Beantown Podcast - Cicada Watch 2024 (05202024 Beantown Podcast)

Episode Date: May 21, 2024

Quinn comes to you LIVE to go all over the place including cicada facts, Guadalcanal, and intercontinental balloons

Hey, what's going on? It's Quinn David Furness. Welcome to my show. Quinn David Furness presents the Bean Town podcast for Monday, May 20th, 2024. What's happening? What's going on? How are you? My name is Quinn and this is my show.

Quinn David Furness presents the Bean Town podcast. Yes, it is a Monday and it feels Weird strange tingly icky. It's like the NFL has Christmas Day on a Wednesday this upcoming season And they weren't just like oh, let's do one game and mess up two teams scheduling. They decided hey Let's do a double header on Netflix And so they have two, four different teams, two games on Christmas this year. And that means that the week before they're playing on a Saturday. So it's basically the same rest as a Sunday to Thursday, but it's just, uh,

really messing it up for, I think it's like the chiefs Texans. I think it might be all AFC teams. I can't remember chiefs Texans Ravens Maybe can't remember That's neither here nor there it has been an odyssey To get this recording going so I wasn't actually gonna record today. It was a Monday. It is a Monday It's Monday right now. We're moving in four days So the whole recording thing is a little bit off.

Weird, because it's like we're moving at the start of a three day weekend and then you have the entire three day weekend and you're gonna like, that's good, right? You got time to pack or unpack. Then it's also like, I don't wanna spend my whole three day weekend just on packing. That's something you kinda gotta do.

But I pulled out, one thing I knew I wanted to do at some point and I just decided I was in a get stuff done type of mode this afternoon. I decided to grab the Mac and now I haven't opened up my MacBook for exactly two months and since March 20th is the last time I recorded a show there. Originally wasn't intending to record I just wanted to grab the audio files for the intro music and the outro music and if you're curious no I'm not really using the intro music as you can probably tell is not directly loaded into this file it is a janky as hell I'm just holding my phone up to

the microphone and I don't think it's coming through that well but it is what it is I decided let's open up my MacBook let's at least get the entertainer and Tish mingo blues Tish oh M I N G O Barquevious mingo Jonathan mingo a lot of good rhymes for Tisha mingo Let's at least get them on to the cloud right Google Drive at first I was like all email them to myself, and I was like what are you stupid just Probably way easier on your 12-year-old MacBook

to just throw it on the cloud. So that's what I did. And got them to Google Drive actually fairly easily. So kudos to the MacBook for doing that. And so they're on my cloud account now. So that's what I just pulled for the intro music there. We'll try to get into the outro music in half an hour here. But, excuse me, I said to myself, and if you're curious, we're drinking the last of our Brickstone Brewery Haste Juice. My week is all out of

contortion here. Because I drink more than I need to these days, but one thing I almost never do is drink on a Monday. It's just like never happens. Usually it's a long work day. You cook. I don't really like to drink when I'm doing my big cooking on Mondays. There's no big cooking today on a Monday. No big batch cooking.

If I had a cookbook or an Instagram just for cooking, I'd call it big batch QQ daddy or something like that. I don't know. We'll workshop it a little bit. But we're clearing out the fridge. So more I drink now, the less I have to carry. But back to the story here, let's wrap this up quickly because it's really just a, it's just basically a continuation of this just terrible journey we've been on the last two plus months here trying to figure out a more reliable reputable the three Rs recording situation so I'm like you know what we got in front of me it seems to be moving fairly well speed wise so it's

like let's open up garage man let's grab a Samson Q2U series and give it a whirl and see how it goes. And I swear to God, I got 10 seconds in and everything with the setup was good too. Like I, you know, set up the intro music, adjusted my settings the way I like them. It was like, boom, this is good. I got a good feeling about this. And quite literally went 10 seconds in before the first cut. And I was like, okay, you know, it's just getting warmed up. And then I did another like 30 seconds where it was feeling good, actually more like a minute. And I started to tell the same type of story talking about how weird it is to record on a Monday. And then it just completely crashed.

Or not crashed, but just froze. And I, at that point when it froze, I was like, this isn't gonna work. But let me at least just like, let me show what the respect it deserves, right? I've been working off of this MacBook in different capacities since 2013. So I was like, let's at least, you know,

give it like they do in the military, 21 gun salute. And it just never came back. I waited for a handful of minutes. It was just spinning wheel of death. It's like, all right, we got to force quit this baby. So I did that. So then I was like, okay, you know what, let's just, I got the Samson out. I'm in a get stuff done mood, get this podcast done mood. So I go and grab Audacity and I close out all my, all my, all my other apps.

Davy Jones, all the other apps I closed. Davy Jones, the year 2024. Good stuff. Is Davy Jones have an E in his name? I think just a D-A-V-Y for the pirate. But what about the monkey? Hey, hey, where the monkeys? People say we're monkeying around. We're too busy singing. Put anybody down. You ever have that?

Let's do some listener engagement here. This happens to me quite frequently, and I've probably talked about it in some capacity in the show before. We've done 331 episodes, I'm sure it's come up. I would say every like maybe twice a week on average I wake up with a song in my head or it's not always a song. Sometimes it's just an idea like I got to Google something just to like scratch the itch if you will. And it was about a week ago. I had that song

I think it's just called the monkeys by the monkeys Pretty creative stuff and that was in my head which is just absurd because you know listen to it a little bit growing up My sister really liked the monkeys my dad that was kind of the type of music that was playing when he was a little kid in the 60s But I mean I haven haven't listened to the song. I haven't gone to YouTube and listened to it for years, probably. And even then, it was probably once in the last decade. I do watch the Davy Jones appearance on the Brady Bunch weekly.

So that could have something to do with it. But that song was in my head. So email us, bean-town-podcast-at-yahoo.com. And that's bean-town-podcast-at-yahoo.com. Again, that's Bean Town podcast at yahoo.com. Let us know what song is stuck. What is the latest song that was stuck in your head when you woke up? I'll also mention as we wrap up this story

that listener discretion is advised when you're listening to this program. Number one, we'll occasionally need some language. Number two, this podcast is objectively terrible. And I'm just gonna blame it on the tech issues, right? I got all this creative genius all up in here headwise El Capo And I'm just getting stifled

Feeling very suffocated by the technology. So close out all my other apps all me other apps and Open up audacity and same thing with the volume. I'm just like, I'm not even gonna, I'm not even gonna, I don't know if I've ever used this term on the show before. It's not a term I really use in real life because I don't love the origins or the connotation, but it's appropriate for the situation. I'm not gonna pussyfoot around with this stuff. So we are down, like we did last week, I used my voice memos, whatever app on my iPhone. Well, now we are on the Windows Voice Recorder app. So, hey, I'll tell you what, if there was a way, if this Windows Voice Recorder had like one extra level of functionality where I could just slap on the actual mp3 files for the intro and outro music, then I would be golden. I'm sure, and I got to do some more research.

I really thought I had solved the issue with Audacity and I was just being lazy, not bringing over the files. And then now Audacity has given me all these issues and I'm like, is there some sort of, I don't know. And in an ideal world, there would be a web-based platform so I don't have to worry about extra software. But then I'm like, there's frequent times where I'm not just in front of my computer wanting to record. It's like my phone or something. I don't know. I just need something, the most basic thing. And obviously it's out there. I just got to figure out what it is. Where we just, I just need intro music, outro music. Ideally, I would have a cool button board. I have so many sounds that I you know would like to

that's what some of my like office hours with Tim Heidecker, Vic Berger and I don't know his last name Doug. It's like a West like Belgian or like Dutch type last name Lufenhof something like that. It's probably more Swedish than Belgian. But they got great. They call them drops. I don't know if that's a standard terminology. It could be. But drops, a board, basically a digital board where you just sounders.

Sounders is a good thing that people are familiar with, where you just press something quickly. You get the sound in the recording. If I could just have a software, I'm just, and obviously it exists because people are using it, but I'm cheap and I don't have a curious mind. Man, I would be firing on all cylinders. Up the ante, you know, it's probably too late this year. All these kids, you know, college kids have their summer internships lined up already, but 2025 summer bean towns, season eight, the Ocho. What if we line up a

Bean town internship program. It doesn't even have to be like, you know when Jared Paul, that's not his name Is it is it who's getting mixed up with the boxing kids? Jake and Logan Paul, I think it is Jared Paul when he goes on Seinfeld be Kramer's intern And it's mostly fake. Here's the thing with the Bean Town podcast. Most of what I do here is, is a, you know, comical and, and parr- parody par- par- parochial. P- A- R- O- C- H- I- A- L, meaning to parody. But it's still a podcast.

I've still been paid for, you know, ad reads and endorsements and stuff. Not lately, and not much, but it's happened. Gotten products that we've tested out. Oh, this happened to me the other day. I was walking home. It was a beautiful day, it was Saturday. I was carrying some groceries home.

And I got it, you know, one of those Instagram DMs. And there is a topic today's show, I'm going to get into it. But I think, you know, it's one of those shows where we don't have like a great top 10 list. There's just a couple of different things I want to touch on. This week on the campaign trail. And Cicada Watch, of course. And we got a good trivia question for you today. So let me, you know, excuse me, I don't know if other people get this.

I assume it does because I don't think this has anything to do with my podcast. I think it's just me. I'm Belch City over here. Not Cougar Town. Lipstick Jungle, Brooke Shields. Anyone ever watch that one? What was it about? I have no idea.

NBC was really pushing hard for it back in 2007 or whenever it came out. I don't think it lasted more than a season. I feel like that was kind of the last big push for Brooke Shields' career. Because if you ask me, hey, what is Brooke Shields known for? I'd say, well, she's a model, and she was on NBC's Lipstick Jungle.

And I think, obviously, she's more well-known as a child actress. And there's a lot of stuff before that I just don't even know about. But it's like, after Lipstick Jungle, did anything happen much per, hey, Lipstick Jungle 2008. It was only one year. Per her Wikipedia, in 2017 2017 she had a major recurring role in Law and Order SVU.

The show's 19th season. And she had done some voice work for Adult Swim. So I feel like Lipstick Jungle more or less the last hurrah there. But I get, you know, it's an Instagram DM and I get these types of things that go to my spam. It's pretty easy to find them still. Basically saying like, hey, you know, we love your profile. Let's partner. Let's collab. Check this, check out, check out our profile, our storefront, whatever, for, you know, a free, free piece, whatever. Usually I just ignore it. I've done it in the past. I got

the bath mat. I don't know if anyone still remembers that, but I actually got a free bath mat. It was like a little thing with suction cups that you put in the back of your bath so you can sit down and be more comfortable. I actually did that. I got that thing for free.

I had to do a little spot for them. Whatever. I've done it for a French press. Do we still have the French press? I saw Rachel packing it up the other day. Thank you. We haven't used it here. But it's because I don't grind my own coffee.

And to get the French press the way you want it to, you got to grind it. You got to grind. Grinder, that could be their. I've never been on Grindr. Do they have like a French press themed theme to it because it seems like a missed opportunity. Bring me in for some marketing ideas.

Hey, we've been watching Mad Men for the first time ever. Don Draper, he's got some good marketing ideas, some creativity. I think I'm at that level. I could be a Mad Man, Mad Max Furiosa. I think I'll see it. Mad Max Fury Road was one of those such obviously a huge cultural sensation and singing in theaters was totally worth it. But movies are so expensive I really got to make sure that my 18 bucks or whatever it's gonna come out to is worth it before I go see a movie that I think I'm gonna be

entertained by but I'm not like a Mad Max head. I'm not a Max freak. You know, George Miller and I really on the last name basis. So I gotta be I gotta be smart with my money, you know? If I want to retire before I'm, I don't know, 85. Right when I become president of the United States. Where was I? president of the United States Where was I I get the DM from this place and you know, it's whatever it's some It may be was Pakistani. Thank you to the great nation of Pakistan for me. Can see 112th ranked comedy podcast in the great nation of Pakistan. Hello Punjab. Hello East Pakistan hello, that's like by Pakistan, but it's East and now they call it Bangladesh. Hello. Dhaka. Dhaka. We've talked about this before, getting the capitals of Senegal and Bangladesh mixed up.

I think Senegal is Dhakar and Bangladesh is Dhaka. Does that sound right to anyone? Is there anyone out there who knows what Christmas is all about? Okay. So, you know, I read their message to finish this god-awfully prolonged story. And they're like, you know, go to our website. It's a men's jewelry site. And like most things, they've got the type, basically their collection is stuff like a bath mat or French press where it's like, yeah yeah I'll get this if it costs me literally nothing And it might either be like a meme a joke or maybe I get some actual good use out of it

Like the bath mat total me the French press I don't use it that much But I can and I may in the future and it doesn't take up that much space and it makes good coffee when you know I've had in the past so like You know, it's been three four years since I've used it, but maybe I will in the future. Not that big of a deal. Men's jewelry, kind of in between, right?

Because if it looks nice, even if it's, you know, whatever, cheap, Pakistani plastic, no offense. You know, I might still wear it, and either for a joke, a meme, or maybe I'll find some cool outfit and it'll be my new identity. And so if it's costing me nothing, whatever. And they're like, go to our storefront, pick out three pieces of jewelry, then we'll give you a referral code.

It's all MLM, whatever. I'm just a cog in this wheel. I'm not getting ripped off, and I'm not ripping anyone else off. They're trying to grow their MLM empire. Well, it ends with me. The buck stops here. Right, Jack Kennedy. How confusing was it that we had Jack Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy? It's like Teddy Roosevelt marrying his fourth cousin, Eleanor. And it wasn't Teddy. Obviously it was FDR, but Teddy's just the first one that came to my head.

And it wasn't Teddy, obviously it was FDR, but Teddy's just the first one that came to my head. Bull Moose. You know, in my head when I was a kid, I always conflated the Bull Moose party with Rocky and Bullwinkle, so I thought that Rock... Thought. I thought that Rocky and Bullwinkle had something to do with Teddy Roosevelt, but 20 years later from the research I've conducted, that doesn't seem to be the case, but I'm not 100% convinced yet. So I go to their storefront and literally, you know, I'm walking down the street, phone

in my hand, grocery bag in the other, and it's a pretty limited selection. Just imagine, you know, gold bracelets, gold chain, Kerco chains type stuff, but there's really only a couple of pieces. They're all between like 40, 60. But again that they're they're free That's pretty Instagram message message, which it was so I get them in my cart. I use my code the code works I'm like cool. Like this is kind of silly. It's kind of stupid, but whatever it's like You know meme serious who cares? It's free. Of course. How do they get you the shipping? $36 to ship to Lakeview, Chicago. And obviously, at that point, I noped out.

Hey, if it's legit, fairly nice jewelry, priced reasonably, then to get three of those pieces for $36 of steel. But one, I don't know that it's legit. Probably not, if they're reaching out to people on Instagram. Two, I don't know that it's legit. Probably not. If they're reaching out to people on Instagram. Two, I don't actually wear jewelry. So am I actually going to spend $36 for this? The answer is no.

So that was a very long winded story. Who knows how we got into it originally? I don't know. But that's what happened. So but yeah, this is our last show. We're gonna jump into our content here in a second here. But our last show from Lakeview, Chicago, thank you to everyone who has supported the show over the last two years. Rachel and I are on to bigger and better things.

Moving a couple blocks into a new, a new neighborhood here here. So looking forward to it. We'll see how the acoustics turn out. And wish us luck on our big move as we get into Memorial Day weekend here. Happy Memorial Day weekend, by the way. We were talking about the 21 Gun Salute just not 10, 15 minutes ago. So thank you to all who have served over the years and to our fallen comrades and soldiers and anyone else.

Those people that died in Oregon, was it, or California in World War II, when the weather balloon exploded and, I don't know, some canvas fell on a baby or something and suffocated it. It's something along those lines. The only deaths on US soil, at least like the continental US, because I'm, did people die like if the US claimed Guadalcanal, which I always thought was a fun name, it's almost a palindrome.

And then the Japanese sniped them, right? That's a death on a US soil. But I think we're talking lower 48 here. Only death on the US soil is a weather balloon that exploded. I don't know how many people it killed. Let's look it up. Let's learn something. World War II weather balloon. The Fugo balloon bomb. That sounds like a, doesn't that sound like a Saturday morning you're watching a cartoon as a kid and you get very targeted advertising. Hey kids, why don't you try out the Fugo balloon bomb? Ask your parents to use the phone.

1999 plus shipping and handling Fugo was an incendiary balloon weapon deployed by Japan against the US during World War two Consisted of a hydrogen filled paper balloon 10 meters in diameter with a payload of four 11 pound incendiary devices of 44 pounds. Oh and 30 in three 33 pound high explosive anti-personnel bomb sounds like something you would send a HR so 77 pounds total the uncontrolled balloons were carried over was there one balloon or multiple balloons confusing were carried over the Pacific from Japan in North America by fat fast high-altitude air currents so this kind of kind of the bad ass thing.

Japan was literally like, hey let's throw up a balloon into the air over the Pacific and just assume that it's gonna make it to the US. Now I will say, knowing Japanese engineering, the terrible cars, the Hondas, the Toyotas, the Lamborghinis, probably they sent up like a million and only one made it across. No offense to the Japanese

Really out here trying to alienate every foreign country so far we've done Pakistan Like kind of Senegal and Bangladesh not really but kind of now we're into Japan and then whoever owns Guadalcanal these days Let's look up Guadalcanal. We got to finish our story about the balloon here, but we're gonna save that for later. It's in the Solomon Islands, interestingly enough. Uncontrolled Balloons carried over the Pacific by Air Currents, today known as a Jetstream. Okay, yada yada yada yada yada between... Oh, here we go. Well well I was kind of joking earlier, but it's actually true. Between November 1944, April 1945, the Japanese launched about 9,300 balloons from sites on Honshu, of which 300 were found

or observed in the US, Canada, and Mexico. The bombs were ineffective as fire starters, so they were trying to start forest fires due to damp conditions, with no forest fires being attributed to the offensive. So Japan was like hey let's have our civilians put together 9,300 balloons, 77 pounds apiece. It's a lot of canvas and no forest fires were reported. That's pretty terrible. But here we go they got their wish eventually you happy Japan. On May 5th Cinco Mayo, what a terrible way to go.

A balloon? You're probably thinking, oh, it's Cinco de Mayo, we're celebrating, look at that nice balloon. Oh, that's not an Enya from Mexico, that's, oh no, that's the sign of the Shogun. Let's run, let's hide, and then you're dead. I don't really know how And then you're dead. You're dead. I don't really know how, but you're dead. Six civilians were killed by one of the bombs

near Bly, Oregon, becoming the war's only fatalities in the continental US. All right. The Fugo balloon bomb was the first weapon system with intercontinental range, predating the Intercontinental ballistic missile or ICBM as I knew it from Sid Meier Civilization 2. If you're curious Bly Oregon is like south central Oregon right near California. It's got to be probably I don't know close to Crater Lake.

Let's pull up that Google Maps. Hey, shout out to my brother Jack. He pointed out this cool feature on Google Maps Mobile the other day. Basically, if you're doing directions from one place to another, and it seems like it has limits, like walking directions within a city maybe, it'll show you a 3D rendering of what your route looks like.

Pretty cool. I got to play around with it a little bit more. It was kind of fun. I also tried, I was like, hey, route 20, US route 20, what if I walked the whole thing from Newport, Oregon to Boston, I think are the endpoints, the termini? That didn't work. So it has its limitations.

But now we know what Google's been up to the last year. Bly Oregon is a tiny little thing and it's... Where's Crater Lake? Oh, it's about... What does that look like? 50 miles southeast of Crater Lake, kind of in the desert. Doesn't look like there's a lot there. If you Google Image Bly, there's just this one little country store that says Star on the front. That's the saddest looking thing. It's almost as sad as East Cape Girardeau, Illinois. We got to start.

We should make a power ranking for the saddest towns in America. Because East Cape Girardeau, where I last was in December, was just one of the worst things I've ever seen. One strip and just really depressing. Apologies to the residents of East Cape Girardeau. He says rough, rough, rough, rough. Okay, last thing here before we actually talk about what we want to talk about. And we're going to buzz through it, I promise.

Excuse me. And fingers crossed the audio on this works good. Guadalcanal campaign, codenamed Operation Watchtower, around the island. Okay, well that's a battle. I just wanted the island. Enough with the Watchtower around the island. Okay, well that's a battle. I just wanted the island. Enough with the war. Enough with the deaths. The senseless violence. Guadalcanal, how did we even get that name? What is a Guadalcanal? Guadalcanal, uh, nameology, right? Or what's the name of the? I don't know.

Etymology. Kind of. Is the principal island in Guadalcanal province of Solomon Islands? Okay, okay, okay. But what does Guadalcanal mean? Talk to me about the name. Spanish expedition. Name the island after his hometown.

Here we go. This is what I'm looking for. Why is this so buried in this Wikipedia article? The Spaniard saw it in 1568. He named the island after Spaniard Pedro de Ortega Valencia. Maybe he's the founder of those taco shells. Named the island after his hometown Guadalcanal in Andalusia, Spain.

So Guadalcanal is in Seville, Seville and a lot of barbers there and not a lot of not a lot of Information on in Wikipedia, but it's a town in Seville, which I always thought Sevilla was a town Apparently it's more of a province or a region or a metro area if you will So now we learned something. Thank you to our sponsors, Home Pride Oregon. When you need your home inspected in central Oregon,

go with someone who's safe, certified, someone who is keeping up with his expectations, not the word I was looking for, his credentials. Confirmed on a call this last week. I meant to ask my dad actually about, because he was like, oh yeah, I kept keeping up with everything. Staying in business.

And I asked him, well, what about homebredorgan.com? Because I don't know if you've tried to go there lately, but I have. And it's been very unfruitful is a word I would use for that. And didn't get to ask. So we'll press him on it on Father's Day. I'll save a hard-hitting question for him on that. And it'll probably be like a five-second conversation.

We'll be like, well, yeah, the website wasn't getting a lot of traffic. And that'll kind of be the end of the conversation. But I suppose I will report back for the beanheads. All this is to say, Homebriar Oregon inspection perfection. Maybe you're in Bly. Hey, listen up, Bly residents. Have you ever been the victim of a hot air balloon

with Japanese symbols on it or typography? Well, if you have, then call Steve, Homebriar Oregon, 541-400-0316, or email homebredorgan.gmail.com. It's kind of silly, it's kind of stupid, but also he would probably drive down there for that. What is it, two hours from Bend? It's not that bad. Call Steve. Tell him Quinn sent you.

CutspikeQ, I was feeling around the back of my neck today, and I was like, why didn't anyone say anything? I got this weird, huge chunk. You know the Australian bite, B-I-G-H-T, speaking of Guadalcanal? That's basically what was going on in the back of my neck. That's not going to be good for business. So I had to go into the bathtub with my razor,

electric trimmer, and use my little baseball cap method to take care of business back back there it literally looked like I had Australia on the back of my head which is kind of badass but also just not really it's not really in season so we know all about that here barber shops Sevilla I will travel to Sevilla I will do you know you typically do the $20 flat fee but I do have a travel fee if it's outside of like, I don't know, 2,000 mile radius. And I think Sevilla is just outside of that radius. So apologies, it's going to be pricey. But I know that, you know, guys, you live in in Sevilla.

muchos options in España para barbers. I don't know what is barber in espanol. I'm not sure. Pero puede choose. What is to choose in Spanish? I don't know. Spanish to choose. If you know, I've been doing my Duolingo streak every day this year and we are very close to being able to do an entire Bean Town podcast solo en español to choose elegir. Elegir. I've never seen that one before. E-L-E-G-I-R. Puede elegir muchos options. Options in Spanish? Not really a word I've seen yet. Opciones. While we're here, we can look up barber. What is barber? Barbera or Barbero. Easy. You just add the O or the A. Barbermanity.

So, you know, forget the Espanol. Just call me. Or email. cutsbyq at yahoo.com. And that's Cuts! Q U T Z by q at yahoo.com. Oh, cuando tu necessitas un nuevo algo, snappy y nueve, call, whatever call is, el telefono, celular, nos expertos, e, not what is at, e is and, cuts by Q. So basically we got the whole song down. And then of course our good friends, the Samson Q2U series. Here's the thing about Samson guys, we talked about all these recording issues earlier. Garageband on the Mac, audacity on Windows, just shit a voice recorder.

Doesn't matter. You know who shows up to every home game? You know who doesn't do the stupid minute, you know, management, rest management, game flow management that all these NBA quote unquote stars do these days. The Samson Q2U series doesn't take a week off except for like last week but that wasn't Samson's fault. Samson showed up he was ready to play all nine innings all 48 minutes. You never really hear about them talking in basketball all 48 minutes because 12 is a weird number but I guess maybe they do. I don't really watch the NBA.

So shout out to the Timberwolves, knocking off the champs, the Nuggets, going to the Western Conference Finals, second time in history. And they got a very good shot. I was concerned when the Wolves, they were tied with the Thunder and the Nugs going into the last day of the season. And I think they were in control of their destiny I think if they won then

they would have the number one seed so I was concerned when they they lost the game they dropped all the way to the three seed but look at them they go in Denver they win three games in Denver absolutely ludicrous they were three and one in Denver in that series and now playing the Mavs because the Thunder got knocked out, they will have home game home field advantage up in target center. Minneapolis is gonna be rocking on Wednesday, baby. Not a Wolves fan in any way, but it's kinda like when the Raptors went on their run five years ago, whatever it was.

And my bud from Rockford, Fred Van Vliet, leading the charge. And it's kind of the same kind of vibe, same kind of energy, right? It's a team that's never really been there before, and you're kind of like, this is amazing. So kudos to that. I will say it'll be some fresh blood. I mean, the Celtics haven't won it a little while, but they've been there, right? They were in the finals in the last couple years.

But the Pacers, I mean, how the hell did that happen? Especially beating the Knicks, where it was like that series got to be fixed, right? Pacers-Knicks and Pacers came back much like the Wolves down 3-2 and they came back and stunned them. Then you had the Mavs who won back in 0-6 and then lost in, or did the, how did those, the heat went to the finals four times, right? In the Lebron area, area, Areola, they won the middle two, they lost the, the ends. They lost to the Spurs once and the other time they lost I thought it was the Mavericks but

it might not have been and then they beat well now we got to go look at NBA finals history two of them were both the Spurs the third one was the Spurs they beat on the fourth time was the Spurs again and the Spurs won and then there was the first two the first one I thought was maybe the Mavs and they lost. And then the second one. Let's just close the book on this. Okay, this was back in 2011. Yes, it was the Mavericks beating the Heat. Okay, well I got mixed up.

Because the Mavericks played the Heat twice in this century. And the first time it was Dwayne Wade, and they beat the Mavs. Second time, the rematch, Mavs beat the Heat. And then, oh, the Thunder, that's right, Kevin Durant, James Harden, Russell Westbrook going to the finals losing to the Heat. Outmatched big time, they lost 4 to 1. And then he beat the Spurs, and then Spurs beat the Heat and that was the end of then we got Golden State versus Cleveland

four years in a row in five total years in a row for Golden State in the finals absolutely absurd and they came back again a couple years later and beat the Celtics all right that's enough of that Sam Samson Q2U series, when God speaks, he uses a Samson. OK, this week on the campaign trail, I promise you we're going to get through this. This week on the campaign trail, we were talking about the debates just a couple days ago. I don't know if you guys saw this.

He was in Minnesota, I think, on Saturday night. Trump glitched hard baby. He was doing an NRA speech or maybe it wasn't NRA, it was something else in Minnesota. And basically, if you haven't seen the video, you can go watch it but you're not really missing much. You're gonna just see Trump not do anything at the podium in the middle of a speech for about 60 seconds. And everyone online is like, oh, Trump was glitching. He was glitching.

Well, what probably, presumably happened was his teleprompter just cut out, and Trump was just fed up as fuck. And he wasn't even going to complain or say anything. He was just literally waiting there for the teleprompter to come back. But it was a long time. It was like a minute plus. And he just stands there kind of, he looks pretty dead inside and on the outside,

mind you, and then he resumes. But it was just, it was very reminiscent of Mitch McConnell last year or two years ago whenever that was freezing, but this was even longer and he was just kind of standing there. So we'll see. I will see if Trump can make it to November. I don't know. And then I was scrolling Reddit as I was in GarageBand hell 45 minutes ago. I was scrolling Reddit just to pass some, and I saw this come up on a Reddit post, and I haven't verified this, but it's from variety.com, the most trusted name in news. Trump's social media company,

which I think is called Truth Social, posts Q1 revenue, and that's total revenue, not even net profit, but total revenue, of $770,500, which if you're thinking to yourself, all right, $770,000, which if you're thinking to yourself, all right, $770,000 for a quarter of the year, that doesn't sound like that much for like a social media platform from the former president of the United States, right,

that comes out to three million on the year. I've been watching Shark Tank, so I'm pretty good at math. And in net loss, okay, so 770,000 revenue, net loss of 328 million. So basically, his company lost 600 times the amount that it made. Hashtag truth social. Do they use hashtags on truth social?

I think so. The only time I ever see Truth Social stuff is when I'm watching like Kimmel or Seth Meyers and they will post Trump tweets. They're not called tweets. They're not even called tweets on Twitter. Messages? I don't know why did they call them? I've never been on Truth Social. I don't know the platform at all. But I think they use hashtags. so maybe they're called Trump tags. I don't know. So yeah, if you invested in True Social, you might want to log into your Fidelity and see

how it's going. Probably not well. All right. We're all out of beer, which means I got to blaze through the rest of this, which is good because I didn't intend this for this to be a long episode. It's Cicada Watch 2024. Depending on where you are in the US, you're probably been invaded by cicadas, but not here in Chicago. Not yet. I don't know if we got like a force field around this city, but I've been seeing pictures from the suburbs. A lot of my coworkers live in the suburbs. They've been sending pictures. I gotta tell you, I think, I

think these cicadas are bluffing. This feels like a, like a dystopian war propaganda film now, right? Where it's like, oh, you see all the images on social media? Like, oh my god, they're coming. Like, this is going to be terrible. And it's just a whole, it's a hoax, right? The cicada hoax. But I figured, hey, these guys, this brood, meet the crudes, right?

That was a great, what, DreamWorks film? DreamWorks the Crudes? Maybe they're bluffing, maybe they're not. I don't know. But I figured we would give, we never really talked about cicadas, 331 episodes into the Bean Town podcast, so let's at least give them their day in the sun. I don't really know if they like the sun. I'd be worried that their exoskeletons would get dried and cracky. But who knows? That's really not my place. So a couple things that I learned. First,

most cicadas are cryptic, which was a new kind of adjective in this context for me. That basically means that they're hard for predators to find or kill. And I forgot why that was with cicadas. But now you know that. Maybe it's the fact that they live underground for 17 years. Cicadas were featured as early as in Homer's Iliad. The Iliad, Iliad, say it however you want. I had to read it when I was in seventh grade, which if you're curious, if you're thinking, wow, that seems kind of early for an adult, not an adult, a kid, 12-year-old

to be trying to read the Iliad, welcome to my childhood where just because it was good at school also meant you rise up higher in grades, basically taking classes that you're not ready for maturity-wise or emotionally-wise. And there's pros and cons to that. But it also means you get these books in front of you you're supposed to read, and you just have no ability to do that in the proper manner successfully.

So the Iliad, definitely one of them. We had a textbook, basically, for our history of Europe class that Matt Feather and I took together. And this thing was a thick textbook with the smallest font. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with that book wide open and feeling like I needed a magnifying glass. And that's when my eyes were quality. Now it would be a disaster. I can't see for shit. But you're supposed to read it, you're supposed to process it, retain it. And I remember sitting there in class, because it's just one hour a week, and our whole class would just be discussion

based. So our teacher Jan Kustra, may she rest in peace, would just be like, so what did you think of, you know, this section from this chapter? And there were like five of us in the class. And I'd just be like, yeah. It's one of those things. I read it. I retain none of it. And I don't know, Jan. And there would be some long, awkward pauses.

Jan Kustra, the god who had mercy on her soul, was not the type of person who cared about awkward silences. Alright I also went to smithsonianmag.com to look up 14 fun facts about cicadas and I will say this I was going to vet the site right? Vet your vendor horse name. Preakness was super muddy on Saturday. I don't even remember the name of the horse or want something gray. The gray Liam Neeson, we were talking about Natasha Richardson

last week. RIP. Well, my garage band was crapping out. I was like, let me at least do research for the show, because I wasn't planning to record until we basically started recording. So I went to this site, smithsoniummag.com, and that site crapped out too.

And I was like, you know what? All these devices are in sync with one another. Speaking of in sync, I forgot to mention this, but when my GarageBand started to crap out, I really started to realize, hey, we gave this MacBook two weeks off, two week paid vacation. Comes back, we can't even get through 10 seconds

of a GarageBand recording. I had to turn on Boys to Men, End of the Road, because it was like, this legitimately feels like, I don't know how we come back from this in any capacity, because it's not good. Bad hombres. Okay, here are the 14 facts. Number one, Brood X will appear in 14 states.

So that's what everyone's talking about. Of course, they're combining with another brood. Brood X is one of 15 broods of periodical cicadas. All right, yada, yada, yada, yada, yada. Next up, brood X is a muse. What does that mean? Oh, I understand. Brood X is back in 1970, 54 years ago, Brut X's buzzsaw-like calls

inspired Bob Dylan to write the song Day of the Locusts. That's pretty cool. He heard the cicadas while receiving an honorary degree from Princeton. All right. 1936 Ogden Nash poem, Locust Lover's Attention. What a great name for a poem. Next up, cicadas are not locusts.

Well, someone tell Bob Dylan, because he talks about locusts in his song that's apparently about cicadas. So, apparently a locust is a type of short horned grasshopper. They belong to a different order. Cicadas are part of the hemipterans, which are considered true bugs bugs along with aphids and plant hoppers.

Reminds me of Kevin Spacey. Next up cicadas have one of the longest insect lifespans. I'm looking at this cool cicada who has ditch in his exoskeleton but he's still hanging on to it. That's kind of cool. If 13 or 17 year lifespan of a periodical cicada is one of the longest of any insect, only a tiny fraction is spent above the ground. They spend most of their time as a nymph feeding on plant roots. It's pretty cool. Nymphs

count the years by detecting the uptake and fluid flowing through the roots they feed on that occurs during each year's spring growing season so basically they count the years by how much fluid is in their roots that's kind of cool alright alright alright cicadas inundate forests as a survival mechanism this picture is a bird with a cicada in its mouth pretty cool by emerging all at once in densities of up to 1.5 million per acre, cicadas manage to

overwhelm predators from songbirds to skunks who quickly get too full to take another bite of the buzzing buffet. So it's strength in numbers is the strategy here. So it's basically like if you come out with the rest of the brood, you're probably going to get eaten, but maybe not. If you come out by yourself, you're definitely going to get eaten. That makes sense. Next up, humans eat them too.

We've been talking about this a lot. Apparently they have a shrimp-like flavor. Yes, this article compares them to shrimp, others to asparagus, and even others say peanut butter. All right. They do contain elevated levels of mercury. That sounds like a, this is like the alternative ant man origin story, cicada man. Native Americans ate a lot of cicadas, but only every 17 years.

That's why they probably, population numbers were low. Cicadas, their lengthy life cycle may help them evade predators. Well, that makes sense. They're only coming out 13 to 17 years. How about a fact that isn't just rehash of what we already know, Smithsonian mag? More than 3,000 species exist. Now who is sitting there with all these cicadas under a microscope being like this this is in this species, this is let's do a new species for this one. It just feels unnecessary. They can buzz louder than a lawn mower.

I will say, the annual cicadas, as we would call them growing up, I was very much used to that sound, like lying in bed at night as a kid. And one of those things you just kind of tune out. But now it's not here in Chicago. Next up we got to be almost done with this. Their wings repel water and bacteria. That one's not that interesting. They can host an insect killing fungus in Japan. It all comes full circle maybe they were in the balloons. Next another fungus turns the insects into zombies. I've seen that with a praying mantis. It's got like a huge, there's a viral video where they pull this like crazy worm out of it. Looks super sci-fi.

It's got like eight little like long little long legs. The whole thing is like a one giant like stick basically that has different legs or branches or arms. I've seen that on praying mantai, but never on a cicada. But I would believe it. Basically, these fungi or these worms get inside of their internal organs and they take control. It's like if you're playing a World War II video game on Guadalcanal and you got a tank and you hijack a Japanese tank and you're in all of a sudden. Now you're firing on the Japanese. So they give her those balloons. I was going to say finally, but there might be

more. There are more. Cicadas. They have an arch nemesis that eats them alive. Holy moly. Two inch long wasps called cicada killers. Well, we the the murder hornets so here are the cicada killers. Climate change may be scrambling their schedules that's kind of sad. They didn't do anything to deserve that. Shout out to Alex Fox a freelance science journalist based in California for his article here on smithsonianmag.com you got gotta say it like that. Okay, and then finally, last thing here, we have our trivia question. And it's a this day in history type question, so it has literally zero to do with anything else we've talked about before. So here it is, May 29th, May 29th, that's not today, May 20th. I hope if it's May 29th, I'm going to be severely swindled.

Good horse name. May 20th, 1908, 116 years ago. This legendary actor is born. He won one Oscar. I think he was nominated for five. The Oscar he won was Best Actor. I think I actually wrote that down without actually looking it up, so either it was an acting Oscar, either best actor or best supporting. In 1941 for the

film The Philadelphia Story. So that's kind of the question. I will give you a hint and the hint kind of leads into the bonus question. So excuse me, hint first. Again, 1908 is the year he was born. In AFI's American Film Institute's 100 years, 100 cheers list, this actor has two roles in the top five. And if I told you what the movies are, that'll give it away. And that's going to be the bonus question. Once you hear the answer, or before you hear the answer, if you told you what the movies are, that'll give it away. And that's going to be the bonus question. Or before you hear the answer, if you think you know it, answer a bonus question. What are those two movies featuring this actor in AFI's

list of 100 years, 100 cheers, which is basically like a feel-good, happy ending type performance? Like you would get that from Indiana Jones probably is on that list, right? Raiders of the Lost Ark. You know, he defeats the Nazis. That's that's the type of thing that not really the Japanese but the Nazis. Indiana Jones and the Battle of Guadalcanal. I would watch that. Fan fiction. That's the type of thing that goes on 100 years, 100 cheers. So there you go. Again, actor born in 1908, won one Oscar, 1941,

the Philadelphia story, nominated for like four others. And if you wanna, so we'll go bonus revealed first and then actor. So if you want any more time, pause here because we gotta wrap this baby up. The two movies on the 100 years 100 cheers list. Number five, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and number one, It's a Wonderful Life. And if you still don't know the answer I can't really do much

more to help you. The actor born on this date 116 years ago is none other than Jimmy Stewart. So there you go and And you wanted to ask her for the Philadelphia story and the two films, 100 Years, 100 Cheers. Bonus question, it's a Wonderful Life, number one, and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, number five. There you have it, guys. Thank you so much for hanging with me. We actually have outro music for you today.

So we're going to go ahead and get that fired up. I'm just going to hold my phone here like an idiot. Hold me into the microphone. Hopefully it goes OK. But it's going to be a little while until you hear from me again. In fact, the next recording cycle, the weekend after that, is supposed to be in Nashville for a bachelor party.

So who knows? The whole schedule is scrambled right now, man. But we'll make it work. Hopefully the audio quality on this works out. Fingers crossed. Everyone, thanks so much for tuning in to my show. Quinn David for instance, presents the Bean Town Podcast. Everyone, have a happy Memorial Day weekend.

Stay safe, stay sane. I'll check in on you next time. Bye. so so so Hello, Beantown! That's crazy.