Latest / Ridiculous History / 37 Days of Peril, with Alex Williams

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37 Days of Peril, with Alex Williams · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
0:30
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Over on the other side
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Speaker 1: of the zoom call, we've got our one and only
0:36
Speaker 1: super producer, Max Williams. Give him a hand, folks, but
0:40
Speaker 1: don't stop clapping. We'll keep clapping. But I'm Ben, but
0:44
Speaker 1: don't clap for me. I need you to clap for
0:46
Speaker 1: someone who's doing double duty. Today. We've got another super
0:49
Speaker 1: producer who happens to be my near and dear co host,
0:52
Speaker 1: the one and only Mr Noel Brown. You know it's weird, Ben.
0:55
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here in the room with you in person,
0:57
Speaker 1: but I'm just space. I'm still staring at a screen.
1:01
Speaker 1: I refused to meet your gaze, Sir. I won't do it. Okay,
1:04
Speaker 1: I'll do it. It's different. It hits different. You know
1:07
Speaker 1: when it's not when you're not in a little box
1:09
Speaker 1: on the screen. Um. But yeah, it's cool. We're here
1:12
Speaker 1: for real. I'm doing double duty. I'm sitting in the
1:14
Speaker 1: old producer's chair. Full disclosure, we did this whole instro
1:17
Speaker 1: a minute ago and I had one of the mix
1:18
Speaker 1: cute up wrong. So this is round two. Know with
1:21
Speaker 1: that was a rehearsal all the same beats though here
1:24
Speaker 1: we are, we are and and uh, we are so
1:28
Speaker 1: fortunate today normal because we we rarely get to record
1:32
Speaker 1: in person, but we we made an exception for today's
1:35
Speaker 1: very special episode. As we said in previous episode, Folks,
1:38
Speaker 1: we're going through kind of a highst face here on
1:41
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History, but we decided to put it on hold
1:44
Speaker 1: for a second because we have the wonderful opportunity to
1:47
Speaker 1: speak to an actual friend of ours, a friend of
1:50
Speaker 1: the show for a long time. You've heard his work
1:53
Speaker 1: anytime you've tuned into Ridiculous History. Uh. He is also
1:57
Speaker 1: related to our own super producer, Matt. Folks, Ridiculous Historians,
2:02
Speaker 1: let's have a big hand for the creator of not
2:05
Speaker 1: just our soundtrack, but the amazing podcast Ephemeral, Mr Alex Williams.
2:14
Speaker 1: Nice Ben. The second introduction was even better than the
2:17
Speaker 1: first introduction. Yeah, practice makes perfect. I love this uproarious
2:22
Speaker 1: applause full of Max. I think it makes us all
2:26
Speaker 1: feel really good about ourselves. Max. Is it true that
2:31
Speaker 1: you and Alex are blood relations? That is correct, he
2:34
Speaker 1: is eighteen months older than me. And then like four
2:36
Speaker 1: days or something like that. You're the little brother, just
2:40
Speaker 1: barely right, the little brother, yea, and in eighteen months. Yeah,
2:45
Speaker 1: that's pretty close on Irish twins, Alex, Like, I asked
2:50
Speaker 1: you on the way to our offices here today, did
2:53
Speaker 1: you did you get did you get lost? Did you
2:55
Speaker 1: find your way? Okay? Arduously lost cartoon initially lost. Now
2:59
Speaker 1: I have been here many times, but I'm ashamed to
3:01
Speaker 1: say that I did set up in the wrong studio.
3:04
Speaker 1: There's four studios here, and I was a little late,
3:08
Speaker 1: and I was running and setting things up and plugging
3:11
Speaker 1: things in feverishly. And I got in and I got
3:13
Speaker 1: the zoom open, and I saw that Ben was in
3:15
Speaker 1: a different studio, and all the all the what do
3:19
Speaker 1: you call these things? All the stuff, well, you know,
3:24
Speaker 1: you had the benefit of modern technology, at least, at
3:27
Speaker 1: least the zoom includes you into the fact that you
3:29
Speaker 1: weren't in the right place. But did you at least
3:31
Speaker 1: have some snacks to subsist on, maybe some thistles and
3:34
Speaker 1: twigs and herbs of some sort. There's some old York
3:38
Speaker 1: patties out front. Still, there's not very many. I have
3:41
Speaker 1: been here a lot lately, shooting another show, and uh,
3:44
Speaker 1: I have kind of subsisted on all of those. I
3:46
Speaker 1: think there's one orange lollipop left in there. You didn't
3:49
Speaker 1: come to that yet. We'll see how this goes. So, uh,
3:54
Speaker 1: this is this is a peak behind the curtain, folks,
3:56
Speaker 1: A wonderful example of what we call segways here in podcasting,
4:01
Speaker 1: because no, I get the feeling. My spider sense tells
4:04
Speaker 1: me that we're going somewhere with this. We are going somewhere.
4:07
Speaker 1: We're going to what is today called Yellowstone National Park.
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Speaker 1: In an eighteen seventy it was just like super rough,
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Speaker 1: you know, rugged terrain, wilderness, dare I say? And a
4:20
Speaker 1: gentleman by the name of Truman Everts got hopelessly, as
4:24
Speaker 1: you say, Ben, cartoonishly terrifyingly lost for a span a
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Speaker 1: thirty seven days. And he did an account of this.
4:33
Speaker 1: And there's a recent episode of Ephemeral that actually we
4:36
Speaker 1: teased with Max on a recent episode of this show
4:39
Speaker 1: that re enacts does a dramatization what'd you call it?
4:42
Speaker 1: Of this? Uh? This events and Mr Everts own words
4:46
Speaker 1: as voiced by you, Mr Ben Boling, Oh, and uh,
4:50
Speaker 1: let us not forget that you make an appearance as well.
4:54
Speaker 1: Mr Brown, I think I say something like we have
4:57
Speaker 1: come for you. We have come Alex, Like, can you
5:00
Speaker 1: stay a little with more hope? We have come for
5:03
Speaker 1: you a little kinder, We have come for you. Yeah,
5:08
Speaker 1: Alex is a perfectionist as a director, I feel like
5:11
Speaker 1: maybe maybe we're gonna be a little more diplomatic because
5:15
Speaker 1: he's in the room with us right now. So this Alex,
5:23
Speaker 1: as as we know, this episode is available now wherever
5:27
Speaker 1: you get your podcast, etcetera, etcetera. But what we wanted
5:30
Speaker 1: to do today was to learn a little bit about
5:33
Speaker 1: your inspiration for this, to get a maybe a behind
5:36
Speaker 1: the scenes look at the process of bringing history to
5:41
Speaker 1: life in this way, because it's a difficult endeavor, you know,
5:45
Speaker 1: even if you're just doing something as simple as adapting
5:51
Speaker 1: Shakespearean story to modern language, right or doing the really
5:56
Speaker 1: weird thing where people update the Bible to modern language,
5:59
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like on the seventh day, God
6:02
Speaker 1: chilled or whatever. You know, like, what where did you
6:06
Speaker 1: originally find thirty seven days of peril? How did you
6:09
Speaker 1: find it? And what led to you? And Max and
6:13
Speaker 1: Trevor who also was on the Inphemeral team, Uh well,
6:16
Speaker 1: lad you all to make this into an episode. I've
6:21
Speaker 1: been thinking about where it was that I found it,
6:23
Speaker 1: and I wish I could tell you specifically. I spend
6:25
Speaker 1: a lot of time, in particular back allies of the Internet,
6:29
Speaker 1: like I think we all do. UM one place, I
6:32
Speaker 1: spent a lot of times, like Guttenberg, looking at things
6:35
Speaker 1: that are in the public domain that might make good
6:38
Speaker 1: adaptations or inspirations or whatever. I'm sure it was somewhere
6:43
Speaker 1: like that UM or maybe just researching, you know, national
6:47
Speaker 1: parks or something. I'm just I'm into public land and
6:50
Speaker 1: hiking and outdoor stuff. I think I came across this
6:53
Speaker 1: story about two years ago, and it's you know, you
6:57
Speaker 1: talk about updating language. I mean, one of the things
6:59
Speaker 1: that's really special about it is that this guy, Truman Everts,
7:04
Speaker 1: was lost near death thirty seven days as you know,
7:11
Speaker 1: I'm sure we'll come up. I mean, it's the name
7:12
Speaker 1: of the episode, of the name of the story. And
7:14
Speaker 1: then a year after he was rescued, he sat down
7:17
Speaker 1: and wrote everything he could remember and it was published
7:19
Speaker 1: in one in Scripts monthly. Uh So it's a firsthand
7:24
Speaker 1: account of you know, essentially being alone in the wilderness
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Speaker 1: for thirty seven days. So I really didn't want to
7:31
Speaker 1: change anything. I want. It was important to me to, uh,
7:36
Speaker 1: you know, if we were going to do some sort
7:37
Speaker 1: of adaptation, to do it in the author's own words,
7:41
Speaker 1: because it's just you know how many documents like that exist. Well,
7:44
Speaker 1: it's kind of cool because like there's nothing we can
7:45
Speaker 1: do in talking about this that would spoil it because
7:47
Speaker 1: it really is all about hearing it in his own
7:49
Speaker 1: words through the dulcet pipes of Ben bolan Um. But
7:53
Speaker 1: it's got you know, amazing very subtle, beautiful sound design
7:56
Speaker 1: and music and moments that just really kind of pull
7:59
Speaker 1: you into it without being distracting. That's something we can
8:01
Speaker 1: all agree. Uh. Sometimes in short supply and podcast that
8:05
Speaker 1: like try to do sound design, sometimes it can be
8:07
Speaker 1: overdone a little bit, and you do a great job
8:09
Speaker 1: of like writing that fine line where it really feels
8:12
Speaker 1: like you're there, but it doesn't distract from the storytelling.
8:15
Speaker 1: So I have good producers that listen carefully and give
8:18
Speaker 1: me really critical notes. But I mean what I'm what
8:22
Speaker 1: I'm getting at is, I think, you know, one thing,
8:24
Speaker 1: you do discuss it a little bit, and then the opening,
8:27
Speaker 1: but um, I'd love to just briefly talk a little
8:29
Speaker 1: bit about who this guy was, what led him to
8:33
Speaker 1: have this fascination with exploring the wilderness. It was sort
8:36
Speaker 1: of like, you know, it was a period of exploration
8:40
Speaker 1: in the history of this country and a lot of
8:41
Speaker 1: the things that we know now is like these national
8:43
Speaker 1: parks were kind of untamed and that you know, no
8:46
Speaker 1: one really planted a flag there yet. And do you
8:49
Speaker 1: can you tell us a little bit about who this
8:50
Speaker 1: efforts guy was and where his fascination with wilderness exploration
8:55
Speaker 1: came from. And he was like a tax collector, wasn't he,
8:58
Speaker 1: or like a like a tax assessor. Yeah, so Montana
9:01
Speaker 1: and Wyoming we're not even states yet in eighteen seven
9:04
Speaker 1: days like territories, right and right? And uh, he was
9:09
Speaker 1: the Montana territories first federal tax assessor. I couldn't tell
9:14
Speaker 1: you too much more about his back story than that. Um,
9:16
Speaker 1: you know, most of what's you know out there about
9:20
Speaker 1: Triman Everetts is what's contained in thirty seven Days of Peril.
9:22
Speaker 1: But I know he was out there in Montana. He
9:25
Speaker 1: was the territories first tax assessor. Whatever pointed by Lincoln,
9:30
Speaker 1: I think, do you know what a tax assessor does? Ben, Yeah, bro,
9:33
Speaker 1: they assess taxes. So a tax assessor is someone who
9:38
Speaker 1: walks around. They're they're around today. They walk around and
9:42
Speaker 1: give an area and region or whatever, and they determine
9:45
Speaker 1: the value of the land or the value of a property.
9:48
Speaker 1: So like, um, you know you have people who assess
9:52
Speaker 1: the value of a house in the modern day. This
9:55
Speaker 1: guy has a much bigger kind kind of responsibility, right,
10:00
Speaker 1: They're like, go to this thing that we're vaguely calling
10:02
Speaker 1: Montana and just figure out, you know, what's worth how
10:06
Speaker 1: much does it work? And so that's that's an order
10:10
Speaker 1: of magnitude um more difficult. Maybe he had some leeway
10:14
Speaker 1: because you know, like like you guys point out he's
10:16
Speaker 1: the first person to do it. But but you're right,
10:20
Speaker 1: we we know that he didn't. He didn't really have
10:23
Speaker 1: a big precedent, you know, for how to how to
10:26
Speaker 1: pursue this. I'm sure that there were things that he
10:30
Speaker 1: had in mind as goals, but as we'll see, they
10:33
Speaker 1: quickly fell to the wayside when he was just trying
10:37
Speaker 1: not to die. To put it back in biblical terms, uh,
10:41
Speaker 1: what you're describing him being the tax assessor of this
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Speaker 1: giant swath of untamed land reminds me of God saying
10:49
Speaker 1: to Adam, God, name all the all the things, name
10:53
Speaker 1: all the things need names, that I'll help you later.
10:56
Speaker 1: And Adam pointed to his elbow and said, awaenas and
10:59
Speaker 1: God edit that part. But the the Yeah, this is
11:06
Speaker 1: this is something that Noel, I know you and I
11:09
Speaker 1: were both we were taken with this story. On our end,
11:13
Speaker 1: we'd never I don't think either of us had ever
11:15
Speaker 1: heard of it until you told us about this story.
11:18
Speaker 1: And it's one of the best examples we've seen of
11:22
Speaker 1: somebody getting lost. And to tow the earlier points you
11:26
Speaker 1: guys made, I don't think it's spoiling the story because
11:30
Speaker 1: the the cinematic sound design is really much more of it.
11:34
Speaker 1: I think an experience, right, it's three D audio. It
11:37
Speaker 1: takes you to a lot of strange places. I think
11:39
Speaker 1: it's fine for us to talk about just how Max
11:43
Speaker 1: beat me here, how severely this guy fucked up. Yeah,
11:48
Speaker 1: it's true. And also I mean it really is just
11:50
Speaker 1: about hearing it in his own words. Uh, as he
11:53
Speaker 1: recalled it under such intense dress, I would have think
11:56
Speaker 1: I would just block all that stuff out, but now
11:58
Speaker 1: he was wanting to like reax varience it on the page.
12:08
Speaker 1: First question, how accurate do you think his recollection was
12:15
Speaker 1: or do you think it was maybe embellished? Well, I
12:19
Speaker 1: mean we all know sort of the way that human
12:22
Speaker 1: memory works is not infallible. It's not a it's not
12:25
Speaker 1: a you know, a videotape. But I think if he
12:29
Speaker 1: was really gonna embellish, he would have maybe made himself
12:33
Speaker 1: look a little bit better, like like fought a berb
12:37
Speaker 1: you know, like forest fire. Sure, yeah, not made not
12:44
Speaker 1: tied pieces of his clothing in these ill advised ways.
12:50
Speaker 1: This is okay, So maybe we do it. Maybe we
12:52
Speaker 1: do it this way since we're not we're not afraid
12:54
Speaker 1: of spoilers here. We know you're going to tune into
12:56
Speaker 1: the episode. Uh, why don't Why don't you just give
13:00
Speaker 1: us the rough kind of step by step plot points
13:04
Speaker 1: of how this guy, like you said, he became attack sucsessor, right,
13:08
Speaker 1: and Lincoln gives him this job go figure out how
13:11
Speaker 1: much this ginormous thing is worth and what happens next. Well,
13:17
Speaker 1: ostensibly he does that, and then his term is done
13:20
Speaker 1: or whatever. He's just out in Montana, doesn't really have
13:23
Speaker 1: a gig anymore. He's kind of looking for the next thing,
13:26
Speaker 1: he's just vibe and he's he's very you know, he
13:29
Speaker 1: writes about how he's very astonished and and and mesmerized
13:33
Speaker 1: by the character of the rocky mountains and the and
13:35
Speaker 1: the scenery and all those lovely uh there's all these
13:39
Speaker 1: lovely all these lovely phrases, kind of antique phrases about
13:42
Speaker 1: about how charming he finds it all. And there's one
13:45
Speaker 1: of the first, if not the first big expedition going
13:48
Speaker 1: out through yellow Stone. It's called the Langford Done Expedition. Um,
13:52
Speaker 1: there's some other names attached to it too. It's like
13:55
Speaker 1: twenty is folks on horseback. We're going to go out
13:58
Speaker 1: for a couple of months. And they followed I think
14:01
Speaker 1: the Snake or the Yellowstone River south and are just
14:05
Speaker 1: going to traverse the country and you know, take maps
14:10
Speaker 1: and drawings and do all kinds of amazing explorer things
14:13
Speaker 1: that I think people and uh in our era maybe
14:17
Speaker 1: just kind of dream about, you know, this idea that
14:20
Speaker 1: every little corner of the globe is mapped and explored
14:22
Speaker 1: in GPS. So from their perspective, there's a bit of
14:25
Speaker 1: terra incognita here, right, Like the people who have lived
14:29
Speaker 1: in this land for thousands and thousands of years. They
14:33
Speaker 1: already know the score and they you know, they they're
14:37
Speaker 1: intimately attuned to the passage of the seasons, to the wildlife,
14:42
Speaker 1: the flora and fauna. But for these guys, would you
14:44
Speaker 1: say it's fair it's fair to say that for most
14:48
Speaker 1: of them, a lot of this was absolutely brand new. Yeah,
14:51
Speaker 1: Humbo has been Vermont, like yeah, he and there, Yeah,
14:55
Speaker 1: this was all this was all completely new to him.
14:57
Speaker 1: And he probably I mean this, he doesn't straight up
14:59
Speaker 1: and say this. He probably I thought he was a
15:01
Speaker 1: little bit more rugged than he was. Oh, I mean
15:04
Speaker 1: he was, you know, by most accounts, pretty feeble. And
15:08
Speaker 1: he was like the oldest guy in the group, and
15:11
Speaker 1: I think he was like hopelessly nearsighted and like really
15:14
Speaker 1: had a hard time seeing, you know anything that was
15:17
Speaker 1: like not like, you know, a couple of feet in
15:18
Speaker 1: front of his face. So pretty odd choice, you know,
15:22
Speaker 1: to to go on this like super taxing physical kind
15:25
Speaker 1: of journey. Right. But so he gets in, he gets
15:28
Speaker 1: in the caravan. Horses there, you know, they I think
15:31
Speaker 1: have been out for about a month. They leave in
15:34
Speaker 1: mid August. It's mid September. There's one day everyone's there.
15:38
Speaker 1: They're you know, clearing uh, these immense windfalls of pine
15:43
Speaker 1: trees and all this brush, and they're getting through it,
15:46
Speaker 1: and it's just it's super taxing work. You know, there's
15:49
Speaker 1: no trails cut or anything. Obviously. Camp that night they're like, hey,
15:53
Speaker 1: where's Truman? Did he just like wander off? I mean
16:00
Speaker 1: he just like lost you know, the trail because of
16:04
Speaker 1: his like poor vision. Do you have a sense of
16:06
Speaker 1: like how he got separated? So he was while clearing
16:09
Speaker 1: one of these one of these immense windfalls. He calls it,
16:13
Speaker 1: he wandered out of sight and and and and sound
16:15
Speaker 1: of his comrades, Uh, you know, looking for a passage
16:19
Speaker 1: through it, looking through his own way, and he just
16:21
Speaker 1: sort of, I think maybe kind of spaced out in
16:23
Speaker 1: the forest a little bit and was just sort of
16:25
Speaker 1: wandering all that grandeur you speak of. Probably was just
16:28
Speaker 1: so taken by it, and he was just distracted, and
16:31
Speaker 1: I think he might have been a little worn out.
16:33
Speaker 1: And uh, and then he's like a moment later, it's
16:37
Speaker 1: kind of like, oh, where's everybody at? And he realizes
16:41
Speaker 1: that he's wandered just away from everybody in this expansive wilderness,
16:47
Speaker 1: and uh, so he gets on his horse. He's riding around.
16:50
Speaker 1: He's trying to retrace his his his his footprints or
16:54
Speaker 1: the horses trail, but there's pine needles everywhere and he
16:58
Speaker 1: can't really tell what's going on. He's getting off and
17:00
Speaker 1: like looking at the ground and scowering it to feel
17:02
Speaker 1: like is this a footprint? And eventually he comes to
17:06
Speaker 1: a clearing. He gets off his horse and as he says,
17:08
Speaker 1: remember this part, Ben, He says, leaving my horse unhitched
17:13
Speaker 1: as was always my custom, Right, Yeah, it's not really pro.
17:17
Speaker 1: Move right there and no walks a few rods into
17:20
Speaker 1: the forest. I'm sorry rods. Is that a like a parstack?
17:24
Speaker 1: Because like it's a half a parstack? I think? And uh,
17:30
Speaker 1: there's a beat and he hears this horse winning and
17:33
Speaker 1: take off because the horse is also like there's there's
17:37
Speaker 1: stuff that doesn't happen in this episode. So this is
17:41
Speaker 1: almost like you know how unpopular television shows that have
17:45
Speaker 1: people get together and they're like chat about what happened
17:47
Speaker 1: in the episode. I feel like we're we're kind of
17:49
Speaker 1: getting this vibe because we're pulling back a little bit
17:52
Speaker 1: of curtain on on efforts. How he presented himself versus
17:56
Speaker 1: what maybe the reality was, versus how his crew perceived,
18:00
Speaker 1: because I was interested to learn. Like, first off, they
18:02
Speaker 1: had this plan, right, if anybody gets lost, no matter
18:06
Speaker 1: how like feeble or fit they are, they've gotta meat
18:08
Speaker 1: back at that one point, you know, like people's parents
18:11
Speaker 1: will do it an ammusing park, right, I mean that
18:13
Speaker 1: works though you have like the you know, the claw
18:15
Speaker 1: machine or whatever at the amusement park. Not so much
18:18
Speaker 1: in the untamed wilderness that was the yellow stone of
18:21
Speaker 1: the lad eighteen hundreds. So his horse takes off, flies
18:26
Speaker 1: galloping away from him, and he never sees his horse.
18:29
Speaker 1: The horse's name did you catch the horse's name? The
18:31
Speaker 1: horse is not named in the horse's name you like
18:34
Speaker 1: to name it here today? How about how about Piony Peony.
18:38
Speaker 1: Piony takes off and is uh efforts, never sees Piony again,
18:42
Speaker 1: and strapped to PIONI is all this stuff, all this stuff,
18:46
Speaker 1: everything except for like five or six little things, right,
18:51
Speaker 1: he says he's got two knives, the clothes on his back,
18:54
Speaker 1: and a small opera glass that's always got left. Yeah.
18:58
Speaker 1: And this so he is um. The military term for
19:02
Speaker 1: this is he is food bar and there's this deal
19:06
Speaker 1: that everybody made where they said, Okay, if anybody gets lost,
19:09
Speaker 1: we're gonna meet at the shore of Yellowstone Lake, right
19:14
Speaker 1: like the southern shore. And so it was interesting. After
19:19
Speaker 1: we worked on this episode together, I went back and
19:22
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, what's the what's the score?
19:25
Speaker 1: What do other people say. There's a guy from his party,
19:28
Speaker 1: Nathaniel p Langford, who kept a diary of how they
19:32
Speaker 1: were trying to find Efforts. But if you from Efforts account,
19:37
Speaker 1: he was trying to find them, and in a very
19:40
Speaker 1: polite way, he's like those asked stitched me, and like
19:46
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem to resent them when the way he's
19:48
Speaker 1: written it, you know, um, but you get the sense
19:53
Speaker 1: that he feels like, um, it was just a series
19:56
Speaker 1: of unfortunate events beyond his control, and he hadn't done
20:00
Speaker 1: meeting abnormal. He never hitched his horse. Piony would never
20:03
Speaker 1: ditch someone like that, and Piony very much did, of course,
20:07
Speaker 1: so lank for just for comparison, here he has a
20:11
Speaker 1: diary where he says, look, we're shooting guns to try
20:15
Speaker 1: to signal to this guy where we are, and Efforts
20:18
Speaker 1: never mentioned that, which makes you wonder how far away
20:21
Speaker 1: he actually went. You know, I don't think he really
20:24
Speaker 1: had the survival skills for this in the first place.
20:27
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this moment, this is day one yo into it.
20:31
Speaker 1: How do you how do you wander that far off? Though?
20:34
Speaker 1: And like to what end? You know, weren't they like
20:36
Speaker 1: betting down for the night and stuff like? Was he
20:38
Speaker 1: just having a nice night walk like you like to
20:40
Speaker 1: have men? It was late in the afternoon when he
20:43
Speaker 1: got separated, when they were when they were getting through
20:44
Speaker 1: the pine windfall? Yeah? Interesting, and and then night begins
20:50
Speaker 1: to set in him. What what's his emotional state at
20:54
Speaker 1: this point? He is terrified. He does not seem to
20:58
Speaker 1: like the night side at all, which again begs the
21:03
Speaker 1: question why he would embark on a several months camping trip. Yeah,
21:09
Speaker 1: he says, his mind is instinct with terror. Now, what's
21:12
Speaker 1: the weather like at this point? It's September nine. I
21:15
Speaker 1: think it's pretty temperate. Still, it's not gonna stay that way.
21:21
Speaker 1: Spoiler alert. Yeah, let's not forget the name of the pieces.
21:25
Speaker 1: Thirty seven days. He's a couple of days. And just
21:28
Speaker 1: as in a side if you were worried about the horse,
21:30
Speaker 1: peony was recovered by the rest of the party writerless.
21:35
Speaker 1: But yeah, right, so if he had just stayed on
21:40
Speaker 1: the horse, right, because that's the thing that I thought
21:43
Speaker 1: to like, if the horses running off, it's either running
21:48
Speaker 1: away from something or it's running towards something. And if
21:51
Speaker 1: it was running away from something that Everts would probably
21:54
Speaker 1: have also clocked it. You know, it was like a
21:56
Speaker 1: bear or a large cat of some sort. Yeah, And
22:00
Speaker 1: it's interesting because you know, he had no provisions. I mean,
22:04
Speaker 1: I don't believe any of the items that were on
22:05
Speaker 1: him or snacks, a couple of knives he said, an
22:08
Speaker 1: opera glass and the clothes on his body. No, no, Jesus,
22:12
Speaker 1: we're actually running really desperately low on Jesus here at
22:15
Speaker 1: the office too. It could end up being a wilderness
22:17
Speaker 1: type scenario. If we're not careful, Yeah, we might have
22:19
Speaker 1: to go downstairs. God can imagine. Um. But no, it's
22:23
Speaker 1: it's crazy. Like I mean, like you said, he's very
22:25
Speaker 1: ill equipped just in general, his constitution doesn't seem very
22:28
Speaker 1: fit for this kind of trip. And now he's completely
22:32
Speaker 1: you know, alone on the wilderness. And what's what's it
22:35
Speaker 1: like out there? You know, in the days before it
22:38
Speaker 1: was I mean, you know we yellow Stone still pretty
22:40
Speaker 1: rugged obviously, but at this point would have been no
22:43
Speaker 1: trails cleared, like you said, absolutely teeming with with beasties,
22:47
Speaker 1: right and like you know, wildlife. Yeah. The second night,
22:51
Speaker 1: he uh so, he so he spends time looking for
22:54
Speaker 1: his horse, which is a mistake. He spends a half
22:56
Speaker 1: day looking for his horse when he should have just
22:58
Speaker 1: gone like you're saying, Ben, and found his camp. He
23:00
Speaker 1: recollects that, reflects on that in his essay The second night,
23:05
Speaker 1: I believe it's I believe. Yeah, the second night, he's
23:08
Speaker 1: a laying at the foot of a tree, has made
23:11
Speaker 1: himself a little bed of like pine branches and foliage,
23:14
Speaker 1: and he's tucked in there and falling asleep for the night.
23:18
Speaker 1: And he's roused by the sound. He calls it. He says,
23:21
Speaker 1: it sounds like the sound of a human scream coming
23:25
Speaker 1: through the forest. Scream. Yes, that's exactly it's the original. Um.
23:34
Speaker 1: It turns out it's a mountain lion bounding for him.
23:39
Speaker 1: Now they say mountain lions are really really rare to
23:42
Speaker 1: spot in the wild, but this one charges at him,
23:44
Speaker 1: at least according to his account, and he screams in return,
23:51
Speaker 1: which we have a fun scream from my friend Nathaniel
23:53
Speaker 1: in there runs up the tree and gets to the
23:56
Speaker 1: top and is shaking all the limbs and breaking branches
24:01
Speaker 1: and hurling them at the wildcat and just get out
24:04
Speaker 1: of here. Get out of here, you that's great. We
24:09
Speaker 1: don't watch you around here. It's like it's like an
24:11
Speaker 1: all the sad dog movies when like you're doing the
24:13
Speaker 1: dog of favor by letting it go, who's got to
24:15
Speaker 1: be mean to it even though it hurts you anymore.
24:19
Speaker 1: That's kind of what happened with Pree. No, it's definitely
24:23
Speaker 1: much more of a like please don't like evisterate me.
24:27
Speaker 1: And mountain lions can climb trees if I'm not mistaken right,
24:30
Speaker 1: Mountain lions are dope and dangerous like they like they yes,
24:35
Speaker 1: they d and they will get you. They are the
24:37
Speaker 1: original d and d uh. This so we already see
24:41
Speaker 1: this is going from whoops, too bad to worse to
24:46
Speaker 1: worse and worse and worse. He is at this point, um.
24:50
Speaker 1: He is still in possession of his mental faculties, though,
24:54
Speaker 1: which is why he has the even though panicked, he
24:56
Speaker 1: has the presence of mind to do, you know, base
25:00
Speaker 1: like try to scare off predator type stuff. Um, I
25:04
Speaker 1: mean I would imagine he's a little shook at this point,
25:06
Speaker 1: for sure, very much. Possibly those mental faculties are beginning
25:11
Speaker 1: to leave him still with it to us to a
25:14
Speaker 1: degree at this point. Yeah, So what happens in the
25:16
Speaker 1: mountain liin? Like I said, I mean, I thought a
25:17
Speaker 1: mountain lion could like totally shimming up a tree, Like,
25:20
Speaker 1: how do you think they definitely can? Yes, he says
25:23
Speaker 1: that he was. He was screaming and breaking benches and
25:26
Speaker 1: throwing things at him, and then he had a moment
25:28
Speaker 1: of clarity that he should try silence. You know, let's
25:35
Speaker 1: try something completely different than what I was doing before,
25:38
Speaker 1: and now for something completely was it like one last yell,
25:41
Speaker 1: one last get out of here you. I don't even lie,
25:45
Speaker 1: I don't want to be your friend, one last Wilhelm
25:47
Speaker 1: scream and wait a minute, no, on second, that hunch
25:52
Speaker 1: falls over the forest, only the sounds of the swing
25:55
Speaker 1: thickets of thistles and leaves and such in the mountain lion,
26:00
Speaker 1: and quizzically peers around. He's like, you know what, I
26:04
Speaker 1: think it's gonna go right, That's exactly it, And then
26:08
Speaker 1: he slides down the tree and goes back to sleep.
26:11
Speaker 1: That's day too, Broo. We ain't gonna do every day,
26:14
Speaker 1: but that we can't do every day. But so you
26:16
Speaker 1: can already see just like as as you said, Alex,
26:19
Speaker 1: from day two, this stuff is bonkers. And that's still
26:24
Speaker 1: just the beginning of just the beginning of these misadventures.
26:30
Speaker 1: I believe that even the weather is against him at
26:33
Speaker 1: one point. Yeah, we're talking like day three, day for
26:43
Speaker 1: that weather turns and it's basically a blizzard by just overnight,
26:49
Speaker 1: goes from temperate to blizzard. You know, up in that
26:51
Speaker 1: high elevation that happens. Man, It's it's dangerous up there.
26:55
Speaker 1: They tell you that when you go, you know, hike
26:56
Speaker 1: in the rocky mountains now like you need you know,
26:59
Speaker 1: you need to be ready to get down the mountain
27:01
Speaker 1: or get shelter quickly. Honest. You know, the weather can
27:03
Speaker 1: change really really fast at high elevation. Uh so, yeah,
27:07
Speaker 1: he's got this you know, crazy blizzard and storm. I
27:10
Speaker 1: think it's it's snow and rain actually that's uh overshadowing
27:14
Speaker 1: him and reducing his clothing to its pitiless peltings. Yes, yes,
27:20
Speaker 1: he does say that. Yes, anyone that's into weird and
27:23
Speaker 1: achronistic terms of phrase, it's going to be this is
27:26
Speaker 1: going to be absolute catinet for Yeah, but he's he's
27:31
Speaker 1: pretty smart. Everyone's heard of, like you know, Old Faithful
27:34
Speaker 1: and all of the hot springs you know around this
27:36
Speaker 1: part of the world. Those are a great source of heat,
27:39
Speaker 1: and he'd be very smartly uses them to stay warm.
27:42
Speaker 1: But it makes a few unfortunate calculations. If I'm not mistaken. Yeah,
27:47
Speaker 1: I think he spots him from seeing them steaming from
27:49
Speaker 1: a distance, and he makes his way over there, finds
27:52
Speaker 1: himself a hot spring, and basically just sets up camp
27:55
Speaker 1: for like seven days as this storm rages. He says
27:59
Speaker 1: it was like a saw, I guess, because it's you know,
28:01
Speaker 1: cold and wet outside, and it's warm and wet right here,
28:05
Speaker 1: and so then he's he's living in the hot springs.
28:08
Speaker 1: One night, he is sleeping and rolls over in his
28:12
Speaker 1: sleep and with his hip breaks the crust on a
28:16
Speaker 1: hot spring next to him and scalds his hip. What
28:19
Speaker 1: would that be like logistically, you break the crust and
28:22
Speaker 1: then just the steam vents out like really fast, and
28:25
Speaker 1: it's very hot water, very hot water. Right there. Okay, Yeah,
28:30
Speaker 1: you guys ever been in a hot spring. I have
28:32
Speaker 1: been like in a like a not a resort, but
28:34
Speaker 1: it's like a you know, a place that's got little
28:37
Speaker 1: tubs built around the hot springs. It's actually literally called
28:39
Speaker 1: hot Springs, North Carolina, if I'm not mistaken. It's really cool.
28:43
Speaker 1: I don't want to stay the name of it here
28:44
Speaker 1: because I don't want people to fly to it. But
28:45
Speaker 1: I went to an amazing just out in the wilderness, backpacking,
28:48
Speaker 1: like ten miles hot springs in the Olympic Peninsula and
28:53
Speaker 1: Washington State. Oh you mentioned that. Yeah, wow, I mean
28:57
Speaker 1: like the most magical for us, old giant old trees,
29:02
Speaker 1: all mossy and stones that are like green and white
29:07
Speaker 1: and purple from the algae that's coming from the sulfur springs. Uh. Yeah,
29:12
Speaker 1: I'll tell you guys. So yeah, So we've had some
29:18
Speaker 1: experience with hot springs. Some have been really stunning, like
29:23
Speaker 1: the one you're describing, and some have been a little
29:26
Speaker 1: bit of a letdown. You know. I'm not gonna name
29:29
Speaker 1: names either, but there's a moment where you realize, hey,
29:32
Speaker 1: these are more like warm springs. So some people will
29:37
Speaker 1: get that. But but yes, so he is stuck between
29:41
Speaker 1: two extremes of weather. Right, uh, and he for a
29:46
Speaker 1: moment has a very real chance of either dying of
29:51
Speaker 1: cold or dying due to the heat from these springs. Right. Yeah.
29:57
Speaker 1: He also, I'm sure people are wondering what he was
30:01
Speaker 1: eating for like three days or something he didn't eat,
30:04
Speaker 1: and then he discovers he's staring at the ground one
30:08
Speaker 1: day and he sees this different color of green, this
30:12
Speaker 1: really bright color of green, and he goes and pulls
30:15
Speaker 1: it up by the route and it's a thistle. And
30:18
Speaker 1: basically for thirty's you know, thirty four days at this point,
30:21
Speaker 1: he eats raw thistles. So a thistle, from what I understand,
30:29
Speaker 1: is like a it's it's spiky. Right, I have never
30:32
Speaker 1: eaten a thistle, ben I have, I have. I believe
30:36
Speaker 1: the efforts is eating a thistle root. Yes, okay, so
30:42
Speaker 1: this is this is funny. This is one kind of accolade.
30:46
Speaker 1: He does get one distinction when he survives. He has
30:50
Speaker 1: a thistle named after him. It's called Everett's thistle. He
30:56
Speaker 1: deserved at least that. I mean, it's got a mountain
30:59
Speaker 1: named after Okay. And he also, this guy is just
31:02
Speaker 1: failing upwards. Not to be confused with Mount Everest. These
31:05
Speaker 1: are two different things. Just just just to clear the
31:08
Speaker 1: air there. Um, yeah, Google did tell me that I
31:11
Speaker 1: typed in Mount Everest since it's like, did you mean
31:13
Speaker 1: Mount Everest? Yeah, just to jump in here. I mean
31:17
Speaker 1: like you can just like you know, if you ever
31:19
Speaker 1: client Mount everetts whenever you tell people can just say
31:22
Speaker 1: it really fast. Yeah, I climbed up Mount everests. I
31:26
Speaker 1: didn't even have a shirt or anything. It's fine. It
31:29
Speaker 1: took me thirty seven days, but I did it. And
31:32
Speaker 1: I had a lot of this, a lot of thistles. Yeah,
31:34
Speaker 1: it's true, though. Thistle. I'm right there, We're all right.
31:37
Speaker 1: A thistle is it's very pretty, but it's very rough
31:40
Speaker 1: and spiky underneath the beautiful kind of like pink flowery leaves.
31:44
Speaker 1: So he would boil these roots, if I'm not mistaken,
31:48
Speaker 1: when he was living in his sauna in the in
31:50
Speaker 1: the hot springs during the storm, one of many storms. Yeah,
31:54
Speaker 1: he had a little dinner pot that he would cook
31:55
Speaker 1: his roots in. Um. I don't think that it was
31:59
Speaker 1: a gray way to subsist, but I think probably cooking
32:02
Speaker 1: them was nice when he could do that. Where do
32:04
Speaker 1: you get the dinner pot? Was that attached to a
32:06
Speaker 1: hitch to his belt or something. I thought he only
32:08
Speaker 1: had like a little bubbling spring. He just called it
32:11
Speaker 1: his dinner. So he's like got his feet in one
32:15
Speaker 1: and his feet are already frost bitten. Now his hip
32:19
Speaker 1: is burnt, and he's just like lounging out in the
32:21
Speaker 1: steam bath getting parboiled and dipping roots in here. And like,
32:26
Speaker 1: on the one hand, that sounds kind of pleasant, um,
32:29
Speaker 1: but you know, under the circumstances, he's obviously suffering horrendously
32:32
Speaker 1: while he's doing this. Yeah, you know, No, when I
32:36
Speaker 1: was listening to this, I thought the same thing as you.
32:39
Speaker 1: I was if that sounds kind of pleasant, honestly, and stuff, Well,
32:44
Speaker 1: let's not forget the onset of gang green, the onset
32:47
Speaker 1: of frost bite, and potential who knows. I mean, it
32:50
Speaker 1: just has no medical um intervention of any kind. He
32:54
Speaker 1: has no supplies. I mean, that hip could have really festered,
32:57
Speaker 1: you know, or any number of injuries that he could
33:00
Speaker 1: to god, you know, twisted ankle could have killed him,
33:02
Speaker 1: you know. Indeed, And that's something I think is really
33:06
Speaker 1: instructive for folks who enjoy out exploring the outdoors stay
33:09
Speaker 1: but are unfamiliar with it when you are genuinely out
33:14
Speaker 1: in the wild and you don't have you don't have
33:17
Speaker 1: a safety net system or something. A broken ankle or
33:21
Speaker 1: something would feel like a small injury in civilization can
33:25
Speaker 1: be fatal and can be very quickly. So, uh, for
33:29
Speaker 1: we it's in our mind, folks, it's okay to roast
33:33
Speaker 1: effort or to parboil him a little bit because he
33:38
Speaker 1: made it out. But in this situation already, he has
33:42
Speaker 1: survived several things that have in the past spelled doom
33:47
Speaker 1: for other explorers. Absolutely, um so, definitely props to him
33:50
Speaker 1: for being resourceful and figuring out how to make this
33:53
Speaker 1: environment work for him. But there are some choices that
33:55
Speaker 1: he makes that are pretty stupid. Uh, not for him
33:59
Speaker 1: and his personal safety, but like for like the whole
34:02
Speaker 1: gorgeous natural wonder that he was so taken by. Right,
34:07
Speaker 1: So he's he's wondering while he's sitting in the springs,
34:11
Speaker 1: how he's gonna make fire. Oh, I thought you were
34:14
Speaker 1: going to say, how much are these springs worth? He's
34:18
Speaker 1: tax assessing, he's always tax assessing. He's wondering how he's
34:22
Speaker 1: going to make a fire, and he's thinking about all
34:24
Speaker 1: the ways to make fire rubbing sticks together. Maybe he
34:27
Speaker 1: wasn't so good at that one. Have you guys, ever
34:29
Speaker 1: done Yes, you've done that. It's a paint in the ass.
34:32
Speaker 1: Just take a lighter with you, or a fire flint
34:35
Speaker 1: block or something, you know, a twisted fire star the Prodigy,
34:41
Speaker 1: remember that spiky hair. Guys, I'm the Oh my god. Okay,
34:46
Speaker 1: so we'll get to we'll get to that part that's
34:49
Speaker 1: extremely important for the story really quickly. Going to have
34:51
Speaker 1: to point out that we really should take more advance
34:53
Speaker 1: of the fact they're in the same room to sing together,
34:56
Speaker 1: because over soon it's impossible to do because delay you're right,
35:01
Speaker 1: and when you're right, you're right. So this this moment
35:05
Speaker 1: here when he's trying to figure out how to make
35:09
Speaker 1: a fire, this is a a tremendously profound moment for him,
35:15
Speaker 1: and it reminded me about the Jack London story, Like
35:20
Speaker 1: I think it's to build a fire, to make a fire,
35:23
Speaker 1: and that is also about a guy who's having a
35:25
Speaker 1: very difficult time making a fire and it becomes a
35:28
Speaker 1: life or death matter. So you know, he he does
35:31
Speaker 1: try the sticks together a method which is like friction
35:35
Speaker 1: trying to build a spark and again from experience, it
35:39
Speaker 1: is possible. It also stinks. Uh if they if you
35:43
Speaker 1: are listening, you're in some survival course, and they make
35:46
Speaker 1: you do it, they should also say, hey, if you
35:49
Speaker 1: have to do this right now, you already messed up.
35:52
Speaker 1: You should have had a lighter. But he didn't have
35:55
Speaker 1: a lighter, right, he had nothing. He had the opera glass,
35:58
Speaker 1: and that's where he puts it together. He once the
36:01
Speaker 1: sun comes out, he tries it out with the opera glass,
36:04
Speaker 1: which I guess ben is what like like half a binocular. Yeah, yeah,
36:07
Speaker 1: I believe so. Short, Yeah it is. It's one side
36:10
Speaker 1: of a binocular. Some opera glasses are two of them,
36:13
Speaker 1: but I think you would just call those opera No,
36:15
Speaker 1: you would call those opera glasses too, But I think
36:17
Speaker 1: you know what, No, A proper pair of opera glasses
36:20
Speaker 1: is two and there's a little stick usually that goes
36:23
Speaker 1: on them and you hold them with your pinky ouch. Uh,
36:26
Speaker 1: you know, so that you can see the tenor do
36:29
Speaker 1: his big death scene, you know, from the cheap seats,
36:32
Speaker 1: see the relations and and Noel is speaking from authority here, folks.
36:37
Speaker 1: I hope it's okay if I say this on air,
36:38
Speaker 1: but that was once a young drummond boy, right, and
36:41
Speaker 1: your mother was an opera scen once an opera singer.
36:45
Speaker 1: Alway should basically like an aged diva's kind of a
36:47
Speaker 1: sunset boulevard type figure, you know. But it's true. We
36:51
Speaker 1: have some vintage opera glasses around the house, so I
36:53
Speaker 1: think actually what you would be referring to would be
36:56
Speaker 1: a spy glass, like a single tiny uh lescope. So
37:00
Speaker 1: this he calls it an opera glass, I imagine something.
37:03
Speaker 1: Probably there's no photos or any and I don't think
37:05
Speaker 1: it's there. There are like nine illustrations with the article,
37:09
Speaker 1: but I don't believe that the opera glass is illustrated
37:11
Speaker 1: in any of them, so I don't know if it was.
37:13
Speaker 1: He always refers to my lens, Okay, so it's probably
37:17
Speaker 1: it's maybe not binocular. It's probably some some smaller magnifying thing,
37:23
Speaker 1: like a like a tiny telescope, like a tiny telescope. Yeah, yeah,
37:28
Speaker 1: like a microscope. And so this is yes, there we are,
37:33
Speaker 1: and so he has uh, he desperately needs fire. One
37:38
Speaker 1: cannot live on raw thistles for the rest of their lives, right,
37:42
Speaker 1: But that's a question he's quarreling with how does how
37:45
Speaker 1: does he begin putting this together? He said, he puts
37:48
Speaker 1: it together. It's got away for the sun to come out.
37:50
Speaker 1: The sun comes out. He does the old like I
37:52
Speaker 1: would never condone this, but like a frying frying the
37:55
Speaker 1: ants kind of trick, you know, you get the light
37:58
Speaker 1: and you concentrated, you know, you put the broad end
38:00
Speaker 1: towards the sun and the narrow end towards whatever you're
38:03
Speaker 1: trying to set a flame. And it's a really lovely moment.
38:07
Speaker 1: Actually sees the little you know, the little bit of
38:10
Speaker 1: bark in his fingers, the little little smoke curl from it,
38:13
Speaker 1: and he says to himself in that moment, he says,
38:16
Speaker 1: I will not despair. Yes, yeah, that's and that is
38:20
Speaker 1: a powerful, primal thing, you know, because that's one of
38:24
Speaker 1: the that that is I think one of the first
38:27
Speaker 1: big moments where he is sort of exerting human ingenuity
38:32
Speaker 1: over the wilderness and all the other things are things
38:35
Speaker 1: where he's barely scraping by in response to a disaster,
38:38
Speaker 1: right like I can eat these I can eat these weeds.
38:43
Speaker 1: That'll work. Oh, I'll I'll hide from the mountain lion
38:47
Speaker 1: who I'll run from the storm. I'll try not to
38:50
Speaker 1: boil alive. And so this is one of the times
38:53
Speaker 1: where he starts taking more active control of the situation.
38:56
Speaker 1: I would argue, but if you are in that moment
39:00
Speaker 1: and we've had you know, folks listening today, you may
39:03
Speaker 1: have found yourself lost in the woods, uh, and you
39:07
Speaker 1: know that there can be that gut sinking moment when
39:10
Speaker 1: you're thinking, oh, how how do I get get out
39:17
Speaker 1: of here? And so he has already passed that moment.
39:21
Speaker 1: And when he's making fire, there's something Promethean about it.
39:24
Speaker 1: To him, it's in his mind. It's a light at
39:27
Speaker 1: the end of the tunnel. I would say, I think
39:30
Speaker 1: that's absolutely it. I mean, it's you know, it's very human.
39:33
Speaker 1: He's yeah, harnessed this power. You know, he's he's created
39:37
Speaker 1: something and he's taking charge of his own destiny. And
39:41
Speaker 1: yet then there's kind of a like kind of moment
39:46
Speaker 1: and the first act on a high note, he's only
39:50
Speaker 1: like eleven days in or whatever. Uh, that spark, you know,
39:55
Speaker 1: eventually becomes a roaring flame that then you know, uh,
40:00
Speaker 1: Smoky the bear would not approve it spreads. So he's
40:03
Speaker 1: sleeping on a beach one night he's made it down
40:04
Speaker 1: to a Yellowstone Lake some days later, and he's made
40:08
Speaker 1: a nice fire on the beach. He's actually lost his
40:10
Speaker 1: slipper that night, I think, and he's like three traumatic
40:14
Speaker 1: thing looking for the slipper. Have you seen the Pine
40:16
Speaker 1: Barrens episode of The Sopranos. You haven't seen. It's a
40:19
Speaker 1: classic ep standal in episode where Polly and Christopher get
40:23
Speaker 1: lost in the Pine Barrens, which is this this rugged
40:27
Speaker 1: area of New Jersey where notoriously people go to buried bodies,
40:31
Speaker 1: and Polly loses his shoe at one point. It becomes
40:33
Speaker 1: a real bone of contention between the two gangsters, directly
40:37
Speaker 1: inspired from thirty seven Days Apparel. I'm calling it. It's
40:42
Speaker 1: in the public domain, so it's it's this is more
40:46
Speaker 1: of a loafer that Polly loses. This is a slipper,
40:49
Speaker 1: it's a it's a sandal. He's made his boots in
40:52
Speaker 1: his sandals, and Ben and I talked about that a
40:54
Speaker 1: lot when we really haven't been able to figure out.
40:58
Speaker 1: He cuts his the counter of his boots off and
41:01
Speaker 1: turns him into a passable pair of slippers, and he
41:03
Speaker 1: calls them slippers. He does, but it's cold, and he's
41:06
Speaker 1: all he's doing is walking right mountains. So we couldn't
41:11
Speaker 1: figure that out, Like, wouldn't you want the ankles support,
41:13
Speaker 1: You want the ankle support, you want the coverage, you know. Yeah,
41:17
Speaker 1: So if anyone's got uh insight into that, um right
41:21
Speaker 1: to Jonathan Strickland. Yes, I'm sure that's not the joke
41:25
Speaker 1: you guys use anymore. Those addresses are still active, Yeah,
41:30
Speaker 1: right to our complaint department, which is Jonathan Strickland house
41:34
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. All right, I wasn't too far off.
41:37
Speaker 1: He nailed it twenty four hours a day, seven days
41:40
Speaker 1: a week. So anyways, he finds his slipper and he's
41:42
Speaker 1: got great relief, and he lays down the beach next
41:46
Speaker 1: to this big fire and he mellows out and he
41:48
Speaker 1: listens to the dash and roar of the way, and
41:56
Speaker 1: then he wakes up and his fin he's on fire.
41:59
Speaker 1: He yeah, his fire has gotten totally picked up by
42:03
Speaker 1: the wind and his and his his hair is seemed
42:05
Speaker 1: closer than a barber would have trimmed it as running
42:09
Speaker 1: away from the beach and and and and into higher elevation.
42:12
Speaker 1: And then he gets gets out there and takes a beat.
42:18
Speaker 1: It stands on this like crest and watches this fire
42:23
Speaker 1: turned into a giant forest fire, a conflagration, right, that's
42:27
Speaker 1: the name for it. Honestly, that's some of the most
42:30
Speaker 1: beautiful writing in the whole piece, when he's talking about
42:32
Speaker 1: the grandeur of the burning forests surpasses all description. Uh,
42:37
Speaker 1: it's it's great in in the in the tenor of
42:39
Speaker 1: Ben Bolan. Oh geez, you got us up with these
42:42
Speaker 1: and the And also he does something really really interesting
42:45
Speaker 1: in the writing here. Uh, Lovecraft does this too, and
42:49
Speaker 1: he's like, the grand deur exceeds all description, as you said,
42:52
Speaker 1: and then he describes let's end on that pivotal note
43:03
Speaker 1: for now. As far as the course of our story,
43:07
Speaker 1: Uh no, I think you know you raised a really
43:09
Speaker 1: good point off air. We wanted to give you some
43:12
Speaker 1: highlights and some contexts. We're not going to tell you
43:15
Speaker 1: the whole thing. Well yeah, I mean, even though Alex
43:18
Speaker 1: said off Mike before we started recording, the really hard
43:21
Speaker 1: to spoil this thing. In terms of the ending, we
43:23
Speaker 1: do know that the guy is rescued, but there are
43:25
Speaker 1: more adventures and misadventures to uh, to be heard if
43:28
Speaker 1: you listen to the full episode. But again, it really
43:30
Speaker 1: is all about the full experience and hearing it in
43:33
Speaker 1: efforts own words. But Alex, you know when you're doing
43:37
Speaker 1: something like this and in an ephemeral in general, I
43:39
Speaker 1: mean like a lot of the audio you're mining is
43:41
Speaker 1: like from found audio, found sound like different you know,
43:44
Speaker 1: public domain sites on the internet. Uh, and you know,
43:47
Speaker 1: don't no need to reveal your sources. I know that
43:49
Speaker 1: stuff is very uh, it's very hush hush, and I
43:52
Speaker 1: totally get it. But what's your approach for I don't know,
43:55
Speaker 1: building a sonic capitually this. I know you have a
43:57
Speaker 1: lot of help from folks like Max and Trevor, but
43:59
Speaker 1: I mean the whole thing was your vision. The first
44:01
Speaker 1: season was largely like you doing all this stuff and
44:03
Speaker 1: peak behind the curtain, like you and I like mess
44:06
Speaker 1: with music and play music together, and I think we're
44:08
Speaker 1: both like super audio nerds. And how do you bring
44:11
Speaker 1: that love of sonics to an audio show like this
44:14
Speaker 1: that's ultimately about storytelling? Yeah? I mean it's sort of
44:17
Speaker 1: different for every episode, right, I mean we usually do
44:20
Speaker 1: uh it's mostly nonfiction history, so so often it's it's
44:25
Speaker 1: an interview that we've started with and we've cut down
44:26
Speaker 1: an interview, but we've done these sort of scored audiobook
44:29
Speaker 1: things before. Um the difference but this one was that, yeah,
44:33
Speaker 1: there wasn't really a really great audio book out there
44:36
Speaker 1: already of it, unlike Libervox or anything, which is a
44:38
Speaker 1: free public domain audiobook site. Um. So a like, the
44:44
Speaker 1: first thing was finding an actor that could pull it off.
44:47
Speaker 1: Because while it's well, it's really beautiful writing, and like
44:51
Speaker 1: you called out, it's got all kinds of very interesting phrases,
44:53
Speaker 1: it is not the kind of thing that you could
44:55
Speaker 1: just hand to anybody. Uh, somebody with a lot of
45:00
Speaker 1: experience talking into a microphone and able to take on
45:04
Speaker 1: some of these long phrases and clauses and twisting sentences
45:09
Speaker 1: and was on vacation and I think Jonathan Strickland was
45:12
Speaker 1: deported called everybody else. Yes, yeah, Ben, your self deprecation
45:17
Speaker 1: is killing me. You absolutely are the man for the job.
45:20
Speaker 1: You have a certain gravitas to your delivery, Ben, I
45:23
Speaker 1: mean because at first you can kind of feel the
45:25
Speaker 1: guy's deteriorating mental state with your delivery. You the progression,
45:29
Speaker 1: the way you kind of lose hope almost like in
45:32
Speaker 1: the sound of your voice. It's very well done. Uh,
45:34
Speaker 1: and no more compliments from here. On now, I promise,
45:37
Speaker 1: but it's true. I mean, Alex makes a good point.
45:39
Speaker 1: It really is about casting because the words are already
45:41
Speaker 1: there on the page. But it's like one thing to
45:43
Speaker 1: read something in your mind on a page, another thing
45:46
Speaker 1: to actually say it out loud and have it like
45:47
Speaker 1: land right. In all since Therity, it was the most
45:50
Speaker 1: important thing for Truman to feel human so you could
45:56
Speaker 1: sympathize with him, so it didn't just feel like I
45:58
Speaker 1: don't know a block of old time aide text. And
46:02
Speaker 1: that's something that's tough too because in these in these adaptations,
46:06
Speaker 1: you know, this guy is writing before the rise of radio, right,
46:12
Speaker 1: he's writing before the rise of a spoiler podcasting, right.
46:16
Speaker 1: So so people right very differently back then. They take
46:21
Speaker 1: their time with sentences, you know, they they have maybe
46:25
Speaker 1: not to the extent of like James Joyce or Henry James,
46:30
Speaker 1: but they do. They do tend to wind and sort
46:35
Speaker 1: of wind on at the point where you know, you
46:38
Speaker 1: realize half a pages passed, and so you did a
46:40
Speaker 1: lot of work. Um, you and your team where you're saying, hey,
46:43
Speaker 1: we want to stay true to this story, but we
46:46
Speaker 1: also need to make sure that it is a viable
46:51
Speaker 1: understandable story for people to experience. Did you have did
46:55
Speaker 1: you have moments where you found yourself really in the
46:58
Speaker 1: trenches of like, Okay, Truman, I know what, I know
47:01
Speaker 1: what you're trying to say, buddy. How difficult was it
47:04
Speaker 1: to sort of walk the line on the adaptation of
47:07
Speaker 1: the text here? I uh, I went through the whole
47:11
Speaker 1: story probably a dozen times or more editing it. I
47:17
Speaker 1: really didn't change any of his phrasing or his words,
47:21
Speaker 1: but I did just kind of cut it for a
47:23
Speaker 1: little bit for a content and a little bit just
47:25
Speaker 1: mostly for time to try and clarify and make it
47:28
Speaker 1: something that would fit like an hour. So it's not
47:31
Speaker 1: the complete unabridged text, it's very it's it's pretty close, um,
47:36
Speaker 1: and we've got the unabridged text everywhere, but it's a
47:38
Speaker 1: little bit more kind of clarified than that. Honestly, I
47:41
Speaker 1: sort of sweated every every line of that, you know,
47:44
Speaker 1: because I just want, you know, the larger project for
47:47
Speaker 1: me here is right. It's in a really incredible story.
47:51
Speaker 1: It's incredible that it's a firsthand account. It's incredible that
47:53
Speaker 1: the guy survived, and I worried that things like this.
47:59
Speaker 1: I'm glad it's did it eyes. I'm glad it's out
48:00
Speaker 1: there that it's got you know, some articles and stuff
48:02
Speaker 1: about it online. But I worry that things like that,
48:05
Speaker 1: you know, will become irrelevant and maybe get completely lost.
48:09
Speaker 1: And it's it's a very real possibility. It's something that
48:13
Speaker 1: you and your team have already seen in the course
48:18
Speaker 1: of UH, in the course of different episodes of Ephemeral,
48:23
Speaker 1: you know, the two part series on video stores I
48:26
Speaker 1: think was very well done. And one one thing that
48:30
Speaker 1: really I think that Ephemeral really speaks to and one
48:35
Speaker 1: reason that no not to speak for you, but one
48:37
Speaker 1: reason I think we're both big fans is because each
48:40
Speaker 1: of these episodes of this show have so much time
48:44
Speaker 1: and care putting into them. UH. And sometimes I get
48:49
Speaker 1: the feeling like, is is Alex out here finding a
48:53
Speaker 1: story that doesn't want to be found or is he
48:56
Speaker 1: racing some sort of ticking clock, you know, a to
49:00
Speaker 1: which point the people who could have told you this
49:02
Speaker 1: story are gone, right and the p and that's something
49:05
Speaker 1: you probably run into. Or are you reaching a point
49:08
Speaker 1: where the only record of this story was a physical
49:11
Speaker 1: record that's never been digitized and will it go away?
49:15
Speaker 1: You know how what disaster will strike next. So you know,
49:20
Speaker 1: with that in mind, I do actually have a question here.
49:23
Speaker 1: So with that in mind, you could just tell many
49:25
Speaker 1: nice things about this is a great podcast. Well this
49:29
Speaker 1: is stuff Nolan I talked about too. But with that
49:31
Speaker 1: in mind, one of the questions I know we had
49:33
Speaker 1: before was what motivates you and Trevor and Max to
49:39
Speaker 1: pick a specific story, Like do you have a list
49:43
Speaker 1: of sort of draft picks and then you narrow it down,
49:46
Speaker 1: or do you do you get struck with the Eureka
49:49
Speaker 1: moment and say like, uh, holy smokes, Stephen Foster he
49:56
Speaker 1: had he had a Mariachi phase or something like that.
49:59
Speaker 1: You know, I don't think just for the record, I mean,
50:01
Speaker 1: that's the next episode, but I'm not gonna spoil that. Uh.
50:05
Speaker 1: You know, they come from different from different ways, you know,
50:08
Speaker 1: like sometimes it is sort of a larger I mean,
50:12
Speaker 1: I mean to answer you, to really answer your question, Max,
50:15
Speaker 1: Trevor and I have a million ideas. We have a
50:18
Speaker 1: very long list of ideas that we meet on all
50:21
Speaker 1: the time and are always kind of and we sort
50:22
Speaker 1: of all have our own approaches to, uh to tackling that.
50:26
Speaker 1: Sometimes it is kind of a larger cultural thing like um,
50:30
Speaker 1: video stores like you mentioned, which is all the work
50:32
Speaker 1: of Trevor Young. Trevor took August and made two fabulous
50:34
Speaker 1: episodes on video stores UM and the sort of rise fall,
50:38
Speaker 1: decline and how they really really changed our relationship with
50:43
Speaker 1: media in this world. UM. So it's like, all right,
50:47
Speaker 1: well that's a cool idea. Go find the people who
50:50
Speaker 1: can talk about it. Found a guy named Dan Herbert
50:53
Speaker 1: who was just on the CUSP was like around I
50:56
Speaker 1: think he took himself on a road trip. Um. He's
50:59
Speaker 1: a Universe a student, Michigan professor, and he took himself
51:02
Speaker 1: on a road trip and drove all around the country
51:03
Speaker 1: and tape recorded him going to video stores and just
51:06
Speaker 1: talking to people, talking to someone in Cheyenne or whatever.
51:09
Speaker 1: And it's like, oh, yeah, it's what's a tanning salon
51:12
Speaker 1: and a video store and you know he's just getting
51:14
Speaker 1: all these and some people trying to sell him their
51:16
Speaker 1: video stores and stuff on the spot and um. And
51:19
Speaker 1: then sometimes it's like this like the thirty seven Days
51:22
Speaker 1: one where you find this one record, whether that's a recording, uh,
51:29
Speaker 1: you know, audio recording or video or an image or
51:33
Speaker 1: an essay like this is or a manuscript that's just
51:37
Speaker 1: a one of a kind that doesn't you know, it's
51:41
Speaker 1: just nothing else quite like it. It's like, okay, that's
51:43
Speaker 1: a thing that can we breathe some new life into this,
51:46
Speaker 1: like can we put this in whatever, you know, whatever
51:49
Speaker 1: little influence that we have, like back on the radar
51:52
Speaker 1: of the public consciousness. And it's not an easy process.
51:55
Speaker 1: It sounds like right. I mean, first of all, you
51:57
Speaker 1: even identifying those gems squires a real curatorial eye and
52:02
Speaker 1: a fascination with this kind of stuff. That's sort of
52:04
Speaker 1: the mission of the whole show. The idea of you know,
52:06
Speaker 1: returning things that maybe were lost to history or lost
52:10
Speaker 1: to technology even you know, like the idea of ephemera
52:13
Speaker 1: often has to do with outmoded technology or things that
52:16
Speaker 1: are no longer as easy to play anymore, like things
52:20
Speaker 1: like you know, seventy eight's or you know, old eight
52:22
Speaker 1: tracks or things like that, or things that were written
52:24
Speaker 1: and maybe never you know archive and things like that.
52:27
Speaker 1: So I think it's awesome what you're doing. It really
52:29
Speaker 1: is almost like a an Internet archive kind of project.
52:32
Speaker 1: And big fan of the show and I think anyone
52:35
Speaker 1: that likes the show absolutely like it. As well. Yes,
52:37
Speaker 1: but you still have to listen to our show. Please
52:39
Speaker 1: please just my girlfriend. My girlfriend, by the way, doesn't
52:44
Speaker 1: listen to our show. Um. She just told me the
52:48
Speaker 1: other day that she started listening to Ephemeral and I'm like,
52:55
Speaker 1: she did text me some nice words about it. She
52:58
Speaker 1: really likes it. Well, maybe to listen to the one.
53:00
Speaker 1: Yeah maybe so, maybe so uh wump wump. But man, Alex,
53:05
Speaker 1: thanks so much for joining us, Thanks for having me
53:09
Speaker 1: and and and really it's it's worth listening for the
53:12
Speaker 1: vocal performance as if nothing else. And no, you're you're
53:15
Speaker 1: also in there as a hunter. He spent his life
53:19
Speaker 1: among the wilderness. And I will not spoil that, but
53:22
Speaker 1: you have a really great moment right at the end
53:24
Speaker 1: of the episode. Nailed it. Yes, we've come for you,
53:28
Speaker 1: you know after after that about okay, I won't won't
53:31
Speaker 1: spoil it, but involves some kind of gross, doesn't it.
53:34
Speaker 1: It's a it's a little gross. It's maybe one of
53:37
Speaker 1: the grosser parts. Yeah, it's well intentioned, though we can't
53:40
Speaker 1: we can't keep spoiling. Dude. It's a miracle basically, Yes, Okay,
53:45
Speaker 1: let's what else is a miracle? Is? Is you ridiculous historians,
53:50
Speaker 1: each and every one of you God's miracles to podcast them. Yes,
53:55
Speaker 1: thank you so much, folks. Thank you Alex Williams for
53:59
Speaker 1: hanging out before we head off into the wilds of
54:04
Speaker 1: our own. Could you tell everybody where to find Ephemeral
54:07
Speaker 1: where to learn more about your work, because you don't
54:10
Speaker 1: just do ephemeral, which is really weird and amazing to
54:14
Speaker 1: me that you do other stuff as well. I'm totally
54:16
Speaker 1: lost right now, get it? Yes? Um, do you want
54:21
Speaker 1: to know where to find ephemeral dot show or on
54:23
Speaker 1: all the social things at ephemeral show? And uh, what
54:27
Speaker 1: you want to talk about other things that I work on? Yeah? Yeah,
54:32
Speaker 1: what are we doing right now? Well, we've got a
54:33
Speaker 1: new season of Thirteen Days of Halloween coming out on
54:36
Speaker 1: the nineteenth of October and that'll run day day or
54:39
Speaker 1: a day for thirteen days. I will not spoil anything
54:42
Speaker 1: about that, but because I don't want to not a spoiler.
54:46
Speaker 1: But it is another kind of immersive storytelling podcast with
54:50
Speaker 1: three D audio touches, I believe. Yeah, the first season
54:53
Speaker 1: featured Gig and Michael Key. It's all one binural three
54:56
Speaker 1: D audio. It's like a you know, listener to question
55:00
Speaker 1: advised comes from Blumhouse and Aaron Manky and and us
55:04
Speaker 1: here at I Heeart and then uh, you and the
55:07
Speaker 1: one and only Mr Max Williams have some future episodes
55:11
Speaker 1: of Ephemeral coming out, which we said we wouldn't spoil, right,
55:16
Speaker 1: it's up to you, Max. No, no, I've been working
55:19
Speaker 1: on this episode for a good minute now, and I
55:21
Speaker 1: don't know it's it's a really intriguing story we were
55:24
Speaker 1: talking about before off off Mike and Ben's like, oh
55:26
Speaker 1: my god, that's my favorite movie. So you know, it
55:29
Speaker 1: should become an oppeginning October. It's gonna be a lot
55:32
Speaker 1: of fun to listen to some mystery and that, and
55:34
Speaker 1: it is also a bit HALLOWEENI yes, uh, and yeah,
55:38
Speaker 1: I wonder what Ben's favorite movie is. You let to
55:40
Speaker 1: tun into a phemeral to find out. You guys are
55:42
Speaker 1: boxing me in all right, Well, do check it out.
55:45
Speaker 1: Do check out all of the shows that are available
55:48
Speaker 1: on the Ephemeral website. You can follow them to get
55:51
Speaker 1: a peek behind the scenes on the various social needs
55:54
Speaker 1: of choice. You can also follow Ridiculous History and check
55:59
Speaker 1: this out in old People can follow us not just
56:01
Speaker 1: as a show, but as individuals. That's true. You can
56:04
Speaker 1: find me at how now Noel Brown on Instagram exclusively
56:07
Speaker 1: mess that Twitter nonsense. I'm a Twitter lurker at best.
56:12
Speaker 1: And I will not reveal your name because you had
56:16
Speaker 1: we had talked about it. Okay, you know I don't
56:19
Speaker 1: remember what it is, so how do I know and
56:22
Speaker 1: you don't? Okay, So you can find me at ben
56:25
Speaker 1: Bulling bow l a N on Instagram. Uh, and you
56:28
Speaker 1: can find me at Ben bull In h s W
56:30
Speaker 1: on Twitter. Thanks as always to our long suffering nemesses.
56:34
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland a k. The quiztions he suffering, he makes
56:37
Speaker 1: us suffering. Yes he's not. He's not the sufferer. He's
56:42
Speaker 1: the deliverer of suffering. Yes. In the next studio. Yeah,
56:45
Speaker 1: he has to be with himself all the time. He's
56:47
Speaker 1: like he's like pinhead for He's the kind of guy
56:51
Speaker 1: you summoned with like a weird demon cube. You know,
56:54
Speaker 1: I love him. I'm missing let missing. Yeah, he's going
56:58
Speaker 1: to kill us for that out you're but we've got
57:01
Speaker 1: some other folks to think, right, Well, let me sure do.
57:03
Speaker 1: Max Williams, super producer Extordan You probably already thinks that.
57:06
Speaker 1: But he gets a Second, thanks for me. This is
57:08
Speaker 1: sort of a thing we do. We're like big on
57:09
Speaker 1: thinking people. Uh, let's see Christoph Roscio is here in spirit.
57:13
Speaker 1: He's Jeff Cote wherever she may roam. Um Alex Williams
57:17
Speaker 1: to compose our theme. Second things for a different thing. Yeah,
57:22
Speaker 1: it's you're hearing it right now. Don't just to spend
57:26
Speaker 1: your just happening happening right now. We'll see you next time, folks.
57:36
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
57:39
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to
57:42
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.