Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio, Hello and Happy Friday. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. We talked about Paul Robeson
Speaker 1: and the Peak Skill riots this week. It was back
Speaker 1: before the pandemic when I was on another separate podcast
Speaker 1: called This Day in History Class. That's been hanging out
Speaker 1: on my list for a long time before being propelled
Speaker 1: up to the top by it coming up in the
Speaker 1: Eugene Jacques Bullard episode. I read that whole a c
Speaker 1: LU report and the paragraph that we read in the
Speaker 1: show just turned my stomach because I was like, this
Speaker 1: is a paragraph that could be in news reporting today
Speaker 1: about January six. It sounded so similar two things people
Speaker 1: have also said about that, And like I had just
Speaker 1: read that part and it was farmers Market day where
Speaker 1: we live, and I was like walking to the Farmer's
Speaker 1: Market with Patrick being very quiet, and he was like,
Speaker 1: what are you thinking about? And I It's like, it's
Speaker 1: very nauseating thing that I read in an a c
Speaker 1: L report that just reminded me of other things still happening.
Speaker 1: That's like the depressing thing about studying history. We just
Speaker 1: see the same stuff go on over and over and over. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I feel so conflicted about Paul Robeson. Um, he was
Speaker 1: robbed of his career, uh in a way that was
Speaker 1: grossly unfair and racist and sort of selectively targeted him
Speaker 1: among all the performers that were there. Um. So much
Speaker 1: of the criticisms that he made of the United States
Speaker 1: and of US foreign pole see and of racism in
Speaker 1: the United States was all totally valid, and in some
Speaker 1: cases saying it a lot more loudly and a lot
Speaker 1: more publicly than other people were doing at the time. Um.
Speaker 1: But then we get into his effusive praise of Joseph Stalin,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, what was going on here? Like, right,
Speaker 1: it undermines his entire message, Like, and there's so many
Speaker 1: different and it's all very speculative because like we just
Speaker 1: don't have his personal thoughts on it, noted anywhere, and
Speaker 1: I can just imagine so many different scenarios, but they're
Speaker 1: all my imagination. Right. Some of the stuff that he
Speaker 1: was saying in that House an American Activities Committee questioning,
Speaker 1: he was just clearly not participating, which honestly I applaud
Speaker 1: him for, right. Uh. But then like I'm like, were
Speaker 1: you just not going to participate when it came to
Speaker 1: things outside of that context when they're like there was
Speaker 1: no criticism of various atrocities that had happened in the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union, And I just I don't really know. And
Speaker 1: a lot of times that that, you know, like Rutgers
Speaker 1: has wanted to like more recognize his presence at the
Speaker 1: university and like how great of an athlete and a
Speaker 1: student and all of that he was, And sometimes they
Speaker 1: will be criticized of like you kind of skipped over
Speaker 1: the part about like the unwavering support of authoritarian dictators,
Speaker 1: which doesn't line up with a lot of the other
Speaker 1: stuff you're saying. And I just I have trouble puzzling
Speaker 1: it all out. Um. Yeah, I mean we can certainly theorize,
Speaker 1: which is easy to do. I mean, he, you know,
Speaker 1: in saying that he felt like he had been treated
Speaker 1: more equally when he was there, being really the like
Speaker 1: root of all of that kind of speaks volumes right,
Speaker 1: Like Yeah, in that regard, I could see where someone
Speaker 1: who was so dismayed at at what was going on
Speaker 1: back home either kind of having blinders about a thing
Speaker 1: or being so bought in that like your brain switches
Speaker 1: off the opportunity to really criticize it. Yeah, and he
Speaker 1: was for sure not the only person to visit the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union in the thirties and sort of see what
Speaker 1: the goal was, like what the like this idea that
Speaker 1: things were going to be more equitable, um and and
Speaker 1: really coming away with the what the ideal was. And
Speaker 1: then later on, as like the execution of that idea
Speaker 1: became in some ways horrifying, had to kind of go
Speaker 1: back and be like, oh, I I supported this earlier
Speaker 1: and now I have to really like revise my opinions. Um.
Speaker 1: And so yeah, there's there are some like very lengthy
Speaker 1: biographies of him that I did not get the opportunity
Speaker 1: to read for this because there's a finite amount of time. Uh,
Speaker 1: And people have sort of come to different conclusions about
Speaker 1: what what they think what they think his thought process
Speaker 1: or motivations were, and they don't always agree with each other.
Speaker 1: Um and will never know because we can't ask him. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and just did not leave a lot of introspective writing
Speaker 1: on that subject. I mean a lot of publicly facing
Speaker 1: writing of things that he published, but not so much
Speaker 1: as his reflective inward thoughts on things. Yeah. Yeah, on
Speaker 1: the upside, it's fun to get to kind of call
Speaker 1: out Pete Seeger's progressive activism because I think people can
Speaker 1: forget sometimes, you know, as he's become like, you know,
Speaker 1: that oldies musician, he was really like, you're hitting a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff. Yeah. Um, I occasionally will think about
Speaker 1: doing an episode on pizzagre Um because like, there was
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that he did that I think
Speaker 1: was really cool, and then there was also stuff that
Speaker 1: he did that I think was really problematic. And yeah,
Speaker 1: that's one of the reasons that like that's never like
Speaker 1: he's never really been formally on my short list of
Speaker 1: topics to cover, because, um, I just know going in
Speaker 1: that there's going to be so much that's gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna have similarly conflicted feelings on it. Well, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the danger of like viewing anyone as a hero
Speaker 1: or any organization as a hit. Right, There's nothing is
Speaker 1: as pure and clean and one sided and simple as
Speaker 1: we think. There's always messiness because we're humans. Yeah, Pizza
Speaker 1: Here did not live far from peak skill. It was
Speaker 1: only like fifteen or twenty miles away. One of the
Speaker 1: things we talked about was leaving the concert, like he
Speaker 1: needed to turn in direction to go to his house
Speaker 1: and the police would not let him go that way
Speaker 1: because they were funneling everybody during this It's kind of
Speaker 1: gauntlet of rock throwing men. That's scary. Yeah, yeah, no
Speaker 1: way to get out of it. Humans and their ability
Speaker 1: to hate others is never I should be jaded to it,
Speaker 1: and I never am. Yeah, I was like, how how
Speaker 1: did you go home at the end of that night
Speaker 1: and go like, m I'm gonna sleep great knowing I
Speaker 1: threw rocks at people who could not defend themselves. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So anyway, on that happy note, Fortunately, I'm n sure
Speaker 1: that this is gonna be a Monday episode. Um, and
Speaker 1: we put our behind the scenes in the same order
Speaker 1: of the episodes came out, So hopefully we're gonna have
Speaker 1: a little musical transition and an ad break and then
Speaker 1: maybe something happier or something HALLOWEENI I act really think
Speaker 1: might be. What's what's gonna be discussed next Bump Bump Bump,
Speaker 1: The Magic of Halloween Time Tracy. We talked about Johann
Speaker 1: George Schreff for this week. Yep, we're kicking off our
Speaker 1: Halloween Fund, which I always love. He's an interesting on
Speaker 1: ramp because I think most people recognize at this point
Speaker 1: that he was making it up, um, But it is
Speaker 1: a fascinating to me. It's a fascinating look at um
Speaker 1: global mentality at the time. Right. The one thing we
Speaker 1: didn't talk about. There are a few things we didn't
Speaker 1: talk about. One, he was only thirty six when he died. Um.
Speaker 1: I mean this really was a very fast right. Like
Speaker 1: he moved to Leipzig in sixty one, he would have
Speaker 1: been still quite young at that point. He got married, right,
Speaker 1: and and then you know he did this like I'm
Speaker 1: gonna run my little wine bar and my coffee house,
Speaker 1: and then suddenly he was like and mystical arts. Um.
Speaker 1: And that period of his life is really just a
Speaker 1: couple of years long, um. And it you know, he
Speaker 1: burns out rather spectacularly. I want to come back to
Speaker 1: that and why he might have burned out so spectacularly
Speaker 1: and so quickly. But the thing that we did not
Speaker 1: talk about we mentioned you know, this follows on the
Speaker 1: Seven Years War and all of that conflict. But was
Speaker 1: fascinating to me is that all of this is also
Speaker 1: going on at the same time that the colonies in
Speaker 1: North America are about to really really you know, that
Speaker 1: are digging in on their fight with England. Um. It
Speaker 1: just it's a bigger indicator. And that's of course related
Speaker 1: to the seven years ward, which we talked about, like
Speaker 1: both England and France trying to claim that they owned
Speaker 1: places that frankly already had people on them. Um, and
Speaker 1: that whole problem. But this is a time when the
Speaker 1: entire world, as people in Europe knew, it was just
Speaker 1: there was nothing they could predict. I think they probably
Speaker 1: felt like right, so it is sort of natural. Those
Speaker 1: are the moments when mysticism becomes very appealing to learn
Speaker 1: troups of people. Um, of course we don't know anything,
Speaker 1: but if I can learn mystical things, I'll know something. Um.
Speaker 1: There's like a weird comfort in it, and I think
Speaker 1: that's one of the things that that really does make
Speaker 1: things like this happened kind of in those little clumps.
Speaker 1: Going back to him blazing out rather quickly, we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about him using intoxicants on his followers
Speaker 1: and one of the theories that some people have put
Speaker 1: forth and again, at this point, it's all theory. It's
Speaker 1: not like we can dig him up and do a
Speaker 1: talk screening. I never saw anything listing even where he
Speaker 1: would be laid to rest, like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: people know, um they might. But in any case, one
Speaker 1: of the things that came up that someone put forward
Speaker 1: that I thought was really interesting was the idea that
Speaker 1: if he was also potentially using intoxicants in the midst
Speaker 1: that he was projecting on, or just if there was
Speaker 1: anything in the burning of those you know, lamps, his
Speaker 1: magic lantern candles or whatever, he may have been slowly
Speaker 1: poisoning himself and causing his own mental deterioration, um, and
Speaker 1: how that might account for some of his like very
Speaker 1: quickly shifting but progressively weirder behavior um right there at
Speaker 1: the end. It's just an interesting way to consider it. Um.
Speaker 1: I The idea of having a coup over a Freemason
Speaker 1: lodge at gunpoint and people being like, yep, you're the
Speaker 1: new leader now is very weird to me. Yeah. That
Speaker 1: reminded me a little bit of our Alistair Crowley, Yes,
Speaker 1: and the Battle of Life road as that was what
Speaker 1: it was called. It reminded me a bit at that
Speaker 1: from I think last Halloween is when that was that
Speaker 1: seems correct. On a much later note, when I got
Speaker 1: to the section where it was talking about him calling
Speaker 1: forth Struancy and Brandt, I couldn't help but think of
Speaker 1: one of my favorite shows of all times, Home Movies,
Speaker 1: which I don't know if I've talked about on the
Speaker 1: show Befour have I probably because I love it so much.
Speaker 1: It's by uh Lauren Bouchard, who also did does Bob's
Speaker 1: Burgers Now, which is wildly popular, well deservedly um, and
Speaker 1: he did Dr Katz before that. But on Home Movies
Speaker 1: there's one episode where Coach McGurk, who is this kind
Speaker 1: of train wreck of a man who is a kid's
Speaker 1: soccer coach but also just a mess in a lot
Speaker 1: of delightful ways, and is voiced by John Benjamin, who
Speaker 1: now does the voice of Bob and Archer. If you
Speaker 1: watch that show, Um, he goes temporarily blind, he believes,
Speaker 1: because if I'm remembering correctly, he gets um lazic surgery
Speaker 1: by a not great lazy surgeon and it's only temporary,
Speaker 1: but he goes blind, and he believes that his senses
Speaker 1: have heightened in other ways and ends up faking that
Speaker 1: he is psychic and can conjure celebrities, and so it's
Speaker 1: like the very modern version of this where he like
Speaker 1: starts doing bad impersonations of John Wayne and um, you
Speaker 1: know other celebrities. And I just pictured then as I
Speaker 1: was thinking about that and reading about SHREP for SHREMP
Speaker 1: for doing really bad impersonations of struancy, and I was like,
Speaker 1: that would be very funny. Yeah, it would make a
Speaker 1: very good show that I would laugh and laugh at. Um.
Speaker 1: This is the only tangentially related. But when I was
Speaker 1: looking for artwork to go on our social media, I
Speaker 1: found one picture that when I found it was labeled
Speaker 1: as being this guy right doing one of his things. Um,
Speaker 1: but it was there. There are stock photo places that
Speaker 1: sometimes we'll have all of these what should clearly be
Speaker 1: public domain photos or public domain images that they're like
Speaker 1: trying to license for many um, and that was that
Speaker 1: one of those places that that I had found this
Speaker 1: photo labeled this way, and so I had been tracking
Speaker 1: it drowned trying to be like, okay, what is the
Speaker 1: original source on this, And it was actually an illustration
Speaker 1: of Kelliostro, who we've also done an episode, and I
Speaker 1: was like, wow, okay, interesting little circle there they are
Speaker 1: sometimes invoked together. And I wonder if you saw the
Speaker 1: same one I saw, which the caption made it seem
Speaker 1: like a strange chain of events. The caption read something
Speaker 1: in the one that I saw that was like Shrepford
Speaker 1: calling forth spirits before he runs into the woods to
Speaker 1: shoot himself, And like what was quite how that played out?
Speaker 1: But I mean, I guess, but the way it was written,
Speaker 1: it made it seem like he maybe got scared in
Speaker 1: the thing and ran into it. But there's a much
Speaker 1: longer chain of events, even on that that night that
Speaker 1: he did die. Um, so that was a weird one.
Speaker 1: And I as you said, it's very tricky to find
Speaker 1: pictures of him. You can find some of the links,
Speaker 1: but usually it's the older one. Um. Yeah, he's the
Speaker 1: He's interesting. I you know, I love a good Charlatan story.
Speaker 1: It's interesting to me. Here's where I find a kernel
Speaker 1: of redemption for shrip for versus some other Charlatan's. It
Speaker 1: seems like because he had called out the Minerva Lodge
Speaker 1: as taking money from members, that he was not doing that.
Speaker 1: But he was taking money from very rich people who
Speaker 1: bought into his scheme. Right, And so I'm a little
Speaker 1: less eager to judge him for being a charlatan because
Speaker 1: he wasn't exploiting people who were poor and desperate. Generally,
Speaker 1: to the best of my knowledge, that is a fine
Speaker 1: line to walk and certainly granular distinction of morality, but
Speaker 1: it makes his his weirdness a little easier to stomach. Um.
Speaker 1: We have so much more fun Halloween coming now, that's
Speaker 1: the best time of year. Yeah. The very next thing
Speaker 1: we're going to record has some common themes with this one,
Speaker 1: and then I have another one that's also a modern
Speaker 1: ish spiritualism story that will probably dovetail on both of these,
Speaker 1: among others. It's gonna be a fun month. If this
Speaker 1: is your weekend coming up, we hope that it is
Speaker 1: smooth as silk and that it is filled with whatever
Speaker 1: level of Halloween themed revelry want. I'm gonna eat candy corn.
Speaker 1: I know not everybody wants to, uh So I'll take years.
Speaker 1: If you don't want it, that's just fine by me.
Speaker 1: If you have responsibilities that are keeping you from fully
Speaker 1: engaging in revelry, I hope that that also goes very
Speaker 1: smoothly and that it's not too rough and that everything
Speaker 1: works as it should. Uh. We will be right back
Speaker 1: here tomorrow with a classic and then more Halloween fun
Speaker 1: on Monday. Stuff you Missed in History Class is a
Speaker 1: production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from I
Speaker 1: heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.