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Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. It's July 14th, 2020. And we're all rolling

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Speaker 1: through COVID pretty well by this point. We're all pretty

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Speaker 1: drunk most of the time and gaining weight. But that's okay.

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Speaker 1: We're going to let each other up because it's a

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Speaker 1: global pandemic. This episode is called Flagpole Sitting, colon, a

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Speaker 1: real fad. And it was. People would sit at the

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Speaker 1: top of flagpoles for as long as they could. And

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Speaker 1: it was a part of a weird time in American history.

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Speaker 1: So check out this episode, not on Harvey Danger, the

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Speaker 1: band who sang the song Flagpole Sitta, as did my

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Speaker 1: cover band, but Flagpole Sitting for real. Check it out

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Speaker 1: right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production

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Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and

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Speaker 2: there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant right over there. Jerry's out

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Speaker 2: there somewhere, and this is Stuff You Should Know. You know, Chuck,

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Speaker 2: I have to say, every once in a while, the

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Speaker 2: amazing theme song from our short-lived television show comes into

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Speaker 2: my head. And it's just a complete earworm.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Because I just hear the end of it over and

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Speaker 2: over and over again. And it's actually pretty pleasant. It

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Speaker 2: doesn't bother me.

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Speaker 1: I love it. I haven't heard that song in a while.

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Speaker 2: Well, you need to go listen. That was the Henry

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Speaker 2: Clay people, right?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, our buddies Joey and Andy Sierra, California boys, Southern

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Speaker 1: California boys, men.

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Speaker 2: Didn't they go to like Harvard or something crazy like that?

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Speaker 1: Joey ended up going to Harvard, and then I think

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Speaker 1: Andy went to AFI, and then Joey, I think, went

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Speaker 1: back to film school, and they're both writing, you know, screenwriting.

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Speaker 2: Man, that's great.

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Speaker 1: Andy's got a— he wrote this Andy Samberg movie that's coming

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Speaker 1: out soon.

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Speaker 2: Really? Which one? What's it called?

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Speaker 1: It is called Palm Springs, I think.

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Speaker 2: Wow, and he wrote it? Yeah, dude. That's fantastic. Congratulations.

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Speaker 1: And he wrote on the TV show Lodge 49. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: Palm Springs.

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Speaker 2: I haven't seen that. But that guy, Kurt Russell and

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Speaker 2: Goldie Hawn's son— I love that guy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I think he's one of the coolest people walking around

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Speaker 2: on the planet today.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. I haven't seen Lodge 49. It's supposed to be awesome.

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Speaker 1: And Andy was a writer's assistant and then ended up

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Speaker 1: on the staff. And they're both doing great.

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Speaker 2: Man, that's great. Congratulations to both of you guys.

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Speaker 1: He's got a little baby now. They're both married.

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Speaker 2: Nice, man. That's nice.

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Speaker 1: And that's an update on the Sierra Club, as.

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Speaker 2: I call them. Yeah. Let's see. What else? I guess

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Speaker 2: that was it.

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Speaker 1: How did that come into your head, though, the song? Like,

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Speaker 1: what made you think of that?

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Speaker 2: Nothing. I was just out back, like, mowing the lawn

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Speaker 2: with my big old lawnmower, and it just popped in

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Speaker 2: my head. I was probably thinking of something I had

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Speaker 2: to do that had to do with Stuff You Should Know,

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Speaker 2: and I thought Stuff You Should Know, and when I

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Speaker 2: thought it, I thought it as Stuff You Should Know,

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Speaker 2: didn't it? And then it just played on a loop.

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Speaker 1: This is the second time you mention the size of

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Speaker 1: your lawnmower.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And now you just got to send me a picture.

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Speaker 1: Is this one of these things that you stand?

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Speaker 2: No.

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Speaker 1: And it wheels you around like some weird land speeder?

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Speaker 2: You mean like a skag or something? No. This is

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Speaker 2: just a good old-fashioned Toro that is, because it's gas-powered,

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Speaker 2: I got it like on super discount because everybody's making

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Speaker 2: like really good electric lawnmowers.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But this one was, you know, it was on discount,

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Speaker 2: and I like the look of it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a good-looking mower, huh?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I was like, I like your style. Come on

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Speaker 2: with me.

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Speaker 1: Is it red?

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Speaker 2: Yep.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's red Toros.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: It's nice.

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Speaker 2: Takes you back to days of paper routes and stuff

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Speaker 2: like that, doesn't it?

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Speaker 1: I thought you were mentioning the song because you were

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Speaker 1: thinking of the song Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger.

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Speaker 2: No, I wasn't at all.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: But that's a great segue, Chuck, because it just so happens—

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Speaker 2: And you may be aware of this. We're talking about

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Speaker 2: flagpole sitting today in this episode.

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Speaker 1: That's right. And I've been singing that song in my

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Speaker 1: head all day.

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Speaker 2: Now, I don't know that song.

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Speaker 1: You know it. It was a, well, maybe not. It

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Speaker 1: was a top 40 hit in the 90s, kind of

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Speaker 1: during the grunge era. It was a power pop hit

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Speaker 1: that kind of. Oh. From Hardy Danger.

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Speaker 2: <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL>

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Speaker 2: <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> <HAL> No. Wait. Is that it?

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Speaker 1: That's not it.

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Speaker 2: No.

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Speaker 1: My band actually covers Flagpole City. It's a fun song. Okay.

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Speaker 2: That's great. I'm going to have to go listen to

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Speaker 2: it because I feel like I'm missing out. But is

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Speaker 2: that song about Flagpole City? Is it about Shipwreck Kelly

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Speaker 2: in particular?

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Speaker 1: No, it's not. But it does have one line that says,

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Speaker 1: Run it up the flagpole and see. And that's the

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Speaker 1: only time it references flagpoles at all.

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Speaker 2: Sees what?

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Speaker 1: Uh, who salutes, but no one ever does. I think

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Speaker 1: is the next line. Hmm.

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Speaker 2: That rings a bell.

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Speaker 1: I was looking into the mirror. A little bit clearer.

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Speaker 2: Sure.

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Speaker 1: Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes, but

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Speaker 1: no one ever does.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. I'm not sick, but I'm not well. Who is that?

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Speaker 1: Harvey danger.

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Speaker 2: Okay.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: That's a great song. I love it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Who fellow podcasting friend, John Roderick actually, uh, Sean

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Speaker 1: Nelson was a friend of his in Seattle, and he

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Speaker 1: played bass for a little while in Harvey Danger.

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Speaker 2: Oh, very. Wow, man. This is all coming for so good.

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Speaker 2: I got one more for you. What you got? I

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Speaker 2: used to have that song, and I don't know where

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Speaker 2: I downloaded it from. This would have been probably back

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Speaker 2: in the Napster days or something.

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Speaker 1: Whoa.

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Speaker 2: And it was mislabeled as Brian Jonestown Massacre. And I

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Speaker 2: was always like, this does not sound like Brian Jonestown Massacre.

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Speaker 2: Now I know it most definitely wasn't Brian Jonestown Massacre.

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Speaker 1: Wow. All right. We haven't even talked about flagpole sitting yet.

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Speaker 2: No, we haven't, which is a crime because it's actually

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Speaker 2: one of the more interesting weirdo fads that's ever come

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Speaker 2: this way in America. And it was in the 20s.

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Speaker 2: It started— we actually— we know who Patient Zero was of flagpole sitting.

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Speaker 2: And it's easy to tell because it is such a

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Speaker 2: bizarre thing to do.

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Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 2: That if you can find the person who did it first,

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Speaker 2: who claims to have done it first, they're probably correct.

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Speaker 2: And in this case, you can trace it back to

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Speaker 2: sometime around January of 1924, supposedly, potentially, in Hollywood, California,

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Speaker 2: part of Los Angeles, and there was a man named

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Speaker 2: Alvin Shipwreck Kelly who supposedly climbed up on a flagpole

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Speaker 2: as part of a promotion for a movie and sat

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Speaker 2: there for a full 13 hours and 13 minutes. to

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Speaker 2: help draw a crowd, and boy did he ever.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which, you know, it sounds like a long time

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Speaker 1: to sit on a flagpole, but that is kid stuff.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Compared to where this is headed.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure.

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Speaker 1: That's an aperitif.

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Speaker 2: But it's a good first attempt, you know?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and so, you know, it sounds strange because when

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Speaker 1: you think of a flagpole, you're like, what are they

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Speaker 1: sitting on? It's a modified flagpole that basically, there are

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Speaker 1: different kinds, but Um, usually it's sort of like a

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Speaker 1: bar stool at the top of a flagpole and it's

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Speaker 1: that lo-fi and you climb up there and you sit

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Speaker 1: and that's all you do.

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Speaker 2: That's it. I mean, whatever else you want to do.

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Speaker 1: Well, sure. You do other stuff.

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Speaker 2: Use yourself or whatever. Yeah. That's up to you. But

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Speaker 2: as far as being considered a flagpole sitter, that's it.

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Speaker 2: You sit on top of a flagpole for as long

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Speaker 2: as you can.

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Speaker 1: All right. So let's talk about this guy because Shipwreck

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Speaker 1: Kelly was a pretty interesting character.

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Speaker 2: And I have to say there's a Memory Palace episode

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Speaker 2: about him that I specifically didn't listen to beforehand because

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Speaker 2: I didn't want to unconsciously rip it off.

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Speaker 1: Wow.

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Speaker 2: But go listen to that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, or old buddy Nate. I'm going to check that

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Speaker 1: out for sure. So Alvin Kelly, he was born Aloysius

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Speaker 1: Anthony Kelly in New York City in Hell's Kitchen in

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Speaker 1: a tenement in 1893 and had a very sad start

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Speaker 1: to his life in that his father had already passed

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Speaker 1: before he was born. His mother passed in childbirth, and

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Speaker 1: that basically meant he was shuttled around to relatives and

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Speaker 1: orphanages from, you know, the minute he took his first breath.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. And apparently from a pretty early age, he would

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Speaker 2: do things like climb flagpoles and other tall stuff. And

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Speaker 2: like working at heights became a kind of a recurring

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Speaker 2: theme in his life. supposedly by age seven he was

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Speaker 2: climbing flagpoles. Within a few years after that, he was

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Speaker 2: starting to scale the facades of some of the buildings

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Speaker 2: in his neighborhood. And by the time he was 13,

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Speaker 2: and bear in mind if this guy's biography seems a

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Speaker 2: little thin, he just came out of nowhere in 1924

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Speaker 2: for sitting on a flagpole. So all of the info

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Speaker 2: about him came from him to reporters who were reporting

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Speaker 2: in the 1920s. So just fabrications are flying around left

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Speaker 2: and right. Sure. But supposedly he ran away at age

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Speaker 2: 13 and ran off to join the crew of a

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Speaker 2: cargo ship and start his life sailing the seas.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and he did a lot of kind of odd jobs,

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Speaker 1: or maybe not odd jobs, but just jobs that didn't

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Speaker 1: have anything to do with one another over the next

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Speaker 1: couple of decades. He was in the movies as a

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Speaker 1: stand-in and a double. He was a stunt person, a

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Speaker 1: stunt pilot, a high diver, a boxer. This part I love.

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Speaker 1: There's actually a name for people that repair church steeples

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Speaker 1: What is that?

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Speaker 2: Steeplejack.

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Speaker 1: He was a steeplejack.

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Speaker 2: That is definitely a band name for sure.

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Speaker 1: Steeplejack? Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 2: It sounds like maybe an industrial band, but like on

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Speaker 2: the light side, like the Like they're technically too melodic

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Speaker 2: to actually be considered industrial, but they still call themselves industrial.

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Speaker 1: That's become my favorite part of this whole band name thing.

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Speaker 2: Is it?

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Speaker 1: Is you describing what kind of band it is.

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Speaker 2: Oh, okay.

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Speaker 1: I love it.

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Speaker 2: Well, thanks, man. That makes me feel warm and pleasant.

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Speaker 1: So World War I comes along, and he was in

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Speaker 1: the Naval Auxiliary Reserve as an ensign and served on

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Speaker 1: the USS Edgar F. Luckenbach during that war.

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Speaker 2: Yep. So he did have some sort of, well, I

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Speaker 2: should say, I don't know if anybody's corroborated that. But

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Speaker 2: we'll just take all that at face value because it

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Speaker 2: doesn't really matter at this point. But he eventually picked

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Speaker 2: up the nickname Shipwreck. And there's a lot of different

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Speaker 2: explanations for this. And he's given or he gave multiple

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Speaker 2: different explanations depending on what reporter he was talking to.

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Speaker 2: But one of the numbers that gets bandied about pretty

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Speaker 2: frequently is, is that Shipwreck Kelly was so named because

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Speaker 2: he survived 32 different shipwrecks at sea, which is where

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Speaker 2: shipwrecks tend to happen.

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Speaker 1: Those were the good old days. Yeah. You just make

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Speaker 1: up stories about yourself.

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Speaker 2: Do you remember when we talked about– we did an

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Speaker 2: episode on the world's either luckiest or unluckiest people?

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Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

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Speaker 2: And do you remember that one guy who was like,

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Speaker 2: I survived– car that fell off a cliff and I

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Speaker 2: survived a train wreck and all that. He was doing

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Speaker 2: his jam in like 2005, remember?

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Speaker 1: Oh, was he?

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Speaker 2: Yeah. He was pretty, pretty recent if I remember correctly.

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Speaker 2: You remember his son came out and was like, everybody,

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Speaker 2: this is not true. Right. Like none of what you're

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Speaker 2: talking about is true.

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Speaker 1: Well, we don't.

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Speaker 2: My dad just fooled you all.

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Speaker 1: We don't know if Shipwreck Kelly actually survived the Titanic

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Speaker 1: like he claimed, but we do know that he was

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Speaker 1: not on the roster on the Titanic. So I am

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Speaker 1: going to venture to say that he made that one up.

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Speaker 2: And there were three Kellys on board who were survivors,

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Speaker 2: but all three of them were women. So, yeah, he

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Speaker 2: probably wasn't on the Titanic. Maybe he did survive from shipwrecks.

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Speaker 2: He was at sea, most likely. But the point is,

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Speaker 2: is they called him Shipwreck Kelly. And I guess somebody

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Speaker 2: went to the trouble of digging up that some reporters

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Speaker 2: who covered his boxing career are probably the likeliest source

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Speaker 2: for where he got his nickname Shipwreck, right?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, which I love. Because I guess he wasn't a

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Speaker 1: great boxer because they said that he was often adrift

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Speaker 1: and ready to sink.

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Speaker 2: Isn't that great?

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Speaker 1: Shipwreck Kelly.

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Speaker 2: It's a great nickname and an even better origin story

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Speaker 2: than surviving 32 shipwrecks, if you ask me.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and the other thing we don't know for sure

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Speaker 1: is even if that Hollywood movie premiere story is correct

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Speaker 1: in his first major outing as a flagpole sitter because

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Speaker 1: yet another story says, no, this is actually in Philadelphia–

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Speaker 1: at a department store and he just did it on

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Speaker 1: a dare. And the department store got a lot of

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Speaker 1: business because people were standing around looking and then doing

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Speaker 1: some shopping. So they were like, hey, stay up there

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Speaker 1: and I'll give you some extra dough. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So either way, it's pretty widely held that Shipwreck Kelly

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Speaker 2: was the guy who started the flagpole sitting craze.

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Speaker 1: Right.

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Speaker 2: And it was a craze because This is a time

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Speaker 2: where you could go sit on a flagpole for 13

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Speaker 2: hours and 13 minutes and newspapers around the country would

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Speaker 2: pick up the story and write about it. And you

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Speaker 2: would suddenly become famous overnight. And that's exactly what happened

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Speaker 2: to Shipwreck Kelly. So that's prong one toward this becoming

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Speaker 2: a fad in the 1920s. The other criteria is that

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Speaker 2: people have to want to topple that record. And that

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Speaker 2: was very widespread at the time too because the 1920s

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Speaker 2: were actually really big into fads. Like people would take

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Speaker 2: up weird fads and just go nuts over them for

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Speaker 2: basically the whole decade.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, people had time and they had fewer distractions.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, no TV.

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Speaker 1: So like someone doing a dance-a-thon for 28 hours or

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Speaker 1: sitting on a flagpole for a day, You know, it's

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Speaker 1: an interesting story back then. It's sad that that was interesting,

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Speaker 1: but it was.

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Speaker 2: Right. So we'll talk about dance marathons, and then we'll

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Speaker 2: take a break, okay? Okay. Okay.

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Speaker 1: Okay. Oh, wait.

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Speaker 2: I got that backwards, Chuck, I just realized. Hopefully Jerry

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Speaker 2: figured it out and there was an ad in there somewhere.

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Speaker 1: I think we should just leave it just like that, though.

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Speaker 1: That'll be fun. Okay.

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Speaker 2: So... We're going to talk about dance marathons now, after

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Speaker 2: the ad break, despite what I said before. And dance

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Speaker 2: marathons are a super 20s example of a crazy fad

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Speaker 2: that kind of came along and got everybody by the hackles.

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Speaker 2: And people across the country started entering basically dance marathon competitions.

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Speaker 2: All because of one person, one woman, a dance instructor

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Speaker 2: named Alma Cummings.

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Speaker 1: That's right. 32 years old. She danced for 27 hours.

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Speaker 1: at the Audubon Ballroom in New York in 1923 with

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Speaker 1: six different dance partners. And it was a weird time

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Speaker 1: because it wasn't just dancing. It was endurance challenges as

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Speaker 1: a whole were just all the rage and punishing your

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Speaker 1: bodies and all these weird random ways from yo-yoing to

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Speaker 1: hula hooping to rocking in a rocking chair or skipping rope.

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Speaker 1: to dancing. Dancing was the big one. That's where you,

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Speaker 1: you know, if you see these videos of these marathon

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Speaker 1: dance competitions, it's just, it looks like hell on earth.

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Speaker 1: It looks awful.

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Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh yeah. They didn't seem very fun at all,

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Speaker 2: but Alma Cummings just kicked the whole thing off. And again,

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Speaker 2: just like Shipwreck Kelly, who would follow, I guess, a

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Speaker 2: year later, or even, yeah, about a year later, she

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Speaker 2: got a lot of publicity. There's like a famous photo

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Speaker 2: of her Yeah. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: For celebrity, however you can get it. And that seemed

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Speaker 2: to really drive people who wanted to be like, well,

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Speaker 2: if this lady got this much attention for dancing 27

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Speaker 2: straight hours, maybe I can get even more attention for

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Speaker 2: dancing 30 straight hours. And so within just, I think,

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Speaker 2: three weeks of Alma Cummings setting this record for dancing,

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Speaker 2: it had been broken nine times, at least, from people

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Speaker 2: trying to seek the same kind of publicity she got.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and, you know, it's funny. It really, like, we

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Speaker 1: talk about these days how everyone wants their 10 minutes

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Speaker 1: or they want to be reality show famous or whatever.

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Speaker 2: Has it been whittled down to 10 now? I thought

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Speaker 2: it was, like, 15.

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Speaker 1: Well, like, that's something new, and it's really not. Like,

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Speaker 1: this is sort of the version of that back then

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Speaker 1: was I want to be famous, I want my names

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Speaker 1: in the papers, but I'm not particularly skilled enough to

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Speaker 1: do anything to do that, so I'll rock in a

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Speaker 1: rocking chair for three days. Yeah. You know?

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Speaker 2: And hopefully they will come. If I rock, they will come.

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Speaker 2: That was a pity laugh at best, but I appreciate it.

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Speaker 1: Well, it was a bad joke.

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Speaker 2: Admittedly.

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Speaker 1: But it would, and we should shout out a bunch

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Speaker 1: of great websites here because this next bit came from

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Speaker 1: Atlas Obscura, one of our favorite sites, and also our

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Speaker 1: dearest of old sites that we always have loved, Mental Floss, Ripley's.

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Speaker 1: History Daily, J. Mark Powell, and Historic Pelham, which is great.

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Speaker 1: But Atlas Obscura talks about in the 30s, and this

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Speaker 1: is really kind of depressing, during the Depression.

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Speaker 2: It's very appropriate.

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Speaker 1: Is that sometimes people would enter these dance marathons because

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Speaker 1: it would be somewhere they could sleep and eat for

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Speaker 1: a week at a time when they didn't necessarily have

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Speaker 1: a home or food.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it is extremely depressing. Or just the prize money

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Speaker 2: that was offered in the depression might be enough to

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Speaker 2: keep your house from being foreclosed on. So, yeah, the

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Speaker 2: thing is, you know, you can blame promoters for continuing

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Speaker 2: this long beyond the fad, but the promoters wouldn't have

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Speaker 2: been putting these on and offering this prize money were

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Speaker 2: it not for all the crowds that would show up

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Speaker 2: every day to watch these people get increasingly closer to,

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Speaker 2: you know, catastrophic exhaustion from, from dance marathons because like

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Speaker 2: there were, there were rules where, you know, probably early

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Speaker 2: on in the dance marathon, um, you could sleep or

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Speaker 2: rest for 15 minutes of every hour. Yeah. And then

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Speaker 2: after like a week, a week of this dance marathon

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Speaker 2: going on, the promoter might be like, oh, okay, well,

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Speaker 2: you know, we need to step things up a little bit.

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Speaker 2: And you will now have three minutes per hour of

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Speaker 2: every 24-hour period in a day to where you can rest.

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Speaker 2: And then toward the end, they'd be like, no rest.

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Speaker 2: I think I read about one where the last 57

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Speaker 2: hours of a multi-week dance marathon was like had no rest.

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Speaker 2: So these people dance for more than two straight days constantly.

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Speaker 2: You had to constantly be in motion and your knees

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Speaker 2: couldn't touch the ground or else you'd be disqualified. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: And if you look at footage of this stuff, I mean,

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Speaker 1: it's charitable to recall what they're doing is dancing toward

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Speaker 1: the end. It's just hanging. It looks like two corpses

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Speaker 1: hanging on each other, sort of swaying back and forth.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I don't get, I mean, any of these things, even

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Speaker 1: the modern day versions of like these contests where you

403
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Speaker 1: have to keep your hand on a car or whatever.

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Speaker 2: And on hard body.

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Speaker 1: Oh, man. Or sit in the car. I knew a

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Speaker 1: guy that did one of those where he tried to

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Speaker 1: win a Volkswagen Beetle by sitting in it with four

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Speaker 1: other people in a mall. I'm just like. Oh, yeah.

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Speaker 2: You told us that story before. Did he win or not?

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Speaker 1: I think he did. But there's just no way. Kill me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it would be really awful for sure. Because let's say.

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Speaker 1: For one of those contests, let's say you don't win.

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Speaker 1: Then you've just sat in a car with three strangers

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Speaker 1: for a week and you didn't even get the car.

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Speaker 2: But even if you did get the car, imagine yourself

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Speaker 2: five years on and that car is like there's tears

417
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Speaker 2: in the seats or something like that, you know, like

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Speaker 2: the glove compartment won't close. It's, you know. I mean,

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Speaker 2: I guess you've got a story to tell at cocktail parties,

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Speaker 2: but even that would wear thin after a while.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: But Chuck, we need people to do stuff like that

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Speaker 2: because there's something about contests like this. There's something about

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Speaker 2: fads like flagpole sitting that keep humanity from becoming too cerebral.

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Speaker 2: You know what I mean? From just becoming like. Computers, basically.

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Speaker 2: We need people that do stuff like this because it

427
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:11,389
Speaker 2: brings out some juvenile something in us that makes us

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Speaker 2: want to find out about it or learn about it

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Speaker 2: or talk about it. And I think that's good. I

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Speaker 2: think that's healthy for our species. All right. It's my take.

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Speaker 2: It's genuinely off the cuff. I'm actually just surprised at

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Speaker 2: myself that I just said that out loud.

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Speaker 1: You're just riffing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

435
00:22:29,160 --> 00:22:33,790
Speaker 1: So Shipwreck Kelly, back to flagpole sitting. That initial 13-hour,

436
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Speaker 1: 13-minute sit, like you said, inspired so many others to

437
00:22:38,430 --> 00:22:42,470
Speaker 1: break it. And it was getting broken in pretty short order,

438
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Speaker 1: kind of like the dance-a-thons. There was a woman named

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Speaker 1: Bobby Mack from L.A. who did it, a guy named

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Speaker 1: Joe Holdom Powers who did this in Chicago for 16 days,

441
00:22:55,310 --> 00:22:58,970
Speaker 1: another guy for 51 days named Bill Penfield.

442
00:22:59,820 --> 00:23:02,980
Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's point this out. Take a second here.

443
00:23:03,220 --> 00:23:05,960
Speaker 2: Shipwreck Kelly did 13 hours and kicked off a national fad.

444
00:23:06,240 --> 00:23:09,719
Speaker 2: These people are now into weeks at a time. 51

445
00:23:09,720 --> 00:23:12,060
Speaker 2: days is more than seven weeks up there. Yeah.

446
00:23:13,080 --> 00:23:14,160
Speaker 1: It's pretty impressive. That's a long time.

447
00:23:14,200 --> 00:23:15,000
Speaker 2: I'm impressed at least.

448
00:23:17,119 --> 00:23:18,240
Speaker 1: Are you bucking the cerebral?

449
00:23:19,240 --> 00:23:21,230
Speaker 2: Yes, right now. Can you tell?

450
00:23:22,430 --> 00:23:23,710
Speaker 1: Let me see here. In the 20s, there was a

451
00:23:23,730 --> 00:23:29,109
Speaker 1: 15-year-old boy who set the kid record. For 10 days,

452
00:23:29,109 --> 00:23:31,270
Speaker 1: 10 hours, 10 minutes, and 10 seconds. I think that

453
00:23:31,290 --> 00:23:31,810
Speaker 1: was planned.

454
00:23:33,830 --> 00:23:36,620
Speaker 2: Yeah, if not, then. But see, there you go, Chuck.

455
00:23:36,990 --> 00:23:39,640
Speaker 2: We're thinking about that. It's making us think. This little

456
00:23:39,660 --> 00:23:41,440
Speaker 2: kid is making us think. We've got to avoid that.

457
00:23:42,180 --> 00:23:45,300
Speaker 2: It needs to be random combinations of numbers so we

458
00:23:45,320 --> 00:23:46,340
Speaker 2: don't start thinking about it.

459
00:23:47,619 --> 00:23:50,230
Speaker 1: We should also point out that not everyone was like, oh,

460
00:23:50,250 --> 00:23:54,210
Speaker 1: this is the best thing ever. In Cosmopolitan magazine, Cosmo

461
00:23:54,250 --> 00:23:58,150
Speaker 1: called it competitive imbecility. Yeah.

462
00:23:58,990 --> 00:24:01,760
Speaker 2: This is fine. We need that, too. I have to say,

463
00:24:01,780 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 2: I want to say something here. It's a little PSA.

464
00:24:03,780 --> 00:24:05,960
Speaker 2: This might not even ever make it in the final edit.

465
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:07,740
Speaker 2: So I'll just say it to you. How about that?

466
00:24:09,320 --> 00:24:14,770
Speaker 2: I would say the last, like, few weeks of episodes,

467
00:24:15,170 --> 00:24:18,369
Speaker 2: there's been, like, some good ones here or there. But overall,

468
00:24:18,869 --> 00:24:22,050
Speaker 2: I find that they've been less good because I am

469
00:24:22,369 --> 00:24:28,530
Speaker 2: so sick of myself. Because we've been so... entrenched in

470
00:24:28,570 --> 00:24:33,230
Speaker 2: the book right now. So it's like living, breathing S-Y-S-K,

471
00:24:33,510 --> 00:24:37,950
Speaker 2: which is us, and having to confront and like myself

472
00:24:38,050 --> 00:24:40,770
Speaker 2: and my own personality and sense of humor and whether

473
00:24:40,810 --> 00:24:44,199
Speaker 2: that's actually funny and just constantly thinking about this on

474
00:24:44,300 --> 00:24:47,140
Speaker 2: top of doing the podcast on top of the other

475
00:24:47,200 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 2: stuff we're trying to do now too and I am

476
00:24:50,840 --> 00:24:54,179
Speaker 2: so sick of myself I can barely tolerate listening to

477
00:24:54,240 --> 00:24:58,230
Speaker 2: myself talk so if anyone's picked up on the last

478
00:24:58,290 --> 00:25:00,910
Speaker 2: few episodes like in the last few weeks just being

479
00:25:00,930 --> 00:25:04,890
Speaker 2: a little ho-hum that's why and I apologize maybe we'll

480
00:25:04,930 --> 00:25:06,710
Speaker 2: go back and redo them one day wow.

481
00:25:08,210 --> 00:25:12,210
Speaker 1: News to me. I think you've been great.

482
00:25:13,530 --> 00:25:15,490
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks a lot, man. That's ultimately what I was

483
00:25:15,530 --> 00:25:16,070
Speaker 2: fishing for.

484
00:25:16,450 --> 00:25:18,610
Speaker 1: All right. Well, if you want to cut that part out,

485
00:25:18,650 --> 00:25:21,670
Speaker 1: let me pick this up by saying, and I'm sure

486
00:25:21,730 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: you've made a great point, Josh.

487
00:25:27,400 --> 00:25:30,720
Speaker 2: So, so back to Kelly, right? You've got all these,

488
00:25:31,260 --> 00:25:36,420
Speaker 2: what I'm sure Shipwreck Kelly deemed slack-jawed yokels, ho-hums, that

489
00:25:36,460 --> 00:25:39,530
Speaker 2: kind of thing. Um, Who were out there trying to

490
00:25:39,550 --> 00:25:40,250
Speaker 2: topple his record.

491
00:25:40,510 --> 00:25:41,010
Speaker 1: And they did.

492
00:25:41,070 --> 00:25:43,620
Speaker 2: Some of them did topple his record. But nobody had

493
00:25:43,690 --> 00:25:46,400
Speaker 2: turned this into a business like Shipwreck Kelly had. He

494
00:25:46,460 --> 00:25:51,480
Speaker 2: was a one-man money-making machine who made his money just

495
00:25:51,540 --> 00:25:53,359
Speaker 2: by sitting on top of a flagpole.

496
00:25:53,400 --> 00:25:53,780
Speaker 1: Good money.

497
00:25:53,800 --> 00:25:56,530
Speaker 2: Because he was really good at self-promoting. Like there wasn't

498
00:25:56,570 --> 00:25:58,630
Speaker 2: a reporter whose ear he wouldn't bend if he got

499
00:25:58,670 --> 00:26:03,179
Speaker 2: the chance. And in these reports or these articles, he

500
00:26:03,200 --> 00:26:04,840
Speaker 2: would say things like, yeah, I'm in town for this,

501
00:26:04,920 --> 00:26:07,500
Speaker 2: but if anybody has any other offers, I'm wide open

502
00:26:07,560 --> 00:26:11,990
Speaker 2: and I'm staying at, you know, the Cambridge Arms itinerant

503
00:26:12,050 --> 00:26:14,350
Speaker 2: hotel for the next few days if somebody wants to

504
00:26:14,369 --> 00:26:16,109
Speaker 2: get in touch with me there with a job offer.

505
00:26:16,390 --> 00:26:20,909
Speaker 2: Like he was really good at attracting job offers specifically

506
00:26:20,970 --> 00:26:21,990
Speaker 2: for flagpole sitting.

507
00:26:22,490 --> 00:26:25,389
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he made good dough. I mean, this is

508
00:26:25,410 --> 00:26:28,710
Speaker 1: good money any time. if he made $ 100 an hour

509
00:26:28,790 --> 00:26:31,610
Speaker 1: like he claimed to, other people said, no, it really

510
00:26:31,630 --> 00:26:34,490
Speaker 1: wasn't that much. It was probably closer to anywhere between

511
00:26:34,490 --> 00:26:37,310
Speaker 1: $ 100 and $ 500 a day. Still a lot of money.

512
00:26:38,770 --> 00:26:43,000
Speaker 1: And like you said, it was like, he was almost

513
00:26:43,040 --> 00:26:48,440
Speaker 1: like a celebrity version of a sign spinner. Like if

514
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 1: you could pay George Clooney to sign spin in front

515
00:26:52,460 --> 00:26:56,350
Speaker 1: of your mobile phone store, that was sort of what

516
00:26:56,730 --> 00:26:57,560
Speaker 1: Shipwreck Kelly was.

517
00:26:58,490 --> 00:27:01,540
Speaker 2: That's a great one. I got one too. It's almost

518
00:27:01,640 --> 00:27:04,699
Speaker 2: like if there was a cult of personality built up

519
00:27:04,720 --> 00:27:09,460
Speaker 2: around like the flapping dancing wind sock guy that they

520
00:27:09,500 --> 00:27:14,280
Speaker 2: put out in front of like mattress stores in like 2005. Yeah.

521
00:27:14,420 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 2: I love those dudes. Okay.

522
00:27:16,720 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: Those are fun.

523
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:20,659
Speaker 2: I think both of those are high quality analogies.

524
00:27:21,240 --> 00:27:23,220
Speaker 1: Well, we'll see which one Jerry uses in the edit.

525
00:27:23,580 --> 00:27:23,699
Speaker 2: Okay.

526
00:27:23,720 --> 00:27:26,639
Speaker 1: Okay. Let me see here. Here are some of his

527
00:27:26,680 --> 00:27:31,700
Speaker 1: longer sits. He did 146 hours at the Old West

528
00:27:31,780 --> 00:27:37,970
Speaker 1: Gate Hotel in Kansas City. Not bad. 312 hours in Newark,

529
00:27:38,050 --> 00:27:43,150
Speaker 1: New Jersey atop the St. Francis Hotel. That's pretty good. Sure.

530
00:27:43,750 --> 00:27:46,870
Speaker 1: I don't know what that is in days, but... 312 hours?

531
00:27:46,890 --> 00:27:49,970
Speaker 2: Let's see. If you divided that by 24, as you should...

532
00:27:52,490 --> 00:27:55,129
Speaker 2: You would come up with something along the lines of

533
00:27:55,130 --> 00:27:56,930
Speaker 2: 13 days on the nose.

534
00:27:57,950 --> 00:28:01,149
Speaker 1: Hmm. All right. Well, how about 22 days? And this

535
00:28:01,190 --> 00:28:03,790
Speaker 1: was in conjunction with the dance marathon at none other

536
00:28:04,250 --> 00:28:05,330
Speaker 1: than Madison Square Garden.

537
00:28:06,810 --> 00:28:08,270
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I don't know if we said it or not,

538
00:28:08,310 --> 00:28:10,710
Speaker 2: but there was a dance marathon at Madison Square Gardens

539
00:28:10,730 --> 00:28:14,410
Speaker 2: that was actually shut down by the health department because

540
00:28:14,450 --> 00:28:17,040
Speaker 2: they decided it had gone on too long, 10 days,

541
00:28:17,500 --> 00:28:20,159
Speaker 2: and that it deemed a threat to the health of

542
00:28:20,200 --> 00:28:23,600
Speaker 2: the participants. That wasn't the one that he sat in,

543
00:28:23,900 --> 00:28:27,480
Speaker 2: but there was one the following year where for, what

544
00:28:27,500 --> 00:28:28,540
Speaker 2: was it, 22 days?

545
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:29,400
Speaker 1: Yeah.

546
00:28:30,460 --> 00:28:32,920
Speaker 2: That means that the dance marathon went on for 22 days.

547
00:28:34,030 --> 00:28:37,110
Speaker 2: But imagine that. So you've got these two endurance fads

548
00:28:37,750 --> 00:28:41,190
Speaker 2: just interweaved in this way that the universe almost like

549
00:28:41,250 --> 00:28:44,990
Speaker 2: collapses in on itself because they're put together too close together,

550
00:28:45,010 --> 00:28:47,510
Speaker 2: you know?

551
00:28:47,570 --> 00:28:49,210
Speaker 1: Yeah, and here's how he would do it. He would

552
00:28:49,250 --> 00:28:54,040
Speaker 1: sit on that bar stool-like thing And it was padded

553
00:28:55,020 --> 00:29:00,180
Speaker 1: and he would, um, you know, eat and smoke cigarettes

554
00:29:00,460 --> 00:29:03,760
Speaker 1: and shave apparently. And they would send this stuff, stuff

555
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:05,460
Speaker 1: up in like a, with a bucket and a rope

556
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:08,930
Speaker 1: and tell him how he would sleep. Cause this is

557
00:29:08,970 --> 00:29:10,510
Speaker 1: what I really kind of wanted to know.

558
00:29:12,810 --> 00:29:16,270
Speaker 2: So, so you said his, his seat was like a

559
00:29:16,370 --> 00:29:21,120
Speaker 2: bar stool around bar stool basically. Right. And, um, It

560
00:29:21,160 --> 00:29:23,980
Speaker 2: was on a pole, a flagpole appropriately. And then in

561
00:29:24,020 --> 00:29:27,170
Speaker 2: the flagpole, you'd have two holes drilled just beneath the seat.

562
00:29:27,590 --> 00:29:29,130
Speaker 2: And now that I'm doing it, I'm like, that's really

563
00:29:29,190 --> 00:29:31,450
Speaker 2: hard to reach. So now I'm questioning whether this is

564
00:29:31,510 --> 00:29:32,030
Speaker 2: true or not.

565
00:29:32,590 --> 00:29:33,510
Speaker 1: He might have long arms.

566
00:29:34,450 --> 00:29:34,930
Speaker 2: Maybe so.

567
00:29:34,950 --> 00:29:36,550
Speaker 1: Long thumbs.

568
00:29:36,810 --> 00:29:40,340
Speaker 2: So he would plug his thumbs into those holes. drilled

569
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:43,100
Speaker 2: into each side of the flagpole so that when he

570
00:29:43,160 --> 00:29:46,830
Speaker 2: started to lean forward, the pressure from the flagpole on

571
00:29:46,870 --> 00:29:49,270
Speaker 2: his thumbs would kind of cut into his skin and

572
00:29:49,810 --> 00:29:52,330
Speaker 2: wake him up just enough that he would adjust himself.

573
00:29:52,890 --> 00:29:55,230
Speaker 2: And apparently he got so good at this that he

574
00:29:55,270 --> 00:29:58,530
Speaker 2: would adjust himself to sit back up so he wouldn't

575
00:29:58,610 --> 00:30:01,530
Speaker 2: fall over off of the flagpole while he was still sleeping.

576
00:30:01,570 --> 00:30:04,150
Speaker 2: Like he wouldn't wake up. He could just adjust himself

577
00:30:04,210 --> 00:30:04,710
Speaker 2: in his sleep.

578
00:30:05,060 --> 00:30:07,260
Speaker 1: That's right. And he'd have his little, I don't know

579
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:09,260
Speaker 1: if they're little, but he would have his ankles locked

580
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:14,820
Speaker 1: around the pole and apparently would tether a leg to

581
00:30:14,920 --> 00:30:19,590
Speaker 1: keep him from catastrophe. But I think it's very dubious

582
00:30:19,790 --> 00:30:22,630
Speaker 1: that that was a solid life-saving rig.

583
00:30:22,650 --> 00:30:22,730
Speaker 2: Yeah.

584
00:30:24,630 --> 00:30:24,790
Speaker 1: Yeah.

585
00:30:25,190 --> 00:30:27,050
Speaker 2: And I mean, like some of these flagpoles, he's sitting

586
00:30:27,110 --> 00:30:30,150
Speaker 2: on 30 feet, 50 feet. One of them, I guess

587
00:30:30,270 --> 00:30:32,510
Speaker 2: the impression I had, the one that you mentioned on

588
00:30:33,590 --> 00:30:37,870
Speaker 2: Kansas City's Westgate Hotel, that that flagpole was on the

589
00:30:37,930 --> 00:30:40,880
Speaker 2: top roof of the hotel. So, I mean, he was

590
00:30:40,950 --> 00:30:43,460
Speaker 2: up there for sure. And if something had gone wrong,

591
00:30:43,500 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 2: he would have, yeah, that tether probably would not have

592
00:30:46,420 --> 00:30:50,480
Speaker 2: done terribly much. Or it would have done a lot

593
00:30:50,500 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 2: to keep his leg hanging up there, but the rest

594
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:54,420
Speaker 2: of them would have kept going to the ground, you know?

595
00:30:54,750 --> 00:30:55,850
Speaker 1: How did he pee-pee and poo-poo?

596
00:30:57,610 --> 00:30:59,870
Speaker 2: He had a little contraption for that with the tube

597
00:30:59,930 --> 00:31:03,760
Speaker 2: that went down. Okay. But here's the thing. So you're

598
00:31:03,800 --> 00:31:07,500
Speaker 2: a traveling flagpole sitter. You're relying on the help of

599
00:31:07,620 --> 00:31:11,500
Speaker 2: other people on the ground. You need food. When you

600
00:31:11,540 --> 00:31:14,040
Speaker 2: pee and poop into that contraption that leads to a

601
00:31:14,100 --> 00:31:16,640
Speaker 2: tube that goes down to the ground— You don't want

602
00:31:16,660 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 2: that just leaking out for the spectators to see and

603
00:31:19,380 --> 00:31:21,940
Speaker 2: smell and experience. You need it to go into a

604
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:24,530
Speaker 2: bucket that somebody is going to go take away and dump.

605
00:31:24,850 --> 00:31:28,710
Speaker 2: So you're relying on this kind of group of assistants

606
00:31:28,750 --> 00:31:31,910
Speaker 2: and hands that probably the promoter maybe helped hire for you.

607
00:31:32,290 --> 00:31:34,840
Speaker 2: Maybe you make a friend along the way who just

608
00:31:34,860 --> 00:31:36,640
Speaker 2: kind of travels from town to town with you for

609
00:31:36,660 --> 00:31:37,100
Speaker 2: a little while.

610
00:31:37,120 --> 00:31:40,640
Speaker 1: That's what I think. Shipwreck Kelly had an assistant.

611
00:31:41,420 --> 00:31:42,000
Speaker 2: He had a boy.

612
00:31:42,020 --> 00:31:43,820
Speaker 1: That was the worst job in show business.

613
00:31:44,740 --> 00:31:46,709
Speaker 2: Right. He had a lad who would help him.

614
00:31:46,790 --> 00:31:46,970
Speaker 1: Yeah.

615
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:52,280
Speaker 2: Yeah. So, but it would be a pretty bad job.

616
00:31:53,060 --> 00:31:53,260
Speaker 1: Yeah.

617
00:31:53,580 --> 00:31:55,219
Speaker 2: But anyway, so he had to, I mean, he had

618
00:31:55,240 --> 00:31:57,780
Speaker 2: to eat and he didn't eat much. He would apparently

619
00:31:57,880 --> 00:32:02,400
Speaker 2: just kind of almost do a broth fast, augmented with

620
00:32:02,790 --> 00:32:06,390
Speaker 2: cigarettes and coffee. He would stay up for four days

621
00:32:06,450 --> 00:32:09,590
Speaker 2: at a time because like living on a flagpole is

622
00:32:09,630 --> 00:32:13,930
Speaker 2: not exactly like the most comfortable place you can exist for.

623
00:32:14,550 --> 00:32:18,290
Speaker 2: you know, 22 days or 13 days or however long. No.

624
00:32:18,630 --> 00:32:22,690
Speaker 1: And it eventually turned against him in that the money

625
00:32:22,730 --> 00:32:26,020
Speaker 1: dried up after he did this sort of big Atlantic

626
00:32:26,060 --> 00:32:28,980
Speaker 1: City stunt that we talked about. And it was the

627
00:32:29,020 --> 00:32:32,380
Speaker 1: Great Depression. And eventually people were kind of like, I

628
00:32:32,420 --> 00:32:34,680
Speaker 1: don't really care so much about this dumb stunt because

629
00:32:34,760 --> 00:32:37,600
Speaker 1: I'm starving and I'm broke and I'm homeless.

630
00:32:38,460 --> 00:32:38,700
Speaker 2: Right.

631
00:32:38,860 --> 00:32:42,240
Speaker 1: And the kind of tide of public opinion turned such

632
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:45,790
Speaker 1: that In 1935, he went to do this in the Bronx,

633
00:32:46,410 --> 00:32:48,250
Speaker 1: and he was actually arrested for public nuisance.

634
00:32:48,990 --> 00:32:49,210
Speaker 2: Yeah.

635
00:32:49,610 --> 00:32:53,230
Speaker 1: And I'm sure he was like, but I'm Shipwreck Kelly. Right.

636
00:32:53,620 --> 00:32:55,560
Speaker 2: But, I mean, think about it. That's like everybody's sick

637
00:32:55,600 --> 00:32:57,740
Speaker 2: of you now, Kelly, and your schtick. We're all just

638
00:32:57,780 --> 00:33:01,660
Speaker 2: depressed in the Depression, so maybe we'll do a dance marathon,

639
00:33:01,680 --> 00:33:03,180
Speaker 2: but we're not going to watch you sit around in

640
00:33:03,220 --> 00:33:08,310
Speaker 2: a flagpole anymore. And there was a contemporary article that

641
00:33:08,350 --> 00:33:12,370
Speaker 2: was written at the time that said that he– attributed

642
00:33:12,430 --> 00:33:15,510
Speaker 2: the decline of flagpole sitting directly to the stock market crash.

643
00:33:16,030 --> 00:33:18,550
Speaker 2: And he said that people didn't want to see anything

644
00:33:18,630 --> 00:33:22,070
Speaker 2: higher than their securities, stock securities at the time, which

645
00:33:22,110 --> 00:33:22,970
Speaker 2: were not very high.

646
00:33:23,590 --> 00:33:25,690
Speaker 1: And everyone went, that's just not even a joke in

647
00:33:25,710 --> 00:33:31,560
Speaker 1: good taste. And he punches human familiar in the mouth

648
00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:34,020
Speaker 1: and say, you told me to tell that joke.

649
00:33:37,100 --> 00:33:38,840
Speaker 2: Man, that was gangbusters, Chuck.

650
00:33:39,420 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 1: Do you watch that show?

651
00:33:40,060 --> 00:33:40,460
Speaker 2: You got me.

652
00:33:41,760 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 1: What we do in the shadows?

653
00:33:44,500 --> 00:33:47,100
Speaker 2: I've seen some episodes of it. You know, we were

654
00:33:47,140 --> 00:33:49,980
Speaker 2: talking about it, and one of the PAs, I think,

655
00:33:50,150 --> 00:33:53,590
Speaker 2: wrote in to say that they were just blown away

656
00:33:53,650 --> 00:33:56,970
Speaker 2: that we were giving such big ups to their show.

657
00:33:56,990 --> 00:33:59,470
Speaker 2: I think I remember that. If you talk to Matt Berry,

658
00:33:59,510 --> 00:34:03,210
Speaker 2: tell him he's a comedy genius. I never heard anything back. Oh,

659
00:34:03,290 --> 00:34:06,920
Speaker 2: have you seen An Evening with Beverly Loughlin?

660
00:34:08,040 --> 00:34:09,200
Speaker 1: No. How do I know that name?

661
00:34:10,410 --> 00:34:12,830
Speaker 2: So it's a Craig.

662
00:34:13,670 --> 00:34:14,110
Speaker 1: Robinson?

663
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:16,540
Speaker 2: Yes. From The Office, right?

664
00:34:16,600 --> 00:34:16,799
Speaker 1: Yeah.

665
00:34:17,739 --> 00:34:23,520
Speaker 2: He plays a guy named Beverly Loughlin. And Aubrey Meadows?

666
00:34:24,040 --> 00:34:24,580
Speaker 1: Aubrey Plaza?

667
00:34:24,600 --> 00:34:28,290
Speaker 2: Aubrey Meadows. Plaza. That's right. Man, I'm really screwing this up.

668
00:34:28,290 --> 00:34:29,210
Speaker 1: You're great with first names, though.

669
00:34:30,010 --> 00:34:30,650
Speaker 2: Yeah.

670
00:34:30,810 --> 00:34:31,230
Speaker 1: And then.

671
00:34:31,890 --> 00:34:35,890
Speaker 2: Okay. So she's the main character. Jemaine Clement. I know him.

672
00:34:35,989 --> 00:34:36,430
Speaker 1: You got that.

673
00:34:37,190 --> 00:34:39,450
Speaker 2: He plays... Well, you just have to see it.

674
00:34:39,710 --> 00:34:41,510
Speaker 1: Well, he was in What We Do in the Shadows,

675
00:34:41,570 --> 00:34:41,950
Speaker 1: the movie.

676
00:34:42,790 --> 00:34:45,850
Speaker 2: Right, right. So I think he co-created it too. This

677
00:34:45,910 --> 00:34:48,750
Speaker 2: is what all ties into this. He and Matt Berry

678
00:34:48,790 --> 00:34:51,170
Speaker 2: are also in this too. Matt Berry is in the

679
00:34:51,210 --> 00:34:52,830
Speaker 2: TV version of What We Do in the Shadows.

680
00:34:52,890 --> 00:34:53,129
Speaker 1: Yes.

681
00:34:53,150 --> 00:34:57,450
Speaker 2: I mean, Clement helped create it. But it's definitely worth watching.

682
00:34:57,550 --> 00:35:02,970
Speaker 2: It's purposefully very bizarre, which can get really annoying really easily.

683
00:35:03,290 --> 00:35:06,370
Speaker 2: But this movie pulls it off very well, like purposeful

684
00:35:06,450 --> 00:35:12,280
Speaker 2: bizarreness for humor. And it's a good movie. It's worth watching. Okay,

685
00:35:12,910 --> 00:35:16,280
Speaker 2: it's worth watching. I'll leave it to you to decide

686
00:35:16,300 --> 00:35:17,470
Speaker 2: whether it's a good movie or not.

687
00:35:17,500 --> 00:35:19,660
Speaker 1: Well, I love everybody in it. That's a great cast.

688
00:35:20,100 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, it's worth watching. How about that?

689
00:35:23,739 --> 00:35:25,790
Speaker 1: All right. Should we take our second break here? Can

690
00:35:25,830 --> 00:35:26,450
Speaker 1: you believe we haven't?

691
00:35:27,890 --> 00:35:28,629
Speaker 2: Yes, I can.

692
00:35:29,030 --> 00:35:31,450
Speaker 1: All right. Let's do our other break, and then we're

693
00:35:31,469 --> 00:35:34,569
Speaker 1: going to talk about, we're going to wind up this

694
00:35:34,610 --> 00:36:09,299
Speaker 1: flagpole sitting thing right after this. Okay, so Kelly, when

695
00:36:09,320 --> 00:36:12,379
Speaker 1: we left off, the public turns on him. They don't

696
00:36:12,440 --> 00:36:17,480
Speaker 1: care about him anymore. He's probably drunk in some hotel

697
00:36:17,520 --> 00:36:20,560
Speaker 1: room somewhere with his human familiar, talking about the good

698
00:36:20,580 --> 00:36:21,500
Speaker 1: old days at this point.

699
00:36:22,380 --> 00:36:25,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it is kind of sad. I get the

700
00:36:25,040 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 2: impression that the Memory Palace episode really focuses on the

701
00:36:29,580 --> 00:36:32,100
Speaker 2: sad decline of Shipwreck Kelly because, I mean, he was

702
00:36:32,160 --> 00:36:36,800
Speaker 2: a celebrity, a national, probably international celebrity for like a decade.

703
00:36:37,650 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 2: a decade for sitting on flagpoles. And then all of

704
00:36:41,719 --> 00:36:45,739
Speaker 2: a sudden he's just done. Like society drops him like

705
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:50,480
Speaker 2: a hot potato and he's penniless and on public assistance basically.

706
00:36:51,340 --> 00:36:54,180
Speaker 1: Yeah. And he died a very sad death. He did.

707
00:36:54,900 --> 00:36:59,730
Speaker 1: And I think his final flagpole sit was all the

708
00:36:59,770 --> 00:37:00,870
Speaker 1: way in the 1950s in Orange, Texas in 1952. He

709
00:37:00,890 --> 00:37:07,730
Speaker 1: was almost 60 years old at this point. And he had,

710
00:37:08,210 --> 00:37:14,689
Speaker 1: during the publicity run-up to this, had two heart attacks. Well,

711
00:37:14,730 --> 00:37:18,230
Speaker 1: was he sitting on his pole for publicity or was

712
00:37:18,250 --> 00:37:19,750
Speaker 1: this part of the pole sitting when he had the

713
00:37:19,770 --> 00:37:20,310
Speaker 1: heart attacks?

714
00:37:22,630 --> 00:37:26,080
Speaker 2: He had the heart attacks on the pole during the publicity.

715
00:37:26,640 --> 00:37:30,000
Speaker 1: Oh, so the actual sit was another publicity stunt for

716
00:37:30,040 --> 00:37:30,500
Speaker 1: some place.

717
00:37:31,210 --> 00:37:33,870
Speaker 2: Right, yeah. I don't know what business it was for.

718
00:37:33,890 --> 00:37:35,770
Speaker 2: I didn't see that. But I did see that the

719
00:37:35,870 --> 00:37:39,569
Speaker 2: promoters were like, come down right now. We don't think

720
00:37:39,590 --> 00:37:42,870
Speaker 2: you're going to survive a third heart attack, so stop.

721
00:37:43,230 --> 00:37:45,210
Speaker 2: Which is crazy. I mean, there was only 59 at

722
00:37:45,250 --> 00:37:45,609
Speaker 2: the time.

723
00:37:46,650 --> 00:37:49,029
Speaker 1: Yeah, but 59 in the 1950s.

724
00:37:49,780 --> 00:37:53,080
Speaker 2: I guess so. When your name was shipwrecked. Yeah.

725
00:37:55,120 --> 00:37:58,279
Speaker 1: But he did die of that third heart attack like

726
00:37:58,320 --> 00:37:59,239
Speaker 1: a week after that, right?

727
00:38:00,180 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, he was walking around New York on 51st Street.

728
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:07,490
Speaker 2: And he dropped dead on the sidewalk from a heart attack.

729
00:38:07,650 --> 00:38:13,489
Speaker 2: And he was found holding a scrapbook of all, like,

730
00:38:13,590 --> 00:38:17,170
Speaker 2: clippings of newspaper articles about him during his heyday.

731
00:38:17,270 --> 00:38:17,890
Speaker 1: Oh, man.

732
00:38:18,430 --> 00:38:19,110
Speaker 2: Isn't that sad?

733
00:38:19,130 --> 00:38:20,030
Speaker 1: That's like a movie.

734
00:38:21,570 --> 00:38:24,430
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't believe this is a movie. He's, I mean,

735
00:38:24,450 --> 00:38:28,440
Speaker 2: he's a gold mine just waiting to be, well, mined.

736
00:38:32,900 --> 00:38:33,359
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, wait.

737
00:38:33,380 --> 00:38:35,239
Speaker 2: There's one other thing about him before we move on.

738
00:38:35,340 --> 00:38:36,220
Speaker 1: What do you got?

739
00:38:36,780 --> 00:38:41,390
Speaker 2: After he was done with his flagpole sitting career, the

740
00:38:41,410 --> 00:38:44,230
Speaker 2: heyday of it, one of the jobs he had was

741
00:38:44,290 --> 00:38:48,930
Speaker 2: as a gigolo, a male escort who would dance with

742
00:38:49,350 --> 00:38:52,879
Speaker 2: whoever wanted him to dance at the Roseland Ballroom near

743
00:38:52,920 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 2: Times Square.

744
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:55,080
Speaker 1: He was a private dancer.

745
00:38:56,260 --> 00:38:57,140
Speaker 2: A dancer for money.

746
00:38:57,840 --> 00:39:00,040
Speaker 1: I've been to Roseland. Seen some good shows there.

747
00:39:00,980 --> 00:39:04,380
Speaker 2: Yeah, well. You were where Shipwreck Kelly danced for a

748
00:39:04,440 --> 00:39:06,820
Speaker 2: dime a dance. Because he was a gigolo.

749
00:39:07,180 --> 00:39:11,370
Speaker 1: I would have paid for that dance. Sure. Tell him

750
00:39:11,390 --> 00:39:12,029
Speaker 1: to sit on my head.

751
00:39:12,050 --> 00:39:17,290
Speaker 2: Hey, he'll do what you want him to do. Oh, boy.

752
00:39:18,670 --> 00:39:21,210
Speaker 1: So we looked, or rather you looked, because you put

753
00:39:21,230 --> 00:39:24,910
Speaker 1: this one together, and you found one death from flagpole sitting.

754
00:39:24,930 --> 00:39:25,610
Speaker 1: Isn't that right?

755
00:39:26,650 --> 00:39:29,830
Speaker 2: That's all I could turn up. Surely, surely there were more,

756
00:39:29,870 --> 00:39:32,529
Speaker 2: but I could really only find one. And this guy

757
00:39:32,570 --> 00:39:34,160
Speaker 2: was wonderful in every way.

758
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:35,319
Speaker 1: Dick Blandy?

759
00:39:36,340 --> 00:39:40,820
Speaker 2: Dixie Blandy. Richard Dixie. D-I-X-I-E. Blandy.

760
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:42,240
Speaker 1: Dick Dixie Blandy.

761
00:39:43,120 --> 00:39:49,219
Speaker 2: Sure. So, Dixie Blandy. He was a flagpole sitter who

762
00:39:49,260 --> 00:39:52,850
Speaker 2: was contemporaneous to Shipwreck Kelly.

763
00:39:52,870 --> 00:39:53,410
Speaker 1: A little bit.

764
00:39:53,489 --> 00:39:57,150
Speaker 2: Like during, surely he was directly inspired by Shipwreck Kelly.

765
00:39:57,489 --> 00:40:00,790
Speaker 2: He came along and started in 1929, which is almost

766
00:40:00,870 --> 00:40:05,340
Speaker 2: the worst year you could join the flagpole sitting movement

767
00:40:05,380 --> 00:40:08,960
Speaker 2: because just the next year, Shipwreck Kelly had his triumphant

768
00:40:09,060 --> 00:40:13,279
Speaker 2: sit aboard like a, or above a two, what?

769
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:15,719
Speaker 1: Triumphant sit. It's just great. Yeah.

770
00:40:16,489 --> 00:40:19,310
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, it was triumphant for a couple of reasons. One,

771
00:40:19,370 --> 00:40:23,350
Speaker 2: it was his longest sit, I believe, 22 days, 23 days,

772
00:40:23,370 --> 00:40:27,620
Speaker 2: something like that. And secondly, it was above a top,

773
00:40:28,140 --> 00:40:34,100
Speaker 2: a 200-foot flagpole. For weeks, he sat up there. That's triumphant,

774
00:40:34,140 --> 00:40:37,100
Speaker 2: if you ask me. But he did his in 1930,

775
00:40:37,100 --> 00:40:40,480
Speaker 2: and everybody dropped him right after. Dixie Blandy just started

776
00:40:40,500 --> 00:40:44,870
Speaker 2: in 1929. But even though people said flagpole sitting is

777
00:40:45,050 --> 00:40:47,489
Speaker 2: so out, we're not going to bother even looking up

778
00:40:47,610 --> 00:40:50,529
Speaker 2: when we see somebody on a flagpole. Dixie Blandy said,

779
00:40:50,570 --> 00:40:52,569
Speaker 2: you know what, I'm not giving up on this. And

780
00:40:52,630 --> 00:40:54,850
Speaker 2: he continued to make a career out of it wherever

781
00:40:54,890 --> 00:40:55,270
Speaker 2: he could.

782
00:40:56,450 --> 00:41:00,440
Speaker 1: Yes, until he died from flagpole sitting at the age

783
00:41:00,480 --> 00:41:02,840
Speaker 1: of 71. In 1974, he fell off of his flagpole.

784
00:41:02,860 --> 00:41:06,399
Speaker 1: It was a 50-foot pole. And where was this? In Harvey? Harvey.

785
00:41:12,680 --> 00:41:14,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I get the impression in Pennsylvania.

786
00:41:15,360 --> 00:41:16,160
Speaker 1: Harvey, Pennsylvania?

787
00:41:16,820 --> 00:41:19,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the article that reported on it as if

788
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:22,140
Speaker 2: it were something of a nearby event was called the

789
00:41:22,219 --> 00:41:25,819
Speaker 2: Reading Eagle. And Reading is in Pennsylvania, right?

790
00:41:26,920 --> 00:41:27,700
Speaker 1: Yeah. Is it Reading?

791
00:41:28,940 --> 00:41:33,100
Speaker 2: Whatever. I can't tell you how many times I've been

792
00:41:33,180 --> 00:41:36,820
Speaker 2: told that since I was a child playing Monopoly. And

793
00:41:36,890 --> 00:41:38,739
Speaker 2: it's just never stuck for some reason.

794
00:41:38,890 --> 00:41:43,240
Speaker 1: Oh, is that the titular railroad? Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. The

795
00:41:43,260 --> 00:41:44,580
Speaker 1: Reading Railroad. We said Reading.

796
00:41:45,900 --> 00:41:48,500
Speaker 2: Yeah. That's right. That's what I said too, but apparently

797
00:41:48,540 --> 00:41:48,899
Speaker 2: it's Reading.

798
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:50,620
Speaker 1: I didn't know. I didn't know it was the same thing.

799
00:41:51,300 --> 00:41:53,959
Speaker 1: But either way, this is where Harvey, and of course

800
00:41:54,040 --> 00:41:56,820
Speaker 1: it's always like the grand opening of a shopping center

801
00:41:56,840 --> 00:41:59,529
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah. And that's what was going on here.

802
00:41:59,550 --> 00:42:05,270
Speaker 1: It's a four-day promotion, and he basically said, I think

803
00:42:05,310 --> 00:42:09,530
Speaker 1: this pole is attached to a trailer, and the trailer moved.

804
00:42:09,750 --> 00:42:10,150
Speaker 1: Is that right?

805
00:42:10,950 --> 00:42:13,150
Speaker 2: Well, he asked a security guard to move the trailer

806
00:42:13,190 --> 00:42:14,870
Speaker 2: so they could make room for what I took to

807
00:42:14,910 --> 00:42:17,390
Speaker 2: be a cherry picker that could go up and get them.

808
00:42:17,530 --> 00:42:21,510
Speaker 2: This is hours before the end of his four-day sit.

809
00:42:22,310 --> 00:42:25,689
Speaker 2: And when the security guard, I guess who had never

810
00:42:25,730 --> 00:42:29,489
Speaker 2: tried this before, moved the trailer, a guy wire that

811
00:42:29,530 --> 00:42:33,330
Speaker 2: was stabilizing the pole became taut and actually pulled the pole,

812
00:42:33,410 --> 00:42:37,109
Speaker 2: snapped the pole in two with Dixie still on top

813
00:42:37,150 --> 00:42:40,320
Speaker 2: of this 50-foot pole, and he landed safely. Skull first,

814
00:42:40,380 --> 00:42:44,219
Speaker 2: from what I can tell, onto the asphalt below. That

815
00:42:44,260 --> 00:42:47,279
Speaker 2: is not what you want to open your grocery store with.

816
00:42:48,080 --> 00:42:50,540
Speaker 1: No, or to close your flagpole sit with.

817
00:42:51,570 --> 00:42:53,310
Speaker 2: No, either way, it's a bad jam.

818
00:42:53,330 --> 00:42:54,530
Speaker 1: If you're going to fall, fall early.

819
00:42:55,130 --> 00:42:57,049
Speaker 2: This was not his only accident, too. This was the

820
00:42:57,130 --> 00:42:59,670
Speaker 2: one that got him, but he had fractured his skull

821
00:42:59,710 --> 00:43:02,489
Speaker 2: before when he was thrown off a pole in a

822
00:43:02,570 --> 00:43:06,850
Speaker 2: storm in 1955. And then there was... This is heartwarming.

823
00:43:07,190 --> 00:43:11,360
Speaker 2: In 1961... he was doing a pole sit for a

824
00:43:11,420 --> 00:43:15,500
Speaker 2: promotion dressed as Santa Claus. And he was shouting, Merry Christmas.

825
00:43:15,520 --> 00:43:17,000
Speaker 2: That was his job. Sit on the top of the

826
00:43:17,020 --> 00:43:20,570
Speaker 2: flagpole and shout Merry Christmas. And apparently it got to

827
00:43:20,610 --> 00:43:22,850
Speaker 2: the point where he finally yelled down that he was

828
00:43:23,330 --> 00:43:25,910
Speaker 2: getting numb and he had to be taken to the hospital.

829
00:43:25,930 --> 00:43:26,350
Speaker 1: Yeah.

830
00:43:27,570 --> 00:43:30,290
Speaker 2: Which is, this is what I'm talking about, man. Just

831
00:43:30,450 --> 00:43:33,790
Speaker 2: no thought. It doesn't take thought to just think about

832
00:43:33,989 --> 00:43:36,530
Speaker 2: flagpole sitting. And I love that about it. Yeah.

833
00:43:37,030 --> 00:43:38,410
Speaker 1: Merry Christmas.

834
00:43:38,530 --> 00:43:41,469
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas. I think, I think there's something wrong up here.

835
00:43:41,489 --> 00:43:43,830
Speaker 2: I got to go to the hospital cause I'm sitting

836
00:43:43,870 --> 00:43:46,030
Speaker 2: on top of a flagpole dressed as Santa Claus shouting

837
00:43:46,070 --> 00:43:48,879
Speaker 2: Merry Christmas for three days. And it's December in Pennsylvania.

838
00:43:50,080 --> 00:43:55,200
Speaker 1: In Reading. It's reading. Uh, this was, you know, these

839
00:43:55,239 --> 00:43:57,880
Speaker 1: were definitely the waning days. This was in the 1970s.

840
00:43:57,920 --> 00:44:01,160
Speaker 1: There were some other stunts throughout the years here and there.

841
00:44:01,219 --> 00:44:06,130
Speaker 1: A couple got married atop a flagpole. Um, Let me

842
00:44:06,170 --> 00:44:12,350
Speaker 1: see here. A 17-year-old in 1963 named Peggy Townsend spent

843
00:44:12,350 --> 00:44:15,250
Speaker 1: 217 days on a pole for a contest for a

844
00:44:15,270 --> 00:44:19,210
Speaker 1: radio station. And then the granddaddy of them all, this

845
00:44:19,250 --> 00:44:22,410
Speaker 1: guy Kenneth Gidge, Ken Gidge, 248 days in 1971. This

846
00:44:22,430 --> 00:44:24,170
Speaker 1: guy would later on be a state rep for New Hampshire.

847
00:44:25,050 --> 00:44:37,169
Speaker 1: And he, I mean, reading his account... He was basically like,

848
00:44:37,390 --> 00:44:38,050
Speaker 1: it was terrible.

849
00:44:39,719 --> 00:44:39,899
Speaker 2: Right.

850
00:44:39,960 --> 00:44:42,120
Speaker 1: And I hated it every.

851
00:44:41,980 --> 00:44:44,120
Speaker 2: Second of it. He had a parakeet. He had his

852
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:46,900
Speaker 2: parakeet with him named Nixon. And he said that his

853
00:44:46,960 --> 00:44:49,940
Speaker 2: parakeet came to hate him, like despise him. He said

854
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,830
Speaker 2: he didn't think any animals ever hated somebody more than

855
00:44:52,870 --> 00:44:56,359
Speaker 2: that parakeet hated him. probably because he made them stay

856
00:44:56,420 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 2: up there in this little tiny house on top of

857
00:44:58,900 --> 00:45:03,400
Speaker 2: a fiberglass pole that would sway back and forth. He

858
00:45:03,460 --> 00:45:06,220
Speaker 2: couldn't lay down straight in it because of the pole,

859
00:45:06,280 --> 00:45:09,040
Speaker 2: so he had to lay wrapped around the pole. It

860
00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:11,819
Speaker 2: sounds really horrible and terrible. And he did it to

861
00:45:11,860 --> 00:45:14,379
Speaker 2: get publicity because he was an out-of-work actor, I guess.

862
00:45:14,420 --> 00:45:17,180
Speaker 1: At the time. Yeah, like I said, to call the

863
00:45:17,200 --> 00:45:19,680
Speaker 1: thing a house is generous. It's this little, I mean,

864
00:45:19,700 --> 00:45:21,219
Speaker 1: you can see a picture of it, but it was

865
00:45:22,840 --> 00:45:24,680
Speaker 1: some sort of shelter, at least. He wasn't just sitting

866
00:45:25,489 --> 00:45:29,180
Speaker 1: like on a bar stool, like Shipwreck Kelly for 248 days.

867
00:45:29,780 --> 00:45:30,000
Speaker 2: Sure.

868
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,200
Speaker 1: But it was bad. And it's just funny reading these

869
00:45:33,520 --> 00:45:35,660
Speaker 1: quotes from him. He did not have a good time.

870
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:37,779
Speaker 1: And he just basically kind of talked about how awful

871
00:45:37,820 --> 00:45:38,120
Speaker 1: it was.

872
00:45:38,920 --> 00:45:42,550
Speaker 2: Yeah, they said that he lost 15 pounds, three inches

873
00:45:43,090 --> 00:45:45,189
Speaker 2: from his waist and 13 days of sleep just within

874
00:45:45,210 --> 00:45:48,509
Speaker 2: the first three months. And that when people would come out,

875
00:45:48,670 --> 00:45:50,170
Speaker 2: like when the weather was nice, people would come out

876
00:45:50,210 --> 00:45:52,180
Speaker 2: and shout questions up to him and he talked to him.

877
00:45:53,060 --> 00:45:56,450
Speaker 2: And he said, the men usually asked, if he sleeps

878
00:45:56,550 --> 00:45:58,910
Speaker 2: and how he goes to the bathroom. And then women

879
00:45:58,989 --> 00:46:01,790
Speaker 2: asked if he was lonely, which I find very sweet.

880
00:46:02,270 --> 00:46:06,089
Speaker 2: But I mean, remember, we started out here at 13

881
00:46:06,090 --> 00:46:09,969
Speaker 2: hours is what kicked this off. And this guy, Kenneth Gidge,

882
00:46:10,290 --> 00:46:14,549
Speaker 2: has brought it up to 248 days. But Chuck, that

883
00:46:14,710 --> 00:46:17,930
Speaker 2: does not seem to be the record any longer. In fact,

884
00:46:17,969 --> 00:46:21,910
Speaker 2: the record may never be broken ever. What do you think?

885
00:46:22,210 --> 00:46:28,330
Speaker 1: Yeah, H. David Werder. Of Weeki Wachee, Florida. Man, this

886
00:46:28,390 --> 00:46:35,589
Speaker 1: is unbelievable. Sat for 439 days, 11 hours, 6 minutes. Yeah.

887
00:46:36,230 --> 00:46:42,569
Speaker 2: His sit went from 1982 to 1984. That's amazing. Yeah,

888
00:46:42,590 --> 00:46:45,190
Speaker 2: and it was outside of an appliance center in Clearwater.

889
00:46:45,750 --> 00:46:48,980
Speaker 2: And he didn't do this as like a publicity stunt

890
00:46:49,020 --> 00:46:52,180
Speaker 2: for that appliance center. He did it to protest gas

891
00:46:52,260 --> 00:46:53,400
Speaker 2: prices at the time.

892
00:46:53,440 --> 00:46:57,259
Speaker 1: Yeah. That's how you see these days sometimes is protests.

893
00:46:58,110 --> 00:47:01,760
Speaker 2: Sure. But gas at the time was 99 cents a gallon.

894
00:47:01,780 --> 00:47:02,480
Speaker 1: That's cute.

895
00:47:02,540 --> 00:47:06,640
Speaker 2: So his protest didn't work at all. But he spent

896
00:47:06,640 --> 00:47:09,799
Speaker 2: 439 days of his life on a flagpole because he

897
00:47:09,840 --> 00:47:11,230
Speaker 2: was mad about the price of gas.

898
00:47:11,790 --> 00:47:11,989
Speaker 1: Wow.

899
00:47:12,070 --> 00:47:18,450
Speaker 2: No thought whatsoever to a zen-like beautiful state is what

900
00:47:18,469 --> 00:47:19,330
Speaker 2: this man achieved.

901
00:47:19,489 --> 00:47:20,529
Speaker 1: Is that the overarching theme?

902
00:47:21,570 --> 00:47:22,730
Speaker 2: Yep, I think so, man.

903
00:47:22,930 --> 00:47:23,290
Speaker 1: All righty.

904
00:47:23,850 --> 00:47:24,549
Speaker 2: You got anything else?

905
00:47:25,370 --> 00:47:27,790
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we should mention David Blaine. He very

906
00:47:27,830 --> 00:47:34,450
Speaker 1: famously did this standing in 2002. Remember that?

907
00:47:34,610 --> 00:47:36,319
Speaker 2: For how long? No, I don't remember that at all.

908
00:47:36,380 --> 00:47:40,380
Speaker 1: He stood atop a 90-foot pole for 35 hours in

909
00:47:40,420 --> 00:47:41,520
Speaker 1: Bryant Park in New York.

910
00:47:42,200 --> 00:47:42,439
Speaker 2: Wow.

911
00:47:42,580 --> 00:47:45,739
Speaker 1: And this is when he was doing those. I love

912
00:47:45,760 --> 00:47:47,400
Speaker 1: the guy as a street magician and give me a

913
00:47:47,420 --> 00:47:51,390
Speaker 1: little levitation trick, but when he was like, I'm going

914
00:47:51,410 --> 00:47:53,170
Speaker 1: to hold my breath or I'm going to be encased

915
00:47:53,230 --> 00:47:55,140
Speaker 1: in ice or stand on this thing. That's when I

916
00:47:55,160 --> 00:47:55,700
Speaker 1: lost interest.

917
00:47:57,239 --> 00:47:59,480
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I like street magic, too. It's pretty

918
00:47:59,500 --> 00:48:00,520
Speaker 2: great stuff. Yeah.

919
00:48:00,680 --> 00:48:04,299
Speaker 1: But, yeah, he stood. It's tough to stand. I mean,

920
00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:07,820
Speaker 1: sitting is hard, but standing is a whole different deal.

921
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:10,690
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. I wouldn't want to do it.

922
00:48:11,050 --> 00:48:11,250
Speaker 1: Nope.

923
00:48:12,730 --> 00:48:15,930
Speaker 2: So you got anything else about flagpole sitting?

924
00:48:16,270 --> 00:48:16,630
Speaker 1: I don't.

925
00:48:17,550 --> 00:48:20,169
Speaker 2: Well, then, Chuck, that means, of course, it's time for.

926
00:48:21,070 --> 00:48:21,649
Speaker 2: Listener mail.

927
00:48:24,070 --> 00:48:28,880
Speaker 1: This is, oh, this is just funny. Remember in Bruxism,

928
00:48:28,920 --> 00:48:33,260
Speaker 1: I talked about my Dr. Tuggle. This comes from Joe

929
00:48:33,320 --> 00:48:37,359
Speaker 1: in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He said, hey guys, thanks for the

930
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:40,779
Speaker 1: entertainment knowledge. Your discussion of doctor names at the end

931
00:48:40,800 --> 00:48:43,920
Speaker 1: of the Bruxism podcast reminded me of two anecdotes. My

932
00:48:43,980 --> 00:48:47,100
Speaker 1: ex-wife had a dentist in San Francisco named Dr. Drilling.

933
00:48:48,380 --> 00:48:48,760
Speaker 2: No.

934
00:48:49,739 --> 00:48:54,940
Speaker 1: Pretty good, huh? Sure. And this is even better. He said, second,

935
00:48:54,980 --> 00:48:57,400
Speaker 1: this one never gets appreciated as much by others for

936
00:48:57,440 --> 00:48:59,779
Speaker 1: some reason. It must just hit me the right way,

937
00:48:59,820 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: but I'm with you, Joe. It hits me too. She

938
00:49:02,160 --> 00:49:06,890
Speaker 1: worked in medical administration, and her boss at one point

939
00:49:06,989 --> 00:49:15,230
Speaker 1: was named Dr. Wachter. W-A-C-H-T-E-R, pronounced Wachter. And he said,

940
00:49:15,270 --> 00:49:21,140
Speaker 1: I could just imagine her submitting daily reports using BabyTalk going, here, Dr. Wachter,

941
00:49:21,180 --> 00:49:23,320
Speaker 1: here are your reports for the day.

942
00:49:25,340 --> 00:49:28,800
Speaker 2: Man, this guy is our new mascot here on the show.

943
00:49:28,820 --> 00:49:30,919
Speaker 2: I think we need to actually get him on here.

944
00:49:30,960 --> 00:49:31,500
Speaker 2: What's his name?

945
00:49:31,820 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 1: Joe in Gettysburg. I love it.

946
00:49:34,160 --> 00:49:36,140
Speaker 2: Yeah, Joe, way to go. This is one of the

947
00:49:36,180 --> 00:49:38,550
Speaker 2: best listener mails I think I've ever heard, Chuck.

948
00:49:38,590 --> 00:49:38,640
Speaker 1: Dr.

949
00:49:38,690 --> 00:49:42,700
Speaker 2: Wachter. Well, if you want to be like Joe and

950
00:49:42,739 --> 00:49:46,460
Speaker 2: try to topple his record as the greatest email listener

951
00:49:46,480 --> 00:49:50,899
Speaker 2: mail writer of all time, take your best shot. You

952
00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:53,200
Speaker 2: can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, run

953
00:49:53,219 --> 00:49:56,049
Speaker 2: it up the flagpole and see who salutes it at

954
00:49:56,219 --> 00:49:58,969
Speaker 2: Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio.com.

955
00:50:02,210 --> 00:50:05,049
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

956
00:50:05,090 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts,

957
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:11,110
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.