The Man With Two Faces

I mean my hyper fixation food of jalapeno poppers is I mean, I just keep buying them. I love them. I can't stop eating them. But now I'm so hot. It's so hot in here. Welcome to Scary Mystery Surprise, where we talk about scary things that surprised us around the Internet. I'm Edward, I'm Michelle. So we are going to talk about the legend of Edward Moore. Drake. Do you know who that is? Uh? No, lit you were gonna say Edward Scissorhands. They know, not Edward scissor Hands. Edward Moore Drake. You you don't know this story? Oh what? Wait? What's it? Okay, never mind, I'm going to wait until you go into the episode to find out because I'm excited. But I might know. I think you'll know once I get into it. But it is a legend. We're in England, nineteenth century England, so you know, que the countryside, Q some birds chirping, I don't know, lambs, maybe a cart I mean, maybe there's rain. Because this tale is very dark. It's very dark and gothic and it's England. You said, oh, yeah, of course it's England. Where else does it rain, like, yeah, it's definitely raining. There might be some castles, we don't know, definitely some manor houses because it's the countryside. Edward Mordrake was a lovely young man born into a wealthy and influential family, but from birth he was cursed with a second face on the back of his head. You know this story, Yes, I do know this story. The face was said to be expressive and beautiful, but also malevolent and would whisper terrible things to Edward, urging him to do unspeakable acts of violence and depravity, which makes me wonder what that is, you know what I mean, Like, what is that face saying? It's like, eat that last jalapeno popper. You're gonna feel great. You're gonna feel so good. Just do it, eat those jalapeno poppers. You're not gonna get too hot, or just like take that, you know, like you know, you know, innocent theft, Yeah, like a like a you know, the last cookie or whatever, or you stole a pie from a window, which I imagine was like the English countryside, they had a lot of pies on windows. So I'm pretty I don't know, unless it's like evil things like yeah, push that baby down the stairs, shove your maid in the oven. Yeah. So anyway, Edward's dealing with this nightmare of having a second face on the back of his face. It's a rough time for him. That would be pretty annoying. It would be annoying. I mean, how would you sleep. It's like you can't breathe. It's like, how do you go into the pool. It made jumping into pools very awkward for Edward. It's like two noses to cover when something stinks. Imagine like, oh no, like in modern day, in an airplane, imagine an airplane seat. Oh god, and then there's just this weird head there that's just blinking and going at you. I kind of imagine it not being fully able to speak, but Edward being able to like translate it with his thoughts, you know, like since they share a brain. Edward tried everything to rid himself of this cursed face, but nothing worked. He became a reckless hiding away in his family's mansion and never venturing into the world. But even in his isolation, he could hear the second face's whispers, driving him further and further into badness. And then one night, the whispers brewed too loud to ignore. Unable to bear the torment of the curse any longer, Edward begged doctors to remove the extra face, but none of them were willing to attempt surgery. And then I actually did some research about like if you needed to remove your face from the back of your head, and so was this was like what the science was, but I tried to put it in the story. The extra face would be intricately connected to the main face, with shared blood, vessels and nerves and other structures. Attempting to separate the faces could cause massive bleeding, nerve damage, and other serious complications that could even be fatal. Moreover, in the case of a supernatural extra face, it would be impossible to physically remove it through surgery, as it would not be a physical entity that could be cut away. So you know, he's got a serious problem here. It's a serious problem. It's like I feel bad, but like up to a limit, I mean, how hard Like I mean, he's isolated in a mansion. If you're privileged enough, you can just be a rich weirdo with a weird extra face. You could a hello evil villain that you could just be a villain in something call yourself extra face or yeah, extra face or like two face like Batman. Yeah, literally, like the villain that exists already. I think I mentioned to you once about how an elementary school teacher once told me that she had eyes in the back of her head. I just I wish she had done that thing where she just would have parted the back, like just warn fake eyeballs one day part of the back of her head, freaked out all the kids, and then I mean she would have never had to wear them again. Yeah, just one time. There you go, she's got a face in there. Mission accomplished, he got to. But I loved being a kid, Like it was just the magic level. I mean, like a teacher could have eyes in the back of her head and then you could find out that they were actually an alien or something. You know, the possibilities were endless instead of just like, yeah, a terrible teachers, just like what most of which is like what like when you reflect on it later, you're like, oh, oh, you know, this is kind of zeye tracking. But speaking of teachers, when people started and this is a serious topic, I guess, but like when teachers were do inappropriate things as in like that were questionable, like why would you massage what a girl in the class? Sorry, it was just my teacher. Maybe. I don't think we ever had a massage. We had some teachers that hit students and got fired. Wow. As a kid, I didn't think any of these things were bad until your teacher ends up, you know, on the news for oh god, you know, touching somebody in exchange for an A. No, that's the worst because it's like a grade school A. It's not even a college A. Oh no, this was high school, so I guess yeah's still grade school? Oh, high school A. Yeah. I mean my point is like, you you don't know when you're a kid. You don't know that this stuff is serious, right, And I feel like people take advantage of that. We're just terrible. And I hope if anything happens and anybody's young listening, please report it. Please please please report it, Please report it. I mean I was in school when Mary Kay Laturno did her thing. Do you remember that story? That was a Washington story. Oh, then she ended up getting pregnant twice by that student. She couldn't stay away from him, but then they got married and now she's dead. It's a good story. Thank you. Anyway, we went really off track, back to Edward Moore Drake. He tried to hide the face with top hats and hooded cloaks. The face could laugh and cry and always seem to find a way to peek out and remind the world of its presence. Imagine having a top hat on and then it just going a little bit like, that's just the face there? Where was this face? There was this face? Was it? Like? I imagine it directly on the back of his head, but I don't I guess it could be anywhere on the back of his head. So it's like, what's he gonna do? Wear a big sun hat? I guess he could. Why didn't he just grow his friacking hair over it? True? True, there you go, or just wear a wig if you don't have hair. But yeah, I mean, you know, you could have become like a barrister. And they wear those little wigs in England still, those little little weird powder wigs. Iually, you have to shave the face, like shave its beard. Oh god, you know what's weird. I always imagine the face as a woman. But I don't know why I did that. Oh huh, maybe like a muppet, like a genderless muppet, just weirdly unaging, like yeah, I don't know it can laugh and cry though, so I mean I feel kind of bad for it trying to cover it up. It's probably just like I can't breathe let me out, Let me out out of here. Something you ever try to like move something like with your nose, like your glasses, like a jesttum or something. Yeah, I just imagine it would start crying if he were the hat or laughing, just to make sure he was always in an awkward situation, always just to ruin his life literally constantly, because you know he's being you know, he's putting hats over it, so why not ruin his life? Oh, I made a note about trying to smother the face with a pillow or grow my hair over it. That's what I would try to. I just imagine wrapping my head in plastic to try and like I get that there's no plastic in the nineteenth century, but like just wrapping it to try it like a turban. Maybe you do a turban. Oh wait, wasn't that a Harry Potter. Was that a Harry Potter character? Did that guy have a head on the back of his head in the turban well confession. I've never read or seen any hair, neither of I. Oh, okay, then I don't know. Pause for a fact. I'm just gonna do some whispering right now so I can be the face of whatever it is. Or should it just go like a goldfish like, oh, that's creepy for some reason? Yeah, I know that that one's yeah, I mean, or just whispers like, you know, like only he can hear it, and it's like dickhead god or I imagine more like a like grunts like oh like and they crying. I feel I feel I don't know why I feel bad for it, for that face, like I mean you should, I think, uh, I mean, we don't know what it was, you know, didn't have a personality. Was it just like a demon on the back of his head? I don't know, you know, because if it's supernatural, no doctor's going to be able to cut that off, which I love how scientific that sounds is that if it's it's not a physical entity, a doctor is not going to be able to help you. I think maybe I feel bad because that guy had to like it was just hide pretty much because of that. When I was a kid and I would get warts in my hands, I wouldn't want to hide them. It was so very Oh yeah, I get that. I definitely got uh warts on my hand in college and I'd always just pull my sleeves over my hands while I was like, because the art department was so dirty, like we all ended up just randomly getting warts for like a year, everybody just got and not sexual warts, just regular warts, like just regular hand warts, not not from cool fun orgies but from phil so not genital warts but not genital awards, but legit handwarts from all like sharing like dirty arts flies and I don't know, no one taking any baths or something like that. But for some reason I went back to talk at that college and I was like, this is the dir I this is so dirty. This place is so dirty. I can't even function with how dirty it is. I thought, did you say you went for to talk there? Yeah, yeah, I've gone back to talk. Yeah. And wait, I imagine you were saying that to the audience. No, but I said it to my professor. I definitely said it to him when we were behind the scenes or getting dinner afterwards. Oh man, imagine just having a big old wart in your head, like behind your face. No, you'd want to hide, you'd want to wear a top hat. You'd want to wear the top hat. But also a wart that whispers evil things to you, because this voice always whispered dark and terrible things, urging Edward to give into his darkest impulses and thoughts. It whispered of pain, suffering, revenge, anger, and all things hidden deep within Edward's soul. Some versions of the legend even suggest that the face controlled more Drake's actions and thoughts, driving him to commit terrible acts. And they never list to what they say. But I'm imagining he pushed Grandma down the stairs or something like that, you know, yep, like push someone down into a well, or yeah, not innocent stuff like eat that last pancake. In the end, the legend goes Edward Mordrake took his own life at the age of twenty three, unable to bear the torment of his second face any longer. His last request was that his extra face be destroyed before he was buried, so it would never torment him in the afterlife. Wow, I know, I know. Well, it's worth noting there is no historical evidence to support the existence of Edward Moore Drake and his extra face. There's nothing. Although there were some photos making the rounds on the internet for a while, even though they look real, they are all fake, and this legend is likely, you know, just to scare people. What could be the lesson though? I think it honestly, I think the lesson is you let your negative thoughts win pretty much like and dominate and take over, and so you can always kind of battle with that duality. I think there's something there, Okay, I can see that. However, the story has captured the imagination of many people over the years. It's been the subject of songs, plays, and there's even a character. I think he's called Edward Moore Drake on American Horror Story. I think he's on the America Story Freak Show season. So let's just say songs, yeah, which I there was an example of a song, but I didn't listen to it. But it was by a band called The Movement or something like that, So it wasn't like the ones was a man who had another face had another face? No, but I wish I wish it was that he had another face and it whispered stuff and it whispurred stuff, and it whispered stuff. I think I imagine it like as a jug band, like who was a man who had Another Bird? And the album will be coming out this fall. So there's also no like clear origin of the Edward Moore Drake's story because there's a bunch of conflicting accounts. It suggested that it could be based on a real person who lived in the nineteenth century, although there is little concrete evidence to support this. One possible source of the legend is a medical textbook from the late eighteen hundreds called Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine, which briefly described a man named more Drake who has was said to have an extra face on the back of his head. So I might be real. It might be real, but they're saying the book could have exaggerated because it's, you know, eighteen hundreds Anomalies and Curiosities in Medicine. Also, the Victorians were super into superstition and popular imagination and tales of monstrous beings with multiple heads or faces, and they loved freak shows and displays of human oddities, and that could possibly be where the more Drake story became like a phenomenon. Wow, I didn't know they were that intense. I think that's how they're going to talk about us in true crime in the I think so well. The Victorians are obsessed with true crime too. They're just like not as graphic as we are, I guess, and don't have I mean it was like it'd have to be in like printed media would have to instead of yeah, given the tech, I think they would have been Yeah. Have you ever been to a freak show? No? And I don't think I would want to. I went to the one on Venice Boardwalk. I never need to again. I never need to go to any freak show again, because really, there are no freaks. Aren't we the freaks? He got to you. The legend of Edward Moore Drake might have also been inspired by real medical conditions or phenomena that were poorly understood or misinterpreted at the time. In the nineteenth century, for example, there were several documented cases of people with parasitic twin syndrome, a rare condition in which a partially formed twin develops within another person's body, and this could manifest as extra limbs, organs, or even ahead, which feels the most likely if this were real. That reminds me of that Office episode The Office where Dwight's like that he resorbed the body of his twin and he was like, and now I have the strength of an adult man and of a little baby. Look, he's not wrong, he's not wrong. Oh what would that look like? I don't imagine it would be like all. I think they'd have to get it when you were little. I think they'd get it. I think they'd whatever that looks. They're not going to leave an extra head on you or an extra arm, you know what I mean? Or just not. Oh no, at least now, unless you are going to make it big in the Victorian Freak Show, which sometimes they had really good lives in the Victorian Freak Show. You know, so I can't knock it at that time, make it some money. Regardless of its origins, the legend of Edward Moore Drake has persisted over the years and continues to capture the imagination of people around the world. Whether or not there is any truth to the story, it remains a haunting and unsettling tale of a man cursed with a voice that whispers his nightmares in the dark. Dan Da Da da oh, jeez, I thought you were gonna say at one point, like, well, if you know how they say that, turn the other cheek. Turn the other face, you guys, turn the other other cheek. We have four cheeks to work No, oh, I guess you got your butt cheeks. We have six cheeks to work with, So pick a cheek and just turn it. The world is a corul place, you guys. Be careful out there. Be careful out there. You might grow a face on the back of your head. There might be some sort of supernatural curse that makes you grow face on the back of your head, so that's terrible. And then also you might eat jalapeno poppers before you have to do a story and spend the whole time really sweaty and hot. That's me letting my inner voice win to my second face. One. It's that face whispering at you. It's that Oh, it's the face. It's my second face, just going crazy. It's fine. You won't be hot, you won't be hot. I mean we're kind of freaky sometimes. Michelle, like, it's true. People should support us by leaving a review. Oh, one hundred percent, they should leave a review. Uh. Also, I'm actually just the face on the back of Edwin's head. That's our that's actually been our secret. That's ault time. Yeah. I mean, that's why we don't record ourselves on video. Like Yeah, he just has the set up a mic behind him in the studio and then I just get to talk finally, because he normally has a hat on and I don't get to talk. So and then he finally fed me the jalapino poppers. I wanted, like been asking for weeks to get kalipino poppers and he wouldn't give me any and he just kept his hat on, and it was just oh God, no, no, wonder, I just whisper for like evil things. I'm just so mad. Well with that image in our minds, what are we going to talk about next week, Michelle, I don't know, but I'm sure it'll be a surprise. See you guys. Bye,