I’m curious if anyone’s read through 40 posts of this thread without having listened to the whole thing. And if so, why?
I don’t know. But we have a spoiler policy on this board and it’s been debated to death in scores of threads over the years. If you want to debate it some more, I’d recommend starting a thread in ATMB.
I don’t have any idea what would actually be debated - I’m just honestly curious who would read through a 40+ post thread rife with spoilers on something they intend to listen to, but haven’t yet.
Anyway, I was positive at the end of episode 2 that John B.'s death was a hoax. I wasn’t able to get back to it for a few more days, and was surprised at the turn of events it took. I also thought that the revelation at the end of all of the BDSM things he was into was too much information that didn’t contribute to the story or flesh out any meaningful aspect of John’s life - but I did appreciate the interviews with the people he had gotten close to throughout his life who were clearly affected by his death. There was so much about John that could have all been smoke, mirrors and bullshit - it was good to have confirmation from others that he had, indeed, made meaningful connections with them. It especially made it all the more tragic that the county clerk had not contacted them to inform them of John’s death and subsequent funeral - she had clearly contacted other people on that list.
On its face, the podcast is a very well done piece on a fascinating, flawed character. At that, it succeeded, and is well worth listening to. I’m still left thinking about everyone involved, and the glimpse into a world I know little about - and for that I’m grateful.
In 2005/2006 I used to chat with John B. online. I lived about 20 miles from him and we struck up a pen-pal relationship through either match or gay dot com, forget which. I had not thought of him in ten years but when I started listening to the podcast it all came back: click click click, yep, that’s him. I thought at the time “This guy is brilliant, fascinating, and crazier than a bag of rabid squirrels”. No real insight to offer, never met him, just a “Yep, I remember him”.
My favorite line of the podcast: “He’s day-ud, cut off his nipples!”
And I totally believe Tyler found something valuable and easily negotiable. (Amazing to me that when gay guys “of a certain age” convince themselves they have an “avuncular/platonic/paternal [etc.]” interest in a young straight guy the young straight guy is going to be hot; they rarely take such “innocent” interest in ugly guys.)
[Moderating]
The OP requested spoiler tags, and if we’re going to transition to “open spoilers”, it should only be after a consensus of the people in the thread.
That said: I’ve gotten reports of open spoilers in this thread, without any mention of what the spoilers are. I don’t follow this story, and have no idea what information is a spoiler and what isn’t. If there’s something specific that you think ought to be boxed, please let me know more than just “something in post ###”.
I am surprised no one mentioned Uncle Jimmy. He was my favorite person in the whole podcast!
Was that the disabled dude screaming affirmations in the background? He seems fun! Truth is stranger than fiction. I know somebody with more or less his same story/injury, but with only mild disability. The brain is such a curious thing.
Regarding nipple jewelry.
[spoiler]A mortician would have had no trouble removing nipple rings, and repairing quickly any related cosmetic damage. Hell, I remove body jewelry from living folks all the time, and it’s not tough. It’d be a LOT easier if they were dead. So I suspect the mortician’s excuse all to hell and back.
Even so, I found Rita’s rather direct attitude about it both shocking and rather refreshing[/spoiler]
Also, I think Reed wussed out when Tyler asked him if Reed thought he was a bad person for Tyler’s plan to get his guns back. For Og’s sake, at least say “I think you’re planning a bad action”. Not “your life experience is different, I don’t want to judge you” for his barbaric scheme to deal with his electrical contractor.
As for the podcasts, OMG I was addicted. Just finished the last one earlier today.
And I’m impressed that Sampiro and John B have an internet history together. Wow!
“Yes SIR! THAT’S RIGHT!”
Soon to have his own series of children’s books to teach kids respect for those with disabilities: The Adventures of Uncle Methbullet
It is so damned depressing how many people live with such low expectations, such effed up relatives, and such continual never effing ending bad choices. And how goddamned fertile so many of them are.
I finished listening to the series. I guess by the end I wasn’t listening too closely, because I discovered I had completed all the episodes but kind of forgot what the resolution was.
Overall, my reaction is—what was the point of all this? Is it just to find out that a quirky character was suffering from mercury poisoning?
Why did we have to learn so much about this guy’s life and what everyone he knew thought of him? What’s it all in aid of? It’s not part of some consequential series of events, or an illustration of some important condition or public concern. Just a guy who fried his brain, became progressively erratic and eccentric, and then …
I don’t know. It’s not even a story.
I finished listening to the whole thing today and I loved it. It started out as a murder mystery and ended up being a biography. The really wonderful part is that it’s not a biography of someone famous but just an ordinary Joe, could be any one of us. But as Brian the host continued to dig, found that this Joe was a complicated, genius, tormented soul. I actually liked the hg poisoning reveal at the end because it fit the narrative. When someone commits suicide everyone they love spends years wondering why. I think Brian did a good job of telling John b’s story and digging out a bit of what made him tick (so to speak) and also did a good job of making him a sympathetic character. I thought the last episode was a lovely eulogy for John b.
In response:
For smaller stuff, I agree 100%. However, if you’re getting into large-gauge body jewelry with captive bead rings, it’s impossible to do with your hands and quite tricky without the proper tools – very heavy duty ring-opening pliers, in the case of large stuff like 0g CBRs. Even the “standard” ring opening pliers, which are body jewelry-specific tools, only work up to about 6g or so. Quite likely that he had stretched to a large enough size that they had no idea how to deal with it aside from cutting them. And it doesn’t really matter anyway, jewelry like that is not going to be gold anyway.
But a quick slice thru half the nipple releases the jewelry, and a little body glue puts it right back into place cosmetically. Easy peasy.
It ended up being more of a human interest piece, than some sort of mystery that probably most people expected. That’s most likely the cause of the dissonance in most the reviews.
Most likely, but my dissonance is similar to Ascenray’s: What was the point? The whole thing lacked an overall vision. The first couple of episodes were clearly teasers to keep people listening (especially the ending of Ep. 2), but after that it really should have been more cohesive. I think it should have been a character study throughout rather than what it is.
One thing that really got on my nerves was Brian Reed’s voice. He’s the rare example of male uptalk. Several times (after the beginning of Ep. 3) he sounded like he was on the verge of tears when he said certain words and it rubbed my last nerve raw.
Having said that, I enjoyed the podcast although I don’t think I’ll listen to it again.
could not disagree more. Reed was not so much telling the story of John B, as he was telling the story of how he came to know John B and the people surrounding him. he takes us on the same journey he took and allows us to experience it in the same way and come to our own conclusions as to what’s important or significant. the point of it all, IMHO, is that life is not a like a story, it doesnt unfold the way you expect it to. . .as many a poet has said before life is not a destination but a journey! and i loved this particular journey!
mc
Yeah, there’s that. 
There’s life and there’s storytelling. Life is a confused mess. Storytelling is clearing up the mess to uncover a certain perspective that makes sense of the confusion. S-Town came close to doing this at times, but ultimately did not and left too much of a mess behind.
Quick question:
Who else thinks that Tyler found some of the hidden money and that’s why he had that off-the-record conversation in the last episode? He didn’t seem to be too concerned about how he was going to pay for his trials or the house he was building.
I agree completely. At the beginning I snapped to judgement of John B: his country accent combined with all the big words he was throwing around made me think he was just pretentious but still a backwoods yokel. By the end, I appreciated him a lot more for being a genius intellect struggling with the torment of likely clinical depression which prevented him from leaving a place he hated, and the likely mercury poisoning which made everything worse for him. The clock restorations, the hedge maze, his work in the community all added up for me to be someone valuable to society, so his suicide was a real loss. By the last two episodes I had so much compassion for him that his voice no longer sounded like a pretentious yokel.