Drunk History (2013) s06e02 Episode Script
National Parks
1 [EXCITING MUSIC.]
John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt went on the most important camping trip in American history.
Goddamn.
I spilled top shelf bourbon all over my unit.
In 1969, 400 Native Americans occupied Alcatraz.
- [BELCHES.]
- Wow.
I'm drunk! Marjory Stoneman Douglas was a fucking activist.
The developers are like, malls, malls, malls! And she's like, shut the fuck up.
Protect the Everglades.
Pffftt! [LAUGHTER.]
[PATRIOTIC MUSIC.]
[EPIC MUSIC.]
America is unique.
It's a young country.
We don't have these old cathedrals.
We don't have the big columns of Greece.
But what we do have is this natural wonder of beautiful trees and fucking rivers and all this wonderful shit.
These are our cathedrals.
These are our museums.
These are American treasures, and fuck it's incredible.
[BELCHES.]
Whoa.
[CHUCKLES.]
Hello, my name is Steve Berg, and today we are gonna be discussing Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir and how the National Park system - be came to be.
- [LAUGHS.]
So it is the early 1870s, and no one is watching out for the natural wonders that we have in the United States.
So these rich industrialists are chopping down trees and mining everything out of it.
They're like [SINGSONGY.]
We hate nature.
[RHYTHMIC TAPPING.]
Money, money, money.
[RHYTHMIC SLAPPING.]
Kill all the animals.
Put the blood on our face, and put pentagrams and dance around and do weird shit.
So then there was a guy named John Muir, and he's living out in the middle of nowhere.
He's loving it.
He's like, oh, my God, look at the trees, look at all the flora, the fauna! [DEEP INHALE.]
And he is hearing about all the atrocities going on, and he's like, you know what, man? I'm hippie granola O.
G.
number one, and that shit ain't gonna fly.
Okay? So John Muir, who has got a gift for the English language, starts writing these eloquent, poetic articles saying, like, people of America, we have all this natural beauty, but the elite just wanna fuck it up for the rest of us.
Goddamn.
I spilled top shelf bourbon all over my unit.
- It's damp down there.
- [LAUGHS.]
So John Muir knew what he was expressing was hitting some people, but he didn't know it was hitting the El Presidente of the United States-Ay.
A president I have to call Teddy Roosevelt.
So Teddy reads it and he's like, damn, he's really moving me, and he keeps on talking about this place called Yosemite in California.
I want to check out Yosemite for myself.
And I want John Muir to be my guide.
So T.
R.
arrives there with this huge entourage, right? Teddy says to John Muir, hey, man, I am feeling a little bit - like a rascal, okay? - [LAUGHS.]
What if you, me, my personal chef went to the forest and camped for three days and we didn't let anyone know about it? And John's like, T.
R.
, you know I'm down.
So they get away from the group and go out on a sojourn into the wilderness.
[UPLIFTING MUSIC.]
It's wonder in wildlife, and John is showing him all the flora and the fauna.
They are having the time of their life, just two guys with a personal chef out in the middle of nowhere, getting into it, man.
- That's so cool.
- Yeah.
So the next night, the president says, John, if I may ask, how do you love nature so much? Well, Mr.
President, I had a high-risk job.
I got into an accident, and it blinded me temporarily.
And then all of a sudden, I could see, but what I was seeing was not like it was before.
I am seeing a world before me that is beautiful, that is fucking bursting with nature.
And I walked from Indiana to Florida and sketched every fucking plant, every animal.
I was just sketching beavers, man sketching beavers.
It was magical, and I never saw the world the same way.
[MUCUS-HEAVY INHALE.]
Um where were we? I'm sorry.
- We're camping.
- So we're camping, and the third night, it started to snow, and John Muir was like, uh, shit, it's getting pretty cold out here, man, and I got the president.
And the president's like, John.
John-John-John-John-John, we're okay.
I have broughten 40 blankets.
[SOFTLY.]
40.
[LAUGHING.]
He brought 40 blankets! What a weirdo, man.
So they're warm.
They're maybe too warm, potentially.
And Teddy's like, I have been the president for I don't know how many years, but out here with you, John, and my personal chef, like, I am humbled.
I'm just a biological entity on this planet just trying to cohabitate.
Ah-choo! Ah-choo! - Uh-oh.
- Ah-choo! Ohh! Every time it's windy, I get a [SNIFFLES.]
real bad allergies.
You're doing a really great job.
Hey, thanks, man.
I'm having so much fun.
Thanks for the fire, by the way.
Oh, shit.
She's in embers now.
No, she good.
- She good? - Yeah, we got CGI.
- [MAGICAL CHIME.]
- Thank you.
So Teddy Roosevelt gets back, and the whole entourage is like, Jesus Christ, Teddy! Mr.
President, where were you? And he's like, I know you guys are pissed but I'm okay.
My personal chef's okay.
- What's his name? - I don't know, but I would imagine, like, Seth.
I bet he's doing incredible stuff with game meats.
I bet there's a nice rub on 'em.
- [LAUGHING.]
- He's talented at what he does but personality-wise next.
Teddy's like, guys, I had this tran scendent excursion with my new friend John Muir, man.
And guess what.
It was the greatest day of my life.
Yeah.
He said that to him.
So in 1906, Teddy Roosevelt signs the National Um, damn So in 1906, Teddy Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act to protect these places like Yosemite, Rocky Mountain National Park, Moab, and all these places that we all hold so dear are protected because of Teddy Roosevelt and this camping trip with John Muir.
- And a personal chef.
- [LAUGHING.]
And John Muir said [INHALES.]
my mission is done.
He did it.
Granola number one.
And look.
We all get to benefit.
And it's up to us to keep it protected.
So, man, fucking see your national parks, dude.
Go with your buddies, drink some craft beers, and fucking look at the sky and think about some weird shit.
[UPLIFTING MUSIC.]
[INSPIRING MUSIC.]
This is a big basic cable show, - and it's just you and me, man.
- Oh.
They gonna give us - our own show after this.
- I'll take it, buddy.
Let's do this! I'm from Baltimore, baby.
Let's get drunk.
Oh, no.
Here we go! That camera? That camera.
That camera.
Hello, I'm Daryl Johnson, and today we'll be talking about the Alca Mm-mm.
[BOTH LAUGHING.]
Hello.
I'm Daryl Johnson, and today we'll be talking about the occupation of Alcatraz.
Cheers, my friend.
So there was a big fire that happened in 1969, and it burned down the American Indian Center in San Francisco.
So there was a group of people called the Indians of All Tribes, and they were like, man, we gotta find a new place to gather we gotta be somewhere where we can be ourselves.
And there was these three leaders, okay? Richard Oakes, LaNada Means and Adam Fortunate Eagle.
And they were like, wait is this real? According to the "Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868," it says that Native Americans are allowed to confiscate abandoned federal land for their own use.
Now, the famed Alcatraz prison's been sitting there empty for six years.
That's federal surplus land, so booyah! We got our new location The Rock.
And they were like, well, let's just take this bitch.
Ha ha! So on November 20, 1969, the coalition of, like, 89 members of the Indians of All Tribes cruised across the San Francisco Bay.
And some fat-cat land tycoon was over there like, hey, man, I got these plans to develop this land into a Monte Carlo-themed casino.
And then boom! Native American people get there, and they're like, man, get the fuck outta here with these dumb-ass plans.
[EPIC MUSIC.]
It's ours, baby! You stole it from us once, but we gonna steal it from your ass now.
And they started spray-painting stuff on the walls like: Welcome to Indian Land.
And, like, Red Power! I like that one.
And then Adam Fortunate Eagle was still on the mainland, because he was the spokesperson for the tribe.
He was like, look, y'all, we taking this shit over, okay? Y'all ain't using it, and we need it.
All this belonged to us anyway, okay? And he said, look, we not just gonna take it outright.
We're not terrible people.
We'll give you $24 in glass beads and some red cloth.
How 'bout that? And you know why they gave 'em $24 worth of glass beads? 'Cause that's how much the Dutch merchants paid the Native Americans for Manhattan.
Whew.
Now, I'm someone who loves a person who keeps their petty game up.
- Ha.
- But that petty level - is on a thousand.
- Ha ha ha! Now, once all this information gets out, more and more people show up on the island.
And about Thanksgiving Day in 1969, 400 people are now occupying Alcatraz.
How ironic is that? - Thanksgiving.
- [LAUGHS.]
So of the 50 people there representing Alcatraz, 40 of 'em are women.
And LaNada Means is like, you know why? 'Cause they got a voice, and we recognize that shit.
Look we got a clinic runnin'.
We got a kitchen.
We got John Trudell, the voice of Radio Free Alcatraz.
And he be like, if you a Native American, you can come up here and be free and be yourself and celebrate your own culture and your pride.
And she's like, we have set up a school.
These kids are not learning from these "white man" history books.
They're learning about their history.
We did that, 'Kay? I mean, they put middle fingers all up in the government.
Richard Nixon was like, ooh, is that a finger in my face? All I see is middle fingers up in this bitch.
What's going on? Now, the white man don't like losin' something that they stole anyway, but Richard Nixon was like, we can't attack these Native American peoples.
We've got so much going on with this country.
We have the Civil War No, not the Civil War.
- Civil rights protests.
- [BOTH LAUGHING.]
We can't have another situation! That's just Tricky Dick trying to save himself, you know.
He was already involved in the scandal, and stuff was about to go down with him that he didn't even know about yet, but I do, because this is "Drunk History," and all that's history, and I knew it before he know it, know what I'm sayin'? [BOTH LAUGHING.]
That's the alcohol talkin'.
And so the Coast Guard's like, yo, okay, Richard Nixon said we can't go in there and show no force? Great.
All right.
This what we gonna do.
We gonna take all they fresh water.
We gonna take they electrixity.
They can't Let me say that right.
They gonna take their electricity.
And they set a fire.
I mean, they don't know who set the fire, but if I had to put my bets on it, I'd say the government set the fire, 'Kay? So in July of 1971, the Coast Guard lay a fuse to Alcatraz.
They was like, okay, Native American peoples or whatever you call yourself, this long belands pffft! This land belongs to us, the white man! And the shit was over.
But after the almost two-year occupation of Alcatraz, the fat cat was like, hey, man, look, I don't think I wanna build here no more.
So the government turned it into - a national park.
- Wow.
And you can go there today and still see some of the graffiti on the walls.
The Native Americans still come back twice a year to celebrate the occupation on what they now call on Thanksgiving Day and that Christopher motherfucking Columbus Day that we now call Indigenous Peoples Day.
Indigenous Peoples Day, y'all! Indigenous Peoples Day.
They was like, we took this shit, yo.
For almost two years.
What did you do today? Checked your mail? Ate some Jell-o? Bastards.
How'd you know? Ha ha! [EPIC MUSIC.]
Derek, what was your worst drinking mistake? When you realized When I thought a TV show would be good [BOTH LAUGHING.]
To drink to.
Fair.
Good answer.
Hello.
I'm Tess Lynch, and today we're going to be talking about Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Listen.
I'm gonna transport you back in time.
Picture it.
Florida.
The 1920s.
There's a special place that is the craziest environment that you can find called the Everglades.
But South Florida is experiencing an unprecedented population explosion.
So they're draining wetlands, building houses.
The developers are like, great! I'm gonna build condos! I'm gonna build little tiny ticky-tacky, ticky-tacky, ticky-tacky houses.
Hey, look at this swamp.
It's full of bullshit.
I'm gonna put a fucking 99â store on it.
But the problem with this is that everybody's draining the resources of one of the most unique ecosystems on the planet - the Everglades! - [LAUGHS.]
And Ernest Coe, and landscape architect, realizes, like, this place is special as hell.
I'm gonna get this place certified as a national park if it's the last thing I do.
And so he's flipping through the "Important People of Florida Directory," and he comes across a name Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Very interesting lady.
She's like, you know, I'm a very early supporter of the ACLU, and I'm supporting, you know, women's suffrage and civil rights, and that's just what I do.
I'm opinionated! And Coe's like, this is the perfect person to get on board with my cause.
And Coe is like, come with me to the Everglades.
And so she goes down to the Everglades, and she's all in her fucking pearls, and she's wearing her straw hat, and she's like, yikes, this place is too muggy, too buggy, too inhospitable.
It's mucky and gucky! I don't like it.
And then she's looking around like, holy shit, that's a crocodile holding hands with an alligator is what that is! That's a manatee! That fucking thing looks like a cow under the ocean floor.
And that's a mangrove tree! That's growing in the brackish water that's half salt, half fresh, and I don't know how that thing grows, but it's fucking doing it.
I actually think I love this place.
I'm gonna be a champion for here.
- There's a bug in front of me.
- What? You see that bug.
I see you seeing the bug.
- Yeah, I see the fucking - I love bugs, but that bug I don't like.
It's like he's, like, antagonistic.
He's there.
I could grab him.
But I don't wanna kill him.
I just wanna release him to nature.
- You know what I mean? - That's nice.
Can we keep going? So they go to these town hall meetings.
The developers are like, malls, malls, malls! Coe and Marjory are like, shut the fuck up.
Protect the Everglades.
And the legislators are like [STAMMERING.]
Ahh.
All right.
But, I mean, it's not gonna be so simple as like pffftt.
Coe says to Marjory, I think they're saying that this land is pretty much protected.
And Marjory's like, don't you know the government by now? It's gonna be a long-fought battle, Coe! So Marjory goes down into the Everglades, and she spends 13 crazy long years writing every detail down.
You know, I'm gonna write a book! "The Everglades: River of Grass.
" That's a good title, God damn it.
1947, this thing is published.
Immediate best seller.
So people are like, holy shit! I was just sort of thinking about my casseroles.
Now I'm a fucking activist! All of a sudden, the Everglades are really important to people who never cared before.
And then later that year, the first 1.
3 million acres of the Everglades are officially desigignated desigignated.
Designated as a national park, just like Coe and Marjory had wanted.
But then Ernest Coe dies.
- Oh.
- It's so sad.
Most people could kinda kick back.
Guess what.
She doesn't quit.
You know why? Girl likes a challenge.
So when she hears the Nixon administration is planning to build Miami Nat International Airport on the Everglades, she just can't let it slide.
Would you mind if I made your drink - just a little higher? - I would love it.
- Is that okay? - [SNICKERS.]
You're simply the Tess This is a very small wine glass.
Yeah.
They catch up on you, though.
Let me know when.
Now? Cool.
So what she does Marjory Stoneman Douglas meets the Nixon administration on the fucking runway.
And they're like, "ugh, oh! You're such a pebble in my shoe.
" She's a nuisance.
She won't budge.
And Nixon is like, "puhhhh.
Fine! We'll build it somewhere else.
" And she goes, "hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! I'll see ya next time, bozos.
" And she skips away.
How can you argue with someone who's like, "don't destroy nature".
How can you? So Marjory is looking back at what she's done, and she's like, holy cow, it's the third largest national park, and that's nothin' to shrug at.
I'll just keep goin' till I die.
And she does.
In 1998, at the age of 108, the Everglades, for a moment, grow silent, and there's a manatee, and he's like, ah there she goes the mother of the Everglades.
[WHISPERS.]
Darkness.
To quote Marjory: "Be a nuisance where it counts.
Be depressed, discouraged, and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption, and bad politics.
But never give up.
" Today the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School carry on that idea by turning their pain into action.
They are the pebble in the shoe, they are the nuisance, they are the people who will not let something so important be taken away.
There are some things that are too special to take.
[SOFT MUSIC.]
Cheers.
- Be a nuisance.
- Cheers.
Sweaty here in the Everglades.
Very sweaty.
[UPLIFTING MUSIC.]
John Muir and Teddy Roosevelt went on the most important camping trip in American history.
Goddamn.
I spilled top shelf bourbon all over my unit.
In 1969, 400 Native Americans occupied Alcatraz.
- [BELCHES.]
- Wow.
I'm drunk! Marjory Stoneman Douglas was a fucking activist.
The developers are like, malls, malls, malls! And she's like, shut the fuck up.
Protect the Everglades.
Pffftt! [LAUGHTER.]
[PATRIOTIC MUSIC.]
[EPIC MUSIC.]
America is unique.
It's a young country.
We don't have these old cathedrals.
We don't have the big columns of Greece.
But what we do have is this natural wonder of beautiful trees and fucking rivers and all this wonderful shit.
These are our cathedrals.
These are our museums.
These are American treasures, and fuck it's incredible.
[BELCHES.]
Whoa.
[CHUCKLES.]
Hello, my name is Steve Berg, and today we are gonna be discussing Teddy Roosevelt and John Muir and how the National Park system - be came to be.
- [LAUGHS.]
So it is the early 1870s, and no one is watching out for the natural wonders that we have in the United States.
So these rich industrialists are chopping down trees and mining everything out of it.
They're like [SINGSONGY.]
We hate nature.
[RHYTHMIC TAPPING.]
Money, money, money.
[RHYTHMIC SLAPPING.]
Kill all the animals.
Put the blood on our face, and put pentagrams and dance around and do weird shit.
So then there was a guy named John Muir, and he's living out in the middle of nowhere.
He's loving it.
He's like, oh, my God, look at the trees, look at all the flora, the fauna! [DEEP INHALE.]
And he is hearing about all the atrocities going on, and he's like, you know what, man? I'm hippie granola O.
G.
number one, and that shit ain't gonna fly.
Okay? So John Muir, who has got a gift for the English language, starts writing these eloquent, poetic articles saying, like, people of America, we have all this natural beauty, but the elite just wanna fuck it up for the rest of us.
Goddamn.
I spilled top shelf bourbon all over my unit.
- It's damp down there.
- [LAUGHS.]
So John Muir knew what he was expressing was hitting some people, but he didn't know it was hitting the El Presidente of the United States-Ay.
A president I have to call Teddy Roosevelt.
So Teddy reads it and he's like, damn, he's really moving me, and he keeps on talking about this place called Yosemite in California.
I want to check out Yosemite for myself.
And I want John Muir to be my guide.
So T.
R.
arrives there with this huge entourage, right? Teddy says to John Muir, hey, man, I am feeling a little bit - like a rascal, okay? - [LAUGHS.]
What if you, me, my personal chef went to the forest and camped for three days and we didn't let anyone know about it? And John's like, T.
R.
, you know I'm down.
So they get away from the group and go out on a sojourn into the wilderness.
[UPLIFTING MUSIC.]
It's wonder in wildlife, and John is showing him all the flora and the fauna.
They are having the time of their life, just two guys with a personal chef out in the middle of nowhere, getting into it, man.
- That's so cool.
- Yeah.
So the next night, the president says, John, if I may ask, how do you love nature so much? Well, Mr.
President, I had a high-risk job.
I got into an accident, and it blinded me temporarily.
And then all of a sudden, I could see, but what I was seeing was not like it was before.
I am seeing a world before me that is beautiful, that is fucking bursting with nature.
And I walked from Indiana to Florida and sketched every fucking plant, every animal.
I was just sketching beavers, man sketching beavers.
It was magical, and I never saw the world the same way.
[MUCUS-HEAVY INHALE.]
Um where were we? I'm sorry.
- We're camping.
- So we're camping, and the third night, it started to snow, and John Muir was like, uh, shit, it's getting pretty cold out here, man, and I got the president.
And the president's like, John.
John-John-John-John-John, we're okay.
I have broughten 40 blankets.
[SOFTLY.]
40.
[LAUGHING.]
He brought 40 blankets! What a weirdo, man.
So they're warm.
They're maybe too warm, potentially.
And Teddy's like, I have been the president for I don't know how many years, but out here with you, John, and my personal chef, like, I am humbled.
I'm just a biological entity on this planet just trying to cohabitate.
Ah-choo! Ah-choo! - Uh-oh.
- Ah-choo! Ohh! Every time it's windy, I get a [SNIFFLES.]
real bad allergies.
You're doing a really great job.
Hey, thanks, man.
I'm having so much fun.
Thanks for the fire, by the way.
Oh, shit.
She's in embers now.
No, she good.
- She good? - Yeah, we got CGI.
- [MAGICAL CHIME.]
- Thank you.
So Teddy Roosevelt gets back, and the whole entourage is like, Jesus Christ, Teddy! Mr.
President, where were you? And he's like, I know you guys are pissed but I'm okay.
My personal chef's okay.
- What's his name? - I don't know, but I would imagine, like, Seth.
I bet he's doing incredible stuff with game meats.
I bet there's a nice rub on 'em.
- [LAUGHING.]
- He's talented at what he does but personality-wise next.
Teddy's like, guys, I had this tran scendent excursion with my new friend John Muir, man.
And guess what.
It was the greatest day of my life.
Yeah.
He said that to him.
So in 1906, Teddy Roosevelt signs the National Um, damn So in 1906, Teddy Roosevelt signs the Antiquities Act to protect these places like Yosemite, Rocky Mountain National Park, Moab, and all these places that we all hold so dear are protected because of Teddy Roosevelt and this camping trip with John Muir.
- And a personal chef.
- [LAUGHING.]
And John Muir said [INHALES.]
my mission is done.
He did it.
Granola number one.
And look.
We all get to benefit.
And it's up to us to keep it protected.
So, man, fucking see your national parks, dude.
Go with your buddies, drink some craft beers, and fucking look at the sky and think about some weird shit.
[UPLIFTING MUSIC.]
[INSPIRING MUSIC.]
This is a big basic cable show, - and it's just you and me, man.
- Oh.
They gonna give us - our own show after this.
- I'll take it, buddy.
Let's do this! I'm from Baltimore, baby.
Let's get drunk.
Oh, no.
Here we go! That camera? That camera.
That camera.
Hello, I'm Daryl Johnson, and today we'll be talking about the Alca Mm-mm.
[BOTH LAUGHING.]
Hello.
I'm Daryl Johnson, and today we'll be talking about the occupation of Alcatraz.
Cheers, my friend.
So there was a big fire that happened in 1969, and it burned down the American Indian Center in San Francisco.
So there was a group of people called the Indians of All Tribes, and they were like, man, we gotta find a new place to gather we gotta be somewhere where we can be ourselves.
And there was these three leaders, okay? Richard Oakes, LaNada Means and Adam Fortunate Eagle.
And they were like, wait is this real? According to the "Treaty of Fort Laramie of 1868," it says that Native Americans are allowed to confiscate abandoned federal land for their own use.
Now, the famed Alcatraz prison's been sitting there empty for six years.
That's federal surplus land, so booyah! We got our new location The Rock.
And they were like, well, let's just take this bitch.
Ha ha! So on November 20, 1969, the coalition of, like, 89 members of the Indians of All Tribes cruised across the San Francisco Bay.
And some fat-cat land tycoon was over there like, hey, man, I got these plans to develop this land into a Monte Carlo-themed casino.
And then boom! Native American people get there, and they're like, man, get the fuck outta here with these dumb-ass plans.
[EPIC MUSIC.]
It's ours, baby! You stole it from us once, but we gonna steal it from your ass now.
And they started spray-painting stuff on the walls like: Welcome to Indian Land.
And, like, Red Power! I like that one.
And then Adam Fortunate Eagle was still on the mainland, because he was the spokesperson for the tribe.
He was like, look, y'all, we taking this shit over, okay? Y'all ain't using it, and we need it.
All this belonged to us anyway, okay? And he said, look, we not just gonna take it outright.
We're not terrible people.
We'll give you $24 in glass beads and some red cloth.
How 'bout that? And you know why they gave 'em $24 worth of glass beads? 'Cause that's how much the Dutch merchants paid the Native Americans for Manhattan.
Whew.
Now, I'm someone who loves a person who keeps their petty game up.
- Ha.
- But that petty level - is on a thousand.
- Ha ha ha! Now, once all this information gets out, more and more people show up on the island.
And about Thanksgiving Day in 1969, 400 people are now occupying Alcatraz.
How ironic is that? - Thanksgiving.
- [LAUGHS.]
So of the 50 people there representing Alcatraz, 40 of 'em are women.
And LaNada Means is like, you know why? 'Cause they got a voice, and we recognize that shit.
Look we got a clinic runnin'.
We got a kitchen.
We got John Trudell, the voice of Radio Free Alcatraz.
And he be like, if you a Native American, you can come up here and be free and be yourself and celebrate your own culture and your pride.
And she's like, we have set up a school.
These kids are not learning from these "white man" history books.
They're learning about their history.
We did that, 'Kay? I mean, they put middle fingers all up in the government.
Richard Nixon was like, ooh, is that a finger in my face? All I see is middle fingers up in this bitch.
What's going on? Now, the white man don't like losin' something that they stole anyway, but Richard Nixon was like, we can't attack these Native American peoples.
We've got so much going on with this country.
We have the Civil War No, not the Civil War.
- Civil rights protests.
- [BOTH LAUGHING.]
We can't have another situation! That's just Tricky Dick trying to save himself, you know.
He was already involved in the scandal, and stuff was about to go down with him that he didn't even know about yet, but I do, because this is "Drunk History," and all that's history, and I knew it before he know it, know what I'm sayin'? [BOTH LAUGHING.]
That's the alcohol talkin'.
And so the Coast Guard's like, yo, okay, Richard Nixon said we can't go in there and show no force? Great.
All right.
This what we gonna do.
We gonna take all they fresh water.
We gonna take they electrixity.
They can't Let me say that right.
They gonna take their electricity.
And they set a fire.
I mean, they don't know who set the fire, but if I had to put my bets on it, I'd say the government set the fire, 'Kay? So in July of 1971, the Coast Guard lay a fuse to Alcatraz.
They was like, okay, Native American peoples or whatever you call yourself, this long belands pffft! This land belongs to us, the white man! And the shit was over.
But after the almost two-year occupation of Alcatraz, the fat cat was like, hey, man, look, I don't think I wanna build here no more.
So the government turned it into - a national park.
- Wow.
And you can go there today and still see some of the graffiti on the walls.
The Native Americans still come back twice a year to celebrate the occupation on what they now call on Thanksgiving Day and that Christopher motherfucking Columbus Day that we now call Indigenous Peoples Day.
Indigenous Peoples Day, y'all! Indigenous Peoples Day.
They was like, we took this shit, yo.
For almost two years.
What did you do today? Checked your mail? Ate some Jell-o? Bastards.
How'd you know? Ha ha! [EPIC MUSIC.]
Derek, what was your worst drinking mistake? When you realized When I thought a TV show would be good [BOTH LAUGHING.]
To drink to.
Fair.
Good answer.
Hello.
I'm Tess Lynch, and today we're going to be talking about Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Listen.
I'm gonna transport you back in time.
Picture it.
Florida.
The 1920s.
There's a special place that is the craziest environment that you can find called the Everglades.
But South Florida is experiencing an unprecedented population explosion.
So they're draining wetlands, building houses.
The developers are like, great! I'm gonna build condos! I'm gonna build little tiny ticky-tacky, ticky-tacky, ticky-tacky houses.
Hey, look at this swamp.
It's full of bullshit.
I'm gonna put a fucking 99â store on it.
But the problem with this is that everybody's draining the resources of one of the most unique ecosystems on the planet - the Everglades! - [LAUGHS.]
And Ernest Coe, and landscape architect, realizes, like, this place is special as hell.
I'm gonna get this place certified as a national park if it's the last thing I do.
And so he's flipping through the "Important People of Florida Directory," and he comes across a name Marjory Stoneman Douglas.
Very interesting lady.
She's like, you know, I'm a very early supporter of the ACLU, and I'm supporting, you know, women's suffrage and civil rights, and that's just what I do.
I'm opinionated! And Coe's like, this is the perfect person to get on board with my cause.
And Coe is like, come with me to the Everglades.
And so she goes down to the Everglades, and she's all in her fucking pearls, and she's wearing her straw hat, and she's like, yikes, this place is too muggy, too buggy, too inhospitable.
It's mucky and gucky! I don't like it.
And then she's looking around like, holy shit, that's a crocodile holding hands with an alligator is what that is! That's a manatee! That fucking thing looks like a cow under the ocean floor.
And that's a mangrove tree! That's growing in the brackish water that's half salt, half fresh, and I don't know how that thing grows, but it's fucking doing it.
I actually think I love this place.
I'm gonna be a champion for here.
- There's a bug in front of me.
- What? You see that bug.
I see you seeing the bug.
- Yeah, I see the fucking - I love bugs, but that bug I don't like.
It's like he's, like, antagonistic.
He's there.
I could grab him.
But I don't wanna kill him.
I just wanna release him to nature.
- You know what I mean? - That's nice.
Can we keep going? So they go to these town hall meetings.
The developers are like, malls, malls, malls! Coe and Marjory are like, shut the fuck up.
Protect the Everglades.
And the legislators are like [STAMMERING.]
Ahh.
All right.
But, I mean, it's not gonna be so simple as like pffftt.
Coe says to Marjory, I think they're saying that this land is pretty much protected.
And Marjory's like, don't you know the government by now? It's gonna be a long-fought battle, Coe! So Marjory goes down into the Everglades, and she spends 13 crazy long years writing every detail down.
You know, I'm gonna write a book! "The Everglades: River of Grass.
" That's a good title, God damn it.
1947, this thing is published.
Immediate best seller.
So people are like, holy shit! I was just sort of thinking about my casseroles.
Now I'm a fucking activist! All of a sudden, the Everglades are really important to people who never cared before.
And then later that year, the first 1.
3 million acres of the Everglades are officially desigignated desigignated.
Designated as a national park, just like Coe and Marjory had wanted.
But then Ernest Coe dies.
- Oh.
- It's so sad.
Most people could kinda kick back.
Guess what.
She doesn't quit.
You know why? Girl likes a challenge.
So when she hears the Nixon administration is planning to build Miami Nat International Airport on the Everglades, she just can't let it slide.
Would you mind if I made your drink - just a little higher? - I would love it.
- Is that okay? - [SNICKERS.]
You're simply the Tess This is a very small wine glass.
Yeah.
They catch up on you, though.
Let me know when.
Now? Cool.
So what she does Marjory Stoneman Douglas meets the Nixon administration on the fucking runway.
And they're like, "ugh, oh! You're such a pebble in my shoe.
" She's a nuisance.
She won't budge.
And Nixon is like, "puhhhh.
Fine! We'll build it somewhere else.
" And she goes, "hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! I'll see ya next time, bozos.
" And she skips away.
How can you argue with someone who's like, "don't destroy nature".
How can you? So Marjory is looking back at what she's done, and she's like, holy cow, it's the third largest national park, and that's nothin' to shrug at.
I'll just keep goin' till I die.
And she does.
In 1998, at the age of 108, the Everglades, for a moment, grow silent, and there's a manatee, and he's like, ah there she goes the mother of the Everglades.
[WHISPERS.]
Darkness.
To quote Marjory: "Be a nuisance where it counts.
Be depressed, discouraged, and disappointed at failure and the disheartening effects of ignorance, greed, corruption, and bad politics.
But never give up.
" Today the students at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School carry on that idea by turning their pain into action.
They are the pebble in the shoe, they are the nuisance, they are the people who will not let something so important be taken away.
There are some things that are too special to take.
[SOFT MUSIC.]
Cheers.
- Be a nuisance.
- Cheers.
Sweaty here in the Everglades.
Very sweaty.
[UPLIFTING MUSIC.]