Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Keys!

Episode Date: March 22, 2021

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writers/podcasters Soren Bowie (‘American Dad’ on TBS, ‘Quick Question with Soren and Daniel’ podcast) and Daniel O’Brien (same podcast, and ‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ on HBO) for a look at why keys are secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode. (Alex's podcast hosting service requires a minimum of 5 characters per episode title, so that's why this episode's title has 1 exclamation point)

Keys. Known for opening doors. Famous for closing doors. Locking doors. You get it. Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why keys are secretly incredibly fascinating. Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode. A podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. Two guests return to this podcast, and they're returning together for the first time. Soren Bui is a writer for American Dad on TBS, which is an amazing TV cartoon that's worth seeing. Daniel O'Brien is a writer for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which is an amazing TV current

events comedy show that's very worth seeing. And then the two of them co-host the podcast Quick Question with Sorin and Daniel. Very fun, very joyful. Please search the title or go through the links in the episode because you're going to love it. You may recognize them from our past work together. And now that includes an episode of this show about the planet Venus with Sorin and an episode about the U.S. President Franklin Pierce with Daniel. I am thrilled they were each up for coming back again, and I thought it would be fun if we did it all together. Also, I've gathered all of our zip codes and used internet resources like native-land.ca to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Catawba, Eno, and Shikori peoples. Acknowledge

Soren recorded this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino-Ortongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. Acknowledge Daniel recorded this on the traditional land of the Leni-Lenape people. And acknowledge that in all of our locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode. And today's episode is about keys. And I want to thank listener Rusty Shackelford, because Rusty suggested this topic. Listeners to this show who are patrons get to vote on topics, and they picked keys. I also did a whole extra poll this month, so we're getting two of those. The other one's coming soon. And because of that democracy, Rusty Shackelford's pick is now a full episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Soren Bui and Daniel O'Brien. And hey, speaking of that, please sit back or stand with

your hand on the window of that locked car, because the internet is putting that picture everywhere. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Sorin Bui and Daniel O'Brien. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Sorin, Daniel, it is so good to have you back. And I always start, as you know, by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. Either of you can start, but how do you feel about keys? I have a very unreasonable, paranoid relationship with keys. I feel like I find keys on the ground, out in the world, in the wild, more than anyone else on the planet.

I know that can't be true. I know that's unreasonable. That's bananas. I know it's probably A, because I'm constantly looking down and B, because when I see a key, it will impact my whole day. I don't actually think that more keys have entered my life. I just think that I'm looking for them and then I find them and then I dwell on them. I just think that like I'm looking for them and then I find them and then I dwell on them.

Like I have found so many keys in my life. And as soon as I see them, I get very stressed and anxious about them. Like they're really good. Physical manifestation of my anxiety is like, oh, no, I'm in charge of this thing and it's important and I don't know what to do with it. Like my body is like looking for somewhere to put my anxiety and keys are the perfect vessel for that so uh there have been so many times where i've seen them in the street or at the park and i just pick them up and like impotently wave them around and look around me to see if there is if because in the dream scenario there will be someone near me who is like holding a lock and he looks helpless and i can be like ah i have the thing for you but that never happens i'm just a

guy who now feels responsible for these keys and getting them back to their owner and eight times out of ten i have no way of doing that so what happens is i'm a guy who needlessly increases his anxiety level because of keys a and b steals someone's keys because I find them and then I take them with me. Like, this is good. I'll get these back to the owner. And then I throw them in a bowl of keys in my home. Oh, the key master. You're at home with a, you're the master of all the keys.

Sometimes I've turned them into the police. But often, because they're criminal keys. Yeah, yeah. You mean you mean you like is that for real like you go to the police station and say yes i found a key i found this key on the on these cross streets here it is and do they laugh at you no they they i i imagine this is the kind of thing that that happens a lot uh with children like yeah like normally they'd open their drawer and pull out like a sticker badge and give it to me and like you're a deputy today but they look at me and they see a 35 year old male and there's like okay thank you for these keys uh we can't deputize you the stickers are for the children sir my relationship to keys is i've sort of lived

my life in defiance of keys um i get very excited when i lock myself out of a space because then i have the opportunity to try to break in and i love breaking into stuff i i've i learned in high school that uh i could use my toyota truck key to not only open but also start another person's Toyota. Different model. It was a Toyota Corona and I had a Toyota truck and I could use my key to start his car, which was really fun. And then every other time, you know, people get locked out of their cars or they get locked out of their houses.

And it's just like this thrill in my heart that we're going to find a way in. Wow. Did that mindset and experience lead to the thing online where you were in the stock photo for being locked out of a car? Did that help you get a character and stuff? What Alex is referring to is that there's a stock photo. Shouldn't be a stock photo. There's a photo that I used in an article long ago, a how-to article on what to do when you lock yourself out of your car. Yes, I got very excited when I did it. And that's why I decided to write that article because I was like, oh, I know a lot of ways to do a car. And then that photo then got repurposed by every locksmith in the country and often to Scotland and England and everywhere else.

That's the thing I'm most famous for, appearing on locksmith websites. Yeah, and a lot of people who use that photo could be forgiven because a lot of those like photos.com sites where you get these stock photos, it seems like they use the same small pool of Aryan models from somewhere. It's just like this purely German group of people who've done all these poses like oh i'm now i'm a businessman now i'm a fireman now i'm locked out of my car guy so if i'm just a person who like needs a photo for a quick thumbnail and i search locked keys in car and i see a picture of you you're right at home with photos.com stock models yeah it does the

photo does look like oh yeah yeah, somebody staged this. Because I f***ing staged it so that I could put it in an article. I want to go back to your Toyota truck key opened other... When you said Toyota Corona, did you mean Corolla? But either way, I'm very astounded by this. Surprisingly, there's a Toyota Corona. There was a Toyota Corona. Did you mean Corolla? But either way, I'm very astounded by this. Surprisingly, there's a Toyota Corona. There was a Toyota Corona. It opened up his Corona. It was like a car, a hatchback car that used to exist. And the way that I found out was that he asked me to pick his car up at the Aspen airport once. And I went there and he didn't leave a key.

And I'm like mad and I'm looking around the car and everything. And finally I went there, and he didn't leave a key. And I'm like mad, and I'm looking around the car and everything, and finally I'm like, well, let's just try this. And I put my key in his lock and just turned it, and it unlocked, and I was like, no way. And then I got into the car and put it in the ignition, and it seemed locked. And then I pulled the key out just a little bit, and it turned the engine over,

and now I had access to his car whenever I wanted. Wow. So that was a huge lesson for him, of not asking you for favors because who knows what kind of schemes you're going to get up to when left to your own devices right well that's what i ended up doing was at school one day taking two planks putting them over the irrigation ditch and we drove the front wheels of his car over the ditch and then took the planks away. So his car was just straddling the ditch. Shout out to Chase. How are you doing out there, Chase?

He's stranded out there still. That's how he's doing it. It's really bad. Hasn't figured out how to solve that problem. Oh, that's amazing. I think from here we can get into our first fascinating thing about the topic. Quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. Oh, that's amazing. I think from here we can get into our first fascinating thing about the topic. Quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics.

And that is in a segment called, I just quantify. Put your arms around these numbers. Put your arms around statistics. And that name was submitted by Johnny Davis. We have a new name every week. Submit to SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at GMO.com. What you want, what you want.

Yeah, that's a great one. I'm really happy with how that turned out. That was very, very good. Oh, and you went for it too. That was great. Awesome. A plus. I never get a grade. Feels good.

My GPA is skyrocketing. This is AP too. So this is really good for college admissions. This is like, you're going to have over a 4.0 with this. I can just like get a minor in sugar, right? Without trying like the main degree, you know, still got to work on it, but thank you, Johnny Davis. And, uh, And there's just a couple numbers here, because then we got a lot of takeaways. But the first number here about keys is three, because three is the basic number of parts of a key. This is according to the book Keys and Locks and the Collection of the Cooper Hewitt Museum by Bert Spilker. That's a design museum that's part of the Smithsonian in New York City. But they say that most keys consist of three basic elements, which are called the bow, the bit, and the shaft. Okay, shaft, I got. I can point to that one on a map, I think. I'm interested in the bits.

And the bit is the part that interacts with the locking mechanism so it's all the the jagged elements there and then the bow is basically the handle part so it's it's maybe more like key architecture than any of us ever think about but that's the basics like across all of time i like it when the bit has a little bit of flourish to it all the little dangly bits they're like well you know what we should do is you carve like a little heart out of the out of this yeah it's just like the ones that are just one long rod and at the very end there's two little flags that hang down and they make some sort of ornamental shape yeah because i remember in uh having a key from my college apartment housing through the school it's not like a like a normal apartment and we wanted to make extra copies of our keys for uh in case we lose them and for family and it didn't say do not duplicate on the key we were

told by administrations not to duplicate it but it didn't that wasn't printed anywhere so we just went to a home depot and the home depot skilled key maker looked at it and said i can't make a copy of this like he knew from looking at i imagine it must be like keysmith code that they they know like this was made with a key that you can't duplicate without the president's approval or something wow the order of the keys have to come together i know right that's i'm we used to go to like ace hardware and we would say do not duplicate on it when he'd be like well if you give me another twenty dollars i'll do it well yeah all right in my reading about it it seems like do not duplicate does not have a ton of legal force behind it uh but also uh people just put that on there all the time at least in the u.s i don't know if other countries have this weird like

key law engraved into keys that doesn't mean anything i can't imagine it matters much longer maybe we'll talk about this too but it's like keys are obsolete they're on their way out yeah yeah we'll get into that it's it's uh oddly finally wrapping up the whole key era we did it it's sad it's really sad i mean i don't feel that way that's just the position i've decided to take for this podcast because i think it'll be interesting if i if i really like keys i say good riddance because that's the position i've chosen i just i just start doing points like those espn shows where they debate sports like yeah the show's just full of dings it's really hard to hear, like really irritating.

Well, the next number here, this is 28 feet and one inch tall, which is a little over eight and a half meters. And then 11 feet, four inches wide, which is almost three and a half meters. So about 28 feet tall, about 11 and a half feet wide. That is the size of the world's largest key, according to the Guinness Book of World Records. Largest key in the world. When did they make that key? And they recorded this 2019.

So it was probably around then or a little before. Yeah, I saw that picture of it. It's like, it looks very modern. It has like those, it's got the modern key, a car key design in it. There's no bits. It has like those, it's got the modern key, a car key design in it. There's no bits. Instead, the rod itself is got like hollowed out sections, grooves through it. So that, you know, like when you flip up your switchblade keys.

Sure. You know what I'm talking about. It looks like that. It's a Chevy, right? Yeah. This was built by Jim Bolin of Casey, Illinois. And Guinness says, quote, the key is a replica of the key to the record holders Chevy Silverado truck. So a man in Casey, Illinois has constructed an enormous version of his own car key, which is like when you see the picture folks, it's like next to a

building and kind of dwarfing it. It's it's much taller than the building i'm not even gonna ask why it's it's um it's definitely a very big key i don't want to take away from how big it is because because i know that's important to the guy who who made it and and all the all the the folks who helped him out uh it seems like one of the easier to top records as far as records go and and and uh i've like there's a on the the show that i i write for last week tonight with john oliver there's the uh the leader of turkmenistan who is obsessed with guinness world records and just like and and they're all like the low-hanging fruit kind like this, where it's like, I have the biggest horse statue. I have the biggest marble cake stuff that he could just decide, like, give that to me now.

And I feel like once word gets to Turkmenistan, I guess after this podcast comes out, then he's going to find out that someone has a bigger key. That's like that's that's an easy win for him. That's an easy win for anyone who cares about records and has time and money, which is exactly this guy and almost no one else. It just seems like this poor fellow with the Chevy is going to get dethroned sooner rather than later. Is this a shop? It looks like a commercial area.

Does he actually sell Locksmith or something? Or is this his house? Yeah, it looks like some kind of shop. The other thing is, I'm amazed to know about this leader of Turkmenistan, because I think the town of Casey, Illinois is basically his enemy in the United States. This town came up once before in the episode of the show about chairs. It's a town full of people just making huge versions of things to win Guinness World Records. Oh, that's fantastic. Yeah, they also hold the record for largest wind chime, rocking chair, knitting needles, crochet hook, pitchfork, golf tee, yardstick, wooden token, Dutch wooden shoes, mailbox, pencil, and bird cage like that like uh jim here is just part of a wider community of people making stunt large models of things making stuff for

giants well i feel i feel better now because i was worried this was going to be like his his lifelong pursuit but no if you cut him down someone else in that town is going to make another bigger honking key all right. All right, good. I like this now. This is great. Yeah. And it's in Eastern Illinois, if people know Charleston or Mattoon, that's near there. And apparently Turkmenistan has a similar vibe going on.

So that's exciting. I'm glad to know this. And there's one more number here. The number is 1965, the year 1965. That is when Ford introduced the US's first double-sided car key. According to Car and Driver, for one thing, car keys were first just for the doors, and then later they developed car keys that do the ignition, like you did hand cranks and stuff to start the car. But the first ignition car keys were single sided. And you had to insert it the right way up in order to like get it in the ignition

and start your car until 1965. I didn't even think about that. It's it reminds me of like USBs or something. I don't like it. I'm really glad we fixed that. Yeah. I didn't even think about that. I when you said double-sided i was like yeah aren't all keys double-sided but i was thinking of like the just the x-axis i wasn't thinking about the y that you could like put stuff grooves on the top of the key as well uh and i guess that's just true all car keys they all look like as far as like human history which is my history they've always been that way yeah like i'm used to house keys only going one way but i guess car keys were that way until the 60s and then now you can just lazily stick it in and it works i wonder i hate asking my stupid questions because uh it's possible

it's not a thread that you tugged on because the answer is boring but is that did he come out with that as like uh flash for the sake of flash or was there a real need in the market for that like my my brain goes to it's the past so there are a whole lot of drunk drivers who were like you know it'd be better if my if my key was more cooperative with my state of constant drunkenness and then ford was like oh yeah that's a good that's that's a good tip i'm gonna we'll make this easier for you or was it just like is it just flashy to say we are the first double-sided key yeah do you know this information or have i wasted all of our time no my my source is carriodriver.com and they don't say why i had not thought of the element that it probably made drunk driving easier, which is

regrettable. That's too bad. Holy cow. Well, certainly having a key that you both open the door with and you start your car with, that must have been a boon for drunk drivers. I can remember in college walking past somebody trying to open the door to his room with the bottle opener on his key chain. And I can understand how like when you only have to, you only have one key for everything. That gets way easier. He was probably drinking because he had found his car over a ditch because somebody did a thing. So, I mean, it's a bad day for that guy, you know? Yeah.

Right. This was a person who knew he couldn't trust the world around him. Full of cheats and liars. Turns to drink. Well, we got three big takeaways. We can get straight into them. Takeaway number one. That whole key to the city tradition

is stranger than people think. There's a whole history to it, and also there's a few funny present-day stories of people receiving keys to the city. But I had just always heard of it in the background and sort of in pop culture you know like like a movie hero gets one but uh but it's a whole thing i'd in fact exclusively heard about it in pop culture i'd never met anyone in real life who had gotten the key to the city or wanted the key to the city and or like growing up i don't recall any announcements

now that i like i at at 10 years old i'm reading the sunday paper looking for announcements about the key to the city but it's but but even if i had been like like local news would come across my doorstep certainly and i don't recall ever in my life hearing who got the key to my city whether it was like small town hazlitt where i grew up or new brunswick or los angeles or manhattan like like i don't know if that's ever happened i've only ever heard of it as a plot point in a movie or tv show yeah one of those things that i didn't actually know if it ever like crossed over into real life or just one of those things that some writer invented a long time ago and then every hack that followed him was like yeah key to the city it's important to the guy in the bowling league with his work chums it feels like something the ghostbusters

got and i don't actually know whether they did or not it just feels like a thing in a ghostbusters movie like well another ghost eliminated here's the the thing it feels like yeah it belongs very much in the world of cutting ribbons with giant scissors yeah i don't i've never seen it happen in real life so it turns out for one thing it's very old and it specifically goes back to medieval europe it also has many different meanings and whatever the meaning it dates back to a time when medieval cities had city walls and then the walls had locking gates. And so when you're given a key to the city, symbolically the idea is this city trusts you so much you can go in and out of our walled gate whenever you want to.

So there wasn't one key that gets handed around to new honorees. They had multiple keys to the city that they would give out as they as you earned their trust. Yeah. And this this Slate article, it's by writer Juliet Lapidus. She says that in a lot of the cases, the ceremonial key worked like that this was actually a transaction where it's it's really giving you access to the walls of the city. Yeah. It's really giving you access to the walls of the city. That's exciting. So before you had that, were you just not allowed to leave the city? Or you had to go get somebody? You had to do a petition to be able to leave. Yeah, I think you had to deal with, I was about to call them staff, like the guards at the gates.

It's not a theme park or whatever. Yeah, Beefeater admin. Yeah, and then there were like a few reasons within that. Another version of it was a custom where, quote, giving certain tradesmen preferred status, let them enter a gated town or commercial business without first paying a toll. So it was also like a commercial version. Like, we like your sales so much you can come in and out. We won't toll you. Go ahead.

We like your sales so much. You can come in and out. We won't toll you. Go ahead. And so if you own a key to the city now, what would be the kind of thing I would do, I could do, that would give me a key to the city? For one thing, we'll have a few weird stories, but I really had to dig for them. Most of them are just given to either artists or athletes, at least the famous ones, who did something nice and often from their hometown,

if not the city that they did it in. Like Kendrick Lamar got a key to the city of Compton because he is from Compton and did a bunch of cool art about Compton. Like most of the stories are just great. It's like, oh, this is a nice honor for somebody. That makes sense. It's like a coming home. Like you're welcome to come back anytime that you want.

Yeah, but it sounds like the benefit seems to have gotten lost over time like kendrick did something nice for compton and now he gets a key to commemorate that but like sounds like kendrick's got a pretty dry beak and all this where's his slice of the pie that's true yeah another example daniel especially you might like is that victor cruz got a key to patterson new jersey sorry i yelled during the rest of that sentence some some bull town in new jersey he got a key there somewhere adjacent to the metal land yeah and he's it turns out he's from there too like it's often a hometown thing so he just happens to play for like his hometown team but it's a lot of stuff like that and then at the same time you don't get i i assume victor cruz could get a free meal or drink or

whatever in town but it's not because of the key it's just unrelated you know right i imagine he just walks in being victor cruz and they're like please you're the happy meal is on us and he takes out the key and they're like put that away that that that's not why yeah i like him like getting pulled over by cops and trying to show them the key first holy shit are you victor what get that key out of my face are you victor cruz just making people take pictures of him using it on doors and machines and stuff like no no no when also before the the few weird modern key stories there's also one other meaning to that medieval key to the city which was a thing where the city wanted to assert its own independence. Because apparently, like, you know, kings would visit a city. And the Slade article says, quote, the citizens would present him with

a key, probably a functional one as a gesture of obedience, but also paradoxically, of autonomy. By offering a key, the citizens demonstrated that they had not been forced to grant the monarch entry, and that they might have chosen not to, end quote. It's like a preemptive, ah, yes, we are in charge of ourselves, and you, the king of France or wherever, are allowed to enter before he can say, like, this is part of France. Boom. Smart. Which never comes up when Victor Cruz is in Patterson, New Jersey. It's not part of the ceremony or anything but yeah but from here we can do i've got four very strange situations where someone was given a key to the city there are a few weird ones and the first one here is city of detroit michigan this was 1979 in detroit michigan the city gave a key to Saddam Hussein. Oops.

And for people who don't remember, Saddam Hussein was a leader of Iraq. He was not associated with Michigan in any particular way. I wanted to make sure we were thinking of the same fella. That was the one that I knew too. Yeah. But I didn't want to jump to any conclusions. Right. You may want to Google search him.

Just make sure that there's not a couple of different ones that are competing for top spot there. It would it would be mean if I picked a different guy named Saddam Hussein who just like lived in Detroit and owned a restaurant or something like, you know, like unrelated. Got his his key to the city of Detroit because he worked so hard to clean up that name and like reclaim it for himself. Can I make a guess as to why they gave it to him yeah go ahead yeah okay uh detroit motor city the cars are a big part of the culture and of the the export of the city and to keep the city running you need gasoline and so much of our oil was coming from Kuwait in that particular area that he was dabbling in. I want to get to the answer to that question, but it's really, listeners at home, you don't get to see this often. It's such a treat.

This is the way that Soren's brain works is that it starts with free association. If you're like, can I make a guess? Okay, Detroit, Motor City, cars. Got to go fast. Cars need gas gasoline oil yeah i got there it's like jazz man i love it yeah jazz jazz was the priest predecessor to motown motown is in detroit saddam hussein liked um uh. Goode, the song.

I don't even know if that's Motown. I don't think it is. It's quite famously the first rock and roll song, I believe. Yeah. It's not that situation, but it's kind of a, oh, there's a surprising connection between Saddam and Detroit situation. Oh, there's a surprising connection between Saddam and Detroit situation. And the situation is there's a religious sect of Chaldean Catholicism, which is an Eastern Catholic sect that has a major cathedral in Baghdad, and a lot of Iraqi people are part of this. And so in 1979, Saddam Hussein is, quote unquote, elected president of Iraq. He was a military strongman and pushed pushed a guy out and it was, it was bad. But there was a Chaldean church in Detroit and a Reverend there named Jacob Yasso reached out to congratulate Saddam Hussein on getting elected.

And in return, Saddam wrote them a check for $250,000. Holy f***ing s***. Let him, like a quarter million dollars US, just boom. There you go. Sorry. I know you bleep two thirds of the sentence I just said. Holy flying cow. That's a... I'd give him a key to the city. Yeah, absolutely. And then like the next thing that happened is Saddam also invited this reverend and a group of other people to visit Baghdad and like come meet him. And so in the run up to that, this very, very thankful reverend said, hey, Mayor Coleman Young of Detroit, can I have a key to the city to bring there and like give him? And so probably in Saddam's palace in Baghdad, he received a key to the city of Detroit.

And then also when they did that, Saddam said, hey, I've been thinking about your church. Are you guys in debt? And the reverend said, yes, we are. And Saddam wrote a check for $200,000 more of the spot. Half a million dollars. He gave almost half a million dollars to one church in Detroit and got a key. That's how it worked. Just money to throw. Right. And it's how it works money to throw i'll right i'm in it and it's like dictator blood money obviously but uh but he did give a lot of it so that that was how we got yeah it's crazy because i didn't hear that part of what you said i only heard the other stuff which to me sounded like a nice transaction between a reverend who's just saying congrats

on a cleanly run race, as far as we know. But yeah, but it's, and CBS News wrote this up in 2003, and their story has to be a relatively funny chunk where they say that the key situation, quote, contrasts sharply with the attack Saddam's regime is now facing from a U.S.-led coalition, end quote. Because, yeah, very, very different time later on. Yeah. It's not like Saddam could then use that key in any capacity to be like, you got to help me out. Remember, Detroit, you're on my team. And then, yeah, no, that would have been quite the sticky situation if Detroit had to go

to the, whoever the president was at the time and be like our hands are tied we gave them a key and like that doesn't, maybe that doesn't mean anything to you but to us in Detroit it's a pretty big deal when things started to go south in Iraq and like we stormed Baghdad

Saddam Hussein would show up in Detroit and be like okay I live here now sanctuary right Saddam Hussein would show up in Detroit and be like, okay, I live here now. Sanctuary, right? Just till I get back on my feet, guys. Like pointing to a picture of that statue they pulled down, like until I'm literally back on my feet, I gotta, I need some help.

And especially knowing the medieval context where he could enter the walls like it almost plays like a security flaw in detroit that sanat has this like access pass you know it's very strange i was gonna ask if a city has ever been for like ceremoniously rescinded from one of its recipients and i feel like uh if it's gonna be taken away from anyone it should have been said well no they didn't give it to him during his like painter phase or anything like that or or like there wasn't like a good period for saddam and then bad stuff happened it was bad soup to nuts so so i i guess they're gonna give it to him they're gonna let him have it forever but yeah i think they just

stay quiet about it after that yeah that's a great question because i there's no sources saying like and then they did some ceremonial rescinding without him there like i think i think they just tried to not think about it anymore is basically the solution to to him having it yeah which is easy to do because the key to the city means nothing right also with a city being upset uh the next story here is about a great person uh the musician share received a key to the city of adelaide australia as she got it for performing at a formula one grand prix racing event in adelaide you know it was all fine yeah and then what happened is the key was on ebay later and it was selling for $96,000. $96,000?

Yeah. And this was... That's a fun little In the Heights reference for anyone who gives a hoot. I don't know the show, but that's great. Soren is shaking his head. Anyway, continue. I'm sorry. anyway continue i'm sorry and then uh share found out apparently that this was happening because she got a bunch of angry tweets and replied quote i'm upset too and trying to get to bottom

i think my office f bunch of asterisks up uh every time i said two that's a number two yeah and uh and yeah she said that like she was betrayed some assistant sold it on ebay you weirdly uh i i can't explain this further but you you pronounce the twos as numbers i don't know how you did it yeah but i knew it immediately it was very crystal clear yeah i don't know. Maybe I've heard enough Prince. I don't know. I don't know how I did it. So Cher threw her assistance under the bus for it.

Because if you have a key to the city, and you're playing fast and loose with it enough that you're going to lose it and somebody else is going to put it up on eBay, you're at fault there. How many keys to the city do you have that you can lose one and not notice? Hey, yeah, right. I can't imagine having two right if i get two i'm like well now i have to pick a favorite city and i can't they both gave me a key i mean the i i feel like a very

generous interpretation of this kind of thing is uh a plot that i'm stealing from west wing where she received this key to the city and she's like i don't i don't need this this is silly but i understand the gravity of the situation if i share give it as a gift to a family member or someone who works for me they'll get a real kick out of this because when else are they going to get shares key to adelaide that's a once in a lifetime gift and the person she gives it to then turns around and sells it because like right gift share i know you're worth millions and millions of dollars so let me see if i can get a piece of that so then share is like i don't know how this happened because the alternative is actually throwing someone under the bus yeah yeah it's uh my dirtbag cousin i got him for christmas this year and i thought give him this key and then he went and sold it because he's garbage.

We don't really talk that much. Yeah. You have to reveal that you re-gifted a key to the city. Yeah. You're probably right. She probably knew exactly who did it. Yeah. That's amazing.

And was nice about it. And the two more stories here, one of them is about another musician, Pitbull. Folks, Pitbull. He received a key to the city of Kodiak, Alaska in 2012. He's famously from Miami. Right. And I don't know if he has one there, but he got one from Kodiak, Alaska.

I mean, he's Mr. Worldwide. He's got to start the collection somewhere. Yeah. Like in Rist, that's a really good place to start. You build there and then expand. He's got one of those like United States coin maps, but for keys for the whole globe. He's filled in Alaska. Done.

I really want it to be both maps. I want it to be for keys to the city and an active risk board all at once. That'd be great. Do you know why he got the key? Is it just he was a good guy in Alaska? The short version is yes. But the situation is what happened, and this is an ABC News story we're citing. In 2012, there was a joint promotion by Walmart and by the Sheetz Energy Strips Company.

I don't know if people remember Breath Strips or Energy Strips, but that was a thing in like the 2000s and early 2010s. But the promotion was Facebook users could vote for their Walmart to be the one to receive a visit from music superstar Pitbull to promote this thing and make a thing out of it. And then Twitter users were mean. And what they did is they started a hashtag exile pit bull campaign to try to send him to the, it had to be a US Walmart. And so they just tried to send him to the most remote Walmart that they could select. And they decided to go with Kodiak population 6,300 on an island off of the coast of mainland Alaska

everything about that story is wonderful oh my i love it so much whoever created that ad campaign whoever created the ad campaign knows their demographics so well they know that if you're going to walmart you might be getting like caffeine strips that you just put in your mouth and they dissolve and you probably love the out of pitbull too i love also because like as far as i know pitbull is uh he's a ridiculous person but he's like uh acutely aware of how silly he is as a giant superstar and like vin diesel style is kind of a sweetie as far as i know like someone correct me if he if it turns out he's a monster but that makes him like the perfect person for for like snarky twitter to be like we're gonna send you to alaska

you're like great i'll bring the party to alaska Nice try, losers. It's just going to have a great time being in Alaska. Yeah, exactly. Pitbull followed through. He said, great, that's the winner. And then he spent three hours in Kodiak, Alaska. He toured a U.S. Coast Guard facility. And then after his trip, he tweeted, quote, Thank you, Kodiak, dot, dot, dot. I am honored, truly. Perfect. And in the process, they gave him a key to the city.

It's just great. He was like, I'm in. I'll go. And just to confirm a theory of mine, that was you, the letter? Yes, it was. I'm really excited I could do this. This is great. A new power for you.

I've been working on it for a long time. And then there's one more story here. This is a key. The city of Wellington, New Zealand, gave this key in May of 2020. And I sent you guys a picture of who received it. They gave it to Mittens. Mittens was a local outdoor cat, a male cat, who's very handsome, looks great.

Was like known for walking around the Wellington suburb of Te Aro. And the Wellington government website says they gave him a miniature key to attach to his collar. Also a certificate with the honorific title of his floofiness. Yeah. But he got a key because he just like makes people happy all over Wellington, New Zealand. That's his thing. I don't, I mean, I have no basis for this at all, but I'm looking at his face and that is a New Zealand face.

I can tell that that cat is from New Zealand. Okay. I also had a strong reaction to the cat's face, but it's different. That is a... Alex, that's a hot cat. Can we say that? Is that all right to say on your show? That's a hot cat.

That's like a very sexy cat. The camera person was like, look at the lens. And the cat was like, I'd rather look at you. And he was right. It's a better picture for it. When I was prepping this, I would say three or four times I double-checked that it's male because it's such a nice-looking cat,

you just assume it's a lady. You know what I mean? Like, you just think it's too beautiful. You know? It's a really nice cat. The elegance and grace of the cat suggests female. Yeah, I see that. And the owner was interviewed said this quote reflects the positivity he has brought to the people he

encounters on his adventures and then the mayor of wellington andy foster said quote because remember this may 2020 the mayor said quote the past few months have been some of the most difficult we've encountered so we're pleased to be able to provide some light relief during this challenging time end quote like he's a coronavirus hero cat it's great yeah sure really good the bar for being a good cat is so low like the i'm sure that they're like dogs dogs are way more interested in bringing happiness to every single person that they meet and a dog is just looking at this cat when it's a word because it lets somebody pet it once it's just like it must be infuriating isn't new zealand like the the the one place that handled the coronavirus well yes can we not say that maybe this cat has something to do with it maybe maybe mittens his floofiness had something to do with it soren before you just

talk about how it's a rigged system against dogs look at this hot cat you idiot stop sticking up for the cat just because you think it's hot it doesn't it doesn't want you doesn't even know you exist i disagree with soaring he does he says hi he's magic he's next thing here is a big trumpet sound for a big takeaway. Before that, we're going to take a little break. We'll be right back. I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess.

This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast,

The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace, because, yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts.

Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. So it's very cute. Again, there will be pictures, folks. You'll enjoy. But from here, we can get into, there are three takeaways on the show. Let's get into takeaway number two. In general terms, there have been four kinds of keys in all of history, and two of them are super recent.

We're speaking very generally about kinds of keys, but there's sort of only four times someone has invented a kind of key. And we'll talk about each of them. Two of them very recent. Do you want us to guess what the three of them are? Yeah, you can if you want. Francis Scott, F sharp. Florida. Florida, yeah.

Yeah, let's do Florida. So there's four kinds of keys in history, if you keep it super simple. And the first one is wooden keys. According to that book from the Cooper Hewitt Museum about the keys and locks in their collection and history, quote, it is generally believed that keys and locks originated in the Middle East, may have been developed to protect valuable community property such as grain, and the earliest were carved of wood, most probably individually crafted by a carpenter who specialized in this work. And the diagrams of them and the designs it looks

kind of like a regular key it's just that they carved it out of wood because the metal working wasn't that good yet i'm looking at sorry i'm looking at them they're really um they're really ornate i just pictured it as like a stick that had been whittled down but this is these are legitimate keys yeah there's a lot of like pegs to it. And they also say that there are pictorial records and literary records of granary doors that had like big heavy wooden bolt locks that could only be opened by a big heavy wooden key. So there was a time when people had pretty sizable pieces of wood and that was how they opened and closed doors. We'll also link a Gizmodo article where they talk about how the oldest lock and key that we've found dates to around 600 BC. And the researchers who found it,

it was just kind of confirming their suspicions because the Old Testament of the Bible talks about keys. So they figured they're at least that old. There's a couple different books where they talk about the key of the house of David and keys and locks on the gates of Jerusalem. And so the Bible was somewhat useful as a like initial guess for when keys came from. Jesus. I would have put him in there. He was like the main guy in it.

I would have thought like, I thought for sure, like middle ages, whenever whenever they invented dungeons that's when they needed keys that's it yeah it seems like it was mostly for grain especially because because you need just for like property you kind of need either keys or a bunch of guards you know and so they they came up with keys and locks kind of as quickly as they could. Put all those guards out of business. Yeah. Well, and then the second key is metal keys. According to this book, it was iron that changed the history of keys because iron was strong and malleable. It was an ideal material. But there's an iron age in history before that that was not available. And iron was the main material for keys all the way until steel. And

also brass became popular in the 1800s. It also says that until the 1800s and mass production came along, most metal keys were made by blacksmiths. So along with all the swords and armor and everything else they were stamping out probably not the size of my house key like a bigger key, but they were making keys for people like along the way. Makes sense. They had like the molds for it. What? Yeah. Maybe this is a stupid question.

Our modern keys are, are those brass? I've got like some like golden-ish looking keys on the majority of the ones that I have. Are those all brass still? I think they still do that. Yeah. Because I feel like every mailbox key I've ever gotten is tiny and like brass colored. Yeah. I have a different question that's also stupid.

The blacksmiths when they were making keys, are we, and I guess even the wooden keys too, are we at a time where every key was unique like a thumbprint to fit its specific lock? Or is it just like, there are four different kinds of locks and four different kinds of keys, and I'm going to give you what I'm going to give you? That's a really good question. I think the short answer is they were each pretty handmade. And then also this metal key era is when you start getting skeleton keys, or if it's an on-purpose one, master keys.

Because we aren't really going to get into locks on this show because locks there's actually like a bunch of series of innovations and technologies and things people figured out but and it gets too hot too that's for that's for secretly incredibly fascinating after dark that's the that's the companion show where you really let your hair down right it's a real whole 50 shades of thing yeah it's great uh people people get really excited uh i hope that on that one you do cover the ones that you put on bagels as well because i don't feel like those should be left out i appreciate the joke that you made very much, and I support you and we're friends. But I think our audience is going to have to hit that go back 15 seconds button to hear you pronounce bagels again. Bagels.

Yep. Uh-oh. Found another one. Just got a collection of words I'm never allowed to say anymore because apparently i say i'm wrong and i don't hear it like let's put it on the board like there's a big board well the whole thing with locks is that in the middle ages in particular they started doing a technology called warded locks all you need to know about that is it's a set of plates inside of it that are called wards that block a key if it doesn't

fit perfectly. And so you start to get skeleton keys then, which is where people basically file the whole middle out of the key. So it's so skinny, it just sneaks through all of the wards. But then you could also have your blacksmith who's hand making all of this make you like an on purpose master key if it's your house. So that the locks get really advanced, but keys that are metal keys are kind of the same for hundreds and hundreds of years. It's just the metal key that fits this lock, however advanced or not it is. That's that's true about the skeleton keys that it's just it's it's not it's not like a super sophisticated key it's just filed down and sneaky yeah it's almost like a lockpick it's just it fits in and there you go if an on-purpose master key is nicer probably but it's still relatively simple it's just skinnier

than the usual and now follow-up question how useful is it to you as a as the the host and curator of a show about facts if uh questions are things like, is that true? Is that useful if I do that every time you teach me anything? If I'm like, really? I think it's probably what the audience is asking. It's great. But so those are two kinds of keys, wooden keys and metal keys. But so those are two kinds of keys, wooden keys and metal keys.

If you don't count car keys, because those are usually metal until super modern times, the next real advance in key technology after metal keys is electronic key cards in the 1970s. That's really the next new key, right? Because otherwise it's a piece of metal or a piece of wood. And that's kind of it. That's way earlier than I thought. Yeah, totally key yeah totally way way decades earlier than i thought there's an amazing piece for this because the key cards start with hotels and there's a piece from quartz called why the disappearance of hotel room keys marks the end of hospitality by brandon ambrosino and he talks about like

an overall shift in hotels where it went. Slow news day. It's like, no one's talking about this. And they're like, you're right. There's a lot of news. Very busy. There's an overall shift where Les Grand Hotel in Paris opened in 1862. That was considered the first like modern hotel. And so for several decades, you have fancy individualistic hotels. And then from there, there's a shift around the 1950s

to chains and convenience and a lot of what I think of as American-style hotels. But before that, according to the chief concierge at Le Grand Hotel, the metal keys for the hotel were all on one huge key ring that was hung on a board at the concierge's office. So if you wanted to enter or exit the hotel for any period of time, you need to check in with the concierge both times because he has the only keys on one huge ring, and that was hotel keys early on. So you weren't even allowed to have your own key at the hotel you were not yeah there was like especially this 1800s hotel it was just one ring that one guy was in charge of and probably had to either do it 24 hours or or lock you out or something and so that was the death of hospitality because you didn't have that

huge inconvenience every time you want to go come back home from le taco bell at four in the morning because also like this start in the 1950s of hotels are global their chains they're still doing metal keys and a lot of times for convenience you're printing either the hotel name or the room number or both on the key so if it gets, somebody can pick it up and know exactly what they can get into, and it's a huge security risk. Right, big trouble. And then there's also a very dark stage of the story where in 1976, the Howard Johnson's Motor Lodges chain loses a lawsuit

and has to pay millions of dollars in damages because a lady was assaulted in her room by an intruder. And the court found that the hotel chain did not do enough security on their room. And so then the precedent was, if a hotel's not locking things properly, they're liable, and it's their fault. And so then hotel chains were like, we really need something different than metal keys that say what you can get into. And it's just dark. There's nothing funny about it. But from there, at the same time, there is a Norwegian inventor named Tor Sornas. And Tor Sornas, man, I'm just clocking that that feels like Soren. It's really throwing me.

There's a certain Soren-ness to it. I agree with you. There's a certain Soreness to it. I agree with you. So in the mid-70s there, Tor Soreness happens to invent the first door key card, which was a plastic card with 32 holes in it, and you arranged the holes into a pattern that fit the door,

and then that was this extremely, like, analog version of a key card to get into a room. I think I remember something like that. I can remember, like, Swiss cheese can remember like Swiss cheese looking cards. Oh, yeah. Then you just like dropped into a little slot and it would allow you to open something. Do you feel you remember using them? Yeah, I do. I feel like maybe like at a like motels where you can't get like the only way to get into

a room is from the outside. I think I remember some of those. I would believe that the tech like lingered because it took until the late 70s for an electronic version and then basically basically as soon as hotels found out about what he was working on they bought his tech and then tried to spread it to all their hotels and so now you have these encrypted plastic cards with a magnetic strip and that's like the first advanced past metal keys basically that's the next new idea in the world of keys not as reliable i would say yeah i would i do a lot of like dipping waiting dip dipping again waiting starting to dip again realizing i'm getting

a green light and then dip accidentally too hard and then they get a red. And yeah. And so first three keys are wooden key, metal key, and electronic key card. And then the fourth thing is a keyless future, like key fobs for cars and smartphone-based door locks. And we'll talk all about that in the bonus episode, really. But I think it's interesting and exciting that of the four stages of keys, we've been alive for the keyless future one. And then anybody born like 70s or earlier was around for two of the changes in keys. Like there's been a whole key revolution in your lifetime. Really cool.

I can say that for me, it's been an adjustment and not a positive one. And I swear I'm not like doing a bit or trying to to steer into anxiety but i had i developed a pretty uh comforting pattern is what it evolved to of checking the three parts of my body where i had my keys my phone and my wallet and now my apartment my current apartment building doesn't have uh like a key that you actually turn and i live in manhattan so i have a car but i almost never drive so i don't have any reason to have that on me and i have a key to my office building but i've been shut down for as of now a year so i just don't carry physical keys anymore and my uh key card fits in my wallet, so it reduces the amount of things that I check by a third,

and I still feel a sense of imbalance when I go out all the time, that I might just start sticking like peanuts in my right, in the passenger side pocket, just so I've got some other weight there so I can walk straight. Just a paperweight that you could carry around in its place. Because the other, it's not just about imbalance, I realize. It's also when I would take my keys out and not leave a house with them, that meant I was staying somewhere else and it meant I was on vacation, which was a very exciting thing.

That was like a very symbolic, I'm walking out, I've got my phone, I've got my wallet wallet don't need anything else because i'm free and uh you know i can't i can't walk around now thinking i'm on vacation no it's absurd i i could be killed so dan uh where where are you staying again currently well i we'll we'll get uh all the way into the keyless feature and the bonus but there's one more takeaway for the main takeaway number three one key from the bastille became the centerpiece of george washington's house yeah he got a they they got george washington a key from the bastille and it was like it's one of his

favorite possessions that was a whole thing that happened it's a pretty sick key um how big was it is it like key sized the key was a little over seven inches long and three inches wide oh and so it's real and it's real medieval looking like it's got one of those sort of two big teeth on the end of it yeah like a medieval key would yeah yeah and the end where you actually the part that you hold is very much an afterthought it's just like a big hunk of metal yeah just like yeah you can you can put your wrap your fist around this we call that the bell right alex do we call that the bow well well and a super short version of the bastille if people don't know it was a combination of a fort an armory and a political prison and on july 14th 1789 a crowd of French people attacked it. Many of them were killed in the

initial attack, but then the garrison didn't have enough stuff to hold out. So they let them storm the Bastille, free a couple prisoners. And there was sort of a truce period after that. But then from there, things devolve into the French Revolution. The king ends up beheaded, and then many more people are beheaded. And Bastille Day is a holiday I think maybe people have heard of never ever celebrated it myself but it's a it's a thing it's going on yeah i know of it only only from the simpsons yeah and so the this like huge fort armory prison thing is being attacked by a crowd who wants democracy. And then people who remember the American Revolution are like, hey, this is probably influenced by that. We should thank people there for being an inspiration to this.

And the other thing going on is both the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson are in Paris when this happens. Lafayette went back after the revolution. Jefferson was just there, I believe, as a diplomat. What happens is Lafayette first responds to the fall of the Bastille by volunteering to be the head of the armed guard for the city of Paris, because he's universally respected, and so both sides say, sure, he can do that. And then they give him a key to the Bastille as a present. He gives it to present. He gives it

to Jefferson. Jefferson gives it to another guy named John Rutledge Jr., who sails it across the Atlantic and gives that to Washington along with a sketch of the Bastille, just so he can have a picture. And then also a letter from Lafayette where he says how the revolution is going. And thank you for inspiring this pretty great it's going awesome over here washington we're cutting off a lot of heads it's very fun and if i if i'm washington then i'm writing back like so this the picture of the best deal do i do i get a frame for it do i is it like yeah do i have to hang it up is that all right here's what i'll do I'll put it on my fridge when you come over so you can see it it just doesn't go with any of the other art

in my stupid old timey house but and from there Washington like keeps and shows off the key in August of 1790 he throws an entire party in New York centered on come and see my key from the Bastille. Newspapers nationwide print a sketch of it.

And for the rest of his presidency, he hangs it in his executive dining room. And then according to the Mount Vernon Conservancy, they brought it back to Mount Vernon after his presidency, quote, where it hung in the central passage for generations of Washingtons, end quote. That's very fun. This is one of his favorite things he's ever had yeah a whole little party soren used to try to get me to go to key parties too yeah and uh i never got around i didn't know it was so like so like whimsical and fun that sounds good soren uh used a different tactic to sell me on it. Yeah, well, you know, key parties have evolved since 1790 a little bit. Not a lot, but a little.

Right. The keys are smaller. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you got to be able to fit them all in that goldfish bowl. Right.

I can't put a seven-inch key in there. Well, yeah, and then from there, like Lafayette did a farewell tour of the u.s and made a point of seeing the key again and the the link is dead but the article from smithsonian links to the mount vernon gift shop selling a replica i guess they don't do that anymore but this is this is a whole like washington lore thing and tying together the american and french revolutions was they were like how do we get him something

let's do a key from this famous prison that'll be in the simpsons it was um it's interesting that that's the thing that that survived uh because it was such a stretch to get it to him it was like it was such an afterthought that it would actually go to washington it went through like five different people who were like i I don't want this thing. Let's send it back across the pond and see if anybody over there wants it. Oh, Washington wants it. Oh, great. Perfect. Oh, he really wants it? Oh my God. I thought I was going to have to make up a whole story when I got back to Lafayette

in a month. I guess it also probably would not have been that hard if they lost it or something to just like give him a key in the US and be like, look, it's from the Bastille. It's all the way from France. He doesn't know. Yeah. Right at that point, it's like, here's a handful of rocks.

Yeah, it's Bastille rocks. You can only get them there. Ta-da. It's rubble from the Bastille. Right. Like they give him a complete rock and he's like, that's fake. The Bastille was destroyed. I don't believe you at all.

Listen, son, I've been to war. I know what happens. Folks, that is the main episode for this week. My thanks to Soren Bui and Daniel O'Brien for, among other things, opening a whole new world of Toyota cars to me. I really thought Coronas didn't exist, and I didn't know they were all just like skeleton-keyed for each other. Amazing. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com, because patrons get a bonus show every week where

we explore one obviously incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is the weirdest and most science fiction-y parts of our keyless future. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of almost three dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring Keys with us. Here is one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, that whole key to the city tradition is stranger than people think. Takeaway number two, in general terms, there have been four kinds of keys in all of history, and two of them are very recent. And takeaway number three, one key from the Bastille became the centerpiece of George

Washington's house. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guests. They're great. Soren Bui writes for American Dad. They return with a new season in April on TBS. Daniel O'Brien writes for Last Week Tonight with John Oliver. They air most Sundays on HBO, and both those dates and channels are U.S.-specific, so please check your local listings in other countries. And whichever country you're in, please find the podcast Quick Question with Soren and Daniel. It is these two people being fun and delightful and more. You can find it in your podcast app or by following the links at sifpod.fun.

Many research sources this week. And the next thing I normally say is here are some key ones. Double meaning there this week. Very fun. First source to highlight is an amazing article from Quartz. It's called Why the Disappearance of Hotel Room Keys Marks the End of Hospitality, and that is by Brandon Ambrosino. Also a great article in Smithsonian. It's called How the Key to the Bastille Ended Up in George Washington's Possession. That's by Sarah Giorgini. Also a great book to share.

It's called Keys and Locks in the Collection of the Cooper Hewitt Museum, and that is by Bert Spilker. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons. I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.