Timesuck with Dan Cummins

On January 15th, 1919, a massive molasses tank in Boston’s North End burst, unleashing a 25-foot wall of sticky destruction that toppled buildings, derailed trains, and killed 21 people while injuring scores more. Today, we follow the harrowing rescues, the landmark class-action showdown, and the reforms that changed U.S. engineering standards. A strange, darkly ironic tragedy—equal parts true-cri...

Happy Veteran's Day! George S. Patton was a war-winning, poetry-writing, reincarnation-believing chaos machine. The Allies needed him. The Nazis feared him. His bosses… tolerated him. From heroic battlefield leadership to slapping hospitalized soldiers and creating international incidents with his mouth, Patton lived louder than almost anyone in uniform. This is the story of Old Blood-and-Guts: ge...

He was brash, beautiful, bold, flawed, and unapologetically himself. From Olympic gold to global fame, Muhammad Ali’s story is one of rebellion, redemption, and relentless courage. This week, we dive into the life of “The Greatest” - a man who fought not just opponents in the ring, but racism, war, and even his own failing body. Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee… and rumble, young meatsack,...

Happy Halloween, Meatsacks! The conclusion of our Halloween week fictional horror! In this conclusion to yesterday's release, Duncan Briggs just wants his life to return to what it was before he'd ever heard of AR Innovations. But we all know that's not going to happen, right? Instead, the new ride he's on keeps getting wilder. This episode was scored by Logan Keith. We recommend listening with he...

Hello again Meatsacks! The beginning of our last bit of Halloween week fictional horror! This one was originally released back in July. In this first of two parts,  we meet a man, Duncan Briggs, who agrees to participate in a paid scientific study to make a little cash to get his wife something nice for her birthday while he's in-between jobs. And then things get.... weird. Enjoy! This episode was...

Hello Meatsacks! Time for more Halloween week horror! This one was, as you can guess, released the week before yesterday's story, from this past May. And in it, we head to the tropical jungle of Vietnam's Annamese mountains. When on a dark, rainy night in January of 1968, PsyWar Detachment Six was conducting black ops meant to terrify and break the spirits of the Viet Cong.  Enjoy! This episode wa...

Time for another Halloween week Nightmare Fuel! This one is from this past May. And in it, we head to Upstate New York's Woodhull Mountain, where Gabe and Hassan see a very strangely placed house on the side of the hill while out on a hike. When Gabe enters the house, he leaves behind our world, and enters a space outside of it - a dark and mysterious space dedicated mostly... to pain.  Hope you l...

This isn't a mistake, meatsacks! I've been wanting to show you some of the new fictional content I've been working on for awhile now. And the week of Halloween seemed like a great time to do it. This week, I'll be sharing five of my favorite Nightmare Fuels with you here on the Timesuck feed, staring with this story I wrote back in March. It's 1989 and a pawn shop owner has found some chilling hom...

In the mid-1990s, the quiet backwoods of southwest Florida became the hunting grounds of a sadistic killer the media would dub “The Hog Trail Killer.” What began as a routine hog hunt quickly spiraled into one of the most gruesome investigations in Florida history - a string of bodies found in the woods, all bound, mutilated, and left to rot. This week, we look at Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., the man...

From ghostly prankster to urban legend, Spring-Heeled Jack terrorized Victorian London with blue flames, metallic claws, and impossible rooftop leaps—so much so that a Ripper-era letter in 1888 claimed his name. This Short Suck traces the 1838 panic through hoaxes, aristocratic “bets,” and mass hysteria to ask what Jack revealed about a rapidly modernizing empire’s fears. Along the way, we connect...

In Victorian England, “baby farming” turned unwanted infants into a deadly business. Amelia Dyer, known as The Ogress of Reading, used it to hide an unimaginable number of murders - hundreds of them. This week, we expose the grim world of baby farming, the cruelty of Victorian morality, and how one of the most prolific killers in British history was only a small part of a much bigger problem. Merc...

When seven backpackers vanished in the early 1990s, the vast Australian bush became the hunting ground of a sadistic killer. For years, hikers stumbled upon shallow graves in Belanglo State Forest—each revealing new horrors and the same gruesome pattern of torture and execution. The man responsible, truck driver Ivan Milat, would become known as the “Backpacker Murderer,” one of Australia’s most i...

Once hailed as a luxurious spa retreat in the Ozarks, the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs would earn a far darker reputation - one of fraud, tragedy... and restless spirits. From its days as a supposed healing haven to a hospital of horrors run by a quack doctor, the Crescent has been called America’s most haunted hotel. Step inside its haunted halls, if you DARE....on this historical and paranor...

From AI breakthroughs and supply chains to TikTok and military might, China’s rise has reshaped global power over the past few decades. Can the U.S. hold onto its superpower status, or is the “American Century” nearing its end? What will the world look like, if reshaped in China's image? All this and more on a VERY informative (and ultimately hopeful) edition of Timesuck.  Merch and more: www.badm...

This week, we deep dive into Pastor Robert Shinn, his Shekinah Church, and his management company 7M Films - and examine how a modern cult has (allegedly) exploited TikTok dancers, financially abusing them, sexually abused them and other members, while also possibly being connected to the very popular and scary Seven Mountains Mandate that currently has strong Whitehouse connections. While this cu...

In 1980, a camping trip at Australia’s magical Uluru sandstone monolith turned into an international media storm when nine-week-old Azaria Chamberlain disappeared from her family’s tent. Her mother, Lindy, cried out that a dingo had taken her baby. What followed was a decades-long battle of flawed science, media hysteria, wrongful conviction, and one of the most infamous trials in Australian histo...

Selena rose from an impoverished Texas childhood to become the Queen of Tejano music, breaking barriers and inspiring millions before her life was cut short at just 23 years old. This week, we’ll dive into her meteoric rise, her shocking murder, and also look at the dark dangers of obsessive fandom. From Selena to John Lennon to Dimebag Darrell and beyond, this is the story of when adoration turns...

On May 19th, 1977, 20-year-old Colleen Stan was hitchhiking from her home in Eugene, Oregon, to a friend's birthday party in the little Northern California town of Westwood. She was picked up in Red Bluff, California by a young couple, Cameron and Janice Hooker, who were out for a drive with their infant daughter. What followed was one of the most outrageous and lengthy periods of captivity I've e...

In 1933, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had his secret police goons round up hundreds of thousands of former farmers and he sent them into Siberia to create labor camps where they would be forced to work. Many would die along the way, including the over 6,000 unfortunate enough to end up on Nazino Island, where innocent people were dumped with no food other than raw flour, no clean water, no shelte...

In the mid-1990's, convicted rapist Moses Sithole went on a murderous rampage in South Africa. He would blame his sadistic crimes on being falsely imprisoned for a rape conviction in 1989 for which he would serve four years. But he wasn't, of course, falsely convicted. He had been raping woman after woman after luring them out into a secluded area with the promise of a new job. The same con he wou...

In many ways, America's modern obsession with true crime began on March 1st, 1932, when the 20th-month-old-son of the most famous man in America, aviator Charles Lindbergh, was kidnapped from his fortress of a home. The press would cover the subsequent investigation and trial of the man responsible like the press had never covered a crime before. There was so much public interest in this case, tha...

If you were lucky enough to have gone to New Jersey's Action Park before it closed in the '90s, you probably have the scars to prove it. This place was WILD. And while I understand why there are no longer parks around like it today, I also really, really wish I could've been there. This is a fun one!  Merch and more: www.badmagicproductions.com  Timesuck Discord!  https://discord.gg/tqzH89v Want t...

I have long dismissed whisperings of secret Satanic pedophile networks. But, it turns out there truly is an international group associated with a kind of Satanism reminiscent of 1980's Satanic Panic. It's called 764. It exists online. It's growing larger, seemingly, by the day. It's very real. And it's extremely terrifying. For Merch and everything else Bad Magic related, head to: https://www.badm...

The Times Square Killer didn't just kill in Times Square. Richard Francis Cottingham committed at least six murders in New York State between 1972 and 1980, plus an additional thirteen murders in New Jersey between 1967 and 1978. While he primarily targeted sex workers, he also kidnapped women and girls as young as thirteen off of the street. Today we both look at his crimes and also, explore the...

Did you know that roughly a million people in Russia today make their living as some kind of wizard, witch, or folk healer? And that some of the most popular TV programs in Russia in the '90s were presentations of psychic healers and self-proclaimed sorcerers? Russians have a long history of believing in magic, with old Slavic spiritual beliefs surviving Russia's past Christian takeover thanks to...