Get Shocked!

They say you are what you eat.

In which case, some people are toxic pufferfish liver. Others are a turkey head sewn onto a pig's butt.

Food is everything to us: life, culture, and community. For millennia we've put all kinds of things in our mouths, some of them deadly, some which seem - to modern eyes and ears - uh, questionable?

Today, as we dig, Jolts & Zing ask:

• What celebrity fad diet did Lord Byron introduce?
• What disgusting meal do George Washington and Warner Herzog have in common?
• Why did Fidel Castro breed a super cow?

Open wide! Here comes the plane! Full of wild weird food. Let's Get Shocked!

REFERENCES

• Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle
• Historic Kitchens at Hampton Palace - Recipes Reference
• Survivor, Season 10 Episode 8: Neanderthal Man, in which they eat Balut.

Created, researched and performed by Daniel Berger-Jones and John J King.

Produced and edited by Kenneth Fuentes, Daniel Berger-Jones, and John J King.

Victorians ate mummies.

Let me say it again: Victorians. Ate Mummies. For Medicine.

Many kept it around like aspirin.

Today, as we dig up a long-buried secret from our past, Jolts & Zing ask:

• Which King not only took mummy ashes for his health, but patented his very own medicine including the substance?
• Which canonical painter(s) used a special pigment - dubbed 'Mummy Brown' - mixed with actual mummified remains.
• Why, god, why, did Europeans start grinding thousand-year-old mummies to eat, snort, mix as a plaster, for their health?

Lay back, relax your mind, and let's explore all your Mummy Issues. Let's Get Shocked!

Created, researched and performed by Daniel Berger-Jones and John J King.

Produced and edited by Kenneth Fuentes.

The gods give us life. And we must give them life in return.

Specifically in the form of blood, tears, and hearts carved from willing donors.

Ah, the circle of life.

Nearly every ancient culture has their local version of the blood sacrifice to their gods. But the Aztecs created a ritual of passion, spectacle, and gore that goes unmatched.

Today, as we cut to the heart of MesoAmerican Blood Sacrifice, Jolts and Zing learn:

• How the Aztecs mastered the art of removing a heart - while it still beat.
• What Spanish invaders thought about the local blood sacrifices (and the style of blood sacrifice European Catholics preferred).
• What noble martyrs tasted like...to the gods who drank their blood.

Created, researched and performed by Daniel Berger-Jones and John J King.

Produced and edited by Kenneth Fuentes.

Birds do it.

Whales do it.

Ancient Greeks in toga tails do it.

Today, in our deep probe into the history of anal sex, Jolts and Zing learn

• How anal sex helps keep the peace
• Which non-human species have anal sex
• How public opinion (and law) on anal sex has shifted radically through time, and why!

Grab you lube, unclench, and get ready to Get Shocked!

Created, researched and performed by Daniel Berger-Jones and John J King.

Produced and edited by Kenneth Fuentes.

RESOURCES:

• Dr. Young's Rectal Dilators
• Bend-Over Boyfriend
• Shunga Artwork by Hokusai (NSFW)

One fateful day in 1943, Swiss chemist Albert Hofmann pulled out an old ergot compound he'd been ignoring for a decade, and accidentally got a drop of it on his hand. He soon experienced humanity's first ever Acid Trip.

Over the next 20 years, scientists, governments and militaries experimented to learn just what Lysergic Acid Diethylamide could be used for. The results? Astoundingly positive for therapeutic results, from decreasing anxiety to helping addicts go sober.

Then came Timothy Leary, hippies, and the political upheaval of the 1960's.

Today on Get Shocked: The history of LSD.

RESOURCES

US Military Video of Soldiers on LSD – MK Ultra

Full Dragnet Episode: The Big Prophet

1957 Broadcast interviewing a housewife who takes LSD on camera.

Recording of John Lilly (high on LSD) spending time with Peter the Dolphin (high on LSD) to test the drug’s impact on communication.

The world's wealthiest man.

Bill Gates? Jeff Bezos? Elon Musk? No, no, and No.

Mansa Musa, "King Moses," leader of the Malian Empire in the 14th Century.

Net Worth: approx. $400billion in 2025 dollars.

Under the watch of Mansa Musa, Timbuktu became the center of islamic learning and science. West Africa grew into an international trading force (supplying European nobles and elite with gold). Through all of this, Musa led the empire with a shockingly un-empereor-like hand.

Today, find out...

• What nation's economy did Mansa Musa destroy during a short visit en route to Mecca?
• What fashion trend - which had a resurrection as a 1990's fad - did Musa popularize?
• What truly wild personal problems has insane wealth solved for the more contemporary filthy rich?

Today: Mansa Musa, King of Mali, History's wealthiest man. Get Shocked!

A little stocking stuffer for you Shockers - some outtakes from our recent episode on Vampires.

We'll be back with our next full episode on January 16, 2025, diving into the story of the wealthiest man ever to live: Mansa Musa, King of 14th Century Mali!

Vampires suck. And thank goodness they do.

Complicated creatures full of flaws: no mirrors means bad hair days. Fangs make dentist visits tough. And they can’t eat stake.

But today's vampires have plenty to love: immortality, shape shifting, badassery and power. More often than not, they’re totally sexy.

Think snake-necklaced Salma Hayek. Long-locked, pastel-suited Gary Oldman. Kate Beckinsale cling-wrapped for your pleather.

But talk about a glow-up! Before Bram Stoker’s Dracula, stories and folktales showed vampires as stinking, filthy, peasants (no class judgment here – vampires just had these qualities). They came from the smallest villages, in the most rural communities.

How, in 500 years, did vampires transition from The Stinking Vampyr of Pentsch, to sparkle-chested Edward “I only eat woodland creatures” Cullen?

Well, immortality leaves plenty of time for a glow up.

Today: The real history of vampires. Or, the history of Real Vampires.

Let’s Get Shocked.

RESOURCES

• Vampires in the Sefer Hasidim: https://www.torahmusings.com/2011/10/vampires-and-witches-in-sefer-hasidim/
• Estries in the Sefer Hasidim: https://templeofmiriam.com/blog/sefer-hasidim-alukah-and-estries?srsltid=AfmBOoqUuIm990DKfyPMeleYKIhD-zsrkB_FX9akdWHyZlxnx5L6eq2A

Johannes Cuntius

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/sk53s8NGr6znMccN8xpSNM/nine-fangtastic-facts-about-european-vampire-literature
• https://occult-world.com/cuntius-johannes-pentsch-vampire/

JIANGSHI (Chinese Hopping Vampire) CLIPS

Encounters of the Spooky Kind: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTD9cVr2naM

Mr. Vampire II: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt8nC4rRc0U

Mr. Vampire IV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ASFhUsFOio

Henry More: An Antidote Against Atheism

• https://archive.org/details/antidoteagainsta00more/mode/2up

Who’s got two swords and went from poor fisher woman to pirate Queen in less than a decade?

Today, Zing ‘N’ Jolts set sail for the early 1800s to track the facts on a woman who truly defied the patriarchal society of her birth. For young girls growing up in a poor fish village, there were two options: stay where you are, or sex work as a means of upward mobility (err…horizontal mobility?).

Today’s heroine took the second option, and boy did she use it to jump the ranks. Becoming internationally renowned for her efforts above a Flower Boat, she seduced a pirate king and – when he died – took over the biggest pirate armada to ever sail.

Today: Booty & Junk: The Life and Crimes of Zheng Yi Sao. Let’s get shocked!

Resources

• Mr. Glasspoole and the Chinese Pirates https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/orbis:810058

• Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790 – 1810, by Dian H. Murray

• A narrative of the captivity and sufferings of John Turner ... among the Ladrones or pirates, on the coast of China showing the manners and customs of the natives ... in the year 1807

Jolts and Zing dive into the life, loves, and art of the iconic Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954). The renowned Mexican painter, celebrated for her feminism, indigenous fashion, and relentlessly personal artistic vision, has become ubiquitous in pop culture. But beyond the headlines of her work and chronic pain, lie incredible – and startling – details.

Today: Frida Kahlo. Let’s Get Shocked.

Warnings: Strong Language, adult themes including graphic violence, sex, miscarriage, and communism.

Resources

• Museo de Frida Kahlo: https://www.museofridakahlo.org.mx/?lang=en
• Frida Kahlo: An Open Life, by Raquel Tibol. https://books.google.com/books?id=HJaFg3S7AZQC&q
• FRIDA: A Biography of Frida Kahlo, by Hayden Herrera

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Created, Written and Co-hosted by Daniel Berger-Jones and John J King.

Produced and Edited by Kenneth Fuentes.