The Harland Highway - 546 The rules of WAR, crazy weather.

Episode Date: January 16, 2014

How should soldiers be handled when killed on the battlefield? Crazy weather, and something broken but still worth something. Hop skip and brunch!! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I met her on a Monday, and my heart stood still. And then, of course, I died, because that means my heart stopped beating, right? Yeah. So basically, I met her on a Monday and had a massive heart attack. Great. Glad I could meet her. Hey, how you doing, ladies and gentlemen, it's Harlan Williams. You are on the Harland Highway podcast.

Thanks for being here. Good to have you along for the ride down the highway. We got some cool stuff today. We're going to be talking about an unusual weather pattern, weather condition that happens oh so often. We're going to be discussing an interesting form of, how shall we say, delivering commerce and doing it with something that is damaged goods.

It's a conversation about exchanging product and money using damaged goods. See if you can figure it out. And then lastly, we're going to be talking about something that's a little touchy, but, you know, it got under my skin. It's the whole conversation about the military and what to do when soldiers go down in the field. Is it wiser to let them rest in peace in place

or chance other lives being lost going to get them. It's all here on the Harlan Highway. Welcome to the Harlan Highway. I will look for you. Does your mother know what you're doing for a living? The Harlan Highway. Hey-oh. And it's classic.

I will find you. My mom always said, you can't handle the truth. Many years of therapy. Many, many, many, many. Fucking years of therapy I will kill you Well I Listen lame brain

Let an expert show you how to do this The Harland Highway You never know what you're going to get It's the Holland Highway Oh yes it is Hello everybody I hope you're having a grandiose day I was going to say a grand day

But that sounds like a senior citizen Yeah that's my grand day over there No no grandiose has much more effervescence. It's much more colorful and puffed up. Excuse me, sir. Yes. Have a grandiose day.

Fuck off. I'm sorry. Yeah, maybe it's not a good word to use. Anyways, I want to ask you guys something. And, well, I guess I should do it under the guise of the, The Harland Highway question of the day, right? The Harland Highway question of the day. Okay, so here it is.

In the world of commerce, in the world of, you know, money and buying things and exchanging things for money, name me one thing that you can still barter with, not barter with uh i don't even know the word uh name me the one thing you can uh complete your transactions with that is completely damaged uh but yet the transactions still go through i know it sounds a little muddy but it's it's a little confusing when you hear the answer you'll see why it's kind of hard to phrase it and word it i do you know the answer uh let me give you you a hint you hear that ripping i'm talking about ripped money have you ever been one of these people that someone hands you a twenty dollar bill or a dollar bill or a five dollar bill and

it's frigging ripped right in half it's just like torn right in half or maybe it's uh you know one end of it is torn or maybe there's like two or three tears in it it's funny because it's money and it's completely damaged it's completely not whole

it's completely in pieces but some someone took the effort to take out a roll of scotch tape and put it back together again then I'm like wait a minute this thing's completely ripped in half in what other area of commerce or merchandise can you just like whip out some scotch tape put it on it and

then hand it over the counter and say yeah this is good yeah see this broken vase here this three thousand dollar vase yeah don't worry about the cracks oh my god look at the scotch tape on focus on the scotch tape, not the cracks. Right, you buy a new TV and the screen's got a scratch in it or it's cracked. Oh, I'm telling you, this is an HD TV with HD Scotch tape on it. The scotch tape is so real-looking, you'll think it's real, because it is real. and it's just what a real lifetime experience you'll have with this real scotch tape, cracked TV screen.

But it's funny because not only do you receive ripped money, okay, not only do they hand you ripped money, when you get it, you're always a little bit like, ooh, wait a minute, do I want that to, is that tape on there? You know what I mean? You're always, but then you're like, oh, wait, it's money, money, money, every everyone wants money. I want money, give me money, give me, let me get my hands on the money.

I don't care what's on the money. You can wipe a booger on that 20. Did you wipe your ass with that 20? I don't care. Why is this 20 wet? It was floating around in a toxic sewage dump? I don't care. Is it green?

Is it a 20? Is it a 5? As long as it's money, I don't care. What, there's blood on there? diseased blood who cares you just take it right and same with the uh with the merchants you know you you go to a restaurant

or you go buy a pair of shoes and you go here's my $20 bill and they're like I will take that $20 bill even though it's in three pieces and taped all over and the tape job's always kind of creepy too right The tape job's like, it's always like, it's always off a little bit. It's not aligned perfectly. It's like George Washington's eyes are crooked.

He looks like, like, he's got, was born with Down syndrome. His eyes are just like off. And, uh, and his hair's crooked and his chin doesn't meet. Right? It's just ridiculous. And then, and then what I was. always wonders what's the backstory on this on this paper money what what in what instance have you think about yourself in your lifetime okay think about you have you ever pulled a piece of paper

currency out of your wallet and ripped it in half you know what you know what money doesn't mean anything to me see there's 20 dudes look okay you know what fuck money okay you know give me your 20 bro why just give it to me okay dude you just ripped my 20 yeah that's what i do i don't care about money man i'll rip it oh i'll just rip that bitch i'll rip that money like what have you ever ripped money how does it happen how to and when it gets into pieces Like, I can see maybe someone, like, have you ever got in a situation where you're tugging on money with someone? It's like, I'd like to buy a Big Mac. Here's a $20 bill, and the person behind the counter grabs one under the 20, and you've got the other.

And you're like, oh, no, I don't know. I'm not sure. Do I really want the Big Mac? Oh, ooh. Oh, can I get half the Big Mac if I let you keep half the 20? Is that doable? But what happens when you get dollar bills or $20 bills or whatever that are ripped in like three or four places? They look like they've been in a juicer or something.

Someone just dumped their money in a juicer and made a money smoothie or something. I don't know. So there you go. That's the big Harland Highway question of the day. I don't have the answers. If you're out there ripping money, You know, I hope you get a paper cut and you get a $20 infection in your fat money-ripping fingers. So there.

How about that money-ripper? The Harland Highway, question of the day. Okay, so I got to talk about something. This is a little serious. This could be a touchy topic, okay? But I got to talk about it because it's bothering. me and uh you know i don't i don't want anyone in the military to feel uh disrespected or uh you know feel like i don't honor their service or anything like that this this is a question wherein i

feel like i'm kind of looking out for people in the military but i'm not in the military so i'm a little bit confused about something and so i want to throw it out there i went to see this movie Survivor. And it's an intense movie about the special ops, the Navy Seals guys in Afghanistan, on a mission, perched high in the hills, trying to take out a dangerous Taliban leader that was responsible for dozens and dozens of American soldiers dying. And so these guys were sent up into the hills to take this guy out and just, before they could complete their mission

some goat herders showed up you know three kids and an old man and um they compromised the mission and so the soldiers were faced with we can kill the goat herders we can tie them up and leave them at the mercy of mother nature or we can cut them loose

let them go and call in our guys to come and pick us up and we'll do the mission another day so some interesting options for the guys now remember this is in the middle of a war where war can be deadly it can be bloody there can be horrible casualties where not just soldiers die but sometimes

civilians die children die never a good thing you know it's not good that anybody dies it's it's not even good that there's war period. In fact, on a side note, it amazes me that in this day and age where we can create such fascinating things like the internet and rockets to Mars and cell phones and medicines that cure leukemia and it just blows my mind that within our world, there's human beings that just are hell-bent on warring and killing. and fighting over such ridiculous things, you know?

The fact that we're so intelligent on one level and we're so unintelligent on another level that we still fight and kill each other like ants, like nests of ants going to war, or swarms of, you know, of hornets or honeybees, landing on a hive and killing each other because they want that hive it's just it's tragic that we're still

in that kind of primitive mindset that war exists between human beings and I'm not saying one side's right or one side's wrong I'll tell you what is the U.S. always right is it ever wrong Is China or Russia or the Middle East always right and wrong? Who knows, man? You know? Hey, everybody. Who wants to have better sex? No? Yes. Yes. The answer is yes. You always want to have

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Bring more pleasure and satisfaction into your bedroom. Just go to Adam and Eve.com and select anything. any one item, it could be an adventurous new toy, or anything you desire. Just enter the offer code Harland to check out. That's Harland, H-A-R-L-A-N-D at Adam and Eve.com. This is an exclusive offer specific to this podcast. So be sure to use this code Harland so you get your discount and 100% free shipping code Harland. Have fun. Don't throw your back out. the fact that there's war is just, it's saddening. It's saddening.

So anyways, one of the things that happens in war and what happened in this situation in lone survivor is you get a situation where soldiers in all their honor and all their glory are out there fighting in the field. And some soldiers are shot, they're killed, they're knocked out of action, tragic but you're in a situation where there's a code of honor in the military from what I can gather you know correct me if I'm missing something but I think there's a motto out there no soldier left behind which is completely honorable and the idea of a a soldier one of our own laying somewhere in the field of battle just alone at the mercy of the elements at the mercy of the enemy um it's a horrible ending it's a horrible way to think of of someone's life ending and there's there's great honor in wanting to rescue that body or rescue that

individual and bring their body home blah blah blah but here's where i'm getting um conflicting feelings because i've noticed over the course of my life watching war footage and watching war movies that often portray true stories that happen in the war after watching this movie that I'm mentioning, it seems to me there's a lot of this let's go out into the field of battle and grab the corpses

of the deceased soldiers. And unless I'm mistaken, I feel like I've seen one too many documentary or movie or whatever where in the act of doing that honorable thing, like 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 more soldiers get killed. So what I'm saying is you're sending live soldiers out to get dead soldiers, and in the process, the live soldiers get killed. And part of me wonders, is that right?

Is that worth it? I know it's about the honor and it's about respect and it's about all those great things, which I have and you have and we all have. But it makes me wonder about the collateral damage of instead of having one dead guy or girl, suddenly there's seven. And you go, wow, what a tragedy.

First of all, it's a tragedy. that that one soldier went down but now five more went down trying to retrieve the soldier that had already passed and that's where I'm confused and I'm not knocking it in no way do I want anyone to think I'm knocking

the heroism and the courage and the commitment of our soldiers like I said of anything I would love to see a result where less soldiers die but I think what triggered it, too, is when I was watching this movie Survivor, there were four soldiers

up in the hill, and three of them were already dead, and there's one guy left, and they send in a giant helicopter filled with like 20 or 30 soldiers to retrieve four soldiers, and in the process of 20 or 30 or whatever is in this helicopter were killed. They blew up. They got a rocket launcher right up their helicopter butt. And so all of a sudden, four soldiers dying, or three, as the case ended up, because one guy lived, that's the base is the movie. so instead of four soldiers perishing, which is horrible,

suddenly there's like 35 soldiers perishing. And so sometimes I wonder, is that the right strategy? And it's a hard thing to say because, you know, if I had a kid, I wouldn't want them out in the field and just abandoned and left behind. But I don't know. Because then you've got to look at, well, what if the third? 30 guys that went in were successful and they were able to pull the bodies out and nobody gets hurt but it just seems like it's a high risk factor a high price to pay to to you know kind of

pull in the deceased and again I'm not in the military so I don't know the mindset but it just makes me sad that all these people die and I guess the only parallel I could have if there is one, is I don't know if you've ever watched documentaries about, you know, Mount Everest. But it's a very interesting thing where when people climb Everest, they know there's a very high probability of death. Every year people die climbing Mount Everest. And what happens is when people die on Everest, they leave the bodies. they leave the bodies in the snow

because people don't have enough strength or wherewith all the resources to retrieve the bodies it's just too risky and so Mount Everest is littered with dead bodies and part of it is I think from what I've seen is it's a little bit of badge of honor it's also about leaving

leaving the if you want to call the mountain climber a warrior in a sense it's about leaving the warrior on the field of battle which in this case is Mount Everest and perhaps there's a sense of honor in leaving

that person there and they climbed the mountain knowing that they might end up spending eternity there so I don't know is there this is just a question is there more honor in leaving a soldier in the field and, you know, leaving him there as his final resting place?

Does that say more? Is that more of a testament to the soldier that he was willing to give up his life, his freedom to live and die and fight in that arena, that deeter of war? Again, I don't know. I'm just asking questions here, but it all goes back to, is there a way to lessen the body count? And I don't know if they discussed that, and, you know, I'm sure they discussed that behind closed doors in the military and whatnot.

But so I don't know. It's kind of a serious topic. And again, I'm not trying to, you know, say to the military, oh, I don't care about you guys. You should stay in the field, blah, blah, blah. It's definitely not to diminish the value or the service of our military. But I guess if I were to put myself in that scenario, and maybe this is just me, but if I'm a soldier and I'm out there and I'm with a platoon or something,

I personally, and this doesn't, you know, this is just me, I would say to my guys, guys, if I get shot down, If I get wasted on the battlefield, don't come back and drag my body away. Like, leave me there. I'm fine. I signed up for this. I know I can be killed. I don't want to put your guys' lives in danger any more than they need to be.

If I get shot and I drop in a spot, that's my final resting place. That was my destiny. That was my blueprint for life. And in my mind, and again, just me, I would be like, this is where I was meant to stop and drop. And personally, I'd want to just stay there. I wouldn't want to deal with people having to come back and rescue me and maybe get killed themselves. And for me personally, and, you know, it's hard not to factor in your family because your family's like, I want my son, I want my daughter's body back home or whatnot.

But personally, I'd sign a waiver that said, you know what, leave me right there. That's where, you know, if you believe in a master plan, that's where I was meant to drop. And I want that spot to honor my commitment, my sacrifice, my everything. That is my spot. I died there. It's like going back to Everest. That's where their last heartbeat happened And that's where they are immortalized right there

I mean obviously somebody sooner or later would come in Take the body away or whatever but I don't know I guess with me it's like personally I'm not speaking for the military or any of the brave soldiers Personally I'm like I'm like you know I I can I can live with that in the afterlife. That's okay for me to be there and deal with the consequences.

But, you know, what do I know? Maybe I join the military. I get into the field and I completely change. I don't know. What would you do? What would you want? Let me know. If you want to comment on it, you can call me at 323-739-4-330.

Or you can email me at harlom williams.com. And it's a touchy topic. Don't get all angry and freaked out about it. But it's a question you need to ask. Because at the end of the day, it's about saving more lives. What do you think? Let me know. And let's move on.

Let's move on to something a little less serious, please, Mr. Williams. Okay. Okay. Yeah, let's do that. Okay, yeah. Hey, I want you to listen to this sound and see if you know what it is, this wacky sound. Take a listen to this.

Okay, did you figure it out? It's a hailstorm, okay? I recorded a hailstorm. I don't know how many friends you have that sit around and record hailstorms, But I do. And if you consider me a friend, then I am your hailstorm recording friend, Mr. Williams. Yeah.

And the reason I recorded, there was a hailstorm while I was kicking around the other day. And I'm just watching it. And I'm thinking, how bizarre is this? That balls of ice are falling from the sky. And it made me wonder, too, because, you know, you ever hear that saying, you know, oh, if you're up on a tall building, if you were on the Empire State Building and you dropped a penny off the roof, it would go right through a car, right through the cement, right through the core of the earth, and kill a guy in China. Yeah, right. So I figure, like, these ice pellets, these ice bullets are fallen from way, way higher than the Empire State Building. or the Eiffel Tower, if you're our France, you know.

So why aren't these things just like turning the planet into Swiss cheese when they fall? Because, I mean, they're dense, they're hard, they're moving fast. They probably weigh about the same as a penny. And when they hit, they don't explode. They don't blow up on impact. When they hit the ground, they stay in little balls. So I don't know. I'm surprised we're all not walking around with holes all over us.

But it's such a weird weather pattern. You don't think of it a lot because you rarely see it. You might not even see a hailstorm once in a year. You might not see one in two or three years, but when they happen, they're just kind of bizarre. They're like way out there weather events, and it's really wacky when they happen. You know, I live in California, and, you know, it doesn't snow here.

It's warm all the time, at least, you know, in Los Angeles. And all of a sudden I go, well, what's the difference between a snowstorm and tons of ice balls falling from the heavens? In essence, it's kind of like an ice storm, right? So it's just weird when all of a sudden these billions of things come down to, they bounce around and they make so much noise, they hit glass, They hit wood. They hit the metal on your car.

It's like a symphony of sounds. So I don't know. I thought I'd just share it with you. It's kind of an oddity. Goofy hailstones. And I don't know if you've ever stood in them. If you've ever been caught in the old hailstones. But they can hurt, man.

Like I was talking about earlier, they don't penetrate right through you. but holy smokes if you got your bare skin out your your bare arms or you're in shorts or something boom they sting those little little monkey balls out out out out out out out out out out out out yeah um so be careful uh hail caesar hail stones uh uh let's get the hellsizer hail stones uh let's get the hail out of here and end this podcast god but of course before we do that we have to uh you know we have to uh do a few announcements here my friends uh so let's see what else is going on here uh let's see where am i going to be where am i going to be oh yeah uh next week if you want to catch me doing

some stand-up live. You can catch me in Atlanta at the Atlanta Improv. I'll be there January 23rd through the 25th. And then in February, on February 8th, I'll be in Moncton, New Brunswick, Canada at the Hubcap Comedy Festival. On, yeah, February 8th, it's a Saturday night. It's going to be a great show at a giant theater with my friend John Wing Jr. on the bill with me. He was a finalist in last year's America's Got Talent TV program. So it's going to be a good time. Also, don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel where, as I've been telling you,

I'm posting brand new videos every week. The latest video to go up, I think you'll enjoy. It's the 60-second talk show. and if you check it out, I think on this episode I am interviewing an amazing guest, a bottle of terriaki sauce. Very intriguing interview. So check that out while you're at harlomwilliams.com doing that. I'm subscribing to the YouTube channel.

Please check out the store for merchandise, for books and movies and CDs and clothing and artwork, all kinds of cool stuff. And then later on in February, February 13th to the 16th, I'll be in California at the Ontario Improv. That's Ontario, California, at the Improv out there. Great, great club. And that's it, man. We are done for today.

Like I said, if you want to reach out and connect with me, you can do so by writing to me at my website at harlomwilliams.com or you can phone and leave a voicemail at 323-739-4-330. There you go. Until next time, Flirtle Norgans and Bligurdle bloggins, all I can say is chicken chamein, baby. Thank you.