Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Holly Frye and
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We talked about e Virgil Neil
Speaker 1: all week, Yes, we sure did. I am intrigued beyond
Speaker 1: measure by e Virgil Neil and the way he lived
Speaker 1: his life and all of his wild stuff. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: have so many thoughts, I have so many notes, So
Speaker 1: everybody come with me on journeys. First off, I have
Speaker 1: a cat redemption story. Okay, on a previous behind the
Speaker 1: scenes I talked about how my beautiful angel baby Jesse
Speaker 1: seemed to hate one of my best friends. Correct we
Speaker 1: figured out what happened, well, I think we figured out
Speaker 1: what happened, okay, because Jesse and one of our other
Speaker 1: cats had to go in last two weeks ago for
Speaker 1: dental surgery. And when we went and picked them up,
Speaker 1: the other cat who has very bad teeth, they are
Speaker 1: litter mates, they were like, oh, my mom was like
Speaker 1: she actually had much less in the way of problems
Speaker 1: than we expected. But Jesse had one tooth that was
Speaker 1: really infected, oh really deep into her jawline. And I
Speaker 1: think what must have happened is that she just wasn't
Speaker 1: feeling good and our dear friend probably gave her a
Speaker 1: scritch along her jaw, and she just associated her with
Speaker 1: that because after she healed from her oral surgery, that
Speaker 1: friend came over and Jesse climbed her like a monkey,
Speaker 1: like purring and like rubbing her face on her. So
Speaker 1: I think so funny. She might not have hateful heart.
Speaker 1: She may have just felt really cretty and have just
Speaker 1: been touched in a way that did not feel good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: my baby is my baby. It turns out she's a
Speaker 1: good girl. She's still a little bit of that. But
Speaker 1: I just wanted everyone to know she's not a monster. Okay,
Speaker 1: here's a takeaway of e Virgil Neil And really it's
Speaker 1: a takeaway that is also from the show I used
Speaker 1: to do, Criminalia. Don't mess with the post Office. They
Speaker 1: will come for you. They will come for you. We
Speaker 1: did a whole season on Criminalia about fraudsters, and in
Speaker 1: so many of those instances, the thing that finally took
Speaker 1: somebody down was like an inspector or the somebody from
Speaker 1: the post office, like the Postmaster General activating an inspector
Speaker 1: and being like you have to go check this out.
Speaker 1: And that was how things all I mean bias for action.
Speaker 1: They will put together a case, they will get lawyers
Speaker 1: involved alongside, like it, don't mess with the post office.
Speaker 1: It's the rule, yeah, which I just kind of love.
Speaker 1: Postal fraud will get you before anything else. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: there's a whole lot of other fraud that you know
Speaker 1: will happen. Nothing nothing, File your report with the FBI.
Speaker 1: What will happen. Nothing, zero things will happen. Call your
Speaker 1: local law enforcement about the fraud. Zero things happening. I
Speaker 1: have personal experience with this, and yeah, nothing, nothing will
Speaker 1: be done. Although I had a great check fraud story
Speaker 1: that maybe we'll wait for another day. But there there
Speaker 1: was It was a good one. It was a good one.
Speaker 1: There was justice sort of never messed with the PO anyway.
Speaker 1: One of the other things that came up in some
Speaker 1: of the research on Evirgil Neil, again, I feel like
Speaker 1: his life story should be called that's not substantiated, because
Speaker 1: oh yeah, there's a lot can't be substantiated, and that
Speaker 1: so much of his life was built in a way
Speaker 1: that people could not substantiate things that it makes it
Speaker 1: very hard. But one theory that had come up was
Speaker 1: that in his earlier days, and like people were like, Okay,
Speaker 1: why did he keep setting these businesses up in like Syracuse.
Speaker 1: Was that he was helping his parents or his mother
Speaker 1: solo his dad died at some point in there, and
Speaker 1: that is reported differently in different places, but that he
Speaker 1: may have been sticking close to her throughout all of it,
Speaker 1: and so like some of these sort of cockamy meat
Speaker 1: and in some ways nefarious businesses were kind of to
Speaker 1: generate money that he could give to her. But I
Speaker 1: don't that seems like a very kind read on his situation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but who knows, you know, even monsters will have pets.
Speaker 1: I found myself thinking about Robert Boyle during this episode,
Speaker 1: okay and his idea of healing at a distance. I yes,
Speaker 1: And I'm like, did they read his list his wish
Speaker 1: list of things that science might do one day? And go,
Speaker 1: people want that we can tell we have it even
Speaker 1: though we don't have it. Look into the eyes of
Speaker 1: the photograph and a specific time, Yeah, when I think
Speaker 1: it was character delineator. Yeah, and I was like, this
Speaker 1: sounds like some kind of wo like this is like
Speaker 1: character delineator sounds like a term for a psychic who
Speaker 1: was going to observe you and say what your character is? Like?
Speaker 1: That was sort of yeah, where my brain ticket? Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like a very specific form of cold reading. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's wild. Here's the thing. Don't come for me.
Speaker 1: I have a weird sort of reserved don't come for me.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying something bad, but it's gonna sound initially
Speaker 1: a weird sort of reserved admiration for e. Virgil Neil
Speaker 1: because he was clearly very smart and he you know,
Speaker 1: I mean I read a lot of his banking and
Speaker 1: accounting stuff and I'm like, this is a brilliant way
Speaker 1: to teach this stuff, Like this makes so much sense.
Speaker 1: It really like clarifies, demystifies, distills into like easily communicable
Speaker 1: and actionable activities like how to do these things? And
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is true of it. He had an
Speaker 1: incredible skill as a writer and as a communicator, and
Speaker 1: he obviously knew how to manage money. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: you're so darned smart. If you had only had scruples, right,
Speaker 1: what could you have done like that? It's like the
Speaker 1: formula I wrote at one point in my notes was
Speaker 1: banking plus writing, minus conscience, Like that's the formula that
Speaker 1: makes e Virgil neil because I don't know how you
Speaker 1: go to sleep at night doing the things he was doing.
Speaker 1: But I do marvel at the way he was able
Speaker 1: to like shift things around very carefully. He was really
Speaker 1: the only person who understood the whole web. He you know,
Speaker 1: like he was clearly making a lot of moves that
Speaker 1: were astute through a certain lens, but again just lacking
Speaker 1: morality or conscience, right right. So that's why I admire
Speaker 1: how smart he clearly was and how able he was
Speaker 1: to maneuver things to his own benefit. But I don't
Speaker 1: admire like what was motivating that or the outcome, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: don't come for me. I don't think he was a
Speaker 1: good person. I just think he was smart. Yeah, fascinated, fascinated. Yeah,
Speaker 1: have you ever fallen into I bet you haven't. This
Speaker 1: seems like something you would not do. But maybe those
Speaker 1: phases of life where you love watching infomercials. I don't
Speaker 1: know if I would say that I loved watching them.
Speaker 1: I love them, I find them fascinating. Yeah. There was
Speaker 1: a period of my life where I worked at a
Speaker 1: place that was going to try selling its products through
Speaker 1: an infomercial. So I did learn a lot about infomercials
Speaker 1: during that time, right, And I don't actually remember whether
Speaker 1: that effort got off the ground or not, Like I
Speaker 1: don't remember if that infomercial actually aired ever, But yeah,
Speaker 1: I have always been very fascinated because the here's the thing.
Speaker 1: There are even things that get sold and infomercials that
Speaker 1: are actually perfectly fine products. But the way that, like
Speaker 1: the sales tactic of it, we have the answer simplify
Speaker 1: your life, baby, it's all going to get better. Just
Speaker 1: just just call and place your order. That's how old
Speaker 1: I am. You used to have to call order, you know,
Speaker 1: go online, put in the thing. And I mean those
Speaker 1: still exist in various forms now, just in like a
Speaker 1: more rapid fire pace on like Instagram ads. Take that, right.
Speaker 1: I'm fascinated by them, and sometimes I get influenced by them.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie, usually in very benign ways, like
Speaker 1: I do need those shoes, but I just I find them.
Speaker 1: It's it's wild because even as you are conscious of
Speaker 1: the cause and effect of how that marketing works, there
Speaker 1: will be moments where you're like, maybe I do need
Speaker 1: and it's like you have to pull yourself back and
Speaker 1: go no, no, remember these are all careful. It's like
Speaker 1: the same way that people talk about the food industry,
Speaker 1: studying things like mouthfeel and creveability to make. It's the
Speaker 1: same thing, like there is psychological analysis around what will
Speaker 1: get people to, you know, eventually buy into a product, right, right,
Speaker 1: But even when you know that, it is very easy
Speaker 1: to be drawn in and be like that will solve
Speaker 1: that problem. Yeah. Well, And to be incredibly clear, the
Speaker 1: company that I was working for was selling actual legitimate products,
Speaker 1: like and actual legitimate products that had a very specific
Speaker 1: legal regulatory like oversight involved with them. But the infomercial
Speaker 1: idea was totally like trying to bring these products that
Speaker 1: were made for business use into a home by saying,
Speaker 1: this will solve all of your problems. You know, how
Speaker 1: you have baked on gunk in your oven, this product
Speaker 1: which was you know, formulated for commercial ovens, It's totally
Speaker 1: going to solve all your problems. Don't take away my
Speaker 1: flavoring gunk. I need the guck. And again I have
Speaker 1: I don't remember if that like, did that ever actually
Speaker 1: become a thing. I don't remember. I don't know. And
Speaker 1: so I mean some of those things do are perfectly
Speaker 1: legitimate products. Yeah, I'm fascinated by I'm fascinated by the idea.
Speaker 1: I feel like, in an alternate life, I must have
Speaker 1: worked in advertising because I am obsessed with commercials. Like
Speaker 1: I have strong opinions about commercials. I will watch a
Speaker 1: whole show that's garbage, but if it's on like network television,
Speaker 1: I will turn to Brian and talk about the problems
Speaker 1: with the ads, and I just I love I love
Speaker 1: the concept of advertising as a field of study. I mean,
Speaker 1: I don't, you know, love the concept of advertising, but
Speaker 1: I love analyzing it. I think it's really fascinating. You know,
Speaker 1: commercials are an interesting space in terms of like film
Speaker 1: and television technology, because in some cases that's where things
Speaker 1: get put, that's where the envelope gets pushed in terms
Speaker 1: of what's possible first, because it's much easier to fund
Speaker 1: a ninety second piece of film than it is an
Speaker 1: actual show or movie. So from that point of view,
Speaker 1: I'm always fascinated by commercials. Anyway, I'm fascinating with advertising
Speaker 1: is the summation of that, which is probably part of
Speaker 1: why E. Virgil Neil is so right, just wildly engrossing
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, well, in his like newspaper ads that
Speaker 1: were basically advertorials. Yeah. I thought about that a lot
Speaker 1: because of, you know, my own history of having worked
Speaker 1: for a website and an editorial department in an era
Speaker 1: that there was, you know, the transition was being made
Speaker 1: from print media with you know, things that look like
Speaker 1: articles but said at the top, sponsored copy or something
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, trying to ansfer that kind of mindset
Speaker 1: to the web. Yeah, I working in an editorial department
Speaker 1: that was highly opposed to doing anything like that. So
Speaker 1: that's like, those are the things that I was thinking
Speaker 1: about while well, while talking about that part of his
Speaker 1: life story. Yeah, I mean, I it's such a weird thing.
Speaker 1: And I know most people hate ads in general, they
Speaker 1: hate advertising. I know we get complaints about advertising on
Speaker 1: our show sometimes, but like, and I have a very
Speaker 1: it's stuck with me so hard. An interaction I had
Speaker 1: with a friend of mine, and it was in that
Speaker 1: time when a lot of network television was transitioning to
Speaker 1: having shows available online. Oh yeah, And this friend of
Speaker 1: mine was so irate that there were ads in the
Speaker 1: online version. And I was like, but there have to
Speaker 1: be what are you talking about? And she was just
Speaker 1: I write about it and I was like, she's like
Speaker 1: it should be free, and I'm like, okay, how do
Speaker 1: you think they pay the actors, writers, set, directors, et cetera. Like,
Speaker 1: I know it's not fun always to watch an ad,
Speaker 1: but like, if you want the show now, of course
Speaker 1: the models are very different. But for network television particularly,
Speaker 1: it's like, if you want the show, you got to
Speaker 1: put up with that part unless you're subscribing to it
Speaker 1: in a different way, like the rules. That's just how
Speaker 1: it works. It's fascinating to me, and I think the
Speaker 1: transition into online there was a gap for people in
Speaker 1: like understanding or accepting that initially that like, oh, the
Speaker 1: ads will follow us to they are also yeah, when
Speaker 1: I think they were thinking, if I'm not watching it
Speaker 1: on my television with my remote control, surely it's a
Speaker 1: different thing. This must be cheaper to run. They don't
Speaker 1: need the adds for this, and it's like no, they
Speaker 1: they actually still do. It was in parallel with advertisers,
Speaker 1: no not seeing value and advertising on the web yet,
Speaker 1: so for some things there was just sort of this
Speaker 1: happened with podcasting a lot, like there was sort of
Speaker 1: a window when most podcasts didn't have ads on them
Speaker 1: because advertisers weren't interested in advertising on podcasts, and listeners
Speaker 1: got used to ad free podcasts, and those ad free podcasts,
Speaker 1: vast majority of them would have stopped existing because people
Speaker 1: would have run out of money. Yeah, had the advertisers
Speaker 1: not eventually come yeah, it's weird, it's a weird dance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I get the dismay. Yeah, I'm not. I literally right
Speaker 1: now my brain is taking through all of the copy
Speaker 1: and recent television ads I've seen that I hate. Nobody
Speaker 1: needs that. Nobody needs me to shout out their company
Speaker 1: for not liking your ads. Do you want me to
Speaker 1: tell you about the the memory that was jogged by
Speaker 1: our email about kids dressing up as historical figures? Yes?
Speaker 1: I mean, like, have you ever had like a memory
Speaker 1: just kind and slap you in the face like that
Speaker 1: that you haven't thought about in this like forty five years. Yeah.
Speaker 1: In seventh grade, my best friend and I we had
Speaker 1: to do reports on historical figures in science and my
Speaker 1: best friend and I I don't know if we picked
Speaker 1: it or we were assigned the Wright Brothers, Okay, and
Speaker 1: we were like great. And she is still a friend
Speaker 1: of mine. She's one of the smartest people I know.
Speaker 1: She probably did more of the like bookwork part of it.
Speaker 1: I don't know. We each picked one of the brothers
Speaker 1: and kind of went with it. But on the day
Speaker 1: of the presentation, I, I don't know if I just
Speaker 1: didn't communicate this or not, but I showed up in
Speaker 1: full historical costume. Oh no, and she did not. And
Speaker 1: it was It was just the most awkward, weird thing
Speaker 1: because it was like, I was That's what I wore
Speaker 1: to school that day. It wasn't like I could change, right,
Speaker 1: so there was no way to make it not look
Speaker 1: like I had done more work than her in that regard. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: she did just as much work as me, if not
Speaker 1: or on the like writing and prep part. And it
Speaker 1: was just like, I woo the way that memory came
Speaker 1: back so hard, Yeah, so hard, but also hilarious. That
Speaker 1: wasn't a very historically accurate costume, but it was more
Speaker 1: historically accurate than most kids would do at that stage
Speaker 1: of life. Listen, if this is your weekend coming up,
Speaker 1: I hope you only so if you want to. I
Speaker 1: hope you only watch infomercials. If you want to. I
Speaker 1: hope you remember that advertising is often designed to appeal
Speaker 1: to that part of your brain that has wants and needs,
Speaker 1: and you don't get sucked into buying something you don't want, or,
Speaker 1: like me, you wake up in a fugue state, and
Speaker 1: that's when the ordering happens. It's a problem like where
Speaker 1: do these shoes come from? Oh? I did order those
Speaker 1: at six forty five am last Friday. It happens. Listen,
Speaker 1: it is what it is. But I hope that, like
Speaker 1: you have a wonderful next couple of days. If you
Speaker 1: have to work, if you have obligations, maybe you have
Speaker 1: a family and you got to run people all over
Speaker 1: for all of their extracurricular activities or whatever they've got
Speaker 1: going on. I still hope you can steal away some
Speaker 1: fun time for yourself. Maybe find a bathroom with a
Speaker 1: disco ball in it. Maybe make a bathroom with a
Speaker 1: disco ball in it. Just embrace joy wherever you find it.
Speaker 1: Be kind to one another. We will be right back
Speaker 1: here on Monday with new stuff. We will also be
Speaker 1: back here tomorrow with a classic episode. Stuff You Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
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