THE UNDERGROUND — ISSUE #113
Everything you need to know about in this weekly series: A survivalist lives in the wilderness alone for years, a history of St. Patrick’s Day (plus drink ideas with Sam Phillips), a brand-new superhero TV show comes to Netflix, and an explanation about that solar system found that scientists are freaking out over.
At Social Underground we go beyond the mainstream stuff and see what’s underneath the surface. What should we get into, listen to, read, eat or watch? If there is something in our culture that needs attention that’s our job: Show you the underground things that you need to know about: Books, music, television, movies, comedians, art, and whatever else we can find to get you into something you never knew about. That’s The Underground
1. Watch a survivalist build a cabin and live there for years. One thing I would really love to do in life is to live on a desert island with a fresh water supply and some sort of food source (plants or animals) to see how long I could last. Naturally, I’d probably read up a bit about survivalist stuff, but I would probably get stung by a killer bug and die after 3 days. However, Richard Dick Proenneke decided to go into the wilderness, build a cabin all by himself, and then live there for a 16 months with no contact from the outside world. Here’s just a little taste of the craftsmanship and survivalist nature of this man:
Most of the structure and the furnishings are made from materials in and about the site, from the gravel taken from the lake bed to create the cabin’s base, to the trees he selected, cut down, and then hand-cut with interlocking joints to create the walls and roof rafter framing. The window openings were planned and cut to suit. The fireplace and flue were made from stones he dug from around the site and meticulously mortared in place to create the chimney and hearth. He used metal containers for food storage—one-gallon cans were cut into basin shapes and buried below the frost line. This ensured that fruits and perishables could be stored for prolonged periods in the cool earth, yet still be accessible when the winter months froze the ground above them.
I had trouble building a bird house when I was in cub scouts. This guy is out there crafting a beautiful cabin by himself. When he left the cabin after the initial 16 months, he went to visit family and get supplies. What did he do next? He came back and lived there for THIRTY YEARS. The only time he left was to visit family and get more supplies. I suspect that there is a deleted scene in The Matrix where Neo uploads this man’s skills into his brain. I know I would.
Watch as Proenneke builds his home and lives in the wilderness in this fantastic documentary that will make you feel inadequate when you get a splinter from your wooden patio.
2. A brief history of St. Patrick’s Day (Plus drink ideas from the Sunset strip with our own Sam Phillips). Today you’ll be skipping work and going to the local pub to get drunk at 9 a.m. all in the name of St. Patrick. Everyone will be wearing green, drinking green beer, being loud, jamming to Irish music, and probably forgetting how they got home (have a DD or call a cab/Uber/Lyft). What most people don’t actually know is anything at all about Who St. Patrick was and why we all celebrate this secular holiday. What if I told you that St. Patrick wasn’t ever Irish? Blimey! What?! It’s true.
There are a lot of things you can learn in the video below about one of the most celebrated holidays in America, but the important thing is that if you’re reading this while drinking beer, you probably won’t remember until you read about it and forget next year on St. Patrick’s Day.
Get educated before you get obliterated below:
Penthouse badass and Social Underground sexpert Sam Phillips headed to Rock & Reilly’s on the Sunset strip to discover 3 of the top drinks you should enjoy on St. Patty’s. I wasn’t planning on drinking tomorrow, but I could go for all 3 of these drinks. I won’t tell you what they are, but hot damn, I will drink them all.
3. Iron Fist is the newest Marvel show to come to Netflix. If you decide not to go out for St. Patrick’s Day to get hammered with no remorse for your liver, you can stay home and watch the newest offering in Marvel’s Netflix collection of TV shows. I have to be honest and say that I have no idea who Iron Fist is, but since the past shows on Netflix have all been a joy to watch, I’m pretty sure this one will continue with the tradition of eating up my entire weekend.
Premise: Fifteen years after being presumed dead in a plane crash, Danny Rand (Finn Jones) mysteriously returns to New York City determined to reclaim his birthright and family company. However, when a long-destined enemy rises in New York, this living weapon is forced to choose between his family’s legacy and his duties as the Iron Fist.
You can replace Danny Rand with Bruce Wayne and get the same general idea about the show. What I know will probably happen after watching this is that I will start from the beginning of DareDevil all the way to the end of this show. I can’t say that I’m not looking forward to doing that over a period of a few months.
Check out the trailer for Iron Fist below and prepare to look at your hands a lot.
4. Learn about the amazing discovery of the star system TRAPPIST-1. In case you’ve been completely out of it because of politics and what not, you may have kept the news off long enough to miss the incredible discovery of a solar system with 7 planets orbiting a very small star. It’s one of the biggest discovery of exoplanets in this history of mankind. That may sound like hyperbole, but guess what? Three of the planets are in the habitable zone AKA the Goldilocks zone.
Seven Earth-sized planets have been observed by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope around a tiny, nearby, ultra-cool dwarf star called TRAPPIST-1. Three of these planets are firmly in the habitable zone.
Over 21 days, NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope measured the drop in light as each planet passed in front of the star. Spitzer was able to identify a total of seven rocky worlds, including three in the habitable zone, where liquid water might be found.
The video features interviews with Sean Carey, manager of the Spitzer Science Center, Caltech/IPAC; Nikole Lewis, James Webb Space Telescope project scientist, Space Telescope Science Institute; and Michaël Gillon, principal investigator, TRAPPIST, University of Liege, Belgium.
The system has been revealed through observations from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based TRAPPIST (TRAnsiting Planets and PlanetesImals Small Telescope) telescope, as well as other ground-based observatories. The system was named for the TRAPPIST telescope. (Via NASA JPL)
Have a more detailed look at what was discovered almost 40 light years away:
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Jeff Sorensen is an author, writer and occasional comedian living in Detroit, Michigan. You can look for more of his work on The Huffington Post, UPROXX, BGR and by just looking up his name.
Contact: jeff@socialunderground.com