Part One: The Surprising Evil of 1950s Men's Adventure Magazines

Robert sits down with Margaret Killjoy to read a selection of stories and ads from old timey men's adventure magazines, which feature a mix of soft core porn, racism and Indiana Jones style action.

(2 Part Series)

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Oh, welcome back to Behind the Bastards, a podcast that's
normally about the worst people in all of history and
is normally named Behind the Bastards. Uh. But you know
we've got something special for you this week and moving forward.
But first I'm going to bring on our guests for today,
Margaret kill Joy. That's me, Hi, Hi Margaret. How are

(00:29):
you doing.

Speaker 2 (00:30):
I'm doing great. I'm really excited that you've rebranded the
show to be Parenting Tips for the Unmarried.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, that is that is exactly it tip number one.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
Wait did you actually sen just disassociating? No.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
Actually, so here's the thing. Here's the thing, here's the
thing that I'm behind Bastards in an introduce, are our
audience too, because we're we're changing the name of the podcast. Everybody,
This is a big deal.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
You know.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
You may have heard the Indian Parliament is voting right
now on whether or not to change the name of
their country to Bahrat. And I just want to prep
everybody because the instant they drop that name, your boys
picking it up. This podcast is going to officially be India. Now.
I know a lot of people are saying Pakistan has
been in line for a while for that one. But

(01:19):
I'm sorry, Pakistan is not going to be able to
change on a dime as quickly as Sophie can change
the name of our Twitter account. And I think that's
internationally how names get recognized.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
Okay, I have bad news for you about the nuclear
capacity of Pakistan.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
But also I was disassociated again. But is he talking
about the India thing again.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
Yeah, we're going to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:40):
We're going to do it.

Speaker 1 (01:41):
Incredible.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
I only have to listen to like every two words
in your sentences and I'm still up to date.

Speaker 1 (01:46):
I think I think this is going to be how
we make a lot more money because here's the thing
behind the bastard's pretty good podcast title. Good name recognition
after this time India, that's that's brand recognition right there.
That's true. You know everybody, everybody knows India. Right You're
gonna get people listening just because you know they're interested

(02:07):
in in in the country or whatever. You know, that's
that's that's you know, cash in the bank baby. So sorry, Pakistan,
but the new India is here and it's uh, well,
this week it's it's several hours of discussing Men's adventure
magazines from the nineteen forties.

Speaker 3 (02:27):
Oh I remember why? Okay, So there are there are
things you'll be showing now, Margaret.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
We have not we have not done with you a
book episode yet. Yeah, you know, how are you feeling it?
Do you think you're ready? The vibe are different, this
kind of responsibility.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
I I'm so ready. I was born ready to look
through trashy old magazines. They're trashy, right they are.

Speaker 1 (02:58):
So they're fascinating, Margaret. Here, here's like, is this.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
Boy's life or like highlights for kids? Or is this
like whatever came before Playboy?

Speaker 1 (03:07):
Yeah, it's closer to Playboy. It's it's closer to Playboy.
So here's the thing, Margaret. You know, I anybody who
knows you knows that you're a big You're a big fan.
You love Christmas, huge Christmas, Eth And anyone who knows
you knows you also knows you're a member of an obscure,
pre nicy and orthodox cult that believes the actual date

(03:28):
of Christ's birth is just bleep it out whatever you say. Yeah. So, anyway,
this is a Christmas gift for you to celebrate the
book you published this year, Escape from in Cell Island. Oh, Okay, good, Yeah, yeah,
because your book, you know, is a is a fun
fictional romp that also deals with, you know, some of

(03:49):
the questions about like the toxicity of aspects of how
men are cultured in our society, right, which is you know,
one of the more interesting things about that book. So, Margaret,
here's the thing. I wanted to both provide a little
bit of a free Christmas time, you know, advertisement for
that book, and it felt like the best way to

(04:10):
do that was to delve into the history of like
masculinity and particularly like the weird media that formed a
certain chunk of men's concepts of masculinity for an entire generation,
specifically like two generations before we came onto the scene.
And that's why we're going to talk about men's adventure magazines. Now,

(04:33):
most of you have seen or heard of these to
some extent. They come up on social media every now
and then different you know, when I worked at Cracked,
we had some articles written by Sean Baby making fun
of them. They're these ridiculous magazines that would often have
like these garish illustrations of like a muscly man fighting
hundreds of crabs, or like, yeah, Nazis and pirates grabbing

(04:54):
like women and ripping their bodices and stuff, and like
it'll have these insane titles for like different articles about
like lust, slaves of the Nazi Caribbean or some shit
like that, like wild stuff. But all of these kind
of you know, there's a bunch of different publications that
all sort of fall in under the broad category of
men's adventure, and men's Adventure is sort of a genre

(05:16):
name for a type of publication that started in the
nineteen forties after World War Two, and had its heyday
in the late fifties and sixties. Most of these magazines
had died off by the seventies, but while they were alive,
they featured a mix of risque photos, some of which
were just straight up softcore pornography, some of which were,
you know, a bit shy of that, and illustrations, alongside

(05:41):
thrilling articles and short stories about extreme sports, daredevil activities,
various fictional pulp tales of two fisted detectives and cowboys
and adventure and shit, a lot of which was like
framed as these are true stories, you know, but it's
basically a fiction magazine. It's basically it's a short story
magazine right, and in fact, a number of authors who

(06:03):
were really influential by like the seventies and eighties got
their start writing for these. I believe he's Mario Puto
or something, the guy who wrote The Godfather the book
got his start writing story. He wrote, by his count
probably published millions of words in these magazines under a
bunch of pseudonyms over the Oh, yeah that is possible.
We'll read something he wrote today.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
I have so much respect for the art of like
churning out pulp adventure. Yeah, it is an on the page.
It is a fucking blue collar job that needs doing.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
And I have that the retrospect, Yeah yeah, and this
is like some of these are pretty fun and in fact,
at least one of them I learned something from. And
some of them are incredibly gross and like reveal some
of some of the worst things about a specific chunk
of men in this period of time.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
I also love that they had to like specifically say
this is men's adventure, as if like because everyone knows
that like Musley guys fighting crabs is just adventure. Yeah,
but you have to make it men's adventure.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, it has to be horny and deeply dismissive of women.
And then then it's men's adventure, right.

Speaker 2 (07:13):
Yeah, girls in here absolutely not getting a bond us
ripped off by Nazi crabs.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
The first that you have gotten remarkably close to guessing
how one of the stories that we'll be talking about ends.

Speaker 3 (07:28):
So.

Speaker 1 (07:29):
True Adventure was the first magazine in the men's adventure genre.
It was a spin off of True Detective magazine, which
had started back in the twenties. Early examples of other
magazines kind of in the same field had respectable names
like Blue Book, or Adventure or our Ghosi, but by
the time the sixties rolled around, things had gotten decidedly

(07:51):
hornier and cruder, with names like Climax, World of Men
and Man's Story, and the kind of articles that they've
published in these gotten decidedly lower as well. Is a
great face right now, Yeah, Man's Story, Climax.

Speaker 2 (08:07):
World of Men, I've changed my opinion about the Dusk Star.
We can bring the Death Star back.

Speaker 1 (08:13):
All of these have the straightest names for publications. They
could possibly have nothing but straight With World of Men.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
I would not like to attend that event.

Speaker 1 (08:30):
The kind of articles that these public that these magazines
published went decidedly lower over time as well. One issue
of Man Story from nineteen sixty two features the incredible
article title soft Flesh for the Nazi Monster's Pit in
Hell and I cracked the reds Lust Capital It Also

(08:52):
it also featured an early list of Oregon. Yeah the
reds Lust Capital. Yes, it also featured an early listical.
I was shocked to see this. I did not realize
how far back my former career had its roots called
ten faults that make You Repulsive to Women, which I
think I've run across that exact title in modern articles before.

Speaker 2 (09:15):
So wait, So, actually, you and I would be the
perfect people to start this magazine and.

Speaker 1 (09:19):
Get more enough.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
We could do this because both of our careers are this.
I write pulp fiction and you write listicals. We could
we could make this happen, Margaret right. All we need
is somebody who can draw really slutty men fighting off crabs.
I'm Cheryl will find it.

Speaker 1 (09:35):
So before we get into some of these stories for ourselves,
I found a pretty interesting Huffington Post article with the
title It's a Man's World that cites the Son of Illicit.
It covers the history of these magazines and at one
point It cites the son of illustrator Norman Saunders, who
did a lot of the iconic cover drawings for these magazines.

Speaker 3 (09:54):
Quote.

Speaker 1 (09:55):
Dad told me that he felt adventure magazines were towards
men who had served in the war but had seen
no action, which describes eighty five percent of our sixteen
million servicemen. He felt that men who saw action never
wanted to think about it again, while most servicemen who
had never reached a front line were doomed to a
life of wondering about their manhood and the face of battle.
I find that really insightful and compelling. Yeah. Yeah, and

(10:20):
you will find there's some like really direct quotes from
some of these articles that makes it clear, like, oh,
that is exactly who you're serving, Like, yeah, these guys
who they you know, they had always wondered what would
my life have been like if I'd had that sort
of like searing baptism of fire, you know what. I'm
maybe all of the things. And I think there's a
lot of men who like think that that, like, oh,

(10:40):
if I just had some like searing combat experience, you know,
I would I wouldn't have these hang ups, I wouldn't
be scared in this way, i'd have the courage to
do this or do that. You know, a lot of
our media reinforces this attitude, which you know, let me
tell you, folks, I don't think that's the most common
reaction to experience in combat. I think the most common

(11:01):
reaction to experience in combat is being very very scared.
Yeah yeah, and not liking it, wanting to avoid getting
shot at again, wanting to avoid you know, getting shot again.

Speaker 2 (11:13):
Spending most of the rest of your life finding ways
to deal with it. If it's World War two we're.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
Talking about, right, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
You actually did exactly the best thing possible. You proved
you were brave enough to found well unless you got drafted.
But like you helped stop the Nazis and you didn't
get PTSD. Your biggest problem is that you feel like
a little emasculated. Yeah you didn't, because you did support
work that is necessary and just as important, and you
help stop the Nazis. Get the fuck out.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Yeah yeah, you know, you don't actually need all that
many guys shooting them. What you do need is a
lot of guys ensuring that we I don't know, make
like a dozen battleships in a week and like no
other nation in history had ever managed because of a
lot of unpleasant things. Actually, but anyway, that's beyond the
point here. So yeah, back to Yeah, I find that

(12:02):
guy's description of like who these magazines were for compelling
because it gets it an issue in a feeling that
is still very much present today among a huge chunk
of men in our country. This is why so much
of the A fifteen market. Literally this the next sentence,
Margaret is, this is why so much of the equipment
market into the gun industry is sold the way it is, right,

(12:22):
That's why you get guys doing this fucking like Kyle
Rittenhouse shit where they show up with guns at protests
because they want a chance to do something, to like
shoot somebody, to be to do something that feels like
this thing that they have in their heads, like the
arkond of masculinity. But also they're scared of real combat, right, Yeah,

(12:42):
so they much prefer this this sort of thing, like
there's this necessary In Ukraine, Yeah, a lot of the
you get a lot of the first wave of American
volunteers who went into Ukraine were like back rankers, and
a decent chunk of them were like, oh my God,
I did not was not ready for this sort of thing. Now,
obviously there were a lot lot of guys who went
in there and you know, did and are continuing to

(13:04):
be in heavy combat. But like there's a there's a
there's a desire among a lot of people for like
I want, I want the thing that military action confers
to me, but I don't want to like sign away
years of my life to the military or anything like that.
And I hope I found, you know, a way around that,
right Like that that's I think, you know what a

(13:26):
lot of this, I think that impulse is at the
core of these magazines and at the core of a
lot of things that are really ugly about our present society.
So much of the toxicity I think in the United
States right now is centered around men who never saw
combat or served, but also don't have a concept of
masculinity that extends beyond the ability to do violence and

(13:49):
the capacity to convince other people that you can do violence.

Speaker 3 (13:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
I think that's that's what these magazines are getting towards.
And I think that's also like what's killing us one
of the things that's killing us as a culture. So
this is a problem larger than a book episode Behind
the Bastards. But as we've seen, some of these elements
in our culture get darker and more extreme. To take
from you know, gun culture again, there's a lot of
media that shifted from like protecting your home and protecting

(14:15):
yourself to like preparing to wage a war against woke groomers.
This tonal drift was also present, and I find this fascinating,
was also present in the men's adventure magazines of a
bygone era. You can see a similar drift habin over
the course of time that these magazines are being published.
And I'm going to quote from that Huffington Post article again.
At a certain point in the nineteen sixties, men adventure

(14:37):
polps took a darker turn. They went from innocent stories
of men fighting nature's beasts in the woods to more
twisted fare like warring gangs of Nazi biker rapists. As
author Humphrey Knips said to me once in reference to
the evolution of porn magazines, you can't have brinksmanship without
a brink Men's pulps went the same way as the
porn magazine. They died because they had nowhere else to go,

(14:57):
which you might think about in like the text of
our culture too. But yeah, without further ado, Margaret, all right,
let's let's slide off of that uncomfortable line of thinking,
right and head into death crabs of our first episode.
I don't think there's a Nazi in this first one,
but don't worry, we'll get there. Okay. So here's our

(15:18):
first issue, climax, exciting stories for men. Now we've got
some We've got some good titles in here. You've got
a drawing of a pirate looks like he's about to
cut a man's face off. There, buccaneer Burko and the
slave Girls. And then you've got an article on a
French tourist trap that I'm gonna tell you right now,

(15:38):
just some soft core pornography.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
My favorite part Peter Townsend, England's warrior playboy Joe's right.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Who is Yeah, yeah, yeah, we'll be talking about him.
Just yeah, you're happy, you're ready for this. So this
is from April of nineteen sixty and it starts with
an ad about and the ads in this, by the way,
give us a lot of information about the people that
these were geared towards. Uh huh. The ads in the

(16:06):
first ad in this magazine is a full pager on
how you too can make big money in this booming industry,
And when you read it a little closer, it's an
ad about how to start a business going door to
door cleaning furniture and rugs and offering flameproofing up cells
that are just spraying carcinogen cocktails on people's chellranger. Like
that's what it is, is like give everybody fucking cancer.

(16:29):
This ad is mostly noteworthy because it features there's like
this chunk of it where's like these men are building
lifetime businesses and it's like a bunch of dudes heads
with like descriptions of their success. And it's one of
the most beautiful fifties guy montages I've ever seen in
my life. Look at look at all these fifties guys.
Like one of them's got the slicked backed, combed, fucking

(16:52):
dapper dan ass hair. One guy's got a baffling looks
like his entire fit all of his teeth have been
punched out of him, and he's got like a massive
bald spot.

Speaker 2 (17:01):
Another coups like yeah, yeah, two of them look dead.

Speaker 3 (17:07):
Several of them have the same problem as rondasantis where
nobody taught them out of smile, so they're just doing
like this weird grunt face.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
It's incredible. Yeah, the New York guy has an amazing
look on his face. Don't understand it. The old bald
Virginia man looks just the angriest any one has ever been.
It's beautiful.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
One of them is seizure and just staring into the
middle distance.

Speaker 1 (17:32):
So the next page has an ad for a correspondence
school geared towards new dads. Now, the main thing I
found interesting here is that it's cites. That's statistic that
new fathers need to up their earning by five hundred
dollars a year to account for a baby. That's around
five thousand dollars today, while the estimated cost of raising
a child per year today rages from thirteen thousand to

(17:53):
twenty thousand a year. I just thought that was an
interesting little bit of context for you.

Speaker 3 (17:57):
Yeah, Marco loves context.

Speaker 1 (17:59):
Yeah, that's true. Not yeah, Queen's context. Anyway. That's that's
a bummer. That's not great inflation. No. The next page
is the table of contents, which is followed by an
ad for a completely different correspondence school that's like half
of the ads of this paper are like different correspondence
schools for guys who just kind of never figured their
shit out.

Speaker 2 (18:19):
Is this is for unemployed people?

Speaker 1 (18:21):
Yeah, unemployed? I think it's for like either that are
underemployed middle aged men. Yeah, yeah, you.

Speaker 2 (18:27):
Want to be an entrepreneur because they want easy money.
I mean they're also probably fucked by the economy, like.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
They're probably fucked by then, or they're or they're doing
some sort of a job that's just not going to
make them rich, and they, yeah, you know, are are
willing to fall for this shit.

Speaker 2 (18:42):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Now, once we get past some of these ads, we
get to the table of contents and we see that
this magazine is filled with stories that have titles like
Punk with a Switchblade, The Hunter Who Died Twice, and
All the Girls Loved Danny. Then there's an ad for
men past forty who have trouble getting up nights and
have lost physical vigor. The ad informs that these yeah, yeah,

(19:05):
the ad in call informs us the cause maybe glandular
information inflammation, and from what I can sell, they're selling enemas.
And right after the Anima ad, Margaret is an ad
for the Rosicrucions.

Speaker 2 (19:17):
Hell yeah, I talked about them on the last fucking
episode of Kobe Will and cool stuff.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
Yeah, there's beautiful thing. There's like this upside down pyramid
with a fucking uh picture of like ancient Egypt, and
it knowledge that is endured since the Pyramids.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
That's how I have a secret society. As you see
ads in the fucking Men's Adventure.

Speaker 1 (19:35):
I see according to this ad, you can you could
join the Rosicrucis by sending off a letter to Amenotep
the fourth. So yeah, that's pretty good. I've always wanted
to email or to fucking snail mail a pharaoh. So
the actual stories themselves, most of them are less interesting,

(19:55):
maybe than the titles might make you think. It's mostly
middle aged dad fodder. You know, there's a story about
an old West hired gun in Montana. I think he's
solving a mystery. There's multiple stories of like World War
two soldiers and flying aces. The most interesting one here
is about Pete Townsend, England's warrior playboy is a legend musician.
Not that Pete Townsend, Margaret, not that Pete Townsend, Okay,

(20:19):
he was in fact.

Speaker 2 (20:20):
It do you want to tell a movie.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
Please please, please, Sophie, no go for it. He was.

Speaker 3 (20:27):
I guess for lack of a better word, and advisors
somewhat security guard to Queen Elizabeth's father and proceeded.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
To fuck Princess Margaret Princess.

Speaker 3 (20:41):
Martino, and then had a history of and then like
broke and then she wasn't allowed to marry him. He
got like forced out of the already divorced, so she
wasn't allowed to marry him because they had an affair.
Then they broke.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
He broke her.

Speaker 3 (20:59):
Heart, and then he continued to date other very unquestionable.

Speaker 1 (21:04):
Very questionable guy. The most interesting thing about his story
in this magazine is that it describes Princess Margaret as
the miniature Marilyn Monroe and she was not very big,
like so I don't understand this at all.

Speaker 2 (21:18):
But yeah, very funny this next image.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
After this boring article, we get to the highlight of
the issue, which is where we're going to spend most
of our time right now, which is the article punk
with a switchblade. Yeah, yeah, he's got his butterfly knife out. Yeah.
So the fucking the The the introductory art is like

(21:48):
a fifties car, you know, giant fucking steel vehicle with
like a scared man and a woman, a horrified young
woman with her hands on her fucking cheeks, and a
greaser with like a big fucking elvis pompadour and a
leather jacket holding his knife to like a cherubic child's neck.
The kid looks like he looks like one of those

(22:08):
like fucking ceramic children, and like a Christmas village that
you buy.

Speaker 2 (22:14):
Yeah, and his knife is the size of a bread knife.

Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, it is, and it looks like a bread knife
even know it is described in the story as some
kind of switchblade. I mean the title of the article
is punk in the Switchblade.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
Which means that the handle is like nine inches long.

Speaker 1 (22:28):
Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of that's wrong artistically with
their depiction of his switchblade.

Speaker 3 (22:33):
Do we get to read the story? Get?

Speaker 1 (22:35):
Oh, we're gonna read this story. We're going into this
motherfucker right, I'm gonna I'm gonna start. The crisp October
night air whipped at his tired, aching body, making him
shiver inside his black leather jacket with a painted skull
and crossbones across the back. His young, angry eyes stared
hungrily across the narrow tar road into the window of
Pop's roadside diner. Behind the counter, a balding old man

(22:58):
in an open neck white shirt stood sipping coffee from
a thick mug. Here in the cold and darkness, the
kid had been watching and wanting. When he closed his eyes,
he could almost taste the rich, hot coffee. He could
even see rows and rows of juicy fat apple pies
and dark brown chocolate frosted cakes, all the good sweet
things of life waiting to be eaten. The angry eyes

(23:20):
open and stared at the window again. If he went
inside and asked for something to eat, the old man
would laugh at him, push him, and tell him to
get out. In the big pocket of his torn dungarees,
he felt the cold hardness of the bone handled knife.
He pressed his thumb against the switchblade button, knowing the
safety catch was on. I hate you, daddy, oh, he
murmured softly. I don't have to beg nobody. I could

(23:41):
just walk in there and take what I want, daddy O.
And I ain't gonna walk no more on this dirty
old road. I'm gonna get me some wheels, old daddy O.
I'm gonna get me some nice shiny wheels.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
This is the who song, see.

Speaker 1 (23:59):
Margaret, authors used to know it a write dialogue, you know,
before this, before we are ruined? Yeah, daddy, Oh you
gotta put that in there, like three times.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
They know he's a greaser, and like, bring back those adverbs,
you know, I mean, like people adverbs and they're writing
is terrible. We need more adverbs.

Speaker 1 (24:16):
No more adverbs, especially when you're getting paid probably like
a heartbreaking amount of money per letter here or yeah,
like no way more than any writer gets today.

Speaker 2 (24:25):
Yeah, like they probably got paid more per word than
the current going rate, not adjusted for inflation.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Yeah, almost certainly. Well, we're going to get back to
Greaser with a switchblade. Yeah, after after this ad from
the Rosicrucians. Ah, we're back, and uh, I hope you
all found a new correspondence school to finally make you

(24:55):
feel like a man or whatever. Anyway, let's get back
to Greaser with a switch.

Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, it's hungry, but the problem is that he doesn't
have food and he is the bad guy.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Oh oh, that's not the problem, Margaret, that's just where
that's just where we're starting. Don't worry. This is a
believable villain. Okay, okay, yeah absolutely. In the near distance,
headlights glowed along the hillcrest, flashed over the top, then
dipped down. The leather jacket melted further back into the shadows.
The kid watched the giant bug eyes sweep down the

(25:28):
hill and then turn into the diner. The car crunched
to a stop in the gravel. A moment later, the
car door slammed and a man stood silhouetted in the
light of the diner window. The jacket didn't move until
the man was inside, sitting at the counter, smoking a
cigarette and looking at the menu. Then the black leather
jacket walked slowly across the road, scuffing the paper, thin
soles and worn heels over the tar. A high nasal voice,

(25:50):
screeching a rock and roll song wailed through the diner
as he swung the door open. How does Sonny, the
old man called from behind the counter. Pop grinned, showing
twoless gums. Wary flashing eyes, skimmed over the old man
and searched the room, sweeping past several wooden tables draped
with red and white oilcloth, some straight back wooden chairs,
a pinball machine, and the colored lights of the jukebox.

(26:13):
There was a door in the back wall. The youth
size fastened on the little man, who had turned from
the counter to look at him. The little man wore
money clothes, a buttersoft dark sport coat, knit sports shirt,
cream colored slacks, and shiny black tuled loafers. Come on, kid,
sit down, the little man said, smiling. Pop toss a
couple burgers for the kid. Two more pop specials coming up,

(26:34):
the old I realize I'm now using the same voice
for popping the old man. It's the gist of it is,
they're actually very nice and willing to give him free hamburgers. Yeah,
but this the switchblade punk just is gets angrier and angrier,
and in fact, he's just like continually filled with more
rage as these men try to do nice things for him.
And eventually, you know, the man who buys him the

(26:56):
hamburgers explains that he's a traveling salesman and he's had
a tough life too. Write you know, he had a
period of time when he was younger where where he
was living a little bit rougher, and so he empathized
correspondent a school to have corresponded school. It became a
rich lawyer. Yeah, yeah, So the two of them like

(27:18):
talk for a little while. And this guy Morell is
like a long time ago. I was a wild, hungry
punk like you. Maybe if someone would have staked me
to a meal in a few bucks, it would have
changed a lot of things for me. Morel's voice became softer.
I had a lot of dreams once, a lot of
big dreams. Unexpectedly, he spun the spoon on the countertop.
It fell to the floor with a shop clatter. But
that's another story, Joe Morell. That's me, friend of stray

(27:41):
dogs and cats and hungry kids. Morel took out his wallet,
and the kid's eyes grew wide. He'd never seen so
much money. Morell picked out two five dollars bills and
cost him on the counter in front of Smitty. I
ain't begging, mister, Smitty said, between clinched teeth. No one
said you were. Morrell replied stiffly, I'm trying to do
something decent. Take it. Smitty ground the cigarette into the
center of the top five dollars bill. I didn't ask

(28:03):
for no favors. Morell jumped to his feet and grabbed
Smitty's arm. Why you crazy kid. I had to put
you across my knee and warm you're fanning. Fanny meant
a different thing back then. So at this point it
becomes clear this kid is deranged, you know, just angrier
and angrier that these people have tried to feed him,
and like any person in this any kind of drifter

(28:23):
in this situation, when you offer him food, he pulls
out a switchblade and murders the old man and takes
you hostage. Oh my god. Yeah that went further what
he's gonna do right, Yeah, and that's how he kidnaps
the little kid. They have to like guide the child
out over like the bleeding corpse of the old man. Yeah,
he goes. It goes very fast from like nice man

(28:46):
offering a drifter a sandwich to the drifter murdering everybody
and kidnapping them. I like that.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
The old Christian stories are like, yeah he was secretly Jesus,
the beggar you gave money to, was like, I am
your Lord and savior. What you do for the least
of a you do for me. And the nineteen forties
version is or sixties whatever is, they're going to murder you.

Speaker 1 (29:07):
God, yeah, yeah, it's uh it's very good money. So people,
here's the thing. Margaret magazines back in this day, uh,
were one of the worst forms of consuming media that
anyone ever invented. So after several pages of the story,
we're told to turn to page eighty nine. Oh yeah,
maybe maybe we'll get back to it later. But I

(29:27):
want to talk a little bit about why this story
exists because I looked into this some because I was like,
you know, I think for most people of like my age,
I'm sure of your age too, the like the primary
like touch point of a greaser is like the fawns, right, Like,
that's like, that's the archetypal greaser. Maybe you think back
to oh, what's that that musical? That's the just in

(29:50):
the Travolta travolt No, the one that Travolta was in
the gangs fight. You're the one that I want Greece
Greece grease, right, you know? Yeah, those those are kind
and yeah, I think some you know, some some West
Side stories a little bit of that. Sure, I sure
don't so.

Speaker 3 (30:08):
Okay it was bad.

Speaker 1 (30:10):
They are you know, the greaser is a an innocuous,
charming figure generally totally like that is not what Greasers
were back in the Greaser era. Right, they were the
source of a bona fide moral panic.

Speaker 3 (30:24):
Right.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Greasers were punks, right, They were like traveling anarchist punk kids, right,
Like that was that was the attitude that mainstream society
had towards the Greasers. They were poor, low class guys.
We don't exactly know where the word comes from, but
it probably started out as a phrase to describe motorcycle mechanics.
And yeah, grease, that's that's another theory for it, Like, yeah,

(30:51):
you know, I don't think there's a perfectly known, like
exact etymology of the term, at least from from the
bit that I've read. But greaser's again in the kind
of most common pictures of them are like, yeah, the
fawns and stuff. But a lot of Greasers, like the
first wave of these guys, were not white people, right.
They were black and Hispanic kids from economically depressed areas

(31:12):
that did not benefit from the postwar boom that characterized
so much of the American experience in this era, Greasers
were also tied into the very new phenomenon of motorcycle gangs,
which also scared the hell out of a lot of people, right, Now,
the actual term greaser did not come into common usage
until the act the subculture had pretty much died out.

(31:33):
We're talking like the end of the sixties, right. The
book that kind of popularized the term greaser was Essie
Hinton's The Outsiders, and you know, that book was really popular,
and then it kind of that and some other books
that sort of and then like TV shows and movies
that had kind of dealt with greasers kind of lodged

(31:54):
themselves in the imagination of a generation of filmmakers who
were little kids in the forties. Right in fifties, guys
like George Lucas, right, you know, and then you know,
guys like George Lucas made films that featured greasers and
kind of cemented the cultural image of them as something
that was was not evil, right, But if you're going
back to like the forties and fifties, they were often

(32:17):
seen as like these are dangerous, like often kind of
like foreign influences in our communities. They're violent, they've got
these switchblades, which there was also kind of a moral
panic about the danger of switchblades.

Speaker 2 (32:28):
Well, that's why we still can't wint by them. And
half the stake it's just like nonsense. There's nothing that
makes that a more dangerous weapon than Yeah, it was
like that to carry a gun and I can't carry
a yeah push button knife.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
Like no, it's just interesting to me that like very much.
When you read this story, it's like modern conservative fears
of like homeless people, a fucking Antifa of all this stuff,
Like it is the same. But it's like it's it's
to this figure that has been thoroughly recuperated as like respectable,
like the graseres a good kid. You know, maybe he
gets into a couple of little fist fights, but they're

(33:03):
you know, he's not a bad guy. He's a you know,
he's cool. He's he's like fifties cool. He's like no,
they were definitely not seen as cool. They were seen
as like, you know, a dangerous threat to public morals,
which is cool. Like mainstream attitude was not that, right, Yeah, this, this,
this story is what the mainstream attitude was, like, these

(33:24):
are dangerous rift drifters and stuff, right, I do think
that makes them cooler, But that's that is I didn't
know that. I wasn't really aware of like the etymology
or the history of like the Greaser is a cultural figure. Yeah,
so that's pretty sweet. So I should now let you
know that. Immediately after this fascinating article follows follows the
My Favorite Girl photo contest. This is uh, you're supposed

(33:52):
to take a picture of your girlfriend, right or your
wife and send it into this magazine to be published.
They don't note a whole bunch of time, we will
not publish this without a letter where the girl signs
off on her photo being used.

Speaker 2 (34:05):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:06):
So this must have been a problem that they had.

Speaker 3 (34:08):
But I think what say, is the first one that's
a child.

Speaker 1 (34:13):
That uh probably is a child. Yeah. So one of
the fun things about these magazines is that absolutely everyone
in them is fine with adults fucking sixteen year olds,
not a problem that any of the people writing these
magazines seem to have had. Yeah, we will talk more
about that later. At least four out of five of
them are probably adults. Yeah, probably, Yeah, maybe it's not great. Uh,

(34:39):
we'll just move on here. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
So, and they're not like for anyone who's.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
They're not porn it's not porn out all these nobody's naked. Yeah,
And in fact, it's kind of like it's pretty quaint,
like the person that we think as a child is
like fully clothed and only visible from like the neck up,
and is standing in front of a bar. One of
the ladies is like sitting in a pumpkin pat showing
off her prized pumpkins. Yeah, and not in a like

(35:05):
way that you might be thinking, just like, not in
a in all a lascivious way. Yeah, these are There's
nothing like particularly objectional about the photos themselves. We're gonna
talk about All the Girls Loved Danny, which, as best
as I can tell, is a fantasy story meant to
titillate men with the free wheeling life of a sixty
style bachelor with a little black book. But since the

(35:27):
story again, these are kind of soft core porn mags
of their time. But also the time is the sixties,
so like you have to be pretty soft with the
soft core, right like this is this is not stuff
that even even the the the most like upset about
sex you know person today would not find most of

(35:48):
this particularly risque in this magazine. There are some that
are just like naked people right Yeah, But but Climax,
oddly enough, is one of the tamer ones that I've
come across. Yeah, So I find this interesting because it's
this like literal cultural insight into this like idealized, pseudo
idealized figure of like the the Hugh Hefner kind of bachelor. Right,

(36:09):
this is the period of time in which the concept
of a bachelor of like you know, this kind of
like man of leisure has started, because largely because of
Hugh Hefner, has started to become a thing. And this
dude is very much the dude in the story is
very much invented in that image. Because this is the time.
It is the story can't endorse him sleeping around constantly,
so it while it describes his like outrageously prolific sex life,

(36:33):
he's like constantly exhausted by the sheer number of dames.
He's got a ball every week. Right, He's just like
unhappy about all of the ladies. He's got a fuck
And that's why the story, by the way, yeah, like
this is a story about him like falling in love
and like settling down with one woman. But you do
get quote, and it's, by by the way, apparently by

(36:53):
a woman. Now, the fact that it says it's by
Dorothy Glazer doesn't mean it was written by that person.
Because they would just kind of stick names on a
lot of these. But uh, here's here's how this thing opens,
because it gives some insight into a moment in culture.
Danny yawned into the mouthpiece, listening to the buzz click
buzz in his left ear as he glanced idly at

(37:13):
the pencil list in his hand. He knew the list well,
he'd been working on it all evening. It was the
plan for the week. Tuesday, Alice, Wednesday, eleanor Thursday, Turkish baths,
Friday Flow, Saturday, question mark, Sunday poker.

Speaker 3 (37:32):
Can I just say, I don't care.

Speaker 1 (37:39):
I think it's great. So this man's living the ideal life,
doesn't remember his Saturdays, and then over to poker on Sunday.

Speaker 3 (37:50):
I once again the question mark. I'm not even curious.
I don't want to know.

Speaker 2 (37:54):
I know, I know it's somebody's.

Speaker 3 (37:57):
Like mystery thing. I'm like, well, do tell no.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
I'm like, he's trying to figure it out. He's gotta
he's got to find a lady for Saturday or for fright, yeah, Saturday.
Otherwise you know he hasn't He's not living his sixties
life properly.

Speaker 2 (38:11):
See, But if he kept this sabbath. Holy, it wouldn't
be a problem.

Speaker 1 (38:15):
You're right, then, he would. Then he could finally get
some respite from these greedy women. Yeah, this is a
hell of a way to spend a Monday night, he
thought sleepily. I wish I were at the Turkish baths
right now. As soon as I get Saturday night filled in,
I'll hit the sack, just exhausted from writing eleven words
on a piece of paper completely. It's like, you know

(38:38):
what a Turkish bath like a a I mean a
lot of times historically they are, but like a Turkish bath,
it's kind of like if you've read about like Roman
baths and stuff. Yeah, a success or to that. It's
like a big public bait. They'll have hot poles and
cool poles massages in them.

Speaker 2 (38:57):
But is there subtext in what he's like? Problem, is
it like the dudes that.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
Day or like no, No, I think it's more like
this is just like a place that cool sex having
dudes will go to to like compare them cigars and
a bath and like, yeah, talk about all the sex
they're having with sixties girls. I think that's more or
less what okay here? Yeah? Yeah, So as soon as
I get Saturday night filled in, I'll hit the sack.

(39:24):
But not until then, not if I have to call
every number in the Little Black Book. If I don't
feel Saturday, I'm really in trouble. He recognized the eager
voice that answered his call, and he sat up alertly,
his voice a model of cheerful charm. Hi, Gloria, Baby,
how's the girl? Why Danny? How lovely to hear from
you after all this time? He ignored the little dig

(39:44):
that's the best chet Yeah dancer in the world. Eh,
feel like doing it again? Say Saturday night? Saturday. She
managed to express doubt and interest in the one word,
and he could tell she wanted to be coaxed a bit,
but Danny just yawned again and waited. After a brief
silent Gloria went on brightly, Why I guess that would
be all right. Saturday happens to be the one night

(40:05):
I'm free this week, aren't you lucky? Danny smiled smugly
at the receiver. Pick you up at six, baby, we'll
have dinner and make a real night of it. So
this is uh, yeah, it's good. We get into you know,
he says, like, yes, she knew what She knew exactly
what he meant. All the girls on the list were
available to make a real night of it. Wonderful darling,

(40:27):
she said, I've missed you terribly. Same here, he lied,
I have to rush now, sweets see a Saturday. Danny
sighed deeply, replacing the phone in its cradle. He was
safe for a while anyway, and he knew he ought
to be damn glad of it, but he felt sunk, miserable.
He wanted a net with an ache that was frightening
and its force and persistence filling in Gloria's name next
to Saturday night. He thought about the past three weeks

(40:48):
the same routine as this, the only thing different being
the girls, blondes brunette's redheads, tall, short, slim, plump. Yet
they all reacted the same way, willing easy, just like
the girls who had satisfied him for ten of his
twenty six years. Again, a lot of sixteen year olds
having saxony stories. But now as long as everyone involved
as sixteen, I let's not assume that.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
But now there were nothing worth the nice.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
But now they were nothing more than safeguards against his
desire for a net, Although not one of them was
capable of appeasing his desire. Danny stood up and rubbed
a hand across his throbbing forehead. As he started to undress,
he remembered his father's advice. It had guided him in
perfect happiness and safety all this time, but something was
wrong now. It just wasn't working as smoothly as it
used to. Smoking in bed and staring at the ceiling,

(41:42):
Danny relived what had been one of the most important
hours of his youth. Of course, his twenty first birthday
had been notable as a present, his father had given
him an interest in his enormously successful manufacturing business just
three years before he had died. But most memorable was
Danny's sixteenth birthday, when his father had taken him out
for a walk and manda man talk Danny. Mister Taylor
had said, you're dating girls now, and you're beginning to

(42:05):
get ideas like a man. Now. I'm not asking you,
I know. Danny had shuffled along beside his father, his
face flaming. Suddenly, he had shoved his hands in his
pockets and couldn't say a word. And I won't tell
you not to get involved. His father had gone on,
I know damn well, you will anyway, so I say,
go ahead. It's perfectly normal and natural. But let me
give you some advice. First of all, there's safety in numbers.

(42:27):
Go with a lot of girls, not just one. And
most important of all, don't mess around with nice girls.
There are always plenty who are even more willing than you.
If a girl says no, drop her, forget her, she
doesn't even exist. There will always be another one who
knows the score, even at your age. Daddy, I guess
I'm glad that he said drop them.

Speaker 2 (42:47):
Right, that's like oddly wholesome.

Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, better than better than I had expected. Fifty in numbers, Yeah, yeah,
So he sticks to these words, you know, religiously until
he meets and now Danny suddenly remembered the words his
father had added, words that had never been of any
importance before, because he'd never been bothered by this desire.
If you persuade a nice girl, if you romancer into

(43:11):
ignoring what she's been told not to do, she'll never
let you go. She'll convince herself that it's love, and
she'll hang on to you till she gets you to
marry her. Be careful of that trap.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
Dad's advice thanks daddy, O, men hate women the history.

Speaker 3 (43:28):
Let's take let's take a fucking capitalism break.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
Yeah, let's take let's wash this taste of that out
of our mouths with a little bit of capitalism. Baby Jesus,
we're back. So after this story moves on to I

(43:51):
don't know, page one hundred and twelve or some bullshit,
we get a photo spread for I think it's called
Pigallee or whatever. It's a French tourist trap fucking magazine.
They're very long ones, they're massive, and this is an
excuse to show girl dancers, go go dancers who have
their whole breast spared. Right, It's just like this is
this is the porn part of it. Uh. Then we

(44:12):
get to a story called The Hunter Who Died Twice,
which is a story about cannibalism and I believe a
zombie white hunter in the bush of Africa. It's not
very good, but it's followed by another World War two
story and then Buccaneer Burko and the Slave Girls, which
is quite fun. I say fun, quite racist. So the

(44:34):
story opens with the requisite boarding action by a group
of pirates led by the notorious Burco, an Irish stereotype
so offensive. It's almost as bad as the racist caricature
of an Asian man on the cover art, like it
is he is. There's like so many lines about like yeah,
I'm yeah, yeah, fascinating. Yeah. So, after they defeat a

(44:58):
merchant vessel's crew at all, discover a group of slave women. Now,
this is largely a wish fulfillment story, featuring a fetishized
irishman as captain who notably refuses to molest any of
the captured women, although the rest of his crew is
allowed to yeah, and winds up yeah, falling for this
redheaded slave woman who looks like the girls back home
and Tipperary. Yeah, it's a there's some like fun racial

(45:23):
descriptions of enslave women in this that I will not
be reading because they're not actually fun. Yeah that makes sense. Yeah,
so it's not as interesting as the title would suggest.
So instead, Margaret, I'm going to say we should move
on to a new magazine, Courage from nineteen fifty seven,
and this one's got a real banger of a cover art.

(45:44):
Here there's a fucking sled dog ripping out a man's throat,
and then we've got yeah, inside a Desert Harem, Trail
of the Death Dog, Confessions of a Jigglow, The Six
Scanty Costumes of Diane and I Was Trapped in Terror Shrench.
What an incredible list of stories. What they deserved all

(46:05):
that that dollar award or whatever they got.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
Yeah, I mean they are all a bunch of assholes,
but they they were the titles.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, there's craft going on in these titles, right, like
as a as a man who spent most of his
adult life coming up with titles for for content. Yeah,
I can game has to respect game gear, and Trail
of the Death Jog is a fine title.

Speaker 2 (46:28):
Absolutely. I want to, like, I want to just like
invite authors to just like rewrite because there's no copywriting titles.
Just take all of these titles and write different, better
stories out of them. The titles are great, Yeah, not
all of them. Don't rewrite the Captain, don't.

Speaker 1 (46:47):
Maybe you know what I'm going to say, minimum age
twenty four. Yeah, we don't need to. Yeah, we don't
need to risk anything here. Yeah, let's uh, let's uh,
let's let's let's let's take it up a notch people. Yeah,
So I picked out this issue because I want that
Desert harem story. But what drew my interest once it
was open were the ads, which are again as perfect

(47:08):
to dive into the male id as you're likely to
see on page one week it and I want Sophie
to show this to you important medical facts for every
man who was past his fortieth birthday. Men too go
through change of life. Doctors call it male climacteric and
it's talking about like men, male menopause. It's first off,

(47:30):
I'll be honest, I was a little impressed that that
was a concept people were talking about in nineteen fifty seven.
But they were talking about it purely to sell vitamin
and supplements.

Speaker 2 (47:41):
And it's about to keeping it up, right. Yeah, it's
about keeping your dick up. Yeah, like that, Like I would.
It would be great if people talked about how assigned
male people had hormonal changes and cycles. That would be
fucking wonderful. We could talk about that. Yeah, but no,
it's about keeping your dick up, which is fine. People
want their dickup, They can put their dick up.

Speaker 1 (47:59):
That that's fine. I don't think these vitamins are going
to You're gonna end up.

Speaker 2 (48:03):
Like head in his hand on the in the Yeah.

Speaker 1 (48:06):
Yeah, there's there's like a balding man who's got like
his head in his hands, presumably because his dick doesn't
work due to the male climate. Derek, Yeah, I had
not ever heard that term before either. It's in quotes,
so yeah, it's important. Of course, when you get to
the actual ingredient list of the vitamin pills they're trying
to sell this guy, it's basically red bull, vitamin A,

(48:29):
vitamin D, vitamin E, vitamin B one, vitamin B twelve,
vitamin B two, vitamin D, nyasin, vitamin B six, calcium creatine, iodine,
and some wheat germ. Defat it.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
Of course, I'm impressed that there was actually even the
laws passed where they had to put the ingredients on
the advertisement.

Speaker 1 (48:48):
Yeah, I mean, who knows if these were. If it
was not, it could have just been lead. It could
just be lead in caffeine. But that's what it says
is in here. It's basically, yeah, primitive red. It's like
the red bull you find in like a bog man.
So the very next ad on page two appears to

(49:09):
be for yet another correspondence course, and this one promises
to teach you how to be a private eye a
FBI investigator's it's It's also a very straight ad with
like a craggy man's face underneath the text. This man
is wanted by you. This man is wanted by you.
He has left a path of violence, lust, greed. He

(49:30):
is a two time loser. Every minute he is at large,
death walks the streets. You are a trained investigator. Bits
of evidence, each insignificant alone, fit together like a crazy
jigsaw puzzle. They paint the way that leads to the
man who is wanted by you. I mean, like we
sell ads like this, I hope. So Margaret for the.

Speaker 2 (49:49):
Like you know, don't you want to pretend like you're
a private eye, will send you a thing every month
and you try and figure.

Speaker 1 (49:56):
It out to the yes yes, yes, oh yeah like notes.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
I'm not anti.

Speaker 1 (50:03):
No, I think it's beautiful. I think I think if
this is a glorious commuting with our ancestors who were
also hacks and frauds who had to sell out space exactly.
Finally we get to the table of contents, which includes
incredible titles like we Hacked through Their Flesh by Sargeant
Harold Spain Cool absolutely a real name. One thing I

(50:28):
know there was a true Sargeant Harold Spain. That's a
real guy. That's absolutely a real ass dude.

Speaker 3 (50:34):
Ye.

Speaker 1 (50:35):
Then, of course Trail of the Death Dog when the
grave was open, and that terror trench article next to
it all is an ad for a money making shoe
store business where you sell shoes door to door to
your friends and family.

Speaker 2 (50:49):
Wait, is that what this photo is?

Speaker 1 (50:51):
No, this photo is from the next page, which is
a It's a two page spread. On one side it's
the says courage men and then has a pin up
of a well endowed woman. I don't understand why it
says courage men. I guess because she's so hot. You
have to steal yourself to not be a criminal. I

(51:13):
don't I don't know. I don't know what it's like.
It's like that.

Speaker 2 (51:15):
It's probably that like what's your opener? Like bullshit, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:18):
What's your opener? That kind of thing. And it's right
next to an add an ad for quack medicine psoriasis
treatments for unsightly scales, crusts and patches. That really, those
two together it's like, Oh, I get okay, so I
get who this is for.

Speaker 2 (51:36):
Yeah, I don't like our lineage very much. Right now.

Speaker 1 (51:38):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, you've got syriasis. You're not willing
to go to a real doctor for it. Here's a
picture of a hot lady. Yeah yeah, it says a
lot right there, So we hacked their flesh. Is a
lurid story of the Korean War with a lot of
racials Thurst Margaret A lot Ressler. Yeah yeah. It is

(52:04):
purportedly written by a white American photographer for the Army
embedded with a Filipino unit, and because they are a
Filipino unit, they decide to just stab their way through
the Chinese army rather than using guns. After that is
Trail of the Death Dog, which features the poll quote
the husky was strong, smart, vicious, and hated men. His

(52:24):
muscle knew the taste of human blood and liked it.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
Hell yeah, yeah, hell yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:29):
It's about a It's about a man who's like running
transport roots with sled dogs, and he like picks this
murderous dog to lead a sledge even though it kills
all of his other dogs, like, and everyone around him
is like, that dog is going to murder all of
your other dogs, and then you why are you doing?
He's like, but he knows the route best. I don't know, man,

(52:50):
it seems like a bad call. Yeah. So at this
point we can call this a pretty standard example of
an adventure magazine. The most interesting piece in this issue
is a hinge between the sad middle aged guy, wish
fulfillment stuff, racism, and straight up pornography. It's a little
article titled inside a Desert Harem, and unlike everything else

(53:13):
in this series, had actually taught me some really interesting
facts about history. Okay, I was surprised by that, don't
get me wrong. Here's how the article opens, just as
William O. Douglas of the US Supreme Court once asked
a merchant why the Sudan exported so few crops. You're wrong, Afendi,
smiled the merchant. We do export a huge crop, not

(53:35):
cotton or wheat perhaps, but something far more valuable. We
export slaves. Pharaoh was a girl of twelve when she
was stolen from her family. For two years, she was
kept with the tribe which stole her, Then she was
sold to a slave trader. For another six months, she
traveled the desert as the trader added more slaves to
his caravan. Finally, she was sold to an Arab harem
at the slave gate in Mecca, the traffic and girls

(53:57):
is both open and brisk. Now, I was ready for
that all to be bullshit. And this article is not
specifically a true story. But all of that stuff is
stuff that happened, actually, and I was kind of unaware
of a lot of the dimensions of this. But after
World War One, the area that we know today as

(54:18):
Saudi Arabia became an independent kingdom called the Kingdom of
Hejas I think is the first name. And slave trading
had been illegal in the Ottoman Empire during its later period,
but in Hejas it was allowed to continue once again,
and a brisk slave trade opened up between Sudan, Ethiopia
and the Kingdom. Right, this is a modern slave trade.

(54:40):
As such, victims were often convinced, or rather their parents
were convinced, to sell their children. This was often framed
as giving them a better life in Arabia during parts
of the journey where slavery was illegal. Because some of
this route often included going through countries where the slave
trade was not allowed, traders and their victims often disguised
themselves as pilgrim on the road to Mecca. It was

(55:01):
also not uncommon for travelers who did the hajaj, who
went to Mecca to sell their servants or their poor
friends who they had gone on the hajaj with in
order to afford a return journey home. That is the
thing that happened too. By nineteen thirty, about ten percent
of the people living in Mecca were estimated to be enslaved.
Many were domestic servants or Hara members, but many of

(55:24):
them were also used as laborers like the men generally
were particularly used as like agricultural laborers and the like. Today,
the UAE and Saudi Arabia engage in a system of
guest worker visas that have somewhat similar dimensions. I don't
think it's quite as abusive, but it's pretty fucking bad.
A lot of people are aware of this, but back

(55:44):
in the day it was just straight up slavery. And
when I found this article, I was kind of immediately
taken by the fact that the woman in the artwork
is depicted as white, and it's a pretty like, not
great piece of art. I wouldn't say, if you're trying
to talk about a very serious story about a social issue,
it's pretty offensive. In a number of ways. All of

(56:06):
this caused regular international condemnation. In nineteen forty eight, the
UN declared slavery a crime against humanity. In nineteen fifty one,
the British informed the US State Department that there were
at least fifty thousand slaves in Saudi Arabia and they
were increasingly being used by the oil industry, the red
sea trade. Obviously, because they're being used by the oil industry, like,

(56:27):
that's part of why we don't do any fucking thing.
For a while, the red sea trade continued through the
nineteen fifties. By the nineteen sixties, there had been enough
international outcry that it had become an embarrassment to the king,
who issued a decree forbidding the sale of slaves, not
the possession of slaves, early in nineteen sixty two. Slavery
itself continued to be legal for several more months until

(56:48):
it was officially abolished that novemberses. So I was unaware
of that. That's interesting. So I got to give the
story credit. Yeah, it informed me about a piece of
history that I was not aware of. So that part's good.
What's not good is the article itself outside of it,
because all everything I learned was like that first paragraph
I was like, the fuck were they selling slaves in

(57:10):
Mecca ninety five? I was like, oh, yeah, this was
a thing, this is a problem, was a problem. Okay,
interesting the story, the actual history is of course interesting
and important, but it is just window dressing for the story,
which is soft core pornography that features a young Circassian
girl who is described to us as not quite fifteen.

(57:31):
When it was her turn, she was led forward while
the slave trader extolled her beauty in her skills, sexual
and otherwise. Unlike the girls who had gone before, Farah
did not remove her robe to get the bidding started.
She didn't have to. The men standing around the edge
of the raised platform of the slave block could see
her face, and the spiel by the slave trader was
enough to get things going. The bidding reached one hundred
dollars before it began to slacken. And then it describes

(57:53):
her taking off her clothes, which we're not going to
go through. Yeah, it's I don't know, it's pretty gross,
Margaret gross. Yeah, so I don't think I'm going to
read the rest of that to you.

Speaker 2 (58:04):
It's funny because I don't usually use the word pornographic
in a negative sense.

Speaker 1 (58:08):
Yeah, you know, but you're like, oh, yeah, no, that's yeah,
that's I'll call this article about a fifteen year old
girl that really yeah, yeah, we don't need that, that's
not necessary. But I did think it was interesting that
this horrible, deeply, deeply evil story also imparted a piece

(58:28):
of historic information I was unaware of. We should probably
talk more about the slave trade of like Circassian and
Georgian and our Menian and Ethiopian and Sudanese girls down
to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, that that maybe should
be a topic of more discussion than it is, I.

Speaker 2 (58:42):
Know, And it's it's it's hard because it's like the
way in which white slavery has always been used as
a like a boogeyman, like to specifically, like, wait, why
do we suddenly care when it's about white women as
compared to like anyone, right, yeah, And then of course,
like sex trafficking in general is like used as like
an anti sex worker talking point currently, including like voluntary

(59:04):
sex work. Right, And it's like so hard because like
the criminalization of sex work makes it so hard for
us to talk about the actual bad things that are happening, right, absolutely, yeah, no,
I I And then also, of course anything that's like
Islamophobia is like a really major problem, and so it
makes people afraid to touch what we should be talking about.

(59:26):
And actually, that's something I actually really appreciate about your show,
is that you are willing to I mean, not like
specifically look for people to condemn who are outside of
certain circles, but not be afraid to say, like, hey,
it's like bad when slavery happens, right, that's like I.

Speaker 1 (59:41):
Mean, like, look, I got I got absolutely no problem
with islng, but like, fuck the Kingdom of Saudi Irayah,
the Saudi royal family, I got no issues say in
that show. Yeah, And it's also worth because this is
a big a chunk of this and the reason why
this article exists is that part of this slave trade
was like white slave trade, right, So that is super
that is why I writ and exciting to like the

(01:00:01):
fifties mind, but like a lot of the girls that
are being trafficked and boys that are being trafficked for
that matter, are from like Ethiopia and the Soudan and
are much more often a much larger chunk of the
total number of people being enslaved by the Kingdom, but
they are being forced to work as laborers in the
oil industry, they're being forced to work as domestic servants
more often, and so there's simply not any kind of

(01:00:23):
real care about that by the guys writing this magazine. Right,
they want to tell a porn story, right, you know
really Yeah, anyway, Margaret, how you feeling two magazines into
our exploration of a masculine fiction.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
I mean, like it's all as awful stuff, but I
do feel like I got I'm getting off lightly for
behind the Bastard's guest spot, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:00:47):
So uh it's really always very bad to say that
before we've actually finished that oh fuck.

Speaker 1 (01:00:54):
Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:56):
And then it's like I know, I'm gonna regret having
referred to these as a precursor. Although it's like, you know,
I mean, as a science fiction writer, I got to
accept like, yeah, kind of bad people as my precursors. Right,
that's just like a thing that we shouldn't be afraid of,
but I can still respect. Like I love pulp and
I'm so sad. It's like one of my favorite genres

(01:01:17):
of movie is like the trashy road trip movie, where
like they're going to or the kids want to throw
the biggest party in the world.

Speaker 1 (01:01:24):
Yes, yes, absolutely, and I.

Speaker 2 (01:01:26):
Just like I just want that without them being like
here's the transphobic joke, or like here's when the man
is raped by a woman in its humor, or you know,
like like, can't we just have nice pulp that isn't
fucking rat it is?

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
It is? It is the eternal question, right can you
have Animal House with all also having that director kill
three people in the helicopter crash due to his irresponsibility
and incompetence, Right, yeah, like is it like I don't know, yes,
like he can part because it I think we can.
I don't think it has to be as fucked up
in gross and pedophilic as some of these articles are.

(01:02:05):
I do think there has to be a degree of
grossness to poulp right, not every story, but like Polpe
needs to be grimy a little, you know, otherwise it's
not really Again, grimey does not mean talking about marrying
off sixteen year olds, but like you got to have
some like the the Grease Are with a Switchblade story,

(01:02:25):
I think is perfect, right, fair enough, Like that's that's
that's that's fine to me. You know, it's both like
intellectually interesting. It shows you this like fascinating glimpse into
like the kind of cultural fear that existed during this
like very much lost moment in time, in at least
our pop culture memory. And it's also very funny. No totally,

(01:02:50):
I mean, don't get me wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
I would still read most of these stories just from
a life yeah, yeah, yeah, God, the world is weird.

Speaker 1 (01:02:56):
Got some good news for you there marks all of
all of these are available for free for everyone. There's
like dozens and dozens of them on the Internet Archive.
Just type men's adventure magazines into the Internet Archive and
there's like a I don't know, a little I don't
know what you call it, like a little file folder
thing on there. You can view or download or read

(01:03:17):
them all in full glorious color. There's a shitload of
them on here sixty five, So yeah, you know, significant
amount of reading if you're in the mood for some
of these some of these stories. And we will continue
with some more of these in Part DEU. But first, Margaret,
you got any pluggles to plug.

Speaker 2 (01:03:34):
Well, I did write a pulp adventure novella called Escape
from Insul Island and Merry Christmas. It is my attempt
to write trashy pulp that is still enjoyable and like,
and it still is like, and it tries to grapple
with the fact that it's like. I mean, the setup
is that there's some people and they go to an
island full of insults and then they have to escape.
It's a pretty literal concept and then just tries to

(01:03:58):
like grapple with that, but it still involves running around
with a shotgun and good old fun times. I think
you might enjoy it. There is a there's actually not
an audiobook version of it yet. There will be, but
there's a print version and an ebook version, and you
can read it and you can read it in afternoon.
That's the great thing about I have a short attention span.

(01:04:20):
You have a short attention span. I write for short
attention spans. That's what I got.

Speaker 1 (01:04:27):
Yes, I also have a short attention span. Yeah, but
I did write a novel once. It's called After the Revolution.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
It does actually work for a short attention span. Even
though you can't read it in one sitting, it's it's
still fast paced.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
It's still yeah yeah, yeah, And maybe I'll write a
second one if I conquer my short attention span enough,
although that gets harder every year, Margaret, I know every year,
especially with Balder's Gate three out, that has torpedoed my productivity.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
We spent the first like fifteen minutes before we record
it with Sophie zoning out and me and Robert.

Speaker 1 (01:05:04):
The second might be the best video game I've ever played.
Just a disaster for my getting my book.

Speaker 3 (01:05:11):
This is so fascinating. The episode's over, Okay. Behind the
Bastards is a production of cool Zone Media. For more
from cool Zone Media, visit our website coolzonemedia dot com,
or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
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