Fascinating Nouns

Sir Ian Livingstone is a real knight, known as the “Knight of the Nerds”.  Never has a moniker been more apt.  Ian and his partner Steve Jackson were early fanatics of various complex strategy games.  They turned this love into a paradigm changing company called “Games Workshop”.  Thanks to an exclusive deal with Dungeons & Dragons creator Gary Gygax, Games Workshop qui...

How many people reading this have attempted to learn a new language?  I know that I have stopped and restarted Spanish lessons twice in the past 3 years.  The grammar rules are what kills it.  How about a completely unique language, that is almost indistinguishable from English, but uses the exact same rules and even some of the same words?  You are in luck!  I have the PERFECT new language for yo...

One of the lucky breaks Eastman & Laird received was that Nintendo and Konami were looking for a new kind of game and the turtles came around at the perfect time.  Not only was the NES game successful, but the sequel changed the way arcade games operated for a five year period.  Listen as we discuss the meteoric rise of both the turtles and video games.

1984 was a big year.  Ghostbusters and Terminator were released, the events of George Orwell’s novel take place, and in a Massachusetts suburb, two comic artists accidentally created one of the biggest pop culture events in human history:  the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  What started as a joke between friends has spawned numerous TV shows, movies, and video games.  Only The Simpsons rival...

You may not think so, but the formula created by The Bad News Bears is still in use today!  A rag tag group of kids, lead by an incompetent and troubled adult somehow manage to overcome their differences and beat the better funded team at whatever sport they are competing in.  It is a tale as old as time, and this movie started the trend.

Nothing says spring like the smell of freshly cut grass on a baseball diamond, and in my opinion, nothing says America quite like the baseball movie. Sure the sport gets credit as the national past time, but Hollywood is uniquely American. This week film critic Noah Gittell discusses the history of baseball movies, which starts with players being mythic, god like heroes. Unfortunately is ends with...

Since the 50’s, no woman has captured the attention of little girls everywhere quite like Barbie.  Sure she is only 11 inches tall and made of plastic, but influence is global.  This week I talk with M. G. Lord, one of the foremost experts on his iconic fashion doll.  When it comes to her history, she definitely has some interesting nuggets most people don’t know about.  We start with...

In America, one organization has seemingly been in control of every industry we have at some point and time in our history.  That group is known collectively as The Mob.  From prostitution, to running unions, to funding government officials, some form of organized crime has been in control since the Mayflower.  We are going to talk about one such industry today, an industry that is arguably our la...

The U.S. government has a pretty straight-laced reputation, but did you know that in the 60’s and 70’s, the CIA and Army Intelligence funded research into psychic phenomena?  They sure did, and it was approved because the belief was that the Soviets were also doing it.  Then the Soviets started doing it because they heard we were doing it.  It gets VERY circular, but the fact remains: ...

Before we finish, Russell lets me ask one final question about how Psychic Phenomenon works.

The U.S. government has a pretty straight-laced reputation, but did you know that in the 60’s and 70’s, the CIA and Army Intelligence funded research into psychic phenomena?  They sure did, and it was approved because the belief was that the Soviets were also doing it.  Then the Soviets started doing it because they heard we were doing it.  It gets VERY circular, but the fact remains: ...

Lemuria.  If you are familiar with this place, you probably know it as a lost continent (akin to Atlantis), that was inhabited by higher beings who not live in the hollow Earth under Mt. Shasta in California.  You may also believe that extraterrestrials seeded this continent with crystals before it sank to the bottom of the ocean.  Some believe that this “lost continent” will resurface...

Science Fiction has had a prolific run on television.  I bet some of your favorite shows have elements of Sci-Fi in them whether you know it or not. Westworld, The Mandalorian, and Stranger Things are just a few of the blockbuster shows driving you to your tv set.  If you go way back, before Lost, before the X-files, before Star Trek, and even before The Twilight Zone, there was a little syndicate...

An extraordinarily rare event is going to happen in 2024:  Two periodical cicada broods will be emerging at the same time, covering both the South and the Midwest in large, droning insects for six weeks this summer.  How rare are we talking here?  How about once every 221 years level of rare?  The last time these two broods came out at the same time, Thomas Jefferson was president.  He even wrote...

Edgar Allan Poe was the original Gloomy Gus right?  Writing horror stories alone, in a dilapidated mansion, with only the company of a red-eyed raven to keep him sane.  Most people probably believe his life was actually in black and white.  Turns out this is NOT the case!  He played flutes at parties, solved ciphers and puzzles for a magazine, was a ladies man, and even challenged a man to a duel....

Contrary to popular movies, most art crime is NOT perpetrate by some private art collector in order to enhance their collection.  Oh well there is one notable exception:  Pablo Picasso!  Check out this bonus episode and learn how Picasso got wrapped up in the Mona Lisa caper, and what he actually had stolen.

Just the mention of the name “Mona Lisa” sparks images of a cherub faced woman, half-smiling, hanging on a wall at the Louvre.  This is true of almost EVERYONE on the planet, but that was not always the case.  As a matter of fact, the Mona Lisa is kind of famous for being famous, and all that started with it being stolen from the Louvre in 1911.  Noah Charney is a Art History expert wi...

As humans continue to sprawl into every known corner of the world, reproducing at a unsustainable rate, more and more we are invading on turf currently occupied by wild animals.  You may encounter these guys while walking to the garbage, or may even see them IN your garbage, depending on the time of day.  I take a few more minutes to talk to Rachel about opossums, raccoons, and coyotes.

I don’t know about you, but I enjoy the outdoors.  Hiking can be a fun past time, but depending on where you go there is always a chance that you could run into a dangerous animal.  So what do you do?  Are you supposed to look intimidating or play dead?  Do you run to climb a tree or do you charge the creature to show it who’s boss.  Luckily Rachel Levin had those same questions, and d...

No one knows how it all will end.  Will we blow ourselves up in a fiery nuclear explosion?  Will an asteroid smash into the Earth giving us the dinosaur treatment?  Will some new virus wipe out humanity before we have a chance to counter its spread?  While we can’t see the future, we can chronicle the possibilities, which is exactly what Darrel Perkins did in his new book “ The End Is...

As the center of the hippie movement, California has a long history of cults and communes.  In this bones episode, we tell the story of how religious groups helped popularize the modern Vegetarian movement, as well as the sordid background of the beloved Kettle Chips.

When it comes to spiritual belief, the United States is very unique.  Since religion is protected by the first amendment, the country has been fertile ground to many spiritual groups, cults, communes, and other religious groups.  Some have taken an isolation approach, and if your group is remote, you will have to grow and make your own food.  That is where today’s story takes place, right at...

When it comes to the UFO phenomenon, we have discussed a lot of it on this show, including The Battle of Los Angeles, Betty & Barney Hill, Roswell, the Jackie Gleason/Richard Nixon alien encounter, and John Dover’s experiences on the Navajo Nation.  This is a lot, but can you believe there’s more?!  This week I sit down with Marc Hartzman and discuss his new book “We Are Not...

After the Civil War, people came out west for many reasons:  Gold, work on the railroads, religious freedom, saloon poker, or to rob banks just to name a few.  Some of these people would end up in boom towns, which exploded in population very quickly then died off to nothing in a few years.  If you had the misfortune to die during the boom times, then you were probably buried in their cemetery, an...

In the name of research, Dr. Meals attended a bodybuilding contest to learn more about the inner workings.  It takes a lot to get muscles to look that big.  We even get into its history, first discussing the original weightlifter, who carried an ox calf every day until it was fully grown, to the originator of bodybuilding as a performance: Eugen Sandow.