Timesuck with Dan Cummins

For this year's annual, inspirational episode and wrap-up, I share the surprisingly inspiring and entertaining tale of Colonel Harland Sanders, man behind the KFC empire. Then I go over what went down in Bad Magic 2023, and what I'm hoping to do in 2024. Hail Nimrod and THANK YOU!  It was such a good year and thanks to your continual support, I am more excited going into the next year of Bad Magic...

Did you know the term "incel" no longer generally refers to someone who is just lonely and horny? Now, it's more synonymous with a new kind of domestic terrorist. A rise in mass shootings carried out by self-identified "incels," starting with Elliot Rodger in 2014, has more and more people looking into the "manosphere" that incels digitally inhabit. It's a sad and terrifying place... and also - ho...

I know - this episode is a long one! I tried to cut as much as I could that didn't feel relevant to tell this tale. I really did! There's just so much juicy stuff. So many strange, STRANGE details. Lori evolved, over the course of her adult life, from a manipulative person who was also very religious, into a murderous, manipulative person who became, essentially, the co-leader of a cult when she m...

I finally look into what all the hype about the Murdaugh family murders is about. And the hype... is justified. I provide a summary of the Murdaugh's history of power and influence in South Carolina's Low Country and how a series of financial crimes and murders led to the collapse of their corrupt rural empire. Alec Murdaugh is a TERRIBLE human being... and I'm so glad that snake will rot in priso...

Want to know where a lot of the core ideas from the many conspiracies that revolve around the idea the a small, secretive cabal of wealthy Jews control the world and want to enslave and destroy humanity come from? Some old debunked Russian propaganda that is still causing problems over 125 years after it was written. Today, I'll explore the roots of antisemitism, and how antisemitic beliefs have l...

On the evening of May 6th, 2013, in the Tremont neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, three enduring mysteries were shockingly solved. Three missing Cleveland women, Michelle Knight, Amanda Berry, and Gina DeJesus - all long presumed dead - were found to have been held captive by a madman named Ariel Castro for roughly a decade.  It is insane what they had endured, and it is so inspiring how all three...

You probably are pretty familiar with the Duggar family, from TLC's hit show 19 and Counting. But do you know about the sexual abuse they hid for years? And do you know about the organization, often called a dangerous cult, that shaped their beliefs that may have led to them downplay that sexual abuse, The Institute in Basic Life Principles? Wild one today.  A lot more talk about riding bikes than...

Who decided to add cyanide to a bunch of bottles of Tylenol in the Chicago area in 1982? A couple of real shifty, odd suspects emerged in an investigation that lasted decades. In this episode, we'll not only look at the Chicago crimes, we'll also look at how these crimes led to legal changes to protect the consumers of all kinds of products. Protections all of us benefit from today. And we'll look...

Headed to 15th century to explore the life of a man who may have been the wealthiest noble in all of France at one point, and commander of France's military - Gilles de Rais. Was this contemporary of Joan of Arc also a demon-worshipper child killer?  He was put to death for, among other crimes, confessing to killing 140 children in the most heinous of ways. Did he really do all that he was accused...

This week we dig into both LDS and FLDS teachings, and learn about The School of the Prophets, a group composted largely of FLDS polygamists who believed strongly in the gift of personal revelation. And a revelation in 1984 would lead to the murder of a young Mormon wife and their baby.  CLICK HERE TO WATCH MY NEW SPECIAL ON YOUTUBE! Trying to Get Better Get tour tickets at dancummins.tv  Watch th...

When Fidel Castro took over Cuba in 1959, he deposed a dictator. And then the man who promised democracy turned into a dictator himself, and turned Cuba communist. Did he also make Cuba better than it was before? Or worse? Today we dig into the Cuba Revolution, and also go over the centuries of foreign subjugation and internal chaos and corruption that preceded it. Cuba has been struggling since l...

Is Larry Hall, currently incarcerated in federal prison on a charge of kidnapping for the purposes of sexual gratification, one of America's most prolific serial killers? Or a serial confessor to murder? A, as some local police who initially interrogated him believed, a wannabe? The true story of Larry Hall and FBI informant Jimmy Keene's attempts to get him to confess to murder, behind the Apple+...

How much do you know about "The Forgotten War" as the Korean War - technically a UN Police Action - is often called? Sandwiched between WW2 and Vietnam, it's never gotten the attention it's deserved. So let's give it some!  Also, do you know how connected Jon Bon Jovi is to the Korean War? You're about to...  CLICK HERE TO WATCH MY NEW SPECIAL ON YOUTUBE! Trying to Get Better   Get tour tickets at...

Have you heard of the Briley Brothers? Three young brothers, and a teenage neighbor, went on a vicious murder, robbery, and rape spree in Richmond, Virginia in 1979. And then two of the brothers later planned a historic death row prison escape.  Today's episode really again asks the question, "Are some people just born evil?" It sure seems ago with at least Linwood Briley. A wild story that I'm su...

My favorite episode in months. One that I'm hoping the most curious of the cult of the curious will truly enjoy. Today, we look at the very nature of our existence, how we came to our current theoretical understanding of the universe, what we know about black holes (like how the bend the very fabric of space-time!) and more entertaining and existential mind-candy!  CLICK HERE TO WATCH MY NEW SPECI...

Between August of 1979, and May of 1981, convicted serial rapist David Carpenter escalated to murdering his rape victims, and he killed at least seven young women, and likely several other victims. He also killed the fiancé of one victim and nearly killed the boyfriend of another. David's sexually violent crimes began almost 90 years ago in his childhood, and he's still alive today, the oldest inm...

Did the fall and/or destruction of the Great Library of Alexandria really set human progress a thousand years? Would w bee flying around in spaceships and teleporting and doing all kinds of crazy stuff if Julius Ceasar hadn't have burned down the library around 2000 years ago? Or DID Ceasar burn it down? What actually happened? What do we truly know about the contents of a place said to be the gre...

In the early '70s, a man presenting himself as Eugenio Mario Perente-Ramos creates the Eastern Farmworkers Association  - an organization purportedly aiming to help migrant workers on Long Island, New York. He then quickly goes national with the National Labor Federation, aka NATLFED, and develops other groups purportedly aimed at helping the poor around the US in other ways. Meanwhile, in the bac...

On August 9th, 1974, Richard Milhous Nixon, the 37th President of the United States of America, while serving his second term (after winning in a landslide), became the first and still only American leader to resign from office. Why? In a word, "Watergate." But Watergate was only the tip of the corruption iceberg. Through the televised Senate Watergate hearings, other members of government and the...

In addition to being a serial killer who very likely killed at least 15 young men and boys around London between 1978 and 1983... Dennis Nilsen was also SO WEIRD. Have you ever pretended to pass out in front of a friend or coworker, hoping they'll try to molest you? Dennis did that. Ever strip down naked while working security and rubbed your genitals on a stuffed gorilla? Dennis also did that. De...

Early on the morning of August 28th, 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was kidnapped from his great-uncle's home by two white men, Roy Bryant and JW Milam, and several others. Why? He'd allegedly flirted with Roy's wife Carolyn Bryant. Roy, JW, and possibly others proceeded to whip, punch, and pistol whip Emmett, before putting a bullet in his head and dumping his body in the river. And then they were...

What do we known about William Shakespeare the man? And why are his works still popular today? Who was Billy Shakes? We dive into the legacy of the English language's most important author this week, examine the claims that Shakespeare didn't actually write all that is attributed to him, learn a lot about the time and place he lived in, and so much more in this literary (and kind of true crime?) e...

On March 8th, 2014, 227 passengers boarded Malaysia Airlines Flight 370, taking off from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia at 12:41 a.m., destined to arrive in Beijing, China at 6:30 a.m. Not only did the flight never land in Beijing, it never made it even close. It turned around and disappeared several thousand miles away over the Indian Ocean and has never been found. What happened? Today we'll go over the...

Today we take a fascinating look into how Whitey Bulger rose to power in Boston's underworld in the 70's and 80's, with not only the FBI's protection, but also their direct help. No one (that we're aware of publicly, at least) benefitted more from the FBI's Top Echelon Informant Program than Irish-American gangster, Whitey Bulger.  Whitey rose through the ranks of Boston's organized crime scene th...

We got a weird one today! Wow. Jerry Brudos was a serial killer who became completely consumed with sexual fantasies revolving around women's shoes - specifically high heels - and women's undergarments. He wanted women he could control - to dress and pose exactly how he wanted, when he wanted. And if couldn't get them to do that in life, he would use their dead bodies to quench his increasingly ki...