April 30, 2024 • 38 mins
Out of all the states in the Union, it seems like Florida is home to the craziest shenanigans. Every few days another story about a weird, madcap crime in the Sunshine state makes the circuit in mass media, and it’s created a nationwide stereotype about the state and its residents. But how did we get here? Is there any truth to the bizarre stereotype?
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realist. Thanks for tuning in. You can perhaps
hear a bit of a laugh, a bit of levity
in your faithful correspond its voice here, because back at
twenty eighteen, we finally asked ourselves, why is Florida Man
such a thing? You remember this because it was a
(00:22):
huge It's still a huge deal in the US.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, why is this the best subreddit that has ever
been created?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It was?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Honestly back then. It was before I had, you know,
an addiction to an Instagram feed that I love, by
the way, still, but you know that every once in
a while has some Florida Man in it. There was
Florida Man on the news constantly.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, and we're not talking Jeb Bush. We're talking about
the headlines that do continue today, where it would seem
like every every third or fourth day there was a
headline that had a new crazy report about Florida Man.
It was just Florida Man blank blank blankety blanks. Florida
(01:09):
Man proclaims himself the second cousin of Jesus Christ while
abducting alligator from a taco bell. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I would pay money to see that documentary.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I would give you ten minutes to see how you
see if it bangs at the top. But out of
all the states of the Union, we're asking ourselves, why
does it seem like one of them Florida is home
to so many crazy shenanigans. Can we explain how that
came about? Is there indeed a conspiracy afoot? And we
don't get to say this every time, but I'm confident
(01:42):
we found a pretty good answer.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah we did. Let's remember together.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
They call me Ben. We are joined by us always
with our super producer Paul Mission control Decat most importantly,
you are here that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. And luckily for us, this is a
little bit of a more and we say lighthearted episode
because after we recorded some fairly dark stuff recently some
(02:40):
murder investigations call Texpose's, we decided that we would take
a break. But answer is still a real question, what
the f is up with Florida?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
There you go. That's the question. Why does it seem
like all, at least most of the strangest thing in
the United States occur in Florida.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's strange. And this is not in any way a
hit piece on Florida, on America's most famous peninsula and panhandle.
But it's true that here in the US, some parts
of this country are more famous or infamous than others.
And we had originally what the fuck is up with
(03:23):
Florida as just a working title and in joke with us,
But I think now we could just make it official, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
But poor Paul's got to bleep it every time we
say this is a family show.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, we're only too deep so far, so hopefully it'll
be all right. But you know, for another example, New
York and California are probably the best known states on
the international sphere, even if people only know them for
a particular city like Los Angeles or New York City,
or an industry like Hollywood or the Mob and Florida,
(03:54):
located in the far southeast of the US, occupies this
very unique space in our zeitgeist. It's an international destination,
home to Disney World, wealth of other amusement parks. I
can say some of the best times of my life
have actually been in Florida. Really do tell nah.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Okay, my grandparents lived in Clearwater, and I used to
have just a heck of a time hanging out in
their retirement community down there because they had a pool.
It was wonderful. It was just grand times until I realized.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Isn't there a Scientology center there?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Until I realized that Clearwater was under a salt by Scientology,
they were literally buying up land, I think a quarter
of a quarter of a billion dollars worth of land
that they owned.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
How did you experience this as a youth?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well, all I remember is that there was always construction
on all of the highways every time I went down there,
from a little little boy up until I was in
my mid twenties.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And you couldn't get into the pool until you did
the e meter thing.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, that was it.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You're carrying around too many things?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, Your thetans were wild, man. It's It's true. There's
a lot. That's a good segue too. There's a lot
of strange stuff that happens in Florida. It truly is
an international destination. Millions of tourists flocked to Florida each
year to maybe visit family, to see the attractions and
the beaches. In twenty seventeen, the most recent estimate available,
(05:23):
we found an estimated one hundred and sixteen point five
million people traveled just to Florida to hang out and
last year. And that sounds like just an abstract large number,
but for comparison, we've got what over three hundred million
people living in the US now, So that's more than
(05:46):
a third of the US population. And just in terms
of raw.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Numbers, if yeah, if they're all from the United States,
they're not. Yeah, but you know, there's still a huge
chunk of people living up in Florida.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, but these is popping in for a Disney Vak
or a little universal studio situation and staying at the
many palatial resorts and hotels that there are there. But
what of the people that just are there all the time?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Ah, Yes, you're talking about the residents and the many
of whom have retired to Florida from some other another state,
New Jersey being the popular stereotype, like Mattie's father in law.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, and yes, kind of Jersey and Jersey and he's
he was from New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
He's from elsewhere than Florida, though, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Jersey, so here in the US. Residents of other states
have some, let's just call them what they are, stereotypes
about Florida, and it's not completely unfounded or unreasonable for
people to have these stereotypes. Even those stereotypes are usually
pretty destructive things. Often when you hear about Florida in
(06:52):
the national news, it's associated with a tense political struggle,
a natural disaster, or, oddly enough, a strange story about
an individual in Florida committing some sort of ridiculous crime.
Here's our first list of examples.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Florida man attacks atm with hatchet after it refuses to
take his check.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Or Florida man denies drinking and driving and says he
only swigged bourbon at stop signs.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Or Florida man claims wife was kidnapped by holograms.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Or Florida man steps tourists despite having no arms.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Or drunk Florida man. That's a nice modifier because it's
usually just implied. Drunk Florida man attempts to ride bike
through Taco Bell drive through Comma, fights with police and
his mugshot. He's just making a big old frownie face
and has like a bruise in the middle of his
forehead and kind of like joker asque green hair. He's
wearing the orange jumpsuit. And just to reiterate, no Florida
(07:50):
bashing here, this is a trope that is worth exploring,
and we have to give these examples too.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, Florida man launches chair at mailman because he had
no mail for him.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, it was a tense day. And you can read
more and more of these examples. Spoiler alert will probably
have some more that pop up. But this is the
kind of news that people in other states see when
they hear a story of the media about Florida. And
since so many people living in other states hear about
these stories on a semi frequent basis, it's understandable and
(08:25):
completely not commendable that many people would form this prejudiced
opinion of the Sunshine State. And that brings us to
today's question, is there really more strange crime in Florida?
How does it stack up to other states? What exactly
gave this state such a weird reputation?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Is there something going on in Florida that they don't
want us to know?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yet oddly enough, it's complicated. We get to a question
at the end there, but I guess we should start
with the facts. Where did Florida come from?
Speaker 3 (09:00):
So Homo sapiens have been occupying the land mass what
is Florida for at least twelve thousand years, and written
records of this area started as far back as fifteen thirteen,
when the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de lay on a
namesakea we know very well here in Atlanta. It's actually
the street they were on, arrived and.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
When he arrived there were no other humans living there.
That's not true, that's just when the like we said,
that's when records begin.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Well, did Ponce de Leon consider the inhabitants of Florida
to be human? I mean he is a Spanish explorer
at that time, he was a conquistador, right, it's correct.
Fast forward to eighteen forty five, nice day, March third,
Florida becomes the twenty seventh US state, and during the
(09:49):
Civil War, unlike a lot of states in the South,
it didn't suffer this massive amount of catastrophic destruction. You know,
it didn't burn the way Atlanta burned. A lot of
huge pivotal battles. Although there are some. Of course they're
historically significant, it's not they didn't have a Gettysburg moment.
You know, the Union controlled coastal towns and forts. The
(10:11):
interior was controlled by Confederates. Somehow they all, you know,
managed to avoid the complete devastation that happened in other states.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
So let's get into the geography of good old Florida.
It's mostly known for it's peninsula of a thing that
juts out down there heading towards the Caribbean, but the
state actually contains several different distinct ecosystems and also cultures.
There was a there was a whole article that was
put out about the different the five what is it,
five to ten states that exist within Florida, which is
(10:44):
not real, but it's kind of just groupings of people
who've moved to the state. But the land is divided
into four main regions. You've got the Gulf Coast that's
where the Atlantic Ocean kind of goes up in there,
into the into the peninsula. You've got the coastal plain
means the upland that's the hilly area towards the north
and northwest, getting up towards our own Georgia. And then
(11:06):
you've got the swampy Everglades that's in the far south
and in the Florida Keys. That's where it's very difficult
to get buildings to stay in too workright and not.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Flood, and it's a popular destination for hiding bodies.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And gators love it. In terms of human population density,
at least, Florida has a surface area of about one
hundred and seventy thousand over square kilometers almost sixty six
thousand square miles. Based on the estimates, that works out
to about three hundred and fifty three point four people
(11:41):
per square mile or one hundred and thirty six point
four per square kilometer, and this makes Florida the eighth
most densely populated state in the Union. It's also surprisingly
this surprised me. It's also the third most populous state.
The only bigger ones are California and Texas.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
That is very surprising in my opinion, especially because of
all of that land that's out there, especially in the
Everglades and some of those areas where you just look
out if you're driving on ninety five, I think it
is you just see nothing for miles and miles and miles, and.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It guess to be fair, we'd have to point out
that that average could be misleading because a ton of
people will live in the urban areas in the Miami
Dade metropolis or in Orlando, you know. So our current
estimate for the population in twenty eighteen is twenty one
point three one million people, and that is based off
(12:41):
an estimate carried out in twenty fifteen by the Census Bureau,
and the growth rate was one of the fastest in
the country. It was number four out of all the
other states. So if we think about this, that means
most people outside of the American South picture Florida to
be way less crowded than it is, and the opposite
is the case. It is incredibly crowded, incredibly dense, and
(13:05):
most importantly, incredibly diverse.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That's right. Florida is a is a pretty unusual mix
of cultures of transplants, like we're talking about the top
of the show from other states and other countries. So
it's pretty hard to find a central defining characteristic of
the state's culture like as a whole. But that's kind
of what makes it interesting too. I mean, there's a
like you know, there's an incredible art scene, like in Miami,
(13:31):
for example, with like I think it's called art basil
is that how he pronounced it or basal that? So
what's going on right now? It's a big art conference
where artists from all over the world convene in Miami.
And there's that aspect of it. There's an incredible you know,
Latin American population in Cuban population, and different kinds of
food and music and just about you know, anything you
can imagine. It's very, very, very diverse.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Oh, Miami, an entire metropolis built on cocaine.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I read I read some really strange thing about Miami.
When researching this, someone said this neatest thing about Miami
was how close it is to America. It took me
a second. I couldn't figure out where they were going
because I'm not myself too familiar with Miami. I haven't
been there since I was a child. I would imagine
(14:22):
you guys are more familiar with it.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah, I've been there numerous times with my in laws.
They love it. I love it. I love hanging out
there with them. And again, the food and the culture
are definitely one of the biggest drawing points I think
to that city for some reason.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
When I was a child a long long time ago,
I thought everybody in Miami was tall. And I think
it's just because when I went there, I was, you know,
maybe two and a half to three feet high, so
I just thought it was a land of giants. I
have no idea is that true. Are people taller in Miami?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
They are? Yeah, it's rough. It's anywhere between three to
seven inches you're gonna get as soon as you arrived
to Miami, and that increases over time, like whether or
not you actually are living in like certain counties within
the city.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
That makes sense. It's like I thought I was thought
when people say they're big in Japan. I thought it
was some sort of like metaphor comparison. But you know,
I from what I hear, when you go, you do
turn into a giant.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
It does. Okay, that's obviously completely false the thing we're
joking about. But I do wonder if there's something to
driving through that flat land that is Florida for so
long then you finally arrive at this huge city that
has giant, towering buildings. I wonder if there's some kind
of perception thing that can occur there where things feel bigger.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
The Florida effect. Yeah, oh oh yeah, yeah, that's a
thing I just made up.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I think the Florida effect is an excellent name. What
do you think it describes?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Nola?
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Is it what Matt articulated?
Speaker 3 (15:51):
It could be part of it. It could be this
whole ball of Florida wax that we're talking about today.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
And included in that ball of Florida wax is the
kind of the elephant in the room or the mouse
in the tower. Right, How does Florida stack up when
it comes to crime, especially since we read so much
about crime and these news stories they constantly come out.
We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, no matter what you've heard, this is important. Despite
all those crazy news stories you heard, and even the
one that you didn't hear me say about the guy
who buried a dude in concrete to steal his magic
the gathering collection, which was valued ad over one hundred
thousand dollars. By the way, Florida is by no means
the most violent state within our great Union.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Well the beauty too of these stories, they're not all violent,
They're all just kind of crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, the Karthi, for instance, who stole a vehicle,
saw there was a baby in it and then turned
around to safely drop the baby off with someone, and
then stole the car. I feel like that's oddly and Dearie.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, agreed. Or even the guy who was at McDonald's
who was masturbating in the parking lot and he claimed
that his privacy, his privacy was being invaded.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, he also said he lived in his car. I
believe despite all these stories here, Florida is, as you said, Matt,
not the most violent state. Depending on the study you read,
the most violent state will often be cited as Louisiana,
with Vermont being cited as one of the safest. But
there's still crime in Florida. Florida is usually depending on
(17:34):
how it's measured, it usually ranks fifth in terms of
crime five hundred and forty one violent crimes reported per
one hundred thousand people. That's a lot, right, Yeah. And
also it ranks number five in terms of robbery, aggravated assault,
and property crime. But while it may not have the
most crime out of any state, it genuinely does seem
(17:55):
to have some of the weirdest crime. You know, what
can we just stop and do some more examples? Yes,
all right, what do we got?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I have a good one. Let's see. Florida man caught
with stolen power poles strapped suv in wake of Hurricane Irma.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
That's weird.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
So. Florida man disguises himself in bull costume as he
tries to burn down former lover's house with pasta sauce.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Florida man attempts to smoke crack in an ICU, almost
burns down hospital.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Florida man high on meth climbs onto stranger's roof to howl.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Florida man arrested in local park for practicing karate on swans.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Florida man sets apartment complex on fire after manager told
him to stop masturbating in front of windows.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Are yours are very masturb I feel like you found
a Florida man Rex liquor shop blames caterpillar from Alice
in Wonderland. He said that a hookah smoking caterpillar told
him to do it, so it is really more references
the song White Rabbit by Yeah Jefferson Airplane.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
There, that's a good point. He needed to work on it.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
He was probably on acid.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
He might have been.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
There's one. There's one I found that I can't remember
the circumstances behind, but we can just describe it in
the headline. There was a guy who was found on
the roof of some store and he was covered with tar,
and people asked him what he was doing up there,
and originally he said that he was lost and from
out of town, and then he said he was an
(19:30):
AC technician, and he noticed the AC was malfunctioning, so
he decided to do the neighborly thing and fix it.
I think he just did drugs and ended up on
the roof of a building.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
He had got covered in tar somehow, And I hope
he's okay.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
So these headlines are like solid gold. If you have
a slow news day, right, these will get your clicks,
oh for sure. So what gives you know? Is this
unfair stereotype? Is there something in the water? Why do
people seem to participate in so many any crazy shenanigans
in America's most infamous peninsula. It turns out we have
(20:06):
an answer. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, So it turns out that this law really is
somewhat to blame for this phenomenon. Every American state has
some kind of sunshine law, and that's a term for
legislation regulations or constitutional amendments that guarantee public access to
government affairs, like sort of an open book policy.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Right, or how open is your book?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Exactly? How open is your book? Is it a reading
rainbow or is it more of a.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
I don't know, Ben, You're better at this than me, malefice,
malific caro.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
There you go, nice, very very well done, Matt.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
So, but while these laws require most government meetings to
be open door and most documents to be open book,
allowing public scrutiny, many of them are a little bit limited, right.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Or redactive, or I have some kind of conditions on
them to where not every single one is going to
be fully available in all of its form.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah. So, theoretically, in a given state you might have
something similar to this Transparency Act or Freedom of Information
Act kind of thing, So you can technically get access
to police records, but actually getting them in practice can
take a long time, or you can get shut down
by red tape. But in Florida, on the other hand,
(21:30):
there is a deep, deep, deep, centuries long dedication to
hardcore transparency norms. It starts way back in nineteen oh nine,
Chapter one hundred and nineteen of the Florida Statutes, the
Public Records Law, and it kept being strengthened in following years.
In nineteen sixty seven they passed the government in the
Sunshine Law popularly known as the Sunshine Law now, and
(21:54):
then they continue to strengthen it after that. So this
law has been kind of untouchable regardless of who is
in office. And it's pretty extreme. If you are a
public official, every meeting, aside from a few exemptions, has
to be an open meeting, which is why, like politicians
will get married and they'll have to have a journalist
(22:16):
at their wedding. That happened at least once and today.
The Sunshine Law regarding open government can be found in
Chapter two eighty six of the Florida Statutes if you're
looking for some really juicy reading. They establish this basic
right of access to most meetings of boards, commissions, other
(22:36):
governing bodies of state and local government agencies or authorities.
And this means that it is incredibly easy to learn
about the inner workings of this state's government, especially arrest records.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, and that's a big deal because if you're a
journalist and you're looking for a story just to include
or to have as a part of your paper or
your podcast or whatever, having access or at least easier
access to some of these arrest records and stories going
through the courts or whoever is being charged with what
right now actively that gives you this huge wealth of
(23:14):
just stuff to write about. I mean, that's a big
that's a big deal to me at least, it's like
the blodder stories, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, no, it's true. And at the same time, like
I've been to Florida. I've hung out in Florida, and
Florida has a really interesting dichotomy where like we were
talking about that diversity that it has that extends to
like you know how there's certain parts of Georgia that
kind of have reputation for like a certain type of
individual that might be a little more prone to drunken
behavior or unhinged things, you know, or myth or myth
(23:42):
there you go, or you know, just too much drinking too.
You know that Florida has that too, and it also
has the big cities it has. It's very diverse in
that way, and I think that and the fact that
you've got these open book policies where they have better
access to it. It doesn't necessarily mean they're more crimes
that are nuts, but it certainly has no shortage of
(24:04):
Bonker's crimes. But you know what, neither does Georgia. We
don't get access to the information as readily as they
do in Florida, apparently, right.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah, and there's one of the dead giveaways you'll notice.
So the same well intentioned laws that passed are the
same reason that a Florida residence mugshot might appear online
merely days after those arrests. Make it incredibly easy to
write about these stories. And here's the red flag you'll see.
If you're reading a weird Florida or a Florida man's story,
(24:36):
it will almost always include the phrase according to the
arrest report or something like that. And there's a journalist
named Kyle Munzen Reader who wrote wrote a great look
at this for the Miami Herald. He put it this way.
As journalists, he said, all we have to do in
most cases is call the police department and ask for
an arrest report, and the cops are required to give
(24:57):
it to us. Nowadays, a lot of cops just email
the reports, and some of them will post arrest records
online of their own volition. Some of the more dedicated
Florida news reporters go through batches and batches of these
reports at a time. And he said, you know, you,
once you have the report, you pretty much have everything
you need to write a story. You just have to
(25:18):
be mindful that it's the police officer's version of events.
And Kyle had a good example about this, which I
thought was hilarious.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
He says, say a journalist somewhere gets a tip that
a man in a dog costume was caught making love
to a Hello Kitty doll in a mall bathroom here
in Florida, we would just call the police and say
something like heard there was an arrest at the mall yesterday,
Can we get the report? And I would add a
little wink wink in there.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
For journalists in a lot of other states, again, it's
not that easy. They might not be able to get
the report at all, or they might have to wait
for a certain amount of time before police release it.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Well, Georgia does have a thing called the jail report
that you can get like a gas station and they're very,
very picky. You're not allowed to pick them up or
read them unless you buy them, because otherwise, you know,
what's the point. So yeah, they typically only they'll have
mugshots and the actual thing the person was arrested for,
but not usually the juicy details like what would be
(26:16):
in the arrest report. So that must be directly because
of the differences in the sunshine laws.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I think that's a good point. And there's something else
here about the sunshine law that's pretty interesting. Florida, like
some other unnamed US states, is home to a lot
of corruption. You just have to look back at our
earlier episode on the founding of Disney World to see
the way that Disney essentially became its own local government.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Scientology famous for having its fingers in a lot of
political pies. So maybe this open governance law is so
extreme because they want to have some sort of oversight
on those strange, murky connections between so called private entities
and then governments that have been infiltrated or compromised, which
(27:05):
I know sounds so very cold war, but again, just
listen to the Disney episode, because that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, absolutely, I have to say it was weird going
to Disney after doing that episode. Oh yeah, all I
was thinking about was how this land was acquired, what
the town was actually like, where I truly was rather
than just being near Kissing Me or something.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
The Reedy Creek Improvement District. Yeah, but still Disney World's
great man. I have fond memories of it, the whole thing. So,
as you said earlier, in no, A lot of states
have something like this law, but most are nowhere near
on the level of Florida's. So be very careful. Now
that we've walked through that, we can address this question.
(27:50):
Is Florida any worse than other states? Or is it
just easier for the public to know about crimes and
bizarre events? Will answer that after a word from ours sponsor.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
We're back. Well, I think we're gonna have to give
this one the old patented partially true?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Can we get a sound effect of that?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Who patented that? It's somewhat yes, Snopes?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I think it was probably Snops.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, they can't own the phrase partially true?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Who knows partially own it? Brahamps?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
What we have to go with something way less, way
less sexy, like somewhat accurate?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
There you go, that's a glass half full situation.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Oh yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Looks like we're gonna go with our patented somewhat accurate.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
And one gun shot.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, but like a like a like a racing start pistol.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
That's not scary gunshot.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
That's a compromise. Yeah. Florida's open gun governance laws do
make it very very easy to report the weirdest arrest
on record, and the fact remains that there is a
higher than average crime rate in Florida. It's a combination
of wildly different cultures, so stranger things are bound to occur,
things that might not occur in a place that is
(29:20):
less crowded or has different reporting rules.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
It feels like there is a little bit more of
possibly a free spirit and like kind of a stick
it to the man kind of attitude, possibly when people
live by the water and they're not absurdly bougie rich people.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
I see what you're saying. Yeah, more self reliance.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Or self reliant, the kind of beach bum LIFs for
me kind of attitude, you know.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And then maybe that applies Inland with sort of a
country boy can survive vibe.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Also true. Again, I think It all goes back to
the diversity we're talking about, and that is a diversity
of culture and of socioeconomic stratum.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of inequality in this stage as well.
And this situation, all these factors combined to create a
feedback loop because once journalists from around the country learned
how easy it was to fill a void in the
news cycle with a charming, hilarious, often a schadenfreud rife
anecdote about Florida, it became an easy go to move.
(30:18):
That doesn't mean that insane things don't happen in Idaho.
That doesn't mean that parts of Atlanta are entirely bonkers,
and you know, we weekly escapades of pandemonium don't occur.
It just means that it's way easier to tell the
Florida versions of those stories.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
What do you call that, like an echo chamber situation? Right?
Oh yeah, yeah, here's a question, then, Ben, what does
it take in a state with tighter sunshine laws to
generate a headline like that, Like it has to be
just like out in the public eye where it's witnessed
by a lot of people, and then you know, it's
not exclusively reported on based on arrest reports. It was
(30:56):
such a giant debacle that people saw and journalists actually
have to interview people at the scene.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Mm hmm. Yeah. I was gonna say, as you, as
you find more details with any of these that we
late that we ran off earlier, there's probably even more
context to a lot of this, and it might even
make a little more sense than it seems just with
the headline and with the basic description. After more, you know,
a better picture of it emerges.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, and these people haven't had their day in court
yet either. When a lot of the stuff is reported,
it's just the arrest. Like as reported by a local
news station, a Florida man was rescued from a vending machine.
Authorities would not comment on the circumstances of how the
man became stuck in the vending machine or how they
rescued him. There was no word on the extent of
his injuries. Action News called the business where the incident happened.
(31:45):
A person Alpha Packaging, picked up the phone and hung
up without providing additional information. So there's a lot of
context missing in that one, you know. And that's that's
a really good point you make, Matt. There's a wealth
of very important contexts. It's usually cut out because we
just want to read these I'll say, amazing headlines.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Well, I was about to say before you accuse us
of only doing this episode because we wanted to rattle
off some of these headlines, I'm here to tell you
that's probably exactly why we did it.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I love it. Yeah, I went in this hoping for headlines,
and we want to hear some of your favorite Florida headlines. Also,
if you are from Florida, we want to hear your
opinion on the sunshine law? Is it overall a good thing?
With this one unintended consequence? You know, we have solved
(32:33):
the mystery. Florida does get an unfair rap, and it
gets it largely due to this legislation. What about people
who don't live in Florida? Do you want your state,
local community, or your country to enact a similar law?
Why or why not? I mean a lot of countries
have the draconian opposite of this, like in Belarus and
(32:54):
a lot of Eurasian countries. You are not really allowed
to even talk about the government.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Hmmm, I don't want that.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So is there a goldilock zone? Is this too far?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
There must be there must be.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I don't know. I kind of like this full transparency thing.
I mean, how honestly, if we didn't have it, how
would I ever learned about the Florida man that stole
thirty six thousand pounds of Crisco? And what's he gonna
do with all that Crisco?
Speaker 3 (33:20):
You might ask? I think I know that sex stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Oh, you're not connected to the Crisco underground anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I thought it was a food product, like, uh, you
cook with it?
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Well, yeah, but I mean it's also you know, pure grease. Mmmm,
maybe I know. No, no alligator wrestling done.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Ah, Yeah, I don't know. I love those sorts of
heist because remember that story in Canada about the huge
maple syrup heist that happened a while back. Yeah, I
still wonder. How do you fence that who has a
Crisco guy who only moves weight, who has a maple
syrup connection, who doesn't mess with anything under one hundred
gallons of syrup?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Know what I'm saying. You fence it directly to the
underground alligator wrestling community, and they then need no one
else ever sees it doesn't have to enter into circulation.
They just keep it and they use it until they
run out.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
So this guy is like the Kaiser So of Crisco.
I am officially I am officially banning myself from comparing
people to Kaiser. So I've been doing it for the
past several episodes because like that, they're gone, yes, yeah, exactly,
it's a great comparison to anyone.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Uh well, I figured it out. Guys. He was taking
the Crisco. He was going to go fence it at
his buddy. He was his buddy. Unfortunately, though, was caught
with a meth an active meth lab in his pants.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Oh the one. They called it a one pot meth lab, right,
that's true.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
That's true. Yes, like you can cook yourself one rock
of meth. His meth coming rocks.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
I don't know the I don't know the outputs killed exactly,
but they have.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
This guy had apparently some baggy pants and a Mcguyverli
like traveling meth lab.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
A guy from the Fooniac Springs.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
And this, I mean, we can laugh at this. We're
not making fun of these people's lives. We are trying
to point out the important and little known mechanism that's
responsible for this. Frankly, unfair stereotype. We also, you know,
as we said at the top, after our last few episodes,
we wanted to do something a little more lighthearted. But
(35:33):
there is one last crucial note we have to make
here as we record this. Some parts of Florida are
still devastated by Hurricane Michael. And you might not hear
about this stuff in between all this the funny stories
of someone you know dressing up in a weird costume
or someone getting stuck in a vending machine. But there
(35:55):
are still tense cities in areas of Florida where hundreds
of people are currently living, and they are many of
them are due to be disbanded, leaving the hurricane survivors
with nowhere to go.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
So if you would like to donate to help Florida rebuild,
or for that matter, help any number of communities that
have been suffering from the short and long term effects
of these kinds of national disasters, such as California with
the fires Puerto Rico, you can visit charity navigator dot
org and search for your cause of choice.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah, it's pretty neat. You'll see the various charities nonprofit
organizations divided up by their areas of expertise along with
more information about each one, so check it out. As
we may have said on the show before, it's always
important to remember that these sorts of stories don't stop
just because the reporters stop reporting it.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
They continue on could agree more guys, all right, So
if you want to write to us with anything crazy
Florida stories, we'll read them. We've been, you know, as
tragic as the things are that we just discussed, we've
been cracking up this whole episode just reading the headlines
and exploring the strangeness that humanity has to offer. And
if you have any strangeness of humanity or otherwise send
(37:10):
it our way. You can find us on Twitter or
Facebook where we're conspiracy Stuff Instagram. We are a conspiracy
stuff show. If you don't want to do any of
that stuff, check out our Facebook group, which is Here's
where it gets crazy. You can get on there and
discuss all of these things and all the other topics
that we've ever covered and things we haven't covered with
all of our fellow conspiracy realists over there, wonderful human beings.
(37:35):
And if you don't want to do any of that,
and that's the end of this classic episode. If you
have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
One of the best is to give us a call.
Our number is one eight three three stdwy TK. If
you don't want to do that, you can send us
a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Stuff they Don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realist. Thanks for tuning in. You can perhaps
hear a bit of a laugh, a bit of levity
in your faithful correspond its voice here, because back at
twenty eighteen, we finally asked ourselves, why is Florida Man
such a thing? You remember this because it was a
(00:22):
huge It's still a huge deal in the US.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
Yeah, why is this the best subreddit that has ever
been created?
Speaker 3 (00:31):
It was?
Speaker 2 (00:32):
Honestly back then. It was before I had, you know,
an addiction to an Instagram feed that I love, by
the way, still, but you know that every once in
a while has some Florida Man in it. There was
Florida Man on the news constantly.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Yeah, and we're not talking Jeb Bush. We're talking about
the headlines that do continue today, where it would seem
like every every third or fourth day there was a
headline that had a new crazy report about Florida Man.
It was just Florida Man blank blank blankety blanks. Florida
(01:09):
Man proclaims himself the second cousin of Jesus Christ while
abducting alligator from a taco bell. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
I would pay money to see that documentary.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I would give you ten minutes to see how you
see if it bangs at the top. But out of
all the states of the Union, we're asking ourselves, why
does it seem like one of them Florida is home
to so many crazy shenanigans. Can we explain how that
came about? Is there indeed a conspiracy afoot? And we
don't get to say this every time, but I'm confident
(01:42):
we found a pretty good answer.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah we did. Let's remember together.
Speaker 4 (01:49):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 1 (02:17):
They call me Ben. We are joined by us always
with our super producer Paul Mission control Decat most importantly,
you are here that makes this stuff they don't want
you to know. And luckily for us, this is a
little bit of a more and we say lighthearted episode
because after we recorded some fairly dark stuff recently some
(02:40):
murder investigations call Texpose's, we decided that we would take
a break. But answer is still a real question, what
the f is up with Florida?
Speaker 2 (02:53):
There you go. That's the question. Why does it seem
like all, at least most of the strangest thing in
the United States occur in Florida.
Speaker 1 (03:02):
It's strange. And this is not in any way a
hit piece on Florida, on America's most famous peninsula and panhandle.
But it's true that here in the US, some parts
of this country are more famous or infamous than others.
And we had originally what the fuck is up with
(03:23):
Florida as just a working title and in joke with us,
But I think now we could just make it official, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:30):
But poor Paul's got to bleep it every time we
say this is a family show.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
Well, we're only too deep so far, so hopefully it'll
be all right. But you know, for another example, New
York and California are probably the best known states on
the international sphere, even if people only know them for
a particular city like Los Angeles or New York City,
or an industry like Hollywood or the Mob and Florida,
(03:54):
located in the far southeast of the US, occupies this
very unique space in our zeitgeist. It's an international destination,
home to Disney World, wealth of other amusement parks. I
can say some of the best times of my life
have actually been in Florida. Really do tell nah.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Okay, my grandparents lived in Clearwater, and I used to
have just a heck of a time hanging out in
their retirement community down there because they had a pool.
It was wonderful. It was just grand times until I realized.
Speaker 3 (04:25):
Isn't there a Scientology center there?
Speaker 2 (04:26):
Until I realized that Clearwater was under a salt by Scientology,
they were literally buying up land, I think a quarter
of a quarter of a billion dollars worth of land
that they owned.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
How did you experience this as a youth?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Well, all I remember is that there was always construction
on all of the highways every time I went down there,
from a little little boy up until I was in
my mid twenties.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
And you couldn't get into the pool until you did
the e meter thing.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah, that was it.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
You're carrying around too many things?
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, Your thetans were wild, man. It's It's true. There's
a lot. That's a good segue too. There's a lot
of strange stuff that happens in Florida. It truly is
an international destination. Millions of tourists flocked to Florida each
year to maybe visit family, to see the attractions and
the beaches. In twenty seventeen, the most recent estimate available,
(05:23):
we found an estimated one hundred and sixteen point five
million people traveled just to Florida to hang out and
last year. And that sounds like just an abstract large number,
but for comparison, we've got what over three hundred million
people living in the US now, So that's more than
(05:46):
a third of the US population. And just in terms
of raw.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
Numbers, if yeah, if they're all from the United States,
they're not. Yeah, but you know, there's still a huge
chunk of people living up in Florida.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Yeah, but these is popping in for a Disney Vak
or a little universal studio situation and staying at the
many palatial resorts and hotels that there are there. But
what of the people that just are there all the time?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
Ah, Yes, you're talking about the residents and the many
of whom have retired to Florida from some other another state,
New Jersey being the popular stereotype, like Mattie's father in law.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
Yeah, and yes, kind of Jersey and Jersey and he's
he was from New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
He's from elsewhere than Florida, though, yeah.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Jersey, so here in the US. Residents of other states
have some, let's just call them what they are, stereotypes
about Florida, and it's not completely unfounded or unreasonable for
people to have these stereotypes. Even those stereotypes are usually
pretty destructive things. Often when you hear about Florida in
(06:52):
the national news, it's associated with a tense political struggle,
a natural disaster, or, oddly enough, a strange story about
an individual in Florida committing some sort of ridiculous crime.
Here's our first list of examples.
Speaker 2 (07:07):
Florida man attacks atm with hatchet after it refuses to
take his check.
Speaker 1 (07:12):
Or Florida man denies drinking and driving and says he
only swigged bourbon at stop signs.
Speaker 3 (07:17):
Or Florida man claims wife was kidnapped by holograms.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Or Florida man steps tourists despite having no arms.
Speaker 3 (07:30):
Or drunk Florida man. That's a nice modifier because it's
usually just implied. Drunk Florida man attempts to ride bike
through Taco Bell drive through Comma, fights with police and
his mugshot. He's just making a big old frownie face
and has like a bruise in the middle of his
forehead and kind of like joker asque green hair. He's
wearing the orange jumpsuit. And just to reiterate, no Florida
(07:50):
bashing here, this is a trope that is worth exploring,
and we have to give these examples too.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, Florida man launches chair at mailman because he had
no mail for him.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
Yeah, it was a tense day. And you can read
more and more of these examples. Spoiler alert will probably
have some more that pop up. But this is the
kind of news that people in other states see when
they hear a story of the media about Florida. And
since so many people living in other states hear about
these stories on a semi frequent basis, it's understandable and
(08:25):
completely not commendable that many people would form this prejudiced
opinion of the Sunshine State. And that brings us to
today's question, is there really more strange crime in Florida?
How does it stack up to other states? What exactly
gave this state such a weird reputation?
Speaker 2 (08:43):
Is there something going on in Florida that they don't
want us to know?
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Yet oddly enough, it's complicated. We get to a question
at the end there, but I guess we should start
with the facts. Where did Florida come from?
Speaker 3 (09:00):
So Homo sapiens have been occupying the land mass what
is Florida for at least twelve thousand years, and written
records of this area started as far back as fifteen thirteen,
when the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de lay on a
namesakea we know very well here in Atlanta. It's actually
the street they were on, arrived and.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
When he arrived there were no other humans living there.
That's not true, that's just when the like we said,
that's when records begin.
Speaker 1 (09:28):
Well, did Ponce de Leon consider the inhabitants of Florida
to be human? I mean he is a Spanish explorer
at that time, he was a conquistador, right, it's correct.
Fast forward to eighteen forty five, nice day, March third,
Florida becomes the twenty seventh US state, and during the
(09:49):
Civil War, unlike a lot of states in the South,
it didn't suffer this massive amount of catastrophic destruction. You know,
it didn't burn the way Atlanta burned. A lot of
huge pivotal battles. Although there are some. Of course they're
historically significant, it's not they didn't have a Gettysburg moment.
You know, the Union controlled coastal towns and forts. The
(10:11):
interior was controlled by Confederates. Somehow they all, you know,
managed to avoid the complete devastation that happened in other states.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
So let's get into the geography of good old Florida.
It's mostly known for it's peninsula of a thing that
juts out down there heading towards the Caribbean, but the
state actually contains several different distinct ecosystems and also cultures.
There was a there was a whole article that was
put out about the different the five what is it,
five to ten states that exist within Florida, which is
(10:44):
not real, but it's kind of just groupings of people
who've moved to the state. But the land is divided
into four main regions. You've got the Gulf Coast that's
where the Atlantic Ocean kind of goes up in there,
into the into the peninsula. You've got the coastal plain
means the upland that's the hilly area towards the north
and northwest, getting up towards our own Georgia. And then
(11:06):
you've got the swampy Everglades that's in the far south
and in the Florida Keys. That's where it's very difficult
to get buildings to stay in too workright and not.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
Flood, and it's a popular destination for hiding bodies.
Speaker 1 (11:20):
And gators love it. In terms of human population density,
at least, Florida has a surface area of about one
hundred and seventy thousand over square kilometers almost sixty six
thousand square miles. Based on the estimates, that works out
to about three hundred and fifty three point four people
(11:41):
per square mile or one hundred and thirty six point
four per square kilometer, and this makes Florida the eighth
most densely populated state in the Union. It's also surprisingly
this surprised me. It's also the third most populous state.
The only bigger ones are California and Texas.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
That is very surprising in my opinion, especially because of
all of that land that's out there, especially in the
Everglades and some of those areas where you just look
out if you're driving on ninety five, I think it
is you just see nothing for miles and miles and miles, and.
Speaker 1 (12:17):
It guess to be fair, we'd have to point out
that that average could be misleading because a ton of
people will live in the urban areas in the Miami
Dade metropolis or in Orlando, you know. So our current
estimate for the population in twenty eighteen is twenty one
point three one million people, and that is based off
(12:41):
an estimate carried out in twenty fifteen by the Census Bureau,
and the growth rate was one of the fastest in
the country. It was number four out of all the
other states. So if we think about this, that means
most people outside of the American South picture Florida to
be way less crowded than it is, and the opposite
is the case. It is incredibly crowded, incredibly dense, and
(13:05):
most importantly, incredibly diverse.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
That's right. Florida is a is a pretty unusual mix
of cultures of transplants, like we're talking about the top
of the show from other states and other countries. So
it's pretty hard to find a central defining characteristic of
the state's culture like as a whole. But that's kind
of what makes it interesting too. I mean, there's a
like you know, there's an incredible art scene, like in Miami,
(13:31):
for example, with like I think it's called art basil
is that how he pronounced it or basal that? So
what's going on right now? It's a big art conference
where artists from all over the world convene in Miami.
And there's that aspect of it. There's an incredible you know,
Latin American population in Cuban population, and different kinds of
food and music and just about you know, anything you
can imagine. It's very, very, very diverse.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Oh, Miami, an entire metropolis built on cocaine.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
I read I read some really strange thing about Miami.
When researching this, someone said this neatest thing about Miami
was how close it is to America. It took me
a second. I couldn't figure out where they were going
because I'm not myself too familiar with Miami. I haven't
been there since I was a child. I would imagine
(14:22):
you guys are more familiar with it.
Speaker 2 (14:24):
Yeah, I've been there numerous times with my in laws.
They love it. I love it. I love hanging out
there with them. And again, the food and the culture
are definitely one of the biggest drawing points I think
to that city for some reason.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
When I was a child a long long time ago,
I thought everybody in Miami was tall. And I think
it's just because when I went there, I was, you know,
maybe two and a half to three feet high, so
I just thought it was a land of giants. I
have no idea is that true. Are people taller in Miami?
Speaker 2 (14:51):
They are? Yeah, it's rough. It's anywhere between three to
seven inches you're gonna get as soon as you arrived
to Miami, and that increases over time, like whether or
not you actually are living in like certain counties within
the city.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
That makes sense. It's like I thought I was thought
when people say they're big in Japan. I thought it
was some sort of like metaphor comparison. But you know,
I from what I hear, when you go, you do
turn into a giant.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
It does. Okay, that's obviously completely false the thing we're
joking about. But I do wonder if there's something to
driving through that flat land that is Florida for so
long then you finally arrive at this huge city that
has giant, towering buildings. I wonder if there's some kind
of perception thing that can occur there where things feel bigger.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
The Florida effect. Yeah, oh oh yeah, yeah, that's a
thing I just made up.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
I think the Florida effect is an excellent name. What
do you think it describes?
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Nola?
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Is it what Matt articulated?
Speaker 3 (15:51):
It could be part of it. It could be this
whole ball of Florida wax that we're talking about today.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
And included in that ball of Florida wax is the
kind of the elephant in the room or the mouse
in the tower. Right, How does Florida stack up when
it comes to crime, especially since we read so much
about crime and these news stories they constantly come out.
We'll tell you after a word from our sponsor.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Well, no matter what you've heard, this is important. Despite
all those crazy news stories you heard, and even the
one that you didn't hear me say about the guy
who buried a dude in concrete to steal his magic
the gathering collection, which was valued ad over one hundred
thousand dollars. By the way, Florida is by no means
the most violent state within our great Union.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Well the beauty too of these stories, they're not all violent,
They're all just kind of crazy.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
Yeah, yeah, Yeah, the Karthi, for instance, who stole a vehicle,
saw there was a baby in it and then turned
around to safely drop the baby off with someone, and
then stole the car. I feel like that's oddly and Dearie.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, agreed. Or even the guy who was at McDonald's
who was masturbating in the parking lot and he claimed
that his privacy, his privacy was being invaded.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
Yeah, he also said he lived in his car. I
believe despite all these stories here, Florida is, as you said, Matt,
not the most violent state. Depending on the study you read,
the most violent state will often be cited as Louisiana,
with Vermont being cited as one of the safest. But
there's still crime in Florida. Florida is usually depending on
(17:34):
how it's measured, it usually ranks fifth in terms of
crime five hundred and forty one violent crimes reported per
one hundred thousand people. That's a lot, right, Yeah. And
also it ranks number five in terms of robbery, aggravated assault,
and property crime. But while it may not have the
most crime out of any state, it genuinely does seem
(17:55):
to have some of the weirdest crime. You know, what
can we just stop and do some more examples? Yes,
all right, what do we got?
Speaker 3 (18:03):
I have a good one. Let's see. Florida man caught
with stolen power poles strapped suv in wake of Hurricane Irma.
Speaker 1 (18:12):
That's weird.
Speaker 3 (18:14):
I don't understand.
Speaker 1 (18:17):
So. Florida man disguises himself in bull costume as he
tries to burn down former lover's house with pasta sauce.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Florida man attempts to smoke crack in an ICU, almost
burns down hospital.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
Florida man high on meth climbs onto stranger's roof to howl.
Speaker 1 (18:34):
Florida man arrested in local park for practicing karate on swans.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
Florida man sets apartment complex on fire after manager told
him to stop masturbating in front of windows.
Speaker 3 (18:46):
Are yours are very masturb I feel like you found
a Florida man Rex liquor shop blames caterpillar from Alice
in Wonderland. He said that a hookah smoking caterpillar told
him to do it, so it is really more references
the song White Rabbit by Yeah Jefferson Airplane.
Speaker 1 (19:04):
There, that's a good point. He needed to work on it.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
He was probably on acid.
Speaker 2 (19:07):
He might have been.
Speaker 1 (19:08):
There's one. There's one I found that I can't remember
the circumstances behind, but we can just describe it in
the headline. There was a guy who was found on
the roof of some store and he was covered with tar,
and people asked him what he was doing up there,
and originally he said that he was lost and from
out of town, and then he said he was an
(19:30):
AC technician, and he noticed the AC was malfunctioning, so
he decided to do the neighborly thing and fix it.
I think he just did drugs and ended up on
the roof of a building.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
He had got covered in tar somehow, And I hope
he's okay.
Speaker 1 (19:44):
So these headlines are like solid gold. If you have
a slow news day, right, these will get your clicks,
oh for sure. So what gives you know? Is this
unfair stereotype? Is there something in the water? Why do
people seem to participate in so many any crazy shenanigans
in America's most infamous peninsula. It turns out we have
(20:06):
an answer. Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Yeah, So it turns out that this law really is
somewhat to blame for this phenomenon. Every American state has
some kind of sunshine law, and that's a term for
legislation regulations or constitutional amendments that guarantee public access to
government affairs, like sort of an open book policy.
Speaker 2 (20:28):
Right, or how open is your book?
Speaker 3 (20:31):
Exactly? How open is your book? Is it a reading
rainbow or is it more of a.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
I don't know, Ben, You're better at this than me, malefice,
malific caro.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
There you go, nice, very very well done, Matt.
Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
So, but while these laws require most government meetings to
be open door and most documents to be open book,
allowing public scrutiny, many of them are a little bit limited, right.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Or redactive, or I have some kind of conditions on
them to where not every single one is going to
be fully available in all of its form.
Speaker 1 (21:08):
Yeah. So, theoretically, in a given state you might have
something similar to this Transparency Act or Freedom of Information
Act kind of thing, So you can technically get access
to police records, but actually getting them in practice can
take a long time, or you can get shut down
by red tape. But in Florida, on the other hand,
(21:30):
there is a deep, deep, deep, centuries long dedication to
hardcore transparency norms. It starts way back in nineteen oh nine,
Chapter one hundred and nineteen of the Florida Statutes, the
Public Records Law, and it kept being strengthened in following years.
In nineteen sixty seven they passed the government in the
Sunshine Law popularly known as the Sunshine Law now, and
(21:54):
then they continue to strengthen it after that. So this
law has been kind of untouchable regardless of who is
in office. And it's pretty extreme. If you are a
public official, every meeting, aside from a few exemptions, has
to be an open meeting, which is why, like politicians
will get married and they'll have to have a journalist
(22:16):
at their wedding. That happened at least once and today.
The Sunshine Law regarding open government can be found in
Chapter two eighty six of the Florida Statutes if you're
looking for some really juicy reading. They establish this basic
right of access to most meetings of boards, commissions, other
(22:36):
governing bodies of state and local government agencies or authorities.
And this means that it is incredibly easy to learn
about the inner workings of this state's government, especially arrest records.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
Yeah, and that's a big deal because if you're a
journalist and you're looking for a story just to include
or to have as a part of your paper or
your podcast or whatever, having access or at least easier
access to some of these arrest records and stories going
through the courts or whoever is being charged with what
right now actively that gives you this huge wealth of
(23:14):
just stuff to write about. I mean, that's a big
that's a big deal to me at least, it's like
the blodder stories, you know.
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Yeah, no, it's true. And at the same time, like
I've been to Florida. I've hung out in Florida, and
Florida has a really interesting dichotomy where like we were
talking about that diversity that it has that extends to
like you know how there's certain parts of Georgia that
kind of have reputation for like a certain type of
individual that might be a little more prone to drunken
behavior or unhinged things, you know, or myth or myth
(23:42):
there you go, or you know, just too much drinking too.
You know that Florida has that too, and it also
has the big cities it has. It's very diverse in
that way, and I think that and the fact that
you've got these open book policies where they have better
access to it. It doesn't necessarily mean they're more crimes
that are nuts, but it certainly has no shortage of
(24:04):
Bonker's crimes. But you know what, neither does Georgia. We
don't get access to the information as readily as they
do in Florida, apparently, right.
Speaker 1 (24:13):
Yeah, and there's one of the dead giveaways you'll notice.
So the same well intentioned laws that passed are the
same reason that a Florida residence mugshot might appear online
merely days after those arrests. Make it incredibly easy to
write about these stories. And here's the red flag you'll see.
If you're reading a weird Florida or a Florida man's story,
(24:36):
it will almost always include the phrase according to the
arrest report or something like that. And there's a journalist
named Kyle Munzen Reader who wrote wrote a great look
at this for the Miami Herald. He put it this way.
As journalists, he said, all we have to do in
most cases is call the police department and ask for
an arrest report, and the cops are required to give
(24:57):
it to us. Nowadays, a lot of cops just email
the reports, and some of them will post arrest records
online of their own volition. Some of the more dedicated
Florida news reporters go through batches and batches of these
reports at a time. And he said, you know, you,
once you have the report, you pretty much have everything
you need to write a story. You just have to
(25:18):
be mindful that it's the police officer's version of events.
And Kyle had a good example about this, which I
thought was hilarious.
Speaker 2 (25:26):
He says, say a journalist somewhere gets a tip that
a man in a dog costume was caught making love
to a Hello Kitty doll in a mall bathroom here
in Florida, we would just call the police and say
something like heard there was an arrest at the mall yesterday,
Can we get the report? And I would add a
little wink wink in there.
Speaker 3 (25:45):
Right.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
For journalists in a lot of other states, again, it's
not that easy. They might not be able to get
the report at all, or they might have to wait
for a certain amount of time before police release it.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Well, Georgia does have a thing called the jail report
that you can get like a gas station and they're very,
very picky. You're not allowed to pick them up or
read them unless you buy them, because otherwise, you know,
what's the point. So yeah, they typically only they'll have
mugshots and the actual thing the person was arrested for,
but not usually the juicy details like what would be
(26:16):
in the arrest report. So that must be directly because
of the differences in the sunshine laws.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
I think that's a good point. And there's something else
here about the sunshine law that's pretty interesting. Florida, like
some other unnamed US states, is home to a lot
of corruption. You just have to look back at our
earlier episode on the founding of Disney World to see
the way that Disney essentially became its own local government.
Speaker 2 (26:43):
Right.
Speaker 1 (26:43):
Scientology famous for having its fingers in a lot of
political pies. So maybe this open governance law is so
extreme because they want to have some sort of oversight
on those strange, murky connections between so called private entities
and then governments that have been infiltrated or compromised, which
(27:05):
I know sounds so very cold war, but again, just
listen to the Disney episode, because that's what happened.
Speaker 2 (27:11):
Yeah, absolutely, I have to say it was weird going
to Disney after doing that episode. Oh yeah, all I
was thinking about was how this land was acquired, what
the town was actually like, where I truly was rather
than just being near Kissing Me or something.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
The Reedy Creek Improvement District. Yeah, but still Disney World's
great man. I have fond memories of it, the whole thing. So,
as you said earlier, in no, A lot of states
have something like this law, but most are nowhere near
on the level of Florida's. So be very careful. Now
that we've walked through that, we can address this question.
(27:50):
Is Florida any worse than other states? Or is it
just easier for the public to know about crimes and
bizarre events? Will answer that after a word from ours sponsor.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
We're back. Well, I think we're gonna have to give
this one the old patented partially true?
Speaker 1 (28:14):
Can we get a sound effect of that?
Speaker 3 (28:18):
Who patented that? It's somewhat yes, Snopes?
Speaker 2 (28:22):
I think it was probably Snops.
Speaker 1 (28:23):
Yeah, they can't own the phrase partially true?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Who knows partially own it? Brahamps?
Speaker 1 (28:31):
What we have to go with something way less, way
less sexy, like somewhat accurate?
Speaker 3 (28:38):
There you go, that's a glass half full situation.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
Oh yeah, that's true.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
Looks like we're gonna go with our patented somewhat accurate.
Speaker 1 (28:50):
And one gun shot.
Speaker 3 (28:51):
Yeah, but like a like a like a racing start pistol.
Speaker 1 (28:55):
Yeah, that's good.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
That's not scary gunshot.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
That's a compromise. Yeah. Florida's open gun governance laws do
make it very very easy to report the weirdest arrest
on record, and the fact remains that there is a
higher than average crime rate in Florida. It's a combination
of wildly different cultures, so stranger things are bound to occur,
things that might not occur in a place that is
(29:20):
less crowded or has different reporting rules.
Speaker 3 (29:23):
It feels like there is a little bit more of
possibly a free spirit and like kind of a stick
it to the man kind of attitude, possibly when people
live by the water and they're not absurdly bougie rich people.
Speaker 1 (29:36):
I see what you're saying. Yeah, more self reliance.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
Or self reliant, the kind of beach bum LIFs for
me kind of attitude, you know.
Speaker 1 (29:43):
And then maybe that applies Inland with sort of a
country boy can survive vibe.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Also true. Again, I think It all goes back to
the diversity we're talking about, and that is a diversity
of culture and of socioeconomic stratum.
Speaker 2 (29:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah, there's a lot of inequality in this stage as well.
And this situation, all these factors combined to create a
feedback loop because once journalists from around the country learned
how easy it was to fill a void in the
news cycle with a charming, hilarious, often a schadenfreud rife
anecdote about Florida, it became an easy go to move.
(30:18):
That doesn't mean that insane things don't happen in Idaho.
That doesn't mean that parts of Atlanta are entirely bonkers,
and you know, we weekly escapades of pandemonium don't occur.
It just means that it's way easier to tell the
Florida versions of those stories.
Speaker 3 (30:36):
What do you call that, like an echo chamber situation? Right?
Oh yeah, yeah, here's a question, then, Ben, what does
it take in a state with tighter sunshine laws to
generate a headline like that, Like it has to be
just like out in the public eye where it's witnessed
by a lot of people, and then you know, it's
not exclusively reported on based on arrest reports. It was
(30:56):
such a giant debacle that people saw and journalists actually
have to interview people at the scene.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
Mm hmm. Yeah. I was gonna say, as you, as
you find more details with any of these that we
late that we ran off earlier, there's probably even more
context to a lot of this, and it might even
make a little more sense than it seems just with
the headline and with the basic description. After more, you know,
a better picture of it emerges.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Yeah, and these people haven't had their day in court
yet either. When a lot of the stuff is reported,
it's just the arrest. Like as reported by a local
news station, a Florida man was rescued from a vending machine.
Authorities would not comment on the circumstances of how the
man became stuck in the vending machine or how they
rescued him. There was no word on the extent of
his injuries. Action News called the business where the incident happened.
(31:45):
A person Alpha Packaging, picked up the phone and hung
up without providing additional information. So there's a lot of
context missing in that one, you know. And that's that's
a really good point you make, Matt. There's a wealth
of very important contexts. It's usually cut out because we
just want to read these I'll say, amazing headlines.
Speaker 3 (32:01):
Well, I was about to say before you accuse us
of only doing this episode because we wanted to rattle
off some of these headlines, I'm here to tell you
that's probably exactly why we did it.
Speaker 1 (32:11):
I love it. Yeah, I went in this hoping for headlines,
and we want to hear some of your favorite Florida headlines. Also,
if you are from Florida, we want to hear your
opinion on the sunshine law? Is it overall a good thing?
With this one unintended consequence? You know, we have solved
(32:33):
the mystery. Florida does get an unfair rap, and it
gets it largely due to this legislation. What about people
who don't live in Florida? Do you want your state,
local community, or your country to enact a similar law?
Why or why not? I mean a lot of countries
have the draconian opposite of this, like in Belarus and
(32:54):
a lot of Eurasian countries. You are not really allowed
to even talk about the government.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
Hmmm, I don't want that.
Speaker 1 (33:03):
So is there a goldilock zone? Is this too far?
Speaker 3 (33:05):
There must be there must be.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
I don't know. I kind of like this full transparency thing.
I mean, how honestly, if we didn't have it, how
would I ever learned about the Florida man that stole
thirty six thousand pounds of Crisco? And what's he gonna
do with all that Crisco?
Speaker 3 (33:20):
You might ask? I think I know that sex stuff.
Speaker 1 (33:23):
Oh, you're not connected to the Crisco underground anymore.
Speaker 2 (33:27):
I thought it was a food product, like, uh, you
cook with it?
Speaker 3 (33:31):
Well, yeah, but I mean it's also you know, pure grease. Mmmm,
maybe I know. No, no alligator wrestling done.
Speaker 1 (33:41):
Ah, Yeah, I don't know. I love those sorts of
heist because remember that story in Canada about the huge
maple syrup heist that happened a while back. Yeah, I
still wonder. How do you fence that who has a
Crisco guy who only moves weight, who has a maple
syrup connection, who doesn't mess with anything under one hundred
gallons of syrup?
Speaker 3 (34:02):
Know what I'm saying. You fence it directly to the
underground alligator wrestling community, and they then need no one
else ever sees it doesn't have to enter into circulation.
They just keep it and they use it until they
run out.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
So this guy is like the Kaiser So of Crisco.
I am officially I am officially banning myself from comparing
people to Kaiser. So I've been doing it for the
past several episodes because like that, they're gone, yes, yeah, exactly,
it's a great comparison to anyone.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Uh well, I figured it out. Guys. He was taking
the Crisco. He was going to go fence it at
his buddy. He was his buddy. Unfortunately, though, was caught
with a meth an active meth lab in his pants.
Speaker 1 (34:45):
Oh the one. They called it a one pot meth lab, right,
that's true.
Speaker 3 (34:50):
That's true. Yes, like you can cook yourself one rock
of meth. His meth coming rocks.
Speaker 1 (34:56):
I don't know the I don't know the outputs killed exactly,
but they have.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (35:01):
This guy had apparently some baggy pants and a Mcguyverli
like traveling meth lab.
Speaker 2 (35:09):
A guy from the Fooniac Springs.
Speaker 1 (35:13):
And this, I mean, we can laugh at this. We're
not making fun of these people's lives. We are trying
to point out the important and little known mechanism that's
responsible for this. Frankly, unfair stereotype. We also, you know,
as we said at the top, after our last few episodes,
we wanted to do something a little more lighthearted. But
(35:33):
there is one last crucial note we have to make
here as we record this. Some parts of Florida are
still devastated by Hurricane Michael. And you might not hear
about this stuff in between all this the funny stories
of someone you know dressing up in a weird costume
or someone getting stuck in a vending machine. But there
(35:55):
are still tense cities in areas of Florida where hundreds
of people are currently living, and they are many of
them are due to be disbanded, leaving the hurricane survivors
with nowhere to go.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
So if you would like to donate to help Florida rebuild,
or for that matter, help any number of communities that
have been suffering from the short and long term effects
of these kinds of national disasters, such as California with
the fires Puerto Rico, you can visit charity navigator dot
org and search for your cause of choice.
Speaker 1 (36:26):
Yeah, it's pretty neat. You'll see the various charities nonprofit
organizations divided up by their areas of expertise along with
more information about each one, so check it out. As
we may have said on the show before, it's always
important to remember that these sorts of stories don't stop
just because the reporters stop reporting it.
Speaker 2 (36:47):
They continue on could agree more guys, all right, So
if you want to write to us with anything crazy
Florida stories, we'll read them. We've been, you know, as
tragic as the things are that we just discussed, we've
been cracking up this whole episode just reading the headlines
and exploring the strangeness that humanity has to offer. And
if you have any strangeness of humanity or otherwise send
(37:10):
it our way. You can find us on Twitter or
Facebook where we're conspiracy Stuff Instagram. We are a conspiracy
stuff show. If you don't want to do any of
that stuff, check out our Facebook group, which is Here's
where it gets crazy. You can get on there and
discuss all of these things and all the other topics
that we've ever covered and things we haven't covered with
all of our fellow conspiracy realists over there, wonderful human beings.
(37:35):
And if you don't want to do any of that,
and that's the end of this classic episode. If you
have any thoughts or questions about this episode, you can
get into contact with us in a number of different ways.
One of the best is to give us a call.
Our number is one eight three three stdwy TK. If
you don't want to do that, you can send us
a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 1 (37:56):
We are conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Stuff they Don't want you to know is a production
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