April 23, 2019 • 30 mins
Do you know anyone who decided to show off in a weird way? While the phrase 'weird flex' may be relatively recent, it turns out that this phenomenon itself is as old as human civilization. Join the guys with special guests Miles and Jack from The Daily Zeitgeist as they explore some of the strangest (and most petty) flexes in human history.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, folks. This is Ridiculous History. My
name is Ben, my name is Nolan. It's not ridiculous Historians,
It's not. That's our Facebook group. But hey, look at us.
We're getting the plug in. Early joined the Facebook group.
If you like the show, we always save it for
the end. Maybe we'll see a giant spike in activity,
of flurry of activity on our Facebook group, a cavalcade
of content. Uh. Speaking of cavalcades of awesomeness, we want
(00:51):
to give a shout out to our super producer, Casey Pegram.
There he is, Look at him. Look at our boy, Casey,
glint in his eye as always. Oh, we should mention
that today's episode is pretty fascinating to us. We started
talking with some friends of ours off air about the
most petty or strangest flexes in human history. Ben, you're
(01:13):
gonna have to you're gonna have to hit me to
this lingo here? What what is a flex? Ah? Well,
who better to explain that than our friends that we
actually brought on the air for the episode today. Uh.
The host of one of our favorite podcast, the Daily
Zeitgeist Yeah, we have Miles and Jack from the Daily
Zeitgeist joining us as we speak. Gentlemen. What's up guys, Jack?
(01:37):
How are you so? So? These guys, Uh, Miles and
Jack are the anchors of our Los Angeles operation. They
do a lot of comedy. They have this amazing political
comedy show that they do every day of the week. Uh.
And they're kind of the the cooler versions of us. So,
can you guys explain what a flex is? Um? Yes, flex? Uh.
(01:59):
If we go strictly by the Urban Dictionary, definition would
be a verb in which someone would show off or
gloat in a boastful display. Wow. That was very official, Miles,
Thank you so much. Yeah, so that's what a flexes.
How is a flex different than a stunt? Um? I
mean it's kind of the same thing. Stunt, you're still
kind of showing out as you will, um. But sometimes
(02:22):
a flex, you know, it's really about, like you know,
I think, coming from flexing your muscles, like showing how
strong you are, showing off that way. I feel like
a flex can come from within maybe where a stunt
can be. A stunt would be more like keep showing
off things. I don't know. You nailed it you, thank
you so much. But yeah, I mean essentially it's all
the same thing. It's just sort of you know, And
(02:43):
then the gave way to the weird flex phenomenon, which
are just sort of like, uh, you know, just re
contextualizing people's quotes or things to be boastful moments. But yeah,
it's really just about showing off, really or yeah, unnecessarily
showing your power or wealth or something like that. I
love weird flex because it has taken over for people
used to say anytime they wanted to make fun of
(03:04):
someone for bragging about something weird, they'd be like humble
bragg and they just didn't know what humble brag meant.
I think they misunderstood. So weird flex is actually an
accurate way to make fun of somebody for bragging about
something weird, and we're we're happier here weird flex, like,
for example, setting the record for eating the largest amount
(03:25):
of cheese in twenty four hours, that's a weird flex.
That is a weird flex. Yeah, and then bragging about
it and then bragging about it. Well, and since this
is a ridiculous history, today we're talking about weird historical flexes.
Ben you brought this one to the table. Um, so
I think maybe you should start Sure, Yeah, yeah, we're
going to explore not all of but some of the
(03:46):
weirdest flexes and maybe the most petty power moves throughout
this ridiculous thing that we call human history. So I'm
gonna lay one out just to set the tone here.
We've all heard of garden gnomes, right, which is already
a weird flex in and of itself. Yeah, it's a
it's a yes, it's a strange choice landscaping. Fact that
I have the second largest collection of garden gnomes on
(04:08):
the East side of Los Angeles. I'm not going to
brag about that that because that would be a weird flex, right,
just leave it out there. But I know East l
A Is pretty competitive and cutthroat in that regard, right. Yeah. Man,
it's taking a lot of hard work, and I just
get thanks to my parents for you know, raising me
the way they did. And yeah, but go on with
I mean, yeah, I mean, Jessica Sable is not recovered
(04:30):
since you retook the throne. Second second, yea garden O Prince,
the garden ome King. I'm never going to be at him.
Vice garden Ome President. Yes, so this should be this
should be close to you personally, because it turns out
that there is an historical precedent in the creation of
this sort of garden gnome. Uh, well, I guess we
(04:52):
can call it an industry now, at least in Los
Angeles culture culture that I'm culture. So there was this
moment primarily during the eighteenth century when wealthy landowners in
Britain said, you know, how can I show my fellow
landed aristocrats that I am somehow better than them, you know,
(05:15):
without actually doing something to improve myself. And they decided
that they would resurrect an old practice of paying someone
to be a professional hermit and ornamental hermit in their garden.
And these guys had a really weird gig. First off,
(05:36):
they were expected to in some cases not bathe, not
talk to anyone for seven years. Uh. They had to
address like quote, a druid. But the problem was, these
wealthy landowners had no clue what a druid actually looked like.
So they looked more like the modern version of trained kids,
(05:56):
you know, minus the stick and poke face tattoos. And
the weird thing about it was it caught on. There's
a great book called the hermit in the garden from
imperial room to ornamental gnome. Like the rhyme. There the tracy,
the traces the evolution of this from back in the
fifteenth century when Francis of Paula was one of the
(06:20):
first paid hermits in a cave on his own dad's estate.
So how's that for nepotism. Let me unpack this just briefly.
I just want to make sure that I'm getting the
right picture for it. So they're paying like smelly hobo
types to hang around in their yard, yes, yep. And
in some cases, and they have their own special kind
(06:41):
of like hermit habitats. You know how if you have
sort of like if you have fish, there's the fake
ubiquitous sand castle that the fish quote unquote lives in
a little diver helmet or whatever. They had a small yes,
that has bubbles to come out us with the chest
because otherwise, what the hell are you doing with this fish?
(07:03):
So they I'm glad you guys have my back on this.
So they have these different tiers of hermitage. Some of
them are expected to come out when visitors walk by
and then do things that you know, we would probably
find offensive. In the modern day, like come up and
recite spoken word without an invitation or solicitation. There's literally
(07:26):
a dude that hangs out outside my neighborhood bar that
does that. Every time I walk past him, and he
thinks that I don't remember that I've already heard the
one poem that he has. He's talking about ticket that's
the guy, yeah, and it's like he's like, I got
a new one. I'm like, bro, it's not a new one.
I've heard. H literally had to memorized at this point,
and I'm not giving you a dollar at this point.
I can do his ad libs to flex on him.
(07:47):
You should come up to him and say I have
a poem for you, and tell him his own poem
to his face. Wow. He might even say I love that.
I've never heard that before. That's also true. So the
thing that they were attempting to do with this was
to recreate a sort of idealized time in history that
(08:10):
never actually existed. The Hermits eventually became uh the inspiration
for the gnome sculptures that were so uh prominent and
prevalent today in Los Angeles. But the concept of these
being a normal thing in ancient Roman villas and so on.
(08:33):
Isn't that accurate? Like so many eighteenth century British beliefs,
it was based on complete malarkey. It never actually happened
in a widespread fashion in ancient civilizations, but that didn't
stop people. The facts will never stop you from having
a good time with a weird flex uh. The last thing.
(08:55):
The most famous of the ornamental hermits is a guy
named John Big with two g's. It's nice surname, the
Denton Hermit. He was not himself a garden hermit, but
in a lot of the publications of the time, he
was called like the o g hermit, and they explore,
(09:17):
like how you're supposed to interact with these people. You
walk up to them, even if you're the owner of
this garden. You walk up to the hermit's hideout or
his hidie hole, or his treasure chest, and you know
his equivalent of his treasure chest and his castle, and
then you ring a bell or you knock, or you
say a phrase, and then the hermit comes out. And
(09:38):
depending upon uh what the owners want from this guy,
they either, of course uh start speaking in weird uh
riddles or spoken word, or they pretend not to see
you and maybe silently pray to themselves or work on
some like kid you not arrangement of shells in a
(10:00):
way that is supposed to look purposeful and super deep.
As you can tell, Yeah, as you can tell, this
is a short lived trend. It died out in the
early nineteen century or so when weirder flexes rose. The
thing was, we can only imagine that this stuff was
really a status symbol when not many people were doing it.
(10:23):
So when the ornamental hermit became closer to being commonplace,
it's social value decreased because people were like, oh, you've
gotta you gotta hermit. You said, there was a hermit
bubble basically, yeah, people started getting cheap, knockoff garden hermits.
Then the whole thing just went. I mean, the hermit
(10:45):
bubble really heard a lot of people. I remember someone
I dated their family, they were they were upside down.
Yet I feel like this is really a testament to
how like this is one of those pastimes from history
(11:06):
that really is a testament to how boring life used
to be. Like that that people would just go and
see a guy who didn't want you to interact with
him and like have play like a weird like troll
password game with them, and it was yeah, it's just
(11:26):
and it's also you know, the the economy was not
overly diverse back in the day, so you know, you
needed to create work for your weird son who didn't
never wanted to leave the house. And so it sounds
like that kind of got it started, was just having
a kid at home who you couldn't get off the couch,
and so you're like, what if we dressed him in
(11:48):
weird clothes and made him live under a rock in
the backyard, and then luckily that gave rise to art schools. Ornamentally,
I feel like there's another or analog here, you guys,
in the in the whole Hollywood universe where you have
these glitzy parties where people are kind of paid to
just wander around dressed in costumes, whatever the theme is.
(12:11):
I could see this being brought back for some sort
of weird flex Hollywood party where you just have these
oddly dressed kind of like court jester types just wandering
around and reciting riddles to people. How do you guys
feel about this? I mean, I think that makes sense.
You know, it's we always it's always a flex even
just to hire someone to do something that doesn't even
seem like a job, and you're like, yeah, I'm paying
(12:32):
somebody to do that. That's because that's where my wealth
is act and it's the same thing reminds me of
even like at bar Mitzvah's like pump up dancers that
you hire for that. It's like they're just lightening up
the mood. Oh, I don't know them, but I hired
them because I can. My social life currently is mostly
mostly involved going to two to three year old birthday parties. Uh,
(12:53):
not involving my kids at all, just because that's what
I'm into these days. But they there's always like a
Disney princess or something, some some actor who came to
Hollywood to chase their dreams who was uh playing usually
at Elsa. Although I actually saw the bubble burst on
Elsa in the past couple of weeks, people just stopped
(13:15):
really caring about Elsa. Uh, and she was literally chasing
the kids around because nobody would talk to her because
they're like, oh, else is so three years yea. Yeah,
She's like, I have to do something. This is too awkward.
Kids are so cruel. Yeah, kids are very cruel. So
it's not that different. I guess it's just that it's
almost like creating, turning a little part of your garden
(13:38):
into a historical reenactment town, which we also have a
right right. Yeah, a bit of a step up from
traditional slavery. It's like, Hi, I'll clothe you and like
and you get to kind of just beat you or
do some weird Okay, I'll be back here on food
and a couple of shuckles. Yeah, where they just kind
(13:59):
of paid or paid in food and the shelter, or
they had room and board. They received a stipend. The
usual contract was for seven years. The stipend though, you know,
whenever somebody says stipend instead of a salary, you know,
it's not a huge chunk of scratch. But the last
(14:21):
thing that was fascinating about this to me, uh, and
a very very uh damning comment on society at the time,
is that Britain at the time was full of incredibly destitute,
impoverished or homeless people. So of course someone would end
up taking this job. And it's not surprising if someone's
(14:41):
like telling their kids, all right, goodbye, you know, little
Darren or whatever, Dad has to go off and uh,
pretend to be homeless mystic for seven years so that
we can get your leg fixed. You think his children
are allowed to visit Little Tim? No, No, he don't
have family, no contact, there's a no contact. Yeah, that
(15:02):
is a very very weird flex. Just societally, I would
say that's a weird flex, but I think it's kind
of It could come back around right where even in
this country, you have we have growing populations of just
the destitute or people who are not faring well in
the economy, and eventually people at the very top could
be like, oh, yeah, I hired these five people to
do paw patrol for my kids for three years, right
(15:23):
right exactly. But that is that is my uh that
that is my first entrigue into our weird flex show.
And it sounds like we can we can all agree,
Oh maybe that's what we can do at the end,
we can we can vote on whether or not that's
a weird flex. I think it is, obviously, I think
it is too. And another thing that I think is
I think this might have enough weird flex ammunition to
(15:45):
make two weird flex episodes. This this alone, Yes, this alone.
I'm just planning just putting that out there right now,
fingers crossed. I could be proven wrong, but I would
like to throw it to our guests. You talk amongst
yourselves who would like to go next. I could go
um by the way, if you guys are George Saunders fans.
He's a fiction writer, and he has a short story
(16:06):
I think in tenth of Decembers, like sort of a
weird futuristic version of this um that, where it's like
they there are people who are paid to re enact
uh lynchings in people's gardens in the near future in
the American South End. It's like this weird class consciousness
(16:27):
thing that uh that I don't know goes off the rails,
but it's very, very creepy and interesting story that makes
me think he knew about this phenomenon when when he
was writing it. Uh. So, I want to talk to
you guys about a time when the human species was
(16:48):
still a little bit insecure about our place on top
of the food chain. UM. And this is back when
Charles Darwin was kicking around and you know, he was
actually discovering that we weren't all that different from our
animal uh brethren, and that you know, we were all
(17:09):
part of the same evolutionary stu as a lot of animals.
A thing that a lot of people don't know about
Darwin though, is that he basically ate every animal that
he ever documented. Um like that that was his I
and it's I mean, he kind of viewed it as
(17:30):
part of the scientific process. But it seems to go
deeper than that, because even when he was a kid
at Cambridge, UM, you know Harvard, if you've seen the
social network, you know that they have instead of like
sorority and fraternity houses, they have like dining clubs and uh.
At Cambridge they had something similar. But Darwin started something
(17:54):
called the Glutton Club, which was a group of students
devoted to devouring quote, birds and beasts which were before
unknown to human palate. They toasted hawk, uh, they ate
a heron like waiting bird called a bit turn uh.
And they were dissolved after trying to eat a brown owl,
(18:17):
which you're not supposed to eat those. Darwin said the
taste was indescribable. Uh. So that that might seem strange
for a guy who then went on to devote his
life to, you know, documenting animals in that habitat, Does
it seem strange. He might just have a thing. Yeah,
(18:37):
so well so, I I kind of always associated him
with you know, science and biology and you know, putting
them putting humans in there in their place on the uh,
you know, in in natural history. But he was more
about putting us in our place, but then also reminding
(18:59):
every animal he encountered, uh, that we could still eat
them if we wanted to. Because during the course of
his you know, journeys on the Beagle, he ate puma, uh,
he ate iguanas, armadillo's um. He not only eight giant tortoises, uh,
he ate like so many of the giant giant tortoises.
(19:21):
He documented that there weren't any left when he got
back to England. He had eaten like twenty something of them. Uh.
And he tried He also tried drinking their bladder contents.
He said the fluid was quite limpid, you know, silently
bitter taste. You gotta drink bladder contents for sciencewhereus on
(19:43):
my license plate? Uh. This is incredible because I think
of him and this is obviously miss guy. But I've
always thought of Darwin as like a conservationist. But that's
never even right. He was pitched as honestly, I mean
he was a documentary and he you know, wrote down
detailed notes about all these things, but he wasn't exactly
out there to like save the wildlife. And this just
(20:04):
pushes that point home. Go On, man, this is fascinating
and bizarre to me. It's all it's all cover, right.
I think we have it all wrong thinking, oh he
was some kind of scientist. His main goal was to
eat as many animals as possible. I think of him
as actually the first guy. Fieri really had nothing to
a science. The science bit was just a cover to
be like you see Chuck again. Yeah he's drinking. He's
(20:26):
drinking turtle pah. I know he's talking about his evolution thing. Yeah,
because even if we're being generous, we can say, okay,
one turtle. You know, you might be in a situation
when you're like where am I getting? When am I
going to be here again? But twenty right, Yeah, look,
we've all been to uh what's the Galapos Island and
(20:50):
you know, tried to eat one of the turtles. When
first you got you got to ride the turn and
then in the head and then you eat it. That's
just how you do that's the order of operation. They
frown on that. In my experience, I mean, maybe you
had a cooler guide. The first thing I do when
I see a turtle is try and dump toxic uz
on right, that it will then turn into some kind
(21:12):
of hero Niza mutant. And it's a number. Miles is
wearing a cheese shredder on his face, Like what do
you guys have a guy for toxic ooze? That is
my question because oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, la man,
we'll talk off. Yeah, specialized to there's certain kinds for mammals,
(21:34):
and there's other ones for reptiles and ones for insects. Yeah,
as there should be. That makes sense. Did this ever
become a matter of controversy in Darwin's life? Like did
anybody ever say, hey, man, you can just eat run tortoise?
I mean I think right, so, Uh, I think it
(21:57):
was actually more common, and you would expect because there's
also a great scientist named William Buckland. Uh. He was
the first person to publish a scientific study of a dinosaur. Uh.
And he made it his life's mission to eat everyone,
or eat one of every animal uh that existed, and
(22:20):
even at one point ate a human heart. So uh,
and they exist, they were around at the same time,
So apparently this was just a a way to kind
of flex your scientific legitimacy to the world. Just be like, yo,
this this is how I get down showing my superiority
(22:42):
over the natural world by putting it in my stomach,
you know it. Also, it also occurs to me that
this is kind of a weird reverse Noah's Arc kind
of scenario where instead of like saving one of every animal,
you're gonna eat one of every animal just to show
that you've got one over on these creatures and that
you are, you know, the top of the food chain
(23:03):
and they better know that. I mean, as a scientist,
when you spend something that much time around the animals,
you really come to understand that they think they're better
than you, that they need to be put in their place. Um,
but just two quick facts that I found particularly interesting.
He ate a twenty pound rodent and said it was
(23:26):
the very best meat he had ever tasted, So rodent
meat is apparently underrated. And one at one point, his
hunger came into contrast with his scientific drive because he
had spent months trying to find this ostrich like bird
called a lesser ria. Uh. And he was eating what
(23:49):
he thought to be a greater ria. Uh and about
halfway through the portion, or about halfway through his portion
of greater ria, he realized, oh no, uh, that bone
being there means this is actually a lesser rhea, the
thing I've been looking for forever. So he had to
basically send this animal he was hoping to scientifically document
(24:11):
back to England as just a bunch of like chicken
bones and skin and feathers because he he had eaten
most of it, so he uh he sent them leftovers. Yes, yeah, exactly.
He did send it in a styrofoam clamshell container. I
have to do it, did he did? He then get
dia rhea. Oh, you can only imagine. I had to.
(24:35):
I had to had to. You are absolved, Thank you.
Somebody had to say it. It had to be said.
The guest was gonna feel on let for the judges
and yes, we will accept it. Thanks for thanks for
taking one for the team. You'll, of course glad to
do it, so we really appreciate it. So so far
(24:56):
we have two I would say legitimate flexes, uh, legitimately
weird at least, and both are somewhat cruel when you
think about it. Uh, you know, I think the gambit
was correct in the beginning. I think this is a
two part episode, and you know, I really hate it
when Pete podcasters say, well, we're running out of time,
(25:16):
so we're gonna make this a two parter shenanigans. No,
that's our episodes gonna be as long as we want.
We just are trying to get two episodes out of
this because we're lazy. No. Well, I mean maybe that's
where you're coming from, nol. I'm not gonna lie. I
was gonna walk outside and see if there was some
kind of rodent that I could eat for science, because
apparently that's okay now, you know, well, Ben, we were
(25:37):
very different people. Ben were very different, very different people.
Lazy and hungry, lazy and hungry. That's it. That's the
that's our combo before before we go on this episode, though,
a very very important question that I know everybody listening
is waiting to hear, which of the teenage mutant Ninja
Turtles is your favorite or which one do you identify
(25:58):
with the most. I could let it be unsaid. Um.
I was more of a casual Turtles fan So I
was more Michael Angelo, just the everybody's first choice when
they're young and first getting to know it. Yeah, michel Angelo,
he's like a rebel. Yeah, he's a rebel who likes pizza,
just like me. I mean, they all love pizza, but
he really loves he loves pizza. Um. Yeah for me,
(26:21):
I was I liked Michelangelo for the swag, the confidence,
the rebellious attitude, the weird flix. Um. But in the
end I kind of said I was more of a
Donna Tello guy, Okay, because I like blue. Donna Tello
was a smart one, right, didn't Donna Tello Wasn't he
the science he guy? Yeah? Donna Tello has inventions. I yeah,
and the boast that bosta, which is which is admittedly
the most boring of the Ninja Turtle's weapons, and in
(26:43):
my opinion, really I think Michael Angelo. The nunchucks are
obviously the most fun. He's got two of them. He
can swing them around, do all kinds of crazy tricks.
But he's got no reach. No, he's got no reach.
What do you mean He's got no reach. He's got
to reach with the nunchucks. You gotta be really active
to well, okay, I'm just my bias is showing. I'm
also teamed Donna. Tell You're on team don Tello. Yeah,
I always like raptured. Actually I misspoke. I meant say Leonardo.
(27:06):
Leonardo is the one who wars blue. Oh, that's right,
Henna wear blue. Yes, but Donna Tello was still the
science guy. Leonardo was sort of the de facto leader. Yeah,
he's like the cyclops of Turtle. That's right, that's right.
I was always Michael Angelo. I'm with that, and I
was not a casual Turtles fan. I've seen both the
original film and the Secret of the Use. I know
(27:30):
the Ninja rap by heart, and I had the cassette
called Coming Out of Our Shells that was distributed with
Domino's pizzas back in the day. Did you did you?
Do you remember that Sam Rockwell is in the first
Teenage Yes, that's right. Isn't he in the Foot? Isn't
he in the Foot Clan? Yeah, he's like the main
sort of like forward facing foot guy. He's like he's
(27:53):
like Fagan from Oliver. He's like recruiting little street urchin kids. Totally.
I forgot that was still stand by that as his
greatest work as an act. Oh, absolutely, he agrees, he agrees.
I think he has gone on record with that. Yeah,
it's that. And then Moon Moon would be number two
for meant distant number two. Agreed. But so we we
are going to pause for today's episode. We'll be back
(28:15):
with the second part of Weirdest Historical Flexes in the meantime,
Will will forego our usual This is where you can
find us on the internet because we did that at
the front. We still have to thank everybody though, Ye. Yes,
we want to thank of course our super producer Casey Pegram,
Alex Williams who composed our track. Yes, our fabulous research
associate Gabe Luzier, our buddy Christopher Hasciots, who is due
(28:37):
for an appearance. Actually had lunch with Christopher other day
and he really misses us, and he's so happy to
see the show doing well. It was in a different
city school. I'm really sorry then next time, dude, I
am not man, I'm not I'm a sweetheart. But we'd
also like to thank our incredible guests who are going
to stick around if you would, for part two of
(28:57):
this kind of anthology episode on ridicul this history. Yeah. Thanks,
so much for coming guys, where can people while they're
waiting for this next episode, where can they hear more
from you? Miles and Jack? Oh, you can find us
every day on this network on our show The Daily Zeitgeist,
every morning or whenever you want to listen to it.
And if you're interested in social media, I mean, you
can follow me at Miles of Gray wherever you wherever
(29:20):
you get your social media. Yeah, and Jack underscore Obrian
on Twitter. Uh, and yes, so much of us. You
can find so much of us over at The Daily
Zeitgeist wherever fine podcasts are given away for free. And
I guess we can drop our little social media handles too.
I on Instagram at Embryonic Insider you can see me
(29:42):
get kicked into and out of various countries around the
world at Ben Bolan on Instagram. So that's that's all
for now. Everybody run off. I'm gonna hunt. I'm gonna
hunt some rodents. We're gonna talk about the turtles and
maybe rewatch Secret of the Use, and we'll be back
very soon. We'll see you next time, Folix. For more
(30:10):
podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, folks. This is Ridiculous History. My
name is Ben, my name is Nolan. It's not ridiculous Historians,
It's not. That's our Facebook group. But hey, look at us.
We're getting the plug in. Early joined the Facebook group.
If you like the show, we always save it for
the end. Maybe we'll see a giant spike in activity,
of flurry of activity on our Facebook group, a cavalcade
of content. Uh. Speaking of cavalcades of awesomeness, we want
(00:51):
to give a shout out to our super producer, Casey Pegram.
There he is, Look at him. Look at our boy, Casey,
glint in his eye as always. Oh, we should mention
that today's episode is pretty fascinating to us. We started
talking with some friends of ours off air about the
most petty or strangest flexes in human history. Ben, you're
(01:13):
gonna have to you're gonna have to hit me to
this lingo here? What what is a flex? Ah? Well,
who better to explain that than our friends that we
actually brought on the air for the episode today. Uh.
The host of one of our favorite podcast, the Daily
Zeitgeist Yeah, we have Miles and Jack from the Daily
Zeitgeist joining us as we speak. Gentlemen. What's up guys, Jack?
(01:37):
How are you so? So? These guys, Uh, Miles and
Jack are the anchors of our Los Angeles operation. They
do a lot of comedy. They have this amazing political
comedy show that they do every day of the week. Uh.
And they're kind of the the cooler versions of us. So,
can you guys explain what a flex is? Um? Yes, flex? Uh.
(01:59):
If we go strictly by the Urban Dictionary, definition would
be a verb in which someone would show off or
gloat in a boastful display. Wow. That was very official, Miles,
Thank you so much. Yeah, so that's what a flexes.
How is a flex different than a stunt? Um? I
mean it's kind of the same thing. Stunt, you're still
kind of showing out as you will, um. But sometimes
(02:22):
a flex, you know, it's really about, like you know,
I think, coming from flexing your muscles, like showing how
strong you are, showing off that way. I feel like
a flex can come from within maybe where a stunt
can be. A stunt would be more like keep showing
off things. I don't know. You nailed it you, thank
you so much. But yeah, I mean essentially it's all
the same thing. It's just sort of you know, And
(02:43):
then the gave way to the weird flex phenomenon, which
are just sort of like, uh, you know, just re
contextualizing people's quotes or things to be boastful moments. But yeah,
it's really just about showing off, really or yeah, unnecessarily
showing your power or wealth or something like that. I
love weird flex because it has taken over for people
used to say anytime they wanted to make fun of
(03:04):
someone for bragging about something weird, they'd be like humble
bragg and they just didn't know what humble brag meant.
I think they misunderstood. So weird flex is actually an
accurate way to make fun of somebody for bragging about
something weird, and we're we're happier here weird flex, like,
for example, setting the record for eating the largest amount
(03:25):
of cheese in twenty four hours, that's a weird flex.
That is a weird flex. Yeah, and then bragging about
it and then bragging about it. Well, and since this
is a ridiculous history, today we're talking about weird historical flexes.
Ben you brought this one to the table. Um, so
I think maybe you should start Sure, Yeah, yeah, we're
going to explore not all of but some of the
(03:46):
weirdest flexes and maybe the most petty power moves throughout
this ridiculous thing that we call human history. So I'm
gonna lay one out just to set the tone here.
We've all heard of garden gnomes, right, which is already
a weird flex in and of itself. Yeah, it's a
it's a yes, it's a strange choice landscaping. Fact that
I have the second largest collection of garden gnomes on
(04:08):
the East side of Los Angeles. I'm not going to
brag about that that because that would be a weird flex, right,
just leave it out there. But I know East l
A Is pretty competitive and cutthroat in that regard, right. Yeah. Man,
it's taking a lot of hard work, and I just
get thanks to my parents for you know, raising me
the way they did. And yeah, but go on with
I mean, yeah, I mean, Jessica Sable is not recovered
(04:30):
since you retook the throne. Second second, yea garden O Prince,
the garden ome King. I'm never going to be at him.
Vice garden Ome President. Yes, so this should be this
should be close to you personally, because it turns out
that there is an historical precedent in the creation of
this sort of garden gnome. Uh, well, I guess we
(04:52):
can call it an industry now, at least in Los
Angeles culture culture that I'm culture. So there was this
moment primarily during the eighteenth century when wealthy landowners in
Britain said, you know, how can I show my fellow
landed aristocrats that I am somehow better than them, you know,
(05:15):
without actually doing something to improve myself. And they decided
that they would resurrect an old practice of paying someone
to be a professional hermit and ornamental hermit in their garden.
And these guys had a really weird gig. First off,
(05:36):
they were expected to in some cases not bathe, not
talk to anyone for seven years. Uh. They had to
address like quote, a druid. But the problem was, these
wealthy landowners had no clue what a druid actually looked like.
So they looked more like the modern version of trained kids,
(05:56):
you know, minus the stick and poke face tattoos. And
the weird thing about it was it caught on. There's
a great book called the hermit in the garden from
imperial room to ornamental gnome. Like the rhyme. There the tracy,
the traces the evolution of this from back in the
fifteenth century when Francis of Paula was one of the
(06:20):
first paid hermits in a cave on his own dad's estate.
So how's that for nepotism. Let me unpack this just briefly.
I just want to make sure that I'm getting the
right picture for it. So they're paying like smelly hobo
types to hang around in their yard, yes, yep. And
in some cases, and they have their own special kind
(06:41):
of like hermit habitats. You know how if you have
sort of like if you have fish, there's the fake
ubiquitous sand castle that the fish quote unquote lives in
a little diver helmet or whatever. They had a small yes,
that has bubbles to come out us with the chest
because otherwise, what the hell are you doing with this fish?
(07:03):
So they I'm glad you guys have my back on this.
So they have these different tiers of hermitage. Some of
them are expected to come out when visitors walk by
and then do things that you know, we would probably
find offensive. In the modern day, like come up and
recite spoken word without an invitation or solicitation. There's literally
(07:26):
a dude that hangs out outside my neighborhood bar that
does that. Every time I walk past him, and he
thinks that I don't remember that I've already heard the
one poem that he has. He's talking about ticket that's
the guy, yeah, and it's like he's like, I got
a new one. I'm like, bro, it's not a new one.
I've heard. H literally had to memorized at this point,
and I'm not giving you a dollar at this point.
I can do his ad libs to flex on him.
(07:47):
You should come up to him and say I have
a poem for you, and tell him his own poem
to his face. Wow. He might even say I love that.
I've never heard that before. That's also true. So the
thing that they were attempting to do with this was
to recreate a sort of idealized time in history that
(08:10):
never actually existed. The Hermits eventually became uh the inspiration
for the gnome sculptures that were so uh prominent and
prevalent today in Los Angeles. But the concept of these
being a normal thing in ancient Roman villas and so on.
(08:33):
Isn't that accurate? Like so many eighteenth century British beliefs,
it was based on complete malarkey. It never actually happened
in a widespread fashion in ancient civilizations, but that didn't
stop people. The facts will never stop you from having
a good time with a weird flex uh. The last thing.
(08:55):
The most famous of the ornamental hermits is a guy
named John Big with two g's. It's nice surname, the
Denton Hermit. He was not himself a garden hermit, but
in a lot of the publications of the time, he
was called like the o g hermit, and they explore,
(09:17):
like how you're supposed to interact with these people. You
walk up to them, even if you're the owner of
this garden. You walk up to the hermit's hideout or
his hidie hole, or his treasure chest, and you know
his equivalent of his treasure chest and his castle, and
then you ring a bell or you knock, or you
say a phrase, and then the hermit comes out. And
(09:38):
depending upon uh what the owners want from this guy,
they either, of course uh start speaking in weird uh
riddles or spoken word, or they pretend not to see
you and maybe silently pray to themselves or work on
some like kid you not arrangement of shells in a
(10:00):
way that is supposed to look purposeful and super deep.
As you can tell, Yeah, as you can tell, this
is a short lived trend. It died out in the
early nineteen century or so when weirder flexes rose. The
thing was, we can only imagine that this stuff was
really a status symbol when not many people were doing it.
(10:23):
So when the ornamental hermit became closer to being commonplace,
it's social value decreased because people were like, oh, you've
gotta you gotta hermit. You said, there was a hermit
bubble basically, yeah, people started getting cheap, knockoff garden hermits.
Then the whole thing just went. I mean, the hermit
(10:45):
bubble really heard a lot of people. I remember someone
I dated their family, they were they were upside down.
Yet I feel like this is really a testament to
how like this is one of those pastimes from history
(11:06):
that really is a testament to how boring life used
to be. Like that that people would just go and
see a guy who didn't want you to interact with
him and like have play like a weird like troll
password game with them, and it was yeah, it's just
(11:26):
and it's also you know, the the economy was not
overly diverse back in the day, so you know, you
needed to create work for your weird son who didn't
never wanted to leave the house. And so it sounds
like that kind of got it started, was just having
a kid at home who you couldn't get off the couch,
and so you're like, what if we dressed him in
(11:48):
weird clothes and made him live under a rock in
the backyard, and then luckily that gave rise to art schools. Ornamentally,
I feel like there's another or analog here, you guys,
in the in the whole Hollywood universe where you have
these glitzy parties where people are kind of paid to
just wander around dressed in costumes, whatever the theme is.
(12:11):
I could see this being brought back for some sort
of weird flex Hollywood party where you just have these
oddly dressed kind of like court jester types just wandering
around and reciting riddles to people. How do you guys
feel about this? I mean, I think that makes sense.
You know, it's we always it's always a flex even
just to hire someone to do something that doesn't even
seem like a job, and you're like, yeah, I'm paying
(12:32):
somebody to do that. That's because that's where my wealth
is act and it's the same thing reminds me of
even like at bar Mitzvah's like pump up dancers that
you hire for that. It's like they're just lightening up
the mood. Oh, I don't know them, but I hired
them because I can. My social life currently is mostly
mostly involved going to two to three year old birthday parties. Uh,
(12:53):
not involving my kids at all, just because that's what
I'm into these days. But they there's always like a
Disney princess or something, some some actor who came to
Hollywood to chase their dreams who was uh playing usually
at Elsa. Although I actually saw the bubble burst on
Elsa in the past couple of weeks, people just stopped
(13:15):
really caring about Elsa. Uh, and she was literally chasing
the kids around because nobody would talk to her because
they're like, oh, else is so three years yea. Yeah,
She's like, I have to do something. This is too awkward.
Kids are so cruel. Yeah, kids are very cruel. So
it's not that different. I guess it's just that it's
almost like creating, turning a little part of your garden
(13:38):
into a historical reenactment town, which we also have a
right right. Yeah, a bit of a step up from
traditional slavery. It's like, Hi, I'll clothe you and like
and you get to kind of just beat you or
do some weird Okay, I'll be back here on food
and a couple of shuckles. Yeah, where they just kind
(13:59):
of paid or paid in food and the shelter, or
they had room and board. They received a stipend. The
usual contract was for seven years. The stipend though, you know,
whenever somebody says stipend instead of a salary, you know,
it's not a huge chunk of scratch. But the last
(14:21):
thing that was fascinating about this to me, uh, and
a very very uh damning comment on society at the time,
is that Britain at the time was full of incredibly destitute,
impoverished or homeless people. So of course someone would end
up taking this job. And it's not surprising if someone's
(14:41):
like telling their kids, all right, goodbye, you know, little
Darren or whatever, Dad has to go off and uh,
pretend to be homeless mystic for seven years so that
we can get your leg fixed. You think his children
are allowed to visit Little Tim? No, No, he don't
have family, no contact, there's a no contact. Yeah, that
(15:02):
is a very very weird flex. Just societally, I would
say that's a weird flex, but I think it's kind
of It could come back around right where even in
this country, you have we have growing populations of just
the destitute or people who are not faring well in
the economy, and eventually people at the very top could
be like, oh, yeah, I hired these five people to
do paw patrol for my kids for three years, right
(15:23):
right exactly. But that is that is my uh that
that is my first entrigue into our weird flex show.
And it sounds like we can we can all agree,
Oh maybe that's what we can do at the end,
we can we can vote on whether or not that's
a weird flex. I think it is, obviously, I think
it is too. And another thing that I think is
I think this might have enough weird flex ammunition to
(15:45):
make two weird flex episodes. This this alone, Yes, this alone.
I'm just planning just putting that out there right now,
fingers crossed. I could be proven wrong, but I would
like to throw it to our guests. You talk amongst
yourselves who would like to go next. I could go
um by the way, if you guys are George Saunders fans.
He's a fiction writer, and he has a short story
(16:06):
I think in tenth of Decembers, like sort of a
weird futuristic version of this um that, where it's like
they there are people who are paid to re enact
uh lynchings in people's gardens in the near future in
the American South End. It's like this weird class consciousness
(16:27):
thing that uh that I don't know goes off the rails,
but it's very, very creepy and interesting story that makes
me think he knew about this phenomenon when when he
was writing it. Uh. So, I want to talk to
you guys about a time when the human species was
(16:48):
still a little bit insecure about our place on top
of the food chain. UM. And this is back when
Charles Darwin was kicking around and you know, he was
actually discovering that we weren't all that different from our
animal uh brethren, and that you know, we were all
(17:09):
part of the same evolutionary stu as a lot of animals.
A thing that a lot of people don't know about
Darwin though, is that he basically ate every animal that
he ever documented. Um like that that was his I
and it's I mean, he kind of viewed it as
(17:30):
part of the scientific process. But it seems to go
deeper than that, because even when he was a kid
at Cambridge, UM, you know Harvard, if you've seen the
social network, you know that they have instead of like
sorority and fraternity houses, they have like dining clubs and uh.
At Cambridge they had something similar. But Darwin started something
(17:54):
called the Glutton Club, which was a group of students
devoted to devouring quote, birds and beasts which were before
unknown to human palate. They toasted hawk, uh, they ate
a heron like waiting bird called a bit turn uh.
And they were dissolved after trying to eat a brown owl,
(18:17):
which you're not supposed to eat those. Darwin said the
taste was indescribable. Uh. So that that might seem strange
for a guy who then went on to devote his
life to, you know, documenting animals in that habitat, Does
it seem strange. He might just have a thing. Yeah,
(18:37):
so well so, I I kind of always associated him
with you know, science and biology and you know, putting
them putting humans in there in their place on the uh,
you know, in in natural history. But he was more
about putting us in our place, but then also reminding
(18:59):
every animal he encountered, uh, that we could still eat
them if we wanted to. Because during the course of
his you know, journeys on the Beagle, he ate puma, uh,
he ate iguanas, armadillo's um. He not only eight giant tortoises, uh,
he ate like so many of the giant giant tortoises.
(19:21):
He documented that there weren't any left when he got
back to England. He had eaten like twenty something of them. Uh.
And he tried He also tried drinking their bladder contents.
He said the fluid was quite limpid, you know, silently
bitter taste. You gotta drink bladder contents for sciencewhereus on
(19:43):
my license plate? Uh. This is incredible because I think
of him and this is obviously miss guy. But I've
always thought of Darwin as like a conservationist. But that's
never even right. He was pitched as honestly, I mean
he was a documentary and he you know, wrote down
detailed notes about all these things, but he wasn't exactly
out there to like save the wildlife. And this just
(20:04):
pushes that point home. Go On, man, this is fascinating
and bizarre to me. It's all it's all cover, right.
I think we have it all wrong thinking, oh he
was some kind of scientist. His main goal was to
eat as many animals as possible. I think of him
as actually the first guy. Fieri really had nothing to
a science. The science bit was just a cover to
be like you see Chuck again. Yeah he's drinking. He's
(20:26):
drinking turtle pah. I know he's talking about his evolution thing. Yeah,
because even if we're being generous, we can say, okay,
one turtle. You know, you might be in a situation
when you're like where am I getting? When am I
going to be here again? But twenty right, Yeah, look,
we've all been to uh what's the Galapos Island and
(20:50):
you know, tried to eat one of the turtles. When
first you got you got to ride the turn and
then in the head and then you eat it. That's
just how you do that's the order of operation. They
frown on that. In my experience, I mean, maybe you
had a cooler guide. The first thing I do when
I see a turtle is try and dump toxic uz
on right, that it will then turn into some kind
(21:12):
of hero Niza mutant. And it's a number. Miles is
wearing a cheese shredder on his face, Like what do
you guys have a guy for toxic ooze? That is
my question because oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, la man,
we'll talk off. Yeah, specialized to there's certain kinds for mammals,
(21:34):
and there's other ones for reptiles and ones for insects. Yeah,
as there should be. That makes sense. Did this ever
become a matter of controversy in Darwin's life? Like did
anybody ever say, hey, man, you can just eat run tortoise?
I mean I think right, so, Uh, I think it
(21:57):
was actually more common, and you would expect because there's
also a great scientist named William Buckland. Uh. He was
the first person to publish a scientific study of a dinosaur. Uh.
And he made it his life's mission to eat everyone,
or eat one of every animal uh that existed, and
(22:20):
even at one point ate a human heart. So uh,
and they exist, they were around at the same time,
So apparently this was just a a way to kind
of flex your scientific legitimacy to the world. Just be like, yo,
this this is how I get down showing my superiority
(22:42):
over the natural world by putting it in my stomach,
you know it. Also, it also occurs to me that
this is kind of a weird reverse Noah's Arc kind
of scenario where instead of like saving one of every animal,
you're gonna eat one of every animal just to show
that you've got one over on these creatures and that
you are, you know, the top of the food chain
(23:03):
and they better know that. I mean, as a scientist,
when you spend something that much time around the animals,
you really come to understand that they think they're better
than you, that they need to be put in their place. Um,
but just two quick facts that I found particularly interesting.
He ate a twenty pound rodent and said it was
(23:26):
the very best meat he had ever tasted, So rodent
meat is apparently underrated. And one at one point, his
hunger came into contrast with his scientific drive because he
had spent months trying to find this ostrich like bird
called a lesser ria. Uh. And he was eating what
(23:49):
he thought to be a greater ria. Uh and about
halfway through the portion, or about halfway through his portion
of greater ria, he realized, oh no, uh, that bone
being there means this is actually a lesser rhea, the
thing I've been looking for forever. So he had to
basically send this animal he was hoping to scientifically document
(24:11):
back to England as just a bunch of like chicken
bones and skin and feathers because he he had eaten
most of it, so he uh he sent them leftovers. Yes, yeah, exactly.
He did send it in a styrofoam clamshell container. I
have to do it, did he did? He then get
dia rhea. Oh, you can only imagine. I had to.
(24:35):
I had to had to. You are absolved, Thank you.
Somebody had to say it. It had to be said.
The guest was gonna feel on let for the judges
and yes, we will accept it. Thanks for thanks for
taking one for the team. You'll, of course glad to
do it, so we really appreciate it. So so far
(24:56):
we have two I would say legitimate flexes, uh, legitimately
weird at least, and both are somewhat cruel when you
think about it. Uh, you know, I think the gambit
was correct in the beginning. I think this is a
two part episode, and you know, I really hate it
when Pete podcasters say, well, we're running out of time,
(25:16):
so we're gonna make this a two parter shenanigans. No,
that's our episodes gonna be as long as we want.
We just are trying to get two episodes out of
this because we're lazy. No. Well, I mean maybe that's
where you're coming from, nol. I'm not gonna lie. I
was gonna walk outside and see if there was some
kind of rodent that I could eat for science, because
apparently that's okay now, you know, well, Ben, we were
(25:37):
very different people. Ben were very different, very different people.
Lazy and hungry, lazy and hungry. That's it. That's the
that's our combo before before we go on this episode, though,
a very very important question that I know everybody listening
is waiting to hear, which of the teenage mutant Ninja
Turtles is your favorite or which one do you identify
(25:58):
with the most. I could let it be unsaid. Um.
I was more of a casual Turtles fan So I
was more Michael Angelo, just the everybody's first choice when
they're young and first getting to know it. Yeah, michel Angelo,
he's like a rebel. Yeah, he's a rebel who likes pizza,
just like me. I mean, they all love pizza, but
he really loves he loves pizza. Um. Yeah for me,
(26:21):
I was I liked Michelangelo for the swag, the confidence,
the rebellious attitude, the weird flix. Um. But in the
end I kind of said I was more of a
Donna Tello guy, Okay, because I like blue. Donna Tello
was a smart one, right, didn't Donna Tello Wasn't he
the science he guy? Yeah? Donna Tello has inventions. I yeah,
and the boast that bosta, which is which is admittedly
the most boring of the Ninja Turtle's weapons, and in
(26:43):
my opinion, really I think Michael Angelo. The nunchucks are
obviously the most fun. He's got two of them. He
can swing them around, do all kinds of crazy tricks.
But he's got no reach. No, he's got no reach.
What do you mean He's got no reach. He's got
to reach with the nunchucks. You gotta be really active
to well, okay, I'm just my bias is showing. I'm
also teamed Donna. Tell You're on team don Tello. Yeah,
I always like raptured. Actually I misspoke. I meant say Leonardo.
(27:06):
Leonardo is the one who wars blue. Oh, that's right,
Henna wear blue. Yes, but Donna Tello was still the
science guy. Leonardo was sort of the de facto leader. Yeah,
he's like the cyclops of Turtle. That's right, that's right.
I was always Michael Angelo. I'm with that, and I
was not a casual Turtles fan. I've seen both the
original film and the Secret of the Use. I know
(27:30):
the Ninja rap by heart, and I had the cassette
called Coming Out of Our Shells that was distributed with
Domino's pizzas back in the day. Did you did you?
Do you remember that Sam Rockwell is in the first
Teenage Yes, that's right. Isn't he in the Foot? Isn't
he in the Foot Clan? Yeah, he's like the main
sort of like forward facing foot guy. He's like he's
(27:53):
like Fagan from Oliver. He's like recruiting little street urchin kids. Totally.
I forgot that was still stand by that as his
greatest work as an act. Oh, absolutely, he agrees, he agrees.
I think he has gone on record with that. Yeah,
it's that. And then Moon Moon would be number two
for meant distant number two. Agreed. But so we we
are going to pause for today's episode. We'll be back
(28:15):
with the second part of Weirdest Historical Flexes in the meantime,
Will will forego our usual This is where you can
find us on the internet because we did that at
the front. We still have to thank everybody though, Ye. Yes,
we want to thank of course our super producer Casey Pegram,
Alex Williams who composed our track. Yes, our fabulous research
associate Gabe Luzier, our buddy Christopher Hasciots, who is due
(28:37):
for an appearance. Actually had lunch with Christopher other day
and he really misses us, and he's so happy to
see the show doing well. It was in a different
city school. I'm really sorry then next time, dude, I
am not man, I'm not I'm a sweetheart. But we'd
also like to thank our incredible guests who are going
to stick around if you would, for part two of
(28:57):
this kind of anthology episode on ridicul this history. Yeah. Thanks,
so much for coming guys, where can people while they're
waiting for this next episode, where can they hear more
from you? Miles and Jack? Oh, you can find us
every day on this network on our show The Daily Zeitgeist,
every morning or whenever you want to listen to it.
And if you're interested in social media, I mean, you
can follow me at Miles of Gray wherever you wherever
(29:20):
you get your social media. Yeah, and Jack underscore Obrian
on Twitter. Uh, and yes, so much of us. You
can find so much of us over at The Daily
Zeitgeist wherever fine podcasts are given away for free. And
I guess we can drop our little social media handles too.
I on Instagram at Embryonic Insider you can see me
(29:42):
get kicked into and out of various countries around the
world at Ben Bolan on Instagram. So that's that's all
for now. Everybody run off. I'm gonna hunt. I'm gonna
hunt some rodents. We're gonna talk about the turtles and
maybe rewatch Secret of the Use, and we'll be back
very soon. We'll see you next time, Folix. For more
(30:10):
podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
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