Citation Needed - Howard Hughes

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

Howard Robard Hughes Jr. (December 24, 1905 – April 5, 1976) was an American aerospace engineer, businessman, filmmaker, investor, philanthropist, and pilot.[2] He was best known during his lifetime as one of the most influential and richest people in the world. He first became prominent as a film producer, and then as an important figure in the aviation industry. Later in life, he became known for his eccentric behavior and reclusive lifestyle—oddities that were caused in part by his worsening obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), chronic pain from a near-fatal plane crash, and increasing deafness.

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There he is. Wow, man, wow. Seriously, gotta admire it. What, what are you guys talking about? Like you don't know. Dude, I thought I was the master of pre-show shenanigans, but this, this has been incredible. Seriously, what are you talking about?

I have no idea. Howard Hughes, this week's episode, you slowly building his bits into your life for what? Like, 345 episodes you could reveal it now? Man, nah, chef's kiss, bravo. What? I didn't build Howard Hughes into my life. Oh, you did it in the constant moving, the germophobia.

I mean, even the meal repetition, dude, it's incredible. Like take the crap. It's not repetition. It's a cycle based on four meal kit delivery services on a bi weekly alternating that was going, eh, yeah. No, it's classic bit. Y'all is a bit all done now. To the nail the bit.

Awesome. Awesome. Hey, how's your mom? Dating El Chapo. Yikes. Yikes. Hello, and welcome to Citation Needed. The podcast where we choose a subject, read a single article about it on Wikipedia, and pretend we're experts.

Because this is the internet, and that's how it works now. I'm Eli Bosnick, and I'll be the naked weirdo tonight, but I'll need the sisterhood of my traveling pants, Tom, Cecil, and he. I love pants, because we have something to take off when I make hard eye contact. In establishing dominance at the gas station, it's essential. That's a good thing. This is a useful move. Sisterhood of the traveling pants sounds infinitely better than my first band brotherhood of the wandering skidmark.

My traveling pants is when I get winded trying to walk down a long train platform. Sure. Yeah, I've seen it. I've seen it. I've been there. Before we begin tonight, it was really long. It was it was a long platform. We had a bag. Then he went keto. It all worked out. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to thank our patrons. Patrons, without you, we'd be as big of failures the conqueror. And if you'd like to learn how to join their ranks,

be sure to stick around to the end of the show. And with that out of the way, tell us, Cecil, what person, place, theme, concept, phenomenon, or event, who we be talking about today. Today we're going to be talking about Howard Hughes. Ooh, and Tom, you are almost as mentally ill as the subject of today. Okay. Are you ready to use this?

I am not, but I'll read you an essay. All right. So, tell us, Tom, who was Howard Hughes? Okay. All right. I know everyone is expecting me to introduce this essay, like I have every essay for years now, with like an introspective reflection, or a meandering anecdote, or some critique on modern society,

laden with deep misgivings for the future of humanity's soul and boo. Likely after more than a hundred of these moments, after introductions that for the briefest of moments, pull back the facade. What are we talking about? Some small piece of the core truth of me. Hey, are we doing wings? That's where we said wings.

I'd love to do wings. You, my sweet audience likely have some aspect. You mean the band of the crew? Oh, look at my wings of love, loss, and the narrative power of what it means to endure. How, after all, could I tell you the story? Right, he's still a covered inventor. An adventurer, a film tycoon, a philanthropist, and a fame pilot not to tell you here in this very introduction.

What this story says about who our subject is, but also indeed about who we all are, who we are, exactly making the world a better place. One podcast. Yeah, I mean, he can't even get to his own life. We are job. Oh, man. Good. Go ahead.

We do it exactly like this. What's the show about? Yep. Howard Robard Hughes Jr. was born in 1905 and his proof that, well, maybe you can pull yourself up by the bootstraps. No, you probably can't. And it would really be much easier if you just came from a family of fantastically successful people.

Can confirm. Can you? I'm sorry. We better Hopkins award winner. A Howard's father was an inventor and businessman who was also descended from generations of success and privilege. And he ended up starting the Hughes tool company after inventing some kind of oil well-drilling duhic. Hughes senior then leased those out.

And since leases are scams, he made a fortune. And the business ran successfully for over 80 years before being absorbed into some other larger company. The little howie junior even had a famously famous uncle who was famous and successfully successful. What I'm saying I guess is that the pump was primed for Hughes to be successful from the jump. Okay, Tom, I'm worried you're descending into a level of yada yada y And from when you may never return, do you want to make with some details or? We would have had to fire the maid if it wasn't for grandpa's sapphire mine. Now Howard himself did have some really significant natural talents as well. Early on, he took an interest in science and technology.

By the age of 11, he'd built the first wireless radio transmitter in Houston. Sounds great, but really if you're in Houston, I get not wanting to broadcast that. He also became one of the first licensed ham radio operators, but again, who's in Houston. By 12, he appeared in the paper for having built a motorized bicycle from of all things, hearts from his father's steam engine.

Okay, that's amazing though. That's pretty great. Everybody's gonna hate you though. You're just flying past other kids. Hey, fuck you. Fuck you. I can't imagine something I want less than like a steam boiler heating up between my legs

as I pedal down the road though. Oh, disagree, Tom. Disagree. By 14 Howard was taking flying lessons and quickly thereafter started taking math and aeronautical engineering courses at Caltech. Those things were going well. Until in 1922, Howard's mom died from complications from nectopic pregnancy. And two years later, his father died of a heart attack. By the time he was 19, Howard had inherited 75% of his father's fortune. He was now very young, very talented, and very rich.

Naturally, he decided to get married, but not just to anyone, but to Ella Bott's rice, grand niece of William Marsh Rice, after whom Rice University was named. Financialy secure from every possible angle and very well connected the couple moved to Los Angeles to try to make a name for himself as a film Okay, and nothing encapsulates the ridiculous patriarchy better than the couple set off to make a name for himself Then there's just this line from wiki which kills me because it's just so chock full of, well, I guess Howard Hughes is perfect. Quote, they moved into the ambassador hotel and Hughes proceeded to learn to fly a wake

o' that's a biplane while simultaneously producing his first motion picture. And quote, and that sounds great, but really, it's not. If you're rich, producing a film is just, you know, paying for the movie to be made. And it turns out that people really don't mind when young idealistic and naive rich kids want to bankroll their films. His first movie, and I swear this is the real title, was called Swell Hogan. That was evidently so bad that after it flopped initially, he was hired and editor to fix the movie, but ultimately, he just ordered the movie itself to be destroyed. Okay, but I love the idea of terrible movies taken a do-over, like doing a mullet, just

Tommy Wiseau at a press conference, me like, okay, assholes, I fixed it. Here you go, the room. Again, it's better now. Right, again. I fixed it. Here you go, the room. Again, it's better now. I mean, isn't that what they've been trying to do since saw to Heath out of our stand? What are we? I've been used to learn some lessons from Swellho again in his next two films. Everybody's acting and two Arabian nights did very well. Come on. Movie. This is movie. What's the movie called? What is the movie called?

Oh, no, I have a movie. It is. Movie. Call of movies. Everybody's acting. Movie time. Well, two Arabian nights won an Academy Award for Best Direct. Two more films produced by Hughes

that also be nominated for Academy Awards. But Howard Hughes was a complicated man. While many of his films were successful, his foray into film was not without controversy. Tom, my hand is millimeters from the fatty arbuckle button. Millimeters. Do you hear me? We should get rid of that button. Why do we have, feels like a bad idea. We know why we have this button. You have a guy for fattyadiar, both the buttons. That's right.

So he was purchased partial ownership. Fadiar, Bukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbukbuk the best term for the words faddy are buckle buttons until I assume the police come to drag me into some kind of care situation. So I like that you announced that as if we would notice a difference. Yeah, no, yeah, that's the luck with the rest of the show guys. That really all the best. I like that the button did a jingle instead of like telling us about that guy. Anyway, I like that I get permission to mute his track instead of just doing it without telling him that's fine.

Yeah. If I get permission, I feel like I was part of the process. You weren't. Delete on Cecil's laptop is the real fatty R.F. Yeah, for real. A Hughes purchased partial ownership and eventually control of RKO companies, a family of companies that included RKO Pictures, RKO theaters, and a bunch of other theaters and radio stations, and he promptly just musk the whole thing and fired 700 of their employees.

Production, of course, plummeted from 30 films to just 9, likely because it takes employees to make movies, because he fired a bunch of... Yeah, but he was not willing to produce shit until he had all of the remaining employees checked to make sure that they were not communists. And he seems filmed by or with suspected communist actors had to get reshot and he was particularly strict about this with the women that he employed. By the following year in 1953,

he was got sued by just pretty much all the shareholders for financial misconduct and corporate mismanagement, which seemed just very fair. Yeah, very fair. And he might have lost those lawsuits, but he simply solved the problem by buying up everyone's shares, and now there were no shareholders anymore to sue him. Problem solved. Hey, Elon Musk kind of did that. Yeah, didn't go great much. There was a profit. Yeah. Problem solved, but it cost him $24 million. At this point Howard Hughes was the first sole owner

of a major studio of the silent film, Aira, but Hughes was done dabbling in film and he sold the company six months later. And while I've intentionally focused on his fuck-ups, I do have to note that Hughes made an $11 million personal profit in the seven years that he owned RKO. Yeah, no, they actually teach Howard Hughes

in MBA programs now. The class is called already have a bunch of money and it's like the most important part. Yeah. It's like you have a Martin Gale who lets system works if you have infinity dollars. You know, it's like, it's, it works great. It's the guy who's like just double your better.

You double your lose. When you lose and then you want to have money back. And if you never run out of money, then you never run out of money. Why are you betting money that you don't run out of? I use also invested in real estate. And since this is my own personal area of expertise, I am skipping the details of this part of the story because real estate is fucking boring. Though there is one story I do need to relate.

While staying at the desert in in Las Vegas, Hughes refused to vacate his room, and so instead he decided he just buy the entire hotel rather than leave. In fact, he invested $300 million in property across Nevada, eventually owning iconic properties such as the Sands, Frontier, and the Silver Slipper. He invested in venues connected to organized crime and consolidated those properties into the Hughes Empire, hoping to transform the image of Las Vegas into a more refined, cosmopolitan city and becoming the largest employer in Nevada. Yeah, no, it's a good thing Vegas isn't tacky and gross anymore, thanks to Howard Hughes.

We hosted our podcast about child trafficking there, and the venue needed to be subtle and refined. And it was, yeah. Yeah, we're not allowed to say where it was, but if you tip them 200 bucks at the front desk, they let you fuck Wayne Newton's animatronic corpse, which is fun. Cosmopolitanly. Yeah, no, it's cool.

Like a dry martini in one hand, classic lace, mong in the other. But Hughes' real love and the reason I first heard about Howard Hughes was because of his love and involvement in aviation. And here Howard Hughes' record of achievements in first is kind of incredible. From his company Hughes Aircraft, he commissioned a number of custom aircraft, including the Hughes XF-11 and the Hughes racer, which set the airspeed record at the time and also crashed, nearly killing Howard.

In fact, Howard Hughes survived not one, not two, but four airplane accidents, including another one that nearly killed him while he was on the set filming Hell's Angels. Look, if you can't do stupid dangerous shit or peculately by who tells what the hell is the point of being rich, man? Well, Cecil, first you buy a full page ad in the New York Times, all right? Here we go. Stop manifesting. This is not Trump won. This is not okay. That's fair.

That's fair. The Hughes racer, also called the Hughes H1 racer, first set the air speed record, hitting 352 miles per hour over his test course, marking the last time that an aircraft owned by a private individual set the world airspeed record. A year and a half later, he was set to transcontinental airspeed record, flying from L.A. to New Work in seven hours and 28 minutes and 25 seconds, a time which beat the previous record, also held by Hughes by almost two full hour. In this flight, he averaged 322 miles an hour.

The Hughes-Racer also boasted design innovations such as retractable landing gear and rivets and joints being set flush to the body of the plane to reduce drag, which was a big deal at the time, but at the time there was a lot of low hanging technological fruit. It was a big deal with every gruff, dad, and America.

That day, they were just all grunting together with that. For Asian like joint works flush. Plums measure twice, cut ones, rubber. That was everybody. And he was super weirdly involved in all of it. He wasn't just a rich fucker, pointing at the sky and grunting faster while writing checks. Speaking of Elon Musk, well, except the writing checks part.

I was just out there. Different. After founding his aircraft company, Hughes took an alias, Charles Howard, and he also took a job as a baggage handler for American Airlines and was, and I shit you not, this is how Wiki phrases this quote soon promoted to co-pilot. What? From baggage handler. Who's continued to work for American Airlines

until his real identity was discovered? Man, the OG season of undercover boss on Superborne and holy shit. Oh, that's fucking terrifying. That's like the cafeteria guy in the hospital doing pretty good and they're like, okay, great job. You're a surgeon now.

I know. Let me scrub in upstairs. I mean, that's probably how it works, right, Tom? No. Okay. That's probably how it works. You're a podcaster. You're in charge of NASA's radio communications from now on.

There you go. On July 14th, 1938, he said another world record, this time by flying around the world in 91 hours, crushing the prior record of 186 hours, which was such a big fucking deal at the time that he was given a ticker tape braid through the canyon of heroes in New York.

Man, the weird shit we did to celebrate before Netflix and ice cream, man. What the fuck? And now all of Hughes' aerospace projects were such a success. In 1937, Hughes began work on a design called the D2, which was originally conceived of as another aircraft for a new record circumnovation attempt. However, I just want to flag that his two planes are named D and F in terms of their first letter. It's not a good time.

It's not a good start. Over the advent of World War II made getting the airplane parts as a private company, a huge pain in the ass. The Hughes decided instead to build the aircraft and sell it to the US Army. The D2 came to be as a fighter plane a two to three seat twin powered airplane built mostly out of plywood But it was kind of a shit plane. It wasn't sorry. You said plywood. Why would actually made out of air-plating plywood? Yes, this is 1938 37 It wasn't particularly maneuverable as a fighter plane and it sucked as a bomber and the test flights revealed serious problems

as a fighter plane and it sucked as a bomber and the test flights revealed serious problems Just like flying the damn thing and by 1944. Yeah, yeah, it was bad at that point. I was very bad at that By 1944 the war was nearly over the plane was in a hangar until a lightning strike on the hangar burned the fly would plane Down to charcoal Rough. Yeah, hey Howard you should have made the whole plane out of the black. Oh, shut the fuck up. Shut the fuck up. Everybody hates you. Guy next to me now. A similarly disastrous was the Sikorsky S43, which in 1943, he was took to Las Vegas, to pass fly in about. The S43 was amphibious aircraft and used Lake Mead to practice hutch and go landings across the water until he was confident enough to invite two civil aeronautics authority

inspectors, a couple of his employees, and the actress Ava Gardner out on a flight. After dropping off Ava Gardner, Hughes flew back to Lake Mead to show off his plane again, which then crashed and killed one of the inspectors, one of the employees and badly injured youths. Use later paid divers $100,000 to recover the plane and then spent $500,000 restoring it. So it could sit in Houston and not kill anyone else. He's telling the civil aeronautics authority,

they really, really loved it before it crashed though. Like a lot. At some ladies door with his hat onex authority, they really, really loved it before it crashed though. Like a lot. At some ladies door with his hat on his chest, my name is Howard Hughes and I have something your husband wanted me to tell you. Wee. Now that there was the XF-11, which you touched on earlier, Howard Hughes had made friends with Colonel Elliot Roosevelt, and Roosevelt convinced the military to order a hundred of the reconnaissance version of the failed D2. This revamp would be called the F-11 or XF, and many people doubt that Hughes could fulfill an order of this size, and spoiler, he would not.

And remember that the D2 was far from a success. The XF-11 was to be a substantial enough change to the D2. It he was insisted it was a totally new plane and the Hughes company then entered into such bitchy contract negotiations that those negotiations outlasted the war. Ultimately the contract was canceled. All right, listen, do you want my plywood toy planes to run the decoy for Normandy or not? They're gone. They're gone.

I don't care about killing Nazis, it's fine. Now, they did build two prototypes of the XF-11 and the XF-11 was substantially different than the D2 was modeled from, though not it turns out different better. In 1946, while performing the first flight of the XF-11. He was decided to extend his flight time in the experimental craft for 45 minutes past the test parameter, likely because he was distracted by the landing gear not having retracted properly. And then the damn thing sprung and oily and that caused a bunch of complicated airplane stuff to happen that

I didn't really understand, but the result was that the plane started to go all wonky and lose altitude. Down. It went down down. I think it was side to side a bit first, but yeah, it definitely goes down. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be crazy if something went wrong and I just went up.

It's going better. I use afraid not to let go up for so long. This isn't better at all. I use afraid not just of crashing, but of destroying his prototype. He aimed to land the XF 11 on a golf course at a country club. But instead he crashed into a neighborhood in Beverly Hills, destroying three houses and just starting flyers everywhere. There is no better metaphor for unregulated capitalism than that.

Yeah, for real. And then SpaceX, Rocket fell out of the sky and landed on Twitter's main server building. I'm just trying out the, I'm done. I'm manifesting like you last time. I'm doing a good version. If a Tesla on autopilot hits Elon Musk, does it run to a later something? I'm a Christian that just a trans woman inside. There's nothing I can do.

There's nothing I can do. I can't reach out the machine. You build this somehow being destructive. That's so sad for you. Oh, your children hate you. Why is it backing up? He was pulled himself out of the flaming wreckage and clapped next to the aircraft. I mean, cracked several ribs, crushed his collarbone, crushed his chest so hard that he

collapsed along and then pushed his actual fucking heart off to the right and he sustained a number of third degree burns Before passing out he was heard to mutter the aristocrats I mean at least he's committed to the guy who crashes his plane bit right you got to admit Here's what's taking to the hospital where he discovered that although he was in terrible pain, he could still be annoying. He called in his plant engineers to redesign the hospital bed to include hot and cold-running water. The bed could be built in sections and then operated with a series of motors and push-button

adjustments to alleviate pain from burn injuries. He never got a chance to use the bed he designed because against his doctor's expectations, he actually recovered quite quickly and well from his many injuries. Could you imagine having this asshole at your house? And while he's there, he calls his engineers to make a more comfortable couch with a beer tap or in the armrest. Like, what a jackass. Do I get the beer?

A tap or a teeth is a lovely house, guessy-sso, and some of us take his sponge base gift as the compliment they are intended to be. Thank you, Eli. Still in that drawer. Okay, but that hospital bed thing, like he sucks apparently, but that hospital bed thing with the cold and how and that's pretty cool. Sounds good. It sounds good.

I better just cost a fucking fortune. All right, then there was the H4 Hercules, which was nicknamed by critics, the Spruce Goose. This behemoth was contracted by the war production board as a gigantic flying boat meant for use in World War II to transport troops and equipment. At to this point, masses of both troops and equipment were at that point being moved via ship across ocean, patrolled by German U-boat. Which as you can imagine, was somewhat less than ideal. equipment were at that point being moved via ship across ocean, patrolled by German U-boat. Which as you can imagine, was somewhat less than ideal.

The Hercules was meant to help solve that problem, but like the XF-11, the war ended before the plane was actually built. But what a plane. The Spruce Goose was aptly nicknamed because it was the world's largest flying boat, and it was the largest aircraft made from fucking wood. That's right. This thing was a spruce. It was not spruce. This was a huge flying shopper. Okay. Sorry. Hey, hey, keep shut the fuck up. Though it was made out of virtue rather than truth.

So it was cool. Got it. It really feels like he's a secret Nazi. Right? Like the Nazis were like, be stupid over there and we'll pay you. And he was like, what? And they were like, great. How to be fair?

The commission itself pretty much guaranteed that this was always going to be a wooden plane that's attipulated that it had to be made from non-strategic materials. So, I mean, what the hell else could they have used? But this thing was big, guys. It was so fucking big. It was, in fact, so goddamn big that no other plane would be built with a larger wingspan until 1985. The Hercules was only ever flown one time for a single mile by Hughes, and here

I want to quote directly from an article that I found about its test flight, because it sounds like terrifying. Well, when the plane hit its peak speed, as the eight roaring engines drove it through the water, the big ship skipped from wave to wave. There was a violent shaking motion in the cockpit, in anticipation of this motion. A command had been given to spread out and secure yourself. An engineer stationed in the tail said the plane twisted with each shock of the wave and looking down the center ramp.

He was reminded of a earthquake as the deck ripple. Yeah, I'm telling you. All right. Well, safe in the knowledge that Howard Hughes invented every landing on a united airplane I've ever had, will wait to choose between cookies or pretzels like a fucking plebeian and will take a quick break for some apropole of nothing. Mr. Hughes, it's an honor. Truly, sir. Thank you. Thank you.

Okay, so before we begin, I just want to say how excited we are to partner with you on your newest aircraft aircraft the JK 33 so once you go ahead and tell us a little bit about the JK 33. So you know plain I'm sorry what now plain ghost guy go Why is he talking like that? JK 33. 33 big plate. Big. Broom.

Yes? Broom. Broom. Sorry. Uh, Mr. Hughes, are you doing, um, like a bit because we were expecting a famous aeronautics tycoon and, uh, Oh, oh, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, And that's another watt of $100 bills. More, more. How many does he have? Okay, okay.

Howard, thank you. You are me now or whatever. Okay, you're me. You're me. Go, go, go, go. Oh, you want me to explain your plane to you, please. Oh, it's gonna be big. I guess we'll make it out of wood.

Oh, what's up? Me skeptical. Okay. And we're back. When we left off, a rich guy was smashing things into the ground that weren't the US economy. Better days. What happened next, Tom? Alright, there's some story here and some time passes where Hughes does a bunch of pretty influential, but just ultimately uninteresting business shit, which I'm going to skip over in the interest of holding your interest.

We're going to rejoin Hughes in 1956. Hughes is back at it, making movies this time of film called The Conqueror, which was again a complete shit show. Critics Pandit, audiences hated it, Hughes loved it. And so he bought every copy of the film and then stayed home and watched it over and over again for many nights in a row, like a six-year-old mainlining her fix of Frozen. Yeah, for those of you who haven't been injecting bad movies since the early 2000s, like I have, the conqueror is the one where John Wayne plays Genghis Khan. Yes, there's makeup

and yes, it's his baddest you're imagining. Jesus. On the 1960s and 70s, Hughes worried about the risk of nuclear radiation resulting from fall out from nuclear testing, tried to work to bring nuclear testing to a halt. His efforts failed and scared the hell out of him when the hotel he was staying in shook in the wake of a blast. So he instructed his aides to bribe the president with a million dollars to halt testing. And he actually tried this twice. He tried to bribe both Johnson and again Nixon. Look, I can't be bribed, but if you buy my mom's house, take me on several luxury vacations,

give me a no-interest loan that you eventually forgive. I'll see what I can do. We'll see what we can do for you. I was gonna say oh for the Bygone integrity field days of president Richard Fuckin In 1972 during the Cold War the CIA approached Hughes for his help in recovering a sunken Soviet submarine The K129 which went down four years earlier The use of Hughes gave the CIA a plausible cover story. Since Hughes was always just doing crazy shit, anybody, nobody would notice if a bunch of spies went trawling about for submarines.

That's a pretty good plan. It's fucking amazing. I don't know, bring that fucking over. The operation was mostly in failure since the submarine broke in half on the way up, and instead of getting all the good stuff like the code book they mostly just hauled up a few nuclear torpedoes and a half a dozen very dead Russian sailors. The whole thing was classified and we probably wouldn't have known much about any of this project except that in 1974 burglars burgl'd hues his home and found his papers detailing

the project. Okay, I love that hues was actually so fucking ridiculous that it made this plan work. Like the KGB, they see an American boat right near their Sumpkin nuclear sub that they know about. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no a go for wood arc to make it fine. More good. I use was to say the least an eccentric and rigid man every day. Usate the same thing every single day. A New York strip, medium rare, dinner salad, peas, but only very small ones. For breakfast, yet eggs cooked the way his family cooked me.

Anyone making his eggs had to learn to make them the same way, and any deviation from this menu was on accept. Mr. Hughes, here's your giant plate of eggs and spit. Here you go. Right. What was the secret egg thing? There's like three or four things you can do. I don't know, I don't know what I do.

No idea what it did. None of them are that hard. I used to became at one point fond of Basque and Robbins banana nut ice cream. When his aides went to get huge smite scream, they discovered the flavor had been discontinued. To the aides eager to satisfy Huesa's craving, contacted Basque and Robbins and asked

what the minimum amount they could buy as a special order. And the answer was 350 gallons, which they purchased and shipped to Los Angeles. And I love this so much because shortly after the order arrived, he was declared that he was tired of banana nut and now wanted only French vanilla. The desert in where Hughes was staying ended up giving away free banana nut ice cream for a year. Amazing. Okay, you know for a year. Amazing. Okay, you know those aides after that. We're trying to get Howard into like,

whatever weird thing they like for the rest of his life. Just be like, hey, Bust, you like this very specific sex robot? Do you want, do you want, do you want, do you want an army custom? Like Heath and I trying to get Noah to stay in a hotel that's not the Red Roof and just like, oh, you know what? The double tree's close to the dispensary. So, yeah, so the machine placement. It's just your fast, right to it.

I'm not wearing a mask. If there's a nice machine, I will call. I use likely suffer from some form of OCD and use a renowned germaphobe and he had an obsession with secrecy. And more than once, he would enter into a room and then just, just not leave that room. In 1958, he decided to screen some movies at a film studio near his home.

He didn't leave the darkened screening room for four months after walking it. Yeah, he ate only chocolate bars and chicken. He drank only milk. He was surrounded chocolate bars and chicken. He drank only milk. He was surrounded by boxes and boxes of Kleenex, which he arranged and stacked, rearranged. His aides were given detailed memos for bidding them from looking at or speaking to Hughes while he sat,

often naked and ungroomed, continuously watching film after film in the dark. Oh, that sounds healthy. Glad no one stepped in. Cool. Yeah. It's not so when you're rich and mentally ill, it's not called enabling. It's called eccentric. Trust me, I'm working on it. I am working on it. I'm returning home to the Beverly Hills Hotel from his four month epic movie marathon. He was rented rooms for himself and his aides and his girlfriends. And they sat naked but for a napkin over his dick again,

watching movies over and over. What the napkin though? There is some speculation that he was made some- It would be ridiculous otherwise, Cecil. No. I, you know, you are sort of very vociferously defending this man, I just want to let you know that. We've diagnosed him now with OCD

because he goes into a room for a long time. Whatever, it's weird. That will be in very judgey. Keith just wants his tissues to be neat. I don't know why we're all ganging up on him. Sometimes you're like their neat, but hold on. But do it again. Just in case. Right. He doesn't have to be on just like, okay, you guys are being weird. Okay. Right. He wants to just do his moving on. Just like, okay, you guys are being weird. Okay. Okay. Other is some speculation that Hughes may have suffered

from allodinia, a condition where the sufferer experiences pain in response to non-painful stimuli. Or he might have just realized that pants are for suckers. Okay, thank you. Pants are really just a big uncomfortable dick napkin. How do you get sick? He's got sick. Thank you pants are really just a big uncomfortable dick napkin They're like denim denim tuck. That's crazy You still like a more a Scott napkin. I really want a Charmin napkin

Yeah, there you go some pretty clean x-like oiled clean x-one. No, not this. I use that. I use that because I'm fixated on purchasing restaurant and forced. I know you started, but we are gonna argue about clean x here for a second. Yeah, he's working just so hard. How are you, you're working just so hard? Yeah, I got it.

Just let me know when you're done, Tom. The clean x-one of the medication which is so much more light, it's horrible. Horrible. What? I don't need to come already on them. That's what we're here for. You like a dry face instead of a come face.

Yes. Wow. You're weird. You're weird. You're weird. All right, I think that's settled Tom. Go ahead. Okay.

There's a little boy on the box. I'm just saying, he's, that's what you like. Stepchild. There's not. Oh, there is. You're what I was mistaken. No, ruin the show. He was then became fixated.

I'm purchasing restaurants and four star hotels, but only if they were founded in the state of Texas. Though he does not appear to have held most of them for very long, he did not, however, lose interest in the movie, I station zebra, which he washed over and over. I'm under the list. I'm really the title. I see station zebra. I see station zebra. He then also began to store his urine in jars and would only touch anything through

a tissue to avoid germ. And while I am not down with the urine thing, having elementary age kids has definitely made me sympathetic to the germophobia. Do you think it's staff wherever backing another palette of tissues into the storage unit and we're like, oh, we should tell them about gloves, right? We should tell them about gloves. Loves? Now, sadly, and possibly the result of as many traumatic injuries, uses health and mental about gloves, right? We should tell him about gloves. Gloves?

Now, sadly, and possibly the result of as many traumatic injuries, uses health and mental health continue to decline. And his behavior continued to become more eccentric, moving from hotel to hotel across Beverly Hills, Boston, Las Vegas, NASA, report and Vancouver, always insisting on taking residents in a top floor penthouse. In 1976, and terribly ill, mental and physical health, Howard Hughes died. Likely from a drug overdose of painkillers,

this just is in the wiki written like this, administered to him while he was unconscious. No further detail. Just sure. Okay. Yeah. Much of the final moments of Hughes' life are just tragic.

And there's really no reason to relay them here on a comedy show But I will note with a smile that when Hughes died that day in 1976 He died while on board a legal jet which seems a fitting place for him to end his story And if you had to summarize what you've learned in one sentence Tom. What would it be? Don't be not rich Absolutely, absolutely. See something really smart. All right.

Are you ready for the quiz? One day. All right, Tom, under all the urine jars, they found a script for one of his upcoming movies. What was it? A, enemy of the prostate, B, 10 things I hate about you, Retro, see, breaking bladder for D,

diary of a wimpy kidney. Oh my God, diary of a wimpy kidney is for not a perfect, correct? Yes, correct, correct, correct. I want to do more piece of, when, how are you? You don't have to, you don't have to, you said that to get a I want to do more peace stuff. When, how are you? That's the first time you said that. We can't die.

You don't have to. That's the first time. That's assumed. That's always assumed. It doesn't matter. She, when Howard Hughes became an eccentric millionaire who also collects urine, at that point, what was the best nickname he got from his staff that they then put on a mug for him? Hey, number one boss

Jar head honcho Nice the golden spruce goose or Dean Jar Jar Banks Nice, that's good number one boss is perfect though. That's so, I don't know. I'm gonna go number one boss. That is correct. Well, yes. All right.

I know. People make fun of Howard's unusual habits towards the end of his life, but, hey, I like having the same thing for lunch every day. B, what am I supposed to do? Invent a new lunch every day like fucking DaVinci? C, you eat a different lunch every day. D, I should probably call my therapist.

It's always D for you, buddy. He's always D. Yeah, it is always D. What do you eat for lunch every day? Ain't a just egg scrambled with a frozen bag of vegetables and mishap. Dash, saltless salt season. Just in the dark.

What the fuck? That wouldash, salt is salt seasoning. Just in the dark. What the fuck? That'll look great. Possibly be salt with salt seasoning. What is that, camera? Oh, yeah. This is cocaine with emerald on the front. All right, okay. You're bringing me around.

Heathwind. Oh, yeah. Next week, let's have a little sea-sal action. Alright, well for Tom, sea-sal, Heath, and Noah, I'm Eli Bosnick, thank you for hanging out with us today. We'll be back next week, and by then, sea-sal will be an expert on something else. Between now and then, you can listen to our podcasts in all the podcast places. And if you'd like to help keep this show going, you can make a perps donation at patreon.com slash citation pod or even so five star review

anywhere you can relax. Check out past episodes connected to the social media or check the show notes. Be sure to check out citationpod.com. And all these fixtures will keep the lift steady, so the vehicle can stay balanced during flight. Any questions? Wow, really well done, men. Thank you. Okay, okay, here. More money. Me and me. Oh, you're you again. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Take take take. Fine, all right, thank you. So that helped me go B. Any quamterm. Yeah, I do have questions. Nope, you don't take, where is he getting all the money?

I think it's under his napkin. Sure. getting all the money. I think it's under his napkin. Sure. Go all in on savings during Sunwing Vacations Black Friday sale. With door crashing deals on top destinations in Cuba, Mexico, and so much more. These kinds of savings turn the ordinary into the extraordinary. Our Black Friday deals will be gone before you know it. So dive into savings by November 27th with your travel agent or...