July 17, 2019 • 33 mins
Holly Frey is the host of one of the world's most popular podcasts "Stuff You Missed In History Class" She and Matty talk about how she got into podcasting, common questions she gets, and what goes into making a great podcast. Plus they put on their geek hats and talk Star Wars and her other podcast "Full of Sith" Holly also answers Matty's "Three Killer Questions" and tells you what people from history she would like to hear do a podcast.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, Welcome to Access Podcast, the podcast about podcast. I'm
(00:22):
Mattie Stout and I was lucky enough to get to
do a live show in Boston with one of my
favorite podcasters, Holly Fry, from one of the most popular
podcasts in the world, Stuff You Missed in History Class Now.
We recorded this at the Revere Hotel in Boston and
had an amazing time in front of a live audience.
Holly is not only the host of that show, but
(00:43):
she writes an acts as executive producer on several podcasts
for How Stuff Works. During this conversation, we talked about history, podcasting,
Star Wars, and a whole lot more, and don't forget
After the conversation, producer Morgan will be in and we
will be telling you about three podcasts that you should binge.
But right now, let's check out a clip from Stuff
You Missed in History Class. The early Bourbon rule in
(01:05):
Spain is one that I find fascinating because it's often
boiled down to a little bit of a degree of
sensationalism owing to the sexual appetites of some of the
Bourbons and how much people like to write about that.
But of course there's a whole lot more to the
whole thing than that, and it isn't a very important
family line. Holly, thanks for coming on Access podcast live
from Boston. Did you just say wicked? Pista? Nice? Nice?
(01:37):
I love Boston. So for folks listening at home, Holly
and I are in Boston and we are part of
a panel discussion today about podcasting. Yeah, which we both do,
We both do. I want to start with that. You know,
we get a lot of questions about podcasting, and you know,
it's for us, we've been doing it for a while,
(01:57):
it's still a new medium for a lot of folks.
What are some of the most common things that you
get asked consistently about being a podcaster and podcasting. I
get asked all the time. If we write our own show,
I get asked if my assistance could maybe talk to somebody,
And then I laugh and laugh and laugh. I always
crack up when I'm listening to other podcasts and at
(02:18):
the end they run through their credits and they're like,
and this person touched the microphones and this person and
it's like, it's me and Tracy and one person who
records us, and that's all that's ever been. We get
asked a lot about just start of the technical aspects,
you know, what they need to set up. Our previous producer, Noel,
actually put together like a really quick word document that
we could hand out to people that has kind of
(02:39):
a basic information and and Mike's you can use, etcetera
that I sometimes hand out. It's a little outdated now,
otherwise I would offer it to everyone again, it needs
a little update. Those are probably the big ones. So
you just came back from Ireland. I did, and we
were at dinner last night and You're telling me about
your trip, and I'm just sitting there thinking when you
started in this business, did you ever imagine that you
(03:01):
would get to do the kind of things that you
get to do now because of being a podcaster. No
I feel like the most spoiled child in the universe
almost every day. My trip to Ireland was kind of
a two parter um. There is a travel show that
we're working on developing, and so we were there for
that for part of it, and for the other it
was for my hobby podcast Full of sixth which is
(03:21):
a Star Wars podcast, and Tourism Ireland asked if we
wanted to come over and tour filming sites that have
been used in the recent Star Wars films. So yeah,
I mean, just again, I feel like the luckiest, most
ridiculously undeserving. No one could deserve all the fun that
we get to have. So talk about how you got
started in podcasting, because I think we're getting to a
(03:42):
point where there actually will be young people who are
like my dream is to be in podcasting. But for
those of us who were not under the age of
twenty five, it wasn't. It wasn't an option when we
got out of college. How did it end up in it?
It was not a job that I ever knew I
would have. My background is in my degrees in theater
and film study, so there's a performative element to my
(04:03):
background anyway. But I also have a writing degree, and
so I had gotten hired at How Stuff Works to
copy edit. I was the tech editor, so when when
new Apple products came out, we would have a writer
write an article and I would then edit it and
then get it published. And I did that for a
long time. I had actually only been at the company
I think about eight months when Tracy, who is my
(04:23):
co host on Stuff You Missed in History class, and
I were at a party at work a work event
being kind of snarky because that's something we're excellent at.
And our boss overheard us, and the next morning he
called us in his office and said, I think maybe
you guys should have a podcast, And we started off
of the podcast about pop culture called pop Stuff, which
had a very dedicated following, but it wasn't like a
(04:45):
particularly huge numbers thing. It went on for a while,
and then around the same time, the people who had
been hosting Stuff you missed in history class because it
existed before we were part of it, one had gone
on maternity leave and I had subbed in for her
during that time, and then after she came back, she
got the opportunity to take another really great job that
was going to be a great step for her, and
(05:07):
so she took it. And at the same time, her
co host was kind of like, you know, this podcast
is She literally was like, this is a bear. It's exhausting.
Our show is a little more labor intensive than some
others because there's so much research involved. We do about
twenty four hours of solid research and writing before we
ever get in front of a mic. And when that's
your side job in addition to your regular workload. That's
a lot, and so it can wear you out in
(05:28):
a hurry, and so they were ready to step away,
and we ended up taking over stuff you missed in
history class for that reason, and then we sunsetted pop
stuff and it's dominated my life ever since. You're just
talking about the process for your show, and I think
that I want to talk more about that because when
we're doing it right, When a podcast is done right,
it does sound effortless and it sounds like just two
(05:49):
people talking and it sounds like, wow, they are just
off the cuff. No so much. No, I know that's
not true, but how you know, go through that proce
sess of you know, when you have an idea for
something for the show and then to the point where
somebody hears it. Yeah, so for us, because it is
a history podcast, and I mentioned earlier during our panel discussion,
(06:10):
I have a list of like seven d possible topics
I can turn to you. But really it's just a
matter of finding something that sparks your interest that you
know you're going to be willing to spend a week
with because it is a pretty intensive week of research
and looking around and kind of beating the bushes to
find information that maybe hasn't been brought to light before.
And then once we find that topic, I have a
(06:31):
little bit more I think, chaotic approach to it than Tracy.
She's super organized, and I kind of like to take
in as much information as quickly as I can. So
what I do is I find one really good article
on it, usually like somewhere like Smithsonian or some article
in a specific journal on j Store, and I just
read it and get a sense of the topic. And
then I write out bullets of like things that I
(06:52):
think cannot be left out, and then I just start
like an insane search. I go to the library. I know, um,
I actually worked in library science for a decade, so
I still really libraries are near and dear to my heart.
I will go to the library. I will do online searches.
I often have, like no joke, a hundred plus tabs
open in my browser just to make our I t
(07:13):
guy go insane. And then as i'm as I'm kind
of peeling away those layers of research, I'll be closing
my tabs out. And that's kind of how I gauge
where I'm at in the process of preparation. I'm like, oh, look,
I'm down to thirty tabs. I'm almost done. I could
take a break and watch some garbage television, and then
once we get that all written out, Tracy and I
hand those off to each other. We each take the
lead on one of the episodes per week, because it
(07:34):
is essentially to research papers a week that we're writing,
and then we look over those and then we run
in the studio and talk talk talk. Speaking of talking,
you're somebody from the first time I met I've always
enjoyed talking to and I think it's a lot of
our white trash heritage that we have in common. But
in general, with people in podcasting, they have to be
engaging storytellers. Ideally, Yeah, so I'm just you know, I
(07:58):
want to speak to that. As far as what you
think takes um goes into someone being a good storyteller
and engaging for a listener to to have that experience
where they feel like they're their friend. This may sound weird,
but part of it for me is trusting your own gut.
Like when I'm looking at a topic, whether it is
for my history podcast or like one of my side
(08:20):
hobby ones, the thing that one little detail that gets
me excited or makes me go, oh, I didn't know that.
That's like the thing that you need to find the
space for in your narrative. And if you can find
several of those on any one topic, you end up
it comes together like a puzzle really beautifully. Usually like
you'll see how the picture kind of starts to form
(08:40):
and congeal and become clearer and sharper as you go. Uh.
And so I think it as long as you're looking
for in your prep those moments that get you excited,
that's what your audience is also going to get excited about.
I'm a firm believer that podcasting makes people smarter. When
I look at my college students, sometimes I scratch my
head and wonder what's going to happen to the world
(09:01):
until I find out how engaged they are with podcasts
and that they're listening and they're being educated. And I
do feel that it. Podcasting is a good force in
the universe. Do you get a lot of feedback from
listeners that they've learned, you know, things from you that
have really benefit them in their lives. My one of
my favorite things that we hear from listeners a lot
is that they heard something on our show that made
(09:23):
them want to travel somewhere and they'll send us a
postcard from that place and be like, remember when you
talked about this person that did this thing here, I'm here,
I'm standing where they lived. Um, And it makes one.
I love it because it makes history alive and it
reminds us all that history is the product of people.
It's it's people living in experiencing life and doing things.
And it's not always people that were in seats of government,
(09:45):
and it's not always people that were famous, but there
were people, just as every one of us in this
room is making history today in a certain way. Every
day you walk down the street, you're making some history.
And so for people to be able to connect those
dots and be like, I'm standing on this place where
you know this woman did this thing that I never
knew about until I heard it from you, and now
(10:05):
they wanted to make their own little pilgrimage because it
spoke to them. That's like, to me, incredibly moving. So
the flip side of that, I'm sure you have some
very uptight, finicky listeners as well. Oh yeah, what are
what are some of the fun complaints that you guys
get about the show, and how often are you called
out for something that maybe you missed or I doubt
(10:28):
you ever have, but oh, sure we missed stuff. Pronunciation
is I was the thing that people like to write
us about, either because there's a local way to pronounce
a word that we didn't know, or we don't speak
every language on earth, and so sometimes like there are
are subtle shifts in the way words are spoken in
other cultures that because we didn't grow up speaking then
(10:49):
we just can't even replicate those noises. But I mean,
I always warn people when they want to get into podcasting,
be ready, especially if you're a woman. You will get
the weirdest complaints. We have a person who pretty consistently
writes to us about the way we say the word
the I'm not kidding, um, that person has some time,
I'm presuming, and it's one of those things where I
(11:09):
could get upset about it, or I could just be like,
I can't help you, like at the end of the day,
like I speak how I speak, and and that's what
it is. There are people that love my laugh on
our show, and there are people that hate my laugh
on our show, and it's my honest laugh. And I
can't change it because then it becomes a very disingenuous
thing that I'm doing, and that, as we said, is
poison in a podcast to be disingenuous. They're definitely people
(11:32):
who wish we would talk less about women. It's one
of those things whenever I'm explaining our show to someone
and they go, what is that? And I'm like, hey,
did you know that there were women in history? Always
because you might not know if you picked up a
history book. There were always people of color, There are
always people all over the gender spectrum. There were always
people who were upstarts, and those aren't always the people
(11:54):
that get light shown on them. Um. And so that's
kind of what we try to do. And there are
people that do not like that all the time, and
that's fine, fine, fine, but maybe we're not the show
for them. Yeah, I think I'm now I'm listening to
hear you say the word I know, right, I think
in that In that case, it was one of those
instances where I had said, for emphasis something like this
(12:17):
is the most important thing, and she was like, that's
the incorrect use of the and I'm like, okay, suck
it all right, That's what I say to those listens.
I mean, they're certainly entitled to their opinion. It's one
of those things you can either get really upset about
it or just if it's a legitimate error that we made,
we always want to correct it. Will usually include that
in a listener mail, like if we got something factually incorrect,
(12:38):
which just come up not too often I'm thankful for,
but once in a while it's just going to happen.
But if it's something like that, again, I can't help
that person. The fun stuff history, Yeah, you get to
talk about so many great times, period themes in history.
Do you have a favorite and do you have a
heart of that you kind of wish you didn't have
to talk about so much? Um yes to all of
(13:01):
the above. I have a weird weakness for Queen Victoria.
Uh super complicated rain that a whole imperialism problem is real,
But as a person she was super fascinating and if
you read her letters to her eldest daughter Vicky, it
peels back all of what you may think we think
of her as that very like we are not amused
um stoic, But she was wildly funny and had hilarious
(13:25):
things to say about you know, the fact that even
though she was the queen of a vast, vast range
of places, by that point, like when she talks about
pregnancy and rearing children, all of that falls away, and
she's very blunt and honest with her kids about what
they can expect from motherhood and how it is not
always a lovely experience, and how she thought babies were
(13:46):
hideously ugly, but she she just couldn't keep her hands
off albert Say, she kept getting pregnant. Like those are
all very, very funny, I'm not kidding, Like there's some
she was deeply into albert Um, which is really great,
and it's a part of her don't always hear about.
And so I love that um. I also love eighteenth
century France a lot. I just it's largely a visual
(14:06):
thing I like talking about also just things that have
impacted me in my life. We did a two parter
on Chaz Adams, who is one of my favorite cartoonists.
The Adams Family is his work, uh, and he was
a fascinating man and just live this sort of fantastic,
slightly wild life of like the the aeradite New Yorker
in the forties and fifties, and I mean had an
affair with Jackie Onassis and like this incredible life that
(14:29):
people again don't always associate with a man who made
these incredibly spooky characters that we all came to love.
I'm gonna tell you guys a secret. I don't really
care for medieval history. I know a lot of people
love it, and it's not I recognize it as important
and I will never not do an episode on it
because of that, but it's just not my jam. Is
(14:50):
not my jams, not my jam. I'm not as enthused
about the clothing of that era. I'm like, oh, a
little money in plane. Can we go back Rococo France?
Because that was a fancy Yeah, so I do much
plague right, Although we have done a number of episodes
on anchor rights and anchoresses of the medieval period and
(15:11):
they're fascinating. So those were people that decided that they
would live in This is a very simplified version. There's
a lot more variation and subtlety, but like live in
a room and think about man's relationship with God. They
would be in like a small little room that was
often like an add on Galen too, are an adjacent
to a church and they would have like a window
(15:33):
that people could pass their needs back and forth through,
but they would write about their religious experience, and often
they had visions, and those are pretty fascinating. That's the
really fun part of the medieval era for me. You
also have a passion for Star Wars. That is rabbit, rabbit,
I think I like Star Wars, and I think I
know something about Star Wars. You talk to Holly for
(15:53):
five minutes and you realize you know nothing. Snow across
my reference, across the streams, the nerds, and back and going, yeah,
cross him, there we go. I want to talk about
that in your other podcast or side podcast as you
call it, and just how how did you get so
fully enveloped in the Star Wars world? Do you mean
how did I fall in love with it? Or how
(16:14):
did I become part of that community? How did you
become part of that community in such a big way.
I have been around long enough that I was there
when it all started. So the first Star Wars film
came out on my sixth birthday, I was foolhardy enough
to think my parents had had it made for me
um and that like they were just letting other people
watch and so, and of course, like every child that
(16:34):
sees Star Wars for the first time, I just blew
my brain open and and I just was in love. Um.
I have a really ridiculous love of Grido. He's my
Space bff. And then there was this dark period between
those films and the prequels where there were all these
people that loved Star Wars but didn't know how to
find one another, and thankfully for the Internet, to the Internet,
we did um. And then when the prequel started coming out,
(16:57):
I ended up on a message board called the Force
dot Net, which continues in in various iterations, and I
ended up moderating their costuming section. And that's really how
I started getting involved in the bigger community. And from
then it just like I still have the same friends
I have from that message board twenty years ago. My
(17:18):
my best friend on Earth I met through that, and
she met her husband on the same message board. Like
it's a really special thing. I think when you love
something with that level of rabies and you haven't found
your tribe and then you suddenly find them online, it's
it's like the It's like drinking water when you've been
walking the desert for days and if you have a
George Lucas story I want to tell. But I want
(17:38):
to if you've met George and what has your interaction
been with him. I haven't met him. My co host
on Phil of Sith, Brian Young has, and he's you know,
busy in Chicago being a dad again and just hanging
out and making you know, he's still making films just
for himself that will never be shown. He's going the
Prince route, which is fascinating to me. Yeah. So, I mean,
I know a lot of people at lucasvillem I wrote
(17:59):
briefly star Wars dot Com like a decade ago, so
I still have a lot of friends there. Yeah. I mean,
I if you ever get the chance to tour Lucasfilm,
do it because it's magical. So it was in San
Francisco and I used to do a radio show in
San Francisco. Um and his daughter listened to our show.
So Katie, Katie, so I got. I took Katie to
meet Alana's Morrisset. She was in concert, and backstage there
(18:22):
is George and it's just the two of us in
a room for like twenty minutes, and I tell him
the story of you know, when I was a kid,
my mom saved money to take us to Star Wars.
We didn't have any money. Was it was a big deal.
And then when the last movie came out, I was
actually watched it at the ranch. They had a press event,
and I called my mom and we cried on the
phone because it was like, Oh, you made it, we
(18:42):
made it, you know, this kind of thing. And I
tell George the story and I'm so excited, and I
think he's just gonna be blown away by it. And
I have four pictures on my wall and all of
them are George Lucas looking at me and rolling his
eyes like that. Man has to hear so many stories
like that because people are so you know, they have
these these there's so much of an attachment to his
work that he gets a million you know, people like
(19:06):
me a day walking up and telling him how life
changing he was. Oh yeah, I mean, he has the unfortunate,
um luck of being an introvert that created something that
everyone on Earth connects to in some way, which I
feel so bad for him sometimes because I'm sure he
would just like to go have a moment alone when
he's out in the universe, out in the world, just
(19:26):
doing his thing. But yeah, I mean I have immense
respect for him. I love the fact, I don't know
if everybody knows that when he sold Lucasfilm to Disney
for what four point two billion dollars, he didn't keep
that money. He donated all to cal Arts so that
their film school could have like the best of everything.
His philanthropy is inspiring to me almost as much as
anything he's created. So Full of Sith is the other podcast.
(19:50):
What do people get when they listen to that? Nerds
talking about Star Wars um Yeah, I mean we Brian Young,
who is one of my regular co hosts, also writes
for Star Wars dot Com and he writes for Star
Wars Insiders, so and his love is cinema of all kinds.
So we do a lot of discussion about what inspired
various things. There's a lot of Curasawa talk. As The
(20:10):
Mandalorian is coming out later this year, which is a
TV series. It's going to be on Disney plus um
or as I like to call it to make it
sound French Disney. They don't want me to do that.
So that is very much inspired by spaghetti Western. So
we talk a lot about those and where the roots
are there for some of the things that are going
on now. Um, and sometimes we'll just pick like a
character and talk about how that character impacts the greater
(20:32):
broader story. Yeah, we'll talk about all kinds of things,
anything you might wonder about. We also do a show
called Authentic History, which originally started as a joke for
stuff you missed in history class, which was that on
April Fool's Day, we thought it would be funny to
do a piece of fiction as though it were real history.
But because we get emails that say things like you
(20:53):
say the word the wrong, we thought maybe our listenership
wouldn't really be ready for that. So Brian and I
took that idea and made a podcast out of it.
So we are historians then talk about fake things like
they're real. So we'll talk about the history of like
the Battle of Naboo as though it were real and
how the various military factions put their stuff together. Or
(21:14):
I'm working on one now that will record this weekend
that is about you. Baba and Zeneba, who, if you
are a Miyazaki fan, are the two sisters in Spirited
Away that are the sort of counterpoint, which is that
drive that story and we're talking about them as though
they're real people and they're like life stories and how
they became at odds with one another. And the rule
for that is that we can't make anything up. It
all has to be based in the actual source material.
(21:35):
And that becomes like a fun little side project. I
just got done reading a history of the targe Arians
and understand, and I was talking to somebody and as
I'm telling them this stuff as if it was like
in my mind, it is reel when John Snow got
on a dragon. You don't understand that's a big deal
when you the dragon chooses a targ Arian. But I
just board half the room. There's maybe two game of
(21:57):
throwing fans and know what I'm talking about before we end,
because you know, we're in a room full of people.
It is kind of weird when it live for me.
I know you do live podcasts, we do, Yeah, yeah,
Stuffy is a history class tour, so we get the
benefit of having really great experiences meeting fans firsthand. And
I love it, love it, love doing lives. There are
more people in this room than have ever listened to
(22:20):
my podcast, So thank you. You go. Deathload it later
got past episodes. Um, beforehand, we always end with this thing.
I'm a radio guy, so I like to do you know,
radio benchmarks bits, funny things. This isn't that funny, but
it's called three killer questions. And the first question I
ask everyone is if you could listen to a podcast
(22:40):
featuring anyone living or dead, or a combination thereof. Who
would be on the podcast? Oh? Oscar Wild, Like, that's
the easiest thing on earth, snarky and witty and historical.
I love that man, Wow, yeah easy. Nobody else just
Oscar Wild. I mean he could pontificate for a while,
I feel like. But I mean, I would love to
hear Queen Victoria doing but it has to be her
(23:01):
real self, not Philip, not her royal self. That would
be fun. Do you mean Albert? I mean Albert? Yeah? Sorry,
but that wouldn't be great because Albert was kind of quiet,
So I don't know how well that would play. Is
there is there any truth to the whole Prince Albert
in a can the piercing? No, no, come on there,
I don't know. I'm asking you. You're the history person.
(23:22):
Question number two, what is the one piece of technology
that when you first got it. You said this right
here is life changing for me. We Yeah, the idea
that you could be that interactive with your gaming was delicious.
And now I mean when I get to do VR stuff.
If you guys have ever gone to one of the
Void centers where they do like a VR experience, it's magical. Really,
(23:45):
I've not done that. Run and do it right now.
They have a Star Wars one obviously dork dom um
and a new Star Wars one is coming, but they
also have a wreck at Ralph one right now, which
I love Reckord Ralph so um. It's the most fun, silliest, wonderful.
You feel like a complete train wreck of a human
because you're watching your hand and you're standing there doing
this just because you're Everybody looks like they're high, because
(24:07):
you do spend a lot of time just going on
and maybe they are are moving because you're moving, but
you're seeing your hand in the VR world. It's fantastic.
I love it. I love the way they put this together.
The people that run it are great. They pay me
nothing to say this. I just really love the Void
You're taking me. Next time I'm in Atlanta. In Atlanta,
we don't come to l A. You have twos we
(24:28):
do come to l A. Finally, what's the last podcast
that you binged? Personally? Oh? What's the tea with Rupaula Michella?
I love them together. Well. My husband calls it church
because he's like, it's always very uplifting and you leave
feeling like spiritually cleansed and like you're in a better place.
So he'll be like, oh, are you going to listen
to your church on this drive? I'm like I am.
(24:49):
It's just fantastic and I love it. Well, thanks for
coming on Access my great pleasure. I mean, I would
talk with you till the cows come home, and then
we'll talk to the cows anyway. So this is just
an extension of of fun times with Maddie for me.
And can I just say thank you to the City
of Boston, go Berlin's those Celtics. I won't say, go
(25:10):
Red Sox. I'm an Ages fan. All right, Thanks everybody
for coming out and thanks for listening to Access podcast. Goodbye.
All right, that was fun and live. You thought the
audience was pretty big there, didn't you. Yes, I wasn't there,
(25:32):
so when I was listening to it, it sounded like
you're in a mall with hundreds and hundreds of people.
It was about four people. By the way, I'm talking
now to our producer, Morgan Morgan High, Hi, Hello, Maddie.
Just like with the interview that just jumped into thing.
We were there to do kind of a panel discussion
for all kinds of people for w b Z in Boston,
and then we got to do the live podcast, and
(25:53):
I was kind of shocked at how I'm always shocked.
Wouldn't I do anything live that anybody's that interested in
what I have to say? That people so up? Yeah,
they were great, and they were It was a great
audience and it was a great time. And Holly is
a delight. She's I don't want to say that she's
my favorite person in the house, stuff works office because
other people might get upset, so I won't say it,
yeah okay, and they'll just say you won't say it.
(26:14):
I won't say it, Okay. I love Holly. So anyway,
we have got three podcasts that you should listen to
and Binge just binge them Binge a podcast I just
binge one from Wondering the Psychiatrist next Door. I think
I've heard of that one it's all right, it's good,
but it beings worthy. Everything Wondering makes is very binge
(26:34):
doable because they just know how to They know how
to tell a story and leave off on another story
like that Wondering. They're so good. Anyway, I want you
to tell me about some podcasts. Yes, so, first one
I have for you today is going to be called
The History Chicks. And this History Chicks me about the
History Chicks. I don't know a thing about them. Yeah.
That's hosted by some women and they introduce you to
(26:56):
the female characters in history, either factual or fictional. Some
that we've heard of, something we haven't. But they give
us a little introduction, an overview, and they encourage you
to explore more on your own about these women in history.
Oh that's fantastic. I'm a history nut. I read a
book about Mary, who was the sister of Anne Boleyn.
People don't know that King Henry had an affair with
(27:17):
her first and had a baby by her. It's called
The Other By. They had a movie out of it too.
But that's a good book. But anyway, so let's check
out a clip of it right now. Today we're going
to talk about Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans,
one of the patron saints of France. She's credited with
turning the tide in the Hundred Years War, saving France
from English domination. One of the really neat things about
(27:39):
General Arc is all the information of her life is
still exists, so we know a lot more about her
life as a child and her life up to her
death than we know about Anne Boleyn. History chicks, Hicks.
I'm gonna listen to that, all right, what else she got? Alright?
Next up, I have the way I heard it. It's
with Micro, my friend, a really long time friend. Micro.
(28:01):
How awesome. I've known Mike for twenty years almost, that's funny.
I had no clue he did Evening magazine in San
Francisco when I did the morning show at Alice Radio,
and I even had a time where we pretended the
show got fired and I put Mike on in the
morning and everybody freaked out, just like yeah, uh and Mike.
I remember when Mike did his first demo for Dirty
(28:23):
Jobs and showed it to me and the people at
CBS didn't like it, and he was like, no, this
is going to be something, and it was good for him.
Mike's the best he is. He is everything you want
him to be in real life. Really, he's exactly the
same in real life as he is when he's doing
his shows. He is a fantastic human being, an upstanding person.
You know, I kind of had that feeling when I
was listening to his podcast because I've only seen him
on Dirty Jobs. But now he has this podcast called
(28:44):
The Way I Heard It, and it just, I don't know,
you kind of get more of an idea of him
as a person. But more about this podcast. It's the
average episode length with this one is interesting to me.
It's only ten minutes. So if you say, hey, I
don't have enough time to listen to these podcasts, this
is the one for you. What he does is he's
singing his teeth into the little known back stories of
famous people, companies, events, all these things in history. So
(29:06):
he takes ten minutes, he'll dive into the history of
it and make us curious for more. All right, let's
hear the sultry sounds of Microw as always. Julia began
with a plan. When construction ended. Three decades later, Bill's
family campground had been transformed into one hundred and twenty
three acres of gardens, terraces, pools, and walkways, a zoo
(29:30):
filled with exotic creatures, and in the center of it all,
a new home with one hundred and sixty separate rooms
designed by the homemaker. He's got the kind of voice
that when I started in radio, I was convinced I
never make it because everyone sounded like him, not as good.
He's he's exceptional, but yeah I could. You're like, oh,
(29:51):
I don't have that voice. Yeah, And it is fun
to like sit in a room in here. Mike and
I used to drink together and not not you know,
just after work we go have a beer or two together,
and gosh, he's the guy you want to have a
beer with and have him tell your story. Really, yeah,
he's I really like Mike. Alright, what's you got? Alright?
Another cool guy, Dan Carlin and hardcore history. I don't
know how cool Dan Carlin is, but his show is
(30:14):
his show is pretty phenomenal. Show's cool. Alright. So he's
a winner of the I Heart Radio Podcast Award for
the Best History Podcast. So I have to mention this
should be the best history podcast ever made. I'm such
a fan of his and the work he does on
his podcast, but tell people who don't know about it. Yeah,
So if you don't know Dan Carlin, he's a journalist
and a broadcaster. But in this podcast he takes his
(30:36):
unorthodox way of thinking and he applies it to the past.
So he asked all these crazy questions. For an example,
was Alexander the Great as bad as a Adolf Hitler?
You know, things that are like what? But he'll take
this unique blend of high drama and narration and twists
and turns and puts it all on a podcast in
a very long podcast. So his podcast come out like
(30:59):
every four months because each one is almost six hours
long sometimes because he does so much research into these things.
So this is definitely not a podcast to jump into
if you want to quick listen, but it is if
you want to quality listen. Let's hear a little bit
of it right now. Why didn't Adolf Hitler and the
Nazis broadcast news end updates of what they were doing
(31:24):
as part of the Final Solution while it was going on?
I mean, why didn't they announced to the world through
the Joseph Goebel's propaganda ministry that we set up these
industrial killing facilities. But we'll work people to death first
if they're strong and and explain. Listen, the last month
we killed a hundred thousand more of these people, and
we won't stop till they're all gone. Why didn't they
do that? I have gone to sleep to that voice
(31:45):
so many times. I can't tell you. Oh, I got
to sleep to Dancarlin all the time. That's a great
voice to go to sleeps back. Yeah, the series on
World War One, if you can listen to that one,
I tell everybody I think that's the That's a great
one to start off with him, especially because I don't
think a lot of people know a lot about World
War One as they should, So go check that out. Yeah,
I learned a lot on that one. Good job, Morgan,
(32:06):
thank you. Yeah, all right, thanks for giving us those suggestions,
and thank you fine listener for tuning into Access Podcast
the podcast about Podcast. Morgan Cook is our executive producer.
I'm Maddie Stout. Want to thank Let's see who were
thinking and I heard this week. I'm gotta thank Colna Burne,
of course, well, thank Will Pearson, Well, thank Darren Davis.
So I'm gonna think Robin Berta Luci this week because
she's been so great and kind and give us studios
(32:27):
here at KFI and Oscar Romere Oscar. Let's give Oscar
a shout out. Shout out, Oscar. I'm shouting everybody out today.
Thank you for listening. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
all of those at Maddie Stout, m A T t
y S, t Au Diaz and dog t as a Dumb.
You can follow Morgan at Morgan Victory on all the platforms,
and of course you can find our show at Access
(32:49):
podcast one, on Twitter and on Facebook. Thanks so much
for listening, and please, if you like the show, leave
us a review on Apple podcast. It very much helps
us out. We really would appreciate it, and tell your
friends about it and we'll see you next time. Bub
bub bah
Hi, Welcome to Access Podcast, the podcast about podcast. I'm
(00:22):
Mattie Stout and I was lucky enough to get to
do a live show in Boston with one of my
favorite podcasters, Holly Fry, from one of the most popular
podcasts in the world, Stuff You Missed in History Class Now.
We recorded this at the Revere Hotel in Boston and
had an amazing time in front of a live audience.
Holly is not only the host of that show, but
(00:43):
she writes an acts as executive producer on several podcasts
for How Stuff Works. During this conversation, we talked about history, podcasting,
Star Wars, and a whole lot more, and don't forget
After the conversation, producer Morgan will be in and we
will be telling you about three podcasts that you should binge.
But right now, let's check out a clip from Stuff
You Missed in History Class. The early Bourbon rule in
(01:05):
Spain is one that I find fascinating because it's often
boiled down to a little bit of a degree of
sensationalism owing to the sexual appetites of some of the
Bourbons and how much people like to write about that.
But of course there's a whole lot more to the
whole thing than that, and it isn't a very important
family line. Holly, thanks for coming on Access podcast live
from Boston. Did you just say wicked? Pista? Nice? Nice?
(01:37):
I love Boston. So for folks listening at home, Holly
and I are in Boston and we are part of
a panel discussion today about podcasting. Yeah, which we both do,
We both do. I want to start with that. You know,
we get a lot of questions about podcasting, and you know,
it's for us, we've been doing it for a while,
(01:57):
it's still a new medium for a lot of folks.
What are some of the most common things that you
get asked consistently about being a podcaster and podcasting. I
get asked all the time. If we write our own show,
I get asked if my assistance could maybe talk to somebody,
And then I laugh and laugh and laugh. I always
crack up when I'm listening to other podcasts and at
(02:18):
the end they run through their credits and they're like,
and this person touched the microphones and this person and
it's like, it's me and Tracy and one person who
records us, and that's all that's ever been. We get
asked a lot about just start of the technical aspects,
you know, what they need to set up. Our previous producer, Noel,
actually put together like a really quick word document that
we could hand out to people that has kind of
(02:39):
a basic information and and Mike's you can use, etcetera
that I sometimes hand out. It's a little outdated now,
otherwise I would offer it to everyone again, it needs
a little update. Those are probably the big ones. So
you just came back from Ireland. I did, and we
were at dinner last night and You're telling me about
your trip, and I'm just sitting there thinking when you
started in this business, did you ever imagine that you
(03:01):
would get to do the kind of things that you
get to do now because of being a podcaster. No
I feel like the most spoiled child in the universe
almost every day. My trip to Ireland was kind of
a two parter um. There is a travel show that
we're working on developing, and so we were there for
that for part of it, and for the other it
was for my hobby podcast Full of sixth which is
(03:21):
a Star Wars podcast, and Tourism Ireland asked if we
wanted to come over and tour filming sites that have
been used in the recent Star Wars films. So yeah,
I mean, just again, I feel like the luckiest, most
ridiculously undeserving. No one could deserve all the fun that
we get to have. So talk about how you got
started in podcasting, because I think we're getting to a
(03:42):
point where there actually will be young people who are
like my dream is to be in podcasting. But for
those of us who were not under the age of
twenty five, it wasn't. It wasn't an option when we
got out of college. How did it end up in it?
It was not a job that I ever knew I
would have. My background is in my degrees in theater
and film study, so there's a performative element to my
(04:03):
background anyway. But I also have a writing degree, and
so I had gotten hired at How Stuff Works to
copy edit. I was the tech editor, so when when
new Apple products came out, we would have a writer
write an article and I would then edit it and
then get it published. And I did that for a
long time. I had actually only been at the company
I think about eight months when Tracy, who is my
(04:23):
co host on Stuff You Missed in History class, and
I were at a party at work a work event
being kind of snarky because that's something we're excellent at.
And our boss overheard us, and the next morning he
called us in his office and said, I think maybe
you guys should have a podcast, And we started off
of the podcast about pop culture called pop Stuff, which
had a very dedicated following, but it wasn't like a
(04:45):
particularly huge numbers thing. It went on for a while,
and then around the same time, the people who had
been hosting Stuff you missed in history class because it
existed before we were part of it, one had gone
on maternity leave and I had subbed in for her
during that time, and then after she came back, she
got the opportunity to take another really great job that
was going to be a great step for her, and
(05:07):
so she took it. And at the same time, her
co host was kind of like, you know, this podcast
is She literally was like, this is a bear. It's exhausting.
Our show is a little more labor intensive than some
others because there's so much research involved. We do about
twenty four hours of solid research and writing before we
ever get in front of a mic. And when that's
your side job in addition to your regular workload. That's
a lot, and so it can wear you out in
(05:28):
a hurry, and so they were ready to step away,
and we ended up taking over stuff you missed in
history class for that reason, and then we sunsetted pop
stuff and it's dominated my life ever since. You're just
talking about the process for your show, and I think
that I want to talk more about that because when
we're doing it right, When a podcast is done right,
it does sound effortless and it sounds like just two
(05:49):
people talking and it sounds like, wow, they are just
off the cuff. No so much. No, I know that's
not true, but how you know, go through that proce
sess of you know, when you have an idea for
something for the show and then to the point where
somebody hears it. Yeah, so for us, because it is
a history podcast, and I mentioned earlier during our panel discussion,
(06:10):
I have a list of like seven d possible topics
I can turn to you. But really it's just a
matter of finding something that sparks your interest that you
know you're going to be willing to spend a week
with because it is a pretty intensive week of research
and looking around and kind of beating the bushes to
find information that maybe hasn't been brought to light before.
And then once we find that topic, I have a
(06:31):
little bit more I think, chaotic approach to it than Tracy.
She's super organized, and I kind of like to take
in as much information as quickly as I can. So
what I do is I find one really good article
on it, usually like somewhere like Smithsonian or some article
in a specific journal on j Store, and I just
read it and get a sense of the topic. And
then I write out bullets of like things that I
(06:52):
think cannot be left out, and then I just start
like an insane search. I go to the library. I know, um,
I actually worked in library science for a decade, so
I still really libraries are near and dear to my heart.
I will go to the library. I will do online searches.
I often have, like no joke, a hundred plus tabs
open in my browser just to make our I t
(07:13):
guy go insane. And then as i'm as I'm kind
of peeling away those layers of research, I'll be closing
my tabs out. And that's kind of how I gauge
where I'm at in the process of preparation. I'm like, oh, look,
I'm down to thirty tabs. I'm almost done. I could
take a break and watch some garbage television, and then
once we get that all written out, Tracy and I
hand those off to each other. We each take the
lead on one of the episodes per week, because it
(07:34):
is essentially to research papers a week that we're writing,
and then we look over those and then we run
in the studio and talk talk talk. Speaking of talking,
you're somebody from the first time I met I've always
enjoyed talking to and I think it's a lot of
our white trash heritage that we have in common. But
in general, with people in podcasting, they have to be
engaging storytellers. Ideally, Yeah, so I'm just you know, I
(07:58):
want to speak to that. As far as what you
think takes um goes into someone being a good storyteller
and engaging for a listener to to have that experience
where they feel like they're their friend. This may sound weird,
but part of it for me is trusting your own gut.
Like when I'm looking at a topic, whether it is
for my history podcast or like one of my side
(08:20):
hobby ones, the thing that one little detail that gets
me excited or makes me go, oh, I didn't know that.
That's like the thing that you need to find the
space for in your narrative. And if you can find
several of those on any one topic, you end up
it comes together like a puzzle really beautifully. Usually like
you'll see how the picture kind of starts to form
(08:40):
and congeal and become clearer and sharper as you go. Uh.
And so I think it as long as you're looking
for in your prep those moments that get you excited,
that's what your audience is also going to get excited about.
I'm a firm believer that podcasting makes people smarter. When
I look at my college students, sometimes I scratch my
head and wonder what's going to happen to the world
(09:01):
until I find out how engaged they are with podcasts
and that they're listening and they're being educated. And I
do feel that it. Podcasting is a good force in
the universe. Do you get a lot of feedback from
listeners that they've learned, you know, things from you that
have really benefit them in their lives. My one of
my favorite things that we hear from listeners a lot
is that they heard something on our show that made
(09:23):
them want to travel somewhere and they'll send us a
postcard from that place and be like, remember when you
talked about this person that did this thing here, I'm here,
I'm standing where they lived. Um, And it makes one.
I love it because it makes history alive and it
reminds us all that history is the product of people.
It's it's people living in experiencing life and doing things.
And it's not always people that were in seats of government,
(09:45):
and it's not always people that were famous, but there
were people, just as every one of us in this
room is making history today in a certain way. Every
day you walk down the street, you're making some history.
And so for people to be able to connect those
dots and be like, I'm standing on this place where
you know this woman did this thing that I never
knew about until I heard it from you, and now
(10:05):
they wanted to make their own little pilgrimage because it
spoke to them. That's like, to me, incredibly moving. So
the flip side of that, I'm sure you have some
very uptight, finicky listeners as well. Oh yeah, what are
what are some of the fun complaints that you guys
get about the show, and how often are you called
out for something that maybe you missed or I doubt
(10:28):
you ever have, but oh, sure we missed stuff. Pronunciation
is I was the thing that people like to write
us about, either because there's a local way to pronounce
a word that we didn't know, or we don't speak
every language on earth, and so sometimes like there are
are subtle shifts in the way words are spoken in
other cultures that because we didn't grow up speaking then
(10:49):
we just can't even replicate those noises. But I mean,
I always warn people when they want to get into podcasting,
be ready, especially if you're a woman. You will get
the weirdest complaints. We have a person who pretty consistently
writes to us about the way we say the word
the I'm not kidding, um, that person has some time,
I'm presuming, and it's one of those things where I
(11:09):
could get upset about it, or I could just be like,
I can't help you, like at the end of the day,
like I speak how I speak, and and that's what
it is. There are people that love my laugh on
our show, and there are people that hate my laugh
on our show, and it's my honest laugh. And I
can't change it because then it becomes a very disingenuous
thing that I'm doing, and that, as we said, is
poison in a podcast to be disingenuous. They're definitely people
(11:32):
who wish we would talk less about women. It's one
of those things whenever I'm explaining our show to someone
and they go, what is that? And I'm like, hey,
did you know that there were women in history? Always
because you might not know if you picked up a
history book. There were always people of color, There are
always people all over the gender spectrum. There were always
people who were upstarts, and those aren't always the people
(11:54):
that get light shown on them. Um. And so that's
kind of what we try to do. And there are
people that do not like that all the time, and
that's fine, fine, fine, but maybe we're not the show
for them. Yeah, I think I'm now I'm listening to
hear you say the word I know, right, I think
in that In that case, it was one of those
instances where I had said, for emphasis something like this
(12:17):
is the most important thing, and she was like, that's
the incorrect use of the and I'm like, okay, suck
it all right, That's what I say to those listens.
I mean, they're certainly entitled to their opinion. It's one
of those things you can either get really upset about
it or just if it's a legitimate error that we made,
we always want to correct it. Will usually include that
in a listener mail, like if we got something factually incorrect,
(12:38):
which just come up not too often I'm thankful for,
but once in a while it's just going to happen.
But if it's something like that, again, I can't help
that person. The fun stuff history, Yeah, you get to
talk about so many great times, period themes in history.
Do you have a favorite and do you have a
heart of that you kind of wish you didn't have
to talk about so much? Um yes to all of
(13:01):
the above. I have a weird weakness for Queen Victoria.
Uh super complicated rain that a whole imperialism problem is real,
But as a person she was super fascinating and if
you read her letters to her eldest daughter Vicky, it
peels back all of what you may think we think
of her as that very like we are not amused
um stoic, But she was wildly funny and had hilarious
(13:25):
things to say about you know, the fact that even
though she was the queen of a vast, vast range
of places, by that point, like when she talks about
pregnancy and rearing children, all of that falls away, and
she's very blunt and honest with her kids about what
they can expect from motherhood and how it is not
always a lovely experience, and how she thought babies were
(13:46):
hideously ugly, but she she just couldn't keep her hands
off albert Say, she kept getting pregnant. Like those are
all very, very funny, I'm not kidding, Like there's some
she was deeply into albert Um, which is really great,
and it's a part of her don't always hear about.
And so I love that um. I also love eighteenth
century France a lot. I just it's largely a visual
(14:06):
thing I like talking about also just things that have
impacted me in my life. We did a two parter
on Chaz Adams, who is one of my favorite cartoonists.
The Adams Family is his work, uh, and he was
a fascinating man and just live this sort of fantastic,
slightly wild life of like the the aeradite New Yorker
in the forties and fifties, and I mean had an
affair with Jackie Onassis and like this incredible life that
(14:29):
people again don't always associate with a man who made
these incredibly spooky characters that we all came to love.
I'm gonna tell you guys a secret. I don't really
care for medieval history. I know a lot of people
love it, and it's not I recognize it as important
and I will never not do an episode on it
because of that, but it's just not my jam. Is
(14:50):
not my jams, not my jam. I'm not as enthused
about the clothing of that era. I'm like, oh, a
little money in plane. Can we go back Rococo France?
Because that was a fancy Yeah, so I do much
plague right, Although we have done a number of episodes
on anchor rights and anchoresses of the medieval period and
(15:11):
they're fascinating. So those were people that decided that they
would live in This is a very simplified version. There's
a lot more variation and subtlety, but like live in
a room and think about man's relationship with God. They
would be in like a small little room that was
often like an add on Galen too, are an adjacent
to a church and they would have like a window
(15:33):
that people could pass their needs back and forth through,
but they would write about their religious experience, and often
they had visions, and those are pretty fascinating. That's the
really fun part of the medieval era for me. You
also have a passion for Star Wars. That is rabbit, rabbit,
I think I like Star Wars, and I think I
know something about Star Wars. You talk to Holly for
(15:53):
five minutes and you realize you know nothing. Snow across
my reference, across the streams, the nerds, and back and going, yeah,
cross him, there we go. I want to talk about
that in your other podcast or side podcast as you
call it, and just how how did you get so
fully enveloped in the Star Wars world? Do you mean
how did I fall in love with it? Or how
(16:14):
did I become part of that community? How did you
become part of that community in such a big way.
I have been around long enough that I was there
when it all started. So the first Star Wars film
came out on my sixth birthday, I was foolhardy enough
to think my parents had had it made for me
um and that like they were just letting other people
watch and so, and of course, like every child that
(16:34):
sees Star Wars for the first time, I just blew
my brain open and and I just was in love. Um.
I have a really ridiculous love of Grido. He's my
Space bff. And then there was this dark period between
those films and the prequels where there were all these
people that loved Star Wars but didn't know how to
find one another, and thankfully for the Internet, to the Internet,
we did um. And then when the prequel started coming out,
(16:57):
I ended up on a message board called the Force
dot Net, which continues in in various iterations, and I
ended up moderating their costuming section. And that's really how
I started getting involved in the bigger community. And from
then it just like I still have the same friends
I have from that message board twenty years ago. My
(17:18):
my best friend on Earth I met through that, and
she met her husband on the same message board. Like
it's a really special thing. I think when you love
something with that level of rabies and you haven't found
your tribe and then you suddenly find them online, it's
it's like the It's like drinking water when you've been
walking the desert for days and if you have a
George Lucas story I want to tell. But I want
(17:38):
to if you've met George and what has your interaction
been with him. I haven't met him. My co host
on Phil of Sith, Brian Young has, and he's you know,
busy in Chicago being a dad again and just hanging
out and making you know, he's still making films just
for himself that will never be shown. He's going the
Prince route, which is fascinating to me. Yeah. So, I mean,
I know a lot of people at lucasvillem I wrote
(17:59):
briefly star Wars dot Com like a decade ago, so
I still have a lot of friends there. Yeah. I mean,
I if you ever get the chance to tour Lucasfilm,
do it because it's magical. So it was in San
Francisco and I used to do a radio show in
San Francisco. Um and his daughter listened to our show.
So Katie, Katie, so I got. I took Katie to
meet Alana's Morrisset. She was in concert, and backstage there
(18:22):
is George and it's just the two of us in
a room for like twenty minutes, and I tell him
the story of you know, when I was a kid,
my mom saved money to take us to Star Wars.
We didn't have any money. Was it was a big deal.
And then when the last movie came out, I was
actually watched it at the ranch. They had a press event,
and I called my mom and we cried on the
phone because it was like, Oh, you made it, we
(18:42):
made it, you know, this kind of thing. And I
tell George the story and I'm so excited, and I
think he's just gonna be blown away by it. And
I have four pictures on my wall and all of
them are George Lucas looking at me and rolling his
eyes like that. Man has to hear so many stories
like that because people are so you know, they have
these these there's so much of an attachment to his
work that he gets a million you know, people like
(19:06):
me a day walking up and telling him how life
changing he was. Oh yeah, I mean, he has the unfortunate,
um luck of being an introvert that created something that
everyone on Earth connects to in some way, which I
feel so bad for him sometimes because I'm sure he
would just like to go have a moment alone when
he's out in the universe, out in the world, just
(19:26):
doing his thing. But yeah, I mean I have immense
respect for him. I love the fact, I don't know
if everybody knows that when he sold Lucasfilm to Disney
for what four point two billion dollars, he didn't keep
that money. He donated all to cal Arts so that
their film school could have like the best of everything.
His philanthropy is inspiring to me almost as much as
anything he's created. So Full of Sith is the other podcast.
(19:50):
What do people get when they listen to that? Nerds
talking about Star Wars um Yeah, I mean we Brian Young,
who is one of my regular co hosts, also writes
for Star Wars dot Com and he writes for Star
Wars Insiders, so and his love is cinema of all kinds.
So we do a lot of discussion about what inspired
various things. There's a lot of Curasawa talk. As The
(20:10):
Mandalorian is coming out later this year, which is a
TV series. It's going to be on Disney plus um
or as I like to call it to make it
sound French Disney. They don't want me to do that.
So that is very much inspired by spaghetti Western. So
we talk a lot about those and where the roots
are there for some of the things that are going
on now. Um, and sometimes we'll just pick like a
character and talk about how that character impacts the greater
(20:32):
broader story. Yeah, we'll talk about all kinds of things,
anything you might wonder about. We also do a show
called Authentic History, which originally started as a joke for
stuff you missed in history class, which was that on
April Fool's Day, we thought it would be funny to
do a piece of fiction as though it were real history.
But because we get emails that say things like you
(20:53):
say the word the wrong, we thought maybe our listenership
wouldn't really be ready for that. So Brian and I
took that idea and made a podcast out of it.
So we are historians then talk about fake things like
they're real. So we'll talk about the history of like
the Battle of Naboo as though it were real and
how the various military factions put their stuff together. Or
(21:14):
I'm working on one now that will record this weekend
that is about you. Baba and Zeneba, who, if you
are a Miyazaki fan, are the two sisters in Spirited
Away that are the sort of counterpoint, which is that
drive that story and we're talking about them as though
they're real people and they're like life stories and how
they became at odds with one another. And the rule
for that is that we can't make anything up. It
all has to be based in the actual source material.
(21:35):
And that becomes like a fun little side project. I
just got done reading a history of the targe Arians
and understand, and I was talking to somebody and as
I'm telling them this stuff as if it was like
in my mind, it is reel when John Snow got
on a dragon. You don't understand that's a big deal
when you the dragon chooses a targ Arian. But I
just board half the room. There's maybe two game of
(21:57):
throwing fans and know what I'm talking about before we end,
because you know, we're in a room full of people.
It is kind of weird when it live for me.
I know you do live podcasts, we do, Yeah, yeah,
Stuffy is a history class tour, so we get the
benefit of having really great experiences meeting fans firsthand. And
I love it, love it, love doing lives. There are
more people in this room than have ever listened to
(22:20):
my podcast, So thank you. You go. Deathload it later
got past episodes. Um, beforehand, we always end with this thing.
I'm a radio guy, so I like to do you know,
radio benchmarks bits, funny things. This isn't that funny, but
it's called three killer questions. And the first question I
ask everyone is if you could listen to a podcast
(22:40):
featuring anyone living or dead, or a combination thereof. Who
would be on the podcast? Oh? Oscar Wild, Like, that's
the easiest thing on earth, snarky and witty and historical.
I love that man, Wow, yeah easy. Nobody else just
Oscar Wild. I mean he could pontificate for a while,
I feel like. But I mean, I would love to
hear Queen Victoria doing but it has to be her
(23:01):
real self, not Philip, not her royal self. That would
be fun. Do you mean Albert? I mean Albert? Yeah? Sorry,
but that wouldn't be great because Albert was kind of quiet,
So I don't know how well that would play. Is
there is there any truth to the whole Prince Albert
in a can the piercing? No, no, come on there,
I don't know. I'm asking you. You're the history person.
(23:22):
Question number two, what is the one piece of technology
that when you first got it. You said this right
here is life changing for me. We Yeah, the idea
that you could be that interactive with your gaming was delicious.
And now I mean when I get to do VR stuff.
If you guys have ever gone to one of the
Void centers where they do like a VR experience, it's magical. Really,
(23:45):
I've not done that. Run and do it right now.
They have a Star Wars one obviously dork dom um
and a new Star Wars one is coming, but they
also have a wreck at Ralph one right now, which
I love Reckord Ralph so um. It's the most fun, silliest, wonderful.
You feel like a complete train wreck of a human
because you're watching your hand and you're standing there doing
this just because you're Everybody looks like they're high, because
(24:07):
you do spend a lot of time just going on
and maybe they are are moving because you're moving, but
you're seeing your hand in the VR world. It's fantastic.
I love it. I love the way they put this together.
The people that run it are great. They pay me
nothing to say this. I just really love the Void
You're taking me. Next time I'm in Atlanta. In Atlanta,
we don't come to l A. You have twos we
(24:28):
do come to l A. Finally, what's the last podcast
that you binged? Personally? Oh? What's the tea with Rupaula Michella?
I love them together. Well. My husband calls it church
because he's like, it's always very uplifting and you leave
feeling like spiritually cleansed and like you're in a better place.
So he'll be like, oh, are you going to listen
to your church on this drive? I'm like I am.
(24:49):
It's just fantastic and I love it. Well, thanks for
coming on Access my great pleasure. I mean, I would
talk with you till the cows come home, and then
we'll talk to the cows anyway. So this is just
an extension of of fun times with Maddie for me.
And can I just say thank you to the City
of Boston, go Berlin's those Celtics. I won't say, go
(25:10):
Red Sox. I'm an Ages fan. All right, Thanks everybody
for coming out and thanks for listening to Access podcast. Goodbye.
All right, that was fun and live. You thought the
audience was pretty big there, didn't you. Yes, I wasn't there,
(25:32):
so when I was listening to it, it sounded like
you're in a mall with hundreds and hundreds of people.
It was about four people. By the way, I'm talking
now to our producer, Morgan Morgan High, Hi, Hello, Maddie.
Just like with the interview that just jumped into thing.
We were there to do kind of a panel discussion
for all kinds of people for w b Z in Boston,
and then we got to do the live podcast, and
(25:53):
I was kind of shocked at how I'm always shocked.
Wouldn't I do anything live that anybody's that interested in
what I have to say? That people so up? Yeah,
they were great, and they were It was a great
audience and it was a great time. And Holly is
a delight. She's I don't want to say that she's
my favorite person in the house, stuff works office because
other people might get upset, so I won't say it,
yeah okay, and they'll just say you won't say it.
(26:14):
I won't say it, Okay. I love Holly. So anyway,
we have got three podcasts that you should listen to
and Binge just binge them Binge a podcast I just
binge one from Wondering the Psychiatrist next Door. I think
I've heard of that one it's all right, it's good,
but it beings worthy. Everything Wondering makes is very binge
(26:34):
doable because they just know how to They know how
to tell a story and leave off on another story
like that Wondering. They're so good. Anyway, I want you
to tell me about some podcasts. Yes, so, first one
I have for you today is going to be called
The History Chicks. And this History Chicks me about the
History Chicks. I don't know a thing about them. Yeah.
That's hosted by some women and they introduce you to
(26:56):
the female characters in history, either factual or fictional. Some
that we've heard of, something we haven't. But they give
us a little introduction, an overview, and they encourage you
to explore more on your own about these women in history.
Oh that's fantastic. I'm a history nut. I read a
book about Mary, who was the sister of Anne Boleyn.
People don't know that King Henry had an affair with
(27:17):
her first and had a baby by her. It's called
The Other By. They had a movie out of it too.
But that's a good book. But anyway, so let's check
out a clip of it right now. Today we're going
to talk about Joan of Arc, the Maid of Orleans,
one of the patron saints of France. She's credited with
turning the tide in the Hundred Years War, saving France
from English domination. One of the really neat things about
(27:39):
General Arc is all the information of her life is
still exists, so we know a lot more about her
life as a child and her life up to her
death than we know about Anne Boleyn. History chicks, Hicks.
I'm gonna listen to that, all right, what else she got? Alright?
Next up, I have the way I heard it. It's
with Micro, my friend, a really long time friend. Micro.
(28:01):
How awesome. I've known Mike for twenty years almost, that's funny.
I had no clue he did Evening magazine in San
Francisco when I did the morning show at Alice Radio,
and I even had a time where we pretended the
show got fired and I put Mike on in the
morning and everybody freaked out, just like yeah, uh and Mike.
I remember when Mike did his first demo for Dirty
(28:23):
Jobs and showed it to me and the people at
CBS didn't like it, and he was like, no, this
is going to be something, and it was good for him.
Mike's the best he is. He is everything you want
him to be in real life. Really, he's exactly the
same in real life as he is when he's doing
his shows. He is a fantastic human being, an upstanding person.
You know, I kind of had that feeling when I
was listening to his podcast because I've only seen him
on Dirty Jobs. But now he has this podcast called
(28:44):
The Way I Heard It, and it just, I don't know,
you kind of get more of an idea of him
as a person. But more about this podcast. It's the
average episode length with this one is interesting to me.
It's only ten minutes. So if you say, hey, I
don't have enough time to listen to these podcasts, this
is the one for you. What he does is he's
singing his teeth into the little known back stories of
famous people, companies, events, all these things in history. So
(29:06):
he takes ten minutes, he'll dive into the history of
it and make us curious for more. All right, let's
hear the sultry sounds of Microw as always. Julia began
with a plan. When construction ended. Three decades later, Bill's
family campground had been transformed into one hundred and twenty
three acres of gardens, terraces, pools, and walkways, a zoo
(29:30):
filled with exotic creatures, and in the center of it all,
a new home with one hundred and sixty separate rooms
designed by the homemaker. He's got the kind of voice
that when I started in radio, I was convinced I
never make it because everyone sounded like him, not as good.
He's he's exceptional, but yeah I could. You're like, oh,
(29:51):
I don't have that voice. Yeah, And it is fun
to like sit in a room in here. Mike and
I used to drink together and not not you know,
just after work we go have a beer or two together,
and gosh, he's the guy you want to have a
beer with and have him tell your story. Really, yeah,
he's I really like Mike. Alright, what's you got? Alright?
Another cool guy, Dan Carlin and hardcore history. I don't
know how cool Dan Carlin is, but his show is
(30:14):
his show is pretty phenomenal. Show's cool. Alright. So he's
a winner of the I Heart Radio Podcast Award for
the Best History Podcast. So I have to mention this
should be the best history podcast ever made. I'm such
a fan of his and the work he does on
his podcast, but tell people who don't know about it. Yeah,
So if you don't know Dan Carlin, he's a journalist
and a broadcaster. But in this podcast he takes his
(30:36):
unorthodox way of thinking and he applies it to the past.
So he asked all these crazy questions. For an example,
was Alexander the Great as bad as a Adolf Hitler?
You know, things that are like what? But he'll take
this unique blend of high drama and narration and twists
and turns and puts it all on a podcast in
a very long podcast. So his podcast come out like
(30:59):
every four months because each one is almost six hours
long sometimes because he does so much research into these things.
So this is definitely not a podcast to jump into
if you want to quick listen, but it is if
you want to quality listen. Let's hear a little bit
of it right now. Why didn't Adolf Hitler and the
Nazis broadcast news end updates of what they were doing
(31:24):
as part of the Final Solution while it was going on?
I mean, why didn't they announced to the world through
the Joseph Goebel's propaganda ministry that we set up these
industrial killing facilities. But we'll work people to death first
if they're strong and and explain. Listen, the last month
we killed a hundred thousand more of these people, and
we won't stop till they're all gone. Why didn't they
do that? I have gone to sleep to that voice
(31:45):
so many times. I can't tell you. Oh, I got
to sleep to Dancarlin all the time. That's a great
voice to go to sleeps back. Yeah, the series on
World War One, if you can listen to that one,
I tell everybody I think that's the That's a great
one to start off with him, especially because I don't
think a lot of people know a lot about World
War One as they should, So go check that out. Yeah,
I learned a lot on that one. Good job, Morgan,
(32:06):
thank you. Yeah, all right, thanks for giving us those suggestions,
and thank you fine listener for tuning into Access Podcast
the podcast about Podcast. Morgan Cook is our executive producer.
I'm Maddie Stout. Want to thank Let's see who were
thinking and I heard this week. I'm gotta thank Colna Burne,
of course, well, thank Will Pearson, Well, thank Darren Davis.
So I'm gonna think Robin Berta Luci this week because
she's been so great and kind and give us studios
(32:27):
here at KFI and Oscar Romere Oscar. Let's give Oscar
a shout out. Shout out, Oscar. I'm shouting everybody out today.
Thank you for listening. You can follow me on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram,
all of those at Maddie Stout, m A T t
y S, t Au Diaz and dog t as a Dumb.
You can follow Morgan at Morgan Victory on all the platforms,
and of course you can find our show at Access
(32:49):
podcast one, on Twitter and on Facebook. Thanks so much
for listening, and please, if you like the show, leave
us a review on Apple podcast. It very much helps
us out. We really would appreciate it, and tell your
friends about it and we'll see you next time. Bub
bub bah
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