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The Listener Mail Extravaganza · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. So
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Speaker 1: one of the memes that I get sent most frequently,
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Speaker 1: I would say several times a month is that image
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Speaker 1: of a person sitting by a sign of three people eating,
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Speaker 1: laughing and talking, and the person sitting by the sign
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Speaker 1: they have a bowl of something and they're looking at
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Speaker 1: the sign and laughing, so they're in conversation, and the
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Speaker 1: caption is always something like this is how it feels
0:52
Speaker 1: to listen to podcasts, and I get it. But today
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Speaker 1: we're going to mitigate that a little bit, right, I'm that.
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Speaker 1: I'm no, it's not really a meme, but one of
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Speaker 1: my the you know, an image that I used to
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Speaker 1: kind of define my life by is of that cartoon
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Speaker 1: dog sitting in a room on fire saying everything's okay.
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Speaker 1: That's how I feel when I read UH iTunes reviews,
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Speaker 1: And we'll get to those as well. But one thing
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Speaker 1: that always UH lights up our studio and our day
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Speaker 1: is our better third are super producer Casey Pegram Casey.
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Speaker 1: I've got to ask you. We've been in this business
1:29
Speaker 1: for a long long time. Now, do you ever read
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Speaker 1: reviews of shows you create? I do, Actually, I read
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Speaker 1: all the reviews. Um, I feel like I'm in a
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Speaker 1: maybe a little bit better position to do that because
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Speaker 1: I'm not typically the on air personality. It's it's a
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Speaker 1: little less personal. But I do like to be aware
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Speaker 1: at least of what the people are saying out there,
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Speaker 1: even if they're jerks about it. You know, It's it's
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Speaker 1: good to know sometimes the truth can hurt. Casey on
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Speaker 1: the case Well, you, my friends are in our living
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Speaker 1: in interesting times for this episode because we are going
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Speaker 1: to explore some reviews, and you occur in a few
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Speaker 1: of them. In fact, we're not just going to explore reviews.
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Speaker 1: We're not just going to explore emails. We're explored everything.
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Speaker 1: This is sort of a moment where we say, enough
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Speaker 1: about us, what about you? Because on this show we
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Speaker 1: always ask, or we frequently ask a question towards the end,
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Speaker 1: like what are some weird town names in your neck
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Speaker 1: of the global woods? Or what are some other strange
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Speaker 1: military experiments, etcetera, etcetera. At all are we talking about
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Speaker 1: military experiments today? Ben? I mean we might get to it,
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Speaker 1: you know, because every single time we do an episode,
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Speaker 1: we get this flood of amazing correspondencies from you, specifically
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Speaker 1: you and your fellow listeners. And although it's tough for
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Speaker 1: us to respond in a punctual manner in writing, we do.
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Speaker 1: Each of us read everything that you said, and we
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Speaker 1: enjoy them. We think you make important points. And today,
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Speaker 1: in this very special listener Maile episode, we'd like to
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Speaker 1: share some of the things that your fellow listeners have
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Speaker 1: told us recently, recently being since we started making this show. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we we were not done a listener mail episode before.
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Speaker 1: Surely we have. We've done one, Casey, Yeah, we've We've
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Speaker 1: done at least one before. At least we've done like
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Speaker 1: to probably who knows Casey on the case. Okay, well,
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Speaker 1: I guess I will go first with a listener email.
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Speaker 1: This one comes from Sophie s um And She is
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Speaker 1: a student at Stanford University. Subject is of the Spooky
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Speaker 1: Stanfords and reads as such, Hi, Ben Nolan Casey, my
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Speaker 1: name is Sophia. Excuse me Sophia, and I am a
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Speaker 1: history major at Stanford and a huge fan of the show.
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Speaker 1: First of all, I just wanted to say thank you
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Speaker 1: for endlessly entertaining me with your podcast. It's my absent
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Speaker 1: is very very sweet and kind. It is my absolute
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Speaker 1: favorite show I listened to and I have recommended it
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Speaker 1: to all of my history friends. Each episode reminds me
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Speaker 1: why I fell in love with the subject of history
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Speaker 1: in the first place, and continue to fall in love
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Speaker 1: with it. The more I learned. That fills my heart
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Speaker 1: with joy. It's always so nice to hear from people
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Speaker 1: who are actually history majors who liked the show. Uh
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Speaker 1: that I think. I think I speak for both of
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Speaker 1: us when I say thank you for the kind words, Sophia.
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Speaker 1: So let's get to the juice of this email. This
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Speaker 1: past year I took two classes about Victorian America and England,
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Speaker 1: and one of the phenomenon from that time that pulled
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Speaker 1: my interest the most was spiritualism. You guys touch on
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Speaker 1: this in your episode about the cock Lane Ghost, which
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Speaker 1: was fantastic, but I found tons of other stories about
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Speaker 1: it which I thought were really fascinating. I'm not sure
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Speaker 1: if you guys have ever heard about spiritualism or occultish
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Speaker 1: practices at Stanford or in the Stanford family. If you haven't,
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Speaker 1: I highly recommend going to school here. This topic was
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Speaker 1: something I didn't know much about, but once I dove
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Speaker 1: into some research, I found it was very present in
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Speaker 1: the school's origins in early years. Oh you're speaking my language, Sophia,
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Speaker 1: because this is true and this would make a great episode,
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Speaker 1: Sophia continues. While it's highly contested that the Stanfords were spiritualist,
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Speaker 1: it is known that Jane and Leland Stanford did at
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Speaker 1: least participate in seances and other spiritualistic practices in an
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Speaker 1: attempt to contact their deceased son, Leland Jr. For whom
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Speaker 1: the university is a memorial. It's even rumored that the
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Speaker 1: spirit of Leland Junior came to Leland Senior in a
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Speaker 1: dream and told him to build the school. Here's where
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Speaker 1: it starts getting fun. The wackiest of the Stanford spiritualist
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Speaker 1: was Thomas Welton Stanford, Leland Senior's brother, who was known
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Speaker 1: to hold sciences in his home in Australia, where mediums
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Speaker 1: would conjure spirits and cause objects to fall into the
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Speaker 1: lapse of participants. These objects, called supports, were various, strange
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Speaker 1: and supposedly ancient artifacts which would materialize out of thin
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Speaker 1: air thanks to the help of the medium. Of course,
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Speaker 1: this is me talking. We we know a lot of
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Speaker 1: this was. These were plants. These were special effects employed
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Speaker 1: for the purposes of kind of bamboozling these folks out
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Speaker 1: of their money and tricking them into thinking they had
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Speaker 1: actually had a spiritual experience, when in fact it was
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Speaker 1: all just kind of smoke in mirrors. Uh. She goes on.
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Speaker 1: Welton donated these objects to the university to be studied
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Speaker 1: and put in the museum, and while they were initially
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Speaker 1: dismissed as junk by the school's administration, they reside today
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Speaker 1: in our special collections. The type of items included are
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Speaker 1: ridiculous in themselves, despite their supposed supernatural origins. Sophia continues,
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Speaker 1: My personal favorite thing about all of this is that
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Speaker 1: Welton also acquired a large grant for the School for
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Speaker 1: Psychical Research, which is the study of the possibility of
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Speaker 1: phenomenon beyond known human capabilities, such as telepathy, esp and
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Speaker 1: other stuff like that. So I'm just gonna interjected psychometry, clairvoyance, telekinesis,
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Speaker 1: etcetera researchers, says Sophie did experiments on students testing to
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Speaker 1: see if these phenomena were possible or not, but eventually
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Speaker 1: the branch dissolved and the grant went to solidify the
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Speaker 1: now famous Stanford Psychology department, Uh famous, infamous, A little column,
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Speaker 1: A little column b uh. And this, uh, this is
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Speaker 1: explored in another show we do call stuff they don't
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Speaker 1: want you to know, Sophie continues. While not really related
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Speaker 1: to spiritualism, the mysterious death of Jane Stanford would also
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Speaker 1: be interesting to look into. It was originally announced that
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Speaker 1: she died from heart complications, but some claim she was
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Speaker 1: actually poisoned by her own secretary. Yikes, this is a
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Speaker 1: long one, but I think this is almost like Sophia,
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Speaker 1: thank you so much for doing all of this incredible
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Speaker 1: research on our behalf and helping us uh fill out
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Speaker 1: a nice listener mail episode. And also I think there's
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Speaker 1: something we could explore further. Um. Despite there being so
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Speaker 1: much spiritualist history at Stanford today, it's almost entirely unknown,
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Speaker 1: most likely due to the administration covering it up for
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Speaker 1: the sake of the school's right mutation. Lots of stuff
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Speaker 1: to unpack there, but here are some great articles to
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Speaker 1: sum it up, and she gives us a handful uh
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Speaker 1: that I think we will definitely use a jumping off
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Speaker 1: points for a deeper discussion on this topic. UM. So
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Speaker 1: sorry for this absolute novel of an email again, no
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Speaker 1: apologies necessary. Thank you in fact from Ben and I,
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Speaker 1: but thanks again for all the fantastic shows. You guys
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Speaker 1: are the best. Sophia. Thank you Sophia. This was as
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Speaker 1: as I believe you mentioned at the top. This was
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Speaker 1: great to read anytime someone who is in the history
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Speaker 1: buff rights to us and tells us that they enjoy
8:33
Speaker 1: the show. Uh, what would you like an angel gets
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Speaker 1: its wings? Absolutely? You know, Uh, we have looked into
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Speaker 1: some of the fascinating stories of the spiritualist movement in
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Speaker 1: the US and Europe. We could do an entire show
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Speaker 1: on that, by which I mean in a completely different podcasts.
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Speaker 1: But I think this is this is an idea we
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Speaker 1: have to do. Wouldn't you agree? Yes? Absolutely? And uh
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Speaker 1: it's true. She gives us links to several pretty deep
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Speaker 1: dive research materials on various accounts of this this, these
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Speaker 1: these stories of spiritualism in the Stanford UM kind of
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Speaker 1: university family. So I am ready to go and do
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Speaker 1: a Stanford UM. I don't know. Maybe we could make
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Speaker 1: it a crossover with stuff they don't want you to know.
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Speaker 1: We've never done that yet. Maybe we could also, maybe
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Speaker 1: we could go to Stanford and do the cross over there. Yeah, sure,
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Speaker 1: why not? And here's a letter from Tory McKenna regarding
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Speaker 1: our recent episode on Albert cash Sheers. You remember that one? Yes,
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Speaker 1: of course the Soldier yep, just so. So, Tori writes
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Speaker 1: and says, Hey, I just listened to your July eleven
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Speaker 1: episode on Albert Cashiers, and I just wanted to say
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Speaker 1: that as a non binary person, I really appreciated the
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Speaker 1: care you all took to always refer to Cashiers with
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Speaker 1: he him pronouns, and you never dead named him using
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Speaker 1: the name given to a trans person before they transition,
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Speaker 1: except the brief man at the end of the Gravestone modification.
10:03
Speaker 1: I know this doesn't sound like a lot, but a
10:05
Speaker 1: lot of podcasts that discuss historical trans or non binary
10:08
Speaker 1: people really don't handle them well, so much so that
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Speaker 1: I definitely almost didn't listen to the episode because I
10:15
Speaker 1: was really worried about it. But I'm glad I did,
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Speaker 1: and tend to miss gender them, usually accidentally, but it
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Speaker 1: still makes it kind of hard to listen to. So anyway,
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Speaker 1: I just wanted to reach out and let you know
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Speaker 1: that your care on the topic was appreciated and came through.
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Speaker 1: I love the show. I download episodes on my phone
10:30
Speaker 1: so I can listen to them in my mc garage
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Speaker 1: when I'm working on stuff. Uh. They're informative and entertaining. Cheers, Tory. Uh.
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Speaker 1: You know, we received several um communication memos notes about this,
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Speaker 1: and we appreciate it because I think Noel, you and
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Speaker 1: I were very mindful of of how to tell these
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Speaker 1: stories that need to be told in a respectful manner. Yeah,
10:55
Speaker 1: we always try to be and we do definitely have discussions,
10:58
Speaker 1: you know, off air before we go on. And Ben,
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Speaker 1: it was you actually that that cluded me into this
11:03
Speaker 1: idea of dead naming being referring to a person who
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Speaker 1: has transitioned by the name they were born with, rather
11:09
Speaker 1: than the name they chose for themselves. So that was
11:12
Speaker 1: an important thing that I learned and realize that it
11:15
Speaker 1: was important to use that name not only from the
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Speaker 1: point of the story when this figure transitioned, but just
11:21
Speaker 1: from the start, because that is the name that they
11:24
Speaker 1: would have wanted to be called by. In discussing this legacy,
11:28
Speaker 1: you know, it's clear that this is a learning process
11:31
Speaker 1: for us. These stories are important and they should be told,
11:35
Speaker 1: and they need to be told in a respectful way.
11:37
Speaker 1: And and We're not reading tories email here to give
11:40
Speaker 1: ourselves a bath on the back, not at all, because
11:43
Speaker 1: I think we I think, well, I don't know about you, man,
11:45
Speaker 1: but I spent the week thinking like, oh boy, did
11:48
Speaker 1: we Did we mess up on that way? Absolutely? And
11:51
Speaker 1: that's the we think about stuff like that all the
11:53
Speaker 1: time because it's very easy, the Internet being what it is,
11:56
Speaker 1: for people to get the wrong idea as to like, oh,
11:59
Speaker 1: you guys just don't care or you didn't bother to
12:03
Speaker 1: do your homework. We always care, and we usually do
12:07
Speaker 1: our homework, but it's very important for us to get
12:10
Speaker 1: stuff like that right and be respectful of everybody. And
12:13
Speaker 1: this is just a good example of us hopefully getting
12:16
Speaker 1: it right. And we're not always going to but um,
12:18
Speaker 1: we're always going to do our best too. There's one
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Speaker 1: thing we're not gonna read this next email full, but
12:28
Speaker 1: there's there's one huge point that came out of the
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Speaker 1: Albert Cashier's episode that everyone needs to be aware of.
12:34
Speaker 1: Ryan Zentmeyer writes to us and says, I'm a trans
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Speaker 1: person living in San Diego, which has a strong military presence.
12:40
Speaker 1: I have several trans friends who are veterans. While we've
12:43
Speaker 1: made some progress in society at large, the military remains
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Speaker 1: hostile to trans people, as evidence by the ban on
12:51
Speaker 1: trans people in listing and Ryan goes through several examples
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Speaker 1: of this. It's important for everyone to remember that history
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Speaker 1: is still being written, and in this case, your voice
13:05
Speaker 1: and your opinion and your uh your work matter. So please, please, please,
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Speaker 1: please please do not feel that Albert Cashier is an
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Speaker 1: isolated story or something distant in the past. Right. It's
13:21
Speaker 1: this kind of stuff is happening now. That's why it
13:24
Speaker 1: was such an interesting story because it was uh, such
13:27
Speaker 1: a different time, and it was someone who was successful
13:30
Speaker 1: and even um colleagues you know, who served alongside Cashier
13:35
Speaker 1: came to his defense. When faced with being stripped of
13:38
Speaker 1: all his accolades and of all of his uh you know,
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Speaker 1: pension and and you know, the things that were due
13:43
Speaker 1: to him for his military service. He had colleagues who
13:46
Speaker 1: you would have thought would have been absurdly transphobic or
13:49
Speaker 1: you're not even known what to make of it, that
13:51
Speaker 1: came to his defense and said, no, this person served
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Speaker 1: alongside me and was very brave and did every bit
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Speaker 1: the same amount of work and you know, exhibited the
14:00
Speaker 1: same amount of courage that I did or anyone else
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Speaker 1: in the team. More so even because the stories of
14:05
Speaker 1: Cashier's heroism spoke for themselves, you know, in terms of
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Speaker 1: I think he kicked someone's ass and like escaped back
14:10
Speaker 1: over enemy lines. Right. Um, So that was a really
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Speaker 1: cool part of the stories to hear other folks from
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Speaker 1: that time who you would not have thought would have
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Speaker 1: gone to bat for a person like this doing so.
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Speaker 1: So you know, you're right, history is continuing to be written.
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Speaker 1: But it's also nice to think that everybody back in
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Speaker 1: the day wasn't um completely ignorant, I guess, product of
14:30
Speaker 1: their product of their environment, able to think for themselves.
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Speaker 1: So thanks for those perspectives and for checking out the show. Uh. Next,
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Speaker 1: we have um something that we put out there a
14:41
Speaker 1: while back in our episode about the Giants of Prussia,
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Speaker 1: where I believe in a quintessentially ridiculous history esque side conversation,
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Speaker 1: we asked for people to submit us the names of
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Speaker 1: weird towns. I think it was because of King of
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Speaker 1: Prussia Pennsylvania that it came up in. Yeah, that's a
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Speaker 1: that's a weird flex is a town name, and it
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Speaker 1: really is, if I recall correctly, we asked everyone what
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Speaker 1: the strangest names they had heard were, you know, in
15:08
Speaker 1: their local area or just passing through. And what we
15:11
Speaker 1: realized just now too is that while the Ridiculous Historians
15:13
Speaker 1: Facebook group is a great place for a conversation, not
15:16
Speaker 1: the most searchable situation in the whole wide world of history.
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Speaker 1: So we had a hard time. We knew we had
15:23
Speaker 1: some really great ones on there, but moving forward, in
15:25
Speaker 1: terms of promising to do better, we're gonna try to
15:27
Speaker 1: maybe like tag those or screenshot them and we see
15:30
Speaker 1: something that we want to, like, you know, save for
15:32
Speaker 1: a future you know, listener mail or listener feedback episode
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Speaker 1: text each other or to text each other. It's true.
15:38
Speaker 1: But in the meantime, we have this one from k
15:41
Speaker 1: Sullivan that does a pretty good job of of of
15:43
Speaker 1: throwing some pretty great ones at us on its own.
15:45
Speaker 1: So this will kind of be a stand in for everyone. Sorry,
15:47
Speaker 1: if you send us good ones on the page and
15:49
Speaker 1: we didn't get we didn't get to it. Um, So
15:52
Speaker 1: I just listened to the Prussian Giants episode where you
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Speaker 1: call for weird town names. My parents live in Horseheads,
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Speaker 1: New York, which is quite near to Paint Post, New York.
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Speaker 1: Plenty of good town names around there in the finger Lakes.
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Speaker 1: Drive down to Pennsylvania, of course, and you have more
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Speaker 1: than just King of Prussia, which I used to live near.
16:08
Speaker 1: You have drumroll Please Intercourse, which is ironically in the
16:20
Speaker 1: heart of Amish Country. Nine years old. Yeah, we're all.
16:23
Speaker 1: We're all. We're all nine years olds here. Um. These
16:26
Speaker 1: days I live in Scotland or we have plenty of
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Speaker 1: delightful and the delightfully rude place names like Twatt. I'm
16:31
Speaker 1: gonna pronounce it like that just to keep the sensors happy,
16:34
Speaker 1: cock Bridge and Dick Place. We've also got Broken Wind,
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Speaker 1: Hell's Glen and the always charming town of dull Dullsville, Right, Um,
16:45
Speaker 1: keep up the ridiculousness. Best case Allivan, those are great.
16:48
Speaker 1: Shout out to while we're on the case. Shout out
16:51
Speaker 1: to Kevin Hitchens, who decided that he had to tell
16:54
Speaker 1: us about Dildo Newfoundland, fun rude, delightfully rude. Shout out
17:02
Speaker 1: to Cindy lou who who writes to us and says,
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Speaker 1: toad suck Arkansas, toad suck, toad suck. That's right up
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Speaker 1: there with Dick Place. You know, I feel like when
17:15
Speaker 1: you're exploring new lands and naming a town, you should
17:18
Speaker 1: put a little more thought into us, a little bit more. Um.
17:22
Speaker 1: Just around this off, me and Ben found some weird
17:25
Speaker 1: town names of our own UM, starting with Accident, Maryland.
17:30
Speaker 1: Welcome to Accident is with the you know when you
17:32
Speaker 1: when you when you come crossing into that town is.
17:34
Speaker 1: There's also slick poo Idaho. Yeah. And there's a great
17:37
Speaker 1: article on Thought Catalog fifty two weird names of places
17:40
Speaker 1: in the United States, and um. Third on their list
17:43
Speaker 1: is Chicken, Alaska. And I bring that up because there's
17:46
Speaker 1: a really great little roadside attraction where there's like a
17:48
Speaker 1: chicken coobe and a egg cut out, like a wood
17:51
Speaker 1: cut out, and it says I got laid in Chicken Alaska.
17:56
Speaker 1: There's Uh, there's also gas Kansas, you got cut and
18:00
Speaker 1: shoot Texas. I'm just thinking, you just passed gas. You
18:03
Speaker 1: sure did embarrass Minnesota. Uh Yeah, Santa Claus Indiana. Experiment Georgia.
18:12
Speaker 1: The whole place is kind of one big experiment if
18:14
Speaker 1: you think about it. Did we already mention Hell Michigan? Okay,
18:19
Speaker 1: Well that's the thing. It's a hell on Earth. It's
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Speaker 1: fifteen miles northwest of Ann Arbor, following up with that,
18:23
Speaker 1: we've got Frankenstein, Missouri. We've got tight Wad Missouri. Oh
18:29
Speaker 1: and by the way, the there's a sign on a
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Speaker 1: post in this Thought Catalog article pertaining to Hell, Michigan
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Speaker 1: that says the road to Hell is paved with good
18:38
Speaker 1: intentions and lots of potholes. I just want to point
18:41
Speaker 1: out that there is a both a Fartsville, Indiana and
18:45
Speaker 1: a Poopsdale. And why shouldn't there be both of those things?
18:47
Speaker 1: Why shouldn't they be able to co exist? You know?
18:50
Speaker 1: Sometimes you uh, sometimes you go for a fart, you
18:53
Speaker 1: overshoot and you end up in a poop. There you go. Oh,
18:58
Speaker 1: we are indeed children. Now. We hope you folks are
19:00
Speaker 1: are enjoying this as much as we are. Just highbrow
19:03
Speaker 1: MPR approach to town names, it's true and uh And
19:06
Speaker 1: speaking of folks enjoying things or you know, not enjoying things,
19:10
Speaker 1: we thought we would do a thing that we haven't done.
19:12
Speaker 1: We're always asking you guys to leave us uh iTunes
19:15
Speaker 1: reviews or Apple podcast reviews. Um, that's what they're calling
19:17
Speaker 1: it now. But we thought we would go through and
19:19
Speaker 1: read a couple of our favorite choice reviews from folks
19:23
Speaker 1: that don't enjoy what we're doing here on ridiculous history,
19:25
Speaker 1: just you know, because it's fun and like, in the
19:28
Speaker 1: words of nine inch Nails, I hurt myself today to
19:31
Speaker 1: see if I still feel Yeah, And there's a there's
19:34
Speaker 1: a bit of Catharsis here. Also, you know, I do
19:37
Speaker 1: this comedy stuff on the side, and one of the
19:40
Speaker 1: big rules about comedy is if you have missed the mark,
19:44
Speaker 1: try to fail in an endearing way. So with that said, casey,
19:49
Speaker 1: this is this is what we were alluding to earlier.
19:52
Speaker 1: Are you ready, my friends, I'm ready. Let's hear it
19:55
Speaker 1: all right, fantastic, let's uh, let's babe get a just
19:59
Speaker 1: a bad reviews? That was pretty good? Do you like
20:03
Speaker 1: that one? I loved? Okay, So let's dig into the
20:07
Speaker 1: bag here of um of terrible, horrible, awful, no good, very,
20:11
Speaker 1: unkind unpleasant reviews. This one, um, this is sort of
20:14
Speaker 1: what you would consider kind of a middle ground of
20:17
Speaker 1: of bad reviews. This one comes from Devil Doc DVL
20:20
Speaker 1: Underscore Doc and the subject is could be a lot better.
20:23
Speaker 1: I used to really enjoy this show, but lately it
20:26
Speaker 1: seems like a couple of stoners just reading articles off
20:29
Speaker 1: of Wikipedia. Uh. They also bring on a guest that
20:32
Speaker 1: really brings down the show. I wonder who they might
20:34
Speaker 1: be referring to. I don't know, no, no, no way
20:36
Speaker 1: of knowing. It's gotten to the point where I've had
20:38
Speaker 1: to unsubscribe one star. Womp wamp. So Uh, should we
20:45
Speaker 1: address these these things here, these concerns the mystery guests. Well, no,
20:49
Speaker 1: we we I think we can do that. Um, but
20:51
Speaker 1: the fact that we are stoners are not the fact
20:53
Speaker 1: the notion that we are stoners reading things off Wikipedia. Uh.
20:57
Speaker 1: And I can assure you we do not use Wikipedia
21:00
Speaker 1: on this show. Look in the in the world of research,
21:03
Speaker 1: Wikipedia is most valuable. I'm not gonna just entirely dismissive,
21:09
Speaker 1: but Wikipedia is most valuable for these sources and bibliographies
21:13
Speaker 1: at the bottom. You know what I mean. And go
21:16
Speaker 1: go check those out of check them out and see
21:18
Speaker 1: if they're viable, see if they're actually worthwhile. Um. No,
21:20
Speaker 1: we don't use Wikipedia. I can neither confirm nor deny
21:24
Speaker 1: that we are stoners. Next review by a millennial philosopher,
21:27
Speaker 1: meandering and boring, filled with self righteous virtue signaling I
21:32
Speaker 1: get it, You're better than everyone. Because you're woke white
21:35
Speaker 1: men liberals, which is interesting because technically one of us
21:40
Speaker 1: is not, you know, quote unquote white. Everything in history
21:44
Speaker 1: is problematic. White people are evil, Colonialism is evil. Men
21:49
Speaker 1: are evil. This is so painful to listen to. And
21:52
Speaker 1: that's when they actually get to the topic, which takes
21:55
Speaker 1: around twenty minutes. Do not waste your time. First of all,
21:59
Speaker 1: the stories themselves, of the episodes of themselves are never
22:01
Speaker 1: that much longer than twenty minutes, So I think we
22:03
Speaker 1: get to the topic a little quicker than that. Sir
22:05
Speaker 1: what is his name again? Woke millennial millennial philosopher? Got it?
22:10
Speaker 1: Got it? Well? Um, right on, sir. You know, I'm
22:12
Speaker 1: thanks for checking out the show, and we'll try to
22:15
Speaker 1: get to the topics quicker. I guess now we're not
22:19
Speaker 1: thank you for making your opinion. Indeed, Okay, this one
22:22
Speaker 1: comes from Susie seven with a z um and the
22:26
Speaker 1: subject is uh, these idiots are annoying right to the point. Um.
22:31
Speaker 1: I listened to this for the first and last time.
22:33
Speaker 1: I'm assuming that that all happened in the span of
22:35
Speaker 1: one episode. These two idiots take an interesting story and
22:39
Speaker 1: constantly interrupted with their lame attempts on trying to be funny,
22:43
Speaker 1: can't delete this app fast enough? Whoa hold on, let's
22:47
Speaker 1: unpack this real quick casey uh do you think she
22:49
Speaker 1: means that like, we ruined podcasts for her entirely deleted
22:52
Speaker 1: the entire app. Yeah, we we wrecked the whole medium.
22:56
Speaker 1: So it's just done. Now. Can you even delete the
22:58
Speaker 1: Apple podcasts up on your iPhone? I believe you can.
23:02
Speaker 1: Yeah you could. Also if if you're still listening and
23:05
Speaker 1: you're like, why am I cursed listening to this app?
23:07
Speaker 1: You can also use a root kit to get that
23:11
Speaker 1: stuff off your phone. Be careful, you might break it.
23:14
Speaker 1: I do have to say, I like the idea of
23:16
Speaker 1: someone reading a book so bad that they burned a
23:18
Speaker 1: library down, the entire library, not just the book. Um
23:23
Speaker 1: so one star? Oh okay? Good? Wouldn't it be funny
23:26
Speaker 1: if there was one? There was five stars that just
23:28
Speaker 1: totally drug us to the dogs and that Here's a
23:31
Speaker 1: review that says has potential by Jill four five seven
23:35
Speaker 1: good interesting topics. Research seems to go beyond the first
23:38
Speaker 1: page Google results mostly upbeat tone, but as others have mentioned,
23:43
Speaker 1: the host really need to tighten the delivery and rein
23:45
Speaker 1: in the non sequitors. Lately, they've even joked about knowing
23:49
Speaker 1: this is an issue, but they do it anyway. I
23:52
Speaker 1: don't know if they realize just how boring the personal
23:55
Speaker 1: anecdotes and inside jokes are. There's a lot of repetition
23:59
Speaker 1: because they lose their a place so often. Most accidental
24:02
Speaker 1: two parters are due to a lack of editing, not
24:06
Speaker 1: an abundance of relevant content. First of all, I'm sorry,
24:09
Speaker 1: I don't mean to be combative here. That's not what
24:12
Speaker 1: we're that's not we're about on ridiculous history. Um, how
24:15
Speaker 1: many accidental two parters have we actually have had accidental one?
24:19
Speaker 1: How many two parters period have we ever had? Not
24:21
Speaker 1: too many? I think really only the Wayne Fetterman ones
24:24
Speaker 1: George Washington, that's right, But that was with Christopher Hasciots
24:28
Speaker 1: and it just ended up being an abundance of stuff
24:31
Speaker 1: that was longer than our typical thirty five to forty
24:34
Speaker 1: minute episode run times. Weird flexes, weird flexes again, same difference, right,
24:39
Speaker 1: there were four of us on that one. Yeah, idiomatic
24:41
Speaker 1: for the people, yep. But again these are not accidental
24:43
Speaker 1: two parts. These were purposeful, which maybe makes it worse
24:47
Speaker 1: but the review goes on, right now, oh boy does
24:50
Speaker 1: it ever? I can also live without all this sound
24:52
Speaker 1: effects and fawning over producer Casey Casey. What do you
24:57
Speaker 1: think about that? I don't know what you guys are
25:00
Speaker 1: talking about Casey on the case. I mean I could
25:05
Speaker 1: answer that we fawn over Casey because he's awesome and
25:07
Speaker 1: he's the best part of the show and he's what
25:09
Speaker 1: makes it all happen. All right, Ben, that's true. That
25:13
Speaker 1: is absolutely that is absolutely true. And the review goes on.
25:17
Speaker 1: But you know what I thought was really cool as
25:19
Speaker 1: that Jill four or five seven left us three stars
25:22
Speaker 1: and also this delightful sentiment. I was shocked to hear
25:26
Speaker 1: one of the guys mentioned having a dream about Dave
25:29
Speaker 1: Matthews band while in high school or middle school. UH.
25:32
Speaker 1: I would have sworn they were early gen X or
25:35
Speaker 1: older by the way they talked and their senses of humor,
25:38
Speaker 1: but apparently they're older millennials. Go figure three stars and we,
25:48
Speaker 1: of course, you don't want to trick anyone into listening
25:51
Speaker 1: to UH an episode. That's just us reading bad reviews
25:56
Speaker 1: about ourselves. That's very that's very strange way to pray
26:00
Speaker 1: an episode. So We're gonna move on to some other stuff,
26:03
Speaker 1: but we do want to thank everyone who took the
26:05
Speaker 1: time to write a review. You know what I mean?
26:08
Speaker 1: Like this? We always say podcasts are free, but they're
26:10
Speaker 1: not really. Probably heard me mention this on the show before.
26:14
Speaker 1: We we maybe don't use money to pay to listen
26:19
Speaker 1: to a podcast, but we use the most important currency
26:22
Speaker 1: of our age a lot of time. Now time. Yeah, So,
26:27
Speaker 1: so thank you for spending time with us, paying attention.
26:31
Speaker 1: And you know, uh, not every show is for everyone,
26:34
Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what is for everyone. Ben his friends. Yeah, friendship,
26:38
Speaker 1: m you and I actual facts friends, Casey, all of us.
26:42
Speaker 1: We hang out outside of uh this podcast shipping container,
26:46
Speaker 1: which I believe we owe the ridiculous historians. Yes, that
26:50
Speaker 1: came up. We will take a picture of that today
26:53
Speaker 1: and post it. What do you say? Let's do uh
26:56
Speaker 1: one more email each? What do you think? What do
26:58
Speaker 1: you think? You got a good one? And get anything
27:00
Speaker 1: up to sleep? Yeah, that's a pretty short one, and
27:02
Speaker 1: a fun one at that. The subject here is death
27:05
Speaker 1: of Tohoe the Monkey. That doesn't sound like fun at all.
27:08
Speaker 1: Whether there's more Ireland rom in the U. S Air Force?
27:12
Speaker 1: This is from Ross m my dear esteemed and learned
27:15
Speaker 1: gentleman of ridiculousness, very very nice, nice use of the Yeah. Firstly,
27:21
Speaker 1: many thanks for your work. I love your show and
27:23
Speaker 1: have been studiously trawling through your back catalog since discovery
27:26
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History some weeks ago. I'm particularly fond of the
27:29
Speaker 1: listener mail Hey and uh. And while I was listening
27:32
Speaker 1: to the Hartpool Hartley Pool Rather Monkey episode recently, UM,
27:36
Speaker 1: I was reminded of the story of Toho, the US
27:39
Speaker 1: Air Force monkey who drank himself to death in Ireland
27:43
Speaker 1: in ninety three. Woof not not familiar with this story, Ross, Uh,
27:47
Speaker 1: he goes on. I first heard this tale on a
27:50
Speaker 1: recent trip back to my homeland. The tale was recounted
27:53
Speaker 1: by my friend John Fitzgerald, a host of dudecast check
27:57
Speaker 1: it out at dudecast dot net. UM in his incredible
28:00
Speaker 1: carry accent in a pub during a wake wow that's stacked,
28:04
Speaker 1: all of which added to the feeling of a wind up,
28:07
Speaker 1: meaning a like a practical joke or like messing around
28:09
Speaker 1: with somebody. Sure Enough, though some cursory searches through a
28:13
Speaker 1: results immediately beyond the headline. Though there's not a lot
28:16
Speaker 1: of detail, and I'd love to hear the ridiculous history
28:18
Speaker 1: slant on how Toho came to be in Ireland and
28:22
Speaker 1: ultimately meet his demise. No doubt you and your intrepid
28:25
Speaker 1: researchers will unearth more question Mark question Mark, question mar
28:28
Speaker 1: question Mark Ross m of of of St Kilda. Thank
28:33
Speaker 1: you so much for writing in Ross. I love that story.
28:38
Speaker 1: I've got one that really stuck out to me and Uh,
28:41
Speaker 1: i'd like to share this. I think you saw this
28:43
Speaker 1: one as well, Noel. It is from Amanda D. Amanda
28:47
Speaker 1: D says, Hi, guys, I recently listened to Clara the
28:50
Speaker 1: World's most Famous Rhinoceros. Like your other episodes, I loved it. However,
28:54
Speaker 1: I'm writing for another reason. I wanted to say this
28:57
Speaker 1: one's about you, buddy. I wanted to say thank you
28:59
Speaker 1: de Noel, understanding my fear of ostriches. I'm often ostri
29:03
Speaker 1: sized for this by my family, all in fun, of course, Uh,
29:08
Speaker 1: Amanda's spelled it correctly. I just think there's a great
29:10
Speaker 1: pun there, my nephews finding particularly amusing. Let me take
29:14
Speaker 1: you back in time. The details are a kind of
29:17
Speaker 1: vague around why this happened, so bear with me here
29:20
Speaker 1: I was in elementary school and the school was hosting
29:22
Speaker 1: some sort of animal day with live animals for us
29:25
Speaker 1: to see. I'm not sure why, but I went into
29:28
Speaker 1: the equipment room in the gym only to be confronted
29:31
Speaker 1: face to face within austrich is my literal worst nightmare.
29:35
Speaker 1: Talk about a surprise. The thing was absolutely terrifying for
29:39
Speaker 1: the little nine year old me. I hold onto that
29:41
Speaker 1: fear to this day. Birds in general are creepy to be,
29:44
Speaker 1: but ostriches stand in a whole other category. That's my
29:47
Speaker 1: little story. I appreciate all your hard work and look
29:50
Speaker 1: forward to more episodes until then. I'll keep listening to
29:53
Speaker 1: the old episodes until I get to the end, and
29:55
Speaker 1: then I guess I'll just have to listen again. Best
29:58
Speaker 1: Amanda d Yeah, I don't even know how to respond
30:01
Speaker 1: to that, other than the only thing scarier than an
30:04
Speaker 1: ostrich to me is a castuary. You're familiar with these birds.
30:08
Speaker 1: They also stand on two legs, and they apparently have
30:10
Speaker 1: claws that they can disembow you with in one slice.
30:14
Speaker 1: I think they are native to Australia or New Zealand.
30:16
Speaker 1: But yeah, I got no use in my life for
30:19
Speaker 1: big muscular birds. With weird gangly necks. Uh and oh
30:23
Speaker 1: my god, they also Papua New Guinea, Indonesia. I feel
30:28
Speaker 1: I feel bad. I think I showed you a picture
30:30
Speaker 1: of a cast were I'm sorry, don't mean it's interesting.
30:34
Speaker 1: It's yeah, I went interesting to see me squirm. And
30:36
Speaker 1: I also I just need you to be aware of that,
30:39
Speaker 1: just in case I ever see one. Yeah, things got
30:41
Speaker 1: pretty dicey. Case you were there one time when we
30:44
Speaker 1: were in New York. Uh, we were exploring something. You
30:48
Speaker 1: got shut down because Kanye West was doing an impromptu
30:51
Speaker 1: fashion show. But you got you know, I could tell.
30:53
Speaker 1: I could read the room. You got pretty uncomfortable when
30:56
Speaker 1: the goals got too close. So it's trying to physically
30:58
Speaker 1: get between you and the goals. I'm not tell you
31:00
Speaker 1: that as I think the source of my ornophobia or phobia.
31:04
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, my grandpa took me to
31:06
Speaker 1: the beach and he threw breadcrumbs every which where, and
31:09
Speaker 1: my tiny little child body was swarmed by seagulls. And
31:13
Speaker 1: I just picture the perspective of being so small and
31:16
Speaker 1: having these terrifying things co calling and coming down at
31:19
Speaker 1: you from on high. Um. And I'm pretty sure that's
31:21
Speaker 1: that's what started the whole, the whole thing for me,
31:23
Speaker 1: and much like my frankly paralyzing fear of touching metal,
31:29
Speaker 1: we can only hope that our personality works are are
31:34
Speaker 1: at least amusing right our personal traumas are at least
31:37
Speaker 1: amusing to all of us listening today. Thank you so
31:42
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. We know we didn't get to
31:44
Speaker 1: spoiler all of the emails, Facebook messages, tweets and other correspondencies,
31:50
Speaker 1: but we do like to check in and make this
31:53
Speaker 1: what do you say, a semi regular thing. Yeah, I
31:56
Speaker 1: would like to do that for sure, and I just
31:58
Speaker 1: I only want to bring up one last one from
32:00
Speaker 1: the Facebook group from Henry S because of the episode
32:03
Speaker 1: we just recorded, uh that had some Gaelic pronunciations in it. Okay, guys,
32:07
Speaker 1: you really must work on your Gaelic. It's guard not Guardia,
32:12
Speaker 1: and Finian not Finian, which I'm pretty sure we butchered
32:17
Speaker 1: similarly in the last episode we just recorded this very
32:20
Speaker 1: afternoon on was it St. Columba? Yeah, but also St.
32:25
Speaker 1: Finnian is how he said it in the entire episodes.
32:28
Speaker 1: I believe it would be St. Finian Um, so hey,
32:32
Speaker 1: Mia Colpa for that one in advance. Um otherwise great
32:35
Speaker 1: episode on the Finian Invasion of Canada, and Cameron Z responded,
32:40
Speaker 1: I absolutely couldn't listen to the episode because the pronunciation
32:43
Speaker 1: was so broken as I learned about this in history
32:45
Speaker 1: class that it broke my brain and I couldn't listen.
32:48
Speaker 1: So hey again, always striving to do the best we can.
32:51
Speaker 1: Gaelic is tough. Gaelic is tough. And that's just one
32:55
Speaker 1: of the mini post on our Facebook group Ridiculous is
33:00
Speaker 1: Warrians that we would love for you to check out. There,
33:03
Speaker 1: you can run into our favorite part of the show,
33:05
Speaker 1: you and your fellow listeners. They're not all roasting us
33:10
Speaker 1: over mispronunciations, but we do appreciate every post like that
33:15
Speaker 1: because it helps keep us honest and it makes the
33:18
Speaker 1: show better. You can also find us on Instagram and Twitter,
33:22
Speaker 1: both as a group and as individuals. I'm at Ben
33:26
Speaker 1: Bowland on Instagram. You can find me at how Now
33:28
Speaker 1: Noel Brown and if you want to get in on
33:30
Speaker 1: that Facebook group action, all you gotta do is answer
33:33
Speaker 1: a simple question of name. Someone tangentially even involved in
33:36
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History could be me, could be Ben, could be
33:39
Speaker 1: super Producer Casey Pegram could be Christopher Haciotas, could be
33:43
Speaker 1: Gay Lousier, could be a funny name from one of
33:46
Speaker 1: the episodes. Anything to make us laugh, and you are
33:48
Speaker 1: in like Flynn my Friends. Big thanks to Alex Williams
33:51
Speaker 1: who composed our theme. Thanks to Christopher Hasciotas here in spirit.
33:55
Speaker 1: Thanks to the quizter also known as Jonathan Lynd. Thanks
34:01
Speaker 1: to you, Noel. Thanks to our research associates Gabe and Ryan,
34:08
Speaker 1: who we will spoiler alert maybe have on the show
34:10
Speaker 1: pretty soon. And as always, thank you, thank you, thank
34:15
Speaker 1: you to Cheryl Crowe love her. Let's see you next time.
34:27
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
34:29
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
34:32
Speaker 1: your favorite shows.