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Speaker 1: Pushkin. I'm Michael Wilson, and I wrote Mammoth Tusks in

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Speaker 1: the East River How Joe Rogan started a bone rush

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Speaker 1: for the New York Times, and it's the story of

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Speaker 1: the week. When I was a kid, I had a

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Speaker 1: wild sense of adventure, and I had heard her rumor

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Speaker 1: that if I could swing on a vine over a

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Speaker 1: pond filled with alligators, I would be an official member

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Speaker 1: of the Explorers Club. An activision would mail me an

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Speaker 1: iron on patch to prove my membership. So I got

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Speaker 1: my joystick and spent untold weeks in front of my

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Speaker 1: TV mastering Atari's pitfall. I got that patch, but I

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Speaker 1: didn't ever go outside. That was for Tom Sawyer and

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Speaker 1: Huck Finn and other people that I'm pretty sure never

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Speaker 1: made it past age thirty. So I was really surprised

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Speaker 1: later in life when I learned that Huck Finn kind

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Speaker 1: of guys still exist in the twenty first century and

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Speaker 1: they listen to podcasts. Writing is hard. Who's got that

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Speaker 1: kind of time when you're already busy trying to be

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Speaker 1: Joe Stein? So it turns on a mic me the

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Speaker 1: Twiddles and Knob because a journalist rand has got in

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Speaker 1: actual time stories, single story. Just listen to smart people

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Speaker 1: speak conversation Filming Information is a story of Joe Rogan,

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Speaker 1: hosts the most popular podcast in the country. And some

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Speaker 1: things that Joe Rogan suggests as listeners do are dangerous,

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Speaker 1: like not getting vaccinated. But some things he suggests are

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Speaker 1: way way more dangerous, so dangerous that they led his

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Speaker 1: listeners to the bottom of New York City's East River,

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Speaker 1: one of the most disgusting waterways in the country. The

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Speaker 1: New York Times Michael Wilson met the guys who felt

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Speaker 1: compelled to go down there. Okay, Michael, how much Joe

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Speaker 1: Rogan are you listening to in order to find this story?

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Speaker 1: Because that guy's like three hours every day with an interview.

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Speaker 1: You know, I'm not a frequent listener. I gotta say

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Speaker 1: the three hour thing scares me off. I'm more of

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Speaker 1: a like thirty two minute podcast. Guy. Oh, that's perfect

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Speaker 1: for us, Yeah, right, right right, you're writing the zone exactly. No,

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Speaker 1: but the world found this podcast very quickly and throw

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Speaker 1: it out there on social media. So Joe Rogan has

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Speaker 1: literally the most successful podcast of all time, even more

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Speaker 1: successful than this one. And he brings on this guest

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Speaker 1: named John Reeves. He's this reality star on the nat

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Speaker 1: GEO show Old Fathers, which is the show where he

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Speaker 1: minds for gold with his family on his land in Alaska.

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Speaker 1: He's like six foot ten. He's this chain smoker with

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Speaker 1: his gravelly voice, and he's got guns. Did you find

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Speaker 1: him pretty compelling as a character. Yeah, I mean he was.

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Speaker 1: You know, he's certainly into what he's talking about on

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Speaker 1: the Rogan podcast and then looking around a little bit

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Speaker 1: about him. He's a very well known guy in the

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Speaker 1: fossil collection Wroom. So this guy John Reeves had bought

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Speaker 1: this huge plot of land in Alaska to dig for gold.

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Speaker 1: He's like Yukon Cornelius from Rootolf the Red Nosed Reindeer.

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Speaker 1: At It's all so weird. But it gets even weirder

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Speaker 1: because while he's digging for gold with these enormous machines

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Speaker 1: through the permafrost, he finds in this frozen land the

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Speaker 1: remains of just an enormous number of ice age animals

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Speaker 1: on just five acres of his land, like Wooly Mammoth's

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Speaker 1: entire wolves. There's so much of it. There's a documentary

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Speaker 1: about his find called Bone Yard Alaska, which is what

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Speaker 1: caught Joe Rogan's attention. What kind of stuff has he

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Speaker 1: found on his property? There was a preserved mummified, you know,

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Speaker 1: very large dead animal that came out of there that

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Speaker 1: John Reeves. I've heard of him boasting that he ate

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Speaker 1: some of it just to kind of stay he did. Yeah, no,

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Speaker 1: he says, he ate some like willy mammoth. Right. I'm

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Speaker 1: trying to imagine the texture of what something like that

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Speaker 1: would he said, he said, leathery. Of course, it's you know,

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Speaker 1: tends of thousands of years old. That's got to hurt.

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Speaker 1: The taste one would imagine. Oh, I'm sure you raise that.

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Speaker 1: I guess right. Hot sauce, A lot of hot sauce.

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Speaker 1: All these remains are on John Reeves property, which had

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Speaker 1: been owned by this guy, Robert Osborne decades ago. And

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Speaker 1: he was part of something called the Bone Wagon, which

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Speaker 1: sounds like something a year fraternity was shut down for doing.

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Speaker 1: But that's not what it is. Can you explain it?

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Speaker 1: So so, in the forties, young men in college would

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Speaker 1: join something called the bone Wagon, which would go around

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Speaker 1: when these you know, gold miners would come upon a

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Speaker 1: large bunch of bones. I think what they did is

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Speaker 1: kind of call these kids over, say hurry up and

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Speaker 1: get this stuff out of our way so we can

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Speaker 1: find gold, you know. And one of the young men

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Speaker 1: working on the bone wagon is a guy named Richard Osborne.

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Speaker 1: He is a twenty something year old guy in college

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Speaker 1: work in the bone wagon. For a couple of years,

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Speaker 1: Osborne worked for a Child's Frick, who was the son

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Speaker 1: of Henry Clay Frick, this massively wealthy industrialist who gave

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Speaker 1: New York the Frick Museum. Yes, so Child's Frick is

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Speaker 1: a trustee with the American Museum of Natural History. Child's

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Speaker 1: Frick funds the kind of excavation and shipment back to

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Speaker 1: the Museum of lots and lots and lots and lots

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Speaker 1: of bones coming out of this property in Alaska. So

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Speaker 1: this college student grows up to be a paleontologist. And

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Speaker 1: later in life he writes this kind of book proposal

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Speaker 1: type thing with two other men. And he's writing this

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Speaker 1: in like the early two thousands, when he's an older man. Yes,

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Speaker 1: he writes it sometime after two thousand and before his

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Speaker 1: death in two thousand and five. And it's it's got

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Speaker 1: this long wordy title. Early man in Eastern Barringia late

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Speaker 1: placed the scene and early holo scene artifacts and associated

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Speaker 1: fauna recovered from the Fairbanks Mining District, Alaska. And I'm

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Speaker 1: casting with the title like that it never got published.

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Speaker 1: Now it did not this manuscript, this unpublished manuscript. John

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Speaker 1: Reeves has this for some reason, right right, So John

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Speaker 1: don't know what has us. We don't know why. Obviously

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Speaker 1: it's related to the fact that Osborne was up here

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Speaker 1: on his property finding bones with the bonewagen, that's right.

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Speaker 1: And he's found something in the manuscript that he will

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Speaker 1: only tell to Joe Rogan, right right, He has saved

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Speaker 1: it for this day. Why only Joe Rogan, I gather

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Speaker 1: he's a fan. Would you make a value? You'll only

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Speaker 1: talk to me after this. I'm not discussing the story anymore.

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Speaker 1: That's so great, that's all we ask. Okay. So now

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Speaker 1: he goes on Joe Rogan and he's going to reveal

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Speaker 1: something he found in the manuscript that he read eighteen

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Speaker 1: years ago, or maybe he just finally read it. And

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Speaker 1: what is this bombshell that he lays on? Bombshell is

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Speaker 1: this sort of incomplete sentence that says in summary that

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Speaker 1: bones deemed to be of inferior quality. Were dumped by

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Speaker 1: the hundreds of thousands into the East River at sixty

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Speaker 1: fifth Street. That's it, he said. He writes that and

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Speaker 1: moves on to the next a new topic. The next paragraph.

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Speaker 1: So John Reeves suggests that what's dumped in the East

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Speaker 1: River is quote a box car full of bones and

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Speaker 1: mammoth tusks that have been lying in the East River

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Speaker 1: since about nineteen forty. And he follows up with saying,

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Speaker 1: you know, a friend of has just sold a partial

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Speaker 1: tusk that's been damaged for six figures, and so he's suggesting.

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Speaker 1: In fact, he says, they're rightfully mind because I own

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Speaker 1: the property that came from. But finders keepers, losers weepers.

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Speaker 1: If you can go in the East River and dig

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Speaker 1: up these bones, a you'll be rich because they're worth

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Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands, and then be Joe Rogan says, you

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Speaker 1: can come on my podcast if you find these bones.

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Speaker 1: The craziest thing when I was watching it is how

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Speaker 1: stoned Joe Rogan seems to be. He's just sitting there

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Speaker 1: silently for long stretches and occasionally like saying, wow, oh,

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Speaker 1: I know, I think that's where you get to that

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Speaker 1: three hour mark. Okay, so they've now told a bunch

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Speaker 1: of people to go diving in the East River, which

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Speaker 1: is you live in Brooklyn. I used to live in

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Speaker 1: New York. It's nicer than it was in the seventies,

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Speaker 1: but it's disgusting right right. The East River is notoriously disgusting,

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Speaker 1: and it's one only imagines what all is down there.

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Speaker 1: I had a buddy of mine whose cat died, had

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Speaker 1: this old cat and this guy next day I saw

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Speaker 1: him and said, yeah, so I said, did you bury

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Speaker 1: the cat? How do you bury it? Cat? In New

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Speaker 1: York City? So I didn't really bury it. I just

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Speaker 1: took it to the East River and I chucked it

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Speaker 1: in there. It's like, oh great, wow. So to be clear,

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Speaker 1: John Reeves is saying on the World's Biggest Podcast that

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Speaker 1: there are thousands of wooly mammoth tusks lying at the

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Speaker 1: bottom of the East River in New York City. The

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Speaker 1: scene very irresponsible. Yeah so yeah, I mean, very very quickly.

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Speaker 1: You have guys on Instagram playing his announcement about these

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Speaker 1: tusks over video of them heading to the East River

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Speaker 1: by playing train and automobile. For this to make sense,

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Speaker 1: all you have to do is remember that Joe Rogan

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Speaker 1: was the host of Fear Factor from two thousand and

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Speaker 1: one to two thousand and six. He made people go

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Speaker 1: do disgusting things in challenges. So this challenge is simply

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Speaker 1: to rent scuba gear and go diving in the most

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Speaker 1: disgusting river in America in the middle of winter to

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Speaker 1: try and find wooly mammoth tusks. All he needs to

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Speaker 1: do is say to win this fifty thousand dollar prize,

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Speaker 1: and you've got an episode of Fear Factor, and we're

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Speaker 1: about to see who if anyone wins the wooly mammoth

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Speaker 1: tusk in the East River challenge. I assume there will

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Speaker 1: be women in bikinis, but first our sponsors are going

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Speaker 1: to sell you something much easier to get but still

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Speaker 1: very much museum quality. The notion that the bottom of

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Speaker 1: the East River is loaded with the bones of giant

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Speaker 1: extinct animals, like it's the orchestra pit on the flintstones

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Speaker 1: is stupid, but Michael Wilson says there could be some

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Speaker 1: truth to it. Well, it's I mean, if you're sitting

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Speaker 1: around listening to Joe Rogan, and especially if you you know,

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Speaker 1: are familiar with diving and are comfortable with this idea.

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Speaker 1: I mean, on the surface, it's got this very tantalizing

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Speaker 1: possible of truth. It sounds you know, all these kind

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Speaker 1: of things could probably happen. There's a different time. They

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Speaker 1: didn't know what they were dumping in the river. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's probably still down there. They're really heavy, they wouldn't

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Speaker 1: move around that much. There's all kinds of rationalizing you do.

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Speaker 1: And then and the other side of the rationalizing is, well,

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Speaker 1: even if there's nothing down there, it would make like

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Speaker 1: great content for my channel. That's what I want to

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Speaker 1: figure out. If people went there because they wanted the money,

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Speaker 1: if they wanted to just get likes for their YouTube

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Speaker 1: channels or um or just the sense of adventure, or

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Speaker 1: maybe you can't separate those things. Well, there's a there

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Speaker 1: are different degrees on that spectrum that I encountered in

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Speaker 1: this story. Okay, but yeah, So if I set to

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Speaker 1: say that that different crews showed up, do you go

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Speaker 1: down to this river to find them? I did? Okay,

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Speaker 1: I went down. I saw two I saw two different

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Speaker 1: operations going on, colds and cold, and it was really cold.

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Speaker 1: You know, everybody's got their camera on, and I find

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Speaker 1: my I found myself in the background of a couple

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Speaker 1: interviews on these boats, and I look cold, um, but

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Speaker 1: not as cold as these guys. They they, you know,

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Speaker 1: explained to me. I just assumed that you freeze to

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Speaker 1: death if you go to the bottom of the East River.

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Speaker 1: But they explained to me how these wet suits work

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Speaker 1: and how it drives the difference from a dry suit

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Speaker 1: and a wet suit and all this. You're not a

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Speaker 1: scuba diver, You're not a s I'm not. I'm not.

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Speaker 1: I'm a swimmer, but not in the East River. Okay.

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Speaker 1: So I'm at two groups. Group A are these two

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Speaker 1: friends who both have really big YouTube channels where they

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Speaker 1: dive in search of all sorts of things, including fossils.

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Speaker 1: What are these guys calling them that one of them?

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Speaker 1: They're One of them is named Rick in his handle

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Speaker 1: is dig dive Discover, and the other one is Jake,

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Speaker 1: and he is scuba Jake. And they know each other

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Speaker 1: ones in. Jake's in Georgia and Rick is in Florida.

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Speaker 1: And Rick calls Jake and says, I'll go if you go,

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Speaker 1: And so they jump on a plane and they hook

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Speaker 1: up with you know, a legit surveying company that has

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Speaker 1: a serving boat with tons of equipment for mapping the

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Speaker 1: river floor. They get to write about sixty fifth Street

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Speaker 1: and they put on their go pro cameras and they

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Speaker 1: jump in the water and they've got these very powerful

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Speaker 1: handheld flashlights and they go down to the bottom. So

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Speaker 1: Scooba Jake, who you talk to, put up his dive

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Speaker 1: on YouTube and here here's a little bit of that

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Speaker 1: bone rush have officially started. All this is where dreams

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Speaker 1: are made. We're going down. They're so excited. That is

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Speaker 1: classic Scooba Jake. That is as far as I can tell.

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Speaker 1: That is the level of enthusiasm that he wakes up

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Speaker 1: with in the morning. He's just psyched and he loves

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Speaker 1: what he does. He finds, you know, engagement rings at

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Speaker 1: the bottom of the river and reunites them with their

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Speaker 1: you know, actual owner. He does stuff like that. I

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Speaker 1: don't know how you talk with a scuba thing in

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Speaker 1: your mouth, but Scuba Jake a particularly very articulate down

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Speaker 1: there with this thing in his mouth, and he's like,

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Speaker 1: I'm cold, Oh my god, it's so cold, so cold,

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Speaker 1: it's just uh and it's so freakish down there seeing

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Speaker 1: what they see. What do you mean it's just a

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Speaker 1: it's just a it's a lifeless, lifeless land of like junk.

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Speaker 1: Everything's covered in this kind of mossy stuff that he

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Speaker 1: he'll kind of wipe away and see if anything's recognizable.

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Speaker 1: At one point, there's a what clearly looks like a

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Speaker 1: city bike land down there. People are just throwing city

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Speaker 1: bikes in the East River. Somebody threw a car in

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Speaker 1: the East River. There's an upside down car that these

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Speaker 1: guys thought looked like it was from like the nineteen twenties,

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Speaker 1: like some kind of model t I don't know whether

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Speaker 1: it's very hard to get you on, Joe Rogan. Regardless,

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Speaker 1: I didn't find a tusk, but I found a model

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Speaker 1: t This is nothing like diving in like the Maldives,

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Speaker 1: where you're just seeing beautiful fish go by you and coral. Okay,

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Speaker 1: now there's nothing, there's no there's no fish down there. Okay,

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Speaker 1: now they were they were hampered by the freezing cold

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Speaker 1: down there. But they're looking around and they're bagging stuff.

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Speaker 1: They've got these little special nylon bags for this purpose,

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Speaker 1: and they're picking things up and putting in the bag

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Speaker 1: for future study. So they find things that look like

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Speaker 1: a hunk of a rib, you know, or some other

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Speaker 1: kind of bone. They came up pretty quickly, like from

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Speaker 1: fifteen minutes because it was so cold. Okay, so there's

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Speaker 1: those two guys. But then there's the Barstool Sports guys.

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Speaker 1: That's a very browy website that they don't just cover

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Speaker 1: sports anymore. They do all kinds of bro stuff. And

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Speaker 1: if this is not bro stuff, I don't know, I

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Speaker 1: don't know anything. It's like made for Barstool Sports, I

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Speaker 1: know exactly exactly. So these these two Barstool Sports guys

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Speaker 1: called a guy known as dirty Water Dan, and he

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Speaker 1: is currently seen on a show called Sewer Divers, which

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Speaker 1: kind of explains itself. Dirty Water Dan also is an

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Speaker 1: underwater construction worker in New York, a really busy guy,

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Speaker 1: and nose has spent a lot of time under water

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Speaker 1: in the East River. Dirty Water danishures them that he

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Speaker 1: is going to show them the ropes and get them

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Speaker 1: what they need. It looks from the video like they've

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Speaker 1: never put on scuba equipment before. They look totally confused.

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Speaker 1: Dirty Water Dan. They do it one at a time

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Speaker 1: because he's only got this this one suit. But it's

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Speaker 1: like it's like a diving bell basically does not look

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Speaker 1: like the scuba suits that I'm used to seeing. This

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Speaker 1: looks like something that again, like you said, it's from

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Speaker 1: like twenty thousand leagues under the sea or something, or

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Speaker 1: like it's like Zacousta's like first try. It's completely insane looking.

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Speaker 1: And these guys seem to have no training when they're

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Speaker 1: being sent down right, yeah, yeah, they seem to be

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Speaker 1: having some second thoughts, but you know, then they went

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Speaker 1: for it. Now the way I talked to both them

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Speaker 1: and they describe this kind of harrowing, you know, more

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Speaker 1: or less beginner's journey down there, where you are as

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Speaker 1: fitted at this there's like a vest that they're wearing

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Speaker 1: that weighs like fifty or sixty pounds, and then you've

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Speaker 1: got this giant, you know, metal and glass globe contraption

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Speaker 1: on your head. So you're heavy, and you get off

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Speaker 1: that boat and you sort of sink to the bottom

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Speaker 1: and you're holding onto a line that goes from the

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Speaker 1: bottom of the river to the boat. This row you

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Speaker 1: have to hold on the right and that's like your guy,

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Speaker 1: that's your kind of guy to you, so you know

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Speaker 1: where you are. If you let go of that, you

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Speaker 1: are being swept around down there. That just sounds so dangerous.

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Speaker 1: Now we have a clip from Dirty Water Done, who

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Speaker 1: is hanging with the barstool guys, teaming up with them.

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Speaker 1: Shit a thunderstorm down here. But this is the barstool

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Speaker 1: sports guy seemingly scuba diving for his first time in

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Speaker 1: the East River, and he's not too happy with this

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Speaker 1: current down there. I guess see the first boat. These guys,

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Speaker 1: you know, a bit more, a lot more experience. They

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Speaker 1: knew when slack tied was coming, which is like a

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Speaker 1: thirty minute window when when it's fairly calm down there.

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Speaker 1: The barstool guys didn't if they know about slack tie,

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Speaker 1: they didn't wait for it because they go down when

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Speaker 1: it's full on. You know, it's like being blown around

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Speaker 1: in a hurricane down there. They said their videos, and

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Speaker 1: they both did it to their credit. They both when

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Speaker 1: the time got down there to the bottom, and they

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Speaker 1: both sound much more frantic and crazy. But also there's

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Speaker 1: a lot like whoa like, I'm on the bottom of

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Speaker 1: the East River. So the divers, the divers returned, nobody dies,

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Speaker 1: and the barstool guys have like a giant plastic femur

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Speaker 1: that they got from like a Halloween skeleton. The barstool

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Speaker 1: guys make this video and at the end of the video,

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Speaker 1: one of them comes out of the water holding this

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Speaker 1: giant femur that you know. They claimed that, you know,

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Speaker 1: we've found this out of the bottom of the river.

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Speaker 1: It's clearly a plastic thing from one of these giant

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Speaker 1: home depot skeletons that you see when you go in

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Speaker 1: around that time of year. Yeah, so that was kind

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Speaker 1: of a joke. But they did not find anything worth

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Speaker 1: scientific study. And have they given up I'm finding these

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Speaker 1: bones or are people still out there? Guys I talked

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Speaker 1: to said they'd be welcome to consider coming back, like

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Speaker 1: in the summer. That seems longer looked down there, Yeah, exactly.

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Speaker 1: In the end, is this a story about people who

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Speaker 1: want adventure and treasure or just people who are trying

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Speaker 1: to fill their social media channels? I think you got both.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I think the barb stool guys would have

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Speaker 1: been very happy to find anything of scientific value, I'm sure,

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Speaker 1: but that I don't think that was their primary reason

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Speaker 1: for going down there, whereas the YouTube guys, you know,

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Speaker 1: were legitimately I think looking for evidence of something bigger.

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Speaker 1: What are the odds that are actually William mammoth tusks

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Speaker 1: in the East River. I think they're extremely slim, and

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Speaker 1: I'll tell you why. I mentioned earlier that the once

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Speaker 1: young man on the bone wagon who grew up to

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Speaker 1: write the document the start of this entire fiasco, Chard Osborne.

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Speaker 1: Richard Osborne co wrote it with two other gentlemen, both

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Speaker 1: one a paleontologists, one an archaeologist from Alaska, both of

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Speaker 1: whom are still alive, both of whom took my call,

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Speaker 1: and both of whom said that it was one set

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Speaker 1: it was implausible that there are any mammoth tusks that

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Speaker 1: were dumped in the East River. The other said he

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Speaker 1: vaguely remembers Osborne telling him about, you know, really damaged

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Speaker 1: and crummy and like powdery remains in crates that might

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Speaker 1: have been dumped in the East River. That that might

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Speaker 1: not have been unheard of at the time, nothing of

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Speaker 1: any value, and if it was just bone fragments like that,

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Speaker 1: it wouldn't be a big deal. I mean, that's the

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Speaker 1: kind of stuff John Reeves eats for launch. Apparently, yeah apparently. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: so he picks his teeth with like broken mammoth femurs.

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Speaker 1: He does they make jewelry out of some of this

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Speaker 1: stuff up there on his property. Oh wow, Yeah, so

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Speaker 1: he's not treating it that gingerly. Why do you think

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Speaker 1: Reeves claim was so compelling to Joe Rogan listeners? I

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Speaker 1: think in this day and age, there is a real

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Speaker 1: appetite for some old school adventure. Yeah, you know, and

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Speaker 1: strapping on that crazy diving bell, jumping into this freezing

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Speaker 1: cold river that everybody knows is weird is definitely an adventure.

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Speaker 1: Michael Wilson, you wrote this amazing story mammoth tusks in

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Speaker 1: the East River, how Joe Rogan started a bone rush.

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Speaker 1: Thank you for telling us all about it. Joel, Thank

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Speaker 1: you so much, beloved podcast listener. I can't promise you

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Speaker 1: three hundred thousand dollar elephant tusks, or YouTube fame, or

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Speaker 1: even a passing familiarity with what kind of ads they

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Speaker 1: run during the show, But I can send you on

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Speaker 1: an even more fantastic adventure than Joe Rogan did, one

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Speaker 1: with twists and turns and things you didn't even imagine

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Speaker 1: exist in the world. There is a fortune to be

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Speaker 1: had hidden inside James Joyce's Ulysses a fortune of knowledge

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Speaker 1: about art to human heart and most of all, our

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Speaker 1: ability to use language. Whichever one of my listeners is

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Speaker 1: brave enough to read it, you're gonna understand our episode

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Speaker 1: in mid June a lot more. Godspeed. At the end

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Speaker 1: of the show, what's next for joel Stein? Maybe he'll

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Speaker 1: take a naver poke around online. Our show today was

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Speaker 1: produced by Molaboard and Nishev Bencutt. It was edited by

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Speaker 1: Lydia Gencott engineer is Amanda kay We, and our executive

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Speaker 1: producer is Katherine Siradol. And our theme song was written

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Speaker 1: and performed by Jonathan Colton and a special thanks to

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Speaker 1: my voice coach Vicky Merrick and my consulting producer Lauren

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Speaker 1: z Elastick. To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the

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Speaker 1: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: I'm Joel Stein and this is the story of the week.

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Speaker 1: The scariest thing is that Joe Rogan can just deploy

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Speaker 1: people on whatever dangerous mission you can think of. I know,

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Speaker 1: I know, he's probably forgotten this whole thing ever happened. No,

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Speaker 1: this is like, well, I think he forgot it halfway

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Speaker 1: from the episode, he was so stoned. I mean, he

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Speaker 1: lets he gives up guests a lot of room to talk.

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Speaker 1: There's not a lot of interrupting, there's not a lot

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Speaker 1: of showboating. You know, I think you're just You're just

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Speaker 1: insulting me, aren't you. You gave this guest way too

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Speaker 1: much time to talk. No, I take the criticism to heart,

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Speaker 1: and I will I will rogan myself up for the

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Speaker 1: next interview. The lesson learned