March 4, 2025 • 46 mins
Let's face it: camels look goofy. And we say this with great affection! In fact, the camel's seemingly awkward appearance is the result of some stellar adaptation toward survival in one of the world's most inhospitable biomes. Back in the 1800s, a small group of camel enthusiasts and supply chain experts looked at the vast swathes of American desert and said "hang on... what if we had camels, too?" Join the guys with special guest Jonathan Strickland as they explore the rise and fall of the U.S. Camel Corps.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for joining us. Let's give a big shout out
to our super guest producer, Matt the Madman.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Still o O la la.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Now we are live in a new land for us, indeed,
and you're no Old Brown. Yes, I'm Ben Bollen, and
we're doing something extra special today, Noel. We are exploring
a very strange story that doesn't often get talked about
and is somewhat the matter apropos for us, wouldn't you say?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I would say so.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
It is in relation to a different land, but there
are some crossovers here in terms of the the type
of pack.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Animal in question. There there we go.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
And speaking of crossovers, we are and animals and absolute animals.
We are joined with a very special guest that usually
just shows up to ruin the show at the end.
We couldn't be more happy, reluctantly so to welcome today's
special guest, the Man, the Myth, the Legend, the notorious
(01:37):
Jonathan Strickland a k A.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, hold on a second, now, I'm hoping that we
could just get Jonathan as Jonathan, right, if you say
the name, it's.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Like be Actually, have you heard that? That's how we
refer to it.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I had not heard that, but it makes perfect sense. Hi,
I'm Jonathan. Hey, Jonathan, Hey, I'm really excited. I hope
we're talking about drum dairies.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yes, yes, yes, apparently the hump of the Dramedary is
in some parts of the one, including the one we're
in currently, which is Doha, Qatar.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Quite the delicacy.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yes, it's like ninety fat and apparently you put it
in stews and it just that good fat, just dissolves
and gives.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
It a real o mami.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's also true that there's a long standing myth about
our Dramedary friends. They do not store water in the hump.
They store, as you were saying, noel, delicious fat. Let's
be honest, and let's come from a place of great affection, you.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Guys, which is, by the way, Doha, Qatar, where we
are right with great affection. I don't know if we
mentioned them. Now we are at web Summit, Qatar. We
have been invited by the lovely folks at iHeart to
help them do some educational tracks about podcasting here with
some Middle Eastern creators, everyone we've met thus far.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
We just did our first session. By the way, I
think it went smashingly well, so.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Popular you standing room only.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I was a little taken aback in the best possible way,
and everyone's been super kind. We stuck around, answered a
lot of questions, and I'm really proud of us. Ben,
I'm proud of the crowd for sure. Crowd, proud crowd,
proud first and foremost. And thank you, of course Jonathan
for being our plant, being our random, random man in
the audience.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
What is it? What is it that? What's his name?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Darren Brown? You know the mentalist? He says there are
no stooges involved.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
You were? You were our stooge.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah, no, I was. I was extra stoogie mostly but
due to sleep deprivation.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
And yet flag you just arrived yesterday.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yes, well, we have had the pleasure and privilege of
being here for a couple of days.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I feel just about normal.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
And here's here's what we're exploring today. You guys, if
you never saw imagine you've lived your whole life full
of ridiculous historians. You've never seen a camel, narry a picture,
narry an iconographic.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Rendering, freaky beast.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
One day you saw one, your first thought will probably
be camels are wacky looking. I say this with great effection.
It's like the first time I saw in alpaca or
a lama my or a giraft. To be fair, my
first question was huh what why?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
How?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And then a spit right in your mouth?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So uh, look, they got that walk, they got that
wonky sinuous neck.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
We'll get to that. That's for shadwy. Oh.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
You know it's funny though, Ben I always have you
ever seen like, there's this guy on Instagram who creates
artistic renderings of drawings that his small child has done. Yes,
that is what a camel looks like.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yes, yeah, there's the wonky sinuous neck, the odd one
or two humps, and what.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Gives you one versus two? I breed thing.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I personally, I will share this anecdote later. I am
more a fan of the battory and camel, which is
the double hump.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I want the double hump because it makes for a
natural sound, it makes for a natural saddle, and I
think they have a better attitude in general, little less
smouth spitting.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Have you ever ridden one?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yes, but when I was very small, I was very small,
three of us. I'm hoping that we can do it.
Whilst we're out here. They have these desert safaris where
you can hire a camel that will take you around.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Well, you hire the person who's the camel's camel human,
but the camel handler. You don't straight up hire the camel.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
No, that's true.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well, I just I just be sort of like hiring
a car in the way British people say, correct, I'll
hire a car.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Indeed. So they also have feet that look like straight
up clown shoes. Yep. Just this is like a Friar's
Club roast.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
They nobby knees, they got knobby knees.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Always be knocking.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And for some reason, maybe I'm anthropomorphizing, these goofy little
guys always look like they're smirking.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, they look like Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam and
the Jeremy video.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
I don't know, I call him little, but I never
fell they are.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
But it's weird because all of the stuff we just
described as a roast of the camel is in fact
a marvel of evolution.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Boy, is it ever?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Highly adapted to one of the most unforgiving biomes on
the planet.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
They can not just survive, but thrive.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yeah, they're like an anthropomorphic succulent Yes, yeah, So why
are we talking about camels?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I mean, yes, I agree they are wonders of the
natural world, But what is it that is particularly ridiculous
and were historical about them?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Because they also have their own genre of music and
it's called camel core.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Yes, well, there's also a great Southern culture on the
skids song called camel Walk.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we'll do other references
that I can't think of right now, but the.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Rule of three we will hold sacracinct. Here's the thing,
and here's the answer Jonathan's question. Back in the eighteen hundred,
some pretty innovative, slightly weird guys in the US Army
thinking outside the box, taking outside the box, thinking atop
the hump. They looked around the US and thought, holy smokes,
look at this. We got some deserts too. This is
(07:00):
the story of the United States. Camel core, chemical camo core,
and spoiler, we have an extra special cryptid thrown in
for good measure, which I just I waited till you
were really sleep deprived Jonathan, and then told you what
we were.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Going to take is the squonk does it tell me
it's the squawk? It's got a squank five.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
A little bit. So okay, let's let's set the stage. Noel,
can we can we get a beginning of the chemicals?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I prefer to start in the middle in media rus Indeed, no, no, no,
It's true, as you mentioned, Ben, at this point in
the mid eighteen hundreds, we're not even yet a century
into the bold experiment that is these or.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Those United States.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
We are not currently there the first modern democracy in
the Western hemisphere, the US is. Of course, it has
its roots and imperialism, despite you know, being against those imperialists,
the British, and they were very into expanding those territories
and those latins that.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
They yeah, yeah, And there were a lot of ethically
fraught indeed conquest and some sticky historical things that did
not age well. Dark night of the soul many times
over over the course of these what corporate America call
big ups and downs.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And big corporate America yes, and.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Various let's be honest, war crimes, genocides and other stuff
that wasn't bad all the slow jazz. The nation encompasses grows,
and it encompasses a variety of unique, distinct ecosystems, including
these massive swaths of desert.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
What will we do with the desert?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Say, a lot of still European forces expanding into a
place where they are not familiar with the desert.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well, and Jonathan, at this point, we do have the railroads,
which is such an important innovation for that expansionism, but
they don't really work super well in the dunes.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Right, And also you have this issue with logistics, oh,
with the United States Army right, right, so the army
troops and supplies, right, supplies, Supply chain is the king
is absolutely everything. And you have a lot of conflicts
in the United States. Now, obviously we're going to be
working our way to the eighteen sixties in the Civil War,
(09:20):
but even before that we have conflicts. And this is
what gives rise to a particular officer in the US
Army who comes up with the idea of perhaps using
the camel to tackle some of these supply chain challenges
you face when you need to move large amounts of
stuff across desert, you know, environments.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Indeed, Yeah, these people are going on sojourns. Right, civilians
is alike, you know, with far fewer resources than old
Uncle Sam. And you can go to places like Armyhistory
dot org and you can get these picturesque quotes one
of them. In the eighteen thirties, America's westward expansion was
(10:03):
being severely curtailed by the inhospitable terrain and climate face
by pioneers and settlers. This was particularly the case in
the Southwest, where every deserts, mountain peaks, and impassable rivers
were proving to be an almost insurmountable obstacle to men
and animals alike. Which is what we just said, but
a little less.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Conversation, very very high falutine, I would say too that
the animals in question you here are things like pack
mules and horses, which are great and they can take
a lot of punishment, but they are not particularly well
suited to the desert climbs and terrain.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Right.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
The strengths of the horse are one thing, right, camel
strengths are another where they're not a one to one replacement,
as the army would discover. But if you do need something,
a pack animal.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
That you caune needs something, if you do need something
you shouldn't please do.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
If you're a Bena Jezarette, you need to get across
travel without moving.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yes, what is it? The worm walk?
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Fear is the mind killing, that's for sure. Let's but
as I'm going through every Frank Herbert reference, I could
think sure, but no, no, it's it was clear that
pack animals are not universally suited for every single environment,
and that, unfortunately, you still have the need to get
(11:27):
supplies across those environments.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So what do you do.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Well, you don't just throw more horses and donkeys, because
they're gonna die, or at the very least they're going
to suffer terribly, and you're not. It's not gonna be
an efficient way for you to get your stuff across.
You need to find an alternative, and he needs someone
who thinks outside the box to push that alternative to
higher ups who will probably not listen to us.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yes, that's tale as old as time.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yes, that is where we encounter another struggle. A guy
named Major George H.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Crossman.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
He is the reason the notion of camels in the
American desert or the US desert dates back as far
as the eighteen thirties. UH he got like, have you,
of course the three of us have, and probably you
listening along at home, folks, if you've forgotten super obsessive
in a rabbit hole of something, you know, I think
I think.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Sort of our whole thing. I was about to say, Ben,
we built careers on it. We built this city on
rabbit holes.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yes, well done. And so this guy gets super into camels.
We don't know what was going on in his life.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
At the time.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Let's let's reword that this guy gets This guy becomes
camilis no intrigued by the potential functionalities of the.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Cattle and lady humps.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I think the jet lag is really starting to kick in, y'all.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah, And so okay, so ride it out, ride that
train all the way to bell.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
He he does a renaissance man kind of thing, and
he on his own, of his own volition, he creates
a cartoonishly thorough study about camels in the United States
in eighteen thirty six. He sends it to his bosses.
Their response is lost to history, but we can we
can tell you they probably said something like, hot dog, George,
(13:17):
you're wild.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
For this kid.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, we're gonna for me. God, right on the fridge.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Now I will I will say because I looked into
Crosman further out of curiosity. He had a long and
decorated career in the military. AB He actually received very
high honors, even though he was never really like front
of line battle. He was more again on the supply
chain side, but because of his contributions in managing supply
(13:43):
chains and logistics, he carried weight. He carried weight. Yes,
So is he tired at this point? No, he would,
he would continue to sir. Now he's dead though, yes,
now he's dead in the point of our story, he
is not. No, Actually he would still be technically in
service during the Civil War, active for a while. Yeah,
so he's some reason.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
This just strikes me as the kind of thing like
that we're gonna pull him out of retirement to help
solve the desert problem.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Last job getting supplies to the Union troops. Yeah, we
as we will discover it's not the Union that really
gets into the whole camel.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Thing, right, Yeah, this is so he is our predecessor,
and he does bring expertise and wait to this idea,
which in this case just means that he essentially was
able to send the study and got the meeting, and.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Then they ignored him.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
But he wouldn't have gotten that far had he not
been so obsessed already with the poetry, the brutal poetry
of logistics. It's not till like eighteen forty eight that
someone else starts taking the idea seriously. This is where
we meet another military man, Henry c Wayne, also a
bit of a logistics guy himself.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah. Both of these guys were quartermasters, and so they
were in charge of supplies and supply chains and figuring
out how to get the stuff that soldiers needed to
them in conditions that, let's say, were mercurial dangerous.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Oh yes, yes, quite literally.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Mercurious, yes, sometimes quite literally.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Could we also just point out that the precedent for
the use of camels dates back a very very long time. Sure,
they are thought to have been first domesticated by human
beings in Somalia or South Arabia, very close to the
region that we are currently sitting in, during the third
millennium BC. Also in the Bactrian in Central Asia, around
(15:43):
twenty five hundred beings.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Thank you very much, Ben, correct.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
I also would like to just remind us, because it's easy,
at least for me I don't want to speak for you,
but easy for me to forget that. You know, horses
are not native to North America. No, they were introduced
in the sixteenth century. So while the thought of camels
being introduced can seem to us to be somewhat ridiculous
and foreign, we had already done that with horses. So
(16:08):
and horses ended up flourishing in North America. So I'm
sure there were people will say why not camels?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, or just.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Like you know, narco bosses a little further south said
why not hippos?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Also true, And I mean we also just take a
second to appreciate what a perfect adaptation the camel is
compared to the horse when it comes to the desert.
Those knobby knees and skinny legs and the clown shoes
great at not sinking into the sand, helping stabilize. Yep,
you know those little points like in the knees, they're
(16:42):
essentially like shock absorbers.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Right, That's part of why they're always smirking. So they're like,
you're having a hard time out, I got one on you.
You got a hard time And.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Then whatever, whether the water is stored in the hump
or not, we do know that they are able to
store a lot of a lot of caloric energy. That's
the most important part, less about the water.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
So we've got a couple of different people coming forward
shocking these suggestions, but so far we're still not quite
at the point where the US Army is ready.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
To get it a go.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, you need a patriot. And this is where Henry C.
Wayne is contacting a guy who was at the time
Senator of Mississippi. His name Jefferson Davis. Wayne pitches to
Davis based on Crossman's work, and he has an even
more thorough study and he's going, Jeffy, baby, help me
(17:34):
buy some camels. Let's make this official. And Wayne is
is targeting Jefferson Davis for this pitch specifically because Davis,
who goes on to do a couple of other things,
not great stuff, you know, not great stuff, but he
goes on to do a couple of other things. And
he Davis had previous firsthand experience in the Mexican American War,
(17:58):
which had just and it had started two years ago,
it had just ended, and he had been in the desert.
He had seen that harsh unforgiving calliche.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
He know, yeah, that hard Callechi. Yeah, sorry, that's from
no country for old men. That's where that comes from.
Very cormack MacCarthy, end of you.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Ben.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
But this dude knows the merits of what is being pitched.
He understands like where this is coming from, that it's
not just a hair brain scheme.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, but he's he's doing that thing where someone has
a good idea amid a crisis. Because at this point
his pitches to his colleagues on the congressional sphere, they
are unsuccessful because Congress already is very sensitive to a
(18:49):
fell wind. You know, the North and South are increasingly
reaching serious loggerheads on multiple fronts, economic disagreements, ideological differences,
and the great sin of chattel slavery.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Right, Yes, so we've all heard the phrase necessity is
the mother of invention. We get to a point in
history where it looks like there may be a pressing
need to come up with some supply chain solution and
to get one up on the opposition exactly. So there's
(19:23):
your motivation. Like if you if you need to get
your hair brain scheme funded, wait until your your money
bags is in a desperate situation more.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Likely to get it happen. Okay, so we're we're absolutely right.
Seven years later, eighteen fifty five, right, Davis finally, due
to this growing need, persuades Congress to shell out thirty
thousand US dollars.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Can we Dad?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Oh geez geez inflation calculary sim as Max. We really
like Matt though, but it's not the same as Max.
If Max were here, he would have set a boop boop.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah yeah, Well, but now we have Jonathan joining us
in this.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Can you give us a boot? Jonathan? Sure, dude, boop? Okay, okay,
you're really good at that.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Thirty thousand US dollars eighteen fifty five, by today's inflation
calculation would be.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
One million, eighty eight thousand, two hundred ninety three dollars
and ten cents in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Wow, okay bad. What were we going to use that
cash alla for?
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Ben?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Well, they were going to use it, Noel, to buy
a boop ton a boatload, a boatloads of come outs.
And I like a boop to a boop tons.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Good.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
It's a lot of camels you can get for a
million bones.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Now, Interestingly, the military would continue, ourt least people in
the military would continue to spend a lot of money
on camels. But in that case, I think I'm talking
specifically about the cigarets.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
This is perfect. This is you would get issued them,
wouldn't you.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah it was Yeah, yeah, it's still in a couple
of militaries. There's still I'm not going to name names,
but the mrs no names, No I collect them, you
know what I mean. They they will still have for
a long time. France would have one cigarette as part
of your rash.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, well there's also the finish breakfast, right, which I
believe is a shot of vodka, espresso and a single cigarette.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yeah, super healthy, right, good? And so think of it
this way.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
It still feels very blue sky brainstorm mode. It's like
a few in your homies or partying or right like
in college maybe and you know you have an exam
coming up soon. That would be the civil war.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
In this space. But you're still in the long weekend,
right your p s a ts. Yeah, so you're just
so you're brainstorming. Anything's possible. I'll have one more beer.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
But Senator Davis gets this month, Jeff d Jeffy duh.
He follows up with his own study in eighteen fifty seven,
and he's at least partially motivated just to prove this
is a real, a real thing, and that it's not
the eighteen hundreds version of someone getting blitzed and watching
(22:17):
Discovery Channel.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Gotta be scalable, guys, to use corporate speak, you know.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
So yeah, well, I mean, like again, getting back to logistics,
like how do you Yes, where let go would be ideal,
but they're not killing us. They're not native to North America.
You're not going to go to the camel store, so
round yere right, you got to reach out to the
contacts abroad.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yes, I mean at this point, I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I love that because at this point it's kind of
like if we were in a situation where we said,
you know, it would be perfect right now, a rock
from the moon, right, it would solve our problem, right,
Like that's great, let's let's get that way. Way so
they have this is like active of a heist film.
You raise the point that they have to go somewhere else.
(23:05):
So Major Wayne not to get conspiratorial. Major Wayne also
happens to know that there's a fellow camel nut named
David Dixon Porter, which makes me wonder if there's this
cottage community or this circle camel enthusiasts of people who
are friends entirely based on there enthusiasm. Yeah, for Camel's well,
(23:30):
I mean the camel Lover's Society okay, oh yeah, the CLS.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
So porter was.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
The son of of like an investador, was a diplomat, yes,
and so he actually had spent time in the Middle East,
which means that he had seen camel's firsthand. And uh,
my guess is that the love of camel's is somewhat
based upon their very foreign appearance to people of the
(23:56):
you know, from Western countries who had never been exposed
to it, and you have that initial reaction of well,
what the hell is that damn thing over there?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Exoticism?
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Yes, that's true, and so part of it is probably that,
you know, one, you have that that element of uh,
this is amazing, I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Then you also have the element of.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
WTFS well yeah, yeah, but also you'd see you see
how the the indigenous peoples are able to make use
of the creatures in ways that no other creature would
be able to.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, withstand and and then there's that power of nostalgia,
like you're saying, and.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
So they sort of commission a study, right, or at
the very least, a paper, a proposal.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
They start, they start brainstorming, because now fast forward, Porter
is the commander of a ship called the USS Supply.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
A little bit on the note, I also love that
the story has involved so far three major studies and
a major a major one of those stories.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Actually from a major, but three, three massive studies into
the possibility of bringing camels over. It's I just love
that it spanned multiple decades and studies there and the
very first study was saying, hey, this would be a
good idea.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Two more and then well that's bureaucracy for you.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Is the most recent one, by the way, as you
point out, then, in a burst of creativity, it was
titled Purchase of Camels for the Purpose of Military Transportation.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And so you know, I think we're also being very
generous with the word study.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I don't think there were a ton of proposal, right,
This was.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
More of a daddy may I. You know that's at
least on some level. Now, these guys were bringing expertise
the field. They were able to object a sales pitch.
It was a sales pitch. Three studies in the making,
and so uh, Major Wayne through the Camel Lover Society
contact Porter.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
We can only imagine and says, hey, man, where we go?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And they they say, okay, cool. From what I remember
about camels, they're kind of big.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
So let's take a look at.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
The boat boys, right, and we got to figure out
how we get them across the Atlantic, then through the
East Coast, then I go over land through non desert,
through a lot of don desert.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Uh, and don't kill them on the way. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah, And it's a lot more complicated than just making
sure those humps match up with each other so you
can stack them up exactly like I can't. Yeah, you
think you just to lay down, I mean, like we're joking.
But obviously this is a non trivial matter. Like the
logistics mid mid nineteenth century, crossing the Atlantic alone is
(26:56):
already a herculean effort. And you still, as you said, Ben,
you still have I don't know, almost all of North
America to cross before you start getting to the desert
park right.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Well, And in the same way that the horses and
pack mules were not suited to the desert, these ships
of the desert.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Were not suited to the route to the getting. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Yeah, this is where our story. Uh, if you are
an animal lover like me, gets a little.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Sad, it gets it gets a massive sad ossity in
some ways because we know, Okay, so Porter is already
doing stuff with his ship, the USS Supply, and Major
Wayne just hops aboard as as as an add on,
a bonus buddy, and the Supply is going to an
(27:47):
unrelated mission to Italy during this trip. The Major just
pops away. He just says, okay, uh, you know, TTYL,
thanks for the ride. I'm gonna learn about camels. He
went hardcore on camel.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Journey of Discoveries. Sounds like such an awesome job. A
little bit yeah, and he does his homework for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
There's a gap in your resume, sir. Oh, yes, I was.
That was my camel year studying. It was my camel year.
Sort of a gap between the huts. Yea exactly of
a career. So how does he go about this? He's
got to visit a bunch of different places.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, yeah, let's name a few.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, Pisa, where he hangs out with a camel caravan.
He goes to Paris where he has a little hang
with a French colleague, about the French Camel Corps, which
I believe was run by the French Foreign Legion, or
at the very least there was use of camels by
the French correct exactly, so these are used in an
(28:43):
imperialist activities. This is also considered an off the books,
a bit hush hush.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Meeting for reasons.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
I have to admit that if I have to research anything,
Paris is way up on my list of places to
research stuff, even if it has nothing to do with
whatever I'm looking into.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Well place, Yeah, interesting history.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah. Well, we're gonna be honest with you, folks. I
don't want to call you guys. I don't want to
speak for you, but I have that multiple times tried
to pull kind of a major Wayne to Paris move
with our own with our own bosses over at iHeart.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, say you know what would be awesome for this?
Speaker 1 (29:20):
There is a world Expo in Osaka, and I think
we could get some great shows out of it. Okay,
that's my next one, by the way, pitching that if
you guys.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Well, it's also sometimes sometimes our company comes to us
and say, hey, guys, would you like to to be
part of a group that we're sending to Katar the
web summit and we're like, that's incredible.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Uh huh.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
So yeah, it works both ways, it does, but in
this case. So then we get we get the reunited
and it feels so good, and it feels so good
between Porter and Wayne.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Can I just say so, I stopped thinking about every
time I read Major Wayne, I think of Major Pain
starring Marlon Wayne.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I'm not true, brother, That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Sorry, I just had to say it out loud so
that maybe it would get out of my head.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
But fair enough.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Carry on, So we get Wayne and Porter getting back together.
They're still not done with their fact finding mission, right,
They want to go a few more places, learn as
much as they can. Honestly, while I was joking about
all the different studies, et cetera, the fact that they're
taking this so seriously is a good thing.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Well, I mean it's also they're protecting their investment. You know,
this is a million dollars by today's math. So they
did not want to get the right. They did not
want to lose their cargo, their precious cars.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
They also need first hand accounts of military experience with
camels right in supply chain, so they go to crime
They visit Egypt, Malta, like you were saying, know, some
of the North African areas where the camel has been
a part of life for a long time. They go
to Turkey and while in crimea major Wayne meets up
(30:56):
with these British officers, picture the stereotypes of favorite British
officer at the time, and then say, oh, you know,
tell me old being about your experience with camels in
the Crimean War. And I'm being a little bit glib
with that, but it is important to your point, Jonathan,
because they need someone who can say this worked, ye.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Right, because otherwise they're going to if things go south. Right,
if things go south, they okay, I'm not trying.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
To be they are ultimately going south.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
I'm not trying to force out here. But if things
go south then they did not do this part of
the fact finding mission, then obviously they are going to
be held accountable for making a terrible decision. But if
they said no, we spoke with multiple people who have
used camels and supply chains in the past. It worked,
(31:53):
we had That's why we continued forward with this.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
And they're being very honest because before these fact new missions.
Part of the reason, I would argue they're so thorough
before they set upon this adventure. These guys loved camels,
but they didn't know the first thing about actual camels.
The reports, anecdotes, nostalgia. They had kind of a vibe,
(32:20):
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
A bit of a vibe.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Check. Yeah, I like the film the masterpiece that is Vibes,
starring Cyndi Lauper and Jeff Vibes.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, thank you, Please check it out. I'm pointing to
someone outside of the studio. Hello, Vibes is an amazing
movie from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Oh a strong world to take better than Ghostbusters. Oh,
amazing means a lot of things.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
I've I've ruined ourk careers. Then it's a movie that
exists and it's worth your time. It is a it
is a product of the time that in which it
was created. But these fact finding missions are all in
all a success. They're about ready to drop this cash
on some camels, about thirty thousand dollars USD.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
The question I have for you, then, is your mid
nineteenth century You got thirty grand how many camels does
that buy?
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I'm so glad you asked. This is why we have
fun at parties together. It will purchase thirty three camels.
But wait, does Billy Mays was wont to say? There's
more you with that? You get a price break. You
also get some saddles to throw them in some fair
crossing the little whippy thing. They also are able to
(33:31):
use some money to get some drivers, some trainers. This
doesn't cost them thirty grand. They get all this for
to get this, folks, the low low price of eight
thousand dollars us.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Why that's a steal? It sure is.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
I'll take two Wait wait, well I'm sorry. Where where
what the rest of the money go? They pocket the rest?
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah, okay, guys, we're not taking questions for moving on.
So I love to say we're not taking questions anyway. Yeah,
so they get they don't just get one kind of camel, right,
They also get the they get the Bactrian, they get
the single humped camel. We already talked about some of
the differences. Now let's talk some anecdotes. Because Jonathan, you
(34:10):
said something interesting that we're I'm not going to.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Let it go. Uh you asked us if we had
ridden camels.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, and you said that you have, I have would
you like to tell us about that on the record?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Sure? Uh.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
I rode a camel when my parents took me to
a Renaissance festival in the state of Georgia where there
were camels that would take children on a very slow,
methodical circle around the field.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Don't they still do that at the right fair? They
do it now?
Speaker 4 (34:43):
Yes, I thought it so. For many years they didn't.
They had instead they had ponies, Yeah, and the little
pony carousel essentially for real zies. Sure, putting the polls
through them was just heartbreaking, But they have they now have,
they've had They've had camels on and off over the
last several years.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Got it, I went, I was able to have a
similar experience for a long time. You guys know the
musician Conway Twitty. Of course, yes, okay, good because otherwise
well it doesn't matter. But Conway Twitter for a Twitter
show he had, he had a big compound in the States,
(35:24):
in the state of Tennessee, and he turned this into
like a Christmas themed fair every year called Twitty City Twitter.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
The only that's fine, that's fun with Dollywood thing with.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Arguably off the books branding from Tweetyburg. So is Twitty
city that was arguing, and they had the big draw
was I could get my camel license writing in a
methodical circle as long as it was renewed each year.
And I was convinced for way too long that I
(35:58):
really was qualified to write. It came like you had
a legit. Oh they told you this, Yeah, they told
you this. As my parents went along with it, and
they would tell me, you know, we've got to go
back because your camel license will expire.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Aspiring that would be a real shame.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Then finally learned the real truth at age of thirty two.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
At thirty two, when they were no longer let me
into the now long closed twenty City and the caretaker said,
you know, with a little bit of pity.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, you you experienced pity in twitty City.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Was the back of your neck getting dirty and gritty?
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Oh jesus, it was a hot time in the city. Guys.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
All, I recall, my only recollection of my camel experience
is back when I was a small German boy, and
it was at some sort of fun and fair in Deutschleans.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Oh, that's awesome. So you you have also encountered that.
And to be clear, other than Porter, most people have
not had any of the experiences we're naming in the
US or in Germany on us. Very very true.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
And there are, of course things that even their fact
finding mission perhaps held back, which is the somewhat cantankerous
nature of these creatures.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
They're sassy boys. They're sassy boys. So all right, they
get these.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Five camel drivers, and these guys are functioning as trainers,
the ideas we can teach you as soldiers how to train, ride,
and care for these animals, so we'll be completely new
to them. And then they also said, yeah, we've got
to do We've got to really modify our ship. We
gotta do some serious improvements because, like you said, they
(37:38):
can't just stack them.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Horizontally playing Tetris with camels. Yes, yeah, So they retrofit
the supply, so the supply becomes the camel supply. And
I love that you have in here in your in
your notes here Ben about the ventilation system they make,
which sounds to me like that was something that should
(38:04):
have been necessary on a lot.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Of ships of the time, absolutely, but was not. Uh
they are chonky and sanky. Yeah, so they.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
They used they used the sails to redirect wind down
into the hold in order to provide some ventilation.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Cas and they and they also this is an interesting point. Okay,
I'm going somewhere with this. We know how in descriptions
of sea monsters or naval battles sea monsters, especially.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Uh, the in the margins of old maps.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Yeah. Yeah, here be spur serpents, spurpens. Here be serpents.
So these you're not gonna let me no, okay, spurpens
is too good.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
It's fine to say. Listen, we're all tired. It's okay,
I'm loving it.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Tell us if spurpens lands and define what a spurpoents
is for us, we'll open that door.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
It has lovely Lady Luscius lady humps. Yeah. Well, here's
the reason why, at least why some of those giant squid,
which are a real thing or colossal colossal squas should say,
Davy Jones giant squid. Yes, yes, uh wait, which one
is that?
Speaker 3 (39:12):
It's the Michael Bolton Lonely and this is the song
of Jack Sparrow.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yes, so they.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Looked bigger, and some of those paintings were not as
inaccurate as they may seem, because the ships are much
smaller than we imagine them. The ships you see and
pirates of the Caribbean are incredibly rare in the historic.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I didn't know that. Yes, so these are more like
little schooners.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
I mean you would have like galleons and stuff in
the Spanish da which were truly massive, but not everyone
was he seeing galleons.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
And that's exactly why this supply ship has to rebuild itself,
rebuild his deck to allow these camels in.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
I had a little hot moment of confusion myself, so
I'm just going to remind the listeners at home.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
This is a supply ship that is called the supply Yes.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Yeah, well I had to look at our notes like
five times because then I saw that the supply ship
left Smyrna, and that's like north of Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
It is indeed a suburb of Atlanta where we are.
Where isn't it?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Also?
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Is it in in Greece? Turkey? Turkey or Turkey Hey
turkeyk Yeah, yeah, thank.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
You thinks and so on May fourth, Oh, they have
to there's one battory and camels so big they just
give up and they say, okay, We're going to cut
a hole in the deck.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Everybody just be careful.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Just walk around the hump, Just walk around the home.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Mind the gap and mind the gap, mind the hump.
May fourteenth, eighteen fifty six. They arrive at Indianola, Texas
with thirty four total camels.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
But wait, wait, wait wait thirty three started with thirty
three the very least I would have thought we'd maybe
have lost a few and rude, what happened?
Speaker 1 (40:50):
This is this is uh, this is what Jonathan was
telling us all about, how this this is the part
that's not great for animal lovers.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yeah yeah, okay, specifically not great for camels. Something of
a trigger warning here.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
Yeah, So we had some losses, obviously, we also had
some gains all on that. But as I said, crossing
the Atlantic herculean effort mid nineteenth century. It took a
long time to do. It is not something that one
does not simply cross the Atlantic Ocean. So we have
start with thirty three. One of the camels does not
(41:26):
survive the crossing, so we're down to thirty two. All right,
but we have six camels born during the crossing. Woh
okay on life, only two of which survive. Ah yeah,
bummer right, all right, so that's what brings us up
to the thirty four in total.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Which is a net gain. That's true.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Game.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
But then don't they decide they still need more?
Speaker 4 (41:53):
They do decide they still need more. It turns out
that you can't solve all your supply chain issues with
just thirty four camp.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Right, okay, well yeah again early days, right, brainstorming, no
wrong answers. This is where we see the brass considering
this a cost effective success, right yeah, and remember doing
they're counting the beans and counting the camels. And remember
the entire time these guys are coming back from the Atlantic,
the tensions in the United States are ratcheting up, so
(42:23):
there is an increased concern, which means an increased budget.
And thus it comes to pass that they land and
the US government tells old porter, great job, buddy, good hustle.
Turn around like today, go back to the Middle East.
Buy more camels, just like that. You know, we need
more cow bell sketch.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Did they re up the budget as well, and they
gave them a few more checkles. They didn't even spend
all the money, that's right. They did really well. They
got good camel deals, so they.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Were able to go on back and this time they
decide they're going to be even more ambitious. They don't.
They don't just buy thirty three camels, they go up
to forty one, one short of the answer to life,
the universe and everything.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
And in the business, that's what we call a cliffhanger. Folks.
This is Part one of the US Camel cor We
could not be more pleased that you joined us. We
are going to be returning later this week with Part
two and the Legend of the Red ghost.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Ugh, so metal camel Core and the Red Ghosts.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
And big big things do you, fellow ridiculous historians. Also
big big thanks to our guest super producer Matt the Madman.
Still Matt, I should have checked with you before giving
you that nickname.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
But we're in it now.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
We're not in it.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Names work were in it. They're bestowed upon you. You
don't get it.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
You didn't hear what I What I said about him
and my introduction are all sorts of monikers.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Yeah, no, yeah, And speaking of monikers, big big things
of course, to the one and only Jonathan Baby Jay Strickland,
thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I know that's one of your least famous.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Oh there's a video on YouTube. From the old stuff
works days. If you want to see my reaction to
that can has cookie, I'm going to get you. Yeah. No,
thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Also, spoiler alert, we have already recorded part two.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Stop it.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
We're coming back from the future. It's just like Looper
Ben and I have to say, uh, this might have
been the most fun.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
I've had on the show. It was a good time.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
And but by the way, we are also technically coming
to you from the future because where we sit in
Doha Guitar we're eight hours ahead of where we live
and looks like Blade Runner, like Blade Runner outside wild.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
You know, I think one of the people we're riding
with from the airport here's that all the time? Yeah,
because there's one building in particular that's quite angular, a
gigantic triangle.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
A sword.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Yeah, yeah, like an anime sword of Final Fantasy. And
they said, wow, it looks just like Blade Runner, and
the guy who was driving.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Said, yep. So that's like what someone says, have you
been bulleted lately?
Speaker 1 (45:04):
But we do have some more people to think of course,
thanks to Chris rossiotis the legendary us Jeff Cots here
in spirit and who.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Else woh gosh, Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist, who also
exists in human form currently and sits before me corporeally.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
It's been a pleasure having you, sir, as well as
Max Williams, our super producer, long suffering.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Thanks for the hot edits on this one from afar.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
We really appreciate you, and of course also Alex Williams,
who composed this bang and Bob we call a theme.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Big big thanks of course to the rude dudes over
a ridiculous crime. Big thanks to everybody who made this possible.
And I just want to get in front of this
because it's very personally important.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Big thanks to say Man, Yeah, Camel's in general, Camil kind.
Big thanks to Citee. I think we're on the way. Yeah,
I think so.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
No one's going to know what that is until part two,
That's all.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Right, And that's why I'm like, Yeah, there's a method
in the ground.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
It's like Looper. It's just like Looper.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
Yeah, we're gonna make that reference as many times as
we can.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple
Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
(00:27):
the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
much for joining us. Let's give a big shout out
to our super guest producer, Matt the Madman.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Still o O la la.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Now we are live in a new land for us, indeed,
and you're no Old Brown. Yes, I'm Ben Bollen, and
we're doing something extra special today, Noel. We are exploring
a very strange story that doesn't often get talked about
and is somewhat the matter apropos for us, wouldn't you say?
Speaker 2 (01:01):
I would say so.
Speaker 3 (01:03):
It is in relation to a different land, but there
are some crossovers here in terms of the the type
of pack.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
Animal in question. There there we go.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
And speaking of crossovers, we are and animals and absolute animals.
We are joined with a very special guest that usually
just shows up to ruin the show at the end.
We couldn't be more happy, reluctantly so to welcome today's
special guest, the Man, the Myth, the Legend, the notorious
(01:37):
Jonathan Strickland a k A.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
Well, hold on a second, now, I'm hoping that we
could just get Jonathan as Jonathan, right, if you say
the name, it's.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
Like be Actually, have you heard that? That's how we
refer to it.
Speaker 4 (01:51):
I had not heard that, but it makes perfect sense. Hi,
I'm Jonathan. Hey, Jonathan, Hey, I'm really excited. I hope
we're talking about drum dairies.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yes, yes, yes, apparently the hump of the Dramedary is
in some parts of the one, including the one we're
in currently, which is Doha, Qatar.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Quite the delicacy.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yes, it's like ninety fat and apparently you put it
in stews and it just that good fat, just dissolves
and gives.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
It a real o mami.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Oh wow.
Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
It's also true that there's a long standing myth about
our Dramedary friends. They do not store water in the hump.
They store, as you were saying, noel, delicious fat. Let's
be honest, and let's come from a place of great affection, you.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Guys, which is, by the way, Doha, Qatar, where we
are right with great affection. I don't know if we
mentioned them. Now we are at web Summit, Qatar. We
have been invited by the lovely folks at iHeart to
help them do some educational tracks about podcasting here with
some Middle Eastern creators, everyone we've met thus far.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
We just did our first session. By the way, I
think it went smashingly well, so.
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Popular you standing room only.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
I was a little taken aback in the best possible way,
and everyone's been super kind. We stuck around, answered a
lot of questions, and I'm really proud of us. Ben,
I'm proud of the crowd for sure. Crowd, proud crowd,
proud first and foremost. And thank you, of course Jonathan
for being our plant, being our random, random man in
the audience.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
What do you think?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
So?
Speaker 2 (03:25):
What is it? What is it that? What's his name?
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Darren Brown? You know the mentalist? He says there are
no stooges involved.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
You were? You were our stooge.
Speaker 4 (03:33):
Yeah, no, I was. I was extra stoogie mostly but
due to sleep deprivation.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
And yet flag you just arrived yesterday.
Speaker 3 (03:40):
Yes, well, we have had the pleasure and privilege of
being here for a couple of days.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
I feel just about normal.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
And here's here's what we're exploring today. You guys, if
you never saw imagine you've lived your whole life full
of ridiculous historians. You've never seen a camel, narry a picture,
narry an iconographic.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Rendering, freaky beast.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
One day you saw one, your first thought will probably
be camels are wacky looking. I say this with great effection.
It's like the first time I saw in alpaca or
a lama my or a giraft. To be fair, my
first question was huh what why?
Speaker 3 (04:15):
How?
Speaker 2 (04:16):
And then a spit right in your mouth?
Speaker 1 (04:18):
So uh, look, they got that walk, they got that
wonky sinuous neck.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
We'll get to that. That's for shadwy. Oh.
Speaker 3 (04:28):
You know it's funny though, Ben I always have you
ever seen like, there's this guy on Instagram who creates
artistic renderings of drawings that his small child has done. Yes,
that is what a camel looks like.
Speaker 1 (04:40):
Yes, yeah, there's the wonky sinuous neck, the odd one
or two humps, and what.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Gives you one versus two? I breed thing.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
I personally, I will share this anecdote later. I am
more a fan of the battory and camel, which is
the double hump.
Speaker 2 (04:57):
I want the double hump because it makes for a
natural sound, it makes for a natural saddle, and I
think they have a better attitude in general, little less
smouth spitting.
Speaker 4 (05:05):
Have you ever ridden one?
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yes, but when I was very small, I was very small,
three of us. I'm hoping that we can do it.
Whilst we're out here. They have these desert safaris where
you can hire a camel that will take you around.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Well, you hire the person who's the camel's camel human,
but the camel handler. You don't straight up hire the camel.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
No, that's true.
Speaker 1 (05:26):
Well, I just I just be sort of like hiring
a car in the way British people say, correct, I'll
hire a car.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Indeed. So they also have feet that look like straight
up clown shoes. Yep. Just this is like a Friar's
Club roast.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
They nobby knees, they got knobby knees.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Always be knocking.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
And for some reason, maybe I'm anthropomorphizing, these goofy little
guys always look like they're smirking.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, they look like Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam and
the Jeremy video.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
I don't know, I call him little, but I never
fell they are.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
But it's weird because all of the stuff we just
described as a roast of the camel is in fact
a marvel of evolution.
Speaker 2 (06:01):
Boy, is it ever?
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Highly adapted to one of the most unforgiving biomes on
the planet.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
They can not just survive, but thrive.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
Yeah, they're like an anthropomorphic succulent Yes, yeah, So why
are we talking about camels?
Speaker 4 (06:16):
I mean, yes, I agree they are wonders of the
natural world, But what is it that is particularly ridiculous
and were historical about them?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Because they also have their own genre of music and
it's called camel core.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
Yes, well, there's also a great Southern culture on the
skids song called camel Walk.
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. And then we'll do other references
that I can't think of right now, but the.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Rule of three we will hold sacracinct. Here's the thing,
and here's the answer Jonathan's question. Back in the eighteen hundred,
some pretty innovative, slightly weird guys in the US Army
thinking outside the box, taking outside the box, thinking atop
the hump. They looked around the US and thought, holy smokes,
look at this. We got some deserts too. This is
(07:00):
the story of the United States. Camel core, chemical camo core,
and spoiler, we have an extra special cryptid thrown in
for good measure, which I just I waited till you
were really sleep deprived Jonathan, and then told you what
we were.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Going to take is the squonk does it tell me
it's the squawk? It's got a squank five.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
A little bit. So okay, let's let's set the stage. Noel,
can we can we get a beginning of the chemicals?
Speaker 3 (07:29):
I prefer to start in the middle in media rus Indeed, no, no, no,
It's true, as you mentioned, Ben, at this point in
the mid eighteen hundreds, we're not even yet a century
into the bold experiment that is these or.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Those United States.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
We are not currently there the first modern democracy in
the Western hemisphere, the US is. Of course, it has
its roots and imperialism, despite you know, being against those imperialists,
the British, and they were very into expanding those territories
and those latins that.
Speaker 1 (08:01):
They yeah, yeah, And there were a lot of ethically
fraught indeed conquest and some sticky historical things that did
not age well. Dark night of the soul many times
over over the course of these what corporate America call
big ups and downs.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
And big corporate America yes, and.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Various let's be honest, war crimes, genocides and other stuff
that wasn't bad all the slow jazz. The nation encompasses grows,
and it encompasses a variety of unique, distinct ecosystems, including
these massive swaths of desert.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
What will we do with the desert?
Speaker 1 (08:42):
Say, a lot of still European forces expanding into a
place where they are not familiar with the desert.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Well, and Jonathan, at this point, we do have the railroads,
which is such an important innovation for that expansionism, but
they don't really work super well in the dunes.
Speaker 4 (08:58):
Right, And also you have this issue with logistics, oh,
with the United States Army right, right, so the army
troops and supplies, right, supplies, Supply chain is the king
is absolutely everything. And you have a lot of conflicts
in the United States. Now, obviously we're going to be
working our way to the eighteen sixties in the Civil War,
(09:20):
but even before that we have conflicts. And this is
what gives rise to a particular officer in the US
Army who comes up with the idea of perhaps using
the camel to tackle some of these supply chain challenges
you face when you need to move large amounts of
stuff across desert, you know, environments.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
Indeed, Yeah, these people are going on sojourns. Right, civilians
is alike, you know, with far fewer resources than old
Uncle Sam. And you can go to places like Armyhistory
dot org and you can get these picturesque quotes one
of them. In the eighteen thirties, America's westward expansion was
(10:03):
being severely curtailed by the inhospitable terrain and climate face
by pioneers and settlers. This was particularly the case in
the Southwest, where every deserts, mountain peaks, and impassable rivers
were proving to be an almost insurmountable obstacle to men
and animals alike. Which is what we just said, but
a little less.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Conversation, very very high falutine, I would say too that
the animals in question you here are things like pack
mules and horses, which are great and they can take
a lot of punishment, but they are not particularly well
suited to the desert climbs and terrain.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
Right.
Speaker 4 (10:39):
The strengths of the horse are one thing, right, camel
strengths are another where they're not a one to one replacement,
as the army would discover. But if you do need something,
a pack animal.
Speaker 2 (10:53):
That you caune needs something, if you do need something
you shouldn't please do.
Speaker 3 (11:00):
If you're a Bena Jezarette, you need to get across
travel without moving.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Yes, what is it? The worm walk?
Speaker 4 (11:07):
Fear is the mind killing, that's for sure. Let's but
as I'm going through every Frank Herbert reference, I could
think sure, but no, no, it's it was clear that
pack animals are not universally suited for every single environment,
and that, unfortunately, you still have the need to get
(11:27):
supplies across those environments.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
So what do you do.
Speaker 4 (11:31):
Well, you don't just throw more horses and donkeys, because
they're gonna die, or at the very least they're going
to suffer terribly, and you're not. It's not gonna be
an efficient way for you to get your stuff across.
You need to find an alternative, and he needs someone
who thinks outside the box to push that alternative to
higher ups who will probably not listen to us.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yes, that's tale as old as time.
Speaker 1 (11:54):
Yes, that is where we encounter another struggle. A guy
named Major George H.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Crossman.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
He is the reason the notion of camels in the
American desert or the US desert dates back as far
as the eighteen thirties. UH he got like, have you,
of course the three of us have, and probably you
listening along at home, folks, if you've forgotten super obsessive
in a rabbit hole of something, you know, I think
I think.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
Sort of our whole thing. I was about to say, Ben,
we built careers on it. We built this city on
rabbit holes.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
Yes, well done. And so this guy gets super into camels.
We don't know what was going on in his life.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
At the time.
Speaker 1 (12:34):
Let's let's reword that this guy gets This guy becomes
camilis no intrigued by the potential functionalities of the.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Cattle and lady humps.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
I think the jet lag is really starting to kick in, y'all.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
Yeah, And so okay, so ride it out, ride that
train all the way to bell.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
He he does a renaissance man kind of thing, and
he on his own, of his own volition, he creates
a cartoonishly thorough study about camels in the United States
in eighteen thirty six. He sends it to his bosses.
Their response is lost to history, but we can we
can tell you they probably said something like, hot dog, George,
(13:17):
you're wild.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
For this kid.
Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, we're gonna for me. God, right on the fridge.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
Now I will I will say because I looked into
Crosman further out of curiosity. He had a long and
decorated career in the military. AB He actually received very
high honors, even though he was never really like front
of line battle. He was more again on the supply
chain side, but because of his contributions in managing supply
(13:43):
chains and logistics, he carried weight. He carried weight. Yes,
So is he tired at this point? No, he would,
he would continue to sir. Now he's dead though, yes,
now he's dead in the point of our story, he
is not. No, Actually he would still be technically in
service during the Civil War, active for a while. Yeah,
so he's some reason.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
This just strikes me as the kind of thing like
that we're gonna pull him out of retirement to help
solve the desert problem.
Speaker 4 (14:07):
Last job getting supplies to the Union troops. Yeah, we
as we will discover it's not the Union that really
gets into the whole camel.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Thing, right, Yeah, this is so he is our predecessor,
and he does bring expertise and wait to this idea,
which in this case just means that he essentially was
able to send the study and got the meeting, and.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Then they ignored him.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
But he wouldn't have gotten that far had he not
been so obsessed already with the poetry, the brutal poetry
of logistics. It's not till like eighteen forty eight that
someone else starts taking the idea seriously. This is where
we meet another military man, Henry c Wayne, also a
bit of a logistics guy himself.
Speaker 4 (15:00):
Yeah. Both of these guys were quartermasters, and so they
were in charge of supplies and supply chains and figuring
out how to get the stuff that soldiers needed to
them in conditions that, let's say, were mercurial dangerous.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
Oh yes, yes, quite literally.
Speaker 4 (15:16):
Mercurious, yes, sometimes quite literally.
Speaker 3 (15:19):
Could we also just point out that the precedent for
the use of camels dates back a very very long time. Sure,
they are thought to have been first domesticated by human
beings in Somalia or South Arabia, very close to the
region that we are currently sitting in, during the third
millennium BC. Also in the Bactrian in Central Asia, around
(15:43):
twenty five hundred beings.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Thank you very much, Ben, correct.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
I also would like to just remind us, because it's easy,
at least for me I don't want to speak for you,
but easy for me to forget that. You know, horses
are not native to North America. No, they were introduced
in the sixteenth century. So while the thought of camels
being introduced can seem to us to be somewhat ridiculous
and foreign, we had already done that with horses. So
(16:08):
and horses ended up flourishing in North America. So I'm
sure there were people will say why not camels?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Yeah, or just.
Speaker 1 (16:15):
Like you know, narco bosses a little further south said
why not hippos?
Speaker 2 (16:20):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Also true, And I mean we also just take a
second to appreciate what a perfect adaptation the camel is
compared to the horse when it comes to the desert.
Those knobby knees and skinny legs and the clown shoes
great at not sinking into the sand, helping stabilize. Yep,
you know those little points like in the knees, they're
(16:42):
essentially like shock absorbers.
Speaker 2 (16:44):
Right, That's part of why they're always smirking. So they're like,
you're having a hard time out, I got one on you.
You got a hard time And.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Then whatever, whether the water is stored in the hump
or not, we do know that they are able to
store a lot of a lot of caloric energy. That's
the most important part, less about the water.
Speaker 4 (17:02):
So we've got a couple of different people coming forward
shocking these suggestions, but so far we're still not quite
at the point where the US Army is ready.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
To get it a go.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Yeah, you need a patriot. And this is where Henry C.
Wayne is contacting a guy who was at the time
Senator of Mississippi. His name Jefferson Davis. Wayne pitches to
Davis based on Crossman's work, and he has an even
more thorough study and he's going, Jeffy, baby, help me
(17:34):
buy some camels. Let's make this official. And Wayne is
is targeting Jefferson Davis for this pitch specifically because Davis,
who goes on to do a couple of other things,
not great stuff, you know, not great stuff, but he
goes on to do a couple of other things. And
he Davis had previous firsthand experience in the Mexican American War,
(17:58):
which had just and it had started two years ago,
it had just ended, and he had been in the desert.
He had seen that harsh unforgiving calliche.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
He know, yeah, that hard Callechi. Yeah, sorry, that's from
no country for old men. That's where that comes from.
Very cormack MacCarthy, end of you.
Speaker 2 (18:18):
Ben.
Speaker 3 (18:18):
But this dude knows the merits of what is being pitched.
He understands like where this is coming from, that it's
not just a hair brain scheme.
Speaker 1 (18:27):
Yeah, but he's he's doing that thing where someone has
a good idea amid a crisis. Because at this point
his pitches to his colleagues on the congressional sphere, they
are unsuccessful because Congress already is very sensitive to a
(18:49):
fell wind. You know, the North and South are increasingly
reaching serious loggerheads on multiple fronts, economic disagreements, ideological differences,
and the great sin of chattel slavery.
Speaker 4 (19:03):
Right, Yes, so we've all heard the phrase necessity is
the mother of invention. We get to a point in
history where it looks like there may be a pressing
need to come up with some supply chain solution and
to get one up on the opposition exactly. So there's
(19:23):
your motivation. Like if you if you need to get
your hair brain scheme funded, wait until your your money
bags is in a desperate situation more.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Likely to get it happen. Okay, so we're we're absolutely right.
Seven years later, eighteen fifty five, right, Davis finally, due
to this growing need, persuades Congress to shell out thirty
thousand US dollars.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
Can we Dad?
Speaker 3 (19:53):
Oh geez geez inflation calculary sim as Max. We really
like Matt though, but it's not the same as Max.
If Max were here, he would have set a boop boop.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
Yeah yeah, Well, but now we have Jonathan joining us
in this.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Can you give us a boot? Jonathan? Sure, dude, boop? Okay, okay,
you're really good at that.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
Thirty thousand US dollars eighteen fifty five, by today's inflation
calculation would be.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
One million, eighty eight thousand, two hundred ninety three dollars
and ten cents in twenty twenty five.
Speaker 2 (20:33):
Wow, okay bad. What were we going to use that
cash alla for?
Speaker 3 (20:36):
Ben?
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Well, they were going to use it, Noel, to buy
a boop ton a boatload, a boatloads of come outs.
And I like a boop to a boop tons.
Speaker 1 (20:47):
Good.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
It's a lot of camels you can get for a
million bones.
Speaker 4 (20:50):
Now, Interestingly, the military would continue, ourt least people in
the military would continue to spend a lot of money
on camels. But in that case, I think I'm talking
specifically about the cigarets.
Speaker 2 (21:00):
This is perfect. This is you would get issued them,
wouldn't you.
Speaker 1 (21:04):
Yeah it was Yeah, yeah, it's still in a couple
of militaries. There's still I'm not going to name names,
but the mrs no names, No I collect them, you
know what I mean. They they will still have for
a long time. France would have one cigarette as part
of your rash.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Yeah, well there's also the finish breakfast, right, which I
believe is a shot of vodka, espresso and a single cigarette.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
Yeah, super healthy, right, good? And so think of it
this way.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
It still feels very blue sky brainstorm mode. It's like
a few in your homies or partying or right like
in college maybe and you know you have an exam
coming up soon. That would be the civil war.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
In this space. But you're still in the long weekend,
right your p s a ts. Yeah, so you're just
so you're brainstorming. Anything's possible. I'll have one more beer.
Speaker 1 (21:56):
But Senator Davis gets this month, Jeff d Jeffy duh.
He follows up with his own study in eighteen fifty seven,
and he's at least partially motivated just to prove this
is a real, a real thing, and that it's not
the eighteen hundreds version of someone getting blitzed and watching
(22:17):
Discovery Channel.
Speaker 3 (22:18):
Gotta be scalable, guys, to use corporate speak, you know.
Speaker 4 (22:21):
So yeah, well, I mean, like again, getting back to logistics,
like how do you Yes, where let go would be ideal,
but they're not killing us. They're not native to North America.
You're not going to go to the camel store, so
round yere right, you got to reach out to the
contacts abroad.
Speaker 2 (22:42):
Yes, I mean at this point, I love that.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I love that because at this point it's kind of
like if we were in a situation where we said,
you know, it would be perfect right now, a rock
from the moon, right, it would solve our problem, right,
Like that's great, let's let's get that way. Way so
they have this is like active of a heist film.
You raise the point that they have to go somewhere else.
(23:05):
So Major Wayne not to get conspiratorial. Major Wayne also
happens to know that there's a fellow camel nut named
David Dixon Porter, which makes me wonder if there's this
cottage community or this circle camel enthusiasts of people who
are friends entirely based on there enthusiasm. Yeah, for Camel's well,
(23:30):
I mean the camel Lover's Society okay, oh yeah, the CLS.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
So porter was.
Speaker 4 (23:35):
The son of of like an investador, was a diplomat, yes,
and so he actually had spent time in the Middle East,
which means that he had seen camel's firsthand. And uh,
my guess is that the love of camel's is somewhat
based upon their very foreign appearance to people of the
(23:56):
you know, from Western countries who had never been exposed
to it, and you have that initial reaction of well,
what the hell is that damn thing over there?
Speaker 2 (24:06):
Exoticism?
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Yes, that's true, and so part of it is probably that,
you know, one, you have that that element of uh,
this is amazing, I've never seen anything like it.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Then you also have the element of.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
WTFS well yeah, yeah, but also you'd see you see
how the the indigenous peoples are able to make use
of the creatures in ways that no other creature would
be able to.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah, withstand and and then there's that power of nostalgia,
like you're saying, and.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
So they sort of commission a study, right, or at
the very least, a paper, a proposal.
Speaker 1 (24:45):
They start, they start brainstorming, because now fast forward, Porter
is the commander of a ship called the USS Supply.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
A little bit on the note, I also love that
the story has involved so far three major studies and
a major a major one of those stories.
Speaker 4 (25:05):
Actually from a major, but three, three massive studies into
the possibility of bringing camels over. It's I just love
that it spanned multiple decades and studies there and the
very first study was saying, hey, this would be a
good idea.
Speaker 2 (25:24):
Two more and then well that's bureaucracy for you.
Speaker 3 (25:27):
Is the most recent one, by the way, as you
point out, then, in a burst of creativity, it was
titled Purchase of Camels for the Purpose of Military Transportation.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And so you know, I think we're also being very
generous with the word study.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
I don't think there were a ton of proposal, right,
This was.
Speaker 1 (25:46):
More of a daddy may I. You know that's at
least on some level. Now, these guys were bringing expertise
the field. They were able to object a sales pitch.
It was a sales pitch. Three studies in the making,
and so uh, Major Wayne through the Camel Lover Society
contact Porter.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
We can only imagine and says, hey, man, where we go?
Speaker 1 (26:10):
And they they say, okay, cool. From what I remember
about camels, they're kind of big.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
So let's take a look at.
Speaker 1 (26:20):
The boat boys, right, and we got to figure out
how we get them across the Atlantic, then through the
East Coast, then I go over land through non desert,
through a lot of don desert.
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Uh, and don't kill them on the way. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (26:35):
Yeah, And it's a lot more complicated than just making
sure those humps match up with each other so you
can stack them up exactly like I can't. Yeah, you
think you just to lay down, I mean, like we're joking.
But obviously this is a non trivial matter. Like the
logistics mid mid nineteenth century, crossing the Atlantic alone is
(26:56):
already a herculean effort. And you still, as you said, Ben,
you still have I don't know, almost all of North
America to cross before you start getting to the desert
park right.
Speaker 3 (27:07):
Well, And in the same way that the horses and
pack mules were not suited to the desert, these ships
of the desert.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
Were not suited to the route to the getting. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (27:20):
Yeah, this is where our story. Uh, if you are
an animal lover like me, gets a little.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Sad, it gets it gets a massive sad ossity in
some ways because we know, Okay, so Porter is already
doing stuff with his ship, the USS Supply, and Major
Wayne just hops aboard as as as an add on,
a bonus buddy, and the Supply is going to an
(27:47):
unrelated mission to Italy during this trip. The Major just
pops away. He just says, okay, uh, you know, TTYL,
thanks for the ride. I'm gonna learn about camels. He
went hardcore on camel.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Journey of Discoveries. Sounds like such an awesome job. A
little bit yeah, and he does his homework for sure.
Speaker 1 (28:06):
There's a gap in your resume, sir. Oh, yes, I was.
That was my camel year studying. It was my camel year.
Sort of a gap between the huts. Yea exactly of
a career. So how does he go about this? He's
got to visit a bunch of different places.
Speaker 2 (28:19):
Yeah, yeah, let's name a few.
Speaker 3 (28:20):
Yeah, Pisa, where he hangs out with a camel caravan.
He goes to Paris where he has a little hang
with a French colleague, about the French Camel Corps, which
I believe was run by the French Foreign Legion, or
at the very least there was use of camels by
the French correct exactly, so these are used in an
(28:43):
imperialist activities. This is also considered an off the books,
a bit hush hush.
Speaker 2 (28:49):
Meeting for reasons.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
I have to admit that if I have to research anything,
Paris is way up on my list of places to
research stuff, even if it has nothing to do with
whatever I'm looking into.
Speaker 2 (28:59):
Well place, Yeah, interesting history.
Speaker 1 (29:01):
Yeah. Well, we're gonna be honest with you, folks. I
don't want to call you guys. I don't want to
speak for you, but I have that multiple times tried
to pull kind of a major Wayne to Paris move
with our own with our own bosses over at iHeart.
Speaker 2 (29:18):
Yeah, say you know what would be awesome for this?
Speaker 1 (29:20):
There is a world Expo in Osaka, and I think
we could get some great shows out of it. Okay,
that's my next one, by the way, pitching that if
you guys.
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Well, it's also sometimes sometimes our company comes to us
and say, hey, guys, would you like to to be
part of a group that we're sending to Katar the
web summit and we're like, that's incredible.
Speaker 3 (29:42):
Uh huh.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
So yeah, it works both ways, it does, but in
this case. So then we get we get the reunited
and it feels so good, and it feels so good
between Porter and Wayne.
Speaker 3 (29:54):
Can I just say so, I stopped thinking about every
time I read Major Wayne, I think of Major Pain
starring Marlon Wayne.
Speaker 2 (30:00):
I'm not true, brother, That's exactly right.
Speaker 3 (30:03):
Sorry, I just had to say it out loud so
that maybe it would get out of my head.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
But fair enough.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
Carry on, So we get Wayne and Porter getting back together.
They're still not done with their fact finding mission, right,
They want to go a few more places, learn as
much as they can. Honestly, while I was joking about
all the different studies, et cetera, the fact that they're
taking this so seriously is a good thing.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (30:24):
Well, I mean it's also they're protecting their investment. You know,
this is a million dollars by today's math. So they
did not want to get the right. They did not
want to lose their cargo, their precious cars.
Speaker 1 (30:36):
They also need first hand accounts of military experience with
camels right in supply chain, so they go to crime
They visit Egypt, Malta, like you were saying, know, some
of the North African areas where the camel has been
a part of life for a long time. They go
to Turkey and while in crimea major Wayne meets up
(30:56):
with these British officers, picture the stereotypes of favorite British
officer at the time, and then say, oh, you know,
tell me old being about your experience with camels in
the Crimean War. And I'm being a little bit glib
with that, but it is important to your point, Jonathan,
because they need someone who can say this worked, ye.
Speaker 4 (31:19):
Right, because otherwise they're going to if things go south. Right,
if things go south, they okay, I'm not trying.
Speaker 2 (31:29):
To be they are ultimately going south.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
I'm not trying to force out here. But if things
go south then they did not do this part of
the fact finding mission, then obviously they are going to
be held accountable for making a terrible decision. But if
they said no, we spoke with multiple people who have
used camels and supply chains in the past. It worked,
(31:53):
we had That's why we continued forward with this.
Speaker 1 (31:55):
And they're being very honest because before these fact new missions.
Part of the reason, I would argue they're so thorough
before they set upon this adventure. These guys loved camels,
but they didn't know the first thing about actual camels.
The reports, anecdotes, nostalgia. They had kind of a vibe,
(32:20):
you know what I mean.
Speaker 2 (32:20):
A bit of a vibe.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
Check. Yeah, I like the film the masterpiece that is Vibes,
starring Cyndi Lauper and Jeff Vibes.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
Yeah, thank you, Please check it out. I'm pointing to
someone outside of the studio. Hello, Vibes is an amazing
movie from the nineteen eighties.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Oh a strong world to take better than Ghostbusters. Oh,
amazing means a lot of things.
Speaker 3 (32:42):
I've I've ruined ourk careers. Then it's a movie that
exists and it's worth your time. It is a it
is a product of the time that in which it
was created. But these fact finding missions are all in
all a success. They're about ready to drop this cash
on some camels, about thirty thousand dollars USD.
Speaker 4 (33:00):
The question I have for you, then, is your mid
nineteenth century You got thirty grand how many camels does
that buy?
Speaker 1 (33:08):
I'm so glad you asked. This is why we have
fun at parties together. It will purchase thirty three camels.
But wait, does Billy Mays was wont to say? There's
more you with that? You get a price break. You
also get some saddles to throw them in some fair
crossing the little whippy thing. They also are able to
(33:31):
use some money to get some drivers, some trainers. This
doesn't cost them thirty grand. They get all this for
to get this, folks, the low low price of eight
thousand dollars us.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Why that's a steal? It sure is.
Speaker 3 (33:44):
I'll take two Wait wait, well I'm sorry. Where where
what the rest of the money go? They pocket the rest?
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Yeah, okay, guys, we're not taking questions for moving on.
So I love to say we're not taking questions anyway. Yeah,
so they get they don't just get one kind of camel, right,
They also get the they get the Bactrian, they get
the single humped camel. We already talked about some of
the differences. Now let's talk some anecdotes. Because Jonathan, you
(34:10):
said something interesting that we're I'm not going to.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Let it go. Uh you asked us if we had
ridden camels.
Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yeah, and you said that you have, I have would
you like to tell us about that on the record?
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Sure? Uh.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
I rode a camel when my parents took me to
a Renaissance festival in the state of Georgia where there
were camels that would take children on a very slow,
methodical circle around the field.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
Don't they still do that at the right fair? They
do it now?
Speaker 4 (34:43):
Yes, I thought it so. For many years they didn't.
They had instead they had ponies, Yeah, and the little
pony carousel essentially for real zies. Sure, putting the polls
through them was just heartbreaking, But they have they now have,
they've had They've had camels on and off over the
last several years.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
Got it, I went, I was able to have a
similar experience for a long time. You guys know the
musician Conway Twitty. Of course, yes, okay, good because otherwise
well it doesn't matter. But Conway Twitter for a Twitter
show he had, he had a big compound in the States,
(35:24):
in the state of Tennessee, and he turned this into
like a Christmas themed fair every year called Twitty City Twitter.
Speaker 2 (35:32):
The only that's fine, that's fun with Dollywood thing with.
Speaker 1 (35:37):
Arguably off the books branding from Tweetyburg. So is Twitty
city that was arguing, and they had the big draw
was I could get my camel license writing in a
methodical circle as long as it was renewed each year.
And I was convinced for way too long that I
(35:58):
really was qualified to write. It came like you had
a legit. Oh they told you this, Yeah, they told
you this. As my parents went along with it, and
they would tell me, you know, we've got to go
back because your camel license will expire.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
Aspiring that would be a real shame.
Speaker 4 (36:12):
Then finally learned the real truth at age of thirty two.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
At thirty two, when they were no longer let me
into the now long closed twenty City and the caretaker said,
you know, with a little bit of pity.
Speaker 2 (36:27):
Yeah, you you experienced pity in twitty City.
Speaker 4 (36:30):
Was the back of your neck getting dirty and gritty?
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Oh jesus, it was a hot time in the city. Guys.
Speaker 3 (36:40):
All, I recall, my only recollection of my camel experience
is back when I was a small German boy, and
it was at some sort of fun and fair in Deutschleans.
Speaker 2 (36:50):
Oh, that's awesome. So you you have also encountered that.
And to be clear, other than Porter, most people have
not had any of the experiences we're naming in the
US or in Germany on us. Very very true.
Speaker 3 (37:03):
And there are, of course things that even their fact
finding mission perhaps held back, which is the somewhat cantankerous
nature of these creatures.
Speaker 2 (37:14):
They're sassy boys. They're sassy boys. So all right, they
get these.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
Five camel drivers, and these guys are functioning as trainers,
the ideas we can teach you as soldiers how to train, ride,
and care for these animals, so we'll be completely new
to them. And then they also said, yeah, we've got
to do We've got to really modify our ship. We
gotta do some serious improvements because, like you said, they
(37:38):
can't just stack them.
Speaker 4 (37:40):
Horizontally playing Tetris with camels. Yes, yeah, So they retrofit
the supply, so the supply becomes the camel supply. And
I love that you have in here in your in
your notes here Ben about the ventilation system they make,
which sounds to me like that was something that should
(38:04):
have been necessary on a lot.
Speaker 2 (38:05):
Of ships of the time, absolutely, but was not. Uh
they are chonky and sanky. Yeah, so they.
Speaker 4 (38:12):
They used they used the sails to redirect wind down
into the hold in order to provide some ventilation.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Cas and they and they also this is an interesting point. Okay,
I'm going somewhere with this. We know how in descriptions
of sea monsters or naval battles sea monsters, especially.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Uh, the in the margins of old maps.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Yeah. Yeah, here be spur serpents, spurpens. Here be serpents.
So these you're not gonna let me no, okay, spurpens
is too good.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
It's fine to say. Listen, we're all tired. It's okay,
I'm loving it.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
Tell us if spurpens lands and define what a spurpoents
is for us, we'll open that door.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
It has lovely Lady Luscius lady humps. Yeah. Well, here's
the reason why, at least why some of those giant squid,
which are a real thing or colossal colossal squas should say,
Davy Jones giant squid. Yes, yes, uh wait, which one
is that?
Speaker 3 (39:12):
It's the Michael Bolton Lonely and this is the song
of Jack Sparrow.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Yes, so they.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Looked bigger, and some of those paintings were not as
inaccurate as they may seem, because the ships are much
smaller than we imagine them. The ships you see and
pirates of the Caribbean are incredibly rare in the historic.
Speaker 2 (39:32):
I didn't know that. Yes, so these are more like
little schooners.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
I mean you would have like galleons and stuff in
the Spanish da which were truly massive, but not everyone
was he seeing galleons.
Speaker 2 (39:44):
And that's exactly why this supply ship has to rebuild itself,
rebuild his deck to allow these camels in.
Speaker 3 (39:52):
I had a little hot moment of confusion myself, so
I'm just going to remind the listeners at home.
Speaker 2 (39:56):
This is a supply ship that is called the supply Yes.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Yeah, well I had to look at our notes like
five times because then I saw that the supply ship
left Smyrna, and that's like north of Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
It is indeed a suburb of Atlanta where we are.
Where isn't it?
Speaker 3 (40:14):
Also?
Speaker 2 (40:15):
Is it in in Greece? Turkey? Turkey or Turkey Hey
turkeyk Yeah, yeah, thank.
Speaker 1 (40:20):
You thinks and so on May fourth, Oh, they have
to there's one battory and camels so big they just
give up and they say, okay, We're going to cut
a hole in the deck.
Speaker 2 (40:29):
Everybody just be careful.
Speaker 4 (40:30):
Just walk around the hump, Just walk around the home.
Speaker 1 (40:32):
Mind the gap and mind the gap, mind the hump.
May fourteenth, eighteen fifty six. They arrive at Indianola, Texas
with thirty four total camels.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
But wait, wait, wait wait thirty three started with thirty
three the very least I would have thought we'd maybe
have lost a few and rude, what happened?
Speaker 1 (40:50):
This is this is uh, this is what Jonathan was
telling us all about, how this this is the part
that's not great for animal lovers.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yeah yeah, okay, specifically not great for camels. Something of
a trigger warning here.
Speaker 4 (41:03):
Yeah, So we had some losses, obviously, we also had
some gains all on that. But as I said, crossing
the Atlantic herculean effort mid nineteenth century. It took a
long time to do. It is not something that one
does not simply cross the Atlantic Ocean. So we have
start with thirty three. One of the camels does not
(41:26):
survive the crossing, so we're down to thirty two. All right,
but we have six camels born during the crossing. Woh
okay on life, only two of which survive. Ah yeah,
bummer right, all right, so that's what brings us up
to the thirty four in total.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
Which is a net gain. That's true.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
Game.
Speaker 2 (41:49):
But then don't they decide they still need more?
Speaker 4 (41:53):
They do decide they still need more. It turns out
that you can't solve all your supply chain issues with
just thirty four camp.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
Right, okay, well yeah again early days, right, brainstorming, no
wrong answers. This is where we see the brass considering
this a cost effective success, right yeah, and remember doing
they're counting the beans and counting the camels. And remember
the entire time these guys are coming back from the Atlantic,
the tensions in the United States are ratcheting up, so
(42:23):
there is an increased concern, which means an increased budget.
And thus it comes to pass that they land and
the US government tells old porter, great job, buddy, good hustle.
Turn around like today, go back to the Middle East.
Buy more camels, just like that. You know, we need
more cow bell sketch.
Speaker 2 (42:43):
Did they re up the budget as well, and they
gave them a few more checkles. They didn't even spend
all the money, that's right. They did really well. They
got good camel deals, so they.
Speaker 4 (42:51):
Were able to go on back and this time they
decide they're going to be even more ambitious. They don't.
They don't just buy thirty three camels, they go up
to forty one, one short of the answer to life,
the universe and everything.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
And in the business, that's what we call a cliffhanger. Folks.
This is Part one of the US Camel cor We
could not be more pleased that you joined us. We
are going to be returning later this week with Part
two and the Legend of the Red ghost.
Speaker 2 (43:22):
Ugh, so metal camel Core and the Red Ghosts.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
And big big things do you, fellow ridiculous historians. Also
big big thanks to our guest super producer Matt the Madman.
Still Matt, I should have checked with you before giving
you that nickname.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
But we're in it now.
Speaker 4 (43:36):
We're not in it.
Speaker 3 (43:37):
Names work were in it. They're bestowed upon you. You
don't get it.
Speaker 4 (43:41):
You didn't hear what I What I said about him
and my introduction are all sorts of monikers.
Speaker 1 (43:46):
Yeah, no, yeah, And speaking of monikers, big big things
of course, to the one and only Jonathan Baby Jay Strickland,
thanks for coming on the show.
Speaker 2 (43:55):
I know that's one of your least famous.
Speaker 4 (43:57):
Oh there's a video on YouTube. From the old stuff
works days. If you want to see my reaction to
that can has cookie, I'm going to get you. Yeah. No,
thanks so much for having me on.
Speaker 3 (44:09):
Also, spoiler alert, we have already recorded part two.
Speaker 2 (44:13):
Stop it.
Speaker 4 (44:14):
We're coming back from the future. It's just like Looper
Ben and I have to say, uh, this might have
been the most fun.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
I've had on the show. It was a good time.
Speaker 3 (44:24):
And but by the way, we are also technically coming
to you from the future because where we sit in
Doha Guitar we're eight hours ahead of where we live
and looks like Blade Runner, like Blade Runner outside wild.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
You know, I think one of the people we're riding
with from the airport here's that all the time? Yeah,
because there's one building in particular that's quite angular, a
gigantic triangle.
Speaker 2 (44:50):
A sword.
Speaker 1 (44:51):
Yeah, yeah, like an anime sword of Final Fantasy. And
they said, wow, it looks just like Blade Runner, and
the guy who was driving.
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Said, yep. So that's like what someone says, have you
been bulleted lately?
Speaker 1 (45:04):
But we do have some more people to think of course,
thanks to Chris rossiotis the legendary us Jeff Cots here
in spirit and who.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
Else woh gosh, Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist, who also
exists in human form currently and sits before me corporeally.
Speaker 2 (45:20):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
It's been a pleasure having you, sir, as well as
Max Williams, our super producer, long suffering.
Speaker 2 (45:27):
Thanks for the hot edits on this one from afar.
Speaker 3 (45:30):
We really appreciate you, and of course also Alex Williams,
who composed this bang and Bob we call a theme.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Big big thanks of course to the rude dudes over
a ridiculous crime. Big thanks to everybody who made this possible.
And I just want to get in front of this
because it's very personally important.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
Big thanks to say Man, Yeah, Camel's in general, Camil kind.
Big thanks to Citee. I think we're on the way. Yeah,
I think so.
Speaker 4 (45:56):
No one's going to know what that is until part two,
That's all.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Right, And that's why I'm like, Yeah, there's a method
in the ground.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
It's like Looper. It's just like Looper.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
Yeah, we're gonna make that reference as many times as
we can.
Speaker 2 (46:07):
We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 3 (46:16):
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app Apple
Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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