Good Job, Brain! - 204: Go West

Episode Date: July 11, 2018

Gather up your wagon and get ready to move out west into the world of kooky and spectacular trivia and quizzes. Don't die of dysentery because as it turns out, there are a whole lot more ways to die along the real Oregon Trail as Chris found out. Dana's got a westward quiz, and Karen celebrates the weird and offbeat inventions conjured up in her San Francisco quiz. Colin, the word nerd, blows our mind with a moooooving story about cattle, and we end with a triply translated "Western" movie quiz. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to an Airwave Media podcast. Hello, hodgepodge of honey's holograms and honchos hollering for hoot and nanny. Welcome to Good Job Brain, your weekly quiz show and offbeat trivia podcast. This is episode 204, and I'm your humble, host Karen, and we are your irrefutably irreplaceable and irresistible, irregulars, irradiating iridescence. I'm Colin. I'm Dana.

And I'm Chris. I was wondering if you guys have been watching some HBO recently. A lot. Yeah. I am very behind because I have a newborn, so I've been studiously avoiding Westworld spoilers and Silicon Valley spoilers. and if it's on HBO, I've been avoiding spoilers for it. Maybe real sports with Bryant Gumbull.

Oh, yeah. The one thing I have not been avoiding is a scintillating appearance by our host on the Crossword Tournament Special. Yes. I was in a segment of, it's not like I got interviewed. You finally got onto a sports television show. I am on a sports television show. But not for your sport. No. Real Sports with Brian Gumbull is the HBO show, and they did a segment on Will Shorts, the New York Times crossword editor and legend, and they filmed stuff at the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament that I went to. I was in a giant pencil suit.

It certainly looked like you were the only costume person there as well. I think that you had said that you anticipated a little bit more crossword cosplay than you found. Yeah, I mean, there were a lot of people in, like, crossword, like, sweaters and dresses. They thought that they were dressing up. Yeah, and I thought people were really going to go all out. Maybe next year they will. Yeah, hopefully. It's more fun.

But also, you have to keep in mind that, like, part of the competition you're kind of squeezed in, so you have to be very considerate of your costume. Right. You know, so a pencil kind of worked because I was very slim. Yeah. Yeah, I'm not sure where they're going to take this from here. The pencil, I mean, that's the, that's your obvious go-to. Well, so here. costume. I've actually, you know, while I was brainstorming for costumes, some of things that are, I think, very appropriate for the American Crossword puzzle tournament would be an Oreo, because an Oreo is a very, very popular, like, very popular clue. Because they're good letters. Oh, R-E-O. You can be, so I was thinking of wearing shorts that says will all over them. And so I'm like, Will Shorts.

Why would you give that away? Oh, what's too clever? It's okay. It's okay. Next time. Well, maybe a whole bunch of people will show up in Will shorts. Yeah. Actually, the night before of the actual competition, you know, there's like a nice get-together dinner, you know, with all the competitors and all the past champions and the organizers.

And I actually devised a shirt. There are a lot of weird bird names, crossword clues, like urns or, you know, there are a lot of them because they're good letters. And one of the birds is the tit bird And so I thought it was so clever So I made my own t-shirt And I put two tit birds on the front And I kind of wore it to dinner I'm like oh surely people will know what I am

And no one knew They don't know what it looks like Oh maybe that's true It's just it's a game of code at a certain level You don't need to know what it's like it's like Scrabble players Scrabble players don't know what the words mean they just know that it is a valid word crossword

crossword puzzle is a step up you actually do have to know what the word means but you don't need to know what it looks like right right you could use sydney potier's name for 30 years on crossword and not be able to pick him out of a photo of two people so uh check it out it's on uh real sports with bryan gumble has a very good segment it talks about will shorts it talks about puzzling and in competition aspect the kind of sportsmanship of the competition. It was very wise and very inspiring, especially because the two other segments of that episode

were kind of depressing. So this was a little bit uplifting at the end of that episode. You're the feel good. Check it out. Yeah, I was the feel good coda to that episode. Cool. Well, without further ado, let's jump into our first general trivia segment, pop quiz, hot shot.

What do we got? We got. Do you guys want Genus 4 or music singles? Music singles. I'm going to vote for genus 4. I like the grabbed. Okay.

Dana, you're the tiebreaker vote. You know, we'll just use the other card for the next time. Let's do music this time. Okay, music singles. Here we go. I have... And Colin, you'll get your wish in one week's time. Oh, yeah.

So get your buzzers ready. Listeners, get your mental buzzers ready. or your car honking horn. Honk the horn. Honk the horn. You have the car real loud, yeah. Just lean on that sucker. Here we go.

Blue Wedge. What band was Jim Morrison asked to join before the doors were formed? Oh, that's a good trivia question. Chris. The Rolling Stones. Incorrect. He was based in LA.

I've never heard of this band. Oh, really? Okay, okay, okay. Wow. I've also not heard of it. of many bands. So it really gives us nothing. Yeah.

Yeah. It is the Beatles. I'm, I don't know this one. That's it. Steppenwolf. It is. What is it? What is it?

Rick and the Ravens. Huh. Okay. Wow. No, that's a mistake. I do not. It's not ringing a bell for me. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Maybe if you're a hardcore doors fan. Not in the punch bowl. I'm going to have to look up Rick and the Ravens and see if maybe they turned into somebody else or something. All right, that's a good one. All right. Pink Wedge. What Shakira hit Dethrown Gwen Stefani's

Hollaback Girl as the most played pop song in June of 2006. Name a hit, Dana. The Hips don't Lie? Correct. Hips don't Lie. Featuring White Clef Jeanne.

Yellow Edge, What Grammy Award recognizes in artists' overall past and present achievements? Oh, so it's like what is the name of their lifetime? Achievement Award, basically. They have a special brand.

What is the Grammys? I know the Academy Award won, but I don't know the Grammy. I'll throw you in a clue. This is what Disney Corporation also gives out this title to people for their past and present. Really? Huh. Hmm. The Disney Award.

Yeah. Oh, Chris. No, that was Colin. Sorry. The Grammy. master. It is the legend. Oh, Lord.

Okay. All right. Lavender Wedge. Ooh. What type of rap comes out of southern U.S. cities such as Houston,

Birmingham, in Miami? What kind of, what year was this card written? Are they looking for like, Outcast?

Really? Are they looking for? That's L.A. Oh, Kronk is L.A. What are they looking for? It's a dirty south. Yeah. Yes.

Oh, okay. All right. Dirty South. Yeah, all right. Dirty South. Yeah. All right. Lime Green Wedge.

What famous tropical rock singer is also an author, restaurant tour, and clothing entrepreneur, and also a Broadway entrepreneur. Oh, my goodness. Oh, sorry. What? I think everyone. Yes. It's Jimmy Buffet. James.

James Buffet. James Buffet. James. Jameson. Jameson Buffet. What was a restaurateur? So it says, author. author and clothing

and clothing, okay, of course. I added the Broadway musical. Got it, okay. That's recent. All right, last question. Orange Wedge. Wait, wait, wait, hang on. I'm ignorant.

What's his Broadway? What do you think it's called? Oh, it must be a Margaritaville, the musical or something? Yeah. Oh, okay. You are close enough. And is it just like a, like a, what do they call, like a jukebox musical or whatever? Okay.

Look at me throwing around the lingo. Yeah, that was good. All right. And the same vein as, yeah, mama. Mammia, Mama Mia, Rock of Beach. You know what? Are they doing a Mamma Mia, too? Yeah.

Are they, those are the same Abba songs. Yeah. Did they write some new oldies? Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how that's going to go. Yeah.

That's an interesting thing because Mom Mia 2 is the movie sequel to the movie Mamma Mia, which is based on the Broadway. So there's no like Broadway 2. You know, there, you know, I think that there is probably a quiz there about Broadway sequels somewhere, but they don't do well. there was there was there's there's there's there's they try well there's uh love never dies which is the sequel of phantom of the opera oh really yeah yeah 100 100% original I mean 100% original did not do that interesting yeah all right last question uh marigold wedge what singer songwriter wants

to know how he's supposed to live without you oh is that Michael bolton yeah yeah yeah Michael Bolton. I did not have the conviction to say it very strongly. You want to know what crazy thing I know about Michael Bolton now? What? He babysat Paula Abdul. What? No.

That's a great tidbit. When Paula Abdul was a child, he babysat her. No, I don't. They have that big of age difference? Yeah. It doesn't even have to be that big of a difference. You know, she's like a... True.

You mean 10 or 11. than a seven-year-old. Right, right, right. Oh, my goodness. All right, good job, Brains. Well, at this time, Karen, I actually had a real inspiration for the episode. I don't have to. I saw the fake time.

You know, sometimes I do a little embellishment. Creative. Yeah, I'm going to be going camping in a couple weeks. You know, long-time listeners probably hear me talk about this every year. Annual big trip. And also, Colin Wright's extensive trip. notes that's right about his camping trips

yeah I tried to in fact this year this year I bought a waterproof trip note you know it's like the specially treated journal and I have

the pressurized you know the fisher's face pen that writes upside down under water freezing temperatures yes exactly the same one

I'm prepared for any scenario now it could be pouring down rain and I'll be sitting there scribbling my trip notes yeah it's raining

I'm sad I've gone camping in Utah, Arizona Nevada before All over So this time So this time we are going on this trip My camping buddy and I We're going to be camping in California

For the first time We have not to yeah We decided Just going to stick a little bit closer to home Literally here and stay in California And enjoy some West Coast camping Which I've done a little bit before with my wife But never on my big summer camping trip

So we're driving up We're going to be camping in Lassen, Volcanic National Park, which is pretty cool. And then we're going up way up toward the northern part of the state, almost up to the Oregon border and camping up there. So I got to think about just this great West Coast experience I'm having. I realized we could talk about the West, just anything in the West. It's just so different. Going West. Going West.

Head in West, West Coast lifestyle. That qualifies as a legitimate, honest, inspiration for this week's episode. So this week, go West. All right, all right, I want to start this off, all right, I want to start this off, San Francisco Bay Area. And as we know, it is Silicon Valley, it is, you know, UC Berkeley, Stanford. a lot of things have been invented here. Oh, yeah. Tech-related or computer-related or science-related because of all these institutions we have in the area.

But what about the weird not-so-important stuff? Well, let's say not-so-important. But, like, what about things that we, you know, kind of take for granted? And so here I have a quiz of weird things invented here in the San Francisco Bay Area. that we can be proud of, and they are not... Or ashamed of. Or ashamed of. Proud of.

I would say most of all we're proud of. So as a general, not clue, but disclaimer. So it's not tech or app or computer. All right. That's huge, though. It will rule that out. Floppy disks were invented, you know, and I believe here, the computer mouse was also, you know. So none of those things.

Okay. And not a lot of foody stuff. Like sourdough. Irish coffee. a fortune cookie that we've talked about before um so there there might be some food related stuff but but these are so those two realms very it's very san francisco like kind of stereotypes the tech and the foodie stuff yep not in this quiz okay weird little things okay that you probably didn't know was invented in san francisco guys grab your buzzers let's start up with an easy

one so one of the most famous things that we know that's invented here is uh Levi strouse denim right but what feature of the jeans exactly was Levi Strauss's original patent for? Oh, everybody. The rivets. The rivets. The rivets, the tiny little rivets. It's not to say that jeans didn't exist before. It's just the rivets helped reinforce pockets.

So there would be like denim and people kept ripping the pockets because they're putting their hands through it. So Levi Strauss thought to reinforce it with the rivets. the idea of this 20th century invention came to Joseph Friedman in a sweet shop in San Francisco

and it features a concertina hinge Oh okay Idea Oh Chris The bendy straw It is the bendy straw

Of course The concertina is like a little Accordian Yep And invented right in San Francisco In a soda shop And now being outlawed As well

Yeah It comes full circle Oh, that's right. Yeah, the plastic straw fan. I think they have paper bendy straws, right? I think paper straws just in general are terrible. Yeah. We know, yeah.

Maybe they'll make one of those corn plastic or, you know, compostable bendy straws. So originally how he did it was he was with a family member who was a kid, either his daughter or niece, and she's drinking soda from a paper straw and it was having trouble with it because she's so small. And so his paper back then, he took dental floss and he made little grooves so it would bend. And so, yeah, and so, you know, it kind of started out as a paper straw. All right. The USDA has very strict rules about what actually goes into this preserved food item mix, invented by William Verre Cruz, a food scientist and wine researcher at UC Berkeley. very specific rules and to what is the what is the product it's a preserved food item mix preserved food item mix USDA has various rules about the composition okay so it means it's like a it's like a regional

protected something or nope no hmm nationwide USDA but Dana Trail mix No, not trail mix But you're close It is a mix of things It is Oh Oh

I was going to say Grinola But I could tell You were saying Something else Fruit cocktail Oh Your lunch room

Fruit cocktail Dole whatever Or canned USDA has Specifically 30 to 50% Has to be this fruit And it's like

The makeup of it That's why when you eat fruit of coffee. Why do I have one cherry? I'm always for one cherry because it is designated. It cannot be called a fruit cocktail. That makes sense. If you don't have a cherry? If you don't follow through the composition chart. That's interesting. It can't just be all apple. You're like, way, man, what the hell? Because then you have to market it or advertise it as like a preserved apple. That's fascinating. To say fruit cocktail has to be those things. That's why it's very consistent. Man, I associate, I don't know if you guys like me. I associate fruit

cocktail with summer camp it's just like as a kid like it was like always our little treat at the end of summer camp that little it's just that clingy sweet uh I like the pears school lunch you can taste the greeniness of it yeah yes it was like my least favorite dessert at school lunch like oh it's fruit cocktail yeah yeah oh sorry to poop on your summer camp oh I didn't yeah you know what I didn't say it was a good nostalgia it was more just like it reminded me of it yeah yeah In 1960s, Wilfrid, quote, Bill the Gill, Winkinbach, and Oakland businessman created the GOPPPL, now more commonly known as what? I will give more clues.

Okay. Okay. Okay. So something nationally known. So he was a limited partner of the Oakland Raiders. it generally means you have a limited financial interest yeah yeah uh human and i'll tell you now is it like a stadium foods or something or she said not foods oh Chris yeah you're right the jockstrap oh oh I'm just I'm just writing on Dana's

coat tail here like but like maybe like the the the we're number one finger uh no I'll tell you what GOPPL is. And once I say, you guys will probably know. Okay. Greater Oakland Professional Pigskin Prognosticators League. Gambling? Now more commonly known as what? Fantasy football?

Fantasy football. 1960s. So the GOPPL and participants of the draft brought the game to a sports bar in Oakland where a lot of patrons of this. that bar gather there for pub trivia and it gains steam from word of mouth and having all these people meet up for drafts and stuff that kind of started to spread grassroots but it didn't really catch on as fast because it was it was kind of complicated and manual and paper and they had to like revise a lot of the scoring nowadays it's so easy oh yeah i'm on an app i just pick

whoever like looking at the scores back then who knows that's really cool he's whimsical because of the acronym is so long and it's like pig skin prognosticators it's like this is an in group this is like a

it's the intersection of sports fans and nerds the sports nerd and one last one also sports related they all have weird names crazy George Henderson that is his name

that's his legal his given name his mother was crazy quote George Henderson He like prefers George I go by George

His birth name is crazy Only only my mother calls me crazy It's with a cane Yeah Oh Crazy George Henderson Yeah that's how you can tell

He's really crazy Crazy George Henderson Was a professional cheerleader Okay Invented what At an Oakland A's game Chris The splits

accidentally incorrect Colin The foam dome Incorrect The This is the foam finger No

But this Karen is the foam finger In anywhere in this quiz We should look that up one day So you say created accidentally Did you say No no No

So here's the thing A little bit more backstory I'm not going to tell you What it is yet But it might have been done At other stadiums This is the first time it was televised. Okay.

Colin. The wave. The wave. Crazy George Henderson. When was that? So this was not that long ago. This was in the 80s, I believe. Yeah.

Wow. So it was a televised Oakland A's game against the Yankees in 81. However, so this was the first time televised. However, he got the idea because he was professional cheerleader as in he's not with the pom-pons. He's like one of those razzed. kind of like, you know, like clave of flavor, hype man. And sometimes they kind of start unofficial.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But he has cheered before for, I believe it was a hockey game somewhere else. And he was trying to get two, he was trying to do like a call and response with both sides at the stadium. So he wanted one side to like stand up and yell. And the other side then stand up and yell. And obviously, like, people got confused and then it kind of had a delayed response. So you see a little bit part of the wave. And even when he did it, the first time it was televised, people still had a lot of false starts and didn't really understand what he was trying to do.

Now we all know, you know, I can imagine the first time it's like, what do we do? We just stand up, you know, crazy. That to me is such a 90s thing. I mean, I don't think they really do it anymore. Yeah, they do. Okay, I'm not going to say they don't do it anymore. But there was a time when it was a thing. Like any, any football game, anybody you went to, you could expect that at one point you would be doing the way.

And, like, I feel like you've, we've passed that maybe. I don't know. I know. 90s was really big on, like, group activities, like a macarena, right? It's true. That's true. All the directions, you know. Two versions of the electric slide.

I wouldn't have guessed that it was from the 80s. Like, in my mind, I'm like, oh, take me out to the ball game. It's like an old song. And then it's, like, related to the wave. I guess it's been around most of my life, almost all of my life. Yeah. Hard to imagine a pre-wave watch. I know.

I mean. I mean, if we could just get deep for a minute here, yeah. Yeah. Well, there you go. Some quirky, non-tech, non-foody San Francisco Bay Area Inventions. That's good. This is Jen and Jenny from Ancient History Fan Girl, and we're here to tell you about Jenny's scorching historical romanticcy

based on Alarica of the Visigoths, any of my dreams. Amanda Boucher, bestselling author of The Kingmaker Chronicle, says, quote, this book has everything. thing high stakes action grit ferocity and blazing passion julia and alaric are colliding storms against a backdrop of the brutal dangers of ancient room they'll do anything to carve their peace out of this treacherous world and not just survive but rule enemy of my dreams is available wherever books are sold so on a previous episode i see i really i would have come into this episode talking about the video game oregon trail yes which is a

about, you know, U.S. citizens, you know, migrating from the east to the west, coming out to California, coming out to Oregon, coming out to... Seek a new future. Yeah. Maybe dying of dysentery. Along these trails. Yeah, maybe dying of dysentery along the way. Because, of course, that was a popular way to die in the classic game that a lot of... If you went through the American school system in the 80s or 90s, you probably got to play this game, Oregon Trail.

But I already talked about that. Talked about where the game came from, all that kind of stuff. Minnesota, Minneapolis, right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. So you can go look that up on a previous episode if you want to. But I decided that for this episode about really going west, I would talk about the actual people who actually went on the Oregon Trail. Which is, I mean, you know, people in the mid-1800s decided they were living in the East Coast.

And if they maybe felt that land was getting too expensive out there, things were, you know, or if they really, even if they had it good, but they, they heard that the West offered even more prosperity, even cheaper land, you know, the gold rush, you know, was sort of part of that, right? Yeah, FOMO. Yeah, serious FOMO. The Oregon Trail was actually, by the way, a trail. Previously, it was just like, you know, really hardy people, like fur, fur traders, traders, things like that would be able to get out there to California, but they, they

created a trail, an actual, you know, physical trail for people to follow if you were just regular people going out to the West. The big joke about the Oregon Trail game is you have died of dysentery, right? Everybody always seems to die of dysentery or whatever. A sidetrack question. Yeah. What is actually dysentery? This is not a sidetrack question at all. Oh, okay. But this, yeah, so dysentery is a disease. It's, yeah, it's, you get either, it can be caused by a lot. It's sort of a group of a lot of things, but basically it's you have an, you, you, you have either, you know, viral or a bacterial

issue in your, uh, intestines, which causes you to have bloody diarrhea. Uh, and you, and, and also if you were like, not in a city or not, did not have access to good medical care or good water or things like that to, to, to drink and rehydrate yourself and get better. You, you would probably die of dysentery, if you were, say, in the middle of wherever Wyoming on your

to California and there was nothing around. Okay. And yeah, in fact, best estimates that we have is about one in ten people died on the Oregon trail. One in ten. That's huge. Yeah. If you have a...

If you have a family in a wagon, someone's going to die. One of them was somebody was going to die. These were city folk in some cases. You're not hardened pioneering people. Yeah. But they... Who had done 10 years of pioneering. Right.

Right. This was like a guy. his wife and their family and, you know, maybe they had been sort of okay in the East Coast, but Dad wanted to go go into the West and, you know, live the life in Oregon or California or something like that. And so it was on the trail. And it was not, I think a lot of people, because they had the Conestoga wagons, right, the covered wagons that you always see on the trail. And I think everybody has the idea that this was like a Winnebago and that everybody rode in the wagon. Dad was up with the horse and you're riding it back. No, because these,

No, because these wagons, first of all, they were full of all the stuff. Yeah. Second of all, they were, there were not, they did not have shocks on them, right? They didn't have springs. Yeah, so they had springs underneath the driver, but that's it. So the rest of it was just wood on axles going over dirt. Shulting. It would have been the worst ride in the whole world.

And so everybody walked. Whoever was driving the oxen drove the wagons. But everybody else walked alongside. It sounds miserable. That sucks. You walked from Mississippi to Oregon. Walking. Yeah, it was miserable.

It was about six months. Oh, my God. And the thing is you had to, everybody started at the exacts. They started at the spring thaw, right? In Independence, Missouri, because that was where everybody started. That was where the trails all began from. Okay. And you had to get, you better get through, I mean, you know, the Donner party.

The Donner Party, that was an Oregon Trail group of people. They ended up in the mountains, and when the snows hit, and they were stuck there, and then they ate each other to survive. It's a race against winter. It was a race against winter. You had to get there before winter. You had about six months to get there before the snow started falling, and you were in big trouble. You're not in comfy shoes. Yeah, that's true.

Of the one in ten people who died on the Oregon Trail, Diseases, just diseases in general, are pretty much the biggest killer. The number one was not dysentery. It was cholera. And a lot of this, so cholera is like dysentery. It's an intestinal disease. It's bacterial specifically. Spread by unsanitary conditions.

So you'd have these big groups of people all going out, all bathing in cholera-infested rivers, then drinking, you know, the water. Then they all get cholera. It was bad, too. when you got cholera, you would die hours after you developed symptoms. So you could start the day. You could start the day fine. You would have it for a couple of days, but you wouldn't know it.

And then you develop symptoms and then die. It's like you could start the day. Brutal. Looking, feeling perfectly fine and be dead that night. Oh, so tremendous. Some people got scurvy, and generally they'd get scurvy after they got to Oregon. because they would have contracted it, you know, along the way, not having any vitamin C. But then once they got there, they still don't have any vitamin C and they'd die of scurvy.

Because they've only got whatever they brought with them to farm or whatever. Sure. Did they understand scurvy back then? They did. They did. They did. Right. Yeah, they knew you needed that stuff.

But it's like they, you know, they might run out. They might be able to get it. Yeah. So, quiz. So we've now done diseases. What other things do you? think might have killed people on the old Oregon Trail. Throw some stuff out there.

Well, I mean, yeah, just animals, horse accidents, encounters. Sure, let's talk about accidents. Yeah. Just accidents. Here's two major accidents that could have gone. Well, first of all, there's drowning. There's drowning. Oh, right.

Because, of course, they had to cross rivers. There's no bridges. Now, eventually, they'd start building ferries, building bridges. And so towards the end, if you were going in like the 1860s or whatever, Maybe there'd be more ferries and bridges, but towards the beginning, you had to, everybody had to cross. You had to fording a river, yeah. Never works out in Oregon Trail. I'm hoping you're not going to say crushed beneath a wagon wheel.

So, well, not yet, because I'm still on drowning. Oh, okay. But the other one, the other one that I wanted to mention was shootings, getting shot. Of course. And you'd think that it would be because everybody is super on edge, goes crazy, and gets into fights and shoots. shoots each other. Not as much. Most of the shooting deaths were accidental shootings because you have these green horns. They're all carrying guns. And here's the thing. Everybody is concerned about when you're walking along, what if we get attacked by those savage Native Americans? I better have my gun on me. So people are walking along all these uneven trails for days, weeks, months with a lot of. loaded guns strapped across their shoulder. They don't know how to use it.

They are much more liable to just shoot their child in the head accidentally with the gun. Also, or they put the guns loaded on the wagon. On the wagon, that's what a bouncing along. Guns start shooting out the wagon and hitting people. So yeah, accidental shootings, big killer. As it turns out, there's a lot of back and forth over how much of a threat was it that there were Native Americans, you know what I mean? Right.

It certainly does seem like there were a fair few people who were killed in terms of altercations with the native population of America, except A, it seems like they, the pioneers, the travelers, may have killed more Native Americans. They even killed them because they'd see them and be like, well, let's go kill them. You know what I mean? They'd instigate the fights. I believe it. Or, you know, the Native Americans would attack because the last time a group of wagons came home, they instigated the fights. Everyone just said it's not like they're out there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Everybody thinks the other person is a danger, so you end up in a fight. Are dangerous people wandering down? Yeah, but of course there are, but there are, of course, stories of Native Americans helping people as well, or traveling with the trails and helping them out. Yeah. Also, there's run over by a wagon wheel. That's how I'm a very, very, very. Common cause of death Run over by the wagons

How fast is it going though? So here's the thing But they weigh so much Yeah So they're not fast They're like two miles an hour But they have no brakes You can't just stop them

When they're going It's a horse So you know Sometimes just people just are just in the wrong place And they get crushed by the wagon Which can't stop in front of them Sometimes people are trying to get on or off the wagon you know and then they just slip

and they go underneath and that's it but then also it's like yeah sometimes like literally you know it runs over your head or whatever but like also if it ran if it runs up for like your foot you're still screwed you're still gonna die just a lot slower because you don't have a doctor to do anything

with your muddy infected you know crushed shattered it was done yeah so what oh my god I feel good for laughing I don't know why it's well it's just like there's there's a there's There was a certain amount of, I'm sure that some people were in, like, dire straits and, like, this was the only way they could survive is to, like, go to the West and buy super cheap land.

But, like, for a lot of people, it just, it's sort of, it strikes me as, like, a choice that they made. And there are stories of, like, you know, wives with their husbands getting halfway there and going, I don't want to do this anymore. Our kid's head got run over by the wagon wheel. Like, what are we doing? What's the point? My wife at one point fell into just a really fixated point on the Donner Party and just, you know, the travelers coming west. And in one of the books she was reading, you know, it made the point that as you were going across the early parts of the trail, sometimes you would just see jettison stuff. Oh, yeah.

People, they get there, they realize you would see people sit out and I apologize if you're going to get to this, Chris, but like grandfather clocks. Oh, yeah. They would load of the grandfather clock on the wagon and you get, you know, four days into it and you're like, what? What the hell am I thinking? And he ditched the grandfather clock. Because they're like, we can't possibly leave all these things behind. This is not just a joy ride out to the West Coast. Yeah.

Dishes. China sets. I mean, there was a whole kind of like sub cottage industry of people scavenging. That's right. Absolutely. Yeah. It seems to me that in general, the further along you made it on the trail, the more likely it was that you were going to make it.

Okay. For multiple reasons, like maybe things got a little bit more spread out. You weren't like sort of in close contact with. people who had diseases. Oh, I see. You got better with your gun. Yeah. Like, past a certain, they always say, like, you know, past a certain point, people figure

out how to use their guns so they don't accidentally shoot each other. Okay. If everything goes right, your day is trudging on the trail at two miles an hour and just hoping that you make it with nobody dying. But, you know, because they were on the trail, I mean, it's also, like, they were on this trail for so long that, like, in addition, people, like, husbands and wives or, you know, boys and girls, you know, met on this, on this, this, the trail. And they would, there were people who got married on the trail.

People who had babies on the trail, you know, and they would name their babies after, like, geographical, like beautiful nature. Sierra, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. If it weren't for them, the creation of our West Coast, have become what it has become. Someone had to do it first. Someone had to do it first. That's right. That's right.

And, by the way, this all ended in late 1860s when the, I mean, basically it ended when the first transcontinent. into a railroad was finished. Then everybody was just like, why don't I just take the train? And then they all started just taking the train. Wow, that was really interesting about the Oregon Trail. Thank you, Dana.

It's crazy. I have a quiz for you guys about the West. Maybe it's a little lighter. The ways to die. Yeah, yeah. Fewer wagon crushing related bits. I had some questions about that,

but I cut them, luckily. before the quiz. Let's do, let's do buzz-in. Oh, right. Okay. All right. All right. We'll kick it off with this. Question number one.

Elphaba Throp is otherwise known by this name. You know, me and Chris know. Yeah. We want to see if you know. I didn't even hear the word. What is the word? Elphaba. Throp.

Throp. Throp. Is better known. By this name. And it has West in the name as well. It does. The title. Huh.

Do you know where her name comes from, her first name? Is that going to be part of the quiz? That's going to be, yeah. Okay. Oh, I. Oh, okay. I, it's got to be something Harry Potter or Disney or what. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah. You're definitely in the realm of magic related. Okay. Broadway-related. Broadway-related. Geez, I'm going to have to pass. Yeah, what do we, enlighten me. Elphabreop is the Wicked Witch of the West.

Ah. From Wicked, from Wicked, specifically. Yeah. Right. Because it's not in Frank O. No, it's not in the original. Her name is El Frank Baum. Frank Oz, Elfaba comes from L.FB, Elfabah. What's LFB?

That's L. Frank Baum. L. Frank Baum. Yeah, Elfabah. All right. Wicked Witch of the... She's the Wicked Witch of the West. Yes, yes. The main witch serves the East died right away.

Yeah, but okay, let's stay on the theme. Yeah, she's from The Wicked Witch of the Pacific North Yeah, she's from Wicked The Life in Times of the Wicked Witch of the West Throb. Okay, I'll file that away. Yeah, it might come up.

Alpha, blah, uh, LFB. Yeah, that's good, that's good. All right, question number two. The HBO series Westworld is based on a 1973 film written and directed by this author. Karen. Oh, are you? All together.

You could all do it. Everybody knew it. Michael Crichton. Yes. Michael Crichton. You know, I thought it would be like a good guess of Stephen King because he has written a lot of books that have become movies at some point that were movies. But the Westworld is about an amusement park where the robots come to life and kill people. And Michael Crichton also wrote Jurassic Park.

So that's a little bit of his jam too. He was still thinking about that. The adult park. He's like, how can this go wrong? Well, however, this wasn't a book by Michael Crichton. Michael Crichton wrote the screenplay. This is his first screencote and directed it. Yes.

Well, it's because he was flush, I believe, off the success of the Andromeda Strain, I think, was his first. And he, from what I understand, he basically had the clout to say to the studio, I'm going to write and direct this movie and you're going to let me do it. And they're like, okay, Mr. Crichton. And he did. And it was, it was moderately successful. He made a sequel. I don't know I know that it's a cult hit

I've watched it pretty recently it's very corny Yeah it's not crazy standards Yeah I don't know if I've seen the second one It would have been yeah I see when I was a kid When I was a kid It's been many years

I mean he's a bold man Yeah I think he was married like five or six times And he was a doctor Like he died in 2008 But he's prolific Okay Question number three

While the eastern side of this island has become a sovereign state the western side is a province of Indonesia Oh Is that Borneo? No Oh no

I would say that The western side is A province of Indonesia The eastern side became a sovereign state in 1999 So am I thinking country or island Island

Island I saw Well Karen go Go go go Singapore. Nope. Is it Sumatra? No.

Papua New Guinea. No. I'm not going to guess third. It is Timor. Timor. Timor. East Timor. Oh, right, of course.

East Timor is a sovereign state. West Timor is a province of Indonesia. You know what the flag looks like. Question number four. This Irish boy band was originally signed by Simon Cowell. West Life. West Life. I have never heard of this.

That is so interesting about Westlife is they were huge in the late 90s and early 2000s. Like global success. Global. Other than the U.S. Really? That's how I knew. Records level. Like seven consecutive number one singles.

They're British one or they're? They're from Ireland. Oh, you said. Sorry. You said there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they're like huge, but they did not hit here. Like they just didn't catch on.

They had one song here. But, you know, we had our own boy bands at the same time. Yeah, yeah, that's fine. Like Next Street Boys and InSink. They showed up and as a nation, we're like, eh, we're full. We have enough boy bands right now. We got some American ones. I think there were earlier.

They pre. So it was like, take that was kind of the big research. Like, you know, there's New Kazan Block and then which kind of inspired take that in the UK. Take that had global success, except for the states because the states were kind of investing in their own boy bands. But West Live was, that's how I know it because I'm from Taiwan. It was huge. Yeah.

They formed in 98. People, I mean. Like, in Chinese pop songs, they were singing Chinese versions of Westlife songs. Yeah. Yeah. It was like they were so big. Yeah. It's funny.

How massive, but we're like, mm-hmm. I didn't get that one. Yeah. I do find compartmentalized fame very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Question number five.

After 155 years of continuous service, Western Union stopped offering this service in 2006. 155 years I can do it Yeah Colin Telegram service Telegrams So they started

In 1851 As the New York and Mississippi Valley Printing Telegraph Company And that was their main product And by 2006 They only had like

20,000 telegrams in the whole year So they turned that off And now it's a money transfer service I honestly I would have been shocked Just if I am shocked If I know

that it went into the 2000s even. I wonder if it was ships. I wonder if it was maybe ships. I couldn't find like the answer. I was curious too. Like like who's still sending telegram? Yeah. Who was doing that? So someone like with like whimsical um. It's right. It's West Anderson. It's very. Victorian cosplay. Yeah. It's a 27 year old in Williamsburg. Yeah. Yeah. A fax machine. Now I'll send it by telegram. Thank you. He fashions himself a dandy. We are out of mustache, but stop. He's on his velocopied.

Full stop. Yeah. All right. Last question. What is the first full name of the entertainer who was West Philadelphia born and raised? Oh, man. Oh, so it's not his normal? The full first name.

Yeah, what's his full first name? Oh, it's not William. Is it Wilfred Smith? No. I didn't know it was not William. We're talking about Will Smith, right? Yeah, we're talking about Will Smith. Huh, I don't know.

It's a dorky Will name. Ooh. Wilhelm. Willard. Willard. His name is Willard Carroll Smith, Jr. You better be a junior with a name like Willard. Willard Carol.

Apologies to all Willards who are listening to this show. West Philadelphia. Let's bring back, Willard. Willard Scott. West Philadelphia born and raised is a reference to Fresh Prince of Bel Air's theme song for people who are younger than 30. We need to spell it out. Yeah.

Yeah, whatever. It ended in like the early 90s or, anyway. Younger than a certain age and older than a certain age. But on the show, he was playing a character named William. Oh, I see. They didn't keep, yeah. But it was loosely based on him. I feel lied to.

I kind of feel lied to as well. It was like he wanted to. But he never, oh, that's right, because they actually do in the show. They do call him William. Yeah, they do. It comes up. So that's why you're like, oh, it must be William Smith. I have some fun William-related trivia.

I just don't know. So before the show recording. William Smith? Before the recording started, we were talking about solo, the new Star Wars movie. Oh, yeah. We're digging Donald Glover's take on Lando, Calercian, of course. Originally portrayed by Billy D. Williams. Do you know what Billy D. Williams' full legal given birth name is?

William Williams? No. Yeah, well, first of all, yeah, first of all, you're like, wait a minute. Bill, Billy D. He is William December Williams Jr. Whoa. Yes, William December, Willie D. Billy D. is December. Yeah. Incredible.

Wow. Junior. Junior, yes, William Williams. William december. It's a slick kind of name. It is. Not as slick as Billy D. Yeah, no, that's slicker, for sure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's one of my fun little Billy D. Williams bit of trivia. That might be my only bit of Billy D. Williams trivia. We have one more question. Oh, all right. Oh, yeah. Okay, let's do it.

What percentage of humans live in the Western Hemisphere? Is it 20, 40, or 80% of humans? What is considered the Western Hemisphere? Yeah, I think that's part of the question. Prime meridian to the international date line, I guess. Yeah. 40%. 25.

I'm going to say whatever the lowest one is. It is 20%. It's like 18% of the human population. Wow. Well, sure. So Western Hemisphere is North America, South America, and West Africa. Oh, okay. But that's only 18% of the human population.

82% live on the other side. Well, there's more land mass on the other side, too. True. Yeah, but... And China. I mean, China and India have a lot of people, so... Yeah, quite a few. I thought that was interesting.

That is interesting. It's kind of like, you know, almost a microcosm that we have here in our country where overwhelmingly more people are in the eastern half of our country, these United States. Then there are out on the West. I mean, if you ever look at like a population density map, I mean, it's pretty staggering just these vast swaths of all throughout the West and, you know, except for along the coast, it's hardly, it's hardly populated compared to, I don't know, the East Coast. I don't know. When I'm driving around the West on these camping trips, it really drives home to me like, wow, there's nobody out here. Cool.

Good job, you guys. No frills, delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at no-frails.ca. Well, I've got a quick little

eventually word nerd segment here for you guys. Yeah, I'm going to get there. We're going to get there. You guys know I love the etymology and the language-related stuff. So whenever we come across something that I feel like our fans might know this, but I need to make sure they know it.

This is one of those where it's just, I couldn't sleep at night if I thought that some of our listeners might not be aware of this little bit of the English language history. Even I might not. So let's talk about cattle branding. I mean, I was thinking about the Old West, right? And the first, I have to say, this is totally true. One of the first images that popped to my mind was like of a Gary Larson-like far side cartoon. It's the cowboys, the cowpokes sitting around the fire.

And he's got the cattle brand in the fire heating it up. And I'm going to botch the joke, of course. brand is huge. It's like, this cattle belongs to Leroy Jenkins and if you find it, you know, and the cow is in the background, like, looking at the brand, you know. I was thinking about what a common trope that was, at least

in the stuff that I used to see, of like the Old West, of like you got the branding iron in the hot, you get all hot, and you stick it on the port cattle or other livestock and, you know, the steam and everything. It's so barbaric. I mean, they, I don't know. They do say it doesn't hurt the animal as much as it would hurt you or I,

but I wouldn't want to test that out. I mean, it looks hot, yeah. If it makes it feel better, we've moved a little bit past at least the straight hot iron branding. I mean, they still do that, but they don't exclusively do that anymore. Yeah, they like spray paint them. They do a lot of different things now. It is for, yeah, they have the ear tags. They have tattoos a lot of times.

Whoa. You know. That hurts, too. It does, but, you know, it seems a little more, I don't know, like when the guy giving you the tattoo might have a tattoo as well. It seems a little more. Like, okay, I guess. They have microchip, of course, implants, you know, the way they have for, like, cats and dogs, RFID tagging, so, which is especially handy, you know, just at a moderate distance, you can scan a whole herd.

Right. Oh, I never thought of that. Yeah, depending on the distance you are, and you can set the readers through a little pathway, and you can basically, yeah, yeah, you can kind of just inventory the cattle as they move on through. But you're right. Sometimes they just paint them. I was really fascinated with just the old school, Old West brand. And, I mean, you guys know, I'm sure, I mean, it's pretty clear why, why do we need to brand cattle?

Why do we do this? I mean, is it say it's mine. Yeah. They do the drive and then they get separated maybe or something. That's a large part of it is it's not just, you know, as I was reading, it's not just to prove this is mine, which it was. That was a big part of it. In fact, in the Old West, you know, there were a lot of jurisdictions where you couldn't

sell cattle that weren't branded somewhere or another. You needed it for the paperwork, you know, it's like, you know, this isn't like, you know, stolen or rustled or whatever. I used to kill people for a rustling. Yeah. That was a death penalty. That was a offense. Right.

Yeah. And no one would look twice at you. It was like, oh, yeah, I shot some rustlers. It's like, oh, good, good. Yeah, you got rid of those guys. But yeah, as Dana kind of was alluding to, a lot of it had to do with, you know, mass drives of just if you're feeding with other herds of cattle, you need a way to kind of just keep them straight.

Even if everyone's acting honest, no one's out there to steal them. So anyway, you know, there's a, there's a whole, kind of visual history of just the different styles of brand you know the rock and r and the circle tea and there's a lot of you can go research any of this history it's very visually interesting from a design standpoint as well because you need your brand to be distinct because you don't want to have it be confused with the guy you know two ranches over and it's almost like your own little personal trademark if you will it's like this is my brand you know a lot of ranchers would have that same brand on the entry to their ranch so like you would put it as you were coming on to

the ranch that that would be like their their emblem basically on their front gate is this where the word brand came from yeah yeah it's it's branding is an old i thought it was the other way branding is an ancient ancient practice i thought what we know is like oh mcdonald's brand no it's then the cattle then use that word no this is from this yeah that's right that's our livestock in general but yeah yeah it's from branding livestock i mean the every virtually every ancient culture did this as well. Yeah. So anyway, we certainly had branding in the Old West. And, you know, there was a lot of trickery that could go on, you know, sort of like as a kid, you know, the old trope of changing the grades on the report card. You, if you were sneaky

enough, you could overwrite someone else's brand, right? You would come up with a brand that maybe had a little bar across it and you could try and pass it off as your own brand on top of someone else's brand if you were an unscrupulous brander. I don't think this happened a lot. There are stories of it. Because people would be like, it's a lot of effort to go through. Trafal's. Yeah.

Right. The Trafalz. So have you guys heard of Samuel Maverick? Samuel Maverick. Samuel Augustus Maverick. He does have a cool last name. He is a big figure in Texas history in particular. Is that where the word Maverick came from?

That is where the word maverick is a Mr. Maverick? He is a Mr. Maverick. That's where the word came from, though. The word maverick. comes from Samuel Augusta's Maverick. Even though he was not a proper big-time cattle rancher in the way that we think of. Nor a top-gun pilot.

Nor a top-gun pilot, nor a basketball player from Dallas. Even though he made his money sort of on the East Coast and in the South, he moved out to Texas eventually. He was a politician, a lawyer, a land baron. He was in the Texas legislature. He was a big-time figure. But among his claims to fame is he had a herd of cattle that he refused to brand.

He would not brand his cattle. Now, you'll read a few different explanations for this. It's either he didn't want to brand them out of humane reasons. It seems far more likely that he just didn't care about it. He didn't care enough because he wasn't a cattle rancher. He was a wealthy man who happened to also own some cattle. What year was this? This was in the late 1800s.

So the word Maverick, first entered the English usage in the 1860s meaning an unbranded calf or yearling because out in the Texas cattle ranching community it became very oh there's an unbranded

one that's one of Mavericks that's a Maverick cattle it is not branded even though it would annoy people because he wasn't playing by the rules and that's where the secondary definition of Maverick came to be of somebody who flies by

his or her own flight plan. That's right. His or her own thing is a maverick cattle. That's where it comes from. It's from the man who famously did not brand his cattle. Wow. So unbranded became the rule breaker, the maverick. Yeah.

And, you know, you would find them kind of just roaming free. Not only did he not brand them, he would kind of just let them roam around. And if he lost some, you know, so be it. He wasn't supervising them directly, even they were sort of being taken care of for him. It seems like he might get some free ones that way, too. Like, if people aren't careful about branding them. You know, there's been sort of some romanticized legends built up around why he didn't it.

And I think that over time, it's gotten a lot more politicized than it really was if you go back and kind of look at what he said about it as a time. He just wasn't concerned about it. He really was not concerned about it. But, yeah, so that's where the term Maverick comes from. Yeah, entered our language, as I say, in the late 1860s. And then by the 1880s, 1900s, it had already come to me in just an independent-minded person, someone who doesn't, a non-conformist. Wow.

How weird. And I thought that deserved to be shared with the community at large. That was not even like in the punch bowl for me. Yeah, I would have guessed like, oh, Maverick is Latin or something for. This is a Jody Foster movie. Yeah. When Johann Raul received the letter on Christmas Day 1776, he put it away to read later. Maybe he thought it was a season's greeting and wanted to save it for the fireside.

But what it actually was was a warning, delivered to the Hessian colonel, letting him know that General George Washington was crossing the Delaware and would soon attack his forces. The next day, when Raul lost the Battle of Trenton and died from two colonial Boxing Day musket balls, the letter was found, unopened in his vest pocket. As someone with 15,000 unread emails in his inbox, I feel like there's a lesson there. Oh, well, this is the Constant, a history of getting things wrong. I'm Mark Chrysler.

Every episode, we look at the bad ideas, mistakes, and accidents that misshaped our world. Find us at Constantpodcast.com or wherever you get your podcasts. And I have one last quiz, and I wanted. to have some fun, speaking of movies, movies that have the title West, or has the word West in there somewhere. And I want to give it a twist. So originally I was, I was going to, I was going redo the plot. But the plot, you know, so these are very famous movies and it wouldn't be a challenge. So then I was like, okay, well, what else can I do to this? So what I'm going to read to you guys is the summary of these movies, the summary of the movies have been translated

into many languages than back to English. All right. Okay. Specifically, the two languages I chose, I kind of want to do something with like, oh, the westernmost part of the world.

So I was just like, okay, well, let's just choose one in the very beginning of the international date line and one on the other side. So we kind of span the whole world. So it's been translated to French

for the French Polynesia and then translated into, to Maori in New Zealand and then translate it back to English. All right. Okay. Okay. So here, have your buzzers ready. Buzz in with the movie title. Okay.

I'm reading you the doubly translated... Uh... Tripoli translated, right? Not that bad. I think Google Translate has improved a lot. Here we go. Two bomb blasts in the West will save President Grant

from the hands of a 19th century creator Two bomb Dana Wild Wild Wild West Wild Wild Wild Okay Willard Smith

By featuring Willard starring Willard Smith Kevin Klein Of course I got to remember There's West in the movies as well Okay The two best hired guns

Have become two bomb blasts That's good That's a good Double translation I'm really picking up the French influence on that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know.

All right, next one. Two New York soldier battles fall in love, but there is a problem between their partners who are getting closer to problems. Colin. The departed.

Incorrect. There is, as a reminder from Al-TRA. Oh, yes, that's right. West and the title. West side story. Westside story. Westside story.

Westside. Story. I'm sorry. Can you read that one again? Two New York, what was it? Two New York soldier battles. Soldier battles. Fall in love. That's good. Gang members? Gangster? It says two youngsters from rival New York City gangs.

I think it just got kind of mold. Okay, soldier battles. All right. Yes. Got to have West in that Colin, remember. All right. The leader of New York advisor is mistaken for a government supporter in the group of independent sponsors and

is looking for a way to survive. Whoa. Old classic. Okay. Read it one more time. The leader of a New York advisor is mistaken for a government supporter in the group of independent sponsors and is looking for a way to survive. He's an old classic film. Mm-hmm.

Very famous. Okay. Chris. How the West was won. No. New York. Oh, New York has actually a good clue. It is North by Northwest.

North by Northwest. All right. This one probably is my favorite one. Okay. Oh, geez. A family of biodiversity wants to go west. They do not know they fall into the trap that is being done by the cats that speak well. Oh.

I'll say it again. Yeah. The family of biodiversity wants to go west. They do not know they fall into the trap that is being done by the cats that speak well. I'm west, west. It's animated. Yeah. Oh.

Yeah. You can do it. Chris. An American tale, Fival goes west. Correct. Wow. Wow. somehow emigre mice

family of emigre mice became a biodiversity interest emigre mice that common idiom yeah this one's actually translated pretty well triply translated young teenagers are facing

a major problem in the evil world of the first world war what is again young teenagers are facing a major problem in the evil world of the first world war okay world war so young romantic say world war one all quiet on the western front correct all quiet on the western front oh good good all right uh two more when a farmer's love begins with a new woman she has to prove her confidence when her husband appears to be a famous henchman when he comes.

This sounds familiar. Let's say it's recent. Okay. Not that recent, but recent. Henschman, right? When a farmer loves begins with a new woman, she has to prove her confidence when her husband appears to be a famous henchment when he comes. Yeah, what is this?

The answer is, a million ways to die in the West, starring Liam Neeson, Seths McFarland, Charlie's Theron. All right. Last one. We've talked about this before, but this is good. Everybody knows what this is. The robot's work creates the worst and fears of competitors not achieving in the adult playground. Ha, ha, ha, ha, that's good.

West world. Andromedous Strait, West World. And that's our show. Thank you guys for joining me and thank you guys, listeners, for listening in. Hope you learn a lot of stuff about going west. Robots.

Many ways to die on the Oregon Trail. Please watch out. San Francisco Inventions and branding mavericks and cows. You can find our show on iTunes. Stitcher, SoundCloud, Spotify, and our website. Good job, Brain. And we'll see you guys next week. Bye. the big picture questions and the most interesting research in science. Seth and I are the host.

Seth is a scientist. I am Molly and I'm a science journalist. And we talk to people smarter than us and we have fun along the way. The show is called Big Picture Science. And as Seth said, you can hear it wherever you get your podcast.