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The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck is a documentary-style audio descent into a place that shouldn't exist—but very much insists that it does.
Once a forgotten military outpost in the depths of Northern Ontario, Bootstuck has taken on a life of its own. Discovered only through a pile of mislabeled cassette tapes at a Sudbury garage sale, the story of Bootstuck slowly unravels through scattered interviews, cryptic clues, and increasingly bizarre residents. The deeper you listen, the more you realize — this isn't just a town. It's a puzzle. And somewhere in that puzzle?
A plane crash that changed everything.
Somewhere between folklore, found audio, and fever dream, Bootstuck blurs the line between documentary and delusion—offering listeners a place to get lost in, over and over again.
The Unorganized Township of Bootstuck
TAPE 33 - "Rita Comes To Visit"
This recovered tape opens with a critical musical analysis of Led Zeppelin (mistakenly called Heavy Blimps), accused of using “pots and pans” as instruments and expressing “a lot of love” — roughly 600 loves, by one count.
Rita, a long-anticipated seasonal force (or possibly a person), rolls into town early, knocking over Caleb in the process. Her arrival is announced by screaming, thuds, and a haunting playback from last Christmas.
The conversation wanders through town-wide blackouts, mismatched hot dog and hamburger buns from mysterious airdrops, and the difficulty of finding batteries in packs of three for flashlights that require two.
A casino is announced, featuring highly suspect versions of poker (“poke the girl beside you”) and something called Red Jack — which may or may not involve clapping.
Finally, wisdom is sought from the town owl, who unfortunately has been recently taxidermied. A musical number about green lollipops closes out the tape.
Key moments:
- “Dark outs” and makeshift flashlights
- Rita’s destructive descent
- Pseudo-poker rules involving physical poking
- Town owl’s posthumous silence
- Green lollipop confusion: is it apple... or just lollipop?
www.bootstuck.com
so i was listening to the guy sing about a lot of love and i realized that most of the instruments in the songs are pots and pans are you referring to led zeppelin yeah heavy blimps yep so you've figured out that they do nothing but pots and pans And that's what you're doing. And then a guy screaming in the background. Or a very angry woman. Not sure. Then they come back and they tell more about love. They got a lot of it. I think they got about 600 of them. I counted them all myself. I'm not very good at counting. That is a lot of love. Speaking of a lot of love, I guess Rita is due up there shortly. Yeah! Clap your hands for Rita if you're not underneath her. Woo! Yep, she's coming. It's going to be December now. Uh-oh, I see her coming. Yep. Rolling down the hill right now. Rita. What is that noise? Yeah, okay, watch out! Oh. Caleb got run over by Rita. Was that Rita? Was that? Yeah! That's her! Somewhere at the top of the hill. She normally rolls in in December. She sounds like a woman. If a woman was talking like a guy screaming loudly. Listen, I got a playback from her from last Christmas when we was unwrapping presents. Listen. Oh, no, no, no, no. Oh, no. Gotta go. Like that. You hear it? Is she in the woods? What is that? That was the sound that came from Dave's house. like that when Dave had the reading lamp. It's hard to tell because we all had dark outs. You ever get a dark out, real dark outside, and then ain't nobody got lights on the inside theater? And then you can't even get a fire going because it's real rainy out? You ever had one of them dark out times? What are you on about? I'll let you answer in a minute. It was so dark the other time that what we had to do was we had to find flashlights. And we found two of them. There ain't no batteries, though. Batteries are coming in packs of three. Flashlight needs two. It's going to be hard just to get to. Flashlights and batteries is kind of like hot dog buns and hot dogs. Normally when we get an airdrop, we get a box of buns and a box of hot dogs. But the buns is for hamburger. That's different. I don't even know what to say. You ever have a hamburger and a hot dog bun? I've had a hot dog and a hamburger bun. Yeah, we have that all the time. We call it, well, we just call it dinner, but what do you call it? We call it sticking your wiener out. Yeah, we do that a lot when we have blackouts. The blackout happens. Did I tell you about that? When all the lights go whoop and you can't see no more? You do what? Can't see no more. Yep. Speaking of casinos, we have one coming to town. Yep. Woo. You ever play... I'll let you answer in a minute. You know poker? Yeah. Poker. Tell me if you know it. You sit around a table and they give you a bunch of cards. You know that one? You get five cards and then you gotta poke the girl beside you and then if she'll take one of your cards away then you got four so you'll have to poke somebody else so You get all your cards back. I'll let you answer in a minute. I think that's poker. Red Jack's a different game. You've got to put money down, and if you get a Red Jack, whoo, clap your hands because you're going to win like that. I'm very interested, too. know more about your casino. Tell me, where is the casino located? What's the building? Right in the center of town. Yeah. We built a roundabout. You ever hear about a roundabout? Yeah. No? I'll let you answer in a minute. Like that. Do you have any words of... You always ask me that. And I always turn to the owl because he's the most wise. And let's see what he says today. Oh. Uh... Maybe another question for me because we got the owl taxidermied last week, so he doesn't really have much more wisdom. What? I'll sing a song if you don't mind. Green lollipop, woo, lollipop, woo. You know, whenever I had a green lollipop, I was always wondering, is it going to be green apple or lollipop? Woo!
