Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. That's our one and only
Speaker 1: super producer, Mr Max Williams. Can we get some regal music? Max?
Speaker 1: Thank you? They called me Ben Noel. You and I
Speaker 1: are both big fans of the Sandman comics. Remember those?
Speaker 1: Oh my god, are you getting so funny? I tried
Speaker 1: to give my thirteen year old daughter to read the
Speaker 1: first volume of it. She's been getting into comics lately,
Speaker 1: and she came back to me and said, Dad, I
Speaker 1: think I like it, but there's just a little too
Speaker 1: much going on. And then she used a golden excuse,
Speaker 1: but she would never use unless it was something she
Speaker 1: just didn't want to finish reading. I think it might
Speaker 1: be above my reading level. Oh nice, clever, clever Eden.
Speaker 1: People recognize Eden from an earlier episode of the show.
Speaker 1: Do check it out. We asked for this regal music,
Speaker 1: and we're talking about Sandman because I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I learned about this person first through the excellent
Speaker 1: Sandman graphic novels of the stories by Neil Gaiman uh
Speaker 1: now being adapted. I believe into a streaming series. Where
Speaker 1: are they going on with? Yeah, it's on Netflix, um
Speaker 1: and friend of the show and the network. John Cameron
Speaker 1: Mitchell is playing a really cool character from the Dolls
Speaker 1: House run of the comics. Um how the landlord in
Speaker 1: the apartment building that that series is based him? And
Speaker 1: without spoiling the excellent, excellent Sandman series too much, there
Speaker 1: are a lot of real life historical figures that feature
Speaker 1: in some part of the story, often his cameos. William
Speaker 1: Shakespeare shows up, for instance, and so does a fellow
Speaker 1: named Joshua Norton. I'm so excited to explore this guy today.
Speaker 1: So Joshua Norton, the name sounds maybe a little oh,
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not super extraordinary, you know. It's
Speaker 1: not one of those unique names like Winker, Black, Fingerstein
Speaker 1: or something. I just made that up. But but there
Speaker 1: there is. There are multiple josh Norton's probably alive now, uh.
Speaker 1: And there were multiple josh Norton's alive throughout history. But
Speaker 1: this Joshua Norton. Some called him insane, some called him homeless,
Speaker 1: and some called him emperor. How about that for an intro?
Speaker 1: But just don't call him during dinner. Am I right?
Speaker 1: Then I gotta follow up really quickly, and maybe this
Speaker 1: is a good way in I do not recall Joshua
Speaker 1: Norton's part in the Sandman comics. Can you give us
Speaker 1: a little background as to how he slots in there? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Absolutely so. If you check out the Salman series, you
Speaker 1: will see that Norton appears in a story about a
Speaker 1: wager between desire and despair, who are two members of
Speaker 1: the godlike entity uh or godlike family called the Endless.
Speaker 1: Main character of the Salmon is Dream. So Joshua Norton's
Speaker 1: real life is explained in the story in the context
Speaker 1: of this bet between the force of desire and the
Speaker 1: force of despair. And really, what's beautiful about the way
Speaker 1: Neil I'm just gonna call Neil writes it is that
Speaker 1: it's so seamlessly incorporates the actual life of this genuine person,
Speaker 1: the real josh Wood Norton was. He became famous in
Speaker 1: the US, but he was actually born in Britain in
Speaker 1: twenty is raised in South Africa, and he immigrated to
Speaker 1: the US during the California Gold Rush. This is a
Speaker 1: story of fortunes built, fortunes lost, and in a very
Speaker 1: strange way, maybe a bit of nobility found he wasn't
Speaker 1: always known as Norton One, Emperor of the United States. No,
Speaker 1: it's funny and just I am in the midst of
Speaker 1: rereading the Sandman series not to be too Sandman heavy
Speaker 1: on this, but I'm really glad you brought it up,
Speaker 1: because it's very top of mind for me right now.
Speaker 1: There's another story that involves another wager between dream and
Speaker 1: um death about a man named Hobb Gadling who swear
Speaker 1: is off the idea of death, and you get to
Speaker 1: see how that kind of plays out as Morpheus or
Speaker 1: Dream or the Sandman goes back to visit him every
Speaker 1: one hundred years in the same pub and you get
Speaker 1: to see the life cycle of this character as he
Speaker 1: experiences the height of fortune that eternal life might offer
Speaker 1: and then all of the desperate low's that the boredom
Speaker 1: and malaise of living forever might also offer. So there's
Speaker 1: some interesting parallels there, and I'm really excited to get
Speaker 1: to the part of the book that involves our character,
Speaker 1: who essentially, you say, some called him crazy, some called
Speaker 1: him homeless, he and others called him Emperor of the
Speaker 1: United States. Yes, that's correct, but this was not always
Speaker 1: the case. As you say, he was born in Britain,
Speaker 1: I said eighteen twenty, but I believe there's some discrepancy.
Speaker 1: May have an eighteen nineteen or eighteen twenty. Before he
Speaker 1: was emperor, he was playing old Joshua Abraham Norton. He
Speaker 1: was born into a family of regular merch no nobility.
Speaker 1: As we said, he spent most of his youth in
Speaker 1: South Africa, and his parents were people of the Jewish faith.
Speaker 1: They had left England to move to South Africa as
Speaker 1: part of a colonization scheme on the part of the government,
Speaker 1: and they were They were members of a group that
Speaker 1: we now call the eighteen twenty settlers, and his his
Speaker 1: father worked there selling supplies for ships. You know, I
Speaker 1: said earlier, there's some debate and discrepancy around his exact
Speaker 1: date of birth. I think for the rest of this episode,
Speaker 1: let's go with February four, eighteen eighteen, because that is
Speaker 1: that that is how San Francisco determines the celebration of
Speaker 1: his birthday, and San Francisco, by the way, celebrates his birthday.
Speaker 1: But how how did he get from South Africa to
Speaker 1: the U S Well, like you said, I mean his family,
Speaker 1: they weren't necessarily the wealthiest of of folks, or at
Speaker 1: least his direct parents, but he did end up getting
Speaker 1: a pretty nice inheritance of some of forty dollars at
Speaker 1: the time, which today would be worth around a million
Speaker 1: dollars or a little over a million dollars. He used
Speaker 1: that to go and make a run at the gold
Speaker 1: rush that was happening in California in eighteen forty nine.
Speaker 1: So he went to San Francisco, which at the time
Speaker 1: you hear him talk about San Francisco in Deadwood a lot. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is the same time period of the show Dead
Speaker 1: One on HBO, which is fantastic if you haven't seen,
Speaker 1: it does a really good job of kind of summing
Speaker 1: up this period. Very lawless time, lots of crime, very
Speaker 1: little oversight in terms of like codified rule of law,
Speaker 1: and even in terms of like law enforcements. As we
Speaker 1: know in Deadwood there's really just a sheriff and then
Speaker 1: you know he kind of takes that role reluctantly and
Speaker 1: it takes quite a lot to get people to answer
Speaker 1: for their crimes, of which there are many. Um So,
Speaker 1: what was once a very small little berg in San
Speaker 1: Francisco became this massive, bustling metropolis with the population of
Speaker 1: around twenty five thousand, and that happened very very very quickly.
Speaker 1: By the way, kg e D dot org has a
Speaker 1: fabulous article about this subject and this historical figure written
Speaker 1: by a Ryan Levy. You can actually well reported by.
Speaker 1: You can hear the piece on k q e D
Speaker 1: dot com to get a little bit more backgrounds. Will
Speaker 1: be using that as one of our sources. But when
Speaker 1: he arrived, um, he had already kind of gone through
Speaker 1: some of the highs and lows that we talked about
Speaker 1: back when he was in South Africa. He built a
Speaker 1: business and lost a business, So he was kind of
Speaker 1: already prepared for the sort of seat of your pants
Speaker 1: kind of attitude that takes to jump in feed first
Speaker 1: into a very very uh competitive and dangerous situation there
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. So he started selling things like rice
Speaker 1: and flour, things that you know, goods that people needed. Um.
Speaker 1: He was smart with his earnings. He invested in real estate.
Speaker 1: He built things there in San Francisco. He built buildings
Speaker 1: on three of the four corners of Sansom and Jackson Streets,
Speaker 1: which was a very very bustling and important little intersection
Speaker 1: there in town. He also bought plots in the now
Speaker 1: incredibly I mean, every part of San Francisco is affluent
Speaker 1: and most people are priced out of even hanging out there.
Speaker 1: But North Beach area exactly the tenderland, which used to
Speaker 1: be the kind of artists, kind of like up and
Speaker 1: comer kind of area for people that were more scrappy
Speaker 1: and wanted to get set up. But yeah, North Beach
Speaker 1: is now incredibly expensive waterfront area. So I wanna step
Speaker 1: back a little bit with the question of how he
Speaker 1: got to San Francisco. He did get that inheritance, but
Speaker 1: he earned it in a very tragic way, and he
Speaker 1: was very young with this happened. He was twenty one
Speaker 1: years old when he opened his own business. It went
Speaker 1: bankrupt in less than two years, just eighteen months. And
Speaker 1: then by eighteen forty eight his parents, both of them
Speaker 1: and two of his siblings had died, so there wasn't
Speaker 1: much holding him back. He was going to You know, um,
Speaker 1: it's like in Hambleton's right in New York, you can
Speaker 1: be a new man. It was that for him, but
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, and like you said, Noel, he did
Speaker 1: really well. He was, by eighteen fifty two, one of
Speaker 1: the upper crusts, upper echelon members of society. He had
Speaker 1: this forty thousand dollar state. He flipped it to two
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But you know, gold rush,
Speaker 1: kind of like a casino. At this point, his greed
Speaker 1: got the better of him. We talked about the rice stuff.
Speaker 1: He was planning his next expansion in his empire, his
Speaker 1: multifaceted business portfolio, and he knew there was a rice
Speaker 1: famine ongoing in China. So he said, you know what,
Speaker 1: maybe I can corner the rice market by buying an
Speaker 1: entire shipload of Peruvian rice. And we got this from
Speaker 1: a thought Co article by Bill Lamb. So in December
Speaker 1: of eighteen fifty two, China had this domestic rice famine
Speaker 1: going on, and they responded by placing a ban on
Speaker 1: any exportation of rice to any other countries. This meant
Speaker 1: that when Norton was planning his next business move, the
Speaker 1: price of rice in San Francisco had exploded by eight
Speaker 1: h and yeah, yeah, And so he said, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: buy these two hundred thousand pounds of rice from this
Speaker 1: ship that is coming to California from Peru, and I'm
Speaker 1: sure the prices are gonna soar. So he puts twenty
Speaker 1: five grand on the venture, and he has a couple
Speaker 1: of other people chipping in money as well, and then
Speaker 1: everything goes wrong. Well, the guy was clearly quite savvy,
Speaker 1: because I mean, you know, this would I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: news would have traveled slower certainly in those days. But
Speaker 1: he he had to have the information when few other
Speaker 1: people had it about what was going on in China.
Speaker 1: Um and be he had to have figured out a
Speaker 1: way to convince the Peruvian merchants to sell him the
Speaker 1: entire boatload, you know, at a reasonable price. You think
Speaker 1: that they would have, um maybe been aware of this
Speaker 1: rice shortage and sold it for way, way more money.
Speaker 1: But they obviously didn't have that information, or at least
Speaker 1: not to the degree that he had it. But right,
Speaker 1: boom and bust that those are the keywords for this
Speaker 1: period in American history. And uh, while boom was happening
Speaker 1: for him right off the bat, bust was not too
Speaker 1: far off the horizon. As you said, Ben, everything kind
Speaker 1: of went wrong. So I mentioned that it was a
Speaker 1: you know, a smart move that he was able to
Speaker 1: convince these Peruvian merchants to sell him this rice at
Speaker 1: what would have been a premium based on the skyrocketing
Speaker 1: prices of rice. But bare la Peruvian rice, or at
Speaker 1: least this shipment approving rice, was of pretty poor quality.
Speaker 1: And to answer my other question that I posed, there
Speaker 1: was also kind of a lot of it, So he
Speaker 1: wasn't nearly in the catbird seat position that he fancied
Speaker 1: himself in. Right, Yeah, there was not just lower quality rice,
Speaker 1: but there was tons of it. Because he didn't corner
Speaker 1: the market, that's what happened. Several other ships came in.
Speaker 1: They were also loaded with hundreds of thousands of pounds
Speaker 1: of rice. And at this point Joshua still could have recovered.
Speaker 1: He had multiple different businesses, right, he was having a
Speaker 1: real estate for example. But he kind of shot himself
Speaker 1: in the foot and made his situation worse because he
Speaker 1: sued the guy who told him about this Peruvian rice,
Speaker 1: and this led to a court case that stretched on
Speaker 1: for four years and he's paying every day on this thing.
Speaker 1: He's paying all these expenses for this legal case eventually
Speaker 1: goes to the state Supreme Court, the California Supreme Court,
Speaker 1: and they say we rule against you, Joshua Norton. So
Speaker 1: the bank forecloses on a ton of his real estate holdings. Eventually,
Speaker 1: by eighteen fifty eight, he has declared bankruptcy and he
Speaker 1: goes dark for a few years. He has to move
Speaker 1: out of his really nice home. He's not going to
Speaker 1: the social uh, social functions, you know, the suareis of
Speaker 1: the elite. He's gone for about a year or so,
Speaker 1: and when he finally comes back into the public eye,
Speaker 1: a lot of people are going, well, you know, withoutr
Speaker 1: Joshua Norton, he didn't just lose his fortune, he also
Speaker 1: lost his mind. H that'll happen um. And it's sort
Speaker 1: of evidence by the idea that he thought he could
Speaker 1: sue the guy that gave him a hot tip about
Speaker 1: a business prospect. That's not really how that works. That's
Speaker 1: like the equivalent of trying to sue someone that gives
Speaker 1: you a stock tip and then it tanks. You got
Speaker 1: no grounds for suing. That's that's not how that works.
Speaker 1: That's just sorry, Charlie. You know, try again next time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: It's it's it's like it's like someone gives you a
Speaker 1: bad tip on insider training, you drag him through the Mud,
Speaker 1: and it's like, well, you just committed a felony. Like,
Speaker 1: that's not a good idea. I mean, obviously that's not
Speaker 1: what it is exactly happening here, but it's still not
Speaker 1: a good idea. Yeah, legally it's fraught. You know, this
Speaker 1: isn't the same thing. But it does remind me of
Speaker 1: those court cases where a thief will try to sue
Speaker 1: someone because they they injured themselves when they were breaking
Speaker 1: into a person's house. Like stuff like that has happened.
Speaker 1: There's a great series we can do on ridiculous court
Speaker 1: cases in the future. But we don't know whether Norton
Speaker 1: was experiencing genuine mental problems or whether he just decided
Speaker 1: to holy embrace a very eccentric lifestyle. We don't know
Speaker 1: the interior of the man's mind. But what we can
Speaker 1: say for sure is that a The San Francisco Bulletin
Speaker 1: published a fantastic proclamation from Norton to the editor on
Speaker 1: September eighteen fifty nine, where he says the following, know
Speaker 1: this a little long, so I think we should split
Speaker 1: this up. But here we go, at the peremptory request
Speaker 1: of a large majority of the citizens of these United
Speaker 1: States side Joshua and Norton, formerly of Algo Bay, Cape
Speaker 1: of Good Hope, and now for the last nine years
Speaker 1: and ten months past, of San Francisco, California, declare and
Speaker 1: proclaim myself the Emperor of these United States. This is
Speaker 1: just one long sentence, but it goes on. I still
Speaker 1: think it's too long. We should split it up, and
Speaker 1: in the virtue of the authority thereby and me invested
Speaker 1: to hereby order and direct the representatives of the different
Speaker 1: States of the Union to assemble in Musical Hall of
Speaker 1: this city on the first day of February next then
Speaker 1: and there to make such alterations in the existing laws
Speaker 1: of the Union as may ameliorate the evils under which
Speaker 1: the county is laboring, and therefore cause confidence to exist,
Speaker 1: both at home and abroad, in our stability and integrity,
Speaker 1: not in the first Emperor of the United States. Okay, okay,
Speaker 1: So first of all, let's just talk a little bit
Speaker 1: about the legality of a proclamation, Like what is a proclamation?
Speaker 1: Like you can proclaim just about anything, Like Remember when
Speaker 1: Trump like proclaimed he he liked to proclaim things. Remember
Speaker 1: what did he proclaim? Well, I think more particularly of
Speaker 1: the proclamations that Europeans made when they arrived on other
Speaker 1: people's land, and they would stroll into these communities and say,
Speaker 1: I'd delegate this is on to Spain, or this is
Speaker 1: this is all Portugal now you guys. Uh. They clearly
Speaker 1: had these American accents already in their in their statements.
Speaker 1: These proclamations legally are they're not binding, but you can't
Speaker 1: really get sued for them. And at the time these
Speaker 1: demands are his statement, I want everybody to go to
Speaker 1: the music hall on February one. This wasn't super crazy
Speaker 1: because secession was already in the national zeitgeist at this time.
Speaker 1: Abolitionists were increasingly increasingly upset, and rightly so, within action
Speaker 1: on the horrors of slavery, and so all we can
Speaker 1: guess is that the editor of the bulletin just said, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, let's give it a shot. Slow news day
Speaker 1: people are already kind of vibe in with this kind
Speaker 1: of stuff, And unlike Norton's prediction on Peruvian rice, this
Speaker 1: editor hit a gold mine. Readers loved Joshua Norton, they
Speaker 1: loved the Emperor, and other newspapers quickly picked up the
Speaker 1: story and started spreading around not just this proclamation, but
Speaker 1: multiple like proclamations declarations of his Yeah, I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: to me, I think this was a savvy move on
Speaker 1: the part of an editor in that he recognized this
Speaker 1: as it could be perceived as satire, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, Like it was very much kind of poking
Speaker 1: a finger in the eye of the messy bureaucracy of
Speaker 1: politics and of governments, you know, at a time where
Speaker 1: the folks in charge weren't really doing much to help
Speaker 1: the common man. You know. It was, like we said,
Speaker 1: like very much a lawless kind of period in American history,
Speaker 1: and it didn't seem like there was a whole lot
Speaker 1: of interest in the plight of the common man. So
Speaker 1: this to me acts as like a really cool kind
Speaker 1: of like um critique of that system. You know. In
Speaker 1: some ways, like I don't believe that the the editor
Speaker 1: of the Bullets in believe that by publishing this it
Speaker 1: was in some way going to, you know, make this real,
Speaker 1: but it absolutely made it real in the minds of
Speaker 1: the readers of Bullets. It's also you know, I like
Speaker 1: what you're saying about satire. It also makes me think
Speaker 1: of clickbing that we would we would call it today,
Speaker 1: and it becomes sort of a currency of communication for
Speaker 1: people in San Francisco. They want to talk about the
Speaker 1: latest proclamations. Uh, we have one of the first of
Speaker 1: his several proclamations in October eighteen fifty nine, he says,
Speaker 1: fraud and corruption preventive fan proper expression of the public voice,
Speaker 1: in consequence of which we do hereby abolished Congress. Be
Speaker 1: that be that. I mentioned this sometimes on the stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. But you would be
Speaker 1: surprised how many terrible things historically have a higher rating
Speaker 1: than Congress, including some STDs. That's a true story in
Speaker 1: the past. Yep, fires probably, I'll send it to you.
Speaker 1: But uh, but here's what happened. People love the story.
Speaker 1: But Congress, those dirty scoundrels kept meeting, and so Norton
Speaker 1: issued another decree where he ordered a general named Winfield
Speaker 1: Scott to march on Washington and kick the legislators out. Yeah. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, we we're talking about proclaiming, right. You often
Speaker 1: hear that term used with the words self as a
Speaker 1: hyphenate in front of it, like the self proclaimed King
Speaker 1: of New York. That was one of Donald Trump's kind
Speaker 1: of personas or like, you know, saying world's best cup
Speaker 1: of coffee that's self proclaimed as the proprietor of like
Speaker 1: say a New York City diner. Nothing really provable in
Speaker 1: a statement like that, but it certainly turns heads, except
Speaker 1: that most every diner in New York says they have
Speaker 1: the world's best cup of coffee, or at least in
Speaker 1: some region. So this goes over really really well with
Speaker 1: the public. It is I think, largely seen as an
Speaker 1: interesting satire, a way of kind of poking fun at
Speaker 1: the absurdity that is Washington, and this guy really becomes
Speaker 1: kind of this mouthpiece for the discontented public who are
Speaker 1: absolutely fed up with all of the hypocrisy and do
Speaker 1: nothingness of Washington. Yeah yeah, just so, uh, he also
Speaker 1: is existing. You know, nothing exists in a vacuum, so
Speaker 1: he is also existing. As these profound things are happening
Speaker 1: in the United States, the shadow of the Civil War
Speaker 1: is looming large, and in response, Emperor Norton announces to
Speaker 1: everyone that he has dissolved the Union, the entire thing,
Speaker 1: and now the US is an absolute monarchy. He's at
Speaker 1: the helm, and this is sort of for it's pitched
Speaker 1: as a security, stability and safety thing. Uh. He also
Speaker 1: when when France invades Mexico later in eighteen sixty one,
Speaker 1: he shows that he has Mexico's back by giving himself
Speaker 1: an extra honorific. He styles himself the protector of Mexico.
Speaker 1: So for those of us keeping track at home, he
Speaker 1: is now Norton One, Emperor of the United States and
Speaker 1: Protector of Mexico. I love the word honorific by the way,
Speaker 1: um I had to. I hear it all the time,
Speaker 1: and I of course mainly understand what it means. But
Speaker 1: um I did just look it up, and there is
Speaker 1: a specific caveat to it. It is a title given
Speaker 1: as a mark of respect, but having few or no
Speaker 1: duties associated with it, So it's sort of like a
Speaker 1: symbolic title. Uh. And Nordin was just given those two
Speaker 1: himself left and right, and he really became, at least
Speaker 1: in San Francisco, a an absolute public figure, a real celebrity. Um.
Speaker 1: He was treated, for lack of a better phrase, or
Speaker 1: maybe it's the exact right phrase, like royalty. Even though
Speaker 1: he was somewhat of a you know, Darryl type dude.
Speaker 1: He was treated with respect by business owners restaurant tours,
Speaker 1: theater owners. You know, he was given uh special reserve
Speaker 1: seats in restaurants and theaters, and he was absolutely in
Speaker 1: and of himself kind of like a tourist attraction. And
Speaker 1: the reason I think largely that he was given all
Speaker 1: of these extra kind of perks was because the business
Speaker 1: owners knew that if he was there, people would come,
Speaker 1: um patronize their business. Is just to kind of catch
Speaker 1: a glimpse of him in the hopes that he might like,
Speaker 1: you know, pontificate or whatever. Yeah. Absolutely, this is this
Speaker 1: is a really important part. There is money to be
Speaker 1: made from the tourism aspect. It also makes the city
Speaker 1: unique and helps San Francisco build its own mythology. We
Speaker 1: should mention this is neat little detail. Norton is now
Speaker 1: dressing in character. He is dressed in old military clothing
Speaker 1: from both the Union and the Confederate sides, because as
Speaker 1: an emperor he's a uniter, you know, not a divider.
Speaker 1: He also has a beaver hat with wait for it,
Speaker 1: ostrich feathers, so he's not just playing hatted scamp. And
Speaker 1: he also has a saber, which is ceremonial he he
Speaker 1: does Um okay, we we want to be sensitive to
Speaker 1: this issue because a lot of people find themselves unpredictably
Speaker 1: in bad places. He spends most of his days walking
Speaker 1: through the streets of the metropolis, quote unquote, inspecting the realm.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. Picture him tapping that saber
Speaker 1: against the bridge and then demanding payment for taxes, and
Speaker 1: luckily for a lot of the local businesses, he would
Speaker 1: accept payment and kind. It didn't always have to be cash.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it would might just be a sandwich or a
Speaker 1: hot cup of soup. And people loved him. He was harmless. Uh,
Speaker 1: he was memorable. Writers of the day, as we'll find
Speaker 1: even walk to him as well. I love that he
Speaker 1: was able to walk around the city demanding things while
Speaker 1: brandishing a saber and was still considered harmless. I think
Speaker 1: that speaks a lot to the attitude and uh wonderful
Speaker 1: quirkiness that is so famous in the history of San Francisco.
Speaker 1: I think this is really awesome character that kind of
Speaker 1: sums up the uniqueness of of that city and that
Speaker 1: people weren't like freaked out about this guy walking around
Speaker 1: with the brandishing a sword and in a beaver hat
Speaker 1: and and the demanding payment for taxes. Uh, it could
Speaker 1: have gone badly, you know. I mean, I think it
Speaker 1: speaks to the fact that like, at least at this point,
Speaker 1: his mental state well maybe a little touched, wasn't dangerous,
Speaker 1: wasn't veering into like psychosis or anything. Because I could
Speaker 1: see some altercations bubbling up. You know, um if people
Speaker 1: questioned him. But I think that the key was people.
Speaker 1: I don't even if you know, if you call it
Speaker 1: humoring him, right, I think it really was kind of
Speaker 1: this like mythology, Ben, like you said, yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say they almost adopted him. The city almost adopted him.
Speaker 1: And there's a lot to be said for bedside manner. Right.
Speaker 1: He wasn't shaking these people down mafioso style. He was
Speaker 1: probably using the royal we and he was probably you know,
Speaker 1: like I have always said, this is the best cup
Speaker 1: of coffee in San Francisco. That is a royal proclamation,
Speaker 1: uh tribute, We do regrettably note that you are delinquent
Speaker 1: in your taxes. Matter that we could solve today with
Speaker 1: a simple cup of your famous coffee, you know what
Speaker 1: I mean, right, something nice like that. I don't think
Speaker 1: he's like, yeah, you make a good point. Though he's
Speaker 1: not threatening people. He has another hat that has a
Speaker 1: peacock feather. He is given Oh, he's given this military regale,
Speaker 1: by the way, by US Army officers who like him. Uh.
Speaker 1: He also will, at the slightest invitation speak extemporaneously on
Speaker 1: a wide, wide range of esoteric philosophical concepts. He gets
Speaker 1: some sidekicks. How adorable is this bummer? And Lazarus, two
Speaker 1: dogs that would walk around with him constantly as he expected,
Speaker 1: you know, Rhodes sidewalks public property. This guy is like
Speaker 1: an early like psychedelic prophet if you think about it,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean like a Neil Cassidy type figure,
Speaker 1: or like Jerry Garcia, you know what I mean. Like
Speaker 1: it very much is almost like a proto kind of
Speaker 1: hippie sort of which obviously became a really huge part
Speaker 1: of the fabric of San Francisco, Hate Ashbury and Grateful
Speaker 1: Dead and psychedelics and all that good stuff. And eventually,
Speaker 1: like all of that stuff, he caught on in the
Speaker 1: larger zeitgeist um coming a character in comic operas and
Speaker 1: cartoons and novels, and his story kind of started to
Speaker 1: travel outside of Northern California. There was a reporter a
Speaker 1: little guy by the name of Mark Twain who worked
Speaker 1: for the San Francisco Daily Morning call Um and he
Speaker 1: reportedly was inspired by him to create Um, a royal
Speaker 1: impostor character of his own known as the King, and
Speaker 1: a little book called The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that
Speaker 1: I think they don't make kids read anymore because of
Speaker 1: problematic language. And I'm glad you mentioned this, because there
Speaker 1: was a wonderful there's some wonderful work by a scholar
Speaker 1: named Shelley Fisher Fishkin who suggests that Huckleberry Finn in
Speaker 1: both Tom Sawyer and the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was
Speaker 1: himself not white, and that changes the way the book
Speaker 1: is processed. But yeah, but markin Yeah, Mark Twain's complain
Speaker 1: because they took a couple of classes on him back
Speaker 1: in college. I actually read his biography, which I love you, Sam,
Speaker 1: but it needed an editor. But your point holds, so
Speaker 1: Mark Twaine, Neil Gaiman, Charles Bukowski, Robert Louis Stevenson, Christopher Moore.
Speaker 1: Tons of authors and artists are inspired by this guy,
Speaker 1: as are I would argue many businessmen who exist contemporaneously
Speaker 1: with Joshua because they get into the merchandizing. We can't
Speaker 1: forget about the merchandizing. Photographs of him become these incredibly
Speaker 1: sought after souvenirs. If you walk into shops across downtown,
Speaker 1: you'll see people are selling dolls little Emperor Norton action figures.
Speaker 1: He has a free seat at the opening night of
Speaker 1: virtually every play in every theater in town. He rides
Speaker 1: the train for free, and and he eats for free
Speaker 1: at restaurants. He by exchanging a imperial seal exactly. And um,
Speaker 1: you know, you mentioned the merchandizing stuff, and we obviously
Speaker 1: know that this dude had a background in business, and
Speaker 1: I think we could argue that he was pretty good
Speaker 1: at it. He made a couple of poor choices, but
Speaker 1: definitely made a good go of it. Maybe agreed got
Speaker 1: the better of him, but I think he was able
Speaker 1: to parlay some of those skills into his merchandizing. Um,
Speaker 1: because he got a cut of everything. Ah. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: was still considered cash poor, but he definitely he wasn't
Speaker 1: hurting for the necessities of life. The city get had
Speaker 1: just decided to take care of him, But he didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, he didn't have like cash on hand to
Speaker 1: buy a house. I love the idea of quote unquote
Speaker 1: pain for a meal with an imperial seal of approval.
Speaker 1: It's like a story about fran Drescher one time trying
Speaker 1: to pay a restaurant tab with signed photos of herself,
Speaker 1: which I would have accept that exactly. It reminds me
Speaker 1: of the way that the comedian Patton Oswald described the
Speaker 1: town I used to live in, Athens, Georgia, as a
Speaker 1: place where the streets are paved with marijuana and you
Speaker 1: can buy a sandwich with a song. Uh. That's Athens
Speaker 1: is sort of like our little mini San Francisco here
Speaker 1: in the South, home to bands like B fifty two
Speaker 1: and Neutral Milk Hotel and all that good stuff. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I I also want to give your shout out
Speaker 1: if Joshua, wherever, your majesty, wherever you are, if you
Speaker 1: are listening to this today, well done on having your
Speaker 1: own currency. Bro. I can't believe him calling an emperor bro.
Speaker 1: But in eighteen seventy one, a local printing firm ran
Speaker 1: off special currency with a picture of Norton the First
Speaker 1: and his imperial seal, and he loved it. He started
Speaker 1: passing out the notes as his official government bonds, so
Speaker 1: he would like pay for a meal with these, you know,
Speaker 1: with these Norton bucks, and people kept them. They didn't
Speaker 1: really trade them, Uh, they kept them and displayed them
Speaker 1: like you would see it on the wall of a
Speaker 1: restaurant in a frame with the imperial seal. And you
Speaker 1: you will still find coin collectors trying to buy these
Speaker 1: imperial bonds today. And the funniest thing is the same
Speaker 1: social class of people that we're hanging out with him
Speaker 1: before the Peruvian rice tobaccle, they also got in on
Speaker 1: the game. They dug it like local lawmakers would buy
Speaker 1: him new clothes from the public funds, and no one
Speaker 1: had a problem with it. So we talked about how,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole start of this Emperor Norton craze
Speaker 1: was the result of him having written sort of an
Speaker 1: editorial to the um what was it the bullets in
Speaker 1: San Francisco bullets, I believe, where he proclaimed himself to
Speaker 1: be emperor, and they published it, I think, with a
Speaker 1: bit of a tongue implanted in cheek, knowing that it
Speaker 1: would cause a bit of a stir, and it did,
Speaker 1: and I think it did way more than what they
Speaker 1: were expecting. But the newspapers of San Francisco actually started
Speaker 1: to kind of take advantage of this and published fake
Speaker 1: proclamations and they signed his name to them, which that's
Speaker 1: a little bit above and beyond the originally betraying the king. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that feels like they're treating him like some sort of clown. Uh.
Speaker 1: And if he was, in fact, you know, suffering from
Speaker 1: some mental illness, I would argue that this is pretty
Speaker 1: opportunistic and nasty. But here's the thing. He flipped the scripts.
Speaker 1: He saw that this was happening, and he didn't like
Speaker 1: it one bit. And the man also had important things
Speaker 1: to say. He was not all just bluster and and
Speaker 1: and uh and pomp. In eighteen seventy he began publishing
Speaker 1: his actual proclamations, almost excl elusively in an African American
Speaker 1: owned um newspaper and abolitionist newspaper in fact that came
Speaker 1: out weekly, was called the Pacific Appeal. Uh. And at
Speaker 1: this point he began to speak to the rampant inequality
Speaker 1: that was happening in the United States, and he began
Speaker 1: speaking about how African Americans ought to be given the
Speaker 1: same rights as white men um and should be able
Speaker 1: to attend public schools and ride in public street cars.
Speaker 1: He even spoke to the plight of the Chinese immigrants
Speaker 1: that were, you know, flooding into San Francisco, obviously, who
Speaker 1: were doing a lot of the work that white men
Speaker 1: did not want to do, and were relegated to their
Speaker 1: own kind of ghettos and treated like absolute third class citizens. Um,
Speaker 1: that's another thing that you'll see in Deadwood if you
Speaker 1: watch that show. They have their own whole little kind
Speaker 1: of area that they're not allowed to come out of
Speaker 1: unless at the behest of the white man. And that's
Speaker 1: according to the president of the Emperor's Bridge Campaign, which
Speaker 1: is an organization that searches Norton's life and shares his stories.
Speaker 1: He also said that Norton was famous for arguing for
Speaker 1: the rights of Native Americans and was very anti political corruption.
Speaker 1: So all of this stuff holds true about the initial
Speaker 1: kind of satire of his character, but now he's really
Speaker 1: kind of like taking it into the realm of like
Speaker 1: public discourse, you know, and really getting people riled up
Speaker 1: and saying the things that a lot of people were
Speaker 1: probably thinking but we're afraid to say. Yeah. Lubia says
Speaker 1: that Norton made himself into an early champion of the
Speaker 1: values of fairness and tolerance and the common good, and
Speaker 1: this was a positive symbol for San Francisco. There are
Speaker 1: some stories that exist that I feel kind of like
Speaker 1: possible tall tales, such as the idea that Norton was
Speaker 1: actively anti racist. One of the best examples of this,
Speaker 1: again this is not confirmed, is that during one riot
Speaker 1: where the white population of San Francisco was wreaking havoc
Speaker 1: in the Chinese section of town, he put himself in
Speaker 1: the line of fire between the two sides and just
Speaker 1: loudly recited the Lord's prayer until people were amused and left.
Speaker 1: But his his acts are also prescient. He did this
Speaker 1: is something really interesting. This is something I'd love to
Speaker 1: end this show with, because history, as William Faulkner says,
Speaker 1: to paraphrase Faulkner, history is not over right. The past
Speaker 1: does not even passed. One of his decrees was that
Speaker 1: there must be a bridge joining San Francisco and Oakland,
Speaker 1: and at the time, residents of San Francisco were kind
Speaker 1: of concerned that Oakland might become the major economic hub
Speaker 1: of the West because it might become the major rail hub.
Speaker 1: The Bay bridge was actually completed in ninety six. Unlike
Speaker 1: his predictions about Rice, Norton was correct about this bridge.
Speaker 1: They built it exactly where he recommended it should be.
Speaker 1: And to your earlier point about hipsters, I want to
Speaker 1: add some fuel to that idea before people even use
Speaker 1: the word hipster, before San Francisco became known as this
Speaker 1: epicenter of eccentricity, like the phrase you could see Norton
Speaker 1: riding round town on a fixed gear bicycle someone gave him.
Speaker 1: He was writing, it's a little fixy, yeah, and uh.
Speaker 1: He also would find people actively he would give people
Speaker 1: a twenty five dollar fine if anyone ever called their
Speaker 1: city Frisco instead of San Francisco, similar to you know,
Speaker 1: people saying Hotlanta. Yeah, people also from San Francisco hate
Speaker 1: it when you call it sf that's the worst. That
Speaker 1: would probably be the modern equivalent of Frisco, which is
Speaker 1: just like so passe that that people don't even utter it. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he was definitely an early to hipster um evangelists, you know.
Speaker 1: And again back to my earlier point about him being
Speaker 1: kind of this proto hippie, sort of like a defender
Speaker 1: of the weirdness of San Francisco. I love it. But unfortunately,
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty seven there was a new regime in
Speaker 1: place running the police force, and vagrancy became a real
Speaker 1: priority or the elimination thereof a over zealous cop apparently
Speaker 1: you know, trying to make a name for himself, not
Speaker 1: knowing what the score was here, arrested the Emperor on
Speaker 1: this charge of vagrancy, and the city's newspapers absolutely blasted
Speaker 1: the guy, sighting Norton as being a local institution and
Speaker 1: uh quote, since he has warned the Imperial Purple he
Speaker 1: has shed no blood, robbed nobody, and despoiled the country
Speaker 1: of no one, which is more than ken be said
Speaker 1: for his fellows in that line. Uh, the police chief,
Speaker 1: Patrick Crowley real lies that he had a pr nightmare
Speaker 1: on his hand and he ordered it. Norton be released
Speaker 1: and even issued a formal apology from the police force,
Speaker 1: and his story continues. He's a real class act about it.
Speaker 1: This guy is one of my favorite people. Just full disclosure,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna at the end recommend some excellent resources
Speaker 1: to learn more about him. So when when this formal
Speaker 1: apology occurs, how cool is this? The Emperor officially pardons
Speaker 1: the policeman who arrested him, and then from then on,
Speaker 1: from that point on, all law enforcement in the city
Speaker 1: picks up this habit of just saluting the emperor when
Speaker 1: they see him on the street. Uh, he didn't always
Speaker 1: have these crazy days. And there's a big question. I'm
Speaker 1: sure a lot of our fellow ridiculous historians are wondering.
Speaker 1: It's a question we can answer. He was not homeless.
Speaker 1: He was not sleeping rough in parks. He lived in
Speaker 1: a rental. He had a rented room, you know, in
Speaker 1: an in a building. And on his ridge days he
Speaker 1: would just walk around, like we said, but he would
Speaker 1: also play chess. He would go to various religious services.
Speaker 1: He would spend a lot of time reading in libraries.
Speaker 1: So he he had attained a sort of serenity and
Speaker 1: peace and become a symbol of a fast growing city.
Speaker 1: But he remained human, as all emperors and paupers are.
Speaker 1: On January eight, he collapsed on the corner of California
Speaker 1: and DuPont Streets. Uh. DuPont is now known as Grant Avenue.
Speaker 1: He was going to watch a lecture at the California
Speaker 1: Academy of Sciences. People are panicking because again people love
Speaker 1: this guy. Uh, the police get him a ride to
Speaker 1: the city receiving hospital. However, he dies before that carriage
Speaker 1: can make the scene, and this is when people start
Speaker 1: to pull back the screen. Authorities go to the room
Speaker 1: where he's living in this boarding house, and they're able
Speaker 1: to say, yeah, he wasn't living high on the hog.
Speaker 1: He had about five bucks on him when he fell
Speaker 1: in the streets, and they found a gold coin worth
Speaker 1: about two dollars and fifty cents in his room, and
Speaker 1: he had a bunch of hats and cats. He had
Speaker 1: letters that he had written to Queen Victoria, and he
Speaker 1: had a collection of walking sticks. But everybody, and now
Speaker 1: not just people in San Francisco. All the papers of
Speaker 1: note across the country are publishing the news, including the
Speaker 1: New York Times. You're seeing these headlines that say stuff
Speaker 1: like the king is dead and no citizen of San
Speaker 1: Francisco has been taken away who would be more generally missed.
Speaker 1: Somewhere between ten thousand to thirty thousand people turned up
Speaker 1: at the funeral. Yeah, he was definitely beloved um and
Speaker 1: and was this fixture. And it's almost kind of like
Speaker 1: mass head of San Francisco and it's kind of burgeoning weirdness.
Speaker 1: So it makes sense that he was embraced in that way.
Speaker 1: But it does bring me back to, you know, the
Speaker 1: circumstances of his death. So a little money in his pocket,
Speaker 1: and you know that the you mentioned he had a
Speaker 1: rental I've seen describe in a couple of places. It's
Speaker 1: kind of like a dingy flop house, you know, like
Speaker 1: very the lowest tier of rental, which I'm sure there
Speaker 1: were quite a few of in that city at the time.
Speaker 1: But there's a guy by the name of Joel Gazas
Speaker 1: Sachs who is the president of the Depression and Bipolar
Speaker 1: Support Alliance of South Orange County, and he's written a
Speaker 1: couple of pieces where he kind of describes Norton's mental state. Uh.
Speaker 1: In one essay he wrote called the Madness of Joshua Norton,
Speaker 1: he has this to say. My guess is that Joshua
Speaker 1: Norton suffered from major depression, which accounts for his neglect
Speaker 1: of his person, his work, and other necessary aspects of
Speaker 1: his life. He fought this using the mechanism of what
Speaker 1: psychologists call a histrionic personality. By his dress, by his anners,
Speaker 1: by his attendance and public gatherings and church services, and
Speaker 1: by the publication of his proclamations and other documents in
Speaker 1: the city's newspapers. He kept himself at the center of attention.
Speaker 1: When he acted the role of the Emperor, people looked
Speaker 1: at and listened to him, and he was able to
Speaker 1: earn for himself a modest living. His stick enabled him
Speaker 1: to keep going after the stunning defeats he suffered during
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifties. It negated his pain. It's interesting to
Speaker 1: say that because we should point out that while while
Speaker 1: that exploration is in good faith and it is sincere
Speaker 1: and it's well written, this author is not themselves a
Speaker 1: psychiatrist nor a psychologist. And during Norton's life, uh, no
Speaker 1: one did any kind of medical examination in that regard.
Speaker 1: They just called him mad because it helped sell the story.
Speaker 1: There's a there's another great article called His Majesty Psychosis
Speaker 1: the Case of Emperor Joshua Norton by Eric Liss. You
Speaker 1: can find this um. You can find this online. And
Speaker 1: I think these are two things, two works that complement
Speaker 1: each other very well, and I do recommend reading them. Also.
Speaker 1: Gases Sachs wrote several pieces right, um in both in
Speaker 1: the Madness of Joshua Norton, which you quoted, and Diagnosing Norton,
Speaker 1: which is a shorter piece that sort of addresses what
Speaker 1: people are talking about when they say Emperor Norton was
Speaker 1: mentally ill. You can find both of these, by the way,
Speaker 1: on the awesome resource Ember Norton trust dot org. Sure Canon.
Speaker 1: Just to just to sew it up with with Sachs,
Speaker 1: he openly acknowledges, you know that he is not a
Speaker 1: psychologist or psychiatrist, and that what he's doing is just
Speaker 1: sort of more of an exploration through the lens of
Speaker 1: his expertise and background in depression, you know, just like
Speaker 1: as a lame a lay person. And and it's quite
Speaker 1: possible again because you know, in the defense of both
Speaker 1: of these scholars, there was not a medical assessment at
Speaker 1: his time, but he was he was very much beloved.
Speaker 1: He was originally going to be buried in a potter's field,
Speaker 1: right and a pauper's coffin, but a group of San
Speaker 1: Francisco businessman called the Pacific Club said, you know what
Speaker 1: we are going to pay for equality rosewood casket. The
Speaker 1: funeral procession on January eight, where you know, I said,
Speaker 1: somewhere between ten to thirty thousand people attended. That procession
Speaker 1: was two miles long. He was buried in the Masonic Cemetery. Later,
Speaker 1: much later, his casket gets moved to the Woodlawn Cemetery.
Speaker 1: The entire Masonic Cemetery is relocated. Uh, about sixty thousand
Speaker 1: people came just to see that internment. There's a new
Speaker 1: tombstone that reads Norton, one emper of the United States
Speaker 1: and of course protector of Mexico. And now, you know,
Speaker 1: like like we said earlier, even today people kind of
Speaker 1: debate over whether there was a genuine like delusion, histrionic personality,
Speaker 1: major depression, or was it all just a tongue in
Speaker 1: cheek hustle. It's I don't know, it's tough to it's
Speaker 1: tough to guess, but there's there's no arguing that ultimately
Speaker 1: he was good for the city, and it seems like
Speaker 1: the city was good to him. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 1: I would absolutely agree with that. And um he I
Speaker 1: think was acting in good faith in an attempt to
Speaker 1: be good for the country, and we have this really
Speaker 1: cool timeline from thought co of his official acts as emperor.
Speaker 1: I think that might be a fun way to wrap
Speaker 1: this up. You want to round robin these bad boys, then, sure,
Speaker 1: of course. October twelfth, eighteen fifty nine, like I mentioned earlier,
Speaker 1: that's when he abolishes the U. S. Congress In December two,
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty nine, a very early proclamation showing his his
Speaker 1: kind of progressiveness. Um, he declared the Governor Henry Wise
Speaker 1: of Virginia should leave the office for the execution of
Speaker 1: abolitionist John Brown, and that John C. Breckinridge of Kentucky
Speaker 1: be inaugurated in his place. Yes. And then, as we
Speaker 1: mentioned again earlier, July six, eighteen sixty he dissolves the
Speaker 1: United States of America. And this was, you know, a
Speaker 1: move against because of Civil War tensions exactly. Uh. Then
Speaker 1: we've got August twelfth of eighteen sixty nine, he dissolves
Speaker 1: and abolished as the Democratic and Republican parties due to
Speaker 1: party strife. And on March twenty three, eighteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: there's another one we mentioned, Uh, he orders a suspension
Speaker 1: bridge to be built a S A P from Oakland
Speaker 1: Point to Goat Island and from there on to San Francisco, which,
Speaker 1: as we know totally ended up happening. Then finally, September
Speaker 1: twenty one, eighteen seventy two, he ordered a survey to
Speaker 1: determine whether a bridge or a tunnel was the best
Speaker 1: way to connect Oakland and San Francisco. Turns out they
Speaker 1: went with the bridge. He's making moves, He's he is
Speaker 1: making moves. If you want to learn more about Emperor Norton,
Speaker 1: we have mentioned, of course, the Emperor Norton Trust dot org. Uh.
Speaker 1: This guy will be familiar to any Discordians in the
Speaker 1: audience because he is the patron saint of Discordians. And
Speaker 1: now there are ongoing efforts by the Emperor Norton Trust
Speaker 1: to read name the Bay Bridge, or at least part
Speaker 1: of it for Emperor Norton, which I don't think is
Speaker 1: asking too much. That's kind of cool, and it's sort
Speaker 1: of immortalizes him, you know. It's more so it's sort
Speaker 1: of like interstates, you know, where you'll have like the
Speaker 1: official name of the interstate and then a subtitle with
Speaker 1: a with a you know, like a nickname you know,
Speaker 1: based on some historical figure or a person that was
Speaker 1: responsible for, uh, the infrastructure. Uh. And And lastly, I
Speaker 1: just want to say, if you go to some friends
Speaker 1: to school. Uh, you can take a walking tour of
Speaker 1: the life of Emperor Norton and you can find that
Speaker 1: on Atlas Obscura. New map tracks the life of San
Speaker 1: Francisco's Emperor Norton by Sarah Lascow, And there is a
Speaker 1: Google doc embedded a Google map rather embedded, showing some
Speaker 1: key points um of that that represented the kind of
Speaker 1: trajectory of his life. And I don't have any plans
Speaker 1: to go to San Francisco anytime soon, but I hope too,
Speaker 1: and I when I do, I definitely am going to
Speaker 1: do this. And one teaser, consider this the stinger on
Speaker 1: the end of the episode. If this were a Marvel movie,
Speaker 1: the stinger is this Emperor Norton is not the only
Speaker 1: person in the US who one day just declared themselves royalty.
Speaker 1: Those are stories for another day. But we hope you
Speaker 1: enjoyed this exploration of San Francisco's Emperor as much as
Speaker 1: the three of us did. Thank you, of course, to
Speaker 1: the people of San Francisco. Thank you, of course to
Speaker 1: Norton first of his name, the Emperor of the United States.
Speaker 1: And UH, equally, just as importantly, thanks to our one
Speaker 1: and only super producer Mr Max Williams, Maximilian, He's the
Speaker 1: man Um. He can do all the things that no
Speaker 1: one else can. That's how that goes um huge Thanks
Speaker 1: to Max's brother, another one of our men Um, Alex Williams,
Speaker 1: who composed this theme that you are hearing in your
Speaker 1: your holes this very minute. And of course thanks to
Speaker 1: our own mad Emperor of Quizzery Jonathan Strickland DK the Quister.
Speaker 1: Thanks to Christoph Rossiotis, thanks to Eve's Jeff Coach. Thanks
Speaker 1: to Eli Banks and Diana Brown of Ridiculous Romance. Do
Speaker 1: check out their show. Uh It personally just tickles the
Speaker 1: hell out of me. D See you next time, folks.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 1: your favorite shows