March 27, 2025 • 56 mins
The guys explore the legend of the mysterious Piasa Bird. A Conspiracy Realist at the US Post Office inspires an exploration of post-human automation. Uncle Sam writes in with thoughts on discovering a possible scientific basis behind astrology. The guys crack up reading infamous Australian town names. All this and more in this week's listener mail segment.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. It is time for
our weekly listener mail segment. If you are tuning in
the evening this publishes, let us welcome you to March
(00:49):
twenty seventh, twenty twenty five. And what better way to
kick this off than to ask Old Tennessee his newest
interpretation of rude Vegas? What do we got time to
dig up the ruda vegas? Love it? Love it? Love it?
Favorite part of the week. I think for many of us,
(01:11):
perhaps in the crowd tonight, friends and neighbors, we have
several of you on air in our exploration. In this
evening's program, we're going to talk about astrology and the
government got a lot of feedback on that. We're going
to talk about we'll have some fun letters from home.
We'll talk about bots and post offices. Before we do
(01:35):
any of that, I gotta tell you, guys, I want
to brag about a listener who reached out to us
and followed up on the idea of a street fighting
game for birds.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
And like made a sort of prototype of it. Didn't
you play it, man?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I did play it. I did play I did play
the game, and I've got to tell you guys, it's
a lot of fun. We're in early days of development,
so we we have to find out. You know, we've
got we've got work to do. We just want you
to know that this is this is something very much
on the way. Big big thanks to Kyle who listened
(02:17):
to one of our recent recordings and said, hey, I'll
you know, I'm your Huckleberry. Also big thanks the person
who pointed out the truth of the Huckleberry quote and Tombstone.
They said, Kyle said, I've made a Mortal Kombat style
game but with birds, and we got to tell you, folks,
it's pretty fun. Hopefully we can follow up with Kyle
(02:39):
as the game continues to develop, but for now, maybe
we pause for a word from our sponsors and get
straight to some more bird stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Yeah, all right, we're back and we're Yeah, then you
nailed it. We're gonna kick off today's Listener Mail episode
with some bird talk, one of my favorite topics. Guys.
I play up the fact that I'm a little bit
scared of birds, but I may have also mentioned that
my position on birds has softened in this the twilight
(03:10):
of my life, as I've begun to really enjoy the
idea of becoming a birder because you can observe them
from from afar.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
You don't have to like get.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Right up the clothes and personal with them. But I
have a couple of friends that are in Brooklyn, New York,
and there's apparently real good burden there, like in Prospect
Park and so many species of birds that exists in
Central Park. It's I'm gonna get me a little notebook,
a little mole skin, and some binox, and I think
I'm going to become a birder.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Guys, come out my way. I got a okay for you.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
I would love that, And I know you've got some
serious binox yourself, Matt, but hopefully maybe with a little luck.
If I'm hanging out in the middle Mississippi River region.
Maybe I'll spot the piazza bird. Let's talk about you know,
we'll see, let's talk about the piazza bird. Gentlemen, easy rights,
(04:02):
longtime listener, first time callers.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So to speak. Here.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
I always love a good Cryptid episode, and I loved
the recent one, But one of my favorites was missing
the Piazza bird. If you never heard of it, it
is fucking bad. Beat me there, Dylan, I think you
must have already done it. Basically, ancient Native American paintings,
especially one huge one of the thing, were found along
the bluffs north of Alton, Illinois when they were going
(04:26):
to build a road beside the river, and it was
preserved and touched up by boy scouts. That's cool, which
is a bit sketchy on its own. Well, I guess
fair enough. Maybe they're using child labor. But the painting,
if you look it up, and I know you fellas
love your research, is absolutely epic. To call this thing
a camara is an understatement. It's huge as a bison,
with deer antlers, a goat's beard, huge vultureish wings, gnarly teeth,
(04:49):
and red eyes. I'm not saying this thing could take
on a thunderbird, but I'd pay to see that fight. Hey,
we got two more competitors that have entered the Ring
of a Bird game fighting game. Talk to Kyle about
this Ben. So here's where it gets interesting and or crazy.
We don't really know much about this thing or who
originally painted it. Much like the huge Native American city
(05:11):
of Cahokia. I think that's right very near Alton, Illinois.
The Native group responsible for the cave paintings were gone
by the time they were rediscovered. In fact, as big
as Cahokia was, stretching on both sides of the Mississippi
from modern day Saint Louis to Collinsville, Illinois. It could
even have some relation to Kohoka and the ancient mound builders,
(05:33):
who I'm fairly certain I've heard you guys talk about before.
That's accurate. Easy Could it be to borrow a phrase
from the History Channel that the ancient mound builders of
North America knew of mythical beasts such as the piasa
bird which no one else had seen, And could it
be this monster cryptid led to their demise? Those are
my History Channel voice. I don't know, guys, sounds like
(05:55):
fun to dive into. Maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic as
a former rural southwestern high school peace Yaza bird. Oh,
I love a good high school mascot. That's a good one.
They have a pyrotechnic fueled mascot and it is fun,
extra fun. But I would love and appreciate if you
did an episode on the Piazza Bird. Thanks, easy, Well, easy, Well,
(06:16):
we may not do a full episode on the Piazza
bird itself. It certainly could well be an injury into
future cryptids. You might not have heard of episodes, but
we're going to talk about it right now. I had
some luck looking up this very image and a good
story from actually the Illinois State Museum's website. They've got
(06:38):
a really interesting account from Louis Jolier from sixteen seventy three,
who was a woodsman cartographer, and father Jacques Marquette, who
was a Jesuit priest, and they led the first European
exploration of the Middle Mississippi region that we're talking about here.
And in his journal, father Marquette described this pictograph that
(06:59):
Easy mentioned, which the expedition observed on the rocky bluffs
above Alton, Illinois. This is what he had to say.
While skirting some rocks, which, by their height and length
inspired awe, we saw upon one of them two painted monsters,
which at first made us afraid. I love the biblical
cadence of this, and upon which the boldest savages dare
(07:22):
not long rest their eyes. They are as large as
a calf. They have horns on their heads like those
of a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard
like a tiger's or a goat's, to Easy's point, a
face somewhat like a man's, a body covered with scales,
and so long a tail that it winds all around
the body, passing above the head and going back between
(07:44):
the legs, ending in a fish's tail. I don't think
Easy mentioned that green, red, and black are the three
colors composing the picture. Moreover, these two monsters are so
well painted that we cannot believe that any Okay, this
is problematic, but it's history that ain't Savage is their author?
For good painters in France would find it difficult to
(08:05):
reach that place conveniently to paint them. Here is approximately
the shape of these monsters, as we have faithfully copied it.
And then they did a little sketch of what they saw.
Pretty cool, guys, I had not heard of the piazza
bird had either of you?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It was new to me.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
I I actually, Easy, I owe you an email. I
had I had heard of this because you know, we're
researching our series on cryptids you haven't heard of and
the origin story, the provenance of it is fascinating. And
I'm on the fence, folks, Matt nol You guys, Dylan,
(08:47):
tell me do we want to hear the origin or
do we want to save it? Because there are people
with some strident opinions.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Oh, I think this is the perfect opportunity to hear
about the origin. I just found that little snippet about
the discovery of it or the early discoveries and descriptions
of it. But yeah, it seems like these the priest
and the woodworker had very similar questions.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah. So good news, Easy, is that the bluff paintings
are very much real. If you go to places like
illinoishistory dot com, you'll see that there are scholars who
feel that similar to the Jersey Devil story, something has
been something has been embellished and expanded upon the one
(09:33):
modern legend of it. Let's put it that way. One
modern legend comes from a eighteen hundreds era writer who
was known for genre, romance and adventure books. And he
had a thing published in the Family Magazine in eighteen
thirty six called the Piazza, an Indian tradition of Illinois.
(09:54):
And he essentially retells a legend, right, he retells an
indigenous people's legend. And if you're the average reader, then
of course it sounds like this guy is faithfully being
an armchair historian. Apparently, this guy, John Russell, later in life,
(10:14):
goes to his son and says, I made up the story.
I made up the story to sell some stuff, and
it includes a lot of a lot of the things
the earlier noted writers are saying. This is why I'm
on the fence, because I don't think one guy mythologizing
something means the entire possibility of a cryptid's existence is
(10:37):
somehow therefore in question. You know it just it got
reprinted in so many newspapers of the day, and people
started mistaking what the author himself said was fiction as fact,
which happens. It's a game of telephone.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Well, yeah, I mean, you've got the original quote. Discovery
of it right sixteen seventy three, the first time it's
written down right, somebody talks about it, it makes it
makes its way to the western world. Then you've got,
you know, over one hundred and fifty years later, you've
got Russell coming forward and writing out, as you said, Ben,
(11:15):
recounting this tale of a creature that in fact killed
a bunch of warriors and ka chief and all.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
That cadetas nippet. From the account, it's it's it's very
I mean, it's it's exciting. It's the stuff of novels
for sure. Let's see, he says. The name is Indian
and signifies in the language of the Illinis, the bird
that devours men. He says, the Piazza once terrorized Native
American villages, killing many warriors before it was slain by
(11:42):
the chief Oitaga, who had offered himself as bait and
had twenty warriors with poison arrows weighed in ambush for
the monster. When the Piazza swooped down to attack oh Atwoga,
it was killed by the barrage of poisoned arrows, thus
saving the tribe. Russell added a little extre detail here.
All the tribes of the Upper Mississippi and those who
(12:03):
have inhabited the valley of the Illinois. And Russell attributed
this tale, you know, continuation of an oral tradition established by,
as he described, all the tribes of the Upper Mississippi
and those who have inhabited the valley of the Illinois.
But you're right, and it was totally proved to have
been confabulated by this author. And another thing that's pretty
(12:23):
interesting that I didn't realize when I was looking up
pictures of it. I was like, gosh, that sure is
vivid and modern looking. Well, it's because it is the
one that's there now in place of the old one,
which has worn away over time. It has been recreated,
so as a very vibrant, rich looking recreation of this
mythical creature on a cliff overlooking the Mississippi River north
(12:46):
of Alton, Illinois.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Two things. First of all, Dylan, you saw this thing
last year. You said, holy cow bury the lead.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Why don't Jim, Yeah, sorry, I wasn't looking at the chat. Dylan.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
You can either chat to us or you can say something.
But you you were physically there and you saw it.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah, it's the last summer. Did it strike terror into
your very heart.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Wait wait, wait, did you see the creature or did
you see the depiction of the creature.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I saw the depiction of the creature. It was larger
than I imagined it would be.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
We'll get him next time. But let's go on a
road trip.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
Yeah, we'll go burning. Let's go on a mythical birding expedition.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
I would say, if we were chasing after this creature,
I don't think we're going birding, boys, I think frosting.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Where's belunking? Because Russell Russell also like the banger. Part
of his story easy is that he says, not only
is everything I said true and he was, you know,
lying U he says. He says at the end, like
at the end of his account, which is again syndicated
widely republished, he says, I found a cave in the
(13:55):
nearby bluffs that was heavily littered with skulls and bones.
So he like the d of the monsters. So he
pulled the Geraldo rivera going into the vault kind of thing.
And you know, despite the name, the Piasa doesn't really
look like a burden. I think he pulled Russell, I
mean pulled a lot of his sources from pre existing
(14:19):
obviously traditions and stories, and he also, I don't want
to say plagiarized, but he definitely drew inspiration from the
eighteen thirty three autobiography of a warrior named black Hawk. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
I mean to me, this thing really has the look
of a like a traditional griffin almost, you know, but larger,
and I think with the horns or maybe extra and
it doesn't have a beak so but still the wings,
the scales, the talons, and the kind of dog like face.
I guess griffin's more have an eagle like face. But
still it definitely feels like a mishmash of different mythel
(15:00):
logical creatures, whether from Native American culture or beyond. So
thanks Easy for hipping us to the Piazza bird, and
and thanks Dylan for you know, having gone to see
it and telling us about it that it was large.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I found the cave where the dastardly Piazza bird, Dylan,
I know where the bust it sleeps.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Dylan, your your my favorite. Keanu reeves it's true.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
I know, kung Fu. Well, we're gonna take a quick
break here a word from our sponsor, and then come
back with more listener.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Mail and we've returned. Guys, we are going to jump
to an older message because we're still getting through the
ones from February.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
This one comes from Well, I'm gonna let them say
their name because it's one of my favorite names that
we've had come through and quite while.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And it is in response to something we're very familiar with.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Hey there, folks, this is Noble Grand Humbug Babybirds.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
All right, welcome you're.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
That serie episode And it couldn't help but remind me
of working at the post office.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
What was that inversion point?
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Where? What point is it just bots feeding off of
bots and algorithms feeding off of algorithms. We're at the
point at the post office where all these automated systems
play together. It doesn't matter if you actually do your job.
It only matters if the systems think that you've done something.
For example, I work in a very world post office
(16:41):
and we we're lucky if we get one paying customer
a day at this point, and it's all the same
people that come in by a stamp or whatever. We're
supposed to get surveys. There's a little QR code on
the bottom of the receipt. You're supposed to take the survey, well,
your phone can only take one per month, so they're
expecting a whole bunch of different people to come in
and take service. But we do not have that kind
(17:01):
of community here. We have very few people. So we
get phone calls from the people up top saying that, hey,
you guys haven't got your survey for the week yet,
to the point where we have to buy stuff from
post office, buy a stamp from the post office that
we look at just survey to stop the people up
top from reading the computer and saying, you guys haven't
had a survey yet. So it very much reminds me
(17:23):
of just bought feeding off of bots. Doesn't actually matter
what we're doing here. If we do our job, it
only matters that the survey gets taken. It doesn't even
matter if the survey.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Is good or bad.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
This matters if it happened or not. Thanks guys, take care,
have fun.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Take care, have fun.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Perfect let's try to do let's try to do both.
Oh man, So we're talking about noble grands, humbug, baby bird.
We're talking about the idea of dead internet theory a
little bit here.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Oh yeah, he is' that's what he was listening to
that inspired him to call right, just this concept that
as numbers especially get strange and large on the Internet,
if you're talking about social media, you're talking about page views,
talking about all of the metrics that that corporations and
advertisers used to measure this success of something like what
(18:21):
happens as we talked about in that episode, when it's
just stuff being input there to make the numbers look
good rather than the actual things that would be worth buying.
Let's say, as an advertiser.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Just two empty mirrors reflecting absence. I'm sorry I was
laughing during the message there too, no n G HBB,
because I just love the approach there, the heller esque
(18:55):
catch twenty two acknowledgment of how silly some system can
be and saying that as a huge proponent and supporter
of the US Postal.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Service, Oh for sure, what's the slogan rain, sleet, hail,
whether rain or sleeps something, It's just screw it. You're
getting your mail, dude.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Say though I think I mentioned this to Ben actually
when I was texting I ordered something and it was
I didn't realize this at the time, but it was
shipped via the US Postal Service and it was just
like this small little digital recorder thing that I got
from this audio production music store kind of company, online company,
And it took about two and a half weeks to
get to me from the United States, from like the
(19:38):
like Middle States. I don't know what's going on with
the post office, guys, but it doesn't seem very good.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Seems really weird.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Seems really weird.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And also just thinking more and more about this, just
this concept of using a survey as the feedback system.
I don't know if you guys, you know, get served
with stuff you do all the time. Yeah, it seems
like it's with every service or purchase you make there's
a survey associated and then like seven emails reminding you
(20:10):
to take that survey that you ignored that you're not
gonna ever take when we're still gonna get emails about.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
All right, Matt, I'll put it to you this way,
and it also for you, humbug baby. If I could
be a little bit familiar the thing with surveys, I
don't know, maybe it's like the boy Scout volunteerism stuff,
but if there's a person associated with it, like if
I had to sat sit on the phone with someone
and I know that it can help them in the
(20:38):
future no matter what happens, unless they're just an absolute
pill or an absolute drip, then I will I will
go to the mat on that survey. I'll be like,
not only is this ten ten customer service rep, but
you should promote them immediately. I was gonna, you know,
I'll even embellish, just like our guy with the piazza Bird.
(20:59):
I'll be like, I was going to, you know, to
get out of this company altogether. But Janine changed my mind.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Ben is single handedly responsible for more promotions and customer
support than any single human being in the United States.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Of Thank you for doing the good work, Ben.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
I think, but you do surveys, right, we all do.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
No, No, I really I've done it a few times.
When I purchased my home, I used several contractors that
I gave surveys to because I thought that very thing
what I'm maybe skeptical of is the thing that noble
grand humbug baby bird is talking about, uh where. It
(21:40):
doesn't matter what the feedback is, It just matters the
metrics that that people are responding right.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Engaged.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, I mean That's what I think about, especially with
larger corporations or some of the places that I get
the constant survey from, no matter what I do, even
like a doctor's office or something like what I why
do you want it?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Okay, it's yeah, I hear you. Because at some point too,
especially in larger systems, it may be someone's entire job,
and so they have to, you know, defend that by saying,
you know of x amount of people engaging with our
service z amount responded to the survey, and as long
(22:23):
as that's above a certain threshold, then I'm good. You
know what I mean, don't reorg me.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, Well, because how do you get a comment right
on a video? Somebody either likes it enough that they
want to interact with the creators of the video in
some way, right imagining that they're talking to the creator,
or somebody hates something enough or is offended by something
or angry about something enough that they will post a comment.
(22:52):
And you have to imagine that's probably the same with
you know, this kind of surveys. It's somebody like Ben
who wants to do good for someone, right, Like, I
really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
I appreciate you. Or it's somebody saying this was the
worst experience of my life. I'm never using your corporation again,
and go away, and I fart in your general directions, right.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
It encourages extremes of the bell curve.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, and maybe theoretically you could use some small bits
of feedback to improve your business. But I just I
don't know. Maybe I just I'm missing something because you
think about the people that take surveys, the number of
people that respond to a survey, and then how that
shapes the data you collect.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
I don't respect. I don't know about you guys, but
I'm sure all of us in the audience tonight, especially
in the US, have received cold text messages asking you
to respond to some sort of survey or voice some kind,
usually a political opinion of some sort. I don't respond
to those. Maybe we should, I don't know. We talked
(23:57):
in the past about how we're all getting weird tech.
One of the things that I think stuck out to
all of us here with your message humbug baby again,
if I may be familiar, is the fact that you
work at the post office and you have to take
the survey, and you have to spend your own money
to buy a stay up so you could do the
(24:18):
survey again? Did I hear that correctly?
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
That is what has been stated here.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
They can't just what what? Why?
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah, let's go further all right?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Uh, noble bird, if I.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
May, if we may be so familiar, you.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Just take two from their grand baby. How I would
like to know specifically how much of the correspondence that
flows through your post office is some kind of paid
flyer or you know, just the junk mayor absolutely that
(25:00):
that companies pay a lot of money to you know,
both print package and then send out. But like how
much of the post office is now propped up by
just corporations trying to get the word out?
Speaker 4 (25:11):
And my question too is like it must work on
somebody or else they wouldn't do it because it is expensive,
like you said, But I'm like, who are the people
that these random flyers that come in the mail like
work on so effectively? I don't understand.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
You guys got to get into a persona hacking, you know,
demographic hacking. Make sure like leverage the I love where
we're going here, because we're also starting to argue that
something similar to dead Internet theory may apply to physical
mail in the USPS. Right, So if that's possible, then
(25:46):
it means it is likewise logically possible. And I don't
think there's anything ethically wrong with this to sort of
position your postal address to receive very specific, you know,
flyers from from some regular company, like start getting start
getting those weird catalogs for fancy watches you're never going
(26:08):
to order, start getting those invitations to weird cruises or
you know, space exploration trips that you might never take.
And now, all of a sudden, the next time the
eye of state surveillance sore on focuses on you, it'll say,
not that guy. You know, he's clearly, clearly a one
percent despite living in this apartment.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Like shel persona roommates that that hang out with you
wherever you live at your address. So you've got stuff
coming in for Don Credible, that's his name, Credible, stand.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Up bull down right there you go, nob right bullying
with a G.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I really like that idea.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
See that last part's a little illegal. Oh oh really yeah,
it's like a little it's like a little it's a
little illegal. Oh man, But you.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Could associate a name with an address just on like
various online forums that doesn't where you don't need to
have an ID or anything, and then you could.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Be you could be mistaken, you know what I mean,
my bad.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I can have virtual roommates if I want to. It's
a merco Okay.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Dolly credible is real to me? Your honor? Yeah, I
do like the court case there, but it is a
yeah that that gets us to uh, you know, it
reminds me a little bit of oh, what was that
excellent Gravity's Rainbow? Do you guys remember that one?
Speaker 4 (27:44):
It's one is notoriously hard to finish. People to finish it, say,
it's weird.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
It's to get to the end of the rainbow is hard.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
It's like infinite jest.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
It's like one of those books that's just notoriously like
a little bit of a slog but supposedly quite rewarding.
If you there is that Thomas Pinshew.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yes, yeah, you're correct, Yes, whatever. Well, the reason we're
bringing up there is just because if we could be
so familiar grand hum hum baby. Uh, if we could
be so familiar that novel has this thing about a
secret conspiratorial postal service.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
And what you were saying there Matt inspires me to
return to that idea. There was if I could tell
a tale out of school that might be interesting to
our baby bird. Here. For a while, her friend Matt
lived near this amazing bookstore that had something very like
(28:43):
a pension secret post going on. In the basement of
this bookstore, there was a and you remember this, there
was a tiny corner that had all these zines and
revolutionary propaganda and ways for people to communicate with each
other outside of social media. Increasingly, that's the thing, you know,
(29:05):
the big guys don't like, but I love seeing places
like that.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, sh don't tell anyone, Ben.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Okay, it's just between us millions of people in the
n Essay.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, do not look for the zines beneath the cat's
layer somewhere in Shambly. You'll find it and then you
can go have a nice hookah right next door.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Oh right, you love that place. Do also to this question, guys,
to the story that Grand Noble of the Baby Birds
is bringing up here, do we think it is possible,
to your earlier point, now that these companies engaging in
mass marketing via post, is it possible that they could
(29:55):
support the post office such that you don't need human
to human correspondence more.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Yeah, I don't know it. It does feel like the
post office is less and less relevant given other options
that are more efficient. But at the end of the day,
you still I had to send a certified letter the
other day and you have to do that through the
post office. Does maybe UPS or FedEx have an equivalent
to certified mail or is that strictly in the domain
(30:21):
of the post Office? I guess so. I guess you
could say anything, get a tracking number, that's all it is.
So maybe the answer I just answered my own question,
But I just yeah, I do kind of wonder of
all the agencies that are like being stripped right now
and dismantled and stuff like. Well, then again, though it
is affordable, I guess then to sort of a right
to be able to send things through the mail, I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I feel like it depends on the degree of certification,
because certified mail is the legal threshold is USBs?
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Yes? Correct? And can I just say I am not
advocating for the dismantling of the postal service for any
postal workers out there. We appreciate your work, and it
just it feels like it's an organization that has dealt
with a lot of staffing shortages and equipment issues and
things like that. So I know it's not an easy job.
And I absolutely appreciate my mail carrier that comes and
(31:14):
drops off, you know, those trash items in addition to
some very important items. From time to time, I just
do wonder, like what is the long outlook for something
like the postal service?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
And we do hope you put out a new album.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Soon, tru I don't think it's ever going to happen.
That was a one off.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
No, it will happen. Okay, guys, I had this vision
as we're talking here. So when these companies send out
this piece of automated mail, generally they want you to
take action somewhere online, right, They want you to take
some kind of computerized action.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Some digital financial Yeah, well yeah, but digital work. Right.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
So we're in when we connect it back to the
dead internet theory, a lot of those system are automated
already to get the mail printed and then to you.
Then there's theoretically, very soon all of these digital assistants
and all these you know, all of these things that
are being created for the consumer that will automate all
(32:16):
of that stuff that is that's coming, that is happening
right now, there will be this thing where it's just
robots sending you things physically through the mail that your
robots will read and either reject or take action on,
even if it's something important that you need to take
action on.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Yeah, wasn't this like let's spin it out, let's give
it through, dude. So I believe we talked about this
an evening years back. The possibility, the end spectrum horizon
possibility of this is a world in which, for one
reason or another, no physical humans exist. It is a
(32:58):
dead planet human wise. The systems that the humans built
are still playing with each other, and the agglomeration of
call and response between these different systems emulates human activity,
so that such that if aliens were to land right
or ancient astronauts were to return or whatever, they would
(33:22):
maybe figure out how to look at a server and say, well, yeah,
there are all these there are billions of people who
don't really exist, and guess what, they're super busy. They
hang out and send mail all the time. I guess
you just need to get a couple of physical robots
like hardware that could empty the mailbox. There at the
(33:43):
end of the world. Whoh oh.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I'm just going to visualize that for a while.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Ray Bradberry has a great short story about a house
in that situation.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Speaking of Ray Bradberry, last night, I was looking for
something to watch and stumbled upon Ray Bradbury Theater, a
show up from the eighties that is very very eighties
or maybe his late seventies even, but I've never seen
Ray Bradberry as a human before. And he typing, and
he's surrounded by all this weird ephemera, and he's saying, ay,
(34:13):
I look around and I get a story idea from
the creepy doll in the corner or whatever. And it's
so goofy and kind of ham fisted. And I always
thought of him as a mythical creature, and it was
a little funny to see that he's just a dorky
old man, like every other great author. No, not every
but it's it was very interesting to see.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
It's like seeing that guy do the frozen Peas commercial.
Who is that?
Speaker 4 (34:35):
Remember we're talking about Orson Wells. Wells he did many
a weird commercial, dude, oh, when it was often quite drunk.
There's one he did for like a wine company. It's
I almost want to say that bit in a Shit's
Creek where Moira Rose is doing this wine ad and
she keeps drinking the wine and getting drunker and drunker.
I almost want to say, they got the idea for
(34:56):
that from this Orson Wells thing. Look it up. You
can see the outtakes. It is wild. He is Tanks.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
He's a great director too.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
Great director, great actor, poly math, genius, very incorrigible, weird
old dude. Have we talked abouts for Fake, his kind
of faux documentary about magic and art forgery.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Hmm, I have not.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
You guys would both very much enjoy it, and then
folks in the audience I think would too. It's just
like it's this. It's about the line between you know,
reality and and uh, you know misdirection, I guess. And
he narrates it and parts of it are documentary, but
parts of it are fiction, and it's sort of about
blurring the line between the two, and art forgery is
a big part of it, and magic stage magic. It's
(35:39):
a really really weird and interesting film that he made
later in his life.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Wow, guys, I am thinking it's a sign that the
Freckles stop it, okay.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Images and what is it when they touch they're perfectly
when we kiss their PC.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
All right, thank you so much, noble grand humbug baby
bird for calling us and letting us know what's going
on down to the postal office. We're gonna head out
for now, but you will be seeing us waving from
such great heights. We'll be right back after.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Come down now, sponsor, come down now, they'll say, well,
wagging their finger.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
And we have returned with the final act of our
weekly listener mail segment. Guys, we got so much input
or response from from our conversation about astrology in the government,
our series that focused on some historical precedent in the
United States as well as some events more recently in
(36:49):
mean mar And you know, candidly, we want to approach
something like astrology with great care, right with great diplomacy,
because we do know it means quite a lot to
quite a few people, and there's another contingent of people
who find it somehow offensive. Right, So we hope that
(37:12):
we did. We hope that we did right by everybody
in the gang with giving you, you know, the facts
as they stand and the ways in which world powers
do use astrology in that discourse. As a result, we
had a lot of great correspondence with people who picked
(37:34):
up the torch that we passed and said, well, let
me think through you know, a possible, a possible way
to scientifically prove some grain of truth through astrology. We
alluded to some of our own theories about it. For
our fellow conspiracy realists who wrote to us, we shared
(37:55):
those theories. We're having spoiler some pretty fascinating conversations about
artificial intelligence quote unquote, and the idea of horoscopes that
we share. One piece of correspondence from a fellow listener
who reached out to us and just gave us, like
their perspective on not just astrology in the government, but
(38:19):
astrology in humanity. Before we do that, guys, horoscopes for AI,
are we onto something?
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (38:28):
What do you mean? Okay, yeah, before we get to
Sam's letter. All right, So in that overly thorough thing,
I kept sending the idea here or our basis, our
thought experiment assumes that gravity is unknowable, right, and people
still don't understand two things, gravity and the development of
(38:52):
the human brain, especially in the gestative or fetal stages.
So is it therefore then possible that certain minuscule gravitational
effects from the position of heavenly bodies could somehow affect
the development of the human brain. And from there we
(39:12):
naturally spun the question out, gamed it out to ask
if that is the case, then could gravitational effects that
are ostensibly minuscule, could they have an effect on the
development of AI or non human minds? Fund at parties?
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Okay, on undsteen the minute to unwrap that, Matt, seems
like you're quicker than the draw than me.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Well, so, the idea is that the gravitational effects could
affect the humans, who are then affecting the creation of
the artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Oh, I didn't think about that. That's a good one.
I was thinking more directly the idea that if a
non organic mind reaches past a certain threshold of sophistication,
could its hardware be influenced by gravitational effects such that
it might affect the tendencies or the disposition matrix of
(40:09):
the mind.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I feel like I'm reading directly out of Ben Bollen's
theory on determining the possible scientific basis of astrology.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
All right, well, then we could get a better title no, No,
we could get a better title.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
It's like a scientific paper. I'm looking at it right now.
Holy mackerel.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
We'll just speak through it, you know, horoscopes for AI.
I feel like that's interesting. But with this in mind,
I'm just as always eternally hungry for your thoughts. Guys.
Sam wrote to us. Uncle Sam sorry wrote to us
and said, hey, uncle Sam here, I wanted to share
a few thoughts with you regarding those episodes about astrology.
(40:50):
First thought about Reagan. In addition to the astrology, I
remember reading that Ronald also believed the world was going
to end, or at least that civilization was going to
collapse in the year two thousand, the year two thousand thousand,
and he based his policies on this belief. Do you
know if there's any merit to this? Have you guys
ever heard that?
Speaker 4 (41:11):
No?
Speaker 3 (41:12):
I haven't either. Was he one of the was he
maybe one of those folks who are you know, there's
a certain contingent of folks who are religiously driven to
hasten the apocalypse. We've talked about those guys in the past.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Well, maybe he was trying to stop it. That's why
he Yeah, you know, took down that wall.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Maybe he did, maybe he did stop it. Maybe I
don't know. I wonder if because he was definitely into
the whole American ideology of a city on the hill,
right and standing stalwart against the evils of the world,
and he definitely seemed to be a religious dude. But
(41:54):
I don't know how far it goes. Is like, would
you want to have a president who was vince the
world's going to end on a specific date? That's a
little culty.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Yeah, but okay, And again, no disparagement to anybody who's
sure there anybody's religious beliefs, but there's a certain doomsday
philosophy wrapped up in certain sects of Christianity, certain you know,
evangelical wings, and we've certainly had high level politicians and
you know, presidents that kind of go in for that
kind of stuff. I don't see how it's that much different.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Yeah, you know, I think that's an astute observation. We'd
love to hear your thoughts, Reaganites or anybody who met
Ronnie firsthand. I want to thank on air Noel again
for getting the etymology of the Gipper worse Kipper I
was not aware of at the time. We have another
(42:46):
thought from Uncle Sam, who says, my second thought is
regarding astrology. I want to make the argument that is
not completely hocus focus. To be clear, I'm not saying
daily horoscopes or accurate predictions or anything of the sort.
I'd like to take a step back and consider the
possibilities in a logical and I'm going to say it
scientifically based manner. And so with this, and we'll cut
(43:09):
a little bit for time with this, Uncle Sam, you
provide several links to some fascinating studies, one by the
National Center for Atmospheric Research, one by the good folks
at Columbia University. And the study from Colombia is interesting
because it finds correlations between the month a person is
(43:30):
born in and the health conditions they will later develop.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Well, Ben, we certainly know that there are forces at
work from celestial bodies that govern things like the tides,
and you know, we've even seen examples with women's you know,
menstrual cycles having to do with lunar cycles as well. Again,
I'm sorry, I'm sort of like being a little general,
(43:55):
but I would put forth, is it that much of
a stretch believe that there are forces exerting themselves on
us and on our fragile fetuses, you know, at certain
times of the year that could make changes. I don't know.
I think it's certainly a valid thing to consider.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Awesome, Yeah, yeah, because the thing I was talking about
is about the possibility of maybe gravitational effects on a
developing human brain. So it's worth looking into, is it not?
And Uncle Sam says the hypothesis is that humans have
been observing the world for thousands of years, the weather,
the atmosphere, the astronomical arrangements as a species, says Uncle Sam,
(44:37):
I would submit there exists a wealth of communal knowledge.
At some point in time, our ancestors started to log
data points or data your mileage is up to you,
and started to notice recurring patterns and then started to
predict certain aspects of life, like when was the best
time to plant crops, when was the best time to
harvest those crops. Over time, these points become common knowledge.
(45:01):
Folks start to notice patterns, they start to correlate patterns,
and these correlations go beyond their crops. Correlations like children
born in late spring typically grew up to be the
healthiest people born in late autumn. More likely to have
mental health problems, etc. And so, with all this in mind,
Uncle Sam says, is it so far fetched to suggest
(45:23):
that earlier humans found cycles and patterns to also have
a significant correlation with attributes and behaviors of their fellow
human beings. There's a lot more to it, but I
want to get us to I want to get us
to a point you make, your uncle Sam, you say
to Wit, I believe that at some point in the future,
(45:43):
a bunch of dedicated astrologists will load every data set
they can find from as far back as they can
find into an artificial intelligence program that compares astrology to
real world data sets and spits out a model that
has an accuracy rate above fifty, which would make it
scientifically significant and make it legit.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
I'm I'm stuck in daily horoscopes and trying to I'm
clicking through them, trying to find things that correlate to
what you're saying so that I can have a call
out to our horoscope. But none of them are. They're
they're so varied on all these sites.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Keep them there all right? Well, sorry, Noda, what are
the okay? Well, as as a group of leos, as
a pride a lot. Yes, what do we got?
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I don't know. I found out Chris Hemsworth is born
right around the same time that we are.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
I don't know that checks out.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
They're talking about retrograding venus and all kinds of stuff
that doesn't make sense. Guys, But hey, we may discover
a talent that we've been neglecting. It has a resurgence
and it's going to bring us more money, is what it.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Says, you know of the one of the things speaking
of fortune telling and stuff, one of the things that
I always do when I'm abroad, especially in uh well,
I'll just say it, like when when I end up
in Japan. There there are all these shrines where they
will give you a fortune for a very small amount
of money, and I've just stopped opening them. I carry
(47:12):
them around and if someone's having a like a bad day,
then I will give them a fortune.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
And you should do the same thing with the magic cards.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
I knew you were going to say it, but they're
for you.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Therefore, yeah, you as in.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Okay, it's for you, as in the people of bald Knob, Queenslant.
This is our segue, your little letter from home, cleanse
the palette have some fun in these our challenging times. Guys.
Black Shep or black Sheep black Shepey wrote to us
and said, greetings chaps, condolences on the collapse of your
(47:51):
once proud nation. Black Shep. Yeah, I know it's that
Australian humor for you. Black Shep is the name in
educating Americans about Australia is my game.
Speaker 5 (48:01):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Please find attached the list of places you should visit
when you come down Under. Please be sure to have
a live session in either Sydney or Melbourne, or pronounce
it correctly to convince your suits that you can make
a buck on the tour. Now, we just got this
crazy list of Australia's worst place names. Did you guys
(48:22):
see this?
Speaker 4 (48:24):
Give it to us? I can't wait. I want to
hear it cold.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
I saw this randomly somewhere else and I don't know.
This must be in the zeitgeist. This is a this
is a great list.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
Let's just you know what, let's just round rob it now.
We're going to start at the top. We're going to
read these as quickly as possible. Maybe maybe we do
rounds of five.
Speaker 4 (48:46):
Are these really real?
Speaker 3 (48:47):
All right?
Speaker 4 (48:48):
Well?
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Holy Cow the first time, Australia's Worst Place.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
These are real places. We're going to give you.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
The We're going to give you the town names. Uh
not not the wider thing, just for time. Okay, I'll
kick this off. We'll do five at a time. Bald Knob,
big Dick, Boar, big knob, water Hole, Bonar Street, Boobs,
Flat Booby Island.
Speaker 4 (49:12):
Boomer's Bottom, bottom hole, break Wind Reserve, bull Hill, bum
Bum bum Bum Creek. That's my favorite. I want to
live in Bumbum Creek.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
I guess I'll say it.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
I get sick. Yeah, I did six to push you
into this one.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Kids, close your ears, Burnt pussy, mine, Humman's knob, cockwash, Dancing,
Dick's Creek, dead Woman's Hole hole.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
Dead Woman's hole.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
And then of course there's the opper, Dirty Dick Creek,
double knob, finger Buttress, funny knob Creek and goat knobs.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
We got great Dick Hill, Groper Grotto. That's the that's
in the play. Guy guys, guys, dirty hole, hopping, Dick's Creek,
Hooker Park, horny point horse, knob, horse cocks.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, oh yeah, here you go in a loup intercourse
Island licking hole.
Speaker 4 (50:23):
Incurse Island should be like a reality show.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
I think it is.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
I think that was a joke thing. I feel like
i've heard Intercourse Island before.
Speaker 4 (50:32):
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. You said licking hole.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, licking hole. I want to say Nick Kroll is
involved with Intercourse Island.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
And then it's you know what, it's probably one of
his sketches on croll Show. Maybe I make you.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Wrong, licking hole, as you said, lovely bottom Minger, Well,
ming Inger, Well that's Minger being naughty about it. Okay,
but don't forget mossy nipple bend.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
How could I have? That's where I met my first love?
Speaker 3 (50:58):
And where would you be without where? Look, let's just
let's just cut this. Because we promised we would get
some fun us names to you, black sheep. So we
do want to give a shout out to all the
good folks in Tittybong Tit, Wobble Lane, Soy Bottom Point,
Shaving Holes, Creek. No, these are all in Australia, and
(51:18):
of course Mount Buggery Stinkhole.
Speaker 4 (51:20):
You didn't mention this. Can't forget stinkhole. We've also got
the butts and the nipples.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
This is ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (51:27):
He gave us. They forged this so that we'd say
naughty things on our PG thirteen podcast.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
So fair is fair. With pro quo plarice, we're going
to give you and all of our Australian listeners some
fun names from US towns. Welcome to Satan's Kingdom Massachusetts.
There's also ding Dong, Texas, Handsome Eddie, New York. That
guy's a legend. And then why not North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (51:55):
I don't want to why not.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Shout out to my hometown, Coming.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
George Georgia I was talking about covered earlier.
Speaker 4 (52:04):
Coming is number one on ten tiny American towns with
unbelievably obscene names.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
So there's toad Suck and Coming is also the home
of the kkking.
Speaker 4 (52:16):
These are not nearly as cool though, got it, that's
true as the Australian ones. We've got Climax Michigan, Hooker, Oklahoma.
We do have Intercourse, Pennsylvania. It's not an island though,
and Hornytown, North Carolina. Spread Eagle, Wisconsin is one of
my personal favorites.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
I like Frankenstein, Missouri, and I hope they're really.
Speaker 4 (52:36):
Leaning into that really quickly. I just found another site
that's got a bunch more briny breezes. These are all
in Florida, Bunker Donation, Fluffy Landing, some of these are
just silly need more Florida, Georgia. There's a place called
Ball's Ferry and Boneville, and of course Butts Coming Experiment, Faceville, Flippin'
(52:58):
gum Log, hard Up and Piles Marsh And that's it
for me, y'all.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
And then of course, since we're strating on, we can't
leave slickpoo, Idaho and Hell Michigan off the map there,
so we'd love to hear your favorite town names. Also,
while we are wrapping up tonight's listener Male segment, I
have a question for Tennessee Pal Dylan. What is doof
(53:24):
doof music?
Speaker 4 (53:27):
Doof doof music? Is four on the floor dance music
supposedly boots and Cats also known as boots and cats.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
There we go, OK, very confusing, but yes, I do
enjoy doof doof music?
Speaker 3 (53:41):
You heard it here first, folks. That's why that's why
we tune in for the breaking journalism of the day.
We want to hear from you, big big thanks, of course,
the Sam Black Chepe Noble Grand Humbug baby bird and easy.
Tell us what's on your mind. Give us thoughts for
something that you think your fellow listeners would enjoy in
(54:02):
an upcoming episode of stuff they don't want you to know.
Find us on a telephone, drop us a line to
the void, or find us on the other lines, the
on lines that are on in the d Internet.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
That's a right intercourse. No, that's the city. You can
find this at the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist
on Facebook with our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy.
Share some more dirty city names the world over. We
want to hear from you. There's a great community there
on that group on Facebook, so get in on the conversation.
You can also find us the Conspiracy Stuff on x FKA,
(54:36):
Twitter and on YouTube, or we have video content glor
for your pruising enjoyment. You can find this at the
handle Conspiracy Stuff Show however, on Instagram and or TikTok.
But wait, there's more.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. When you call in, give yourself a
cool nickname and let us know if we can use
your name and message on the air. Tell us about
your hometown and whether or not it's got a weird name.
What's it known for? Is there anything weird going on
in the town?
Speaker 3 (55:04):
Weird museum?
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Yeah, by the way, coming Georgia. Also a home of
Flash of Crimson band from Forsyth Central not just the
KKK all right, Hey OKKK. If you got more to
say than could fit in a voicemail, why not instead
send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. And hey, you can just hit us on
the email anytime. Whatever your preferred method of communication is.
We can all see if we can all respond. Would
love to hear your favorite doof doof music. We'd also
it's killing me. We'd also love to hear town names.
(55:41):
We'd love to hear your thoughts and horoscopes AI and
oh man, just the weirdest thought experiments you can come
up with. Join us out here in the dark conspiracy
at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noah.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our
super producer, Dylan the Tennessee pal Fagan. Most importantly, you
are you. You are here. That makes this the stuff
they don't want you to know. It is time for
our weekly listener mail segment. If you are tuning in
the evening this publishes, let us welcome you to March
(00:49):
twenty seventh, twenty twenty five. And what better way to
kick this off than to ask Old Tennessee his newest
interpretation of rude Vegas? What do we got time to
dig up the ruda vegas? Love it? Love it? Love it?
Favorite part of the week. I think for many of us,
(01:11):
perhaps in the crowd tonight, friends and neighbors, we have
several of you on air in our exploration. In this
evening's program, we're going to talk about astrology and the
government got a lot of feedback on that. We're going
to talk about we'll have some fun letters from home.
We'll talk about bots and post offices. Before we do
(01:35):
any of that, I gotta tell you, guys, I want
to brag about a listener who reached out to us
and followed up on the idea of a street fighting
game for birds.
Speaker 4 (01:47):
And like made a sort of prototype of it. Didn't
you play it, man?
Speaker 3 (01:53):
I did play it. I did play I did play
the game, and I've got to tell you guys, it's
a lot of fun. We're in early days of development,
so we we have to find out. You know, we've
got we've got work to do. We just want you
to know that this is this is something very much
on the way. Big big thanks to Kyle who listened
(02:17):
to one of our recent recordings and said, hey, I'll
you know, I'm your Huckleberry. Also big thanks the person
who pointed out the truth of the Huckleberry quote and Tombstone.
They said, Kyle said, I've made a Mortal Kombat style
game but with birds, and we got to tell you, folks,
it's pretty fun. Hopefully we can follow up with Kyle
(02:39):
as the game continues to develop, but for now, maybe
we pause for a word from our sponsors and get
straight to some more bird stuff.
Speaker 4 (02:47):
Yeah, all right, we're back and we're Yeah, then you
nailed it. We're gonna kick off today's Listener Mail episode
with some bird talk, one of my favorite topics. Guys.
I play up the fact that I'm a little bit
scared of birds, but I may have also mentioned that
my position on birds has softened in this the twilight
(03:10):
of my life, as I've begun to really enjoy the
idea of becoming a birder because you can observe them
from from afar.
Speaker 3 (03:18):
You don't have to like get.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Right up the clothes and personal with them. But I
have a couple of friends that are in Brooklyn, New York,
and there's apparently real good burden there, like in Prospect
Park and so many species of birds that exists in
Central Park. It's I'm gonna get me a little notebook,
a little mole skin, and some binox, and I think
I'm going to become a birder.
Speaker 2 (03:38):
Guys, come out my way. I got a okay for you.
Speaker 4 (03:41):
I would love that, And I know you've got some
serious binox yourself, Matt, but hopefully maybe with a little luck.
If I'm hanging out in the middle Mississippi River region.
Maybe I'll spot the piazza bird. Let's talk about you know,
we'll see, let's talk about the piazza bird. Gentlemen, easy rights,
(04:02):
longtime listener, first time callers.
Speaker 3 (04:04):
So to speak. Here.
Speaker 4 (04:05):
I always love a good Cryptid episode, and I loved
the recent one, But one of my favorites was missing
the Piazza bird. If you never heard of it, it
is fucking bad. Beat me there, Dylan, I think you
must have already done it. Basically, ancient Native American paintings,
especially one huge one of the thing, were found along
the bluffs north of Alton, Illinois when they were going
(04:26):
to build a road beside the river, and it was
preserved and touched up by boy scouts. That's cool, which
is a bit sketchy on its own. Well, I guess
fair enough. Maybe they're using child labor. But the painting,
if you look it up, and I know you fellas
love your research, is absolutely epic. To call this thing
a camara is an understatement. It's huge as a bison,
with deer antlers, a goat's beard, huge vultureish wings, gnarly teeth,
(04:49):
and red eyes. I'm not saying this thing could take
on a thunderbird, but I'd pay to see that fight. Hey,
we got two more competitors that have entered the Ring
of a Bird game fighting game. Talk to Kyle about
this Ben. So here's where it gets interesting and or crazy.
We don't really know much about this thing or who
originally painted it. Much like the huge Native American city
(05:11):
of Cahokia. I think that's right very near Alton, Illinois.
The Native group responsible for the cave paintings were gone
by the time they were rediscovered. In fact, as big
as Cahokia was, stretching on both sides of the Mississippi
from modern day Saint Louis to Collinsville, Illinois. It could
even have some relation to Kohoka and the ancient mound builders,
(05:33):
who I'm fairly certain I've heard you guys talk about before.
That's accurate. Easy Could it be to borrow a phrase
from the History Channel that the ancient mound builders of
North America knew of mythical beasts such as the piasa
bird which no one else had seen, And could it
be this monster cryptid led to their demise? Those are
my History Channel voice. I don't know, guys, sounds like
(05:55):
fun to dive into. Maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic as
a former rural southwestern high school peace Yaza bird. Oh,
I love a good high school mascot. That's a good one.
They have a pyrotechnic fueled mascot and it is fun,
extra fun. But I would love and appreciate if you
did an episode on the Piazza Bird. Thanks, easy, Well, easy, Well,
(06:16):
we may not do a full episode on the Piazza
bird itself. It certainly could well be an injury into
future cryptids. You might not have heard of episodes, but
we're going to talk about it right now. I had
some luck looking up this very image and a good
story from actually the Illinois State Museum's website. They've got
(06:38):
a really interesting account from Louis Jolier from sixteen seventy three,
who was a woodsman cartographer, and father Jacques Marquette, who
was a Jesuit priest, and they led the first European
exploration of the Middle Mississippi region that we're talking about here.
And in his journal, father Marquette described this pictograph that
(06:59):
Easy mentioned, which the expedition observed on the rocky bluffs
above Alton, Illinois. This is what he had to say.
While skirting some rocks, which, by their height and length
inspired awe, we saw upon one of them two painted monsters,
which at first made us afraid. I love the biblical
cadence of this, and upon which the boldest savages dare
(07:22):
not long rest their eyes. They are as large as
a calf. They have horns on their heads like those
of a deer, a horrible look, red eyes, a beard
like a tiger's or a goat's, to Easy's point, a
face somewhat like a man's, a body covered with scales,
and so long a tail that it winds all around
the body, passing above the head and going back between
(07:44):
the legs, ending in a fish's tail. I don't think
Easy mentioned that green, red, and black are the three
colors composing the picture. Moreover, these two monsters are so
well painted that we cannot believe that any Okay, this
is problematic, but it's history that ain't Savage is their author?
For good painters in France would find it difficult to
(08:05):
reach that place conveniently to paint them. Here is approximately
the shape of these monsters, as we have faithfully copied it.
And then they did a little sketch of what they saw.
Pretty cool, guys, I had not heard of the piazza
bird had either of you?
Speaker 2 (08:21):
It was new to me.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
I I actually, Easy, I owe you an email. I
had I had heard of this because you know, we're
researching our series on cryptids you haven't heard of and
the origin story, the provenance of it is fascinating. And
I'm on the fence, folks, Matt nol You guys, Dylan,
(08:47):
tell me do we want to hear the origin or
do we want to save it? Because there are people
with some strident opinions.
Speaker 4 (08:53):
Oh, I think this is the perfect opportunity to hear
about the origin. I just found that little snippet about
the discovery of it or the early discoveries and descriptions
of it. But yeah, it seems like these the priest
and the woodworker had very similar questions.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Yeah. So good news, Easy, is that the bluff paintings
are very much real. If you go to places like
illinoishistory dot com, you'll see that there are scholars who
feel that similar to the Jersey Devil story, something has
been something has been embellished and expanded upon the one
(09:33):
modern legend of it. Let's put it that way. One
modern legend comes from a eighteen hundreds era writer who
was known for genre, romance and adventure books. And he
had a thing published in the Family Magazine in eighteen
thirty six called the Piazza, an Indian tradition of Illinois.
(09:54):
And he essentially retells a legend, right, he retells an
indigenous people's legend. And if you're the average reader, then
of course it sounds like this guy is faithfully being
an armchair historian. Apparently, this guy, John Russell, later in life,
(10:14):
goes to his son and says, I made up the story.
I made up the story to sell some stuff, and
it includes a lot of a lot of the things
the earlier noted writers are saying. This is why I'm
on the fence, because I don't think one guy mythologizing
something means the entire possibility of a cryptid's existence is
(10:37):
somehow therefore in question. You know it just it got
reprinted in so many newspapers of the day, and people
started mistaking what the author himself said was fiction as fact,
which happens. It's a game of telephone.
Speaker 2 (10:54):
Well, yeah, I mean, you've got the original quote. Discovery
of it right sixteen seventy three, the first time it's
written down right, somebody talks about it, it makes it
makes its way to the western world. Then you've got,
you know, over one hundred and fifty years later, you've
got Russell coming forward and writing out, as you said, Ben,
(11:15):
recounting this tale of a creature that in fact killed
a bunch of warriors and ka chief and all.
Speaker 4 (11:22):
That cadetas nippet. From the account, it's it's it's very
I mean, it's it's exciting. It's the stuff of novels
for sure. Let's see, he says. The name is Indian
and signifies in the language of the Illinis, the bird
that devours men. He says, the Piazza once terrorized Native
American villages, killing many warriors before it was slain by
(11:42):
the chief Oitaga, who had offered himself as bait and
had twenty warriors with poison arrows weighed in ambush for
the monster. When the Piazza swooped down to attack oh Atwoga,
it was killed by the barrage of poisoned arrows, thus
saving the tribe. Russell added a little extre detail here.
All the tribes of the Upper Mississippi and those who
(12:03):
have inhabited the valley of the Illinois. And Russell attributed
this tale, you know, continuation of an oral tradition established by,
as he described, all the tribes of the Upper Mississippi
and those who have inhabited the valley of the Illinois.
But you're right, and it was totally proved to have
been confabulated by this author. And another thing that's pretty
(12:23):
interesting that I didn't realize when I was looking up
pictures of it. I was like, gosh, that sure is
vivid and modern looking. Well, it's because it is the
one that's there now in place of the old one,
which has worn away over time. It has been recreated,
so as a very vibrant, rich looking recreation of this
mythical creature on a cliff overlooking the Mississippi River north
(12:46):
of Alton, Illinois.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
Two things. First of all, Dylan, you saw this thing
last year. You said, holy cow bury the lead.
Speaker 4 (12:54):
Why don't Jim, Yeah, sorry, I wasn't looking at the chat. Dylan.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
You can either chat to us or you can say something.
But you you were physically there and you saw it.
Speaker 4 (13:03):
Yeah, it's the last summer. Did it strike terror into
your very heart.
Speaker 3 (13:07):
Wait wait, wait, did you see the creature or did
you see the depiction of the creature.
Speaker 4 (13:12):
I saw the depiction of the creature. It was larger
than I imagined it would be.
Speaker 3 (13:16):
We'll get him next time. But let's go on a
road trip.
Speaker 4 (13:19):
Yeah, we'll go burning. Let's go on a mythical birding expedition.
Speaker 2 (13:22):
I would say, if we were chasing after this creature,
I don't think we're going birding, boys, I think frosting.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
Where's belunking? Because Russell Russell also like the banger. Part
of his story easy is that he says, not only
is everything I said true and he was, you know,
lying U he says. He says at the end, like
at the end of his account, which is again syndicated
widely republished, he says, I found a cave in the
(13:55):
nearby bluffs that was heavily littered with skulls and bones.
So he like the d of the monsters. So he
pulled the Geraldo rivera going into the vault kind of thing.
And you know, despite the name, the Piasa doesn't really
look like a burden. I think he pulled Russell, I
mean pulled a lot of his sources from pre existing
(14:19):
obviously traditions and stories, and he also, I don't want
to say plagiarized, but he definitely drew inspiration from the
eighteen thirty three autobiography of a warrior named black Hawk. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (14:35):
I mean to me, this thing really has the look
of a like a traditional griffin almost, you know, but larger,
and I think with the horns or maybe extra and
it doesn't have a beak so but still the wings,
the scales, the talons, and the kind of dog like face.
I guess griffin's more have an eagle like face. But
still it definitely feels like a mishmash of different mythel
(15:00):
logical creatures, whether from Native American culture or beyond. So
thanks Easy for hipping us to the Piazza bird, and
and thanks Dylan for you know, having gone to see
it and telling us about it that it was large.
Speaker 2 (15:14):
I found the cave where the dastardly Piazza bird, Dylan,
I know where the bust it sleeps.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
Dylan, your your my favorite. Keanu reeves it's true.
Speaker 4 (15:31):
I know, kung Fu. Well, we're gonna take a quick
break here a word from our sponsor, and then come
back with more listener.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Mail and we've returned. Guys, we are going to jump
to an older message because we're still getting through the
ones from February.
Speaker 4 (15:51):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
This one comes from Well, I'm gonna let them say
their name because it's one of my favorite names that
we've had come through and quite while.
Speaker 5 (16:00):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (16:01):
And it is in response to something we're very familiar with.
Speaker 5 (16:05):
Hey there, folks, this is Noble Grand Humbug Babybirds.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
All right, welcome you're.
Speaker 5 (16:12):
That serie episode And it couldn't help but remind me
of working at the post office.
Speaker 3 (16:18):
What was that inversion point?
Speaker 5 (16:19):
Where? What point is it just bots feeding off of
bots and algorithms feeding off of algorithms. We're at the
point at the post office where all these automated systems
play together. It doesn't matter if you actually do your job.
It only matters if the systems think that you've done something.
For example, I work in a very world post office
(16:41):
and we we're lucky if we get one paying customer
a day at this point, and it's all the same
people that come in by a stamp or whatever. We're
supposed to get surveys. There's a little QR code on
the bottom of the receipt. You're supposed to take the survey, well,
your phone can only take one per month, so they're
expecting a whole bunch of different people to come in
and take service. But we do not have that kind
(17:01):
of community here. We have very few people. So we
get phone calls from the people up top saying that, hey,
you guys haven't got your survey for the week yet,
to the point where we have to buy stuff from
post office, buy a stamp from the post office that
we look at just survey to stop the people up
top from reading the computer and saying, you guys haven't
had a survey yet. So it very much reminds me
(17:23):
of just bought feeding off of bots. Doesn't actually matter
what we're doing here. If we do our job, it
only matters that the survey gets taken. It doesn't even
matter if the survey.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Is good or bad.
Speaker 5 (17:34):
This matters if it happened or not. Thanks guys, take care,
have fun.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Take care, have fun.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Perfect let's try to do let's try to do both.
Oh man, So we're talking about noble grands, humbug, baby bird.
We're talking about the idea of dead internet theory a
little bit here.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Oh yeah, he is' that's what he was listening to
that inspired him to call right, just this concept that
as numbers especially get strange and large on the Internet,
if you're talking about social media, you're talking about page views,
talking about all of the metrics that that corporations and
advertisers used to measure this success of something like what
(18:21):
happens as we talked about in that episode, when it's
just stuff being input there to make the numbers look
good rather than the actual things that would be worth buying.
Let's say, as an advertiser.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Just two empty mirrors reflecting absence. I'm sorry I was
laughing during the message there too, no n G HBB,
because I just love the approach there, the heller esque
(18:55):
catch twenty two acknowledgment of how silly some system can
be and saying that as a huge proponent and supporter
of the US Postal.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Service, Oh for sure, what's the slogan rain, sleet, hail,
whether rain or sleeps something, It's just screw it. You're
getting your mail, dude.
Speaker 4 (19:16):
Say though I think I mentioned this to Ben actually
when I was texting I ordered something and it was
I didn't realize this at the time, but it was
shipped via the US Postal Service and it was just
like this small little digital recorder thing that I got
from this audio production music store kind of company, online company,
And it took about two and a half weeks to
get to me from the United States, from like the
(19:38):
like Middle States. I don't know what's going on with
the post office, guys, but it doesn't seem very good.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Seems really weird.
Speaker 4 (19:47):
Seems really weird.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And also just thinking more and more about this, just
this concept of using a survey as the feedback system.
I don't know if you guys, you know, get served
with stuff you do all the time. Yeah, it seems
like it's with every service or purchase you make there's
a survey associated and then like seven emails reminding you
(20:10):
to take that survey that you ignored that you're not
gonna ever take when we're still gonna get emails about.
Speaker 3 (20:16):
All right, Matt, I'll put it to you this way,
and it also for you, humbug baby. If I could
be a little bit familiar the thing with surveys, I
don't know, maybe it's like the boy Scout volunteerism stuff,
but if there's a person associated with it, like if
I had to sat sit on the phone with someone
and I know that it can help them in the
(20:38):
future no matter what happens, unless they're just an absolute
pill or an absolute drip, then I will I will
go to the mat on that survey. I'll be like,
not only is this ten ten customer service rep, but
you should promote them immediately. I was gonna, you know,
I'll even embellish, just like our guy with the piazza Bird.
(20:59):
I'll be like, I was going to, you know, to
get out of this company altogether. But Janine changed my mind.
Speaker 4 (21:06):
Ben is single handedly responsible for more promotions and customer
support than any single human being in the United States.
Speaker 2 (21:12):
Of Thank you for doing the good work, Ben.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
I think, but you do surveys, right, we all do.
Speaker 2 (21:18):
No, No, I really I've done it a few times.
When I purchased my home, I used several contractors that
I gave surveys to because I thought that very thing
what I'm maybe skeptical of is the thing that noble
grand humbug baby bird is talking about, uh where. It
(21:40):
doesn't matter what the feedback is, It just matters the
metrics that that people are responding right.
Speaker 3 (21:48):
Engaged.
Speaker 2 (21:49):
Yeah, I mean That's what I think about, especially with
larger corporations or some of the places that I get
the constant survey from, no matter what I do, even
like a doctor's office or something like what I why
do you want it?
Speaker 3 (22:01):
Okay, it's yeah, I hear you. Because at some point too,
especially in larger systems, it may be someone's entire job,
and so they have to, you know, defend that by saying,
you know of x amount of people engaging with our
service z amount responded to the survey, and as long
(22:23):
as that's above a certain threshold, then I'm good. You
know what I mean, don't reorg me.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
Yeah, Well, because how do you get a comment right
on a video? Somebody either likes it enough that they
want to interact with the creators of the video in
some way, right imagining that they're talking to the creator,
or somebody hates something enough or is offended by something
or angry about something enough that they will post a comment.
(22:52):
And you have to imagine that's probably the same with
you know, this kind of surveys. It's somebody like Ben
who wants to do good for someone, right, Like, I
really enjoyed that.
Speaker 3 (23:01):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
I appreciate you. Or it's somebody saying this was the
worst experience of my life. I'm never using your corporation again,
and go away, and I fart in your general directions, right.
Speaker 3 (23:13):
It encourages extremes of the bell curve.
Speaker 2 (23:16):
Yeah, and maybe theoretically you could use some small bits
of feedback to improve your business. But I just I
don't know. Maybe I just I'm missing something because you
think about the people that take surveys, the number of
people that respond to a survey, and then how that
shapes the data you collect.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
I don't respect. I don't know about you guys, but
I'm sure all of us in the audience tonight, especially
in the US, have received cold text messages asking you
to respond to some sort of survey or voice some kind,
usually a political opinion of some sort. I don't respond
to those. Maybe we should, I don't know. We talked
(23:57):
in the past about how we're all getting weird tech.
One of the things that I think stuck out to
all of us here with your message humbug baby again,
if I may be familiar, is the fact that you
work at the post office and you have to take
the survey, and you have to spend your own money
to buy a stay up so you could do the
(24:18):
survey again? Did I hear that correctly?
Speaker 4 (24:21):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (24:22):
That is what has been stated here.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
They can't just what what? Why?
Speaker 4 (24:29):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (24:30):
Yeah, let's go further all right?
Speaker 2 (24:32):
Uh, noble bird, if I.
Speaker 3 (24:35):
May, if we may be so familiar, you.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
Just take two from their grand baby. How I would
like to know specifically how much of the correspondence that
flows through your post office is some kind of paid
flyer or you know, just the junk mayor absolutely that
(25:00):
that companies pay a lot of money to you know,
both print package and then send out. But like how
much of the post office is now propped up by
just corporations trying to get the word out?
Speaker 4 (25:11):
And my question too is like it must work on
somebody or else they wouldn't do it because it is expensive,
like you said, But I'm like, who are the people
that these random flyers that come in the mail like
work on so effectively? I don't understand.
Speaker 3 (25:24):
You guys got to get into a persona hacking, you know,
demographic hacking. Make sure like leverage the I love where
we're going here, because we're also starting to argue that
something similar to dead Internet theory may apply to physical
mail in the USPS. Right, So if that's possible, then
(25:46):
it means it is likewise logically possible. And I don't
think there's anything ethically wrong with this to sort of
position your postal address to receive very specific, you know,
flyers from from some regular company, like start getting start
getting those weird catalogs for fancy watches you're never going
(26:08):
to order, start getting those invitations to weird cruises or
you know, space exploration trips that you might never take.
And now, all of a sudden, the next time the
eye of state surveillance sore on focuses on you, it'll say,
not that guy. You know, he's clearly, clearly a one
percent despite living in this apartment.
Speaker 2 (26:31):
Like shel persona roommates that that hang out with you
wherever you live at your address. So you've got stuff
coming in for Don Credible, that's his name, Credible, stand.
Speaker 3 (26:44):
Up bull down right there you go, nob right bullying
with a G.
Speaker 4 (26:55):
I love it.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
I really like that idea.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
See that last part's a little illegal. Oh oh really yeah,
it's like a little it's like a little it's a
little illegal. Oh man, But you.
Speaker 2 (27:09):
Could associate a name with an address just on like
various online forums that doesn't where you don't need to
have an ID or anything, and then you could.
Speaker 3 (27:18):
Be you could be mistaken, you know what I mean,
my bad.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
I can have virtual roommates if I want to. It's
a merco Okay.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
Dolly credible is real to me? Your honor? Yeah, I
do like the court case there, but it is a
yeah that that gets us to uh, you know, it
reminds me a little bit of oh, what was that
excellent Gravity's Rainbow? Do you guys remember that one?
Speaker 4 (27:44):
It's one is notoriously hard to finish. People to finish it, say,
it's weird.
Speaker 2 (27:50):
It's to get to the end of the rainbow is hard.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
It's like infinite jest.
Speaker 4 (27:54):
It's like one of those books that's just notoriously like
a little bit of a slog but supposedly quite rewarding.
If you there is that Thomas Pinshew.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Yes, yeah, you're correct, Yes, whatever. Well, the reason we're
bringing up there is just because if we could be
so familiar grand hum hum baby. Uh, if we could
be so familiar that novel has this thing about a
secret conspiratorial postal service.
Speaker 5 (28:22):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (28:23):
And what you were saying there Matt inspires me to
return to that idea. There was if I could tell
a tale out of school that might be interesting to
our baby bird. Here. For a while, her friend Matt
lived near this amazing bookstore that had something very like
(28:43):
a pension secret post going on. In the basement of
this bookstore, there was a and you remember this, there
was a tiny corner that had all these zines and
revolutionary propaganda and ways for people to communicate with each
other outside of social media. Increasingly, that's the thing, you know,
(29:05):
the big guys don't like, but I love seeing places
like that.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Yeah, sh don't tell anyone, Ben.
Speaker 3 (29:13):
Okay, it's just between us millions of people in the
n Essay.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Yeah, do not look for the zines beneath the cat's
layer somewhere in Shambly. You'll find it and then you
can go have a nice hookah right next door.
Speaker 3 (29:31):
Oh right, you love that place. Do also to this question, guys,
to the story that Grand Noble of the Baby Birds
is bringing up here, do we think it is possible,
to your earlier point, now that these companies engaging in
mass marketing via post, is it possible that they could
(29:55):
support the post office such that you don't need human
to human correspondence more.
Speaker 4 (30:01):
Yeah, I don't know it. It does feel like the
post office is less and less relevant given other options
that are more efficient. But at the end of the day,
you still I had to send a certified letter the
other day and you have to do that through the
post office. Does maybe UPS or FedEx have an equivalent
to certified mail or is that strictly in the domain
(30:21):
of the post Office? I guess so. I guess you
could say anything, get a tracking number, that's all it is.
So maybe the answer I just answered my own question,
But I just yeah, I do kind of wonder of
all the agencies that are like being stripped right now
and dismantled and stuff like. Well, then again, though it
is affordable, I guess then to sort of a right
to be able to send things through the mail, I
don't know.
Speaker 3 (30:42):
I feel like it depends on the degree of certification,
because certified mail is the legal threshold is USBs?
Speaker 4 (30:54):
Yes? Correct? And can I just say I am not
advocating for the dismantling of the postal service for any
postal workers out there. We appreciate your work, and it
just it feels like it's an organization that has dealt
with a lot of staffing shortages and equipment issues and
things like that. So I know it's not an easy job.
And I absolutely appreciate my mail carrier that comes and
(31:14):
drops off, you know, those trash items in addition to
some very important items. From time to time, I just
do wonder, like what is the long outlook for something
like the postal service?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
And we do hope you put out a new album.
Speaker 4 (31:29):
Soon, tru I don't think it's ever going to happen.
That was a one off.
Speaker 2 (31:32):
No, it will happen. Okay, guys, I had this vision
as we're talking here. So when these companies send out
this piece of automated mail, generally they want you to
take action somewhere online, right, They want you to take
some kind of computerized action.
Speaker 3 (31:49):
Some digital financial Yeah, well yeah, but digital work. Right.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
So we're in when we connect it back to the
dead internet theory, a lot of those system are automated
already to get the mail printed and then to you.
Then there's theoretically, very soon all of these digital assistants
and all these you know, all of these things that
are being created for the consumer that will automate all
(32:16):
of that stuff that is that's coming, that is happening
right now, there will be this thing where it's just
robots sending you things physically through the mail that your
robots will read and either reject or take action on,
even if it's something important that you need to take
action on.
Speaker 3 (32:36):
Yeah, wasn't this like let's spin it out, let's give
it through, dude. So I believe we talked about this
an evening years back. The possibility, the end spectrum horizon
possibility of this is a world in which, for one
reason or another, no physical humans exist. It is a
(32:58):
dead planet human wise. The systems that the humans built
are still playing with each other, and the agglomeration of
call and response between these different systems emulates human activity,
so that such that if aliens were to land right
or ancient astronauts were to return or whatever, they would
(33:22):
maybe figure out how to look at a server and say, well, yeah,
there are all these there are billions of people who
don't really exist, and guess what, they're super busy. They
hang out and send mail all the time. I guess
you just need to get a couple of physical robots
like hardware that could empty the mailbox. There at the
(33:43):
end of the world. Whoh oh.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I'm just going to visualize that for a while.
Speaker 3 (33:49):
Ray Bradberry has a great short story about a house
in that situation.
Speaker 4 (33:53):
Speaking of Ray Bradberry, last night, I was looking for
something to watch and stumbled upon Ray Bradbury Theater, a
show up from the eighties that is very very eighties
or maybe his late seventies even, but I've never seen
Ray Bradberry as a human before. And he typing, and
he's surrounded by all this weird ephemera, and he's saying, ay,
(34:13):
I look around and I get a story idea from
the creepy doll in the corner or whatever. And it's
so goofy and kind of ham fisted. And I always
thought of him as a mythical creature, and it was
a little funny to see that he's just a dorky
old man, like every other great author. No, not every
but it's it was very interesting to see.
Speaker 3 (34:31):
It's like seeing that guy do the frozen Peas commercial.
Who is that?
Speaker 4 (34:35):
Remember we're talking about Orson Wells. Wells he did many
a weird commercial, dude, oh, when it was often quite drunk.
There's one he did for like a wine company. It's
I almost want to say that bit in a Shit's
Creek where Moira Rose is doing this wine ad and
she keeps drinking the wine and getting drunker and drunker.
I almost want to say, they got the idea for
(34:56):
that from this Orson Wells thing. Look it up. You
can see the outtakes. It is wild. He is Tanks.
Speaker 3 (35:02):
He's a great director too.
Speaker 4 (35:04):
Great director, great actor, poly math, genius, very incorrigible, weird
old dude. Have we talked abouts for Fake, his kind
of faux documentary about magic and art forgery.
Speaker 3 (35:17):
Hmm, I have not.
Speaker 4 (35:19):
You guys would both very much enjoy it, and then
folks in the audience I think would too. It's just
like it's this. It's about the line between you know,
reality and and uh, you know misdirection, I guess. And
he narrates it and parts of it are documentary, but
parts of it are fiction, and it's sort of about
blurring the line between the two, and art forgery is
a big part of it, and magic stage magic. It's
(35:39):
a really really weird and interesting film that he made
later in his life.
Speaker 2 (35:43):
Wow, guys, I am thinking it's a sign that the
Freckles stop it, okay.
Speaker 4 (35:53):
Images and what is it when they touch they're perfectly
when we kiss their PC.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
All right, thank you so much, noble grand humbug baby
bird for calling us and letting us know what's going
on down to the postal office. We're gonna head out
for now, but you will be seeing us waving from
such great heights. We'll be right back after.
Speaker 4 (36:15):
Come down now, sponsor, come down now, they'll say, well,
wagging their finger.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
And we have returned with the final act of our
weekly listener mail segment. Guys, we got so much input
or response from from our conversation about astrology in the government,
our series that focused on some historical precedent in the
United States as well as some events more recently in
(36:49):
mean mar And you know, candidly, we want to approach
something like astrology with great care, right with great diplomacy,
because we do know it means quite a lot to
quite a few people, and there's another contingent of people
who find it somehow offensive. Right, So we hope that
(37:12):
we did. We hope that we did right by everybody
in the gang with giving you, you know, the facts
as they stand and the ways in which world powers
do use astrology in that discourse. As a result, we
had a lot of great correspondence with people who picked
(37:34):
up the torch that we passed and said, well, let
me think through you know, a possible, a possible way
to scientifically prove some grain of truth through astrology. We
alluded to some of our own theories about it. For
our fellow conspiracy realists who wrote to us, we shared
(37:55):
those theories. We're having spoiler some pretty fascinating conversations about
artificial intelligence quote unquote, and the idea of horoscopes that
we share. One piece of correspondence from a fellow listener
who reached out to us and just gave us, like
their perspective on not just astrology in the government, but
(38:19):
astrology in humanity. Before we do that, guys, horoscopes for AI,
are we onto something?
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Yeah?
Speaker 3 (38:28):
What do you mean? Okay, yeah, before we get to
Sam's letter. All right, So in that overly thorough thing,
I kept sending the idea here or our basis, our
thought experiment assumes that gravity is unknowable, right, and people
still don't understand two things, gravity and the development of
(38:52):
the human brain, especially in the gestative or fetal stages.
So is it therefore then possible that certain minuscule gravitational
effects from the position of heavenly bodies could somehow affect
the development of the human brain. And from there we
(39:12):
naturally spun the question out, gamed it out to ask
if that is the case, then could gravitational effects that
are ostensibly minuscule, could they have an effect on the
development of AI or non human minds? Fund at parties?
Speaker 4 (39:29):
Okay, on undsteen the minute to unwrap that, Matt, seems
like you're quicker than the draw than me.
Speaker 2 (39:35):
Well, so, the idea is that the gravitational effects could
affect the humans, who are then affecting the creation of
the artificial intelligence.
Speaker 3 (39:45):
Oh, I didn't think about that. That's a good one.
I was thinking more directly the idea that if a
non organic mind reaches past a certain threshold of sophistication,
could its hardware be influenced by gravitational effects such that
it might affect the tendencies or the disposition matrix of
(40:09):
the mind.
Speaker 2 (40:10):
I feel like I'm reading directly out of Ben Bollen's
theory on determining the possible scientific basis of astrology.
Speaker 3 (40:18):
All right, well, then we could get a better title no, No,
we could get a better title.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
It's like a scientific paper. I'm looking at it right now.
Holy mackerel.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
We'll just speak through it, you know, horoscopes for AI.
I feel like that's interesting. But with this in mind,
I'm just as always eternally hungry for your thoughts. Guys.
Sam wrote to us. Uncle Sam sorry wrote to us
and said, hey, uncle Sam here, I wanted to share
a few thoughts with you regarding those episodes about astrology.
(40:50):
First thought about Reagan. In addition to the astrology, I
remember reading that Ronald also believed the world was going
to end, or at least that civilization was going to
collapse in the year two thousand, the year two thousand thousand,
and he based his policies on this belief. Do you
know if there's any merit to this? Have you guys
ever heard that?
Speaker 4 (41:11):
No?
Speaker 3 (41:12):
I haven't either. Was he one of the was he
maybe one of those folks who are you know, there's
a certain contingent of folks who are religiously driven to
hasten the apocalypse. We've talked about those guys in the past.
Speaker 2 (41:26):
Well, maybe he was trying to stop it. That's why
he Yeah, you know, took down that wall.
Speaker 3 (41:32):
Maybe he did, maybe he did stop it. Maybe I
don't know. I wonder if because he was definitely into
the whole American ideology of a city on the hill,
right and standing stalwart against the evils of the world,
and he definitely seemed to be a religious dude. But
(41:54):
I don't know how far it goes. Is like, would
you want to have a president who was vince the
world's going to end on a specific date? That's a
little culty.
Speaker 4 (42:04):
Yeah, but okay, And again, no disparagement to anybody who's
sure there anybody's religious beliefs, but there's a certain doomsday
philosophy wrapped up in certain sects of Christianity, certain you know,
evangelical wings, and we've certainly had high level politicians and
you know, presidents that kind of go in for that
kind of stuff. I don't see how it's that much different.
Speaker 3 (42:26):
Yeah, you know, I think that's an astute observation. We'd
love to hear your thoughts, Reaganites or anybody who met
Ronnie firsthand. I want to thank on air Noel again
for getting the etymology of the Gipper worse Kipper I
was not aware of at the time. We have another
(42:46):
thought from Uncle Sam, who says, my second thought is
regarding astrology. I want to make the argument that is
not completely hocus focus. To be clear, I'm not saying
daily horoscopes or accurate predictions or anything of the sort.
I'd like to take a step back and consider the
possibilities in a logical and I'm going to say it
scientifically based manner. And so with this, and we'll cut
(43:09):
a little bit for time with this, Uncle Sam, you
provide several links to some fascinating studies, one by the
National Center for Atmospheric Research, one by the good folks
at Columbia University. And the study from Colombia is interesting
because it finds correlations between the month a person is
(43:30):
born in and the health conditions they will later develop.
Speaker 4 (43:35):
Well, Ben, we certainly know that there are forces at
work from celestial bodies that govern things like the tides,
and you know, we've even seen examples with women's you know,
menstrual cycles having to do with lunar cycles as well. Again,
I'm sorry, I'm sort of like being a little general,
(43:55):
but I would put forth, is it that much of
a stretch believe that there are forces exerting themselves on
us and on our fragile fetuses, you know, at certain
times of the year that could make changes. I don't know.
I think it's certainly a valid thing to consider.
Speaker 3 (44:16):
Awesome, Yeah, yeah, because the thing I was talking about
is about the possibility of maybe gravitational effects on a
developing human brain. So it's worth looking into, is it not?
And Uncle Sam says the hypothesis is that humans have
been observing the world for thousands of years, the weather,
the atmosphere, the astronomical arrangements as a species, says Uncle Sam,
(44:37):
I would submit there exists a wealth of communal knowledge.
At some point in time, our ancestors started to log
data points or data your mileage is up to you,
and started to notice recurring patterns and then started to
predict certain aspects of life, like when was the best
time to plant crops, when was the best time to
harvest those crops. Over time, these points become common knowledge.
(45:01):
Folks start to notice patterns, they start to correlate patterns,
and these correlations go beyond their crops. Correlations like children
born in late spring typically grew up to be the
healthiest people born in late autumn. More likely to have
mental health problems, etc. And so, with all this in mind,
Uncle Sam says, is it so far fetched to suggest
(45:23):
that earlier humans found cycles and patterns to also have
a significant correlation with attributes and behaviors of their fellow
human beings. There's a lot more to it, but I
want to get us to I want to get us
to a point you make, your uncle Sam, you say
to Wit, I believe that at some point in the future,
(45:43):
a bunch of dedicated astrologists will load every data set
they can find from as far back as they can
find into an artificial intelligence program that compares astrology to
real world data sets and spits out a model that
has an accuracy rate above fifty, which would make it
scientifically significant and make it legit.
Speaker 2 (46:05):
I'm I'm stuck in daily horoscopes and trying to I'm
clicking through them, trying to find things that correlate to
what you're saying so that I can have a call
out to our horoscope. But none of them are. They're
they're so varied on all these sites.
Speaker 3 (46:18):
Keep them there all right? Well, sorry, Noda, what are
the okay? Well, as as a group of leos, as
a pride a lot. Yes, what do we got?
Speaker 2 (46:29):
I don't know. I found out Chris Hemsworth is born
right around the same time that we are.
Speaker 3 (46:32):
I don't know that checks out.
Speaker 2 (46:35):
They're talking about retrograding venus and all kinds of stuff
that doesn't make sense. Guys, But hey, we may discover
a talent that we've been neglecting. It has a resurgence
and it's going to bring us more money, is what it.
Speaker 3 (46:49):
Says, you know of the one of the things speaking
of fortune telling and stuff, one of the things that
I always do when I'm abroad, especially in uh well,
I'll just say it, like when when I end up
in Japan. There there are all these shrines where they
will give you a fortune for a very small amount
of money, and I've just stopped opening them. I carry
(47:12):
them around and if someone's having a like a bad day,
then I will give them a fortune.
Speaker 2 (47:17):
And you should do the same thing with the magic cards.
Speaker 3 (47:20):
I knew you were going to say it, but they're
for you.
Speaker 2 (47:23):
Therefore, yeah, you as in.
Speaker 3 (47:28):
Okay, it's for you, as in the people of bald Knob, Queenslant.
This is our segue, your little letter from home, cleanse
the palette have some fun in these our challenging times. Guys.
Black Shep or black Sheep black Shepey wrote to us
and said, greetings chaps, condolences on the collapse of your
(47:51):
once proud nation. Black Shep. Yeah, I know it's that
Australian humor for you. Black Shep is the name in
educating Americans about Australia is my game.
Speaker 5 (48:01):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
Please find attached the list of places you should visit
when you come down Under. Please be sure to have
a live session in either Sydney or Melbourne, or pronounce
it correctly to convince your suits that you can make
a buck on the tour. Now, we just got this
crazy list of Australia's worst place names. Did you guys
(48:22):
see this?
Speaker 4 (48:24):
Give it to us? I can't wait. I want to
hear it cold.
Speaker 2 (48:26):
I saw this randomly somewhere else and I don't know.
This must be in the zeitgeist. This is a this
is a great list.
Speaker 3 (48:35):
Let's just you know what, let's just round rob it now.
We're going to start at the top. We're going to
read these as quickly as possible. Maybe maybe we do
rounds of five.
Speaker 4 (48:46):
Are these really real?
Speaker 3 (48:47):
All right?
Speaker 4 (48:48):
Well?
Speaker 3 (48:48):
Holy Cow the first time, Australia's Worst Place.
Speaker 4 (48:55):
These are real places. We're going to give you.
Speaker 3 (48:57):
The We're going to give you the town names. Uh
not not the wider thing, just for time. Okay, I'll
kick this off. We'll do five at a time. Bald Knob,
big Dick, Boar, big knob, water Hole, Bonar Street, Boobs,
Flat Booby Island.
Speaker 4 (49:12):
Boomer's Bottom, bottom hole, break Wind Reserve, bull Hill, bum
Bum bum Bum Creek. That's my favorite. I want to
live in Bumbum Creek.
Speaker 2 (49:29):
I guess I'll say it.
Speaker 3 (49:31):
I get sick. Yeah, I did six to push you
into this one.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
Kids, close your ears, Burnt pussy, mine, Humman's knob, cockwash, Dancing,
Dick's Creek, dead Woman's Hole hole.
Speaker 4 (49:45):
Dead Woman's hole.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
And then of course there's the opper, Dirty Dick Creek,
double knob, finger Buttress, funny knob Creek and goat knobs.
Speaker 4 (49:56):
We got great Dick Hill, Groper Grotto. That's the that's
in the play. Guy guys, guys, dirty hole, hopping, Dick's Creek,
Hooker Park, horny point horse, knob, horse cocks.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, oh yeah, here you go in a loup intercourse
Island licking hole.
Speaker 4 (50:23):
Incurse Island should be like a reality show.
Speaker 3 (50:25):
I think it is.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
I think that was a joke thing. I feel like
i've heard Intercourse Island before.
Speaker 4 (50:32):
I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. You said licking hole.
Speaker 2 (50:34):
Yeah, licking hole. I want to say Nick Kroll is
involved with Intercourse Island.
Speaker 4 (50:38):
And then it's you know what, it's probably one of
his sketches on croll Show. Maybe I make you.
Speaker 2 (50:43):
Wrong, licking hole, as you said, lovely bottom Minger, Well,
ming Inger, Well that's Minger being naughty about it. Okay,
but don't forget mossy nipple bend.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
How could I have? That's where I met my first love?
Speaker 3 (50:58):
And where would you be without where? Look, let's just
let's just cut this. Because we promised we would get
some fun us names to you, black sheep. So we
do want to give a shout out to all the
good folks in Tittybong Tit, Wobble Lane, Soy Bottom Point,
Shaving Holes, Creek. No, these are all in Australia, and
(51:18):
of course Mount Buggery Stinkhole.
Speaker 4 (51:20):
You didn't mention this. Can't forget stinkhole. We've also got
the butts and the nipples.
Speaker 3 (51:26):
This is ridiculous.
Speaker 4 (51:27):
He gave us. They forged this so that we'd say
naughty things on our PG thirteen podcast.
Speaker 3 (51:32):
So fair is fair. With pro quo plarice, we're going
to give you and all of our Australian listeners some
fun names from US towns. Welcome to Satan's Kingdom Massachusetts.
There's also ding Dong, Texas, Handsome Eddie, New York. That
guy's a legend. And then why not North Carolina.
Speaker 4 (51:55):
I don't want to why not.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Shout out to my hometown, Coming.
Speaker 3 (52:00):
George Georgia I was talking about covered earlier.
Speaker 4 (52:04):
Coming is number one on ten tiny American towns with
unbelievably obscene names.
Speaker 3 (52:10):
So there's toad Suck and Coming is also the home
of the kkking.
Speaker 4 (52:16):
These are not nearly as cool though, got it, that's
true as the Australian ones. We've got Climax Michigan, Hooker, Oklahoma.
We do have Intercourse, Pennsylvania. It's not an island though,
and Hornytown, North Carolina. Spread Eagle, Wisconsin is one of
my personal favorites.
Speaker 3 (52:32):
I like Frankenstein, Missouri, and I hope they're really.
Speaker 4 (52:36):
Leaning into that really quickly. I just found another site
that's got a bunch more briny breezes. These are all
in Florida, Bunker Donation, Fluffy Landing, some of these are
just silly need more Florida, Georgia. There's a place called
Ball's Ferry and Boneville, and of course Butts Coming Experiment, Faceville, Flippin'
(52:58):
gum Log, hard Up and Piles Marsh And that's it
for me, y'all.
Speaker 3 (53:03):
And then of course, since we're strating on, we can't
leave slickpoo, Idaho and Hell Michigan off the map there,
so we'd love to hear your favorite town names. Also,
while we are wrapping up tonight's listener Male segment, I
have a question for Tennessee Pal Dylan. What is doof
(53:24):
doof music?
Speaker 4 (53:27):
Doof doof music? Is four on the floor dance music
supposedly boots and Cats also known as boots and cats.
Speaker 2 (53:36):
There we go, OK, very confusing, but yes, I do
enjoy doof doof music?
Speaker 3 (53:41):
You heard it here first, folks. That's why that's why
we tune in for the breaking journalism of the day.
We want to hear from you, big big thanks, of course,
the Sam Black Chepe Noble Grand Humbug baby bird and easy.
Tell us what's on your mind. Give us thoughts for
something that you think your fellow listeners would enjoy in
(54:02):
an upcoming episode of stuff they don't want you to know.
Find us on a telephone, drop us a line to
the void, or find us on the other lines, the
on lines that are on in the d Internet.
Speaker 4 (54:15):
That's a right intercourse. No, that's the city. You can
find this at the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist
on Facebook with our Facebook group. Here's where it gets crazy.
Share some more dirty city names the world over. We
want to hear from you. There's a great community there
on that group on Facebook, so get in on the conversation.
You can also find us the Conspiracy Stuff on x FKA,
(54:36):
Twitter and on YouTube, or we have video content glor
for your pruising enjoyment. You can find this at the
handle Conspiracy Stuff Show however, on Instagram and or TikTok.
But wait, there's more.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
We have a phone number. It is one eight three
three std WYTK. When you call in, give yourself a
cool nickname and let us know if we can use
your name and message on the air. Tell us about
your hometown and whether or not it's got a weird name.
What's it known for? Is there anything weird going on
in the town?
Speaker 3 (55:04):
Weird museum?
Speaker 2 (55:06):
Yeah, by the way, coming Georgia. Also a home of
Flash of Crimson band from Forsyth Central not just the
KKK all right, Hey OKKK. If you got more to
say than could fit in a voicemail, why not instead
send us a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3 (55:20):
We are the entities that read every piece of correspondence
we receive. And hey, you can just hit us on
the email anytime. Whatever your preferred method of communication is.
We can all see if we can all respond. Would
love to hear your favorite doof doof music. We'd also
it's killing me. We'd also love to hear town names.
(55:41):
We'd love to hear your thoughts and horoscopes AI and
oh man, just the weirdest thought experiments you can come
up with. Join us out here in the dark conspiracy
at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2 (56:08):
Stuff they Don't Want You to Know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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