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Special Blend with Barbara Beall

Actress, comedian, and former live-show guest Barbara Beall is finally in-studio with Joe, Toren, and Kevin to talk about a grab-bag of caustic topics including the Ortolan Bunting recipe, an Australian double-whammy of deadly nature, a Soda Jerk’s personal story of being hit by lighting while flying a plane, plus some “I Can’t Believe You Didn’t Mention” followups from our wonderful Patrons!

Music: “A Need To Know Basis” by The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets

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15 Responses

  1. You don’t use a jar heated by boiling water. You put a lit birthday candle with vaseline on the rim on the boo-boo to suck out the evil humors. Sheesh!

  2. Props for the shoutout, guys. 🙂

    Btw, although the Guillotine may be out of fashion, beheading is not. Saudi Arabia is looking for 8 new executioners (“religious functionaries”) because of demand. They’ve already nearly exceeded last year’s headcount (if you’ll forgive the pun), and it’s not even mid year yet: http://gu.com/p/492d3

    My vote for worst way to die would have to be being eaten to death in stages by a bear while talking to your mum on the phone (I won’t ever forget that story from the Bears ep), or being flayed alive, Theon Greyjoy-style (spoilers!). That’d be pretty unpleasant.

    Well done on making me nearly dry-wretch again. 🙂 Those stories about Jamieson and the mother puss bucket were pretty grim.

    Thanks for entertaining and edumacating me for another week.

  3. You guys did talk about David previously. There was a joke about David getting too many and Saul was specifically asking for 100.

    Also the Ortolan is roasted then plucked and the cloth over the head is said to have one of two purposes. Either it captures the aroma so the eater can savor the smell or to shield the eater from the sight of God to avoid offending the almightly.

    1. I was thinking it sounded familiar too, as well as someone suggesting making a nice jacket out of them. I can’t imagine I heard that somewhere else. Perhaps it was in another follow up.

    2. From what I’ve read eating the Ortolan involves committing the sin of Gluttony, of the taking too much pleasure in eating variety. So it’s not just a Food callback but a Gluttony callback as well. The cloth over the head is supposed to help protect the identity of the sinner.

    3. Yeah the Ortolan is prepared and served in season two of Hannibal with the little bird being placed in a jar and the liquor being slowly drizzled over it filling the vessel
      (oooh now there’s a horrible way to die slow drowning like in the Cell. That gets my vote though like Derek said above that bear thing will stay with me Forever!)
      Strangely the bird looks more bemused than terrified.
      http://www.canalplus.fr/c-series/c-hannibal/pid6224-hannibal-videos.html?vid=1069746
      Hannibal also agrees with MJ above stating that the meal was considered so decadent that one covers ones face to avoid the sight of god.

  7. Your OR story reminds me of something that happened to me years ago. I was chatting with a nurse friend and she asked me to help change her patient’s dressing. I had free time and agreed. She neglected to tell me her patient had wet gangrene–a smell like no other. We had isolation gowns and masks on, and she reached over and placed a cotton ball soaked in peppermint oil, but didn’t offer any to me or make a mention that I might need it. As I held the arm for her while she removed the dressing, the smell hit me. I began cussing her as she started apologizing to me, telling me she’d thought I knew about the gangrene. Of course I could not just drop the arm and run out, I was stuck for about 20 minutes holding that damned arm while she worked as fast as possible as I tried mightily to prevent the dry heaves from becoming vomit in my mask. The entire lower arm was gangrened due to IV drug abuse. The patient was on a ventilator in the ICU, and yes, she eventually died.

  8. I remember you guys talking about poisonous frogs on an earlier podcast, and that reminded me of one of the funniest documentaries I’ve ever seen about the Australian Cane Toad. My AP Environmental Sciences teacher showed us this in class in my senior year, and when ever I go back to my highschool she and I still frequently debate whether or not the movie was intended to be hilarious or whether it was just the fact that Australians are like, fuckin’ nuts, man. Anyway, here’s the link to part one. It’s a slow build up, but just watch all of it and you’ll know what I’m talking about.

    Cane Toads: An Unnatural History