June 21, 2022 • 32 mins
Benjamin Franklin was many things: an inventor, a Founding Father, a publisher... and, it turns out, a massive troll. In today's episode, Ben, Noel and Max dive into a strange story of absolute pettiness and out-the-box PR stunts. You see, when Ben Franklin wanted to up the sales of his almanac, he decided to predict the death of his longtime publishing rival, Titan Leeds. One problem: when the prediction didn't come to pass, Titan, who was very much alive, responded in kind.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for one
of the founding fathers of Ridiculous History, our super producer,
Mr Max Williams. That makes no sense, it doesn't. No, No,
we're not spending too much time on a Max. They
called me Max. It's the show is called ridiculous, So
I think we're allowed to make wild claims with no
(00:50):
basis in reality. Well, I mean, Alex was part of
the founding so I mean, by bye, blood, have you
guys ever seen alexan On in in the same room you
know what? Now that you mentioned it? Yes, I have,
But but maybe you're just one very quick person. Uh no,
will you raise a great point here? Um, I do
want to say on the founding fathers thing, it's really
(01:12):
just a question of how long we keep our show going,
because if we do this for like fifty years, then
you know, anybody involved before thirty is like a founding member, right,
I mean, I think would be even more generous than that.
You know, we probably just include anyone who's ever been
involved as founding fathers and mothers and and and and
whatever else you want to you want to go by.
(01:33):
But you know what today's episodes about ben alleged serial
killer Benjamin Franklin. I was gonna I was gonna be
silly and say that it was all about the Benjamin's
hundred dollar bills, y'all. You know, cash money that rules
all the things in my purview, I mean, aka everything, Yeah, exactly,
(01:54):
cream um cream is it acronym? Is it not? It is?
Cash rules every thing around me. The song Oh my God,
what a fool I am? No, I'll tell you he
wasn't a fool though. Was was was old Benny Frank's.
He was kind of a dick, a bit of a womanizer,
(02:17):
bit of a lotario again, you know, a bit of
a grave robber at times, uh, bit of a thief
of intellectual property, but also creator of a lot of it.
Uh and and and talking about founding fathers, he was
sort of the founding father of our whole idea of
intellectual property in some ways, you could argue. And and
of all the things he did, printing was kind of
(02:38):
the thing that he believed in the most, it would
seem everything else kind of sprang from that he really
believed in the power of the printed word, especially when
it was his printed word. As we'll see, Benjamin Frankling,
a Titan in the days of the early United States,
actually went up against the real life Titan in a
very sneaky, underhanded way. And when we say life Titan,
(03:00):
we mean his almanac rival, a guy named Titan Leads,
which is a very cool name. So like, like we said,
Franklin really loved the printed word, and he wanted to
be known as a publisher, and he didn't have too
(03:21):
much compunction about out of the box pr stunts. Uh.
He used to you know, he did Poor Richard's Almanac.
We all know about that, and yet that was an
alias Ben Franklin used Poor Richard Saunders. And in his Almanac,
Poor Richard Saunders a k a. Benny f claimed that
(03:42):
astrological calculations would prove a guy named Titan Leads would
die in seventeen seventy three, and then a hilarious, uh,
hilarious argument occurred. I think maybe maybe we start though
with the story of titans father, who has a much
(04:05):
more garden variety name, Daniel Leeds. Daniel Leeds is the
guy who made the first almanac in the American colonies.
But you don't hear about him very much, do you. No,
not so much. You don't. You don't hear about really
either of them. And there's a good reason for that.
So by the sevent thirties, his two sons inherited his business,
and you know, sort of like the the what is it,
(04:27):
the Dostler brothers, you know, with Audi Das and Puma Um.
They started to compete with each other and eventually split
entirely into two different companies, which also we're competing. And
right around then there were other authors that had jumped
into the whole almanac field. Right, Yeah, absolutely, this was
(04:48):
a great business to be and not just because you
can make some money, but also because you became sort
of the voice of the people. You became the voice
on record, and so everybody wanted to make an almanac.
The market became saturated, sort of like how a few
centuries later podcasts would become kind of saturated. Just so
(05:08):
the people's that were were part of the people here
in in podcast then ben an almanac. I mean there
were initially like different kind of more niche almanacs. Right,
there would be like a farmer's almanac, you know, with
different like seasons and all of that stuff, things that
would pertain to a particular industry. Was was the idea
to be as inclusive as possible and have these be
kind of as like broadly applicable um as as as
(05:29):
as could be as to like kind of maximize profits. Yeah,
the the very first printed almanac comes around in the
mid fifteenth century. So Ben Franklin and daniel Leeds they're
they're taking this original idea and they're just putting their
own spin on it. We have to remember that reading
matter was comparatively scarce. People didn't have a lot of books,
(05:51):
not near as many as the average person might have today.
So you would have this almanac that had this calendar
that helped you in a grariy in economy, understand the
passage of the seasons, and had recommended advice about crops
and crop rotation. But then they would also have other
like tangents and trivia, entertaining information stories maybe useful tips
(06:14):
on various aspects of daily life, and they got really popular.
You know. We see this kind of popularity again in
the Sears Roebuck Catalog, which became like a reading material
for the everyday person in the US. Remember that one. Yeah,
it was essentially like an aspirational guide to the American dream. Yeah,
that's well put. I think at this time, as these
(06:38):
almanacs are proliferating throughout these seventeen thirties and and later decades,
the most popular almanac author in the colonies is Titan
leads that one son, and he was beefing, like you said,
with his other brother. Maybe there's nominative determinism. Maybe the
name Titan was just too tight form not to succeed absolutely.
(07:02):
I mean that's gotta go to your head a little bit,
you know, especially with terms like titans of industry being
bandied about. Willie Nilly. So, as we said before, back
to Franklin, like he he really did kind of achieve
a lot of success in multiple disciplines. He we know,
he was a postmaster. You know, he invented things like
the Franklin stove, which he like weirdly didn't patent because
(07:22):
he believed that ideas oftentimes should belong to the people. Um,
which we're gonna get into it that that applied that
kind of was a two way street. That you gotta
give him credit for that, because he definitely lifted some
things from others, but he also allowed his stuff to
be lifted, so it was sort of like, you know,
a fair play kind of situation. Uh. He achieved a
lot of success in fame as an author, as a scientist,
(07:45):
of course a statesman. He was, in fact, never president.
I always remember Andy Daly. I think he is in
an episode of the Office where he plays like a
Ben Franklin impersonator and he's like flirting with Pam and
he goes As it turns out, I actually was never
the president, because I think Michael Scott accused him of
having been the president, to which he retorts. But printer
(08:08):
was what he ultimately listed himself as, like in in
in how he wanted to be remembered when he died,
like in terms of like the record, like he he
was Benjamin Franklin Printer. And with that, the most successful venture, uh,
and the most probably memorable thing that he contributed to
the culture of America would be Poor Richard's Almanac, which
(08:31):
was a smashing success and is forever to this day,
you know, associated with Ben Franklin, even though he didn't
necessarily write everything in it, right, Yeah, And A lot
of what we're pulling here comes from the Pennsylvania Center
for the book an excellent article by Lisa Morgan titled
the Prominent and prodigiously popular Poor Richard. I love a
(08:53):
good I love yeah. So this this is interesting because
is his work as a printer was the inspiration for
the vast majority of his early work as a writer,
and he loved writing the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richards almanacs.
(09:13):
His most famous part of these early publications were the
proverbs of Poor Richard, which he just took from people.
He just said, you know who cares, I'll just take it.
It's for the folks. And he learned to be a writer.
This is kind of inspiring, I think for any budding
writers in the audience today. He learned to be a
(09:34):
writer by taking articles in a publication called The Spectator
and just copying and recopying those articles word by word,
thinking through it. And other writers have done this before,
like just rewriting uh don Quixote, for example, which is
a long thing to rewrite, literally just verbatia, right, Like
(09:56):
he was just duplicating these, So I guess I get
how that would maybe like improve his penmanship. How do
you think that's contributed to like coming up with original
ideas and why the writing is there something kind of
like visceral and almost like some kind of osmosis involved
with putting pen to paper and like writing and committing
an idea, you know, down to paper, and then at
(10:17):
the same time you're kind of like processing it in
your brain. Yeah, because different areas of your brain are
activated right by different modes of learning. So that's why
writing something down helps you remember it better than repeating
it to yourself. This probably gave him a really good
firsthand sense of how to structure different things he wanted
(10:38):
to write. He was living through the format, but you
know he he was going gangbusters, like you said, after
the Pennsylvania Gazette, Poor Richard was the most profitable enterprise
that Franklin had as a publisher. It's sold ten thousand
copies a year, which is huge. There are a lot
of books who can't do that in the modern day
(10:59):
and time. You know, like you said, the truth is
out now. In most of the material there was not
actually written by him. It was collected and published by him. Uh,
And let's get to part of this hoax. We'll call
this the hoax. We said he predicted a death. Uh,
(11:26):
poor Richard hits Philadelphia, big splash, even in a crowded market.
And Benjamin Franklin, who is smarter than the average bear, says,
this Titan Leads guy might be eating my lunch. His almanac,
which was called an American Almanac, is by far my
number one competitor. So I am going to take a
(11:47):
lesson from the author of Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift. And
in the preface to the seventeen seventy three edition of
Poor Richard's Almanac, Poor Richard Saunders reports on the death
of Titan Leads. Yeah. I mean it was really kind
of like a very clever publicity stunt. They probably started
(12:09):
out as being like maybe in good fun, but boy,
oh boy, did it snowball? And um, this is a
little more text and we usually read, but this is
an exert from Poor Richard's audition that that that that
put forth this speculation. Um, and I think we should
read the whole thing. Shall we round Robin and Ben
or just to take it half these? Uh, let's take
it half these, let's double dragon. Yeah, I love it.
(12:31):
Why don't you lead off my good man, Thank you, sir,
very well. Poor Richard says, indeed, this motive would have
had force enough to have made me publish in Ormanac
many years since, had it not been overpowered by my
regard for my good friend and fellow student, Mr. Titan Leads,
whose interest I was extremely unwilling to hurt. But this obstacle,
(12:55):
I am far from speaking of it with pleasure, is
soon to be removed. Since it trouble Death, who was
never known to respect merits, has already prepared the mortal dot.
The fatal Sister has already extended her destroying shears, and
that ingenious fan must soon be taken from us. Hot
(13:16):
prose of the fatal Sister has already extended her destroying shears. Oh,
I love to see how he says. Uh, he capitalizes death,
but then he also capitalizes merit and Jesus, yeah, it's fantastic.
I love it. It's so clever. Here we go, he
(13:38):
goes on, and then he dawns. By my calculation made
at his request on October seventeen, seventeen thirty three, three
twenty nine post Meridian, at the very instant of the
conjunction of the Sun and mercury. By his own calculation,
(13:59):
he will so far till the twenty six of the
same month. This small difference between us we have disputed
whenever we have met these nine years past. But at
length he is inclinable to agree with my judgment which
of us is most exact. A little time will now
(14:19):
determine beautiful, beautiful rendition, if I do say so, myself
and Max Hoping we have different flavors the same. We're
not the same poor Richard. But poor Richard was like
not a real thing anyway, So we're just kind of
channeling our particular spirits of poor Richard. Yeah, I think
I went a little more sinister, but you see, you
(14:39):
get the gist. Record scratch please, Max, There's one problem.
Titan Leads is very much alive, and he also reads
almanacs and newspapers. He sure does. Yeah, you know, as
as is probably a smart move for his profession, to
keep up to speed with all the competition and all that.
You know, it doesn't decay that he was necessarily like
(15:01):
immediately enraged, but he certainly was a little bit mystified. Again,
I what do you think, Ben, Like, are we meant
to read this and interpreted as satire, because it's like
there was a lot of satire in Poor Richards. Again,
the character is is not real. People knew that, right
or did they not know that? I think they knew that,
if there at least those that looked close enough. I
(15:22):
think a lot of people were probably split. Many folks
who were in the know surely knew that Poor Richard
was just another version of of Ben Franklin. But I
wouldn't be surprised if there were people in the colonies
who thought there really was a Poor Richard, you know.
But I'm certain they're not. Yea, So I guess what
(15:43):
I'm getting at those like a lot of those little missives,
those little what you call them proverbs or whatever, there's
some snark and tongue in she can all of that.
I think there were probably some people maybe saw this
and we're like, ha ha ha, that's a funny little
jab at that at your you know, competition. Maybe not,
though maybe it really wasn't meant to be. Taking at
face value, I have a hard time taking the temperature
of the time where we sit here in the present.
(16:03):
But what we do know is that Leeds was was
understandably irritated, let's just say, and he decided he wanted
to clear the air and make sure that everyone knew
that he was in fact, very much alive, so he
posted or posted yeah, like it's a blog. He responded
in his own publication, The American Almanac, with a c K.
(16:25):
By the way, the year seventeen thirty four. And I
don't want to read this one too, band it's pretty good. Yeah,
why don't you start this one? Awful? All right, kind reader,
Perhaps it's maybe expected that I should say something concerning
an almanac printed for the year seventeen thirty three, said
to be written by Paul Richard or Richard Saunders, who,
(16:46):
for want of other matters, was pleased to tell his
readers that he had calculated my nativity and from thence
predicts my death to be the seventeenth of October seventeen
thirty Okay, first, let me stop he real quick. This
isn't announcing his death. This is a Now, this is
like predicting his death like Nostradamin style. So anyone that
(17:07):
didn't think that poor Richard had somehow mastered necromancy or
whatever probably should have seen that this was what was
he basing it on like he's he's talking about all
these mystical things and like the fates and their scissors
and all of that. Like, I just don't think anybody
that was, you know, intelligent, would have would have thought
that this was true. But again a lot of people
(17:29):
that we were probably weren't super intelligent. So he goes
on to say October seventeen thirty three and twenty two
minutes past three o'clock in the afternoon, and that these
provinces may not expect to see any more of his
himselves performances. And this precise predictor, who predicts to admit its,
proposes to succeed me in writing of almanacs. But notwithstanding
(17:51):
his false prediction, I have, by the mercy of God,
lived to write a diary for the year seventeen thirty four,
and to publish the folly and ignorance of his presumptuous author. Nay,
he adds another gross falsehood. It he said, Almanac viz.
That by my own calculation, I shall survive until the
twenty six of the said month, which is October, which
(18:15):
is as untrue as the former, for I did not
pretend to that knowledge. Though he has usurped the knowledge
of the Almighty herein and manifested himself a fool and
a liar. And by the mercy of God, I have
lived to survive this conceited scribblers day and minute, whereon
he has predicted my death, And as I have supplied
(18:36):
my country with almanacs for three seven years by past
to general satisfaction, so perhaps I live to write when
his performances are dead. Thus much from your annual friend,
Titan Leagues, October eighteen, seventeen thirty three, three hours, thirty
three minutes pre I live for this beef, I swear
(19:00):
to go. Not only do I live for the beef,
I live for the format of this, this this era
of discourse. Kind reader, Oh dude, it's so good. I mean,
it's just like, just say the thing you could mean.
And I'm joking. I love the dancing around and all that,
but we've really lost this flowery prose, you know. I mean,
(19:20):
with Twitter, it's like you're literally limited in the number
of characters you can use. But this, all of this
giant paragraph to say I am in fact not day right,
you know, and all of the first ones to say
this guy is going to die on this date, but subtext,
I always think about this Benjamin Franklin, love him or
hate him, he would have been an absolute beast on
(19:41):
Twitter man totally densest tweets ever. Yeah right, because he
would have had to learn to pare down and use
economy of language. But he would have just made fire
like like moon Rock level tweets. In terms of like
the density of the meaning. I think you would have
just readed on threads. I don't know if he would
(20:02):
have done single tweets, but we know I speculate that
Ben Franklin, clearly this is a pr stunt. Clearly he
knows this is going to get back to Titan Leads.
He's just sort of tweaking his nose a bit and uh. Leads,
by the way, releases that response the next year, and
Franklin then responds by saying Leads is too well bred
(20:23):
to use any man so indecently and so scuriously. Franklin
doubles down, and he basically says, it's not Leads who
is writing this, because Titan Leads is a good dude,
and whoever's talking this trash is an impostor. Yeah. He
doubles down and continues to double down for several years.
He does the thing that any good cult leader worth
(20:44):
their salt who predicts like an apocalyptic event does, They
just kind of kicked the can down the road and
never actually admit that they've made a mistake. That's the key.
You never say you're sorry. If you never say you're sorry,
and never like you know, admit that you've you've you've goofed,
then to enough people you might as well have not
goofed to just have the confidence of the strident late,
(21:06):
wrong lie big. So this is uh. He says that
despite the fact that it's clearly a cover up and
his friend, his dea friend, Titan Leads, has passed away, Uh,
he's gonna He's gonna keep going because that's what Titan
Leads would have wanted for poor Richard's almanac. And when
he puts this out, it's like five pence a copy.
(21:29):
When he's talking this smack. People love it. It sells
out in less than a week, and like two days
it sells out. Franklin has to make three runs of
the almanac. He prints three iterations of it just to
keep up with sales. And then the kicker, the like
ultimate nail in the coffin, if you will, Leads does
(21:49):
eventually die for reals uh in seventeen thirty eight, at
which time Benjamin Franklin, as Saunders Princes a letter from
Leads got saying, actually I did die at precisely the
moment and hour that you mentioned, with a variation of
five minutes fifty three seconds. Wow, that's hot, sput. I mean,
(22:13):
that's not super classy, Ben, I have to say. And
I'm a fan of Bends. And you know, the American
Almanac continued and up through its seventeen forty six issue,
which you can read this online, the ghost of Titan
Leeds was hovering in the imprint of the issue. And
(22:35):
this is because seventeen forty six is supposed to be
the final year he had calculated the calendar before actually
passing away. So this is slick. This is slick, dangerous
satire and and got pretty dirty, especially when someone's actual
death was involved. But this was just one of Ben
Franklin's many hoaxes. He perpetrated several others, especially from an
(23:07):
early age. Right, you heard a silence do good? Yeah,
now not so much, tell us tell us about silence
do good? Okay, So there's this thing called the New
England Korate, and between April and October seventy two, it
starts receiving and printing a series of letters by someone
(23:27):
claiming to be a middle aged widow called Silence do Good,
which very much doesn't sound like a real name, And
she's basically writing this onion style send up of life
in colonial America, talking about drunk locals, religious hypocrites, how
society is terrible to women, how were who petticoats are?
(23:50):
All this stuff. This would have been stuff that locals
would recognize to like, almost like a gossip rag, you
know what I mean, like a gossip column, because this
would have been a small community. Also, I love this
part the pretensions of Harvard College, right, And these became
a smash the silent dude. It's hard to even say.
It's a real mouthful. Silence do Good letters became quite popular,
(24:14):
and apparently, uh, she was quite popular with the fellas
who were like, shinla, I mean, how do I get
a date with this broad? And they got catfish that
back then, they got catfish so hard. It turned out
that Silence do Good was actually Benjamin Franklin, a sixteen
(24:35):
year old teenage Benjamin Franklin, who was working as an
apprentice at his brother James's print shop in Boston. So
he goes to show that that Franklin came by satire
and a love of printing honestly, like from a very
early age, like working as an apprentice in his brother's shop, Like,
he saw the potential, the possibilities of of the written word,
(24:59):
and he obviously used it to great effect. Um and
was also a real jokester initially though apparently he did
not tell his brother. You know, he didn't give up
the ghost, not not an actual ghost this time, but
he didn't tell his brother that it was him, in fact,
because he was worried that his brother would be cross,
which in fact he was, because he believed that, um, well,
(25:20):
a couple of things. He probably believed that you know,
if it came out of that, you know, this was
this was like totally made up, that the people wouldn't
he would lose credibility, especially if it was something that
was printed as like this is real. But he he
also was concerned that all of these compliments, it's kind
of weird because a lot of them were sort of
like it's sexual in nature, right, they were like men saying,
(25:42):
how about hubba silence, do good? I want to marry that,
I want a wife that. Uh. He was worried that
it would make Ben young Ben Franklin vain, which, as
we know, he did grow up to be quite a
vain man. So maybe there was some some truth to
that or some sand to those concerns. Yeah, yeah, there
(26:02):
was possibly some sand to it. Uh. And this was
just one of the many hoaxes that he would he
would participate in. And you know, I love culture, Jammy,
I love doing like I put missing Boomerang photos up
and stuff like that. I just think it's a it's
a fun way to kind of get your rascal rascal, Ben,
(26:23):
your irascible rascal, didn't you. I gotta show you guys
this one. I had put them up around the area
of our old office right that we have to say
old office now, where it was just like missing boomerang.
Just stand here for a minute. I don't know if
anybody ever actually stood there. I'm sure not. Someone could
have gotten hurt Ben, either physically or at the very
(26:47):
least emotional emotions. What happens in that boomerang never comes around.
I know we all learned. How do you trust anyone
ever again? Right? Uh? So we know that. All right,
Poor Richard's almanac had other weird things that is especially
relevant to your earlier pointnel about how any classic would
be profit. We'll just sort of move the goalpost of
(27:10):
their predictions. Uh he Yeah, in seventeen thirty sevent he's
been making this almanac for five years now. He includes
what he calls enigmatical prophecies in the almanac, and uh,
they're pretty wild. They sure are. Let's see. Uh. He
predicted a great storm would flood all of the major
(27:32):
cities of North America, causing them to be completely underwater. Yeah.
He also said a great number of vessels fully latent,
will be taken out of the ports by a power
with which we are now at war. Also that an
army of thirty thousand musketeers will land and sorely annoy
the inhabitants lightly. Yeah, a year passes. None of this
(27:57):
appears to come true, at least the way that the
reader's interpret it. People are about to label Benjamin Franklin
a you know, a flam flam artist, but then he
pops back in and says, actually, all three of these
prophecies have come to pass. M hmmm. Yeah. Apparently rainstorms
(28:18):
had placed every city underwater, get it under Also that
the power of wind, as in the you know, the
blowy the blowy bits, had taken fully laiden vessels out
of ports, you know, through filling their sales and propelling
them in a forward movement. Uh yeah, And what about
(28:39):
the musketeers, he said, Well, more than thirty thou musketeers
or mosquitoes have definitely annoyed the inhabitants of the colonies grown.
But is he is he implying that musketeers and musquiteers
are like it was like a pronunciation joke. Maybe he
(28:59):
musket muskets. I think it might be muskets muskets. We
got well done, Ben, you got us so totally. There
isn't there isn't a second e at the end. Yeah,
that's how that's how he gets us. It's because he's
not spelling it right. By the way, speaking of of
(29:21):
of hilarious uh and and maybe often overlooked misspellings, I
went to a hair metal concerts yesterday for a work
related thing at the Brave Stadium. It was it was
Poison Motley Crue, Joan Jet and the Black Carts and
death Leopard. But can either of you, without looking online,
tell me how deaf Leopard is spelled uh d E
(29:43):
f l e P p r D r D. I
think there's just one P, but I I always would
ever I've written it, I've just spelled it d e
A f l e O p A r D. It
is two piece. It is too bees. You guys win
absolutely nothing but my undying adoration. But I don't know
(30:05):
the sound cues going on right now. Stay we want
a lot. Definitely, you definitely did. But my question is like,
what's being accomplished here, Like is this meant to be
like we're crazy, we spell words weird. Um, it's a
similar sensibility to what what you know. I mean, it's
all about the malleability of the of the English word,
(30:26):
and you can do fun things with spelling and interject
little puns and kind of create your own ways of
spelling things. But I digress. I think what Franklin did
was both genius and like he was kind of one
of the original trolls, you know, such a troll, such
a troll up. There was swift for sure. I think
we should do an episode on on Swift uh trolling
(30:47):
because he took it to a new level, Jonathan Swift.
So let us know what other historical trolls you would
like to hear about. Get the two, the Facebook's or
the twitters and find us on Ridiculous History. Find us
on Ridiculous Historians. We do love to hear from everyone
on there. Also, you can find us not just as
a show, but as individuals. Yeah, we're people, We exist
(31:11):
outside of this show. Yeah that's fair. What do you
always say, Ben, You're a thing that happens to people?
Kind of Yeah, I like it. I like it when
you happen to me, and I think that the Ridiculous
Historians would agree. They also like it. Like being caught
up in your wake. But you can find me if
you want to get caught up in my Internet wake,
exclusively on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown? How about yourself?
(31:33):
Ben Well, you can get a preview of all the
strange things I'm working on, both for Ridiculous History and
many other podcasts that I touch over on Instagram where
I'm at Ben Bowling bo w l I N or
over on Twitter where I'm at Ben Bowland h s
W and while you're on Twitter, be sure to swing
(31:53):
by and give a good ridiculous historian hello to our
own Mr Max Williams. Yeah, come check me out. I
will be on there, I don't know, maybe tagging Jonathan
Strickland and Ben's posts, because why not? Why not bring
more of him into our lives? Do what thou wilst?
But yeah, you can find me on Twitter at at
(32:13):
l underscore Max Williams, and that's where all that fun
and excitement will be Thanks as always, Max, Thanks to
our composer Alex Williams. Thinks, of course, to another founding
member of the show casey Pegram, who I was delighted
to see in person quite recently. Spoiler alert folks, he
may be returning for a guest spot pretty soon. Thanks
(32:37):
also to our very own favorite troll, Mr Jonathan Strickland
a k. The Quister. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
(00:27):
back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
so much for tuning in. Let's hear it for one
of the founding fathers of Ridiculous History, our super producer,
Mr Max Williams. That makes no sense, it doesn't. No, No,
we're not spending too much time on a Max. They
called me Max. It's the show is called ridiculous, So
I think we're allowed to make wild claims with no
(00:50):
basis in reality. Well, I mean, Alex was part of
the founding so I mean, by bye, blood, have you
guys ever seen alexan On in in the same room you
know what? Now that you mentioned it? Yes, I have,
But but maybe you're just one very quick person. Uh no,
will you raise a great point here? Um, I do
want to say on the founding fathers thing, it's really
(01:12):
just a question of how long we keep our show going,
because if we do this for like fifty years, then
you know, anybody involved before thirty is like a founding member, right,
I mean, I think would be even more generous than that.
You know, we probably just include anyone who's ever been
involved as founding fathers and mothers and and and and
whatever else you want to you want to go by.
(01:33):
But you know what today's episodes about ben alleged serial
killer Benjamin Franklin. I was gonna I was gonna be
silly and say that it was all about the Benjamin's
hundred dollar bills, y'all. You know, cash money that rules
all the things in my purview, I mean, aka everything, Yeah, exactly,
(01:54):
cream um cream is it acronym? Is it not? It is?
Cash rules every thing around me. The song Oh my God,
what a fool I am? No, I'll tell you he
wasn't a fool though. Was was was old Benny Frank's.
He was kind of a dick, a bit of a womanizer,
(02:17):
bit of a lotario again, you know, a bit of
a grave robber at times, uh, bit of a thief
of intellectual property, but also creator of a lot of it.
Uh and and and talking about founding fathers, he was
sort of the founding father of our whole idea of
intellectual property in some ways, you could argue. And and
of all the things he did, printing was kind of
(02:38):
the thing that he believed in the most, it would
seem everything else kind of sprang from that he really
believed in the power of the printed word, especially when
it was his printed word. As we'll see, Benjamin Frankling,
a Titan in the days of the early United States,
actually went up against the real life Titan in a
very sneaky, underhanded way. And when we say life Titan,
(03:00):
we mean his almanac rival, a guy named Titan Leads,
which is a very cool name. So like, like we said,
Franklin really loved the printed word, and he wanted to
be known as a publisher, and he didn't have too
(03:21):
much compunction about out of the box pr stunts. Uh.
He used to you know, he did Poor Richard's Almanac.
We all know about that, and yet that was an
alias Ben Franklin used Poor Richard Saunders. And in his Almanac,
Poor Richard Saunders a k a. Benny f claimed that
(03:42):
astrological calculations would prove a guy named Titan Leads would
die in seventeen seventy three, and then a hilarious, uh,
hilarious argument occurred. I think maybe maybe we start though
with the story of titans father, who has a much
(04:05):
more garden variety name, Daniel Leeds. Daniel Leeds is the
guy who made the first almanac in the American colonies.
But you don't hear about him very much, do you. No,
not so much. You don't. You don't hear about really
either of them. And there's a good reason for that.
So by the sevent thirties, his two sons inherited his business,
and you know, sort of like the the what is it,
(04:27):
the Dostler brothers, you know, with Audi Das and Puma Um.
They started to compete with each other and eventually split
entirely into two different companies, which also we're competing. And
right around then there were other authors that had jumped
into the whole almanac field. Right, Yeah, absolutely, this was
(04:48):
a great business to be and not just because you
can make some money, but also because you became sort
of the voice of the people. You became the voice
on record, and so everybody wanted to make an almanac.
The market became saturated, sort of like how a few
centuries later podcasts would become kind of saturated. Just so
(05:08):
the people's that were were part of the people here
in in podcast then ben an almanac. I mean there
were initially like different kind of more niche almanacs. Right,
there would be like a farmer's almanac, you know, with
different like seasons and all of that stuff, things that
would pertain to a particular industry. Was was the idea
to be as inclusive as possible and have these be
kind of as like broadly applicable um as as as
(05:29):
as could be as to like kind of maximize profits. Yeah,
the the very first printed almanac comes around in the
mid fifteenth century. So Ben Franklin and daniel Leeds they're
they're taking this original idea and they're just putting their
own spin on it. We have to remember that reading
matter was comparatively scarce. People didn't have a lot of books,
(05:51):
not near as many as the average person might have today.
So you would have this almanac that had this calendar
that helped you in a grariy in economy, understand the
passage of the seasons, and had recommended advice about crops
and crop rotation. But then they would also have other
like tangents and trivia, entertaining information stories maybe useful tips
(06:14):
on various aspects of daily life, and they got really popular.
You know. We see this kind of popularity again in
the Sears Roebuck Catalog, which became like a reading material
for the everyday person in the US. Remember that one. Yeah,
it was essentially like an aspirational guide to the American dream. Yeah,
that's well put. I think at this time, as these
(06:38):
almanacs are proliferating throughout these seventeen thirties and and later decades,
the most popular almanac author in the colonies is Titan
leads that one son, and he was beefing, like you said,
with his other brother. Maybe there's nominative determinism. Maybe the
name Titan was just too tight form not to succeed absolutely.
(07:02):
I mean that's gotta go to your head a little bit,
you know, especially with terms like titans of industry being
bandied about. Willie Nilly. So, as we said before, back
to Franklin, like he he really did kind of achieve
a lot of success in multiple disciplines. He we know,
he was a postmaster. You know, he invented things like
the Franklin stove, which he like weirdly didn't patent because
(07:22):
he believed that ideas oftentimes should belong to the people. Um,
which we're gonna get into it that that applied that
kind of was a two way street. That you gotta
give him credit for that, because he definitely lifted some
things from others, but he also allowed his stuff to
be lifted, so it was sort of like, you know,
a fair play kind of situation. Uh. He achieved a
lot of success in fame as an author, as a scientist,
(07:45):
of course a statesman. He was, in fact, never president.
I always remember Andy Daly. I think he is in
an episode of the Office where he plays like a
Ben Franklin impersonator and he's like flirting with Pam and
he goes As it turns out, I actually was never
the president, because I think Michael Scott accused him of
having been the president, to which he retorts. But printer
(08:08):
was what he ultimately listed himself as, like in in
in how he wanted to be remembered when he died,
like in terms of like the record, like he he
was Benjamin Franklin Printer. And with that, the most successful venture, uh,
and the most probably memorable thing that he contributed to
the culture of America would be Poor Richard's Almanac, which
(08:31):
was a smashing success and is forever to this day,
you know, associated with Ben Franklin, even though he didn't
necessarily write everything in it, right, Yeah, And A lot
of what we're pulling here comes from the Pennsylvania Center
for the book an excellent article by Lisa Morgan titled
the Prominent and prodigiously popular Poor Richard. I love a
(08:53):
good I love yeah. So this this is interesting because
is his work as a printer was the inspiration for
the vast majority of his early work as a writer,
and he loved writing the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richards almanacs.
(09:13):
His most famous part of these early publications were the
proverbs of Poor Richard, which he just took from people.
He just said, you know who cares, I'll just take it.
It's for the folks. And he learned to be a writer.
This is kind of inspiring, I think for any budding
writers in the audience today. He learned to be a
(09:34):
writer by taking articles in a publication called The Spectator
and just copying and recopying those articles word by word,
thinking through it. And other writers have done this before,
like just rewriting uh don Quixote, for example, which is
a long thing to rewrite, literally just verbatia, right, Like
(09:56):
he was just duplicating these, So I guess I get
how that would maybe like improve his penmanship. How do
you think that's contributed to like coming up with original
ideas and why the writing is there something kind of
like visceral and almost like some kind of osmosis involved
with putting pen to paper and like writing and committing
an idea, you know, down to paper, and then at
(10:17):
the same time you're kind of like processing it in
your brain. Yeah, because different areas of your brain are
activated right by different modes of learning. So that's why
writing something down helps you remember it better than repeating
it to yourself. This probably gave him a really good
firsthand sense of how to structure different things he wanted
(10:38):
to write. He was living through the format, but you
know he he was going gangbusters, like you said, after
the Pennsylvania Gazette, Poor Richard was the most profitable enterprise
that Franklin had as a publisher. It's sold ten thousand
copies a year, which is huge. There are a lot
of books who can't do that in the modern day
(10:59):
and time. You know, like you said, the truth is
out now. In most of the material there was not
actually written by him. It was collected and published by him. Uh,
And let's get to part of this hoax. We'll call
this the hoax. We said he predicted a death. Uh,
(11:26):
poor Richard hits Philadelphia, big splash, even in a crowded market.
And Benjamin Franklin, who is smarter than the average bear, says,
this Titan Leads guy might be eating my lunch. His almanac,
which was called an American Almanac, is by far my
number one competitor. So I am going to take a
(11:47):
lesson from the author of Gulliver's Travels, Jonathan Swift. And
in the preface to the seventeen seventy three edition of
Poor Richard's Almanac, Poor Richard Saunders reports on the death
of Titan Leads. Yeah. I mean it was really kind
of like a very clever publicity stunt. They probably started
(12:09):
out as being like maybe in good fun, but boy,
oh boy, did it snowball? And um, this is a
little more text and we usually read, but this is
an exert from Poor Richard's audition that that that that
put forth this speculation. Um, and I think we should
read the whole thing. Shall we round Robin and Ben
or just to take it half these? Uh, let's take
it half these, let's double dragon. Yeah, I love it.
(12:31):
Why don't you lead off my good man, Thank you, sir,
very well. Poor Richard says, indeed, this motive would have
had force enough to have made me publish in Ormanac
many years since, had it not been overpowered by my
regard for my good friend and fellow student, Mr. Titan Leads,
whose interest I was extremely unwilling to hurt. But this obstacle,
(12:55):
I am far from speaking of it with pleasure, is
soon to be removed. Since it trouble Death, who was
never known to respect merits, has already prepared the mortal dot.
The fatal Sister has already extended her destroying shears, and
that ingenious fan must soon be taken from us. Hot
(13:16):
prose of the fatal Sister has already extended her destroying shears. Oh,
I love to see how he says. Uh, he capitalizes death,
but then he also capitalizes merit and Jesus, yeah, it's fantastic.
I love it. It's so clever. Here we go, he
(13:38):
goes on, and then he dawns. By my calculation made
at his request on October seventeen, seventeen thirty three, three
twenty nine post Meridian, at the very instant of the
conjunction of the Sun and mercury. By his own calculation,
(13:59):
he will so far till the twenty six of the
same month. This small difference between us we have disputed
whenever we have met these nine years past. But at
length he is inclinable to agree with my judgment which
of us is most exact. A little time will now
(14:19):
determine beautiful, beautiful rendition, if I do say so, myself
and Max Hoping we have different flavors the same. We're
not the same poor Richard. But poor Richard was like
not a real thing anyway, So we're just kind of
channeling our particular spirits of poor Richard. Yeah, I think
I went a little more sinister, but you see, you
(14:39):
get the gist. Record scratch please, Max, There's one problem.
Titan Leads is very much alive, and he also reads
almanacs and newspapers. He sure does. Yeah, you know, as
as is probably a smart move for his profession, to
keep up to speed with all the competition and all that.
You know, it doesn't decay that he was necessarily like
(15:01):
immediately enraged, but he certainly was a little bit mystified. Again,
I what do you think, Ben, Like, are we meant
to read this and interpreted as satire, because it's like
there was a lot of satire in Poor Richards. Again,
the character is is not real. People knew that, right
or did they not know that? I think they knew that,
if there at least those that looked close enough. I
(15:22):
think a lot of people were probably split. Many folks
who were in the know surely knew that Poor Richard
was just another version of of Ben Franklin. But I
wouldn't be surprised if there were people in the colonies
who thought there really was a Poor Richard, you know.
But I'm certain they're not. Yea, So I guess what
(15:43):
I'm getting at those like a lot of those little missives,
those little what you call them proverbs or whatever, there's
some snark and tongue in she can all of that.
I think there were probably some people maybe saw this
and we're like, ha ha ha, that's a funny little
jab at that at your you know, competition. Maybe not,
though maybe it really wasn't meant to be. Taking at
face value, I have a hard time taking the temperature
of the time where we sit here in the present.
(16:03):
But what we do know is that Leeds was was
understandably irritated, let's just say, and he decided he wanted
to clear the air and make sure that everyone knew
that he was in fact, very much alive, so he
posted or posted yeah, like it's a blog. He responded
in his own publication, The American Almanac, with a c K.
(16:25):
By the way, the year seventeen thirty four. And I
don't want to read this one too, band it's pretty good. Yeah,
why don't you start this one? Awful? All right, kind reader,
Perhaps it's maybe expected that I should say something concerning
an almanac printed for the year seventeen thirty three, said
to be written by Paul Richard or Richard Saunders, who,
(16:46):
for want of other matters, was pleased to tell his
readers that he had calculated my nativity and from thence
predicts my death to be the seventeenth of October seventeen
thirty Okay, first, let me stop he real quick. This
isn't announcing his death. This is a Now, this is
like predicting his death like Nostradamin style. So anyone that
(17:07):
didn't think that poor Richard had somehow mastered necromancy or
whatever probably should have seen that this was what was
he basing it on like he's he's talking about all
these mystical things and like the fates and their scissors
and all of that. Like, I just don't think anybody
that was, you know, intelligent, would have would have thought
that this was true. But again a lot of people
(17:29):
that we were probably weren't super intelligent. So he goes
on to say October seventeen thirty three and twenty two
minutes past three o'clock in the afternoon, and that these
provinces may not expect to see any more of his
himselves performances. And this precise predictor, who predicts to admit its,
proposes to succeed me in writing of almanacs. But notwithstanding
(17:51):
his false prediction, I have, by the mercy of God,
lived to write a diary for the year seventeen thirty four,
and to publish the folly and ignorance of his presumptuous author. Nay,
he adds another gross falsehood. It he said, Almanac viz.
That by my own calculation, I shall survive until the
twenty six of the said month, which is October, which
(18:15):
is as untrue as the former, for I did not
pretend to that knowledge. Though he has usurped the knowledge
of the Almighty herein and manifested himself a fool and
a liar. And by the mercy of God, I have
lived to survive this conceited scribblers day and minute, whereon
he has predicted my death, And as I have supplied
(18:36):
my country with almanacs for three seven years by past
to general satisfaction, so perhaps I live to write when
his performances are dead. Thus much from your annual friend,
Titan Leagues, October eighteen, seventeen thirty three, three hours, thirty
three minutes pre I live for this beef, I swear
(19:00):
to go. Not only do I live for the beef,
I live for the format of this, this this era
of discourse. Kind reader, Oh dude, it's so good. I mean,
it's just like, just say the thing you could mean.
And I'm joking. I love the dancing around and all that,
but we've really lost this flowery prose, you know. I mean,
(19:20):
with Twitter, it's like you're literally limited in the number
of characters you can use. But this, all of this
giant paragraph to say I am in fact not day right,
you know, and all of the first ones to say
this guy is going to die on this date, but subtext,
I always think about this Benjamin Franklin, love him or
hate him, he would have been an absolute beast on
(19:41):
Twitter man totally densest tweets ever. Yeah right, because he
would have had to learn to pare down and use
economy of language. But he would have just made fire
like like moon Rock level tweets. In terms of like
the density of the meaning. I think you would have
just readed on threads. I don't know if he would
(20:02):
have done single tweets, but we know I speculate that
Ben Franklin, clearly this is a pr stunt. Clearly he
knows this is going to get back to Titan Leads.
He's just sort of tweaking his nose a bit and uh. Leads,
by the way, releases that response the next year, and
Franklin then responds by saying Leads is too well bred
(20:23):
to use any man so indecently and so scuriously. Franklin
doubles down, and he basically says, it's not Leads who
is writing this, because Titan Leads is a good dude,
and whoever's talking this trash is an impostor. Yeah. He
doubles down and continues to double down for several years.
He does the thing that any good cult leader worth
(20:44):
their salt who predicts like an apocalyptic event does, They
just kind of kicked the can down the road and
never actually admit that they've made a mistake. That's the key.
You never say you're sorry. If you never say you're sorry,
and never like you know, admit that you've you've you've goofed,
then to enough people you might as well have not
goofed to just have the confidence of the strident late,
(21:06):
wrong lie big. So this is uh. He says that
despite the fact that it's clearly a cover up and
his friend, his dea friend, Titan Leads, has passed away, Uh,
he's gonna He's gonna keep going because that's what Titan
Leads would have wanted for poor Richard's almanac. And when
he puts this out, it's like five pence a copy.
(21:29):
When he's talking this smack. People love it. It sells
out in less than a week, and like two days
it sells out. Franklin has to make three runs of
the almanac. He prints three iterations of it just to
keep up with sales. And then the kicker, the like
ultimate nail in the coffin, if you will, Leads does
(21:49):
eventually die for reals uh in seventeen thirty eight, at
which time Benjamin Franklin, as Saunders Princes a letter from
Leads got saying, actually I did die at precisely the
moment and hour that you mentioned, with a variation of
five minutes fifty three seconds. Wow, that's hot, sput. I mean,
(22:13):
that's not super classy, Ben, I have to say. And
I'm a fan of Bends. And you know, the American
Almanac continued and up through its seventeen forty six issue,
which you can read this online, the ghost of Titan
Leeds was hovering in the imprint of the issue. And
(22:35):
this is because seventeen forty six is supposed to be
the final year he had calculated the calendar before actually
passing away. So this is slick. This is slick, dangerous
satire and and got pretty dirty, especially when someone's actual
death was involved. But this was just one of Ben
Franklin's many hoaxes. He perpetrated several others, especially from an
(23:07):
early age. Right, you heard a silence do good? Yeah,
now not so much, tell us tell us about silence
do good? Okay, So there's this thing called the New
England Korate, and between April and October seventy two, it
starts receiving and printing a series of letters by someone
(23:27):
claiming to be a middle aged widow called Silence do Good,
which very much doesn't sound like a real name, And
she's basically writing this onion style send up of life
in colonial America, talking about drunk locals, religious hypocrites, how
society is terrible to women, how were who petticoats are?
(23:50):
All this stuff. This would have been stuff that locals
would recognize to like, almost like a gossip rag, you
know what I mean, like a gossip column, because this
would have been a small community. Also, I love this
part the pretensions of Harvard College, right, And these became
a smash the silent dude. It's hard to even say.
It's a real mouthful. Silence do Good letters became quite popular,
(24:14):
and apparently, uh, she was quite popular with the fellas
who were like, shinla, I mean, how do I get
a date with this broad? And they got catfish that
back then, they got catfish so hard. It turned out
that Silence do Good was actually Benjamin Franklin, a sixteen
(24:35):
year old teenage Benjamin Franklin, who was working as an
apprentice at his brother James's print shop in Boston. So
he goes to show that that Franklin came by satire
and a love of printing honestly, like from a very
early age, like working as an apprentice in his brother's shop, Like,
he saw the potential, the possibilities of of the written word,
(24:59):
and he obviously used it to great effect. Um and
was also a real jokester initially though apparently he did
not tell his brother. You know, he didn't give up
the ghost, not not an actual ghost this time, but
he didn't tell his brother that it was him, in fact,
because he was worried that his brother would be cross,
which in fact he was, because he believed that, um, well,
(25:20):
a couple of things. He probably believed that you know,
if it came out of that, you know, this was
this was like totally made up, that the people wouldn't
he would lose credibility, especially if it was something that
was printed as like this is real. But he he
also was concerned that all of these compliments, it's kind
of weird because a lot of them were sort of
like it's sexual in nature, right, they were like men saying,
(25:42):
how about hubba silence, do good? I want to marry that,
I want a wife that. Uh. He was worried that
it would make Ben young Ben Franklin vain, which, as
we know, he did grow up to be quite a
vain man. So maybe there was some some truth to
that or some sand to those concerns. Yeah, yeah, there
(26:02):
was possibly some sand to it. Uh. And this was
just one of the many hoaxes that he would he
would participate in. And you know, I love culture, Jammy,
I love doing like I put missing Boomerang photos up
and stuff like that. I just think it's a it's
a fun way to kind of get your rascal rascal, Ben,
(26:23):
your irascible rascal, didn't you. I gotta show you guys
this one. I had put them up around the area
of our old office right that we have to say
old office now, where it was just like missing boomerang.
Just stand here for a minute. I don't know if
anybody ever actually stood there. I'm sure not. Someone could
have gotten hurt Ben, either physically or at the very
(26:47):
least emotional emotions. What happens in that boomerang never comes around.
I know we all learned. How do you trust anyone
ever again? Right? Uh? So we know that. All right,
Poor Richard's almanac had other weird things that is especially
relevant to your earlier pointnel about how any classic would
be profit. We'll just sort of move the goalpost of
(27:10):
their predictions. Uh he Yeah, in seventeen thirty sevent he's
been making this almanac for five years now. He includes
what he calls enigmatical prophecies in the almanac, and uh,
they're pretty wild. They sure are. Let's see. Uh. He
predicted a great storm would flood all of the major
(27:32):
cities of North America, causing them to be completely underwater. Yeah.
He also said a great number of vessels fully latent,
will be taken out of the ports by a power
with which we are now at war. Also that an
army of thirty thousand musketeers will land and sorely annoy
the inhabitants lightly. Yeah, a year passes. None of this
(27:57):
appears to come true, at least the way that the
reader's interpret it. People are about to label Benjamin Franklin
a you know, a flam flam artist, but then he
pops back in and says, actually, all three of these
prophecies have come to pass. M hmmm. Yeah. Apparently rainstorms
(28:18):
had placed every city underwater, get it under Also that
the power of wind, as in the you know, the
blowy the blowy bits, had taken fully laiden vessels out
of ports, you know, through filling their sales and propelling
them in a forward movement. Uh yeah, And what about
(28:39):
the musketeers, he said, Well, more than thirty thou musketeers
or mosquitoes have definitely annoyed the inhabitants of the colonies grown.
But is he is he implying that musketeers and musquiteers
are like it was like a pronunciation joke. Maybe he
(28:59):
musket muskets. I think it might be muskets muskets. We
got well done, Ben, you got us so totally. There
isn't there isn't a second e at the end. Yeah,
that's how that's how he gets us. It's because he's
not spelling it right. By the way, speaking of of
(29:21):
of hilarious uh and and maybe often overlooked misspellings, I
went to a hair metal concerts yesterday for a work
related thing at the Brave Stadium. It was it was
Poison Motley Crue, Joan Jet and the Black Carts and
death Leopard. But can either of you, without looking online,
tell me how deaf Leopard is spelled uh d E
(29:43):
f l e P p r D r D. I
think there's just one P, but I I always would
ever I've written it, I've just spelled it d e
A f l e O p A r D. It
is two piece. It is too bees. You guys win
absolutely nothing but my undying adoration. But I don't know
(30:05):
the sound cues going on right now. Stay we want
a lot. Definitely, you definitely did. But my question is like,
what's being accomplished here, Like is this meant to be
like we're crazy, we spell words weird. Um, it's a
similar sensibility to what what you know. I mean, it's
all about the malleability of the of the English word,
(30:26):
and you can do fun things with spelling and interject
little puns and kind of create your own ways of
spelling things. But I digress. I think what Franklin did
was both genius and like he was kind of one
of the original trolls, you know, such a troll, such
a troll up. There was swift for sure. I think
we should do an episode on on Swift uh trolling
(30:47):
because he took it to a new level, Jonathan Swift.
So let us know what other historical trolls you would
like to hear about. Get the two, the Facebook's or
the twitters and find us on Ridiculous History. Find us
on Ridiculous Historians. We do love to hear from everyone
on there. Also, you can find us not just as
a show, but as individuals. Yeah, we're people, We exist
(31:11):
outside of this show. Yeah that's fair. What do you
always say, Ben, You're a thing that happens to people?
Kind of Yeah, I like it. I like it when
you happen to me, and I think that the Ridiculous
Historians would agree. They also like it. Like being caught
up in your wake. But you can find me if
you want to get caught up in my Internet wake,
exclusively on Instagram at how Now Noel Brown? How about yourself?
(31:33):
Ben Well, you can get a preview of all the
strange things I'm working on, both for Ridiculous History and
many other podcasts that I touch over on Instagram where
I'm at Ben Bowling bo w l I N or
over on Twitter where I'm at Ben Bowland h s
W and while you're on Twitter, be sure to swing
(31:53):
by and give a good ridiculous historian hello to our
own Mr Max Williams. Yeah, come check me out. I
will be on there, I don't know, maybe tagging Jonathan
Strickland and Ben's posts, because why not? Why not bring
more of him into our lives? Do what thou wilst?
But yeah, you can find me on Twitter at at
(32:13):
l underscore Max Williams, and that's where all that fun
and excitement will be Thanks as always, Max, Thanks to
our composer Alex Williams. Thinks, of course, to another founding
member of the show casey Pegram, who I was delighted
to see in person quite recently. Spoiler alert folks, he
may be returning for a guest spot pretty soon. Thanks
(32:37):
also to our very own favorite troll, Mr Jonathan Strickland
a k. The Quister. We'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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