Thinking Sideways: What's the Frequency Kenneth?

Thanks Bill, And we're going to call this one. What's the frequency? Kenneth? That's an okay name for it, right, I would say that's appropriate name for it? Yea, yeah yeah. On October four, six, Dan there was walking home in New York City when a man ran up behind him and punched him in the back of the head, which knocked him to the ground. Ground not for and uh started beating him a little bit, and he the man who attacked him, demanded, what's the frequency Kenneth or Kenneth,

what's the frequency? Reports differ? Yeah. As rather ran apparently a second man ran after him and continued to try and attack him. Rather ran into a hotel or apartment lobby apartment building lobby, uh, and I guess felt to the ground and was kicked a number of times before an employee of the apartment complex was able to kind of break the fight up, and the man ran away and wasn't caught. But both men continued to demand throughout the entire beating what they wanted to know what the

frequency was from Dan Rather? Hm? Weird? Right? Yeah, I did say. That's a very weird thing to continually yell. Asked, Yeah, but you know, actually, if you want an excuse to continue the beating, asked if you do want to be asking an unanswerable question, Yeah, you kind of do. Yeah, I'm just trying to beat the thing out of you. If you would just tell me the answer, I'm glad they stopped. Yeah. I can't imagine that people don't know who Dan Rather is, but I guess we do have

a number of international listeners. So let's talk about Dan Rather for a minute. Yeah cool. Dan Rather was born in ninety one and led a pretty uninteresting life until breaking into the broadcast journalism world kind of early September nineteen six one, when he did some unconventional reporting on Hurricane Carla. He was the first reporter to ever use weather scanners on TV to explain to people where weather patterns are. Yeah, weather, Yeah, they didn't exist. They didn't

have the technology to have that on screen. So he actually went to what or service station and had the camera trained on that to track where Hurricane Carlo was going. Granted he was he had been a television journalist for a number of years prior to that, but that was kind of his first big claims fame. I don't remember when it was, but I know. The other notable thing he did is he was one of the reporters that was embedded in Vietnam. Yeah, he was a he was

a war correspondent. And actually that was after he had kind of had this rise to fame. He moved to New York City in nineteen sixty two and started a trial period at CBS, and apparently he didn't fit in very well. But he did end up covering the crash of American Airlines Flight one, which was a notable crash with a number of notable people on board that died, and it's a bit of an unsolved mystery, but we'll talk about that later one, because I'm not prepared for

that one. No, no, no, no, that's a mystery for a different time. He also reported on the JFK assassination, which is another huge unsolved mystery for another time. Until we tackle it. Until we tackle it, we'll solve it. Don't worry, guys, because it's not actually unsolvable. It's not. We will solve it. Yeah. Yeah, Dan Rather was assigned to be a White House correspondent for CBS, and then

he went onto assignment in viet to Vietnam War. And then he came back and he was assigned the anchor position for CBS Evening News, which is CBS is nightly news segment. And he also he also did segments on sixty Minutes also, yeah he did, and he you know, he was the anchor um on CBS Evening News for twenty four years. Yeah. Yeah, he was there forever so and then and of course it was from his position at sixty Minutes of his career kind of came to a closer the end about ten years ago. Yeah. I

want to talk about that. We will, because it comes up in the theory. Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot. I'm sorry. We have some interesting theories. I I sprung something at the last minute on Devon. Yeah, I forgot. I totally forgot that. I had that written at the end of my script. Now, anyways, in six this beating happened and nobody really knew why. Rather was quoted as saying I was mugged. He's kind of this very matter of fact statement. He says, it was mugged. I don't

know why it happened. I wish I did, but I don't know. Classic mugging except they didn't. Yeah, well that was exactly it is. None of the reports have any kind of missing items of any kind. It seems like, yeah, I mean I think he was. It was maybe his egos at bruised. Yeah. A few years later, Dan Rather did identify the man who had been beating him. It gets it gets at a little weird in here for me, because in all of the reports I've read, there were

two men. These are the reports from the year it happened. From the year it happened, there were two men. And then a couple of years later, this other man that I'm about to talk about was arrested it and Dan Rather said, oh, yeah, that was the that was the one guy who was beating me. There's no mention of, oh, but there was a second guy who started it or anything like that. It's just, yeah, that was the guy. Some reports I've heard it was just one guy beating

him and then the other guys just kind of stood by. Yeah, but there were two men involved, and you know, anyways, it gets He definitely disappears from the lore, which I'm sure we'll talk about a little bit in a minute too. But this man's name was William Tagger, and that was when he was identified to Yes, and you may be familiar with that name if you're a weirdo about murders or anything. I don't know, some of our listeners might

be into that sort of stuff. They're just interested in random explained murders may well, except yeah, unprovoked this is a better word, because this this murder was actually explained and stupid. Yeah. In n Tagger attempted to enter the

set of the Today Show with a gun. He had like a rifle strapped to his back and he tried to enter and the security guards said no. So he got in his car and drove away and then came back with the rifle and tried to gain insurance again when one of the men who was on the crew of the Today Show named Campbell their own Montgomery, which is the USA version of a Game of Thrones name really what it is? I don't watch the show or

read books. You guys are the worst. Anyways, Tagger shot Campbell in the back in the back a few times as he was running away and trying to alert the police, and uh, Campbell died and Tiger was arrested. Tigger was convicted and sentenced. He was denied parole when he first came up for it in two thousand and seven, but he was released in two thousand and I think he lives in New York and Dan rather hasn't been seeing since that's not true, are you tell me, Devin? We

can save it if if it comes up later. But did you want to go into his motivations for that or had you intended to? Yeah, we're gonna talk a little bit about that in then, okay, because there's there's some very strange WTF moments in his accounts of why he did that. So I just want to make sure yeah, by by no, in no uncertain terms, Tagger was a crazy person. He still is, just check it, but perhaps a person from another or maybe something else is going on.

But even that you kind of can say he's crazy. Yeah, so that I know, we usually talked for like an hour about what happened and then briefly talk about theories. But happened, So we're going to talk about theories. Wait are you? Are you warning our listeners it's going to be a short show. Well, I don't think it's going to be sure, it'll be shorter than last week. Let's talk, Okay, opposite, it's all talk, like Steve, let's all talk. So one thing I wanted to mention is that Rather found out

about it through Tigger's psychiatrist. Correct, because he was he was forced to see a psychiatrist after the murder, after the murder and then and then that's when Tigger told his psychiatrist said he was the one who who had beaten up Dan Rather. Yeah, so, and so that that is how he found out the set from the psychiatrist.

I have heard that, Yeah, I do. I do want to raise a red flag on that though, because I know that there's a limit to patient client confidentiality, and I know that like if you're going to do harm or you've done a heinous crime that doesn't apply. Beaten the crap out of a news anchor doesn't seem to qualify for violating that brilliant Yeah, well, but it's also way outside of the statute of limitation. Well, I think

that we can kind of go into this now. Uh we as a community group team Sideways found the transcripts from the parole hearings her Tagger and uh Dan Rather isn't mentioned any at all in there. And one would think if if they had decided or he hadn't admitted to that attack, that would come up, because it was a pretty brutal attack. Yeah, but he didn't. He didn't confess it to the police. He did not, so that

that's kind of I I agree with Steve. I have some questions about whether or not he ever admitted that he did this, or if it was just a psychiatrist trying to get a bump in his popularity for some reason or whatever it may be. Yeah, but but when he went Rather it was shown a picture of Tagger. He's identified him as being the did it and when Yeah, but what was it was he showing the photo? I'm not sure, but it would have been at the earliest nine. Okay,

that's that's eight to ten years later. I got a question, have you and you've seen pictures of Tagger, right? I mean he's not the most uniquely he's kind of an odd looking guy, but he's not super unique. No, So that's why I question how Rather so instantly said, that's

the guy. But also it's not documented what under what process he was shown the picture was, if it was in a lineup under kind of police supervision or professional supervision, or if the psychiatrist or psychologist was saying, oh, yeah, this guy said he beat you up, and Dan Rather looked it and said bad. It kind of looks like him. Probably was him, you know, we don't know. Yeah, that's exactly thank you that. I think that that's an important

thing to keep in mind as well. So with that short and introduction to this show, now we're really going to the theories. We're really going to theory. Alright. The first theory ends with a sentence, I swear to god, Joe did not come up with this theory, but he very easily could have. So let's get into that. As we mentioned, Dan Rather was assaulted kind of outside of and then in the entry way of an apartment building, um, and that somebody who worked there did kind of step

in and stopped behind. Yeah. And you know, most people kind of think that this was just a case of mistaken identity, that somebody, the people who started beating Dan Rather up thought that he was somebody he wasn't, which is fair. It's possible it was kind of in the middle of his meteoric rise to fame. But I guess if you don't watch the news, people get beat up for all kinds of reasons and get into trouble for

mistaken identities all the time. Yeah. The other thing that this theory relies heavily on is that Dan Rather was he was hit in the head and he was being beaten up, and that it's totally possible that he misunderstood what the men were yelling at him or misremembered. Absolutely. According to this theory, the people who the two men that were beating Dan Rather up were fairly well dressed.

I don't know what that means. I've never I don't know if you guys found in the original research versus this theory, And he mentioned of the style of clothing that these people were wearing, that they were well dressed. But that was all I heard. I don't know why. I never means never ever recall seeing that. Now, apparently the neighborhood that Dan Rather was in was one of

the gay or neighborhoods of Manhattan or areas of Manhattan. No, I'm not, actually, but I am saying that apparently this was kind of one of those areas at that time. I don't know, it may or may not have been. According to this theory, it really was. Yeah, the quote

unquote research around this particular one call in a question. Yeah, Jos, after we've talked about that, I think it might be economy to Yeah, And apparently, reportedly Dan Rather being you know, off duty for the day, he was wearing jeans and a striped polo and aviator sunglasses. And yeah, because it's Dan Rather, so probably he's a news anchor, comes of course would always be his best Yeah. Of course, where

does Penny Loafer's. Yeah, Anyways, these two men mistook Dan Rather for a man that one of the men's boyfriends was cheating on him with. Maybe he really was. Maybe they mistook Dan Rather for having snuck out of the boyfriend's apartment so he lived in that apartment building building

right there and the boyfriend would have lived there. They beat him in the head, hit him in the head, and Dan Rather ran towards the apartment building again, which just further enraged these men and they started kicking him, and Dan Rather reportedly said you got the wrong guy, which of course made them think even more that he was the lover. And so what were they saying to him? Reportedly they were saying, what is this freak seeing Kenneth?

Which also doesn't make a whole lot of I mean, what weird, It's stupid, it's so shoehorned, I feel, you know, It's definitely one of those kind of oh yeah, this person is going to call this person a freak, Like, well, what do you You're like beating this man up for being gay with your boyfriend syndrome? Yeah, but all like what an odd choice of words of what is this freak seeing Kenneth? Like what probably not what I would

say in that situation, not what I would say. Okay, so I'm going to do this a number of times with this phrase, is trying to figure out because Rather got hit in head a number of times, so is Marbles might have been bouncing around yeah, and I think, yes, saying what is this freak seeing Kenneth? You know that it could have been put into frequency Kenneth. You know, since Dan rather was in broadcasting, frequency would have been more in his vocabulary than That's not where it's going.

I'm trying to figure out what the frequency Kenneth could be translated from if you're if you get got hit and a head a couple of times. But that's what I'm saying, is that it could have been translated from what is this freak seeing Kenneth? And it could have been are you there's an F word that you can insert yourself, Kenneth. So if somebody says that, if you say that rapidly, it could to somebody who's you know, ears are ringing from being knocked about the head could

kind of sound like that. And again I know it's not a perfect fit. I understand this. Yeah, I usually with this story. Yeah, I usually think that, like the first and the last words are probably pretty close to so what are you Fford Kenneth, Yeah, or something like that, something like that. Yeah, Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know either. It's how many times did they say this phrase? And I don't know. I don't know if anybody knows. It's always always called that is just repeatedly,

so repeatedly. Could have been two times or ken times. I don't think it's more than two, but I don't think Dan Rather was able to like say, oh, I was counting while they were beating me. You know. Anyways, I think the reason that this theory sounds exactly like Joe is because it ends with and I'll quote here, I'm sure that if the police check the list of tenants in the building, they will find a man named Kenneth. Questioning him should lead to the sailants, and this case

will have been resolved. Yeah, right, that all they have to do is do this one thing and then they'll solve the case. It's so easy, Kenneth yet, Yeah, all you have to do is find obviously there was a Kenneth that lived there, and obviously he was gay, and obviously he was cheating on his boyfriend, and obviously the boyfriend just beat the crap out of Dan Rather while yelling. But this freak scene Kenneth. Obviously that is the easiest answer to this. Of course, Yeah, solved, there we go,

all right, Well, so funder email address. Oh no, well you devn know that I found a theory that was obscenely similar, super similar. Yeah, and thankfully we have some folks out there who could help us with this because I'm probably in a butcher some pronunciation. Even though you asked for help, I asked for help, but nobody was quite sure if what they were giving me was right. But there's an other theory that goes that rather was assaulted by one or two Jewish men for reasons unknown.

And it's New York. There's a sizeable Jewish community in that city, so he may have made somebody angry and or it could have been a mistake and identity absolutely, you know, they they didn't like him, or they thought that he was somebody else that was a problem. But the reading that I found on this, they say that it wasn't Kenneth that was being yelled, but instead it was it was it's a Yiddish word. So again this is why I'm not sure I'm going to do this right.

But it's gone if, which is Yiddish for thief or a dishonest person, basically a liar. I then started I, like I talked about earlier, with the whole puss word substitution because I love word jumbles. Is trying to figure out other Yiddish words that might sound like some of the phrasing that was used. So I was looking for I can't put the sentence together. I don't know Yiddish, but words it would maybe sound like frequency if you're yelling and you're beating up somebody and you're calling him

a thief. I found a couple that might kind of work. And again I might be butchering this, but this is Yiddish or princess as in I think it's princess as in a bit of a putdown, but it's print zeth. It's p r I E t z t h, so my pronunciation is probably totally off on that. Or the other one is pro stalk, which is an ignorant, bore or a vulgar man. So I could see these words.

If this this other theory that I had, where he's being attacked by a couple of Jews who were angry at him for I don't know what reason, then it could be that they were Everything that was yelled at him was held in Yiddish, so we had no idea what it was. So he put it together as best he could in English, and please don't rely on my terrible pronunciation, but it could completely be that. I mean, it could also the theory. It could also be a mix of English. You know, it could have been um,

where is it? Or what is it? Or something like that and thief or what you know, not what did you take? But you know, I mean, it could be that a mix of accusations in English and Yiddish also, And maybe maybe it wasn't even a case of a stake in identity. Maybe they recognized him and he had said something or another who upset them on the news, So they also totally possible. Yeah, they you know that he's a goyam. They don't like goyam, and he's made them angry, so we're going to take it out on you.

I'm not sure that Jews don't like going on. Well, but if he's, if he has made them angry, well, okay, you're not of the faith. What the heck we can justify beating the crap out of this guy. I don't know, I don't know. I'm this is that's the theory, and that's kind of the short road that I ran down. I linguistics is not my area, so I tryd of stopped short. Yeah, it's always possible. I mean, you know,

that's it brings up another good point. It could have been a different language, that it could have been anything. You know, it's it's hard to tell. The next theory is fun. I like this theory, and actually this is the theory that was brought to our attention with the story. Yeah. Yeah, this is the number one copy paste theory on the Internet.

And since it's copy paste, we're going to copy paste it too, because there's really I think the telling of it is pretty good, and I'm it's literally copy pit. Everywhere I've ever seen it is literally copy paste. I copy pasted it into the script. I think that this is the best telling of it. We're not going to, like just read it word for word, though I think we may have to do. I actually we're going to read portions of it to give it its full due.

We've got to read some of this because it plays into a bunch of pop culture references, because it's been around long enough. Are you guys ready, let's do this all right. On the evening of October four, stan Rather was attacked by William Tagger, who contrary to popular belief, had a very good reason for attacking. Rather, Bill Tagger was born in the year Bill Tagger is from the future. Bill Tagger is not of our planet. Well, technically, he

is from Earth, but not from our Earth. Tagger comes from an Earth and a parallel universe, and he was sent here by the government of his planet. On Tagger's Earth, the entire planet is under control of one government, Taggers worldwide government had been experimenting what's time travel to parallel universes, which involves a warp of the space time continuum for

almost a hundred and fifty years. Bill Tagger, a convicted felon on his planet, volunteered to be the first human test pilot on the condition that he'd be given a full pardon when he returned. Does this sound familiar to anybody that's called twelve monkeys? Yeah again Yeah. On Tagger's Earth, the vice President of the world as a man named Kenneth Burrows, who just happens to look exactly like down Rather.

Before Tagger entered the time travel chamber, he was paid a visit by Vice President Burrows and told that he had a transmitter implanted in his brain and if he chose to remain in this section of time and space that he was being sent to and didn't return to the designated time, he would be barraged with messages to return until he came back and reported on his mission. Then and only then would the transmitter be removed and he'd be given his full pardon. Tagger's trip was successful,

and he landed in New York on September one. All was going as planned, and tag Or had prepared for his return to his own time when he was mistakenly arrested for putting coins and expired meters. After spending thirty days in jail and staying on our planet for fourteen days longer than he was supposed to, Tigger started receiving extremely hostile messages from Vice President Burrows telling him to return immediately. Politicians can be such jerks. Why I'm going

to get thirty days for feeding a meter? I don't know. I think it's not real. Oh you think so? Sack his story? Okay, sorry, sorry. His window of opportunity had passed and he would have to wait another week to try to return, and there was no possible way to let Burrows know this. The constant voices were driving him insane.

He wasn't even able to sleep at night. If there was any way Tagger could find a precise frequency that was being broadcasted to his brain, he could possibly override the voices and be able to sleep at night until he was able to make his return trip. As he walked on the streets of New York late on the evening of October fourth, Tigger saw a man who he

thought was Vice President Kenneth Burrows. He quit, came to his senses and knew that Burrows would never make the risky trip himself, and figured it must be Burrows is double on our earth. However, he thought, what were the chances that, out of over five billion people on the planet, he would meet the twin of the man who had been sending hostile messages directly to his brain for two weeks.

Tagger called out to the man, Kenneth, Kenneth Burrows. To his surprise, the man, whom we know is Dan Rather, turned to see who was yelling and not was knocked to the ground. Tagger repeatedly kicked Rather as he lay on the ground, yelling what's the frequency Kenneth, hoping to learn the frequency of the signal being broadcast to his brain to stop the voices. When rather didn't respond, Tagger realized that he had made a terrible mistake, and indeed

attacked Burrows is double on our planet. He fled the scene and later missed his second and last chanced to return to his home planet. Years later, in in an attempt to get in contact with somebody who might be able to identify the frequency and put an end to the voices that haunted him for so many years, Tagger shot and killed an NBC technician outside of the Today's Show studios. Today, William Tregor sits in prison in New York. The voices now an automatic message that replays itself every

twenty minutes, still playing his head. Damn, you know, I got that. That's a you know, that's like having ringing in your years whatever, being on the train and hearing the announcement. Wouldn't you just tune that out after a while? Yeah, that's good point. I don't know. If it's quiet for twenty minutes and then a message plays and then it turns off, that would be pretty awful. I think that every now and again it would startle you. But I can imagine that after a week of that, you would

just learn to not hear it. I mean, think about I live near an airport. Every now and again, I hear the planes going overhead because I'm in their their circle pattern. But every day, you know, but most of the time I'll look up, Oh, hey, there's a plane, and then suddenly realized that it is these raging lee

loud noise you did. The other thing he could have done was he could have gone to a neurologists and just said, hey, I'm getting weird things going with my eyesight and stuff, and I think I might have a brain tumor. Actually your head. They find that, they find the receiver in your head, and they have brain searcher health insurance for that. Well, he was a convicted felon in his time. He didn't have health insurance. He didn't have anything in art. He didn't have anything in art time.

He was stealing bread to eat. Joe, so go to go to one of those hospitals that specializes in poor people. The one thing I got to admit I did as you were reading this, it suddenly dawned on me and I wanted to check because I never figured out where this story came from. But the one thing I do have to give kudos to the person who wrote this. They actually, if it was written a significant amount of time after the event, they at least took the time to look up the population of this planet in because

they got the number right. Yeah, well not precisely right. It wasn't exactly, it wasn't five bill But how often did they say and there was nine billion people on the planet in nineteen seventy two? Is like, dude, you got the wrong year totally. Yeah, like, at least they got that right. But I'm sorry this right, It didn't get at all right. Story has been around for so long. And did either of you figure out where he came from? I have no idea. It's just probably came from Tagger.

I don't know. The copy pace syndrome tells me that it is something from a forum for fun. Yeah, I think probably. It's probably one of those writing prompts. But yeah, like you said, I couldn't find out where it was from. I don't think Joe could find out where it's from. But I do like it. It's fine, a fun one. It's fun and it explains it pretty solidly. Yeah, it's not true, but still well inspired a movie reallywell monkeys, twelve Monkeys. Yeah, supposedly this story was kind of the

basis for twelve Monkeys. You know what else? The story was the basis for him? Uh? No, a song? Are you? That's right? Ye? What the frequency Kenneth? Did you guys listen after reading this? Did you listen to the read the lyrics? Did you? Yeah? I know I do this with songs all the time. As you hear it and you're bothering along and you're having a good time, and then suddenly you read the lyrics and you go, oh, what is this about? Maaks those sense? And that's exactly

how this became a number one song. I don't know it had a good tune. People didn't listen to lyrics. No, because if you caught yourself reading or you know, going along with the words and say and singing them out loud and thinking about what it said, whoa, it's a weird song? Yeah, wait to go? Are um in a terrible play? Oh? That's right, that's yeah, that's so. Can you imagine that you had this embarrassing, a little little dust up and somebody beats crap out of you, and

now that's a song about it. Now, that's a play about it. Who was it? Which? Which late night show was it? The Dan Rather went on with R. E. M. And he performed with them. I think it was like The Tonight Show or David Letterman or something like that. But he at least had enough characters say yeah this happened, fine, I'll play along. Yeah, it's a major cultural turning point in our history, I mean our nations history. So you know, hey,

it was a major cultural turning point. Oh yeah, not really. Sorry, that supposed to left awarding the Internet. I'm not supposed to shot. Yeah. I was just gonna say, Joe has an interesting theory. Yeah, well it's not actually my theory. This is sorry. Joe found an interesting party. Yeah, I found this. This one was a team group effort. I think. Yeah, we all kind of went off on our own paths

on this one, which is unusual, but it's fun. Yeah. So, uh, this guy, the guy who came up with this theory is named Paul Limbert Allman, and he wrote an essay in Harper's Magazine in December of two thousand one in which he drew a connection between Dan Rather and a writer named Donald Barthelm and Barth Barthelm was kind of a postmodernist writer. He he, I don't know, I don't know that he ever wrote a novel, but he wrote a lot of short stories, and he did a lot

of other stuff too. He taught at some some universities and stuff like that, and he was actually a journalist for a while. He grew up in Houston about the same time that Dan Rather did, and he went into journalism around the same time that Dan Rather did, also in Houston. Both of them started out in Houston. So it's, uh, it's actually quite likely that Rather in Balthelm or Barthelm. Quite likely they had at least a passing acquaintance with

one another. Yeah. Yeah, and they could have crossed paths in good ways or astonishingly negative ways. It's hard to say, it's hard to tell him. Yeah, So he all unbelieves that Barthelm had had something against Rather and that he possibly was behind the attack, and his clues were from some stories. Some of the bartown stories are one of his stories, actually a couple of his stories. A character

named Kenneth appears in the story. So that's damning. And then there was another story, yeah, and then there was another right there, Yeah, he wrote another story which had an interesting passage in it, This is kind of a Q and A like an inner somebody being interviewed from Then the story was called kirk Yard unfair to Schlegel. Yeah, it sounds like a story I'm gonna go out. Yeah maybe in Russia, yeah, Germany. So here's answer. I'm on a train, a European train with compartments. A young girl

enters and it sits opposite me. The book is in her lap. Her legs are fairly wide apart, very tanned. The color of question, that's a very common fantasy answer. All of my fantasies are extremely ordinary. Question. Does it give you pleasure? Answer? Or rather unsatisfactory question? What is the frequency? Yeah? Absolutely, he's guilty. Frequency he's guilty. I really just called that writer's block. Yeah. Another story he wrote another story called This is Barthea Elm again called

the Emerald and What. There's a character named Lather who was a newspaper writeritor who was a complete flaming papas jerk, and al Man seems to believe that Barthel basis character and Dan rather and he seems to believe that he had some sort of a grudge against rather, and that was his motivation for either being part of the sort of being behind the soor preps just as randomly inspiring

this attack. M Yeah, I don't know. I mean this kind of the idea that Dan rather is the basis for a character named Lather that I'm I'm willing to go there. I'm not willing to go there with the what's the frequency? In the Q and A? And I'm not really willing to go there just because he named a couple of characters Kenneth. Yeah, but hey, circumstantial, Like I said, this is this is an amazingly weak theory. Yeah, I'm not sure that he I'm pretty sure that Almond

was not entirely serious about this. Well, I see here that that you did give this Actually I've never seen to do this, but you gave this theory a score, Joe, Yeah, I did, had three thumbs up out of a possible hundred thumbs. Yeah. Yeah. Uh So. He also adapted this into a play called Kenneth, What does the Frequency, which played a few months in New York City at the seventy eight Street Theater Lab. And I bet that was for excellent Yeah, And that was also performed with the

two thousand for Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Of course it was, and it got reviewed by Variety. They gave it kind of a tepid review. Yeah, yeah, I don't know. You cannot like a person and not orchestra in an attack on them and still make fun of them. There is a people that I don't like and I make fun of, and yet I have never contracted a beating on them. Safe good job. That seems kind of a street ye to go to that length, you just you don't like you?

What was the term a pompish jerk? I believe that if you consider a pompish jerk, tho it is what's the what's the frequency? Kenneth? I don't quite get that. There's no reason so that he can pepper really really innocuous kind of references throughout his literature for their next ten years right and garner attention for Well, it could be related, but maybe not, but probably not. Maybe maybe I don't know. Another theory, and this is I think our most solid serious theory so far, is that this

was just a piece of performance art. No, that's not real. You can't fool me. Joe is now shoehorning. Random theory it's a shoehorned theory that to start with. Yeah, there's another theory out there on the a shoehorns. Somebody ordered this as a hit kind of train that Steve ended up I think doing a lot of more research on than I did, because I'm not really excited about it. I really shouldn't have spent all of the time Saturday when I got to bed at like one three in

the morning for being on the internet. Nope, you shouldn't have. But it's it involves Uh, I was beating the bushes. You are beating the bushes. Because this deals entirely with the Bush family. Dan rather has a reputation for, as his editors and producers whuls say, pissing people off. He's good at at getting to the core and finding what's going on, or at least finding out how to ask the right question to really rattle somebody and getting new

things out of him. Yeah. I mean, that's that's a skill that is an admirable one when you're in that profession.

He did not have the best relationship with George H. W. Bush, who first senior yeh senior it was, was President of the United States, and during that time when when Bush was running for president, the whole I Ran Contra affair had broken open, and like a Nesta spiders, it was just it was a terrible, terrible thing for people in politics, and it was it really it destroyed a lot of careers. One of the people that Rather when after was George

Bush Senior. And I understand this is two years after the beating I've seen, and I had a hard time trying to find an archive of all Dan Rather stories that was easy to go through. But it's gonna say that would be massive. Yes, it is a massive. Therefore, nobody's really put it together, but even Dan Rather himself. But he does, but it doesn't it's not that user friendly. Yeah, But the point is he wasn't afraid to go after

Ronald Reagan and after George Bush Senior. And he seems to have, according to this theory, really really peeved off Senior to the point that George Bush Sr. Sent a couple of guys after him to beat the crap out of him. Seems leg Hey, you're you're a political figure, you're the vice president of the country. You can do whatever you want, according to this theory, And I'm not gonna say that's true, but that's according to this theory caught. And of course then they beat the crap out of him.

They say something that I don't even I can't even draw a guess is what it means. But this of course then prompts Dan Rather to do his failed ambush on George Bush Senior in didn't work as so it didn't for him. This for anybody who doesn't know, Bush Senior was running for president, he was still the vice president, and he agreed to go on CBS to do I think it was about a nine or ten minute interview with Dan Rather about his presidency. And immediately Dan swings

it back to the Iran contra affair. I'm not gonna go into the whole thing. Watch it. It goes terribly. Senior takes the reins away from Dan Rather and terris him anew and runs the whole thing. I I actually started, I was watching it on YouTube. I actually pulled up another website just so I could look at something different, so I didn't have to see George Bush Senior in his terrible giant glasses and Dan Rather with the look of the deer in the headlights because he was just

getting ripped apart. Yeah, but from then on, I mean the family, he and the family have not gotten together got along. Well, there's what is your the Killian documents. This is what I think that that moment might have been the beginning of Rather's downfall. It was the beginning of the downwards that took almost twenty years. Well I did a while, but but you know, he had a his chance. He had his chance in two thousand four when w was up for re election George June and

he has chance. He hoped to try to take him down and make him lose that election, and he got some obviously pathetically forged memos from this guy. So George Bush Senior was the forty first president, yea junior was, and yes, so go ahead because yeah, I I was gonna explain it, but you're you you know this, yeah, exactly. So he had this his this informant, his name was Killian.

I've leave and from Texas and he had a couple of a couple of memos proportedly purportedly from Bush's Air National Guard commander way back in like the sixties was when he was in the text because he was getting preferential treatment to stay in country and fly jets and not go to Vietnam. In Bush's defense, he actually volunteered

to go to Vietnam. He did, but there was there was a number of I read a huge article and I can't remember what Texas magazine about quite a few senators sons that didn't go, and they all ended up in the same unit. And it was kind of I think they called it the hot tub unit because it was just it was an easy gig. You could do whatever you want. You weren't actually going to go to war,

so who cared? Yeah, that would be kind of nice, and of course, well the problem is the problem is, of course, rather aired the story on CBS, it was wrong. He did not do his due diligence. Turns out he didn't. Somebody actually did a great gift on the Internet of doc. They say it was typed up on a typewriter. But when you take this doc and you take the scan version of it, and then you superimpose on it Microsoft Word Times New Roman fond inWORD on top, it's exactly identical.

Like somebody just photo copied something they printed out of word four or five times to degrade it, and nobody had CBS fact checked it. And that that's what that's what got Rather kicked out on his Exactly. They had they actually had people lined up who to authenticate the documents, and it was just, you know, Rather was so beside himself with with with eagerness to get this out there

that he didn't bother consulting with those people immediately. Um, there was one of the viewer on the East Coast. I saw them on sixty minutes and spott at the Times new Roman format there fonds immediately and that's the default font setting. Yeah, exactly, very anytime. If you look at where, you know exactly what we're talking about, the same spacing, same everything. Yeah, And hilariously enough is his his producer who got fired for this. Her name was

Mary Maybe's and Mary Maples. It was Maples. Her last name is Maples. I thought it was Map's just m Aps. It could be maybe anybody's sure it's not, but but anyway, she uh. She published a book afterwards, claiming that there had been a big conspiracy at the heart of the whole thing because this guy posted on the East Coast

to a website called pre Republic. Well, their servers are in California, or at least they were then, and so when he posted this right after sixty minutes went off the air, but of course it was time stepped with the time stamped with the California time, so it actually appeared that he posted this before sixty minutes it even aired. So therefore thereby was born a big conspiracy. Yeah, now

it's beating us. Um, yeah, well they're there's all kinds of political ramblings, and we don't need to go into those political ramblings because I mean, we all have our own unique use and that's perfectly fine. The point is, rather in the Bushes didn't get along, and somehow George H. W. Bush was behind the beating the Dan rather God for unknown offense. That's the theory. But the theory it's wrong. Well, it's better than the time Traveler twelve monkey theory. It's not.

There's actually yes, it is. You are so many foul words want to come out right now. No, it is way better than No. I don't know. There's one more theory that we should discuss. One more thing about the Bush theory though, was I think if they had really wanted to do to give him a pounding, they would have done it right. They would have. They would have pulled him into a into a taxi and take them out into a field somewhere and kick the lid and crap out of them. Yeah, they would about that would

have given him a really good beating. Well, but the idea could have been, let's get him beat up in public and make him look like a fool, to tarnish his his not his credibility, but his image. Oh wait, you're the big man behind the cant or in front of the camera, but you can't defend yourself when you're walking down the sidewalk. That's that's just as plausible. But we've we've belabored that enough. I think Devin has one more.

There's another theory. There's one more. It is that William or Bill Tigger was a crazy person could have been attacked Dan rather because he thought he was monitoring him. Yeah. Actually, you know what, there's a lot of support for this. Actually, well, yeah, it's actually not at all unusual for mentally ill people to assault other people of New York, especially high profile

ones that they see on the TV. Yeah. So it turns out the reason that Bill Tagger tried to walk into the Today Show with a rifle is because he thought he needed the rifle to defend himself, because he thought that the people from the TV were monitoring him, including bugging his car, and that they had been watching him for a number of years, and that he I don't know why he thought he would go there and defend himself, but that was the That was the story

that he told. He said he took the rifle because he thought he needed to defend himself. Didn't you say also that they were beaming messages in the head. Yes, he also said that he had information that they wanted. He was going there because he had the information they wanted and they were requesting his presence or some something to that, so he had to take the rifle to defend himself while he was there with them. Well, but

did you did you guys read that? He also he was so sure they were bugging the news media in general is what he's talking about. In general, we're bugging every thing in his life, to the point that he went out and rented rented a car. He didn't take his own car. He rented a car so that the bug couldn't be in it. He was I think he genuinely did think this. I don't I don't there's a lot of support. I think that he was sadly, sadly

had some serious issues going on. And he said, and you know, when he was arrested and sentenced and he spent his time in jail and sing sing the all the documents from there say, you know, he says he drunk socially, that he you know, smoked pot every once in a while, but he wasn't you know, he didn't have a problem with alcohol, wasn't a yeah, he wasn't an addict. Was just crazy. He was just crazy. I mean,

is there's no was He's still um. But the that kind of does make sense for why he might try to beat Dan rather up if he thought that the news media was bugging him or following him, if he just happened to see somebody who he thought legitimately was monitoring his life walking on the street by happenstance or not, he would try to defend himself from that person and go and attack that person and start beating him up.

Why he would be yelling something even remotely like what's the frequency, Kenneth, I don't know, but hey, I have so I have two things to say on that. One what's the frequency. Kenneth may again, Rather may not know what was said and misremembered, or Tagger may have been in an altered state, not drug or alcohol induced, just an altered state. So what he thought he was saying didn't come out what Rather heard, and so rather than did his best to interpret it. But I've read the

same court docs that you have. You know who's not ever mentioned in those court documents and rather the second man? You know, it's the man of the grassy knoll. The second man is never mentioned. Suddenly Taggers taking all responsibility or actually I don't even think he's taking responsibility because he's not admitting guilt. He's just saying, these are the

things I did, and this is what the problem. He didn't talk about the rather and he never talks about so he wouldn't he wouldn't raise the whole second man exactly. But all we have is his psych psychiatrist, is it psychiatrist, a psychologist, psycho psychiatrist, his psychiatrists information about this, about this whole thing. So that to me is like, well, what happened the second dude? And if he's been so open about what he did, why is he not admitting

to just wailing on Dan Rather. Yeah, and also like, where do you find a second man who's like, oh, yeah, the news media is totally monitoring your whole life. You should definitely go beat up Dan Rather. You know that guy that guys probably from the Bush family, they him after them. This guy, this guy knows the neighborhood that that Rather lives in, you know, and he finds this random, crazy guy who's who thinks the media is like doing

all this stuff to him. And this guy's like, yeah, you know, I kind't think you're right, you know, I think you need to go on the offensive. And hey, look over there, it's Dan Rather. Yeah. No, I mean I think, um, I don't know, I don't I don't think. I don't think that that's the right one either. But I also I do want to point out this is New York City in the eighties, the mid eighties, before they cleaned their active New York was a rough town.

Lots of crazies running around, lots of lots of folks were around, not the safest place to be, And it is possible. I mean, we talked about this before. It's just a random attack. It's I've seen I hate to admit this, but I've seen this happen on the streets of Portland, where one person jumps up and starts chasing after another to do them harm, and the second, or I guess it would be a third person hops up and chases along to see what's going on and suddenly see's a shot two or an opening to get a

shot in and suddenly becomes a three person fight. Yeah, so that could very well be what we're doing, which is our very one of our very first theories. It's

not not a nice town at that time. Now, it might be that Dan made up the second guy because he didn't want to admit he gotten his butt kicked by a single crazy guy, but a single But also it's possible that you know, he saw he did see a second person on the street who wasn't involved at all, because he got punched from behind, went down, saw that there was somebody else standing there, got up, ran away there this person was chasing him and started beating him

up again, and he just assumed that that person standing on the street was involved, and that third person was basically pulling a nell Sin from the Simpsons, pointing and laughing or not even I mean or just saying well, I really don't want to get involved with that. By WHOA did that really happen? Well? I thank god they ran away. Yeah, you know, I think that Dan Rather. Dan Rather was an experienced journalists, and like all experienced journalists,

he gets almost everything wrong. That's probably that, you know, basically, why this whole thing is always possible doesn't make any sense at all. Yeah. Yeah, well with that unsatisfactory ending, I thought you said this was not unsolvable, Devon, It's not unsolvable. All we have to do is find Kenneth. Well, get out a phone book. Yep, damn you and Joe's logic see it. You'd be easy if we could just

find Kenneth. Um. Yeah, you can find links to some of our research, probably at least one of those copy pasted websites just for fun, only one, not all twelve that we research. Um, you can find that, and you can listen to the show on our website, thinking sideways podcast dot com. You're probably not listening to us there. You're probably listening to us on iTunes. If you are, subscribe,

leave a comment and a reading. That's how people find us. Yeah, and a good rating is usually preferred over a really bad We don't really care. I prefer reading. Yeah. Actually, actually the bad ones are kind of amusing sometimes, but don't leave a bad one just on that account. Yeah, it's way better. You also could be streaming us from just almost any streaming site of all times ever, or streaming app. You can find us on Twitter we are

Thinking sideways. You can find us on Facebook Thinking Sideways Podcast. There's a page and a group. You can email us at Thinking Sideways Podcast at gmail dot com. You can also I always forget. You can get merchandise if you won't. You can wear a shirt of ours. Won't if you won't, won't if it's a it's a southern thing, it's a young person thing, calmed down how we say it? God won't what won't? Yeah, you can wear a shirt of ours. You can have a phone case of ours. You can

have a creepy, weird night light. I just fixed our logo T shirt. One of our listeners brought it up that there was a bit of an issue with it, and so we went ahead and fixed that. So it prints and is much better. It's pretty now, Yes, its to It's all on Zazzle. You can find the link to that just above the donate button on our u website. It's on the right hand. There's a little picture of swag there. Now, yeah, cool? Anything else to add the fact?

Now we are working on other products for you. Hopefully one of these days we'll have like a beer cozy and and maybe a bottle opener in a k and a car cover and we're making custom to be tiles. Yeah, you can driveway. I have two emails as well tomorrow because, oh my god, if we can get them to make those that awesome. I like the idea of a toy be tile kid. I think that'd be kind of cool. Yeah.

I think it's called home depot. Yeah. Yeah. Anyways, that all having been said, since we have nothing else to contribute to this unsolvable case, we're going to get out of here, all right. It sounds good? Alright to later everybody? What is that frequency? Though it hurts