You are now listening to Cryptid Cocktail Party.
The theme song is always longer than I remember
it being. Yes, yes. I was just thinking that
exact same thing. Welcome back, everyone, to
another episode of Cryptic Cocktail Party, a
show where we have a few drinks, share a few
laughs, take a dive into the unknown. I'm your
host, Dave. Joined, as always, by my wonderful
co -host, Sarge. How's it going, Sarge? Woo!
I'm not shirtless. I know I said I was going
to be, but I decided against that. Well, I'm
glad you're not, because we have a guest today.
Joining us from the Funbearable podcast, we have
Chuck Statton. Is it Statton? Staten? Statton?
Probably should have confirmed this before. It's
Staten. Is it Staten? Staten. Yeah. Think of
it like Satan with an extra T. Yeah. So not named
after the island. That's where I live, though.
I live in Staten Island, so it's tough. Fucking
botched that one. God damn. Well, anyways, how
you doing, Chuck? I'm good, man. It's all right.
Everyone gets it wrong. Some people say Stanton.
That's weird. There's no second N, so I don't
know why they would do that. I know. I think
that maybe that's a more common name. I don't
know. But yeah, it's always been a thing in my
life. Well, sorry you had to go through that.
I have a similar problem with my last name. I
don't want to dox myself, but it sounds suspiciously
like a seafood product, and people just call
me the seafood product, even though a lot of
those letters are missing. Wow, Sarge Shrimps.
Yeah. It's not easy being named after shrimp.
His actual last name is pronounced Shrimpe. He's
French. It's beautiful. All right, Chuck. Well,
I have a question for you. It's a question we
ask anyone who comes on the show. Are you like
a cryptids paranormal alien type guy or is this
something totally foreign to you? I like that
kind of stuff. I think it's very fun. I like
monsters. I like creatures. I was born as a creature,
and I continue to be one, so it feels very homey
to me. Accurate. Yeah, exactly. So I do love
playing with that stuff. I love that kind of
stuff. Dude, the honesty is refreshing. No, I
appreciate it. I love the concept of goblins.
Goblins are really interesting to me. I know
it's not really a specific cryptid, but I just
love the idea of a goblin. I shamelessly play
a goblin in my current D &D campaign, and I enjoy
every moment of it. I shamelessly play a goblin
on my podcast. Well, there you go. His name is
Chuck. Well, unfortunately for you, Chuck, this
episode does not have goblins or any sort of
monster of any type. I was told they'd be goblins.
I'm out. Yeah, sorry. No, this is something a
little bit different. I guess this is more of
a mystery than anything. An unsolved mystery
or possibly solved. Maybe we'll be the ones to
figure it out. Did we just become a true crime
podcast? Not even close. There's no murder. We
already tried that once and it was fine. What
do either of you guys know about the city of
Philadelphia? Great cream cheese. Not too much.
I dated a girl that lived there for a while,
so I hung out there a bunch of times. Okay, well,
what if I told you guys that Philadelphia, the
city of brotherly love, cheesesteaks, and nightmare
sport mascots, is home to one of the most bizarre
unsolved mysteries stretching back 40 years.
Now, this is a wild street -level conspiracy
that's literally baked into the pavement, one
that stretches across the country and beyond.
We're talking hundreds of handmade tiles embedded
right into the asphalt of busy intersections,
all repeating the same weird message. Toynbee
idea in movie 2001, Resurrect Dead on planet
Jupiter. No name, no explanation, just a cryptic
sci -fi gospel burnt into the crosswalk. Almost
like someone is trying to warn us or possibly
recruit us or maybe both. So who made these tiles?
What do they mean? And why is the planet Jupiter
involved? Well, today, gentlemen. we're going
to be diving headfirst into the world of the
Toynbee Tiles, a story riddled with paranoia,
resurrection, modified cars, and one man's mission
to bring the dead back to life. So Sarge, I assume
you are familiar with this, but Chuck, are you
familiar with the Toynbee Tiles? I had no idea
it had anything to do with Philadelphia, though.
I thought it was like New York and like a bunch
of other cities. This is so great. No, I've never
heard about this. I have no idea. Are they under
Rocky? That's what I know about Philadelphia
Rocky, the statue. They're not under Rocky, no,
unfortunately. There might be a hidden one. You
don't know. There could be. They're fucking everywhere,
dude. All right, so let's start off this episode,
but let's break down the message that's on the
tiles. Like I said, there are hundreds of these
things, and almost all of them stick to the same
four -line message. Toynbee idea in movie 2001,
resurrect dead on planet Jupiter. Now, at first
glance, you would immediately assume it's either
the ramblings of a madman or some low effort
cult recruitment effort. But if we break it down
the message piece by piece, you kind of see what's
being explained here. So Toynbee idea. This references
Arnold Toynbee, a 20th century British historian
and philosopher. He's known for his very dense
12 volume book series about the rise and fall
of civilizations. But he also tossed around some
pretty cosmic ideas about death, religion and
rebirth, which is where like the mystery Tyler
kind of. latched on i think he and i would have
a lot in common because i'm also very dent now
in movie 2001 this is obviously a reference to
stanley kubrick's 2001 a space odyssey it's that
trippy as hell you know movie where there's a
space baby floating around and how tries to murder
everyone because they all forgot to say please
to him it's a movie about like evolution transformation
and maybe something becoming something more than
human And then you have resurrect dead. That's
just exactly what it sounds like. There's no
hidden mystery there. And then on planet Jupiter,
as in like the massive ball of gas, 484 million
miles away. That's going to be the resurrection
site. So altogether, it reads like a science
fiction ransom note from some sort of like sidewalk
prophet. But that's basically like the tolling
be tile gospel. Breaks down to a historian had
an idea. Kubrick made a movie. And now we're
going to resurrect people on Jupiter. How are
we feeling? Are you guys following? It's going
to be hard because from what I understand, and
again, don't forget, I am very dense. There is
no oxygen on Jupiter. Thank you. This is kind
of what I was like. I'm like, well, if we resurrect
people on Jupiter, isn't that bad news for the
resurrected? Yeah, we're going to bring them
back just to kill them in a new way. I know.
Are we building a compound up there? That's the
only thing I could think of. But then we're also
paying to get them back to Earth. It's a lot.
There's a lot going on that has not been cleared
up by this tile. All will become clear. I promise
you. Okay. Okay. I trust you. So the message
is short, strange. And like I said, it slapped
onto hundreds of street corners across America.
But who made them and why? Well, to learn both
of those things, we're going to need to break
down the message even more and get to who might
possibly be behind it. So let's start with the
guy behind the name, Arnold Toynbee. Like I said,
he was a British historian who... He was less
into dates and wars and shit and more into sweeping
theories about civilizations rising, falling,
and then starting over. And in his 1970s autobiography,
Toynbee tossed the idea that after we die, our
bodies decay, but our quote -unquote substance
lives on. Not like our souls, but like our cosmic
meat dust just kind of stays around. All of our
juices. Okay, I get that. Now you toss in 2001,
the movie ends with Dave Bowman dying, maybe,
and then being reborn as a giant space fetus
over the planet Jupiter. So Tyler took Toynbee's
idea about death, mashed it up with 2001's Jupiter
finale, and boom, came up with the idea that
we can literally resurrect the dead on Jupiter.
Literally. And how do we know he meant literally?
Well, in 1983, a Philadelphia newspaper columnist
got a phone call from a guy claiming to be James
Marasco. The caller went on about how all the
people that ever died could be brought back to
life on the planet Jupiter. He even went on to
argue that Jupiter's atmosphere could somehow
be made suitable for human life. And he envisioned
rebuilding humanity atom by atom on Jupiter.
So he truly believed that Toynbee figured out
like the blueprint and then Kubrick. He dramatized
it, and now it was his job to tell the world
about what he has discovered. So, does that clear
up how we're going to do this? Not in any way,
no. But I am impressed that you created your
own tongue twister, and you said that Tyler took
Toynbee's idea. You went all the way through,
no mistakes. I'm impressed. I would say that
was a struggle, considering how hungover I am
right now. Like, I can't function. You did it
so well, though, and I think it's maybe because
you were hungover. You just didn't let your mind
get in the way. You just fired through. So can
I ask one quick question? So we're to believe
that this theory is like, listen, NASA has no
idea what the fuck they're talking about. Jupiter
is fine. We could start a civilization there.
Yeah. And that's what we're going to resurrect.
Is that right? Yeah. We just got to find a way
to like. terraform the atmosphere to make it
more suitable for human life they didn't go into
detail about how on a planet that has no solid
ground by the way well we can work around that
there's no solid ground jupiter is just a it's
a gas giant oh which means it's mostly gas with
like a small solid core and by the time you got
to that core the gravitational pressure from
the atmosphere uh you know would would fucking
kill you sorry so here's here's i'm really interested
In this whole thing? Sarge, here's the problem,
all right? You're thinking about it. I'm going
to need you to just not think about it, okay?
I knew you were going to say some version of
that. I think you just need to just let your
mind go. Yeah, I made the mistake. Let me just
finish this Narragansett. Any theory where it's
like, listen, I'm going to give you a really
solid theory. But if you think about any of the
logistics, it falls apart immediately. So don't
think about the logistics. Just listen to my
theory. It's basically like any Alex Jones conspiracy.
If you think about it for more than like 10 minutes,
it all just unravels. No way. No way. I had some
gay frogs I found the other day. I found the
gay frogs. I want gay frogs so bad. They're there.
It was crazy. The funny thing is they're probably
just like there's no way to distinguish that
they're gay. So it's just going to be frogs and
Alex Jones is just going to start shouting at
every frog he sees. No, no. I saw the guy. The
frog was wearing pink leather pants and he was
pulling them off. Gotcha, gotcha. It's a leather
daddy frog. It was impressive. It looked great.
And you know what? I asked him some tips about
decorating my house. I'm in a new apartment and
he gave me some great pointers. I wonder if frogs
would have bears. You guys ready to fight? Yeah.
Okay, let's go. All right. So the first known
Toynbee tile showed up in Philly around 1983.
And from there, the tiler just went apeshit with
them, dropping them more and more at intersections
and crosswalk. Like these things were embedded
all over the asphalt of the city. And then they
spread. They're not collected. They're all random
all over the place. Yeah. And they're spread
like they ended up like spreading pretty far.
Like by the early 90s, tiles were turning up
in Boston, New York, D .C., Chicago, St. Louis,
Kansas City. And then. they started popping up
in South America, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, all
of them with the same four -line message. But,
plot twist, it wasn't always just that four -line
message. Some tiles came with what I would describe
as bonus content. uh extra phrases like paranoid
footnotes if you will sure uh there's even like
a full -fledged manifesto that was so crammed
with text that it looked like a ransom note put
there by god like it was insane it was huge i
don't understand the motivation to go to south
america with this like english is hard enough
yeah like i don't i can barely understand what
he put on those tiles can you imagine some poor
person who like has english as a second language
trying to figure out what fucking message this
guy's trying to convey great point Do you want
to hear some of the more wilder inscriptions
put on some of these tiles? Yes, please. God,
yes. For the love of God. First up, we got one
of them just said, murder every journalist, I
beg you. I like that one. I mean, I could get
on board with that. I was a professional food
writer for three years. I really was. I think
you're safe. I think you're safe. I don't think
that's the kind of journalism he's worried about.
Then we got Submit Obey. It kind of got like
a They Live vibe on that one. I dig that. The
next one is As Media, USSR, and Fronts Are Against
It. This one kind of suggests that the Tyler
thought he was being targeted by a coalition
of the media, Soviet agents, and fronts, whatever
that means. Or, and hear me out, he had one of
those like, you know when you could get like
the magnetic poem thing? That you could stick
to your fridge? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Create
your own shit, yeah. Oh, I love that. I think
maybe he just took a handful of those, threw
it at the fridge, and was like, that's the next
tile. I like that. That's a good theory. Then
there were some recruitment -style tiles that
said you must make and lay Toynbee tiles, and
some of them even included instructions on how
to do it. And then you have some... pretty fucking
truly unhinged ones like uh media conspiracy
mass murder cover -up do not discuss this idea
with the public and john knight of the philadelphia
inquire is the hellion jew who blocked my move
to have the idea presented on pbs so just some
casual anti -semitism always for good measure
because you know why not can i just i'll say
i'll say i'll gotta be honest i wrote that last
one Every fucking time, I think, okay, this is
just a wholesome crackpot. Immediately, the anti
-Semitism comes out. It was the 80s, though.
Maybe, you know, different time. Yeah, that's
true. That's true. Very fair. So now we're in
the late 90s. There are a shitload of these things
popping up across two continents. So how the
fuck is he doing this? You can't exactly just
jump out of your car on the highway or intersection
and just start doing mosaics. You kind of need
to really plan this out. And the method is kind
of genius. So the tiler used tar paper, cut linoleum,
and some sort of tar adhesive. He would build
kind of like a layered tile sandwich. He would
cover it with the tar paper to protect it and
then drop it through a hole in the floor of his
car, allegedly. Passing cars would then unknowingly
press the tile into the asphalt over time and
then the tar paper would wear away and then the
message would appear. So holy shit. It's pretty
gnarly. That's pretty impressive because I thought
this was just being like dumped on a sidewalk.
Me too. No, it's like a whole it's a whole thing.
Now, tiles followed the roads outward from Philly,
like I -95, the Jersey Turnpike, major intersections.
All of them got tagged. But as the years went
on, the radius kind of shrunk. And after 2001,
new tiles mostly stuck to the Philadelphia, New
Jersey area. There were some copycats that did
start to emerge, including the infamous House
of Hades, which we'll get to later. But the core
message pretty much stayed the same. Now, I'm
sure you guys and everyone are asking yourselves
the same question that everyone asks when learning
of the Toynbee tiles. Who the fuck is doing this?
I assume that's the question on everyone's mind.
No, I thought it would be funny if the tile fell
down the wrong way, right? So the sticky side
was up. Then it just got stuck to his tire. And
so he's just going to drive with the tile stuck
to his tire. I have to wonder how many times
that happened. I'm sure he fucked up a bunch
of them. There's no way they get perfect every
single time. Right. So here's my question. So
the tiles are real, for sure. Obviously, the
Jupiter thing is most likely not. If the tile
things are real. So this is a real theory about
how he did it. But in actuality, we're not 100
% sure how he did it. Yeah, we're not 100 % sure.
No one's ever seen the... We're going to get
into it, but no one's ever seen the tiles being
laid. They just kind of appear. There'll be nothing
there one day, and then the next morning, there's
one. So it's interesting just because... If that
is true and the way he did it was that he had
a hole in the bottom of his car and he would
place them and that the other cars would like,
you know, stick them. That's such a great concept
for like a movie. I mean, it doesn't have to
be exactly this, but just the concept of like
putting tar on something, having a hole in your,
you know, the idea of like some sort of movie
where that's a mystery the entire time and that
you eventually find out that's how someone did
something like this. That's an incredible theory.
I'm already satisfied with that conspiracy theory
and the theory about how it happened. Think of
the hilarious things that you could just post
permanently on the highway. Oh, yeah. Well, I
think I will say this. I don't think he can drive
and do it. I think he has to go there at 4 a
.m. When there's no traffic, stop his car and
drop it. Right. So a lot of them are if you because
I actually went and saw one today in the lead
up to this episode, we happened to be near one
and I went and took a picture of it. Most of
them, most, if not all of them are at like intersections.
So he's at like a stop sign or a stoplight and
he'll put it on the ground through the hole.
And then when the light changes or it's time
for him to go, he just fucks off. I think that's
right. Because like they're not. Some of them
are, yeah. There are some in the middle of I
-95. I don't think they're still there, obviously,
because it's been years. But he just fucking
plops them down through a hole in his car. It's
wild. You know what's interesting? I think would
be a good part of this theory. I'd like to add
it. I think his hole in the bottom of his car
should be somehow aligned with his back tire.
So as soon as he places it, he drives over it
for the first time. And then other people make
it. Yeah, see, that's what I was thinking. He
was dropping it. right in line with the tires
so that he would be the first one to drive over
it and plant it down. Because if it's not aligned
anywhere else, you can't guarantee that a tire
could ever hit that, especially on the highway.
Yeah, that's true. I mean, we'll get into it
because we kind of have an idea, but I don't
want to spoil it for you. I mean, the level of
thought we just put into this is kind of staggering.
Yeah, I agree. Not like, who the fuck is this
guy and why is he doing it? But like, I wonder
how I could do this. Yeah, exactly. Well, do
you want to know who the fuck is doing this?
Yeah. Well, yeah, please. Okay, well, for decades,
nobody knew. Like, the tiles just appeared. No
one ever saw anyone laying them. There was no
artist signature. There was no tags. Just the
message over and over and over and over again.
But luckily for us, three Philadelphia artists
and DIY historians named Justin Dewar... John
Foy and Colin Smith spent years investigating
the mystery tiles and their work all came together
in this fucking incredible 2011 documentary called
resurrect dead. The mystery of the 20 tiles,
10 out of 10 highly recommend watching it. So
here's what they discovered. Like the first,
the first thing is that they dug into like the,
the, the phone call I mentioned earlier. Now
this phone call was between columnist Clark daily
on and a man named James Marasco. The caller
told DeLeon that he represented a group called
the Minority Association, and they believed humankind
could resurrect every dead person who ever lived
by colonizing Jupiter. He told them that the
theory came from Toynbee's writings in 2001.
So it didn't take long for investigators to be
like, well, this is obviously our dude. And here's
the thing. James Marasco was a real guy. He was
a social worker in his 70s living in Philly at
the time. But when he was finally tracked down,
he denied everything, claimed he didn't know
anything about any damn tiles. So either Marasco
was lying or someone had been using his name
as a cover. Spoiler alert, it's the second one.
I mean, like, wouldn't you deny that too, though?
Yeah, right. I would deny that immediately. I'd
be like, no, I wasn't doing that. It's cool,
though, right? It wasn't him, though. It was
someone was using his name as like a code name.
So it was a dead end on that. But luckily, our
trio of investigators aren't so easily deterred.
Through interviews, FOIA requests, maybe dumpster
diving, probably, and just general madness, they
triangulated on a name. Severino Seve Verna.
He was a reclusive dude from South Philly. Here
are the reasons why they believe Seve was the
guy. For starters, a few tiles from the 80s,
including one in Santiago, Chile, had an address
baked into them, and that address led to a South
Philly row home owned by the Verna family. Then
there was his car. Multiple neighbors described
Seve's car as having no passenger seat, no floor
on the passenger side, and a big -ass radio antenna
strapped to the roof. Now, you're probably wondering,
why does the antenna matter? Well, one thing
I haven't mentioned yet is that in the early
80s, shortwave radio enthusiasts reported bizarre
transmissions in Philly ranting about, you guessed
it, resurrecting the dead on planet Jupiter.
And when Doo and his team traced those broadcasts,
they seemed to have originated in the general
area of Seve's house. And then finally, there
were praxis tiles all around his house. Like
some neighbors even remembered seeing the word
Toynbee on discarded pieces of linoleum. Was
Seve ever caught in the act, though? No. He was
like a phantom, and he never publicly commented,
and he never confessed. And I think that's kind
of rad. Seve ran a decades -long public art campaign
and managed to stay anonymous the entire time.
But today, most Toynbee researchers agree that
Seve Verna is the guy. But because he never admitted
it, and because the whole project was so secretive,
the myth just kind of lives on. And honestly,
that's kind of the way it should be. You know
what I'm saying? Wow. He's the Banksy of tiles.
pretty much yeah without the hype though i feel
like well i mean it's just so bizarre that he's
doing this mysterious thing and all stuff and
his address is printed on them yeah isn't that
weird isn't that like a real i mean you're gonna
go through the trouble of taking out your passenger
seat putting a hole in your floor attaching a
bizarre antenna and then you're going to accidentally
print your license plate on these tiles. I mean,
your address on these tiles. Doesn't that seem
odd? They still, but I mean, it was kind of successful
because no one found him. That's true. I guess
so. That's really strange. Yeah. But it also
leads us to the million dollar question. And
that's Dave. Hold up. Hold up for just a second.
There's somebody making a lot of noise in my
yard. Hold on. Sorry about that. My son was like
going ham on the fucking trampoline. I'm like,
dude, I'm going to record. I'm going to record
at two 30. And he's like, okay. I would love
to eat ham on a trampoline. So, like I was saying,
what was he trying to say? Did he actually believe
the dead could be resurrected? It fucking seemed
like it, but maybe it was all just a metaphor,
or maybe it was something else entirely. But
depending on who you ask, the Toynbee tiles could
be a number of different things, from some sort
of grand philosophical project to a sci -fi cult's
recruitment campaign. So let's break down some
of those like schools of thought. First is that
he was just an outside artist, like the tiles
with their hand cut letters, bold color choices
and total disregard for legality. Some of them
read like a manifesto dropped into the middle
of city life. It's basically like a long running
art installation. But he was using like public
infrastructure as his gallery, which is kind
of rad as hell. Yeah, I love I love street art.
You know, that's cool. But. such a distinct thing.
Like you could be resurrected on Jupiter. It
just doesn't seem like it's a metaphor for anything.
I mean, these tiles went over big in the gay
frog community. Man, the planet of Jupiter littered
with the corpses of gay frogs. They were trying
so hard. But then you got like, you got the,
there's like a darker angle and that's the, the,
the Tyler wasn't just quirky, but he was. probably
unwell like some of the longer tiles go way off
the rails there was rants about the u .s media
again the the hellion jews the mafia uh and elaborate
conspiracies to try and silence him there are
tiles that beg people to murder all journalists
others they like i said say submit and obey and
then there's the one that just ends with you
must make in late 20 tiles uh yeah so this wasn't
just like i have an idea and i'm sharing it it
was i'm being hunted the world is against me
and only you can help me spread the truth before
they kill me kind of thing sharing it is such
a funny way to describe it yeah the only thing
i'm thinking of though is that like it's kind
of an ingenious delivery system if like if there's
a lot of if there's a lot of confidence in the
way that it came about like dropping it through
the car and then covering it with tar paper so
that other cars would unearth it. All of that
leads to a mental organization that I feel like
somebody who believes in this insanity probably
wouldn't have. Yeah, this is definitely more
like on the artist kind of. side for me i think
right yeah but if you do lean towards this view
like the tiles are a glimpse of like pretty much
into a paranoid unraveling mind that like is
clearly that's what it seems like that's what
it seems like yeah for sure like the new york
post then there was like there was like a hot
minute there where people thought that this was
the work of like a weird cult or like a secret
society uh like early tiles mentioned and he
mentioned in his phone call the minority association
One tile named the Philadelphia Address. Another
referenced Dover, UK as a safe house. Some folks
thought that the Toynbee tiles were the breadcrumb
trail for a real life like underground belief
system. Kind of like if like Heaven's Gate took
up arts and crafts kind of thing going on. OK,
I mean, they kind of did. They had a they had
a robust website system. That website's still
up, dude. It's wild. Yeah, I know. I just checked
it. So it did. yeah i mean i guess this is kind
of the you know you're giving us the summary
but did anyone go through these with as much
evidence as possible and say here's what this
guy might have been going through here's why
he said this like did they pull all this and
have like a generalized theory about what the
guy was trying to say i know you kind of gave
me a general summary but i thought maybe there'd
be like a specific thing not really because no
one's ever talked to the dude so no one i mean
you can all of this is just like conjecture and
i know i know i'm wondering if someone laid out
all the text and was like here's what happened
and they kind of figured it out but i know that's
difficult like i wonder if you could do that
better now with ai like putting it together and
have ai find patterns in it yeah maybe it's possible
What sucks now is that, we'll get to it, but
most of these don't exist anymore. I was going
to say. Philadelphia is always redoing their
streets. A lot of these no longer exist. The
fact that I found one today, I actually asked
the dude who made the documentary where to find
one, and he gave me the address. They're hard
to find. That's awesome. Just a real quick thing
for Sarge. Is there AI that finds patterns in
notes and stuff? Yeah, so the police kind of
use it when comparing online stuff. So if somebody
makes threats online, you can run it through.
I forget what the program's called, but essentially
what they can do is look at the word usage, look
at the punctuation, and a bunch of different
things like that. Oh, okay. Punctuation's not
going to work, but you can look through. um the
word pattern the word choices the sentence structure
all that stuff and you can sort of compare and
then find similarities so you could you could
find you know crazy rantings from one person
go through the entire document and then compare
it to other rantings you might find online and
then say okay i can say with some degree of confidence
that the person who wrote this also wrote these
things online wow i'm thinking with the 20 tiles
you might be able to take like all the tiles
yeah analyze them uh analyze the text separately
and then say you know can you know somewhat conclusively
okay these were all done by the same person or
this was done by a collective okay see i was
i was wondering if it was the type of thing where
like the golden state killer like coded messages
could have been figured out you know what i mean
oh uh you mean uh zodiac yeah zodiac well i think
yeah that's actually how they that's how um they
had code breakers do that but it's not it wouldn't
be too far off wow that's cool That's really
cool. Yeah. I was just wondering about that.
Yeah. I never heard about this guy way too much
credit. Well, I mean, we might not be either
pants shittingly insane or just like an artist
having a good time. Yeah. Right. But there's
also, there's also people that argue that we've
all been taking the messages like way too literally
that the whole resurrect the dead on Jupiter
thing was more symbolic than anything. Like it
was like a metaphor. And here's how, like, if
you read it more as a metaphor, how it would
kind of read. So you got the Toynbee idea, which
equals humanity's potential to overcome death
and destruction. And then you have Kubrick's
2001, which would be equal like our next evolutionary
leap. And then resurrect dead on Jupiter is more
like a poetic call to reclaim what we've lost
and build something better for ourselves. Yeah,
it's not like a how -to manual. It's more like
a piece of aspirational sci -fi. philosophy like
saying shoot for the moon but way more insane
and you know what i mean yeah i'm gonna be honest
i'm so glad that you came through on telling
us what the metaphor was because if you just
left that open i would have been thinking about
this shit for hours what the fuck does jupiter
mean yeah yeah right but then there's my personal
favorite theory and that's he just wanted to
leave something behind like it's not a cult it's
not a conspiracy it's not a manifesto it's just
something to make people stop in the middle of
a crosswalk and go like, what the fuck is this?
In that way, the Toynbee tiles did work. They
made me curious, made people dig into it, made
us think about life, death, resurrection, art,
even fucking roads and sidewalks and shit. That's
an interesting aspect of it. I think that some
artists are more like, especially street artists,
are more like, well, what can I put out there
that will make people... curious you know i mean
and that's part of the art like i you know i
held up that sticker earlier i i love shepherd
fairy um and he came up with the under the giant
you know under the giant has a posse obey stuff
and that was in providence and i'm from rhode
island so i read about it and when it first started
he just started putting the andre the giant obey
stuff all over the place and people were like
Basically, I guess when it started, we're like,
what is this? Is this a gang? Are people warning
us? They took it as this very ominous thing.
And this local paper, a local paper in Providence
basically was like, if anyone has any information
about the guy who's doing this, we're trying
to figure it out. And they were worried. They
were nervous. And so Shepard Fairey himself actually
reached out to the paper and was like, I'm just
doing this for fun. I just like the image. uh
it's obviously it's counterculture you know the
obey is sarcastic he's like it's just about like
punk rock uh street art and having a good time
so it wasn't ominous at all but they took it
that way first and this is kind of similar except
the actual inscriptions are much more negative
and ominous yeah yeah but i honestly i dig that
energy like i love the i love the idea of being
like i'm just gonna put this weird shit on the
ground yeah people are gonna stop and read it
because they don't know what it means. And then
the news is going to pick it up and everyone's
going to panic because people are idiots. That's
the thing. So that's kind of what I think some
people go for. Yeah, it's just acts of public
weirdness that catch your attention. It's basically
what's going on. Right. I've dedicated my life
to it. Yeah, for this guy, he never said a word
in public. He never took credit. And maybe he
just wanted to matter just for a minute. You
know what I mean? but also being a mysterious
figure. And it's kind of perfect. I love this
theory that he's just a dude who just wanted
to make an impact for however long he could.
Now, like I said, many of the Toynbee tiles have
crumbled under decades of traffic and road work,
but the mystery refuses to die. And the reason
for that is because new tiles keep showing up.
Uh, sometimes they look like the classics. Other
times there's something else entirely. Like for
example, starting in the 2010s, a new wave of
tiles began appearing stamped with a signature
house of Hades. Now these aren't exact copies
of the original. They're way weirder, uh, sometimes
cruder and often much more graphic. Uh, some
features sexually explicit borders, political
rants, or just random shit like house of Hades
tiles made from the ground bones of dead journalists.
That's probably one of my favorite ones. So it's
like Twitter. Yeah, I like that one too. But
unlike the OG Tyler, House of Hades is reportedly
a group, or at least they kind of operate like
one. They've been known to mail tile kits to
people in different cities, and you can find
their stuff in Philly, NYC, Detroit, even out
west. Meanwhile, a few new Toynbee -style tiles,
like the classic format with the original message,
still appear now and then, mostly in Philly,
leading some to believe the original tiler might
still be around, just older, quieter, just not
quite done with his little art project. Now,
whether it's him or a devoted imitator, the message
remains the same. Toynbee idea in movie 2001,
resurrect dead on planet Jupiter. So there you
have it, guys. That is the story. The mystery
of the Toynbee tiles. How are we feeling about
it? I love it. I think it's... That was so cool.
I think it's really fun. I like the aspect of
the art and the curiosity factor. I do think
that's fun. Yeah. I just, from my own perspective,
if I was going to do something like that, and
I'm not saying I'm planning on it. Well, if you
hit up House of Hades, they'll send you a tile
kit in the mail. So there you go. You can do
whatever you want. But wouldn't it be fun to
do it, like, let's say over the course of like
a year? And you keep dropping them in different
places. And eventually they form a complete puzzle.
Not physical puzzle, but like a story or something.
Yeah, that would be cool. That would be cool.
You know what I mean? Jesus fucking Christ. I
think you should put just like all the most fucked
up well -known porn. Like Lemon Party, Two Girls,
One Cup. It's just everywhere. One guy, one jar.
Just screenshots of that, but in front of like
Marjorie Taylor Greene's house. Exactly. And
put someone's... And you know what? Censor them
all. All the genitals, censor them. But with
someone random's face. Like Barbara Walters.
You know what I mean? It's like, what is this
guy saying about Barbara Walters? You know? That'd
be fun. Or like censor it with a rainbow flag.
Because they hate rainbow flags and they want
them gone, but if they pull it away, they're
going to see Goatsy's ass. And you know what?
Little... Little frog holding the flag. Oh, there
we go. It came full circle. Full circle, baby.
All right. So you guys dig this? It was a little
different. We don't normally talk about mysteries,
but yeah, it was fun. It was awesome. Yeah. I
remember I watched that documentary when it came
out in 2011, and it's one of the reasons why
I got into like weird mystery shit. So basically,
if it wasn't for Tomby Tiles, I don't think I'd
be here doing this show with you guys. So shout
out to whoever does the Tomby Tiles. I like it.
Nice work. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, there you have
it. That's it. I hope you guys enjoyed it. Chuck,
before we sign off, normally we would plug our
stuff, but I feel like it's only appropriate
for you to plug your stuff. So what do you got
going on? Hell yeah. I appreciate it. So basically,
yeah, I'm I am a host of the podcast Fun Bearable
with comedians Ray Harrington and Brad Rohr.
It's a really fun time. We have a lot of our
friends on like Mark Norman, comedian Joe List,
Mike Cannon. And the guys from the Tell Them
Steve Dave podcast, which I'm also involved in.
I host a couple of shows in their Patreon. And
yeah, it's a very fun podcast. Funbearablepod
.com is where to find it. And we are doing a
live show on June 1st at the Comedy Connection
in East Providence, Rhode Island. Nice. Our live
shows are very bizarre. We do a lot of pranks.
We do a lot of segments. It's not really a podcast
live. It's more of like an improv and sketch
thing. Very alternative. our goal is kind of
like whenever people come out to one of our shows
we want them not to know what they expect that's
so cool yeah we did uh well it's funny we have
the same you know we have narragansett as a sponsor
on our podcast too that's how we got linked up
yeah yeah and one of the things that's that happened
was uh cam our wonderful rep wonderful guy he
went to our live show last year oh he's the best
and um for the close of our live show What we
did was we took my buddy Brad, who's on the podcast,
we took his image and we made a fake advertisement
for him having his own hot dog cart. And we made
these advertisements like postcards and we sent
them out all across the country to different
hot dog places saying, I'm going to run you on
a business. Like, you don't know what you're
doing. We wrote to like the, we wrote to like
the FDA and said like, Hey, I have this illegal
hot dog business. I keep them all in my bathtub.
Will you guys please approve me? A ton of stuff
like that. And we actually wrote to his favorite
hot dog place growing up in Indiana. And the
place is called Boz's. And he wrote like, I used
to look up to you. Now I'm here to take the throne,
blah, blah, blah, and all this stuff. And it
ended with, you might want to check the paper
tomorrow. And we took out an ad on the paper
there. And above the advertisement, it says.
better than bozz's and then it has the advertisement
for his hot dog truck and he went there he went
there later on and as soon as he walked in he
said the first person that worked there that
saw him said are you brad from brad's brats and
they knew it right away but we do yeah we do
a lot of fun stuff like that at the live show
the reason i brought up narragansett is because
i we're gonna try to get cans made of the brad's
brats logo as like a uh A non -alcoholic hot
dog seltzer, which I think would be awesome.
But we're not going to actually sell it. What's
going to be inside, hopefully, is a hot dog scented
candle. That's our plan right now. Oh, my God.
That is such a good idea. Yeah. So if you're
in the New England area, thank you. Massachusetts,
Connecticut, Rhode Island, come on out Sunday,
June 1st at the Comedy Connection, East Providence,
Rhode Island. It's a great comedy club. Amazing
comedy club. Go to funbearablepod .com for tickets.
Yeah, I'm in the New England area. I'll make
my way down there. You should. Dude, it is really
fun. It is really fun. And usually, I always
say to people, if you're traveling, because a
lot of people come from New York to come to our
shows, I go, if you're traveling, let's all go
out to dinner afterwards. And we usually go to
a really cool late night pizza spot. I'm in.
Yeah, man. It's good stuff. I'm sure Cam will
be there too. So Cam will be hanging out. I'll
report back on the podcast afterwards. Love it.
Hell yeah. Yeah, so be sure to check out funbearablepod
.com. Is that what it is? that's right yeah all
right yeah so check that out get tickets to the
live show i'll put a link uh to the website in
the episode description so you can easily find
it um yes if they want to follow you on social
media where can they find you i'm at discount
chuck on instagram and twitter hell yeah and
the i think it's at fun bearable pod for the
podcast instagram yep that's all the socials
youtube instagram everything Awesome. And if
you want to follow us on social media, we really
only do Instagram and TikTok. It's at cryptic
cocktail on Instagram, at cryptic cocktail party
on TikTok. If you want to follow Sarge, you can
just head to the link in our episode description.
All of his social media is on there. Sarge, you
want to plug your coloring book before we go?
Yeah, the coloring book is still alive because
we live in a dystopian hellscape. Sarge's supernormal
.com. You can color all of your favorite political
enemies in any way you'd like. Barbara Walters,
everybody. Or you could just roll one up and
hit somebody who was a MAGA right over the head.
Don't actually do that. That's a crime. But it'd
be cool if you did it. So, sagesupernormal .com,
$9 .99. It's better than a Volkswagen full of
nuns. I believe it. They're annoying. And with
that out of the way, normally Sarge says goodbye
and I love you to the audience, but Chuck, do
you want to do the honors of saying goodbye and
I love you to the audience? Goodbye and I love
you.