Speaker 1: Welcome to the show Ridiculous Historians and hopefully fellow animal lovers.
Speaker 1: This episode is going to maybe knock your socks off,
Speaker 1: or at least maybe you'll take your socks off while
Speaker 1: you're listening to the podcast. Ben, are you what kind
Speaker 1: of animal person are you? I'm pretty much every animal
Speaker 1: person real, Yeah, except for the tales of rats and
Speaker 1: possums bother me, but yeah, But other than that, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm super into pretty much every animal. So you're a
Speaker 1: bit of a doctor Doolittle figure, yes, yes, but I
Speaker 1: have been thinking about life lately, Nolan. Maybe I should
Speaker 1: be a doctor do more so I don't get sued.
Speaker 1: And that's very good. That's very good. I like what
Speaker 1: you did there. I'm a cat person, I guess a
Speaker 1: fair weather cat person. They kind of just they should
Speaker 1: have drift around my periphery and they don't really bother
Speaker 1: me too much. There's the occasional meal. I'm an indoor
Speaker 1: outdoor cat person, so not as much of a do
Speaker 1: little as you. But um, I really do appreciate your
Speaker 1: your commitment to the animal kingdom. Oh man, where would
Speaker 1: we be without animals? As a matter of fact, where
Speaker 1: would we be without our superproducer Casey Pegram, who, if
Speaker 1: ever an animal is probably only a party animal. He is,
Speaker 1: he's he's like animal from the Muppet Show. He plays
Speaker 1: drums about as as aggressively. This is this is true.
Speaker 1: Casey is an incredible drummer. Yes, this is true. We
Speaker 1: actually have a lot of very talented percussionists here at
Speaker 1: how stuff works. Maybe we can get a drum circle
Speaker 1: going on one day. However, today is not that day, unfortunately,
Speaker 1: but you know, fortunately for other reasons. Right, today is
Speaker 1: another kind of very special day. As you can tell
Speaker 1: from whatever we end up writing the title of this episode,
Speaker 1: as we are exploring a very particular type of candidate,
Speaker 1: political candidate. One thing that's great about this country almost
Speaker 1: anybody can run for some sort of office. And one
Speaker 1: thing that's great about this podcast is Noel and I
Speaker 1: are not launching out on this endeavor alone. We are
Speaker 1: joined by our returning guest, longtime friend of the show.
Speaker 1: Uh fellow, ridiculous historians give it up for Christopher haciotis. Hey,
Speaker 1: good afternoon, good evening. If you're listening in the evening,
Speaker 1: good morning, we're waking you up. And if you are
Speaker 1: sleeping to this podcast, just keep on sleeping. No, wake up,
Speaker 1: wake up. I don't think this is a good sleeping
Speaker 1: podcast because it's a little too frenetic, which you high energy,
Speaker 1: a little ridiculous. Yeah, wake up. We could do an
Speaker 1: a S m R. You know, lower the voice, quiet
Speaker 1: st you want to talk about some animals? You know?
Speaker 1: You know what I discovered the other day? What podcast?
Speaker 1: It's called Sleep with Me? Have you heard of this?
Speaker 1: Is that? Is that just a text you got? No? No, No,
Speaker 1: it's a podcast. It's a guy who plays this character
Speaker 1: named the Divine Scooter or something like that, and he
Speaker 1: just tells weird, non sequitur stories in this very relaxing,
Speaker 1: kind of an unplaceable accent, and it's just a delight.
Speaker 1: So if you're looking for a podcast to sleep too,
Speaker 1: I recommend Sleep with Me American Public Media. But not
Speaker 1: this podcast. No, definitely not this podcast. So Christopher, earlier
Speaker 1: you had given us this amazing idea. You gave us
Speaker 1: a choice between two possible topics to explore, and the
Speaker 1: one we ended up going with was the idea of
Speaker 1: non human political candidates. Yeah, that's right. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of ways that people around the world choose their leaders,
Speaker 1: and one of the most popular in um. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna accept the pun, one of the most popular ways
Speaker 1: is to vote right. We we we put folks in
Speaker 1: office that we as a whole decide will best represent
Speaker 1: the majority and best uphold the needs of the minority.
Speaker 1: Sometimes I wanted to talk about non human electoral candidates
Speaker 1: after we dug into the story of Hartleypool. Now, ridiculous historians,
Speaker 1: you will remember that this was the story of the
Speaker 1: monkey perhaps that washed ashore in Hartleypool, England. The Harleypool
Speaker 1: Monkey inspired or the story inspired hang Us the monkey,
Speaker 1: and hang Us the Monkey was the mascot of the town,
Speaker 1: the soccer team, and ended up becoming the mayor of Hartlepool. Now,
Speaker 1: you guys talked about this a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: and that got me thinking, let's dive into more of
Speaker 1: these weird, strange, ridiculous stories of things, of animals, of
Speaker 1: ideas that somehow made it on the ballot and got
Speaker 1: into office. No, okay, So, so our rules of engagement
Speaker 1: then would be ideally non humans of some sort that
Speaker 1: successfully ran for office. Yeah, that successfully. We're part of
Speaker 1: a campaign. Yes, let's stick with that, because not all
Speaker 1: of these were winners. But that doesn't mean they're not
Speaker 1: worth talking about it, because there's some really weird, ridiculous
Speaker 1: stuff that we can get into. Now. I don't know
Speaker 1: if mine were necessarily successful or not. I didn't realize
Speaker 1: we had this criteria. Well, they were successfully candidates, right,
Speaker 1: they were put forth? Yeah exactly? Is that is that
Speaker 1: good enough? Oh? Yeah? If they didn't win, um, probably
Speaker 1: we're all better off for it. Yes, I think that's fair.
Speaker 1: So we each on our own went out and found
Speaker 1: a couple of great candidates, and we'd like to share
Speaker 1: some of these with you today. I love this idea,
Speaker 1: But the sad part is when we set off, we're
Speaker 1: not going to be able to cover all of the
Speaker 1: non human candidates, because there are surprisingly a ton of them. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean it's funny. We were talking about doing this
Speaker 1: topic and I'm like, really not, surely there's not enough
Speaker 1: to fill an entire podcast with this. But yes, in fact,
Speaker 1: we've been able to do it, and we have leftovers
Speaker 1: on the cutting room floor. Maybe we'll do a part two. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you you you underestimate the ridiculousness of human history and
Speaker 1: how seriously or not we're willing to take our political process.
Speaker 1: That's true, and we found one of the very first
Speaker 1: examples of this, which I think no you had looked into.
Speaker 1: Oh I get to go first. Oh please, you're nominating me? Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I mean I think should we should we vote? I
Speaker 1: guess what we're doing. Let's do that. Let's let's hold
Speaker 1: true to the political process. Okay, I just really quickly,
Speaker 1: let me just okay, here's a ballot. K've made the ballot.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna check my box. Check. Okay, I'm gonna voting
Speaker 1: for Nolan. I already did that. Will vote for myself. Perfect. Okay,
Speaker 1: are we are we in agreement? Casey, what's hereby declare
Speaker 1: it shall be nol? That's been case on the case.
Speaker 1: Literally he made it. He made a judgment there, he
Speaker 1: made a ruling. Okay, I like this one. Guys. Have
Speaker 1: you guys ever heard of Pegasus, the the Immortal pig Yeah,
Speaker 1: Pegasus the Immortal? Did you say Pegasus? No, pigassus, my
Speaker 1: friend Pegasus. I think I think I see where you're
Speaker 1: going with It's a it's a bit of a pun,
Speaker 1: you see, because Pegasus was a a unicorn and Alcorn
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what the terminology is but a winged
Speaker 1: horse is a pegasus, And then I think Pegasus was
Speaker 1: the name of a particular winged horse from Greek mythology. Pegasus,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, was an actual pig, a spotted
Speaker 1: pig that was obtained in the country in the outside
Speaker 1: of the city of Chicago during the Democratic National Convention
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty eight by a little group you may
Speaker 1: have heard of called the Youth International Party a k a.
Speaker 1: The Yippies. Yep, yep, yep. You know these guys been
Speaker 1: I am not terribly familiar with the Yippies. Well, they're
Speaker 1: pretty neat. Um. They were kind of a fringe e
Speaker 1: sort of a band of mary pranksters during the sixties
Speaker 1: that would do sit ins, but mainly their whole bags,
Speaker 1: as they might have said, was kind of political theater, right,
Speaker 1: So they would stage these events that were almost like
Speaker 1: a combination of protests and performance art, right. So one
Speaker 1: big one they did was during the March on the
Speaker 1: Pentagon in nineteen sixty seven in Washington, d C. The
Speaker 1: Yippies kind of connected with UM a bunch of different people,
Speaker 1: including um, kind of fringe weirdo filmmaker Kenneth Anger. Um.
Speaker 1: They were led by Abby Hoffman. He may know of
Speaker 1: he was in Forrest Gump. He's a Forrest Gump fame.
Speaker 1: They hung out. He always were like an American flag
Speaker 1: T shirt. He wrote a book called Steal this book. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, proponent of free love. Yeah exactly, yeah did
Speaker 1: you did you? Yeah? Well it says it, Yeah, I
Speaker 1: kind of stole it. It was a friend of mine
Speaker 1: was like, the book is awesome. You should borrow you
Speaker 1: just you just borrowed it and I never gave it back.
Speaker 1: So's the statute of limitations. When just borrowing becomes stealing,
Speaker 1: that's a whole. That's a whole, another bag of badges.
Speaker 1: That really really is Yeah, Abby Hoffman, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: very influential, kind of hippie around, revolutionary, I don't know
Speaker 1: what you want to call him. Um and his partner,
Speaker 1: a guy named Jerry Rubin, they co founded the Yippies together.
Speaker 1: And when they did this event in d C. They
Speaker 1: attempted to levitate the Pentagon. So they all sat around
Speaker 1: the pentagon and put their fingers underneath the foundation and
Speaker 1: they claimed that they levitated it like an inch or something,
Speaker 1: or like a couple of centimeters. But again, it was
Speaker 1: all just like this kind of charade for the purposes
Speaker 1: of like making a big fuss and getting some attention
Speaker 1: and riling up the squares, will say, can you disprove
Speaker 1: that they absolutely you can't? Know? You certainly can't. And
Speaker 1: that's sort of the beautiful thing about I actually first
Speaker 1: heard about this from a really cool um. It was
Speaker 1: just like a kind of a broadside I had, um,
Speaker 1: like the creative loafing type thing, like a like a
Speaker 1: free paper called Arthur Magazine was out of San Francisco,
Speaker 1: and they actually had a really cool music festival years ago.
Speaker 1: That's discontinued. I think the paper is too, But there
Speaker 1: was a cover story about this whole yippie movement and
Speaker 1: the levitating of the Pentagon. Yeah, okay, now I remember
Speaker 1: the Yippies in further detail, but I still have a question.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean I haven't even like delved into
Speaker 1: one yet. So Pigasus again, Like I said, they obtained
Speaker 1: this pig from a farmer outside of Chicago. Uh, And
Speaker 1: they said it wasn't super easy. Um Hoffman and some
Speaker 1: of his compatriots wandered around looking for a pig farm
Speaker 1: and they had to kind of like get directions to
Speaker 1: find one, and they finally found one, and they decided
Speaker 1: they had this pig that they named Pegasus for the
Speaker 1: purposes of nominating it for the presidency during the Democratic
Speaker 1: National Convention. Because this is how they put it, this
Speaker 1: is their campaign pledge quote. They nominate a president and
Speaker 1: he eats the people. We nominated president, and the people
Speaker 1: will eat him. And they also justified that if you know,
Speaker 1: the nomination didn't work out, they could just eat the
Speaker 1: eat the pig for breakfast. So the Democratic nominee um
Speaker 1: was a guy by the name of Hubert H. Humphreys,
Speaker 1: and he was of course running against Richard Nixon. Uh.
Speaker 1: And the Yippies put forth a nominee for their party
Speaker 1: whatever that the Yippie Party, I guess, which was Pigasus
Speaker 1: the Immortal. Uh. And here's a quote from Jerry Reuben
Speaker 1: about the whole thing. He says, we want to give
Speaker 1: you a chance to talk to our candidate to restate
Speaker 1: our demand that Pigasus be given secret Service protection and
Speaker 1: he'd be brought to the White House for his foreign
Speaker 1: policy briefing. So you know, they had some demands. Um.
Speaker 1: But but here's the thing, it really didn't go over
Speaker 1: super well. Um. Jerry Reuben was actually about to give
Speaker 1: this speech in front of the statue of Picasso in
Speaker 1: what is today called Daily Plaza in Chicago, and no
Speaker 1: sooner need to get up there. They actually paraded the
Speaker 1: pig through the streets. Um. They I think they brought
Speaker 1: it in a a station wagon of some kind, and
Speaker 1: then they brought it out and had it on a leash.
Speaker 1: Um they were arrested and for all intents and purposes
Speaker 1: they arrested the pig, or at the very least confiscated
Speaker 1: it right so that that's pretty silly um. And it
Speaker 1: was auguste of nineteen and the pigs came in, busted in,
Speaker 1: arrested the pig, the actual pig, along with a folk
Speaker 1: singer by the name of phil Oaks, a guy named
Speaker 1: Stewart Albert, and Reuben himself, and they were hauled off
Speaker 1: to the clink um and the pig was actually taken
Speaker 1: to the Humane Society. And there was a whole court
Speaker 1: case surrounding this where they were kind of trying to
Speaker 1: get them on charges of animal cruelty and obstructing a
Speaker 1: right of way of some kind with this vehicle that
Speaker 1: they paraded it in with. And uh, supposedly, according to
Speaker 1: Jerry Reuben, Um, one of the cops came in when
Speaker 1: they were in lock up and they said, all right, boys,
Speaker 1: you guys are going away for a long time because
Speaker 1: the pig squealed on you. Of course I did, of course.
Speaker 1: You know what I want to know about Pegasus though,
Speaker 1: And I've been wondering this the whole time we're talking.
Speaker 1: Did Pegasus have wings? Absolutely not? What? Sorry, Christopher, that's
Speaker 1: an outrage. Here's the thing though. It was sort of
Speaker 1: a pun on again pig and Pegasus, but also the
Speaker 1: old adage you know when pigs fly? Oh, gotcha? That
Speaker 1: makes sense. This whole time I've been thinking of uh,
Speaker 1: I don't know if you guys know the back cover
Speaker 1: of Prince's first album. We're gonna take a little musical
Speaker 1: digression here, but you know this is this is the podcast,
Speaker 1: and um there's a naked Prince sitting astride, uh glorious
Speaker 1: white Pegasus all on a really soft focus. And this
Speaker 1: whole time I've been thinking about Prince sitting atop a
Speaker 1: pig with wings. Incredible. I'm sorry, Like, I know, you've
Speaker 1: been giving us a really good information, but all I've
Speaker 1: been thinking about his prints on top of a pig.
Speaker 1: That you know, that just shows where your mind is,
Speaker 1: and it's a it's a dirty mind. I think it's
Speaker 1: I think it's a beautiful, great place. Also, I don't
Speaker 1: know if we pointed out pigs to was not a
Speaker 1: tiny boy? No, no, no. There's a picture of the
Speaker 1: cops wrangling this this boy and he's you know, he's
Speaker 1: about the size of a of a human boyd he's
Speaker 1: like a hundred forties something. Yeah, well, no, no no, no,
Speaker 1: he's probably I mean, pigs are pretty dense. That's very true.
Speaker 1: He packs a lot of substance in there. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: in this picture with the cops. They're they're also laughing
Speaker 1: about it. They they you know, as as his evidence
Speaker 1: by this comment about the pigs squealing, they seem like
Speaker 1: fun cop. They seem like fun cop. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess if it's we're in Chicago, A lot worse things
Speaker 1: happen than people wrapping up a pig and booking him.
Speaker 1: The cops kind of cracked down at that. That's that's
Speaker 1: the thing exactly. So, just as for a little bit
Speaker 1: of background before we move on to some more ridiculous
Speaker 1: non human candidates. Um, yeah, this was a big year
Speaker 1: because of all of the anti war protesting, um, all
Speaker 1: the protesting around Vietnam. Uh. They they were like something
Speaker 1: in the neighborhood of twelve thousand police deployed, six thousand
Speaker 1: National Guard and over seven thousand someone the neighbor of
Speaker 1: seve any five hundred army troops there to kind of
Speaker 1: help deal with all this chaos because people were coming
Speaker 1: and descending on this city and this convention to let
Speaker 1: the powers that be know that they were not going
Speaker 1: to stand for this aggression. Wink wink oink. Indeed, so
Speaker 1: this is a nice kind of tongue in cheek way
Speaker 1: for the Yippies to poke a little fun at this
Speaker 1: without you know, getting into a shooting match with the
Speaker 1: with the fuzz. And what's interesting here a common thread
Speaker 1: that I think will be discovering as we as we continue.
Speaker 1: What's interesting is that often these candidates exist as a
Speaker 1: form of protests almost exclusively. It's very rare for someone
Speaker 1: to a group of people to seriously elect an animal
Speaker 1: or a thing and expect it to do the job.
Speaker 1: But I think it's such a powerful form of protests.
Speaker 1: That's true. And my other one, just for a little
Speaker 1: tease is sort of a combination of protests, but it's
Speaker 1: more of a form of humiliation and craziness. Right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's I was setting you up for that. I
Speaker 1: think that's one of the earliest ones. But let's let's
Speaker 1: pause on that one, and let's let's turn to you, Christopher.
Speaker 1: I think Nolan, I mainly have animals, but you you've
Speaker 1: got a couple of inanimate objects. Do well. We're gonna
Speaker 1: start with one inanimate one. The next one is is
Speaker 1: animate but not alive. We'll explain what that means when
Speaker 1: we get to it. But Nol, since you have us
Speaker 1: in the mid to late sixties, let's stick there. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go to nineteen sixty seven, so a little bit
Speaker 1: before Pegasus had his his day in in I don't know,
Speaker 1: like is in the frying pan, and before his bacon
Speaker 1: got booked. Yeah, sure, I like it. So let's go
Speaker 1: back a year. It's nineteen sixty seven. We're going south
Speaker 1: of the Equator to South America. We're an Ecuador. There's
Speaker 1: a small town called Pico Waza. Pico Waza is on
Speaker 1: the is close to the Pacific coast of Ecuador. It's
Speaker 1: a small town there's just four thousand people. They've got
Speaker 1: an election coming up. They really want to put someone
Speaker 1: in place who's going to represent everybody in town. And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, these news reports showed up after
Speaker 1: the election in the United States, and the winner of
Speaker 1: the mayoral election, according to these reports in the in
Speaker 1: the US, Picoasa in Ecuador elected a foot powder as
Speaker 1: mayor Old whoa rewind that we say that again? A
Speaker 1: foot powder A talco, a talcum, A nice white powdery
Speaker 1: substance to absorb the moisture in your feet, um, you know, whatevery.
Speaker 1: I guess you can use it in other sweaty parts
Speaker 1: of your body to uh, to reduce chafing that you
Speaker 1: might have in fact the gold bond situation. Yeah, sort
Speaker 1: of like that. Was there a brand associated with this candidate? Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a specific brand. It's called PAPIs Talcos means foot powder,
Speaker 1: powder the powder. Um, So what happened is this foot powders.
Speaker 1: They put out ads and the kind of you know,
Speaker 1: there's an election coming up. You see this today when
Speaker 1: the presidential election is coming up, and uh, Coca Cola
Speaker 1: and Pepsi might have some sort of fake campaign ads
Speaker 1: and vote for PEPSI were the choice of whatever you
Speaker 1: want it to be. And I'm sorry, I don't want
Speaker 1: to toss out their slogans, but um, the same thing
Speaker 1: happened fifty years ago. So Pool Ups, this Talcum Powder
Speaker 1: put out ads to kind of take advantage of the
Speaker 1: of the political spirit of the time. And they had
Speaker 1: a slogan and said, vote for any candidate, but if
Speaker 1: you want well being and hygiene, vote for pulps. And
Speaker 1: people did. People. Okay, Well, here's the thing. So the
Speaker 1: day before the election, Ups Talcum Powder put out a
Speaker 1: flyer they distributed around town and the flyer was made
Speaker 1: to look like one of the ballots that would indicate
Speaker 1: the choice in tomorrow's election. And I really really really
Speaker 1: encourage you want to listen to this podcast to go
Speaker 1: look up this ballot. Will post a link to it
Speaker 1: on the Ridiculous Historians Facebook group. But this ballot, it
Speaker 1: has the this visage of a of a creepy, terrifying foot, right,
Speaker 1: so that imaginely a big yellow foot. Is it like
Speaker 1: a cartoon it's a cartoon foot, but the foot is um,
Speaker 1: what's the what's the bottom of your foot called the
Speaker 1: palm of your soul the soul exactly. So imagine the
Speaker 1: soul of your foot looking right at you. There are
Speaker 1: eyes on the soul, a nose, a mouth. The toes
Speaker 1: are kind of hanging forward over the front of the
Speaker 1: soul of the foot like like long bangs nightmare fuel. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's wearing a suit in a bow tie, giant foothead
Speaker 1: and uh, he's got two hands to arms, you know,
Speaker 1: he's a kind of anthropomorphic foot. It's we and one
Speaker 1: hand is giving the thumbs up, the other hand is
Speaker 1: giving the V for victory signs, so covering all the
Speaker 1: bases for for winning and and he's cut off at
Speaker 1: the waist. So I don't know if the foot has
Speaker 1: a foot has two feet is a mystery. I don't
Speaker 1: want to know the answer to this mystery. Just technically speaking,
Speaker 1: what a cephalopod? Yeah, I mean, yeah, he's actually a cephalopod.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm guessing though, in place of feet, he has
Speaker 1: two little heads, two little people heads that he's want
Speaker 1: to This is the stuff of nightmares. Was this like
Speaker 1: like a publicity stunt by the foot powder manufacturer ad campaign?
Speaker 1: It was basically just a promotional stunt. But I think
Speaker 1: I think what you run into is a little bit
Speaker 1: of American mid century narcissism, looking at foreign countries as
Speaker 1: a little exotic, a little behind the times, and kind
Speaker 1: of having the journalists here in the States having a
Speaker 1: little bit of a laugh at the folks there because
Speaker 1: what was reported is that this foot powder won the election.
Speaker 1: And Uh, basically people are having a laugh saying these
Speaker 1: people are so dumb they voted for a foot powder,
Speaker 1: or this foot powder is so much better than these
Speaker 1: other candidates that people actually believe this slogan and went
Speaker 1: for it. Uh, turns out what is likely to have happened.
Speaker 1: First of all, it wasn't actually a vote for mayor.
Speaker 1: It was a vote for a municipal councilman. So slight
Speaker 1: difference there. And the pamphlets the brochures that Pulp has
Speaker 1: distributed did in fact look like the ballots, and so
Speaker 1: it what what people theorizes that when they had to
Speaker 1: turn in the ballots, people grabbed the wrong one and
Speaker 1: put them in the ballot box, and and people weren't
Speaker 1: actually voting for a foot powder. And when the votes
Speaker 1: were tallied, yeah, there were a lot of these footpowder
Speaker 1: ballots in there, but they were tossed out that's like
Speaker 1: some Russian meddling in the election, right there, my friend.
Speaker 1: I mean, did they not get like in trouble with
Speaker 1: the government for doing this? So I actually looked into it,
Speaker 1: and there's not a lot more out there, especially not
Speaker 1: in English. There's not a lot in Spanish. I tried
Speaker 1: to dig into some some Spanish language newspapers and couldn't
Speaker 1: find much. And I actually emailed the city of course.
Speaker 1: Yeahs a a response um the municipal website. It actually
Speaker 1: goes into a good amount of detail in the town,
Speaker 1: but omits a certain incident in ven for which I
Speaker 1: would think they're most well known. I would either higher
Speaker 1: slash promote the person behind that ad campaign or have
Speaker 1: them kicked out of the country. That's just you can't
Speaker 1: mess with a vote that way. But that's brilliant. But
Speaker 1: kicked out with a nice, dry, hygienic foot, yeah, because
Speaker 1: clearly the stuff spread like wildfire after this thing, right,
Speaker 1: you got a powder of your feet, man. I want
Speaker 1: to know what their market share became after this incident.
Speaker 1: I want to know if they'll sponsor us. I wouldn't. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's pretty humid here in Atlanta, too, that's true.
Speaker 1: That's true. That's amazing though. Okay, so we've got foot
Speaker 1: powder for president, We've got mayor municipal, municipal councilman. Yes,
Speaker 1: excuse me, So the story is mayor not so true,
Speaker 1: kind of true, but still ridiculous. Pig for president, foot
Speaker 1: powder for mayor. Sure, let's say, let's just say mayor,
Speaker 1: mayor ish mayor esque. So a far bend. Who are
Speaker 1: you voting for? A pig or a foot powder? Foot powder? Cool?
Speaker 1: So I'm just I also like that it's an idea
Speaker 1: that it's not just one particular box or tube of
Speaker 1: foot powder. It's the concept of foot powder, which is
Speaker 1: pretty neat to vote for something that that abstract. I
Speaker 1: have something I thought you guys would be very interested in.
Speaker 1: It is a story that comes to us from West Texas,
Speaker 1: a little town called Lahitas. And in Lajitas, this is
Speaker 1: an area about the size of almost Connecticut right with
Speaker 1: maybe ten people, and it's very small. In the seventies,
Speaker 1: if you walked by the Lahitas Trading Post, you would
Speaker 1: tend to see a lot of the same people, a
Speaker 1: lot of the same conversations occur. How's the weather, did
Speaker 1: you see the games? Stuff like that. Small town. Everyone
Speaker 1: knows each other. Did you hear the news about Ecuador
Speaker 1: they elected the foot Powder? Yes, yes, that's so. You
Speaker 1: were there. You were there, Christopher, I've been to Texas.
Speaker 1: You've been to Texas. But they also had their own
Speaker 1: versions of local celebrities, and one of them was a
Speaker 1: fellow named Clay Henry. Clay Henry, the first Clay Henry
Speaker 1: hung around at the Lahita's trading post for years and years,
Speaker 1: and in nine six he entered politics. His qualifications included
Speaker 1: a love of alcohol, and the race for mayor was
Speaker 1: organized by a man named Walter Mischer, who was Houston businessman,
Speaker 1: and he thought, you know, it would be a good
Speaker 1: promo thing, good pr right. Yeah, So so clay Henry
Speaker 1: is getting involved in politics. It's a good name. It's
Speaker 1: a good, solid kind of political name. I think it
Speaker 1: is a great political name. You're right about that, Christopher.
Speaker 1: But he was perhaps best known this goat for his
Speaker 1: consumption of booze upwards of forty beers a day. I'm sorry, Ben,
Speaker 1: can we rewind a bit? Did you say goat? Yes? Oh?
Speaker 1: Did I not mention that? As in greatest of all time? Well,
Speaker 1: at least in Texas. There's a couple of different levels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's a goat. Wait a minute, all right, you you
Speaker 1: buried the lead here. Clay Henry is a drunk, belligerent goat. Okay.
Speaker 1: His qualifications include drinking a cartoonish amount of beer and
Speaker 1: I quote, headbutting constituents without provocation. Not only is he
Speaker 1: uh famous in this town, but he's he's famous in
Speaker 1: the region. People would come to see, you know, to
Speaker 1: have a beer with the mayor. And he was known
Speaker 1: for walking around the trading posts and other places in town.
Speaker 1: And if someone didn't hand him a beer, he would
Speaker 1: just find some one and take it, find their drink
Speaker 1: and take it. And there's a great article in the
Speaker 1: Houstonia by Peter Holly that describes the experience with the
Speaker 1: first Clay Henry in because he was mayor for essentially
Speaker 1: the rest of his life. I never actually witnessed Clay
Speaker 1: Henry drink a beer. I did see him slam them,
Speaker 1: guzzled them, and ferociously ingest them at a rate capable
Speaker 1: of incapacitating a full grown man in minutes. To see
Speaker 1: it in person was nothing short of incredible. Do you
Speaker 1: think a shotgun dam or funneled them to Yes, I could.
Speaker 1: I could see a goat just just eating the whole
Speaker 1: can just a full canopy, or just chomp, chomp, chomp.
Speaker 1: So not only is he a physical goat, he is
Speaker 1: also a goat greatest of all time when it comes
Speaker 1: to being a goat that drinks. There there, there we go.
Speaker 1: We got there. Yeah. So one of the questions you
Speaker 1: would have is how does he drink without thumbs? They
Speaker 1: are two answers. The first, there's a holster that they
Speaker 1: fixed two in his office that you know, he could
Speaker 1: put a bottle in it like a water feeder for
Speaker 1: a hamster cage. And then sometimes he would just go
Speaker 1: up to people and bug them until they got him
Speaker 1: a Lone Star because of course it's a lone Star beer.
Speaker 1: That's what he drinks. And he would polish off a
Speaker 1: twelve ounce bottle in ten seconds or less. And here's
Speaker 1: the thing. This guy was so popular that one of
Speaker 1: his offspring was elected mayor later Clay Henry Jr. And
Speaker 1: then Clay Henry Jr. Was so popular that they elected
Speaker 1: a third goat mayor, Clay Henry the Third. Clay Henry
Speaker 1: the Third unfortunately was involved in an altercation uh where
Speaker 1: in a local who would probably been drinking or we
Speaker 1: don't know if they had an argument, because all three
Speaker 1: Clay Henry's are pretty heavy drinkers. Clay Henry three was
Speaker 1: attacked ouch one of his testicle was cut off. He
Speaker 1: stayed in office, of course, he did. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: you don't need both testicles to stay in office, especially
Speaker 1: if you're a goat. Right you get all the headbutting
Speaker 1: done in your early days. Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: surely one goat testicle is like the equivalent of several
Speaker 1: human testicles. I don't know why I think that, but
Speaker 1: out there you mean in terms of like the yeah, exactly, yeah,
Speaker 1: and just the sheer gumption that goats are very stubborn
Speaker 1: and they eat like everything, and this goat surely was
Speaker 1: no different. Also, goats have those weird snake octopus like Yeah,
Speaker 1: favorite goat. I don't know about you guys, but my
Speaker 1: favorite goat, Sorry Clay Henry, My favorite goat is and
Speaker 1: will always be black Philip from The Witch. It's a
Speaker 1: good one. I thought, maybe you're gonna go with Gregory
Speaker 1: the Hungry Goat. There's there's a there's a spot up
Speaker 1: in North Georgia called goats on the roof. Have you
Speaker 1: guys been there goats on the roof. No, but there
Speaker 1: is a place around here where you can rent a
Speaker 1: goat to mow your lawn. Yeah, it's good business. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my palace Scott Benjamin is actually a huge fan of
Speaker 1: those guys. Okay, So we have a successful line of
Speaker 1: goat mayors, the goat dynasty, the goat dynasty. We have
Speaker 1: the foot powder candidate not elected, and we have the
Speaker 1: pig president not elected, but we have more defined. I
Speaker 1: want to see a runoff between the drunk goat and
Speaker 1: the and pigasus. I don't know, man, that goat has
Speaker 1: like has the political game locked down. Yeah, they know
Speaker 1: how to play it. Was there an election. Every time,
Speaker 1: I'm picturing a goat on a deathbed, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of wheezing its last breath and as it says good
Speaker 1: bye to this mortal coil, passing along the mayoral responsibilities
Speaker 1: to the next goat in line. Well, here's the thing.
Speaker 1: The mayor, the position of mayor in this small town
Speaker 1: contains no actual duties and responsibilities. I think the original
Speaker 1: Clay signed one thing with a hoof, but essentially their
Speaker 1: mayor is just their drink to drink beer, to drink beer.
Speaker 1: You know what, I'm sure there are a number of
Speaker 1: towns around the country that would think something similar about
Speaker 1: their own mayor. That's true, that's true. So what what's next?
Speaker 1: What's our next animal? Oh boy, next one we get
Speaker 1: to talk about my favorite Roman or gy uh connoisseurs
Speaker 1: psychopathic emperor um, that kind of rhymed connoisseur and emperor.
Speaker 1: Sure I got there with the rhyme scheme. UM by
Speaker 1: the name of Caligula. Also one of my favorite UM,
Speaker 1: you know, fully pornographic um yet artistically rendered films, the
Speaker 1: one in Esperanto. Huh wait is it? Is there a
Speaker 1: version of it in Esperanto? Think it? Starr wat No, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: I'm talking about the one with Malcolm McDowell. That was
Speaker 1: the one that was produced by like the publisher of Penthouse.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. It's not really my favorite, but it
Speaker 1: is in fact a pretty epic film with a giant
Speaker 1: budget UM that depicts the life and times of the
Speaker 1: Roman emperor Caligula, who had many predilections UM, including fondness
Speaker 1: for coupling with his sisters. Basically just a total hedonist UM.
Speaker 1: There's some stuff in the film that I don't know
Speaker 1: if it actually happened, but there's a part where he's
Speaker 1: buried his enemies up to their necks in the sand
Speaker 1: and then has this crazy like threshing lawnmower head cutting
Speaker 1: machine that just like goes over them and cuts all
Speaker 1: their heads off. I'm gonna interrupt you real quick, Noe,
Speaker 1: And I just want the listeners to know you were
Speaker 1: making some amazing hand motions right now, sweeping back and forth,
Speaker 1: sort of like I wish everyone could see this, maybe
Speaker 1: some sort of like a like a gift or a boomerang,
Speaker 1: maybe social media. We know we didn't get better at that.
Speaker 1: We need to do more like real time podcast studio
Speaker 1: hijinks talking about Caligula sweeping my arms back and forth.
Speaker 1: And I could just get somebody in here to film
Speaker 1: us while we were recording this. We mean, we could
Speaker 1: recruit somebody from our socials. Have to put on pants,
Speaker 1: but you know what, that's a um no, it's fine,
Speaker 1: but it's a it's a sort of a waste up view.
Speaker 1: That's a hill I'm willing to die on for the
Speaker 1: good of the show. Now, speaking of dying on hills,
Speaker 1: um that probably happened a lot in Calligula's day in
Speaker 1: terms of his enemies, because he was pretty brutal, and
Speaker 1: one of his main group of enemies was the Senate,
Speaker 1: because he was always constantly beefing with the Senate because he,
Speaker 1: you know, was basically like trying to be a complete
Speaker 1: and utter totalitarian ruler, and you know, they still kind
Speaker 1: of had a semblance of a little thing called democracy
Speaker 1: or at least what was it, like a republic right
Speaker 1: in rome Um. So he was not fond of the Senate.
Speaker 1: And in fact, the legend has it this is this
Speaker 1: is a little unconfirmed, but there's there's a few historical
Speaker 1: counts of this happening. He had a horse that he
Speaker 1: was quite fond of, a horse with this the doozy
Speaker 1: of a name. We see, if I can like, if
Speaker 1: I can do this one a horse by the name
Speaker 1: of Incitatus. It's actually not that hard. But when you
Speaker 1: look at it, you built it up. I'm I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad. There's more. So. This is his favorite horse.
Speaker 1: He loved this horse. He loved it more than he
Speaker 1: loved probably any human person in his life, to the
Speaker 1: point where he got this horse had it fashioned a
Speaker 1: jeweled collar. Um. He even like had like a special
Speaker 1: like manger built out of ivory for it. He had
Speaker 1: a stall made out of marble um and and supposedly
Speaker 1: some accounts say that he bought him as a very
Speaker 1: own house. So that's a lot of stuff you gotta made.
Speaker 1: Also heard you own slaves though the horse did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one of the accounts. Can a horse really own
Speaker 1: anything though? I mean it's a great question. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: the own Collius heart. He did own Colligula's heart, And
Speaker 1: apparently he was fed with food with the gold flakes
Speaker 1: built mixed in and stuff, you know, because gold is
Speaker 1: important to consume for for animals. Colligula was a big
Speaker 1: fan of consuming or at least bathing in gold himself.
Speaker 1: He's a very pro gold guy. He is very pro excess.
Speaker 1: And a big part of this was he was constantly
Speaker 1: thumbing his nose at the poor and just like you know,
Speaker 1: one to just be as decade and as possible, display
Speaker 1: it as openly as possible with his little shame zero shame,
Speaker 1: as it turns out, as possible. And another thing he
Speaker 1: liked to do was humiliate the Senate because they were
Speaker 1: like his nemeses. You know, these these senators, these puffy,
Speaker 1: you know, stuffed shirt senators. So supposedly he put forth
Speaker 1: in titat us to become a console, like an officials
Speaker 1: an official console. But he's a horse. He's a horse.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't matter because it's a very special horse
Speaker 1: in doubt now, you know, surely endowed with the same
Speaker 1: amount of wisdom that any of these you know, lifelong
Speaker 1: politicians possess, at least according to Caligula. And a big
Speaker 1: part of this was obviously to kind of humiliate them
Speaker 1: and say, you know, a horse could do your job,
Speaker 1: you morons, and you're gonna like it. You're gonna take it,
Speaker 1: and you're gonna you're gonna he's gonna live amongst you,
Speaker 1: and he's gonna vote. He's gonna hold up his hoof you.
Speaker 1: That's how he's going to vote. Obviously. Um, But apparently
Speaker 1: this did not go through because Caligula was was just
Speaker 1: universally hated for obvious. Yeah, he was just kind of
Speaker 1: a he's kind of a bad guy what with the
Speaker 1: thresherd head chopping machines and the crazy Roman orgies with sisters,
Speaker 1: and he just wasn't a wasn't a good look for
Speaker 1: this guy. That's funny how that can turn the people off.
Speaker 1: The chopping off of heads and such. Yeah, you would
Speaker 1: think it was just a different time. But I like
Speaker 1: to think. I know this is not true, folks, but
Speaker 1: I like to think that the horse becoming console was
Speaker 1: the last straw. I feel like the horse burn is
Speaker 1: what set everyone over the edge. Horse burn, horse burn.
Speaker 1: I like that you elected a horse or you pointed
Speaker 1: a horse to burn his enemies, So it's a horseburn.
Speaker 1: Are you familiar with the move horse bites the corn? No,
Speaker 1: I am mystified. It's when you it's when you take
Speaker 1: your when you take your hand and make it into
Speaker 1: a C shape. I'm in it right now. And then
Speaker 1: you grab someone right above the knee and you go
Speaker 1: horse bites the corn. And it's the most annoying thing.
Speaker 1: Is this? Is this a brown family? You know? It's
Speaker 1: just it's maybe it's just my friend Tyler. It's a
Speaker 1: thing that he does to me all the time, and
Speaker 1: I hate it. I hate it. I hate it and
Speaker 1: it gets a rise out of me every time. Why
Speaker 1: do you It's a very strange relationship. It is a
Speaker 1: very strange relationship. Maybe google it and see if other
Speaker 1: people do it, because it sounds like he's just making
Speaker 1: up reasons to grab you. Wow, you're right, it's not
Speaker 1: it is it is? Well, okay, so yeah, what's it
Speaker 1: called when you squeeze just above someone's knee. It's called
Speaker 1: a horse bite that or a horse bites corn. That
Speaker 1: guy is making this up, so okay, horse bites aside.
Speaker 1: Caligula super unpopular. He was assassinated, he he died, and
Speaker 1: so the horse did not ascend to the consulate. Right.
Speaker 1: It was before the horse was able to get in,
Speaker 1: which is a shame. Will never know how history would
Speaker 1: have changed. I would have liked to see the horse's
Speaker 1: fiscal policy, you know, play out in the in the Senate.
Speaker 1: I would like to see it bite some cord, you know.
Speaker 1: I'd like to see the horse out there pressing the flesh,
Speaker 1: kissing the babies, given complicated speeches, having political intrigue. I'm
Speaker 1: getting carried away, Christopher, what's next? I we we need
Speaker 1: a stick on the horse for one second more, because yeah,
Speaker 1: I want to hear a horse put things up for
Speaker 1: a vote. I want to know if the horse is
Speaker 1: going to vote ya or or yeah, it was absolutely sorry,
Speaker 1: I had to do it. Yeah, absolutely, were required contractually
Speaker 1: to do that day. It's the reason I'm here. And
Speaker 1: you're in fact a dad now, so you're allowed to
Speaker 1: You're in the the exclusive camp of of the dad
Speaker 1: joke elite. It's the US jokes. Yeah exactly. And you
Speaker 1: know people say politics these days are just a horse race. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, let's move on. Let's right. I'm gonna bring
Speaker 1: us from the Roman Empire back to modern times so
Speaker 1: we can debate how historical this is, but it's part
Speaker 1: of modern history. I want to tell you guys about dustin,
Speaker 1: dust in the wind, No, dustin the Turkey. Yes, dustin
Speaker 1: the Turkey is not actually even a turkey. Dustin the
Speaker 1: Turkey is a Turkey vulture. But dustin the Turkey is
Speaker 1: not even a Turkey vulture. Dustin the Turkey is a
Speaker 1: puppet turkey vulture. Yeah. So, one of the fun things
Speaker 1: I think about traveling the world is you get to
Speaker 1: see pieces of pop culture that are so deeply in
Speaker 1: mestion other countries that you've never heard of. You know,
Speaker 1: folks come to the States and they're like, what is
Speaker 1: this purple dinosaur Barney, Like it's confusing, go to Ireland
Speaker 1: will be confronted with Dustin the Turkey. So Dustin the
Speaker 1: Turkey is is a character. He's a television presenter. He's
Speaker 1: a puppet who was on TV. He made his debut
Speaker 1: in ninety nine on the show That Den was on RTE,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the Irish version of PBS. Here
Speaker 1: is it the kind of publicly funded broadcasting. Um. Dustin
Speaker 1: the Turkey was on the show until two thousand ten.
Speaker 1: And I want to paint a picture for you of
Speaker 1: dust In the Turkey. Imagine a cloth creature that looks
Speaker 1: like a mix of Gonzo from the Muppets with Bernie
Speaker 1: Sanders kind of you know Statler and Waldorf, the two
Speaker 1: cranky guys also in the Muppets. Yeah, imagine Statler. He's
Speaker 1: the one with kind of the ring of hair around
Speaker 1: his head, that sort of Bernie Sanders, Larry David Hairstyle. UM,
Speaker 1: cross him with Gonzo the Muppets, big weird beak and
Speaker 1: you get a cranky, strange, odd Turkey puppet. Now Dustin
Speaker 1: the Turkey. He's he's very specific kind of Turkey. He's
Speaker 1: from Dublin and he spent a lot of time. He's
Speaker 1: kind of a roust about. He's got a strong attitude
Speaker 1: and he loves his city so much. He speaks out
Speaker 1: specifically as an advocate for Dublin itself. He's got a
Speaker 1: very strong Dublin accent. And I think, Casey, if you
Speaker 1: could queue up the sound bite we've got from Dustin himself.
Speaker 1: He brought a clip. I brought a clip. That's why
Speaker 1: I'm here, over achiever, not just jokes Dublin. Sure don't.
Speaker 1: We have the biggest rock and roll band in the world. Yeah, alright, UK, okay,
Speaker 1: and we have James Joyce, Yeah, the bell Jimmy Joyce,
Speaker 1: brilliant form with Glen Hansard. Okay, he might watch, but
Speaker 1: listen he did once. And that's that's Dustin the Turkey
Speaker 1: is he voiced by Colin Farrell. He's a doublinger through
Speaker 1: and through, but he's he's deeply Irish, so much Southern.
Speaker 1: In seven, Dustin ran for President of Ireland. Oh cool? Yeah,
Speaker 1: how far did he get? He did not get far
Speaker 1: at all. In fact, he had troubles with getting on
Speaker 1: the ballot because Dustin is a one named guy. He's
Speaker 1: just he's just dust In the Turkey. And you've got
Speaker 1: to have two names to get on a ballot. That
Speaker 1: was what That was the technicality. He worked his way
Speaker 1: around it by listing himself as Dustin Hoffman. Oh great,
Speaker 1: So it wasn't that okay, so able to overcome that
Speaker 1: bureaucratic obstacle, and that was apparently more important than the
Speaker 1: fact that someone has their hand inside of him in
Speaker 1: his orchestrating his movement. He is truly a puppet, political puppet.
Speaker 1: But the thing is, Dustin went nowhere in that candidacy
Speaker 1: nor a subsequent one for president. However, in two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: I've got to ask you guys. Are you guys familiar
Speaker 1: with the Eurovision Song Contest? Yes, i am. No. That's
Speaker 1: a thing for yeah, yah yeah. It's sort of like
Speaker 1: America's got talent, isn't it? Yeah, super huge, super popular.
Speaker 1: So Ireland is a country known for its song It's story,
Speaker 1: It's it's oral tradition. I've got all this great music
Speaker 1: from Ireland. Ireland is actually the winningest country on the
Speaker 1: Eurovision Song Contest. Yeah, for for decades, They've won seven times.
Speaker 1: Sweden is number two with six wins, but Ireland tops
Speaker 1: it with seven wins. One of those wins however, was
Speaker 1: not in two thousand eight, and this is where Dustin
Speaker 1: comes in. So the way that you Revision Song Contest
Speaker 1: works is every country has its own kind of championship
Speaker 1: round where five or six songs from that country are
Speaker 1: voted on locally. All those um the winning songs from
Speaker 1: each country then go to the finals wherever that is
Speaker 1: every year, and then Europe as a whole and parts
Speaker 1: of North Africa in the Middle East vote on who
Speaker 1: the winning song is that year. In two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: the champion in Ireland, the one who beat out actual
Speaker 1: musicians like Maya, like Donald ski In, like Liam Gettis,
Speaker 1: was Dustin the Turkey. Yeah, so in two thousand eight,
Speaker 1: Dustin the Turkey was the Ireland representative in the Eurovision
Speaker 1: Song Contest. His song Ireland dues point Uh it's a
Speaker 1: really dumb name that me kind of is a mispronunciation
Speaker 1: of Ireland twelve points in French, which is the number
Speaker 1: of points needed to win this the Eurovision Song Contest.
Speaker 1: So saying the name or the title of the song
Speaker 1: would sound like someone is saying that Ireland had one,
Speaker 1: but it didn't. Anyway, this competition, this election is what
Speaker 1: Dustin the Turkey one, and you can actually go on
Speaker 1: YouTube you can find his performance at Eurovision. Did not
Speaker 1: win at all overall, um, but it's this weird psychedelic
Speaker 1: nonsense song about the competition itself. It's sort of meta textual.
Speaker 1: Dustin the Turkey is sitting inside of a shopping cart
Speaker 1: with backup dancers painted in gold dancing next to him.
Speaker 1: There was some confusion among the judges. Well, I would
Speaker 1: imagine there's a lot of confusion among the judges whether
Speaker 1: he should be disqualified because you're only supposed to have
Speaker 1: a certain number of people on stage for your performance.
Speaker 1: And did the puppeteer actually count as an extra person?
Speaker 1: And so did Dustin the Turkey actually violate the Eurovision
Speaker 1: Song Contest rules by having a man hidden under the
Speaker 1: cart with his hand up his butt? Something we all
Speaker 1: want to know and I haven't. Oh yeah, puppet, they
Speaker 1: got it right, Yeah, it's a puppet. So what happens
Speaker 1: to Dustin the Turkey later? Is he still around? Dustin?
Speaker 1: Is still around? Dustin? He did not win the finals
Speaker 1: in the Eurovision Song Contest, but he did then go
Speaker 1: on to campaign that next year against the Lisbon Treaty,
Speaker 1: which was an EU policy treaty. Uh so, Dustin has
Speaker 1: been involved in political life. He went on to record
Speaker 1: with UM release albums with artists like Ronnie Drew of
Speaker 1: the Dubliners, Bob Geldoff of the Boomtown Rats. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know you can still use the hashtag vote
Speaker 1: Dustin to look up what's going on with the Poultry Party,
Speaker 1: which is Dustin's official group. Dustin also is taking things global.
Speaker 1: He became a UNICEF ambassador for Ireland. This ugly, foulmouthed,
Speaker 1: crass little puppet and he went to South Africa to
Speaker 1: the Quasulin Natal region to learn about the plight of
Speaker 1: people with HIV and AIDS, positive change through comedy. Yeah
Speaker 1: so he he won an election, he lost an election.
Speaker 1: He's a weird puppet, um, but he's got the people
Speaker 1: behind him. It's not even an animal. He's now officially
Speaker 1: my favorite Key Buzzard because I just I said at
Speaker 1: the beginning, I love animals, but those things freaked me out.
Speaker 1: Turkey Buzzards. How about puppets? How do you feel aboutuppets?
Speaker 1: Pro puppet? Yeah? Yeah, and you got a pet puppet?
Speaker 1: Don't you have a puppet? Yeah? You pet? Unfair to
Speaker 1: Stephen companion is technically an intern. Steven really formal with him.
Speaker 1: Now I thought it was Steve. He's earned he's earned
Speaker 1: that second syllable pH V pH. Okay, there was a
Speaker 1: moment of tense silence between us. Just now. I hope
Speaker 1: we're still friends. We are. And uh, if you're out
Speaker 1: there listening, if you're a Stephen with a pH, if
Speaker 1: you're a Stephen with a V, We're happy to have
Speaker 1: all of you. Yeah, thanks for hanging out. Well, maybe
Speaker 1: we can put a put a picture of the puppet
Speaker 1: on the on the social media's one day this. This
Speaker 1: is interesting though, that we're talking about a political party,
Speaker 1: because this is not my second thing. But this reminds
Speaker 1: me of the Inanimate Objects Party. Did you guys hear
Speaker 1: about this. It's a It's a party that is based
Speaker 1: in Troy, New York, and their main thing is that
Speaker 1: we should elect more inanimate objects in political office. Their
Speaker 1: main candidate is an inflatable whale named Arthur Galpin, and
Speaker 1: there are other major candidate is an albinos squirrel. Their symbol,
Speaker 1: their formal symbol is a fork, but check them out.
Speaker 1: But that squirrel is is not an inanimate object. So
Speaker 1: I'm I'm already seeing some flaws in there in their policy.
Speaker 1: I think they're a fractured party, to be honest with you.
Speaker 1: But well, you're saying that it's not a serious thing,
Speaker 1: that the people who put forth inflatable whales are not
Speaker 1: taking this process seriously. Perhaps I'm saying comedy is in
Speaker 1: the eye of the beholder. Fair enough. God, I hope
Speaker 1: they take it really seriously. Um. But this, this leads
Speaker 1: us to um. An example of when these animals, or
Speaker 1: these non human candidates become a matter of very serious, important,
Speaker 1: non comedic stuff, and this story takes us to Brazil
Speaker 1: is the story of a female black rhinoceros named Cocareco.
Speaker 1: Cacareco was in nineteen fifty eight. She was residing at
Speaker 1: the dim zoological do Rio de jan Arrow. I am
Speaker 1: not a Portuguese speaker, but you could be. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just have to try harder. So Cockreco was the daughter
Speaker 1: of Brittador and Terra Zena, and in nineteen fifty eight
Speaker 1: she was loaned out to the sal Polo Zoo. People
Speaker 1: knew about this rhinoceros and they didn't say particularly kind
Speaker 1: things about her. In the case of the drunk goat, mayor.
Speaker 1: People like the drunk goat, They like the bit he
Speaker 1: hangs out, he has a beer, maybe a whiskey. I
Speaker 1: don't know who knows, But in the case of Cocareco,
Speaker 1: people would say this rhino is dumb as a door nail,
Speaker 1: as the brains of a peanut, and is still the best,
Speaker 1: uh still like the best possible political candidate. So a
Speaker 1: group of students print over two hundred thousand ballots with
Speaker 1: Coco Raiko's name on them, and the ballots are all
Speaker 1: legitimately cast by voters. One person, because you could write
Speaker 1: in this is the right and election. One person said
Speaker 1: better to elect a rhino than an ass. You see,
Speaker 1: this election was the result of serious and valid concerns
Speaker 1: about rampant corruption in the Brazilian political scene, especially in
Speaker 1: Sal Paulo. And not only did she end up winning,
Speaker 1: she won by a landslide, and it was one of
Speaker 1: the highest totals for a local candidate in Brazil's history
Speaker 1: to that date, which is weird because we also have
Speaker 1: to point out. People who are familiar with the way
Speaker 1: voting goes in the US will know that our country's
Speaker 1: notorious for a lot of people just not voting it's
Speaker 1: way way worse in Brazil, or it was at that time,
Speaker 1: and so this was a way to get people engaged
Speaker 1: or were they protesting the actual people who were on
Speaker 1: the ballot. Both both Brazil seemed at the time, according
Speaker 1: to some sociologists, to be on the threshold of revolt.
Speaker 1: It was seen as a general protest from people who
Speaker 1: had varying different objections to the way things were going.
Speaker 1: There were food shortages, the cost of living was going up.
Speaker 1: Of course, political corruption, as we already meant, uh, and
Speaker 1: some voters there were actually multiple forms of protests. Some
Speaker 1: voters in the same election voted in local politics by
Speaker 1: putting black beans in the ballot envelope instead of the
Speaker 1: actual ballot. So this is kind of a way for
Speaker 1: people to say, our choices are so poor, we would
Speaker 1: rather have not just a rhinoceros, but a damas beans rhinoceros. Yes,
Speaker 1: and Calcaico dies in sixty two, but her legacy lives
Speaker 1: on today. Uh. There's a widely used term that derives
Speaker 1: from her name. They think you you've heard about before,
Speaker 1: Voto cocareco, which means cocarego vote. It's kind of it's
Speaker 1: almost like kangaroo court, but it's a rhino vote. And
Speaker 1: she also inspired the formation of the Rhinoceros Party of Canada,
Speaker 1: whose members went on to appoint the Rhinoceros Cornelius the
Speaker 1: First as their leader. You know what a rhino is
Speaker 1: in American politics, Republican in name only. It's not like
Speaker 1: the perfect acorym. But I'm as fond of acronyms in general,
Speaker 1: you know, you know, it's about me. And there's something
Speaker 1: about Brazil I think, like, I think they have fun
Speaker 1: with their politics there too, because I think in the
Speaker 1: eighties or nineties there was a monkey who ran for office,
Speaker 1: Macaco Chiao, who was a chimpanzee. You know what. That
Speaker 1: was on one of the lists for for this, uh,
Speaker 1: this whole thing that we're doing, this crazy experiment. I
Speaker 1: think we really need a part two, guys. I think
Speaker 1: we should come back for a part two because we
Speaker 1: did pretty well, but we only had a total of
Speaker 1: six and then maybe a couple of ancillary mentions. Why
Speaker 1: do they call a kangaroo court because in the early
Speaker 1: days of the formation of Australia, all judicial positions were
Speaker 1: occupied by kangaroos. Of course, I don't believe it they
Speaker 1: were Wallabies Wallabies. You're right, nobody gives enough credit to
Speaker 1: the Wallabies role in the creation of Australian government. But
Speaker 1: maybe we can in part two if it actually happened.
Speaker 1: We can't just make up a Wallaby story. Christopher. We
Speaker 1: want to thank you so much for coming back on
Speaker 1: this show. It's always a blast to have you over. Hey.
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me here, guys, and thank you everyone
Speaker 1: for listening. Um. I really love digging into these weird,
Speaker 1: ridiculous facts and sharing them with everyone. And we have
Speaker 1: not seen the last of you. Spoiler alert. If if
Speaker 1: Casey Nolan I have our way, you will be returning
Speaker 1: to the show. It's sometime sooner rather than later. This
Speaker 1: could be like a recurring episode. I don't know. I
Speaker 1: like this, there were so many more that we got
Speaker 1: to or maybe we could just do other list episodes
Speaker 1: like this in the future. I would like to get
Speaker 1: an animal and see if we can get it in
Speaker 1: office or at least in the running for a position
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, or maybe we could at the very least
Speaker 1: have one as a guest on the podcast. I yeah, see,
Speaker 1: I thought you just said I would like to get
Speaker 1: an animal in the office and I thought you were
Speaker 1: going to bring a rhinoceros here into the studio. I'm
Speaker 1: also open to that, at least an inflatable whale. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at least in it. See see this is cut from
Speaker 1: the same cloth. Yeah, cut from the same same inflatable cloth.
Speaker 1: We hope that you enjoyed checking out this episode. Right
Speaker 1: to us and let us know if there are any
Speaker 1: notorious animal or at least non human politicians in your
Speaker 1: neck of the global woods, thinks of course, to our
Speaker 1: super producer Casey Pegram. Thanks to Alex Williams, who composed
Speaker 1: our theme, and Eve's Jeff Code, who is not here,
Speaker 1: but it's also an incredible UH research associate for UM
Speaker 1: this show, along with our illustrious guest Christopher hasiotis who
Speaker 1: I can thank for the first time and the first
Speaker 1: time I thank you for stuff, but in person, it's
Speaker 1: nice here. I am a human touch. Yeah, thanks thanks Ben,
Speaker 1: Thanks Casey of course, of course, so find us on Instagram,
Speaker 1: find us on Facebook, find us on Twitter. Post your
Speaker 1: favorite pictures of non human politicians. These questions are becoming
Speaker 1: increasingly specific as we continue with the show. I love it,
Speaker 1: I love it. Yeah, post some We'll see if we
Speaker 1: can get someone to start filming in the studio as
Speaker 1: we record, and uh, stay tuned for our next episode,
Speaker 1: which is it's about a Napoleon thing. It is, it's
Speaker 1: we don't want he really is. He's done a lot
Speaker 1: for this show, you guys. I know he's not perfect,
Speaker 1: but he has done a heck of a lot for
Speaker 1: our show.