Cool Weird Awesome With Brady Carlson

It's the birthday of the guy who took two sports and fused them into one: Ed Headrick, known today as the Father of Disc Golf. Here's some of his story. Plus: it's Pride Day, part of Pride Month, and there's still time to see the original rainbow Pride Flag at San Francisco’s GLBT Historical Society Museum. The Father of Disc Golf (Disc Golf Association) History of disc golf (part 1): the early days (Murray Ledger) The Original Pride Flag Is Now on Display in a San Francisco Museum (Travel and Leisure) Keep our show flying as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from September 2020, we marked the 60th  anniversary of the first broadcast of that landmark cartoon show from the town of Bedrock, which aired in the 1960s, stayed on in reruns for  decades, and continues to sell cereal and vitamins to this day. Plus: a man in England gets so lonely he starts putting ads in the paper so someone will email or call him - and fortunately he gets some good responses. 15 Solid Facts About The Flintstones (Mental Floss) Lonely Widower Puts Up a Poster Asking For Friends—And is Flooded With Messages From New Pals (Good News Network) A special thanks to our Patreon backers and listeners! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from November 2019, we look at an episode of the Twilight Zone that proved the show was a dimension not only of sight and sound but of canned laughter?!? Plus: anybody want to fly in an airplane where the whole interior looks like a giant window? Dimensions Behind the Twilight Zone: A Backstage Tribute to Television’s Groundbreaking Series by Stewart Stanyard The Twilight Zone: A 60th Anniversary Celebration Windowless planes: is this the future of flying? (The Telegraph via YouTube) Back Cool Weird Awesome on Patreon today! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from September 2019, we marked the day in 1975 that the BBC aired the first episode of “Fawlty Towers,” a landmark comedy series that was - amazingly - received about as poorly  by TV executive and the public as Basil Fawlty’s appalling attitude was received by guests at his hotel. How did it finally get its due? Plus: AC/DC songs can get the bison of Yellowstone National Park moving. For bison about to rock, we salute you? Fawlty Towers: the classic sitcom the BBC didn’t want (Telegraph) I'm afraid I thought this one as dire as its title (Letters of Note) Cops Blast AC/DC to Get the Reluctant Bison Moving Out of the Road and It Works Like a Charm (TIME) Backing Cool Weird Awesome is a much better use of your money than giving it to Lord Melbury --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from January 2021, we marked the anniversary of the premiere of one of the most memorable sitcoms in TV history, “Sanford and Son," by sharing a few facts about the show and its star, Redd Foxx. Plus: photographer Mike Mayou went out with a drone-mounted camera in  Minnesota to catch the sunset but got something even more amazing. 15 Big Facts About Sanford and Son (Mental Floss) Photographer Flies Drone To Discover a Once-in-a-Lifetime Shot of 3 Bobcats Sitting on a Log (My Modern Met) Join Cool Weird Awesome as a backer on Patreon for a price even Fred Sanford wouldn't mind paying --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

This week we're replaying some of our favorite episodes about our favorite TV shows. In this episode from September 2019, we mark the 50th anniversary of the premiere of “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?” Originally the show was going to be VERY different. Plus: Lake Lure, NC hosted the Dirty Dancing Festival. If you went, I hope you had the time of your life. “Like, yeah. We’ve been teenagers forever:” The Evolution of Scooby-Doo’s “Meddling Kids” (24 Frames of Silver) Iwao Takamoto: My Life with a Thousand Characters Dirty Dancing Festival I swear it's the truth, we owe Cool Weird Awesome all to you, our Patreon backers --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

It's National Go Fishing Day, though the fish in today’s story aren’t exactly the ones you’d expect to catch. They’re robotic fish called Charlie and Charlene, and they were developed by the Central Intelligence Agency. Plus: tomorrow is National Surfing Day, and one place you might mark the occasion is the Santa Cruz Surfing Museum in California. Meet Catfish Charlie, the CIA’s Robotic Spy (IEEE Spectrum) Santa Cruz Surfing Museum (Atlas Obscura) Back our show on Patreon for just $1 a month! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

It's the World Day to Combat Desertification and Drough, so it's a good time to check in on the Great Green Wall, a multi-country project in and around Africa’s Sahel region to re-green areas that have turned to desert because of overuse, expanding desert and climate change. Plus: a retired couple in China's Gobi Desert have been running their own regreening project for nearly 20 years, planting tens of thousands of drought-resistant trees by themselves!  More than 20 African countries are planting a 8,000-km-long ‘Great Green Wall’ (ZME Science) Fighting desertification: A man's mission to make the Gobi desert green (CGTN) Keep this show growing as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Summer in California can mean drought, so every drop of water counts. A research project there says putting solar panels over the state's many miles of water canals could save tens of billions of gallons of water a year. Plus: a museum in Rochester, New York is going to host the National Archives of Game Show History... if the price is right.  Solar canals create renewable energy and save water at the same time (Popular Science) Game Show History to Be Preserved With National Archives at Strong National Museum of Play (Variety) Our show is powered by our backers on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The man now known as “First Guide & Explorer of Mammoth Cave," had been enslaved in the 19th century and sent to explore what was becoming a hot tourist site. He set the bar for every guide who came after him. Plus: today in 1976, a baseball game at the Houston Astrodome was called off... due to weather?!? Enslaved Tour Guide Stephen Bishop Made Mammoth Cave the Must-See Destination It Is Today (Smithsonian) Hoffman: Astros made history with a rainout (Houston Chronicle) Help make more episodes of this show as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

For Flag Day, we present the story of Superflag, a 505 foot long, 255 foot tall American flag that was once flown over Hoover Dam (because they don't make flagpoles that large). Plus: a Durham University study finds people can use click-based echolocation effectively in the real world after just 10 weeks of practice!  Was the World’s Largest U.S. Flag Displayed at Hoover Dam? (Snopes) Echolocation: People trained to hear like bats in a study that could help those with vision loss (Science Focus) Our Patreon backers are pretty super, join them today! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The event has been cancelled for 2021, but this was supposed to be the time when some adventurous types headed to Switzerland to take part in a race like no other: a run up a world record staircase known as the Niesen Stairway Run. Plus: a lot of us have been doing video calls and meetings more than ever, but the technology isn't totally new. In fact, Sony made a video phone back in the late 1980s!  Niesen flight of stairs (Niesen) Video phone (Techmoan on YouTube) Our Patreon backers always help us reach new heights --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The National Geographic Society has recognized a fifth ocean, the Southern Ocean, on earth. How the oceans got their names - and why we don't think of them as one big ocean, which is what it is - is a long and fascinating story. Plus: a designer in South Korea has invented a "third eye" to warn people looking at their phones while walking before they collide with someone or something (or, maybe, to get them to look up more often).  How many oceans are there? (NOAA) Dividing the Ocean Sea by Martin W. Lewis (Geographical Review via JSTOR)  National Geographic recognizes new, 5th ocean (WFLA) A Wearable Robotic Third Eye That Alerts People to Look Up From Their Phones to Avoid Obstacles (Laughing Squid) We'd sail on any of the oceans with our Patreon backers --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

We use a lot of energy to ship goods, but it's not always very efficient. With pasta, for example, most of what we're shipping is the air in the box. So a team at Carnegie Mellon University found a way to make flat-packed pasta that changes shape as it cooks. Plus: the New York Times briefly published a story that claimed "Fields of Watermelon Found on Mars, Police Say." It was almost certainly a test page, but still, maybe the Mars rover should do a quick check.  Mighty morphin’ flat-packed pasta takes on 3D shapes as it cooks (Ars Technica) New York Times Publishes Then Deletes Article Claiming Watermelons Were Found on Mars (Futurism) Our Patreon backers keep this show in great shape every day --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today would have been the 93rd birthday of the great actor and comedian Jerry Stiller. He was perhaps best known for playing the overbearing and incomprehensible loudmouth dad Frank Costanza on "Seinfeld," but according to his real-life kids, he was a pretty nice dad. Plus: a new textile exhibit in New York uses fragrances to evoke the artist's childhood in Bangalore, India.  How Ben Stiller Will Remember His Father (The New Yorker) Ben Stiller shares sweet childhood story about Jerry Stiller trying to catch a bike thief (Yahoo) Thread Infused with Scent Embellishes Embroidered and Woven Textiles to Stimulate Memories (Colossal) Our Patreon backers are extra nice too!  --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

The 1934 US Open was a prestigious but kind of strange golf tournament. The guy who won it, Olin Dutra, was sick as a dog the whole time. And another top player reportedly knocked himself out of contention after accidentally hitting himself in the head with a club.  Bobby Cruickshank - the war hero who became one of Scottish golf's nearly men in United States (The Scotsman) Olin Dutra overcomes bout of food poisoning to win by one stroke over Sarazen at Merion (U.S. Golf Association) Our Patreon backers always help us reach the green --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

In the old days, tennis balls were white, but when documentary film legend David Attenborough pushed the BBC to carry the Wimbledon tournament in color, the tennis world realized those balls weren't showing up very well for home viewers. Plus: the community of Fitzgerald, Georgia is hoping to attract tourists with - what else - a giant steel topiary chicken.  The reason tennis balls are yellow -- or maybe green (CNN) 'New balls, please' for mice homes (BBC) ‘This is not a model kit’: 62 ft. Fitzgerald chicken starts to take form (WALB) Support our show as a backer on Patreon for just $1 a month! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Today in 1769 Captain James Cook and his crew observed the transit of Venus from Tahiti, a big deal for astronomers then; only his French colleague Guillaume Le Gentil had spent years preparing to do the exact same thing, and had much worse luck on his expedition. Plus: for World Bicycle Day, a visit to a giant bicycle sculpture in South Dakota.  Transit of Venus: a tale of two expeditions (The Conversation) 7 Strange Spots In South Dakota That Will Make You Stop And Look Twice (Only in South Dakota) Everywhere we go, whatever we do, our Patreon backers go with us --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

Sometimes it’s not just what you’re communicating, it’s how you communicate it. Pausing for effect can help get your point across. Humans know this, but according to researchers, so do some kinds of fish. Plus: a sculpture made only of "air and spirit" sells for 15,000 Euros. That's definitely not nothing.  Electric fish -- and humans -- pause before communicating key points (Washington University in St. Louis) The Invisible statues of Salvatore Garau (Weird Universe) Power this show as a backer on Patreon! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message

If you know the story of the Loch Ness Monster, the story of the Ogopogo in Canada's British Columbia might sound familiar. But there's a whole other side to this story that comes from the Okanagan/syilx people, who first lived in the area. Plus: a town in Lithuania built a real-time video "portal" to a town in Poland, so they could see each other even when they couldn't travel.  Canada's mysterious lake monster (BBC) ‘Pretty creepy’: Okanagan man believes he’s captured ‘definitive Ogopogo sighting’ on video (GlobalNews) Vilnius, Lithuania built a ‘portal’ to another city to help keep people connected (The Verge) Join our backers on Patreon and help make new episodes of our show! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/coolweirdawesome/message