The Backstory with Patty Steele

Ever wonder what movies were like before the ratings codes kicked in back in the 1930s? Some were so wild, so bloody, and so sexy, Hollywood quickly realized they had to police themselves or the feds would move in!

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Marilyn Monroe was the ultimate bombshell. This week she would have turned 100 years old, but she’s still the iconic sex symbol of mid 20th century Hollywood. Despite her carefully crafted dumb blonde persona, she was also wildly intelligent. She had a library filled with books by authors like James Joyce and Dostoevsky. So . . how did she use that intelligence and what was her Achilles heel?

The royals can seem like a bunch of people with too much money but with good intentions for their nation and their people. The scandals involving Charles and Diana . . and Harry and Megan are great tabloid fodder. But the 1936 abdication of King Edward VIII had a much darker backstory. It turns out he had a deeply close relationship with Adolf Hitler and the Nazis during World War II, and the royals had to do everything in their po...

How are we gonna survive the craziness of our world . . the politics, out of control social media, and especially A.I.? Well . . it’s nothing new. Every period of rapid technological evolution in history has made folks fear that the end is near. This is a peek at the craziness of the 1920s.

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Ever wish you could simply disappear? Maybe you’re sick of a job, a relationship, or responsibilities you can’t see your way past. More than a few folks have done it, though admittedly it takes money and the ability to disconnect from everything in your life, not just the difficulties. It’s all about former masters of the universe creating a new domain.

Sometimes failure is actually the mother of success. Take Walt Disney, who at the age of 21 had one animation company go bankrupt. By 27, his taste of success with a cartoon rabbit named Oswald was stolen by a partner who made a deal with an unscrupulous movie studio. So, it turns out Mickey Mouse was born out of desperation and the determination to never give up.

As humans, our most serious drive is survival. So when we start worrying about apocalyptical events from what we do to ourselves or what others do to us, we make a plan. Doomsday bunkers of all sorts are popping up to protect everything from seeds to regrow our food supply . . to insanely luxurious underground escape spots for the one percenters.

Do You Get Stressed Over News Stories About a Bunch of People Getting Sick With a Disease You’ve Never Even Heard Of? Lately, It’s the Hantavirus. But Here’s the Thing. These Outbreaks Have Been Around for Thousands of Years. Problem Is, You Can’t Ignore What’s Happening, but the Anxiety Can Really Gnaw at You. So It’s Better to Know the Origin Story, Because Like...

Ever Get the Feeling That Your One Big Moment . . Might Be All There Is? That Was the Story of Apollo 11 Astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the Second Man to Walk on the Moon . . and as He Shared . . Also the First to Pee on the Moon. But His Return to Earth and the Struggle He Faced Trying to One Up That Footstep on the Lunar Surface, Is an Inspiration.

On first blush, most of us say we’d like to live forever. But how far are you willing to go? How about freezing your body cryogenically so it can be resuscitated decades from now? The first guy did that almost 60 years ago. Folks like PayPal founder Peter Thiel have signed on, as have Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. But the big question is... what happens when you wake up? You’re a time...

Even if we don’t love it, most of us rely on Amazon for a lot of our basic shopping needs. But 140 years ago, the Victorian version of Amazon arrived on the scene. The Sears catalog was just as huge as Amazon, at one point reaching 2/3rds of all Americans and accounting for 1% of the entire U.S. economy. They sold and delivered everything... even heroin!

We comfort ourselves by thinking that murder is something that happens to people when they aren’t careful about when, where, and who they mix it up with. But sometimes, as in these two cases, the scariest stories are actually the ones you don’t see coming.

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What Did History . . Taste Like? Do You Ever Stop to Wonder Why We Eat Certain Foods? There Are Some Pretty Strange Bites Looking Back Over the Millennia. Not Just Unusual… Not Just Exotic… But Foods That Make You Stop, Tilt Your Head Like a Puppy, and Ask, Who on Earth Thought Eating That Was a Good Idea? It's All in the Marketing. We’re Talking Beaver Tails, Bird Tongues, and Whale Vomit . . to Name a Few.

Humans are fascinated by space. We gaze up at the night sky and ask what and who is up there? Ancient cave drawings illustrated those thoughts thousands of years ago. Even “Disclosure Day” poses the question. But recently we’ve added one more question: does the government know something they’re not telling us?

We watched the tragic story of JFK Jr. and Carolyn Bessette in the FX series “Love Story.” But while the love story of John’s parents, JFK Sr. and Jackie Kennedy, had major differences, it also had some striking similarities.

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In December of 1903, the Wright brothers made the first powered flight with a pilot in history. That’s only 122 years ago and yet here we are flying around the moon in Artemis 2. But the unknown dangers explorer types faced then... and still face... is mind blowing. In fact, manned space flight almost got stopped in its tracks by a secret government test. I’m Patty Steele. How much can t...

We’ve been watching Artemis 2 and its $23 million dollar toilet journey to the dark side of the moon this week, but you have to ask a question. As we launch all these rockets, satellites, and space stations into the sky... what happens if they somehow come falling back to Earth? Well, it did happen almost 50 years ago, and folks around the globe spent a nervous few weeks... looking up.

Artemis 2 blasted off this week on NASA’s first manned trip into deep space in over 50 years. How did we get there and where are we going? The answers are both fascinating and inspirational.

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