WEBVTT - The War of the Eggs 0:00:03.279 --> 0:00:08.920 Good shit. Damn it, I botched another introduction. I'm Robert Evans. 0:00:09.000 --> 0:00:12.000 This is Behind the Bastards, the podcast that is never 0:00:12.080 --> 0:00:17.079 introduced professionally, despite it being literally my my one job 0:00:17.239 --> 0:00:21.919 to do um in order to distract that Sophie. Okay, 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:24.159 everyone already knows I sucked up. You don't have to. 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:26.560 You have to jump on, jump on the kick me 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:33.200 pile here to distract from my failures. Uh Dollie, Wayne Davis, Hey, guys, 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:35.080 it's good to be back. I didn't think you've messed 0:00:35.080 --> 0:00:38.000 it up. I thought the enthusiasm was there. That's all 0:00:38.040 --> 0:00:40.880 it really counts. Thank you, Billy, thank you for thank 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:44.320 you for successfully helping to hype me back up. Now 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.040 my ego has exploded again. I'll lock it up. They're 0:00:48.159 --> 0:00:50.320 real big, it's fun. I just want to I just 0:00:50.360 --> 0:00:53.760 want to publicly say that Robert told me if if 0:00:53.840 --> 0:00:56.200 he ever asks me for green juice, I'm supposed to 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:59.480 kill him. Yes, that was our rule because of a 0:00:59.520 --> 0:01:04.959 celebrity that she'll not be named ego. Oh, you get 0:01:05.040 --> 0:01:08.680 under the green juice level. I think that's asking you 0:01:08.680 --> 0:01:11.320 can get your own green juice. I'm not going to 0:01:11.400 --> 0:01:15.399 be drinking green juice. If I care about living that 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.720 long ever, then I've lived too long already. Yeah. Oh yeah, 0:01:18.760 --> 0:01:20.760 you don't have kids. See, we have to think different. 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.560 You got it. You got mad at you. That's good, Billy. 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:29.440 It's been a little while. How have you been. I'm good. Yeah. 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.280 We've all been fighting the powers their own ways. M M. 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.119 I saw some of your fighting the power. You can 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:38.120 talk about the movie you were in now, I assume 0:01:38.360 --> 0:01:40.560 if it's a secret, it's a bad one. Still, I 0:01:40.600 --> 0:01:44.640 think yeah, I think, yeah. It is fun when people 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.560 ask me like was that you and I don't know. 0:01:46.880 --> 0:01:52.440 I do not know. Well, Billy, I wasn't bored at 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:55.840 too you guys were you were And it's a great movie. 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:58.360 You were great in it. Uh. And you got to 0:01:58.440 --> 0:02:02.840 hang out with some of my favorite Chudu Pacific Northwest. Yeah, 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:06.040 some of the people with guns who like to stand 0:02:06.040 --> 0:02:09.880 on street corners and yell at teenagers. That was lovely. 0:02:10.600 --> 0:02:14.880 I mean, it wasn't like I've told my wife and 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:17.200 other people. It was like, they're like, were you scared? 0:02:17.240 --> 0:02:19.400 I was like, it was people I grew up or with. 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:24.799 I know how to talk to them. Yeah, they're not 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:27.960 they're not super complicated, but you know it is complicated, Billy. 0:02:30.120 --> 0:02:33.320 That was a great transition, Thank you. No, I was 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:38.280 gonna guess so much stuff in my brain just eggs, eggs. 0:02:38.320 --> 0:02:42.800 You're complicated A lot going on with an egg oh man. Yeah. 0:02:42.840 --> 0:02:45.600 I forgot what podcast I was on and where we 0:02:45.639 --> 0:02:47.400 were going, and I was like, oh, eggs, and then 0:02:47.400 --> 0:02:49.120 I was like, no, this is not gonna go. And 0:02:49.440 --> 0:02:52.080 I like eggs, and now I don't like them. You 0:02:52.120 --> 0:02:54.160 like eggs, so you like eggs. You're on board? Is like, 0:02:54.240 --> 0:02:58.200 eg eggs, that's correct. Yeah, they're far as a diet, 0:02:58.280 --> 0:03:02.400 they're pretty great. How do you feel about war h 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.919 m hm less I feel I mean, at this at 0:03:08.960 --> 0:03:13.040 this point in history, I think it's a silly consent. 0:03:13.760 --> 0:03:15.919 How do you feel about the city of San Francisco. 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:21.560 I'm okay, all these things together, I'm on board with Okay. Yeah, 0:03:21.600 --> 0:03:23.680 that's what we're talking about, the egg war that that 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:26.400 rocked San Francisco for like thirty years back in the 0:03:26.440 --> 0:03:30.359 eight hundreds. Hail. Yeah, yeah, we're talking about silly war 0:03:30.520 --> 0:03:34.200 that I would be involved in. It is some silly bullshit, Billy. 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:37.640 It is some very very funny, silly bullshit, and it 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:40.760 starts as most stories of silly bullshit do in the 0:03:40.800 --> 0:03:44.200 city of San Francisco, or at least like the collection 0:03:44.280 --> 0:03:48.560 of tents and whorehouses that became San Francisco eventually, But 0:03:48.680 --> 0:03:50.880 it was really just a campsite with a lot of 0:03:50.920 --> 0:03:54.560 prostitutes back there. Yeah. Yeah, it's always been pretty great. 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:57.920 It's always it's always been great. Yeah. And the poop 0:03:58.000 --> 0:04:03.640 on the streets thing not new, no, no, no, no. 0:04:03.840 --> 0:04:08.160 The abundance I think is the new part. Yeah. Although 0:04:09.040 --> 0:04:10.480 when I was there, I was like, it's not that 0:04:10.520 --> 0:04:12.720 their ship on the street that is not new. There's 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:14.600 a lot of it, you guys. And they're like, that 0:04:14.720 --> 0:04:17.039 is the problem. That is the problem. And I also 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.200 think the average fiber content per person shipping on the 0:04:20.240 --> 0:04:24.479 street may have increased. That's the theory I have. I think, Well, 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:27.400 I think, if we're being honest, what happens is when 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:31.560 you're on heroin, you get constipated and then you release 0:04:31.680 --> 0:04:36.480 all of it at once, is what we're dealing with. Yeah, 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:39.560 um so Billy. In eighteen forty eight, the city of 0:04:39.560 --> 0:04:43.119 San Francisco's population was a mere eight hundred people, and again, 0:04:43.160 --> 0:04:46.000 it was basically just a big, muddy camp site. Um, 0:04:46.120 --> 0:04:48.360 there were more redwoods than people at this stage. And 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.120 there used to be a shipload of redwoods all over 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.440 San Francisco before we murdered all those priceless works of 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:55.880 natural art so that we could have, you know, like 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:59.760 the wee work buildings. Can you imagine if there were 0:05:00.560 --> 0:05:04.640 redwoods just all over the city now instead of the 0:05:04.680 --> 0:05:06.920 things that are there. Some of the things that are there, 0:05:06.960 --> 0:05:09.160 we're just like, no, like some of them. Yeah, we 0:05:09.200 --> 0:05:11.159 can keep like the five hundred Club, like the good 0:05:11.160 --> 0:05:15.839 bars and ship Yes, that's yeah, all of North Beaches, yes, yeah, 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:20.320 just a bunch of bars and redwoods and nothing else. Yeah, yeah, 0:05:20.360 --> 0:05:24.920 a couple of grocery stores. So yeah. On January, a 0:05:25.000 --> 0:05:28.440 carpenter building a mill near Coloma, California, found flakes of 0:05:28.480 --> 0:05:30.919 gold in the water. The news got out, and in 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:33.560 very short order, tens of thousands of Americans flitted into 0:05:33.560 --> 0:05:37.040 California's first gold rush. And California has kind of always 0:05:37.040 --> 0:05:39.960 been just a series of gold rushes ever since. That's 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.479 why there's forty million people here, because people are dumb 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:46.120 and they like they like easy money. Um. Also, the 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:50.080 weather Vegas an't getting smaller, No, no, it's not, thank God. 0:05:50.200 --> 0:05:55.240 Actually the selection, Thank god for last f one time. 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:57.880 I will say that that is that that you're looking 0:05:57.920 --> 0:06:01.160 at the mat. Huh, I'll be damned. Well they did 0:06:01.160 --> 0:06:06.760 it all right. I guess we'll keep gambling illegal everywhere else. 0:06:09.920 --> 0:06:12.960 You guys earned another four years. Well my thought was 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:16.520 like with that was like real quick or oh he's 0:06:16.560 --> 0:06:20.560 piste off everyone. Yeah, he's he's got Vegas angry. Yes, 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:27.200 and they're so easy to distract. Yes, Uh yeah, it 0:06:27.320 --> 0:06:30.359 is funny that he picked a fight with Philadelphia too. Yeah, 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:34.760 that's just you. Yeah, you can't. They'll they'll come to 0:06:34.839 --> 0:06:39.520 they'll cross anile to get in a fight. Uh, speaking 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.839 of fights, you know because the Oakland Raiders this is 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.960 close enough anyway. Uh yeah. So all these people start 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.120 flooding into California because they want to shipload of gold, 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:50.719 and the city of San Francisco, or the collection of 0:06:50.760 --> 0:06:54.640 tents that became San Francisco, grew rapidly from a population 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.880 of about eight hundred and eighteen forty eight to twenty 0:06:57.960 --> 0:07:04.760 thousand people by eighteen fifty. Um. Yeah, that's a lot. 0:07:05.839 --> 0:07:09.240 I just think of. Have you and we've been to 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:13.000 those cities like where the population explodes in the infrastructure 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:17.200 can't really handle it. Just traffic everywhere. Yes, that's just traffic. 0:07:17.680 --> 0:07:22.160 This is like before sewers. Yeah, like you see right 0:07:22.200 --> 0:07:24.440 now in a couple of cities in the world or 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:27.400 even in the United States. Um, you know, they grew 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:29.680 too fast. There was a sudden influx of people in 0:07:29.720 --> 0:07:33.000 the infrastructure can't keep up. And it's a problem, going 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:35.960 from eight hundred to twenty thousand people in two years 0:07:35.960 --> 0:07:38.600 as a calamity. It's like a hurricane hit Like it's 0:07:38.600 --> 0:07:42.800 a natural disaster, you know. Um, And it doesn't it 0:07:42.840 --> 0:07:45.480 doesn't go well. It creates a series of problems, most 0:07:45.480 --> 0:07:48.040 of which will actually sound eerily familiar to anyone who 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:50.760 lives in San Francisco today or who's just like driven 0:07:50.800 --> 0:07:52.720 through it. Uh. And I want to quote here from 0:07:52.720 --> 0:07:55.840 a paragraph in the Anals of San Francisco about the 0:07:55.880 --> 0:07:59.400 city culture during the gold Rush era. Despite the and 0:07:59.440 --> 0:08:02.480 again this is like written in fucking the eighteen fifties, 0:08:03.000 --> 0:08:05.720 despite the amazingly high cost of living and the extraordinary 0:08:05.720 --> 0:08:09.000 opportunities for frittering away money, everyone in daily San Francisco 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.280 was supremely confident that he would be able to return 0:08:11.400 --> 0:08:14.680 home with an incalculable amount of gold. Everything was conceived 0:08:14.720 --> 0:08:16.600 on a vast scale, and there was always plenty of 0:08:16.640 --> 0:08:19.720 cash available for any scheme that might be proposed, no 0:08:19.760 --> 0:08:24.640 matter how impossible or bizarre it seemed. Oh, how the 0:08:24.960 --> 0:08:30.320 times have changed. Yeah, it's a completely different city today. Wow, 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:33.760 you wouldn't write that exact same paragraph about San Francisco 0:08:33.920 --> 0:08:36.959 hundred and sixty years later. It's just that that that 0:08:37.080 --> 0:08:39.760 voice has changed now. It's like now it's like in 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:44.160 a land of ones and zeros. Yeah, no, bro, you'd 0:08:44.240 --> 0:08:49.240 plenty of cash for any plan you could propose. Yeah. No, 0:08:49.400 --> 0:08:52.360 they're like big cars, but they carry a lot of people, 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:56.920 you know those busses. No, no, no, because we don't 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:00.760 pay the driver a salary. Instead he could super mile 0:09:00.880 --> 0:09:02.640 fee based on an app and we don't have to 0:09:02.679 --> 0:09:08.400 give him healthcare. Brilliant, Yeah, brilliant. Why do you see 0:09:08.440 --> 0:09:14.640 what I'm gonna do to Rhodes. That's we're laughing, But 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:18.960 that's a conversation. Yeah, that is a conversation. I'm excited 0:09:19.000 --> 0:09:21.720 for Rotor without an E, the app to come out 0:09:21.800 --> 0:09:24.959 and privatize the filling of potholes so that there are 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:28.920 somehow more of them. Um do that it doesn't work. 0:09:31.600 --> 0:09:34.880 So most depictions of San Francisco in the eighteen fifties 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:38.280 portrayed as again essentially just a pile of brothels, casinos, 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.679 and crude tent neighborhoods filled with filthy male miners. One 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:44.360 of the first problems that this explosion population had is 0:09:44.400 --> 0:09:48.320 that there were almost no women in the entire city. That's, oh, 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:51.560 that's not good for the prostitution. Well, it's good for 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:54.640 the prostitutes that are there. Well that, yeah, it's good 0:09:54.640 --> 0:09:56.719 for Brenda. Brenda is having a good time. It's a 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:03.720 seller's market for Brenda. Hey, that's so. One miner during 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.720 this period is purported to have acquired a single woman 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.720 slipper and made a good living, charging his fellows a 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:15.359 dollar to touch it. I know that that you understand 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.160 how that works to do you know what? I just 0:10:17.200 --> 0:10:20.200 thought of times in my life from it, I could 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:21.920 say I could see making a living doing that, and 0:10:21.920 --> 0:10:27.560 so yeah. A less ethical business person in the same 0:10:27.600 --> 0:10:30.400 field was a Liza Farnham, who operated a boat called 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.600 the Bride Ship that ferried women from the East coast 0:10:33.600 --> 0:10:35.880 to the west, presumably so they could marry. Would schever 0:10:36.000 --> 0:10:44.040 miners had the best luck and uncovering gold. Yeah, time period, 0:10:44.040 --> 0:10:46.280 if we're being honest, that is not the worst way 0:10:46.360 --> 0:10:49.240 people were getting married. No, because there's a decent chance 0:10:49.240 --> 0:10:51.719 you'll die on the boat. That's way better than being 0:10:51.720 --> 0:11:00.200 married back the yea. So, food was, however, by a 0:11:00.240 --> 0:11:03.480 wide margin, the most expensive thing in the city because again, basically, 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.200 no one lived in California at this point. I say 0:11:06.440 --> 0:11:09.280 basically no, like white people lived in California, and the 0:11:09.320 --> 0:11:12.160 Indigenous people were not exactly psyched to help out a 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:15.760 bunch of gold miners, um. And also you know genocide 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:18.840 and such. Um. So, yeah, there was not a great 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.520 deal of farming infrastructure. There was not a great deal 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:24.520 of food for this sudden this what had essentially been 0:11:24.520 --> 0:11:26.680 a small town that had turned into what at that 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:30.000 point was like a mid size city almost overnight. Um, 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:32.560 they're just like, wasn't fucking food And for an example 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:35.800 of how like incredibly expensive ship was in San Francisco 0:11:35.840 --> 0:11:38.120 at this point, it was actually worse than it is 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:44.960 today by comparison. So restaurants in imag because it's incredibly 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:51.760 expensive to eat. That's my opening joke. The taco My 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:55.400 opening joke is literally to the crowd like, oh do 0:11:55.440 --> 0:11:57.839 you all are you all roommates? Is that how you 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:02.720 the whole crowd roommate? And they everyone laughs every time 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:08.320 because it's funny. Yeah, because they're actually two different households exactly. Yeah. 0:12:08.360 --> 0:12:11.360 So at this period of time in the early eighteen fifties, 0:12:11.800 --> 0:12:14.560 restaurants in town charged a dollar for a slice of 0:12:14.559 --> 0:12:17.280 bread two dollars if it was buttered, which is the 0:12:17.320 --> 0:12:22.720 equivalent of fifty six dollars in modern money. Wow, it's 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:27.000 neck and neck, it is. That's because San France, where 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:31.120 that the toast craze came from. Oh, you can get 0:12:31.120 --> 0:12:33.439 some good toast in San Francisco. Look, they've gotten good 0:12:33.440 --> 0:12:36.120 at making toast over the years. I guess it's always 0:12:36.120 --> 0:12:41.359 been a staple. Uh. In eighteen fifty a nice breakfast 0:12:41.400 --> 0:12:44.840 for two, which consisted of cheese, butter, sardines, bread, and 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:51.760 two beers would cost the equivalent of modern dollars. So 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:57.080 it's the same, it's the same. Yeah. As it's probably 0:12:57.080 --> 0:12:59.160 clear by now, the real money to be made in 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.240 San Francisco ring the gold Rush was not in mining gold, 0:13:02.440 --> 0:13:04.920 but was in selling miners the things that they needed 0:13:04.920 --> 0:13:07.839 it radically inflated prices, which is kind of the same. 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:10.280 There's a fun story from Redding, California, which is the 0:13:10.280 --> 0:13:12.920 center of the marijuana industry that nobody ever talks about 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:16.200 because nobody wants to think about reading all that much. 0:13:17.040 --> 0:13:19.640 Just on the highway, so it's easy. It's where they 0:13:20.000 --> 0:13:23.080 a lot of the sales. Yeah, and it's it's a 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.520 good growing area all around it because it's dry but 0:13:25.600 --> 0:13:27.880 also hot, like people talk about Humboldt, but it's a 0:13:27.880 --> 0:13:31.440 bit wet there. Um. One of the big things that 0:13:31.600 --> 0:13:33.760 is like a major product in the pot industry of 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:35.920 turkey bags, which is what you put the pot into 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:37.959 when you process it. And they're the bags that you 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.720 would brian a turkey in. And the company that made 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.080 these bags noticed that year round they were selling a 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:46.360 shipload of turkey bags in Redding, California. So they said, 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:49.160 like a representative out to figure out, like people just 0:13:49.200 --> 0:13:51.640 eating turkey all year round in this town. And then 0:13:51.640 --> 0:13:53.320 he found out and he had to like quietly go 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:58.840 back home, like we can't really advertise on this. I 0:13:59.000 --> 0:14:03.240 just this is just interviewed a lady in southern Humboldt. 0:14:03.840 --> 0:14:09.320 And during the camp days, a bunch of revenuers is like, 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:12.280 as I as I was pointed out they said the 0:14:12.400 --> 0:14:14.559 rs I was like, well, moonshine, they call the revenuers 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:17.600 and there again and they went this guy was selling 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:25.520 uh black pipe and he sold way anyone ever had 0:14:25.680 --> 0:14:29.320 ever ever sold ever. And they're like, let me see 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:35.440 your books that. The old man was like, nah, no, 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.320 you don't need to know why I'm selling this much 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:40.960 of this stuff because if because you guys will make 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.480 them stop doing this. And I like money, man, I 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:48.320 ain't doing anything illegal. I just like that. The old 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:53.200 man was like, no, no, I ain't turning that money 0:14:53.200 --> 0:14:57.520 fountain officer, nothing I need to be doing that. So 0:14:57.600 --> 0:14:59.880 the same thing is happening in San Francisco. During this period. 0:15:00.000 --> 0:15:02.520 People are figuring out the people who are really making 0:15:02.560 --> 0:15:06.480 money aren't mining gold. They're mining miners, you know, um 0:15:06.560 --> 0:15:09.800 and yeah. The most intelligent of them realize that, you know, 0:15:10.240 --> 0:15:12.760 the easiest thing to sell miners and the most profitable 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:17.240 thing would be food, um, and sex. But there was 0:15:17.280 --> 0:15:20.200 more competition in the sex business. Now. The most desired 0:15:20.240 --> 0:15:23.520 food stuff in all of the Bay Area was eggs. 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.760 Not only are eggs filled with protein, they're necessary ingredient 0:15:26.760 --> 0:15:28.520 in all manner of pastries and cakes. You know, you 0:15:28.560 --> 0:15:31.920 can't make fucking bagels or whatever without or whatever. I 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:35.160 don't know, you cant of together without eggs. Yeah, they're 0:15:35.160 --> 0:15:38.160 critical and a last for the growing polity gold rush. 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.800 Arai San Francisco was completely the funk out of eggs. 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:44.640 The problems started when the first ten thousand men are 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:47.520 so flooded into the city and devoured every single chicken 0:15:47.560 --> 0:15:49.720 and rooster that they could get their hands on, like 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.800 a whole word of protein hungry locusts. They just ate everything, 0:15:53.120 --> 0:15:55.600 like there's enough chicken to feed eight hundred people. People 0:15:55.640 --> 0:15:58.080 move in and eat it all overnight, and suddenly there's 0:15:58.120 --> 0:16:01.800 no more birds to lay eggs. Uh. Now, it's not 0:16:01.880 --> 0:16:05.200 quite certain why, but no additional birds arrived for years 0:16:05.240 --> 0:16:08.200 to restock the Bay area's farms. And this is a 0:16:08.200 --> 0:16:11.080 bit of a historical mystery because both southern California and 0:16:11.160 --> 0:16:14.600 Baja had farms and had chickens, and even in eighteen 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:16.400 forty nine, it wouldn't have been hard to send a 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:19.440 few boatloads of birds up the coast um and there 0:16:19.440 --> 0:16:22.160 are different theories about why none of them actually were, 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:25.760 Like there were no just no populations of breeding chickens 0:16:25.880 --> 0:16:28.080 in the Bay area. One of the theories comes from 0:16:28.080 --> 0:16:30.480 an artist named Eva Croissant, who was one of the 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:34.120 world's top experts on the very weird subject of today's episodes, 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:36.600 and she cites some convincing evidence that a mix of 0:16:36.640 --> 0:16:39.720 two factors contributed to the lack of poultry. Number One, 0:16:39.880 --> 0:16:43.320 chicken feed wasn't terribly short supply, and thus chickens were 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:46.920 primarily fed garbage, which didn't help their health. And some 0:16:46.960 --> 0:16:49.880 sort of horrible bird plague kept killing off imported birds, 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:51.880 because we do have cases of people bringing in birds 0:16:52.040 --> 0:16:55.320 and then the lull die basically overnight. So for whatever 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.840 the cause was, it was impossible to establish a population 0:16:58.880 --> 0:17:02.200 of chickens in the city of San Francisco for years. 0:17:02.840 --> 0:17:05.119 As a result of this, in a city famed for gold, 0:17:05.160 --> 0:17:08.080 one of the most valuable items was the humble HNN egg. 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:11.040 It was not uncommon for eggs to be imported from 0:17:11.080 --> 0:17:14.040 as far away from Chile, like they're they're bringing Chilean 0:17:14.160 --> 0:17:17.760 eggs into San Francisco because there's no laying eggs. And 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:23.840 you see that, I think, yeah, and I I could 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:29.399 see those assholes still doing stuff like that today. Yeah, 0:17:28.840 --> 0:17:33.520 that's a Chilean egg. Motherfucker. That's you're gonna have to 0:17:33.720 --> 0:17:36.000 pay a lot of money for these Chilean chickens. You 0:17:36.000 --> 0:17:38.919 know where Chili is. No, Yeah, it's real, real fancy. 0:17:38.960 --> 0:17:44.959 The eggs very they feed the chicken setting. So the 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:47.800 price of eggs at its peak was near the equivalent 0:17:47.880 --> 0:17:50.480 of thirty dollars in a modern dollars an egg in 0:17:50.520 --> 0:17:55.280 San Francisco. Um, yeah, I know some people who would 0:17:55.280 --> 0:17:57.919 be very rich based on their backyards if that was 0:17:57.960 --> 0:18:00.600 still the case. One journalist at the time noted that 0:18:00.600 --> 0:18:03.199 the city of San Francisco was desperate for eggs and 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:05.159 that a fortune would be made by any man or 0:18:05.200 --> 0:18:08.160 woman daring enough to figure out how to provide them. 0:18:08.200 --> 0:18:11.080 And it just so happened, Billy, that twenty six miles 0:18:11.119 --> 0:18:15.120 off the coast of the Bay lay the fire Aland Islands, 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.439 known as the Islands of the Dead to the coast 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:20.040 Miwalk tribe. The fire Lands are some of the least 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:23.679 pleasant land on planet Earth. Two hundred and eleven acres 0:18:23.720 --> 0:18:27.760 of rocky cliffs and outcroppings of solid granite. They're basically giant, 0:18:27.880 --> 0:18:30.520 sharp boulders in the middle of the sea. That I 0:18:30.560 --> 0:18:31.919 was going to say, it's like it just sounds like 0:18:31.960 --> 0:18:35.840 big rocks. Yeah, they're huge, deadly rocks. One representative of 0:18:35.840 --> 0:18:38.560 the National Marine Sanctuary described them as looking like a 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.360 piece of the moon that fell into the sea. Now, 0:18:41.400 --> 0:18:45.360 the far Lands have never hosted human populations naturally, like 0:18:45.359 --> 0:18:47.359 like the indigenous people didn't live there. They call them 0:18:47.359 --> 0:18:49.600 the Islands of the dead. Like, don't fucking go there, 0:18:49.800 --> 0:18:52.439 you'll get killed. It's a bad place to be, partly 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:55.200 because the seas around them are incredibly rough, and until 0:18:55.240 --> 0:18:57.840 people had kind of like more modern boats, even when 0:18:57.840 --> 0:19:00.399 people had modern boats, boats crashed into them all of 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.080 the goddamn time. I was gonna say, it's still just 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.480 it's needless, you guys, you don't need to do this. Yeah, 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.360 And there was really nothing there. The island's only natural 0:19:09.400 --> 0:19:12.840 inhabitants were hordes of sea lions and hundreds of thousands 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:16.879 of birds. The most common species was called the common mirror. 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:19.760 It's a small ocean bird with exactly one note where 0:19:19.800 --> 0:19:22.840 the attribute. Its eggs are the size of soft balls, 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:24.919 so it's smaller than a chicken, but it's eggs are 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:27.720 like twice the size of a chicken's eggs. Now Mere 0:19:27.760 --> 0:19:29.280 eggs are actually if you look them up online. They're 0:19:29.320 --> 0:19:30.960 really cool looking eggs. I kind of want to get 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:33.600 some and try them. They're rounded at the bottom and 0:19:33.680 --> 0:19:35.160 narrow on the top, kind of like one of those 0:19:35.200 --> 0:19:38.919 Russian nesting dolls. Um And it's theorized that this is 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.119 because they lay them on the sides of cliffs and 0:19:41.480 --> 0:19:44.000 stops them from like rolling over. I really need. They're 0:19:44.080 --> 0:19:46.840 very vividly colored. Some of them are like turquoise, and 0:19:46.880 --> 0:19:49.280 they're covered in like black markings that look almost like 0:19:49.320 --> 0:19:52.760 alien handwriting. They're like like a nice like a nice 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:58.640 mug from like from like, yeah, they look like somebody 0:19:58.680 --> 0:20:02.360 in Taus made them, and like, yeah, that's what you described. 0:20:02.400 --> 0:20:04.280 I just thought of Aunt I had. I'm like, she 0:20:04.320 --> 0:20:08.040 would love this. Side note question, Billy, when I said, 0:20:08.080 --> 0:20:10.159 do you want to come back on behind the Pastors? 0:20:10.200 --> 0:20:14.160 Did you think we would be talking about hex? I don't. 0:20:14.200 --> 0:20:21.600 I never know. I didn't. I didn't think that the 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:25.399 president of the United States that would discuss stuff that 0:20:25.440 --> 0:20:30.720 we had discussed the bleach that was like, I was like, 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:33.240 I don't like that. I'm ahead of this. I don't 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:37.080 like that. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not wild about the 0:20:37.119 --> 0:20:39.639 fact that the thing that we laughed at because it 0:20:39.720 --> 0:20:43.520 was absurd was then urged for people to do by 0:20:43.520 --> 0:20:48.320 the president during a pandemic. Yeah, when everyone was joking 0:20:48.359 --> 0:20:50.639 about it. When it happened, I was like, this isn't good. 0:20:50.840 --> 0:20:54.399 This is a problem. People are gonna die. Yeah. I 0:20:54.440 --> 0:20:56.880 was like, people are already doing this, and if the 0:20:56.920 --> 0:21:00.840 president mentions it, it's not good. People are like, inn't 0:21:00.880 --> 0:21:03.520 this funny. I'm like, I wish it was a dude. 0:21:04.760 --> 0:21:07.439 That's the thing. That's what's beautiful about the thing that 0:21:07.560 --> 0:21:10.480 happened with the Four Seasons because most of the things 0:21:10.480 --> 0:21:12.639 that people have thought was funny that have happened this 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:15.399 year aren't really funny if you understand what's going on. 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:20.080 They're terrifying. That one was actually that's just perfect. Yeah 0:21:20.119 --> 0:21:24.000 I did. I laughed that laugh where I didn't make 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:26.399 noise when I first read about it because I was 0:21:26.480 --> 0:21:29.439 like I did that thing where I was like, who's 0:21:29.520 --> 0:21:32.160 behind like, because I was like some comedian did this 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:37.480 is very funny? Yeah? I did do that. Did you 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:40.880 also do like the dry heat? Because it was like 0:21:41.359 --> 0:21:43.879 it was like my little toddler crying where I was 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:45.720 like the harder I thought about it, the more I 0:21:45.760 --> 0:21:49.560 was like that is, it's every now and then Karma's 0:21:49.640 --> 0:21:52.480 just like here you go. What was even What was 0:21:52.520 --> 0:21:54.720 even better about that one was being able to share 0:21:54.760 --> 0:21:57.000 it with people who hadn't seen the story yet and 0:21:57.040 --> 0:22:02.119 then got to appreciate their initial laugh about it's still funny. Sorry, 0:22:02.240 --> 0:22:06.879 that eggs my bad. Perfect, No, Sophie, not back to eggs, 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:09.800 because we're professionals and that means it's time to go 0:22:09.880 --> 0:22:14.800 to ads. Oh see, Sophie, sometimes I bring us to 0:22:14.840 --> 0:22:16.840 ads and you don't warn me because I remember and 0:22:16.840 --> 0:22:18.879 you don't. So there you go. I'm a hack on 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:22.919 a fraud, Robert. I'll fire myself now you're making me 0:22:22.960 --> 0:22:26.879 feel bad. It was a harsh treatment. You really you 0:22:26.920 --> 0:22:29.479 really spun that back at me. Now the guns pointed 0:22:29.600 --> 0:22:34.800 in the other direction, just like Raytheon brand shoot yourself 0:22:34.800 --> 0:22:37.840 in the face rifles. Wanted a rifle that you're going 0:22:37.880 --> 0:22:41.120 to happen? Ye, I don't know. That's not my best 0:22:41.240 --> 0:22:46.480 Raytheon joke. Nope, but I'll take it. I'm sorry, ads, 0:22:52.480 --> 0:23:01.679 we're back. Uh well, Billy eggs, eggs eggs. So I 0:23:01.720 --> 0:23:04.480 do suggest looking up mirror eggs because they're they're kind 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:07.680 of fucking awesome. Actually, they really neat eggs. Uh there 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:10.480 and yeah, they're they're edible, um, although they have a 0:23:10.520 --> 0:23:13.960