Timesuck with Dan Cummins

On June 18th, 2023,  a deep-sea submersible called The Titan operated by the private company OceanGate mysteriously vanished while its CEO piloted four passengers who had paid $250,000 each to visit the wreckage of the RMS Titanic. When it was revealed that all aboard had died when the submersible imploded, the accident was reported as an unfortunate tragedy. And it was. But later, it would be revealed that it was tragedy a lot of ...

In the 1930s, an association of primarily Italian mafiosos and Jewish organized crime gangsters, based in Brooklyn, was formed for the purpose of putting distance between the underworld figures ordering hits, and the people carrying out those executions. This organization would come to be known as, Murder Incorporated. And this is their insanely violent story, loaded with crazy characters and their colorful nicknames. 

Merch and mor...

Did you know that US government is engaged in efforts to close stargates to other dimensions? Did you know that they engage in weather modification? Or that Arizona is part of Africa? Or that NBA players are synthetic robots and that we've all been inserted with nanobots at birth that keep us from being perfect? You would if you went to the right UNIVERSITY!! This is a fun one. Let's get weird. 

Merch and more: www.badmagicproductio...

In the summer of 1968, two young children, both under the age of five, turned up dead in Scotswood, a run down neighborhood of primarily government housing in the industrial English city of Newcastle upon Tyne. Initially, the first boy's death had been ruled an accident. But when the second died... they knew he had been strangled. And the coroner felt another child had been the one to do it. Sadly, he was right. Who would've though...

Ever heard the name Mike DeBardeleben? I hadn't either until very recently. This guy was something else. A prolific counterfeiter the Secret Service spent many years chasing. Also someone who kidnapped bank exec's wives and successfully held them for ransom. He also kidnapped and sexually assaulted numerous young women. And pulled off armed robberies. And randomly murdered some realtors. If it hurt people, Mike was into it. 

Merch a...

Do you recognize the name, Owsley Stanley? If you're not a devoted Dead Head, probably not. But he's the guy who met the Dead when they had just formed, supplied them with LSD, and helped them form their psychedelic, jam band sound. He also supplied LSD to hundreds of thousands, if not millions of others hippies. It was his LSD that would truly fuel the counterculture movement of the late 1960s. The Summer of Love wouldn't have bee...

Do you believe that all non-vegans should die? In part for their needless murder of senseless people like.... cows? And in part because their predatory, cruel, EVIL behavior is providing a model for a future AI program to treat humans like a mindless food source once it inevitably takes over the world? If so... you'd make a good Zizian! This is a weird one. 

Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com 

Timesuck Discord! https://disco...

This week we cover the life and crimes of the most prolific serial killer in US history, Samuel Little. A monster the LAPD once dubbed "The Choke and Stroke Killer." Before he died in 2020 at the age of 80, he confessed to 93 murders. And the FBI have confirmed 62 of those murders and counting. Who was this guy? And how did he keep getting away with murders across America for over three decades? 

Merch and more: www.badmagicproducti...

Did you ever watch the Staircase docu-series on Netflix? Or the 2022 HBO MAX adaptation? I watched both, and still wanted to learn more about the divisive trial over the murder of Kathleen Peterson. Did her husband Michael kill her? Or was he railroaded by a justice system that held a grudge against him? Or, did Michael kill not only Kathleen, but also a woman in Germany years earlier? And did he have anything to do with the recent...

In the 1960s, Natalie Wood was one of the world's leading actress, her star shining as bright as Elizabeth Taylor's. She'd been acting since she was a small child, appearing in movies like Miracle on 34th Street. She'd starred opposite James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause, and she'd been linked romantically to Warren Beatty, Michael Caine, Elvis Presley, and Dennis Hopper. And her husband, actor Robert Wagner, may have gotten away w...

The Bone Wars, also known as the Great Dinosaur Rush, is what a period of intense fossil hunting in the late 19th century came to be called, thanks primarily to the intense and bitter rivalry between two of America's most prominent early paleontologists, Edward Drinker Cope and Othniel Charles Marsh. These two men, who started out as friends, would end up destroying each other's and their own lives in their intense quest to become ...

Have you ever heard of La Luz Del Mundo? a.k.a., LLDM? a.k.a., The Church of the Living God, Pillar and Support of Truth The Light of the World? Naasón Joaquín García, the leader of this church based in Guadalajara, Mexico (that some estimates claim has up to seven million members worldwide) is currently in prison after being found guilty of three counts of the sexual abuse of minors. And he is awaiting trial on charges of producin...

Remember when a bunch of dogs saved hundreds of human’s lives in Alaska a century ago? In January of 1925, diphtheria, a deadly disease, swept through the village Nome, Alaska… killing multiple children. The town was frozen in for the winter. No roads in or out. No ships able to break through the ice in the sea around it. No planes able to fly through a winter so cold, temperatures on the ground would plummet to nearly -90 degrees ...

Ever heard of Gary Heidnik? Pop culture wise, he's made a much bigger impact than most murderers, but few seem to know his story. This literal genius, who was also schizophrenic, joined the army, became a nurse, made hundreds of thousands of dollars in the stock market, crushed whatever college courses he took, formed his own successful church, and dug out a pit in his basement to store women he'd kidnapped. Women he raped in an at...

You've undoubtably heard of Dr. Seuss. The author of The Cat in the Hat, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!, Green Eggs and Ham, Horton Hears a Who! The Lorax, and so many other classic works of children's literature. But... how much do you know about Ted Geisel? Ted is the man behind the pseudonym, and he lived a very interesting life. And he wasn't able to make a living as the author of children's book until he was in his fifties.

Me...

Would you choose to have an identical twin? Someone who looked so much like you, that even your own mother couldn’t always tell the two of you apart?  Someone whom friends and even lovers couldn’t distinguish you from? Someone who experienced the world in a way so similar to your own, that no one else could ever possibly be able to relate to you quite like they could. Could be fun! But as you'll see... it could be also dangerous.

Fo...

Today we talk about moral panics. Specifically, the "Video Nasty" moral panic that happened in the UK in the early 1980s, and then again in the 1990s, when there was widespread fear that by kids watching horror movies with titles like Cannibal Holocaust, Flesh for Frankenstein, I Spit on Your Grave, and The Last House on the Left, they would literally be turned into rapists and killers. Was there any justification for this panic? C...

Pee Wee Gaskin's diminutive size of 5'2" tall and 130 pounds soaking wet didn't stop him from brutally killing at least eleven people, and possibly up to 105. The South Carolina serial killer murdered for a lot of reasons: revenge and personal vendettas, fits of rage, but mostly to satisfy a deep-rooted urge to rape, torture, and kill young women.  An urge Pee Wee called, his "bothersomeness.” 

Merch and more: www.badmagicproduction...