Distractible - The Burls [Bonus Episode]

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

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Good evening, gentle listener, and welcome to Distractable. Join me in a huzzah for the gents' first bonus episode. Huzzah! This week, Mark reveals the dire challenges of the Redwood Rangers. Ten Fingers Bob bounds into burrows and tortures beautiful wood. Wade admits his dad is made of herpes and insists all carpenters are chewing their faces off. From meth addicts to mortality from tree attacks. Yes, it's time for The Burns. Now sit back and prepare to be distracted and enjoy the show. March 31st, 2023. Did we ever air the video episode thing of us talking about the thieves in the Redwoods?

It was a live, and I believe those are all unavailable. Oh, didn't we record it at the same time? Yes, we did. Isn't it here on this software that we're using? Somewhere? Good luck finding it, it's called distractible live from months ago oh that bit about the knots in the redwoods was good mark yes yes i was transitioning back from it yes

if we'll come away to that and then we brought it back and really landed it back in now. Actually, I think that was like a 30-minute bit, so I don't know. I don't know if that could be put in there. Was that there? Yes. No, it was like half of an entire live that we did. The Burls. The Burls.

The Burls. Isn't that in the Distractible Go Discord? Aren't we called the burls the burls the burls that's isn't that in the distractible to go discord aren't we called the burls yeah we are role it was such a that's why that is influential thing and i'm like if if that just got fit in there and will found it you just had half your episode taken care of bob you don't need to i don't even need to be here done thank you so much for listen watching was i i have zero recollection of any of this you really don't remember the whole bit about the meth addicts and stealing the burls and going going to rob a house because you thought they had burls or something it was a whole thing we went down well they just watched it they know yeah the people definitely saw it right well

this sounds like something i wasn't even present for you were there you were on video there's proof that it was you was this at the couch at the place no it was not in person it was i was alive we did uh from our homes on this platform right here at the Riverside. Oh, that's great. July 19th, 2022. The strange underground economy of tree poaching. I hear those are hard to catch. Yes. Dude, I bury my wood sometimes too.

Wait, wait. Oh, yeah. I'll be here till they replace me, everyone. So people have been poaching trees. On the morning of March 27, 2018, rangers from Redwood National and State Parks put on their bulletproof vests and jumped into their cars. Their destination wasn't far, a house in the small town of Oreck, California.

The same town as the park headquarters where the rangers are based. Pulling up to the house, they grabbed their AR-15s, guns in hand, they pounded on the door, shouting they had a search warrant. One of the residents opened the door and the rangers began searching the premises. Two of them rounded the property and went into the backyard where there was a shed, holding their semi-automatic rifles up, ready to shoot. They entered the shed and found their suspect, Derek Hughes, who said, quote, if you shoot me, you're going to have all hell to pay. Whoa.

What does Derek know? He knows where the wood be. The handcuffs. He doesn't know where the wood be. He buried his wood too, Wade. I know. Maybe you're part of this crime syndicate here. The park rangers handcuffed Hughes, searching the premises, they found brass knuckles, a handgun, a camera they suspected was stolen from the park, a plastic bag with traces of methamphetamine, and four meth pipes.

But the rangers weren't there for any of that. They continued searching for what they were really looking for and scattered along a fence under a tarp and in a woodworking shop they found it chunks of illegally poached redwood so what has been happening is people have been poaching pieces of redwood which i believe the entire forest the redwood national National Forest, is all protected. All of those trees are protected. So stealing any of it is extremely bad, such to the point that park rangers will pull up with rifles ready to shoot you because of that.

I don't know why the quote is, if you shoot me, you're going to have all hell to to pay because that's quite a statement. I feel like that's got a lot of stuff behind it. The entire forest will be after you. Yeah that. Redwoods do travel in packs. God give me like Ents from Lord of the Rings come out but Redwoods

This isn't just any tree we're holding. It's the Treebassador's daughter. You all try to protect us but if we don't poach the weak, the redwoods overall are weakened. Yeah, pretty much. I'm trying to read more into it. Apparently, they are after a specific part of the tree called the burl. Anus.

Oh, okay. Basically. Burl anus. Oh, okay. Basically. So, Bergeron describes burls as big, gnarly bumps on the trees that are covered in bark. And they form after the tree has experienced a bit of distress. Bergeron says, sometimes that means a fungal infection or a lightning strike, or maybe they survived a fire.

And the burl is a tree directing all of its resources into healing that area. And in doing so, it creates a burrow that holds a lot of genetic information. My death is made out of redwood herpes. Go on, Mark. And often new trees will sprout from the burrow because it contains a lot of genetic material. But burrows may be important to health of trees, but they're also financially valuable, sometimes fetching thousands of dollars for a slab. Because they produce this really lovely piece of grained wood that's very easy to carve because it's smooth.

You don't get blemishes or knots. People turn them into tables, sculptures, and statues. They have been used in luxury goods made abroad, like in the consoles of cars. Wow. So all of this, all the guns, all the meth, all of the drama

is for tables. Is the meth part of it? I think the meth might be part of it. You gotta do meth to get into this industry. It's easier to sand a table if you're on meth. Everyone knows this. Everyone knows this. If you're going to work in woodworking, you better be high as shit before you operate those machines. All woodworkers are on meth.

We're getting to the bottom of the truth here. You heard it here first. That distractible lie. If you touch a wood, you touch a drug. You want to make it to table you better suck it to crystal I'm trying to channel Wade here you got me beat on the one line this like quote unquote

Italian mobster that's like the gang boss trying to give a lesson it's me the mobster that's like the gang boss trying to give a lesson to steal? It's me. The mobster boss. Oh. You think you can climb a tree without meth?

I tell you. Tell you what's what. Is that two pipes, Johnny? You call me Ten Fingers Bob. Robert's not a very good mobster name. Bob's only okay, but at least it's shorter. Oh, anyway. So they have been dealing with this rising in crime for the last 15 years.

rising in crime for the last 15 years. Back then, in the beginning, it was just theft of dead logs, like redwood logs that they would poach and just drag out of the forest. It was basically just lying there, still not okay. And they weren't chopping down live streams. But now it's like a hit-and-run operation where they spot the burrows, they see burrows, and they go for it with chainsaws and axes, and they get the burls out, and then they pile them on a truck, and then whoosh, they're out. For a couple thousand per burl, like, I can definitely see how people would be

incentivized. If people are stealing catalytic converters, and they're stealing pipes out of houses, like, a piece of a tree probably seems like oh that would be less serious nope park rangers bulletproof vests ar-15s rolling up to your house taking all your meth you ain't gonna have no meth you ain't gonna have no burls i feel like i don't know if there is but i feel like there should be downstream consequences for this situation what you go to a boutique woodworking shop, and there's a brand new Redwood coffee table just sitting there. Park Ranger walks in and is like, Hey, is that Redwood?

Oh, well, are you a cop? You can't lie. That depends. Are you a cop? I know that there are ways that a person can still get redwood for that purpose that are like legal like if it's salvaged from a building if it's already chopped down and used you can like salvage it or whatever but this whole thing over thousands i mean thousands of dollars is not nothing but this is a lot of this is a whole cottage industry of weird

who needs a table that bad and how i don't know it's just weird to me it is it is very strange what it all amounts to go redwood it's a very addictive wood it's hard to go with any other one after that the real driver here is the the woodworkers once they touch the redwood once they've worked with the burl. They refuse to work with the other type. They just can't stand any other wood in their hands. Yeah, that's where the addiction starts. Meth's the only thing that can

cut the edge of that. Meth gets them from burl to burl. You ever come across a woodworker who looks really haggard and out of it it's been too long since he's burled. That's one of the ways the park rangers are able to detect this, is they come in with photographs of the trees, and if the guys start itching their necks when they see the burl, they know.

They actually have a little glass vial of a sample of burl, and they walk up and pop it open, and they're like, huh? Did I do anything for you? Huh, you little burl head? I'm just not knowing what you want. I mean, people will always, I guess, if it's, especially

because it's off limits, there's always going to be guys who are like, God, I want a rhinoceros horn on my wall. I don't know why, I just need it. You walk in, you see the mounted rhinoceros and there's just part of a tree on a plank yeah there's just a big burl untouched just sawed off of a tree and hung on the wall

i got that one back in 74 people always do that shit but that i mean it's it's wood redwoods are cool have you guys been to like the redwood forest or like mere woods in the bay or anything i saw a picture beautiful it's crazy they're huge but um can you just get a redwood seed and then just grow your own tree yeah they sell they sell little saplings uh actually in my at our house we have two redwoods in the front in the backyard and one in the front yard that are like you have any burls not yet but i going to start torturing the shit out of those trees. Make some goddamn burls. Go out there with a car battery. Come on.

Talk to me. Daddy needs his burl. But yeah, this is just a weird one. I will say, though, there's a little history. We've been to Muir Woods a couple times. It's in the Bay Area. There's a little history. We've been to Muir Woods a couple times.

It's in the Bay Area. I can't imagine. I know in the 19th century and in the beginning of the country, everyone was looking for anything where it's like, oh, well, we need resources. We need to expand. We're just trying to survive. But people got out here, and there were redwoods that are like 30 feet across. It's a tree that's the side the the length of a truck

and hundreds of feet tall and like you look at that huge fucking tree and you're like oh i gotta destroy that that's gotta become like a dozen houses and sure you need the wood i get that but how could you destroy something that's so fucking incredible and like awe-inspiring when you look at it and you're like how did this grow it's a plant and it's you know it's like the biggest one of the bigger organisms on the whole planet these big ass trees that are insane but isn't you know it's a different time i would go over to your buddy and you're just like i wonder what kind of sound that makes when it hits the ground. If a tree falls and there's no poachers in the forest,

does it really make us money? Go over to your buddy and you're like, hey, I saw that raccoon we were chasing. He's up that one. We gotta take him down. And then you just attack the whole tree. One time. What they found out was the best way to get the

other trees burrowing was to cut down one in the middle and make them all watch this one's the mom they're all gonna burl out of grief if we kill this one well what's crazy too is they didn't have like power tools right so they're that there are pictures of dudes with the world's longest saws standing on top of red. It was just like 30 guys axing and sawing at the base of a tree that was bigger than a whale. And eventually it fell over. It's kind of impressive, I guess. But also, maybe cut down some...

You could have cut down like 100 normal-sized trees in the time it must have taken to cut down the one largest tree you could find in the forest. How do you move a downed redwood? Are they only taking the burrows, or are they taking the whole tree? No, you like, you mill it there, right? It falls over in place, and then you basically cut chunks off and take those away. Can't, it's not like floating a log down a river where you can...

Are they putting them in trucks, or do they have like helicopters with like those big nets in it that that move the Tyrannosaurus in? I think they use donkeys or just manpower. It's not a joke. I think they use pack animals to drag them out or humans to just carry them out. Like a lot of people or animals.

Yeah. I was looking up how many people die from getting hit by a falling redwood because I imagine it had to happen. Probably all of them. Well, if you just put your hands up and catch it, it won't kill you. All right, Wade, you try that. You try that.

That's why everyone does that in movies. You know what saves you. That'll stop it. You break the fall with your arms. Or run directly away from it as fast as you can, you'll make it. Just make sure you stay in the shadow of it as you're running. How many people died, Mark? So 21 people a year die in the Redwood National Forest.

Only six of those are from car crashes. So the rest of those are either from animal attacks or tree attacks. Or people attacks. Or what? People attacks. No, that going to guess. Or what? People attacks. No, that doesn't happen. Why would that happen?

There's got to be like Redwood Ronnie that lives out there. Just like, are you approaching? Redwood Ronnie. Redwood Ronnie, the menace of the national forest. Are you coming for my, what are they called? Bumples? My burls. My burls. We've said it so many times.

I know, I'd already forgotten. My burl. You burling, man. You burling. You get away from my bumples. Ronnie, they're called burls. I call them bumples. Who's Redwood Ronnie?

Me. Maybe. Who's Redwood Ronnie and who's honey? Which one of us lives out here? That's how he points. Yeah. Anyway, so the last fatality from a falling redwood that I can see was in 2019. So they died while walking on a marked dirt trail.

So it was a normal trail in the park north of San Francisco, famous for its towering trees, according to the Marin County Coroner's Office. I don't know what would be left if you got hit by a redwood. I feel like that is the most obliteration you could probably experience. Yeah, I mean, it really... So, I will say, a lot of the oldest growth ones were cut down,

but there are still a lot of big ones. But there are also a lot of redwoods that range from six inches to maybe a couple feet that aren't insanely huge yet. So it would depend. Because I feel like if a foot wide one hit you, it would sort of just... Oh, it doesn't take much. Turn your middle 60% into some human jam. But if like a whole big ass one,

you would return to the earth. Really. We had an ice storm like man, probably sometime during high school, there was a big ice storm that we had during spring break one year. And I know there was a person outside in their yard and just like a normal tree, because of

the weight of the ice, it broke off a branch when they were outside and the branch landed on them and killed them. And that was just like a normal tree. Redwood, weight of the ice, it broke off a branch when they were outside, and the branch landed on them and killed them, and that was just like a normal tree. Redwood, I imagine, it would take a lot less. Yeah, one branch from a redwood is like a tree itself. Well, I think it's more like the height that it probably falls from because of the acceleration hitting you more so than... Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, it doesn't take much. It'll obliterate you maybe, but just to kill you. The ultimate pile driver would be like a 300-foot redwood, and you're standing exactly where the tip would hit. So you angle yourself. You use your trigonometry to be able to know the triangle distance, and then you wait for it, and you find the right spot, and that would have maximum acceleration to really slam you into the dirt.

And then you stand as straight as possible. It would have less mass that far up because it'd be so skinny. But it'd be like a whip. Those things are bendy. If you ever stand in a redwood forest and stand under them, they, the tops, move back and forth so much.

Like tens of feet. So that thing on the way down would just be like what like crazy whipping you know acceleration mathematicians and chat calculate on average which part of the Redwood would obliterate you the most to fall on you that'd be great do you sound like a force graph yeah three good namah's gotta be like uh yeah exactly there's got to be a point where too far is less force but there's a sweet spot somewhere there golden ratio bullshit

i don't know if this is for you guys but part of my motivation for wanting to like win a podcast game is i'm not gonna drop a name but when we were getting it organized before we had launched uh the company would l for q code someone who was working helping us get it set up is i'm not going to drop a name but when we were getting it organized before we had launched uh the company would l for q code someone who was working helping us get it set up was reaching out to other podcasts people and was like hey would you want to like collab or be a guest or whatever and one uh one in particular we got feedback on who's like a very successful podcast the host they they presented us to the host and this person was like oh no oh fuck no no way get that no i don't want to be involved and so like i'm not gonna say your

name but to you particular who i know who you are fuck you and also your dreams and your dreams and your nightmares yes yeah it was literally i think the quote was um i think i think i think i was named in the quote because only markiplier the youtuber yeah no fucking way and so this is why we are to all the people in the podcast world fuck your dreams fuck your nightmares we're coming for you we're coming for you we're gonna take your burls all your. I'm going to have a burl table in every room after this. When we win at podcasts, I'm going to have so many burls. We're the lightning that's going to strike your content and make you burl up. The poachers are coming.

Whoa, you mad, bro? You burling? You burling, bro? Calm down. Dude, I got burls all over my penis. I don't know what happened. It's looking a little burly. She said there was no static electricity.

Anyway, so I think this will probably, we could probably bring this live stream to a close. Yeah, get out of here. Fake podcast out. All right, bye. See you next week. See you next week probably ok I'm clicking it we'll see what happens