Speaker 1: Hi everybody, and welcome back the season three. It only
Speaker 1: took a year for me to get this new one done.
Speaker 1: It's Access Podcast, the podcast about podcast and if you're
Speaker 1: new listener, my name is Mattie Stali. Eleven years ago,
Speaker 1: I left the number one morning show in San Francisco
Speaker 1: to join the startup team at Stitcher, and I've been
Speaker 1: in podcasting ever since. I'm the vice president of podcast
Speaker 1: Programming for iHeart Radio and in general, I'm a podcast nerd.
Speaker 1: I love podcast and I love helping listeners find new
Speaker 1: shows and also get to know the folks that they
Speaker 1: already love. This week on the show, we're gonna meet
Speaker 1: our new producer, Morgan, who's gonna tell us about three
Speaker 1: shows you should be listening to. But right now I
Speaker 1: want to tell you about our guest. I love this guy,
Speaker 1: Ben Bolan. Ben. He began as an intern at How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works in two thousand seven, early days of podcast Thing,
Speaker 1: and in two thousand and eight, with his stamped colleague,
Speaker 1: Ben created Stuff They Don't Want You to Know What.
Speaker 1: She hosts along with another one of my favorite podcasts,
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History. Let's take a listen to Ridiculous History and
Speaker 1: then we're gonna start a conversation with Ben. But if
Speaker 1: you want to be a citizen of the United States,
Speaker 1: there is some paperwork involved as well as some verbiage.
Speaker 1: If you're decided oath, got to speak an oath, you
Speaker 1: gotta put your bloody thumb print on a document, sign
Speaker 1: your name and in blood. Now, well, you know it's
Speaker 1: changed over time. You still have to have interviews, you
Speaker 1: have to take citizenship test, naturalizations where they call all right, Ben,
Speaker 1: I think of getting close to being able to ask
Speaker 1: if podcasting is something you always wanted to do, but
Speaker 1: we're not quite there yet. What made you actually want
Speaker 1: to get into podcasting or was it something that you
Speaker 1: kind of fell into? Oh man, little bit of both,
Speaker 1: to be completely candid. So I started working for How
Speaker 1: Stuff Works as an intern in the days of your
Speaker 1: pre podcasting, and when we first as a company began
Speaker 1: making podcast I immediately wanted to be part of the
Speaker 1: movement because you know, I know you're the same way
Speaker 1: with this, Maddie. I've always been in love with radio
Speaker 1: since I was a wee tyke, and this seemed like
Speaker 1: a way to participate in all the things that I
Speaker 1: loved about radio growing up. Now again. To be honest,
Speaker 1: we had no idea how far we would go with this.
Speaker 1: Our first podcast were only about five to ten minutes long,
Speaker 1: which sounds crazy nowadays, but I I went into this
Speaker 1: with my eyes wide open, and my mission was to
Speaker 1: be on as many quality podcast as possible. To date,
Speaker 1: I have guested on numerous podcasts. I've produced many, I've
Speaker 1: hosted and written for four to five and never looked back.
Speaker 1: So I fell into it. But I guess maybe the
Speaker 1: best way to say it is I I fell into
Speaker 1: it in a hopes and dreams kind of way. If
Speaker 1: I was not podcasting for this company, I would have
Speaker 1: ended up podcasting somewhere else. I just love it. I
Speaker 1: love the medium, in the format, the whole nine. Man.
Speaker 1: It's funny that you mentioned, you know, being an old
Speaker 1: fan of radio. I started doing radio shows in my
Speaker 1: bedroom when I was ten years old. And part of
Speaker 1: my job now is I go and work with radio
Speaker 1: talent about podcasting and kind of you know, how they
Speaker 1: can create great podcasts. And one thing that they'll they'll
Speaker 1: always look at me and say, is so this is
Speaker 1: just kind of like the radio we used to do.
Speaker 1: When we've talked a lot and had a little more
Speaker 1: time on our hands. And I think it's true. What
Speaker 1: were the earlier radio shows that you listened to that
Speaker 1: got you hooked? Oh, man ky. I am a huge
Speaker 1: fan of late night AM shows. That's where you can
Speaker 1: hear some really cool stuff, and then late night college
Speaker 1: radio stations. So I loved eighty eight point five here
Speaker 1: in Atlanta, which is a g s U station. And
Speaker 1: I was always a big fan of a show called
Speaker 1: Coast to Coast AM. Yeah, Art Bell and George Nori.
Speaker 1: I thought those guys had such tremendous interview skills, and
Speaker 1: they were profoundly compassionate. You know, they spoke to some
Speaker 1: very eccentric people, but they heard them out and so
Speaker 1: to me, that kind of talk was transformative, and it
Speaker 1: was wide ranging, and it was just as much about
Speaker 1: the personality of the host or the talent as it
Speaker 1: was about the information they were imparting. And I feel
Speaker 1: like that's a trend that has continued to evolve. You know,
Speaker 1: now more and more often when you hear really good radio,
Speaker 1: it feels like a podcast. At the end of the day,
Speaker 1: it's good storytelling. That's what I always tell folks is
Speaker 1: that you know, great podcast is a great story. It's
Speaker 1: got a beginning, middle end, and you feel like you've
Speaker 1: gone somewhere and you've learned something. Which is another thing
Speaker 1: that I love about podcasting is I feel like I'm
Speaker 1: kind of one of those curmudgeony people that feel like
Speaker 1: people don't read enough anymore. They don't educate themselves as
Speaker 1: much as I think they should, but they do and
Speaker 1: podcasting is now filling that whole. What do you feel
Speaker 1: about that as far as podcasting being, you know, kind
Speaker 1: of a greater greater good for society. Absolutely, not to
Speaker 1: sound too over zealous, but I absolutely agree with you, Maddie.
Speaker 1: As a fellow curmudgeon, I think we're on the same page.
Speaker 1: Whenever I am setting out to produce rights or develop
Speaker 1: a show or an episode, my first question is always this.
Speaker 1: When someone starts listening to a show or an episode
Speaker 1: and they get to the end, what is changed within them?
Speaker 1: Have they learned something new? Have they have they changed
Speaker 1: their mind about something? Because yes, podcasts are storytelling, but
Speaker 1: just like the reader of a novel, the audience is
Speaker 1: part of the story. They're the main character. The most
Speaker 1: important part of any show is going to be the
Speaker 1: people who listen. To and support it, so I absolutely agree.
Speaker 1: I would even go a little bit further and argue
Speaker 1: that to a very real degree, podcasts are democratizing education.
Speaker 1: The things that people used to have to go to
Speaker 1: grad school to learn, they can get the information for
Speaker 1: free now in the form of a podcast. And it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter where they live, it doesn't matter what their
Speaker 1: socioeconomic position is. This is a fundamentally game changing thing,
Speaker 1: and I think it's for the better. I teach at
Speaker 1: university and I've seen over the last eight years how
Speaker 1: students have become such fan it's a good podcast. And
Speaker 1: I have students that the only radio they listened to
Speaker 1: is NPR. I can't imagine saying that ten years ago,
Speaker 1: because there's no way kids would have listened to NPR
Speaker 1: ten years ago. But they're finding it through podcasts and
Speaker 1: they really enjoyed the content absolutely. You know, one thing
Speaker 1: I was always very interested in when you and I
Speaker 1: originally met was the way that you have this let's
Speaker 1: say a forty thousand foot view, to use the old cliche,
Speaker 1: you can see the industry growing on its own. You
Speaker 1: can see all the parallels has to radio, but you
Speaker 1: can also see the tremendous potential it has in terms
Speaker 1: of education, information and storytelling. So I don't know if
Speaker 1: I can say this on the air, Maddie, but you
Speaker 1: are kind of my go to guy to send an
Speaker 1: email if I'm like, Hey, what's happening with this thing? Oh?
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, man. I just I love the medium
Speaker 1: off to talk about watching where it's at now and
Speaker 1: where it was eleven years ago when I left radio
Speaker 1: and went to Stitcher, because there were many years of
Speaker 1: the last eleven years where I doubted whether we would
Speaker 1: get to the point that we're at now. And it
Speaker 1: is so exciting to see where we're at now. I mean,
Speaker 1: getting to work with how stuff works and have this
Speaker 1: synergy that we've got going on right now. I don't
Speaker 1: want to get too in the weeds on that stuff,
Speaker 1: but it is a lot of fun. This is definitely
Speaker 1: the salad days. As far as I'm concerned with podcasting,
Speaker 1: Oh oh yeah, I agree. I feel very Patrick Henry
Speaker 1: about it. In a way. It's like we have not
Speaker 1: yet begun to podcasts. We're sort of as an industry
Speaker 1: if we look at it in terms of like a
Speaker 1: maybe a three act structure or something as an industry.
Speaker 1: We are at the beginning of the second act and
Speaker 1: things are escalating at a delightful, if intimidating pace. Many
Speaker 1: many people had never heard of podcast until Cereal was
Speaker 1: parodied on Saturday Night Live. You remember that, Yeah, on
Speaker 1: that real quick. I just remember teaching a class and
Speaker 1: talking to a student about Cereal and having another student
Speaker 1: walk in and closer ears and walk out and say,
Speaker 1: you're gonna spoil it for me. And I was like,
Speaker 1: that never happened before with a podcast, that people were
Speaker 1: that into it. Yeah. Yeah, And that's the thing. It's
Speaker 1: kind of a Malcolm Gladwell esque tipping point. You know.
Speaker 1: Podcasts went from being let's say, relatively niche, sure obscure
Speaker 1: in the late two thousand's to now being something that
Speaker 1: certain professionals are just expected to have, like a business card.
Speaker 1: If you're a comedian, for example, you have a podcast.
Speaker 1: It's part of and Parcel. Now, so you host two
Speaker 1: shows that I love, but for different reasons. Let me
Speaker 1: start with Ridiculous History because it's my dream job. I
Speaker 1: love history and the stuff that you guys find and
Speaker 1: cover fascinates me. You actually did one of the podcasts
Speaker 1: recently about the town in West Virginia that reached out
Speaker 1: to the Soviets to get some stuff. I'm from West
Speaker 1: Virginia and I consider myself a pretty good West Virginia
Speaker 1: history buff. Didn't know that story. Where do you find
Speaker 1: these awesome stories for that podcast? That is a fantastic question.
Speaker 1: We go about it a number of different ways. So
Speaker 1: any podcast I do, I think the audience is the
Speaker 1: most important part of the show, so I want to
Speaker 1: hear what they think they're fellow listeners would enjoy. So
Speaker 1: we'll do a call for topics. Tell us something that
Speaker 1: you think your friends around the world who also listen
Speaker 1: to this show with dig and it gives people a
Speaker 1: chance to tell their own story, you know, whether it's
Speaker 1: West Virginia or whether it's somewhere in Indonesia. You know.
Speaker 1: The second way will be my co host and my
Speaker 1: producer and I will sit together and will pitch each
Speaker 1: other these strange things that we found in our individual reading.
Speaker 1: Will also go to resources like ask historians on Reddit
Speaker 1: is fantastic. And then we have a team of research associates. Well,
Speaker 1: I say a team. It's one guy, but he's awesome,
Speaker 1: and he's awesome, and he's definitely part of the team.
Speaker 1: What he'll do is back and there were a lot
Speaker 1: more text articles on how stuff works. He would go
Speaker 1: through and talk with some of the people writing those
Speaker 1: articles or some people who are doing some podcasts or
Speaker 1: video content, just to see if there were any hot
Speaker 1: leads would give us a hotly. We are very very open.
Speaker 1: We only have from a few rules. The only big
Speaker 1: rule we have is how recent is too recent, and
Speaker 1: that's anything anything before the nineteen nineties we're pretty good
Speaker 1: with because old is it makes me feel to say it,
Speaker 1: and some of us listening maybe on the same page
Speaker 1: with me. The nineteen eighties were officially a long time ago. Oh,
Speaker 1: I know when you're doing that podcast and you're finding
Speaker 1: stuff and you put it together. I don't think people
Speaker 1: realize how much goes into creating a podcast, because you know,
Speaker 1: when you do a really good podcast, it sounds like
Speaker 1: two guys just talking. And I always tell people when
Speaker 1: they tell me, hey, I think I could do your
Speaker 1: job because I can talk and I talk with my friends,
Speaker 1: and I think, well, that's great. I'm doing my job
Speaker 1: very well. If you can do that. How much work
Speaker 1: goes into one of those podcasts to make that sound
Speaker 1: that effortless before you do the show. So on Ridiculous History,
Speaker 1: my team and I have a beautiful situation because we
Speaker 1: already have report. We're all actually friends in real life.
Speaker 1: We hang out and that makes a huge difference when
Speaker 1: you're in the booth. We also do our own individual research.
Speaker 1: A lot of people are surprised sometimes when I say,
Speaker 1: you know, Ridiculous History doesn't really have an outline. We
Speaker 1: have the gist of the story and then we go
Speaker 1: into our own separate research. Our mission usually is to
Speaker 1: surprise one another in a positive way. And when you
Speaker 1: can have that happen, it's beautiful. But you can only
Speaker 1: have that happen if you put in the time to
Speaker 1: earn that sort of breezy conversational flow. So a good
Speaker 1: way to think of it would be for a show
Speaker 1: like Ridiculous History. Let's say every thirty minutes of show
Speaker 1: you here is maybe on the light end, five or
Speaker 1: six hours distill than concentrated. But that's again, I can't
Speaker 1: emphasize this enough. That's kind of a light end. You've
Speaker 1: probably had this happen to when you hear a concept
Speaker 1: and you're thinking this would make a great show where
Speaker 1: this would make a great interview, and you start digging
Speaker 1: into it and you have that woe rabbit hole moment.
Speaker 1: There have been times where been prepping for an episode
Speaker 1: for two weeks and I'm still thinking, Okay, We've got
Speaker 1: more work to do. We are in the land right
Speaker 1: now with podcast ideas. If I had a dollar for
Speaker 1: every email or phone call or text or a conversation
Speaker 1: I had where somebody was pitching me their idea, I'd
Speaker 1: be super rich right now. But that's the thing. Putting
Speaker 1: out a quality podcast it's a lot more time and
Speaker 1: effort than a lot of people realize. Oh yeah, especially
Speaker 1: when you consider all the work that goes into the
Speaker 1: final product. Because there are one person, armies people who
Speaker 1: are making great independent content and stem to Stern, it's
Speaker 1: them for the entire show. And that stuff can be good,
Speaker 1: and that stuff can be great and astounding, but it's
Speaker 1: always is always helpful to move with a team, with
Speaker 1: a unit. So one thing I think that we've learned
Speaker 1: through our years of podcasting is that the information typically
Speaker 1: already exists somewhere pretty often, and the person listening to
Speaker 1: the show, they can read the book to you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. They're looking for something extra, something else.
Speaker 1: They're looking for that story, that personality, that flavor. So
Speaker 1: I spend a lot of time with new podcasters working
Speaker 1: out some good podcast hygiene, that's what I call It.
Speaker 1: Takes a lot of time, there are no shortcuts, and
Speaker 1: it changes every time you've got a new person with you.
Speaker 1: One of the biggest things I recommend for anyone listening
Speaker 1: who wants to do a podcast with their friends or
Speaker 1: their pals. Regardless of what your podcast is about, whether
Speaker 1: it is a deep dive in history, whether it is
Speaker 1: something as niche as football in the nineteen thirties or
Speaker 1: something like that, no matter what it is, if you
Speaker 1: have the opportunity, take an improv class, learned to yes
Speaker 1: and learn to support your co host, and every episode
Speaker 1: you do, try to make them sound like the smartest, funniest,
Speaker 1: most fascinating person in the room. And if they do
Speaker 1: the same thing, you will have an excellent and amazing conversation.
Speaker 1: That's awesome advice. I want to shift over to talk
Speaker 1: about your other podcasts that you do, and I have
Speaker 1: mixed feelings about stuff. They don't want you to know.
Speaker 1: I'm a occam's racer kind of guy. I honestly believe
Speaker 1: the easiest answer is usually the right answer. You know,
Speaker 1: there was no conspiracy to kill JFK. I'm firm on that.
Speaker 1: When you're doing a show that's about conspiracies, how hard
Speaker 1: is it to not go down rabbit holes and believe
Speaker 1: everything is a conspiracy. Well, we live in an age
Speaker 1: where being credulous is common and it's even applauded because
Speaker 1: people are in information overload, and it's incredibly tempting to
Speaker 1: just take a headline as an answer. I'd like to
Speaker 1: clarify this for everyone listening. Stuff they don't want you
Speaker 1: to know is a show about critical thinking applied to conspiracies.
Speaker 1: I'm going somewhere with this, Mattie, I promise you so
Speaker 1: so I mentioned earlier, you know, in the age of
Speaker 1: instantaneous information and information overload, said, it's tempting to just
Speaker 1: look at a headline or a buzzword and then use
Speaker 1: that as a cognitive shortcut to pull up all the
Speaker 1: other things you earlier associated with that. The term conspiracy
Speaker 1: or conspiracy theory itself is a thought terminating cliche, and
Speaker 1: it's often used to dismiss legitimate acts of corruption. For instance,
Speaker 1: back for HSBC was caught laundering money on an international
Speaker 1: scale for drug cartels. It was called a conspiracy theory,
Speaker 1: and it was called a conspiracy theory because that helped
Speaker 1: it become something easily dismissed. You know what I mean,
Speaker 1: Like I understand you absolutely, So this is interesting. Our
Speaker 1: mission with this show is to is to dive into
Speaker 1: those things on the edge of the map and and
Speaker 1: to honestly ask those questions and look at the facts,
Speaker 1: and then look at what people say they believe. Because
Speaker 1: the weirdest thing about this is often when people believe
Speaker 1: in something conspiratorial, if presented with facts that would disprove
Speaker 1: some or part of that belief system, it goes down
Speaker 1: to your bedside manner. Nobody ever changed somebody else's mind
Speaker 1: by yelling at them or condescending to them. We change
Speaker 1: people's minds by socratic method, by asking questions, by being
Speaker 1: part of the conversation. To your question directly, which I
Speaker 1: think is an excellent question, how do we how do
Speaker 1: we do this show for as long as we've done
Speaker 1: without falling into a rabbit hole of credulity. It's true,
Speaker 1: you know, people can often end up drinking a bit
Speaker 1: of the cool aid to use the crafts figure of speech.
Speaker 1: We don't what I have found. We have found real conspiracies.
Speaker 1: It's true, they're out there, but those real conspiracies typically
Speaker 1: are groups of people who feel that they deserve more
Speaker 1: power or money or influence, and then use the power, money,
Speaker 1: or influence that they have to pursue more of the same.
Speaker 1: The big question you have to always ask yourself when
Speaker 1: you when you hear this kind of stuff, what is
Speaker 1: the motivation? Who are the thing and stuff? They don't
Speaker 1: want you to know. If someone for some reason decided
Speaker 1: to fake the moon landing, why would they do it?
Speaker 1: Why would why would so many people do that? What's
Speaker 1: the point? You know what I mean? And that's when
Speaker 1: a lot of conspiracy theories tend to break down, because
Speaker 1: finding a genuine, powerful motive along with genuine powerful means
Speaker 1: that happens much less often than people think. You know, Oh,
Speaker 1: what's that old line I think it was in Sherlock
Speaker 1: Holmes or something about how every every disguise is ultimately
Speaker 1: an autobiography of the person wearing the disguise, And a
Speaker 1: lot of times when people are strongly invested in a particular,
Speaker 1: easily disprovable conspiracy, theory for lack of a better term,
Speaker 1: They're associating it with their personal identity, and they will
Speaker 1: feel personally attacked if you say, well, it's true, like
Speaker 1: here's a war story for you man. One of the
Speaker 1: weirdest ones, one of the ones I got the most
Speaker 1: hate mail about ever, was the flat earth beliefs. I thought,
Speaker 1: why would we even waste our time, in our listeners
Speaker 1: time exploring this thing, and then our you know, or
Speaker 1: democracy or team votes, and they say, okay, we'll do
Speaker 1: it because for some reason now it's trending. And so
Speaker 1: we did this and explained why people would believe this
Speaker 1: or professed to believe it, and then outline several experiments
Speaker 1: you can do at your own home to show yourself
Speaker 1: the nature of Earth, the heavens, and the solar system.
Speaker 1: And then we've got this delusion of hate mail. People
Speaker 1: made hit piece videos of me on YouTube, and there
Speaker 1: are so many other real problems, escalating violence and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. But I responded every email. I didn't make
Speaker 1: a response video, but every email I responded to. So
Speaker 1: to sum it up by way of long prologue, and
Speaker 1: I apologize for that. It is tempting to believe the
Speaker 1: first thing you read about a subject, right, but you're
Speaker 1: not being fair to yourself and fair your listeners. Whether
Speaker 1: it's the idea of you know, suppressed technology or something,
Speaker 1: or whether it's just a study of which deciduous trees
Speaker 1: are most prevalent in a given part of the world,
Speaker 1: You've got to read multiple sources. You have to you
Speaker 1: have to confirm that. And once you start reading multiple sources,
Speaker 1: that's when you see the things fall apart. Because human beings,
Speaker 1: every single one of us, we are brilliant, your hoarders
Speaker 1: of knowledge. We have tremendous potential and we want to learn,
Speaker 1: and that means keeping a secret or conspiring. Right. That's
Speaker 1: usually going to be very difficult because you are surrounded
Speaker 1: by people who are terrible at keeping secrets, who love
Speaker 1: sharing things with each other and love learning. Usually, if
Speaker 1: something if something is a genuine conspiracy, meaning that again
Speaker 1: people in power worked together for some sort of goal
Speaker 1: that they wanted out of the limelight, usually there is
Speaker 1: some way to prove it. Usually there is someone who
Speaker 1: wanted to share, someone who wanted to learn. It's just
Speaker 1: it's very difficult to keep a secret. Like with the
Speaker 1: jfk assassination, I love that you bring up that example,
Speaker 1: the JFK assassination national international tragedy. But because of not
Speaker 1: even necessarily the circumstances of the assassination, but because of
Speaker 1: the way the government had a difficult time being transparent
Speaker 1: in the aftermath in the investigation. Because of that, conspiracy
Speaker 1: theories thrived, and due to this day, easily half, maybe
Speaker 1: even a little more than half of the population believes
Speaker 1: they don't know the whole truth about the JFK murder,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that, again is just chalked up
Speaker 1: to the lack of transparency. In the lack of transparency,
Speaker 1: speculation always thrives. And the problem with that is that
Speaker 1: once that transparency is granted, once people really can see
Speaker 1: every single thing that happened, and when they've already constructed
Speaker 1: an internal narrative, and so they won't believe the truth
Speaker 1: even when they see it, because they appreciate the story
Speaker 1: they have told themselves beforehand. Why are you going to
Speaker 1: come in and interrupt my story with all these bothersome facts,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? I think one thing that
Speaker 1: I get really perturbed about now is that all of
Speaker 1: these Netflix specials, and I'm gonna point to cereal as well.
Speaker 1: All of these things that are like trying to show
Speaker 1: why a murder or something didn't happen take away from
Speaker 1: the victim a lot of the times. So good example
Speaker 1: is that making a murderer. We have a podcast called
Speaker 1: Rebutting the Murderer and Dan O'Donnell does it, and Dan
Speaker 1: Dan was actually at every trial. He knows this family,
Speaker 1: he knows everything about this case, and he just destroys
Speaker 1: that Netflix series because the guys are super guilty. But
Speaker 1: he goes in and explains why you know this Netflix
Speaker 1: special is telling you that guy is not guilty, even
Speaker 1: though he is. I just feel like we sometimes we
Speaker 1: give a lot of credence to conspiracy over facts, and
Speaker 1: it takes away from somebody's actual pain and suffering. This
Speaker 1: is the thing that happens with true crime as well.
Speaker 1: There's ways to do it correctly, but there is a
Speaker 1: danger that it becomes exploitative. One of the things that's
Speaker 1: strange about the world in which we live is that
Speaker 1: despite social media and despite the proliferation of different communication platforms,
Speaker 1: we still see people being dehumanized and there are certain
Speaker 1: things on stuff they don't want you to know that
Speaker 1: I haven't touched, and I have no plans to, for instance,
Speaker 1: the terrible, terrible, terrible Alex Jones. You know, I'm a
Speaker 1: positive person, Maddie, but that guy is the worst. He's
Speaker 1: a real pill. Absolutely. I think that if you look
Speaker 1: up the word tool and douche bag his pictures in
Speaker 1: both the sture. Yeah, so you know, he proliferated a
Speaker 1: very hurtful and exploitative thing in the wake of mass
Speaker 1: shootings and other domestic tragedies, wherein he accused parents who
Speaker 1: had lost their children or relatives or survivors of these
Speaker 1: tragedies of somehow being in the pocket of some sort
Speaker 1: of shadowy organization. And that's all well and good for
Speaker 1: you know, a feature length fiction film or maybe a
Speaker 1: really kick ass graphic novel. But these are real people.
Speaker 1: These are real people. They wake up, they read these
Speaker 1: horrible things, They get harassed online and Twitter, sometimes in person,
Speaker 1: and they go back to sleep. They wake up the
Speaker 1: next day. Maybe the people who are harassing them have
Speaker 1: moved on to a different cau is, but those people
Speaker 1: are still alive and their children are still dead. That
Speaker 1: is a massively horrific thing. The Netflix is, I think
Speaker 1: they do a lot of stuff right, and they do
Speaker 1: some amazing work, but true crime documentaries can easily become
Speaker 1: this sort of cathartic experience for people at the expense
Speaker 1: of the quality of life for the actual people involved.
Speaker 1: So I think it's dangerous, and I think rebudding a
Speaker 1: murderer is doing some doing some significant and valuable work.
Speaker 1: I think that you also have to look at who's
Speaker 1: produced the documentary, because now we're starting to see when
Speaker 1: people want to defend themselves or have something to defend it,
Speaker 1: they have a documentary produced that puts them in the
Speaker 1: right light. I mean, I happen with Fire Festival. There
Speaker 1: were two different documentaries that come out, and one made
Speaker 1: fun Jerry look good and one didn't. And the one
Speaker 1: that made him look good was guess what produced by them?
Speaker 1: So yeah, and I thought that was really interesting. You know,
Speaker 1: for me personally, I was in New York on nine
Speaker 1: eleven and I lived through all of that and had
Speaker 1: friends that died. And that's one that if I hear
Speaker 1: someone talking in a bar and they're into that whole
Speaker 1: bullshit conspiracy of it did happen or you know, our
Speaker 1: government did it and all of these things, I get
Speaker 1: viscerally upset. And I'm not a confrontational fella. I like people.
Speaker 1: I really don't like to argue, but man, that's the
Speaker 1: one that will get me fired up immediately. I'm glad
Speaker 1: you mentioned that one, because the social aspect of that
Speaker 1: sort of belief system is fascinating to me. It inherently
Speaker 1: includes some orwelly and double think, and this is a
Speaker 1: great way to look at it. The same people who
Speaker 1: argue that the US government intentionally did this kind of
Speaker 1: thing for some whatever crazy reason they want to stick
Speaker 1: in there, those people also, at the very same time
Speaker 1: believe the same government is massively incompetent and cannot precratically
Speaker 1: tell its asked from its elbow. Yeah. So, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, this group of people who apparently cannot do
Speaker 1: anything right because look at you know, just congressional rating
Speaker 1: numbers or whatever approval numbers, all of a sudden they
Speaker 1: got their stealth together for one big, cartoonishly complicated, monstrous
Speaker 1: act that they orchestrated so perfectly that they also controlled
Speaker 1: the weather somehow, right, And then they said, Okay, we've
Speaker 1: done this super villainous thing. We have created one of
Speaker 1: the worst events in US history, and we pulled it off.
Speaker 1: Without a hitch. Let's get back to being incompetent. It
Speaker 1: just does not make sense. What's the one quote unquote
Speaker 1: conspiracy that you believe firmly that maybe other folks think
Speaker 1: you might be a little crazy for believing. There's a
Speaker 1: guy named General Smedley Butler and General Smedley, but it
Speaker 1: is Smedly sm E. T. L. E. Y. Smedley. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was a different time, man. What can I say?
Speaker 1: So he's a war hero, right, he's got that position
Speaker 1: of an elder statesman, you know what I mean. He's
Speaker 1: not necessarily active politically, but when he speaks people listen
Speaker 1: in the US, and he becomes increasingly disillusioned with the
Speaker 1: US's pattern of war overseas, and he starts to believe
Speaker 1: that he is much more of a servant of private
Speaker 1: corporate interests right masquerading as human rights interventions. But then
Speaker 1: he tells Congress in testimony that he is approached by
Speaker 1: one Prescott Bush to join them in a coup to
Speaker 1: overthrow the New Deal government and institute something like fascism.
Speaker 1: So everything that I just told you is demonstrably true.
Speaker 1: The problem there is that after that point people start
Speaker 1: exaggerating what happened, or kind of confusing their own opinion
Speaker 1: for fact. What actually did happen is, yeah, Prescott Bush
Speaker 1: approached Smedley Butler and said, general, big fan, I imagine
Speaker 1: and me and the boys have been talking, and we
Speaker 1: think it's time for a change rather than working in
Speaker 1: the system. He was pitching the idea of a coup
Speaker 1: in the United States, but it never got as far
Speaker 1: as we know, it never got past the pitching stage.
Speaker 1: No one actually committed a crime. These were just dangerous
Speaker 1: conversations of powerful people were having, and it cheapens the
Speaker 1: danger of that for people to say unprovable stuff about it.
Speaker 1: That's one I wholeheartedly think is demonstrably true. I don't
Speaker 1: know if people think this is crazy, man, but there
Speaker 1: have been some really successful marketing conspiracies thanks to Edward Burnett.
Speaker 1: Are you a vegetarian? Okay? So here in the States
Speaker 1: and you and I grew up in the age where
Speaker 1: a lot of people associate breakfast with bacon and eggs.
Speaker 1: Before Edward Burns, no one was eating bacon for breakfast.
Speaker 1: It seemed like a weird idea. You'd have like toast,
Speaker 1: maybe a pastry and some coffee. So this American Pork
Speaker 1: Trade Group CONSORTI of approaches Edward Burnets, and they say, ed,
Speaker 1: we got a problem. We just can't sell this one
Speaker 1: cheap cut of pork. People don't want this bacon. They want,
Speaker 1: you know, they want pork chops, they want pork loins,
Speaker 1: they want pork ribs. How can we sell this bacon?
Speaker 1: And so he takes a very very fascinating approach. He
Speaker 1: creates a group of fake medical associations or companies, and
Speaker 1: instead of taking out ads on the radio or in
Speaker 1: the New York Times or the pick of you, what
Speaker 1: have you, he has his fake association send surveys to
Speaker 1: doctors around the country. And these surveys are pretty brief,
Speaker 1: and they're worded in such a way that the doctors
Speaker 1: would all kind of come to the same conclusion. When
Speaker 1: I say worded in such a way, it's cartoonish. It's
Speaker 1: like question number one, would you agree that people should
Speaker 1: eat food? And then everyone's like, yeah, I'm a doctor,
Speaker 1: really food? And it's like question number two, which of
Speaker 1: the following is of food? And it's like number one, chalk,
Speaker 1: number two, nickels, number three, stickers, number four, bacon. And
Speaker 1: so through controlling what people could answer. They got. It's
Speaker 1: amazing statistic that said, doctors like the kind of nine
Speaker 1: out of tend doctors overwhelmingly recommend bacon as part of
Speaker 1: a balanced and healthy diet. And here are the following
Speaker 1: benefits of it. And this is published as a study,
Speaker 1: it's circulated around and that is the reason that we
Speaker 1: eat bacon today. That is just one of his great coups.
Speaker 1: I highly recommend his book Propaganda, which is available free online,
Speaker 1: and it's a quick breed. He's the father pr But
Speaker 1: that so those are those are two real conspiracies. And
Speaker 1: in both cases, I think you see my logic here.
Speaker 1: In both cases, neither of those, you know, involve extraterrestrials,
Speaker 1: Neither of them involved allegations of the paranormal or time
Speaker 1: travel or any of that stuff. They're just again, people
Speaker 1: with power who want more power. I think there's a
Speaker 1: whole podcast that could be done on marketing conspiracies. And Holly, hey, Maddie,
Speaker 1: here's a new podcast idea for you. I'll write that down, Maddie.
Speaker 1: So I always finish my podcast with three killer questions. Ben,
Speaker 1: I've got three killer questions for you. I just like alliteration.
Speaker 1: So so that's that's what we call it down. So
Speaker 1: the first one is, if you could listen to a
Speaker 1: podcast hosted by any person's living or dead, who would
Speaker 1: you like to hear for a podcast? Oh man, just
Speaker 1: to give you a couple of things, my favorite has
Speaker 1: been Bobby Brown and Whitney Houston. And then I answered
Speaker 1: this question the other day for somebody, and I said,
Speaker 1: Curt and Courtney. Just because I've been listening to Disgrace Land,
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear what you think. Oh wow, Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna take advantage of living in dead and say
Speaker 1: I think Orson Wells is great. I would love to
Speaker 1: hear Orson Wells. I'd be really interested in hearing I'm
Speaker 1: trying to I'm trying to think of just like the
Speaker 1: most out there person. Okay, all right, so Orson Wells
Speaker 1: because of the voice George Orwell, because of the alliteration
Speaker 1: there where it'd be like Orson and Orwell. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: and then I would also I really be interested to
Speaker 1: hear my e Cary argue with Newton. You know, oh
Speaker 1: oh wait, never mind, never mind, wait forget it. Tesla Tesla,
Speaker 1: Nicola Tesla's it would be a heck of a weird show, right,
Speaker 1: I don't know how much sense it would make. Question too,
Speaker 1: what's the first piece of technology that you got and
Speaker 1: said to yourself? This right here, my friend is going
Speaker 1: to change my life. Okay, I'm really gonna date myself here.
Speaker 1: We're still friends after this. I got a beeper in
Speaker 1: a pager in middle school. You had a pager in
Speaker 1: middle school. I was like, I'm on the up and up.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm basically a doctor. Now things are different.
Speaker 1: I would never guess that you had a pager in
Speaker 1: middle school, right, But I was not using it. I
Speaker 1: just had it. No, But that's that's cool. I'm sure
Speaker 1: you were the coolest skin class with that thing. I
Speaker 1: was still a nerd. I'm with your brother. Finally, what's
Speaker 1: the last podcast that you binged? The last podcast that
Speaker 1: I binge? Was not counting any of the stuff our
Speaker 1: colleagues do, because they did. I did beinge my pal
Speaker 1: Matt's uh Monster season two? I like that. What happened
Speaker 1: to Richard Simmons? Do you remember that one? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a great I thought that was a great story.
Speaker 1: I also went down a little bit of a comedy
Speaker 1: Bang Bang Rabbit hole and didn't mean to, just accidentally
Speaker 1: did it. And I was like, all right, you know,
Speaker 1: just like reading, sometimes you'll read something light and enjoyable
Speaker 1: and then you're like, Okay, I gotta I gotta read
Speaker 1: something seriously. I gotta step it up. Uh So my
Speaker 1: last and current binge some Damn Carlin hardcore history. Highly
Speaker 1: recommend it. It's great for road trips. I am obsessed
Speaker 1: with Dan Carlin. I have been from the beginning. And
Speaker 1: I also find and Carlin to be an excellent thing
Speaker 1: to go to bed too. My only problem with that
Speaker 1: is I'll wake up, I'll like say something happened historically,
Speaker 1: and then I'll go did it really happen? Or did
Speaker 1: I did I dream that happened? And because of Dan Carlin.
Speaker 1: But man, yeah, talk about somebody who puts a ton
Speaker 1: a ton of research into his podcast. I love it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's got a gift, and I would put him. You know,
Speaker 1: we're we're at the stage now where we will know
Speaker 1: we've done a good show when a teacher writes to
Speaker 1: us and says this is the highest compliment in my opinion,
Speaker 1: was the teacher writes to you and says, I've used
Speaker 1: this in class where I was assigned this to my students,
Speaker 1: you know, and Dan Carlin is college level research and fascinating,
Speaker 1: fascinating presentation. I love it. I don't really famboy out
Speaker 1: a lot, but I think that guy is a hero. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he's on my Mount Rushmore of podcasters for sure. Ben.
Speaker 1: It's been great. I'm glad we got to spend some
Speaker 1: time and do this. And thanks for kicking off season
Speaker 1: three for me. Hey, thanks so much for having me, Maddie.
Speaker 1: I look forward to ire in Moore's the season continues.
Speaker 1: Thanks buddy. All Right, I'm really excited because we have
Speaker 1: a new producer. Not that I'm excited. Our old producer
Speaker 1: isn't with us anymore. Z is in San Francisco. She's
Speaker 1: doing great, but I moved to Los Angeles and had
Speaker 1: to get a new producer here. And Morgan Cook has
Speaker 1: been doing this out of the kindness of her heart
Speaker 1: and learning as you go to right, learning a ton
Speaker 1: a ton of ton of ton and it's it's what
Speaker 1: first episode, first episode? So this is your first time? Uh,
Speaker 1: since I want people to get to know you, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do what I do with all guests. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: ask you three killer questions. Oh, here we go. First
Speaker 1: of all, if you're gonna listen to a podcast featuring
Speaker 1: anybody living or dead, who would be on the podcast?
Speaker 1: I happen to know this question was coming somehow. Really,
Speaker 1: so the people that I would listen to, let's see.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear from Robin Williams. I'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from I love Jeff Ross and I feel like
Speaker 1: we need a woman in there. Chelsea Handler. Oh wow,
Speaker 1: that's a neat room. Would be a neat room. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'd learn a lot and I'd laugh a lot.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you the highlight of my entire life. Uh,
Speaker 1: Robin Williams used to listen to my morning show in
Speaker 1: San Francisco, and I saw him at a this film
Speaker 1: festival I was with. I was there and I was
Speaker 1: talking and the other guy who listened to our show
Speaker 1: was John Lasseter. And that's how I ended up in
Speaker 1: the movie Cars, because John listened to the show and
Speaker 1: put me in the movie Cars. If you're a listener,
Speaker 1: you don't know that. Here's my lines race car like
Speaker 1: McQueen is missing. Hey, we failed McQueen. Hey, everybody in
Speaker 1: McQueen's leaving there. We go, you're welcome. Um. But anyway,
Speaker 1: so we were the stay. I was standing there and
Speaker 1: Robin Williams walks over and he goes, oh, dude, how
Speaker 1: Maddie Ah listened to the show? Oh you guys are
Speaker 1: very funny. In the morning, I put my pants and
Speaker 1: I'm like, thank you done. I'm over. Life is over
Speaker 1: for me. Yeah, such a such a funny guy. A
Speaker 1: question number two, what's the one piece of technology that
Speaker 1: changed your life the most? Oh? Man, this is tough.
Speaker 1: So I grew up with a lot of technology. I
Speaker 1: love this. That's why I have the That's why I
Speaker 1: have a young hip producer instead of me. Um. Let's
Speaker 1: see the technology that changed my life. Probably the iPhone. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's got to be the iPhone. Just how the pictures
Speaker 1: and you're like the phone? Yeah, probably just the whole
Speaker 1: idea of having a phone and a camera in the
Speaker 1: same device and then putting it in your pocket. What
Speaker 1: do you think your generation would do if it had
Speaker 1: to use the landlines and and like get busy signals?
Speaker 1: Do you even know what those things are? Or am
Speaker 1: I speaking in a different language to you by what? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Busy signal is that when someone sends you to voicemail.
Speaker 1: It's when you get you call someone, you get an
Speaker 1: it's the worst. What would my generation do? I don't know.
Speaker 1: It wouldn't be a lot angrier and more anxious, and
Speaker 1: we already are. I don't imagine. Really well, I think
Speaker 1: you guys. I always tell people that there's never been
Speaker 1: a generation that communicates like you do. You know, we
Speaker 1: had our friend circles and you know people are like, oh,
Speaker 1: the kids don't talk today and a day you can
Speaker 1: talk to a hundred people. Yeah, all over the place,
Speaker 1: all over the place. That is very true. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know how meaningful. Yeah, but how Yeah, that's the
Speaker 1: weird part about it. I'm the same way I look
Speaker 1: at my phone. I'm I'm I'm very millennial in that
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look at it all the time. My wife's
Speaker 1: constantly saying stop. That's why I like podcasts. Sent people
Speaker 1: listening podcast when they're listening, they don't do anything else. Really, Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: you can't multitask your brain. Podcasting demands it, so thank
Speaker 1: you for giving me your brain for a few minutes. Lastly,
Speaker 1: what was the last podcast that you binged? The last
Speaker 1: podcast I've bened was Congratulations with Christelia, another comedian that
Speaker 1: was actually the very first podcast they ever listened to.
Speaker 1: So we just listen to Ben and I asked you
Speaker 1: to find some podcasts that kind of go in line
Speaker 1: with the stuff that Ben does that people might want
Speaker 1: to listen to. So what do you got? Yes? So,
Speaker 1: first one I want to start with is called Conspiracy Theories.
Speaker 1: So it's a weekly podcast every Wednesday. They tell the
Speaker 1: complicated stories that are behind the world's most controversial events
Speaker 1: and kind of the sides of the stories that you
Speaker 1: didn't really know beforehand. You learn a lot with this one. Um.
Speaker 1: It's part of the podcast network who recently got a
Speaker 1: bundle of money from Spotify. By the way, good job
Speaker 1: podcast shout out. All right, let's here look clip of
Speaker 1: that does a cure for cancer already exist? Has Big
Speaker 1: Farmer coerced the f d A into keeping the lid
Speaker 1: on a cure so big Farma can keep making money
Speaker 1: off of cancer treatment? Are there even more insidious reasons
Speaker 1: the f d A and big Pharma would want to
Speaker 1: keep the cure for cancer out of the hands of
Speaker 1: the people. So they're not like whack jobs, Oh no,
Speaker 1: god at all. They're not like Alex Jones. You're not
Speaker 1: gonna listen to an Alex Jones conspiracy theory. No, No,
Speaker 1: something about frogs making people gay. I think no, the
Speaker 1: frogs are gay. Government made the frogs gay. And now
Speaker 1: if you buy the vitamins, the government's putting d n
Speaker 1: A in there that will make your whole body turned
Speaker 1: into a monkey. Sounds just like him. Alright, sorry, Next up,
Speaker 1: what he got? Let's see alright, next, Revisionist History. This
Speaker 1: is a podcast from Malcolm Gladwell, him and Pushkin Industries.
Speaker 1: He is he kind of changed the game a little bit.
Speaker 1: So each week for ten weeks, this podcast goes back
Speaker 1: and they reinterpret something from the past. It could be
Speaker 1: an idea, an event, and a person, something that was
Speaker 1: misunderstood at the time. All right, well, let's check out
Speaker 1: a clip from one of my favorites. I love this
Speaker 1: podcast as well. To the hushed offices of the New
Speaker 1: York Psychoanalytics Society, where I sat with Michelle Press in
Speaker 1: search of an answer to a simple question. What if
Speaker 1: a singer couldn't remember the words to a song? A
Speaker 1: song hit sung a thousand times, particular parts of the song,
Speaker 1: the same part of the song, over and over, what
Speaker 1: would that tell us about the singer? So, Malcolm Gladwell
Speaker 1: is just stupid smart. I think a lot of podcast
Speaker 1: listening is if when you get done, you feel good
Speaker 1: about yourself and you feel a little smarter. And anytime
Speaker 1: you listen to Malcolm glad Well, you feel a little smarter.
Speaker 1: All right, what's the third one? Slow Burn? They take
Speaker 1: these strange subplots from forgotten characters in political history and
Speaker 1: they find parallels to the present time. Now, So season
Speaker 1: one dove into what it was like to live through Watergate,
Speaker 1: and then season two did the same thing, but with
Speaker 1: Bill Clinton's impeachment. Wow, let's check it out. Not just Clinton,
Speaker 1: how should we feel about him? More like what determines
Speaker 1: do we believe? And whose side we take in a
Speaker 1: political fight? What does it mean to abuse one's power?
Speaker 1: And how would the events of twenty years ago play
Speaker 1: out differently there to take place now? Even though today
Speaker 1: it looks like it was always a foregone conclusion, That's
Speaker 1: not the way it felt all the time. All Right,
Speaker 1: I think he did a good job with your first three.
Speaker 1: So I did good job. I can't wait till next
Speaker 1: week too. All right, everybody, thanks for listening. Welcome back
Speaker 1: Season three on a Way. Great guests coming up, including
Speaker 1: Jake Brennan from Disgrace Land. We're gonna have Joe Piazza
Speaker 1: on next week. Who's gonna talk about committed? All kinds
Speaker 1: of good casts on the way. If you want to
Speaker 1: check out any past episodes, we've got some great ones.
Speaker 1: They're on the I Heart Radio app. You can also
Speaker 1: hear them on Apple podcast or wherever you listen to podcast.
Speaker 1: Send us a tweet. Tweet tests at Access podcast one
Speaker 1: still have been tracked down, the son of a Bitch
Speaker 1: that's got Access podcast who's only tweeted once. I don't
Speaker 1: like you. You can also tell us who you want
Speaker 1: to hear and follow me. I'm at Maddie Stout m
Speaker 1: A T T Y s T A U d T
Speaker 1: nobody has that hand over me on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook,
Speaker 1: all of the places. The show is produced by Morgan Cook.
Speaker 1: Thanks Morgan, Thank you. Music by Casey Franco. Special thanks
Speaker 1: to Robin Berta Lucci and Oscar Ramirez for helping us
Speaker 1: out here at KAFI in Los Angeles. Will Pearson and
Speaker 1: the Godfather Podcasting and iHeart Radio are President Connor Burne,
Speaker 1: Thank you, guys, and we'll see you all next week.