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Transcript

Would You Hang Upside Down for $275,000? · The PNW Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Some things aren't necessarily physical, they're mental, and they have long-term implications.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: But you can dangle my sweet ass up there for close to an hour for$275,000.
0:12
SPEAKER_02: I know the seatbelt's gonna hold.
0:14
SPEAKER_02: That's what it's designed for.
0:50
SPEAKER_02: As they were ranked the number one health and wellness facility in the Portland area Stafford Hills Club.
0:56
SPEAKER_02: And all you gotta do is say that Drew sent you half off your initiation and we'll be kicking it.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: I might be spotting you right there on your bench press here in a couple of weeks, StaffordHills.com.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: In studio right now and via satellite from Eugene Marcus Bridges, making it a true Northwest podcast.
1:16
SPEAKER_01: How are you doing today, buddy?
1:17
SPEAKER_01: Doing well and calling it via satellite.
1:19
SPEAKER_01: I know that's how it comes in, but that makes me sound so much more sophisticated than just sitting up here in my Ramshackle studio.
1:25
SPEAKER_01: So I appreciate that.
1:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I like to think that it's coming through an old, uh, you know, disconnected direct TV dish into your house, something along those lines.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: Or the old school one.
1:35
SPEAKER_02: You remember when the dude had like the the massive one on their house so they could get another five channels back in the 80s and 90s?
1:42
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or they just section off like three-quarters of their backyard and dedicate it to a satellite that looks like it could kill you if you get too close to it.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, definitely remember those.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we've come a long way.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: Every dog we have gets tumors.
1:55
SPEAKER_02: I don't understand it, but we do get TNT.
1:59
SPEAKER_02: It's amazing.
2:00
SPEAKER_02: Uh now I this is something we want to dive into straight away.
2:04
SPEAKER_02: Marcus, did you hear about this?
2:07
SPEAKER_02: Two kids uh who were part of the Oaks Park incident.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: You remember when the ride got stuck upside down?
2:14
SPEAKER_02: Now, if you're not from the Portland area and you're from somewhere else, Oaks Park is like a hundred-year-old full-time amusement park along the Willamette River here in the Portland area that dates back way beyond my days, but it was a staple.
2:30
SPEAKER_02: Even when I was a kid, it's got the ancient roller rink, the whole deal, family run behavior, really good people who run the place.
2:39
SPEAKER_02: And they made national headlines when their ride, which was this, is basically like this giant stick that you all got on one end and it would spin around in circles.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: Well, somehow that thing got stuck completely upside down so that everyone on the ride was stuck with their head facing towards the earth and just being held in by a seat belt for 25 minutes.
3:05
SPEAKER_02: Now that is a long time to be dangling and to be thinking about these things, right?
3:10
SPEAKER_02: Well, it became a much bigger deal than that because by the time they got the people down, you know, they shut down the ride.
3:18
SPEAKER_02: They made it so the ride could no longer do 360s.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: I was there weeks later, they did get it going again.
3:24
SPEAKER_02: My nephew had the balls to get back on that thing.
3:28
SPEAKER_02: I was like, not a chance.
3:29
SPEAKER_02: I have a future.
3:30
SPEAKER_02: And he hopped on, which made me feel like less of a man because I think he was like 12 at the time, but you know, it was back in action in short order, so you figured that's it, right?
3:42
SPEAKER_02: Right.
3:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, not right, because it looks like there was a slew of lawsuits that came down against Oaks Park, which gives me a bit of a pause straight away because this isn't Six Flags, this isn't Disney.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: You're going after a mom and pop, but these people feel that they were in fear for their lives and they knew that there might be a payday on the back end.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: The kind of payday, Marcus, that actually came down the pike was ridiculous.
4:11
SPEAKER_02: $275,000 each for two of the riders on that ride.
4:19
SPEAKER_01: So basically$100,000 a minute is what we're looking at right there.
4:25
SPEAKER_01: Well,$10,000 a minute.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: Oh,$10,000.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: I've never been good at math.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: But still, that's that's wild when you think about it.
4:32
SPEAKER_01: Now, granted, I can't imagine what that experience must have been like, but that's a pretty big number.
4:39
SPEAKER_02: It is a massive number.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: And I'm gonna say this, and I am sensitive to people's feelings and what they've been through, and that some things aren't necessarily physical, they're mental and they have long-term implications.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: But you can dangle my sweet ass up there for close to an hour for$275,000.
4:59
SPEAKER_02: I know the seatbelt's gonna hold.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: That's what it's designed for.
5:02
SPEAKER_02: Now, the thing wasn't designed to stay upside down, so there's that, but there's mechanical issues, and then a harness is a harness, it's locked in.
5:10
SPEAKER_02: During the time up there, I'm thinking this thing's gonna break, this thing's gonna break, this thing's gonna break.
5:15
SPEAKER_02: But for almost$300,000, which for a lot of people, you know, that's close to paying off the remainder of their mortgage or whatever.
5:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that is a it's a nasty number.
5:27
SPEAKER_02: Am I crazy for saying that I'd be willing to dangle for$300K or close to it?
5:32
SPEAKER_01: No, as long as see, this is what I've got a lot of friends in construction and friends that do kind of dangerous, you know, blue-collar jobs like hard labor jobs.
5:42
SPEAKER_01: And I know that there's only a certain amount of time that the human body can hang upside down before really bad things start to happen.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: So I would want you to research that part first, Drew.
5:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh, but if you've got somebody on the hook that's willing to pay you for dangle, and I say dangle, um, because hey, it look, it's it was 27 minutes of their life, which seems uh it seems a bit egregious to get that much money for.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: I maybe I'm in a weird camp here, Drew, because for me, and maybe I maybe you could convince me to sue these people afterwards, but if I was on that ride at the mom and pop theme park that's been around forever, and I got stuck upside down, I think the entire 27 minutes I would be up there thinking it serves you right.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: You're at a mom and pop theme park, it's been around forever.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's not as well maintained as a Disneyland or a or Six Flags, like you mentioned.
6:36
SPEAKER_01: And I assumed this risk.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: It's a it's an amusement park ride.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: We've seen over the years, every now and then, something terrible happen on an amusement park ride.
6:47
SPEAKER_01: A kid got his head kicked off.
6:48
SPEAKER_01: Like that that happened, whether or not we want to act like it's fake or not.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: Like these things happen.
6:53
SPEAKER_01: It's normally due to negligence.
6:55
SPEAKER_01: Somebody made a mistake somewhere.
6:58
SPEAKER_01: Um, but I I kind of look at this as like this is part of why it's so exhilarating to go on these rides, is because you know there's an inherent risk, Drew.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
7:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a litigious person.
7:10
SPEAKER_01: I've never sued anybody, but I've never had a reason to.
7:12
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know how I would react in this situation, other than probably um dribbling a little pee up my back, which would be a weird way for it to go.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: And Marcus is not exaggerating here.
7:24
SPEAKER_02: I believe it was the Batman ride at Six Flags.
7:26
SPEAKER_02: Somebody dropped their hat, they snuck over a fence, tried to grab it, and got their head kicked off, thus making the hat completely worthless to anyone involved at that point.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: But when you get yourself into this situation, I think you would have fallen into the group with everybody else because they weren't alone.
7:45
SPEAKER_02: There was a ton of other riders on that ride, but the rest of them settled out of court.
7:52
SPEAKER_02: They took a settlement deal.
7:54
SPEAKER_02: It was these two individuals who said, nah, we're gonna go to court and we're gonna see what this returns.
8:00
SPEAKER_02: They were their law firm that represented them are called the underdog law firm.
8:07
SPEAKER_02: So they know what's what it's like to fight uphill for a client.
8:11
SPEAKER_02: And they did just that here, gaining these guys over a half a million dollars combined, which, you know, there is a fear for me, knowing that this is a mom and pop, knowing this is a heritage place that, you know, and I'm sure insurance comes into play here and pays some of this money, but how much does this put you on the ropes?
8:31
SPEAKER_02: How much does this raise your premiums?
8:32
SPEAKER_02: What does this do to your bottom line?
8:35
SPEAKER_02: Because I I I've worked with them before.
8:37
SPEAKER_02: It's not a cat, it's not a cash-heavy business.
8:41
SPEAKER_02: You know, a lot of the work that I did for them was in trade because they didn't necessarily have a ton of money to dole out for appearances and things like that.
8:51
SPEAKER_02: One of the best Oktoberfests I've ever hosted was over there.
8:55
SPEAKER_02: They do it right.
8:56
SPEAKER_02: And I don't, I don't want that to go away for people.
8:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
8:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's tough, man, because you wonder like, was this a kind of a Hail Mary for these two?
9:04
SPEAKER_01: You know, with an uh with a law firm called the underdogs, it's like you wonder if they're chucking up half-court shots and every now and then one of them goes in.
9:12
SPEAKER_01: I I would like to know what the settlements were for the rest of the people.
9:16
SPEAKER_01: And and typically, I don't know if you have that info.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: A lot of times that stuff doesn't get released.
9:21
SPEAKER_01: They kind of settle on the agreement that you guys are going to keep this number quiet so that people don't come out and just try to get in trouble out here and then try to get a quick lawsuit and sell it out, uh, settle it out of court.
9:32
SPEAKER_01: But I'd be interested to know how much everybody else got.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: Because if everybody else got cut a check for 10 grand and these two are walking away with 275 big, uh, I might have some questions for the settlement lawyers, I'll be honest.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, I I I that isn't disclosed in the articles that I've read.
9:50
SPEAKER_02: Now, when this originally came up, these two guys were only asking for$125 apiece, but then it says it was later revised significantly upward.
10:01
SPEAKER_02: So lawyers must have gotten a sniff that there was a lot more potential to pay these guys out.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: Now, compare this.
10:08
SPEAKER_02: So, this is what I'm thinking.
10:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm comparing this as a crazy, in the moment, scary thing that they dealt with, right?
10:16
SPEAKER_02: It's a lot like, but different than remember when the window came out or the door came off of the Alaskan Airlines flight coming out of Portland and was sucking the kid out of the window and they're holding him in.
10:28
SPEAKER_02: I feel like that is a much bigger payout and really a concerning thing.
10:34
SPEAKER_02: When you're getting sucked into the night because something wasn't necessarily up to code, that's different.
10:41
SPEAKER_02: The people who came in to inspect the ride found no negligence.
10:45
SPEAKER_02: They found nothing wrong with it, actually.
10:48
SPEAKER_02: When they reset it, it just worked.
10:50
SPEAKER_02: So there was no way for them to know ahead of time or to there's no like, well, they just decided to not do the repairs because they wanted to upgrade the roller ring.
11:00
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't like that.
11:02
SPEAKER_02: It was just a thing that happened.
11:04
SPEAKER_02: It was a freak deal.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: But at that amount of money, it really is a lot.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna read the quote from the lawyers uh so you can get a grasp on how they how they proceeded with this.
11:15
SPEAKER_02: It says, Everyone on that ride was terrified that the straps were going to release and they were going to fall to their death a hundred feet onto the concrete.
11:24
SPEAKER_02: It was horrible to understand that this affected them not just during the 25 minutes on the ride, but even in the years afterwards.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: They had to seek counseling, treatment, and medication.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: Some of them are still afraid to fly on airplanes.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: Hmm.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: What's your thought there?
11:44
SPEAKER_01: Well, uh this is where I think the sleazy part of lawyering comes into play is like, did all of them have to seek therapy and medical treatment, or did you let them know that this case looks a lot better if they go and seek the medical treatment?
11:58
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not discounting anybody's experience here because I know that's what the comments are gonna say.
12:03
SPEAKER_01: You're not thinking about the person.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: Look, my heart can't bleed for everyone.
12:07
SPEAKER_01: But what I'll tell you is I've watched enough suits to know that these guys can be sleazy.
12:13
SPEAKER_01: They know every loophole there is, they know how to make their cases look better, they know how to win, not just get justice.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so yeah, I I would like, I don't know, I maybe I don't want to hear from the people that were involved here about whether or not this was an honest take or this is something that was kind of lawyered into existence.
12:33
SPEAKER_01: I do not like hearing that they're uh that what they were seeking in damages more than doubled.
12:39
SPEAKER_01: That seems egregious to me.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: That seems like you're out for blood.
12:43
SPEAKER_01: And again, like it's one thing if you're coming after a gigantic multi-billion dollar corporation.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: This type of money doesn't even register as a drop in the bucket.
12:53
SPEAKER_01: Uh, this is throwing a glacier into the ocean for a uh, you know, a mom and pop.
12:59
SPEAKER_01: It could move the shoreline.
13:00
SPEAKER_01: It could have devastating effects down the road.
13:03
SPEAKER_01: And um, I hope it doesn't, because you know, we spent a lot of time on this podcast talking about local businesses and their value and what might happen to them if, say, the Blazers move out of town and where all the local business goes.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: That's got me panicky already.
13:17
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to see another one shut down because of something like this, especially when, other than mentally, it doesn't sound like anybody was physically hurt.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: Nobody was maimed, nobody was killed, nobody lost an arm.
13:28
SPEAKER_01: You were uncomfortable for a little bit.
13:30
SPEAKER_01: Sucks, but it's happened to a bunch of us.
13:33
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can give you uh I can count no less than five middle seat plane rides across the country that kept me uncomfortable for a lot longer than what these people had to deal with.
13:43
SPEAKER_01: I was right side up, but that's the only difference.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes trauma is part of life.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: You know, most of us, if we've lived on the edge at all, have been in a car accident where somebody else was driving that wasn't a family member.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, my wife was thrown out of a vehicle in a car accident.
14:04
SPEAKER_02: She could have sued the driver, but she didn't, because it isn't just about what can I get, it's what should I get.
14:14
SPEAKER_02: You know, and you assume the risk of being in a car with too many people and seatbelts aren't on, and you know you're with a jack wagon, but you're also assuming a risk getting on a carnival ride.
14:25
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
14:26
SPEAKER_02: Now I don't think that you should be swung off of the swings into the ocean.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: You know, like I get that, you know, you don't want to be hurt, but I just fear, and you know, we've gotten through it, but I I fear that this is gonna be the end of the Oaks Park situation.
14:41
SPEAKER_02: And I'm not joking you when I say my daughter asks every day of the summer if she can go to Oaks Park.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, every single day.
14:50
SPEAKER_02: She asked the day after her birthday, and we did all the stuff.
14:53
SPEAKER_02: And I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
14:54
SPEAKER_02: Like it's an embarrassment that you even asked, but that's how much they love it.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: So let's hope uh that we can get some something going there.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: And can I just put this out there into the ether so that people start to think about it?
15:06
SPEAKER_01: When you're inventing and engineering these carnival rides, I know that it's kind of implicit that some of them have to go upside down to get the uh the rush that you're looking for.
15:16
SPEAKER_01: Can you go ahead and just make it so if they fail, they fail when they're right side up?
15:21
SPEAKER_01: Like it doesn't, I mean, just put in something that just, hey, you know what?
15:25
SPEAKER_01: It's always going all the way around.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: We're never gonna stop it at top dead center.
15:30
SPEAKER_01: This isn't the firing order on a 1985 Chevy 350.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: This is a carnival ride.
15:36
SPEAKER_01: Bring it back down to the ground level and right side up if it has to fail.
15:41
SPEAKER_01: I I probably didn't help anything there, but just a thought that went through my mind, Drew.
15:45
SPEAKER_02: I mean, but as a layman, I was looking at it going, we can't just release the brake and let it swing back to the bottom and let gravity stop it at the bottom.
15:54
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we're allowed.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: Maybe the thing already spins around in a circle.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: Can't we just release the brake and come on down?
16:00
SPEAKER_01: If if that thing's loaded up to capacity though, does that just become a perpetual swinging thing where you can never stop it again?
16:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
16:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm not smart enough, but it's a question.
16:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, well, that's the reason why you and I don't have the button.
16:12
SPEAKER_01: Like Well, we tried, there's a lot of barf, and now it's a half a million each.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: Dude, I got stuck on a carnival ride as a kid, and I didn't know it until I was off.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: And let me tell you how bad I was spun up.
16:23
SPEAKER_01: You remember the octopus or the spider is what it was.
16:27
SPEAKER_01: We got stuck at full speed, full spin while this thing was going.
16:31
SPEAKER_01: We were on it for like 25-30 minutes, Drew.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: Like to the point where our parents finally walked over.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: Like, have we lost our kids?
16:38
SPEAKER_01: No, we're just yeah, yeah, yeah, just for 30 minutes.
16:42
SPEAKER_01: And it finally, like, we see the guy down there pushing the button and it won't stop.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: And uh, I'm surprised that I wasn't the one that threw up all over the fairgrounds that day, but a lot of people did.
16:52
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's scary, but I'll tell you this: I didn't go sue him because it was the octopus.
16:57
SPEAKER_01: Like as a 15-year-old kid or whatever I was, I would have given you two tickets to tell me that I'm gonna get that much of an extended ride here today.
17:04
SPEAKER_01: So I don't know.
17:06
SPEAKER_02: I got stuck on Space Mountain uh at Disneyland.
17:09
SPEAKER_02: The only thing that happened is it stopped.
17:12
SPEAKER_02: The lights came on, which killed the fun and really ripped back Oz's curtain on me.
17:17
SPEAKER_02: Um, and all they said at the end is they go, sorry about that.
17:20
SPEAKER_02: We'll let you all go again.
17:22
SPEAKER_02: That was it.
17:23
SPEAKER_02: And I was cool with it.
17:24
SPEAKER_02: It was good to go.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: So uh we're gonna take a quick break.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna come back, we're gonna hear from the Timbers owner about the situation with the Portland Trailblazers and the possibility of them leaving town and five quick headlines from the Northwest to wrap it up.
17:42
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18:42
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18:46
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18:47
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18:49
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19:07
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19:34
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19:39
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19:42
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19:45
SPEAKER_02: So everybody's been talking about the Blazers, including us, about whether they stay in town, whether they leave.
19:50
SPEAKER_02: It's giving everyone an anxiety attack, the people who hate giving money to the Blazers, and those of us who are worried about it leaving.
19:58
SPEAKER_02: But it's such a bigger picture than what some of the grumpies are saying.
20:02
SPEAKER_02: And uh, I think that some of the people who run the city, some of the powerful people in the city, they realize that this would be a massive hole in our society here in the Portland area.
20:12
SPEAKER_02: And Merritt Paulson, the owner of the Timbers, is no exception to that.
20:17
SPEAKER_02: He's been a great owner, rebuilding Providence Park, bringing the sexy back to that part of downtown, really uh turning the lights up.
20:26
SPEAKER_02: And and the more people that are in an air area, Marcus, the more we really kind of can flourish and we can push out some of the riff-raff if we're being honest.
20:34
SPEAKER_02: But Paulson was asked about the situation with the Blazers and had an interesting take from KGW.
20:42
SPEAKER_00: First of all, the Blazers can't move.
20:44
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they are massively critical to the culture and the economic vitality of the city of Portland.
20:52
SPEAKER_00: End stop.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Period.
20:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, that's that that's first and foremost.
20:58
SPEAKER_00: Um, secondly, when when you buy a team, you're not just investing in a league, you're not just investing in a franchise, you're investing in the city, um, you're investing in a community.
21:14
SPEAKER_02: It's true.
21:15
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it really does come down to that.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: You know, it's you you picked us.
21:22
SPEAKER_02: We didn't pick you.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: And, you know, granted, you could be a great owner, this could all be for naught.
21:27
SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people are like, this is just one big negotiation, but really, this is a big deal.
21:33
SPEAKER_02: And he picked Portland.
21:36
SPEAKER_02: He knew the news.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: This has been going on for six years here.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: Nobody is surprised that Portland has some issues that we're trying to work through, but none of that should be a reason to upend the team and and throw them out of here.
21:50
SPEAKER_02: And I think that there really should be a negotiation in good faith, and it shows that other owners feel that way, Marcus.
21:56
SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
21:57
SPEAKER_01: That was the part that I was gonna touch on, Drew, is that uh Um, maybe if we could have picked an owner, we would have picked differently at this juncture.
22:05
SPEAKER_01: Probably the case.
22:06
SPEAKER_01: I think uh a lot of us see Phil Knight's offer to buy the team a year before the team was sold and think, man, what if?
22:14
SPEAKER_01: Because um, this team stays in Portland until there's nothing but cockroaches and ash, uh, if Phil Knight owns the thing.
22:21
SPEAKER_01: And so um, but I do like to see the Timbers owner Merritt Paulson here.
22:26
SPEAKER_01: He's the type of guy we would have picked, even if it wouldn't have been Phil Knight, the guy that understands I'm investing in a community, I'm investing in a city.
22:35
SPEAKER_01: Um, because the more that this goes on and the more that he pays me for bringing his propaganda to the front, I just can't look at Tom Dundan as anybody else other than a bit of a uh a finance bro, is what he strikes me as at this point.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: None of this, none of the people involved in this mean anything.
22:54
SPEAKER_01: It's a bottom line discussion.
22:56
SPEAKER_01: It's red numbers and black numbers, and that's all that's being moved around the board here.
23:02
SPEAKER_01: And at the end of the day, the only reason that we're talking about this is because there are people involved and people invested and people that care.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: And you kind of feel like an afterthought right now, Drew.
23:13
SPEAKER_01: And I'll tell you one group of people that doesn't feel that way, the Portland Timbers faithful.
23:18
SPEAKER_01: They don't feel that way right now.
23:19
SPEAKER_01: Why?
23:19
SPEAKER_01: Well, listen to what their owner just said.
23:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and and that's a perfect example of a great environment, which is in a tougher part of town at times than the Motive Center.
23:31
SPEAKER_02: So where there's a will, there's a way.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: And I I get we want we want it to be a bustling city.
23:36
SPEAKER_02: We want to make sure it's profitable for everyone, but to be like, well, we didn't know what we were getting into.
23:42
SPEAKER_02: Stop with all that.
23:43
SPEAKER_02: You don't buy a lemon that you can see it's a lemon, and it's like making you sour as you sign the papers, and then be like, well, we didn't, we didn't, we thought that was an orange, an off-color orange.
23:54
SPEAKER_02: No, it's a bunch of crap.
23:56
SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it's enough said about that.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: I just hope that um it is just that a negotiation tactic in the end, and that we can we can get on with it.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
24:08
SPEAKER_02: Now, I do have some headlines for you, Marcus, that I thought were um kind of funny.
24:13
SPEAKER_02: Now, it's the thing refreshed on me, and I lost a couple of them.
24:17
SPEAKER_02: So we'll just we might not do five, but we'll walk through a couple of them.
24:21
SPEAKER_02: Did you see that uh Mount St.
24:23
SPEAKER_02: Helens, first of all, just got their own license plate in Washington, but that's not the news.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: You can get that on your car right now, and it might be even more relevant than the incident in 1980 that left ash all over the Pacific Northwest because they say that it's rumbling again.
24:41
SPEAKER_01: Really?
24:42
SPEAKER_01: I did not see that.
24:43
SPEAKER_01: That's interesting because it already blew half the mountain away.
24:46
SPEAKER_01: So is this the second half?
24:47
SPEAKER_01: Did we just have to wait, you know, 35 years for the for the encore?
24:51
SPEAKER_01: What's what's going on here?
24:53
SPEAKER_02: I know, and it's such an eyesore.
24:55
SPEAKER_02: Like I'm used to it that it's got the the Tom Peterson crop top haircut now, but you look over at places where you can see both.
25:04
SPEAKER_02: You look at Mount St.
25:05
SPEAKER_02: Helens and it just looks like it's missing something.
25:08
SPEAKER_02: And Mount Hood, that perfect little cap.
25:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean, it's it's perfect for a t-shirt.
25:13
SPEAKER_02: And the thought that Mount St.
25:15
SPEAKER_02: Helens could go again.
25:16
SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't know if it's more dangerous when it pops again, or if it's kind of like acid indigestion, you know, where it's just gonna kind of like blick blick blick blick right and just burn up the trees again, or if we're gonna have a full-blown explosion.
25:32
SPEAKER_02: And it, you know, seismic activity happens all the time, but that doesn't mean that it's not something to be slightly concerned about.
25:41
SPEAKER_01: For sure.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're in the Pacific Ring of Fire out here.
25:44
SPEAKER_01: The entire Pacific Northwest is, and if you want some real terrifying uh reading, look into what they think will happen when, not if, Mount Rainier eventually erupts.
25:56
SPEAKER_01: Um, there is a up there in Seattle, there is uh whole communities, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people that are going to be affected.
26:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, not quite as as, or excuse me, a lot less would be affected if Mount St.
26:08
SPEAKER_01: Helens blows up a second time.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: But you think about Mount Hood.
26:12
SPEAKER_01: You know what Mount Hood reminds me of, Drew?
26:14
SPEAKER_01: Probably what Mount Mazama looked like before it turned into Crater Lake.
26:19
SPEAKER_01: Just a picture perfect, just symmetry all the way up the sides, everything's great, and then all of a sudden, uh, we black out the sun for half the United States for a few months and turn it into Crater Lake.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: Like it's it's a little bit uh disconcerting, but what do you do about it other than be ready?
26:38
SPEAKER_01: It's like a tsunami.
26:39
SPEAKER_01: You're not gonna stand there like you're in Tiananmen Square with your hand up and make a difference.
26:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, well, in 200 years, it'll be a beautiful lake.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: So the goats, we talked about the goats on TriMet last week, but we do have an update about them.
26:53
SPEAKER_02: We know who they are and where they come from.
26:56
SPEAKER_02: It turns out they were pets.
26:58
SPEAKER_02: They were not two goats belonging to tweakers who'd walked them into town.
27:02
SPEAKER_02: Their their cage or their pin had come open.
27:07
SPEAKER_02: So it's like something had happened with the little locking mechanism on their pen and it popped open, and basically they just walked off.
27:17
SPEAKER_01: That is interesting.
27:18
SPEAKER_01: And I have questions for the owners.
27:20
SPEAKER_01: If your goats are are doing locksmithing and and finding their way out, and the first place they go is a city bus to try to break the hell out.
27:29
SPEAKER_01: Um, what are you doing to those goats?
27:31
SPEAKER_01: Why are they like that?
27:32
SPEAKER_01: You know, goats are pretty simple.
27:33
SPEAKER_01: All you do is make sure they got a lot of food and they kind of just hang out.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: Like I had a buddy with goats when I was growing up.
27:39
SPEAKER_01: Of course I did, you know where I'm from.
27:41
SPEAKER_01: Um, but those goats that just hang out in the field.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: Every now and then they'd charge our buddy Jim and knock him down, which was funny.
27:47
SPEAKER_01: But they don't do anything other than eat and stand there and look at you with their googly eyes.
27:52
SPEAKER_01: So, did you mistreat these goats?
27:54
SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
27:55
SPEAKER_01: Have you not been feeding them enough blackberries?
27:57
SPEAKER_01: Because why were they headed on a TriMet bus and where were they going?
28:01
SPEAKER_02: Well, how dare you, Marcus?
28:03
SPEAKER_02: Because these goats have names.
28:04
SPEAKER_02: You want to know what they call the the two goats, the two suspects, um, Billy the Kid and Billy the goat.
28:12
SPEAKER_02: Those are those are their names.
28:14
SPEAKER_02: And in in a move that is so Portland, TriMet, which is the, you know, obviously the bus and train system in throughout the Portland area, they've made commemorative merchandise that you can now get for yourself to live on with Billy the Goat and Billy the Kid, as why not?
28:34
SPEAKER_02: Because there's nothing more Portland than to embrace the weirdness of goats on a bus.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: Man, I hope that the people that actually own the goats are the ones that are going to be able to profit off of this type of thing.
28:46
SPEAKER_01: Because, you know, it's kind of the same thing that happened with Jimothy up in Seattle, where it's like all of a sudden, it was like the Virgin Mary pretzel back in the day.
28:55
SPEAKER_01: Like there's so many imitations and so many people came out to try to profit off of this.
29:00
SPEAKER_01: You just hope that that profit ends up in the pockets of the people that actually care for these goats.
29:04
SPEAKER_01: Um, I give your naming of goats a four out of ten, no offense, but that's low-hanging fruit.
29:11
SPEAKER_01: You went with Billy and then you went with Billy twice for a goat.
29:16
SPEAKER_01: I said Joffrey, man.
29:17
SPEAKER_01: If one of those things comes onto my bus and I get to adopt it, Joffrey with a G because it's a goat.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: I like it.
29:23
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, you gotta you gotta admit that is lacking creativity, just naming them the same thing.
29:29
SPEAKER_02: And you can't call it by its first name, or it's completely confused.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
29:34
SPEAKER_02: And goats are confused from the outset, so you're only adding to the problem.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: Can we simplify here?
29:40
SPEAKER_02: Now, Marcus, you've heard of a cat burglar.
29:42
SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'm warning all people in the Portland metropolitan area, if you've been the subject of a robbery recently, I might have a suspect for you because an Oregon cat, an actual feline, has been exposed as a neighborhood thief.
30:03
SPEAKER_02: One Oregon cat is now in hot water after a serious stealing habit, has his owner putting up signs all over the neighborhood telling people that if you've lost your stuff, come by and get it.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: Because this cat is stealing things and hoarding it at their house.
30:22
SPEAKER_02: Now, I don't know the size of the items that they're able to steal, like maybe a shoe or a t-shirt or a pair of sunglasses, but apparently this cat, which is a very to me it's a dog move.
30:35
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but this cat is stealing things and storing a hoarding them at the owner's house.
30:41
SPEAKER_02: And so they felt so bad to where they're actually reaching out to the community and saying, hey, my cat's a klepto.
30:48
SPEAKER_02: Come by and pick up your things.
30:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna laugh if in six months we look back at this story and we see that instead it was just a guilty conscience.
30:56
SPEAKER_01: It's like, yeah, come back and get your stuff.
30:58
SPEAKER_01: My cat took your 70-inch flat screen and your Honda 250Z.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
31:02
SPEAKER_01: I know it's a dirt bike and it's weird that he can ride it without thumbs, but he got it.
31:06
SPEAKER_01: So come back and get it.
31:07
SPEAKER_01: Like, is this just a cover, Drew?
31:09
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
31:11
SPEAKER_02: We go over there and and the owner's a tweaker.
31:14
SPEAKER_02: That's a lot of stereo equipment for a cat.
31:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you got a garage that looks like the old uh what was that old what's that uh electronics store up there in Portland that uh is is such a uh local institution?
31:25
SPEAKER_01: Uh help me up.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: See, down where you live, it's the stereo store, but up here it's um oh my gosh, it's right down this, it's next door to my Costco.
31:35
SPEAKER_02: How dare I?
31:37
SPEAKER_01: It's right on the tip of my tongue.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: But I remember going in there and being like, is this a big box store or is this a guy's collection?
31:44
SPEAKER_01: Because kind of stuff's just kind of out there, you know.
31:47
SPEAKER_01: Um, it's a name, is it's like a dude's name, right?
31:50
SPEAKER_01: God, people are just at people are screaming at their speakers right now.
31:54
SPEAKER_02: Cartoys is the big one near us, but it's not someone's name.
31:57
SPEAKER_02: You have Brad's cartoons down where you live in Eugene, which I I know Brad, and I also know the guy who runs Stereo Store down there, but uh Cartoys is the one that's up by my Costco, which I'm gonna point out.
32:10
SPEAKER_02: You know, and since this is the PNW podcast, this is a side note, and we're actually gonna spend some time honoring businesses that were founded in the great Northwest.
32:18
SPEAKER_02: Do you know where Costco was founded?
32:21
SPEAKER_02: I don't.
32:22
SPEAKER_02: Seattle, Washington.
32:24
SPEAKER_01: It makes sense because their brand name is Kirkland, and that's right outside of Seattle, Kirkland, Washington, right?
32:30
SPEAKER_02: I you know, I didn't piece that part together.
32:32
SPEAKER_02: I just thought that they make good discount uh vodka and seltzers.
32:37
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, yeah.
32:38
SPEAKER_01: Um, it it's definitely that makes total sense.
32:41
SPEAKER_01: I still haven't found the name of this audio place, and it's driving me nuts.
32:45
SPEAKER_01: I know we've moved on, but I'm going to find it.
32:47
SPEAKER_02: I still give in, you know, if you find it, uh let us know.
32:52
SPEAKER_02: But I'm gonna give you one last cat headline, and we're not alone.
32:55
SPEAKER_02: I almost would prefer to have the Klepto cat because this is super gross, and I'm not the biggest cat guy.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: I'm just gonna be honest about it.
33:03
SPEAKER_02: My daughter, Josie, my nine-year-old, she loves cats.
33:08
SPEAKER_02: She, when we go to like my in-laws or my brother-in-law's house, she doesn't even hang out with us.
33:14
SPEAKER_02: She just like lays with cats like a creep.
33:17
SPEAKER_02: But she hopefully she doesn't end up like this person.
33:20
SPEAKER_02: 50 plus cats found living in an abandoned sailboat in the Puget Sound.
33:28
SPEAKER_01: How crazy is that?
33:30
SPEAKER_01: Dude, the sailboat is not a good environment for a cat.
33:33
SPEAKER_01: They hate water.
33:35
SPEAKER_01: Surrounding them with it, I find, makes them a little twitchy.
33:38
SPEAKER_02: But so there were 30 cats on the on like the main floor of this of this boat when they walked up to it in the Puget Sound in Tacoma, and they were like, oh my god, how could 30 cats be here?
33:50
SPEAKER_02: Oh, there was another 21 below deck.
33:53
SPEAKER_01: Dude, I bet you that below deck area smelled center ring of hell.
33:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, could you even imagine like you could put a tuna, a dead tuna, in that guy's air system, and it wouldn't smell as bad as what 50 cats could do to it.
34:07
SPEAKER_01: That's a nightmare.
34:09
SPEAKER_01: And I look, I always hate it too, Drew, because when you hear these stories, this sounds like a guy who's hoarding cats.
34:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he's not taking care of them.
34:17
SPEAKER_01: Whether or not he loves them as much as you or me or Josie or anybody, he's not taking care of 50 cats on a goddamn boat.
34:24
SPEAKER_01: And uh uh, just poor, poor form, bad form all the way around.
34:29
SPEAKER_02: And sadly, it's not saying anything here about a suspect.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: So it's almost like they found him abandoned, and then that's like the cats, what are they eating each other at that point?
34:41
SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's uh even more disgusting.
34:43
SPEAKER_02: Because of course, even someone with 50 cats, they're not cleaning up all the poop and the filth that's associated.
34:49
SPEAKER_02: But when they're looking for food, living on a boat, it seems like cannibalism would be what would happen.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: Dude, this is, I mean, it's it's feline Lord of the Flies in the Puget Sound.
35:01
SPEAKER_01: Uh, the cats are running the asylum, and uh, that's that's scary.
35:05
SPEAKER_01: I hope that they can save the cats, and I hope that they can find homes for them and people that will actually care for them, because if you're not going out to that boat and pulling up uh a net of mackerel every now and then, these cats have been starving.
35:16
SPEAKER_01: There's no question about it.
35:18
SPEAKER_01: That's true.
35:19
SPEAKER_02: And for a guy who's a dog guy, a hundred times out of a hundred over a cat guy, still not cool.
35:24
SPEAKER_02: Don't be mistreating those cats.
35:26
SPEAKER_02: All right, Marcus, thank you for being here.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: Like always, the PW Podcast, alive from the Stafford Hills Club.
35:33
SPEAKER_02: Remember, every Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday, subscribe to it.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: We will be here.
35:37
SPEAKER_02: We talk about things that affect the Northwest and that other people just might not be talking about.
35:43
SPEAKER_02: It's the PNW Podcast.
35:45
SPEAKER_02: Have a great day, bud.
35:46
SPEAKER_02: Be good.