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Show notes for nov. 14 2017
Ok then. Welcome back to the hammer factor. It’s been way too long my lovelies, and absence has certainly made the heart grow fonder.

Today, we have a wonderful show, including, but not limited to, a green race wrap up, A sharp rebuke from Dave Fusilli and the demshitz crew, Louis Geltman will do his very best to ruin your week, viewer mail, and a brand new Hammer Factor featured segment- “anonymous boat reviews”- more on this a little later.
But first lets catch up, shall we?
Grace put on quite a show this past week with the so-called ‘Green Race’ or as its called in some circles “the world championships of Southeast rednecks”.
• The usual suspects won again, and yet 4 minutes remains un broken.
• Several people were seen unwrapping brand new thermoformed boats and greasing them
with Rain-X. Does this matter?
• IR’s own Ian Van Stoutmeister takes 5th, proving that living in Asheville and paddling the
green everyday actually makes you a shittier paddler over time. Dagger follows up by
declaring Ian (no joke) “America’s heart throb”. Indeed.
• The clowning around at go left once again proved to be the highlight of the race. • Grace- what are we missing?
Here’s some viewer mail regarding the green race: Marc Hunt writes:
I was a collegiate swimmer in 1975. The best of us had been training and competing year- round since before high-school. With 2-a-days, periodization, weights, diet, and other strategies, athletes and coaches all believed we were nearing the limit on fastest possible race times.
Indeed, equipment and technique in swimming have not evolved all that much since then. But speed has, and it mostly relates to a greatly expanded talent pool as a result of youth programs, more years of intensive training, and better training technique. Check out the progression of world records in the 400-meter freestyle.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_record_progression_400_metres_freestyle
As for the evolution of top Green Race times, I’d say we are comparatively where they were in swimming the 1960’s and maybe the 1970’s. I mean in the late 60’s Don Schollander and Mark Spitz were guys that famously swam their asses off through high school and college and got on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Their times were in the 4:10 range. Today’s horses are
going 3:40….

Sure, it’s about the lines , the water levels, the boats, etc. But it is also about the motors and they are gonna get better.
The woman’s show was a fail. What happened? Will it happen? Grace and Weld had their own woman’s show in one of their extremely gossipy daily phone calls. Perhaps we should re-cap that?
Weld is preparing to go to Asia to make kayaking gear in the end of Nov. Perhaps its time to do another ‘How is it made’ segment?
Geltman also underwent surgery- how’d that go? Did Zinke send flowers?
Cue the Debbie Downer theme, cause its time for #everythingisfucked.
And what a tremendous couple of weeks it’s been. The republicans have effectively lain waste to all of the low hanging fruit for the past 8 months, and now they have trained the Death Star on the environment.
• Some hydroelectric Tom foolery that will negate recreational releases
• The house is up to vote on the “resilient federal forests act’. You can place your own air
quotes on ‘resilient’
• Thought that americans are getting fatter and not getting outside enough? The NPS has an
answer. How does a $70 fee to enter a national park sound? I have a better idea. How about “charter parks”? I think its time to hand over all federal lands to private contractors. Pay to play, baby.
• His Whiteness Rob Bishop is introducing a bill to ‘eviscerate’ the Antiquities act using colorful and family-friendly replacement legislation like the ‘National Monument Creation and Protection Act’. Its every bit as good as it sounds.
•
But on to the real issues. Demshitz.
Some horrible, disrespectful and untrue statements were made last week by Rush regarding the origin of many aspects of paddling crews, and it did not go un-noticed. Dave Fusilli is calling in to set the record straight.
[call to dave]
In other Crew news, we have had several other submissions to the crews contest after BDP was elected the “world’s best kayaking crew’ in a lopsided, unfair election:
• Dem Boys Media Cartel https://www.facebook.com/demboysmediahut/
• Yockness Mon-stars https://vimeo.com/162504790 • Boone Crew https://vimeo.com/209675167
and last but not least:
• The Mid level Boating Crew https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRlLdt6Mvw0
Dave- care to comment on these guys?
Enough waiting. the suspense is killing us. It’s time for…..drum roll… the “anonymous boat review”

Since everyone is too chicken shit to talk truthfully about boats and gear unless they love it, we thought this might help ‘drain the swamp’ a bit.
[Call to ABR guy]
And some viewer mail:
John Pruitt writes:
Given 2 options for a dam. Removal or regular, consistent, scheduled releases….what is AWs preferred path?
From a strictly boating stand point, dams serve a great purpose to have consistent releases when otherwise it would be dry.
From an environmental standpoint dams are extremely damaging to the river eco system. Might boil down to AWs primary mission. Boating advocacy or environment advocacy
I think i Heard an even mix of both in the pod cast.
How about you guys. Would you want to remove the dam from the Green, Gauley, Ocoee, nanty?
And Scott Anderson begs us to set his ass straight:
I’d like to hear your arguments for a 45 or 60 degree paddle feather because I’m not convinced. I’ve read Jim Snyder’s article twice, and while I respect his opinion, I don’t think it’s the last word on the subject. The main takeaway I got from the article is that Jim Snyder thinks a 40 degree paddle feather is best because that’s what feels the most comfortable to him. That’s hardly a definitive statement. I mean, Weld called it “case closed” but it clearly isn’t because he still swears by a 60.
And then on to our favorite segment- rants and raves.