October 2, 2019 • 33 mins
When the guys get together to trace the story of secret societies, they aren't expecting a surprise guest to crash their podcast, revealing first-hand experience with some the most elite, secretive organizations in the United States.
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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 the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Welcome back
(00:24):
to the show. My name is Matt, my name is
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Michig, control dec and in spirit.
Because our guest super producer, Maya Cole is on the
Ones and Tues today, give it up for her. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. So check in.
(00:45):
First thing's first catch up checking. Well, yeah, so this week,
you guys, I went to Chuck E Cheese because my
son turned four yesterday. As as we're recording this and
um that that robot casino was fabulous. Sorry, we're recording, sir, sir,
Hello sir, what's going on in here? Hey? Wait a second?
(01:08):
Oh is this the uh? Is this the podcast? I
feel like I read conspiracies? Uh? Yeah, that's adorable. I'm
such a fan. What are I'm I'm sorry, I'm John Hodgment.
I used to be on television. Sometimes I thought I
that's right, John Hodgman, that's yeah. I have a podcast
as well. Yeah, were the side. I don't know what
(01:29):
you were talking about. Yeah, No, I was a PC
on the Apple Ads and uh, you know, I don't
know what else on my resume. I've traveled all over
the world. I've been in the upper echelons of fame,
and I've been granted a lot of exclusive access to
a lot of uh secret rooms and hidden parties and
stuff that you're not supposed to know, but I do.
You didn't write a book about it, did you. Uh? Yeah,
(01:51):
I did. Actually it's called Medallion Status. But that's not
why I'm here. I'm just you know, I was just
traveling through the secret tunnels on my way to U
secret World Government event and uh yeah, I have a
secret door right into your into your room here, so
I thought I was just check in and say hi,
I hear you're talking about the secret societies a little bit.
(02:12):
So thanks for coming. I always wonder what that door
was for. Yeah, that just leads to the to the
platform for the Golden Funicular the people of my status
get to use. God, this is some real deranged billionaires.
Well that is the character that I used to play
on the Daily Show. But Gau, it's just me. I mean,
there is a secret door here and I'm on my
way to a secret meeting, but it's just me. John Hodgman,
(02:35):
it's hard to tell. The lines are blurring so much
right now, Host of The Judge Show, Hodgman podcast and
author of the new book Medallion Status True Stories from
Secret Rooms, which has a portion in it. This is
a This is a book that's mostly about my my,
uh my job as a famous minor television personality and
(02:56):
what happened after, how unlikely and unusual it was that
I should be on camera at all the strange things
that happened to me while I was there, And then
what happened after I lost that job and panicked and
started chasing a new kind of status as a Diamond
Medallion member on the Delta, trying to become Diamond Medallion
(03:16):
in the Delta Frequent Flyer program. That's Verified Air. It's
I you know, I don't want I don't want to.
I don't want to give away the story of the book.
But I got it. I got I went diamond, I
went dime, John, and I appeared on His Dear Friend
Chuck Bryant's movie podcast earlier today, and I disclosed that
I am approaching silver medallion status, and I was told
(03:38):
that that is a trash status. What us just some
nonsense words came out of your head just then. I'm
sorry that it's as they say in West World. I
don't that doesn't look like anything to me. I don't
understand what you're talking about. That silver is a trash
medow hurting my ears. You've got a silver So how
does that compare to just like a guy who travels
(04:00):
coach and doesn't have a medallion at all? Well, what
does the medallion look like? It's an imaginary medillion. It
is a dumb, imaginary prize that I became obsessed with
when my TV show is canceled and I had stopped
working on the Daily Show and I wasn't on TV anymore.
And as a lot of people do when their status
(04:20):
starts to slip, whether whether you are uh losing a
television job, or you're you're you're aging out of your
own job, or you're getting older as a parent and
your kids don't think you're a celebrity anymore, or you're
a member of the rural white working class, and you
feel that the privilege that is due to you as
(04:40):
being taken away, and therefore you vote for a particular president.
People do irrational things with political silver medallion talk, right,
he's gonna freak people out. I don't know. I think
you hit this universal, this universal key though, and I
want to I want to hear more because I myself,
not being a Diamond Medallion member, have moved adjacent. I
(05:03):
would see your name on that. You would know everyone. Yeah,
I would get a little notification, there's a little ceremony.
What I do notice is they actually say I'm not
Diamond medallion member anymore. I got it and I lost it.
But that's the whole point. That's the that's what makes
if you qualify for a certain medallion level, be at
(05:24):
uh gold, be at platinum, be a diamond. Those are
the only ones. Silver is a garbage medallion because it
just as a taunt. It reminds you that you're the
worst kind of medallions. It's better to be nothing than
to be a silver medial. They're all imaginary prizes that
you earn if you earn a certain amount of medallion
(05:44):
qualifying miles through travel and credit card spending by the
end of the year and then you're locked in. But
if you don't requalify the next year, then you drop
down in status. And it's frightening high stakes game. So
it's tay addictive video game. Now you were saying, I
interrupted always see It's true though. I've moved adjason in
those circles and they do say your name when you
(06:05):
get on the plane. That's what That's what got me started.
We'd like to welcome you know. Oh yeah, it's a
it's a big to do. When I had before this
TV show that I was on, I was I was
the the third best friend in this TV comedy called
Married on on FX that ran for two seasons. Was
great and then, like all television, got canceled. But when
(06:26):
it was cooking, I was flying. I was being flown
across the country over and over and over and over
again to work, and they were paying for my flight,
and they were contractually oblu paying me first class. I
was racking up the m q ms, the down qualifying miles.
I didn't even know this was happening. I didn't even
care until one day I was boarding a plane to
go home and the gate agent says, as as she
scanned in my ticket. Thank you, Mr Hodgman for being gold.
(06:51):
Thank you for being gold. Was so powerful, like to
an only child who exists, you know, who requires praise
and acknowledgement like oxygen, like to be thanked for just
for being never mind for being gold. I mean I
always thought it was gold, you know what I mean.
We all think we're gold, or we hope we are gold,
or we worry that maybe we're not as gold as
we think, and then we're just tricking people. But then
(07:13):
for someone to say, no, you're you're gold, your gold,
Well John has your gold, and then diamond and then
gold again. Status allowed you in any rooms that most
people would never ever even dare to step or ever
be allowed. Well, you do, you do get you do
get a membership to the sky Cloaks, the secret the
(07:34):
secret Societies of the Air, which you know, and it's
like there's not there's not a lot, there's not a
lot of human sacrifice going on in there. Uh. They
have some pretty good soups. I have to I have
to say they're they're tie chicken soup is pretty good.
I had tie chicken soup for lunch today from the
Delta Sky Club. No from soup because you're in Atlantic. Yeah,
(07:55):
it's good. It was really good. It's good. You see.
The thing. The problem with the one that you had
made it as good than the ones you get in
the Delta Sky Club is it was fresh. Probably was fresh.
You know. I'm the best. I'm gonna and I discussed
in the book The greatest uh jumbalaya that I've ever
eaten came out of the crock pot at the at
the sky the Delta sky Club. It's at Louis Armstrong
(08:17):
International Airport in New Orleans. The best, the best jumbal
you could get, because all soups and stews deepen in
flavor as they sit. They sit at a low temperature
for hours and days. It just it just got to
be so so delicious. Those are some secrets of the
(08:39):
Sky Club. But I've also gotten into other secret rooms
that I think might be more interesting to you because
I mentioned it earlier, as it were just a normal
thing that someone would drop by Book and Snake, one
of Yale's senior secret societies, for dinner of an evening.
But apparently not everyone can do it. Book and Snake.
I'm only familiar with Skull and Bones. I have to
(09:00):
leave now, goodbye. Wait, no, I'm not so. I I
went to I went to Yale, which is an accredited
four year college in southern Connecticut, and I was not
a member of Skull and Bones. For people who don't
know there, but any want to listen to this show
has to know about the secret societies of Yale. There
(09:21):
are senior societies. Yale is founded before there were frats,
and so they the young, the young privileged men of
Yale had to find other kinds forms of associations and
clubs so that they could group off and basically jack
off together. Before there were frats, you had you had
(09:41):
secret societies at Yale, which are these senior secret societies
where they initiate like fifteen to seventeen senior men to
go into a window lists clubhouse called a tomb and
tell secrets to each other in lion coffins and hang out.
Or you joined an acapella group. There's so much acathete.
It's the per capita amount of acapella and New Haven
(10:02):
is greater than anywhere else in the world. But what
really troubles me is no one's doing anything about it.
They're just letting it happen. There's just like hundreds of
acapella groups running wild through the New Haven Green I'm
fascinated by the connective tissue between the two. If there's
ever any secret acapella groups, well, there probably is a
little bit of overlap between the Skull and Bonesman and
the Wan Poofs, the premier acapella group in the collegiate
(10:26):
acafella group in the United States and the world, which
I was not a member of, but I'm still weirdly
proud of that. But I I was fascinated with secret
rooms growing up in high school and secret societies and
the Masons and the Club thirty three before everyone knew
about it, and all of these rooms. I always wanted
(10:48):
to go into these rooms that that you couldn't just
walk into unless you were invited or whatever, or had
a golden funicular who could take it to a secret
panelnge jump into podcast or diamond medallion, diamond medall or
diamond meddall for example. And it's you know, these arbitrary
signs of status that that don't don't make you a
better person, but make you feel suddenly like you're loved
(11:10):
by an institution or whatever, It's just it's a sick
addiction anyway. Basically, the reason I applied to Yelle was
that they had secret societies, Scalm Bones being the most
famous one, the Scalm Bones being you know, reputed to
(11:30):
be the pipeline too, Illuminati superstatus, secret world government control,
the diamond medallion of Conspirat Diamond medallion. It's like Yale
Skull and Bones. That's the top. Like, you know, oh,
I'm sorry, you just went to the Builderberg group once. No,
this is skull and Bones now it was that? Was
(11:50):
that an actual secret society? The snake was it isn't
is an actual one. Yep, they're they're they're across the
street from the Grove Cemetery in New Haven and a
giant two and a half story limestone Greek Revival architecturally
significant edifice that has zero windows. It looks like a tomb.
(12:12):
They're called tombs. All of these secret societies at Yale.
We're all um founded by very wealthy young men. They
had their dad's architects make them. These clubhouses. They're all
littered throughout campus. You'll be walking along You're like, there's
a very handsome looking uh and and an important looking library.
Oh why does it have no windows? Because it's a
(12:33):
clubhouse for dumb dums. Dumb dum clubhouse for for secret weirdos.
So set the scene where they all roped up? I
mean where what was going on? Well, there's all there's
a limit to what I can reveal here. Wait a second,
there's also scrolling key. I just want to tell you
the other ones, Wolf said, scrolling key, Brazelis manuscript, scolland bones,
book and snake. Those are the Those are the biggins.
(12:54):
I like the ones that sound like combos, you know,
an bones. Yeah, no, that's you know, there was a
cross and key once, or there may be a cross
end key now. But you want to get the big
big ones. All are blank and blanks. Really yeah, maybe
we should start something like that, right, it's you start
the blank and blanks and bags and badgers. But to
answer your question, no, they don't wear they don't wear robes.
(13:16):
And I know this because when I was a fresh
person at Yale, I got invited to a party of
Book and Snake, and I was very very excited. This
was new, like this is the reason I had come here,
and it's here. It is for semester and I got
so excited that I drank a lot before going to
(13:37):
the party. And then I went into the party, and
I I went up to the top of the stairs,
and then I fell down the stairs. And then I
woke up in the hospital. And I know that all
of that happened, because it was told to me that
had happened. But my only memory is walking up to
the door. And that's the last thing I remember until
(14:01):
and so it nod at me for my rest of
my life. First of all, let me give some advice
to college students. Don't get drunk and fall down the stairs.
You're not immortal. I'm very, very lucky. I didn't hurt myself, Like, don't,
don't do it. So to be fair, you don't know
if they were roped up or not because you were unconscious.
What was that? What was but I what? But I
had blacked out? Do you know what I mean? Now,
(14:24):
there's there's certain people who attended Yale and may or
may not be sitting on the Supreme Court now who
believed that blacking out is not a thing that happens.
The FBI did a whole impression of an investigation. Did
they did? They did? They did? The Illuminati investigation. It
was nothing to see here. Investigation are positive. You didn't
(14:46):
get initiated that night, and that was part of it.
I had no idea. I mean I had friends who
were there, one of whom Jonathan Colton, is a musician
and a dear friend still and a whiffan Poof by
the way, the most prestigiously an acapella group in the world.
That's right, friends with a woman poof. You know, I'm
bragging ya? Is that sort of like hufflepuff? No? Uh,
(15:08):
it's yeah, I mean it's all it's it isn't so
far as it's all nonsense words. Guy. Anyway, I uh,
he was there. He knew, he said he saw me
in there. I knew that I had been in there.
It's an nerving thing to have a memory that you
cannot recall, and especially when you were going into the
secret society that you wanted to see so badly, and
(15:30):
you realize that those secret sides are pretty powerful. They
know how to erase a mind, like they took out
They took that memory right out of my head. And
you might be a legend to them. They might be
hanging out and they're like, oh man, you remember stairs guy, Well,
he was wild. I don't. I don't know how much
they thought about me for years and years and years
until you showed up on TV. And I don't think
(15:51):
they thought about me then either. I think they started
thinking about me once I started like telling this story
in public, and I included it in a book, and
I and I and I wrote about it online and
I got a call from I got an email from
CO signed by a man and a woman, both members
(16:11):
of Book and Snake. I won't reveal their names. We'll
call them Booker and Snake. You cool. And they said, wait,
sorry that you have I'm sorry this has been haunting
you for so long. We often we have a dinner
every Thursday. We often invite interesting people to join us.
Do you want to have dinner with us? And I
was like, yeah, I do, And I was I was
really excited to go back and see see what see
(16:34):
what I had seen but couldn't remember having seen. And uh,
I'll tell you this much and this and and there's
more in the book. They're all very nice. No robes,
the secrets of the secret Society, or these If you're
invited to a secret society at Yale for dinner, and
(16:54):
you arrived to the dining room fifteen minutes late. All
the span of copita will be gone, they sir of uh.
There was a veal and a fish. The dining rooms
in the basement, red leather chairs, all with an aura
boros uh and and and a book inscribed on the back.
You get to meet with seventeen right young people now
men and women not. It's obviously and has been. I
(17:16):
think Book and Snake particularly has been much more diverse
than the other. Some of the others um there are
there will be a chaperone there, an older alum to
make sure that things get don't get out of hand.
Secret of the secret Society Yale Wine and beer only
smart you know. Uh. And then there's some other they'll
(17:38):
some alums might come and have dinner with you two
some more recent alums of of Book and Snake slash Yale.
So there's a guy named James there who has think
was in his early thirties, and he had just told
me that he had been named. He works for the
city government. He's the transportations are of New Haven. So
I just want to say to any Alex Jones listeners
out there, if you were worried that the Illuminati, uh
(18:00):
and secret societies might be controlling the bus and train
schedules in certain southern Connecticut towns. You're absolutely right. Secret
societies are running are running the trains in southern Connecticut.
Oh my god. You know here in Atlanta, we would
kill for some secret society involvement in transit. Please let
the r yeah, let me tell, Let me tell James.
(18:23):
I think I have his last name somewhere. And then
and then the chaperone will leave because he's got to
go home. Oh that everyone sings a little song. I
don't remember what it goes, cheveron leaves. And then the
young people say you want to hang out some more,
and I'm like sure, And you'll go up to a
(18:43):
chill room that looks exactly like a college dorm room,
except no windows. And then they'll reach over to a
little captain's chest in the corner. And I don't want
to knock on these kids, But can you guess what
was in it? Hard alcohol? They are hiding it from
their own remember, because they still college. I know I
was initiated into a secret, secret society, within the secret society.
(19:06):
It was great, But I'll tell you one other thing.
Sorry follow up questions. Oh, I was just gonna say,
are you are you okay with disclosing this? Um, well,
obviously I'm doing it. Why are you? Are you threatened?
Are you threatening and or offering to murder me? No?
Looking after your first little safety. Quite the opposite. They
(19:28):
book and Snake invited. They've been inviting me into their
clubhouse for years, started when I was a freshman in college. Embedded. Yeah,
I mean, they're they're chilly, they they and in fact,
you know, they thought it was they thought the story
was funny. Uh, these secret societies don't control the universe,
(19:48):
you know what I mean. I don't know what's going
on at Skull and Bones. I knew a guy who
was in Skull and Bones, and he was like, we
just sit around, you know, we have dinner. He was
he was a member of the class that was the
first to admit. Meant to to tap women to join
the next year's class. And the alumni got so furious
that they were trying to make make scalan Bones co
(20:09):
educational that the alumni members came and changed the locks
on the tomb to lock them out of their own clubhouse.
So there these are old institutions that are obviously weird,
krusty monuments to a certain kind of privilege. But as
far as I could tell Inside Book and Snake, it's
just young, young, interesting young people who have been given
(20:30):
this opportunity to play in a window list building for
a while and be friends. You know, I don't know
how serious we want to get with this, but there
is there is something worth exploring that we've talked about
(20:51):
before on this show where we we had one election
where I believe it was George h No, George W.
Bush and Kerry were both members me and and just
that concept. But again, if you break if you really
break it down, it's like there are two members of
the same fraternity um running together. But I think the nomenclature,
(21:13):
the title of having it a secret society creates that
anxiety within me a little bit. But you know, the public,
of course, I mean, if you if you don't, if
you don't have diamond medallion and you're not in that
sky club, you're wondering what's going on behind those doors? Something,
something is, something freaky is happening people. People are actually
being treated like human beings in there. Yeah, I think
(21:37):
that's a very good point. But I'll say something else
that's true is that, obviously, if you go to an
an elite college or institution like Yale or many others
already you're you know, you're forging contacts with people who
you know statistically are if not likely that you probably
(21:58):
know some people who are pretty powerful. You know, as
you look, I became a literary agent and a service journalist,
and now I'm a carnival jester. You know, I'm nothing.
I don't have any power, but I definitely know people.
You know, I remember people from college who are now
in positions of power. Samantha Power, for example, the former
the former ambassador to the U n not not not
(22:20):
not only powerful, but named Power. It's her name. She
and I were college the same time. I didn't know her,
but sure. But you know, these institutions do self select
into into groupings and whether or not, and then if
you super select into into something like a secret society,
(22:41):
you know there there is a kind of soft conspiracy
of acquaintanceship and given people a leg up if possible.
And it happens in networks of any kind, you know, however,
whatever kind of trappings churches. I mean, that's a big
one too. Yeah, exactly. But but that's said, uh that
there is a there is a secret retreat that I
(23:03):
attended that I will not name, that is also described
in the book. Is a retreat that I was surprised
to be invited to host, hosted by someone who enjoys
surrounding him or herself with interesting celebrities, business leaders, government officials,
(23:24):
former government officials, entertainers, writers, artists. It's a wonderful time.
We all have a great time together. It's all off
the record. People aren't supposed to talk about what happened.
There no weaving spiders allowed. There no weaving spiders. So
it wasn't the Bohemian Club. No, it was not the
Union Growth. No, that's I would tell you if I
(23:46):
gotten that. There's the thing that I want to go
back to. Okay, it's to and it's totally it's totally
benign and of an evening they might invite someone like
gather everyone together for a performance of a kind. And
this performance was a professional performing pickpocket, an incredibly talented
(24:09):
performing pickpocket. Well name because he's an amazing person. Abollo
Robbins is his name, Robbins, Look him up. He is
so skilled, and his his bit was inviting audience members
on stage and picking their pockets. And he would invite
famous people, entertainers or whatever, um up and um, and
(24:30):
I'll talk to them and said, would you ever breakfast today?
And you wouldn't even see him touch them, And all
of a sudden he's holding their wristwatch above their head,
behind them and they didn't know it was gone. But
the audience sees it, right, and everyone laughs, and the
and the and the famous person laughs because it's okay too.
It's okay to be humiliated a little bit in public. Right,
if you're secure, it doesn't matter, right. But there is
(24:51):
one government official who would not play. He would not
get up on stage. He or she should say, they
would not get up on stage. They would not allow
themselves to to be uh pickpocketed or to have their
wristwatch taken because they could not for whatever reason, I'd
(25:14):
be speculating to guess what it was. They could not
tolerate having their status reduced because they're between their status
and status was the only thing that stood between them
and oblivion. Basically. And this person has become president. This person, no,
this person is a former government official. There's no point
(25:35):
in trying to figure out who it is understood, that's
not the story. This is a parable. It's a parable
about about someone who had done some very good things
in public life and had made a big mistake in
public life, and could not tolerate even never mind the
mention of that big mistake, but even the faintest slap
of the wrist, of having their their wrist watch literally
(25:57):
manipulated off their wrist in public. It would be too humiliating.
And they hid their money in their shoe so that
they wouldn't be they wouldn't have their money their wallet pickpocketed.
And you know, when people lose their status, or perceive
or feel a threat to their status, they will do
irrational things. That's not the moral of this story. The
(26:17):
moral of this story is that this happened to meaning
happened to be held in a Masonic lodge. It was
not a Masonic meeting the Mason's. It's beautiful lodge and
a grand meeting room and was one of the nicer
rooms in this particular town where you could go to
have an event like this. And the Masons are out
of money and they needed to rent it to this
(26:39):
But nonetheless I sat there realizing, so here I am.
Here's one of the most famous actors in the world.
Here's this incredible business like the most famous businessman in
the world. Here's this former government official. There's George R.
Martin allowed him to there there, there's this famous person
(27:00):
and that famous person, and this powerful person and this
powerful person, and we're all here. We are literally all
here together, literally meeting in secret, literally in a Masonic lodge.
This is happening right now watching the art of pickpocketing,
watching the art of pickpocketing. But you go tell that
to Alex Jones. I mean, this heart's about to explode
(27:21):
anyone because it's full of brisket, juice or whatever. But
you know it's it's the Illuminati is real. The Illuminati
is real. Like secret meetings of world leaders are happening
in Masonic lodges. We're not discussing how, you know, how
how how to manipulate you know, how to make may
(27:42):
feel like governments in the war, to form of one
world government or anything like that. We're basically just entertaining
ourselves here. First, folks, the Luminati is real. And I
thought I thought you needed to know that, and the
and the conversation by closed doors is more like have
you tried that jambalaya at the sky close? Because I
think it's because they let it sit right. Well, it's
all And the conversation behind doors is all people just
(28:04):
trying to get jobs off of each other because they're
afraid they're they're afraid they're status is slipping to you know. Yeah,
I do have one question, just really fast. Were you
allowed I'm in the time that this occurred. Did you
have a cell phone with a camera on it? Because
I'm imagining a room of of you know, with people
of that caliber in secret doing a thing like that
at a retreat. I'm assuming you would put cell phones
(28:25):
awhere you'd have to mandatorily put away. There were no
rules about I mean, people were like, you know, don't
don't tweet about this. It was low key. I mean,
I'm hoping it was fairly low key. Because I'm telling
the story. I'll I'm not revealing details. I'm afraid they'll
be mad at me. But I suspect they won't read
my book. Yeah, and you want to go back, Yeah,
(28:46):
I'd like to go indeed again. And it was fascinating,
it was interesting and the book is fascinating as well.
Thank you, John Hodgeman Medallion status True Stories from Secret Rooms.
It's available now wherever you it's available to pre order.
I believe for pre order right. Look, I don't know
when this is coming out, so let's just talk to
the time travelers. Time travelers. If you have arrived in
(29:07):
this timeline before October en, you may preorder my book
at bit dot lee slash medallion status b I T
dot l Y slash medallion status all one word, all
capital letters. If you have materialized after October, it's not
too late, go to a bookstore and buy it. Or
come see me on my book tour on on tour
(29:27):
in October and November, and all the details are there
John Hodgman dot com slash tour and I'll be in
Atlanta in November along with my judge, John Hodgman podcast
uh in November two at the Variety. So I hope
to see you guys again. Who will do you have
a bailiff for that show? Yeah, Jesse, Jesse Thorne, my
regular bailiff is going to be there and I will
(29:49):
be I will be selling books there, and you know
I I because I don't. I don't want to punish
people who pre order who then come to the book events,
because some of the book events you have to buy
a book to get in. Some of them, you know,
they might leave the book at home and buy another one.
I don't want to, you know. I really hope that
people will pre order the book because that's the best
way to ensure the best launch for the book personally
(30:10):
for me. But in order to reward people who do
preorder and then come to the book event, anyone who
comes into the signing line, whether it's a Judge Sean
Hodgen show or a regular Medallen s tast book event
and they have two copies of the book that could
be a hardcover and an audio book, or a hardcover
and an e book because they've pre ordered or for
whatever reason, I have a special loyalty program reward for them.
(30:33):
Oh yeah, second, yeah, you get you. You. You may
notice that on the cover of the book there's a
a picture of two famous quargies of Instagram Linus the
Corky and Chompers the Quirky. They're very important in the book.
They were looking at a pamphlet here. It's wonderful. Yeah,
there's a whole book coming right now. That's well, this
part is great. So everyone who comes to a book
event and buys a copy of the book gets a
(30:56):
enamel pin featuring one of those orgies designed by Aaron Draplin,
designer of that of the cover. He's a famous and
great awesome dude designer, and that that is a famous
quirky pin. Everyone gets one of those just for showing
up and buying a book. If you buy two books,
because maybe you preordered one before coming to the event,
or you buy two books on site, or you bought
(31:17):
an audio book and now you get in the print dition,
whatever it is, you got two books on the sideline,
you get upgraded. You get a double corky pin. Whoa
three or more books or other or other uh uh,
over the top commitments to the cause you're gonna I'll
upgrade you discretionarily to triple quartery elite status for three
(31:39):
quarties one pin. So, since we're on an audio podcast,
listeners need to know that when John said that we
the three of us, had I think a fairly dramatic
was a double take. Yeah, yeah, And what are they?
Their pins? Their pins like you get from an airplane
pilot for going on a plane for being a kid.
They're nothing but the elite. And as an adult, if
(32:01):
you ask the pilots for the pins, they'll still give
it to you. Really, yeah, that's wonderful. You just have
to ask nicely and clearly. Not have that much respect
for yourself. That's what I did. Even if I'm silver door,
I'm getting out of here, even silver yet, stop showing
(32:25):
my eyes. Just so bad about myself. John Hodgman, that
really happened. He's really we have a door. He disappeared
down in the tunnel kind of Yeah. I think that
went well. I think that was incredible. I want to say,
I think he knows more than he's letting on. But
he was a very nice guy. That's true. M H.
(33:03):
Stuff They Don't Want You to Know is a production
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(33:44):
H
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Welcome back
(00:24):
to the show. My name is Matt, my name is
They call me Ben. We are joined as always with
our super producer Paul Michig, control dec and in spirit.
Because our guest super producer, Maya Cole is on the
Ones and Tues today, give it up for her. Most importantly,
you are you. You are here, and that makes this
stuff they don't want you to know. So check in.
(00:45):
First thing's first catch up checking. Well, yeah, so this week,
you guys, I went to Chuck E Cheese because my
son turned four yesterday. As as we're recording this and
um that that robot casino was fabulous. Sorry, we're recording, sir, sir,
Hello sir, what's going on in here? Hey? Wait a second?
(01:08):
Oh is this the uh? Is this the podcast? I
feel like I read conspiracies? Uh? Yeah, that's adorable. I'm
such a fan. What are I'm I'm sorry, I'm John Hodgment.
I used to be on television. Sometimes I thought I
that's right, John Hodgman, that's yeah. I have a podcast
as well. Yeah, were the side. I don't know what
(01:29):
you were talking about. Yeah, No, I was a PC
on the Apple Ads and uh, you know, I don't
know what else on my resume. I've traveled all over
the world. I've been in the upper echelons of fame,
and I've been granted a lot of exclusive access to
a lot of uh secret rooms and hidden parties and
stuff that you're not supposed to know, but I do.
You didn't write a book about it, did you. Uh? Yeah,
(01:51):
I did. Actually it's called Medallion Status. But that's not
why I'm here. I'm just you know, I was just
traveling through the secret tunnels on my way to U
secret World Government event and uh yeah, I have a
secret door right into your into your room here, so
I thought I was just check in and say hi,
I hear you're talking about the secret societies a little bit.
(02:12):
So thanks for coming. I always wonder what that door
was for. Yeah, that just leads to the to the
platform for the Golden Funicular the people of my status
get to use. God, this is some real deranged billionaires.
Well that is the character that I used to play
on the Daily Show. But Gau, it's just me. I mean,
there is a secret door here and I'm on my
way to a secret meeting, but it's just me. John Hodgman,
(02:35):
it's hard to tell. The lines are blurring so much
right now, Host of The Judge Show, Hodgman podcast and
author of the new book Medallion Status True Stories from
Secret Rooms, which has a portion in it. This is
a This is a book that's mostly about my my,
uh my job as a famous minor television personality and
(02:56):
what happened after, how unlikely and unusual it was that
I should be on camera at all the strange things
that happened to me while I was there, And then
what happened after I lost that job and panicked and
started chasing a new kind of status as a Diamond
Medallion member on the Delta, trying to become Diamond Medallion
(03:16):
in the Delta Frequent Flyer program. That's Verified Air. It's
I you know, I don't want I don't want to.
I don't want to give away the story of the book.
But I got it. I got I went diamond, I
went dime, John, and I appeared on His Dear Friend
Chuck Bryant's movie podcast earlier today, and I disclosed that
I am approaching silver medallion status, and I was told
(03:38):
that that is a trash status. What us just some
nonsense words came out of your head just then. I'm
sorry that it's as they say in West World. I
don't that doesn't look like anything to me. I don't
understand what you're talking about. That silver is a trash
medow hurting my ears. You've got a silver So how
does that compare to just like a guy who travels
(04:00):
coach and doesn't have a medallion at all? Well, what
does the medallion look like? It's an imaginary medillion. It
is a dumb, imaginary prize that I became obsessed with
when my TV show is canceled and I had stopped
working on the Daily Show and I wasn't on TV anymore.
And as a lot of people do when their status
(04:20):
starts to slip, whether whether you are uh losing a
television job, or you're you're you're aging out of your
own job, or you're getting older as a parent and
your kids don't think you're a celebrity anymore, or you're
a member of the rural white working class, and you
feel that the privilege that is due to you as
(04:40):
being taken away, and therefore you vote for a particular president.
People do irrational things with political silver medallion talk, right,
he's gonna freak people out. I don't know. I think
you hit this universal, this universal key though, and I
want to I want to hear more because I myself,
not being a Diamond Medallion member, have moved adjacent. I
(05:03):
would see your name on that. You would know everyone. Yeah,
I would get a little notification, there's a little ceremony.
What I do notice is they actually say I'm not
Diamond medallion member anymore. I got it and I lost it.
But that's the whole point. That's the that's what makes
if you qualify for a certain medallion level, be at
(05:24):
uh gold, be at platinum, be a diamond. Those are
the only ones. Silver is a garbage medallion because it
just as a taunt. It reminds you that you're the
worst kind of medallions. It's better to be nothing than
to be a silver medial. They're all imaginary prizes that
you earn if you earn a certain amount of medallion
(05:44):
qualifying miles through travel and credit card spending by the
end of the year and then you're locked in. But
if you don't requalify the next year, then you drop
down in status. And it's frightening high stakes game. So
it's tay addictive video game. Now you were saying, I
interrupted always see It's true though. I've moved adjason in
those circles and they do say your name when you
(06:05):
get on the plane. That's what That's what got me started.
We'd like to welcome you know. Oh yeah, it's a
it's a big to do. When I had before this
TV show that I was on, I was I was
the the third best friend in this TV comedy called
Married on on FX that ran for two seasons. Was
great and then, like all television, got canceled. But when
(06:26):
it was cooking, I was flying. I was being flown
across the country over and over and over and over
again to work, and they were paying for my flight,
and they were contractually oblu paying me first class. I
was racking up the m q ms, the down qualifying miles.
I didn't even know this was happening. I didn't even
care until one day I was boarding a plane to
go home and the gate agent says, as as she
scanned in my ticket. Thank you, Mr Hodgman for being gold.
(06:51):
Thank you for being gold. Was so powerful, like to
an only child who exists, you know, who requires praise
and acknowledgement like oxygen, like to be thanked for just
for being never mind for being gold. I mean I
always thought it was gold, you know what I mean.
We all think we're gold, or we hope we are gold,
or we worry that maybe we're not as gold as
we think, and then we're just tricking people. But then
(07:13):
for someone to say, no, you're you're gold, your gold,
Well John has your gold, and then diamond and then
gold again. Status allowed you in any rooms that most
people would never ever even dare to step or ever
be allowed. Well, you do, you do get you do
get a membership to the sky Cloaks, the secret the
(07:34):
secret Societies of the Air, which you know, and it's
like there's not there's not a lot, there's not a
lot of human sacrifice going on in there. Uh. They
have some pretty good soups. I have to I have
to say they're they're tie chicken soup is pretty good.
I had tie chicken soup for lunch today from the
Delta Sky Club. No from soup because you're in Atlantic. Yeah,
(07:55):
it's good. It was really good. It's good. You see.
The thing. The problem with the one that you had
made it as good than the ones you get in
the Delta Sky Club is it was fresh. Probably was fresh.
You know. I'm the best. I'm gonna and I discussed
in the book The greatest uh jumbalaya that I've ever
eaten came out of the crock pot at the at
the sky the Delta sky Club. It's at Louis Armstrong
(08:17):
International Airport in New Orleans. The best, the best jumbal
you could get, because all soups and stews deepen in
flavor as they sit. They sit at a low temperature
for hours and days. It just it just got to
be so so delicious. Those are some secrets of the
(08:39):
Sky Club. But I've also gotten into other secret rooms
that I think might be more interesting to you because
I mentioned it earlier, as it were just a normal
thing that someone would drop by Book and Snake, one
of Yale's senior secret societies, for dinner of an evening.
But apparently not everyone can do it. Book and Snake.
I'm only familiar with Skull and Bones. I have to
(09:00):
leave now, goodbye. Wait, no, I'm not so. I I
went to I went to Yale, which is an accredited
four year college in southern Connecticut, and I was not
a member of Skull and Bones. For people who don't
know there, but any want to listen to this show
has to know about the secret societies of Yale. There
(09:21):
are senior societies. Yale is founded before there were frats,
and so they the young, the young privileged men of
Yale had to find other kinds forms of associations and
clubs so that they could group off and basically jack
off together. Before there were frats, you had you had
(09:41):
secret societies at Yale, which are these senior secret societies
where they initiate like fifteen to seventeen senior men to
go into a window lists clubhouse called a tomb and
tell secrets to each other in lion coffins and hang out.
Or you joined an acapella group. There's so much acathete.
It's the per capita amount of acapella and New Haven
(10:02):
is greater than anywhere else in the world. But what
really troubles me is no one's doing anything about it.
They're just letting it happen. There's just like hundreds of
acapella groups running wild through the New Haven Green I'm
fascinated by the connective tissue between the two. If there's
ever any secret acapella groups, well, there probably is a
little bit of overlap between the Skull and Bonesman and
the Wan Poofs, the premier acapella group in the collegiate
(10:26):
acafella group in the United States and the world, which
I was not a member of, but I'm still weirdly
proud of that. But I I was fascinated with secret
rooms growing up in high school and secret societies and
the Masons and the Club thirty three before everyone knew
about it, and all of these rooms. I always wanted
(10:48):
to go into these rooms that that you couldn't just
walk into unless you were invited or whatever, or had
a golden funicular who could take it to a secret
panelnge jump into podcast or diamond medallion, diamond medall or
diamond meddall for example. And it's you know, these arbitrary
signs of status that that don't don't make you a
better person, but make you feel suddenly like you're loved
(11:10):
by an institution or whatever, It's just it's a sick
addiction anyway. Basically, the reason I applied to Yelle was
that they had secret societies, Scalm Bones being the most
famous one, the Scalm Bones being you know, reputed to
(11:30):
be the pipeline too, Illuminati superstatus, secret world government control,
the diamond medallion of Conspirat Diamond medallion. It's like Yale
Skull and Bones. That's the top. Like, you know, oh,
I'm sorry, you just went to the Builderberg group once. No,
this is skull and Bones now it was that? Was
(11:50):
that an actual secret society? The snake was it isn't
is an actual one. Yep, they're they're they're across the
street from the Grove Cemetery in New Haven and a
giant two and a half story limestone Greek Revival architecturally
significant edifice that has zero windows. It looks like a tomb.
(12:12):
They're called tombs. All of these secret societies at Yale.
We're all um founded by very wealthy young men. They
had their dad's architects make them. These clubhouses. They're all
littered throughout campus. You'll be walking along You're like, there's
a very handsome looking uh and and an important looking library.
Oh why does it have no windows? Because it's a
(12:33):
clubhouse for dumb dums. Dumb dum clubhouse for for secret weirdos.
So set the scene where they all roped up? I
mean where what was going on? Well, there's all there's
a limit to what I can reveal here. Wait a second,
there's also scrolling key. I just want to tell you
the other ones, Wolf said, scrolling key, Brazelis manuscript, scolland bones,
book and snake. Those are the Those are the biggins.
(12:54):
I like the ones that sound like combos, you know,
an bones. Yeah, no, that's you know, there was a
cross and key once, or there may be a cross
end key now. But you want to get the big
big ones. All are blank and blanks. Really yeah, maybe
we should start something like that, right, it's you start
the blank and blanks and bags and badgers. But to
answer your question, no, they don't wear they don't wear robes.
(13:16):
And I know this because when I was a fresh
person at Yale, I got invited to a party of
Book and Snake, and I was very very excited. This
was new, like this is the reason I had come here,
and it's here. It is for semester and I got
so excited that I drank a lot before going to
(13:37):
the party. And then I went into the party, and
I I went up to the top of the stairs,
and then I fell down the stairs. And then I
woke up in the hospital. And I know that all
of that happened, because it was told to me that
had happened. But my only memory is walking up to
the door. And that's the last thing I remember until
(14:01):
and so it nod at me for my rest of
my life. First of all, let me give some advice
to college students. Don't get drunk and fall down the stairs.
You're not immortal. I'm very, very lucky. I didn't hurt myself, Like, don't,
don't do it. So to be fair, you don't know
if they were roped up or not because you were unconscious.
What was that? What was but I what? But I
had blacked out? Do you know what I mean? Now,
(14:24):
there's there's certain people who attended Yale and may or
may not be sitting on the Supreme Court now who
believed that blacking out is not a thing that happens.
The FBI did a whole impression of an investigation. Did
they did? They did? They did? The Illuminati investigation. It
was nothing to see here. Investigation are positive. You didn't
(14:46):
get initiated that night, and that was part of it.
I had no idea. I mean I had friends who
were there, one of whom Jonathan Colton, is a musician
and a dear friend still and a whiffan Poof by
the way, the most prestigiously an acapella group in the world.
That's right, friends with a woman poof. You know, I'm
bragging ya? Is that sort of like hufflepuff? No? Uh,
(15:08):
it's yeah, I mean it's all it's it isn't so
far as it's all nonsense words. Guy. Anyway, I uh,
he was there. He knew, he said he saw me
in there. I knew that I had been in there.
It's an nerving thing to have a memory that you
cannot recall, and especially when you were going into the
secret society that you wanted to see so badly, and
(15:30):
you realize that those secret sides are pretty powerful. They
know how to erase a mind, like they took out
They took that memory right out of my head. And
you might be a legend to them. They might be
hanging out and they're like, oh man, you remember stairs guy, Well,
he was wild. I don't. I don't know how much
they thought about me for years and years and years
until you showed up on TV. And I don't think
(15:51):
they thought about me then either. I think they started
thinking about me once I started like telling this story
in public, and I included it in a book, and
I and I and I wrote about it online and
I got a call from I got an email from
CO signed by a man and a woman, both members
(16:11):
of Book and Snake. I won't reveal their names. We'll
call them Booker and Snake. You cool. And they said, wait,
sorry that you have I'm sorry this has been haunting
you for so long. We often we have a dinner
every Thursday. We often invite interesting people to join us.
Do you want to have dinner with us? And I
was like, yeah, I do, And I was I was
really excited to go back and see see what see
(16:34):
what I had seen but couldn't remember having seen. And uh,
I'll tell you this much and this and and there's
more in the book. They're all very nice. No robes,
the secrets of the secret Society, or these If you're
invited to a secret society at Yale for dinner, and
(16:54):
you arrived to the dining room fifteen minutes late. All
the span of copita will be gone, they sir of uh.
There was a veal and a fish. The dining rooms
in the basement, red leather chairs, all with an aura
boros uh and and and a book inscribed on the back.
You get to meet with seventeen right young people now
men and women not. It's obviously and has been. I
(17:16):
think Book and Snake particularly has been much more diverse
than the other. Some of the others um there are
there will be a chaperone there, an older alum to
make sure that things get don't get out of hand.
Secret of the secret Society Yale Wine and beer only
smart you know. Uh. And then there's some other they'll
(17:38):
some alums might come and have dinner with you two
some more recent alums of of Book and Snake slash Yale.
So there's a guy named James there who has think
was in his early thirties, and he had just told
me that he had been named. He works for the
city government. He's the transportations are of New Haven. So
I just want to say to any Alex Jones listeners
out there, if you were worried that the Illuminati, uh
(18:00):
and secret societies might be controlling the bus and train
schedules in certain southern Connecticut towns. You're absolutely right. Secret
societies are running are running the trains in southern Connecticut.
Oh my god. You know here in Atlanta, we would
kill for some secret society involvement in transit. Please let
the r yeah, let me tell, Let me tell James.
(18:23):
I think I have his last name somewhere. And then
and then the chaperone will leave because he's got to
go home. Oh that everyone sings a little song. I
don't remember what it goes, cheveron leaves. And then the
young people say you want to hang out some more,
and I'm like sure, And you'll go up to a
(18:43):
chill room that looks exactly like a college dorm room,
except no windows. And then they'll reach over to a
little captain's chest in the corner. And I don't want
to knock on these kids, But can you guess what
was in it? Hard alcohol? They are hiding it from
their own remember, because they still college. I know I
was initiated into a secret, secret society, within the secret society.
(19:06):
It was great, But I'll tell you one other thing.
Sorry follow up questions. Oh, I was just gonna say,
are you are you okay with disclosing this? Um, well,
obviously I'm doing it. Why are you? Are you threatened?
Are you threatening and or offering to murder me? No?
Looking after your first little safety. Quite the opposite. They
(19:28):
book and Snake invited. They've been inviting me into their
clubhouse for years, started when I was a freshman in college. Embedded. Yeah,
I mean, they're they're chilly, they they and in fact,
you know, they thought it was they thought the story
was funny. Uh, these secret societies don't control the universe,
(19:48):
you know what I mean. I don't know what's going
on at Skull and Bones. I knew a guy who
was in Skull and Bones, and he was like, we
just sit around, you know, we have dinner. He was
he was a member of the class that was the
first to admit. Meant to to tap women to join
the next year's class. And the alumni got so furious
that they were trying to make make scalan Bones co
(20:09):
educational that the alumni members came and changed the locks
on the tomb to lock them out of their own clubhouse.
So there these are old institutions that are obviously weird,
krusty monuments to a certain kind of privilege. But as
far as I could tell Inside Book and Snake, it's
just young, young, interesting young people who have been given
(20:30):
this opportunity to play in a window list building for
a while and be friends. You know, I don't know
how serious we want to get with this, but there
is there is something worth exploring that we've talked about
(20:51):
before on this show where we we had one election
where I believe it was George h No, George W.
Bush and Kerry were both members me and and just
that concept. But again, if you break if you really
break it down, it's like there are two members of
the same fraternity um running together. But I think the nomenclature,
(21:13):
the title of having it a secret society creates that
anxiety within me a little bit. But you know, the public,
of course, I mean, if you if you don't, if
you don't have diamond medallion and you're not in that
sky club, you're wondering what's going on behind those doors? Something,
something is, something freaky is happening people. People are actually
being treated like human beings in there. Yeah, I think
(21:37):
that's a very good point. But I'll say something else
that's true is that, obviously, if you go to an
an elite college or institution like Yale or many others
already you're you know, you're forging contacts with people who
you know statistically are if not likely that you probably
(21:58):
know some people who are pretty powerful. You know, as
you look, I became a literary agent and a service journalist,
and now I'm a carnival jester. You know, I'm nothing.
I don't have any power, but I definitely know people.
You know, I remember people from college who are now
in positions of power. Samantha Power, for example, the former
the former ambassador to the U n not not not
(22:20):
not only powerful, but named Power. It's her name. She
and I were college the same time. I didn't know her,
but sure. But you know, these institutions do self select
into into groupings and whether or not, and then if
you super select into into something like a secret society,
(22:41):
you know there there is a kind of soft conspiracy
of acquaintanceship and given people a leg up if possible.
And it happens in networks of any kind, you know, however,
whatever kind of trappings churches. I mean, that's a big
one too. Yeah, exactly. But but that's said, uh that
there is a there is a secret retreat that I
(23:03):
attended that I will not name, that is also described
in the book. Is a retreat that I was surprised
to be invited to host, hosted by someone who enjoys
surrounding him or herself with interesting celebrities, business leaders, government officials,
(23:24):
former government officials, entertainers, writers, artists. It's a wonderful time.
We all have a great time together. It's all off
the record. People aren't supposed to talk about what happened.
There no weaving spiders allowed. There no weaving spiders. So
it wasn't the Bohemian Club. No, it was not the
Union Growth. No, that's I would tell you if I
(23:46):
gotten that. There's the thing that I want to go
back to. Okay, it's to and it's totally it's totally
benign and of an evening they might invite someone like
gather everyone together for a performance of a kind. And
this performance was a professional performing pickpocket, an incredibly talented
(24:09):
performing pickpocket. Well name because he's an amazing person. Abollo
Robbins is his name, Robbins, Look him up. He is
so skilled, and his his bit was inviting audience members
on stage and picking their pockets. And he would invite
famous people, entertainers or whatever, um up and um, and
(24:30):
I'll talk to them and said, would you ever breakfast today?
And you wouldn't even see him touch them, And all
of a sudden he's holding their wristwatch above their head,
behind them and they didn't know it was gone. But
the audience sees it, right, and everyone laughs, and the
and the and the famous person laughs because it's okay too.
It's okay to be humiliated a little bit in public. Right,
if you're secure, it doesn't matter, right. But there is
(24:51):
one government official who would not play. He would not
get up on stage. He or she should say, they
would not get up on stage. They would not allow
themselves to to be uh pickpocketed or to have their
wristwatch taken because they could not for whatever reason, I'd
(25:14):
be speculating to guess what it was. They could not
tolerate having their status reduced because they're between their status
and status was the only thing that stood between them
and oblivion. Basically. And this person has become president. This person, no,
this person is a former government official. There's no point
(25:35):
in trying to figure out who it is understood, that's
not the story. This is a parable. It's a parable
about about someone who had done some very good things
in public life and had made a big mistake in
public life, and could not tolerate even never mind the
mention of that big mistake, but even the faintest slap
of the wrist, of having their their wrist watch literally
(25:57):
manipulated off their wrist in public. It would be too humiliating.
And they hid their money in their shoe so that
they wouldn't be they wouldn't have their money their wallet pickpocketed.
And you know, when people lose their status, or perceive
or feel a threat to their status, they will do
irrational things. That's not the moral of this story. The
(26:17):
moral of this story is that this happened to meaning
happened to be held in a Masonic lodge. It was
not a Masonic meeting the Mason's. It's beautiful lodge and
a grand meeting room and was one of the nicer
rooms in this particular town where you could go to
have an event like this. And the Masons are out
of money and they needed to rent it to this
(26:39):
But nonetheless I sat there realizing, so here I am.
Here's one of the most famous actors in the world.
Here's this incredible business like the most famous businessman in
the world. Here's this former government official. There's George R.
Martin allowed him to there there, there's this famous person
(27:00):
and that famous person, and this powerful person and this
powerful person, and we're all here. We are literally all
here together, literally meeting in secret, literally in a Masonic lodge.
This is happening right now watching the art of pickpocketing,
watching the art of pickpocketing. But you go tell that
to Alex Jones. I mean, this heart's about to explode
(27:21):
anyone because it's full of brisket, juice or whatever. But
you know it's it's the Illuminati is real. The Illuminati
is real. Like secret meetings of world leaders are happening
in Masonic lodges. We're not discussing how, you know, how
how how to manipulate you know, how to make may
(27:42):
feel like governments in the war, to form of one
world government or anything like that. We're basically just entertaining
ourselves here. First, folks, the Luminati is real. And I
thought I thought you needed to know that, and the
and the conversation by closed doors is more like have
you tried that jambalaya at the sky close? Because I
think it's because they let it sit right. Well, it's
all And the conversation behind doors is all people just
(28:04):
trying to get jobs off of each other because they're
afraid they're they're afraid they're status is slipping to you know. Yeah,
I do have one question, just really fast. Were you
allowed I'm in the time that this occurred. Did you
have a cell phone with a camera on it? Because
I'm imagining a room of of you know, with people
of that caliber in secret doing a thing like that
at a retreat. I'm assuming you would put cell phones
(28:25):
awhere you'd have to mandatorily put away. There were no
rules about I mean, people were like, you know, don't
don't tweet about this. It was low key. I mean,
I'm hoping it was fairly low key. Because I'm telling
the story. I'll I'm not revealing details. I'm afraid they'll
be mad at me. But I suspect they won't read
my book. Yeah, and you want to go back, Yeah,
(28:46):
I'd like to go indeed again. And it was fascinating,
it was interesting and the book is fascinating as well.
Thank you, John Hodgeman Medallion status True Stories from Secret Rooms.
It's available now wherever you it's available to pre order.
I believe for pre order right. Look, I don't know
when this is coming out, so let's just talk to
the time travelers. Time travelers. If you have arrived in
(29:07):
this timeline before October en, you may preorder my book
at bit dot lee slash medallion status b I T
dot l Y slash medallion status all one word, all
capital letters. If you have materialized after October, it's not
too late, go to a bookstore and buy it. Or
come see me on my book tour on on tour
(29:27):
in October and November, and all the details are there
John Hodgman dot com slash tour and I'll be in
Atlanta in November along with my judge, John Hodgman podcast
uh in November two at the Variety. So I hope
to see you guys again. Who will do you have
a bailiff for that show? Yeah, Jesse, Jesse Thorne, my
regular bailiff is going to be there and I will
(29:49):
be I will be selling books there, and you know
I I because I don't. I don't want to punish
people who pre order who then come to the book events,
because some of the book events you have to buy
a book to get in. Some of them, you know,
they might leave the book at home and buy another one.
I don't want to, you know. I really hope that
people will pre order the book because that's the best
way to ensure the best launch for the book personally
(30:10):
for me. But in order to reward people who do
preorder and then come to the book event, anyone who
comes into the signing line, whether it's a Judge Sean
Hodgen show or a regular Medallen s tast book event
and they have two copies of the book that could
be a hardcover and an audio book, or a hardcover
and an e book because they've pre ordered or for
whatever reason, I have a special loyalty program reward for them.
(30:33):
Oh yeah, second, yeah, you get you. You. You may
notice that on the cover of the book there's a
a picture of two famous quargies of Instagram Linus the
Corky and Chompers the Quirky. They're very important in the book.
They were looking at a pamphlet here. It's wonderful. Yeah,
there's a whole book coming right now. That's well, this
part is great. So everyone who comes to a book
event and buys a copy of the book gets a
(30:56):
enamel pin featuring one of those orgies designed by Aaron Draplin,
designer of that of the cover. He's a famous and
great awesome dude designer, and that that is a famous
quirky pin. Everyone gets one of those just for showing
up and buying a book. If you buy two books,
because maybe you preordered one before coming to the event,
or you buy two books on site, or you bought
(31:17):
an audio book and now you get in the print dition,
whatever it is, you got two books on the sideline,
you get upgraded. You get a double corky pin. Whoa
three or more books or other or other uh uh,
over the top commitments to the cause you're gonna I'll
upgrade you discretionarily to triple quartery elite status for three
(31:39):
quarties one pin. So, since we're on an audio podcast,
listeners need to know that when John said that we
the three of us, had I think a fairly dramatic
was a double take. Yeah, yeah, And what are they?
Their pins? Their pins like you get from an airplane
pilot for going on a plane for being a kid.
They're nothing but the elite. And as an adult, if
(32:01):
you ask the pilots for the pins, they'll still give
it to you. Really, yeah, that's wonderful. You just have
to ask nicely and clearly. Not have that much respect
for yourself. That's what I did. Even if I'm silver door,
I'm getting out of here, even silver yet, stop showing
(32:25):
my eyes. Just so bad about myself. John Hodgman, that
really happened. He's really we have a door. He disappeared
down in the tunnel kind of Yeah. I think that
went well. I think that was incredible. I want to say,
I think he knows more than he's letting on. But
he was a very nice guy. That's true. M H.
(33:03):
Stuff They Don't Want You to Know is a production
of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts
from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
(33:44):
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