EP 005 - The Many Lives and Times of Alcatraz - Part 1 - San Francisco, California
Release Date: 02/06/2020
EP 012 - "Everyone Is Danger: Riding With The Spectre of Pasolini" - Chapter 1 - The Invocation
False Walls
November 2nd. 1975. Ostia. Around 6:30 AM, the sun is coming up in the open fields of an ancient fishing village. Just a few miles outside of Rome, it feels a world away from the Eternal City, The Capital of The World. The rising sun reveals pebbled beaches, salt marshes, faded signs, piles of concrete. The waters of the Tyrenniean Sea gently meet the sand at the nearby Lidos, but we begin further out, somewhere in the open fields of Via dell’Idroscalo. A cold wind blows across the desolate landscape. If you...
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EP 011 - "La Prima Porta"
False Walls
This is False Walls…. Collect your belongings and pass the control gates. Separate from the teeming crowd of tourists on holiday and locals folding back into reality. Take the road from the airport but veer off immediately. This is not the road that leads to Rome.
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EP 010 - The Spectre of Stockholm - The Ghost Train of Kymlinge
False Walls
Location: Stockholm Sweden This year, I found myself in various locations in the Nordic countries, a region that contains stunning natural phenomena as well as a deep folklore populated by an endless cast of mystical beings. Trolls inhabit lakes and dark caves, elves are found in deep forests and waterfalls, giants inhabit mountain ranges and rocky islands. And yet even in the modern cities, folklore and legend can be found, ghosts and traces of history, real and imagined, overlap in certain places, hiding in plain sight but available for those of us who know where, and how...
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EP 009 - Severed Heads Of State Part 2 - Saddam in the Shadows
False Walls
Location: Kuwait City, Kuwait Welcome to part two of our search for hidden statues, figurative memorial symbols of power or commemoration that have fallen from favor, pulled from their pedestals and have been defaced, destroyed, decapitated and/or hidden away in secret locations as shameful totems of the past. In our last episode, I brought to you my adventures in statue hunting in Albania, a beautiful place with a dark past that is physically impossible to ignore. I found a small but potent gang of dictators lurking behind the local art museum, a graven...
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EP 008 - Severed Heads Of State Part 1 - Uncle Joe and Friends
False Walls
If there exists a moment in time in which the powers that be go through the machinations to create and erect a figurative memorial statue, the powers that be may eventually fall from favor, the moment in time the statue represents may eventually be seen as a less than ideal moment of history, and these symbolic construction may be pulled from their pedestal, dragged through the streets, and thrown into the river. Or worse.
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EP 007 - The Women of Whitechapel and the Long Shadow of Leather Apron - London
False Walls
This story involves murder, mystery, cryptic clues, hidden identities, and ulterior motives, all wrapped around one the best known tales in what we now call the True Crime genre. But we’ll look beyond the usual voyeuristic parlor games and shine a little light on the real people, and the real circumstances, that lead to the horrific real life killing of several women in Victorian London, as well as the strange secret that some feel the museum itself is built upon.
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EP 006 - The Many Lives and Times of Alcatraz - Part 2 - San Francisco, California
False Walls
Over 1500 prisoners made their way to Alcatraz federal Penitentiary during the 33 years it was operational. Those individuals who caused the most trouble at their respective home prisons were carefully evaluated and sent to Alcatraz. But make no mistake, prison behavior aside, the walls of this prison were filled with murderers and thieves. Let’s get to know some of them.
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EP 005 - The Many Lives and Times of Alcatraz - Part 1 - San Francisco, California
False Walls
The isolation is eerie and palpable, and insult is even more injurious as the glittering lights of downtown San Francisco and all of it’s wanton freedoms are within plain sight, only 1.25 miles away. And as far as we know, though there is some margin for debate that we shall explore, there’s no solid evidence that anyone who has attempted to escape from Alcatraz ever survived. Or did they?
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EP 004 - The Crypt and The Wizard - London
False Walls
It is Friday the 13th, 1973
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EP 003 - Haw Par Villa - A Journey Through Hell - Singapore
False Walls
“The Ten Courts Of Hell are contained in a large, snake shaped mountain of crumbling plaster, which at one point was in the form of a large dragon. Small severed heads adorn the outside, with an inscription in Chinese that I would later learn translates to “The sea of bitterness has no boundaries, turn back and you will find shore”. I suppose this was meant as a warning, a portent of what lay waiting for me inside, but I ignored the heads and ominous writing and headed toward the opening…”
info_outlineThe isolation is eerie and palpable, and insult is even more injurious as the glittering lights of downtown San Francisco and all of it’s wanton freedoms are within plain sight, only 1.25 miles away. It was not uncommon for prisoners to hear Christmas music and and the sound of new years eve parties traveling across the bay. And yet, Alcatraz as well be on the moon, because the likelihood of escaping the stone walls of the prison itself pales in comparison to the wet hell that awaits anyone attempting the fool's journey across the choppy, freezing blue waters of the San Francisco bay. And as far as we know, though there is some margin for debate that we shall explore, there’s no solid evidence that anyone who has attempted to escape from Alcatraz ever survived. Or did they?