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the hell that is. I go for the fun time Inforeum. I go
for the Indian burial ground. Something for everybody. Hello, Hi, everybody,
I'm Davy Flora and I'm Coot Stecco. Welcome to Blurry Photos, rooting
miss Tooting discounting this discount shooting. Yeah, cash only innes. He ain't
got a phone line out here. I don't know. I hope everybody's doing
old crab. How are you guys doing pretty good? Yep, pretty good.
Is it about that time of year where it's getting kind of dry,
kind of winding down in the summertime. Yeah, they're living is easy and
it's some time and the weather it's high. He can't get podcasts and times.
It's god, I don't know the podcast right, and then went right
back to Mungo Jerry's seminal hit. If you've ever listened to that song,
it's pretty disturbing. If Dada is rich, take her out of the town,
if her dad's part, just do what you want, Yeah, it's
pretty much it. Yeah, just do what you feel that's no old consequence
if they don't have the money to prosecute. Just come on, mon go
Jerry, you can do better than that. Yeah, you're better than that.
Mungo Mung don't say mung in America. That's his name, it is
his name, it is his name. But that's not what you're here.
Point you know your fruit crazy seventies. Uh at this point, folk,
he wrote this point, maybe you are. I don't, I don't,
I I don't even know. Do you like how I tried to segue into
what we're talking about, and then we just got sidetracked with right right back
into it. There's no there's no hope for us. I think this is
gonna be a fun episode. Yeah it is. And I'll tell you what
Dave came up with with this one. This is one of Dave's babies and
dabies baby, and uh, I think I think it's gonna be real fun.
We're we're gonna have a lot of different stuff to offer you in this
one. Yeah, everything from uh folklore and yeah, occultism to science and
a little bit of a story, A little bit of a silver or silver
tongue devil moves into town. A little bit of music. Man. Yeah,
some scams, some flams, some shams, some broken dams. Oh
I did it, dam so wait wait wait there was h on Ragbry.
One of the towns we went through, Like as I said before, like
SMEs, these towns have like a you know, I don't know, like
I don't know if it's a high school mascot, but they're just like,
hey, we're the We're the the the Smithsburg Fighting Vikings. Everything in the
town is Vikings. So there's one time we went through and everything was beaver
themed and they were selling t shirts for six dollars. I bought one from
my friend Elise that says are you a Beaver? Because damn nice it was.
It was florescent orange. Nice. Our our mascot was the blue jacket.
Really yeah, which bird is that bird? It's a well it was
instead of a yellow jacket, it's blue. Oh so it's like a wasp.
So it's like it's like the basketball team Hornets. Yeah, yeah,
pretty much. And I have to wonder if that maybe started out as like
Native American because blue jacket is in reference to like native it's it's like a
Native American reference. Uh, and then maybe changed along the way, you
know, for to be PC or whatever. Maybe, but they were pretty
late to do a lot of those changes that would have happened in your lifetime.
I would think so. But maybe my town was super progressive. As
you may have guessed. We're talking about team mascots this episode. What are
we talking about, Seco. We're talking about rainmakers American I mean, drought
is a very popular topic these days. Uh, it is not a popular
phenomenon, but lots of people are talking about it, and I thought it'd
be fun to go into um, not only history of of people's attempts to
conjure or control rain, but it's it covers so much ground um from from
religious systems to the traveling rain salesman of the dust Bowl, to modern science
to the Beijing Olympics. I mean, there's there's all kinds of things.
This is a heck of an ongoing story. And it's not we're not talking
about just weather control. We're talking about people who need water on demand.
Yeah. Yeah. And you know when you when you said rainmaking to me,
called me an idiot. I was like, you're an idiot. I
was like, take this seriously, I'm gonna find somebody else to to co
host with Yell going to pay the price close, So we got really close.
But then I went in. I recorded a sample podcast and stood outside
his house of the boom box and played it. He fell in love with
it. But as I, as I started going through this, I should
have guessed, I mean, what's one thing that that everything everybody on the
planet has in common trying to predict the weather, that's right, dealing with
what mother nature gives you, And it was. It turned into the biggest
cornucopia of information. So we got to dive in here. It was at
a downpour. I just got flooded with facts. Water ponds, water ponds.
Puns are plays on words. That's what puns are. Oh wow,
No, no, no, no, no, we're not giving that to
him. He doesn't get that. He does not get that. So wait,
but just just to mark that that was a pun about me referencing a
pun that you had. I mean that is like that is in see doubled
down. Yeah, inception didn't go that deep. So I'm a genuine earnest
well played Flora. It's a chicken sandwich between two chickens. Uh, let's
talk about what if you eat your fingers. Let's talk about what rainmaking is
and what the history of the of rain rituals and cultures and things like that
are is ours, and uh, maybe a little bit of the current state
of rainmaking. Yeah, um, well's the could a nage of rainmaking technology.
But to give you an overview, rainmaking is pretty simple concept. It's
a type of ritual designed to conjure rain. Boom, nailed it, You're
done, Good night everybody. The ritual or rituals involved could be anything from
a dance or spell, to singing or chanting, or or the use of
a device or a charm. Probably the most popular rain ritual in North America
is a Native American rain dance, but cultures from all over the world have
invoked the sky to open up throughout the ages. Different instruments are used in
the ritual of rainmaking, including rainsticks, stones, and other objects. Everybody
is familiar with the rainstick. Who walked by the nature store in the nineties
sold them by the hundreds. I think they probably had them at all the
like gift shops and stuff too, at state parks and things. Yeah,
I mean even to this day. You you can't swing a dead cat without
hitting a rainstick and a gift shop. I what my first job, No,
not my first job, but my first like retail job I ever had
was I was um holiday help at the mall for the nature store, and
I had to That was the little dick weed who sat up front with like
a raccoon and puppet going Hi, Hi, Marry Christmas. Hi. Hi.
Yeah it's a puppet. It was wow. Yeah, I think I
think they were trying to get me out of the way. One of my
bosses chewed on her thumb a lot. It was all messed up. Yeah,
it's some sort of weird. Is your boss like a raccoon? No,
she was a perfectly normal and capable woman in all respects, but her
left thumb was horrifying. I don't know now. Rainmaking is No, they
don't want to hear about rainmaking. They want to hear about my my my
high school holiday job. Jesus right. It's often seen as a part of
witchcraft, in the form of spills or incantations, and we we have one
or two of those as an example. Oh oh, we're gonna teach you
how to summon a devil of rain, a demon of precipitation, we're gonna
teach you how to summon something from the dark lord. We also have some
stories, some music, folklore, some modern scientific rainmaking. We got it
all in this episode. We got it all. Yeah and so, and
if we can just just get over ourselves, might we might even get to
it. That's right. Let's start with some history histrionics saw. The realization
that rain is important to cultures is as old as what Dave. Culture itself,
agriculture told you rain. Rain is water and water is life for most
civilizations, and the hydrologic cycle was mentioned as far back as three thousand years
ago in Vedic and Sanscript Indian texts. A prayer to invoke God's varuna or
indra in order to obtain rainfall comes from the Bakavad Gita performed by Vedic priests.
The most popular verse that modern Hindus quote goes as follows, Dave,
will you be so kind as to read this sure well? Anadvani bhutani parjanya
dana sambava yagnad bavanti parigiano yagya karma. I know that word samba dava translated,
it means that the life, oh you get English is born from food
a cheater. Food is produced by rain, rain is produced by performing yagnaya,
and that yagnaya is performed by doing karma. The fire is built in
this ritual and items are offered to the gods, including milk, grains,
and cakes. Gods love cake. Everybody loves cake. So true, if
I was a god, I'd still love cake. I feel like I am
a god and I love cake. Rainmaking has been very important to various tribes
in African history, and let me please underline various tribes. It was recorded
in accounts by nineteenth century imperialist Europeans, albeit a bit distorted in a more
eurocentric manner. I think what you mean is racist. Yeah, they classified
it as silly exotica right right, because all these people on the entire content,
we're just board waiting for white people to show up. This is what
we've been doing, just to kill time. Thank god you're here. What's
that diseases? Thanks? And again, there are a ton of different tribes
and cultures in Africa, and each has its own distinct rituals. We cannot
go over them all, and I will not and we will not go over
them all. We're gonna hit Lanta keeps saying go over all of them.
We're not gonna. I'm sorry, Lanna, Sorry, Lana, I'm so
sorry. It's it's it's pretty amazing if you're into anthropology or just different cultures
in general and mythologies and stuff. The stuff in Africa you could just roll
around in for years because everybody everything's so distinct, even even though you know,
everything's right on top of each other and there's a close it means a
big continent, yeah it is, but very large continent. But I mean
it is it's fascinating because I think that uh, you know, not to
soapox it, but I think that we we end up with kind of this
strangely homogeneous view of Africa, and and it's you know, it's it's you
know, like it's the way it's per trade in the media, the way
that the information we get from it. It just it just seems like kind
of one big place that's all exactly the same and nothing's ever good, and
that's just that's just a it's a it's a sad and accuracy just based on
on our exposure to it. So but yeah, you know, it's worth
it's worth worth looking into, it's worth learning more about. It's a fascinating
continent. I mean think of it this way. You've got South Africa,
which is very distinctly different from just you know, going north a little bit.
Zambia is completely different, going even, I mean up to the top,
there's Egypt. Yeah, going to the west, Morocco, like everything
is. So, it's got Burkina Fossil formerly known as Upper Volta. The
capital is a wagadougo there you go. And Djibouti is Jibouty anyway. Most
that's that's like my pocket weird country name, and so I memorized it.
Most villages had their own Morocca or rainmaker, and that's just one name for
it. Um. Another one could be shine chief. I saw that as
a as another name for a rainmaker careful uh. And this person would guide
priests and priestesses through the rituals of invoking rains, including animal sacrifice, food
offerings, dances, and incantations. And there are so many different mythologies for
rain and rainmaking and African society it would take three episodes to discuss themselves.
So that's what we're gonna do. This is one of three. Sorry,
blurry blurry Fotober canceled. It's all African rain myth Actually, I think that's
still be pretty cool to do. I'm gonna but you know, leave it
to someone who actually knows what they're doing. We'll give you this, We'll
leave that up to your imagination. There's just there's there's too many to cover.
Yeah, but don't just imagine it learned about it, because I just
make it up in your own head. You're not going to be right.
Eastern Europe has Eastern Europe also has a chair of numerous rain folklore. In
Greek mythology, the Hyades were rain nymphs, and these were the daughters of
Atlas. You've heard of him, I sure have. Now do you know
why why they're why? Why the rain nymphs are high ads? As they
sure weren't dry ads? Now you make Now you make a pun that I
made a pun? Come on, you gotta like now you set the bar.
They all started out as dry ads, Yeah, until I came into
the room. Wo woah. These were also the sisters to the Hesperides.
They were associated with a constellation in the head of Taurus, and the heliacal
rising and setting of the Hyades star cluster were always attended with rain. It
is time during a period of spring or summer drought. It was the custom
in many Balkan villages moving on for a group of local girls to undress and
then put on various combinations of leaves, sprigs, blossoms, flowers and herbs
to perform the rainmaking ceremony. Yeah. This tradition was called do dola or
sometimes per peruna, led by an older girl or young woman who had also
been dressed or decorated in this way. The girls then went in procession through
their village and stopped in front of houses to perform dances and sing songs which
included formulaic refrains, all the while calling upon the heavens to send down rain.
The housewives poured water over the leader of the troop, and sometimes the
girls themselves sprinkled water over the courtyards using bundles of sprigs and leaves. They
were then rewarded by the householders with flower the ground up, ground up,
yeah, wheat or food and sometimes straight up mute make it rain. I've
also heard that just anybody would sprinkle any of them with waters they came by.
It's a real sixy episode. Yes, that's it's weird. In many
areas, the role passed gradually to the Romines, more colloquially and insultingly called
the Gypsies. Oh, the Romas. Yeah, so they took it up
exclusively. And you know, I might be pronouncing that wrong. I'm not
sure if it's Dodola or Dodola or Dodola. Well, when those people come
flying out of the time machine and are mad at you will know that's that's
the only way we learned. The leading rainmaiden has been variously described as being
from a poor and humble family, as a popper and orphan, a non
privileged person, and as the youngest daughter of a widow who never remarried and
was past childbearing age. There is general emphasis on her loneliness, modesty,
and purity, and she always went barefoot, perhaps to emphasize her humility or
rather humbleness, and more simply her direct connection with the soil. In certain
areas, to be a rainmaiden even became a seasonal profession for Romney girls and
young women, which involved them traveling around to perform the ceremonies for various village
communities. What if they were born in the wagon? All the travel on
and show, and Mama's would dance for the money. They'd throw Papa wa
good. He'd do it so hard. I did say good. Sorry,
that's so gross. I will say this gypsies, tramps and thieves. I
think I think it is my favorite. Share song might be one of the
most common songs that we've referenced on this show, because I love it so
much. Sell a couple of marbles, Sell a couple of marbles. Bibles,
Oh yeah, I got moms and doctor Good. It's preach a little
gospel. Sell a couple of bottles of Doctor Good. Oh my bad,
sell bibles? Do you even reach? Preach, doctor, doctor Pepper?
Whatever? Do you even know? Where she met the boy? It was
just South Ammobile. She gave him a ride and filled him with a hot
meal. She was sixteen, he was twenty one. Dude, he rode
with us to Memphis and Papa what a shot he could? He was too
busy going Jesus, we'll never get through this. Moving on. Kalloeon is
a similar ritual found mostly in Wallachia, the southern part of Romania, which
said sound familiar, That sound familiar? How does that sound familiar? Dave
sounds like dragular territory. It was the Impaler's kingdom. Young girls make one
to several clayey dollsling male figures, most important being either Father of the Sun
or the mother of dragons I'm sorry, the mother of the rain, depending
on the purpose of the ritual. This doll is dressed in common clothes,
placed on a wooden board or in an improvised tree bark coffin ornamented with flowers
and so pursuits a mock up of the traditional burial ritual officiated by children.
Yes, the children must make watch the sweet marches through crop fields, around
watercourses and whales until the colloyon gets to be buried. After three days,
the colloion is unearthed, returned to the village, and mourned again until it
is finally set loose to float on the water of a river, a lake,
or thrown into a well. Now we're going to purposefully, I think,
stay away from talking about too many gods like thor or we'd be here
all day. We're already going to be here all day if we're singing gypsies,
tramps and thieves, I know, I know. So we could go
into like, oh this is the god of rain. For this culture,
this is a god over rain. But we don't need to because there's only
one true god and his name is Draco Lor and he lives in this lake
over here. Tuck Lord, that was a really great hope. I hope
anybody caught that. That was a really wonderful old the State sketch Tom Lennon
just as an old man whittling. Call me old fashioned, but I believe
there's only one true god and his name's Drectar, and he lives in this
lake over here. Japan has a large and varied history of rain making rituals.
In one rather disturbing account, among the high mountains of Japan, there's
a district in which, if rain has not fallen for a long time,
a party of villagers goes in procession to the bed of a mountain torrent,
headed by a priest who leads a black dog. At the chosen spot,
they tether the beast to a stone and make it a target for their bullets
and arrows. Oh when it's lifeblood bespatters the rocks. Oh yeah, try
to class it up by saying bispatters. Yeah, way to pinkies out your
animal abuse. The peasants throw down their weapons and lift up their voices in
supplication to the dragon definity of the stream, exhorting him to send down forthwith
a shower to cleanse the spot from its defilement. Custom has prescribed that on
these occasions the color of the victim shelby black as an emblem of the wished
for rain clouds, but if fine weather is wanted, the victim must be
white without a spot. People in Kanagawa and western Tokyo believed that if the
top of the mountain was veiled by clouds, it would rain momentarily during a
long spell of dry weather. They offered a prayer and petition for rainfall to
Sekisson, a shrine at the top of the mountain, as if Sekissan had
been a rain doctor. That's just part of it, Oh my gosh,
especially since these beliefs in these practices were medieval and and and backwards. You
know, keep well, keep in mind this back in history. The majority
of these things, they always the underlying current is fear, you know.
I mean, people don't casually pray for rain. They need rain like they
need crops to work, you know, So this is this is always something
done out of you know, there's there's fear and anxiety, and I think
a lot of that would bleeds into the ritual at that point that absolutely that
this has to work. So we're really, we're we're gonna, we're gonna
go the extra the extra mile. You know, we're we really we do
that thing in the spring where we hope the crops turn out. Well,
you know, we try hard, but for this, we we really need
this to work. So we'll go, yeah, we'll really dig in.
Well, we'll kill a damn dog. Yeah we will kill a dog the
hard way, but but elegantly besplattered ly. Let's get into America. The
Native American rain dance was the most common among the Native American tribes in the
southwest of America, since during the summers there they would have long droughts.
Makes sense, yea. The Hopie, the Zuni, the Pueblo, and
the Apache performed it in the southwest, and the Cherokee had one they performed
in the southeast, right, I mean the mesa Verde, the Anasazi Indians,
the green Table they got there. The reason that that's abandoned now is
because of water. They moved into the area during a particularly lush weather cycle
that lasted you know, a fair amount of time. I think maybe as
much as a hundred years, but pay with the lesson that between sixteen one
hundred years somewhere like that. And uh and then when they came out of
that into not even even to a drought cycle necessarily, but just a more
regular average rainfall for that that region, not enough water to support them,
they believe. I learned that in collapse. So Jared Diamond's book is that
one of those lost tribes of the Southwest things, yep, that that people
were like all these places in the side of the mountain were abandoned. Yeah,
that's Maseverita, yep. And so yeah, there's when when they really
sit down and look at it, there's it's there's no shortage of very obvious
reasons that for the population that that area was supporting, not to mention the
people that weren't in Masi Verita itself, but in the surrounding areas. Um.
It's an arid sort of area anyway, UM would extraordinarily hard to get
after a while, you know. It's it's it's the same problem that that
Cahokia ran into. It's the same problem that a lot of these um,
these larger gatherings ran into um. Not only were there problems with sanitation,
but you simply, you know, how far out are you sending people to
hunt and to get materials? And how long is it worth it to have
them go all the way out and come all the way back just so that
you can have an address where your mail gets sent to. Yeah, how
much of a pain in the ass is it to send your team on an
away game and play Chunky and it's right around Saint Louis And then you got
to go back to Phoenix and like well, and nobody wanted to play in
Colorado because of the altitude. But then nobody wanted to play against Colorado teams
because they were so used to us. They go, they go down in
the elevation. They're just like just sucking up this high oxygen rich environment.
It was unfair. Yeah. Yeah, So they disbanded that team. They
relocated them to La the Phoenix Rainmakers. It's right, that's the next Chunky
team. That's your Oh yeah, absolutely, Maize Gobbler's Church Barons Rainmakers need
one more team. We can't just have an odd number. No, no,
we can't, because we need a Eastern conference in a West. That's
right, It's exactly why we'll come back to it. You know what,
No, you tell us right us in we're trying to expand the uh,
the Chunky League. We're trying to get too expansion dance right. That way
we can we can petition cities for a huge, huge tax breaks and get
some stadiums built. Yeah, Santa Fe snake dancers, M do that that.
This is a that's a good segment. I feel like I feel like
the snake dancers is far too easy to make fun of or draw pictures of.
Yeah, we shouldn't do something that's easy on us trying to get stuff
set up. Here's the thing. These these rain dances were performed by both
the men and women of the tribes, unlike other tribal rituals where only men
were allowed. Evidence on how each raindance was performed is passed down through oral
tradition. The steps of the raindance itself are quite intricate, and unlike circle
dances, which are seen in many Native American ceremonies, the in and women
stood in separate lines and made zig zagging patterns. David Herbert Lawrence described a
particular ceremony in his late nineteenth century book The Hopie Snake Dance, saying from
eighteen eighty to nineteen twenty, the Hopie Snake and Antelope ceremony, popularly known
as the Snake Dance, was far and away the most widely depicted Southwest Native
American ritual, usually performed in August to ensure abundant rainfall for the corn crops.
It was only one ritual in the round of ceremonies that Hobi's enacted throughout
the year, but because it involved the handling of live snakes, it was
the ceremony most often described by non Indian observers. Oh yeah, I mean
it's yeah, you start picking up rattlesnakes or any snakes. It was rattlesnakes.
Yeah, sure, you're you're gonna draw some attention. Yeah, And
I read that they would dance with them in their mouths and it goes on.
The dance requires two weeks of ritual preparation. You're just trying to psych
yourself up to handle a dance snake, to put a rattlesnake in your mouth,
during which time the snakes are gathered and watched over by children. Until
time for the dance on the last day of the sixteen days celebration. The
dance is performed by percentage of the local snake population. Most are rattlesnakes,
but all are handled freely. These types of ceremonies were performed to ask the
spirits or gods to send rain for the tribe's crops. Some tribes wear large
head dresses, while others wear masks. Accessories often included paint on the body,
beads, animal skins, horse and goat hair, feathers, embroidered aprons,
jewelry made of leather, silver, and turquoise. Feathers in the color
blue are often found in dress and accessories. Dress and access found in accessora
found in dress and accessories symbolizing the wind and respectively. Now I'll say this.
You say mask, I hear snake helmet. Some guy figured out.
No, no, guys, it's it's even more powerful if I'm wearing this
wooden mask. Yeah, I don't worry. The snake right in the mouth,
I got it, put him right here too. I don't know.
And I'm covering my upper body with pelts and beads, but I'm psyched up.
Two weeks I'm ready, ye give me that, but that, but
that snake in my mouth, I can't wait. Which, by the way,
I mean, I don't know how many people about there handled snakes,
but they stak they release like smells and stuff when when you start jostling them.
I wouldn't want that in my mouth at all. Yeah, reptiles in
general, Or how hard do you bite down on a snake while you're dancing?
Hard enough to let it know who's balls? Do you do? You
want? I want the snake to think he's the boss. I want the
snake to be calm and feeling in charge of things like this is what he
wanted to have happen. Yeah, that's a good point. I mean,
you got to keep the snake in your mouth. It's embarrassing and it's only
gonna get dirty or if it falls out. So how hard do you bite
down on a rattlesnake in your mouth even with your snake helmet mask? Gee?
These are questions will never have answers to These Special clothes and accessories were
which were worn during the raindance were generally not worn at other times of the
year, but rather restored for this specific ceremony and I got a got an
example of a type of rain dance in a it's in a performance setting.
It's a recent thing, but apparently it's it's a type of raindance that may
or may not have been performed. Okay, is it from flashdance? Well,
because that one worked. There goes the supergy the minute her butt gets
in that chair, ska douche a little coke store at the end. There
it kind of I kind of sounded a little bit like a military cadence to
me. Yeah, and again, I don't know if this is a true
rendition of of what you know would be going on for a rain dance or
if it's just like, oh, we're gonna we're gonna throw a presentation together
called a raindance and right and get everybody off our backs kind of thing.
And I don't mean to sound disrespectful or anything, but I think that there
aren't I couldn't find that any good like specific raindance right examples I thought i'd
be able to. I guess I'm just terrible, just terrible, But hopefully
that gives you some idea. Yeah, come on, that was great.
Got a story here from some Native American folklore and This one is called how
Rain Became wet because it's made of water at the end, jeez. Moving
on, this one features our old buddy Coyote. Ooh sorry, I'm k
yte coote Yote. In the beginning of the world, there were many many
people, and the people held councils to decide how things should be. There
was one man named Coyote, who always had something to say on every subject.
At one council, this question came up, how and what kind of
rain should be in the world. One of the men said it should be
rain in the form of lead balls, which would be very dangerous, and
so when the rain came, the people would have to stay at home.
Then Coyote rose from his seat and said, if it should rain nothing but
lead, it would be very dangerous for my people because they do not stay
at home very much. And as for myself, I might be carrying a
big deer to my family to eat when the rain begins to fall, and
I would certainly be killed. I say, let it rain and drops of
water. Then we can be caught out in the rain and get very wet,
but we will soon be dry again, and the wedding will be good.
For us. The people accepted Coyote's suggestion, and so it is that
it rings in the form of water. Nice. Thanks Coyote. I've got
a story here. Yeah, yeah, And this one's a little more at
my alley. We'll get a little entomological. Oh yeah. This one's called
how the beetle produced rain? How the beetles produced rain and not beatles.
I thought you some presititation coll blimey in will ribe they were living, and
that the Hojia village lived the hohoyat certain black beetles. It was always hot,
and the wind was blowing, and it did not rain. As these
beetles drank rainwater, they became very thirsty. Some became so thirsty that they
die. So their chief said, one time, let us have a dance,
and perhaps if we dance, it will rain, because if it does
not rain, we shall all die. Pretty good reasoning, He followed by
bee Vince. Yeah, there's a certainly, there's kind of a speed racer
cadence to this. Let us have a dance, and perhaps if we dance
it will rain it because if it does not rain, we will all die.
And keeping the speed racer motif going very well, we shall have a
dance, they said, and maybe it will rain then and we shall not
die. Man, these people need to check the trunk because there's a child
and a monkey back there. So one evening they assembled a practice for the
dance, and their chief made a little song for them. This they were
practicing. They practiced a while in the evening, and then they went to
sleep. The story brought to you by the word practice practice. We needed
to do something because otherwise you're going to die. The next day they were
going to have their dance. Early in the morning. They got up and
their chief made four naquacosis for them. He deposited the naquacosis west of their
little village and spoke to the clouds in the San Francisco Mountains, saying,
we are thirsty here, so you come quickly this way and bring us some
water that we may drink and not die. Oh. So he returned to
their village and they dressed up to the dance. They painted their bodies black,
and then they danced. Okay, they were in a hurry because they
were thirsty, you know, the old thirsty hurry. Their chief began to
pray to the clouds of the San Francisco mountains, come this way quickly and
bring us water. So they were formed in a line now, and one
of them acted as leader. By this time a cloud was forming in the
mountains. Now they sang the following song, you quah, you quaha yaha
rain rain ehi yaha eh spirited, very spirited. Yeah, I'm in I'm
on thin ice here. You just I gotta just just do it as a
I mean, I can't, I can't dive in on this, okay,
I just have to play the balls. No rain, you might die.
I'm in a hurry because I'm thirsty, okay, thirst hurry. As they
were singing, the clouds came nearer, and it began to rain and thunder,
and the water began to false that they could now drink. When they
had quenched their thirst, they were very happy and ran about because they were
no longer thirsty. The end, well, there you go. There's there's
a story for you. Yeah. I hope that cleared it up. So
in that in that clip I played, you might have heard some instruments instrumentation
in there, like drums and foot scuffles. Drums, foot scuffles and some
pitter patters may have been part of the ritual of calling for rain involving these
little things called rainsticks. Ever heard of them? These are long, hollowed
plant stalks, which, when turned or shaken, produces a pattering sound similar
to rain. It's believed they were used historically in rituals to summon rain.
But stories concerning the origin of the rainstick are numerous. Some say that the
instrument was invented by the Aztecs and that it later spread throughout Central and South
America. This is probably not the case, since rainsticks are not found archaeologically
or in Spanish accounts. However, Furthermore, the Aztec Empire was short lived
and came late in the history of the Americas. It's more likely, as
reported by some musicians from Mexico who would call the Event, that the rainstick
was introduced into popular Mexican music sometime or in the nineteen sixties. Whoa,
that's much more recent. The same may be true for the Dieguita Indians of
Chile. Some historians believe rainsticks were an idea introduced by enslaved African peoples.
Tubular rattles pierced with iron nails are common in West Africa, especially among the
Togo and Pengui, and as early as sixteen nineteen, fifty percent of the
six thousand inhabitants of Lima Peru or enslaved people from West Africa. Oh do
you know that? I did not know that? It is likely that the
indigenous peoples of South America, especially the hunter gathers of the Upper Amazon,
the farmers of the northern Chile and Argentina, would have come in contact with
these slaves beginning around fifteen thirty seven. Because of trade routes running through these
areas, the indigenous people could easily have adopted the idea of piercing the tubular
rattle with thorns to create a new sound, an instrument, And here's what
one sounds like. Never never knew that, never would have thought that,
never knew because you know, you you think in that terrible day and age,
everyone was brought to America. Well that's at least thirty thousand according to
the source that went to Peru. God, that's yeah, And uh,
you just I don't know, it's it's of course everyone everyone wants slaves.
I guess, I guess I'm going to talk about stones, which you wouldn't
think of for rain, but stones are often supposed to possess the property of
bringing on rain, provided they be dipped in water or sprinkled with it,
or treated in some other appropriate manner. In a Samoan village, a certain
stone was carefully housed as the representative of the rainmaking god, and in time
of drought, his priests carried the stone in procession and dipped it in a
stream. Among the tata Thi tribe of New South Wales, the rainmaker breaks
off a piece of quartz crystal and spits it towards the sky. The rest
of the crystal he reps an emu feather, soaks both crystalline feathers and water,
and carefully hides them. In the Caraman tribe of New South Wales,
the wizard retires to the bed of a creek, drops water on a round
flat stone, then covers up and conceals it. Among some tribes of northwestern
Australia, the rainmaker repairs to a piece of ground which is set apart for
the purpose of rainmaking. There he builds a heap of stones or sand,
places on the top of it his magic stone, and walks or dances around
the pile, chanting his incantations for hours till sheer exhaustion obliges him to desist
when his place is taken by his assistant, and he probably has visions of
the afterlife. Yeah, that's a trancy kind of Water is sprinkled on the
stone and huge fires are kindled. No layman may approach this sacred spot while
the mystic ceremony is being performed. When the Solka of New Britain wish to
procure rain, they blackened stones with the ashes of certain fruits and set them
out along with certain other plants and buds in the sun. Then a handful
of trip of twigs is dipped in water and weighted with stones while the spell
is chanted. After that rain should follow. Yeah, solved it easy as
that. The ancient Roman ceremony of the Aquilisium is designed to produce rain after
a long drought. This is a fun one. In ancient times, the
ceremony consisted in a procession headed by the pontifices which bore the sacred rainstone.
This is a big hunk of Lapis manalis from its resting place by the Porta
Capena up to the capital, where offerings were made to the sky god Jupiter
together with a symbolic ritual of pouring water over the stone. So they need
water, they haul a big stone out and they pour water on it.
Yeah. Well, you know, it takes money to make money. A
similar rain charm and ceremony was practiced in the curious ritual of the Arguorum Sacra,
which involved throwing puppets of straw into the river Tiber as a symbolic wedding
of the crops. M Yeah, so from stones you get ray. Yeah.
So, so now that we know the tools of the trade, you
know what if we want to know the trade of the trade, you want
to you want to know some of the some of the behind the curtain.
I want to see. Maybe maybe I'm so desperate for rain that I'm willing
to say you shoot some of my hot closely held beliefs. Than maybe I'm
willing to make a deal with Doc on the Fairies Palace. Maybe I am
myself willing to dabble in that which is known as witchcraft. I think we
can make an arrangement here. I'm glad to hear that, because also I
want to worship a demon. Yeah, witchcraft has always had weather magics,
and it's a repertoire from Francesco Guazzo's compendium Maleficarum in sixteen oh eight. Witches
can control not on the rain and hail and the wind, but even lightning
with the gods of permission. That's a week which in Return to the Islands
by Arthur Grimble in reference to his colonial service in the Gilbert Islands, them
Grimbler my adoption away back in the nineteen eighteen into the twa sect of the
Royal and priestly Crown of kar Andres, giving me the right to practice the
magic of rainmaking and rain dismissing. Incidentally, also of eclipse undoing whenever the
fancy took me. White magic through enlisting the beneficent divine name Jesus was practiced
even in the Bible. Sammy, for instance, was able to produce a
thunderstorm against the warring Philistines from first Samuel, is it not wheat harvest today?
I will call into the Lord and he shall send thunder and rain.
So Samuel called into the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that
day, and all the people greatly feared the Lord. And Samuel it's in
the Bible. Well, yeah, they also were afraid because they were supposed
to be out harvesting wheat all day and now it's raining. What witches and
wizards appealed to occult spirits summoned by the sorcerer to invoke rain many times,
invoking help from virkun bel Fagan or Asmodius or the Satanic Majesty and his multiple
ethnic variations, and to his numberless host of satellites. Finally, someone pain
shabi it to his Satanic Majesty. Manny's the document or description of spell work
that leaves out our dark Master, the father of lies, the great unclean
one, the many handed sunderers, fine inglorious name left without it. I
spent all of my attention not coming up with like six names for the devil.
Yeah, you did it. I guess those are names of demons too.
Huh oh, yeah, yeah, don't worry, we're coming around to
that. I've got such a great list of demons with the sigils of their
summoning. Each tribal group, each ethnic culture employed in the succession of the
ages, its own techniques of approach to the powerful spirits. Thus, among
the Semites of the first century BC, there was a certain Judaic thomaturgist honey
ha ma Agal. Standing within the protective area of a magically circumscribed circle,
he called down rain from the heavens, and according to legend, he was
so successful that he was called what Dave while they called him the circle draw
Step aside, people, make some room. The circle draws coming into town.
Hope it got your umbrellas ready. You know the guy that calls rain,
Yeah, you call him a circle drawer. That's his cool street name.
Druids, according to one legend, once performed a unique ritual involving a
nude maiden noise, they sprinkled water over her and this divisive, sympathetic magic
brought in the rain clouds. That's all you gotta do. That's all we
gotta do. In one tasty medieval inducement to rain, a white cock was
to be killed whoa. After it was torn apart, the entrails were extracted,
Then the carcass was filled with mirror, white pepper, frankincense, milk
and wine. Oh there's nothing like a chicken shake. The cock was then
held toward the sun while an incantation was chanted. Rain followed, and so
did a delicious meal. I think no, well, I don't think.
I don't think rooster is what you want to eat. Cock meat doesn't taste
good to ship. Yeah, did you see what I know? But for
real, I don't think you're supposed to eat roosters or I don't know.
I don't think I've ever eaten a rooster, but I think generally people don't.
I think it's the hens that are the eaters. I see. And
in Malaysia, if a woman puts on her head an inverted pot and sits
it on the ground and fills it with water and washed a cat in it
until the cat is almost half drowned, heavy rains are soon to follow.
Yeah, well, you gotta, you gotta. You know, that's pretty
pretty straightforward. Just got a half drown a cat and you're good to go.
Yeah. I might be wrong about that rooster thing. More I think
about it, I just I just I don't know. I don't know anything.
I just I don't think I've ever eaten a rooster. I don't think
people genuinely do. I don't know. Maybe the rooster is the best eating.
Maybe I can't afford a rooster. Could be it. I've just been
eating cheap ass lady chickens. So Dave, yeah, Dave did want to
conjure a storm? No way, I'm not. I'm not touching any of
your dark filth. Okay, okay, you know what, I'll change my
mind. All right, let's let's if I can summon a demon a day,
I can bring in a rainstorm, I think. So here's what you
need. You need a broom, don't have one. The plant okay,
it's a it's a gorse type plant with prickly yellow flowers. I don't have
one of those. What else you need? Rice? I don't have any
salt, not with me? Water? Oh, some small bowl, yeah,
but that's my rice bowl. I keep that mother for empty. And
a red candle. Yeah, I don't have one of those. Well,
the red candles for lightning. If you don't want lightning, don't use the
candle. Well, that's fine, I don't even want lightning. All right,
here we go instructions. Ready, Yeah, light the candle. Okay
you don't. You don't have a candle. I have a candle. Pour
the water into the bowl. I'll pretend to and say this the rains of
time for watch, it's one empty thine eyes upon this earth. Stare the
water with a spoon, don't have one. Imagine a huge storm cell forming.
Okay, place the broom into the water, don't have it. Room
brings the winds. Say this winds shall follow effortlessly, tearing through every limb
of tree. Continue to stir the mixture. Imagine the storm getting bigger.
Okay, add the rice, don't have any This is to cause the downpourse,
so you don't have to say anything for the rice. Just start stirring
really fast. Add the hot wax from the candle and have a candle and
say, lightning strike quick and long. Make it last naked straw. Add
the salt, the salt sea, don't have any. I don't have any
salty. Well, it seals the mixture, and then you can say,
by the powers of three times three, let it be, Let it be,
Let it be. I want some precipitation on me. Really, really
was the beetles closing it to rain? Yeah, take the mixture and throw
it outside into the wind. Now, if I were you, I would
seriously make a protection mixture and sprinkle it on your window. Cels. Oh,
they tell me at the end, I've already thrown this thing. I
don't even know how to make it where to go witchcraft. You couldn't put
an asterisk at the front of Hey, you might need this when you're done.
That's great, that is glorious. Thunder sound. Yeah, we would
have hunched ourselves in the dick if we had, I know, I just
thought of that. Yeah, wow, or red candle sound. Nope,
it didn't work. It doesn't work that way. I didn't have one.
Yeah, Dave, Yeah, how about how about we tell us scary story
on rain? Okay, got a story here from creepy pasta Oh la la.
I would read this, but I really really at my voice just now.
By summoning the rain, this has also pared down a little bit from
the actual post. Oh thanks God hit it in here, but anybody got
time for that. The rain Man is said to be a myth of a
personification of the rain, or of a rain god. His appearances are few
and far between. Not much is known about the rain Man, since the
reports of him generally only explain him standing still, staring idly at the witness.
One feature is certain about him his eyes. They appear to be oversized
or inhumanly wide, like headlights. They also lack pupils. Or irises.
Some reports say that they have the ability to light up an area like a
lantern. He also has a theme of long, dark, usually black hair
draped over his face in a similar manner to jew own, which is the
same thing that was on the Grudge. Oh right, that's which meant that
Japanese horror movie. But if the hair is draped over his face, how
do you say the head light eyes? There is only one sign of his
coming, excessive rain. In every single report and sighting, there has been
continuous rain and small flooding for a minimum of three days before sightings occurred.
More recently, the rain man has been sighted in North America, England,
France, and Australia. In the eighteen seventies, there were reports all around
Central Europe of a man in the rain. Usually this would be considered fairly
normal if not for his unmoving stature. He wears drab clothes that are usually
hard to identify beyond a long dustcoat and pants. He is described to have
the appearance of a balding man with dark colored hair, white skin, and
distinct eyes. Most reports claimed them to be unnaturally large like headlights with catlike
pupils or no pupils and irises at all. In occult history, the rain
man is said to move with the rain clouds, giving them feeling like an
avatar. During World War One, a German infantry division was in the midst
of a muddy firefight. In the chaos, it happened was writing a message
to send back to Berlin about the division's progress. The firefight had been intermittent,
lasting several days. Rain had been pouring down, frequently filling the trenchets.
The soldier wrote in his journal, I was lighting my latter a quasting
for the enforcements two days ago have been all of dissidence. A gunshot stopped,
complete silence, as if a drowning back could skip to beat. For
a moment, I thought so firefights had entered, was fought to have bopped,
so I was the only sound I could hear. I was tempted to
follow asleep, but not Once I saw him, I noticed that's the gunfire
stopped. That there was more light behind me, as if someone had walked
in this a torch. But when I turned around to see the soldier,
I saw no such theme or only two yellow eyes and the ash black coat.
I pulled out mine bayonet and challenged him, Hey, hey, fine
boy, you've answered to play pockey parky. The only sound I heard was
the rain intensifying, and the man turned and left, gliding out into the
trenches. I followed, but as soon as I bent out, I was
greeted this deafening gun five once again, and no ash black man. A
police report was made during the nineteen seventies. Yeah, it was nighttime raining.
It would have been the perfect time for a crook to jump out and
mug somebody. It was about five feet visibility. We were searching for this
guy that supposedly robbed shops. At this time, Me and that douchebag Harrison
were patrolling around, walking towards the corner on the block with no one in
sight, and suddenly, like it, like magic, that this crook ran
from straight behind us. We were about to chase his ass down when he
landed on his back. He'd run into the strong man wearing a tank top,
leather jacket, and long hair. We assumed he's just some random man
wandering the streets until he saw his eyes. They were blank white. Why
does the sheet of paper? He just stood there as this criminal was throwing
insults at him you fucking hide on, which gave us time to cuff him
and head back to the car. When I looked back, the guy was
fucking gone. I still have no idea where he could have gone. There's
no doors or alley's for at least fifty yards, and he was nowhere to
be seen running off or anything. He just sucking vanished. What the hey,
don't don't worry about it, Paul. He was probably just like I
don't know, Oh, shut the man. He was a man, pro
al right, he thought you were going to pop him for selling selling that
ass Fox show. He's a good guy, whether a legend or an actual
entity. The rain Man does not seem to have good intentions. Some stories
end innocently enough, but some have more sinister ends, and it's whispered among
believers. What happens when he shows up. First, you will hear rain,
intense rain. Then you'll hear footsteps, intense footsteps, bootsteps which are
intense footsteps. Your home will creak and moan, even if it's brand new.
As the drenched man enters your house, you will open the door as
if it was unlocked. You will hear the water drift from his coat to
the floor intensely. The footsteps will get closer as he approaches to you.
I would I would assume the flip steps to get closer as he approaches me.
But stay in bed, pretend you're asleep, listen to the rain,
and if you dare look at the rain man in the eyes, you're already
done for Ah the rain man. A that's right. Well let's do this.
Let's let's swap it up a little bit. Let's let's take it into
the new era, not the new millennium. I'm not that far. Nope,
Dave, what do you what do you got for us? Let's let's
talk some science about this kind of stuff. I'm tired of the folklore.
Well, no, you're gonna get more folklore. I'm never tired of folklore.
I was just kidding anyway. So rainmaking kind of um it hit a
peak in the eighteen hundreds and up into the nineteen thirties with the dust Bowl.
I mean, there was a guy who worked through Kansas in the e
nineties known as Melbourne, the rain Wizard. A lot of these guys kind
of operated under the same system. They would they would have chemicals, they
each had their own special concoction, it would evaporate, was supposed to go
up and create rain, and if there was rain, they would get paid.
And this was a pretty you know, common practice. It came in
and out of styles. A matter of fact, even had a little resurgence
in the nineteen fifties. But of these traveling men who swore they had the
direct channel, they could make the rain happened when they wanted because they understood
how it worked. They called it a ton of different things. They were
cloud shakers sometimes, like when they were really going for the professor the professor
science man approach, they called it pluviculture. Sure, yeah, why not?
Really catchy. And there's some really interesting yeah rain makers. There is
a really interesting story. Um and I'm gonna paraphrase a little bit here,
but The Mind Palace is a really great podcast, and they do a great
story about this guy, a guy named Charles, Charles Mallory Hatfield was a
fairly famous rainmaker. As a matter of fact, the blue one a rainmaker,
heartbreaker? What what kind of rainmaker? Fairly famous one? Fair Like,
I'm so, I'm not there, I wasn't there, I wasn't you.
You tried to shove my face into it and I wouldn't sniff it.
Uh. So he has a matter of fact, the movie The Rainmaker on
the fifties, nineteen fifty eight, I think it was not the George Clooney
one, No, is based on this guy. Wait, that's Peacemaker.
Never mind, come on, I think there was a rainmaker in recent times.
Don't don't matter none. And he uh, he would study pluva culture.
Uh. He had his own uh, he had his own kind of
system, his his his secret mix and he would take us out. And
part of the scam flammery of this is that it's it's very difficult to prove.
How do you know how much rain was going to arrive? So how
do you know if these guys affect rain? You know, and this is
a problem that we have even to this day. But so what would happen
is he would mix up his his chemicals as a big evaporation tank and let
them all disperse. And you know, if there was rain in the next
county, you say, oh, well the wind carried it over there.
Sure, um, you know, sorry, but you know it worked,
just didn't work here, and you can collect money from that. Now,
Hatfield got himself in a lot of weird trouble in the city of San Diego.
And this was back in This is in nineteen fifteen. Now he had
already made a name for himself in an La also up in the Yukon territory.
I mean, he'd traveled a lot, and he had he'd gotten paid.
Yukon was sort of a washy. He was supposed to get ten thousand
dollars. He ended up getting eleven hundred for expenses and then he skipped down.
Wow, but it's like anything else, and you know Internet, you
know this, this sort of thing could still happen today because the people who
believe will manufacture the excuse for him. You know, he didn't even when
he failed to create rain, the believers, you know, we were like,
oh, you know, no, that's why he didn't work. He's
the best. And so finally he runs up up against the city of San
Diego and he tells them, he tells that not only will he fill their
reservoir, his initial plan was, tell you what, I won't charge you
anything for rain unless it's over forty inches. Oh geez, right, I
mean, He's like, I'm then you want rain, you don't pay me
unless you get rain with a capital R, with a capital I and a
capital H. Now at which point though, he would charge one thousand dollars
per inch up to fifty inches, and then it's free again. Wow.
So he's just functionally saying, I'm going to bring this much rain or it's
free, but if I bring a lot of rain, you owe me ten
thousand dollars. Until I bring this my train in the right, it's free
again. And I imagine him trying to Okay, no, no, this
is this is our this is our rain Pro Family Plus package. Okay,
up to here, you know, thirty nine inches, you don't pay a
thing. What if I only get forty two inches? You only two thousand
dollars? You understand there's two inches above forty that's two thousand dollars everybody.
So he goes through this and the council voted four to one and they say,
fine, we'll give you ten thousand dollars when you when you fill our
reservoir. He's like, you got it, let's do this and he sets
to work. And on January fifth, nineteen sixteen, it started to rain
and it didn't stop. Oh no, and it rained and it rained,
it started to destroy bridges, up trains that it destroyed or overflowed the sweetwater
damn and the lower Ote Lake. Uh, damn, it was not it
was not Ote. And then the truly not Ote because it then broke killed
twenty people, ultimately resulting in about three point five million dollars worth of damage
and well well over fifty oh okay, free right. So, as you
can imagine, now there's a little dispute between Hatfield and this city council,
the San Diego City Council, because there he's like, hey, as promised,
give me my ten g. They're like, there's three point five million
dollars worth of damage, and so we sh the court rules it's an act
of God. But the city council straight up says, all right, buddy,
if you sign this paper saying you are responsible for what happened here,
of course we'll pay you your money, and him realizing well, then I'm
on the hook for all this damage. I can't do it, um,
you know. And and if he did, then he has to go to
in court of lot and say like, well, no, I'm not that
response, you know, like they caught him. They caught him, and
he ended up leaving town so um. Anyway, that's kind of a fun
story these guys, and there's there's many of them that kind of move from
town to town and operated this very similar uh kind of scam and just to
hope that it worked. Um. But and like I said, there was
a little resurgence in the fifties. Um. But then actual cloud seeding came
along. Yeah. Um. And this is the what what what is important
is you're you're giving clouds condensation nuclei, which naturally is is anything dust already
frozen particle uh in a lot of bacteria, anything small that it can all
form around. And so there's a number of different chemicals including just regular salt,
um, silver iodide, potassium iodide, uh, dry ice, just
a solid carbon dioxide. Throw that up in there. In some cases liquid
propane, I mean, whatever it takes to get up into the clouds.
Not only does it give the clouds something to form around, but it also
can condenses the liquid in the cloud. Um. And and here's the thing.
The big debate here, like I said earlier, is does this I
mean it you can you can get a cloud to rain when you want,
Is it going to rain more? Well, that's impossible to know because you
never knew what was actually going to fall out in the first place. Yea
um. And so it does give you some measure of control. You can
you can find a cloud, if there are clouds that are going to rain,
you can affect when they rain. You can you can speed that up,
um for example. That's why I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast
the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government loaded artillery guns and they were bombarding because
they were supposed to be a huge downpour the night of the opening games.
And interesting fun fact, the bird Nest, you know, the big Beijing
Olympic stadium, it was originally supposed to have a roof, but the price
of steel skyrocketed and they were like, get no roof. Wow, yeah,
that's why there's no roof on it. So then the Chinese government was
like, well then then it can't rain. Can fix it? Yeah.
Now here's the interesting thing. The Chinese government actually does this on the rag
for their holiday national days October first every year, so it's just around the
corner. They actually regularly do this cloud seating. They blast all the clouds
because then it caused it to terrain. The rain scrubs the pollution out,
so on the National Day, there's no haze. It's a nice, clear,
beautiful day. This is a thing they've done for a long time,
so they actually really know what they're doing here. They were actually able to
keep it from raining on the opening ceremonies by bombarding these clouds while they were
still far away and having them dump their rain elsewhere. Crazy. Yeah,
so this is that's that's not hogman. This is a thing that that happens
all the time now. But you need a cloud that's gonna rain. No
one's creating rain out of nowhere, if which is why we still have a
drought in exactly. Yep, Yeah, California. They'd find a way to
do it, you know, like if you could, if you could make
rain, they would have they done, would have made it interesting that there's
that you have like step two, but you you you really can't do anything
for like step one, like yeah, getting getting enough saturation enough vapor up
there too to then shoot stuff into well. I think I think it's like
it's like saying, I know how to corral a horse, but I can't
make a horse. If the horse is already there, I how to catch
it. Yeah, and I can ride it, but I can't make a
horse if there's no horses around. Yeah, yeah, I get that.
I get that. I just I feel like making a cloud is easier than
making a horse, right, apparently not. I don't know. There's that
artist that makes a cloud in a room. It's a big deal. You
can make a cloud in your mouth. You can make a cloud in your
mouth. Make a cloud in your mouth. Yeah, nuts, Yeah,
So there you go. That's I think there is a weather witch that lives
in Chicago because part of my job is gardening and making sure all the plants
are watered and everything, and so I watch the weather a lot and radar
stuff like that, the reports, the forecasts, and I swear to God,
the forecasts will say one hund rain showers all day every day. And
you watch the radar and the whole screen is filled with all the you're painting
with all the colors that wine, my friend, and there will not be
a drop that comes out here. And then you watch the radar and the
clouds literally split around the city. Well, which makes sense. There's a
lot of heat coming off the city that creates a big thermal client for them
to try to get around. I I'm the same way. Which weather which
I like you? I like your version better. I have the same problem.
I bike everywhere. I bike to work, I bike everywhere, and
so I've come to really watch the weather. Not once this summer have I
made a decision based on the weather report and have that turn out to be
right. Right, it is shot. So now I'm just like, I
don't care. What what does it say? It's gonna literally rain golf ball
size hail. I'm I'm barrying my bike. I'm just no helmet today.
Yeah, it just there's there's you can't account for it. You mightles will
just get used to the idea of sometimes you're gonna get whaled on. I
got caught. We had a huge rainstorm about a week ago. Oh it
was. It was massive, and um I didn't know about it because it
wasn't I mean like like they were like, it's gonna rain right, and
I was. I was biking home from work and it was it was spitting
and my my my ride home was about six miles and I had actually u
biked right by one of my co workers homes and I had I was passed
it by about four blocks or so, and I was still like a good
five minutes or so from getting home. And I get a text message.
And I live in the future, so I get a text message on my
watch and I so I can ride and read and not die. And he
said, hey, do you want me to go check the office because,
you know, because of the rain, to make sure everything's okay. I'm
like, it's barely raining, dude. Oh no. And I had just
ridden by his house, I mean, not five minutes before, and I
was like, calm down, brother, like it's it's it's not even and
there I did not realize there was a solid wall of go to hell,
you to death rain that was chasing me north. I didn't know it was
right behind me and it won. Yeah. And so as I'm looking at
this, going, dude, why is he asking about? It just enveloped
me and you could I couldn't even ride in it. The wind was everywhere.
Oh yeah, it was just just just sheets of rain. I had
to like huddle up behind a building. Well I just figured out what the
hell I was going to do next. Oh yeah. But it was just
so funny that it I didn't know it was there. And if if I
had, like if I had known I could have made it home, I
could have like burned it and really gotten there. But I was just like,
dude, do do do? They just got just got destroyed. I
love rain, Yeah, yeah, all of it. I'm always happy when
when it's raining out. Thank you, garbage m oh at least I'm just
like her. This is all a form of what we have talked about many
moons ago sympathetic magic. It's a rigual using objects or actions resembling or symbolically
associated with the event or person overwinch influence, assault, And that's how you
do it. That's rainmaking for you. Mm hmmm, and very sorry.
It's in a huckster's nutshells. So now it's time for us to load up
our chemical cannons. Oh yeah, we've got to bombard these clowns and tell
the puns rain down. You want to go first? Want me go first?
I don't know what the forecast look like. I'm going first. Okay.
Way back in the day in Wallachia, there was um whenever they needed
rain. Sure you could go ahead and make an effigy out of clay.
That's fine. But if you really needed rain, if you really loved your
family, well then you need a colloine silver. That is what you need.
Yeah, protect yourself from Vlad these lad temperature these he's a Kenyan Muslim
and he's one of these turks. Yeah, you think somebody push you around,
but I tell you, as a citizen page all the magyars in the
world, do you know take on these boyers? Nothing but a fat cat
boyers. So you got for uh, Let's see, I have a type
of ritual where you go through all the normal procedures. Huh, and you're
expecting to invoke a cryptid oh, but instead you get a disappointing and mundane
result. It's sandhill crane making nice. I like that. You know,
there's a large city in Australia that continually, uh grapples with drought. And
what they found is that if they get Australian lizards, those large Australian lizards
called goanas, you know, if they get enough of them together, actually
they are able to affect the weather paths and actually brings some precipitation, which
makes they're known as the Melbourne the rain lizards. Crokey. Indeed, I
need to work on my Australian action. I feel like I should have it.
But every time. I word, it's not there. I know,
me too. It's one of those things where I feel like I had it
when I was younger or something. Right, Yeah, there's a point I
had it all right. Rounding us out. Some Southwestern native tribes in the
late nineteenth century would perform a ceremony after a large, delicious meal. They
would grill some beef and just zone out, which became known as the Hopie
steak trance. Nice, I like that one. I want to go into
a steak trans Yeah, me too too, me too, me too,
yeah yeah yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah. That was puns,
his puns. And now it's time to roll out the huge lap of stone.
That's right, and sprinkle you with with the water. We don't have
to bring forth the daily huge of listener, man, now is the time
for you to make it rain, dear listener, rain rain shall starting up
with Alec Alec Alec. The only Alec I know is the Guinness kind.
What about Baldwin? Damn it? Oh? And if I didn't just prove
enough already, what about smart Alec? Which one is this one? It's
just Alec? Okay, hi, just Alec. Alec brings us a show
suggestion. Oh great, yeah, which, thank you very much for that.
Alec actually is a PhD student in the UK, although he's originally from
the good old United S. Stitch of America sent through clenched teeth because I
can't cry again every time I say it. That's how emotional I get about
America. Nothing nothing on that One's just gonna let that one. You're gonna
let that squall pass. Uh, So, he writes, I just discovered
your podcast and cannot stop listening. Oh, thank you. That is especially
true when I'm drudging through data and your show provides some interesting facts and some
laughs. The facts are interesting and the laughs some are are there, there's
some of them. The facts are laughable. Um, that's true here,
absolutely correct. Kind of grudge do I have against us? Hey man,
take it easy on us? All right, all right, sorry, I'm
sorry. Um. Alex studies animal behavior, although he used to be a
zoo archaeologist. Oh that's pretty awesome. That's digging for zoos, gidget tracking
them down, and currently focuses primarily on the hunting patterns of cryptic species such
as leopards. Leopards yep, it says. Despite being a scientist, I've
always been fascinated with mysteries and the paranormal. Well what scientist isn't drawn to
mysteries? Wellpe, Well, I think that any good man and or woman
of science should be drawn to mysteries. That's right. And everything was paranormal
until science made it normal. Science is mysterious. It is, it is.
Indeed, just ask dark matter. It's certainly if you can find it.
Oh, you're per oscious. Thank you, Alec, Thanks Alec,
Dave. We've heard from Charles. Oh hello, Charles, M boy,
I'm fighting it. I'm fighting it. No, I'm not gonna fight it.
What do you think Charles is in charge of puns? As it turns
out, I thought he beat in charge of our days and our nights.
You're wrong, but nope, Ladies and gentlemen, nets bad improvly Yeah no,
no, that was bad. Improbably excellent, goaltending you stopped a bad
thing from happening. Charles wrote in with some puns before, and he's got
some new ones. Bring it. Charles, Chaz, Chico, Charlie,
Chuck, Charlemagne, Charlie, Zimo Schwa himbo, Yeah, I got I
really reached for that one. This one is about Charles. When Charles Fort,
Oh, it was a kid, Charles today Fort. That's right,
Charles Spanish today Fort. Yeah. Yeah, when Charles Fort was a kid,
he used to take all the blankets and pillows and build a clubhouse.
No girls allowed except maybe a nurse. It was a Charles Blanket Fort nice.
A few years after that he entered his troubling teen years, you know,
thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. Wow, he's a he's on a heater.
Can anyone stop a madman? Charles? When he gets too warm,
you need to cool off by reading the Book of the Fan. Scientists recently
discovered that subatomic particles wear clothes. Really. Yeah, they're called panta quarks.
I like that many a pun from Bullstone? WHOA, I dig that?
Thank you, Charles, Yeah, thank you very much, Charles.
You're an accomplished pun smith. Caleb's up, Caleb, look out, order
up, Caleb Pinding, he's serving it up hot, Caleb Wrights. Love
the Go Man episode, Me too, especially when you ventured into Native American
mound builders. Thank you, Caleb. Dave. We've heard from Andrew from
Kentucky. WHOA do you know him? I don't think I did. You
guys go to the same Kentucky and union meetings. No do you guys both
have getting Lucky and Kentucky bumper stickers on your trucks shirts, but not bumper
stick Oh I actually do have that shirt. Really? Yeah, I mean
I know that in my mind I just invented it, but I know I
couldn't possibly have actually invented that. Andrew says, Hello, Hello Andrew,
Hello, Hello, Hey Andrew, Andrew. Can you hear me? Andrew
answer me? You smoked son of a bitch. I feel like he's playing
with us now. He says he recently discovered the podcast and it is unequivocally
one of the best teas I ever listened to. Well, Hello, get
yourself out there more Andrew. Yeah, dare your friends by a beer?
For whoever told you about it? And if it was, you buy you
a beer. Andrew has spread the gospel and get this Lanna. He works
at a library. Hello, I'm your hype man today. Can you take
us to the bridge please? Did you know, Andrew, do you work
at the same library as Lana? Yeah, Lanna, Andrew Andrew Lana.
He said he actually had a patron recently asked if any of them had any
interest in the parent normal and if they could help them find a supernatural books
in the old labary. Sweet, And he said, in the midst of
showing them, they struck up a conversation about cryptids. He recommended our show
and recommended by librarians. That's right. And the person since came back ranting
about sandhill cranes. Yeah, thank you, Andrew. You are a true
gentleman and a literal scholar. Yeah. S he's got a post script.
Oh sweet, bring it, Andrew says, I feel they need to ask
if you have heard about the latest book buzz Oh. It seems that esteemed
author Harper Lee has another manuscript one that was about hunting cryptids in the fifties.
Really Yeah. After some controversy, the book has been released under its
original title, Go Hunt a Squatchman. I smelled it and I was so
glad. That's awesome. That's a that's a you know what, that's a
that's a winning life varying pun. Right, there's some librarians pun well.
I've got one here from Hannah Haya. Hannah. Hannah's a palindrome. It
is palindrome. She gets you, get you one way or the other.
Hannah writes, I've recommended this show to pretty much everyone I know who likes
podcasts. Why pumped up guitar riff? Yeah? Why didn't we have that
sooner? Your amusement at the word hain't continues to make me smile because here
in the South we paint our porch roofs hain't blue to keep bad spirits away.
Also wasps, same difference though, truth, there's no difference between a
haunting and a wasping. I'd say wasps or worse. Yeah, it's also
an alternate word for bitch when you absolutely must call a woman unsavory but cannot
drop the big Bee and y'all's version of the Raven was one of my favorite
things ever. Keep up the good work. No puns, because I'm legit
the worst at them. Well, you have to prove it, Hannah.
That's right. There's a lot of competition. You don't just get to declare
it. We will decide who's the worst and never apologize. Yeah, ever,
never, Thanks Hannah, Thanks Hannah, Dave, what I believe we've
heard back from Oirish Daggle The Oirishtaggle. The last time I heard Aristaggle was
shitting in drinking a point. It comes in like nothing ever went wrong in
his whole time life, walks up to me and says, hey about a
point for me. Trouble, So we all got trouble. This is just
rambl like that. It's just looking at Dave like where's he going? He
and I could have gotten it somewhere, but we don't have that much time.
Like, yeah, I realized that I wasn't gonna pay off hi irishtaggle.
Irish Stagle says, thanks for making me laugh and learn at the same
time. That's he starts off, and we appreciate that. And he says
he just finished Flood Myths two and wanted to chime in with some related his
story. So wait, So the Mayans get a lot of credit for their
advanced mathematics and astronomy, but they weren't the only culture in the Americas.
But some advanced knowledge not surprising. That's right, We're an industrious continent.
He's talking about the Incan Empire and what is now Peru. They were great
at architecture and metalworking, but a recent discovery on the top of Machupicchu shows
another talent indicative of having survived a global flood. It is not in the
greatest condition now, but it is a diagram of the human body showing their
immense and intimate knowledge of its workings in a time that predates Da Vinci's own
famous diagram by thousands of years. Thousands of years. Archaeologists have taken to
calling it the Antediluvian Peruvian Vitruvian. Man. Wow, that is a top
ten pun right there. That is a top ten pun. Or your steago
got some gunness a minute he just goes, bam you what a good fight.
That was awesome. Way to go, daggle. Also, because I
form most of that, did not realize it was a pun hook fish hooked.
There you go. He had me. Oh, Flora, oh got
us an email? You got it? We should read it, you son
of a bitch cock boss. This is This is usually the part in the
podcast where Flora's like, well, what is it, dude? What is
it? Um? Clarivoyant Katie, who who everyone knows is now famous because
Clarivoyant Katie gave us Blue Reavers the reverse or revers. She writes, Hi,
guys, Hi, I live in Bloomington, Indiana, where they hold
Crompus night. You guys would be more than welcome to crash at our place,
or we should at least meet up so I can buy you a beer.
I'll kill you in on all the fun, weird things Bloomington has to
offer. I'm yes, I accept. I think we'll probably find a place
to stay. That's just my gut instinct. But I accept beers. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, no, I actually you come with us? Well?
I think today I actually replied to one of Katie's Facebook messages because I
posted the crumpas Oh the movie, the trailer, yeah, because yeah,
people have been sending it to us. One of our listeners, Amy posted,
I got to see the whole she had the trailer. Yeah, a
lot of people posted to us. But I gotta tell you looks a little
disappointing, but I'll still go see it. Here's the thing. It confused
me because it appeared to be from the actors. They chose to be a
comedy, right, and then it wasn't right. Yeah, yeah, and
the whole I don't know. The whole premise, of course, as all
believers know, is not that Crumpus shuts down and terrorizes one house for the
evening I you know what though, here's the thing. Anything there's and I
think that we are we you and I flow our crampas rich Okay we you
have a badass Crumpus sweater for crown out Loud. Yeah. Um, you
know we live in a world surrounded by crampas, but very few people know
about crampas true, and so anything that raises the general awareness I'm all for.
So yeah, we're absolutely I'm calling it now. Well their boy and
Katie we are going to Bloomington. Yeah, we're gonna get beers, We're
all gonna get trashed, and we're all gonna go and we'll I don't know,
flip a coin, ro shambo or just all mark ourselves as targets.
Right, you know, we'll go through this this Crumpus knocked hount haunted house,
yes, in good time and porium that they have done there and we're
gonna drag Jay Nathan Couch along with us. Yes, oh man, just
have a party so all of our Indiana fans can can meet us down there.
I you know what, I want to roll Posse strong here. I
want Greg Bach, I want Ken Hype, I want dark marks off.
I want to just roll down there with like the biggest bunch of weird asses
we can fit into a minivan. We need a minivan. Also, Oh,
here's a good question, listeners. If Flora and I had a minivan,
what would it be called? Can't be the Mystery Machine, I know,
or we could just call it the Revermobile. Cover it in barbed wire
and skulls bodies. Yeah. So anyway, thank you, thank you,
Katie. Thanks Katie, and we got one last one here going on a
high note, although I mean clairvoying Katie's offers pretty high note, great,
pretty great. I'm out. Joe, Joe, Just Joe Joe writes,
just discovered your podcast instant fangirl planning on embarrassing my seventeen year old at the
beach tomorrow binging and laughing out loud. Gonna be great. Hell yeah,
I love that, Thanks Joe. Our podcast should be used as an embarrassment
canon. I think that is a great use of it. Yeah, I
believe that. So I hope it now granted because we everyone knows how listener
mail works right here now it has already been deployed. The seventeen year olds
probably still in tears, refusing to talk to you. Joe, but well
played. Yeah you're ruined the bach what with your enjoying yourself? Right?
What if it's different? What if whatever? Seventy year olds like, mom,
could you just take the could you take the headphones out? We're all
just trying to have fun here. Well, yeah, will you join us?
Yeah? Could you join us? And could you engage? Stop laughing,
Mom, stop laughing jokes on you. Joe? Yeah no, no,
Joe wins either way. Thank you all very much for your writings.
So for wetting our fertile fields. That's right now we can have a bountiful
harvest for one more year. M be looking for a supplemental soon. Yeah
oh yeah, yeah yeah. We're eating this entire crate of cookies. It's
been backing up for too long, too many cookies to be eaten. Say
time, we've got uh an eight ounce glass of eight dots drinking glass and
a big bag full of milk. And where's coming go bafter glass full of
cookies, bagful of milk to hit each other with the milk. I haven't
had anything to drink in days. Maybe that's the problem. My body's like,
well, we're gonna fake it till you make it We're just gonna make
you sound dronked till you can. You can get us done while you're while
you're done sending the emails, We're not done with tasking you with important things.
Your mission, regardless of whether you choose to accept it, is to
write a five star review on iTunes, is to uh like us on Facebook,
follow us on the twitters, blurry underscore photos where blurry photos the Facebook.
Punch the donate button. I mean, you know what, give it
a karate chop? Hi, uh, you know whatever, whatever power sound
you want to make as you punch that um and a keyop a keyop.
Yeah, and please if you like what we're doing, don't forget other friends
at the Chicago podcast Cooperative. How about Campaign Dave. In the Campaign Podcast,
a small consistent group of Chicago improvisers played through an ongoing role playing game
set in the Star Wars universe. It's hosted by Cat Cool. Sounds like
a really cool customer Cool or Cole. I'm not sure, sorry, Kat
or Kroll. Check those guys out. And yeah, thanks for supporting the
Chicago Podcast co Op and thank you Chicago podcast. That sounds fun. Don't
forget we're on Audible trial dot com slash blurry Photos and you can get yourself.
Why do you not want someone to read to you? It's so soothing
When you were a child, that's all you ever wanted. It's great Now
that you're an adult and you have the rains, why turn your back on
it? You have, you're paying taxes. At least you can do this
for yourself. It's free. But anyways, for this episode of Blurry Photos,
I have been David the Rainman Flora, and I'm Dave the Dave who
is Dave Stecco, not David Flora because the Dave Flora is not David Stecco,
and someone has to be the David Stecco. So I'll be the David
Stecco. Oh Stecco, It's gonna take a lot to drag me away.
There's nothing that a hundred men of mark ever A dude, I bless the
rains down in Africa. Gonna take some time to do these. We never fires