cover of episode 57: My Thoughts on Death & an Ireland Trip Review

57: My Thoughts on Death & an Ireland Trip Review

2024/7/16
logo of podcast The Broski Report with Brittany Broski

The Broski Report with Brittany Broski

Chapters

Brittany recounts her visit to the Paris Catacombs, reflecting on the history of the site, from its origins as limestone mines to its current state as a massive ossuary. She details the experience of descending into the depths, encountering stacks of human bones, and learning about the site's history and significance. The sheer number of remains and the artistic arrangements of skulls evoke a profound contemplation of mortality and the fleeting nature of life.
  • The Paris Catacombs hold the remains of roughly six million people.
  • Originally limestone mines, the catacombs were repurposed to address public health concerns due to overflowing cemeteries in the late 18th century.
  • The bones are arranged in intricate patterns and designs.
  • A concert featuring a 45-piece orchestra was once held within the catacombs.

Shownotes Transcript

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Direct from the Broski Nation headquarters in Los Angeles, California, this is the Broski Report with your host, Brittany Broski. Guys!

Get up get up cocksuckers. It was the fourth of July and guess what now it's When I go home, it's national Ireland day here finally declared I name this as

Tuesday, July 16th, 2024, National Ireland Day in Broski Nation. Guys, get up. This is seriously something to celebrate. This is seriously something to really, really take the time today and just be grateful for Ireland. Be grateful Ireland exists, okay? I'm gonna take this off so I don't piss off my editors. Guys, it is Irish summer. It's brat summer. They knew they were making the Irish flag that they would love Charlie XX in the future.

I don't think they know who they might. When the Irish flag dropped, Brat was going to come out a couple hundred years later. When was the Irish flag created? 1916. Okay, so, and it does have the Guinness sort of logo on it, which is nuts, and I will talk about that in a second. Guys, welcome to the Brocery Report. I'm back from my mini Euro summer. Okay, we did London, Dublin, and Paris. Are you happy to be in Paris?

This is the thing I always say about France and French people, is when I went as a teenager, I was like so excited to use my little phrases. Où sont les toilettes? Bonjour, bonsoir. I was so excited to get up in there. Je m'appelle. S'il vous plaît. I was so ready to get up in there and use my little Rick Steves assistant phrases. I went up to this lady at the Louvre. This is when I was like 18, and I said...

Excusez-moi, parlez-vous anglais? OĂą sont les toilettes? She said, "Non." I said, "Do you speak English?" She said, "No." And then I was like, "Ouch!" And then other places, I would go in and I'd be like, "Bonjour, I speak English." That's what the barista would hit me with. "I speak English. What do you want? What can I get you?" Okay. Hi, how are you? I'm from America. "Yes, I know. I speak English. What do you want?"

Hi, can I just get a coffee with like 13 pumps of sugar-free vanilla? We don't have sugar-free vanilla. We have cappuccino. We have coffee. Which do you want? Yeah, okay, so...

The way that my stomach's actually set up is like, unless there's an ignorant amount, copious amount of sugar in it, my body will not process it. Also, we're in Europe, so we're dealing with very rich foods, very rich liquids. If you don't put sugar in it, I'm going to shit my pants. Everybody's still like, ashing a cigarette in my fucking...

They for real hate Americans, dude. They hate Americans. And guess what? I get it because I am American and my ass is over there and I hate Americans. Me and Katie were sitting at these cafes like fucking Americans. Coca-Cola on ice with a slice of lime. Do you guys have chips and salsa? I hate Americans. Pfft.

That's what every French person does. They sit down and sing the national anthem. Oh my God, I have so much to fucking talk to y'all about. I ate so much damn bread over there and I'm not supposed to eat bread. That sounded so like, it's 2003 and I weigh 130 pounds and I think I'm obese. I'm not supposed to eat bread. It just stay bad for me. No, but really my doctor told me that, um,

yeast and What the fuck is in bread? Glucose? Where it turns to glucose? What the fuck is that? Bumpin' that, bumpin' that, bumpin' that I'm in your baby, I'm in your baby, I'm your favorite, favorite, favorite Guys! Okay, shut up. Let's, let's, let's, let's reboot. Let's focus on one thing. Okay guys, you guys are scattered. We're gonna reel it back. Relax. I had two Red Bulls before this.

And we're going to celebrate. We're going to kick off this Irish episode by talking about Paris, France. Okay? We were in Paris. And it's set up for the Olympics right now. Which, by the way, I'm going to the Olympics. I don't... I don't know. I don't know. I think I'm going to the Olympics. We're, like, trying to work it out right now. And I think I'm going to... I don't know. It'll be really cool. It'll be really, really cool. So, we were in Paris last week. It is completely set up for the Olympics. They have the Olympic rings on the Eiffel Tower. They have...

set up seats and stands along the Seine River and along different sort of avenues and roads in Paris. Some of the museums, I think, are being converted into like

gymnastic spaces. They're doing beach volleyball under the Eiffel Tower. What a cool once-in-a-lifetime, like truly how cool. Now, what is the flip side of that? The absolute waste and destruction that comes with setting up the Olympics in a highly populated city. Yeah, it's awful. And the taxi driver we had that took us from the airport to, from Charles de Gaulle,

to the inner city was sort of really bitching about it. And I was like, damn, I actually understand that. Like if everyone came to LA for the Olympics, I'd be pissed off. Like I have to go get groceries, get out my fucking way. Anyway, he was pissed. He was like, it's election day. Oh my God, that happened when we were there too. It was election day in France, all these crazy sort of protests. And they like, there was one celebration and then one sort of, and then it went the other way. And then it was, it was crazy to be there.

The police were out with guns and there were like trash cans on fire. It was a lot. I love Paris When I wear the I heart Paris t-shirt, that's what I'm talking about Revolution and I'm proud to be Anyway, oh my god, I have so much to tell y'all. Okay. Anyway, so Paris is all set up for that right now Very very cool, but also very like hmm the longer we stayed there I was like fucking Americans Katie and I went to

The catacombs, okay? We went to the Paris catacombs. The last time I was in Paris was in 2015 with my mom, and we did all the sort of touristy things. You know, we did the Eiffel Tower, we did Notre Dame, because back then it wasn't still under construction. Oh my God, y'all, that was crazy too. Seeing this monolith Gothic structure,

be behind construction walls and like all the scaffolding on the side, because it goes back so, like the nave of the church goes back so far. It's a massive structure. And to see them still rebuilding it, it has a finish deadline, I believe, of December of this year. So it's a shame that it won't be fully done by the time the Olympics are there. But even then, the whole story of Notre Dame and

The destruction that that fire caused during the pandemic was nuts because all these billionaires came together to like rebuild it and repair it from the fire damage because the whole sort of center behind the two spires collapsed in on itself, which is just.

I mean, anything like that, anytime anything like that happens, when it's art, when it's a very famous old building, when something deteriorates or crumbles due to, you know, just human negligence or a disaster like a fire, it just, that's a part of human history. Like, that should be a collective sort of sigh of like, this is part of preserving like the human, you know, it's a collective history. Something as old as a church like that.

So all these billionaires came together, pledged money to rebuild it. And so they're rebuilding it and it's on track to be done. But it's also like watching that happen and hearing. Let me look up the actual price that they quoted of fixing it, of what was donated, because that money could have gone to other things. Notre Dame repairs budget.

Rebuilding Notre Dame de Paris, the public body responsible for the conservation and restoration of the cathedral estimated it would cost $760 million. $760 million restoration of the Notre Dame Cathedral. 846 million euros. Yeah, it's just nuts because it's like, okay, well, where was all that money before? Where was that money before? Anyway, so we did...

All that in 2015. We did all the Taurus-y stuff. And the one thing we missed that... Y'all know my mother is a ghost hunter. She loves everything macabre, everything morbid. We wanted to do the catacombs. And we didn't have time. We ended up running out of time to do the catacombs because other things took precedence. And we spent way too long at the Louvre. Because the Louvre, in and of itself, you could spend a whole week there and not see everything. So...

We prioritized art because that's what I kind of wanted to do. And also the catacombs sell out so quickly. You can only have a certain amount of people down there in a day. So we finally did it this trip around and I didn't really know the tea. Like I didn't know the history of it. I don't know why there's a fucking city of bones under the city of Paris. I never gave much thought to it other than like, that's kind of creepy.

We did a self-guided audio tour through it and now this is for reference only a part of the catacombs. The catacombs goes under, I'm fairly certain, the majority of the city of Paris. It is massive, a complete massive underground system that was built, what is it, like 500 meters below the surface? Okay, so 20 meters. Okay, so 60 feet underground.

Yes, hello, not 500 meters. That is a very, very long way. Maybe I meant 500 feet. Well, it's 66 feet. The Paris Catacombs are about 66 feet deep, which is roughly the height of a five-story building.

To get to the catacombs, visitors must descend 131 steps and climb back up 112. Now that was crazy because it's a spiral. Okay, you're going down, down, down, and you don't know where it's going. Because I wasn't counting. My dumb ass isn't counting. I'm just like, God, it's just taking forever! And it's just a constant spiral. And then you start to, there's no windows, obviously, because it's underground. You lose the natural light the more you descend. And then these like weird fucking archaeology lights come on. And it's so strange.

You get to the very bottom and then you see the steps change from like, you know, oh, modern construction to like, oh, that's the earth. And so you go down, you descend all those steps and we did the self-guided audio tour. They do some, you know, like any sort of tourist attraction, spoken guides. And we thought about it and then it was so expensive and there was only room for one person. I was like, we're not doing that. So they give you these little things that look like phones and you just put it up to your ear.

And so, okay, let me start at the beginning. Okay, so when you think about Paris around this time, this is 1780s Paris, hygiene doesn't exist. There's really no public sanitation or any formidable public sanitation. There is disease rampant across the city and outside the city.

mass graves, okay? There is no proper hygienic way to dispose of bodies in this sort of amount. So they started moving bodies from the city to these grave sites outside the city walls, sort of the city borders. That started to become a problem. And so around this time, this is revolution time, this is a time of mass outbreak, of disease, plague, whatever.

Someone made the executive decision to take all of these bodies, burn them, exhume them, and move them rather to a gravesite underneath the city. Why they did this, I don't know. I will read about it in a second. But there was a series of mass exhumations, evacuations of all of these bones that

To under the city. And so they're literally digging up bodies and it would become a public spectacle. They would have these huge open pits where they would lift out the bodies. And I mean, there were so many, it's hard to identify them, which also makes part of, I have so much to say on this, but it makes part of the Paris catacombs so interesting is because it's not a traditional thing.

grave site or even a mass grave site for places that I've visited before historically where it's it's a memoriam it's it's in memoriam of a larger sort of tragedy and they try to account for as many names as they can but when it comes to you know major historical events like that the catacombs is one of the only places I've ever been where it's like this is a place of death

but it's not specific to honoring like a one person or this sort of remember me mentality that a lot of grave sites have. So you descend the steps. And if you've never seen a picture of the Paris catacombs, there are human bones, human femurs, human skulls stacked in a way that resembles logs, like the way that you might store lumber. And they are stacked so symmetrically

And and with such like intention and it goes on forever, forever. And they let you just walk down there. None of it's behind glass. None of it's behind netting. It's just there forever.

Skulls, human skulls have been arranged in different artistic ways. There used to be a little area where human skulls were arranged in the shape of the fucking Eiffel Tower and tourists couldn't help themselves and touched it too much. And now it's not open to the public.

Because the oils and grease on your fingers starts to corrode things after a while. You see this with statues. You see it with art when people touch things all the time. It wears it down to the point where eventually there will be nothing left. And so my question is why is – why are there no guard walking rails? You can bring kids down there. Kids are over there playing with the bones. What are you talking about? Get your fucking sex roll out of here.

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Hurry in before these deals are gone. Offer ends November 5th. Promotions may vary. Restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details. So we're walking through and it's literally just human bones and it's there. I really can't put into words the feeling that it invoked in me because y'all know I really obsess and spiral about my mortality. Like I really do.

This is not the first time that I have mentioned mortality and how precious life is because immortality takes away the value of life, okay? I don't know why this is a continued talking point for me on this podcast, but when I talk about vampires or when I talk about whatever, that immortality is a curse for a reason. And it's not something you should want to aspire to, whatever. And being in a temple of the dead in this sort of metaphorical way

66 feet underground, absolute silence. The hustle and bustle of the city above you is silent. It's not to be heard. This is a place for the dead to rest, to rest. And so we're walking through. It is bones stacked up to above your head. I mean, literally I'm eye level with the top of where these bones end. It is just halls and halls and halls. And there are markers on the walls of

in the catacombs when you're down there that correspond to the matching avenue that's above you. And now, because of history and because of, you know, governmental whatever, the names have changed. But the little audio guide would tell you, like, you're now turning right onto...

"Wooday, Avenue Day," whatever. And the name has changed obviously since the 1800s, but it's the same street. It's the same exact street where it used to be cobblestone and horse and carriage and, you know, torches and vendors and whatever. And then not even 100 feet below you is this silent city of resting souls who have not even been identified. So we're walking through.

There are skulls arranged in heart. There's skulls arranged in stars and crosses and temples. And every so often as you're walking through this small area that they've designated tourists can visit, there will be a little plaque that has things in either French, Italian, Latin. There's a whole bunch of languages. I mean, I saw a lot in Latin that are little ponderings or musings about death and about mortality. And I wished...

That I had serviced down there because there's this app that you can scan something and it'll translate it immediately. And all of these little plaques were, you know, in French. And they all had something to do with death. And that's my shit. I want to read people's musings on death and on letting the dead rest.

and on how all of us are gonna be this one day. And the way that I am looking at these bones that were exhumed in 1786, and I'm thinking, God, that's so fucking old. Like, this person has been dead longer than America has been a country. Like, I'm having this mental existential come to Jesus, for lack of a better term,

About my mortality and my youth and how is youth really something that should be sought after? And is it an honor to have lived and died for something as notable and respectable as the French Revolution? You know what I mean? Like I'm sat here with these old ass brown bones and then you have to just walk on, you know, then you have to just like leave them there.

It's a very weird thing and not to get too poetic or whatever, but anytime you visit a site like that, it's hard not to get attached to. I don't know if y'all do this, but I'll go to like a cemetery or a memoriam site and I just by accident will hyper focus on one name because I think it helps me sort of imagine, OK, if I were them or if I knew them, what was this person like? You know, if it was a woman.

If it was a child, if it was a soldier, like I try to imagine what was their life like. And it humanizes it to me because you walk through the catacombs. It probably takes you about an hour and a half. And it's easy at the end to be like, well, that was creepy. All right, let's go get a croissant. You know, it's like this should be a it is it is so contextualizing.

If you get me, if you make, if that makes sense. It put my life in context of everything that has come before me and will come after me. And I'm just, I'm gagged that that's just there and it's open because the catacombs used to be something that only royalty and only government officials could go visit. You know, it was a sort of exclusive thing. It wasn't open to the public until I want to say, you know, the 1900s, the 1920s. And they would invite you down. You have to buy a ticket, I believe.

And you'd have to bring your own candle. You'd have to have a candle to go walk through because there's no electrical lighting. That shit probably was scary as fuck back then. Damn! Shit! Holy shit! That was probably so scary. If your candle went out. Holy shit!

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And for the little ones, stock up on Huggies Snug and Dry Diapers and Huggies Little Movers Diapers. Offer ends November 5th. Promotions may vary. Restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details. So we're walking through, we're walking through. And at the very end, they bring you to this small area where it's this rotunda of skulls. And they've been arranged in a stratified...

like different lines. And they tell you that in the 1800s, a concert was held in the Paris catacombs and it was invite only. And it was probably about a hundred people. And they were invited down into the depths of the catacombs. A 45 piece orchestra was brought down there and they performed an array of songs. One being Frederick Chopin's Funeral March, which

Another being Beethoven's funeral march. And then another, I think was some, some opus something, but it's all like very creepy haunting music. And they brought all these people down there and they drank and laughed and listened to this music and smoked cigarettes and brought their own candles and then left. And that sparked something in me too, where I was like, is that so disrespectful to bring that sort of noise and chatter and fucking goofiness down there?

Or is it like a, because if we're operating in this understanding or belief that the dead listen, which, you know, say what you will about that. I think the dead listen. You're down there and this is a final, eternal resting place.

Okay? Silence. Eternal silence. Rest. After the chaos of what a human life is, however long, however short, the chaos that you are tossed into from the moment you're born to the moment you die, finally resting. And then for this cacophony to be brought down there. But then on the flip side, I'm like, but it's music. And it's music in honor of

of the dead, right? Like a funeral march. And it's bringing life down there to, I don't know if their intent was to honor the dead or if it was to be like, look at this creepy shit. I don't know. And so I don't know how I feel about that, but I just find it crazy that someone would even have that idea. Like you've been, they send out invites. You've been invited to, just nuts. And so that had me thinking too. I was like, you know, imagining anytime I go to these historical sites, I'm sat there and thank God it's silent down there.

And so I'm imagining, I'm like, a 45-piece orchestra crammed into here. And I bet it was beautiful. I bet the music was beautiful. And I hope people were silent as they listened to it. And I hope that it honored the dead. And I hope that, you know, after they left... That's what I was thinking of, too, is we leave. I bought my ticket to the catacombs. I go down there, you know, I read all the plaques. I'm reading about the history. I'm learning. I'm listening. And I'm like,

You sort of show your respect and then you leave and then they close at 6 p.m. And then the lights shut off and then it's silent forever until the next day. Right. And then part of me feels like, oh, if I was dead and my bones were being exploited like this, I'd be fucking pissed. Then the other part of me is like, what a peek through the keyhole into human history and how this was. Because, you know, one side of it is this is.

a heritage mass grave memoriam for a range of different ways to die and tragedies. And then the flip side is this is a preserved disease control. Like this is a peek into...

An executive decision that was made by someone back in the 1800s or late 1700s to control the outbreak of disease from all these rotting corpses that were polluting the water system. Like, the smell was awful. Like, I can't even imagine, you know, if you already have a problem with disease amongst the living and then here are dead bodies that died of that disease and they're just sat there rotting in the fucking sun. Like, oh my god. So...

Oh my god, y'all, and they told us this shit, which I don't, I'm assuming it's true, of first attempts at, I guess, what we would call quarantine now, where if you were suspected of having the plague, and I'm not sure what the plague was in 1780. What was the disease? What disease was rampant in Paris 1780? Epizootic and epidemic anthrax. What?

What the fuck is a panzutic? Smallpox. Oh, no. That was in America. It was not the bubonic plague. That's nuts. I really don't know what disease it was. I mean, it was probably an amalgamation of a bunch of different ones, but I'm seeing bubonic plague, which bubonic plague was in the Middle Ages, like 1400s. But I mean, I guess it could have carried on. I don't know. I'm seeing typhoid. I'm seeing anthrax. I'm seeing...

Leprosy, I'm seeing a whole bunch of different ones, but there was one that was rampant. The catacombs were originally limestone mines. That's right! That's what I wanted to say at the fucking beginning! And then I started yapping! The catacombs were originally limestone mines under the city of Paris, and they did so much mining that they actually ended up causing sinkholes because they were removing all the structural foundation under the city and homes were collapsing.

Homes were fully collapsing. So they had to go back in under there and reinforce it. And when they were doing that, someone had the idea to take all these, you know, fucking diseased bones, burn them, and then put them under there. Crazy. At the time, many people believed that disease was linked to miasmus or bad air from festering cemeteries. Okay, so we're down there in the Paris catacombs and they have this one, this is what I wanted to tell y'all. They have this

plaque, this infographic, towards the end of the tour that talks about all the visitors, you know, and the way that the catacombs have been publicized and sort of fallen victim to the tourist trap, the tourist economy of Paris. But at the same time, how rare and fantastic it is to look into the past in that way, through the lens of mortality, through the lens of death, through the lens of

treating six million human corpses as if they're just lumber in a yard. I find it very, very hard to imagine these people under there just stacking bones. So there's this infographic and on it says that someone, there was a random anonymous visitor to the catacombs in 1809 and you could sign a guest book when you were there, you know, tell us about your visit sort of thing.

And in it, he wrote, today I have visited the true temple of equality. And I read that and I got a chill down my spine because zooming out, zoom out of all of this, zoom out of your life, of your job, your family, your hometown, your whatever, your daily little worries and qualms. Zoom out and think of the country in which you live, in the year in which you live, in the time period in which you live,

And then think about when your bones are decaying in the ground, like the true temple of equality. It's true. We are all equal in death. We are all equal in death size. And to be stacked, literally stacked next to your neighbor, next to your brother, next to a stranger in a way that through it all, at the end of it all, you are just bones in a grave. And what did you do with your life?

And does it even matter what you did with your life? Because in this mass grave, they couldn't even identify. There's a different section that says supposedly, allegedly, maybe some of these really important French celebrities, for lack of a better term, might be buried here. One of them being Maximilien Robespierre, which was he was.

monumental to the French Revolution and how it ended up turning out, to think that Maximilien Robespierre might be in there, they don't know, because that's the rate at which they were burning bodies and exhuming bodies and just no care or method, honestly, to identify who these people were. I just, I read that, the true temple of equality, and I just, oh my god,

Because it's true. And it really gives me anxiety for some reason, but it also gives me such a warm or I guess cold sense of comfort. It's not warm like, oh, yeah, one day we're all going to die. But it's this chilling sort of truth that is the one unavoidable thing. What does Joshua from Good Mythical Morning say? There are two truths in life. One is everybody got to eat. And two is everybody got to die.

That's literally how I felt down here. I was like, this is going to be me. That's going to be me. I'm going to be, I have a skull, like your eye level with these skulls. And I'm looking into it and I'm like, that is, that is, I have one of those and I'm going to be that one day. And then I started to, and then part of me was like, and that's okay. And that's, and that's what makes it precious.

And so, you know, leaving the catacombs, I was like, who am I? Then I was like, oh, wow, what can we do with the rest of our day? What can we do with the rest of our lives? It gives me such a fervor for life, such a desire to live. Also, if you think about, you know, all these people, children specifically, that didn't get that opportunity to live, to experience life.

through adulthood to the end. That was very strange, was seeing children's bones. That was hard. And all throughout the catacombs, there's different little plaques that are like, this is in memoriam of this event that happened. These are French revolutionaries because they mark them. These bones were exhumed between 1786 and 1789. These bones were exhumed 1810 to 18 whatever. And they're

you know, in theory, all correctly marked. And when each new addition was added, they would engrave it in the wall, the year, the wall number, and who authorized it, which is crazy because there's just like names. There's just initials down there. And it's like, who was bro? Who was he? And what authority did he hold? I don't know all this is in historical records, but a crazy, crazy thing. Leaving the catacombs,

And because, you know, our phones listen to us. I got fed this, I guess it's a poem. I guess it's just a phrase. I don't know who said it. And I wanted to Google it on the podcast. But it came across my fucking TikTok feed. And I was like, holy shit. Because it's how I feel. I think I might have to get it tattooed, actually. And if you get a tattoo off of a TikTok poetry slideshow, does that make you any less of a human? No. Okay. And am I going to do it? Probably. And are you guys mad at me? I don't care.

This was the quote. From my rotting body, flowers shall grow. And I am them. And that is eternity. From my rotting body, flowers will grow. And I am them. And that is eternity. Shit. Because that's all it's about in the end. That's all it's about. That's all you are. That's all you are is just plant matter. We're just in the ground.

And what is to be said about the natural way in which the earth absorbs the one thing humans have in common amongst many things, but across all different cultures, across all different areas of the world and throughout all of human history is funeral rites. There is some weird human compulsion to bury and honor the dead, whether it's bury, whether it's burn, whether it's, you know, whatever it is.

It exists across all cultures. And if that's an innate part of being human, then, you know, what a natural process of the earth absorbing you back and then and then taking your life force and putting it into other things. I mean, I'm not describing a new concept. This is just sort of my takeaway from the catacombs is that.

ashes to ashes dust to dust sort of thing anyway we can move on from this um because the next note i had here was had parisian mcdonald's and sprayed diarrhea like a fire hose that's that's the next note in my thing here so sorry about talking about death for too long sorry about all that just found it very very interesting if you're in paris ever please visit the catacombs because it was a a

I don't want to say harrowing, but it was a very existential experience for me. So yeah, Parisian McDonald's, I did go ahead and spray shit out of my ass like a fire hose. It was some of the most violent diarrhea I've had in a long time. And Parisian McDonald's is bad. They're rude there. What do you mean? You don't want to be working at McDonald's? So you're mad at me? Me, the big fat American coming in. Yeah, let me get up. Hmm.

How do you say wee wee baguette? You guys got a McBaguette here? You guys got a McMacaroon? This Diet Coke tastes like shit. Parisians do love a Coke. They do love a Coke Zero. That's a big thing in Europe. They like Coke Zero. Okay, you go in and ask for a Diet Coke, they're going to spit in your fucking face. They don't have Diet Coke. We're doing Coke Zero. And guess what? It's the same fucking thing.

So, yeah, Parisian McDonald's, I would not do it. You know, some of the best McDonald's I've had in my goddamn life was Spain. Because Spain has those little croquettes. Croquettes. Spain has burgers with bows on them. Croquette. McCroquette. Spain sells ham and cheese croquettes and they are so delicious. I'm just now realizing that

For the large majority of this episode, I've been talking about Paris and I've got the Irish flag up behind me. This episode might be an hour and a half long because I'm two Red Bulls deep. Okay, that was Paris.

And I was there with Caleb. Oh, I do love Caleb. The whole reason I went was because Caleb was like, you're going to be in Europe. Might as well pop over to Paris. And I was like, hmm. And so I met up with him. It was so much fun. I'm so blessed with the friendships I have in my life. Caleb is truly one of those people. Can I talk my shit for a second? Can I talk love into the universe and all my friend for a second? Caleb Heron is one of those people that makes me happy.

I am lucky to be his friend. You know what I mean? Like, I am the truly lucky one to get the honor of getting to know him and have him in my life as someone that I can rely on, that I can call on. It is truly an honor of my life. I feel the same way about Drew and her whole family. Like, I am the lucky one. Caleb exudes warmth, and he is just truly...

In a way that isn't, like, cringy, I guess. I really look up to Caleb as a person because he is everything that I think you should be. He is warm. He is kind. He is selfless. He would give you the shirt off of his back. And he is fair.

He is no stranger to a good time and he doesn't reduce himself for anyone. You know what I mean? Like he is very strong in his convictions and he knows who he is and what he believes in and he leaves with love and light and joy and humor. And that is all I ever want to do. And I just really I goddamn love him to death. I really do.

So met up with him and met some of his friends, which of course are just lovely. And we went to Kevin Morby's show because he sold out the, who's it? Le Trevion. Le Trevion. So we went there and it was so neat to sit here in this old as fuck Parisian concert venue and

With an entirely French crowd listening to this American singer from Missouri, from Kansas City, sing on stage these indie folk songs, like borderline country songs. It was just, it was wild. And so we had a blast. We had a good time. And you know my ass, whenever I go to a different country or a different city for that matter, you have got to get me on the water. Get my ass on a river cruise now. Now!

In Austin, you can do Lake Travis. You can do Lady Bird Lake. In Chicago, you do whatever that fucking Chicago River is. In New York, you can do shit there. Around the Statue of Liberty, you can take a little boat. They'll circle around it. I have got to get my ass on a body of water. We did one in London along the Thames. We did one in Ireland and Dublin along the Liffey River. And then we did one along the Seine in France. And it really teaches you geography as well. Look at me. Look at me know my body's a water.

And so we did that in Paris as well, and it was so much fun because they played Bossa Nova, and we got us a little Coke Zero, and we just, you know, just being there with my friends. That's what life's all about. So I had a blast with Caleb. Now I feel the need to sort of tell you guys about my Irish experience because, of course, ole, ole, ole, naturally.

and diagwitch to all who celebrate. I think that means hello. And you want to know how to cheers in Irish? Gaelic, also as you might refer to it, sláinte. Okay, that's what you're going to say. And the way that it was described to me is like, it's a lawn chair, it's sláinte. Okay?

Hey.

Hey, it's Ryan Seacrest for Albertsons and Safeway. Now through November 5th, earn four times rewards points when you buy items from your favorite brands. Shop for items like Pampers, Swaddlers, Diapers, Vicks VapoCool, Native Shampoo, Crest Toothpaste, Native Deodorant, or Swiffer Power Mop and earn four times rewards points. You can then redeem your points for discounts on gas or groceries on your future purchases.

Hurry in before these deals are gone. Offer ends November 5th. Promotions may vary. Restrictions apply. Visit Albertsons or Safeway.com for more details. When I say this, and I need you to know I'm being dead ass serious right now. Irish people are the kindest people alive. And some of you, if you're Irish, you might be giggling. But I mean that so seriously. The Irish people, it is an innate. And this is, let me talk about shit. Let me talk about shit for a second.

Because I was cooking on this on the flight. Southern American people, where southern hospitality is a real thing, this need to care for your neighbor, and it's a genuine care. It's sort of a dying practice of genuinely having a relationship with your neighbors and family.

being there for people that you don't know that well and having an innate desire to know more about your neighbor. That is dying as small towns are dying and as small communities are dying. And unfortunately, a lot of that comes from having a church community, you know, that a neighborhood, a city is so familiar with each other because they see each other at church. These third places are going away.

And y'all know how I feel about the church, whatever. But for better or worse, a lot of community driven interaction is driven through the church in the South. And that sense of tight knit, just genuine human kindness and care. I see it in Irish people in a way that I don't see it in English people, because obviously. And when I'm overseas and I hear a Southern American accent,

When I hear an Australian accent, when I hear an Irish accent, when I hear a Cockney accent, any of these English dialects that are not proper, you know, one could argue it's not like received pronunciation, standard British pronunciation, and it's not the classic American accent. These sort of where you can't leave the confines of your vernacular. What am I trying to say here?

I guess code switching. When you're in a different country, you sort of have to have this ability to code switch from using your lingo, your slang words, your whatever, to a very basic and reduced form of English or whatever language you speak to be able to communicate because it's hard. It's difficult. And when you're dealing with someone who English isn't their first language, you can't be throwing around slang words that only you and your town, you know, and your state know. It just, you have to have that sort of

Anyway, I get a pang of sympathy when I'm in a country where people don't speak. English is not the first language. And I hear an Irish accent or I hear a southern accent or I hear an Australian accent where they can't. It's a sense of tied experience, I think. That's what I'm trying to get at is I feel akin to Irish people. And I started thinking about that.

my family and like my grandmother. And if I were to drop my grandmother off in Spain and say, get around, you know, and you're relying on the fluency of the Spanish people, how well they speak English, because my grandmother can't speak Spanish at all. You know, even her grasp on English is very Southern. It's very contextualized within Texas and

I felt this pull to Irish people, obviously for the fucking bullshit they've been put through. The history of Ireland, the great struggle of the Irish people is very alive in their... That pride is very alive in their culture and in their language and in their interactions with people. And it was beautiful. It was beautiful and it was so much fun because...

Every person we'd meet, it was this inclination to chat. And that's dying as well. That is dying. And I'll speak on that firsthand because I live in Los Angeles. I don't talk to people. I don't talk to people standing in line at the grocery store. I don't talk to people that I don't have to. You know, at the airport, I'm not striking up a conversation. I'm not doing all this because I don't want to be bothered. And then I was like, that's so sad. Why is that my sort of homeostasis? Don't fucking talk to me.

Anyway, Irish people don't have that. Irish people will talk to you. They'll talk to a brick wall. And I do love that about them. And then I had to convince myself, like, why am I getting annoyed? Why am I getting annoyed that they want to talk to me and learn more about me and ask me where I'm from? I'm not from here. Like, and I should be taking this opportunity to learn more about them. Okay. And so once I sort of broke through that mental wall, I really enjoyed it a lot more because it reminded me of home.

And so we're there, we're doing, we did the Guinness Storehouse, which was a lot of fun. We did the Viking Splash Tour. Again, get my ass on a body of water, brother. You got to get me out in the middle of the Liffey. Put me on that motherfucking boat in the middle of Liffey. And they give you these Viking hats because Ireland, just like the majority of Northern Europe,

was at one point victim to Viking raids and pillages. And there's a deep Viking history in that whole area, the way that the history of the Roman Empire is through that whole area, because empire and because conquest, okay? So they took us on this Viking splash tour where they drive you through the city and

on one of those duck boats that turns into a boat. So the wheels like go into it and then it turns into a boat and there's like life rafts all around it. They made us wear life rafts. And so we get on the boat and they're driving us around and telling us the history and there's still remnants of Viking history. There's still remnants of the war.

all different types of war. The 1916 uprising, the fucking World War I, World War II. Like that shit's there. These are bullet holes from 1916. What the fuck are you talking about? That's nuts to me. And I love that shit. Oh my God. You know, I will say one thing I regret. We were only in Ireland for like five days and I did a show there. Thank you, by the way, to everyone who came to the London and Dublin shows. What the fuck?

Yeah, one thing I do regret because we were only there for five days and one of them was spent working. One of them we just had a nap day. We just rotted all day in bed because we needed it. I was so tired. So we only had like two and a half days of real touristy stuff. One thing I regret not doing is the, I believe it's called the Jeannie Johnston. It's a...

a ship that you can go on that's part of the it tells the story of the famine and there is a separate famine museum and there's memorials all around the city of Dublin that I really wish we had gone into one of the museums because by the time we would get our asses out of bed and go do stuff it was like 2 p.m and shit closes at four so I was like ah because I really wanted to go next time I'm there I'm going to do that well the next time I'm in Ireland I'm going to do a sort of

clockwise tour and like hit Cork and Galway and Belfast and whatever. And we'll sort of be there for a longer period of time. But yeah, I really wish we had done that because it is integral to the history of Ireland and how they're survivors. You know, it's, it's a people of, of strength and, and they've just been through so much and Irish pride is so real. You know, if, if you are at the hands suffering under the hands of the British colonial empire, you know,

Of course, there's a pride there of having stood up for, I mean, those of us brave enough to have been true revolutionaries. It's a really, really neat thing to visit these sites and read their names and read their stories. It's really, really cool. So next time I'm there, we're going to do that. But the Viking Splash Tour...

hit on the major, I would say, histories of Ireland. And it was so much fun. It was so much fun. We had a great tour guide. His name was Kenny. If you do the Viking Splash Tour in Dublin, Ireland, ask for Kenny. You better hope and pray to God that Kenny's your tour guide. I was genuinely cracking the fuck up. When you do those cheesy touristy whatever, it's always like, and if you look to your right...

Big Ben. And if you look to your left, Parliament. Now, moving on, there is a, you know, it's that sort of boring, boring. He had us laughing genuinely. And it's that sort of dad-grandpa humor where a lot of it's just like, gotcha. Or it's stories that never happened. It's stories that are punchlines. Oh my God, I was having a fucking blast.

And so we drive around the city. Finally, we go into the river and then he drives us through the river and starts giving us a tour of all the architecture. And there's a cool museum on the water that, or is it like an opera house or something like that on the water? That was so cool. And I just had a damn blast in Ireland. I cannot wait to go back. I don't, we were not there for long enough. We spent more time in London and I've been to London plenty of times before, but in London, I,

We did a Thames River cruise, of course, because have to. And then we walked around. I don't know what the fuck we did. God, I can't remember. Oh, we ate Dishoom. Because guess what? The national dish of England is, you guessed it, chicken tiki masala. Because why? Colonialism. Because why? The British East India Trading Company. That's what it's called, is it? There was also a Dutch East India Trading Company. British East India Trading Company.

East India Company. Joint stock company founded in 1600 and dissolved in 1874. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies and later with East Asia. All this shit is so, so, so, so nuts to me because you know what? I will say one thing I regret in my life is in school, I am privileged enough to

I mean, I'll say this without any, you know, whatever. I was privileged enough to go to a great high school. My parents relocated us halfway through high school because my dad got a different job. And I ended up going to a high school that was so clean and nice and had great teachers. And I was afforded the opportunity to do like AP classes and take the AP test and, you know,

test out of AP credits in college. Just access to a really great education, and I'm so privileged and grateful for it. But one thing I regret is in high school, I spent way more time focusing on theater and mock trial and my job. I worked at Baskin Robbins because I wanted money. Hello, I needed Popeye's money. After school every day, I'd go to Popeye's and Sonic. Anyway, I

I focused a little more on that and my friendships naturally as a teenager than my studies. And so it because it sucks walking through these incredibly important historical like grave sites or like historical sites.

Wars were fought here. Corpses laid here for things greater than you could ever imagine in your small fucking American life. And I'm walking through these places and I'm like, if I had only paid more attention. And it's never too late to learn. Let me say that. It's never too late to learn. But I just, I'm kicking myself and I regret it that in high school I had access to such great education with teachers who gave a fuck and I didn't take advantage of it.

And I didn't retain a lot of it. I took AP World History, AP European History. I took AP Art History. And while, yes, something sparked my interest and took my attention, like the Renaissance and like that sort of more art movements, there's no art movements without history. And there's no art history without normal history. So I'm walking through these places and I'm really regretting, like, I remember Maximilian Robespierre, but I don't remember what the fuck he did.

Or I know about Napoleon, but I don't remember the full history of it. And we're walking through the same fucking city streets that chariots used to come down. Like, just so much history that I can't fucking remember. So I was kicking myself.

And also with Ireland, you know, I'm like, I don't you realize how small minded Americans are and how limited honestly, even if I had access to a great education in America, how limited the American education is because we are we are cursed to see history through the lens of the victors. Victors write history, not the losers.

And so I'm hearing about all this and like we learn about the civil or the revolutionary war from the American perspective, of course, but they don't teach that in England. So it's all that shit. It's like, okay, well, that's a separate issue. Man, I'm fucking yapping today. I don't know what the fuck I've been talking about for the last hour. Holy God. Anyway, the American education system has its flaws clearly, right?

But at the same time, I wish I had paid more attention because now that I'm a fully functioning adult, this frontal lobe is as developed as it's going to get. Oh my God, I watched this thing laying in bed when Katie and I had our rot day in Ireland. For some reason, I got a TikTok that was about like American propaganda through the years. And I was like, what an interesting concept because it hasn't gone away.

It's just changed shape. It's just changed its form. And so I went on YouTube. I was off the edible. I went on YouTube. We laid in bed and I watched American propaganda through the decades. Someone had made this compilation video and it started with this shit in the 50s, 60s.

Where it was during the Red Scare and it was during McCarthyism and the sort of like where Americans were terrified because the government told them to be terrified that communism, you know, was going to come for us all and it was going to kill us all. And it's the downfall of society, fucking whatever. This was during that. And it was teaching Americans, OK, teaching Americans, I say that in air quotes, how to spot propaganda when they see it.

And I'm thinking, that's rich because this whole video is American propaganda in and of itself. I love this shit. And so they were showing us like Soviet, Russian, fucking whatever. And here's how they're talking about Americans overseas. They did a poll of what do English, Italian, German, this, whatever, think of Americans. It's all these different countries talking about how Americans are rich.

like greedy stupid insolent like idiotic fat just all these things oh my god wait i wish i could pull it up let's pull it up this is it oh my god how to recognize propaganda cold war era educational film circa 1957 it's from the best film archives on youtube it's about 26 minutes long

This is the big picture. Watch this if you want later. This shit is crazy. They start reading out all these different ways that people overseas describe Americans. And I'm like, yeah, that's true. True.

Okay, true, true. And that's not to say other countries don't have their, you know, quirks and mannerisms and fucking whatever, but Americans, yeah, of course I'm hypercritical of me and my national identity through the lens of other countries because they're right. This was fucking 70-something years ago, and they were right, and they're still right, and it's just gotten worse. So that was nuts.

Okay, I think that'll do it for me today, guys. I'm going to literally end this episode, record a second one, because I got shit to say. If you are not registered to vote, go register to vote at headcount.org. And just, just, guys, no comment. Just no comment. If you don't have Broski Report merch, go get some if you want it. It's at broski.shop. We also have Moom.

nightgowns okay high quality southern grandma nightgowns go get them broski.shop we also what the fuck else is going on happy brat summer to all who celebrate and uh new episodes of royal court coming soon love you guys fuck off sorry love you guys i'll see you next week bye-bye

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