Citation Needed - Phineas Gage

Episode Date: May 1, 2019

Phineas P. Gage (1823–1860) was an American railroad construction foreman remembered for his improbable[B1]:19 survival of an accident in which a large iron rod was driven completely through his head, destroying much of his brain's left frontal lobe, and for that injury's reported effects on his personality and behavior over the remaining 12 years of his life‍—‌effects sufficiently profound (for a time at least) that friends saw him as "no longer Gage." [H]:14 --- Our theme song was written and performed by Anna Bosnick. If you’d like to support the show on a per episode basis, you can find our Patreon page here.  Be sure to check our website for more details.

It's the Michael Jackson documentary. Uh, what's it called? No, I can't remember. Your body is a neverland? Okay, that can't be it. And it can. Just pull the stand, guys. I'm not touching the stand.

It's too close to the rest of it. Guys, what the hell now? Oh, hey, Noah, Tom, thank God somebody else is here. Now I'm not sworn to see. You are still looking to see. So what is that? A microphone stand in Eli's ass, I gotta look at this. Nope, well, sort of, it's got a microphone on it.

Z-Syl's microphone. Oh, for fuck's sake, Eli, did you do this because today's topic is Phineas Gage? No, I did it because Heath leaves very slick candy wrappers on the table. You know I can't record unless I eat six fun-sized Snickers and just have a sticker There's no way they're in the how in the fuck does dad end well, okay? So I'm not slippery at all. That's weird. I'm doing my pre-recording warm-ups. They're very slippery No, they're not you know, I'm doing my squats, the use, do my squats.

On the table, you're in squat. Let me finish, Tom. Anyway, I'm doing my squats without your pants. I always do them without pants. You know how I shave, I feel attacked. So I slip on the very slippery wrappers and I need you guys to pull so I can get this out and just wipe it down with some goo gone before Cecil gets here. I just

know that is now a disposable mic. That's a one-time. There's no way he is not gonna notice what you've done to that. What are you talking about? His is the only mic I haven't had up there yet. It's gonna be fine. What? Is that why mine smells like blood too? about his is the only mic I haven't had up there yet. It's gonna be fine. Ooh. What? Is that why mine smells like blood too? No. Hello and welcome to Citation Needed, the podcast where we choose a subject, we do a single article about it on Wikipedia and pretend we're experts.

This is the internet and that's how it works now. I'm Heath and I'll be, uh, something about getting shot in the face, I guess. And joining me are four men who mented as a compliment. First up, the rocket and grute of citation laugh. I am Tom. And also joining us are Noah, the green rage monster of citation needed, and Eli Bosnick. All right, well, to be fair, you wouldn't like me whether or not I was angry, so I'm mine as well. I am told by several internet quizzes that I am Loki of the group.

No. No. Didn't introduce you as any superheroes. You don't need to talk here. So, uh, first time Hawkeye. What person, place, thing, concept, phenomenon, or event? Are we going to be talking about today? Well, today we'll be adding little steel to our spines or much more accurately iron.

And we'll be talking about Phineas Gage. And Cecil, you Googled, I guess, shot in the face plus funny or something like that. That's great. You ran this battle that research. Thank you for only bringing up my least embarrassing Google results, see if I appreciate that. Yes, I did, and I, yes, I am, right.

Excellent. So who was Phineas Gage? So this is a story about a man, a terrible accident with a giant iron rod, a fist size hole in someone's head, and how we should not consider a sample size of one, the basis of medical theory. Okay, but I did learn to coil a hose correctly.

So there's that. I'm just saying, my dad's methods are, they're a little aggressive. I learned. Oh, shit. It's fun that a running joke on our shows is you being abused as a child. It sort of works in there.

Is it not fun? No, it's fun. I learned. The coil hose? No, it's fun. I learned. The coil hose just right every goddamn time you shake a lot while you do it, but it is. That's gone. That's right. Story starts with our hero, Phineas Gage, handsome railroad construction foreman whose doctor had a bit of a crush on him and describe gauge as quote a perfectly healthy strong and active young man 25 years of age Nervo Billyus temperament. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Yeah, right. It's a phonology term. We'll get to it

I don't know what that means. Six inches in height Average weight 150 pounds possessing an iron will as well as an iron frame. Muscular system unusually well developed, having had scarcely a day's illness from his childhood. And quote, it's Trump's doctor. Are you just a quick recap? We have an iron will and iron frame and an iron rod.

This feels like that knock off Iron Man porn script. Eli keeps trying to get me to read. I'm not reading. It's called Asvenger's End Game Tom. Just barely say the name. Like, as I mentioned earlier, what is a nervous, billiast temperament?

And it's a chronology term. A what term? And it, a phonology. You're not selling that. Well, it won't be the only time that for knowledge he makes its way into this tale the term means quote excitable and active mental powers

with energy and strength of mind and body making possible the endurance of great mental and physical labor so an Irish guy that definitely feels like for like white, but kind of gross, white, but not like a wrist fat white like recently, can fornology predict alcoholism is down there. I didn't see spoilers doing shots out of the divots in your head. That was job did require a bit of physical labor. As I said, he worked on the railroad.

His crew was responsible for blasting rock to make way for the tracks. The job required that I whole be drilled into the rock. And then they would add blasting powder, a fuse and tamping sand or clay to concentrate the blast and not have the blast shoot out of the hole like a Roman candle, which, which had never happened to him before. It's a constant for everything. As he got older, I had to tamp for a long time. It was like a long time. It was like a medium tamp explosion, just medium. Now this tamping clay or sand had to be packed in there. And the tool for this job was a tamping rod. And Phineas was actually so fond of his job and his tools that he had a custom tamping

rod crafted. Now, some people who refer to the story as the crowbar case, but a tamping rod is straight and not curved at all like a crowbar. Maybe it's the tamping rod was also pointed a bit. And these two properties are certainly key in Mr. Gage's survival. All right. All right. Just another just a quick recap here.

But we have a devastatingly handsome man with a ruler straight iron rod whose job was drilling away and then repeatedly stuffing his rod into the hole before the big explosion. God damn it. Are we sure this is an Eli's porn script again? No, we are not. Just keep pulling like a a beaded string of infinity stones out of someone's ass. Well, too fast. You're ruining the whole thing too fast.

This is the green one to go. I'm sorry guys, spoilers. I'm sorry. Okay. You can't snap inside me. But is this crew was in Vermont clearing a path for the railroad there. And Phineas is tamping away on the old blasting hole when it gets a little distracted by the workers behind him. He turns his head and he looks over his right shoulder. Now at this point, it's believed he opened his mouth to speak up to speak. And that is when the tamping rod sparked on the rock and set off the chart.

Well, you guys shut the fuck up. I'm trying to jam this metal rod into this flint hole next to this acme dynamite. Somebody leave their sandpaper collection in the hole. Whatever, it's fine. I'm just, you just shut up for a second. somebody like their sandpaper collection in the hole, whatever, it's fine. I'm just, you just shut up for a second. I'm doing this.

So then physics, exploding stuff shoots the tamping rod out of the blasting hole. A rod, let me remind you, that is one and a quarter inch in diameter, three foot seven inches long and weighing a little over 13 pounds. Bragging. and weighing a little over 13 pounds. Bragging, yeah. The position of his head and open mouth give the entry wound to his upper palate. The rod continues behind the left eye

and ejects out of the top of his skull. They would find the rod, quote, point first, some 80 feet away, smeared with blood and brains. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. He's this. first some 80 feet away smeared with blood and brain. And quote. Jesus. I was gonna fuck up your for a knowledge you reading. Wait, so he had a tamping rod and he was like,

all right, this, this end where I grip it, it's all fucking rounded and boring. I'm getting this customized. It's not sharp. The sharp bed had to be the end that was pointing up. I don't know how that helps at all. Yeah, it was. Yeah, I don't, I don't understand either. My only thought on this is that maybe he turned it around while he was walking

and used it as a walking stick, but I'm right with there with you. He's a sharp white. Yeah, why would be? Do you do you own a sharpened walking stick? Maybe he was expecting it to explode into his face eventually. He thought he wanted to give him a shot, right? I know. He went to see a fortune teller when he was like three and they're like, get a sharpened

walk. He was so handsome. He had to fend off the rest of those workers. He was too busy yelling out like, I got it. Tampa brought a loan and he did it. Gage at this point, you know, after the ride goes through his head, he falls down and he goes into convulsions. And if it wasn't 1848, everyone would have just gotten out their cell phones to film it

while someone in the background shouted, world star, world star. But I guess in a few minutes, he was able to set up and then shortly after walked with a little help and then they put him in an ox cart and they took him to town about three quarters of a mile away. Right, but first I'm quite certain my great, great, great, great grandfather was like, hold still for a second, just going to finish tamping this last hole. Hold still. You have the nicest tamping rod. Just fucking hold it. I love it in the story. We got an update first on the status of the tamping rod like before Phidias like oh, oh, we lost another one. No, no, no. I want to relax. The rod is okay. Rod is going to be fine. Yeah. The brain on it now. They arrive at the hotel and someone gets the doctor.

The doctor describes the wound thusly. And I want to warn people this is not for the squeamish. Quote, the pulsations of the brain being very distinct. The top of the head appeared somewhat like an inverted funnel, as if some wedged-shaped body had passed from below upward. Oh, I'm not trying to tell you how to do your job, Doc, but the as if should be followed by a description of something other than what actually happened, right?

Like everything always looks as if the first thing has happened, happened, gets some creativity coming in an analogy here, man. No, control demolition. It just looks like a controlled, that's what it, that's what I understand. I'm gonna continue here. It just looks like a controlled. That's what it is. That's what I understand. I'm going to continue here.

Mr. Gage during the time I was examining the wound was relating the manner in which he was injured to the bystanders. I did not believe Mr. Gage's statement at the time, but thought he was deceived. Mr. Gage persisted in saying the bar went through his head. Mr. G got up and vomited. The effort of vomiting pressed out about a half a tea cup full of pain. No, I didn't haul on the top of the skull, which fell on the floor. And you could have opened.

But last. Mr. Gage, if you could abstain from vomiting, I think you just lost your time's tables. I'm trying to. Dr. here. He like, he like lowers his arm. He's like a play-doh fun factory that's just pouring out the tub. The doctor here is fucking floored that he was having a conversation with a guy with a flip top head and remark later, quote, you will excuse me for remarking here that the picture presented was to want a custom to military surgery truly terrific.

But the patient bore his sufferings with the with the most heroic firmness. He recognized me at once and he said he hoped he was not much hurt. He seemed to be perfectly conscious, but he was getting exhausted from the hemorrhage. His person and the bed on which he laid were literally one Gore of blood and quote okay, I gotta say I've never been more relieved by my lack of historical notoriety than I was when I just now learned that doctors keep records of how heroic you were about She I can only imagine what mine went like

So they did what they could to bind the wound. They shaved part of his head. They took out some of the blood and an ounce of brain that was just hanging there. They let us it using that part anyway. They love that had open presumably because they couldn't get all empty dump these skull from the ground. And also they left it partially open so it could drain. We'll see. I don't I feel like you want to avoid letting your brain do that.

Then since this was old timey times, they put a wet rag on it and a nightcap. And then Gage turned to a nightcap. Yeah, like go to sleep. Like an everyday screw. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Like don't wake daddy because he's got a massive head wound.

It's so great. And then Gage turned away his friends because as this mother fucker said, quote, he shall be at work in a few days and call. Holy. This is definitely my great, great, great grandpa. One of the best. All right. So while Phineas Gage yells at the doctor to get him a decent vice and some sandpaper

to make sure the tamping rod doesn't get tarnished and gets cleaned, don't really. We'll take a quick break for some opera pove, nothing. Oh Holy shit Phineas, are you okay? Yes, yeah, I'm fine really cuz it cuz it it look like you got a like like a bunch of your brain like right? Yeah, like a bunch that's you guys worry too much. I'm fine now. Let's get back to mining. Okay. I don't want to use up my lunch break Right cool cool cool. Uh Ph back to mining. Okay, I don't want to use up my lunch break. Right. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Finneas though, honestly, I'm glad you're feeling okay.

That's fantastic. I just really want to drive home that you've got. That I have a head wound. Yes, thank you. I understand now. Can we please get back to work? Okay, well, okay. See the yelling part of your brain is still there.

All right, Simpson, can we get the hat box going on this hat box? Hat box? Hat box? Hat box? Okay. I said I'm fine. And we're back when we left off. Phineas gauge was rubbing dirt in his brain. And you guys got a dirty mind. What do you expect? Explain it. He's rubbing dirt in it.

He's trying to leave the hospital. What's next? As good as gauge was doing, his recovery was not just going to be a few days. He fluctuated between delirium and lucidity. He was optimistic on that, was he? He was. He said he was gonna be back to work in a few days. I know, yeah.

Overshot that one. And he's just a little bike, you know, like a couple years, but anyway, we'll get to it. He fluctuated between delirium and lucidity for the next few weeks as he was also in an out of consciousness. His head was basically infected because it was the past, so it was bad eye at this point is bulging out of his head and he had some necrotic tissue in his skull that was also swelling and pushing out the top of his head like a fucking souffle.

Yeah, meanwhile his mom is running around the hospital just shushing everyone, be quiet or his brain is gonna fall. Yeah. At this point, I feel like dying is an underrated rod through the head, wrist punch option. God damn. From his doctor's notes, by the 14th day, quote, the exhalations from the mouth and head are horribly fetted. Wait, is breathing out the top of his head? It's really bad when you're breathing out the top of your head.

That's a dolphin. That's enough for people in that country. Not good. Not good. Put a big enough hole up there. Yeah. The doctor describes him as comatose, but we'll answer in monosyllables if aroused. To be fair, when I'm aroused, I'm down to mono syllables too. So that's true.

That's true. We'll not take nourishment unless strongly urged. The friends and attendants are in hourly expectancy of his death and have his coffin and clothes in readiness. And quote, oh my god. It's making little pencil marks on the coffin just yelling at the coffin guy like, what the fuck, man? The, the joinery's not even flush. Spackling little gaps with pieces of brain. God, I have to do everything. Now, I want to stop here. And I'm actually going to step away from the essay just for a second to talk about something. In the article, they mentioned that his brain had fungus on it. But, oh my God.

No, right, that's all I felt, but I think they're using it as like an old, tiny, saw bones way of saying necrotic tissue. And I don't know if that's true or not. So I want to ask the audience if there's any saw bones doctors out there if they know, if that's true or not. I don't know, I don't know, but they refer to as his fungus. So in the article, they say fungus and I didn't use it here because I don't know if that's what they actually meant.

So the doctor cut away the dead infected tissue on the top of his brain and started slathering caustic crystalline silver nitrate all over his brain like an English muffin, lots of nooks and crannies in there. plastic crystalline silver nitrate all over his brain like an English muffin lots and nooks and crannies in there. The doctor notes that after this quote, immediately there was, there were discharged eight ounces of ill-conditioned pus with blood and excessively fetid end quote. Oh, I know that's disgusting, but totally eating English muffin right now. I have a taste for English muffin.

I was just thinking I'd been making a wrong this morning. I got no, I wanna know what well-conditioned pus is. It's not that awful. Constantly talking to you about CrossFit. It's going on, man. Let me tell you, keto, dude, keto. You gotta eat like it, don't. Stop it.

I'm gonna die first, so I don't have to be around you. Well, condition plus. But I guess this was all he needed because after this, he starts to get better. It takes two and a half months, but he was up and about walking at first inside and then outside the house. At that point, he heads back to his family's farm in New Hampshire. In three more months, he's doing some simple chores around the house. The fucking guy gets a fucking iron bar ramp through his brain.

He's already more useful than all four of my kids. Tom, have you tried ramming an iron bar through their skull? If you must, no, I have. Yes. Two Shay with draw. As to his condition, he has, of course, a loss of vision in the left eye, a gnarly fucking scar on his head and a quote deep depression, two inches by an one and a half inch wide beneath which pulsations of the brain can be perceived. And quote, he's left side.

You're thinking about something. Yeah. His left side of his face is suffering for partial paralysis and his memory, according to his mother, isn't perfect. But quote, that a stranger would not notice. End quote. Hey, mom, that's a dumb metric. What does that even mean? It's like, excuse me, stranger.

My third grade teacher was Mrs. Collins. Does that sound weird? What did you say? No? Okay, what about this pulsating crank head on top of my head? Is that you? Starting at about 14 months after the accident, he starts a tour as a living oddity.

Traveling around New England, giving some public appearances and such, he gave up working on the railroad and instead became a stage coach driver in Chile. And yeah, I say he gave up working on the railroad, but he's technically fired because capitalism. he's his friends and he did that. He worked as a stage coach driver for eight years until his health started to fail. He moved back to the states and settled in California.

Traveling around is a living oddity. I'm disappointed I wasn't born early. You know, like, because then like the freaks came to you now to get that kind of people watching. You got to go all the way to the Greyhound Bust Keep telling you move into Georgia hazards perks whole southern half of this state one giant Greyhound Bust station Segregated to Not a plus we went over this heath the buses are just doing wheelies because everyone's in the back.

Wasn't saying it was a plus just to be clean. Okay, I feel like you declared it as a plus. Did I say it enthusiastically? I feel like it just feels that way. Just a quick apology, I think is all, just get it out of here. Segregated grunt. We were elistigating advantages when you said it.

Yeah, when you say you don't like racism, just like prefacit. I don't like racism, just like preface it. I don't like racism. That was a bad performance. Can I get another take? Can I try that one more time? At the end? Absolutely.

I'm gonna try it one more time at the end. Go ahead. All right, I just wanna get ready. Go ahead, three, two, one. Racism is bad. The question you got yourself at the end there. You started strong. I feel like I went up at the end.

Did I go up at the end? I didn't. So what happened to Phineas Cage's head? But in February of 1860, he started to develop seizures and they increased in severity and frequency. In May of that year, he had some serious convulsions and it was enough to get a doctor to bleed him. I had no idea what that would do, but they did it. And he died shortly afterward from a massive seizure. Hey, Doc, you're fucking this up. It's taken forever. All right. So just I'll need a bomb,

a tube, and a sword. It's crazy. You know what? Grab me a hose too because you're sort of fucking got it. It is not coiled right so what can we learn from gauge about the brain? Turns out not much and as we said earlier sample size of one, you know, there's there's you can't make sweeping claim about all brains from a sample size of one. I hear you see somebody get me a bunch of iron rods and people who posted end game spoilers. This is for science. It's also pretty difficult to establish any facts. The Wikipedia says, quote, only a handful of sources give direct information on what gauge was like either before or after the accident.

The mental changes published after his death were much more dramatic than anything reported while he was alive. And one guy was just waiting, okay, finally he's dead. Total asshole. I'm glad a rod tore off a fourth of his skulls. I'm waiting. The day it happened, I was like, five, I wrote it down and then he fucking walking around. It was the worst.

There were some notes on how his behavior changed. They said he cursed now and he didn't do that much prior to the accident. I do fair enough, but waking up every day, screaming, this hurts so fucking much. Why can't I just fucking die? That would be the incident. They also said that he was more prone to impulsiveness. And this does match what we know today about frontal load damage. It also may be the case that his occupation served as something of a treatment for his condition. Quote in modern treatment, adding structure to tasks by, for example, mentally visualizing a written list, it is considered a key method in coping with frontal lobe damage."

And his job as a stage coach driver was very structured and might have kept all that impulsiveness in check. Uh, counter theory, surviving a rod traveling through your brain at 200 miles an hour will make you a little more willing to take risks. I postulate my hypothesis. Is accident sort of turned him into a legend so people made up a bunch of shit about him or just only read about his last few months and painted with that brush over his whole post accident life.

The stories made it seem like he was an incompetent and he couldn't hold a job, a freak that traveled in a side show and someone so impaired that he had to be in the custody of his parents. Okay. That all seems a little judgy even by like old timey standards. Oh, we can't kind of an old, thinniest to hold down a job. So forgetful. He'd lose his head if it wasn't attached.

That's his problem. He's blowing his top, you know, fair. Wikipedia says, quote, other behaviors described to the post accident gauge are either unsupported by in or in contradiction to the known facts, including the following mistreatment of wife and children, though gauge actually had neither inappropriate sexual behavior, promiscuity or impaired sexuality. Okay. If all this happens right now, this whole story, there's a dick in that hole right now.

Like he's got his own tab on porn hub and he's making a fortune. He's going to like date some lives show. He's killed. Lack of forethought, concern for the future or capacity for embarrassment. Ibed. lack of forethought, concern for the future or capacity for embarrassment. Ibbid. I'm sparing. I'm sparing. Parading his self-bissery and vain glory and showing his wounds.

Ibbid. Ibbid. Ibbid. Gambling himself into emotional and reputational bankruptcy. Phineas, you're down $300. Are you sure you want to try and rule again? I'm sorry, did you survive a ride to the brain? No. Thank you, one of us dead. Come on, baby want to try and run? I'm sorry. Did you survive a ride to the brain? No.

Thank you. One of us dead. Come on, baby. Poppin' needs a new parachute. Irresponsibility. Untrustworthiness. Aggressiveness and violence. Irresponsibility. In the hospital that day, promise to be back to work as soon as the junk service brainstorms. The goal is in the hospital that day promise to be back to work as soon as the trunk surface brain started rolling out when he's Okay, with an 1850 standard, I guess maybe I don't know, but that's your personal day that counts I keep it visiting fideas is like that you know the the biscuits where you have to tap them on the counter and

like that, you know the biscuits where you have to tap them on the counter and they all look awful. But it's scary, so you make your wife do it while you hide in the other room. Absolutely. Scary. It's scary. I don't like it. The spoon, it makes it puff and... It's scary, no.

So Anna does it and I hide in the other room. And then she tells me when it's popped. I'm afraid of biscuits. Uncooked was too, just to double. I just want to be clear. Eli's scared of a thing with a mascot that goes, woohoo! Ha-ha-ha!

What's he laughing about? I don't trust it. He's got a fucking secret. You tell me the pill-breed doughboy's not gonna get me, too. Just like that. All right, continuing on. Vagrancy, begging, drifting, drinking, lying, brawling bullying. I'm gonna call bullshit on that one. Like I'm not buying that the guy with the open brain port

is getting into a whole lot of fisticuffs situation. You get into one fisticuffs situation with a guy who pulls none shocks out of his face and beats you up. You learn. I mean, like, it's like that fight club. It's like, you hit me right in the braid. Oh God, I'm dead.

Psychopathy and ability to make ethical decisions, loss of all respect for social conventions, acting like an idiot or a loud, living as a layabout or a bullish mess. Dude, your brain got ripped out of your skull six months ago. Let it go. Alienating almost everyone who had ever cared about him and dying due to debauch. Okay, that's clearly a dick in the hole, right? Yeah, I agree. Dick in the hole are like a hot dog doing tricks at a dinner party. It's something like that. Those are the only two options. Yeah, pretty much. Gage's case was used in the past on both sides of the cerebral localization argument. Cerebral localization

is the theory that different parts of the brain control different functions. They tried to use his case to show, for analogy was not total bullshit as well. They made the claim that quote, gauges mental changes, his profanity, for example, stemmed from the destruction of his mental organ of benevolence. As for analogous saw it, the part of the brain responsible for goodness, benevolence, the gentle character." End quote. Lovely.

Just got like plantation owners, shooting rods into slaves the other direction. They're like, oh, you feel in gentler now? Little whiter, little gentler. Jesus Christ. And I'm sure no one needs me to tell you that phonology is bullshit. He's in right.

Sorry, I was coughing. He's in right. He like it. He's in right. He. I was coughing. He's in right. He like it. Joke. And and frankly, phonology could be its own episode that he could write. But the gist of it is that the shape of someone's skull determines our personality traits. And I mean, even the people in the 1800s thought it was probably bullshit too. From the Wikipedia, quote, the methodological rigor of phonology was doubtful, even for the standards of its time, since many authors already regarded phonology as pseudoscience

in the 19th century. And when bleeding your patience was at its heyday, right? Like, doctors who were teeny blood patients to balance their humors were like, yeah, that's bullshit there. That's not why white people are better idiot. So because of the lack of reliable data prior to the accident and the exaggerations of symptoms and behaviors after it, Gage became something of a Rorschach inkplot in which proponents of various conflicting theories of the brain all saw support in their views.

What this story really tells us is that, quote, it illustrates how easily a small stock of facts becomes transformed into popular and scientific myth. End quote. All right, Cecil, if you had to summarize what you've learned today in one sentence, what would it be? I am never complaining about a migraine again. He's here. He's here.

And are you ready for a quiz from the panel? Ooh, my headshot. Let's do it. All right, Cecil, this tragic accident, cost-poor-finius' job and what a shame that was, he was reportedly in line for which promotion, head of workplace safety. Be, blast zone regulations, minder.

I like that one. See, some other clever puns. Someone should write these puns for me. I have money. I'd write. I put that in every week. No one ever fills in the blank. Heath, you got a pun?

It check. I don't have money, so we're halfway there. But you do have punny. See, I'm not good either. I tried to jump in. We're going to give Tom some money. All right. It's my tree. Be. Be. Be Okay, good. Sounds great. Excellent. Cecil. Yes. Hi. Hi.

You mentioned at the end there, that phonology is a dangerous and racist pseudoscience. But which of the following famous folks were fans? A, Mark Twain. B, P.T. Barnum. C, Brigham Young, or D, Heathen, right? Okay.

Okay. Oh, I would definitely knock off Heath because he's not famous, so let's think about the other three. Ah! Ah! Ah! Let's go with something to make Noah Mad. Hey, Mark Twain. That is correct for the purpose of setting up Noah's next sentence

Yeah, all right, Pee-Tee Barnum bring him young whoever is fucking Shit about them, but let's be super clear about America's third best historical person Was fascinated by chronology. He had some doubts about it He debunked it cleverly by the way He went to England and saw the best for theologist in the world and like the first time through didn't tell him who he was and the second time Did and got completely different Rene's just mean how do you get that? Yeah, right right yeah, well, there's a best psychic too anyway

Mark Twain spent most of his career lamp-wooning phrenology I'm not gonna defend all that mother assholes mind you, but don't come after Sammy C. Also, this is a persona joke. I just want to be clear about that. People have this whole thing going, or he thinks of a rate. No, it's like, Eli's not fucking children, but apparently people think that's what's happening.

You want a trade? No, you don't. You're fucking a straight fucking character. Ah. All right, so I got a question for you. Yeah, you want to trade? No, you don't. You're fucking character. All right. So I got a question for you. What's the worst thing about having a rob through your head?

Hey, when you have coffee in the one hand and your breakfast and the other, the elevator button is never kind of lined up to where the body is. Back into the left. Is it be? Yeah, right. Is it be the flight attendant say that you're not fit to operate the door in case of an emergency. Now, even though you very clearly need that extra length. When the other guy sits D or are you just happy to see me? I'm gonna go with B, but that's also in conjunction with trying to get through that metal detector at the TSA too. I always want us to be a bitch about that.

That is not correct though. The worst thing about having a rod through your head or about being alive in general is D or are you just happy? Yes. I like this point. All right. No good work. You stumped him.

You're the winner. Who do you want next week? All right, well, you know what? My life's been way too easy of late. So I'll take the iron rod through my head and choose Eli. Aw. Lovely.

All right. Well, for Cecil Tom, no one Eli, I'm Heath. Thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week, and by then, Eli, apparently, will be having Britain something about something else. Between now and then, you can hear Tom and Cecil on cognitive distance, and you can hear Eli knowing myself on God-Al-A-Movies, skating atheists to hand the skeptic rat. And if you'd like to help keep us all off of the, uh,

face hole hooker corner, um, that example, people might, you know what I mean, just give us money, whatever. Um, and, uh, you can do that by making a per episode donation at patreon.com slash citation pop. But, but to be be clear that will not keep us off the hooker corner at all You might go like the obvious one place. You don't know go there as a customer Lot of reasons to be at that corner. Don't be jones a good betegah there good Bacon egg and cheese and if you'd like to get in touch with us really good hookers

Bacon, egg, and cheese, and if you'd like to get in touch with us, Really good hookers there. Just by the way, good. Listen to the best episodes. Can I go to the social media or take a look at the show notes? Be sure to check out CitationPod.com. Hey, Steve. Hey, you see, he's a waltz-up, man. I'd like to return this microphone.

Your coworker shoved it up his ass again, didn't it? No. No? Every week, Cecil. I'll just take the store credit. All right.