Stuff You Should Know - What Saved the American Bison

Episode Date: November 3, 2011

The pre-colonial range of the American bison stretched from Canada to Mexico. From 1820 to 1880, the population dwindled from 30 million to just over 1,000. Join Josh and Chuck as they explore how bison were brought back from the verge of extinction. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid work. Be sure to listen to The War on Drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready, are you? Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HouseStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and that makes this Stuff You Should Know, the big wooly edition. Yeah, I'm kind of excited about this one. Yeah, man. We've seen one of those before. We're talking

about bison, by the way. Yeah, I thought you might bring that up. Yeah, we saw one at that animal preserve. There was like a bear and a bison, and they were fighting. It was a little depressing, actually. But they're supposedly rescued animals at this animal petting zoo, this wild game petting zoo. Yeah. And that was a smart bison, because he had learned to go to the little chute where you had put his food. And wasn't he doing something too? He's manipulating it somehow. It seems like it. Or he's trying to manipulate us into giving him some food. I can't remember. There's some manipulation involved, because I remember thinking like, huh, bison are very manipulative animals. Yeah, jerks. Yeah. I have a story for you to start this one if you like. That sounds great.

Chuck, have I ever told you about my one glorious football story? I've heard little bits about your football experience that you were a bigger kid, so you played on the line. And that's about all I remember. Okay, well, as a child, I went to Beverly Elementary School, and I played football for them. And the way it was in Toledo was you would play for your elementary school team when you got to middle school. Interesting. So you could play your last year of elementary school, sixth grade, but then you could keep playing through seventh and eighth grade. But it was for your elementary school. It was weird. But so I played for Beverly Elementary, which meant I was a Beverly bison. And I was probably the kid on the

team that most resembled a bison because I was a pretty big fat kid. Yeah. And I was a lineman. And I sucked at football because no one ever explained any strategy to me. It wasn't until college that I understood that football even had strategy. Old technique. Yeah. I thought I was just like, walk that guy. Right, right. So I didn't teach you the swim move. Nothing. Okay. They taught me nothing. It was literally like, just stay in there and don't let that guy through. That's what I was taught. That's the base. I was failed by all coaches. Right. Anyway, I did have one shining moment, right? I was eighth grade. I was third string. We were playing the Colts. I can't remember what school, but they were the worst team. And we had the game in hand. And

the Colts were all like just three and a half foot tall little pint sized kids. Right. So we had the game in hand. It was late in the game. And they put me in as a defensive lineman. Right. So you're the biggest guy on the team and you were third string. I am at this point, the biggest guy on the field. But yes, I was third string and an eighth grader too. Right. Right. So they at this point in the biggest guy on the field and they put me in and I'm like, I pointed the quarterback. I'm like, I'm coming for you. They put two guys on me. Right. The quarterback hikes the ball. He's appropriately nervous because I'm staring at it. He knows like, I'm going to get to him one way or the other. This is like my last chance. Right. These two guys come at me. These two

offensive linemen. I just grabbed both of the Baxler helmets and just push him down like right underneath me. Go right through. Yeah. I don't like after this, the coach was like, maybe we should put this kid in, you know, earlier in the season. Anyway, I push, I just get through both of the guys who are on me. That's called the Moe Howard. I go, is it? Oh, that's what I did. Yeah. I go right to the quarterback. Didn't tackle him. I picked him up and threw him down. I didn't even like stagger. I just picked the kid up and threw him and I turned around. I was like, yeah, you know, what I didn't know is I caused a fumble and one of our guys picked it up and ran it in for a touchdown. I didn't find out until after the play was over. So your line sheet that

day was one play, one stack, one force fumble. That's awesome. Yeah. And a touchdown as a result of the fumble. Dude, it's great. So that was my big story as Beverly Bison. And that is the intro, I guess you could say to this, what happened to bring the Bison's back from the verge of extinction? I think that might have helped the cause. I think it did too. Perhaps. I've always had an infinity affinity for Bison's ever since playing for the Beverly Bison's. But I think we should probably start out, Chuck. Some people might be like, I've heard of Buffalo, but I don't know what a Bison is. Well, if you've heard of a Buffalo and you're an American, you've heard of Bison, pal. You're confused. That's right. Right? Here in the States, they're Bison technically. They're

pretty interchangeably, you know, you can call them a Buffalo, but technically a Buffalo is a Cape Buffalo or Water Buffalo and they're native to Africa and Asia. Right. The Bison's native to here in the United States. North America, typically. Specifically. And the word Buffalo comes from the French 17th century explorers encountered these things and said, Le Beauf. What is that beef? It means oxen or beaves. Whatever a beef is. Bees. B-E-E-V-E-S is what it said. Oh, it's beaves. Oh, okay. And then the English folks arrive later and change it to Le Beauf, and then Buffalo, then Buffalo, then Buffalo, and eventually they settled on Buffalo. So that's where we're at now. That's where we're at now. But so they're both members of the Bovide

family. Yes. And they're very much related. But yes, one lives in Asia and Africa. One lives in North America. And we've got two types of buffalo or bison, I'm sorry, in North America. We've got the wood bison, which is the smaller of the two. And then the plains bison, which is the big daddy. Yeah. And if you've ever seen the one with the big hump, that's the wood bison. The plains bison has the flat back, a more distinctive cape, and a more well-developed beard and throat mane. Is that right? So the one with the big hump is the wood bison. Yeah. Because the hump, from ground to hump, can get up to like six feet tall. Wow. Yeah. That's huge. Let's talk numbers first, like shear numbers. Yeah. In 2007, they did a bison census. And the number on private

ranches was 198,234. That is significantly more than it was a century earlier. Yeah. About 220,000 in Canada. And about 20,000 of these bison in the United States and Canada are roaming free on public land and close to a half a million total herd in North America today. Okay. But at one point, though, Chuck, in about 1900, 1908, there were maybe in all of North America 500 of these things. Yeah. 500. And those 500 were federally protected on federally protected land. Yeah. Prior to that, say, I think it was 1897 in Lost Park, Colorado. Poachers killed four bison. And those four represented the last unprotected free roaming bison herd in North America. Wow. And thus ended what was called the Great Slaughter,

which we'll get to in a second. But let's go even further back. Okay. To really get to the point about how few 500 bison is in, like, say, 1897, 1900, you have to understand how many there were in, say, 1700. I've seen estimates as high as 60 million that far back. Oh, yeah. Chew on this, pal. I saw an estimate as high as 100 million. Really? Yeah. Normally, the accepted number was proposed by a guy named Shepard Crush III. He's an anthropologist from Brown University. And in 1999, he came up with an estimate of 30 million. And if you're an anthropologist or a wildlife biologist or just a bison enthusiast, you're probably going to go with 30 million. At any given time, there were 30 million pre-European settlement. There are 30 million

bison roaming North America at any given time. Well, they were the largest large mammal in the United, in North America, the largest population at one point. But they're also the largest physically. They're about 2,000 pounds. The average male is about 2,000 pounds. And they're quick, too. They can get up to, like, 35 miles an hour. 2,000 pounds is 35 miles an hour. And there are 30 million of these things running around. That's a ton. That's a lot of tons. It's like 30 million tons. Yeah. And they spanned, they obviously made their home most abundantly in the Great Plains, because there was lots of great virgin grassland that was packed with vitamins and minerals, which allowed it to grow back really fast after it was eaten. Yeah. From Canada to Northern Mexico.

Yeah. Tons and tons of buffalo. So something interesting, if you've read 1491 that pops up toward the end of the book, I know I keep going back to this well, but it is really wet. It's a consistent thread. There's this whole idea that what the settlers out west around the Plains encountered and took to be like a wild state, like the natural wild state of tens of millions of buffalo running everywhere was actually a freak of nature, right? That you have an apex predator in any ecosystem. Yeah. And if you remove the apex predator, all the other species are allowed to just boom, right? Sure. On the Great Plains, the apex predator was man, human, in the form of Native Americans who were removed from the ecosystem. Right. And without the Native Americans to

effectively manage the herd populations and the prairie lands, buffaloes were allowed to explode to unnatural population numbers. So there's an idea that what we took and still to this day consider was a natural population of 30 million was actually far, far less than that prior to the Colombian exchange. Really? Yeah. Very interesting. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Either way, there are probably about 30 million buffalo roaming the Great Plains in say 1700. That number dropped dramatically starting about 1820, right? Yeah, with the Great Slaughter. Well, we'll get to the horse. Pre-horse, dating back to prehistoric times, there was what was known as buffalo jumps. Did you see this? No. So buffalo jumps are, were, when they would, Native Americans would herd buffalo down

these narrow shoots and run them off a cliff. Like lemmings. Like lemmings. And it would break their legs. I mean, not such a cliff that it would, you know, destroy the animal completely. It would just break their legs. So they couldn't move. And then they would, you know, they had guys waiting down there with spears and stuff and clubs to kill them. And it was sort of like the first factory farms. It was where they would get large abundance, over and over abundance of buffalo meat and pelts and all the stuff that they use. And there is today in Canada a World Heritage site called Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump. No way. And it is one of the oldest and largest and best preserved buffalo jumps known to exist today. And if you go to their website,

it has a little animation of buffalo, like lemmings, like running and then falling off a cliff over and over and over. Right. And I should also insert here that Chuck and I are both fully aware that lemmings don't naturally run over the cliff, that that was actually the producers of the Walt Disney documentary that created that myth and drove those poor lemmings over the cliff. That's true. Yeah. I'm glad you said that because we would have heard about that. Totally. So at any rate, they were buffalo jumps. It was a way to get lots and lots of buffalo dead quickly. And if you live in Alberta, you can go see the Head Smashed In Buffalo Jump from your $10 for an adult. And not only if you live there, if you're visiting there, you could

do it too. That's right. But the Native American had, I mean, I know the white man is blamed for it and they largely are responsible for the mass slaughter. But the Comanche Indian in the 1830s were killing close to 300,000 bison a year, which was not a sustainable number. Right. That's actually a very hot topic. There's the idea that the Native Americans are the noble savage. And then there's also evidence that they're not, that they weren't. There was this thing called Bison Overkill. They also believe that that's what happened to the mastodon and the saber tooth tiger and that they were basically hunted to extinction by the Clovis people. The Clovis people in turn became extinct as well. It's a highly debatable topic over exactly what happened.

But if that's true, then that means that bison have always been overhunted. Because if the Comanche were doing that, and apparently it takes six to seven bison for a person to subsist a year. Six bison per person per year? Yeah. But that's without agriculture. Like that's just living on bison. Can you imagine your stool production? Bison breakfast, bison eggs, bison burgers. Yeah. And I would imagine your sweat smells like vinegar because apparently you have a high protein, low carb diet. Yeah. You sweat vinegar. That's gross. It is gross, believe me. The railroad industry was also a great threat to the bison because the bison were a threat to the railroad industry. Yeah. And you know who won that war? Well, there's a guy named Frank Rowe who wrote a book in

1972 called The North American Buffalo, and he cites a train that was headed west in 1850 that had to wait for three days for a herd of bison to cross the track. Yeah, that wasn't working for them. And they weren't necessarily slow moving. There was just that many bison. Yeah. The war on drugs impacts everyone, whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy, number one, is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government

uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call, like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast. Hey, y'all, this is Caroline Hobby, the host of Get Real with Caroline Hobby, Honest Women, Honest Talk. I love podcasting. It is so much fun because I have the most in-depth,

spiritual, soulful, real, honest conversations with women who are mothers, who are entrepreneurs, who have started their own businesses, who are married to celebrities, who are celebrities themselves. These women are juggling motherhood, being a career woman, starting their own businesses, taking leaps, knowing when to jump. These women are incredible and the conversations are so real. It will hit every nerve in your body as a woman. A little bit about myself, I was a country music artist in a trio. I traveled the country open for every celebrity you can imagine in country music. I also have been on The Amazing Race twice and I'm married to Michael Hobby, who is the lead singer of A Thousand Horses and we have our precious daughter, Sunny, who's two.

Listen to new episodes of Get Real with Caroline Hobby every Monday on the Nashville Podcast Network, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcast. So yeah, we reached the point now where the white man has entered the picture, the Winchester 50 caliber rifle has entered the picture and the horse has entered the picture. So all of these factors that would lead to the near extinction of bison have all come together and converged on the Great Plains and they are about to unleash holy hell on the bison population. The Great Slaughter. Have you heard about the Great Slaughter? Do you know some things about it?

I know that they could have been potentially killing 200,000 buffalo per day at one point. They had contests, Chuck. They were buffalo killing contests. The railroads, like you said, to get rid of this bison problem, they also figured out how to make money by hosting hunting expeditions where you never left the train. The train would just drive slowly and you would shoot. That's as many as you could. It's also in Dead Man. Oh yeah. That was real. They had bison killing contests. There's a man who holds the record in 1870. Buffalo Bill? No. He had Buffalo Bill beat. A man named Thomas C. Nixon of Kansas set the record in 1870, killing 120 bison in 40 minutes. Buffalo Bill supposedly killed many, many thousands himself.

He was hired to do that. Hides were going for $2 a head. In the winter of 1872-73, just the winner, 1.5 million buffalo bison hides were shipped back east by train. Well, I do know at one point that they said that the big hunters were using two guns because they were shooting them so fast they had to let one gun cool down. So they just picked up the fresh gun. So they wouldn't have to stop killing. At first, they were shooting them for meat, and then Buffalo hide, bison hide became all the rage. Not just back east, but in Europe as well. Demand increased, so they were like, oh, well, let's just leave the meat there. We don't need the meat. There's millions of these things. There's rotting carcasses everywhere. And as if this

couldn't get worse, as if it couldn't get worse, right? So the poor bison population, possibly if there was bison overkill, their apex predators removed, they're allowed to bloom, and then a new even more damaging apex predator comes in, starts killing indiscriminately like they've never seen before. One of the reasons why they had bison killing conscious was not just for the railroad, but it was because the federal government and whites in general figured out that the plains Indians subsisted on bison. Take away the bison, take away the food supply, you civilize the Indian. So that was one reason why bison were hunted to near extinction with such glee was because it was serving a larger purpose of bringing the Indians into the fold as well. So there's a way to tame

the West or removing them from the fold. Yeah. Yeah, we're starving them. Yeah. Wow. So again, we get down to what 500 bison that are finally protected. And starting in what like 1906, who is responsible for this 1905 environmentalists, you might have heard of by the name of Teddy Roosevelt and William Hornaday, who was a zoologist, poet, conservationist, songwriter, realtor, evidently thought that was odd. That is not what you got to make money somehow because those other ones aren't good at doing. So he was a really top notch conservationist actually. But William Hornaday and Teddy Roosevelt formed the American Bison Society 1905 because they were like, wait a minute, these things are, remember all those buffalo that used to be out there that

aren't there anymore? Like this might be a problem. Yeah. They're like, what are we going to hunt? Is it where better to send them? Plus send them to the Bronx in New York City. Yeah. The Great Plains of the Bronx. Yeah. It definitely got them out of the hands of poachers. And it, kidding aside, though, the Bronx Zoo was a great place for them to send some species for reproducing. And Yellowstone National Park was established as a preserve. And the New Yorkers got to sit there and watch Bison getting it on. I guess so. Nickel ahead. Boy, not a buffalo, Nickel. They also, in 1908, created the federal government, created the National Bison Range in Montana. But these weren't the efforts that ultimately did a lot to increase the numbers. No, because you

know what? Although they were protected and Congress actually did pass an act on the Federal Park Protective Act, I believe, that said, if you poach buffalo, you're in big trouble. Right. They were never listed as endangered. I wonder why? I couldn't get a reason there. So I don't know either. But they were clearly close to being endangered, but they were never listed. So they didn't enjoy that full protection. Yeah. So Roosevelt, he had a pretty good effort by establishing the park service. Yellowstone had a protected herd. You had them in the Bronx Zoo. You had them in Oklahoma. You had them in South Dakota. But none of these, like you said, led to the real resurgence in the Bison population in North America. What did, though, Chuck?

Well, maybe we should talk about, well, yeah, sure. What did private landowners? Ted Turner. Ted Friggin Turner. Yeah. He was the one responsible for bringing the Bison back from the near extinction. He's one of my heroes. Should we just give a few Turner stats here? Sure. The second largest private landowner in North America. Yeah. He's got about two million acres of ranch land and 15 ranches and seven states that are all Bison ranches, active working Bison ranches. And I believe he manages about 50,000 head of Bison himself by hand. Well, Jane helped out while they were together. Yes. And he opened his, I'm sorry, he purchased his first Bison in 76 and opened his first Bison ranch in 1987. Which makes me wonder, where did he keep that

Bison for 11 years? Did he just take it everywhere with him in the backseat? He had plenty of land. And there was no shortage of space for that one Bison. Okay. But I think to answer your question, he kept it at his mansion in Buckhead. Okay. If you want to learn more about Ted Turner's, he has many ongoing projects to save the species. You can go to www.tesf.org. Yeah. And he's, I mean, a lot of this is obviously for raising a Bison to sell to stock his Ted's Montana grills with fresh Bison steaks and burgers. But it still helps the conservation. Well, it does. I mean, whether they're free roaming or commercially raised, if you are just looking at the hard numbers of Bison populations in the U.S., they are not endangered anymore. And it's because

they're so delicious that that's the reason why they're not endangered. Well, and one of the cool things about the Bison is it's across the board, the National Bison Association prohibits the use of subtherapeutic antibiotics, growth hormones, and animal byproducts. So it's not like, oh, this one cow farm says we shouldn't inject them with hormones. It's all, all Bison in the U.S. And they are very nutritional compared to cow beef. They don't need to be handled much. They almost exclusively dine on grass. And if it's, if it's unmanaged grass, it's organic, fully organic. Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk nutrients. The proportions of protein, fat and minerals and fatty acids to its caloric value are outstanding compared to grass beef. I'm sorry,

just beef period. Yeah. And large concentrations of iron and a lot of essential fatty acids. So people are up with Bison. They're eating it a lot more over the past decade. The numbers have really risen dramatically. Do you eat it? Yeah, I've had it. It's good stuff. I've had a Bison burger. I didn't, you know, I've had Bison steak at Ted's Montana Grill, which I should say full of closure. We own no stock whatsoever. And I've never eaten there. Oh, you should. It's cool. It's got like the, the interior decor is like a turn of the last century, like Kansas restaurant. Yeah, it's very cool. Like the tin plate ceiling and stuff. And yeah, the Bison steak is very good. Now, can you tell the big taste difference? Yeah, really? Yeah, totally. Because I've had the burger

and I couldn't tell a huge difference. You're a steak guy. You like steaks. Oh, sure. You'll immediately, you can look at it and tell a difference, but the taste you can tell a difference as well too. I mean, it's not just like, it's not like eating cat and eating steak, but I mean, you can tell a difference. Oh, well, yeah, sure. Cat is gamey. Yeah. So Chuck, also we should say, it's not just Ted Turner who's single-handedly. No. Keep saving the Bison herds. Because now there's what, 400,000 commercial Bison living in the US right now? Yeah, a little more even. That's just the US alone. Turner's got 50,000 of those. It's a pretty substantial portion. Yeah, Canada's doing their part. There is a group of 11 tribes who get together in 1990 to form the Intertribal

Bison Cooperative. No, I'm sorry, 57 tribes that manage 15,000 heads of Bison collectively. And one of the things that if you are, if you manage a herd of Bison, whether for conservation or for deliciousness, you are going to run into something called brucellosis. Yeah. Which is not good. No. It's a bacteria. Yeah. And it's called, like another name for it is contagious abortion. That's two great words to pair together. So basically, brucellosis is a bacteria that you can, that ruminating animals, which is grazing animals. Yeah. They can pick up pretty easily through the mouth. The bacteria collects in the reproductive organs. If you are, if you have milk, you're going to pass bad milk. If you're pregnant, you're going to abort your fetus.

And if you lick this genital area, you've just contracted it. If you eat tainted meat, tainted buffalo meat. As a human. Yes. Right. You can catch it as well. And you get terrible, terrible, flu-like symptoms. But if you're a Bison or a reindeer or something like that, you are in grave danger. If you have this bacteria, it can kill you pretty easy. Well, and that's certainly one of the big reasons because, you know, with all these conservation efforts, you might think, well, why are there still only half a million? That's one of the biggest reasons. And sadly, there are quarantine periods. And when these infected Bison roam free like they are prone to do, they have to be put down. They get shot. Yeah. Like 3,700 of them in the past 20 years have

done, have wandered outside of Yellowstone and they have to take them down. Yeah. If you're, one of the problems, one of the big problems we're facing with getting the Bison population back on its feet is that we don't have land like we used to. Well, that's the other big reason. So, their original range, their original ecosystem are now developed. It's like a Quikimort now. So, it's like, you guys just stay in Yellowstone. Yeah. Oh, you wander outside of Yellowstone and bang, right? Apparently also, even in Yellowstone, sometimes things converge like they did in 1996, 97. That winter, there's a particularly harsh winter. So, a lot of the food supply was covered up with snow and ice and like 1,300 Bison starved to death in the park. Wow. On top of a bunch that

had to be shot for wandering out, too. So, it was a bad year for Bison in Yellowstone. Well, and not the final reason really is when you have the smaller herds like this, there's going to be more inbreeding and inbreeding doesn't lead to a healthy population. Yeah, which is one of the reasons why brucellosis is so rampant. You have a narrower gene pool. So, thank you to the private citizen. 95% of all Bison are on private land. Yes. That's crazy. Yeah. Like people coming together to single-handedly revive the species from the brink of extinction. So, every time you eat a Bison burger, you are helping to conserve the Bison population. Isn't that weird? That is weird. I got one more fact for you. Is it on a high note? Sure. Okay. Do you like Buffalo cheese and stuff

like that? I do. Like Buffalo mozzarella. It's good stuff. Not from a Bison. Apparently, any kind of Buffalo product like that, milk and cheese, is from the water buffalo. Cool. And the reason why Bison are not commercially milked is because the ladies have little teats. Really? They have tiny little teats that are very small and they're not great for milking. Yeah. So, they don't adapt well to that kind of thing. The ladies are like, hands off, fellas. Did not know that. I can tell you, Chuck, even having been a Beverly Bison, I know today, as of today, more than I ever had before about Bison in general. Yeah, me too. And it's Bison's plural. We should go free that. We should go free that Bison at the game ranch. Do you want to? Yeah, we should just send it down 78 East.

Well, that's one reason why they get it. Well, I mean, it'd be a death sentence. Somebody shoot it because they behave erratically. But apparently, one last thing, you can tell how a Bison's feeling based on his tail. If his tail is dangling between his legs, he's calm. If it's moving, he's alert, he's maybe watching you. If it's pointing straight out or up. Get out of town. Yeah, because he's going to charge. Wow. Yeah. Well, that's pretty cool. Yeah. So, that's it for Bison. And again, hats off to everybody who's eating Bison burgers because you are keeping the Bison population in check. Ted Turner, thank you, sir. I commend you. I'd raise my cutty sark to you. I saw him at the Willie Nelson concert a few years ago. You did.

Yeah. And I wanted to tackle him and say thank you. He probably would have liked that. He was a big part of my childhood, being from Atlanta. Like, he can't be from Atlanta in the 70s and not think a lot of Ted Turner. Yeah. I'm sure he was like your secret Santa one year. Yeah, of course. Yeah. If you want to know more about Bison and extinction and Bison burgers and brucellosis, you've got all this stuff packed into one great article called What Brought Bison Back from the Brink of Extinction. Nice and literate in there, Conner. You could just put a Bison extinction in the search bar at howstuffworks.com and it should bring up this article. And I think I said search bar. Did I not? Let's just, the cat's out of the bag already. Okay. Yes,

John Hodgeman is sitting right here. We're not going to be listening to the mail. Sorry listeners. This is the fourth time I've been putting my foot down. This is the last time, at least for this series. This has been going on for two weeks. It's fine. This is the last time. Okay. So this is four of four. Yeah. Maybe we should treat it a little more regally then. This is four of four. Can we cue some cornets? Excellent. The war on drugs impacts everyone whether or not you take drugs. America's public enemy number one is drug abuse. This podcast is going to show you the truth behind the war on drugs. They told me that I would be charged for conspiracy to distribute 2,200 pounds of marijuana. Yeah, and they can do that without any drugs on the table. Without

any drugs, of course, yes, they can do that. And I'm the prime example of that. The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff. Stuff that'll piss you off. The property is guilty. Exactly. And it starts as guilty. It starts as guilty. The cops, are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, y'all. This is Caroline Hobby, the host of Get Real with Caroline Hobby,

Honest Women, Honest Talk. I love podcasting. It is so much fun because I have the most in-depth, spiritual, soulful, real, honest conversations with women who are mothers, who are entrepreneurs, who have started their own businesses, who are married to celebrities, who are celebrities themselves. These women are juggling motherhood, being a career woman, starting their own businesses, taking leaps, knowing when to jump. These women are incredible and the conversations are so real. It will hit every nerve in your body as a woman. A little bit about myself. I was a country music artist in a trio. I traveled the country open for every celebrity you can imagine in country music. I also have been on the amazing race twice and I'm married to Michael Hobby,

who is the lead singer of a thousand horses. And we have our precious daughter, Sunny, who's two. Listen to new episodes of Get Real with Caroline Hobby every Monday on the Nashville Podcast Network, available on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Yeah. So, Mr. Hodgman, thank you very much for coming. Pushing me right out the door, Josh. Thank you very much for coming. And I'm a hologram. I'm not even here. I know. I'm pushing through you. Right now, Hodgman Actual is in St. Louis, Missouri, gateway to the West, getting ready to perform tonight on the book tour. On the book tour. Live atop the St. Louis Arch. Yeah. Well, no, not exactly. Where's the locale again? I had it here just a second ago. It was at the bookstore

there. Like Laugh A Minute bookstore, I think is what it was called. I think it was the Mad Art Gallery. That's the same thing. Laugh A Minute. 7 p.m. this very evening, November 3rd. Do you want to say the name again? The Mad Art Gallery. 7 p.m. this very evening, November 3rd. Hodgman Actual is presenting material from his book, That Is All, with special guest. Insert name here. That's excellent. I can't believe we got that guy or gal. Yeah. Good going. So no, I am just a holographic representation of myself here again to say hello to you guys. Well, thank you. Because I'm a big fan and I'm a deranged millionaire who has a hologram of himself and send to his favorite podcast. So why not? Yeah, exactly. And that's the thing about Hodgman.

Like even getting the hologram of him is more than you could possibly want with anybody else. I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah. As the hologram, I can say I'm actually a little better. Oh, really? Yeah. We noticed. Yeah. We noticed last time. I'm not as flatulent. We noticed. Due to my holographic nature. Although you still make the sounds, which is weird. It's that part of the program. I am a simulated program designed to interact with real world stimulus in a realistic manner. Eat a hamburger sandwich that moves you. One of your favorite one of your famous Atlanta hamburger sandwiches. So John, you wrote a book called that is all is the third in your series explaining the world. It is my complete book of world knowledge. It is like my previous two

books, a collection of fascinating trivia, historical tidbits and amazing true facts, all of which made up by me. This being the last in the series of complete world knowledge. Indeed, the final world knowledge dealing with subjects as diverse as travel and ghosts and magic tricks and wine and sports in the end of the world. And it is called that is all. And we've covered a lot of those in the podcast too. So this is almost I guess you would say companion piece. Well, last time you said you should know body work. Yeah, no. Yeah, that's right. It's also my life's work. But thank you. Okay. Last week, you accused me of taking, sorry, last week, Chuck accused me of taking over let's say over liberal inspiration from the stuff you should know podcast.

After I had very graciously pointed out that a huge section of my book regarding noodling was an homage to your very podcast. And then I took that nice gesture and I stomped on it. But I will tell you one thing. I did download one of your podcasts specifically as research for the book that is all which one noodling necronomicon. That was a good one with cohost Jonathan Strickland that's who by the way, just Pete himself because we mentioned him in reference to you. Well, it just happened just now. Yes. My other hologram is cleaning that up this week. That is your full service guy. There are many holograms wandering the halls right now. That's part of a new security system. How stuff works is considering. So John, is it true that in this book you explain things

like the thick fish? What's the thick fish in the bowl of brown? Oh, yes. That's right. Well, that's not part of my you know my book better than I do. Is it true that you explain the superiority of the year 1971 as birth year, which we both share? That's true. What's going on? Yes, true. Is it true that you explain the benefits and taboos at sea while cruising? That is so. Is it true, John, that there is a table in your book about disgusting regional sodas? That is true. Would you be kind enough to read some of those sodas? I feel like I'm being interrogated. Yes, I have my own copy of the book. Okay. Oh, you have it open there? Sure. The thick, the thick fish and the bowl of brown. What's the thick fish? The thick fish, the bowl

of brown, the, uh, the Patagonian toothfish wine, the furry forearms. These are some of the funny things that you ingest in your book. Those are just words that you're stringing together. You would think that's my job. Okay. To string those words together. Bowl of Brown comes from a section of my book on rosé wine because rosé wine is neither white nor red. I love the wine chapter. Thank you very much. It's something that I previously knew nothing about because I thought that wine was so complex and multilayered. Uh, and, and, um, and historic that it could only be enjoyed by. But apparently no, it's simple. Just grape juice. All you need to make it is grape juice,

human feet in time. Yeah. Yeah. Own yeast. Uh, but, and, but I point out that because rosé is neither white nor red, it is best paired with ambiguous foods. Like the thick fish. Like thick fish, scrod, bowl of brown, bowl of brown, mystery meat. That's a rosé. I like rosé. Yeah. Like I mean it quite honestly. I like rosé. I like sparkling rosé as well. I know. It, it, you know, you can, you can tolerate ambiguity. I can. Yeah. Some of us can't. Like I'm not the least bit certain how either of you two feel about me. Like things either, you know, we like things black or white. So we drink either white wine or black wine. Right. You know what I mean? Yeah. We'll mix them up. I don't remember what all those other words

you were talking about were. Yeah, that was pretty much it. You were going to talk about this disgusting regional soda. But they're also non-alcoholic drinks that you can drink. And there are still regional sodas all over this country that are not distributed to the rest of the world. Um, and, and you might enjoy going into a local, uh, uh, you know, on a, on a road trip, go into a little trading post there and reaching behind the disgusting handmade sandwiches and pulling out one of these disgusting regional sodas to enjoy. So for example, there's a ties gumption brand brain drizzle, which you can only get in Maine, Vermont. It's, uh, the, you know, sodas were originally served in pharmacies. That's why they're in parts of the country.

They're still called tonic in New England. They're still called tonic because they were medicine. There were ways of delivering medicine and, and in particular sort of like herbal remedies and nerve tonics and cocaine fizzes. These are what they would serve. Cocaine fizzes were invented in this very city, in this very city of Atlanta. The cocaine fizz later became coca-cola ties. Uh, gumption brand brain drizzle was the only one of the great old sodas to actually contain cerebrospinal fluid once incredibly popular throughout the eastern seaboard for its invigorating flavor. And I use sanitary properties. It is now primarily found only in northern New England where it is still made using the company's own secret recipe,

including fluid from patient 31, unnamed hydrocephalic patients in a secret hospital in Brattleboro, Vermont. What's the, do you have a flavor profile on that one? Yes. Bitter, medicinal, brain-y, sugary. You know, Brattleboro, Vermont is a town very near to my retreat in Internetless Hills, Western Massachusetts. And it's a wonderful town. It had a hard time during Hurricane Irene. There was a lot of flooding in Brattleboro. So I hate to make fun of it. Do you know what I mean? They're all dried out now. You should go up there, go visit the Latchez Theater, go eat at fireworks, go to the retreat farm and petting zoo. It's a wonderful place to go. But did you know the Brattleboro, Vermont, speaking of Ty's brain drizzle, that the hit rap song from 2007,

Sippin' My Sudrisal, is now synonymous with the musical subgenre known as Brattleboro, Brattleboro, Vermont, white person with dreadlocks rap, that whole subculture, that whole subculture started up there. And that song, Sippin' My Sudrisal, also introduced America to the controversial drink known as Sudrisal, which is Ty's brain drizzle mixed with apricot brandy, about 100 tablets of Sudafed crushed up, and maple syrup. And to enjoy it, you serve it in a solo brand plastic cup with a Vicodin dusted rim. That's great. I don't know if we need to go into any other regional sodas, but there are a lot of them. Well, the only other one in the Denver, Colorado area and the Rockies, you can still get Chico soda. And that's roast chicken flavored soda.

And it's the only remaining product in the company in the line from Savory Meat Soda Corp. Because up until like 1992, not only could you get Chico, you could also get Porco, and Steak and Exo. Those are also available. But now just Chico. And then Chum Wine. Yeah, based on cheer wine, right? Yeah, it was one of many ripoffs of North Carolina's famous cheer wine. But this one, unlike cheer wine, this one has a flavor profile of sweet cherry bubblegum and fish blood. Chum Wine. Its motto was the one to drink while spreading Chum. It's for Fisher persons. Exactly. And that was that little bit of delight was read directly from the book That Is All. That is all. John, that is a hardcover book. It is. As they usually issue.

It is. It is the first edition hardcover book in pure black and white. Yeah, that is no light can escape from that cover. It is the black hole of hardcover books. It is absorbing every light ray that comes at it. Yeah. It is a dark, stark tablet reflecting and monolithic indeed reflecting the end of this series. The end of human civilization and time as we know it in 2012. And now that I've turned 40, the end of my life. Yeah. So more tragically. What's your life's work? It is actually, you know, I'm sorry to put it in such stark terms. But I mean, you know, it is the purest unfiltered expression of my adult brain. And I hope very much that people will, I mean, look, we live in a culture where people are getting their fake facts and they're made up trivia

and they're invented truths for free on the news every night. Do you know what I mean? You may ask, why should I go out and buy a hardcover copy of a book full of it? And, you know, that is a question only you can answer. All I can tell you is this is truly my life's work and I hope and I enjoy sharing it with you and I hope you enjoy it. Well, as such, I mean, you're curating it. This kind of experience, this release is not just like Hodgman dropped a book. Hodgman dropped a book. It's a great book. This is not my Tumblr book. Right. Yeah. You're touring with it. I am. Starting two days ago. I'm in St. Louis tonight. Yeah. And then tomorrow I will be in Los Angeles, California at November 4th, the Largo Theater with Paul F. Tompkins. Oh, Largo. Yeah. That's a

wonderful place. And then I will be in Portland on Sunday the 7th with John Roderick. And then we traveled directly up to Seattle after that to be at Town Hall, again with John Roderick. And other special guests will join me later on the tour. John will be singing. He will be singing songs. You'll not just be... You're going to join him on ukulele and vocals? There will be ukulele playing for sure. Yeah. Jumping flea playing. Right. John is going to onstage teach a kid to read. That's right. In a literate kid too. This isn't a sham. It's not. It's not a carnival act. Right. I will find a literate child. In each town. And teach him to read the words. That is all. Yeah. And it's going to be heartbreaking. It's going to be pretty moving. That last part isn't true,

but I will be joined by other special guests who may or may not be literate throughout the tour and it'll be going on through the 16th. And if you want to find out where I am and if you want to come and see me present material from the book, you can go to areasofmyexpertise.com. Yeah. And visit there. You will have to buy a ticket for the book, but the cost of the ticket includes a copy of the book. So that's a pretty good deal. Yeah. I think. And you'll be signing something. And you'll just be standing there to be gawked at. I will sign every book. You're one of those guys, aren't you? Of course he is. Yeah. You see to it that everybody who's standing in line gets the signature. I want Legionnaires' disease. I'm going to shake everyone's

hand. It's for you, husband. Yeah. Come on. And if I can pull it together, guys, and I hate to make promises, but sometimes you've got to say something publicly to make yourself do it. Sure. I'm trying to find, maybe you guys can help me. We probably can. Is a company that will make me some custom mini packets of mayonnaise so that I can give people who come to the event free premium, a premium, which is samples of John Hodgman's Ragnarok proof survival mayonnaise. Awesome. Because aside from your own urine, mayonnaise is going to be the thing that you need most after the feces comes down and civilization is over. Well, I know that one thing you can do is lubricate small engines with mayonnaise. With mayonnaise. Yeah. That's just one of the uses.

You can use it as a cleanser, a hair cleanser, and it's a wonderful conditioner. You can use it to lubricate small engines. You can take garbage bags and spread them out on the lawn and put mayonnaise all over them. Guess what? You just made a slip and slide in a time when there is no more running water. Your kids can enjoy that. You leave those garbage bags out in the sun for a while. Guess what? You've just made yourself a handy poison. Well, and during after the super collapse, John, you also make a good point in the book that the currency could very well be the beef jerky dollar. Oh, it's definitely going to be the beef jerky. You have a handy table of what one beef jerky dollar equals. Yeah. And I think my where I would spend my beef jerky dollar if I had one

would be the I think 7.5 hours of human human contact. Was that it? Yes. Without murder at the end. I think is that without being cannibalized at the end. Do you recall any other things a beef jerky dollar will get you after the super collapse? Well, no. But if you're interested listener, you can take a look at my book. That is all. It's one of my favorite parts, which really I mean, also it's it's let's just come out and say it. It is something of a if not a survival guide. There's some survival to it, but also like a pretty like a beat by beat prophecy of what's going to be going down right in 2012. If you if you accept the hard made up fact that the Mayan long count calendar ends on December 21st 2012, thus bringing an end to human civilization and

time as we know it in the end of the world, then you will find in my book a day by day today in Ragnarok page a day calendar running down for you what's going to happen starting December 21st 2011 all the way through the blood wave, the omega pulse, the collapse of the dollar, the return of the ancient and unspeakable ones and and and the singularity as well. And so yes, it will teach you how to survive all of these terrible catastrophes until December 21st 2012. And then it's just all over for everybody. That's it. Or maybe not. Maybe not. I could be wrong. Well, I'm probably right. Well, I think what you're saying is there are limits to even your power. Look, there is a possibility that when 2000 excuse me, there is a possibility when December 21st 2012 comes around

that the last event of Ragnarok will be the headless body of Nug Shohab, one of the ancient unspeakable ones, pushing the earth through a rift and space time into another dimension in which none of us have any memory of Ragnarok. And the things in my book are considered to be simply the flights of fancy of a television personality and the made up facts of an adult deranged millionaire. Look, I hope that happens. Okay, probably not. But it's one possibility that we will wake up on December 22nd 2012 and it will be like none of this had ever happened. Sort of like Y2K. No, that's coming. Okay. Yeah. Y2K is coming next in 2012. I think in about sometime in May or June, the thing with Y2K though is that it doesn't attack computers.

It only attacks like small non mechanical tools, like can openers. We had that all wrong. It is not after computers at all. It is after non computerized helpful devices. It's weird. And John, I misspoke. I don't want to misquote your fake fact, but one beef jerky dollar after the super collapse. So people know is equal to 7.3 hours of human intimacy. Yeah. And that's what I'd spend my dollar on. Your jerky dollar, either that or the Hanukkah guilt. Yeah. Well, that's it. It's not that those are, it's not that there's going to be one currency. They're just going to, it's, you know, this is why I say you shouldn't bother hoarding gold. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yes. Gold is shiny. I'm not going to argue with you on that. It's shiny and heavy.

Do you know what I mean? Yeah. But when you are, when you have been turned into an albino, right, by, by the great worm Hugnabeth, right? Yeah. You don't care about gold. You want sunscreen. You know what I mean? Yeah. And the great thing about mayonnaise is that it's not very good sunscreen, but it makes a terrific short term albino mask. If you want to sneak into albino town and sell them mayonnaise posing a sunscreen. This is how we're all going to have to live in the future. Do you understand what I'm saying? I'm taking notes. This is why mayonnaise is so helpful. It all comes back to this. So listen, everybody, I hope by the time you hear this, I will have solved the problem. Well, I've got a guy. You know, you got a man, you got a condiment

guy? I got a packet guy. He does all kinds. Really? You're not messing, you're not messing with a Hodgman now, are you? You want Hodgman ketchup? You want Hodgman tartar sauce? No, no, I don't want tartar sauce. What do you think? I got a guy. You think I'm looking for something to put on a filet of fish? I'm looking for something to save the world. John, I got to go. Yeah. I got to power down, guys. It's been a lot of fun. I'm sorry. Listeners whose mail did not get read because I took over your segment. There's a backlog. All four of you. No, no, come on. But I, but I, please understand listeners. I too am a listener and I hope you will continue to support these two wonderful natural broadcasters even though they have betrayed your trust by putting me on their podcast air four weeks

in a row or four podcasts in a row. That's right. By that is all. I recommend the hardcover just because I'm old school. And it's all that exists. There's no, there's no audio book. There is no electronic edition. Yeah. There is no paperback. There is only hardcover edition. You know why? Why? Because when Ragnarok comes, you're not going to, you're going to be using your reading tablets to make shanties. That's right. You can't make a shanty. This is the only thing that's going to be left. Also, I haven't gotten around to recording the audio book and I don't know when we're going to do any book. So if you want to support my life's work, seriously, please come and see me on tour or go to your local bookshop and purchase the book. Go to see them on tour.

That's a treat just to share air with you, my friend. Hey, you know what? We're not sharing air. I'm a hologram. Well, you know, but the people who go see you will be able to share air. They will. They will. And we have before. And it's not. And despite what you may have read and nothing to post, my breath is not poison. So if you want to catch up with the real Hodgman, share some air with them on tour, right? Yeah, you can go to areasofmyexpertise.com, areasofmyexpertise.com. All one word to spell it out like a normal person. Or you can tweet to him and be like Hodgman. Where are you at on Twitter by addressing it to at Hodgman. That's that. Oh, it's the at sign at sign. H-O-D-G-M-A-N. Yeah. And that will go directly to John's pocket.

I shall. And I shall feel it. Yeah. And if you are ready to get back to business with us, join us next week when things should be substantially more normal. And in the meantime, if you want your listener mail read, you send it to us, send it to us right now. And if it's the coolest one, it'll be the first one we read after the Hodgman break, post-Hodgman break. And it will, that will be substantial. That'll mean something. Okay. Hey, you know what? Whoever's listener mail you read next week, I'm going to send them a free book. Wow. That is really something. At least I can do, right? Well, then it's on us to pick it out, though. So that's fine. I trust you guys. So they can bribe us. Let's not go crazy, though. How about

I'm not, but not Sarah? No, no, no. Sorry, Sarah. No. No, I'm going to send something else. Sarah gets one. Sarah gets one anyway. Wow. Yeah. All right. Well, then I would get to my email if I were you, because obviously the first ones we get are going to be the ones we read. You can shoot us that email at stuffpodcast at howstuffworks.com. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join howstuffworks staff as we explore them as promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. Brought to you by the reinvented 2012 Camry. It's ready. Are you? The war on drugs is the excuse our government uses to get away with absolutely insane stuff.

Stuff that'll piss you off. The cops. Are they just like looting? Are they just like pillaging? They just have way better names for what they call like what we would call a jack move or being robbed. They call civil acid. Be sure to listen to the war on drugs on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. People who don't know Bruce have to understand two things. One is he's built like something Michelangelo's card out of a piece of marble. This is true. And number two, he's the first person to show you that at every party at every dinner. Take a shirt off. I'm Bruce Bozzi. That was George and Julia. You may not know me yet, but you already know most of my

lunch dates by their first names and voices alone. Listen to Table for Two on the iHeart radio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.