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1:15

Hello and welcome. The citation needed. The

1:17

podcast where we choose the subject read

1:19

a single article about it on Wikipedia

1:21

and pretend we're experts. Because this is

1:24

the internet and that's how it works

1:26

now. I'm Eli Bosnick and I'll be

1:28

first at this buffet of buffoonery tonight,

1:30

but I'll need a merry band of

1:32

sneeze guards. First up, two men for

1:34

whom a change of topic should probably

1:36

be called early onset at this point,

1:38

Cecil and Noah. It's all early onset.

1:40

I go to bed after Perry Mason.

1:42

Do I? Yeah, no, I feel like

1:44

I've graduated at the point in my

1:46

life where it's just on set now.

1:48

Sure, yeah. And also joining us tonight,

1:51

two men who always order off menu

1:53

heaf and top. No, I know we're

1:55

supposed to yes and or whatever. I'm

1:57

not yes ending off menu ordering. Go

1:59

fuck. yourself. Fair. The menu is a

2:02

list of things that are available. You

2:04

choose for it. Or you cannot choose

2:06

and just order the whole menu. You

2:08

build whatever you want after that. It's

2:11

great. Before we begin tonight, I'd like

2:13

to take a moment to thank our

2:15

patrons. Patrons, without you, we'd have

2:18

to bore people at dinner parties

2:20

with today's selection, but instead we

2:22

get paid to do it. Feels like a

2:24

major step up. And if you'd

2:26

like to learn how to

2:28

join their ranks, be sure

2:30

to stick around to the end

2:33

of the show. And with that,

2:35

out of the way, tell us, Noah,

2:37

what person plays thing

2:39

concept, phenomenon,

2:42

or event will we be

2:44

talking about today? Where the

2:46

fuck Tom feels like? Yeah.

2:48

So Tom, you, um, what's

2:50

you doing here, Tom? Throughout

2:52

the year, as I come across interesting

2:54

stories or factoids or tidbits that may

2:57

make for a good topic for a

2:59

citation, you need essay, I open a tab

3:01

in my chrome browser as a reminder. Some of

3:03

these ideas become essays for the show and

3:05

many, many more just become digital clutter.

3:07

For the most part, it's not

3:09

because the neglected tabs and topics

3:12

aren't interesting, but rather it's

3:14

because on further investigation I can't squeeze

3:16

2, 500 words out of them, but

3:18

I'll be damned if I want to let some of

3:20

these things go, which... brings me to

3:22

today's digital purge. Today, we

3:25

are going on a journey where

3:27

I close out browser

3:29

tabs and without any

3:31

attempt at maintaining any

3:33

narrative thread, you dear listener,

3:35

get to learn a bunch of

3:37

truly random stuff. Okay, this would

3:40

be a bad idea for my

3:42

chrome taps. Or a great idea.

3:44

Just say anybody? Nope. I'm

3:46

just saying no it doesn't know

3:48

everybody wants to challenge the forms

3:50

just you know don't you don't

3:53

you dare blame this one everybody

3:55

like a like a cemetery that

3:57

connected all these are something like

3:59

that Any votes for a great

4:02

idea? Was that I didn't

4:04

hear anybody? No, zero. This

4:06

brings me right to an

4:08

almost episode that I very

4:10

nearly did, but it just

4:12

wasn't enough. And although I could

4:14

have stretched it, the real juice

4:17

wouldn't have been worth the

4:19

squeeze. Nonetheless, I do want

4:22

to tell you about some

4:24

truly bizarre hobby, because... Being

4:26

human and staying interested in

4:29

staying clocked into life is hard.

4:31

And this brings me to extreme

4:33

ironing. Fuck yeah! Now for me,

4:36

any ironing that I would have

4:38

successfully accomplished would be

4:40

extreme. But to devotees of

4:42

extreme ironing, it's all about

4:45

location, location, location. We're

4:47

talking here about ironing while

4:49

skydiving. With an ironing board

4:51

and an ironing. which would not

4:53

be plugged into anything because you

4:56

were skydiving and which if

4:58

it slips from your grasp

5:00

would reach a terminal velocity

5:02

well beyond what is needed

5:04

to crush a human skull or

5:06

ironing on a cliffside or

5:08

whatever other stupid fucking place

5:11

you can imagine to extreme iron.

5:13

Yeah it's mustache tattoo on your

5:15

finger the hobby everybody. Now if

5:17

that's too much excitement. Oh, it

5:19

is. You may want to opt

5:21

for the rare or more sedate

5:23

and serene hobby of worm charming.

5:26

What? If when you hear this, you

5:28

imagine a worm in an adorable

5:30

little clay pot. Are you talking

5:32

about masturbation? Not yet. Not yet.

5:34

Not yet. You can just say

5:36

that you want to know. That's also

5:39

extreme irony, actually, if you think

5:41

about it. One of your tab.

5:43

That's a lot of my tab.

5:45

It's not this whole idea. If you're

5:47

imagining right now an adorable worm,

5:49

you know, just swaying back and

5:51

forth in front of a little

5:53

clay pot to a flute, I'm

5:55

sorry to disappoint you. That is

5:57

not what worm charming here is.

5:59

Worms. Can't do that, they have no bones.

6:02

Instead, worm charming is the

6:04

art of attracting worms to

6:06

the surface through vibrations, sounds,

6:08

or other means of human-to-worm

6:10

attraction. Worm charming is

6:12

said to be surprisingly

6:14

captivating. It does not indicate

6:17

compared to what, though? Well,

6:19

yeah, but that's the thing,

6:21

right? A single iota of

6:23

captivation would be surprising, so

6:25

that's probably technically true. You can

6:27

do this with really loud sounds

6:30

at night in an apartment building

6:32

with humans, but I wouldn't call

6:34

it charming. Yeah, we really don't

6:37

know what kind of mood the

6:39

worms are in when they get

6:41

there. They're probably pissed. Shut the

6:43

fuck up! Trying to sleep down

6:46

here. I just turned off Perry

6:48

Mason! We're trying to bang on

6:50

the soil with little tiny brooms,

6:53

you know. Ah. Heath is by the way

6:55

heath is just a fucking apoplectic right now

6:57

trying to come up with a Perry Mason

6:59

worm pun These things he's gonna get

7:01

there Very Mason. He's these he's close.

7:04

He's close So every Halloween homes

7:06

and families across the nation carve

7:08

up a pumpkin into a delightful

7:10

jackalantern so teenagers can steal them

7:12

and throw them into the street

7:14

That's easy and it's lame and it's

7:16

boring because most of you are carving

7:19

your pumpkins on land like a bunch

7:21

of jerks but for those Engaged in

7:23

the hobby, nay the sport, nay

7:25

the calling of underwater pumpkin

7:27

carving. No gordart is considered complete

7:29

if it is not carved on

7:32

the floor of the ocean while

7:34

you are outfitted in scuba gear.

7:36

Chumming the water for vegan sharks?

7:39

No thanks. Absolutely not. It's the

7:41

worst because they swim by you

7:43

real fast and tell you that

7:45

beans have a lot of protein.

7:47

It's like, oh! All right, and then there

7:50

is the hobby. You gotta add rice

7:52

or it's not complete protein, but like,

7:54

good start. Get back, they almost never

7:56

come back. And then there is the hobby

7:59

that inspires. me to look up

8:01

bizarre hobbies and this one

8:03

is hobby tunneling. Now

8:05

what Praytel is hobby tunneling

8:07

it is the recreational

8:10

creation of tunnels. Which is

8:12

an awesome hobby and at

8:14

least more than none of

8:16

our audience engages in it

8:19

and tells me about it

8:21

regularly. Uh-oh. Cool when you do

8:23

it. Boy are you guys changing a

8:26

lot of jokes here this. Oh

8:28

wait, no you're not. What amount

8:30

of our audience? On a scale

8:32

from one to furry, how concerned

8:34

do we need to be about

8:36

the next three paragraphs? Because I'll

8:38

just hit delete and end the

8:41

zetz. I think it's just the

8:43

one, so yeah, we should be

8:45

all right. And how does one

8:47

get into hobby tunneling? You

8:49

may ask, well, for one

8:51

such enthusiasm. If you do, though,

8:53

let me tell you, sorry. Sorry. If

8:57

you have to ask, you can't afford a

8:59

ton. And I just want to get into

9:01

hobby tunneling, you may ask. Well,

9:04

for one such enthusiast, he was,

9:06

quote, shoveling dirt to put a

9:08

walking path around his house when he just

9:10

felt the urge to keep going. This

9:13

particular hobbyist has now completed a

9:15

tunnel 16 feet deep that runs

9:17

82 feet long. And according to

9:19

the utterly mad article I read

9:21

about this, he is quoted as saying,

9:23

if I could. I would do it every day. Okay,

9:26

it feels like he was clearly doing

9:28

a bank heist, right? And he got

9:30

like caught in greedy early. Now he

9:32

has to like keep making a hobby.

9:34

Top is forever as a cover. I

9:37

kind of like that. Now others in

9:39

the know about the hobby may be

9:41

familiar with the hobby tunneling tick-talker,

9:43

Tunnel Girl, whose own tunnel

9:46

is 22 feet deep and it runs

9:48

under her house. Or at least it

9:50

did until the town decided that

9:52

undermining the foundation of your very

9:55

home is a fantastically stupid and

9:57

dangerous thing to do. You know

9:59

because that house could collapse on you while

10:01

you are inside your stupid fucking tunnel. Okay,

10:03

to be clear, there are lots of exciting

10:05

things you can teach yourself on the

10:07

internet. Structural engineering probably shouldn't

10:09

be one of them. Right.

10:11

No, it's like surgery in that

10:13

way. Yeah. YouTube

10:16

has its fair share of

10:18

hobby tunnelists, but perhaps the most

10:20

famous is Colin Furze built a

10:22

tunnel connecting an underground bunker to

10:24

his backyard shed, a tunnel

10:26

which he built using hydraulic machinery so

10:28

as not to wake his neighbors at

10:30

night. And guys, this tunnel

10:32

wasn't just a hole in the ground. I

10:35

mean, I mean, it was, but it was

10:37

also a hole in the ground reinforced

10:39

with steel girders and it had a rail

10:41

and cart system to haul out the

10:44

hundreds of tons of rock and soil,

10:46

which is not dissimilar to what

10:48

the cartels build to smuggle their

10:50

wares across borders. Okay, again, very

10:52

clearly doing a crime and then

10:54

cops showed up and he was

10:56

like, Hey, oh, yeah, you guys

10:58

remember, do you remember that level

11:00

in Donkey Kong country? I

11:03

mark my words now, Elon Musk

11:05

is about two canceled boring company

11:07

projects away from pretending he's just

11:09

been into this hobby the whole

11:11

time. Okay,

11:15

and hobby tunnels, they're fucking

11:17

insanely dangerous. Besides the risk of

11:19

the tunnel collapsing and burying

11:21

you alive, there is the risk

11:23

of you hitting water or

11:25

gas or sewage or electricity or

11:27

other infrastructure. There is a

11:29

possibility of being killed by poisonous

11:32

gases or the tunnel filling with

11:34

water and flooding before you can escape.

11:36

This is a truly spending time with your family.

11:38

There's a lot of risks. risks. This

11:42

is a truly unhinged thing to

11:44

do. And I absolutely can I

11:46

express to you how big and

11:48

elaborate some of these are.

11:51

So I am including here

11:53

some pictures of hobby tunnels

11:55

and I am deeply lamenting as well

11:57

that I cannot show these to the audience

11:59

that he put. three photos in the

12:01

notes and if you look from

12:03

like left to right each photo

12:05

gets more red so it looks

12:08

like a series of photos you'd

12:10

see on the wall for a

12:12

colonosby clinic for like doing it

12:14

to bad I will also say

12:17

that hobby tunneling is the perfect

12:19

libertarian metaphor right because you want

12:21

to do something stupid and pointless

12:23

because the societal benefits you like

12:25

don't count and if it goes

12:28

wrong don't worry that society you're

12:30

ignoring and aren't a part of

12:32

will come rescue you like a

12:34

toddler in a prep. All right,

12:37

alas, as bonkers as hobby tunneling

12:39

is, it's not a whole episode.

12:41

So that brings me now without

12:43

any real transition to the story

12:46

of how 76 beavers skydived into

12:48

the Idaho wilderness in 1948. Oh

12:50

my God, that's actually one of

12:52

my chrome tabs too. Holy shit.

12:54

All right, so it turns out

12:57

that the problem of habitat destruction

12:59

is not a new one. And

13:01

in the years following World War

13:03

II, there was a massive expansion

13:06

of building into new territory across

13:08

the country, including for some reason

13:10

in Idaho. Well, if beavers just

13:12

falling out of the sky, they

13:15

are. Now, while people could build

13:17

homes pretty much anywhere, beavers, it

13:19

turns out, could fuck those homes

13:21

up. Beavers are, as you may

13:23

have heard, rather hearty and industrious

13:26

creatures. And so when their habitat

13:28

is disrupted, they fairly readily find

13:30

their way to new environs, building

13:32

dams and lodges and, you know,

13:35

other beaver stuff, which frequently caused

13:37

flooding and other problems for new

13:39

developments. And here, here I am

13:41

hardened, because I would have assumed

13:44

that the solution be to just

13:46

shoot or poison or otherwise kill

13:48

the beavers. But instead, the government

13:50

embarked upon a rather extensive beaver

13:52

relocation program. And this was not

13:55

without its problem. Guys local beavers

13:57

in your area not eager to

13:59

leave it. Eager. The landscape of

14:01

Idaho is mountainous, wooded,

14:03

and rugged. And while it is

14:06

a fact that beavers do well once

14:08

they are relocated, actually

14:10

moving them far enough away

14:12

from settlements to a place

14:15

where they can settle down,

14:17

often involved a rather dangerous

14:19

and arduous track on horseback

14:21

into the wilds of Idaho

14:24

and wilderness. If you're not

14:26

picturing a bunch of little beavers with

14:28

the little cowboy hat sitting on the

14:30

saddles of horses with their little stirrups,

14:33

you are listening to the episode wrong

14:35

if that's not what you're picturing

14:37

right now, okay? Little lassos. All

14:39

right, so transporting these beavers was

14:41

a problem. And here I'll let

14:43

the article on this from Scientific

14:46

American describe the issue. Quote, beavers

14:48

cannot stand the direct heat of the sun

14:50

unless they are in water. During transportation

14:52

they must be constantly cooled

14:55

and watered. Sometimes they refuse

14:57

to eat. Older individuals often

14:59

become dangerously belligerent. Noah, are

15:02

you a beaver? You have

15:04

to tell us if you're a beaver.

15:06

Put me on horseback and find out.

15:08

Rough trips on pack animals are

15:10

hard on them. Horses and

15:12

mules become spooky and quarrelsome,

15:15

loaded with a struggling odorous

15:17

pair of live beavers. Now, some

15:19

other beaver relocation solution

15:21

was clearly needed. And since

15:23

the war was over, there was a

15:26

surplus of airplanes and parachutes. Naturally,

15:28

the problem pretty much solved

15:30

itself. Some testing would need

15:33

to be done. Initially, the

15:35

government beaver relocators started

15:37

parachuting boxes full of rocks.

15:39

And when none of the rocks

15:41

died from the experience, they needed

15:43

a new test subject. So they

15:46

selected an older beaver and they

15:48

named him. Geronimo! There's just

15:50

nothing here that can substitute for

15:52

the words direct from the article.

15:54

Quote, satisfactory experiments

15:57

with dummy weights having been

15:59

completed. One old male beaver, whom

16:01

we fondly named Geronimo, was dropped

16:03

again and again on the flying

16:06

field. Each time he scrambled

16:08

out of the box, someone was on

16:10

hand to pick him up. Poor fellow.

16:12

He finally became resigned, and as

16:14

soon as we approached him, would

16:16

crawl back into his box, ready

16:19

to go aloft again. He goes back

16:21

to his buddies later. You're not

16:23

going to believe the fucking bad.

16:25

He was ridiculous. And all his

16:28

buddies, of course, would go. Damn!

16:30

Because there are beavers. Now you might

16:32

be thinking as I was, this is

16:34

rather unfair to poor Geronimo.

16:36

But the reload guys, and from

16:38

this next part of the story

16:41

we can be assured they were all guys,

16:43

had a reward for the lucky

16:45

beaver once his skydiving tour was

16:47

over. Quote, you may be sure

16:49

that Geronimo had a priority reservation

16:52

on the first ship into

16:54

the hinterland and that three young

16:57

females went with him. Even

16:59

there he stayed in the box

17:01

for a long time after his

17:03

harem was busy inspecting

17:05

the new surroundings. However,

17:08

his colony was later

17:10

reported as being very

17:12

well established. Beaver, his

17:14

name, you hefner. All

17:16

told, 76 beavers were captured

17:19

boxed, taken aloft, shoved

17:21

out of an airplane

17:23

over their intended new

17:26

habitat, and parachuted. gently

17:28

to the earth. The boxes were cleverly constructed

17:30

in such a way that they were

17:32

heavy enough to deploy the parachute, but

17:34

light enough that they landed with a

17:37

gentle thump into their new Eden, and

17:39

the box doors were kept shut by

17:41

the pressure of the parachute, so once

17:43

they landed the doors readily open, and

17:45

the beavers were free to scamper off

17:47

into the wild, having had the rather

17:49

unique experience of being the only known

17:52

cohort of skydiving beavers. You guys picturing

17:54

like a high school science club

17:56

making popsicle stick boxes for these?

17:59

Dropping them. like eggs. Me and

18:01

my parents just hurling a

18:03

beaver out of a plane

18:05

in a dog carton. Hey,

18:07

sorry about this. I don't

18:09

try hard at things I'm

18:11

not already good at. Smash.

18:13

All told, all but one of

18:16

the beavers survived relocation.

18:18

That one was mine. Which

18:20

was a much better

18:22

survival rate than transporting

18:24

them by horse. All right, well,

18:27

so far Tom's internet history has way

18:29

more beaver in it than I was

18:31

expecting. So I introduced him to Cookie

18:34

Clicker. We'll take a quick break for

18:36

some apropo of nothing. And

18:53

then, from there, the parachutes

18:55

will gently carry the crates

18:58

to earth, where the beavers

19:00

can redeploy Bing Bang Boom.

19:02

No more a beaver problem. Us,

19:04

sir? Yes, Johnson. Question. I

19:07

don't want to sound

19:09

hard-hearted, but what are you,

19:11

faster and cheaper, just to... used

19:14

to kill the beavers? I thought

19:16

so, too, but the new director

19:18

said it had to be done

19:20

this way. Sorry. New Director? Yeah,

19:23

just came in from Washington today.

19:25

Big fellow? Would it be in? I

19:27

didn't meet this guy. Yeah, me neither.

19:30

Let me see, I have his

19:32

card right here. It's Mr. Beaverton.

19:34

Okay, a director named

19:36

Beaverton. Beaverton. Came in and

19:38

told you you had to

19:41

relocate the beavers rather than

19:43

kill him. Exactly. Look, we

19:45

even took a photograph together.

19:47

Yeah, that's, that's, um...

19:49

That's three beavers in an

19:51

overcoat. Is it? Damn. Yeah, it's definitely

19:54

three beavers, man. That explains

19:56

why they wanted lunch from

19:59

just salad. Ugh, hate

20:01

your salad, right? It's Marketing

20:06

is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret.

20:08

It doesn't have to be. Let me point

20:10

something out. You're listening to a podcast right

20:12

now and it's great. You love the host,

20:14

you seek it out and download it, you

20:16

listen to it while driving, working out, cooking,

20:18

even going to the bathroom. And

20:21

this is a podcast ad. Did I get your

20:23

attention? You can reach great

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Go to LibsynAds.com, that's L -I -B

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-S -Y -N, ads.com today. And

21:02

we're back. When we left

21:04

off our show was rapidly

21:06

sliding into whatever comes into our

21:08

minds next, otherwise known as

21:10

podcasting. What's up next, Tom? All

21:12

right. And now without any

21:15

other meaningful transition, I want

21:17

to tell you the story of Christopher

21:19

Thomas Knight, a man who

21:21

became a modern -day hermit in the

21:23

woods of Maine for just no discernible

21:25

reason at all. Born

21:28

in 1965. Okay. So not

21:30

that modern day, but yeah.

21:32

The first 20 years of

21:34

Knight's life were pretty unextraordinary. He

21:36

went to high school after what you got

21:39

a job installing burglar alarms and like most men

21:41

with jobs, he didn't much like it. In

21:44

1986, he abruptly left his job in

21:46

Massachusetts and barked upon a road trip

21:48

to clear his head. It

21:50

didn't work. Or maybe it

21:52

did. Maybe too much. I don't know. Enlightenment is

21:54

dangerous. Anyway, by the time he made his

21:56

way up to Maine, he just drove until

21:59

his car ran out again. And night

22:01

ran out of fucks

22:03

and in the middle of the woods in

22:05

Maine just up around a town called Northpond

22:07

Chris put the key to the car on the

22:09

front tire of his dead car, and then he

22:11

just walked into the woods.

22:13

Hey, Tom This is

22:15

called a psychotic break buddy. Does

22:18

it Does it not

22:20

sound like that to you? What

22:22

this person's doing? It's

22:25

kind of nice. Hey, he would live

22:28

in those woods completely alone For

22:30

the next 27 years, which

22:32

is a house of

22:34

a thing Considering that winters

22:36

in Maine. They are

22:38

notoriously brutal with temperatures routinely

22:41

falling well below zero

22:43

and deep intense Snowstorms making

22:45

movement difficult and night

22:47

didn't go into the woods with a bunch

22:49

of Going into the wood stuff

22:51

like this guy just ran out of

22:53

gas and walked into the goddamn

22:55

forest There's nothing in

22:57

his biography to suggest that he

22:59

was some great woodsmen or a trained

23:02

survivalist or even a cub scout

23:04

But survive he did

23:06

they'll often by stealing just him

23:08

in a tug -of -war over a branch

23:10

with Geronimo out there Fifty

23:14

beavers parachute out of

23:16

the sky and start

23:19

helping What is this

23:21

oh, yeah, I just just for the record

23:23

it's not like Surviving off

23:25

the land if whenever you get cold

23:27

or hungry you just steal pieces

23:29

of the civilization you left and and

23:32

then go back I mean, I don't

23:34

think this counts Well, the residents

23:36

around Northpaw knew something was amiss But none

23:38

of them knew or suspected a thieving

23:40

hermit was stealing into their homes Yards and

23:42

garages in the middle of the night Nonetheless

23:45

batteries would disappear out of

23:47

flashlights tents winter coats food

23:50

all started to go missing Sometimes

23:53

new propane tanks would

23:55

inexplicably be replaced with

23:57

old Night was

23:59

according to him a reluctant thief. And

24:01

by everyone's assessment, he only ever

24:03

stole the most necessary and minimalist

24:05

of supplies. But over the course

24:07

of an unbelievable 27 years spent

24:09

hiding in the deep woods of

24:11

Maine, he committed hundreds, if not

24:14

thousands, of small robbers. Oh, I

24:16

really hate to take what isn't

24:18

mine, except that I've centered my

24:20

entire survival around it, and I

24:22

could just not do this and

24:24

get a job at a hardware

24:27

store. Oh, man. I

24:29

am torn asunder by this

24:31

choice I've made. And don't

24:33

stop making every time and

24:35

could stop making any time

24:37

I wanted, but just in

24:39

a moment's notice. To

24:42

survive the coldest nights, he would wake

24:44

in the deepest part of the night

24:46

to pace his camp to try to

24:48

keep warm. He would avoid making fires

24:50

to keep from being spotted from the

24:52

wood smoke, and instead he used the

24:54

perloined propane tanks to heat water for

24:56

cooking, heating, drinking water, and cleaning himself.

24:59

See, guys, he had to steal to

25:01

avoid being caught for all the stealing.

25:06

When he needed to swap out a

25:08

propane tank, he would borrow a

25:10

canoe from nearby camps and in the

25:12

pre -dawn hours paddle across the lake

25:14

to homes nearby where he would

25:16

swap the empty canister for a full

25:19

one. He was so paranoid about

25:21

being spotted, he spent the spring and

25:23

summer stockpiling his supplies so that

25:25

from November to March, he wouldn't need

25:27

to leave his deep woods camp

25:29

and thus make footprints in the snow

25:32

that he could be tracked by.

25:34

Nobody will ever figure out my sweet

25:36

gig. I said to myself, as

25:38

I wiped my ass with a pine

25:40

cone. He

25:42

regularly kept himself clean, sponge bathing in

25:44

streams. He kept his hair and

25:46

his beard trimmed all to avoid suspicion

25:49

in the event that he was

25:51

spotted, but over the A fever stealing

25:53

my pine cone! Get the fuck

25:55

out of here! Just

25:57

an episode with a bunch of different topics

25:59

in it that are - Let's go for

26:01

it. But over the course of

26:03

27 years of hiding, he only ever

26:05

happened upon one pair of hikers and according

26:07

to Knight said only, hi,

26:10

to any other human being over the span of

26:12

nearly three decades. He also claims that in

26:14

the 27 years he spent in the

26:16

woods, he never once got sick saying you

26:19

only, you had to be near people in

26:21

order to get sick. I feel like we're

26:23

scraping the bottom of the benefit barrel here's

26:25

like also I never got nobody ever got

26:27

my order wrong. It's drive through and all

26:29

that time. In

26:33

April of 2013, Knight was burglaring

26:35

a camp when he was caught

26:37

first on camera and then at gunpoint by a

26:39

game warden who had set up the cameras

26:41

to catch whoever had been burglaring there for decades.

26:44

And Knight didn't put up a fight or run,

26:46

but rather allowed himself to be handcuffed to a

26:48

chair and quietly waited for the police. He

26:51

was sentenced to seven months in jail for

26:53

the burglaries, which Knight expressed deep misgivings

26:55

about, but which misgivings didn't prevent

26:57

him from doing literally hundreds of

26:59

times over two dozen years. I love the

27:01

version of the story where he was just desperately

27:03

trying to get caught so he could sleep in

27:05

a warm jail, saw the whole time, but everybody

27:07

was too sympathetic to turn him in. And

27:11

this last part is my favorite. Knight

27:14

kept no journals or

27:16

diaries. He only allowed one reporter

27:18

access to him. And from the very excellent

27:20

GQ article on this guy, he was

27:22

reluctant about that as well. He

27:25

didn't go into the woods as part of any plan.

27:27

He wasn't at all prepared. When he was pressed

27:29

about what he learned, though, he offered only that, quote,

27:31

solitude bestows an increase in

27:34

something valuable, my perception. But

27:36

when I applied my increasing perception of

27:38

myself, I lost my identity. There

27:41

was no audience, no one to perform for. To

27:43

put it romantically, I was completely

27:45

free. Just pan over to

27:47

Eli in a tree fort doing a

27:50

sketch with a puppet of senior. Now,

27:55

many may be tempted to compare Knight

27:57

to Thoreau, but Knight himself resents this

28:00

comparison. and calling Thoreau, quote, a dilatont, and

28:02

noting that Thoreau spent only two years

28:04

in the woods, and all that while,

28:06

his mom was still doing his laundry,

28:08

saying Thoreau was, quote, just a show

28:10

off who went out there and wrote

28:13

a book saying, look how great I

28:15

am. Yeah, and all he produced was

28:17

Walden. You had that super tight quote

28:19

just now that sounded like a meditation

28:21

teacher trying to wrap up a class,

28:23

because he has diarrhea, so yeah. How

28:26

dare they compare you to one of

28:28

the greatest and most influential thinkers of

28:30

his century! Jesus Christ! And this is,

28:32

I think, a great place to close

28:34

out the cleaning of my digital closet

28:36

of a few stories that have absolutely

28:39

nothing to do with one another, but

28:41

all of which were still too good

28:43

not to tell. And while I still

28:45

have a smiling face rather than a

28:47

number of tabs open to my phone

28:49

full of ideas, I have a few

28:52

less than I did, and I'm not

28:54

at all unhappy about that. All right,

28:56

Tom! And if you had to summarize

28:58

what you learned in one sentence, what

29:00

would it be? If you ever get

29:03

tired of tunneling around a bunch of

29:05

flying beavers, just head off into the

29:07

woods. All right. Sounds like a cry

29:09

for help to me. Are you ready

29:11

to the quiz? Sounds like he's browser

29:13

tabs. It does. Okay, Tom, after Geronimo

29:16

got a taste for skydiving, he became

29:18

a stunt beaver. What was the name

29:20

he used for that profession? A. Evil

29:22

and evil. Nicely done. There's no other

29:24

chance. I could stop there too if

29:26

I wrote that. That's great. Evil and

29:29

evil all day. Nicely done. Yeah. All

29:31

right, I have a question for you

29:33

Tom. What else were you thinking about

29:35

the other day? A. How lazy the

29:37

guy who named the months got at

29:39

the end. B. How weird is it

29:42

is that we never came up with

29:44

a better name for it than fireplace?

29:46

See, the way old people used to

29:48

say hey is for horses when you

29:50

would greet them by saying... And

29:52

how that should

29:55

have seemed weirder to

29:57

us at the

29:59

time than it did,

30:01

but it didn't

30:03

or D Fuck

30:05

how the hell am i supposed to write a citation needed

30:07

essay by friday if i don't have an idea for a

30:09

topic? oh

30:12

no i am caught All

30:20

right, Tom which of the following

30:22

rules had to be applied

30:24

to the official Stream ironing Facebook

30:27

page the EIB

30:29

a quote Absolutely,

30:32

no firearms training or not

30:36

Please be respectful of

30:38

national monuments and

30:40

memorials emphasis theirs See

30:42

post -depicting ironing in places where

30:45

it is illegal to be

30:47

in the first place will

30:49

be deleted or D All

30:51

you looked this I sure

30:53

did baby All right, Tom

30:56

we're talking earlier about proper

30:58

Chrome tabs being open and

31:00

I'm gonna finish on one

31:02

of those here. Here we

31:05

go beaver banging normally ends

31:07

with this finishing move a

31:09

sap tapping be a gaping

31:12

aspen see Raw

31:15

dogwood or D chestnut

31:22

Bravo Cecil Bravo. It

31:24

is the chestnut. I'm

31:27

sorry. It is a gaping

31:29

aspen Well you

31:31

fooled him Cecil so you are this

31:33

week's winner awesome I'm gonna choose Noah next

31:35

time around all right well for Tom

31:37

Noah Cecil and Heath I'm Eli. Thank you

31:39

for hanging out with us today. We'll

31:41

be back next week And by then Noah

31:43

will be an expert on something else

31:46

between now and then you can listen

31:48

to Cecil's brand new show No Rogan

31:50

with the one and only Michael Marshall

31:52

Available wherever you get your fucking podcast.

31:54

You can also listen to our stuff

31:56

But why would you bother with something

31:58

like that on the right? I'm just

32:00

going to jump in here

32:03

during the edit. Eli

32:05

didn't say the name

32:07

correctly, so I'm going

32:09

to say it now.

32:11

It's the No Rogan

32:13

experience. That's K-N-O-W. You

32:15

can go to No

32:18

rogan.com, K-N-O-W, K-N-O-W, you

32:20

can go to No

32:22

rogan.com, K-N-O-W-R-R-O-G-G-N, K-N-O-W-W-R-O-O-O-N-N-S-N-N-N-N-N-N-S-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-S-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N-N And

32:24

if you'd like to

32:26

get in touch with

32:28

us, check out past

32:30

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32:32

media, or check the show notes, be

32:35

sure to check out citation pod.com.

32:37

No pleasure meeting you, gentlemen.

32:40

Thanks again. Can you believe

32:42

that, Johnson? That sanitation

32:44

contract is a steal. I don't know

32:46

what those guys were thinking. Uh,

32:49

that's because they're racoons,

32:51

man. Damn it all the hell. Yeah, just

32:53

like... Text me when you meet

32:56

a new person. I know, I know.