Episode 46: New Year's Predictions

This week Dave and Steel are rejoined by their friend Aaron to discuss their New Year’s Resolutions and New Year’s Predictions. Dave shares his top five presidential haircuts of all time, the three of them give their predictions for 2016 and 2116, they share extreme stories of human endurance on another installment of To the Limits, share great dance party music from Prince, Outkast, the Notorious B.I.G., LCD Soundsystem, Missy Elliott, and Miley Cyrus, and Steel shares New Year’s themed poems from Naomi Shihab Nye, Louis Zukofsky and W. S. Merwin.

Links

Presidential Hair

Big prediction for the coming year: presidential hair will become a major issue in 2016. With that in mind, here’s our list of the top 5 presidential hairstyles of all time.

  1. John Adams: the Nohawk.
    John Adams
    John Adams modeling the Nohwak

    Adams’ celebrity doppelgänger: Paula Dean.

  2. James K Polk: the original mullet.
    James K. Polk
    James K. Polk, 11th president of the United States and inventor of the mullet.

    Polk’s celebrity doppelgänger: Mel Gibson

  3. Franklin Pierce: the curly elevator.
    Franklin Pierce
    Franklin Pierce, sporting the ‘Curly Elevator’

    Pierce’s celebrity doppelganger: Lyle Lovett

  4. Andrew Johnson: the man bob
    Andrew Johnson
    Andrew Johnson proudly sporting the ‘man bob’

    Johnson’s celebrity doppelgänger: Tommy Lee Jones

  5. John F. Kennedy: the handsome man

    John F. Kennedy
    John F. Kennedy, owner of the ‘handsome man’ since he was a child.
  6. HONORABLE MENTION: William Howard Taft: the wounded walrus.
    Willam H. Taft
    Taft relaxes, secure in the knowledge that no one can do the wounded walrus quite the way that he can.

    Celebrity doppelgänger: Richard Riehle

To The Limits

  • Carlton Williams, a 50 year old Welsh construction worker living in Australia, completed 2,221 pushups in one hour. He broke his own record, which had previously been 1,874 to 2,221–which is unworldly!
  • George Harbo and Frank Samuelsen were the first people to even row across the Atlantic Ocean, which they did in 1896 for a $10,000 prize that never came. Their time record for rowing the North Atlantic Ocean was not broken for 114 years, and then by four rowers instead of two.
  • In November, Shia Labeouf participated in a fascinatingly mundane movie marathon where he sat in a New York theater and watched all of his movies. It lasted three days and consisted of 29 movies. The public was allowed to come into the theater, and watch Shia’s movies with Shia. A live feed was broadcast where you could watch Shia’s face react to his own movies. At one point he fell asleep in the aisle during “Transformers 3.” Perhaps the most amazing thing about this was that Shia wore a giant winter coat with a hoodie underneath it the entire time. You’d think he’d get really sweaty.

Unchained Melodies: New Year’s Eve Dance Party

Book Wisdom

This week Steel shared three New Year’s themed poems: “Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye; “[untitled]” (Celia’s birthday poem) by Louis Zukofsky; and “To the New Year” by W.S. Merwin.

Featured image by seanmcgrath

Episode 33: Small Town USA, Small Talk, To the Limits, Great Moments in Advertising History, OTC Hall of Fame, Unchained Melodies: 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon, and "Pig in First Person"

This week Dave and Steel are joined by their old friend Jordan to discuss Dave’s recent move to a small town in Arizona, cover some small talk topics, describe some extraordinary feats of human endurance, great advertisements featuring pro athletes and attorneys for local markets, induct the newest member of the OTC Hall of Fame, share great music from The Bacon Brothers, Arcade Fire, Stan Rogers, The Tragically Hip, Fujima and Miyagi, and Kenny Loggins, and share a wrenching poem by John Levy, a Tuscon-based poet who works as a public defender.

Links

Small Talk

To the Limits

  • Terry Fox ran with one leg across Canada to raise money for cancer. The 30 for 30 documentary Into the Wind tells his story. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIBLJn48IpU

  • Filip Müller was a Jewish prisoner of Czech origin who was forced to serve on the Sonderkommando in Auschwitz. He was one of a very few crematorium workers to survive Auschwitz.
  • Hesham Modamani and Feras Abukhalil, two Syrian refugees who recently swam from Turkey to Greece.

Great Moments in Advertising History

Athletes in Local Commercials

Scottie Pippen for Submarine sandwiches

Some Incredible Lawyer Commercials

OTC Hall of Fame

Lawyer Mike

This guy is incredible. Just watch his videos and you’ll understand.

Unchained Melodies: 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Book Wisdom

Today’s selection for book wisdom, “Pig in First Person” is a poem from John Levy‘s collection Oblivion Tyrants Crumbs.

Episode 28: Expert Testimony: Self-Help, Teen Boys and Tull edition, To the Limits, Ask OTC, Unchained Melodies: Jethro Tull Forever, and The Things They Carried

He’s back, by popular demand! Following up on last week’s amazing appearance, Dave and Steel bring back their old buddy Matt Howard. In this episode, Howard explains his love of self-help books, troubled adolescent boys, and Jethro Tull, the trio discuss the incredible exploits of the Iron Cowboy, the unnamed peasant woman who gave birth to 69 children, and Jack LaLanne, take some great listener questions, put together a life-changing Jethro Tull musical marathon and drop some sobering book wisdom from Tim O’Brien’s collection The Things They Carried.

Links

To the Limits

Ask OTC

Paul O’Neill — A True Yankee

Rickey Henderson — The Greatest Basestealer of all-time

Jim Abbott’s No-hitter

Unchained Melodies — Jethro Tull Edition

Skating Away (on the Thin Ice of a New Day)

Bungle in the Jungle

Bourée

Life is a Long Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QE8YLPHZImw

Thick as a Brick

My Sunday Feeling

Book Wisdom

This week’s passage came from the opening story of Tim O’Brien’s Vietnam book The Things They Carried.

BONUS TULL!!!!

Aqualung

Episode 18: Name of the Year, OTC Vacations, To the Limits, Unchained Melodies: Fight Edition, and White Noise

This week Dave and Steel offer their congratulations to the 2015 Name of the Year (won by Idaho’s finest citizen!), discuss the allure of road trips, their dream vacations and vacation dreams, and are joined by Dave’s wife Arianne for a special To the Limits segment, in which the trio discusses Born to Run, Arianne’s visit to the Tarahumara tribe in Northern Mexico, and Aron Ralston, the man whose experiences inspired the film 127 Hours. Dave and Steel also try to answer two very important questions in a lengthy segment of Unchained Melodies which features music by Spoon, Mötley Crüe, Dizzee Rascal, Ratatat, The Gipsy Kings, Rodrigo y Gabriela, Okkervil River, and Stylophonic, and Dave drops some book wisdom from the great Don DeLillo.

Links

Name of the Year

Our sincerest congratulations to Amanda Miranda Panda, the 2015 Name of the Year. You’ve made Caldwell, Idaho very proud, Ms. Miranda Panda. Very proud, indeed.

OTC Vacations

To the Limits

  • Christopher McDougall’s book Born to Run, which features the Tarahumara Indians of northern Mexico.
  • Some photos from Arianne’s trip to visit the Tarahumara people in 2006:
    IMG_0339
    A landscape in the Tarahumara’s native homeland.

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    A Tarahumara male. Notice the colorful shirt and plain white skirt, well suited for running.
  • Aron Ralston’s story, as reported by the St. Petersburg Times.

Unchained Melodies

Spoon — I Turn My Camera On

Mötley Crüe — Kickstart My Heart

Dizzee Rascal — Fix Up, Look Sharp

Ratatat — Loud Pipes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iexoDhvwGbo

The Gipsy Kings — Bamboleo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mifnMC_Kn1Q

Rodrigo y Gabriela — Hanuman

Okkervil River — Last Long Song For Now

Stylophonic — If Everybody in the World Loved Everybody in the World

Book Wisdom

This week’s passage of Book Wisdom comes from the section in Don DeLillo’s White Noise about the ‘most photographed barn in America’.

Episode 10: Baby Birthday Parties, To The Limits, Ask OTC, Small Talk, Diesel: Running on Gas, Unchained Melodies, and Montaigne's Essays

This week Dave and Steel discuss some pro tips for successful birthday parties for infants and toddlers, talk about some incredible feats of human achievement (including Yeti sightings and some of the longest walks ever recorded), introduce you to the paranormal educational opportunities available at Arthur Findlay College, discuss Turning Point and Radio Diaries, answer great listener questions about vanity plates and rectal tubes, share some great music from Martha Wainwright, The New Christy Minstrels, Bahamas, and The National, and drop some humility from Michel de Montaigne.

Links

To The Limits

Sławomir Rawicz’s book is called The Long Walk. The book was the ‘inspiration’ for a 2010 film called The Way Back with Colin Farrell and Ed Harris.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87kezJTpyMI

Here’s Elizabeth Weil’s NYT magazine article about the Swiss adventurer Sarah Marquis. Ms. Marquis maintains a website where you can hear interviews, find her TED talks, and see several videos of her exploits.

Small Talk

WSJ article programabout Arthur Findlay College, a Spiritualist-run school for psychics and mediums. The college also has its own website.

Dave highly recommends BYUTV’s programTurning Point.

Steel recommends Joe Richman’s podcast Radio Diaries, especially their recent episode about songwriter Rose Marie McCoy.

Unchained Melodies

Martha Wainwright — Everything Wrong

The New Christy Minstrels — El Camino Real

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btb2lEL4f7s

Bahamas — Lost in the Light

The National — So Far Around the Bend

So Far Around the Bend by The National on Grooveshark

Book Wisdom

Today’s passage was “To the Reader,” the brief preface to Michel de Montaigne’s classic Essays. Steel recommends the Donald Frame translation. You can also listen to the essays, as they’ve been recorded by LibriVox volunteers.

Episode 6: At the Limits, Small Talk, Unchained Melodies, and Grooks

This week Dave and Steel are joined by their friend Ryan. Together the trio discusses the limits of human endurance by way of the stories of Ernest Shackleton and Yiannis Kouros, share some conversational anecdotes from old Chip & Dale cartoons, Finnish miltary history, and mathematical outsiders, share some favorite recent music, and drop some wisdom from Danish Scientist Piet Hein.

Links

At the Limits

Dave recommends checking out these two books about Ernest Shackleton, both called Endurance, after the name of Shackleton’s ship:

Steel recommends this fascinating 2006 profile of Greek-Australian ultramarathoner Yiannos Kouros from Runner’s World. Kouros also maintains his own website, with more biographical information for the curious.

Small Talk

Donald Duck pulls a handgun on Chip & Dale
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biy5HrSCSSg

Finnish master sniper Simo Häyhä’s wikipedia page.

The recent New Yorker profile on mathematician Yitang Zhang.

Unchained Melodies

Waxahatchee: Under a Rock

London Grammar: Nightcall

Mina Tindle: L’Astrakan

Book Wisdom

The poems Steel read in this episode come from Danish scientist Piet Hein‘s book Grooks.