Today in Pop Culture: Louder Than Bombs

By Jeffery X Martin

Ever since Humankind figured out how to make things explode, we’ve been doing it at the most inappropriate times around people who weren’t expecting it. That’s an abuse of power, as far as I’m concerned, a perversion of knowledge. A sudden explosion is the meanest prank imaginable.

Let’s go back to this date in 1957. A man named George Metesky is arrested in New York. He’s a mild-mannered guy. Heck, before he got arrested, he changed clothes and went to jail wearing a natty double breasted suit. Nobody called him George, though.

His nickname was “The Mad Bomber.”

After serving in World War I, Metesky found work as a mechanic for ConEd. While working in the generator plant known as Hell’s Gate, a boiler backfired, blasting Metesky with noxious gases. The blast disabled him and affected his respiratory system. Metesky developed pneumonia, which evolved into tuberculosis. ConEd refused his application for workers’ comp, claiming he filed it too late. He appealed that decision three times. It was rejected each time. And with each rejection, Metesky’s hatred for the company that abandoned him grew. He vowed revenge, and his plan of vengeance involved bombs. Lots and lots of bombs.

Metesky started planting bombs in 1951. They were pipe bombs, detonated with batteries and pocket watches. A wool sock was often found at the scene of the explosions; Metesky used them to transport the bombs to the scene.

He also left notes, directly stating that the bombings were aimed at ConEd. Public buildings were his targets. Metesky bombed Grand Central Station, the Pennsylvania Station, the New York Public Library, the RCA Building and the New York City Subway. He also placed bombs inside movie theater seats. Metesky was not screwing around.

It was the notes that brought him down. Handwriting analysis compared paperwork Metesky filed with ConEd against the bomb notes. When they placed that with an “injury date” mentioned in one of the notes Metesky left with a dud bomb, police closed in.

Does any of this sound remotely familiar? It should. Dennis Hopper’s character in Speed was loosely based on Metesky.

So, pop quiz, hotshot. What else happened today that could be considered explosive?

On this date in 1998, Ted Kaczynski pled guilty to a 17-year-long wave of sending out bombs in packages. He became known as the Unabomber.

Kaczynski was an academic, teaching math at UC Berkeley, until 1969 when he quit without warning or reason. He moved to western Montana, where he stayed in a small cabin with no electricity, heat, or running water. Just out there, in the middle of nowhere, making bombs. Stereotypes exist for a reason.

His main targets were airlines and universities. He had a real grudge against United Airlines, placing a bomb on a flight in 1979, and mailing a bomb to the home of the president of the airline the next year.

In 1995, Kaczynski sent a huge anti-techology screed to the press. Within those 35,000 words were enough personal tics that Kaczynski’s brother, David, was able to recognize it as the work of his sibling. David narced, and the Feds swooped down on the Unabomber’s cabin and hauled him in.

Kaczynski initially wanted to defend himself in court, but after a psychological evaluation, he was deemed unable to act as his own counsel. The fact that he was mentally unstable allowed him to escape the death penalty. He is serving life without the possibility of parole in a Colorado prison.

Look, winter is a hard season. We get that. But there’s no reason to start blowing other people up, OK? Drink some tea. Think things through.