Selects: Flagpole Sitting: A Real Fad

0:00This is an I Heart Podcast. Guaranteed Human. Let's be real. Eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us. It brings us together, and yes, it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next, unless something starts to feel off. Introducing Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from I Heart Ruby Studio, hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient, Cynthia McVadden. Listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect, and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the I Heart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, everybody. You already like YouTube, so how can YouTube get any better? Well, we're talking premium, because premium is the supercharge way to experience YouTube. Add free, which means uninterrupted videos, of course. Background play, which lets you keep listening with your screen locked, or offline downloads. You can download your videos to watch anywhere, even without Wi-Fi connection. I mean, as researchers ourselves, like, I'm researching all day long for the show, and

1:02I really love not having ads on YouTube premium, because it really speeds up the learning process. Whether you're relaxing at home or on the go, it's built for you, because your YouTube experience just got even better with premium. So if you like YouTube, you'll love premium. Sign it now for your free trial, terms, and conditions apply. Stuff you should know is brought to you by Granger. When you're a commercial property manager at a large-scale office complex, the job's non-stop, keeping units ready, systems running, tenants happy, Granger helps you stay ahead, with access to about 1.5 million products from thousands of trusted suppliers, Granger delivers lighting fixtures, HVAC filters, and more, so you can stay supplied while managing your inventory and budget needs more efficiently. Call 1-800-Granger, click Granger.com, or stop by Granger, for the ones who get it done. Hey, everybody! It's July 14th, 2020, and we're all rolling through COVID pretty well by this point. We're all pretty drunk, most of the time, and gain and wait, but that's okay.

2:05We're gonna let each other up, because it's a global pandemic. This episode is called Flagpole Sitting, colon, a real fad. And it was, people would sit at the top of Flagpoles, for as long as they could. And it was a part of a weird time in American history. So check out this episode, not on Harvey Danger, the band who sang the song Flagpole Sitta, as did my government, but Flagpole Sitting for real. Check it out right now. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of I Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant right over there. Jerry's out there somewhere, and this is Stuff You Should Know. You know Chuck, I have to say, every once in a while, the amazing theme song from our short-lived television show comes into my head.

3:06And it'll just, it's just a complete earworm. Yeah. Because I just hear the end of it over and over and over again. And it's actually pretty pleasant, it doesn't bother me. I love it. I haven't heard that song in a while. Well, you need to go listen, that was Henry Clay people, right? Yeah, our buddies Joey and Andy Sierra, California boys, Southern California boys, men. Didn't they go to like Harvard or something crazy like that? Joey ended up going to Harvard, and then I think Andy went to AFI, and then Joey, I think went back to film school, and they're both writing, you know, screenwriting. Man, that's great. Andy's got a, he wrote this Andy Sandberg movie that's coming out soon. Really? What do you want? What's it called? It is called Palm Springs, I think. Wow, and he wrote it? Yeah, dude. That's fantastic. Congratulations. And he wrote on the TV show Lodge 49. Yeah, but I haven't seen that. Palm Springs.

4:07But that guy, Kurosle and Goldie Hanson, I love that guy. Yeah, I think he's one of the coolest people walking around on the planet today. Yeah, I haven't seen Lodge 49, it's supposed to be awesome. And Andy was a writers assistant, and then ended up on the staff, and they're both doing great. Man, that's great. Congratulations to both of you guys. He's got a little baby now, they're both married. Nice man. That's nice. And that's an update on the Sierra Club, as I go. Thank you. Let's see what else. How did that come into your head though, the song? Like, what made you think of that? Nothing. I was just out back, like, mowing the lawn with my big old lawnmower, and it just popped in my head. I was probably thinking of something I had to do that had to do with stuff you should know. And I thought stuff you should know, and when I thought it, I thought it as stuff, you should know, doing it. This is the way it just played on the loop. This is the second time you mentioned the size of your lawnmower.

5:07Yeah. And now you just got to send me a picture. Is this one of these things that you stand? No. And it wheels you around like some weird land speeder? You mean like a scag or something? No. This is just a good old fashioned Toro that is because it's gas powered, I got it like on super discount because everybody's making like really good electric lawnmowers. But this one was, you know, it was on discount and I liked the look of it. Yeah. It was a good looking mower, huh? Yeah. It was like your style. Is everyone with me? Is it red? Yep. Yeah. It was red Toros. Yeah. It's nice. Takes you back to days of paper routes and stuff like that, don't it? I thought you were mentioning the song because you were thinking of the song Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger. No. I wasn't at all. Okay. But that's a great segue, Chuck, because it just so happens and you may be aware of this for talking about Flagpole sitting two day in this episode.

6:10That's right. I've been singing that song in my head all day. Now I don't know that song. You know it. Well, maybe not. It was a top 40 hit in the 90s. Kind of during the Grunge era, it was a power pop hit that kind of... Oh. From Harvey Danger. No. Wait. Did it? No. No. No. Did it? No. My band actually covers Flagpole Sitta. It's a fun song. Okay. That's great. I'm going to have to go listen to it because I feel like I'm missing out. But is that song about Flagpole sitting? Is it about Shipwreck Kelly in particular? No. It's not. It's about the line that says, run it up the Flagpole and see. That's the only time it references Flagpoles at all. Seize what? Who's Salutes but no one ever does, I think is the next line. Hmm. That rings a bell.

7:10I have to think again and then I was again to the mirror. I think a little bit clearer. Sure. Run it up the Flagpole and see who's Salutes but no one ever does. Yeah. I'm not sick but I'm not well. Who is that? Harvey Danger. Harvey Danger. Okay. Yeah. That's a great song. I love it. Yeah. Who fell a podcast with a friend John Roderick actually Sean Nelson was a friend of his in Seattle and he played bass for a little while in Harvey Danger. Oh. Very wow. Man. It's all coming for a song. I got one more for you. What you got? I used to have that song and I don't know where I downloaded it from. It would have been probably back in the Napster days or something. Whoa. And it was mislabeled as Brian Jones Hell Massacre and I was always like, this does sound like Brian Jones Hell Massacre. Now I know it most definitely wasn't Brian Jones Hell Massacre. Wow. All right. We haven't even talked about Flagpole sitting yet. No we haven't. Which is a crime because it's actually one of the more interesting weirdo fads that's

8:15ever come this way in America. And it was in the 20s. It started. We actually we know who patient zero was a flagpole sitting and it's easy to tell because it is such a bizarre thing to do that if you can find the person who who did it first who claims to have done it first, they're probably correct. And in this case, you can trace it back to sometime around January of 1924. Supposedly, potentially in Hollywood, California, part of Los Angeles. And there was a man named Alvin Shipwreck Kelly who supposedly climbed up on a flagpole as part of a promotion for a movie and sat there for a full 13 hours and 13 minutes to help draw a crowd and boy did he ever. Yeah. Which, you know, it sounds like a long time to sit on a flagpole, but that is kid stuff. Yeah. Compared to where this is headed. Yeah, for sure. That's an aportif. But it's a good first attempt, you know?

9:17Yeah. And so, you know, it sounds strange because when you think of a flagpole, you're like, what are they sitting on? It's a modified flagpole that basically, there are different kinds, but usually it's sort of like a bar stool at the top of a flagpole. And it's that low-fi and you climb up there and you sit and that's all you do. That's it. I mean, whatever else you want to do. Well, sure, you do have to use yourself or whatever. That's up to you. But as far as being considered a flagpole sitter, that's it. You sit on top of a flagpole for as long as you can. All right. So let's talk about this guy because Shiprock Kelly was a pretty interesting character. And I have to say there's a memory palace episode about him that I specifically didn't listen to you beforehand because I didn't want to unconsciously rip it off. Wow. The goal is into that. Yeah, or a buddy Nate. I'm going to check that out for sure. So Alvin Kelly, he was born a allowicious Anthony Kelly in New York City in Hell's Kitchen in a tenement in 1893 and had a very sad start to his life and that his father had already

10:23passed before he was born. His mother passed in childbirth and that basically meant he was shuttled around to relatives and orphanages from the minute he took his first breath. Yeah. And apparently from a pretty early age, he would do things like climb flag poles and other tall stuff and like working at heights became kind of a recurring theme in his life. Supposedly by age seven, he was climbing flag poles within a few years after that, he was starting to scale the facades of some of the buildings in his neighborhood. And by the time he was 13, bear in mind if this guy's biography seems a little thin, he just came out of nowhere in 1924 for sitting on a flag pole. So all of the info about him came from him to reporters who were reporting in the 1920s. So just fabrications are flying around left and right. But supposedly he ran away at age 13 and ran off to join the crew of a cargo ship and

11:27started his life sailing the seas. Yeah, and he did a lot of kind of odd jobs or maybe not odd jobs, but just jobs that didn't have anything to do with one another over the next couple of decades. He was in the movies, has a stand in and a double, he was a stunt person, a stunt pilot, a high diver, a boxer. This part I love. There's actually a name for people that repair church steeples. What is that? Steeplejack. He was a steeplejack. That is definitely a band name for sure. Steeplejack? Oh yeah. Maybe an industrial band, but like on the lights side, they're technically too melodic to actually be considered industrial, but they still call themselves industrial. That's become my favorite part of this whole band name thing is you describing what kind of band it is. Oh, okay. Well, thanks man. That makes me feel warm and fuzzy. So World War One comes along and he was in the Naval auxiliary reserve as an insen and

12:30served on the USS Edgar F. Luke and Bach during that war. Yeah. So he did have some sort of, well, I should say, I don't know if anybody's corroborated that, but we'll just take all that at face value because it doesn't really matter at this point, but he eventually picked up the nickname Shipwreck. And there's a lot of different explanations for this. And he's given or he gave multiple different explanations depending on what reporter he was talking to. But one of the numbers that gets bandied about pretty frequently is that Shipwreck Kelly was so named because he survived 32 different shipwrecks at sea, which is where shipwrecks tend to happen. Those were the good old days. Third, yeah. You just make up stories about yourself. Do you remember when we talked about, we did an episode on the world's either Lucky Easter, Unluckiest People. And do you remember that one guy who was like, I survived a car that fell off a cliff and

13:33I survived a train wreck and all that. He was doing his jam in like 2005, remember? Oh, was he? Yeah, he was pretty, pretty recent, if I remember correctly. Remember his son came out and was like, everybody, this is not true, right? Like none of what you're talking about is true. Well, we don't just fool you all. We don't know if Shipwreck Kelly actually survived the Titanic like he claimed, but we do know that he was not on the roster on the Titanic. So I am going to venture to say that he made that one up. And there were three Kelly's on board, but who were survivors, but all three of them were women. So yeah, he probably wasn't on the Titanic. Maybe he did survive from shipwrecks. He was at sea most likely. But the point is they call him Shipwreck Kelly. And I guess somebody went to the trouble of digging up that some reporters who covered his boxing career are probably the likely source for where he got his nickname Shipwreck, right? Which I love because I guess he wasn't a great boxer because they said that he was often

14:35adrift and ready to sink. That great Shipwreck Kelly. It's a great nickname and an even better origin story than surviving 32 shipwrecks, if you asked me. Yeah. And the other thing we don't know for sure is even if that Hollywood movie premiere story is correct in his first major outing as a flagpole sitter because yet another story says, no, this is actually in Philadelphia at a department store and he just did it on a dare. And the department store got a lot of business because people were standing around looking and then doing some shopping. So they were like, hey, stay up there and I'll give you some extra dough. Yeah. So either way, it's pretty widely held that Shipwreck Kelly was the guy who started the flagpole sitting craze. And it was a craze because this is a time where you could go sit on a flagpole for 13 hours and 13 minutes. And newspapers around the country would pick up the story and write about it.

15:36And you would suddenly become famous overnight. And that's exactly what happened to Shipwreck Kelly. So that's prong one toward this becoming a fad in the 1920s. The other criteria is that people have to want to topple that record. And that was very widespread at the time too because the 1920s were actually really big into fads. Like people would take up weird fads and just go nuts over them for basically the whole decade. Yeah. You know, people had time and they had fewer distractions. Yeah. No TV. Someone doing a danceathon for 28 hours or sitting on a flagpole for a day, you know, it's an interesting story back then. It's sad, but that was interesting, but it was. So we'll talk about dance marathon and then we'll take a break. Okay. Okay.

16:41Hey, everybody, here's the thing about other home security systems. They're all designed for after after the window breaks after someone's inside after you get the notification after the police come simply safe is the first system designed for before stopping a break in before it even begins. That's right. And simply safe has been protecting your world for 20 years everybody. So celebrate their anniversary and save 60% on your new simply safe system at simply safe dot com slash stuff. That's 60% off you guys at simply safe dot com slash stuff.

17:44Plus, when you order right in our show name and the how did you hear about a survey to let them know that we sent you don't forget there's no safe like simply safe. We've all done it, tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self diagnose and sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feet is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge protein max detox, trek your sleep, but what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what health versus hype from the American Medical Association and I Heart Media's Ruby Studio is here to find out each episode. Ruby nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez who's racked up billions of views across PBS discovery channel and YouTube talks to doctors, influencers and real people trying these trends not to cancel them not to hype them more, but to actually understand them because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters start asking better questions and listen to health versus hype on the I heart radio app Apple podcasts or wherever

18:47you get your podcasts. Hey everybody, we want to talk to you about quints because quints focuses on high quality wardrobe staples made with premium materials like 100% Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and marina wool. Yeah, you know, there's pieces in your closet that you always find yourself wearing on repeat? Well, those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy and that's what quints does best. And quints also makes premium pants, fitities and polos and breathable active wear. Very basics designed to work across your wardrobe and hold up to everyday wear. Yeah, chucking that 100% Mongolian cashmere sweater you mentioned. Uh-huh. They started just $60. So you get the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without the luxury price tag. To find your next fall favorites at quints, download the quints app for app exclusive offers or go to quints.com slash should know. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the

19:48UK too. That's quince.com slash should know. Oh, wait, I got that backwards check. I just realized hopefully Jerry figured it out and there was an ad in there somewhere. I think we should just leave it just like that though. That'll be fun. Okay. So we're going to talk about Marathon's dance marathons now after the ad break despite what I said before. And dance marathons are a super 20s example of a crazy fat that kind of came along and got everybody by the hackles and people across the country started entering basically dance marathon competitions all because of one person, one woman, a dance instructor named Alma Cummings. That's right. Thirty-three years old. She danced for 27 hours at the Audubon Ballroom in New York in 1923 with six different dance

20:54partners. And it was a weird time because it wasn't just dancing. It was endurance challenges as a whole. You're just all the rage and punishing your bodies and all these weird random ways from yo-yoing to hula hooping, to rocking in a rocking chair or skipping rope to dancing. Dancing was the big one. That's where you see these videos of these marathon dance competitions. It's just, it looks like hell on earth. It looks awful. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They didn't seem very fun at all. Alma Cummings just kicked the whole thing off. And again, just like Shipwreck Kelly who would follow, I guess, a year later or even, yeah, about a year later. She got a lot of publicity. There's like a famous photo of her with her feet in a tub of water soaking at home. She's holding up her shoes and they have holes in the soles where, you know, she wore holes from dancing for 27 hours.

21:56And I guess, like you're saying, people were bored or there wasn't as much to do, but also there really seems to just be a profound hunger for celebrity. However you can get it. And that seemed to really drive people who wanted to be like, well, if this lady got this much attention for dancing 27 straight hours, maybe I can get even more attention for dancing 30 straight hours. And so within just, like, I think three weeks of Alma Cummings setting this record for dancing, it had been broken nine times, at least. From people trying to seek the same kind of publicity she got. Yeah. And you know, it's funny. We talk about these days, however everyone wants their 10 minutes or they want to be reality show famous or whatever. And you've been whittled down to 10 now? I thought it was like 15. Well, that's something new and it's really not. This is sort of the version of that back then was, I want to be famous. I want my names in the papers, but I'm not particularly skilled enough to do anything

22:58to do that. So I'll rock in a rocking chair for three days. Yeah. You know? And hopefully they will come. Um, my rock, they will come. And it's, you know, that was a pity laugh at best, but I appreciate it. Well, it's a bad joke. Yeah. It's admittedly. Um, but it would, and we, we should shout out a bunch of great websites here because um, this next bit came from, uh, at, uh, atlet's obscure one of our favorite sites. Uh, and also our dearest of old sites that we always have loved mental floss, uh, ripples, history daily, j mark powell and historic pellum, which is great. But um, atlet's obscure, it talks about the, in the thirties, and this is really kind of depressing, um, during the depression. It's very appropriate. Is that sometimes people would enter these dance marathons because it would be somewhere they could sleep and eat for a week at a time, uh, when they didn't necessarily have a

24:01home or food. Yeah. It was extremely depressing or just the, the prize money that was offered in the depression might be enough to keep your house from being foreclosed on. Yeah. So yeah, the thing is, is, you know, you can blame promoters for continuing this long beyond the fad, but the promoters wouldn't have been putting these on and offering these prize money where it not for all the crowds that would show up every day to watch these people get increasingly closer to, you know, catastrophic exhaustion from, from dance marathons because like there were, there were rules where, you know, probably early on in the dance marathon, um, you could sleep or rest for 15 minutes of every hour. Yeah. And then after like a week, a week of this dance marathon going on, the promoter might be like, Oh, okay, well, you know, we need to step things up a little bit and you will now have three minutes per hour of every 24 hour period in a day to where you can rest.

25:03And then toward the end, they'd be like, no rest. I think I read about one where the last 57 hours of a multi week, um, dance marathon was like, had no rest. So these people dance for more than two straight days constantly. You had to constantly be in motion and your knees couldn't touch the ground or else you'd be disqualified. Yeah. And if you look at footage of this stuff, I mean, it's charitable to call what they're doing is dancing toward the end. It's just hanging. It looks like two corpses hanging on each other sort of swaying back and forth. Yeah. I don't get, I mean, any of these things, even the modern day versions of like these contests where you have to keep your hand on a car or whatever. Uh-huh. A hard body. A man or sit in the car. A, a, a, a new guy that did one of those where he tried to win a Volkswagen Beetle by sitting in it with four other people in a mall. I don't just like, oh, yeah, you told us that story before. Did he win or not? I think he did. But there's just no way.

26:05Kill me. Yeah. It would be really awful for sure. Because let's say for one of those contests, let's see, don't win. And you've just sat in a car with three strangers for a week and you didn't even get the car. But even if you did get the car, imagine yourself five years on and that car is like, like, first there's tears in the seats or something like that, you know, like the glove compartment won't close. It's, you know, I mean, I guess you've got a story to tell at cocktail parties, but even that would wear thin after a while. Yeah. I mean, people that do stuff like that because there's something about contests like this. There's something about fads like flagpole sitting that keep humanity from becoming too cerebral. You know what I mean? From just becoming like computers, basically, we need people that do stuff like this because it brings out some juvenile something in us that makes us want to find out about it or

27:09learn about it or talk about it. And I think that's good. I think that's healthy for our species. All right. It's my, it's my take. It's genuinely off the cuff. I'm actually just surprised at myself that I just said that out loud. You're just riffing. Yeah. So shipwreck Kelly back to flagpole sitting. That initial 13 hour, 13 minute sit, like you said, inspired so many others to break it. I was getting broken in pretty short order, kind of like the dance of thorns. There was a woman named Bobby Mack from LA who did it. A guy named Joe Holdham Powers who did this in Chicago for 16 days. Another guy for 51 days named Bill Penfield. Yeah. So let's point this out. Take a second here. Shipwreck Kelly did 13 hours and kicked off a national fad. These people are now into weeks at a time. 51 days is more than seven weeks up there. Yeah.

28:09It's pretty impressive. That's a long time. I'm impressed at least. Yeah. Are you bucking this a rebar? Yes, right now. Can you tell? Let me see here in the 20s. It was a 15 year old boy who set the kid record for 10 days, 10 hours, 10 minutes, and 10 seconds. I think that was planned. I, well, yeah, if not, then. But see, there you go, Chuck. We're thinking about that. Just making us think this little kid is making us think we got to avoid that. It needs to be random, random combinations of numbers so we don't start thinking about it. We should also point out that not everyone was like, oh, this is the best thing ever. And Cosmo, Paul, it's in magazine. Cosmo called it competitive in, in facility. Yeah. This is fine. We need that too. I have to say, I want to say something here. It's a little PSA. This might not even ever make it in the final edit. Yeah, boy. I'm going to say it to you. How about that? I would say the last like few weeks of episodes.

29:11There's been like some good ones here or there. But overall, I find that they've been less good because I am so sick of myself because we've been so entrenched in the book right now. So it's like living breathing, S-Y-S-K, which is us and having to confront and like myself and my own personality and sense of humor and whether that's actually funny and just constantly thinking about this on top of doing the podcast, on top of the other stuff we're trying to do now too. And I am so sick of myself, I can barely tolerate listening to myself talk. So if anyone's picked up on the last few episodes, like in the last few weeks just being a little ho hum, that's why and I apologize. Maybe we'll go back and redo them one day. Wow. News to me. Okay. You've been great. Hey, thanks a lot, man. That's ultimately what I was fishing for.

30:13All right. Well, if you want to cut that part out, let me pick this up by saying, and I'm sure you've made a great point, Josh. So back to Kelly, right? You got all these, I'm sure, Shippert Kelly deemed slack jawed, yokeles, ho-hums, that kind of thing. Who were out there trying to topple his record and they did. Someone did topple his record. But nobody had turned this into a business like Shippert Kelly had. Yeah. He was a one man money-making machine who made his money just by sitting on top of a flag pole. Money. Because he was really good at self-promoting. Like there was a reporter who's the year he wouldn't bend if he got the chance. And in these reports or these articles, he would say things like, yeah, I'm in town for this. But if anybody has any other offers I'm wide open and I'm staying at the Cambridge Arms, I tend to rent hotel for the next few days if somebody wants to get in touch with me there with a job offer.

31:13Like he was really good at attracting job offers specifically for flag pole sitting. Yeah. And he made good dough for back then. I mean, this is good money anytime. If he made $100 an hour like he claimed to other people said no, really wasn't that much. It was probably closer to anywhere between $100 and $500 a day. Still a lot of money. Sure. And like you said, it was like he was almost like a celebrity version of a sign spinner. Like if you could pay George Clooney to sign spin in front of your mobile phone store, that was sort of what Chippert Kelly was. That's a great one. I got one too. It's almost like if there was a cult of personality built up around like the flapping dancing wind sock guy that they put out in front of like mattress, mattress stores in like 2005. Yeah. I love those dudes. Okay.

32:13Those are fun. Both of those are high quality analogies. Well, we'll see which one Jerry uses in the edit. Okay. Let me see here. Here are some of his longer sets. He did 146 hours at the Old West Gate Hotel in Kansas City. Not bad. 312 hours in Newark, New Jersey, atop the St. Francis Hotel. That's pretty good. Sure. I don't know what that is in days, but. 312 hours. Let's see. If you divided that by 24 as you should, you would come up with something along the lines of 13 days on the nose. Hmm. All right. Well, how about 22 days? And this was in conjunction with the dance marathon at none other than Madison Square Garden. Yeah. Because I don't know if we said or not, but there was a dance marathon at Madison Square Gardens that was actually shut down by the health department because they decided it had gone on too long, 10 days, and then it deemed a threat to the health of the participants.

33:18That wasn't the one that he sat in, but there was one the following year where for, what was it, 22 days? Yeah. That means that the dance marathon went on for 22 days. But imagine that. So you've got these two endurance fads just interweaved in this way that the universe almost like collapses in on itself because they're put together too close together. You know? Yeah. And here's how he would do it. He would sit on that bar stool like thing and it was padded and he would eat and smoke cigarettes and shave apparently. And they would send this up, stuff up with a bucket and a rope and tell him how he would sleep because this is what I really kind of wanted to know. So you said his seat was like a bar stool around bar stool basically, right? And it was on a pole, a flagpole appropriately.

34:20And then in the flagpole, you'd have two holes drilled just beneath the seat. And now that I'm doing it, I'm like, that's really hard to reach. So now I'm questioning whether this is true or not. He might have long arms. Maybe so. Long thumbs. So he would plug his thumbs into those holes drilled into each side of the flagpole so that when he started to lean forward, the pressure from that, the flagpole on his thumbs would kind of cut into his skin and wake him up just enough that he would adjust himself. And apparently he got so good at this that he would adjust himself to sit back up so he wouldn't fall over off of the flagpole while he was still sleeping. Like he wouldn't, he wouldn't wake up. He could just adjust himself in his sleep. That's right. And he'd have his little, I don't know if they're little, but he would have his ankles locked around the pole. And apparently it would tether a leg to keep him from catastrophe. But I think it's very dubious that that was a solid life saving rig.

35:21Yeah. And I mean, like some of these flagpoles he's sitting on 30 feet, 50 feet. One of them, I guess the impression I had, the one that you mentioned on Kansas City's Westgate Hotel, that that flagpole was on the top roof of the hotel. So I mean, he was up there for sure. And if he had something gone wrong, he would have, yeah, that tether probably would not have done terribly much. Or it would have done a lot to keep his leg hanging up there, but the rest of them would have kept going to the ground, you know. How did he pee pee and poo poo? He had a little contraption for that with the tube that went down. Okay. But here's the thing. So you're a, you're a traveling flagpole sitter. You're relying on the help of other people on the ground. You need food. When you pee and poop into that contraption that leads to a tube that goes down to the ground, you don't want that just leaking out for the spectators to see and smell and experience. You need to go into a bucket that somebody's going to go take away and dump.

36:21So you're relying on this kind of group of assistance and hands that probably the promoter maybe helped tire for you. Maybe you make a friend along the way who just kind of travels from town to town with you for a little while. That's what I think. He had a shipwreck Kelly, had an assistant. He had a boy. That was the worst job in show business. Right. He had a lad who would help him. Yeah. Yeah. So, but it would be a pretty bad job. Yeah. But anyway, so he had to, I mean, he had to eat and he didn't eat much. He would apparently just kind of almost do a broth fast, augmented with cigarettes and coffee. He would stay up for four days at a time because living on a flagpole is not exactly the most comfortable place you can exist for 22 days or 13 days or however long. No. And it eventually turned against him in that the money dried up after he did this sort

37:21of big Atlantic city stunt that we talked about. And it was the great depression and eventually people were kind of like, I don't really care so much about this dumb stunt because I'm starving and I'm broke and I'm homeless. And the kind of tide of public opinion turned such that in 1935, he went to do this in the Bronx and he was actually arrested for public nuisance. Yeah. And I'm sure he was like, but I'm shipwreck Kelly. But I mean, think about it. That's like everybody's sick of you now, Kelly and your stick. We're all just depressed in the depression. So maybe we'll do a dance marathon, but we're not going to watch you sit around in a flag pole anymore. And there was a contemporary article that was written at the time that said that he attributed the decline of flagpole sitting directly to the stock market crash. And he said that people didn't want to see anything higher than their securities stock securities at the time, which were not very high. So. And everyone went, this is just not even a joke and good taste.

38:25And he punches human familiar in the mouth and say, you told me to tell that joke. Man, those gang vusters, Chuck, do you watch that show? Got me. What we do in the shadows. I've seen some episodes of it. You know, we were talking about it. One of the PAs, I think, wrote in to say that they were just blown away that we were giving such big ups to their show. I think they remember that. If you talked to Matt Berry, tell him he's a comedy genius. I never heard anything back. Man, it's great. But have you seen an evening with Beverly Loughlin? No. How do I know that name? So it's a Craig Robinson? Yes. In the office, right? Yeah. He plays a guy named Beverly Loughlin. And Aubrey Meadows. Aubrey Meadows. Aubrey Meadows. Plaza. That's right. Man, I'm really into this.

39:25You're great with first name, so. Yeah. And then, okay. So she's the main character. Jameen Clement. I know him. You got that. He plays, well, you just have to see it. Anyways, well, he was in what we do in the shadows, the movie. Right. Right. He created it too. This is what all ties into this. He and Matt Barry are also in this too. Matt Barry is in the TV version of what we do in the shadows. Yes. The main Clement help create it. But it's definitely worth watching is purposefully very bizarre, which can get really annoying, really easily. But this movie pulls it off very well. Like purposeful bizarreness and for humor. And it's a good movie. It's worth watching. Okay. It's worth watching. I believe it's to you to decide whether it's a good movie or not. Well, I love everybody in it. That's a great cast. Yeah. I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's worth watching. How about that? All right. Should we take our second break here? Can you believe we haven't? Yes. I can.

40:26All right. Let's do our other break and then we're going to talk about, we're going to wind up this flagpole sitting thing right after this. Hey, everybody. Here's the thing about other home security systems. They're all designed for after, after the window breaks, after someone's inside, after you get the notification, after the police come. Simply safe is the first system designed for before stopping a break in before it even begins. That's right. That's right, and simply safe has been protecting your world for 20 years, everybody.

41:32So celebrate their anniversary and save 60% on your new SimplySafe system at SimplySafe.com slash stuff. That's 60% off you guys at SimplySafe.com slash stuff. Plus, when you order, write in our show name and the how did you hear about this survey to let them know that we sent you. Don't forget, there's no safe like SimplySafe. We've all done it. Tumble down an internet rabbit hole trying to self-diagnose and sometimes doing our own research can leave us more anxious than informed. Your feed is packed with wellness trends telling you to cold plunge, protein max, detox, trek your sleep, but what's actually real? What's exaggerated? What's just wrong? That's exactly what health versus hype from the American Medical Association and I Heart Media's Ruby Studio is here to find out. Each episode, Emmy-nominated science communicator Trace Dominguez, who's racked up billions of views across PBS, Discovery Channel and YouTube, talks to doctors, influencers and real people trying these trends. Not to cancel

42:35them, not to hype them more, but to actually understand them because when it comes to your health, who you listen to matters? Start asking better questions and listen to health versus hype on the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know what? The smallest things when they're done really well can completely change your mood. Did you know that? That's right. They should do like sitting down the end of the day with something actually taste incredible. And of course, we're talking about Girodelli premium dark chocolate because it's a real standout. It's a kind of dark chocolate that's all about great taste. I love this stuff. Exactly. Good dark chocolate really hits differently when it's done right. It's rich and it's smooth without being overpowering. So every bite delivers that satisfying dark chocolate flavor that keeps you coming back for more. That's right. And that's because it's made with high quality cocoa beans and premium ingredients. And the first thing you're going to notice is how great it tastes, whether it's part of an evening wind down or just a small everyday treat. It's an easy way to make an ordinary moment feel a little more

43:35special. And sometimes that's all you need. Chocolate is good. Pick up a Girodelli premium dark chocolate today. Okay. So Kelly, when we left off the public turns on him, they don't care about him anymore. He's probably drunk in some hotel room somewhere with his human familiar. Talking about the good old days at this point. Yeah. Yeah. It is kind of sad. I get the impression that the memory palace episode really focuses on the sad decline of Shipwreck Kelly because I mean, he was a celebrity, a national, probably international celebrity for like a decade, a decade for sitting on flag poles. And then all of a sudden, he's just done. Like society

44:38drops him like a hot potato. And he's penniless and I'm public assistance basically. Yeah. And he died a very sad death. He did. And I think his final flagpole set was all the way in the 1950s in Orange, Texas in 1952. He was almost 60 years old at this point. And he had during the publicity run up to this had two heart attacks. Well, was he sitting on his pole for publicity or was this part of the pole sitting when he had the heart attacks? He was, he had the heart attacks on the pole during the publicity. Oh, so the actual sit was another publicity stunt for someplace. Right. Yeah. I don't know what business it was for. I didn't see that. But I did see that the promoters were like, come down right now. We don't think you're going to survive a third heart attack. So stop. And then it was crazy. I mean, it's only 59 at the time.

45:40Yeah. But 59 and the 1950s. That was I guess. So that's what's a tough figure. Your name was Shipwreck. Yeah. But he did die of that third heart attack. Like a week after that, right? Yeah. He's walking around New York on 51st Street. And he he dropped that on the sidewalk from a heart attack. And he was found holding a scrapbook of all like clippings of newspaper articles about him during his heyday. Oh, man. And that's sad. That's like a movie. Yeah. I can't believe this is a movie. He's, I mean, he's a gold mine just waiting to be well-mined. Wait, wait, wait. There's one other thing about him. Okay. Move on. What would he have after he was done with his flagpole sitting career, the heyday of it. He one of the jobs he had was as a jiggle. Oh, a male escort who would dance with

46:43whoever wanted him to dance at the Rosalind ballroom near Times Square. He was a private dancer. A dancer for money. I've been to Rosalind. They've seen some good shows there. Yeah. Well, you were where Shipwreck Kelly danced for a dime a dance because he was a jiggle. I would have paid for that dance. Sure. Tell him to sit on my head. Hey, he'll do what you want him to do. Boy, so we looked or rather you look because you put this one together and you found one death from flagpole sitting. Isn't that right? That's all I could turn up. Surely, surely there were more, but I could really only find one. And this guy was wonderful in every way. Dick Blandy. Dicksy Blandy. Richard Dixie. Dixie. Dixie Blandy. Dick Dixie Blandy. Sure. So Dixie Blandy, he was a flagpole sitter who was contemporaneous to Shipwreck Kelly. A little bit. Like,

47:48surely he was directly inspired by Shipwreck Kelly. He came along and started in 1929, which was almost the worst year you could join the flagpole sitting movement because just the next year Shipwreck Kelly had his triumphant sit aboard like a robot to what? Triumphant sit. It's just great. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it was triumphant for a couple of reasons. One, it was his longest sit. I believe a 22 days, 23 days, something like that. And secondly, it was aboard or above a top, a 200-foot flagpole for weeks he sat up there. That's triumphant, if you ask me. But he did his in 1930 and everybody dropped him right after. Dixie Blandy just started in 1929. But even though people said flagpole sitting is so out, we're not going to bother even looking up when we see somebody on a flagpole. Dixie Blandy said, you know what? I'm not giving up on this. And he continued to make a career out of it wherever he could. Yes, until he died from flagpole sitting at the age of 71.

48:56In 1974, he fell off of his flagpole. It was a 50-foot pole. And where was this? And Harvey? Yeah, I get the impression in Pennsylvania. Harvey, Pennsylvania? Yeah, because the article that reported on it as if it were something of a nearby event was called the Reading Eagle. And reading is in Pennsylvania, right? Yeah, is it Reading? Whatever. I can't tell you how many times I've been told that since I was a child playing monopoly. And it's just never stuck for some reason. Oh, was that the titular railroad? Oh, okay. Well, we said reading railroads. We said reading. Yeah, that's right. That's what I said too, but apparently it's ready. Well, I didn't know. I didn't know it was the same thing. But either way, this is where Harvey, and of course, it's always like the grand opening of a shopping center or something. Yeah. And that's what was going on here. So for a day promotion. And he basically said,

49:59I think this pole was attached to a trailer. And the trailer moved. Is that right? Well, he asked the security guard to move the trailer so they could make room for what I took to be a cherry picker that could go up and get them. This is hours before the end of his four-day sit. And when the security guard, I guess who had never tried this before, moved the trailer, guy wire that was stabilizing the pole became taught and actually pulled the pole, snapped the pole in two with Dixie still on top of this 50-foot pole. And he landed skull first from what I can tell onto the asphalt below. It is not what you want to open your grocery store with. No, or to close your flag pole sit with. No, either way, it's a bad jam. If you're going to fall, fall early. This is not his only accident, too. This is the one that got him. But he had fractured his skull before when he was thrown off a pole in a storm in 1955. And then there was, this is heartwarming. In 1961, he was doing a pole sit for a promotion dressed

51:06as Santa Claus. And he was shouting, Merry Christmas. That was his job. Sit on the top of the flag pole and shout, Merry Christmas. Apparently, you guys at the point where he finally yelled down that he was getting numb and he had to be taken to the hospital. Which is this is what I'm talking about, man. Just no thought. It doesn't take thought to just think about flag pole sitting. And I'd love that about it. Yeah. Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas. I think there's something wrong up here. I got to go to the hospital because I'm sitting on top of a flag pole dressed as Santa Claus shouting Merry Christmas for three days in its December in Pennsylvania. In redding. It's reading. This was, you know, these were definitely the waning days. This was in the 1970s. There were some other stunts throughout the years here and there. A couple got married. A top of flag pole. Let me see here. 17 year old in 1963. I mean, Peggy Townsend spent 217 days on a pole for a

52:08contest for a radio station. Yeah. And then the granddaddy of them all, the sky Kenneth Gage, Ken Gage 248 days in 1971. This guy would later on be a state rep for New Hampshire. And he, I mean, reading his account, he was basically like, it was terrible. Right. And I hated it every. Not only that. He had a pair of key. He had his pair of key with him, named Nixon. And he said that his pair of key came to hate him, like despise him. He said he didn't think any animals ever hated somebody more than that pair of key hated him. Probably because he made him stay up there in this little tiny house. Yeah. That's a fiberglass pole that was generous. Swey back and forth. He couldn't lay down straight in it because the pole, so he had to lay wrapped around the pole. It sounds really horrible and terrible. And he did it to get publicity because he was an out of work actor, I guess, at the time. Yeah. Like I said, it's a kind of thing

53:11of house is generous. It's this little meaghancy, a picture of it, but it was, it was some sort of shelter at least. He wasn't just sitting like in a bar stool, like Shipwreck Kelly for 248 days. Sure. But it was bad. And he, and it's just funny reading these quotes from him. He did not have a good time. And he just basically kind of talked about how awful it was. Yeah. He said, they said that he lost 15 pounds, three inches from his waist and 13 days of sleep just within the first three months. And that when people would come out, like when the weather was nice, people would come out and shout questions up to him and he talked to him. And he said, the men usually asked if he sleeps and how he goes to the bathroom. And then women asked if he was lonely, which I find very sweet. But I mean, remember we started out here at 13 hours is what kicked this off. And this guy Kenneth Gidge has has brought it up to 248 days, but Chuck, that does not seem to be the record any longer. In fact,

54:12the record may never be broken ever. What do you think? Yeah. H David Werder of Wiki Watchy Florida. Man, this is unbelievable. Sat for 439 days, 11 hours, six minutes. Yeah. His sit went from 1982 to 1984. That's amazing. Yeah. And it was outside of an appliance center in Clearwater. And he didn't do this as like a publicity stunt for that appliance center. He did it to protest gas prices at the time. Yeah. That's how you see these these days sometimes his protests. Sure. But the gas at the time was 99 cents a gallon. That's cute. So his protest didn't work at all. But he spent 439 days of his life on a five pole because it was mad about the price of gas. Wow. No thought whatsoever. To a zen like beautiful state is what this man achieved.

55:13Is that the overarching theme? Yeah. I think so, man. Are you ready? You got anything else? Yeah. I mean, we should mention David Blaine. He very famously did this standing in 2002. Remember that? For how long? No, I don't remember that at all. He stood at top of 90-foot pole for 35 hours in Bryant Park in New York. Wow. And this is when he was doing those. I'd love the guys to treat magician and give me a little levitation trick. But when he was like, I'm going to hold my breath or I'm going to be encased an ice or stand on this thing. That's when I lost interest. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I like street magic too. It's pretty great stuff. Yeah. But yeah, he stood. It's tough to stand. I mean, sitting is hard, but standing is a whole different deal. Yeah, for sure. I wouldn't want to do it. Nope. So you got anything else about flag pole sitting? I don't. Well, then Chuck, that means of course it's time for listener mail.

56:18This is, oh, this is just funny. Remember in the Brux's and I talked about my doctor toggle? This comes from Joe in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. He said, hey guys, thanks for the entertainment knowledge, your discussion of doctor names at the end of the Brux's and podcast, remind me of two anecdotes. My ex-wife had a dentist in San Francisco named Dr. Drilling. No. Pretty good, huh? Sure. And this is even better. He said, second, this one never gets appreciated as much by others for some reason. It must just hit me the right way. But with you, Joe, it hits me too. She worked with a medical, worked in medical administration and her boss at one point was named Dr. Wachter. W-A-C-H-T-E-R pronounced a walker. And he said, I can just imagine her submitting daily reports using baby talk going, here, Dr. Wachter, here, you're reports for the day.

57:19Man, this guy is our new mascot here on the show. I think we need to actually get him on here. What's his name? Joe and Gettysburg. I love it. Yeah, Joe, way to go. This is one of the best listener mails I think I've ever heard, Chuck. Dr. Wachter. Well, if you want to be like Joe and try to topple his record as the greatest email listener mail writer of all time, let's take your best shot. You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom, run it up the flight pole and see who's salutes it at StuffPodcast.lyhardradio.com. Stuff you should know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts, my heart radio, visit the I Heart Radio app. Apple podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Here's an interesting thought. What actually makes something become a wardrobe staple? It's probably not because it's trendy. More often than not, it's because it fits well.

58:22Feels comfortable, holds up over time, and works for just about anything you have going on. That's right. Those are usually the pieces you find yourself reaching for over and over again without even thinking about it. And that's really the idea behind today's sponsor. Built. Built is a modern essentials brand focused on creating foundational wardrobe pieces that combine versatility, functionality, and elevated style. So instead of chasing seasonal trends, they focus on timeless essentials designed to become the backbone of your closet. They're everyday pant 2.0 reimagines a classic everyday pant with added comfort and performance while the drop cut looks. As it becomes the brand's signature best-selling tee thanks to its premium feel and versatility. If you're looking to invest in quality essentials that you'll wear on repeat, visit built.com. That's b-y-l-t dot com and use code sysk20 for 20% off your first order. This is Chelsea Hanna from Dear Chelsea. If you travel a lot with your dog like I do with dog feeding them well on the road can get surprisingly complicated, especially when you're touring 30 plus cities, staying in hotels, flying, driving, and basically living out of a suitcase.

59:26Bros of dog food sounds great until you realize you don't exactly have a freezer backstage. That's why I started bringing just fresh from just food for dogs. It's real fresh dog food made with human grade ingredients with meat and vegetables. You can see in the bowl but the difference is it's shelf stable, which means I don't need a freezer or a cooler and there's no prep. So now I can throw a few packs in my bag and Doug still gets a healthy meal wherever we are. Doug absolutely loves it and I like knowing I am feeding my baby something that's actually good for him. It's also the number one vet recommended fresh dog food made without preservatives or fillers. Go to justfoodfordogs.com and get 50% off your first order. What if your soda actually did something for you? Introducing Skypop Protein Soda. Skypop Protein Soda has 10 grams of complete protein, zero sugar, and real delicious soda taste. Skypop Protein Soda, reach for the sky, get your Skypop Protein Soda now at Target or King This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human