Crocodile Smears

God, are you ready?

Curdy B, yet again, I am ready to laugh and laugh and laugh.

Man goes viral after training crows to snatch red hats in months-long experiment.

Well, hats off to that crow. Let's get Stark Raven mad on a new episode of Bananas.

If I said something bad, put your world on its head.

Would you believe me? Guys, gals, non-binary pals, welcome to Bananas. I'm Kurt Braunohler.

I am Banana Boy. Number two, Scotty Landis. Thank you for listening to the silliest little podcast there ever was all around the world. So many wonderful bananas.

But who specifically would you like to thank today, Scotty?

The good and decent people, including Allison Fabich, who has listened to every episode of Bananas in Batavia, Ohio.

Batavia, Ohio.

I bet you they have some nice sausage in Batavia, Ohio.

I'm probably pronouncing it wrong, but yeah, Batavia or Batavia. 1,972 proud Batavians, including our very own Allison. You're officially on the map, gang.

They actually call themselves Batavanians.

Or Batmans. How are you doing? You're in a hotel?

I'm in a hotel. I'm in Bloomington, Indiana. Delightful, delightful.

Um, there is a, there's a lot of smoke shops in just like the four block radius of that near in between me and the club, like more smoke shops than you would anticipate.

It's a college town. That's why.

Right.

And, um, but it's a tiny town and like, I don't know, in four blocks, there's three, I think. And a lot of water pipes and, uh, I'm walking past in the, in the window is just like, like Big bong, big bong, big bong.

And then there's a bong that is a sniper rifle.

Of course.

Like on supports, you know, on legs.

Yes.

And you burn it from where the trigger is and you put your mouth on the barrel. Who is this for? Who is this for?

This is the most confusing bong I have ever seen in my entire life.

And I was talking about it last night on stage.

After the show, someone said, that bong, that bong is Indiana. That bong explains Indiana. And I was like, all right, okay, I guess so.

Wow. Yeah, I don't know what the... The joy. No. It's so confusing. Because also smoking weed isn't living on the edge. It's the least dangerous drug.

Also, it's something that maybe will make you paranoid. Maybe.

And then do you want a fucking gun pointed at you?

It's so crazy.

That is Indiana, baby. One of the most confusing states. It really is.

I mean, home of Kurt Vonnegut. You have to thank Indiana for that. Hoosiers, I'm proud of you.

Home of Megan Gailey.

Yeah.

I like people from Indiana, straight up.

Apparently, I do, too. I'm trying to think of more that I know, and Megan is my primary Hoosier or whatever, even though I think she went to Purdue. Well, who cares? I'm glad you saw culture. I'm glad you're getting cultured on the road because sometimes it's just hotel room. Exactly. What's the restaurant attached to the parking lot? Where's your closest option?

The closest option is attached to the lobby. I think it's called Champs Sports Bar.

But guess what I do have, which is so wonderful for a post show. I mean, it's not good for my health, but it's nice to have an option to get food late night.

Sure.

Caddy Corner is a Taco Bell. I have a Taco Bell Caddy Corner. And then also I have like five restaurants within two blocks. So it's very easy. But I do want to say, people in Chicago, if you're in Chicago October 15th, I'm going to be there.

I'm going to be at Color Club. I've got two shows. So go get tickets for that. It'll be fun.

That's fantastic.

I've been doing a lot of better business through comedy stuff. It's pretty awesome.

Okay. How's that going?

It's been great. It's been going very well.

For those of you who don't know, I run another company where I do corporate communication workshops using improv techniques, and I also do a keynote. And if you are interested in having me come out and speak to your company, just go to betterbusinessthroughcomedy.com.

It's all right there.

There you go. Yeah, baby. Before we dive into that great Crow Stealing Hats, which, great. Like, talk about man and beast coming together and figuring out something bananas. Yeah. We're going to do something a little different at the very top of this episode for one of our Bananimals.

Okay.

Kara Lara McNamara. Her name is Kara McNamara. I don't know if the middle is Lara or Lara.

I really hope.

Also, it could be Kara Lara McNamara. Anyways, she asked us to do a little something different. This is a Bananas First. Okay.

I like this.

So, for Kara McNamara's friends and family, and most importantly, her husband, Boyan.

Okay.

Boyan is a great name.

That's great.

We're going to gender reveal what her baby's going to be. Oh, my God. Look at this. So, Boyan.

All right.

If you're listening, which I have a feeling Kara's probably looking at you, looking at your phone right now. Kara is pregnant with... what will undoubtedly be one of the most beautiful baby girls in the history of mankind. So congratulations, Kara and Bojan. You're having a girl.

Congratulations.

May she save us all. Raise her to save us all. Scotty is a great name for a girl, by the way.

You can. You can make it work. Just put an I-E at the end, right?

It's adorable.

That's what everybody says. Yeah.

Scotty McNamara? Come on. That works. That's a point guard.

It works.

That's a point guard. Congratulations. That's wonderful. Congratulations, you two.

And this is a first on bananas, so thank you.

And probably a last, but Kara is a longtime bananimal and great all-around bananimal, so I said, what the age? Let's have some fun. Congratulations to this new growing family.

I really do love it.

How are you? You good? Dude, I'm great. I'm going to Houston's for lunch. I'm pumped. I love it.

You're just doing great. Steak lunch. Steak lunch with a martini.

Meeting my old buddy Durs from Workaholics. He's athletic. He works out. He's an actor. I'm a melted snowman. So I'll probably do a French dip, a Caesar salad, and a daytime martini.

And that's the table side Caesar salad, isn't it?

I don't know if they do it table side there. I know Lowry's does, but Houston should step up their game. I also found out that Casablanca over on the west side, over on Lincoln Boulevard, does table side margaritas, which, great idea. Shake me a mark and some guacamole table side. But I'm great, man. Everything's good. I'm writing seven days a week these days.

That's amazing. Good job. Fantastic.

Yeah.

And you're selling, baby.

Thank you. And also, before we dive in, last weekend I did a pitching screenplays writer's workshop. A lot of you might have aspirations to write scripts, TV, movies, film, whatever. Hollywood has figured out how to move forward, which is great. It was an incredible workshop. Takes about an hour, hour 10.

I'm going to do it again. probably writing pilots again before the end of the year. So if you or anybody in your life is an aspirational screenwriter, TV writer, anything, and Any paid tier. Like, you will not get this level of schooling for $ 1. Are you kidding me?

Scotty is giving it away. He is giving it away for free.

My goodness. When I'm done writing movies, I will be a professor, and they will pay me to teach 25 kids at a time the same things I'm teaching you for $ 5 on our Patreon. So join anytime. Gift it to anybody. If you have a young, aspiring person in your life, I don't cuss. I don't say anything raunchy.

I just give facts. He does. I just give a lecture. He does.

I'm the cursing one.

That's true.

That is true.

Sorry. I say but. I say but sometimes.

Sometimes he does, and then he apologizes.

You know, weenie. Anyways. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Okay, here we go.

Man goes viral after training crows to snatch red hats in months-long experiment. A man unusual form of political protest has taken the internet by storm. After months of patience, peanuts, and persistence, one crow enthusiast claims he successfully trained local crows to target red hats. The project documented online has sparked praise, outrage, and ethical debate in equal measure. How did a crow training experiment turn out? viral a threads user named dave known on known online as biz dave has gone viral after sharing videos and photos of what he describes as a month-long experiment involving crows and red hats Korn and Dave, the project began as a personal exploration of animal behavior, but evolved into a pointed political.

Statement, as per the Daily Star.

This project has been going on for a little while, Dave explained, while sharing updates on social media. His post showed how a murder of crows was gradually trained to recognize a specific feeding area before progressing towards swooping down on red hats.

Amazing. Uh.

Why did Dave say... Oh, here it is.

Rather than traditional protest methods, Dave chose to combine his interest in animal psychology with political commentary over time. His posts documenting the crow's progress attracted widespread attention with many users praising the creativity and others questioning the ethics behind involving wild animals. This is an interesting idea because we've never really talked about this. We talk about how you can become friends with crows all the time on this podcast.

This may be one.

Of our top ten topics. We love it.

We love it.

But we've never really talked about the fact that these are wild animals and the way you become friends with them is by feeding them and that interrupts the natural cycle of where.

They're getting their food. Yeah, that's true.

Which I've kind of just never thought of. I was always just like, well, we're friends. We're just becoming friends, assholes.

Okay, here it is.

Okay, so he says, getting the crows to come regularly to the feeding place took the longest. That was about a four-month endeavor. That's surprisingly long.

True.

Once they were coming regularly, it was only about three months to get them to the hat removal stage.

This is excellent.

As for food, Dave offered practical advice for those curious about replicating the experiments. Crows will eat lots of things, but I recommend sticking to peanuts, chicken scraps, mealworms, and dog kibble.

He shared as per a report by the Daily Star.

This is really, oh, this was in, by the way, this was in the Economic Times, English edition.

Whoa, that's the good one.

And it's, you know, it's written by Global Desk, because it sounds like they just picked it up from another publication.

They needed to fill some HTML.

Uh, how are the crows trained to target red hats through a series of thread posts?

Dave detailed the training process. Step by Jesus. I think this was written by AI, man.

Yeah.

It just keeps repeating itself. Um, here it is. Questions.

Okay.

Well, were there concerns about the crow's safety questions about the bird's wellbeing quickly surfaced when asked whether the crows hurt Dave acknowledged some concern, but insisted he had taken precautions. He explained that he, While he was a little worried, he had taken a number of logical steps required to get from what he's doing to that outcome to make it unlikely in his mind. I don't know what that means.

I see that as more of a possibility than a probability. I appreciate your confidence in my ability to start a revolution, but I do not share it.

Dave also clarified what his project was not.

He said he had noticed many people online were oddly fixated on the idea of birds pooping on things, but he stressed he had no interest in becoming a poop trainer and didn't know.

How to teach such a behavior.

Makes sense.

Public reaction has been sharply divided while some viewers celebrated the creativity's otherwise serious ethical and legal concerns.

You've said this before.

I guess. What's the ethical concern that it's ethically bad to train another species to harass your own species?

There is no. They don't.

Voice anything they just quote people from reddit who are idiots so my guess my guess though is that you know you are training a wild animal to become reliant on a human delivered that's right that's the problem right what is the.

Red hat society still a thing do you know what that is no remember that oh that was a thing uh It was something in the late 90s, and it was like women would get together and wear big, fancy red hats with boas and flowers, and they would just get together to, I think, just to hang out. It was basically like women over 50 are going to party together and just wear a red hat and like, let's have tea and go party.

Here it is.

The Red Hat Society.

Is an international social organization founded in 1998 by Sue Ellen Cooper and To connect women and encourage fun, friendship, and a playful approach to aging.

I love this!

It's like bananas.

The group acts as a playgroup for women, offering a break from lifelong caregiving and nurturing roles to focus purely on leisure and camaraderie.

Yeah, baby! Okay, you can see why I remembered this. It stuck in my head. I don't know if my mom did an event once, but it's like you just show up in a red hat with a group of gals and boogie down.

Oh, this is great.

The Society was inspired by Jenny Joseph's poem, Warning, which famously begins with the lines, When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple with a red hat which doesn't go and doesn't suit me.

I love that, baby.

Wow. This is some badass stuff. So I'm against these crows now because I'm pro-Red Hat Society. Now I see the ethical dilemma because these old gals know what's up.

They were trained on baseball caps, so these are pretty big hats.

I see what's going on here. Well, I wear a blue hat because I'm a Dodgers fan, and we clinched the playoffs. You did? I feel safe leaving the house.

The playoffs are happening.

There were eight games away or so, so yes, the Dodgers once again. It's great. I've lived in L.A.

Since 2012. Who's the other side?

Who's really good? The Yankees are good. Uh-huh.

So it might be Yankees, Dodgers.

The Red Sox are good. Everybody always wants that. The Milwaukee Brewers are very good. Shout out Milwaukee. Also, I do feel like we should do Bananas Live in Milwaukee. That feels like a city for us.

I agree 100%, and I've had people ask. So let's find a spot. If you are in Milwaukee and you have a spot you know of, I would say... 150, 200 people?

Yeah, let's do a small show. That sounds so fun. Drink some beers with some local Wisconsinites.

Yeah.

Send a DM to me personally at KurtBrownOler on Instagram, and I will get into a booking situation.

Yeah, that sounds fun.

I've only played, the only time I played Milwaukee was.

When I played open for Radiolab like in 2012 or something, and it was a delight.

I had a very nice time there.

Okay.

That sounds like we might end up doing it. That's great. Yeah. So, all right. This guy's true. I, you know, over there, we did that Raven story when I was still living over in Echo Park and there were always big Ravens and I definitely left some peanuts out and they landed on my picnic table and I, Immediately was like, I'm going to stop doing this because I think this is going to work. And so I pulled out.

Yeah.

We started doing it for, we just had like an AI bird feeder, you know? And just the AI bird feeder was like the amount of bird shit everywhere at all times. And the amount of like seed refuse that would be like thrown on the ground and then little rats would come by and eat it. i was like i don't want to do this i don't want all of these uh animals at my house because they like to get inside my house so yeah that.

Makes sense to.

Me yeah if i if i had like an acre and i could put it far away from my house i would.

Yeah yeah that makes a lot of sense and You know, when you're a young person or a truly eccentric billionaire, you go, wouldn't it be fun to have flamingos and peacocks walking around my property? And then you become a mature adult and you go, no, we don't need to cage any birds. Also, peacocks are the loudest, strangest birds ever.

The strangest birds, man.

And the amount of shrimp that I would have to buy to keep my flamingos pink is no bueno.

Or you'd have to dye your food.

I'm out. Dog is good for me. I think from here until the end, it'll be dog, and that's enough.

For this old boy. Thumbs up. Thumbs up to dogs. I have a feeling I have.

A snake or I have some reptile in my future because of Olive and Gus. But other than that, actually, but Lauren is just like, there's no way. We're not getting a reptile. But I think Olive will break her, and she'll end up with a big snake.

That's what I'm thinking.

Yeah.

Or some sort of lizard.

I had so many, it's unthinkable. It's unthinkable. The amount of crickets my poor parents had to buy, just... Unthinkable.

I had all sorts of little animals.

I had everything.

Everything.

I did see a tarantula here on a walk recently. I guess people are like, it's tarantula season, which I'm like, what does that mean? Because every season, it's like when I was a kid and my coach, no matter what the weather would be like, this is the kind of weather you pull a muscle in. It would be 100 degrees.

It would be minus 10 degrees. You'd be like, stretch extra today, guys. This is the kind of weather you pull a muscle in. Everybody in LA is like, it's spider season. And then it turns out spider season is just 365 days a year in Los Angeles.

There's so many. Frigging spiders, man. Oh, man.

Eliza Skinner used to have a joke. And I can't remember the specific details of it. But she was like, every day a spider makes a web across my front door. And I have to admire its confidence in its ability to catch me.

It's true. It's really true. I got one for you. I got another. I actually might have two animal ones. Let me see if I have a not. Oh, I wanted to do this one from last episode. Hannah Elliott sent this in.

Hannah, thank you.

Yeah. Oh, you could send your stories into the Bananas Podcast on Instagram or the Bananas Podcast at gmail.com. Or we have the website, BananasPodcast.com. So any way you want to get in touch with us. Or you can find me on LinkedIn. I'm the king of LinkedIn. So Scotty Landis on LinkedIn. I accept every friendship. Uh, everybody says, you know, my friend. And I'm like, I don't though.

I don't know that person. I know no one on this.

I'm on LinkedIn now too, Scotty.

I'm a, I'm the king of LinkedIn. So don't message me there.

You're kinked in.

I'm kinked in. Yeah. Linked is my kinked. Uh, the peanut butter smearer strikes at a Kentucky fair. Several homes raises safety concerns. I guess the safety concerns are peanut allergies, but to me this is just a cheap, stinky, funny prank. Okay, Pulaski County, Kentucky.

I guess there is no word for person who smears other than smearer.

Yeah, that's hard.

Yeah, that's a tough one.

I'm talking to the man in the smearer. This was on WKYT, which I'm guessing is in Kentucky. Written by Maggie Rickerby.

Oh, look at that.

Who's always the queen of smears, allegedly. The self-proclaimed peanut butter smearer in Somerset has gained attention online. The trend has sparked concerns about potential dangers for people with severe allergies. So, I do get that. They picked the wrong thing.

Yeah. Yeah.

Is anybody allergic to lard? They should have gone Crisco. I've never heard of anybody having a Crisco allergy.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Equally cheap, equally disgusting. They should have larded. Anyways, I larded hard in high school, but I'm a different kind of guy. In a since-deleted Facebook post in Somerset Community Group, why did it get deleted? We don't know. Why did it get deleted? Users claim they've found peanut butter smeared on their doorknobs. There's videos showing a person in the act, and the smear struck the Pulaski County Fair on Tuesday, according to fair officials. A video shows someone spreading peanut butter on surfaces at the fairgrounds.

On surfaces like that you would touch?

If this is to hurt people with a peanut allergy, I say lock them up. Lock them up. If this is just an idiot that thinks this is funny, I don't know. I don't know. Make him clean up a local river for three days or something. Yeah. I guess we'll never know. Rebecca Cash, who is married to the fair board president, brag.

Ooh.

Brag. I want to be on a fair board. I didn't even know there was such a thing. I just thought Mark Cuban owned every fair. Wait, does Mark.

Cuban own a lot of fairs?

He owns the Haunted Hay Rides now.

Are you joking? Why does he own the Haunted Hay Rides?

Shark Tank. He bought them on Shark Tank.

Are you kidding me? And it's real?

I don't think Shark Tank's real. I don't think like 90% of those deals don't go through.

That is true. But Mark Cuban definitely bought it and it changed because you and Kamau and Emily and I went once and it was incredible.

It was actually scary.

It was like LA failed actors in incredible makeup and like It was huge. It took forever. It took like 25 minutes. It was our first year in LA. And I was like, boy, I'm going to get used to this. And then old cubes bought it. And now it's just churn and burn, baby. Private investment ruins another fun thing.

I mean, it really, really does.

And I've been telling you, have I talked about this on the, I don't think I've talked about this on the podcast.

Maybe we'll have them on the podcast. I would love to.

But I've been working with these two professors at NYU, Hans Taperia and Bruce Buchanan.

And they wrote.

A book called People's Capitalism. And it's coming out next year. But it's going to go on, I think it's on presale already. But it's basically, the whole idea of it is that the entire problem with why America is richer than ever right now, but all of us feel like we're getting crushed is because of the fact that private investors, third-party investors have inserted themselves into companies that they should not be in. Mark Cuban should not be involved with the haunted hayride. There's no reason that a private, a third-party, passive investor should be making money off of that. That should be owned by the people who run it and the people who work in it. And it should be employee-owned.

And the whole book is all about how to create employee-owned corporations and employee-owned businesses.

And it's awesome. It's so, so cool.

Anyway. Yeah. No, I think that's– when you see a business that is owned, like there's that brewery New Belgium– In Colorado that's like owned by the workers.

Yes.

And the quality of the brewery and the beer and the life. You're like, this is the way.

I mean, look, Green Bay Packers owned by the fans, right?

Thank you.

Do you know that there's Vanguard? There's an investment bank. Vanguard is owned by the employees. That's crazy to me. Land O'Lakes is owned by their employees.

Oh, I spread that sweet cream. It's low in fat and cholesterol free.

Ocean spray is owned by its employees.

Yes. I know somebody, I used to work with somebody who is, uh, the, you know, a son of the original founding uncles or whatever. And when I found that out, I was like, if you ever want to put alcohol in that, he was like already way ahead of you. We're already considering a carbonated alcoholic, like the white claw of ocean spray. I'm like, sounds delicious by the way.

Oh yeah.

That sounds awesome. Okay, keep going.

Land O' Lakes. We've got to get sponsored by Land O' Lakes. Right?

I want a Land O' Lakes sponsor.

To get just a butter sponsorship would be so great.

I will wear head to toe Land O' Lakes merch at every live show we ever do. You can call me Butter Landis. I'm down. Yeah. Whatever it takes.

I would love, I mean, like just getting a chest tattoo of a stick of butter across your chest.

Yeah. Let's do it. I'll stop the world and melt with you. I think it's right there. Come on. Drawing out. Rebecca Cash, who's married to the fair board president, Bragg, said the treasurer opened the door to their office Tuesday night. Quote, when my treasurer walked out the door in front of me, she said, I have something all over my hands. Hilarious.

And you know, you look at it, you don't have any idea what it is. And she's like, I think it's peanut butter. While the incident seemed like a prank at first. Cash said she is concerned it could be dangerous for people with serious allergies, which is true. That is not... Go lard. Lard hard. What are we doing here? Butter.

Land O'Lakes. Everybody's going to be fine. You smear a little Land O'Lakes on there, they're going to be happy it's on their hand.

Exactly.

And also, that is a prank, to butter the floor. That's a classic prank. Probably hurts more people than the peanut butter, but classic prank.

Yeah. Let's go back to the classics. Also, talking about classics, there is an old YouTube video, maybe 15 years old, called Butter Dance, where a woman is doing a one-woman art thing. Somebody put Adele's music over it, and this barefooted woman is just trying to dance on piles of butter and eating it.

What?

I don't know if I've ever laughed harder at a YouTube video since its inception. Butter Dance Adele on YouTube. And it's a group of people sitting in a black box theater watching a woman pounding and stomping on butter and eating the ground so hard repeatedly that you go, what is the artist's thesis statement here? What are we going for? And is this poor woman the artist? Anyways.

The smear struck multiple areas around the fairgrounds. Cash, who's also a teacher, said peanut allergies can be serious. She said schools take extra precautions when a student has a peanut allergy. I had a group of kiddos for a three- to five-year period that carried EpiPens because their allergy was so severe. But compared to a school building, thousands of people come through fairgrounds every day. It's open. And the scary realization hit us that someone could have walked up here with a severe allergy to peanuts, so I got a little worried at that point. Again, understandable. The fair runs this weekend. Okay. Cash says she wants fairgoers to be extra aware if the smear strikes again. If you

see something on a doorknob, a latch, a fence post, say something to somebody. She said, you know, it might not bother you. You might not be allergic, but there could be a three-year-old that's three people behind you. Yeah, man. Cash said the fair will remain open until Saturday. We would invite everyone to come out to the fair. Don't be scared of the peanut butter smear situation. Again, if you see something, say something to somebody. Let us know.

We're trying to fix it all as quickly as possible. Good for you and your super hot fair board president husband, Rebecca Cash. Rebecca Cash has a cool name. Yeah.

Becky Cash?

Yeah, I'd go as Becky too. What's up? I'm Becky Cash. I'd go as Becky, too, but what do I know?

Oh, my God.

So what you were saying about the Butter performance art piece you saw?

Yeah. Oh, boy.

I don't know if I've ever talked about.

This on Bananas, but there's an audio artist, Janet Cardiff. This was probably, I think, the peak experience of experiencing an art piece for me in my entire life. was the first time I saw a Janet Cardiff piece. And Janet Cardiff is an audio artist. So what she does is she records essentially walks through spaces, and then you're given headphones in those spaces.

Whoa.

And she walks.

You through the space, but a narrative starts to come, but it's all told through these audio sound effects and stuff.

And there was this one part.

So PS1 is a modern art museum in Queens.

Very cool.

Very, very cool.

And she had run of the entire space, but you're allowed to go to places in the museum that you're not normally allowed to go to. So I remember one moment, and she has a very breathy voice, and she's like, come with me.

We got to go.

And then as she walks, you're walking with her, so your footsteps match her footsteps.

Wow.

But the way it's recorded, it's very like, I think it's called oral.

I don't like, it's like three dimensional where it's like, you can hear people like two feet away from you on your lower right.

Or you can hear someone in front of you or you can hear someone.

Yeah. It's like, it's like omnidirectional. Yeah. Right.

It's like recorded in a special way.

And then you walk down these stairs, you go into the basement of PS one.

And then she says, come, come here, come, come around the corner. I need you to sit down.

And then you come around the corner and then you sit down in a folding chair and That's behind the stairs. And then all of a sudden she's like, I just want you to sit here and be quiet for a minute. And then all of a sudden a man comes up behind you and whispers in your ear. And it is like he's it's it's you jump. You like you look and no one is there. And it's all just in the headphones. And it was the most amazing. Like that was the first time I was just like, oh. Like, installation art is, I think, my favorite type of art to witness and to be a part of.

It was so cool.

Me too. Yeah, right?

Yeah, especially audio stuff. I mean, I even remember when Disney had something like that. You put on headphones, you close your eyes, and it was like a whole Disney series going on around you and sound effects, and an arrow would shoot by, and then you'd hear, like, the whirring in the other ear. It's... Every filmmaker knows if the picture gets screwed up but the audio stays consistent, it's fine. If the audio goes bad, even when the picture's good, audiences lose their mind. It's crazy how our brain processes sound. Yeah. And it's cool that we have two little sound capturers on the sides of our heads so we can hear in every direction. What a cool evolution that was. Imagine if we had that third ear, though,

on the back of your head.

Top of your head.

Intelligent design, my buttocks. Oh, man.

Well, the smear, I hope they catch the smear.

Yeah, maybe smear. If you're a banana animal, we don't support the peanut butter. Smear something that's not going to hurt people, like delicious, creamy Lando Lakes butter.

Lando Lakes butter. Where else? But the land of the lakes. Listen to me.

I will give you a tease because I want to hear these thumbs up so G-damn bad.

Me too.

Here it is.

Me too.

Here it is.

Speaking of smearer, metal detectorist Doug with the fury of a monkey to get to this horde of silver Viking coins.

I don't really think of monkeys... uh, being that furious, uh, digging, but what do I know? I, I haven't been everywhere.

I think maybe it's a, uh, a Northern European saying, uh, because I think this is a Finland, Finnish guy.

I could dig it. Uh, thumbs ups. Jeff wants to thumbs up his awesome wife, Melanie, for planning their trip to Germany. It was a fantastic trip. Jeff says, I love you and all of our adventures, Mel. That's sweet. I mean, I feel like in relationships, somebody's the better trip planner. I think that rings true. I've certainly, I lived with a couple once in Brooklyn and the then girlfriend, now wife would plan these incredible trips and My roommate was like, I don't know what's going on. I just show up with a passport. What I'm saying is some men are total boobs. One of our greatest banana animals, Lynn Gokey, is thumbing herself way up. She was unceremoniously laid off last May. They were like, oh, we don't

have the funds to pay you. And then miraculously, the old job was like, wait, we found more funding. Please, God, let us hire you again. But not Lynn.

No.

Lynn doesn't wait around. She's not a butt kisser. She went out and became the new Northern Outreach Specialist at UW-Madison's Tribal Libraries, Archives, and Museums, working with Native communities and UW students. Congratulations, Lynn. That's awesome.

Thumbs up.

Right on. Lynn's car stopped working on the way to Bananas Fest 2, and she still made it to Splitty in the City on time.

Oh, my God. That's amazing. From Washington?

Yeah.

From Madison, from Wisconsin.

Oh, from Wisconsin.

Nice. Sorry, UW-Madison. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, thumbs up to you. What a perfect fit. They're lucky to have you, Lynn.

I'm working on, I tell you, if you're in Madison still, working on maybe a New Year's Eve show.

Just saying. Maybe we'll be there.

Oh, that would be fun.

I'm working on it.

That's the best city. We have so many bananas there.

It's so fun there.

David Dannis. Great name.

Yeah.

Wants to thumbs up his girlfriend Mads. She recently graduated from University of Arizona's College of Veterinary Medicine, and she already has a residency lined up. Having a residency lined up before you graduate is nearly unheard of, Kurt. Yeah. But that is how talented and exceptional Mads is. The hardest worker David has ever known and the love of his life.

Thumbs up.

Thumbs up. And we love veterinarians. Who doesn't love a veterinarian?

I love a veterinarian.

God damn it.

You got to know where all those animals' different holes are.

Where's the mouth on this thing? Yeah.

You got to know that.

Call a vet.

You can't be guessing. You got to know it.

All right.

I mean, it is very funny that somebody that could treat a parrot and a horse is the same person.

Yes, that's what I mean. And a gerbil. And a gerbil.

Yeah. Totally insane. There it is. And last but not least, Jordan Lyon, the great Jordan Lyon, she went out of her way. She says, I want to thumb up Georgia Hardstark for completing the Dry 69. She's now over 80 days alcohol-free. And yes, Jordan, I appreciate you sending this. And yes, I already sent Georgia. I have mastered the Dry 69 bumper sticker. She hasn't texted me yet, so I hope the USPS gets it there. If not, I will hand deliver her one. But good for you, Jordan, and good for all the murder bananas out there who are supporting a little sobriety. Ain't nothing wrong with that.

No, nothing wrong with that.

All right, so a digger. What do we got? Oh, digging like a monkey. That's right.

Digging like a monkey. This is from the New York Times, Scotty.

That's real? I've read that once nine years ago.

Okay, let's see.

Not for me. Here it is.

Hobbyist archaeologist, I think you should just say metal detectorist, guys.

Thank you.

Uncovers Finland's largest Viking Age coin hoard. Out searching with a metal detector in his hometown, Kali Lapinenen found a historical treasure buried in an unexpected location.

I hope it was the beach, baby.

Okay.

This was written by Efrat Livni. Yes, Efrat.

Best. So good.

In the business in Finland.

Best in the business.

Best in the Finlish. Here it is. Metal detectorist. Boom! They say metal detectorist. That is the correct term.

Finally! Finally we break through.

A metal detectorist in southern Finland searching for treasure in the forest of his hometown this month uncovered what professional archaeologists say is the largest Viking Age silver coin hoard ever found in the country, the Lati Museums, which manages archaeological heritage in Sisma.

Where the hoard was found. Hoard. Did you know that hoard was the name for a collection of coins?

I had no idea. Me neither.

Credited the detectorist. They've used it twice now. Cal Lepininan. Lepinenen, Lepinenen.

This story is insane.

With leading archaeologists to a collection of thousands of coins that and other silver objects. They included a bracelet and a silver bee, the museum said. The museum inspected and recovered the hoard after Mr. Lappinen alerted the antiquities authorities now.

Plans to clean, study, and date the discoveries.

Precisely, it said there are 10 pounds of coins, according to his initial assessment, double the size of a collection found in 1895 in Nwazazan that contains 1,700 coins. The new discovery is very significant and shines a light on Finland's link to the Vikings at Tony Pauku, an archaeologist at the Lati Museums. The Viking Age from roughly 750 to 1050 coincides with a period in the late Finnish Iron Age. Vikings lived in what is now Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. The new find underlies that Finland was strongly connected to the Scandinavian cultural sphere, boosted by the trade of Scandinavian seafarers, some of whom were indeed Vikings across the Baltic Sea.

Mr.

Pauku said, in an email, the treasures were found packed in the remains of two birch bark containers.

Oh.

And buried about 18 inches underground.

Not far.

18 inches. Not far at all. That's crazy.

That's close.

Also, doesn't dirt, like, accumulate over time? Like, if you bury... Right? Like things.

I think that's dirt's main thing. It's like.

Right?

What else does dirt do?

It was even more shallow, whatever, a thousand years ago.

Intentionally hidden treasures like these are somewhat common for this era in Finland.

Mr.

Pakku, pointing to the societal unrest tied to general instability and external threats, religious traditions prevalent at the time may also have played a role with many of them believing that buried riches could follow a person into the afterlife.

I love that idea.

Me too.

It's just like, are you dead?

Well, you're going to need your money, so put it in the ground because you definitely go in the ground.

You're going to be in the ground.

Yeah, it's one of the best places to be.

But in case you want to buy a coffee down there, have.

Your money down there with you.

Yeah, don't be an idiot. Yeah, don't be dumb.

But precisely why this particular stash was buried is unclear. One can only say that whoever they were, they did not come back to collect the treasures.

Okay, so Mr.

Lepinenin, the detectorist who discovered the treasure, said he'd searched in the area on other occasions but failed to find anything until returning to it earlier this month. After getting a couple of signals, he began digging until his pinpoint or a small handheld probe roared, he said in an email.

With the fury of a monkey, I dug through the soil, bottom moraine and cobblestones. At a depth of about 18 inches, he said he found a pile of coins and then reported it to the authorities after he recovered from the adrenaline rush. Then he realized there was more to discover. It started to crackle, Mr. Lepinin said of the detector.

When he looked, he found more coins and two hoards side by side. Let me tell you, Efrat Levni. I want this at the top of the article. I want Doug with the fury of a monkey at the top of this article.

I agree. Grab us. Grab us like a monkey.

We want to know about the detectorist, okay? We don't care as much about the Vikings.

Here we go.

Oh, my God.

He previously discovered a smaller Viking Age silver hoard. This is what he does, man.

That's all he does.

That's what I want to do.

He's 40.

He works as an officer in the Merchant Navy. And as a side business, as a dealer in antique tiled stoves.

We should move to Scandinavia. If you'll accept us, please let us come. You sound like you have so many things figured out. Right?

Everybody's very happy there.

Or just accomplished. They can do stuff. This guy can fix old stoves. I can't fix an old stove. I can't fix a new stove.

I can't fix it. I can't fix it.

I can barely light a match. I'm a jackass. Nobody likes me. Um, that is, I, okay. So metal, metal detecting. I, whenever I see it, I'm like, I could see myself getting into that. Yeah. Right. Um, the, you've probably noticed, but the bananas Instagram algorithm, I, Lisa, our wonderful, real human. She's not a robot. She's our intern and part-time employee and just an all around great girl. She, she answers a ton of stuff in response during the week. I usually do the weekends in my office. three biggest follows lately one is this dad if batman had magnets on instagram and he's probably on tiktok too i don't have that shit but he has like a powerful.

Magnet that's what i was just gonna talk about.

Magnet fishing and he walks along curbs and just in towns and and like medians in between roads and just picks up metal and then at the end he dumps out what he gets yep and I, the sound of the metal hitting the magnet is so satisfying that alone. It's like a click, click, click. It's so specific. And then the way he separates everything, nuts, bolts, razor blades, coins, cans, whatever it is. Um, I'm like, I think I'm going to get a magnet fishing magnet and walk my street and just see if I grab screws in there. It is so satisfying.

The other one is where it's throwing into the ocean or throwing into lakes.

Have you seen that one? Yeah, like magnet fishing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the best.

I can't decide which I like more, the metal detector or the throwing a giant magnet into a canal and seeing what you pull up.

It's incredible. For some reason, it's so fascinating. I feel like the magnet fishing people, they do it in Baltimore, and they literally pull out guns all the time. Yeah, all the time. All the time. And you're like, great. But there's this person that does one called Bottles from the Deep, and all they do is snorkel in old UK and Irish lakes and find old bottles and clean them up. And these bottles are from the 1800s. The most beautiful ones are these white ginger beer. If you need peaceful... scrolling, go to bottles from the deep. Um, I think that one is so great. If, if Batman had magnets, like it's, it's inspiring me to clean up my neighborhood and get metal off the road. And the thing is anything that has like a veer to the

right or left, like anything that has a turn on the road, the opposite side where you could see gravity pull stuff off. It's, it's crazy. It is. Those are two great social media follows. Um, And I highly recommend it.

You know what? That's inspired me to give you one. I followed somebody yesterday.

If you are a person who thinks about surfing or wants to try surfing or is intimidated by surfing, there's an account that I followed yesterday called DroneDudeEd. And he's just a guy who runs a drone and takes footage of non-professional surfers surfing.

Oh, that's great.

And it is so, like, it's, as a surfer, it is so heartwarming to see how, what normal people look like when they're surfing. And it is not, not everybody's, you know, snapping it off the top and getting their fins out. You know, like, most people, 90% of the people he's shooting are a little wobbly.

They're doing their best and they're having a blast.

And it is just like a celebration of just people who are not professionals doing something they deeply enjoy.

And I would highly recommend it.

I think the next big hurricane storm, whatever that hits Balboa Island and Newport, I'm going to go down the wedge and sit on what's left of the beach and watch it. Because Koa Rothman was their big wave surfer, always surfs the Eddies from the North Shore. He was on a TV show that I was a showrunner on, so I met him briefly. He wouldn't remember me at all.

You'd remember the show, not me. But I saw he flew in to go to the Wedge to surf it. And I'm like, this is a.

The Wedge is crazy, man. What a beast of a wave.

And all the old piers coming up because the beach is disappearing. It's crazy. So I'm going to go down. I'll do some Bananimals in the Wild, and I'll do some on-location filming.

And for those of you who don't know why the Wedge is interesting, it used to be... It was like a very good surf beach and then they installed essentially a a barrier they installed up here the jetty a jetty that goes all the way out and now what happens is that the wave refracts off that jetty and it doubles up in one specific place and so a wave will go from like a six seven foot wave to a 15 20 foot wave like instantaneously and people will be on the wave when that happens and it's crazy.

There's a great dive bar near there called Class of 47. And I guess John Wayne loved it back in the day, but I was watching, I've had many, many, many late nights at Class of 47. Crazy dive bar. And I was watching that Chicago Bulls last dance, Michael Jordan doc back in COVID, and Dennis Rodman, wild card Dennis Rodman, greatest rebounder ever, is wearing a Class of 47 trucker hat during that doc. And I was like, Man, that checks out. That checks out. Anyways, I'll send us off with this one. Sounds good. Because I found this one, so even better. I don't have to credit anybody, even though I love every banana. Equally, some a lot more than others. BBC Sport, Mandeep Sankhira, who is so good. Best.

Some say the best.

Mandeep is the best in the frickin' BBC biz. A river that is home to over 500 crocodiles has been chosen... as the Olympic rowing venue. What? For the 2032 Brisbane Games. So when the Olympics go to Australia, there are over 500 saltwater crocodiles in this river that is given the okay for the Olympic and Paralympic rowing and canoeing events.

Well, here's the question. How long is the river?

Because 500 might be a small number for an Australian river.

True, but also saltwater crocodiles are like the beasts. Those are the worst ones. Those are the scariest ones.

I don't think you often see people getting in the water in rowing competitions.

They are professionals. I feel like they can do this.

They're going to be breaking every record. They're going to be like, ah! By the way, salties, as they call them there, I'll just say this. I'll send us out on this because it's an educational podcast. They are... In excess of six meters. And I ran the numbers. Holy shit. Six meters is 19 feet, eight inches.

That's crazy. In excess of 19 feet?

And just to really send us on a fact, let me look this up. How long is the average canoe? 12 to 15 feet. Yeah, because canoe racing is also happening. So what I'm saying is these salties are longer than the canoes that are going to be in the Olympics. A two-person canoe is 17 feet long. A salty is 19 feet long.

I'm so confused. There's a canoe race for the Olympics? It's not just like rowing. It's not just like crew. There's people like Daniel Boone-ing it in the Olympics with a stand-up straight, dig your paddle in the side?

You got that right.

What? I did not know that.

Canoeing has been a featured Olympic sport in the Summer Olympics since the 1936 Games in Berlin.

Look at that. Look at that.

I think that was the Jesse Owens one where he, like, kicked everybody's ass and was like, you know, you guys suck. White nationalists suck. Damn. Anyways, I'll do that one on the next episode of Bananas. Bananas! Bananas! Bananas! Bananas is an Exactly Right Media production.

Our producer and engineer is Katie Levine.

The Catchy Bananas theme song was composed and performed by Kay Han.

Artwork for Bananas was designed by Travis Millard.

And our benevolent overlords are the great Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark.

And Lisa Maggett is our full human, not a robot, part-time employee.

You can listen to Bananas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. And please feel free to rate and review as many times as you can. We love those five stars. Bananas.

Kapitelklicken springt direkt hin

Shownotes

Transkriptvom Podcast bereitgestellt · Zeitmarken springen hin