Split the Corner Podcast
2 ex bartenders have their favorite bar conversations. Your home for phone down bar discussions on movies, music, sports, history, hypotheticals and whatever else we feel like.
Split the Corner Podcast
Season 2, Episode 2: Would You Survive a Zombie Apocalypse?
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
On today's episode of the Split the Corner Podcast, Kaz and Kyle are diving into National Sober Day. We support all of our friends and listeners who choose not to imbibe some adult beverages, but if you're going to take up a bar stool, make sure you're tipping your bartender. After the guys get done taking mocktails to task, they are getting into whether or not they would survive a zombie apocalypse. Kaz, with all of his Boy Scout training and survival skills would probably be alright. Kyle, on the other hand, is probably a zombie within the first few hours or an emissary to survivalists down the street. However you might fare, we hope you get this episode in before the zombies take over. Cheers!
Welcome to Split the Corner. What can we get you? Hey there. Hi there. Ho there, sports fans. Welcome back to another episode of the Split the Corner podcast. My name is Kyle, and across the internet universe for me, as always, is my partner in crime. I'm feeling good.
SPEAKER_01You ever uh you ever get a word stuck in your throat where like you've said it so many times that that now you you're convinced that you're saying it wrong and it doesn't sound correct? For me, it was I'll spell it for you. F-O-L-K-S. Folks folks. Oh, dude, that's not cool.
SPEAKER_00Don't do that to me.
SPEAKER_01Folks. So like you're in a restaurant, right? And you and you walk up to a table full of people and you say, Good evening. Folk, folks, folks? You've immediately lost them. Full folks? Folkses? People. And then you just shut down, you call them something else completely. I'm I'm having one of those days. Like if metaphorically, if that could be a day, I'm having that day.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so we're we're just allowing our audience to know right now that this could be a disaster right off the bat.
SPEAKER_01It's gonna be very familiar, but somehow still awkward.
SPEAKER_00There you go. Well, Caz, I'd like to take a minute to to say something to our audience that I did not discuss with you before. And it's that we as a podcast have reached a milestone. And uh this is something that I have fact checked, it's something that I have been made aware of, and I chose not to tell you about it until just now. So, Kaz, I would like to congratulate you and me as being the highest downloaded podcast on the internet hosted by either you or me.
SPEAKER_01Oh snap.
SPEAKER_00Congratulations, buddy.
SPEAKER_01Congratulations to you too. You know what? I bought myself flowers. Just crushing it right now. Couldn't do it without you guys. I couldn't do it without you guys, couldn't do it without you, buddy. This this is great. And to all the listeners out there, I didn't uh prepare a speech.
SPEAKER_00Um but the I Today, hey, hey, I consider it myself, help, help, help.
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's such a great callback to the last episode. Oh just tying it all together here. That's why that's why we're winning awards. There you go, buddy. Let's talk National Day because we uh we got some things to cover, right?
SPEAKER_00Well I think that it's appropriate to let our fans know that I am going to introduce today's National Day while I'm hoisting a beer. Uh, I'm enjoying my very first Sam Adams Oktoberfest of the year. And if any of you have been paying attention or following along, you know that we did a very uh long episode about beers, and Sam Adams Oktoberfest is right up there among my favorites. So cheers to you and cheers to National Sober Day.
SPEAKER_01I will be participating in National Sober Day, and I will be raising and cheersing with the uh seltzer water with some lime. Um I uh am a am a member of the sober community as of almost five years ago. Um, and I I'd like to tell a little bit of a story as to why that is, because it is something that that comes up a lot. Um I uh had a stomach infection during COVID, and it changed the uh I don't know what they call your microbiome or whatever, the your stomach bacterias. Um and I at this point in my illustrious drinking career, uh, I get hung over before I get drunk. Um, so all of the risk and none of the reward, and it's just not a game worth playing at this point. So while I I do still uh I do still love a good scotch smell on the hands or a fantastic high-end rum or some bourbon that I can sniff on, uh, for the most part, not really drinking these days.
SPEAKER_00Well, I'm glad you brought up the scotch because the last time I was over at your place, you poured me a pour of something that was ridiculously expensive, and I still think about it. Like I'm I'm thinking about it right now. It was like a McAllen 18 or something, and it was absolutely beautiful, but you did sip on that a little bit.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I can do probably less than an ounce in in the course of a day. Um and and I do, I reserve it for things that are rare and wonderful, or things that I, you know, I'll never get a shot to try again, and I just can't let it go past me. Um, and I think the reason that I'm that I'm telling this story is because most of the time when when I you know being in a bartender space, working in the industry, selling liquor, selling booze, doing this whole dance, it comes up real often that I'm offered a drink, or someone offers to buy me a drink, or I'm pretty much just asked if I'm drinking today. Uh and and if I tell people no, it usually comes with a congratulations. Oh, oh, you're not drinking. Oh, good for you. Congratulations. Really? No, I'm miserable. I want to drink. I like drinking. Like it. I like the flavor, like the way it tastes, like the way it makes me feel, I like the experience. I'm a fan. Uh, however, sober comes in many shapes and sizes, and uh we are respectful of all of them because it doesn't mean that they're not here to have fun, just means that they're getting to it differently.
SPEAKER_00I'm glad that you brought it up that way because for those of you in the sober community, I want you all to know that we see you and we support you, and we are proud of you. If you have gone over some sort of hump that you needed to get over and are now on the other side of it, good for you. Wonderful. We're very proud of you. Um, I myself uh am known to hoist a beverage or two in my day. And I know that you and I have hoisted a beverage or two together in our days, but maybe not for the last half a decade. But it brings up a question that I have. And the question is this every time I go to a bar and I ask a bartender for their recommendation, and they give me, you know, a bourbon or a scotch or something of that nature, and I say to them, Oh, like what are the flavor notes? And they say, I don't know, I don't drink. No disrespect to anybody, but like I kind of put up a red flag, you know what I mean? Like, so I guess my question to you is like, how do you trust a bartender that doesn't drink, regardless of the situation that has brought them to their sobriety, whether it be necessity or a personal choice or stomach, what did you call it? Stomach enzymes or whatever, maybe there was some sort of change, yeah, or an infection, whatever has brought you to sobriety. But like, is it a little bit more difficult to trust a bartender who doesn't drink, who gives you a recommendation?
SPEAKER_01Well, first of all, I if you say to a bartender, you know, what does it taste like, and they say they don't know because they didn't they don't drink, kudos to them because I'd rather get that answer than have somebody lie to me about it, which is you know also super prevalent in the industry. That like I ran a tap house that had a hundred beers. We tried our best to make sure that everyone had tried every one of them, but how the hell do you pull that off? So at some point someone's gonna say, like, hey, can you tell me what this one tastes like? And your best bet are some tasting notes, right? Like, you haven't had every scotch on the shelf, right? But if someone comes up to you and they ask you, you know, can you tell me what the Glenn Livitt 16 tastes like? I mean, maybe the back of the box, Ken?
SPEAKER_00You know what I you know what I do in that situation is I'll open the bottle and we'll have a sniff. Me and the person will have a sniff. I'll talk about it.
SPEAKER_01I can actually probably sniff better now sober than I could when I was drinking. Because I rely on it more for tasting notes and things of that nature. Like a like Yeah, like when people go blind, I'm like Daredevil for alcohol. Um I get the tasting notes better, and I've learned to do the I've learned to do the hand trick where you like splash a little on your hand and it gets rid of the ethanol, and then you can kind of smell the taste.
SPEAKER_00Is that legit? I've I've seen I've heard of this, I've seen it done. I just it doesn't make sense to me.
SPEAKER_01It's part of the toolbox, it's not the whole bag of tricks, you know what I mean? Like you can't do just that, but you take that with a good nose, and a lot of things stay. You can also um the sugar content you can tell by how sticky it leaves your hands.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01So you know, there are there are tips and tricks. Um, I also think we, you know, to your to your original question, there's a difference between a bartender that doesn't drink and a bartender that's never drank. A lot of our bartenders that don't drink don't drink now because we drank way too hard then, whenever our then was. We have a personal then that is a moment in time when we probably knew more about the bottles on the back shelf than we had any business to because we were dipping all the time. And you know, how often did you do a staff training where you don't really remember because you got hammered? You know, like we we do this in the industry, it's it's a very pervasive industry for alcoholism, it's probably encouraged. Um, so you know, however you get to your sobriety, if that's where you're trying to get to, then by all means go for it. Some of us aren't trying to get there, and we're there as a part of a middle ground, right? We we cut out alcohol for weight loss, we cut out alcohol for GLP ones now. If you're on Ozempic, you can't drink because it makes you super nauseous. So there's all sorts of reasons to be, you know, you could be California sober these days where you only partake in the weed and you don't partake in in the alcohol. And I'm hearing that that's really picking up in New York, and that's leading to these mocktail menus that we all can't stand.
SPEAKER_00Okay, hold on, hold on, hold on. You can't breeze by mocktail menus and not talk about it. I think I think now is the time. We we we've we've pussyfooted around this for long enough. Let's talk mocktails for just a minute. And for those of you unfamiliar with the term, a mocktail is a cocktail without booze that you are going to pay an exorbitant amount of money for. For example, if you were to be at a bar and if you were to say to them, I'd like a Malibu Bay breeze non-alcoholic, they're gonna put coconut water, pineapple juice, cranberry juice, a little bit of lime, and perhaps just top it off with a little bit of club soda if they're feeling squirrely, and they're gonna charge you $14 for it. That's a mocktail. And I don't get it. It's juice.
SPEAKER_01You're not wrong. Um, you're not wrong. And and if that's how we keep treating it, then that's the world that we keep living in, right? Because even as an industry, if we keep calling them mocktails, we're admitting that we're not taking them seriously.
SPEAKER_00And no, that's a good that's a great point.
SPEAKER_01And there's plenty that you can do with these things that do make them worth $14. Some of these vinegar shrubs and these berry processes and things that are you know that are being aged for weeks before they're coming out, you know, however, they're state. There are things that would make a non-alcoholic beverage worth $14. But I think that's I think that's where we well, okay. How come you can't, as a grown ass man, just go to the bar and order some fucking juice? You can. And it's not that it's not really something that we do. It's got soda on it. It doesn't necessarily say, you know, or a large apple juice. We just we're we're at the point societally where if you go to a bar, you're supposed to drink these things, right? Like water is frowned upon, and you know, that you can get a soda, but what if you don't drink soda?
SPEAKER_00You know, I frown upon a water. I am team hydration all day.
SPEAKER_01I and I think a lot of the I would go so far as to say almost all bartenders are. I I know it's a you know cocktail, coyote ugly, I I know that that the the Hollywood portrayal of a bartender is, you know, we're here to party, and you know, but I I do think the vast majority of the profession at this point does not have any issues getting you a water. However, if you walk into a shift and you know, guy one is drinking scotch, couple two are drinking cocktails, guys three, four, and five are all drinking beers, and then dude at the end of the bar is on his third water, it does it it does make you act a certain way.
SPEAKER_00Well, we're not charging for that water. Exactly. Yeah, you're taking up a seat. Well, okay. From that perspective, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Taking up a seat. We support the sober community as long as you don't take up a seat.
SPEAKER_00Are you tipping me for those waters?
SPEAKER_01So that's that's my whole point, right? Is that if you are going to live the sober life in the bar, right? Because you're not a bartender or or whatever, do tip first. Do agreed, you know, do make sure that they know that you're sober and that you know you're not cheap because there's a difference, and maybe order some food, you know, maybe get yourself some fries, put something on a tab that is going to allow you to tip the bartender out afterwards.
SPEAKER_00If you're gonna take up a seat, be prepared to tip. Yes. Well, here's a here's an interesting thought process. I worked at some bar shifts at an outdoor bar festival this year, this past summer, and there were two canned mocktails on the menu. One of them was a chili margarita mocktail in a can that somebody put in a can. That one I can get behind. There are things that go into a margarita that are non-alcoholic, and if you do it the right way, you could argue that it's about 50-50 in terms of what goes into a margarita. Now, I like to splash a little OJ, and if I like you, a little pineapple in my margarita, but that's just me. The second option for a mocktail was a Negroni. Kaz, would you like to tell the people at home what goes in a Negroni?
SPEAKER_01So Negronis are gin, vermouth, and campari. Um three of which. All three of which are alcoholic ingredients. There you go. So there are, and I agree with you on the margarita, because I think if you make a non-alcoholic margarita correctly, it still tastes different than anything else on a grocery store shelf. Absolutely. You should not be able to make a non-alcoholic Negroni.
SPEAKER_00It doesn't make sense. It is a contradict, a contradiction in terms, it doesn't make any sense. That's not a thing. You cannot make something that tastes like alcohol that is entirely made up of alcohol, taste like it doesn't have alcohol in it. And can we talk for a second about what an agroni actually tastes like? It's a pretty bittersweet drink.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's alcohol forward. It's it's a it's it's not one of those drinks that you order if you're the type of person that doesn't like the taste of alcohol. So why do it? And that's and how that's the other question I have for you is how the hell do you do that? Let me let me cross this over for a second because I feel very similarly about fake meat. Um that's so funny, dude. I was just about to say fake bacon. I feel like if you go vegan, there are certain things that you give up. You you don't just make them out of something else. Right? Like if you are vegan, you no longer get to eat. I and we'll leave we'll leave the nuggets alone, right? Because processed chicken versus processed not chicken is still processed stuff that ends up looking the same and kind of tasting the same. If anything, it's a it it's it's negative towards nuggets, not positive towards bacon. Right. So but but they're like if you if you give up meat, then you give up bacon. You can't decide later that you're gonna try and make bacon out of something not meat because you really want something that tastes kind of like bacon, even though it isn't bacon. Just let it be something different.
SPEAKER_00Bacon-flavored soy flakes, something to that effect. But don't call it bacon. You're offending those of us who still enjoy bacon.
SPEAKER_01And I feel the same way about this Negroni.
SPEAKER_00A hundred percent.
SPEAKER_01You made a non-alcoholic beverage.
SPEAKER_00Does it taste like a Negroni? The thing is, dude, I didn't have the balls to try it. Because, like, here's the thing I'm not a Negroni fan in general. You're taking three liquors, well, one liquor and two liqueurs, that I don't particularly have an affinity for, and you put them together in a cocktail, and I'm just I'm not here for it.
SPEAKER_01It's kind of bitter plus bitter plus bitter equals bitter.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm just I'm not here for it. So I didn't have the balls to try it, but neither did anyone else. I don't think I sold one of those things. I only did like a handful of these shifts over the over the summer, but I didn't sell one of them. Because the minute they say I'll have a Negroni, and you say there's no booze in it, they go, well, what is it? And I didn't have an explanation.
SPEAKER_01And I I and I acknowledge my own my own privilege, I guess. I'm I I am I drink water, I drink club soda on a very, very, very rare occasion. I might have some iced tea. Um, but that's it. I don't drink soda, I don't do a lot of fruity juices, I'll do like a vitamin C smoothie if I get sick, but I'm not one of those people that said I'm not drinking alcohol, so you know, I'll have a Dr. Pepper, or I'll have a Coca-Cola, or something along those lines. I I don't want those things either. So it, you know, it I I get the vibe of like, well, I'm a beer drinker, I don't drink beer, but I like the way beer tastes, so you know, like what about an NA beer? I'm I'm there for for some of it. Behind that. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Um not a Negroni.
SPEAKER_01But yeah, not a not a Negroni. Like, what happens if you get a non-alcoholic dirty martini? It's olive juice. That's it. Right. So, like so these alcohol forward cocktails don't lend themselves to NA. Like, I know there's a phony Negroni out there that does pretty well sales wise, but like. I don't I don't get it. I I believe you know if you're going into these bars and you're going in sober, say you're looking for a place to watch the football game or or you're looking to just hang out with friends. You know, all your friends go to the bar on Friday and you're sober. I still think the official split the corner advice is like make sure the bartender knows you don't drink, tip heavily up front, and then you should be fine. Grab a water, grab a soda, drink whatever you're drinking. Do you just make sure the bartender is taken care of? Yeah, you take care of them, they'll take care of you. But if you're a water drinker, and I say it coming from experience, and I say it from both sides of the bar with a lot of love, make yourself known first. You know, they if because two reasons. One, it's good for the bartender to know that they've already made a couple bucks, and you're not trying to just have a bunch of waters take up their time and run away. Two, the bartender will move to you faster because they know what you want, and they can pour you your water while they're making Karen's 14th Cosmo. So, you know, if you're always water all the time, then they can just pull the gun over while you're standing at the it it just just trust me, it's the easier way to go around it.
SPEAKER_00The the the point of the whole thing is is that dude is working, and that dude works for tips. And if you're sitting there drinking water, you are taking up a seat that could be taken by somebody who's actually going to make money for the establishment and for the bartender. So if you are sober, again, we're here for it. Congratulations, we support you. Keep up the good fight. But if you're gonna take up a bar stool and drink water, make sure the bartender gets theirs. That's all.
SPEAKER_01And I and I'll ask, I'll ask you a question along the same lines, right? Because as a sober person, my bar tab by the end of a Friday night is a fraction of your bar tab by the end of a Friday night, right? I get maybe maybe I picked up around because I'm there and I'm trying to be friendly and I'm trying to be social and civil and happy and blah, blah, blah. But for the most part, you know, you're not charging me for the waters. I probably got fries at some point in time, but we've been here for five hours and my tab is $18. You know, so no, no, with the forethought that like everyone that I'm out with is spending $80 at this bar. I'm not spending $80 at this bar. Maybe throw a couple bucks down. Like you're already saving money by being sober and not drinking while you're out. And I think the monster needs to be be sober, don't be cheap. Well said, buddy. Like, I think I'd put that on a t-shirt. I I'd wear that t-shirt. Like, be sober, don't be cheap. Absolutely. I it every bar, you could go to five bars over the span of a night with all of your friends, tip twenty bucks at every bar, and still spend less than everybody that you went out with, and you tipped every bartender 20 bucks every time you walked in. So I I think that's I think that's the world, right? National Sober Day, according to Split the Corner podcast, is be sober, don't be cheap.
SPEAKER_00Be sober, don't be cheap. I love it. I think that's a that's a wonderful sentiment. And speaking of wonderful sentiments, because it is week one of the NFL season, and our beloved Philadelphia Eagles are one and oh. It wasn't pretty for the majority of the game, but it's a W. And I think after watching the Cowboys and the Giants play last night, and the Cowboys now are 0-1, and they look like absolute dog shit. Go birds, I think we're sitting in a much better position. How are you feeling about uh the NFL season in general? How about the birds? What do you got for me, baby?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I the my wonderful sentiment, the the beautiful takeaway for me is it was the first uh Eagles, Phillies, Union, all three Philly teams won on a Sunday, and we got to take it all in. I'm I'm ready. I do think I have a new appreciation. Uh, this is probably the most baseball I've watched in a season um in a long time, and I think I I have a new appreciation appreciation for how short the football season is. You know, I I think I've been looking at baseball so intently for so many months now, going, all right, win the series. All right, well, there's, you know, there we'll play them 14 more times before the end of the month, you know, and and now we're looking at football, and it's like, okay, week one, one down, fifteen to go, or seventeen to go. We do an 18 this year, I believe. 17 to go. So that's it. So there's definitely a feeling of one down. Let's let's keep it going. Whatever it takes. It wasn't super pretty. We did some things right. Uh, there were some things I wasn't particularly pleased about. Um, but week one could have been a lot worse. You know, at week one in the NFL is usually very strange because you don't know who's good or who's bad yet. You know, so we beat the commanders. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Are the commanders a good team or a bad team? You know, like where does it all shake out? We won't know for a couple of weeks. So the only thing you can do is win the game in front of you.
SPEAKER_00That's right. And the Cowboys are 0-1, so life is good. It was a it was a wild day yesterday. I um I had to to work last night, but I sat down and watched a little bit of red zone with my oldest son yesterday before I had to go. We watched about 45 minutes, which got us through about a quarter and a half of eight NFL games on Red Zone, where they're just throwing you back and forth between every game that's on. And in the first quarter of all eight of those games, 10 touchdowns were scored when the guy mentioned it. Like he and there were still a few minutes to go. And so there might have been 12 or 14, honestly, touchdowns, but like a lot of touchdowns, a lot of offense early in the games yesterday. Um, and a lot of uh it was a lot of fun, man. I'm just glad football's back. I mean, I'm still you know a baseball guy first and foremost, but from now until you know February, we've got Wednesday football is college is college, you know, college football on Wednesdays. We've got Thursday night football, there's college football on Thursdays, too. There's Friday night football, that's college. We got Saturday all day, that's college, and then Sunday and Monday, that's NFL. I mean, there's just football galore from here on out. And we talked about this in an episode weeks and weeks and weeks ago about how I think you asked the question can you watch a football game or a baseball game? Or what can you what what can you watch sports-wise that you're not emotionally invested in? And I said I'd you know, football, soccer, and baseball. And yeah, football's gonna be on my TV a lot for the next what six months? And I'm okay with that.
SPEAKER_01Well, that was gonna be my next question for you because the MLS is switching to a fall winter schedule next season. So we're gonna do this little sprint season uh that's gonna get us, you know, back to lining up our our trade windows, and then starting next fall, MLS is a fall winter sport. Why? To line up with the Premier League, to line up with all of the other leagues in the world so that our transfer windows match and people don't have to finish out half a season. It's like our league has finally grown up and is now being welcomed into the realms of the other leagues because they're tired of buying a player halfway through a season or selling a player and then us having to wait six months until he can come over. They're just gonna make the switch, line up the seasons, and now we're going to have fall-winter soccer. That sucks, kinda. That's gonna be interesting for American sports fans because I do feel like we've hit a little bit of a sweet spot. Where it's there's just sports all the time, and yeah, and they're lined up so that there's never more than like two that you have to juggle, and it's at least not for a long period.
SPEAKER_00Juggling is gonna get hefty, right? Because like the NBA starts next month in October. I believe the NHL starts right around the same time. We've got football. Uh, baseball ends uh middle of October or end of October, I guess now, because you know they take 19 days in between playoff games or whatever. But yeah, that just uh dude, I don't like this is why I don't watch college sports. Like on a Saturday, I'll throw college football on because it's there, and I'm a Penn State fan, so I'll watch Penn State. But like I don't have enough room in my brain for all of this. And as somebody who cares very deeply about sports, this this does not like it's just gonna be that's gonna be frustrating, I think. Because I love the MLS.
SPEAKER_01Well, and that's what that's where I'm wondering if if this isn't if this isn't for the best, because now we get baseball from spring training to October, and then we get every other sport from October to spring training. They're they're not all going to be on the same days. You've what you've got weeknight Flyers games, you've got weeknight Sixers games, you can keep the MLS to Wednesdays and Saturdays. The only thing that that is really messing everything up is this very recent NFL push to take over every day of the week and every streaming channel.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, uh don't uh how you know what I don't know why I need to have all these subscriptions, and it's starting to get very annoying. I mean, it's been annoying for a while, but it's starting to get a little bit out of control, I think. And you have to pay for the extras that you're already paying for this, and now you have to pay for this to watch NFL games within the thing that you're already paying for. It makes no sense to me. It is greed on a level that I don't think has ever truly existed in uh commerce or in in capitalism as a whole. But the fucked up thing is, buddy, I'm still gonna pay for the fucking subscription.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's I think we've reached a technological loophole, right? And not necessarily a loophole in like a like a way out, but a loophole in like this is where it loops and starts over exactly at the same spot because it was in our lifetime that everybody complained about cable TV and why do you have to pay for channels that you're not watching? And I have to pay one bill and it's 400 channels, and I only watch like 80 channels, and then all of a sudden it was like, okay, well, if you only want to watch 80 channels, then you can watch these 10 over here if you pay for this, and these 10 if you pay for that. And we said, Yeah, that's awesome. And then they ran with it, and now there's 47 different places that you have to pay to watch the Eagles play all 18 games, and because of that, we're gonna go back to cable. They're just gonna be like, you know what? We bundled all these streaming packages for you together, and you can just pay one flat rate and have all the channels. Isn't that amazing? And it'll be like, oh yeah, that's cable. Everybody'll go, hooray. Hooray. I saw an article the other day that uh a bunch of students at some university have invented wind-powered kite ships. And they're and they're sailing ships, you know, like sailboats that run on paragliders, so like parachute. So so so sailboats. Well, so we've reinvented sailboats, we've come full circle to the point where we're like parachute boats. That's okay. That's what they look like. They're parachute kite boats. They they they're not sailboats with like a mast and like sails, they're like a a complication of wires and cables that hook up to these parachutes that go out into the sky and pull the boat.
SPEAKER_00You know, that sounds that sounds like an invention that somebody would have had to have come up with during like a zombie apocalypse. You know what I mean? They're like, I don't know how to sail a boat, but there's all these zombies. So I'm just gonna put a rowboat and this parachute. Yeah, I'm gonna put some sheets on a string and just hope that the wind carries me out to sea.
SPEAKER_01Do you think that's a generational thing? Like if you find a parachute and a rowboat and two paper clips and a rubber band, you're going to MacGyver yourself out of the situation, or are you going to bear grills yourself out of the situation? Like, how old are you? Right? Is this a Robert Dean Stan problem, or or is this like are are you are you of the young man versus wild? Oh, bear grills can get out of it.
SPEAKER_00Well, it's like it's like when when uh talking about generational things, I mean, think about uh how do you make a phone symbol when you're like pretending that you're on the phone, like you're you're mimicking a phone conversation. What do you do? Yeah, with the with the thumb and the index finger, like the hang 10 sign from your ear to your mouth. You give a shaka bra and you put it right next to your face, and that's a phone to us. The younger generation is taking the flat of their palm and putting it up against their face because they don't remember what those phones used to look. So they're doing it like so, like make your your hand flat like this.
SPEAKER_01And for those of you who can't see me, yeah, it's your that's what phones look like, yeah, and they put it up against their face.
SPEAKER_00It's just the flat of your palm against your face, and that is what that's what a phone is to kids nowadays when they when they mimic phone conversations, which to me doesn't make any sense because nobody talks on the phone anymore. So I think they should just be like dialing on their hands. Yeah, right. You just you just talk. That's right. Because everybody everybody does does it all.
SPEAKER_01Everything is speakerphone.
SPEAKER_00That's right. Uh and can we just do a quick PSA? Stop talking on your speakerphone. I don't care what your aunt or your uncle or your friend or your wife or your kid, I don't care what they have to say. We're in a public space. Put in some headphones like a grown-up.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and that's a bar statement and a grocery store statement. Like, I don't and and okay, I understand we're of the we're of the don't violate my personal space era, where like if you don't want to hear my conversation, then you could put headphones in. But but really do you want people to hear we were we my daughter and I were in DC. We were going to a concert, we were coming out of the subway, and the guy on the phone, probably four people behind us on the escalator, was on the phone with his lady, and she was telling him that she was ready to go and that he better be on his way, and he was talking about how oh he's gonna be there two shakes of a stick, and and don't you worry, and like they do you really want the whole world hearing that conversation? Did we all need to be a part of that?
SPEAKER_00Feels like it would have been best served for two.
SPEAKER_01I I feel like if that conversation happens at my bar, first of all, I'm going to be involved. Second of all, I'm probably hanging up. I was never a big fan. Don't speakerphone at the bar. If you're speakerphoning at the bar, then the whole bar is now invited into your conversation, and I'm gonna make sure it happens. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I will save your spot if you have to go outside. I'll make sure no one takes your seat. I'll put the coaster over your beer. I might even top it off for you. But if you're going to put your conversation on speakerphone at my bar, then the whole bar is now in your conversation, bud.
SPEAKER_00So a minute ago, I mentioned a zombie apocalypse as it pertains to whether or not we were making parachute boats, which are essentially sailboats. So let me ask you this: if there was a zombie apocalypse, would you start drinking again?
SPEAKER_01Uh, probably not. I I would I would probably have a bottle, I would probably become that weird person in the movie that like guards a bottle of alcohol with my life because I need to save it for that one time that I'm gonna finally, you know, because I have a whole plan. It's just a matter of you know, making sure all the pieces fall into place. What do you mean you have a plan? Oh, I have one of those post-apocalyptic how do we survive in a life post-civilization plans. I've put a lot of thought into it.
SPEAKER_00Wait, what? What do you what do you mean? Are you like is your base I've been in your basement and I've never seen shelves lined with like canned foods or anything else?
SPEAKER_01No, I'm not a bunker person. I and I'm honestly my plan is to avoid the bunker people with with all of my might because they scare me. Um, because most of them are hoarding not only canned goods and and water filters, but they're also hoarding weapons and ammunition and all sorts of stuff, just waiting for the opportunity to show everybody that they're tough. And and my plan is to avoid all of them, like the plague. I don't I it for me it's a it's a switch to back to nature, um, you know, peace and quiet. Let's go find a lake somewhere and and live a good quiet life. So you think you'd be able to survive? Oh, a hundred percent. Really? Yeah, yeah, not a doubt in my mind.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Because I'm sitting over here thinking about it, and I gotta be honest with you, I think I'm dead very quickly.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00Oh, absolutely, dude. I have no survival skills whatsoever. I might be able to whittle a stake or like a spear for protection, but outside of that, man, I think I'm done.
SPEAKER_01No, but I don't think that's your strength in this situation, right? So, so if we're if we're using the sports metaphor, right, and and I'm I I I don't put you in in a quarterback role. You're a you're a utility player here, right? So there are lots of little tasks that you have to be on board for for taking, but I've I've seen the way you act in large groups of people, and I've I've seen the way large groups of people react to you. Um, so the the way that I'm utilizing you is you are our contact for all of the other groups. Like, you're the one that like we're gonna we're gonna get you armored up, we're gonna give you something to barter and trade with, and then you're gonna go find out if they're friendly. Because it usually works out for you. I anybody that's been to a music festival with Kyle D notice that he disappears and shows up later with friends. And and the friends all have some weird connection where it's like, hey, do you remember this guy that we met way you know, like 15 years ago at this concert? Well, he just moved in next to this dude who mows this guy's lawn, and then that guy doesn't leave all weekend. He's just our new friend for the weekend, and it doesn't matter. Like, I've I've seen it. So I that's that's where you're coming into this, unless you learn some more skills on the way. You know, that's that's your role.
SPEAKER_00While I appreciate that that could be considered a valuable skill, the the part that I'm hanging on to is that you armor me up. Well, I mean and then I just go like and hopefully they don't shoot me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that part's on you. Shit. I should have been a boy scout. Me learn some knots. Yeah, right. Can I can I be the knot guy? Is not guy taken? Um no, and and a lot of a lot of my confidence does uh come from the the life I lived as a scout. Out uh and the the skills that I've learned, and it just just the things that you know once you've done it, you know.
SPEAKER_00What let's get some examples out here because here here's the thing is like I'm sitting here thinking about a zombie apocalypse right now, and in my head, I've got you know film and television and video games as my guide. So in all of these scenarios, we're talking about bloodthirsty, used-to-be humans who are either diseased or they're dead, but not quite, and they all want to eat my brain and my fleshy tummy or whatever. And how does scouting keep those guys away from you?
SPEAKER_01So first of all, um thick clothing? I I don't know. I know it's I know it's one of those things that like everybody tries to point out, and maybe they do and maybe they don't, but you know, it's a pretty hard bite through a leather jacket. So you know there's a preparedness side of it, but it a lot of it comes from a complete lack of panic. Um like so if if it is gonna go down, right, and it's gonna be let's say it's a zombie thing, right? Because most of these plans are the same, you're just looking out for different weirdnesses. But let's say it's a zombie thing. My first thought is you gotta get out of the city, right? Because your enemies are going to multiply around you if you're stuck in the city. So we gotta go someplace as sparsely populated as possible, preferably an island that no one knows about, right? So that's that's what you're looking for. You're looking for get out into Wyoming or get out into you know these great plains areas where there's one person per 400 square miles, right? Because if there's only three people out there, then you know all the zombies. That's and see if you stay in the city, they're coming from everywhere. But if you get out there and the only people within five miles are you and four friends, then that's it, right? So the other thing is you got to get someplace with natural resources. So someplace with clean water, preferably fish, some sort of wildlife, and place that you can farm at least two seasons.
SPEAKER_00See, but you're not giving me anything that the scouts taught you. I think that's all very that's all very common sense things. What about scouting? Like, what did the scouts teach you? I mean, I we've talked about this before, I think, where you were talking about like you can go out there and find different ferns and mushrooms and stuff like that. I mean, what else beyond that?
SPEAKER_01What knots are we gonna actually find my way from Philadelphia to Montana based on rivers in the position of the sun?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, go where it's setting.
SPEAKER_01That's west. So so you want to be the navigator? I feel like I could do it. It's not that hard, right? No, so so you know, there are a lot of the, but that's that's part of it. Part of it is not panicking in these situations and realizing that common sense is super valuable. Now, knowing which mushrooms to eat is a bit different, knowing which uh plants can be used as medicine and antiseptic, as opposed to which ones can be made into teas for you know all sorts of other things. Um, how to properly make shelters so that you stay dry in the rain, how to build fires in dry or wet. Like there are there are plants that will light when wet. There are ways to build fires where you can build a fire in the rain and it will still catch. Come on. That's you know, that's part of my survival soapbox. Is I was a big fan of Man vs. Wild and the whole Bear Girls movement when it came out, right? Same thing with the Survivor Man and all of these people that go out by themselves and and show you how they're gonna make it, you know, in the wild on their own. They're always trying to get somewhere, right? They're always uh I got dropped off here and I've got to make my way through this jungle and get out the other side to this rescue point. We're not necessarily trying. Once we get there, we're just building. That's all. We're not we're we're gathering resources, we're staying up off the ground, we're digging uh, you know, we're digging storage underneath the the cool ground temperatures, we're looking for clean water, we're trying to clear farmland, like all of this is but but Boy Scouts taught me a lot of this. Boy Scouts taught me a lot of you know how to how to catch fish with a spear, how to, you know, how to skin a deer that you trapped on your own, how to build a log cabin and tie this together and tie that up to this and build these bridges and that it's all I've I've learned all that, and there is a sort of calmness that comes with most situations. I went hiking with some friends, I want to say it was two years ago, and it was one of those white people hikes where everyone stopped for coffee and then we walked around a trail for a while. Um, and it was just one of those moments where you know my my daughter was with us and and she kept getting worried about what if we got lost, and I don't know how long it's been. I never feel lost. Doesn't matter. I you drop me into the middle of sp I have other things to worry about than feeling lost. I've got to find shelter, I've gotta find water, I've gotta find a food source, I don't have time to feel lost. And by the time I find all of those things, I'll have a pretty good idea of where I am.
SPEAKER_00I have an assortment of weaknesses that are going to make me very difficult to keep on the team. Because in the scenario that I'm playing in my head, you and I are hanging out somewhere and we're single and there's no kids involved. Like this in this scenario that I'm playing, we have no familial attachments. It's just you and me we're hanging out, and all of a sudden there's a zombie apocalypse. Video game style. Video game style, exactly. My uh assortment of weaknesses are going to make me very easy to use as uh what's the word I'm looking for? Bait for the zombies so that you can get away. Let me give you a few examples. I don't know how to cook particularly well. I mean, I can grill chicken, but to be completely honest with you, that's just flipping it a bunch of times. It's not that difficult. If you suck at grilling, it's just because you're not paying attention. Um I'm a pacifist. Big red flag, I think. Like, I think in my head, I can I can probably swear getting away from zombies, but like, what if a bunch of survivors other survivors come up and they're being dicks? Not really a big violence guy. So, like, okay, there's check number two of maybe Kyle doesn't make it through this thing. Um, I'm also non-confrontational, like to a fault.
SPEAKER_01See, but that all fits because I'm not my plan doesn't have anything to do with confrontation. That's what I saw. That's why I'm avoiding the bunker crews who, you know, we and we have a couple friends who we would turn to in the situation because they would be the ones bringing the ammunition and the gunpowder and all of the weapons and whatnot to our situation. You know, like we do that those people are accounted for in our in our community of manifest destiny as we're all heading west. Um, there are plans to stop and pick up other people.
SPEAKER_00Well, see, I'm I'm glad that you put it that way because like there are some some people that I've had this conversation with before, and some of the people are more realistic, like me, who think I know myself well enough to know that I have way more weaknesses than I do strengths if there's going to be some sort of apocalypse. But we also have friends that would sit there and be like, dude, I'd I'd fuck shit up. You kidding me? I'm good. I'm good. Let there be, I I want there to be a zombie apocalypse so that I can prove to you how good I would be at it. And I just gotta tell you, I know this is a hypothetical. I know that this is that that there will never be a zombie apocalypse as it is portrayed in film and television and video games. That's just it's not a realistic thing that will ever happen. But it's one thing to sit there and say, like, okay, I have survival skills, I have a skeleton of a plan to go and not be in Philly or the greater Philly area and to move to the country somewhere where there's not a lot of people there. That makes total sense. But the people that are like, dude, I just go out and I just start like bashing heads in, bro. That's what I do. Are you sure? Because I feel like that is like a uh a level of stress and a level of of of just sheer terror that we can't really fathom outside of being involved in it.
SPEAKER_01I mean, there's there's a little hope that that you know getting out of the city is less like the walking dead and more like Sean of the Dead. You know, like there's a little hope that at some point you're gonna get to take a shovel to something and just beat the living bejesus out of it. There's nothing wrong with that. The problem is the people that have been stockpiling ammunition for a hundred years that are just looking for an opportunity to start firing automatic weapons into the public and being like, I thought everybody were zombies. Like, I'm not. I we gotta get rid of those people. I'm also a firm believer, and I'm gonna say this on a podcast, even though it might ruin my chances of survival. I'm a firm believer that your first stop is not Walmart. Your first stop is the library. Like, I would rather you grab a book on what plants we can pick up in the Pacific Northwest and use as medicine than you run to Walmart and grab actual medicine. What about a machete? I mean, I mean, you should have one of those. You just should. Do you have a machete? I do.
SPEAKER_00It's in my camping box. You have you you own a machete? I do. Actually, I don't know why I'm asking you like that. I own a hatchet and an axe. Are you sure you do too? I don't own a machete, but like we're gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01We're not talking about and that's when we put our house.
SPEAKER_00I told my wife we were in Lowe's and we were buying like a we're buying a lawnmower and some other like outdoor necessities, and I put a a hatchet and an axe into our cart, and my wife goes, Why? And I said, just in case, just just you never know when you're gonna need it. And to be to be completely honest with you, I've used the hatchet and axe on numerous occasions on numerous outdoor projects, and I have never regretted either one of those purchases.
SPEAKER_01No, you just kind of need to have them around. I'm telling you, yeah. I I do I do believe I would I'd like to have a sword of some point, you know, like I a bow would be nice, you know, like a like a bow and arrow, but I feel like I'll make one of those at some point.
SPEAKER_00You can make a bow and arrow. You know how to make a bow and arrow?
SPEAKER_01Yes, that's if the arrows are harder than the bow.
SPEAKER_00I would not have to be straight.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but the bow can be structurally awkward because the the the bow string is going to solve a lot of problems. You know, like if the if the bow, if the bow of the bow isn't symmetrical, then you can still shoot it from center, but if the arrows aren't straight, then they just don't fly right. That's a fair point.
SPEAKER_00See, this is another thing, is why I would suck at surviving a zombie apocalypse. I have not shot a bow and arrow since like junior year of high school gym class. Because we had a bow and arrow unit for some reason, and I wasn't all that great at it. And I just listen, I'm telling you, I I think that there are there are a finite number of skills that exist that would make me a valuable member of a post-apocalyptic team and or family. And I believe that my lack of skills, like the the skills that I do have, for example, being armored up and shoved off to try to make peace with the other Mad Max style clan across the river or whatever, across the road, I don't think that those skills are necessarily enough to keep me alive long enough to use. I can't shoot a bow and arrow. I've shot a gun once in my life. It was awesome, but I'm still not like a big gun guy, you know. I just I'm telling I don't know, dude. I don't think that I would be anybody's like if we were picking teams, right? And we had all of our friends lined up, and you at home can play this game too. Line up all your friends in your mind, and it's a zombie apocalypse, and you and your buddy get to pick from your friends. You know who's standing on that line at the very end, and you guys are are kind of fighting over who gets him, it's me. Well, I you picked first. Well, I picked first, so like I have too many players on my team, so you get Kyle. No, you get Kyle. Oh, I don't want Kyle. Kyle sucks, and I'm over here going like to not get bit, please.
SPEAKER_01So so do you think there is do you think there is a part of the modern existence that needs to feel ready for these sort of things? Like, do you feel because I I have seen I have seen a rise on social media in like wilderness survival courses and like leadership and and blah blah blah, where like you fly out to Alaska for a week and they teach you how to survive in the woods and and they teach you and and it it seems to be a lot of fluff, like it seems to be a lot of like don't buy the big brand backpacking food when you can make it yourself at home, but it's not you know, here's how you tie the knot that's going to save your life, you know. It it there's there's a lot of like watch this guy make a lean to shelter on his property, and he's got like a hacksaw and like a power drill, and he's like making this shelter, and I'm like, that's not that that's not. Do you feel like there is a like there's a rise in kind of the apocalyptic bar conversation? Do you think people are legitimately concerned? It's it's a big sci-fi play now, too, right? What happens if you know World War III and and the nukes go off and who survives and how and why, and you know, like zombie apocalypse, all right, you gotta survive the first wave, but then everything kind of quiets down a little bit.
SPEAKER_00Um other than that, you know, like I think you I think you hit it on the head right there, dude, is and we're not a political podcast, nor will we ever be a political podcast. But I think that the state of the world right now, the state of the United States right now, where everybody is, you know, against everybody else, and there's this very dark line that has been drawn in the sand, where if you're on this side, you're with us, if you're on this side, you're with them. I feel like people are maybe more concerned about like civil war or to your point, the nukes going off, you know, because let's be completely honest with each other. The state of the world is pretty messed up. But I think that uh it would be it would be I don't want to say naive to say that it's that it's zombies. I don't mean I don't I don't think anybody truly believes that'll that that is a thing that could ever happen. But a nuclear holocaust is something that is definitely on the table. So maybe that's why. I mean the political climate across the globe is real hot right now.
SPEAKER_01And and we used to teach these survival skills, right? We're we're two, maybe three generations removed from depression-era cooking, where you know they told everybody how to how to grow a victory garden in their backyard so that you could, you know, on your plot of land, sustain enough food for a family of four for a year. And you know, like they taught these things. We don't teach these things anymore. Even if you go through like the like the Boy Scout handbooks, if you go all the way back to Boy Scout Handbook Number One, it teaches you how to kill and skin a deer with shards of rock that you broke off yourself. So essentially how to bring how to break two rocks together, create an arrowhead so sharp that you can then skin a deer with it. It also teaches you the proper way to build a log cabin. If you get to the current Boy Scout handbooks, they don't teach any of that nonsense. They teach some of the knots, they teach a lot of the skills that come with, you know, the compass work and the map work and all of that, but they're not teaching you how to skin a deer anymore. And you could say that the Boy Scouts as a whole is not as part of the modern childhood as it was years past. Your kids aren't signed up for scouts, are they? No, sir. So, you know, so where are they going to get this knowledge from? That's to say that the scouts are even still teaching it. You know, where where do where do they because you didn't get it from anywhere, right? Were there church camps?
SPEAKER_00Were there summer camps of some other sort that I mean I'm assuming that there were, but like I didn't participate in them.
SPEAKER_01So even as a grown man, would you feel better facing the world tomorrow if you knew that you could build a shelter in the woods with rope and survive?
SPEAKER_00I'd probably just try to find an abandoned house, but you know, that's just me.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's and that's the other side of things, right? Because bear grills is always eating all sorts of weird shit. And every time I watch that show, I go, you know what, man, you could have cooked it. You could have cooked it. You reached into the log and you pulled out a grub the size of your thumb, and you went, oh, bottoms up, and you tossed that thing into your mouth, and then let all the juices spew out between your teeth like a weirdo. Like you could have boiled that thing, seasoned it, a little bit of paprika, cut it into nice little slices, maybe stirred it into a risotto, you know, but at least you're eating something with a little bit of texture to it. You can cook things. That's the thing about the survival shows that always blew my mind. Is they're like, oh, we found this meat here. We're just gonna, oh, we're so look at this fish we caught. We're just gonna eat right into the side of this. You would the 15 minutes, you could have put that on the fire, had a nice little fish loin, nice and crispy with the bones picked out. You don't have to be savages.
SPEAKER_00I think that's maybe the second biggest deterrent from me surviving a zombie apocalypse is the fact that I'm not a hundred percent sure that I could control my gag reflex enough if we weren't cooking stuff.
SPEAKER_02You know, that's why you cook stuff.
SPEAKER_00Like agreed. I I listen, you make a very good point, and I'll be honest with you. I used to watch that man vs. Show a whole bunch, and every time he ate something raw, I was like, Nope, I'm done. And now that I'm thinking about it, the fact that that son of a bitch could make a fire probably underwater if you asked him to. You could be like, Hey, bear grills, how do I start a fire underwater? He'd go, Oh, well, this is how you do it, mate. You know, and then he would do it and he'd be cooking flounder or whatever, like in its natural habitat, but instead he chose to eat eat that nine-pound fucking grub raw. I mean, you make a very solid point, but I can't. Put them in your pocket. You will have a fire later. I just don't think I could I could get away with eat like I I don't have what I would consider like a problem with like a gag reflex. Like when something makes me sick, it's not like I'm going or like I see something that I don't like, or I try something necessarily that I don't like. It's not that I'm going to immediately hurl everything I've ever eaten out of my mouth hole. But there are just things like I don't think I could get on board with. Like, let's go back to cheese. What if I had to eat blue cheese to survive? I just don't know if I could do it. They'd be like, Kyle, your calorie intake has been very low for the last couple of weeks. We found this three-pound block of blue cheese. Just dig in, buddy. Get the get that get that weight back up.
SPEAKER_01And I'd be like, oh dude, I just don't know if I could. I'd be like, can I trade this for a grub? Well, and there's there's gonna have to be a fair amount of scavenging, right? The world isn't just going to disappear. There's that would be my job. Maybe I'd just be maybe I'd be a you want Cheetos, go find Cheetos.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, like a dumpster diver or something. That's right. I'd be I'd be jumping. Well, see, that's it. And then you said you said don't go to Walmart first. Ugh, dude, talkies are gonna go quick. Anyway. I think to to sum this up, Kaz, you might be okay during a zombie apocalypse. And if it ever happens, man, just you know, make sure you grab me. And I'll come on with it, man. I will put on a bunch of. I'll put rolled magazine armor on and try to go talk to the people who paint the f their faces with the blood of their enemies down the road and see if we can't negotiate a peace.
SPEAKER_01Negotiating with the goth kids. You're so lame.
SPEAKER_00Oh man. Well, listen, if you have survival skills you'd like to talk to us about, let us know. Please feel free to reach out to us. We are at Split the Corner Podcast on all your major social media platforms. If you want to email us, we are split the cornerpodcast at gmail.com. We would love to hear from you.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let us know if you want to join the official split the corner survival plan. We can put together a whole community somewhere. I hear there's ghost towns out west that are just there.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, dude. I drove I drove a truck from Long Beach, California to Philadelphia. And I driving through the the lower southwest of the country, like you're driving along the highway and it's literal just nothing. And then all of a sudden there's a town and there's no cars and there's no people, and then you drive a couple of zombies.
SPEAKER_01That means there's no zombies, right? And everybody's got a house to start off in, and then we've got a home base. There you go. And then you build from there.
SPEAKER_00Sober friends, your next water is on us. Everyone else, the next round is on us. Cheers, guys.