It Could Happen Here - Bug Out Bags!

Episode Date: December 6, 2023

James and Margaret talk about bug out bags, the things that might be useful in a crisis, and the things that probably won’t.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information....

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey guys, I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys, and the thoughts that arise once we've hit the pavement together. Listen to Post Run High on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You should probably keep your lights on for
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Starting point is 00:01:25 It's time to get rewarded for it. Submit your podcast today at iHeart.com slash podcast awards. That's iHeart.com slash podcast awards. Calls on media. Hello, everyone, and welcome to It Could Happen Here, a podcast about the world falling apart and people putting it back together. Today, I'm lucky to be joined by Margaret Kildreary. She is the host of Live Like the World is Dying, a podcast for what feels like the end times. And we are going to talk about bug out bags, aren't we, Margaret?
Starting point is 00:02:02 Woo, bug out bags or go bags. Yes, or I bet they have other names. Okay, wait, can I tell you my favorite? Yeah, hit me. Okay, the first preppers I ever met were these weird, cool anarchists 20 years ago. They had an oh shit gear or OSG stashed in their basement. I love that. Yeah, that's great.
Starting point is 00:02:22 That's basically what you're talking about. It's the thing that you go for when things are going love that. Yeah, that's great. That's basically what you're talking about. Like it's the thing that you go for when things are going to shit. Yeah. Yeah. And I think the reason we're talking
Starting point is 00:02:30 about this, right, is A, because it's entertaining and it's always fun to engage in hypotheticals. B, because we've got Margaret here because she's very knowledgeable on this stuff
Starting point is 00:02:39 and that's what she covers on Live Like the World is Dying. If you haven't listened to that podcast, you should. It's very good. It's got lots of sensible preparedness-focused content. Is that a fair summary, Margaret?
Starting point is 00:02:51 I hope so. Yeah, our whole thing is that we're basically trying to talk about community. I'm not the only host. I'm one of three hosts. Yes. We try to talk about community preparedness rather than individual preparedness, or rather how the two are not at odds with each other, like how what's best for the individual is to be part of a functioning community yeah and how like the bunker mentality will get you killed so one of my favorite things in the world is
Starting point is 00:03:14 talking shit on preparedness done wrong and since most of the preparedness space skews at best center right but also far right. There's lots of it done wrong that we can talk shit on. Like, for example, this is me setting you up for. Yeah, yeah, bugger bags. There it is. Yeah, that's like a layup and a dunk. Yeah, basketball, I understand it.
Starting point is 00:03:38 We're really good at it. Yeah, there's nothing that we like more than sports ball. Okay, so the reason we're talking about this today is because I have spent a lot of time recently in refugee camps helping out, helping people, feeding people, giving them blankets, playing with their children, doing all the things. And obviously everyone who enters these camps
Starting point is 00:03:57 comes with a bag, right? They bring a bag with them. They can generally have one sort of carry-on size bag when they enter custody. And that's generally all you can carry when you're moving across the desert mountain ranges of uh Baja California and Southern California and I was spending a day there and it was cold and it was wet it was miserable and I was trying to keep people warm and I was trying to build shelters all day and uh I was trying to just do things along with my friends obviously this is by no means a effort. It's a great group of people who you've all heard about
Starting point is 00:04:27 if you listen to this podcast. We've been out there all day. And then I got back. And just because I hadn't had a difficult enough day, I logged on to Twitter.com, X.com. Because you wanted your day to get worse. Yeah, exactly. I thought, what can I do?
Starting point is 00:04:42 Let's be pissed off at a fucking stranger on the internet who you don't care about and you've never met but let them make you angry anyway that's what I did I logged on and
Starting point is 00:04:51 I logged on promptly to be greeted by some prick with I guess not your fault I suppose it shouldn't be a prick whatever someone who hadn't quite
Starting point is 00:04:57 like someone whose idea of preparedness was heavily influenced by the film Red Dawn and not by reality. Which is like 90% of the people in that space. But this person had this kit with a gas mask, with a folding AR-15,
Starting point is 00:05:18 with one of those law tactical folding things so you can break the buffer tube, with seven or eight magazines of ammunition like just like just the sort of stuff that yeah sure you would need to do like one sustained firefight and then then what are you going to do but like it just really struck me that the juxtaposition between these two things that i have seen people have to quote unquote bug out or oh shit or whatever i myself have have had to leave a place where i was and go to a refugee camp for a few days a few years ago and i've never seen a situation where a folding assault rifle would be that useful to me and i have seen a lot of people who could really fucking use a sleeping bag or a
Starting point is 00:06:05 warm coat or a toy for their child because their child is crying and they didn't bring any toys, you know, and lots of people don't have any preparedness stuff at all. That's that's fine. You know, we all start somewhere, but like, if you're going to do this, I want you to do it in a way that might be useful to you. And so that is why I have asked Margaret Kiljoy to come and help me explain. Right. And the problem, of course, with this scenario that we discussed is that instead of having a folding AR, they should have a folding AK-47 because then there's no need to break a buffer.
Starting point is 00:06:37 That's it. Yeah. And you can scavenge ammunition from the Cubans. Yeah. I see what you're doing. Great. Yeah. Yeah. No, and although actually, if I was going to fall deep into gun stuff and talk about how people who are obsessed with AK-47s while living in the United States are also not doing preparedness right, because anyway. Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:55 And actually, AKs break all the time. I have personally seen that happen, and you cannot, in fact, not maintain them at all. Yeah, and there's more parts available for ARs. But the point is that most of the time, you don't need firearms for most crises. Yeah. And there's more parts available for ARs. But the point is that most of the time you don't need firearms for most crises. Many crises are made worse by having a firearm. And okay. So like a lot of your background is with refugee stuff and you've had to, you know, escape to a refugee center and work in refugee situations all the time.
Starting point is 00:07:19 One of my main backgrounds is that I lived out of a backpack for a long time when I was a cross punk, right? I was a homeless hitchhiker who, you know, hopped freight trains and slept under bridges and things like that. And I come from more of a position of privilege than a lot of people who do that. I chose to do it as part of an activism lifestyle and stuff, you know. And so I'm not trying to like get stolen valor here, but I spent a very long time living outside. And the people who live outside all the time, who have only a backpack, know what goes in the backpack really well.
Starting point is 00:07:50 And you don't see homeless people with guns. And it's not because they're not legally allowed to have them. People, I mean, well, that's part of it in some situations, right? It's, you know, when you don't have a safe place of storing something, it becomes a lot more complicated. But like, you're even talking about a group of people who often have to resort to violence to defend themselves and largely not using firearms to do it. Because in most situations, they're more trouble than they're worth because someone who's living outside is going to have to deal with cops all the time. Someone, and this is what you were talking about when we were talking about getting ready for this episode. It's like, well, let's say you have your AR and you approach the border.
Starting point is 00:08:33 Yeah, you're getting engaged really fast by like 75 Border Patrol guys who have been training their whole life for this. Not saying that they're particularly well-trained or efficient, but they have been waiting for the one person with an assault rifle who they can fire at for a very long time. Yeah. And the only purpose of having a firearm is if it makes you and the people that you care about more likely to survive. Yes. Which doesn't happen if the entire border patrol is shooting at you. Right. That's a bad vibe. That's a worse time. at you. Right.
Starting point is 00:09:04 That's a bad vibe. That's a worst time. Yeah, no, it's like I always carried a legal knife. You know? Yeah. Wherever I was, I didn't have a legal length knife, and that was fine. You know? Yeah. It's efficient. Yeah. Look into knife laws, though, before you...
Starting point is 00:09:19 Knife laws in America are almost as complicated as gun laws, and... Well, you live in California, you can't have a cane sword. Yeah, that's right. But I can open carry a large machete on my belt as long as I don't attempt to conceal it. Oh. Or a sword, a regular sword.
Starting point is 00:09:33 I used to hitchhike with a machete. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There have been times that I've been doing stuff with a machete. Yeah, exactly. I needed it. I was going to go camping. I did actually once get a, I think it was a park ranger or someone. I was coming in from freediving, and actually once get a, I think it was a park ranger or someone. Like I was coming in from free diving.
Starting point is 00:09:46 And when you free dive, you always have a knife because I've experienced this actually. When you dive and you get tangled in fishing nets and you're breath hold diving. You need to get out so you don't die. Yeah. So you have a knife and you cut yourself out.
Starting point is 00:09:59 The guy was like, oh, you're supposed to have that knife. And I said, yes. Yes, I'm supposed to have that knife. So yeah, you can open carry a knife. It just depends on the county you're in in California, but in San Diego County. Okay. So to talk about bug out bags though, what we do want them for is going to be different person to person. And what I recommend that any preparedness minded person or any person, I hope more people become preparedness minded, is to think about the crises that could happen
Starting point is 00:10:25 that are likely and think about what you would want and how you would deal with them. And my argument upfront is that this can reduce anxiety if you do it right. If you fixate on these things forever, like a lot of people don't engage with preparedness because they don't want to be anxious about it. They don't want to think about a forest fire, right? But if you, I've said this before maybe even on this show i'm not sure it was like when i lived in a cabin really in the woods like i currently live in a house in the woods but there's like a little bit of buffer but i you know built a
Starting point is 00:10:54 12 by 12 cabin and like in the i cut down two small trees and built a cabin right and so i worried about forest fire and so i i thought about what to do, which was, uh, make sure that I always had like, you know, some sort of radio and, and, or cell communication available to me, uh, keep a bag ready with all the stuff I need. Keep, make sure that my car is half a tank of gas and that's it. That's all I was going to do to prepare. There's more you can do, but that's all I was going to do. So I stopped worrying about forest fire. And so I think done right, a go bag or a bug out bag or preparedness in general can reduce our anxiety. And the thing that I think people get wrong is that for most people, moving over land by yourself and surviving in nature is not a likely response to crisis. Yes.
Starting point is 00:11:49 There are some times where that will be true. And even like you're talking about like working at, you know, the border where people are having to like build shelters and things like that. But for most people, I don't even say put a sleeping bag in your go bag because size might be more important than that. Having other warm stuff and emergency blankets and things like that i do absolutely advocate you know but then again i often make sure that i have a sleeping bag around because i do live in the middle of the woods and if my
Starting point is 00:12:15 cars were broken and there was a bad thing i would have to go overland 10 miles to get anywhere you know yeah because your situation is not the same as everyone's. And I think that's a really good point. For most people, I advocate that you think about your bug out bag as your get out of town for a weekend bag. It is the, you live in a hurricane area. It is a blizzard's coming. It is your stalker ex is in town and you don't want to be around. It is a, I decided all of a sudden I'm going to go visit my family and I don't want to be around. It is a, I decided all of a sudden I'm going to go visit my family
Starting point is 00:12:45 and I don't want to pack. You know, it is just a, it's, you're more likely to spend a night in your car on the road somewhere, like in a blizzard, let's say, you know? Yep. So what do you need to spend the night in your car in the snow?
Starting point is 00:13:04 And the answer is not that much. You need water and you need to spend the night in your car in the snow? And the answer is not that much. You need water and you need warmth. Food is like great, right? Yeah. We can kind of, I mean, you should have a little bit of snacks just so you might not have snacks around. Yeah, and it's in a stressful situation, having something to eat, it helps, it calms you down,
Starting point is 00:13:20 it helps you deal with that stress. Yeah. And one of the other things that we were talking about is we were talking about how you know okay so like the basic level that i advocate um i advocate actually even more than having like your your bug out bag is having a smaller pouch that is your emergency bag and that goes into whatever other backpack or purse or anything else you're carrying around and i actually like make these and distribute them to my friends and stuff. Oh, here's a fun tip.
Starting point is 00:13:49 If you're the prepper in your family or friend group, when it comes time to holiday presents, if you give them preparedness stuff, that has to be on top of whatever else you give them. Because you can't just give them your weird niche stuff. Yeah. Like you have to give them what they want as well as the wind-up radio, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's fair if sad. You can't just recycle gear that you wanted to try and didn't like and just give it to your aunt or something.
Starting point is 00:14:18 I mean, you can. You just also have to do other stuff too. Yeah, you can. You're just a bad niece or nephew or whatever. Non-binary child of sibling so i say that these emergency kits are three different things they are a hygiene kit because like the thing that i need the most often when i'm suddenly didn't prepare and i'm suddenly somewhere and i'm staying out late is like a folding toothbrush, right? Yeah. Or like some wet wipes in a packet or, you know, I don't know, like nail clippers or something.
Starting point is 00:14:50 Yeah, like I'm a person who uses insulin, right? So like I have a lot of bags with insulin in. It's in most of my bags because I'm up shit creek without it. Yeah, it's better to have it, you know? Yeah. I'm very lucky to have access to insulin and even have some spare. Not everyone does. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:06 Because pharmaceutical industry is terrible. It is. Yeah. That's actually one of the hardest things when talking to people about preparedness is like getting more of your medication is very complicated. And a lot of the methods that people should consider are not legal and I'm not going to advocate them. It is legal to buy medicine, I think, for your own personal usage in countries that are not the United States when you're traveling there anyway.
Starting point is 00:15:27 Yeah, that makes sense. Okay. So you want hygiene, you want a basic first aid kit, like kind of on the like boo-boo kit level, right? Which is as if it's like not important, but actually like you just don't want, infections can get real bad. So you just want to make sure that you have the ability to clean a small wound and treat it. Right. And, uh, what is it? It's hygiene, it's medical, and then it's survival stuff. And for me, this is just like tiniest amounts of, one of the cool things about preparedness is that the little first things you do are so much more likely to be useful than the complicated things later. Having a Bic lighter is so much more likely to be useful than flint and steel and fire starter and all of the bells and whistles. Yeah. I do love my flint and steel, but you're right. It is exponentially more useful.
Starting point is 00:16:20 I've been at the border all week. People are cold. It's very windy. I have a flint and steel in my truck. I've used that zero times. I have gone through an entire eight pack of big lighters. I've refilled my Zippo twice. I've given away all my lighters. Yeah. Because yeah, when you're cold, in fact, you are not inclined to start shaving little pieces off a large metal rod.
Starting point is 00:16:41 Yeah, exactly. And like, I keep little bits of fire starter and things like that in these emergency kits. Basically, anything that is like light and cheap and useful goes into these kits for me, you know? But the stuff that I prioritize is stuff like the first lighter is more useful than the second one, you know? Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:17:00 Margaret, do you know what's probably not light, certainly not cheap and rarely useful? Gold. That's right. Yep, certainly not cheap and rarely useful? Gold. That's right. Yep. Gold. You've nailed it. Let's hear about gold. All right. I'm Kate Max. You might know me from my popular online series, The Running Interview Show, where I run with celebrities, athletes, entrepreneurs, and more. After those runs, the conversations keep going. That's what my podcast, Post Run High, is all about. It's a chance to sit down with my guests and dive even deeper into their stories, their journeys,
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Starting point is 00:20:12 Listen to Blacklit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. We're back. That was an episode of Something You Don't Need but Margaret was about to pivot I think to telling you some more things that you do need Right So go ahead Margaret Okay, so tiny little emergency kit
Starting point is 00:20:35 you just put it in everything and it's just like it's always useful and it's like everyone I give these to is always a little bit like oh thanks and then about a year later they're like
Starting point is 00:20:44 oh I was at this protest and someone cut themselves or just some really minor, strange, random thing. They're like, it always comes up that it's really useful that I have this tiny little flashlight in a bag always. Oh, yeah. Love a tiny torch. And okay, so there's that. And then if you want, you could have a designated bug out bag and you keep it in the front closet or you keep it under your bed or you keep it wherever is like kind of useful to you.
Starting point is 00:21:10 Some people might keep them in their vehicles. That really depends on where you live. I wouldn't necessarily advocate it in a lot of places because vehicles are more broken into and also have more temperature fluctuations and things like Advil and like over-the-counter medications don't do so great with wild temperature fluctuations. Okay, so you get yourself a bag. What kind of bag really depends on what you're talking about? We were showing each other our bags beforehand. Yeah, this little insight into our interactions
Starting point is 00:21:39 off-mic there. I'll describe mine and you describe yours. I'll describe mine, you describe yours okay and i'll describe mine you describe yours and then say why you have it and then i'll say why i have mine okay i basically have like a regular daypack computer bag it just uh there's no waist belt it just it's designed to hold a laptop that's my bug out bag what i have have is a Mystery Ranch day pack. It's a 32 liter bag. It's called a Scree 32 for those of you who want to be just like me. And I have it because I really like the carriage system Mystery Ranch uses.
Starting point is 00:22:15 It's just like a yoke. So it carries like a frame backpack, but isn't big and bulky. Yeah, that's cool. I've used it. I think I've used this bag on every continent in the world apart from the antarctic like it's just a bag that i can put stuff in that is a size that is not obnoxious and it works for me for almost everything i day hike with it i i go on overnights with it i use it as my carry-on on the plane uh yeah it's just a useful bag that is not covered in molly and multicam and such things yeah and i know it works
Starting point is 00:22:47 for me like i i've used it for a long time and i know that it's suitable for my body with heavy weights yeah no and like i love i love bags and i i will happily geek out about bags and like that bag is me too it's pretty nice and this is like my least favorite backpack, right? I have like other backpacks. Like my day hiking bag is like a 25 liter, you know, actually has a waist strap and I like really like it, but I keep it packed with my day hiking stuff, you know? And so you do a lot of outdoor sports. Yes. Yeah. And so it really easily doubles as all of that, right?
Starting point is 00:23:26 Yeah, exactly. yes yeah yeah and so it really easily doubles as all of that right yeah exactly like i'm you know most weekends you know i try and sleep outside at least once a month so yeah you know i just sort of have that stuff anyway because it's part of my day-to-day life and mine is designed from the period of my life where i basically would go to whatever anarchist coffee shop was in whatever town and just hang out there and work all day. Right. And so like, and I was like, and I used to have a bug out bag that was like a little bit bigger. It was like a tactical bag. It was a three day assault pack, you know? And to be fair, I lived in a cabin in the woods and it was 2020 and the odds of major military crisis were much higher.
Starting point is 00:24:07 And, you know, but like, but right now I'm just like, this is my bag that comes with me when I go to my friend's house or when I go see my family. And because it's the important thing is that you have the bag that is available. Like the piece of gear that you have is always better than the piece of gear you don't have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't have to save up 200 bucks
Starting point is 00:24:28 for, you know, a mystery range or an Osprey bag. Right. But if your thing is being outside all the time, like, you know, you should have those things, right? Yeah. And, okay, so what I put in my, everyone's going to have really different stuff in their bug out bag, but some of the, a list that I have as my, okay, so what I put in my, everyone's going to have really different stuff in their bug out bag, but some of the list that I have as my like, kind of like core of it that I would recommend that most people would want to have some version of. And you should add things and we can talk about these things.
Starting point is 00:24:58 Yeah. Your passport and print copies of any essential records such as your animal's rabies vaccine card and medication and things like that. This is the stuff to help you ease bureaucracy as you move through the world. This is actually a thing you need to be careful with because then sometimes you don't want to bring your passport everywhere you go, right? You don't want to lose it, you know. But if it's your bug out bag that's waiting for you in case of an emergency, I think that's a decent place to keep it. Yes, I agree. You want an encrypted USB stick with copies of all these important documents, such as your driver's license, your passport, house and vehicle titles or rental agreements, insurance information, contact information for family and friends, vaccination records for your animals, and the like.
Starting point is 00:25:41 It clearly shows that I have an animal and not kids. I'm sure there's other stuff that you would yeah i mean i literally this is just making me think of i ran into a guy the other day who had come to the u.s with his dog border patrol wouldn't process him alongside his dog so volunteers kind of looked after his dog while he was processed and then returned his dog to him yeah but now he's going to have to go through the process of certifying the dog's vaccinations. Maybe the dog will have to get them again.
Starting point is 00:26:11 Luckily, he and the dog are on a road trip to their final home, the place where they want to live, where they're meeting up with friends and family so that they're having a great trip across the country right now. Good, yeah. Yeah, just easing that transition through bureaucracy by having those documents to hand i'm sure would have been great yeah and like honestly the more i read about uh
Starting point is 00:26:30 people dealing with um refugee crisis and like oh i don't know the right to return various places the more you can prove like the ownership of the stuff you own and things like that. Yes, yeah. It can be very easy to become, like, I understand that lots of this bureaucracy exists to make people legible and therefore taxable by the state, right? If we're talking from an anarchist perspective, I understand why it exists. I've been reading James Scott a lot recently, if that hasn't shown off there.
Starting point is 00:27:01 But in a scenario where the state exists exists which is the one we are in then there are advantages to being legible and understandable by the state and uh certain disadvantages to being illegible to the state when you're trying to get your house back and even like again my my time as a as a crusty traveler my my 20s and into my 30s, the single most useful thing that I carried was my driver's license without warrants. Because I used to have my ID run every single day. Because actually, it's actually part of the reason I have a strange aversion to carrying a hiking style backpack around often is because I learned when you look like a punk and you have a travel, like a hiking backpack, you are now the cop's main target.
Starting point is 00:27:50 Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so like, whereas when I have like a computer bag, I'm not the cop's main target and that makes my life easier, you know? Okay. Small amounts of emergency food, such as protein bars that you want to like swap out every couple of months i recommend putting in the ones that you don't like um because otherwise you'll eat them because otherwise you'll be like oh i could go i know where i have a tasty snack yeah yeah this is
Starting point is 00:28:15 sorry just before we recorded i ate a bar from this bag that i've been showing you yeah yeah um there's a product called a humanitarian daily ration, which is a vegan MRA that they give to refugees. Oh, wow. Yeah, those are great. Everyone can eat them. Yeah. They're very good to have. And I have those for emergency food because everyone can eat them.
Starting point is 00:28:34 Rarely do I feel like I want to eat them. So, yeah. I've been recently keeping, I haven't eaten one yet. I've been keeping these flavorless emergency ration bars. Oh, like the lifeboat rations? Yeah, they're're just like i think like oil and sugar and flour or something sounds delicious yeah and it's like you know what it's three days worth of food at 1200 calories a day it's barely three days whatever yeah okay so i recommend having that and you know making sure to swap that out uh overall i advocate not putting in things that will go bad because you are going to forget about this until it becomes a habit for you to
Starting point is 00:29:12 check it every month or so yeah okay um a travel hygiene kit with toothbrush floss toothpaste moist towelettes foam earplugs for sleeping in noisy environments that one is like way more. Yeah. Yes, yes, yeah. A time in my life when I was mostly living in my car, traveling around France, racing bicycles, I got caught in a snowstorm along with a number of other people who were traveling in various vehicles. And some of them were traveling in order to make an asylum claim. And we all got sent to this refugee camp
Starting point is 00:29:44 where basically we're sleeping on the floor of a large building. And I did not sleep for days because people had children and it was loud. And those earplugs would have been the most important thing. Yeah. Yeah, and it was like,
Starting point is 00:29:56 I actually started carrying them just because of going to shows when I used to do that more. And then I was like, oh, these are really useful in all kinds of situations. They cost like nothing. And they save your hearing.
Starting point is 00:30:12 The bang for your buck, the non-bang for your buck is very good. Yeah, the poof for your buck is great. Nail clippers, your daily wear makeup, and anything else you might need goes in your hygiene kit. Any prescription or over-the-counter medications that you rely on. And one thing that came up from a doctor friend of mine recommended when i was first started making these kits for my friends i was like buying bulk aspirin and putting it into little drug baggies you know yeah smart and my friend was like you need to put blister packs in instead blister packs being the like
Starting point is 00:30:42 little yeah individually when you individually labeled ones yeah both margaret and i using hand yes yeah to explain this thing yeah yeah we're professionals yeah because the police have less cause for suspicion if you are searched and this is clearly advil it says so it is packaged um in a way that is not convenient for people to make their own packages and so and actually what's funny is that of all the ones that i put into people's things the only thing i haven't been able to get blister packed is caffeine um because i put caffeine into these things because a lot of people are addicted to it and also because it's useful to be able to stay awake in certain environments and so i actually put in like different like caffeine
Starting point is 00:31:25 powder drinks or uh caffeine gum or other things yes yeah it's gonna say get mre caffeine gum yeah and then also um and i give them to like my friends who are about to drive sleepy is like yes and that's the main use that i have had it's amazing i don't drink caffeine it's amazing how much caffeine i have on me at any given time. Lethal nose. Yeah. A change of socks and underwear. And these should be like climate appropriate, especially like wool socks are like the most useful thing in the world, just as a general rule.
Starting point is 00:31:55 I think that a packable rain jacket and or poncho is incredibly useful here. A lot of people like the ponchos that are sort of a slightly more military style because you can use them as a tarp and make a shelter if you need that might be overkill for your particular environment. You might also just have like your hiking rain jacket that goes in there. A puffy packable warm top is a little bit of a like bonus item. I think having a warm upper layer is really important for a lot of it's until you've slept outside without a sleeping bag you have no idea how cold it is in the summer to sleep outside yeah on the ground especially whenever i'm watching movies or reading books
Starting point is 00:32:36 and like the kid runs away from home or they're like on that and they go and they sleep in the woods i'm like the fuck they did they did not sleep that night yeah yeah you lie on your side holding yourself wondering why you made these choices in life yeah yeah i might add that if you're going to have a specific like a puffy jacket for this and you don't own a puffy jacket yet a couple of things to consider are that um generally compressing down will help make it lose some of its loft so it'll be less loftyy. So you don't want to keep that stuff compressed for a very long time or super compressed, right? Don't cram it into the smallest ball. Remember that when you buy down jackets, all the baffles, which are the sewing lines across it, those are areas that are not insulated, right? So you
Starting point is 00:33:18 don't actually want the ones with the hundred little baffles going down them. Oh, interesting. That makes sense. Yeah. And then synthetic insulation does a lot better with wetness. It retains some of its insulating properties. And my final thing with down jackets, I think a lot about down jackets, I'm sorry, is get one that is a size bigger than you would normally get for like your Oh yeah. Because you don't really want to be taking stuff off when you're cold.
Starting point is 00:33:49 You want a jacket that you can just put on over all your stuff. We call it a belay parka in the sort of mountaineering community, but it's like a static thing, right? So you're hiking, you're mountain climbing, you stop, you immediately check that thing on over everything. That keeps you warm until you start moving again. makes sense to me i advocate personally i advocate for synthetic i advocate because it's cheaper you can leave it compressed and because it insulates better in the wet and it is much heavier for its and larger for its insulating value. But for me, having spent a lot of my life
Starting point is 00:34:27 sleeping in sleeping bags with no tarp or whatever and just being like, I'll just fucking deal with it. It's not raining that hard. Yeah, totally. I have fucked some really expensive down sleeping bags. Even the oil on your skin will actually eventually cause that down. Yeah, you really have to baby some ultra light down stuff, which is fine. If I'm mountaineering and I'm eventually cause that down to the club. Yeah, like that you really have to baby some ultra light down stuff, which is fine.
Starting point is 00:34:48 Like if I'm mountaineering and I'm doing something like that, I will baby my bag because I don't want to carry extra shit. But this is not that. Exactly. Like if you are trying to do a through hike, you might look at this very differently. And there's a version of the world
Starting point is 00:35:00 where your crisis might involve moving over the mountains in winter to get out of a country that has just elected a fascist who says that he wants to kill all the communists or whatever. Yeah, I've spoken to those people. Yeah. And so in that situation, get the mountaineering shit, you know? Yeah, yeah. Okay, other stuff to have in this bag.
Starting point is 00:35:23 A heavy-duty trash bag. You can put all your stuff in it to keep it dry. Yeah, yeah. There's all these arguments about how to keep your bag dry. And overall, and I'm curious if this has been your experience, people have been moving away from pack covers where you cover the pack and instead just put everything inside the pack into something that's waterproof. Yeah, that's what I've done for a very long time.
Starting point is 00:35:44 You can spend a lot of money on stuff sacks. Like the event ones at Sea to Summit make it cool because they have a one-way breathable fabric. So you squeeze them and the air goes out. Oh, that rules. It doesn't go back in. It's pretty cool. But then you end up with these really hard bricks
Starting point is 00:35:58 of clothing or whatever that like, you can't kind of make them fill the space, right? They just end up being like solid. So sometimes they don't pack as well. i have used three millimeter uh contract grade bin bags for years yeah the mountains and the deserts you can sleep in them you can make them into a poncho you can fill them with brush and make them into a sleeping pad uh yeah great items and it's sketchy but a lot of people um who are stuck living outside in very cold environments will wear them close to their skin for like a really intensely heating insulating
Starting point is 00:36:32 layer but it's sketchy because then you sweat like hell and you can freeze to death you have to be really careful yes that's some like that's some life or death shit yeah exactly i'm not telling you how to do that on air here you know yeah good call but yeah they have a lot of uses you give them to to gather water too i've done that before oh that makes sense cash cash is really useful the amount of cash you want to carry has to do with the amount of cash that you're willing to put into a bag but just sits there for it does nothing you know yeah gold of course yeah totally uh i have so many thoughts about gold and yeah i know yeah yeah anyway uh that's beside the point that's for home prepping
Starting point is 00:37:13 okay you want to spare usb battery and charging cables i i would advocate an octopus cable that has like mini usb-c and lightning charger all on one cable so you don't have to keep track of multiple cables for multiple devices. Yeah. That guy right here. I'm trying to look what the brand is of mine because I got one recently. When I'm working in places that are conflict zones, especially places where I think I might have to go peace out to a bomb shelter for a few hours, days, whatever, I like to have
Starting point is 00:37:42 a little pouch with all my charging and medical and essential stuff. This is called a lever cable, and I found it to be very handy because it's stiff and it doesn't... Cables get twisted and frayed a lot. I like this guy because he doesn't do that. A little buzz marketing for you there. No, I'm going to look into those later.
Starting point is 00:38:03 As much as I'm like'm like oh fuck all the gadgets no what i'm trying to say is you don't need all the gadgets but they're kind of cool and like and the size of extra battery you have is depending on what you're doing you know like if you're reasonably sure you're gonna be around power just have a little one and because like you know what you're gonna be the one who saves the night when everyone's drunk at the bar and someone's phone is dead and they're the only person who has uber set up right and you know um yeah like i've been trying to advocate that purse snacks are the best example of prepping and that everything that like men are trying to do is like catching up with the fact that like women are actually culturally in in our society like
Starting point is 00:38:40 better at prepping um yeah but okay um i put a mylar emergency blanket in these are these like you know they seem almost gimmicky they're these incredibly light little plastic tarps right uh one probably saved my life when i was like on my like 12th or 13th birthday when i like woke up getting hypothermia five miles from the road in a wet tent so i'm just like yeah no eyes are great like yeah they're great they uh they can do a hypothermia wrap with them they use them for signaling if you're in a different kind of situation uh we can't use them in the refugee camps where i'm working because one of them floated into a transformer uh and that oh wow that yeah so yeah that's your uh that's your caveat there don't use them around high voltage power but
Starting point is 00:39:28 yeah those things you're not going to get anything warmer for that size it's the size of a couple of credit cards stacked on top of each other yeah totally and like in mine i have like a slightly nicer one because i don't have a sleeping bag in mine i have like a emergency bag sleeping bag i've never used it i don't oh yeah there's a company called Survive Outdoors fuck I'm saying a lot of companies today buy whichever shit you want
Starting point is 00:39:50 I don't care there's a company called Survive Outdoors longer that makes one that's like about the size of a beer can yeah that's what I have
Starting point is 00:39:57 I think those are great I've fucked up one of those when I was doing like the look how ultra light I can be stuff
Starting point is 00:40:04 it's not great but like but here you are recording yeah here i am not complete with my full set of digits so like i can't really complain you know yeah exactly and those things won't float off into a power transformer they're a bit heavier yeah yeah yeah no that would be yeah it would be an advantage of it uh yeah and it's the other side, so again, people will see you, right? Which, contrary to what you might have seen on YouTube, you want people to see you most of the time. Most crises you're going to encounter, you're not going to be hiding. Right.
Starting point is 00:40:36 Sometimes when you're hitchhiking and shit, you do have to not be seen, and then I get really annoyed at how bright all the tents are. And so I kind of want one of the new new bullshit camo ultralight tents but yeah that's i don't hitchhike i have a fucking truck it's bullshit i'm fine a full water bottle i think it's always worth having a full water bottle in your in your bag this is the heaviest thing in your bag um water is just fucking wonderful and you need way more of it than you think you do when you're exerting yourself i have been historically advocating a single wall steel canteen so that the water can be boiled in an emergency directly in it but a lot of people have a preference for lighter weight and
Starting point is 00:41:16 that makes a lot of sense and also even having something that just looks a little bit more civilian also makes a lot of sense the ultra light i actually think the ultra lighters might be right on this one and they use the, to use a brand name, they all get those smart waters but then they don't keep drinking smart water. They drink one and then they clean it
Starting point is 00:41:32 and refill the bottle with tap water. Yeah, or with the sort of filter fits on top of them, which is very handy. Right. Yeah, the thing I do like about a single wall stainless bottle, A, the smart water bottles
Starting point is 00:41:44 where you fill them up and then they freeze, they can break. Right. And B, I like to do the Nalgene baby, where you boil some water, put it in that thing, and then if you are cold, that comes into bed with you. Yeah. Very pleasant experience. Yeah, no, that makes sense to me.
Starting point is 00:42:03 I don't know. It's a weapon, too. Full steel water bottle. That's true. Just push someone on the head with it. Yeah. They don't cut me back from that. Even the guy with the folding AR, he's not getting up.
Starting point is 00:42:13 You give him a couple with the water bottle. Well, and if we're going full crust punk, I also recommend a lock attached to a chain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if you have a bicycle, it's very handy. That's true. That's true. Yeah, yeah. yeah areas of our interest yeah uh okay uh a butane lighter a bick lighter uh an emergency whistle this is the most like i was at a firearms training and we were talking about a bunch of stuff and people were
Starting point is 00:42:38 like all right and this is how you like signal the following you know like like range clear kind of stuff like use a whistle blah blah blah blah, blah. And everyone's like, I didn't bring a whistle. I'm like, I got three in my bag. Like, what are you doing? Amateurs. They're light and cheap and useful. Like, the number of people who wouldn't have died in the woods
Starting point is 00:42:58 if they had a whistle. Like, more than anything else. Because people think that the solution to our problems is fix it yourself think that the solution to our problems is fix it yourself usually the solution to problems is get help yes yeah yeah and that's a great like you're going to use a lot less energy whistling than shouting yeah and most if hiking backpacks will have a chest buckle that is also a whistle and if they don't you can probably change it yeah and that rules that's the kind of shit i like to see yeah it's well thought out it's clever yeah we love it and
Starting point is 00:43:29 when i when i lived on a land project i made everyone put the hurricane whistles by their door so that like we didn't always have uh good cell reception or whatever and so that there's an emergency we can everyone has a whistle loud enough to be heard by everyone else on the the large property oh yeah you know smart yeah it costs a lot less money than a ham radio, which is something I've been. Right. And like, I'm not anti having like, you know, good walkie talkies and stuff, but yeah.
Starting point is 00:43:52 Yeah. Sometimes you're just like, no, I have a hurricane whistle or even I just have a regular whistle. Okay. A folding knife. 3D print them. What's that? You could 3D print them.
Starting point is 00:44:01 Really good ones. Oh, that's cool. Like 3D print them and give them out now. That's cool. That's awesome. I keep 3D print them and give them out now. That's cool. That's awesome. I keep a folding knife in these bags. I also usually
Starting point is 00:44:10 just have one on me. But, you know, the least weapon-looking knife you can get is going to be a bang for your buck in terms of, like, being able to go with you lots of places.
Starting point is 00:44:20 Obviously, this isn't going to your carry-on luggage. Yeah. A rechargeable headlamp or flashlight and then a basic first aid kit. That's my, you know, there's all kinds of other stuff. If you're going to be hiking, if you're, and if I know I'm going to be like in a lot of situations, one of the first things I would add is a tarp and a sleeping bag. That would be like the next things to go in. Sleeping bags are pretty big.
Starting point is 00:44:49 Yeah. I generally have that stuff. In a general sense, both for doing this and for generally enjoying outdoor stuff, it really helps if you can have your shit organized in stuff sacks and labeled. So that, you know, if you should, you need to leave your house in an emergency, right, it's going to be more comfortable. If you have a sleeping bag and inflatable pillow and a top, you can grab them in 10 seconds if you've got them labeled.
Starting point is 00:45:13 Right. And it's, this will also help you. Like I like to camp. The worst part about camping is packing. So if I have all my stuff, I can just be like, okay, I got a sleep system, I got a cooking system. Got some 24 hours of food. I'm ready to rumble. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:45:28 No, it makes sense. But you know what? Who else is ready to rumble? Oh, yeah. Our sponsors. They're ready to fight at all times. Yep. Here's an ad for fighting.
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Starting point is 00:49:03 Yeah, that shit's cool. Krav Maga. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. The Reagan gold of martial arts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so what do you... Okay, so I have other stuff that I keep in my bag
Starting point is 00:49:17 that is more fun or I think incredibly useful but not in the dead basics that I keep. But what else do you keep? Do you have any like fun stuff or other stuff that I didn't mention? Yeah, a couple of other things, I think. One of the things I use the most, this is my little bag that I have if I have to go to an area shelter or something. It's very, very small.
Starting point is 00:49:39 It's like, I don't know, it's the size of a small paperback book would go into a bigger bag. But one of the things that I use, I take on trips with me and I use it everywhere I go. And this is like a quarter inch bit driver. Oh, nice. Yeah. And it spins. It spins on its...
Starting point is 00:49:55 Just a tiny screwdriver where you can change the bits. Yeah. And then I have a set of bits. Yeah. So like I use this bad boy all the time, right? I use it when I get water in my podcast equipment which is a thing that i am want to do uh okay you have to uh this is my this is my uh this is my laddism right i'm breaking the frame of big podcast um you keep a sledgehammer
Starting point is 00:50:21 specifically for breaking frames yeah weaving I do. Weaving machine frames. If you run it. Yes, yeah. If there's one thing I fucking hate, it's a weaving machine. And I take them down whenever I can. But this guy is really useful, right? Like, you know, you could be staying with, you could be, there are a million things, right?
Starting point is 00:50:41 Your bed in your hotel is loose and you need to tighten it. You need to take apart your podcasting machine. There is, you know, there's something wrong with your phone whatever it is like a screwdriver and a few little bits super handy yeah you want to help your friend put together some ikea furniture not a problem uh so it's very very small it's you know the size of uh it's probably the size of a cigarette and then the set of bits is the size of another cigarette. Very easy to carry around with you everywhere. I am an appreciator of sporks. Oh, that was on my follow-up list too.
Starting point is 00:51:12 Oh, excellent, good. Yeah, I'm a person who thinks about sporks a lot. You guys can read my spork reviews at backpacker.com if you want to. That's awesome. Yeah, that's not a joke. It's just a reflection on the sad person i am um so yeah a okay are you a long-handled spork or a regular spork see the long-handled spork is nice for when you're going into an mre type meal yeah how often you're going into an mre type meal compared to
Starting point is 00:51:38 like the pocketability of a normal spork right no that makes sense to me. Yeah. The MRE spoon is the best bargain eating device. It weighs six grams, which is less than a titanium spork. You can dip it into hot water. It doesn't melt. It doesn't break like a traditional plastic. It's not like a fast food plastic spoon. It's best bang for your buck when it comes to spoons. Okay. When I was more of a cross punk always on my waist belt was a titanium spork with a P38 can opener keychain to it
Starting point is 00:52:13 because no matter what I could get into a can of Amy's chili the amount of people I've seen and I took camping a lot sometimes I'll go with my truck, sometimes I'll go by myself on my feet the amount of humans I've seen, and I took camping a lot, sometimes I'll go with my truck, sometimes I'll go by myself, you know, on my feet. The amount of humans I've seen with very expensive overlanding setups, trying to open a can of food on a rock, it's a lot of humans.
Starting point is 00:52:36 Like, a can opener is a very handy thing. No, and the P-38 or P-51s, these are the tiny military ones, they weigh nothing. They're like, 10 of them would fit on a credit card. You know? Yeah, I have one in my truck. But yeah. They're very small.
Starting point is 00:52:53 In terms of other things, I do like zip ties. Zip ties, very small, very handy. Yeah. You can always fix your zip ties. I'm just looking at this bag in front of me and thinking, what else I have that's uh remarkable i saved the day with zip ties when when i was driving in the woods with my friend when um some part of her exhaust system fell off of her van and i was like dragging on the ground and i didn't normally carry zip ties but my dad had always been like zip ties
Starting point is 00:53:21 they're amazing and i was like sure dad whatever so i i had some in my truck yeah very hand zip ties and duct tape certainly in your vehicle you can fix most stuff that wants fixing uh with with zip ties and duct tape i just like to wrap the handles of my stuff like i have a little bit lighter here um and i just wrap that in duct tape and then i have the duct tape yeah and i have the big lighter duct tape also is great tinder you can start a fire with it so okay uh really has many many uses you can use one lighter to light the other lighter on fire yeah yeah you could also take the tape off your lighter if you wanted to avoid lighting your lighter all right if you did light your lighter you'll get a moment of excitement when it goes poof yeah unless're holding it, which gives you a moment of pain.
Starting point is 00:54:06 Which can be exciting. Yeah, it can be exciting. Hopefully you're close to a hospital. Yeah. And yeah, I like to carry it like a little pre-made. I do like to vacuum seal stuff. It's a thing that I enjoy. I recently got a vacuum sealer.
Starting point is 00:54:21 I've been getting really into it. So I'll vacuum seal little packets of pills, little plasters uh band-aids for american listeners yeah into little packs and give them to people or keep them places it maybe helps them with aging a little bit but having a having a bag like that you could just open in an emergency it's super handy um the other thing that i like and largely this is is just because I go to places and I have these tiny little fishing chem lights. They're designed for certain fishing floats. They're very good if you need to see something- And so that's glow sticks for the non-tactical crowd.
Starting point is 00:54:59 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or for the British tactical crowd. They're very handy. You need to mark something at night, right? Like they're not going to be great for like, I have flares in my car. If my car breaks down on a dark road, I don't want people to pile into the back of it. But for smaller things, you're going around a campsite
Starting point is 00:55:16 and you want to be like, oh, like, you know, there's a piece of rebar sticking out the ground here, right? You can crack one of those bad boys and it'll light it up. No, that makes sense. They're also just a way to bamboozle young children. If you're around kids at night and you can suddenly make light appear,
Starting point is 00:55:36 just make sure they don't eat them. Okay, but see, this actually gets to something that you brought up earlier. A lot of crisis situations, an awful lot of them, you're not alone. And in an awful lot of them, things like being able to entertain kids and things like that is like, yeah, a genuine need, like a very useful thing. And so like, I know people who keep, you know, like, I mean, usually people who have kids, but they keep a stuffed animal or something like that in their bag. Yeah. Like I was, so there were a lot of children in these camps down the border and that's very fucked up uh but like i realized i didn't have any toys so i got loads
Starting point is 00:56:13 of these tiny little stuffed animals someone had donated like they're about the size of a golf ball and it gave each child an animal right so they could play with little animals and the animals could be in community with each other oh that's amazing yeah yeah they were so pumped and it wasn't just that the kids were like yeah i got a toy the parents were like thank fuck like yeah they are so bored right or like i have a small finger puppet that i was using the other day to entertain them uh i don't know where i found it i found it in one of the vans we were using yeah it's like a seal uh and like something like that makes it all the difference when you have nothing to do with your kids um and i guess like along those lines when i
Starting point is 00:56:50 am bored i have the kindle app on my phone i think it works with all the phones yeah obviously jeff bezos is a bellend but like that's a it's not a slash it's a british word yeah yes it's a british word we don't like yeah it's always the end of a dick the tumescent part yeah yeah okay yeah for those who weren't clear in the audience
Starting point is 00:57:10 yeah but yeah Jeff Bezos is a dick but the Kindle app is nice you can also have PDFs of books on your phone but like
Starting point is 00:57:17 it's again like I'm telling you from personal experience when you're sitting in a giant warehouse with nothing to do for a few days,
Starting point is 00:57:25 somewhere I have a picture of building a fort with this little, you know, she's like three or four, you know, and her folks had come. Her folks were refugees and we were just bored. So we built a fort out of Mylar blankets. But someone had an inflatable ball, which we just played with for hours
Starting point is 00:57:42 because you're so bored. So yeah, just having having an app on your phone where you can read books is probably going to be more useful to you than that short-barreled rifle that you have to pay a $200 tax stamp and let the feds come into your house for. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:57:56 Every Crestpunk I knew, you always carry what you need and then you carry something. And you almost set your personality around this. Like I knew a guy who was not an ultralighter, and his name was Pogo Dave. A fucking pogo stick? Yeah, an old metal, rusted pogo stick.
Starting point is 00:58:16 And I almost broke my knee with that thing. Oh, yeah. Yeah, in the middle of nowhere. Yeah. I don't know if younger listeners will be familiar with the pogo stick. Do you think that's like, do you think the Zoomers in the audience will be pogo? I have no idea. They're probably on the-
Starting point is 00:58:31 Look it up, kids. Yeah. And so having something, and it's funny too, because every like prepper manual is like, and a deck of cards. And this is like technically true, but I'll tell you what people actually play is hot dice. Having some like six-sided dice to play this really actually play is hot dice having some like six sided dice to play this really annoying game called hot dice
Starting point is 00:58:47 or like bring some D&D dice and just start playing like role playing games with people you know like there's like having the entertainment things and then the other thing I think it's really worth considering having a small musical instrument I
Starting point is 00:59:03 find that like there's a reason that cross punks play music everywhere they go. Yeah. Are you about to pull out a harmonica? I have a harmonica in a pistol magazine pouch that I take on the side of my bag when I go to places. Hell yeah. Yeah we took me so when Robert and I did our Myanmar trip I left my harmonica with the the people who you're gonna hear singing at the start of our show. They played their guitars and sung for us. Cool. I left them the harmonica
Starting point is 00:59:29 and they play it now. Yes, a harmonica. Practical harmonica. The one thing that I have in my bugger-up bag that's a little bit extra, but I swear by, I have a Nintendo Switch and a bunch of physical game cartridges for it
Starting point is 00:59:44 because when 2020 hit, I lived in a cabin in the middle of nowhere. I was off grid. I barely had any electricity. I basically had to walk half a mile to my car and like charge things in my car for a while until I like got together enough money to get some solar panels and some batteries and stuff, right?
Starting point is 00:59:59 Because I had not planned on having my cabin be suddenly where I lived. Well, like full-time not going anywhere else lived and the first thing i got was a little tiny it's called a bit boy and it is a like tiny game boy that has every single nintendo and super nintendo and sega genesis game pirated onto it oh wow and immediately ordering that after the podcast? And it costs like $40. I don't know how much they cost now,
Starting point is 01:00:30 but they're not expensive because they're little weird 3D printed pirated things. And they like use almost no electricity. And so it uses way less electricity than a cell phone. And that saved my sanity. And then when I finally got my shit together enough to get a Nintendo Switch and I could play Skyrim, So it uses way less electricity than a cell phone. And that saved my sanity. And then when I finally got my shit together enough to get a Nintendo Switch and I could play Skyrim. And it's not that I had nothing to do.
Starting point is 01:00:55 People are like, oh, you don't need to entertain yourself in crisis because you're busy. It's like, look, you can probably only physically work on building your house to get it ready for the apocalypse you think you're living in for maybe 14 hours a day you know maybe 10 to 14 hours yeah and if you don't do manual labor right now it might be a lot less yeah like you have downtime not always in every situation but like injured need to sit around and do something or you'll you know like like entertainment is like actually really useful yes um and then yeah yeah if you if you bring a paperback and i recommend it uh bring one that you've already read because you know you like it i like normally don't reread books all that much, but when I need to turn my brain off, a book that you've already read for a lot of people is going to do better.
Starting point is 01:01:50 And if you haven't, you should get a jump start on this by reading my book Escape from Insel Island. Oh, magnificent. Alright, thanks. So you can do the tabletop roleplaying game that we did. Yeah, there's an Escape from Inula Island tabletop role-playing game
Starting point is 01:02:05 that's coming out next year. Well, there's a little zine version of it that I think you can download now, but it's going to be slightly better. Yeah, keep that in your bucket bag. The other thing I was going to plug that I forgot about was download the Google Maps onto your phone
Starting point is 01:02:17 or whatever brand apps you want, maps you want, and have a watch that doesn't need a battery. I think that's super handy. You can use the watch to tell the direction of south, which will obviously give you other compass directions if you really need to, but you can tell the time. You would, again, be surprised how people might imagine that after X happens, they won't need to tell the time because it won't matter.
Starting point is 01:02:43 You probably will need to tell the time in most of your crises, even to know if something has happened or it's not happened, right? And so being able to do that, it's very handy. And having a watch that powers itself is a way to do that. No, it makes sense. I use one that doesn't power itself, but it lasts three weeks or so on a charge
Starting point is 01:03:02 and vaguely charges itself from the sun but not very efficiently um there's also and i know there's like now we're getting into the weeds okay here's the other pitch it's fun when besides doing the basics you can nerd out about it and you can do it cheaply because nerding out about it is free you can find your other friends that want to talk about this bullshit and talk about what is bullshit. You don't have to go out and buy fancy, crazy shit. Um, sometimes you want the fancy, crazy shit, but most of the stuff we're talking about is super cheap. Um, and then you can have the joy of talking about the shit and getting into the weeds with it. And, but there's a, um, um there's an app i think it's called keywix and
Starting point is 01:03:45 it lets you download wikipedia and read it on your phone offline yeah that would be good my other i've just remembered one more thing that margaret and i talked about off michael a while ago uh because this is the kind of people we are yeah uh it's called bank line uh oh yeah the yeah so the tactical crowd are very into paracord uh because it's a little bit stronger and you can pick out the inside lines and stuff. It's also very shiny and can be annoying to not sometimes. If you get some bank line and you need to construct a shelter, which is relatively unlikely, you can.
Starting point is 01:04:19 If you need to repair your clothes and you have a needle, you can pick it apart and use it for that but if you're bored like every everyone should know a few knots uh you know if you know how to do like a i guess a figure eight knot if you know how to do a trucker's hitch a bowline knot um and you're probably pretty good if you could do those honestly you can do a lot of stuff with just those uh prussic maybe another friction hitch you can practice those when you're bored it's fun it's okay it may not be as fun for you as it is for me because i'm that kind of person but if you like to to learn stuff and then you can share that with someone else right it's fun to teach people and then they can teach you a couple i have taught and learned not from people
Starting point is 01:05:01 from half a dozen nationalities in the last month and it's fun and it's cool to share it's also like when you're in a shit situation being like huh having a moment where you're not thinking about the shit situation instead of thinking about that's cool i learned that not yeah it's very nice actually and so yeah like a brazilian rodeo guy taught me a couple of knots that's cool the other day yeah it was sweet we were helping we had um dumpster dive some tents that susan g kohman was throwing away and so we were helping put those up and we in one case we had the fly sheet but not the tent so we were trying to work out how to make them to a tarp did some different knots it was fun uh and bank line is cheaper than paracord probably don't need the paracord with a
Starting point is 01:05:42 fishing line inside in 99 of circumstances uh let's get some bank line number 36 bank line okay and then the other the the cross punk challenge is you just start fixing your clothes with dental floss oh yeah dental floss is great for that yeah yeah yeah get a sail needle and dental floss and you'll smell minty fresh uh yeah and when i make my emergency kits, I take little, they're sort of sewing needle vials. I like them better than the little slidey kits
Starting point is 01:06:10 where everything gets lost all the time. Yeah. And I just get these little tiny vials. They're clear so everyone knows what's in it. And I put safety pins, regular sewing needles, and leather sewing needles into them.
Starting point is 01:06:22 And then when you're sewing with leather, the other thing that I recommend people carry it. Okay, like in 2003, if you are a crust punk, the things you need to have on you are at all times, you need a folding knife, you need a headlamp, you need a multi-tool with pliers, and you need a sleeping bag. And like, and a spork and a can opener.
Starting point is 01:06:42 Yeah. And that's kind of it in a lot of ways. Yeah. Don't combine those things. Don't be the person with the spork multi-tool because you'll get beans in your knife. Well, actually, that's called a hobo tool. There actually are multi-tools that are...
Starting point is 01:06:58 Oh, sorry, a spork. No, no, no. It's a spoon on one side and a fork on the other. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Those suck. Anything that folds, you should keep it away from food. Your folding knife is going to get so gross.
Starting point is 01:07:13 I mean, you'll do it anyway. But I think we're kind of probably at time. Yeah, I can keep going. That's going to get tweezers. But okay, this is enough stuff. If you want to hear more of this kind of content. Margaret has a whole other podcast. Oh, I was going to say just trick them into having me on to talk about this stuff more.
Starting point is 01:07:34 But yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll have you back. We'll do a whole other one. But Margaret also has a whole other podcast, which you should listen to. What's it called? And where can people find it, Margaret? Well, okay.
Starting point is 01:07:43 So the prepper one is called Live Like the World is Dying. Your podcast for It Feels Like the End Times. It comes out every Friday. And I also have a Cool Zone Media podcast called Cool People Did Cool Stuff where I talk about history and about cool people who did cool stuff. And James has been on both of these podcasts.
Starting point is 01:08:01 So if you want to hear us continue to banter about things, there's so many more options options available to you yeah uh maybe download them for uh those terrible times when you when you just need the calming voice of me and margaret talking about bags that's right we'll just do it like just to like it's okay you're going to get through this. I know that things seem bad right now, and they are bad, but it's okay. We'll just do a whole hour of that. Yeah, we'll do an hour of that. I'm proud of you.
Starting point is 01:08:33 Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We will be your anarchist affirmations. Yeah. That's another podcast. This has been It Could Happen Here. Thank you, Margaret. That was wonderful.
Starting point is 01:08:45 All right, bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can find sources for It Could Happen Here updated monthly at coolzonemedia.com slash sources.
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