0:00

Mudcasting

0:04

guessing. Are you recording, Robert,

0:07

I am, yeah, we have

0:09

to make sure professional

0:12

podcaster, Robert Evans. Are you podcasting?

0:16

I don't know. I don't know, but I know

0:19

that this is the opening of part two of

0:21

this episode podcasting. This

0:23

is how we're doing it. This is what we're doing. So

0:27

this this is started like the episode started,

0:29

I don't know, thirty seven seconds ago, according

0:31

to my recorder. Like we're in it now, Sophie.

0:34

There's no pulling back, there's no there's

0:36

no going back to a world before we opened

0:38

to the podcast this way, Sylvie,

0:42

what is this show? Who are we? Um?

0:44

I'm right into a few states episodes

0:48

your Sophie Lichtman, this

0:50

is God's the behind because

0:53

this see, I feel like being Sophie

0:55

looked him and it sounds like a really difficult job. It's

0:57

really hard much

1:00

there. I would much rather be the other guy. Um,

1:03

let's do it that way. Let's do it that way, and then

1:05

I just have to Sophieman

1:08

and I'm gonna go cry.

1:10

Okay, Well, Caitlin Durante,

1:13

how are you doing today? You said,

1:16

how are you doing on this Durant day?

1:20

It's good. I

1:24

am doing well,

1:26

I just had a snack. So I'm not

1:28

taking the advice, which

1:32

would be don't eat or go to doctors.

1:36

I eat food and well

1:38

I I, um, you know, I do try

1:41

to avoid doctors, but not for the

1:43

same reasons that he did. I believe in science,

1:45

but um, you know, I've had I've had

1:48

some problems with doctors

1:50

in the past. Go ahead and listen to Sludge and

1:52

American healthcare story if anyone

1:55

once you my experience. So

1:58

I have more of a problem with some just

2:00

the kind of institution of the American health

2:03

care system than like it's bad doctors,

2:06

right, I've known a lot of great doctors.

2:08

I avoid medical care

2:11

like the plague. Um,

2:13

although right now that is on the advice

2:16

of several medical professionals I know

2:18

who have who have repeatedly told me there

2:20

was no the hospitals

2:23

are completely past capacity. We have

2:25

no equipment, we have no room to help anybody

2:27

stay healthy. Don't go to the doctor.

2:30

You can't. You can't go to the hospital now, there's

2:32

nothing where you here. You should avoid them

2:35

because of the plague. Yeah,

2:37

So you know, try to eat well,

2:39

everybody, be careful

2:42

on the street, just exercise,

2:44

and then you won't have to go doctor.

2:48

It's more like, it's more it's not that you

2:51

shouldn't go to the doctor, it's that we

2:53

have systematically destroyed large

2:55

aspects of our health care system

2:57

UM, and so there may not be a doctor.

3:00

Dear for you to go to. UM.

3:02

Happy Halloween and everybody,

3:04

it's after Halloween. I don't know, I don't

3:06

know what I'm doing, Haitalen. In nineteen

3:08

twelve, um Bernar McFadden

3:10

has just come off of the failure of Physical

3:13

Culture City, which I cannot get over as

3:15

the name unbelievable after

3:17

all those people committed physical

3:19

culture treason, physical

3:23

culture treason, you

3:25

know. In twelve is also the year that the

3:27

Titanic sank, so a lot of

3:29

tragedies happened, a lot of tragedy.

3:32

Thank you, thank you, Caitlin. I'm so impressed

3:34

that you didn't get a titantic mention in

3:37

part one. I'm proud of you. Well, Robert,

3:41

I did as a way to like, as an

3:43

adjective for something else. And I

3:45

really did think about interrupting you and be

3:47

like, I'm just saying, like that's really mad

3:49

we talk about Titanic, But you

3:52

know, I was I decided to respect you.

3:55

Thank you. Yeah you did. You did not.

3:57

You did not commit physical culture treason.

4:01

I did not, and you're welcome. You're

4:04

welcome also to me. Um.

4:08

So, by the way, the Titanic

4:10

disaster could have been avoided if people had

4:12

had better physical culture. And

4:15

you know what, according to learn how to swim?

4:18

Motherfucker's you dead assholes. That's

4:20

what I say. According

4:22

to the movie which James Cameron

4:25

took. You know, he does his research

4:28

into making that mento,

4:30

making that movie pretty accurate. There

4:32

is a scene that takes place in a

4:35

gymnasium that was on the

4:37

Titanic. Never watched

4:39

it, Robert,

4:42

I can't believe that you don't want

4:44

to watch Titanic. I watch

4:46

one movie and it's The Mummy, and

4:51

I would watch Titanic, but it's giving me some

4:53

serious Mummy vibes. So I feel like I've already seen

4:55

it. Look, you have one of

4:57

those many rip offs of the Mummy, like Sitting

5:00

Private Ryan or the Crying

5:02

Game, all all all

5:04

shades of the Mummy. While

5:06

we're on movies, I did want to bring up how

5:08

the story of um

5:11

what's his name, Bernar Bern.

5:14

It's a ridiculous name to make for

5:16

yourself. That

5:18

would be like I'm gonna go by Kate

5:21

Kately from now on, Kate

5:23

Lar just taking out

5:25

the last letter Rob Very.

5:29

It's very funny. Uh

5:32

So the narrative, the story

5:34

of Berner's life sounds

5:36

remarkably similar to that of m

5:39

Charles Foster Kane of Citizen

5:42

Kane, where he's you know, draw away from his

5:44

mother that he becomes this like you know, I

5:47

don't well, I don't know if Bernar how wealthy he gets,

5:49

but super he I

5:51

suspect. I'm almost certain he

5:54

was one of the men who was kind of

5:56

the inspiration for Charles Foster Kane, because

5:58

another man who was an inspiration for Charles Suster

6:00

came was William Randolph Hurst. And at his height,

6:02

Bernard McFadden is a much more popular

6:05

publisher than Hearst. His

6:07

magazines outsell Hearsts publications.

6:10

He is he is four a time. We're getting to this, but

6:12

he is for a time the number one publisher

6:15

in the United States of magazines like no

6:17

one else is even I don't think it's even all that close.

6:20

Um, he's hugely successful.

6:22

We are we are building to that. So

6:25

in nineteen twelve, the Titanic has sank

6:27

because Motherfucker's didn't do enough crunches um,

6:30

and his relationship with Susie has

6:32

fallen apart, the lady that he leaves his wife for in

6:34

Physical Culture City and Physical Culture City.

6:39

So he's he's hurting, right, you know, he's

6:41

in this like rebound period when you're

6:43

extra vulnerable, and you know, we all we all

6:45

make decisions that maybe aren't the things

6:47

we're proudest of when we're in that like a relationships

6:50

kind of ended badly. I think I

6:52

think we can all be vulnerable enough to admit

6:54

everybody makes decisions that maybe aren't the things

6:56

they would they would most want to like celebrate

6:59

in their lives in that period of time. And Bernard

7:01

is no different. But because he's the guy

7:03

he is, he does this in a somewhat grander

7:05

fashion. He goes on a tour of Europe

7:08

with an ulterior motive to find

7:10

himself a wife. Now, the way he does

7:12

this is fucking incredible. He

7:14

travels to the UK to go on a speaking tour because

7:16

he's incredibly popular in the United Kingdom,

7:19

right, people, every time

7:21

he does a speech there, it's sold out. He auditorium

7:23

is full of people, and his books, which have been

7:25

banned in the United States, sell like hotcakes

7:28

over there, because he's like, hey, he's got banned in the US

7:30

for being too obscene. But you, you English

7:32

people, you're advanced and like urbane

7:35

enough to appreciate this, this work.

7:37

Um So as a major

7:39

celebrity, he announces a contest

7:43

Great Britain's Perfect Woman. Now

7:45

he frames this as this is a health

7:47

contest, right to see, like who is the fittest woman

7:50

in in Great Britain? Like, who is the healthiest woman?

7:54

Yeah, you're not gonna like it anymore after

7:56

this point. Happy So

7:59

obviously, since he's the one running the test

8:01

and is the great expert on physical culture, he

8:03

gets to choose the winner, and the

8:05

prize that the winner wins is a job offer

8:07

from Bernard McFadden and I'm gonna quote

8:10

from a write up by Esquire here. She

8:13

soon settled into her new career as the

8:16

co star of McFadden's traveling physical

8:18

fitness show. Billed as the world's

8:20

healthiest man and woman, the pair performed

8:22

feats of physical prowess, the highlight

8:24

of which was Williamson, the woman that he he

8:27

picks out Williamson's nightly jumped

8:29

from a seven foot platform onto McFadden's

8:31

stomach. It wasn't long before Mary Williamson

8:33

discovered her biggest prize and the secret

8:35

reason for the contest. McFadden was

8:38

searching for his third wife and she

8:40

was the lucky winner. One day, while the pair

8:42

was halfway through a ten mile run, he proposed.

8:45

When she accepted, she later recalled, he

8:47

stood on his head for me for one minute

8:49

and four seconds. Fucking

8:54

incredible. Guy. That

8:57

doesn't That doesn't do it for you, Kaitlin, A guy

9:00

five miles into a run standing on his

9:02

head for a minute to celebrate. I

9:07

mean the bar has been set now

9:09

now that I know this. Don't you

9:12

dare anyone

9:14

post me unless you're able to

9:16

stand on your head for a

9:19

minute in five seconds? Yeah, sixty

9:21

five seconds. You gotta beat him now, like that's

9:23

the one to beat, right, all

9:25

right? Get practicing, assholes.

9:29

It is like it's easier than I have

9:31

to think, because she's like, wow, he's not again

9:33

actively dying of typhus. Um,

9:36

What what a catch? He could stand on his

9:38

head and didn't cough up a lung because

9:40

he's been eating cigars nineteen

9:43

times a day for the last thirty years. I mean,

9:45

isn't that how like peacocks select

9:47

their mate. They're like, oh, this set, this is

9:49

the sexiest one, so

9:52

I'm going to mate with that one. I

9:54

mean, I think that's that's

9:56

more than peacocks do that. But yeah,

9:59

so as soon as they were

10:01

married, Bernard started pumping babies

10:03

into his new bride. As a eugenicist,

10:07

what look,

10:09

this is no place for prudery, Caitlin. You're

10:13

absolutely right that. It was a brutish

10:15

response for me, and you

10:17

worded that perfectly. Thank

10:19

you, Thank you, Caitlin, Thank

10:21

you. As a eugenicist, Bernard

10:24

believed that he had that the fit had a responsibility

10:26

to breed in order to fill the world with more genetically

10:29

perfect children. He

10:31

lived his creed by giving his wife seven

10:34

children in twelve years, which

10:36

is too many. I would say

10:38

too many. I mean it's better than twelve

10:41

children in seven years. That

10:43

that is better than twelve and also more possible.

10:45

You might be able to make it. That would

10:48

be real tricky, It would

10:50

be hard. You would have to really time that ship out

10:52

careful. He gave them insufferable

10:54

names, and he may have been the guy who invented

10:57

insufferable names for your celebrity

10:59

kids. Bernice

11:01

but spelled b y r in e

11:04

c E hate it, absolutely

11:07

hate it. Berwin spelled

11:09

b r w y in um.

11:12

And yeah, just like Bryce, he has a Bryce. Like

11:14

these fucking so they're all like vaguely

11:17

derivatives of his name, yes, of course,

11:19

because they're vaguely derivative of him.

11:21

And yeah, his his children.

11:23

He only has these kids

11:26

so that number one, he can publish magazines about

11:28

raising kids, and so that he can make his kids into

11:30

celebrities and Physical Culture magazine and

11:32

talk about all of his how because he's using

11:35

He's had all these different health ideas right that he's

11:37

written about, like you eat this

11:39

or you don't eat this, or you you do this

11:41

every day and it'll do this, and he's testing

11:43

them on his kids and he's

11:46

like putting them in the magazine and being like, look

11:48

when you starve your child book, and how strong my

11:50

boy is and like all of this kind of ship.

11:54

The irony there is alarming because

11:56

he was starving as a child and

11:59

he was no, that didn't work out

12:01

for him. Yeah, you

12:03

know he's look, people

12:07

do things our brains work in mysterious

12:09

ways, bad ways. Our

12:12

brains mostly work in bad ways. Um.

12:15

So, yeah, he believed baldness

12:18

for an example of the kind of things that he believed.

12:20

And I should note that while he is testing a bunch

12:22

of health theories on his children, he also tests

12:25

all this on himself, Like in fairness, he's

12:27

not not

12:29

testing on himself too. So he believed

12:31

baldness could be cured by tugging on one's

12:33

hair, which he did regularly. This

12:36

made his permanent pompadour look unkempt

12:38

and vaguely crazy. So his hair is like always

12:40

shooting out everywhere because he's pulling on it constantly,

12:43

like a man with a scalp condition. He

12:46

went barefoot at all times, convinced that

12:48

this kept him in contact with the Earth's magnetic

12:50

forces. So he's like super rich.

12:52

He's a millionaire, but he's going to all of these business

12:54

meetings and political meetings stuff like barefoot

12:56

in the middle of like nineteen hundreds

12:59

New York, which is basically has the

13:01

Edward from Twilight first

13:03

movie hair. Yeah. Yeah,

13:06

and look I I run barefoot. I'm I'm

13:08

a big advocate of barefoot stuff. Um, there

13:10

are some places in the world that I was not willing

13:12

to go barefoot. Um, and those included

13:14

downtown South New Delhi,

13:16

India. Um, just because

13:19

like it didn't seem like a good idea,

13:21

and New York I have to think, like, I

13:23

don't think it's a good idea to necessarily

13:25

always be barefoot when horseshit

13:28

is eight percent of what's on the

13:30

street, which in New York and like nineteen

13:32

ten, it absolutely is. Um.

13:34

But whatever, he's fine. Um

13:37

yeah, it seems to work for him.

13:39

Uh yeah. And despite being incredibly

13:41

rich, he wore he didn't believe you should get

13:44

rid of clothing, so he wore his suits until

13:46

they were literally rotting off of him. Um.

13:49

So this man is a millionaire and

13:51

extremely successful and physically fit,

13:53

but he also looks like like a super swoll

13:55

hobo. Like he's his clothing is falling apart,

13:58

his hair is all shooting out everywhere, and he's barefoot.

14:01

Um. And he also has

14:03

a habit of challenging other men to fist fights

14:05

for like no reason at all, constantly, sometimes

14:08

on a daily basis, he'll try to get into fist fights

14:10

with people. So a lot of folks who

14:12

see him don't realize. Oh that's wealthy

14:14

publisher Bernard McFadden. They're like, oh,

14:17

that is a mentally ill vagrant like

14:19

that. This is a man who needs medical

14:21

attention because he's he's he's

14:23

not well. He would refuse

14:25

to get which he would refuse to get.

14:28

Um. He also launched a variety of different

14:30

health foods. My favorite, Oh my god,

14:32

I have to I don't want to read this to you. I want

14:34

to show you the ad and you can, you can

14:37

describe this to our our audience

14:39

because it is you.

14:42

Oh thank you, Sylphie. Allegedly

14:46

Caitlin. Can you see it? Yes,

14:51

look at that. Okay, here we

14:53

go. It's called Strength.

14:58

I believe it's just probably announced food food

15:01

food, but it's spelled food.

15:03

Is spelled f U d E

15:06

strength Strength. I

15:09

don't like upon first glance, I

15:11

thought it said fudge. Yeah, so

15:14

so strength fudge sort

15:17

of. Um, let's see it's

15:20

the logo is under strength foot

15:22

is it's different. Another

15:26

another tagline seems to be don't

15:28

be a Weakling. Yeah, and I think

15:30

that's Bernar on the front of the food

15:33

weird like hand showing off

15:35

his biceps. Don't be a

15:37

weakling? On top of the boxing

15:40

doing a Schwartzenegger pose with

15:42

the muscles. He's

15:45

not even that swoll by

15:47

today's standards, is the thing

15:50

by today's But come on, you

15:53

gotta look at like how recently though

15:55

today's standards happened, Like you watch them action

15:58

movies from like the eighties and like

16:00

it's fucking mid like overweight

16:03

dudes in their late forties. Um

16:06

like you look at you know, a good example of

16:08

like how recently what the definition

16:11

of being jacked has changed? In the

16:13

second Indiana Jones movie, the

16:15

one that everybody prefers to forget because of all the racism,

16:18

right there was going to be like this

16:21

shirtless scene for Harrison Ford, so he got

16:23

super They talk about this and like the behind

16:25

the scenes that he had to get like in crazy good shape

16:28

in order to like do this scene. And he just

16:30

looks like like you

16:32

would, well what you're talking about,

16:34

and that you would you would cast

16:37

him today as the guy is like the stoner

16:39

who doesn't exercise, and if

16:41

he was going to be opposite of like the average

16:43

looking man who was Kumail n Gianni with

16:45

ninety pounds of muscle packed on do

16:49

like that, there's a tag famous

16:51

authority on food and hygiene.

16:56

Hygiene was a big word in this period

16:58

of time. The Nazis talk about hygiene all the time,

17:01

racial hygiene. UM, food

17:05

with cream. I don't

17:08

know what it is. I think it's like some sort of porridge.

17:11

I don't want it. I wonder if

17:13

this is like kind of the original protein powder

17:16

because it says that, yeah, I think with

17:18

cream or sugar or sliced

17:20

bananas and cream. So it sounds like

17:23

you just like put it into your smoothie. Yeah,

17:26

well it's not really. I don't think smoothies

17:28

science has really been invented

17:30

yet. But he is like this is

17:32

definitely like the precursor to like

17:35

protein. Literally

17:37

says berries and cream on there, and

17:39

I'm like, yeah, there's bananas

17:41

and cream, like what. There

17:47

would be people in this period of time who would argue

17:49

with him that like, no, fruits bad for you.

17:52

Um. So here

17:54

again he's this mix of like absolutely

17:56

dangerously wrong stuff and also being

17:59

like, no, you should mostly eat vegetables

18:01

and fruit and like you know, maybe

18:03

avoid red meat, which is good

18:06

health advice. Generally good health advice,

18:08

um, unless you have an iron deficiency or whatever. But

18:10

like most most people who eat red meat eat

18:12

more of it than is good for their health, including me. So

18:17

good, You're probably much healthier

18:19

as a result. Um. I

18:22

tracked down and slaughtered an entire cow

18:24

earlier today, and I'm currently wearing

18:27

its body like a cape and eating it slowly.

18:29

Was going to ask parasite. Yeah,

18:32

my doctor says I have to stop

18:34

because I've picked up a ton of different kinds of worms.

18:37

But you know, Caitlin, what's

18:40

life without worms? Huh? That's what I have to ask.

18:42

That's what I say every day. That's what

18:44

I know. I know, that's that's my magazine,

18:47

worm Culture. Well,

18:49

hopefully no one commits worm culture

18:51

treason against you. Oh you do

18:53

not want to know the punishment for worm culture

18:56

trees and Caitlin, it is. It's

18:58

I from Actin. It's actually just I from

19:00

Okay. All right. Yeah,

19:04

So he's tearing right

19:06

along. Business is growing at a very fast

19:09

pace, and then tragedy

19:11

strikes World War One, which

19:13

is bad for Bernard McFadden and no one

19:15

else otherwise a great time, right. I

19:17

know, it's very shocking here about World War one being bad

19:19

for somebody, but it's not great for

19:22

his business. Interesting m hm.

19:25

So we finally found one bad thing to say about

19:27

World War One, which you know has been

19:29

a very probe, the First World War podcast.

19:31

So this is this is hard for me. Um,

19:34

So yeah, his his, you know, disposable

19:36

income people have less money to spend on magazines,

19:38

right, um. And a lot of the young men who are

19:40

going to be most interested in consuming his content

19:43

are getting shot with machine guns repeatedly

19:45

on the Western front um.

19:47

But Bernard weathered the storm, and in nineteen

19:50

nineteen, on the advice of his wife Mary,

19:52

he launched a magazine called True

19:55

Story. Now this is yet

19:57

and again Bernard inventing something

19:59

that would prove to be one of the most influential

20:01

cultural decisions in history.

20:03

Like, it is hard to overstate the

20:05

influence of this magazine. And in

20:08

order to help me adequately explain why

20:10

this is important, I am going to read a quote from

20:12

American Heritage magazine. True

20:15

Story was the originator and exemplar

20:17

of the Confession magazine under

20:19

the credo truth is Stranger than Fiction.

20:21

The cover of the first issue featured such titles

20:24

as A Wife Who Awoke in Time and

20:26

My Battle with John Barley corn an

20:29

ex convicts climbed to millions, and how

20:31

I learned to hate my parents. Basically,

20:34

the true story formula consisted of first

20:36

person accounts written in an untutored

20:38

but clear style of sin and redemption.

20:41

The sin, usually carnal, was described

20:43

in some detail, but the actual consummation

20:45

nearly always seemed to take place between paragraphs,

20:48

and was invariably dressed up as a moral lesson.

20:51

McFadden manipulated the formula masterfully.

20:53

He knew the illusion of authenticity was essential,

20:56

so instead of hiring what he called art artists

20:58

to illustrate the stories, he used staged

21:01

photographs featuring such models

21:03

as that an unknown Frederick marsh, Jean

21:05

Arthur, and Norma Shower. And he made every

21:07

contributor signed an affid David stating that

21:09

his or her story was indeed true. In

21:12

nine seven, however, after a piece

21:14

title did the Revealing Kiss, used the names of

21:16

eight actual residents of Scranton, Pennsylvania,

21:18

who sued McFadden for half a million dollars,

21:21

he found himself somewhat sheepishly contending

21:23

that maybe every story wasn't all that true.

21:25

McFadden turned out to be a cracker jack businessman.

21:28

His initial inspiration was to charge twenty cents

21:30

for the magazine, a dime more than the going

21:33

rate. The first issue sold out. I

21:37

think I feel confident saying the

21:39

majority of digital content today

21:41

is in some way descended from True Story magazine.

21:43

This is like half of the Internet at least,

21:46

right, Um, this is half of

21:48

television. This is reality TV. This is Jerry

21:50

Springer and Dear Abbey. This is UM

21:52

which is I mean Dear Abby's like a magazine. This is like

21:55

everything. This like true confessionals

21:57

about like scandalous things that happen in

21:59

real life. That's like most of culture.

22:03

He and He's he's invinced this. He's

22:05

the first person to figure out there is

22:07

a a hunger for

22:09

this that will never be sated, and I

22:11

can I can publish this forever.

22:14

Um. He This makes millions

22:16

of this dollar like instantly, um.

22:18

And within the year he's already spinning this magazine

22:21

off into other magazines that are just like

22:23

more focused. He creates True

22:25

Romance, True Experiences, True

22:27

ghost Stories, True Detective, and

22:29

dream World. So here's how it

22:31

worked. When Bernard had a major hit

22:33

with a type of story. So he publishes a couple

22:36

of different romantic true stories in an issue of

22:38

true story, and that issue sells really well.

22:40

He spins off an entire magazine devoted

22:42

to like true romantic stories. It's

22:44

basically the Playboy Confessionals or whatever,

22:46

the Hustler, whatever one it was. American

22:49

Heritage goes into more detail here. Quote

22:51

and this is about how he like runs his publishing

22:53

empire. A flag flu on the

22:56

McFadden building for each McFadden publication,

22:58

and employees would go up to the roof first

23:01

thing each morning to see if they still had a job.

23:03

Among the short lived flags were ones that

23:05

bore the legend Beautiful Womanhood Who's

23:07

Undoing was an ill conceived, scathing attack

23:10

on spinsters and brain power, whose

23:12

title apparently suggested to readers that they

23:14

were somehow lacking in that department. So

23:16

he's like a b testing So he puts

23:18

up a flag for every different magazine he launches,

23:21

and if it doesn't sell well, he takes it out. That's

23:23

how you know you've lost your job that like, this magazine

23:25

has been canceled. Like but

23:29

he's he's doing like again what

23:31

every publisher does today. He like he is

23:33

effectively running a massive

23:35

internet publication. He's doing BuzzFeed

23:37

in like nineteen twenty, Like, that's like, what this

23:40

is effectively? Um, he's

23:42

just launching different verticals. He's He's

23:44

like, I don't know. I worked for years in an industry

23:47

that was largely defined by Bernard McFadden

23:49

without ever knowing his name. Um,

23:51

and it sounds like, yeah, this is all like

23:53

very click baity stuff. Yea, who

23:56

by this sounds Bernard

23:58

McFadden would have made all of the money in the world

24:01

off of the internet. Yeah.

24:04

Um, he would be eating he would be on Joe

24:06

Rogan's podcast twice a fucking week, like,

24:10

or he would have just eaten Joe Rogan to gain

24:12

his powers. Um.

24:15

So my projection of him just being like an Abercrombie

24:17

model Jim bro I thought it was not

24:19

right. He wow, No,

24:22

he's actually he's like business man. He's

24:24

closer to the Gawker guys, except

24:26

for I think he probably would have been friends with Whole

24:29

Cogan rather than getting into a legal fight

24:31

with him. Yeah.

24:33

Now, Bernard's personal life

24:35

was seemingly more stable at this point, but

24:38

his obsessive need to test his theories,

24:40

paired with his reckless belief in his own ideas,

24:42

led to tragedy in his personal life.

24:45

This is the baby killing. Yeah,

24:48

I see that excitement just lighting up

24:50

your face, Caitlin. We all love a good

24:53

that. I am ecstatic. In

24:57

the spring of nineteen, Mary got

24:59

pregnant with he had another child. Now,

25:01

Bernard had written articles earlier

25:03

about several theories he had on sex

25:05

determination, right, how to make

25:07

determine the sex of your child, And this is

25:10

like historically right, this is

25:12

a constant thing. People have these theories. But like, if you

25:14

do this, if you make her lay this

25:16

way or eat this kind of food, and you know she'll have a

25:18

boy or a daughter. Like, this

25:20

is a whole He's not the first person who tries

25:22

to do this. You know, this goes back as long

25:25

as there have been the idea of patrilineal

25:27

um um whatever,

25:30

like passing on a property and ship um.

25:34

One of his ideas was that boys were more

25:36

often born to mothers who were starving. So

25:38

during all of her previous pregnancies,

25:41

he'd starved his wife, but she kept having

25:43

girls. She was,

25:46

Yeah, isn't that a bummer? I'm

25:53

nope, I wasn't even I'm not going to make the JOKEO.

25:55

So he comes to the

25:57

conclusion that all of the starving

25:59

he'd done previous slee was cumulative, and he'd

26:01

probably primed her to have a boy at

26:03

this point. So now he made her eat a bunch

26:05

of roast beef during this pregnancy. So that's at least

26:07

like better than starving her. Right, force

26:10

feeding your pregnant wife roast beef instead

26:12

of making your starve. That's an improvement. He's grown,

26:15

he has, he

26:18

has not at all. In late

26:20

December, with the baby near do Bernar

26:22

was so happy, uh, and with

26:25

both the fact that he's about to have another kid and with a success

26:27

of true story that he held a company holiday

26:29

party, allowing his employees to smoke

26:32

and drink to their hearts content even during prohibition.

26:34

He was I'll say this, he doesn't drink. He thinks

26:36

no one should. But he's also like a libertarian,

26:39

so he's he hates prohibition. He doesn't think the government

26:41

should be telling people what to do, which I

26:43

can respect that as like, anyway,

26:45

we're about to talk about how maybe he killed his baby, so whatever.

26:48

When he came home from the party, he

26:50

found his wife in labor, and since he couldn't

26:53

reach a midwife, and again there

26:55

are phones, not a lot of people are phone

26:57

connected at this point, like it. He

27:00

he was a millionaire, you'd imagine, you'd

27:02

imagine he could have set this up right. Um,

27:04

But he can't get a midwife on the horn, and obviously

27:07

he's not going to call a fucking doctor. So he

27:09

delivers the child himself. His

27:11

wife gives birth to a boy named Byron, which

27:13

Bernar confusingly claimed meant that his

27:15

theory about starving pregnant women was correct

27:18

because he'd starved her so much before. You though, he hadn't

27:20

starved her for this baby. Right, he's

27:22

not really scientific, I

27:26

would say, maybe that's questionable logic.

27:30

So he forced an immediate

27:32

announcement of the boy's birth into Physical

27:34

Culture magazine. And he only grudgingly

27:37

allowed a doctor to enter his home and put

27:39

fifteen stitches in his wife after she repeatedly

27:41

begged him. So for hours, she's bleeding

27:43

in an agony, and it's like, please, let

27:45

me have a fucking doctor. I'm ripped

27:47

open. Let me like please.

27:50

And finally, because he I mean,

27:52

for one thing, he doesn't want anyone to know that he'd have a

27:54

doctor for anything. Right, you shouldn't

27:57

get you shouldn't get torn open you should

27:59

if you're doing enough sical culture, if you're doing enough

28:01

dumbbell squats or whatever, you shouldn't. You shouldn't

28:04

rip open, you know, when you're pregnant. Um

28:07

that's what he's saying, obviously. Um

28:10

uh so. Yeah, he eventually

28:12

does like yield to his screaming wife,

28:14

like screaming not a isn't like hectoring

28:16

if it isn't like dying of blood loss, and

28:18

allows a doctor to come in and put fifteen stitches

28:21

in her. He refuses, though, to allow her

28:23

any anesthetic or pain killer. Yeah,

28:26

I know, right, kind of sucks, right, what a piece

28:28

of shit? Ho? Look

28:32

this this is a sympathetic start to the Berner

28:34

McFadden story. We are past the point of sympathy

28:37

now. Um

28:40

so for almost a year things are

28:42

okay though, Um, and he's like

28:44

he puts this kid, this son of his. He's

28:47

so proud to have a son. Every week there's

28:49

an article about how strong and like good

28:51

and like, look, he's growing up so much stronger than

28:53

other boys, and like, I'm doing this and I'm doing this. He's gonna be the

28:55

healthiest boy. And he's gonna be the healthiest man who

28:57

ever lived. And like this is like a huge

29:00

active that he almost pivots the magazine to focus

29:02

on his son's development. So

29:04

a year later, the December of

29:06

the next year, after his kids born, when Byron is

29:09

about one year old, tragedy strikes

29:11

and I'm gonna quote from the biography Mr. America.

29:14

Here, eleven month

29:16

old Byron, known within the family as Billy, was

29:18

seated on his mother's lap. Suddenly Billy

29:21

tensed up, threw his head back, and began

29:23

to contort his body as if overcome by a

29:25

seizure. Bernard demanded that the infant

29:27

be stripped and dunked in a steaming hot

29:29

bath. Mary recalled that the water's temperature

29:32

was so hot that she couldn't keep her hand submerged.

29:35

Though it is impossible to know the cause of Billy's

29:37

fit, many common childhood seizures are

29:39

now known to be brought on by fever, so a

29:41

hot bath as treatment was probably ill advised

29:43

at best. The baby's spasms continued,

29:46

Mary snatched him out of the water and screamed,

29:49

burn for the love of Christ, call a doctor.

29:52

Billy died in her arms. Yeah,

29:56

and again, this is the

29:59

nineteen twenties, right, So a baby

30:01

having a seizure. It is entirely possible

30:04

by the time that baby started seizing, it was already

30:06

essentially dead because medical science maybe

30:08

not great. But also a lot

30:10

of babies had different kinds of seizure disorders

30:13

and have or have seizures because of a

30:15

fever and get better. There was medicine,

30:18

especially that a rich person could have gotten Like if

30:20

he had taken his child to the best medical care available,

30:23

there's a good chance they baby would have survived.

30:26

It's absolutely guaranteed that dunking

30:28

a seizuring baby and almost boiling hot

30:30

water is not going to help. So

30:33

I think we can safely say that the you

30:35

know, he may be killed a baby,

30:37

he may be killed his baby. He definitely

30:40

probably definitely

30:42

killed his baby. He

30:45

we can't say for certain that he killed his

30:47

baby. We can say for certain that he made

30:49

that eleven months of child's last moments

30:51

be of horrible confusion and pain submerged

30:53

in near boiling water. Yeah,

30:56

yes, which is I

30:58

would say bad parents. I'm not an

31:00

X, I don't have a kid. I try not to, like talk

31:03

about what you should do with your kids, but I

31:05

feel like, and again, excuse me, parents

31:07

in the audience through going out on a limb here, it's

31:09

bad to dunk your baby in steaming

31:11

water while they're having a seizure. Sure,

31:14

I think most people would agree with that. Yeah,

31:16

I know, I know I'm going I'm

31:18

doing getting into Joe Rogan territory. You know, given

31:20

health advice I'm not qualified to give, but that

31:23

that's my opinion. Don't don't

31:26

force your baby into steaming water while

31:28

it's having a seizure. Maybe not a

31:30

good idea. You know who

31:32

else forces babies

31:35

in this Wait? Who doesn't? You know who doesn't

31:37

ever do the thing that I

31:39

just talked about? All

31:43

right, I

31:49

don't know the products and services

31:51

that support this podcast? Maybe maybe maybe

31:54

maybe maybe maybe? So

31:57

they what did you heard

32:00

me? I think I think what I what

32:02

I said was heard. Well,

32:05

we'll be back after these messages

32:08

from our sponsors, and

32:15

we're back. So if he's very

32:18

proud of me, everything's fine. So, Bernard

32:21

McFadden, if you know Bernard at this point, Caitlin

32:23

and I think we know Bernard at this point, I feel

32:25

like he's a close personal friend. He's

32:27

got he's got his ideas about things,

32:30

right, He's got ideas about everything. He had ideas

32:32

about how to deal with the kid's health issues, and

32:34

he has ideas about how to deal with grieving.

32:37

Do you know what? Do you know what? I

32:39

would guess you he would

32:42

he would think that, um, the best way

32:44

to deal with grieving is to starve yourself kind

32:47

of. He definitely doesn't want people to eat

32:49

much. But no, it's walking for hours at a time

32:51

in the freezing snow. He's

32:54

a whole family, yeah,

32:56

his whole family. Um, so

32:58

he just has them walk for hours and hours and hours

33:00

and hours and hours. Um

33:03

and yeah. Now again, he had

33:05

spent the better part of a year writing articles

33:07

about how healthy his son was and how this is

33:09

all due to his different nutrition theory. So the fact

33:11

that his son had died, that's bad

33:13

for business, you know, Yeah, that's

33:15

not going to go good for you. Well, yeah,

33:18

that's not going to go good for you. So, uh,

33:22

Jesus, this is such a bleak story. So

33:25

he doesn't publish anything, and in

33:27

fact, he just like stops working. And you know, Bernard

33:29

at this point, like that's not

33:32

something he does. So he stops putting in articles,

33:34

he stops doing anything, Like his editors are

33:36

just running the magazines for a while, and

33:39

he forces his wife to walk two miles

33:41

to Manhattan with him, carrying their luggage

33:44

all the way in the snow. That's

33:46

how he that's how not it's

33:48

one thing. If that's how you deal with grieving, that's actually

33:50

I can. I could honestly see, like I

33:53

the last time I was heavily grieving, I would run like

33:55

eighty miles a week. Like I get

33:57

that idea, forcing your wife

33:59

to walk two hundred miles in the snow, so

34:01

that because she has to grieve the same way.

34:04

That's the up and the fact that he

34:06

probably killed his baby. Um.

34:08

Yeah, So when

34:10

he in the middle of this two d mile walk,

34:13

they get to Greenwich, Connecticut, and he convinces

34:15

his wife to try again for a son. So he's

34:17

like, as she's grieving and exhausted,

34:20

as like, I gotta make another put another

34:22

boy into you. Um.

34:24

So eventually they get back to the office and

34:26

he writes an editorial about his son's

34:28

death. You're gonna guess who he blames for it.

34:32

I would guess his his his wife.

34:34

Oh, Caitlin, It's like, you have a lot

34:36

of experience with toxic men. Here's

34:42

what he wrote. Billy was

34:45

often over fed. I protested

34:47

on numerous occasions, but my protest

34:49

was not vigorous enough. Anyway, I

34:51

believe the boy was so strong that he would overcome

34:53

mistakes of that nature. And it

34:56

is so hard to combat the tendencies of

34:58

mother love. I also some what blame

35:00

myself for neglecting his exercises.

35:04

So he blames his wife for feeding their baby too

35:06

much. He didn't starve that baby enough.

35:09

Gosh. And also he's making

35:12

his baby do exercises. Yeah,

35:14

he makes everything do exercises. Get

35:18

a baby at that age eleven months,

35:20

I mean, I'm I don't know. Probably,

35:23

I mean to the extent that like

35:25

crawling is an exercise. Yeah,

35:28

it's good for them to exercise, like

35:30

in terms of like it's good for babies to like

35:33

move and learn how to use their

35:35

body slowly. But

35:37

like, I don't know their babies.

35:40

They're not They don't for

35:42

the most part. Yes, the motor skills

35:44

aren't great. Their

35:47

organs, I feel like, are still kind of developed.

35:50

Yeah, you know, Yeah,

35:53

I feel like exercise. I feel like

35:55

if you're trying to make a baby exercise,

35:57

the odds are good that you will wind up hurting

35:59

the baby. Definitely. Yeah,

36:01

because they're babies.

36:05

Because their babies. They're

36:07

mostly just supposed to like roll

36:10

around and whoop in

36:12

in poop and occasionally crawl

36:15

babies and be babies. They're

36:17

not supposed to work, hit the gym, get

36:20

out of that bench. But it

36:22

does make you feel you're dead living. You

36:25

can barely dead lift? What the fund is

36:27

wrong with you? Baby? Baby?

36:30

Keep your back straight? Babies

36:38

soft. Look at how shitty this baby's

36:40

pull ups are. He's barely

36:42

getting halfway to the bar. I mean,

36:44

like, how embarrass saying that, Like a baby

36:47

would be better at pull ups though, than

36:50

say me, Yeah, Well,

36:52

they don't have a lot of like body, so that

36:55

would make it easier. But also their arms they're

36:57

not really muscles yet, they're

36:59

just kind of noodles, so that would

37:01

make it harder. I

37:04

don't know, I'll start a gym for babies. We'll see if it's

37:06

a good idea. Yeah.

37:09

So within a decade, by the late nineteen twenties,

37:11

Bernard had amassed a fortune of more than

37:13

thirty million dollars, which today would

37:15

be like four million dollars. So he makes

37:18

a shipload of money. Um.

37:21

He was at the absolute height of his success,

37:23

but after time this two grew frustrating.

37:26

Bernar was the peak of publishing

37:28

influence. He had more readers on a monthly basis

37:30

than anyone else in the United States, including

37:33

William Randolph Hurst. But being

37:35

on top also means you've kind of reached

37:37

the limit, right, There's really nowhere for him to grow.

37:39

He's the biggest publisher. So

37:42

the only thing you could think of to do to expand

37:44

his audience and become even more influential

37:47

was become the president of the United States.

37:50

What I did not see

37:53

he's going to try to run for president.

37:57

We talked about this in the John McAfee

37:59

episodes with the Great Lacy Moseley. But

38:01

like you know, when you

38:03

are a certain kind of white man who has had

38:06

one of those careers where no one ever says

38:08

no, and you just keep doing ridiculous

38:10

things and being successful at them, you

38:13

will eventually try to become the president. I

38:16

mean, I look at what happened

38:18

recently. Yeah, I mean, look

38:21

at what's going to happen when I run on

38:24

a platform of making America like the unnamed

38:27

island nation that I rule with an iron fist.

38:30

It's gonna be great. Caitlin. Yeah,

38:32

I can't wait, neither

38:35

can America. So um,

38:38

he decides he's going to become the president now.

38:40

His wife later claimed that he started

38:42

to dream of this career in nineteen fourteen,

38:45

when, at the eve of World War One, he

38:47

suggested that wrestling would be a good way to solve

38:49

political conflicts, which I actually

38:52

think would be incredible. I'm in

38:54

agreements with Bernard about this. He

38:56

says, quote political contests that

38:58

derive their support through a vocating physical culture

39:01

reforms will I believe become a reality in

39:03

the not far distant future. And he's wrong

39:05

about this, but my god, it would have been so good if like Kaiser

39:07

Wilhelm and fucking uh

39:10

Czar Nicholas and whatever the

39:12

French president's name and the fucking King

39:14

of England had all had to like fist fight. That

39:16

would have been so much better. If

39:19

every war, if George Bush in like

39:22

Saddam Hussein, had had a cage match,

39:25

I feel confident saying we would think fondly

39:28

on the Iraq War. Yeah, it was that time George

39:30

Bush got stabbed in the eye by Saddam.

39:32

Who's saying that was funny as hell? Can

39:36

you believe he thought Saddam wouldn't pull a knife

39:38

in a fist fight. What an idiot? Barack

39:44

Barack Hussain, Obama and John

39:46

McCain just like street

39:48

fighting, just

39:51

just just wailing on each

39:53

other, well fucking uh Joe

39:55

Biden and uh what's

39:57

her name, the governor of ala

40:00

esca, Uh Sarah? Yeah,

40:03

like have a chain fight. My god,

40:05

it would be so much better. Sure, sure,

40:09

yeah, everything would be better. Okay,

40:12

good, I see your point. I see your point.

40:15

Yeah, Um, World War two

40:17

might have gone worse because I do not think FDR

40:20

would have been able to beat Hitler in a in a

40:22

in a in a street fight. Yeah,

40:26

so there's limits to this. We would have needed

40:28

to elect Bernar mac fadden president. He

40:33

could have taken on Hitler um,

40:35

although he might not have wanted to. As we'll get

40:37

to, so, Bernard decides

40:39

he's going to become president um

40:41

and in the mid nineteen So if first

40:43

he thinks like inevitably the progress

40:46

of physical culture, because I'm getting

40:48

so popular so quickly, by and in

40:50

another ten years, everyone will agree that the strongest

40:53

man in the country should be president. And then I'll be

40:55

president because I'm the strongest man that

40:57

does not happen, and so in the mid nineteen

40:59

twenties, burn Our decides to launch a magazine

41:01

dedicated to making him into a serious

41:03

intellectual and political figure. So

41:06

he's very successful this point, but he is not a

41:08

serious person. He has seen as like a

41:11

silly tabloid publisher, right, Like he's putting

41:14

out kind of sleazy material, and that is how he's

41:16

viewed. He's like, there are

41:18

people like within the exercise world who

41:20

take his health ideas somewhat seriously,

41:23

but he generally, like the mainstream

41:25

media kind of laughs at him and again not unlike

41:27

Donald Trump, to be honest. In nineteen

41:30

he launches another magazine. This one

41:32

is dedicated to make him into a serious

41:34

political figure, and it's called The New

41:36

York Graphic. Though he was

41:38

attempting to, you know, again,

41:41

kind of established like a New York Times analog

41:43

that will give him respect, the

41:46

New York Graphic immediately becomes like the

41:48

tackiest scandal sheet in the country.

41:50

That said, it also employs some of the biggest

41:53

names in American media history at early

41:55

stages of their career. Walter Winchell

41:57

and Ed Sullivan both get their start writing

41:59

for Graphic um

42:02

and Sullivan who and

42:04

Sullivan like almost helps to create.

42:06

He's like a precursor Carson like. He helps to create

42:08

the idea of like the like

42:11

late night kind of variety show type thing. UM,

42:14

a lot of like the biggest musicians in

42:16

the rock and roll eric get their start on the Ed Sullivan

42:18

Show. Um. Most of the

42:20

titles of of graphic

42:23

articles were lurid to say

42:25

the least one was two women

42:27

in fight, one stripped other eats bad

42:30

check. UM. I have I kind of love

42:32

that one. I don't really know what to expect

42:34

from that article, but it sounds fascinating. My

42:37

favorite thing about the graphic is that it's yet another example

42:39

of Bernard inventing something that would later

42:41

become hugely influential. The Bernard

42:44

creates photoshop kind of

42:46

Um. He invents for his magazine

42:48

a graphic design technique called composo

42:51

graphs. These are staged composite

42:53

photos. Well where he'll have celebrities. You know

42:55

how he's had celebrities, He's had

42:58

people posing for photo. Those and articles

43:00

about like true crime, which you can see

43:02

is kind of a precursor to like reenactments

43:05

and like unsolved mysteries and stuff. Well,

43:08

so a big part of the neuographic is

43:10

like stories about celebrities getting in like

43:12

legal trouble or having divorces or all

43:14

this stuff. And in order to illustrate

43:16

these, because he can't get photos of the celebrities, he

43:18

hires models and he has them pose

43:20

as whatever the celebrities were doing, and then

43:23

he basically has a

43:25

picture of the face of that celebrity superimposed

43:27

over the head of the model. Okay,

43:30

yeah, he's like photoshopping celebrities

43:32

into like like larded

43:34

scenes in order to sell newspapers. Um.

43:38

Yeah, And he convinced this new

43:41

technique for the first time to cover

43:43

a celebrity divorce trial. Leonard

43:46

Kip Rhinelander was a millionaire who was

43:48

suing his bride of one month over the fact

43:50

that she had hidden that she was part black.

43:53

Um, this is the twenties, you

43:55

know, Um, because

43:57

this was a racist time. Her response to this was

43:59

to deny the charges in court by stripping

44:01

to the waist. Obviously. Number

44:03

one, these are famous people. Number Two, a woman has

44:05

stripped in court. This is big news, right, Like,

44:08

this is a huge story. And the graphic

44:10

used its first composo graph to

44:12

illustrate the moment where this famous woman strips

44:15

in court without actually having photographs

44:17

of it, and circulation leaps

44:19

to a hundred thousand people like over or

44:21

buy a hundred thousand people overnight as a

44:23

result of this. Now,

44:26

the graphic was influential and popular,

44:28

but it was also too trashy to get much

44:30

purchase among advertisers. It

44:32

was a lot of people bought it, but it wasn't

44:34

profitable because it was expensive to make and no one would

44:37

advertise in it. And by the time it ended

44:39

in nineteen thirty two, Bernard had lost more

44:41

than eleven million dollars on the venture.

44:43

And this gives you an idea of how much money he's willing

44:45

to light on fire and the hope of establishing

44:47

a political career for himself. That is

44:50

like half of the money in the world at this point.

44:54

Yeah, what an investment that miserably

44:57

failed for him. He doesn't give up though.

45:00

In nine he commissions three

45:02

biographies about himself. Now, this

45:04

was a new idea at the time, a want

45:06

to be presidential candidate paying to have a

45:08

biography written by a ghost writer

45:10

in order to drum up interest in his campaign. Every

45:14

single candidate does that now, right, like a hundred

45:16

percent of people who run for president have a

45:18

book published about them like that.

45:21

They supposedly right, you know, bernar

45:24

In Vince this, as far as I can tell, he's the first

45:26

guy to do this. Um

45:28

again, a visionary. Truly,

45:32

he is living in the twenty first century

45:34

in nineteen nine. I

45:37

mean, good for him.

45:40

Yeah, Unfortunately he's not living in any of the good

45:42

parts of the twentieth century. Um.

45:45

But so

45:47

these books were obviously trash. One invited

45:50

readers to quote study him as he governs

45:52

the whole community of employees that is

45:54

like a little city, so he can run a

45:56

magazine. So he's clearly ready to run the country.

45:59

Um, he did run that one little city.

46:02

Committed treason against physical culture,

46:05

treason. So

46:08

these are not well regarded by a reviewers

46:11

these books. The American Heritage article

46:13

that I've been reading from sites an H. L. Lincoln

46:15

review quote, the authors of these

46:17

brochures do not spare the goose grease. Poor

46:20

mcfaden chokes and gurgles on it. And every

46:22

one of their eight hundred and twenty five pages I

46:24

can recall no more passionate anointing

46:26

of a living man. He appears as a hero without

46:28

a wart, spiritual or temporal, sworn

46:31

only to save us from the medical trust and make

46:33

us strong enough to lift a piano with our bare

46:35

hands. Wait,

46:38

one of these biographies is over eight hundred pages

46:40

long. Yeah,

46:43

he's again. They'll dial it

46:45

in by the time Pete Botages is getting his

46:47

vanity biography published. We've gotten much better

46:49

at it, you know. M

46:54

While the graphic had no luck establishing Bernard

46:56

as a political name, it was influential in getting

46:59

Jimmy Walker did mayor of New York City.

47:01

Unfortunately for Bernard, mayor, Walker

47:04

refused to appoint McFadden's city Commissioner

47:06

of Health, which Bernard was hoping would jump start

47:08

his political career. The new mayor

47:11

argued that while Bernard's ideas on health

47:13

were good, nobody actually wanted to

47:15

live that way. Um. Despite

47:17

this, by the mid nineteen thirties, Bernard was

47:19

more successful than ever. Circulation

47:21

of his magazine's topped seven point three

47:23

million people, which again beats every

47:26

other publisher in the country. As

47:29

time went on, some of the most influential

47:31

people in world history would write columns

47:33

for Bernard's magazines. Winston

47:35

Churchill, Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret

47:38

Singer, Mahatma Gandhi and

47:40

Adolf Hitler. Well,

47:45

all right, okay, so

47:47

the Hitler article was not technically a column.

47:50

His editor had interviewed Hitler in nineteen

47:52

twenty three, and when Hitler started rising to power

47:54

in the early thirties, they published this interview

47:57

as a column because that's

47:59

like the s see your way to advertise it.

48:01

And the column is it's titled as if Hitler

48:03

wrote it. It's titled When I Take Charge

48:05

of Germany. Um,

48:08

by the way, for an example

48:10

of again the way Berner does

48:13

this sort of thing. So the article that Gandhi writes

48:16

or quote unquote rights is titled

48:18

My Sex Life by Mahatma Gandhi.

48:22

It's about celibacy. But like that's not how

48:24

you sell that article, right, basically

48:31

spin a story. You

48:34

know who else talks a lot about Mahatma

48:36

Gandhi's sex life, Caitlin, is

48:39

it the products and services

48:42

that we will not

48:44

not period bring in

48:46

a sponsor if they don't talk to us

48:48

for solid thirty minutes about how

48:50

they think Mahatma Gandhi might have sucked. That's

48:53

the behind the bastard's guarantee. It

48:56

is not. This

48:58

is why we have so few sponsors. They

49:02

just can't hang Yeah. Sorry,

49:05

yeah, I mean I

49:07

don't know what to say about it. There's

49:10

nothing to say.

49:18

Uh, we're

49:20

back and we're just having

49:22

a great time. How were you. How are you doing, Caitlin, I'm

49:25

doing well. I've heard a lot

49:28

of information about Bernar.

49:31

He's a fascinating man, fascinating

49:34

fellow I and

49:37

it keeps you know, there's

49:40

peaks and valleys as far

49:42

as you know his conduct in

49:45

his life. And uh, but I continue

49:47

to be amazed at some of his choices.

49:49

So you're you're keeping me on the edge of my seat.

49:53

Yep. Well, let's

49:55

talk about how he got Franklin Delano

49:57

Roosevelt elected. And eighteen

50:00

thirty one, he bought an existing magazine

50:02

called Liberty, which was compared to

50:04

his other publications, fairly respectable.

50:07

Like it's a politics and culture publication.

50:09

So he immediately starts writing editorial

50:11

columns for this on topics as broad as organized

50:14

crime and the importance of returning Americans

50:16

to farming. In nineteen thirty two,

50:18

in the wake in the midst of the Great Depression,

50:21

FDR starts his run for president, and

50:24

Liberty magazine backs FDRs

50:26

candidacy. Now, one of the chief

50:28

questions of the election was whether or not the

50:31

aging polio victim was capable

50:33

of handling the physical strains of the presidency.

50:35

Right like, that is a big can he do the job

50:38

he's dying of polio, post

50:40

polio or whatever. As America's

50:42

best known fitness nut, bern Ar McFadden was in

50:44

a unique position to allay people's suspicions

50:47

because people do listen to what he has to say about fitness.

50:49

So if one of his publications gives

50:51

FDR a clean bill of health, that means

50:53

something. As Liberties

50:55

publisher, he had the magazine sponsor

50:57

a medical examination of Roosevelt by

51:00

several doctors, even though Bernard is on

51:02

record is saying that doctors are all full of shit. In

51:04

this case, they might have been because they said

51:07

FDR was in perfect health, which he absolutely

51:09

was not in But

51:13

this article saying that FDR was in great

51:15

health, um is a big like

51:18

has a significant role in the election. Mark

51:20

Adams, Bernard's biographer, writes, the

51:22

biggest doubt about the Roosevelt campaign vanished

51:25

almost overnight, and that is

51:27

broadly speaking, I don't know, probably

51:29

good. I mean fdr complicated

51:32

history, shall we say, to say

51:34

the least in a number of ways. Um,

51:37

but within the context of Bernard's

51:39

career, I will say this is a positive

51:41

moment because we're about to talk about how big a fan

51:44

he was a fascism. See, yeah,

51:49

totals another thing. I

51:51

mean, I guess I could have you

51:53

know, the threads are there to to

51:56

to arrive at this point, but I am still

51:59

a little prize. So once again,

52:01

thanks for keeping me on the edge of my seat. It's

52:04

all. It's all thanks to Bernar. So Bernar

52:07

is both a product of his culture and a culture

52:09

creator. And as the U S went, you know, real

52:12

into eugenics in the twenties and thirties, so

52:15

did he. He had his paid columnists

52:17

right glowing articles about eugenics, one

52:19

of which included this paragraph. Eugenics

52:22

is the mightiest comment that ever came skitting

52:24

into the little solar system of human thoughts.

52:26

Suppose we are breeding for a sound mind

52:28

and a sound body. And it formulated a

52:30

scheme of judging the applicants with a score

52:33

system not unlike that which they glade the

52:35

Orpington's at the country fair. Here

52:37

is a one her score is ninety five

52:39

and three quarters the best applicant in the lot

52:41

for the high and holy functions of motherhood

52:44

in essency saying we had to judge ladies

52:47

like we judge pigs. Which

52:54

it's fine by me. Yeah,

52:56

not at all problematic feminist icon

52:59

Bernard McFadden. Yeah, oh

53:01

my gosh, and this and

53:03

specifically on like the criteria of like

53:05

how um, how

53:07

good they would be a like bearing children?

53:10

Yeah? Well what else is there? Well? What else is yeah?

53:13

Exactly? Yeah, what their

53:15

function can you serve? That's what

53:17

Bennar McFadden would probably

53:19

shout at you while using an exercise bike.

53:22

Um. I found a paper by the

53:24

Stark Center for Physical Culture and Sports

53:27

Studies at the University of Texas. They

53:29

describe McFadden's beliefs as soft

53:31

eugenics because he's not he doesn't spend a lot of times.

53:34

He's not talking about like races, he's not spending a lot of timing

53:36

like the arians need to do. We need to get rid

53:38

of the Jews. Like that's not really

53:40

his thing. He's thing is more healthy

53:43

people need to breed, and we need to raise

53:45

up people to be healthy and strong so that they can breed.

53:47

More healthy and strong people. I'm

53:49

not sugen Yes, it's

53:51

not good. I'm just like it's not. It's

53:54

there's different kinds of eugenics. That's kind of the

53:56

one that he lands on UM in

53:59

his hatred of earnity, and he blames modernity

54:01

for all of the health problems that people have. UM

54:03

and in his obsession with perfect bodies. He

54:06

lands right in the crosshairs of a lot of

54:08

fascist theory. When Benito

54:10

Mussolini took power in Italy, he emphasized

54:13

physical training as a way to prepare young people

54:15

for all the fighting they were going to have to do as

54:17

foot soldiers of fascism. Italy's

54:19

war record shows how successful

54:22

this plan was. Um

54:24

Bernard absolutely loved this idea

54:26

from the Stark Center quote. In

54:29

nineteen thirty two, readers of Physical Culture

54:31

magazine, then with a circulation in the hundreds

54:33

of thousands, were greeted with an unusual interview.

54:35

Past magazine issues featured everyone from

54:37

George Bernard Shaw to Upton Sinclair,

54:40

but this was the first time a self proclaimed fascist

54:42

appeared. The man was Benito Mussolini,

54:44

the leader of Italy. Since Mussolini's

54:46

rise to power in nineteen twenty two, McFadden

54:48

had kept a close eye on il Duce's love

54:50

of sport. Mussolini was detailed

54:53

the subject deemed to be of utmost national importance

54:55

Physical Culture. On this point,

54:57

Mussolini found a captive audience throughout the

54:59

night teen thirties, Bernar McFadden attempted, ultimately

55:02

in vain, to enter American politics through

55:04

a presidential bid. His guiding focus

55:06

was a belief in the importance of personal hygiene,

55:08

health, and strength. This quest, which ultimately

55:11

proved unsuccessful, explained to Mussolini's

55:13

appearance in Physical Culture magazine. Months

55:15

prior to il Duche's article, McFadden traveled

55:18

to Europe as part of President Hoover's Conference

55:20

on Child Health and Protection. McFadden

55:22

himself seems to have had no solid set of

55:24

political beliefs, focusing primarily

55:26

on issues of health above all else. He unsuccessfully

55:29

ran as a Republican candidate in nineteen thirty

55:31

six, but later attempted to gain a position in

55:33

Democratic President Franklin Delano

55:35

Roosevelt's office. It was during this trip

55:37

to Europe that McFadden crossed path with Mussolini.

55:40

United at scene and their appreciation for fitness

55:42

a deal was struck, the contents of which

55:44

were revealed to Physical Cultures readers.

55:47

So he's political in

55:49

that he thinks everyone should be jacked

55:52

all the time, and he likes fascism because

55:54

fascism also wants everyone to be jacked all the

55:56

time. Right. That's that's his entry, and that's

55:58

his article that he lets Benita Selini,

56:00

right, is on the importance of physical culture for

56:02

like national identity. And they enter

56:04

into a deal which they detail in this article.

56:07

And the deal is that Benito gives Bernard personal

56:10

responsibility for training forty Italian

56:12

naval cadets. These men are brought

56:14

to New York, they're trained under McFadden,

56:16

and they're inculcated in American popular

56:18

culture. The experiment lasts

56:21

six months and it's the subject of a number of

56:23

articles in Physical Culture. The ultimate

56:25

message of the experiment, in McFadden's eyes,

56:27

is that fascism builds healthier, stronger

56:30

people through good physical culture, and

56:32

the U s should emulate Italy. In this the

56:35

Italian cadets are often used as a foil.

56:37

They're contrasted with the lazy Americans who

56:39

have unhealthy diets. Now,

56:42

after six months in the United States, these

56:44

Italian naval cadets all showed improvements

56:46

in strengthen the growth of muscles. Bernard

56:49

claimed that this was evidence fascism could

56:51

work its wondrous physical effects even in

56:53

the United States. From the Stark Center,

56:56

McFadden stopped short of saying Italy was superior

56:58

to the United States, but his writings included

57:00

wishful appraisals of the Italian state and

57:02

claims that America had much to learn. According

57:05

to McFadden, his Italian sojourn was a success.

57:07

This explained, or so it was claimed, why the Portuguese

57:10

government extended a similar invitation to McFadden

57:12

in nineteen thirty two. The same year Antonio

57:15

de Olivera Salazar assumed control

57:17

of the state. A military dictatorship

57:19

existed in Portugal from ninety six,

57:21

but Salazar's rise to power marked an intensification

57:24

of authoritarianism alongside a growing

57:26

cult of personality. Salazar's

57:28

government shared at least somewhat Mussolini's

57:30

admiration of strong and healthy bodies. Mauricio

57:33

Drummond's study of sport in Salazar's resume

57:35

explained that although Salazar rarely expressed

57:38

an interest in sport, he used it for political

57:40

purposes. So he

57:43

winds up working for two different fascist dictators

57:46

establishing like a physical culture for

57:48

their young people. And in in

57:50

Portugal, Salazar, this dictator

57:52

gives him a few dozen children which

57:54

he's able to put on a compound which he calls

57:56

McFadden children's Colony, and he

57:59

sets them up with a a vegetarian diet

58:01

and a workout program. And Bernard

58:03

claims again in his magazine that this

58:05

is so successful it turns their quote dull

58:08

and stupid little faces alert

58:10

and interested. What. Oh

58:14

okay, let me just take a

58:16

moment to

58:20

to just comprehend all

58:22

of that. Oh keetoki. A

58:24

lot going on there. There's a lot to unpack

58:27

and I don't know if

58:30

my brain can do it at this time.

58:33

But yeah,

58:35

there's a lot going on with this with

58:38

this episode. Um,

58:42

the turns they keep coming, keep

58:44

coming, barely keep up. There's actually another

58:46

one at the end of this paragraph. Witness.

58:49

He's so happy with how this Portugal experiment

58:51

goes that he co authors a book about the experiment

58:53

with um who we'll

58:56

call a prominent author. Do you want to guess who

58:58

it is? Thirties

59:02

author? Do you think he'd pick?

59:04

Oh, my Uh,

59:08

Faulkner, I don't know. Does

59:10

the name Thomas Dixon mean anything to you

59:12

know? Thomas Dixon wrote

59:14

a book called The Klansman, which was the basis

59:16

of D. W. Griffith Griffith's Birth of a Nation

59:22

as I'm amazing,

59:26

was Faulkner writing stuff in the

59:28

thirties? Or am I not? Am?

59:31

I do I not know anything? Because

59:34

i've Oh jeez, I don't know. I'm

59:36

bad at he's I'm bad at authors.

59:39

Clearly he's dead by then, right, who

59:42

knows? Um? Okay? So the guy

59:44

who wrote the thing the um

59:47

Birth of he

59:49

writes a book about how good it is to train

59:51

fascist kids to be fascists through

59:55

exercise and vegetarianism.

59:59

Oops seen as

1:00:02

the nineteen thirties war on McFadden

1:00:04

became an anti war activist,

1:00:06

which you know as a positive

1:00:08

connotation now, But if you're an anti war

1:00:11

activist in the thirties, it means you

1:00:13

don't think that anything should be done to stop

1:00:15

fascism. Like that's that's what the

1:00:17

anti war movement in the US generally

1:00:19

is in this period, is like, why would we go to war

1:00:21

against Tyler? He seems like a good chap he's

1:00:23

doing just great and we should

1:00:26

not challenge him

1:00:28

now. By nineteen thirty eight, two is

1:00:31

somewhat credit. Bernard comes around on the issue,

1:00:33

likely because he sees public opinion shifting,

1:00:35

and he becomes pro war, turning out monthly

1:00:38

calls for his readers to exercise in order

1:00:40

to defend their nation. Nineteen

1:00:42

forty one, the year that the US gets into

1:00:44

the war, is the year things fall apart for Berner.

1:00:47

Minority stakeholders in his company charge

1:00:50

that he's used company funds to pay for his political

1:00:52

campaigns. He's forced to sell all

1:00:54

of his interest in the business and step down

1:00:56

as president. Physical Culture was

1:00:58

turned into a woman's magazine as he

1:01:00

left. I didn't do particularly

1:01:06

He doesn't like that. It also doesn't do very

1:01:08

well, but the

1:01:10

media landscape changed a bit by this point.

1:01:12

By the end of the war, McFadden's marriage

1:01:14

to Mary was also at its end. A wedge

1:01:16

had been driven between them when he blamed her for

1:01:19

their son's tragic death. She

1:01:21

divorced him, and along and brutal legal

1:01:23

battle ensued. At the end of it, she published

1:01:26

a book about how much her ex husband sucked.

1:01:28

In a final middle finger to him, she dedicated

1:01:31

her autobiography to the doctors who had

1:01:33

helped ease the pain of childbirth, Which is the

1:01:35

meanest thing you could do to Bernard, doctor

1:01:40

brutal After I let her get stitches.

1:01:42

Eventually, I

1:01:46

um, I

1:01:49

like that. I like that for her. The book

1:01:51

contains a number of allegations, including

1:01:53

that Bernar caused her a miscarriage

1:01:55

by forcing her to work out incessantly

1:01:57

while she was pregnant. So

1:02:01

good guy, A right up from American

1:02:03

Heritage ably describes the remainder

1:02:05

of the former publishing Titans life. Alden

1:02:08

later wrote of Edward Lear that he became

1:02:11

a land Bernar McFadden became

1:02:13

a press release. In the last eighteen years

1:02:15

of his life, he was featured in Time, which dubbed

1:02:17

him body Love or Newsweek.

1:02:19

Eighteen times. He ran for the Senate

1:02:21

in Florida. He conducted innumerable fasts

1:02:24

and hikes. He offered a prize for the best

1:02:26

biographical play about his life. In

1:02:28

nineteen forty nine, at the age of eighty

1:02:30

one, he took up parachuting and thereafter

1:02:32

tried to make a jump each year on his birthday.

1:02:35

Claiming that his third wife had humiliated

1:02:37

him by losing her figure, he married a woman

1:02:40

of forty two. She later had the marriage

1:02:42

and old In nineteen fifty three, he

1:02:44

declared his acceptance of the nomination

1:02:46

of the Honest Party from mayor. He

1:02:48

pledged a business administration that would make sales

1:02:50

tax unnecessary, eliminate traffic

1:02:53

congestion, and obtained double deck subway

1:02:55

cars. He also promised to purge

1:02:57

the city of communists. So

1:03:00

he keeps doing the same thing his whole life, but he's

1:03:02

less influential. He doesn't have a bunch of magazines. Nobody

1:03:04

really gives a ship. Also, he lives

1:03:07

quite long. He lives a long life. Look,

1:03:09

he's not wrong about all of

1:03:11

the things that he's saying. There's some things

1:03:14

he gets very right, and he lives a long, healthy

1:03:16

life as a result of it. He remains

1:03:18

in good health into his early eighties, which suggests

1:03:20

that again, some of the stuff he's saying is not bullshit.

1:03:23

He celebrated his eighty first birthday by

1:03:25

jumping out of an airplane while wearing a full

1:03:27

suit. He repeated this stunt on his eighties,

1:03:29

second and eighty third birthdays. By

1:03:31

ninety five, though age had started

1:03:33

to take its toll. In October, he came

1:03:36

down with a urinary blockage, which he

1:03:38

tried to cure by fasting. This did

1:03:40

not work, and he resigned himself to go into

1:03:42

a hospital where he died. Oh

1:03:45

yep, that's it. That's the end. That's

1:03:47

all the Bernardic anticlimactic

1:03:49

ending for people.

1:03:52

It's generally is not. Everybody has

1:03:54

the whole the whole Hitler. You know, he's

1:03:57

like, all right, I'll go along, all right, I'm

1:03:59

dead right by it

1:04:02

was proved right in the end. Going to the hospital got

1:04:04

him killed real quick. And

1:04:07

that's the message of today's episode. Don't

1:04:09

go to the hospital. That's not the

1:04:11

message of today's episode, Robert. I

1:04:14

think that is the message of today's hospital episode.

1:04:18

Hospitals are bad. No, don't

1:04:21

go them. I

1:04:23

am be fuddled about

1:04:26

everything I've learned here today. Yeah

1:04:31

mm hmm. And

1:04:33

on that note, Caitlin plugables Okay,

1:04:39

yep, yeah. Um.

1:04:42

Well, since I brought it up earlier, you

1:04:45

can listen to a podcast that I

1:04:47

did a little bit of and then um

1:04:50

abandoned because I'm not nearly as

1:04:54

ambitious as Bernard. But

1:04:56

I did do a

1:04:59

podcast called Sludge, an

1:05:01

American Healthcare Story, in

1:05:03

which I the first season as me detelling

1:05:05

my experience

1:05:07

with having gall stones a

1:05:10

k a. Sludge, sludgeballs

1:05:13

and um and all the chaos

1:05:16

that ensued from that UM.

1:05:19

And then I did a few other episodes about other people's

1:05:21

stories, but then I got too busy and I abandoned

1:05:24

that effort. But the podcast

1:05:26

I haven't abandoned is the Bechtel

1:05:28

Cast, So check that out. It's

1:05:31

a movie podcast because I am able

1:05:33

to talk away. Um, I'm

1:05:35

better at talking about movies than I

1:05:37

am about healthcare

1:05:39

stuff. And then you can follow me

1:05:42

on Twitter and Instagram

1:05:44

at Caitlin Darante. Yeah.

1:05:47

Yeah, well

1:05:52

that's everything we have to say

1:05:55

about everything forever. This

1:05:57

has been the last episode of Behind the Bastards.

1:06:00

Um, I am quitting in

1:06:02

order to start my own magazine

1:06:05

about how if you do enough crunches

1:06:08

and stop your wife for meeting, all of your babies

1:06:10

will be Superman. M hm,

1:06:13

No, Sophie,

1:06:15

you could have a cush gig as the executive

1:06:17

publisher of my new magazine, Starve

1:06:20

your Baby Digest gonna

1:06:23

politely say, well, you

1:06:25

just turned down a million dollars, but okay, it's

1:06:28

okay moral my morals are worth

1:06:30

more well mine, or I

1:06:32

know that I

1:06:35

have a good night everybody. Bye bye bye