From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is They call me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Paul Michig, control dec and in spirit. Because our guest super producer, Maya Cole is on the Ones and Tues today, give it up for her. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. So check in. First thing's first catch up checking. Well, yeah, so this week, you guys, I went to Chuck E Cheese because my son turned four yesterday. As as we're recording this and um that that robot casino was fabulous. Sorry, we're recording, sir, sir, Hello sir, what's going on in here? Hey? Wait a second? Oh is this the uh? Is this the podcast? I feel like I read conspiracies? Uh? Yeah, that's adorable. I'm such a fan. What are I'm I'm sorry, I'm John Hodgment. I used to be on television. Sometimes I thought I that's right, John Hodgman, that's yeah. I have a podcast as well. Yeah, were the side. I don't know what you were talking about. Yeah, No, I was a PC on the Apple Ads and uh, you know, I don't know what else on my resume. I've traveled all over the world. I've been in the upper echelons of fame, and I've been granted a lot of exclusive access to a lot of uh secret rooms and hidden parties and stuff that you're not supposed to know, but I do. You didn't write a book about it, did you. Uh? Yeah, I did. Actually it's called Medallion Status. But that's not why I'm here. I'm just you know, I was just traveling through the secret tunnels on my way to U secret World Government event and uh yeah, I have a secret door right into your into your room here, so I thought I was just check in and say hi, I hear you're talking about the secret societies a little bit. So thanks for coming. I always wonder what that door was for. Yeah, that just leads to the to the platform for the Golden Funicular the people of my status get to use. God, this is some real deranged billionaires. Well that is the character that I used to play on the Daily Show. But Gau, it's just me. I mean, there is a secret door here and I'm on my way to a secret meeting, but it's just me. John Hodgman, it's hard to tell. The lines are blurring so much right now, Host of The Judge Show, Hodgman podcast and author of the new book Medallion Status True Stories from Secret Rooms, which has a portion in it. This is a This is a book that's mostly about my my, uh my job as a famous minor television personality and what happened after, how unlikely and unusual it was that I should be on camera at all the strange things that happened to me while I was there, And then what happened after I lost that job and panicked and started chasing a new kind of status as a Diamond Medallion member on the Delta, trying to become Diamond Medallion in the Delta Frequent Flyer program. That's Verified Air. It's I you know, I don't want I don't want to. I don't want to give away the story of the book. But I got it. I got I went diamond, I went dime, John, and I appeared on His Dear Friend Chuck Bryant's movie podcast earlier today, and I disclosed that I am approaching silver medallion status, and I was told that that is a trash status. What us just some nonsense words came out of your head just then. I'm sorry that it's as they say in West World. I don't that doesn't look like anything to me. I don't understand what you're talking about. That silver is a trash medow hurting my ears. You've got a silver So how does that compare to just like a guy who travels coach and doesn't have a medallion at all? Well, what does the medallion look like? It's an imaginary medillion. It is a dumb, imaginary prize that I became obsessed with when my TV show is canceled and I had stopped working on the Daily Show and I wasn't on TV anymore. And as a lot of people do when their status starts to slip, whether whether you are uh losing a television job, or you're you're you're aging out of your own job, or you're getting older as a parent and your kids don't think you're a celebrity anymore, or you're a member of the rural white working class, and you feel that the privilege that is due to you as being taken away, and therefore you vote for a particular president. People do irrational things with political silver medallion talk, right, he's gonna freak people out. I don't know. I think you hit this universal, this universal key though, and I want to I want to hear more because I myself, not being a Diamond Medallion member, have moved adjacent. I would see your name on that. You would know everyone. Yeah, I would get a little notification, there's a little ceremony. What I do notice is they actually say I'm not Diamond medallion member anymore. I got it and I lost it. But that's the whole point. That's the that's what makes if you qualify for a certain medallion level, be at uh gold, be at platinum, be a diamond. Those are the only ones. Silver is a garbage medallion because it just as a taunt. It reminds you that you're the worst kind of medallions. It's better to be nothing than to be a silver medial. They're all imaginary prizes that you earn if you earn a certain amount of medallion qualifying miles through travel and credit card spending by the end of the year and then you're locked in. But if you don't requalify the next year, then you drop down in status. And it's frightening high stakes game. So it's tay addictive video game. Now you were saying, I interrupted always see It's true though. I've moved adjason in those circles and they do say your name when you get on the plane. That's what That's what got me started. We'd like to welcome you know. Oh yeah, it's a it's a big to do. When I had before this TV show that I was on, I was I was the the third best friend in this TV comedy called Married on on FX that ran for two seasons. Was great and then, like all television, got canceled. But when it was cooking, I was flying. I was being flown across the country over and over and over and over again to work, and they were paying for my flight, and they were contractually oblu paying me first class. I was racking up the m q ms, the down qualifying miles. I didn't even know this was happening. I didn't even care until one day I was boarding a plane to go home and the gate agent says, as as she scanned in my ticket. Thank you, Mr Hodgman for being gold. Thank you for being gold. Was so powerful, like to an only child who exists, you know, who requires praise and acknowledgement like oxygen, like to be thanked for just for being never mind for being gold. I mean I always thought it was gold, you know what I mean. We all think we're gold, or we hope we are gold, or we worry that maybe we're not as gold as we think, and then we're just tricking people. But then for someone to say, no, you're you're gold, your gold, Well John has your gold, and then diamond and then gold again. Status allowed you in any rooms that most people would never ever even dare to step or ever be allowed. Well, you do, you do get you do get a membership to the sky Cloaks, the secret the secret Societies of the Air, which you know, and it's like there's not there's not a lot, there's not a lot of human sacrifice going on in there. Uh. They have some pretty good soups. I have to I have to say they're they're tie chicken soup is pretty good. I had tie chicken soup for lunch today from the Delta Sky Club. No from soup because you're in Atlantic. Yeah, it's good. It was really good. It's good. You see. The thing. The problem with the one that you had made it as good than the ones you get in the Delta Sky Club is it was fresh. Probably was fresh. You know. I'm the best. I'm gonna and I discussed in the book The greatest uh jumbalaya that I've ever eaten came out of the crock pot at the at the sky the Delta sky Club. It's at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. The best, the best jumbal you could get, because all soups and stews deepen in flavor as they sit. They sit at a low temperature for hours and days. It just it just got to be so so delicious. Those are some secrets of the Sky Club. But I've also gotten into other secret rooms that I think might be more interesting to you because I mentioned it earlier, as it were just a normal thing that someone would drop by Book and Snake, one of Yale's senior secret societies, for dinner of an evening. But apparently not everyone can do it. Book and Snake. I'm only familiar with Skull and Bones. I have to leave now, goodbye. Wait, no, I'm not so. I I went to I went to Yale, which is an accredited four year college in southern Connecticut, and I was not a member of Skull and Bones. For people who don't know there, but any want to listen to this show has to know about the secret societies of Yale. There are senior societies. Yale is founded before there were frats, and so they the young, the young privileged men of Yale had to find other kinds forms of associations and clubs so that they could group off and basically jack off together. Before there were frats, you had you had secret societies at Yale, which are these senior secret societies where they initiate like fifteen to seventeen senior men to go into a window lists clubhouse called a tomb and tell secrets to each other in lion coffins and hang out. Or you joined an acapella group. There's so much acathete. It's the per capita amount of acapella and New Haven is greater than anywhere else in the world. But what really troubles me is no one's doing anything about it. They're just letting it happen. There's just like hundreds of acapella groups running wild through the New Haven Green I'm fascinated by the connective tissue between the two. If there's ever any secret acapella groups, well, there probably is a little bit of overlap between the Skull and Bonesman and the Wan Poofs, the premier acapella group in the collegiate acafella group in the United States and the world, which I was not a member of, but I'm still weirdly proud of that. But I I was fascinated with secret rooms growing up in high school and secret societies and the Masons and the Club thirty three before everyone knew about it, and all of these rooms. I always wanted to go into these rooms that that you couldn't just walk into unless you were invited or whatever, or had a golden funicular who could take it to a secret panelnge jump into podcast or diamond medallion, diamond medall or diamond meddall for example. And it's you know, these arbitrary signs of status that that don't don't make you a better person, but make you feel suddenly like you're loved by an institution or whatever, It's just it's a sick addiction anyway. Basically, the reason I applied to Yelle was that they had secret societies, Scalm Bones being the most famous one, the Scalm Bones being you know, reputed to be the pipeline too, Illuminati superstatus, secret world government control, the diamond medallion of Conspirat Diamond medallion. It's like Yale Skull and Bones. That's the top. Like, you know, oh, I'm sorry, you just went to the Builderberg group once. No, this is skull and Bones now it was that? Was that an actual secret society? The snake was it isn't is an actual one. Yep, they're they're they're across the street from the Grove Cemetery in New Haven and a giant two and a half story limestone Greek Revival architecturally significant edifice that has zero windows. It looks like a tomb. They're called tombs. All of these secret societies at Yale. We're all um founded by very wealthy young men. They had their dad's architects make them. These clubhouses. They're all littered throughout campus. You'll be walking along You're like, there's a very handsome looking uh and and an important looking library. Oh why does it have no windows? Because it's a clubhouse for dumb dums. Dumb dum clubhouse for for secret weirdos. So set the scene where they all roped up? I mean where what was going on? Well, there's all there's a limit to what I can reveal here. Wait a second, there's also scrolling key. I just want to tell you the other ones, Wolf said, scrolling key, Brazelis manuscript, scolland bones, book and snake. Those are the Those are the biggins. I like the ones that sound like combos, you know, an bones. Yeah, no, that's you know, there was a cross and key once, or there may be a cross end key now. But you want to get the big big ones. All are blank and blanks. Really yeah, maybe we should start something like that, right, it's you start the blank and blanks and bags and badgers. But to answer your question, no, they don't wear they don't wear robes. And I know this because when I was a fresh person at Yale, I got invited to a party of Book and Snake, and I was very very excited. This was new, like this is the reason I had come here, and it's here. It is for semester and I got so excited that I drank a lot before going to the party. And then I went into the party, and I I went up to the top of the stairs, and then I fell down the stairs. And then I woke up in the hospital. And I know that all of that happened, because it was told to me that had happened. But my only memory is walking up to the door. And that's the last thing I remember until and so it nod at me for my rest of my life. First of all, let me give some advice to college students. Don't get drunk and fall down the stairs. You're not immortal. I'm very, very lucky. I didn't hurt myself, Like, don't, don't do it. So to be fair, you don't know if they were roped up or not because you were unconscious. What was that? What was but I what? But I had blacked out? Do you know what I mean? Now, there's there's certain people who attended Yale and may or may not be sitting on the Supreme Court now who believed that blacking out is not a thing that happens. The FBI did a whole impression of an investigation. Did they did? They did? They did? The Illuminati investigation. It was nothing to see here. Investigation are positive. You didn't get initiated that night, and that was part of it. I had no idea. I mean I had friends who were there, one of whom Jonathan Colton, is a musician and a dear friend still and a whiffan Poof by the way, the most prestigiously an acapella group in the world. That's right, friends with a woman poof. You know, I'm bragging ya? Is that sort of like hufflepuff? No? Uh, it's yeah, I mean it's all it's it isn't so far as it's all nonsense words. Guy. Anyway, I uh, he was there. He knew, he said he saw me in there. I knew that I had been in there. It's an nerving thing to have a memory that you cannot recall, and especially when you were going into the secret society that you wanted to see so badly, and you realize that those secret sides are pretty powerful. They know how to erase a mind, like they took out They took that memory right out of my head. And you might be a legend to them. They might be hanging out and they're like, oh man, you remember stairs guy, Well, he was wild. I don't. I don't know how much they thought about me for years and years and years until you showed up on TV. And I don't think they thought about me then either. I think they started thinking about me once I started like telling this story in public, and I included it in a book, and I and I and I wrote about it online and I got a call from I got an email from CO signed by a man and a woman, both members of Book and Snake. I won't reveal their names. We'll call them Booker and Snake. You cool. And they said, wait, sorry that you have I'm sorry this has been haunting you for so long. We often we have a dinner every Thursday. We often invite interesting people to join us. Do you want to have dinner with us? And I was like, yeah, I do, And I was I was really excited to go back and see see what see what I had seen but couldn't remember having seen. And uh, I'll tell you this much and this and and there's more in the book. They're all very nice. No robes, the secrets of the secret Society, or these If you're invited to a secret society at Yale for dinner, and you arrived to the dining room fifteen minutes late. All the span of copita will be gone, they sir of uh. There was a veal and a fish. The dining rooms in the basement, red leather chairs, all with an aura boros uh and and and a book inscribed on the back. You get to meet with seventeen right young people now men and women not. It's obviously and has been. I think Book and Snake particularly has been much more diverse than the other. Some of the others um there are there will be a chaperone there, an older alum to make sure that things get don't get out of hand. Secret of the secret Society Yale Wine and beer only smart you know. Uh. And then there's some other they'll some alums might come and have dinner with you two some more recent alums of of Book and Snake slash Yale. So there's a guy named James there who has think was in his early thirties, and he had just told me that he had been named. He works for the city government. He's the transportations are of New Haven. So I just want to say to any Alex Jones listeners out there, if you were worried that the Illuminati, uh and secret societies might be controlling the bus and train schedules in certain southern Connecticut towns. You're absolutely right. Secret societies are running are running the trains in southern Connecticut. Oh my god. You know here in Atlanta, we would kill for some secret society involvement in transit. Please let the r yeah, let me tell, Let me tell James. I think I have his last name somewhere. And then and then the chaperone will leave because he's got to go home. Oh that everyone sings a little song. I don't remember what it goes, cheveron leaves. And then the young people say you want to hang out some more, and I'm like sure, And you'll go up to a chill room that looks exactly like a college dorm room, except no windows. And then they'll reach over to a little captain's chest in the corner. And I don't want to knock on these kids, But can you guess what was in it? Hard alcohol? They are hiding it from their own remember, because they still college. I know I was initiated into a secret, secret society, within the secret society. It was great, But I'll tell you one other thing. Sorry follow up questions. Oh, I was just gonna say, are you are you okay with disclosing this? Um, well, obviously I'm doing it. Why are you? Are you threatened? Are you threatening and or offering to murder me? No? Looking after your first little safety. Quite the opposite. They book and Snake invited. They've been inviting me into their clubhouse for years, started when I was a freshman in college. Embedded. Yeah, I mean, they're they're chilly, they they and in fact, you know, they thought it was they thought the story was funny. Uh, these secret societies don't control the universe, you know what I mean. I don't know what's going on at Skull and Bones. I knew a guy who was in Skull and Bones, and he was like, we just sit around, you know, we have dinner. He was he was a member of the class that was the first to admit. Meant to to tap women to join the next year's class. And the alumni got so furious that they were trying to make make scalan Bones co educational that the alumni members came and changed the locks on the tomb to lock them out of their own clubhouse. So there these are old institutions that are obviously weird, krusty monuments to a certain kind of privilege. But as far as I could tell Inside Book and Snake, it's just young, young, interesting young people who have been given this opportunity to play in a window list building for a while and be friends. You know, I don't know how serious we want to get with this, but there is there is something worth exploring that we've talked about before on this show where we we had one election where I believe it was George h No, George W. Bush and Kerry were both members me and and just that concept. But again, if you break if you really break it down, it's like there are two members of the same fraternity um running together. But I think the nomenclature, the title of having it a secret society creates that anxiety within me a little bit. But you know, the public, of course, I mean, if you if you don't, if you don't have diamond medallion and you're not in that sky club, you're wondering what's going on behind those doors? Something, something is, something freaky is happening people. People are actually being treated like human beings in there. Yeah, I think that's a very good point. But I'll say something else that's true is that, obviously, if you go to an an elite college or institution like Yale or many others already you're you know, you're forging contacts with people who you know statistically are if not likely that you probably know some people who are pretty powerful. You know, as you look, I became a literary agent and a service journalist, and now I'm a carnival jester. You know, I'm nothing. I don't have any power, but I definitely know people. You know, I remember people from college who are now in positions of power. Samantha Power, for example, the former the former ambassador to the U n not not not not only powerful, but named Power. It's her name. She and I were college the same time. I didn't know her, but sure. But you know, these institutions do self select into into groupings and whether or not, and then if you super select into into something like a secret society, you know there there is a kind of soft conspiracy of acquaintanceship and given people a leg up if possible. And it happens in networks of any kind, you know, however, whatever kind of trappings churches. I mean, that's a big one too. Yeah, exactly. But but that's said, uh that there is a there is a secret retreat that I attended that I will not name, that is also described in the book. Is a retreat that I was surprised to be invited to host, hosted by someone who enjoys surrounding him or herself with interesting celebrities, business leaders, government officials, former government officials, entertainers, writers, artists. It's a wonderful time. We all have a great time together. It's all off the record. People aren't supposed to talk about what happened. There no weaving spiders allowed. There no weaving spiders. So it wasn't the Bohemian Club. No, it was not the Union Growth. No, that's I would tell you if I gotten that. There's the thing that I want to go back to. Okay, it's to and it's totally it's totally benign and of an evening they might invite someone like gather everyone together for a performance of a kind. And this performance was a professional performing pickpocket, an incredibly talented performing pickpocket. Well name because he's an amazing person. Abollo Robbins is his name, Robbins, Look him up. He is so skilled, and his his bit was inviting audience members on stage and picking their pockets. And he would invite famous people, entertainers or whatever, um up and um, and I'll talk to them and said, would you ever breakfast today? And you wouldn't even see him touch them, And all of a sudden he's holding their wristwatch above their head, behind them and they didn't know it was gone. But the audience sees it, right, and everyone laughs, and the and the and the famous person laughs because it's okay too. It's okay to be humiliated a little bit in public. Right, if you're secure, it doesn't matter, right. But there is one government official who would not play. He would not get up on stage. He or she should say, they would not get up on stage. They would not allow themselves to to be uh pickpocketed or to have their wristwatch taken because they could not for whatever reason, I'd be speculating to guess what it was. They could not tolerate having their status reduced because they're between their status and status was the only thing that stood between them and oblivion. Basically. And this person has become president. This person, no, this person is a former government official. There's no point in trying to figure out who it is understood, that's not the story. This is a parable. It's a parable about about someone who had done some very good things in public life and had made a big mistake in public life, and could not tolerate even never mind the mention of that big mistake, but even the faintest slap of the wrist, of having their their wrist watch literally manipulated off their wrist in public. It would be too humiliating. And they hid their money in their shoe so that they wouldn't be they wouldn't have their money their wallet pickpocketed. And you know, when people lose their status, or perceive or feel a threat to their status, they will do irrational things. That's not the moral of this story. The moral of this story is that this happened to meaning happened to be held in a Masonic lodge. It was not a Masonic meeting the Mason's. It's beautiful lodge and a grand meeting room and was one of the nicer rooms in this particular town where you could go to have an event like this. And the Masons are out of money and they needed to rent it to this But nonetheless I sat there realizing, so here I am. Here's one of the most famous actors in the world. Here's this incredible business like the most famous businessman in the world. Here's this former government official. There's George R. Martin allowed him to there there, there's this famous person and that famous person, and this powerful person and this powerful person, and we're all here. We are literally all here together, literally meeting in secret, literally in a Masonic lodge. This is happening right now watching the art of pickpocketing, watching the art of pickpocketing. But you go tell that to Alex Jones. I mean, this heart's about to explode anyone because it's full of brisket, juice or whatever. But you know it's it's the Illuminati is real. The Illuminati is real. Like secret meetings of world leaders are happening in Masonic lodges. We're not discussing how, you know, how how how to manipulate you know, how to make may feel like governments in the war, to form of one world government or anything like that. We're basically just entertaining ourselves here. First, folks, the Luminati is real. And I thought I thought you needed to know that, and the and the conversation by closed doors is more like have you tried that jambalaya at the sky close? Because I think it's because they let it sit right. Well, it's all And the conversation behind doors is all people just trying to get jobs off of each other because they're afraid they're they're afraid they're status is slipping to you know. Yeah, I do have one question, just really fast. Were you allowed I'm in the time that this occurred. Did you have a cell phone with a camera on it? Because I'm imagining a room of of you know, with people of that caliber in secret doing a thing like that at a retreat. I'm assuming you would put cell phones awhere you'd have to mandatorily put away. There were no rules about I mean, people were like, you know, don't don't tweet about this. It was low key. I mean, I'm hoping it was fairly low key. Because I'm telling the story. I'll I'm not revealing details. I'm afraid they'll be mad at me. But I suspect they won't read my book. Yeah, and you want to go back, Yeah, I'd like to go indeed again. And it was fascinating, it was interesting and the book is fascinating as well. Thank you, John Hodgeman Medallion status True Stories from Secret Rooms. It's available now wherever you it's available to pre order. I believe for pre order right. Look, I don't know when this is coming out, so let's just talk to the time travelers. Time travelers. If you have arrived in this timeline before October en, you may preorder my book at bit dot lee slash medallion status b I T dot l Y slash medallion status all one word, all capital letters. If you have materialized after October, it's not too late, go to a bookstore and buy it. Or come see me on my book tour on on tour in October and November, and all the details are there John Hodgman dot com slash tour and I'll be in Atlanta in November along with my judge, John Hodgman podcast uh in November two at the Variety. So I hope to see you guys again. Who will do you have a bailiff for that show? Yeah, Jesse, Jesse Thorne, my regular bailiff is going to be there and I will be I will be selling books there, and you know I I because I don't. I don't want to punish people who pre order who then come to the book events, because some of the book events you have to buy a book to get in. Some of them, you know, they might leave the book at home and buy another one. I don't want to, you know. I really hope that people will pre order the book because that's the best way to ensure the best launch for the book personally for me. But in order to reward people who do preorder and then come to the book event, anyone who comes into the signing line, whether it's a Judge Sean Hodgen show or a regular Medallen s tast book event and they have two copies of the book that could be a hardcover and an audio book, or a hardcover and an e book because they've pre ordered or for whatever reason, I have a special loyalty program reward for them. Oh yeah, second, yeah, you get you. You. You may notice that on the cover of the book there's a a picture of two famous quargies of Instagram Linus the Corky and Chompers the Quirky. They're very important in the book. They were looking at a pamphlet here. It's wonderful. Yeah, there's a whole book coming right now. That's well, this part is great. So everyone who comes to a book event and buys a copy of the book gets a enamel pin featuring one of those orgies designed by Aaron Draplin, designer of that of the cover. He's a famous and great awesome dude designer, and that that is a famous quirky pin. Everyone gets one of those just for showing up and buying a book. If you buy two books, because maybe you preordered one before coming to the event, or you buy two books on site, or you bought an audio book and now you get in the print dition, whatever it is, you got two books on the sideline, you get upgraded. You get a double corky pin. Whoa three or more books or other or other uh uh, over the top commitments to the cause you're gonna I'll upgrade you discretionarily to triple quartery elite status for three quarties one pin. So, since we're on an audio podcast, listeners need to know that when John said that we the three of us, had I think a fairly dramatic was a double take. Yeah, yeah, And what are they? Their pins? Their pins like you get from an airplane pilot for going on a plane for being a kid. They're nothing but the elite. And as an adult, if you ask the pilots for the pins, they'll still give it to you. Really, yeah, that's wonderful. You just have to ask nicely and clearly. Not have that much respect for yourself. That's what I did. Even if I'm silver door, I'm getting out of here, even silver yet, stop showing my eyes. Just so bad about myself. John Hodgman, that really happened. He's really we have a door. He disappeared down in the tunnel kind of Yeah. I think that went well. I think that was incredible. I want to say, I think he knows more than he's letting on. But he was a very nice guy. That's true. M H. Stuff They Don't Want You to Know is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radios How Stuff Works. Welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is They call me Ben. We are joined as always with our super producer Paul Michig, control dec and in spirit. Because our guest super producer, Maya Cole is on the Ones and Tues today, give it up for her. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know. So check in. First thing's first catch up checking. Well, yeah, so this week, you guys, I went to Chuck E Cheese because my son turned four yesterday. As as we're recording this and um that that robot casino was fabulous. Sorry, we're recording, sir, sir, Hello sir, what's going on in here? Hey? Wait a second? Oh is this the uh? Is this the podcast? I feel like I read conspiracies? Uh? Yeah, that's adorable. I'm such a fan. What are I'm I'm sorry, I'm John Hodgment. I used to be on television. Sometimes I thought I that's right, John Hodgman, that's yeah. I have a podcast as well. Yeah, were the side. I don't know what you were talking about. Yeah, No, I was a PC on the Apple Ads and uh, you know, I don't know what else on my resume. I've traveled all over the world. I've been in the upper echelons of fame, and I've been granted a lot of exclusive access to a lot of uh secret rooms and hidden parties and stuff that you're not supposed to know, but I do. You didn't write a book about it, did you. Uh? Yeah, I did. Actually it's called Medallion Status. But that's not why I'm here. I'm just you know, I was just traveling through the secret tunnels on my way to U secret World Government event and uh yeah, I have a secret door right into your into your room here, so I thought I was just check in and say hi, I hear you're talking about the secret societies a little bit. So thanks for coming. I always wonder what that door was for. Yeah, that just leads to the to the platform for the Golden Funicular the people of my status get to use. God, this is some real deranged billionaires. Well that is the character that I used to play on the Daily Show. But Gau, it's just me. I mean, there is a secret door here and I'm on my way to a secret meeting, but it's just me. John Hodgman, it's hard to tell. The lines are blurring so much right now, Host of The Judge Show, Hodgman podcast and author of the new book Medallion Status True Stories from Secret Rooms, which has a portion in it. This is a This is a book that's mostly about my my, uh my job as a famous minor television personality and what happened after, how unlikely and unusual it was that I should be on camera at all the strange things that happened to me while I was there, And then what happened after I lost that job and panicked and started chasing a new kind of status as a Diamond Medallion member on the Delta, trying to become Diamond Medallion in the Delta Frequent Flyer program. That's Verified Air. It's I you know, I don't want I don't want to. I don't want to give away the story of the book. But I got it. I got I went diamond, I went dime, John, and I appeared on His Dear Friend Chuck Bryant's movie podcast earlier today, and I disclosed that I am approaching silver medallion status, and I was told that that is a trash status. What us just some nonsense words came out of your head just then. I'm sorry that it's as they say in West World. I don't that doesn't look like anything to me. I don't understand what you're talking about. That silver is a trash medow hurting my ears. You've got a silver So how does that compare to just like a guy who travels coach and doesn't have a medallion at all? Well, what does the medallion look like? It's an imaginary medillion. It is a dumb, imaginary prize that I became obsessed with when my TV show is canceled and I had stopped working on the Daily Show and I wasn't on TV anymore. And as a lot of people do when their status starts to slip, whether whether you are uh losing a television job, or you're you're you're aging out of your own job, or you're getting older as a parent and your kids don't think you're a celebrity anymore, or you're a member of the rural white working class, and you feel that the privilege that is due to you as being taken away, and therefore you vote for a particular president. People do irrational things with political silver medallion talk, right, he's gonna freak people out. I don't know. I think you hit this universal, this universal key though, and I want to I want to hear more because I myself, not being a Diamond Medallion member, have moved adjacent. I would see your name on that. You would know everyone. Yeah, I would get a little notification, there's a little ceremony. What I do notice is they actually say I'm not Diamond medallion member anymore. I got it and I lost it. But that's the whole point. That's the that's what makes if you qualify for a certain medallion level, be at uh gold, be at platinum, be a diamond. Those are the only ones. Silver is a garbage medallion because it just as a taunt. It reminds you that you're the worst kind of medallions. It's better to be nothing than to be a silver medial. They're all imaginary prizes that you earn if you earn a certain amount of medallion qualifying miles through travel and credit card spending by the end of the year and then you're locked in. But if you don't requalify the next year, then you drop down in status. And it's frightening high stakes game. So it's tay addictive video game. Now you were saying, I interrupted always see It's true though. I've moved adjason in those circles and they do say your name when you get on the plane. That's what That's what got me started. We'd like to welcome you know. Oh yeah, it's a it's a big to do. When I had before this TV show that I was on, I was I was the the third best friend in this TV comedy called Married on on FX that ran for two seasons. Was great and then, like all television, got canceled. But when it was cooking, I was flying. I was being flown across the country over and over and over and over again to work, and they were paying for my flight, and they were contractually oblu paying me first class. I was racking up the m q ms, the down qualifying miles. I didn't even know this was happening. I didn't even care until one day I was boarding a plane to go home and the gate agent says, as as she scanned in my ticket. Thank you, Mr Hodgman for being gold. Thank you for being gold. Was so powerful, like to an only child who exists, you know, who requires praise and acknowledgement like oxygen, like to be thanked for just for being never mind for being gold. I mean I always thought it was gold, you know what I mean. We all think we're gold, or we hope we are gold, or we worry that maybe we're not as gold as we think, and then we're just tricking people. But then for someone to say, no, you're you're gold, your gold, Well John has your gold, and then diamond and then gold again. Status allowed you in any rooms that most people would never ever even dare to step or ever be allowed. Well, you do, you do get you do get a membership to the sky Cloaks, the secret the secret Societies of the Air, which you know, and it's like there's not there's not a lot, there's not a lot of human sacrifice going on in there. Uh. They have some pretty good soups. I have to I have to say they're they're tie chicken soup is pretty good. I had tie chicken soup for lunch today from the Delta Sky Club. No from soup because you're in Atlantic. Yeah, it's good. It was really good. It's good. You see. The thing. The problem with the one that you had made it as good than the ones you get in the Delta Sky Club is it was fresh. Probably was fresh. You know. I'm the best. I'm gonna and I discussed in the book The greatest uh jumbalaya that I've ever eaten came out of the crock pot at the at the sky the Delta sky Club. It's at Louis Armstrong International Airport in New Orleans. The best, the best jumbal you could get, because all soups and stews deepen in flavor as they sit. They sit at a low temperature for hours and days. It just it just got to be so so delicious. Those are some secrets of the Sky Club. But I've also gotten into other secret rooms that I think might be more interesting to you because I mentioned it earlier, as it were just a normal thing that someone would drop by Book and Snake, one of Yale's senior secret societies, for dinner of an evening. But apparently not everyone can do it. Book and Snake. I'm only familiar with Skull and Bones. I have to leave now, goodbye. Wait, no, I'm not so. I I went to I went to Yale, which is an accredited four year college in southern Connecticut, and I was not a member of Skull and Bones. For people who don't know there, but any want to listen to this show has to know about the secret societies of Yale. There are senior societies. Yale is founded before there were frats, and so they the young, the young privileged men of Yale had to find other kinds forms of associations and clubs so that they could group off and basically jack off together. Before there were frats, you had you had secret societies at Yale, which are these senior secret societies where they initiate like fifteen to seventeen senior men to go into a window lists clubhouse called a tomb and tell secrets to each other in lion coffins and hang out. Or you joined an acapella group. There's so much acathete. It's the per capita amount of acapella and New Haven is greater than anywhere else in the world. But what really troubles me is no one's doing anything about it. They're just letting it happen. There's just like hundreds of acapella groups running wild through the New Haven Green I'm fascinated by the connective tissue between the two. If there's ever any secret acapella groups, well, there probably is a little bit of overlap between the Skull and Bonesman and the Wan Poofs, the premier acapella group in the collegiate acafella group in the United States and the world, which I was not a member of, but I'm still weirdly proud of that. But I I was fascinated with secret rooms growing up in high school and secret societies and the Masons and the Club thirty three before everyone knew about it, and all of these rooms. I always wanted to go into these rooms that that you couldn't just walk into unless you were invited or whatever, or had a golden funicular who could take it to a secret panelnge jump into podcast or diamond medallion, diamond medall or diamond meddall for example. And it's you know, these arbitrary signs of status that that don't don't make you a better person, but make you feel suddenly like you're loved by an institution or whatever, It's just it's a sick addiction anyway. Basically, the reason I applied to Yelle was that they had secret societies, Scalm Bones being the most famous one, the Scalm Bones being you know, reputed to be the pipeline too, Illuminati superstatus, secret world government control, the diamond medallion of Conspirat Diamond medallion. It's like Yale Skull and Bones. That's the top. Like, you know, oh, I'm sorry, you just went to the Builderberg group once. No, this is skull and Bones now it was that? Was that an actual secret society? The snake was it isn't is an actual one. Yep, they're they're they're across the street from the Grove Cemetery in New Haven and a giant two and a half story limestone Greek Revival architecturally significant edifice that has zero windows. It looks like a tomb. They're called tombs. All of these secret societies at Yale. We're all um founded by very wealthy young men. They had their dad's architects make them. These clubhouses. They're all littered throughout campus. You'll be walking along You're like, there's a very handsome looking uh and and an important looking library. Oh why does it have no windows? Because it's a clubhouse for dumb dums. Dumb dum clubhouse for for secret weirdos. So set the scene where they all roped up? I mean where what was going on? Well, there's all there's a limit to what I can reveal here. Wait a second, there's also scrolling key. I just want to tell you the other ones, Wolf said, scrolling key, Brazelis manuscript, scolland bones, book and snake. Those are the Those are the biggins. I like the ones that sound like combos, you know, an bones. Yeah, no, that's you know, there was a cross and key once, or there may be a cross end key now. But you want to get the big big ones. All are blank and blanks. Really yeah, maybe we should start something like that, right, it's you start the blank and blanks and bags and badgers. But to answer your question, no, they don't wear they don't wear robes. And I know this because when I was a fresh person at Yale, I got invited to a party of Book and Snake, and I was very very excited. This was new, like this is the reason I had come here, and it's here. It is for semester and I got so excited that I drank a lot before going to the party. And then I went into the party, and I I went up to the top of the stairs, and then I fell down the stairs. And then I woke up in the hospital. And I know that all of that happened, because it was told to me that had happened. But my only memory is walking up to the door. And that's the last thing I remember until and so it nod at me for my rest of my life. First of all, let me give some advice to college students. Don't get drunk and fall down the stairs. You're not immortal. I'm very, very lucky. I didn't hurt myself, Like, don't, don't do it. So to be fair, you don't know if they were roped up or not because you were unconscious. What was that? What was but I what? But I had blacked out? Do you know what I mean? Now, there's there's certain people who attended Yale and may or may not be sitting on the Supreme Court now who believed that blacking out is not a thing that happens. The FBI did a whole impression of an investigation. Did they did? They did? They did? The Illuminati investigation. It was nothing to see here. Investigation are positive. You didn't get initiated that night, and that was part of it. I had no idea. I mean I had friends who were there, one of whom Jonathan Colton, is a musician and a dear friend still and a whiffan Poof by the way, the most prestigiously an acapella group in the world. That's right, friends with a woman poof. You know, I'm bragging ya? Is that sort of like hufflepuff? No? Uh, it's yeah, I mean it's all it's it isn't so far as it's all nonsense words. Guy. Anyway, I uh, he was there. He knew, he said he saw me in there. I knew that I had been in there. It's an nerving thing to have a memory that you cannot recall, and especially when you were going into the secret society that you wanted to see so badly, and you realize that those secret sides are pretty powerful. They know how to erase a mind, like they took out They took that memory right out of my head. And you might be a legend to them. They might be hanging out and they're like, oh man, you remember stairs guy, Well, he was wild. I don't. I don't know how much they thought about me for years and years and years until you showed up on TV. And I don't think they thought about me then either. I think they started thinking about me once I started like telling this story in public, and I included it in a book, and I and I and I wrote about it online and I got a call from I got an email from CO signed by a man and a woman, both members of Book and Snake. I won't reveal their names. We'll call them Booker and Snake. You cool. And they said, wait, sorry that you have I'm sorry this has been haunting you for so long. We often we have a dinner every Thursday. We often invite interesting people to join us. Do you want to have dinner with us? And I was like, yeah, I do, And I was I was really excited to go back and see see what see what I had seen but couldn't remember having seen. And uh, I'll tell you this much and this and and there's more in the book. They're all very nice. No robes, the secrets of the secret Society, or these If you're invited to a secret society at Yale for dinner, and you arrived to the dining room fifteen minutes late. All the span of copita will be gone, they sir of uh. There was a veal and a fish. The dining rooms in the basement, red leather chairs, all with an aura boros uh and and and a book inscribed on the back. You get to meet with seventeen right young people now men and women not. It's obviously and has been. I think Book and Snake particularly has been much more diverse than the other. Some of the others um there are there will be a chaperone there, an older alum to make sure that things get don't get out of hand. Secret of the secret Society Yale Wine and beer only smart you know. Uh. And then there's some other they'll some alums might come and have dinner with you two some more recent alums of of Book and Snake slash Yale. So there's a guy named James there who has think was in his early thirties, and he had just told me that he had been named. He works for the city government. He's the transportations are of New Haven. So I just want to say to any Alex Jones listeners out there, if you were worried that the Illuminati, uh and secret societies might be controlling the bus and train schedules in certain southern Connecticut towns. You're absolutely right. Secret societies are running are running the trains in southern Connecticut. Oh my god. You know here in Atlanta, we would kill for some secret society involvement in transit. Please let the r yeah, let me tell, Let me tell James. I think I have his last name somewhere. And then and then the chaperone will leave because he's got to go home. Oh that everyone sings a little song. I don't remember what it goes, cheveron leaves. And then the young people say you want to hang out some more, and I'm like sure, And you'll go up to a chill room that looks exactly like a college dorm room, except no windows. And then they'll reach over to a little captain's chest in the corner. And I don't want to knock on these kids, But can you guess what was in it? Hard alcohol? They are hiding it from their own remember, because they still college. I know I was initiated into a secret, secret society, within the secret society. It was great, But I'll tell you one other thing. Sorry follow up questions. Oh, I was just gonna say, are you are you okay with disclosing this? Um, well, obviously I'm doing it. Why are you? Are you threatened? Are you threatening and or offering to murder me? No? Looking after your first little safety. Quite the opposite. They book and Snake invited. They've been inviting me into their clubhouse for years, started when I was a freshman in college. Embedded. Yeah, I mean, they're they're chilly, they they and in fact, you know, they thought it was they thought the story was funny. Uh, these secret societies don't control the universe, you know what I mean. I don't know what's going on at Skull and Bones. I knew a guy who was in Skull and Bones, and he was like, we just sit around, you know, we have dinner. He was he was a member of the class that was the first to admit. Meant to to tap women to join the next year's class. And the alumni got so furious that they were trying to make make scalan Bones co educational that the alumni members came and changed the locks on the tomb to lock them out of their own clubhouse. So there these are old institutions that are obviously weird, krusty monuments to a certain kind of privilege. But as far as I could tell Inside Book and Snake, it's just young, young, interesting young people who have been given this opportunity to play in a window list building for a while and be friends. You know, I don't know how serious we want to get with this, but there is there is something worth exploring that we've talked about before on this show where we we had one election where I believe it was George h No, George W. Bush and Kerry were both members me and and just that concept. But again, if you break if you really break it down, it's like there are two members of the same fraternity um running together. But I think the nomenclature, the title of having it a secret society creates that anxiety within me a little bit. But you know, the public, of course, I mean, if you if you don't, if you don't have diamond medallion and you're not in that sky club, you're wondering what's going on behind those doors? Something, something is, something freaky is happening people. People are actually being treated like human beings in there. Yeah, I think that's a very good point. But I'll say something else that's true is that, obviously, if you go to an an elite college or institution like Yale or many others already you're you know, you're forging contacts with people who you know statistically are if not likely that you probably know some people who are pretty powerful. You know, as you look, I became a literary agent and a service journalist, and now I'm a carnival jester. You know, I'm nothing. I don't have any power, but I definitely know people. You know, I remember people from college who are now in positions of power. Samantha Power, for example, the former the former ambassador to the U n not not not not only powerful, but named Power. It's her name. She and I were college the same time. I didn't know her, but sure. But you know, these institutions do self select into into groupings and whether or not, and then if you super select into into something like a secret society, you know there there is a kind of soft conspiracy of acquaintanceship and given people a leg up if possible. And it happens in networks of any kind, you know, however, whatever kind of trappings churches. I mean, that's a big one too. Yeah, exactly. But but that's said, uh that there is a there is a secret retreat that I attended that I will not name, that is also described in the book. Is a retreat that I was surprised to be invited to host, hosted by someone who enjoys surrounding him or herself with interesting celebrities, business leaders, government officials, former government officials, entertainers, writers, artists. It's a wonderful time. We all have a great time together. It's all off the record. People aren't supposed to talk about what happened. There no weaving spiders allowed. There no weaving spiders. So it wasn't the Bohemian Club. No, it was not the Union Growth. No, that's I would tell you if I gotten that. There's the thing that I want to go back to. Okay, it's to and it's totally it's totally benign and of an evening they might invite someone like gather everyone together for a performance of a kind. And this performance was a professional performing pickpocket, an incredibly talented performing pickpocket. Well name because he's an amazing person. Abollo Robbins is his name, Robbins, Look him up. He is so skilled, and his his bit was inviting audience members on stage and picking their pockets. And he would invite famous people, entertainers or whatever, um up and um, and I'll talk to them and said, would you ever breakfast today? And you wouldn't even see him touch them, And all of a sudden he's holding their wristwatch above their head, behind them and they didn't know it was gone. But the audience sees it, right, and everyone laughs, and the and the and the famous person laughs because it's okay too. It's okay to be humiliated a little bit in public. Right, if you're secure, it doesn't matter, right. But there is one government official who would not play. He would not get up on stage. He or she should say, they would not get up on stage. They would not allow themselves to to be uh pickpocketed or to have their wristwatch taken because they could not for whatever reason, I'd be speculating to guess what it was. They could not tolerate having their status reduced because they're between their status and status was the only thing that stood between them and oblivion. Basically. And this person has become president. This person, no, this person is a former government official. There's no point in trying to figure out who it is understood, that's not the story. This is a parable. It's a parable about about someone who had done some very good things in public life and had made a big mistake in public life, and could not tolerate even never mind the mention of that big mistake, but even the faintest slap of the wrist, of having their their wrist watch literally manipulated off their wrist in public. It would be too humiliating. And they hid their money in their shoe so that they wouldn't be they wouldn't have their money their wallet pickpocketed. And you know, when people lose their status, or perceive or feel a threat to their status, they will do irrational things. That's not the moral of this story. The moral of this story is that this happened to meaning happened to be held in a Masonic lodge. It was not a Masonic meeting the Mason's. It's beautiful lodge and a grand meeting room and was one of the nicer rooms in this particular town where you could go to have an event like this. And the Masons are out of money and they needed to rent it to this But nonetheless I sat there realizing, so here I am. Here's one of the most famous actors in the world. Here's this incredible business like the most famous businessman in the world. Here's this former government official. There's George R. Martin allowed him to there there, there's this famous person and that famous person, and this powerful person and this powerful person, and we're all here. We are literally all here together, literally meeting in secret, literally in a Masonic lodge. This is happening right now watching the art of pickpocketing, watching the art of pickpocketing. But you go tell that to Alex Jones. I mean, this heart's about to explode anyone because it's full of brisket, juice or whatever. But you know it's it's the Illuminati is real. The Illuminati is real. Like secret meetings of world leaders are happening in Masonic lodges. We're not discussing how, you know, how how how to manipulate you know, how to make may feel like governments in the war, to form of one world government or anything like that. We're basically just entertaining ourselves here. First, folks, the Luminati is real. And I thought I thought you needed to know that, and the and the conversation by closed doors is more like have you tried that jambalaya at the sky close? Because I think it's because they let it sit right. Well, it's all And the conversation behind doors is all people just trying to get jobs off of each other because they're afraid they're they're afraid they're status is slipping to you know. Yeah, I do have one question, just really fast. Were you allowed I'm in the time that this occurred. Did you have a cell phone with a camera on it? Because I'm imagining a room of of you know, with people of that caliber in secret doing a thing like that at a retreat. I'm assuming you would put cell phones awhere you'd have to mandatorily put away. There were no rules about I mean, people were like, you know, don't don't tweet about this. It was low key. I mean, I'm hoping it was fairly low key. Because I'm telling the story. I'll I'm not revealing details. I'm afraid they'll be mad at me. But I suspect they won't read my book. Yeah, and you want to go back, Yeah, I'd like to go indeed again. And it was fascinating, it was interesting and the book is fascinating as well. Thank you, John Hodgeman Medallion status True Stories from Secret Rooms. It's available now wherever you it's available to pre order. I believe for pre order right. Look, I don't know when this is coming out, so let's just talk to the time travelers. Time travelers. If you have arrived in this timeline before October en, you may preorder my book at bit dot lee slash medallion status b I T dot l Y slash medallion status all one word, all capital letters. If you have materialized after October, it's not too late, go to a bookstore and buy it. Or come see me on my book tour on on tour in October and November, and all the details are there John Hodgman dot com slash tour and I'll be in Atlanta in November along with my judge, John Hodgman podcast uh in November two at the Variety. So I hope to see you guys again. Who will do you have a bailiff for that show? Yeah, Jesse, Jesse Thorne, my regular bailiff is going to be there and I will be I will be selling books there, and you know I I because I don't. I don't want to punish people who pre order who then come to the book events, because some of the book events you have to buy a book to get in. Some of them, you know, they might leave the book at home and buy another one. I don't want to, you know. I really hope that people will pre order the book because that's the best way to ensure the best launch for the book personally for me. But in order to reward people who do preorder and then come to the book event, anyone who comes into the signing line, whether it's a Judge Sean Hodgen show or a regular Medallen s tast book event and they have two copies of the book that could be a hardcover and an audio book, or a hardcover and an e book because they've pre ordered or for whatever reason, I have a special loyalty program reward for them. Oh yeah, second, yeah, you get you. You. You may notice that on the cover of the book there's a a picture of two famous quargies of Instagram Linus the Corky and Chompers the Quirky. They're very important in the book. They were looking at a pamphlet here. It's wonderful. Yeah, there's a whole book coming right now. That's well, this part is great. So everyone who comes to a book event and buys a copy of the book gets a enamel pin featuring one of those orgies designed by Aaron Draplin, designer of that of the cover. He's a famous and great awesome dude designer, and that that is a famous quirky pin. Everyone gets one of those just for showing up and buying a book. If you buy two books, because maybe you preordered one before coming to the event, or you buy two books on site, or you bought an audio book and now you get in the print dition, whatever it is, you got two books on the sideline, you get upgraded. You get a double corky pin. Whoa three or more books or other or other uh uh, over the top commitments to the cause you're gonna I'll upgrade you discretionarily to triple quartery elite status for three quarties one pin. So, since we're on an audio podcast, listeners need to know that when John said that we the three of us, had I think a fairly dramatic was a double take. Yeah, yeah, And what are they? Their pins? Their pins like you get from an airplane pilot for going on a plane for being a kid. They're nothing but the elite. And as an adult, if you ask the pilots for the pins, they'll still give it to you. Really, yeah, that's wonderful. You just have to ask nicely and clearly. Not have that much respect for yourself. That's what I did. Even if I'm silver door, I'm getting out of here, even silver yet, stop showing my eyes. Just so bad about myself. John Hodgman, that really happened. He's really we have a door. He disappeared down in the tunnel kind of Yeah. I think that went well. I think that was incredible. I want to say, I think he knows more than he's letting on. But he was a very nice guy. That's true. M H. Stuff They Don't Want You to Know is a production of I Heart Radio's How Stuff Works. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H