Behind the Scenes Minis: Piece of Work

Holly and Tracy talk about how frequently the U.S. Post Office has stopped criminals, and about E. Virgil Neal using his intellect for shady business dealings.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Frye and
I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We talked about e Virgil Neil
all week, Yes, we sure did. I am intrigued beyond

(00:26):
measure by e Virgil Neil and the way he lived
his life and all of his wild stuff. Yeah. I
have so many thoughts, I have so many notes, So
everybody come with me on journeys. First off, I have
a cat redemption story. Okay, on a previous behind the
scenes I talked about how my beautiful angel baby Jesse

(00:49):
seemed to hate one of my best friends. Correct we
figured out what happened, well, I think we figured out
what happened, okay, because Jesse and one of our other
cats had to go in last two weeks ago for
dental surgery. And when we went and picked them up,
the other cat who has very bad teeth, they are

(01:09):
litter mates, they were like, oh, my mom was like
she actually had much less in the way of problems
than we expected. But Jesse had one tooth that was
really infected, oh really deep into her jawline. And I
think what must have happened is that she just wasn't
feeling good and our dear friend probably gave her a

(01:29):
scritch along her jaw, and she just associated her with
that because after she healed from her oral surgery, that
friend came over and Jesse climbed her like a monkey,
like purring and like rubbing her face on her. So
I think so funny. She might not have hateful heart.
She may have just felt really cretty and have just
been touched in a way that did not feel good. Yeah,

(01:51):
my baby is my baby. It turns out she's a
good girl. She's still a little bit of that. But
I just wanted everyone to know she's not a monster. Okay,
here's a takeaway of e Virgil Neil And really it's
a takeaway that is also from the show I used
to do, Criminalia. Don't mess with the post Office. They
will come for you. They will come for you. We
did a whole season on Criminalia about fraudsters, and in

(02:15):
so many of those instances, the thing that finally took
somebody down was like an inspector or the somebody from
the post office, like the Postmaster General activating an inspector
and being like you have to go check this out.
And that was how things all I mean bias for action.
They will put together a case, they will get lawyers
involved alongside, like it, don't mess with the post office.

(02:38):
It's the rule, yeah, which I just kind of love.
Postal fraud will get you before anything else. Yeah, because
there's a whole lot of other fraud that you know
will happen. Nothing nothing, File your report with the FBI.
What will happen. Nothing, zero things will happen. Call your
local law enforcement about the fraud. Zero things happening. I

(03:01):
have personal experience with this, and yeah, nothing, nothing will
be done. Although I had a great check fraud story
that maybe we'll wait for another day. But there there
was It was a good one. It was a good one.
There was justice sort of never messed with the PO anyway.
One of the other things that came up in some

(03:21):
of the research on Evirgil Neil, again, I feel like
his life story should be called that's not substantiated, because
oh yeah, there's a lot can't be substantiated, and that
so much of his life was built in a way
that people could not substantiate things that it makes it
very hard. But one theory that had come up was

(03:42):
that in his earlier days, and like people were like, Okay,
why did he keep setting these businesses up in like Syracuse.
Was that he was helping his parents or his mother
solo his dad died at some point in there, and
that is reported differently in different places, but that he

(04:03):
may have been sticking close to her throughout all of it,
and so like some of these sort of cockamy meat
and in some ways nefarious businesses were kind of to
generate money that he could give to her. But I
don't that seems like a very kind read on his situation. Yeah,
but who knows, you know, even monsters will have pets.

(04:24):
I found myself thinking about Robert Boyle during this episode,
okay and his idea of healing at a distance. I yes,
And I'm like, did they read his list his wish
list of things that science might do one day? And go,
people want that we can tell we have it even
though we don't have it. Look into the eyes of
the photograph and a specific time, Yeah, when I think

(04:49):
it was character delineator. Yeah, and I was like, this
sounds like some kind of wo like this is like
character delineator sounds like a term for a psychic who
was going to observe you and say what your character is? Like?
That was sort of yeah, where my brain ticket? Oh yeah,

(05:11):
it's like a very specific form of cold reading. Yeah,
it's it's wild. Here's the thing. Don't come for me.
I have a weird sort of reserved don't come for me.
I'm not saying something bad, but it's gonna sound initially
a weird sort of reserved admiration for e. Virgil Neil
because he was clearly very smart and he you know,

(05:35):
I mean I read a lot of his banking and
accounting stuff and I'm like, this is a brilliant way
to teach this stuff, Like this makes so much sense.
It really like clarifies, demystifies, distills into like easily communicable
and actionable activities like how to do these things? And
I'm like, this is true of it. He had an
incredible skill as a writer and as a communicator, and

(05:59):
he obviously knew how to manage money. And I'm like,
you're so darned smart. If you had only had scruples, right,
what could you have done like that? It's like the
formula I wrote at one point in my notes was
banking plus writing, minus conscience, Like that's the formula that

(06:21):
makes e Virgil neil because I don't know how you
go to sleep at night doing the things he was doing.
But I do marvel at the way he was able
to like shift things around very carefully. He was really
the only person who understood the whole web. He you know,

(06:41):
like he was clearly making a lot of moves that
were astute through a certain lens, but again just lacking
morality or conscience, right right. So that's why I admire
how smart he clearly was and how able he was
to maneuver things to his own benefit. But I don't

(07:02):
admire like what was motivating that or the outcome, right right, Yeah,
don't come for me. I don't think he was a
good person. I just think he was smart. Yeah, fascinated, fascinated. Yeah,

(07:25):
have you ever fallen into I bet you haven't. This
seems like something you would not do. But maybe those
phases of life where you love watching infomercials. I don't
know if I would say that I loved watching them.
I love them, I find them fascinating. Yeah. There was
a period of my life where I worked at a
place that was going to try selling its products through

(07:48):
an infomercial. So I did learn a lot about infomercials
during that time, right, And I don't actually remember whether
that effort got off the ground or not, Like I
don't remember if that infomercial actually aired ever, But yeah,
I have always been very fascinated because the here's the thing.
There are even things that get sold and infomercials that

(08:11):
are actually perfectly fine products. But the way that, like
the sales tactic of it, we have the answer simplify
your life, baby, it's all going to get better. Just
just just call and place your order. That's how old
I am. You used to have to call order, you know,
go online, put in the thing. And I mean those

(08:31):
still exist in various forms now, just in like a
more rapid fire pace on like Instagram ads. Take that, right.
I'm fascinated by them, and sometimes I get influenced by them.
I'm not gonna lie, usually in very benign ways, like
I do need those shoes, but I just I find them.
It's it's wild because even as you are conscious of

(08:54):
the cause and effect of how that marketing works, there
will be moments where you're like, maybe I do need
and it's like you have to pull yourself back and
go no, no, remember these are all careful. It's like
the same way that people talk about the food industry,
studying things like mouthfeel and creveability to make. It's the
same thing, like there is psychological analysis around what will

(09:16):
get people to, you know, eventually buy into a product, right, right,
But even when you know that, it is very easy
to be drawn in and be like that will solve
that problem. Yeah. Well, And to be incredibly clear, the
company that I was working for was selling actual legitimate products,

(09:36):
like and actual legitimate products that had a very specific
legal regulatory like oversight involved with them. But the infomercial
idea was totally like trying to bring these products that
were made for business use into a home by saying,
this will solve all of your problems. You know, how

(09:58):
you have baked on gunk in your oven, this product
which was you know, formulated for commercial ovens, It's totally
going to solve all your problems. Don't take away my
flavoring gunk. I need the guck. And again I have
I don't remember if that like, did that ever actually
become a thing. I don't remember. I don't know. And

(10:19):
so I mean some of those things do are perfectly
legitimate products. Yeah, I'm fascinated by I'm fascinated by the idea.
I feel like, in an alternate life, I must have
worked in advertising because I am obsessed with commercials. Like
I have strong opinions about commercials. I will watch a
whole show that's garbage, but if it's on like network television,

(10:40):
I will turn to Brian and talk about the problems
with the ads, and I just I love I love
the concept of advertising as a field of study. I mean,
I don't, you know, love the concept of advertising, but
I love analyzing it. I think it's really fascinating. You know,
commercials are an interesting space in terms of like film

(11:03):
and television technology, because in some cases that's where things
get put, that's where the envelope gets pushed in terms
of what's possible first, because it's much easier to fund
a ninety second piece of film than it is an
actual show or movie. So from that point of view,
I'm always fascinated by commercials. Anyway, I'm fascinating with advertising
is the summation of that, which is probably part of

(11:24):
why E. Virgil Neil is so right, just wildly engrossing
for me. Yeah, well, in his like newspaper ads that
were basically advertorials. Yeah. I thought about that a lot
because of, you know, my own history of having worked
for a website and an editorial department in an era

(11:45):
that there was, you know, the transition was being made
from print media with you know, things that look like
articles but said at the top, sponsored copy or something
like that. Yeah, trying to ansfer that kind of mindset
to the web. Yeah, I working in an editorial department

(12:08):
that was highly opposed to doing anything like that. So
that's like, those are the things that I was thinking
about while well, while talking about that part of his
life story. Yeah, I mean, I it's such a weird thing.
And I know most people hate ads in general, they
hate advertising. I know we get complaints about advertising on

(12:31):
our show sometimes, but like, and I have a very
it's stuck with me so hard. An interaction I had
with a friend of mine, and it was in that
time when a lot of network television was transitioning to
having shows available online. Oh yeah, And this friend of

(12:51):
mine was so irate that there were ads in the
online version. And I was like, but there have to
be what are you talking about? And she was just
I write about it and I was like, she's like
it should be free, and I'm like, okay, how do
you think they pay the actors, writers, set, directors, et cetera. Like,

(13:11):
I know it's not fun always to watch an ad,
but like, if you want the show now, of course
the models are very different. But for network television particularly,
it's like, if you want the show, you got to
put up with that part unless you're subscribing to it
in a different way, like the rules. That's just how
it works. It's fascinating to me, and I think the

(13:33):
transition into online there was a gap for people in
like understanding or accepting that initially that like, oh, the
ads will follow us to they are also yeah, when
I think they were thinking, if I'm not watching it
on my television with my remote control, surely it's a
different thing. This must be cheaper to run. They don't
need the adds for this, and it's like no, they

(13:53):
they actually still do. It was in parallel with advertisers,
no not seeing value and advertising on the web yet,
so for some things there was just sort of this
happened with podcasting a lot, like there was sort of
a window when most podcasts didn't have ads on them
because advertisers weren't interested in advertising on podcasts, and listeners

(14:15):
got used to ad free podcasts, and those ad free podcasts,
vast majority of them would have stopped existing because people
would have run out of money. Yeah, had the advertisers
not eventually come yeah, it's weird, it's a weird dance. Yeah,
I get the dismay. Yeah, I'm not. I literally right

(14:37):
now my brain is taking through all of the copy
and recent television ads I've seen that I hate. Nobody
needs that. Nobody needs me to shout out their company
for not liking your ads. Do you want me to
tell you about the the memory that was jogged by
our email about kids dressing up as historical figures? Yes?

(14:58):
I mean, like, have you ever had like a memory
just kind and slap you in the face like that
that you haven't thought about in this like forty five years. Yeah.
In seventh grade, my best friend and I we had
to do reports on historical figures in science and my
best friend and I I don't know if we picked
it or we were assigned the Wright Brothers, Okay, and

(15:19):
we were like great. And she is still a friend
of mine. She's one of the smartest people I know.
She probably did more of the like bookwork part of it.
I don't know. We each picked one of the brothers
and kind of went with it. But on the day
of the presentation, I, I don't know if I just
didn't communicate this or not, but I showed up in
full historical costume. Oh no, and she did not. And

(15:40):
it was It was just the most awkward, weird thing
because it was like, I was That's what I wore
to school that day. It wasn't like I could change, right,
so there was no way to make it not look
like I had done more work than her in that regard. Yeah, no,
she did just as much work as me, if not
or on the like writing and prep part. And it

(16:02):
was just like, I woo the way that memory came
back so hard, Yeah, so hard, but also hilarious. That
wasn't a very historically accurate costume, but it was more
historically accurate than most kids would do at that stage
of life. Listen, if this is your weekend coming up,

(16:28):
I hope you only so if you want to. I
hope you only watch infomercials. If you want to. I
hope you remember that advertising is often designed to appeal
to that part of your brain that has wants and needs,
and you don't get sucked into buying something you don't want, or,
like me, you wake up in a fugue state, and
that's when the ordering happens. It's a problem like where

(16:50):
do these shoes come from? Oh? I did order those
at six forty five am last Friday. It happens. Listen,
it is what it is. But I hope that, like
you have a wonderful next couple of days. If you
have to work, if you have obligations, maybe you have
a family and you got to run people all over
for all of their extracurricular activities or whatever they've got
going on. I still hope you can steal away some

(17:13):
fun time for yourself. Maybe find a bathroom with a
disco ball in it. Maybe make a bathroom with a
disco ball in it. Just embrace joy wherever you find it.
Be kind to one another. We will be right back
here on Monday with new stuff. We will also be
back here tomorrow with a classic episode. Stuff You Missed

(17:34):
in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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