Speaker 1: And we have a special hone guest today. He's an
Speaker 1: American political commentator. He calls himself an amateur historian, but
Speaker 1: I wouldn't really consider him that. He's a podcaster, former
Speaker 1: radio show host. And Dan Carlin.
Speaker 2: How you doing, Dan, I'm well, thank you for having
Speaker 2: me on the show.
Speaker 3: Oh you bet.
Speaker 1: First of all, I have to say how pleased I
Speaker 1: am that you're talking to us today. I'm a real
Speaker 1: big fan of yours, and I hope to turn some
Speaker 1: of our listeners onto you and they'll become your fans
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 3: Well, we would love that you do two podcasts.
Speaker 1: I'm going to start out first by talking about the
Speaker 1: one you do more often, which is called common Sense,
Speaker 1: and then we'll get right into the hardcore history, which
Speaker 1: we're going to focus on today.
Speaker 3: A little bit.
Speaker 1: About common Sense from I listened to all of it now.
Speaker 1: I mean I started out listening to you with the
Speaker 1: hardcore history, and then I got involved in the common
Speaker 1: Sense and I'm telling you some of the things you uncover,
Speaker 1: it just makes me wonder, why isn't anyone doing something
Speaker 1: about this?
Speaker 3: Can you talk about that?
Speaker 2: You know? Actually, I think that's the most interesting aspect.
Speaker 2: And we actually talk about that all the time here.
Speaker 2: We don't understand why no one else is talking about
Speaker 2: it either, And I feel like it's a real I mean,
Speaker 2: on a personal sense, it's a blessing because it's great
Speaker 2: to have no competition. In another sense, though, I mean,
Speaker 2: if you're really worried about some of these problems we
Speaker 2: talk about, it'd be a little bit more encouraging to
Speaker 2: think that there was a whole lot more people talking
Speaker 2: about it, just that talking about things from a typical
Speaker 2: Republican or Democrat talking point. I think all that stuff's
Speaker 2: hurting is more than helping us these days.
Speaker 4: And you think you see more of that out there
Speaker 4: in the.
Speaker 2: Old mainstream media. But maybe we're benefiting from the fact
Speaker 2: you don't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I just want to tell you, speaking of
Speaker 1: this podcast in particular, are common sense. It's called I
Speaker 1: listened to a YouTube earlier. There's a podcast that you
Speaker 1: did back in two thousand and seven when you totally
Speaker 1: predicted the economic crash that was about to happen.
Speaker 3: How did you do that?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, really that's just a function of history.
Speaker 2: I mean, eventually, I mean, I think we human beings
Speaker 2: get stuck in this idea that the way things are are.
Speaker 2: We just plan on that if you go to a
Speaker 2: meeting with your financial advisor, for example, as you have one,
Speaker 2: they're going to sit down and they're going to show
Speaker 2: you a graph of how the American economy has been
Speaker 2: doing since the Second World War. And of course what
Speaker 2: I always say back to them is, you know, there
Speaker 2: was an economy before the Second World War, and once
Speaker 2: you realize that, you see, oh, you know, everything goes
Speaker 2: up and down in cycles. Just because we haven't had
Speaker 2: something really bad happen to us, history show is just
Speaker 2: going to happen again. So I think I was more
Speaker 2: citing with history in that sense, just saying, you know,
Speaker 2: it's like people who said that the tech bubble would
Speaker 2: never burst as stocks and you just sit there and go, really,
Speaker 2: it's going to go on forever. So I mean, I
Speaker 2: think we just got lucky in predicting a typical cycle
Speaker 2: that we're always living.
Speaker 3: There right right now?
Speaker 1: Do you use a lot of historical events and you're
Speaker 1: thinking when you do those particular podcasts, I'm.
Speaker 2: Actually stuck that way. I mean, I think we all
Speaker 2: organize our framework for thinking differently, and in my case,
Speaker 2: I just sort of base everything on history. That's how
Speaker 2: my mind operates, for better or for worse. I think
Speaker 2: that gives me other blind spots too. But we always
Speaker 2: brought a lot of history into our political current events show,
Speaker 2: and that's what gave someone else the idea that maybe
Speaker 2: we could do a history show too. It wasn't my
Speaker 2: idea that just heard a lot of history in our
Speaker 2: common sense shows. So yeah, I've always used that as
Speaker 2: sort of one of the foundations that we try to
Speaker 2: work off of.
Speaker 1: I was looking at your Wikipedia page and it says
Speaker 1: that you're an amateur historian. Now that just just means
Speaker 1: that you don't have a degree in history.
Speaker 2: Is that?
Speaker 3: Is that what it means by that.
Speaker 2: I do actually have a degree in history.
Speaker 3: It's just a.
Speaker 2: BA University of Colorado. And when you want to call
Speaker 2: yourself a historian, by our modern standards, you really should
Speaker 2: have a PhD.
Speaker 3: I see.
Speaker 2: And so I don't want any historians to get mad
Speaker 2: at me. I like to consider myself in the vein
Speaker 2: of you know, what they used to call an oral historian.
Speaker 2: And you can go back and it's like the minstrels
Speaker 2: in medieval times or the traditional storytellers that you'll see
Speaker 2: in tribal societies where they will relate the stories of
Speaker 2: the past to the young people with all its grandeur
Speaker 2: and drama. You know, people sometimes, you know.
Speaker 4: One of the criticisms I hear about our show.
Speaker 2: Is that it's a little melo dramatic.
Speaker 4: And the way I answer that is that I'm.
Speaker 2: Specifically choosing topics that are wonderfully dramatic, and I'm trying.
Speaker 4: To get away from the names and the days and.
Speaker 2: All that and give people a sense for how dramatic
Speaker 2: these events really were. And so I think that's why.
Speaker 2: I think that's why the whole thing works.
Speaker 1: Okay, so let's jump right into this hardcore history. And
Speaker 1: again that's how I found you. I was actually found
Speaker 1: your podcast by going into iTunes and just looking for
Speaker 1: anything history related. The one thing I got to say
Speaker 1: about I really love the out of the box thinking
Speaker 1: you have when you're doing your podcasts. Do you have
Speaker 1: to plan way ahead on doing a particular podcast.
Speaker 2: It's a little different for each show. The Common Sense
Speaker 2: Show is a version of a program I used to
Speaker 2: do on radio, and my lifestyle is almost a tune
Speaker 2: to it. While I'm reading things, I'm marketing and cutting
Speaker 2: things out. So I've got that kind of down to
Speaker 2: a science, and that doesn't take that much work. That
Speaker 2: history show is a lot more labor intensive. We work
Speaker 2: very hard on it, and it's hard on us mentally.
Speaker 2: I wish sometimes I had a bigger you know, like
Speaker 2: one of those aliens with a giant head, who with
Speaker 2: an IQ of three hundred, because sometimes I literally feel
Speaker 2: like I'm pushing my men to the limits. But I'm
Speaker 2: sure it's a.
Speaker 1: Lot of work, and a lot of the stuff you
Speaker 1: talk about it just simply couldn't be found in text.
Speaker 3: Where do you come up with all this information?
Speaker 2: You know, one of the places, Because that's a very
Speaker 2: broad question. I'm not sure I have the answer, but.
Speaker 4: I do know that when I was a history major.
Speaker 2: Back in college, and you would you would have conversations
Speaker 2: with the other history majors. This is the kind of
Speaker 2: weird stuff we would all talk about. I mean, when
Speaker 2: you're a history geek, there are certain you know, you
Speaker 2: can go to our websites out there that discuss things
Speaker 2: like alternative history, what if the Germans had won the
Speaker 2: Second World War or something like that.
Speaker 3: That's fascinating.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's all the stuff that history geeks geek out
Speaker 2: on and I think a lot of those kinds of
Speaker 2: thinking are people. You know, history majors will talk about
Speaker 2: this stuff amongst themselves.
Speaker 1: I like the show you did of effects on alcohol
Speaker 1: and drugs on past events. I mean, that's something I
Speaker 1: don't think too many people would have ever thought of.
Speaker 3: It really makes sense.
Speaker 2: You know, And truthfully, that came from a couple of
Speaker 2: stories that I had read. One was a question about
Speaker 2: whether Napoleon had been influenced by taking opium.
Speaker 4: The night before for some painful ailment of his And
Speaker 4: they were just a couple of those stories out there.
Speaker 2: Like that, and I thought, how weird is it to
Speaker 2: think that we can talk about how much of an
Speaker 2: effect things like alcohol or tobacco or anything like that
Speaker 2: has on our modern culture, but just because the sources
Speaker 2: aren't telling us about it in the past. I mean,
Speaker 2: you've got to think that those people were at least
Speaker 2: as affected as we are.
Speaker 4: And I think you start wondering, well, if they were,
Speaker 4: does that explain.
Speaker 2: You know, by Napoleon's conduct at Waterloo that day? For example? Yeah,
Speaker 2: that was a fun one.
Speaker 3: H Yeah, that was great, It was great.
Speaker 1: And another one I really enjoyed or just never really
Speaker 1: thought deeply about it, but was slavery you know, you
Speaker 1: think about slavery more in contemporary terms when I say
Speaker 1: contemporary in the last three three hundred years, but you
Speaker 1: went way way back, and if I can quote you,
Speaker 1: I believe you said something along the lines of we
Speaker 1: all have slaves flood running through our veins, you.
Speaker 2: Know, And that was It was funny because while I
Speaker 2: was doing the research for that show, and maybe it's
Speaker 2: because we're here in the United States and we're and
Speaker 2: and when you talk about slavery, our slavery was so
Speaker 2: relatively recent in historical times that it still dominates all
Speaker 2: of our conversation about it, except that it's such an
Speaker 2: age old human institution that if you want to sort
Speaker 2: of give the long view of it, well, most of
Speaker 2: us have been slaves at one time or another, with
Speaker 2: the way we're all related.
Speaker 4: In the way that different societies, I mean, the.
Speaker 2: Romans used to enslaved all sorts of people. We don't
Speaker 2: think of in the United States as having ever been slaves.
Speaker 2: And I think if i'm you know, the while now
Speaker 2: since we did that show, but I think we were
Speaker 2: talking about slavery as the original labor saving device yes,
Speaker 2: you call it, and how that once upon a time
Speaker 2: in caveman times, not quite cave man times, but really
Speaker 2: early the history of people slavey may actually have been
Speaker 2: some sort of a human rights advancement, because the way
Speaker 2: you got slaves was by not killing some prisoner on
Speaker 2: the battlefield, and you'd make a deal with them and say.
Speaker 4: Okay, I won't kill you, but you have to do
Speaker 4: what I say the rest of your life.
Speaker 2: Strange to think of history as some sort of a
Speaker 2: human progression in morality or civilization, isn't it? Yes?
Speaker 1: And I do recall you pointing out that it was
Speaker 1: a stagnation as far as developing inventions and things, right
Speaker 1: because they just relied on slaves to do the work.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the theory. There were all these stories about how,
Speaker 2: for example, in some of the slave areas in South America,
Speaker 2: they didn't develop water systems and plumbing until later than
Speaker 2: the surrounding areas because they had slaves to go get
Speaker 2: the water for them, so there was never any need
Speaker 2: to be filled. That's fascinating right.
Speaker 1: Now, speaking along those lines, what would make someone remain
Speaker 1: a slave just fear of being killed?
Speaker 3: Basically the way.
Speaker 2: I think I think that's a tough question for modern minds. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think, first of all, I think the situation differs
Speaker 2: in different situations. I mean, that's the ones here in
Speaker 2: the United States were particularly horrifying and cruel, but there
Speaker 2: are tribal societies where being a slave is sometimes almost
Speaker 2: like being an extended member of the family. If you
Speaker 2: were a Greek slave in Roman times and you weren't
Speaker 2: working in a mine or one of those terrible jobs,
Speaker 2: you might be employed as a tutor in the household.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not a wonderful life per se, but
Speaker 2: it's not what we always associate with, say, you know,
Speaker 2: channel slavery in the US South or something, so maybe
Speaker 2: that has something to do with it. But even then
Speaker 2: Rome had huge uprising with hundreds of thousands of armed
Speaker 2: slaves fighting against you know, Rome's armies at times, so
Speaker 2: I don't think people always did put up.
Speaker 3: With that's amazing, amazing. And then you did a segment
Speaker 3: on World War Two, which.
Speaker 1: I thought, because I've know a good part of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, with the least half of it, I don't
Speaker 1: think of it as being that brutal, but it really was.
Speaker 1: Some of the things you point out between the Russians
Speaker 1: and the Germans were just amazing the way they brutalized
Speaker 1: each other.
Speaker 2: I think history is certainly going to record that the
Speaker 2: twentieth century is the most brutal century there ever was.
Speaker 2: It depends on how you can measure it, but in
Speaker 2: terms of like overall human sufferings, the twentieth century is
Speaker 2: a pretty bad one. And yeah, we chose the Eastern Front,
Speaker 2: specifically the war between the Germans and the Russians, because
Speaker 2: most of us here in the United States don't focus
Speaker 2: on that. We like to focus on our involvement, and
Speaker 2: you know, conversely, the Russians like to focus on their involvement.
Speaker 2: But it's a whole part of that war that if
Speaker 2: you took it out of the context of the Second
Speaker 2: World War, just what we call the Eastern Trust, that's
Speaker 2: just like the biggest war in history.
Speaker 3: All by itself, right, right.
Speaker 2: It was a massive amount of people, and it was
Speaker 2: a war to the absolute finish in a way that
Speaker 2: I don't think the United States, I don't think we've
Speaker 2: ever fought away like that, where it was a war
Speaker 2: for the absolute finish. And on the Eastern Front, you
Speaker 2: really got a chance to see what man's in humanity
Speaker 2: demand needs.
Speaker 3: Right, right?
Speaker 1: A lot of times I think you get into these
Speaker 1: real brutal subjects, but you know, that's that's what war was.
Speaker 3: It was very cruel and brutal.
Speaker 2: I guess that's one of the things that fascinates me.
Speaker 2: But it's the extremes of human experience.
Speaker 4: And that's why I can't enjoy fiction.
Speaker 2: Anymore, because it's one thing to sit in your house
Speaker 2: and write about the extremes of human situations.
Speaker 4: It's another thing to read about people that actually had
Speaker 4: to live through it.
Speaker 3: Right now, what do you have on the horizon coming up?
Speaker 2: I'm stuck in a long series we're going to probably
Speaker 2: do on the fall of the Roman Republic. And it's
Speaker 2: following a typical pattern with me where I completely pick
Speaker 2: a wrong topic that's going to be too big that
Speaker 2: I'm never going to be able to and finish. And
Speaker 2: so I've just done it again. So I figure I'm
Speaker 2: trapped for a while here in this Roman Republic stuff.
Speaker 1: Wow, And do you have people helping you with the
Speaker 1: research you do on this that's classified?
Speaker 3: I don't blame you.
Speaker 2: I'll just say that it's no more than one if
Speaker 2: it is. Indeed, one, and it's not Ben right, I
Speaker 2: can't say anything about that.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask you about then, but yeah.
Speaker 2: I know he's everybody wants to know. I'm sorry. Dan.
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about your discussion board. That's
Speaker 1: a very active, very active sight.
Speaker 3: Yes, you know, and.
Speaker 2: And and having no experience with it, I'm a little
Speaker 2: surprised by how it's turned out. I have to say
Speaker 2: that sometimes I feel like a parent where you almost
Speaker 2: feel like you know you've created something that's going to
Speaker 2: go off on its own to college now and have
Speaker 2: its own life because the people that have gone to
Speaker 2: the discussion board, it's this wonderful place to be in
Speaker 2: terms of if you want to discuss political events or
Speaker 2: things in an atmosphere with a wide variety of people
Speaker 2: who try to be somewhat polite night that has little
Speaker 2: to do with me, and yet you we post this thing.
Speaker 2: It's it's that's a fun development as part of the
Speaker 2: new meeting.
Speaker 3: So it's just taken off on its own really now.
Speaker 2: Well we helped it along initially like a kid, but
Speaker 2: I mean now it's the people who are there that make.
Speaker 3: It what it is right right now.
Speaker 1: One thing I know from experience when I'm talking on
Speaker 1: these podcasts or when I'm doing anything, even when it
Speaker 1: comes to cataloging antiques, you name it. People love to
Speaker 1: certain people, I should say, love to pick out out
Speaker 1: your mistakes that must happen.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well listen, there's no question about that.
Speaker 4: I mean, how do you mention that? I mean we
Speaker 4: get of course, we.
Speaker 2: Get tons of email from people you must pronounce this.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I don't think you and offering tons of
Speaker 2: advice and all kinds of things. I mean that comes
Speaker 2: with the territory.
Speaker 1: Well, I talked to a guy that does historical maritime
Speaker 1: paintings and when he's doing the painting of the Harvard
Speaker 1: he tries to research even erosion on the shoreline and
Speaker 1: everything to get it just right. And he says sometimes
Speaker 1: someone will contact him and say the building was over
Speaker 1: looks like maybe three or fourth feet to the left
Speaker 1: a little bit. You know, let's just take apart everything.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: Well, especially if you try to just talk and not
Speaker 2: have everything written down, you're going to make mistakes just
Speaker 2: by this year nature. You know, we're all people and
Speaker 2: things come out wrong, and your choices are to you know,
Speaker 2: just continue to focus on perfection or to sit there
Speaker 2: and say but in the audience knows what people do,
Speaker 2: and most people aren't bothered by that stuff. Hopefully, I
Speaker 2: have my fingers crossed.
Speaker 1: Now, you've had a couple of good interviews yourself, that
Speaker 1: you've talked to people.
Speaker 3: Burke was on the phone, right.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, he was great. I mean, if you talk
Speaker 2: about people that I pay money to sit and have
Speaker 2: lunch with, that guy, James Burke, he's as high of
Speaker 2: my list as anybody.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, And I heard you mentioned Shelby Foot the
Speaker 1: other day. He was the person I would have loved
Speaker 1: to have listened to.
Speaker 2: Yes, I have a soft spot in my heart for
Speaker 2: all those kind of people, if only because you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, you sit there and Shelby's foot. I mean,
Speaker 2: think of the story that he'd be able to relate
Speaker 2: the graces of a war historian. And it's not just
Speaker 2: that it's not just that they can relate all this
Speaker 2: stuff because they have the knowledge, but the way that
Speaker 2: they convey it is, Yes, is you know you're at
Speaker 2: rapt attention the whole time by their style.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was my favorite in ken Burns a series.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was great. He was great.
Speaker 1: Now, have you ever considered doing anything like the American
Speaker 1: Revolution or anything like that, or the Civil War? Or
Speaker 1: do you think those have just touched on too often?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, part of the problem of doing these
Speaker 2: things and people request things all the time, and they
Speaker 2: think I have knowledge enough to take their request and
Speaker 2: actually turn them into a program. But everything we talk
Speaker 2: about on the show is something that I already have
Speaker 2: a certain base amount of knowledge off of. Otherwise there'd
Speaker 2: be no way to educate myself enough to do the
Speaker 2: podcast within the time limit. So when people bring up
Speaker 2: something like the Civil War, I know there's a ton
Speaker 2: of people who'd love to hear that. It's just not
Speaker 2: a subject that I'm strong enough in to do a
Speaker 2: good enough job to meet anyone's expectations.
Speaker 4: So I'm living that is by my own.
Speaker 3: Limitations like that mm hm.
Speaker 1: But I'm sure if you did something like that, you'd
Speaker 1: probably take your typical approach.
Speaker 2: Well, the fun I mean the fun you know, when
Speaker 2: you're talking about events like this, the word fund doesn't
Speaker 2: really fit. But the fun part, the fun part about
Speaker 2: the Civil Wars is that there's always and we'll get
Speaker 2: into this in the in the one on the Roman
Speaker 2: Republic that we're doing now, because.
Speaker 4: There are a bunch of civil wars in that too.
Speaker 2: The interesting part is to look at the brother versus
Speaker 2: brother aspect or how, how, how how unbelievably repressed these
Speaker 2: people are in terms of being angry at their own
Speaker 2: countrymen and how that sometimes comes out and what happens.
Speaker 2: And truthfully, the US Civil War was gentlemanly compared to
Speaker 2: things like the Roman one.
Speaker 3: Oh really wow, Well.
Speaker 2: They had scores to settle, believe, politics turned deadly violent
Speaker 2: in the in the Roman Republic.
Speaker 1: M Now, I'm just going to ask you, do you
Speaker 1: collect anything yourself?
Speaker 3: Because I know you collect books, don't you.
Speaker 2: Yes, well, my wife would say obsessively collective. I just
Speaker 2: feel like I buy them and never throw them away.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's collecting or not. I definitely
Speaker 2: have a bit of a book fetish.
Speaker 1: I guess other things as well, are just books.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, people send me stuff, really, and it's amazing.
Speaker 2: A lot of them are German. For some reason, German
Speaker 2: listeners feel like they need to send you stuff, and
Speaker 2: I'm glad they do because I'll get all these little
Speaker 2: historical knicknacks from people. Wow, guys. Yet the last guy
Speaker 2: sent me a little piece of a broken clay you know,
Speaker 2: those big clay jars with the narrownecks that in ancient
Speaker 2: times would hold wine or olive oil or something. I
Speaker 2: guess there's a big site in North Africa or something
Speaker 2: where these things are all piled up in giant garbage
Speaker 2: from ancient times. And so he got me one of
Speaker 2: the ones that's twenty four hundred years old or something
Speaker 2: stamped by an archaeologist, and that sits on my shelter.
Speaker 2: It just looks like a broken piece of track. You
Speaker 2: never know how old the human hands where the oldest
Speaker 2: thing in my community. Probably now the side benefit.
Speaker 1: To what we do, sure, sure, Now, how did you
Speaker 1: when you first took the leap out of radio jumping
Speaker 1: into doing this on the internet. Were you a little
Speaker 1: nervous at first?
Speaker 2: Well that's harder to point out, because I got into
Speaker 2: radio years ago when radio was a really good profession
Speaker 2: for the host to be in, and while I was
Speaker 2: in it got to watch his decline to a place where,
Speaker 2: you know, radio wasn't really very much fun to do anymore,
Speaker 2: And so I was looking as a lot of other
Speaker 2: people were too for Okay, how can I continue to
Speaker 2: do what it is I do and do it in
Speaker 2: a way different from what corporate radio has become. So
Speaker 2: I was looking for me and revitalized me. I was
Speaker 2: looking at not continuing radio at all just because of
Speaker 2: what it has become in terms of creativity or the
Speaker 2: latitude you would have to try new and different things.
Speaker 2: I felt really stifled by that. And once you got
Speaker 2: the opportunity to do podcasting, it was like getting a
Speaker 2: blank white, you know, creative board to start playing on,
Speaker 2: no rule, no one you had to go on, you know,
Speaker 2: confirm what you wanted to do with no no judge
Speaker 2: who had to say this is or isn't good enough
Speaker 2: to show to an audience. I mean I felt the
Speaker 2: whole thing was revitalizing. Wow. Wow.
Speaker 1: I think a few other people share that. We had
Speaker 1: Adam Carolla on here a while back, and you know,
Speaker 1: he's he had to believe he has the number one
Speaker 1: podcast that there is.
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure he does, or one of them.
Speaker 1: You know, He's really taken this thing and taken off
Speaker 1: with it, you know, and I think it's a great idea,
Speaker 1: and that's kind of how I got into it. You know,
Speaker 1: there was no one doing anything on auctions and antiques
Speaker 1: and art.
Speaker 3: And stuff like that all in one.
Speaker 1: You know, there was one guy focusing on like eBay
Speaker 1: auctions and stuff like that, so might as well try.
Speaker 2: It right and now. And what ended up happening After
Speaker 2: a while, You you create your own little digital space,
Speaker 2: you know, where you've become the auction guy and it
Speaker 2: becomes part of you know, if people want to listen
Speaker 2: to a podcast, you're known, and you're the one with
Speaker 2: the reviews, you're the one. I mean, that's what we're
Speaker 2: really enjoying. We compared it to the Oklahoma land Rush
Speaker 2: once and early on we thought, okay, it's just about
Speaker 2: going and finding your little space in the Internet world
Speaker 2: and then defending it. You know. Yeah, so do we
Speaker 2: have our little history space and our little politics and
Speaker 2: Corona event space, you have your auction space.
Speaker 1: That was a the Oklahoma land Rush. I saw something
Speaker 1: on that one time where they just the line came
Speaker 1: down at twelve noon and they all just ran and
Speaker 1: grabbed their spot right listen.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine if we could do that again today?
Speaker 3: That'd be awesome.
Speaker 2: A lot of happy people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we could probably do it, like in somewhere we
Speaker 1: wouldn't want to be still.
Speaker 2: Well, well, I listened Oklahoma at the time was a
Speaker 2: little hostile and dangerous, and those people weren't going to
Speaker 2: have an easy time of it. The free land is
Speaker 2: free land.
Speaker 3: Isn't it right?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Do you have like a year from now I'm going
Speaker 1: to get into this type of historic podcast or anything
Speaker 1: like that. I mean, how how far I know I'm
Speaker 1: jumping around here, but how far in advance do you
Speaker 1: have things planned?
Speaker 2: Well? Part of the problem is we go so slowly
Speaker 2: that I mean, it takes us so long to do
Speaker 2: each episode, and then I'll do these multi part episodes,
Speaker 2: so all you have to have is five or six
Speaker 2: things planned, and you're you're looking at the next two
Speaker 2: years or something. So I have a lot of great
Speaker 2: stories to tell, and they're all super dramatic, and they
Speaker 2: fall along similar lines, I think, to what we've done already.
Speaker 2: But someday I'd like to do the Crusades, or at
Speaker 2: least the first Crusades. And I always like to try
Speaker 2: to pick something where it tries to shed a little
Speaker 2: light on the current situation as possible. Yeah, and so
Speaker 2: I think the Crusades would be fun. But to me,
Speaker 2: that's just like jumping into another black hole. Just like
Speaker 2: all these other subjects that are really too big to cover,
Speaker 2: you end up when you add up all the episodes
Speaker 2: you did. Unlike that German Russian podcast you talked about,
Speaker 2: I mean, that becomes like a mini book after a while,
Speaker 2: and so I mean, you're really almost doing a surialized book.
Speaker 2: And so I'm still learning, I think, how to do
Speaker 2: the history podcast. And what they ought to mean is
Speaker 2: the political one is so much more like radio or
Speaker 2: a regular podcast. It's easier to understand. We don't even
Speaker 2: know still what the plan is with hardcore history, but
Speaker 2: certainly I'll get to crusade at some.
Speaker 1: Point, now, I know. I wait patiently. Every it's about
Speaker 1: every two months, right for hardcore.
Speaker 2: History it is, and then and everybody gets on me.
Speaker 2: I'm really an everybody dog house all the time.
Speaker 3: You just get emails from people like where is it?
Speaker 3: Where is it?
Speaker 2: I get I get people that just go I got
Speaker 2: one the other day where somebody just send an email
Speaker 2: and all I said it had no actual message, was
Speaker 2: just a subject line that when with a big explanation,
Speaker 2: you know, so hey, listen, those are blessings though, right,
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, they could be thank don't give me anymore,
Speaker 2: and then where would we be right right now?
Speaker 3: Do you do you have you must have listeners worldwide?
Speaker 3: Guess yeah, don't you have?
Speaker 2: I think all podcast dude, don't that? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I know, but you was you were saying earlier you
Speaker 1: get things from Germany, so places you would think of
Speaker 1: other languages.
Speaker 3: You know, you're still getting people listening to all over.
Speaker 1: I know I have one listener in Korea, but I
Speaker 1: can't think of any other, you know, language barrier countries.
Speaker 3: At this though.
Speaker 4: I think that's one of the things that makes it
Speaker 4: that would make.
Speaker 2: It hard to go back and do traditional radio again,
Speaker 2: because you feel like, once you've been broadcasting to potentially anywhere,
Speaker 2: you know, if you go back on a radio somewhere,
Speaker 2: you're only reaching as far as the transmitter reaches. I've become,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm enjoying being able to talk to anybody anywhere.
Speaker 2: It's real.
Speaker 4: It's a real cool thing.
Speaker 2: I did a show once where I was talking about
Speaker 2: Nigeria and I was I was talking about corruption, and
Speaker 2: I said that if the United States isn't careful, someday
Speaker 2: we'll be like, oh, I looked at the corruption list
Speaker 2: online and Nigeria is down at the very bottom. So
Speaker 2: I said, we might be like Nigeria. And then I
Speaker 2: said my apologies to any.
Speaker 4: Nigerian listeners, to like three Nigerian listeners, and I got
Speaker 4: an email from a guy who said, okay, okay, I'm
Speaker 4: Nigerian and I listened with my Nigerian friend and all
Speaker 4: I want to.
Speaker 2: Know is who's the third Nigerians? And then that happened.
Speaker 4: You think, oh, going back to radio, even if you were.
Speaker 2: In New York City would be like a demotion.
Speaker 3: After that at this point, wow, yeah, that's a really
Speaker 3: good point.
Speaker 1: So where do you think the future of all this
Speaker 1: is going podcasting?
Speaker 2: Well, you know, I get a little scared, and I
Speaker 2: tend to be a little conspiratorial and pessimistic, so take
Speaker 2: this with a grain of solve. But I get a
Speaker 2: little scared about all the net neutrality questions because for
Speaker 2: most people that sort of stuff doesn't mean anything, but
Speaker 2: for podcasters that I mean when they talk about slowing
Speaker 2: down delivery of some kinds of content, I mean, we're
Speaker 2: the kinds of content you're talking about, the people that
Speaker 2: don't pay them a lot of money. So I've become
Speaker 2: a little worried about things like that. For the future podcasting,
Speaker 2: I think without those kind of problems, the future podcasting
Speaker 2: is unlimited and you're going to see more and more
Speaker 2: niche market serve. That was telling my wife the other day.
Speaker 2: It won't be very long before every school has their
Speaker 2: own podcast and they can keep informed on what's going
Speaker 2: on there and every little league league and they'll talk
Speaker 2: about what happened in those most recent games and what
Speaker 2: you can get at a snack stand on sale. You're
Speaker 2: gonna see podcasts reaching into narrower and narrower, more niche markets,
Speaker 2: and that's you know, like I said, if things don't
Speaker 2: happen at a higher level with the rise from Google
Speaker 2: and quests and at and t that that that hurt
Speaker 2: you ability of us to get our podcast to our audience.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, it's just going to be like diluted almost
Speaker 3: like that, or.
Speaker 2: Or like you know, I saw ones where they said
Speaker 2: that the regular published Internet will just be this ad
Speaker 2: late thing where nobody wants to go unless you have to.
Speaker 2: And you know, the people that will be able to
Speaker 2: deliver podcasts at a reasonable speed will be like ESPN
Speaker 2: and The New York Times and it'll take eighteen hours
Speaker 2: to get fine in your works.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know if that don't really happen, don't can talk
Speaker 2: about my paranoid fears at night. That's what I'm afraid of.
Speaker 3: Well, let's look back in history. Is anything like that
Speaker 3: happen in history?
Speaker 2: Actually, I look at radio. You know, radio when it
Speaker 2: first came out, you used to be able to walk
Speaker 2: with a transmitter. It was this giant, big, bulky backpack
Speaker 2: looking things. But you could walk around with a transmitter
Speaker 2: on your back and broadcast and you know you're going
Speaker 2: to range like three or four miles, which in a
Speaker 2: place like New York City, you'd have an audience, and
Speaker 2: they had to make something illegal because they crossed over.
Speaker 2: Once you sold legitimate signals to legitimate radio stations, you
Speaker 2: couldn't have all these guys with radio backpacks, you know,
Speaker 2: transmitting and screwing up your signal. So once upon a
Speaker 2: time radio was like the internet.
Speaker 1: Well yeah, back, wasn't it Armstrong and all those guys
Speaker 1: doing different things with radio?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so, Dan, one of the questions I had
Speaker 1: when I was thinking of after I listened to your podcast,
Speaker 1: it seems like you're totally saying everything right off the cuff,
Speaker 1: like you don't have any papers you're looking at, and
Speaker 1: it's just a very good oration.
Speaker 3: Is that is that kind of what you do? You
Speaker 3: just think of what you're gonna say, and you.
Speaker 2: Just you just talked for the for the for the
Speaker 2: Common Sense show, that is what I do. That is yes,
Speaker 2: and so the for the History Show. I don't know
Speaker 2: that we've even got that down to the science. I
Speaker 2: don't know that we have a specific myth if we
Speaker 2: do it all the time. A lot of times I
Speaker 2: try to just start talking and go as far as
Speaker 2: I can before the narration wills to say, and then
Speaker 2: we'll usually say that, and then I'll try to pick
Speaker 2: up where we stop to keep going, and then we
Speaker 2: edit those things together.
Speaker 1: Oh I see, uh huh uh up in front of me,
Speaker 1: probably not in front of you.
Speaker 3: I have the list of the the hardcore history episodes
Speaker 3: that you had.
Speaker 1: I'm just going to touch a little bit on them,
Speaker 1: and you can just tell me a little bit about
Speaker 1: what they're were about, if that's.
Speaker 3: Okay, Sure, Okay, we'll start all the way back.
Speaker 1: I tried to find your earlier podcast and I couldn't
Speaker 1: find them on iTunes.
Speaker 3: But all the way back to episode number one, Alexander.
Speaker 1: This is the title topic, Alexander Versus Hitler.
Speaker 2: That was the first one we ever did not quite
Speaker 2: sure what we were trying to do either, if you notice,
Speaker 2: it's only fifteen minutes long. And now they're like these
Speaker 2: mammoth productions. I think I thought I'd be able to
Speaker 2: just whip out one of these shows every week or two.
Speaker 2: And I think we could really hear almost our treatment
Speaker 2: if you were going to try to sell the show
Speaker 2: to a TV network. That's like an example of one
Speaker 2: of our shows when we didn't know what the heck
Speaker 2: we were doing.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, Yeah, my first show was really really bad.
Speaker 3: I hope no one even listens to it.
Speaker 2: Actually, well, and you know, not that it's so bad,
Speaker 2: but that we didn't know what we were trying to.
Speaker 2: I mean, I always say that each podcast is like
Speaker 2: a TV series, and it takes a few shows sometimes
Speaker 2: it's like ten to evolve into what you're going to be.
Speaker 2: And you know that's the famous true, certainly for hardcore history.
Speaker 1: All right, now, I'm just going to go through a
Speaker 1: couple and pick out a couple more let's see Romancing
Speaker 1: the try Ah.
Speaker 2: That was a that was a show where we found
Speaker 2: two figures, uh that One was an Indian chief name
Speaker 2: to come up right. Another was a Celtic leader named
Speaker 2: Jerking Gheericks, and the similarities between these guys lived centuries apart,
Speaker 2: and yet both of them tried to rally tribesmen around
Speaker 2: to resist, you know, the threat of you know, the
Speaker 2: Gallic chieftain was.
Speaker 4: Worried about the Romans and the Indian chieftain was.
Speaker 2: Worried about the American expansion. And so these were two
Speaker 2: guys who lived a millennia of parts that it seemed
Speaker 2: to be the same person. Reborn Alow had fun preparing
Speaker 2: and trapping them.
Speaker 1: See that's what I'm talking about when I say that
Speaker 1: you have such an interesting take on parts of history.
Speaker 1: I think that's what I find the most fascinating. And
Speaker 1: while I'm giving a little praise, I also like the
Speaker 1: way you you asked questions on your on your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Pose a question that's really funny, and.
Speaker 2: Then the question asking. I mean, that's just because I
Speaker 2: don't oh, I mean, I think it's one of the
Speaker 2: freedoms of being a fan rather than an expert. I
Speaker 2: think if you're an expert, saying you don't know doesn't
Speaker 2: sound that good. I obviously have no problem saying it
Speaker 2: because I really don't know, So I think it makes
Speaker 2: ask me questions easy sometimes.
Speaker 1: Uh huh, okay. And number eight was Stars of the
Speaker 1: Great War.
Speaker 2: Wow, that's the one we did. You know, Actually we
Speaker 2: did that about the First World War. And I thought
Speaker 2: about it because I remember Foss from college where we
Speaker 2: were learning about it, and the professor brought in lives
Speaker 2: of medical photographs taken people who were injured in the
Speaker 2: First World War, and then these black and white pictures
Speaker 2: that are absolutely unbelievable. I mean, one was and I
Speaker 2: don't even know how that guy lived. It literally showed
Speaker 2: a guy who had a hole through his head so
Speaker 2: you could see what was behind him, and he was
Speaker 2: fine walking around in the nineteen twenties, but it was
Speaker 2: his war wound. And those people were all walking around
Speaker 2: Europe at this time like living reminders of that terrible,
Speaker 2: par rible First World War. And so we went into
Speaker 2: sort of the overtones of this thing without really getting
Speaker 2: into the war itself. During branch.
Speaker 3: Wow, you can really see through that guy. Huh.
Speaker 2: It was the most unbelievable photo, like like like that
Speaker 2: I've ever seen?
Speaker 3: Wow, is that something?
Speaker 1: And then you get into the Bronze Age and number
Speaker 1: nine darkness buries the Bronze Age.
Speaker 2: That's the story about these invasions. The Bronze Age is
Speaker 2: one of those periods where you know, human civilizations spiked
Speaker 2: up for a while on the civilizations graft, and then
Speaker 2: it came to an end rather abruptly, and you can.
Speaker 4: Almost see all the little.
Speaker 2: Lights twinkling out of these civilizations as some sort of
Speaker 2: malevolent force moves across the mass from either north to
Speaker 2: south or west to east, and.
Speaker 4: No one really knows what happened.
Speaker 2: So we were talking about some of the theories and
Speaker 2: some of the records that did exist and what it
Speaker 2: must have been like, and of course asking a bount
Speaker 2: of questions.
Speaker 1: Mmmmm, Punic Nightmares. That was a very good, good one.
Speaker 2: There was the first one where we started getting into
Speaker 2: real trouble though, because it becomes a multi part episode. Yes,
Speaker 2: and it turns what was I mean? You know, putting
Speaker 2: a podcast together anyone who's done it knows is a
Speaker 2: little like a chess game when you're putting all the
Speaker 2: pieces together and making it all work. That's turned into
Speaker 2: like a three dimensional chess game because you had to
Speaker 2: remember what was going on in the first episode where
Speaker 2: we were still doing the third and make it all work.
Speaker 2: I'm glad you liked it. That one was a I
Speaker 2: still hurt.
Speaker 1: I think somewhere from that one took a lot out
Speaker 1: of your home.
Speaker 2: Yes, I'm permanently starry.
Speaker 3: Well, Dan, this is great.
Speaker 1: Now, I just want to ask you, do you have
Speaker 1: time to do anything else besides these podcasts.
Speaker 2: I have to honestly say, I've never been as busy
Speaker 2: as I am now, and it's one of those deals
Speaker 2: where you enjoy it, so it makes it a lot easier.
Speaker 2: But I never had a job, either when I was
Speaker 2: in news or radio or anything when I've worked as
Speaker 2: many hours as I work now. And there's so and
Speaker 2: you'll know, there's so much to this that the average
Speaker 2: person doesn't see because they consume the podcast that keeps
Speaker 2: you and keeps me and keeps all the other podcasters
Speaker 2: popping all the time behind the scenes. So I have
Speaker 2: no time.
Speaker 1: You have no time, But do you really you can
Speaker 1: tell you really enjoy doing it?
Speaker 2: Your question about radio a lot.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think I enjoy doing it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I know podcasters who are hoping to get
Speaker 2: a radio gig out of their podcast, and I always
Speaker 2: feel sorry.
Speaker 4: For them because they don't know what I mean.
Speaker 2: They're in the better men, They're in the better place now,
Speaker 2: and I think that if there is any enthusiasm, it's
Speaker 2: the fact that this is a really fun place to
Speaker 2: be in a creative sense right now. And by the way,
Speaker 2: i'd encourage any of your audience members has ever been thinking.
Speaker 4: About doing anything like this.
Speaker 2: It's tough, it's a lot of work, but there's a
Speaker 2: lot of really satisfying parts to it. And if I
Speaker 2: want to do it, I do it now before before
Speaker 2: the net neutrality shuts us all down for the lack
Speaker 2: of net.
Speaker 1: Neutrality, right right, Okay, Dan, Well, let's give out your
Speaker 1: your website.
Speaker 2: Just go to Dan Harlan dot com. You can get
Speaker 2: the current shows, the old shows, pretty much everything we
Speaker 2: do sort of headlines there, or you can always go
Speaker 2: to iTunes.
Speaker 1: iTunes and podcast Ali and this on and on and
Speaker 1: on and ghost well and listen.
Speaker 2: I'm glad to see here. You guys are going strong.
Speaker 2: I mean, I really root for the podcasters.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, thank you and it's been a real pleasure.
Speaker 2: Dan.
Speaker 1: This is Martin Willis with Dan Carlin and we're signing
Speaker 1: off