Selects: Flagpole Sitting: A Real Fad

Stuff You Should Know

This episode of 'Stuff You Should Know' explores the bizarre 1920s fad of flagpole sitting, where individuals would sit atop flagpoles for e

Key takeaways

• Flagpole sitting emerged as a novelty craze in the 1920s, reflecting the era's fascination with extreme stunts and public spectacle.

Main topics

• Flagpole sitting as a cultural fad

Notable quotes

'Run it up the flagpole and see who salutes, but no one ever does.' – Reference to the song 'Flagpole Sitta' by Harvey Danger.

Conclusion

The episode highlights how seemingly absurd behaviors like flagpole si

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Speaker 4 (0:05) Dancing with the Stars is looking for a new pro. And since last season, I came in eighth place. I'm basically an expert. I'm Danielle Fishel. And Speaker 3 (0:13) I'm Val Chmerkovsky. Speaker 4 (0:14) And we have a new podcast called Stepping on Toes with Danielle and Val. Speaker 3 (0:18) Every week, we're breaking down Dancing with the Stars, the next pro, to find out who I'll be sharing the ballroom with next season. Speaker 4 (0:24) Listen to Stepping on Toes on America's number one podcast network, iHeart. Follow Stepping on Toes and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app today. Speaker 8 (0:35) Hi, I'm Dr. James Stout. You might know me as a host of the podcast It Could Happen Here, but I'm hosting a brand new show now called Natural Causes, where we explain how going outside is political and look at how we can live together with nature and take care of one another in a world that's on fire. Speaker 3 (0:50) You know, we feel uncomfortable saying something like culture and wildlife, but that's what it is. Speaker 8 (0:55) We're Speaker 3 (0:55) going Speaker 8 (0:55) to explain how a tick can make you sick and how a lizard might be able to help you and what mountain lions can teach us about zombie deer. You can see the very faint outlines of the aurora. What a magical place. Listen to Natural Causes on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (1:13) Why do some women yearn for Shakira's black hair to make a comeback? And whatever happened to the power couple of my dreams, Mariah Carey and Luis Miguel? I'm Maria Garcia. You may remember me from my podcast, Anything for Selena or My Divo. And now I'm back to unpack more stories from the present and the past. Listen to Muy Excited with Maria Garcia on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 2 (1:43) Hey, everybody. It's July 14th, 2020. And we're all rolling through COVID pretty well by this point. We're all pretty drunk most of the time and gaining weight, but that's okay. We're going to let each other up because it's a global pandemic. Speaker 2 (2:02) This episode is called Flagpole Sitting, colon, a real fad. And it was. People would sit at the top of flagpoles for as long as they could. And it was a part of a weird time in American history. So check out this episode, not on Harvey Danger, the band who sang the song Flagpole Sitta, as did my cover band, but Flagpole Sitting for real. Check it out right now. Speaker 4 (2:28) Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio. Speaker 1 (2:38) Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant right over there. Jerry's out there somewhere, and this is Stuff You Should Know. You know, Chuck, I have to say, every once in a while, the amazing theme song from our short-lived television show comes into my head. And it's just a complete earworm. Yeah. Because I just hear the end of it over and over and over again. And it's actually pretty pleasant. It doesn't bother me. I Speaker 7 (3:07) love it. I Speaker 1 (3:07) haven't heard that song in a while. Well, you need to go listen. That was the Henry Clay people, right? Speaker 7 (3:12) Yeah, our buddies Joey and Andy Sierra. Speaker 1 (3:16) California Speaker 7 (3:17) boys, Southern California boys, men. Didn't they go to like Harvard or something crazy like Speaker 1 (3:22) that? Speaker 7 (3:23) Joey ended up going to Harvard, and then I think Andy went to AFI, and then Joey, I think, went back to film school. And they're both writing, you know, screenwriting. Speaker 1 (3:35) Man, that's great. Speaker 7 (3:36) Andy's got a, he brought this Andy Samberg movie that's coming out soon. Speaker 1 (3:42) Really? Which one? What's it called? Speaker 7 (3:44) It is Speaker 1 (3:45) called Palm Springs, I think. Wow, and he wrote it? Yeah, dude. That's fantastic. Congratulations. And Speaker 7 (3:53) he wrote on the TV show Lodge 49. Yeah, Palm Springs. I haven't seen that. Speaker 1 (3:57) But that guy, Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's son. I love that guy. Yeah, Speaker 7 (4:05) he's great. I think he's one Speaker 1 (4:06) of the coolest people walking around on the planet today. Speaker 7 (4:09) Yeah. I haven't seen Lodge 49. It's supposed to be awesome. And Andy was a writer's assistant and then ended up on the staff, and they're both doing great. Speaker 1 (4:17) Man, that's great. Congratulations to both of you guys. Speaker 7 (4:19) He's got a little baby now. They're both married. Speaker 1 (4:21) Nice, man. Speaker 7 (4:22) That's nice. And that's an update on the Sierra Club, as I call them. Speaker 1 (4:28) Let's see. What else? I guess that was Speaker 7 (4:30) it. How did that come into your head, though? the song. Like, what made you think of that? Speaker 1 (4:34) Nothing. I was just out back, like, mowing the lawn with my big old lawnmower, and it just popped in my head. I was probably thinking of something I had to do that had to do with stuff you should know. And I thought stuff you should know. And when I thought it, I thought it as stuff you should know. And then it just played on Speaker 7 (4:54) a loop. This is the second time you mentioned the size of your lawnmower. Speaker 1 (4:58) And Speaker 7 (4:59) now you just got to send me a picture. Is this one of these things that you stand and it wheels you around like some weird land speeder? Speaker 1 (5:07) You mean like a skag or something? No. This is just a good old-fashioned Toro that is, because it's gas-powered, I got it, like, on super discount because everybody's making, like, really good electric lawnmowers. Yeah. But this one was, you know, it was on discount, and I like the look of it. Yeah, it's a good-looking Speaker 7 (5:27) mower, huh? Speaker 1 (5:28) Yeah. I was like, I like your style. Come on with me. Is it red? Yep. Yeah, Speaker 7 (5:33) those red Toros. Speaker 1 (5:35) Yeah. It's nice. Takes you back to... Days of Paper Routes and stuff like that, doesn't it? I Speaker 7 (5:39) thought you were mentioning the song because you were thinking of the song Flagpole Sitta by Harvey Danger. Speaker 1 (5:47) No, I wasn't at all. Speaker 7 (5:51) Okay. Speaker 1 (5:52) But that's a great segue, Chuck, because it just so happens, and you may be aware of this, we're talking about flagpole sitting today in this episode. Speaker 7 (6:01) That's right, and I've been singing that song in my head all day. Speaker 1 (6:04) Now, I don't know that song. Speaker 7 (6:06) You know it. It was a, well, maybe not. It was a top 40 hit in the 90s, kind of during the grunge era. It was a power pop hit that kind of... Speaker 1 (6:16) Oh. Speaker 7 (6:17) From Hardy Danger. Speaker 1 (6:22) Wait. Is that it? That's not Speaker 7 (6:28) it. No. My band actually covers Flagpole Sitting. It's a fun song. Speaker 1 (6:32) Okay. That's great. I'm going to have to go listen to it because I feel like I'm missing out. But is that song about Flagpole Sitting? Is it about Shipwreck Kelly in particular? Speaker 7 (6:42) No, it's not, but it does have one line that says, run it up the flagpole and see. And that's the only time it references flagpoles at all. Speaker 1 (6:52) Sees what? Speaker 7 (6:55) Who salutes, but no one ever does, I think is the next line. Speaker 1 (6:59) That rings a bell. Speaker 7 (7:01) I was looking into the mirror. Speaker 1 (7:05) I Speaker 7 (7:05) think a little bit clearer. Sure. Running up the flagpole and see who salutes but no one ever does. Speaker 1 (7:12) Yeah, I'm not sick, but I'm not well. Who is that? Speaker 7 (7:16) Harvey Danger. Harvey Speaker 1 (7:17) Danger? Okay, yeah, that's a great song. I love it. Speaker 7 (7:19) Yeah, who a fellow podcasting friend, John Roderick, actually Sean Nelson was a friend of his in Seattle, and he played bass. for a little while in Harvey Danger. Speaker 1 (7:29) Oh, very, wow, man. This is all coming for so good. I got one more for you. What you got? I used to have that song, and I don't know where I downloaded it from. This would have been probably back in the Napster days or something. Whoa. And it was mislabeled as Brian Jonestown Massacre. And I was always like, this does not sound like Brian Jonestown Massacre. Now I know it most definitely wasn't Brian Jonestown Massacre. Speaker 7 (7:55) Wow. All right. We haven't even talked about flagpole sitting yet. Speaker 1 (7:59) No, we haven't, which is a crime because it's actually one of the more interesting weirdo fads that's ever come this way in America. And it was in the 20s. It started, we actually, we know who patient zero was of flagpole sitting. And it's easy to tell because it is such a bizarre thing to do that if you can find the person who, who. who did it first, who claims to have done it first, they're probably correct. And in this case, you can trace it back to sometime around January of 1924, supposedly, potentially, in Hollywood, California, part of Los Angeles, and there was a man named Alvin Shipwreck Kelly. who supposedly climbed up on a flagpole as part of a promotion for a movie and sat there for a full 13 hours and 13 minutes to help draw a crowd, and boy, did he ever. Speaker 7 (8:54) Yeah, which, you know, it sounds like a long time to sit on a flagpole, but that is kid stuff. Speaker 1 (9:00) Yeah. Compared to where this is Speaker 7 (9:02) headed. Speaker 1 (9:03) Yeah, for sure. Speaker 7 (9:04) That's an aperitif. But it's a Speaker 1 (9:06) good first attempt, you know? Speaker 7 (9:07) Yeah, and so, you know, It sounds strange because when you think of a flagpole, you're like, what are they sitting on? It's a modified flagpole that basically there are different kinds, but usually it's sort of like a bar stool at the top of a flagpole. Speaker 1 (9:22) And Speaker 7 (9:22) it's that lo-fi. And you climb up there and you sit and that's all you do. Speaker 1 (9:29) That's it. I mean, whatever else you want to do. Well, sure, you do other stuff. Speaker 7 (9:33) Use Speaker 1 (9:33) yourself or whatever. That's up to you. But as far as being considered a flagpole sitter. That's it. You sit on top of a flagpole for as long as you can. Speaker 7 (9:42) All right. So let's talk about this guy because Shipwreck Kelly was a pretty interesting character. Speaker 1 (9:48) And I have to say there's a Memory Palace episode about him that I specifically didn't listen to beforehand because I didn't want to unconsciously rip it off. Wow. But go listen to that. Speaker 7 (9:56) Yeah, or old buddy Nate. I'm going to check that out for sure. Speaker 1 (9:59) So Speaker 7 (10:00) Alvin Kelly, he was born Aloysius Anthony Kelly in New York City in Hell's Kitchen in a tenement in 1893 and had a very sad start to his life in that his father had already passed before he was born. His mother passed in childbirth. And that basically meant he was shuttled around to relatives and orphanages from the minute he took his first breath. Speaker 1 (10:28) Yeah. And apparently from a pretty early age, he would do things like climb flagpoles and other tall stuff. And like working at heights became a kind of a recurring theme in his life. Supposedly by age seven, he was climbing flagpoles. Within a few years after that, he was starting to scale the facades of some of the buildings in his neighborhood. And by the time he was 13, Bear in mind if this guy's biography seems a little thin, he just came out of nowhere in 1924 for sitting on a flagpole. So all of the info about him came from him to reporters who were reporting in the 1920s. So just fabrications are flying around left and right. But supposedly he ran away at age 13 and ran off to join the crew of a cargo ship and start his life sailing the seas. Speaker 7 (11:20) Yeah, and he did a lot of kind of odd jobs, or maybe not odd jobs, but just jobs that didn't have anything to do with one another over the next couple of decades. He was in the movies as a stand-in and a double. He was a stunt person, a stunt pilot, a high diver, a boxer. This part I love. There's actually a name for people that repair church steeples. What is that? Steeple Jack. He was a steeple jack. Speaker 1 (11:47) That is definitely a band name for sure. Steeplejack? Oh, yeah. It sounds like maybe an industrial band, but like on the light side, like they're technically too melodic to actually be considered industrial, but they still call themselves industrial. That's Speaker 7 (12:03) become my favorite part of this whole band name thing. Is it? Is you describing what kind of band it is. Speaker 1 (12:09) Oh, okay. Speaker 7 (12:10) I Speaker 1 (12:10) love Speaker 7 (12:10) it. Speaker 1 (12:10) Well, thanks, man. That makes me feel warm and pleasant. Speaker 7 (12:13) So... World War I comes along, and he was in the Naval Auxiliary Reserve as an ensign and served on the USS Edgar F. Luchenbach during that war. Speaker 1 (12:27) Yep. So he did have some sort of, well, I should say, I don't know if anybody's corroborated that. But we'll Speaker 2 (12:35) just Speaker 1 (12:35) take all that at face value because it doesn't really matter at this point. But he eventually picked up the nickname Shipwreck. And there's a lot of different... explanations for this. And he's given or he gave multiple different explanations depending on what reporter he was talking to. But one of the numbers that gets bandied about pretty frequently is that Shipwreck Kelly was so named. Because he survived 32 different shipwrecks at sea, which is where shipwrecks tend to happen. Speaker 2 (13:05) Those were the good old days. Yeah. You just make up stories about yourself. Speaker 1 (13:10) Do you remember when we talked about, we did an episode on the world's either luckiest or unluckiest people? Mm Speaker 7 (13:18) -hmm. Speaker 1 (13:19) And do you remember that one guy who was like, I survived a car that fell off a cliff and I survived a train wreck and all that? He was doing his jam in like 2005, remember? Oh, was he? Yeah. He was pretty recent, if I remember correctly. You remember his son came out and was like, everybody, this is not true. Right. Like, none of what you're talking about is true. My dad just fooled you all. Speaker 7 (13:41) We don't know if Shipwreck Kelly actually survived the Titanic like he claimed, Speaker 1 (13:45) but Speaker 7 (13:46) we do know that he was not on the roster on the Titanic. So I am going to venture to say that he made that one up. Speaker 1 (13:53) And there were three Kellys. on board who were survivors, but all three of them were women. So yeah, he probably wasn't on the Titanic. Maybe he did survive from shipwrecks. He was at sea, most likely. But the point is, is they called him Shipwreck Kelly. And I guess somebody went to the trouble of digging up that some reporters who covered his boxing career are probably the likeliest source for where he got his nickname Shipwreck, right? Speaker 7 (14:20) Yeah, which I love.