The Great Great White and Two Miles High in 16 Degree Weather and Shorts?

Ever found yourself clinging to the past with a hint of nostalgia, holding on to a simple, unadorned coffee cup as a token of simpler times? The CD of the Day is Great White's "Mista Bone," which stirs up memories as vivid as Donna Reed's wry smile on WRDU. 
I coin the term "Irritable Bastard Syndrome" and let loose on the exasperating shorthand of text lingo and the overuse of the word "dude." This episode isn't just about griping, though—it's a heartfelt call for a linguistic renaissance! To choose our words with intention!

Switching gears, we explore the breathtakingly audacious quest of climbers hailing from the Netherlands—no, not Danish, not Dutch, but true Netherlanders—as they tackle the icy behemoth of a 3,750-foot rock face in Greenland. The stakes are high, not just for the adrenaline but for the pressing scientific insights into climate change and sea level rise. We'll dissect their motives and the intricacies of their expedition. Are they in it for the science, the glory, or the sheer human push against the edges of possibility? 

Transcript

Blade: 0:02

Generic coffee cup with no message on it, so don't have to stick it in your face. I've had it for 10, 12 years. It's my favorite. It says nothing. Courtesy of Oak City Collection. Jud Patterson, proprietor, Smithfield, North Carolina. He also carved and crafted and baked this Arizona state star, which I just love. It's designed to be a Christmas decoration but I don't put it on the Christmas tree because it'll get lost in the shuffle. It's just too beautiful.

Blade: 0:32

And so the CD of the day is Mista Bone from Great White. They had a run there in 89 and 90. They had once bitten. An album came out album because they're still called albums Then twice shy, I think came out of 1990. And those guys still do it. I am telling you, 1977 to 2024. Jack Russell's not with them anymore.

Blade: 1:26

But I always say this is that every time we hear a song from the archives from the old day, it always reminds you of one person. One person pops into your head. It's never a group of people, it's always one person. And Mr Bone always reminds me of the venerable and honorable Donna Reed, rock and roll housewife, who did a night show at WRDU for a while there and it was great and she'd say Mr Bone, and that was the first time I'd ever heard. It was when she played it. That's why it reminds me of her. She'd say, m Bone, with that wry smile that you could hear on the radio, and I always loved that.

Blade: 2:01

Now I've got a syndrome and I've decided that everybody's got a syndrome nowadays. I mean, you're not normal unless you have a syndrome, and I've just turned into this irritable bastard. It's called the irritable bastard syndrome IBS , an jus look, just let me be an irritable bastard. The older you get, more little things irritate you and of course, there's always this aspect of it. It's like if they've been bothering you for decades and decades. I mean, it just gets worse and worse. Trust me, it doesn't get any better and there's no cure. It's incurable, this syndrome irritable bastard syndrome and it comes down to the way people talk these days. And well, actually it's the way people write, because who talks anymore?

Blade: 2:48

Text messaging and Facebook Messenger and all these things, and email, yeah, and it's these words, these new words that people have come up with to expedite their life, shortened words, and I start i" , , i-m-m-a, and then that group is coupled with FINA, f-i-n-n-a. I'm a go, I'm a get you, I'm a. Get that. I'm a hit that what? I-m-m-a. Fina, which I think comes from the Southern term. It is a Southern term. I'm fitting to you see. You see I'm finna. Get that, I'm finna. Go finna, buy that kind of thing. It's just irritating to me when I see that you don't have to do that and it's not cool and I want to visit this word dude Okay, now, that's something we overused in the nineties and everybody used it and it was fine then.

Blade: 3:46

I guess you know, with your, with your hat on backwards and all that kind of thing, you know what he really uses, the word dude anymore. I was on an airplane flight just just the other day and Sassy little girl is trying to put her luggage up in her luggage rack, you know, and it's just too big and she's trying to get it up there and and she's yelling at the guy behind her. She couldn't have been more than 20. She's yelling at the guy behind her dude, if you wouldn't stay so close up on my ass and maybe I could get my bag and my luggage rack, you know, dude. But the one thing I did love about the word dude is that it described every single situation of incredulity. I guess you use this one word. It says the whole story dude. They're like dude, that's what I liked about it. But nobody says that anymore. Because when people use the word dude when I hear it anyway every now it just makes you feel kind of kind of gross inside. That's just me, hey, just let me be old, would you?

Blade: 4:46

Now the word crazy, the most overused word in the English language, now, the word crazy. You know, boy, that was a crazy game. Well, what have you said? Nothing. Crazy says nothing, and I think that's because people can't come up with an apt adjective to describe what they're thinking or feeling or saying at that point. And it may be a situation where you know they're in a crowd of people or something like that, and you can't really say what you really think. So you use the word crazy, which I, you know, which I completely understand. But you know, when you say things like you know, like that was a crazy game, you said nothing. So, so just don't say anything. You know, or, or, or?

Blade: 5:29

World War two, man, that was crazy. You can't. You know, the COVID killed three million people worldwide and still killing people. It's crazy, it's not crazy. You know, girl the other day was telling me her father got married six times and she would say my father was married six times. That's just crazy. Well, it's not crazy. You got to use a better word than crazy. I use these words because it hits the point. It's World War two that was fucked up Because of why. That's what it was. Covid has killed three million people worldwide and are still killing people. That's fucked. My father was married six times. That's fucked up.

Blade: 6:24

Just let me enjoy my irritable bastard syndrome because it's fun to complain and don't use the word probably when you're texting me PROLLY. Just don't use the word probably Irritates me for reasons unknown. Just write probably, you know, and probably, I think people trying to be cool and it's not cool. Now listen, I get great joy out of my national geographic. I still do, even when I was a kid, and it's not because you get to see the African women that are naked. It's not that that's the old joke. It's not that it's the fact that I don't know. After you read a national geographic they're so good at what they do for so many billions of years you just feel smarter. I don't know what the deal is, but I'm speaking of smarter.

Blade: 7:09

I'm reading about these cats, these Danish guys, or is that Holland or Denmark? Are they Dutch? I've never gotten that for these couple of cats. Look at this picture. And they're climbing up this 3,750 foot rock slab with jagged edges and different levels, and you know, you know up into the atmosphere, in the ozone, where you can't even breathe, okay, and they're doing, you know, with the spikes and in the you know foot braces and all that kind of thing. And these Dutch guys and they picture here, they're halfway up. If you think about it, 3,750 feet is two miles. They're going up two miles. This slab of rock and freezing temperatures in Greenland and Greenland. You know the saying about that, right, if you want ice you go to Greenland and if you want green you go to Iceland. Another weird Dutch, hollish, hollandish dane thing. And they say this yeah, at one point falling ice hits the guy in the face, but the expedition and I'm quoting this let him lend his climbing expertise to a scientific purpose, collecting valuable clues about sea level rise and climate change. So that's why the guy's doing that. You're kidding me.

Blade: 8:36

A frigid journey to probe the planet's future. Now, do you think these cats worry about the planet's future or give one rat's ass about the planet's future? I don't think so, and usually they do with no shirts and with shorts on these expeditions. But they couldn't this time. They had to use three coats because it's too cold. They're hung up on some kind of little challenge, they have to themselves and they get some kind of thrill, going into 16 degree temperatures in Greenland hiking up a rock where you could perish at any moment by falling down.

Blade: 9:13

How the hell do you get down, is my next question. Okay, let's say you complete the challenge and you've done it and you're, you know, thrilled and you're at the top of this. You know two mile, you know quagmire slab of rock and you made it. You know how do you get down. You climb back down. Is that what you do? I'm just hoping you know inside that there's some kind of helicopter that picks you up for this. I mean, look at the picture of these guys again. I mean that's just crazy. And it's not crazy, it's fucked up. Why would you do that?