Bigfoot Society - The Ferocious Rhinelander Hodag: Creature of the Wisconsin North Woods | Hodag Store | Ben Brunell

Episode Date: October 21, 2022

Ben Brunell is the owner of the Hodag store and loves all things Hodag. Enjoy this chat as Ben presents all things history of the Hodag, a fearsome North Woods cryptid found in Rhinelander, Wisconsin.Hodag Store website - https://www.thehodagstore.com/Long Live the Hodag! History of the Hodag video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nst2X96O9RgJoin the only Facebook group for Van Meter Visitor fans - “Van Meter Visitor Believers” - See you there!https://www.facebook.com/groups/vanmetervisitorbelievers/?ref=shareFOR MORE INFO ON THE VAN METER VISITOR FESTIVAL:https://www.facebook.com/vanmetervisitorfestival/_____________________________Join us over on Patreon! Get access to a whole library of extended shows, exclusive merch like a membership card and stickers, watch me interview guests weekly live on video, a Patron-only Discord and more.https://www.patreon.com/thebigfootsocietyPick up a Bigfoot Society shirt to rep the podcast!https://www.etsy.com/shop/BigfootSocietyTune in for new episodes of Bigfoot Society!https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8Qq45W6iaTU8FE9kelxT7QIG: https://www.instagram.com/bigfootsociety/Full links: https://bit.ly/bigfootlinks

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Visit your nearby lows on West Pico Boulevard in Los Angeles. And it listened to me. It walked out of thicket. It turned around and looked at me. They looked up and in this tree there was a monkey man. And the monkey man jumped down out of the tree. It started running away. And suddenly they're right in front of the car.

He slams on the brakes and managed to stop. He's skidding. He's in that point. you know, grabbling. And literally for about a second and a half, they just stood there because they don't know where to go and you tell them panicking, they're like, roof dropping. Their face is like switching. Welcome back to Bigfoot Society, a podcast where we focus on cryptids, the strange,

and the unexplained of this world. If you've got a story or something weird to share, send an email over to me at Bigfoot Society at gmail.com. And if you'd like to support this show, head on over to Patreon. Sean.com forward slash the Bigfoot Society. And now on with the show. All right, Bigfoot Society. I got an awesome interview coming at you.

I've got Mr. Ben Brunel from the Hodeg store, correct, sir? Yes. How are you doing tonight? Dude, I'm doing great. It feels like I just saw you a few weeks ago at the beautiful. It wasn't that long ago. It wasn't at all. life is crazy like that but it's good to see you and uh man uh audio listeners will want to definitely

check out the youtube version for this because ben has the setup of he's got hodegs like crazy going on what what do you got behind you he's there oh i got uh this is a giant hodeig stuffy from cryptic comforts right here yes um hodeg mascot head totally Totally. Hodeg artwork. I don't know if that looks familiar to you. Yep. Iowa and Dylan.

Nice. Right. Yeah. We had some Jamie Schnell artwork here. Hodeg skis. Downhill Hodeg Elpine skis. And some more Hodeg artwork and, I had other random, uh, crypted, uh, doodads and trinkets from around my, uh,

with my travels from around the country. so beautiful beautiful ben you are well how do you introduce yourself in in relation to all this hodag madness because i could say a few things about you but i'm curious to see what what you'd say yourself um well i would say i'm a owner operator of the hodeg store uh hodang ambassador um yeah pretty much a hodeg enthusiast very cool And are you a native? I was curious, I was thinking about this today. Are you native of Rhinelander?

Yes, yeah, I was born and raised here in Rhinelander. That's awesome. While we're on the subject of that, anybody who has ever been born, raised, or lived here in Rhinander calls themselves a Hodeig or considers them a Hodeg for wherever they live here on in. So a cool little Hodeg tidbit for you there. Fantastic.

Fantastic. The Hodag store is such an amazing force. It's a force of nature. You know, it's just you can't really explain. You have to see it for yourself. You have to see, well, and I'm talking about when you go to festivals. I have yet to go to Rhinelander. It's on the list to check out.

I know it. I know it. But when you're at festivals, it's just, it's crazy. The setup you guys have, you've got. I mean, this year at Van Meter, you had a little museum going on with artifacts from the late 1800s, early 1900s, I believe. It was some cool, cool stuff, dude. Yeah, I know it's pretty neat. I brought a Kerry from the logging museum down there with me, which houses the Hodeg Museum, and we brought some of the artifacts down from the museum.

Yeah. Oh, man. How old is the Hodag store now? The Hodeg store, it'll be five years this coming May. Okay. And was there a catalyst or a certain event that kicked off you opening up the Hodeg store? What was it that led to that? Well, I opened up an antique resale store and my father's old Texaco gas station.

on Main Street in Rhinelander. Okay. And that was like, I don't know, 12 years ago, roughly. And over the course of time, I always noticed people at the checkout asking, where in town do you get a Hodeg keychain or a sticker or a Hodeg something? They wanted Hodeg something. And I always said, I don't know where you can go. Wow.

The Walmart maybe, a grocery store, maybe the gas station or something. like that. There wasn't like a centralized spot for Hode egg stuff. And then one day the light bulb just clicked. Yeah, the light bulb clicked and I figured that well, after five years of telling people, I don't

know where you can get stuff. I decided to tell them this is where you can go. That's awesome. That is awesome. So was it a turnover where you're like, all right, get all the artes out, get the Hodegs in? Or was it a kind of slow turnover.

It was a slow turnover. It started out with one shelf, like one four-foot shelf filled with hode eggs. Then it was two shelves, three shelves. There was half a wall. Then it was a whole wall and so forth. And then next thing, you know, all the antiques are out of the front room. I'm slapping some green paint on the front of the store, getting some old eggs out front. And here we are today.

That's amazing. Did the online store kick in pretty quick, too? I set that up about like two years after starting the Hode egg store. Wow, Ben. Do you have dreams about Hode eggs? Yes, I do. Okay. Oh, yeah.

Can you share some of those dreams? Oh, geez. I mean, they're just all random Hode eggs. Okay. I mean, I've had one where I've been, like, walking in the woods with, like, lumberjacks and we're, like, looking for Hode eggs. I've just like been sitting like downtown in a park

and Hodegs are like roaming the area and stuff I don't know they're weird And I hope it's like The version of the Hodeg that's in your dreams Is like the mascot Hodag That's you know You have the mascot head behind you Which is just like

That's my favorite version of the Hodag It's something about that face That's right over your shoulder that one yeah yeah yeah yeah um yeah i don't know some of these weird dreams i have i mean maybe they turn into these music videos that you see and stuff i i don't know so the the music you guys i mean dagsilla is such a good idea and that's not even fully out yet is it's it's now there's just a 30 second little teaser of it so good it's uh good be airing next week here so how do man

Rhinelander is such a good example of what a town should do with a cryptid that they have it is probably the textbook example like what is it like to live in a place where literally the entire town has just grabbed on to this idea of a cryptid and is just taking it to the bank like it's just like there's so much love for that one cryptid it's got to be incredible

to live in a place like that. Well, yeah, I mean, ever since I can remember growing up here, I can remember seeing these green critters on like a lamp post or on a sign. There was a school mascot. I mean, it was everywhere's. And I don't know, there's just like a whole day camaraderie that the town has behind this creature.

I think one major contributing that's the high school mascot. It's like the school mascots, you know? And like I said, if you graduate Reilly Under High School, you graduate a hoadig. Awesome. And you call yourself a hoag. And it's everywhere's.

And it's just really embodied the community. It's also been a creature that's been around, I mean, I'm not saying longer than all cryptids, but it's been around for 130 years. Sure. So that's quite a long time. And it's been the school mascot since, I want to say, like the 19 teens, it was adapted to the mascot before Gene Shepard died, I believe, even. And, oh, stay now. Yeah, I don't know, it's a really fascinating little beast.

It's unlike any other city I've ventured or seen or know about in the country. So Point Pleasant is the closest example to my leader. Yeah, but I mean, in a way, yes, this is awesome. Oh, I love it. That is so good. Did you see the cat? That was a black cat, wasn't it? Can you hear me?

We're paused or something here. Uh-oh. I can still hear you. I don't know if you can. Oh, I probably got not the audio. probably got knocked out. Gotcha. Okay, cool.

There we go. That was amazing. Man, it could only be better if there's a white bulldog. Right. You imagine? Oh, yeah. For audio listeners, there's a random black cat that just jumped out of the edge of frame and knocked the computer over. And it was awesome.

I have the computer on a swivel bar stool right now. And, yeah, it all broke loose. Very cool. Very cool. Thankfully, the computer is okay. It is, yeah. Let's talk about the Hodag itself for a bit. So I did watch that video you sent me, which is very, very interesting.

I had no idea the history of this. So it's like, man, where do you even start? Do you start with Eugene Shepard or do you start with the Lumberjepard? or do you start with the lumberjack legends or like where do you start you start back even farther than that man you start back thousands of years um with the like the al-guanquin speeding native american tribes of the lake superior region and they talk tales of this water panther creature mishapishu yeah and up on lake superior there's the Aguilococryptographs, and there's a pictograph of this Michiopecia creature,

and it greatly resembles the Hodeg. Yeah, it's wild. So now with that being said, Gene Shepard, he was a land surveyor, timber cruiser, matmaker, and he walked the woods of northern Wisconsin all the way up into the UP of Michigan to the shores of Lake Superior.

and he spoke the Al-Guanquin language and some think, you know, he possibly could have ran into some tribes. He stayed at camps with them. He could have heard tales of this. And, you know, he maybe could have adapted a more inland pine forest version of this creature. So it's just, it's wild. And the thing about, I mean, Eugene, Shepard or Gene Shepard must have been a pretty cool dude because I love how he, you know, in the research where it's pretty much he came up with the idea that, hey, I want to put Rhinelander

on the map or really set the town up for the future by taking these legends and forming it into this crazy story of a cryptid and it just like spread like wildfire yeah no it it it really did it so i don't know if in one one thing in that video that might not have been mentioned now um jean shepherd uh he was a newspaper uh writer editor and wrote articles for the uh ryanlander's first newspaper the new north newspaper and some of the very first articles in the newspaper were put out by Gene Shepard himself underneath a fake alias the snake editor. It mentioned that, but I it didn't specifically, I don't think it specifically said that, hey, this is Gene Shepard using a fake name.

Yes. That totally, okay, I totally get it. Yeah, that's interesting. So then some of those newspaper articles. holes went viral from New York to California then. And people would then hop on a steam locomotive train, spend two, three weeks traveling to Rhinelander to come see this beast, and they would believe in it a real creature.

Wow. That's so wild. Do you think P.T. Barnum and the Smithsonian actually came out to Rhinelander? What do you think happened with that? So, you know, there's really not any, like, documented, documentation of like P.T. Barnum coming here to like look for the hoag at all. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot Society. We'll be right back after these messages. But I know that there was traveling circuses that came to Rhinelander back in the day.

Actually, I got it right here. Nice. So this, we can see it here. Okay. Yep. This is a picture of, I can't remember his first name. I think it's John. John Mercedes, okay? Nice.

So I cleaned out an estate, kind of near the Hodex house, actually. And in that house, I found some Harry Houdini. PNC Bank brings you. Call of the Wild Money Moves. Shh, listen. Hey, guys. That's the sound of a multi-level marketing pitch. This is life-changing.

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They're too deep for me to go find right now. Really? There are some other artifacts there that I wasn't able to get my hands on. But in that trunk, this Mercedes guy was friends with, like, Harry Houdini and P.T. Barnum. He had pictures of like the traveling circus, like the fat lady or the bearded lady and like tigers on like train cars and stuff like here in Rhinelander. So I mean, I believe P.T. Barnum could have came while he was here looking for a hodeig, set up shop, you know, stayed in town for a little bit. Well, that's just like the synchronicity is there, like a random guy who lived in Rhineland or John Mercedes, who just happened to be really good friends with P.T. Barnum. And that's just wild man.

Yeah. Yeah. That I do believe the Smithsonian Institution, they never did come to Rhinelander from my understandings. They had contacted Gene. And Gene at that time decided it was too much pressure and admitted that the Hodeig was a hoax. Yeah. The cool thing about it, though, is that the town didn't get mad. like or it's almost like it's a town pride thing and I don't know it's a lot of different at that point like I said it was already the high school mascot of the town okay yeah it was already tied into the community at that point it's like I don't know it was a town like we don't yeah we know it's not real but to us it's real and it's

like the hodag is Rhinlander and Rhinlander is the Hodag type deal. I always say the Hodegg is the realest fake creature out there. Totally. Yeah. So, no, I agree. Ah, that's so crazy, man. It's awesome. It is just, you know, I can't imagine like if every town in the U.S.

that had a regional cryptid, you know, had the community. Yeah. It's just too crazy. A little disappointed point. Pleasant doesn't have their school mascot as the Mothman. I think they're like the Black Knights or something like that, maybe. I can't remember. I know.

Yeah, that is actually really surprising that they wouldn't be called. Well, yeah, man, who knows? You know, or if Loveland, in Ohio, they should be the Frogmen and so forth, you know. There could be a Jersey devil. There's probably a devil's high school team or something probably. There's got to be. Yeah.

Are there any relatives of Jean Shepherd in Rhinelander? You know, that's a good question. If there is, they're very hard to find. I think they're in the nearby area, northern Wisconsin, but I don't think they're directly here in Rhinelander. Interesting. I'm just going to throw out some random hoaggy questions to you. So there was a, in the video, there was a bar with a hoag on top of it.

And it was one of the coolest vintage pictures I've seen in a long time. When did that stop a roundabouts? When I was a wee-bitten little hoagg, I vaguely remember seeing that thing. Okay. It's like this little log cabin. It was painted red, big wooden. cut out hode egg on the top of it. And at the Van Meter Visitor Festival,

the larger blackish kind of hode egg that we had on a board on the middle of the table, that was the hode egg from the back bar of that hodeg bar. Oh, wow, that's incredible. Yeah, so that would have been sitting like behind the bar and all the whiskey bottles and everything would have been in front of it. And you've been sitting there staring at that while you're in the bar. Dude, so you were never, you weren't old enough to actually go to the bar, but you remember seeing it.

No, no, it was, I was very young when I had seen that. And then shortly after it was torn down, and I think like a freaking remax went there or something, boring, you know. Hodag remex went in. Yeah, it should have been like the Hodeg realtors or something, you know, at least. Exactly. man are there any bars in Rhinelander that have kind of taken up the no one no I'm disappointed that's missed opportunity move up to run move up here and start one somebody yeah someone do it because Ben's got the Hodag store already and that's his deal and I got I got this new baby right here

well tell me more Hodeg Heritage Festival um that we started up It'll be its third year. So you started it. Okay. That part I didn't know. Yeah. So it was a collaboration to begin with, I guess you could say, me and Carrie, the one that we did the music video with. Yeah.

The history video with. Hodeg King. Hodeg King. Yes. Him. So he was the one that came to the band meter with me. Yeah. Cool dude.

So we talked about it. we decided we cannot do this by ourselves. Yeah. So then we went to the Chamber of Conference where the giant Hodeig statue is located in town, the big, like 30 foot one. Yep, yep. And so it's between me, the chamber,

and the Pioneer Park Historical Complex. Okay. That are kind of organizing it. And, yeah, I don't know, last year was our second year. It was a pretty good turnout. a bigger turnout than I think we anticipated a little bit. We had vendors there. We did like 1800-style Hodeig, Gene Shepard,

side show reenactment type of skit. It looks so crazy, dude. And we had, which was one of my favorites, we had a Hodeg calling contest. Oh. And we were a little nervous about the first Hodec calling contest. happening. We were worried if anybody's going to come and try to call some hode eggs. And sure enough, there's a line

the long way out the tent to get on the stage to hoot and howl out your hoot egg call. Nice. It was a great time. I know Jacob the Carpetbagger went up there. I don't know if you watch his YouTube videos, but he's a cool dude, travels around tourist stuff. And I know he did a video on it and I watched it is super good video. Well, hey, there you go, bud. Nice.

There he is right there. Go Jacob. Yeah, he stopped by my store. He actually, yeah, he stopped by the Hodeg Heritage Festival, stopped by the store. Oh, wow. I traded him some Hodeig shwag for some carpet beggar pins. There we go, buddy. That's a, that's a good idea right there.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Did you have people, do you have people come from all over the U.S. for that? What's the turnout like? Well, in the brief little bit of time we had, me and Carrie, I mean, carried a quick little lap. And I think we counted roughly about like 13, 14 different state license plates. Wow.

In the parking lot of the park or like on the streets around the park. And I would say there was, I don't know, we'll say like maybe 1,500. Nice. People roughly showed up for it. Yeah. We had a early morning to start the day off. We did a lumberjack style pancake breakfast. Nice.

And we served up, I want to say it was over a thousand pancakes in like three hours. Wow. Three pancakes per plate. So if you can do math, you can figure that out. And yeah, it was a good, good turnout. dude and it's only a few years in who knows what the future is going to bring that is so cool i'm guessing that if you're going to go and visit the hodag festival it's going to be the hodag heritage festival it's going to be is it all hodeg vendors there or what kind of stuff

do you got going on that people can well um we're we're open to having uh like hodag vendors cryptid vendors, Northwoodsy themed type of stuff because we're nestled up here in the Northwoods. And that's kind of what we're trying to keep the vibe at for vendors

with it. So we had like some food vendors there. The park also houses the Pioneer Park Historical Complex, which is home to the Hodeg Museum and like eight other little mini museums on the complex.

Okay. And they got a really cool in the carpet vaguer. He wrote it, the little speeder car thing, the little train that thing. I love riding that thing. It's short but sweet. Oh, that looks, yeah, it does look like fun. Are there a lot of people that have, they actually have white bulldogs in Rhinelander? Yeah, I mean, the white bulldogs are making a comeback.

Okay. Yeah, the Hode egg population is becoming scarce these days. So they've been able to produce more. Nice. Life finds a way. Yeah. You know. Dude, how, you got to explain to me something.

So how is the Hodag group ears so good? What's the secret? Well, we take Hode eggs, they're horns, the ones that we can find. we shave it down into a fine dust. Okay. And it's just mixed in with it. And that's... It's magical.

Magical. Hoteag horn dust, yeah. It's the, uh, the cans you gave me did not last long. No. And, no. And, uh, at the homestead, I'll tell you that much. They did not last long. Hey, forget about it.

Hey. It's so good. Oh, boy. It's good stuff. It probably made. Maybe some sugar in there too. Have you had one of these yet? What?

One of these ones? Yeah. Back in the day, you know, I... Did I give you one last year? Well, it would have been... Yeah, because... Well... Not anymore.

I can't anymore. No. Okay. I know. Pour one out for me. Drink one for me, actually, because it looks delicious. I'm doing it right now. Thank you, sir.

Do you have... Do you have Meta Zoo stuff? You got to have Meta Zoo stuff up there at the Hodeus. I got the zoo in the house, dude. You got the hookup, dude. Yeah. You know. The Hodeg is a pretty popular character in Metazoo.

People love the Hodeg in that community. Yeah, I mean, he's a gnarly looking little, like, he is. A little drawing, you know, that they've come up there for the Hodeig. Answer me this. Let's say a family or whoever. was like, I want to take an awesome vacation to Rhinelander. What does the weekend, is there, could you do a pack out a weekend with stuff to do in Rhinelander all Hodag themed or what do you think?

Well, you can spend for sure one whole solid day looking at Hode eggs. Wow. Depending on how hardcore of a Hodeg enthusiast you are, you could probably stretch it out to two days. Like if you're on a mission to like see and find like every Hodeg statue and figurine or whatever, I mean, there's from stained glass hodigs and churches, 100 plus year old Hode egg paintings in the courthouse when the courthouse was built over 100 years ago. They're on the cop cars.

fire trucks, water towers, plow trucks, you name it. We stick a hode egg on it. Incredible. What is the most unique thing you've ever seen a hodeg on in that town? Honestly, my favorite is the stained glass hodeg at the church. That is so cool. If you go on my Instagram page, you have to dig deep like a year ago, but there's a picture of it on there.

I have to look that out I mean there's a lot of different places You could go with that Are there you got some hotels up there in Hodeg Or where are people going to be staying when they come to visit Yeah we got like four hotels in town right now Maybe five but they're building two more right now actually So

Dude Do you do you recommend people Get a hotel if they go up there Or Airbnbs or whatever What are we thinking is the best, the best route? Well, there's, if you like campgrounds, like resorts, like cabins and stuff like that. There's lots of low resorts around the Rhinelander area. PNC Bank brings you call of the wild money moves.

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Made for summer only at Starbucks. Stay tuned for more Bigfoot Society. We'll be right back after these messages. There's hotels you're going to have as an option. There are some Airbnbs in Rhinelander on the outskirts of Rhinelander. There will soon be, shameless plug, a new. Wink. A new Hodeg-themed Airbnb.

and B that you can stay at. That should be hopefully ready sometime this month in October. No, tell me more. I may have crafted those questions to lead you into that. I know.

I have barely posted anything online. Yeah, I saw that the other day. I was like, this looks incredible. I posted a few pictures on like a story so that way it like disappears or something. But it's right behind my store. Okay.

Right behind the Hodeig store. the Hodeig house. It's going to be 100% Hode egg inside and out. You'll be totally immersed in a Hodeig Wonderland stay. You'll have green utensils to eat with. You will sleep nestled up with Hode eggs. Wow. You will shower with Hode eggs, everything.

Yeah, I mean, they're going to be everywhere. is every room has multiple hoad eggs in it on pillows, blankets. I'm going to have artwork from a local artist in here, in the house. I got like some printing stuff offline. I still got to get, I got the main wall in the living room. I'm not, I don't have like the right piece. I'm like, got a few different pieces I've been hanging up in there, but they haven't found the right like wow piece to hang.

up above the couch yet so I'm almost there need to have like one of the Hodeg mascot costumes made into like a taxidermy piece like a taxidermy Hohave is what I was thinking like like yeah yeah dude like an old school like fur bearing like go brownish in color like Hodeeg but I mean there's this not like a store I can go out and get one of those so I'm true if anybody on here is really good at taxidermy or knows somebody hit up ben at the hodak store make it make it happy um i do want to clarify something for like the super hodeg nerds so when you say the hodag house because i know that there is another hodeg house which is jean shepherds like that's what the town refers to as

the hodeg house right and it's not that it's not that correct staying in jean shepherds old no you're not you're staying in ben's hodeg house Okay, cool. So, yeah, yeah. Nice. Oh, that is amazing. And I'll have like a wood carved hodeg inside the house too as well. I have stockpiled with DVDs that I thought were fitting for somebody staying in a hode egg house to watch.

We, yeah, everything's hodeg. What are what are hodag appropriate movies? Well, I got like some kids stuff like I think I got Monsters Inc. Like how to train a dragon. Yeah. I got the season of Scooby-Doo with the Ho-Deg episode on it. Yep. Yep.

Ghostbusters. Then I got some more adult type of stuff. I got tremors. Nice. Oh, boy. You're pushing. I bought, I think, a copy of moth. Man small town monsters.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. That's good. Yep. Crypted Bash 2. Maybe I bought it. I can't remember. Okay.

And there was a movie filmed up here in Oneida County back in the 70s called the Bog. You can go on Amazon and buy it. Really? It's like a really cheesy like 70s. Oh, man. The movie. And the acting's like cheesy horrible. good it's really good dude that's great who's like this bog monster like comes out of the water

and tips fishermen out of its boat and stuff and they use like actual old school in nana county like sheriff vehicles and stuff yes in it and they like used aerial views of uh manna they filmed it mainly in monacoa wisconsin which is like 20 minutes from ryanlander it is so that's different from manna walk right yes yeah okay all right okay yeah manacua all right all right I know there's some crazy town names up there. I just want, I know Manawak, because Charlie Barron's, of course. You know, everyone knows Charlie. Yeah, that's over on Lake Michigan.

Okay. Dude. Is there, you know how Point Pleasant has like the Mothman pizza? And now Van Meter has, you know, are the winged creature drink, which is pretty rocking. Does Hodeg, can I go to Hodeg or Rhinander and get any food or anything? themed like that's Hodag themed any cool Instagram? Yeah, I mean there are some shops in town that have a permanent Hodeg item on their menu of some variety.

Okay. During our Hodeg heritage festival that we have during that week or two weeks leading up to it, a lot of the stores and the restaurants get a little bit more heavy on their Hodeig menu and stuff. Nice. CT's deli downtown that week has a whole theme of different hode egg related food menu items. They have a white bulldog sandwich, which is a very good one. There's a, oh, boy, there's a couple sub shops that have a hode egg.

There's a pizza, Hote Egg pizza, Kids Corner pizza, new sub shop in town Mad Subs has a Hodeeg sub. Um, and odd word. So, um, not, not, not super crazy heavy. I think Mo the, uh, Point Pleasant might have their food, their cryptid food, uh, menu up on par a little bit more than ours. They are good. Um, like, uh, I, I didn't get a chance to have the burrito, but I've heard the burrito was dank in Pointe Pleasant. I missed it. Um, but. Dank memes, you know.

Yeah, and But they have the Sundays, you know, where they put all the toppings on. Yeah, yeah. I've had them off man pizza and stuff. Dude. Yeah. Let's talk about this for a minute. So let's say you got someone listening and, you know, they have a town where it's like, oh, they got a regional cryptid,

but they wish that their town could really start to improve. embrace that, you know? Like from, do you have any advice from a person who lives in a town that has really like embraced the culture? Like, is there anything they can do or what do you, how can they make the difference? Like Gene Shepard made the difference for Rhinelander back in the day, you know? Oh, boy.

I mean, so basically kind of trying to say kind of like how, how could somebody kind of recreate kind of similarity like what I'm doing now and what, my hold egg in the store kind of, is that you're saying? Well, I don't know. I guess that's one way to look at it, isn't it? I know. Yeah. Well, you know, I mean, in one aspect of this question, I guess, I do feel, I don't know if I'd say the word pressure or honored or something.

But I guess I could say I have the same. spirit of Jean Shepherd hanging over my head a little bit here. Okay. You know, I'm in his footsteps now, carrying on his traditions of passing on the legacy of the Hodeg and my new mission in life is just to spread Hodeg awareness. So everybody learns about the Hodeg and Gene and what he did. The best thing, you know, I could say to somebody else, you know, do it, go for it uh if you live in levelin you know and you love the lovelin frogman open up a freaking

lovelin frogman store nobody's doing it you live in a big area i mean do it you need a storefront don't go online don't serve it online just storefront okay and uh it might sound scary but do it try it have faith it doesn't work guess what it didn't work and yep you're right back to where you were. That's yeah, there you go. That is true. The other thing I love about what you're doing is that you're not just keeping the the Hodag and Rhinelander. You guys are driving around, I mean, in the past, you've driven around the U.S. and you are like taking the Hodag. You're always having these photos shoots of the Hodak doing crazy stuff around. Like what do people do? And like all of a sudden, you come out of nowhere. And it's like, boom, a creature they've never seen.

because not everyone knows the Hodag. Like, had there ever been weird situations that have arrived from that? Yeah, yeah. So on the top of my head, I can kind of talking or referencing to about last year, kind of a little bit more when I went up to, like, Niagara Falls and wrote like the maid of the miss. And like, we went to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with the Hodeg. We went on a ferry across Lake Michigan.

I walked around the whole entire ferry with the freaking Hodeig soon. on. We went into the freaking bingo hall with the Hodeig on while they were playing bingo on the show. Oh, man. They freaking loved it, dude. And, um, you know, people are curious. They want to know what it is, which PNC Bank brings you call the wild money moves. You hear that? Yolo! That's an internet troll telling you to put all your money into a single investment. Yolo. He wants you to liquidate your emergency fund.

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Ice cold, instantly refreshing and impossible to put down. Made for summer only at Starbucks. That's my whole thing is if I can make them curious, if I can make them want to know, they'll figure it out either by asking or Googling it. So we were at Niagara Falls, last year on our venture and

we're by the freaking uh water's edge up top at night time there standing in the green suit here and uh dude's like are you guys from Wisconsin

and we're like dude dude where are you from he said I'm from Minnesota and he's like you're a hodeg, aren't you? I'm like, yep, yeah.

That's awesome. It was insane. I was in Las Vegas once, not in Hodeg apparel. Okay. And I was getting into like a concert or a club or something. I can't remember what it was. But they had to see the ID at the door.

And the guy looks at my ID and he looks up at me and he says, oh, we got us a couple of Hode eggs here. he says. Wow. And I'm like, I didn't have a Hode egg shirt on or anything. You see Ryan Lander and he knew what a Hodeig was. He was from Michigan. That's awesome. Yeah. Wow. I mean, people know. There are people out there that know what a Hodeig is all over the place, but there's also a lot of people, more people that don't know what it is. And it's my goal to fix that. There you go. I would love to see you take a Hodeg costume to Vegas and just, oh, my goodness. I got a picture of a Hodeig suit in Vegas last year.

Okay. Just a brief one by the welcome sign. Yeah. We were just kind of passing through the area. Okay. Gotcha. And I had a pop a quickie out there by the sign with the day. So my goodness.

This, dude, it's, it's so good. Yeah, I actually love just taking the Hode egg suit and on these travels and getting pictures of them at different like national like roadmarks or landmarks. Exactly. It's cool. And then part of it too behind it all is I take the picture. I post it online. I geotag everything.

People are going to look at pictures of that location in the future and they will browse through it. They'll see this green creature. They'll be like, what the heck is going on? They'll be curious and hopefully look up what it is. Has there ever been a response? where it's like, hey, you get that Hodeg out of my town. It's all like footloose, but anti-Hodeg, you know?

No, there's not a whole lot of, I wouldn't say anti-Hoday. That's great. I couldn't see there being any. Newcomers are anti-Hodeg. Newcomers. I won't get into a whole lot of detail of it, but let's not say anti-Hodeg. Let's say they don't understand Hodeg. Okay.

Okay, let's put it that way. Okay. They don't understand. understand it and yeah so how do you how do you know if someone understands hoag how do they get it um you know i how do you understand it or how do you get hoag i i've never had that one question okay um you know honestly you know i mean hoaggs away of life almost um like i said every the Hodeeg is 130 years old. Right.

So every generation that's been born, I mean, a human being only lives like 100 years old. Right. Maybe 115 at absolute most. So every single person that's been born in this city has grown up with the Hodeig somewhere's in their life. And newcomers, you know, I mean, that are just moving to the area

or have never seen this creature before. They move here. Like, what the heck is this weird redneck? Northwood people, you know, but after a while, they get it, you know. Yeah. It takes them a little while until they get turned on to the way a Hodegism. But there's a lot of good people.

I know that have moved to town and converted to a Hodeg. Awesome. The last thing I want to touch on is, I thought this is really interesting. So there's like in the video you sent me, and I'm going to link it in the show notes. Everyone go check it out after this. It's very informative. It's very entertaining. The history of Rhinelander, Hodag, all that good stuff.

So there's actually a football rivalry game based on the Hodag. That's cool, dude. Yes. And did you catch the details of that? Well, we'll talk about it. Yeah. So this guy, he wanted to start a football rivalry between the neighboring town of Antigal, Wisconsin. And a lot of high school football rivalries have like an item or something that they battle over.

And our battle object is. is a bell we have the bell game but this bell is a special bell it was once jean shepherd's bell that he had on his boat yeah um that he had out on uh boom lake i haven't seen a picture of it uh that i can remember of but from what i've heard it was a pretty big boat for for for the size of a lake we have here in town but it had uh sunk to the bottom of the lake and uh the bell was retrieved and then some years later this rivalry had uh been started So cool. Does it in the, do you know if this is in the possession of Rhinelander currently here?

I want to say the bell is home here in Rhinelander right now, to my knowledge. Thank goodness. High school is football is just starting up. So the bell game is going to be coming up here sometime. So come on, hold eggs. Let's keep the bell home, dude. Yeah. Dude, I love it.

Ben, I'm so glad that we were finally able to chat. I know this has been a long time coming, but you are definitely doing the good work up there. Thank you for everything you do. Keep the spirit of Rhinelander alive. It's awesome. Before we go, can you do a quick run-through of how people can keep up-to-date best with what you're doing with the HODG and how they can even pick up some HODG stuff too? Oh, boy, diddley here. Um, you can find the Hodeig on anything, man.

We got the, my website, thehodeg store.com you can go to and it'll link you right to everything you need to know. We got Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, a TikTok, a podcast. We make music videos. You can find those on the YouTube channel. We have a new one coming out soon, Degzilla. Yeah. I'm sure it's going to be a hit set. single. I'm ready for tear to be a stowed upon Rhinelander. So,

so good. Oh, my goodness. Ben, thank you so much for coming on. It has been a great chat tonight. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for having me on. Well, you got. Anytime you want to talk, Hodeggs, you just let me know. That's right. I'll be seeing you later, dude. All right. Sounds good. You have a good one then. The views and opinions expressed are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Bigfoot Society. Any content provided by our guests are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club,

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