532 - We’re Being Artists Here

This week, Georgia covers Shakespeare being performed at the Broadmoor asylum and Karen tells the story of the Wisconsin Butter Fire.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello, and welcome my favorite murder. That's Georgia Hart Star.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
That's Karen Kilgariff. Happy birthday. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (00:24):
Oh my god, thank you, and thank you for buying
me all of these things.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I did all of this.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
It's incredible. Georgia got here at six a m. And
she had three rolls of Scotch tape and a dream.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
These are from my garden, of course, from my greenhouse.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
Incredible.

Speaker 2 (00:41):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
P and E's are rinuculous p.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
And e's and they're Martha Stewart flavor.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
Oh best flavor there is. I actually love these flowers
so much. Yes, did you guys know that that you
brought them?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
Craig and I may or may not have discussed p andies.
Love it.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Very classy, very classy. Actually we should thank our set decorator. Yeah,
Cory Cory Nixon.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
He's a PC.

Speaker 1 (01:05):
He's not a set decorator, no that he does this,
but he's been forced to become one.

Speaker 2 (01:09):
Yeah, and he addresses so well. We're like, you look
like you know how to put things together. Yeah, it's
your birthday. I totally got you a present and it's
so cool and you're gonna love it. And it didn't
get sent in time.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
Yeah, absolutely, can.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
I have just shown you a photo. No, I'll give
it to you next week.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
So listen, I've now done this. It's just cute fifty
six times. And I couldn't care if it was a
contest and I won money at the end. And I mean,
I don't mean that in the like this. When I
walked in here, it truly brought me joy. Also, our
producer Molly Smith is at the helm of course, knowing
how much I care about rose Gold, what it does

(01:46):
for me emotionally, but this is as good as it
gets for me. Yeah, because I think after a while
you're like, I don't know.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, yeah, especially when you could like pass the milestone
birthdays and get into the like wow birthdays.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
I wonder if it's like not to stolen valor from
the kids who had like high school ripped away from them.
But having my fiftieth birthday during COVID and you had
your fortieth during COVID, Yeah, there was a thing where
I was like, well, I either I'm going to be
really upset about this or just never care again. And
I picked b right, which I recommend in life.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
I feel like because I had my fortieth birthday during
COVID and cried on the day a lot, did you. Yeah,
it was like early in COVID for both of us. Yes,
that I am like obligated to celebrate every birthday since
that I have in freedom down more than I would,
you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
That's normally that's a way more positive kind of end results.

Speaker 2 (02:45):
Like I didn't get the blowout fortieth that I probably
would not have fucking thrown anyways, So.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
You can always cry about things you didn't get right,
no matters.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
So so forty six has to be a big blowout. Yes,
fuck in Italy for it?

Speaker 1 (02:57):
Hell yes, why not? Also is a different birthday too,
because that is a little bit of a turning point
and to not get to have anybody like just shower
you with love on that day sucks.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
It reminds me of all the kids in school who
had summer birthdays who just never got the cupcakes or
the sevy birthdays or whatever all lumped together, yeah Christmas birthdays,
whereas a May birthday everyone stoked the years over. Yeah,
everyone's like it's spring. Yeah, it's a new season. It's
a big advantage to have a May birthday. Well, happy birthday.

Speaker 1 (03:30):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
I'll give you a present next week. It's cute though,
I want to though, it's just like a cute little
thing that I saw it. I was like, that's for Karen. Okay, now,
not like what am I going to get her? It
was like, that's for Karen.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
You sat down with a big pencil.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
What am I going to do? This is it?

Speaker 1 (03:43):
And then you start crying? That gets your fortieth birthday
in COVID.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Right, How am I going to top last year?

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Oh?

Speaker 2 (03:48):
If I found something social media videos that just showed
up in my algorithm that I didn't know existed, But
that is going to be my new personality completely.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Sword yoga that is so dangerous.

Speaker 2 (04:10):
No it's not. I'll tell you why. Okay. It's this
company called Weapon Up. This is not an ad. I
just found them and I'm obsessed now. Her name sabb
another woman who started it. It's like tai chi meets yo,
like vinyasa yoga meets like synchronized fencing. But they have
practice swords so like they're not sharp or anything like that.
But oh okay, that's I've been waiting for my next

(04:31):
you know, I've done the fucking performer I've done hula hooping.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
And now you've been waiting for sword yoga, yoga, sword yoga.
Now you pronounced that sword.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
I love the I love. I can't help it. It's
like a it's a storm, it's a stem.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
When do you ever get the opportunity to just where
you're like, no, sorry, this is my workout class I
have to get. Even if it's a practice sword, sword.

Speaker 2 (04:58):
Sword, it's I I'll let you know. I'm going to
do a class. I'm going to fucking do it. I'm
buying the practice sword. It's like a vegan. It's like
all I'm going to talk about. Now.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
Do you remember the story I told you where I
used to take my old dog George to the dog
park at six am?

Speaker 2 (05:10):
Yes, and you met someone there.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
I didn't meet him. I was on this end of
the park. On the other the end of the park,
I look down. There's a guy dressed like a ninja
with a real sword, and I was like, so, I'm
further away from my car in a straight line than
he is to me.

Speaker 2 (05:26):
How are we going to do this? It's going to
run at you.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
And then I just slowly walked back to my car
and he never stopped sorting sworting. I wonder where he
is now that ladies and gentlemen is Tom Cruise? There
you go, that's all we needed. Well, I actually had
a video for you. I think you're going to like
this okay, because I was blown away at the information
that I got from good Okay.

Speaker 3 (05:49):
Nancy Drew went public domain in January, and nobody is
talking about what that actually means. The version of Nancy
Drew that most of us grew up with, the nineteen
fifty nine version, it's not the original version. The publishers
rewrote her, making her more polite, less careful, and less impulsive.
In the nineteen thirties version, she slams doors, talks back,

(06:12):
drives into thunderstorms, and climbs into the back of moving
vans to steal evidence from criminals. She's sixteen years old,
and she's completely unhinged, but in the best way. And
as of January twenty twenty six, that original text is freak.
It's public domain, so I annotated it. The link is

(06:34):
in my bio past ten dollars and it comes with
an evidence lag, a suspect tracker, and a playlist.

Speaker 2 (06:42):
Wow, people are so clever.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Here's what I love She's like I need people to know.
Like when she that first half of the video had
me already where I was like, what I never.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Knew that about Nancy trun now, but now she's.

Speaker 1 (06:56):
Making like a book club or for ten bucks, you
can join this thing of like original Nancy Drew book
club storyline.

Speaker 2 (07:03):
I'm like, we're gonna all read it, right.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Yeah, I feel like that's something our listeners would be like.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
I would love to do that. O geen Nancy Drew.
She wears pants.

Speaker 1 (07:12):
Can you believe she's so rude? Is to ask a question?

Speaker 2 (07:15):
And she has a sword?

Speaker 1 (07:17):
Nancy Drew with the sword. Yeah, I'm totally doing yes
for sure. Her handle is the Incurable Nerd Society. Amazing,
so perfect. So go on there. That was from TikTok,
but it's probably also on Instagram.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
Okay, that's her new book club book that we never
speak of again.

Speaker 1 (07:31):
Yeah, you don't have to get me anything for my birthday,
but if you would please join the nineteen thirties badass
Nancy Drew book Club.

Speaker 2 (07:38):
Oh yeah, that'd be fun. I love it.

Speaker 1 (07:40):
Oh. I just wanted to recommend really quick, there's a
TV show on Apple Widow's.

Speaker 2 (07:45):
Tooth Widows Bag three, Widow's be Widows be. Yeah, I
have written down right here.

Speaker 1 (07:52):
My brain literally was like, say it past.

Speaker 2 (07:56):
It's beautiful, beautiful, Matthew Reese. It's like a Stephen King
like haunted comedy Comedy Island that's seen in the first
episode in the Historical Society Museum. Fucking brilliant.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
Now do you know this is my favorite detail? So
the person that created that show is Katie Dippoled, and
she's the person that went totally viral and did go
viral every year on Halloween because she has that tweet
with a picture of herself dressed as the Baba Duke
and she was like, when you find out it's more
of an adult drinks party than a costume party. And
she went to a Halloween party dressed fully like the

(08:32):
Baba Duke with like crazy pale white face and a hat. Yeah,
and she's just sitting there while all these normally dressed people.

Speaker 2 (08:39):
Excuse me, have a party on November one or October
thirtieth if you're not wanting people to dress up.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
I mean, you know, it's very me where it's like,
you know, the holiday, we're going to take it apart
and then Katie dippoled. As I was watching that show
and literally laughing out loud. I was like, who the
fuck made this? And then when I looked it.

Speaker 2 (08:56):
Up, it was like, amazing. Yeah, it's so good.

Speaker 1 (08:59):
Yeah, watch it.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
It's really clever and fun. It's so good. Okay. I
love that we've both had that one too. Three. Exactly
Right Media is we have a podcast network. It's called
Exactly Right Media. Here's some highlights.

Speaker 1 (09:11):
So many great podcasts on this network, but Brief Recess
one of the greats. And this week, Michael and Melissa
are tackling truly cursed legal headlines. They will be discussing
the recent huntavirus outbreaks, but also there's a case of
a secret service agent who was arrested for fondling himself
in a hotel hallway, so they're going to talk about
that a little bit. Okay. Also the bizarre twists in

(09:34):
the JP Morgan sex hoax lawsuit.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
I want to know more. That's really interesting. I mean,
what's going on? Everything is it's not the right timeline. Oops,
we skip to a different let's bump it back. NaN's
fucking timeline. Come on and on. Buried Bones, Paul and
Kate Head to Tacoma, Washington. Man that place in nineteen
forty seven after the murder of a mother and daughter
sparks an investigation to a lesser known serial killer, and

(10:00):
that reminds me. I started reading Murderland again. Oh, just
because it was so good.

Speaker 1 (10:04):
Did I tell you that I had to stop when
I was reading it. I was by myself, and I
had to stop because it was freaking me out so bad.
It was freaking me out.

Speaker 2 (10:12):
I never thought of Tacoma as a haunted, scary place
until I read Murderland.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Also, Paul Hols and Kate Winkler Dawson were just in
these very seats yesterday. I can feel it because they
came here to record some shows together and those videos
will be up soon on Netflix. So great, Okay. Then
over on the runaway hit trust Me, Lolan Megan welcome
back from the Netflix doc of the same name, Trust Me.

(10:36):
Their guest nomes Byeline for part two of their conversation
about the cult being rated by the FBI, learning Christine
was the informant and escaping Samuel Bateman's control. So if
you've watched Trust Me the documentary on Netflix, our podcast
Trust Me is a cult podcast that happens to have
the same name, So just watch that.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Because something's in common. And there's a new MFM animated
out now on YouTube. This time Nick Terry animates the
busy Body Deer from episode sixty four, where we discover
that the eyes watching us in the woods belong not
to a predator but to an extremely nosy deer. And
you can find every episode of MFM Animated at YouTube

(11:18):
dot com slash.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Exactly right media MFM Animated. I highly recommend that TV show. Yeah,
just like Widow's Bay totally, it's up there.

Speaker 2 (11:26):
Do you need something like lighthearted enjoy us to watch?
Get in there, in there, all right, I'm first and
I have a really interesting story to tell you.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Hopefully Martinelli's Apple Juice. Everybody.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
Yeah, Collen, happy birthday, thank you. So for today's story,
we are headed back to a place that we have
visited many times in my favorite murder lore, Widow's Bay.
Rodmoor Hospital. Oh shoot. It's a sprawling psychiatric hospital about
two hours east of London, dating back to the Victorian era.

(11:59):
Maney of them were criminal offenders in the UK who
have been found to need psychiatric care have been sent there.
We've covered people who were sent here who sit on
a spectrum of violence, including the teacup poisoner, Graham Young,
organized criminal Ronnie Cray, painter Richard Dodd, William Chester miner
who helped compile the Oxford English Dictionary Remember, as well

(12:22):
as almost completely non violent people who were just dealt
more difficult hands, like June and Jennifer Gibbons, the Silent
Twins that you covered. So we have been to broad
More many times here and today we're back at the hospital.
It's nineteen eighty nine and we're in the central Hall.
Usually during the day the space would be full of
patients seeing visitors. In the evening, it's where the hospital

(12:44):
will occasionally host a disco for patients who can safely socialize. Today, however,
it's being used for a production of Hamlet put on
by the Royal Shakespeare Company, with its creative director the
actor Mark Rylance in the title role. Hell Yes you
know Mark Rayland's Hell Yes. The audience is mostly broad

(13:05):
More patients. They have a much more intimate knowledge of
the play's subject matter, of the violence and mental illness
of Hamlet, than perhaps any prior audience has ever had.
In honor of mental health Awareness months. Today we're telling
the story of how Shakespeare came to Broadmore and how
those performances affected the patients, staff, the actors in the hospital.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Wow, Mark Raylands, I got to see him on Broadway.
It's like Labette or something like that. In it he
did a fifteen minute monologue Jesus Christ and it just
him holding forth And he's one of the most compelling,
incredible well stage actors. Obviously movie actors, but like on stage,
you can't take your eyes off him.

Speaker 2 (13:46):
We have a photo of him in Hamlet when he
was younger. If people want to.

Speaker 1 (13:49):
See it, Oh, yes, right, that's right, Like.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
That is an acteur, acteur acteur, but.

Speaker 1 (13:56):
Also the thing of like in England. And this was
the one time I got a part and I had
to go to Glasgow to do it right. Many of
the cast members that I was acting with had gone
to the Royal Shakespeare Academy and it is it unnerved me.
From the first moment I stepped into the rehearsal room,
I was just like, what am I doing?

Speaker 2 (14:15):
I wanted you're a Sacramento State dropout, come on Shakespeare
Company Royal.

Speaker 1 (14:20):
Although Tom Hanks did go to Saxton and he did
drama there there you go, and I think he graduated.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (14:27):
I don't know, but look at you now, but I
just have so much respect for that.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Yes, it's a big, huge, important thing. Yes, like Julliard.
So the main source for the story is a book
called Shakespeare Comes to Broadmoor, which was compiled by the
doctor who spearheaded this program, doctor Murray Cox. And the
rest of the sources are in the show notes and
also shout out to Molly Smith and Ali Elkin, my
wonderful researcher for this idea. I just I wouldn't have

(14:55):
stumbled upon this and I just love it. Yeah, it's
good fun. So this all begins with psychiatrist named Murray Cox.
He's born in Birmingham, England, in itteen thirty one. He
goes to Saint Catherine's College at Cambridge, then trains as
a doctor at London Hospital. He works as a general
practitioner for about ten years before becoming a psychiatrist, and

(15:16):
he first works as a forensic psychiatrist at a prison
before taking a position at Broadmoor in nineteen seventy, when
he's about thirty nine years old. So throughout his career
at Broadmoor, Murray Cox becomes known for three things. His
insistence in seeing the humanity of each of his patients,
which sadly is a kind of rare thing, seems like

(15:37):
these those days and these days maybe his Christian faith,
and his affinity for the theater, for theater, especially for
Shakespeare's place.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
The way you said at the version, I was like
for the theater.

Speaker 2 (15:49):
Theater you may remember from English class if you weren't
sleeping through it, or from Shakespeare in Love that in
Elizabeth in London, poor people who led pretty miserable lives
were able to get standing room tickets on the floor
at the Globe Theater to see live performances of Shakespeare's play,
which was a huge deal. It makes doctor Cox consider
that theater may have had some therapeutic effect. Even then,

(16:12):
Doctor Cox presents these ideas at a conference of Shakespeare's scholars,
and that's when he first meets Mark Rylance. So they
get coffee together in May of nineteen eighty nine, right
around when the Royal Shakespeare Company is about to perform Hamlet.
Doctor Cox tells Riolence that he discusses Shakespeare with patients
sometimes in their sessions, especially the ones who remember reading

(16:35):
the plays in school, and he says he has frank
discussions with those patients about the violence in the plays
and the portrayals of madness quote unquote, and whether they
can relate, and so he uses them as a tool
to get them to open up. During that coffee meeting,
Riolence has the idea of bringing a production of Hamlet

(16:55):
to the hospital and it totally makes you think of
when the Cramps went to a psychiatric constitution as well
and played like their best show. Yeah, there's a video
of that online.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
It feels like so truly like we're being artists here
when you do stuff like that, where you're like, we're
not sitting here talking about like how are we going
to make it whatever. It's like Mark Rylands is like,
how do I take this talent and do something that
for the good?

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Totally And it's like the importance of art in mental
health and that people actually recognize that is so important. Yeah,
you know nowadays it doesn't even happen, but back then
it's really it's really impressive. Yeah. So, after some logistical
planning and some back and forth, it is agreed that
for one night only. The Royal Shakespeare Company will bring
its production of Hamlet to Broadmoor Hospital. The performance takes

(17:43):
place in August of nineteen eighty nine. I was just
nine years old. Oh yeah, nineteen okay, and so here
we are nine and nineteen live in our lives. I
thought it would be interesting to those who weren't alive
then and don't have the PTSD that we have, and
that everyone from that time has to understand what a
turbulent shit show the world was at that moment, and

(18:07):
why having this moment of art and peace would have
been so impactful to the patients, Because I mean, I
heard nineteen eighty nine and I'm like, oh, that was hard.
And then I realized, like, not everyone knows who listens
to this was live then, right, So here are some
fucked up things and shout out to Wikipedia for the help.
The massively destructive Exxon Bealdees spill had just happened. Colombia's

(18:31):
war on drugs, where Colombian drug cartels declared total and
absolute war against the government, was raging, and in August
of nineteen eighty nine, it was a critical and chaotic
turning point in the final months of the Cold war,
with anti communist revolutions happening in Central and Eastern Europe
and the fall of the Berlin Wall just a couple
months away. Yeah, so is very turbulent. I have more

(18:53):
more horrible things. The pro democracy student demonstrations in Beijing's
Tianeman Square had just been violently and publicly suppressed by
the Chinese government. Apartheid in South Africa was raging, with
a seventy year old Nelson Mandela sentenced to life in
prison for conspiring to overthrow the state. There's more. The
troubles in North Ireland were violently raging, with the provisional

(19:13):
IRA conducting paramilitary campaigns on British military targets and civilians
in the British mainland.

Speaker 1 (19:21):
What well, I just want you know, we're talking about
the IRA targeting the British. They should have been there, no,
one hundred percent. I mean if they had just gone
there nobody.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
Yes, it was not always started, it was not on
a way street. Doesn't happen. And then let's not get
started on Serbian Kosovo or the Middle East and the
Gulf War that's about to pop off. But don't worry.
Just to end this on that like but.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
There's also a hole in the ozone layer.

Speaker 2 (19:45):
Right. Oh yeah, we were freaking out about that, remember that. Yep.
But just to cap that with something positive, Taylor Swift
is born that year, so it's going to be okay.

Speaker 1 (19:51):
Oh I didn't realize what it's true Swift you.

Speaker 2 (19:53):
Are, Everything's going to be okay, okay. Well, her album's
called nineteen eighty nine, so like, I'm not Oh, I'm
not brilliant.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Oh I just just a reference.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
So we're here in Broadmoor Central Hall under the disco
ball that's used for the hospital discos. Take me there,
and it's you're gonna love this. It's an in the
round performance, which we intimately know about because we did
that on like our first or second leg of our
tour in Arizona.

Speaker 1 (20:22):
And they're doing it for Hamlet.

Speaker 2 (20:23):
Yeah, so tell everyone who doesn't know what in the
round means.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
I believe it was the Celebrity theater in either Phoenix
or Tucson.

Speaker 2 (20:32):
I think was Phoenix Phoenix.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
And we didn't know until we arrived that night that
this would be not just a stage in the round,
which means everyone can see you at all times.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
There's no you can like a gladiator. You're in the
middle of a fucking gladiator theater. They're like no.

Speaker 1 (20:47):
But also that this stage rotated, so it wasn't a
still round stage where you could kind of be like, well,
now I'm going to walk over here.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah, you just moved there.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
And it was really slow, kind of like the old
holiday and in Hollywood they had the rotating restaurant. We're
just kind of like, it's not crazy, but it's also
not still right, and we were out of our minds.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
It was the bustlat It was so hilarious. I don't
remember anything about that time, and I fucking will never
forget being in the round.

Speaker 1 (21:15):
I will never forget the two girls that I used
as my twelve o'clock because I was like.

Speaker 2 (21:20):
Okay, now we're back here again. Yeah. I definitely got seasick. Okay. Yeah,
So all patients and staff sit around the actors who
perform in the central circle, and so this new venue
is a bit of an adjustment. At first, the actors
had been performing for two thousand people in Shakespeare's hometown
of Strapford upon Avon, so they're kind of figuring out

(21:42):
how allowed to be like. But it quickly becomes a
very intimate and for that reason powerful performance. The actors
say they can feel a palpable difference in this performance.
Certain speeches don't seem to have quite their usual reception,
but others that normally wouldn't get me tension or you know,
any kind of response response are imbued with a newfound potency.

(22:07):
So after the performance, the actors have a talkback session
with the patients and the staff, and it's clear that
this has been a positive experience for everyone. Mark Rylance
says he's sad to go back to his normal performances
after that. The performance at Broadmoor had been such a
welcome escape, and in some ways the audience there could
relate to the content so much more powerfully than typical

(22:28):
theater goers. Yeah right, So if you remember the play,
I'm sure you do, but let me just say Hamlet's
mental health and Ophelia's mental health are central elements. In
the end, Hamlet forces his uncle to confront the fact
that he committed a murder by making him watch a
play about it. So this is very powerful in a
room that contains people who have committed similar crimes, and

(22:50):
it seems like this play has touched people's consciences in
a way nothing really has before. So the Royal Shakespeare
Company goes back to their scheduled performances in Stratford. Rylance says, quote,
it was awful going back to Stratford after that, going
back to the audiences, they felt much more in prison
the audiences. Funnily enough, in Stratford, I always imagine that

(23:11):
you are talking to people on the level on which
they want to communicate, and that's fine, but it was
difficult after Broadmore, where we thought we were having a
wonderful conversation end quote. On the patient side, the performance
has a deep.

Speaker 1 (23:25):
On the patient's side, they thought the performances were lacking.

Speaker 2 (23:27):
They actually hated it, and so they decided to put
their own performance.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
They're so critical about the acting where it's just like
I just didn't believe it. I could do it better.
That's how this podcast came.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
On the patient side, the performance has deep and lasting impacts.
Doctor Cox will later write, quote, the insurgence of the
Hamlet Company and its non judgmental energies opened doors of
possibility which have not closed end quote. There are the
therapeutic effects of seeing live theater, of course, but there's
also impacts to the patient's self esteem by participating in

(23:58):
something that the rest of the outside world gets to
participate in as well. I treated like humans. Yeah. The
Royal Shakespeare Company tours with this production, mounting it in
several different locations. So when the London leg of the
tour is reviewed in the Guardian, patients at Broadmoor read
the review and get to know exactly what the critic
is talking about. So they're participating. And one patient, now,

(24:21):
David Caldwell, writes a letter to the editor he's a
patient of Broadmore, saying quote, I did not see Hamlet
staged at the Barbicane or the Old vic. The RSC's
stage was the wooden floor of the Central Hall here
in Broadmore. The only scenery was the nicotine stained walls
and the backdrop of age loyal drapes. Mark Rylance was

(24:42):
able to capture every aspect of a person's slip into
the world of psychopathic, manipulative paranoia. Many of us here
in Broadmore are able to understand Hamlet's disturbed state because
we have experienced such traumas. We are most grateful for
the cast spectacular efforts in staging Hamlet, or us for
free of charge, and on one of their infrequent days off.

(25:05):
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (25:06):
I mean I was kind of thinking about that, but
then the idea your story is not some you know,
maybe in your family you're the only one, or maybe
in your town you were the crazy person. Yea, your
story is as old as time, right, this is what
people have been dealing with since the beginning of time.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
Totally, and someone in a regular theatergoer would couldn't can't understand.
You have to understand, right, they can watch it purely
as entertainment rather than like, you know.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
It's like a little telegram from Shakespeare to those patients. Totally,
over hundreds of years. I mean that must have felt
wild incredible.

Speaker 2 (25:42):
Yeah it did.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
I loved it, Okay.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
So the experience is so positive for everyone that the
Royal Shakespeare Company returns in nineteen ninety to perform Romeo
and Juliet, and in nineteen ninety one the Royal National
Theater performs king Lear. In king Lear or Brian Cox
from Succession plays the title role and Sir Ian McKellen
plays the Earl of Kent. So late, yeah, I photos

(26:08):
these are two of the greatest actors of all, you know,
modern actors of all time? Yes, and they're yes, Bran Cox,
amazing right. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:16):
Also like I wish that people cared about acting more
in America the way they do over there, because it's
like a it's a true trade. It's like you go
into it, it's you're respected, it's like you want to
be doracle.

Speaker 2 (26:28):
It's not just like money making.

Speaker 1 (26:30):
Have you ever seen that thing where Judy Dench was
on Graham Norton and they ask her to just perform
a little bit of Shakespeare and she just does this
thing and she goes like zip and then she's like
speaking and talking, but it's the most compelling. You don't
know what she's saying per se. Yeah, and it's the
most compelling thing. It's like the people who know how

(26:51):
to do that right are like wizards.

Speaker 2 (26:54):
No, that's so true. So all of these plays that
they are staging deal with violence and mental illness described
as madness in Shakespeare's language, and all the actors talk
about how the broadmore audience would react to lines that
went over everyone else's heads. Brian Cox and Ian McKellen
talk about how the experience reinvigorated their passion for the plays.

(27:15):
McClellan writes that the actors quote, we're reminded of the
purpose of playing, which can too often be obscured by
the pressures of first nights and of long runs. Who
do we do these plays for anonymous audiences whom we
never meet, directors who we meet all too often, or
drama critics who sometimes tell us they're bored with Hamlet
End quote. A reporter goes along to the performance of

(27:37):
King Lear and notes how it moved the audience. Afterward,
a doctor tells her quote, patients will go on talking
about these performances for months, even years afterward. They come
up in dreams and therapeutic sessions. End quote. As these
productions continue a broad more a drama program there also
becomes more robust under a new creative unit that uses
the arts for therapy. Is very positive effects for patients,

(28:02):
and it must be I have to just note this.
It's around the same time, and it sounds like part
of this effort comes through Jimmy Savile. No, so like
the arts program, Like we can't just freeze over that. Oh, no, scuff,
it's tainted.

Speaker 1 (28:18):
So say that is one of the many hideous things
about people like Jimmy Savile where because you are a
wolf in sheep's clothing and your beer, basically exploiting this
opportunity that actually is very needed and wanted of people
volunteering and helping in places like that where maybe everybody
doesn't care as much.

Speaker 2 (28:39):
Right, like you tainted it for everyone for life. Yeah,
don't be a bucking monster. So well publicized improvements to
conditions at Broadmore inevitably leads to backlash. Some people in
Broadmore have committed violent and horrible acts, and there's an
attitude among the public that the patients there are living
the high life on tax payer money. Before King Lee,

(29:00):
a Conservative member of parliament, attacks the initiative, saying, quote,
why on earth should taxpayers fund the RSC to perform
to a bunch of psychopathic killers? End quote. And it's
like that's the attitude that leads people to be in
prison for life and in and out.

Speaker 1 (29:17):
And well and also it's just it's the easiest attitude
to have.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
Totally.

Speaker 1 (29:20):
They're all bad the end.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah, and they don't deserve good things.

Speaker 1 (29:24):
Yeah, And like we've done this show enough to be like,
oh right, there's so much nuance.

Speaker 2 (29:28):
Yeah, there's no humanity in that way of thinking, not.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Whatsoever, because also it's like maybe there are killers there.
What about all the people that got put there when
they were teenagers? Yeah, because their mental illness makes it
so that someone has to take care of them.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
And even the violence, you have to say, like where
did they come from? What advantages and disadvantages do they
have that other people didn't? Yeah, yeah, it's nuanced. Yeah,
So it doesn't seem like there's a direct link between
this backlash and an end to the performances. But the
professional performances by the National shit tkex Sphere Companies at
Broadmoor are limited to these three performances in the late

(30:04):
eighties and early nineties, but the use of theater and
the arts in therapy has lived on at Broadmore. We
don't know about any of the identities of the patients
who saw the plays other than David who wrote that
letter to the Guardian, so we don't know if any
of the people we have covered on the show were
present at any of the performances. However, Ron Cray and

(30:25):
June and Jennifer Gibbons would have been there at that time,
so it's possible that they saw those performances.

Speaker 1 (30:31):
I'm going to write a musical about the audience of
that girl.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
Come on, do it, sing us the opening song.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
I'm Ronnie Cray and I don't care what you say. Hey, hey, hey,
it's easy to rhyme.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Len you don't have a time, don't have the time.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Many times, this is the worst song we've ever written.

Speaker 2 (30:56):
We're gonna work on it. Shakespeare's plays are often compared
to a mirror, reflecting the audience so that they can
see their own lives in the stories. Doctor Cox says
this quality is what gives them their therapeutic value. He says, quote,
in therapy, we try to help what has been buried
to become conscious, but that's only half the story. What

(31:19):
becomes conscious has to become integrated so that can accept
my aggression, depression, little self esteem. It's making something you
can't tolerate into an integrated part of yourself. That's like
that end quote. And that's actually what my therapist calls
and what is called parts work, which is a really
interesting kind of therapy. There's a great book on it.

Speaker 1 (31:41):
And what is that that you're just there's many parts.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Of you, yeah, and whatever one is leading is you know,
like you're acting the way that helped you at one
time to get through life, probably as a child, and
you're still figuring that out. But there's other parts of you,
including that part that needs to be addressed and needs
to be shown. They're safe now and they're taking care
of not just like suppressed. So suppressing the angry part

(32:06):
of you isn't going to get rid of it. But
understanding why that anger is there and what happened when
it came like and what happened in your life when
you needed it is the way to work through it.
Happy birthday, Targia.

Speaker 1 (32:20):
That was beautiful.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (32:22):
I mean that's so true. It is so true. It's
I mean, I was in therapy for years before I
could really get that. It's because it's really hard, and
it is that kind of thing where it's like much
like watching a play, you have to look back and
tell yourself different stories about the experiences that you've had,
which is can be hard in and of itself.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, you're contextualizing all the history and as that personality,
and that personality might not be correct about what they're assessing,
like you can you know what I mean, it's just
or it's just one version exactly. Yeah, so it's called
the books called parts work, and to put it better
at doctor Cox quote the tempest and says, quote this

(33:03):
thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine end quote. And that
is the story of how Shakespeare came to broad Moore.
Hell yeah, a mental health awareness month.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
I love that story.

Speaker 2 (33:15):
Yeah, it wasn't that cool? Thank you Ali and Molly
for suggesting it. Whatever. Great, yeah, great job. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (33:21):
Also just those actors, like, because I bet you there's
about twenty five other actors that are like lesser known
that would have been in I'm going to absolutely look
up who was in all those productions and.

Speaker 2 (33:32):
Who knows what it did to them?

Speaker 1 (33:33):
Right exactly, Because like when you go out and you're acting,
you're just like, okay, I'm facing this way, three quarters
this way.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
It's the same pretty much.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
You're playing silences that you know will be there. Right,
here's the big part where they clap for it, holding
up a skull or whatever the fuck it is. And
suddenly now it's like it's probably very similar to but
they would never do this doing it for a grammar school. Yeah,
where it's like now they're laughing at some weird thing whatever. Wow,

(34:04):
that was great. Yeah, thank you Mark Rylance for the win.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (34:11):
Okay, Well we're going to go in a different direction. Please,
We're going to come back to America where you were
born and raised. Pay your taxes, shut out the iris.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
God damn it.

Speaker 1 (34:25):
Yeah. If you didn't pay yours, that means I didn't
pay mine. This is a story that I was going
to do when we were on tour, and I was
so excited about it, and then but it came down
to it was the Chicago show, but this is a
Wisconsin story, okay, and so the Chicago story is a
little more Chicago y. And so we saved this one.
And finally Molly Smith, again our producer, a great producer,

(34:49):
Molly Smith, was like, what if we do that one
on your birthday? It was like, that's such a good idea.
Oh God, what is it? Well, it's basically it was
just the thirty fifth anniversary of this event this month.
It happened on Friday May third, nineteen ninety one, around
the same time as your event. It happened on the

(35:10):
east side of Madison, Wisconsin, at a business called Central
Storage and Warehouse, which is a massive storage complex consisting
of five buildings inside these buildings, they store an unimaginable
amount of food and dairy products. The Associated Press reports
that it's about fifty three million pounds of food, including

(35:32):
quote wieners, thank sword to God, that's the ap wieners, wieners,
cranberries at about fourteen million pounds of surplus government butter
and cheese.

Speaker 2 (35:43):
I have a feeling I know what happens when heavy
stuff is in the warehouse.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Maron added this note, which is so, maren, fifty three
million pounds is very roughly the weight of one hundred
and seventy blue whales.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
Thank you. That's a lot.

Speaker 1 (35:58):
That's that's several pods of blue whales.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (36:00):
So on this day in nineteen ninety one, about twenty
or so CSW Central Storage and Warehouse employees are clocked in.
It's the afternoon on a Friday, so the end of
a long work week is just around the corner. But
things are about to take a very unexpected and unfortunate turn,
because somewhere in this massive complex, a small spark will ignite,

(36:25):
and soon it'll build into a fire that will be
among the most destructive in Madison's history. This is the
story of the nineteen ninety one Wisconsin Butterfire.

Speaker 2 (36:36):
Butterfire. I was totally thinking you were going sinkhole. Oh
you were like it was really heavy. I was like, yeah,
I know what happens when things are heavy.

Speaker 1 (36:44):
I mean, that's a great idea.

Speaker 2 (36:46):
This what No, I'm like, this is it.

Speaker 1 (36:47):
I also feel like the story of a sinkhole is
just like it's saying it's a sinkhole, it's sank and
then it's a whole. Some cars fell in and I
hope people didn't die.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
Yeah. No, okay, fire love it? I hate it, hate it,
hate it.

Speaker 1 (36:59):
We got a The articles used as sources today are
some from the Associated Press and the Wisconsin State Journal Archives.
There was a twenty twenty two piece by journalist John
Onkin that ran in the Wisconsin State Farmer, which just
precious name.

Speaker 2 (37:15):
For a new love of that one, Let's keep it alive.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
And then a nineteen ninety one piece from a magazine
called Fire Engineering.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (37:24):
Home Gym is a subscriber entitled Central Storage Warehouse Fire Madison, Wisconsin. Okay,
grabby headlines, get readers. The rest of the sources are
in our show notes. I started off by saying, have
you ever tried to brown butter. I thought it smelled
really good at versus what I was thinking. I bet
it did brown butter rice, chrisp retreats. Next time you

(37:47):
make rice, Chris retreats. Everyone brown lightly brown, the butter round.
That butter life changing. But you got to stand there.
It's like a thing. There's all these fats, and there's
all this chemical reaction and all this stuff to it.
And then if you wait one second too long for Burnett.
So let's just all get in our minds in that
way of what we're dealing with here. Okay, So what

(38:08):
really happens is this. The battery in one of the forklifts,
sparks and starts a small fire in the one warehouse.
The sprinkler system immediately kicks on. A couple of employees
hit the flames with fire extinguishers, but they can't put
it out. Luckily, there is a fire station one block away,
so those guys arrive immediately.

Speaker 2 (38:30):
They better.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
So some firefighters attack this fire with hoses. Others make
sure all the building's doors are shut so no oxygen
gets in to feed the blaze. Now the firefighters are
feeling like they have things under control, but there is
a problem. The walls of this building have flammable insulation,
so when the fire gets to the walls, it just
immediately shoots up to the ceiling and burns a large

(38:54):
hole in the roof. And it's a windy day in
Madison this day. Once that whole even starts, fresh air
rushes in, it feeds the blaze, and the fire starts
to grow exponentially. So basically it all starts like a campfire,
a small flame, someone blows on it, and now you're
having the best senior Spring week beach kre Ever, that's

(39:18):
my funny joke that I wrote it at the end
of that line. A key difference from your typical campfire, though,
is that in this scenario, the kindling is millions of
pounds of oily, fatty foods.

Speaker 2 (39:29):
Right fat that's bad, Right, it's bad.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
It's bad because it's a great fuel.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
Right.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
But it also the smell, which we will get to. Okay,
so Madison East Fire Department Chief Raunch smellser will tell reporters, quote,
what we got here is a massive grease fire. Oh
wait sorry, oh yeah, what we got here is a
massive grease fier.

Speaker 2 (39:51):
Eh it's a Canadian.

Speaker 1 (39:53):
Well, I had to come hard to come up from
wherever I was at the beginning. Yeah, and Madison and
Fire Department spokesperson Tom Olshansky will add quote, when you
splash water on a grease fire, it just splashes back
at you.

Speaker 2 (40:08):
We learned a long time ago, you're supposed to use baking,
baking soda. Soda.

Speaker 1 (40:12):
I'm going to go back over that to fix the
damage home Jim and I did with that misstatement that
we made basically going to listen. No one's going to
listen this time. It's our no, no that one. Oh, okay, okay, great.
So these fire crews have to be strategic because they
can't just go in douse the flames with water that
will make it worse. But even the most seasoned firefighter

(40:34):
on the scene, and there will eventually be seventy firefighters
fighting this fire, none of them can claim to have
ever fought a warehouse sized grease fire. Before they have
to get creative. Some crews tackle the central grease fire,
so the one that's right on top of the melted
food products inside the warehouse. Others are hosing down the

(40:55):
outside of the building, the roof and any adjacent buildings
keep to keep the fire from spreading, and those guys
can use as much water as they want to, and
they do at a rate of five thousand gallons a minute.
Oh my god, but the fire keeps burning and expanding.
And since home Jim and I really messed it up
the first time, let's use this teaching moment to give

(41:17):
the correct information of how to extinguish a grease fire.
Do not use water on those flames, okay. Do not
move the burning pot or pan that you have this
grease fire in like a lot of people try to
move it to the sink and the fire goes up
places like the grease will splash. Okay, if it's safe
to do so, turn off the heat source. That's a

(41:39):
big one people forget totally. Yeah, and if the fire
is small enough, you can cover the flames with a
lid or baking sheet. Only something metal, nothing.

Speaker 2 (41:49):
Glass, right, or like, throw a towel over it?

Speaker 1 (41:52):
No towels? I bet you that's did my dad say
throw a towel?

Speaker 2 (41:56):
No? But I feel like I would throw a towel
at something Yep, fire, something metal.

Speaker 1 (42:01):
You can definitely pour baking soda on top. I think
that's the thing they really recommend. Yeah, but if the
fire isn't going out or it's spreading, you can go
ahead and grab that fire extinguisher you don't know how
to use. Also, don't be a hero. If the flames
spread or you feel unsafe in any way, just get
outside and call nine one one.

Speaker 2 (42:20):
I own like five or six fire extinguishers.

Speaker 1 (42:23):
Now do you Yeah, do you have the You know,
one thing they say is cut that little piece of plastic,
the plastic ring.

Speaker 2 (42:29):
Yeah, so you can just get it going. It's gonna
do that. Still, it's still in the box.

Speaker 1 (42:33):
When you it's up in the attic. But the fire
we're talking about today does not go easy, of course.
In fact, no matter how the firefighters approach it, it
just keeps growing and it becomes so massive. The smoke
can be seen from miles and the heat is so
intense from this fire that drivers that are driving by

(42:54):
on the nearby Inner State Freeway can feel it from
inside their car. Oh no, seek a look at what
it looked like.

Speaker 2 (43:02):
Whoa, that's a big fucking fire.

Speaker 1 (43:05):
Yeprut Yeah, Central Storage. And also their mascot is a
polar Bear. Cocaine bear, poor cocaine Bear. So one of
the few silver linings here is that all of the
staffers at CSW have evacuated the building. Only one employee
has to be treated for minor injuries. So as far

(43:25):
as good news, we've got that and that's about it. Yeah,
because the closer you get to see USW, the more
hellish the scene is. There's a thick smoke and ash
covering everything. But since the source of this fire's processed foods,
the smell it gives off is disgusting, and the flames
reportedly reach eventually three hundred feet into the sky, about

(43:47):
the height of the Statue of Liberty. No, we have
a different angle just to see kind of how big
this thing.

Speaker 2 (43:54):
Is to start. Wow, that's tiny, little fire.

Speaker 1 (43:58):
I mean a little fire truck over there for scale.

Speaker 2 (44:00):
Nothing.

Speaker 1 (44:02):
So now it's six pm and it's three hours into
this ordeal. Firefighters are working hard to contain as blaze,
but they are struggling, and as things continue to deteriorate,
a new threat evolves. The flames have reached a second
building in that complex, and they're creeping toward a third
And these buildings store hazardous chemicals that are used by

(44:24):
CSW for everything from cleaning to fueling, refrigeration, systems including
sulfuric acid, potassium hydroxide, and ammonia.

Speaker 2 (44:33):
Are they flammable?

Speaker 1 (44:34):
Oh yeah, they're bad. So there's a new threat that
if the fire reaches those storage areas, there will be
not just more fire, a dangerous cloud of fiery, toxic fumes.
So as the exterior battle to contain the blaze continues,
their crews sent into those at risk buildings to shut

(44:55):
off any systems that might circulate those dangerous chemicals, like
the refrigeration systems, and if possible, they physically haul the
chemical reserves out of those buildings to safety. This whole
fire and this whole disaster has like a whack a
mole energy because the problems just keep coming up as
ones go down. Reports vary on when this happens, but

(45:19):
sometime between eight and eleven o'clock at night, the building
where the fire first started collapses.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (45:26):
And when it does, a wave of melted lard, butter,
and cheese comes pouring out of the building, with some
sources claiming that it's two to three feet high when
it does.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
But butter, cheese, and lard, Oh god, ew, look at it.

Speaker 1 (45:45):
That's all like melted processed food and butter and margarine
is so bad.

Speaker 2 (45:51):
That's gross. Okay.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
So Stephen Davis, who is the city of Madison's fire
chief at the time, will describe it as quote literally,
a river of butter just comes pouring out.

Speaker 2 (46:03):
What do you even do? Like I would just be like,
this is I can't do anything.

Speaker 1 (46:07):
Those firemen, I mean like they're swearing, they're laughing for sure,
they're making references to other people's cooking. Yeah, this is
like that's spaginning. You made the other That's just my opinion,
all editorial. It is important to say all the firefighters
make it through this building collapse unscathed, although the fire

(46:28):
is still raging. The tidal wave of melted food does
seem to dilute the most concentrated parts of that grease fire,
which is great. It takes disgusting sludge to put out
a grease fire. But we're talking about fifteen million pounds
of liquefied dairy. So now they have all new problems

(46:50):
because you saw how much goo there was and how
nasty it looked. One report notes that quote one firefighter
inadvertently sank up to his chest in butter and nearly
lost his boots as comrades pulled him to safety end quote,
and another describes it as quote discussing to look at
difficult to slog through.

Speaker 2 (47:12):
Tom, get out of the fucking pudd all get out.

Speaker 1 (47:15):
Of there, God damn, get me out of here, you guys.
The Associated press will write about what they call the
quote traces of black comedy, as these firefighters are forced
to trudge through the slop that has now made everything
incredibly slippery. Oh, some hoses slip right out of their hands,
when others are able to hold onto the hoses. When

(47:36):
they turn the water on, they get knocked backwards by
the forest. When they try to get back up, they're
slipping and sliding.

Speaker 2 (47:43):
All over the place. That's a three Stooges episode. It completely.

Speaker 1 (47:48):
Meanwhile, the excess water runoff is mixing with this oily goo,
so streams of contaminated burnt buttery glop are just flowing
downward from the complex. Some of this but eventually pools
in low areas up to five feet in some place,
while other streams stretch onto nearby roads. The hardest road

(48:10):
hit is the one that runs along outside CSW, which
is called Cottage Grove Road. It becomes so dangerously slick
that a city engineer describes it as quote like ice
in winter. It gets so bad they actually have to
close that road. No, you can't have anybody driving on
it because you're flipping around. And still the butterfire burns

(48:34):
into the night. There seemed to be no end in
sight for these poor slippery firefighters. Fire Chief Stephen Davis
was there for the butter tidal wave heat tells reporters
that he had quote butter in places a guy shouldn't
have butter.

Speaker 2 (48:47):
But at the end of the night end quote DMI bro.

Speaker 1 (48:52):
Listen, Stephen Davis is going to tell you how it
is like it is.

Speaker 2 (48:57):
Come with me to the butter.

Speaker 1 (49:01):
For me to get your better treatment. Around eleven PM,
the roof on one of the other still burning buildings implodes,
so evacuation orders are put into place for all the
residents in the area around CSW. Emergency workers are still
worried about fire reaching those chemical reserves, especially ammonia, because

(49:24):
while the crews were able to shut down the system
that circulates ammonia through the refrigeration like conductor, have you.

Speaker 2 (49:31):
See me nodding?

Speaker 1 (49:32):
You're like, oh, yes, I'm just reading this page. There's
still a seven seven hundred and fifty pound capacity ammonia
tank that's on site that they can't move. So the
fire can't get to that thing because it's huge and
it's basically a bomb waiting to go off. So the
local police have to drive around with bullhorns telling people

(49:55):
to leave their homes while cities workers scramble to put
together emergency shelter. It's like, you got to get out
of here.

Speaker 2 (50:03):
Yeah, well where do we go?

Speaker 1 (50:04):
And because it's Madison, Wisconsin, they pull it off.

Speaker 2 (50:07):
They do it.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Three thousand residents wow, including a couple hundred from a
nearby nursing home, are directed to shelter at a local
high school, with the last evacuees leaving their homes around
two am Saturday morning. Oh fuck that shit, it's just going.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (50:24):
When these people are interviewed by reporters, they have a
delightful and deeply Wisconsinian attitude about the whole event. Okay,
I'm really going to try to focus on this one.
One local describes the scene there as quote real calm, goodnes,
that's good, thank you. We just sat in the common
areas in the high school and visited. We weren't scared

(50:48):
we weren't scared. It was a new experience. I'm kind
of doing Maria Bamford doing her mom.

Speaker 2 (50:54):
Yeah, because that's good.

Speaker 1 (50:55):
That's as close as I can get. So they're having
a nice time. All the while, the fucking butterfire is
still burning. So while they're cool and chill, they are
facing the possibility of never seeing their homes again, because
if the ammonia tank goes, we all go. Fortunately, by

(51:15):
three point thirty that morning, fire crews have fought and
finally won the battle against the butterfire, and they do
keep the blaze away from the amona tanks. The residents
are told they can go home, but instead they stay
and they make jams and jellies for the high schoolers.
That's not true, but wouldn't that be fun if like,
why don't we go to the high school more? Okay,

(51:39):
So now it's dawn on Saturday. You know it's breaking
dawn Saturday, May fourth. Firefighters are still hard at work.
Everything is being done in a life size vat of
melted buttery shit, so fire engines and other emergency vehicles
are getting stuck in the sludge so that it's getting
hard to get the fuel trucks into ref fuel or

(52:01):
move equipment around at all. I think we have more
pictures right of just the like the buttery mess.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
Ew it's like a fucking raging river of butter up
to his thighs.

Speaker 1 (52:14):
I mean it is a fireman. It looks like he's
down in floodwaters.

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Yeah, can I say that? I bet their skin was
so soft for like.

Speaker 1 (52:21):
Weeks afterwards, and they're kind of.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Delicious, like looking in your hand. Do you want to
go to the movies? I don't know why, but do
you want to.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
Go to the movies?

Speaker 2 (52:30):
That's fucking crazy, so wild.

Speaker 1 (52:32):
So again they have to get creative with solving this
problem because everything is so crazy slippery, so they get mechanics.
They send in mechanics on foot holding five gallon buckets
of diesel to refuel the trucks. They also have to
slash through thick pools of grease while they do that,
so they have to make sure they don't fall down

(52:53):
and add like gasoline to this issue. But the tides
are turning and bite. Six pm Saturday evening, the situation
is downgraded to basically just a fire watch, meaning that
it's still unsafe in general, but it's nowhere near obviously
the four alarm fire from the day before, and that's
a huge victory. But now there are crises beyond the

(53:17):
fire because for hours, biologists and city engineers have been
at the scene, tasked of keeping all that greasy runoff
from flowing into the nearby stark Weather Creek, because if
that goes there, you're just killing everything in that creek. No,
these officials haven't had a lot of time to think
through a game plan. They don't have a butter fire

(53:38):
game plan. And that's why I am running for comptroller
of Madison, Wisconsin.

Speaker 2 (53:43):
Oh god, there's a fucking there's a big binder for everything.
Oh my god.

Speaker 1 (53:49):
And if all the buttermilks we go down there with
some nice Parker house rolls, it's not a good it's
not a good accent Parker house rolls, but they rise
to the occasion. Front end loaders, which are basically those
the kind of trucks little kids like the best, but
the big scoopers on the front is the way I'll

(54:10):
describe them to you, and I get it. They're brought
in and they basically they bring in sand, so like
hutter box exactly exactly. They're just absorbing up as much
butter as they can. Emergency workers also start digging deep
trenches hundreds of feet long in some cases to basically

(54:32):
trap rank dairy runoff as it's heading downhill to make
basically directed away.

Speaker 2 (54:39):
From the creek.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
These trenches are sometimes referred to and reporting as quote
lagoons of melted butter type stuff. And apparently they smell
god awful.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
Really, because it's like rotting at that point. Yeah, I'm hot.

Speaker 1 (54:54):
And you're just mixing gross you know, it's like cool
ranch dorito mix with margarine.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
No, that would be good.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
And the sprinkles on the tests right, Okay. So by
the next day, Sunday, May fifth, fire Chief Raunch Smeltzer
gives an update to reporters, telling them, quote, this fire
will probably still be burning Wednesday. Yet it's a little
yet at the end yet end quote. But things are
moving in the right direction. That same day, Cottage Grove Road,

(55:26):
which has now been nicknamed Cottage Cheese Road come on
by the locals, partially reopens to the public and a
line of teenagers in their cars are waiting to spin donuts.

Speaker 2 (55:39):
How bomber is everyone that it's happening on a weekend
and not like I can't go to work today.

Speaker 1 (55:43):
I'm so sorry I can't be at that meeting. Yeah,
I'd love to meet you. So the Great Wisconsin Butterfire
is officially extinguished. On Saturday, May eleventh, your birthday for
my birthday, that is actually my twenty first birthday.

Speaker 2 (55:59):
Wow, what was care and Kill Cara doing that day?

Speaker 1 (56:02):
I'll tell you what. I know exactly what I was doing.
I it was in Sacramento, and I want all my friends.
I wanted to go to a bar. I didn't think
anyone else.

Speaker 2 (56:11):
Would go to.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
So there's a bar used to drive by on fulsome
Avenue all the time, and I can't remember the name.
I'll have to look it up, but it was basically
a biker bar, and I made everyone meet me there.
I like, we all met there, and from when we
got there, which is, you know, seven o'clock or whatever,
we were just like hanging out and laughing. And finally
this guy comes over in a full on like Hell's Angels,

(56:34):
like he's an extra in a Hell's Angels movie, and
he goes.

Speaker 2 (56:37):
Why do you guys come here?

Speaker 1 (56:40):
We're just like, I don't know, we were just trying
to be like bitch you and people end up like
playing pool and having fun.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
They were very nice to us.

Speaker 1 (56:48):
I think they were retired. Okay, so to hell.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
The angels retire?

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Can they are they allowed to? They retire from violence,
right and mayhem and they help children and Santa Claus.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
This is eight days after the fire first breaks out.
It takes eight days for this thing to be over.
In the end, the fire crews are able to save
three of csw's five warehouses. No lives are lost, thank God,
which is of course a huge accomplishment both of those things.
The tearful owner of the complex, a man named Ken Williams,

(57:24):
is genuinely devastated at this huge loss to his family business.
And they do find out fire investigators go in and
it is the spark from this from that, just a
random yeah, like no one's fault, thank god, Ken Williams
tells reporters quote, thank God for the chief and his
people for their hard work. At times, it was like

(57:45):
the battle of.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
The bulge out there.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
With butter, the butter of the bulge, the butter, bottle
of the butter, the pre bulge, the butter. Now we're
onto the cleanup, which is a lingering and expensive crisis
in and of itself. For starters, again, We're at the smell.
A Facebook group made up of Madison residents commiserate about

(58:08):
the pervasive stench. In a post made last year, still oh,
still talking about it. One user remembers how they quote
had to keep the car windows up in the ac
off when I drove past THESW for two to three summers.

Speaker 2 (58:23):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (58:23):
Uh huh, that's nasty.

Speaker 2 (58:25):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
Another will add quote, I can still smell the rancid
dairy because it's just such a different smell than you've
ever probably smelled before.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
Yeah, and not one that you want to like, continue
to smell.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
No, but guess who did continue to smell it? The firemen,
because that butter sludge was all over their trucks, their
fire equipment, their hoses, and their uniforms that now have
to be not only washed, but sanitized or maybe just
thrown away. Meanwhile, big trucks sweep onto the cs W

(59:00):
property to pick up in holloway debris. It's taken to
the local dump, which has to extend its hours of
operation to accommodate all of this sludge. Yes, but a
bigger problem and a more difficult problem are those lagoons
of fatty runoff.

Speaker 2 (59:18):
We're just the worst phrase of all, lagoons of.

Speaker 1 (59:21):
Fatty run tons of fatty runoff. Fire Department spokesman Tom
ol Shansky describes this cleanup as quote not as volatile
or explosive, but it's the toughest stuff to clean up
next to radiation.

Speaker 2 (59:36):
End quote. Cross sucks.

Speaker 1 (59:38):
The same weekend the fire is finally extinguished, tom ol
Shansky is interviewed in an NPR broadcast and he describes
these challenges, which results in a bunch of unsolicited advice
from listeners. The AP reports that quote suggestions to Olshansky's
department include an Arizona callers recommendation that the University of
Wisconsin come up with a device that would freeze the

(01:00:01):
goo so it could simply be cut away. That's a
recommendation where you go, I'm going to make up a
dream scenario, and now you enact my dream scenario. If
I knew things about Marvel characters, I could reference one
that could do that with his eyes.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
But I can't.

Speaker 1 (01:00:18):
Ice ice Eye, good Old, Maureen, ice Eye, good old.
Let it be a girl for one.

Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:00:27):
New York City man's is that his character New York
City man. He's just got a white tank top on
and he's chewing gum, big accent. This man claimed to
work with Greece in his job. He says, kitty litter
would stop up the masses. In the end, Madison consults
with experts and uses what's described as a quote rendering

(01:00:50):
process aimed at dissolving the fatty debris so that everything
can be carefully pumped and disposed of through the city's
sewer system. Officials are extremely careful with this process because
lard can solidify in the sewer system and cause costly
and destructive.

Speaker 2 (01:01:06):
Blockages shit like in your arteries.

Speaker 1 (01:01:09):
Have you heard of fat bergs? Now, this happened in
New York City in their own sewer system because there
was so much lard and grease and stuff that they
had these things called fat bergs that were like icebergs. Yeah,
but they were basically it was just like big clumps
of stuff like that. They that were blocking the drains
of the sewer and that all goes okay, and stark

(01:01:34):
Weather Creek and the other bodies of water that it
feeds are protected great. So as for the cost of
this event. Many sources put the total it somewhere around
one hundred million dollars, which in today's money from.

Speaker 2 (01:01:47):
Nineteen ninety one one hundred million dollars one hundred million
dollars in today's money is seven hundred million, two hundred
and forty million.

Speaker 1 (01:01:59):
Wow. Yeah, there's basically a little over double.

Speaker 2 (01:02:02):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (01:02:03):
So among those contributing to the cleanup costs are of
course csw's owner Ken Williams. He has to pay like
half a million dollars. The US Department of Agriculture gives
two hundred thousand dollars, and the good folks over at
Oscar Meyer Wieners, out of the goodness of their hearts,
donate another fifty thousand dollars.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
That's nice, nice people, But.

Speaker 1 (01:02:27):
Also remember there's Wieners in that there. Sludge takes decades,
basically until twenty eleven for CSW to finally finish rebuilding
that complex.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
That year.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Sorry I made it sound like to clean it up.

Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
Yeah, that year.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
Ken Williams tells the Wisconsin State Journal that quote, there
were a lot of doubts. Really in a way, I
thought I'd never see it, but we persevered.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
End quote.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
Or Ken, I know Ken Williams passed away in twenty
twenty one, but his younger family members are now involved
in the business and they are all very deeply indebted
to the firefighters who worked for days, for eight days
to basically save their family business. And this is a
very cute front of the building.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
That's a fire at on the on Cocaine Bear.

Speaker 1 (01:03:18):
On Cocaine Bear. They did a little the cleanup in
the background and the little celebration for the Madison Fire
Department in the foreground, which is very nice. And that
crew included raun Schmelzer, who would sum up this bizarre,
grotesque and extremely hard fought job in playing terms telling
a reporter quote, in my twenty five years as a firefighter,

(01:03:39):
I have never seen anything like it. I think it's
safe to say I won't see anything like it again
in my career. And that's the story of the nineteen
ninety one Wisconsin butterfire.

Speaker 2 (01:03:49):
Wow, I've never heard of it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:51):
Right, great job me either, Thank you?

Speaker 2 (01:03:53):
Yeah, great birthday story right, Ah, you did it. This
is how we celebrate. What are you gonna do for
your birthday plans?

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
I think I'm going to go out of town to
a relaxing a place that's very relaxing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
That's a good idea. My thing is, yeah, baby, I'm
going to the strip. Oh god, yeah, the most relaxing
place on the planet.

Speaker 1 (01:04:16):
Everyone knows, everyone knows well, you know, it's really great.
And this is again We'll just keep on talking about
our producer Mollie Smith to suggest, why don't you take
Monday off? Yeah, because it's your birthday. And I'm like, oh, yeah,
I'm taking your birthday off too. Hey, great, it's gonna
work out. I mean, well, great job, Thank you kindly.

Speaker 2 (01:04:37):
We did it again. We have done it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
Proud of us, me too. It's like it's like we
do yoga with swords. We bring back the real Nancy Drew.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
We brown butter.

Speaker 1 (01:04:49):
We brown butter, We don't burn butter.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
We're basically Shakespearean actresses, actors who now know how to
put out a basic grease fire. That's right.

Speaker 1 (01:04:58):
If we're not giving you everything you need on this show, yeah,
I don't understand what you need, and I don't know
what else you need? Did I in all my fifty
sixty years. I don't understand what the fuck you're looking for.
Stay sexy and.

Speaker 2 (01:05:10):
Don't get murdered. Bye Bye, Elvis. Do you want a Cookie?

Speaker 1 (01:05:22):
This has been an exactly right production.

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer
is Tessa Hughes.

Speaker 1 (01:05:28):
Our editor is Aristotle l Ascevedo.

Speaker 2 (01:05:30):
This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.

Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
Our researchers are Mary McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
And follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.

Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple
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Speaker 1 (01:05:45):
And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.

Speaker 2 (01:05:48):
And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and
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