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What Saved the American Bison · Stuff You Should Know

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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to Stuff You Should Know?
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Speaker 1: From House Stuff Works dot Com? Hey, and welcome to
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Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
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Speaker 1: and that makes this stuff you should Know the big
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Speaker 1: wooly addition. Yeah, I'm kind of excited about this one. Yeah, man,
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Speaker 1: we've seen one of those before. We're talking about bison's
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Speaker 1: by the way, Yeah, I thought you might bring that up. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we we saw one at that animal preserve. There was
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Speaker 1: like a bear and a bison and they were fighting.
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Speaker 1: This little depressing next year, but they are supposedly rescued animals.
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Speaker 1: Um at this animal petting zoo, this wild game petting zoo.
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Speaker 1: And that was a smart bison because he had learned
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Speaker 1: to go to the little shoot where you would put
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Speaker 1: his food. And wasn't he doing something too? He's manipulating
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Speaker 1: it somehow sounds like it, or he was trying to
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Speaker 1: manipulate us into giving him some food. I can't remember
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Speaker 1: there's some manipulation involved, because I remember thinking like, huh,
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Speaker 1: bisons are very manipulative animals. Jerks. I have a story
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Speaker 1: for you to start this one. If you like that.
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Speaker 1: That sounds great, Chuck. Have I ever told you about
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Speaker 1: my one glorious football story. I've heard little bits about
1:25
Speaker 1: your football experience, that you were a bigger kids. He
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Speaker 1: played on the line, and that's about all I can remember. Okay, Well,
1:32
Speaker 1: as a child, I went to Beverly Elementary School and
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Speaker 1: I played football for them. Uh And the way it
1:39
Speaker 1: was in Toledo was you would play for your elementary
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Speaker 1: schools team when you got the middle school. Interesting, so
1:47
Speaker 1: you could play your last year of elementary school sixth grade,
1:50
Speaker 1: but then you could keep playing through seventh and eighth grade,
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Speaker 1: but it was for your elementary school. It was weird.
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Speaker 1: But so I played for Beverly Elementary, which meant I
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Speaker 1: was Beverly Iison. And I was probably the kid on
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Speaker 1: the team that must resemble the Bison because I was
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Speaker 1: a pretty big, fat kid and I was aligneman. And um,
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Speaker 1: I sucked at football because no one ever explained any
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Speaker 1: strategy to me. It wasn't until college that I understood
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Speaker 1: that football even had strategy. Old technique, Yeah, I thought
2:18
Speaker 1: it was just like block that guy right right. Um,
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Speaker 1: So I didn't teach you to swim, move nothing. They
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Speaker 1: taught me nothing. It was literally like just stand there
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Speaker 1: and don't let that guy through. That's what I was taught.
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Speaker 1: Failed by all coaches. Um. Anyway, I did have one
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Speaker 1: shining moment. Right I was eighth grade. I was third string.
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Speaker 1: We were playing the Colts. I can't remember what school,
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Speaker 1: but they were the worst team, and uh we were.
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Speaker 1: We had the game in hand and the Colts were
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Speaker 1: all like just three and a half foot tall, little
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Speaker 1: pint sized kids. So we had the game in hand. Um,
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Speaker 1: it was late in the game and they put me
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Speaker 1: in as a defensive lineman. Right to you're the biggest
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Speaker 1: guy on the team and your third string. I am
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Speaker 1: at this point the biggest guy on the field. But yes,
3:02
Speaker 1: I was third strict grade two. Um, so they at
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Speaker 1: this point in the biggest guy in the field and
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Speaker 1: they put me in and um, and I'm I'm like,
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Speaker 1: I pointed to the quarterback. I'm like, I'm gonna I'm
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Speaker 1: coming for you. They put two guys on me. Right
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Speaker 1: the quarterback hikes the ball. He's he's appropriately nervous because
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Speaker 1: I'm staring at him. He knows like I'm gonna get
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Speaker 1: to him. One way or the other. This is like
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Speaker 1: my my last chance, right, these two guys come at me,
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Speaker 1: these two offensive linemen. I just grabbed both of the
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Speaker 1: bachelor helmets and just push him down, like right underneath,
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Speaker 1: but go right through him. Yeah. I don't like after
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Speaker 1: this is the coach, You're like, maybe we should put
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Speaker 1: this kid in, you know, earlier in the season. Anyway,
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Speaker 1: I um, I push. I just get through both of
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Speaker 1: the guys who are who are on me? I go,
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Speaker 1: is it? Well, that's what I did. I go right
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Speaker 1: to the quarterback, didn't tackle him. I picked him up
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Speaker 1: and threw him down. I didn't even like stagger. I
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Speaker 1: just picked the just kid up and through them. And
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Speaker 1: I turned around. I was like, yeah, you know what
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Speaker 1: I didn't know is I caused a fumble and one
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Speaker 1: of our guys picked up and ran it in for
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Speaker 1: a touchdown. I didn't find out until after that the
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Speaker 1: play was over. So your line cheat that day was
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Speaker 1: once one play, one sack, one force fumble. Yeah that's awesome. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and a touchdown as a result of the fumbles. So
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Speaker 1: that was my big story as Beverly Bison. And that
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Speaker 1: is the the the intro. I guess you could say
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Speaker 1: to this, what happened to bring the Bisons back from
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Speaker 1: the verge of extinction. I think that might have helped
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Speaker 1: the cause. I think it did too. Perhaps I've always
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Speaker 1: had an infinity affinity for Bisons ever since playing for
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Speaker 1: the Beverly Bisons. But I think we should probably start out, chuck,
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Speaker 1: what what's Some people might be like, I've heard a buffalo,
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Speaker 1: but I don't know what a bison is. Well, if
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Speaker 1: you've heard of a buffalo and you're an American, you've
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Speaker 1: heard a bison, pal you're confused. That's right right here
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Speaker 1: in the States, they're bison. Technically, they're pretty in are changeably.
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Speaker 1: You know, you can call him a buffalo. But technically
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Speaker 1: a buffalo is a cape buffalo or water buffalo, and
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Speaker 1: they're native to Africa and Asia. The bison's native to
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Speaker 1: here in the United States, North America typically specifically, and
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Speaker 1: the word buffalo comes from the French. Seventeenth century explorers
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Speaker 1: encountered these things and said, let both what is that beef?
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Speaker 1: It means oxen or beeves whatever, beavis be e e
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Speaker 1: v e s is what I said, Okay, And then uh,
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Speaker 1: the English folks arrive later and change it to La
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Speaker 1: buff and then Buffalo, then Buffaler, than Buffio and eventually
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Speaker 1: they settled on Buffalo. So that's where we're at now,
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Speaker 1: that's where right now. But so they're both members of
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Speaker 1: the Boviday family. UM, and they're very much related. But yes,
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Speaker 1: one lives in Asia and Africa, one lives in North America.
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Speaker 1: And we've got two um types of buffalo or bison
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry. In North America. We've got the wood bison,
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Speaker 1: which is the smaller the two, and then the planes bison,
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Speaker 1: which is the big, the big daddy. Yeah. And they
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Speaker 1: you know, if you've ever seen the one with the
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Speaker 1: big hump, that's the wood bison. The planes bison has
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Speaker 1: the flat back, more distinctive cape, and a more well
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Speaker 1: developed beard in throat main. Is that right? So the
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Speaker 1: one with the big hump is the wood bison because
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Speaker 1: the hump from ground to hump can get up to
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Speaker 1: like six ft tall. Yeah, that's huge. Uh. Let's talk
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Speaker 1: numbers first, like sheer numbers. UM. In two thousand seven
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Speaker 1: they did a bison census and the number on private
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Speaker 1: ranches was add to thirty four. That is significantly more
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Speaker 1: than it was a century earlier. UM. About two d
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Speaker 1: and twenty thousand in Canada, and about twenty and of
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Speaker 1: these bison in the United States and Canada are roaming
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Speaker 1: free on public land, and close to a half a
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Speaker 1: million total herd in North America today. But at one point,
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Speaker 1: the chuck in about eight there were maybe in all
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Speaker 1: of North America five hundred of these things five hundred,
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Speaker 1: and those five hundred were federally protected on federally protected land.
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Speaker 1: Prior to that, say, I think it was in Lost
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Speaker 1: Part Colorado, UH, poachers killed four bison, UH, and those
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Speaker 1: four represented the last unprotected free roaming bison herd in
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Speaker 1: the in North America and thus ended what was called
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Speaker 1: the Great Slaughter, which we'll get to in a second.
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Speaker 1: But let's go even further back to really get to
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Speaker 1: to the the the point about how few five hundred
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Speaker 1: bison is in like say ere, you have to understand
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Speaker 1: how many there were in say seventeen hundred. I've seen
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Speaker 1: estimates is high as sixty million. That far back. Oh yeah,
8:17
Speaker 1: chew on this pal I saw an estimate as high
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Speaker 1: as a hundred millions. Yeah, normally the accepted number UM
8:24
Speaker 1: was proposed by a guy named Um Shepherd crushed the third,
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Speaker 1: he's an anthropologist from Brown University in he came up
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Speaker 1: with an estimate of thirty million. And if you're an
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Speaker 1: anthropologist or a wildlife biologist, or just a bison enthusiast,
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Speaker 1: you're probably gonna go with thirty million. At any given time,
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Speaker 1: there were thirty million pre European um settlement. There are
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Speaker 1: thirty million bison roaming North America at any given time. Well,
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Speaker 1: they were the largest large mammal in the United in
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Speaker 1: North America, the largest uh population at one point. But
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Speaker 1: they're also the largest physically. They were about two thousand pounds.
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Speaker 1: The average mail is about two thousand pounds. And they're
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Speaker 1: quick too. They can get up to like thirty five
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Speaker 1: miles an hour. Two thousand pounds thirty five miles an hour.
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Speaker 1: And there are thirty million of these things running around.
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Speaker 1: That's a ton. That's that's a lot of times tons. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and they spanned They obviously made their home most abundantly
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Speaker 1: in the Great Plains because there was lots of great
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Speaker 1: virgin grassland that was packed with vitamins and minerals, which
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Speaker 1: allowed it to grow back really fast after it was eaten.
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Speaker 1: From Canada to northern Mexico, tons and tons of buffalo. So, um,
9:44
Speaker 1: there's something interesting if you've read that pops up towards
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Speaker 1: the end of the book. I know I keep going
9:50
Speaker 1: back to this well, but it is it is really wet.
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Speaker 1: It's a consistent thread. Um there were there. There's this
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Speaker 1: whole idea that what the settlers out west around the
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Speaker 1: plains encountered and took to be like a wild state,
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Speaker 1: like the natural wild state of tens of millions of
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Speaker 1: buffalo running everywhere, was actually a freak of nature. Right
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Speaker 1: that you have um an apex predator in any ecosystem,
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Speaker 1: and if you remove the apex predator, all the other
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Speaker 1: all the other UM species are allowed to just boom
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Speaker 1: right in on the great planes. The apex predator was
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Speaker 1: man human in the form of Native Americans who were
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Speaker 1: removed from the ecosystem, and without the Native Americans to
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Speaker 1: effectively manage the herb populations and the prairie lands, UH,
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Speaker 1: buffaloes were allowed to explode to unnatural population numbers. So
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Speaker 1: there's an idea that what we took and still to
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Speaker 1: the state consider was a natural population of thirty million
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Speaker 1: was actually far far less than that. Prior to the
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Speaker 1: Colombian exchange. Really Yeah, very interesting? Didn't that interesting? Either way?
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Speaker 1: They're probably about thirty million buffalo roaming the Great Planes
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Speaker 1: in state seventeen hundred. That number dropped dramatically starting about
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Speaker 1: eighteen twenty, right, yeah, with the Great Slaughter. Uh pre um,
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Speaker 1: Well we'll get to the horse. Pre horse. Dating back
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Speaker 1: to prehistoric times, there was what was known as buffalo jumps.
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Speaker 1: Did you see this? So buffalo jumps are were when
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Speaker 1: they would Native Americans would herd buffalo down these narrow
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Speaker 1: shoots and run them off a cliff like lemmings like lemmings,
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Speaker 1: and it would break their legs. I mean not such
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Speaker 1: a cliff that it would you know, destroy the animal completely.
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Speaker 1: It would just break their legs so they couldn't move.
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Speaker 1: And then they would you know, they had guys waiting
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Speaker 1: down there with spears and stuff and clubs to kill them.
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Speaker 1: And it was sort of like the first factory farms
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Speaker 1: that was where they were would get large abundance over
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Speaker 1: and over abundance of buffalo meat and pelts and all
12:00
Speaker 1: the stuff that they use. And uh. There is today
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Speaker 1: in Canada a World Heritage Site called head Smashed in
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Speaker 1: Buffalo Jump, and it is one of the oldest and
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Speaker 1: largest and best preserved buffalo jumps known to exist today.
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Speaker 1: And if you go to their website, it has a
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Speaker 1: little animation of buffalo like lemmings like running and then
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Speaker 1: falling off a cliff, over and over and over. Right,
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Speaker 1: And I should also insert here that Chuck and I
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Speaker 1: are both fully aware that lemmings don't naturally run over
12:32
Speaker 1: the cliff. That that was actually the producers of the
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Speaker 1: Walt Disney documentary that created that myth and drove those
12:39
Speaker 1: poor lemmings over the cliff. That's true. Yeah, I'm glad
12:42
Speaker 1: you said that because we heard about that. Uh So,
12:45
Speaker 1: at any rate, they were buffalo jumps. That was a
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Speaker 1: way to get lots and lots of buffalo dead quickly.
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Speaker 1: And if you live in Alberta, you can go see
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Speaker 1: the head smashed in Buffalo Jump for a mere ten
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Speaker 1: dollars for an adult. And not only if you live there,
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Speaker 1: if you're visiting there you could do it too. That's right.
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Speaker 1: But the Native American had a I mean, I know
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Speaker 1: the white man is blamed for it, and they largely
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Speaker 1: are responsible for the mass slaughter, but the Comanche Indian
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Speaker 1: in the eighteen thirties were killing close to three hundred
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Speaker 1: thousand bison a year, which was not a sustainable number. Right.
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Speaker 1: That's actually a very hot topic. Um. You know, there's
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Speaker 1: the idea that the Native Americans are the noble savage um,
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Speaker 1: and then there's also evidence that they're not, that they weren't.
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Speaker 1: There was this thing called bison overkill. Um. They also
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Speaker 1: believe that that's what happened to the mastodon and the
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Speaker 1: sabretooth tiger and that they were basically hunted to extinction
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Speaker 1: um by like the Clovis people, and the Clovis people
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Speaker 1: in turn became extinct as well. It's like a highly
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Speaker 1: debatable topic of over exactly what happened. But if that's true,
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Speaker 1: then that means that bison have always been over hunted
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Speaker 1: because if the Commanche were doing that, and apparently it
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Speaker 1: takes six to seven bison to to for a person
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Speaker 1: to subsist a year, six bison per person per year. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: but that's without agriculture, Like, that's just living on bison.
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Speaker 1: Can you imagine your your stool productions just like bison
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Speaker 1: break for the spic and the eggs bison burgers. Yeah,
14:16
Speaker 1: and I would imagine your sweat smells like vinegar because
14:18
Speaker 1: apparently you have a high protein, low carb diet, you
14:22
Speaker 1: sweat vinegar. It is gross, believe me. The railroad industry
14:27
Speaker 1: was also a great threat to the bison because the
14:29
Speaker 1: bison were a threat to the railroad industry. And you
14:32
Speaker 1: know who won that war. Well, there's a guy um
14:34
Speaker 1: named Frank Row who who wrote a book in nineteen
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Speaker 1: seventy two called the North American Buffalo, and he cites
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Speaker 1: um a train that was headed west in eighteen fifty
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Speaker 1: that had to wait for three days for a herd
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Speaker 1: of bison to cross the track them and they weren't
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Speaker 1: necessarily slow moving. There's just that many bison. Um. So yeah,
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Speaker 1: we reached the point now where the the White Man
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Speaker 1: has entered the picture, the Winchester fifty aliber rifles under
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Speaker 1: the picture, and the horses under the picture. So all
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Speaker 1: of these factors that would lead to the near extinction
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Speaker 1: of bison have all come together and converged on the
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Speaker 1: Great Planes and they are about to unleash holy hell
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Speaker 1: on the bison population, the Great Slaughter. So do you, like,
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Speaker 1: have you heard about the Great Slaughter? Do you know
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Speaker 1: some things about it? I know that they could have
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Speaker 1: been potentially killing like two hundred thousand buffalo per day.
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Speaker 1: At one point, they had contests, Chuck, they were buffalo
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Speaker 1: killing contests the railroads, like you said, to get rid
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Speaker 1: of this bison problem. They also figured out how to
15:41
Speaker 1: make money by hosting hunting expeditions where you never left
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Speaker 1: the train. The trainer just drives slowly and you would shoot.
15:49
Speaker 1: It's also in dead Man. Oh yeah, Um, that was real.
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Speaker 1: They had bison killing contests. There's a man who holds
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Speaker 1: the record in eighteen seventy Helo Bill. No, no, he
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Speaker 1: had Buffalo Bill beat A man named Thomas C. Nixon
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Speaker 1: of Kansas set the record in eighteen seventy, killing one
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Speaker 1: and twenty bison in forty minutes. Buffalo Bill supposedly killed many,
16:12
Speaker 1: many thousands himself. He was hired to do that. Um
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Speaker 1: and hides were going for two dollars ahead and in
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Speaker 1: the winner of eighteen seventy two to seventy three, just
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Speaker 1: the winner one point five million buffalo hides. Bison hides
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Speaker 1: were shipped back east by train. Well. I do know
16:28
Speaker 1: at one point that they said that the big hunters
16:31
Speaker 1: were using two guns because they were shooting them so fast,
16:35
Speaker 1: they had to let one gun cool down, and so
16:38
Speaker 1: they just picked up the fresh gun so they wouldn't
16:40
Speaker 1: have to stop killing. Yeah, at first, like they were
16:43
Speaker 1: shooting him for meat, and then buffalo hide, bison hide
16:46
Speaker 1: became all the rage, not just back East but in
16:49
Speaker 1: Europe as well. Demand increase, so they're like, oh, well,
16:52
Speaker 1: let's you know, we'll just leave the meat there. We
16:55
Speaker 1: don't need the meat. There's millions of these things, rotting
16:57
Speaker 1: carcasses everywhere. Um And as if this couldn't get worse,
17:03
Speaker 1: as if it couldn't get worse, right, So the poor
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Speaker 1: bison population, possibly if there was bison overkill, their apex
17:11
Speaker 1: predators removed, they're allowed to bloom, and then a new,
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Speaker 1: even more damaging apex predator comes in starts killing indiscriminately
17:18
Speaker 1: like they've never seen before. The one of the reasons
17:21
Speaker 1: why they had bison killing contests was not just for
17:24
Speaker 1: the railroad, but it was because the um federal government
17:29
Speaker 1: in whites in general figured out that the planes Indians
17:33
Speaker 1: subsisted on bison take away. The bison take away the
17:37
Speaker 1: food supply. You civilized the Indian. So that was one
17:41
Speaker 1: reason why bisons were hunted to near extinction with so
17:44
Speaker 1: such glee was because it was serving a larger purpose
17:47
Speaker 1: of bringing the Indians into the fold as well. So
17:50
Speaker 1: there's a way to tame the West. We're starving them.
17:57
Speaker 1: So again we get down to what five bison that
18:01
Speaker 1: are finally protected. Um, and it's starting in nineteen o six.
18:07
Speaker 1: Who who is responsible for this? Uh, nineteen oh five
18:11
Speaker 1: environmentalist he might have heard of by the name of
18:13
Speaker 1: Teddy Roosevelt and William Hornaday, who was a zoologists, poet,
18:18
Speaker 1: can conservationist, songwriter, realtor evidently thought that was odd. That
18:23
Speaker 1: is not well, you gotta make money somehow because those
18:25
Speaker 1: other ones aren't doing so. Uh. He was a really
18:29
Speaker 1: top notch conservationists actually. But um, William Hornaday and Teddy
18:32
Speaker 1: Roosevelt formed the American Bison Society nineteen o five because
18:36
Speaker 1: they were like, wait a minute, these things are remember
18:39
Speaker 1: all those buffalo that used to be out there that
18:40
Speaker 1: aren't there anymore? Like this might be a problem. They're like,
18:43
Speaker 1: what are we gonna hunt? And so we're better to
18:46
Speaker 1: send them plus send them to the Bronx in New
18:48
Speaker 1: York City, the Great Plains of the Bronx. Yeah, and
18:52
Speaker 1: it definitely got him out of the hands of poachers.
18:54
Speaker 1: Uh and kidding aside, though the bronx who was a
18:57
Speaker 1: great place for them to send some species for uh reproducing.
19:02
Speaker 1: And Yellowstone National Park was established as a as a
19:05
Speaker 1: preserve and the New Yorkers got to sit there and
19:07
Speaker 1: watch bison getting it on. I guess so nicol ahead,
19:11
Speaker 1: nick boy, not a buffalo, nickel uh huh uh. They
19:17
Speaker 1: also uh the night created the federal government created the
19:21
Speaker 1: National Bison Range in Montana. But these weren't the efforts
19:24
Speaker 1: that ultimately did a lot to increase the numbers. No,
19:28
Speaker 1: because you know what, although they were protected, and Congress
19:31
Speaker 1: actually did pass an act um, the Federal Park Protective Act.
19:36
Speaker 1: I believe that said if you poach buffalo, you're in
19:39
Speaker 1: big trouble. Um, they were never listed as endangered. Yeah,
19:45
Speaker 1: I wonder why I couldn't get a reason there, So
19:47
Speaker 1: I don't know either. But they were clearly close to
19:50
Speaker 1: being in danger, but they were never listed, so they
19:52
Speaker 1: didn't enjoy that full protection. So Roosevelt, he he had
19:56
Speaker 1: a pretty good effort by establishing the Park Service, yellow
20:00
Speaker 1: Stone had a protected heard. You had him in the Bronxoo,
20:03
Speaker 1: you had him in Oklahoma, you had him in in
20:05
Speaker 1: um South Dakota. But none of these, like you said,
20:09
Speaker 1: led to the real resurgence, the the um, the resurgence
20:13
Speaker 1: in the bison population in North America. What did, though, Chuck, Well,
20:18
Speaker 1: maybe we should talk about well, yeah, sure, what did uh?
20:21
Speaker 1: Private landowners? Head Turner, head freaking turner. Yeah, he was
20:26
Speaker 1: the one responsible for bringing the bike the bison back
20:30
Speaker 1: from the near extinction. He's one of my heroes. Should
20:34
Speaker 1: we just give a few Turner stats here? The second
20:37
Speaker 1: largest private landowner in North America. He's got about two
20:41
Speaker 1: million acres of ranch land and uh fifteen ranches and
20:46
Speaker 1: seven states that are all bison ranches, active working bison ranches,
20:52
Speaker 1: and I believe he manages about fifty thousand head of
20:56
Speaker 1: bison himself, himself, by hand himself. Well, Jane helped out
21:02
Speaker 1: while they were together, and he opened his I'm sorry.
21:05
Speaker 1: He purchased his first bison in seventy six and opened
21:07
Speaker 1: his first bison ranch in seven, which makes me wonder
21:10
Speaker 1: where did he keep that bison for eleven years? Did
21:13
Speaker 1: he just like take it everywhere with him in the
21:14
Speaker 1: backseat or he had plenty of land. There was no
21:17
Speaker 1: shortage of space for that one bison. But I think
21:20
Speaker 1: he to answer your question, he kept it at his
21:22
Speaker 1: mansion in Buckhead, UM. If you want to learn more
21:25
Speaker 1: about Ted Turner's um, he has many ongoing projects to
21:28
Speaker 1: save the species. You can go to www dot t
21:31
Speaker 1: E s F dot org and he's I mean a
21:35
Speaker 1: lot of this is obviously for for raising bison to
21:39
Speaker 1: sell two stock his Ted's Montana grills with fresh bison
21:43
Speaker 1: steaks and burgers. But it still helps the conservation, well,
21:47
Speaker 1: it does. I mean, whether they're free roaming or um
21:52
Speaker 1: commercially raised. If you are just looking at the hard
21:56
Speaker 1: numbers of bison populations in the US, they are not
21:59
Speaker 1: in injured anymore. And it's because they're so delicious that
22:03
Speaker 1: there is. That's the reason why they're not endangered. Well,
22:06
Speaker 1: and one of the cool things about the bison is
22:09
Speaker 1: it's it's across the board. The National Bison Association prohibits
22:12
Speaker 1: the use of sub therapeutic antibiotics, growth hormones, and animal byproducts.
22:17
Speaker 1: So it's not like, oh, this one calform says we
22:20
Speaker 1: shouldn't inject them with hormones. It's all all bison in
22:23
Speaker 1: the US, and they are very nutritional compared to cow beef.
22:28
Speaker 1: They I don't need to be handled much. They almost
22:31
Speaker 1: exclusively dine on grass. And if it's if it's um
22:36
Speaker 1: unmanaged grass, that's it's organics, fully organic. Yeah. Absolutely. Uh,
22:42
Speaker 1: let's talk nutrients. The proportions of protein, fat and minerals
22:45
Speaker 1: and fatty acids to its caloric value are outstanding compared
22:49
Speaker 1: to grass. Beef, I'm sorry, just beef period and um,
22:54
Speaker 1: large concentrations of iron and a lot of essential fatty acids.
22:57
Speaker 1: So people are up with bison. They're eating it a
23:00
Speaker 1: lot more over the past decade. The numbers have really
23:02
Speaker 1: risen dramatically. Um, do you eat it? Yeah, I've had it.
23:06
Speaker 1: It's good stuff. I've had a bison burger. I didn't
23:08
Speaker 1: you know. I've had bison steak at ted the Montana Grill,
23:11
Speaker 1: which I should say, full of this closure, we own
23:13
Speaker 1: no stock. What's however, and I've never eaten there. Oh
23:15
Speaker 1: you should. It's cool. It's got to like the the
23:18
Speaker 1: interior decor is like a turn of the last century
23:22
Speaker 1: like Kansas restaurant. Yeah, it's very cool, like the tin
23:27
Speaker 1: plate ceiling and all that stuff. Um, and yeah, the
23:29
Speaker 1: bison steak is very good. Now, can you tell the
23:31
Speaker 1: big taste difference. Yeah, really yeah, because I've had the
23:34
Speaker 1: burger and I couldn't tell a huge difference. But you're
23:37
Speaker 1: a steak guy. You like steaks, you immediately you can
23:40
Speaker 1: look at it and tell a difference. But the taste
23:42
Speaker 1: you can tell the difference as well too. I mean
23:43
Speaker 1: it's not just like it's not like eating cat and
23:46
Speaker 1: eating steak, but I mean you can tell a difference.
23:49
Speaker 1: Well yeah, cat is gamey um, so chuck. Also, we
23:55
Speaker 1: should say it's not just Ted Turner who's single handedly no,
23:59
Speaker 1: keep saving the bison herds, because now there's what four
24:02
Speaker 1: thousand commercial bison living in the US right now, Yeah,
24:05
Speaker 1: a little more. Even that's just the US alone. Turners
24:08
Speaker 1: got fifty thousand of those, which pretty substantial portion. Canada's
24:11
Speaker 1: doing their part um. There is a group of eleven
24:14
Speaker 1: tribes who get together in to form the Inner Tribal
24:19
Speaker 1: Bison Cooperative. No, I'm sorry, fifty seven tribes that managed
24:23
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand heads of bison collectively. And one of the
24:26
Speaker 1: things that if you are if you manage a herd
24:29
Speaker 1: of bison, whether for conservation or for deliciousness, you are
24:34
Speaker 1: going to run into something called brucellosis. Which is not good.
24:39
Speaker 1: It's a bacteria and it's called like another name for
24:43
Speaker 1: it is contagious abortion. That's two great words to pair together.
24:49
Speaker 1: So basically, brucellosis is a bacteria that you can that
24:53
Speaker 1: ruminating animals, which is grazing animals um. They can pick
24:58
Speaker 1: up pretty easily through the mouth um. The bacteria collects
25:03
Speaker 1: in the reproductive organs. If you are if you have milk,
25:08
Speaker 1: you're going to pass bad milk. If you're pregnant, you're
25:11
Speaker 1: going to abort your fetus. And if you lick this
25:13
Speaker 1: genital area, you've just contracted it. If you eat tainted meat,
25:19
Speaker 1: tainted buffalo, you can catch it as well and you
25:23
Speaker 1: get terrible, terrible flu like symptoms. But if you're a
25:26
Speaker 1: bison or a reindeer or something like that, you are
25:29
Speaker 1: in grave danger. If you have this bacteria can kill it.
25:32
Speaker 1: You're pretty easy well, And that's certainly one of the
25:35
Speaker 1: big reasons, because you know, with all these conservation efforts,
25:37
Speaker 1: you might think, well, why are there still only half
25:39
Speaker 1: a million. That's one of the biggest reasons. And sadly,
25:43
Speaker 1: there are quarantine periods and when these infected bison roam
25:48
Speaker 1: free like they're prone to do. They have have to
25:53
Speaker 1: be put down. They get shot, like thirty seven hundred
25:56
Speaker 1: of them. Uh in the past twenty years have then
25:59
Speaker 1: have wanted outside of Yellowstone and they have to take
26:02
Speaker 1: him down. Yeah if yeah, if you're one of the problems.
26:06
Speaker 1: One of the big problems we're facing with getting the
26:09
Speaker 1: bison population back on its feet is that we don't
26:11
Speaker 1: have land like we used to. Well that's the other
26:14
Speaker 1: So their original range, the original ecosystem are now developed
26:17
Speaker 1: like a quickie mark. So it's like, you guys, just
26:20
Speaker 1: stay in Yellowstone, so you you wandered outside of Yellowstone
26:23
Speaker 1: and bang right. Um. Apparently, also even in Yellowstone sometimes
26:29
Speaker 1: things converge, like they did in ninety seven. That winter
26:33
Speaker 1: there's a particularly harsh winter, so a lot of the
26:37
Speaker 1: a lot of the food supply was covered up with
26:39
Speaker 1: snow and ice, and like thirt hundred bisons starved to
26:43
Speaker 1: death in the park on top of a bunch that
26:45
Speaker 1: had to be shot for wandering out too. So it's
26:47
Speaker 1: a bad year for bison and Yellowstone well and not.
26:50
Speaker 1: The final reason really is um, when you have a
26:53
Speaker 1: smaller herds like this, there's gonna be more inbreeding and
26:56
Speaker 1: inbreeding doesn't lead to a healthy population. Yeah, which is
27:00
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why brucellosis is so rampant. You
27:05
Speaker 1: have a narrower gene pool. So thank you to the
27:08
Speaker 1: private system of all bison are on private land. Yes,
27:13
Speaker 1: that's crazy. Yeah, like people coming together to single handedly
27:18
Speaker 1: revived this species from the brink of extinction. So every
27:21
Speaker 1: time you eat a bison burger, you're helping to conserve
27:24
Speaker 1: the bison population. Inn't that weird? That is weird. I
27:28
Speaker 1: got one more fact for you, Is it on a
27:30
Speaker 1: high note? Uh? Sure? Do you like buffalo cheese and
27:35
Speaker 1: stuff like that? I do like buffalo mozzarella. It's good stuff,
27:39
Speaker 1: not from a bison. Apparently, any kind of buffalo product
27:42
Speaker 1: like that milk and cheese is from the the water buffalo. Cool.
27:48
Speaker 1: And the reason why bison are not commercially milked is
27:52
Speaker 1: because the ladies have little teets, really tiny little teats
27:57
Speaker 1: that are very small, and they're not great for for
28:00
Speaker 1: milking and um. Yeah, so they don't adapt well to
28:06
Speaker 1: that kind of thing. The ladies are like hands off fellas. Huh.
28:10
Speaker 1: I did not know that. I can tell you, chuck.
28:13
Speaker 1: Even having been a beverly bison, I know today, as
28:17
Speaker 1: of today, more than I ever have before about bison
28:21
Speaker 1: in general. Yeah, me too, and it's bison's plural. We
28:24
Speaker 1: should go free that. Uh, we should go free that
28:26
Speaker 1: bison and the game ranch. Do you want to Yeah,
28:29
Speaker 1: we should just send it down seventy eight East. Well,
28:33
Speaker 1: that's one reason why we're down. Well, I mean it
28:35
Speaker 1: would be a descent. Somebody shoot it because they behave radically.
28:39
Speaker 1: But apparently one last thing. You can tell how a
28:42
Speaker 1: bison's feeling based on his tail. If his tail is
28:44
Speaker 1: dangling between his legs, he's calm. If it's moving, he's alert.
28:49
Speaker 1: He's maybe watching you. If it's pointing straight out or up,
28:53
Speaker 1: get out of town. Yeah, because we're going to charge.
28:58
Speaker 1: Well that's pretty cool. Yeah. So that's it for bison,
29:01
Speaker 1: and um again, hats off to everybody who's eating bison
29:04
Speaker 1: burgers because you are keeping the bison population in check.
29:08
Speaker 1: Ted Turner, thank you, sir. I commend you. I had
29:10
Speaker 1: raised my cutty sark to you. I saw him at
29:13
Speaker 1: at the Willie Nelson concert a few years ago. You did, yeah,
29:16
Speaker 1: and I wanted to tackle him and say thank you.
29:19
Speaker 1: He probably would have liked that. He was a big
29:22
Speaker 1: part of my childhood being from Atlanta, Like he can't
29:24
Speaker 1: be from Atlanta in the seventies and all right, not
29:27
Speaker 1: think a lot of Ted Turner. Yeah, I'm sure he was,
29:30
Speaker 1: like your secret saying a one year. Of course, if
29:33
Speaker 1: you want to know more about bison and extinction and
29:37
Speaker 1: uh bison burgers and brucellosis, you've got all this stuff
29:42
Speaker 1: packed into one great article called what brought Bison Back
29:47
Speaker 1: from the Brink of Extinction? You can just put a
29:51
Speaker 1: bison extinction in the search bart how stuff works? Dot
29:54
Speaker 1: comment should bring up this article? And I think I
29:57
Speaker 1: said search bar, did I not? Let's just the cats
30:01
Speaker 1: out of the bag already. Okay, John Hodgeman is sitting
30:04
Speaker 1: right here. We're not going to do listen to mail.
30:06
Speaker 1: Sorry listeners. Is the fourth time I am putting my
30:09
Speaker 1: foot down. This is the last time, at least for
30:11
Speaker 1: this series. This has been going on for two weeks.
30:14
Speaker 1: It's fine, this is the last time. Okay, So this
30:17
Speaker 1: is four of four. Yeah, maybe we should treat you
30:18
Speaker 1: a little more regally then. This is four of four?
30:21
Speaker 1: Can we keep some coronets? Excellent? Yeah, so, Mr Hodgeman,
30:27
Speaker 1: thank you very much for coming pushing me right out
30:30
Speaker 1: the door. Josh, thank you very much for coming. And
30:32
Speaker 1: I'm a hologram. I'm not even here pushing through you
30:35
Speaker 1: right now. Hodgeman Actual is in St. Louis, Missouri Gateway
30:38
Speaker 1: to the West, getting ready to perform tonight on the
30:42
Speaker 1: book Tour live at Top to St. Louis Arch Yeah, well, no,
30:45
Speaker 1: not exactly. Where is the locale again? I had here
30:48
Speaker 1: just a second ago. It was at the bookstore there
30:52
Speaker 1: last like laugh a minute, bookstore, I think is what
30:54
Speaker 1: I was calling. I think it was the Mad Art Gallery.
30:56
Speaker 1: That's the same same thing, laugh a minute, seven pm,
30:59
Speaker 1: this very evening, November three. Do you want to say
31:01
Speaker 1: the name again? The Mad Art Gallery? Seven pm, this
31:04
Speaker 1: very evening, November three. Hodgeman Actual is presenting material from
31:09
Speaker 1: his book that is all with special guest insert name here.
31:15
Speaker 1: That's excellent. I can't believe we got that guy or gal. Yeah,
31:19
Speaker 1: good going so so No, I'm just a holographic representation
31:23
Speaker 1: of myself here again to say hello to you guys. Well,
31:25
Speaker 1: thank you because because I'm a I'm a big fan
31:29
Speaker 1: and I'm a deranged millionaire who has a hologram of himself,
31:31
Speaker 1: and you can send a favorite podcast. Why not exactly.
31:34
Speaker 1: And that's the thing about Hodgment, like even even getting
31:37
Speaker 1: the hologram of him, is you know more than you
31:40
Speaker 1: could possibly want with anybody else. I agree with you.
31:44
Speaker 1: As the hologram, I can say, I'm actually a little better.
31:47
Speaker 1: Oh really, we noticed, we noticed last time. I'm not
31:51
Speaker 1: as flatulent. We noticed due to my holographic nature. Although
31:57
Speaker 1: you still make the sounds. It's just weird. It's that
32:00
Speaker 1: the pros But I am I am. I'm a simulated
32:03
Speaker 1: program designed to interact with real world stimulus in a
32:06
Speaker 1: realistic manner. Eat a Hamburger sandwich that moves you one
32:12
Speaker 1: of your favorite, one of your famous Atlanta and Hamburger sandwiches. So, John,
32:16
Speaker 1: you wrote a book. It's called That is All. It
32:18
Speaker 1: is the third in your series explaining the world. It
32:23
Speaker 1: is my complete book of World Knowledge. Is like my
32:25
Speaker 1: previous two books, a collection of fascinating trivia, historical tidbits,
32:33
Speaker 1: and amazing true facts, all of which made up by me.
32:37
Speaker 1: This being the last in the series of complete world Knowledge,
32:41
Speaker 1: indeed the final world Knowledge, dealing with subjects as diverse
32:46
Speaker 1: as travel and ghosts and magic, tricks and wine and sports.
32:49
Speaker 1: In the end of the world, and it is called
32:51
Speaker 1: that is All, and we've covered a lot of those
32:53
Speaker 1: in the podcast too, So this is almost I guess
32:55
Speaker 1: you would say companion piece the last time you would. Yeah, no, Yeah,
33:00
Speaker 1: that's right. It's also my life's work. But thank you.
33:03
Speaker 1: Last week you accused me of taking Sorry, last week,
33:07
Speaker 1: Chuck accused men over over let's say, over liberal inspiration
33:15
Speaker 1: from the Stuff you Should Know podcast after I had
33:19
Speaker 1: very graciously pointed out that a huge section of my
33:23
Speaker 1: book regarding noodling was an homage to your very podcast,
33:27
Speaker 1: and then I took that nice gesture and I stomped
33:30
Speaker 1: on it. But I will tell you one thing. I
33:34
Speaker 1: did download one of your podcasts specifically as research for
33:41
Speaker 1: the book That is all Necronomicon. That was a good
33:46
Speaker 1: one with co host Jonathan Stricklin's, by the way, just
33:50
Speaker 1: beat himself because we mentioned him in reference to you.
33:54
Speaker 1: What just happened just now? Yes, my other hologram is
33:58
Speaker 1: cleaning that up this week. That is your full service.
34:01
Speaker 1: There are many holograms wandering the halls right now. That's
34:04
Speaker 1: part of a new security system. How stuff works is considering. So, John,
34:08
Speaker 1: is it true that in this book you explain things
34:11
Speaker 1: like the thick fish, what's the thick fish? And the
34:15
Speaker 1: bowl of brown? Oh? Yes, that's right. Well that's not
34:18
Speaker 1: part of my You know, you know my book better
34:20
Speaker 1: than I do. Is it true that you explain the
34:23
Speaker 1: superiority of the year nine one as birth year, which
34:26
Speaker 1: we both share? That's true? What's going on? Yes? True?
34:31
Speaker 1: Is it true that you explain the benefits and taboos
34:35
Speaker 1: at sea while cruising? That is so. Is it true John,
34:40
Speaker 1: that there is a table in your book about disgusting
34:44
Speaker 1: regional sodas? That is true? Would you be kind enough
34:47
Speaker 1: to read some of those sodas? I feel like I'm
34:49
Speaker 1: being interrogated. Yes, I have my own copy of the Okay,
34:54
Speaker 1: oh well you haven't open there? The thick A thick
35:00
Speaker 1: fish and the bowl of brown? What's the thick fish? Fish?
35:04
Speaker 1: The bowl of brown? The the Patagonian toothfish wine, the
35:09
Speaker 1: furry forms. These are some of the funny things that
35:12
Speaker 1: you ingest in your book. Those are just words, but
35:14
Speaker 1: you're streaming together. You would think that's my job to
35:19
Speaker 1: string those words together. Bowl of brown comes from a
35:23
Speaker 1: section of my book on rose wine, because rose wine
35:27
Speaker 1: is neither white nor red. I love the wine chapter,
35:30
Speaker 1: Thank you very much. It's something that I previously knew
35:33
Speaker 1: nothing about because I thought that wine was so complex
35:37
Speaker 1: and multilayered uh and and um and his stork that
35:43
Speaker 1: it could only be enjoyed by But apparently no simple
35:47
Speaker 1: just grape juice all you need to make its scrape
35:49
Speaker 1: juice human feet in time. Yeah, own yeast. But but
35:55
Speaker 1: I point out that because rose is neither white nor red,
35:59
Speaker 1: it is best haired with ambiguous foods like the thick fish.
36:04
Speaker 1: Like thick fish, scrod, brown brown, mystery meat. That's a rose.
36:14
Speaker 1: I like rose like. I mean it, quite honestly. I
36:17
Speaker 1: like rose. I like sparkling rose as well. I know it.
36:20
Speaker 1: You know you can. You can tolerate ambiguity. Some of
36:24
Speaker 1: us can't. Like. I'm not the least bit certain how
36:26
Speaker 1: either of you two feel about. We like things that
36:28
Speaker 1: you know, we like things black or white, so we
36:30
Speaker 1: drink either white wine or black wine. You know what
36:32
Speaker 1: I mean, We'll mix them up. I don't remember what
36:36
Speaker 1: all those other words you were talking about were pretty
36:39
Speaker 1: much it you were going to talk about. But they're
36:42
Speaker 1: also non alcoholic drinks that you can drink, And there
36:47
Speaker 1: are still regional sodas all over this country that are
36:49
Speaker 1: not distributed to the rest of the world. Um and
36:54
Speaker 1: and you might enjoy going into a local uh you know,
36:58
Speaker 1: on a road trip, go into a little trading post
37:01
Speaker 1: there and reaching behind the disgusting handmade sandwiches and pulling
37:06
Speaker 1: out one of these disgusting regional sodas to enjoy. So,
37:11
Speaker 1: for example, there's ties Gumption brand brain drizzle, which you
37:15
Speaker 1: can only get in Maine, Vermont. It's uh, you know.
37:20
Speaker 1: Sodas were originally served in pharmacies. That's why there in
37:23
Speaker 1: parts of the country is still called tonic. In New
37:25
Speaker 1: England they're still called tonic because they were medicine. There
37:27
Speaker 1: were ways of delivering medicine and and in particular sort
37:32
Speaker 1: of like herbal remedies and nerve tonics and cocaine phizzics.
37:36
Speaker 1: These are what they would serve. Cocaine pizzics were invented
37:38
Speaker 1: in this very city, in this very city of Atlanta.
37:40
Speaker 1: The cocaine fish, who later became Coca Cola. Ties Gumption
37:47
Speaker 1: brand brain Drizzle was the only one of the great
37:49
Speaker 1: old sodas to actually contain cerebrospinal flute. Once incredibly popular
37:55
Speaker 1: throughout the Eastern Seaboard, for its invigorating flavor and hallucinatory properties.
37:59
Speaker 1: It is now primarily found only in northern New England,
38:02
Speaker 1: where it is still made using the company's own secret recipe,
38:05
Speaker 1: including fluid from patient thirty one unnamed Hydrocephalic Patients Secret
38:12
Speaker 1: Hospital and Brattleboro, Vermont. What's the the other flavor profile?
38:16
Speaker 1: And that one yes bitter medicinal brainy sugary. You know Brattleburg,
38:24
Speaker 1: Vermont as a town very near to my retreat in
38:28
Speaker 1: Internetlas Hills, western Massachusetts. Um, and it's a wonderful town.
38:33
Speaker 1: I had a hard time during Hurricane Irene. There was
38:35
Speaker 1: a lot of flooding in Brattleboro, So I hate to
38:38
Speaker 1: make fun of it. Do you know what I mean?
38:39
Speaker 1: That they they're all dried out. Now you should go
38:42
Speaker 1: up there, Go visit the Latchus Theater, go eat at fireworks,
38:46
Speaker 1: go to the retreat farm and petting zoo. It's wonderful
38:50
Speaker 1: place to go. But did you know the Brattleboro, Vermont
38:54
Speaker 1: speaking of ties brain drizzle? But that that the that
38:59
Speaker 1: the hit wraps all from two thousand seven Sipping mice
39:01
Speaker 1: A Drizzle is now synonymous with the musical subgenre known
39:06
Speaker 1: as brattle Brattleboro, Vermont, white person with dreadlocks wrap. That
39:11
Speaker 1: whole subculture, the whole subculture started up there, and uh
39:18
Speaker 1: and that song. Sipping on Massa drizzle also introduced America
39:23
Speaker 1: to the controversial drink known as si drizzle, which is
39:26
Speaker 1: ties brain drizzle mixed with apricot brandy about a hundred tablets,
39:32
Speaker 1: suda fed crushed up and maple syrup and and and
39:38
Speaker 1: to enjoy it, you serve it in a Solo brand
39:40
Speaker 1: plastic cup with a viking and dusted rim. That's great.
39:45
Speaker 1: I don't know if we need to go in any
39:46
Speaker 1: into any other regional Sodus, but there are a lot
39:48
Speaker 1: of them. Uh. Well, the the only other one in
39:52
Speaker 1: the Denver, Colorado area and the Rockies. You can still
39:57
Speaker 1: get Chickoh soda and it's roast chicken flavored. Uh and
40:05
Speaker 1: it's the only remaining product in the in the in
40:08
Speaker 1: the company in the line from Savory Meat Soda Corp.
40:13
Speaker 1: Because up up until up until not only could you
40:18
Speaker 1: get Chicko, you could also get porko and steak and eggsham.
40:25
Speaker 1: Those are also available, but now just Chicko and then
40:30
Speaker 1: chum and then chum wine based on cheer wine. Right.
40:36
Speaker 1: It was one of many rip offs of North Carolina's
40:38
Speaker 1: famous cheer wine. But this one, this one, unlike cheer wine,
40:43
Speaker 1: this one has its flavor profile of sweet cherry, bubble
40:45
Speaker 1: gum and fish blood chum wine. It's it's motto was
40:50
Speaker 1: the one, the one to drink while spreading chump. It
40:54
Speaker 1: was for fishing for fisher persons, and that that was
40:59
Speaker 1: that little of delight was read directly from the book.
41:03
Speaker 1: That is all. That is all, John Um. That is
41:06
Speaker 1: a hardcover book. It is a usually issue. It is
41:10
Speaker 1: It is the first edition hardcover book in pure black
41:14
Speaker 1: and white. No light can escape from that. It is.
41:19
Speaker 1: It is the black hole of hardcover books. It is absorbing,
41:23
Speaker 1: It is absorbing every light ray that comes at it.
41:26
Speaker 1: It is a dark, stark tablet reflecting um and monolithic,
41:32
Speaker 1: indeed reflecting the end of this series, the end of
41:38
Speaker 1: human civilization and time as we know it in two
41:40
Speaker 1: hasnt twelve, and now that I've turned forty, the end
41:43
Speaker 1: of my life so more tragically, what's your life's work? Yes,
41:48
Speaker 1: it is actually, you know, I'm sorry to put it
41:51
Speaker 1: in such stark terms, but I mean, you know, it
41:55
Speaker 1: is the purest unfiltered expression of my adult brain. And uh,
42:01
Speaker 1: and I hope very much the people will. I mean, look,
42:05
Speaker 1: we live in it. We live in a culture where
42:07
Speaker 1: people are getting their their fake facts and they're made
42:11
Speaker 1: up trivia, and they're and they're invented truths for free
42:14
Speaker 1: on the news every night. Do you know what I mean?
42:17
Speaker 1: Though you may ask why should I go out and
42:19
Speaker 1: buy a hardcover copy of a book? Uh full of it?
42:22
Speaker 1: And you know that is a question only you can answer.
42:25
Speaker 1: All I can tell you is this is truly my
42:27
Speaker 1: life's work. And I hope and I enjoy sharing it
42:29
Speaker 1: with you, and I hope you enjoy it well as such.
42:31
Speaker 1: I mean, you're you're curating it. This kind of experience,
42:34
Speaker 1: this release is not just like Hodgeman dropped a book.
42:38
Speaker 1: Hodgeman dropped a book. It's a great book. This is
42:41
Speaker 1: not my tumbler book. Um there you're touring with it.
42:45
Speaker 1: I am starting well, I'm in St. Louis. I'm in St.
42:49
Speaker 1: Louis and right uh, and then tomorrow I will be
42:52
Speaker 1: in Los Angeles, California at the November four the Largo
42:56
Speaker 1: Theater with Paul F. Tompkins. That's a wonderful place. And
43:01
Speaker 1: then I will be in Portland on Sunday the seventh
43:04
Speaker 1: with John Roderick uh and uh and then we we
43:08
Speaker 1: traveled directly up to Seattle after that to be at
43:10
Speaker 1: town Hall again with John Roderick and other special guests
43:14
Speaker 1: will join me later on the tour. John will be singing,
43:17
Speaker 1: and there will be singing songs. You will not just
43:18
Speaker 1: be We're going to join him on ukulele and vocals.
43:21
Speaker 1: There will be ukulele playing for sure, jumping fleet playing.
43:25
Speaker 1: John is going to on stage teach a kid to read.
43:29
Speaker 1: That's right, because this isn't a sham, It's not it's
43:33
Speaker 1: not a carnival act. I will find an oliterate child
43:37
Speaker 1: in each town and teach them to read the words.
43:39
Speaker 1: That is all. And it's gonna be heartbreaking. It's going
43:42
Speaker 1: to be the last part isn't true. But I will
43:44
Speaker 1: be joined by other special guests who may or may
43:47
Speaker 1: not be literate throughout the tour and it will be
43:49
Speaker 1: going on through the sixteenth. And if you want to
43:50
Speaker 1: find out where I am, and and if you want
43:53
Speaker 1: to come and see see me present material from the book,
43:57
Speaker 1: you can go to areas of my expertise dot com
44:00
Speaker 1: and and and visit there. You will have to buy
44:02
Speaker 1: a ticket for the book, but the cost of the
44:04
Speaker 1: ticket includes a copy of the book. So that's a
44:06
Speaker 1: pretty good deal. Yeah, I think. And you'll you'll be
44:09
Speaker 1: signing some too, and you'll sign, I will sign. I
44:13
Speaker 1: will sign every I will sign every book. And uh,
44:17
Speaker 1: you're one of those guys, aren't like you? Yes, you
44:20
Speaker 1: see to it that everybody who's standing in line gets
44:23
Speaker 1: the gets the signature. I want Legionnaire's disease. I'm gonna
44:26
Speaker 1: I'm gonna shake everyone's hand, come on, um and if
44:31
Speaker 1: if I can pull it together, guys, And I hate
44:33
Speaker 1: to make promises, but you know, sometimes you got to
44:35
Speaker 1: say something publicly to make yourself do it. I'm trying
44:39
Speaker 1: to find maybe you guys can help me. We probably can't.
44:42
Speaker 1: Is a company that will make me some custom mini
44:46
Speaker 1: packets of mayonnaise so that I can give people who
44:49
Speaker 1: come to the event free premium premium which is samples
44:54
Speaker 1: of John hodgmons uh Ragnarok Proof survival mannaise. Awesome because
45:01
Speaker 1: aside from your own urine, mayonnaise is going to be
45:04
Speaker 1: the thing that you need most after the feces comes
45:09
Speaker 1: down and civilization is over. Well, one thing you can
45:12
Speaker 1: do is lubricate small engines with mayonnaise. With mayonnaise, Yeah,
45:15
Speaker 1: that's just one of the uses you can You can
45:18
Speaker 1: use it as a as a cleanser, a hair cleanser,
45:21
Speaker 1: and it's a wonderful conditioner. You can use it to
45:24
Speaker 1: lubricate small engines. Uh. You can take garbage bags and
45:29
Speaker 1: spread them out on the lawn and put mayonnaise all
45:31
Speaker 1: over them. Guess what, you just made a slip and
45:32
Speaker 1: slide in a time when there is no more running water.
45:36
Speaker 1: Your kids can enjoy that you leave those garbage bags
45:39
Speaker 1: out in the sun for a while. Guess what, You've
45:41
Speaker 1: just made yourself a handy poison well and during after
45:45
Speaker 1: the super collapse, John, you also make a good point
45:47
Speaker 1: in the book that the currency could very well be
45:51
Speaker 1: the beef jerky dollar. Oh, it's definitely going to be
45:54
Speaker 1: the beef You have a handy table of what one
45:56
Speaker 1: beef jerky dollar equals. Yeah, and I think my where
46:01
Speaker 1: I would spend my beef turkey dollar if I had one,
46:04
Speaker 1: would be the I think seven point five hours of
46:06
Speaker 1: human human contact was that it, Yes, without murder at
46:12
Speaker 1: the end, without being cannibalized at the end. You have
46:16
Speaker 1: to recall any other things A beef turkey dollar will
46:18
Speaker 1: get you after the super collapse. Well no, but if
46:21
Speaker 1: you're interested listener, you can take a look at my book.
46:23
Speaker 1: That is all. It's one of my favorite parts, which
46:26
Speaker 1: really I mean also it's it's let's just come out
46:28
Speaker 1: and say it. It is something of a if not
46:30
Speaker 1: a survival guide. There's some survival to it, but also
46:33
Speaker 1: like a pretty like a beat by beat prophecy of
46:37
Speaker 1: what's going to be going down in twelve. If you
46:40
Speaker 1: if you accept the hard made up fact that the
46:45
Speaker 1: Mayan Long Count calendar ends on December twenty first, two
46:48
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, thus bringing an end to human civilization and
46:51
Speaker 1: time as we know it, in the end of the world,
46:54
Speaker 1: then you will find in my book A Day by
46:56
Speaker 1: Day Today in Ragnarok, page of day calendar running down
47:01
Speaker 1: for you what's going to happen starting December one, two
47:05
Speaker 1: thousand eleven, all the way through the Blood Wave, the Omegapulse,
47:10
Speaker 1: the collapse of the dollar, the the return of the
47:13
Speaker 1: ancient and unspeakable ones, um and uh and and the
47:18
Speaker 1: Singularity as well, um and so yes, So we'll teach
47:22
Speaker 1: you how to survive all of these terrible catastrophes until
47:27
Speaker 1: December twelve, and then it's just all over for every
47:30
Speaker 1: bo or maybe not, maybe not, I could be wrong.
47:33
Speaker 1: Well that's probably right. Well, I think what you're saying
47:35
Speaker 1: is there limits to even your power. Look, there is
47:39
Speaker 1: a possibility that when two thousand excuse me, there is
47:45
Speaker 1: a possibility, when December twelve comes around, that the last
47:52
Speaker 1: event of Ragnarok will be the headless body of nugs
47:57
Speaker 1: show hubb, one of the ancient unspeakable, pushing the Earth
48:02
Speaker 1: through a rift in space time into another dimension in
48:05
Speaker 1: which none of us have any memory of Ragnarok, and
48:09
Speaker 1: the things in my book are considered to be simply
48:12
Speaker 1: the flights of fancy of a television personality and the
48:16
Speaker 1: made up facts of an adult, deranged millionaire. Look, I
48:21
Speaker 1: hope that happens. Okay, probably not, But it's one possibility
48:26
Speaker 1: that we will wake up on December twelve and it
48:29
Speaker 1: will be like none of this has ever happened, sort
48:33
Speaker 1: of like why two K? No, that's coming? Okay? Why
48:38
Speaker 1: two K is coming next? In two thousand twelve, I think,
48:41
Speaker 1: And about uh, it's sometime in May or June. The
48:46
Speaker 1: thing with why tu K, though, is that it doesn't
48:48
Speaker 1: attack computers. It only attacks like um small non mechanical
48:52
Speaker 1: tools like can openers. We had that all wrong. It
48:57
Speaker 1: is not after computers at all. Is it is after
49:01
Speaker 1: non computerized helpful devices. It's weird, and John I misspoke.
49:06
Speaker 1: I don't want to misquote your fake fact. But one
49:09
Speaker 1: beat tricky dollar after the super collapse, so people know,
49:12
Speaker 1: is equal to seven point three hours of human intimacy.
49:16
Speaker 1: And that's what I'd spend my dollar on your dirky dollar.
49:20
Speaker 1: Hankah guilt. Yeah, well that's it's not that those are
49:25
Speaker 1: It's not that there's gonna be one currency. They're just
49:28
Speaker 1: gonna it's you know, this is why I say you
49:30
Speaker 1: shouldn't bother hoarding gold. Do you know what I mean? Yes,
49:33
Speaker 1: gold is shiny. I'm not going to argue with you
49:36
Speaker 1: on that's shiny and heavy, do you know what I mean?
49:40
Speaker 1: But when you are are, when you have been turned
49:44
Speaker 1: into an albino right by by the great worm hug numbeth. Right,
49:51
Speaker 1: you don't care about gold. You want sunscreen, you know
49:54
Speaker 1: what I mean? And the great thing about mayonnaise is
49:59
Speaker 1: that it's not very good sunscreen, but it makes a
50:02
Speaker 1: terrific short term albino mask. If you want to sneak
50:06
Speaker 1: into albino town and sell them Mayonnai's posing a sunscreen.
50:12
Speaker 1: This is how we're all gonna have to live in
50:14
Speaker 1: the future. Do you understand what I'm saying? This is
50:16
Speaker 1: why Mannai's is so helpful. It all comes back to this.
50:19
Speaker 1: So listen, everybody. I hope by the time you hear this,
50:23
Speaker 1: I will have solved the problem. Well, I got a guy.
50:26
Speaker 1: You know you got a man. You got a comment
50:27
Speaker 1: I gotta packet guy. He does all kinds. You're not messing.
50:32
Speaker 1: You're not messing with the Hodgeman. Now are you want Hodgeman?
50:34
Speaker 1: Catch up? You want Hodgman Tartar sauce? No, no, I
50:36
Speaker 1: don't want Tartar sauce for right. What do you think
50:40
Speaker 1: I got a guy? You think I'm looking for something
50:41
Speaker 1: to put on a filet o fish. I'm looking for
50:43
Speaker 1: something to save the world. I gotta go. I gotta
50:48
Speaker 1: power down. Guys. It's been a lot of fun. I'm
50:50
Speaker 1: sorry listeners whose mail did not get read because I
50:54
Speaker 1: took over your segment. All four of you know now
50:57
Speaker 1: come on, But I but I please understand, listeners, I too,
51:02
Speaker 1: am a listener, and I hope you will continue to
51:04
Speaker 1: support these two wonderful natural broadcasters even though they have
51:09
Speaker 1: betrayed your trust by putting me on their podcast air
51:13
Speaker 1: four weeks or four podcasts in a row, that's right
51:16
Speaker 1: by that is all. I recommend the hardcover just because
51:19
Speaker 1: I'm old school and it's all that exists. There's no
51:22
Speaker 1: there's no audiobook, there is no electronic edition, there is
51:26
Speaker 1: no paperback. There is only hardcover edition. You know why,
51:30
Speaker 1: because when Ragnarok comes, you're not gonna You're gonna be
51:32
Speaker 1: using your reading tablets to make shanties. That's right. This
51:38
Speaker 1: is the only thing that's going to be left. Also,
51:41
Speaker 1: I haven't gotten around to recording the audiobook, and I
51:42
Speaker 1: don't know when we're going to do any book. So
51:44
Speaker 1: if you want to support my life's work, seriously, please
51:49
Speaker 1: come and see me on tour, or go to your
51:51
Speaker 1: local bookshop and purchase the book. Go to see him
51:54
Speaker 1: on tour. That's a treat, just to share air with you,
51:56
Speaker 1: my friend. You know what. We're not sharing air. I'm
51:59
Speaker 1: a holograp m you know. But but the people who
52:03
Speaker 1: go see you will be able to share. They will,
52:05
Speaker 1: and we have before and it's not. And my breath,
52:08
Speaker 1: despite what you may have read and nothing to post,
52:11
Speaker 1: my breath is not poison. So if you want to
52:15
Speaker 1: catch up with the real Hodgeman, share some air with
52:17
Speaker 1: him on tour right, you can go to areas of
52:22
Speaker 1: my expertise dot com Areas of my expertise dot com.
52:29
Speaker 1: Spell it out like a normal person. Or you can
52:32
Speaker 1: tweet to him and be like Hodgeman, where are you at?
52:34
Speaker 1: On Twitter by addressing it to at Hodgeman it's the
52:40
Speaker 1: at sign at sign h O D G M A N. Yeah,
52:44
Speaker 1: and that will go directly to John's pocket. I shall
52:47
Speaker 1: and I shall feel it. Um. And if you are
52:51
Speaker 1: ready to get back to business with us, join us
52:54
Speaker 1: next week when things should be substantially more normal. Uh.
52:57
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, if you want your listener mail red,
53:02
Speaker 1: you send it to us. Send it to us right now,
53:04
Speaker 1: and if it's the coolest one, it will be the
53:05
Speaker 1: first one we read after the Hodgeman break post Hodgeman break,
53:10
Speaker 1: and it will that will be substantial, that'll mean something. Okay, Hey,
53:13
Speaker 1: you know what, whoever is listener mail you read next week,
53:17
Speaker 1: I'm gonna send them a free book that is really
53:22
Speaker 1: and then it's on us to pick it out though.
53:23
Speaker 1: So that's fun to trust you so they can bribe
53:26
Speaker 1: us crazy how about but not but not Sarah? How no? No,
53:32
Speaker 1: sorry Sarah. So I'm going to send something anyway? All right, Well,
53:38
Speaker 1: then I would get to my email if I were you,
53:40
Speaker 1: because obviously the first ones we get are gonna be
53:42
Speaker 1: the ones we read. You can shoot us that email
53:45
Speaker 1: at Stuff Podcast at how stuff works dot com. Be
53:56
Speaker 1: sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from
53:58
Speaker 1: the Future. Join hal staff Work Staff as we explore
54:01
Speaker 1: the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow, brought to
54:07
Speaker 1: you by the reinvented two thousand twelve cameray. It's ready,
54:11
Speaker 1: are you