Speaker 1: Attention celebrity listeners. I hope they got your attention. Hey everyone,
Speaker 1: this is Chuck And as some of you have heard,
Speaker 1: I have announced that I have a new solo podcast
Speaker 1: coming out in November called Movie Crush. UH. The show
Speaker 1: where I interview your favorite people about their favorite movie.
Speaker 1: And that's along and short of it's really cool. I've
Speaker 1: had a bunch of guests in the studio uh and
Speaker 1: just had a nice chat about movie fandom in general
Speaker 1: and what their favorite movie is and why. And I
Speaker 1: need more guests. So if you are a stealthy celebrity listener,
Speaker 1: if you're an actor, or a writer or a producer,
Speaker 1: uh director, if you're a musician, if you are a
Speaker 1: book author. I've had all kinds of people in the studio,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of the point, is to hear from
Speaker 1: from neat folks of all walks of life. If you
Speaker 1: were out there and you want to be on Movie Crush,
Speaker 1: I would love, love love to have you. Um, if
Speaker 1: you're in Atlanta or going through Atlanta with a movie project,
Speaker 1: that's great. If not, we had partner studios in l
Speaker 1: A and New York, UH, and we can work it out.
Speaker 1: If you live in uh a fly over state even
Speaker 1: let's say so, hit me up. Just send me an
Speaker 1: email to movie Crush at how stuff Works dot com
Speaker 1: and put in the subject line movie Crush guest and
Speaker 1: I'll know it's you and I appreciate it. It's a
Speaker 1: lot of fun, trust me and um here's two recording
Speaker 1: podcast together. Thanks. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from
Speaker 1: how Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry
Speaker 1: Roland and this is Stuff you Should Know trying on
Speaker 1: some new stuff. The two least extreme guys covering yet
Speaker 1: another extreme sports topic. I'm extreme in my easy goingness,
Speaker 1: extremely easy going, extremely laid back. Yeah, I always feel
Speaker 1: weird when we do uh, what do we do? Base
Speaker 1: jumping and parkoury and uh, I just feel wholly unqualified.
Speaker 1: It's a great way to start out a shop, right
Speaker 1: share It is like, don't listen to a word we say.
Speaker 1: But now, these things always have like the coolest backstories,
Speaker 1: and there's always like a handful of people who like
Speaker 1: just take it to the next level, and there's always
Speaker 1: like underground like up stars. It's it's like all of
Speaker 1: those things, So I find these pretty pretty interesting. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to just focus on these entirely. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: I think we'd both be dissatisfied with our work, but
Speaker 1: ex cast with Josh and Chuck. Yeah, oh actually yeah,
Speaker 1: I see. No, I'm disregarding it stuff, but I like
Speaker 1: them still. Yeah. I think the history for sure of
Speaker 1: this is super interesting. Yeah, and if you're if you
Speaker 1: aren't familiar, we didn't misspell the title of this episode.
Speaker 1: Buildering is actually a combination of buildings, like you walk into,
Speaker 1: maybe eat luncheon, possibly do some work, um, you know,
Speaker 1: go on to Facebook in sure, Yeah, you can do
Speaker 1: those in some buildings, um, get chased out of the
Speaker 1: basement via ghost. There's a lot of things that can
Speaker 1: happen with a building, so everybody knows what a building is.
Speaker 1: Then there's also something called bouldering, which is um climbing
Speaker 1: huge enormous rocks. Basically, it's like um, like rock climbing,
Speaker 1: but but it's like a rather than a mountain or
Speaker 1: a cliff face or something like that, it's an actual boulder,
Speaker 1: like a huge giant boulder, And um, I think it's
Speaker 1: it's harder than than rock climber. It can be depending
Speaker 1: on the boulder, I'm sure. Um. But if you put
Speaker 1: those two things together, you get this new term, this
Speaker 1: relatively new term called buildering, and it is basically climbing
Speaker 1: those buildings that we mentioned before. Yeah. I didn't know
Speaker 1: this was a term either. Honestly, I didn't need because
Speaker 1: when I saw it, I went, huh did you? And
Speaker 1: then it sucks you into the article and you said,
Speaker 1: I've got to learn more about this. Well yeah, and
Speaker 1: then when I clicked on and I said, oh, these
Speaker 1: are just those those wackos who uh climb you know,
Speaker 1: tall towers illegally, mostly illegally. You got all that right.
Speaker 1: It's illegal almost across the board. The buildings they usually
Speaker 1: climb are tall, especially the ones they get pressed. And
Speaker 1: every single person who does this is a wacko. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll go over this, but they a lot of
Speaker 1: times we'll get arrested and stuff. Um. The same as
Speaker 1: uh as as the tight rope walker that that wacky
Speaker 1: French guy what was his name? Ha ha ha ha, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the guy who walks between the World Trade Center towers
Speaker 1: and Man on Wire. I think we've gone over this
Speaker 1: Man on Wire, great documentary very bad movie, was it?
Speaker 1: I just don't know what they did to uh to
Speaker 1: Ron John's eyes? Ron John what's his name? Not Ron John,
Speaker 1: Don John Don John Don John. Yeah. Remember he made
Speaker 1: a movie about a guy who was addicted to internet
Speaker 1: porn but started dating Scarlett Johnson. What yeah? Wait wait yes,
Speaker 1: Don John Don Juan. Wasn't it? No? I think it
Speaker 1: was John. Okay, you're thinking of Don Juan DeMarco, which
Speaker 1: was a great movie. But you're talking about j g L.
Speaker 1: That's I didn't know. You're talking about a character that's
Speaker 1: like the guy's not called any of those things, you know,
Speaker 1: but he like he wrote that movie that was like
Speaker 1: his movie, His baby, that was pretty good. They said,
Speaker 1: what do you want to do? You can do anything
Speaker 1: you want, and he's like, well, I have this one idea.
Speaker 1: I want to make out with Scarlett Joe answer all right.
Speaker 1: I liked him in Third Rock from the Sun. I
Speaker 1: never saw that. It was a surprisingly good sitcom actually,
Speaker 1: and it was pretty well written and well acted, stellar cast. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: anything with what's his face? Syndum super into. Yeah, everybody
Speaker 1: loves what's his face? I know who you're talking about.
Speaker 1: What's his face? I'm blanking everything. You know, we should
Speaker 1: tell people were recording in the morning. That's why. Oh
Speaker 1: my brain is so foggy. I hadn't really thought about that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's gonna make a substantial difference. It's gonna
Speaker 1: really drag this one down. I think we haven't done
Speaker 1: that in a long time. No, for good reason. It's
Speaker 1: John Lithgow that you're thinking. That's right. But I'm also drunk,
Speaker 1: so hopefully it'll from the night before, from last night
Speaker 1: I thought you stunk. Um, I think so yet. No,
Speaker 1: I didn't actually drink a thing last night. For the record,
Speaker 1: I did not either. Oh good, we're both teetotally last night.
Speaker 1: So um, yes, bad movie. The only good thing about
Speaker 1: the Man on Wire movie was, um, some of the
Speaker 1: shots of the actual walk itself. Most of that looked
Speaker 1: really astounding. But um man, it was so bad. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I think that there's an overreliance on special
Speaker 1: effects these days to really move a movie along, rather
Speaker 1: than good old fashioned plot and and writing and dialogue.
Speaker 1: They're just like, oh no, no, we're gonna have these
Speaker 1: great shots. Are these great effects? Or this thing's gonna
Speaker 1: blow up. I mean that's long been a problem. I
Speaker 1: mean it's like what action movies are made of, right,
Speaker 1: but it seems to have crept its way into movies
Speaker 1: all over the spectrum. Yeah, and it sounds like what
Speaker 1: you're talking about, and this is well and he did this,
Speaker 1: he did this. Uh, he broke the third wall and
Speaker 1: did a lot of talking to the audience in this
Speaker 1: ridiculous from accent, and um did he really? Yeah? Man,
Speaker 1: it was. It was all just weird, a lot of
Speaker 1: weird choices. And I think it's also a case of
Speaker 1: a documentary that's so good just stop there. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: don't need to see it played out fictionally, you know.
Speaker 1: I mean that's like one of the pinnacles of documentary filmmaker.
Speaker 1: Al Right, well we killed some time. Yeah, that was great.
Speaker 1: Check we can So we're talking about the the guy
Speaker 1: you're talking about. I can't believe neither one of us
Speaker 1: can remember the actual man's name. Um. He he walked
Speaker 1: on a tight rope between the World Trade Center towers.
Speaker 1: That's not buildering. Um, there are people. There's a guy
Speaker 1: named Shipwreck Kelly who used to um go up on
Speaker 1: like the top of like a construction site and like
Speaker 1: stack chairs and sit on top of them. That's an
Speaker 1: absolutely insane not building. Buildering is strictly climbing up scaling
Speaker 1: a building on the outside to preferably get to the top, right,
Speaker 1: And there's all different ways you can do it, like
Speaker 1: you can do it um free climbing, which is absolutely
Speaker 1: totally and completely insane. And also I want to go
Speaker 1: on record here about this as well. Do not do this.
Speaker 1: Do not. I don't care if you're one of the
Speaker 1: people were talking about. I'm I'm begging with you to
Speaker 1: stop doing what you're doing. It's one of the most
Speaker 1: dangerous things in person can do. You're climbing a building,
Speaker 1: and a lot of buildings are not made to be climbed.
Speaker 1: Some of them are like, well, yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: an obvious building to climb. Others are like how are
Speaker 1: you doing this, especially if you're free climbing. But there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other implements people people can use that
Speaker 1: will go over as well. But that that is building.
Speaker 1: It's not like Philippe Petite who walked on a wire
Speaker 1: right right, that's sorry, I had to look up that name.
Speaker 1: I'm glad you did to stop people from screaming in
Speaker 1: their car. Yeah. Should we talk about the history, Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's because this was to me the most interesting thing
Speaker 1: about all of this is when I think of buildering
Speaker 1: or climbing buildings, I think, well, this has been going
Speaker 1: on for probably thirty forty years max, maybe about the
Speaker 1: time that Mountain Dew really turned extreme. That's right, Uh,
Speaker 1: not true at all. And I was genuinely shocked to
Speaker 1: know that people have been climbing buildings and in an
Speaker 1: extreme sports way. They just didn't call it that. Then,
Speaker 1: since there have been tall buildings right like in nineteen
Speaker 1: hundred is when this started, which is about the time
Speaker 1: people started building like genuinely tall buildings. Yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 1: There's a guy called the father of modern urban climbing, uh,
Speaker 1: Jeoffrey Winthrop Young, And he wrote a book, small book
Speaker 1: called a guide book, if you will, called The Roof
Speaker 1: Climbers Guide to Trinity about Trinity College buildings in Cambridge, England.
Speaker 1: And basically it was like, here's how you do it, mates,
Speaker 1: here's what you should climb on campus, and here's the
Speaker 1: best way to go about it. Yeah, and like there
Speaker 1: were even little diagrams that was like that would show
Speaker 1: you which way to climb. He would reference like this
Speaker 1: one window sill or there's a ledge next to this
Speaker 1: one drain pipe or the actual drain pipe work. Like
Speaker 1: he really kind of spelled out how you could make
Speaker 1: your way up to each olding and it was kind
Speaker 1: of like this cool underground thing to do on Trinity
Speaker 1: College's campus. That's right, And I can't still it's hard
Speaker 1: to believe to me that this is going on a
Speaker 1: uh yeah yeah, I mean college didn't have always been
Speaker 1: college students, So don't you think that's true? You know? So? Um,
Speaker 1: Jeoffrey Winthrop Young his name really is kind of fun
Speaker 1: to say, isn't it. Um, he published this is kind
Speaker 1: of like a little underground smash. From what I understand,
Speaker 1: the the deans of the college were not happy about
Speaker 1: this to suppress it, right. Um. But then almost forty
Speaker 1: years later, another pamphlet or mini book came out and
Speaker 1: it was written student pseudonymously by someone named Whipple Snaith
Speaker 1: turned out to be Noel Symington. Another great game, and
Speaker 1: he he published something called The Night Climbers of Cambridge,
Speaker 1: another university in Cambridge, and um basically did the same thing.
Speaker 1: It was you could even call it a follow up,
Speaker 1: and he actually I think coined that term night climbing,
Speaker 1: which is still used around that town today to denote
Speaker 1: climbing up buildings at night. And the whole reason you
Speaker 1: do it at night it is because you don't want
Speaker 1: to get caught. Yeah, it's crazy that Cambridge was the
Speaker 1: was the birth of modern you know, extreme climbing. Yeah. Uh.
Speaker 1: And here in the United States, however, when it really
Speaker 1: started happening was when we started building skyscrapers, that is
Speaker 1: to say, the the first like years of the twentieth century. Uh,
Speaker 1: and there were it's weird there. It seems like there's
Speaker 1: been a lot of Spiderman and human flies and think
Speaker 1: they maybe he should just be a little more original
Speaker 1: rather than just say I'm the new Spider Man, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: And for God's sake, that they should stop wearing Spider
Speaker 1: Man outfits when they do this, because that just looks
Speaker 1: kind of silly. And while we're on it, they should
Speaker 1: stop making Spider Man movies over and over again. Oh
Speaker 1: the new one is so good though, is it? I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it. Yeah, And I'm totally against the whole
Speaker 1: thing where it's like and there's a new guy, but
Speaker 1: this new one really like kind of captured the comic
Speaker 1: book thing. Okay, I'll give it a shot. Yeah, I was.
Speaker 1: I was pretty taken with it. Okay. So, yeah, we
Speaker 1: started building skyscrapers here in the US and almost out
Speaker 1: of the gate, people are like, I want to climb that,
Speaker 1: and some people didn't, like you were saying. There was
Speaker 1: one guy who's the Human Fly, the original human Fly,
Speaker 1: I think, and supposedly he got that nickname from Grover Cleveland,
Speaker 1: president at the time. But this guy's name was Harry H.
Speaker 1: Gardner and he was quite a character. Actually, yeah, did
Speaker 1: you look up pictures of this dude. It's crazy. He
Speaker 1: looks like, uh, I mean, I don't know what I expected,
Speaker 1: maybe that he would just look a little different from
Speaker 1: his peers of the day, but he literally looks like
Speaker 1: he walked out of an accounting office in New York
Speaker 1: City and started climbing buildings. Yeah, that's basically it's basically
Speaker 1: what he did. And he got really good at it too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he got the slick back hair and the glasses. And
Speaker 1: there's one great picture of him. He would usually wear
Speaker 1: this kind of look like a weird white jumpsuit was
Speaker 1: his outfit as the Human Fly. But um, there's this
Speaker 1: one that one great picture I hope you saw it
Speaker 1: where he's hanging off of a building ledge and a
Speaker 1: full three piece suit like doffing his cap. I did
Speaker 1: see that. Pretty neat, Yeah he had he had a
Speaker 1: little bit of pinoche. You could say, yes, yeah, is
Speaker 1: there anything Okay, No, there is something more unsettling. But something,
Speaker 1: something very unsettling, is old timey athletic wear, you know.
Speaker 1: And the other thing I thought of that's even more
Speaker 1: unsettling his old timey wheelchairs. The weaker ones. They look
Speaker 1: neither comfortable nor safe. No, and they're they're clearly haunted
Speaker 1: by their past occupants. Yeah, for sure, the haunted wheelchair.
Speaker 1: That's a good short story. I think so too. Man
Speaker 1: um so Gardner are one of his first big moves
Speaker 1: as he climbed Detroit News is twelve story uh Ad
Speaker 1: building in nineteen sixteen. And as you'll see, with most
Speaker 1: of these folks, they don't I mean they call it
Speaker 1: night climbing. But aside from the early days, they kind
Speaker 1: of said, you know what, that's kind of for the birds.
Speaker 1: Day climbing is where it's at because we kind of
Speaker 1: want people to see us. Yeah, because I mean, at
Speaker 1: the time, people didn't have a lot to do. You know,
Speaker 1: it's a big thing, like you could sit around and
Speaker 1: and read and that's great, but people were looking for
Speaker 1: stuff to do during the day too. So yeah, like
Speaker 1: you you could see Daredevil's doing crazy stuff in the
Speaker 1: cities around this time. And one of them was that
Speaker 1: climb of the Detroit News building. Did you say it
Speaker 1: was twelve stories? Yeah, twelve stories and you know he
Speaker 1: hit it right at noon when people could leave their
Speaker 1: offices at lunch leave their martinis on the table. Um.
Speaker 1: And the Detroit News actually covered it, and all the
Speaker 1: newspapers were always knocked out by these, you know, feats
Speaker 1: of daring do uh And they said they dared not cheer.
Speaker 1: Men stood and stared with bulging eyes. Women hugged their
Speaker 1: babies to their breasts and held their breath. Yeah it's
Speaker 1: a lot. It reads easier than it than it speaks
Speaker 1: that line. Yes, you're right, but um, so this was
Speaker 1: like a huge deal in Detroit, and so Gardner was like, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just do it again. It was pretty easy this time.
Speaker 1: I lived. Let's let me press my luck another time,
Speaker 1: let me cheat death again. So we scheduled another one
Speaker 1: just a couple of days later. But um, Apparently the
Speaker 1: crowds that turned out were so massive and throwing the
Speaker 1: area and just disrupted everything around there that they're like,
Speaker 1: we we can't do this, you can't climb, so they
Speaker 1: canceled it. Yeah, it's kind of a bummer, but he
Speaker 1: would not be deterred. He would go on to climb
Speaker 1: many buildings, including the sixteen story Empire Building in Birmingham, Alabama,
Speaker 1: which I didn't know Birmingham had. I know, this is
Speaker 1: like back in the time when any city had a
Speaker 1: shot at being a great American city. You know. Oh
Speaker 1: he had to do is get a little investment, maybe
Speaker 1: has some cattle or timber or something, and then build
Speaker 1: some skyscrapers. That's right in Birmingham is one of the
Speaker 1: great American cities, by the way. Uh. And then in Vancouver,
Speaker 1: and it seems like a lot of this has happened
Speaker 1: over the years. In Vancouver, Um, the coup, the seventeen
Speaker 1: story World Building. Uh, there he climbed as well. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: so he's like traveling North America climbing these buildings is
Speaker 1: like a public spectacle. The President calls him the human fly. Um,
Speaker 1: he's feeling pretty great and then all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: he just drops out of public view and thence he
Speaker 1: drops off the side of the building. No, he didn't.
Speaker 1: No one knows what happened to him. They don't know
Speaker 1: how he died, where he went, or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But supposedly the best guess is that he was found
Speaker 1: he was murdered in Paris at the Eiffel Tower, because
Speaker 1: there was an unidentified body that apparently matched his description
Speaker 1: that was found beaten to death at the base of
Speaker 1: the Eiffel Tower in I think six or something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: imagine a lot of people didn't get beaten to death
Speaker 1: in Paris either back then. No, they were taking a
Speaker 1: break after the rain of tear. They're like, that really
Speaker 1: got out of hand. Let's all just be peaceful for
Speaker 1: a while. Shall we take a break? Yeah, alright, we'll
Speaker 1: go chalk up and uh scale Jerry's desk over there. Hey, Chuck,
Speaker 1: So we're back and all of this is m reminded
Speaker 1: me of the going over the Niagara Falls in a
Speaker 1: Barrel episode. Oh that's right, that was another one. Um.
Speaker 1: I feel like we should do an episode on like
Speaker 1: Daredevils in general. You know, we did that two part
Speaker 1: around Evil Kinevil, we did one of Daredevils? Um did
Speaker 1: we on Daredevil's I knew we did Stuntman and Canniball run.
Speaker 1: I think we did Daredevils. Huh, I I think I
Speaker 1: think this closes the book. Oh, I was gonna say,
Speaker 1: I think we need to reduce some of this stuff.
Speaker 1: All right, but do you remember the one guy who
Speaker 1: went over the falls and um over, yeah, over Niagara
Speaker 1: Falls in a barrel and lived and then died I
Speaker 1: think slipping on an orange peel like years later in
Speaker 1: the Three Students episode. That's like the greatest worst thing
Speaker 1: I've ever heard. It's pretty good. So so who else
Speaker 1: Gardner leads the way? Apparently he was known for saying, um,
Speaker 1: like a hundred something men have tried to do what
Speaker 1: I do and died trying, which is a lie. Probably
Speaker 1: there's probably some people who did you know, died emulating
Speaker 1: him or imitating him. But there were other successful ones too,
Speaker 1: successful human Flies, early Spider Man, if you will. Yeah,
Speaker 1: going back again to the nineties, this is a little
Speaker 1: out of order sequentially, but a dude named Henry Roland
Speaker 1: broke his hip felt only about thirty five ft in Iowa,
Speaker 1: climbing the Davis County Courthouse and this was kind of
Speaker 1: took him out of commission for a while, but he
Speaker 1: would not be deterred as well. That's the kind of
Speaker 1: the rolling narrative here with these dudes, as you can't
Speaker 1: keep him down. Eight years later he returned climbed that
Speaker 1: same courthouse and only twelve minutes, which is pretty impressive,
Speaker 1: and then put his hat on the head of the
Speaker 1: blind Justice statue. I know. That's the thing, like, this
Speaker 1: is a time when not wearing a hat was so
Speaker 1: scandalous that human flies would wear a hat out of
Speaker 1: doors while they were climbing, you know, I just love that.
Speaker 1: And then there was a dude that died too, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think there are a lot of guys that died,
Speaker 1: but this one was I think fairly well known and died. HF.
Speaker 1: Young died in nineteen three. He fell off the Hotel
Speaker 1: martinique Um which was a nine story drop for him.
Speaker 1: Which will do it? That will? That will kill you?
Speaker 1: Although I was on Mosaic Science magazine site and they
Speaker 1: had um I think it was called how to Survive
Speaker 1: a Fall or something like that, and it was basically
Speaker 1: about like on your way down what to do? Yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but not just like what to do. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: an instructional thing it was. It was also like a
Speaker 1: look at the study of falling and how we fall,
Speaker 1: which is kind of an understudied thing, but there are
Speaker 1: some people who are really like taking a hard look
Speaker 1: at it, and um, I don't remember the exact gist
Speaker 1: of it, but they do kind of tell you exactly
Speaker 1: the best way to improve your chances from a huge
Speaker 1: fall and you don't know that now, No, I forgot,
Speaker 1: so I'm I'm dead meat if I fall. That's probably
Speaker 1: the one key takeaway. Well, I think the key takeaway
Speaker 1: is everybody should go read this article. It's from Mosaic
Speaker 1: Science magazine and it's called I think like how to
Speaker 1: Survive a fall. Jeez. Yeah, it's a good one. That's
Speaker 1: a good reading. So HF young dies very sad, and
Speaker 1: then the couple of more folks died the next year.
Speaker 1: And then that's when cities started to say, all right,
Speaker 1: we're not calling it buildering yet because we're not in
Speaker 1: a time machine, but these crazy dudes need to knock
Speaker 1: it off. Yeah, They're like, this is wildly irresponsible for
Speaker 1: us to allow this and not only allow it, but
Speaker 1: like assemble the citizens at lunchtime to come watch this thing,
Speaker 1: you know for sure, So they did, they started an
Speaker 1: outlaw and it kind of fell to the wayside. And
Speaker 1: um some of these early guys, like you said, building
Speaker 1: is not a term yet, so there called urban climbers,
Speaker 1: at least they are now. But there's a there's actually
Speaker 1: a pretty big distinction between urban climbing and builder, although
Speaker 1: they can very frequently overlap, and some people do both.
Speaker 1: Um But urban climbing is like that would include climbing
Speaker 1: up a ladder on a construction crane, on the top
Speaker 1: of a skyscraper, as some people do. Oh yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't see those videos. I know. It's it's just too
Speaker 1: much um or it could be like climbing up a
Speaker 1: bridge or something. But it's you're you're using like other
Speaker 1: things besides just the face of the building, which is
Speaker 1: that's kind of like one of the requisites of building
Speaker 1: is you're not using any of the ladders or anything
Speaker 1: that's intended to be climbed. You're you're using the building
Speaker 1: at the facade of the building itself, although sometimes that
Speaker 1: can um imitate a ladder, as we'll see here in
Speaker 1: a minute. But you're right, nothing extra right. Uh, So
Speaker 1: we jump from you know, I guess the nineteen thirties
Speaker 1: or so. Like you said, it tailed off for a
Speaker 1: long time for good reason, and then finally in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and eighties started to pick back up again. Uh,
Speaker 1: namely in the late nineteen seventies with a man named
Speaker 1: George Willig. Uh he was a toy maker, so he
Speaker 1: had a sense of whimsy I imagine um for the
Speaker 1: Ideal Toy Company. And he took a p t O
Speaker 1: d literally and said, uh, well, he didn't tell anyone,
Speaker 1: but he took a p t O day a little
Speaker 1: personal time to go climb the World Trade Center. Yep,
Speaker 1: I'd love this guy a lot. Actually yeah, he did
Speaker 1: in three and a half hours. And he actually had
Speaker 1: a rig. He was not a free climber because that
Speaker 1: would just be insane um and probably not possible with
Speaker 1: the World Trade Center which was mostly glass. But he
Speaker 1: figured out a way, uh to to fit a device
Speaker 1: over the window washers scaffold and then it fit. And
Speaker 1: if you see pictures of this guy doing so, you
Speaker 1: know between the World Trade Center it had these grooves
Speaker 1: between the windows, and he probably rigged something of his
Speaker 1: own making. Yeah, he made it himself. Yeah, that would
Speaker 1: fit between the channel between those windows. Uh. And apparently
Speaker 1: after he figured that out, it wasn't too tough. Well
Speaker 1: it was. It was like, um, I think it was
Speaker 1: still tough. But this implement that he designed was you know,
Speaker 1: pretty ingenious. Well that he climbed with relative ease, right right, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: better than free climbing or something like that. For sure.
Speaker 1: He was using implements. But the thing when he when
Speaker 1: he pressed down on it, it's it would slide into
Speaker 1: these slats that the window washing machine was supposed to
Speaker 1: go up and down on, like you were saying, um,
Speaker 1: And when he pressed down on it, it would lock
Speaker 1: into the sides, and when he like lifted up on it,
Speaker 1: it would unlock, so he could just kind of like
Speaker 1: shimmy up like that. Right. And he had the foresight
Speaker 1: to bring a little hammer with him because he was like,
Speaker 1: you know what, I'll bet that thing is not perfect
Speaker 1: all the way up. And he brought a little hammer
Speaker 1: with him and needed it many times to like hammer
Speaker 1: it out to about the shape that he needed it
Speaker 1: to be. But he, um, he made this climb and
Speaker 1: a couple of cops. One of them was a specialist
Speaker 1: in suicides. Uh, we're lowered down on an actual window
Speaker 1: washing conveyance and said, you know, they were given the
Speaker 1: task of talking this guy down, and apparently at some
Speaker 1: point they were like, oh, you you mean to do this?
Speaker 1: You're you're just climbing the World Trade Center, that's all
Speaker 1: you're doing. Huh. And then I would have just walked
Speaker 1: up and jumped off, dummy, right exactly, like this seems
Speaker 1: a little hard for that. But they they left him
Speaker 1: alone until he got to the top, and then of
Speaker 1: course they arrested him right when he when he got
Speaker 1: to the top. But um, he made it to the
Speaker 1: top for sure. Yeah. And originally apparently the city was
Speaker 1: going to find him a big old fat and this
Speaker 1: is the ninety seven a quarter million bucks, which it's
Speaker 1: a lot of money today, but certainly a lot of
Speaker 1: money backs in. But Mayor Beam, I guess, was charmed
Speaker 1: and taken with the uh the attention it brought maybe
Speaker 1: the New York City and said I'm gonna find you
Speaker 1: a penny per floor. So he paid a find of
Speaker 1: a dollar in ten cents, right, And I think there
Speaker 1: was probably a lot of public pressure to leave this
Speaker 1: guy alone because he became a celebrity overnight when he
Speaker 1: did this. I mean he was he was big time
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, and he's just this you know,
Speaker 1: thoughtful toymaking guy who who just decided he wanted to
Speaker 1: do this and made his own implements, you know, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, now he's on like Johnny Carson
Speaker 1: and Merv Griffin and all the late night talk shows. Um.
Speaker 1: He got work as a stunt man on a bunch
Speaker 1: of shows, including The six Million Dollar Man, like just
Speaker 1: that one clime like made him famous still to this day.
Speaker 1: I think he's he's one of the u for sure,
Speaker 1: one of the dudes that people look back on as
Speaker 1: like very revered in this sport. Yeah, I agree. You
Speaker 1: don't hear people doing stuff like this anymore, do you am?
Speaker 1: I just not hearing about it. Yeah, you're not hearing
Speaker 1: about it. Um, well, because we'll get to him. That
Speaker 1: uh Ellen Robert guy. He's still climbing as a little
Speaker 1: buns off. There's a little tight climbing buns stupid sexy
Speaker 1: Flanders classic one that there's a dude and he still
Speaker 1: climbs as well. I believe California man named Dan Goodwin,
Speaker 1: and he was silly enough to put on a Spider
Speaker 1: Man costume, which I guess it feels cool at the time,
Speaker 1: but it just never looks good, especially after you've seen
Speaker 1: the movies and like the really cool outfits that they
Speaker 1: put the Spider Man in. So the Walmart version right
Speaker 1: when you're just like a kid at Halloween, were clearly
Speaker 1: see what kind of like sneakers you're wearing not so
Speaker 1: cool underneath the red spats. They're supposed to cover them,
Speaker 1: but don't. Yeah, like if he had the real Hollywood suit,
Speaker 1: it would might look kind of, you know, awesome, but
Speaker 1: no such luck for Dan Goodwin. Plus, also, if you're
Speaker 1: gonna go to this kind of trouble and do something
Speaker 1: this publicly, like to take an extra month and design
Speaker 1: and manufacture your own costume. Agreed, get a little cape
Speaker 1: in there something sure, although that might get in the way. Well,
Speaker 1: it had to be a very lightweight, thin, small cape.
Speaker 1: I would half size. Maybe I would be a nude builderer.
Speaker 1: Could you imagine? Now I can? I'll sit with you
Speaker 1: for a while. Um. So, Dan Goodwin dressed up his
Speaker 1: spidy and he climbed the sears Tower in Chicago, which
Speaker 1: is now the Willis Tower at the time the Year's Tower,
Speaker 1: it's still the Sears Tower. Yeah, I agree. Uh, And
Speaker 1: then would go on to climb the John Hancock Tower,
Speaker 1: also in Chicago, and then he said, that's beans, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go climb the Sea In Tower in Toronto because
Speaker 1: I think it's over eight feet tall, and at the
Speaker 1: time it was the world's tallest structure, which made him
Speaker 1: the top dog for a bit. And he climbed that
Speaker 1: CN Tower twice in the same day. Yeah. Why because
Speaker 1: it was there. I guess, I don't know. Maybe somebody
Speaker 1: was like, that wasn't the big of a deal and
Speaker 1: he's like, oh yeah, I'll do it again. I'll see
Speaker 1: in a couple of hours. Jerk. Uh. And then Goodwin
Speaker 1: was then followed um by the man we were just
Speaker 1: talking about, a Frenchman or a Frenchman name Alan Robert
Speaker 1: or is it Elaine? I never know how to pronounce
Speaker 1: that when the eye is stuck in there, Uh, I
Speaker 1: don't know, Ellen, Okay, Yeah, that sounds nice. Yeah. This
Speaker 1: is in the mid nineties and he he is a
Speaker 1: bit of a stand alone, not a stand alone, but
Speaker 1: a stand apart at least because while he occasionally will
Speaker 1: use some equipment, what he really likes to do is
Speaker 1: get out there, get some chalk on his hands, and
Speaker 1: tackle a building. Yeah. This guy is, I mean, in
Speaker 1: my opinion, the greatest builder who's ever lived, at the
Speaker 1: very least the riskiest, or at the very least the
Speaker 1: most well known. Too. I've ran across another guy named
Speaker 1: Um Mustang Wanted. I don't think that's his actual name.
Speaker 1: That's what he goes by, Mustang Wanted. He named his
Speaker 1: himself after an ad on Craigslist, right exactly. And he
Speaker 1: does from what I can tell free free climbing, buildering. Um.
Speaker 1: And he's younger and just kind of not well known.
Speaker 1: I'm sure he's quite well known in the buildering circles
Speaker 1: or the serving climbing circles. But um, yeah, Elaine Robert, Robert, right,
Speaker 1: Alan Robert. What am I doing? He? Um like he's sponsored.
Speaker 1: He's that well known by you want to tell him by? Who?
Speaker 1: I think you should tell him? Well, what's the name
Speaker 1: of the company. I know it's a hair replacement company.
Speaker 1: It's like a Nuvigil nor Jill, nor Jill or nor Gill,
Speaker 1: one of them. We're having a lot of trouble with
Speaker 1: the words that circle in this guy's universe. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: because this morning. But he uh yeah, God bless him.
Speaker 1: He has some some hair loss going on. So he
Speaker 1: got the sponsorship that made sense for his life. It's
Speaker 1: good for him, right, good for that guy. And he
Speaker 1: also wore Spider Man outfit, so just stop, dudes, get
Speaker 1: the Spider Man. He doesn't always he would from time
Speaker 1: to time. I think it might be like a tradition
Speaker 1: now maybe an inside joke I don't know, or maybe
Speaker 1: they really are, like this is gonna make it feel
Speaker 1: so much cooler when I build her this building. Should
Speaker 1: we take another break? I think? So? All right, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go getting our Spiderman costumes and finish the show
Speaker 1: that way. So, UM, we talked about how like these
Speaker 1: guys can get kind of famous actually, and some of
Speaker 1: them use their platforms for for good, like l A.
Speaker 1: Robert Um, he'll go both ways, right, Like he's taken
Speaker 1: um tens of thousands of dollars to climb a building
Speaker 1: to promote like a Spider Man movie or something like that.
Speaker 1: Really that's why he was dressed as Spider Man. Did
Speaker 1: he really do that? Um? And then. But on the
Speaker 1: other hand, he's well known to like unfurraled banners at
Speaker 1: the top that promote like, um, like uh, the climate
Speaker 1: change stuff like that, right, Yeah, Like there was a
Speaker 1: one website called a hundred months dot org that he
Speaker 1: was promoting. I think back in the late nineties that
Speaker 1: um basically positive that we had like a hundred months
Speaker 1: before the earth was irreversibly changed by climate change. And
Speaker 1: I don't think that that has has panned out as successful,
Speaker 1: that website and changing the world's mind yet. Um. Other
Speaker 1: people have done the same though, uh, either promotional stuff
Speaker 1: or banners, sometimes like you said, for good Uh, sometimes
Speaker 1: for dough because the builder has got to eat after all. Sure,
Speaker 1: you gotta be able to get to the places. If
Speaker 1: you're traveling the world, you need airplane money. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: sometimes like you said with the was it Willig that
Speaker 1: went on to um do some stuntman work. Yeah he did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a good way to get work. Um. Sebastia was
Speaker 1: the guy in Casino Royal. I just want to apologize
Speaker 1: to the entire country of France for this episode. You
Speaker 1: don't listen now, You're right, that's fine, We're good then, uh.
Speaker 1: He was the one in Casino Royal who doubled up
Speaker 1: um James Bond and did all the I think he
Speaker 1: did all the parkour and the building and that's that
Speaker 1: stunt scene. Yeah he did. It was pretty neat. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a thrilling scene for sure. Yeah. And we
Speaker 1: have to talk about the scene in uh Mission Impossible
Speaker 1: Ghost Protocol thrilling as well. Apparently it was for real.
Speaker 1: It was, dude, and it really was Tom Cruise doing
Speaker 1: that stunt. It was I watched the full scene again today.
Speaker 1: I watched the behind the scenes of the making of
Speaker 1: that scene. Uh. This is when he uh went out
Speaker 1: of the window of the Birch Birch Khalifa in Dubai,
Speaker 1: which is the world's tallest tower at seventeen feet and
Speaker 1: h that I think what you want about Tom Cruise.
Speaker 1: I'm still sort of in and out with that guy.
Speaker 1: But that scene is one of the most thrilling scenes
Speaker 1: in action movie history to me. And the idea that
Speaker 1: it was real, yeah, I mean, and of course he
Speaker 1: was fully cabled and tethered, uh, and it was as
Speaker 1: as safe as you can imagine something being And then
Speaker 1: they go in and erase all that stuff in post production.
Speaker 1: But it's still he's still up there doing this stuff,
Speaker 1: running down the side of the building, launching himself off
Speaker 1: the side and swinging around, and uh, it's just it's amazing,
Speaker 1: really really great action movie scene. It is a lot
Speaker 1: of those movies were pretty good that um Mission Impossible
Speaker 1: ones turned out. Okay, yeah, I think all of them
Speaker 1: were good except for the Uh, I guess it was
Speaker 1: too the John Woowin. That's what everybody says. What was
Speaker 1: wrong with that? I don't even know if I saw
Speaker 1: it or not. I don't know. I think he it
Speaker 1: just I don't know. It just wasn't that good. I
Speaker 1: can't remember if it was, like, because you know, besides
Speaker 1: good action and stuff, he still have to have a
Speaker 1: good story for Mission Impossible and good um impossible mission stuff, right,
Speaker 1: and they didn't have that. I think I remember it
Speaker 1: just not having a very good plot in and good
Speaker 1: Mission impossible type stuff. It didn't feel Mission Impossible like
Speaker 1: to me. But they once brad Bird got back onto
Speaker 1: the director like those those were good in my opinion. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but that's what I'm saying, Like, you need to have plot,
Speaker 1: you need to have a story, you have a good dialogue,
Speaker 1: so if you're gonna do this, you should be prepared
Speaker 1: to be arrested, right, But don't do it. No, No,
Speaker 1: that's great, great point, Chuck. Don't do this because if
Speaker 1: you were going to you'd be arrested. Like apparently Elaine
Speaker 1: Robert has been arrested like a hundred times or something
Speaker 1: like that. Um, and he's become so infamous. He never
Speaker 1: announces publicly what he's going to do. He just shows
Speaker 1: up at the building apparently in the morning and just
Speaker 1: starts climbing, you know, and people take note. Right. Um.
Speaker 1: He also apparently is so famous that he was seen
Speaker 1: hanging around inside maybe on a tour or something of
Speaker 1: the Shard in London, and the building's owners got freaked
Speaker 1: out and they went to court and got a restraining
Speaker 1: order against him to keep them away from their building forever.
Speaker 1: They're like, I know why you're here. You're you're not
Speaker 1: a scout, you're casing the place. Yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: obviously a liability for property owners. Um, although some have
Speaker 1: paid people and invited them to do so to give
Speaker 1: them press. So it's a it's a weird sort of
Speaker 1: mix of illegality and like, hey, come do this thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I mean for the most part though, if the
Speaker 1: building owner doesn't want you there, it's it's because they're
Speaker 1: they're covering their bottoms, you know, like they if you
Speaker 1: fall off, and even worse, if you fall off and
Speaker 1: you fall on to some other people. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: a big problem for them. I never thought about that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I mean, it's not just you whose life is
Speaker 1: in jeopardy in that respect, but you're also like draining
Speaker 1: like public resources because the cops have to keep everybody
Speaker 1: back a safe distance. It's a selfish sport for it
Speaker 1: really is a selfish dangel sport. But um, like there's
Speaker 1: there's a lot of stuff you can get in trouble,
Speaker 1: for the least of which is probably criminal trespassing, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the cops don't really know what to do with you.
Speaker 1: And apparently in Chicago, um they tried to blast uh
Speaker 1: spider Dan what was his last name, Dan Goodwin, Dan
Speaker 1: Goodwin off of the building with fire hose. That's what
Speaker 1: he says. I saw elsewhere that they tried to get
Speaker 1: him off the building using various means. He's the one
Speaker 1: who said that it was with a fire hose. We're
Speaker 1: talking about the Chicago Police, so it's entirely possible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: He also claimed that Fire Commissioner William Blair threatened to
Speaker 1: kill him if he did this again. And both of
Speaker 1: these are claims from Dan Goodwin um who by the way,
Speaker 1: there was an article in Wired magazine about him and
Speaker 1: uh Elaine Robert and it was to both them their
Speaker 1: inspirations in life, and Elaine Roberts were Zoro and Robin Hood.
Speaker 1: So's he's clearly grounded in reality. Uh. And then good
Speaker 1: ones are Bruce Lee makes sense, Carlos Castanada, mm hmm,
Speaker 1: Steve Jobs, are you ready for the last one? John Lennon,
Speaker 1: famous extreme sportsman. Yeah, John Lennon, you can parkour like
Speaker 1: a gorilla. Yeah, I remember that a song. All we're
Speaker 1: saying is get building a chance, which was wildly irresponsible
Speaker 1: to or imagine there's no building. It's easy if you
Speaker 1: try so do this all day. One of the one
Speaker 1: of the things, well, this is good because it's actually
Speaker 1: getting the image of you naked building out of my head.
Speaker 1: So maybe keep it up now. Naked John Lennon is
Speaker 1: building in your head. Um. So, man, that really threw
Speaker 1: me off because you can picture him naked because I
Speaker 1: forgot where I was going. Yeah, I can picture like
Speaker 1: his his flank and rump. Yep, you know how can
Speaker 1: you just picture instead of Yoko oh no, him clinging
Speaker 1: to the side of the building. And now I know
Speaker 1: Aaron Cooper will be sending something. Yeah, for sure, I
Speaker 1: know what I was gonna say, Dan, Dan Goodwin, Um
Speaker 1: he was actually he said he was inspired by the
Speaker 1: Las Vegas MGM Grand fire in the early eighties. I
Speaker 1: think maybe, um, which, I think we should do an
Speaker 1: episode on hotel fires too. It sounds weird and gruesome
Speaker 1: and it is, but there's actually like a lot of
Speaker 1: crazy history involved in there. And yeah, there was one
Speaker 1: in Atlanta in the early days. Yeah, the I can't
Speaker 1: remember what it was back then, but there's Yeah, they
Speaker 1: revamped that hotel. You can go to it now. Um
Speaker 1: it's right down there by where the Hawks play Phillips. Yes, so,
Speaker 1: but I can't remember the name of it off the
Speaker 1: top of my head. But yeah, we should do a
Speaker 1: hotel fires one. Okay, very dark idea. So apparently, um
Speaker 1: Goodwin saw that hotel fire and saw people were trapped
Speaker 1: in that the fire department had no way to get
Speaker 1: to them, and he was already a climber. I just
Speaker 1: don't think he was a builder. And he apparently went
Speaker 1: up to the fire chief for the person in charge
Speaker 1: of fighting his fires, like, let me climb up there
Speaker 1: and put some cables in place, and you guys can
Speaker 1: go get these people out. And the guy was like,
Speaker 1: I'm going to have you arrested if you don't leave
Speaker 1: right now. Yeah. I mean, his heart was in the
Speaker 1: right place, but fire chiefs kind of want to just
Speaker 1: do their thing and not have citizens offered to put
Speaker 1: themselves in danger on top of that, especially if they're
Speaker 1: just as Spider Man in an ill fitting child's costume
Speaker 1: at the time. Chief, Yeah, I got a great idea.
Speaker 1: But supposedly he went and started climbing the outside of
Speaker 1: buildings to kind of proved that this could be done
Speaker 1: and that it should be done, and um, that people
Speaker 1: could be saved, that you could use this kind of
Speaker 1: thing as a way to assist um fire departments during fires,
Speaker 1: which so far I don't think anyone's ever taken them
Speaker 1: up on it. They don't have builders on the on
Speaker 1: the payroll, no. Um. So one final thing I want
Speaker 1: to mention is that, uh, there's this one building new
Speaker 1: York Times building in two thousand eight that Elain Robert climbed,
Speaker 1: and the cop that was interviewed by the New York
Speaker 1: Times was silly enough to say, well, look at this thing.
Speaker 1: You don't have to be a professional, like the building
Speaker 1: looks like a ladder, and someone read that, and then
Speaker 1: apparently later on that same day, someone who didn't wasn't
Speaker 1: even an experienced builder from Brooklyn went out and climbed
Speaker 1: the thing successfully. Yeah. Pretty interesting. Yeah, and there have
Speaker 1: been unsuccessful climbs. There's one guy who was climbing a
Speaker 1: building in Houston and felt like thirty stories in two
Speaker 1: thousand three. Um, and he was reported by an eyewitnesses
Speaker 1: is purposefully jumping. Um, but I don't know. Apparently the
Speaker 1: buildering community doesn't necessarily buy that. He said no, thank you, Yeah,
Speaker 1: Ryan John Hartley was his name. That's very sad. It
Speaker 1: is sad, and it also goes to show just how
Speaker 1: dangerous this this is dangerous. Don't do it, even if
Speaker 1: you've got the best tom Cruise suction cups you you
Speaker 1: can get your hands on, and you've got uh nice
Speaker 1: some ropes and some friends who are really trustworthy, just
Speaker 1: don't do it, Okay, I agreed. Uh, well, since I
Speaker 1: said just don't do it, that's your queue to go
Speaker 1: look this article up on how Stuff Works dot com.
Speaker 1: And since I said that it's time for listener mail,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call this. I forgot to get a listener mail,
Speaker 1: so I'm gonna read the first one on the latest email.
Speaker 1: It's like Russian Roulette with listener mail. Um, yeah, this
Speaker 1: one's okay, not bad. Subject lines sleepy while reading. Uh.
Speaker 1: Dear Josh and Chuck, thanks for all the hard work
Speaker 1: and humor you put into stuff. You should know. Podcasts
Speaker 1: have been a constant companion to me for the last
Speaker 1: seven years. Taught me about agent orange while painting landscapes,
Speaker 1: Jim Hinson while working out at the gym, and bioluminescence
Speaker 1: while riding the bus in China. Wow, he's got an
Speaker 1: exciting life. Um, there's one thing I really do need
Speaker 1: to know, though, Why do I always doze off while
Speaker 1: I'm reading? I'd like to learn enjoy reading, but over
Speaker 1: the past few years I struggled to stay conscious. Whyn't
Speaker 1: when I read? I was hoping you could shed some
Speaker 1: light on this, as you're both avid readers. That is
Speaker 1: Harrison Gibbs, and he has a PS. I've been enjoying
Speaker 1: Internet round Up and don't be dumb on Amazon Prime.
Speaker 1: My sympathies to Chuck is, I know the struggle of
Speaker 1: Beard Dan drip is real and we referenced it. T
Speaker 1: sell shampoo and Beard Oil has helped me. That's Harrison Gibbs. Uh.
Speaker 1: I don't know the answer, but that is a for
Speaker 1: sure thing. Like if you want to fall asleep at night,
Speaker 1: put your phone down or your e reader and read
Speaker 1: a good old fashioned book. It's like a paper valume. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it might just do it, yep, but they're science behind it. Sure,
Speaker 1: well look at it. We don't forget to Yeah, if
Speaker 1: we don't fall asleep while we're looking it up. Thanks Harrison,
Speaker 1: appreciate that. If you want to get in touch with
Speaker 1: this like he did, you can tweet to us at
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