Sofa King Podcast

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we dig deep into the life of the legendary singer, activist, and cultural icon, Bob Marley. His life involves more than music and weed; indeed, there is also a civil war, an assassination attempt, and a tragic death. Robert Nesta Marley was born in a small rural Jamaican village called Nine Miles in 1945. His father was a white man, Captain Norval Marley, who worked for the British conquerors of the island at the time. He was 70 years old. Marley’s mother was Cedella, was a young black woman (seventeen years old), descended from the Cromantee tribe on Jamaica, famous for its most bloody slave revolt. In Bob Marley, you found both the oppressed and the oppressor. This shaped his young life on the island since he was never fully welcomed because he was a half-breed. He had to be tough, and tough he was. He started to hang out with a street gang called the Rude Boys, and while he never joined, his willingness to do anything gave him the name Tuff Gong (which stuck with him later in life). Eventually, Bob started to play music on the streets of Trench Town and built a group called the Wailers along with Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer (two legends in their own rights). They struggled with success, broke up, got back together again, and then finally made some hits and started touring with Bruce Springsteen and Sly and the Family Stone. Soon, Bob Marley and the Wailers became huge in the UK and finally the US, and they started producing amazing music unlike the world had ever known. This was shortly after Bob found Rastafarianism, which bleeds into the lyrics and purpose of all his songs. What gets crazy is that the island of Jamaica falls into a civil war with violence on the streets. The new Prime Ministers is against corporate control of industry and opposes the CIA, and that’s a whole lotta mess. Eventually, Bob was going to perform a show for peace, but two days before, people came to his house and shot him twice, his wife in the head, and his manager five times. Marley survived, obviously, and is such a badass, he still did the concert two days later. So, how does Bob Marley end up getting even more popular as a musician? Why did he and his early band play in a grave yard to defeat “duppy” ghosts? How do two gang members convince him to leave England and come back to Jamaica? How does he get the two warring political leaders to shake hands on stage? Why did he ignore the cancer that ultimately took his life? How many kids did he have, and how many of them were the products of cheating on his wife? Listen, laugh, learn.   Rolling stones article: http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-life-and-times-of-bob-marley-20050310

Episode 210: El Chapo: The Ultimate Kingpin

On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we look at the life, crimes, escapes, and captures of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera. El Chapo was born in the mid-1950s in the small Mexican town of Badiraguato. Nobody knows his exact birth date since records don’t really exist in that rural area, and he has told several people several different dates. What we do know is that he was the son of a violent and abusive father, and he grew up having to defend himself and his siblings. The young Joaquín Guzmán had no formal education, only getting stray traveling teachers who would come to his village a couple of months per year. By the equivalent of third grade, he is said to have stopped schooling altogether in order to help with family finances—this meant everything from selling chicklets, oranges, and sodas on the streets to working farm labor. By his early teens, he started his own small operation, growing marijuana (and possibly poppies), which was really the only way for anyone to make money in that area. By his late 20s, he had earned his nickname El Chapo (Shorty) and was running logistics for another drug kingpin, Miguel Ángel Félix Gallardo, who ran the Guadalajara Cartel. Gallardo was eventually arrested, and El Chapo earned a percentage of his business and was soon the top drug producer in Mexico. At his height, his Sinaloa Cartel was said to have been responsible for about half of the meth, heroin, coke, and weed being smuggled into America. He is also the master of the jail break, having snuck out of multiple jails and escaping Mexican law enforcement for decades. So how did he break out of the jails? How wealthy is he? Did the actor Sean Penn help to get him arrested? What crazy methods has he used to get drugs into the US? Why is it maybe even worse now that he’s in an American jail? How many people did his drug war kill? How did his son and a Catholic cardinal both die because of El Chapo? Listen, laugh, learn. Rolling Stone's Sean Penn Article: http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/features/el-chapo-speaks-20160109

Episode 209: Joe the Cannibal: Murder and Barbeque

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we do a little true crime detective work and bring you the horrible facts of Joe The Cannibal Metheny. Joe was perhaps worse than other serial killers, not due to body count or the torture that came before the murders. Instead, he was possibly the worst because he fed the meat of the dead bodies to various people living in Baltimore without their knowledge! Joe the Cannibal was born in 1955 in Baltimore, Maryland to a poor family with six siblings. His father died in a car accident, and his loss made things even worse for the family. His mother suddenly had to work several jobs at all hours to provide for her six children, and while her mom says their family was stable and normal, Joe claims the opposite. Joe says this was a period of trauma and neglect and that he was shuffled from home to home with no real love. Joe joined the army when he turned eighteen, and he allegedly served as an artillery crew during the Vietnam War. Here, he claims to have picked up a habit of doing heroin, and when he returned to the states, his girlfriend was also an addict. Eventually, they had a son together, and Joe worked as a truck driver, leaving for months at a time. In July of 1994, he came home from a long haul, and he found his “old lady” and his son both missing from his home. It turns out, she was turning tricks for someone across town to pay for her drug habit, and she moved in with him. The court found out, took their son away from both Joe and the mother, and Joe became enraged. Eventually, he went under a bridge where his ex and her pimp were known to do drugs, and they weren’t there. So, he started to interrogate what he called “crack whores” under the bridge, and in one night, he raped and murdered and killed. He killed five victims total that night, according to his own confession, and his days as a serial killer began. Within a year, he got a job at a pallet factory and lived on the premises. He started to lure more drug-addicted women to his trailer and kill them as well, but this time, he saved their flesh in Tupperware containers and kept them in a freezer. Eventually, he opened a road-side deep pit sandwich stand, and he served their flesh to unwitting customers. How many did Joe the Cannibal kill and serve to Baltimore? How quickly did he run out of is “special” meat? How did his plan to get more meat in stock backfire? What was the deal with the fisherman who got his head bashed in with a pipe? What did Joe say in his confessions? How many people did he ultimately kill, and why was his sentence changed from death down to life without parole in 2000? Listen, laugh, learn. Court Records Link: http://murderpedia.org/male.M/images/metheny_joe_roy/149a98.pdf

Episode 208: Raëlism: The Best Sex and UFO Cult Ever?

On this episode of the Sofa King Podcast, we talk about the UFO super-cult known as Raëlism. This religion was founded by Claude Verilhon, a Frenchman who started his life as a street musician turned French teen pop singer. He released several songs that were on the charts but not near the top. His dreams of being a pop star died when his financial backer committed suicide. A few years later, he became a sports-racing journalist, founding the magazine Autopop. He got married, and everything seemed good in his life. But then, he was visited on December 13, 1973 by the Elohim. The Elohim, or what he calls the “beings from the sky” were thought to be angels in past religions, but according to him, they were actually ancient aliens. They picked Verilhon as their final prophet, and he changed his name to Raël. A few years later, they took him to their home world, where he met people like Jesus and Buddha who gave him messages to bring back to earth. Now, he is devoted to opening an Elohim Embassy to welcome these benevolent aliens to Earth and prove we are ready for them. Oh, and he’s also devoted to have a lot of sex with his cult members, singing songs, wearing strange outfits, and getting humans to clone themselves. The company called Clonaid, a Raëlian group, claimed to have cloned the first human being in 2002. They named her Eve. So, this one gets strange, even as cults go. What does Raëlism believe about the human soul? When can Raëlists get baptized and promoted in the religion? Is Raël a sexual predator? What do his ex-wives say about him and his massive orgies? How many people are in this cult? How do they tie their own story to the main elements found in the Bible? Listen, laugh, learn.   Video about the Elohim Embassy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB37tB5vT_4 Article about Rael’s first wife: https://www.culteducation.com/group/1106-raelians/17521-i-was-married-to-clone-cult-leader-rael-15-years-he-wrecked-my-life-and-our-childrens.html

Episode 207: Jimmy Hoffa: The Ultimate Missing Person

Episode 206: Skull and Bones: Illuminati Junior?

Episode 205: Voodoo: Priests, Queens, and Zombies

Episode 204: The Flying Tigers: Secret US Mercenaries of WWII

Episode 203: Flat Earth: The Strangest Conspiracy

Episode 202: Sex Trafficking: It’s Worse Than You Think

Episode 201: Ted Bundy: The Ultimate Serial Killer

Episode 200: Gary Coleman: Tragedy and Time Travel