699 - Jack London - live

Summary

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The Dollop Episode 699: Jack London – Live

Podcast: The Dollop with Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds
Guest: NATO Green
Recorded: Live in San Francisco
Date: September 2, 2025
Theme: The wild life and contradictions of famed American writer Jack London

Overview

In this raucous live episode, comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds (joined by union organizer and comedian NATO Green) unspool the remarkable, messy, and adventure-packed life of Jack London—author of The Call of the Wild. From his hardscrabble San Francisco origins, through child labor, socialist politics, criminal capers, and disastrous gold rush expeditions, to his eventual fame, celebrity excesses, evolving politics, and literary lasting power, Jack London’s life is painted as a wild ride reflecting both the promise and contradictions of early 20th-century America.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Introducing Jack London’s Origins (06:19–09:19)

• Background and Upbringing:
  • Jack London (born John Griffith Chaney) had an unconventional start in San Francisco—born to a spiritualist mother and an absent, itinerant astrologer father.
  • He took his stepfather’s surname, becoming Jack London, and entered the workforce early, taking any job he could, notably including the memorable (and bizarre) gig of hunting cats to sell to Chinatown.

“His biological father, who was a traveling astrologer, Jesus Christ, skipped out on him. That’s the best kind of astrologer. One that’s on the move.” — Dave Anthony (07:03)

• San Francisco-Chinatown History:
  • NATO Green drops a dark tidbit about late 19th-century racism and disease panic (09:19–10:12), marking contrasts between today’s San Francisco and its past.

Early Hardships and Crime (11:00–16:20)

• Child Labor:

  • Jack endured a Dickensian working-class childhood, being treated as a "work beast" for 10 cents an hour.

• Turning to Crime:

  • Unable to survive the brutal conditions, Jack became an “oyster pirate”—poaching oysters in San Francisco Bay on his boat, the “Razzle Dazzle”, making more money as a child pirate than months’ worth of factory labor.

“So he would poach oysters on private beds in San Francisco Bay on his boat, the Razzle Dazzle.” — Dave Anthony (12:44)

• Drinking and Bohemian Culture:
  • By 15, he could drink grown men “under the table” and was known as the “Prince of Oyster Pirates”. London found camaraderie among down-and-out sailors, expressing a clear preference for bohemian misfits over factory drudgery.

“I would rather reign among booze fighters than toil 12 hours a day at a machine.” — Jack London, quoted by Dave (15:54)

Ideological Awakening and Rail-Riding Years (17:00–24:44)

• Early Political Engagement:

  • Participated in America’s first protest march on the White House (Coxey’s Army), which, despite its anti-climactic personal outcome for Jack, exposed him to labor movements and worker solidarity.

• Observing Economic Hardship:

  • Witnessed the devastation of the Panic of 1893, and became sharply critical of capitalist charity, favoring working-class mutual support and justice.

“Charity is the bone shared with the dog when you are just as hungry as the dog.” — Jack London, quoted by Dave (23:44)

• Hobo Experiences:
  • After being arrested for vagrancy, described incarceration as “the abyss… the human cesspool”, an experience so harrowing he vowed to escape brawn-based labor for intellectual pursuits.

Gold Rush Ordeals and Survival (27:02–59:06)

• Klondike Adventure Begins:

  • At 21, Jack embarks on a perilous Yukon Gold Rush journey with a motley crew (“Ira” the underweight carpenter, “Fred” the red-haired snitch, and “Big Jim”), enduring the notorious Chilkoot Pass, where thousands of men and animals died.

  “I climbed that pass 30 times, each with a 50-pound load. My shoulders bled through my coat.” — Jack London, quoted by Dave (36:23)

• Grueling Journey:

  • Required to haul 2,000 pounds of supplies over miles of snow and ice, they survived deadly avalanches, starvation, illness, and countless corpses along the trail.

• Resourcefulness:

  • Jack’s skills as a sailor shine—navigating dangerous rapids when others wouldn’t, helping others along the way.

• Dawson City and Disillusionment:

  • Arrival at the Yukon reveals a lawless, feverish gold-rush society rife with violence, deprivation, and absurd excesses (e.g., paying $3,000 for oranges or the entire town’s eggs to woo burlesque dancers).
  • Vanishingly few struck gold; Jack observed the rush as “chasing a yellow lie wrapped in frost.” (58:28)

• Suffering and Inspiration:

  • London and companions suffered scurvy and “arctic leprosy”, with Jack sustaining especially severe symptoms.
  • Despite hardships, Jack was more interested in the people and stories than prospecting, later immortalizing many of these characters in novels.

Literary Breakthrough and Celebrity (71:20–76:27)

• Return and Literary Struggles:

  • Upon return, threw himself into writing and reading, but faced poverty until a short story sale ($5) was followed by a breakthrough ($5,000 in today’s money), triggering a meteoric rise.

• The Call of the Wild:

  • Wrote The Call of the Wild in a creative frenzy—sold the rights outright (missing out on royalties), catapulting himself into literary stardom.

• Celebrity Life:

  • Became one of America’s first “celebrity authors”—earning headlines, money, and living a movie-star lifestyle. Amid personal upheaval (two marriages, affair with future wife and fellow writer Charmian Kittredge), he continued his headlong pursuit of “experience.”

Political Philosophy and Contradictions (77:47–84:12)

• Dedicated Socialist (with Caveats):
  • London’s socialism deepened, especially after Yukon privations, but he was critical of philanthropy and favored social and labor justice.

“Socialism, when stripped of its academic finery, is merely the economic expression of the ethical desire for justice.” — Jack London, quoted by Dave (79:31)

• Foreseeing Fascism and Modern Capitalism:
  • In The Iron Heel, eerily predicts a future oligarchy, suppression of socialism, and manufactured consent decades before Orwell or the actual rise of fascism.

“The oligarchy consumes the government and absolutely demolishes a socialist uprising in America.” — Dave Anthony (81:17)

• Critique and Contradiction:
  • Jack’s lifestyle drew ire from leftists as “champagne socialism”, to which he replied he was “preaching socialism every day” through his writing.
  • Even as his political thinking evolved, Jack held and then eroded deeply racist and Anglo-Saxon supremacist ideas, ultimately writing more nuanced, anti-colonial, and anti-racist fiction.

Flaws, Legacy, and Criticism (84:12–90:14)

• Personal Shortcomings and Evolution:

  • Jack’s early racism (“Anglo-Saxon socialism”) is acknowledged as both a product of his time and something he ultimately transcended to a degree.
  • Famous for giving the world “pink elephants” as a literary metaphor for drunken hallucinations.

• Dizzying Productivity and Demise:

  • Authored at a relentless pace, only to die of kidney failure (fueled by alcoholism) at 40.

"Wow, he lived—he was only 40?!" — Gareth Reynolds (89:25)

• Literary Reputation and Reappraisal:
  • Critically dismissed for decades as a “boy’s adventure” writer, more recently respected as a literary figure whose very contradictions echo America’s own.

“If he was messy, it’s because he was real.” — Jack London biographer Earl Labor, quoted by Dave (90:14)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On child labor:
  “Kids these days. They give you a thousand excuses on why they can’t work in factories. It’s disgusting. ‘I’m little. I don’t deserve this. The fumes hurt. My hands aren’t working.’”
  — Gareth, parodying narratives about lazy youth (11:00)

• On marching and activism:
  “I’ll march until they go by the taqueria, and then I’ll peel out.” — NATO Green (19:46)

• On Yukon hardship:
  “Our hands cracked and bled, teeth loosened in the gums. Gaits became shuffles. We had entered the kingdom of frost.”
  — Jack London (40:09)

• On comic sensibility and literary style:
  “London wrote with his fists, his fire, and his contradictions.”
  — Earl Labor, biographer

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Segment Timestamps

• 06:19 — Jack London’s birth and family background
• 09:19 — Chinatown history and San Francisco prejudice
• 11:00 — The realities of 19th-century child labor
• 12:44 — Becoming an 'oyster pirate'
• 15:54 — London’s bohemian, hard-drinking youth
• 17:00 — Exposure to socialism and early political protest
• 23:44 — Vagrancy and the horrors of incarceration
• 27:02 — Klondike expedition and party introductions
• 36:23 — Brutal passage through Chilkoot Pass
• 55:04 — Razzle-dazzle river navigation
• 58:28 — Dawson City: lawlessness and fever dreams
• 68:03 — Scurvy, misery, and makeshift mining life
• 71:20 — Return, depression, and literary breakthrough
• 73:25 — Meteoric rise: Call of the Wild and fame
• 79:31 — Jack London’s articulation of socialism
• 81:17 — Prescient warnings of oligarchy and fascism
• 84:12 — Evolving views on race and anti-colonialism
• 89:25 — Early death and literary reputation
• 90:14 — Closing reflections on legacy and the American character

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Tone & Chemistry

The episode blends sharp wit, banter, and irreverent humor with moments of genuine historical reflection. Dave Anthony delivers the narrative with dry sarcasm, while Gareth Reynolds provides almost childlike incredulity and running commentary. NATO Green adds a dose of labor activism and Bay Area sensibility. The atmosphere is both informally academic and chaotically comedic.

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Closing Thoughts

The Dollop’s take on Jack London paints his life as a messy, hard-fought, and deeply American saga. The hosts illuminate not only London’s personal contradictions—bohemian socialist, brute and brain, racist and humanist—but the way these reflect broader tensions in American society, past and present.

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Summary by [Podcast Summarizer AI]

(Ad sections have been omitted. For sources and further reading, see the episode’s end credits.)

Transcript

[A]

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[A]

What the fuck? You've said a lot of mean stuff. How dare you, Gareth Reynolds, who has no idea what the topic is going to be about.

[B]

Our guest tonight is someone who I've wanted to get on the podcast for a long time because I really enjoy his comedy and I respect his comedy, which is very rare. And also he is a union organizer, which is. And he brings that to his comedy, which is a really fucking hard thing to do. And it's good. So. Ladies and gentlemen, NATO Green. Have some wine. Yeah, let's be really unprofessional. I would never drink on stage.

[A]

The couch is such a great vibe for this. Feels like we're on your talk show.

[C]

I overdosed on fentanyl 11 times on the way here tonight. Welcome to San Francisco, this city. Have you tried our fentanyl?

[A]

It's just so bad.

[C]

The terroir of our fentanyl, it's like estate grown.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

I'm so excited to do your show for the first time, and I had a dream about it last night, and in my dream, we were doing the show here, and you were married and Gareth was a woman, and you were excited to report that you had spent your time in San Francisco visiting our famous toothpaste museum, which I love.

[B]

The toothpaste museum.

[A]

Excuse me, you're sleeping on the fact that I'm your lady wife.

[B]

Oh, yeah. Wow, that's 100%. That would.

[A]

Typical Dave. Typical man.

[B]

Most people, when they dream about the podcast, they dream of you as my wife.

[A]

It's interesting. What an interesting thing to say and not blink during. What a crazy thing.

[B]

One of my favorite things about the way things are now is how all conservatives are terrified of cities. Don't you get killed when you walk down the street?

[A]

It's so funny to live your life being like, honey, no, that's a city. What are you doing? Stay rural, drive through this field.

[C]

As a city guy, I've always been scared of the country. Like, if I can't hear screaming and gunshots, I can't sleep.

[B]

No, we all sought deliverance, right?

[C]

Like, I'm a Jew from the city, anything. Like, if I see woods, you know what I mean? Like, I'm immediately murdered.

[A]

That's how it works, right? The wind just whispers, are you low? You look a little low.

[C]

What you do? I didn't see hay until I was 27. Do you know what I mean? I'm so scared of not cities.

[B]

January 12, 1876. Year of our Lord J Town. This is a Christian podcast, by the way.

[C]

I don't know if you know, he has risen.

[B]

He has risen and catching waves. And he's Rad. Look, we all say he's rad. Say it.

[A]

Jesus, Dave. All right.

[B]

John Griffith Chaney was born in San Francisco to Mother Flora, a spiritualist who made her money conducting sciences and teaching music.

[A]

You got to do both. Gotta have. You gotta have a backup. For spiritualism?

[B]

Yeah, absolutely.

[A]

For music teaching.

[C]

A side hustle.

[A]

Yeah. Side hustle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You do music people like? Nah, he's not that good. And then you're like, your grandpa's here. What? Take my watch. Yeah, there's treasure in your yard. Keep digging.

[B]

And his stepdad, who was John London, the boy would take his stepdad's name since his biological father, who was a traveling astrologer, Jesus Christ, skipped out on him. That's the best kind of astrologer. One, that one that's on the move.

[A]

That's definitely like a Tinder job in California. I'm an astrologer.

[B]

Not to confuse the.

[C]

Imagine that dad abandonment conversation with the child. Son, I've got to go tell people what a Sagittarius is.

[A]

You can't do that in town.

[C]

No, I've got to ride the rolling fields and tell people what, their fucking moon sign. I don't even know those things. They're rising.

[A]

It doesn't sound like you even know what you're doing.

[C]

Nobody does. That's the beauty of it.

[A]

I gotta go. Some guys are trying to hang me. Gotta leave town for a little while.

[C]

I misdiagnosed an Aries. I'm on the run.

[A]

And, you know, they're known for their bad tempers. I think that's a cancer, whatever it is.

[B]

Not to confuse the two Johns, right? So he took his dad's name. So it's John London and John London. Little John London started going by what?

[C]

Little John.

[B]

Little John London started going by.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[C]

Thank you. Thank you.

[B]

Starting.

[A]

Okay, all right, all right, all right.

[B]

Everybody just calm down.

[A]

It was. Jesus Christ. And it was good. Little John London. Wait, you went by Jack London?

[B]

Sorry, yes.

[A]

Uh. Oh. Uh. Oh.

[B]

He drank his first beer at five.

[A]

Fuck yeah. Oh, fuck yeah.

[B]

So Jack London endured a typical 19th century working class existence as a child. Before he was a teenager, he worked as a farmhand, a newsie, an ice delivery boy, a bowling alley pin monkey, a grocery boy, and he hunted cats to sell to Chinatown. Just trying to put a little money on the table. Sometimes. Sometimes you gotta hunt cats for Chinatown.

[C]

So you want a tidbit of San Francisco history related to Chinatown?

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

So in the late 19th century, the conventional wisdom of medical science was that Infectious disease was smelled spread by weird odors.

[A]

Sure.

[B]

Still is.

[C]

And so as you know. And so when there was an infectious disease outbreak, because they used different kinds of ingredients in Chinatown, there would be like, race riots and they would just go burn down Chinatown periodically because they blame Chinatown for like. So San Francisco General Hospital originally was a leper colony. That was how it was founded. And where they would put any Chinese people who were sick because they were. That was like the way that the racists police the borders of Chinatown. Welcome to San Francisco. Liberal San Francisco.

[A]

A lot's changed.

[B]

Well, the cool thing is RFK Jr's bringing all that back.

[A]

What a good business model. Can you flip this computer towards me a little? Is that possible? May I?

[C]

Here you go.

[A]

Thank you. Jesus Christ.

[B]

Before. Oh, I did that. All this before he settled into, as a teenager, a 10 cent an hour work at a Dickinson cannery. Dickensian. Cannery.

[A]

Dickensian.

[B]

Dickensian.

[A]

Kenzian. Yeah.

[B]

Like dicks, but can dick. Yeah.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

He said he was treated like a, quote, work beast.

[A]

How old is he?

[B]

He's a child.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

But it sounds like, you know, he can't hold a fucking job.

[A]

Yeah. No, Kids these days. They're just that. They give you a thousand excuses on why they can't work in factories. It's disgusting. I'm little. I don't deserve this. The fumes hurt. My hands aren't working. I'm watching a lot of my friends get hurt in these things. I want to go outside. It's fucking disgusting. You get it?

[C]

10 cents an hour.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

Maybe he wanted to be paid 12 cents an hour.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, here we go. Union guy.

[C]

General strike, everybody.

[B]

Don't listen to him, Luke.

[A]

So fight through the pain, Luke. Fine.

[B]

So Jack couldn't take the grueling conditions of the industrial hellhole anymore and he turned to crime.

[A]

Nice.

[B]

Which. Yeah, that's.

[A]

That's what happens. That's when you call the cops, right?

[B]

Yeah, specifically maritime crime. He became an. Oh, he became an oyster pirate.

[A]

Oh, isn't that a sushi roll?

[B]

I mean, it probably is, yeah.

[A]

Oyster pirate.

[B]

What do you think's on it?

[A]

On an oyster pirate? Yeah, I mean, it's the American version. So it's like rice and avocado and oysters and then like a shitload of sauce that belongs at McDonald's. And we're like, I don't know why I'm not losing weight on my new sushi diet. Supposed to be healthy. Hand me more Thousand island dressing.

[B]

I do hate any sauce on sushi. Crazy fucking Stop it.

[A]

It's crazy.

[B]

So he would poach oysters on private beds in San Francisco Bay on his boat, the Razzle Dazzle.

[A]

That fucking kid is kicking ass.

[B]

I mean, he's a child. Of course he calls it the Razzle Dazzle, dude.

[A]

It's like baby Kenny Powers, he's fucking slamming beers on his boat, stealing oysters and his boat. His boat.

[C]

Yeah, his boat. He's sailing out into the bay as.

[A]

A 10 year old with the Razzle.

[C]

Dazzle on the Razzle Dazzle.

[A]

Yeah. What's up?

[C]

Prepare to be boarded by the pirate. The dread Razzle Dazzle is coming for you and your next up your mignone.

[B]

It's like, oh, shit. Here comes a Razzle Dazzle. Suck them down, boys.

[A]

Jesus Christ. I came here to shuck and to fuck. Who are you? I'm almost 11. What the fuck? All right, everybody chill out. Who's got a grip?

[C]

I brought my special glove for it.

[A]

Yeah, that's right. I got my shuck glove.

[B]

So he was so good as an oyster pirate that he earned more than one month's factory wages in a single night.

[A]

Jeez. So he's like a stripper.

[B]

Yeah, that's how I'd like us to think of the boy.

[A]

I think everyone agrees that's how we should picture this.

[C]

How many oysters is that?

[B]

I don't know, but it's a. Like, this is a shit ton. This is when it was just. They were just fucking everywhere. Like, before we. Yeah, before we ruined oysters in America. But. But, yeah, it's probably. I don't know how many it is, but it's probably a fuckload.

[C]

Like, you're out all night, right, collecting oysters. It wasn't like, oh, I took the Subaru to Tomales bay to pay $37 for four oysters.

[B]

It's. That's what it should be. That's.

[C]

That's how we do now.

[A]

Hunting now.

[B]

Yeah, that's hunting.

[A]

Foraging. I went to the farmer's market.

[B]

No. But I saw a picture of a low tide. This is San Francisco. And it was just all oyster beds, which obviously is not there now.

[A]

Yeah, that was smart.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Just keep eating it. What we don't eat, cover in oil. Bing, bang, boom. It's a toilet. Not meant to be funny. It's a poignant point. Go ahead.

[C]

Thank God we've replaced all those oysters with like, 17 hyatts.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. I mean, those are jobs.

[A]

That's how it works. It's gonna be really good in the end.

[B]

This is the end.

[A]

And it's gonna be awesome. There's people who travel all the time. It's going really good out there. Everywhere.

[B]

So soon, Jack Lennon was being called the Prince of Oyster Pirates.

[A]

Nobody could beat that.

[B]

Nope. In his memoirs, he recalled that life on the waterfront among the hard drinking sailors and unemployed men thrilled him and that he would, quote, rather reign among booze fighters than toil 12 hours a day at a machine.

[A]

100%. I mean, without question, at any age.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Let alone 10 or 11.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

That's fucking great.

[C]

Did he try stand up.

[B]

Start a podcast? London.

[A]

Yeah, he would. He'd be huge on TikTok.

[B]

At 15, he said he drank two Bay Area oyster Pirates under the table.

[A]

That has to be really fucking weird to even agree to that. Sit down. As a grown man. Yeah. All right. I'd like to drink with this child. Yeah. I'll enter a drinking competition with this child.

[B]

It's probably at Specs.

[A]

Near Fairfax. Yeah.

[B]

It was at this time Specs, one.

[C]

Of the last union bars in San.

[B]

One of the last union bars. If you order a course, they will kick you out.

[A]

They got a problem with Nazi water.

[B]

It was at this time that Jack became a lifelong devotee of socialism. No, it's bad. It's bad.

[C]

Wait, hold up. So what was it about drinking the sailors under the table that gets you into socialism?

[B]

I mean, for me.

[A]

Yeah.

[C]

What's that step?

[B]

I don't know what that step is. I think it was more seeing the conditions than it was living as the Prince of Oyster Pirates.

[C]

I hear there's a prince around here. We need to redistribute all these oysters to the people.

[A]

Just like someone in the monarchy.

[B]

He began by joining Coxley's army, the first ever protest march on the White House. I love that conservatives and some liberals were just like, there's no flags at these protests in Los Angeles.

[A]

Yeah, there are just not American ones. Wonder why.

[B]

Coach leaders, men.

[A]

That's exactly right. It is that funny. Now, don't think that you're an outlier. The rest of the people fell short on what just happened. You laughed the right amount. Ridiculous how bad everyone else did.

[B]

Coxley and his men demanded what essentially became the New Deal government funded public works programs. Now, Jack never made it all the way to dc, but his experience with the workin stiffs gave him more insight into the camaraderie among the working class.

[C]

I feel like that snippet is a little bit misleading because it was. Coxley's army marched on the White House, didn't make it to D.C. how far did he get? Like, well, I marching on the White House, but I only made it to Walnut Creek, so. And then we. I. Then I ran out of oysters. I just went back.

[B]

Come on. He made it to Concord.

[C]

Go on, brothers. I'll see you when you get back. Give the White House my regard. Those fuckers. I'll be over here with the oysters.

[A]

It's like the Howard Dean speech. He's like, oh, whatever. I thought we're going to teach anytime at the White House.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

But he was like, ah, I'll stay here. Fuck it, it's over. Really?

[B]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah. He probably was just like, oh, you guys are going to D.C. okay. Ah, well, there's only so much a comrade can do.

[A]

You definitely keep marching and then slowly just fade.

[B]

You don't like walking, you start walking backwards, looking like you're marching forwards.

[A]

We're going all the way. We're going all the way.

[C]

I mean, that's literally why we haven't overthrown the government yet. Like, if you look around the world where they overthrow the government, people don't go home. But here, people are gonna go to the march and be like, I'm gonna march until they go by the taqueria and then I'll peel out.

[B]

Yeah, yeah. Which taqueria are we talking about, though?

[C]

It's strictly Cancun. Right. So.

[B]

Yeah, I mean, it's just the same thing that they're like, march on the sidewalks. Okay, okay. Yeah. We like to follow rules and, like, bail on shit.

[C]

Right. That's why all of our marches are only, like, from Civic center down Market street to Justin Herman Plaza or from Justin Herman Plaza down Market street to Civic Center. We just. We're ready to overthrow the government. If we can do it on the one street only.

[A]

Have them come to us. Move DC here.

[B]

Yeah. If you want to fuck with shit. If you want a real protest, you don't do it in one area. You do it in many areas at once, all over your city. Because they can't defend that.

[A]

Officer.

[B]

I'm. So you told us we have cops here tonight. So you told us to get the instigators to yell out, well, that's.

[A]

We got one. Who else thinks that guy's right?

[B]

Oh, and arrest. Drop the gas.

[A]

We only have like four.

[B]

So.

[C]

Dave, everybody knows if you want to overthrow the government, you have to leave the city and go to the suburbs. Because it is really pretty easy to overwhelm a small town police department.

[B]

Oh, my God, they really don't know what they're doing.

[C]

Once I had two cop cars pull up on me. Corta Madera. And I was like, send all of you. And they were like, we are. All of us.

[A]

We're looking for backup. You have him?

[C]

Oh, we're waiting for backup from Rohnert Park.

[B]

Most in the. In the suburbs, most of the cops are just harassing teenagers and taking their beer. Raspberry. At least that was what it was like for me. I used to play poker with. When I was in high school. I had an older buddy.

[C]

Did you drink them under the table?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Are you.

[B]

And I would bring my bag of oysters and they'd bring their booze. But he had two cops who were friends. And that's how we got all the liquor and drugs. Cause they would just confiscate it and then bring it.

[A]

Used to be cool, man. They used to be cool.

[B]

Those are the days. They don't do that now. Now cops are awesome. So it became the New Deal. He had camaraderie with the working class and the panic of 1893 raging and decimating the American economy, which was partially caused by the McKinley Tariff act that raised tariffs 50%.

[A]

Okay. Oh, and we've learned a lot since those ones. And so now we got good ones.

[B]

Yeah. 120%.

[A]

Yep. Yeah. You're saying, like, that's that good?

[B]

Yeah. Make them more.

[A]

Yeah, Exactly. Yeah.

[B]

It's working.

[A]

Yeah. Let him cook.

[B]

So Jack became a hobo. So Jack rode the rails and saw the degradation of American life for a growing portion of doing it. Really? Yeah. He's doing was the worst depression ever until the next one. And Jack wrote about his experience lambasting liberals for their ideas of philanthropy. Quote. Oh, you charity mongers.

[A]

By the way, I like how you said philanthropy like Tony Soprano. Philanthropy.

[B]

Philanthropy. Oh, you charity mongers. Go to the poor and learn for the poor alone are the charitable. Charity is the bone shared with the dog when you are just as hungry as the dog.

[A]

Damn. He should be a writer. That's pretty good.

[B]

Thinking of a different.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[B]

He was arrested for vagrancy for sleeping on a sidewalk when he traveled to see Niagara Falls and put in a New York prison for 30 days. That would be.

[A]

That's what HBO Max is changing its name to, by the way. Hobos. What are you now? We don't know. Quote.

[B]

I was down in the cellar of society. Down in the subterranean depths of misery. This is in prison. Oh, I was in the pit. The abyss. The human cesspool. The shambles and the charnel house of our civilization. I was scared into thinking, oh, God damn, that's a nightmare. Who wants to be scared of thinking.

[A]

Oh, that's what you did to me. You're a rot prick, you are. I'm so.

[B]

I'm sorry.

[A]

Oh, I can't say. Mad at you, little guy. Such a cutie.

[B]

So he vowed to stop subsisting on brawn and switch gears to pursue his studies and become a, quote, brain merchant. So the time in an upstate New York prison terrified him into going back to San Francisco, and here he joined the Socialist Labor Party, and he enrolled in UC Berkeley and started giving public speeches demanding labor reform. Did that for about a year until he ran out of money, and then he got kicked out of school. By 1897, he became a sailor. And by 1897, he was an expert sailor. And he sailed across the Pacific Ocean.

[A]

Jesus.

[B]

He was an expert brawler, having drank his way from pub to pub across several waterfronts.

[A]

Wait, an expert brawler?

[B]

Yeah, he would just get in drunken fights.

[A]

Oh, okay. That's what I figured it meant.

[B]

What did you think it might mean?

[A]

That. But I was like, what is an expert brawler? Like, I beat the shit out of people. Well, like, he trained. Not.

[C]

Not just that he did it a lot, but. Yeah, he, like, had mastery.

[A]

Oh, yeah. Skills, sure.

[B]

Like, he had a. He had a sensei.

[A]

I don't now we're definitely. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah, he did.

[A]

Mm.

[B]

It was like a wash on, wash off situation.

[A]

Stop it right now.

[B]

With fists and booze.

[C]

There had been a training montage of some sort.

[B]

Yeah, there's a training montage.

[A]

Listen, you guys need to stop pretending like the Karate Kid story is what's happening, because I'm going to start buying into it.

[B]

In July, the steamer ship Excelsior came in from Alaska and docked.

[C]

You know, back then at UC Berkeley, you could just major in fist fighting. It was like a whole department. Department of fisticuff studies.

[B]

That's right. You can still do that at the University of Texas.

[A]

Leave them alone. They're figuring it out.

[B]

They are not.

[A]

Yeah, they are.

[B]

They're absolutely not figuring it out.

[A]

Yeah, what if our entire school is.

[B]

Funded by a football game?

[A]

Okay, forget water. Let's figure out the bathroom. The bat. Making weed illegal is the greatest thing that they could have done for all the people. Like, bingo. Move. What? No. Fuck.

[B]

The best thing ever is Joe Rogan moving to a state that made pot illegal.

[A]

Oh, great.

[B]

So good.

[A]

It is fucking great.

[B]

So this steamship Excelsior comes to a. Comes from Alaska docks in San Francisco. And it has thousands of pounds of gold on it because they had discovered gold. And word gets out and there starts one of the most insane gold rushes in human history. So the Yukon is harsh, brutal. It's a violent territory. That's if you survive the trip to get there.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

It's estimated one in 15 men died before reaching the gold fields.

[A]

So.

[B]

But those are good odds.

[A]

I was gonna say. You do kind of like it a little.

[B]

Yeah. 14 guys lived.

[A]

Yeah. A little too many for my. Honestly, I'd be like, hey, some of these other guys got a drop.

[B]

So you would kill guys on the way there?

[A]

No.

[B]

Make it harder for them.

[A]

Yes, yes. Slowly make it more difficult. Yeah, yeah.

[C]

Just eat their gruel in the mess hall.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How do you eat gruel?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

How do you do it again?

[A]

Yeah. That's the beauty of gruel. If you could get it, you could slurp it. It's a slurper. It's a Stewie. It's like paper mache. You could just slip her down. All right, you're both looking at me the same way, so I'm gonna take it out. All right. So grand.

[B]

So Jack obviously did not want to be one of the guys who dies.

[A]

Interesting.

[B]

He's 21.

[A]

Jesus Christ. Definitely felt older.

[C]

An expert fighter.

[A]

Expert fighter.

[C]

Prince of Oysters.

[A]

Prince of Oysters used to be on the Razzle Dazzle. He's done it all.

[B]

And he goes with his six year old brother in law.

[A]

Six sixty. That's better. I'm married.

[B]

And they packed up some goods and they got on a steamship for Alaska.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

While they're on the ship, they meet three other gold seekers from the area. Ira, who was a carpenter and weighed a little less than £100.

[A]

What? Well, we know one out of the fucking 15 is gone now. I guarantee you Ira's gone. That's why he brought it up under a hundred pounds. Hey, I'm ready to go. We eatin soon. Oh, little Lyra. Bye bye, buddy. How long's the trip? It's quite a while, you idiot.

[C]

This feels vaguely anti Semitic to me somehow. There's some sickly Jew carpenter aboard the Excelsior.

[A]

I want to walk away from my Ira impression immediately. Obviously I did not know.

[C]

No, lean into it, goy.

[A]

No, it's not a good. All right, fine. I got the pass.

[B]

This is a work.

[A]

Of course he's going to get gold. We're having a laugh. If we can't laugh.

[C]

It'S for the coins for Hanukkah.

[A]

Yes. Hey.

[B]

Also there was Fred, a red haired court reporter who kept a diary.

[A]

Interesting. This feels like clue like you're setting up. I'm like, so far both those guys should be gone. We're putting together a gang. Yeah. Oh yeah. We got the guy under 100 pounds and a redhead before sunscreen.

[B]

Yeah. The guy, 100 pound a guy is like, I'm a snitch.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah.

[C]

Ocean's 15. I mean 14.

[A]

I mean nine.

[B]

And then big Jim.

[A]

Big Jim makes it.

[B]

He's the only one who had his experience as a minor.

[A]

Yeah, he. Jim, Big Jim makes it.

[B]

So they docked in Skagway and undertook the deadliest and most grueling part of the journey, which was the Chilkoot pass.

[A]

I can't imagine getting off that ship and then having to do that.

[B]

Yeah, this is. None of this is worth it. No, none of it's worth it. It's just like, why would you. I don't like, just for like. If there was skiing at the top, I wouldn't do that.

[A]

Yeah. No.

[C]

4 out of 15 die walking up the hill.

[B]

Yeah. So it's a very narrow, ice choked mountain trail that rose a mile in elevation in a very short amount of time.

[A]

That's good though. You want that?

[B]

So there's a brutal bottleneck where men and animals died by the thousands.

[A]

Sure.

[C]

There's nothing like seafaring to prepare you for hard cardio.

[A]

Absolutely.

[B]

It's okay, boys. I know oysters. Jack quote, dead horses were everywhere.

[A]

Oh, that's good. That's good. You want that? The trail once again. Yes.

[B]

The trail was a boneyard. One could not walk 100ft.

[C]

That's what she said. What's up?

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Woo.

[A]

Welcome to the boneyard. That's what I call my room. I have erectile dysfunction. I didn't expect you to come all.

[C]

The way home up the Chigwit path.

[A]

All right, now it's time for a lot of disclaimers. I apologize. Here's a to go bag and a note that says, I'm sorry. You bought me this bullshit. I go down on you.

[B]

What is that?

[A]

My mouth gets sore quick, so I'll stop early. I should have trained my job, but once again, I didn't think this was gonna happen.

[C]

Is this a seance?

[A]

Yes. Yes. The only thing that'll be rising is the dead.

[B]

So you could not walk 100ft without stepping over or around carcasses.

[A]

That's cool though.

[B]

That's what she said.

[A]

Jesus Christ. Right?

[B]

So Rich guys go that way, and then there's overland, and then there's the worst route over here, right?

[A]

Jesus Christ.

[B]

But where the fuck are rich guys going?

[A]

Come. You know, they're like. I mean, they got to do something. They're like, look at me. Yeah, it's like when, you know, the Trumps go hunt elephants in Africa. Like, whoa. Like, they made that? They. There's something to show. It's for the gram. If you keep looking at me, I'm gonna leave the show. Stop it.

[B]

Okay, so here's the crazy thing. You don't cross the trail once the Canadian government is getting sick of just dumb Americans going up there unprepared and dying of hunger.

[A]

Let them go.

[B]

So they made a rule. Every man had to bring 2,000 pounds of supplies with him, which was enough to last a year.

[A]

2,000 pounds.

[B]

Wait, okay, so this meant. Yeah, you had to cross the Chilkoot Pass dozens of times to bring all your supplies.

[A]

Oh, my God.

[B]

Including the most infamous section, which is the golden stairs, a steep 1500 step path carved into ice.

[A]

Holy. So they're just being like, don't do this.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

All right. I brought all my stuff. Should only be about 200 trips.

[B]

How in the fuck do we discourage dumb Americans?

[A]

Like, when they see them, are they fucking. What the fuck are they doing? We got all our stuff, what we packed.

[C]

I'm going to leave mine in a pile here and then I'm going to go up and then I'm going to leave some in a pile there and I'm going to come back and get.

[A]

It and do it.

[C]

Just keep an eye on it for me, will you?

[A]

You don't think it's going to snow up here or anything like that, do you? Because that would really be a flaw in my plan. Jesus Christ, Jack.

[B]

Quote, I climbed that pass 30 times, each with a 50 pound load. My shoulders bled through my coat.

[A]

What the.

[B]

I've done that, though.

[A]

Why?

[B]

To get the gold, baby.

[A]

Really?

[B]

If you get up there, you're gonna be so rich.

[A]

There's not enough gold for new shoulders at this time.

[C]

You really don't see people with that level of like, drive, drive anymore.

[B]

No, it's just Elon.

[A]

It's just Elon is that grind mentality, dude.

[C]

It's that grind mentality.

[A]

He's on the grind set.

[C]

Yeah. Like now it's just like, I'm gonna send my drone to get the gold for me.

[A]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. Interesting.

[B]

Oh, no. Kids. Yeah, the kids are definitely like, my kid. He's like, yeah, I don't want to work. And I was like. My wife's like, what? And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, you shouldn't want to work.

[A]

Now I'm gonna go out into the yard and put on the clamps. No, that's the whole thing with like the. The. With like the Medicaid cuts and stuff. But they're just like. I mean, there's so many people who are just playing video games. You're like, so fucking.

[B]

Yeah, why not?

[A]

What the fuck? Fuck you.

[B]

Why can't people who.

[A]

You got to go to where you have to work. You have to work. Why? You just have to.

[B]

At the same time, they're like. And I is taking all the jobs, all the jobs.

[A]

And I get eight weeks paid vacation a year and the best health care in the world. You have to work.

[B]

They should kill them. So.

[A]

That should be what you have to do to work in the Senate. I agree. Yeah. And then you're like, all right, Yeah.

[C]

I would feel better about it if there were more senators with bloody shoulders.

[A]

Oh, yes. Every bill they're passing is like a new shoulder skin grafting bill. So many Americans are suffering with shoulder strapitis. You sure? Ah. Order. Oh, never mind. Ah. Ah. All they talk about.

[B]

Only a few months after they went through an avalanche, claimed 60 lives in minutes on the trek. Many gold seekers went mad and turned back. Or they took their own lives.

[A]

Oh, that's like. That's fucking nuts. How can you even tell that they.

[B]

Took their own life?

[A]

Well, you just like, lay down. Wouldn't that be the fastest way to do it?

[B]

Or you could. You could slight slice your throat or that's fucking self. Pop out your eyes with a spoon.

[A]

Yeah, you're definitely entering Fantasies ville.

[B]

You could smash your head with a rock.

[A]

Oh, Jesus.

[B]

You could set your monkey loose.

[A]

All right. Okay. Hey, once we get into the monkey.

[B]

By the way, I'm bringing a monkey with me to the Klondike. No one else is gonna have a monkey. I'm gonna make a fortune.

[A]

The monkey's dead. Fuck. I didn't think about how little his organs are.

[B]

I just thought they could handle the snow situation.

[A]

Weren't there snow monkeys? I thought that was.

[B]

There should be, but there are.

[A]

But you brought a capuchin. That is a tropical monkey, sir.

[B]

Yeah, but they're really fun. Or they were. He's not as fun now, by the way.

[A]

He took his own life. I'm 100%. There's no way he didn't want to stay a part of this.

[B]

Come On. He's a capuchin.

[A]

Capuchin?

[B]

Capuchin.

[A]

Not a kombuchain. He's not a fucking mushroom. Drink.

[B]

Why not? Or actually he is.

[A]

Now. I still don't think that's.

[B]

I'm gonna cook him.

[A]

All right.

[B]

Starvation, hypothermia, dysentery and frostbite were rampant. Jack wrote of the physical toll quote, our hands cracked and bled, teeth loosened in the gums.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Why is. Why, why is it cold?

[A]

Yeah. I don't know. Yeah, your fucking mouth is frozen.

[B]

Gates became shuffles. We had entered the kingdom of frost.

[C]

If only they could have anticipated.

[A]

So.

[B]

Hey, boys. Bring socks.

[C]

One pair should be sufficient. You got a lot of stuff to schlep over the pass.

[A]

£2,000, maybe a couple pairs of socks max.

[B]

And if it gets really bad, you just turn Ira into socks. He's not making it. What are we doing?

[A]

Too soon. We just found out about him.

[B]

Jack's brother in law was in so much pain from his rheumatism that he turned and left. Who goes with rheumatism? You know what? Everything hurts. I should go to the Klondike.

[A]

Maybe it'll all freeze. I'll be numb.

[B]

So once they crossed the pass, they still had almost 600 miles to travel with £2,000 of gear each.

[A]

What the fuck? So what do they do once they're just continuing to do the up and down with their 2,000 pounds of shit?

[B]

I guess so, yeah, they gotta. Yeah, I mean, you can't.

[A]

That's why we gotta take over Canada. That rules bullshit.

[B]

Too soon.

[A]

I agree. We can't come soon enough. We'll show them.

[B]

The dollop is brought to you by Helix Sleep. Gareth. I use what is known as a Apple Watch when I go to Beddy Buy. And you use an aura. And these things, these things that we're talking about, well, they keep track of your sleep. They're like, how good are you sleeping? How sexy you sleeping? How many times does the, you know, little guy come up and. And I'm sleeping like a baby. I sleep awesome. Now.

[A]

Helix Mattresses, yeah, they're great. You and I share the same kind of bed. But a lot of the other stuff is certainly outside the parameters of what is being asked of you.

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Right.

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I think it's just. Do you love your mattress?

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I love.

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Do you love your California Ducks luxe?

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I do.

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Because you took your quiz online. All right, there you go. Nobody needs to hear about your little whatever.

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And they, they pointed me out the best mattress and now I have a Mattress that I sleep. Great.

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Stop.

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And sometimes just, you know, go out.

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Stop, stop.

[B]

So, look, Gareth loves his animals.

[A]

Don't go for long, by the way. There's some of that is. That's all corded.

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You ever seen a. You ever seen a turtle?

[A]

Yeah. Violent screams. Shocking what they're. Yes, that's true. Have you never heard of a turtle duo?

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Look, Helix mattresses are the best mattresses out there.

[A]

Yeah.

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My whole family sleeps on them now. Garrett sleeps on them. Who's not part of my family?

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Well, but your family sometimes comes over here. We all go in there.

[B]

Yeah. And your mom thinks my mattress is super comfortable.

[A]

All right.

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And my. My sleep has improved. I used to get a little bit of a backache. I used to feel hot on my other mattress. Now the Helix, none of that's happening. Sleeping like a baby. Huge upgrade. Comes to your house in a box. You open it up, it puffs up in front of you. It's crazy to watch.

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Little genie.

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[A]

That's your other option. Go ahead.

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So go to helixsleep.com dollop for 25% off, statewide exclusive for listeners of the Dollop. That's helixsleep.com dolop for 27% off statewide exclusive for listeners of the Dolph. Make sure you enter our show name after checkout so they know we sent you helixsleep.com dollop Gareth Adult is also brought to you by Squarespace.

[A]

Dave, come on.

[B]

Podcast is brought to you by Squarespace.

[A]

This is a Squarespace podcast.

[B]

It is. I mean, it should be. It should just be called the Squarespace.

[A]

I don't think it's. It doesn't help. No, I don't agree, but I love Squarespace and every website we're associated with a Squarespace. That's right, because you can't beat it.

[B]

Easy, easy.

[A]

The best.

[B]

No, no. Update. Like, know how to update stuff. It does it all on its own. They got.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

For seven. Customer service.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

They got everything you need. You want to sell stuff? We're selling stuff on our website.

[A]

Yeah, Yeah. I don't know if we've even mentioned that. Go to the dollar.

[B]

Mention it.

[A]

I don't think so. Go to dalla.podcast.com. there's now a merch tab where you can really peer inside the mind of Luke and what he creates, but that's all Squarespace. And they make it really so easy. A Luke can do it. Should be a Squarespace tag.

[B]

Gareth, you could set up a premium workshop, which I'm. I'm hoping you do.

[A]

I, I did I tell you that I did do that. And I lost a thumb. Can you believe that?

[B]

Yes.

[A]

Yeah. Right off.

[B]

So look, we are obviously big fans of Squarespace, so go to squarespace.com dub for a free trial. When you're ready to Launch, use offer code DOLLOP to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain. That's squarespace.com for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use over code dollop to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Gareth. We are also brought to you by Rocket Money. Rocket Money course is a personal finance app that helps you find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and helps lower your bills so you can grow your savings. And that's what it's done for me and Gareth for. For me. I canceled subscriptions.

[A]

I got one for you right here. I don't mean to. I'm not, I'm not trying to attack any, anyone. But look, there was a home workout app that I still had.

[B]

Oh yeah.

[A]

It was hidden. And, And Rocket Money not only said you don't need this anymore, it said you should be working out still. But you're paying. You shouldn't be paying to work to not work out so well.

[B]

The other thing that they get you is they get you with the yearly subscription instead of month.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Completely slips by. Like that's a really.

[A]

And somet. Sometimes you'll be. Yep. Sometimes you'll just be like, oh, you know, if you don't do it soon enough, you'll be like, you just missed it. And then, you know, $113 later.

[B]

Yeah. And it's a year. And then you forget about it.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

That's how they get you. And also, Rocket Money renegotiated my. My yearly Internet subscription and saved me three.

[A]

I. I'm actually a player on the Brooklyn Nets now. Rocket Money negotiated me a deal to be a third string point guard. Stop.

[B]

Third string point guard.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. I'm coming off the bench.

[B]

So you're not. You're not playing. So you're not playing bench.

[A]

I'll see some time and blowouts.

[B]

Besides that lie, Rocket fan favorite million members have saved a total of 500 million in canceled subscriptions, with members saying saving up to $740 a year when they use all the app's premium features. That's a Pretty sweet deal, kiddo.

[A]

Wow, what a demeaning. What a demeaning.

[B]

Better than punk. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney.com dollop today. That's RocketMoney.com dollop RocketMoney.com dollop oh, actually, wait.

[A]

They asked me to do this. Rocket Money gonna save you some pocket money. Rocket Money. There's no way they get it.

[B]

It's really not good.

[A]

What? That was produced by Kenny Loggins, dude.

[B]

It wasn't.

[A]

Yeah, it was.

[B]

Don't besmirch Loggins.

[A]

Dave. This is a live episode. Which one is this? What do we got here?

[B]

This is. This is. No, tonight's. This is. Oh, yeah, it's live. Yeah, this is Jack London.

[A]

I really thought we had a miscommunication and we were about to record an episode while I'm sitting here freezing. We should point out that on Wednesday, if you haven't already joined, we are doing a live three part on Patreon 700th episode. So it'll be 700 to 703. We will be recording but with James Adomian and the. The subject is President William Jefferson Clinton. And so if you're not a part of Patreon, might be a good time to start as well as. We just, we just watched Under Siege on Patreon. We're watching a lot of Seagal stuff and we, we've also watched, we watched and commented on the. On the Seagal SNL episode which felt longer a full length feature movie or the one hour edited Steven Seagal Seagal. By far the snl.

[B]

Painful.

[A]

Unreal. Unreal. You'd rather have a root canal. But if you want to enjoy any of that, go to. Go to our Patreon. Very easy, very fun, lots of cool stuff. So enjoy this episode everybody.

[B]

I'm going to work out now, so if you want to come over and smell. Smell me about 45 minutes.

[A]

You can. What's going on?

[B]

Smell it later.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

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Yep.

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[C]

Ran out of money to go to UC Berkeley.

[B]

That's right.

[C]

He couldn't think of any other way to pay college tuition.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Oh, shit. Well, we're out of oysters, so I've hocked the. I sent the razzle dazzle to the pawn shop. I'm out of options to pay for my tuition.

[A]

Well, you know what I'm doing next, obviously.

[B]

Well, it's time for the walk of death.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So after a grueling 16 miles, which.

[A]

Jax.

[C]

Do you want to try bartending?

[A]

No, I'm going to go to Alaska and schlep for gold.

[C]

Do you want to do some. Some carpentry maybe or.

[A]

That sounds. No, no.

[C]

Do you want to work in a library?

[A]

No, no.

[B]

I want to go somewhere right after my feet cut off.

[A]

I want my hand cracks to finally explore themselves.

[B]

Okay, so it's 16 miles. But it's much more than that because like you said, they have to repeatedly go back and get gear. And so they are making double. Well, yeah. So they came to the Yukon river and they chopped down trees and built a 27.

[A]

You imagine just chopping down trees without any of this after all this, like now we have to chop down a forest.

[B]

No. If we get to the point where they're like, and now we chop down trees to build the boat, I'm like, well, I'm dead.

[A]

Yeah, I can't do this anymore. Throw my supplies on me.

[B]

So they built a 20, 27 foot long boat.

[A]

They built the boat. Jesus.

[C]

I guess Ira survived. It's my moment to shine. Glad you guys didn't eat me 500 miles ago.

[B]

So the boat worked very well and they crossed a series of lakes and began the 500 mile voyage to gold country.

[A]

Jesus Christ.

[B]

And as they approached a set of very dangerous rapids, they saw most other men carrying their boats and gear to pass the rapids on dry land.

[A]

Yep. So that's what you do.

[B]

Jack was an excellent sailor. He's like, boys, I'm an oyster pirate.

[A]

I know how rapids work. I'm a sailor. Coming about.

[B]

Jack say he wants to put a little bit of his old razzle dazzle into the trip.

[A]

Trust me.

[B]

Hundreds of would be miners dropped their supplies and jeered as Jack steered perfectly through the water. They ran the canyon in two minutes.

[A]

Nope.

[C]

It's like the Castle Run.

[B]

It's like the Castle Run. White Castle.

[A]

No.

[C]

From Han Solo did the Castle run. And some. Some parsecs.

[A]

Someone just said no. Which I don't think is the right response.

[B]

Are you. Are you guys getting mad about Star wars facts right now?

[C]

Whatever.

[A]

Are you arguing the Star Wars? No, you're not. You're just upset that he did it.

[C]

Under 12 parsecs. I said under something something. Yeah. So 12 was implied.

[A]

Checkmate. Up top.

[B]

Man. You fucking. You fell for that so hard. Oh my God. Set up and slammed. I don't know why. Are we gonna go on?

[C]

We talked about the Kessel Run. We're done.

[B]

Over at the next set of rapids with much bigger and scarier waves, Jack assured his partners that everything would be.

[A]

All right too CoC.

[B]

His exceptional boatmanship saved the day. No damage was done, except one snapped paddle.

[A]

Wow. Good for him.

[B]

In fact, Jack was so confident that he doubled back and helped a young couple who had accidentally gone into the rapid.

[A]

Let's go back up the other way. Up the rapids. Jack. What? Trust me, I'm as cocky as they come. Stop. For what I call a little razzle dazzle. Let's dance, Jack. Now as a matter of fact, let's go back to the boats. Jack.

[C]

I'm about to teach these Alaska rapids a thing or two about the mean streets of Alameda.

[B]

Yes. We helped a couple who were stuck in the rapids.

[A]

It's nice. Yeah.

[B]

They finally made it to the capital of the Yukon gold rush. Dawson city. Of the 100,000 gold rushers, fewer than 30,000 made it to Dawson.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

That's still too many.

[A]

Too many. Yeah.

[B]

And only a few actually struck gold. Most lost everything.

[A]

That's the worst outcome possible.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I made it. It was a mistake.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Financially I'm ruined. Shoulder wise, I'm ruined. I lost all my family.

[B]

Those, those are the same.

[C]

Just like crypto.

[B]

I love.

[A]

This is crypto.

[B]

I love crypto. Guys right now, they're like, oh, so I'm the dumb one, right? Give it a little bit. But these are the same numbers as stand up comedy. 30, 30,000 get through couple, couple strike gold.

[C]

We're all working on sperm odds.

[A]

That is. I'm glad no one told me that when I started because I'd have been like, I'm fucking done. I'm not doing this sperm.

[B]

Jack observed the futility quote. Gold was not the madness Hope was. They died chasing a yellow lie wrapped in FL frost.

[A]

I mean, all well and good for him, but he's among them.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You know he's up there too.

[B]

Yeah. Dawson was as much of a city as could exist in a place where temperatures often went below negative 70 degrees.

[A]

Oh my God, just let me die. Just put it's got five hats on his hand. That'll be nice. Staying warm.

[B]

I once pumped gas and it was one of those. It was. You couldn't, you know, it didn't have the thing. Yeah, the thing. The doodle. In Nebraska when it was like zero, but wind chill was negative 30 and I was like, I'm going to die. I'm not going to make it through this. Like it's fucking crazy. Like you're just standing out. So how the fuck now imagine that.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah. Who had it harder?

[B]

Me.

[A]

Yeah. I agree.

[B]

None of these guys had to pump gas.

[A]

No. I know now it's disgusting.

[B]

Fucking comedy.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

It was a swampy settlement with makeshift cabins and tents sprouting every which way. The combination of the frostbitten landscape, the paranoia of someone stealing your gold and the alienation from civilization led to some very weird shit.

[A]

It doesn't sound like it.

[C]

Podcasting.

[B]

Men would offer the town's few women their literal weight in gold to marry them.

[A]

Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, God. Why would women even stay there? Run.

[B]

Because they get gold.

[A]

Yeah. Even then, I'd be like, nah, I'll figure it out somewhere else.

[B]

I mean, if you're a sex worker, you're making a fort.

[A]

Yeah, if you're a sex worker, but you're also like, I'm good. I'm actually taking a few days off. This is fucking crazy.

[B]

They pay nearly $3,000 for a box of oranges. What? But yeah, because you say they paid nearly $3,000 for a box of oranges.

[A]

What?

[B]

We're going to have that soon.

[A]

Wait.

[B]

They'D literally bathe in expensive champagne. And one. But.

[A]

But that's like one of those things where it's like, okay, so you got fucking sticky and needed a bath. Like a bath again. That's nice.

[B]

It's just fun.

[A]

Well, it's not. It's on paper.

[B]

Here's one for you. And one man bought the entire town's supply of eggs to impress a burlesque dancer.

[A]

Bingo. And let me tell you from experience, it works. How do you like that? Would you like another egg?

[C]

Love a frittata.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Oh, boy, do they.

[A]

How about a banging quiche, huh? You like that?

[B]

Don't wink at me when you say banging quiche.

[C]

Yeah, it's pronounced quickie.

[A]

Yeah. How about I scramble these eggs and then scramble those eggs, huh? What do you say? Huh?

[B]

So in Dawson restaurant, I'm in.

[A]

That sounds good.

[B]

In Dawson, crime rates were basically that of a war zone. Street justice, frontier law, and vigilantism dominated. There was a code. Don't steal another man's gold. Don't cheat at cards, and don't touch another man's wife.

[A]

Yeah, that's good. Codes are good. They're followed.

[B]

If you do, don't get caught. If you did get caught, you could expect public floggings, branding, banishment from the camp, which is basically a death sentence. Hanging without a trial.

[A]

A death sentence.

[B]

Tarring and feathering or other public humiliation.

[C]

You know, I'm gonna pick branding. Oh.

[B]

You know what?

[A]

I'd like to be flogged.

[B]

Yeah, I wouldn't want the flogging.

[C]

Could I pick where I get branded?

[B]

No.

[A]

Tramp stamp. Me. Let's say daddy's girl.

[B]

I do branding, too.

[C]

Sure.

[B]

Yeah. Out of all those, the choice between.

[C]

Branding and tarring and feathering.

[A]

Tar feather.

[B]

You're doing tar feather 100. So you're. I just. I'm just sitting.

[A]

Think of all the eggs I'd lay if I had all the eggs and I was tarred and feathered. That's awesome. That's a look. That's a vibe back to that burlesque show. I did the full transformation.

[B]

You sold me a chicken. Granted, a large chicken, but it is shit.

[A]

I can hear you, motherfucker. I'm doing the best I can with what I have. Every day I'm out there trying.

[B]

All you do is eat.

[A]

I don't know how to produce eggs. I don't know how it works. I've been a chicken for like four days on account of I beg Todd's wife. Now I'm a chicken. I'm trying. I'm sorry.

[B]

His wife's a monkey.

[A]

What?

[B]

In one case, a man accused of stealing was tied to a post in Dawson Square with a sign that read Thief. Watch me die.

[A]

And I didn't write that.

[B]

Should I. Should I put him. Watch him die or should I put watch me.

[A]

First person.

[B]

First person. Yeah, watch me die. Yeah, but aren't people gonna be like, why would he write that?

[A]

He won't be there to answer that question.

[B]

But then if he wrote it also, this would be very hard.

[A]

All right, do it Eminem style. Do em.

[B]

Watch m die.

[A]

Yeah, because he's like doing it. I don't know. He's doing in the mirror. It was your note. Well, I'm dead.

[B]

I mean, I'm a court reporter, so I get very stuck on this shit.

[A]

I'm dead.

[C]

I'm the guy who Ira really came in handy on the gallows. They really thank God they had a carpenter like, Ira, can you build some stuff? Yo, you want houses or a seesaw or.

[A]

He builds it. He's like putting the walls on.

[B]

No, guillotine is what we're gallows. So he was forced to survive a negative 70°, 70° winter night. But he somehow survived. But then he was chased out by a classic torch wielding mob.

[A]

Always Jack.

[C]

Jack was.

[B]

No, this is the guy that they got tied up. Watch me die.

[A]

But the other thing about a tar and feather tar, hot feathers. You know, that's what blankets are made of. You know, it's like a duvet insulation. Yeah, it's your whole. Your whole body's warmer.

[B]

We know that tar then cools feathers.

[A]

Do not. It's like I'm a Dao.

[B]

Jack quote. There were no courts in the snow. There were guns, ropes and a great.

[A]

Silence Afterward, I wish there was snow court. That'd be awesome. So. Whoa.

[B]

Jack was lucky to stay away from all that stuff. In fact, he even stayed away from mining. He was more interested in spending time at the local bars observing the sourdoughs, what is what they called seasoned miners. Listening to their stories and learning all he could through conversation. Jack became friends with two brothers and camped outside their cabin. And he became very close with the men, but even closer to their 140 pound St Bernard Scotch Collie mix whose name was also Jack.

[A]

Whoa.

[B]

One of the brothers admired Jack's rapport with dogs.

[A]

Quote.

[B]

Jack always spoke and acted toward the dog as if he recognized his noble qualities. He had an appreciative and instant eye for fine traits and honored them in a dog as he would a man.

[A]

Good.

[B]

He's a dog guy.

[A]

Yeah. It's great.

[B]

So soon. Like him.

[A]

It's very likable.

[B]

That December when the weather was at its worst, Jack left Dawson and headed eight miles upriver, joining his old partners where they'd stake to claim they live mostly on canned meat, bread and beans and whatever they could kill. It's like us in the van.

[A]

It's a very. It's very similar. And I can only imagine what was happening.

[B]

They had to chop water out of the river with an axe.

[A]

Chop water. I'm going to go cut some water down for you.

[C]

I'm thirsty and feeling stabby.

[A]

It really took my brain a minute to get through that.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Going to go chop some water.

[B]

They would light fires to thaw the ground and dig for gold.

[A]

Oh my God.

[B]

That's not going to work.

[A]

No.

[B]

Obviously it didn't they but found practically none. They were in sort of a makeshift cabin complex along the river, often hanging out with their neighbors and playing cards to pass the time.

[A]

I don't think they really wanted to find. No. To be quite. Yeah. They just were like, it's we're up here now. I'm tired still from the walk.

[B]

Yeah. More beans. Almost every single one of these men would become characters in Jack's novels. So soon enough, because of the lack of fruits and veggies, they all caught scurvy. And Jack got it the worst. They called it arctic leprosy. And it killed many prospectors. His gums bled, his joints ached and he lost strength. All he could do to try and stop it was eat boiled beans and brush his teeth with salt.

[A]

Jesus Christ. There are a lot of times where. There are a lot of times where genuinely thought someone fell. There are a lot of times where you look back. I mean, we've talked about it a bunch, but it's like, you'll look back and be like, oh, there's no plumbing. Like, people are just shitting in the streets or however, like society that truly is eating boiled beans and brushing with salt. Well, first of all, salt the beans.

[C]

I'm glad he was still committed to dental hygiene, though.

[A]

Yeah, he was trying.

[C]

Like, I always read, like, when I read books about things that happened a long time ago. Like, I always wish, like, in, you know, like, the Three Musketeers that there wasn't dental hygiene. And so then I imagine the characters that half the dialogue was like, your breast stinks.

[A]

Oh, yeah.

[B]

Oh, yeah.

[A]

We've talked. We definitely have talked about, like, the. The bread.

[B]

Like, the smells.

[A]

Just the smells. And the way, like, talking to someone, you'd be like, smells like shit. And they'd be like, he stinks like shit. You're. Everything was like, man, fucking stinks. Yeah, smells like shit. There was just a nice light change on that one, too. Those lighting was like, fucking bingo. Time to work a little magic up there.

[C]

Oh, I thought that was a planned light queue.

[A]

Yeah, no, we're doing. Well, you weren't at the cue to queue earlier. Yeah, we're doing a lot of those.

[B]

Scurvy lights hit him.

[A]

Let's go make them yellow.

[B]

But the scurvy wasn't the thing that tormented him the most. It was the, quote, thousands and millions of mosquitoes biting him through overalls and heavy underwear. So those are like industrial mosquitoes.

[C]

Mosquitoes have gone soft.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Woke up.

[C]

Too much DEI in the mosquitoes completely. They can't even penetrate a basic H and M garment.

[A]

It's really ridiculous how weak they are now, liberals.

[C]

Those libtard mosquitoes.

[A]

Well, they. Before they bite you, they're like, may I take your blood? It's like, just fuck out of here.

[C]

Suck your blood and read some bell hooks.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

So the time had come for Jack to leave the Klondike and head back.

[A]

Is he gonna. How the. Is he gonna get out of here?

[B]

Well, he just walked. He went the other way.

[A]

It just rolled.

[B]

I mean, he made it. He did the. I mean, he doesn't have to walk 20 times to get.

[C]

He doesn't have all the. Anymore.

[A]

No. Yeah. It's not a picnic.

[B]

Jack summed up his time in the Klondike quote. I saw the naked soul of man, and it was starving. So once he got home, he recovered from scurvy and quickly got back to writing. So he was a voracious writer, devouring empty pages, churning out action adventure. He'd often work for 18 hours a day on short stories based on his travels. So he's a cocaine addict.

[A]

Well, there's, there's and there's.

[C]

I have another story about my. My teeth. Every story about his mouth gums.

[A]

Chapter 11, Journey to the center of the Molar. But I mean, life must be so much better than what it was. And he lived so many craz that he was probably like it. I don't mind.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

I'm just going to work. This is great. My mouth works again.

[B]

Yeah. I can eat food.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

When he wasn't writing, he was reading, learning how to write in a commercially viable way so he could finally make some fucking money for once in his life. So nobody bit. Jack became depressed. Then suddenly he got a yes. It was from Overland Monthly and it was the lowball fee of just $5.

[A]

Oh, take it.

[C]

Is he like 24 at this point?

[B]

Yeah. Or I think he's younger. Yeah.

[A]

What?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Jesus Christ. Mouth lived a life though.

[B]

So he reluctantly took the $5 and was so broke that he had to borrow a dime just to pick up a copy of his own story. Then almost two years after he returned penniless and despondent, he finally struck gold. The Atlantic wanted to pay him almost five grand in today's money for a short story called An Odyssey of the North. He eagerly accepted and his career took off into the stratosphere. After that, Jack had mastered the type of action packed stories that were all the rage in the magazine world. And now just 24 years old.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

He was being hailed as the American Kipling. Jack married his math tutor, Bessie.

[A]

Well done that. Yeah, we've all done.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

You definitely hired her to like. He wasn't like, I want to learn math. He's like, you're hot. What do you do? Will you teach me math?

[B]

Tell me. Let's do algebra.

[C]

I need to learn some math to write about the Yukon.

[A]

And walk me through that again, huh?

[B]

They had two daughters, Joan and Becky. But he still had the wonderlust and the wanderlust. And he wasn't quite ready to settle down. He ran for mayor of Oakland.

[C]

Fucking idiot.

[A]

Right?

[C]

Still had the wanderlust after all that.

[A]

Yeah. Died in Alaska. You know, sometimes I want to get out there and just muck it up a little. Still go see the old boys lose a mouth again. Something like that. BFF a dog. Chop down some ice.

[C]

Joan and Becky, I'm going to wander off and be A traveling astrologer like my pappy.

[A]

Urinaries. Urinaries. Urinaries.

[B]

He did run for mayor of Oakland in 1900, but lost badly because he did not campaign. I get it.

[A]

Back then, it was a lot harder to do that.

[B]

His next project was to be a 4,000 word short story honoring Jack the dog. But unfortunately, quote, it got away from me.

[A]

That's so great.

[B]

It ballooned to over 30,000 words. This was to become Call of the Wild. He wrote it in just one month.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

So he's like Stephen King on cocaine.

[A]

Writing right.

[B]

In a, quote, creative fever dream. And submitted it to macmillan Publishing. The head guy thought it was brilliant and offered the equivalent of 75,000 for the full rights. Jack couldn't say no. He had a wife and two kids to feed. This proved to be one of the most lucrative deals in publishing history for macmillan as it sold millions of copies and Jack didn't get a dime in royalties.

[A]

Yeah, wonder why He's a socialist.

[B]

But it didn't matter to him. He was a celebrity now, making hundreds of thousands of dollars on stories and speaking engagements. He was one of the first authors to live a life in the headlines like a movie star. And he spent his money like one, too. He divorced his wife and married Charmian Kittredge, who he'd known for years.

[A]

Easy, sir.

[C]

Her name is Chairman.

[B]

It's Charmian. Oh, shit. That is a miss. I mean, maybe she's a communist.

[C]

Welcome to my wife, Chairman.

[B]

That.

[A]

Okay, that's after you get married stuff. Also call me Chairman. She's changed.

[B]

That should. Someone should have checked that.

[C]

Yeah, I'd like to gavel this wedding to order.

[B]

So when. When Jack had been injured in a buggy ride, his wife best asked Charmian to take care of him. And she did very well.

[A]

Do that.

[B]

Very, very well. And that's when their affair began. Little too well, she continued. He continued to be a really big drinker. He famously portrays alcohol as a figure he refers to as the noseless one, which represents the deceptive nature of alcohol and its power to control the drinker. I don't get it.

[A]

Yeah, I thought there's going to be like a syphilis tie in.

[B]

I know, right?

[A]

Have a sip. There you go.

[B]

Yeah. What's up, Noseless?

[A]

There you go.

[C]

Feels pretty noseless right now.

[B]

Charming was a socialist firebrand and an author who Jack respected tremendously. His own socialist views that only hardened during his time in the Yukon. Despite having a little dalliance with Nietzsche's great man theories, the cooperative pack typical.

[C]

20 something every 22 year old. Yes, I'm getting into Nietzsche. Shut the fuck up over a walk, kid.

[B]

Get back to me when you don't hate women. The cooperative pack survives and the lone wolves don't. He expanded upon his beliefs in other writings, like in the People of the Abyss, when he embedded himself in the slums of London, England. Quote, the people of the abyss are the human waste of the greatest empire the world has ever seen.

[A]

Oh, come on now.

[B]

Lighten up.

[A]

Chill out.

[B]

What are you doing?

[A]

It's because your mouth came back to you.

[B]

He also set out without a warning, without structural change. Socialism specifically. And he said, collapse is inevitable. Quote, the path of civilization is strewn with the wrecks of nations that have tried to lift themselves out of the abyss. And by charity and not by justice.

[C]

I feel like his writing would have really benefited from some punch up. Yep, just pitching some jokes.

[A]

A little heavy. Yeah.

[B]

He wrote more specifically about his socialist views in books like the War of the Classes and Revolution and other essays explaining his views to the everyman. Quote, Socialism, when stripped of its academic finery, is merely the economic expression of the ethical desire for justice.

[A]

I gotta remember that next time someone.

[C]

Yeah, that's not covered with academic finery. You know, it's the economic expression, the ethical manifestation of justice. That's very every man kind of stupid.

[A]

Relatable. Yeah. That's what you gotta say. That's a bumper stick.

[C]

That's what you say to the people in the abyss. Hey, it's the ethical expression of what?

[A]

Yeah, you can't even remember it. You just heard it.

[B]

I didn't get it till this guy broke it down. But now it makes sense now that.

[C]

When you say it's the economic of the ethical.

[A]

No, no, it's the ethical expression. Expression of the. Yeah.

[B]

Of the ethical.

[A]

Every man desire, desires. Yeah. Of every. Exactly. Yeah. Just. Yeah. Trust me, I married a chairman. That's how this works.

[B]

He also said, quote, socialism is coming. It is not a theory, it is a force. It is being born in the smoke of factory hells will she, the blood of child labor.

[A]

I mean, imagine getting him to back to. He'd be like, wait, what the fuck?

[B]

See, wait a minute. Emily Oster said what?

[C]

Jack London's how it Started, how it's Going Meme would suck. So be such a buzzkill.

[A]

He's doing memes.

[B]

He also predicted fascism in kind of a perfect way decades before Hitler with his novel the Iron Heel featured a future capitalist oligarchy that makes up 9/10 of 1% of the population and hoards 70% of the wealth.

[A]

Oh my God. It's like literally right?

[B]

The oligarchy consumes the government and absolutely demolishes a socialist uprising in America.

[A]

Fuck.

[B]

He predicted manufactured consent and Goebbels propaganda machine. The brown shirts, the hollow performance of democracy and the regime as the arbiter of peace via the barrel of a gun.

[A]

Wow. Another heel.

[B]

The novel in particular inspired not only writers like George Orwell, as he wrote in 1984, but also revolutionaries themselves. Trotsky and Lenin both admired Jack in his book, but he angered a lot of fellow socialists by predicting it would take a centuries long struggle, not an overnight explosion in the streets. Something that almost 120 years after its publication seems like it may have been pretty on the nose. So many socialists attack Jack for embracing his celebrity lifestyle. And Jack was a champagne socialist, you know, for sure, but he believed everyone else should be too. In a letter to fellow writer Upton Sinclair, he wrote, quote, because I've tasted wine and known women, shall I be called less a socialist because I wear clean shirts? Shall I be called the traitor? I have no patience with those who sneer at me for making money. I am preaching socialism every day. With every story I write.

[C]

Same.

[B]

So when he wasn't writing, when he wasn't doing social arguments, he kept busy working. He traveled to Korea and Japan as a war correspondent for Hearst's San Francisco examiner. He didn't exactly have the best time. Quote, the function of a war correspondent, so far as I can ascertain, is just.

[A]

I love that he went being like, what a vacation. You know what? I didn't have a great time. The whole country was in a pretty bad state.

[B]

The function of a war correspondence, as far as I can ascertain, is to sit up on the hills where honored guests cannot be injured. The fighting was so far away that we weren't certain any noise was involved.

[A]

That's so funny. Think of today's war correspondence where they're just doing like war porn. Were like, they are always on a balcony too, like right behind me. It's unbelievable. We're all living in fear. Meanwhile, you just got to go to LA and be Australian. Boom. Fucking, let's go.

[B]

He also traveled to the South Pacific with Charm Charmian. And on a yacht custom made for the journey. So this is.

[A]

They were like about to hit rapids. He was like, I've got an idea. Jack, no. What are you doing? Trust me.

[B]

This is where you kind of have to talk about his pretty bad views on race.

[A]

Oh, so it's always. It's always something. It's. There's never. There's very few perfect. John Brown, the only one.

[B]

John Brown's the only one.

[A]

John Brown. Every time you're like, all right, we got a winner. It's, like, bad. He actually had a slave.

[B]

He subscribed to Anglo Saxon socialism, which is that socialism would overthrow capitalism, but only after the Anglo Saxon race had outbred other peoples of the world.

[A]

Jesus Christ. Way off a big miss.

[B]

His white supremacist views from his early writings.

[A]

I mean, you really teased us. I was really on board now. Like, he was also, like a big white power guy. So.

[C]

There'S a whole section in Marx. It's in the third volume of Das Kapital about surplus value in the accumulation capital. And then just like a lot of white people raw dogging. The whole white people raw dogging sequel. People overlook that part of Marx.

[A]

But, yeah, I mean, it was so vulgar.

[B]

Yeah, there's a whole. There's a whole section. No, a now.

[A]

Yeah, Doggy will be the style.

[B]

So his white supremacist views from his early writings are a product of the contradictions of the time. But some of the things he wrote were just, you know, really fucking racist. But his socialist views evolved. So did his views on race. He wrote a book about being a boozer, John Barleycorn. And in it he wrote the first literary.

[A]

That's a great fake hotel stay name.

[B]

In it, he wrote the first literary description of pink elephants.

[A]

Oh, wow.

[B]

Quote. There are, broadly speaking, two types of drinkers. There's the man whom we all know stupid, unimaginative, whose brain is bitten numbly by numb maggots, who walks generously with. With widespread tentative legs, falls frequently in the gutter, and who sees an extremity of his ecstasy. Blue mice and pink elephants. He is the type that gives rise to the jokes in the funny papers.

[A]

And then there's the guy who reads the story to him. It's got your glasses.

[B]

That's how I see it. He did become.

[C]

How do you believe in the superiority of the white race when you just saw fucking 70,000 dumb honkies die on their way to the Yukon looking for gold. Looking for gold. Like, oh, yeah, these people are definitely better. These people are the future of humanity.

[A]

Canada just tried to put a tariff on you to not go. And you're like, all right, sounds good. We'll make 800 trips, you fucking idiots. We got this.

[C]

We're going to. We're going to lose all our teeth and Brush our teeth with salt. But.

[B]

And beans.

[C]

We should be in charge of the world. That seems.

[A]

That tracks when you're eating boiled beans and brushing your teeth with salt. Check. And we. Maybe not the chosen ones.

[C]

Are we. Are we the master race right now? Is this. This feels like master race stuff, what we're doing.

[A]

Walk me through what the Indians were doing one more time, would you, please?

[B]

I think they were using pinto beans.

[A]

What?

[C]

They refry the beans.

[A]

You can do that. Genius.

[B]

He did become much more anti colonialist, writing non white people as complex, dignified, and capable characters. And after his travels with Charman, he even wrote a story about a Hawaiian leper as a metaphor for how colonially colonialism stripped the indigenous people of their autonomy under the guise of public health. Quote, because we are sick, they take our liberty. We have obeyed the law. We have done no wrong. And yet they would put us in a prison. Okay, so he. He evolved a bit on that. It was also just the time, like, everybody fucking thought that, like, oh, here we go. Eugenics was like, here we go. But I'm not gonna define.

[A]

It was a different time here.

[B]

He spent a lot of his money on a ranch in Glen Ellyn and building a palatial home known as Wolf House. All right, we get it.

[A]

You're Wolf House. Sounds like where Charlie Sheen lives.

[B]

We get it. You wrote a wolf story.

[A]

I sure did.

[B]

The ranch pioneered the use of organic, sustainable farming, trying to show that socialist harmony with the earth can create a better world around us. It was a success, although one that cost him far more money than he thought. The house unfortunately burned down right before he was able to move in, and they had to rebuild.

[A]

Jesus Christ. Wow.

[B]

Jack never made it into Wolf House because his kidneys failed.

[C]

I wonder why.

[B]

In part, obviously, due to alcoholism. In 1916, he died. He was 40.

[A]

Oh, my God. He was 40?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Wow. He lived.

[B]

Since his death, he has become a bit of a punching bag by critics and academics. They relegated him to juvenile literature, dismissing him as a boys adventure author, one critic quote. His popularity became a liability. He was too widely read to be taken seriously.

[A]

Wait, what?

[B]

Modern scholars have reevaluated his work and have begun to appreciate him more. But you know, really, he's a vital, flawed character who stood astride of both 19th and 20th century. His contradictions mirrored America itself between individualism and solidarity and idealism and empire. Jack London biographer, Earl labor quote, London wrote with his fists, his fire and his contradictions. If he was messy, it's because he was real. There you go.

[A]

Jack London. Holy shit.

[B]

Research was done by Josh Androwski. Sources Gold Fever, Deadly Cold and the Amazing True Adventures of Jack London in the Wild by Richard Grant. The Short, Frantic Rags to Riches Life of Jack London by Kenneth Brant. The Many Sides of Jack London by Owen Clayton. Inside Jack London's Story from the Gold Rush to Literary Fame by Aaliyah Silverman. Jack London, American Life by Earl Laber. Jack London A Writer's Fight for Better America by Cecilia Tietschi. Jack Lennon's Racial Lives A Critical Biography by Jeanne Reisman.

[A]

Le. Oh, fuck. All right. Well, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Thank you, everybody. Appreciate it very much. Thanks for coming out. That's the end of our tour as well, so God bless. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, Dollop fans. I know you love the Dollop. You love listening to the Dollop. Do you want to watch the Dollop? You're like, gareth, what are you talking about? By the way, it's not Gary, it's Gareth. Well, we have partnered with Lakeside Animation and we are starting to animate some of our episodes. So if you want to go watch a five parter animation, which is actually like a 22 minute episode or 30 minute episode, I can't remember, of the rube, you can go to LakeSide Animation on YouTube and watch a really awesome animation of the Rube. It. It really genuinely kicks ass and we're very proud of it. And the more you share it, the more you give it to people, the more you follow Lakeside, all that stuff, the better chance we have of making a lot more of them. We're already making a second one, so go there and watch the rube.