00:00:00
This is exactly right. Audible. Goodbye. Already turning heads at age 14. Because Next doesn't wait for an invitation.
00:01:03
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00:01:15
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00:01:20
Hyundai, an official partner of FIFA. Goodbye. My favorite murder These are from my garden, of course, from my greenhouse.
00:02:03
Incredible. Yeah. Peonies or ranunculus? Peonies and their Martha Stewart flavor.
00:02:09
Oh, the best flavor there is. I actually love these flowers so much. Yes. Did you guys know that, that you brought them?
00:02:17
Craig and I may or may not have discussed peonies. Love it. Very classy. Very classy.
00:02:23
Actually, we should thank our set decorator. Yeah. Corey. Corey. Corey Nixon. He's a PC.
00:02:29
He's not a set decorator. No, but he does this. But he's been forced to become one.
00:02:33
Yeah, and he dresses so well. We're like, you look like you know how to put things together.
00:02:36
Yeah. It's your birthday. I totally got you a present, and it's so cool, and you're going to love it, and it didn't get sent in time.
00:02:44
Yeah, absolutely. Should I have just shown you a photo? No, I'll give it to you next week.
00:02:49
Listen, I've now done this 56 times, and I couldn't care if it was a contest, and I won money at the end.
00:02:58
And I mean, I don't mean that in the like this. When I walked in here, it truly brought me joy.
00:03:03
Also, our producer, Molly Smith, is at the helm. Of course. Knowing how much I care about Rose Gold, what it does for me emotionally.
00:03:11
But this is as good as it gets for me. Yeah. Because I think after a while you're like, I don't know.
00:03:17
Yeah. Yeah. Especially when she like passed the milestone birthdays and get into the like, wow, birthdays.
00:03:24
I wonder if it's like not to stolen valor from the kids who had like high school ripped away from them.
00:03:31
But having my 50th birthday during COVID and you had your 40th during COVID. Yeah.
00:03:38
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.
00:03:43
Yeah. And I picked B. Right. Which I recommend in life. I feel like because I had my 40th birthday during COVID and cried on the day a lot.
00:03:52
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 town
00:04:03
more than I would, you know what I mean, normally. That's a way more positive kind of end result.
00:04:09
Like, I didn't get the blowout 40th that I probably would not have fucking thrown anyways.
00:04:13
But you can always cry about things you didn't get. Right. No matter. So, like, so 46 has to be a big blowout.
00:04:20
Yes. What a fucking Italy for it. Hell yes. Why not? Also, 40 is a different birthday, too, because that is a bit of a turning point.
00:04:27
And to not get to have anybody, like, just shower you with love on that day sucks.
00:04:31
It reminds me of all the kids in school who had summer birthdays, who just never got the cupcakes or the happy birthdays or whatever.
00:04:40
All lumped together. Yeah, Christmas birthdays, New Year's birthday. Whereas a May birthday, everyone's stoked the year's over.
00:04:47
Everyone's like, it's spring. It's a new season. It's a big advantage to have a May birthday.
00:04:52
Well, happy birthday. Thank you. I'll give you a present next week. It's cute, though.
00:04:56
I want to, though. It's just like a cute little thing that I saw and I was like, that's for Karen.
00:05:00
Okay, great. You know, not like, what am I going to get her? It was like, that's for Karen.
00:05:03
You sat down with a big pencil. What am I going to do? This is it. And then you start crying like it's your 40th birthday in COVID.
00:05:09
Right. How am I going to top last year? Oh, I found something, social media videos, that just showed up in my algorithm that I
00:05:18
didn't know existed, that is going to be my new personality completely. sword yoga
00:05:29
that is so dangerous no it's not i'll tell you why okay it's this company called weapon up this is
00:05:39
not an ad i just found them and i'm obsessed now so her name's sabina the woman who started it
00:05:42
it's like tai chi meets yo like vinyasa yoga meets like synchronized fencing but they have
00:05:49
I practice swords, so like they're not sharp or anything like that. But that I been waiting for my next You know I done the fucking performer I done hula hooping And now you been waiting for sword yoga Sword yoga Sword yoga
00:06:06
Now you pronounce that sword. I love the I love I can't help it. It's like a it's a stim.
00:06:12
It's a stim. When do you ever get the opportunity to just where you're like, no, sorry, this is my workout class.
00:06:18
I have to get even if it's a practice sword. Yeah. Sword. I'll let you know. I'm going to do a class.
00:06:25
I'm going to fucking do it. I'm buying a practice sword. It's like I'm vegan. It's like all I'm going to talk about.
00:06:29
Do you remember the story I told you where I used to take my old dog, George, to the dog park at 6 a.m.?
00:06:34
Yes, and you met someone there. I didn't meet him. I was on this end of the park.
00:06:39
On the end of the park, I looked down. There's a guy dressed like a ninja with a real sword.
00:06:44
And I was like, so I'm further away from my car in a straight line than he is to me.
00:06:49
How are we going to do this? I'm going to run at you. And then I just slowly walked back to my car and he never stopped sorting, swarting.
00:06:56
I wonder where he is now. That, ladies and gentlemen, is Tom Cruise. There you go.
00:07:01
That's all we needed. Well, I actually had a video for you. Oh. I think you're going to like this.
00:07:07
Okay. Because I was blown away at the information that I got from this. Oh, my God. Okay.
00:07:13
Nancy Drew went public domain in January and nobody is talking about what that actually means.
00:07:18
The version of Nancy Drew that most of us grew up with, the 1959 version, is not the original version.
00:07:25
The publishers rewrote her, making her more polite, less careful, and less impulsive.
00:07:30
In the 1930s version, she slams doors, talks back, drives into thunderstorms, and climbs into the back of moving vans to steal evidence from criminals.
00:07:43
She's 16 years old, and she's completely unhinged, but in the best way. And as of January 2026, that original text is free.
00:07:53
It's public domain. So I annotated it. The link is in my bio. Wow. It's $10. And it comes with an evidence log, a suspect tracker, and a playlist.
00:08:06
Wow. People are so clever. Here's what I love. She's like, I need people to know.
00:08:13
Like when she, that first half of the video had me already where I was like, what?
00:08:16
I never knew that. About Nancy Drew? No. But now she's making like a book club where for 10 bucks, you can join this thing of like
00:08:22
original Nancy Drew book club storyline. I love it. We're going to all read it. Right?
00:08:28
Yeah. I feel like that's something our listeners would be like, I would love to do that.
00:08:32
OG Nancy Drew. She wears pants. Can you believe she's so rude as to ask a question?
00:08:38
And she has a sword. Nancy Drew with the sword. Yeah. I'm totally doing that. Yes, for sure.
00:08:44
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.
00:08:52
Okay. That's our new book club book that we never speak of again. Yeah. You don't have to get me anything for my birthday, but if you would please join the 1930s badass Nancy Drew book club.
00:09:01
Hell yeah. That'd be fun. I love it. Oh, I just wanted to recommend really quick.
00:09:05
Yeah. There's a TV show on Apple. One. Widow's tooth. Widow's bae. Three. Widow's bae.
00:09:13
Widow's bae. Yep. I have it written down right here. My brain literally was like, but it was bad.
00:09:18
Say it. Say it fast. It's beautiful, beautiful Matthew Rhys. It's like a Stephen King, like haunted comedy island that's seen in the first episode in the historical society museum.
00:09:33
Fucking brilliant. Now, do you know, this is my favorite detail. So the person that created that show is Katie Dippold.
00:09:40
And she's the person that went totally viral and did go viral every year on Halloween.
00:09:45
because she has that tweet with a picture of herself dressed as the Babadook. And she was like, when you find out it's more of an adult drinks party than a costume party.
00:09:53
And she went to a Halloween party dressed fully like the Babadook with like crazy pale white face and a hat.
00:09:59
And she's just sitting there while all these normally dressed people. Excuse me, have a party on November 1st or October 30th if you're not wanting people to dress up.
00:10:08
I mean, it's very me where it's like, you know, the holiday, we're going to take it apart.
00:10:12
And then Katie Dippold, as I was watching that show and literally laughing out loud, I was like, who the fuck made this?
00:10:19
And then when I looked it up, it was like, amazing. Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, definitely watch it.
00:10:24
It's really clever and fun. It's so good. Okay. I love that we both had that. One, two, three.
00:10:29
Exactly Right Media. Video's big. We have a podcast network. It's called Exactly Right Media.
00:10:34
Here are some highlights. So many great podcasts on this network, but Brief Recess, one of the greats.
00:10:40
And this week, Michael and Melissa are tackling truly cursed legal headlines. They will be discussing the recent Hantavirus outbreaks.
00:10:47
But also there's a case of a Secret Service agent who was arrested for fondling himself in a hotel hallway.
00:10:54
So they're going to talk about that a little bit. Also, the bizarre twists in the J.P. Morgan sex hoax lawsuit.
00:11:01
I want to know more. That's really interesting. I mean, what's going on? Everything is—it's not the right timeline.
00:11:06
Oops, we skipped to a different— Let's bump it back, Nancy Drew. Fucking timeline.
00:11:11
Come on. And on Buried Bones, Paul and Kate head to Tacoma, Washington. Oh, man.
00:11:17
That place in 1947 after the murder of a mother and daughter sparks an investigation to a lesser known serial killer.
00:11:24
And that reminds me, I started reading Murderland again just because it was so good.
00:11:28
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.
00:11:34
I bet. It was freaking me out. I never thought of Tacoma as a haunted, scary place until I read Murderland.
00:11:40
Also, Paul Holst and Kate Winkler Dawson were just in these very seats yesterday.
00:11:44
I can feel it. Because they came here to record some shows together. Love it. And those videos will be up soon.
00:11:50
On Netflix. So great. Okay then over on the runaway hit Trust Me Lola and Megan welcome back from the Netflix doc of the same name Trust Me their guest Gnome Bice Line for part two of their conversation about the cult being raided by the FBI learning Christine was the informant and escaping Samuel Bateman control
00:12:11
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.
00:12:19
So just watch that because something's in common. And there's a new MFM animated out now on YouTube.
00:12:26
This time, Nick Terry animates the busy body deer from episode 64, where we discover that
00:12:32
the eyes watching us in the woods belong not to a predator, but to an extremely nosy deer.
00:12:38
And you can find every episode of MFM animated at youtube.com slash exactly right media.
00:12:44
MFM animated. I highly recommend that TV show. Yeah. Just like Widow's Bay. Totally.
00:12:49
It's up there. Do you need something like lighthearted and joyous to watch? Get in there.
00:12:53
Get in there. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. It's 2026. And if you have an alternative career like food photography or professional mixtape making
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00:14:27
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Quince.com slash MFM. Goodbye. When you're young, you don't really buy furniture.
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00:15:45
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00:15:51
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00:15:54
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00:16:02
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00:16:07
head over to article.com. Goodbye. All right, I'm first. And I have a really interesting story to tell you, hopefully.
00:16:16
Martinelli's apple juice, everybody. Yeah. Kling. 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.
00:16:29
Widow's Bay. Broadmoor Hospital. Oh, shoot. It's a sprawling psychiatric hospital about two hours east of London, dating back to the Victorian era.
00:16:38
Many of the worst criminal offenders in the UK who have been found to need psychiatric care have been sent there.
00:16:45
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 Minor, who helped compile the Oxford English Dictionary.
00:17:00
Oh, yeah. Remember? As well as like almost completely nonviolent people who were just dealt more difficult hands like June and Jennifer Gibbons, the silent twins that you covered.
00:17:10
So we have been to Broadmoor many times here. And today we're back at the hospital. It's 1989 and we're in the central hall.
00:17:18
Usually during the day, this space would be full of patients seeing visitors. In the evening, it's where the hospital will occasionally host a disco for patients who can safely socialize.
00:17:27
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.
00:17:40
Hell yes. You know Mark Rylance? Hell yes. Okay. The audience is mostly broad, more patience.
00:17:45
They have a much more intimate knowledge of the play subject matter the violence and mental illness of Hamlet than perhaps any prior audience has ever had In honor of Mental Health Awareness Month today we telling the story of how Shakespeare came to Broadmoor and how those performances affected the patients staff the actors
00:18:05
and the hospital. Wow. Mark Rylance, I got to see him on Broadway. It's like LaBette or something
00:18:12
like that. In it, he did a 15-minute monologue. Jesus Christ. And it's just him holding forth,
00:18:18
and he is one of the most compelling, incredible, well, stage actors, obviously movie actors,
00:18:23
But like on stage, you can't take your eyes off him. We have a photo of him in Hamlet when he was younger, if people want to see it.
00:18:30
Oh, yes. Right. That's right. Like that is an actor. Actor. Actor. But also the thing of like in England, and this is the one time I got a part and I had to go to Glasgow to do it.
00:18:42
Right. Many of the cast members that I was acting with had gone to the Royal Shakespeare Academy.
00:18:48
Yeah. And it unnerved me from the first moment I stepped into the rehearsal room where I was just like, what am I doing?
00:18:55
You're a Sacramento State dropout. Come on. Shakespeare Company royally. Although Tom Hanks did go to Sac State.
00:19:02
Oh. And he did drama there. There you go. But I think he graduated. I don't know.
00:19:07
I don't know. But look at you now. But I just have so much respect for that. Yes.
00:19:12
It's a big, huge, important thing. Yes. Like Juilliard. 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, Dr. Murray Cox.
00:19:24
And the rest of the sources are in the show notes. And also shout out to Molly Smith and Allie Elkin, my wonderful researcher, for this idea.
00:19:33
I just I wouldn't have stumbled upon this. And I just love it. Yeah, it's a good one.
00:19:38
So this all begins with the psychiatrist named Murray Cox. He's born in Birmingham, England in 1931.
00:19:44
He goes to St. Catherine's College at Cambridge, then trains as a doctor at London Hospital.
00:19:50
He works as a general practitioner for about 10 years before becoming a psychiatrist.
00:19:55
And he first works as a forensic psychiatrist at a prison before taking a position at Broadmoor in 1970 when he's about 39 years old.
00:20:04
So throughout his career at Broadmoor, Marie Cox becomes known for three things.
00:20:09
his insistence in seeing the humanity of each of his patients, which sadly is a kind of rare thing,
00:20:16
seems like, those days and these days maybe, his Christian faith and his affinity for the theater,
00:20:23
for theater, especially for Shakespeare's play. The way you said it the first time, I was like, for the theater.
00:20:29
You may remember from English class, if you weren't sleeping through it, or from Shakespeare in Love,
00:20:34
that in Elizabethan London, poor people who led pretty miserable lives were able to get standing room tickets
00:20:40
on the floor at the Globe Theater to see live performances of Shakespeare's play,
00:20:45
which was a huge deal. It makes Dr. Cox consider that theater may have had some therapeutic effect even then.
00:20:52
Dr. Cox presents these ideas at a conference of Shakespeare scholars, and that's when he first meets Mark Rylance.
00:20:58
So they get coffee together in May of 1989, right around when the Royal Shakespeare Company
00:21:04
is about to perform Hamlet. Dr. Cox tells Rylance that he discusses Shakespeare with
00:21:10
patients sometimes in their sessions, especially the ones who remember reading the plays in school.
00:21:16
And he says he has frank discussions with those patients about the violence in the plays and the
00:21:22
portrayals of madness, quote unquote, and whether they can relate. And so he uses them as a tool to
00:21:28
get them to open up. During that coffee meeting, Rylance has the idea of bringing a production of
00:21:34
Hamlet to the hospital. And it totally makes you think of when the Cramps went to a psychiatric
00:21:40
institution as well and played like their best show. Yeah. There's a video of that online.
00:21:44
It feels like so truly like we're being artists here when you do stuff like that where you're
00:21:50
like, we're not sitting here talking about like, how are we going to make it? Whatever. It's like
00:21:56
Mark Rylance is like, how do I take this talent and do something for the good? Totally.
00:22:01
And it's like the importance of art in mental health and that people actually recognize that is so important.
00:22:08
Yeah. You know, nowadays it doesn't even happen. But back then, it's really impressive.
00:22:12
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.
00:22:22
The performance takes place in August of 1989. I was just nine years old. How old are you?
00:22:28
Nineteen. Okay. And so here we are, nine and 19 living 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.
00:22:46
And why having this moment of art and peace would have been so impactful to the patients.
00:22:52
because, I mean, I heard 1989 and I'm like, oh, that was hard. And then I realized, like, not everyone knows who listens to this was alive then.
00:23:01
So here are some fucked up things. And shout out to Wikipedia for the help. The massively destructive Exxon Valdez spill had just happened.
00:23:11
Colombia's war on drugs, where Colombian drug cartels declared total and absolute war against the government was raging.
00:23:17
And in August of 1989, 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.
00:23:30
Yeah. So it was very turbulent. I have more. You want to hear more? Yeah, absolutely.
00:23:34
Horrible things. The pro-democracy student demonstrations in Beijing's Tiananmen Square had just been violently and publicly suppressed by the Chinese government.
00:23:42
Apartheid in South Africa was raging with a 70-year-old Nelson Mandela sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to overthrow the state.
00:23:50
There's more. The troubles in North Ireland were violently raging with the provisional IRA conducting paramilitary campaigns on British military targets and civilians in the British mainland.
00:24:00
what? Well, I just want to, you know, we're talking about the IRA targeting the British.
00:24:05
They shouldn't have been there. No, 100%. I mean, if they had just gone, then nobody would have been targeted. Yes. It was not a one-way street.
00:24:13
Colonialism. Colonialism. Colonialism happened. And then let's not get started on Serbia and
00:24:17
Kosovo or the Middle East and the Gulf War that's about to pop off. But don't worry,
00:24:21
just to end this on a like- Wait, there's also a hole in the ozone layer. Right. Oh, yeah. We were freaking out about that. Remember that?
00:24:26
Yep. But just to cap that with something positive, Taylor Swift is born that year.
00:24:30
So it's going to be okay. Oh, I didn't realize what a true Swifty you are. Everything's going to be okay.
00:24:35
Okay. Well, her album's called 1989. So like, I'm not brilliant. Oh, okay. I just know.
00:24:40
Just a reference. So we're here in Broadmoor Central Hall under the disco ball that's used for the hospital discos.
00:24:47
Take me there. And it's, you're going to love this. It's an in the round performance,
00:24:51
which we intimately know about because we did that on like our first or second leg of our tour in Arizona.
00:25:01
And they're doing it for Hamlet. Yeah. So tell everyone who doesn't know what in the round means.
00:25:07
I believe it was the Celebrity Theater in either Phoenix or Tucson. I think it was Phoenix.
00:25:12
Phoenix. And we didn't know until we arrived that night that this would be not just a stage
00:25:18
in the round, which means everyone can see you at all times. There's no, you can't.
00:25:22
You're like a gladiator in the middle of a fucking gladiator theater. People are like, no. But also that the stage rotated. So it wasn't a still round stage
00:25:32
where you could kind of be like, well, now I'm going to walk over here. You just moved there.
00:25:36
And it was really slow, kind of like the old Holiday Inn in Hollywood that had the rotating
00:25:41
restaurant, where it just kind of like, it's not crazy, but it's also not still at all.
00:25:46
Right. Yeah. And we were out of our minds. It was the most fun. It was so hilarious. I don't
00:25:51
remember anything about that time. And I fucking will never forget being in the round. I will never
00:25:56
forget the two girls that I used as my 12 o'clock because I was like, OK, now we're back here again.
00:26:01
Yeah. I definitely got seasick. OK. Yeah. So all patients and staff sit around the actors who
00:26:06
perform in the central circle. And so this new venue is a bit of an adjustment at first. The
00:26:12
actors had been performing for 2,000 people in Shakespeare's hometown of Stratford-upon-Avon.
00:26:19
So they're kind of figuring out how allowed to be, but it quickly becomes a very intimate
00:26:25
and for that reason, powerful performance. The actors say they can feel a palpable difference
00:26:31
in this performance. Certain speeches don't seem to have quite their usual reception,
00:26:36
But others that normally wouldn't get any attention or, you know, any kind of response are imbued with a newfound potency.
00:26:46
So after the performance, the actors have a talkback session with the patients and the staff.
00:26:51
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.
00:26:59
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 theater goers.
00:27:09
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.
00:27:18
In the end, Hamlet forces his uncle to confront the fact that he committed a murder by making him watch a play about it.
00:27:24
So this is very powerful in a room that contains people who have committed similar crimes.
00:27:30
And it seems like this play has touched people's consciences in a way nothing really has before.
00:27:35
So the Royal Shakespeare Company goes back to their scheduled performances in Stratford.
00:27:40
Ryland says, quote, it was awful going back to Stratford after that, going back to the audiences.
00:27:45
They felt much more in prison, the audiences, funnily enough, in Stratford. I always imagine that you are talking to people on the level on which they want to communicate.
00:27:54
And that's fine. But it was difficult after Broadmoor where we thought we were having a wonderful conversation, end quote.
00:28:01
On the patient side, the performance has a deep— On the patient side, they thought the performances were lacking.
00:28:07
They actually hated it. And so they decided to put their own performances on. They're so critical about the acting where it's just like, I just didn't believe it.
00:28:14
Like, I could do it better. That's how this podcast came around. On the patient side, the performance has deep and lasting impacts.
00:28:20
Dr. Cox will later write, quote, The insurgents of the Hamlet Company and its nonjudgmental energies open doors of possibility which have not closed, end quote.
00:28:30
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 something that the rest of the outside world gets to participate in as well.
00:28:42
They're treated like humans. The Royal Shakespeare Company tours with this production, mounting it in several different locations.
00:28:49
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.
00:28:58
So they're participating. And one patient named David Caldwell writes a letter to the editor, he's a patient at Broadmoor, saying, quote,
00:29:06
I did not see Hamlet staged at the Barbican or the Old Vic. The RSC's stage was the wooden floor of the Central Hall here in Broadmoor.
00:29:15
The only scenery was the nicotine-stained walls and the backdrop of age-loyal drapes.
00:29:21
Mark Rylance was able to capture every aspect of a person's slip into the world of psychopathic, manipulative paranoia.
00:29:28
Many of us here in Broadmoor are able to understand Hamlet's disturbed state because we have experienced such traumas.
00:29:35
We are most grateful for the cast's spectacular efforts in staging Hamlet for us for free of charge and on one of their infrequent days off.
00:29:44
End quote. I didn 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 the only one or maybe in your town you were the crazy person Yeah Your story is as old as time Right This is what people have been dealing with since the beginning of time Totally And someone in a regular theater goer wouldn
00:30:05
have, couldn't, can't understand. Don't have to understand. Right. Right. They can watch it
00:30:10
purely as entertainment rather than like, you know. It's like a little telegram from Shakespeare
00:30:16
to those patients. Totally. Over hundreds of years. I mean, that must have felt wild, incredible. Yeah.
00:30:22
It did. I loved it. Okay, so the experience is so positive for everyone that the Royal Shakespeare Company returns in 1990 to perform Romeo and Juliet.
00:30:33
And in 1991, the Royal National Theater performs King Lear. In King Lear, Brian Cox from Succession plays the title role.
00:30:43
And Sir Ian McKellen plays the Earl of Kent. Oh, Lee. Yeah, I have photos. These are two of the greatest actors of all, you know, modern actors of all time.
00:30:51
Yes. And they're, yes, Brian Cox. Amazing, right? Yeah. 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.
00:31:04
It's like you go into it, it's, you're respected, it's like you want to be great.
00:31:08
It's not just like money making. Have you ever seen that thing where Judi Dench was on Graham Norton and they ask her to just perform a little bit of Shakespeare?
00:31:17
and she just does this thing and she goes like zip and then she's like speaking and talking,
00:31:23
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 to do that are like wizards.
00:31:33
No, that's so true. So all of these plays that they are staging deal with violence and mental illness,
00:31:39
described as madness in Shakespeare's language, and all the actors talk about how the Broadmoor
00:31:44
audience would react to lines that went over everyone else's heads. Brian Cox and Ian McKellen
00:31:50
talk about how the experience reinvigorated their passion for the plays. McClellan writes that the
00:31:56
actors, quote, were reminded of the purpose of playing, which can too often be obscured by the
00:32:01
pressures of first nights and of long runs. Who do we do these plays for? Anonymous audiences whom
00:32:07
we never meet, directors who we meet all too often, or drama critics who sometimes tell us
00:32:13
they're bored with Hamlet, end quote. A reporter goes along to the performance of King Lear and
00:32:18
notes how it moved the audience. Afterward, a doctor tells her, quote, patients will go on
00:32:22
talking about these performances for months, even years afterward. They come up in dreams and
00:32:27
therapeutic sessions, end quote. As these productions continue abroad more, a drama
00:32:32
program there also becomes more robust under a new creative unit that uses the arts for therapy.
00:32:39
This is very positive effects for patients. And it must mean I have to just note this.
00:32:44
It's around the same time. And it sounds like part of this effort comes through Jimmy Savile.
00:32:51
No. So like the arts program, like we can't just breeze over that. Oh, no. It's tainted.
00:32:58
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,
00:33:08
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.
00:33:19
Right. Like you tainted it for everyone for life. Yeah. Don't be a fucking monster.
00:33:24
So well-publicized improvements to conditions at Broadmoor inevitably leads to backlash.
00:33:30
Some people in Broadmoor have committed violent and horrible acts, and there's an attitude among the public that the patients there are living the high life on taxpayer money.
00:33:38
Before King Lear, a conservative member of parliament attacks the initiative, saying, quote,
00:33:44
why on earth should taxpayers fund the RSC to perform to a bunch of psychopathic killers, end quote.
00:33:51
And it's like that's the attitude that leads people to be in prison for life and in and out.
00:33:56
And well, and also it's just it's the easiest attitude to have. Totally. They're all bad.
00:34:01
The end. Yeah. And they don't deserve good things. Yeah. And like we've done this show enough to be like, oh, right.
00:34:07
There's so much nuance. Yeah. There's no humanity in that way of thinking whatsoever.
00:34:12
Because also it's like maybe there are killers there. What about all the people that got put there when they were teenagers?
00:34:19
Yeah. Because their mental illness makes it so that someone has to take care of them.
00:34:23
And even the violence, you have to say, like, where did they come from? What advantages and disadvantages did they have that other people didn't?
00:34:30
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.
00:34:37
But the professional performances by the National Shakespeare Companies at Broadmoor are limited to these three performances in the late 80s and early 90s.
00:34:46
But the use of theater and the arts in therapy has lived on at Broadmoor. 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.
00:34:56
So we don't know if any of the people we have covered on the show were present at any of the performances.
00:35:02
Oh, yeah. However, Ron Cray and June and Jennifer Gibbons would have been there at that time.
00:35:08
So it's possible that they saw those performances. I'm going to write a musical about the audience of that.
00:35:14
Girl. Come on. Do it. Sing us the opening song. I'm Ronnie Cray and I don't care what you say.
00:35:23
Hey. Hey. Hey. It's easy to rhyme. When you don't have a time. Don't have the time.
00:35:33
And many times. This is the worst song we've ever written. We're going to work on it.
00:35:37
It's my birthday. Shakespeare's plays are often compared to a mirror reflecting the audience so that they can see their own lives in the stories.
00:35:48
Dr. Cox says this quality is what gives them their therapeutic value. He says, quote,
00:35:53
In therapy we try to help what has been buried to become conscious but that only half the story What becomes conscious has to become integrated So that can accept my aggression depression low self
00:36:07
It's making something you can't tolerate into an integrated part of yourself. That's like that,
00:36:12
end quote. And that's actually what my therapist calls, and what is called parts work, which is a
00:36:17
really interesting kind of therapy. There's a great book on it. And what is that? That you're
00:36:22
just there's many parts of you. Yeah. And whatever one is leading is, you know, like you're acting
00:36:28
the way that helped you at one time to get through life, probably as a child. And you're still
00:36:34
figuring that out. But there's other parts of you, including that part, that needs to be addressed
00:36:38
and needs to be shown that they're safe now and they're taken care of, not just like suppressed.
00:36:44
Yeah. So suppressing the angry part of you isn't going to get rid of it. But understanding why that
00:36:50
Anger is there and what happened in your life when you needed it is the way to work through it.
00:36:58
Happy birthday, Georgia. That was beautiful. Thank you. I mean, that's so true. It is so true.
00:37:05
I mean, I was in therapy for years before I could really get that. Yeah. Because it's really hard.
00:37:11
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 can be hard in and of itself.
00:37:23
Yeah. You're contextualizing all the history as that personality. And that personality might not be correct about what they're assessing.
00:37:32
Like you can – you know what I mean? It's just – Or it's just one version. Exactly.
00:37:35
Yeah. So it's called the book's called Parts Work. And to put it better, Dr. Cox quotes The Tempest and says, quote, this thing of darkness, I acknowledge mine, end quote. And that is the story of how Shakespeare came to Broadmoor.
00:37:50
Hell yeah. Our Mental Health Awareness Month. I love that story. Yeah. Wasn't that cool? Thank you, Allie and Molly, for suggesting it. What a great.
00:37:59
Yeah, great job. Also, just those actors, like, because I bet you there's about 25 other actors that are, like, lesser known that would have been in.
00:38:08
I'm going to absolutely look up who was in all those productions. And who knows what it did to them.
00:38:13
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.
00:38:20
Every night's the same, pretty much. You're playing silences that you know will be there.
00:38:25
Right. Here's the big part where they clap for holding up a skull or whatever the fuck it is.
00:38:32
And suddenly now it's like, it's probably very similar to, but they would never do this, doing it for a grammar school.
00:38:38
Yeah. Where it's like now they're laughing at some weird thing. Wow. That was great.
00:38:45
Yeah. Thank you. Mark Rylance for the win. Yeah. Summer is all about saying yes, going out and bringing the mess home in your car.
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00:39:20
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00:40:04
Goodbye. If you're always on the lookout for a great audiobook or just want help figuring out what to listen to next,
00:40:10
there's a podcast you should know about. It's called Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club, hosted by Cal Penn.
00:40:17
Each episode takes a closer look at some of the most talked about new audiobooks on Audible, spanning a wide range of genres from sci-fi and literary fiction to rom-coms, thrillers, and comedy.
00:40:26
Cal is joined by guests who dig into what these stories are about, what makes them stand out as audiobooks, and why they're connecting with listeners right now.
00:40:33
If you're looking for your next listen, this is a great place to start. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club, on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:40:43
Goodbye. 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.
00:40:54
Pay your taxes. Shut up. The IRS listens to this. God damn it. Yeah, if you didn't pay yours, that means I didn't pay mine.
00:41:02
This is a story that I was going to do when we were on tour, and I was so excited about it.
00:41:09
But it came down to it was the Chicago show, but this is a Wisconsin story. And so the Chicago story is a little more Chicago-y.
00:41:18
And so we saved this one. And finally, Molly Smith, again, our producer, our great producer Molly Smith, was like, what if we do that one on your birthday?
00:41:27
I was like, that's such a good idea. Oh, God, what is it? Well, it's basically it was just the 35th anniversary of this event this month.
00:41:37
It happened on Friday, May 3, 1991, around the same time as your event. It happened on the east side of Madison, Wisconsin, at a business called Central Storage and Warehouse,
00:41:49
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 about 53 million pounds of food including quote wieners
00:42:08
I swear to God, that's the AP. Wieners. Wieners. Cranberries and about 14 million pounds of surplus government butter and cheese.
00:42:17
I have a feeling I know what happens when heavy stuff is in a warehouse. Maren added this note, which is so Maren.
00:42:24
53 million pounds is very roughly the weight of 170 blue whales. Thank you. That's a lot.
00:42:32
That's several pods of blue whales. So on this day in 1991, about 20 or so CSW, Central Storage and Warehouse, employees are clocked in.
00:42:44
It's the afternoon on a Friday, so the end of a long work week is just around the corner.
00:42:49
But things are about to take a very unexpected and unfortunate turn because somewhere in this massive complex, a small spark will ignite and soon it'll build into a fire that will be among the most destructive in Madison's history.
00:43:06
This is the story of the 1991 Wisconsin Butterfire. Butterfire? I was totally thinking you were going sinkhole.
00:43:14
Oh, no. When you were like, it was really heavy. I was like, yeah, I know what happens when things are heavy.
00:43:18
I mean, that's a great idea. This one, no, I'm like, this is it. I also feel like the story of a sinkhole is just like, it sank.
00:43:25
It's a sinkhole. It sank and then some cars fell in. Hope people didn't die. Yeah, no.
00:43:30
Okay. Fire. Love it. I mean, hate it. Hate it. Hate it. We got to fight it. Yeah.
00:43:35
The articles used as sources today are some from the Associated Press and the Wisconsin State Journal Archives.
00:43:41
There was a 2022 piece by journalist John Onkin that ran in the Wisconsin State Farmer, which is a precious name for a newspaper.
00:43:50
Love that one. Let's keep it alive. And then a 1991 piece from a magazine called Fire Engineering.
00:43:58
Wow. Home Jim is a subscriber. Entitled Central Storage Warehouse Fire, Madison, Wisconsin.
00:44:05
Okay. Grabby headlines. Yeah. Get readers. The rest of the sources are in our show notes.
00:44:10
I started off by saying have you ever tried to brown butter? I bet it smelled really good at first
00:44:16
is what I was thinking. I bet it did. Brown butter, Rice Krispie Treats next time you make Rice Krispie Treats everyone
00:44:23
brown, lightly brown the butter brown that butter. Life changing. But you gotta stand there. It's like a thing
00:44:29
there's all these fats and there's all this chemical reaction and all this stuff
00:44:33
to it and then if you wait one second too long, you burn it. So let's just all get in our
00:44:39
minds in that way of what we're dealing with here. Okay. So what really happens is this.
00:44:43
The battery in one of the forklifts sparks and starts a small fire in one warehouse. The sprinkler
00:44:51
system immediately kicks on. A couple of employees hit the flames with fire extinguishers, but they
00:44:57
can't put it out. Luckily, there is a fire station one block away. So those guys arrive immediately.
00:45:04
They better. 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.
00:45:13
Now the firefighters are feeling like they have things under control, but there is a problem.
00:45:18
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 hole in the roof.
00:45:30
And it's a windy day in Madison this day. So once that hole even starts, fresh air rushes in, it feeds the blaze, and the fire starts to grow exponentially.
00:45:41
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 care ever.
00:45:51
That's my funny joke that I wrote in 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.
00:46:02
foods. Right. That's bad, right? It's bad. It's bad because it's a great fuel. Right. But also the smell, which we will get to.
00:46:13
Okay. So Madison East Fire Department Chief Ron Schmelzer will tell reporters, quote, what we got here is a massive grease fire.
00:46:21
Wait, sorry. Oh, yeah. What we got here is a massive grease fire. Is he Canadian? Well, I had to come
00:46:28
up from wherever I was at the beginning. And Madison Fire Department spokesperson Tom Olshansky will add, quote, when you splash water on a grease fire, it just splashes back at you.
00:46:42
Shit. We learned a long time ago you're supposed to use baking soda. I'm going to go back over that to fix the damage home Jim and I did with that misstatement that we made one time.
00:46:54
No one's going to listen. No one's going to listen this time. It's already. No, no, that one.
00:46:57
Oh, okay. Okay, great. So these fire crews have to be strategic because they can't just go in, douse the flames with water.
00:47:05
That will make it worse. But even the most seasoned firefighter on the scene, and there will eventually be 70 firefighters fighting this fire.
00:47:14
None of them can claim to have ever fought a warehouse-sized grease fire before.
00:47:19
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.
00:47:28
Others are hosing down the outside of the building, the roof, and any adjacent buildings to keep the fire from spreading.
00:47:34
And those guys can use as much water as they want to. And they do at a rate of 5,000 gallons a minute.
00:47:41
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 the correct information of how to extinguish a grease fire.
00:47:55
Do not use water on those flames. Do not use water on those flames. move the burning pot or pan that you have this grease fire in.
00:48:03
Okay. Like a lot of people try to move it to the sink and the fire goes other places.
00:48:08
Like the grease will splash. Okay. If it's safe to do so, turn off the heat source.
00:48:13
That's a big one people forget. Totally. Yeah. And if the fire is small enough, you can cover the flames with a lid or a baking sheet,
00:48:21
only something metal, nothing glass. Right. Or like throw a towel over it. No towels.
00:48:27
I bet you that's, did my dad say throw a towel? No, but I feel like I would throw a towel on something on fire.
00:48:33
Just grab something metal. Yeah. You can definitely pour baking soda on top. I think that's the thing they really recommend.
00:48:39
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.
00:48:47
Also, don't be a hero. If the flames spread or you feel unsafe in any way, just get outside and call 911.
00:48:54
I own like five or six fire extinguishers now. Do you? Yeah. Do you have the, you know, one thing they say is cut that little piece of plastic.
00:49:02
So smart. The plastic ring. Yeah. So you can just get it going. Going to do that.
00:49:06
It's still in the box. It's up in the attic. But the fire we're talking about today does not go easy, of course.
00:49:15
In fact, no matter how the firefighters approach it, it just keeps growing. And it becomes so massive.
00:49:20
the smoke can be seen for miles, and the heat is so intense from this fire that drivers that are driving by on the nearby interstate freeway can feel it from inside their cars.
00:49:33
Oh, no. Let's take a look at what it looked like. Whoa, that's a big fucking fire.
00:49:39
Yep. Central storage. Central storage. And also their mascot is a polar bear. Cocaine bear?
00:49:46
Poor cocaine bear. So one of the few silver linings here is that all of the staffers at CSW have evacuated the building.
00:49:54
Only one employee has to be treated for minor injuries. So as far as good news, we've got that.
00:50:02
And that's about it. Yeah. Because the closer you get to CSW, the more hellish the scene is.
00:50:07
There's a thick smoke and ash covering everything. But since the source of this fire is processed foods, the smell it gives off is disgusting.
00:50:15
And the flames reportedly reach eventually 300 feet into the sky about the height of the Statue of Liberty.
00:50:24
No. We have a different angle just to see kind of how big this thing is to start with.
00:50:29
Wow. That's tiny little fire. Tiny little fire truck over there for scale. Doing nothing.
00:50:36
So now it's 6 p.m. and it's three hours into this ordeal. Firefighters are working hard to contain this blaze, but they are struggling.
00:50:44
and as things continue to deteriorate, a new threat evolves. The flames have reached a second building in that complex
00:50:51
and they're creeping toward a third. And these buildings store hazardous chemicals that are used by CSW
00:50:59
for everything from cleaning to fueling refrigeration systems, including sulfuric acid, potassium hydroxide, and ammonia.
00:51:07
Are they flammable? 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.
00:51:20
So as the exterior battle to contain the blaze continues, there are crews sent into those at-risk buildings to shut off any systems that might circulate those dangerous chemicals like the refrigeration systems.
00:51:34
And if possible, they physically haul the chemical reserves out of those buildings to safety.
00:51:41
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.
00:51:50
Reports vary on when this happens, but sometime between 8 and 11 o'clock at night, the building where the fire first started collapses.
00:51:59
Wow. 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.
00:52:12
Butter, cheese, and... And lard. Oh, God. Ew! Look at it. That's all, like, melted processed food and butter and margarine.
00:52:24
It's so bad. That's so gross. Okay, 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.
00:52:34
It just comes pouring out. What would you even do? Like, I would just be like, this is, I can't do anything.
00:52:42
Those firemen? Yeah. I mean, like, they're swearing. They're laughing for sure. Yeah.
00:52:47
They're making references to other people's cooking. Yeah. This is like that spaghetti you made the other.
00:52:52
That's just my opinion. Yeah. All editorial. It is important to say all the firefighters make it through this building collapse unscathed.
00:53:01
Although the fire is still raging, the tidal wave of melted food does seem to dilute the most concentrated parts of that grease fire.
00:53:11
Okay. Which is great. It takes disgusting sludge to put out a grease fire. But we're talking about 15 million pounds of liquefied dairy.
00:53:20
So now they have all new problems because you saw how much goo there was and how nasty it looked.
00:53:29
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.
00:53:40
And another describes it as, quote, disgusting to look at, difficult to slog through.
00:53:45
Tom, get out of the fucking puddle. Get out of there. He's like, God damn it, get me out of here, you guys.
00:53:52
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
00:54:05
Some hoses slip right out of their hands. When others are able to hold onto the hoses, when they turn the water on,
00:54:12
they get knocked backwards by the force. When they try to get back up, they're slipping and sliding all over the place.
00:54:18
It's a Three Stooges episode. Completely. 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.
00:54:33
Some of this liquid eventually pools in low areas up to five feet in some places, while other streams stretch onto nearby roads.
00:54:43
The hardest road hit is the one that runs along outside CSW, which is called Cottage Grove Road.
00:54:50
It becomes so dangerously slick that a city engineer describes it as, quote, like ice in winter.
00:54:57
It gets so bad they actually have to close that road. No, you can't have anybody driving on it.
00:55:02
Just flipping around. Black ice. And still the Butterfire burns into the night. There seemed to be no end in sight for these poor slippery firefighters.
00:55:14
Fire chief Stephen Davis was there for the Butter tidal wave. He tells reporters that he had, quote, butter in places.
00:55:20
A guy shouldn't have butter by the end of the night. End quote. TMI, bro. Listen, Stephen Davis is going to tell you how it is, like it is.
00:55:31
Come with me to the Butterfire. Come with me to get your butter treatment. Around 11 p.m., the roof on one of the other still burning buildings implodes.
00:55:45
So evacuation orders are put into place for all the residents in the area around CSW.
00:55:52
Emergency workers are still worried about fire reaching those chemical reserves, especially ammonia,
00:55:58
because while the crews were able to shut down the system that circulates ammonia through the refrigeration-like conductor.
00:56:04
Did you see me nodding? You're like, uh-huh. I understand. I'm just reading this page.
00:56:09
Yeah. There's still a 7,750-pound capacity ammonia tank that's on site that they can't move.
00:56:18
No. So the fire can't get to that thing because it's huge and it's basically a bomb waiting to go off.
00:56:25
So the local police have to drive around with bullhorns telling people to leave their homes
00:56:30
while city workers scramble to put together an emergency shelter. It's like, you got to get out of here.
00:56:37
Yeah, well, where do we go? And because it's Madison, Wisconsin, they pull it off. They do it. 3,000 residents, 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 2 a.m. Saturday morning.
00:56:55
Oh, fuck that shit. It's just going. Yeah. When these people are interviewed by reporters, they have a delightful and deeply Wisconsinian attitude about the whole event.
00:57:06
Okay, I'm really going to try to focus on this one. One local describes the scene there as, quote, real calm.
00:57:14
Good. That's good. Thank you. We just sat in the common areas in the high school and visited.
00:57:20
We weren't scared. We weren't scared. It was a new experience. Aw. End quote. I'm kind of doing Maria Bamford doing her mom.
00:57:28
Yeah. It was good. That's as close as I can get. So they're having a nice time. Yeah.
00:57:34
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.
00:57:45
Because if the ammonia tank goes, we all go. Fortunately, by 3.30 that morning, fire crews have fought and finally won the battle against the Butterfire.
00:57:56
And they do keep the blaze away from the ammonia tanks. The residents are told they can go home, but instead they stay and they make jams and jellies for the high schoolers.
00:58:06
That's not true. But wouldn't that be fun if, like, why don't we go to the high school more and help those kids out?
00:58:13
So now it's dawn on Saturday. You know, it's breaking dawn Saturday, May 4th. Firefighters are still hard at work.
00:58:21
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.
00:58:30
So it's getting hard to get the fuel trucks in to refuel or move equipment around at all.
00:58:37
I think we have more pictures, right, of just the like the buttery mess. Ew, that's like a fucking raging river of butter up to his thighs.
00:58:48
I mean, it is a fireman. It looks like he's down in floodwaters. Yeah. Can I say, though, I bet their skin was so soft for like weeks afterwards.
00:58:57
And they're kind of delicious. And like licking your hand. Do you want to go to the movies? I don't know why, but do you want to go to the movies?
00:59:04
That's fucking crazy. It's so wild. So again, they have to get creative with solving this problem because everything is so crazy slippery.
00:59:12
So they get mechanics. They send in mechanics on foot holding five-gallon buckets of diesel to refuel the trucks.
00:59:20
They also have to slosh through thick pools of grease while they do that. So they have to make sure they don't fall down and add like gasoline to this issue.
00:59:31
But the tides are turning and by 6 p.m. Saturday evening, the situation is downgraded to basically just a fire watch, meaning that it's still unsafe in general.
00:59:43
But it's nowhere near, obviously, the four alarm fire from the day before. And that's a huge victory.
00:59:48
But now there are crises beyond the fire because for hours biologists and city engineers have been at the scene tasked with keeping all that greasy runoff from flowing into the nearby Starkweather Creek Because if that goes there you just killing everything in that creek
01:00:07
These officials haven't had a lot of time to think through a game plan. They don't have a butter fire game plan.
01:00:13
And that's why I am running for comptroller of Madison, Wisconsin. Oh, God. There's a fucking...
01:00:19
There's a big binder for everything. Oh, my God. And if all the butter melts, we go down there with some nice Parker House rolls.
01:00:28
It's not a good accent. Parker House rolls. So lovely. But they rise to the occasion.
01:00:36
Front end loaders, which are basically the kind of trucks, little kids like the best with the big scoopers on the front, is the way I'll describe them to you.
01:00:45
And I get it. They're brought in and they basically, they bring in sand. So like cat litter.
01:00:53
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 trap rank dairy runoff as it's heading downhill to make basically direct it in away from the creek.
01:01:13
Yeah. Yeah. These trenches are sometimes referred to in reporting as, quote, lagoons.
01:01:19
Yuck. Of melted, like, butter type stuff. And apparently they smell god awful. Really?
01:01:25
Because it's like rotting at that point. Yeah. And hot. And you're just mixing gross, you know, it's like cooled ranch Dorito mix with margarine.
01:01:34
No, that would be good. Yeah, I'll put that on toast. And then sprinkles on the top.
01:01:39
That's right. Okay, so by the next day, Sunday, May 5th, Fire Chief Ron Schmelzer gives an update to reporters telling them, quote,
01:01:47
This fire will probably still be burning Wednesday yet. It's a little yet at the end.
01:01:54
Yet. End quote. But things are moving in the right direction. That same day, Cottage Grove Road, which has now been nicknamed Cottage Cheese Road.
01:02:04
Ah. Come on. by the locals, partially reopens to the public, and a line of teenagers in their cars are waiting to spin donuts.
01:02:13
How bummed is everyone that it's happening on a weekend, and not like, I can't go to work today.
01:02:17
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
01:02:25
on Saturday, May 11th. Your birthday! For my birthday. That is actually my 21st birthday.
01:02:33
Wow. What was Karen Kilkara doing that day? I'll tell you what. I know exactly what I was doing.
01:02:39
It was in Sacramento. And I want all my friends. I wanted to go to a bar I didn't think anyone else would go to.
01:02:46
So there's a bar I used to drive by on Folsom Avenue all the time. And I can't remember the name.
01:02:52
I'll have to look it up. But it was basically a biker bar. And I made everyone meet me there.
01:02:57
We all met there. And from when we got there, which was, you know, 7 o'clock or whatever,
01:03:02
We were just like hanging out and laughing. And finally this guy comes over in a full on like Hell's Angels.
01:03:08
Like he's an extra in a Hell's Angels movie. And he goes, why did you guys come here?
01:03:13
We're just like, I don't know. We were just trying to be like edgy or whatever. And people end up like playing pool and having fun.
01:03:20
They were very nice to us. That's so cute. I think they were retired. Okay, so. Do Hell's Angels retire?
01:03:27
Can they? I don't know. Are they allowed to? They retire from violence. Right. And mayhem.
01:03:33
And they help children. And Santa Claus. Okay. This is eight days after the fire first breaks out.
01:03:41
It takes eight days for this thing to be over. Oh, my God. In the end, the fire crews are able to save three of CSW's five warehouses.
01:03:49
No lives are lost, thank God, which is, of course, a huge accomplishment, both of those things.
01:03:56
The tearful owner of the complex, a man named Ken Williams, is genuinely devastated at this huge loss to his family business.
01:04:03
And they do find out fire investigators go in and it is the spark from this, from that.
01:04:09
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.
01:04:18
At times it was like the battle of the bulge out there. With butter. With butter.
01:04:23
The butter of the bulge. The butter. The battle of the butter. The pre-bulge. The butter.
01:04:30
Now we're on to the cleanup. Okay. Which is a lingering and expensive crisis in and of itself.
01:04:36
For starters, again, we're at the smell. A Facebook group made up of Madison residents commiserate about the pervasive stench in a post made last year.
01:04:46
Still? Oh, still talking about it. One user remembers how they, quote, had to keep the car windows up and the AC off when I drove past CSW for two to three summers.
01:04:57
Wow. That's nasty. End quote. Another will add, quote, I can still smell the rancid dairy.
01:05:05
Because it's just such a different smell than you've ever probably smelled before.
01:05:09
Yeah. And not one that you want to, like, continue to smell. No. Yeah. But guess who did continue to smell it?
01:05:16
The firemen. because that butter sludge was all over their trucks, their fire equipment, their hoses,
01:05:23
and their uniforms that now have to be not only washed but sanitized or maybe just thrown away.
01:05:31
Meanwhile, big trucks sweep onto the CSW property to pick up and haul away debris.
01:05:37
It's taken to the local dump, which has to extend its hours of operation to accommodate all of this sludge.
01:05:44
Yes. But a bigger problem and a more difficult problem are those lagoons of fatty runoff.
01:05:51
They're just the worst phrase of all time. Yeah Lagoons of fatty runoff Lagoons of fatty runoff Fire department spokesman Tom Olshansky describes this cleanup as quote not as volatile or explosive but it the toughest stuff to clean up next to radiation
01:06:10
End quote. Gross. Sucks. The same weekend, the fire is finally extinguished. Tom Olshansky is interviewed in an NPR broadcast, and he describes these challenges,
01:06:21
which results in a bunch of unsolicited advice from listeners. The AP reports that, quote, suggestions to Olshansky's department include an Arizona caller's recommendation that the University of Wisconsin come up with a device that would freeze the goo so it could simply be cut away.
01:06:38
That's a recommendation where you go, I'm going to make up a dream scenario. Yeah.
01:06:43
And now you enact my dream scenario. Right. If I knew things about Marvel characters, I could reference one that could do that with his eyes.
01:06:51
But I can't. Ice. Ice eyes. Good old. Maureen Ice Eyes. Good old. Let it be a girl for once.
01:06:59
Thank you. New York City man. Is that his character? The Marvel New York City man.
01:07:07
He's just got a white tank top on and he's chewing gum. Big accent. This man claimed to work with Grease in his job.
01:07:15
He says kitty litter would sop up the masses. In the end, Madison consults with experts and uses what's described as a, quote,
01:07:23
rendering process aimed at dissolving the fatty debris so that everything can be carefully pumped
01:07:29
and disposed of through the city's sewer system. Officials are extremely careful with this process
01:07:36
because lard can solidify in the sewer system and cause costly and destructive blockages.
01:07:42
Shit, like in your arteries. Have you heard of fatbergs? No. This happened in New York City in their own sewer system because there was so much lard and grease
01:07:53
and stuff that they had these things called fatbergs that were like icebergs yeah but they
01:07:57
were basically it was just like big clumps of stuff like that that they that were blocking the
01:08:03
drains of the sewer and that all goes okay and stark weather creek and the other bodies of water
01:08:10
that it feeds are protected great so as for the cost of this event many sources put the total at
01:08:16
somewhere around $100 million, which in today's money— So it's 1991, $100 million.
01:08:24
$100 million in today's money is $700 million. $240 million. Wow. Yeah. It's basically a little over double.
01:08:36
Okay, so among those contributing to the cleanup costs are, of course, CSW's owner, Ken Williams.
01:08:44
He has to pay like half a million dollars. Shut up. The U.S. Department of Agriculture gives $200,000.
01:08:51
And the good folks over at Oscar Mayer Wieners, out of the goodness of their hearts, donate another $50,000.
01:08:58
That's nice. They're nice people. Sure. But also remember there's wieners in that there, sludge.
01:09:05
Takes decades, basically until 2011. Oh, my God. For CSW to finally finish rebuilding that complex that year.
01:09:13
Sorry, I made it sound like to clean it up. Yeah. That year, 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, end quote.
01:09:25
Poor Ken. I know. Ken Williams passed away in 2021, 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.
01:09:44
Yes. And this is a very cute front of the building. Oh, they put a fire hat on cocaine bear.
01:09:52
On cocaine bear. They did a little cleanup in the background and a little celebration for the Madison Fire Department in the foreground, which is very nice.
01:10:00
And that crew included Ron Schmelzer, who would sum up this bizarre, grotesque, and extremely hard-fought job in plain terms, telling a reporter, quote,
01:10:11
In my 25 years as a firefighter, 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.
01:10:20
And that's the story of the 1991 Wisconsin Butterfire. Wow. Never heard of it. Right?
01:10:26
Great job. Me either. Thank you. Yeah. Great birthday story. Right? You did it. This is how we celebrate.
01:10:34
What are you going to do for your birthday? Any plans? I think I'm going to go out of town to a relaxing, a place that's very relaxing.
01:10:42
That's a good idea. Las Vegas. Yeah, baby. I'm going to the strip. Oh, God. Yeah, the most relaxing place on the planet.
01:10:50
Everyone knows. Everyone knows. Well, you know what's really great? And this is, again, we'll just keep on talking about our producer Molly Smith,
01:10:58
to suggest, why don't you take Monday off? Yeah. Because it's your birthday. It's your literal birthday.
01:11:02
I'm like, oh, yeah, cool. I'm taking your birthday off, too. Hey, great. This is going to work out. I mean.
01:11:09
Well, great job. Thank you kindly. We did it again. We have done it. I'm proud of us.
01:11:14
Me too. It's like. It's like we do yoga with swords. We bring back the real Nancy Drew.
01:11:22
We brown butter. We brown butter. We don't burn butter. We're basically Shakespearean actresses, actors.
01:11:28
Who now know how to put out a basic grace fire. That's right. if we're not giving you everything you need on this show,
01:11:35
I don't understand what you need. Then I don't know what else you need. Then in all my 56 years,
01:11:40
I don't understand what the fuck you're looking for. Stay sexy. And don't get murdered.
01:11:46
Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? Ah. This has been an Exactly Right production.
01:11:58
Our senior producer is Molly Smith. And our associate producer is Tessa Hughes. Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo.
01:12:04
This episode was mixed by Liana Squalachi. Our researchers are Maren McGlashan and Allie Elkin.
01:12:09
Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com. And follow the show on Instagram at myfavoritemurder.
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