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004 - The Todd Years: Part One (1926-1928)
9 Plays14 days ago
“I attacked the textbooks rather than mastered them.”
In the first part of our first-ever two-part episode, we discuss Welles’s early years at the Todd School in Woodstock, Illinois, his burgeoning relationship with eventual headmaster Roger Hill, and how Orson spent his summer vacations.
Follow us on our (admittedly limited) socials to keep up with assignments and other exciting Welles-related news:
- @wellesupod on Bluesky and YouTube
- Read Hope’s blog at highimhope.com
- Listen to Hope’s other podcasts - High on Cartoons Presents DuckTakes! and The Matrix Reclamations
- Follow Stephen at @chewywalrus on Bluesky and Letterboxd
- Listen to Stephen’s other podcasts - Disenfranchised Podcast and The Pod and the Pendulum
- Check out Stephen’s novel - Check In, Check Out - on Amazon, now available in paperback or ebook: https://amzn.to/44idk8y
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Transcript
Opening: College Rules & New Beginnings
00:00:03
Speaker
nice grip it and rip it good this is a college this is a college town so we have to play by college rules um and we've been in orson wells's childhood long enough i think we deserve a drink i well you know we're we're still in orson wells's childhood of course uh but hope i will drink to that if else cheers my friend
00:00:29
Speaker
i don't know if this is going at the front of the episode or if this is going to be a stinger, but this is it. I don't know. i Look, i'm I'm drinking Change Order from my new local brewery, Homewood Brewing Company. Very nice. In Homewood, Illinois.
00:00:41
Speaker
um And God, I got to say, i love being back in the suburbs. I'm not going lie.
The Adventures of Moving & Drunk Texts
00:00:49
Speaker
Yes, you just moved and I am in the process of moving. This is the first podcast I have recorded from my new place. I have not even recorded a disenfranchised episode. I'm so honored. This is the last podcast I ever record from this place.
00:01:01
Speaker
So there's some fun crossover. Two ships passing in the night, Steven and O. You're still the one I drunk texted, which I think is hysterical. I don't really drunk text Bex and I'm married to that motherfucker. like arm Yeah.
00:01:17
Speaker
Yeah. Cause they get it all the time. Anyway. It's like, Hey, babe, I had a new and interesting thought about the fifth element. I swear. It's a hot take nearly 30 years later.
00:01:30
Speaker
right.
Podcasting Passion & Future Plans
00:01:31
Speaker
Uh,
00:01:33
Speaker
so So when they're asleep in the next room and you don't have anyone to yell your drunken thoughts to, oh that's when Steven comes in. No, no, that's the thing. I go to bed hours before they do.
00:01:44
Speaker
Oh, okay. My cat's starting to freak out now. It's only like 7.35. She's starting to freak out and now because it's about the time when I climb into bed and start reading. So this is bedtime for her.
00:01:57
Speaker
Okay. Oh, poor thing. And I only got to page... Three of the notes of this episode. Stephen, how many pages? I'm looking now because it's been it's been literally months since I typed these damn things out. Ten. There's ten pages of notes. Ten fucking pages of notes.
00:02:13
Speaker
but I've decided this this entire conversation from the from the beer crack
Orson Welles: Magic & Influence
00:02:17
Speaker
is all going as the stinger before we actually start the episode. ah Ten fucking pages. We should make these, yeah ah once the show actually goes, we should make these a Patreon reward because these are fucking beautifully done well thank you yeah i know i i'm i'm i feel like i'm not really contributing much to the podcast but you know all of this crazy wicked backstory yeah him and i'm just like i want to talk about movies
00:02:45
Speaker
i look i We could have just done a blank check-esque podcast where we dig deep into all the films of Orson Welles. but That's the thing. We're going to. We're going to get there. Oh, yeah. we just But you also wanted to cover the radio shit, which I totally get, because it's essential.
00:03:01
Speaker
Because we haven't recorded in like four months. Yeah, we let's let's. Sorry, I have a hair stuck down my bra. This is this is exclusive content. You're only getting in the stinger of the show. Kids, the 10 minute stinger at the end of the episode. Right. Bonus content.
00:03:18
Speaker
Secret track, secret track, secret track. It's a secret track. Yeah.
00:03:25
Speaker
But ah shit, we were about to re-litigate something.
Orson's School Days & Early Creativity
00:03:29
Speaker
um Yeah, the the original pitch was, what if we discussed every single piece of creative output by Orson Welles in chronological order? Correct. Then we also had the idea, let's do at least an episode of Back History on the man himself before we actually get into the creative works. Yeah. And now we are entering into episode four of that.
00:03:50
Speaker
Yeah. So the first episode was supposed to cover episodes basically two through four. Jesus. That was supposed to be episode one. And aren't you glad we broke that up?
00:04:02
Speaker
Holy living shit. There's so much. There's so much. There's so much. Which I didn't realize until I started looking at young Orson. And I looked at just how much... how many pages, how much text was devoted to like these specific eras of his life. And I'm like, we're, we're going to need a bigger boat.
00:04:19
Speaker
yeah It's really funny. I was looking through the bibliography of dead air, which, which I will formally introduce when we actually start recording the episode in 10 minutes.
00:04:31
Speaker
um But I'm looking through the bibliography, ah William Ellicott Hazel Grove used. And I'm like, Oh, Stephen owns, All of these.
00:04:43
Speaker
Oh, okay. So the two most well-read people on earth of Orson Welles at this moment are William Ellicott Hazelgrove and Stephen Foxworthy.
00:04:54
Speaker
That is, though. Simon Callow's got to be up there. Like, he wrote, like, three of these biographies. Right. But like I'm talking, like, we're you're standing you're standing on the shoulders of giants, man. Aren't we all? Appreciate the view.
00:05:07
Speaker
um It's a nice view. I gotta say. Who knows how much longer to last? Tequila. Woo! Tequila. Sweet liquor eases the pain. Ugh.
00:05:18
Speaker
Bree got me into the good shit. All of the guests at my wedding were like, who's that? Who's the Morticia Adams chick? And I'm like, oh, she's just the coolest person I know. Do you know Ramona Flowers? That's her.
00:05:31
Speaker
That's, yeah. i Here's the thing about you, though. You know so many fucking cool people. I have i may not fair how many fucking cool people you know. I have managed to surround myself ah with people I all find ah deeply attractive and want to talk about everything with, which is why I keep inventing podcasts. So I have an excuse to talk about these things with people.
00:05:57
Speaker
Brianna Lynn came over last night and we like got sidetracked for half an hour into a conversation about Dungeons and Dragons. nice I mean, I know that she and ah her ah I both play the game like independently of one another.
00:06:11
Speaker
We've had a few conversations about it here and there, but like now we're just like, wait, hang on. Did we both build big titty goth girl? self-insert character for Dungeons and Dragons and should we start a podcast about it.
00:06:29
Speaker
And yeah. so for That's just what you need another but nu or podcast. I'm going fucking podcast and look at my new place. I'm so excited. I'm going to get red velvet curtains so I can turn it into this itty bitty tiny corner of the red room from Twin Peaks.
00:06:44
Speaker
So this is, this is, but I'm basically recording you from or recording from my new podcast studio. Fuck yeah. Nice. I mean, it's my office. Like, that half of my desk is for work, and this half of my desk is for everything else. Anybody can have an office.
00:07:01
Speaker
Own the fact that you have a podcast studio. You are one of of the most dedicated podcasters I've i've ever met, having known ah three of them. um But... it yeah yeah ah Having been in regular texting contact with three of them.
00:07:18
Speaker
um Yeah, that's a bit more appropriate. ill say You can always meet a podcaster online and just bully them into being your friends, kids. It worked for me twice. No. Yes. Twice. um I don't think I was a podcaster when when we started chatting.
00:07:35
Speaker
I don't know anymore. Or no, means nothing to me. I was, but I had long abandoned that podcast. That was rule of thirds. The first podcast I did, which was years ago.
00:07:48
Speaker
Is this my third podcast? No, no. This is my fourth. yeah Nice. The third that I'm working on currently. but who's who But who's counting?
00:07:59
Speaker
Let's be real. You know. Apparently I am. All right. We've been recording the post script for eight minutes now. um Would you like to give it a few moments of silence?
00:08:10
Speaker
And do you want to start recording? Let's do it. The hero, a great lover, and a dirty dog.
00:08:31
Speaker
director of the marrcurry theatre and star of east rock a voice just a voice and never really saw him he was only the hero horsesonwell a great lover horsesonwell and a dirt it well Good morning, this is Orson Welles speaking. How do you do, ladies and gentlemen?
00:08:50
Speaker
This is Orson Welles. This Orson Welles, ladies and gentlemen. This is Orson Welles speaking. Well, here it is. anybody wants to see it.
00:09:00
Speaker
I took too much tequila. That was a mistake. have This is the start of the episode. Welcome to class. Fuck you.
00:09:10
Speaker
All right, class, come on in, take your seats. We are in session. You may have noticed it's been four months since we've held a class or recorded an episode to break kayfabe, but... I was going to you might not notice, because we'll probably be releasing these concurrently regardless, but the last time we talked to you, it was, want to say, October 2024? it was November. November. It was November. It was shortly.
00:09:34
Speaker
It was like two days after the election. Steven, we made a horrible mistake. I don't feel like I contributed a lot to that episode because I was mostly going, Jesus Christ. You were. I'm happy to report just in terms of Karen ah if just in terms of karen events ah hi I'm one of your TAs, Hope Stow.
00:09:55
Speaker
You may notice as's a change in that. We'll get to that in a minute. But I'm your TA, a the stoner that wandered in from the rain. And I am your TA a who's been cooking the books and pouring over them ah for the entire time, Mr. Stephen Foxworthy. You notice there has been absolutely no change.
00:10:15
Speaker
Except that you've got two books. One that says, show to the IRS. The other that says, never never show to the IRS. that's Yeah. What's up, motherfuckers? I got married.
00:10:27
Speaker
yeah that I'm feeling pretty good about it. I got married. I'm sipping on 1800 tequila. I live in the greatest city in the history of the universe, Philadelphia. We invented America.
00:10:38
Speaker
We can take it away. yeah ah Go birds. They won the Superbowl. I didn't watch the Superbowl. We watched dunes part one and two, ah you know, use of your time. I think yeah we also bought a, a, a, five foot wide bean bag called a love sack.
00:10:55
Speaker
I've heard of the love sack. Yes, it is. I have to say, It is heaven. i this This show is not sponsored, but Wells University takes no funding from Love Sack as a company.
00:11:07
Speaker
But we are willing. But we are fully willing. It's heaven. I just, I fluff it up and then I fall face first into it. But Stephen, how are you? I'm doing, I'm doing all right. I moved. I moved from the north side of Tickshack to, oh yeah, from the neck.
00:11:20
Speaker
Fuck. Fuck. ah I feel like the spirit descended and I'm speaking in tongues. um ah Champagne. ah More like the American beer, but yes. um Yes.
00:11:35
Speaker
have your head. i moved from the north side of Chicago to the south suburbs of Chicago. So lovely. I'm back in the suburbs and I'm i'm loving it so far. Have my own dedicated podcast space.
00:11:49
Speaker
And yeah, so we've, there's been a lot going on in the lives of ah these two podcasters, which is why it's been four months since we've gotten together to record one of these things. But with, but with it, it will be two weeks since you last heard from us. Correct.
00:12:05
Speaker
We don't fuck this up. so There's always a chance. There's always a chance. but Here's something I will tell you, Hope. I miss the fuck out of you, girl. I miss you, too. It is so good to talk to you again.
00:12:17
Speaker
i miss you, too. I have little to no memory of ah ah November to January because I mostly feel like I was ah planning a heist during that time.
00:12:28
Speaker
ah is Yeah, it's you can you can go to my new website, hiimhope.com. That's H-I-G-H, I'm Hope. to check out the wedding photos. Generally not a fan of puns, but that is one of the best ones. It my dad's idea.
00:12:42
Speaker
He got me my first podcast. He got me. I foisted my first podcast upon him, so I i couldn't pass it out. Attaboy, Frank. Well done. wolf Go, Frank. Go, Frank.
00:12:54
Speaker
Go, Frank. pause for drinks um but yeah we're back with another class at wells university it's the same class just another session yep um and uh this was this was to be the culmination of our first episode and it is now our fourth And then you wrote 10 pages of notes just on this time frame that are from from nineteen From the fall of 1926 to, I want to say, the summer of 1931.
00:13:29
Speaker
So let's start with that. And I'm going to go off of the onthisday.com website. And now my cat has decided to join me. Hi, Mando.
00:13:42
Speaker
Uh... She is indifferent, ah probably because she's not wearing headphones. That tracks. So 1926, a kind of an amazing year in terms of nonsense to talk about on this podcast, all told.
00:13:57
Speaker
ah But let's ah start with May 3rd. Britain's Trade Union Congress calls for the country's first ever general strike, ah ah is in in support of coal miners and lasts for nine days. And that feels pertinent to today's society.
00:14:13
Speaker
a Nice big general strike to the economy. September 25th, Henry Ford announces an eight-hour, five-day work week for workers at Ford Motor Company. That's right, kids. Like so many things in history, blame Henry Ford. Go back in time and kill him.
00:14:30
Speaker
Let's see. Something about Russian Politburo overthrows, sorry, throws out Leon Trotsky and his followers on October 19th.
00:14:42
Speaker
Uh, let's see. I am, I am looking these up as you, as you say he see if Wells has any thoughts, uh, nothing so far, nothing so far. Well, great. Cause we're about to move into on this day in this year, highlights of 1926 in film and TV. Here we go. All right. So January 26th, John Logie Baird, if I'm saying that anywhere near correctly, I am willing to be corrected, gives the first public demonstration of television in his laboratory at London, which will, of course, eventually
00:15:14
Speaker
Eventually down the line, killed the radio star. May 19th, the national broadcasting company, NBC, founded by the Radio Corporation of America, RCA. So that's fun.
00:15:25
Speaker
ah A radio broadcasting company in a podcast about Orson Welles. It's a secret tool that will help us later. Yeah, remember that. Write that down in your notes. That will be on the test. Remember the name radio Oh, God almighty. This is pretty cool. August 6th, Don Juan, starring John Barrymore, is released by Warner Brothers, the first feature-length film to utilize the Vitaphone sound-on-disc system with a synchronized musical score and sound effects. One moment, there is something on Don Juan. There is something on Don Juan. I had a feeling he would have something to say about Don Juan.
00:16:01
Speaker
I am vamping for you. I went with my father to the world premiere in New York of Warner's first Vitaphone sound picture, which was Don Juan starring Jack Barrymore. Of course you did.
00:16:13
Speaker
i think listen i think it was the opening night. Of course you did, Orson. I was everywhere in history all at once. He really was. He really was the motherfucker.
00:16:24
Speaker
it was It was really a silent with a synchronized soundtrack full of corny mood music, horse hooves, and clashing swords. But it was preceded by a few short items of authentic talkies. Burns and Allen, George Jesse, or George Jessel telephoning his mother, and Giovanni Martinelli ripping the hell out of Pagliacci.
00:16:42
Speaker
So not much has changed in cinema over the years. My father lasted about half an hour. In 89 years. He says, my father lasted about a half an hour and then went up the aisle dragging me with him. This, he said, ruins the movies forever. He never went back to a movie theater as long as he lived. Anyway, he he was a chum of Barrymore's and that must have been a the very worst Jack ever was.
00:17:09
Speaker
They'd put this little curly blonde wig on him and he just looked diseased. that Unfiltered, Orson. You'll love to hear it. And this isn't even as unfiltered as he is in My Lunches with Orson, the Henry Jackson book.
00:17:25
Speaker
Oh, Christ. I'll read that eventually. I have too many lesbians to catch up on. Fair August 18th, first televised weather map broadcast of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Washington, D.C.
00:17:36
Speaker
Pretty fucking cool. And then finally, on November 15th, the first formal radio network, RCA, takes over AT&T's 25-station network, NBC, including flagship station WEAF in NYC.
00:17:50
Speaker
There's so many acronyms in these paragraphs. It's dumb. It's a little stupid. But that's pretty cool. Radio's taking over the world. and Nothing bad will come of it, I'm sure.
00:18:01
Speaker
No. Certainly not. We're certainly going to be talking about we'll change the way that broadcasting happens forever. No, he certainly didn't get his he certainly did didn't get his true national start on a new platform.
00:18:16
Speaker
ah Was Orson Welles like a Netflix star of his day? I there's there's something to that. i Yeah, there's a great conversation to be had there.
00:18:28
Speaker
We can have that later when we talk about Orson going to Hollywood, because I think that's really where that starts to plug in. But there's something to that, I think. Baby girl, I would really really appreciate it if you didn't try to cozy up on the mic wire. You can come and come in like physically destroy my knee or something like that.
00:18:46
Speaker
Just get away from the laptop. This might come out. Or I won't because I'm fundamentally lazy and I haven't opened a notes app. April 25th. ah Let's see if I can pronounce this. ah Giacomo Puccini's opera, Turnadot, not pronouncing any of these words correctly, premieres in Milan.
00:19:03
Speaker
I'm just going to start intentionally mispronouncing things. You got Puccini right. Did Yeah. i am yeah Amazing. Amazing. Yeah. the The maladies of being a reader. You understand every word you read.
00:19:17
Speaker
You have no idea how to say any of them. um Bex mocks me relentlessly. It's mean. ah November 8th. georges ger You were signing up for, girl. Don't get to be here.
00:19:29
Speaker
I said yes and I do to that fucking frog. ah November George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin and P.G. Wodehouse's musical OK spelled... O-H, K-A-Y!
00:19:41
Speaker
Opens at the Imperial Theater, New York City, and runs for 256 performances. Imperial Theater, I'd have to look that up. pretty sure I saw Les Mis in that theater. um I'd have to look that up, but I'm pretty sure that's where Les Mis had its Broadway theater.
00:19:56
Speaker
original run. And then there's 1926 in sport, which is irrelevant to everything forever. Uh, also in 1926, AA Milne's book, Winnie the Pooh is released born in 1926.
00:20:08
Speaker
Ralph Abernathy, Elizabeth too. She's dead. Fuck you. Harper Lee. Uh, let's see. Efrain Rios Mont, uh, Leopoldo Galtieri and Fidel Castro.
00:20:22
Speaker
and here's where we And here's where we take an interest in things. 1926 was a Cracker Jack year for us specifically ah because born in 1926, March 16th is Jerry Lewis.
00:20:33
Speaker
May 8th is David Attenborough. June 1st is Marilyn Monroe. June 28th is Mel fucking Brooks. love life July 14th is Harry Dean Stanton.
00:20:46
Speaker
And August fourteenth is Renee Goschini, if I'm saying that at all correctly, him, I don't quite know. So I hope that's okay. We got musicians. We got Miles Davis on May 26th. We got Tony Bennett on August 3rd, John Coltrane on September 23rd, and Chuck fucking Barry on October 18th.
00:21:07
Speaker
Side note, we're talking about radio being an amazing medium and a brand new medium i'm at this point in history. and ah Chuck Barry's out in fucking space. Yeah, he is. It doesn't get much better. somem Sorry, sometimes I think about just the golden record attached to the Voyager spacecraft, and I get like really like misty-eyed and melancholy. like Scientists look over looked up at the stars and pondered the infinite vastness of space and our first message that we can conceivably have to life on other planets.
00:21:43
Speaker
And our first thought was, these alien bastards gotta hear Chuck Berry. Johnny fucking B. Good. And then there's athletes that were born in 1926, and it's still irrelevant.
00:21:55
Speaker
Harry Houdini stays in a coffin underwater for a minute and a half before escaping. Oh, hang on. Wells has got to have something to say about Houdini. He's got to have something to say about Houdini. Come on. I'm pretty sure he saw Houdini.
00:22:06
Speaker
Actress who died in 1926. Uh-oh. It's Harry Houdini on Halloween. Oh, no. Yeah. Some fleets died too. That's also still irrelevant.
00:22:17
Speaker
Yep. i got I got some Houdini quotes. Oh, please tell me some Houdini quotes. And after this, I'm just getting into famous people that got married. And that's boring as hell. Yeah, I can't have that. Who wants to hear about someone getting married? Oh, there are world leaders. We got Calvin Coolidge. We got Joseph Stalin.
00:22:34
Speaker
Uh-oh. Nothing bad will happen there. i think I don't think this Stalin fella is up to any kind of good. that's Started making trouble in the neighborhood. What do we got, Steven? All right, here we go. So he's talking about magic. There's a lot of preamble here. Is there a lot of preamble when Orson Welles is talking about magic? Jesus Christ.
00:22:54
Speaker
I'm going to pick up with the Bogdanovich quote at the bottom. Bogdanovich says, Harry Houdini once told you never to perform a trick until you had practiced it a thousand times.
00:23:04
Speaker
Have you applied that to any of your work? Wells says, he told me that, and immediately afterward, Carl Bremer, who was a manufacturer of magic, came into the dressing room with a vanishing lamp. Sorry, hold up.
00:23:16
Speaker
The title, Manufacturer of Magic. Like, you would later shorten that to Imagineer. Sorry, continue. Please, go. Basically, this guy is the Michael Caine in the prestige. well Of course, you have three steps to any magic trick.
00:23:31
Speaker
Sorry, continue. While I try to remember that quote properly. It's not enough that you will make something disappear. You have to bring it back. First, you add the pledge.
00:23:44
Speaker
Then, the turn. Then, the prestige.
00:23:50
Speaker
this This show is really just a dumb excuse for us to do impressions at each other. It always has been. It always has been. Any audience is, you know, ah and you're not an audience. You're just in the splash zone.
00:24:02
Speaker
That's pretty much it. yeah ah God forbid we do one of these things. I you brought your big Gallagher-esque plastic sheeting. Yes, you're going to need it. Yeah, yeah.
00:24:13
Speaker
That's okay. Live show. We wreck a watermelon dressed up to look like Orson Welles. Continue. Okay. Harry Houdini, manufacturer of magic. Yeah. Carl Bremer, who is the manufacturer of magic, came into the dressing room with a vanishing lamp and said, look at this, Harry.
00:24:29
Speaker
I just made this. Harry said, great. I'll put it in the show tonight. Okay. So the effect of his advice only lasted about six minutes until Kyle until Carl Bremer came in with his vanishing lap lamp.
00:24:42
Speaker
So there you go. So that is a meta metaphor. That's not a metaphor. An anecdote. There's the fucking word. um I really feel like has a huge impact on Orson Welles for the rest of his fucking life.
00:24:53
Speaker
um because I'm just I'm just so I don't want to read too far ahead because I'm too excited. I want to parcel it out for myself. But I picked up ah William Elliot Hart. Let me try that again.
00:25:04
Speaker
William Elliot Hazelgrove, his new biography of Orson Welles covering specifically ah the War of the Worlds incident called Dead Air. And I got to say, this book was written for me specifically. It fucking slaps.
00:25:19
Speaker
And just getting into his start in the radio, which will cover, you know, 17 episodes from now. Yeah. The man refused like the man did not care to rehearse at all. He did most of his shit cold reading and he still knocked that out of the park every goddamn time.
00:25:35
Speaker
ah So like, you know, take an improv class, kids. Yeah, ah it it helps.
00:25:42
Speaker
Actually, i' found out that the improv team that I started in college over 20 years ago is still performing. that rips. And I am now i am now living 45 minutes from where I went to college, so I could just go see one of their improv shows. But then I'm like, who wants an old guy?
00:26:00
Speaker
Like, what college student wants an old guy showing up at the improv show going, you know, back in my day, i used to do this, too. You kick the door down. Do you know how I am? I'm Orson Welles.
00:26:12
Speaker
don't Don't even do the impression. Fuck it. Hello. Ah, the French. Ah, I'm Orson Will. Ah. ah I do appreciate that that's our mic check.
00:26:23
Speaker
Like once the microphones are like. Ah. Oh, gosh. Okay. So there is a certain bomb California where Mrs. Buckley lives.
00:26:36
Speaker
In July, peas are over there. Patreon's stretch goal be eat exclusively frozen peas for a week. I can't do it. That'll be hilarious on our digestive systems. We're too old.
00:26:47
Speaker
yeah I attended a birthday party a year or two back where the theme was just potatoes. Everybody had to bring a potato-based dish and, like, three hours into this party it's like i need ah fucking can i get some broccoli please oh my god literally anything i'm dying my soul for protein i was i was almost just straight eating spoonfuls of like the bacon bits just for anything that wasn't a direct potato it was uh At that point, you want like a baked potato bar with stuff like broccoli and chives and sour cream. Because even the even the maker of the baked potato knew you got to add a little bit more.
00:27:26
Speaker
Sometimes you got to mix it up a little. It's a good baseline, the humble potato. What can't it do? Okay, let's start talking about fucking Orson Welles and going through these notes. Did you have anything else that you wanted to add? you would your finger up yes Before we do, I do want to just list my sources for, you know, posterity.
00:27:46
Speaker
um The information in today's notes was taken from... ah Citizen Wells, a biography of Orson Welles by Mr. Frank Brady. ah Simon Callow's Orson Welles, Volume 1, The Road to Xanadu.
00:27:59
Speaker
Patrick McGilligan's Young Orson, The Years of Luck and Genius to on the Path to Citizen Kane. And of course, the book I was just referencing with those quotes, ah the Orson Welles, Peter Bogdanovich book, This is Orson Welles.
00:28:13
Speaker
I will say a bulk of the notes did come from Young Orson, the Patrick McGilligan book. I noticed yeah I have to, again, compliment your note taking your I am terrified for when I like take over an episode or two ah sometime in the near future when we start talking about my special interests of Orson Welles, which are coming up ah very, very soon. Within a decade now. We're within a decade of that shit. We're so close.
00:28:41
Speaker
We're so close. The medium has been invented. All we need is Orson to get there. um Honestly, it will probably be within the next two to three episodes is my guess. I would sure appreciate that.
00:28:56
Speaker
Holy God. ah Get this motherfucker to Ireland already. um But your your note-taking is immaculate and your accreditation of sources is pristine.
00:29:07
Speaker
Well, lest we forget, Hope, I was an actual educator for eight years. I know, and I hate academia. So I respect anybody that has the patience... for this horse shit. I love learning, but I hate the structure and formality of it, which is why you'll notice that I'm hosting a college-based podcast and not in college. The illusion of college. Yeah, that's right. It's got like, you know, the edifice is there.
00:29:32
Speaker
um So anything else that you wanted to mention? Before get into the notes, that was it? that was That was the big thing. I just wanted to make sure I cited my sources. They're all in the notes, of course, but I wanted to make sure that the audience knew.
00:29:43
Speaker
Of course, of course. Where I'm pulling from. So the year is 1926. six It's late 1926. And we're at the Todd School for Boys. And speaking of the Todd School for Boys, we knew the problem we need to go a little deeper into the Todd School for Boys.
00:30:00
Speaker
Okay. um The Todd School was it it was established in 1848 by Richard- ah by which was this established twenty two years later
00:30:13
Speaker
um By Richard Kimball Todd. Richard Kimball Todd probably. Being a fugitive, right? Yeah, told someone and he did not kill his wife and then they looked at him and said, I don't care. And then he jumped off of ah off of a like sewage pipe into ah into a dam. Literally the only thing I know about that movie.
00:30:30
Speaker
ah There's the one armed man. I have watched the beginning of the movie at least five times. I have never finished that damn movie. For one reason or another, I've just never finished that movie.
00:30:42
Speaker
The only thing that springs to mind with that for me is the, I forget the exact title of the movie. You could probably look it up, but it's the Leslie Nielsen movie, Spoofing. The fugitive. ah My wife was killed by a one-armed, one-legged, one-eared, one-eyed man. And it's just like, the whole reveal is that this guy just keeps having appendages pop off of him.
00:31:02
Speaker
ah' very A very Leslie Nielsen idea. It's pretty solid. I can't complain that much. I feel like it's wrongly accused or something. I feel like it's something like that. Something... yeah You're going to make me look it up.
00:31:14
Speaker
I am. Wrongfully accused. Maybe something like that. and Okay. Now it's, now it's a race to see who can open IMDB on their phones faster. I'm not trying. So go for it. Great. Well, I have the notes open and not your video. So you start bolivating about the Todd school for boys.
00:31:31
Speaker
Okay. i Richard Kimball Todd was succeeded by noble, the King Todd in 1889. And he was actually head of school when Orson began attending in 1926. Okay.
00:31:44
Speaker
um from the From the brochure, these are the words of Noble Hill. It is the spirit of loyalty, obedience, and service. There you have the idea of Todd in a nutshell.
00:31:55
Speaker
To state it concisely, it is the spirit of obedience. For where you have obedience, there will be loyalty and service. Which just feels like a fucking prison, honestly. It's really hard to escape that kind of thing ah in in terms of ah if you're talking about...
00:32:13
Speaker
Slogans of institutions. Yeah. Particularly for boys in this era. For boys. Right. um There is it's a 10 acre campus in Woodstock, Illinois, which is about 60 miles northwest of Chicago. I am still planning a visit to see the one building that remains of the Todd School for Boys in Woodstock, Illinois.
00:32:35
Speaker
I am going to do ah i'm planning on doing a Wills tour of the Midwest and basically just hitting all the major locations in and around Chicago and then getting up to Kenosha to see like his boyhood home.
00:32:47
Speaker
that's That's the plan. And i will probably record a special episode. My partner and I will probably wear a lot of lights and just go nuts or record on my phone or something. We'll figure it out.
00:32:57
Speaker
I've investigated a Bluetooth wireless horse shit, and we just got to figure out how to do a video call during it. So that'll be... There you go. Thrillingly stupid. And it turns out I was right. The movie was wrongfully accused.
00:33:10
Speaker
ah Came out in 1998. And and y'all We squandered Leslie Nielsen yeah as an actor. This dude did so much, but so little of it sticks in the memory.
00:33:21
Speaker
Like, we had it all with Leslie Nielsen, and one of his final movie credits is Spanish Movie, which is a parody of... parody of the fucking scary movie when you just started putting the word movie after movies. That was what parodies kind of devolved into in the late nineties, early 2000s. And Hey, check it out. In 2009, he was also in a movie that relates to you and I, Steven, and our, our personal history, Stan Helsing.
00:33:48
Speaker
Ah, that's great. Three stars. Oh no. Oh, oh no. Oh no. All right. I'm closing that. ah We're done with Leslie Nielsen. Orson Welles, Todd's cool. ah You said 10 acre campus.
00:34:00
Speaker
Yes. In Woodstock, Illinois, which is again, not terribly far from where I am right now. So just keep gloating about it. We're going to get to Grover's mill. I was going to say. and And again, you're you're very close to New York City, a place where Wells spent a large, significant time yeah doing both radio and theater. so New York is sucking, Philadelphia. ah You're going to have your day, girl, is all I'm saying. I know.
00:34:26
Speaker
I know. $900 $1,000, is that per year or is that for the twenty six to twenty seven semester That was for the year. 26 to school year, tuitions between and in your back pocket all for when watching-
00:34:46
Speaker
would he'd like me you keep a inflation calculator in your back pocket at all times for what you're watching It is on my tab. Like it is on my bookmark bar on my browser. yeah um That is between about almost money.
00:35:07
Speaker
out and left for a new car no yeah but you know the you could you could put a you know you ah Maybe a motorcycle. I don't know.
00:35:19
Speaker
i don't know what motorcycle. A used car, a reasonable used car. Reasonably priced. used I don't think I've ever spent that on a car, but no, I, it's, I, so ah my car that I bought in 2012 cost about $12,000. And yeah, 13 years later, that would, no, that would not happen. I've never bought a ah ah new car and I never intend to.
00:35:42
Speaker
Yeah, I made a mistake at the time, but whatever. I love that card. ah Classes started in the first grade and ended after the 10th grade. Right. So there was this expectation that after you finished it, Todd, you would continue your final years of education elsewhere, or you would go on to a trade.
00:35:57
Speaker
Basically, that was kind of the point. That makes a lot of sense. know, I get it. Yeah. As somebody who works in manufacturing, yeah, learn a trade. It kicks ass. There you go. And you probably end up making a lot more than I make, the guy who spent four years in college. so I have a laser gun.
00:36:14
Speaker
I spent all day programming a robot. I'm living in my own science. that You know what I did yesterday, Stephen? I played around in the punch shop and I got to wield three foot wrenches.
00:36:27
Speaker
I got some real Rosie the Riveter shit going on. Or alternatively, if it's also your flavor, I'm in Dexter's laboratory. It kicks ass. I was going to say that sounds very Vin Diesel versus Jason Statham. seven but yeah I'm just like, oh, no, that's it's it's not so much that I'm a trans woman. It's that my gender is actually three foot wrench.
00:36:49
Speaker
It's the best. It's the best. It's the bench. Everybody gets yourself a three foot wrench. yeah You'll just feel powerful with that shit. I can only imagine. It kicks ass. What makes me feel powerful is pontificating about things that I know a lot about. So you can go ahead and pontificate about how the daily chapel services were held in the school's assembly hall.
00:37:09
Speaker
Apparently R.K. Todd was a Presbyterian. He sure was. but Let's not hold that against him. Okay. but um But yeah, I mean, it's it was originally a seminary, which implies biblical study. Three different branches of Protestants just burning one another.
00:37:25
Speaker
the Protestantism is fucking wild. if i If I may just take a ah brief sidebar to say, as as someone who studied religion in college for four years.
00:37:36
Speaker
Yeah, we're in minute 37 of this podcast and we're on page one of the notes. Yeah, let's boliviate about. We're not even we're not even halfway through page one, okay? Yeah. Is this going to be a two-parter?
00:37:48
Speaker
I don't fucking know. Oh, please, no. Oh, Christ. No, need to get into this kid's childhood. Please. ah Let's burn through these. You took amazing notes. Let us read them. Okay, okay. Go with your thing, please. like no so But no, I mean, okay. I'll just say Protestantism is wild if you want to hear me talk about it.
00:38:04
Speaker
ah then we'll make a Patreon and make it a stretch goal. No, I'm going to have you on once we pick back up with the my my other podcast, the Matrix ah podcast. I want to have you on to talk about the Matrix and religion. Like that's a good time. I can do Matrix and religion and Matrix and philosophy because I was absolutely a philosophy major. We're going to have you on a bunch. That podcast hasn't been recorded since July because both of our lives exploded. and ah So yeah, ah you know, adult scheduling, it's shit.
00:38:31
Speaker
It is shit. Podcasting is like D&D like ah by um amplified by a weird degree in terms of scheduling. so In terms of scheduling. Yeah. It's, it's, it's, it it's good that there's only the two people involved typically in a podcast as opposed to five and dice.
00:38:52
Speaker
um I mean, particularly when it's, i don't know when you have multiple podcasts that you need to record it, you're juggling like the schedules of, you know, you're in my schedule, my schedule and my two co-hosts at disenfranchised their schedules. Yeah. Yeah.
00:39:05
Speaker
It's yeah the schedules of everybody involved in the pod and the pendulum. like Oh my God. Oh my God. Nightmares. Nightmares all around. ah but but yeah So um daily chapel services, again, seminary implies religious study.
00:39:21
Speaker
And the boys were required to participate in daily marching drills and flag raising. So it was, I mean, again, very typical. I remember going to church camp as a kid and having to go out for a flag raising every fucking morning.
00:39:32
Speaker
um because there was a flag on campus. And so we would not at dawn. was if we We would do the lowerings at dusk, though, for sure. The way you say there was a flag on campus, it just, it just, there was a, we don't know what the flag was for or where it came from.
00:39:51
Speaker
Or what manner of flag it was. I've never seen this kind of flag before. Is it the Ecuadorian flag? Is it the, is it one of those weird new pride flags? Vexillology is not my forte. There's a, there's a joke I want to make, but in the interest of the world being what it is right now, I'm refraining from making it.
00:40:08
Speaker
I am going to just quietly point out that I am familiar with the word vexillology, and I'm not going to elaborate. So should you, do nor do I want you to. The dress code included a suit and tie, and I bet that really worked for Orson, who wanted so desperately to be seen as an adult.
00:40:23
Speaker
Now, do you think it was do we know if it was a full suit or was it one of those like schoolboy suits that had like the shorts, like an ACDC? or actual schoolboy shorts. i think I think it depends on the season, to be honest with you. that makes perfect sense.
00:40:39
Speaker
That is my guess, because I think there are pictures of Orson, not necessarily in a suit and tie, but in like ah a dress shirt and slacks, and then maybe one in like a dress shirt and shorts. so And I don't know, because eventually Noble's son takes over, it and he seems a lot more chill than his dad. We'll get to Roger here shortly.
00:41:00
Speaker
um or in by shortly i mean in an hour and a half um chris he's on page two of the notes um oh okay good but um but yeah so i i feel like he that those may have been loosened and orson was also in close with roger hill and his wife so he he was the kid that could get away with shit if anyone could get away with shit at todd it was orson and we'll get into all of that if anyone could get away with anything it was Orson. Like, literally, reading your notes, I only got to page like three or four before we were starting to record.
00:41:33
Speaker
um but So I'm really looking forward to the twist ending. It was ghost the whole time! um But no, for real, it just reads like, some of these paragraphs just read like poetry, where it just goes down this diagonal line of, because this, then this, then this, and therefore, whoops-a-doodles, welcome to the Twilight Zone.
00:41:56
Speaker
yeah um Basically, yeah. Oh, I have to get this out into the world somewhere. So real fast. ah ah my ah my My one co-worker and I were talking about just like dumb things that that happen in this world and he just kind of absolutely mindedly went, nope, not supernatural, just white people.
00:42:17
Speaker
And I'm like, yes you want Rod Serling to walk out with his cigarette. Well, bet you thought that this is some fucked up paranormal shit. Nope, just white why people. Submitted for your approval, just white people. You are now entering the Twilight Zone.
00:42:32
Speaker
ah That one might work better in in text rather than me saying the Twilight Zone.
00:42:43
Speaker
Oh, Christ. Just the type of topsy-turvy people you meet when you enter the Twilight Zone. ah Despite all of this, McGilligan, author of Young Orson, describes the general vibe of the school as more home-like than regimented.
00:42:58
Speaker
ah He even says the school promoted good citizenship and leadership, but it stressed self-expression over conformity, which we- I'm sure it did. This sounds like the hippiest prep school of all time. And this is 1926. So Yeah.
00:43:14
Speaker
for for du for twenty six this is progressive yeah Yeah, let's be real. The next year or ah Orson Welles' movie, wow Buster Keaton's movie, The General comes out and we have to remember that the main character is named Johnny Gray because he's a Confederate.
00:43:31
Speaker
ah Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no, Buster. Oh, no, Buster. What are you doing? This is weirdly progressive for 1927.
00:43:42
Speaker
But at the same time, it still reads like, oh, no, we encourage free play in our students. Right. Hello. My name is Olive Branch. I probably shouldn't say that. I probably might actually know like four people named Olive Branch. I was going to say, if anyone does, it's you. Let's be clear.
00:44:00
Speaker
Let's be very clear. um I know at least two people. if It's like, that's technically a name. It's actually a verb, but let's roll with it. so
00:44:12
Speaker
Can't knock it. I get drunk and watch Star Wars. And whenever somebody says hope, I say, they're talking about me. i was going to say, your your your name is an is is a noun. like i am I am insufferable. You're a feeling, yeah. um Callow even goes on to say that corporal punishment was rare, which again, for a prep school like this. I love the next sentence you're about to say.
00:44:35
Speaker
And then only at the insistence of the parents. We used to be a proper country. Yeah.
00:44:42
Speaker
We to only hit your children upon special parental consent. You and you alone can tell us to hit your kids. Now it can be verbal or it can be written.
00:44:54
Speaker
It can just be a handshake thing. But we we are prepared to hit your kids if you want us to. There's a cricket bat in the headmaster's office. And for an extra $25 a month, we'll engrave your child's name on it. $25 a month seems steep to just have someone hit your child in 1927. But, you know.
00:45:15
Speaker
but Well, if you're paying $1,000 for tuition. Right. You know what? Yeah, those teachers aren't getting this regularly. They got to keep those rotator cuffs ah in check. That's it. That's so stupid.
00:45:29
Speaker
So stupid. Callow goes on to say locks and keys were unknown and individual property rights respected. there you go. Which brings us to September of 1926. got there. for Boys at the age, tender age of 11.
00:45:43
Speaker
Mm-hmm. at the todd school for boys at the age the tender age of eleven ah He initially roomed with a boy named John Dexter, who was a native of the great state of Illinois, who had been enrolled in Todd since the first grade. So he was kind of a lifer there.
00:46:01
Speaker
ah In Dexter's recollection, after lights out, Orson would get out of bed, light a bunch of candles, which was staunchly against regulation, and then would squirrel away into the closet, only to burst out moments later until dexter when Dexter was almost asleep,
00:46:18
Speaker
um and burst out in full costume and makeup reciting passages from Shakespeare, which just, just makes him just seem like the most insufferable little bastard. I've had some bad roommates.
00:46:31
Speaker
As have Yeah. But wow. I, I think I would stab Orson Wells ah like unabashedly. Like, even if like I went into this, like as a time traveler, knowing like, I think I would still like,
00:46:46
Speaker
You got to die, buddy. Yeah. and It should come as no surprise when I tell you that Dexter encouraged Orson to be a single room student. I'm serious. This paragraph, I want it framed on my wall from September 1926 to eventually Dexter would convince Wells to get a single room.
00:47:03
Speaker
Parentheses. Y.O. one three five. It just was on page one thirty five. it It very much reads like poetry. I want it framed. Yeah. ah It's beautiful. It's absolutely perfect. um Christ alive.
00:47:19
Speaker
On October 31st of the same year, Orson initially catches the attention of the third and final predominant father figure of his life, 30-year-old Roger Hill, at the annual Todd School Halloween costume party and variety show.
00:47:35
Speaker
wherein Orson had prepared a number of routines, including a spoof of Tennyson and a magic act, wherein Wells performed various tricks while dressed as Sherlock Holmes, accompanied by an upperclassman named Sherman Perlman as his Watson.
00:47:50
Speaker
That sounds insane. And God, I wish something of that survived because holy shit, that rules. and ah Sherlock Holmes doing magic tricks. Right. Fucking great.
00:48:03
Speaker
With a kid named Sherman Perlman. Man, his parents must have hated him. Right. That that I've been saddled with some rough names in my life.
00:48:13
Speaker
ah But Sherman Perlman. Right. That sucks. Yeah. Wells would later call Perlman both my great pal and the closest friend I had at Todd.
00:48:25
Speaker
ah That is lovely. I love that. Yeah. But let's talk about let's talk about Roger Hill or Skipper, as he was affectionately known. I'm sure he didn't give himself that nickname. No, in fact, he did not. Did he not?
00:48:38
Speaker
No, he he earned the nickname Skipper because he loved sailing and he actually kept a boat, a boat on Lake Michigan. Right. I keep forgetting these are well to do white people. So, of course, they're right voting.
00:48:50
Speaker
Yes. you How dare you forget these are well-being white people. How dare I, the person that ingests a heroic amount of Dramamine every day just to survive standing on immobile rock.
00:49:04
Speaker
That boating is a hobby that people enjoy. Fuck that. Thank you. My father and grandfather were both in the Navy. um That missed me entirely.
00:49:16
Speaker
I will crush up Meclizine onto a mirror and do lines of it. I am not kidding. I will 100% lines Meclizine, the active ingredient in Dramamine and Bonine and its associates.
00:49:33
Speaker
They say it tastes like raspberries. They are lying to you, but it is a lifesaver. We are not sponsored by them, but we are willing. We are willing. i know willing. Is that our new podcast catchphrase? We're not sponsored, but we are willing? Yeah. Because if it is, I kind of dig it. I'm not going lie. Yeah. Our next catchphrase, because it'll eventually just get worse and worse and worse with the innuendo, we'll just be ripping off the Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeons and Daddies podcast. Sorry.
00:50:01
Speaker
Not a BDSM podcast. So, ah yes, give it to me. Not a BDSM podcast. Not a BDSM podcast. um ah Roger Hill. Roger Hill is the son of Noble Hill.
00:50:14
Speaker
I told you we'd get to him eventually. um Roger was also an alum of Todd himself. It makes sense that the headmaster's son would actually attend the school. um So he's in his 30s, early 30s in 1926.
00:50:28
Speaker
Eventually, he leaves the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana. ah which Champaign, place I've been great college town. um And he marries Hortense Geddes, which what a fucking name on her.
00:50:41
Speaker
Good heavens. God, you could just have a girl named Hortense. We got to bring back those old names, man. I love those old names. You said it earlier, girl, but I'm going to reiterate. We used to be a proper country. We used to be a proper country.
00:50:55
Speaker
Hortense. Hortense. And with Hortons Geddes. And with Hortons Geddes. And Geddes, interestingly enough, the name of one of the villainous characters in Citizen Kane.
00:51:06
Speaker
Whoops. Uh-oh. Boss Jim Geddes, the guy he runs for office against when when he's running office. That's fine. Harry Potter is a villain now in both It's a Wonderful Life and ah The Real World.
00:51:20
Speaker
ah So that's exciting. Oh, and I should also say he's also a gardener in the Pokemon animated series from the 90s. He's also going. for twenty He's also a villain in Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen Volume 3.
00:51:34
Speaker
Wait, hang on. Is that the Black Dossier? No, that's that's in between Volumes 2 and 3. OK, Volume 3 is Century. I kind of fell off with League. I can't lie.
00:51:45
Speaker
i i love it. i I read it all and I reread it all. It's so fucking good. I will have to do another deep dive because book two, obviously, for reasons which are obvious, is kind of my favorite thing in the universe. So, yes. And we'll get to all of that, I'm sure.
00:52:02
Speaker
i don't I don't I must have like some sort of psychological fetish or something for Martian sh tripods, I think. ah That's got to be what it is. But Hortense, Hortense, where am I putting the stress on that name?
00:52:14
Speaker
i i put I put it on the first syllable, Hortense, is what I do. um And he also gets a gig at an advertising firm or I guess an advertising gig at Montgomery Ward, working as in the advertising department at Montgomery Ward in Chicago.
00:52:29
Speaker
And eventually he leaves the advertising job, but not Hortense. um So that he can join the faculty at Todd. His dad talks him into coming back and joins the athletic director or joins the faculty as athletic director. Excuse me.
00:52:45
Speaker
um He really wasn't excited to be athletic director. But due to his um his hobby of boating and his apparent skill and knowledge of the sport of baseball, ah he actually yeah apparently published a local bestseller called Let's Go Team, which was sort of a baseball guidebook.
00:53:04
Speaker
But Hill himself said he really never cared for the sport. Point of order. Point of order. You said baseball. The text that we're both reading from says basketball. um so you know your story straight steven it is basketball it is basketball i miss read because i am a big dumb dumb and also you wrote 10 pages of notes but sure big dumb dumb sure sure look anyone can write 10 pages of fucking notes that have proper citations on them sure any Anyone can write him. It takes a smart person to read them. no worry Now, I just real, real fast, real fast. I know that like Orson loved this man. He was the third third man, as it were, ah in his ah lineup of daddy figures.
00:53:49
Speaker
and yo ah A skipper. Fuck off. Nobody actually likes to be called skipper. i a Point of order. Island. Island. That man did not have a proper name. He did, but and no one knows it because he's the skipper. He's the skipper. God, that's sad.
00:54:08
Speaker
That's sad. ah But like it the next thing that you have, yeah, Hill secretly did not care for the sport. ah He preferred music, theater and poetry. ah Like,
00:54:19
Speaker
I think about this a lot ah considering my personal history, but there's a phrase that I find to be ah hilariously ironic when I say it personally and a few of my friends, but me specifically, it's God grant me the confidence of a mediocre white man.
00:54:36
Speaker
This man trundles in a Nepo baby through and through, and he has vague understanding of what basketball is. And he can write a book and, called let's go team and be hired on as because he likes sailing. That makes him qualified to teach a gym class at a school. Yeah. All right.
00:54:57
Speaker
All right. All right. Fine. And event and one but one of the caveats for Roger joining the faculty was that his father placed him in charge of the school's drama and entertainment program. There it is.
00:55:12
Speaker
So he secretly, he takes the the job that he doesn't want because it gives him, it affords him the opportunity to do something he does. Mm-hmm. ah Not a thing that repeats throughout ah Hollywood and its history. Doing one for me and one for you. That never happens. That never happens.
00:55:32
Speaker
No. I feel like if it did, we would have heard about it. I'm sure we would have. um Friggin' amazing. ah Why don't you read that Wells quote?
00:55:43
Speaker
Yeah, um know I feel bad because you're doing all of the reading and I'm just kind of trundling my way along. No, you're doing And words like trundling. ah Wells later said of Hill, he was a great and direct influence on my life. I wanted to be like him.
00:55:55
Speaker
Everything he thought, I wanted to think. And that wasn't true of Dr. Bernstein or my father. Orson. Orson. Oh, man. Orson, I'm doing a piss poor impression of ah of an impression of you.
00:56:07
Speaker
And my God. that That line sucks ass Orson. Right? Some men will become film legends and instead of going to therapy. Right. Incredible.
00:56:18
Speaker
Right. some Going to therapy. Some men will just devote the body of their work to unpacking their daddy issues. Right. Yeah. Well, Steven Spielberg, excuse me. I'm going to go check out my Steven Spielberg collection over there.
00:56:33
Speaker
Remember when we were comparing Steven Spielberg collections earlier this year? You mean we're not still doing that? Oh, shit. are thats I haven't added to my stock in a little while. West Side Story was my latest edition.
00:56:45
Speaker
um Which is fucking rules. love I mean, so I'm super excited to see it. You should watch it like immediately after we're done here, even though it's going to be like 1 a.m. in your time. God. Christ, I'm going to die. OK, see, my problem is I hate coffee, so I have no reliable way to ingest stupid amounts of caffeine without those disgusting energy drinks.
00:57:08
Speaker
um One of one of the best decisions I ever made in my life was the decision to enjoy coffee. ah God, no, I can't do it. I can't do it. Every single partner I've ever had has loved coffee to the point of it being a detriment on my relationship.
00:57:23
Speaker
And texas Bex is the first one I've got that doesn't like coffee. And I i need to keep i need to keep this free from coffee, Stephen. yeah if If you ever decide you want to try coffee, either of you, I have some tips because I used to hate coffee as well.
00:57:38
Speaker
a Okay. Point taken. I'm drinking expensive tequila. I say expensive. It's mid-shelf. It's pretty good. um He was initially repulsed by the school's athletic director, ah but it is upon discovering that the role was one Hill cared for significantly less than drama director, if this sentence makes any sense, the two became fast friends. To be clear, the sentence makes perfect sense. I'm just reading quickly. And drunk. Right. Right.
00:58:06
Speaker
And that's the problem with both of us right now is we've ingested alcohol. Is that the problem with us? Is it a problem? It's a problem with our ability to read the text in front of us. Perhaps. No, I'm just going to make the font bigger.
00:58:17
Speaker
There you go. who You got it. I'm wearing glasses with blue blockers in them. Let's fucking go. oh see I'm just wearing my fucking contacts. um He'll he'll presided over the entirety of the drama program that included ah the slapstick club and the paint and powder club, both of which were responsible for for putting on weekly Saturday evening entertainment for the school, as well as the, and quote, Todd Troopers, which is a group of upperclassmen who were responsible for between five to six full length plays per year, all of which were directed by Hill, who wrote several of them also.
00:58:56
Speaker
God damn. What an absolute... ah what a grand coup running but or having like several positions at a boys school in 1926 is you could just do or say or make up whatever program you want hey we're gonna have a slapstick club fuck you paint and powder club there's no movies out yet like that we can take the kids to on a regular basis without a lot of money Overhead projectors aren't a thing yet. Fuck you. We're going to have to do a fucking show every Saturday night.
00:59:28
Speaker
Right. Just to keep students entertained. And five to six full length plays a year. It's just, God, I just, sometimes I'm just like, I'm really glad I picked up reading as a hobby.
00:59:41
Speaker
Right. And here's the thing. That was a hobby for a lot of kids around that age. Like you could read a book or listen to the radio. Right. Right. The radio was brand new, so no, you couldn't.
00:59:55
Speaker
But I mean, it it it's easy to see why Orson would be drawn to a figure like this because he would become a figure like this. Oh, absolutely. and The guy who just does it all himself. Like he's even when we get to the trial in like 10 years, ah we'll we'll hear him basically say, oh yeah, I rerecorded a bunch of Tony Perkins's dialogue because i didn't like how he delivered it.
01:00:17
Speaker
And I defy you to tell me which passages I recorded and which ones he recorded because you can't fucking tell.
01:00:27
Speaker
What a fucking legend. it Love that man. God. Yeah. Yeah. There's a reason we're doing this. What an insane. Every time, every time, one, every time we talk about the length of this eventual podcast, it's going to get longer. So I'm really hoping that we get to Trent, the transformers, the movie before we both die ah in our, in our nineties. don't know. I loved ones.
01:00:48
Speaker
I have a shaky heart. So who's to say. Hey, Alzheimer's runs in my family, so I figure I got about 30 years max ah before you start having to ah ah do a little extra legwork in reading these passages.
01:01:02
Speaker
so So what we're saying we're both... We're both fucked is basically what it comes down to. Embrace the void. I have tequila. I have three other beverages. I'm pretty sure. Yeah, no, I have tequila and this lovely um ah Bella. Where you been? Loka cup that was given to me as a wedding present with ah a young.
01:01:25
Speaker
He still got the long hair, the long hair Jacob from the Twilight franchise. I have amazing friends. um And you're one of them. Oh, thank you. I didn't know you were a fan of the Twilight series.
01:01:37
Speaker
Fan is a strong word. Okay. I think they're fun movies to scream at when you're drunk and surrounded by other and lunatic girls. Okay, that makes sense. Okay. It's also really fun to just watch K-Stew and R-Pats, like, go from kind of engaged with the material to absolutely checked out.
01:01:58
Speaker
it that That does sound fun, I'm not going to lie. It's an amazing feat in ah um literary adaptive filmmaking in terms of they just did it straight.
01:02:09
Speaker
They didn't try to change really much of anything and they just did it straight down the barrel and those movies are... insane insane i have the twilight forever blu-ray box set which when it came out originally would have ran you about 90 bucks i want to say got it for 16 on amazon yeah and not amazon ebay much more reliable source um but yeah he has the skin of a killer bella like he's full of sparkles and sunshine and then i watched the batman and that was the most kick-ass thing i've ever fucking seen
01:02:42
Speaker
Side note, because I'm allowed to have a side note, stupidly. Do you know what the musical... Side note, probably side note. That's amazing. It's a turducken of side notes. um ah yeah of Fuck Inception. Let's bring back turducken as a point of reference.
01:02:58
Speaker
I'm all for it. Yeah, no, it's great. ah Hey, it's food-based, and Orson would appreciate that. Cheers, Orson. Particularly turducken. Dang stuffed inside a thing. would...
01:03:10
Speaker
be livid if he found out that he didn't live to see like deep fried turkeys and all the crazy nonsense and shows like, is it cake? Um, he would have been great. He would have been a host on every food show.
01:03:23
Speaker
And he would have absolutely known every time it was cake. And every time it wasn't, he would have been the greatest judge on any cooking program you'll ever see. Next time you watch like the great British bake off. Fuck you. Orson Welles is in there.
01:03:35
Speaker
Paul Hollywood. Get out of here. ah That's the only name I retain from that show. um I watch it religiously. it Sorry. The musical track written by Michael Giacchino for The Batman during the car chase sequence is called Highway to the Anger Zone. and
01:03:54
Speaker
Nice. And I love that. I love that a professional musician who gets paid to to write music for movies sat down and thought, what should I call this track? I know.
01:04:07
Speaker
Anyway, of anger zone, things that will make hope livid is this next sentence. Callow infers that Orson had attempted at one point to seduce Hill based on his later comment, quote, I'm the boy you could have had.
01:04:23
Speaker
And we, this will not be long in the other room. This will not be the only time. And we, we, went we got into this a little bit last week. We're going to get into it a little bit more. ah Orson and his history of accusing ah various adult figures of attempting to seduce him.
01:04:43
Speaker
I, I am not an impartial so ah a person to talk about this. So i can't really add anything without just kind of an incoherent rage coming down. I told you.
01:04:56
Speaker
Yeah. And I don't want to. There's a there's a line that I quote all the time from one of my favorite shows, Gravity Falls. love yeah it's a great fucking show there's a line that i quote all of the time um mostly because bex and i spend so much time watching cartoons and the and the protagonists of these cartoons are usually like kids you know avatar the last airbender owl house stuff like that they're usually kids and the line is just seuss because the character's name is seuss seuss these are children
01:05:28
Speaker
And they mean it in a context of why are we entrusting 12 year olds to fight demonic entities? And in this context, it takes on something entirely different. Right. But I think that the quote still applies. Soos, these are children. These are children.
01:05:45
Speaker
ah So anyway, December of 1926, Hill was so impressed ah by Orson's Holmesian magic show, again, poetry, that he gave the boy the lead role in Todd's annual nativity play as the Virgin Mary, which I think is the greatest thing I could have read today.
01:06:07
Speaker
like i mean, dad that's Wells' first lead, essentially. His first lead. Do we have any Virgin Mary quotes we can do some quick impersonations of? Just to really... I was going to say, we could... I could share you... I could share you some bridges on fire. The fucking Magnificat from Matthew.
01:06:25
Speaker
thank my God. I could send you that. Yeah, the only Bible passage I have like memorized is ah Ezekiel 25, 17. And even that, not accurate. um Who cares? It's Samuel Jackson. No, I'm sorry. The Magnificat is not in Matthew. The Magnificat is in Luke. My apologies.
01:06:43
Speaker
Oh, shame on you, former instructor of the Biblioth. A fucking amazing The Virgin Mary Orson Welles God damn Within his first year Orson is cast in at least three different Todd Troopers productions Around the world Finesse the Queen and it won't be long now um Basically, um the dance that he does in Around the World, he would repurpose for a little film he he called Citizen Kane for the the dance sequence yeah yeah
01:07:19
Speaker
oh yeah the the with the showgirls. And he's Charlie Kane. He's Charlie Kane. Yeah. I have that gif. It rules. um It's great. Yeah. Citizen Kane. Heard of it? Only one of the greatest movies of all time and actually my favorite film of all time.
01:07:37
Speaker
I mean...
01:07:39
Speaker
I love it. It's such a good movie. Look, no, it's kind of silly how, like, that's a point ah that you and I defer on, but still both of our favorite films are, like, yours is 1941. pretty sure mine's 1942.
01:07:51
Speaker
But, like, ah mine's nineteen forty two but like Both of our favorite films are like incredibly basic film nerd takes to have. Citizen Kane and Casablanca. Like um very basic takes. Just like two of the greatest movies ever made. Like I cried so hard when I rewatched Casablanca this past year. Holy shit. That movie fucking rules. That movie owns.
01:08:15
Speaker
um I need to buy it on 4K. Like I need to. And I need to. So do I. I might piss off Bex and say nuts to the third season of the Mandalorian 4K steelbook. I kind of need Casablanca. I'm going to quote one of the great philosophers of our time when I ask you, Por qué no los dos?
01:08:36
Speaker
Gosh darn it, you're right, small small ah Hispanic child. um
01:08:43
Speaker
Uh, so that takes us to a major event in the history of this podcast, which is page three of the notes. Yeah. page A spring of 1927, three out of 10.
01:08:55
Speaker
three out of ten We're at an hour eight in our record so far. In fairness, like 10 of those minutes are preamble that we're sticking at the end of the episode. Absolutely. Absolutely.
01:09:05
Speaker
I mean, 10 minutes of silence. Right. ah yeah I've lost track. Wells takes so on a speaking and singing role in the spring extravaganza at Todd.
01:09:19
Speaker
Finesse the Queen, where he plays ditag it detective William J. Spurns, who has a clue, and that's spelled C-L-E-W.
01:09:31
Speaker
yeah which is how it was spelled in the program for some. I think it's supposed to insinuate that he is dumb. the The character he is playing is an idiot, is like a Clouseau type character.
01:09:46
Speaker
i do love some Inspector Clouseau, and it's only a little incredibly racist. Right. ah God in heaven. I mean, look, if racism is something that we're against, then Wells is going to give us plenty to be against later on in this episode. Oh, boy. Oh, no.
01:10:05
Speaker
Oh, no. um i go to get Am I going to get blackface jump scared? You have to put that in the tags of your AOE, AO3 fanfic. Just a heads up. No blackface in this one, I think, but Wells b wells becomes very – I think this actually may have come into play last week too.
01:10:22
Speaker
Wells becomes very obsessed with Asia. no. a thing A thing that will influence years and years of his work. Wells' obsession with Asia.
01:10:33
Speaker
So do with that what you will. Wells' roommate, John Dexter. it World War II hasn't happened yet and middle-aged men have nothing to obsess over? Like, world like whoa gosh, it's only want to get obsessed with something.
01:10:49
Speaker
I know. Asia. right And it's it's this idea that this is it's this other nation, this other continent that is full of these strange and exotic things. And they do things differently. They drink tea.
01:11:03
Speaker
And, you know, there's this mysticism around. I've never heard of anywhere else in the universe that drinks tea. I know. I'm speaking from a place of 2025. I know.
01:11:13
Speaker
You're a country that chucked that shit into the harbor, okay? That's extremely valid. Forgetting my roots. um How dare you? How dare. ah we've Okay, you you get to Philadelphia. we You're staying for like three months because we got a lot of to do, including the ah ah the the American Revolutionary Museum, where they have ah sample giant blocks of dried tea that they would have hurled into the parlor ah harbor.
01:11:42
Speaker
It wasn't loose leaf like you think. It was these blocks that but you would It was bricks of tea, and I thought that was fascinating. That sounds awesome.
Rumors & Welles' Creative Control
01:11:50
Speaker
I want a tea brick. So then the next terrible thing that happens is his roommate, John Dexter, played the leading lady, and Wells himself did his makeup. He had a crush on me every time we did that show, Dexter would later say, ah good.
01:12:03
Speaker
This notion, I mean, the the the notion of Wells' bisexuality starts to kind of... make itself known here. Like there is this rumor that Wells himself was bisexual, like a lot of people in Hollywood, but was closeted about it.
01:12:20
Speaker
i mean, I, I completely understand as a, uh, extremely queer person myself, like it's, it's, The joke is bisexuality wasn't invented until like 1996 when it was on the cover of Time Magazine or some horse shit. Right, right. We got to get out of this. I could, hey, I have a whole other podcast about this. It's called The Matrix Reclamations, but you got to get out of that binary way of thinking. Great fucking podcast. Exactly. Thank you. Thank you. I'm looking forward to getting back into it.
01:12:50
Speaker
I'm looking forward to listening more episodes. Every now and then Ella and I just text one another. It's like, hey, do you want to talk about the matrix um god i have too many stupid esoteric special interests uh and friends to talk about them with and not enough time um but yeah it's like i fully get that as like a school boy crush sort of thing that's just a crush on a classmate nothing horrible uh well you know you know besides soos these are children um
01:13:24
Speaker
ah Wells quickly establishes himself as an indispensable part of the Todd troopers. He honestly is working. he did but Works just as hard offstage as he does on ah gains more and more control of quote, lighting sets, makeup and costumes for the various Todd productions. He's essentially becoming doing everything he can to become Hills. Number two, as a means of exercising control ah and being able to stage the shows he wants to stage.
01:13:56
Speaker
And we'll see him over the course of this episode, which is all about the Todd school. We'll see him becoming more and more, um, get asserting more and more control over the program as he, progresses through the Todd school.
01:14:12
Speaker
Uh, yeah. Yeah. I, and yeah. Became important at work by accident and it's killing me. Only this is the opposite. He's intentionally ingratiating himself. Into the theater.
01:14:24
Speaker
Because again, this is the thing he loves to do. this is the thing that was instilled in him by his mother. Right. And his supplemental father figure. Correct. Of course. um And now, oh God, this is this is about as far as I got in in catching up with the notes. Do you want me to take the Richard stuff?
01:14:44
Speaker
ah I'll tap in and out. I have a lot of thoughts on this and I don't know how like um lucidly and I can explain my thoughts right now. The Richard stuff is tough because it's it's a different era and it's it's basically mental illness being treated in the 20s. And so it's really fucking tough. Yeah.
01:15:06
Speaker
Uh, it's, yeah, the next few minutes are going suck eggs ah for anybody that cares about mental health treatment. Yeah. So, I
Mental Health & Family Struggles
01:15:15
Speaker
mean, trigger warning, I suppose, at this point.
01:15:18
Speaker
Uh, but in the spring of 1927, Wells' brother, Richard, now 22, is diagnosed with, and I hate this collection of syllables, yup dementia simplex.
01:15:30
Speaker
Gross. Which McGilligan describes as a broad subtype of schizophrenia characterized by slow, progressive deterioration and mental inadequacy through the term, though the term was often used as a catch-all for unspecified mental illness.
01:15:46
Speaker
I hate literally everything about that. Yep. Like, Knowing very little about Richard Wells and obviously very little of it, of, of the documentation and treatment and everything survived, which we will get into in three paragraphs. So six months from now, um, uh, it, you just read about these historical figures and you're just like, Oh, that's just autism.
01:16:10
Speaker
They're just on the spectrum. Right. They don't have a real coping mechanism. They get overwhelmed a little too easily and have like, you know, eventually you're going to have a break. Um, as some of my friends call a grippy sock vacation.
01:16:24
Speaker
um And it's just like, but people didn't care to fucking learn. um Something I think about a lot ah before we get into the next few paragraphs, which are also going to suck, is... um George Carlin had a bit about shell shock and how eventually the syllables morphed from shell shock to post-traumatic stress disorder.
01:16:48
Speaker
Now, as somebody with PTSD, it's much more accurate. and And it's you're able to study it a little bit more. But adding all of those syllables really takes away from the impact of, yeah, it sucks living with this mental illness. Like,
Creative Contributions at Todd School
01:17:04
Speaker
yeah you're not neurotypical, whether it's like, you know, from birth, like with autism or ah earned the hard way with PTSD.
01:17:14
Speaker
and I think shortening it to PTSD kind of gives it a little more impact in, in, in some ways, honestly. Do you know PTSD wasn't like officially on the medical books until like 1988? I was going to say it was fairly within our lifetimes. Like that's insane. It's like PTSD as a medical concept is a year older than the concept of credit scores. Um,
01:17:37
Speaker
Um, this is a dumb stupid. I know, i know credit scores are younger than both of us, Steven. And I hate that. This is a dumb society we've created for ourselves.
01:17:48
Speaker
And the best thing that we can do is to keep going through this collection of paragraphs because God damn it. Uh, in May Dick signed paperwork to have Richard declared mentally incompetent and remanded to state hospital for the insane at Kankakee.
01:18:03
Speaker
Currently the Shapiro Developmental Center. By the way, Kankakee the adjoining city next to where I went to college. And I can absolutely probably visit this place too.
01:18:15
Speaker
God in heaven. Let's see a poor one out for Richard, man. Callow suggests that Dick and Dr. Bernstein conspired to have richard Richard institutionalized. Yeah, that makes sense. This is a guy who's probably not getting, but he was definitely not getting the support he needs. No, absolutely not.
01:18:33
Speaker
At no point either. It's disgusting. It really is. Over the next course of eight years, Richard would continue to fight his diagnosis and institutionalization every chance he got.
01:18:44
Speaker
Go, Richard. Um... You keep going for a paragraph, please. Yeah. McGillian asserts that the records of Richard's institutionalization were shielded by Illinois law or destroyed in a Kankakee fire.
01:18:57
Speaker
mean, and the Kankakee fire is like a big event in the history of Kankakee. As someone who went to school not far from there, I can tell you it's a thing. yeah Yeah. But to read those course of those few paragraphs and it's just like all the records were destroyed in a Kankakee fire. It's like, well, that's A little suspect.
01:19:17
Speaker
Uh-huh. Yeah. um but but But basically, there's no way to know what treatments he was subjected to while he was in that institution. yeah So God knows what the man actually went through there. That's... that's I can't even begin to fat ah fathom it.
01:19:36
Speaker
The blow is slightly softened by the next paragraph. Right. So it's I'm getting a little bit of whiplash here, but we'll roll with it. Yeah. McGilligan also says that the facility itself at the Kankakee State Hospital for the Insane, currently the Shapiro Developmental Center, was a thousand acre campus that had 80 buildings for nearly 4,000 patients, a golf course, a dance hall, a muvie ah mute a movie viewing area.
01:20:04
Speaker
And also occupational therapy. so like So this is like the white collar prison of men still mental institutions. This is the Todd School for Boys of mental institutions. Yeah, it's Christ alive.
01:20:18
Speaker
It's the high class white people version of institutionalization. See, my brain immediately goes to either the post Ronald Reagan ah mental hospitals, of which I've toured a few of them. um or the fucking like Renfield place in Dracula. Like those are my two main touch points.
01:20:38
Speaker
I don't personally think what if it had a golf course for white people? That's, you know... See, and my touchpoint is one flew over the cuckoo's nest. We're not far off. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:20:49
Speaker
Institutionalization sucks ass. Give people the mutual aid that they need. It is possible to ah be excellent to each other and party on dudes. But meanwhile...
01:21:02
Speaker
ah Orson and Dr. Bernstein were touring New Orleans, Havana, and the Caribbean, ah thus shielding Orson from the unpleasantness. Yes, the unpleasantness of his older brother. i would i would I would strangle some of these people with my bare hands.
01:21:20
Speaker
Upon his return to Todd, Orson begins to prolifically contribute to the ah quarterly periodical, which is called The Red and White, overseen by, you guessed it, Roger Hill. Nobody saw this coming.
01:21:35
Speaker
His contributions included illustrations, poetry compositions, several of which McGilligan includes in their entirety ah in Young Orson, which I can, if you would like to read one,
01:21:47
Speaker
i don't know if we have, if you want to diverge that much time, ah there is one called at the call of the drum and Fife ah listed in its entirety in young or sin. If you would like to hear it.
01:21:59
Speaker
Absolutely. Let's fucking go Fucking a hold on one. Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm going to hit pause on the record. So I have the book. You have the book. At the Call of the Drum and Fife, which is Orson's ode to the great and terrible battles of World War I, at the time called The Great War.
01:22:20
Speaker
At the Call of the Drum and Fife by Orson Welles. From the scorching heat to freezing, or I'm sorry, from scorching heat to freezing cold, the men of whom these tales are told come from every walk of life, come at the call of the drum and fife.
01:22:36
Speaker
From cobbler's boys to rich men's sons, they came to fight the tyrant Huns. Entranced by the song of blood and strife, marched to the war with the drum and fife.
01:22:48
Speaker
Through fiery rain and gory mud, the boys who bathed in the cleansing of blood, sacrificing more than life, marched to hell with the drum and fife.
01:23:00
Speaker
God damn. And he wrote that when he he was like 12? He's like 11. 11? Yeah, he's like 11 years old at this time. Jesus Christ. Maybe 12. Jesus Christ. Maybe like newly 12.
01:23:11
Speaker
But yeah. Like, the example is, of course, always like, oh yeah, he made Citizen Kane when he was 26. twenty six You could say literally anything about this man and his relative age, and it would make no sense whatsoever. I'll have- I'll have the exact quote at ah in a later episode, but the like there's this quote that he always said, like, I was called a prodigy so often, when or i was called a genius so often when I was growing up that it wasn't until I hit like 30 that I realized maybe I wasn't.
01:23:41
Speaker
Like, hey, gifted kid burnout. It's real. I get it. I get it. 100% what it is like it is 100%. And like he is the poster child for the gifted kid.
01:23:54
Speaker
Honestly, like really. Oh, boy. Oh boy. Why am I so so ah so obsessed with like autistic queers? Why is that my jam in life? I don't know. man What does that say about you really? I don't know. That you are an autistic queer? I mean, to dip briefly back into mental health and all that, ah Bex pointed out recently that PTSD and autism actually share many symptoms, which might be why they and I get along so well.
01:24:26
Speaker
And that's a little fun to think about in the relation to every single friend I have. you Oh no. What do you mean we all have special interests?
01:24:38
Speaker
Interesting. We can all unpack those at the drop of a hat. Weird. Oh boy. Oh boy. I can give you a full psychological breakdown on why I am so obsessed with movies in general, but that's a different episode.
01:24:53
Speaker
get there when we start talking about the movies, the movies of Horson's time at Todd Hill would later say in many a school, he would have been very strange and might have had trouble.
01:25:04
Speaker
Todd was nutty enough and unique enough so that the things he would do, ah he could do were appreciated by the toughest football player in the place. Which, I mean, good for him, honestly. Yeah, good for him.
01:25:14
Speaker
Good for him. That probably is, Todd is probably the only place he could go that would have kept him from being relentlessly bullied. As a
Reflection on Relationships & Emotions
01:25:22
Speaker
weightlifter and personal trainer who has a Matrix back tattoo? Yeah, no, I get it.
01:25:27
Speaker
I get it. Foot in both worlds. Let's fucking go. you go. Have you seen my leg in that one wedding photo? Split squats pay off, kids. to say safety first but do your split squats if you're in case you're wondering what she's talking about hiimhope.com we've already plugged we'll plug later but go look at my leg I worked very hard on that leg it's it's do your split squats it's a nice leg drink your Ovaltine thank you um summer of 1927
01:26:00
Speaker
Orson comes back to Grand Detour, Illinois for the summer and to the field Hotel Sheffield, which his father had purchased in 1925. um Understandably, Wells does not get along well with the other boys due to his complete lack of interest in sports, ah but did find ways to entertain the girls in town with impromptu shows playing every part, both male and female, in various Shakespearean scenes.
01:26:25
Speaker
Again, another thing that reads is like, oh, yeah, this is a young queer autistic kid. Right. Like, oh, no. OK. I'm not saying he he was. How the fuck would we know at this point anyway? but like and You can you can get a read in that direction.
01:26:43
Speaker
um Although that is also keeping in tradition of Shakespeare in general, which is fun. So McGilligan suggests, but really can't prove it's it's kind of like a, hey, maybe this happened. This would be cool.
01:26:56
Speaker
ah That Booth Tarkington, the Indianapolis native who was the author of The Magnificent Ambersons, a book that Orson would later translate to film, ah may at some point have dined or stayed at the Hotel Sheffield during Wells's tenure as owner.
01:27:11
Speaker
um But that is conjecture and there is absolutely no basis in reality whatsoever. it is merely a possibility. And nobody's ever told a mistruth on the internet, as we all know.
01:27:22
Speaker
At least of whom Orson Welles. That man always spoke 100% honestly about everything he said. Especially himself. He only ever spoke the complete truth.
01:27:33
Speaker
Yeah.
01:27:37
Speaker
Uh, Wells would look fondly on that last summer in the grand detour being driven to Dixon with his father to see movies or sitting on the front porch of the Sheffield while his father chain smoked. Ah, it was wholesome for about 30 seconds there. Almost.
01:27:51
Speaker
Almost. And his father's fond habit of cancer. uh yeah we'll get be careful again this this will come up later every single person we're talking about is dead i know i know i know it yeah ah decades later wells wrote would refer to grand detour as the closest thing to a rosebud he ever had oh that's Which, again, man, when we talked about the the death of his mother, he told Bogdanovich, I have no rose buds, but would call this tiny town in Illinois that his father, you know, tried to to create a business in the closest thing he ever had to that.
01:28:34
Speaker
So only a little sad. Yeah. ah Meanwhile, speaking of a little sad, Dick continues to suffer from heart disease, ah which, you know, is not helped by his constant drinking and smoking.
01:28:49
Speaker
Your notes are sublime. I love this. Thank you. ah Learning. a lot you're You're not exactly editorializing. You're being angry. Accurate, but like how the onion is accurate. It's great.
01:29:02
Speaker
It's great. I love it. um Learning a lesson from his late wife. That summer, Dick does draw up a last will and testament, knowing, in effect, his days are numbered. Beatrice did not have one.
01:29:15
Speaker
And so he realizes I should probably get one of these and drafts a will. He knows he's not doing well. um No. And he knows he's not changing any of his habits to make his life better. As he continues his fond hobby of ah slow motion suicide via substance abuse.
01:29:31
Speaker
um Yeah. Woof, man. Yeah. yeah And I mean, at this point, let's be honest, um like his his medication is essentially gin.
01:29:43
Speaker
Like that is part of his reg, like his health regimen. So like at that point it's, he's fucked. Let's be honest. This was also 1927. Like we can also bitch on about the actual, like the, the, the physical medical health ah systems in place in 1927, which were not great.
01:30:05
Speaker
but My, you know, if you're ever in Philadelphia, come visit the motor museum. You'll learn about all of the horrible things. We are in human history. ah Plus, there's a wall of skulls. It rolls.
01:30:16
Speaker
But um the the the Internet joke is like you should you could be a doctor in Civil War times and be like, hey, doctor, I've got a headache. And you just be like, yeah, you got ghosts in your blood. You should do cocaine about it.
01:30:27
Speaker
like Exactly. Exactly.
01:30:32
Speaker
um you You or I having a loose working knowledge of like what ibuprofen does are more qualified than some of these doctors. And I mean, don't let's not forget that Dr. Bernstein is for all intents and purposes, Dick Wells is actual physician.
01:30:51
Speaker
And in addition to being Orson's other guardian. Like, yeah. Yeah. Who they they previously had a somewhat competitive relationship. I remember remembering our past notes, right? Your past notes.
01:31:04
Speaker
ah Well, and I mean, and again, that's, that's again, part of that is conjecture. We don't know for sure. Yeah. yeah But you know, well we can let the biographers duke it out. Exactly. in the like In the, in the, in the athletics department. we're We're presenting as many sides as we can and letting letting the world sort it out, basically. It's kind of where we're at.
01:31:24
Speaker
Yeah, we're allowing equal platforms to all opinions, ah just like Fox News. um Yeah, woof. fuck fuck Fuck you. Hey, to be fair, probably our best and ah simultaneously worst source is Orson Welles himself.
01:31:41
Speaker
so That is 100% true, which is why this is Orson Welles is a primary source, but only one source. Exactly. Yeah. like So you get all these amazing viewpoints of what's going on. It's also why I'm not drawing a lot from Barbara Leeming's biography of Welles, because that is just...
01:31:59
Speaker
pure Wells at the end of his life raconteur, like just talking to be heard kind of thing. Oh, or so. I'm not drawing a lot from that biography. I will draw a little from it as we go, but it's, yeah it's not a primary source for me. Yeah. In, ah in, ah in, by the time we make first contact in, I think 2066 in the Star Trek timeline, we will cover more of that later in Orson Welles's life.
01:32:27
Speaker
Although now while you read the next paragraph, I'm going to Google first contact. Sure. Due to his own extraordinary advances that Dick had made ah to his son Richard, as well as Richard's, quote, apparent irresponsibility and ingratitude, ah Dick is only planning to leave one seventh of his total estate to Richard Orson.
01:32:47
Speaker
then would stand to inherit the remaining six sevenths of the estate, which is Jesus Christ. dieable We'll get into how big the estate is later on, ah in these notes when, when Wells, when Dick actually does pass away.
01:33:02
Speaker
um In autumn of 1927, Wells returns to Todd, and at Todd, Noble Hill, the king himself announces that he is going to be stepping down as headmaster and begins transitioning the skipper himself, Roger Hill, into the headmaster role, ah which he would...
01:33:23
Speaker
Roger would have fully assumed then by the end of 1928, the 1928 school year. So by the spring of this year, Hill is headmaster for all intents and purposes. um In
Legacy & Humor in Aging
01:33:35
Speaker
a conversation with Peter Bogdanovich, Wills would quote misremember claiming that Skipper only became headmaster after I left. He also claims to have only spent three years at Todd ah leaving after his 14th birthday, which as we keep going, we will realize is not the case.
01:33:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can't blame him. I'm trying to remember the end of his life. I can't remember what happened last week. And that hasn't stopped me. 100%. I had a friend text me the other day. He's like, hey, do you remember where you were 10 years ago? And I'm like, I barely remember where I was yesterday, brother. Like, no. Turns out it was his wedding anniversary and I was in his wedding. Oh, shit. Oh, shit, man.
01:34:15
Speaker
Oh, no. Jackass, thy name is Steven. You fucked up. You're done fucked up, Aaron. Can I hit you with a couple of sad facts real quick before we get more of the Todd School?
01:34:26
Speaker
Okay. The Xbox 360 turns 20 years old this year. Okay. That sucks, doesn't it? Hey, guess what turns 30 next year? The Nintendo 64.
01:34:39
Speaker
That sucks, doesn't it? Guess guess guess what turns 42 later this year? and My aching back. Yeah. Yeah, guess what turns 40 this year? oh it's your 40th and am my increasingly bad bones yeah i'm at the point where i fell asleep weird on my leg the other night and then i couldn't walk properly for three days i had i had to lay in bed and just diagnose and troubleshoot like okay how was i sleeping my knee was up in the air like it sucks take care of your knees take care of your teeth kids and and if i may say so you're back
01:35:14
Speaker
And your back, obviously. someone who's thrown out his back at least four times in his life, take care of your back. Yeah. Oh, we're going to, we're going to, I have at least and an amusing ah back injury story to share while we're waiting for the MP3 files of leads to download a little later.
01:35:31
Speaker
That will never make the mic because it's literally just filler ah that while we're talking, download MP3s. um I can't to hear that. And I'm yeah glad that I will be able to lord over our listening audience that I heard it and they didn't.
01:35:45
Speaker
I am always willing to talk about how I've hurt myself. ah So ah what paragraph did we hit? ah Let's see. Yeah. ah in college Wells continues to take full advantage of his relationship with Skipper. Okay.
01:36:01
Speaker
Can't take that seriously. like Becoming an almost constant guest ah in the home to the delight ahha of Roger and the occasional annoyance of Hortons and the kids. Yeah, there it goes. Hortons knows. Yeah. Hortons knows what's up.
01:36:15
Speaker
She knows what's up. Jesus Christ. Wells also manages to forge Dr. Bernstein's signature a means getting out of gym and sports classes. God damn it. And it is suggested that Roger knew and looked the other way.
01:36:30
Speaker
um So basically, Orson basically is that that kid who sat on the bleachers through every gym class claiming to have asthma. That was Orson in that time. but orson Orson, you conniving little fuck. We love him. We really do. We really do.
01:36:49
Speaker
And we explicitly approve everything he's ever done and every opinion he's ever had. Legally binding. no, no, no, no. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. Fingers crossed. None of that was true. None of that was not a BDSM podcast.
01:37:05
Speaker
Under Roger's leadership and likely a direct result of his success with young Orson, Todd becomes more of a school for the arts than it had been previously, with Skipper's motto being, every youngster is a creator.
01:37:17
Speaker
Oh, God. Oh, that's...
01:37:22
Speaker
how hows that How's that bile taste in your mouth there, Hope? Oh.
01:37:29
Speaker
Tastes like tequila and regret. There it is. I mean, isn't that kind of what tequila already tastes like? Absolutely fucking not. I drink the worm, motherfucker. Shiloh.
01:37:41
Speaker
i'm I'm more of a, I'm more of a mescal boy myself. So I respect it. It's just like tequila with like smokiness. So, look yeah know, we have to establish the lore that I am an extremely cheap date.
01:37:52
Speaker
Okay. if If that's what we have to do, we have to do it. It's a fundamental part of my lore, I think. Oh, I will be happy with like a $4 burger from Burger King and a shot of tequila. That'll keep me going for hours.
01:38:05
Speaker
There you go. um May 1920. Let's get from 27 to May 1920. We're almost through the whole year. 1927.
01:38:13
Speaker
We're in 1928 now. After eight days after Orson's 18th birthday on May 14th, 1928. The motherfucker is still 13th. Jesus, sorry. Keep going. During the installation of a kitchen ventilator at the Hotel Sheffield, a fire is accidentally sparked while testing the apparatus, carrying a spark upstairs and starting a blaze that would ultimately result in the destruction of the hotel to which Dick Wells had devoted three years of his life.
01:38:40
Speaker
um Wells historians, guys like Peter Noble and Charles Hyam, would later write that Dick was sleeping off a hangover from the previous night and had to be carried out of the hotel, practically kicking and screaming.
01:38:53
Speaker
Everything about that sentence sucks. yeah Um, Wells himself in a, a 1983 article, that article as old as I am, uh, for Paris Vogue, Wells, uh, would call his father the suspected arsonist, uh, say that he had emerged from the fire in nothing but a night shirt, carrying an empty parrot cage and a framed photo of a vaudevillian comedian, Trixie Freganza, allegedly one of his old girlfriends. Yeah.
01:39:23
Speaker
Jesus Christ, Dick. Come on, man. But again, this is Orson, ever the raconteur and purveyor of his own myth. So it's amazing. Take it much salt as you need to choke it down. It's amazing how much a framed photo can tell you about a person that owns said framed photo.
01:39:41
Speaker
Growing up in his office, um my dad had two framed photos on his office at work. And those two framed photos were Mahatma Gandhi,
01:39:52
Speaker
and groucho marks and i think that really tells you a lot about the man who would raise me that uh that says a great deal quite frankly honestly as as your friend can i just say just confidentially between you and me and no one else nobody else explains a fucking lot can i tell you something can i tell you something even more upsettingly uh fundamental to my upbringing about that same office Oh, please. my dad's waiting
Personal Stories & Concerts
01:40:18
Speaker
room at his office, because he was a chiropractor, because it was the 80s.
01:40:21
Speaker
um He had a stack of Calvin and Hobbes and The Far Side. Yep. Yeah. and The two comic collections that I enjoyed the most as a child. the the Those, I think, are the Mount Rushmore's of, like...
01:40:36
Speaker
the fundamentals of my young childhood groucho marks mahatma gandhi tangentially uh in spirit he's there uh calvin and hobbs yeah yeah yeah a cow a tiger uh a an emaciated indian man and um and a guy with a painted on grease paint mustache hey Gandhi had a real mustache. I don't know what you're saying. yeah He's definitely the one, right? Okay. Summer of Oh God. summer home.
01:41:13
Speaker
In the summer, summer home, pile of cinders and his watch. Jesus Christ. I'm coming into this into this paragraph with a way weirder energy. You really are. With his summer home, a pile of cinders and his father dealing with insurance claims, Orson is sent to Chicago on break to stay with Dr. Bernstein for the summer.
01:41:32
Speaker
While there, Wells made sure to see the final shows of the season of Goodman and gain admission to the Tavern Club, where he would hobnob with stalwarts of the Chicago art scene, including young pre-fame Preston Sturges.
01:41:45
Speaker
I know that name from a thing. Before moving out to Highland Park in August. I love how grandular we're getting. good Highland Park is it's an area in the north, I want to say northwest suburbs of Chicago, where ah Wells actually had his very first performance ever as a child in an opera at Ravinia, which is an outdoor arts um venue that still exists. In fact, um a gentleman by the name of Weird Al Yankovic is playing there in June.
01:42:20
Speaker
Oh, interesting. I am trying to get the disenfranchised boys to come up Chicago so that we can all go see it. Well, he's also performing in ah at the Man Theater for the Arts in Philadelphia in September.
01:42:33
Speaker
And when I checked, the tickets were $350 pop for the... apop four the
01:42:42
Speaker
not better seats, but the seats. Yeah. but um Yeah. Yeah. He was my first rock concert ever. My first concert ever. never been Never been to a Weird Al show, but I, that, that is one of the bucket list artists that I would go see in concert.
01:42:56
Speaker
Like there are, there are very few people I would go see. I went and saw Bob Dylan last year with, with a friend of mine. Right. like, that's like one of those, like I've seen Bob Dylan live. Like I I'm okay.
01:43:07
Speaker
Like hey if I see no other concerts, I'll be fine. it's It's sitting on the shelf. If I could do some weird ah body Jenga to get at it. I have the DVD of that tour of Weird Al Yankovic's concert. So, yeah, it's it's ah but it was my first ever DVD in the year 2000.
01:43:28
Speaker
ah But since this is the segment where we talk about shows we've seen, um Uh, Bex and I saw they might be giants in, uh, Philadelphia in December. They came to town for my birthday, kicked ass.
01:43:40
Speaker
But, uh, uh, do you have like a number one of all time? Cause I have like the Kingpin concert of all time, uh, that my dad saw, uh, to close out the conversation. So what's your best concert you've ever seen?
01:43:53
Speaker
My best con that's a tough one. Okay. Um, your favorite, your favorite. Honestly, I, Really fucking love Dylan. Okay. It's yeah. That's a respectable answer. I just like being, I, we walked in at the, ta it was the Willie Nelson and his like group like tour.
01:44:12
Speaker
and so the opener was John Mellencamp, Indiana's own John Mellencamp. So we walked in at the tail end of John Mellencamp and we left right before Willie took the stage. Cause it was like one of those, like he may or may not actually show up. We don't know for sure. um Yeah. So one of them,
01:44:28
Speaker
But we walked in at the talent of Mellencamp and Mellencamp fucking killed it. Mellencamp is a fucking pro had that, had that whole audience eating out of the palm of his hand. And then Dylan and Dylan just did his thing, which is all you expect of Dylan. Wow.
01:44:41
Speaker
And it was, it was just for those two. It was fucking great. Like fucking amazing. Yeah. That rules. Before we get into the next two paragraphs and my eyeballs caught the words dream analysis. And i'm super excited to see what that's all about.
01:44:56
Speaker
ah My dad saw on May 16th, 1970, he had just turned 18. ah ah eighteen If I'm doing my math correctly, like ah he saw the Grateful Dead open for Jimi Hendrix.
01:45:09
Speaker
Okay. ah Yeah. I mean, I think that wins for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A while back, I actually found a chunk of the Grateful Dead at that specific concert at Temple Stadium. And using just clips that I stole from ah YouTube of various musical performances and set lists that I found online, I recreated that entire concert that my dad saw for him for Father's Day a few years ago. That's awesome. As an MP3. Very proud of that.
01:45:35
Speaker
It's an obscenely huge file. Yeah. It's obscene. I believe it. ah Yeah. I have no problem believing it. and Yeah. Yeah. I can probably dig it up if you want to give a listen. It's not very good, but you know. I mean, it's 70s level bootleg. So yeah, I imagine. Yeah, pretty much.
01:45:53
Speaker
um ah So are we at? August 1928 is where we are. I did scroll to the correct portion of the program. That's good.
01:46:05
Speaker
Nope, I'm not ready to read because the formatting is being weird. Wells' association with Ned Moore of Highland Park landed Wells as a gig as a club cub reporter. A fun job title for Highland Park News.
01:46:18
Speaker
His column, Hitting the High Notes, clever, ah purported to share the inside dope on the opera stars, which Orson gained through his acquaintances, the Moors and Guardians, Dr. Bernstein.
01:46:31
Speaker
So he's literally just going to his friends and family for gossip and reporting the gossip. But he's also attending all the shows at Ravinia, all the operas at Ravinia. He conned his way into seeing all of the shows. I mean...
01:46:44
Speaker
the The Moors are like an essential part of the of the Highland Park, like hoi polloi. So, of course, he's going to be able to get a seat at the table. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.
01:46:56
Speaker
Wells would later complain of this time as one when he had to frequently rebuff advances from older homosexual men, including an Italian opera singer and the father of one of his Todd classmates.
01:47:08
Speaker
ah Yep. Yep. So Paul Guggenheim, Wells' friend at Todd, later recounts that he always thought Wells was bisexual. Great. I blind read into this paragraph hoping to get away from the subject, and here we are.
01:47:21
Speaker
Due in part to his refusal to room with Guggenheim, I always had the feeling that he didn't trust himself in the immediate vicinity of a friend. And in part due to a troubling dream, Orson recounts to him, which Wells claimed was the result of...
01:47:35
Speaker
unpardonable sin. That's fun. Calo disagrees with that analysis, basically through some dream analysis of his own, determines that... The dream analysis came back to haunt me.
01:47:49
Speaker
Basically, there is a... It's it's this dream of him like going up a tower, and there's someone dead at every level. um Basically... And he basically... Calo's...
01:48:04
Speaker
reflects this to this idea of a symbolic patricide in that Wells later in life selects Roger Hill as his preferred caretaker.
01:48:14
Speaker
And so like Callow's reading into this, knowing kind of what's coming in Wells' future and, and kind of reading, reading the tea leaves as it were. ah But the dream itself
Artistic Identity & Influences
01:48:26
Speaker
is, is fucking wild. um He's just going up at this tower and on every floor, there's this dead body laid out on a table.
01:48:33
Speaker
Yeah. um covered with a sheet.
01:48:41
Speaker
He's even got interesting dreams. Like, yeah, like, come on, man. You just recreated like this fascinating, like, holy shit, that's just Inception before Inception Inception.
01:48:54
Speaker
Only with, hey, bonus, now it's dead dads instead of dead wives. Right. Yeah. I guess definitely a preferable... um In the fall of 1928, upon returning to Todd for his third year, Wells manages to convince Ned Moore, ah his Highland Park, um imppress I guess is a benefactor, ah to loan his extensive music collection to the Todd School.
01:49:19
Speaker
ah One of his newspaper contacts even manages to reserve a block of tickets for Todd students to Civics Opera to the Civic Opera's performances in Chicago. I've actually been to the Civic Opera.
01:49:29
Speaker
Oh, nice. ah Took ah my my partner actually took me to see ah Carmen there. Oh, last year. Yeah. Which was pretty sweet. Yeah.
01:49:40
Speaker
Where Wells's knowledge in the area of opera made him very popular among the other boys. Basically, he would explain to them on the way down exactly what the opera was about. And then they would ask him questions during intermission and after the show about what they had just seen. So basically, he was the guy who knew what was going on. So everyone wanted to talk to him.
01:49:59
Speaker
Oh, Jesus Christ. yeah Yeah. All right. Fair enough. During this time, Wells is also promoted to the editor of the Red and White, ah prompting him to publish a Kane-esque Declaration of Principles.
01:50:15
Speaker
its And then he also would write a regular column in addition to his inclusion of poetry and perhaps even inspired by his summer gig, a review of local theatrical performances at Woodstock's local mill Miller Theater, which is now a movie house. And I kind of want to go see a movie there.
01:50:32
Speaker
I'm sure we've said it before and I'm sure we will say it again, but it's actually insane how like if you're making a biopic about a famous person or you're like going back in history and and there's like this this person will never amount to anything.
01:50:49
Speaker
Pablo Picasso and that kind of like it's it's the it's almost the worst kind of joke you can make in any especially like time travel sort of nonsense. It's just it's cheap.
01:51:01
Speaker
It's nonsense. But that is every single page. of any biography of Orson Welles. There's at least four things on every page where you just go, that's, ah that's no, no, no, no. That's too on the nose. Right. and clear Nobody will believe that he actually wrote a declaration of principles, a la Kane.
01:51:21
Speaker
Like, come, come. That's no. Yeah. All right. No one's going to believe. Too on the nose. You're right. And yet, Here we are. Here we are. That's who this kid was. And I, and again, I think that, that we, and we mentioned this early on, like there is, i think, and and I think this is part of the auteur theory is that there's a part of every artist in the work of every artist.
01:51:46
Speaker
Wells would always deny that there was anything of him in any of his works. And I think that was him trying to keep his audience at a distance, um, But I mean, the more we go into his life and into his youth, we're going to see these themes that continue to recur in his work when we start getting into his films.
01:52:02
Speaker
And we'll come back to these episodes and the and the things that we talk about in them to to draw these parallels between what happened to him and what he chooses to write about and think about and um dramatize. Like it's it's all kind of.
01:52:17
Speaker
it's all going to kind of be there on the screen. And I, so I think there is absolutely a part of that. That is true. That, that Wells denial of that was in many ways revealing himself as oh ah how you're a part of your work. Yeah.
01:52:32
Speaker
Doth protest too much. That's it. um Especially when you're like a celebrity like Wells, who is literally living like, in the heads of, of an entire country. Absolutely. um when When you're that much of a celebrity, your biography just becomes writ large.
01:52:50
Speaker
ah
Social Media & Humorous Outro
01:52:51
Speaker
It's, I do truly love movies that become accidental autobiographies. Right. Not like intentional autobiographies, like Clerks or The Matrix Resurrections.
01:53:04
Speaker
Sure. I mean, more like accidental biographies, like uh citizen kane or the last 10 minutes of speed racer right okay yeah uh because that's a deliberate autobiography up to a point um right but uh yeah and wells is really trying to paint a picture of someone else with citizen kane but ultimately ends up painting a pretty accurate picture of himself on some level he he manages to kind of nail both to the wall pretty hard i think Um, again, a thing he would always deny, but again, I think that's a way of him trying to keep his audience at arm's length and kind of keep everyone else at bay. Right.
01:53:41
Speaker
Yeah. So I don't know. We've we're, we're getting ready to start 1929 and, we've been, we've been at this for almost two hours and we're halfway through the notes. Yeah. I think halfway through the notes is a good place to pause.
01:53:57
Speaker
Let's call it for this record. Yeah. Let's call it for this episode. Um, I forget how we normally end the show. What do you got as far as plugs? um Yeah, let's go ahead and just plug some shit, I guess. yeah So, yeah, I am Stephen Foxworthy. You can find me on Blue Sky and Letterboxd. That's it.
01:54:19
Speaker
At Chewy Walrus. I used to be on a lot more social platforms. And then it turns out that Nazi sympathizers own most of the social media networks. So I'm kind of distancing myself from all the rest of them.
01:54:30
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so I'm on this guy and I'm on letterbox and that's it. So, uh, Well, you have some other podcasts. I do. Yes. You could listen to my weekly podcast disenfranchised where myself and my friends Tucker and Brett, right? Future guests of this podcast. I'm sure ah discuss failed franchise starters, ah movies that were supposed to have start long running franchises. And then for one reason or another, didn't hope has been on several episodes hat out in your pod catcher of choice. We got to get back on the last episode we were on was the racist chipmunks Yeah. Yeah.
01:55:08
Speaker
Yeah. We got to get you guys back on for sure. Yeah. I want to do a, a duck takes disenfranchised crossover where we talk about DuckTales, the movie treasure of the lost lamp. Oh, thank Christ. Yes. Please take the onus of needing to cover that movie out of my hands and into yours.
01:55:25
Speaker
ah It's we can, we can, we can publish it on both of our feeds at the same time. If you want, I don't see why not. um yeah we'll we'll get to that we'll We'll burn that bridge when we when we skin that cat.
01:55:37
Speaker
i can I can schedule it whenever. So just let me know and I will get it on there. Let me get this five foot wide bean bag out of this apartment first and then we'll talk. I am also a frequent contributor to the pod and the pendulum, a horror movie podcast that tackles ah major horror franchises, one episode of one movie at a time.
01:55:58
Speaker
I was a ah key part of the coverage of the exorcist, which we recently wrapped will have been months ago by the time this episode comes out. ah So go listen to that. Those are fun episodes. You should catch me on. I'll be on probably every month or two.
01:56:13
Speaker
So you can absolutely catch me over at the pod and the pendulum also. And if you really want to go old school, find the rule of thirds podcast or better yet, don't don't find that podcast.
01:56:24
Speaker
It I didn't know what I was doing and neither did anyone else I was recording. Well, yeah, it's fair. ah Hope, what about you? What ah about me?
01:56:35
Speaker
ah Well, social media did a funny thing this year and decided that I was mentally ill. And I am mentally ill, but not for the reasons they say. ah So you can find me on HiImHope.com. That's dot com that's h i g h i'm hope Dot com. That is just I I just I'm taking it back.
01:56:54
Speaker
Fuck social media. I'm taking it back old school. ah Anything I put out that's not on my Tumblr will be found, which let's be real. My Tumblr is almost exclusively lesbians.
01:57:05
Speaker
i was going to say that. I mean, that feels very niche, but you're niche. Come on. Yeah. but I'm a Tumblr girl. I don't know what to tell you. yeah ah It's shitpost the website, but hiimhope.com.
01:57:16
Speaker
ah Right now, as of the time of this record, it's mostly wedding photos. And this is also the first time I'm promoting it on this podcast, but it will have been live the whole time you've heard this podcast. Correct. Because we're broken people.
01:57:32
Speaker
Yep. Broken people with really rough schedules. Yeah, but you can you can find all my shit there. ah The Matrix, Reclamations, ah Duck Takes, podcasts I do with Ella Cesare and Bex Stow, my spouse. Wee! Respectively.
01:57:53
Speaker
um ah Yeah, and I'm hoping to actually get some of my creative writing put out on my on my website. Yeah, so here's... If I can... Man, once I have time to do so do something besides sleep, I'd love that.
01:58:07
Speaker
But yeah, that's what I got. Otherwise, don't find me. There it is. yeah don't Don't. no Don't. Don't. um And that is all for class. So for next week, we're going to be talking 1929 to ah basically Orson's remaining years at the Todd school.
01:58:26
Speaker
um And again, primary sources are going to remain the same. The notes are already done, which is nice. So we can probably just pick up this recording any night. Both of us are free, which is really nice. Let's do that. Yeah. So until next time, that is all for this class period.
01:58:41
Speaker
We'll catch you next time. Thanks so much. Yes. Thank you for coming. And I'm just going to put this out there now. I am a member of the faculty that is more than willing to accept bribes.