Comments by "Andrew Brendan" (@andrewbrendan1579) on "Dr. Todd Grande" channel.

  1. During the time the Princess of Wales was still living I had two pen pals in England. One of them, male, said the royal family used Diana as "a brood mare". When the Princess died and there was a huge reaction of grief from the public (a phenomenon worthy of discussion) my other pen pal, female, said something like, "I don't know why I'm crying so much for someone I didn't even know". It's was mentioned by someone else a long time ago that when the engagement of Charles and Diana there were two photographs of them in the media but taken separately and it happened that Diana and Charles were each holding a book when photographed. Diana was holding a paperback romance by Barbara Cartland who I think was her step-grandmother while Charles was holding a scholarly book on eastern religion. Some people might take their disparate choice of reading material as an indicator that Diana and Charles were not suited to one another.
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  2. I just learned of this channel. Very interesting presentation, Dr. Grande!---I'd like to share some of my own thoughts about this case. (Some may have been mentioned below.) 1) I've seen the coroner's photos and I think it's possible Mrs. Borden could have fallen to the floor without much sound: Women wore a lot of clothing then and the layers of material provided sound-absorbing padding. I don't recall if there was a rug rather than bare floor boards, something else to absorb sound. Mrs. Borden also was in an kneeling or bowing down position so may not have fallen straight down with all of her weight at once. Also the Borden house looks rather large to me. I think it's possible for something to happen to Mrs. Borden without it being heard above or below in the possibly brief time it took for the murder to happen. 2) I've heard the house has no hallways because Mr. Borden thought them a waste of space so maybe the walls and doors also kept sound from extending far. 3) One documentary I saw mentioned an odd inheritance law concerning widows: if Mrs. Borden died second, her family would have received a big portion of Mr. Borden's estate. There would have been lot less for Lizzie and Emma to inherit. 4) I've heard that shortly before six members of the DeFeo family were killed in the famous Amityville murders in 1975, Mrs. DeFeo had said "something terrible" was going to happen, much like Lizzie had said many years earlier. 5) I once had a really awful roommate I wish I could tell you about. He was sadistic and I consider him capable of doing a lot. It would be interesting to get your thoughts on HIM!
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  3. Dr. Grande, would you consider making a video about the famous hoarders the Collyer brothers who both died in their New York City mansion in 1947?
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  4. In all the sorrow of the story of the Princess of Wales I've always remembered one somewhat comical situation. The Princess had been seen going to a man's apartment and people were thinking they were having an affair. To use the words of someone, maybe a journalist, who talked about this on TV, Diana was "a demon bridge player" and was just going to a friend's place to play cards!
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  5.  @yehmen29  Your comment about looking like a hoarder lines up with my own situation. I live in a small studio apartment and have boxes of unread books as I live in a town where books are very easy to get (sales, Little Free Libraries, library bookstore) for little or no cost. I finally realized that the amount of books and other things I have that look borderline hoarder are just because I live in a space too small for a reasonable, overall fairly small amount of possessions. The books have caused me stress for a long time because I acquire so much faster than I read and donate. I've done some purging of unread books in the past but have brought many more new ones in. I may do another book purge. Just too much of a good thing. Also I made the decision that no new books will come in for the first six months of 2021and have started telling people so there will be accountability on my part. I probably have some hoarder and/or compulsive issue/s but I'm not going to let them dominate and control me.
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  6. There used to be an ad campaign for a brand of cigarettes, maybe Camel, and I eventually realized the ads were based on Anna Nicole Smith and J. Howard Marshall. On a billboard there was a very old man in a black leather outfit made for someone far younger and with the man was a voluptuous young blonde-haired woman. The text said, [Brand name], it's a trophy smoke". Another later billboard showed the same couple with the man in more conservative clothes and the young woman in a low-cut wedding gown and leaning forward as she's about to bite into a piece of wedding cake. The text said, "She's marrying me for my money. Like I care". ----Dr. Grande, that lines up closely if not exactly with the possibility you mentioned in your video.
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  7.  @wendyleeconnelly2939  I can believe that. If someone were to see the mix of books I have they might think three people were living in my space or that I was a multiple personality!
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  8. I remember a friend of mine telling me years ago about an abusive uncle who would beat his wife and four sons. One day the sons took their father out and beat him almost to death. After that: no more problem with abuse from Dad. I've heard that the only thing abusers respect is greater force. Still one wonders what kind of parents the sons became and if they are still dealing with the effects of their father's abuse and if the next generations have been affected. The abusive father stopped his behavior but should have been stopped long before.
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  9.  @mrsdrhux  The Princess and I were born only two months apart so, in a way, we were contemporaries. I'm in the U.S., had that day moved into a new place and a family member called in the evening and told me that Diana had been in that awful crash. The next morning before we were to meet, my family member called and asked immediately, "Have your heard?" I replied, "She didn't make it, did she?" Even here in the U.S. the Princess of Wales was held in high esteem. Around the time Diana left Charles, a co-worker of mine said of the Princess, "I admire her more each day".
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  10.  @sarahpiaggio2693  That's an excellent point! My own reading became more serious over the years and Diana probably had the same experience of moving beyond what interested her at 19.
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  11. It's an ugly house. The Watts house makes me think of the hilarious Facebook page "McMansion Hell".
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  12.  @EMunaBee  Excellent comment! I'm reminded of Jean Arthur who was an outstanding and respected actress on stage and in films (Miss Arthur worked with James Stewart in "Mister Smith Goes to Washington" and played the mother in "Shane") yet was extremely nervous and sometimes had to be talked out of her dressing room. Miss Arthur wasn't a diva or deliberately unprofessional, she just had severe anxiety yet kept performing. ---I read Brooke Hayward's memoir "Haywire" and it was mentioned that her mother Margaret Sullavan talked about how she hated acting yet kept doing it. I think both of these ladies had a gift that had to be expressed despite the difficulty that went with that expression.
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  13. @Bren cato That reminds me of something Marilyn herself once said. Early in her career someone commented on how Marilyn was patterning herself after Lana turner. Marilyn said "When you're nobody and you want to be somebody you have to be somebody else".
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  14.  @erynlasgalen1949  I come from a family with a variety of problems and my older brother turned into a hoarder and made life miserable for the rest of us under the same roof with him. He's not been diagnosed but is probably autistic along with the other difficulties in his life. I'm also using items that go way back: the pans my parents received when they were married in 1957 and I have a couple of black iron frying pans that go I don't even knoow how far back. Well, we got our money's worth!
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  15. I had training from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences for my workplace and learned that masks don't work but we still have to wear them. There's more to this than just health...
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  16. Fascinating to hear Poe's mental state discussed from a modern point of view! Dr. Grande, if you haven't looked into it already I would like to recommend Hervey Allens' biography "Israfel--The Life and Times of Edgar Allan Poe" from 1934, an excellent book with lots of information and many illustrations including a photo of the house that inspired the House of Usher. There's not much information about Poe's biological family but from what little is said of Poe's sister it appears she was developmentally disabled. Some other authors I would like to suggest for upcoming videos are Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.
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  17.  @michellesartori6695  Thank you for your input, MIchelle! Thank you also for all you did in clearing out the house of those poor sisters. You might be interested in the 1954 novel "My Brother's Keeper" by Marcia Davenport which is based on or inspired by the Collyers. It's fascinating and accurately shows how hoarding develops gradually and this was written long before the topic was of interest to the public. E.L. Doctorow wrote a more recent novel called "Homer and Langley" which is about the Collyers but doesn't closely follow the facts. Obsolete Oddity's video was about the Collyers was outstanding!---I'm going to suggest to Dr. Grande that he make a video about Big Edie and Little Edie Beale who lived at Grey Gardens and were much like the Collyers. There's a 1975 documentary called "Grey Gardens" and the HBO dramatization "Grey Gardens"(covers around 40 years) starring Drew Barrymore and Jessica Lange. I recommend both if you haven't already seen them.
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  18. Very interesting point about how simply the layout of a house can cause stress. Not only the layout but even the decoration. I have a book about the interiors of "Gilded Age" mansions here in the U.S. and just looking at the photos can cause stress: the mix of patterns and prints and designs in rugs, wall coverings and the carving of wood and stone and furniture; the number of pictures and statues and figurine and plants. What has been called "visual noise" by an expert in working with hoarders is very loud in these places. Looking through those photos from the late 1800's I've seen not one room that has a restful or calming quality. Even the one or two uncluttered rooms are unappealing. To use a term no longer in use, even in black-and-white most of the rooms have a "psychedelic" quality. I can't imagine being comfortable in or truly enjoying such surroundings.
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  19. Dr. Grande actually spoke about Marilyn Monroe not long ago.
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  20.  @CitrusandCapri  I think it depends on the style of the house and the location. A rustic style house in a wooded setting could look good. For a house I prefer lighter colors myself.
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  21. Dr. Grande would you consider making a video about Big Edie and Little Edie Beale who lived with cats and raccoons in their decrepit, overrun mansion in East Hampton, Long Island here in the U.S.? They were the subject of the documentary "Grey Gardens" and later portrayed by Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore in the biopic also called "Grey Gardens". I think the hoarding and the relationship between the mother and daughter would make for a fascinating topic and discussion.
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  22. Fascinating discussion, Dr. Grande. This may be a little off-topic but if you or any of your viewers are interested in the idea of Is-there-something-wrong-with-the-house? I'd like to recommend Anne Rivers Siddons' 1974 novel "The House Next Door". Not a well-know book but up there with Shirley Jackson's "The Haunting of Hill House". This might be a topic for another video: In "...Hill House" the Crain mansion was deliberately designed to have a strange, confusing, disproportionate floor plan. Things were intentionally "off" for some reason. I would think that would have some kind of negative effect on people. In the Kubrick movie "The Shining" the interior floorplan doesn't match the outside of the hotel. Even inside the Overlook Hotel, doors and the sizes of rooms didn't match. Someone made a comment about how we might not quite consciously notice things being not quite right "...but your brain notices".
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  23. I've heard O.J. Simpson was in an episode "Law & Order" in which the character he played was murdered.
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  24. Having seen Anna Nicole Smith on her reality show and having seen other shows and coverage about her I got the impression Ms.Smith was slightly developmentally disabled. She never finished the 10th grade and I've wondered if that was because she had gone as far as she was able to go in school.
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  25. It's remarkable how Albert DeSalvo kept going back and forth between employment and incarceration for very serious crimes before his final imprisonment and death. Remarkable also is how someone so troubled ever got married. What did his wife see in him that she married Albert DeSalvo in the first place? This is in no way a criticism of Mrs. DeSalvo but I'm interested in what she was like and why became involved with, married and stayed with someone so disturbed and dangerous. I wonder if Mrs. DeSalvo wanted to get away and had nowhere to go and/or had conflicting feelings about what choices to make or felt obligated to stay because of the religious and social mores of the time. Too what was Albert DeSalvo like at home?
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  26.  @michellesartori6695  Something else that you might find interesting is the book "The Secret Lives of Hoarders" by Matt Paxton who was the original star of the TV series "Hoarders" here in the U.S. Mr. Paxton isn't a psychologist but he talked about the pattern he'd seen in hoarders, that they are often people with a naturally high level of anxiety; have had a traumatic experience [I've noticed hoarders also come from traumatic ongoing situations such as an abusive childhood or growing up in poverty] such as the death of a parent, the end of a marriage, estrangement from a child and there is also a family history of hoarding. I've dealt with a hoarder relative and lean a little that way myself but am now working toward minimalism!
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  27. Fascinating commentary, Dr. Grande and fascinating comments from viewers. I've been interested in the life of Marilyn Monroe for a long time and have read and watched much about her. I would disagree in part with one thing: Marilyn not having good work habits. At times Marilyn was remarkably focused and self-disciplined on achieving goals and in giving a good performance. The lady who ran the Blue Book Modeling agency said of then Norma that she had never seen anyone who worked or studied so hard, "...who wanted to be somebody". Actress Mitzi Gaynor in an interview talked about meeting Marilyn in the morning after Marilyn had been "studying all night" in preparation for their work together. Marilyn often wasn't easy to work and it may have been inconsistent but at least part of the time her work habits were exemplary.
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  28.  @theresahemminger1587  I'm referring to Lucy Arnaz, the daughter of Dezi Arnaz and Lucille Ball. Prior to the movie Lucy Arnaz had worked with her mother in one of Lucille Ball's sitcoms so was already had acting experience though "Who is the Black Dahlia?" may have been Ms. Arnaz's first dramatic role.
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  29. I've seen videos from recent years of the interior of the house. The improvement that has been made is remarkable. The interior of the Ocean Avenue house is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen.
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  30.  @meagancobb1417  I knew about the house from back in the 70's but only in recent years got interested in it and realized how big it is. I'd like to suggest just looking around on You Tube and you should find some videos about the Ocean Avenue house, there were quite a few last time I looked. I think the wall between a couple of bedroom was removed to create a larger space, maybe the master bedroom; there's a huge Palladian window over one of the staircase landings. The window was once obscured by drapes but was later uncovered. Paint has been removed from woodwork. If you like cooking there's a big new kitchen. I've seen photos from the time of the murders; the interior was awful but now years later, as I mentioned, is one of the most beautiful I've ever seen.
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  31. Prove it.
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  32. The disclosure may depend on where you live. I live in Indiana and a co-worker of mine was also a realtor. She told me that realtors aren't required to tell possible buyers that someone died in a house but are required to say if they are specifically asked.
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  33. In the town where I live I've seen spray-painted graffiti about protecting and helping sex workers and pole dancers. I say, how about help them to get OUT of sex work and into something that isn't destructive and dangerous? The graffiti is so out-there that I've wondered if the whoever made it is joking or actually serious. In this town: probably serious.
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  34. I remember the case you're thinking of. There was a boy named Stephen who was kidnapped and lived with the two men who abducted him. Stephen later escaped with another boy who had just been kidnapped. Stephen later died in a motorcycle accident. His brother was mentally ill and became a killer but was not Ridgeway. Stephen and his brother were a different family, the name may have been Stanger.
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  35.  @mysteryjunkie9808  Same here! I saw a You Tube video about the Clutter murder case and exchanged some comments with someone who had actually been a visitor to the house. He said that the house is much the same as the Clutters knew, the only significant difference is that the kitchen had been modernized after a fire.
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  36. Dr. Grande's video about Ed Gein got me thinking of the fictional character of Carrie White in Stephen King's novel "Carrie". There are some similarities in the real-life and fictional stories: the fanatical mother, a father who is gone early in the child's life, a child who becomes a killer though one of them does so through what might be called supernatural ability.
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  37.  @michellesartori6695  What a remarkable story! It's heartbreaking and fascinating also. As I read your comments I was thinking about how the story of the sisters could be in book form. Absolutely: the stories of Ethyl and Win should not be lost in history. Thank you for sharing some of it here!
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  38.  @michellesartori6695  Michelle, THANK YOU for sharing these aspect of the lives of Ethyl and Winifred and also of your former father-in-law. These stories are too valuable to be lost in history. After so much abuse and neglect and trauma it's amazing that the sisters were as involved as they were with community issues. That two people who had been so traumatized trusted you and allowed you into their lives and that you were with your former father-in-law when it was time for him to leave tells me what a wonderful person you are. As you are blessing to others, many blessings to YOU.---Andrew
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  39. I don't know if it's historically accurate but I recall a 1975 made-for-TV movie called "Who is the Black Dahlia" starring Lucy Arnaz as Elizabeth Short and Ephraim Zimbalist, Jr. as a police investigator.
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  40. Dr. Grande, I've noticed that people sometimes ask if you might make videos about fictional characters. After seeing your discussion about Ed Gein I'm thinking about the character of Carrie White in Stephen King's novel "Carrie". Carrie was the child of fanatically religious parents though her father died early in the child's life. Carrie's mother was not only a religious fanatic but might also be considered abusive. Carrie was bullied for years by her schoolmates. As a teen Carrie discovers she has telekinetic power and after being humiliated at her high school prom goes on a destructive and murderous rampage. if this scenario isn't too far-fetched maybe it could be the subject of one of your videos.
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  41. I don't know if this could mean anything or indicate something but I've seen photographs of Lizzie Borden's mother and of Lizzie herself. Both had women had strange-looking eyes.
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  42. Dr. Grande may have mean the first of all the innocent victims.
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