Welcome to softcore History. Welcome back to softcore History. I'm your host for
the week Damn Chester, and I'm joined as always by Rob Fox. Hello,
Hi, what's up? Not much? Jake's not here No, so
we had to go deep into our bench. A five people said no to
us, and finally the guy who just needed it. We have a really
diverse roster as well. So do we just white people? Not really?
Gabby's Latina? Yeah, I mean not her soul. I don't think she
speaks Spanish. Yeah, you know, no, not like not socially,
like technically genetically she is, but not a girl. Her soul is white,
yes as snow. Yeah, Alex, what's up? Man much?
Man? Just glad to be here. It's also weird calling you Alex.
Yeah. You. My wife called him Alex the other day because you work
for now and I was like, it took me like five minutes to know
who the fuck she was talking about, Like this some other person that you
work with. It you've never talked about before. So we're going back to
the twenties because the last couple of weeks I've I've not appreciated how far back
we've gone. You couldn't really grasp the time. No, you don't like
ancient history. We did, Hannibal, Yeah, we did whatever you did,
Hannible, You didn't. You fucking did mushrooms and wrote about handle at
four in the morning. This is true. Dan's you're all about the mushrooms
these days. Man, you you've been. I saw you at the bar
last night. You're like, I took like I ate like a whole bag
of mushrooms. I think I've had enough mushroom experiences lately. Your brain open
up enough now he's gazed into the abyss and the abyss gazed back. You
just like, can't connect with the moment. No. I thought that's what
mushrooms would do, is connect you at the moment. But instead you drifted
for I think that says something about you. I drifted further away from the
light of God. That you need to be terrified of what's inside of you
right now, and I'm afraid of what these mushrooms are awakening. Like you,
you opened up your brain and your brain was like, no, Well,
the thing is, I think you open it up too much. You
know, mushrooms are once a month thing, tops, you know, or
at least micro dose for sure. But Yeah, if you're taking helpful,
you're eating a fistful of those those caps, like just as casually as having
a beer with dinner, You're gonna you're gonna have to pick up the pieces,
right. There was no reason for me to do mushrooms before a round
of golf. Were you just like the first person on earth addicted to mushrooms?
You just I just have a bunch. So I'm just like, as
well, yeah, use it or lose it. I guess it go bad.
No, I thought it would make me better at golf. It did
not. Howl. Did you think would make you better at golf? Like
you get like that three beer perfect situation where it's like you're not anxious about
your swing anymore and not breaking it down. Yeah, yea, maybe a
micro dose would help, But yeah, you're taking you can't act like you're
going to a fucking fish concert. Plane. Well, there's a guy one
in the same there was that. There was that MLB player, the pitcher
who like took a ship ton of acid for Ellis doc Ellis. That's kind
of what I was going for. I was like, maybe I'll have my
doc Ellis. The ball was like getting bigger and smaller in his hands,
and there was a tiger behind home plate at one point. But he threw
a perfect game like he that was thanks in part to the incompetence of others,
because you can throw a perfect or a no hitter, do a no
hitter. You can throw a no hitter while walking. You could give up
literally a hundred runs and still throw a no hitter. Yeah yeah, but
you can't the golf. That's not the same. In golf. You can't
just be like hitting terrible shots and then somehow still make a birdie. I
was actually hitting the ball pretty well. Okay, it was more short game
put in just general. Doc Ellis dominated too, though, because he was
so erratic at the plate, like people couldn't dig throwing that. People were,
you know, some someone was hit me in the head, you know,
next one fucking dots the corner. Yeah, people like what is this
guy? You know? He it was impossible to read. We did an
episode on him a long time again for Black History Month. Yeah yeah,
like a Black History Month. We went like athlete entertainer. It was bad.
I did. I did an ancient African civilization. The rest of you
were just like named punt. Michael Jordan or something stupid like that. Uh,
you know, sometimes gimmicks failed. Oh my god, what are you
insinuating here? Can I'm saying we failed. I'm not saying. Okay,
you know, Black History Month, historians historians, and quote failed. I
don't even think quotes are strong enough. Yeah, I know, if you're
gonna call us historians morons, like their quote, but it's just like five
crying laughing emojis on each side. Today we're gonna talk about the California water
Wars. Okay, shouts the discord for the topic. Figured i'd take this.
Wasn't this as my father is a notorious waterman. Waterman yeah, big
union guy kind of kind. He's in a union, yeah, big yeah,
big union guy. I don't know if he rides for it. He's
not like striking with the Giant and flipp but he's not he's not trying to
get his legs broken by the fucking mob or something like that, or by
teamsters who were just like fucking joined. Well, fuck, we'll fuck you
up. Teamster has just got ups, the teamsters for ups. Just like
the average salary for a UPS driver is gonna be like one hundred and sixty
thousand. Now the teamsters negotiated hard. It's pretty sick. I'm gonna go
work for ups? Should Yeah? Why should I make podcasts when I can
go just drive around and listen to them. No, it could be a
tough job. I mean you got you know driving could be stressful, and
then you got like, I don't know, angry dogs. It is different.
Driving is definitely different when you're on the clock, for sure. I've
only ever don't had to get like once or twice, and it was not
as bad because you're like, all right, traffic not my fucking problem.
That's actually how this podcast came about. I was listening to a history podcast
and I'm like, we do this funny, right, steal their content and
then just be like talk about Wieners here. Yeah. Yeah, I've only
stolen like two episodes from none. Okay, I don't gonna fuck. They
don't own history, right right. It's like when Barstool used to remembers one
time when my brother did those Man on the Street videos for TFM. He
only did like two or three. But someone from Barstool, back when Barstool's
whole stick was being extremely combative just get and saying that everyone stole jokes from
them. Someone was like, someone accused us of stealing their video format.
They stole Man on this Oh Man on the Street. That was yeah,
yeah, invented that. Yeah. I was just like, my brother was
all past. He wasn't used to it, so he like saw it and
was all passed off, and I was like, just don't Andy Melanochus certainly
didn't do it. On The Man Show, j Letto was doing it like
the nineties. It's like the most basic, dude, they know they did
this since since cameras existed. It was like one of the first ideas.
Literally, Yeah, it is low hanging fruit. Though I would never want
to do it, It's it could be fun. It's okay, it's the
lowest because you just edit anyone to look like an ass, like a fucking
moron. Yeah, dude, you can't even go on Sixth Street now without
seeing at least five of those guys on those YouTubers doing their Man on the
Street interview. It did a podcast on Sixth Street once which put this one
no just a random podcast? What you got interviewed? Yeah, you just
you went up and they were just like, hey, we're the whatever podcast
in Austin Sweet and they interviewed a bunch of drunk people on six Street.
All right, there's there's a million of these. Now, I said I
wouldn't go on sixth Street because you'll get fucking shot. It used to be
that used to be like a misnomer, you know what I mean, Like
I got shut up, old man. But now I am like, yeah,
maybe, but I'm also old. So well, let's go to another
dangerous situation. Let's go to California. May twenty first, nineteen twenty four,
the water Wars, A thunderous explosion rocked the Owens Valley near the town
Lone Pine, California, centered on a lonely stretch of the Los Angeles Aqueduct
north of town. The explosion, caused by the detonation of five hundred pounds
of dynamite, shattered one wall of the carefully engineered conduit channel in water to
the distant city. Was this naturally occurring dynamite It's tough to say. So
someone might have put it there potentially, Okay, so this wasn't dynamite that
just grew on the spot. Are you talking about bobombs from Zelda? Like
those bombs Flowers from Zelda. I've been playing Tears of the Kingdom, so
that sick into my mind. Yeah, I don't know if it was a
natural formation of dynamite. Okay, okay, So this sounds like something suspicious
happened. Something is afoot. Okay m M. By the time investigators arrived
on the scene the next morning, millions of gallons of the precious stuff have
been wasted, and Moore was running out of the aqueduct with each pass in
a minute. People kind of forget, like because they think of like La
and like the sort of lush area around there, but most of the southern
California is like kind of uninhabitable. It's a desert. Yeah, La,
it's just like this little like it. It's actually it's like an actual oasis.
Yeah. Tensions have been similar in in the Owens Valley for some time,
but until now the trouble hadn't advanced beyond threats and inconclusive standoffs. But
May twenty first, nineteen twenty four, the bombing signaled and escalation of the
conflict to a new, more violent plane. As the head of the LA
Department of Water and Power, William Mulholland, heard about the bombing in the
early morning on a telephone. You know who? I believe that is probably
William Mulholland person. I assume who Mulholland Drive. The famous Mulholland Drive in
Los Angeles is name for That's what I thought of too, that's I assume
Mulholland Drive is named for him. If I had to guess, you'll be
right. This is okay. This is also like a plot point in Chinatown.
Yep. Yeah, I was gonna say it's kind of an underlying theme.
I don't know if it's a plot point. It like they just kind
of like allude to it. Okay, Yeah, maybe that's what it is.
Yeah. Yeah, because Jack Nicholson's like investigate in something. I think
it originally has to do with water, and then he gets like much deeper
into other weird shit. Because what we're talking about is gonna be the water
Wars and the twenties. Okay, this is a continuous battle throughout I think
up to like the seventies and eighties. Oh shit, all right, yeah,
because believe it or not, California doesn't produce a whole lot of water.
Yeah, yeah, weird, crazy, Yeah, William Mahaland heard about
the explosion on the telephone call. He had an emergency session with the La
City Council. We had heard of threats from disgruntled persons, but going on
the theory that barking dogs do not bite, we did not pay any attention
to them last night. They bit. Barking dogs frequently bite. I feel
like, yeah, I feel like a if a dog barks a lot,
it will eventually bite you. Yeah, but I don't know the really quiet
ones that just give you that look. That's just like I feel like even
the assholes are still like a right before they fucking like. There's no a
pit bull doesn't quietly eat a toddler, you know what I mean, what's
its natural enemy? Yeah it is, Yeah, pit bulls and children since
time immemorial, and teamsters and toddlers are oh yeah, yeah, that's true.
This is why they won't employed children at EPs. They might in Arkansas.
Now, you never know, because I believe they passed child labor laws
to uh, you're no longer need to get signed off. So I think
they just lowered the age to twelve. I know they yearned for the mines,
The children yearned for the mines. Imagine just next time you get a
package, it's just a twelve year old just delivering in his brown ups suit.
I love that. It's like a Newsy. But for Amazon now they're
just like, I don't even know what you fucking order off Amazons at this
point, Yeah you don't. It's gonna be a self driving cards. Have
the fucking twelve year old pop out put a fucking package until you replace him
in five years with a drone that like one of those dogs that fucking just
put the package out, the Boston Robotics dogs. Yeah, these kids have
to make money while they can, otherwise they're gonna get forced out by the
AI. Yeah right, oh yeah, and the robots they'll never have it.
It's the only job they ever gonna have. We were talking about this
bush the other day, just how AI and robotics they're gonna eventually. Oh
yeah, they're gonna be the superior species. Yeah, they went. It's
wild though that we always thought that the first jobs to be replaced by AI
would be the manual labor jobs, but instead they just went right for the
throats of the liberal arts majors, like all the graphic designers, all the
writers, those are the people getting replaced. How do you use it while
you can? Yeah, figure it out. I mean that's what you're doing,
right, You're just chat GPT. Please write all these articles for me.
No, no, sorry, she doesn't listen to this podcast. You
can tell me. No, I've I've something I've Like I said, I
tried it a little bit, but like it just sounds too robotic, and
then I say, make its sound more human, and it doesn't spruce it
up, right, you just have you haven't, right, like a rough
outline. Well, that's what I've done that. I've done that before,
but I go back in and it ends up taking longer to spruce it up
than if I just write it myself. Really, But yeah, but that
is what like the writers are striking about, is that like they'll basically they'll
only get paid to like spruce things up. Now. Yeah, they won't
hang out there because the you know, the studio just be like chat GPT
Captain America Versus Predator Go, And then you know, the chat GPT will
come up with some shooty story, but it'll be their ip, not the
rider's ip, and then they'll hire some chud rider to just fix it.
Yeah, you know what I meant, and I think for like nine hundred
thousand dollars and it's like head of AI. Yeah, and essentially it's just
you put it in the right prompts. Yeah. What would happen if Captain
America fought the Predator and then you hire some guy who used to be a
brilliant writer and you'd dumb it down? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's wild man, I'm okay with that. Yes, hey, bitch,
go right Captain America versus Predator. We just have to accept our overlords
are coming. Yeah, you know we're gonna get replaced in by what somebody
will just take the AI, Yeah, to then produce a podcast with our
voices without us actually being there. I hope it happens soon because I don't
want to have to teach my children work ethic because they'll they'll they'll know I'm
a liar. Right, So if all the jobs we can just all be
like fatties like in Wally, do you know how much easier in my life
be as a parent, I don't have to like I just basically have to
tell them, like, don't it's actually assault anyone. That's the only thing
they need to know, I would love to see your kids become like super
blue collar like work in construction, ripping heaters. H Well, I smoked
for years, so dude, that's that's the future. We're all going to
be doing manual labor, digging ditches while the AI makes art. Human beings
go back to using their actual hands. They actually, this is the conspiracy
theory I just came up with. AI has been around long, a little
bit longer than we know, and they and feeding into this thing that like
this this idea that men aren't men anymore and we need to stop all this
soft hands pussy shit and work the hard jobs again to relearn how to be
men. And then AI takes all the cushy dope art jobs and they get
us to be their slaves, and we're all like, oh yeah, I'm
out in the heat breaking bricks and shit. Ayi's just like, but we
still have that card. We can play against the AI and the robots and
just call them bitch ass pussies. I don't think they're gonna care. They
won't because they don't have emotions. Yeah, but we have that we'd be
like to fall yeah. Yeah. It's like literally yelling at a wall.
It's like me pointing at a wall and being like gay. So the wall
does not mind. It'll just shoot some pills in your mouth and you'll go
back to breaking bricks. Right. We enslaved ourselves. It's coming. But
yeah, it's just a matter of time before someone teaches them emotions too.
Though, in response to the bomb in the city sent a team of law
enforcement officers north to assist the local sheriff's office in the investigation, followed by
gaggle of newspaper reporters and photographers. Over the next few days, as water
department workers moved to repair their damage, it became clear what had happened in
that remote stretch of valley. Rabah, hate to break it to you.
Not natural? Oh fuck, who would do that? Now? People get
footprints, entire tracks around the blast site indicated about a caravan of some forty
people have been involved in this act of domestic terrorism. Jesus Christ, how
many people do you need a plant dynamite? It was on a dam,
like on the side of a dam the pipeline. Yeah, I think I
don't think you need forty people. And although the LA papers at first speculated
wildly about the source and the conspiracy attributing to the bombs to anarchist members of
the Radical Industrial Workers of the World Union, or even private power companies seeking
to disrupt the city's attempt to develop a hydroelectric capacity. The perpetrators were soon
revealed to be local residents. Why would they do such a thing? Detectives
trace the dynamite to a nearby warehouse that just happened to be owned by the
Waterson Brothers, leaders of the Owens Valley Irrigation District. And they were born
for that job. I know that name is on the nose. Jesus Christ.
Also, I was about to be like, is this like a Chavez
Ravine situation, you know, like where Dodger Stadium is where they just pushed
out a bunch of Mexicans. I'll get to it. Okay, we're gonna
get to the background. We're doing a little bit of a Nolan thing.
Okay, where I already explained that an explosion happened, right when you're jumping
back and forward, when you start with the most exciting thing, you start
with the most exciting thing. Now we're going to get into how the explosion
happened. It's, you know, something crazy happens at the beginning. The
dynamite explodes freeze frame on a guy running away, and then there's narration.
I bet you're wondering how I got here. You're probably wondering how I got
up in this situation. Then you know cut two three weeks earlier. Detective
Jack Diamond later remarked, every resident of Owen's Valley knows who did the dynamite
in, but no one will tell because it's pretty much the whole town.
Yeah, they're arcs. They're not gonna fucking snitch on their other. Like
there's only nine of them in the town, there forty of them. I
guess is that like a town show, Like they all just went to watch
it together. Yeah, So Owen's Valley, these people, these farmers,
they took that land rightfully from the natives in the eighteen hundreds, well from
the natives of the Mexicans who took it from the natives. It was it
was a native group, okay. Cool. So as Los Angeles expanded during
the late nineteenth century, it began outgrowing its water supply. Fred Eaton,
former mayor of Los Angeles, promoted a plan to take water from Owen's Valley
to Los Angeles via an aqueduct. The aqueduct construction was overseen by Maholland and
was finished in nineteen thirteen. So in nineteen undred the population of LA was
one hundred thousand, and by nineteen twenty it was five hundred thousand, seventy
five hundred and seventy six thousand. My notes showed it was like two hundred
thousand in nineteen twenty in La Los Angeles. I got this here from the
fucking oh maybe about nineteen thirteen, nineteen thirteen, it was, I don't
nineteen ten it was three hundred and nineteen thousand. Okay, Well my notes
say otherwise. Okay, but you know I can get to that. It's
fine. I was just wondering how I was more wondering how big it exploded,
Like what it went from a mill. It went from one hundred thousand
to a million people allegedly in thirty years, which is insane. It's very
austin Esque. Now. Furderick Eaton and William Maholland were two of the more
visible principles in the California water wars. They were friends, having worked together
in the private Los Angeles Water Company in the eighteen eighties. In eighteen eighty
six, Eaton became city engineer and Maholland became superintendent of the water Company.
In eighteen ninety eight, Eaton was elected mayor of Los Angeles and was instrumental
in converting the water Company to city control in nineteen o two, when the
company became the Los Angeles Water Department. Maholland continued to be superintendent due to
the extensive knowledge of the water system. Sounds like he had a little bit
of monopoly on that, a lot of backhanded deals going on here, and
a huge monopoly on being bros with the mayor. It does help, It
helps, Yeah, I don't fault anyone. Eaton and ma Holland had a
vision of Los Angeles that would become far larger than the Los Angeles of the
start of the twentieth century. The limited factor of Los Angeles' growth was water
supply. If you don't get the water, you won't need it, Maholland
famously remarked. Eaton and Maholland realized that the Owens Valley had a large amount
of runoff from the Sierra Nevadas, and a gravity fed aqueduct could deliver the
Owen's water to La So Los Angeles in nineteen hundred was the thirty sixth biggest
city. Wow, still small. It was smaller than Saint Joseph, Missouri.
Yeah, smaller than Columbus, Ohio. What's because before all this group
of kookie Jewish people who thought that they could make money by instead of having
plays, they filmed the plays before they decided to move to a place they
called Hollywood. It was nothing. Well, they were pushed out by Edison,
who was trying to have like a stranglehold on the film community in the
East coast. Okay, went out west and themselves the four biggest, five
biggest cities in the US in nineteen hundred, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia,
Saint Louis number four. Okay, and then Boss, this is the
only reason you brought it up. Yeah, you had to get Saint Louis.
Louis. We used to be somebody, used to be contender. We
did. We used to be. So from nineteen o two to nineteen oh
five, Eaton and Maholland use underhanded methods to obtain water rights and block the
Bureau of Reclamation. The Regional engineer of the Bureau Joseph lipping Cott was a
close associate of Eaton, so some shady stuff going on. Eaton was a
agent for the Bureau through lipping Cott, so Eaton could access inside information about
the water rights and could recommend action to the Bureau that would be beneficiary to
LA. I mean Los Angeles is like a very underrated corrupt city. You
know, Chicago, New Orleans, like they get all the they get all
the hype, but deeply corrupt city. Lost everyone's seen training day, Yeah,
training Day, LA Confidential Chinatown. That's why the two the two primary
You took film class in college, right, film classes in college. That's
a film major. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So you know the two
cities really like that noirs are supposed to take place in to be like a
true noir LA and New York in New York, yeah, and Gotham.
Oh, I didn't know noir was relegated to specific cities. It was just
mostly like that's where it got to. I mean, like it doesn't have
to be in those cities. But that's like a classic noir or situation.
Think about a fen fatal. It's usually like a former actress, maybe somebody
of the stage. You don't know me, that's nothing. I could do
something, lady, I mean like no, no, no, no,
like love to me and then she fus a detective. So by nineteen oh
seven, Eaton was busy acquiring key water rights and traveling to Washington to meet
with advisors of Teddy Roosevelt to convince them that the water of the Owens River
would do more good flowing through the faucets of Los Angeles. Just give it
to us, Just give it to us. Fuck these redneck farmers. And
by the way, the red the farmers never went to this day, like
yeah, ever, farmers haven't won in America since like pre Civil War.
Probably what a beating of a job. I feel like most farmers don't even
break They were like, hey, we need your land, so you got
less land and make food on Also we need more food. Most farmers today
have second jobs that they have They have to get insurance because they don't ever
break even, so they have to cover their cost for the year. That's
fun. Yeah, it's called it get like shitty job insurance. Right.
You just go to work every day and you're like, well, I hope
I don't owe money at the end of the day. Like the only people
who do that are farmers and professional gamblers. And your boy is not owing
money this week. Hell, yet braids are getting crushed right now. What
Oh, oh, we're fine. No, No, we're fine. Uh,
that doesn't matter. That was just kind of a bonus, little sprinkled
bucknus. The dispute over the Owens River water became a political dispute in Washington.
Los Angeles needed rights of the way across federal land to build the aquid
California. Senator Frank Flint sponsored a bill to grant the rights of way,
but Congressman Sylvester Smith of Inyo County opposed the bill. Smith argued that the
irrigated in southern California was not more valuable than irrigadon Owens Valley. While he
promise was being negotiated, Flint appealed to President Roosevelt. Roosevelt met with Flint,
Secretary of Interior Ethan A. Hitchcock, Bureau of Forest Commissioner Gifford Pinshot,
and Director of Geological Survey Charles D. Walcott. In this meeting,
Roosevelt decided in favor of LA of course he did, which actually not of
course you I'm a little bit surprised on his part, but at the end
of the day, you gotta go with. You gotta go with what's gonna
be better for the country in the long round. Yeah, And a lot
of people compare this project to what he did in Panama at the Panama can
Now, Well, there is a huge reason why he wouldn't, maybe with
LA and expanding the population of Los Angeles. Pretty decent ports there. Yeah,
I think I think you can get other farmers. Yeah, you can
get other farmers, but there are so it is actually interesting. I saw
this. Okay, it was a TikTok video, so get grain of salt,
but it sounded legit. It was basically like the US has like there,
Like the US is like insanely overpowered for a number of like natural like
geographic reasons aside from all the other stuff. One is our river system as
dope as fuck and like it's great to travel down and all stuff like that.
And the other thing is we just have like an insane amount of deep
water ports, like way more than even other countries are sized do, like
India or China or Russia, like just way more usable deep water ports.
We got two oceans in the Gulf. Yeah, but there's I mean,
it's it's crazy how many just like dope assports we have in Los Angeles is
one of them, and I think now it's the busiest port in the world,
certainly in the United States, I think, but it probably wasn't even
that open yet at that point. So you get more people in there,
you get more infrastructure to open up that port, more trade. Yeah,
you can go fucking farm somewhere else. They go to the middle of the
country, guys. And by the way, where is what county is this?
This is just like a neighborhood in La now, probably this valley,
Owen's River. It's quite a ways out, Okay it they had to build
like I think, like almost close to two hundred miles of pipeline. Oh
shit, all right, it's a big project. So the aqueduct was sold
to the citizens of Los Angeles as vital to the growth of the city.
Unknown to the public, the initial water would be used to irrigate the San
Fernando Valley to the north, which was not a part of the city at
the time. Damn, this is way far away. This is like one
hundred miles past Bakers it's by Fresno. Yes, Jesus Christ. They're really
going far away because they need that that runoff from the mountains from the Sierra
Nevadas. That is where so California. Yeah, that's where it gets most
of the waters snow melt. What I want to know is, so they
built this pipeline from their city to la and then eventually they bombed it.
But like, did they did they not try to interfere while the instruction the
construction was going on, you know that seems like that would be the ideal
time to throw a wrench into the situation. The former mayor Frederick Eaton,
he goes to Owen's Valley and just starts buying up land. There we go.
He buys up land and then sells it back to the government at a
premium. Oh yeah, or rents it to the government at a premium.
Yeah. Yeah, called it. And then we have that movie coming out
with Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon. I feel like that's a similar
situation of this. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of this went down in
like the early twentieth century. People think that find an oil on your land,
you know, you hit the jackpot. I think it's a Beverly hillbilly
situation. But really, someone just comes in and fucking murders someone drinks your
milk. Hip, Yeah, that's all that really happens. You're not moving
to Beverly Hills. You're moving to You're great. The Beverly Hillbillies would have
been fucking murdered, honest, no one's could have missed that family. Yeah,
absolutely, Cement pond ly like she might. They might as someone might
have kept her, I guess, but the rest of them just bullet in
the head. That would have been one episode long, and it's just been
Oh no, Paul, there's some men at the It's like a five minute
they'll get on your knees, put it in your mouth, good night,
say god, Bust America. From nineteen oh seven through nineteen thirteen, Mahaland
directed the building of the Aqueduct. The two hundred and thirty three mile Los
Angeles aqueduc opened up in November of nineteen thirteen. It required more than two
thousand workers and digging of one hundred and sixty four tunnels, so creating jobs,
you know, for that town. Though, No, I mean,
why wouldn't I feel like that could have been their perfect solution, Just get
all these people but they're not gonna work for it, because it's like you're
taking our water. We're not gonna work for you too. Couldn't they just
have one of those tunnels go back to the town, you know, like
why would they have to just rape that town of its resources? Why couldn't
they just help them too? Where do they want money? Is that the
issue? They wanted to fuck them? Fuck the fuck them? Well?
Should we give them a little? What? No? Fuck what? Look
at them? Fuck them? They're gross, dude, they yeah, that's
all you just fuck them. They're gross rednecks. That is like. But
honestly, though I don't know, probably for the best God think about.
It's not even about like, oh we need movies, like that's all La
is. Therefore, it is a fucking It is like the busiest port again
maybe on our I'll look it up real quick, but like it's a super
important port. Oh this shit this country gets like a insane amount of it
comes through Los Angeles, so they know Hollywood. So the are you saying
that the people that did this were maybe justified for the greater good of the
country, you know, growing our port city out. It sounds like you're
on the Mayor's side. Here a broken clock murders the right people twice a
day. Water from the Owens River reached a reservoir in the San Fernando Valley
on November fifth, nineteen thirteen. I'll ever remember the fifth of November.
La is the busiest port in the US, but there's a couple of Chinese
ports that are pretty pretty busy. After the aqueduct was completed in nineteen thirteen,
the San Fernando investors demanded so much water from the Owens Valley that it
started to transform from the Switzerland of California into a desert. Uh you know
they also Switzerland of California in quotes. Yeah, the geography might have looked
Swiss. I don't think the people did, not a chance. No,
not, just like all six foot blonde and beautiful people. Yeah, yeah,
I just I don't buy that anyone there looked like Roger Federer. They
were a little more whittaker looking. Anyone knows that reference they look like.
I don't know that reference is. That's the shows soft wat Underbelly and he
interviews the inbred family of West Virginia. Oh god, yeah, I seen
the pictures. Yeah, and there's that one guy who can only communicate by
barking. He just crossed and the guy, and the guy's kind of an
asshole. He's like, so tell me about yourself. He goes at It's
like, why are you pressing him? He can't talk bro Jesus Christ.
So now that Muholland was blocked from the up tanning water from the Colorado River,
he decided just take all the water from the Ellen's Valley. Fuck it,
fuck them, fuck them. In nineteen twenty three, farmers and ranchers
formed in Irrigation Cooperative headed by Wilfred and Mark Waterson, owners of the Inyo
County Bank, by exploiting personal bitterness of some of the farmers. Okay,
first off, the wait, the Waterson's owned the bank. Yeah, they're
probably local mob anyway. So these people aren't heroes. This is they do
have a stranglehold on just that. Yeah. Yeah, let's not gas up
the Waterson's too much, all right. Yeah, But at the same time,
it takes. It takes. Sometimes you need bad men to beat off,
worse men beat off to fight off. Well, that too, maybe,
but that's honestly, if I if they we're still putting porn on DVD.
It's like the ultimate like gay porn like tagline, you know what I
mean. Sometimes it takes a bad man to beat off a worse. Los
Angeles managed to acquire some of the key water rights of the cooperative. After
these water rights were secured, inflows of Owen's Lake were heavily diverted, which
caused the lake to dry up by nineteen twenty four. It's like when Lake
Travis is just a fucking puddle after summers like this in your lakefront property is
suddenly just like you just live in front of like a mud pit. Yeah,
they started to threaten LA officials. They were just going into town and
just start causing mayhem. Just started sucking shit up. That's dope, that's
sick. They should have done that more, that would have. You gotta
just wake the people up because these the fucking the mayor and Mulhallam they don't
even give his shit. You gotta get the people angry at them. So
you go in there. Yeah, you tommy guns some random shit, you
know, break up some shops. I'd be like, tell them the Waterson
boys, we're here. In one incident, a local resident named LC Hall
perceived by his neighbors as a sympathetic city advocate, was literally run out of
town on a rail No. He was kidnapped one night by a group of
vigilantes and nearly lynched on a cottonwood tree before being told to leave the valley
and ever come back. He was saved from hanging, according to one account,
when he flashed a secret Masonic distress signal, which convinced some Masons in
the mob to reconsider their plans. So as he had the rope around his
neck, he just kind of flashed his gang signs, his frat symbol.
Yeah, I got them all frat handshake, and they're like, oh,
we can't, we can't kill him. He's in, He's in the crew.
There was. There are a lot of stories of that happening in the
Civil War of like someone on the other side being like, root, whatever
the fuck that symbol is. I think it. Lewis Armistead, who died
at Gettysbury's a general, flashed a Masonic distress symbol and two Union soldiers like
dropped their guns and came over to how he still died, but they came
over to help him, like medically or whatever. So that happens a lot.
Wow. I wonder if that still happens. Well, you'll be like,
wow, heartwarming moment that George Bush did a sign language for all the
deaf people. Well, it's like no, he was giving a Masonic sign
of the Bush. It is not secure the plan of killing all the poor
people. It is not the plea deals you make, it's the hands you
shake Masonically. Yeah. So, finally threats and intimidation turned into action on
May twenty first, nineteen twenty four, Like I said before, when the
group of arm Branchers sees the Alabama Gate and dynamited part of the system,
letting water return to the Owens River. The bomban had earned the city's undivided
attention, and the Watersons and other valleyites did some hard bargaining. But so
to me, that would just turn lost angels even further. Get like everyone
LA would be like, fuck those rednecks, there's no water in my toilet.
Fuck their crops. We can get fucking corn somewhere else. Suck my
dick. Waterson's fucking whatever river. I don't even know the name of it.
Just give me my fucking water. Whereas like they're not gonna think like
if if just some shit gets fucked up in town and they're like who did
that? Why? Oh you know they might reconsider, but now like taking
someone's water, I don't. I was so fucking angry during that Texas freeze
when my water went out that I was like, everyone in office, I'm
not voting for again, Like, I was fucking furious. I didn't.
I didn't vote for a single person that done. You're dead to me.
Yeah, all you're dead because it was so preventable and shit, Like I
was just like, yeah, that would It doesn't matter why my water is
out, whoever's responsible for it. It's just dead to me. If I
was in LA resident time, I'd be like, uh, all right,
let's fire bound that fire bound the little redneck town take their water. This
explosion brings the farmers in the city to the negotiating table. In a proposal
presented to the LA Chamber of Commerce and entity perceived as more sympathetic to their
situation than Mahaland and his water department, the Valley Interest gave the City of
Los Angeles a choice either restore the valley's agricultural potential to what it was before
Mahaland started pumping groundwater and secretly buying water rights in its upper reaches, or
else buy out the entire valley, not at your price, not at our
price, but at a reasonable price fixed by a competent board of appraisers.
M wow. So all these people are just gonna have to move incredibly reasonable
negotiations with terrorists. I'll be honest, dude, Violence is the answer sometimes.
But check it out. Guess who's on the fucking board of appraisers.
Everyone in the pocket of La. Everyone on Maholland's pocket. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, I'm sure man. He deserved that drive named after him.
He deserved that road. Nobody and no one lives in La without Mahaland.
He got it. He went out and got it. Yeah. I gotta
see where that is again. I think it's in the Hollywood Hills Wick.
I know there's a David Lynch movie called Mulholland because it's a famous street and
lay. This idea seemed reasonable to the Chamber, which wrote a report suggested
in the creation of the Independent Board of Arbitration to set bid in prices for
property in the Owens Valley. But of course Mahaland and the Water Board ignored
the report claiming that the Watersons and their contingent did not represent the majority of
the valley of people. The Chamber chose not to argue with this logic and
left the matter there. The President of the Chambers of Commerce is an old
friend and a former business associated mind, an increasingly rigid and impervious Mahaland explained,
the Chamber will never do anything to hurt me. Sick, Yeah,
Maholand drive goes through like the Hollywood Hills and shit. Frustrated by their failure
of this proposal, and after rejecting to a subsequential counter proposal by the Public
Service Commissioners as the same old bunk, the Owens Valley activists decided to take
more dramatic action again. Shortly before dawn on Sunday, November sixteenth, a
contingent of between seventy and one hundred men set out from Bishop in a caravan
of Ford model ts and drove south to the Alabama Gatehouse on a stretch of
the aqueduct about six miles north of Lone Pine. Led by banker Mark Waterson,
the vigilantes forcefully removed two watchmen on duty and proceeded to occupy this rounding
waterworks. Once you control of the gatehouse, they turned the great wheels inside
that opened the metal floodgates, releasing the aqueducts flow of water down a concrete
spillway, where it streamed out onto the valley floor. Then, in a
show of defiance, perhaps more symbolic than practical, laid barbed wire at the
foot of the hill on which the gatehouse stood, preparing for a lengthy siege.
Wed, I bet you some of these dudes, this is not gonna
end. Well, what year is this? Nineteen twenty four. So we're
looking at almost certainly a number of recent World War One veterans who are used
to Yeah, they're used to sitting in one place where we can stay here
a while. I ate rats, bro, they're ready to go. Dude,
I ain't a doughboy anymore. Indio County Sheriff Charles Collins arrived on the
scene sometime after daybreak, but as a fellow valley resident, he his sympathies
laid with the people that took aqueduct. Get on the payroll, bro,
this is for the We're in this for the species boys and girls, to
quote Starship Troopers. All right, this is fucking ge get over your little
farm. All right. This is NIMBYism, is what it is. No
in my backyard, all you need to be a yimbi, Yes, in
my back He didn't want to be a scab though. Fuck him. Fuck
him because he lives with these people, so he's not gonna do anything.
Move, get bribed and moved. Yeah, Oh my god, big house
on Muholland Drive. It's in like one of the nicest parts of the city.
Jack Nicholson lived on Mahaland Drive for most of his life. In fact,
I think that's where Roman Polanski did his stuff, was on Moholland Drive.
A lot of bad things associated with Maholland Yeah, yeah, but probably
some good stuff too, probably great cocaine and more meaningful. Opposition came a
few hours later when Edward Layhy, the local representative of Los Angeles in the
valley, drove up to the Gatehouse and parked his car at the foot of
the hill. As he climbed the slope beside the roar and spillway, a
noose allegedly dropped from one of the windows of the Gatehouse and dangled in front
of him. Like he wasn't intimidated, he was angry. He was met
at the Gatehouse war by Mark Waterson and several others. After satisfying themselves that
Lay he wasn't armed, they offered him coffee ah, and then delivered their
ultimatum, you can tell Matthews and the Holland that we're going to stay here
till they settle with us. And when Lay expressed his determination to stop the
waste of city water that they were perpetrating, Waterson warned him, if you
try to close these gates, we'll make our own gates and not so subtle
threat to dynamite another hole into the aqueduct. M h okay, fuck them,
Just kill him, Just kill him. We're trying to build shit here.
God. The diversion would cost the city upwards of fifteen thousand dollars a
day until it was stopped. So every day they were there and just like
taking the place hostage, it was fifteen grand I can't imagine what that is
in today's money. I'm sure it's just fucking seen. Yeah. Yeah.
For example, actually, I think in the mid twenties, around the same
time or maybe early thirties, Uh Babe Ruth signed a contract for like thirties
either thirty or sixty grand a year, and that was just unheard of.
People were like, no, I think one headline said, no ballplayer will
ever make more ever, ever, ever. Like the people were like jaw
on the floor, like what the fuck again? He was hitting bombs off
milk Man. Yeah back then, like most didn't most people in the MLB
or whatever they had back then. It's like, yeah, they were not
factory, no not, but not by the twenties, the twenties. They
were full time by then. Yeah, okay, now Cy Young was cutting
sheet that all right, So Young is like not, he overlaps with Ruth
a little bit, but he's earlier than Ruth. I'm saying, Babe,
Ruth is a fraud. Okay, I know you are, but you still
think Luke Eric's thought though, Right, he's hot. Yeah. Dan was
marveling at Luke Eric's body and our I couldn't believe it. He was a
unit. Yeah, he was massive, you know the only reason. And
then he of course got Luke Eric's dribbled and died up. You know why
he got als? Was it from? It was from they didn't have batting
helmets, and he took like fucking balls to the Dome all the time.
Oh my god, it was the same reason. I mean, it was
what it So, it's like Muhammad Ali at the end of his life had
Parkinson's because he just got hit in the head so many times. Yes,
Luke Errick had als from taking fucking heaters to the dome regularly. Dan,
I didn't realize that caused als. Yeah, I thought it was just like
a random like bad lottery can be on set. I think you can get
on. I think check. It's a neurological thing. So an he make
any head trauma could lead to that, Yeah, I did. Yeah,
but I did think it was a roll of the dice. I didn't know,
you know. So determined to end the siege immediately, as it was
costing them fifteen thousand dollars a day, Mahaland and Matthews dispatched two carloads of
detectives and investigators from the city. When news of the approaching posse reached the
Owens Valley, a crowd of local men gathered outside the Waterson's hardware store in
Bishop demanding weapons to hold off the intruders. Sheriff Collins, fear and bloodshed,
jumped into his car and sped south to intercept the oncoming detectives. He
met them somewhere south of Lone Pine and warned of the bruined resistance. If
you go up there and start any trouble, he allegedly told them, not
one of you will get back to tell the tale. The detectives perhaps wisely
decided to postpone the confrontation until tempers cooled off. Should just kill him.
I don't know why they're not doing that all. Were you aligned with the
at F at Waco? Uh? Yeah, well no, actually no until
until the how way they handled it. They didn't. Well, you'd find
a light people on fire if you're gonna use that land for something. But
they just lit them on fire and left. You know, they're gonna drill
for oil or something, sure, but you're just gonna do it. And
that's egregious. That's like it's like killing a buffalo and not you, you
know what I mean, Like killing a deer and just leaving it in the
field and bean like, yeah, I shot that bitch, use every part
of the body. So no, I'm the FBI was very wasteful. Meanwhile,
the scene at the Alabama Gates had taken on a festive aura as more
and more people gathered to show solidarity or merely to see what was going on.
Feels like more b than a first came. I mean, TV's not
even a minute yet. You really want to listen to the radio. Yeah,
but there's a bunch of news reporters and photographers from the city that come,
welcome with open arms by the protesters. Since one of the principal goals
of the takeover was publicity, the press was followed by family members and sympathetic
neighbors of the men holding the gatehouse. At noon on November seventeenth, twenty
four, the day after the incident began, a group of some twenty women
arrived from Bishop with hot dogs, potato salad, and other picnic supplies,
and soon the siege resembled nothing so much as an outdoor community supper. It
sounds like a fucking picnic. It sounds like a family reunion. It's potato
salad and hot dogs. By the way, it's so funny that it's just
like fucking terrorist organizations taken over. Prot We welcome the reporters because like we
need, we want to let everyone know what's happening, and like our cause
is noble it kind of is for sure actually, like in a def moral
ethical standpoint, and like we want to let everyone know and this is all
good and once people, once the people know, they'll care and things will
get better. Now, remind me, does Los Angeles exist? Yeah?
Spoiler alert, they don't win. That, they don't win. Everyone probably
saw that and was like, yeah, that is shitty. But then they
were like, but that's a pretty big port. And I do like movies,
Yeah, that don't quite exist yet. Twenty four. Yeah, we're
three years before the first Academy Awards, I think. Okay, yeah,
so they're making movies have been around for over a decade at this point.
Yeah, they don't have talking yet. I think the Jazzinger was twenty seven.
My great grandma, my great grandma played piano in a movie theater because
like they didn't have they didn't have sound, so like the she was just
scoring the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah she was. She was playing
the piano while this same they would send out sheet music. Yes, that
went along with the with the movies. You know, like when the guy
falls down the stairs, she go right right right. Yeah, it wasn't
just like what Yeah, she wasn't improvising she yeah, she had a script.
She followed, Yeah, that's dope that that was her job though.
Yeah, that's sick. Yeah. By Tuesday the eighteenth, the crowd at
the remote spot had grown to more than seven hundred people, most of them
from it and around Bishop were hastily painted billboard at the town's main intersection now
read if I am not on the job, you can find me at the
aqueduct Sheriff Collins appealed to California Governor Friend Richardson to send in the state militia.
This was exactly what the insurgents wanted, since the result in news stories
would give their cause worldwide visibility. Governor Richardson ultimately refused the sending in the
militia to Lone Pine, as he figured, this is what they want.
They want the publicity of us, like kind of mowing them down. Yeah.
Yeah, So we didn't do it, And that because it's smart because
if they had been caught on film gunning all these men down and just watching
rivers of blood flow alongside the river they were trying to steal, God,
dude, Like, can you imagine how many extra days it would have taken
them to accomplish their goal? We're gonna have to wait for us to die
down at least a week. Yeah, they were getting it no matter what.
They could have literally just like reservoir dog, every single one of those
dudes dancing around and whatever. Fucking reservoir. That's some more wordplay right there,
because it's like a reservoir. But I mean really like they could have
just been like, you know, stuck in the middle dude just cutting ears
off and shit, and people would have been like, Hey, well I
want my water, but I'm not happy about this. I brought them hot
dogs. They did all I can do, right real quick. Before we
get back to the water Wars, we have to talk about the water that
Owen's Valley wishes they had liquid liquid death. Why didn't you just go here's
what Owen's Valley your bitches, and I'll tell you why. Build a time
machine, go to the future, buy a fucking like million pallets of liquid
death, go back in time. Then let the Los Angeles take whatever they
want. You can then water your plants with liquid death. They'll be way
cooler. You'd have flavored water. Yeah, you'll have delicious flavored water to
drink yourself. If you like tea, uh like Arnold Palmers, which Liquid
Death because they're hilarious calls armless Palmer's. Uh you know you could do that
too, and you get a little caffeine kick. Yeah, I'm just saying
it's just get a little bit of caffeine. It's not like a full caffeine,
but get a little fun little uh dripp in there. But I'm just
saying, Liquid Death would have saved Owen's Valley. And they're stupid for not
making a time machine. I'm just gonna say, yeah, it's on them.
Uh boost. Did you know that Liquid deaths saved my child's life?
Really? How Thirst was coming to murder my child and Liquid Death stepped in
and they murdered his thirst Because remember that water boil we had? Oh yeah,
well I was I had to make a bottle for him, and I
was like, god, damn it. I walked downstairs. I realized I
don't have any water that is not that is boiled. And then then I
remember Liquid Death had sent me a bunch of of their flat water along with
their sparkling water. But they sent me the flat which were supposed to go
to me and Jake, I mean, it's in my tru you can go
get it right now, you're lazy bastard. Yeah, I'll break into your
car. I mean, yeah, if you want to. I know,
I know that's how you're used to people going into your car. It's a
wrench to the window. But yeah, So I poured my baby a bottle
of liquid death and formula, and he lived. And he gained twenty pounds
of muscle immediately. Yeah, thirst, his thirst was murdered and honestly,
like liquid death, Uh, it was a brutal murder. And now he's
rocking some dope ass merch. He he is rocking some dope ass merch.
They don't have baby merch. I'm just dressing him in adult clothes. But
he gained twenty pounds of muscles, right exactly, And but he looks cool.
I am actually also rocking liquid death merch, which you can go to
Liquid death dot com slash softcore and get twenty percent off your first Liquid death
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want us to tell you and this is like my favorite death. This is
the reason they're my favorite advertiser. They were just like, yeah, we
don't really have a promo code or anything. Just tell them to go buy
it. So sweet, go out, go out, grab your gas station.
You can order on Amazon, basically any grocery store in the country.
At this point, Liquid Death is everywhere. It's at Hub if you're in
Texas, I assume it's whatever you know, Schnook's and Saint Louis. Nobody
knows what Schnooks Deerberg's and Saint Louisa. It's actually at Whole Foods too.
I drank when the other day I had eight dinner at Whole Foods and drink
a liquid. It's everywhere, man, Just go buy a Liquid Death.
Okay, don't be stupid like Owen's Valley. Go buy Liquid Death. Next
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standoff will go indefinitely unless the city made some goodwill gesture. The Bankers Association
offered to mediate the dispute between valley residents and the city water department. Sounds
like a Star Wars movie now, but only a trade federation. Unlawful occupation
of the Alabama Gates ended immediately. It was a well time armed dolfer.
It was now the fourth day, and the Valley's act of civil disobedience was
losing momentum. So just like everything in four days, after four days,
shit don't change. People lose interest. Do you remember how high twe I
mean, look, it's still going on, and I still follow the news
pretty closely because I find it incredibly interesting. But I honestly I remember in
like March, uh twenty twenty one, maybe maybe April twenty twenty one,
I'm sorry not yeah, yeah, March April twenty twenty one, people being
like Russia's still invade in Ukraine. Really I still going on. I didn't
have that not done yet. We're not over twenty billion more, twenty billion
more, but they're just like, what is that's still going on? But
I think that's also because we feel broken brained because of America for the last
like every time I'm like we we don't. All of our wars are like
we occ we like conquer the tree and then like it's like refuge that refugees,
Uh, gorillas popop and we have them. But we but we conquer
the country in like a week every time, and so we like look at
that and we're like, what the hill? What the fuck? Man?
How the war still going on? Yeah? I mean what was it?
But these people the invasion Iraq was one month, one week in four days.
Yeah, it was really fast, and honestly like it was. They
were cooked within like two weeks. It was. It was a mop up
operation. Two weeks in God, there was so much money in his fucking
mansion, I know, in his palace. I hope, I hope the
soldiers still every ounce it. No, we actually gave it back to the
people. That's fine too, Is that real? That's that's a that's a
true, a wholesome fact about our military. That's one one of those two
options is what I wanted. So, after a final barbecue, to which
all residents of the Owens Valley were invited, the insurgents set up the machinery
in motion to close the gates once again, stopping the ascade down the spillway
and restoring the full flow of water to the aqueduct. Then they peacefully dispersed
and in the four day crisis. But they left with a caveat. If
the clearing House Association fails to keep faith, I look for a hell of
a pop in the future, so more than anamite. So they could just
keep threatening to blow the ship up. Fair enough, matters in the valley
did not improve. The LA's Bankers Association, after some half hearted attempts to
negotiate a solution, just abandoned their efforts because they already left. Yeah,
fuck it, they took. They left the only leverage they had. Yeah,
they're like, oh no, no, just come on. If they
left after four days, they didn't mean it back then, especially attention spans
were longer, I know, so this is and people bringing them hot dogs
and shit like. In the spring of nineteen twenty five, the valley got
at least some good news when the Affording in legislation after an intense lobby and
effort by valley interests, past a bill making cities legally responsible for damages to
business or property values caused by water diversions. Valley landowners quickly put together claims
for several millions of dollars in damages, but the water Board would not budge.
They're like, nah, fuck them, fuck them, We're not fuck
them as more, even though it was law now yeah, because they could
just fight it. Yeah, They're like, we control the water, what
are you gonna do? And we have way more money, so yeah,
bitch, let's go to court. They control the bankers, they control the
city council, they control I mean pretty much to god, do the do
people that control the water like actually control all of society to this day?
Probably? Yeah, That's why they put all that uh that stuff in the
water to control you. There is that like sus fucking what do you call
it? Not credits, but when there's like an epilog in a movie,
what it's text? Is it just an epilogue? Basically at the end of
Big Short, they talk about how Michael Burr's now just like buying up land
with like aquifers and water, fresh water and shit on it. Yeah,
and that he's been doing that for a decade now. I think I think
maybe Bill Gates is doing that too well. They think water tables are going
to start to get water wars are going to be a thing in the future.
Certainly, there's already stuff popping off in South America right now. I
think Urga Way is going through some water situations. I know we're having trouble
with it because we have so much of our water has been corrupted by cowshit
because we have you know, if you want dollar burgers, then you need
to have a ton of cows. And what did cows do? They poop
and they we just have these liquefied Olympic sized pools and then the factory,
right, you have that like run off that's like dark red from the pigs
and the cows. Yeah, it's their poop specific it's just straight up toxic
and it steeps into the water. And yeah, where we have less water
available than we did before, all that even to the water is getting to
the water table like groundwater. Yeah, I think we got to buy some
property up in Minnesota up at the mouth of the Mississippi, like Duluth or
something. Where's I think somewhere on the Great Lakes. I'm saying Minnesota.
Oh, Great Lakes. Okay, right, Great Lakes works too, but
the rivers there also mississip So we can we can do whatever landowners succumbed to
financial pressures and sold their property to the city for much lower rates than they
desired. Their diehard neighbors felt only more bitter and betrayed. Some resorted again
to dynamite. In April nineteen twenty six, a city well near Bishop was
blown up been done. In May, a ten foot hole was blasted into
the aqueduct wall near the Alabama Gates. Again, the city hired a corpse
of Pinkerton private detectives to move into the valley to spy on the possible conspirators
like the red dead Pinkerton's. Pinkerton's are a thing. Yeah, Pinkertons are
still around. What do they do today? Not good stuff? Still shady
ship be better? But who knows? Nah? I think I can't call
like an assassination any bush with the Pinkerton's. I love, gonna make one
phone call. I love the Pinkertons. Would I would never, I would
never wish ill upon them. Please don't hurt me. In a March advertisement
place in the Bishop newspaper, the water board set a May first deadline for
purchases of valley properties. Till that day, the city would buy any land
offered at a praise prices considered far too low by the landowners. After that
day, the deal will be off the table. D Leahy, who knew
that ongoing negotiations were the only thing preventing an all out rebellion in the valley,
disapproved of this ultimatum. If you do that, he told the board,
we'll start to dynamite again. Five days after it passed, the city
added fuel to their fury by formula formally denying any claims for reparations. For
many in the valley, this was the final indignity. In the Owens Valley
Herald, editor Harry Glascock made no effort to hide his anger. The aqueduct
would run red with human blood before this table was settled. This was the
final indignity. It's like, hey, buddy, if you fuck my wife
five or six more times, I'm gonna just what they'd already turned them inside
out? What else? What is left? They's getting fucked at every turn.
They get fucked here again because the bank the waterson zoned, it goes
under. Imagine there's just a fucking of course it does. Imagine there's just
a just a huge sentient throbbing cocky just walking around your town. You're like,
I don't think it's gonna fuck me today. I don't think it's gonna
shoot up my ass today. I think today's the day that it doesn't.
And then it does again for one hundredth day in a row, and audit
revealed that there were shortages in both cash and the vault and amounts shown on
the books. The Waters and brothers were indicted for embezzlement, then tried and
convicted on thirty six accounts. Shit, they weren't good guys, they never
were, they never were. No, but kind of an easy way to
get rid of the leaders of the rebellion. Yep. Now now you cut
off their cut, you cut off the money and cut off the head.
Yeah, if they they can't fund themselves, you know who's bringing hot dogs?
Since all local businesses had been transacted through their bank, the closure left
merchants and customers with little more than the small amount of money they had in
hand. So the whole town lost their money because his bank went under.
Bank owners went to jail for embezzlement, and then they wouldn't buy their property,
Like, we're just gonna take it now. The sounds bad, but
I need to reiterate the port of Los Angeles. No, there were so
many guts, like, oh god, I just I feel like they could
have it's so evil. Oh it's nice to know though, by the way,
in case anyone is like, look, what it's kind of funny to
me, not, it's not. It is a valid thing to be like,
you know, look what white people did to the Native Americans, right,
we did to each other. But then yeah, it was the Americans
were off the land and it was other white people out there. If we
needed that land again, we were absolutely like, give me the fuck out.
Oh they wouldn't. They weren't after Native Americans because they were Native Americans.
They were from because they were on land that they wanted. They didn't
matter what their skin color was. But but yeah, dude, it's so
shitty that we couldn't have done something for them. Well, what we did
was we wiped out their entire lifetime savings of many of the residents, including
payments gained from the sale of homes and ranches to Los Angeles. God,
so they lost Like how big was that town? Like would it have been?
That would have been that costly for LA to just have one of those
pipes still lead to the town. I guess if you're farmers, you need
a lot of water. Yeah. And also I think one thing that I
don't know you might not realize is that fuck them. That's just that's what
Rob has learned today. Fuck them, Fuck fuck anyone that goes against the
house, because the house always wins. Chef. They don't care wheels of
progress or churning baby. So the attacks on the aqueducts ceased because people just
didn't have it in them anymore. They lost everything, they broke them.
The City of Los Angeles sponsors. Most of the time, when you have
nothing left to lose, you're just really tired. Yeah, there's no there's
no like vengeance or persons like you took everything from me, got nothing less.
Most people back in this situation, it's just a guy that's like,
I can't anymore. Man. When you're beaten down to a certain point,
there's no coming back. Now. Does this play into the current situation we
have now in which there's not enough water for farmers? Is it because since
the twenties we've been rerouting all the farmers water to the cities, and now
there's not enough water left to grow crops, which the citi's need, right,
Like, where does California? Where is La gonna get its crops if
they just redroute all the water from these farms, you know, like that's
gotta be like those farmers probably fed a lot of other places far ahead.
Yeah, they know they have. They don't feel that I'm saying. I
think that this maybe is can like stuff like kind of Yeah, we kind
of work backwards, right, so we want water in our toilets. We're
like, hey, put water in that toilet so that I could put my
poop in that toilet, right, So that is nothing to make poop I
got right now. But then they realize I'm like, wait a minute,
and I'm making poop anymore to put in the water in the toilet. What
was that making poop with? Well, the farm It's like, well,
why did the farms go away? Oh? Well yeah, we kind of
took their land from Yeah, you wanted water in the toilet for your poop
that you made with what the farms sent you. Oh Jesus Christ, that's
wow. So this is kind of a circle of life. Yeah, but
yeah, this is all sort of a precursor to the problems we have to
this day. I don't water. Sometimes I'll just let the faucet run.
I'll do that when I'm in the hotel. I'll just kind of leave the
shower on go out. What why Dan like a humid sleep like a lizard.
Like. Dan's just like like stuck to the wall, like naked,
just like like his like licking his eyeball. Yeah, it's kind of like
you're stuck on the gravitron and just kind of climbing the walls like Spider Man.
Yeah. The City of Los Angeles continued to purchase private landholdings in their
water rights to meet the increasing demands. By nineteen twenty eight, Los Angeles
owned ninety percent of the water in Owens Valley, and agricultural interests in the
region were effectively dead. Geez, they're a well here a water farm now,
bitch. Yeah. Tragedy struck that very same year when the Saint Francis
Dam in northern Los Angeles County burst the towns of Yeah right, well natural
dynamite no. An investigation concluded that a rock in the area had been too
unstable to support the dam, so a bunch of cities got flooded, and
it caused the drowning of hundreds of residents. That's the karma right there.
Well, Holland was cleared of charges in connection with the incident, of course,
but his reputation was ruined and he was forced to resign. How was
this ruined his reputation because like hundreds of people in Los Angeles, the hundreds
of Los Angeles Yeah, los Angelino's Angelinos died. Yeah, and it just
actually just not even want so it wasn't the farming situation. This guy eventually
gets has to resign and he's in chand be like, hey, buddy,
that I mean, that's Los Angeles to this day. Right, It's like,
hey, you can fuck over as many of anyone else as you want,
but if you make my life kind of shitty, you're done. Yeah,
that's really anyone to be honest, you can fuck over anyone else,
fuck me, I'm gonna shake my fist at you. So that is kind
of a basic outline of what happened with the California water wars in the nineteen
twenties. I mean, that's the outline of how Los Angeles came to be.
Yeah, and our current water crisis came to be. Would you learn
fulcome welcome just the general. Yeah, fuck them. I learned that or
are you just anti farmer? I know I'm not anti farmer, I'm anti
farmer in the wrong place. I learned that rob hits farmers. And I
learned that the pinker Tins are still a thing. Oh yeah, what do
they? What do they do? Now? They'll probably kill people for you
if you ask nicely enough, softly enough, speak softly enough, though,
immer them for you. Who is today's Hitler? Uh? Okay, I'm
gonna actually throw you a curveball and say, today's hitler is the people that
wouldn't give Hollywood water. It's gonna be m Holland. The Holland is the
Hitler. Bro. It is funny that, like, it is funny to
me that they like there is like a movement in Los Angeles said, it
is very ant. You know, they talk about how Dodger Stadium basically they
stole in from a Latino neighborhood. And fair enough they did, for sure,
but like this is that it's a footnote, but they fucked over an
entire fucking, just honest, little farming town. Yeah, so that again
they could poop and water and you know what, take their long Hollywood showers.
After hearing just an hour of your argument in defense of the city,
I'm an award no contest here. I think I think both parties are just
better off. Look again, the Port of Los Angeles, it's the busiest
port in the United States. It's the most deep deep water ports. Dan
think about and I mean, they blew up a pipeline and only two of
them went to jail, right, think of the mean, think about this.
What's more important Owensville's little crops or the entire country? Yet cool toys
from China or something. I don't know. What comes through the portal Los
Angeles A lot everything, probably everything under the fucking drugs, well humans,
of course, both those things come through there. But also like also movies,
Yeah, DVDs just legally ripped. How are we going to make a
movie about how stealing land from poor people is wrong? If we don't steal
land from poor people exactly to give the city water where we make those movies.
That's the that's some irony of the whole thing, all of these morally
righteous stories, and and it's built on a letter of bones Jesus. So
that's our episode for today. Thanks for tuning in. Make sure to check
out patreon dot com slash software History. You get two additional episodes of software
History every week for five dollars a month total evergreen content. A bunch of
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R oh yeah, yeah yeah. Make sure to rate and subscribe on
Apple and Spotify. Leave review on Apple if you can. We have some
great reviews we didn't get a chance for reading this week. We will read
them next week when Jake is back, because one of them is I want
Jake to be here for it because it's like a funny it made me,
It made me. There's a review that made me laugh out loud, but
I want to wait for Jake to be here to read it on air.
Boosh, I appreciate It's stop him by joining man have me again, having
me again next time, next time, Jake or one of you, and
then the five other backups are gone. Yeah yeah, Yea and Boush will
be back on the Patreon episode this Thursday aka the show We're patri record two
seconds after this but release later again. Episodes go out Wednesday Wednesday. Sorry.
Also, I make all the memes on their Instagram page. He does,
he's our We not mentioned that. Well, some of them, Yeah,
most of them, i'd say like ninety eight percent. Every once in
a while, I'll toss one in there from feeling Mimi, but I don't
usuallyel. Occasionally, if I see something that's kind of popping off, I'll
do it. But uh, yeah, Boosh, thanks for stopping by,
Thanks for tuning in of course, man Or Boosh and Rob Fox, I'm
damn Chester and you've just got off served