The Magnificent Golden Gate Bridge

If you think the Golden Gate Bridge is named because of its color then you are wrong. That name proceeds the bridge by a long time. But that’s just one interesting fact about this amazing structure. Tune in today. See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed Human.

• 0:04Josh Clark?

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• 1:03Speaker 03

  Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.

• 1:13Josh Clark?

  Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's hanging with us, too, and it's Stuff You Should Know, and we are headed west. And yeah, that's all.

• 1:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, we're recording on the Golden Gate Bridge. I guess this is like two weeks. Wow, two weeks to the day, I think.

• 1:35Josh Clark?

  What?

• 1:36Speaker 02

  From our live show in the city of San Francisco.

• 1:39Josh Clark?

  That's true, because it's the 15th, and our show's on the 29th.

• 1:42Speaker 02

  That's right, on a rare Thursday.

• 1:45Josh Clark?

  Oh, a show?

• 1:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. Oh, by the way, too, I meant to mention, and I hope this is okay with you, I got booked to do a show on Friday, and I haven't mentioned that to people, but on Friday, I will be performing in the Hanging with Dr. Z show.

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Do you know that one?

• 2:03Josh Clark?

  Like Dr. Zayas?

• 2:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, do you know about this?

• 2:06Josh Clark?

  No, no, no, I don't know anything about it.

• 2:08Speaker 02

  This is the one in which comedian Dana Gould is, he owns a professional, like, full-blown Dr. Zayas costume. And he's been doing this for years, and it's like a talk show with him as the host as Dr. Zayas. So I'm on that, and I'm very excited because not only is Janet Varney in it, co-founder of Sketch Fest and dear friend, but Dave Foley, I get to like be onstage with a kid in the hall.

• 2:34Josh Clark?

  What? Man, that's gonna be amazing, Chuck.

• 2:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, and the great Andy Daly. So if anyone wants to see that on Friday night, just go to the Sketch Fest website and check it out. I think it's at kind of one of the small comedy clubs.

• 2:45Josh Clark?

  Do you, oh, okay, so it's at a comedy club?

• 2:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's one where I did Movie Crush one year, I can't remember the name of it, though.

• 2:52Josh Clark?

  Well, do you remember how to find your way back there, though?

• 2:54Speaker 02

  Boy, I hope so.

• 2:56Josh Clark?

  I hope so, too. That's awesome, man, congrats. And yes, I second that, everybody should go see it, whether you're in San Francisco or not, because I'm sure that's gonna be awesome.

• 3:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, you can come. I imagine you'll be on a plane home, huh?

• 3:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 3:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, all right.

• 3:09Josh Clark?

  But thank you, I appreciate the invite. I'll be there in spirit supporting you. Text me immediately after and be like, it was a triumph.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Or...

• 3:17Josh Clark?

  No, it won't be anything but a triumph.

• 3:20Speaker 02

  All right, so Golden Gate Bridge?

• 3:22Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that's why we started talking about California and San Francisco in the first place, because if you don't bother to look at the titles of episodes and you just let it roll one into the other, that's what we're talking about in this episode, the Golden Gate Bridge. There's a pretty good chance you know what we're talking about. It's often named as the most photographed bridge in the world. I can believe that.

• 3:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is my second favorite.

• 3:46Josh Clark?

  What's your first?

• 3:47Speaker 02

  Brooklyn Bridge, man.

• 3:49Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 3:50Speaker 02

  It's gotta be the BB.

• 3:51Josh Clark?

  Okay, all right, all right.

• 3:53Speaker 02

  What about you?

• 3:54Josh Clark?

  I don't know, I don't know that I have a favorite bridge. I kind of like the ones that look like sailboats. There's a few of those around.

• 4:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, those are nice. A Tower Bridge in London is also quite magnificent.

• 4:06Josh Clark?

  Sure. And then, I'm gonna sound so obnoxious, but in Budapest.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  It's not obnoxious.

• 4:14Josh Clark?

  No, just being like, what's your favorite bridge? Oh, mine's in Budapest.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Oh, no.

• 4:19Josh Clark?

  But they have, I think, seven different bridges. And they went, they did seven different designs for all the bridges that go through the city and connect Budah to Pest, right? And it really is like a city of amazing bridges. They're all just really well done and they're just different. It's cool.

• 4:35Speaker 02

  I agree. I forgot about that. Well, also, I mean, since we're shouting out bridges, we can't not talk about Pittsburgh because I went to a baseball game there in that beautiful stadium. And you get the, those beautiful bridges there. It's lovely.

• 4:49Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it's like Eight Bridges Stadium?

• 4:52Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so.

• 4:53Josh Clark?

  Is that right?

• 4:54Speaker 02

  Yeah. Okay. Eight or 12, I think they call it Eight or 12 Bridges Stadium.

• 4:59Josh Clark?

  The does.

• 5:01Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 5:02Josh Clark?

  So, back to the Golden Gate. It's also, Chuck, one of the seven wonders of the modern world.

• 5:06Speaker 02

  I didn't know that.

• 5:07Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and the American Society of Civil Engineers named it one of the bridges of the millennium in 2000.

• 5:14Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 5:15Josh Clark?

  So, it's a well-regarded bridge. And if you've always wondered or always thought like, hey, I guess the Golden Gate Bridge is called that because the, I guess the weird orange color is roughly golden? I don't know. You would be like me, probably like you, Chuck, and that would mean you were wrong.

• 5:34Speaker 02

  That's right, because Golden Gate very much predates the construction of that bridge. And with that, we come to our first story.

• 5:43Josh Clark?

  Okay, I'm gonna make like a horse sound while you tell the story. So, this guy will be riding a horse, okay?

• 5:50Speaker 02

  You got two halves of coconuts and you're banging them together. 1846, this is the Mexican-American wartime. It's going on. And there's an army officer in the United States named John Fremont, who basically said, without, it sounds like, without even asking anyone, hey, California's independent from Mexico. At one point, he was crossing the San Francisco Bay there from Sonoma to San Francisco to fight the Mexican army there. And he named that, boy, you're really doing a great job. And he named that mile-wide strait that connects the bay to the ocean, what would that be, Crisofale?

• 6:28Josh Clark?

  Can't stop.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  Oh no. There he goes, off into the sunset.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  I guess chrysophyle, which means Golden Gate, and later on, rather than the Greek version, he went with the English, and that that passage was called the Golden Gate.

• 6:44Josh Clark?

  That's right. So this is the bridge over the Golden Gate.

• 6:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 6:48Josh Clark?

  Did you know that?

• 6:50Speaker 02

  Uh, no, not, I was yesterday years old, as they say.

• 6:53Josh Clark?

  Yep. So, uh, yeah. And the Golden Gate in particular is pretty neat, not just because it's like the, it connects San Francisco Bay to the Pacific Ocean, but geographically, it's like 300 feet deep right there. But on the shelf in the Pacific side, it's much shallower. And then in the bay, I saw the bay's like an average of 14 feet deep or something crazy like that. So, um, it's just suddenly goes like this huge depression, and this is what they needed to cross, like a 300-foot depression through the Golden Gate with a bridge. And I think the first person to ever suggest it was a guy named Charles Crocker. And one of the reasons they needed a bridge, Chuck, in the first place is because

• 7:37Josh Clark?

  if you ever look at a map of San Francisco, it's actually a peninsula. So it's connected to the south, to the rest of California, but there's a lot of stuff to the north of that. To get to the north, you have to cross the Golden Gate. So people were like, we've got to get here to there, you know? We like Marin County. We like, uh, Petaluma. We like to say Petaluma at least.

• 7:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, Sausalito.

• 7:59Josh Clark?

  Sausalito is another fun one to say. Um, so they started with ferries, and that worked just fine. But as more and more people showed up, San Francisco was a magnet for immigrants, especially after the gold rush of 1849. Um, they were like, we might need something better than just ferries, like especially if we want to run railroad cars.

• 8:18Speaker 02

  Yeah. And Jack, that ferry was expensive, man. Uh, they were, they were actually just, um, like tanker boats, but they would double as ferries and say, yeah, sure, we'll take you across. It was $2 a head, which is almost $70 today.

• 8:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 8:34Speaker 02

  That's outrageous.

• 8:35Josh Clark?

  Yeah. I saw $77 even.

• 8:38Speaker 02

  Wow. That's even more outrageous.

• 8:40Josh Clark?

  And they gave you saltines and grape Kool-Aid. That was the only food you had on board.

• 8:44Speaker 02

  Just like, uh, Southern Baptist Communion.

• 8:47Josh Clark?

  That's what I had in nursery school. It's actually a winning combination.

• 8:51Speaker 02

  It was pretty good, especially if you're in church and you're like hard up for snacks.

• 8:55Josh Clark?

  So, um, oh, there was finally one called the Princess. There was a side wheel paddle wheel steamer, I guess, that was the first official ferry. That happened in 1868, but that guy, Charles Crocker, all the way back in 1872, he said, "We need a bridge." And the reason why he said, "We need a bridge" is because he was a railroad guy and he's like, "We need to get railroads up there. We need to get people. We need to move lumber. We need to do all sorts of cool stuff. So let's, let's get a bridge, guys."

• 9:24Speaker 02

  Yeah. And people are like, "There's no way. That's two miles. No one's ever built a suspension bridge that long." And in 1916, there was a San Francisco Sun journalist who used to study engineering named James Wilkins. He said, "No, I think we can build a suspension bridge. It'll be 3,000 feet and it'll cost in those days' dollars, $100 million, which is almost, I'm sorry, it's more than $3 billion today." So everyone said, "That's probably not going to happen either." So eventually it took a city engineer named Michael O'Shaughnessy to be on the lookout to say, "We do need a bridge, but we got to get this cost lower." And enlisted a guy

• 10:05Speaker 02

  in 1921 from Chicago named, an engineer named Joseph Strauss, who said, "Here's what we do, everyone. It is possible, but it can't be a straight suspension bridge all the way over. And it can't be just a cantilevered bridge. The suspension will be too flexible and flexi with those winds and the cantilever would be way too heavy. So if we do a combination of the two, I think that's the winning idea and it'll cost you only $17 million."

• 10:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, that was much more in line with what the, the city engineer knew that the city of San Francisco would be willing to pay for something like this, right?

• 10:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:43Josh Clark?

  Joseph Strauss, he became the central figure of the Golden Gate Bridge. He's often credited as the man who built the Golden Gate Bridge. It's a genuinely unfair thing to say because so many people contributed so much to it. But he was, um, he was not a shy person. He could work with just about anybody. He knew how to work. The system and he was not a self promoter, but he definitely was after the acclaim of being the man who built the Golden Gate Bridge. So just kind of put that in your, in your pipe for later.

• 11:15Speaker 02

  Right. Don't smoke it yet though, right?

• 11:17Josh Clark?

  No, no, don't, don't spark it. But he enlisted a guy named Charles Ellis, who is like the,

• 11:25Josh Clark?

  I don't know how you would describe, I can't think of an analogous movie character, but I feel like we can get him across a little bit. He was obsessed with making sure that this bridge was not going to collapse.

• 11:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would describe him as a math whiz. He was the guy.

• 11:42Speaker 02

  I think we did the, when we did the New York subways episode, we talked about the tunnels that went under the Hudson River.

• 11:48Josh Clark?

  Hmm.

• 11:48Speaker 02

  He was a guy that came up with that plan. And so,

• 11:53Speaker 02

  that's a pretty good dude to get if you're trying to build a bridge that no one thought could be built at the time.

• 11:59Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  Like, super, super math guy. Just keep math in your head because as we'll see, math would end up being his undoing.

• 12:05Josh Clark?

  Yeah, but he was not after acclaim. He did not, I get the impression necessarily know how to work with everybody or work the system. He just wanted to do his math stuff, right?

• 12:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:15Josh Clark?

  So he was a good guy to have in that sense. And one of the reasons why it was so good is because the design process was so long. At one point, as we'll see, they just completely scrapped Strauss's idea and started over.

• 12:28Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 12:29Josh Clark?

  Financing was also a thing. I mean, Strauss had gotten it down to an estimate of 17 million. And I'm sure anybody who was paying any attention was like, we should plan on probably at least double that.

• 12:39Speaker 02

  Just about right.

• 12:40Josh Clark?

  Yeah. But the state was interested enough that in 1923, they passed the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District Act of California, which basically said to the people in the surrounding 21 counties, hey, you guys want to get in on this and basically vote for a tax district that can create debt to borrow money basically against our counties? What do you think?

• 13:04Speaker 02

  Yeah. And they said, well, what does that mean? That sounds weird. And they said, well, it means that all the businesses and all your homes in your county are going to be put up as collateral jointly. Against that loan and surprisingly, maybe six out of the 21 counties said, we're in. We see this progress as something that we need. As far as the remaining counties that weren't into it, you know, some of the obvious reasons is they just didn't want to do that. A, some worried about the cost overruns and like, hey, this isn't even going to be enough. Other people didn't, you know, this was the early 1920s, so it was still, you know, kind of a, I mean, it was a bustling city for 1920s. But there were areas of rural, you know, ruralness.

• 13:50Josh Clark?

  Sure.

• 13:51Speaker 02

  Across the other side and like, they were like, we don't want this bridge. Like, we've got livestock over here and we're cutting down our lumber. And even back then, they had conservationists agitating against stuff like this. Notably, the Sierra Club was like, we don't want a bridge in that beautiful bay. And there were a lot of other people that came out with a lot of good reasons to bring up lawsuits, like, you know, earthquakes. There was one in 1906 that was recent enough to where like, what about this earthquake thing? Like, what if that happens?

• 14:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, the first big one.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 14:26Josh Clark?

  Shippers were like, well, you know, we can make it through the Golden Gate to the Pacific pretty easy right now. We're a little worried that just building this bridge is going to hamper our ability to make mad cash. The Department of War, which had a heavy presence in that area, was like, look, we run like really important warships in and out of this harbor. We're worried that this, this bridge is going to block our progress. But then also, we're worried that it's going to become a real target for saboteurs and that they will blow up the bridge and block the harbor with the debris. And then the Southern Pacific Railroad stepped up and said, we run the ferries. Like, we're going to lose a bunch of money if you guys build a bridge.

• 15:07Josh Clark?

  So all these people together were either parties to or had their own lawsuits against the bridge authority, saying like, no, you can't, you can't do this. And against all of those odds, the people in favor of the bridge managed to overcome that.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, and before we break, I do want to mention, before we get some email, we mentioned Department of War, not in bended knee to Pete Hegseth. That was the original name that later became the Department of Defense.

• 15:35Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah, I forgot. That's what it's called again now?

• 15:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, is now, to the tune of what I just read, was going to cost $125 million to change that name back to the Department of War.

• 15:47Josh Clark?

  And then another 125 to change it back to the Defense Department again eventually.

• 15:52Speaker 02

  Probably so. So just wanted to point that out. Let's take a break and we'll be right back.

• 16:08Josh Clark?

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• 19:33Speaker 02

  So the first design, this hybrid design, was pretty ugly. There was a critic that said it looked like an upside-down rat trap. So they said, "All right, we've got to redesign this thing because it's got to look good." Ellis gets together with consulting engineers Leon, I guess that would be Moisif, and O-H-Aman, and they got together with Strauss, and they said, "All right, let's go back to this old idea, but a new design of a full-suspension bridge."

• 20:00Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 20:01Speaker 02

  The longest one ever, and it'll end up being the tallest one ever, at the time at least, because all the winds and the water and the boats and everything, this thing needed to be tall and super-long.

• 20:12Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and it also needed to be tall because the angle of the cables to hold up such a long deck had to come down at a crazy angle.

• 20:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:22Josh Clark?

  Which meant that those towers had to be really tall. So this is going to be the tallest bridge in the world, the longest suspension bridge in the world, and they're like, "Let's do that. Let's make the impossible happen." And it's worth pointing out, Chuck, like, these guys aren't using CAD, they're not using any sort of computer, they do not exist yet, they're not using calculators, they're doing all of these calculations by hand, using their noodles.

• 20:45Speaker 02

  Slide rules.

• 20:47Josh Clark?

  Slide rules, pencils, like, that's how this bridge was designed, that's how they calculated the stresses on it, that's how they figured out how to engineer it, all by hand and using their heads.

• 20:58Speaker 02

  Yeah, amazing. They did all kinds of testing, obviously, some pretty impressive stuff, as you'll see. They created a model that was 156 scale, took it to Princeton University there in New Jersey, and did a scaled-down equivalent of 120 million pounds of vertical load to test to make sure those towers could take that. Passed that test, and like I said, there was so much math going on. Eventually Strauss got irritated, so the guy, Ellis, that they hired because he was great at math, got fired because the math was so irritating to Strauss.

• 21:36Josh Clark?

  Yeah, Ellis later recorded that Strauss said that the structure was nothing unusual and didn't require the time that Ellis thought necessary for it.

• 21:45Speaker 02

  Oh, man.

• 21:46Josh Clark?

  I also saw elsewhere, somebody say that Strauss was envious of or resentful of, I guess, the respect that Ellis got from the board whenever he went and spoke to them.

• 21:56Speaker 02

  I could see that.

• 21:57Josh Clark?

  So, yeah, this is, and I also think that Strauss was getting leaned on. He was the one that was getting pressured to meet the time.

• 22:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 22:04Josh Clark?

  And Ellis was like, no, it's gonna take six months more than that. So finally Strauss fires Ellis in the most cowardly way a person can. He forces him to take vacation and then before his vacation's over, he sends him a telegram saying, you're fired.

• 22:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's pretty bad. Ellis didn't receive a lot of credit at the time and in fact, he didn't get a lot of credit until after he passed away in 1949. So we're taking our hat off to you, Mr. Ellis, for your, for your great work and your great math, because we are both math whizzes ourselves and we have a lot of respect for maths.

• 22:38Josh Clark?

  That's right. He also, he didn't have anything to do. He couldn't really find much work because this was during the depression and he was fired. He went back and he went over all the figures again, all of the calculations to make sure they were right. He was spending like 70 hours a week and it took him months.

• 22:55Speaker 02

  Jeez.

• 22:56Josh Clark?

  And he did. And he was like, yep, this is gonna work, even though no one was listening to him. He wasn't being paid for it. He just wanted to make sure that this thing was going to work.

• 23:05Speaker 02

  That's great. So in 1928, they kind of mired their way through, or got their way through the mire of the legal activity and all the protests and everything. The state government of California said the Golden Gate Bridge and Highway District is now a thing. They're gonna pull off every facet of this bill. And in November 1930, the district issued $35 million in bonds to finance this thing, which was a problem at the time though, because it was during the Great Depression, obviously. And they couldn't find any buyers for these bonds and all these legal matters were scaring people away. And so they turned to kind of one of the heroes of this whole thing.

• 23:46Speaker 02

  In 1932, a guy named Amadio Giannini, the president of Bank of America.

• 23:53Josh Clark?

  Yeah, one of the most revered and respected banks in the world. Everyone loves Bank of America. They're basically a mascot here in the US.

• 24:01Speaker 02

  That's right. And he was also just a California hero. He kind of kickstarted the Hollywood movie industry, the California wine industry. So he was a guy to go to and he was like, I got you. I got a big room with $6 million over here and I'll buy those bonds and you can get started on your project.

• 24:18Josh Clark?

  Yeah, which is pretty cool. And he is one of the heroes for sure. So they got started. They started during the depression, as we saw. And on the one hand, that meant financing was difficult. On the other hand, it meant that they had a huge pool of laborers to tap because there were a lot of out of work people. So they got everyone they needed basically immediately to get started. It started on January 5th, 1933. And there were a lot of issues that construction faced that made this a unique construction job. Every day, four times a day, so two times in and two times out, the tide brings in and takes out 390 billion gallons of water through the Golden Gate while these guys

• 25:03Josh Clark?

  are trying to build their bridge. There's tons of fog, there's a lot of storms, there's high winds. It was not just like a walk in the park, like apparently the Bay Bridge was to build.

• 25:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, apparently the Bay Bridge is more impressive in some ways and was built and finished before, but it didn't get nearly depressed because it was just an easier job overall.

• 25:25Josh Clark?

  Right. It's like eight miles long, which is the exact distance from downtown Detroit to Eminem's house.

• 25:33Speaker 02

  And I didn't see that coming. When you said Detroit, I didn't even see it coming. Nice work.

• 25:39Josh Clark?

  Thanks.

• 25:40Speaker 02

  All right. So it's a difficult job, super, super hard because of the terrain and the water and the wind and the fog and everything going on. The North Tower was built on the Marin County side on the coastline there into a very strong layer of basalt and sandstone. And that's great. So they were like, the north side is fine because this stuff is Very, very sturdy to build into. The south tower was about 1,000 feet offshore and a bed of serpentine rock. And they went, this side is a little trickier, so we're gonna have to take our time a little more.

• 26:11Josh Clark?

  Yeah. They got this guy named Andrew C. Lawson. He's a great example of how many people were thoroughly involved in this, because every person you mention in this story, just imagine there's dozens or maybe hundreds of people working beneath them in coordination with that person. He was a geologist, and he basically took to test the bedrock, he, I'm not exactly sure how he did it, but he put the equivalent of a railroad boxcar, fully loaded, that amount of weight and force onto a 20-square-inch area, and it held up fine.

• 26:49Speaker 02

  That's incredible.

• 26:50Josh Clark?

  It is. I could not find out how he did that exactly. It's just such a spectacular way to put it that I guess everyone's like, no one cares what actually happened.

• 26:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, just tell them he did it.

• 27:00Josh Clark?

  Right. And then he put on an old-timey diving suit and diving bell and went down to the bedrock and hit it with a hammer. And apparently, if it makes this sound, like a dinging sound, that's what you're looking for, because not only is it strong, but it's also flexible, which is gonna come in handy whenever the San Andreas gives California the big one, the 8.6 magnitude earthquake that everyone says is inevitably coming someday.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  Yeah, for sure. In order to ensure that stability, they had workers dive 90 feet down to put explosives down to blast out even more rock, so they could go even deeper. They had to get rid of those fragments to even get out to that tower. You know, they have all these materials, so a lot of big construction like this is constructing things so you can do the construction.

• 27:52Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 27:52Speaker 02

  And that was the case here. So they had to build a road, basically, on a trestle just to get out to that tower. And then they had to protect this thing from, like, being bumped into by a ship.

• 28:04Josh Clark?

  Yeah, if you look at the concrete foundations that the towers are built on, you'll notice that they're like oval. And those were designed to basically act as fenders, kind of like if you play bumper bowling.

• 28:19Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 28:20Josh Clark?

  It's basically like that. And imagine the bowling ball is a ship that's being captained by somebody who's not paying attention.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 28:27Josh Clark?

  Probably on his phone.

• 28:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 28:29Josh Clark?

  And they will hit that that fender, the bumper, and it will keep them from running into the actual tower itself. And because of the oval shape, hopefully kind of push the ship away from the fender itself.

• 28:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, while the captain says, what was that?

• 28:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, they weren't, I think they said it looked like a giant bathtub is what they referred to it. Um, but you know, they filled that thing once it was peeking above the surface, partially with concrete, pumped out the water, reinforced it with steel, more concrete. And all of a sudden, you've got a protected tower with that, that billiards bumper bowl, bumper bowl?

• 29:11Josh Clark?

  Mm hmm.

• 29:12Speaker 02

  Is that what you called it?

• 29:13Josh Clark?

  Bumper bowling.

• 29:14Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. I thought you were talking about like bumper billiards.

• 29:17Josh Clark?

  No, no, no. Bumper bowling where they put those guardrails down in the gutters.

• 29:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, we went bowling last week and Ruby still uses those.

• 29:25Josh Clark?

  I do too sometimes. I can still manage to miss pins bumper bowling, but.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. I thought you meant just roll a gutter ball. It's like, man, who can't?

• 29:35Josh Clark?

  No, I'm saying even bumper bowling, I can miss the pins still.

• 29:39Speaker 02

  I did the usual. I know I've mentioned this before, but with bowling, usually for, and I think the other day I hit like a, like a 140 and then like a 70.

• 29:49Josh Clark?

  I don't remember. Are those good?

• 29:51Speaker 02

  I mean, 140 for someone who doesn't bowl much, I feel like is a pretty strong number.

• 29:55Josh Clark?

  Is that dude or Jesus level good?

• 29:57Speaker 02

  Oh, no, no, no. Like 300 is a perfect game. But I mean, 140 means you've hit plenty of strikes and spares and probably had a good last frame out. I don't know if that's what they call it, but 70 is bad. My whole point was though, is I'm good for one game and then my game really drops off.

• 30:15Josh Clark?

  Okay. Well, were you drunk by the second game?

• 30:17Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no, no. I had but one beer, a PBR draft. It was delicious.

• 30:22Josh Clark?

  Okay. Yeah, sometimes those are the best ones, the really crowded ones.

• 30:26Speaker 02

  I don't do that much anymore, but it was super refreshing and delicious.

• 30:30Josh Clark?

  Great.

• 30:31Speaker 02

  Yeah. That's Chuck Goes Bowling.

• 30:33Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and PBR.

• 30:35Speaker 02

  Uh huh.

• 30:36Josh Clark?

  So you want to take a break?

• 30:39Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah. Yeah, we're there already. Let's do it.

• 30:41Josh Clark?

  Okay.

• 30:54Josh Clark?

  Buy smart, drive for less, and trade for more. That's Toyota affordability. And it all starts with a great deal on a truck from your local Toyota dealer.

• 31:03Speaker 02

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• 31:16Josh Clark?

  Or discover Toyota's off-road lineup, including the iconic 4Runner and Land Cruiser, designed to go beyond the everyday. And with Toyota's proven reputation for quality and reliability, plus hybrid power on many models, you can get more for every mile and drive for less along the way.

• 31:32Speaker 02

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• 31:56Josh Clark?

  You know, eating is a huge part of our lives. It fuels us, it brings us together, and it's one of life's great pleasures. But once a meal's over, we don't think much about what happens next unless something starts to feel off, because what we eat and how our bodies respond to it is complicated.

• 32:12Speaker 02

  That's right. From the very first bite, food kicks off a chain reaction. Signals moving between the gut, the brain, and the immune system. The constant back and forth, we can't see and often don't fully understand. So we want to introduce to you Eating Interrupted, a new podcast from iHeart Ruby Studio. It's hosted by longtime journalist and Crohn's patient Cynthia McFadden. Eating Interrupted explores everything from food allergies and intolerance, and why they seem to be on the rise, to how digestion changes as we age, and what it's really like to live with a chronic GI condition.

• 32:40Josh Clark?

  Through personal stories and expert insight, listen in to unpack what it means when your body doesn't always respond to food the way you expect, and what science is now revealing about why. Listen to Eating Interrupted on the iHeart app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

• 32:59Speaker 04

  First thought is like, wow, how are we going to do all this?

• 33:02Josh Clark?

  Hey, this is Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know.

• 33:05Speaker 02

  That's Alan Goya, planning engineer at AT&T, and he's talking about Intuit Dome, home of the Los Angeles Clippers, where every seat, screen, phone, and transaction is connected with AT&T fiber and 5G, redefining the fan's experience, and Alan's master plan made it all possible.

• 33:21Speaker 04

  It was going to rival anything that was already built, and that takes quite a bit of people and different teams to all be on the same page.

• 33:29Josh Clark?

  That includes field services manager Drexel Jones. His team made sure it all came together and held up on game day.

• 33:35Speaker 05

  Through what Alan's whole crew designed, we connected the event visitors to the world.

• 33:41Speaker 02

  And after years of hard work and collaboration, it was opening night.

• 33:44Speaker 05

  To actually see the whole stadium light up and data's flowing is a beautiful thing.

• 33:48Speaker 04

  What the fans experience is incredible. It gave me a lot of pride.

• 33:52Josh Clark?

  AT&T, connecting fans to what they love.

• 33:55Speaker 06

  Connecting changes everything. AT&T.

• 34:11Josh Clark?

  So Chuck, they've got the foundation poured. It's a nice fender, a bumper around the towers. Apparently, once they got that foundation done, they erected the South Tower, which was the more difficult of the two towers, the one closest to San Francisco. They erected it in like six months, which is really amazing, especially as you find like that added up. That was not an anomaly for this project. It kept like hitting milestones ahead of time. And it used quite a bit of steel, thanks to Bethlehem Steel Corporation of Pennsylvania. And as we know from our Christmas episode, the reason it is Bethlehem, Pennsylvania is thanks to our Moravian friends who moved there in the 18th century.

• 34:50Speaker 02

  That's right. New Jersey chipped in too. Got to shout out New Jersey.

• 34:53Josh Clark?

  For sure. I don't believe the Moravians had much to do with naming New Jersey.

• 34:57Speaker 02

  No, no, no. But as far as the steel goes.

• 35:00Josh Clark?

  Okay, yes. And so Bethlehem Steel provided 44,000 tons of steel for each tower. That was each tower. And this is not like a quick thing. They prefabricated them, put them on a barge, and then sent them to San Francisco, down the East Coast, past Florida, through the Panama Canal, and then up to San Francisco. That's how every single piece of steel, prefabricated steel, made its way to the Golden Gate Project.

• 35:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's right. Via the Panama Canal, they get there. They obviously use these giant cranes to lift these steel sections into place and start kind of just putting this thing together like a kit at this point. And at this point, they haven't even, you know, eventually they had temporary elevators built so people could get up and down quicker. But before that, it would take a worker 20 minutes just to climb a ladder. I can't imagine how terrifying that would be, just to be climbing a ladder that high that takes 20 minutes to climb. But that's how they got to the top. And then we get to the color. Like we mentioned before, it's not named Golden Gate Bridge because of the color, because it's really not golden in color.

• 36:09Speaker 02

  It got there, like we said, prefab, then it was painted with an orangish-red lead primer, just to kind of make sure it made the journey there okay, without getting rusted out. And once it got there, consulting architect Irving Morrow said, "Man, that looks pretty darn good, everybody. What do you think?" And everyone went, "Bully, bully." And so they started searching for sort of related colors and ended up landing on what is now known as Golden Gate Bridge International Orange.

• 36:41Josh Clark?

  I would have kept my mouth shut, but I would have been looking around like, "You guys think that looks good? That's the color we're gonna paint the bridge?"

• 36:47Speaker 02

  I'm into green, personally, but...

• 36:51Josh Clark?

  Okay, so one of the things that is great about that particular color, orange, and I think one of the reasons people said "bully" for it, was because it didn't, it didn't, well, it harmonized with the surrounding area. It's nice, hilly, shrubby. It, like, it was a good choice, for sure, for that. And I think it also kind of placated a lot of people, too. They're like, "That actually kind of goes with everything. It doesn't stick out like a sore thumb." So it was a good idea. And that International Orange is still used today. You can thank International Orange for the Color of Your Life vest, if it's orange.

• 37:27Speaker 02

  That's right. That is just regular International Orange. The Golden Gate Bridge International Orange is a little different. It's like a variation on that. But, like you said, it blended in well, and it also did, you know, the job that it was really supposed to do, was stand out for ships and boats there in the fog. Rejected colors included silver, black. And then black and yellow, which was suggested by the US Navy, like, you know, striped black and yellow, because that was the best color for visibility to them.

• 37:57Josh Clark?

  It's the best color for Christian metal, too.

• 38:00Speaker 02

  That's right. It's funny, because I can, that striper, the stuff looks so good, but I can't picture a bridge in yellow and black stripe. It just looks too safety industrial, you know?

• 38:13Josh Clark?

  Or cliffs, no?

• 38:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, true.

• 38:16Josh Clark?

  Didn't the dude, the drummer from Striper, have black and yellow striped drumsticks even?

• 38:22Speaker 02

  I think he had a black and yellow striped everything, if you know what I mean.

• 38:26Josh Clark?

  Oh, I see. He had a black and yellow striped gnom on.

• 38:33Josh Clark?

  Let's keep going.

• 38:34Speaker 02

  Oh, boy. That's good. All right, so Morrow, we mentioned, Irving Morrow, he's the consulting architect who said, like, I like this color. He also, obviously, played a part in a lot of the aesthetic decisions. That's tough. Good band name, but also bad.

• 38:50Josh Clark?

  Aesthetic.

• 38:51Speaker 02

  No one could ever say it. Who are you going to see tonight?

• 38:53Josh Clark?

  The AD.

• 38:54Speaker 02

  Aesthetic Decisions.

• 38:57Speaker 02

  One of the things that he designed aesthetically was, to make it look a little taller, was those tower panels decrease in size from bottom to top. Pretty good idea.

• 39:08Josh Clark?

  Yep. And while I guess Lawson was like, let's do this, and let's add a little bit of this, and maybe put bows on the top, kind of thing. Strauss, who again is the man at the center of all of this, he was way ahead of his time as far as safety goes. Apparently, the Golden Gate Project was the first one that required hard hats on site. Which is now fairly ubiquitous.

• 39:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, good little fact.

• 39:32Josh Clark?

  Yeah. And then, he also created a safety net that was movable, so I think the people who were in the highest risk of falling to their deaths got to use the safety net while they were up there working.

• 39:46Speaker 02

  Yeah, and use it they did, because that thing ended up saving the lives of 19 construction workers. They became known, those 19, became known as the halfway to hell club, which is pretty funny, in a way. But there were some deaths. In February of 37, scaffolding collapsed due to an accident. 13 men on it. The net failed and 10 of them died. And, but in the end, 11 people died from this project, which is pretty good. I mean, it's awful that 11 people died, but for the time, they would say, like, for every million dollars of a project, you can expect one death. And this thing came in at, like, 35 million or so, so

• 40:29Speaker 02

  they expected, you know, 30 to 40 deaths, and there were only 11. So that was, I guess, a win for safety, for the time at least.

• 40:37Josh Clark?

  Yeah, for sure. I find that a really strange rule of thumb for every million spent, you can expect a death. Like, I guess what that's based on is just the complexity increases by the price, maybe?

• 40:48Speaker 02

  I think so, yeah.

• 40:49Josh Clark?

  The height, something?

• 40:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, probably just that means it's it's big and difficult and complex. I think you're right. But it's definitely a weird way to calculate something.

• 40:59Josh Clark?

  It really is. So, yeah, there's 34 people dead and one person's like, how much is this bridge going to cost? They're like 35 and you're next.

• 41:09Speaker 02

  There's the cost overruns and you know what that means?

• 41:13Josh Clark?

  So they completed the towers, both towers, in 1935. Remember, they started this whole thing. I think they started building that temporary roadway to the first foundation in 1931. They're moving along. And after the towers were complete, it was time to create those four iconic cables that are the actual things that hold up the the road deck, the bridge itself. The point of the bridge is held up by these cables. And if you see one of those cables in person, you will find that it is three feet, one meter, 36 inches. Let's see.

• 41:52Speaker 02

  Now do it.

• 41:52Josh Clark?

  300 centimeters. In, let's see, it would be a third of a decimeter in width or in diameter. And it's actually made of 25,000 wires. Each of those cables are all twisted together.

• 42:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. And to get that done, they hired John A. Roebling's son's company, is the name of the company. And they had worked on the Brooklyn Bridge, so they were obviously great people to call for that. But like you said, I think you said it was completed ahead of schedule. This was April 19, 1937, about a million three, under the $35 million budget.

• 42:33Josh Clark?

  Not bad.

• 42:34Speaker 02

  Just a little housekeeping here. It's 1.7 miles long, 90 feet wide, holds six lanes of traffic, two sidewalks, 746-foot-high towers, with the main span between them being 4,200 feet, and at its midpoint, the span hangs 265 feet above the average height of the water below, and people were really excited to get on this thing.

• 42:58Josh Clark?

  They were. On opening day, first day, they let pedestrians across. The next day was cars. And at the grand opening, I think this kind of gets across the type of person Joseph Strauss was.

• 43:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:11Josh Clark?

  He read a poem that he wrote for the day.

• 43:14Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:14Josh Clark?

  And he was a poet, so it's not bad. I like the rhythm of it, the meter.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 43:20Josh Clark?

  Is that correct?

• 43:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think so.

• 43:22Josh Clark?

  I would say, go look it up and read it yourself. I'm not going to read it, but it's called "The Mighty Task Is Done" by Joseph Strauss. The thing that bothers me, aside from a couple of clunky lines, he says essentially like that all the people who were involved of this are glorified, and that "No selfish urge stains its life, no envy, greed, intrigue, or strife."

• 43:46Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 43:47Josh Clark?

  And I'm like, dude, he specifically didn't mention Ellis, Charles Ellis, at this whole thing. And then he goes to the, he has the audacity to say that that's not being done here at this, this grand ceremony.

• 44:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, and they, and they built a trellis, so you had a word there in the bag.

• 44:05Josh Clark?

  That's right. Good point, Chuck.

• 44:08Speaker 02

  Man, I don't know about Strauss now.

• 44:11Josh Clark?

  I, yeah, I, he's not really talked about like that, from what I can tell. I just kind of put this together from different, different places. But there's a, there's a bronze statue of him in Golden Gate Park, I think, and there's books about him and his amazing feat, and it's just, I don't like people like that who take full credit for something that

• 44:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:31Josh Clark?

  hundreds or thousands of people have done, and that they did like backbiting along the way with. It's just, I don't, I don't like people like that.

• 44:38Speaker 02

  I'm with you. He actually had a trellis line. He was like, what rhymes with trellis? Hmm. Ah, I got nothing. Yeah.

• 44:45Josh Clark?

  And he scratched it out.

• 44:46Speaker 02

  Like Ellis is outside the window, holding up a sign. The math checks out.

• 44:51Josh Clark?

  I saw that no one can say for certain whether Ellis ever saw the Golden Gate Bridge himself. I'm sure, sure that he went and saw it at some point because he died

• 45:04Speaker 02

  forty nine.

• 45:04Josh Clark?

  decade or two. Yeah, a good decade after it opened. So I would guess unless he had like a horrible aversion at just even the thought of the bridge, I'll bet he went and visited it.

• 45:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, I bet you're right. So we can compare it to other suspension bridges in a few ways because I think that's fairly interesting. It's got a lighter roadway than most. It does not have train tracks on it, but it seems like that was one of the original ideas is they wanted a train to be able to run across that thing. But they realized that the winds were a real problem in 1940 after the Tacoma Narrows Bridge disaster, and they saw those things in 40 mile an hour winds twisting around. They're like, we need to, because we get winds up to like 75 miles an hour. So we need to stiffen this thing up. So they added horizontal trusses to stiffen the structure against twisting. And that's what brought the total weight of the deck

• 45:59Speaker 02

  too high, basically, to where they could not end up putting railroad tracks down.

• 46:04Josh Clark?

  No, like they were close to the limit of it, I guess, right?

• 46:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, couldn't do it.

• 46:09Josh Clark?

  Okay, so the Golden Gate, it was the longest suspension bridge until 1964 when the Verzon Narrows took over that for a while. And like we said, there's Golden Gate Park. That's that predates the bridge. But Golden Gate National Recreation Area was created on either side of the bridge after the bridge was already around for a while. And there's some pretty neat things about it. One of the things, remember, we talked about how people were worried about earthquakes. Well, it actually survived the Loma Prieta earthquake, the 1989 earthquake that took place when the A's and the Giants were playing each other in the World Series and just killed a lot of people. The Bay Bridge, apparently a section of that collapsed.

• 46:55Josh Clark?

  And the Golden Gate survived with no damage whatsoever from what I could tell, or very little of it.

• 47:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, pretty good. There, and this is something I heard early on in my life was that the Golden Gate Bridge basically is in constant.

• 47:11Speaker 02

  Paint mode, basically.

• 47:13Josh Clark?

  Yeah.

• 47:13Speaker 02

  So like, it's always being painted, apparently. Like, it takes so long to paint and, and sort of, you know, take care of the corrosion because of all that salty fog and salty air and water.

• 47:24Josh Clark?

  Right.

• 47:24Speaker 02

  That is just, it never stops. It's not like, alright, we're done and we're gonna take a few months off. It's continuously being kept up.

• 47:31Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and one other thing about the earthquake thing. They, they, somebody at some point figured out that the San Andreas could produce at most an 8.6 magnitude earthquake, and then they went and figured out that the Golden Gate would probably not be able to withstand that. So they started, I think, back in, well, after the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, they started a bit of a retrofit to try to make it earthquake-proof up to 8.6 magnitude. And one of the things that they were having to shore up, Chuck, was that they didn't bolt the towers to the foundation because they're like, "These are so heavy, we don't even need to waste the time or money on bolts." And in 8.6 earthquake, they realized if you stand stiffly with your legs stiff, and then

• 48:13Josh Clark?

  you kind of fall to the side and one of your feet comes off the ground, when you go back to center again, your feet comes down. And imagine one of the towers doing that when it comes back down on that foundation. They're like, "That foundation is not going to hold that up."

• 48:27Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:27Josh Clark?

  So that's what they're trying to retrofit now.

• 48:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a big foot stomp, is what they said.

• 48:32Josh Clark?

  For sure.

• 48:33Speaker 02

  Uh, so we have to close now with some sort of darker stuff because the Golden Gate Bridge, if it's known for, it's known for many things, but one thing it's very much known for is that there have been many, many suicides, attempted and completed over the years. They averaged about 20 per year for a very long time. Hundreds of others had been stopped by, obviously, volunteers that are stationed there to watch for this sort of thing, bridge workers, cops, sometimes just random people, like you see in a movie.

• 49:05Josh Clark?

  Mm-hmm.

• 49:06Speaker 02

  And they took a very long time to eventually get a safety net, even though it was possible. They really dragged their feet getting that thing up, didn't they?

• 49:16Josh Clark?

  Yeah, I saw that there was opposition to it that included it will be ugly.

• 49:20Speaker 02

  Oh, God.

• 49:21Josh Clark?

  So every, um, every, I think since the first guy who, who died by suicide, his name was Harold Wabber. He was walking on the bridge all the way back, um, just a few, like a few months after it opened. And, um, he was walking with a friend. He said, this is as far as I go. And he became the first person to jump to his death from the bridge.

• 49:41Speaker 02

  What a-

• 49:41Josh Clark?

  That was in 1937.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, what a thing, what a last line, you know?

• 49:46Josh Clark?

  Yeah, imagine being that friend and being like, wait, what? And then, yeah, I can't imagine that. Since then, at least 2,000 people, maybe a little more, probably more, because I think they assume that there's plenty of people who have jumped and their bodies were never found.

• 50:01Speaker 02

  Right.

• 50:01Josh Clark?

  But at least 2,000 confirmed people have jumped to their deaths from the Golden Gate Bridge. And in 1995, the California Highway Patrol, which had been keeping an official count, stopped their official count at 997. Because they were worried that there was going to be a rash of suicides, um, to become the 1,000th person to die by suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. So officially, the count's 997, but, um, I think most credible sources put it at over 2,000 now.

• 50:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, and what a thing to think about, uh, what an awful thing to consider, but like, thank God they thought of something like that because they're probably right, you know?

• 50:40Josh Clark?

  What, the security nets?

• 50:42Speaker 02

  No, the, the stopping the public count because-

• 50:44Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 50:45Speaker 02

  You know, I would never have thought of something like that, so I'm glad they thought of that. Uh, there was a really, uh, I don't know what to call it. Interesting and, and awful documentary from 2006 called The Bridge. I saw it. I'm not sure, did you see that one? Yeah, there's a lot to it. It was, you know, the, the point was to drive awareness about this and about, um, suicide and suicide prevention. But it was very controversial in that they captured footage. They had cameras, you know, trained on the bridge from the mountains nearby. Uh, and they captured footage of 23 suicides, uh, including a survivor, um, and they, you know, filmed, um- Family members and interviewed them about their loved ones.

• 51:28Speaker 02

  It's a very moving and upsetting documentary from, when did I say, 2006?

• 51:34Josh Clark?

  Yeah, it is. So, yeah, that definitely raised public awareness and kind of, I think, amplified the public outcry about this and made people be like, yeah, we probably should do something about this because 20 to 30 people a year were taking their own lives at this time, right? They finally, finally, in 2020, the beginning of 2024, they finished putting up these safety nets, essentially, that stick out from the side of the bridge so that if you jump off the side of the bridge, you're going to land in the steel net. The whole thing cost $224 million and completed suicides dropped by 73%

• 52:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 52:13Josh Clark?

  after they were installed. And even more amazing than that, I think there were 200 attempts and 30 completed suicides a year on average. After the nets were installed, that fell to 132 and 8 in 2024, and there were no suicides in the last seven months of 2025. So, these nets are actually preventing people from completing suicide and also deterring people from attempting suicide there.

• 52:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, and, you know, they've done studies where they've interviewed people who did survive. Most of them don't ever try again, which is like very encouraging to know. I think there was a study in the 1970s by a guy named Richard Seiden, and he followed up on 515 people who had been stopped. These aren't people who jumped and survived, but they were stopped from jumping in the 35 years prior to the study, and he found that only 35 of the 515 went on to die by suicide. So, that's, it's really great to know that if you can be an EMT or a police officer or a random passerby who can get someone out of that dire situation, that there's

• 53:19Speaker 02

  a very, very good chance that that will be not something they go on to complete.

• 53:24Josh Clark?

  Yeah, and you mentioned those volunteers that are stationed along the bridge just for that very purpose. I would wager that there's at least one Stuff You Should Know listener who does that, and I would love to hear from them.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  I bet you're right, and I hope someone comes to our live show and stands up at the end and tells everybody that they do that. I bet you that happens.

• 53:44Josh Clark?

  Yeah, they will get thunderous applause.

• 53:46Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 53:47Josh Clark?

  I feel like we should end on a high note, and the high note is the Gonge Bridge was where James Bond successfully defeated Christopher Walken, saving Tanya Roberts in the bargain.

• 54:00Speaker 02

  That's right. A view to a kill.

• 54:02Josh Clark?

  Probably the best Bond movie ever.

• 54:05Speaker 02

  Hmm, interesting, all right.

• 54:07Josh Clark?

  I mean, that was the one I grew up on, so that's probably why I like that. But there's no kid who grew up on, like, The Living Daylights and was like, that's the best one ever.

• 54:18Speaker 02

  Good stuff.

• 54:19Josh Clark?

  Chuck said "good stuff," which is where I was trying to push him, because that unlocks listener mail.

• 54:27Speaker 02

  All right, this is a chance to plug Spinst of the Show here. Hey, guys, just finished the episode on the radio, the National Radio Quiet Zone. Found it very fascinating. And by the way, we got a few emails from people pointing this out. I wanted to reach out with a recommendation of one of the McElroy pods. The McElroy Brothers, Justin Griffin and Travis McElroy have long done, my brother, my brother and me. And I've known those guys for a long time, super cool dudes. And then they do a show with their dad called The Adventure Zone, which is where they play D and D. And that's become hugely popular.

• 55:00Josh Clark?

  That's awesome, man. What a cool thing to do.

• 55:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's super cool. But the second season of Adventure Zone is called Amnesty, and it is, well, it's a tabletop role-playing game, so I don't know if it's always D and D. But Griffin has set it in the Green Bank area.

• 55:15Josh Clark?

  Oh, yeah.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  So the folks in that area that it attracts and the lack of communication is a plot device and really drives the story. It's one of my favorites that they've done. I hold Stuff You Should Know Dealing in my heart. Thanks for doing what you do. And P.S., I loved hearing a few of the McElroy's on Movie Crush. I loved hearing Josh on Behind the Bastards and so on. All of my favorite podcasters crossing paths now and then really drives those parasocial bonds. So go listen to Josh on Behind the Bastards. Your past episodes, you were on a couple of times, right?

• 55:47Josh Clark?

  Yes, I was, and on Daily Zeitgeist. No, I was on Behind the Bastards once, I was on Daily Zeitgeist a couple of times.

• 55:53Speaker 02

  Zeitgeist a couple of times. And then I had Griffin on Movie Crush. And his favorite movie, which he claims is not his favorite movie only, but also the best movie, was Groundhog Day.

• 56:05Josh Clark?

  It is a good movie.

• 56:06Speaker 02

  And I had Justin on, and Justin, I think I can remember every single guest in their movie still. His was with Nail and I.

• 56:16Josh Clark?

  I've never seen that. Isn't that a Morrissey album?

• 56:19Speaker 02

  I don't know, but it's a British independent film, so it wouldn't surprise me.

• 56:24Josh Clark?

  Oh, this is Vauxhall and I.

• 56:26Speaker 02

  Oh, okay. With Neil and I, Richard E. Grant. It's really good. I think you and Yumi would both like it.

• 56:32Josh Clark?

  All right, we'll watch it then, Chuck.

• 56:33Speaker 02

  It's from like the indie movie revolution of the 90s and from England, and it's really, really great.

• 56:40Josh Clark?

  You know, I think I was talking smack not too long ago about P.T. Anderson. I don't know if it was on the podcast or not. And I basically hadn't liked anything of his since Boogie Nights.

• 56:53Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 56:53Josh Clark?

  Maybe Magnolia.

• 56:54Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 56:55Josh Clark?

  Then I saw One Battle After Another, and I'm like,

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Buddy.

• 56:58Josh Clark?

  This guy is back in my estimate. Not only did he direct it, he wrote it too. It's a good movie.

• 57:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, he writes and directs all his movies. He, yeah, I loved, loved, loved One Battle After Another. I think it was my favorite movie of the year. That and Sinners were probably tied.

• 57:12Josh Clark?

  I've not seen Sinners yet. Is it, it's pretty good?

• 57:16Josh Clark?

  All right, I'll check it out. Don't tell me anything, that's fine. All I needed to hear was, oh, man.

• 57:19Speaker 02

  Capital G, great, and it's right up your alley.

• 57:22Josh Clark?

  Okay, cool. Great.

• 57:24Speaker 02

  And that, by the way, is from Ryan Pinto, who's coming to see us in Denver. And I'm sorry, Ryan, but we're not doing it on the Pinto. We've already done that live show.

• 57:32Josh Clark?

  That's a shame. You can go back and listen to it and imagine that you're there, because we did release it eventually as an episode.

• 57:39Speaker 02

  And he might have been, who knows?

• 57:40Josh Clark?

  Thanks, Ryan. We'll see you in Denver. If you want to see us in Denver, Seattle, or San Francisco, where you can also visit the Golden Gate Bridge, you can go to stuffyoushouldknow.com and get tickets. And in the meantime, if you want to email us like Ryan did, you can send an email to [email protected].

• 58:02Speaker 03

  Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts, iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

• 58:18Josh Clark?

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• 58:53Speaker 07

  Welcome to the Haunted Library. Have you come in search of a tale? This podcast invites you to browse the shelves and find stories that will linger long after you've left this place. From Gothic masterpieces to poppy penny dreadfuls, join me, Colin Morgan, with new episodes twice a week. Find the Haunted Library wherever you get your podcasts.

• 59:19Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.