Weird Ways People Used to Communicate, Part I: Only a Pigeon Away

People these days are, for better or worse, increasingly accustomed to living in an area of constant communication. But how did people communicate over long distances before the rise of things like telegraphs, telephones and the internet? In this week's special two-part episode, guests Mark Kendall and Bill Whorley, the creators of the hit new podcast Ridiculous News, join the guys to talk about some of the weirdest ways people used to communicate in days of yore.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome

(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for
the man, the myth, the legend behind our audio. One
end two's Mr Max Williams. They called me Ben. Uh No,
this is a special occasion for us. We're in person again.
We were trying to do that more often, meeting each
other's gaze headlong. Oh weird, it's goind of creepy, and

(00:51):
he's having like this barrier of screen between us. How
you feel the attention to sexual Well, you know, I'm
I'm just going to explore its, explore it together, not alone.
You can hear the other titters and their laughs laughs,
unfamiliar laughs in the room. Yeah, yeah, that's true. This
is an extra special episode for us because you know,

(01:14):
we communicate a lot with each other. When we think
about communication, and we started wondering how people used to
communicate in the days of your before the internet and
you the days of oh why o R. Yeah. Uh.
Then we started saying, well, we shouldn't dive into this

(01:37):
with just you and Max and myself ridiculous Yeah. Well,
still it's fun when we say that the name in
the show. We decided we had to go to the experts,
our dear friends, the masterminds, the creators of the newest
member of the ridiculous franchise, Bill Whorley, Mark Kendall, the
creators of ridiculous news, amazing grazy topics. But the gonna

(02:00):
choose you and now do the answer. Pridiculous news. We
get us. The vials are working the rules of broadcast
and and all sorts. A while reports that he was
lapping were fun off brand, up beat journalism, the strange
and the usual stories, and well we did them. When
it's all about ridiculous news. Everywhere we tell about ridiculous
news over here. Guys, thank you so much for coming

(02:20):
to Oh my gosh, so excited to be here. Thanks
so many superlatives. Well, uh, Bill and Mark, you are
long time Uh you are long time communicators yourselves. You
are performers, you are writers, you are filmmakers. People have

(02:40):
seen a lot of your work, especially here in our
home state of Georgia. Noel and I were passing around,
uh some of the videos he did, the Marta one
is a huge hit here and we wanted to ask
you guys about weird ways people communicate, Um, not just
you know, not just saying like a strange slang or

(03:03):
anything like that word word words words, because you know,
it turns out there was a time before podcasts when
people had to communic to define clever ways to communicate
with each other. What what they what do they do?
I don't know. We're gonna answer that question today sort
of a round robin style. Yeah, Mark and Bill are
we're gonna are we gonna answer the question? We have

(03:26):
some we have? Have we got some? We got some
backpockets stuff? Okay, okay, side pocket, corner pocket, a little
little jeans pocket? Is it for keys? For drugs? Classic
and used in it completely wrong? Classic levies? Yeah, so
what when you could you all maybe first before we

(03:49):
dive in, if you all tell us a little bit
about Ridiculous News because it's it's probably better for the
creators to talk about it than for Nolan and I
had to talk about it. So we do plug it. Great. Yeah,
so Ridiculous News New Podcasts with Bill and myself. Uh,
we do two episodes a week Monday Thursday. Monday's is

(04:09):
what we call our deep dive episode. Yeah. So we
we take a topic that we are really interested in,
we give it a little bit more time. So we
might be talking about like afro futurism, we might be
talking about potholes, we might be talking about Batman. Uh,
just whatever is going on in the world that we
feel is relevant, we feel is important. We give that
a little extra love on those Monday episodes. Then every

(04:30):
Thursday when you tune in, we do a weekly round up,
so that, uh, you know, is where we take news
stories that have caught our eye we feel are interesting.
You know, we kind of give you the rundown of
things that we're interesting that popped up and aren't we
but also stuff that's sort of like, well you might
consider below the fold, and maybe it isn't necessarily gonna
pop up on everyone's news feed or you know, Fox

(04:51):
news feed or whatever. It might be exactly right. I mean,
just this week, you know what I'm saying, they were
talking about a frog that is native to the south
some part of the continent, and you know, it's venoms
have some properties that make it helpful when people are
trying to you know, recover from PC or other things
like that. Right, great service, however that you know, the

(05:13):
the demand for that frog has gotten so high. You know,
people are like, what are we gonna do? Yeah, that
poor front. You tickle it under the chin, it spits
out some psychedelic material into your mouth, right into your mouth.
You're doing it correctly, and unfortunately it's it's gotten real popular.
So we're we're worried about the toads. So if you've
seen them, ship them in, seat them right, and you know,

(05:33):
tickling under the chin. Some people like it, the toads
don't the toads. So this is this is something that's
really special to us when you are creating the show.
One thing that I love is that we are seeing
a more in depth examination of news and media because
you know, so much stuff is happening in the age

(05:53):
of ubiquitous information that we sometimes forget. It's it's not
the best way to explain things. It's telling somebody some
a story that is intergenerational and complex and doing it
in four minutes before you know, you move on to
the next celebrity thing. It's tough. It's tough to really
get a through understanding. So that's why I'm a big

(06:15):
fan of the Deep Dives, and I'm a big fan
of the stories that you all find. I did learn
the secret to fixing potholes from you guys. Brought it
up a casual conversation, uh, and then I did credit this,
and then um, I lost a little credibility when they said, Ben,
aren't you associated with that show? Why are you talking

(06:36):
about it? I think it's important news to spread out there.
I think that was a It's a very creative way
to get potholes fixed. Could you maybe communicate this to
the city administrators of Atlanta. You know you're not doing
a particularly good job. Potholes are a menace. You know
you're not alone, and those feelings and those thoughts. Uh.
You know, if you if there's a pothole that you

(06:57):
really want fixed in Atlanta, one thing you might want
to try after calling, you know, your official elected officials.
You might also want to try turning your pothole into
a hot tub, giving it a mural, perhaps painting a
phallic image around it. Something that gets attention. It needs
some attention if it's been there for a year, try
throwing at a birthday party. If I step into it

(07:19):
and break every bone in my body, it might give
it some attention. I think that you would just be hurt. Okay, yeah, yeah,
so only penis pictures, no bodily injury. Well, honestly, we
found several several stories of people drawing penises in or
around the potholes in an effort to bring attention to
the potholes. Sometimes we're part of the of the penis
is the pothole, you know, I think it kind of

(07:40):
depends on the shape, and I think you can I
would assume that the testicles make a good round for
your typical boss, just the one. Though it's like, um,
you know what the creatives this isn't you know? I'm
but a meager podcaster and communicator. That's a different kind
of communication too, though, right, It's like how do you
get someone's attention? Like how That's what communicating is, is

(08:04):
getting people's attention with relevant information that they need to keep,
maybe from falling into holes in the ground. Maybe the
fallic image also would catch someone's eye to the point
where they would would not step directly into the pothole. Um.
But I think this is a good jumping off point
for today's topic. You know, the history of communication, Ben Chairman, Oh,

(08:24):
I leave I leave it to you who should go First,
we're just sitting at a rectangular table. Have you been
the chairman this whole time and told me it's just
because I I have a chair? Should we should we
congratulate you on being chairman. I didn't know this was
the thing. But well, no congratulation on Iron Chef as
an actor? Did you do that? The chairman on Iron
Chef as an actor? He was in the Double Dragon movie.

(08:45):
He was Billy. I know I am chairman for today
because Max Nolan, I, uh, this is the one blazer
we own. We traded all. You're dressed like a chairman,
and and you always are dressed like a chairman band
you always have some Yeah, that blazer looks so much

(09:05):
better on me, just like so much better. It does
look better on Max. That's Max with the facts and
the just for you right now. That's that's a sound

(09:32):
also for everyone listening. This is totally my recording from
this actual session. This is not me you know, punching
this in like the weekend after, you know, so that
I could still be president. In the recording, I didn't
have to record on a microphone that didn't actually get
picked up on it. None of this stuff is put
in you know and post or anything like that. Just

(09:54):
just want to point that out right now. Yeah, but
but we have, but we have set the us up.
We talked about this little affair. We each came up
with a way that people throughout history communicated with each
other before the dawn of the internet, before the dawn
of you know, international phone lines. And one of the

(10:15):
big questions people were trying to answer is how to
communicate over distance. And I think when we talked about,
one thing that you were really excited about, Bill was pigeons. Yes,
carry your pigeons. These these amazing birds that you know,

(10:38):
we take for granted, at considered grimy, considered dirty. Sky rats.
Have heard sky rats absolutely, uh, And they're actually incredibly intelligent,
incredibly useful birds. And they've been used for centuries since
three thousand BC to deliver messages. And as I was
reading about them, one I felt very disrespectful towards pigeons,

(11:00):
or just my attitude towards them. I've never chased a
pigeon beyond when I was maybe five or six years old,
but I do love that. Uh. They had such an
amazing purpose and throughout history they were used. One of
the cool uses is during the Olympics back in Roman times.
That's how they announced the winners. They would send the
pigeons back to the specific town where the winner was from.

(11:26):
And one of the other crazy interesting things about them
is that, uh, pigeons, they will return home. They can.
They will go hundreds of miles. You can take them
and let them loose and they'll go home. And no
one knows why someone tells you this is how pigeons
are doing it. Don't believe them. They're full of crap. Six.

(11:47):
It's something that can't really be measured. It's it's amazing,
And so people have theories. They're like, hey, are they
using the magnetic fields of the Earth, are they using
the sun? Right? Are they using their vision? Um? Just
landmark and scientists have kind of ruled out all of
these things. That's it's somewhat maybe it's a collection, depending
on where they are. They've even put frosted contacts on

(12:10):
pigeons to see, Okay, is it the eyesight that's getting
them there? And it's it's that's the only thing that
used the eyesight for is the landing. Yeah, it's just
been amazing to kind of read about them and learn
more about them, and I hope that maybe after this
podcast we can use them more often. Yeah do okay,
So first question, we're talking about communication. I've always seen

(12:35):
I've never seen this in real life. I've only seen
it works of fiction. Uh. Is the message like tied
to the bird is? Yeah, it is, it's tied to
their leg. Um. That's the word, right, it's right there there,
little leg and and you know these messages from who
was winning the Olympics to personal messages you know, three

(12:56):
thousand years ago. Um. The most famous pigeon that I
found was there actually used a lot in World War
One and World War Two. But in World War One, uh,
you know, they had they had other forms of communication
at these telegraph lines, but there was be cut a
lot or they would be blown up by different you know, artillery.
So pigeons were very reliable way to get messages across.

(13:20):
And of course, once the Germans found out about this,
they would fire at pigeons. They actually had German hawks
that would attack the pigeons. Um, which is is just
so diabolical. I don't you know, sorry Germany, Um, that's
just thematically kind of on the nose. Yeah. Yeah, Well,

(13:42):
the most famous pigeon was Jeremy, which is a French
word for dear friend. And this epic pigeon during one
battle in World War One. Um, these American soldiers wore
pinned down on all sides by the Germans and they're
getting bombed by the Americans, and they had three pigeons

(14:06):
that they were trying to send out a message, Hey,
please stop killing us. Where this is where we are,
we need help. First pigeon goes out, the Germans have
a field day with it. It's down. Second pigeon goes out,
almost gets right above the top, the gassed it. Um.
Finally Cheremy they let cheer me out, goes up, get shot,

(14:30):
falls down to the ground. Well, it turns out Cheremy
was not done. Jeremy, after losing its leg, losing its eye,
and getting a bullet through the chest, went back up,
flew and delivered this message and saved a hundred and
ninety four people's lives. Um, which you know, the first

(14:50):
time I read that story, I don't know why. I
got a little choked up. Dude, I'm getting it right now.
A little little little guy. Yeah, what an amazing what
a troup. But didn't the give him a medal. They did,
they did he Uh, he received a gold medal um
and was awarded the French Cruel dig good with palm.

(15:11):
That sounds delicious, Yeah yeah, and maybe some chocolate with
that palm. Uh. And he actually guys, if you want
to see him or anyone listening, he's in the Smithsonian Institute.
He is the bird himself. He was stuffed and uh,
you can go see him without his leg and with
his missing eye. And I believe they even went so

(15:31):
far as to give him a little pig leg. Oh
for the Smithsonian. I mean, well it was still alive.
Oh my gosh, you care that. I'm that. This is
actually mentioned in the article that I used for my
research as well today, and there's a section where they
talk about like they yeah, they didn't die, like they
took care of it and they equipped it with a
little tiny that's amazing. That's so cute. I don't know,

(15:53):
you know the picture I saw him the Smithsonian, which
is they must have pulled it off when they actually
mounted him, Jimmy, they maybe they replaced it with like
a you know, stand in pigeon leg like that's kind
of that's sort of silly. Women it makes it more
specialists when when pigeon with a wooden leg, Yeah, that
pigeon's got a story to tell. Yeah. Yeah, So this
is this is fascinating to me. I also wonder how, okay,

(16:17):
how common was this use of uh PMS, a pigeon
messaging service is what I mean? Like, would would the
average person say in I don't know, well, not average person,
average merchants say in France somewhere? Would they would they
be like, Okay, it's the end of the month, time

(16:38):
to send the accounting pigeon? Or like was it more
a military thing? Well, it depends on the age. I think,
you know, when you go back further, it was more
of an upper class thing that we're valued very highly
later on. Actually Routers was the first UH news agency
embroiders rather to use pigeons, So I think at that

(17:01):
point what journalists who are using they're probably a little
bit more accessible. Loves pigeons. Is Mike Tyson, Yeah, he's
a pigeon, big pigeon enthusiast. And it also makes me
think of there's a character you know that's a crime thing.
It's in a lot of crime movies, but specifically I
believe and the Wire, there's a character who has a

(17:23):
pigeon coop and he uses them to do like drug
messaging the waterfront. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, So I guess
the four of us are the only people who aren't
using pigeons. Do you know my stands on? Yeah, I understand.
I will not send a pigeon to your house. What's
your stance. I don't care for them. They freak me out,

(17:46):
And birds in general, it's more they're like little weird velociraptors.
I'm always afraid they're gonna come at me with their
weird flappy wings and there's little feet that you were mentioning,
legs and talents. What happened? What happened? I know, I've
I've I've I've been through a significant amount of regression
therapy UM, and I have discovered that when I was
a small boy, my grandpapa took me to the beach

(18:08):
and he scattered breadcrumbs around my tiny body and I
was swarmed by by seagulls. And then have forever been
traumatized by this memory. Yeah, I wake up screaming, sort
of like Batman in the bat Cave. You know I
did not use this, Uh, this trauma to form a
superhero alter ego. Um, but I have used it to
complain about birds every chame. It's still it's a serious thing.

(18:31):
One time I was eating a crumbly sandwich, you know,
like yours. Yeah, even the image. But we know that
we know that birds have played messaging role in like
you said, uh, the various points throughout ancient civilization. Also,

(18:54):
you know, ravens were sometimes used. But the pigeon, I guess,
became so common because it already is very like common bird,
and it has this ni inexplicable superpower, right, this homing superpower.
And and they're very they're very domesticate herble, you know,
they're they're they're very sweet, they're very highly they're easy

(19:16):
to train. Um, they make good pets apparently. Um So
I don't know. I not that I don't want to
crap on ravens, but maybe they'll crap on you. They'll
teach their kids to do it smart. They are very smart.
They are very smart birds. But I think maybe pigeons
have a little bit more cuteness um and adorable going

(19:36):
for them over the raven pigeons do I mean? And
I'm just literally just googled this, but you can. It's
not that hard to train. Like you said, you literally
the one thing that comes up first and google is
you just gotta take it about a mile away from home.
Question is where's home? And how do you know where home?
Is that? Like where they're born? Yeah? Who knows? Because birds,
you know, migrating all that. Again, not a pigeon expert.

(19:56):
But then you just release them. And apparently if you
do this several times a week or daily, over time,
they will just kind of develop. This is like a
thing they just innately know how to do exactly for you. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
And and so you know, they were used all throughout.
I think the coolest use of it to me was
just during wartime. Um, even on planes they would have

(20:17):
two pigeons in case the plane went down, and it
saved numerous people's lives. They're actually the most decorated animals
in military history. Um, so you know they for these
little birds that annoy us, they've got a lot of heart,
they got a lot of history. Yeah, maybe we should,
Maybe we should respect pigeons a little bit more. I
always trying to befriend them, do you I try? But

(20:40):
you know, it's usually in a weird city and I'm
just traveling for a little while, and city pigeons are
not impressed with me. I've been trying to be friends
Corvid's and it's still like Corvid's don't respect me at
my house, you know about this. Sometimes I'll just see
you with your arms spread and your head kind of
cocked back, like the birds just summoned to you, like
that guy from but the birds don't come yet. I

(21:02):
gotta figure it out. Yeah, I feel like pigeons, at
least the city pigeons that I've come to know from
a distance. Uh, you know, they're they're mostly just about
getting those crumbs. Yeah, they're not interested in you, you know,
don't tell you. It's like it's almost like they're the
cats of birds. We were just in Austin, Ben and I,
and in Austin they do have some pigeons, but they

(21:24):
mainly have these freaky birds called grackles. Do you guys
known about grackles. First of all, it sounds like a
Doctor Seuss creature, the grackle, you know, But they're these
kind of more like almost um, it's like a cardinal
if a cardinal was like iridescent black, like to the
point where if you look at it from different angles,
it kind of color changes like a hologram. But these

(21:46):
dudes will just get all up in your business. We
were eating tacos outside and one was just eyeing me
and I was visibly uncomfortable. It's not an act. They
also are. Each one of them is like an amazing
fully artist, you know, they're they're the kind of birds
who reproduce car Alarmat is very mimicry, kind of oriented,

(22:09):
and it's like, Dude, I don't want your mixtape. We're
trying to eat a taco. Please just know you don't
have to do the whole thing for us. I'll take
I'll take a link to a SoundCloud or something like that.
That's a brilliant idea, actually that marketing would be coming

(22:29):
back or so, Bill, you've already kind of I think
surprised all of us with some pigeon facts, as some
things I certainly didn't know. It really stands out that
the most highly decorated military animal I would have assumed dogs,
and I have learned something about assumptions, you know. I
think that maybe because the amount of them that were
shot down, and I mean really anytime they were used

(22:51):
it was a life or death situation and not that
dogs they do that as well, but I don't think
they did that every time, you know, hopefully not. So.
What are some other pigeon facts, some pigeon takeaways? Some
what recommendations do you maybe we all do this? What
recommendations do you have for the future pigeon communication? You know?

(23:12):
I think I think we should go back to it.
Sometimes I don't. I don't know about y'all, but I'm
way too addicted to my cell phone, you know. And
how much more romantic or interesting would it be to
communicate with your friends or loved ones through pigeons, depending
if they like pigeons. It would be like a threat.

(23:34):
I would get a text that would just say, dude,
what's wrong? Are we okay? Like? Why did you send
this bird to my house? Guys? They're freaky looking, their
beady little eyes, they're weird beats and are flappy wind no,
don't careful, and they're super fast. I mean, really, that's
what I'm saying. Yeah, I appreciate the game, I appreciate
the hustle. I just don't want any part of it.

(23:56):
Mark was really I thought I caught that diplomas mark
when you said, you know, I've I've seen some pigeons
from a distance, and I got I think that carried
the feelings across Well, yeah, no, I I feel like,
you know, if we were to continue to use pigeons
or go back to using pigeons, I feel like, you know,
there's a lot of messaging, a lot of texts. You know,

(24:16):
we don't need it every single day, you know, so
maybe like all your subscriptions, all your email subscriptions, what
about these sociopaths that leave read receipts on Who are
these people? I do not understand. I feel like you
guys have talked about this the way you laugh. I'm like, hey,
do they know? And if they do, what's their game?
What is their angle here? Right? I don't know. I

(24:38):
don't like this idea that you know. I think we're
all on the same page. I don't like this normalization
of a like the expectation of a reply. And you
know the past is defined by people leaving each other
on red because that's how letters work. Uh, And you know,
I don't know, I get it. I I don't understand.

(24:58):
It feels like you're always on if your messages instantly
show a red receipt. Yeah, yeah, it's a little scary.
It's a little bit intrusive. For that reason alone, I'll
go with pigeons if I could just add, uh, just
to wrap it up on my end um. They've been
used as recently as the seventies by the CIA pigeons. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(25:20):
They attached these little cameras to them to take pictures
and they actually were sharper pictures than that they were
getting from planes and things like that as well. Um,
you know, the earliest kind of go pro. It's like
a pigeon go pro. It's pretty cool. It's like an
image of it on the side. I would say, I
tripoli the name of the as a whole article called

(25:41):
consider the pigeon a surprisingly capable technology because at the
end of the day, all the stuff we're talking about
here is technology. It is Technology is all about how
you employ a thing that exists for a given purpose,
you know, and pigeons are pretty effective, well, you know,
and thinking about beyond just delivering messages or QR codes
are scaring the crap out, no, I mean, they've been

(26:01):
used recently to to deliver drugs to prisons. That was
a kind of interesting use of them. Unfortunately, there in
Columbia there's a pigeon that couldn't scale a wall because
they weighed them down with too much weed. They didn't
give an amount that was too much. I'm not sure
how much they tried to get in there, but they've
been used for that. They've been used to deliver like ketamine.

(26:22):
So what if you had two pigeons towing it on
a line I thought about that would be visible, The
guards would clock it. You, they might get kind that
razor wire. Those two pigeons carrying weed into the prison,
and it's like, what are you talking about? You're crazy?
You thought I was crazy? You need this jump suit? No,

(26:45):
I mean I see it. Do you want me to
take a picture of it? Well, well, I think if
we're being rational, we can't assume it's weak. They could
be carrying a couple of things like ketamine, um, other quails. Yeah,
I don't know if they could do a cell phone
to get a burner phone in there. That might be

(27:06):
a little bit too heavy. The DVD of the Cable Guy.
The DVD of the Cable Guy related, but have you
guys heard about these tiny tiny phones that are designed
to like go up your butt in prison. Yeah, Like
it was like a Vice article. I thought it was
a joke because it came up on like stories on
Instagram and it was just just dude holding this tiny
little phone and that's just it's designed to go right
near old prison wall. That's a will Will Ferrell had

(27:29):
one of those on an sn L sketch and I
didn't realize that that's a real thing. Well, now that's
good to know for future because of the face that
I'll end up in prison when you know, it's funny
because before you got here, we were we were talking
about that, but in glowing ways. We were like, he's
gonna be great. He's gonna be like awesome with this.

(27:49):
So start a library. Start start a library. Get some
pigeons going, you know, bring in books. Uh, they'd have
to be small books to the pige I'm gonna be
thinking about this for a while. So Bill, before we
go to another weird way people used to communicate or
in your case still do community. Uh what what is

(28:11):
what is the takeaway here? So we know that this
technology is ancient theyllive you point out as technology and
we know that it is still something that people people use.
You said you want to go back to pigeons. I mean, honestly,
for me, the big takeaway is just to respect these
animals that I think are really intelligent, are amazing, have

(28:33):
these amazing skills, and you know, there's a lot of
crazy stuff going on in the world. If we need
to go back to older ways to communicate sometime soon,
make sure you treat a pigeon nice, because they might
save your life. Hold the phone, or should we say
hold the pigeon. This is going to be a two
part episode because we learned so much from Bill's examination

(28:56):
pigeons as communication that lead need to spend the week
on this. You know, so Max, you and I listened
back and we I I learned a lot I don't
know about you, you know, oh yeah, so much, especially
because it's like, you know, you guys wouldn't let me
talk on the podcast, so I I all I could

(29:17):
do was just sit there and listen and then scream
at you guys. But know that no one else could
hear me screaming at you. Yeah, but we could hear
you in the headphones. Oh yeah, I know. I made
sure to be really loud the little episode. Yeah it was.
It was like being actively heckled, which which we all appreciated.
So this is just the beginning, folks. Please tune in
later this Thursday for Part two of Weird Ways People

(29:40):
Used to Communicate. We'll have our returning guests Mr Mark
Kendall and Mr Bill Whorley from Ridiculous News joining us
and can't wait for you to hear uh. Here Noel's
masterclass on another way people used to communicate. He delves
into the fact versus fiction of a little something called

(30:02):
Smoked Signals. It's a literal smoke show. We can't wait
for you to hear it, and, as my good buddy
Nol likes to say, we'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to

(30:24):
your favorite shows.