Distractible - Never Give Up

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

Mark shares the story of a pilot who crashed his plane seven times, inspiring Bob and Wade to find similar tales of perseverance despite ridiculous failure. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx. What? FedEx. Thanks. No more questions. Always your answer for international shipping. FedEx, where now meets next. Whoa, what are you listening to this for? Wait, who's talking? You know you're driving a 2024 Ford Escape with available Alexa built in, so you can change the music.

Oh, yeah. Alexa, change station to 99.2. See? Purchase a 2024 Escape ST-Line all-wheel drive with Tech Pack at 3.49% APR for 72 months with down payment. That's just $267 bi-weekly. Cash value of $40,294. Plus, eligible Ford owners get a $1,000 bonus. For details, visit your local Ford store or Ford.ca. This episode is brought to you by Secret. Secret deodorant gives you 72 hours of clinically proven odor protection free of aluminum, parabens, dyes, talc, and baking soda.

It's made with pH-balancing minerals and crafted with skin-conditioning oils. So whether you're going for a run or just running late, do what life throws your way and smell like you didn't. Find Secret at your nearest Walmart or Shoppers Drug Mart today. Good evening, gentle listener, and welcome to Distractible, a Wood Elf production with your hosts Bantering Bob, Mystifying Mark, and Worldly Wade. This week, there are our readers Roust the Cochlear Cordis, with a pronouncement of positivity per personal pride and productivity.

Yes, it's time for Never Give Up. Please prepare thy pom-poms and enjoy the show. Hello and welcome to the Distractible Podcast. Thank you all so much for joining us this week. We have a lovely discussion because I am the host. I won last week and therefore i will bring my talents coming up with an incredible topic for you all to hear the discussion of with which we'll participate in bob and wade oh daniel have to cheer thanks hey thanks thanks for that intro

you're welcome bob oh i cheered for you too on it i thought we were cheering but they were cheering for you i would go bob. Yeah, it happens. I'm used to it. Well, how are you guys doing this fine week? Pretty good. Fine. Yeah, not bad. Good.

We've reached the cool season in Northern California. That's nice. It's cool out now. Yeah, it was kind of crap because it was like the past few days, it's been dipping down to like 50 and then it'll go up to 80, 90 and then it'll dip back down to 50 again. So it's like like really really uh really unsure of itself this weather yeah we dip down to 52 this time of year and down to 40 and then down to 30 it just really keeps dipping we actually had snow flurries once they didn't stick at all

but definitely was snow coming down i mean it is the middle of november well i mean it is whenever this episode came out yeah Yeah, whenever it did. Who knows when it did. I don't know. We record these the day before. Everyone knows that. Yeah, that's just fresh material. Have you ever seen someone get really mad when they discover that something was recorded way before it actually comes out?

Yes. They're just like super offended. Like, oh, what? Yeah. We're all being fooled. They're trying to pull the wool over our eyes. It's that guy from Family Guy. They figure it out and they're like,

Oh, you're just a big phony. Hey, everybody. This was recorded a month ago. These guys are phonies. You're wearing the same outfit in part two that you wore in part one. Yeah, they recorded at the same time. Unbelievable. Unbelievable.

Great to tell you. I'm i'm going to hear about movies god this was recorded a year ago i wanted a new movie not an old one anyway you know who you are out there yeah you know who you are shut up and sit down anyway i have a story that's going to kick off today's discussion and i think you guys are going to find where it's going as soon as i tell you about it you're gonna tell us a story all about how yes okay anyway it's an inspirational story one that really touches the heart and soul of everyone who will hear it in a world full of darkness and cynicism all 37 puppies were found alive sometimes a shining beacon of light can shine through the olympic gold medalist sold his medal to buy food for the hungry which was him better than okay this is the greatest good man crashes airplane seven times in four different states in only seven days i know exactly where this is going inspirational

you were right i'm with you heartwarming how could you pick such an obvious topic florida man gets his head behind the wheel no no no this is you're looking at it the wrong way oh okay right because because he survived i think the point is it's a story of perseverance of overcoming all naysayers who told you don't fly that plane for god's sake stop flying that plane and this man just kept going because he believed in himself and he continued to crash that plane seven times in four different states in seven days, all of which ended with a final crash at the bottom of Lake Michigan. This is a solo or small plane, right? This isn't like he was flying a Delta Boeing 747 or whatever.

No, no, no. Small plane. Experimental bouncy jetliner uh it's it was an amphibious airplane called a sea wind 3000 okay okay that sounds adorable yeah okay so this man went to california to check the beautiful aircraft that had not been flown from florida i would only imagine but he went to california to maintain ownership of it. So basically the aircraft had a total of 20 hours of flying time in its life. When he got it it hadn't been flown. The first crash happened while attempting to land after a test flight in California. The

landing gear was still up so he forgot to put it down. It banged up the plane pretty good but no one was injured. The second crash was from when the engine stalled causing the plane to come down hard beside a runway in New Mexico. Taking out a sign and runway lights. Again, no injuries. Crash number three took place in the same airport as crash number two. However, it's unclear exactly what happened. I imagine the record keeping when they tried to write it down, they were like, oh, this already happened. We don't need any more details about it. Nah, separate crash. Crash number four happened after attempting to leave New Mexico. So he's gone from California to New Mexico and he crashed twice there.

And then he was up in the air for a couple more hours when the left wing hinge tab was stuck and the plane was pitching straight upwards. It took all of the pilot's strengths to control the aircraft and four attempts to land, in which he did in Nebraska, in a crash. So come to find out, crashing your plane three times might make it have some issues for the fourth flight in a crash. God. Come to find out, crashing your plane three times might make it have some issues for the fourth flight in a week. There's no record of any repairs occurring between. I'm sure he looked at it and was like, that's fine, I'll buff out. Crash number five, after repairs.

So we did repair it after crash number four. Oh, there was a fifth crash, okay. There's seven. Jesus. Seven crashes. That's what I said in the beginning of this. Yeah, he did open with that. That was the first thing.

Oh my God. I somehow blanked out and thought maybe it was limited to four. No, no, no, no, no. Okay. So after he repaired, he performed a test flight that ended in another crash in Nebraska. So the test did not go well. That's a fail. That's a fail of the test, I think. Yeah.

Well, it didn't stop him. You know, when you fail a test, what do you do? You get back on the plane. You get back on that plane. He never stopped getting on the plane. You look at the person's test next to you and you try to copy their answers. That plane's still up in the air. I'll just do what they're doing.

The plane in front of him is taxiing, goes, takes off, flies away. He's like, okay, just do what that guy did. We've copied our way this far. Yeah. Yeah. Crash number six was apparently the scariest so far. Quote, the hydraulic pressure gauge was registering zero and the fuel gauge showed an uneven supply. I don't know if it was at an odd number or whatever. He radioed the airport to ask whether there was a spotter on the ground who could look up as he passed to let him know if the landing gear was down there was no response oh god and also the landing gear apparently was not down because the nose hit during the landing and the plane skid down the runway in manistique michigan oh so he's

now made it from california to new mexico to nebraska to michigan that's a lot of ground to cover without an accident, my dude. Yeah. That's pretty good. That's pretty good, you know. Nebraska to Michigan on zero accidents. Do we not count five crashes as an accident? No, listen.

I mean, you take it one day at a time, right? Yeah, this is a new day. Between Nebraska and Michigan, perfect record. Yeah, exactly. Great. Crash number seven. Oh, my God. This week-long nightmare. This all took place in a week,

right? I did say that it'd be seven days, but I also blanked out about that. This week-long nightmare ended on the 4th of July in Lake Michigan. Since the SeaWind 3000 had so many recent issues with the landing gear deploying, the pilot promised the FAA that he would keep the landing gear down for his 25-minute flight. I promise. I promise I'll keep it down the whole time. He did not know when he made that promise that he would be doing an emergency water landing due to the wing flaps not responding. Oh no. The landing gear caused the plane to go vertically into the water. Somehow he remained uninjured once again however the plane that should have been able to float is now at the bottom of lake michigan god

it's all right we're gonna take an aquatic takeoff everyone board up put on your scuba diving gear it's time to go eighth time's the charm they say yeah yeah whatever the opposite of buying a lottery ticket is is what that dude needs to do it's called life insurance yeah you really used up a lot of luck i think yeah yeah yeah so what do you guys take from this what core message do you hear from this story um the faa is not as tight with their regulations and standards as uh one might hope and i'm a little scared to fly my next commercial flight even though i know it's a whole different world of aviation like you have one crash and like the if i remember right the first one the landing gear was

just messed up like that it's just the mechanical fault you have that as someone from the faa had to get that report and be like, ah, damn, that's too bad. Well, he'll fix it. Yeah. Like, okay. Okay. Okay.

Okay. Like, yeah, he's okay. That's fine. Nobody got hurt. And then like the second one happened, like, back to back. Thumbs up with us. Thumbs up with this dude or this plane. But like, you know, he's working it out.

He's got his pilot's license. I assume, you know, but like at some point But at some point between, I don't know, past accident four, FAA guy gets the report and is like, no. How did he get it back in the air? This doesn't even say he made repairs on it. Gosh, somebody needs to stop this guy. Should that be you, FAA? At some point after three to four accidents shouldn't you be like let me cool it maybe you don't fly for a month maybe have a professional fix that airplane you

keep crashing make sure it's good yeah and you stay on the ground rent a car i don't know i i think it all is because it took place in a week so they had no time and they were just like reeling from what was happening you know you think the air traffic control towers like ahead of them were hearing rumors of this rogue plane it's like a horror story like you better give correct commands or the The sea wind to 3000 will come and crash into your tower I mean you tell children when they're going to bed I don't know how this plane is allowed to take off after crashing like once or twice I mean some amount of damage has to be done that's a big heavy thing scraping against the

ground yeah it's fine clearly not and how this okay i got into one accident all year and like still in my mind whenever i'm driving on the road i'm like looking around at semis and stuff this guy what is wrong with him or right i guess to go through this right and like be like man i could have died yeah all right well time take off again and you still don't learn to use your goddamn fucking landing gear hey there was mechanical faults and so i will say the name belies this a little bit it's a hybrid water and land capable plane okay and it's not what you'd think if you look up a picture of a sea wind 3000 i would not have ever guessed that this is how an airplane would be assembled the

the engine and propeller are mounted on like you know like the the top back wing oh i like vertical wing at the back of the plane scorpion but so i can totally imagine so that means the bottom of the plane is like basically a boat right and it has little things on the wings to keep it upright yeah so you know it just scratched it up a little i'm sure i'm sure but i can totally see how this thing could land with no landing gear and then you just like i'm not sure how you get the landing gear up once it's on i guess you get a forklift or something i don't know i have no idea dude aviation is freaky yeah so i watch a lot of like car guys on youtube and i watch some aviation people who like have their own private planes and and fly stuff with cars it scares me a little when guys

work on it but like it can only be so bad right yeah like a lot of the car guys i watch who work on their own stuff if they race they race at tracks with you know medical responders and safety people and if they're not racing they're a relatively responsible driver they're not like going out and driving 180 miles an hour on the highway yeah in a car that they built themselves or whatever but like i watch people who do that with airplanes and they're not you know like the car guy right like the greased up hands like in his garage like he's like i'll just slap together some duct tape the airplane guys are the same way. There's no way. Like, does the FAA, are they cool with that? Is that allowed?

Is that, because if a car fails, even if you're like going on the highway and your brakes fail or some catastrophic thing, you can steer off the road and try and hold it. And it's kind of dangerous, but it's mostly dangerous for you, hopefully. If you're in an airplane, there's no version of flying that's not dangerous.

There's no version of flying where like you're in the air and one of your ailerons stops responding or your engine starts sputtering and you're like, I'll just turn it into the ditch. No, man, you're some thousands of feet in the air and you might have passengers or you might crash into a house. Like God knows what. I just can't imagine how people do it. And this guy sounds like one of those guys.

After the first crash, he like, you know, lifted up up got the wheels back down and was like she's fine yes i checked it over it's fine totally fine doesn't need any maintenance or anything it's fine how is that allowed how is there not an investigation or like a team at the airport or wherever he's landing that's like okay well we have to look over this thing and be grounded for a few days while we figure out you know what went wrong yada yada yada it's just like the dude crash land like they came out to investigate it was like a scooby doozy where he's like picked up the plane and ran and hidden in a bush like how how seven times in a week yeah exactly so the reason i brought up the story and i think you've all gleaned the understanding is that you should never give up so i want stories

of you guys i want stories of you guys in or of things that you know and have found on the internet of situations where someone has never given up, even if it means they end in glorious failure. They never quit. They always followed their dreams. I don't care if they reach success or miserable, unending disappointment on those stories perseverance i like it and i'll give you some time to think about it because we need to hear from our sponsor i'm only finding positive stories about refusing to quit but i don't know if that's what i'm looking for i'm trying to think i usually am smart enough to give up i've never tried to do

anything come on guys come on why start now bob i'm looking i'm looking i'm trying to get over the trauma of understanding that that story is real and that that pilot is able to keep his license and that plane is able to take off crash your car there's like police and a tow truck and all the kinds of stuff that show up crash a plane it's just like ah you could just walk it off tim radio tower checks in you're right yeah i'm sorry you know i will also accept whatever the hell never give up makes you think of that's also an option makes me think of galaxy quest never give up never surrender you said those in two different accents the first one was like the the guy the alien guy and then the second one was like tim

allen tim allen never give up never surrender i may have brought this up to you guys, but this is unrelated. Have you seen Doom, but everything is Tim Allen? Doom? Like the game? The game Doom, but every image is replaced with a skewed image of Tim Allen's face. And every sound is replaced with a version of him going, Every bullet, every enemy. Doom, but Tim Allen.

Okay, wait. Doom, but Tim Allen. Okay, wait. Doom, but Tim Allen. It's amazing. Will, you have to look up the video, Doom, but Tim Allen, and replace some of the audio from that into this. Because no one will be able to appreciate it visually unless they look it up themselves.

But the audio is just... Even the bullets! Even yeah all every sound is a is a grunt it's everything it's amazing who put this much work into this good god it's incredible even the far oh my god everything everything everything everything everything i gotta stop listening to that i gotta break my brain god i love i love shit like that today with games like it's so much harder to mod things like that whereas like before like i used to go to modding sites all the time just to see what stupid funny mods that people could make like scientist slaughterhouse for half-life 1 is like one of my favorite mods just because it's so

ridiculous and funny and then there was a sound oh sound packs too just like anything that replaces the sound in a game just like that is so so goddamn funny i've got another one if you guys are having trouble i mean i've got some stuff yeah i guess i've got a couple things i guess i could just go yeah no you want me to yeah go yeah you can go for it i got a couple things i guess i could just go yeah no you want me to yeah go yeah you can go for it i got a couple things okay i guess i i mean this is exactly the plane guy story it's exactly the kind of story yeah that i like because it's so satisfying to me to see like i don't know what's the right word like just complete failure like a fully fleshed out failure yeah the fact that the plane sunk to the bottom of the lake is the

best way that that could have ended aside from everything going fine and like him you know maybe overcoming some obstacles no no no not that whatever that's boring yeah success is boring people who persist and succeed are boring but uh this like okay i have another i have another story i wish it was about me because i love this dude's chutzpah. But there's this man. We'll call him Troy. He was in his early 20s. He was out hiking.

He was attacked by a bear, which is crazy. And I don't know exactly how he responded to the bear. Ultimately came out unharmed, which is a miracle. I'm pretty sure if I was attacked by a bear i would die and get eaten yeah this dude whatever he did worked fought the bear off escaped i don't know this experience though sparked an interest in him that he would say he's trying to study the bears to learn how to be safe in an environment where bears are around and he's trying to study you know like how how would what

if this happens again what should people do i got lucky but what how can i learn from my experience he would tell you he went on to study bear safety and um look into that as a sort of research yeah what would you think he did live with bears sure uh completely turned his life around and went and lived on a boat away from bears where bears can't get them. Sure, sure, sure. Go to bear school. Bear school, yeah. Boat school.

Be adopted by a bear. Adopted by a boat. I don't know how boats played into this, but okay, okay. Adopt a bear. Adopting a bear would be pretty... By a boat? You really gotta find the right words, Wade. You gotta stay away from the bears they can't

get you on a boat bears can swim yeah i'm 90 sure bears can swim and boats are not that okay bears can swim but can they boat i'm 100 sure a bear could boat yeah given the access to a boat i'm sure that a bear could sit on top of a boat how they're gonna get up to put the ladder up anyway you go ahead with your story about the bears and the hike and hopefully there's a boat there better be a boat you know who likes your enthusiasm wayne troy likes your enthusiasm oh no you and troy maybe not on the same idea train but you're in the same idea train yard uh because uh this man when he says he's studying bear safety what he means is he's trying to figure out a way for him to be able to beat the shit out of a bear with his bare hands right pun intended

naturally troy had an epiphany when he was looking into this he was watching the movie robocop and he was he thought to himself man look how invincible that robotic cop is in his metal armor i bet a bear couldn't even get through that metal armor i bet that is the best thing you could do to protect yourself from a bear god damn it if t Troy didn't spend the next seven years and over $150,000 actual dollars constructing not one, not two, not three, but five versions of a suit of bear armor. Oh, he wasted hours and hours welding, soldering, hammering, whatever, slapping together a suit of bear armor. He got to mark five.

He almost lost his wife and son over this. Almost? He spent all of his money, no savings, no retirement account. The thing looks like what someone in a science fiction movie who's living in a scrapyard would make if they had to do a final boss fight of some sort. And they made like it looks shoddy it looks questionable sure but you know how troy figured out that it worked oh there's only one way to test bear armor you fight a bear

i should i should have known why i have a what am i stupid okay no well troy's smarter than that i misled you i misled you troy's smarter than that never misled you i misled you never mind then what is like a bear but easier to find uh deer that's stupid um no um wait wait polar bear raccoon wrong you're never gonna get there it's bikers obviously oh oh yeah like a bear that kind of bear because they both have b in the name troy hired a gang of bikers to come to his test site and try to hurt him with baseball bats two by fours fists any sort of blunt impact weapon no guns no knives or anything yeah nothing sharp thank god bears don't have sharp claws yeah he. He survived the bikers. Wow.

He needed another scientific test. Wait, how well did he survive? Did the bikers survive the test? That's the real question. He didn't even fight back. He just let them have at it and he was fine. Not a scratch. No problems.

Maybe a little concussion, but it's fine. What's the next test? Because he needs another test. This is science. All right. So he tested against human bears. So now he's got to step it up from there what's as big as a bear cars yes he tries to get hit by a car number two troy paid someone to hit him with a car not a scratch well actually if we're gonna be real some scratches but a car hit with a car wow and he guys stood

back up fine no big deal couple band-aids okay what's the third test we're not to bear levels of damage yet are we sure i don't think so i don't know a car seems like pretty bare level to me what is even more intense than a car train truck wait you know you know yeah uh the plane guy get hit by a plane no you got hit by a truck oh i do know what that's like yeah no gravity wait what gravity he had people throw him off a cliff survived did he he's fine after surviving a gang of bikers a car hitting him being thrown off a cliff and several more tests which are similarly stupid but not as comical more reasonable sorts of not interesting yeah we don't want to hear about that troy decided mark 7 the seventh suit of armor was it it was no longer a prototype this suit of armor

became known legendarily as the trojan i'm sure you've all heard of it that's what it is sure uh-huh the only problem and i hope to god his dream comes true the only problem troy has faced in his quest to solve bear safety once and for all is that he has yet been unable to find investors and or bear owners crazy enough to back him to help him set up an actual 1v1 cage match with a grizzly bear but there is hope someday some say troy should have quit by now some say troy should not have taken an idea from robocop while he was stoned daydreaming about his love of bear fighting and made it a reality some say hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on this project is just a hilarious and misguided attempt for this guy to really just get into a ring with a bear yeah some

say that i don't say that i think troy is following his dreams for people whose work environments require them to get close to bears i can only think of one job where that's a thing but you know bear handlers exist yeah this is probably of great interest to them he just needs to find the right investment the right the right group of people the right person who owns an insane bear you're absolutely right anyway i love i love his science i love his series of progression to get to the ultimate this is exactly what i was looking for because i'm looking at pictures of this guy and i'm looking at pictures of his armor and it looks like a really advanced cosplay suit.

I don't know how functional it is. And it says there's the Trojan ballistic suit of armor. And there's like escalating beyond just like bear fighting. And I have heard about this guy a long time ago. And it's just like it's exactly what I was hoping for. Because it's someone that really really believed in something. And put everything towards it, and then nothing came out of it. Like despite all the efforts, despite everything, just like

not getting there. But that's the spirit of never give up, even in the face of abject failure. It's beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. I think it's wonderful. I've uh, I don't have any that's singularly quite that good but i found a couple of interesting i went a different way you guys went inspirational like you know trying to do something interesting fighting a bear is not necessarily good but it's interesting i went straight to the heart of the criminal underworld to find my stories of perseverance all right okay sure the first story is of a man who apparently desperately needed some money because in like a two-day span he attempted i think five robberies yeah the first one he brought

a crowbar i think it was like a beauty salon or something tried to break in couldn't break in with the crowbar couldn't use it to break the glass or got scared off or something and took off later that morning went and broke into a pizza place i think it was a dominoes attempted to open a safe with a crowbar failed uh i think it was a few days later comes back with a cordless angle grinder i don't even know what an angle grinder is but it sounds like some kind of saw or something i'm guessing it's like a grinder it's a grinder basically yeah it's like got a small wheel on it spins real fast anyway continue he used the grinder to take the door off the safe and actually succeeded in getting some money out and for some reason a few days later didn't bring that tried to rob another safe with a crowbar and failed and he got caught and

you know went to jail whatever have you so that's the story of the safe robber however the second one this one i find a little bit more interesting which is why i saved it for last uh this was a man who was doing a crime spree trying to rob like small gas stations and small businesses like that that were still open so the first time he attempted to rob one he came in and he handed the clerk a note said put money in the bag i've got a gun yada yada but didn't produce a weapon so the clerk reaches down to put money in the bag and actually pulls out a shotgun and aims at the dude and tells him to get out and the dude just flees the next time which is uh i think this was a couple days it's unclear i think this is a couple days later it's pretty close he comes in he gets a pistol and he comes in and he aims a pistol at

the guy the guy gives him the money puts the money in the bag yeah the guy puts his weapon away turns around with the money in hand and as he's leaving he gets shot by a pistol in the leg as he's running away he went to the hospital ended up in jail gets out of jail i don't know a few years later and the first thing he does when he gets out is he goes to rob a place again this time he keeps his gun concealed as he approaches the business. And the business owner sees him on the TV approaching like as he's closing up shop. And as he's walking in, I guess he starts to reach for his gun. And the business owner sees that and shoots him three times. Dude turns around and runs away and gets caught.

And he tells police that the other guy should be in jail because, and I quote, I didn't even have my gun fully out yet it wasn't a fair fight uh that is excellent that is something like you could probably make a whole whole book about criminals that were just too stupid to give up like just like you didn't you didn't learn any lessons from the previous attempts like is this the same guy that didn't bring the angle grinder to the second safe like he had that in his garage he's like oh i want to stay light you know i might need to run just you've already been in prison for this and the first thing you do when you get out of prison is you go back to a place where you're maybe gonna get what a few hundred bucks like i don't know about you guys but every time i had to work retail we were only allowed to have so much

money in our like cashier thing and it wasn't much yeah and it's like is that few hundred bucks worth that prison time and the lesson not that i want to encourage criminals here but and it wasn't much yeah and it's like is that few hundred bucks worth that prison time and the lesson not that i want to encourage criminals here but the lesson wasn't to keep your gun concealed longer at the beginning it was to not conceal it after you got the money and for your excuse to be that the other dude committed the crime because he stopped you from the robbery ahead of time like what yeah he had all these. He was in prison for years. And the lesson learned. Oh man.

It hurts. Humanity hurts. No, it's beautiful. It's inspirational. It's someone that absolutely never gave up. It's someone who wouldn't quit. It's someone who wouldn't let things get them down. No matter what the circumstances.

They couldn't quit. They couldn't quit. It's also like semi-related to addictions. I don't know if you could be addicted to robbing things, but it seems like this guy might be. I know someone who's addicted to robbing things. Who's addicted to robbing things? Uh, young man by the name of Darius.

Darius. That's not going to get you to him. I thought you were going to start singing YMCA when you said young man. I'm not going to lie. I didn't even say it with the right inflection. I know, but I thought it was a setup. I said a young man, not a young man. Listen, this guy has a problem.

Had a problem. He probably still has it. He wants to be a conductor, a trained conductor. This dude wanted nothing more in life than to be the driver of a New York City subway, which is, you know, that's probably a great job. Probably kind of, you know, difficult, long hours. I don't know, that's probably a great job. Probably kind of, you know, difficult, long hours. I don't know. There's probably downsides, but like you work for the city. It's very consistent. The subway always needs to run. There are worse things to

aspire to. Darius was dead set on it, but I feel like there were a couple issues that really prevented him from fully realizing his dream. Not least of which is no one told him how to go about doing it. And I'm not sure, like, maybe he looked it up. Maybe he wasn't interested in, I don't know if you need specific education. I'm sure there's a pathway to, like, getting the right training. You start, I don't know.

Sure, there's some pathway to be like, I want to drive these trains. How do I get there? Darius decided he was just going to do it himself. By the age of five, he had memorized the entire New York subway system. He was fascinated with the subway, with the trains, where they went, why they went there, how the stations were organized.

Yeah. At the age of 15, he was devastated that his deep knowledge and understanding of the subway system didn't earn him more respect from his fellow youths. He was, I guess, kind of an outcast you could say because lived in the city they he and his friends used the subway they never needed a map they could just ask darius they didn't find that very impressive at some point feeling maybe a little sad isolated let down by his colleagues darius just said to himself fuck this i'm not waiting anymore why was he cursing at such a young age well actually he wasn't cursing

which we'll get to he decided he was just gonna start driving the trains he was just gonna do it bold who was gonna stop him no one he knew how it worked he intimately knew the controls knew the routes knew how to stop the station where the braking points were all this stuff the only thing when young darius stole the e-train the age 15. The only thing that gave him away is that the passengers were really suspicious that the guy driving the train was doing an excellent job, wasn't swearing at them or being rude, that he was being completely polite, cordial, respectful, and perfectly executing his duties.

Obviously, he was 15 years old. He's not an adult. Eventually, someone looked in there and was like, Oh no, that's a kid i don't think we employ children to drive these trains oh no he was caught he was relieved of duty a professional was put back into the whatever cab yeah pilot's house i don't know what it's called this did not discourage dairies of course not no he would drive trains he never gives up never ever gave up how many trains would you guess young darius captained during his illustrious non-career for the new york city subway system three before i answer that question what year is this oh that's a good point it's a

good point this took place in the 90s i do not have a specific year i'm gonna say four now that i know it's 94 so those are like pre-cell phones pre-smartphones this is the era of like pay phones and and you know so you know radio is the main thing the reason i ask is because like less monitoring cameras i was wondering if people could see him getting there what kind of automation there was so there's probably no automation there so he would be able to slip in wherever there was a spot to slip in right so i'm gonna guess like a bigger number i'm gonna guess he did like 30 well we're not doing prices right rules so i'm gonna have to give it to mark for being closer uh you did go over but during his non-career i object we should do price of right rules darius drove 26 different trains over the course a multiple of two which

is half of four i think i was closest nailed it you nailed it but i know i win because i was the exact number that wade guessed away from my guess well as the host i'll determine who wins this in a little bit hey whoa you shushed your wall there i was gonna give you a lot of points then you started encroaching on my territory here but watch yourself oh yeah marks the host i forgot darius was only arrested and incarcerated 19 times for his 26 total journeys my main question in this is one it's a fine job i don't think that's a very coveted job i don't think anyone who drives the subway is like i can't believe i got this gig no all these benefits the hot tub right next to the steering wheel for the train or whatever trains have no no like you could have

done that dude you probably need i don't even know you probably need a high school diploma some certifications or trainings and they're like yeah drive the train whatever god just leave me alone i hate this job yeah god but my second thing is are trains just left unattended was this a 90s thing i imagine the traditional way that uh uh you know the guy in charge of the train is tagged out as some other adult in a uniform who looks like a train guy train conductor comes and is like hey steve i'm up have a good night and he's like all right gary uh she's doing good no major issues enjoy your train driving yeah like some guy was just like god my replacement's not here and i must leave i hope no one steals this train

i imagine there's not normally much fear of a train being stolen because you know where the hell it's gonna be it's not like you're gonna go hide it in your garage it's gonna be on the someone just hops in there and yoinks the thing trying you could derail subways aren't just like i'm sure they are now but back then i'm sure you could derail it you could kill hundreds of people yeah cause huge issues like if even if someone didn't want to steal the train they just saw it and were like yoink and then left and the train was just like you know full speed ahead crashing down the track yeah that's just a horrific safety issue yeah how many times do you think that, like, there's a guy in his underwear tied up in a closet

with a gag in his mouth, and then this kid shows up with really baggy clothes and a low-pulled hat. He's like, where's Scott? I gave him the day off. Oh, okay. I have a good one! That was a really fucking weird comic the other day of um it was a kid it was

like a small kid talking to an adult but the kid has parts of uh like tan coats coming out of every orifice like sleeves and things coming out of mouth and ears yeah and the kid is talking to the adult they have some adult exchange where the adult is like oh okay adult and like you know the next frame the kid character like looks at the camera it's like then believe me i'm actually two trench coats in a kid that's so stupid okay but i i can see where that's equally stupid as this is my point i guess i can i can see where the obsession of these kind this is my point i guess i can i can see where the obsession of these kind of things come from because you know you got the train kid who like played with trains all his childhood and he just loves trains he got like the horse girl who just

loves horses just like can't can't stop thinking about horses and then you have the people that take it to an extreme like the people that rob the trains and try to run or you have like that horse girl that tries to run on all fours like eat the horse oh i don't think so because they would respect the horse too much but have you seen like the horse running girl i forget what the name of this is yes yes yes yeah it's just like the way that she walks and runs is it's so inhuman that it's kind of terrifying you know what i mean you have to like pet her head and give her a carrot and say, easy there, girl. I mean, this video has a lot of music, but it's just like, I don't know what it is, but it's like this kind of compulsion that hits some people where they're like, I have to do this thing and I don't care what it looks like, how stupid it is,

but it's exactly that same kind of idea. It's like, never give up. This person literally practiced running like a horse. We did an Unisonis video about this, literally practiced running like a horse. We did an Unisonis video about this. Literally practiced running like a horse until they could gallop on all fours at speed, at pretty impressive speed. Like if you look this up, it's not unimpressive of what they're doing. And I don't know what that does for your spine or long-term posture problems

or wrist problems or ankle problems, but wow, you know- It'll just make her into glue when she dies. or ankle problems, but wow, you know- Yeah, let's make her into glue when she dies. But you gotta respect- you gotta respect the hustle, you gotta respect the never give up attitude. That's what it's all about! All of us at some point have pursued something incredibly stupid that we know was dumb, or maybe we didn't know it was dumb but we kept chasing after it until everyone around us were so aghast that we could possibly have the audacity to pursue this inane dream. It's like we all have to have that one dream that is so insane.

And only the brave of us actually pursue it. What's that for you? That's a good question. I'm trying to think. I'm sure I have one. I'm trying to think of mine. I'm sure I have one, too. Yeah.

I mean, it was probably me trying to swallow things whole as much as possible, know eating wrong my entire life and i just kept going at it but i don't want to say that because i talked about that already you know uh i'm ambitionless no dreams no goals no dreams no goals just continued existence yeah everyone got real mad when i decided i was gonna try and stay alive hey but you know what you did it i did here you are i made it yeah here you are here i don't know this makes me feel ambitious list we've talked about this before yeah i mean there must be something there must be something because it makes me kind of question myself because like there's so many people that are like so consumed by a dream and there's things that like i want to do like i'm trying to learn korean again really hard and but i think i don't think i'm

a stupid for trying to do that. You know, like as far as like random ass hobbies go. Oh, you know what? I've got one. You got one? Now that I'm an adult, technically, I look back and I question this, not because I question why I did it, but even I think it's a little much. Do you guys ever do midnight game releases?

Oh, yeah. A couple times. Yeah, absolutely. guys ever do midnight game releases oh yeah a couple times yeah absolutely i specifically remember for halo 2 i got the special edition the silver metal tin edition that had like came with some extra features an extra disc or something and uh and some documentation and it came with some other like poster and stuff and i don't know why my parents put up with this i think my dad is is also kind of a nerd. And so I guess he just got it and was being supportive.

But my dad took me as a kid in my, I think, middle school or high school to the midnight release of Halo 2 on like a school night. Hell yeah. To a normal person who's not a gamer. That's probably like cringy, dumb, hilarious, like, oh, this loser sort of stuff. Yeah. But even to me now as a gamer like i've kind of done that in the age of digital releases i've totally been like oh this game comes

out at like uh you know like one in the morning my time yeah i mean i'll stay up and play it for a little bit before i you know before school or something in the morning but why did i go to the midnight release i didn't get to stay up all night playing the game I had school in the morning yeah I literally got we got home from that in the car in the garage and I was like staring down at looking at everything I had gotten we got inside and then dad was like all right go to bed yeah damn it god the that reminds me like my time in World of Warcraft was kind of like that where I pursued really dumb things uh to an extreme like there was one time when i spent i think it was eight weeks straight that i had to do of uh doing these fishing quests to get the title of salty so that's it that's it by your

name there is just a word that says salty and then my character's name and that was it but there's one achievement in there that is literally called insane it's a title and to get it like all the achievements that i had to do to get salty that was only a small part of the overall number of achievements that you had to get to get insane and this is during wrath of the lich king and our guild leader bip shout out to bip wherever you are he literally spent every single spare moment that he was in the game working on getting this achievement it took him like a year to get but he got it and then his reward was just like okay literally your title is now bip the insane and so but people respected that like it's crazy it's it's insane to go for that there's no reason to do it for one word by your name but

people are willing to do that because humans are bored and we there's no reason to do it for one word by your name but people are willing to do that because humans are bored and we've got nothing better to do okay well that sounds pretty cool actually that's pretty cool yeah that's a long time yeah work on it oh yeah i spent like three days on new world killing turkey so i could have a turkey terminator by my name i mean that's a small piece of it that's exactly the idea 100 pigs and i got baconator i still have the title of baconator oh you got baconator yeah that's a good title turns out there's a place up in uh this is not important there's a place where you can farm pigs really easily later on but people look at things like that and they always are like oh no

that's not worth it or i'd have to be crazy to do that and then someone does it and they are crazy but they did it and you have to respect that drive and for them there is a reward at the end of it there is a title but for some people they pursue things and there is absolutely no reward for it you know no matter how far down the rabbit hole you go you know it's it's just like one of those things where you know it's kind of like a dream is only insane until you achieve it right sure isn't that kind of like the the lesson to be learned here like the kind of thing of you don't know when to never give up because you you you don't know if you're going to succeed but also if you never give up then the only way that you fail is by giving up

you may not succeed but the only way to fail is to give up and so the idea of just like never giving up you never give up you always push forward so you're saying the day i watch the pay-per-view of troy versus wiggles the grizzly bear uh troy will no longer be insane he'll just be a genius who followed his dreams well about that i hate to say it troy hurt to be died in 2018 so oh no that's sad what got him oh no he uh he was not a bear that got him uh apparently was a a vehicle accident so oh should have been wearing the trojan the armor not the condom hey you should have been wearing a condom you would have been fine safety first everyone safety for 99 protection that does disappoint a little but the trojan

exists it does where is the trojan and who's gonna fight a bear in it yeah exactly that is the question in his honor they better fight the bear in that armor with an erection and a trojan condom on too yeah exactly if you can maintain the erection throughout the fight you get bonus points you get another achievement you get a title just like troy the turgid yeah dude in in england they have some titles you can be knighted and whatever yeah yeah i think america should start mmo rpg style title system absolutely there are series of things you can do to get the title of bob the Insane officially on your driver's license. Absolutely. Ah, Davey the Fucknut.

I love it. I want Turkey Terminator in real life. Turkey Terminator. I made turkeys I gotta go get. All right. So I'm going to bring this to a close. This was an excellent discussion. We really got to the heart of it.

It was a little bit difficult to get there, but we really did it and uh thank you tabulating the points and uh the winner is bob by a absolute crushing landslide of 15 to 4 now look now that i can't disagree with the result but my dream is for you to overturn these results and i will pursue it to the end of this sentence all right man did you just give up yes i think by definition he did he reached the end of the sentence you had to keep the sentence going man well you still didn't i did at the core meaning of this uh podcast episode so bob congratulations always give up you have won i'm proud of you for never giving up throughout this whole episode some Some dreams aren't worth it. What do you have to say for yourself?

I feel like this is the first thing I've ever accomplished. Wow. I think I really put myself out there. I think I really dug deep inside and I shared what I dug out of myself with you guys and took credit for the amazing stories of other people's lives. And that has led me to victory. They weren't amazing. They were pretty terrible

and they should have given up. What awful dreams. If you've seen pictures of this dude's armor, it is amazing. And I love it. I'm going to Google Troy's Trojan and I better not regret it. I may have to issue a correction.

This article says that it was not $150,000. It was $15,000. There may have been a typo in the other information I was reading. All right. Well, I have to retract all points from Bob and then no. then no all right well thank you everybody so much for listening at home hope you guys have your own crazy dream that you're never going to give up on uh and so long as it doesn't hurt anyone else hey you keep trying that crazy dream you keep trying don't fly a plane if

you don't know how to fly a plane you shit that is fair advice unless your dream is to fly actually don't don't even bother thank you have dreams it's nicer that way i live a great existence remember to follow subscribe like this podcast wherever you're listening to so you can tune in and be notified of whenever we upload a new podcast you can find bob at my skirm on facebook where he streams regularly and wade at minion 77 on twitch and lord minion 77 on 777. Okay, now at least I understand why the signing got my name wrong years ago. You don't even know my username. On YouTube.

Thank you again. Podcast out. 7-7. Close enough. Like that guy landing the plane. Ah, close enough. Got the landing gear. Close enough.

We're on the ground.