Episode 30: Dollop: The Taxidermist

Dave: While his friends were out studying and playing, Carl was out in the woods drawing pictures of animals in his own blood.
Gareth: Um, hey, question in the back?

As Dave said, Carl was fascinated by nature, almost obsessively. Know who else was obsessed about nature and animals and how animals died in his boyhood?

Jefrey Dahmer.

Seriously. His dad tells a story about his cleaning up the roadkill on their street, and taking a young Jeffrey along with him on this chore. Jeffrey enjoyed playing with the bones, often for a great deal of time after the chore was completed.

Youth’s Companion Magazine, the match that lit this fire:

• wonderful archive at magazineart.org
• youthscompanion.com

Hey, and you know who else had a dead sibling, an absent father, a strange, mentally ill mother, and who was a son obsessed with taxidermy?

Ed Gein.

And, answering the what the hell is gunite/shotcrete question? Yes, so, there’s that. Right-o.

Dinosaurs in the Attic: An Excursion into the American Museum of Natural History * Douglas Preston

Free ebook: Lion Spearing * Carl Akeley and Teddy Roosevelt, at archive.org

“J. T., Jr.”: The Biography of an African Monkey * Delia J. Akeley

Who here thinks Delia’s weird promise to never, ever punish the monkey went further then that? I’m thinking J. T. tore up more than Delia’s curtains, amirite? Ball, ball, diamond, ball!

Since Carl Hugh Glassed that leopard, he gets a theme song, vaguely suggested by a comment Dave made and the fact that I was a 1970’s baby and it changed me. Grab a beer, put your feet up, pretend you are driving in the Impala with Sam and Dean, and let’s do this. Remember, driver chooses the music and shotgun shuts his cakehole. Are you driving? Not today, baby.

Band names from this episode:

• Skinsocks
• Mushfur
• Bird on a Hat
• The Tusk Zone

Cultural references from this episode:

• The Shining: Danny’s backwards footprints in the maze
• the Joker
• The Complete Matrix Trilogy (The Matrix / The Matrix Reloaded / The Matrix Revolutions)
• The Complete Adventures of Curious George
• Rainforest Cafe
• Michael Myers
• and, our national treasure, professional wrestling