Ep42: Evelyn teaches Nick about Terry Fox; Nick unveils the "Nick Bognar Walk for Community Harmony and Mutual Care.”

Root doot doot, it's episode 42! We begin with Evelyn introducing Nick to one of Canada’s most beloved national heroes: Terry Fox, the 21-year-old Canadian who attempted to run across the country on one leg to raise money for cancer research. Nick, somehow, has never heard of him. Canadians across the country and shocked...and "the square provinces" don't know what to do with themselves.

From there, Evelyn asks what the Nick Bognar version of the Marathon of Hope would be, and Nick offers the only logical answer: a long-distance walk to 7-11 fuelled by enormous sodas, unexpected hugs with strangers, and a surprisingly sincere vision of mutual care.

Nick turns the question on Evelyn and asks what her charity walk would be named. She imagines her own fundraising sacrifice: high-fat dairy meets a Friday-before-a-long-weekend Costco trip. Truly the kind of public endurance event that could permanently reduce London, Ontario to one usable Costco for a few days, at least.

Canada gives us Terry Fox. America gives us the Double Gulp Walk for Community Harmony. And somewhere between the two countries, diplomacy barks in the distance.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It is reverse. I would love it if you let us in.

SPEAKER_01 0:10

Okay. You'd love it if I let us in. Is this a trap? No, I just don't feel like doing it. Okay, folks, welcome back to the reverse jackass podcast. I'm Nick. With me as always is Evelyn, the Canadian Blade. Evelyn, say hello to the people. We are so glad you're here. Evelyn, it's great to see you today. Oh, yeah. Even though I well, it sounds forced when you say it after I say it. But uh I carried the heavy burden of doing the intro to this podcast, even though it's your week, but now you bear the burden of today's prompt. So yeah. Without any further ado, I release it to you.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Oh, thank you. Well, speaking of burdens, I mean you couldn't have picked a better word, if I'm being honest. Because today we're gonna talk about a Canadian, an emburdened Canadian, who is maybe one of the most famous Canadians known to all Canadians.

SPEAKER_01 1:05

Okay, which means that no one else in the world has heard of him.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

That is that is probably correct. Because I've also, number one, shut up. Number two, I like he doesn't have Brian Mulroney's star power. Oh my gosh, Brian Mulroney! Like that's a name I haven't heard in a long time. Yeah. What's gonna happen? See, here's what happened here's what happens is that I edit these podcasts a few weeks later. Okay, and then I'm reminded of something that I think would make a good prompt. I'm actually fueling myself for future episodes by editing our past episodes. This actually works really well. It's kind of like a like a well-oiled machine at this point. You have to think of your prompts from scratch. I don't. I'm sifting through the pulp of episodes past. And so I'm gonna talk to you today about a name that I have uh mentioned on the podcast before. You told me you had never heard of. I picked my jaw up off the floor and moved on. But today we're dedicating this episode to this incredibly well-known and rightfully famous Canadian. Multiple Juno Award winner. Multiple Juno Award winner. So today we're gonna talk about Terry Fox, which when I right?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

I've not heard of Terry Fox. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Okay, a name, do you even recognize the name?

SPEAKER_01 2:27

I mean, I recognize the name Terry and the name and animal fox, but I don't I've not heard them combined together.

SPEAKER_00 2:33

Wow, okay. So we are, I'm gonna let's start from scratch. So Terry Fox was a 21-year-old Canadian who lost his right leg to cancer. Okay. Okay. There's nothing funny about that. Nope, this is not where the humor comes in. We need to set a little, a little bit of a gentle setting for the stage here. So he passed away in June of 81.

SPEAKER_01 2:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:58

And also not funny.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Also, let's get on track.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

I know, I know. Look, we gotta, before we can laugh, we must cry. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Okay, fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

So this is there's a range of emotions allowed on this podcast, Nick. It doesn't all have to be shits and giggles, all right?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Anyway, his mother never loved him.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Anyway, he had severe, severe anxious attachment. And so he lost his leg. He decided he wanted to raise money for cancer.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 3:24

And so what he decided to do was he wanted to run across Canada to raise money for cancer research. Now, this might be a good time to pause. The listeners can pause and just look up a quick map of Canada. Just take a little gander. North America, North American map would suffice as well. But across Canada from any angle. From any angle. We're talking east to west is what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

Okay, but I mean also like if you wanted to cross Canada, it's not like a long, thin country where you're like, he crossed Cuba, but he crossed north to south. Like Canada, Canada at any angle is a big, long country that would be hard to probably. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Well, same with the states. Like we've you know, we're both fairly beefy in those areas, right? We're not we're not slender countries. So here's the big thing he did not choose to walk, he chose to run. Okay. Okay. Okay. A marathon every day. Oh my god. On one leg. So just let that sink in. He had a prosthetic leg, and the prosthetic leg happened in about 1980.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

So what we're not talking like, you know those videos you see of like the robo dogs now, or like oh yeah, like an amazing extra skeleton or Austin stories with the like the the perfect designed well, okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:40

Yeah, no, we're talking like the femur 400 turbo chunker, right? That probably weighed 3,000 pounds, right? And so he decided to run across Canada a marathon every day. Just just keep that in mind, okay? Yeah, so we're not talking high tech, but we're talking high motivation here. Sounds like he started in one of my favorite places to talk about Newfoundland. He started in St. John's Newfoundland, which is like East Eastern.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

Did he have to do the whole fucking rig and roll that they run me through there with the rum and the fish, or did you just get to the race?

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Did he get screeched in first and then hobble along?

SPEAKER_01 5:20

No, he goes, Here I here I start my journey across Canada. And they were like, Here, kiss this fish and drink all this booze and then get running.

SPEAKER_00 5:27

Bye bye. And then he's holding the cod and like meandering along, can't even do a sobriety test.

SPEAKER_01 5:36

They're like, they're like, enjoy the finishing ceremony in British Columbia, it's worse.

SPEAKER_00 5:40

Yeah, it's gonna be it's gonna be real bad. It's gonna be real bad. There's a lot of mountains the farther west you go, is all I'm saying, Terry. Okay. Oh geez, yeah, that's true. Okay. So he started he started in St. John's, dipped his foot in the Atlantic. That is the other ocean, in case you're unaware of the Atlantic.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

I grew up on the Atlantic Ocean.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

Just making sure.

SPEAKER_01 6:02

I remember how small and warm and weak it was.

SPEAKER_00 6:05

There it is. There it is coming back, swinging for for more. So he started then running across the country. After he dipped the old twinkle toes in the Atlantic, he started running. And he ran for 143 days straight. Oh my god. It was 5,300 kilometers, about 3,300 miles. Wow. Okay. Right? One leg. How far do you think he got? Like you're I know you're you have a general sense of Canadian geography. It's actually pretty good and has improved over the years, I've noticed. But like, how far do you think he got?

SPEAKER_01 6:37

So it's I'm gonna run through the map in my mind because I can't see it in front of me. So it's like Ontario and then Manitoba, what comes? Alberta, Saskatchewan, and then British Columbia, right? Yep. So I'm gonna say he made it to Saskatchewan. What's east of Ontario though? East of Ontario is Quebec. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. And then I assumed if he made it, if he made it that many kilometers, he at least made it into the like the like mainland square provinces, right? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:02

I love that you call it the square provinces. That's what that is something you have consistently done, and I will never encourage you to do otherwise because I think it's great. You know, the square provinces. Yes, actually, yeah. I know. I'm not gonna, I won't fight you on it because I actually kind of agree with you. So the cancer came back and he just made it, just made it outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario, which is like the like northwestern um Ontario.

SPEAKER_01 7:28

So that was almost he didn't make it past Ontario with that many miles, yeah, or kilometers, as they say, kilometers.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Uh no, Ontario's a beast, right? So yes, so he passed away at 22, didn't make it out to Ontario or out of Ontario, but by that point, Canada bought in hard. Like right? This is a huge deal, like 1980, 90, or 1980, that would have been 19 in 1981, because he would have passed away in 1981. Oh no, he passed away less than a year later. So this was in 1980. Sorry, I was getting my dates mixed up. I was not born yet, so I did not catch any of this hot footage. So every year since then, to this day, schools and communities all have Terry Fox Day, and like it's on our calendars, and there's a Terry Fox run, and it's all to raise money for cancer. So the legacy up to this point that he has has raised over $850 million for cancer research.

SPEAKER_01 8:21

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 8:22

Yeah. Terry's a beast. So he isn't just this historical figure. Like he Terry Fox is a Canadian legacy for sure. Yeah. And now you know more than the average American the fact that you're over there. That's a good story. Okay, that's amazing. That's a great story. So this was called, his whole thing was called the Marathon of Hope. That's what he called it. That's what it's Terry Fox, you know, marathon of hope. So he's he's a symbol of grit, quiet determination, humility, like all of these really cool things. There's so much footage of him out there on YouTube. You can always watch a whole ton of stuff, and he's just really inspiring and really young. When I was 20, 21, I did not care about A running and B running across Canada or other people. You know what? That's probably something else. I didn't care about a 21.

SPEAKER_01 9:11

Developmentally, it's a little more self-centered than that. Yeah, Terry really was an outlier there. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

So you've learned all the necessary pieces to the Terry Fox marathon of hope.

unknown 9:20

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

So my question for you, Nick, is what would the Nick Bogner marathon of fill in the blank be? And can you please tell us all about it?

SPEAKER_01 9:31

Oh, that's not where I thought you were going with this. I was I was preparing myself to shoothorn force gump into this uh somehow because of his run, or s or Susan G. Comen, who like raised all that awareness for breast cancer, and then something like 11% of all the Susan G. Comen money goes to actual breast cancer research.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

No, I can't, I'm not.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

I will never make it that easy. No, you're really, you really blindsided me here. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 9:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Um, which is which is within the spirit of the game.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Um the Nick Bogner marathon of, and you get to pick the name and then you get to tell us about it.

SPEAKER_01 10:06

Oh, okay. So does it have to be something that affects me, or does it, or is it something that I just care about? Like, do I have to suffer from this thing, or is it can it just be a cause that I give a shit about?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

I think it can be anything you want. Like, it doesn't have to be the Nick Bogner marathon of sweat if that's something you feel compelled. It could be anything you want.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Something you're burdened with or not.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

So when I lived in West LA when I was in my early 20s, I moved out there in 2003 with my roommate, and we lived in a neighborhood called Mar Visto, which at the time was very cute and unremarkable and is now far too expensive for any reasonable human being to live in. And I often, in my delightful addiction to soda, would walk a mile and a half each way to and from 7-Eleven at night to get a double gulp, and then I'd come back and drink it, and you know, it was just, you know, that a body that it can just take anything. So I would just walk and then I would get the enormous soda and I'd come back and drink it, and it was wonderful. And what often happened was that I would meet characters along the way. And I'm not the type of person, for anybody who doesn't know me, I'm not the type of person to talk to strangers. Uh, I'm nice, but I don't know that I'm particularly friendly, which I think is kind of an LA thing. I think LA is really nice, but not terribly friendly. And I think I'm kind of that way too. Like I I love my fellow person, but I'm not out on the world trying to make friends all the time, right? But you know, people roll up on you and they talk to you. And so I'm remembering one particular night when a guy came and and told me that, you know, he was on day two of a of a meth trip and that it was really fun. And did I want to go do some more meth with him and all this stuff? And that was like I'd never seen meth. I still haven't seen meth other than on television.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

And he just walked with me for like a mile and a half just talking to me about it. And at the beginning, I thought, I think I'm getting rolled here. Like, I think I'm getting let in. But it turned out it wasn't. It was just this dude that wanted to talk to me.

SPEAKER_02 11:58

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

And then there was another night where I got I got stopped in the parking lot of the Savon by an unhoused gentleman who was talking to me and he was super nice, and I gave him a couple bucks or something. And he was like, he called his friend over, and he like he said, Let's hug, let's all hug. And again, I'm thinking, like, am I getting fucking ruled here? Like strangers offering you a hug has never happened in any part of my life. And he and his friend and I ended up like doing this like football style huddle.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

What?

SPEAKER_01 12:25

And I won't I won't deign to use the ethnic slurs that this gentleman used, but he's like, Look, a white guy and a this person and a this person, himself and the other person, yeah, all hugging. This is what Dr. King dreamt of. And I was like, it was like so nice. It was actually like kind of a sweet moment that I remember, like thinking, like, oh, this is so nice. I feel so close to my fellow person, and I never do, and what a beautiful thing. Yeah. Um, and also, like, oh man, that word makes me uncomfortable. And also, like, I'm not, I don't usually hug strangers, and also, you know, I don't want to be this guy, but I don't think Dr. King imagined that the two people of color would be unhoused at the time of this harmony. Do you know what I mean? Like, I think the dream was incomplete in its representation in that in that parking lot. Right. And so maybe those moments were the universe trying to remind me that it is all well and good when you are when you have a lot of privilege um and you and enough personal wealth to be able to walk through the neighborhood by yourself and get yourself whatever you want from the 7-Eleven and and to be able to do it. But that the truth is that we all need community um and that none of us is better than our fellow person. And so maybe it would be the Nick Bagner walk for community harmony, and it would be 25 trips back and forth from the 7-Eleven between Venice and Centinella and Venice and Motor. It's a it's just a trip back and forth down Venice Boulevard, and then you have to drink gallons and gallons of soda along the way, whether you want to or not. I mean, I want to, but whether you want to or not, you have to do that. And you have to say hello to people you meet along the way and make eye contact, and you have to support people and ask them what they need. Maybe that was maybe that was the lesson there. So the Nick Wagner Marathon for community harmony. Community harmony mutual care.

SPEAKER_00 14:14

Oh, and mutual care. First of all, I cannot wait to create the title of this podcast. Like, I can already see it. Nick, I see it now. Nick unveils the Nick Wagner marathon. Like, I want a ribbon cutting ceremony. I want just a table. Like, this is giving me um what was the Michael Scott? Um Michael Scott, the rabies, the rabies walk.

SPEAKER_01 14:38

Walk for the cure. Hold on, I bet I can find it here. You can cut you can edit it out. Michael Scott's Thunder Mifflin's Grant and Meredith Palmer, Memorial Celebrity Rabies Awareness Program, Fun Run Race for the Cure. And you remember in the thing he had Pam read it out and then Michael going for the cure. Like like they would do in television commercials.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

Yep. Or she would answer the phone and they would have hung up by then already. Like they hung up on me. Yeah. I think maybe that's where it starts. Maybe that's where it has to start. Like, you know, Terry started probably more ceremoniously for his. And I I guarantee, I would almost put money on the fact that I doubt there would be any double gulps in the picture in Terry's run. I don't know. How the hell did Terry?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

I mean, I can't even imagine just in a perfectly healthy person. I can't even imagine the toll that that would take on a person's body. And Terry did it.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

And Terry ran from one leg.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

St. John's to Ontario on one leg and a root, you know, uh at the time probably very advanced but now primitive prosthesis.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Right. Right. Yeah. He was probably not, you know, jogging along with a two-liter bottle of whatever.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

So I didn't give a I didn't give a good like podcast length answer to that question. I came up with a 30-second answer. Um so then my question for you, Evelyn, would be what would be your extreme physical sacrifice in the name of cancer research? Like let's say that you know Terry Fox already already got running and I've already gotten long distance walking and you know, astonishing soda consumption.

SPEAKER_02 16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

What is the Evelyn Flanagan overdoing it possibly to a state of physical catastrophe demonstration for cancer research?

SPEAKER_00 16:24

Well, at this point in my life, with my body habitats, it wouldn't take long for me to reach physical catastrophe. Okay. Okay. So I don't even think it would have to be that much of an exertion if I'm being honest.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

It could be a mental capacity. You could do something that's mentally brutally strenuous, like you could go into solitary confinement or nope.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

I thought about it. First of all, it sounds like a dream. Don't tempt me with a good time. All right, solitary confinement. Sounds wonderful. For me, what would bring on physical catastrophe for cancer research? Guaranteed too much high-fat dairy. Like if I the Evelyn Flanagan four by four.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Is that what's a plant's good?

SPEAKER_00 17:07

What's the Tim Hortons like order with all the cream in it? Is it four by four? Yeah. Four by four. Yeah, that's four cream, four sugar. That the sugar, yeah, that would do it. But if I'm like, I would if I was downing just cartons of whipping cream, first of all, guaranteed physical catastrophe. Sure, absolutely. Like I there's the only way to do that would be on a tarp. Second or in a lake. Or no, because then it's like just self-propelling across with an enormous wake. And some kind of some kind of greasy cloud behind me. Yeah, right. So I don't know, like definitely okay, high-fat dairy would be one. Okay, I said solitary confinement sound sounds great. High fat dairy consumption is what I should say. Maybe, but another thing I would do is like the Evelyn Flanagan Memorial Costco trip on a Friday afternoon before a long weekend, right? So I'm going in, I'm going to Costco. I don't know about your Costco, but ours, like we have two in London, and I would much rather dig my kneecaps out with an ice cream scoop than go there on a Friday before a long weekend. Or like before Christmas or New Year's or something. Like the amount of people in there, it would be absolute pandemonium in there. And then that's what I would do. I would expose myself to that. I would expose yourself in a costume.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

I would expose myself in the meat section. I'd be like, get all of these pork chops. Here you go. Please donate. Please donate for the cure.

SPEAKER_00 18:41

For the cure.

SPEAKER_01 18:42

And then you have burlesque music playing in the background, and people are like desperately trying to push their carts around you because they've still got to go to like uh Terry Fox Day celebration barbecue and they don't have enough spoon ribs.

SPEAKER_00 18:52

Just trying to get my sausages, lady, and you're over here like showing me some ankle in the They're like, this is lovely.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

This is lovely, but I donated to Terry Fox Day, and I can't get another macaroni and cheese sample if I don't get over that.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

You don't move your unpanted butt away from the sample tray. Get out of here.

SPEAKER_01 19:12

No, I would serious shoppers only.

SPEAKER_00 19:14

I would be fully clothed in the Costco, but exposing myself to the people in Costco, that would be the physical exertion that would guaranteed result in catastrophe. And if we really want to level it up, like if people are willing to donate big bucks, I would drink a lot of high fat dairy in the summer and then go into Costco. We could probably have cured cancer by now.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

So, folks, that that sounds like a gauntlet being thrown down to me. I'm looking for pledges. Send them to Canadian Blade6969 at gmail.com. How much money would you be willing to pledge for the Evelyn Flenagan Costco 4x4 pre-holiday weekend dairy personal punishment extravaganza for the cure? Dairy Downer extravaganza. Dairy Downer Extravaganza. I'm gonna say I'm gonna call it Evelyn. I'm gonna say if we can get to $10,000 US in donations. Oh my gosh, that's like 14 million Canadian. It's like 14 million Canadian. It's serious brown if you can script.

SPEAKER_00 20:15

Sirius Brown, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

And I think you should do it.

SPEAKER_00 20:18

Okay. I'll I'll make you deal with it now. Yep. I will, I will Okay, folks.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

It is a part of the record now.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

Yep. I will not delete this part out of it. I will keep it in here. And if we get to this point, I will do it and we will document it. And I don't know how, but we'll share it. Maybe I'll maybe I'll just mic up during it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:37

And that will be let's just say that for one of us, there will only be one available Costco in London subsequent to that converse. Yeah. All right, Evelyn. Speaking of burden, we've burdened these people for too long. Let's call it. Folks, thank you so much for being here for the Reverse Jackass podcast. I love you. I know Evelyn loves you. Evelyn say goodbye to the people. See you later, everyone. See you later. Have a wonderful week or whatever interval it is until you download our next podcast.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

Bum bum bum some neighbors. It's gonna be there. Some neighbors are besties.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Others quarrel bitterly.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Stuck together through geography.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

One of us has nukes.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

And the other has two. It's American Canadian diplomacy.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

It's revolution.