig and we got a drummer that can play OK. And he's handsome. That was a big part of it. Was he? Yeah, that was a big thing over the years that was rumored that he was kicked out because Paul said he was too handsome and he didn't want any competition. Are you?

Is he still around? Yeah, he's alive. OK, I'm not going to say the next part then. So he was enough. So I guess at the time the Beatles, by the time Pete Best was kind of brought on, he wasn't like officially brought on as like the Beatles Beatles as we think of him today. Where there was like four of them, there was like a rotating bunch of drummers and Pete Best was one of those drummers, right? Yeah, but he played, I mean, he was, he kind of, it was sort of like when I rotated in stuff you should know early on a little bit. Like there was still a rotation going for a short time, I think, and then everyone else just went away.

Right. Like Pete Best played like 80 something gigs with the Beatles, pre-Hamburg, I think. Oh, OK. And then they took them to Hamburg, which apparently was a big, big turning point for everybody. They played like 80 shows a week in Hamburg. I saw a great quote. They said that, so in Hamburg is where the Beatles like really started to become like the Beatles, like they coalesced into a band. I saw that they arrived wearing lilac sport jackets and trousers and left wearing black leather jackets and jeans.

And it's where they learned sex, drugs and rock and roll. Yeah, Pete Best wasn't into the drugs though, like the other three guys. Oh, really? So that was a problem. Sure. That's a buzz kill. When the one guy in the room is just sitting there staring at you, judgy. Yeah, well.

I mean, that's kind of a buzz kill, I would guess, right? Yeah, yeah. Probably so. I think they were all like doing speed back then. Oh, sure. Because they were playing literally like six or seven shows a night. Were they really playing that many? Oh, it was ridiculous.

Wow, yeah. Yeah. So he was in a group called the Black Jacks before that though, went to Hamburg with the Beatles. And then right after that, the Beatles go back to England in 1962 and they were just about to go into the studio to record their first singles for EMI. And legendary manager Brian Epstein called up and said, sorry, bloke, the boys want you out. And it's already been arranged. Yeah, meaning like, don't even bother. It's done, which is sad.

And Pete Best took it pretty hard from what I understand. In a horrible twist of irony, he ended up working at the unemployment office, but working there, not hanging out there. And by this time, like he had made a name for himself around Liverpool as a musician and a Beatle. The reason why he's called the unluckiest man in music is not because he was a Beatle at one point in time, but that he was a Beatle at one point in time and was kicked out of the band a few weeks before the Beatles blew up. Yeah. And it almost makes you wonder, like, did they blow up because they moved on to Ringo or was it like that was just bad timing? Well, I mean, here's the deal.

There are interviews out there with both John and Paul. There has always been the rumor, like I said, that Pete's handsomeness threatened the band. That is not true. Paul was on record as saying, like, you know, it's just something that happens early in the days of bands. Like, we were just really struck by how great Ringo was. Pete Best sat out one gig because he was sick or something. Ringo sat in and they were all just like, wow, like they all felt it. And it was just sort of that magic happened where they're like, oh boy, I know what's got to happen.

John, for his part, said, you know, it had nothing to do with his looks. He said he was just kind of a crap drummer. I mean, John was not the nicest guy in the world. So he really kind of threw it all on the table and was like, he wasn't a good drummer. He just wasn't. He was a good first drummer and clearly it was time to move on from him. And it was mainly because his mom owned a place where we could play. Gotcha.

Not very nice. Gotcha. No, but I mean, that doesn't make him unlucky. No, he didn't have the chops and, you know, he, I mean, he's reckoned with it. I saw an article from last year where he was like, he never spoke to the other three guys again. And he was like, yeah, me and Paul, I'd love to sit down and like have a scotch and talk about it. And he's like, the door's open. Oh, really?

Yeah. I don't know if Paul's going to do that though. Maybe not. He was on Howard Stern, Paul was. And Howard was like, do you ever just going to write him a check? Just out of guilt? What did Paul say? He was just like, no, no, no.

He did get royalties though later on when the Beatles anthology came out because that included stuff from Pete Best. He ended up getting some money. Yeah, he made out okay. Yeah. I think the lesson here is don't ever get sick. Yeah. That's the key, everybody. That's right.

So we're going to go from 1960s Liverpool to over to the New Orleans area where they have hurricanes. Supposedly they have a hurricane party every time the wind blows, I've heard, but they actually do have legitimate hurricanes. And those hurricanes can do a lot of damage as we saw in 2005 with Hurricane Katrina. By the time Hurricane Katrina rolled around, a woman named Melanie Martinez was on her fourth house having been destroyed by a hurricane. Yeah. Previously, George in 1998, Juan in 1985, and Betsy in 1965 had destroyed her house by the time Katrina came around. But after Katrina, everybody learned their lesson. They're like, okay, we've been taking this way too institutionally.

We need to really actually protect New Orleans from flooding from hurricanes. And so the federal government stepped in, the government in Louisiana stepped in, and they really fortified New Orleans so that years later, seven years later, actually to the day of Katrina making landfall, when Isaac made landfall, New Orleans held up. It was a pretty big hurricane, but it weathered, New Orleans weathered it. Unfortunately, in little tiny town of Bathway, just a little south of New Orleans, which I thought south of New Orleans was like the Caribbean or the Gulf, I guess, there's a little town called Bathway. They did not fortify this town. And it just so happened that that's where Melanie Martinez builds another house that proved to be her fifth one that was destroyed by a hurricane. Yeah, this is truly bad luck. Granted, all of those houses were in the same floodplain, but it's not like everybody's house was destroyed every time.

This was truly bad luck to have five houses lost. And this last one before Isaac, she was selected for an A&E reality show, Hideous Houses, got a $20,000 makeover, brand new kitchen, new appliances, and a new sewing room. And apparently that episode aired just a few weeks before Isaac came around, destroyed that house too. And when they asked her in 2012, like, why do you keep building here? It's like everyone else. She's like, this is my home. I want to live where I was born and raised, and this is my home. Can you imagine what that phone calls like?

It's like, hey, I'm a producer with hideous houses, and your house has been selected to be on hideous houses. Is she probably applied in how that works? No, I think they just go scout your house and it's like, yeah, I'm sure you apply. I think it carries from show to show. So for that last time with Hurricane Isaac in 2012, she and her husband and their pets and Melanie Martinez's elderly mom barely escaped with their life. They had to hammer through their roof. They were trapped in the attic with the floodwaters rising. They had to hammer a hole into the roof and climb out where they were rescued.

Yeah, man. I mean, jeez, at least they got out. They did. So the thing that makes it really bad luck real quick, Chuck, is that Melanie Martinez said she would never have stayed around for that hurricane. Because of her elderly mother, she wouldn't have risked her health. They got stuck there because her van broke down. Well, but she got out. Okay, there you go.

You know, I mean, she couldn't save the house. Yeah, it's true. It's very sad. All right. So this next one is, this is pretty remarkable. Whenever I hear about people that are, and I've heard stories like this over the years where people were, had the bad luck to be in various places where like terrorist attacks have happened, like more than once. Right. And this couple, this British couple, Jason, Karen's Lawrence and his partner, Jenny, they had this happen three times.

They were in New York City on 9-11. Right. On just a regular holiday there. So that's number one. A few years after that, they went vacationing in their very own London in July 2005. And just a day into that trip was when the suicide bombers attacked the London Underground, which was horrific. They don't think they were in the Underground at the time. But I imagine at this point, they're like, all right, what's going on here?

A few years after that in 2008, they're like, all right, we're going to get out of town again. And this time we're going to Mumbai, India. And another terrorist attack when the luxury hotel was attacked in the railway station and 174 people died there. They were all three of those. All three. The three biggest terrorist attacks, I guess in the West, in the 21st century, they were there for. Yeah, the deadliest ones at least. And they thankfully survived all three of those.

But I imagine after those three trips, they're probably not going on vacation very much anymore. They built a pool in their backyard and they're like, this is what we're doing from now on. Man, I can't imagine. I really can't either to tell you the truth. Should we take a break? Let's take a break and we're going to come back and talk about some more hard luck cases after this. Okay. My favorite boy bands give me in this situation.

If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, God. Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me.

Yep. We know that Michael and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy band are each week to guide you through life step by step. Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen. So we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm Mangesh Atikular. And to be honest, I don't believe in astrology. But from the moment I was born, it's been a part of my life. In India, it's like smoking. You might not smoke, but you're going to get secondhand astrology. And lately, I've been wondering if the universe has been trying to tell me to stop running and pay attention. Because maybe there is magic in the stars if you're willing to look for it. So I rounded up some friends and we dove in and let me tell you, it got weird fast.

Tantric curses, Major League Baseball teams, canceled marriages, K-pop. But just when I thought I had a handle on this sweet and curious show about astrology, my whole world came crashing down. The situation doesn't look good. There is risk to father. And my whole view on astrology, it changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, I think your ideas are going to change too. Listen to Skyline Drive in the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck, Chuck. Chuck.

Okay Chuck. So, this one I can't quite put my finger on whether this is... Whether Alexander Graham Bell is a no-good thief or not. I don't know because I think I saw some more recent stuff and I think that his image has been a little more reformed. We'll get to that. But if you're in Italy and you're a little kid and you are taught who invented the telephone, they do not teach you that it was Alexander Graham Bell. As a matter of fact, they may spit when they say the name Alexander Graham Bell

because they very much believe that Alexander Graham Bell stole the idea for the telephone from Antonio Meucci, who was an Italian inventor who seemed to have invented something very telephone-like at least a few years before Alexander Graham Bell supposedly invented his. Yeah, he actually filed a patent, preliminary patent that is, in the US five years before Bell for what he called the teletrophono, which is a much better name than telephone. Do you think so? I would love it if people were like, can I borrow your teletrophono? Let me see your tro, bro. You see there?

Right. I love that. So Antonio Meucci, he definitely realized that you could send sound over electrically activated copper wires. Back in like the 1830s, he knew this. And he started kind of messing around with it. And one time he created basically a telephone between his workshop and his wife's bedroom because his wife had been stricken with some sort of paralysis. And to be able to communicate with her without having to go in and check on her all the time, he basically rigged up a telephone. This was in the, I think the 1860s in New York, right?

Yeah. And he even debuted this invention to the press, but he didn't speak English and the English speaking press in New York didn't speak Italian. So it was really just covered by the Italian press. But this guy in 1860 gave a demonstration of his telephone. And again, it wasn't until 1876 that Alexander Graham Bell got his patent. And like you said, Meucci, he found a preliminary patent. And I looked into this. You know what those are?

Yeah. So the preliminary patent is basically this. You pay a much lower fee to basically put a hold on your invention. You say, this thing is coming. If anybody else starts sniffing around with their own invention, you let me know. And then the patent office will give you three months to file a formal patent, which is, again, more expensive. So the idea is that Meucci didn't have enough money to file a full patent. So he placed a preliminary patent and didn't have enough money to renew it.

You have to renew it annually. And Alexander Graham Bell swooped in. Yeah. And here's the thing. I thought, well, I mean, there have been plenty of inventions where people working in a vacuum came up with a similar idea with similar technology. Sure. But Meucci actually shared a space with Bell. That's when I was like, okay.

It's not a good look for Bell, for sure. Yeah. And then I did a little more research. I was like, did Alexander Graham Bell steal the telephone? And this is not news. And I saw an article that was like, yes, he stole it from Elisha Gray. And I was like, who? Well, he's the one who supposedly went to the patent office the same day within hours of Bell to file a patent on the phone and lost out.

Yeah. So there are several people that claim that Bell, it was not his original idea. Well, Meucci actually sued Bell. Oh, yeah. And the case made it all the way to the Supreme Court, but then Meucci died before it was resolved and they threw the case out. Very sad. But the House of Representatives in 2002 voted on a resolution to say, yes, Antonio Meucci is the inventor of the telephone as far as we in the U.S. are concerned. What I saw, what I referred to earlier that I was wondering if his image had been reformed.

He had his extensive notes about his invention that he would have had to have falsified and that apparently had been scrutinized by historians. So if he was a fraud, he was a really methodical fraud, I guess. Well, that's one of the complaints with Elisha Gray is that the sketches were like virtually identical to Gray's. Oh, really? Yeah. Wow. Well, I think we need to do at least the short stuff on Alexander Graham Bell. Yeah.

I think that could be a full epi. Okay. Full epi? Yes. Full epi pen right in your thigh. All right. Like the time you got stung by that bee, you remember that? I know.

That was harrowing. All right. So this one's actually kind of fun because I like it when the bad luck isn't like super, like devastating to someone's life and that they kind of roll with it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Costas mitzotakis definitely rolls with it. Yeah. Nothing bad happened here.

There's an annual lottery in Spain that dates back to 1812 called El Gordo. It's a Christmas lottery and it's a big, big, they call it El Gordo's, the fat one because it's a big, big fat payout. Yeah. And it's a very, very much a tradition in Spain. And in 2011, the jackpot was at the time the biggest ever close to a billion dollars, 950 million bucks. And there's this little town called a Sodeto and people in this town. Is it Italian? No.

Okay. I didn't say Sodeto. It was close. No. That's just a little flair. Okay. So in Sodeto, residents there would pool money together sometimes to buy their lottery tickets because it costs 26 bucks a piece. I think going down and buying like the, I don't even know how much Lotto costs in America.

It's in like a dollar. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Sure. We did a lot of episode back in the day, didn't we? I think we talked about El Gordo in the Lotto episode because I recognize the name. Yeah.

Yeah. El Gordo. So the tickets were 26 bucks, at least in 2011. And this town pools their money together, 70 different families all chipped in because times are tough. And they didn't spring for their own ticket. And they won. They did win this town of like simple farmers whose backs were kind of up against the wall from the economic downturn you referenced.

Apparently they were also experiencing a prolonged drought too. Everybody was a little tense. Over night had all of their money troubles just go away. Every single household in the town won a minimum of 130 US dollars, 130,000, I'm sorry, up to millions, right? Like if they bought like full chunks of the tickets from this Lotto. And so all these people like rode their tractors into town on Christmas day to celebrate that they had all just won the lottery. All except one guy, Costas Mitsotakis, whose house was not visited by the people selling the lottery tickets for the town fundraiser and who didn't buy a ticket as a result. Right.

He lived a little bit on the outskirts of town with a woman, his romantic partner at the time. And she actually bought in and won 100,000 American dollars. No, I guess it was 100,000 euros. Okay, so yeah, it was about 130,000 American dollars. Yeah. So she won and he did not, they're not together now. I don't know if that had anything to do with it. I'm not saying it does.

I think they had already split up. Oh, okay. But at any rate, he didn't win any money, but he's a filmmaker and he was like, his quote was, it was really a gift from heaven as if someone had given me the perfect script. So he decided to make a documentary about this town and about this lot I went and about these villagers who apparently did not change their ways much. They all still lived very simply and they all still shared how, you know, like lots of family in a single house and it was really kind of heartwarming. And I read an article from just like a year and a half ago where he was supposedly finishing it up, but then I never saw anything about the actual documentary. I don't know if it was ever released or finished fully. I also read that he made out okay.

He'd been trying to sell his property there for a while, but because of the economic downturn, he couldn't get rid of it. And right after somebody bought it from him. Well, that's good. Hopefully at full asking price, you know. Yeah. And he seems like a good guy. He was kind of like, you know, I didn't buy a ticket. Yeah.

What are you going to do? Make a film about it, I guess. As happens. That's right. So hat tip to Costas Mitsotakis too. That's right. So Chuck, we're moving along. We're going from Spain to right here in Atlanta.

Yeah. Do you remember the 96 Olympics? I do because I was on a road trip out west. My friend and I, that's when we took our like two and a half month trip and then Volkswagen van and we're like, we're getting out of Atlanta for the Olympics. You did not miss much. Yeah. I remember everybody in Atlanta who owned a business sunk tons of cash into their business to revamp it for Olympic fever and no one left downtown. Nobody.

Yeah. They just stayed downtown. But one of the other things about the 96 Olympics, aside from like one of the most mediocre, maybe actually just outright bad opening ceremonies. I just remember being on the road in a cheap hotel room in New Mexico and seeing stainless steel pickup trucks. And I was just like, oh my God, what's going on? It's so bad. That's so Atlanta. It's hot Atlanta right there.

Yeah. Cheese. In addition to that, the 96 Olympics is also remembered as the Centennial Olympics is 100 years after the first modern Olympic Games in 1896. But really more than anything, it's remembered for the Olympic Park bombing, which was a huge deal. And this is, I mean, it was memorable because it was a big deal like that. This was an act of domestic terrorism here in the United States and it was at the Olympics. And it actually could have been way worse than it was. One, one poor woman from, I believe Albany or Leesburg, Georgia died.

I think a cameraman from Turkey died from a heart attack running to the scene, but like 100 people were injured. But right before that bomb went off, it was a 40 pound pipe bomb filled with screws and nails and all sorts of projectiles. There are a lot of people standing around it watching a concert by Jack Mack and the heart attack at like 1am in Olympic Park. And had they not been moved by a security guard named Richard Joule, surely more people would have died. Yeah. So Joule sees this backpack. Again, this is now a backpack on the ground. Like everyone would be like, whoa, whoa, whoa.

What's that thing doing there? See something say something. See something say something. Yeah, 96. It was just a year after the Oklahoma City bombing. It wasn't like this was on everyone's mind at the time. And Joule said, hey, I think we should get out of here. There's a backpack on the ground, something smells fishy.

And I don't think he meant there was literal fish in the backpack. Sorry, that was terrible. And he got people out of there and alerted authorities and they started clearing the area pretty heavily. And very quickly, Richard Joule is on the news as a local hero. A national hero. Yeah, national hero. And everything was going great until all of a sudden he was looked at as a person of interest. Like the next day.

Yeah. Apparently the AJC got a scoop from the Atlanta PD that the feds and everybody were starting to wonder if Richard Joule wasn't the type of guy who would plan a bomb in order to put himself in a position of being a hero. Yeah, they were like, he fits the profile. I remember all that stuff going down. Yeah, and it's crazy how you can see somebody differently when people like paint him a certain way, you know?

And like, he just looked like he had that mustache. What's he hiding with that mustache or his eyes are a little beady, aren't they? And he had been charged with impersonating an officer. So he's clearly like a wannabe cop kind of thing. And he looked really bad. And then finally in October, the FBI was like, Richard Joule, no, no, we cleared him. He's not a person of interest. It was surely somebody else.

But by this time, Richard Joule's name had been drugged through the mud associated with a major act of terrorism at the Olympics in the United States for months before he was cleared and it was the damage was very much done. Yeah. Of course, everyone knows the real bomber was Eric Rudolph. And again, you know, those four months were really rough on Joule and his family. And even after he was cleared on October, it's like, like everyone knew he was cleared, but it's still one of those things where like it's attached to his name, you know?

Oh, yeah. He entered. He went from the suspect phase to the late night talk show monologue joke phase. Yeah. That's not a good transition. No, it isn't. And very sadly, he died in 2000 at just the young age of 44 from complications of diabetes. Yep.

So he had it rough. He got like a settlement from CNN and New York Times for, I guess, overzealous and unfounded reporting, maybe, but it was, he did not have like a great last part of his life. All right. The last one, folks, breaking news. Josh emails me about 30 minutes before we record or so and said, by the way, the number one guy on the list is a fraud. I said he may be a fraud.

I thought you said he was a fraud. I'm trying to see away here. Oh, okay. Sorry. I'm saying that he's a fraud because, well, let's just get into all this. Okay. Yeah. What's his name?

Selak. Frane. Frane. Frane. Frane. Everywhere else I saw it. F-A-R-N-E. I don't know what to believe anymore.

I know. We've just lost touch with reality, Charles. So he has been dubbed the luckiest man in the world for supposedly surviving seven brushes with death ranging from a train going into an icy river to cars going off of cliffs again into icy rivers, cars catching on fire, cars plunging off of cliffs, like so much stuff that you're like, can this be true? Especially the plane crash that went down where he supposedly was sucked out of a door and landed on a haystack.

Yeah. Before the plane crashed. How is this real, any of it? So here's the thing. All of this starts in, I believe, 2005. He buys a lottery ticket, wins like a million dollar or a million euro lottery. And that happened. That definitely happened.

Okay. And he was interviewed by the Scotsman, the newspaper, the Scotsman. And in this article, he's like, oh, you think it's lucky that I won a million dollars. Let me tell you about some of the unlucky things that have happened to me. And he starts reeling off these stories of like just narrowly escaping death. And the Scotsman's like, wow, that's fantastic. We're going to print this. And the Scotsman printed it.

And all of a sudden it started getting picked up by other news outlets and other news outlets and other news outlets. And then finally, in one of these articles, there was a commenter who identified himself as Frane Cilek's son who said, hey, not one single journalist has ever independently verified a single one of these stories. This guy is actually my father and he has always wanted to be famous. So when he was interviewed for winning the lottery, he saw his chance and he made all of this up.

Well, if it was an internet commenter, it must be true. Exactly. That's why I was COA-ing because it's like... Is that the only place you found that? Yes. But the point remains correct. It has never been, none of it has ever been independently verified. So it's not entirely, it's entirely possible that he wasn't on any plane or in a bus accident

or that his car crashed. It's not verified that he has been, it hasn't been clearly shown that he hasn't been. It's just this guy makes a really good point that this dude who everybody says is the luckiest man in the world, it's possible he made it all up. Now, how can we not get to the bottom of this? What do you mean? Well, I mean, we found out the world is flat and that they fake the moon landing through research.

Why can't we find out what happened with Frane Selleck? Like you and me specifically or the media in general. Are anybody like Shirley this, you could find this out, right? Yeah, I guess you could. I think no one's gone to the trouble of doing it. It's a good story that everybody likes. It's not really hurting anything for him to be lying and for the lie to be perpetuated. It's more just, it's just kind of laziness among journalism, I guess, including us because

I didn't go get to the bottom of it. I didn't go independently verify any of his claims. Well, I did see an article that, is that where you saw it? All that's interesting.com? No, I didn't see it on there. I don't remember where I saw the article. I'll have to look. Go ahead.

Well, there was an article that talked about the fact that mentioned the commenter or whatever and the doubts. Yeah. I think that's become kind of a thing because there was a viral video that made the rounds that was really, really interesting because it's just this cute little animation of this guy's story in his life. I guess I saw the thing about him being a possible hoax on BBC. So if you put BBC together and all that's interesting, you have a legitimate fact.

Right. And I apologize for looking at my phone right now, but I'm doing a real-time investigation and apparently some people have Googled and these plane crashes and things aren't documented. So it sounds like it might be false claims, I don't know. Okay. But even still, it's a great story. I mean, just the fact that this guy made up all of this load of BS during an interview is pretty hilarious.

It's one of the great improv comedians of all time. Right. It's a good way to end things too, don't you think? I think so. Well, thanks for joining us, everybody. Thanks for putting on your smoking jacket and your house slippers, putting on a nice... Very white record. Mm-hmm.

And relaxing with us. I hope you feel relaxed now. Do you feel relaxed, Chuckers? I do. The story does, obviously. Jesus' sleep. I know. Well, if you want to know more about the unluckiest people in the world, just go look at stuff

on the internet. It may or may not be true. Who really cares, right? Yeah. And since I said that, it's time for a listener mail. I'm going to call this one sort of an older one that I forgot about. So apologies to Jessica Breslin because I told her I would read this a month ago. Oh, boy.

Hey, guys. Love the recent episode on rape kits, but wanted to make a tiny correction about how the Golden State Killer was caught. Although there was a time that the Golden State Killer's DNA was part of the backlog, the DNA had actually been identified and linked to his crimes since the 90s, the problem was they had no person to compare it to. This changed in 2018 when they compared it to DNA submitted to a familial DNA base. When a relative submitted their DNA to the familial DNA site, they were able to see that

the DNA was related and from there were able to narrow down their suspects to two likely family members. After narrowing it down to those two, they're able to identify their suspect, collect a sample of his DNA to compare it to the Golden State Killer's. However, still good proof of my testing backlog kits is still so important. You never know what sort of technological breakthroughs will help law enforcement catch the perpetrators even when you don't have a suspect. I love the podcast, guys.

Appreciate all the hard work and keeping it entertaining and respectful even when it's such sensitive subject matter. And that is Jessica Breslin, I guess I said I was going up there at the end, wasn't I? Yes, indeed. You did go up there, Chuck. That was kind of a nice little flourish. Well, thanks a lot, Jessica. We appreciate the email.

And if you, sorry for being a month late and reading it, that was all Chuck. And if you want to get in touch with us like Jessica did, you can go to stuffyshino.com. Check out our social links, get in touch with us that way, or you can send us a good old fashion email to stuffpodcastatihartradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new I Heart Podcast Frosted Tips with Lance Bass.

Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

I'm Munga Chauticular and it turns out astrology is way more widespread than any of us want to believe. You can find it in Major League Baseball, International Banks, K-pop groups, even the White House. But just when I thought I had a handle on this subject, something completely unbelievable happened to me and my whole view on astrology changed. Whether you're a skeptic or a believer, give me a few minutes because I think your ideas are about to change too.

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