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The Myth, The Legend, The History | OPE Unscripted ft. Sebastian Major (Our Fake History)
1 Playsin 3 hours
What happens when you spend years investigating history's biggest myths, legends, and misconceptions? This week on OPE Unscripted, we're joined by Sebastian Major, creator and host of the acclaimed podcast Our Fake History.
Sebastian has built a loyal audience by digging into the stories we think we know and asking one simple question: Did it really happen that way? From legendary figures and historical controversies to the myths that refuse to die, his work explores the fascinating space between fact and fiction.
In this episode, we talk about Sebastian's journey into podcasting, the challenges of separating truth from storytelling, some of the most surprising discoveries he's made while researching history, and why myths continue to capture our imagination centuries later.
Whether you're a history enthusiast, a podcast junkie, or just someone who loves a great story, this conversation is packed with insight, humor, and plenty of unexpected detours.
🎙️ Guest: Sebastian Major
🎧 Host of Our Fake History
📖 Topics: History, myths, legends, storytelling, podcasting, education, and the search for the truth behind the tales.
#OPEUnscripted #SebastianMajor #OurFakeHistory #HistoryPodcast #PodcastInterview
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Transcript
Intro
Introduction to 'Our Fake History' Podcast
00:00:55
Speaker
and Welcome to another episode of the Ohana Packers Edition podcast. We are Ope. I am Iowa Joe. This is episode four of my Ope Unscripted, where I bring on random people and just have conversations on whatever pops up This week is a very special one.
00:01:12
Speaker
This one has been in works for the last year and a half or so. I am kind of geeking out on this because I have listened to this podcast since since the inception. I am joined by the host of Art Fake History, Sebastian Major. Sebastian, thanks for joining me today.
00:01:27
Speaker
Pleasure to be here. So our fake history, like I said, I've been listening since season one. Can you give the, our listeners, since we're kind of meatheads and sports people kind of a rundown of what you do with our fake history? Sure, sure. So our fake history looks at historical myths. So these are legends or misconceptions that have been wrapped into how we talk about our history. So sometimes I'm looking at, you know,
00:01:58
Speaker
stories that get told again and again and again, that get passed off as real history that probably are not true. Sometimes I look at figures that everyone assumes are entirely legendary, like Robin Hood or King Arthur or, you know, take your pick of any sort of folklore figure. And then I i look at at whether or not there's a kernel of historical truth at the heart of those tales.
00:02:23
Speaker
And then I've also really gotten into famous fakes. So frauds, hoaxes, imposters. So people in history that sort of made a name for themselves as liars. So i'm I'm really sort of fascinated by the way that we construct our history, how weird legends become part of our history, and how we can sort fact fact from fiction.
00:02:55
Speaker
So the tagline for the show, i say it at the beginning of every show, is it's the podcast where we explore historical myths and try to determine what's fact, what's fiction, and what is such a good story. It simply must be told.
Examining Historical Figures: Virginia Woolf and Complexity
00:03:08
Speaker
So that's what I'm doing. Right, and you know you you talk about how recently you've been trying to do like fakes and stuff like that.
00:03:18
Speaker
Your most recent episode was the Dreadnought episode from Great Britain. and you know i really appreciate the deep dive you did on that one. I had i had never heard of it myself. So that that was one of those parts of history that you you do that it's like, okay, you know I've never heard of this, but now you've got my interest peaked. And I thought you did a really good job of of kind of...
00:03:44
Speaker
like Virginia Woolf is, i don't want to spoil the episode for anybody if they haven't heard it, but Virginia Woolf was a center point of the episode. And I thought you did a really good job saying, yes, this person did great things, you know, later on in life, but we also can't,
00:04:01
Speaker
just shove aside some things that may have happened with them that maybe weren't so great. Yeah, yeah. yeah i And that's not the first time you've done it. And i think that's why I've really been drawn to your podcast is you don't pull your punches on anything. you You do say, yeah, this is, these are great things. This is this, but we also got to look at this part of it because it is part of the history. Yeah, well, I appreciate that, man. I mean, human beings are complicated, right? yeah And I think sometimes when we look at the past, there's this instinct to almost like view it like it's a movie or view it like it's a comic book or something like that, like that it it wasn't real people doing real things. Right.
Feedback and Criticism in Historical Storytelling
00:04:48
Speaker
like part of writing history or doing any type of like history media is storytelling so as soon as we take the weird like complicated nature of human experience and we turn it into a story we've already sort of sanded off the edges and so what i really hope to do on my show is to both like have fun with the stories because you need the stories as the hooks right but then also like remind
00:05:15
Speaker
everyone listening that like the people in the past were people and that means that they were like complicated and sometimes horrible and sometimes hilarious and sometimes great and sometimes all of those things and and that's just sort of what i believe about humanity to be honest it's like i believe that human beings can contain multitudes and And that we shouldn't shy away from the bad and we should look at it with clear eyes, but we should also be able to understand that like like bad and good can sort of exist together in the life of a human being, you know?
00:05:54
Speaker
Right. So with that being said, have you ever had, you know, do you get a lot of criticism or scathing reviews from people when when you touch on a subject and you're like, this is even just when you when you're kind of calling out, you know, the bad part of things, but just when you're breaking down a myth and because even in, I've done family genealogy for years and there's one story from a great, great grandpa deep down that You know, we had heard that he had gotten a shootout with this school teacher and shot him in the butt when he jumped out the window. and But then when we went and started looking through the documents, yes, there was a shooting scrape. Yes, this happened. Yes, this happened. But it wasn't as the family lore had described it. Right.
00:06:43
Speaker
but When my dad and I were talking to one of the relatives about it, she kept arguing with us, well, that's not what happened. That's not what happened. It's like, this is what the documents say. yeah So kind of with that, you know do you ever get a lot of pushback from people? Well, I don't care what this says. This is what happened. This is what happened.
00:07:05
Speaker
i Sometimes. Sometimes. So thankfully, you know, most of the people that listen to the show are are people like you. So they tend to be people that are pretty open-minded about this stuff. They come to the show because they want nuance, I hope. Maybe I'm like, like you know pumping myself up a little too much there, but like I like to think that the people that are drawn to it are like ready for for you know like adult conversations about this stuff. yeah yeah But also, like it's never really my goal to like you'll be like, I'm going to take these people down a peg, or like I'm i'm like coming for someone or for something.
00:07:46
Speaker
However, In busting myths, you do end up tipping over some sacred cows. So like the one that recently where I got the most like, again, it's never anything too serious, but just sort of right somewhat negative feedback.
00:08:02
Speaker
There's two that come to mind. So when I did the Parthenon marbles episodes, so for your audience that don't know, they might know them better as the Elgin marbles.
00:08:12
Speaker
And so these are these sculptures that were originally on the Parthenon in in Athens, ancient Athens. And in the 1800s, a British aristocrat, a Scottish lord, had them like chopped off of the Parthenon and then shipped back to London.
00:08:32
Speaker
and they still remain in the British Museum to this day. And they are hugely controversial museum objects. The nation of Greece has been trying for, you know, decades to get the the Parthenon marbles brought back to the Acropolis. And there are many in Britain who believe that the Parthenon marbles or the Elgin marbles as they call them should relate remain in the UK.
00:09:00
Speaker
and so when i did that one i all of a sudden met some folks online who are defenders of the elgin marbles they tend to be british folks and there was one person in particular is this one guy who's uh... a kind of should I call him an academic?
00:09:21
Speaker
He's a writer. How about that? This guy who's a writer, who's sort of a well-known figure who's who basically makes his life just writing articles defending the British Museum's claim on the on on the on these sculptures.
00:09:39
Speaker
So he actually reached out to me during that process, and he was polite enough but like he was like i i take serious umbrage with what you are putting out in the world and you claim to be a myth buster but like you have not thought about this this and this and it did point me to some corrections i did need to make and i made those corrections on the show but i was like man how much do i want to engage with this guy because it's here's one of the things when you're making stuff on the internet there
Cultural Sensitivities and Historical Artifacts
00:10:10
Speaker
is
00:10:12
Speaker
There's sort of like an evil urge to be like, oh, if I got into a big public argument with this guy, that could drive interest towards my podcast. Trust me, as a sports podcast, there's new there for a while, we had a segment on our show, and and anybody who's listened across, I told Sebastian that we do cuss a lot, so you know if it offends you, this is your warning now. But we had a segment what that I called Shut the Fuck Up because we would take...
00:10:41
Speaker
these clickbaity clips or whatever that people are just trying to get a rise and we would bust them down on on the show that, you know, hey, just shut up. this This is the stupidest thing in the world. So I do feel you on that end of it. Yeah, yeah.
00:10:56
Speaker
So I really had to like like sort of stand on some principle like not give into that devil on my shoulder going like make this argument public and then you'll there'll be interest in what you're saying like no it's not worth it uh because that will just attract more folks that gonna have to fight with as opposed to like and also i'm not really gonna win in a fight with a man whose entire life it is to have these arguments in public spaces. Right.
00:11:27
Speaker
So I was like, you know what, I'm just going kind of like let let that one pass. But that was one that interestingly, now I also heard from a lot of people who live in England and the UK who are like,
00:11:41
Speaker
Yeah, we should repatriate them completely on the other side of the issue. So it's not just like British people believe that that the the the sculptures should be in Britain.
00:11:52
Speaker
In fact, one English listener reached reached out and they're like, oh, in England, this is a real class thing. So if you are a working or middle class, at least according to this person, You are a working or middle class you know person from the UK.
00:12:07
Speaker
You tend to be on the side of like, hey, the British Museum should do the ethical thing, whereas upper crust Britons tend to have a more nostalgic view of you keeping the keeping the trophies of empire. you know right And so so that this one listener was like, i don't I don't care at all if the British Museum keeps this stuff. And the people that tend to care the most about it are these folks that go to these very expensive private schools and in Britain and are sort of part of this elite class.
00:12:40
Speaker
Now, again, that's just the opinion of that one particular listener. Right, yeah. But that one was interesting. That one ended up being kind of touchy.
John Brown and Historical Perspectives
00:12:48
Speaker
That one is is it's an issue that I think for those of us that don't live in the UK, it's just like, oh, that's that's a curious little debate. But for those people that live in the UK, some feel it very deeply. And a lot of Greek people also feel extremely deeply about that issue.
00:13:06
Speaker
Right. yeah So on on the American side of it, I think you could kind of compare it to like indigenous people wanting their stuff back and, you know, these museums and that. So completely understand that. And, you know, it it is one of those because let's face it. And if the British want to come after me, whatever, you know, I'm a big guy. I can handle it. But It's one of those things that the British were notorious for that.
00:13:36
Speaker
You know, look at what they did in Egypt and Greece and Rome and all these other places where they, you know, the joke is if they could have took the Sphinx, they would have took the Sphinx and, you know, if they if they could have took the pyramid. So, yeah, I get that. But was there another one that that you said that really draw drew a lot flack? So...
00:13:56
Speaker
Over a year ago, I i forgot how long ago it was, I did a whole series on Sparta and the history of the Spartans. And I knew that there were people out there that were particularly, had this nostalgia for the Spartans or were especially invested in the myth of Sparta.
00:14:18
Speaker
And sure enough, when I did that show, i got people just being like, well, you got this wrong. You did this, you went, or you went too far in the other direction was the thing I often heard. You went too far in the other direction. And it's like, well, what i do on the show is i try to give a an entertaining survey of what the best research is saying what all the kind of most contemporary scholars are saying about it like i'm trying to just reflect what's what is out there by people who are having these conversations at the highest level that i can get access to right so you know i
00:15:02
Speaker
it's often not just my opinion on this stuff and when it is my opinion i'm pretty darn clear i'm pretty like hey like this is what i think this
Historical Hoaxes and Modern Misinformation
00:15:12
Speaker
is my opinion this is not necessarily the scholarly consensus so like in the world of academia the idea that there's been a myth around sparta has been accepted for like over a hundred years Like this is like not a controversial idea if you are a someone who studies ancient Greece seriously.
00:15:34
Speaker
But in popular consciousness or in like, you know popular culture, there's still a real investment in the idea of these sort of Spartan supermen who were just like, you know, the epitome of masculine virtue. And so, you know, there's stuff out there in like the the manosphere. There's stuff out there on kind of really fringy for really sort of fringe political movements that like the Spartans because they see them as this historical example of purity.
00:16:08
Speaker
And that's just not true. That's just not like historically true at all. There's all these reasons why it's not true. And that's what I talked about on the show and and also about how their myth has evolved. And so some of those people that are invested in that myth, even in like the 2020s, you know, they show up and they're like,
00:16:26
Speaker
you fuck this guy, you know? Yeah, and I get that. Now, one of them I'm surprised you didn't get a lot of flack back for because there is, and as people who have listened to my open un scripted shows from last year, I talked to James Townsend of the Billy the Kid Coalition. I'm surprised you didn't get a certain sect of people who tried to come at you for that one too, because there are there is a certain group that, you know, Brushy Bill is is Billy the Kid and they're not mind on anything.
00:16:59
Speaker
And that was a big contention between the Billy the Kid Coalition and a lot of these other people where And James and I have kind of had this conversation a little bit and we're hoping to continue in a little bit further.
00:17:14
Speaker
i and I understand what the history says and everything else, but I do disagree somewhat that the official record seems wrong.
00:17:27
Speaker
m because a lot of things in there. So I'm not, I do not believe Brushy Bill or somebody like that is who they claim they are, but I do think something different happened there. So that surprises me that you didn't have a little bit of a flack from a certain group come in and, and try to yell at you for that part Sure, They may have just not found me. That's the thing. They just maybe didn't get, you know, that the podcast didn't get, get through their transom there, but you know, i I often find that folks like that, like, so if you are part of like the Billy the Kid coalition, then that means that you have a genuine interest in history.
00:18:06
Speaker
Right. And so I
The Inspiration Behind 'Our Fake History'
00:18:08
Speaker
find that folks like that, when they listen to my show, you know, game recognizes game. Yeah. You know, like they they get, i I hope, or a lot of times I think they go, oh, I listened to your show and I realized that you're someone that actually does your homework.
00:18:24
Speaker
And like, yes, you read that book. I've read that book too. Right? like And so right so those folks, and like, yeah, I think my conclusions on Billy, the kid, you know, we're, we're very much informed by the best books that I could read on Billy. the right Right. Right. And so, yeah, if someone, and again, I don't really have too much of a horse in that race to be honest with you. So if, if,
00:18:48
Speaker
And this is what I feel about all of the topics that I cover. If someone was to come and and put forward better evidence that goes like, no, actually, this new research that has been peer reviewed and and looked at and and and is really thoughtfully done shows a different conclusion, then we should go with the new conclusion. Right, right. feel like that's sort of the that when science is being done correctly, that's what we do.
00:19:15
Speaker
So, you know, that's all that's how I feel about all of my topics is that like if new and better research comes forward and like, you know, changes our understanding of something, we get to change our minds. Right. just so there's not some confusions with the listeners, the Billy of the Kid Coalition believes the same way as Sebastian does. oh Billy was killed by Pat. But there's a sect and I don't know if you ever heard the author Dan and Edwards say, there there's a sect of billy the kid people that are strongly you know brushy bill was you know billy the kid this is all what happened we have the proof but we're not going to show you the proof so there's there's there's that whole sector so
00:20:01
Speaker
And they're very much that they attack stuff like that. So that's why i said I'm really surprised you didn't get much out of there. that It seems like any time there's some kind of Billy the Kid thing, the Brushy Billers show up and and really really attack him.
00:20:17
Speaker
Well, i will'll give you I'll give you another one. And this one, i think, actually ended up working out all right. But many years back, I did an episode where I talked about E. Clampus Vitis.
00:20:30
Speaker
yeah yeah So for your listeners that might not know, Eclampus Vitis are a social club. You're in Iowa? theyre Yes. Okay. There are probably some of them in Iowa, I'd imagine. Oh, I'm sure. Yeah. yeah they' It seems like they're mostly in the American like Southwest. Arizona seems to be a big spot for these clubs. California, but Nevada, you know but but also through the American Midwest, seems like as well. Yeah.
00:20:57
Speaker
So this is this like sort of social club that got started in mining camps in the They're probably all over the place in Iowa because Iowa in the southern part of Iowa, it's nothing but old coal mines and stuff. Okay, so you probably got some E. Clampus Vitus guys there and in Iowa.
00:21:18
Speaker
But yeah, so it started as a... joke version of the freemasons and which i love i already love it it's like a funny idea where it's just like hey we're just going to get together like a drinking club and it's just really going to be about drinking and and hanging with the the boys and and doing some like light civic help you know like yeah yeah you know some some light charity is also involved
00:21:49
Speaker
but Got to keep up that that charity exemption on taxes. So we're going to give a little bit here or there. Yeah, yeah. But part of what they also do is that they do historical pranks and hoaxes. That's like another big part of their thing, especially in California and like the sort of the southwest of the United States. Yeah. Yeah. And so they they set up like fake historical plaques to
Revisiting Historical Episodes with Updated Research
00:22:17
Speaker
either things that did happen, like it's like a wild party happened here or like, you know, the the craziest old drunk you ever knew lived at this house, you know, like stuff like that. Right. I was probably related to him, too. So we're Right.
00:22:31
Speaker
And so I kind of love it. And so they were behind this one very famous historical hoax that happened in California around something called Drake's Plate, which was yeah yeah it was supposedly a an engraving that had been left in California by Sir Francis Drake that acted as physical evidence that Drake had been the first European to make it to California.
00:22:56
Speaker
And so, and but they the the the actual plate itself had actually been this elaborate hoax cooked up by E. Clampus Vitus. So anyway, I do my show and I'm actually fairly celebratory of Clampus Vitis. I, yeah because I think it's actually quite funny, their whole, their whole shtick. And, but the thing that actually raised some eyebrows is that my artist created this piece of art that had the motto of Clampus Vitis on it and like a minor.
00:23:31
Speaker
And I had some guys from E-Clampus Vitus go like, hey, i heard your episode. I liked it. Can you make that like for sale, that that emblem? And so I'm like, sure, sure. Great. I'll sell t-shirts. The E-Clampus Vitus guys will buy them.
00:23:46
Speaker
That they did not like that. And and so again, it almost wasn't even about the content of the show. It was just like, you've got this image out there. It's got our it's got it. I didt it didn't even say E-Clampus Vitus on it. It just had their motto on it.
00:23:59
Speaker
And so the then why but what And the thing is they are they are a loyal brotherhood, let me tell you. And so when word got out online that I was hawking like faux Eclampus Vitis wear, then the guys showed up and were like, we're going to kind of like, you know, bomb you on social media. And I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, I do not need this heat. I did not realize what I was doing here. I actually did this at the request of some people.
00:24:29
Speaker
But then a very thoughtful dude from an Arizona chapter reached out and he was like, hey, I listened to your show. i actually loved your show. I think you totally get us. I think you totally get what we're about.
Musical Influences on the Podcast
00:24:40
Speaker
But here's the thing. There's a lot of people that like, it's it's i guess it's very hard for them to like keep their organization from having like unofficial offshoots. So like, you know, guys who are just like starting up like a kind of like random biker gang will sometimes go like we're eclampus vitus and so the eclampus vitus guys are like no no no we're a very specific thing not at not every weirdo group gets to be us you know and so they're like that's why we can't just like you can't just be selling random uh gear with our thing on it because like this actually helps we're trying to shut down these like unofficial groups right i totally get it not for sale anymore
00:25:23
Speaker
done, like, you know, off the market, totally made sense. And then he was really lovely. And he's like, if you're ever in Arizona, like you can come to one of the clubhouses and I'll make you i'll make you a guest member. And I was like, wow, okay, cool.
00:25:39
Speaker
So yeah, there's an interesting community I sort of met through this whole thing. But again, that was not me trying to profit off of their whole thing. That was just like,
00:25:50
Speaker
chalk that up to ignorance and as soon as i got I was informed that it was not kosher I immediately took it down so Yeah, it's crazy what people do with that stuff. you know it just It's understandable because you see you know people doing stuff with like the Templar cross and stuff like that where, okay, well now all of we're the Templars. Well, no, I don't think there's been an actual Templar since you know the 1300s. I think there's a website now that if you pay like 50 bucks, you're you're a Templar and it's like no whatever you yeah it's kind of like the the uh now if you pay a hundred dollars you'll get a certificate for and you can perform weddings because you're an official in our church and and stuff like that so sure uh yeah so i get that whole part of their stuff but so you were originally a teacher now i keep running it through my mind i know
00:26:51
Speaker
You've said you were a history teacher, but I swear you also said you were an English teacher at one point too. yeah How do you go from being a teacher into podcasting about this stuff?
00:27:03
Speaker
Yeah. So, yeah, so I live in Ontario, Canada and, uh, here to be a high school teacher, you have to have, uh, two teachables. Uh, and so, uh, you need to be qualified, uh, to teach you. That means you need to have taken enough university courses in, in, in two subjects to be able to teach them. at the high school level. So my teachables are history, and if you are qualified to teach history, you can teach everything in what is called the Canadian and World Studies curriculum.
00:27:34
Speaker
So that is like all social sciences, geography, you know, like anthropology. There's a whole like massive list of courses that fall under that. And then i my other teachable English. So I taught English from grades seven to grade 12 here in in Ontario.
00:27:52
Speaker
ie But the podcast was very much inspired by my teaching. So especially teaching history, i I found that I had kind of accrued all of these great stories that I used as hooks in my history class to get the kids interested. Yeah.
00:28:10
Speaker
and uh and then you know not all of those stories were necessarily historically accurate and there was one time in particular that i kind of got called out on one uh by a student uh so i tell this story all the time but i'll tell it again so i was telling the story of uh rasputin's assassination Okay, yeah. So it was totally kind of off topic. We were were talking about like World War I in my grade 10 history class and you know, like the Russian Empire came up and I'm like, oh, this could be a good little hook. I'll just tell them about like the wild story of Rasputin's death.
00:28:51
Speaker
Now, if you don't know, The thumbnail version is that this like mystic who was an advisor to the Tsar and the Tsarina who many of the aristocrats that had way too much influence gets brought to an aristocrat's house where they try to kill him first by poison. So they poison all of the pastries he's eating, they poison his wine.
00:29:14
Speaker
It doesn't seem to be working. He's just eating more pastries. He's drinking more wine. He's getting like really drunk. And they're like, this is not, how is this poison not working? And so they're like, we just have to shoot him. And so they come back in and one of the aristocrats like shoots him in the chest point blank. He falls down and they think he's dead.
00:29:33
Speaker
And they go to another room, they're like, maybe we should check. we should double check. and Make sure he's dead. And the story goes that when they go to check on him, they like lean over his body. And then right then he jumps back up and he's alive. And he starts to chase them around the the the mansion. And then he starts running out of the place. And they start, they shoot him again and again. they get another gun out there. Eventually they shoot him in the back a number of times.
Personal Stories and Favorite Historical Periods
00:29:58
Speaker
And we're told that finally they give him one in the head.
00:30:02
Speaker
to finish him off. Then they roll him into a carpet and they take the carpet to one of the freezing cold rivers in St. Petersburg and it's the middle of the winter and they dump him in the river.
00:30:13
Speaker
And then the story goes that the next morning he was found somehow out of the carpet, looking like he was clawing at the ice and the final cause of death was exposure. yeah not the Not the poison, not the bullets.
00:30:31
Speaker
Now, I tell this whole tale with even more detail than I just told it right now. And one of the students in my class is like, that's not true. That's not true. there's There's no way. He's like, actually, I've heard that story before and I know it's not true.
00:30:49
Speaker
And I'm like, well, you know what? Fair enough. It is really hard to believe. It's a pretty crazy story. And I, in that moment, I was like, you know what? I have never looked into this well enough to be able to give you the other version of events because it does seem pretty impossible. Yeah. Yeah. So then I went home from there and i was like, I'm going to actually do some research here and discover where this story comes from and what the other version of events is.
00:31:18
Speaker
And what I discovered is that that story comes from one very specific Russian aristocrat who's kind of an unreliable narrator. right and uh and that there are other versions of events and and many of them are far less uh you know is sensational right uh yeah exactly exactly so and so but i was able to bring that back to my class and i turned it into like a little kind of mini lesson on using sources So I was like, hey, look, you know, this version says this, this version says that. How do we come to an understanding of what the truth is? And was like, oh, this is one of my better days as a history teacher, I think.
00:32:01
Speaker
You know, we're actually doing history as opposed to just like hearing about it. Right, right. And you know, when you're doing it right, you know, I mean, I wish I was that good every day, you know, I wish I was, yeah I wish I could every day there was a like, today we're going to do the history as opposed to like, just read about it.
00:32:20
Speaker
and so I'd long, I'd been a fan of history podcasts at that point. And there were a handful that I loved and then a hand, and then a lot of others that I thought were,
00:32:30
Speaker
poor and so i was like i think i could throw my hat into the ring and uh and then you know when i after i'd sort of had that moment with that that's the death of rasputin uh historical myth i came back to my wife i'm like that's the idea for the podcast that's it that's the hook it's got to be these wild stories and then is there any truth to these wild stories and that's a way into talking about history So that's how i I got the idea for the show.
00:33:00
Speaker
And then I just like, I kind of got obsessed with the idea and I wrote a ton of scripts and I pre-recorded like six or seven of them
Storytelling as an Educational Tool
00:33:11
Speaker
before I released them to the world. This was back in 2015.
00:33:15
Speaker
And I, then I started putting them out with the, The goal that I would try and release one every two weeks for a year and see if it got any momentum.
00:33:29
Speaker
And amazingly, even within that first season, i found an audience. yeah and uh and you know i mean it's incredible that you've been with me since then because if you were with me then then you were like one of the first like few thousand people that listened to the show and uh you know 11 years later it's now my full-time job and we're more than episodes deep now Well, I will be honest with you. I was season one, and the whole reason is because 2015, I started my job that I have now, and we have to, I'm a security guard at a facility, and we have to go out on patrols. So we have to do a two-hour patrol throughout the factory and hit certain scan points.
00:34:16
Speaker
So we also have to wear hearing protection. Sure. What better hearing protection than earbuds that I can listen to, you know, something my on as I'm going.
00:34:27
Speaker
And i don't like listening to the music because then I can't hear my radio, you know, my walkie. So it was like, OK, well, if I listen to somebody talking on here, I can still listen to, you know, I can still hear my my why a walkie go off.
00:34:45
Speaker
So i was like, okay, well, first I'm a big paranormal person. I'm what they call a skeptic believer. So that's one of those things that I first looked at. here Then there was, I can't remember the name of the podcast, but there was a a guy that went through and talked about, not like your end of it, but he actually told the the myths where, you know, he went through like Greek mythology and would pick these stories.
00:35:14
Speaker
But then it got to the point where I'm a very impatient person. So when there's only one episode, it's like, nope, nope, nope, nope. I got to wait until these build up. So then I came across yours. was like, OK, OK, I like this story. i like this story. And then, of course, it happened again that I had run out of episodes on yours. So it's like, damn it. Now I got to wait for this one to build up. so And then I came back to it and i was like, OK, yeah, I'm good. And then I've been hooked on it ever since. and amazing I think what draws me to yours a lot more than like some of these others is you do do oh topics that I don't think a lot of other people reach into. Like one of my favorite ones and then this one kind of ties into a question I have down here is you did the Robert Johnson at the crossroads.
00:36:06
Speaker
Now, I'm probably not into music on the level of you, and then we we have a friend to show Dustin, or Dusty, Dusty Evely, who is a big musician or musical guy that I did an episode with last year.
00:36:19
Speaker
And, you know, I've grown up with music from all eras. And you did the Robert Johnson one. Of course, I grew up here in Robert Johnson, and you really broke that down and actually were playing some of clips of his actual stuff that I didn't know really existed. So you brought that in. And then from that point on, I was kind of hooked with it. But You are kind of inspired by your music. You do a lot of your own music in the show.
00:36:45
Speaker
I know you said in the past that you were kind of the 50s, 60s surfer-inspired stuff. Can you say what your probably top three to five influences are for your music?
00:36:58
Speaker
Oh, man. Okay. So... Well, I mean, I'm just like a massive music fan. I've been playing guitar since I was 14. I've played in a bunch of different bands.
00:37:10
Speaker
and And I think part of the reason i felt like I could start a podcast is that I... I'd done a bunch of bands. And so I'd like put my stuff out there creatively. And I just knew that how to kind of hustle to get people interested in a band a little bit. And again, my bands were never particularly popular. More people have heard my music because of the podcast than ever did otherwise. So, you know, I, I i had lived in Ottawa. I played in a bunch of sort of like underground,
00:37:38
Speaker
sort of like indie rock punk rock bands here in Ottawa then I moved to Toronto and that's where I started Dirty Church which does the theme music for the show and so and that band was sort of like a Toronto bar band you know like yeah you know and i So yeah, so the type of music that I make with those bands was really kind of garage rock inspired and a sort of sixty s surf rock inspired.
00:38:09
Speaker
Now, i just want to say, preface this, I listen to all sorts of music, like any true music fan, of course, you know, you your heart must be open to all sorts of things.
00:38:20
Speaker
i'm I'm a 40-year-old dad now, so I have entered my jazz phase. I am yeah i'm deep into jazz these days, which I was like, I can't believe I ever became that guy, but I'm that guy now. But no, i I love so much music, but the music that I write,
00:38:37
Speaker
i So when I started, like, my Ottawa bands, in my Toronto band, it was these sort of, like, 60s garage, well, okay, first the Beatles, obviously, right? Yeah, yeah.
00:38:49
Speaker
I feel like, I heard a great quote once where it said that saying that you're inspired by the Beatles is like saying that you're inspired by the alphabet. Yeah.
00:39:00
Speaker
yeah like Yeah, that's true. It's just such a part of like the building blocks of all like modern pop and rock and roll. like Let's be real, right? but But I really got into like bands like the Sonics from the Pacific Northwest, who are sort of this really kind of wild 60s band with, like you know, like imagine those sort of like kind of 60s bands Beatles-y sort of songs but played with this total wild abandon. That was really inspiring.
00:39:29
Speaker
Also, you know, the music of like Dick Dale and The Ventures, that was very inspiring when I was doing a lot of the surf stuff. But then when we we came to Toronto, I was like, oh, I want to kind of bring in like a soul element here. So, you know, obviously like James Brown and Otis Redding were really sort of important to me. But, you know, gosh, there's at the time as well, there's a Canadian kind of garage rock dude living in Germany called King Khan. So he had this great band called King Khan and the Shrines that I found incredibly inspiring. I thought that was so cool, which was sort of like a punky garage rock, uh,
00:40:11
Speaker
like soul review like imagine that right and so that was really cool and that was sort of an an inspiration for that band i mean i love the clash the clash are like one of my very favorite bands of all time but i you know now i again i listen to so much new music i love like alt country i love a lot of singer songwriter stuff but that doesn't necessarily reflect in the music that i write but like you know i love like i love uh you know artists like jason isbell and sturgill simpson and stuff like that i mean i love afrobeat Not that that's really part of my music, but yeah, the music that I i write, but but now I'm making new music with a different band here in Ottawa, and that is way more influenced by kind of like early REM and the sort of really jangly guitar, or like like indie bands like Apples and Stereo. I don't know if that's a band that's... in a that's a Like I said, i I'm one of those, and I told Dusty this last year when we did the episode that
00:41:16
Speaker
I don't so more listen to the artist. It's if I hear a song that resonates with me, then it it goes into the list. Sure. So, i you know, you could look at my my playlists and, okay, there's...
00:41:31
Speaker
Carly Rae Jepsen's Call Me Maybe. Well, that's because it kind of just hit me at the moment. But then I've got like Hailstorm and Breaking Benjamin and cool those type of bands because those are what I'm more into. Or you can go to two of my favorite all-time artists and Sam Cooke and Jim Croce. Oh, yeah. Right? So, I mean, i mean those are... That's just objectively great music, though, right? like Yeah. Yeah. you know so like said you don't have a heart you don't have a heart if you're not into that stuff you know right and like dusty and i were talking he would start naming like albums like dusty i don't know albums i can tell you a song i can tell you a group but i don't know albums i i can tell you what i've got on my playlist but you know another band that i i liked that i don't know if a lot of people
00:42:21
Speaker
know the name of the band, but they could like say, well, I know that song or I know once they hear it is OAR of a revolution. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah and and so a lot of people I can talk to a lot of people about that, but I couldn't name you an album they made, but I can sit there and and and name songs and and what I like about them. so But I did kind of notice a shift in your shows with your music because early on you could hear the the the surfer guitar styles in it and now it's kind of shifted. So that's why I had to ask about the music because you can hear the shift. That's interesting. It's interesting you can hear that. Yeah, that just maybe reflects with where my guitar playing's gone.
00:43:06
Speaker
You know, yeah, i was... There was a moment where I was like really trying to master certain kind of like surf rock techniques with my guitar playing. And I've since sort of moved on to sort of different sort of stuff. But you know again, that's stuff I still love. you know i've I've never been one to jettison anything.
00:43:28
Speaker
i think there's there's some people especially creative people who are like i was into this at that time and now i don't go back to that that's not right that's not me i just i'm like always just like adding adding to the gumbo you know like uh i i try not to throw anything away and so yeah i mean i still love a lot of sort of surf music and you know, again, there was a moment there. I'm also a vinyl collector. I've got a, you know, big, fat record collection.
00:43:57
Speaker
And for a while, I got really interested in collecting all these sort of rare 60s garage rock bands. So these are like small bands, a lot of them, you know, from, a lot of them from like the actually the Pacific Northwest in in the United States who, you know, had like one hit but like had a really interesting sound and were just like just like guys that heard the Rolling Stones and were just like, maybe we can do it and maybe we can play our high school dance, you know? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that.
00:44:29
Speaker
I love that stuff. Like that to me is actually very like, a there's a There's a joy to that music that that i that I can't help but really love. But like I said, I have like a very very you know diverse musical diet now. and And because so much of my life now is writing, this is part of why the jazz has come in.
00:44:53
Speaker
So much of my life is writing. Instrumental music is now on my on my house a lot because I find it's easier to write to that. yeah but But like I said, never throw anything away. I mean, i' I'll still like, you know, like this past weekend, like I'll put on London Calling and be like, yeah, fuck yeah. Like this is the best. Last night I fell asleep to the High King's Irish folk music. So you know i can't say much anything about it. I keep around a lot of stuff too. And like I said, I listened to a lot of different things and I've never been talented musically, but I can tell
00:45:29
Speaker
I've got an ear for it. So I can sit here and say, okay, yeah, I can hear this. I can hear that. i can hear this. like Like with what I just said with you, where you could tell the shift from when it went from surfer guitar riffs to more of a, uh,
00:45:48
Speaker
Because you jumped from like an electric guitar to the the acoustic on on some of these episodes. So you can hear the shift between the two. So I can tell that stuff, but don't ask me to try playing anything. Don't ask me to try singing anything because it just it's not going to happen. No, that's all right. That's nice. It's great. no Honestly, I love it that you asked about music whenever I talk to people. Rarely do people want to talk to me about music.
00:46:12
Speaker
And it's the thing I like talking about the most. Well, hey, one of these times maybe we can get you to jump on with Dusty because he's very, he pulls out some of the most random groups. He'll hill put a post on like Blue Sky or Twitter or something and yeah it'll be like the most random group in the world. It's like, where are you getting these things? Man, the real heads know.
00:46:36
Speaker
and And he is, I think he also has a vinyl collection, so I think he does a lot of that stuff too. But, and I, a lot of people don't know this, but I actually started college, well, I didn't start college, but in college,
00:46:52
Speaker
I went to school as a journalist. oh So I do have a little bit of a background. I don't have a degree in it, but I do have a background in it. So I like to do my research and and hit those hard hitting questions. so it's not the same interview over and over again. But just to kind of jump back into things, are there any, you know, quote unquote fake histories you've researched, but still aren't sure that they are fake, that you're still like, I've done the research on it.
00:47:20
Speaker
But I still don't believe that this is the case. i think the original story is more of a of truth than than what this research is showing.
00:47:32
Speaker
Yeah, interesting question. You know, the one that always comes to mind goes right back to my first season, which is the story of Joan of Arc. okay I still can't really make sense of the story of Joan of Arc. it It doesn't make any sense. for Right. and Yeah, how does a 14-year-old girl, you know, lead an army into victories and stuff? Yeah, I get that. Yeah, and and when I went into that one, I expected to, like, learn that, oh, when we look at this a bit more critically, we discover that, like, she didn't actually do many of the things they say she did.
00:48:08
Speaker
But that's actually not what you find. right what you find is all of these people being like, yeah, and I couldn't believe it. Like she really did do this stuff. and And there's no real good explanations for what exactly went on there. now I mean, okay, maybe I'm being a little, I'm exaggerating a touch. There are lots of historians who have tried to explain it as best they can.
00:48:35
Speaker
But there's still so many question marks around that story, around what was going on with her internally, ago around the fact that the armies of the the French Dauphin were like, yes, we will let 17 year girl girl in Again, at a time when 17-year-old girls were not allowed to do much. Right. Except for getting married and have kids. Yeah, we're going to let her lead the army from the front, like be the flag bearer.
00:49:09
Speaker
it's It's quite something. And it's a story that like, I still, I mean, again, I almost want to return to it again. It's been like 10 years now. And it's just like, i i at the end of that one, I didn't feel like I came away being like, I've separated any fact from fiction here. It's just all muddled together. And and and what's wilder is that we have a lot of documentary evidence about that case. We've got a lot of people that were eventually, there were because there were trials involved. And so when you have a trial that was involved, you get all this testimony that gets recorded even in the fourteen hundreds right? yeah And so you wish that you had that kind of evidence for other figures from that period of time. So we have a lot of people that like swear, like in the context of a of a trial that like these things happened.
00:50:05
Speaker
whoa, it's quite something. So that one always comes to mind as a sort of a spot where myth and history are clearly mingling, but I was not able to separate them and I've not really read any stuff, or I didn't back then anyway, that that properly pulls it apart. I mean, there are moments where like oh, this is probably what happened here, but the story altogether still is... just bewildering so to kind of continue on that are we going to get a season where maybe you go back and pull some of your greatest hits and and do a remix of them or because i know you mentioned uh that you'd also like to go back and do like the shakespeare stuff again after doing your your macbeth uh yeah episodes
00:50:55
Speaker
Yeah, i there's a few, especially from season one. And again, if people would want that, I'm so always worried that like my listeners would be like, i don't want to hear a thing I've already heard, you know? So I'm i'm you know kind of cautious around that. but I think there's a couple where people would actually be interested. So I actually, I've thought a lot about the Shakespeare one.
00:51:16
Speaker
There's another podcaster who I've collaborated with before. He's currently doing a movie podcast. It's called 1999, the podcast, all about the movies that came out in the year 1999. Guy named John Brooks.
00:51:28
Speaker
He used to do a history podcast as well. And he is a Shakespeare truther. He believes that the Earl of Oxford, this guy, Edward De Vere, was the real author of the plays.
00:51:42
Speaker
And I totally respect this guy, and I think he's a great dude. He just holds this one opinion that I think is completely wrong. his The other opinion that he holds that I think is completely wrong is that Star Wars Phantom Menace is a good film. OK. Now, I'm going to argue with what the with what we got with the sequels, Star Wars The Phantom Menace is like the godfather. So I do agree with him on a little bit there. Oh man, let's not maybe not go down the Star Wars rabbit hole here. But yes, anyway, bye by I joke. Hey, if you could see my wall over there, you i am such a... We do Star star Wars episodes on... Oh yeah, huge. Yeah, right on.
00:52:26
Speaker
Oh, I mean, I mean, hey, maybe another episode will come back. We can go deep on Star Wars stuff. We have a roundtable. I've got three other guys that come on and we have a roundtable when we do these unscripted. So there's more room. There's room for more people. Oh, man, I probably wouldn't be able to clash with like the serious heads on that one. But anyway, my I joke, but he's someone who I totally respect, who I think is really thoughtful and and smart. And he he really kind of is skeptical of Shakespeare's authorship. So I think if I was returned to that, I might go like, oh, this might be fun as like a debate or a discussion between yeah the two of us to maybe, you know, flesh that flesh that topic out a bit more. But yeah, you know, like back in that first season, i did...
00:53:11
Speaker
I did two parts on Napoleon. It was like an early one. Like if I was to do Napoleon now, it would be like three hefty episodes, you know? So, you know, sometimes I think about going back to that.
00:53:26
Speaker
But that's those are the ones that that that come to mind. And then obviously i said Joan of Arc. You know, like after that first season, i think the show kind of found its legs a little bit more, sort of settled into what it was going to be. And so there's not too much else where I'm like, oh, this one I need to go back to. Because after that point, I kind of...
00:53:47
Speaker
I kind of ramped up the level of research I did for each episode. Once I realized that people were listening and I realized people sort of expected a certain level of rigor from the show, i was like, well, I can't let my people down. So I've tried to be really, really rigorous ever since then.
00:54:06
Speaker
Has there been any topic that somebody's brought up or something that they're like, man, you really should do this this for an episode or a trilogy or whatever, and you you start doing the research and you're like, no, it's either too controversial, there's not enough information, or you know some other reason why you you said, no I can't do this one.
00:54:27
Speaker
Yes. So, I mean, there are some topics that I know people will be interested in but are like incredibly controversial. So anything around a like religious figure, obviously. Right.
00:54:38
Speaker
So, you know, Name your big religious figures, you know? I feel like the one I might be able to get away with would be like a life of the Buddha story because I feel like the... I was just thinking that one. like the Buddhists are a little more are are a little more relaxed about about someone sort of you know investigating the mythology, let's say.
00:54:58
Speaker
Whereas, you know, like you're just asking for trouble if you start poking at... Well, maybe I shouldn't say asking for trouble. If you were to take on, let's say, Jesus, right?
00:55:10
Speaker
You are wading into a debate that like rages, right? yeah and And the thing is, there's there's a whole world on the internet of like, you know, atheist versus believer content.
00:55:23
Speaker
And I don't really want to be part of that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. be Understandable. But if you ever dig into it, I know the perfect guest for you. Yeah. oh yeah I almost got him on this show, but he's in the middle of writing a book. So he didn't have the time for the times that I had. That's Dr. Dan McClellan. Oh,
00:55:42
Speaker
Yeah. Tremendous biblical scholar. And that would be perfect if you ever decided to dig into it. Well, when I say I know him, I've seen his videos is what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. as i say on hearing He seems like a yeah not only a very thoughtful scholar, but a very good communicator on these things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like I said, when when I send my emails out for this, he was one of the ones that I did. And he he responded immediately and said, yeah, I would love to, but I'm in the middle of writing this book and doing this. So i try to put I've asked people to push these off to the end of the year. it's like, well, yeah, but I do this at the beginning of the year. So it's a little bit harder for me. But I appreciate it. I'll reach out to you next year. So that would be perfect if you ever decided to to get him on.
00:56:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. and And the thing is, like, you know, again, the the the spirit of my show, again, and again, and that's thing I could never do what he does because he is a true scholar of the Bible, right? Like, he's a true religious scholar, a PhD, right? and so Multiple.
00:56:47
Speaker
Right. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. So, that you know, and when i wouldn't i wouldn't I wouldn't dare kind of compete, you know? Yeah. and And the kind of spirit of my show kind
00:57:00
Speaker
always sort comes from a spot of of love, weirdly. I don't know maybe love isn't the right word, but, you know, there's a a very famous quote that I kind of use as my kind of guide star for both being a teacher and being a podcaster.
00:57:15
Speaker
it was yeah I got introduced to it from one of my favorite history teachers. And it was a a quote from Hannah Arendt, the the famous like philosopher, writer from the early 20th century. And she said, education is the point in life where we decide if we love the world enough to take responsibility for it.
00:57:35
Speaker
And i need yeah Yeah, right? And i that has stuck with me. and so what i want to do with my show is always show people what is to love about history here's the thing that is interesting about it here's the thing that's to be loved about the human experience and our past but then also we need to take responsibility for it. Right? Yeah. And so that's kind of the Santa Ana thing that if you don't learn from the past, then you're doomed to repeat history. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, I do, I do believe that as well, but I think part of the joy of what I try to do is to go like, there's so much that's fun and interesting about the human story.
00:58:26
Speaker
And if we learn more about it, there's actually a way to like find meaning in our instance. Maybe I got that's maybe too heavy, but like...
00:58:38
Speaker
There's a way to sort find meaning with why we are why we are here or at least how we we arrived. and then And then from there it's the like, okay, do we take responsibility?
00:58:50
Speaker
So, you know, whenever I'm sort of choosing a topic to do, I'm always like, is there a way into this that's like, here's what's here's what's to be learned, here's what's interesting, here's what's fun, here's what here's the sort of concept that we we should sort of like take from this. that hopefully helps us sort of deepen our understanding of ourselves.
00:59:14
Speaker
Right. so so sometimes when i'm it's it's So that's why i I tend not to choose stuff that's just like, this is just going to be combative. Because this is not about like you know what we are learning to love about the world. you know do you ever feel like that you Do you ever have those moments where you're like, yeah, I want to be combative on this. And maybe I'm not going to put it on our fake history, but maybe on like the YouTube channel or something, we're going to just drop this and and see what I can get out of it.
00:59:42
Speaker
I mean, yeah. And the thing is, like, you know, on my show, I really try to keep away from like contemporary politics. But of course, I have opinions about that stuff. Right. I have all sorts of opinions about it. And, you know, and so like sometimes there's things where I'm just like, I i do want to speak on this, but I tend to hold back.
01:00:04
Speaker
just because again it's like there's so much noise around uh around contemporary politics from every commentator uh yeah i don't i want i would want to make sure that i'm saying something valuable that adds to the conversation right it isn't just more like just just angry uh angry noise in any particular direction So, yeah, you know, I but I of course and i you know, I often have like very specific opinions about what's happening in Canada, very specific opinions about Canadian American relations. The one time I ever really sounded off about it on a podcast, someone else invited me on to talk about like it was sort right around the time the tariffs got imposed on Canada. And, you know, I had a lot of opinions about like the state of Canadian American relations.
01:00:56
Speaker
and And so I really, that was one of the few times that I really was like, okay, people are going to kind of really hear my perspective on this. yeah But I didn't really bring that to my show. And and I guess it's because I feel like the thing that I can, the thing that I know is history.
01:01:19
Speaker
The thing that I have some expertise in is history. And the thing that I can give the best perspective on is the past. Right, right. so And I feel like in that way, my voice is valuable.
01:01:32
Speaker
and But, you know, you know there's some times where you know like you know you do want to sort of jump into stuff. or like There are like historical debates. like you know There's a guy I know. There's another podcaster who does a show called History Impossible. You know that guy? Radar von Sternberg? No, I don't think I've come across his podcast, so I'm not sure. Yeah, anyway, he likes to sort of mix it up a little bit more in the yeah in the culture war stuff. and And, you know, like, so when there was a big debate in the gaming world around the use of the black samurai character in Assassin's Creed. Okay, yeah, yeah. I had done an episode about that person. It was Yasuke.
01:02:17
Speaker
and And so I went on his podcast to just be like, hey, here's like the here's everything we actually know about this guy. Right. And and then we kind of from there, he was sort of like, well, he kind of broke down the the nature of the controversy online. And so the question is, like, you know, how much of that controversy online is just people who don't like the idea of there being like a black character in that game versus how much that game is accurately reflecting history.
01:02:46
Speaker
And so, you know, again, that was one where i was like, hey, I've actually done some research on this. I can give you at least a well-read perspective. Which is funny because Assassin's Creed for just being the video games are like wickedly historically accurate for a lot of their stuff. Now, I mean, obviously we don't.
01:03:07
Speaker
there's no proof that there were ancient assassins and Templar stuff. But I mean, when you're actually in, cause I'm a gamer too. So I've played a lot of the Assassin's Creed's in that and like Assassin's Creed three touched on the American revolution. sure But when you go through that, it was amazingly accurate to what we see on the historical side of things, but they threw their, it's kind of like when I talk about,
01:03:32
Speaker
Oh, what's the author's name? The one that wrote Abraham Lincoln, the vampire killer. sure. Seth Graham, I think is his name. We all know the book was complete BS when it comes to his when it comes to the story.
01:03:47
Speaker
But he was able to do a great blend of historical accuracy with, you know, this BS story. Right. it And that's what made it such a good thing. And and that's what the Assassin's Creed do is we know the story is bs but he did they do a great job of mixing that that has historical accuracy in there yeah yeah i i have a friend that that loves those games and he then he he actually visited florence and he had like he was like man i actually knew the city so well because i played that assassin's creed game he's like i'd go into an alley and he was like i've killed three men in this alley
01:04:31
Speaker
My favorite, there's two of my favorite of those games. One is Black Flag, which is a pirate version of things. And then one of the more recent ones is the, oh, what what's, I can't remember the name of it, but they covered the Vikings, which you just did yeah a series on.
01:04:47
Speaker
I've kind of, like I said before, i'm I do genealogy stuff. Well, my dad's grandparents were, immigrated from Sweden. So my grandpa was first generation born in the United States. So historically speaking, my dad's side or my grandpa's side of the family is Scandinavian. So historically speaking,
01:05:15
Speaker
there's a good possibility I come from Viking, you know, stock. sure And, and so I've, you know, growing up with that, I I've, you know, done tons of, I've read the, I have a couple of books on the sagas, you know, I listened to all of that and, and, uh,
01:05:36
Speaker
So, you know, i that's how it got me into that game a little bit more because like, man, I read about this. I know about this guy. I know about this. So yeah, I feel that the same way.
01:05:46
Speaker
So with that being said, what what kind of eras or historical subjects are are your favorites? Oh man, you know, i like to think that I can find something like fascinating in any time or place.
01:06:02
Speaker
The stuff I love going back to is like the that era of first contact. That to me, I just keep going back to that while on the show. But that moment when, you know, like Europeans and like First Nations people first met each other.
01:06:19
Speaker
That time i am just fascinated by. i'm fascinated as a moment in European history, and then I'm fascinated in this moment that the world actually becomes global. you know The world actually becomes connected in a way that it was not before. And I'm also just kind of obsessed with the idea that it didn't have to go as terribly as it went.
01:06:41
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. you know, and I'm always like fascinated by those moments of contact where it's like, because so often it it becomes violent quickly, but not always. Right. And you're like, oh, God, it didn't have to always be bad. And greed.
01:06:57
Speaker
Yeah, well, right. Exactly. And the reasons why it happens and how it happens, I find myself endlessly fascinated by. and so. I go back to that era a lot.
01:07:09
Speaker
And so, yeah, that, you know, that late 1400s, early 1500s, and especially all the stories around sort of the the early arrivals in in the in the Americas and then beyond, right? Just like the way that, like, you know, that that kind of first wave of kind of colonialism busting out of Europe.
01:07:27
Speaker
That time is fascinating to me. You know, i like a lot of history heads, I love the ancient Mediterranean, you know? I love ancient Rome. I love ancient Greece.
01:07:37
Speaker
You know, i I'm not going to pretend like I don't. Of course I do. Right, right. Of course I do. What's the joke that you get any group of men together, the first thing that they're going to talk about is the Roman Empire whatever it is? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know it was a bit of a meme, like a couple years ago. was like, ladies, ask your man how often you think about the Roman Empire.
01:08:00
Speaker
And the answer was always like, every day. you know But yeah, no, I am fascinated by that time and place. And I am fascinated by the, what I love about it is actually how much we are able to know about it because of how much of the writing has survived. And so...
01:08:17
Speaker
and And it's such detailed writing that those people feel three dimensional. And so that's what I love when you're like learning about these characters from, you know, literally 2000 years ago. And you're like, oh, this seems like a three dimensional person. This seems like someone i yeah I could know when they lived so long ago. And so I'm fascinated by all of that.
01:08:38
Speaker
You know, what else do Oh, well OK. Then there's like just like the late 19th century. is also one of my favorite times and this is because of my love of hoaxes and frauds and humbug artists. yeah That was their heyday.
01:08:54
Speaker
We may be living in another golden age of that right now, by the way. tell me about it. But I'm actually myself, I'm just starting to work on a book based on a lot of my podcast scripts and it's going to be specifically about those stories, about famous hoaxes, famous imposters.
01:09:11
Speaker
And most of the stories that are going to be in that book are from, you know, the 1800s and then to turn of the century, right? Early nineteen hundreds And I just love that time because it's also a wild time for technology. yeah And it's like, you know, which is actually what helps fuel this like, you this sort of culture of deceit because you know, something that was like electricity did not exist and then it existed, right? And so like the, imagine living, if imagine if in your lifetime electricity happened
01:09:51
Speaker
like the how magical that would have seemed and then how anything truly could have seemed possible well you could compare it to like we're about the same age because i'll be 40 in july so we're we're kind of there you could compare it to the internet sure because you know we grew up in a time where we were pre-internet yeah and now we're in post-internet and that was the same way. Well, we can just hop on there and look up anything in the world now. And this is, you know, so that's kind of the same situation there where it's like, okay, well, we didn't get, or you know, when they got electricity, everything brightened because of the lights and all that. Whereas us, everything brightened with knowledge because now it was all at our fingertips. Yeah, yeah.
01:10:39
Speaker
yeah Or did it? Yeah, right, right. But yes, no, I know what you mean, man. I know what you mean. Yeah, so I mean, I'm fascinated by that time. And also, I i i like the the, it's also an interesting time for pop culture. It's just like, I just, you see the germs of what,
01:10:58
Speaker
you even our society in 2020 would be in that moment. yeah Yeah. Especially in the United States and Britain, if you look at those cultures, because you know so much of global culture has sort of been influenced by those by those places. Pretty much, yeah. Yeah, I mean, just that's just how it went. And so I'm really fascinated by that time. Also, I just love that era of like great facial hair. Just the ultimate mustache time, you know? Well, they didn't have anything else to do, so they just spin it on you know the hair and the mustaches and stuff like that. I know you're a sports guy. I'm a bit of a baseball fan, and I will say, you know, if baseball is any indication, the mighty mustache is returning in a proper way, you know?
01:11:44
Speaker
You got Raleigh Fingers with the little curlicue and Goose Gossage and all those guys. Yeah. Yeah, I'm a football. I'm a baseball fan too. So yeah. Yeah. yeah Well, I mean, my team's Toronto Blue Jays. I'm like obviously Canadian fan here. So the Jays. So it's it's our our mustache guy is Dylan Cease right now. He's got an amazing stache.
01:12:06
Speaker
uh we had i'm a braves fan and we had spencer strider until he decided to shave it uh had the the wider mustache oh yeah nice yeah so i got that but uh i said we weren't gonna uh take too long we weren't gonna do a two-hour session here but i do have a couple more questions for you and then then we'll let you go out of here So you have a unique name, Sebastian Major. I know. You also have a unique story on yours. Now, I have to say this. My youngest nephew's name is Gavin Sebastian. Oh, yeah. So his middle name is Sebastian. We have no clue where his mom came up with getting Sebastian for his name.
01:12:49
Speaker
But you have a unique way of how you got your name, Sebastian. So can you kind of tell you how you got your name? So, okay. So my first name isn't that crazy. It's my middle name that has the really interesting story. Okay. So my full name is Sebastian Almadeus Major.
01:13:08
Speaker
Right. Which sounds like a fake name. Right.
01:13:15
Speaker
it's quite a name to actually carry around with you and uh so sebastian is not so wild my my my dad grew up skiing uh and he went skiing in quebec you know where the name sebastian is a very common name uh right like for french canadians Now, I don't spell it like most French Canadians because they usually spell it T-I-E-N. I spell it T-I-A-N. S-E-B-A-S-T-I-A-N. But my dad's favorite ski instructor when he was in Quebec was named Sebastian. So that's like just he just liked that name from that.
01:13:55
Speaker
Amadeus. So I am in the womb and my parents go and see the major motion picture Amadeus in the theater.
01:14:06
Speaker
And my mom says that when the music got going in that in that movie, I just started kicking, kicking, kicking, kick and kicking. And she was like, whoa, this kid's going wild.
01:14:19
Speaker
And so they as a joke, my parents were like, we'll make his middle name Amadeus. Wouldn't that be incredible if his name was Sebastian Amadeus Major? Wow, what a name. And came time to fill out the birth certificate. And they were like, yep, Amadeus.
01:14:39
Speaker
So yeah, I have just this wild name. But i you know you grow into it and now I like telling the tale. and But you know I've never stopped anyone from giving me nicknames.
01:14:55
Speaker
I'm not one of those people that's like, it must be Sebastian. you know i i' To my friends, I'm Sebby, I'm Seb, I'm Seabass. I've got a million nicknames. My my sister calls me Sabu. I've got a million nicknames. so And I've never stopped anyone from giving me a nickname. and i kind of I kind of appreciate it. like To my wife, I'm just Seb, you know?
01:15:17
Speaker
Right, and see with mine, it my actual name is Joseph. Well, I can't stand being called Joseph. That was the name I got called when I got in trouble. And then yeah you always have that one relative that constantly has to say your name a certain way.
01:15:33
Speaker
And it's like, no, I'm tired of hearing that. So I say, you can call me anything in the world. Just do not call me Joseph. Sure. that that that You can call me a dirty son of a bitch. You can call me whatever you want to say. i just do not call me that. So that's the only drawback on my name. so yeah But I always loved that story. And like I said,
01:15:54
Speaker
we have no idea where my nephew's mom got Gavin Sebastian. So to hear your your story on how you got your last name and obviously your first name, with or I mean, not your last name, your middle your middle name and and your your first name being your your dad's favorite ski instructor is, yeah you know, that that gives a little bit there. But one last thing that I really got for you is I have a suggestion on a topic. Great.
01:16:22
Speaker
I brought this up to a friend of mine, James Townsend, who does the Forever West YouTube channel, and we we were kind of talking about it, and it's one of those, you may not want to touch on it because it's kind of a controversial thing with it, but I think somebody needs to do it justice because of of the story behind it, and that's John Brown.
01:16:49
Speaker
And, you know, we're all taught in history that John Brown was just this crazy lunatic that, you know, tried to overthrow this. and But when you actually sit down and look at him, and and controversially the controversial thing is one side praises him and the other side is side demonizes him.
01:17:12
Speaker
And yes, the way he went about things was not probably the way he should have went about things because he did murder people. He did do that stuff, but he was also doing it in support of abolition, the abolishment of slavery.
01:17:30
Speaker
so it's one of those things that i i really wish somebody would sit down and and when i brought it up to james he goes yeah i don't like that guy well yeah you know it's it's one of those but then i'm also and and i have no problems telling people this m I'm more of a liberal person.
01:17:49
Speaker
But I also grew up in the Midwest where the gun culture is, no matter whether you're a righty, you're a lefty, you're middle, you grew up with guns. And I do. and Yeah, sure.
01:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, and... So there's a gun group that is a liberal gun group called the John Brown. Interesting. Yeah. So it's one of those things that it gets demonized by one side, but it it gets martyrized by the other. And I just wish somebody would would take a deep dive. And I just don't have the platform to do it with with a sports podcast. and I get some weird looks when I do the unscripted episodes every year. So. You know, try to break down the John Brown thing would be hard for me to do. Yeah, yeah. It's one you just want to make sure your research is just like, you know, yeah done well. I will say this. i I'm another great history podcaster, friend of mine, Daniele Bolelli. I was waiting for you to say that name because I know you love saying that name on your YouTube. Daniele Bolelli. No, Daniele's a wonderful guy. like It's one of those cool things that like you know while doing this job, I've i've gotten to know him. you know We just both like appreciate each other's work. and I've gotten to know him as a person. I've never met him in person, but we like chat on, you know we we Zoom it up.
01:19:09
Speaker
And he's a lovely, lovely guy, and very intelligent dude and a great podcaster. But he has done a show on John Brown. So if you want if you want to check a history podcast out, i would recommend that one.
01:19:24
Speaker
Yeah, you know, those types of stories are fascinating. He is a figure that I'm interested in It's anytime you're dealing with someone that uses you know violent means to forward a cause, right it's like it it becomes morally fraught, right? Yeah. And so you're like, and even if the cause is a good, just cause, right? So, but I mean, in a way, this is an interesting to question to kind of anchor the whole show, right? like Yeah. if you do sort of the wrong thing for the right reasons, right? Like if we go, it's wrong to use violent means to further your ends, then, you know, i mean, it or is it right? Is it wrong? yeah the that question Is it wrong to use violent means to further your ends if your end is
01:20:16
Speaker
just if your end is good, if your end results in greater, greater good for all. But it's tough because that type of thinking can like lead to, you know, disaster down the way. Right. The idea that like, well, to to make an omelet, you got to break a few eggs. You know, that type of thinking can also get you like a Stalin, you know, where it's like, oh, I believe that I am actually leading, you know, my people towards this glorious egalitarian future. But to do that, I'm going to need to starve a few million, you know. or Yeah. Just like it's the that that thinking can you easily become evil.
01:21:00
Speaker
Right. but But then there's like, that you know, this is another question around like any nation that has had a violent revolution, right? If you had a violent revolution and that is celebrated, then you are basically saying it's okay to kill if it is for these ends. yeah yeah And so, you know, that, and so that but immediately gets touchy for any nation in the, we mean, hey, yeah I'm talking to an American right here. right like you know like yeah yeah We do it all the time. That's like a Sunday for us. Exactly. to celebrate
01:21:38
Speaker
To celebrate the American Revolution is to celebrate a violent rebellion. you know yeah and And I think most Americans would say it was totally worth it. right yeah yeah and and and also recently i would think yeah right or you know or at least they would say well you know hey the british started it right uh uh right damn canadians too you know yeah but there's the thing like there's you know like oh and in the canadian context i think uh a figure that we talk about a lot is a guy named louis riel
01:22:14
Speaker
Okay. And I'm sure he's probably probably a fairly obscure figure outside of Canada, but he was a Métis man. So he was a part Indigenous, part French. And he started like two independent nations with net within what is now Canada. what He's basically considered the father of Manitoba, and he is sort of like a key figure in the history of Saskatchewan. Wow. And he he had...
01:22:42
Speaker
this you know basically was like, there's going to be an independent indigenous and Métis nation on to the west of what was then considered Canada.
Louis Riel's Legacy
01:22:52
Speaker
And eventually it it became violent. Eventually there was sort of like a violent,
01:22:57
Speaker
Louis Riel was eventually like at war with the Canadian government at a certain point, right? And there was a violent it was a violent rebellion, and then he but he he lost, right? And his allies lost. yeah And then he was tried and hung for for treason, right? Similar to John Brown. That's that's crazy. Yeah, exactly. and so But in Canada now, especially in like among Canadian Indigenous communities, Louis Riel's a hero.
01:23:26
Speaker
Right. right and And even in Manitoba, even beyond just like indigenous communities, like there's giant murals of of Louis Riel in Manitoba. He's considered the father of Manitoba, depending on who you ask. But like he's considered a a a very a heroic figure.
01:23:42
Speaker
and so uh you know so i'm i'm fascinated by figures like that because it's like hey that was a guy that many people would say was fighting for his people was fighting for a group of people who had been oppressed uh was fighting for one of the things that had been promised and taken away a million times from indigenous people in north america which was a sort of sovereign indigenous state and uh and But then, but then you know eventually, he decided that the only way to make that possible was to violently defend that.
01:24:19
Speaker
So... What do you do with a figure like that, right? What do you do with figure, you know? John Brown's, I feel like, is even edgier, though. Like, John Brown's like, let's do some, like, terrorist action, you know? Well, and that kind of goes with the Jonah Ark thing, because, you know, they celebrate Jonah Ark for what she did, but, you know, when you actually sit down and read things,
01:24:40
Speaker
you know, well, she heard God tell her to go do this and God told her to do this and God, you know, she was speaking to God and that's that's what the stories tell you.
01:24:51
Speaker
Well, that's what the stories tell you about John Brown too, is John Brown sat there and said, well, you know, God told me that I needed to do this. God told me that I needed to do that. One gets celebrated, one gets you know split, and then you got like guys like Nat Turner, who oh you know his uprising and stuff like that, and it's just like, okay, I can respect that he wanted to do this, but like you said, is there another way that they could have...
01:25:19
Speaker
went about it or is that the only means to an end on that and and like i said i don't think john brown gets enough of and like the gentleman you were just talking about maybe they don't get enough of play to actually get a feel for it because again here if you ask the right person john brown is this horrible person that you know should never be talked about again because he was treasonous and a murderer but then again there's a john brown gun club that you know is a liberal gun club and everything else and like okay so what do you do with that yeah yeah i i you know what and again i don't have i don't have the good answers however i will say i am fascinated by those stories
01:26:05
Speaker
And but also the thing is like, anytime we turn a human being into a symbol, That is automatically a stew for fake history, as I call it. right Right, right. So like, you know, like, and this is what happens with a lot of these figures, especially when they are deeply associated with the cause, is that like, once they are gone, they become a symbol of something else.
01:26:34
Speaker
And That's the thing, human beings aren't symbols, as much as we get we turn them into them all the time. Right, right. As soon as you poke at them at all, you're like, oh, this is a this is a person with all sorts of things going on. And yes, they were invested in this very important cause. And you know and we can debate, like, how does one go about like you know creating an emancipation, you know? and And then, you know, like, again, I need to learn more about John Brown, but John Brown is also, like, someone who is, like, on the personal level seems to have been, like...
01:27:07
Speaker
I don't know enough about him to speak confidently on this. right He seems to have been like, i don't want to say emotionally disturbed, but just like emotionally, he just seemed to be like a extremely passionate person to the point where like some people think that there may have been what we would now call mental illness in the mix. I don't know enough about the situation to speak on that confidently. So I, you know, caveats, caveat, caveat. That is just something I have heard. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:27:34
Speaker
You know, so yeah, I mean, I'm i'm always fascinated in those people as people. and And the thing we always need to sort of puncture a bit is like person as symbol. And, yeah and we you know, we have just a habit of taking people and wanting them to be symbols.
01:27:51
Speaker
And it's it's never it you know that's not my style if i have anything if i if i if there's any sort of like big thing i want people to take away from the project of my podcast it's like let's not turn human individuals into symbols right you know we're we're going to again and it's just what we do but like we got to be critical of anyone that's a symbol you know Yeah, yeah, and that's the thing. And that's why I said, and I've brought it up to several different people on on topics just because i I do think it needs to be broke down a little bit. And and so it it, who knows? i will listen to Daniele's and go from there because it is one of those, because I remember in high school in the textbooks, you know, you see the picture of him being,
01:28:43
Speaker
brought out of Harper's Ferry by Robert E. Lee and you know, well, he was hung for treason and you get those little blurbs, but you don't actually get, you know, okay well, what was going on?
01:28:54
Speaker
You know, what's what's going on with that? But the last question I got for you, and I just thought of it again off the top of my head, and then I'll let you out of here because we both kind got to take off on this.
Who Writes History: Victors or Writers?
01:29:05
Speaker
Are you of the belief that, and if you got to give me a short answer, give me a short answer or whatever,
01:29:12
Speaker
The common saying is, history is written by the victors. you With all the stories that you've done and the research you've done, do you feel that that's a true statement?
01:29:26
Speaker
Or do you think it's just something people with sour grapes make up when their version of things don't don't enter the the conversation?
01:29:39
Speaker
I think about that one a lot, to be honest with you. i think, okay, my my first instinct is that history is not always written by the victors, but history is written by the writers.
01:29:52
Speaker
Right, right. So, I mean, maybe that sounds obvious, but like, I'm often shocked by how much historical we information we get from people who are not necessarily history's winners.
01:30:10
Speaker
And so like, you know, the the very like obvious one that sometimes gets brought up is that like one of the first pieces of like proper history that we have in the Western tradition is Thucydides.
01:30:25
Speaker
And Thucydides is an Athenian writing about the Peloponnesian War and i Athens lost that war. So the first piece of history we have, other than Herodotus, father of history, father of lies, but yeah is, you know, is this an Athenian who technically lost the war, who now gets to tell the story of it. And that's how we know mostly how we know about the Peloponnesian War. So even though the Spartans won,
01:30:56
Speaker
They did not record their history in the same way that the Athenians did. They weren't writers in the same way. and So we don't get their perspective in the same way. Now you could make a bigger meta argument that in a way, Athens was the big winner because that yeah culture was the culture that went on to be more influential because there was so much produced there. So maybe that's not the best example, but in a most very literal sense, like that's the first history we have is a history written by the losers. Right. Now, i the I understand the bigger point, though, is that there are lots of parts of our history where certain voices are just entirely left out.
01:31:37
Speaker
And so, i you like for instance, like let's take the Roman Empire, for example. if you are trying to get a sense of a culture that was conquered by the Romans, sometimes you can only see them through Roman eyes in the historical circles.
01:31:55
Speaker
So like this is often the case we've talked about like the very early Germanic peoples or the the Celts or some North African groups and things like that. We only kind of get to know them through the kind of the the sort of dominant cultural lens that they interacted with or another one of my favorite of your episodes was Boudica that you know yeah yeah that's a great example yeah yeah yeah so that's also the case and so like you know you know also when you're looking at like
01:32:29
Speaker
let's take the history of of slavery as an example, getting the voices of enslaved people in any era that there were slaves is really, really hard to find. And so historians that like try and like, try and get like that that perspective in history, the history of enslaved people, that's really hard because their voices very much were left out of history.
01:32:52
Speaker
And then there's the other thing, it's like, once you start getting people who have been traditionally marginalized writing history, writing their own perspectives, getting their stuff down, that stuff is sometimes not always reprinted, that stuff is not always archived, that stuff is not always preserved. And so those voices sort of become harder to find.
01:33:14
Speaker
so Is history always written by the victors? No, I'm going to say no. it it However, the victors have have have an ability. Here's the thing.
01:33:29
Speaker
The voice of the victor will always be there. right always going to be in the mix no matter what and then to get the other voices like a good historian needs to be like actively actively searching for them and then in some interesting situations we do get the flip right and so you know like like for instance i've just started doing a bunch of research into the mongols We do have you know Mongol sources, but interestingly, most of them were preserved in Chinese.
Conclusion and Social Media Presence
01:34:06
Speaker
And so you know the Mongols in many ways were one of history's great victors at a certain point. right the the The empire forged by Genghis Khan is just this like incredible land empire that's never really been equaled.
01:34:21
Speaker
And yet we see the Mongols so often through the viewpoint of the people that they conquered. through the viewpoint of like the Chorismian Persian Empire or from like the Abbasid is like Islamic Empire or from the Russians or from the various Chinese empires that they... conquered, right? So it's interesting in that case where you're like, oh, the the victors, they do have their own voice in there. Like there is this thing called the secret history of the Mongols that seems to preserve their perspective.
01:34:54
Speaker
But that's like one of many voices. And most of them are people that are like, oh, no, like, The Mongols are coming and we don't like them, you know, so which is which is actually rare in the history of conquerors, right? So like, you know, most of the times when we're looking at like these great empires, most of what we get is from the perspective of the empire builders.
01:35:18
Speaker
And we have to search for the the the perspectives of the vanquished, let's say. For the Mongols to reverse, we get all these perspectives from the vanquished and and then you have to like kind of find that the so-called secret history of the Mongols, right, in the in the mix there. So that's that's, there's an interesting one where it completely flips around, you know?
01:35:42
Speaker
Right. Well, I appreciate you stopping by and and having this chat with me, Sebastian. Like I said, i we went over the hour mark, but it was a great conversation and all that stuff.
01:35:54
Speaker
Can you tell the people where they can find you and what what you're up to? give us maybe a hint of what the next episode may be or the next series? Sure. So like I said, I just started doing some research into the Mongols. I'm i'm hoping that that's going to be the next one. I'm going to have to make a real call on it kind of tomorrow. but yeah Keep an eye out for that. But you can find the podcast everywhere you get your podcast. So Spotify, Apple Podcasts, every podcast app. On YouTube, I'm making shorts out there on YouTube if people are curious about that. i'm i'm on tick tock i'm on blue sky i'm on facebook you know i'm i'm on all the social media just search our fake history and it's our like we all share this history it is our fake history i just search that and you will find me or just go to my website ourfakehistory.com and that'll take you to everything
01:36:52
Speaker
Go over, give him a follow, check him out. he Like I said, this was an episode a year and a half in making because we we were trying to go back and forth and schedules just didn't match up. But, you know, I really look forward to this because I have listened for such a long time and and I am a big history. There were two subjects and which ironically you were a teacher of that I was good at in school was English and and history. right so you know the this is a kind of a passion of mine too but make sure you go over listen to our fake history episodes every two weeks he does take a break around the august ish time period so you know but he he tries to keep up with his episodes there Go or follow us, Ohana underscore Packers on the Tweet Machine, Ohana Packers Edition everywhere else. Not on Blue Sky. i have a hard enough time keeping up on my own stuff on Blue Sky, but I do i have a personal one over on Blue Sky. Yeah, there's too much stuff, dude. I hear you. How many things we got to trying to do it with the podcast is even harder, do you know, because I got to post something on mine, and then I got to post something on the podcast.
01:38:02
Speaker
It's a mess. Sure. I feel you, man. Go over. We are still doing the giveaway over on Facebook. We're trying to hit the 100 followers on Facebook. That way we can start doing it when we do live streams, we can live stream over there because they've got the 100 follower mark on that.
01:38:18
Speaker
A bunch goodies from Hawaii because my co-host Mike is from Hawaii. So we've got a bunch of candies and stuff from there. I've got a couple autographed pictures from the packers that i've I've put into the box too. And I think the box is slowly growing with stuff that I've been putting in there.
01:38:34
Speaker
go or follow us on that. As Mike would say, pack, go and