WEBVTT - Selects: Flagpole Sitting: A Real Fad

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

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<v Speaker 1>through COVID pretty well by this point. We're all pretty

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

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<v Speaker 1>We're going to let each other up because it's a

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<v Speaker 1>global pandemic. This episode is called Flagpole Sitting, colon, a

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<v Speaker 1>real fad. And it was. People would sit at the

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<v Speaker 1>top of flagpoles for as long as they could. And

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<v Speaker 1>it was a part of a weird time in American history.

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<v Speaker 1>So check out this episode, not on Harvey Danger, the

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<v Speaker 1>band who sang the song Flagpole Sitta, as did my

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<v Speaker 1>cover band, but Flagpole Sitting for real. Check it out

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<v Speaker 1>right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production

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<v Speaker 1>of iHeartRadio.

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<v Speaker 2>Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and

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<v Speaker 2>there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant right over there. Jerry's out

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<v Speaker 2>there somewhere, and this is Stuff You Should Know. You know, Chuck,

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<v Speaker 2>I have to say, every once in a while, the

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<v Speaker 2>amazing theme song from our short-lived television show comes into

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<v Speaker 2>my head. And it's just a complete earworm.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>Because I just hear the end of it over and

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<v Speaker 2>over and over again. And it's actually pretty pleasant. It

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<v Speaker 2>doesn't bother me.

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<v Speaker 1>I love it. I haven't heard that song in a while.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, you need to go listen. That was the Henry

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<v Speaker 2>Clay people, right?

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, our buddies Joey and Andy Sierra, California boys, Southern

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<v Speaker 1>California boys, men.

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<v Speaker 2>Didn't they go to like Harvard or something crazy like that?

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<v Speaker 1>Joey ended up going to Harvard, and then I think

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<v Speaker 1>Andy went to AFI, and then Joey, I think, went

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

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<v Speaker 2>Man, that's great.

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<v Speaker 1>Andy's got a— he wrote this Andy Samberg movie that's coming

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<v Speaker 1>out soon.

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<v Speaker 2>Really? Which one? What's it called?

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<v Speaker 1>It is called Palm Springs, I think.

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

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<v Speaker 1>And he wrote on the TV show Lodge 49. Yeah,

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<v Speaker 1>Palm Springs.

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<v Speaker 2>I haven't seen that. But that guy, Kurt Russell and

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<v Speaker 2>Goldie Hawn's son— I love that guy.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>I think he's one of the coolest people walking around

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<v Speaker 2>on the planet today.

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

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<v Speaker 1>And Andy was a writer's assistant and then ended up

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<v Speaker 1>on the staff. And they're both doing great.

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<v Speaker 2>Man, that's great. Congratulations to both of you guys.

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<v Speaker 1>He's got a little baby now. They're both married.

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<v Speaker 2>Nice, man. That's nice.

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<v Speaker 1>And that's an update on the Sierra Club, as.

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<v Speaker 2>I call them. Yeah. Let's see. What else? I guess

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<v Speaker 2>that was it.

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<v Speaker 1>How did that come into your head, though, the song? Like,

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<v Speaker 1>what made you think of that?

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<v Speaker 2>Nothing. I was just out back, like, mowing the lawn

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<v Speaker 2>with my big old lawnmower, and it just popped in

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<v Speaker 2>my head. I was probably thinking of something I had

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<v Speaker 2>to do that had to do with Stuff You Should Know,

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<v Speaker 2>and I thought Stuff You Should Know, and when I

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<v Speaker 2>thought it, I thought it as Stuff You Should Know,

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<v Speaker 2>didn't it? And then it just played on a loop.

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<v Speaker 1>This is the second time you mention the size of

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<v Speaker 1>your lawnmower.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 1>And now you just got to send me a picture.

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<v Speaker 1>Is this one of these things that you stand?

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<v Speaker 2>No.

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<v Speaker 1>And it wheels you around like some weird land speeder?

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<v Speaker 2>You mean like a skag or something? No. This is

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

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<v Speaker 2>I got it like on super discount because everybody's making

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<v Speaker 2>like really good electric lawnmowers.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>But this one was, you know, it was on discount,

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<v Speaker 2>and I like the look of it.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's a good-looking mower, huh?

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. I was like, I like your style. Come on

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<v Speaker 2>with me.

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<v Speaker 1>Is it red?

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<v Speaker 2>Yep.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, it's red Toros.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 1>It's nice.

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<v Speaker 2>Takes you back to days of paper routes and stuff

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<v Speaker 2>like that, doesn't it?

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<v Speaker 1>I thought you were mentioning the song because you were

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<v Speaker 1>thinking of the song Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger.

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<v Speaker 2>No, I wasn't at all.

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<v Speaker 1>Okay.

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

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<v Speaker 2>And you may be aware of this. We're talking about

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<v Speaker 2>flagpole sitting today in this episode.

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

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<v Speaker 1>head all day.

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<v Speaker 2>Now, I don't know that song.

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<v Speaker 1>You know it. It was a, well, maybe not. It

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<v Speaker 1>was a top 40 hit in the 90s, kind of

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<v Speaker 1>during the grunge era. It was a power pop hit

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<v Speaker 1>that kind of. Oh. From Hardy Danger.

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<v Speaker 2>&lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; &lt;HAL&gt; No. Wait.

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<v Speaker 2>Is that it?

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<v Speaker 1>That's not it.

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<v Speaker 2>No.

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

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<v Speaker 2>That's great. I'm going to have to go listen to

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<v Speaker 2>it because I feel like I'm missing out. But is

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<v Speaker 2>that song about Flagpole City? Is it about Shipwreck Kelly

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<v Speaker 2>in particular?

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

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<v Speaker 1>Run it up the flagpole and see. And that's the

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<v Speaker 1>only time it references flagpoles at all.

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<v Speaker 2>Sees what?

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<v Speaker 1>Uh, who salutes, but no one ever does. I think

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<v Speaker 1>is the next line. Hmm.

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<v Speaker 2>That rings a bell.

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<v Speaker 1>I was looking into the mirror. A little bit clearer.

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<v Speaker 2>Sure.

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<v Speaker 1>Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes, but

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<v Speaker 1>no one ever does.

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

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<v Speaker 1>Harvey danger.

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<v Speaker 2>Okay.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>That's a great song. I love it.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Who fellow podcasting friend, John Roderick actually, uh, Sean

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<v Speaker 1>Nelson was a friend of his in Seattle, and he

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<v Speaker 1>played bass for a little while in Harvey Danger.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh, very. Wow, man. This is all coming for so good.

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<v Speaker 2>I got one more for you. What you got? I

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<v Speaker 2>used to have that song, and I don't know where

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<v Speaker 2>I downloaded it from. This would have been probably back

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<v Speaker 2>in the Napster days or something.

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<v Speaker 1>Whoa.

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<v Speaker 2>And it was mislabeled as Brian Jonestown Massacre. And I

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<v Speaker 2>was always like, this does not sound like Brian Jonestown Massacre.

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<v Speaker 2>Now I know it most definitely wasn't Brian Jonestown Massacre.

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

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

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<v Speaker 2>one of the more interesting weirdo fads that's ever come

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<v Speaker 2>this way in America. And it was in the 20s.

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

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<v Speaker 2>And it's easy to tell because it is such a

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<v Speaker 2>bizarre thing to do.

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<v Speaker 1>Mm-hmm.

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<v Speaker 2>That if you can find the person who did it first,

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

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<v Speaker 2>And in this case, you can trace it back to

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<v Speaker 2>sometime around January of 1924, supposedly, potentially, in Hollywood, California,

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<v Speaker 2>part of Los Angeles, and there was a man named

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<v Speaker 2>Alvin Shipwreck Kelly who supposedly climbed up on a flagpole

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<v Speaker 2>as part of a promotion for a movie and sat

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<v Speaker 2>there for a full 13 hours and 13 minutes. to

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<v Speaker 2>help draw a crowd, and boy did he ever.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, which, you know, it sounds like a long time

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<v Speaker 1>to sit on a flagpole, but that is kid stuff.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

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<v Speaker 1>Compared to where this is headed.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah, for sure.

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<v Speaker 1>That's an aperitif.

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<v Speaker 2>But it's a good first attempt, you know?

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and so, you know, it sounds strange because when

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<v Speaker 1>you think of a flagpole, you're like, what are they

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

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<v Speaker 1>different kinds, but Um, usually it's sort of like a

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<v Speaker 1>bar stool at the top of a flagpole and it's

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<v Speaker 1>that lo-fi and you climb up there and you sit

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<v Speaker 1>and that's all you do.

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

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<v Speaker 1>Well, sure. You do other stuff.

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<v Speaker 2>Use yourself or whatever. Yeah. That's up to you. But

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<v Speaker 2>as far as being considered a flagpole sitter, that's it.

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<v Speaker 2>You sit on top of a flagpole for as long

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<v Speaker 2>as you can.

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<v Speaker 1>All right. So let's talk about this guy because Shipwreck

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<v Speaker 1>Kelly was a pretty interesting character.

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<v Speaker 2>And I have to say there's a Memory Palace episode

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<v Speaker 2>about him that I specifically didn't listen to beforehand because

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<v Speaker 2>I didn't want to unconsciously rip it off.

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<v Speaker 1>Wow.

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<v Speaker 2>But go listen to that.

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

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<v Speaker 1>out for sure. So Alvin Kelly, he was born Aloysius

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<v Speaker 1>Anthony Kelly in New York City in Hell's Kitchen in

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<v Speaker 1>a tenement in 1893 and had a very sad start

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<v Speaker 1>to his life in that his father had already passed

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<v Speaker 1>before he was born. His mother passed in childbirth, and

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<v Speaker 1>that basically meant he was shuttled around to relatives and

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<v Speaker 1>orphanages from, you know, the minute he took his first breath.

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<v Speaker 2>Yeah. And apparently from a pretty early age, he would

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<v Speaker 2>do things like climb flagpoles and other tall stuff. And

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<v Speaker 2>like working at heights became a kind of a recurring

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<v Speaker 2>theme in his life. supposedly by age seven he was

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<v Speaker 2>climbing flagpoles. Within a few years after that, he was

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<v Speaker 2>starting to scale the facades of some of the buildings

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<v Speaker 2>in his neighborhood. And by the time he was 13,

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<v Speaker 2>and bear in mind if this guy's biography seems a

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<v Speaker 2>little thin, he just came out of nowhere in 1924

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<v Speaker 2>for sitting on a flagpole. So all of the info

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<v Speaker 2>about him came from him to reporters who were reporting

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<v Speaker 2>in the 1920s. So just fabrications are flying around left

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<v Speaker 2>and right. Sure. But supposedly he ran away at age

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<v Speaker 2>13 and ran off to join the crew of a

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<v Speaker 2>cargo ship and start his life sailing the seas.

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<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and he did a lot of kind of odd jobs,

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<v Speaker 1>or maybe not odd jobs, but just jobs that didn't

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<v Speaker 1>have anything to do with one another over the next

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<v Speaker 1>couple of decades. He was in the movies as a

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<v Speaker 1>stand-in and a double. He was a stunt person, a

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<v Speaker 1>stunt pilot, a high diver, a boxer. This part I love.

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<v Speaker 1>There's actually a name for people that repair church steeples

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<v Speaker 1>What is that?

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<v Speaker 2>Steeplejack.

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<v Speaker 1>He was a steeplejack.

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<v Speaker 2>That is definitely a band name for sure.

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<v Speaker 1>Steeplejack? Oh, yeah.

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<v Speaker 2>It sounds like maybe an industrial band, but like on

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<v Speaker 2>the light side, like the Like they're technically too melodic

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<v Speaker 2>to actually be considered industrial, but they still call themselves industrial.

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

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<v Speaker 2>Is it?

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<v Speaker 1>Is you describing what kind of band it is.

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<v Speaker 2>Oh, okay.

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<v Speaker 1>I love it.

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<v Speaker 2>Well, thanks, man. That makes me feel warm and pleasant.

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<v Speaker 1>So World War I comes along, and he was in

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<v Speaker 1>the Naval Auxiliary Reserve as an ensign and served on

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<v Speaker 1>the USS Edgar F. Luckenbach during that war.

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<v Speaker 2>Yep. So he did have some sort of, well, I

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

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<v Speaker 2>we'll just take all that at face value because it

0:10:53.570 --> 0:10:58.510
<v Speaker 2>doesn't really matter at this point. But he eventually picked

0:10:58.570 --> 0:11:01.550
<v Speaker 2>up the nickname Shipwreck. And there's a lot of different

0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:06.100
<v Speaker 2>explanations for this. And he's given or he gave multiple

0:11:06.280 --> 0:11:09.420
<v Speaker 2>different explanations depending on what reporter he was talking to.

0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:12.860
<v Speaker 2>But one of the numbers that gets bandied about pretty

0:11:12.920 --> 0:11:17.800
<v Speaker 2>frequently is, is that Shipwreck Kelly was so named because

0:11:17.860 --> 0:11:21.470
<v Speaker 2>he survived 32 different shipwrecks at sea, which is where

0:11:21.490 --> 0:11:22.390
<v Speaker 2>shipwrecks tend to happen.

0:11:22.410 --> 0:11:25.410
<v Speaker 1>Those were the good old days. Yeah. You just make

0:11:25.429 --> 0:11:26.710
<v Speaker 1>up stories about yourself.

0:11:27.670 --> 0:11:30.989
<v Speaker 2>Do you remember when we talked about– we did an

0:11:31.030 --> 0:11:35.130
<v Speaker 2>episode on the world's either luckiest or unluckiest people?

0:11:35.150 --> 0:11:35.470
<v Speaker 1>Mm-hmm.

0:11:36.510 --> 0:11:37.810
<v Speaker 2>And do you remember that one guy who was like,

0:11:37.929 --> 0:11:41.260
<v Speaker 2>I survived– car that fell off a cliff and I

0:11:41.300 --> 0:11:43.559
<v Speaker 2>survived a train wreck and all that. He was doing

0:11:43.600 --> 0:11:45.740
<v Speaker 2>his jam in like 2005, remember?

0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:46.720
<v Speaker 1>Oh, was he?

0:11:47.460 --> 0:11:50.240
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. He was pretty, pretty recent if I remember correctly.

0:11:50.260 --> 0:11:51.939
<v Speaker 2>You remember his son came out and was like, everybody,

0:11:52.179 --> 0:11:54.809
<v Speaker 2>this is not true. Right. Like none of what you're

0:11:54.830 --> 0:11:55.990
<v Speaker 2>talking about is true.

0:11:56.490 --> 0:11:56.929
<v Speaker 1>Well, we don't.

0:11:56.950 --> 0:11:57.929
<v Speaker 2>My dad just fooled you all.

0:11:57.990 --> 0:12:00.990
<v Speaker 1>We don't know if Shipwreck Kelly actually survived the Titanic

0:12:01.150 --> 0:12:03.790
<v Speaker 1>like he claimed, but we do know that he was

0:12:03.850 --> 0:12:07.980
<v Speaker 1>not on the roster on the Titanic. So I am

0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:09.540
<v Speaker 1>going to venture to say that he made that one up.

0:12:10.250 --> 0:12:13.890
<v Speaker 2>And there were three Kellys on board who were survivors,

0:12:14.130 --> 0:12:15.870
<v Speaker 2>but all three of them were women. So, yeah, he

0:12:15.910 --> 0:12:19.370
<v Speaker 2>probably wasn't on the Titanic. Maybe he did survive from shipwrecks.

0:12:19.410 --> 0:12:22.210
<v Speaker 2>He was at sea, most likely. But the point is,

0:12:22.290 --> 0:12:25.220
<v Speaker 2>is they called him Shipwreck Kelly. And I guess somebody

0:12:25.740 --> 0:12:30.100
<v Speaker 2>went to the trouble of digging up that some reporters

0:12:30.460 --> 0:12:34.580
<v Speaker 2>who covered his boxing career are probably the likeliest source

0:12:34.620 --> 0:12:36.900
<v Speaker 2>for where he got his nickname Shipwreck, right?

0:12:36.980 --> 0:12:39.949
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, which I love. Because I guess he wasn't a

0:12:39.970 --> 0:12:43.570
<v Speaker 1>great boxer because they said that he was often adrift

0:12:43.670 --> 0:12:44.450
<v Speaker 1>and ready to sink.

0:12:45.490 --> 0:12:46.950
<v Speaker 2>Isn't that great?

0:12:46.990 --> 0:12:47.709
<v Speaker 1>Shipwreck Kelly.

0:12:48.370 --> 0:12:50.910
<v Speaker 2>It's a great nickname and an even better origin story

0:12:50.960 --> 0:12:53.360
<v Speaker 2>than surviving 32 shipwrecks, if you ask me.

0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:55.439
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and the other thing we don't know for sure

0:12:55.460 --> 0:12:59.420
<v Speaker 1>is even if that Hollywood movie premiere story is correct

0:12:59.620 --> 0:13:03.420
<v Speaker 1>in his first major outing as a flagpole sitter because

0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:07.589
<v Speaker 1>yet another story says, no, this is actually in Philadelphia–

0:13:07.870 --> 0:13:09.690
<v Speaker 1>at a department store and he just did it on

0:13:09.730 --> 0:13:12.670
<v Speaker 1>a dare. And the department store got a lot of

0:13:12.710 --> 0:13:14.770
<v Speaker 1>business because people were standing around looking and then doing

0:13:14.809 --> 0:13:18.110
<v Speaker 1>some shopping. So they were like, hey, stay up there

0:13:18.150 --> 0:13:20.260
<v Speaker 1>and I'll give you some extra dough. Yeah.

0:13:20.960 --> 0:13:25.079
<v Speaker 2>So either way, it's pretty widely held that Shipwreck Kelly

0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.800
<v Speaker 2>was the guy who started the flagpole sitting craze.

0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:29.160
<v Speaker 1>Right.

0:13:29.500 --> 0:13:32.110
<v Speaker 2>And it was a craze because This is a time

0:13:32.170 --> 0:13:35.030
<v Speaker 2>where you could go sit on a flagpole for 13

0:13:35.030 --> 0:13:40.290
<v Speaker 2>hours and 13 minutes and newspapers around the country would

0:13:40.530 --> 0:13:44.450
<v Speaker 2>pick up the story and write about it. And you

0:13:44.470 --> 0:13:47.390
<v Speaker 2>would suddenly become famous overnight. And that's exactly what happened

0:13:47.410 --> 0:13:51.460
<v Speaker 2>to Shipwreck Kelly. So that's prong one toward this becoming

0:13:51.500 --> 0:13:54.880
<v Speaker 2>a fad in the 1920s. The other criteria is that

0:13:56.520 --> 0:13:59.829
<v Speaker 2>people have to want to topple that record. And that

0:13:59.850 --> 0:14:02.929
<v Speaker 2>was very widespread at the time too because the 1920s

0:14:03.010 --> 0:14:06.430
<v Speaker 2>were actually really big into fads. Like people would take

0:14:06.490 --> 0:14:09.620
<v Speaker 2>up weird fads and just go nuts over them for

0:14:09.700 --> 0:14:10.940
<v Speaker 2>basically the whole decade.

0:14:11.540 --> 0:14:15.660
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, you know, people had time and they had fewer distractions.

0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:17.520
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, no TV.

0:14:17.870 --> 0:14:23.790
<v Speaker 1>So like someone doing a dance-a-thon for 28 hours or

0:14:23.890 --> 0:14:27.580
<v Speaker 1>sitting on a flagpole for a day, You know, it's

0:14:27.620 --> 0:14:31.440
<v Speaker 1>an interesting story back then. It's sad that that was interesting,

0:14:31.460 --> 0:14:32.100
<v Speaker 1>but it was.

0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:38.920
<v Speaker 2>Right. So we'll talk about dance marathons, and then we'll

0:14:38.940 --> 0:14:41.720
<v Speaker 2>take a break, okay? Okay. Okay.

0:14:42.220 --> 0:15:11.850
<v Speaker 1>Okay. Oh, wait.

0:15:12.390 --> 0:15:15.210
<v Speaker 2>I got that backwards, Chuck, I just realized. Hopefully Jerry

0:15:15.290 --> 0:15:17.370
<v Speaker 2>figured it out and there was an ad in there somewhere.

0:15:17.690 --> 0:15:19.570
<v Speaker 1>I think we should just leave it just like that, though.

0:15:19.590 --> 0:15:21.010
<v Speaker 1>That'll be fun. Okay.

0:15:21.570 --> 0:15:26.680
<v Speaker 2>So... We're going to talk about dance marathons now, after

0:15:26.740 --> 0:15:30.160
<v Speaker 2>the ad break, despite what I said before. And dance

0:15:30.200 --> 0:15:36.040
<v Speaker 2>marathons are a super 20s example of a crazy fad

0:15:36.060 --> 0:15:39.400
<v Speaker 2>that kind of came along and got everybody by the hackles.

0:15:39.800 --> 0:15:44.530
<v Speaker 2>And people across the country started entering basically dance marathon competitions.

0:15:44.810 --> 0:15:47.750
<v Speaker 2>All because of one person, one woman, a dance instructor

0:15:47.790 --> 0:15:48.850
<v Speaker 2>named Alma Cummings.

0:15:49.470 --> 0:15:52.150
<v Speaker 1>That's right. 32 years old. She danced for 27 hours.

0:15:53.630 --> 0:15:56.310
<v Speaker 1>at the Audubon Ballroom in New York in 1923 with

0:15:56.730 --> 0:16:01.560
<v Speaker 1>six different dance partners. And it was a weird time

0:16:01.800 --> 0:16:06.300
<v Speaker 1>because it wasn't just dancing. It was endurance challenges as

0:16:07.060 --> 0:16:11.870
<v Speaker 1>a whole were just all the rage and punishing your

0:16:11.890 --> 0:16:15.470
<v Speaker 1>bodies and all these weird random ways from yo-yoing to

0:16:15.490 --> 0:16:20.570
<v Speaker 1>hula hooping to rocking in a rocking chair or skipping rope.

0:16:22.180 --> 0:16:24.100
<v Speaker 1>to dancing. Dancing was the big one. That's where you,

0:16:24.220 --> 0:16:28.460
<v Speaker 1>you know, if you see these videos of these marathon

0:16:28.760 --> 0:16:32.220
<v Speaker 1>dance competitions, it's just, it looks like hell on earth.

0:16:32.260 --> 0:16:32.880
<v Speaker 1>It looks awful.

0:16:33.780 --> 0:16:35.980
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. Oh yeah. They didn't seem very fun at all,

0:16:36.040 --> 0:16:39.660
<v Speaker 2>but Alma Cummings just kicked the whole thing off. And again,

0:16:39.820 --> 0:16:41.920
<v Speaker 2>just like Shipwreck Kelly, who would follow, I guess, a

0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:46.470
<v Speaker 2>year later, or even, yeah, about a year later, she

0:16:46.500 --> 0:16:49.310
<v Speaker 2>got a lot of publicity. There's like a famous photo

0:16:49.370 --> 0:16:50.540
<v Speaker 2>of her Yeah. Yeah.

0:16:50.600 --> 0:16:50.760
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:17:08.670 --> 0:17:12.240
<v Speaker 2>For celebrity, however you can get it. And that seemed

0:17:12.260 --> 0:17:15.360
<v Speaker 2>to really drive people who wanted to be like, well,

0:17:15.380 --> 0:17:18.540
<v Speaker 2>if this lady got this much attention for dancing 27

0:17:18.540 --> 0:17:21.859
<v Speaker 2>straight hours, maybe I can get even more attention for

0:17:21.900 --> 0:17:25.200
<v Speaker 2>dancing 30 straight hours. And so within just, I think,

0:17:25.300 --> 0:17:29.660
<v Speaker 2>three weeks of Alma Cummings setting this record for dancing,

0:17:30.300 --> 0:17:34.460
<v Speaker 2>it had been broken nine times, at least, from people

0:17:34.500 --> 0:17:36.700
<v Speaker 2>trying to seek the same kind of publicity she got.

0:17:37.119 --> 0:17:39.240
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and, you know, it's funny. It really, like, we

0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:41.740
<v Speaker 1>talk about these days how everyone wants their 10 minutes

0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:44.060
<v Speaker 1>or they want to be reality show famous or whatever.

0:17:44.080 --> 0:17:47.680
<v Speaker 2>Has it been whittled down to 10 now? I thought

0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:49.280
<v Speaker 2>it was, like, 15.

0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:51.680
<v Speaker 1>Well, like, that's something new, and it's really not. Like,

0:17:51.720 --> 0:17:54.280
<v Speaker 1>this is sort of the version of that back then

0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:57.770
<v Speaker 1>was I want to be famous, I want my names

0:17:57.810 --> 0:18:01.350
<v Speaker 1>in the papers, but I'm not particularly skilled enough to

0:18:01.410 --> 0:18:04.750
<v Speaker 1>do anything to do that, so I'll rock in a

0:18:04.790 --> 0:18:07.600
<v Speaker 1>rocking chair for three days. Yeah. You know?

0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.840
<v Speaker 2>And hopefully they will come. If I rock, they will come.

0:18:14.340 --> 0:18:16.580
<v Speaker 2>That was a pity laugh at best, but I appreciate it.

0:18:16.619 --> 0:18:19.320
<v Speaker 1>Well, it was a bad joke.

0:18:19.359 --> 0:18:19.840
<v Speaker 2>Admittedly.

0:18:20.880 --> 0:18:23.800
<v Speaker 1>But it would, and we should shout out a bunch

0:18:23.820 --> 0:18:26.460
<v Speaker 1>of great websites here because this next bit came from

0:18:27.060 --> 0:18:30.440
<v Speaker 1>Atlas Obscura, one of our favorite sites, and also our

0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:35.670
<v Speaker 1>dearest of old sites that we always have loved, Mental Floss, Ripley's.

0:18:36.180 --> 0:18:40.010
<v Speaker 1>History Daily, J. Mark Powell, and Historic Pelham, which is great.

0:18:41.490 --> 0:18:45.870
<v Speaker 1>But Atlas Obscura talks about in the 30s, and this

0:18:45.950 --> 0:18:50.510
<v Speaker 1>is really kind of depressing, during the Depression.

0:18:51.990 --> 0:18:52.990
<v Speaker 2>It's very appropriate.

0:18:53.720 --> 0:18:57.060
<v Speaker 1>Is that sometimes people would enter these dance marathons because

0:18:58.080 --> 0:19:01.520
<v Speaker 1>it would be somewhere they could sleep and eat for

0:19:01.680 --> 0:19:04.419
<v Speaker 1>a week at a time when they didn't necessarily have

0:19:04.440 --> 0:19:05.320
<v Speaker 1>a home or food.

0:19:06.250 --> 0:19:10.260
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it is extremely depressing. Or just the prize money

0:19:10.300 --> 0:19:13.379
<v Speaker 2>that was offered in the depression might be enough to

0:19:13.420 --> 0:19:16.919
<v Speaker 2>keep your house from being foreclosed on. So, yeah, the

0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:20.500
<v Speaker 2>thing is, you know, you can blame promoters for continuing

0:19:20.540 --> 0:19:23.689
<v Speaker 2>this long beyond the fad, but the promoters wouldn't have

0:19:23.710 --> 0:19:26.650
<v Speaker 2>been putting these on and offering this prize money were

0:19:26.710 --> 0:19:28.649
<v Speaker 2>it not for all the crowds that would show up

0:19:28.710 --> 0:19:32.149
<v Speaker 2>every day to watch these people get increasingly closer to,

0:19:32.190 --> 0:19:37.960
<v Speaker 2>you know, catastrophic exhaustion from, from dance marathons because like

0:19:38.020 --> 0:19:41.899
<v Speaker 2>there were, there were rules where, you know, probably early

0:19:42.050 --> 0:19:45.649
<v Speaker 2>on in the dance marathon, um, you could sleep or

0:19:45.730 --> 0:19:48.760
<v Speaker 2>rest for 15 minutes of every hour. Yeah. And then

0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:53.260
<v Speaker 2>after like a week, a week of this dance marathon

0:19:53.300 --> 0:19:55.400
<v Speaker 2>going on, the promoter might be like, oh, okay, well,

0:19:55.680 --> 0:19:58.180
<v Speaker 2>you know, we need to step things up a little bit.

0:19:58.740 --> 0:20:02.260
<v Speaker 2>And you will now have three minutes per hour of

0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:06.830
<v Speaker 2>every 24-hour period in a day to where you can rest.

0:20:07.190 --> 0:20:09.470
<v Speaker 2>And then toward the end, they'd be like, no rest.

0:20:09.960 --> 0:20:12.580
<v Speaker 2>I think I read about one where the last 57

0:20:12.580 --> 0:20:19.109
<v Speaker 2>hours of a multi-week dance marathon was like had no rest.

0:20:19.550 --> 0:20:22.090
<v Speaker 2>So these people dance for more than two straight days constantly.

0:20:22.109 --> 0:20:24.470
<v Speaker 2>You had to constantly be in motion and your knees

0:20:24.570 --> 0:20:27.850
<v Speaker 2>couldn't touch the ground or else you'd be disqualified. Yeah.

0:20:27.869 --> 0:20:29.469
<v Speaker 1>And if you look at footage of this stuff, I mean,

0:20:29.510 --> 0:20:31.910
<v Speaker 1>it's charitable to recall what they're doing is dancing toward

0:20:31.930 --> 0:20:35.760
<v Speaker 1>the end. It's just hanging. It looks like two corpses

0:20:35.800 --> 0:20:38.859
<v Speaker 1>hanging on each other, sort of swaying back and forth.

0:20:39.650 --> 0:20:39.990
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

0:20:40.109 --> 0:20:42.910
<v Speaker 1>I don't get, I mean, any of these things, even

0:20:42.950 --> 0:20:45.810
<v Speaker 1>the modern day versions of like these contests where you

0:20:46.410 --> 0:20:48.929
<v Speaker 1>have to keep your hand on a car or whatever.

0:20:48.950 --> 0:20:50.810
<v Speaker 2>And on hard body.

0:20:51.150 --> 0:20:54.270
<v Speaker 1>Oh, man. Or sit in the car. I knew a

0:20:54.310 --> 0:20:56.149
<v Speaker 1>guy that did one of those where he tried to

0:20:56.170 --> 0:20:58.080
<v Speaker 1>win a Volkswagen Beetle by sitting in it with four

0:20:58.100 --> 0:21:01.580
<v Speaker 1>other people in a mall. I'm just like. Oh, yeah.

0:21:01.619 --> 0:21:04.100
<v Speaker 2>You told us that story before. Did he win or not?

0:21:04.380 --> 0:21:08.600
<v Speaker 1>I think he did. But there's just no way. Kill me.

0:21:09.830 --> 0:21:13.330
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, it would be really awful for sure. Because let's say.

0:21:13.470 --> 0:21:17.470
<v Speaker 1>For one of those contests, let's say you don't win.

0:21:17.970 --> 0:21:20.110
<v Speaker 1>Then you've just sat in a car with three strangers

0:21:20.170 --> 0:21:22.790
<v Speaker 1>for a week and you didn't even get the car.

0:21:23.630 --> 0:21:26.189
<v Speaker 2>But even if you did get the car, imagine yourself

0:21:26.290 --> 0:21:30.570
<v Speaker 2>five years on and that car is like there's tears

0:21:30.630 --> 0:21:32.930
<v Speaker 2>in the seats or something like that, you know, like

0:21:32.950 --> 0:21:37.990
<v Speaker 2>the glove compartment won't close. It's, you know. I mean,

0:21:38.010 --> 0:21:40.530
<v Speaker 2>I guess you've got a story to tell at cocktail parties,

0:21:40.570 --> 0:21:42.470
<v Speaker 2>but even that would wear thin after a while.

0:21:43.530 --> 0:21:43.869
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:21:43.930 --> 0:21:46.210
<v Speaker 2>But Chuck, we need people to do stuff like that

0:21:46.670 --> 0:21:50.880
<v Speaker 2>because there's something about contests like this. There's something about

0:21:50.950 --> 0:21:58.199
<v Speaker 2>fads like flagpole sitting that keep humanity from becoming too cerebral.

0:21:58.220 --> 0:22:04.240
<v Speaker 2>You know what I mean? From just becoming like. Computers, basically.

0:22:04.580 --> 0:22:06.879
<v Speaker 2>We need people that do stuff like this because it

0:22:06.960 --> 0:22:11.389
<v Speaker 2>brings out some juvenile something in us that makes us

0:22:11.430 --> 0:22:13.169
<v Speaker 2>want to find out about it or learn about it

0:22:13.230 --> 0:22:15.830
<v Speaker 2>or talk about it. And I think that's good. I

0:22:15.869 --> 0:22:21.340
<v Speaker 2>think that's healthy for our species. All right. It's my take.

0:22:21.430 --> 0:22:24.619
<v Speaker 2>It's genuinely off the cuff. I'm actually just surprised at

0:22:24.660 --> 0:22:26.200
<v Speaker 2>myself that I just said that out loud.

0:22:26.780 --> 0:22:27.440
<v Speaker 1>You're just riffing.

0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:29.139
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

0:22:29.160 --> 0:22:33.790
<v Speaker 1>So Shipwreck Kelly, back to flagpole sitting. That initial 13-hour,

0:22:33.810 --> 0:22:37.990
<v Speaker 1>13-minute sit, like you said, inspired so many others to

0:22:38.430 --> 0:22:42.470
<v Speaker 1>break it. And it was getting broken in pretty short order,

0:22:42.490 --> 0:22:46.020
<v Speaker 1>kind of like the dance-a-thons. There was a woman named

0:22:46.060 --> 0:22:48.260
<v Speaker 1>Bobby Mack from L.A. who did it, a guy named

0:22:48.340 --> 0:22:53.439
<v Speaker 1>Joe Holdom Powers who did this in Chicago for 16 days,

0:22:55.310 --> 0:22:58.970
<v Speaker 1>another guy for 51 days named Bill Penfield.

0:22:59.820 --> 0:23:02.980
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, so let's point this out. Take a second here.

0:23:03.220 --> 0:23:05.960
<v Speaker 2>Shipwreck Kelly did 13 hours and kicked off a national fad.

0:23:06.240 --> 0:23:09.719
<v Speaker 2>These people are now into weeks at a time. 51

0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:12.060
<v Speaker 2>days is more than seven weeks up there. Yeah.

0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:14.160
<v Speaker 1>It's pretty impressive. That's a long time.

0:23:14.200 --> 0:23:15.000
<v Speaker 2>I'm impressed at least.

0:23:17.119 --> 0:23:18.240
<v Speaker 1>Are you bucking the cerebral?

0:23:19.240 --> 0:23:21.230
<v Speaker 2>Yes, right now. Can you tell?

0:23:22.430 --> 0:23:23.710
<v Speaker 1>Let me see here. In the 20s, there was a

0:23:23.730 --> 0:23:29.109
<v Speaker 1>15-year-old boy who set the kid record. For 10 days,

0:23:29.109 --> 0:23:31.270
<v Speaker 1>10 hours, 10 minutes, and 10 seconds. I think that

0:23:31.290 --> 0:23:31.810
<v Speaker 1>was planned.

0:23:33.830 --> 0:23:36.620
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, if not, then. But see, there you go, Chuck.

0:23:36.990 --> 0:23:39.640
<v Speaker 2>We're thinking about that. It's making us think. This little

0:23:39.660 --> 0:23:41.440
<v Speaker 2>kid is making us think. We've got to avoid that.

0:23:42.180 --> 0:23:45.300
<v Speaker 2>It needs to be random combinations of numbers so we

0:23:45.320 --> 0:23:46.340
<v Speaker 2>don't start thinking about it.

0:23:47.619 --> 0:23:50.230
<v Speaker 1>We should also point out that not everyone was like, oh,

0:23:50.250 --> 0:23:54.210
<v Speaker 1>this is the best thing ever. In Cosmopolitan magazine, Cosmo

0:23:54.250 --> 0:23:58.150
<v Speaker 1>called it competitive imbecility. Yeah.

0:23:58.990 --> 0:24:01.760
<v Speaker 2>This is fine. We need that, too. I have to say,

0:24:01.780 --> 0:24:03.760
<v Speaker 2>I want to say something here. It's a little PSA.

0:24:03.780 --> 0:24:05.960
<v Speaker 2>This might not even ever make it in the final edit.

0:24:06.000 --> 0:24:07.740
<v Speaker 2>So I'll just say it to you. How about that?

0:24:09.320 --> 0:24:14.770
<v Speaker 2>I would say the last, like, few weeks of episodes,

0:24:15.170 --> 0:24:18.369
<v Speaker 2>there's been, like, some good ones here or there. But overall,

0:24:18.869 --> 0:24:22.050
<v Speaker 2>I find that they've been less good because I am

0:24:22.369 --> 0:24:28.530
<v Speaker 2>so sick of myself. Because we've been so... entrenched in

0:24:28.570 --> 0:24:33.230
<v Speaker 2>the book right now. So it's like living, breathing S-Y-S-K,

0:24:33.510 --> 0:24:37.950
<v Speaker 2>which is us, and having to confront and like myself

0:24:38.050 --> 0:24:40.770
<v Speaker 2>and my own personality and sense of humor and whether

0:24:40.810 --> 0:24:44.199
<v Speaker 2>that's actually funny and just constantly thinking about this on

0:24:44.300 --> 0:24:47.140
<v Speaker 2>top of doing the podcast on top of the other

0:24:47.200 --> 0:24:50.320
<v Speaker 2>stuff we're trying to do now too and I am

0:24:50.840 --> 0:24:54.179
<v Speaker 2>so sick of myself I can barely tolerate listening to

0:24:54.240 --> 0:24:58.230
<v Speaker 2>myself talk so if anyone's picked up on the last

0:24:58.290 --> 0:25:00.910
<v Speaker 2>few episodes like in the last few weeks just being

0:25:00.930 --> 0:25:04.890
<v Speaker 2>a little ho-hum that's why and I apologize maybe we'll

0:25:04.930 --> 0:25:06.710
<v Speaker 2>go back and redo them one day wow.

0:25:08.210 --> 0:25:12.210
<v Speaker 1>News to me. I think you've been great.

0:25:13.530 --> 0:25:15.490
<v Speaker 2>Hey, thanks a lot, man. That's ultimately what I was

0:25:15.530 --> 0:25:16.070
<v Speaker 2>fishing for.

0:25:16.450 --> 0:25:18.610
<v Speaker 1>All right. Well, if you want to cut that part out,

0:25:18.650 --> 0:25:21.670
<v Speaker 1>let me pick this up by saying, and I'm sure

0:25:21.730 --> 0:25:23.080
<v Speaker 1>you've made a great point, Josh.

0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.720
<v Speaker 2>So, so back to Kelly, right? You've got all these,

0:25:31.260 --> 0:25:36.420
<v Speaker 2>what I'm sure Shipwreck Kelly deemed slack-jawed yokels, ho-hums, that

0:25:36.460 --> 0:25:39.530
<v Speaker 2>kind of thing. Um, Who were out there trying to

0:25:39.550 --> 0:25:40.250
<v Speaker 2>topple his record.

0:25:40.510 --> 0:25:41.010
<v Speaker 1>And they did.

0:25:41.070 --> 0:25:43.620
<v Speaker 2>Some of them did topple his record. But nobody had

0:25:43.690 --> 0:25:46.400
<v Speaker 2>turned this into a business like Shipwreck Kelly had. He

0:25:46.460 --> 0:25:51.480
<v Speaker 2>was a one-man money-making machine who made his money just

0:25:51.540 --> 0:25:53.359
<v Speaker 2>by sitting on top of a flagpole.

0:25:53.400 --> 0:25:53.780
<v Speaker 1>Good money.

0:25:53.800 --> 0:25:56.530
<v Speaker 2>Because he was really good at self-promoting. Like there wasn't

0:25:56.570 --> 0:25:58.630
<v Speaker 2>a reporter whose ear he wouldn't bend if he got

0:25:58.670 --> 0:26:03.179
<v Speaker 2>the chance. And in these reports or these articles, he

0:26:03.200 --> 0:26:04.840
<v Speaker 2>would say things like, yeah, I'm in town for this,

0:26:04.920 --> 0:26:07.500
<v Speaker 2>but if anybody has any other offers, I'm wide open

0:26:07.560 --> 0:26:11.990
<v Speaker 2>and I'm staying at, you know, the Cambridge Arms itinerant

0:26:12.050 --> 0:26:14.350
<v Speaker 2>hotel for the next few days if somebody wants to

0:26:14.369 --> 0:26:16.109
<v Speaker 2>get in touch with me there with a job offer.

0:26:16.390 --> 0:26:20.909
<v Speaker 2>Like he was really good at attracting job offers specifically

0:26:20.970 --> 0:26:21.990
<v Speaker 2>for flagpole sitting.

0:26:22.490 --> 0:26:25.389
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and he made good dough. I mean, this is

0:26:25.410 --> 0:26:28.710
<v Speaker 1>good money any time. if he made $ 100 an hour

0:26:28.790 --> 0:26:31.610
<v Speaker 1>like he claimed to, other people said, no, it really

0:26:31.630 --> 0:26:34.490
<v Speaker 1>wasn't that much. It was probably closer to anywhere between

0:26:34.490 --> 0:26:37.310
<v Speaker 1>$ 100 and $ 500 a day. Still a lot of money.

0:26:38.770 --> 0:26:43.000
<v Speaker 1>And like you said, it was like, he was almost

0:26:43.040 --> 0:26:48.440
<v Speaker 1>like a celebrity version of a sign spinner. Like if

0:26:48.480 --> 0:26:52.440
<v Speaker 1>you could pay George Clooney to sign spin in front

0:26:52.460 --> 0:26:56.350
<v Speaker 1>of your mobile phone store, that was sort of what

0:26:56.730 --> 0:26:57.560
<v Speaker 1>Shipwreck Kelly was.

0:26:58.490 --> 0:27:01.540
<v Speaker 2>That's a great one. I got one too. It's almost

0:27:01.640 --> 0:27:04.699
<v Speaker 2>like if there was a cult of personality built up

0:27:04.720 --> 0:27:09.460
<v Speaker 2>around like the flapping dancing wind sock guy that they

0:27:09.500 --> 0:27:14.280
<v Speaker 2>put out in front of like mattress stores in like 2005. Yeah.

0:27:14.420 --> 0:27:16.600
<v Speaker 2>I love those dudes. Okay.

0:27:16.720 --> 0:27:17.280
<v Speaker 1>Those are fun.

0:27:17.760 --> 0:27:20.659
<v Speaker 2>I think both of those are high quality analogies.

0:27:21.240 --> 0:27:23.220
<v Speaker 1>Well, we'll see which one Jerry uses in the edit.

0:27:23.580 --> 0:27:23.699
<v Speaker 2>Okay.

0:27:23.720 --> 0:27:26.639
<v Speaker 1>Okay. Let me see here. Here are some of his

0:27:26.680 --> 0:27:31.700
<v Speaker 1>longer sits. He did 146 hours at the Old West

0:27:31.780 --> 0:27:37.970
<v Speaker 1>Gate Hotel in Kansas City. Not bad. 312 hours in Newark,

0:27:38.050 --> 0:27:43.150
<v Speaker 1>New Jersey atop the St. Francis Hotel. That's pretty good. Sure.

0:27:43.750 --> 0:27:46.870
<v Speaker 1>I don't know what that is in days, but... 312 hours?

0:27:46.890 --> 0:27:49.970
<v Speaker 2>Let's see. If you divided that by 24, as you should...

0:27:52.490 --> 0:27:55.129
<v Speaker 2>You would come up with something along the lines of

0:27:55.130 --> 0:27:56.930
<v Speaker 2>13 days on the nose.

0:27:57.950 --> 0:28:01.149
<v Speaker 1>Hmm. All right. Well, how about 22 days? And this

0:28:01.190 --> 0:28:03.790
<v Speaker 1>was in conjunction with the dance marathon at none other

0:28:04.250 --> 0:28:05.330
<v Speaker 1>than Madison Square Garden.

0:28:06.810 --> 0:28:08.270
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, because I don't know if we said it or not,

0:28:08.310 --> 0:28:10.710
<v Speaker 2>but there was a dance marathon at Madison Square Gardens

0:28:10.730 --> 0:28:14.410
<v Speaker 2>that was actually shut down by the health department because

0:28:14.450 --> 0:28:17.040
<v Speaker 2>they decided it had gone on too long, 10 days,

0:28:17.500 --> 0:28:20.159
<v Speaker 2>and that it deemed a threat to the health of

0:28:20.200 --> 0:28:23.600
<v Speaker 2>the participants. That wasn't the one that he sat in,

0:28:23.900 --> 0:28:27.480
<v Speaker 2>but there was one the following year where for, what

0:28:27.500 --> 0:28:28.540
<v Speaker 2>was it, 22 days?

0:28:29.200 --> 0:28:29.400
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:28:30.460 --> 0:28:32.920
<v Speaker 2>That means that the dance marathon went on for 22 days.

0:28:34.030 --> 0:28:37.110
<v Speaker 2>But imagine that. So you've got these two endurance fads

0:28:37.750 --> 0:28:41.190
<v Speaker 2>just interweaved in this way that the universe almost like

0:28:41.250 --> 0:28:44.990
<v Speaker 2>collapses in on itself because they're put together too close together,

0:28:45.010 --> 0:28:47.510
<v Speaker 2>you know?

0:28:47.570 --> 0:28:49.210
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, and here's how he would do it. He would

0:28:49.250 --> 0:28:54.040
<v Speaker 1>sit on that bar stool-like thing And it was padded

0:28:55.020 --> 0:29:00.180
<v Speaker 1>and he would, um, you know, eat and smoke cigarettes

0:29:00.460 --> 0:29:03.760
<v Speaker 1>and shave apparently. And they would send this stuff, stuff

0:29:03.800 --> 0:29:05.460
<v Speaker 1>up in like a, with a bucket and a rope

0:29:06.480 --> 0:29:08.930
<v Speaker 1>and tell him how he would sleep. Cause this is

0:29:08.970 --> 0:29:10.510
<v Speaker 1>what I really kind of wanted to know.

0:29:12.810 --> 0:29:16.270
<v Speaker 2>So, so you said his, his seat was like a

0:29:16.370 --> 0:29:21.120
<v Speaker 2>bar stool around bar stool basically. Right. And, um, It

0:29:21.160 --> 0:29:23.980
<v Speaker 2>was on a pole, a flagpole appropriately. And then in

0:29:24.020 --> 0:29:27.170
<v Speaker 2>the flagpole, you'd have two holes drilled just beneath the seat.

0:29:27.590 --> 0:29:29.130
<v Speaker 2>And now that I'm doing it, I'm like, that's really

0:29:29.190 --> 0:29:31.450
<v Speaker 2>hard to reach. So now I'm questioning whether this is

0:29:31.510 --> 0:29:32.030
<v Speaker 2>true or not.

0:29:32.590 --> 0:29:33.510
<v Speaker 1>He might have long arms.

0:29:34.450 --> 0:29:34.930
<v Speaker 2>Maybe so.

0:29:34.950 --> 0:29:36.550
<v Speaker 1>Long thumbs.

0:29:36.810 --> 0:29:40.340
<v Speaker 2>So he would plug his thumbs into those holes. drilled

0:29:40.400 --> 0:29:43.100
<v Speaker 2>into each side of the flagpole so that when he

0:29:43.160 --> 0:29:46.830
<v Speaker 2>started to lean forward, the pressure from the flagpole on

0:29:46.870 --> 0:29:49.270
<v Speaker 2>his thumbs would kind of cut into his skin and

0:29:49.810 --> 0:29:52.330
<v Speaker 2>wake him up just enough that he would adjust himself.

0:29:52.890 --> 0:29:55.230
<v Speaker 2>And apparently he got so good at this that he

0:29:55.270 --> 0:29:58.530
<v Speaker 2>would adjust himself to sit back up so he wouldn't

0:29:58.610 --> 0:30:01.530
<v Speaker 2>fall over off of the flagpole while he was still sleeping.

0:30:01.570 --> 0:30:04.150
<v Speaker 2>Like he wouldn't wake up. He could just adjust himself

0:30:04.210 --> 0:30:04.710
<v Speaker 2>in his sleep.

0:30:05.060 --> 0:30:07.260
<v Speaker 1>That's right. And he'd have his little, I don't know

0:30:07.280 --> 0:30:09.260
<v Speaker 1>if they're little, but he would have his ankles locked

0:30:09.320 --> 0:30:14.820
<v Speaker 1>around the pole and apparently would tether a leg to

0:30:14.920 --> 0:30:19.590
<v Speaker 1>keep him from catastrophe. But I think it's very dubious

0:30:19.790 --> 0:30:22.630
<v Speaker 1>that that was a solid life-saving rig.

0:30:22.650 --> 0:30:22.730
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

0:30:24.630 --> 0:30:24.790
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:30:25.190 --> 0:30:27.050
<v Speaker 2>And I mean, like some of these flagpoles, he's sitting

0:30:27.110 --> 0:30:30.150
<v Speaker 2>on 30 feet, 50 feet. One of them, I guess

0:30:30.270 --> 0:30:32.510
<v Speaker 2>the impression I had, the one that you mentioned on

0:30:33.590 --> 0:30:37.870
<v Speaker 2>Kansas City's Westgate Hotel, that that flagpole was on the

0:30:37.930 --> 0:30:40.880
<v Speaker 2>top roof of the hotel. So, I mean, he was

0:30:40.950 --> 0:30:43.460
<v Speaker 2>up there for sure. And if something had gone wrong,

0:30:43.500 --> 0:30:46.400
<v Speaker 2>he would have, yeah, that tether probably would not have

0:30:46.420 --> 0:30:50.480
<v Speaker 2>done terribly much. Or it would have done a lot

0:30:50.500 --> 0:30:52.600
<v Speaker 2>to keep his leg hanging up there, but the rest

0:30:52.640 --> 0:30:54.420
<v Speaker 2>of them would have kept going to the ground, you know?

0:30:54.750 --> 0:30:55.850
<v Speaker 1>How did he pee-pee and poo-poo?

0:30:57.610 --> 0:30:59.870
<v Speaker 2>He had a little contraption for that with the tube

0:30:59.930 --> 0:31:03.760
<v Speaker 2>that went down. Okay. But here's the thing. So you're

0:31:03.800 --> 0:31:07.500
<v Speaker 2>a traveling flagpole sitter. You're relying on the help of

0:31:07.620 --> 0:31:11.500
<v Speaker 2>other people on the ground. You need food. When you

0:31:11.540 --> 0:31:14.040
<v Speaker 2>pee and poop into that contraption that leads to a

0:31:14.100 --> 0:31:16.640
<v Speaker 2>tube that goes down to the ground— You don't want

0:31:16.660 --> 0:31:19.360
<v Speaker 2>that just leaking out for the spectators to see and

0:31:19.380 --> 0:31:21.940
<v Speaker 2>smell and experience. You need it to go into a

0:31:22.000 --> 0:31:24.530
<v Speaker 2>bucket that somebody is going to go take away and dump.

0:31:24.850 --> 0:31:28.710
<v Speaker 2>So you're relying on this kind of group of assistants

0:31:28.750 --> 0:31:31.910
<v Speaker 2>and hands that probably the promoter maybe helped hire for you.

0:31:32.290 --> 0:31:34.840
<v Speaker 2>Maybe you make a friend along the way who just

0:31:34.860 --> 0:31:36.640
<v Speaker 2>kind of travels from town to town with you for

0:31:36.660 --> 0:31:37.100
<v Speaker 2>a little while.

0:31:37.120 --> 0:31:40.640
<v Speaker 1>That's what I think. Shipwreck Kelly had an assistant.

0:31:41.420 --> 0:31:42.000
<v Speaker 2>He had a boy.

0:31:42.020 --> 0:31:43.820
<v Speaker 1>That was the worst job in show business.

0:31:44.740 --> 0:31:46.709
<v Speaker 2>Right. He had a lad who would help him.

0:31:46.790 --> 0:31:46.970
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:31:47.880 --> 0:31:52.280
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. So, but it would be a pretty bad job.

0:31:53.060 --> 0:31:53.260
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:31:53.580 --> 0:31:55.219
<v Speaker 2>But anyway, so he had to, I mean, he had

0:31:55.240 --> 0:31:57.780
<v Speaker 2>to eat and he didn't eat much. He would apparently

0:31:57.880 --> 0:32:02.400
<v Speaker 2>just kind of almost do a broth fast, augmented with

0:32:02.790 --> 0:32:06.390
<v Speaker 2>cigarettes and coffee. He would stay up for four days

0:32:06.450 --> 0:32:09.590
<v Speaker 2>at a time because like living on a flagpole is

0:32:09.630 --> 0:32:13.930
<v Speaker 2>not exactly like the most comfortable place you can exist for.

0:32:14.550 --> 0:32:18.290
<v Speaker 2>you know, 22 days or 13 days or however long. No.

0:32:18.630 --> 0:32:22.690
<v Speaker 1>And it eventually turned against him in that the money

0:32:22.730 --> 0:32:26.020
<v Speaker 1>dried up after he did this sort of big Atlantic

0:32:26.060 --> 0:32:28.980
<v Speaker 1>City stunt that we talked about. And it was the

0:32:29.020 --> 0:32:32.380
<v Speaker 1>Great Depression. And eventually people were kind of like, I

0:32:32.420 --> 0:32:34.680
<v Speaker 1>don't really care so much about this dumb stunt because

0:32:34.760 --> 0:32:37.600
<v Speaker 1>I'm starving and I'm broke and I'm homeless.

0:32:38.460 --> 0:32:38.700
<v Speaker 2>Right.

0:32:38.860 --> 0:32:42.240
<v Speaker 1>And the kind of tide of public opinion turned such

0:32:42.320 --> 0:32:45.790
<v Speaker 1>that In 1935, he went to do this in the Bronx,

0:32:46.410 --> 0:32:48.250
<v Speaker 1>and he was actually arrested for public nuisance.

0:32:48.990 --> 0:32:49.210
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

0:32:49.610 --> 0:32:53.230
<v Speaker 1>And I'm sure he was like, but I'm Shipwreck Kelly. Right.

0:32:53.620 --> 0:32:55.560
<v Speaker 2>But, I mean, think about it. That's like everybody's sick

0:32:55.600 --> 0:32:57.740
<v Speaker 2>of you now, Kelly, and your schtick. We're all just

0:32:57.780 --> 0:33:01.660
<v Speaker 2>depressed in the Depression, so maybe we'll do a dance marathon,

0:33:01.680 --> 0:33:03.180
<v Speaker 2>but we're not going to watch you sit around in

0:33:03.220 --> 0:33:08.310
<v Speaker 2>a flagpole anymore. And there was a contemporary article that

0:33:08.350 --> 0:33:12.370
<v Speaker 2>was written at the time that said that he– attributed

0:33:12.430 --> 0:33:15.510
<v Speaker 2>the decline of flagpole sitting directly to the stock market crash.

0:33:16.030 --> 0:33:18.550
<v Speaker 2>And he said that people didn't want to see anything

0:33:18.630 --> 0:33:22.070
<v Speaker 2>higher than their securities, stock securities at the time, which

0:33:22.110 --> 0:33:22.970
<v Speaker 2>were not very high.

0:33:23.590 --> 0:33:25.690
<v Speaker 1>And everyone went, that's just not even a joke in

0:33:25.710 --> 0:33:31.560
<v Speaker 1>good taste. And he punches human familiar in the mouth

0:33:32.480 --> 0:33:34.020
<v Speaker 1>and say, you told me to tell that joke.

0:33:37.100 --> 0:33:38.840
<v Speaker 2>Man, that was gangbusters, Chuck.

0:33:39.420 --> 0:33:40.040
<v Speaker 1>Do you watch that show?

0:33:40.060 --> 0:33:40.460
<v Speaker 2>You got me.

0:33:41.760 --> 0:33:43.120
<v Speaker 1>What we do in the shadows?

0:33:44.500 --> 0:33:47.100
<v Speaker 2>I've seen some episodes of it. You know, we were

0:33:47.140 --> 0:33:49.980
<v Speaker 2>talking about it, and one of the PAs, I think,

0:33:50.150 --> 0:33:53.590
<v Speaker 2>wrote in to say that they were just blown away

0:33:53.650 --> 0:33:56.970
<v Speaker 2>that we were giving such big ups to their show.

0:33:56.990 --> 0:33:59.470
<v Speaker 2>I think I remember that. If you talk to Matt Berry,

0:33:59.510 --> 0:34:03.210
<v Speaker 2>tell him he's a comedy genius. I never heard anything back. Oh,

0:34:03.290 --> 0:34:06.920
<v Speaker 2>have you seen An Evening with Beverly Loughlin?

0:34:08.040 --> 0:34:09.200
<v Speaker 1>No. How do I know that name?

0:34:10.410 --> 0:34:12.830
<v Speaker 2>So it's a Craig.

0:34:13.670 --> 0:34:14.110
<v Speaker 1>Robinson?

0:34:14.840 --> 0:34:16.540
<v Speaker 2>Yes. From The Office, right?

0:34:16.600 --> 0:34:16.799
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:34:17.739 --> 0:34:23.520
<v Speaker 2>He plays a guy named Beverly Loughlin. And Aubrey Meadows?

0:34:24.040 --> 0:34:24.580
<v Speaker 1>Aubrey Plaza?

0:34:24.600 --> 0:34:28.290
<v Speaker 2>Aubrey Meadows. Plaza. That's right. Man, I'm really screwing this up.

0:34:28.290 --> 0:34:29.210
<v Speaker 1>You're great with first names, though.

0:34:30.010 --> 0:34:30.650
<v Speaker 2>Yeah.

0:34:30.810 --> 0:34:31.230
<v Speaker 1>And then.

0:34:31.890 --> 0:34:35.890
<v Speaker 2>Okay. So she's the main character. Jemaine Clement. I know him.

0:34:35.989 --> 0:34:36.430
<v Speaker 1>You got that.

0:34:37.190 --> 0:34:39.450
<v Speaker 2>He plays... Well, you just have to see it.

0:34:39.710 --> 0:34:41.510
<v Speaker 1>Well, he was in What We Do in the Shadows,

0:34:41.570 --> 0:34:41.950
<v Speaker 1>the movie.

0:34:42.790 --> 0:34:45.850
<v Speaker 2>Right, right. So I think he co-created it too. This

0:34:45.910 --> 0:34:48.750
<v Speaker 2>is what all ties into this. He and Matt Berry

0:34:48.790 --> 0:34:51.170
<v Speaker 2>are also in this too. Matt Berry is in the

0:34:51.210 --> 0:34:52.830
<v Speaker 2>TV version of What We Do in the Shadows.

0:34:52.890 --> 0:34:53.129
<v Speaker 1>Yes.

0:34:53.150 --> 0:34:57.450
<v Speaker 2>I mean, Clement helped create it. But it's definitely worth watching.

0:34:57.550 --> 0:35:02.970
<v Speaker 2>It's purposefully very bizarre, which can get really annoying really easily.

0:35:03.290 --> 0:35:06.370
<v Speaker 2>But this movie pulls it off very well, like purposeful

0:35:06.450 --> 0:35:12.280
<v Speaker 2>bizarreness for humor. And it's a good movie. It's worth watching. Okay,

0:35:12.910 --> 0:35:16.280
<v Speaker 2>it's worth watching. I'll leave it to you to decide

0:35:16.300 --> 0:35:17.470
<v Speaker 2>whether it's a good movie or not.

0:35:17.500 --> 0:35:19.660
<v Speaker 1>Well, I love everybody in it. That's a great cast.

0:35:20.100 --> 0:35:23.400
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I mean, it's worth watching. How about that?

0:35:23.739 --> 0:35:25.790
<v Speaker 1>All right. Should we take our second break here? Can

0:35:25.830 --> 0:35:26.450
<v Speaker 1>you believe we haven't?

0:35:27.890 --> 0:35:28.629
<v Speaker 2>Yes, I can.

0:35:29.030 --> 0:35:31.450
<v Speaker 1>All right. Let's do our other break, and then we're

0:35:31.469 --> 0:35:34.569
<v Speaker 1>going to talk about, we're going to wind up this

0:35:34.610 --> 0:36:09.299
<v Speaker 1>flagpole sitting thing right after this. Okay, so Kelly, when

0:36:09.320 --> 0:36:12.379
<v Speaker 1>we left off, the public turns on him. They don't

0:36:12.440 --> 0:36:17.480
<v Speaker 1>care about him anymore. He's probably drunk in some hotel

0:36:17.520 --> 0:36:20.560
<v Speaker 1>room somewhere with his human familiar, talking about the good

0:36:20.580 --> 0:36:21.500
<v Speaker 1>old days at this point.

0:36:22.380 --> 0:36:25.000
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, yeah, it is kind of sad. I get the

0:36:25.040 --> 0:36:29.080
<v Speaker 2>impression that the Memory Palace episode really focuses on the

0:36:29.580 --> 0:36:32.100
<v Speaker 2>sad decline of Shipwreck Kelly because, I mean, he was

0:36:32.160 --> 0:36:36.800
<v Speaker 2>a celebrity, a national, probably international celebrity for like a decade.

0:36:37.650 --> 0:36:41.680
<v Speaker 2>a decade for sitting on flagpoles. And then all of

0:36:41.719 --> 0:36:45.739
<v Speaker 2>a sudden he's just done. Like society drops him like

0:36:45.760 --> 0:36:50.480
<v Speaker 2>a hot potato and he's penniless and on public assistance basically.

0:36:51.340 --> 0:36:54.180
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. And he died a very sad death. He did.

0:36:54.900 --> 0:36:59.730
<v Speaker 1>And I think his final flagpole sit was all the

0:36:59.770 --> 0:37:00.870
<v Speaker 1>way in the 1950s in Orange, Texas in 1952. He

0:37:00.890 --> 0:37:07.730
<v Speaker 1>was almost 60 years old at this point. And he had,

0:37:08.210 --> 0:37:14.689
<v Speaker 1>during the publicity run-up to this, had two heart attacks. Well,

0:37:14.730 --> 0:37:18.230
<v Speaker 1>was he sitting on his pole for publicity or was

0:37:18.250 --> 0:37:19.750
<v Speaker 1>this part of the pole sitting when he had the

0:37:19.770 --> 0:37:20.310
<v Speaker 1>heart attacks?

0:37:22.630 --> 0:37:26.080
<v Speaker 2>He had the heart attacks on the pole during the publicity.

0:37:26.640 --> 0:37:30.000
<v Speaker 1>Oh, so the actual sit was another publicity stunt for

0:37:30.040 --> 0:37:30.500
<v Speaker 1>some place.

0:37:31.210 --> 0:37:33.870
<v Speaker 2>Right, yeah. I don't know what business it was for.

0:37:33.890 --> 0:37:35.770
<v Speaker 2>I didn't see that. But I did see that the

0:37:35.870 --> 0:37:39.569
<v Speaker 2>promoters were like, come down right now. We don't think

0:37:39.590 --> 0:37:42.870
<v Speaker 2>you're going to survive a third heart attack, so stop.

0:37:43.230 --> 0:37:45.210
<v Speaker 2>Which is crazy. I mean, there was only 59 at

0:37:45.250 --> 0:37:45.609
<v Speaker 2>the time.

0:37:46.650 --> 0:37:49.029
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, but 59 in the 1950s.

0:37:49.780 --> 0:37:53.080
<v Speaker 2>I guess so. When your name was shipwrecked. Yeah.

0:37:55.120 --> 0:37:58.279
<v Speaker 1>But he did die of that third heart attack like

0:37:58.320 --> 0:37:59.239
<v Speaker 1>a week after that, right?

0:38:00.180 --> 0:38:02.640
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, he was walking around New York on 51st Street.

0:38:03.320 --> 0:38:07.490
<v Speaker 2>And he dropped dead on the sidewalk from a heart attack.

0:38:07.650 --> 0:38:13.489
<v Speaker 2>And he was found holding a scrapbook of all, like,

0:38:13.590 --> 0:38:17.170
<v Speaker 2>clippings of newspaper articles about him during his heyday.

0:38:17.270 --> 0:38:17.890
<v Speaker 1>Oh, man.

0:38:18.430 --> 0:38:19.110
<v Speaker 2>Isn't that sad?

0:38:19.130 --> 0:38:20.030
<v Speaker 1>That's like a movie.

0:38:21.570 --> 0:38:24.430
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I can't believe this is a movie. He's, I mean,

0:38:24.450 --> 0:38:28.440
<v Speaker 2>he's a gold mine just waiting to be, well, mined.

0:38:32.900 --> 0:38:33.359
<v Speaker 1>Wait, wait, wait.

0:38:33.380 --> 0:38:35.239
<v Speaker 2>There's one other thing about him before we move on.

0:38:35.340 --> 0:38:36.220
<v Speaker 1>What do you got?

0:38:36.780 --> 0:38:41.390
<v Speaker 2>After he was done with his flagpole sitting career, the

0:38:41.410 --> 0:38:44.230
<v Speaker 2>heyday of it, one of the jobs he had was

0:38:44.290 --> 0:38:48.930
<v Speaker 2>as a gigolo, a male escort who would dance with

0:38:49.350 --> 0:38:52.879
<v Speaker 2>whoever wanted him to dance at the Roseland Ballroom near

0:38:52.920 --> 0:38:53.640
<v Speaker 2>Times Square.

0:38:54.160 --> 0:38:55.080
<v Speaker 1>He was a private dancer.

0:38:56.260 --> 0:38:57.140
<v Speaker 2>A dancer for money.

0:38:57.840 --> 0:39:00.040
<v Speaker 1>I've been to Roseland. Seen some good shows there.

0:39:00.980 --> 0:39:04.380
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well. You were where Shipwreck Kelly danced for a

0:39:04.440 --> 0:39:06.820
<v Speaker 2>dime a dance. Because he was a gigolo.

0:39:07.180 --> 0:39:11.370
<v Speaker 1>I would have paid for that dance. Sure. Tell him

0:39:11.390 --> 0:39:12.029
<v Speaker 1>to sit on my head.

0:39:12.050 --> 0:39:17.290
<v Speaker 2>Hey, he'll do what you want him to do. Oh, boy.

0:39:18.670 --> 0:39:21.210
<v Speaker 1>So we looked, or rather you looked, because you put

0:39:21.230 --> 0:39:24.910
<v Speaker 1>this one together, and you found one death from flagpole sitting.

0:39:24.930 --> 0:39:25.610
<v Speaker 1>Isn't that right?

0:39:26.650 --> 0:39:29.830
<v Speaker 2>That's all I could turn up. Surely, surely there were more,

0:39:29.870 --> 0:39:32.529
<v Speaker 2>but I could really only find one. And this guy

0:39:32.570 --> 0:39:34.160
<v Speaker 2>was wonderful in every way.

0:39:34.719 --> 0:39:35.319
<v Speaker 1>Dick Blandy?

0:39:36.340 --> 0:39:40.820
<v Speaker 2>Dixie Blandy. Richard Dixie. D-I-X-I-E. Blandy.

0:39:41.040 --> 0:39:42.240
<v Speaker 1>Dick Dixie Blandy.

0:39:43.120 --> 0:39:49.219
<v Speaker 2>Sure. So, Dixie Blandy. He was a flagpole sitter who

0:39:49.260 --> 0:39:52.850
<v Speaker 2>was contemporaneous to Shipwreck Kelly.

0:39:52.870 --> 0:39:53.410
<v Speaker 1>A little bit.

0:39:53.489 --> 0:39:57.150
<v Speaker 2>Like during, surely he was directly inspired by Shipwreck Kelly.

0:39:57.489 --> 0:40:00.790
<v Speaker 2>He came along and started in 1929, which is almost

0:40:00.870 --> 0:40:05.340
<v Speaker 2>the worst year you could join the flagpole sitting movement

0:40:05.380 --> 0:40:08.960
<v Speaker 2>because just the next year, Shipwreck Kelly had his triumphant

0:40:09.060 --> 0:40:13.279
<v Speaker 2>sit aboard like a, or above a two, what?

0:40:13.760 --> 0:40:15.719
<v Speaker 1>Triumphant sit. It's just great. Yeah.

0:40:16.489 --> 0:40:19.310
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, well, it was triumphant for a couple of reasons. One,

0:40:19.370 --> 0:40:23.350
<v Speaker 2>it was his longest sit, I believe, 22 days, 23 days,

0:40:23.370 --> 0:40:27.620
<v Speaker 2>something like that. And secondly, it was above a top,

0:40:28.140 --> 0:40:34.100
<v Speaker 2>a 200-foot flagpole. For weeks, he sat up there. That's triumphant,

0:40:34.140 --> 0:40:37.100
<v Speaker 2>if you ask me. But he did his in 1930,

0:40:37.100 --> 0:40:40.480
<v Speaker 2>and everybody dropped him right after. Dixie Blandy just started

0:40:40.500 --> 0:40:44.870
<v Speaker 2>in 1929. But even though people said flagpole sitting is

0:40:45.050 --> 0:40:47.489
<v Speaker 2>so out, we're not going to bother even looking up

0:40:47.610 --> 0:40:50.529
<v Speaker 2>when we see somebody on a flagpole. Dixie Blandy said,

0:40:50.570 --> 0:40:52.569
<v Speaker 2>you know what, I'm not giving up on this. And

0:40:52.630 --> 0:40:54.850
<v Speaker 2>he continued to make a career out of it wherever

0:40:54.890 --> 0:40:55.270
<v Speaker 2>he could.

0:40:56.450 --> 0:41:00.440
<v Speaker 1>Yes, until he died from flagpole sitting at the age

0:41:00.480 --> 0:41:02.840
<v Speaker 1>of 71. In 1974, he fell off of his flagpole.

0:41:02.860 --> 0:41:06.399
<v Speaker 1>It was a 50-foot pole. And where was this? In Harvey? Harvey.

0:41:12.680 --> 0:41:14.600
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, I get the impression in Pennsylvania.

0:41:15.360 --> 0:41:16.160
<v Speaker 1>Harvey, Pennsylvania?

0:41:16.820 --> 0:41:19.840
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, because the article that reported on it as if

0:41:19.920 --> 0:41:22.140
<v Speaker 2>it were something of a nearby event was called the

0:41:22.219 --> 0:41:25.819
<v Speaker 2>Reading Eagle. And Reading is in Pennsylvania, right?

0:41:26.920 --> 0:41:27.700
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. Is it Reading?

0:41:28.940 --> 0:41:33.100
<v Speaker 2>Whatever. I can't tell you how many times I've been

0:41:33.180 --> 0:41:36.820
<v Speaker 2>told that since I was a child playing Monopoly. And

0:41:36.890 --> 0:41:38.739
<v Speaker 2>it's just never stuck for some reason.

0:41:38.890 --> 0:41:43.240
<v Speaker 1>Oh, is that the titular railroad? Mm-hmm. Oh, okay. The

0:41:43.260 --> 0:41:44.580
<v Speaker 1>Reading Railroad. We said Reading.

0:41:45.900 --> 0:41:48.500
<v Speaker 2>Yeah. That's right. That's what I said too, but apparently

0:41:48.540 --> 0:41:48.899
<v Speaker 2>it's Reading.

0:41:49.280 --> 0:41:50.620
<v Speaker 1>I didn't know. I didn't know it was the same thing.

0:41:51.300 --> 0:41:53.959
<v Speaker 1>But either way, this is where Harvey, and of course

0:41:54.040 --> 0:41:56.820
<v Speaker 1>it's always like the grand opening of a shopping center

0:41:56.840 --> 0:41:59.529
<v Speaker 1>or something. Yeah. And that's what was going on here.

0:41:59.550 --> 0:42:05.270
<v Speaker 1>It's a four-day promotion, and he basically said, I think

0:42:05.310 --> 0:42:09.530
<v Speaker 1>this pole is attached to a trailer, and the trailer moved.

0:42:09.750 --> 0:42:10.150
<v Speaker 1>Is that right?

0:42:10.950 --> 0:42:13.150
<v Speaker 2>Well, he asked a security guard to move the trailer

0:42:13.190 --> 0:42:14.870
<v Speaker 2>so they could make room for what I took to

0:42:14.910 --> 0:42:17.390
<v Speaker 2>be a cherry picker that could go up and get them.

0:42:17.530 --> 0:42:21.510
<v Speaker 2>This is hours before the end of his four-day sit.

0:42:22.310 --> 0:42:25.689
<v Speaker 2>And when the security guard, I guess who had never

0:42:25.730 --> 0:42:29.489
<v Speaker 2>tried this before, moved the trailer, a guy wire that

0:42:29.530 --> 0:42:33.330
<v Speaker 2>was stabilizing the pole became taut and actually pulled the pole,

0:42:33.410 --> 0:42:37.109
<v Speaker 2>snapped the pole in two with Dixie still on top

0:42:37.150 --> 0:42:40.320
<v Speaker 2>of this 50-foot pole, and he landed safely. Skull first,

0:42:40.380 --> 0:42:44.219
<v Speaker 2>from what I can tell, onto the asphalt below. That

0:42:44.260 --> 0:42:47.279
<v Speaker 2>is not what you want to open your grocery store with.

0:42:48.080 --> 0:42:50.540
<v Speaker 1>No, or to close your flagpole sit with.

0:42:51.570 --> 0:42:53.310
<v Speaker 2>No, either way, it's a bad jam.

0:42:53.330 --> 0:42:54.530
<v Speaker 1>If you're going to fall, fall early.

0:42:55.130 --> 0:42:57.049
<v Speaker 2>This was not his only accident, too. This was the

0:42:57.130 --> 0:42:59.670
<v Speaker 2>one that got him, but he had fractured his skull

0:42:59.710 --> 0:43:02.489
<v Speaker 2>before when he was thrown off a pole in a

0:43:02.570 --> 0:43:06.850
<v Speaker 2>storm in 1955. And then there was... This is heartwarming.

0:43:07.190 --> 0:43:11.360
<v Speaker 2>In 1961... he was doing a pole sit for a

0:43:11.420 --> 0:43:15.500
<v Speaker 2>promotion dressed as Santa Claus. And he was shouting, Merry Christmas.

0:43:15.520 --> 0:43:17.000
<v Speaker 2>That was his job. Sit on the top of the

0:43:17.020 --> 0:43:20.570
<v Speaker 2>flagpole and shout Merry Christmas. And apparently it got to

0:43:20.610 --> 0:43:22.850
<v Speaker 2>the point where he finally yelled down that he was

0:43:23.330 --> 0:43:25.910
<v Speaker 2>getting numb and he had to be taken to the hospital.

0:43:25.930 --> 0:43:26.350
<v Speaker 1>Yeah.

0:43:27.570 --> 0:43:30.290
<v Speaker 2>Which is, this is what I'm talking about, man. Just

0:43:30.450 --> 0:43:33.790
<v Speaker 2>no thought. It doesn't take thought to just think about

0:43:33.989 --> 0:43:36.530
<v Speaker 2>flagpole sitting. And I love that about it. Yeah.

0:43:37.030 --> 0:43:38.410
<v Speaker 1>Merry Christmas.

0:43:38.530 --> 0:43:41.469
<v Speaker 2>Merry Christmas. I think, I think there's something wrong up here.

0:43:41.489 --> 0:43:43.830
<v Speaker 2>I got to go to the hospital cause I'm sitting

0:43:43.870 --> 0:43:46.030
<v Speaker 2>on top of a flagpole dressed as Santa Claus shouting

0:43:46.070 --> 0:43:48.879
<v Speaker 2>Merry Christmas for three days. And it's December in Pennsylvania.

0:43:50.080 --> 0:43:55.200
<v Speaker 1>In Reading. It's reading. Uh, this was, you know, these

0:43:55.239 --> 0:43:57.880
<v Speaker 1>were definitely the waning days. This was in the 1970s.

0:43:57.920 --> 0:44:01.160
<v Speaker 1>There were some other stunts throughout the years here and there.

0:44:01.219 --> 0:44:06.130
<v Speaker 1>A couple got married atop a flagpole. Um, Let me

0:44:06.170 --> 0:44:12.350
<v Speaker 1>see here. A 17-year-old in 1963 named Peggy Townsend spent

0:44:12.350 --> 0:44:15.250
<v Speaker 1>217 days on a pole for a contest for a

0:44:15.270 --> 0:44:19.210
<v Speaker 1>radio station. And then the granddaddy of them all, this

0:44:19.250 --> 0:44:22.410
<v Speaker 1>guy Kenneth Gidge, Ken Gidge, 248 days in 1971. This

0:44:22.430 --> 0:44:24.170
<v Speaker 1>guy would later on be a state rep for New Hampshire.

0:44:25.050 --> 0:44:37.169
<v Speaker 1>And he, I mean, reading his account... He was basically like,

0:44:37.390 --> 0:44:38.050
<v Speaker 1>it was terrible.

0:44:39.719 --> 0:44:39.899
<v Speaker 2>Right.

0:44:39.960 --> 0:44:42.120
<v Speaker 1>And I hated it every.

0:44:41.980 --> 0:44:44.120
<v Speaker 2>Second of it. He had a parakeet. He had his

0:44:44.160 --> 0:44:46.900
<v Speaker 2>parakeet with him named Nixon. And he said that his

0:44:46.960 --> 0:44:49.940
<v Speaker 2>parakeet came to hate him, like despise him. He said

0:44:49.960 --> 0:44:52.830
<v Speaker 2>he didn't think any animals ever hated somebody more than

0:44:52.870 --> 0:44:56.359
<v Speaker 2>that parakeet hated him. probably because he made them stay

0:44:56.420 --> 0:44:58.880
<v Speaker 2>up there in this little tiny house on top of

0:44:58.900 --> 0:45:03.400
<v Speaker 2>a fiberglass pole that would sway back and forth. He

0:45:03.460 --> 0:45:06.220
<v Speaker 2>couldn't lay down straight in it because of the pole,

0:45:06.280 --> 0:45:09.040
<v Speaker 2>so he had to lay wrapped around the pole. It

0:45:09.080 --> 0:45:11.819
<v Speaker 2>sounds really horrible and terrible. And he did it to

0:45:11.860 --> 0:45:14.379
<v Speaker 2>get publicity because he was an out-of-work actor, I guess.

0:45:14.420 --> 0:45:17.180
<v Speaker 1>At the time. Yeah, like I said, to call the

0:45:17.200 --> 0:45:19.680
<v Speaker 1>thing a house is generous. It's this little, I mean,

0:45:19.700 --> 0:45:21.219
<v Speaker 1>you can see a picture of it, but it was

0:45:22.840 --> 0:45:24.680
<v Speaker 1>some sort of shelter, at least. He wasn't just sitting

0:45:25.489 --> 0:45:29.180
<v Speaker 1>like on a bar stool, like Shipwreck Kelly for 248 days.

0:45:29.780 --> 0:45:30.000
<v Speaker 2>Sure.

0:45:30.200 --> 0:45:33.200
<v Speaker 1>But it was bad. And it's just funny reading these

0:45:33.520 --> 0:45:35.660
<v Speaker 1>quotes from him. He did not have a good time.

0:45:35.680 --> 0:45:37.779
<v Speaker 1>And he just basically kind of talked about how awful

0:45:37.820 --> 0:45:38.120
<v Speaker 1>it was.

0:45:38.920 --> 0:45:42.550
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, they said that he lost 15 pounds, three inches

0:45:43.090 --> 0:45:45.189
<v Speaker 2>from his waist and 13 days of sleep just within

0:45:45.210 --> 0:45:48.509
<v Speaker 2>the first three months. And that when people would come out,

0:45:48.670 --> 0:45:50.170
<v Speaker 2>like when the weather was nice, people would come out

0:45:50.210 --> 0:45:52.180
<v Speaker 2>and shout questions up to him and he talked to him.

0:45:53.060 --> 0:45:56.450
<v Speaker 2>And he said, the men usually asked, if he sleeps

0:45:56.550 --> 0:45:58.910
<v Speaker 2>and how he goes to the bathroom. And then women

0:45:58.989 --> 0:46:01.790
<v Speaker 2>asked if he was lonely, which I find very sweet.

0:46:02.270 --> 0:46:06.089
<v Speaker 2>But I mean, remember, we started out here at 13

0:46:06.090 --> 0:46:09.969
<v Speaker 2>hours is what kicked this off. And this guy, Kenneth Gidge,

0:46:10.290 --> 0:46:14.549
<v Speaker 2>has brought it up to 248 days. But Chuck, that

0:46:14.710 --> 0:46:17.930
<v Speaker 2>does not seem to be the record any longer. In fact,

0:46:17.969 --> 0:46:21.910
<v Speaker 2>the record may never be broken ever. What do you think?

0:46:22.210 --> 0:46:28.330
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, H. David Werder. Of Weeki Wachee, Florida. Man, this

0:46:28.390 --> 0:46:35.589
<v Speaker 1>is unbelievable. Sat for 439 days, 11 hours, 6 minutes. Yeah.

0:46:36.230 --> 0:46:42.569
<v Speaker 2>His sit went from 1982 to 1984. That's amazing. Yeah,

0:46:42.590 --> 0:46:45.190
<v Speaker 2>and it was outside of an appliance center in Clearwater.

0:46:45.750 --> 0:46:48.980
<v Speaker 2>And he didn't do this as like a publicity stunt

0:46:49.020 --> 0:46:52.180
<v Speaker 2>for that appliance center. He did it to protest gas

0:46:52.260 --> 0:46:53.400
<v Speaker 2>prices at the time.

0:46:53.440 --> 0:46:57.259
<v Speaker 1>Yeah. That's how you see these days sometimes is protests.

0:46:58.110 --> 0:47:01.760
<v Speaker 2>Sure. But gas at the time was 99 cents a gallon.

0:47:01.780 --> 0:47:02.480
<v Speaker 1>That's cute.

0:47:02.540 --> 0:47:06.640
<v Speaker 2>So his protest didn't work at all. But he spent

0:47:06.640 --> 0:47:09.799
<v Speaker 2>439 days of his life on a flagpole because he

0:47:09.840 --> 0:47:11.230
<v Speaker 2>was mad about the price of gas.

0:47:11.790 --> 0:47:11.989
<v Speaker 1>Wow.

0:47:12.070 --> 0:47:18.450
<v Speaker 2>No thought whatsoever to a zen-like beautiful state is what

0:47:18.469 --> 0:47:19.330
<v Speaker 2>this man achieved.

0:47:19.489 --> 0:47:20.529
<v Speaker 1>Is that the overarching theme?

0:47:21.570 --> 0:47:22.730
<v Speaker 2>Yep, I think so, man.

0:47:22.930 --> 0:47:23.290
<v Speaker 1>All righty.

0:47:23.850 --> 0:47:24.549
<v Speaker 2>You got anything else?

0:47:25.370 --> 0:47:27.790
<v Speaker 1>Yeah, I mean, we should mention David Blaine. He very

0:47:27.830 --> 0:47:34.450
<v Speaker 1>famously did this standing in 2002. Remember that?

0:47:34.610 --> 0:47:36.319
<v Speaker 2>For how long? No, I don't remember that at all.

0:47:36.380 --> 0:47:40.380
<v Speaker 1>He stood atop a 90-foot pole for 35 hours in

0:47:40.420 --> 0:47:41.520
<v Speaker 1>Bryant Park in New York.

0:47:42.200 --> 0:47:42.439
<v Speaker 2>Wow.

0:47:42.580 --> 0:47:45.739
<v Speaker 1>And this is when he was doing those. I love

0:47:45.760 --> 0:47:47.400
<v Speaker 1>the guy as a street magician and give me a

0:47:47.420 --> 0:47:51.390
<v Speaker 1>little levitation trick, but when he was like, I'm going

0:47:51.410 --> 0:47:53.170
<v Speaker 1>to hold my breath or I'm going to be encased

0:47:53.230 --> 0:47:55.140
<v Speaker 1>in ice or stand on this thing. That's when I

0:47:55.160 --> 0:47:55.700
<v Speaker 1>lost interest.

0:47:57.239 --> 0:47:59.480
<v Speaker 2>Oh, yeah. Yeah. I like street magic, too. It's pretty

0:47:59.500 --> 0:48:00.520
<v Speaker 2>great stuff. Yeah.

0:48:00.680 --> 0:48:04.299
<v Speaker 1>But, yeah, he stood. It's tough to stand. I mean,

0:48:04.480 --> 0:48:07.820
<v Speaker 1>sitting is hard, but standing is a whole different deal.

0:48:08.600 --> 0:48:10.690
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, for sure. I wouldn't want to do it.

0:48:11.050 --> 0:48:11.250
<v Speaker 1>Nope.

0:48:12.730 --> 0:48:15.930
<v Speaker 2>So you got anything else about flagpole sitting?

0:48:16.270 --> 0:48:16.630
<v Speaker 1>I don't.

0:48:17.550 --> 0:48:20.169
<v Speaker 2>Well, then, Chuck, that means, of course, it's time for.

0:48:21.070 --> 0:48:21.649
<v Speaker 2>Listener mail.

0:48:24.070 --> 0:48:28.880
<v Speaker 1>This is, oh, this is just funny. Remember in Bruxism,

0:48:28.920 --> 0:48:33.260
<v Speaker 1>I talked about my Dr. Tuggle. This comes from Joe

0:48:33.320 --> 0:48:37.359
<v Speaker 1>in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He said, hey guys, thanks for the

0:48:37.480 --> 0:48:40.779
<v Speaker 1>entertainment knowledge. Your discussion of doctor names at the end

0:48:40.800 --> 0:48:43.920
<v Speaker 1>of the Bruxism podcast reminded me of two anecdotes. My

0:48:43.980 --> 0:48:47.100
<v Speaker 1>ex-wife had a dentist in San Francisco named Dr. Drilling.

0:48:48.380 --> 0:48:48.760
<v Speaker 2>No.

0:48:49.739 --> 0:48:54.940
<v Speaker 1>Pretty good, huh? Sure. And this is even better. He said, second,

0:48:54.980 --> 0:48:57.400
<v Speaker 1>this one never gets appreciated as much by others for

0:48:57.440 --> 0:48:59.779
<v Speaker 1>some reason. It must just hit me the right way,

0:48:59.820 --> 0:49:02.120
<v Speaker 1>but I'm with you, Joe. It hits me too. She

0:49:02.160 --> 0:49:06.890
<v Speaker 1>worked in medical administration, and her boss at one point

0:49:06.989 --> 0:49:15.230
<v Speaker 1>was named Dr. Wachter. W-A-C-H-T-E-R, pronounced Wachter. And he said,

0:49:15.270 --> 0:49:21.140
<v Speaker 1>I could just imagine her submitting daily reports using BabyTalk going, here, Dr. Wachter,

0:49:21.180 --> 0:49:23.320
<v Speaker 1>here are your reports for the day.

0:49:25.340 --> 0:49:28.800
<v Speaker 2>Man, this guy is our new mascot here on the show.

0:49:28.820 --> 0:49:30.919
<v Speaker 2>I think we need to actually get him on here.

0:49:30.960 --> 0:49:31.500
<v Speaker 2>What's his name?

0:49:31.820 --> 0:49:33.400
<v Speaker 1>Joe in Gettysburg. I love it.

0:49:34.160 --> 0:49:36.140
<v Speaker 2>Yeah, Joe, way to go. This is one of the

0:49:36.180 --> 0:49:38.550
<v Speaker 2>best listener mails I think I've ever heard, Chuck.

0:49:38.590 --> 0:49:38.640
<v Speaker 1>Dr.

0:49:38.690 --> 0:49:42.700
<v Speaker 2>Wachter. Well, if you want to be like Joe and

0:49:42.739 --> 0:49:46.460
<v Speaker 2>try to topple his record as the greatest email listener

0:49:46.480 --> 0:49:50.899
<v Speaker 2>mail writer of all time, take your best shot. You

0:49:50.960 --> 0:49:53.200
<v Speaker 2>can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, run

0:49:53.219 --> 0:49:56.049
<v Speaker 2>it up the flagpole and see who salutes it at

0:49:56.219 --> 0:49:58.969
<v Speaker 2>Stuff Podcast at iHeartRadio.com.

0:50:02.210 --> 0:50:05.049
<v Speaker 1>Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

0:50:05.090 --> 0:50:09.160
<v Speaker 1>more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app. Apple Podcasts,

0:50:09.320 --> 0:50:11.110
<v Speaker 1>or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.